Year: 2013

Imperialism: The Illogical Nature of “Humanitarian” Wars

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , , ,

Dr Delacroix is simply unable to grasp my argument. There are two possible reasons for this:

  1. He simply does not want to grasp it
  2. He simply cannot grasp it

Most of the time I believe that Reason #1 is responsible for one’s inability to grasp a concept, at least when we are dealing with high intelligence individuals like Dr Delacroix.

But I think this is a case where Dr Delacroix and other like-minded imperialists simply cannot grasp the logic behind my argument. Allow me to hearken readers back to my recent post on “Libertarian IQ” where I quote an academic computer programmer on the inability of some students to grasp the concepts he is trying to teach:

Let me tell a story that is typical of those I heard from the TAs who worked for me at the computing center. A student comes up to the TA and says that his program isn’t working. The numbers it prints out are all wrong. The first number is twice what it should be, the second is four times what it should be, and the others are even more screwed up. The student says, “Maybe I should divide this first number by 2 and the second by 4. That would help, right?” No, it wouldn’t, the TA explains. The problem is not in the printing routine. The problem is with the calculating routine. Modifying the printing routine will produce a program with TWO problems rather than one […]

The student in my hypothetical story displays the classic mistake of treating symptoms rather than solving problems. The student knows the program doesn’t work, so he tries to find a way to make it appear to work a little better. As in my example, without a proper model of computation, such fixes are likely to make the program worse rather than better. How can the student fix his program if he can’t reason in his head about what it is supposed to do versus what it is actually doing? He can’t.

Dr Delacroix is in a position similar to that of the student.

When I point out that the post-colonial states of the Middle East are, by their very structure, incapable of anything other than autocracy, he responds by pointing out that the West has often taken sides in the various conflicts that erupt in these states. The logic behind this reasoning follows accordingly:

Brandon: This hot dog is undercooked, so eating it will make me sick.

Dr Delacroix: Yes, but it has chili on it.

B: No dude, eating it will make me sick.

DD: Yes, but it also has brown mustard on it.

B: I’m sorry dude, but I’m not eating the hot dog.

DD: Now you’re just being senseless (and rude!).

You see how that works?

Dr Delacroix and other “humanitarian” imperialists seem to believe that when the West picks a side in a conflict that has nothing to do with national security, imperialism suddenly becomes a perfectly acceptable way of fixing the problems of the world. Yet just like the programming student in the example above, Dr Delacroix’s attempts to fix a superficial problem (with bombs no less) actually end up exacerbating the real, underlying problem, which is that the states currently in place in most of the world are not seen as legitimate by its “citizens.”

Post-colonial states are not considered legitimate by their subjects because they never had a say in how to go about structuring such a state. They had no say in where the borders should be, or who they could trade with, or how to best accommodate foreigners.

Because they are not legitimate, power struggles (even in long-lived dictatorships) for the center are constant since those who eventually end up controlling the center receive legitimacy from the UN and other imperial institutions (but not their own people). Why bother trying to gain the legitimacy of an impoverished populace when you can simply capture the rent associated with running a post-colonial state?

Syria and the Failure of Imperialisms (Old and New)

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History , ,

Dr Delacroix has recently left a question in the form of a comment that I think deserves to be answered. He asks:

If you were 100% convinced that Assad of Syria had used chemical weapons on civilians, would it affect your judgment about the desirability of American intervention in Syria?

Andrew shares his thoughts here. Rick Weber chimes in here (why isn’t he blogging with us, by the way?). I have written about Syria and military intervention here before, so I thought I’d just try to add a bit more clarity to the topic. First though, I think it is important to take  a closer look at Dr Delacroix’s question.

In it, he seems to be assuming that I don’t think the American government should do anything in this case. Now, he is of course referring to military action in Syria – which I absolutely oppose – but it would be nice if Dr Delacroix employed less trickery in his questioning.

Instead of taking the usual tactic of trying to explain what I think the US could do (see Rick’s piece on this), or why I think another war in the Middle East would be a disaster, I’m going to take a different path altogether and offer a defense of both the Hussein regime and the Assad regime, thus rendering the US wars, or potential wars, in the region immoral and unjustified.

