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For anyone intrigued by this sort of thing - that is to say the ethics of hobo culture - I would highly recommend reading `You Can't Win'[1], the autobiographic

For anyone intrigued by this sort of thing - that is to say the ethics of hobo culture - I would highly recommend reading `You Can't Win'[1], the autobiographical account of Jack Black's train hoppin', bank robbin' life as a yegg. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Win_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Win_(book)

pucke 8y ago
This was a major influence on the life and work of William S. Burroughs. I am overjoyed to find out this is still occasionally in print. I had always wanted to read it but been under the impression it was long unavailable. Thanks so much for reminding me of this and alerting me to its availability.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Yes, that was his inspiration for the Johnson Family. Another was Of Captain Mission by Daniel Defoe.[0] 0) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7779 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7779
mirimir 8y ago
I was going to mention that. But I gather that yeggs were a distinct group from (or maybe subgroup of) hoboes. They didn't abide by at least one of the rules: > 2. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times. I gather that it was a steal-from-the-rich thing. Banks were OK targets. And jewelry shops. But not hard-working folk. It's never made sense to me, honestly.
- duncan_bayne 8y ago
  Probably because you don't suffer much from jealousy. Nowadays, yeggs vote for "wealth redistribution".
  - FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
    The rich don't have to vote for wealth redistribution, they outright buy the politicians to continue their class warfare. Which is of course much more efficient.
    - duncan_bayne 8y ago
      Sure. The two are by no means mutually exclusive. The military industrial complex lobbying for billions of dollars of taxpayers money to be siphoned into their pockets is one example.
  - karmajunkie 8y ago
    All economic policy is redistributive. The only variables are how and to whom.
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
  The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good thing, while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad.
  - dan-0 8y ago
    > The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good thing, while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad. I think you might need to look up the word "steal" in a dictionary. That or you're deliberately skewing the definition for your own agenda. I'm hedging my bet on the latter. The first definition provided when Googling "steal": take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. If a good or service is provided that is needed or desired by either a group or an individual there is a cost regardless of whether that cost is absorbed by the individual or group procuring the good/service (as in Capitalism) or by society. The provider of that good or service should somehow be rewarded or incentivized to continue providing the service so as to keep that service provided. You made a blanket statement that "rich are only rich because they steal from the poor...". That's wrong, true in some cases, but far from a universal truth, if I'm wrong please prove it. If you're good a something society deems valuable, shouldn't you be compensated adequately for that? Should a good jeweler be compensated well for producing a necklace of spectacular quality if someone is willing to pay for it? Should a good neurosurgeon who went through probably a decade of intense schooling be adequately compensated for extracting a tumor? Are either of these people stealing from someone? The answer is no. They are providing a service that the recipient or society (in the case of universal healthcare) willingly compensate them for. This is in direct contradiction to your point of a "poor person \"stealing\" from the rich", which brings me back to my first statement. You used quotes around "stealing" which deliberately attempts to invert or misdirect the actual definition of the word. Taking something from someone without their permission is "stealing", not providing a service for compensation. In the case of the jeweler, that jeweler bears the cost of materials and time the spent to both learn how to make the commodity when their product is stolen. In the case of the neurosurgeon, when their product is stolen, it's very equatable to slavery. It doesn't matter what economic model you prescribe to, if people providing a needed good/service aren't adequately compensated, the quality of that good/service degrades or becomes non existent. Unless, of course, you enslave or force those people to provided the good/service, which is not what anyone should be advocating.

pucke 8y ago

This was a major influence on the life and work of William S. Burroughs. I am overjoyed to find out this is still occasionally in print. I had always wanted to read it but been under the impression it was long unavailable. Thanks so much for reminding me of this and alerting me to its availability.

mirimir 8y ago
Yes, that was his inspiration for the Johnson Family. Another was Of Captain Mission by Daniel Defoe.[0] 0) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7779 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7779

mirimir 8y ago

I was going to mention that. But I gather that yeggs were a distinct group from (or maybe subgroup of) hoboes. They didn't abide by at least one of the rules: > 2. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times. I gather that it was a steal-from-the-rich thing. Banks were OK targets. And jewelry shops. But not hard-working folk. It's never made sense to me, honestly.

duncan_bayne 8y ago
Probably because you don't suffer much from jealousy. Nowadays, yeggs vote for "wealth redistribution".
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
  The rich don't have to vote for wealth redistribution, they outright buy the politicians to continue their class warfare. Which is of course much more efficient.
  - duncan_bayne 8y ago
    Sure. The two are by no means mutually exclusive. The military industrial complex lobbying for billions of dollars of taxpayers money to be siphoned into their pockets is one example.
- karmajunkie 8y ago
  All economic policy is redistributive. The only variables are how and to whom.
FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good thing, while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad.
- dan-0 8y ago
  > The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good thing, while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad. I think you might need to look up the word "steal" in a dictionary. That or you're deliberately skewing the definition for your own agenda. I'm hedging my bet on the latter. The first definition provided when Googling "steal": take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. If a good or service is provided that is needed or desired by either a group or an individual there is a cost regardless of whether that cost is absorbed by the individual or group procuring the good/service (as in Capitalism) or by society. The provider of that good or service should somehow be rewarded or incentivized to continue providing the service so as to keep that service provided. You made a blanket statement that "rich are only rich because they steal from the poor...". That's wrong, true in some cases, but far from a universal truth, if I'm wrong please prove it. If you're good a something society deems valuable, shouldn't you be compensated adequately for that? Should a good jeweler be compensated well for producing a necklace of spectacular quality if someone is willing to pay for it? Should a good neurosurgeon who went through probably a decade of intense schooling be adequately compensated for extracting a tumor? Are either of these people stealing from someone? The answer is no. They are providing a service that the recipient or society (in the case of universal healthcare) willingly compensate them for. This is in direct contradiction to your point of a "poor person \"stealing\" from the rich", which brings me back to my first statement. You used quotes around "stealing" which deliberately attempts to invert or misdirect the actual definition of the word. Taking something from someone without their permission is "stealing", not providing a service for compensation. In the case of the jeweler, that jeweler bears the cost of materials and time the spent to both learn how to make the commodity when their product is stolen. In the case of the neurosurgeon, when their product is stolen, it's very equatable to slavery. It doesn't matter what economic model you prescribe to, if people providing a needed good/service aren't adequately compensated, the quality of that good/service degrades or becomes non existent. Unless, of course, you enslave or force those people to provided the good/service, which is not what anyone should be advocating.