Welfare State Follies
Tibor R. Machan
By all historical accounts the fully free society has never been tried, so arguing about it will always be to a large extent theoretical. But than nearly all of contemporary astrophysics is theoretical, as it much of psychology and other social sciences in which controlled experiments are not possible or permissible.
Based, however, on much thinking and research, some of it historical enough, there is no reasonable doubt about the benefit of human liberty in all realms of human endeavor. Unfortunately the sole trial has been conducted in the realm covered by the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, effecting religion and the arts and humanities (including journalism). And few other than out and out Fascists and theocrats deny that in these areas freedom has been all to the good! It may, therefore, be reasonably inferred that liberty would mostly likely serve us well in all areas of human concern, including the financial markets and even emergency services, two in which recent upheavals haven’t been dealt with swimmingly by the welfare state. That’s despite the fact that welfare state measures--namely vast government interference in various professions and ordinary human activities--are most often defended on the grounds that they are needed to prevent or cope with disasters, financial or natural! It is here where welfare state advocates roll out their market failure arguments, examples (mostly imagined) where free men and women are unable or unwilling to solve problems successfully.
Yet, despite piles of government regulations imposed year after year, with bureaucrats being given immense powers to regiment the society--supported by both the Left and the Right, though focused on different “failures”--the disasters keep coming and the prominent pundits, such as The New York Times’ line of the welfare state’s cheerleaders (like Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, at al.) keep trying to blame freedom for them all. No sooner does some trouble arise, these folks chime in with the same mantra: We need more government! And they support these incantations with the blatant falsehood that America is in the grips of market fundamentalism!
But what seems to be the real culprit for mounting troubles is not freedom, not free markets, but all the phony government supports Congress and other bodies politic keep erecting so as to pretend to be helping everyone. All the financial woes come from the easy credit that is mostly the policy of all the governments whose “public servants” promise to solve all our problems by stealing from Peter to aid Paul--an endless daisy chain of the government’s version of Ponzi schemes. The lack of ability to cope with natural disasters, too, comes from all the reckless faith in government supporter of which, sadly, still manage to get away with claiming that government is the answer. (Just check out the bulk of the current crop of candidates to verify this!)
Is it so unthinkable that if the government didn’t pretend to help us, we would put our minds to the task of finding solutions ourselves? Given all the flaws with the very idea of government solutions--flaws pointed out in well developed, Nobel Prize winning work such as “public choice theory” that shows how politicians are mostly promoters of their vested interests--it should be clear by now that moving in the direction of a more and more free society is much more promising than moving away from one.
Alas, the temptation to rely on coercion so as to get solutions to one’s problems is very powerful and has been yielded to virtually throughout human history. So there is probably not going to be a quick turnaround from such a trend even if, like the hope that one is going to win big in Vegas, gets shattered over and over again. Attempts to get where one wants to go by means of discredited shortcuts keep being made and there is only very slow progress toward embracing full freedom. Nonetheless, it is really the only genuine systematic solution to the problems the promoters of the welfare state create and keep promising to handle just fine.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Rejoicing at Liberty's Delights
Tibor R. Machan
When I was a kid living in Budapest, Hungary, massive censorship was just beginning to descend on the country, in the wake of the takeover by the Soviet communists in 1948. Afterwards virtually all interesting books, especially those from the West, were banned and could only be obtained via the black market. That is where I picked up my copies of Zane Grey, Earl Stanley Gardner, Mark Twain, Max Brand, and other novels that I so much enjoyed reading in my youth.
One great benefit of living in a partially free society is that those aspects of it that are free produce immense benefits for those who enjoy its fruits. So, for example, if one is an avid reader of literature and non-fiction works, in a country like the U.S.A., with a pretty strict prohibition against government getting involved in meddling in what people write and read, there is an abundance of material for everyone to delve into. No one tells you what you may or may not write or read and even works that the mainstream publishers refuse to touch manages to get to a sizable readership these days, what with the Internet and all kinds of non-traditional publishing venues at hand.
And, of course, this is true not just of writing and reading but most of the arts. Virtually all of the visual arts are out there for people to pick and choose from. Even if one lacks the big bucks to purchase the fine arts--or to attend concerts featuring great orchestras, bands, and so forth--there are innumerable ways to encounter works one yearns to view and hear.
For example, I regularly canvass the net for what various museums and art galleries display and while this may not quite compare with having great works hang on one's own walls, it is still a plentiful source of aesthetic satisfaction. Those of us who aren't well enough off to purchase original paintings can at least obtain prints or, at least, view small renditions of nearly any work on one's computer screen. And there is such an abundance of sources of nearly any form of music now--via cable TV, radio, the Internet once again, and, of course, CDs and such--that no one can complain about a shortage of offerings by which to be delighted, amused, thrilled, enchanted via whichever medium of art one finds most appealing.
I am really very lucky because much of what I wish from life is produced in what amounts to a largely free market place. No government bureaucracy stands between me, the consumer of art works, and the creators and merchants. If I really want some expensive work badly enough, all I need to do is save up a while and then get it. As to novels, I can hardly keep up with what my favorite contemporary authors produce. And of course there is a great deal available from past masters, major or minor.
This is not what it is like in countries that lack the legal equivalent of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Even in Western Europe there is nothing like what the U. S. enjoys in the way of literary freedom. And, of course, in many places around the globe governments, often in cahoots with some religious leadership, have full "legal authority" to dictate what people may write and read, paint and view, listen to, and so forth.
Of course, there is an unfairness about this because if one is interested in productive and creative undertakings which aren't unregulated by the various levels of government in a country, one is not going to enjoy the fruits of liberty as I and those who seek satisfaction from the arts, literary and otherwise, manage. But this unfairness isn't the fault of those who are the beneficiaries of the selective protection of human liberty involved. Just like people who can escape the oppression of military conscription or some form of taxation--folks referred to as draft or tax dodgers--those who are the beneficiaries of the "loopholes" provided by the First Amendment ought to take full advantage of their better lot. But they ought to join with all those who strive to set markets free in all areas of human endeavor, not just the arts, the press and all other forms of expression that are fortunate to be free of the bureaucracy's heavy hand.
Tibor R. Machan
When I was a kid living in Budapest, Hungary, massive censorship was just beginning to descend on the country, in the wake of the takeover by the Soviet communists in 1948. Afterwards virtually all interesting books, especially those from the West, were banned and could only be obtained via the black market. That is where I picked up my copies of Zane Grey, Earl Stanley Gardner, Mark Twain, Max Brand, and other novels that I so much enjoyed reading in my youth.
One great benefit of living in a partially free society is that those aspects of it that are free produce immense benefits for those who enjoy its fruits. So, for example, if one is an avid reader of literature and non-fiction works, in a country like the U.S.A., with a pretty strict prohibition against government getting involved in meddling in what people write and read, there is an abundance of material for everyone to delve into. No one tells you what you may or may not write or read and even works that the mainstream publishers refuse to touch manages to get to a sizable readership these days, what with the Internet and all kinds of non-traditional publishing venues at hand.
And, of course, this is true not just of writing and reading but most of the arts. Virtually all of the visual arts are out there for people to pick and choose from. Even if one lacks the big bucks to purchase the fine arts--or to attend concerts featuring great orchestras, bands, and so forth--there are innumerable ways to encounter works one yearns to view and hear.
For example, I regularly canvass the net for what various museums and art galleries display and while this may not quite compare with having great works hang on one's own walls, it is still a plentiful source of aesthetic satisfaction. Those of us who aren't well enough off to purchase original paintings can at least obtain prints or, at least, view small renditions of nearly any work on one's computer screen. And there is such an abundance of sources of nearly any form of music now--via cable TV, radio, the Internet once again, and, of course, CDs and such--that no one can complain about a shortage of offerings by which to be delighted, amused, thrilled, enchanted via whichever medium of art one finds most appealing.
I am really very lucky because much of what I wish from life is produced in what amounts to a largely free market place. No government bureaucracy stands between me, the consumer of art works, and the creators and merchants. If I really want some expensive work badly enough, all I need to do is save up a while and then get it. As to novels, I can hardly keep up with what my favorite contemporary authors produce. And of course there is a great deal available from past masters, major or minor.
This is not what it is like in countries that lack the legal equivalent of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Even in Western Europe there is nothing like what the U. S. enjoys in the way of literary freedom. And, of course, in many places around the globe governments, often in cahoots with some religious leadership, have full "legal authority" to dictate what people may write and read, paint and view, listen to, and so forth.
Of course, there is an unfairness about this because if one is interested in productive and creative undertakings which aren't unregulated by the various levels of government in a country, one is not going to enjoy the fruits of liberty as I and those who seek satisfaction from the arts, literary and otherwise, manage. But this unfairness isn't the fault of those who are the beneficiaries of the selective protection of human liberty involved. Just like people who can escape the oppression of military conscription or some form of taxation--folks referred to as draft or tax dodgers--those who are the beneficiaries of the "loopholes" provided by the First Amendment ought to take full advantage of their better lot. But they ought to join with all those who strive to set markets free in all areas of human endeavor, not just the arts, the press and all other forms of expression that are fortunate to be free of the bureaucracy's heavy hand.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Another Problem with Welfare Rights
Tibor R. Machan
A welfare or positive right, so called, is something that can only be protected by coercing others to provide it. Consider the right to health care. This supposed right can only be honored by making health care professionals provide services for those who have need for it.
In contrast, a negative right, such as the right to one’s life, may be respected and protected without making anyone do anything. To respect a negative right one need do nothing at all, merely abstain from doing something, like killing or assaulting or robbing someone. Respecting negative rights is what happens when there is peace among people, when none is intruding upon others.
The practical import of this is that a government that secures our human rights acts only to repel criminals or foreign aggressors whereas a government that is supposed to secure positive rights acts to force people to do service to one another. Your supposed right to health care requires that health care professionals or those who have to pay for their work be forced to do what they do not choose to do. Your right to your life or liberty or property, in contrast, requires no such intrusiveness from government.
It is interesting to realize that those who advocate negative basic rights, the kind listed in the Declaration of Independence and identified by the English political philosopher John Locke, have no difficulty generalizing these rights to all human beings--they are, after all, human rights. As Locke argued, just because of one’s nature as a human being, one has these rights.
On the other hand, so called positive rights cannot be advocated for all. So, for example, Hillary Clinton’s defense of the right to health care applied only to Americans not to human beings as such. She could no more defend such an alleged right for Germans or Koreans than she could defend a minimum wage for them. That’s because she was seeking an office that would empower her to force people to provide health services to their fellow citizens but not to non-Americans. While as far as the right to life is concerned, Mrs. Clinton could easily advocate it for all people everywhere since all that right requires is for people to abstain from murder.
It is true, as some have noted, that to secure negative rights, governments or some similar agencies need to stand ready to respond to those who would violate them. But all that amounts to is a prohibition of aggressive conduct among people and that is why governments are like body guards, agents who seek to secure one’s basic negative rights by repelling aggression. Like body guards, such governments do not have the authority to force anyone to do various things that others need.
Consider, also, that no gratitude or compensation is required when people respect each others’ negative rights. If you do not kill me, I owe you no thanks, no money, nothing, whereas if you provide me with medical care you need at least to be thanked but more likely you need to be paid (since that is how you earn your living). This means that to secure such alleged rights, people’s resources must be confiscated from them so as to pay the providers (unless they are directly conscripted to serve).
What so called positive or welfare rights really are is services some people want from others for which they do not want to pay. They do not want them to earn a living for what they provide but simply give it away. And while such generosity is not unreasonably asked of relatives and other intimates--though even then it should not be abused--it must not be coerced from strangers.
In a free country negative rights are all that the law is concerned about, unless a contract has been freely entered into so as to secure the provision of services. So medical services are not free--no one has a right to other people’s free professional services! Not as they have a right to other people abstention from aggressive conduct.
Tibor R. Machan
A welfare or positive right, so called, is something that can only be protected by coercing others to provide it. Consider the right to health care. This supposed right can only be honored by making health care professionals provide services for those who have need for it.
In contrast, a negative right, such as the right to one’s life, may be respected and protected without making anyone do anything. To respect a negative right one need do nothing at all, merely abstain from doing something, like killing or assaulting or robbing someone. Respecting negative rights is what happens when there is peace among people, when none is intruding upon others.
The practical import of this is that a government that secures our human rights acts only to repel criminals or foreign aggressors whereas a government that is supposed to secure positive rights acts to force people to do service to one another. Your supposed right to health care requires that health care professionals or those who have to pay for their work be forced to do what they do not choose to do. Your right to your life or liberty or property, in contrast, requires no such intrusiveness from government.
It is interesting to realize that those who advocate negative basic rights, the kind listed in the Declaration of Independence and identified by the English political philosopher John Locke, have no difficulty generalizing these rights to all human beings--they are, after all, human rights. As Locke argued, just because of one’s nature as a human being, one has these rights.
On the other hand, so called positive rights cannot be advocated for all. So, for example, Hillary Clinton’s defense of the right to health care applied only to Americans not to human beings as such. She could no more defend such an alleged right for Germans or Koreans than she could defend a minimum wage for them. That’s because she was seeking an office that would empower her to force people to provide health services to their fellow citizens but not to non-Americans. While as far as the right to life is concerned, Mrs. Clinton could easily advocate it for all people everywhere since all that right requires is for people to abstain from murder.
It is true, as some have noted, that to secure negative rights, governments or some similar agencies need to stand ready to respond to those who would violate them. But all that amounts to is a prohibition of aggressive conduct among people and that is why governments are like body guards, agents who seek to secure one’s basic negative rights by repelling aggression. Like body guards, such governments do not have the authority to force anyone to do various things that others need.
Consider, also, that no gratitude or compensation is required when people respect each others’ negative rights. If you do not kill me, I owe you no thanks, no money, nothing, whereas if you provide me with medical care you need at least to be thanked but more likely you need to be paid (since that is how you earn your living). This means that to secure such alleged rights, people’s resources must be confiscated from them so as to pay the providers (unless they are directly conscripted to serve).
What so called positive or welfare rights really are is services some people want from others for which they do not want to pay. They do not want them to earn a living for what they provide but simply give it away. And while such generosity is not unreasonably asked of relatives and other intimates--though even then it should not be abused--it must not be coerced from strangers.
In a free country negative rights are all that the law is concerned about, unless a contract has been freely entered into so as to secure the provision of services. So medical services are not free--no one has a right to other people’s free professional services! Not as they have a right to other people abstention from aggressive conduct.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Bad v. Good Pitch to Votes
Tibor R. Machan
Do voters actually believe it when candidates promise them health, happiness, vacations, clean air, and all those other goodies while also demanding that they stop being selfish, stop joining special interest groups and dedicate themselves only to the public good? I doubt it very much. This sort of pitch seems to me to put most reasonable voters on guard. Something is up, a ruse is afoot, for no one can deliver on these promises. (Or are voters like all those gamblers flocking to Las Vegas who think they will come away big winners?) So a great many people stay away from the voting booth and it's all left in the hands of dreamers.
I am not sure if candidates have actually given this a try but I would count on a different strategy. How about promising voters just one thing, namely, a competent defense against the violence of those of their fellows who are inclined to be violent, against those who wreak crime and war. And then urge them not to stop being selfish but to be intelligently self-interested. That would be thinking of some broad benefits that we all should be striving for, such as freedom, the security of our rights, peace, and justice. These are benefits all voters would gain from big time! So they are objectives that are quite reasonably considered self-interested, for everyone.
But such self-interested benefits need some education to be effectively appealing to voters. Too many people shun being thought of as selfish because they associate selfishness with trivial pursuits. Yet, genuine, serious, big time selfishness is about broad, lasting values such as justice and peace. Those are what is really good for us all!
In that very famous movie, Casablanca, Rick, the character of Humphrey Bogart, turns to Ilsa, the character of Ingrid Bergman, near the end of the film and delivers a little speech that goes like this: “Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid….”
