Patriot Act and the ACLU

[Guest eureka]

I don't have to ask myself who built the poorhouses. It is a simple fact that their usage quadrupled in the period in question.

In the same way, we are talking of a certain period of history with respect to taxation. What happened historically is of no moment: the taxation for the Napoleonic wars ended with the cessation of that war. Depression was not much further in the future. Also, there was a huge increase in unemployment immediately as the returning soldiers had no jobs to go to and no financial help.

I have cited no sources, so far, to say that war and statism are bad. I have not even said that they are bad. I am going from my own knowledge of the period but there are many sources including any respectable social history of the times - I have a number of those since I have always looked on this as the most important time in the evolution of world social history. It was the transitional time in the advance to the modern state.

It is an absurdity to say that those Commissions were biased against Capitalism. The governments of the times was as liberally Capitalist as any that has ever come to office anywhere. The legislation that followed was the legislation of a government wedded to Capitalist and Free Market principles.

Whether the benefits you name are the inevitable results of Capitalism is a good question. It is also arguable that they would be the consequences of a philosophy diametrically opposed to Capitalism. Such a philosophy, as we know, is premised on the betterment of social conditions for all. Economic growth also ocurred under such an ideal

I find your argument on "capitalistic" theory to be quite simplistic. There are many other facets to consider. Advances in technology may not always lead to greater demand for the labour content. Rifkin's "The End of Work" is one that proved unecessarily alarmist but yet is valuable in suggesting a future where the mass may not have work.

The Patriot Act is statist - bad. The ACLU isrepresentative of a different view of the State. Is it also bad?

[Hugo]

the taxation for the Napoleonic wars ended with the cessation of that war. Depression was not much further in the future. Also, there was a huge increase in unemployment immediately as the returning soldiers had no jobs to go to and no financial help.

Because an effect of an event is delayed does not mean it was not an effect. The Napoleonic Wars and the massive military buildup from 1780 sowed the seeds of later depression:

Thousands of homes were starved in order to find the means for the great war . . . the resources on which the struggle was based, and without which it would have speedily collapsed, were the stint and starvation of labor, the overtaxed and underfed toils of childhood, and the under-paid and uncertain unemployment of men (Rogers, 1891, quoted in Hartwell, 1971, p. 326).

The war was also financed through inflation, which led to monetary instability and serious lack of investor confidence. Combine that with a few bad harvests and it is completely unsurprising that economic hardship followed for many.

However, absolutely none of these facts is any kind of indictment against the industrial revolution.

I have cited no sources, so far, to say that war and statism are bad.

You decried the Corn Laws as an example to support your argument, but the Corn Laws are an example of destructive state interventionism in the economy: statism. In fact, the Corn Laws would be called "protectionism" today and people such as you would probably welcome them as great ideas to stop alleged losses of jobs to outsourcing.

However, now as then, these protectionist laws serve to impoverish the very people they are supposed to help and nothing more.

I am going from my own knowledge of the period but there are many sources including any respectable social history of the times

Which ones? If it's more works of fiction I shall be very disappointed.

It is an absurdity to say that those Commissions were biased against Capitalism.

So, you don't think that the fact that the principal witnesses in these Commissions had, by their own admission, never seen the working conditions they decried with their own eyes, and refused to testify under oath, puts these Commissions in a bad light?

Why would an impartial and unbiased Commission accept such absurd testimony? Would a just court accept the testimony of a "witness" who had not witnessed the crime in question, had no expertise about the crime, its perpetrator or anything connected to it, and who refused to testify under any oath of truth?

I think they would throw out the witness and advise the jury to disregard all that he had said.

Whether the benefits you name are the inevitable results of Capitalism is a good question. It is also arguable that they would be the consequences of a philosophy diametrically opposed to Capitalism.

It is not arguable at all, because wherever "philosophies diametrically opposed to Capitalism" have been tried these benefits have categorically failed to happen. All socialist economies can be put into two categories: failed, or failing.

