My Mother the Historian

Tibor R. Machan

Heidelberg, Germany. My mother, who lives in Germany now, is nearly 90 years old and enjoys full use of her mental faculties. If anything, she is sharper now than she has ever been, partly because at her age she no longer can be bothered with trivial problems and has come to accept her situation for exactly what it is. One reason she is in such good shape, both mentally and to a considerable extent physically, is that all her life she has been an athlete, competing for many decades and later coaching in the sport of fencing.

On a recent visit I asked her whether judging by the stream of television, radio, and print media news reports she finds the world she is aware of now much worse, roughly the same or much batter than it had been throughout her life. I figured she would have a reasonably educated opinion about this, having lived through so much, smack in the middle of Europe. The incredible economic upheavals in the first third of the 20th century, then World War II and the Holocaust, then the cold war which she spend in communist Hungary, and then the post 9/11 years. So I asked her whether she thinks that today we are in such dire straits as so many commentators claim we are?

As usually, my mother doesn’t make snap judgments but in the end the gist of what she said was this: “Over the nearly 80 years of my conscious life I have found that the worst thing was my and millions of other people’s lives under Soviet style communism, with only the brief but horrible experience with the Third Reich to match it. Apart from that, things have been up and down but pretty decent during most times and the current hysteria is just that, a way for politicians to scare people so they will entrust them with the job of solving problems by taking everyone’s money and imposing numerous restrictions of individual liberties and claming this is necessary so as to remedy whatever ails us.”

My mother and I do not share each other’s overall philosophy, not by a long shot. She certainly is no libertarian. But on this issue she and I see eye to eye. I have never been convinced that the hyperbole broadcast at television viewers gives an accurate picture of how things are with the world. Nearly every day’s headlines suggest that everything is going to hell in a hand-basket.

So with my mother’s admittedly amateurish but not ignorant help, I go back to my old adage: “For every minute of watching TV news, also watch a minute of some travel program.” Between the two sources of how the world is doing, one is likely to get an accurate and balanced picture. Nearly everything reported on the news presents the world as a miserable, failed arena of human affairs, while nearly everything shown on travel programs gives us a rosy view wherever the host is taking us, whatever aspect of human life he or she shares with us.

No doubt there are overall better and worse times we all face around us but they are rarely as lousy as the reporters, anchors, and commentators at Fox TV, CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC make them out to be. A quick clue to this is available by comparing the facial expressions of the anchors, reporters, and commentators in the media to the facial expressions of the people one encounters in restaurants, sporting events, family dinners and so forth. Indeed, if the former were an accurate representation of the mood of the world, I suspect there would be far more suicides than there actually are. Hardly anyone could carry on with the attitude these media folks convey to us. A great many more of us than actually do would throw in the towel.

Sadly, the mood conveyed in the media has its influence and that is something highly lamentable. But if one remembers that those folks have a personal stake in making things look much worse than they are, one may regain a more levelheaded perspective on the world as well as about one’s own—and one’s children’s and grandchildren’s—prospects.

The Statism of CNN

Tibor R. Machan

Should one ever claim that mainstream media is statist, let alone Left leaning, a bunch of voices will rise in protest. How could that be? After all, don’t giant corporations own the media? Which, of course, assumes something totally unwarranted, namely, that corporations are managed by champions of free enterprise. Baloney. Corporate managers can be just as devoted to trying to get government to redistribute wealth in their direction as are educators, artists, scientists, farmers, or any other “special interest” group.

The charge that is worth considering is that the media, especially news organizations with their commentators and reporters, lean toward statism, which is to say, they favor turning to government with nearly any problem people face in their communities. The only exception is where the press itself faces problems, and when it comes to religious matters, mainly because the fairly strong tradition of separation of journalism and government, as well as religion and government, at least in the United States of America.

On a recent lecture tour through a good bit of Europe I had a chance to watch BBC-TV and CNN-TV quite regularly. Although I speak and understand a smattering of German, English is the language I use routinely for obtaining information on current affairs.

On one occasion I was watching a report on Kenya which just went through an especially violent election season. I turns out that one result of this has been a serious reduction of tourism in that country the economy of which is usually the vital beneficiary of this industry.

At the beginning of the broadcast CNN’s anchor introduced the topic and then brought in a stringer from Kenya who elaborated on it, giving some specifics, numbers, and anecdotal evidence. Once this was over, the camera went back to the anchor who promptly posed the following question: “What is the Kenyan government doing about this problem?” Exactly why it is the government’s task to do anything at all about tourism in Kenya viewers were not told. Just what skills does the government possess that would especially qualify it to do something about this problem? Nothing was said about that.