Unfortunately a great many who’ve seen the film take Rick to be talking of self-sacrifice whereas, in fact, what he is talking about is devotion to great values, such as liberty and justice--values that Ilsa will in time realize outweigh those she would like to have now, namely, romantic bliss.
If those running for office were truly devoted to high ideals, they could explain to voters that these high ideals are of great importance to all. They are to everyone’s self-interest both short and long term.
That is what proper, uncorrupted politics is about: devotion to very high human community values, such as rights, liberty, justice, the rule of law, peace and all those conditions that are indispensable for people aiming to live flourishing lives in their communities. To think that devoting oneself to these amounts to unselfishness, self-sacrifice, is bizarre. These are everyone’s most important values, with everything else--including (and this comes from a died in the wool romantic) a great romance--paling in comparison.
Urging people to renounce their self-interest will simply never fly for very long. The idea that serving others is more important than serving oneself just sounds nice--yes, nice--but is by no means noble. Noble objectives are all elevating to those who pursue them. Saving one’s child from a blazing fire is noble but not because it is unselfish. (Is there anything that’s more genuinely selfish than saving one’s family from disaster? And one’s friends, and sometimes even strangers?)
No, candidates need to educate voters about how utterly selfish and proper it is for them to vote for those who will secure for them justice, the protection of their rights, peace and other social conditions that make a decent, good human life possible for us all. And if they cannot do this, then they are not good candidates for political office. Then they are merely vying to gain power so as to implement some kind of agenda they can never fulfill.
Bona fide politicians, serving us as honest political representatives, are very much to our self-interest. And the candidate who can deliver on that promise must also see it as something of grave importance to him or her! That is the way constituents and politicians can come together without cynicism, without suspicion.
Tibor R. Machan
Do voters actually believe it when candidates promise them health, happiness, vacations, clean air, and all those other goodies while also demanding that they stop being selfish, stop joining special interest groups and dedicate themselves only to the public good? I doubt it very much. This sort of pitch seems to me to put most reasonable voters on guard. Something is up, a ruse is afoot, for no one can deliver on these promises. (Or are voters like all those gamblers flocking to Las Vegas who think they will come away big winners?) So a great many people stay away from the voting booth and it's all left in the hands of dreamers.
I am not sure if candidates have actually given this a try but I would count on a different strategy. How about promising voters just one thing, namely, a competent defense against the violence of those of their fellows who are inclined to be violent, against those who wreak crime and war. And then urge them not to stop being selfish but to be intelligently self-interested. That would be thinking of some broad benefits that we all should be striving for, such as freedom, the security of our rights, peace, and justice. These are benefits all voters would gain from big time! So they are objectives that are quite reasonably considered self-interested, for everyone.
But such self-interested benefits need some education to be effectively appealing to voters. Too many people shun being thought of as selfish because they associate selfishness with trivial pursuits. Yet, genuine, serious, big time selfishness is about broad, lasting values such as justice and peace. Those are what is really good for us all!
In that very famous movie, Casablanca, Rick, the character of Humphrey Bogart, turns to Ilsa, the character of Ingrid Bergman, near the end of the film and delivers a little speech that goes like this: “Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid….”
Unfortunately a great many who’ve seen the film take Rick to be talking of self-sacrifice whereas, in fact, what he is talking about is devotion to great values, such as liberty and justice--values that Ilsa will in time realize outweigh those she would like to have now, namely, romantic bliss.
If those running for office were truly devoted to high ideals, they could explain to voters that these high ideals are of great importance to all. They are to everyone’s self-interest both short and long term.
That is what proper, uncorrupted politics is about: devotion to very high human community values, such as rights, liberty, justice, the rule of law, peace and all those conditions that are indispensable for people aiming to live flourishing lives in their communities. To think that devoting oneself to these amounts to unselfishness, self-sacrifice, is bizarre. These are everyone’s most important values, with everything else--including (and this comes from a died in the wool romantic) a great romance--paling in comparison.
Urging people to renounce their self-interest will simply never fly for very long. The idea that serving others is more important than serving oneself just sounds nice--yes, nice--but is by no means noble. Noble objectives are all elevating to those who pursue them. Saving one’s child from a blazing fire is noble but not because it is unselfish. (Is there anything that’s more genuinely selfish than saving one’s family from disaster? And one’s friends, and sometimes even strangers?)
No, candidates need to educate voters about how utterly selfish and proper it is for them to vote for those who will secure for them justice, the protection of their rights, peace and other social conditions that make a decent, good human life possible for us all. And if they cannot do this, then they are not good candidates for political office. Then they are merely vying to gain power so as to implement some kind of agenda they can never fulfill.
Bona fide politicians, serving us as honest political representatives, are very much to our self-interest. And the candidate who can deliver on that promise must also see it as something of grave importance to him or her! That is the way constituents and politicians can come together without cynicism, without suspicion.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Leadership is a Pseudo Issue
Tibor R. Machan
Both pairs of current major candidates, Democrat and Republican, make much noise about leadership. As if the point of national politics in a free society were about who should lead the citizenry. Lead them where? For what purpose? No mention is made of that. Somehow leadership is supposed to be its own justification, a self-evidently desirable attribute in a candidate. But that is a drastic misconception, an misunderstanding of the job description of politicians in a genuine free society.
Yet this is easily seen to be a very bad mistake--never even mind that the term "leader" is just what "Fuhrer" means in German, what Hitler was supposed to be called by everyone! Yes, in the old regimes political executives were supposed to leaders of sorts because countries were assumed to be on the march to some goal, as if they were a corporation or team or club. Yes, the Boy Scouts need leaders, as does General Motors and the U. S. Olympic fencing team. There are all organizations with a purpose, with a goal their members strive to attain and for which it is useful to have leaders, guides, captains or such. And when a government is conceived of along such lines, it makes sense to think a lot about getting a good leader for it, someone who knows where the people--the subjects of leadership--are supposed to be headed.
Free societies are different. Government, as John Locke and the American Founders understood it, don't exist so as to lead the citizenry anywhere. Citizens have their own purposes, goals, directions in life. What they need from government is protection from criminals and invaders, people who would interfere with their pursuit of their own ends. As the Declaration of Independence states so precisely, governments are instituted so as to secure our rights. That doesn't amount to leading citizens anywhere--not even economic prosperity, nor cultural or scientific or artistic progress, is something governments are supposed to pursue; it's the task of citizens to choose if they want to be solvent or serene or contemplative or something else in their lives, with the government, the cop on the beat, making sure no one gets in their way. Even when there are pressing issues, such as medical emergencies, bad weather, whatever--these are problems the citizenry is supposed to face on its own, by way of the innumerable voluntary agencies they are free to establish.
Politics is something that comes from the ancient Greek understanding of the value of organized human community life. But the point of organization is not spelled out--it is a subject of much debate in political philosophy or theory. What was so innovative, radically so, in the American idea of politics is that government had been demoted from the role of leaders of society to protectors, a professional group that's supposed to take care that their is peace in the country which then makes it possible for all the citizens to pursue their own goals, to be their own leaders or to find some specially skilled fellow citizens to lead them where they wanted to go (so long as it was a peaceful pursuit).
In short, free men and women need no political leaders! John Locke realized that what makes politics necessary is that there are violent people among us who would intrude upon us, try to conscript us to their purposes and prevent us from pursuing ours. To reduce this as much as possible, governments may be established but only for this limited purpose, not to be our saviors, not to lead us on various ventures the candidates and their misguided supporters think up.
It is sad that among the major candidates, within the major political parties, no one now understands politics in this properly limited way. Instead they are all vying to be leaders, our Fuhrer! Sad indeed.
Tibor R. Machan
Both pairs of current major candidates, Democrat and Republican, make much noise about leadership. As if the point of national politics in a free society were about who should lead the citizenry. Lead them where? For what purpose? No mention is made of that. Somehow leadership is supposed to be its own justification, a self-evidently desirable attribute in a candidate. But that is a drastic misconception, an misunderstanding of the job description of politicians in a genuine free society.
Yet this is easily seen to be a very bad mistake--never even mind that the term "leader" is just what "Fuhrer" means in German, what Hitler was supposed to be called by everyone! Yes, in the old regimes political executives were supposed to leaders of sorts because countries were assumed to be on the march to some goal, as if they were a corporation or team or club. Yes, the Boy Scouts need leaders, as does General Motors and the U. S. Olympic fencing team. There are all organizations with a purpose, with a goal their members strive to attain and for which it is useful to have leaders, guides, captains or such. And when a government is conceived of along such lines, it makes sense to think a lot about getting a good leader for it, someone who knows where the people--the subjects of leadership--are supposed to be headed.
Free societies are different. Government, as John Locke and the American Founders understood it, don't exist so as to lead the citizenry anywhere. Citizens have their own purposes, goals, directions in life. What they need from government is protection from criminals and invaders, people who would interfere with their pursuit of their own ends. As the Declaration of Independence states so precisely, governments are instituted so as to secure our rights. That doesn't amount to leading citizens anywhere--not even economic prosperity, nor cultural or scientific or artistic progress, is something governments are supposed to pursue; it's the task of citizens to choose if they want to be solvent or serene or contemplative or something else in their lives, with the government, the cop on the beat, making sure no one gets in their way. Even when there are pressing issues, such as medical emergencies, bad weather, whatever--these are problems the citizenry is supposed to face on its own, by way of the innumerable voluntary agencies they are free to establish.
Politics is something that comes from the ancient Greek understanding of the value of organized human community life. But the point of organization is not spelled out--it is a subject of much debate in political philosophy or theory. What was so innovative, radically so, in the American idea of politics is that government had been demoted from the role of leaders of society to protectors, a professional group that's supposed to take care that their is peace in the country which then makes it possible for all the citizens to pursue their own goals, to be their own leaders or to find some specially skilled fellow citizens to lead them where they wanted to go (so long as it was a peaceful pursuit).
In short, free men and women need no political leaders! John Locke realized that what makes politics necessary is that there are violent people among us who would intrude upon us, try to conscript us to their purposes and prevent us from pursuing ours. To reduce this as much as possible, governments may be established but only for this limited purpose, not to be our saviors, not to lead us on various ventures the candidates and their misguided supporters think up.
It is sad that among the major candidates, within the major political parties, no one now understands politics in this properly limited way. Instead they are all vying to be leaders, our Fuhrer! Sad indeed.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Ayn Rand & Selfishness
Tibor R. Machan
For more than forty years I have been seriously interested in the ideas of Ayn Rand, ever since I read her novels and later her non-fiction works. This despite the fact that Miss Rand once declared me “persona non grata” for writing her a disagreeable letter. Oh well, but her ideas never ceased to intrigue me and after much study and reflection I still think her philosophy of Objectivism is largely right.
One element of Rand’s idea is the notion that selfishness is good, which clearly runs counter to received opinion both Left and Right. And she has received a great deal of rebuke for finding self-interest a proper pursuit for all human beings. I think, however, that this is due to a colossal misunderstanding of Rand’s position.
One of Rand’s non-fiction books is titled, quite deliberately, The Virtue of Selfishness, A New Concept of Egoism (New American Library, 1964). The title is still widely misunderstood, despite Rand’s attempt to warn readers, by way of the subtitle, that she is advocating something unusual.
The terms “selfishness” and “self-interest” are not simple ones because the meaning of the term “self” is very much in dispute. In fact it is one of the most controversial ideas in human history. Another and similarly controversial idea is “individual.” These are what some philosophers have called essentially contestable concepts. That means they are by their very nature always being argued about, like “liberty,” “justice,” “democracy,” or “morality.”
In ancient Greece the self was understood as the human soul and while it meant the soul of the individual, it was also taken as a social concept--the human self was supposed to be something intimately tied to the social group within which one lived. A good self, for example, was understood as one that’s gregarious, liberal, generous, and engaging. In the ethical writings of Aristotle, for example, the system of principles one should live by was called eudemonia, the set of guidelines for achieving a good self or soul, or, in other words, happiness. And that implied living rationally, governed by the rules of reason, the virtues, some of which had to do with self-perfection, some with considerateness.
This was all changed in the 17th century, mostly at the hands of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. For him the human self consisted of raw impulses or beastly drives to gain power in life. Thus the term “selfish” changed its meaning, too. Instead of implying eudemonia--a decent, benevolent self--it came to imply something closer to hedonism, pleasure seeking and power hunger at all cost. The self lost its connection to reason. Instead it became connected to mindless feeling or passion. So a selfish act would come to be one that is driven by someone’s feelings, passions, or emotions, not someone’s good judgment.
Ayn Rand tried to do the nearly impossible thing of returning the concept of the human self to what it used to mean for the ancient Greeks with but a few amendments added based on modern psychology. But the bulk of the world had by then accepted the Hobbesian idea and used “selfish” to mean “self-indulgent,” ruled by one’s feelings or emotions.
So, sadly, despite her efforts to make herself clear--not just by the subtitle of her book but, especially, by its content--Rand left the impression that she was advocating a Hobbesian idea of the human self or ego--a kind of wild, unruly, irrational element that drove one to do anything one damn well felt like doing.
Rand’s one time intellectual partner, Nathaniel Branden, tried to undue the damage by writing his book, Honoring the Self: Personal Integrity and the Heroic Potentials of Human Nature (Los Angeles : J.P. Tarcher, 1983). Unfortunately, the work didn’t manage to alter the way most people, especially the anti-individualist intellectuals in the culture, used the term “self.”
Still, it is perhaps useful now and then to try to set the record straight. Ayn Rand, a very popular novelist and thinker, was not advocating rapacious, nasty, brutal, inconsiderate “selfishness” as her detractors maintain. That’s because she had a noble view of the human self. Those who are interested in doing justice to Rand’s views, even if they disagree with her in the end, might well like to remember this.
Tibor R. Machan
For more than forty years I have been seriously interested in the ideas of Ayn Rand, ever since I read her novels and later her non-fiction works. This despite the fact that Miss Rand once declared me “persona non grata” for writing her a disagreeable letter. Oh well, but her ideas never ceased to intrigue me and after much study and reflection I still think her philosophy of Objectivism is largely right.
One element of Rand’s idea is the notion that selfishness is good, which clearly runs counter to received opinion both Left and Right. And she has received a great deal of rebuke for finding self-interest a proper pursuit for all human beings. I think, however, that this is due to a colossal misunderstanding of Rand’s position.
One of Rand’s non-fiction books is titled, quite deliberately, The Virtue of Selfishness, A New Concept of Egoism (New American Library, 1964). The title is still widely misunderstood, despite Rand’s attempt to warn readers, by way of the subtitle, that she is advocating something unusual.
The terms “selfishness” and “self-interest” are not simple ones because the meaning of the term “self” is very much in dispute. In fact it is one of the most controversial ideas in human history. Another and similarly controversial idea is “individual.” These are what some philosophers have called essentially contestable concepts. That means they are by their very nature always being argued about, like “liberty,” “justice,” “democracy,” or “morality.”
In ancient Greece the self was understood as the human soul and while it meant the soul of the individual, it was also taken as a social concept--the human self was supposed to be something intimately tied to the social group within which one lived. A good self, for example, was understood as one that’s gregarious, liberal, generous, and engaging. In the ethical writings of Aristotle, for example, the system of principles one should live by was called eudemonia, the set of guidelines for achieving a good self or soul, or, in other words, happiness. And that implied living rationally, governed by the rules of reason, the virtues, some of which had to do with self-perfection, some with considerateness.
This was all changed in the 17th century, mostly at the hands of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. For him the human self consisted of raw impulses or beastly drives to gain power in life. Thus the term “selfish” changed its meaning, too. Instead of implying eudemonia--a decent, benevolent self--it came to imply something closer to hedonism, pleasure seeking and power hunger at all cost. The self lost its connection to reason. Instead it became connected to mindless feeling or passion. So a selfish act would come to be one that is driven by someone’s feelings, passions, or emotions, not someone’s good judgment.