A theory that doesn't fit the facts is wrong. Any socialist economic theory that "demonstrates" better welfare for the masses is wrong.

Such a philosophy, as we know, is premised on the betterment of social conditions for all. Economic growth also ocurred under such an ideal

An example, please.

I find your argument on "capitalistic" theory to be quite simplistic. There are many other facets to consider. Advances in technology may not always lead to greater demand for the labour content. Rifkin's "The End of Work" is one that proved unecessarily alarmist but yet is valuable in suggesting a future where the mass may not have work.

People have been forecasting such crises for centuries, Eureka. Their claims grow ever more ridiculous as technology advances (which should lead to less jobs, according to them), as the population grows (leading to more job seekers) and yet the free market still manages to find jobs for all.

By now, their shrill cries are as absurd and laughable as the Jehovah's Witnesses who prophesied the Apocalypse in 1874, then in 1878, then 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1968, 1992, and so on. I think they have officially "indefinitely postponed" the Apocalypse at the moment, much as anti-capitalists of all stripes seem to have "indefinitely postponed" the collapse of capitalism.

[Guest eureka]

You are going around in circles trying to find what is not there.

One philosophy that does fit what I said is Communism. You may say that it failed, but in what did it fail? It failed to deliver its promise and it failed as a competitor to Capitalism. It did, howevr, end many of the social ills of the kind that are inherent in this disagreement. Your contention that any Socialist theory is wrong is simply wrong in itself. It may not have been as efficacious in hindsight. It certainly is not wrong. Socialism, carried to the extent that the early Socialists wished was not wrong. It was just not as good as a competitive theory.

That competitive theory has, of necessity, been modified to include elements of Socialism.

What is yor argument on the Corn Laws? I say they were bas. You say they were bad. Why, then, do you try to argue that I support such "protectionism."

Inflation, taxation, bad harvests! These are all your points and I fail to see how they show that I have "indicted" the Industrial Revolution. I have emphatically not done that. I have said that the revolution proceeded without concern for the welfare of the people who worked in the factories - or did not have work at all.

Your arguments about the Commissions hold no water at all. It does not matter a whit whether the witnesses entered the factories (I think, though, that your sources are a bit like the Holocaust deniers). What were they testifying to? Were they qualified to give testimony as to the conditions. I doubt that Wilberforce ever sailed on a slave ship or entered the warehouses in Liverpool to see the shackles attached to the walls. But he worked for the abolition of that horror - in this same period, by the way. Another example of the conditions in which many peoples lived.

You have never attended many trials if you think that a judge would throw out expert witnesses because they did not visit a crime scene. There are many kinds of relevant testimony.

The cries of people who have decried the technological advances are not ludicrous. Always, they have been correct in a short run. The benefits of technology in Industrialization have usually had a delay and have usually caused dislocation in the short run That dislcation was severs in the times we are talking of. The benefits were long delayed except for the owners of the technology.

As for books, Hugo, I wager that I have more than you could imagine. Thousands of works of fiction and four times as many of reference. I have not used the Library in years and I rarely search the Internet. I have most of what I could need at hand.

[BigDookie6]

This is a good debate! Both of you have great knowledge, but where is this going?

[Hugo]

One philosophy that does fit what I said is Communism. You may say that it failed, but in what did it fail? It failed to deliver its promise and it failed as a competitor to Capitalism. It did, howevr, end many of the social ills of the kind that are inherent in this disagreement.

That is absolutely untrue. Communist countries still had endemic shortages of vital goods (shoes, housing, clothing, power, water), unemployment, poverty far in excess of the West, terrible healthcare and correspondingly far shorter life expectancies, higher rates of infant mortality and of illiteracy, and so forth, right up until their collapse.

I can find sources if you want. However, I wouldn't spend my time doing that unless you actually want to dispute something that is universally accepted.

