Everyone can potentially benefit from the creation or addition of economic value. However, each participant in the process usually has available to one various actions that increase one’s own gain, while lowering the others’ gain by a greater amount. The only exceptions are situations involving simultaneous exchange of goods or services of immediately verifiable attributes and qualities, but these are a small subset of all economic interactions. In most situations, the participants have opportunities to supply defective goods, shrink on the job, renege on payment, and so on. The term “opportunism” has been coined for this whole class of actions that tempt individuals but hurt the group as a whole. Problems also arise with property rights. If no mechanisms—governmental or non-governmental—exist to deter theft, then any one person can wait for someone else to create property or produce output and then steal it; this usually takes less effort than creating the property or the product oneself. Some may even extort money from others by making threats to destroy their property. Anticipation of opportunism, theft, or extortion constitutes a strong disincentive to making potentially valuable investments or entering into mutually beneficial contacts in the first place. Therefore if market economies are to succeed, they need a foundation of mechanisms to deter such privately profitable but socially dysfunctional behaviors, and thereby to sustain adequate incentives to invest, produce, and exchange. In other words, markets need the underpinning of institutions of economic governance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Economist have always recognized the need for governance. However, until relatively recently they assumed that the government, specifically the institution and machinery of the state’s law, provided the needed governance. Criminal law, while it has major non-economic functions, also serves to deter theft and some forms of economic fraud. Civil law had economic aspects centrally in it concerns. Contract law can be said to be mainly for the governance of economic activity; laws of tort and liability pertain to contracts as well as non-contractual relationships, both mainly in the economic sphere. Even the most libertarian economists, who deny the government any useful role in most aspect of the economy, allow that making and enforcing laws that give clear definitions of property rights, and ensuring adherence to voluntary private contracts, are legitimate and indeed essential functions of government, in addition to national defense. The government’s major functions must be to protect our freedom both from the enemies outside our gates and from our fellow-citizens: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets. There seems universal agreement in traditional economies that the framework of law is a necessary condition for a market economy to succeed. When the framework of the law fails, people often times become opportunistic and commodify their bodies. When it comes to an analysis of women’s involvement in prostitution, some scholars insist that prostitution is a form of gendered victimization whereby women’s impoverished status in society forces them into a life of prostitution and make their exit unrealistic. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Others view prostitution as a gendered survival strategy whereby entrepreneurial women utilize their involvements in the sex market as a means of achieving financial and personal independence. Interviews with twenty-one Sacramento streetwalker’s life histories reveal the presence of both gendered victimization and gendered survival strategies. Women experience their prostitution roles in contradictory ways; they see it as both a means of survival and a threat to their survival. Moreover, these women have a number of coping strategies that they invoke en route to accommodating or making sense of this inherent contradiction. The women, in this study, who are prostitutes adopt a series of interchangeable identities. Sometimes they stress the financial aspects of their work and talk about “prostitutes-as-workers” or “prostitutes-as-commodified bodies.”  These mindsets construct men as sources of income that could be exploited via pleasures of the flesh. When speaking about the pimp role, the women often invoke a “prostitution-as business-woman” or “prostitute-as-loving-partner” identity. These two competing World views construct men as a liability or expense, with the first rejecting the need for a pimp and the second rationalizing his presence in their lives. Still other times, the women invoke a “prostitution-as-victim” or “prostitute-as-survivor” mentality. These discussions frame men as a source of risk and stress that the prostitute must constantly confront or negotiate their antics. Women who are prostitutes, act and think in a seemingly chaotic World, by constantly struggling to impose and reimpose a sense of order or personal understanding to an inherently contradictory lifestyle. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Centuries of prostitution-related research permit researchers to be fairly clear about one thing. Women who get and stay involved in prostitution tend to be women whose lives are torn apart by the aggregate effects of poverty and who often become homeless, physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by parents, partners or boyfriends, grew up in state care and in institutions and have had histories of absconding from foster placements and children’s homes. Many have had drug and alcohol problems that compound the social and material adversity that they face. Other have already been in trouble with the law for petty property offenses. And yet research also tells another tale. Whilst poverty may drive women into prostitution, it is through prostitution that many women are able to secure a degree of control and stability within their personal and economic lives. Involvement in prostitution present women with the opportunity to combine child care with full time work (id est, prostitutes can chose their working hours, can work from home and can move in and out of work a they desire or need). It provides them with relatively higher amounts of income than they might otherwise have obtained. Hence it is that prostitutes have been talked about as “economic entrepreneurs” and prostitution as the resistance to relative poverty and economic dependency on men—situations created by women’s exclusion from the labor market. Of course, recognizing both of these research tales raises some very interesting question. Chief amongst these are: what are the contradictions inhere in involvement in prostitution? What type of problems does sustained involvement in prostitution present to the women so involved? How are these problems and/or contradictions accommodated (id est made sense of)? #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

The following draws on research data that was collected in the City of Sacramento towards the quarter century mark of the new millennium. The research project investigated and theorized the conditions in which it was possible for women’s sustained involvement in prostitution. The story told here is both a condense version of that larger story and a description of the various ways in which women experienced their involvement in prostitution and the symbolic landscape that helped them understand the choices they made. Prostituting, as in the activity of selling sex, is above all else an economic activity: as with any economic activity, personal motivation is usually very clear—the desire for money. However, involvement in prostitution is much more then merely about money, if only because being involved in prostitution means being embroiled in activities that are potentially risky, quasi-legal and certainly criminalized. Most of the interviewees in study discussed their involvement in prostitution as the opening of future possibilities for them as women in the face of ever-mounting social and material difficulties. Prostitution was seen as a way to survive: poverty, housing difficulties, and violent relationships that were often the result of rejecting living a life that left them dependent on specific men (fathers, husbands, or boyfriends) or on state welfare benefits. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

In common with other working class women, the respondents had difficulty earning enough money to support themselves. They had few, if any educational qualifications, marketable skills or labor market experience. When they could find work (and only 14 had), they were employed in the low-paid unskilled service sector or unskilled retail sector. Thirteen women had excluded themselves from the labor market altogether. Many of the women simply stated: “no one would employ me.” Removing oneself from the formal labor market or failing to maintain an “ordinary” working history can have profound effects. For these women, it left them with three choices: they could become dependent on state welfare benefits, dependent on particular men, or provide themselves with income in ways that are typically illegally criminogenic. Independence and the rejection of dependency was the central theme in all interviews—especially when talking about violent relationships. Most women explained their involvement in prostitution as being bound up with their rejection of being dependent on husbands, fathers, boyfriends, or state welfare benefits. Those women who grew up in Local Authority Care rejected dependence on a state-structured care system. Others attributed their involvement in prostitution to the need to “sort out” pressing financial problems, multiple debt and so on and when asked, it was precisely their rejection of being dependent on specific men (who were abusive or who did not provide economically or who had become the answer, because it often precipitated an immediate financial crisis. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

