Lao Tzu Quotes
The Court is corrupt: The fields are overgrown with weeds; the granaries are empty. Yet there are those dressed in fineries, With swords at their sides: Filled with food and drink, Possessed of too much wealth. This is called "Taking the lead in robbery.
Lao Tzu, c. 604-531 BC, Chinese Philosopher & Founder of Taoism, Tao Te Ching
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
There were few if any consumer protection laws in those days and many wealthy aristocrats made their money by taking advantage of the poor. They were the landowners, bankers, financiers and often the industrialists. Shaw was a sarcastic social critic and this is a typical line he gave his upper class characters. Today, we have more controls on business and finance, and many wealthy business people have gotten that way by providing great value to the consumers and being honest. However, we still have large numbers of wealthy members of society who do make their money from the poor and middle class by unethical and often illegal means. In the aftermath of the Meltdown of 2008. hundreds of thousands of the homes of the working poor and middle class were foreclosed by the major banks forging the legal documentation for the foreclusures. Millions of consumer contracts are issued that even a PhD cannot understand the terms of without special legal and financial training. There is even a legal definition of a salesperson lying to make a sale which is so commonplace that our law excuses it and calls it "puffing". However, there has been over time, improvement over Shaw's era.
Although Fiorello La Guardia proposed an aggressive reform program for New York City, he did not go far enough for some.
Millions of people were hungry. There was not enough wheat (they called it corn) to make up for the failed potatoes, and the aristocracy, the landlords, had a very high protective tariff to prevent American wheat from driving the prices down. The aristocrats would not budge on the “corn laws” so Victoria and her government appropriated funds to buy expensive English wheat to distribute to the needy. She also instituted some public employment so the unemployed would, as in the New Deal later, would work on public improvement. However, all administration went through the landlords who took large portions of the corn for the poor to pay themselves for the cost of distributing the corn to the needy. Then many landlords assigned the publicly paid workers to improvement projects on their own personal land. The Queen and Prince were furious and they began an effort that would repeal the Corn Laws and make England a free trading nation.
Lao Tzu (/ˈlaʊˈtsuː/ or /ˈlaʊˈdzʌ/), also rendered as Laozi (UK: /ˈlaʊˈzɪə/; US: /ˈlaʊˈtsiː/; Chinese: 老子, Mandarin: [làu̯.tsɹ̩]; commonly translated as "Old Master") and Lao-Tze (/ˈlaʊˈdzeɪ/), was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions.