Socialism, carried to the extent that the early Socialists wished was not wrong. It was just not as good as a competitive theory.

What was it competing for?

What is yor argument on the Corn Laws? I say they were bas. You say they were bad.

Good, then we can move on. But in the context of what you were saying, it seemed that you were blaming liberalism for the Corn Laws and the Peterloo massacre when, in fact, it was the exact opposite of liberalism that was responsible. I apologise if I misread you.

I have said that the revolution proceeded without concern for the welfare of the people who worked in the factories - or did not have work at all.

No, actually you said that the revolution (or, more specifically, liberalism at the time of the industrial revolution) worsened their standards of living, then you said that it worsened them only initially:

Growth and prosperity was the lot of the rich: the population, in general, suffered incredible hardship... As it is today, the poorer classes were falling even further behind...

Then

I do not say that Industrialization is a bad thing: [only] the early effects on society were bad.

That is not the same thing. What you originally said was, "Liberalism was worse for the working class than what went before", then you changed that to "Liberalism was initially worse for the working class than what went before" and now "Liberalism was indifferent to the working class."

Those are three different statements. Which are you going to go with?

Your arguments about the Commissions hold no water at all.

You say this, but I don't see any evidence from you to refute this. You seem to acknowledge my criticism of the Commissions, but then try to play semantic games to pretend that they are not valid criticisms.

It does not matter a whit whether the witnesses entered the factories

I think it does. How can you describe what you have not seen? If you haven't experienced something, your description of it is nothing but hearsay, and a wise researcher would skip over you and find the person you heard it from.

I think, though, that your sources are a bit like the Holocaust deniers

On the contrary, I think your sources are like the Holocaust deniers. They commented on a phenomenon they had never experienced and had not taken the time to inform themselves about from a position of prejudice and bigotry.

You have never attended many trials if you think that a judge would throw out expert witnesses because they did not visit a crime scene. There are many kinds of relevant testimony.

Strawman argument. Argue against what I said, not what you would prefer that I had said. What I actually said, in full, was:

Would a just court accept the testimony of a "witness" who had not witnessed the crime in question, had no expertise about the crime, its perpetrator or anything connected to it, and who refused to testify under any oath of truth?

So, do you have a rebuttal to this entire statement rather than an isolated and misquoted fragment of it?

The benefits were long delayed except for the owners of the technology.

No, actually they were not, the benefits were immediate. For example, after the adoption of each new development in the textile industry, the price of textiles and therefore clothing fell and the quality rose. These benefits were immediately available to the consumer.

The benefits of technology in Industrialization have usually had a delay and have usually caused dislocation in the short run

Only amongst a very small percentage of the population. The rest of them - the 99% who were not weavers, spinners or whatever other profession had just had a new technology thrust upon it - saw immediate benefits with no drawbacks.

So what you are arguing is that the industrial/liberal period was bad because a very small number of people suffered a temporary period of "dislocation"? Considering the vast benefits of the period I think that's a bargain.

As for books, Hugo, I wager that I have more than you could imagine. Thousands of works of fiction and four times as many of reference.

That's a beautiful piece of argumentum ad verecundiam, I must say. Worse, in fact, because your authority is vague, unprovable and anonymous. Because you cannot prove how learned you are, your statement amounts to a logically invalid and emotive attempt to browbeat rather than debate your position.

Anyway, let's say by "thousands" you mean 3,000. That means you have 3,000 works of fiction and 12,000 works of reference, which is a number of works approaching that held by an average Toronto neighbourhood library.

The average book on Amazon.com has 70,000 words. If we say you are an above-average reader who reads at 400 words per minute, that means you have spent almost 5 years of your life (43,750 hours) doing nothing but reading them.

I think you might be lying.

[Guest eureka]

Careful, Hugo, when you talk of lying. You can prove nothing about yourself, either. You are about correct in the number of books but you are not correct in your mathematics. As I said, most are works of reference and not for bedtime reading.