In general, these women constructed the dependency they experienced in their childhood pasts or in their adult intimate relationships as the cause of the violent abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and/or restrictions that they experienced. By the women’s own accounts, to be economically and socially independent was the means by which they could avoid any future abuse. The respondents talked about their involvement in prostitution as being a means of securing their future economic and social survival. As working class women, they lived within a social and material context where their survival was, generally, contingent on particular men, the state or casual part-time low-paid employment. Given that these specific women had also rejected ways of living that left them dependent on someone or something else, involvement in prostitution was seen not simply as an economic activity, but more importantly as a survival strategy that would enable them to live the lives they wanted to, to provide for themselves and any dependents they might have and to fashion a new better future for themselves in the face of ever decreasing legitimate opportunities in their present. Involvement in prostitution also came to be seen by these women as a trap within which their survival was threatened. Each women commented that being involved in prostitution had furthered her impoverishment, dramatically heightened her likelihood of being the victim of sexual and/or physical assault and increased her dependence on men (who, as pimps, were often violent). #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The women discussed the tremendous economic risks inherent in engagement in prostitution regardless of whether they made the kind of money that allowed them to sort out their problems, sign off the social security register, obtain housing and leave their male partners. Specifically, they spoke of the great costs incurred through working such as the financial investments needed (for example, buying clothes and condoms, renting a flat, purchasing a mobile phone and paying for advertising). While it is true that many people have new expenditures when starting new work, for these women, the extra financial burdens involved in prostitution came at a time when their lives were already marked by extreme poverty and housing problems. In addition, however, working from the streets brought with it its own unique financial problems and risks. All but two of the respondents had been convicted of a prostitution-related offense—typically loitering or soliciting. In most cases, the convictions had been punished with fines. This change in sentencing lead to an increase in the number of convictions and in the levels of fines which had the perverse result that more, not fewer, women were sent to prison not for prostitution-related offense, but for non-payment of fines. Few of the interviewees could remember exactly how many times they had been arrested or the precise level of fines they either still had to pay or had paid in the course of their involvement in prostitution. However, my own observations in the court suggested fines tended to be in the region of approximately $100 to $200 per charge and that women often had three or more charges against them each time they went to court. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Finding women involved in prostitution for their prostitution-related offenses is paradoxical. Many of them simply did not have the financial resources to pay their fines. The obvious irony is that the criminal justice system, itself, created the conditions that both justified these women’s continued involvement in prostitution as well as trapped them within it. Perhaps the most dramatic way in which involvement in prostitution came to be understood as a form of gendered victimization was in their experience of the practice of pimping—a practice which profoundly increased both their poverty, their homelessness and their likelihood of being victims of violence. All but two of the women had been pimped. Thirteen women recalled having most of their money taken from them under the threat of violence. All but two of the women had been pimped. Thirteen women recalled having most of their money taken from them under the threat of violence. They were left only with a “subsistence” allowance to get them through each day. Lois (aged 21) recalled being given only $5.00 per day. Ruthie (age 25) talked about having only $10.00 each day in order to buy condoms and cigarettes. In terms of violence, all of the women who had been pimped talked about regular episodes of violence. They recounted their fears of being murdered or of being punched, stabbed, raped or even shot by their pimps. One of the consequences was that the women believed that being pimped was inevitable and could not be escaped. All spoke of the impossibility of “just not giving him any money.” Too much was at stake. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Threatened with violence, controlled through housing and debt, often cut off from family and friends, the women believed that resistance was futile. Katrina (aged 20) summarized the interconnections between these issues. “We’re not getting no money out of it. The only way we’re going to get money is if we hide it. And if we get found out—the beatings! We usually get found out.” Risk pervades the life of most prostitutes and non-prostitute women in the first quarter of the twenty-first century of Sacramento. For prostitute women, however, the manner in which they negotiated the risk they encountered in their struggle to survive has led to their involvement. Conventional economic theory does not underestimate the importance of law; rather, the problem is that it takes the existence of a well-functioning institution of state law for granted. It assumes that the state has a monopoly over the use of coercion, and that the state designs and enforces laws with the objective of maximizing social welfare. Moreover, until the last 30 years or so, that is, until economics recognized the ubiquity and importance of information asymmetries and transaction costs, the usual implicit assumption was that the law operated costlessly. This simple view of law made it possible to achieve faster progress in the research on the economic forces of supply and demand, and of their equilibration in the markets; therefore it was a useful abstraction in its time. However, its shortcomings soon hinder rather than help the economic analysis of markets and limit its usefulness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Only advanced countries in recent times come anywhere near the economist’s ideal picture, in which the government supplies legal institutions that are guided solely by concern for social welfare and operate at low cost. In all countries through much of the history, the apparatus of state law was very costly, slow, unreliable, biased, corrupt, weak, or simply absent. In most countries this situation still prevails. Markets with such weak underpinnings of law differ greatly from those depicted in conventional economic theory. Deficiencies of the law are most acute in less-developed countries (LDCs) and in transition economies. To further highlight this illustration, there are more than 25 million cases pending before the courts in India, and even if no new ones are filed, it will take 324 years to clear the backlog. Laws in many transition economies are a façade without a foundation. Recent assessment of the effectiveness of the legal system in post-Russia differ among Western observers, but a fair assessment is that while the Arbitrazch court system created to handle commercial disputes has begun to function reasonably well in handing down verdicts, getting these verdicts enforced remains highly problematic, especially for smaller enterprises. Similar situations exist in other transition economies in Eastern Europe and in Vietnam. Of course economic activity does not grind to a halt because the government cannot or does not provide adequate underpinning of law. Too much potential value would go unrealized; therefore groups and societies have much to gain if they can create alternative institutions to provide the necessary economic governance. They attempt to develop, and sometimes succeed in developing, such institutions of varying degrees of effectiveness. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