Ayn Rand tried to do the nearly impossible thing of returning the concept of the human self to what it used to mean for the ancient Greeks with but a few amendments added based on modern psychology. But the bulk of the world had by then accepted the Hobbesian idea and used “selfish” to mean “self-indulgent,” ruled by one’s feelings or emotions.
So, sadly, despite her efforts to make herself clear--not just by the subtitle of her book but, especially, by its content--Rand left the impression that she was advocating a Hobbesian idea of the human self or ego--a kind of wild, unruly, irrational element that drove one to do anything one damn well felt like doing.
Rand’s one time intellectual partner, Nathaniel Branden, tried to undue the damage by writing his book, Honoring the Self: Personal Integrity and the Heroic Potentials of Human Nature (Los Angeles : J.P. Tarcher, 1983). Unfortunately, the work didn’t manage to alter the way most people, especially the anti-individualist intellectuals in the culture, used the term “self.”
Still, it is perhaps useful now and then to try to set the record straight. Ayn Rand, a very popular novelist and thinker, was not advocating rapacious, nasty, brutal, inconsiderate “selfishness” as her detractors maintain. That’s because she had a noble view of the human self. Those who are interested in doing justice to Rand’s views, even if they disagree with her in the end, might well like to remember this.
My Summer "Vacations"
Tibor R. Machan
Every summer since 1989 I have flown to Europe where I take part in a seminar on political economy organized by the Institute for Economic Studies, Europe, a classical liberal think tank in France. The objective is to familiarize students from around the globe with the principles and implications of classical liberalism-libertarianism by way of lectures by several scholars from different disciplines.
Initially students came mostly from the former Soviet bloc countries. More recently they have come from across the globe. These week-long seminars take place in various countries and are attended by about 35 students each. The language varies—some are held in French, some in English. The lecturers are philosophers, economists, historians, and legal theorists.
Aside from these seminars I also lecture around the USA and numerous countries, such as South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, the Republic of Georgia and Armenia, mostly covering elements of liberty. What has appealed to me about these venues is just how interested and intelligent are the students who attend. Although the focus is on the free society, a great deal of time is spent on considering alternatives and challenges. While the faculty is largely in agreement about the superiority of the libertarian alternative, there are numerous disagreements as well, certainly many details to be ironed out. And, of course, there are always the traditional questions about whether it is even possible to reach firm conclusions in a complex field such as political economy.
Most of the seminars amount to a brain storming session—every lecture of about 45 minutes is followed by a Q&A for which questions are carefully prepared by the students and this then gives rise to many challenges and follow-up discussions. Even once the formal sessions are over, there follow exploration of the related ideas.
Although on and off someone jokes about these being indoctrination sessions, in fact there is wide open contribution from a great many political and economic positions. If they aren't introduced by students, the lecturers will discuss them, usually with scrupulous fairness--what's the point of dealing with critics whose views are distorted? Even those who make no bones about their commitment to certain principles have no trouble playing devil’s advocate. Aside from the several classical liberal thinkers who are routinely examined, such as Hayek, Mises, Rand, Rothbard, Friedman, Locke, Smith, Schumpeter, et al., the ideas of many others such as Habermas, Sen, Rawls, Dworkin, Sunstein and the like are also explored.
I am extremely eager to take part in these seminars and for a variety of reasons (not excluding the fee I receive, which is, however, quite modest). For one, getting classical liberal ideas seriously considered is the best way to give them a chance in time to be tried out in practice. My own thinking about the issues can always use the challenge from thoughtful and seriously interested young people. I get a chance to travel and even visit the few members of my family still living in Europe. And there is also the opportunity to see how different places across the globe deal with various common and diverse human problems.
There is, of course, no guarantee that even the most competent discussion and defense of classical liberal ideas will lead to concrete results. But the chance of it is far greater when the ideas get a good run for their money.
I cannot pretend, and would not even be tempted to, that I am indifferent to the success of classical liberal-libertarian ideas, that all this is merely some kind of academic exercise to me. As far as I have been able to discern, these are the best ideas when it comes to understanding and shaping a decent, just human community. Not that it is highly likely that they will triumph but just the chance that they might is enough to keep those like me going, hammering away on the task of changing minds and hearts.
Tibor R. Machan
Every summer since 1989 I have flown to Europe where I take part in a seminar on political economy organized by the Institute for Economic Studies, Europe, a classical liberal think tank in France. The objective is to familiarize students from around the globe with the principles and implications of classical liberalism-libertarianism by way of lectures by several scholars from different disciplines.
Initially students came mostly from the former Soviet bloc countries. More recently they have come from across the globe. These week-long seminars take place in various countries and are attended by about 35 students each. The language varies—some are held in French, some in English. The lecturers are philosophers, economists, historians, and legal theorists.
Aside from these seminars I also lecture around the USA and numerous countries, such as South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, the Republic of Georgia and Armenia, mostly covering elements of liberty. What has appealed to me about these venues is just how interested and intelligent are the students who attend. Although the focus is on the free society, a great deal of time is spent on considering alternatives and challenges. While the faculty is largely in agreement about the superiority of the libertarian alternative, there are numerous disagreements as well, certainly many details to be ironed out. And, of course, there are always the traditional questions about whether it is even possible to reach firm conclusions in a complex field such as political economy.
Most of the seminars amount to a brain storming session—every lecture of about 45 minutes is followed by a Q&A for which questions are carefully prepared by the students and this then gives rise to many challenges and follow-up discussions. Even once the formal sessions are over, there follow exploration of the related ideas.
Although on and off someone jokes about these being indoctrination sessions, in fact there is wide open contribution from a great many political and economic positions. If they aren't introduced by students, the lecturers will discuss them, usually with scrupulous fairness--what's the point of dealing with critics whose views are distorted? Even those who make no bones about their commitment to certain principles have no trouble playing devil’s advocate. Aside from the several classical liberal thinkers who are routinely examined, such as Hayek, Mises, Rand, Rothbard, Friedman, Locke, Smith, Schumpeter, et al., the ideas of many others such as Habermas, Sen, Rawls, Dworkin, Sunstein and the like are also explored.
I am extremely eager to take part in these seminars and for a variety of reasons (not excluding the fee I receive, which is, however, quite modest). For one, getting classical liberal ideas seriously considered is the best way to give them a chance in time to be tried out in practice. My own thinking about the issues can always use the challenge from thoughtful and seriously interested young people. I get a chance to travel and even visit the few members of my family still living in Europe. And there is also the opportunity to see how different places across the globe deal with various common and diverse human problems.
There is, of course, no guarantee that even the most competent discussion and defense of classical liberal ideas will lead to concrete results. But the chance of it is far greater when the ideas get a good run for their money.
I cannot pretend, and would not even be tempted to, that I am indifferent to the success of classical liberal-libertarian ideas, that all this is merely some kind of academic exercise to me. As far as I have been able to discern, these are the best ideas when it comes to understanding and shaping a decent, just human community. Not that it is highly likely that they will triumph but just the chance that they might is enough to keep those like me going, hammering away on the task of changing minds and hearts.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Is Religious Politics Libertarian?
Tibor R. Machan
In many ways the principles of a fully free society are the most hospitable to the great variety of faithful in a large society. The main reason for this is that in such a free society the right to private property is strictly protected. Even more, the strict protection of the right to private property serves religion well because it establishes a culture of tolerance and non-interference among the different faithful.
Tolerance, of course, isn’t acceptance--I can tolerate your weird jokes or garb without considering them desirable. However, I will not do anything against you because you make such jokes and wear such garb. I’ll leave you be. And in a free society members of a religions order must be tolerate towards those of another even if they disapprove of them so long as they carry on within their sphere, their private domain.
Some object, saying that such tolerance amounts to encouragement but this is really quote wrong. If I tolerate your strange clothes I by no stretch of the imagination encourage you to wear it. What I am doing is respecting your right to your life, liberty, and private property--I refuse to interfere with you. Not at all the same as approving of what you do!
Most religions are relatively uncommitted to the kind of political system under which they can function and be practiced. As long as the government does not ban their rituals, there is no conflict between state and church. Obviously, if a particular faith demanded that every Sunday a young child be sacrificed to God, this would be prohibited in a free society. That’s not religious freedom but religions oppression (unless it is an adult who voluntarily submits to such a sacrifice). But apart from such barbaric religious practices nearly everything adults might choose to do within the domain of their church can co-exist with the principles and citizens of a fully free society.
The few exceptions include religions faiths that demand that aggressive actions must be taken by the faithful toward some who are not among the faithful. Thus if a religious group embarked upon attacks on gays or gamblers or meat-eaters or those who would abort a fetus before it becomes a biological (as distinct from religiously understood) human being (around the 25th week of pregnancy), that group’s practices would be banned. Not because of religious discrimination but because of the fact that everyone has the right to life, liberty, property, etc., and the violation of these rights constitutes illegal conduct in a free society. It is not religions discrimination to prohibit the sacrifice of a child at some holiday! No one may do that!
Also, if a given religion accepts the idea that its faithful must follow an edict from its good book that amounts to the violation of human rights, that religion may not carry out this edict. If a religion holds that God demands that gays or gamblers or divorced people must be penalized, treated badly by the political authorities, in a free society this will not be acceptable.
There are many benefits to religions from living in a free society but one will not be available, namely, to forcibly establish a homogeneous culture that follows that religion’s dictates and none other. Such imperialism is just what some religions--or at least factions of religions--insist upon and they will not get it from citizens of a fully free society. The faithful who insist on such hegemony will simply not be satisfied. If their mission is to coerce everyone to follow their way--not just those of the faithful but everyone else--they will be rebuffed, opposed and if they take action to fulfill their mission, they will become criminals.
The laws of a fully free society are based on human nature, not on particular, sectarian conceptions of human nature. These laws are to govern members of the community as human beings, not as members of some particular religions faith. Of course, those of a religious faith may find this frustrating, just as vegetarians are frustrated by the existence of meat serving eateries and anti-gamblers by Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. But that is no justification for attacking those who do not embrace their edicts for proper living.
Human nature is such that it makes it possible for there to be millions of different proper ways to live, as well as some very improper ones. One needs to figure out which is which and fashion laws and public policy accordingly.
Tibor R. Machan
In many ways the principles of a fully free society are the most hospitable to the great variety of faithful in a large society. The main reason for this is that in such a free society the right to private property is strictly protected. Even more, the strict protection of the right to private property serves religion well because it establishes a culture of tolerance and non-interference among the different faithful.
Tolerance, of course, isn’t acceptance--I can tolerate your weird jokes or garb without considering them desirable. However, I will not do anything against you because you make such jokes and wear such garb. I’ll leave you be. And in a free society members of a religions order must be tolerate towards those of another even if they disapprove of them so long as they carry on within their sphere, their private domain.
Some object, saying that such tolerance amounts to encouragement but this is really quote wrong. If I tolerate your strange clothes I by no stretch of the imagination encourage you to wear it. What I am doing is respecting your right to your life, liberty, and private property--I refuse to interfere with you. Not at all the same as approving of what you do!
Most religions are relatively uncommitted to the kind of political system under which they can function and be practiced. As long as the government does not ban their rituals, there is no conflict between state and church. Obviously, if a particular faith demanded that every Sunday a young child be sacrificed to God, this would be prohibited in a free society. That’s not religious freedom but religions oppression (unless it is an adult who voluntarily submits to such a sacrifice). But apart from such barbaric religious practices nearly everything adults might choose to do within the domain of their church can co-exist with the principles and citizens of a fully free society.
The few exceptions include religions faiths that demand that aggressive actions must be taken by the faithful toward some who are not among the faithful. Thus if a religious group embarked upon attacks on gays or gamblers or meat-eaters or those who would abort a fetus before it becomes a biological (as distinct from religiously understood) human being (around the 25th week of pregnancy), that group’s practices would be banned. Not because of religious discrimination but because of the fact that everyone has the right to life, liberty, property, etc., and the violation of these rights constitutes illegal conduct in a free society. It is not religions discrimination to prohibit the sacrifice of a child at some holiday! No one may do that!
Also, if a given religion accepts the idea that its faithful must follow an edict from its good book that amounts to the violation of human rights, that religion may not carry out this edict. If a religion holds that God demands that gays or gamblers or divorced people must be penalized, treated badly by the political authorities, in a free society this will not be acceptable.
There are many benefits to religions from living in a free society but one will not be available, namely, to forcibly establish a homogeneous culture that follows that religion’s dictates and none other. Such imperialism is just what some religions--or at least factions of religions--insist upon and they will not get it from citizens of a fully free society. The faithful who insist on such hegemony will simply not be satisfied. If their mission is to coerce everyone to follow their way--not just those of the faithful but everyone else--they will be rebuffed, opposed and if they take action to fulfill their mission, they will become criminals.
The laws of a fully free society are based on human nature, not on particular, sectarian conceptions of human nature. These laws are to govern members of the community as human beings, not as members of some particular religions faith. Of course, those of a religious faith may find this frustrating, just as vegetarians are frustrated by the existence of meat serving eateries and anti-gamblers by Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. But that is no justification for attacking those who do not embrace their edicts for proper living.
Human nature is such that it makes it possible for there to be millions of different proper ways to live, as well as some very improper ones. One needs to figure out which is which and fashion laws and public policy accordingly.
Racial, etc., versus Individual Competition
Tibor R. Machan
What do blacks want? In the late 50s and early 60s the answer to this question was fairly obvious although rarely complete. How could it be? Blacks are not all alike and while on some fronts they shared similar problems and needed similar solutions, on many others they, like the rest of us, had problems related not to race but to just living in the world. Still since they were a hounded group, they had many common problems arising from the injustices to which they were relentlessly subjected.
Some of these injustices were private or social, having little to do with law and government, but many of them dealt with how the government and public policy treated them. That was the main travesty of segregation, the public policies, backed by laws and law enforcement. In some case the private sector was moving away from dealing with blacks in prejudicial, unjustly discriminatory fashion but the law posed an obstacle. Just goes to show that democracy is not always a blessing!
Those days are nearly gone and good riddance. Sure there are pockets of America and groups of Americans who will not let go of their stubborn, nearly ingrained racism; it is now becoming an embarrassment to belong to this segment of American society. Yes, it still poses some serious obstacles to the lives of many black people but these are not all that different from obstacles put before us all by irrational neighbors, relatives, colleagues and the rest. In other words, racism is no longer a focused but more of a dispersed social malignancy. And it certainly doesn’t only impact blacks--Hispanics, native Americans, Arab Americans and even whites are facing it.
Most importantly, though, racism is slowly abating, subsiding and now some of its consequences are more troublesome than it is itself. Having been left behind in school or at one’s job or in one’s neighborhood because of one’s race or ethnic or national background is no doubt a burden many Americans are experiencing, yet these are not all that different from other burdens ordinary socio-economic lives encounter--being overlooked because of one’s accent or looks.
Perhaps the promise of a Barrack Obama presidency suggests that race will subside as an American problem, especially in light of the clear fact that it is a problem nearly everywhere else, including in Africa, between members of different tribes of blacks.
What now appears to be emerging as a related problem is the misguided belief, propagated by so many intellectuals and educators in the social sciences and humanities, that human beings are naturally linked to various others apart from members of their families. The communitarian doctrine that we all belong to some community, that individuality is a myth, that individualism is something insidious, is replacing the idea that race constitutes our primary identity.
Communitarians are wedded to the notion that without others in very close proximity to one’s life, one is basically crippled. An individual cannot be even spiritually, psychologically, let alone economically or professional, self-sufficient--that’s what most social psychologists and sociologists teach at many universities. (I was at a frosh opening assembly recently where this theme was asserted as a virtual necessary truth--by professors who were featured speakers--with no need of defense!) Indeed, individualism was the only position explicitly denigrated, something from which the participating teachers believed students need to warned off.
This is too bad since nearly every major conflict in history and around the globe involves various groups members of which think they together must somehow conquer and rule others in order to be safe, so as to flourish. The best antidote to this is of course individualism whereby people regard it as their major task in life to become excellent at who they are, as individuals, to improve from day to day, to break one’s own recent record. This is not a matter of rivalry or contest or competition since each will be striving to improve on him or herself, not so much on others who are, after all, too different from oneself to make a good, valid comparison.
