Sherry Shaw wrote:
> "Wealth" (2) is also called "privilege" because that's what it is--a 
> privilege.

Actually, I'm going to dispute this. Your ability to hang on to the 
money that others have voluntarily given you is not a privilege. It's a 
fundamental fact.

This is what a war-lord is: someone with enough money to buy weapons and 
defenses and to hire people to man them in order to keep you from taking 
away what's left.

Midieval knights didn't get their armor by collecting taxes to pay for 
it. They got their taxes by wearing armor to collect it.

In what conceivable sense is it a "privilege" to take at gunpoint 
someone else's labor? I don't know about where you live, but here we 
used to call that slavery.

I suspect that if Bill Gates took his $140 billion dollars to Kenya in 
some form that wasn't just fiat currency, he would have no trouble at 
all keeping it, given that he'd have twice the GDP of all of Kenya at 
his disposal for buying fortresses, weapons, etc.

So no, having money that *you* earned isn't a privilege unless you think 
"privilege" means "i've decided to not try to kill you for your money." 
If you think it's a privilege not to be torn apart by the mob, yeah, I 
can see where you might think being wealthy is a privilege.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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