These include self-protection or hired professional protection for property rights, networks of information transmission, and social norms and punishments for contract enforcement. Indeed, an extreme version of the Coase Theorem says that everything works out in the best feasible way. Even if government is costly, the least-cost method will get chosen from among the available institutions, whether it be state law of a private alternative. The emergence of a state or government is itself endogenous, and will occur if, and only if, it is the most efficient mode of governance. However, even without going that far, we can recognize that societies will attempt to evolve other institutions, albeit imperfect ones, to underpin their economic activity when state law is missing or unusable. In other words, governmental provision of legal institutions is not strictly necessary for achieving reasonable good outcomes from markets. Passivity caused by wrong ideas of humility and self-abasement. The self-actualized consents, when accepting “death,” to let it be carried out in a “nothingness” and a “self-effacement” which gives one no place for proper and true self-estimation whatsoever. If the self-actualized accepts the self-depreciation suggested to him and created by psychopathological offenders, it brings an atmosphere of hopelessness and weakness about one, and one conveys to others a spirit of darkness and heaviness, sadness and grief. One’s spirit is easily crushed, wounded, and depressed. One may attribute the case to conduct disorder, without being aware of any specific example of conduct disorder in one’s life; or one may even look upon one’s “suffering” experience as “vicarious” suffering for the Church. However, an abnormal sense of suffering is one of the chief symptoms of deception. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

In contrast to the true elimination of pride and all the forms of conduct disorder arising from it, the counterfeit caused by deception may be recognized by the self-actualized obtruding one’s self-depreciation at moments most inopportune, with painful perplexity to those who hear it; a shrinking back from service for God, with inability to recognize the interests of the kingdom of Christ; a laborious effort to keep “I” out of sight, both in conversation and actions, and yet which forces the “I” more into view in an objectionable form; a deprecatory, apologizing manner, which gives opportunity to the “World-rulers of darkness of this World” to instigate their subjects to crush and put aside this “not I” person, at moments of strategic importance to the kingdom of God; an atmosphere around such a one of weakness, darkness, sadness, grief, lack of hope, easily wounded touchiness. All these many be the result of a believer “willing,” in some moment of “surrender to death,” to accept an effacement of his true personality—but which God requires as a vessel for the manifestation of the Spirit of God, in a life of fullest cooperation with the Spirit of God. This believer, by his wrong belief and submission to psychopathological offenders, suppressed into passivity a personality which could not and was not meant to “die”; and by this passivity he played into the hands of the powers of darkness. God is the impossible possibility who is beyond all human possibilities. The question about the divine possibility is a human possibility. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

To be able to ask God, man must already have experience God as the goal of a possible question. If man cannot ask the question of God, then God’s answer—revelation—falls on deaf ears. Revelation would then be injected into history as a foreign body. One cannot sever human activities from both divine and demonic powers. Neither is truly dialectic. If the family is the fulcrum, then the family agency is the lever of professional intervention for the development of interpersonal competence. If family research is to shift the center of its thinking from the idea of adjustment to that of competence this will have important implications for family agencies. And the outlook of these agencies in turn has important bearing on the family research problems that are likely to arise. The final step in testing hypotheses such as those in the previous chapter is to see how they work out in practice, and how they influence the behavior of the staff and clients of family agencies. What the needs of the family are can only ben discerned by examining the historical development of the agencies. The question of whether it is legitimate to intervene in family affairs when the family’s own resources no longer suffice rather than leaving it to relatives and friends is not to be debated here. There probably never was such a phenomenon as a self-sufficient family, securely equipped with resources for meeting all its needs and crises. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

It is useful theoretically to imagine such an ideal type, as guide-line from which to calculate varying degrees of change, but it constitutes a hypothetical extreme which could only be approached and never attained in reality. It would be strange to conclude that the further back one goes in history, the more competent each family was to meet the needs of its members. It is true that in earlier times larger families and omnipresent neighbor gave the individual family member constant support. However, many couples nowadays get along quite well without dependence on either of these. Furthermore, techniques and resources are more plentiful now than they ever have been. If the self-sufficient family is taken as one extreme, the opposite would of course be the situation where all the former functions of the family had been transferred to other, specialized institutions. It is often said that in the early twenties certain communist thinkers and leaders in the Soviet Union actually sought to establish such a state of affairs; the evidence indicates that they moved in that direction, but not quite that far. Their later reversal of direction suggests the probability that this extreme, like its opposite, while a concept useful in theory, is not a goal achievable in practice. In practice, the functions of the family fluctuate within a considerably more narrow range than these extremes. It is doubtful if any function of the family had been wholly or permanently transferred to other institutions. If one looks at the family historically, it may appear as if the transfer of functions to and from the family has on the whole been unfavorable to the family, but some functions have occasionally been returned to the family, and almost any of them may be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

The conspicuous current example is of course the rise of home television at the expense of the motive theaters. It must be kept in mind that what are usually termed the functions of the family are but names for large categories of concrete behavior, and that the content of these categories is continually changing. It is important to emphasize that transfer of function can and does occur in both directions. After analyzing the changing functions of the family, there is the perturbing implication that the spectacular recent decline in family function is inevitable and irreversible. Some of the commentators who have elaborated upon this observation accept this pessimistic implication. Other declare that while now the family is largely deprived of it economic, protective, educational, recreational, and religious functions, it can concentrate better on its remaining task of child-rearing and affectional response. If this is not merely a wishful play on words, it is at best a groping conclusion. To get a firmer grasp of the realities, we must come down from such a level of abstraction. Not only the structure and processes of family life but the other institutions of the community have ceased to be regarded as natural and inevitable givens. The functionalist type of analysis, which stars with the postulation of an array of human needs and proceeds from there to delineate the necessary character of any social system which is deemed to satisfy thee needs, is perhaps a useful model for the description of a community, its members, and their institutions at a given moment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

It cannot, however, account for change or conflict within that community except through making auxiliary postulates about the natural, organic unity of the social system and the occurrence of dysfunctions or external interferences impending the system’s healthy, natural operation. Thus the many variants of functionalist analysis all share the idea that the goal of human striving is social and personal equilibrium or adjustment. Some of these theorists utilize an analogy to Newtonian physic, in which the components of a field acquire their relations through a balance of forces; others utilize an analogy to homeostasis or the healing process in the living organism, whereby the organism restores the status quo ante external deprivation or injury. Our retention of the concept of functions should not be taken to imply acceptance of any such debatable explanations. On the contrary, we have discarded adjustment as the imputed and desired end of activity, and we consider it indispensable to account as realistically as possible for each of the recent historical changes in the family, and for conflict over those to come. To do so, the concept of values must keep precedence over the concept of functions. It might be supposed that family agencies have come into existence only to repair deficiencies in the structure and functioning of the family. There is some truth to this observation but it is a limited truth. When subject to disaster or disability, families in the past have often turned for help to kin and neighbors, that is, to other families. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