To put it bluntly: both regimes were perfectly justified in undertaking the actions that they did, and there was (is) no justification whatsoever for American military involvement.

Imperialists like to pretend that the Middle East is a simple place with simple people performing simple tasks and largely worshiping a simple religion (Islam). The results of applying imagination to the real world can be found first in the mandate system devised by British and French imperialists at the end of World War I. These two states really screwed up the region. They drew arbitrary borders that did not conform to any pattern whatsoever among the indigenous population (Dr Delacroix is fond of using Kurdish autonomy in Iraq as a justification for imperialism, but it was imperialism in the first place that left the Kurds without sovereignty).

Out of these arbitrary borders came the nation-states of the Middle East that we all know and love today. Prior to the entrenchment of these borders (borders which were later to be blessed by the United Nations) a number of political proposals put forth by the indigenous population itself were heard. One historian from UCLA has documented just how trusted the United States was in the region at one point in time:

[…] the elected parliament of Syria that met after the war, the Syrian General Congress, declared that it wanted Syria to be independent  and unified. By unity, the representatives meant that Syria should include territories of present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Jordan. If Syria had to have a mandatory power overseeing it, a majority of the representatives declared, it should be the United States. (87)

It goes without saying that the democratically-elected Syrian General Congress – the one crushed by French imperialism – included representatives from Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Jordan. The question of why the US has fallen so far from grace in the eyes of many Arabs (and other peoples around the world) is far beyond the scope of this post, but it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out that the United States of America decided it wanted to step into the imperialist boots worn by France and Great Britain during the 19th century rather than pursue a policy of peace, commerce and friendship.

After the French crushed democracy in Syria (Britain did the same in Iraq), it began to carve up their mandates into smaller territories. The goal behind this policy was not to improve efficiency in government, but to create a system of government where religious minorities – specifically Christian minorities – would be able to control the levers of power.

After the French were kicked out of Syria (and the British in Iraq), sectarian violence began. The international legal order, as exemplified by the United Nations, played a lead role in deepening the crisis: by recognizing the legitimacy of these arbitrary states and the sanctity of their borders, the UN contributed directly to the bloodshed that occurred as rival factions sought power over the center of these states (think Washington DC). Because these states were legitimized by the UN, the rival factions could simply seize control of the center and automatically gain legitimacy from the very international order that had created this clusterfuck in the first place. In essence, the United Nations has simply served to further the imperial ends of the British and French in the Middle East (and elsewhere).

The stakes for contesting the center were very high. In Iraq, Arabs who were also Sunni Muslims or Christians, as well as other small religious and ethnic minorities, banded together to counter the violence directed at them by Sunni Kurds and Shia Arabs.

In Syria, Arabs who were also Shia Muslims or Christians, as well as other small religious and ethnic minorities (such as the Kurds or the Alawites), banded together to counter the violence directed at them by Sunni Arabs.

When the dictators of Iraq and Syria murdered thousands of people within the borders created and sanctified by the international system, they did not do so because they viewed some of their fellow citizens – Syrians and Iraqis – as refusing to obey orders. Hussein and the Assads murdered droves of people because they viewed these people as enemies and threats to their own survival (as well as to the survival of their kin and allies) rather than as fellow citizens.

I am not justifying the violence perpetrated by the minority regimes of Iraq and Syria, I am only putting their tactics into context. Without the repressive measures that these regimes had at their disposal, the ethnic and religious minorities that these regimes protected would have been slaughtered just as callously as those who were actually slaughtered.

Here is where the immorality of American foreign policy comes into play. Here also is where the immorality of imperialism comes into play. But I repeat myself.

Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for 24 years. Bearing in mind the situation that Iraqis were presented with as a result of British imperialism (outlined above), it is estimated that his regime killed 250,000 Iraqis. That’s pretty bad.

It took the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US military about a third of the time (nine years) to reach just under half the total body count of the Hussein regime (roughly 110,000 dead Iraqis).

