[Vision2020] Re: Robin Hood

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Dave,
  
I must advise you, my boy, not to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.  I'm a fully-trained Anglo-Saxonist (a graduate student of the eminent Nicholas Howe, no less) and am hence well aware of the lack of corporations in early medieval England; I used the term "corporate" analogously, humorously, sarcastically, and with its original meaning of "group" firmly in mind.  
The Magna Carta had many fathers, not the least of which was King John’s managerial incompetence.  As you may know, John was excommunicated by the Church in 1209 in a dispute over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and -- in a move that predated Henry VIII’s antics by a good three centuries -- John took this opportunity to confiscate Church property and sell it back to the bishops at a tidy profit.
John used the proceeds of these "sales" to create the English Navy, which he promptly ordered to invade Ireland (much to England and Ireland's present sorrow).  He fought a few more skirmishes with the French, none of which particularly stand out in my memory, and, after an unsuccessful and expensive excursion on the continent, he came back to find a few very naughty barons in revolt.  The leader of these was a nasty bloke called FitzWalter.
Now, I suppose we could bore everyone sick by talking about the Lusignan affair or the wicked doings of Henry II's hard-assed Angevin regime, but the most interesting thing about the Magna Carta is that after its signing, it lasted all of three months.  The rebel barons refused to surrender London as they'd promised to do at Runnymede, but John managed to work himself into a position to force them to concede.  And so, out the window went the vast bulk of the Magna Carta.
So, what was the Magna Carta all about and why is it still important?  Because of what it later became.  It initially guaranteed the rights of the Church, and then went on to concentrate on curbing the king's abuse of feudal custom: it limited so-called relief payments and scutages and banned some of the abuses unscrupulous guardians had been able to exercise over their wards.  But what interests people today about the Magna Carta was the piece that was least important to King John and the rebel barons:  the recognition that there was such a thing as English Common Law.
Thus endeth the history lesson.  (And thank God for that sigh voices all over the Palouse.)   
On, however, to your point C: I heard on NPR yesterday that some 50% of Americans are now invested in the stock market.  Having lost the bulk of my own retirement in said market shortly after Mr. Bush took office, I find this alarming.  If I'd taken that money down to Vegas and put on Black #9, I might have gotten exactly the same result as I got with Global Crossing, but at least I'd have had the consolation of a free gin & tonic from a scantily-clad barmaid.  Now, all I get are empty letters from Charles Schwab & Co.  Nothing sexy there.
You speak briefly, Dave, of egregiously high CEO salaries and add that you don't have time to address this issue more fully at the moment.  I hope that you will make time as I'd like to hear what you have to say.  It seems to me that one of the reasons CEO salaries are so high -- and seem to bear so little relation to actual CEO performance -- is that corporate boards of directors are simply log-rolling operations.  CEOs serve on the boards that set the salaries for other CEOs, who in turn sit on the boards that set the salaries of the CEO members of their boards.  It's an endless circular big-money back scratch.   
[Or, if I were still channeling the spirit of my grandfather, I'd call it a great big Mongolian Clusterf---.  But I'm not.  I'm being polite today  Getting ready, you see, for a visit from my mother.  Ironically, I can't talk like Ranny Watkins *and* kiss his daughter on the cheek with that mouth.  She won't stand for it.]
Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
PS: I have a difficult time with the concept that "stealing" from Norman barons was in fact stealing from "the government."  To me, government implies some kind of recognized legitimacy -- but then, I'm a democrat, both with a big "D" and a small "d."  I would say that Robin Hood's "stealing" was repatriating to the poor the ill-gotten gains of a corrupt dictatorship.  Unelected land-holders, who collected taxes from the workers, skimmed off the top, and then passed the rest on to the Church and the King do not constitute a legitimate government.
Which is why I say down with Saudi Arabia!  What the hell are we doing in bed with that feudal nightmare?  Tell us, George!  I dare you!
  
----- Original Message -----
From: David M. Budge
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 10:54 AM
To: Joan Opyr
Cc: Vision2020 Moscow
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Re: Robin Hood
  
Joan,  

Thanks for refreshing my memory on the plot and character development. There's just some major problems with your analogy i.e. "(involuntary) corporate profit-sharing scheme".