On the other hand, quite unprovoked by calamity or deprivation, they have often combined to create new institutions which by concentrating on a limited task could perform some function better than the family itself. Even if it is only to make up for deficiencies, a new institution must prove its superiority over potential competitors or over informal assistance by other families. The family as an institution or any particular family does not simply try to discharge its function but it seeks to maximize its values which are ever in flux—being clarified, criticized, harmonized, added to, subtracted from, and limited by what is believed or found to be possible. If it were correct to assume the existence of given needs and their necessary satisfaction, then at any given time, if these needs were not met, the individual would perish. While this is true of a person’s organism, each person is more than a mere organism. If a person as a self-conscious personality does not sufficiently and intelligently value one’s organism, one will let it perish; one’s organism is one’s servant, not one’s master. A person wants not only survival but many other satisfactions as well, the nature of which cannot be deduced from one’s organism. One wants optimal satisfaction of these wants also. Moreover, one must in practice balance the satisfaction of these many wants—which accumulate by discovery and ramify with experience—against each other. One must constantly evaluate. One must set up categories and standards of judgment for organizing one’s behavior. These are one’s values One’s values are constantly being corrected, ratified, intensified, extended, and systematized through the sharing of experience with others. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

For this process of interaction in which one is immersed from birth, language and other signs furnish the necessary concepts and rankings. Communication is the sine qua non of objectification of values, for the investigation as for the investigator. If we may then define functions as the tasks or necessary actions for realizing taken values rather than given needs, the explanation for the transfer of function from the family to other institutions becomes, looking backward, almost obvious. Looking forward, it becomes problematic, contingent upon how current programs work out compared to expectations, and contingent upon continuous reformulation of what is desirable and possible. We thus seek to anticipate the emergence of changes and polarization of conflicts from within the system, rather than blindly awaiting disturbances from without. In reviewing the resources of family agencies it is necessary to keep two things in mind. First, many functions previously performed within the family have been taken over by institutions not currently regarded as family agencies. Hence, in terms of realization of values almost any agency could broadly be regarded as a family agency. Second, some institutions have developed that explicitly assume responsibility for the welfare of family members. Only these will here be called family agencies. Even with this limitation, it is clear that there is a vast proliferation of institutional machinery allegedly concerned with aiding the family, either directly as a unit, or indirectly through help to individual family members. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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The Stolen Property System (hereafter SPS) is that set of individuals and their interactions which locates, plans, facilitates, and its transfer to a new owner. Ideally this system will have six functioning modes: Research and planning mode—The determination of a demand for an item(s), its location, and how best it can be acquired. Extraction mode—The actual separation of property from its owner (the theft). Exchange mode—The transfer of the item from the extractor to the marketer (the person who will offer it for sale). Marketing mode—This includes transportation and storage, demand analysis (marketing information subsystem), packaging and advertising (any necessary modification in property prior to resale). Redistribution mode—The determination of where, when, and at what price the item will be resold. Evaluation model—The analysis of the feedback to the system as to its performance. In its simplest form, the SPS can consist of but a single individual as in the case of the thief peddling one’s own merchandise. In this situation, mode 3 would be combined with mode 2 into a single operation. At the uppermost level of complexity, the SPS can contain many individuals (the maximum number being indeterminate) as in the case of truck hijacking. In this situation, the planning mode (mode 1) alone will require either the accurate forecasting of the behaviors of shipper, dispatcher, and driver, or the enlistment of the assistance of one or all of these individuals. It is important to note that whether the SPS consists of one or a dozen individuals, all of its operations must be performed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

If this is not done by those within the system, then it will be undertaken by its clients or by others in the environment. An abridged version of the SPS, then, does not imply a functional curtailment, but rather a combining of functions into fewer operational steps. There is some evidence that the SPS in its simplest form does in fact occur. The low prices which fences were offering to addicts for stolen property were forcing addicts to sell the merchandise themselves. It is clear, however, that the nature of the SPS is such that it is most frequent manifestation consists of a division of labor between at least two individuals—the thief and the fence. A thief who steals merchandise is like bread without yeast, no good, just as essential elements in any accomplished act of thievery whenever merchandise is involved. This basic division of labor between the thief and fence occurs roughly at mode 3, with modes 1 and 2 generally allocated to the thief and modes 4 through 6 to the fence. The relationship between the thief and the fence in mode 3, though little studied, is essential. It is also precisely that interaction which the conventional view of thief fails to recognize and account for. The theoretical character of the relationship between thief and fence is best described by the mixed-motive bargaining situation. The thief is motivated to cooperate with the fence in order to divest oneself of the stolen property, yet at the same time, one is motivated to compete with the fence in achieving the best price for the merchandise. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

The fence is in a similar situation. By the very nature of one’s role, one is in the market for stolen property (hence one will want to cooperate with the thief) and yet one’s profit margin depends upon how well one can compete with the thief for a favorable price on the goods. The pressures to cooperate are perhaps greater for the thief, since the consequences of failing to reach an agreement are likely to be more significant for one; id est, the possibility of being caught with the goods in hand. If a deal is not consummated, the fence runs no risk, particularly in the short run. The consequences of protracted bargaining situations may, however, result in sharply deceasing one’s sources of supply as one gains the reputation of being an unfair bargainer. Dealing between thief and fence, as with all commercial dealings, are strengthened by consistency and reliability. Therefore, although fence and thief are motivated to compete with each other regarding the exchange value of stolen property, the clear bis for both is toward the establishment of cooperation. The thief-fence relationship is not unique in this respect. If mixed-motive bargainers are to reach agreement, cooperative interests must be strong enough to overcome competitive interests. The SPS is clearly able to foster the kind of cooperation necessary in the exchange mode (mode 3) to keep a continual supply of stolen goods flowing toward the fence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

