The Sun and the Rain on the Stony Ground

In a work titled Christ's Last Disclosure of Himself , William Greenhill exposits the last words of Christ in the Bible, Revelation 22:16-17:

“Come. And let him that heareth say, “ Come” and let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” 

In this series of sermons on the given text, Greenhill is careful to explain who Christ is as the root and offspring of David, and who it is that may come to him and drink. Greenhill says:

“ Objection, but surely these invitations are in vain if a man cannot come when he is invited. To what end are they? Answer: The sun shines upon the rock, and the rain falls upon the rock, yet no man expects that the sun should melt the rocks or the rain should make the rocks fruitful. But the adjacent parts and fields have the benefit; and so, though invitations fall upon rocks, yet other persons may have the benefit.” 

The rocks will not receive the benefit, but the field shall.

– McMahon, C. Matthew in The Two Wills of God 

Stiglitz on Economic Rent

A basic principle of economics holds that it is highly efficient to tax rents because such taxes don’t cause any distortions. A tax on land rents doesn’t make the land go away. Indeed, the great nineteenth-century progressive Henry George argued that government should rely solely on such a tax. Today, of course, we realize that rents can take many forms – they can be collected not just on land, but on the value of natural resources like oil, gas, minerals, and coal. There are other sources of rents, such as those derived from the exercise of monopoly power. A stiff tax on all such rents would not only reduce inequality but also reduce incentives to engage in the kind of rent-seeking activities that distort our economy and our democracy. 

– Joseph E. Stiglitz The Price of Inequality

[M]inor tweaks in the economic system are not going to solve the problem… The underlying problem is the whole structure of our economy, which has been oriented more at increasing rents than increasing productivity and real economic growth that would be widely shared in our society … one has always to think about issues of shifting so that, for instance, just a tax on capital might be shifted, and a lot of the models have shown this would happen, but a tax on land, rents, would actually address some of the underlying problems. This is the idea that Henry George had more than a hundred years ago, but this analysis that I have done ... goes one step beyond Henry George. Henry George argued that a land tax was nondistortionary, but this analysis says that a land tax actually improves the productivity of the economy because you encourage people to invest in productive capital rather than into rent generating. Well, the result of the shift in the composition of the savings towards more productive investment leads to a more productive economy and in the end leads to a more equal society.

– Joseph E. Stiglitz [Speech in Paris–April 8th, 2015]

The Physical Economy Of Goods & Services

"No financial sleight-of-hand can transfer goods and services from the future to the present. And no debt that we might pile up for the future can reduce the sacrifices of goods and services we must make today."

– Hans Morgenthau in 1942 regarding war "debt"

Fallor Ergo Sum

What difference, if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I am. For he who is not, assuredly cannot be mistaken; and therefore I am, if I am mistaken. Therefore because I am if I am mistaken, how am I mistaken that I am, when it is sure that I am, if I am mistaken.'

– Augustine

Fallacy of Insignificance

 Reminder to be awesome at what you do:

Some time in 1959, I received a letter from an American professor of psychology, Abraham H. Maslow, enclosing some of his papers. He said he had read my book The Stature of Man, and liked my idea that much of the gloom and defeat of 20th century literature is due to what I called ‘the fallacy of insignificance’. Maslow said this resembled an idea of his own, which he called ‘the Jonah complex’.

One day, he had asked his students:

‘Which of you expects to achieve greatness in your chosen field?’

The class looked at him blankly. After a long silence, Maslow said:

‘If not you—who then?’

And they began to see his point. This is the fallacy of insignificance, the certainty that you are unlucky and unimportant, the Jonah complex.

– Colin Wilson "New Pathways in Psychology"

Hedging Your Bets

Karl Marx’s private confession to Frederick Engels after writing a newspaper article on the likely outcome of the Indian mutiny in the 1850s:

‘It is possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case, one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.’

The Superficial Philanthropy of The Common Leftist

"To have a liking for the corporeal man with hide and hair – why, that would no longer be a “spiritual” warmheartedness, it would be treason against “pure” warmheartedness, the “theoretical regard.”

For pure warmheartedness is by no means to be conceived as like that kindliness that gives everybody a friendly hand-shake; on the contrary, pure warmheartedness is warm-hearted toward nobody, it is only a theoretical interest, concern for man as man, not as a person.

The person is repulsive to it because of being “egoistic,” because of not being that abstraction: Man. But it is only for the abstraction that one can have a theoretical regard. To pure warmheartedness or pure theory men exist only to be criticized, scoffed at, and thoroughly despised; to it, no less than to the fanatical parson, they are only “filth” and other such nice things."

– Max Stirner