If the US military had stayed as long as Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, and trends continued to remain steady (and there are no signs to suggest that they wouldn’t have), then the US military would have been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than the Hussein regime. The great, disgusting irony of it all is that the Hussein regime was at least defending a significant minority of the population. The US has left the minorities of Iraq in the hands of the dominant Shia majority (Dr Delacroix’s precious democracy).

The same situation is currently in place in Syria. The Assad regime is basically fighting against al-Qaeda and Hizbollah. The Assad regime is also the only thing stands between significant minority populations and the large Arab Sunni majority of Syria, a majority that has been violently kept out of the center since Assad’s father seized power over Syria’s center in 1970. If the US were to intervene on behalf of al-Qaeda and Hizbollah, what do you think the outcome would be?

Less bloodshed? Less cronyism?

These are fantasies. The states created and sanctified by imperial decree (British, French and UN) are by their very nature destined to be cradles of autocracy.

The best policy that the United States could pursue in regards to the Syrian question, and in regards to most post-colonial states, is to simply stop recognizing these polities as legitimate. The rest of the West would follow suite. This would relieve the pressure associated with seizing the center of these states and force the people of the Middle East to compromise. The United States should not recognize any government in the Middle East until a delegation of representatives – like the one in the interwar years – is sent to Washington, by the people of the Middle East, to argue their case for sovereignty and induction into the liberal international order.

In a world of second bests, it would be wise to eliminate all sanctions on the Syrian state, including weapons sanctions. This would have the effect of leveling the playing field (states often enjoy an advantage in weaponry once sanctions are imposed upon a warring area because a state’s resources are likely to crowd out smaller competitors [i.e. “the rebels”] in the black market). The usual diplomatic caveats apply as well.

Assuming, as Dr Delacroix does, that military intervention would do the Syrian people any good is as preposterous as it is condescending.

I would need some hard data to challenge my intuition (outlined above) on this matter.

More graveyards of the American Empire

muricaderp Religion

It’s hard for me to know where to begin in evaluating the possibility of a foreign military intervention in Syria (read: US, maybe with some meaningful help from NATO or Middle Eastern allies), except to say, “Oh, no, here we go again.” I find the international reaction to the situation in Syria so absurd and naive that I have trouble articulating a response to it that isn’t inchoate and sputtering. The recent talk about Bashar al-Assad crossing a “red line” strikes me as a bit ridiculous and reinforces my gut feeling that diplomats aren’t generally honorable or trustworthy. This language has the same tone as the inane imagery of the “reset button” that Hillary Clinton and Sergei Lavrov indulged in a few years ago, but the stakes are much higher and more immediate in this instance, so I can’t help but worry that there is something fundamentally deficient, to put it very charitably, about the international response to Assad’s escalation.

Intemperate and uncouth though this may sound, I’d be more comfortable if the language used in the diplomatic press conferences were crude and concrete, e.g., “If Bashar doesn’t go into exile by Friday next, the US Air Force will level the presidential palace and the general staff headquarters.” That’s more or less what’s at stake, to use a conservative prediction. Any “international response” to Bashar al-Assad crossing the “red line” will be nothing short of an air war on Syria, in other words, raining down hellfire that will kill or maim anyone in its path. Regardless of whether or not this is an appropriate response, it is not one whose reality should be sanitized. If it happens, it will be gruesome, and its gruesomeness should not be censored in that fashion.

When I describe an air war as a conservative outcome, I have in mind the likelihood of a foreign ground war in Syria. Just because the Western experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven this to be a disastrous course of action for the occupying armies doesn’t mean that it won’t be tried a third time in Syria. US leaders have enough hubris to think that their military, unlike the Soviet military and Alexander the Great’s, will ultimately be able to control Afghanistan. They think this despite presumably having some understanding of what the proto-Taliban “freedom fighters,” US proxies at the time, did to the Soviets (with American weaponry). They assume that they, unlike the Soviets, will be able to control the Pashtunwallah and channel it to their own benefit, instead of seeing it used however the Pashtun warriors possessing it, the ones fighting on home terrain, see most fit.