However, were the exchange of goods the only dimension be of little analytical value. In effect it would make it difficult to sustain the concept of the SPS as a total, integrated system, for the SPS could be regarded instead as the face-ff of two stolen property mechanisms, one belonging to the thief and one to the fence. The relationship between thief and fence at mode 3, while essential, does not move us much beyond the individualistic tendencies of the conventional view of theft. If we are to appreciate instead the organizational quality of property theft crimes, it is necessary to explore further the interaction patterns of fences and thieves in other parts of the SPS. In confining our attention to the thief-fence interaction at mode 3 (exchange) in the SPS, we stipulated that the system’s division of labor allocated modes 1 and 2 to the thief and modes 4 through 6 to the fence. This is, of course, the most elementary form of that relationship, and while useful in elucidating some dimensions of the thief-fence interaction, it tends to shroud some of the more complex and more insightful relationships existing between these two individuals. In order to understand more complex thief-fence relationships and to achieve a greater appreciation for the role of the criminal receiver, two important axioms regarding the SPS must be introduced: The effectiveness of the SPS does not require a single and specific division of labor to obtain. That is, no particular allocation of the activities in the system is essential to its successful functioning. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

The functional integrity of the SPS is not distributed by a nonsequential performance of its mode. What this means is that although we have set down the logical progression of activities in the SPS in modes 1 through 6, this does not imply that they must be performed in that order. These axioms emphasize at least two origins of variety in the SPS, and it is this variety which makes the system both interesting and analytically complex. Division of Labor—We will begin our deeper analysis into the SPS by looking more closely at the questions raised by the first axiom. It should be noted here that although this axiom states that varying division-of-labor arrangements are possible in the SPS, it does not suggest that they are all equally likely. The division of labor between thief and fence in the planning of a theft. To begin, it should be noted that the fence, as the buyer of the thief’s produce, always has some implicit influence over the planning of a theft through one’s power to reward. Thus those items for which the fence is willing to pay more will be more often sought by the thief and this will, of course, affect one’s choice of target. The fence’s patterns of reward mediation therefore becomes the “Invisible Hand” guiding the thief toward the selection of what property he will steal. This “guidance” is felt not only by the person on drugs but also by the professional thief. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

ITEM 1: (interview with Greg, professional burglar) “I stole a beautiful pair of Imperial jade earrings one time and couldn’t get rid of them. This just isn’t a colored gem city (diamonds are biggest here) so a lot of fences won’t touch things like rubies and saffires [sic], et cetera. Only Mr. A handled that sort of stuff. Until I got connected with him, there was no percentage in taking colored gems.” ITEM 3: (from statement of Joe, a semi-skilled burglar, to district attorney) “We could only get scrap prices from fences for stuff like silverware and tea sets, et cetera, so D (other burglar) said we were better off to steal the metals themselves. That’s when we started working the warehouses and rail yards.” A thief’s selection of targets and items for theft is similarly influenced by the number of fences one knows and the degree of specialization in which they engage. Thus in item 1 Greg’s acquaintance with Mr. A accrued to him rewards for property that had previously been unsalable. A burglar who only knows fences who handle TVs and clothing is likely to limit his thefts to those items. The fence’s “Invisible Hand” in mode 1, however, is not nearly always so invisible. Witnesses the follow police activity report entries: ITEM 4: (from police activity report) “Info that M (who fences from his auction house) is now selling insurance. What he does is visit older people who have money and antiques around then fingers them for burglaries. Stuff all comes to him. ITEM 6: (police activity report) “Info that Greg’s gang (prof. burglars) is fencing stuff through X who work for a detective agency and gives the burglars floor plans and inform on security devices. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

In these items, we see the fence who, by virtue of his business or occupation, is in a position to know individual who possess valuable property, the nature of that property, or something about their movements. By sharing this information with thieves, he becomes the engineer, the prime mover, of the theft. Implied in most of these arrangements, of course, is the agreement that he will receive the property once it has been stolen. The increased role of the fence as “set-up man” in mode 1 also increases his power vis a vis the thief since his control over valuable theft information has an impact upon the thief’s livelihood and future. The thief who needs this information must be willing to accept completely the fence’s terms. If he does not come to terms, the fence with complete knowledge of who committed the theft, is in an excellent position to “set-up” the thief as well. This is why some professional thieves prefer to rely on their own research and planning rather than risking an indenture (however brief) to the receiver. The division of labor between fence and thief in the extraction mode. Labor sharing between fence and thief in the actual theft can take two forms. The fence can actually participate in the theft or one can offer technical advice on its commission. The former arrangement is extremely unlikely situation in the SPS. ITEM 8: (interview with Greg, a professional thief) “I know the fence’s job is a lot more lucrative and a lot safer (than that of the thief) because he never actually steals anything himself. But it just isn’t as exciting.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

Even though, then, the fence’s participation in the theft’s commission is highly unlikely, there is some evidence that he can assist in the offense in ways other than setting it up. He can, for example, instruct the thief as to techniques to use in avoiding suspicion and apprehension. ITEM 10: (police activity report) “…words is that X tells burglars to sit on stuff till they call in and only to come to the store during regular hours.” Little evidence could be found of a more active role taken by the fence in the extraction mode. Instead his involvement here appears limited to giving of advice or admonition to the thief. It is probably fair to say, therefore, that a division of labor in the SPS which allocates mode 2 to the fence is a highly unlikely arrangement and for all intents and purposes can be eliminated from consideration. The division of labor between fence and thief in the marketing mode. It is probably necessary to restate the activities which occur in the marketing mode of the SPS since it covers three general areas: an analysis of demand in the stolen property economy (a marketing information subsystem); activities related to the transportation and storage of property; and finally, activities related to packaging and promotion (the modification necessary in the preparation of stolen property for resale). As can be imagined, mode 4 is an extremely complex and comprehensive component of the SPS. This is in general the fence’s milieu; and it is because of one’s skills in organizing and coordinating the various activities in this mode that one can command a lion’s share of the rewards which the SPS has to offer. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

