Some Topic which I may or may not get to

1. Compare the attitude and policies of two owners of factories. I have in mind comparing the practices of Robert Owen in New Lanark, Scotland, and that of George Pullman in the town of Pullman, Illinois. Owen was a benevolent factory owner, who provided workers with various benefits; whereas Pullman tried to get as much as he could from the workers.

2. The experiment of Robert Owen in New Harmony, Indiana was a failed socialistic commune. And this example is often used to debunk the possibility of viable socialistic communes, calling them “utopias.” Such an example omits the very many successful socialistic — even communistic — communes and colonies. I have in mind as examples the various religious communes like the Rappists, who sold New Harmony to Owen, the Hutterites, the Shakers. the Amish, the Mennonites, the Dukhobors, and also such secular communes as the Kibbutzes in Israel. And let us not forget the many communities of Catholic monks and nuns.


Below is a map taken from Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901), The communistic societies of the United States, 1875.


3. Historians and others write as if countries were agents which go to war with each other. But the fact is that countries place war powers in single individuals (called monarchs, presidents, prime ministers). Take, for example, the United States which requires the formal approval of Congress to declare war. But wars can be engaged by Presidents by simply not calling the aggression a “war” — calling it “quelling a rebellion,” as did Abraham Lincoln.

An aggression can also be done in some other way by funding “freedom fighters,” or financing Contras in Nicaragua, or invading Panama to bring a culprit to justice, or invading Grenada to “protect U.S. citizens.” Or, by fabricating some reason for a preemptive attack on Iraq, and so on.

4. I am also bothered by the fact that World War I is not credited to Franz Joseph, the Emperor of Austria. Yes, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. But this could have been treated simply as a murder. How is it that a country was invaded for the act of a murderer? But it was not a simple murder. It was the murder of the son of the emperor’s brother! Whose will was this to seek this form of revenge? It was the will of Emperor, Franz Joseph!

Again, after the 9/11 attack, the highjackers all perished. Why was Afghanistan attacked? This was the decision of the “decider,” as George W. Bush, Jr. called himself.

However, with World War II, there is less hesitancy to blame a particular individual. Everyone blames Hitler. But there is always in wars and invasions some “decider” who has been given disastrous powers.

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