persons of inferior social status

From The Columbia History of the World:

[S]ome major changes came about in the two centuries and more from the death of Augustus to the death of Severus Alexander. … the spread of Stoicism and the permeation of all classes by its basic suppositions.

Connected with this last point was a far reaching change in the privileges accorded persons of inferior social status. Stoicism had long preached the brotherhood of man, and contrasted natural rights with social privileges. By the Severan period, married women had attained an independence unparalleled in antiquity, and thenceforth the liberty and large legal rights of women would be characteristic of the Western world [emphasis added]. Children and slaves, too, had been protected from arbitrary exercise of paternal authority. The position of slaves had improved for economic as well as legal and humanitarian reasons. The suppression of piracy sharply cut down the supply of new slaves; the end of civil wars and conquests reduced it yet further; the common practice of manumission diminished the supply of existing slaves. It became more economical to work estates with free tenant farmers. One consequence of this, however, was a decline in legal respect for the free man as such. The law now began to distinguish between freemen of upper and lower class — honestiores and humiliores. The former were exempt from humiliating procedures and punishments to which the latter were subject. (p. 215)

I’m reminded of 2 important pieces of libertarian writing:

1. “The Idea of Liberty is Western,” by Ludwig von Mises (a claim that seems immediately obvious if you’ve read enough history, but which is, of course, as politically incorrect as it gets)
2. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men

Here’s a snippet on Hummel’s book from an earlier post:

To paraphrase Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, the American so-called “Civil War” emancipated slaves while enslaving free men. Was it a good thing? Even if you believe that a war was necessary for emancipation, it still seems to me that the answer is far from straight-forward. And if you don’t think that a war was necessary, then the answer definitely shifts more toward the negative.

3 words

Some perspective from the southern hemisphere:

here in Latin America, when in the 80s, after the debt crisis, Friedman became something of a cult figure with his “Chicago boys”, he was asked , what is his recipe for economic development and he said:”3 things; privatize, privatize, privatize!!”

and that sounded here like music to the ears of the local “politcos” and their cronies that soon went on to convert state monopolies into private monopolies resulting in price increases galore. The end result of all this is that privatization has become a “taboo” word in Latin American politics the same as “sex” in a puritan gathering.

thus the problem, Friedman forgot to finish his mantra with : liberalize, liberalize, liberalize!!!!

[source]

Here are my own comments on this distinction:

Thursday, December 09, 2004

privatization

One of the constant problems for libertarians — or at least for paleo-liberals, like myself — is that no one understands the language we’re speaking.

What we say: liberty; what they hear: privilege.
We say: free markets; they hear: corporate welfare.
We say: capitalism; they hear: mercantilism.
We say: laissez faire; they hear: dog-eat-dog.
We say: liberalism; they hear: socialism.

I blame the Democrats for perverting the word liberal, and I blame the Republicans for perverting free market, property, privatization …

Most people I know think the word ‘privatization’ means coercive redistribution from the many to the few, from those on the bottom to those on the top. But all it means is to make something private — usually something that was originally private, but was taken by coercion. The abolition of slavery was privatization. The fall of Communism was privatization.

I had mixed feelings about publishing my last article — The Spectrum Should Be Private Property — because I believe most people will form their impressions from the title and the summary (and the terms used in the title and summary) rather than reading the analysis with an open mind. Rothbardian privatization doesn’t look like Republican privatization.

Today, featured on both Mises.org and LRC, is Lew Rockwell’s excellent breakdown of the so-called Social Security “privatization” proposals: Save or Else. (Hint: nothing is made private by these proposals!)

I suppose we should be flattered that our language — libertarian language — has been appropriated by both Left and Right. But I’m not flattered. I’m frustrated and angry.

posted by bkMarcus on Thursday, December 09, 2004