The quality of the demand analysis conducted by the fence will depend upon one’s individual business acumen. If one distributes stolen property through one’s own retail outlet, one must anticipate the future demands of one’s customers and determine what one needs to buy from one’s “suppliers.” Similarly, one must decide what mix of stolen versus legitimate property one wants to maintain; this again will affect one’s buying habits. One will also need to analyze the market one serves to discover the different segments it contains and the varying tastes that one should satisfy in one’s product line. If the fence does not sell directly to the public but instead to other middlemen or to retail establishments, one’s demand analysis will follow the same general pattern as above but will depend as well upon the quality of the contracts one makes in the legitimate market place and the guidance they can provide. The fence, then, faces many of the same dilemmas as any legitimate marketer. There is no one formula for success, only the expertise which past success and failure teaches. (An accommodation to the difficulties in demand forecasting and analysis used in both legitimate and illegitimate market places will be discussed below when the nonsequential functions of the SPS is considered.) There is little question, however, that the demand analysis function is an all-fence activity. The other two activity areas in mode 4, though directed by the fence, can be shared with the thief. This is particularly true of the transportation and storage function where the evidence suggests that often an equal responsibility obtains. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

Consider the case in which the fence employs a “drop” where property is to be abandoned by the thief. The former pays for the storage facility while the latter must be responsible for transportation. ITEM 11: (police activity report) “…what happens is that burglars are told to take the stolen property to a drop at _____ St. and stash it in the garage until X (fence) can be called. He comes to the drop and if property is worth buying he opens his store for burglars to deliver it that night. Most of the stolen property is kept in a back room of the store and guarded by the police dog (kept mostly for protection against the police). The “drop” is only one technique which the fence uses to facilitate the safe transportation and storage of stolen property while at the same time insuring against one’s being found in “possession” of it. The rental of warehouse facilities serves a similar purpose. It is clear that the storage function is the role responsibility of the fence since the thief has at this point relinquished control over the property to one. Similarly, any further transportation that may be required is also the fence’s concern. Some fences pursue occupations in the trucking and storage industries which are tremendous assets to their illegal business endeavors. Two individuals in the data base, for example, jointly own three moving and storage firms, with a dozen vans and numerous warehouses. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

Two  of their legitimate business did a gross in 1969 of $96,000 and police will not attempt to estimate their profits from criminal receiving. These individuals also appear to provide transportation facilities for other fences in the city. Witness the following note from police files: ITEM 15: (police activity report) “…suspicious activity at ______ Avenue re: building being used as a warehouse for storage of stolen TVs and hi fis (foreign mfg.)—Detectives observed male get out of car and use key to gain entrance—car registered to Mr. C. who is suspected of being a fence. To add to suspicions, when TVs were moved across state to the present location at above-mentioned warehouse, the mover was X owner of ____ Moving and Storage (fencing outlet). We all know that it is illegal to steal something that belongs to someone else, and doing so can expose a person to significant criminal penalties. However, it is equally illegal to take possession of, or deal in, property that has been stolen. The California Penal Code section that deals with the receipt of stolen property is section 496, which contains a fairly broad definition of the crime and encompasses more than simply receiving (id est, taking possession of) property that has been stolen. If one either receives or buys property that has been stolen, or has been obtained by means of extortion, a person violates Penal Code section 496. If a personal conceals (id est, hides) assists in concealing, sells, assists in selling, withholds or assists in withholding any property that has been stolen, the law is also violated. A violation of Penal Code section 496 can be either a misdemeanor or a felony. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

A second pillars in the cathedral of socialist theory was central planning. Instead of allowing the “chaos” of the marketplace to determine the economy, intelligent top-down planning would be able to concentrate resources on key sectors, and accelerate technological development. However, central planning depended on knowledge, and as early as the 1920s the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises identified its lack of knowledge or, as he termed it, its “calculation problem,” as the Achilles heel of socialism. How many shoes and what sizes should a factory in Irkutsk make? How many left-handed screws or grades of paper? What prince-relationships should be set between carburetors and cucumbers? How many rubles, zlotys, or yuan should be invested in each of tens of thousands of different lines and levels of production? To answer such questions, even in the simples smokestack economy, requires more knowledge than central planners can collect or analyze, especially when managers, afraid of trouble, routinely lie to them about actual production. Thus, warehouses filled up with unwanted shoes. Shortages and a vast, shadowy black market became chronic features of most socialist economies. Generations of earnest socialist planners wrestled desperately with this knowledge problem. They demanded ever more data and got ever more lies. They beefed up the bureaucracy. Lacking the supply-and-demand signals generated by a competitive market, they tried measuring the economy in terms of labor hours, or counting things in terms of kind, rather than money. Later they tried econometric modeling and input-output analysis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

Nothing worked. The more information they had, the more complex and disorganized the economy grew. Fully three quarters of a century after the Russian Revolution the real symbol of the U.S.S.R. was not the hammer and sickle, but the consumer queue. Today, all across the socialist and ex-socialist spectrum there is a race to introduce marker economies, either wholly, as in Poland, or timidly within a planned regimen, as in the Soviet Union. It is now almost universally recognized by socialist reformers that allowing supply and demand to determine prices (at least within certain ranges) provides what the central plan could not—price signals indicating what is or is not needed and wanted in the economy. However, overlooked in the discussion among economists over the need for these signals is the fundamental change in the communication pathways they imply, and the tremendous power shifts that changes in communication systems bring. The most important difference between centrally planned economies and market-driven economies is that, in the first, information flows vertically, whereas in the market, much more information flows horizontally and diagonally in the system, with buyers and sellers exchanging information at every level. This change does not merely threaten top bureaucrats in the planning ministries and in management, but millions upon millions of mini-bureaucrats whose sole source of power depends on their control of information fed up the reporting channel. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

The incapacity of the central planning system to cope with high levels of information thus set limits on the economic complexity necessary for growth. The new wealth-creation methods require so much knowledge, so much information and communication, that they are totally out of reach of centrally planned economies. The rise of the super-symbolic economy thus collies with a second foundation of socialist orthodoxy. The third crashing pillars of socialism was its overweening emphasis on hardware—its total concentration on smokestack industry and its derogation of both agriculture and mind-work. In the years after the 1917 revolution, the Soviets lacked capital to build all the steel mills, dams, and auto plants they needed. Soviet leaders seized on the theory “socialist primitive accumulation” formulated by the economist E.A. Preobrazhensky. This theory held that the necessary capital could be squeezed out of the peasants by forcing their standard of living down to an emaciating minimum and skimming off their surpluses. These would then be used to capitalize heavy industry and subsidize the workers. Nikolai Bukharin, a Bolshevik leader who paid for his prescience with his life, correctly predicted that this strategy would merely guarantee agricultural collapse. Worse yet, this policy led to the murderous oppression of the peasantry by Stalin, since it was only by means of extreme force that such a program could be imposed. Millions died of starvation or persecution. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