Imagine for a moment that the TV audience was being given a report on a sporting event, say the recent Wimbledon tennis tournament. As was the case this year, many of the games, especially during finals, experienced inclement weather. Frequent showers led to stoppage of matches and a few had to be extended into the wee hours of the night. But, lo and behold, no commentators raised the question, “What are the referees doing about the inclement weather?”

But, you may say, well the weather is something very different from violent interruptions of political elections. Yes, in some ways it is. But in some ways it isn’t. Both manage to interrupt normal proceedings and neither can be dealt with post facto, including by those charged with upholding the rules. While the government might have done something about the violence that interrupted Kenyan electoral politics, once the interruption occurred, what could it do? Nothing.

The best way to improve the climate for tourism in Kenya has nothing much to do with government. It has to do with merchants getting back to work, resorts opening their doors, oil companies revving up their productivity, and business in general hiring reliable security agents; this might well make Kenya into an especially appealing place for tourists to visit with no help from the government.

It is, of course, ironic that a CNN’s anchor would assume that government will solve Kenya’s tourism problem, given that governments tend to pose rather annoying obstacles to tourism in most places around the globe. Moreover, the violence during the election campaigns had been prompted, in large measure, by the political circumstances of Kenya, so it isn’t likely that politicians are going to manage to remedy matters.

In any case, the point I wish to focus on is just how readily CNN buys into the government habit, how it is nearly second nature to its anchors to expect all problems to be solved by government, never mind whether it is government’s expertise that best addresses the problem. And CNN isn’t alone, only a clear cut example. For CNN the government is treated as the almighty. Not only is it not the task of news anchors to perpetuate the myth of almighty government but such a myth will reinforce false expectations.

It is bad enough that too many ordinary folks place their trust in government—the use of physical force—but to have the supposedly impartial, unbiased media reinforce this is unprofessional and truly lamentable.

Some Sources of Anti-capitalism

Tibor R. Machan

There is, of course, the idea Marx made prominent that no one ought to benefit from another’s need. So doctors and nurses and actually nearly everyone who is working for another who has a need for this work should just doing pro bono, out of the goodness of his or her heart. As all of one’s clients and customers were one’s bosom buddies or one’s family. We should just share our resources, our time, in the end ourselves with the rest of humanity! That’s the ideal against which free market capitalism, the arena of the deal, is being compared. No wonder it comes up short. Anything would when compared with such a fantasy.

But there is another thing the matter with capitalism or what may come close to it here and there in the world. This is another thing that’s held against the system, namely, that lots of people like to obtain loads of stuff that gets produced in it. Yes, consumerism is this supposed evil, the thing the Pope recently complained about.

Now no doubt sometime people who are working hard or just got lucky like to spend their money on lots of stuff, on vacations, and fine dining and the like. The more the merrier, for some, it would seem, and refined folks just won’t have any of that. Instead of finding this quaint and understandable, consider that all these consumers come from families with histories of poverty and bare subsistence—so a bit of indulgence could be entirely forgivable (not to mention useful in creating millions of jobs). The snooty ones, however, want everyone to purchase only articles that come from museums and galleries. They deride those of us who just want to have some goodies that our parents and grandparents never had the choice to get. And for such accesses we are denounced as hedo0nists and materialists! Oh, give me a break.

No doubt some of the exuberant acquisition that goes on in free markets may look a bit over the top, even tacky. But why make such a big deal about it? It doesn’t hurt anyone when people go shopping—they are creating jobs, too, not just satisfying their wants and desires (as if there were something wrong with that). There is little else people do with strangers that comes as close to realistic good relations as what goes on in free markets, even as people make deals and money off each other. When people lash out at consumerism I get to thinking they haven’t got much of a life and need to meddle too much in others’ affairs. A friend ascribes nearly all of it to sheer envy but I suspect that the legacy of Puritanism has more to do with it. You know puritans, whom H. L. Mencken accused of being worried that someplace someone might just be happy and we cannot have such a thing happen!

It is rue that in substantially liberal—classical not modern liberal—societies men and women have the opportunity to be self-indulgent to a fault. Such is it with freedom—a great variety of human tendencies are given vent in free systems. But so long as the normal state of affairs involves peaceful interaction among people, even this bit of self-indulgence will be contained and have few negative externalities. Moreover, with a little help from one’s family, friends and neighbors, these can be reigned in.