Also, can the Latin. I was somewhat amused when you spoke, rather boastingly, of commencing your Latin studies at the age of 12. I started at 10 and Greek a year later. That made me, once, feel rather stupid since J.S. Mill began at 3.

Now, I follow Orwell' advice, in writing.,to avoid Latinates like the plague.

You do far better in your debates when you stick to the things you appear to have studied. In this, where some critical skills are required, you are going nowhere. You are squirming around everything.

You pay no attention at all to what I write and simply make up arguments with a fancy.

I said, quite clearly, for example, that Communism was a competing ideal with Capitalism. I said that it failed to deliver all its promise. You try to make the failures a camoflague. Communism did bring relative prosperity in the USSR. It did bring more than one hundred million people into a modern state. It did improve health and increase Life expectancy. It did bring a society with more doctors per capita than has the USA.

Liberalism and the Industrial Revolution did worsen standards for the common people. How you can pretend to have sources and arguments when all you can do is to argue that I said it had no benefits is beyond me. The points are entirely different. Right from the start of this distraction, I wrote of the liberal period, which was not long lived, and of its harmful effects on the world, not just Britain. That stands. Later benefit or progress does nothing to stem the suffering of that period.

Also, classic liberalism was at fault and its modification allowed the benefits of industrialization to filter down to the people: to filter down in the way that the tax cuts of the neo-libs now filter down. That is, to bring some small benefits to the people in return to larger benefit to the rich.

The three statements all stand. There is nothing in them that excludes any of the meanings. I would draw to your attention, though, that I am not capitalizing liberalism.

No evidence about the Commisions is needed other than that the government acted on the findings. Remedial legislations were enacted. What more can you want. I will not get into the courtroom analogies since there have been, already, too many distractions. I could devote considerable length to that since it is something I do have some knowlege of. It is not worth anything.

The price of clothing fell following the "Black Death" also. Was that good? Did it compenstae for the suffering that had gone before. If i were to follow what appears to be your line of thinking, I would say that it was better than the industrial revolution example.

Following the plague, there was work for everyone and a great rise in general prosperity. People could afford to buy the cheaper cloth. In the early industrial revolution, the peole who were displaced by technology - a very large number - could not afford it. They had to wait a long time for benefit.

Where is this going,Big Dookie. I don't know. It has strayed a long way from the topic and all I can see that is relevant is the new liberalism of today that is running us into trouble. That would be Bush and Cheney in your case.. However, Hugo and I both enjoy argument and the others involved are being patient with us.

[Hugo]

said that it failed to deliver all its promise. You try to make the failures a camoflague. Communism did bring relative prosperity in the USSR. It did bring more than one hundred million people into a modern state.

It also brought between 25 and 60 million people into an early grave. Was that good? To play on your Black Death analogy, were the dubious economic advances worth the executions, exile and slavery?

It did improve health and increase Life expectancy. It did bring a society with more doctors per capita than has the USA.

I want to see evidence for that claim. You should also know that the Communist governments were in the habit of wildly falsifying their claims of progress, so official figures cannot be trusted. For instance, in the middle of a famine that killed perhaps 30 million Chinese the Communist government was recording record bumper harvests.

Regarding allegations of better healthcare, here's what DS Schultz and MP Rafferty had to say in Am J Public Health, 1990 Feb;80(2):193-7: Soviet health care and perestroika.

In recent years the Soviet Union has experienced a rising infant mortality rate and declining life expectancy. The health care system has been increasingly criticized for its uncaring providers, low quality of care, and unequal access. The proposed measures will increase by 50 percent the state's contribution to health care financing, encourage private medicine on a small scale, and begin experimentation with capitation financing. It seems unlikely that the government will be able to finance its share of planned health improvements, or that private medicine, constrained by the government's tight control, will contribute much in the near term.