As a result of this “industry bias,” as the Chinese call it today, agriculture has been a disaster area for virtually all socialist economies and still is. Put differently, the socialist countries pursued a Second Wave strategy at the expense of their First Wave people. However, socialists also frequently denigrated the services and white-collar work. It was not pure coincidence that when the Soviets demanded “socialist realism” in the arts, the walls were soon covered with murals of beefy workers straining muscles in steel mills and factories. Because the goal of socialism everywhere was to industrialize as rapidly as possible, it was muscle-labor that was glorified. Mind-work was for nonproductive wimps. This widespread attitude went hand in hand with the tremendous concentration on production rather than consumption, on capital goods rather than consumer goods. While some Marxists, notably Antonio Gramsci, challenged this view, and Mao Tse-tung at times insisted that ideological purity could overcome material handicaps, the fundamental thrust of Marxist regimes was to overrate material production and undervalue products of the mind. Mainline Marxists typically held the materialist view that ideas, information, art, culture, law, theories, and the other intangible products of the mind were merely part of a “superstructure” which hovered, as it were, over the economic “base” of society. While there was, admittedly, a certain feedback between the two, it was the base the determined the superstructure, rather than the reverse. Those who argued otherwise were condemned as “idealists”—at times a decidedly dangerous label to wear. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

Mr. Marx, in arguing the primacy of the material base, stood Mr. Hegel on his head. The great irony of history today is that the new system of wealth creation, in turn, is standing Mr. Marx on his. Or more accurately, laying Mr. Marx and Mr. Hegel both on their sides. For Marxists, hardware was always more important than software; the computer revolution now teaches us that the opposite is true. If anything, it is knowledge that drives the economy, not the economy that drives knowledge. Societies, however, are not machines and they are not computers. They cannot be reduced so simply into hardware and software, base and superstructure. A more apt model would picture them as consisting of many more elements all connected in immensely complex and continually changing feedback loops. As their complexity raises, knowledge becomes more central to both their economic and ecological survival. The rise of a new economy whose primary raw materials is, in fact, soft and intangible found World socialism totally unprepared. Socialism’s collision with the future was fatal. If orthodox socialism is ready for what Mr. Lenin called the “dustbin of history,” however, this does not mean that the magnificent dream that bred it are also dead. The desire to create a World in which affluence, peace, and social justice prevail is at least as noble and widely share as ever. Such a World cannot rise, however, on old foundations. The most important revolution on the planet today is the rise of a new Third Wave civilization with its radical new system of wealth creation. Any movement that has not yet grasped this fact is condemned to relive its failures. Any state that makes knowledge a captive freezes its citizens in a nightmare past. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

China’s foreign exchange reserves rose in March of 2023, as the dollars fell against other major currencies. China’s foreign exchange reserves—the World’s largest—rose USD $51 billion to USD $3.184 trillion. This tremendous amount stems from the status of the country’s balance of payments. Maintaining a huge foreign trade surplus and, consequently, a current account surplus, it also has a comfortable and usually quite substantial surplus in the capital and financial account, as foreigners invest in China much more than the Chinese overseas (in most countries the current balance and the capital and financial account balance have opposite signs, which means that the current account surplus is somewhat offset by the capital account deficit or vice versa). Unprecedented growth of China’s foreign reserves has two major implications for the West and for the whole World. The most important one is Beijing’s position as the largest foreign creditor of the American government. China holds about 14 percent of all U.S.A. Treasury Bonds. Whether one likes it or not, it gives the Chinese government a strong leverage to push its interest on a wide range of economic, political, and security issues. Currently, China’s role as a creditor is becoming increasingly noticeable on the European continent as well, and will apparently increase further as public debt problems in a growing number of the EU countries are becoming critical. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

The second implication is China’s ability to pursue foreign acquisitions and other strategic overseas investment in a buy-whatever-the-price fashion. In other words, the Chinese buy foreign assets they consider important even when their prices reach the levels that would be prohibitive for a private Western investor. While Western governments can black transactions of this kind in their own countries, and they often do, they can do little to prevent China from using its foreign reserves as a tool to boost its political and economic clout in the Third World. On the other hand, soaring foreign reserves are posing challenges for China itself. The central bank governor Yi Gang is clearly saying that foreign reserves have exceeded the reasonable level and are becoming difficult to manage. The World’s largest sovereign wealth fund (SWF) as of December 2022 was China Investment Corporation (CIC), managing assets reaching around USD $1.35 trillion. In 2006, the CIC was established to manage a very small portion of the total: USD $200 billion. However, it is often noted that, overall, the reserves could be managed in a much more efficient manner and bring higher returns. The yields from U.S.A. Treasury bonds are very low. Some other investments, like the one into Merrill Lynch, ended in a substantial loss. Next, also on the negative aide, a dramatic increase of foreign reserves is accompanied by rising inflationary pressure. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

The reason is that, basically, the foreign currency accumulating in the People’s Bank of China is exchanged for the national currency, which is injected into the national economy. It amplifies inflationary trends and elevates the risk of an asset bubble. (Inflationary pressures are significantly increasing also due to soaring global prices for food, fuel, and mineral resources, and the legacy of China’s USD $5.3 trillion COVID stimulus, which is 29 percent of its USD $18.1trillion economy as of 2023). There is a risk of a chain reaction of the increase of foreign reserves, growing liquidity injections into the economy, rising inflation, monetary policy tightening, and the rising of economic growth rates. To sterilize dollars, the central bank makes the country’s major banks turn over their foreign exchange in return for its interest-bearing securities. The scale of such sterilization may exceed $15 billion a week. It helps to contain inflationary trends, but locks up capital, as this money cannot be lent or invested. To tackle the excessive liquidity injection problem, China needs much larger outflows of capital. The Chinese have to invest much more overseas. It could also open new business opportunities for domestic companies, financial institutions, and individual investors. The Chinese government has introduced some policy measures supporting outbound investment, but they are still too weak and fragmentary, while restrictions are still strong. Also, it is often argued tht it is not relevant for China, as a developing country, to export much capital. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