Compare these awful liabilities of substantially capitalist systems with those of socialism or fascism or communism. Now there are experiments that take their toll on human societies big time. Concentration camps, gulags, oppression, madness and such are routine when those dreams get tried for real. All these attempts to coercively regiment human beings, to force them to be good, noble, generous, valiant and the like may look good on paper and in Hollywood movies but wherever they are seriously implemented they produced disaster, misery, poverty and acrimony.

I bet all of us would be better of in a country where freedom is the default position and on one gets to impose a one-size-fits-all approach on the lives of the population. Sure, there will still be human failings about. Yes, perfection will not descend upon us all. No, the critics will not have exhausted their list of beefs with their fellow human beings.

But a free society is head and shoulders superior to any of the utopian dreams the critics of capitalism invoke when they decry that system.

Scientists and Morality

Tibor R. Machan

Natural scientists are pretty much committed to understanding the world without reference to morality since if what happens does so because of impersonal forces of nature, there would seem to be no room for consideration of right versus wrong, good versus bad, at least not so far as human beings could do anything about it. So, for example, human misbehavior or misconduct doesn’t depend on people but is due to ineluctable natural determinants. Even the misconduct of scientists, the few who fake evidence or plagiarize, simply happens the way a disease or earthquake does. All one can do is lament it, the way one laments a tsunami or tornado. No one is to blame. Nor, of course, are achievements anything but welcome but impersonal events. No one is to be praised for them, no one gains credit.

Yet, while many scientists are committed to expunging morality or ethics from human life—at most they admit that there are undesirable and desirable features of it—they also act as if morality or ethics did matter. As when some of them, say ecologists or climatologists, blame people for anthropogenic global warming or anything else that many believe is due to irresponsible human behavior. They chide millions for imprudent conduct; they denounce people who drive SUVs, fail to recycle, or ignore the scientists’ warnings about what is or isn’t environmentally proper. And, of course, medical scientists routinely blame patients for failing to heed warnings about overeating or smoking or lack of exercise. There is, also, the ubiquitous internal quarrelling among some scientists about who is right or wrong about various predictions and projections.

In short, even though many scientists are committed to viewing human conduct as no different from the behavior of the weather or the change of seasons—these just happen, never mind choice or decision—they also frequently engage in moral chiding, blaming which assumes we can make choices, for better or for worse. They talk of what would have happened had people only done this or not done that, just as if they believed that it is quite in people’s power to act differently from how they do actually act, or to have done so in the past.

Yet, this internal inconsistency among many scientists who are also quite moralistic about human behavior is not at all widely scrutinized. There is almost a kind of polite silence about it all. When scientists complain about how little attention people pay to their own warnings about one thing and another, few if any ever raise the issue of whether people had any choice about this—maybe they had to pay the little or no attention they did, maybe that is all a matter of the unfolding of impersonal evolutionary forces.

When a great many scientists, writing, say, for publications such as Science or Science News, chide government for not supporting science with enough funds—something that many of them do routinely vis-à-vis the administration of George W. Bush and in anticipation of a new administration—they forget all about their assumption of que sera, sera, “what will be will be” and no choice exists about these matters, free will being a pre-scientific illusions according to them—few take up this paradox in their own stance. If, indeed, there is no choice about any of this, then does it make any sense to complain that certain politicians aren’t choosing to do enough about global warming and other environmental issues? After all, they are powerless to do anything other than what they do, are they not? But if so, what’s all the fuss about, why complain, why chide?

It seems to be intellectually confused, if not outright dishonest, for thousands of scientists to avoid this issue. They maintain that they are the most reliable source of information about how we ought to be going about many of our concerns in life, yet they are also committed to the notion that whatever we do must happen and nothing can be altered as a matter of our decision, our choice.

Perhaps the answer is that scientists, contrary to the conceit of many of them, are not the only ones who can have something useful to contribute to the understanding of human affairs. Perhaps they need to consider that some of what is true about people isn’t informed only by their relentlessly deterministic outlook. After all, they themselves aren’t able to explain what they do from that perspective alone.

They should perhaps heed the words of one of their colleagues, the British psychologist Bannister, who pointed out that a theorist “cannot present a picture of man which patently contradicts his behavior in presenting that picture.” (Borger & Cioffi/Bannister, eds., Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences [Cambridge UP, 1970], p. 417.)

