Attempting to write coherently of Benjamin Franklin's thinking regarding the North American British colonies' political economy, I am working my way through Marx's essay on Franklin's A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency.
BF was perhaps the first person to ever work out that money = labor, thus, regretably one must have slave labor, at least in these colonies. Not to mention a wife. Because, extracting the most production for the least labor cost is how wealth is produced. Marx's analysis is fascinating and illuminating. But I have to work on this longer.
I might have gotten this clear yesterday except we had our Saturday errands to do, and then we had to attend the benefit gospel performance for a scholarship fund at school. When we got home it was after 8 and we still had dinner to make and eat. By then I didn't have much of a brain for either Franklin or Marx, alas. But that is how it is with we Poohs who never knew economix anyway, and have no natural talent in that area. So much so that PH, JJ and I agree that come the Revolution first we hang the economists, except for Paul Krugman. This, re chatting after the concert. Which was spectacular.
Among the several memorable words spoken by the MC, the Rev. Clarence Hawkins, particularly about song and singing, he quoted the man in whose honor the scholarship was created, Vincent Hynson: "Volunteerism and community service are the price you pay to be on this earth."
The amount of volunteerism that has gone into the creation of the scholarship, the maintenance and administering of it, the numbers of the County's members who perform the volunteer work, including raising their voice in song -- it's not named the 100 Voice Choir without reason -- I kept trying to calculate the production extracted per hour of labor in Franklin's terms. But would he have considered this a worthwhile product at all, since all it did was bring together diverse parts of a community in celebration, worship and song?
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3 comments:
Read Fitzgerald's short story "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz." It has a memorable passage about all of the labor that went into keeping a spoiled rich girl blissfully ignorant.
I have read it, several times, over the years.
Love, c.
The Virginians of the time in particular, and the citizens of Annapolis, were notable for the luxury and expense of the way they dressed and lived.
Love, C.
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