In our view, for China with its exceptionally large foreign exchange reserves this is not necessarily the case. However, it cannot be denied that the key issue is whether or not these reserves can be used more actively and efficiently for the country’s own development. Though some attempts in this direction have been made, the situation remains unclear. For instance, the Finance Ministry bought $106 billion of foreign currency from the central bank and used it for the recapitalization of the Big Four banks and the Development Bank of China. However, it turned out to be only an accounting detour, as, after all, the central bank repurchased the foreign exchange involved. In the new development, the CIC has announced plans to invest the foreign exchange it manages into the shares of Chinese companies listed overseas in order to boost technologically intensive industries. Nevertheless, it would be safe to say that the accumulation of such huge foreign reserves by a country where many regions are still underdeveloped and a lot of people live below poverty level loos somewhat unnatural. Basically, countries with large foreign reserves are in the best position to become major international donors. However, China is a developing country itself. Thus, logically, it looks relevant to utilize part of its reserves, which after all manifest the state’s wealth, for official development assistance to its own provinces, villages, and townships to build infrastructure and houses for the poor, protect environment, improve livelihood, and so on. The problem lies in the monetary field: You cannot use accumulated foreign currencies directly for investing in projects at home. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

However, if they came from overseas (and, actually, it still gets some development funding from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and so on) apparently, Beijing would not turndown proposals about development assistance for the purposes mentioned. Today there cannot be too many proposals of this kind because China itself has a lot of foreign reserves for “domestic official development assistance” for imports of the equipment, materials, services, and so on needed to launch development and livelihood improvement projects in the country’s less-developed regions. This could ease the financial burden of provincial administrations whose debts are beginning to cause concern, and also contribute to balancing the trade between China and its Western counterparts in a way that is beneficial for both sides. After all, it is quite simple: The West has a lot of things to sell to China that could make the life of the Chinese people, in China, especially the poor people, better, and the Chinese government has the money to buy them. Only political will and a bit of creativity and imagination are needed to make it a win-win game. When it comes to raising a family, parents often face a difficult problem punishing their children for bad behavior. Children have an uncanny sense that the parents’ threat to punish may not be credible. They recognize that the punishment may hurt the parents as much as the children (although for very different reasons). The standard parental dodge to this inconsistency is that the punishment is for the children’s own good. How can parents do a better job at making their threat to punish bad behavior credible? #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

With two parents and one child, we have a three-person game. Teamwork can help the parents make an honest threat to punish a misbehaving child. Say the son misbehaves, and the father is scheduled to carry out the punishment. If the son attempts to rescue himself by pointing out the “irrationality” of his father’s actions, the father can respond that he would, given the choice, prefer not to punish his son. However, were he to fail in carrying out the punishment, that would be breaking an agreement with his wife. Breaking tht agreement would be worse than the cost of punishing the child. Thus the threat to punish is made credible. Even single parents can play this game, but the argument gets much more convoluted, as the punishment agreement must be made with the child. Once again, say the son misbehaves, and his father is scheduled to carry out the punishment. If the son attempts to rescue himself by pointing out the “irrationality” of his father’s actions, the father can respond that he would, given the choice, prefer not to punish his son. However, were he to fail in carrying out the punishment, then this would be a misdeed on his part, a misdeed for which he should be punished. Thus, he is punishing his son only to prevent getting punished himself. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

However, who is there to punish the father? It is the son! The son replies that were his father to forgive him, he too would forgive his father and not punish his father for failing to punish him. The father responds that were his son to fail to punish him for being lenient, this would be the second punishable offense done by the son in the same day! And so on and so forth do they keep each other honest. This may seem a little farfetched, but no less convoluted than most arguments used to justify punishing kids who misbehave. People have to come to understand that they cannot be indifferent to human feeling, hour after hour, day by people. One must be made to understand the importance of commitment and involvement, otherwise they will not be able to define and describe responsibility when they are totally unaware of what it means to be within the guts and heart of oneself and within the organic life of others. What arouses the son to brace himself against his father was that father’s total response, his unequivocal stand, his full reaction to the absence of vivid life, his shocking display of an intensity of feeling. Nearly all the communications that they had were aimed at clarifying past conversations and promoting future understanding and agreements. However, what the father was missing was just what he had been wrestling to capture himself—a commitment to the unknow, a willingness to discover what must be from unknown sources of life within and without. What was lacking was immediacy, depth, intensity, and a willingness to let go of old biases and to enter uncertainly into a process of rebirth. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

What was required was an internalization of a value like Thoreau’s: “Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another.” In essence, let go of old attitude, both father and son, learn to communicate and respect your elders to make for a more harmonious bond. These is a fundamental principle involved in the freeing power of truth from the deceptions of offenders. DELIEVERENCE FROM BELIEVING LIES MUST BE BY BELIEVING TRUTH. Nothing can remove a lie but truth. When you know the truth, the truth shall make you free. That is applicable to every aspect of truth, as well as the special truth referred to by the ultimate concern. In the very first stage of becoming self-actualized, the unenlightened must know the truth of the soul to be saved. If one needs freedom, one must seek the higher path. The three steps to elevate the mind in apprehending truth: perception of truth by the understand. Perception of truth for use, and personal application. Perception of truth for teaching, and passing on to others. Truth apparently not grasped may lie passive in the mind, and then in the hour of one’s need suddenly emerge into experience, and thus by experience become clear to the mind in which it has been lying formant. It is only by continual application and assimilation of truth into experience, however, that it becomes sufficiently clarified in one’s mind that it may be taught to others. All righteous people greatly need to eagerly seek truth for their progressive liberation from the offenders’ many lies; for knowledge of truth alone can give victory over the deceiver. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

If, however, a hearer of truth should resist, it or revel against it, that unattended-to truth can well be left to the care of the soul and heart’s truth. Even in the case of resistance to truth it has at least reached the mind, and at any time may fructify into experience. There are three attitudes of mind with regard any item of knowledge: Assuming you know the matter already. Being neutral toward it; admitting “I do not know.” Being certain of its accuracy. This is instanced in the life of the self-actualized. When we know and have true knowledge, we are self-actualized. This is the element in the experience of present actuality. Another element, mora demand, is best approached via the notion of the “clean-unclean.” It is only under criticism of corruption that the unclean is separated from the self-actualized and receives the meaning immoral. Before that, the unclean designated something fiendish, something which produced taboos and numinous awe. Self-actualized work on the expulsion of the unclean from the sacred and the identification of the sacredness with the morally clean, so that cleanliness become sacredness…the tremendum becomes fear of the law and of judgment; the fascinosum becomes pride of self-control and repression. The emphasis is upon the self-actualizes as the clean (the morally good). #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

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