S. Kono in Integration. 1990 Oct(25):19-22: Recent trends of the population in the Soviet Union says:

Another significant fact of the USSR's population dynamics is its stagnant, or even retarded, life expectancy. Between 1960-70, life expectancy was 64.4 for men and 73.4 for women. Between 1979-80, these figures dropped to 62.2 and 72.5, respectively. They somewhat recovered during 1985-86, increasing to 64.2 for men and 73.3 for women.

Life expectancy in the USA in 1960 was 70 for men, 75 for women, and in 1980 was 70 for men and 77 for women, and in 1985, 71 and 78.

In all cases, American life expectancies were significantly above the Soviet, and American life expectancy consistently rose, whereas Soviet life expectancy did not.

The facts don't fit the picture of Soviet healthcare you are painting.

Liberalism and the Industrial Revolution did worsen standards for the common people.

Prove it. No more novels, please, restrict yourself to facts.

No evidence about the Commisions is needed other than that the government acted on the findings.

I see. And did the fact that Stalin's government acted on the "findings" of millions of traitors and saboteurs in the USSR prove that those millions of traitors existed? Did the American attack on Iraq based on WMD and terrorist ties prove that both existed?

Are you seriously telling me that government is of Godlike infallibility? Or is it possible that a government can act on faulty intelligence and false information?

The price of clothing fell following the "Black Death" also. Was that good? Did it compenstae for the suffering that had gone before.

Yes, it was, and no, it probably didn't, in that order. But thousands did not die in the Industrial Revolution. In fact, nobody's condition was permanently worsened. I have offered evidence of that. You have offered nothing.

Right from the start of this distraction, I wrote of the liberal period, which was not long lived, and of its harmful effects on the world, not just Britain.

I have offered logic and evidence which illustrates that these "harmful effects" were not due to liberalism at all but the polar opposite, statism and collectivism. You have yet to refute them with anything more substantial than, as Tom Cruise put it in A Few Good Men, the "'Liar, liar, pants on fire' argument."

Also, classic liberalism was at fault and its modification allowed the benefits of industrialization to filter down to the people

Same again. I offered a logical argument that showed how the benefits of liberalism and industrialization were immediately available. You have no valid response.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo!

You are not debating at all now, unless you consider the Bush/Cheney style of going wildly off target to be debating.

What has the decline in conditions in the Soviets in the seconf half of the 20th. century to do with the indisputable fact that conditions dramatically improved for all the lower classes following the Revolution. Look at the Life expectancy figures for, say, 1910 if you wish to dispute.

As for the number of doctors, Russia, even today, has about 330 per 100,00 compared to the USA with about 440. That is a legacy of Communism.

The British government acting on the PROOF of the terrible conditions in 19th. century as shown by the Commission and thousands of concerned more fortunate citizens: conditions that a free press and publishing industry had been exposing; that a parliament with free political parties accepted, has no relation at all to the actions of totalitarian governments.

To ask for "proofs" of this is juvenile.

To say that thousands did not die in the Industrial Revolution is also ludicrous. The same people who were pressing for reforms provided all the evidence that was needed. The fiction writers I mentioned also provided more evidence than would be found in any judicial inquiry. I could provide you with moe names - Thomas Hood's poetry is good and powerful. Did all these dream independantly of this?

This is the sort of condition of which a judge in court would take judicial notice since it is too widely known to require any adversarial examination.

I do not attempt to refute your claims of collectivism amd statism for early 19th. century Britain because they are simply too silly. Liberalism and free markets were the mantras of the time and were fading as the consequences became apparent.

[Hugo]

What has the decline in conditions in the Soviets in the seconf half of the 20th. century to do with the indisputable fact that conditions dramatically improved for all the lower classes following the Revolution.

Nothing at all. I'm not sure why you brought it up, when you said, "Communism did bring relative prosperity in the USSR... It did improve health and increase Life expectancy."

