Benoni Strang, High Commissioner for the Baburite occupation of Hermes, to the Hermetian Grand Duchess Sandra Tamarin:
"'Production can no longer be divided among domains. It has to be integrated on a global scale. So do distribution, courts, police, education, welfare, everything. For this, the domains have to be dissolved. In their place, we need the entire populace.'" (XIV, p. 195)
Me to Strang:
Then campaign for these reforms among "the entire populace." Don't impose the "reforms" under threat of nuclear bombardment by alien invaders. Travers have won a vote in choosing municipal officers and the Liberation Front continues to grow. Social changes will continue after the invasion has been defeated.
I share Strang's opposition to the social conditions during his early life on Hermes:
Travers children crowded into public schools while Kindred children received individual tuition;
domain control of land, resources and businesses;
his girlfriend's parents preventing her from marrying a Traver.
I am pleased to say that, despite the historical social divisions in these islands, my father was from the North of England, my mother was from the West of Ireland, my wife is from the North of Ireland, our son-in-law is Jewish, our granddaughter knows about her Jewish heritage and even has a "right of return" to Israel (!) and finally many of our neighbors are Muslim. However, social stratification like that in the Grand Duchy of Hermes ceased in Britain before our births.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I absolutely oppose the so called "reforms" being imposed by Benoni Strang! What it really means is the STATE claiming ownership of most property and the right to distribute its proceeds or profits as it sees fit. And I say that has been tried over and over again and has never worked. The chaos and despotism in Venezuela being merely the latest example of socialism FAILING.
AND I absolutely oppose Strang's goal of centralizing all power in the central gov't, of dissolving the domains and having all their functions managed from the top. That kind of centralization, too, starting as long ago as the France of Louis XIV, has been tried over and over again and has always ended with the same results. to list a few: crushing or punitive taxes and smothering bureaucracy, an ever more harshly oppressive state, a demoralized and stagnant culture, etc. The USSR and National Socialist Germany being two obvious examples.
And I really get tired of the fuss some people make about mere "social stratification." Even if the US does not have a formal aristocracy, I assure you, "social stratification" exists here. I consider petty snobbery of the kind endured by the Traver girl's parents preventing her from marrying a non Traver a regrettable but not something that should be "corrected" by the state.
I reject everything Strang advocates and the means he would use to impose them on Hermes. We have seen far too MANY tyrants like him. Beginning with Robespierre and going on to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Kims of North Korea, Castro, Pol Pot, et nauseating al.
Sean
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