Originally Posted by Seattleblue

.... Nobody arguing for this scam really cares about the poor, ...

Horseshit.

You've obviously have never faced bankruptcy-levels of health care cost for a child or a spouse as a result of not being insured. And/or, you're some young 20-something that hasn't yet had the shit kick out of them by life and remain clueless of the mean old world. Or, you're just stupid.

You can whine all you want about the corporate system and it isn't going to do one thing whatsoever to change the situation. In the meantime, there are 10s of millions of people who are going to get health insurance, many of them with govt subsidies.

So go on and rail against the machine and believe you're actually doing something. Just try to stay out of the way of those that actually are doing something like advocating in the setting up the exchanges or organizing in those Red states that are refusing the Medicaid expansion. Those things are real. You all - lessons in being sanctimonious.

YOU'RE EVIL!!

NO, YOU'RE EVIL!!

NU UHH!!

God, I've missed discussing things on the internet.

Originally Posted by playwrite

You've obviously have never faced bankruptcy-levels of health care cost for a child or a spouse as a result of not being insured.

And you have, trust-fund?

Yeah... pretty much what I thought...

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

It's not a health care issue. It's just a health insurance flim-flam put in place of health care concerns, themselves generated to create a campaign for increasing control over the lives of the people. Nobody arguing for this scam really cares about the poor, they care about extracting the last bits of wealth from the carcass of the middle class.

It is a first step in a country that has long pretended that it could either not afford or did not need a rational method of funding medical care. Ours is falling apart because it puts profits first and patients last. We have the highest medical costs in the world and people dying because they are priced into the grave instead of the hospital. Our high medical costs get passed on into costs of anything that America manufactures through high insurance costs that no other country considers tolerable. But the huge profits come through for-profit entities that have a cost-plus basis of operation and as the result every incentive for keeping costs as high as possible. Even the non-profits work heavily to enrich the bureaucratic elites of executives within them.

We pay for it in part by seeing our manufacturing base erode. It is cheaper to import than to produce domestically because of huge costs built into any American production.

It's interesting that in the US people have long thought themselves as middle class because they own a house and an automobile. But it is probably more accurate to say the US serfs simply had a higher standard of living than the European serf for a time. There are a lot more serfs (as opposed to shiftless urban peasants) than the historical norm, but nothing has really changed yet.

People who do not live as serfs are not serfs. But we have economic elites intent upon turning us into serfs through debt-bondage even to get the means of earning a living.

The unwashed serfs will never become bourgeoisie, and it is the Northeastern landed class that sets the values that everyone is supposed to follow. But the great trick is that most Americans believe themselves to be in a better financial class than they really are. As long as they believe this fiction, unrest is kept at bay.

If economic class in the sense of people being able to live better than as slaves in fear of a master or destitute toilers who fear cold and hunger at the whim of a boss is more flexible in the presence of more prosperity, social class determined by cultural values and occupational grouping is far more rigid. In comparatively benign times or places (read Class by Paul Fussell to get the idea), the class difference is between being a plumbing contractor (upper working class) and a college professor (upper-middle) despite having a similar income, or preferring a sail boat (upper-middle) to a motorcycle (working class). In hard times or under corrupt social orders the difference could be between people capable of inflicting suffering upon workers and the workers compelled to endure it.

And so people believe that their mortgage gives them a ticket out of serfdom, when it is really a symbol of their ties to the land at the will of their lord. No serf ever really owns anything, not even the clothes on their back. And if you don't believe this is so, try to accomplish anything without the permission of your betters.

People have been borrowing to start businesses and participate in the consumer economy for years. Many people believe that owner-occupied housing creates better situations for loved ones. I know of different patterns for apartment-dwellers and home owners. Apartment dwellers are more likely to go out on the town -- to nightclubs and restaurants. People who own their own homes (if there is a mortgage) and have spacious kitchens are more likely to cook their own meat loaf than go out for crab cakes. Owning a home with a mortgage doesn't require that many conditions -- one must meet the rent, keep the property insured, pay the property taxes, and keep the building up to code.