What’s the Pope’s Problem?

Tibor R. Machan

Salzburg, Austria. BBC TV broadcast the news a few days ago that Pope Benedict has condemned “popular culture and consumerism” during his trip to Australia. I am not sure why this is important to report—would BBC TV inform its viewers about the pronouncements of the “Reverend” Moon, the current leader of the Mormon Church or, indeed, of the leaders of the 4000 plus different religions registered in the USA alone? What makes this particular church leader so special?

I ask this as a former Roman Catholic, one who was raised in that religion as a kid in Communist Hungary and who is fully aware of the myriads of negative side effects this can produce for a person (namely, guilt, guilt, and more guilt for just wanting to have a reasonably joyful life). Since that time I have come to be very, very suspicious of the claims of Roman Catholics and, actually, members of most other churches to having a sound understanding of human affairs. And one area where I am especially weary of what men like the Pope say is concerning the mundane purposes people have, such as wishing to live prosperously, wanting to gain some pleasures and wealth in their lives, of hoping to enjoy themselves instead of suffering, which is what many religions teach is the noble way for us all to live. No, that just won’t do for me and, I suspect, for increasingly many people.

It is, by the way, one thing for Jesus to have suffered since, after all, he was supposed to be both man and God and as such suffering couldn’t possibly amount for him to what it does for an ordinary mortal. So imitating Jesus in this and many other respects simply cannot be something humanly noble—why should a mortal human being seek to suffer? There is simply no sense in that at all.

But even apart from the wrongheaded idea that we ought to reject what pleasures and enjoyments this world can offer us—i. e., condemn consumerism—there is the sheer audacity of the head the Vatican City chiding other people for their embrace of abundance and wealth. Have you ever visited the Vatican? I have and the measure of its ostentatious and very mundane wealth—no, opulence—is something to behold.

Indeed, the very first attraction on the way around the City is a gaudy shop with thousands of Catholic trinkets for sale. Talk about consumerism—few places match this blatant display of commercial savvy. (If you don’t know the place, just think of those shops you find at art museums, with all those reproductions of the works displayed and the books about them for sale! And then multiply these several hundredfold.)

All of this really comes down to the great likelihood of Papal hypocrisy. And this cannot be news to most Catholics, either, given their awareness of the display of splendor, glitter, and pomp at high mass. I don’t know where else we would find the likes of this other than at some of the palaces that remain as reminders of the obscene plunder of kings and other monarchs and the dictators such as “communist” Rumania last dictator. Who, then, is the Pope to condemn consumerism which, by my study of history, is a feeble attempt of ordinary human beings, ever since the emerges of relatively free markets, to acquire, honestly, a tiny fraction of the world’s goodies compared to what the upper classes, including religious leaders, of the past got their hands on mostly illicitly.

Yes, just think of it: consumerism amounts mainly to folks making a try at acquiring, fair and square, all sorts of useful and enjoyable goods and services now available to millions of us. In the past comparable stuff was only available to a select few and they didn’t come by it honestly but mostly by plunder and conquest. We today go shopping, after we have earned some coins in the market place doing work that other people freely chose to purchase from us.

Honest trade is a central feature of consumerism and this is what the Pope finds so abhorrent. Would he rather have us return to an era when only the leaders of Church and assorted monarchs were in the position to obtain such merchandise, mostly by intimidation and extortion—such as selling forgiveness to gullible well to do folks who went along with the deal through ignorance and fear rather than free judgment and by threatening subjects within the realm, respectively?

Furthermore is it not curious that the Pope’s pronouncements seem to escape the scrutiny of the chattering classes? Perhaps not, since the bulk of them also lament it endlessly that ordinary human beings would rather go shopping than sacrifice themselves for various more or less dubious objectives like taking precaution with the environment (whatever that grab bag idea really is supposed to mean). Although many of these intellectuals are doubtful about religion, they do share with the myriad of churches a disdain for the popular pursuit of earthly joys.

So no wonder that the Pope condemns popular culture and consumerism—they are in competition with him in the effort to gain people’s devotion and loyalty. Trouble is what the Pope claims to offer is something quite elusive and mysterious, whereas what we find in the market place, at the mall for example, has the advantage of bringing us concrete, clearly understandable satisfaction. No wonder we are implored to feel guilt for wanting it in our lives!

Maybe I am just harboring resentments against the Catholics for having made my childhood and adolescence so full of misery—guilt, shame, self-denial, self-loathing, and so forth. Probably I just wish to warn people off of falling for the ruse I went along with for a couple of decades of my early life.

