Capitalism's Hollow Core

IMAGINE A patient at a medical checkup. Let's say she's important: She runs a major company or she runs in the Olympics. There's a lot riding on her health, so she gets wired up to a vast battery of medical equipment, and a team of high-priced doctors notes her pulse and blood pressure and other vital measurements. After long and learned study, the doctors pronounce the patient healthy and publish her charts to prove it. But the numbers in the charts turn out to be fictitious. The machines didn't work, and the doctors all knew it. The patient soon falls ill.

Of course I read it. I found this arcana on FreeRepublic once in case you're interested. I copied it because it is sometimes hard to find articles. I forget who posted it. :

BREAKING! Earliest Editorial Found - Babylon 1694 B.C.

Baghdad: August 15, 2001: Following a missile attack by American F-16 fighter-bombers on August 2, 2001, Iraqi clean-up crews uncovered a six-foot diorite shaft covered with cuneiform writings. Swiss researchers with Babylonfunf, Inc., have determined the shaft contained the world's earliest known example of a political editorial. Max Edel, spokesman for Babylonfunf exclaimed, "This is an unprecedented leap backward for us! Before this find, the earliest example of a political editorial concerned the 6th commandment concerning adultery, circa 1214 B.C. This find shows that political wrangling dates to the earliest beginnings of civilization." Babylonfunf released a full translation, which follows:

The Daily Babylon Predictor (Price: 2 se of silver, 12 ears of corn, or equivalent)

We fail to see the appeal this Hammurabi seems to hold for some persons. If ever a citizen of Babylon lived in an ivory ziggurat, then Hammurabi is the one! Let us analyze a few portions of his so-called proposed "Code".

108 - If the mistress of a beer-shop won't trade corn for beer, or has demanded silver on an excessive scale, and has made the measure of beer less than the measure of corn, that beer-seller shall be prosecuted and drowned.

We should remember that it was only 12 plantings ago that Boozannu discovered the secret of beer. Oh how quickly and well that twelve years has passed compared to all the time that went before! And now Hammurabi wants to regulate the beer trade. If we drown beer-mistresses, how long will it be before no one will risk going into the beer business? We predict that if this rule is put in force, it will not be long before beer disappears from the world.

221 - If a surgeon has cured the limb of a patrician, or has doctored a diseased bowel, the patient shall pay five shekels of silver to the surgeon.

This is socialized medicine! This is price fixing! If Hammurabi interferes with the practice of medicine, it will not be long before a person can't get a decent bleeding! Our best surgeons will all move to Egypt!

273 - If a man has hired a laborer from the beginning of the year to the fifth month, he shall pay six se of silver daily; from the sixth month to the close of the year, he shall pay five se of silver daily.

Who is Hammurabi to set these minimum wages? Who does he think he is, Aruru? Does Hammurabi not know that for every 1 se of silver increase in wages, six slaves and plebians leave their master? There is a natural order in life. Patricians on top. Plebians in the middle. Slaves on bottom. Disturb this arrangement at your peril Hammurabi! 117 - If a man owes a debt, and he has given his wife, his son or his daughter as hostage for the money, or has handed someone over to work it off, the hostage shall do the work of the creditor's house, but in the fourth year he shall set them free.

What about personal responsibility? Hammurabi has failed to mention the amount of debt. Helloooo! Babylon to Hammurabi! If a man owes a debt, he should pay it or die. What will he want to do next, free the slaves? Or make us pay them for their labor? 250-251 - If a bull ox has gone wild and gored a man, there can be no suit against the owner. But, if a man's ox has revealed its evil propensity as a gorer, and he has not blunted its horn, or shut up the ox, the owner shall pay up to a half mina of silver.

Does Hammurabi know what it costs to blunt the horn of an evil ox? We think not. Hammurabi would rather enrich the parasitic scribes and scriveners who scribe and scrivel the businessman out of his silver and his business. For two sixths portion of the silver payment, of course. (Speaking of which, we heard a good scrivener humorous tale the other day - "What do you call it when an evil ox gores a scrivener on each horn? Answer - A good start!" We thank Henniyungannu for that one.)

But we digress. Some of us remember the old days when we lived in trees and caves. Not long after the first block of the first house of Babylon dried in the sun, did the first scrivener appear. Now our streets are over-run with them. If Hammurabi gets his way, each of us will have his own personal scrivener to support. A pox on all of them! May they catch whatever loathsome disease it is that seems to occur after a visit to the House of Innanu the Harlot.

And we have barely stuck our wedge in the clay! Heed what else he desires. Death to builders if their house collapses. Eight gur of corn yearly wages to herdsmen. Penalties for leaving your runnel open. No marriage without a marriage contract. Soon Babylon will run out of clay for potteries and beer mugs because all the clay will be needed for the scribes and scriveners! We predict if Hammurabi has his way, we will soon be living in the trees and caves again.

We could go on throwing stones at Hammurabi. But it will be more effective if you join us and we will all throw stones at him. He speaks half moon night at Sudzunnis House of Beer.

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