From: ThosStew@aol.com
Date: Sun Nov 19 2000 - 05:15:49 PST
In a message dated 11/18/00 5:24:04 PM, jbone@jump.net writes:
<< These are all the markers of
socialism in practice, as it exists today. >>
and in theory, as it always did. someone's taking slenderanalogies and saying
"if J were alive today, he'd be this way." it's silly. socialism didn't exist
in his time. large industrial corporations didn't exist--the only large
companies wer trading companies, a la the Dutch East India Company, for
example. Industry was nascent at best, at least in North America. Socialism,
an organization of economic activity by government, particularly industrial
activity, just wasn't in Jefferson's mind in any way shape or form--the very
idea wasn't there. What collectivism there was, rural idealistic collectivism
(when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?), was different
in kind.
Robert Owen, the Welsh-born management theorist and
kinda-sorta-proto-socialist, overlaps in time with Jefferson. So far as I
know, J never experessed any admiration for or even knowledge of his work.
T
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