A Chance for Freedom?

Tibor R. Machan

Lugano, Switzerland: Over the last two and a half decades or so I have been attending conferences organized by the Business & Economics Society International that has its home at Assumption College in New Hampshire. This summer I believe I have attended for the fifth or sixth time, often presenting papers and taking part in discussions about business ethics and political economy.

When I first decided to submit a paper I was very skeptical, given how hostile so many academics are toward a fully free market. And indeed, aside from the organizers who seem to have a penchant for a bit of fireworks at these events, nearly all those who encountered my defense of free markets, private property rights, globalization, free trade agreements, and so forth found what I was saying nearly abhorrent. Nonetheless, given the at least nominal commitment of academics to wide open discussions in their various disciplines, I managed to find some who would carry on a civilized conversation about my radical capitalist, libertarian position. But as far as sympathies for it, there was very little of that to be found and some were pretty hostile, charging me with the usual stuff about being an apologist for the ruling class, etc.

But because I do have a bit of a knack for presenting these ideas in a civil tone, the organizers kept accepting my submissions and in time invited me to give one of the keynote addresses at two or three of these meetings. That is just what happened this year when I presented my critique of stakeholder theory—or Corporate Social Responsibility—to a surprisingly packed house at the conference in Lugano, Switzerland.

Although there were several people who showed their disdain, even hostility toward the position I laid out, I have to say things were quite different this time from what they had been back when I started to attend these meetings. To my very pleasant surprise a great many in this year’s audience were very receptive and even went out of their way to express their approval of someone with my position having been provided with a prominent spot in the proceedings. And some of these were among the ones who showed little patience back a few years ago for anything that smacked of support for free market capitalism.

It is, of course, very difficult to assess whether a set of arguments is gaining favor with a proportionately growing number of people in some field but my impression over the last few years has been that around the globe capitalism is gaining ground, at least as a way to understand how economies should work. Scholars from New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and many other places who attend these conferences appear to be looking with greater favor at privatization, globalization, the system of private property rights and freedom of contracts than they did just a few years ago. Indeed, it is most often academics from America and Great Britain who voice vehement opposition, even outright hostility, while those from newly emerging countries, ones who are just now beginning to join the international economic and business community as active participants, show much interest and express support.

Of course I am under no illusion that these ideas I find most sensible are sweeping the globe, especially in academic institutions. Even this last time several of the scholars in the audience actually booed me, not just once but repeatedly, when I argued my case for the right of shareholders to set the direction managers should follow instead of having public authorities and folks like Ralph Nader call the shots. The governmental habit is still quite pervasive! This reactionary trust in top down organization and management of the economic affairs of countries, one so reminiscent of mercantilism despite the self-serving term “progressive” its cheerleaders use to call it, is very disconcerting for anyone who wishes economic well being for people throughout the globe.

It always baffles me a bit that a great many educated folks just stick to the faith that when government undertakes to address a problem, there will be solutions bubbling out all over the place, as if those in government possessed magical powers. At the same time, oddly, their distrust of people in business persists, as if free men and women had some innate proclivity toward mendacity the moment they entered the market place.

Still, I am again encouraged and perhaps so should be all those who hold out for the promise of liberty. It is no utopia but beats all alternatives hands down with what it has achieved and has the potential for achieving.

An Anti-American Paradox

Tibor R. Machan

Over the decades, ever since I got smitten by the American experiment in community life, it has been one of my more masochistic tasks to watch out for criticisms, denunciations, derisions, ridiculing of and expressions of contempt for the country, mostly by erudite intellectuals. It began with my college professors who, nearly without exception, had only disdain for the general ideas that have been associated with America. I am talking, of course, the ideas in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Scorn is what a long line of such critics—well, that may be too flattering a term for most of them since the bulk merely looked down their noses at the place—expressed in class after class, book after book, paper after paper, and article after article. Even as recently as the early 2000s I ran across a bunch of books in which the purpose was clearly to invalidate notions of liberty, justice, and rights associated with America. Thus we have professors writing books, published by the most prestigious houses, on how ownership—the right to private property so prominently featured in the U. S. Constitution, both explicitly and implicitly—is a myth. Or how the rights listed in the Declaration and the Constitution are far less significant than those invited in, say, the era of the New Deal.