And now they’re considering a military attack on Syria, a country where an autocrat in the mold of Saddam Hussein and Josip Broz Tito is futilely trying to keep the lid on a sectarian powder keg. They insist that Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people is unconscionable, and they’re right, but what of the alternatives? There is no civil society waiting in the wings to take over upon Assad’s resignation or death; that vacuum will almost certainly be filled by sectarians, likely Sunnis hellbent on revenge for decades of repression and marginalization at the hands of the Assads. The interventionists do not have a credible plan for a post-Assad Syria. Despite their experiences with Iraq and Afghanistan, they can’t think months ahead.

The shorter version is that Syria is an intractable bloodbath that foreign powers are hopeless to resolve militarily, and the Western powers that seem most eager to intervene are exactly the ones least suited to the job. They should limit themselves to humanitarian and peace-brokering efforts; anything else would be foolhardy at best and suicidal at worst.

On a final note, it occurs to me that US officials have had a very muted response to the Bahraini government’s violent repression of its own protesting citizens and its politically motivated imprisonment of medical personnel who treated them, that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, and that Bashar al-Assad has historically had cordial relationships with Russian and Chinese leaders. These circumstances make the response to Syria look less like straightforward humanitarian concern than a sick combination of craven realpolitik and harebrained retribution against a strongman who annoyed his US counterparts by becoming too cozy with the United States’ quasi-enemies.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , ,
  1. Against Seriousness
  2. When Food Isn’t the Answer to Hunger
  3. Fiscal Consolidation in Earlier British History
  4. *Must Read* HAP vs. RR vs. the Pundits: Scoring the Reinhart, Rogoff Dispute

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been busy.

Thoughts’n’gunslingers

Evgenii Grigorev Current Events , ,

Привет, сообщество! Вчера в одном довольно крупном городе России произошло беспрецедентное событие: массовый расстрел прохожих каким-то свихнувшимся фанатом оружия. Не знаю, как вы отреагируете, у нас в России довольно часто появляются новости, что в Америке какие-то фанатики берутся за оружие: расстрел в школе, бойня на премьере фильма, захват заложников… У нас такие события крайне редко происходят, и именно по этой причине, наши силы правопорядка не знают, как им вести себя с агрессивными людьми. Недавно читал новость, что в Америке какой-то террорист захватил несколько заложников из пожарной службы – и его быстро убила полиция. Как только происходит захват – американская полиция идет на штурм, и, как правило, убивает негодяя. Потому что подонки и убийцы невинных должны быть убиты.

К сожалению, в России такая система не работает. Вчера человек расстрелял шестерых безоружных людей, в том числе маленькую девочку, из ружья. И его до сих пор не поймали. Наша полиция сделает все возможное, чтобы поймать его живым, пусть при этом будут возможны новые жертвы среди населения и сил правопорядка. И наверняка найдутся адвокаты, которые повернут дело так, что убийца окажется невменяемым и его отправят на принудительное лечение. В общем, виновный избежит наказания. Такова система судопроизводства в России, к сожалению. А я считаю, что “каждому должно воздасться по заслугам его”. А в тюрьмах пусть воры сидят. Возможно, моя позиция очень радикальна, но, к сожалению, я не вижу другого выхода в данном случае. Оправдательные приговоры убийцам (или же замена на условные сроки с принудительным лечением) формирует у преступников ощущение безнаказанности. Зверства можно списать на “помутнение рассудка”, а просчитанную жестокость на “состояние аффекта”. И всё. По российскому закону таких людей нельзя судить традиционными методами. В этом плане мне нравится судопроизводство в США, когда убийцам почти всегда назначают максимальные сроки наказания. С другой стороны, в Америке совершенно иная ситуация с разрешениями на оружие…

Недавно прочитал про то, что Обама проиграл “войну” с оружейным лобби, и его поправки к закону об ограничении оборота огнестрельного оружия отклонили. В российской прессе данную ситуацию описали как “крупнейшее поражение президента США с момента его вступления в должность”. Я согласен с этим заголовком. Вот такие вот дела, мои дорогие друзья. Вот такие дела.

University Graduation Rates are Too High

Warren Gibson Current Events , , , , , ,

A proposal has surfaced to “punish” California state universities, including San Jose State where I teach, if they either (1) continue to raise tuition rates or (2) fail to raise their graduation rates. The punishment would take the form of reduced state support.