You brought up the USSR as an example, and made some false claims about it which I felt obliged to dispel. The origin of the capitalism vs. socialism portion of this debate stemmed from my contention that capitalism was responsible for improvement in working conditions by way of simple market economics, to which you replied:

"It is also arguable that they would be the consequences of a philosophy diametrically opposed to Capitalism. Such a philosophy, as we know, is premised on the betterment of social conditions for all. Economic growth also ocurred under such an ideal"

You offered no proof of this contention, incidentally. The reason why we are discussing socialism, communism and the USSR is because you wanted to.

the decline in conditions in the Soviets in the seconf half of the 20th. century ... Look at the Life expectancy figures for, say, 1910 if you wish to dispute.

Of course, life expectancy in the USSR between 1914 and 1953 is meaningless as an example of medical progress because the Great War, the Civil War, the Bread War, the Second World War, and the purges of Lenin and Stalin were responsible for so many millions of early deaths that they render such figures utterly meaningless. Since the exact numbers of those murdered by the Soviet government aren't even known, we cannot even start to analyse what the life expectancy figures for the period mean, and that assumes that those figures are even accurate in the first place.

You can compare the life expectancy of Russians in 1910 to that of Russians in 1990 as a "success" for communism, but life expectancy for all sub-saharan Africans since 1910 has also improved, and does this prove the "success" of all that has befallen the region in the meantime, with the wars, civil strife, dictators and coups?

As for the number of doctors, Russia, even today, has about 330 per 100,00 compared to the USA with about 440. That is a legacy of Communism.

It's also a legacy of communism that the country is falling apart. The free markets of the USA have been better than the USSR in providing for citizens in every respect at every time in history.

The excuse that Russia was devasated by war or had less natural resources doesn't hold water either. Latin America has a lot more natural resources than North America and has had fewer wars and war dead, even on their own soil, and yet remains a backwater compared to North America. If the true reason for Soviet failures was war and poor resources, Latin America should lead the world today in prosperity and vibrancy.

The British government acting on the PROOF of the terrible conditions in 19th. century as shown by the Commission and thousands of concerned more fortunate citizens

No, you said that the proof was that the government acted at all. Here are your own words:

No evidence about the Commisions is needed other than that the government acted on the findings.

By that rationale, doesn't the US-led invasion of Iraq prove that Saddam Hussein was harboring WMD and linked to Al-Queda?

To ask for "proofs" of this is juvenile.

When a witness makes a statement, and then refuses to make that statement again after having sworn to tell only the truth, that is an admission that the statement was a lie.

Given that the people used as primary witnesses in the Commissions admitted to lying, I don't think asking for further proof is juvenile at all. If you are prosecuting a case and your principal witness confesses to perjury, you had better hope you have some more substantial evidence, and when the defence asks for that evidence, accusations that they are "juvenile" certainly won't sway anybody!

In fact, they will probably confirm the suspicions of the judge and jury that your entire case is pinned on lies and half-truths.

To say that thousands did not die in the Industrial Revolution is also ludicrous. The same people who were pressing for reforms provided all the evidence that was needed.

But they admitted that they were lying! How can you trust a statement made by one who later tells you that the statement was a lie?

The fiction writers I mentioned also provided more evidence than would be found in any judicial inquiry. I could provide you with moe names - Thomas Hood's poetry is good and powerful. Did all these dream independantly of this?

Fiction writers dream things up all the time, it's their job. Stephen King makes up absolute nonsense on a very regular basis, that's what he does, he's a fiction writer. However, Stephen King is not claiming to be an expert on any real-world phenomena, nor is he asking for his novels to be considered as evidence in a government investigation or the formulation of government policy.

This is the sort of condition of which a judge in court would take judicial notice since it is too widely known to require any adversarial examination.

Then please, find me a court case where a work of fiction has been admitted as evidence.

I do not attempt to refute your claims of collectivism amd statism for early 19th. century Britain because they are simply too silly.

You don't have the right to state that, you must earn the right by proving that they are "too silly." So far your total lack of evidence, bait-and-switch arguments and frequent revisions and alterations of earlier so-called absolutes are proving the exact opposite.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo!