A) There were no "corporations" in 12th century England or private property for that matter.  All land was owned by the King and franchised, if you will, to members of the realm (Dukes, Barons, Lords, etc.), who "owned" no real property (real estate) either. The land's productive proceeds, minus an allowance for a piggishly lavish lifestyle, were ultimately due to the monarch.  Accordingly, all business was owned buy the state. We actually have some holdover to that construct in  Common Law called "escheatability" where one's estate is remanded to the government if one has no heirs upon taking the "big dirt nap."

B) Historically, it was not just Prince John who placed an unfair burden of taxation on the working stiffs, but King Richard as well.  In fact, the war in Normandy put such a financial burden on the crown that a general protest by the nobility and serfdom alike caused the birth of the Magna Carta, which provided for private property and then some,  in thirteen short years after the death of King Richard.  This, the first major step towards liberal democracy in England.  

C) If, in fact, we make allowances for your assertion that money was returned to "ownership of the company by those who built the company", in contemporary terms, you entirely discount for ownership's risk of capital - which is no inconsequential building block of any enterprise.  Today, stealing from "Archer Daniels Midlands, McDonalds, and Dell Computer moguls" would be stealing from the likes of the millions of citizens who have a vested interest in things like the California Public Employees Retirement System, etc.  That is not to say that modern corporate chiefs earn their egregious salaries, but that is primarily caused by a lack of accountability created, in large part, by tax incentives (now there's an oxymoron for ya) that drive money to institutional money managers thereby removing voting privileges of the actual "owners."  But I've not the time nor the inclination to begin that discussion in this writing.

So, in fact, Robin was repatriating taxes, not ownership, as stealing from any nobility was actually taking from the government.  Taxes, I might add, that stuffed the ruling class to obese proportions like the retirement benefits that congress has voted for themselves in the current era.  (John Kerry wants to give us congress's health care system, I'm hoping he'll give us his retirement plan - well except for the ketchup loot from his beaudacious sugar mama of course.)

Thinking about my little dear one.  I will remain ever vigilant Joan, but I worry much more about really hard "street literature", full of impurities and historical reconstruction, like Katrina Vanden Houvel at The Nation,  Cornell West, and the really scary ghost of Stalin; Noam Chomsky (hey, anybody who ever endorsed Pol Pot qualifies as "really scary.")   

I too have little use for the modern GOP, but I've equally "little use" for Democrats.  Their party platform (with notable dessenters like Barney Frank) has an official position against gay marriage ironically via federalism and civil unions - endorses drug interdiction programs that continue to fail ($20 Billion alone to Columbia plus another $30 billion hidden in the Defense budget - we can buy a sh_t load of ketchup with that dough) - the insanity of not coming to grips that Social Security will ultimately have to be means tested at a minimum, lest we hand to our heirs a stinking pile of rotting economic fecal matter that they won't even be able to grow mushrooms in - the insane changes at the FDA made by Clinton that allows big pahrama to extend patents ad nausium with minor changes in drug formulary thereby nullifying an otherwise reasonable system of patent protection -  the ridiculous entitlement of Medicare that sets price controls thereby forcing higher prices  and screwing the boots off the uninsured, the working poor and the self-employed - the whole damn notion of "hate crimes" legislation where the arbiters of thought control will be determined by a tyranny of the majority - the obnoxious push for federalizing the payroll of incompetent cretins who perform proctological exams in search of box cutters every time someone gets on an airplane (but I have a serious problem with that entire bi-partisan body of law) - the continuous insufferable conclusion that the law is not just for protecting me from getting screwed but from being stupid as well (I contend that being stupid is a constitutional right and is the underlayment of the entire Bill of Rights) - and all the rest of the twaddle that implies that  I don't know whether to sh_t or go blind.  And this is just the beginning.   

In fairness, I have an equally long list for the GOP, but I'm thinking you're probably  willing to wait for that.  I say, as did the the Queen of Hearts, "off with their heads!"  I'm ecumenical that way.

Oops, I got a little screedy there.  Must be the I.V. bee venom.

Sorry, I'll return to my warm (but smarmy) self after the venom wears off  Didn't mean to offend.  Better call my psychiatrist, I've forgotten my mantra...

Dave Budge
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