Ok, so there are many critics of the American political tradition at colleges and universities, at magazines that are sold to folks who consider themselves sophisticated way beyond the simpletons who forged the founding documents. That would be something to be expected. Colleges and universities demand of their faculty “original research and scholarship” and nothing passes better for that than tomes attacking the ideas and ideals of the Founders and their teachers, like John Locke. It is beneath the lofty self-image of the bulk of these educated people to actually admit that those people who founded the country had identified true principles of community life. No, instead what they are accused of having done is incorporated their class biases into the foundations of American society. They were, in short, mere ideologues, pretending that their preferences amounted to basic principles—exactly as Karl Marx and his followers had argued about John Locke and Adam Smith. (See, for the clearest instance, Marx’s posthumously published book, Grundrisse.)

Yet if you dig deep enough into the mass of critical works, there is something rather peculiar that becomes evident. Nearly all the critics deploy standards by which to denigrate American society, which are part of the American political tradition itself. Take slavery. It is by reference to the principles of the Declaration of Independence that this institution turns out to be utterly peculiar, as Lincoln understood very well. Or take the oft heard lament that American society has been unjust toward women and minorities. This, too, is a complaint that gains its soundness from taking the principles in the Declaration and the Bill of Rights very seriously. All the concerns in the criminal law about the unjust treatment of suspects make sense in light of the conception of justice that the founding documents embody.

Even the more alien charges, say about the lack of equal pay for equal work or the mistreatment of illegal immigrants, can be related, perhaps a bit awkwardly, to certain notions in the American political and legal tradition. Yes, some of those charges are based on a far more egalitarian political stance that is incorporate in the American viewpoint but they resonate with many Americans because they appear to be based on that viewpoint—“all men [i.e., human beings] are created equal” and “they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights.” That surely includes both citizens and foreigners!

Even criticisms of America’s frequently ill conceived foreign and military policies gain their strongest backing from distinctly American principles. Of course, from the inception of the country there has been a debate afoot about how best to interpret the founding principles, with some favoring a strong central government—including what this may imply for foreign affairs—some championing limited (though perhaps not necessarily small) government and how that would influence foreign policy. But the basic notions about individual rights, due process, free markets, and equal justice for all found few outright enemies apart from defenders of chattel slavery and some reactionary male chauvinists.

The point to remember here is that anti-American lambastes tended and still tend to rest on America’s very own distinctive principles, ones that may be present to some extent in other societies (Great Britain, Australia, France and some other European countries come to mind). Foreign interventionism is ill fitted for a country that tends to rest on the idea that force may only be used in self-defense. Never mind that this has never been that closely adhered to, mostly with the excuse that survival required expansion or humanitarian concerns imply exporting American ideals abroad. The point is that the operative terms of debate in all these instances arise from the American political and legal tradition, not from those that form the basis of the countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. When the American government and military are charged with the inhumane treatment, even torture, of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay, the basic premise underlying the charge is that individuals may not be subjected to harm unless they have been shown to deserve this. Mere “reasons of state” do not suffice to justify such treatment and that is very much a tenet of the individualist social philosophy with which American is so closely associated.

So all the while the intellectuals have frowned on the allegedly simplistic and false 18th century notions drawn from Locke & Co., they have not hesitated making use of those very notions as they have drubbed American left and right. Not a bad record for such an awful system, me thinks, comparatively speaking.

Spain “gives” rights to Great Apes

Tibor R. Machan

A committee of the Spanish government, concerned with environmental issues, has recommended that Spain “give” rights to these animals. The committee is being guided in its thinking about this issue by philosophers Peter Singer (USA) and Paola Cavalieri (Italy) who are directors of the Great Ape Project.

The gist of the legislation is not quite what it seems. Great Apes will not be understood to have the rights the American Founders, following the English philosopher John Locke, identified in the Declaration of Independence. There will not be protection of the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or even the right to life and liberty, which are the central rights Locke and the American Founders set out to secure for human beings. Indeed, the very idea of giving apes rights is alien to the tradition of individual human rights—no one gives us rights; we have them because of our human nature (ergo, “natural” rights).

The basis of these rights is that human beings make choices in their lives, possess free will, and can act responsibly or not. It is to secure their sphere of sovereignty or self-governance that the concept or human rights has been identified. Within their sphere of personal authority they are free to decide what they will do and no one may force them to act against their will. This is necessary because in society fellow human beings can intrude on them, interfere and rob them of their freedom to make their own moral choices. Thus, for example, even though someone may write something obscene or say something offensive, no one may stop that person from doing so other than by peaceful means, such as convincing him or her to do otherwise. Without the acknowledgment of human rights some people, usually oppressive governments, take it upon themselves to make others their subjects, to deny them their sovereignty.