First of all, we taxpayers (including me; I’m a net tax payer) should rejoice at such “punishment” as it would lessen the burden on us. Taxpayers aside, how might the state universities respond to such punishment? On the fiscal side, they could recruit more out-of-state and foreign students who pay full freight. The UC campuses are already cutting admissions of in-state students in favor of out-of-state full payers – will UC eventually become UNC – University of Non-Californians? Furloughs are unlikely; they were tried once and didn’t work. They can’t cut salaries; there’s a faculty union. They’ll never cut out administrators. No, all bureaucracies, when forced to cut expenses, make cuts that are most painful to the public. Therefore, in addition to recruiting more full payers, they will cut classes.

What about graduation rates? They can’t raise admission standards because that would be “unfair” to racial minorities who are disproportionately ill-prepared for college work. They already have programs to try to coax students to study, with marginal results, and the obligatory special privileges for students with “learning disabilities.” It’s not clear what more could be done along those lines. No, I contend that the most humane policy for state universities would be to cut graduation rates. Here’s why.

It is indeed unfortunate that so many students, more than half at SJSU and other state universities, fail to graduate within six years. Those students have paid a big price in terms of money spent, debt incurred in many cases, and foregone income, with almost nothing to show for it. A bachelor’s degree from a state university, unless it’s in engineering, is worth little enough; two or three years of class work is worth nothing. Those who do make it all the way to the sheepskin gain a marginal advantage; their degree signals a certain amount of persistence. Their value to an employer remains uncertain; many, I fear, couldn’t be trusted with such simple tasks as reading with understanding, writing, doing simple calculations or, perish the thought, critical thinking.

All too many students who enter SJSU are ill-prepared and/or poorly motivated. Large numbers must take remedial math or English because they learned nothing in their public high schools. Many have little or no idea why they are there – some seem to view college as a way to delay their entry into responsible adulthood.

A good number surely have aptitudes for jobs that may require some specialized training, but not a college degree. I’m thinking of welders, hospitality workers (wait – you can get a B.A. in hospitality!), tile setters, carpenters, electricians, roofers, beauticians, nannies; the list goes on and on. What a tragedy that such students fall into the sinkhole (for them) that is a university campus.

Since admissions standards aren’t likely to be raised, the only humane thing to do is to get these students out the door as fast as possible. I expect to give a lot more D’s and F’s in my class this semester than I normally do, not because I’m pursuing any agenda but because they won’t have learned the material. Those students will be hurt, short term, but it’s the right thing for them, long term, especially if it hastens their exit from a university where they don’t belong.

Libertarian IQ

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , , , , ,

I recently stumbled across an old essay from the early 1990s written by a libertarian activist that is absolutely fascinating. The activist is a computer scientist currently at the University of Washington, Stuart Reges, and the essay is on the connection between intelligence and libertarianism.

Suffice it to say, many people cannot understand libertarianism simply because they cannot think in abstractions the way that libertarians seem to do. Computer programmers are another group characterized by high intelligence and Mr. Reges makes an important connection in his essay between the two, with logic bringing the two together.  He writes:

The student in my hypothetical story displays the classic mistake of treating symptoms rather than solving problems. The student knows the program doesn’t work, so he tries to find a way to make it appear to work a little better. As in my example, without a proper model of computation, such fixes are likely to make the program worse rather than better. How can the student fix his program if he can’t reason in his head about what it is supposed to do versus what it is actually doing? He can’t. But for many people (I dare say for most people), they simply do not think of their program the way a programmer does. As a result, it is impossible for a programmer to explain to such a person how to find the problem in their code. I’m convinced after years of patiently trying to explain this to novices that most are just not used to thinking this way while a small group of other students seem to think this way automatically, without me having to explain it to them.

Let me try to start relating this to libertarian philosophy. Just as programmers have a model of computation, libertarians have what I call a model of interaction. Just as a programmer can “play computer” by simulating how specific lines of code will change program state, a libertarian can “play society” by simulating how specific actions will change societal state. The libertarian model of interaction cuts across economic, political, cultural, and social issues. For just about any given law, for example, a libertarian can tell you exactly how such a law will affect society (minimum wage laws create unemployment by setting a lower-bound on entry-level wages, drug prohibition artificially inflates drug prices which leads to violent turf wars, etc.). As another example, for any given social goal, a libertarian will be able to tell you the problems generated by having government try to achieve that goal and will tell you how such a goal can be achieved in a libertarian society.

