Recently Paul Krugman quoted JM Keynes, as to the great failings   
    of our economic system being failure to provide full employment   
    and an arbitrary an inequitable distribution of income and wealth.   
      
    Now that won't impress the right wingers, but they should listen   
    to their patron saint, Adam Smith. While looking up something   
    else I ran across a quote from Adam Smith, in which he said the   
    workers should have a fair share of the wealth they produce, a   
    principle Henry Ford adopted and it made him rich.   
      
    What also impressed me was, Smith took the creation of wealth   
    back to basic principles, to the fact that all wealth is created   
    by the workman. From there he expanded to the "rent seekers" who   
    got control of land or materials, and thus extracted a major   
    portion of wealth from those who do the actual work.   
      
    Even more, his world was one that is Utopia for the   
    libertarian/right wing. Workers and owners both tried to   
    establish their own unions, called cartels or conspiracies in   
    restraint of trade today. In his day such management unions were   
    legal, but labor unions were not. The end result was, workmen   
    struggled to even survive, and owners enjoyed wealth.   
      
    Adam Smith also explained violence by labor in the struggle as a   
    result of desperation, all to often the result of union busting   
    and impoverishment of workers.   
      
    Smith also said something I never realized, that in his time   
    England was a much more wealthy country than the US, but workers   
    in the US were much better off, and the US was growing very fast   
    compared to England. His explanations made it plain, the great   
    gains being made in America were due to the fact that workers   
    were much better off. Of course that is tied to the fact that   
    Adam Smith understood that the workers were the real source of   
    all wealth.   
      
    That also explains why small business is the engine of economic   
    success, and employment, in this country. Small Business   
    develops when workers manage to accumulate enough wealth to   
    provide their own land and materials to produce wealth. The   
    lower the level of wealth accumulation the more the economy   
    grows and wealth is created.   
      
    In his time he reported that China was a very wealthy nation,   
    but quite stagnant. The country was rich, but the people were   
    poor. That is what is happening in China today, the GDP will   
    soon exceed that of the US, but China will still be a poor   
    country. The mass of the people are and will be poor, and those   
    accumulating wealth are a small portion. This is a recipe for   
    economic disaster.   
      
    If you ever look at the GDP, and per capita GDP of Saudi Arabia,   
    you will discover that Saudi Arabia is not a rich country, it's   
    barely mediocre, or even at the high end of third world. The   
    ruling class are floating in oil wealth, but the people are not.   
    That is a recipe for violence and revolution, which is very   
    likely why Saudi Arabia preaches fear of Iran and other   
    countries, fear of other religions, and a fundamentalist form of   
    Islam that preaches war on unbelievers, whether Muslim, Jew or   
    Christian.   
      
    Diverting a restless population with external enemies,   
    popularized in "1984", is actually an ancient technique used by   
    failing dictatorships.   
      
    Hmmm... which seems to be what is going on in this country now,   
    come to think of it.   
      
    The US overtook the richest countries in the world duing the   
    time when the income and wealth of the working class grew, and   
    the gap between the rich and middle class narrowed. Today this   
    country is going downhill as the middle class sinks and the rich   
    take it all. Continued long enough and the US will become a   
    third world country.   
      
    What's worse it, that won't even hurt the 1%, and especially not   
    the .1%. Not until they discover class warfare is not raising   
    their taxes, but standing them against the wall. As some members   
    of the "Patriotic Millionaires" have already pointed out.   
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@bex.net   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
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