You are living in a fantasy world. Your obsession with Anarchism colours your every statement and you jump, over and over again, to periods of history that are not remotely connected to points at issue. If you cannot see, for one example that the test of Comminist policies in how they affected Life expentancy in the Soviet Union is what they were in the periods before and after the revolution, then you are incapable of the argument. It does not matter a whit what 1990 brought compared to 1960.

Your whole dispute is entering the theatre of the absurd and I will not try the patience of those who wish to discuss the Patriot Act any longer. I see that you, on another fthread, are now writing of Orwell as warning against totalitarian socialism. That is so funny. Orwell warned only of totalitarianism.

[Hugo]

Your obsession with Anarchism colours your every statement

I don't think that is either true or fair. In my last post, I have argued against socialism and communism, the USSR, and the commissions held about working conditions in industrial Britain. Such arguments have been made by many people who are not anarchists, on this very forum I have heard August1991 argue against all of those things and he is definitely not an anarchist - just read his arguments in my thread on anarchy.

Furthermore, I might ask why you are so prejudiced against anarchists that you consider the discovery that your debating opponent is one sufficient grounds to discount his arguments? You are being very closed-minded. Would you treat me this way were I a Communist?

If you cannot see, for one example that the test of Comminist policies in how they affected Life expentancy in the Soviet Union is what they were in the periods before and after the revolution

But, as I have already said, comparisons of life expectancy in the USSR before 1917 and after are going to be useless as evidence of healthcare provision, because the expectancy beforehand was dragged artificially down by the Great War and Cheka oppression, and afterward by Lenin's purges, the Civil War and the Bread War.

Returning to the Commissions briefly, if we examine the works of the Hammonds that were crucial in these commissions we see that they made a division between "apprentice children" and "free labour children." In their findings they made absolutely no distinction between these children, but this was a very, very gross oversight.

The apprentice children were all wards of the state, many were orphans, some had been taken from their parents for negligence or something similar and were in the care of the parish authorities. The conditions in which these children worked were terrible.

THe free labour children, however, were sent to work at the request of their parents and were not nearly so abused. However, the evidence presented by the Hammonds against the state child-slavery system was used to legislate against the private labour market.

Alfred Kydd and Philip Gaskell both confirmed the Hammonds findings - that the state child-slavery system was responsible for all the ills of child labour, and the free market for little to none.

The Sadler Report was a key piece of evidence for child-labour reformers, however, it was highly controversial and disputed. W. H. Hutt lambasted Sadler for gross exaggeration and falsification of evidence. R. H. Greg said of Sadler that he produced "such a mass of ex-parte statements, and of gross falsehoods and calumnies ... as probably never before found their way into any public document." (W. H. Hutt, "The Factory System of the Early Nineteenth Century," in E A. Hayek, ed., Capitalism and the Historians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), pp. 156-84.)

Friedrich Engels, partner of Karl Marx and a vicious opponent of capitalism, said of Sadler's report: "This is a very partisan document, which was drawn up entirely by enemies of the factory system for purely political purposes. Sadler was led astray by his passionate sympathies into making assertions of a most misleading and erroneous kind. He asked witnesses questions in such a way as to elicit answers which, although correct, nevertheless were stated in such a form as to give a wholly false impression." (Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Classes in England (New York: Macmillan, 1958), p. 192.)

If Engels, of all people, thinks the key report of the Commissions was a pack of lies, how can it be trusted?

[Guest eureka]

Hugo!

I probably was unfair to you. That is because I will not be drawn into protracted arguments about Anarchism, Collectivism, Statism, etc., unless they are in a connection that I want. I do not have the time for speculative studies.

However, and not to keep this up, since the discussion is supposed to be about the Patriot Act, here is a small input.