Playwrite, you really do get worked up over so many things. Saying all those nasty things to so many of us must be raising your blood pressure to unhealthy levels. I would offer you meds, but I prefer not to push drugs. Instead, I'll sing you a song.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

People who do not live as serfs are not serfs.

You seem to be saying this as if it was an argument that Americans are not serfs. This even though it is (seemingly) clear that the context of their places in society and modes of life are very much those of serfs. It makes one wonder, exactly what you are imagining when you think of "living like a serf". Is it Americans' colorful clothes and relatively potato-light diets that suffice to you to declare them not-serfs? Those strike me as very far from the essential*. One's mode of life is very much one of context, it strikes me, and not so much one of details or goodies in any specifics.

---
*qu'est invisible pour les yeux -- I feel compelled to add, knowing how very much you love the superficially-highbrow.

Originally Posted by The Rani

NOW you're talkin!
I'm already doing that, buddy. How about you?

P.S. Fixed your quote for you.

And what exactly would that be? California's exchange is tough logistically, but not politically. And the Medicare expansion is a slam dunk.

CA is where a larger regional exchange might evolve and take in some purple states (e.g., AZ, NV, ) and where the public option might make its first appearance. I think helping with that might be a tad more worthwhile than whining about Obama for not being the Messiah.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

YOU'RE EVIL!!

NO, YOU'RE EVIL!!

NU UHH!!

God, I've missed discussing things on the internet.

The lazy posting of the "lesser evil" meme is not going to go unchallenged any longer. Get use to it.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

You seem to be saying this as if it was an argument that Americans are not serfs. This even though it is (seemingly) clear that the context of their places in society and modes of life are very much those of serfs. It makes one wonder, exactly what you are imagining when you think of "living like a serf". Is it Americans' colorful clothes and relatively potato-light diets that suffice to you to declare them not-serfs? Those strike me as very far from the essential*. One's mode of life is very much one of context, it strikes me, and not so much one of details or goodies in any specifics.

Such freedom as we Americans have is far more precarious than most of us think. We are at risk of a New Feudalism in which small elites do what they inevitably try to do -- become an oppressive, exploitative aristocracy. Just look at the compensation of America's executive elite. Salaries and soft bonuses in excess of $1 million are becoming more the norm for the Few who do everything possible to pare wages to near-starvation levels.

Don't let the spoiled brat kids of the executive elite fool you. Rarely do they know another way of life, and they surely will want the same perquisites of a nomenklatura that their parents grab. I say "grab" and not "earn" because what people get for their efforts often has little connection to their contributions but instead their ability to negotiate from positions of power. Those kids do not want to be without the limousines, expensive travel and plush resorts, and 'best seats in the house'. Do you have any reason to believe that America's bureaucratic elites will not become hereditary for all practical purposes?

I am fully aware that bright clothing is the result of inexpensive dyes beginning with Prussian blue... and chlorine bleaches that get the 'whitest whites' as contrasts to anything. The old image commonplace in America of the old Soviet Union and China as a place of people in drab attire depended upon photos taken in the winter -- and winter clothes by most people are drab. Using summer scenes in New England isn't a fair contrast.

I'm not convinced of any superiority of the 'high-brow'. One likes it or doesn't. The people who ride motorcycles on Interstate 55 would almost never be happy on sailboats on Lake Michigan because they would find sailing a bore -- and those who love the peace and quiet of a sailboat would surely find the noise of a motorcycle appalling. Where would you rather go on a vacation -- Boston or Las Vegas? That's not a question of money.

...One can have all the university professors if you wish, but all and all it is skilled labor that does the most to create the material basis of prosperity.

---
*qu'est invisible pour les yeux -- I feel compelled to add, knowing how very much you love the superficially-highbrow.

Knowing a little French isn't all that impressive. whether that applies to you or me.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

And you have, trust-fund?

Yeah... pretty much what I thought...