The bottom line is that human beings are, as a rule, moral agents, while no ape has that capacity. Which is why despite all the talk of the rights of great apes, no one seriously proposes that apes be judged morally, that they may be guilty of misdeed or gain credit for commendable actions. That would be to treat them like human beings but despite the fact that the DNA of these animals “is 95 percent to 98.7 percent the same as that of humans,” the difference is crucial. It means no great ape will be taken to court for devouring its young, whereas infanticide when committed by a person is severely punishable because human beings can choose to do the right or wrong thing and are held responsible for this.

Some speak of human beings “deserving” rights but that is wrongheaded. They have them or do not. It’s not as if they did something commendable and so they deserve to be given rights. (Who is to do this giving, anyway? That was something that monarchs might have done, grant a certain standing to some of their subjects. But the authority to make such grants was exposed as a fiction.)

Others rail against the supposed claim that human rights are absolute but that’s a fabrication. It is clear enough that human beings can be so badly damaged that their rights would need to be seriously qualified, as are the rights of children and senile persons. In nearly all realms of human affairs there are borderline cases and fuzzy delineations—for example, between an infant and a child, a child and an adolescent and the latter and an adult. No precise border exist here but intelligent people still know the difference and make ample use of it.

Ultimately the Spanish effort to treat apes as if they were people serves but one clear purpose: it empowers government officials who would eagerly regiment the rest of us who may be dealing with great apes. And the effort is rather ironic, to boot: isn’t it in Spain that there is widespread bull fighting? One might suppose that it is those bulls who need protection from abuse by Spain’s citizens, not great apes (of whom there are but a few in Spanish zoos).

Foreign Policy Determinism?

Tibor R. Machan
The two Iraqi wars have put the issue of American foreign policy on the agendas of many pundits, writers, intellectuals, and politicians. Why this did not happen when Granada, Panama, Kosovo, and other places were at center stage of actual foreign and military affairs is unclear to me. But somehow the military targeting of Iraq managed to turn a lot of people’s attention to American foreign policy--both the motives for it and its consequences.

In his book, published between the two Iraqi wars, From Wealth to Power (Princeton UP, 1998), current Newsweek International editor--and host of CNN-TV’s very good news magazine program, GPS (Global Public Square)--Fareed Zakaria argued that America has always had an impulse toward expanding its sphere of influence, often through coercive force, rarely only because of the need to defend the country against foreign aggression. And most recently Robert Kagan makes the case, in the new publication World Affairs, A Journal of Ideas and Debate (Spring 2008), that the policy of spreading American influence by aggressive means is by no means an invention of neo-conservatism but some a nearly innate impulse evident throughout the history of the foreign policies of many American administrations.

Both Zakaria and Kagan seem to embrace a form of determinism, Zakaria more directly than Kagan. The fact that America is a prosperous society impels the nation and its governments to be expansionist, even imperialist, in foreign affairs. This is not a matter of choice, nothing that could be otherwise. It is simply the way the world works--big, prosperous countries just aim to grow bigger, even if they do not always succeed with this ambition. Kagan simply claims that contrary to what too many commentators and critics of the George W. Bush administration have argued, the desire to spread democracy by force is a well established tradition evident throughout American history, from the beginning to the present. He believes that the fact that the American Founders believed that the principles sketched in the Declaration of Independence are universal, apply to human community life everywhere, makes the expansionist foreign and military stance unavoidable.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with showing that certain policies, foreign or domestic, are closely linked to a country’s history in view of the principles embraced by its constitution and the convictions of its citizenry (especially its leadership). But does this support the suggestion that these policies are somehow unavoidable?

Certainly the Founders’ choice of first principles wasn’t something they couldn’t help making. Quite the contrary--they chose very deliberately and rejected alternative regimes as they reached their conclusion about what kind of community the United States of America ought to be. Now with that choice came a long series of institutions and policies. At each stage some changes could be made and many have been--throughout America’s political and legal history the big government versus limited government positions have kept battling it out, and this continues to our day. (Initial commitments have considerable but not inevitable influence--one need but think of marriage where “I do” does but need not determine how things will turn out!)