The American idea--still only a model and no blueprint--that we all need to be the best we can be, in our own terms, and not always compare ourselves to others, this hasn’t made a lasting enough impact. But where it has, in some sports for example, it has reaped good results. Instead of pitting groups against groups, there is more of a face to face contest the result of which do not lend themselves to any generalizations about which country, which race, which gender is the best.
Tibor R. Machan
What do blacks want? In the late 50s and early 60s the answer to this question was fairly obvious although rarely complete. How could it be? Blacks are not all alike and while on some fronts they shared similar problems and needed similar solutions, on many others they, like the rest of us, had problems related not to race but to just living in the world. Still since they were a hounded group, they had many common problems arising from the injustices to which they were relentlessly subjected.
Some of these injustices were private or social, having little to do with law and government, but many of them dealt with how the government and public policy treated them. That was the main travesty of segregation, the public policies, backed by laws and law enforcement. In some case the private sector was moving away from dealing with blacks in prejudicial, unjustly discriminatory fashion but the law posed an obstacle. Just goes to show that democracy is not always a blessing!
Those days are nearly gone and good riddance. Sure there are pockets of America and groups of Americans who will not let go of their stubborn, nearly ingrained racism; it is now becoming an embarrassment to belong to this segment of American society. Yes, it still poses some serious obstacles to the lives of many black people but these are not all that different from obstacles put before us all by irrational neighbors, relatives, colleagues and the rest. In other words, racism is no longer a focused but more of a dispersed social malignancy. And it certainly doesn’t only impact blacks--Hispanics, native Americans, Arab Americans and even whites are facing it.
Most importantly, though, racism is slowly abating, subsiding and now some of its consequences are more troublesome than it is itself. Having been left behind in school or at one’s job or in one’s neighborhood because of one’s race or ethnic or national background is no doubt a burden many Americans are experiencing, yet these are not all that different from other burdens ordinary socio-economic lives encounter--being overlooked because of one’s accent or looks.
Perhaps the promise of a Barrack Obama presidency suggests that race will subside as an American problem, especially in light of the clear fact that it is a problem nearly everywhere else, including in Africa, between members of different tribes of blacks.
What now appears to be emerging as a related problem is the misguided belief, propagated by so many intellectuals and educators in the social sciences and humanities, that human beings are naturally linked to various others apart from members of their families. The communitarian doctrine that we all belong to some community, that individuality is a myth, that individualism is something insidious, is replacing the idea that race constitutes our primary identity.
Communitarians are wedded to the notion that without others in very close proximity to one’s life, one is basically crippled. An individual cannot be even spiritually, psychologically, let alone economically or professional, self-sufficient--that’s what most social psychologists and sociologists teach at many universities. (I was at a frosh opening assembly recently where this theme was asserted as a virtual necessary truth--by professors who were featured speakers--with no need of defense!) Indeed, individualism was the only position explicitly denigrated, something from which the participating teachers believed students need to warned off.
This is too bad since nearly every major conflict in history and around the globe involves various groups members of which think they together must somehow conquer and rule others in order to be safe, so as to flourish. The best antidote to this is of course individualism whereby people regard it as their major task in life to become excellent at who they are, as individuals, to improve from day to day, to break one’s own recent record. This is not a matter of rivalry or contest or competition since each will be striving to improve on him or herself, not so much on others who are, after all, too different from oneself to make a good, valid comparison.
The American idea--still only a model and no blueprint--that we all need to be the best we can be, in our own terms, and not always compare ourselves to others, this hasn’t made a lasting enough impact. But where it has, in some sports for example, it has reaped good results. Instead of pitting groups against groups, there is more of a face to face contest the result of which do not lend themselves to any generalizations about which country, which race, which gender is the best.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Georgia versus Russia: A Georgian Voice
By Gia Jandieri*
Unfortunately the Republic of Georgia has become a sticking point again. In 1989 the murder of 21 peaceful protesters in the streets of Tbilisi played a serious role for a political collapse of the Soviet Union. That time the Soviet government was weakened and restricted by the international press. After some resistance it surrendered and declined its positions so far that in two years it collapsed. Then everybody was so happy with the event that no one mentioned Russia’s new efforts to rebuild the empire--Russia successfully and brutally implemented progressive conflicts in the Caucasus and Moldova and increased aggression towards of all ex-Soviet countries.
I personally participated in the movement for independence of Georgia (joined it at the late stage in 1980s) and clearly remember the little attention by the West to disastrous events unfolding in Georgia at that time. The deal was that the Soviets and their western counterparts admitted Baltic republics and the whole Eastern Europe to leave the Soviet bloc but the destiny of other republics of SU was to stay under the influence or even as a part of the empire.
We Georgians made a huge effort to convince everybody that this deal was not right and fair. I must admit that most of the other nations in the Soviet Union bloc then were less interested in independence than were the Georgians but received it as granted by Russia. Georgia made a great job to prove it deserved freedom. This fact was unsettling and uncomfortable for many Russians. The nations aspiring to and demanding freedom from the Soviet Union were understood by many Russians as enemies of the Russian people. To punish these nations Russian KGB and military forces organized several provocations and masterminded the conflicts, as well as directed them. Conflicts in Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were very good examples of the new ways Russia was using so as to pursue its interests. They openly supported the separatist movements in the regions, equipped and trained them enough to resist Georgia for a while and finally used Russian military forces for implementing "peacekeeping".
There is no doubt that Georgian authorities made many mistakes back then and we, [the] population of Georgia, suffered from these mistakes ourselves in a drastic way. Unfortunately our mistakes and very strong propaganda from the Russian authorities made us hardly trustworthy in the eyes of Abkhaz and Ossetians. Later in time these frozen conflicts in Georgia were certainly not in line of free market reforms Georgia was implementing. Georgia is open to anybody to come and live and work without restrictions and the freedoms of any person, with any ethnic origin or nationality, is equally protected as that of ethnically Georgians.
The core of the problem regrettably lay not only in the propaganda and skillful provocation activities of Russia, and not in the past mistakes of Georgian side, but it was in the passive role of the West itself:
- who ignored all clear signals of revival of the Russian authoritarianism and tyranny. I personally attended several meetings where Russian liberals (libertarians) were trying to warn everybody about the increasing powers of the Russian authorities and a[bout the] new threat developing as a consequence. Unfortunately nobody took this into account seriously except Georgians.
- who was ready to doze in the smell of oil and gas;
- who tried to close eyes on hundreds of provocations, shootings, bombings of Georgian territory, economic blockade, cutting of energy supply and many more aggressive actions from the side of Russian authorities.
- who ignored the fact that it was Georgian nation demanding NATO membership not its government and this was due to feeling very unsafe and vulnerable.
NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008 requested from Georgians to resolve these frozen conflicts and in exchange promised open doors for it to join the alliance. Regrettably this was understood by Russian authorities in the opposite way--blow up conflicts or Georgia will join the NATO they decided. The competition was open and as a consequence we now face a much bigger problem.
Some defend Ossetians and Abkhazians in their separatist movement. I am sure Russians can easily bribe them with their oil money as they used to for them to forget about Beslan where they killed 300 children at school or in Chechnia, where they killed tens of thousands of children deliberately targeting schools and kindergartens. Irony is that Russians will come (they are already there--all the authorities of the region before the war were KGB people) and end up totally with their imagined paradise.
Abkhaz can forget about us and the centuries we lived together without violence and in friendship (before Russia) if they wish to, but their problem of self-identification will remain. Unfortunately in the hands of Russians they have almost lost their traditions and culture, speaking mostly in Russian and educated in Russian. This "paradise" can be extended by implementing a political system of apartheid; without this Abkhaz, who remain in minority even after ethnic cleansing of Georgians, will not be able to control the situation. They of course don't consider allowing Georgians to return and participate in referendums and elections, but the reality is that, with refugees back or not, they know they would lose all referendums and elections to separate from Georgia. So what they have been doing instead? Selling houses of Georgian refugees to Russians is one of the solutions.
The sad thing is that South Ossetians and Abkkhaz are very mistaken if they think that Russia cares about them; what it care about is to have Georgia and effectively the whole Caucasus under their control; they care about Caspian oil and gas and how to control its flow to Europe. Who cares about people and innocent children? Definitely Russia isn’t bothered about individuals--Death solves all problems--no man, no problem.
The same way we tell Ossetians and Abkhaz, we can tell the world--don't believe in Russian propaganda, they will not be satisfied with just Georgia, they will go much further. This is the time--we will either stop them now or never!
And lastly--we are not trying to disturb the world as some regrettably see Georgian actions but we are trying to survive the catastrophe and warn others about it too. To think that Georgians need any conflict with Russia is simply madness.
----------
*Tibor Machan has asked Gia Jandieri, a free market economist, the vice-president of a think-tank New Economic School in Tbilisi, Georgia, for this exclusive report, to be published where his columns appear.
By Gia Jandieri*
Unfortunately the Republic of Georgia has become a sticking point again. In 1989 the murder of 21 peaceful protesters in the streets of Tbilisi played a serious role for a political collapse of the Soviet Union. That time the Soviet government was weakened and restricted by the international press. After some resistance it surrendered and declined its positions so far that in two years it collapsed. Then everybody was so happy with the event that no one mentioned Russia’s new efforts to rebuild the empire--Russia successfully and brutally implemented progressive conflicts in the Caucasus and Moldova and increased aggression towards of all ex-Soviet countries.
I personally participated in the movement for independence of Georgia (joined it at the late stage in 1980s) and clearly remember the little attention by the West to disastrous events unfolding in Georgia at that time. The deal was that the Soviets and their western counterparts admitted Baltic republics and the whole Eastern Europe to leave the Soviet bloc but the destiny of other republics of SU was to stay under the influence or even as a part of the empire.
We Georgians made a huge effort to convince everybody that this deal was not right and fair. I must admit that most of the other nations in the Soviet Union bloc then were less interested in independence than were the Georgians but received it as granted by Russia. Georgia made a great job to prove it deserved freedom. This fact was unsettling and uncomfortable for many Russians. The nations aspiring to and demanding freedom from the Soviet Union were understood by many Russians as enemies of the Russian people. To punish these nations Russian KGB and military forces organized several provocations and masterminded the conflicts, as well as directed them. Conflicts in Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were very good examples of the new ways Russia was using so as to pursue its interests. They openly supported the separatist movements in the regions, equipped and trained them enough to resist Georgia for a while and finally used Russian military forces for implementing "peacekeeping".
There is no doubt that Georgian authorities made many mistakes back then and we, [the] population of Georgia, suffered from these mistakes ourselves in a drastic way. Unfortunately our mistakes and very strong propaganda from the Russian authorities made us hardly trustworthy in the eyes of Abkhaz and Ossetians. Later in time these frozen conflicts in Georgia were certainly not in line of free market reforms Georgia was implementing. Georgia is open to anybody to come and live and work without restrictions and the freedoms of any person, with any ethnic origin or nationality, is equally protected as that of ethnically Georgians.
The core of the problem regrettably lay not only in the propaganda and skillful provocation activities of Russia, and not in the past mistakes of Georgian side, but it was in the passive role of the West itself:
- who ignored all clear signals of revival of the Russian authoritarianism and tyranny. I personally attended several meetings where Russian liberals (libertarians) were trying to warn everybody about the increasing powers of the Russian authorities and a[bout the] new threat developing as a consequence. Unfortunately nobody took this into account seriously except Georgians.
- who was ready to doze in the smell of oil and gas;
- who tried to close eyes on hundreds of provocations, shootings, bombings of Georgian territory, economic blockade, cutting of energy supply and many more aggressive actions from the side of Russian authorities.
- who ignored the fact that it was Georgian nation demanding NATO membership not its government and this was due to feeling very unsafe and vulnerable.
NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008 requested from Georgians to resolve these frozen conflicts and in exchange promised open doors for it to join the alliance. Regrettably this was understood by Russian authorities in the opposite way--blow up conflicts or Georgia will join the NATO they decided. The competition was open and as a consequence we now face a much bigger problem.
Some defend Ossetians and Abkhazians in their separatist movement. I am sure Russians can easily bribe them with their oil money as they used to for them to forget about Beslan where they killed 300 children at school or in Chechnia, where they killed tens of thousands of children deliberately targeting schools and kindergartens. Irony is that Russians will come (they are already there--all the authorities of the region before the war were KGB people) and end up totally with their imagined paradise.
Abkhaz can forget about us and the centuries we lived together without violence and in friendship (before Russia) if they wish to, but their problem of self-identification will remain. Unfortunately in the hands of Russians they have almost lost their traditions and culture, speaking mostly in Russian and educated in Russian. This "paradise" can be extended by implementing a political system of apartheid; without this Abkhaz, who remain in minority even after ethnic cleansing of Georgians, will not be able to control the situation. They of course don't consider allowing Georgians to return and participate in referendums and elections, but the reality is that, with refugees back or not, they know they would lose all referendums and elections to separate from Georgia. So what they have been doing instead? Selling houses of Georgian refugees to Russians is one of the solutions.
The sad thing is that South Ossetians and Abkkhaz are very mistaken if they think that Russia cares about them; what it care about is to have Georgia and effectively the whole Caucasus under their control; they care about Caspian oil and gas and how to control its flow to Europe. Who cares about people and innocent children? Definitely Russia isn’t bothered about individuals--Death solves all problems--no man, no problem.
The same way we tell Ossetians and Abkhaz, we can tell the world--don't believe in Russian propaganda, they will not be satisfied with just Georgia, they will go much further. This is the time--we will either stop them now or never!
And lastly--we are not trying to disturb the world as some regrettably see Georgian actions but we are trying to survive the catastrophe and warn others about it too. To think that Georgians need any conflict with Russia is simply madness.
----------
*Tibor Machan has asked Gia Jandieri, a free market economist, the vice-president of a think-tank New Economic School in Tbilisi, Georgia, for this exclusive report, to be published where his columns appear.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Indoctrination Temptation
Tibor R. Machan
For forty some years I have been a teacher in a field rife with controversy, namely, philosophy. My specialty, political philosophy, is notorious for constant disagreements. What is justice? What are rights? What is more important, equality or liberty or order or peace, etc.? Since the ancient Greeks and before, these issues have been debated and no consensus has ever been reached. Maybe just one thing is at least widely agreed to. That is that discussions of these ideas, provided they are civil and intelligent, is very important.
Educators who take up these questions as part of their scholarship face certain challenges. One of which is to remain reasonably fair-minded when they face their students even if they are committed to certain views as against all the others. It is one thing to conclude that certain views or positions are sound, superior to others, and another to turn one’s classroom into a platform for these views. The idea of a liberal education isn’t that some expert will stand up and lay down the final word on a topic which he or she will then impart authoritatively to a captive audience in the class room. Education is more about helping or enabling, intelligently and with sufficient knowledge, one’s students to come to conclusions they themselves find reasonable, sensible, true. This, roughly, is what has come to be called the Socratic method, although there is plenty of debate about whether Socrates practiced it faithfully. (A very good book dealing with that issue is Emily Wilson, The Death of Socrates, Harvard University Press, 2007.)
But some teachers simply find it too tempting to resist become indoctrinators. This is especially so because in some many forums outside the classroom they are called upon to advocate, to promote, to defend or argue for the positions they find most convincing. And in certain disciplines, such as political philosophy, economy or theory, they are not only convinced that they have the right answer--even if that's some form of skepticism--but of the urgency to spread these ideas, to convince people of them. If you believe that some law is just or some public policy advances a basic human value, you are likely to want to share this in the hopes that the ideas will in time, sooner than later, come to influence the world. But this is a belief that competes with the commitment to refuse to use the classroom as a place where one is going to try to influence students to follow one’s way.