Are we going to have to get into that again? You know, where you come across as an idiot on the nature of contracts and somewhat of a pervert with your fixation on "dick waving" -
- http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...039#post381039

As noted to you on several occasions, a trust is a form of contract. The one that I'm involved in is an extended family trust where I'm a voting member. By contractual requirements. I do not qualify as a beneficiary in any way, shape, or form except for perhaps the emotional benefits from helping a variety of family member (all outside my immediate family) and outside charitable organizations. I have always earned my own money, paid for my own things, and have experienced things that I'm sure would have made you go into the fetal position for longer than your gestation. So, in short, F off.

Maybe I need to start a Justisms threat to go with the Glickism. You’re getting as repetitive and nearly as boring as him.

Here's someone who puts the ideolgoy blindness aside and gives a cold hard look at the truth -

http://angrybearblog.com/2013/05/wha...the-ppaca.html

What Is The Out of Pocket Maximum You Will Pay Under the PPACA?
run75441 | May 7, 2013 8:00 am


Healthcare There are quite a few blogs in the blogosphere who tend to get the PPACA wrong and conflate the issues of it well beyond what is reasonable and truthful. Maybe they just do not know what the facts are and miss the benefits of the PPACA to dwell on the negatives exclusively. Many tend to dwell on the amount of money one has to pay out in insurance and deductibles, what the PPACA does not do, and why we should go back to . . . ahh nothing? For the record, the PPACA is not single payer nor is it even universal healthcare. It is a convenient compromise which has many positives which did not exist previously. Some thoughts for those who think differently . . .

Maggie Mahar at The Health Beat Blog: “Even if you do not qualify for a subsidy, your out of pocket spending is capped at about $5,500 for an individual; $12,000 for a couple. (That includes deductible and co-pays under a Bronze plan–or any other plan).

A couple earning $65,000 joint might not have $12,000 lying around –especially if they were young. But they could work out a payment plan with the hospital or surgeon– paying, say $5,000 up front as a sign of good faith, and $7,000 over time. If they had to, they could borrow the $5,000 from relatives or friends or a credit card.(These days it’s pretty easy to get a credit card that charges 0% interests on cash withdrawals for 6 months to a year).

Bottom line: they don’t lose their house, and they don’t go bankrupt. A $12,000 bill is the worst that can happen to them, even if they’re in a horrible accident and in the hospital for 3 months.

There will also be no annual limit or lifetime limit on how much the policy will pay out.

This is why the ACA is a boon—even for people who don’t qualify for subsidies. You can’t be ruined by medical bills, and they can[not] stop paying even if you have a very expensive chronic disease.

As for poor people –if they’re below 133% of poverty, they’ll be on Medicaid (once all of the states expand Medicaid which, eventually, they will).If they’re above 133% of poverty, the subsidies are rich enough to make insurance comprehensive affordable.” Maggie Mahar in an email.

Families USA Foundation: Worry Less, Spend Less: Out-of-Pocket Spending Caps Protect America’s Families; ”The Affordable Care Act initially sets the level of these new caps by referencing an existing definition—the annual out-of-pocket spending limits for high-deductible health plans that are associated with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). If these caps went into effect in 2011,they would be $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families.” http://www.familiesusa2.org/assets/p...nal-Report.pdf “Worry Less, Spend Less: Out-of-Pocket Spending Caps Protect America’s Families”

I am not a big fan of Barack Obama who wanders down the double yellow, weaving from one side to the other in attempts to secure his place in presidential history; but in the end, we are better off with the PPAC than what we had before “nothing.”

Duh.

- some wise words -

"The prevailing world depression, the enormous anomaly of unemployment in a world full of wants, the disastrous mistakes we have made, blind us to what is going on under the surface to the true interpretation of the trend of things. For I predict that both of the two opposed errors of pessimism which now make so much noise in the world will be proved wrong in our own time-the pessimism of the revolutionaries who think that things are so bad that nothing can save us but violent change, and the pessimism of the reactionaries who consider the balance of our economic and social life so precarious that we must risk no experiments. " - J.M. Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren" (1931)."