Many foreign--as well as domestic--policy theorists embrace a certain positivist methodology as they “explain” the world. That is, they often have a firm conviction that they need to identify certain natural causes that produce states of affairs and shy away from dwelling about normative matters, namely, what policies ought to be carried. The idea of free human choices that may be judged right and wrong is not deemed scientific enough. So there is a kind of self-fulfilling real political bias in their analysis. Because of this stance, evaluations and proposals are shunted since they involve value judgments, something that too many such thinkers consider mere biases, nothing rationally defensible.

But, in fact, a good deal of foreign and military policy rests on what public policy makers believe should be done, how the country ought to behave abroad (as well as at home). The sooner the leading thinkers in these areas recognize that values are what matter most and need to be rationally explored, the more sensible will the country’s policies become, both abroad and at home.

The Rights of The Rich

Tibor R. Machan

No, the rich have no special rights, none at all. But since so many people insist on trying to violate the human rights they do have, it is worthwhile mentioning that no one has any moral authority to violate, abrogate, restrict the rights of the rich. Even when they spend their money on what some people believe are trivial pursuits.

This all comes to mind because The New York Times carried an Op Ed column on Thursday, July 10, 2008, written by a professor, Professor Ray D. Madoff of Boston College School of Law attacking the late Leona Helmsley for giving billions of dollars to a charity that cares for dogs. Her argument is that "The charitable deduction constitutes a subsidy from the federal government. The government, in effect, makes itself a partner in every charitable bequest. In Mrs. Helmsley’s case, given that her fortune warranted an estate tax rate of 45 percent, her $8 billion donation for dogs is really a gift of $4.4 billion from her and $3.6 billion from you and me."

This is nonsense, of course. The estate tax is sheer extortion and, in any case, if one gives one's fortune to charity, it doesn't apply. No subsidies were made to the dogs! By recognizing the right of the rich to bequeath their wealth as they see fit, including for some arguably ridiculous causes, nothing is lost to anyone. If Mrs. Helmsley got her money fair and square, in the free market place, it's hers to do with as she sees fit. In no way did her decision to help out dogs hurt us? How, for example, was her decision different from millions of people's decision to keep and care for their dogs and other animals, money that might well be spent by them on something the professor believes is more important? Since it is their money, they get to spend it as they want, no? It's a free country and just as with having to tolerate the silly things other people say and write--e.g., Professor Madoff's Op Ed--so we will just have to tolerate how others choose to peacefully spend their resources, however much we don't like it.

Professor Madoff's idea is similar to that of many politicians, such as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, that the money other people earn, inherit, or happen to come by some other legitimate way doesn't really belong to them but to the government. This is sheer socialism, whereby no right to private property exists and needs to be secured by the government in its capacity of the protector of the rights of the citizenry. And we should remember that those rights are equally held by all persons, not excepting the wealthy. Just think, would killing a wealthy person be any less of a violation of the right to life than killing someone poor? Certainly not. Nor would robbing a poor person amount to any more of a rights violation than robbing someone who is rich. These are rights we all have as human beings, not as members of an economic class!

Then there is the bizarre notion, advanced in Professor Madoff's column, that making a charitable contribution to an organization that cares for dogs is something petty, inconsequential. I say this as someone who has for years dispute the idea that animals have rights and finds the recent decision by the Spanish government to "recognize" the rights of great apes absurd. But the fact that animals have no rights does not mean at all that animals do not experience hardship, hunger, pain, even torture and thus do not ever deserve to be provided with care by human beings, especially those who have the wealth to spend on them. In fact, instead of talk about animal rights we should continue with the much more sensible moral position that it is decent to be caring toward animals. From childhood on most of us are taught that cruelty to animals is morally wrong. Any decent human being will refuse to inflict unnecessary pain and hardship on other animals even if it makes sense to use animals in certain situations for various human purposes, such as medical research, transportation, nourishment and so forth. Such use does not amount to wanton cruelty.

The late Mrs. Helmsley, who amassed a large fortune, may well have done something quite admirable by leaving a large amount of her wealth to be used to care for dogs. At any rate, it was her money and she had every right giving it away for this purpose. And so are all of us perfectly within our rights to spend our honestly come by resources for similar purposes. It is scandalous that Professor Madoff would propose otherwise. Nonetheless, the fact that she does advocate such nonsense is just another example of how human rights work--they may be exercised wisely and not so wisely. She accuses the late Mrs. Helmsley of having exercised her rights unwisely and I am accusing her of having done the same when she chose to write her Op Ed piece. In both cases, that is the price of having basic rights and living in a country where they are protected.