I am very familiar with this challenge because I do have strong political convictions and often take the podium outside school to defend them, to argue for them. And I write many essays, articles, books and so forth hoping to show readers that these ideas are worth their allegiance.
But I keep reminding myself every day that that is not why I became and was hired to be a teacher. I am not a mouthpiece for even the truest of ideas in my classrooms. Of course, now and then a student will ask about my position on some topic we are covering and I will say, “OK, this is an editorial comment, and here is where I stand. But that isn’t what we are here to study, what I happen to believe.” If my students get interested in my views, they need to find them mostly outside the classroom.
Sadly not everyone shares this commitment who takes up an academic teaching career. I recall many years ago a discussion I had with a colleague who defended his use of his classroom is a platform from which to advocate his views. He said that failing to deliver the truth to one’s students gives the impression that there is no truth and that they are free to choose when, in fact, society forces them to believe one or another thing that is wrong. And this is an attractive position. One who holds it comes off as a savior.
But is one hired to be a savior--indoctrinator--or a teacher? Are one’s students served better by being instructed to accept certain beliefs or by being urged to take up a search for the best beliefs, the trust ones?
I have always thought the latter is the better idea. But just so you know, not all of us holding teaching jobs at colleges and universities share it.
Tibor R. Machan
For forty some years I have been a teacher in a field rife with controversy, namely, philosophy. My specialty, political philosophy, is notorious for constant disagreements. What is justice? What are rights? What is more important, equality or liberty or order or peace, etc.? Since the ancient Greeks and before, these issues have been debated and no consensus has ever been reached. Maybe just one thing is at least widely agreed to. That is that discussions of these ideas, provided they are civil and intelligent, is very important.
Educators who take up these questions as part of their scholarship face certain challenges. One of which is to remain reasonably fair-minded when they face their students even if they are committed to certain views as against all the others. It is one thing to conclude that certain views or positions are sound, superior to others, and another to turn one’s classroom into a platform for these views. The idea of a liberal education isn’t that some expert will stand up and lay down the final word on a topic which he or she will then impart authoritatively to a captive audience in the class room. Education is more about helping or enabling, intelligently and with sufficient knowledge, one’s students to come to conclusions they themselves find reasonable, sensible, true. This, roughly, is what has come to be called the Socratic method, although there is plenty of debate about whether Socrates practiced it faithfully. (A very good book dealing with that issue is Emily Wilson, The Death of Socrates, Harvard University Press, 2007.)
But some teachers simply find it too tempting to resist become indoctrinators. This is especially so because in some many forums outside the classroom they are called upon to advocate, to promote, to defend or argue for the positions they find most convincing. And in certain disciplines, such as political philosophy, economy or theory, they are not only convinced that they have the right answer--even if that's some form of skepticism--but of the urgency to spread these ideas, to convince people of them. If you believe that some law is just or some public policy advances a basic human value, you are likely to want to share this in the hopes that the ideas will in time, sooner than later, come to influence the world. But this is a belief that competes with the commitment to refuse to use the classroom as a place where one is going to try to influence students to follow one’s way.
I am very familiar with this challenge because I do have strong political convictions and often take the podium outside school to defend them, to argue for them. And I write many essays, articles, books and so forth hoping to show readers that these ideas are worth their allegiance.
But I keep reminding myself every day that that is not why I became and was hired to be a teacher. I am not a mouthpiece for even the truest of ideas in my classrooms. Of course, now and then a student will ask about my position on some topic we are covering and I will say, “OK, this is an editorial comment, and here is where I stand. But that isn’t what we are here to study, what I happen to believe.” If my students get interested in my views, they need to find them mostly outside the classroom.
Sadly not everyone shares this commitment who takes up an academic teaching career. I recall many years ago a discussion I had with a colleague who defended his use of his classroom is a platform from which to advocate his views. He said that failing to deliver the truth to one’s students gives the impression that there is no truth and that they are free to choose when, in fact, society forces them to believe one or another thing that is wrong. And this is an attractive position. One who holds it comes off as a savior.
But is one hired to be a savior--indoctrinator--or a teacher? Are one’s students served better by being instructed to accept certain beliefs or by being urged to take up a search for the best beliefs, the trust ones?
I have always thought the latter is the better idea. But just so you know, not all of us holding teaching jobs at colleges and universities share it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
NATO, Georgia and Russia
Tibor R. Machan
Thomas Friedman of The New York Times writes that he is against expanding NATO. While he condemns the Russian government for its muscle flexing vis-Ã -vis the Republic of Georgia, he considers Georgia’s desire to join NATO unwise. As he recounts his and some of his allies reasoning at the time when the USSR collapsed, “It seemed to us that since we had finally brought down Soviet communism and seen the birth of democracy in Russia the most important thing to do was to help Russian democracy take root and integrate Russia into Europe. Wasn’t that why we fought the cold war — to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs, Georgians and Poles? Wasn’t consolidating a democratic Russia more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO?”
No doubt, the desire expressed by Mr. Friedman, the famous author of The World is Flat, a very reasonable defense of globalization, is understandable and were it not for Russia’s bad history and habit of expansionism, reasonable. But, alas, as with so many millions of people across the globe, the governmental habit keeps reasserting itself and with Russia this habit includes bullying its neighbors.
Having been in Georgia twice over the last two years and having lived under the Soviet regime in Hungary in the early and mid-fifties, I was interested in Friedman’s column about Russia v. Georgia today. I, too, believe, as Friedman does, that it would be valuable to tame Russia and that perhaps expanding NATO is an obstacle toward that end.
I do not believe, however, that Friedman gives sufficient weight to how justly frightened most people near the Russians are of the Russian government and many Russians people. I believe it’s too optimistic to expect Russia to change its proclivity of wanting to be in charge of its neighbors, especially as regards their international alliances. The Russian habit of expansion via conquest and intimidation has not abated, I am afraid.
This, I believe, explains why so many of those surrounding nations look at something like NATO for protection. Are the Russians justified in regarding this a threat? Not if they think about history. But perhaps that is just the problem, they do not.
The pacifist impulse is not a strong one within the current Russian leadership which is mostly made up of but barely reformed ex-Soviets. Unless Russian leaders become less bent on physically ruling the region and firmly, credibly commit to co-existence with their vulnerable neighbors, the NATO option simply cannot be discounted. Some kind of security measure will have to be available to these countries and arguably any will irk the Russians. And Mr. Friedman, who is an educated individual concerning geo-political matters, ought to know this and provide his commentary on the recent Russian v. Georgian conflict in that light. In short, what advice does he have for leaders of countries like the Republic of Georgia given the evident aggressiveness of Russia? As it is, his exhortations in support of less concern with Russia’s tendency to bully a country its neighbors sound more like wishful thinking than sound advice.
It isn’t that Russia cannot change--the Russian people are not all adherents to the previous policy of expansionism and even those who have been can rethink matters. Many, for example, want to trade with the rest of the world rather than pick fights. But unlike after World War II, when much of the aggressive leadership of the Third Reich had been incapacitated, after the fall of the Soviet Union the people who were loyal to some more or less virulent version of Stalinism remained free to influence Russia’s domestic and foreign affairs and are still vying for power. These people continue to hope to recover the sort of political and military prominence in the region that the Soviets believe was their historic birthright.
So it is going to be necessary, at least for a while, to not only be reasonable with the Russians but also back up reasonableness with sufficient muscle. Whether NATO is the answer or something else, I am not sure. All I am sure about is that the leadership of the Republic of Georgia has good reason to want to gain protection against Russia’s current government.
Tibor R. Machan
Thomas Friedman of The New York Times writes that he is against expanding NATO. While he condemns the Russian government for its muscle flexing vis-Ã -vis the Republic of Georgia, he considers Georgia’s desire to join NATO unwise. As he recounts his and some of his allies reasoning at the time when the USSR collapsed, “It seemed to us that since we had finally brought down Soviet communism and seen the birth of democracy in Russia the most important thing to do was to help Russian democracy take root and integrate Russia into Europe. Wasn’t that why we fought the cold war — to give young Russians the same chance at freedom and integration with the West as young Czechs, Georgians and Poles? Wasn’t consolidating a democratic Russia more important than bringing the Czech Navy into NATO?”
No doubt, the desire expressed by Mr. Friedman, the famous author of The World is Flat, a very reasonable defense of globalization, is understandable and were it not for Russia’s bad history and habit of expansionism, reasonable. But, alas, as with so many millions of people across the globe, the governmental habit keeps reasserting itself and with Russia this habit includes bullying its neighbors.
Having been in Georgia twice over the last two years and having lived under the Soviet regime in Hungary in the early and mid-fifties, I was interested in Friedman’s column about Russia v. Georgia today. I, too, believe, as Friedman does, that it would be valuable to tame Russia and that perhaps expanding NATO is an obstacle toward that end.
I do not believe, however, that Friedman gives sufficient weight to how justly frightened most people near the Russians are of the Russian government and many Russians people. I believe it’s too optimistic to expect Russia to change its proclivity of wanting to be in charge of its neighbors, especially as regards their international alliances. The Russian habit of expansion via conquest and intimidation has not abated, I am afraid.
This, I believe, explains why so many of those surrounding nations look at something like NATO for protection. Are the Russians justified in regarding this a threat? Not if they think about history. But perhaps that is just the problem, they do not.
The pacifist impulse is not a strong one within the current Russian leadership which is mostly made up of but barely reformed ex-Soviets. Unless Russian leaders become less bent on physically ruling the region and firmly, credibly commit to co-existence with their vulnerable neighbors, the NATO option simply cannot be discounted. Some kind of security measure will have to be available to these countries and arguably any will irk the Russians. And Mr. Friedman, who is an educated individual concerning geo-political matters, ought to know this and provide his commentary on the recent Russian v. Georgian conflict in that light. In short, what advice does he have for leaders of countries like the Republic of Georgia given the evident aggressiveness of Russia? As it is, his exhortations in support of less concern with Russia’s tendency to bully a country its neighbors sound more like wishful thinking than sound advice.
It isn’t that Russia cannot change--the Russian people are not all adherents to the previous policy of expansionism and even those who have been can rethink matters. Many, for example, want to trade with the rest of the world rather than pick fights. But unlike after World War II, when much of the aggressive leadership of the Third Reich had been incapacitated, after the fall of the Soviet Union the people who were loyal to some more or less virulent version of Stalinism remained free to influence Russia’s domestic and foreign affairs and are still vying for power. These people continue to hope to recover the sort of political and military prominence in the region that the Soviets believe was their historic birthright.
So it is going to be necessary, at least for a while, to not only be reasonable with the Russians but also back up reasonableness with sufficient muscle. Whether NATO is the answer or something else, I am not sure. All I am sure about is that the leadership of the Republic of Georgia has good reason to want to gain protection against Russia’s current government.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Domestic & Foreign Wisdom
Tibor R. Machan
Tod Gitlin chimes in brilliantly on foreign policy for the United States of American when he writes that “For the most part, when the United States has set out, on its own and absent direct provocation, to overthrow a government, and to think that, having installed a new one, it could tinker with the effects and bring about a happy outcome, disaster has been the result. To be sure, the frequently cited counterexamples of Grenada and Panama may, to varying degrees, be conceded. But, again, unilateral American intervention has done considerably more harm than good over the past decades. It is worth revisiting this sorry lineage for a moment not because it tells the whole story of American foreign policy—it does not—but because it underscores some of the profound risks of reckless intervention.” (Todd Gitlin, “On Liberalism and Force,” World Affairs [Summer, 2008], p. 43)
Julian Gough, in turn, supplies the wisdom concerning domestic policies for a free society when he writes: “Capitalism is seen as arrogant, but that is merely the rage of Caliban* on seeing his reflection. The extraordinary thing about capitalism is its humility and refusal to judge. It will give us what we want; it will not force on us what it thinks we need. Often we are disgusted by what we discover that we want--but that reflects on us, not on the servant who brings us our fetish gear and saturated fats. It would bring us organic turnips just as happily. If we cease to desire a product, the product changes or ceases to exist. There is nothing more powerless than a corporation.” (Julian Gough, quoted in THE WEEK, 12 July 2008, p. 10.)
Detractors, such as Noami Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Metropolitan Books, 2007), argues precisely the opposite, blaming virtually all maladies in the world on free market capitalism and its champions (such as, and especially, the later Milton Friedman). Who comes out more credible in this dispute is not my task here to establish. Jonathan Chait, in The New Republic (July 30, 2008) has accomplished figuring that out brilliantly already, showing that Klein fabricated much of her evidence and besmirched the Chicago Boys utterly unfairly, relying on reams of prevarications.
My focus here is the fact that a debate such as this one can actually still be held in the better sectors of the American media. Both World Affairs and The New Republic are competent, well edited publications, with superb writers and editorial policies that bend over backwards not to violate journalistic ethics. And that, I believe, is something to rejoice about.
In the United States of America and in Great Britain there is civilized debate and disputation on vital issues of the day, the month, the year and the decade are widely circulated, with the contributors largely restrained and polite without being at all dull. This form of exploration of important human topics began back in ancient Greece and was carried on in Rome, more or less consistently, although often surrounded by overt violence and intimidation. And, of course, in many parts around the globe today discussions of such vital topics has a hard time being carried out in a civil tongue--the threat of bayonets and bombs is altogether real, should someone in the minority annoy an opponent too severely.
However, the influence of modern classical liberal ideas, especially as regards public affairs, has been to at least compartmentalize the conflicts so that where ideas are discussed, weapons are barred. The progress this exhibits must not be over nor underestimated. A few steps forward can easily be obliterated by a few backwards.
Although some genuine jewels of ideas can thus surface and have a chance of influencing public policy, there is never any guaranteed that the good one’s will triumph. But when a few precious morsels such as the two I quoted above do get some run for their money, I believe we should all cheer and make the most of it. As that saying I have quoted before put it: Notice the good and praise it! It will encourage some more good, I am willing to bet.
Tibor R. Machan
Tod Gitlin chimes in brilliantly on foreign policy for the United States of American when he writes that “For the most part, when the United States has set out, on its own and absent direct provocation, to overthrow a government, and to think that, having installed a new one, it could tinker with the effects and bring about a happy outcome, disaster has been the result. To be sure, the frequently cited counterexamples of Grenada and Panama may, to varying degrees, be conceded. But, again, unilateral American intervention has done considerably more harm than good over the past decades. It is worth revisiting this sorry lineage for a moment not because it tells the whole story of American foreign policy—it does not—but because it underscores some of the profound risks of reckless intervention.” (Todd Gitlin, “On Liberalism and Force,” World Affairs [Summer, 2008], p. 43)
Julian Gough, in turn, supplies the wisdom concerning domestic policies for a free society when he writes: “Capitalism is seen as arrogant, but that is merely the rage of Caliban* on seeing his reflection. The extraordinary thing about capitalism is its humility and refusal to judge. It will give us what we want; it will not force on us what it thinks we need. Often we are disgusted by what we discover that we want--but that reflects on us, not on the servant who brings us our fetish gear and saturated fats. It would bring us organic turnips just as happily. If we cease to desire a product, the product changes or ceases to exist. There is nothing more powerless than a corporation.” (Julian Gough, quoted in THE WEEK, 12 July 2008, p. 10.)
Detractors, such as Noami Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Metropolitan Books, 2007), argues precisely the opposite, blaming virtually all maladies in the world on free market capitalism and its champions (such as, and especially, the later Milton Friedman). Who comes out more credible in this dispute is not my task here to establish. Jonathan Chait, in The New Republic (July 30, 2008) has accomplished figuring that out brilliantly already, showing that Klein fabricated much of her evidence and besmirched the Chicago Boys utterly unfairly, relying on reams of prevarications.
My focus here is the fact that a debate such as this one can actually still be held in the better sectors of the American media. Both World Affairs and The New Republic are competent, well edited publications, with superb writers and editorial policies that bend over backwards not to violate journalistic ethics. And that, I believe, is something to rejoice about.