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

-snip irrelevant blah blah blah missing the point blah blah namedrop superficial erudition blah blah blah-

So... Are you intentionally evading the question, or did my measured inclusion of a couple of bright shiny chunks of metal distract you?

----
-of, and something about that word -- 'essential' -- when it's used as a noun draws me helplessly back to the line from st-exupery. It's hardly the best book in french literature; for my part (as my longstanding siggie hints) Quatrevingt-Treize at least deserves to be very high on that list. But it's sure as hell the most widely-read-in-French-classes. Quoting from it to a pseudo-highbrow is a bit of, whaddayacall, multilevel humor. You missed that, too -- damn distracting shinies!

Originally Posted by playwrite

Are we going to have to get into that again?

"We"? I'm content to head-fake a poke in your direction and let you frothy-berserk yourself yet another nice deep hole (whose existence you will thereupon deny). You're predictable, true, but sometimes predictable can be fun.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

"We"? I'm content to head-fake a poke in your direction and let you frothy-berserk yourself yet another nice deep hole (whose existence you will thereupon deny). You're predictable, true, but sometimes predictable can be fun.

It must be fun living in your world... even when the gold that your magic ponies poop out for you is worth less than before.

"If you decide not to get covered by insurance by 2014, you will be totally responsible for all health-care expenses incurred at full cost, including emergencies."

This is how it is now, why change?


"If you can't afford to pay, then by court order you will have to do community\hospital service totaled by dividing the total bill by minimum wage per hour."

This is slavery.



Isn't it interesting that a non-problem (health care) has been turned into a political issue that has everyone rationalizing themselves into various forms of servitude? Health care quality is not the same thing as paying for health care, though to listen to the screeching you wouldn't know the difference.

The real problem is one of money, and who controls the printing and distribution of it. Destroy that monopoly, and you solve all the problems.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

You seem to be saying this as if it was an argument that Americans are not serfs. This even though it is (seemingly) clear that the context of their places in society and modes of life are very much those of serfs. ...

Horseshit.

True wealth is measured by the degree of freedom you have to allot your limited time on this earth to your preferred activities. Gains in productivity that increase wealth are about gaining time for preferred activities by eliminating the need for time for less desirable activities.

People use to spend enormous amounts of time washing clothes, dishes, gathering/planting food, etc... Our innovations and productivity gains have reduce those times substantially. For the wealthier, they pay to have somebody else do it. If you want to grow a garden or prepare food you can spend your time doing it but it is a desirable preference not an absolute necessary commitment of your time.

Even symbols of wealth are about time. You have the wealth to benefit from others' time it took to mine the gold or diamonds or use their machines and energy. You have the wealth to benefit from someone else time (or substitited machines and energy) to wear high quality fibers in a design by someone who spent the time figuring out how to do that. Same goes for luxury homes, cars, you name it – in the end, it’s just showing off how much of others’ precious time you can command.

The typical American has flown on a jet plane often before they were out of diapers and they certainly have been in an automobile. These modes of transportation have resulted in freeing-up time unimaginable by serfs. A variety of foods are now available to nearly everyone; in most places, one just needs to talk to their iPhone and a delivery guy will appear at your door - where I live, I can literally get 24/7 any possible dish one has ever experienced anywhere in the world - usually within 30 minutes, 40 at top.

These things are all generally available to most Americans. And most importantly, they are representative of providing time for preferences, true wealth, that were unimaginable to Czars let alone serfs.

It's all well-and-good to want further means to allocate more of your limited time to preferences, i.e. true wealth – that’s how we grow the economy. And it is also fine to highlight inequities amongst Americans or with others – particularly when the differential has grown to such a degree. However, to suggest we live as serfs while swimming in wealth that was inconceivable to them, is not only stupid, but whiney.

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

The real problem is one of money, and who controls the printing and distribution of it. Destroy that monopoly, and you solve all the problems.[/COLOR]

Anybody can print their own money (just don't print the US govt. money; it's not your currency and you will go to jail).

