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<blockquote data-quote="al_leister" data-source="post: 756308" data-attributes="member: 29920"><p>Has anyone read about The Great Money Trick?</p><p> </p><p>Most people, regardless of country or creed, do not read books. Maybe mags in the Sunday papers, but not books. Of the small minority of a given population who do read books, very few will read up on political economy.</p><p>Fiction or nonfiction, to read through a book requires concentration. The concentration span of modern society is increasingly shrinking. It is widely accepted that book reader numbers will continue to shrink. Most people i know; friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances do not regularly read books. 3rd level educated or not.</p><p>This book explains the political economic system without the need for expert knowledge. It is a novel; fiction.</p><p>I read this book many years ago and have since passed it on.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Criticism (The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists)</strong></p><p>Writing in the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Evening_News" target="_blank"><u>Manchester Evening News</u></a></em> in April 1946 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell" target="_blank"><u>George Orwell</u></a> praised the book's ability to convey without sensationalism "the actual detail of manual work and the tiny things almost unimaginable to any comfortably situated person which make life a misery when one's income drops below a certain level." He considered it "a book that everyone should read" and a piece of social history that left one "with the feeling that a considerable novelist was lost in this young working-man whom society could not bother to keep alive."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists#cite_note-2" target="_blank"><u>[2]</u></a></p><p> </p><p>The Great Money Trick is described in the book; <strong><em>The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>The book advocates a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few. A key chapter is "The Great Money Trick", in which Owen organises a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices of bread as raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen 'employs' his workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer — who does not work — generates personal wealth whilst the workers effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. This is Tressell's practical way of illustrating the <a href="http://www.diabetes.co.uk/wiki/Marxist" target="_blank"><u>Marxist</u></a> theory of <a href="http://www.diabetes.co.uk/wiki/Surplus_value" target="_blank"><u>surplus value</u></a>, which in the capitalist system is generated by labour.</p><p>The house that is under renovation in the book, referred to frequently as the 'job', is known by the workmen as 'The Cave'. Given the author's interest in the philosophy of Plato, it is highly likely that this is a reference to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". A major recurring theme in Tressell's book highlights the inability and reluctance of the workers to comprehend, or even consider, an alternative economic system [other than free market capitalism]. The author attributes this inability, amongst other things, to the fact that they have never experienced an alternative system, and have been raised as children to unquestioningly accept the status quo, regardless of it being potentially inimical to their own interests. In Plato's work, the underlying narrative suggests that in the absence of an alternative, human beings will accept and submit to their present condition and consider it to be 'normal', no matter how contrived the circumstances.</p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists" target="_blank"><u>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists</u></a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="al_leister, post: 756308, member: 29920"] Has anyone read about The Great Money Trick? Most people, regardless of country or creed, do not read books. Maybe mags in the Sunday papers, but not books. Of the small minority of a given population who do read books, very few will read up on political economy. Fiction or nonfiction, to read through a book requires concentration. The concentration span of modern society is increasingly shrinking. It is widely accepted that book reader numbers will continue to shrink. Most people i know; friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances do not regularly read books. 3rd level educated or not. This book explains the political economic system without the need for expert knowledge. It is a novel; fiction. I read this book many years ago and have since passed it on. [B]Criticism (The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists)[/B] Writing in the [I][URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Evening_News'][U]Manchester Evening News[/U][/URL][/I] in April 1946 [URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell'][U]George Orwell[/U][/URL] praised the book's ability to convey without sensationalism "the actual detail of manual work and the tiny things almost unimaginable to any comfortably situated person which make life a misery when one's income drops below a certain level." He considered it "a book that everyone should read" and a piece of social history that left one "with the feeling that a considerable novelist was lost in this young working-man whom society could not bother to keep alive."[URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists#cite_note-2'][U][2][/U][/URL] The Great Money Trick is described in the book; [B][I]The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists[/I][/B] The book advocates a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few. A key chapter is "The Great Money Trick", in which Owen organises a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices of bread as raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen 'employs' his workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer — who does not work — generates personal wealth whilst the workers effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. This is Tressell's practical way of illustrating the [URL='http://www.diabetes.co.uk/wiki/Marxist'][U]Marxist[/U][/URL] theory of [URL='http://www.diabetes.co.uk/wiki/Surplus_value'][U]surplus value[/U][/URL], which in the capitalist system is generated by labour. The house that is under renovation in the book, referred to frequently as the 'job', is known by the workmen as 'The Cave'. Given the author's interest in the philosophy of Plato, it is highly likely that this is a reference to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". A major recurring theme in Tressell's book highlights the inability and reluctance of the workers to comprehend, or even consider, an alternative economic system [other than free market capitalism]. The author attributes this inability, amongst other things, to the fact that they have never experienced an alternative system, and have been raised as children to unquestioningly accept the status quo, regardless of it being potentially inimical to their own interests. In Plato's work, the underlying narrative suggests that in the absence of an alternative, human beings will accept and submit to their present condition and consider it to be 'normal', no matter how contrived the circumstances. [URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists'][U]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists[/U][/URL] [/QUOTE]
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