In the United States of America and in Great Britain there is civilized debate and disputation on vital issues of the day, the month, the year and the decade are widely circulated, with the contributors largely restrained and polite without being at all dull. This form of exploration of important human topics began back in ancient Greece and was carried on in Rome, more or less consistently, although often surrounded by overt violence and intimidation. And, of course, in many parts around the globe today discussions of such vital topics has a hard time being carried out in a civil tongue--the threat of bayonets and bombs is altogether real, should someone in the minority annoy an opponent too severely.
However, the influence of modern classical liberal ideas, especially as regards public affairs, has been to at least compartmentalize the conflicts so that where ideas are discussed, weapons are barred. The progress this exhibits must not be over nor underestimated. A few steps forward can easily be obliterated by a few backwards.
Although some genuine jewels of ideas can thus surface and have a chance of influencing public policy, there is never any guaranteed that the good one’s will triumph. But when a few precious morsels such as the two I quoted above do get some run for their money, I believe we should all cheer and make the most of it. As that saying I have quoted before put it: Notice the good and praise it! It will encourage some more good, I am willing to bet.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Encouraging Dishonesty
Tibor R. Machan
Recently I have become a genuine frequent flier. My miles keep accumulating at various airlines and I am making good use of them upgrading to first or business class on some of those very long trips I have been taking of late.
As anyone can imagine, flying after 9/11/01 hasn’t become very enjoyable, even when one is fortunate enough to get upgraded or well enough off to buy the expensive seats. A most annoying part of flying is the wait in those security lines, especially if one has any kind of malady involving standing or ambling about. (I do!) OK, perhaps it is no big deal to experience such inconveniences and displeasures. Things could be worse or, as the Hungarians have been saying since the 16th century, “Több is veszett Mohácsnál” (“More was lost at Mohacs”), the place in southern Hungary that got wiped out by Turkish forces partly so as to demonstrated to the Austro-Hungarian leadership that the Turks had muscle.
Anyway, as I was standing around in Frankfurt some days ago, on my return trip to the US, I noticed something that had escaped me thus far. Airline personnel routinely lie about when the plane will be leaving, when boarding will begin, and other scheduling matters. On several occasions in Frankfurt it was announced that our flight will be ready to board in five or ten minutes when, in fact, thirty or fifty minutes went by before any passengers could make a movement toward the plane.
As we stood cooling our heels--a practice I am not very good at--I noticed that there were dozens of children among the passengers, some too young to know what was happening but quite a few able to tell that the announcements made by airline personnel were very far from the truth. Repeated claims about how in a moment we will be moving aboard were simply followed by more such claims but no movement forthcoming. This couldn't be missed by the kids, I am certain.
I was personally annoyed with the delays, of course, but it occurred to me that here is an instance of adults seriously influencing children to accept prevarication as the norm. Why, if it is OK for these uniformed men and women to keep misleading hundreds of people should a child take it seriously when implored to tell only the truth?
Come to think of it, such setting of bad examples surrounds children in many areas of their lives, all the while they are being urged to be honest. Doctors order them to come to their offices at a given time only to make them wait at least a half an hour before they get to be seen. And not just children. We are all taught to tell the truth, at least in church and by various people who preach at us about how we ought to act. Yet we are also clearly aware that the very people who give us these instructions make a practice of not living up to what they say. Maybe a good many folks are willing to give these liars a break, consider that circumstances may not make full honesty possible, punctuality a reasonable expectations. But many could well get the impression that honesty itself is simply unimportant to many who speak to us. And these folks tend to be ones in positions of responsibility, even authority, like the airline personnel who unhesitatingly tell us lies. Maybe they, in turn, are being influenced by politicians who make it a habit to lie to us!?
Well, you might say, what can they do. After all, they are facing situations of uncertain information all the time. Yet I don’t think this will do as any kind of excuse since such situations can be noted--there is no great difficulty in adding to what one announces that these are simply estimates and it is quite possible that the delays will be longer. It appears, however, that airline companies haven’t yet figured out just how to communicate honestly and effectively with their customers. They probably do not want to fully disclose it when something delays a flight that requires mechanical repair or supervision--such information, they may be thinking, will only upset fliers. So let’s lie to them, instead. (The Frankfurt-to-Dallas/Forth Worth flight was delayed, I later learned, because on the flight over from the US an emergency landing had to be made in Bangor, Maine, after smoke started pouring from the fuselage. Turned out, it was only some trouble with the audio-video system, nothing major, but from what I gather this was not deemed to be suitable information for the waiting and increasingly irritated passengers.)
As technology races ahead and we eagerly embrace it for all the help it can offer us, it is not always easy tell just how to keep up with ethics, too. Cell phones, answering machines, voice mail, etc., and so forth--all these require us to apply the ethical principles of human life intelligently and competently. Even if we are making announcements to waiting passengers at airline terminals.
Tibor R. Machan
Recently I have become a genuine frequent flier. My miles keep accumulating at various airlines and I am making good use of them upgrading to first or business class on some of those very long trips I have been taking of late.
As anyone can imagine, flying after 9/11/01 hasn’t become very enjoyable, even when one is fortunate enough to get upgraded or well enough off to buy the expensive seats. A most annoying part of flying is the wait in those security lines, especially if one has any kind of malady involving standing or ambling about. (I do!) OK, perhaps it is no big deal to experience such inconveniences and displeasures. Things could be worse or, as the Hungarians have been saying since the 16th century, “Több is veszett Mohácsnál” (“More was lost at Mohacs”), the place in southern Hungary that got wiped out by Turkish forces partly so as to demonstrated to the Austro-Hungarian leadership that the Turks had muscle.
Anyway, as I was standing around in Frankfurt some days ago, on my return trip to the US, I noticed something that had escaped me thus far. Airline personnel routinely lie about when the plane will be leaving, when boarding will begin, and other scheduling matters. On several occasions in Frankfurt it was announced that our flight will be ready to board in five or ten minutes when, in fact, thirty or fifty minutes went by before any passengers could make a movement toward the plane.
As we stood cooling our heels--a practice I am not very good at--I noticed that there were dozens of children among the passengers, some too young to know what was happening but quite a few able to tell that the announcements made by airline personnel were very far from the truth. Repeated claims about how in a moment we will be moving aboard were simply followed by more such claims but no movement forthcoming. This couldn't be missed by the kids, I am certain.
I was personally annoyed with the delays, of course, but it occurred to me that here is an instance of adults seriously influencing children to accept prevarication as the norm. Why, if it is OK for these uniformed men and women to keep misleading hundreds of people should a child take it seriously when implored to tell only the truth?
Come to think of it, such setting of bad examples surrounds children in many areas of their lives, all the while they are being urged to be honest. Doctors order them to come to their offices at a given time only to make them wait at least a half an hour before they get to be seen. And not just children. We are all taught to tell the truth, at least in church and by various people who preach at us about how we ought to act. Yet we are also clearly aware that the very people who give us these instructions make a practice of not living up to what they say. Maybe a good many folks are willing to give these liars a break, consider that circumstances may not make full honesty possible, punctuality a reasonable expectations. But many could well get the impression that honesty itself is simply unimportant to many who speak to us. And these folks tend to be ones in positions of responsibility, even authority, like the airline personnel who unhesitatingly tell us lies. Maybe they, in turn, are being influenced by politicians who make it a habit to lie to us!?
Well, you might say, what can they do. After all, they are facing situations of uncertain information all the time. Yet I don’t think this will do as any kind of excuse since such situations can be noted--there is no great difficulty in adding to what one announces that these are simply estimates and it is quite possible that the delays will be longer. It appears, however, that airline companies haven’t yet figured out just how to communicate honestly and effectively with their customers. They probably do not want to fully disclose it when something delays a flight that requires mechanical repair or supervision--such information, they may be thinking, will only upset fliers. So let’s lie to them, instead. (The Frankfurt-to-Dallas/Forth Worth flight was delayed, I later learned, because on the flight over from the US an emergency landing had to be made in Bangor, Maine, after smoke started pouring from the fuselage. Turned out, it was only some trouble with the audio-video system, nothing major, but from what I gather this was not deemed to be suitable information for the waiting and increasingly irritated passengers.)
As technology races ahead and we eagerly embrace it for all the help it can offer us, it is not always easy tell just how to keep up with ethics, too. Cell phones, answering machines, voice mail, etc., and so forth--all these require us to apply the ethical principles of human life intelligently and competently. Even if we are making announcements to waiting passengers at airline terminals.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
A Visit to RFE-RL
Tibor R. Machan
Prague, Czech Republic. In 1953 I was smuggled out of Hungary by a professional "flesh peddler" (as TIME magazine called these extremely helpful people) and landed, for three years, in Munich, Germany. That's because my father was working at Radio Free Europe there, as a director of sports coverage. My stepmother was doing some acting gigs for the Hungarian sector and even I got to do a few lines in various plays that had a character in his teens. I used to hang out a lot at the facilities in the English Garden and befriended a lot of expatriates from the various Iron Curtain countries who helped the effort to inform listeners in those countries about what went on in the world and whatever else they were supposed to be doing. (Prior to leaving Hungary I used to listen to RFE, when I could--because the reception was awful and transmissions were also being blocked by the commies--mostly to hear my dad on the air.)
Later, when I began to think more carefully about political matters, I had some trepidations about whether RFE and similar ventures carried out by the United States government could pass my libertarian test for what amounts to proper public policy. Should American citizens be forced to fund this kind of undertaking--including Voice of America and, later, several others, beaming news and, let's face it, propaganda to victims of Soviet and Soviet bloc oppression? Can this be construed as legitimate foreign policy for a bona fide free society? Why or why not?
But back in the mid-fifties I had no problem accepting RFE as a sound effort, seeing how little information the Soviet satellite countries would allow their citizens to gather from their state run media. There was little doubt in my mind that the Americans and their Western allies were far better, freer countries than those under Soviet rule and whatever reasonable effort was made to thwart the power of the USSR was Ok by me. Of course the big question for me turned out, later, to be what amounted to reasonable in such efforts.
In our time it would appear to be clear enough that there is no longer any plausible rationale for Radio Free Europe and its sister, Radio Liberty. Yet, on my visit to Prague, where I was asked to give a short presentation to the staff about the situation in mid-fifties and what I could recall about RFE then, several folks argued that there are sound reasons to continue what RFE/RL liberty had been and continues to be doing, which is to "provide uncensored news and information to countries where a free press is either banned by the government or not fully established." As a died in the wool "defensivist" on matters of public policy, I have my doubts that such efforts on the part of a government of a free country qualify as proper public policy. A defensivist, you see, holds--following the political science sketched in the Declaration of Independence--that governments are instituted to secure our basic human rights. They are, therefore, only justified in conducting defensive public policies and it is unclear whether broadcasting propaganda, however honest and truthful, into "countries where a free press is either banned by the government or not fully established" qualifies as defensive public policy. Arguably such an effort is more about defending the liberty of those in such countries, not of the citizens of the United States of America whom the government is sworn to serve.
Yet perhaps a more nuanced take on the foreign affairs of a free society would not so readily dismiss what RFE and RL are doing as overstepping the proper authority of a free government. Educating people in countries where people have no chance to encounter discussions of the principles and policies of relatively free societies may arguably amount to an element of defense, given how ignorance about liberty can generate often deadly hostility toward free societies. Moreover, engaging in this kind of educational foreign policy may also be a rather preferable substitute for more militaristic efforts to secure the liberty of citizens of relatively free societies in today's world.
I am not proposing to resolve these matters here but it is worth reflecting on them, I think, since the defensivist foreign policy that's appropriate for free countries can take a variety of forms and, moreover, isn't something to be decided upon a priori. My own experience with RFE was an instructive part of my early life, helping me to come to terms in time with the principles and problems of proper, free governments. I suspect that investing in the peaceful propaganda efforts of which RFE and RL are a part is highly preferable to embarking on various military missions so as to defend liberty for American citizens and also to spread it around the world in ways that do not produce hostility and acrimony.
Tibor R. Machan
Prague, Czech Republic. In 1953 I was smuggled out of Hungary by a professional "flesh peddler" (as TIME magazine called these extremely helpful people) and landed, for three years, in Munich, Germany. That's because my father was working at Radio Free Europe there, as a director of sports coverage. My stepmother was doing some acting gigs for the Hungarian sector and even I got to do a few lines in various plays that had a character in his teens. I used to hang out a lot at the facilities in the English Garden and befriended a lot of expatriates from the various Iron Curtain countries who helped the effort to inform listeners in those countries about what went on in the world and whatever else they were supposed to be doing. (Prior to leaving Hungary I used to listen to RFE, when I could--because the reception was awful and transmissions were also being blocked by the commies--mostly to hear my dad on the air.)
Later, when I began to think more carefully about political matters, I had some trepidations about whether RFE and similar ventures carried out by the United States government could pass my libertarian test for what amounts to proper public policy. Should American citizens be forced to fund this kind of undertaking--including Voice of America and, later, several others, beaming news and, let's face it, propaganda to victims of Soviet and Soviet bloc oppression? Can this be construed as legitimate foreign policy for a bona fide free society? Why or why not?
But back in the mid-fifties I had no problem accepting RFE as a sound effort, seeing how little information the Soviet satellite countries would allow their citizens to gather from their state run media. There was little doubt in my mind that the Americans and their Western allies were far better, freer countries than those under Soviet rule and whatever reasonable effort was made to thwart the power of the USSR was Ok by me. Of course the big question for me turned out, later, to be what amounted to reasonable in such efforts.
In our time it would appear to be clear enough that there is no longer any plausible rationale for Radio Free Europe and its sister, Radio Liberty. Yet, on my visit to Prague, where I was asked to give a short presentation to the staff about the situation in mid-fifties and what I could recall about RFE then, several folks argued that there are sound reasons to continue what RFE/RL liberty had been and continues to be doing, which is to "provide uncensored news and information to countries where a free press is either banned by the government or not fully established." As a died in the wool "defensivist" on matters of public policy, I have my doubts that such efforts on the part of a government of a free country qualify as proper public policy. A defensivist, you see, holds--following the political science sketched in the Declaration of Independence--that governments are instituted to secure our basic human rights. They are, therefore, only justified in conducting defensive public policies and it is unclear whether broadcasting propaganda, however honest and truthful, into "countries where a free press is either banned by the government or not fully established" qualifies as defensive public policy. Arguably such an effort is more about defending the liberty of those in such countries, not of the citizens of the United States of America whom the government is sworn to serve.
Yet perhaps a more nuanced take on the foreign affairs of a free society would not so readily dismiss what RFE and RL are doing as overstepping the proper authority of a free government. Educating people in countries where people have no chance to encounter discussions of the principles and policies of relatively free societies may arguably amount to an element of defense, given how ignorance about liberty can generate often deadly hostility toward free societies. Moreover, engaging in this kind of educational foreign policy may also be a rather preferable substitute for more militaristic efforts to secure the liberty of citizens of relatively free societies in today's world.
I am not proposing to resolve these matters here but it is worth reflecting on them, I think, since the defensivist foreign policy that's appropriate for free countries can take a variety of forms and, moreover, isn't something to be decided upon a priori. My own experience with RFE was an instructive part of my early life, helping me to come to terms in time with the principles and problems of proper, free governments. I suspect that investing in the peaceful propaganda efforts of which RFE and RL are a part is highly preferable to embarking on various military missions so as to defend liberty for American citizens and also to spread it around the world in ways that do not produce hostility and acrimony.
Monday, August 04, 2008
The Scope of Public Choice Theory
Tibor R. Machan
Prague, Czech Republic. In October 1985 (I think it was) Professor James Buchanan, now at George Mason University’s Department of Economics, received the Nobel Prize in his discipline for his pioneering work—in collaboration with Professor Gordon Tullock—in what came to be called public choice theory. The gist of this theory is that those who work in government, often referred to in the honorific terms as doing “public service,” are, contrary to widespread impression, just as much motivated by personal or self-interest as are people in the market place. In other words, politicians and bureaucrats pursue their own agendas, not those of “the public,” just as people in business do. And from this a number of interesting insights follow about the nature of government policy.