Banks make new money everyday when they make a loan and credit an account with just a few keystrokes on a computer (they also create a debit that you now owe). Or, do you think they run down to the local govt pay window and get the cash?

You, me, employees, businesses and even the govt accept what the banks make out of thin air as money. And that's the real nut of it - getting others to accept your money as money.

As I said, you can print your own money; it's getting other people to accept it that's the problem. Good luck with that.

Now if you can't understand the simple reality of money, what makes you so sure you know the answers for our healthcare system?

Originally Posted by playwrite

-snip a different type of not-answering-the-question-

The question had nothing to do with wealth. Serfdom is not a function of how much stuff one has, or even to what degree one needs to labor to sustain oneself. "Serf" is a social status. That is, the entirety of its meaning is found in the question of how a class of people relates to, and is related to by, the other classes in society.

Attempting, as you so love to do, to derail a [potentially] substantive discussion about the social environment and the people and classes in it, into one about amounts and kinds of goodies and stuff? A decent person would be embarrassed.

You (naturally) are not. Please, feel free to continue peddling your empty apologetics. It's good to have that kind of stuff out in the open where people can learn from it.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Horseshit.

True wealth is measured by the degree of freedom you have to allot your limited time on this earth to your preferred activities. Gains in productivity that increase wealth are about gaining time for preferred activities by eliminating the need for time for less desirable activities.

And as my sailboat-vs.-motorcycle contrast suggests, both are expensive to buy and support. They also make cultural statements that fit some criteria of class. Destitute people can't buy either.

People used to spend enormous amounts of time washing clothes, dishes, gathering/planting food, etc... Our innovations and productivity gains have reduce those times substantially. For the wealthier, they pay to have somebody else do it. If you want to grow a garden or prepare food you can spend your time doing it but it is a desirable preference not an absolute necessary commitment of your time.

Precisely. Subsistence is a miserable way of life whether it results from an intractable reality of low technology or population pressure upon limited resources -- or the harsh but unnecessary decisions of some political elite that uses gross deprivation to enforce exploitation. Does anyone want to go back to the time before the reaper of Cyrus McCormick? Food got far less expensive after its invention; without it such gadgets as the electric light, the phonograph, and the telephone are irrelevant.

Even symbols of wealth are about time. You have the wealth to benefit from others' time it took to mine the gold or diamonds or use their machines and energy. You have the wealth to benefit from someone else time (or substitited machines and energy) to wear high quality fibers in a design by someone who spent the time figuring out how to do that. Same goes for luxury homes, cars, you name it – in the end, it’s just showing off how much of others’ precious time you can command.

...just as much, how well one manages one's own time and how effectively people use theirs. But could it eventually be that flagrant displays of excess will be seen for what they are? I must not be a normal person: I hate the word luxury because it signifies waste that keeps others in gross want.

The typical American has flown on a jet plane often before they were out of diapers and they certainly have been in an automobile. These modes of transportation have resulted in freeing-up time unimaginable by serfs. A variety of foods are now available to nearly everyone; in most places, one just needs to talk to their iPhone and a delivery guy will appear at your door - where I live, I can literally get 24/7 any possible dish one has ever experienced anywhere in the world - usually within 30 minutes, 40 at top.

I have been on jet planes often enough that travel on them is no longer special. By standards of the early 1960s I am Jet Set in distance traveled... but I am probably below average by current standards. Does this tell you something? I have had an alcoholic beverage only once on on a jet. That drink was free. I have better uses for $10 or so than for a glass of wine or a bottle of beer -- like a decent jug wine at my destination.

These things are all generally available to most Americans. And most importantly, they are representative of providing time for preferences, true wealth, that were unimaginable to Czars let alone serfs.

It all depends upon whether one wants horses or a nice stereo. The Tsar had great live music and theater available any time that he wanted.