The death rate in England reduced dramatically in the eighteenth century until, in 1810 it was 19.98 per thousand. It then increased to 21.65 in 1830. Not dramatic, but substantial in the period I have been talking of. It did not again sink to the 1810 levels for some decades.

The infant mortality component was a pre-revolutionary statistic also. That declinetook place in the second and third quarters of the century chiefly through the efforts of some private institutions and individuals. It rose again in the first quarter of the 19th. century.

The declining death rate had little to do with the industrial revolution. It was a consequence of scientific and medical advances. 154 new hospitals and dispensaries were built in the 1700-1825 period.

Then, the death rate was not even. It was much higher in the cities and industrial areas. London, for example, had a rate of 25 per thousand when the national rate was 21.

Another little indication of the growing decline of the "working" man's condition is this: between 1792 and 1831 poor law expenditures in the County of Dorst increased by 214% whike the population had increased by only 40% The application of the Poor Law and the refusal to link wages to the cost of bread (there had been an enlightened propsal to do this) led to the enforced pauperdom of hundreds of even employed people.

"In the middle of the Napoleonic wars, unemployment, low wages and starvation were periodic among the industrials of Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, partly owing to the effects of new machinery." This led to the Luddites who, amongst other demands wanted the enforcement of EXISTING laws to failrly regulate wages and hours.

These are a few of factoids draw from Trevelyan's "English Social History." One of the best hitories by one of Britain's finest historians. It is not one that is critical of the Industrial Revolution and has no discernible bias. And, I am not searching through it. I drew on this merely to satisfy you that I do have sources and am not unaware of what I say.

I believe that you cited Clapham earlier to support the notion of improving financial welfare. Clapham is undoubtedly correct. But, Clapham generalises from statistics. The lower classes were much the worse while landlords (agricultural) , merchants, small and large, were better off.

It is a lesson that we may have to relearn as the pendulum swings and decline is the lot of the working classes today.

[Hugo]

The death rate in England reduced dramatically in the eighteenth century until, in 1810 it was 19.98 per thousand. It then increased to 21.65 in 1830. Not dramatic, but substantial in the period I have been talking of. It did not again sink to the 1810 levels for some decades.

I have heard it argued that the mortality rate fell consistently, that the population in England and Wales grew by 1.25% per year, which was unprecedented at that point. Mortality rates also fell across the board, even in cities. McCloskey states that the key source of this population growth was falling mortality rates.

At any rate, it's difficult to reconcile falling living conditions, rising infant mortality and rising death rates with increasing population. The population boom is undisputed, and it refutes all the arguments you are making.

--(McCloskey, Donald, "The Industrial Revolution 1780-1860: A Survey," The Economic History of Britain Since 1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). )

The declining death rate had little to do with the industrial revolution. It was a consequence of scientific and medical advances. 154 new hospitals and dispensaries were built in the 1700-1825 period.

It would, actually, by and large be a consequence of a population who had a steady, guaranteed wage instead of depending upon subsistence farming.

Another little indication of the growing decline of the "working" man's condition is this: between 1792 and 1831 poor law expenditures in the County of Dorst increased by 214% whike the population had increased by only 40%

Did you verify why this was? Perhaps because the government was busy passing laws to alleviate the conditions of the "poor" based upon faulty evidence?

The application of the Poor Law and the refusal to link wages to the cost of bread

It was only necessary to link wages to the cost of bread because of the combined government policies of the Corn Laws and the Napoleonic Wars. During the Wars, food prices climbed by 25%.

In summary, the evidence on which you judge the factories and capitalism is false, the argument that mortality and infant mortality increased cannot be reconciled with the very real population boom, and the ills of the age can be ascribed to government action rather than the lack of it.

It is a lesson that we may have to relearn as the pendulum swings and decline is the lot of the working classes today.

If that is true, it is because the government in the USA represents 55% of the economy, and during the 1990s, the Canadian government was 7% larger than that! In such a political atmosphere so stifling to economic growth it would hardly be surprising.