Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Changing ideas Message-ID: <763@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 11:44:16 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.763 Posted: Wed Sep 18 11:44:16 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 22-Sep-85 17:45:50 EDT References: <8509171814.AA23399@ucbopal.Berkeley.Edu> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 24 Summary: In article <8509171814.AA23399@ucbopal.Berkeley.Edu> mwm@UCBOPAL.CC (Mike Meyer, I'll be mellow when I'm dead) writes: > The answer to this question can be found in a 130 year old quote from Thomas > Macaulay (British historian, circa 1857): > > The day will come when (in the United States) a multitude of > people will choose the legislature. Is it possible to doubt > what sort of a legislature will be chosen? On the one side is > a statesman preaching patience, respect for rights, strict > observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue ranting > about the tyranny of capitalism and usurers asking why anybody > should be permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage > while thousands of honest people are in want of necessaries. > Which of the candidates is likely to be preferred by a workman? > . . . When Society has entered on this downward progress, either > civilization or liberty must perish. A classic false dilemma. It's amusing that someone still quotes this even in the face of today's societies where poverty is trivial by the standard's of Macaulay's time, made so by a combination of great prosperity and substantial redistribution. Yet respect for rights is not significantly different (except perhaps in more egalitarian ways) than in his time. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh