Lion Rock 15: Mary Ruwart's Book, "Healing Our World"

The Lion Rock Institute (LRI) Reading Club Salon 2014 on the theme, "Class and Inequality" will be held tomorrow here at Harbour Grand Hong Kong. Among the reading assignments for participants is this book by Mary Ruwart, published in 1992, revised in 1993 and 2003.

It's a nice book, 22 chapters. There are five suggested chapters for the round table discussion.

Chapter 8, "Destroying the Environment".

Mary mentions various layers of aggression. These are the different layers, from the base layer of No Aggression to  the 4th layer. Monopoly (via government franchising, other schemes) means preventing or prohibiting other players to come in and compete with existing player.  Subsidy means the rest of taxpayers will pay (by force and coercion of course) to give special privileges to the recipients of subsidies.

Chapter 14 is "The Pollution  Solution". Here is the chapter summary.

The next three chapters are about foreign policy. Chapter 18, "Beacon to the World" is about foreign aid and why it can amplify the underdevelopment problem of many poor countries, rather than help solve it. There is truth to this because by nature, foreign aid is government to government. So if the recipient is a dictatorship or simply highly corrupt government, then the taxes of rich country citizens are simply used to further enrich those dictators, their cronies and consultants.

Chapter 19, "Is Communism Really Dead?" Yes, if it is a voluntary commune or collectism, it should be fine, meaning people have arranged things that are mutually beneficial for all. But if it is forced commune or coerced collectivism, then people are forced and coerced to share with the rest, including the lazy, shrewd and opportunists. Why be industrious when you can get something even if you're lazy and irresponsible.

Chapter 20, "Making Our Nation Safe and Secure". It is a long chapter dealing with various historical and recent events in the last decade like post 9/11.

Mary's book is suggesting that if we want a more peaceful, more dynamic world, then various layers of aggression and government coercion should drastically shrink, some policies and regulations should outrightly be removed and withrawn. There is nothing wrong if people will trade with each other voluntarily. Nothing wrong if people settle disputes among themselves peacefully and amicably. Only when the dispute can possibly get out of hand, then government can come in to enforce rules and contracts, before people practice aggression towards other people.

Thus, various aggression and coercion by government -- local, national, international/multilateral -- creates new class in society. They can worsen rather than limit inequality and animosity in  society. Government and its coercive powers must shrink.
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See also 

Lion Rock 11: Barun Mitra on Democracy, Reading Salon 2013, October 28, 2013 

Lion Rock 12: Bill Stacey on Free Markets, Big Government and Hong Kong, March 10, 2014

Lion Rock 13: LRI Position on the Hong Kong Protests, October 08, 2014

Lion Rock 14: Reading Club Salon 2014, on Class and Inequality, October 27, 2014

Lion Rock 14: Reading Club Salon 2014, on Class and Inequality

Next week, I will attend the Reading Club Salon 2014, the 3rd annual round table discussion sponsored by the Lion Rock Institute (LRI), Hong Kong's free market think tank. The theme of this year's discussion will be "New Class, New Inequality?"

The theme of the EFN Asia Conference 2014, to be held also next week in the same hotel will be on Liberalism and Inequality. So the LRI event provides additional theoretical discussions to the EFN conference.

Unlike in the previous two Reading Club Salon in 2012 and 2013 where there were many reading materials, this year, there will be only three books to read. The sessions and books for the whole day discussion are:

Session I: Class vs. Inequality

• The New Class by Milovan Djilas (1957), Chp 3, The New Class

Session II: Inequality: Rooted in Economics?

• The New Class by Milovan Djilas (1957) Chp 4, The Party State

Session III: Attempts for an Equal Society: Creation of a New Inequality?

• The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland (1995), Chp 26, 29, 36, 37

Session IV: The Path to a Truly Equal Society
• Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart (1992), Chp 8, 14, 18, 19, 20

And here are the two other books, hard copy.. I first met Ken and Mary in 2007 in Hawaii, during the first Pacific Rim Policy Exchange sponsored by the Americans for Tax Reforms (ATR), International Policy Network (IPN, London), Property Rights Alliance (PRA), LRI and the Grassroot Institute Hawaii (GIH).

From Djilas' book, Chapter 3:

The greatest illusioп vas tћat industrialization апd  collectivizatioп iп the U.S.S.R., апd destructioп of capitalist ownership, would result in а classless society.  Iп 1936, vheп tће new Coпstitutioп was promulgated, Stalin aпnouпced  tћat the "exploiting class"  ћаd ceased to exist. The capitalist and other classes of ancient origiп had iп fact been destroyed, but а new class, previously unkпovn t.o history, had been formed.

It is understandaЬle that this class, like those before it, should believe that the estaЬlishment of its pover vould result in happiness and freedom for all men….

This new class, the bureaucracy, or more accuтately the polltical bureaucracy, has all the characteristics of earlier ones as well as some пеw characteristics of its оwп. Its origiп had its special characteristics also, even tlюugh in essence it was similar to the begiпnings of other classes.

This is a straightforward discussion of the ugly nature of the bureaucratic class. Neither capitalists nor workers. Just plain regulators, tax/revenue collectors and spenders. They are the class that immediately becomes the ruling power after a successful socialist revolution, like what happened in Soviet Russia.

A "classless" society is impossible even in theory because government will always create a group of men and women, elected or appointed, who will command and control the rest of the population what are allowed and not allowed, what kind of penalties and fines to impose on violators, create new regulations and prohibitions  in order to address and correct past government failures.

Djilas continued,

In loose terrпs, as the new class becomes stronger and attains а more perceptible physiognomy, the role of the party diminishes. The core апd tће basis of the new class is created in the party and at its top, as well as in tће state political organs. The once live, corпpact party, full of initiative, is disappearing to Ьесоrпе transformed into the traditional oligarchy of the new class, irresistibly drawiпg into its ranks those who aspire to join tће nеw class and repressing those wћо ћаvе any ideals.

Тће party makes the class, but tће class grows as а result and uses the party as а basis. Тће class grows stronger, wћile the party grows weaker; this is the inescapable fate of every Communist раrtу in power.

As the state grows, the ambitions and desire for power of those who administer the state, the top Party officials and their lieutenants in the various bureaucracies also grow. I am not convinced though that the Communist Party becomes weaker as this political class becomes stronger. The Party is the chief machinery, the provider of institutional legality for the various polcies, programs and regulations of the state in ruling over ordinary mortals.

Discussions to be continued....
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See also 

Lion Rock 10: On Having Centralized or Self-Government, October 17, 2013 

Lion Rock 11: Barun Mitra on Democracy, Reading Salon 2013, October 28, 2013 

Lion Rock 12: Bill Stacey on Free Markets, Big Government and Hong Kong, March 10, 2014

Lion Rock 13: LRI Position on the Hong Kong Protests, October 08, 2014