What makes this idea quite credible even at first inspection is that politicians and bureaucrats would have a very hard time, even if they wanted to, to serve the public interest. The reason is that the public is a huge group of individuals with a great variety of different interests and just a few common ones. All those people in centers of power who lobby for support from various branches and divisions of government—those folks so scornfully dismissed as looking out for mere “special interests”—are, in fact, the only ones who can provide politicians and bureaucrats with some clue as to what the public’s interest amounts to. They tell them, actually, about a lot of highly diverse private and special interests, not any kind of public interest at all.
This fact is very important to keep in mind, especially in the midst of political campaigns during which there is an inordinate amount of rhetoric about the special interests versus the public interest, the goals of different people versus the will of the people. Of course, the special interest groups are nothing other than the people, so the will of the people is really nothing else but the sum of the special interests all those nasty lobbyists are promoting.
Even beyond all this, public choice theory also alerts us to the fact that the most recent effort to shore up the case for government meddling in our lives, namely so called libertarian paternalism—or nudging—is infested with the problem that behavior that may be desirable from certain citizens will not be so from others. What the politicians and bureaucrats choose to nudge us to do—which is really a form of insidious manipulation even at its best—is rarely what all of us being so nudged really ought to do. The assumption of one-size-fits-all is blatant and public policies that follow from it must of necessity misfire.
Suppose there is a problem in a society, say, environmental pollution. What everyone ought to do about it is quite impossible to say. One person or family may have to address it one way, another very differently, and so on down the line. To believe, for example, that everyone who owns an SUV ought to get rid of it because of pollution is the height of ignorance and presumption. What one person or one family or one company ought to do to address the problem will be quite different from what another ought to, in light of the different circumstances and needs and possibilities of all these different human agents.
Because this is so, the effort to address the problem by politicians and bureaucrats is invariably going to misfire. Those so called public servants, in short, have no clue at all what needs to be done by you, me, our friends, colleagues, neighbors, and the rest, so they will promote policies they happen to prefer, never mind whether they help solve the problem. They will, as customary, feel the urge to “do something,” even if there is no demonstrable connection between it and any solution to the problem that is supposedly being addressed.
The same goes for those doing the nudging being promoted these days as ways to get us to behave properly. Right conduct is highly contextual. It depends on highly particular conditions that people face. Only those close to us have a decent chance of knowing the best way for us to act, so public servants will necessarily be off base.
Sadly in their eagerness to impose their so called solutions, politicians and bureaucrats are not likely to relinquish their power over us, never mind how misguided they are in doing so.
Tibor R. Machan
Prague, Czech Republic. In October 1985 (I think it was) Professor James Buchanan, now at George Mason University’s Department of Economics, received the Nobel Prize in his discipline for his pioneering work—in collaboration with Professor Gordon Tullock—in what came to be called public choice theory. The gist of this theory is that those who work in government, often referred to in the honorific terms as doing “public service,” are, contrary to widespread impression, just as much motivated by personal or self-interest as are people in the market place. In other words, politicians and bureaucrats pursue their own agendas, not those of “the public,” just as people in business do. And from this a number of interesting insights follow about the nature of government policy.
What makes this idea quite credible even at first inspection is that politicians and bureaucrats would have a very hard time, even if they wanted to, to serve the public interest. The reason is that the public is a huge group of individuals with a great variety of different interests and just a few common ones. All those people in centers of power who lobby for support from various branches and divisions of government—those folks so scornfully dismissed as looking out for mere “special interests”—are, in fact, the only ones who can provide politicians and bureaucrats with some clue as to what the public’s interest amounts to. They tell them, actually, about a lot of highly diverse private and special interests, not any kind of public interest at all.
This fact is very important to keep in mind, especially in the midst of political campaigns during which there is an inordinate amount of rhetoric about the special interests versus the public interest, the goals of different people versus the will of the people. Of course, the special interest groups are nothing other than the people, so the will of the people is really nothing else but the sum of the special interests all those nasty lobbyists are promoting.
Even beyond all this, public choice theory also alerts us to the fact that the most recent effort to shore up the case for government meddling in our lives, namely so called libertarian paternalism—or nudging—is infested with the problem that behavior that may be desirable from certain citizens will not be so from others. What the politicians and bureaucrats choose to nudge us to do—which is really a form of insidious manipulation even at its best—is rarely what all of us being so nudged really ought to do. The assumption of one-size-fits-all is blatant and public policies that follow from it must of necessity misfire.
Suppose there is a problem in a society, say, environmental pollution. What everyone ought to do about it is quite impossible to say. One person or family may have to address it one way, another very differently, and so on down the line. To believe, for example, that everyone who owns an SUV ought to get rid of it because of pollution is the height of ignorance and presumption. What one person or one family or one company ought to do to address the problem will be quite different from what another ought to, in light of the different circumstances and needs and possibilities of all these different human agents.
Because this is so, the effort to address the problem by politicians and bureaucrats is invariably going to misfire. Those so called public servants, in short, have no clue at all what needs to be done by you, me, our friends, colleagues, neighbors, and the rest, so they will promote policies they happen to prefer, never mind whether they help solve the problem. They will, as customary, feel the urge to “do something,” even if there is no demonstrable connection between it and any solution to the problem that is supposedly being addressed.
The same goes for those doing the nudging being promoted these days as ways to get us to behave properly. Right conduct is highly contextual. It depends on highly particular conditions that people face. Only those close to us have a decent chance of knowing the best way for us to act, so public servants will necessarily be off base.
Sadly in their eagerness to impose their so called solutions, politicians and bureaucrats are not likely to relinquish their power over us, never mind how misguided they are in doing so.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Human Rights Were Not Invented
Tibor R. Machan
Professor Lynn Hunt's recently published book is titled Inventing Human Rights and though it is full of very useful information about the emergence of the idea of basic human, individual rights, it also perpetuates, perhaps entirely unconsciously, a very serious error.
Moral and political ideas are not all that different from ones in the various sciences. Based on better and better information about the world, various new concepts need to be formed. Electrons, for example, hadn't been identified until after atoms were. The prefrontal lobe wasn't known until instruments were created that helped to search the brain thoroughly enough to take a comprehensive inventory of its innumerable parts. Initially all that was known is that there is a brain and only gradually did its busy life and large number of attributes and properties come into focus.
In morality something similar happens. From early times it has been clear enough that some kinds of conduct are morally wrong and that some are right. Broadly speaking, whatever promotes the human life of an individual is right, whatever thwarts it wrong. But the details were slow to come to light. Politically, too, the concept of justice was in place quite early in human history—an institution or policy is just if it secures what is deserved among human beings. But this isn't enough to take account of the many details of the idea of justice. In time—starting quite a long time ago, actually—it gradually became clear that human beings have certain rights, based on their nature, which then provided a fuller understanding of justice.
But, of course, there is a problem with all this. Unlike in the physical sciences, in normative spheres there is a great deal of disagreement, some if not most of it stemming from the input from those who want to undermine the very notion of basic norms of human life. So even if at some point human rights had been discovered—not invented—there were many who didn't welcome this fact and mounted all sorts of ways to obscure it. A little of this can also been detected in even the hardest science, such as physics, chemistry or astronomy. But in the area of morality and politics it is far more prevalent since the basis of these areas of focus are more complicated and widely disputed.
One way to undermine a moral concept, of course, is to maintain that it is merely an invention, a fabrication that serves not to help us understand how to lead a human life but merely to further some special interest. Accordingly, for example, Karl Marx and his followers argued that the human right to private property was invented so as to aid the ruling bourgeois classes to obtain and hold control of other people.
Judging by her book I doubt that Professor Hunt had this same agenda up her sleeve. I am sure, however, that the claim that human rights are an invention plays into the hands of those who would just as soon dismiss these rights as being without any basis in facts of reality but simply a concocted myth—or, as Jeremy Bentham characterized them, "nonsense upon stilts."
In the case of Dr. Hunt, who teaches history at UCLA, there is another way that the status of human rights is undermined. She makes a lot of the fact that the Declaration of Independence associates our basic rights with self-evidence. If they were self-evident, as she claims the Founders said they were, then they need not be argued for. A self-evident fact needs no proof. Thus the fact of the existence of the universe needs no proof—any effort to prove it would already acknowledge that it is true. That's why it is a self-evident truth.
What the Declaration states, of course, is that "We hold these truths to be self-evident," not that they are self-evident. And for purposes of a brief, succinct, inspiring announcement—a declaration—that's all that is needed, namely, to treat those truths as if they were (that is, to hold them to be), self-evident. In fact, however, they are anything but. Just as John Locke and all of his followers who have labored long and hard to prove that these rights knew this well and good. The existence of our rights must be demonstrated, shown. It's not enough to assume them.
Dr. Hunt, however, claims that the Founders believed that it is self-evident that we have these rights and proposes that they function, therefore, as religious truths based on faith, not as discoveries—as inventions not as something real. But this will not wash. Over the centuries basic human rights were gradually identified, as a result of a better and better knowledge of human community life and its role in human affairs. So by now we know that all of us have these rights in our communities, apart from some rare cases of crucially incapacitated people. And we can therefore confidently state, for example, that a country in which these rights are not acknowledged and protected fails at being fully just.
It would have been only prudent for Dr. Hunt to have seen the matter along such lines. As it is, she is aiding and abetting those who want to support regimes wherein human rights are violated, left and right. If they are a mere invention, what could be wrong with that?
Tibor R. Machan
Professor Lynn Hunt's recently published book is titled Inventing Human Rights and though it is full of very useful information about the emergence of the idea of basic human, individual rights, it also perpetuates, perhaps entirely unconsciously, a very serious error.
Moral and political ideas are not all that different from ones in the various sciences. Based on better and better information about the world, various new concepts need to be formed. Electrons, for example, hadn't been identified until after atoms were. The prefrontal lobe wasn't known until instruments were created that helped to search the brain thoroughly enough to take a comprehensive inventory of its innumerable parts. Initially all that was known is that there is a brain and only gradually did its busy life and large number of attributes and properties come into focus.
In morality something similar happens. From early times it has been clear enough that some kinds of conduct are morally wrong and that some are right. Broadly speaking, whatever promotes the human life of an individual is right, whatever thwarts it wrong. But the details were slow to come to light. Politically, too, the concept of justice was in place quite early in human history—an institution or policy is just if it secures what is deserved among human beings. But this isn't enough to take account of the many details of the idea of justice. In time—starting quite a long time ago, actually—it gradually became clear that human beings have certain rights, based on their nature, which then provided a fuller understanding of justice.
But, of course, there is a problem with all this. Unlike in the physical sciences, in normative spheres there is a great deal of disagreement, some if not most of it stemming from the input from those who want to undermine the very notion of basic norms of human life. So even if at some point human rights had been discovered—not invented—there were many who didn't welcome this fact and mounted all sorts of ways to obscure it. A little of this can also been detected in even the hardest science, such as physics, chemistry or astronomy. But in the area of morality and politics it is far more prevalent since the basis of these areas of focus are more complicated and widely disputed.
One way to undermine a moral concept, of course, is to maintain that it is merely an invention, a fabrication that serves not to help us understand how to lead a human life but merely to further some special interest. Accordingly, for example, Karl Marx and his followers argued that the human right to private property was invented so as to aid the ruling bourgeois classes to obtain and hold control of other people.
Judging by her book I doubt that Professor Hunt had this same agenda up her sleeve. I am sure, however, that the claim that human rights are an invention plays into the hands of those who would just as soon dismiss these rights as being without any basis in facts of reality but simply a concocted myth—or, as Jeremy Bentham characterized them, "nonsense upon stilts."
In the case of Dr. Hunt, who teaches history at UCLA, there is another way that the status of human rights is undermined. She makes a lot of the fact that the Declaration of Independence associates our basic rights with self-evidence. If they were self-evident, as she claims the Founders said they were, then they need not be argued for. A self-evident fact needs no proof. Thus the fact of the existence of the universe needs no proof—any effort to prove it would already acknowledge that it is true. That's why it is a self-evident truth.
What the Declaration states, of course, is that "We hold these truths to be self-evident," not that they are self-evident. And for purposes of a brief, succinct, inspiring announcement—a declaration—that's all that is needed, namely, to treat those truths as if they were (that is, to hold them to be), self-evident. In fact, however, they are anything but. Just as John Locke and all of his followers who have labored long and hard to prove that these rights knew this well and good. The existence of our rights must be demonstrated, shown. It's not enough to assume them.
Dr. Hunt, however, claims that the Founders believed that it is self-evident that we have these rights and proposes that they function, therefore, as religious truths based on faith, not as discoveries—as inventions not as something real. But this will not wash. Over the centuries basic human rights were gradually identified, as a result of a better and better knowledge of human community life and its role in human affairs. So by now we know that all of us have these rights in our communities, apart from some rare cases of crucially incapacitated people. And we can therefore confidently state, for example, that a country in which these rights are not acknowledged and protected fails at being fully just.
It would have been only prudent for Dr. Hunt to have seen the matter along such lines. As it is, she is aiding and abetting those who want to support regimes wherein human rights are violated, left and right. If they are a mere invention, what could be wrong with that?
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Gas Prices Now and Then
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. During the last several years that gasoline prices posted at pumps were steadily rising I have run across a few obscure articles, mostly produced by economists, which claimed that the actual price of gasoline is now lower than it was back in the 1970s when we had the nuisance of all those long lines at gas stations. I am no expert at this stuff but I have noticed something that seems to lend credence to the economists' claim: there are innumerable huge SUVs, minvans, and similar gas guzzlers still all over the road in my neighborhood and wherever I have been doing some driving (Florida, Washington, DC, Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South and North Carolina).
While the posted prices are, of course, huge compared to what they used to be, it appears, from what these economists tell us, that the actual percetage of people's income spent on gasoline is less now than it used to be some thirty years ago. And given how many folks are hanging on to their gas guzzlers, it looks like the economists are right.
What is puzzling me to no end is that virtually nothing about this is discussed in mainstream media. No front page article has appeared in The New York Times, The LA Times or other papers with which I am familiar, and certainly none of the TV news programs have sent out reporters to check out the economists' contention. Why? Is there something to be gained by the press from hiding from readers and viewers the possibility, even probability, that there really is no extraordinary oil crises? What if it is all as it had been for several decades now, neither a smooth ride yet not as bumpy one as mainstream opinion would have it? Is there something dangerous about letting folks know that the real price of gasoline is actually lower than it was back in the early 1970s when in today's dollars gasoline cost about $6.50 a gallon?
Of course, gasoline has been quite a lot more expensive in Europe than in the US for decades on end. And the difference is still evident. So Europeans do tend to drive much smaller cars than Americans. Even allowing for the fact that changing from a big to a smaller or really small vehicles is not going to happen overnight, no major adjustments are evident on America's roads. What change has come about can be written off as panic reaction instead of prudence. Of course, for some people adjustments may be warranted, but that's true anytime, given that the market favors different producers and consumers based on productivity, the fluctuation of supply and demand throughout the economy.
Nevertheless, it seems that oil prices, though high, aren't actually higher than they have been for decades. So why is this not explored by investigative journalists across the land?
Perhaps the answer is simply that good news is no news. So if there is no oil crises then writing and talking about oil is worthless from the viewpoint of the media. No one makes a big deal of the fact that there haven't been many air crashes in recent years--no headline blares that "Millions of passengers have reached their destination safely." On the other hand should there be one or two crashes, this is going to be major news everywhere even if on average flying is far safer than, say, driving and ride bicycles.
Perhaps the lesson from this is that hardly anything one reads in newspapers or views on TV should be taken at face value. One needs a healthy dose of skepticism whenever one relies on conventional news sources. But maybe there is an opportunity here as well: given that so many newspapers are having economic difficulties now, what with the Internet posing a major challenge to their economic base--namely, advertising (especially classifieds)--some experimentation with reporting more good news may be the answer.
