h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But I am sometimes lurking...and enjoying your (as ever) intelligent posts.

*HOWEVER* - mostly I wanted to say that Christopher did a great photoshopping job of the HMHB oven gloves for b3ta. You should ask him to point you at it.

And on your point on the wealthy benefiting from infrastructure and civil society...Of course 'infrastructure' includes labour. They'd soon moan if they couldn't find any literate, healthy workers to (jargon term ) 'extract surplus value' from. That's relevant to the higher education debate, also. Aren't students being asked, in effect, to finance apprenticeships on behalf of future employees?

As Manchester City fans used to sing (and possibly still do...):
"Just like the fans of the invisible man, we're not really here"

Wherever you really are, I hope it's a good and happy place.

Thanks for your kind words. At various times I've conducted some thought experiments to try to find examples of people who could be (justly) rich while relying as little as possible on either (a) finite natural resources; and/or (b) the infrastructure of civil society.

Robert Nozick uses the example of a basketballer Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain, who must be the most famous sportsman in political philosophy as someone who could legitimately get rich because people would pay extra to see him. But without the structure of civil society, there can hardly be basketball, or the resources to pay it. My other favourite example is someone like JK Rowling, whose fame and fortunate is the result of intellectual property. But again, no mass education, no mass audience.

It's not so long ago that a certain supermarket giant complained about the low standard of literacy and numeracy in recruits, but at the same time was being exposed as a serial tax avoider. That's got to be the brassiest of brass necks...

I think I've seen Christopher's HMHB's picture, but I can't now find it. I used to lurk a bit on B3ta (and still do), and I've long been a fan of both his fantastic username and his work....

While I profess a brand or Marxism - not *entirely* to wind people up - I'm not necessarily saying that Capitalism is an evil plot to shaft the workers (although there's a bit of that).

Simply put, wealth tends to accumulate in one direction. That's not even Marx - it's Ricardo. If 'Capitalism' is an ideology, it's the notion that a) nothing can or should be done to mitigate this 'natural' force and b) society should be structured to preserve the interests of the Capitalist class.

I blogged in this general direction recently:
http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-doubt-youve-even-heard-indian.html

The best bit is the discussion with Dogster.