It's all well-and-good to want further means to allocate more of your limited time to preferences, i.e. true wealth – that’s how we grow the economy. And it is also fine to highlight inequities amongst Americans or with others – particularly when the differential has grown to such a degree. However, to suggest we live as serfs while swimming in wealth that was inconceivable to them, is not only stupid, but whiney.

As I say, in a benign social order the difference between being upper-middle class and middle working class is not so much means as culture -- preferring to read hard-cover books to watching Ultimate Fighting, preferring travel to Europe to tooling around in an RV, using unsullied grammar instead of butchering the English language, and wearing wool instead of polyester. Those are benign distinctions. In a bad social order the difference is between being the exploited or the exploited. We no longer need exploitation to achieve what we must, but the bloated demands of economic elites depend on keeping the working masses in fear, in debt, and in gross need. This 4T almost certainly decides whether we have a social order in which gross need is an anachronism or one in which the Orwellian nightmare of a boot pressing upon a human face is the norm.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Now you've done it, you awoke the dormant music major in me...

F Major - 2/4 time

I III | V⁷ ii^6/5 | I - leading tone III - leading tone | III
I III | V⁷ ii ^6/5 | I IV - leading tone | I

Probably got the superscript numbers wrong, but it's too late for me to care, and my inner music major wants to go back to sleep.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The question had nothing to do with wealth. Serfdom is not a function of how much stuff one has, or even to what degree one needs to labor to sustain oneself. "Serf" is a social status. That is, the entirety of its meaning is found in the question of how a class of people relates to, and is related to by, the other classes in society.

Attempting, as you so love to do, to derail a [potentially] substantive discussion about the social environment and the people and classes in it, into one about amounts and kinds of goodies and stuff? A decent person would be embarrassed.

You (naturally) are not. Please, feel free to continue peddling your empty apologetics. It's good to have that kind of stuff out in the open where people can learn from it.

But I didn't say it was a function of stuff or subsistence. I said that wealth is a measure of the degree someone can spend time on one's preferred activities.

In part that is dependent on the amount of purchasing power one has. It also depends on to what extent society around you puts on limits - obviously, one who would prefer killing other people as an activity is going to have limits imposed by society that only in the grosses of situations would be upended by wealth.

There's a trade-off there in that, as a result of the efficiency of the division of labor, an individual has much greater potential to acquire wealth (time for preferences) in a society than by themselves (unless their preference is to live as a maggot-eating hermit). To some extent or another, one accepts societal limits in order to gain the greater potential for purchasing power with an overall and substantial net gain in wealth (i.e. time for preferences).

One typically finds that those who complain about that trade-off are confusing laziness for serfdom.

Everybody works for somebody.

So my answer to you boils down to, "get over it."

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

And as my sailboat-vs.-motorcycle contrast suggests, both are expensive to buy and support. They also make cultural statements that fit some criteria of class. Destitute people can't buy either.



Precisely. Subsistence is a miserable way of life whether it results from an intractable reality of low technology or population pressure upon limited resources -- or the harsh but unnecessary decisions of some political elite that uses gross deprivation to enforce exploitation. Does anyone want to go back to the time before the reaper of Cyrus McCormick? Food got far less expensive after its invention; without it such gadgets as the electric light, the phonograph, and the telephone are irrelevant.



...just as much, how well one manages one's own time and how effectively people use theirs. But could it eventually be that flagrant displays of excess will be seen for what they are? I must not be a normal person: I hate the word luxury because it signifies waste that keeps others in gross want.



I have been on jet planes often enough that travel on them is no longer special. By standards of the early 1960s I am Jet Set in distance traveled... but I am probably below average by current standards. Does this tell you something? I have had an alcoholic beverage only once on on a jet. That drink was free. I have better uses for $10 or so than for a glass of wine or a bottle of beer -- like a decent jug wine at my destination.



It all depends upon whether one wants horses or a nice stereo. The Tsar had great live music and theater available any time that he wanted.