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. During the last several years that gasoline prices posted at pumps were steadily rising I have run across a few obscure articles, mostly produced by economists, which claimed that the actual price of gasoline is now lower than it was back in the 1970s when we had the nuisance of all those long lines at gas stations. I am no expert at this stuff but I have noticed something that seems to lend credence to the economists' claim: there are innumerable huge SUVs, minvans, and similar gas guzzlers still all over the road in my neighborhood and wherever I have been doing some driving (Florida, Washington, DC, Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South and North Carolina).
While the posted prices are, of course, huge compared to what they used to be, it appears, from what these economists tell us, that the actual percetage of people's income spent on gasoline is less now than it used to be some thirty years ago. And given how many folks are hanging on to their gas guzzlers, it looks like the economists are right.
What is puzzling me to no end is that virtually nothing about this is discussed in mainstream media. No front page article has appeared in The New York Times, The LA Times or other papers with which I am familiar, and certainly none of the TV news programs have sent out reporters to check out the economists' contention. Why? Is there something to be gained by the press from hiding from readers and viewers the possibility, even probability, that there really is no extraordinary oil crises? What if it is all as it had been for several decades now, neither a smooth ride yet not as bumpy one as mainstream opinion would have it? Is there something dangerous about letting folks know that the real price of gasoline is actually lower than it was back in the early 1970s when in today's dollars gasoline cost about $6.50 a gallon?
Of course, gasoline has been quite a lot more expensive in Europe than in the US for decades on end. And the difference is still evident. So Europeans do tend to drive much smaller cars than Americans. Even allowing for the fact that changing from a big to a smaller or really small vehicles is not going to happen overnight, no major adjustments are evident on America's roads. What change has come about can be written off as panic reaction instead of prudence. Of course, for some people adjustments may be warranted, but that's true anytime, given that the market favors different producers and consumers based on productivity, the fluctuation of supply and demand throughout the economy.
Nevertheless, it seems that oil prices, though high, aren't actually higher than they have been for decades. So why is this not explored by investigative journalists across the land?
Perhaps the answer is simply that good news is no news. So if there is no oil crises then writing and talking about oil is worthless from the viewpoint of the media. No one makes a big deal of the fact that there haven't been many air crashes in recent years--no headline blares that "Millions of passengers have reached their destination safely." On the other hand should there be one or two crashes, this is going to be major news everywhere even if on average flying is far safer than, say, driving and ride bicycles.
Perhaps the lesson from this is that hardly anything one reads in newspapers or views on TV should be taken at face value. One needs a healthy dose of skepticism whenever one relies on conventional news sources. But maybe there is an opportunity here as well: given that so many newspapers are having economic difficulties now, what with the Internet posing a major challenge to their economic base--namely, advertising (especially classifieds)--some experimentation with reporting more good news may be the answer.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Leader of the Free World Torpedoes Freedom
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. As The New York Times reported the other day--http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/business/worldbusiness/30trade.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin--the United States was among three of the most powerful economies of the world, China and India being the others, to ground to a halt the effort at the World Trade Organization (which recently met met in Geneva, Switzerland), to eliminate or at least lower farm subsidies so as to open markets that could then admit as serious participants citizens of poor countries the economies of which are only going to improve of their farm products can be sold globally. It is truly disgusting and embarrassing that America is among the countries where protectionism is a major political force.
For decades, even centuries, America was dubbed "the leader of the free world." Just what did that mean? The meaning of "freedom" in this designation is supposed to be that America`s citizens enjoy and fervently support individual freedom for all human beings. As Thomas Jefferson and many other Founders proposed, the Declaration of Independence was a commitment to the equal right to liberty, among other rights, not just of those who would live in the new country. That liberty was deemed a basic human rights, unalienable, that all human beings possess and was to be secured, in time, for all. The government of the United States of American was instituted to secure these rights but all people across the world had them whether they were respected and protected or not by their various governments.
A clear, unambiguous implication of the right to liberty is to engage in peaceful trade with any willing fellow human being. If you want to sell a horse or car or apartment house and find someone who comes to terms with you, the right to liberty means that no one may prevent the deal from taking place. If anyone does, the person is a criminal, plain and simple.
But protectionism is precisely the official prevention of free trade. Farmers from Africa or anywhere else have grain or some other produce for sale and find others who are willing to pay what they ask for it but the government, urged on by domestic farmers who don`t want the competition, coercively prevent the trade from taking place.
That the Peoples Republic of China would take part in such a criminal policy is perhaps understandable, seeing that the country is basically a fascist state, run by a bunch of pragmatic rulers who have no commitment to individual rights, such as to everyone`s unalienable right to liberty. India, while nominally a democracy, is not a liberal democracy and thus also lacks commitment to individual rights. It comes a bit closer by virtue of its partial embrace of the principle of democratic political participation but that`s by no means enough.
In the case of the United States of America its government`s opposition to abolishing protectionism is out and out hypocrisy. A free country that prevents its citizens from engaging in unhindered trade with willing people abroad is, well, a contradiction in terms. America`s negotiators at the WTO should make an open declaration of having jettisoned the principles of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights in favor of the system of mercantilism, commerce dictated by the central government in behalf of various parties who are the favorites of the rulers! That is the very system that the Founders attempted to overthrow, the system Adam Smith criticised so powerfully in his The Wealth of Nations--published, incidentally, in 1776.
On top of it all, the current American administration keeps insisting that freedom is good for all people, including those in the Middle East, such as Iraq, so much so that young men and women ought to be sent to risk and give their lives so that this freedom could be realized abroad. But at the same time members of this same administration willingly comply with segments of the American citizenry who have zero interest in human liberty, especially the human liberty of millions of farmers abroad whose very livelihood directly depends on their right to liberty being respected and protected.
It is very difficult, under the circumstances, to take anything seriously that the American government declares in the name of the struggle for liberty. All those men and women who are asked to stand up for liberty are being deceived. It seems what they are protecting is the special perverse interests of American farmers and other protected groups.
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. As The New York Times reported the other day--http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/business/worldbusiness/30trade.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin--the United States was among three of the most powerful economies of the world, China and India being the others, to ground to a halt the effort at the World Trade Organization (which recently met met in Geneva, Switzerland), to eliminate or at least lower farm subsidies so as to open markets that could then admit as serious participants citizens of poor countries the economies of which are only going to improve of their farm products can be sold globally. It is truly disgusting and embarrassing that America is among the countries where protectionism is a major political force.
For decades, even centuries, America was dubbed "the leader of the free world." Just what did that mean? The meaning of "freedom" in this designation is supposed to be that America`s citizens enjoy and fervently support individual freedom for all human beings. As Thomas Jefferson and many other Founders proposed, the Declaration of Independence was a commitment to the equal right to liberty, among other rights, not just of those who would live in the new country. That liberty was deemed a basic human rights, unalienable, that all human beings possess and was to be secured, in time, for all. The government of the United States of American was instituted to secure these rights but all people across the world had them whether they were respected and protected or not by their various governments.
A clear, unambiguous implication of the right to liberty is to engage in peaceful trade with any willing fellow human being. If you want to sell a horse or car or apartment house and find someone who comes to terms with you, the right to liberty means that no one may prevent the deal from taking place. If anyone does, the person is a criminal, plain and simple.
But protectionism is precisely the official prevention of free trade. Farmers from Africa or anywhere else have grain or some other produce for sale and find others who are willing to pay what they ask for it but the government, urged on by domestic farmers who don`t want the competition, coercively prevent the trade from taking place.
That the Peoples Republic of China would take part in such a criminal policy is perhaps understandable, seeing that the country is basically a fascist state, run by a bunch of pragmatic rulers who have no commitment to individual rights, such as to everyone`s unalienable right to liberty. India, while nominally a democracy, is not a liberal democracy and thus also lacks commitment to individual rights. It comes a bit closer by virtue of its partial embrace of the principle of democratic political participation but that`s by no means enough.
In the case of the United States of America its government`s opposition to abolishing protectionism is out and out hypocrisy. A free country that prevents its citizens from engaging in unhindered trade with willing people abroad is, well, a contradiction in terms. America`s negotiators at the WTO should make an open declaration of having jettisoned the principles of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights in favor of the system of mercantilism, commerce dictated by the central government in behalf of various parties who are the favorites of the rulers! That is the very system that the Founders attempted to overthrow, the system Adam Smith criticised so powerfully in his The Wealth of Nations--published, incidentally, in 1776.
On top of it all, the current American administration keeps insisting that freedom is good for all people, including those in the Middle East, such as Iraq, so much so that young men and women ought to be sent to risk and give their lives so that this freedom could be realized abroad. But at the same time members of this same administration willingly comply with segments of the American citizenry who have zero interest in human liberty, especially the human liberty of millions of farmers abroad whose very livelihood directly depends on their right to liberty being respected and protected.
It is very difficult, under the circumstances, to take anything seriously that the American government declares in the name of the struggle for liberty. All those men and women who are asked to stand up for liberty are being deceived. It seems what they are protecting is the special perverse interests of American farmers and other protected groups.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Obama & Europe
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. It`s like Susan Neiman and I travelled on two different continents during the last couple of weeks. In her Sunday July 27, 2008, Op Ed column in The New York Times, Ms. Neiman says that "it`s hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency." So she acknowledges that Senator Obama produced something of a frenzy in much of Europe but then maintains that no one here has much confidence in his prospective presidency.
My own experience, after a week in Switzerland and then one in Heidelberg (at the University there), is quite different. Most of the Europeans, actually nearly all of them, eagerly expect a Barack Obama presidency. This may be partly because so many of them dislike George W. Bush and do not imagine Senator John McCain to be any different from him. I suggest this in light of the fact that those with whom I have spoken about the upcoming US presidential election exhibited nothing but delight at an Obama victory. Yet this is not because of any enthusiasm about his policies. Indeed, hardly anyone gave any indication of knowing about what the Senator might do as president other than not be enthusiastic about "staying the course" in Iraq. No one hereabouts seems to like that war, that is evident.
But apart from this aspect of Senator Obama's candidacy there is little else that the Europeans I know and have been talking to about this say they welcome in the man they are nearly certain will be the next president of the United States of America. No, it is all about what is probably best considered a sort of feeling they have about how swell it would be to have the Senator in the White House. Indeed, my impressions is that what Senator Obama promises for these Europeans is finally to take race of the agenda of American politics. Whether this is realistic or not, it seems to be what a great many people here expect.
But such an expectation is naive. The measure of racism that exists among various Americans isn't so superficial as to disappear with the ascendency of Senator Obama to the US presidency. Were that the case, racism would have disappeared a long time ago. Sadly, America's racists, as indeed the world's, are mostly unshakable in their conviction that something is very wrong with the people they demean. The only other place where I have detected that kind of racism is South Africa and among Europe's anti-Semites. So I am afraid that however much Senator Obama's candidacy and likely victory in November amounts to a hopeful sign, much more in-depth change needs to occur for racism to stop being a significant aspect of American--and indeed world--culture.
What is actually disappointing in Senator Obama's candiacay is his rather shallow discussions of racism, for example in his speech in Berlin. And perhaps that is deliberate. Altogether too many Europeans share a certain aspect of the racism that is still part of America. This is the idea of tribalism or clanism, the view that human beings belong to various groups by their very nature. In Europe there is altogether too much talk of ethnic identity, both by those who are victims of such thinking and those who engage in it. Individualism, the best antidote to collectivism, has by no means swept the continent and, sadly, it seems to be disappearing from America as well. Those who would be the best source of teaching about the way individualism counters collectivist thinking--namely intellectuals at universities, newspaper and magazine editorial departments and think tanks--still embrace the prejudiced notion that individualism is something that produces acrimony within human communities. They, therefore, never miss the opportunity to denigrate it, to besmirch it, as if it and not its opposite, namely, collectivism (in all its forms) were the real scourge.
Senator Obama could in fact be a major influence both at home and abroad in spreading Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous doctrine about what should really count as we think about human beings, namely, "the content of [their] character." Each person ought, accordingly, be judged as an individual who either possesses or lacks admirable character traits, never mind all the talk about "identity" and even "culture." Those are very divisive aspects of anyone when treated as prominent.
So although most thinking Europeans, contrary to Ms. Neiman, do embrace Senator Obama as America's next president, they do it mostly for what might be considered a sort of reverse racism: he is going to make it appear that race no longer matters. If it were only true! For that what we need is for a figure like Senator Obama to discuss racism in more fundamental terms than he has done so far.
Tibor R. Machan
Cologne, Germany. It`s like Susan Neiman and I travelled on two different continents during the last couple of weeks. In her Sunday July 27, 2008, Op Ed column in The New York Times, Ms. Neiman says that "it`s hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency." So she acknowledges that Senator Obama produced something of a frenzy in much of Europe but then maintains that no one here has much confidence in his prospective presidency.
My own experience, after a week in Switzerland and then one in Heidelberg (at the University there), is quite different. Most of the Europeans, actually nearly all of them, eagerly expect a Barack Obama presidency. This may be partly because so many of them dislike George W. Bush and do not imagine Senator John McCain to be any different from him. I suggest this in light of the fact that those with whom I have spoken about the upcoming US presidential election exhibited nothing but delight at an Obama victory. Yet this is not because of any enthusiasm about his policies. Indeed, hardly anyone gave any indication of knowing about what the Senator might do as president other than not be enthusiastic about "staying the course" in Iraq. No one hereabouts seems to like that war, that is evident.
But apart from this aspect of Senator Obama's candidacy there is little else that the Europeans I know and have been talking to about this say they welcome in the man they are nearly certain will be the next president of the United States of America. No, it is all about what is probably best considered a sort of feeling they have about how swell it would be to have the Senator in the White House. Indeed, my impressions is that what Senator Obama promises for these Europeans is finally to take race of the agenda of American politics. Whether this is realistic or not, it seems to be what a great many people here expect.
But such an expectation is naive. The measure of racism that exists among various Americans isn't so superficial as to disappear with the ascendency of Senator Obama to the US presidency. Were that the case, racism would have disappeared a long time ago. Sadly, America's racists, as indeed the world's, are mostly unshakable in their conviction that something is very wrong with the people they demean. The only other place where I have detected that kind of racism is South Africa and among Europe's anti-Semites. So I am afraid that however much Senator Obama's candidacy and likely victory in November amounts to a hopeful sign, much more in-depth change needs to occur for racism to stop being a significant aspect of American--and indeed world--culture.
What is actually disappointing in Senator Obama's candiacay is his rather shallow discussions of racism, for example in his speech in Berlin. And perhaps that is deliberate. Altogether too many Europeans share a certain aspect of the racism that is still part of America. This is the idea of tribalism or clanism, the view that human beings belong to various groups by their very nature. In Europe there is altogether too much talk of ethnic identity, both by those who are victims of such thinking and those who engage in it. Individualism, the best antidote to collectivism, has by no means swept the continent and, sadly, it seems to be disappearing from America as well. Those who would be the best source of teaching about the way individualism counters collectivist thinking--namely intellectuals at universities, newspaper and magazine editorial departments and think tanks--still embrace the prejudiced notion that individualism is something that produces acrimony within human communities. They, therefore, never miss the opportunity to denigrate it, to besmirch it, as if it and not its opposite, namely, collectivism (in all its forms) were the real scourge.
Senator Obama could in fact be a major influence both at home and abroad in spreading Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous doctrine about what should really count as we think about human beings, namely, "the content of [their] character." Each person ought, accordingly, be judged as an individual who either possesses or lacks admirable character traits, never mind all the talk about "identity" and even "culture." Those are very divisive aspects of anyone when treated as prominent.
So although most thinking Europeans, contrary to Ms. Neiman, do embrace Senator Obama as America's next president, they do it mostly for what might be considered a sort of reverse racism: he is going to make it appear that race no longer matters. If it were only true! For that what we need is for a figure like Senator Obama to discuss racism in more fundamental terms than he has done so far.
Monday, July 21, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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