Brad DeLong — Econ 210a Memo Question: Slavery and Serfdom

Another paradox of liberalism.

In his Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith confidently asserted that slavery was uneconomic–that in commercial society, manumission was the road to higher productivity because the carrot of working for yourself is much more efficient than the stick of being whipped by others.… 

Can we rescue Smith's optimal, Panglossian view of the historical destiny of unfree labor? Why, in history, didn't Smith's argument work?

Evolution programs alphas to dominate?

Grasping Reality
Econ 210a Memo Question: Slavery and Serfdom
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Slightly Better Serfdom Terms For Greeks? Well Ok! That Makes All The Difference.

   (Commentary posted by "Saint" Roger :( )
Better serfdom terms was the only goal? Why didn't Tsipras just say so up front?

Slightly Better Serfdom Terms For Greeks? Ok. That Makes All The Difference

Sometimes it comes right out of your own mirror. Then you die ... maybe slowly, and maybe not all at once, but you start to die.

And all those who depend upon you are condemned to die too. Maybe some of them might escape someday ... but for now they're still sentenced.

Sometimes it really is liberty ... or death. And none of us has the right to choose the latter for our descendants.

Dylan Ratigan — Racism was rebranded ‘the war on drugs’

Dylan is on a tear these days.

“Our big story on this Martin Luther King holiday is the new math of racism in America,” he said. “The greedy bastards have rebranded racism, calling it ‘the war on drugs.’ They’ve made it both acceptable and profitable. While the concerns of racism from the 1950s and 60s have improved in this country, if you look at the numbers the war on drugs has become a racist war.”

He noted that African Americans are ten times more likely than white Americans to be imprisoned for the same drug charges. He also noted there were more African Americans in prison or on probation today than there were slaves in America before the civil war.

Read it at Raw Story (MSNBC video)

Dylan Ratigan: Racism was rebranded ‘the war on drugs’
by Eric W. Dolan

Dylan goes on to talk about the growingly private prison industry and the rising tendency to use prisoners as cheap labor.

Chilling.