As I say, in a benign social order the difference between being upper-middle class and middle working class is not so much means as culture -- preferring to read hard-cover books to watching Ultimate Fighting, preferring travel to Europe to tooling around in an RV, using unsullied grammar instead of butchering the English language, and wearing wool instead of polyester. Those are benign distinctions. In a bad social order the difference is between being the exploited or the exploited. We no longer need exploitation to achieve what we must, but the bloated demands of economic elites depend on keeping the working masses in fear, in debt, and in gross need. This 4T almost certainly decides whether we have a social order in which gross need is an anachronism or one in which the Orwellian nightmare of a boot pressing upon a human face is the norm.

Some good insights there particularly at the personal level.

I would just note one aspect about luxury. Those that produce or sell that luxury generally don't mind doing so for it is what provides them the wealth that they can obtain. Yes, there are those blood diamonds and sweatshop collapse that greatly stain that obtainment of wealth, but that is a breakdown of the society that is suppose to provide the limits.

It's an organic dilemma that a society capable of providing those sufficient limits can only be derived from wealth accumulation – time to pursue collective action as a preference.

Originally Posted by playwrite

But I didn't say it was a function of stuff or subsistence. I said that wealth is a measure of the degree someone can spend time on one's preferred activities.

In part that is dependent on the amount of purchasing power one has. It also depends on to what extent society around you puts on limits - obviously, one who would prefer killing other people as an activity is going to have limits imposed by society that only in the grosses of situations would be upended by wealth.

There's a trade-off there in that, as a result of the efficiency of the division of labor, an individual has much greater potential to acquire wealth (time for preferences) in a society than by themselves (unless their preference is to live as a maggot-eating hermit). To some extent or another, one accepts societal limits in order to gain the greater potential for purchasing power with an overall and substantial net gain in wealth (i.e. time for preferences).

One typically finds that those who complain about that trade-off are confusing laziness for serfdom.

Everybody works for somebody.

So my answer to you boils down to, "get over it."

Just to further clarify with you, Justin, my issue with you is not about the war between the classes; it's about where you put the benchmark that anchors your position.

Serfdom connotes a level of absolute poverty that is not generally founded in our society. If instead you wanted to compare the lifestyle of someone making the medium income in this nation to a hedge fund manager that can get access to the Lincoln Room - I be all for it.

Very much like Deb C's relentless attacks on Obama, you obscure the issue you want to discuss and your position looks hysterical rather than perhaps something of potential value.

It's actually very simple. If you owe money on a mortgage you own nothing. The bank does. If you pay off your house, your lord the government still has shadow title on your land and can reclaim it at any time. Sometimes it's the pretense of property tax, but if any government functionary wants to they can use the lords' eminent domain power to dispossess you of what you thought was your land. The true owner of land is the person who claims final control in all situations. Therefore, no citizen is anything but a serf.

The power of the government to take land is becoming embodied as an individual power, as the government increasingly serves the whims of the wealthy. Therefore government powers will increasingly take on the tone of "rights", which can only be assigned to individuals. (Individuals have "rights", governments do not; they have "powers". The distinction is blurred by those who anthropomorphise government into a kind of human god-head. )

Yet medieval serfs at least had courts and rights to contest the lords' will when a master wanted to dispossess the underling "unlawfully". Our courts of the lord have pretty much told us schmucks that we cannot contest eminent domain, we have no standing.

The only people who escape serfdom are those who are massively wealthy. Not simply in terms of holdings, but in the ability to command resources and make other people do their bidding. These people are ostensibly citizens like the rest of us. Yet because the government wouldn't dare attack them with their own tools, and in fact will do the bidding of these plutocrats, they are de facto above the law and may do as they wish.

Right now what they wish is to turn American serfs into American peasants, without even the right of redress in serf's court. This health insurance scam is a symptom of this effort.

edit to add:

By the way, I heard an interesting statistic the other day. 86% of all homes for sale in the country are owned by the big 3 banks. It seems this massive meltdown in the housing market, while being blamed on those shiftless "sub prime" peasants, has somehow resulted in the oligarchs shifting ownership of all the land to themselves. Funny, that.