> I suppose you mean expropriation from white folks.. :) Robert Wood
I think he means expropriation from rich white owners is not popular, as opposed to Indians, slaves, and anybody who got in the way of railroads, Standard Oil or coal companies who develop the economy by stripping the hills and collapsing the land.... .
I am not getting down on Doug here because we know what he means. But the expropriators are not even able to see what they do as expropriation. They are just "developing the land" by taking it from "savages" or civilizing the slaves by expropriating their labor and lives, or developing the economy by tearing down what ever gets in their way, forests, hills, farms, neighborhoods.
But I wonder is even the statement about expropriation from rich white owners completely true? I mean how do we know that a majority of the people in 1871 were not for expropriating the rich. Expropriating from the slave owners was briefly very popular at that time.
I can think of a local exception from here in NYC.
In 1905 one of the most popular laws ever was past in NYC.... "the 80 cent gas law". The Consolidated Gas Company fought it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost in 1916. They were told to reimburse the public 9 million dollars which they never did. They continued to fight in the courts until 1924 at which time a new ultra conservative supreme court majority overruled the previous Supreme Court and decided that the 80 cent tax law was a "takings", even though Consolidated Gas was a municipally granted franchise monopoly. There was huge popularity for simply taking over Consolidated Gas and municipalizing it but movements to do so were blocked at every turn. At least in this case expropriation was vastly popular. Problem was that simple expropriation was illegal, even limiting the price charged on gas was declared illegal and a form of expropriation. It didn't matter how popular it was.
Jerry
>
> > On Feb 5, 2008, at 4:22 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/klein
> >
> > Hmm, she really needs to study some economics. This would be true if
> > you substituted "mean" for "average."
> >
> > But on the redistribution front, she also needs to study some
> > American history. Expropriation has rarely been popular here.
> >
> > Doug
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> >
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