YET ANOTHER FOOL ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD OF THE DIASPORA The problem, given Zin

YET ANOTHER FOOL ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD OF THE DIASPORA

The problem, given Zinn’s writing, is in asking the question what do we mean by obedience? If it means to norms, or to labor, or to the productive results of labor, or to all of the above? Because each of these things involves one or more forms of coercion. Norms require the threat of ostracization from opportunities. Labor requires the application of violence to force people to cooperate according to some scheme that is preordained. The taking of the results of productive labor requires the application of violence according to someone’s preferences. So Zinn may rely upon soft words, but they are meaningless without the means of enacting them. And they cannot be enacted without obedience that is enforced by violence.

In the end, Zinn is still a socialist: that some person’s view of the common good is superior to another’s, and that words must be used to justify the use of violence against some for the benefit of others.

The aristocratic model minimizes population in favor of maximum productivity, the socialistic model maximizes population through emphasis on consumption and egalitarianism. Nothing more. These two points describe a spectrum that can only reach compromise in the middle by voluntary exchange between the two modes of operation. Otherwise any imposed homogeneity across both strategies requires acts of violence that serve the genetic preferences and interests of some at the expense of the genetic preferences and interests of others.

Zinn is just another well meaning fool that does not comprehend this fundamental problem of political action.