I believe this is qualitatively different from other predictive models because of the breadth of the model and the focus on transitions (both of which are also true of programming).

Indeed. I should note here that ‘libertarian’ in the Reges definition means libertarian and not Ron Paul Republican, self-declared Austrian economist, or dedicated follower of some dead economist. Those people give the rest of us a bad name by hiding behind the libertarian moniker to make flawed arguments and baseless assertions, knowing full well that if they made the exact same argument under the moniker of a conservative nobody would take them seriously.

You can read the essay in its entirety below the fold. Continue reading →

The Absurdity of Security in an Age of Fledgling Liberty

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , , , ,

I’ve been refraining from commenting on the Boston Marathon bombings because I feel like don’t yet have enough information. Dr Delacroix speculates here. Law professor and Russian immigrant Eugene Kontorovich has more on Chechens and Boston’s fall here.

I have found this piece by Clark over at Popehat to be the most illuminating yet. I can’t excerpt the good parts because the whole thing is really, really good.

Update: the Wall Street Journal has a great profile up on the Tsarnaev brothers.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , ,
  1. What the Arab papers are saying about Korea.
  2. Ron Paul launches the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
  3. How did Obama  respond to his gun control defeat?
  4. Blaming Capitalism for Corporatism.

Is It Time to Reject African States?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty , , , , , , , , , , ,

That is essentially what a political scientist is arguing in a short piece in the New York Times:

Yet because these countries were recognized by the international community before they even really existed, because the gift of sovereignty was granted from outside rather than earned from within, it came without the benefit of popular accountability, or even a social contract between rulers and citizens.

Imperialists like Dr Delacroix and Nancy Pelosi don’t seem to care about the legitimacy of post-colonial states (largely, I suspect, because they thought they did a great job of creating the borders that they did). You never hear them make arguments like this. Instead, the imperial line is all about helping all of those poor people suffering under despotic rule by bombing their countries, just as you would expect a condescending paternalist to do.

Since tactical strikes and peacekeeping missions have utterly failed since the end of WW2, why not try a new tactic? Our political scientist elaborates:

The first and most urgent task is that the donor countries that keep these nations afloat should cease sheltering African elites from accountability. To do so, the international community must move swiftly to derecognize the worst-performing African states, forcing their rulers — for the very first time in their checkered histories — to search for support and legitimacy at home […]

African states that begin to provide their citizens with basic rights and services, that curb violence and that once again commit resources to development projects, would be rewarded with re-recognition by the international community.

Englebert (the political scientist) goes on use examples of democratization in Taiwan as an example of how delegitimizing states can lead to democratization.

Another interesting angle that Englebert brings in is that of Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia that has not been recognized by the international community and, perhaps as result of this brittle reception by the international community, it is flourishing economically and politically. You won’t hear imperialists point to Somaliland either. Instead, you’ll get some predictable snark about ‘anarchism‘ or African savagery from these paternalists.

Yet, it is obvious that Somaliland is neither anarchist nor savage, as there is a government in place that is actively trying to work with both Mogadishu and international actors on the one hand, and rational calculations made by all sorts of actors on the other hand. What we have in the Horn of Africa, and – I would argue – by extension elsewhere in the post-colonial world, is a crisis of legitimacy wrought by the brutal, oppressive hand of government.

Read the whole article.

Sobre genocidio, filosofía y diálogos

Guillermo Pineda Current Events, History , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pido-castigoDurante las últimas semanas, muchas de las discusiones intelectuales en Guatemala han girado en torno al juicio en contra del ex Presidente de facto, General Retirado del Ejército y ex Presidente del Congreso de Guatemala José Efraín Ríos Montt.  Ríos Montt enfrenta un juicio por los  delitos de genocidio y crímenes de lesa humanidad.  Este juicio y su resolución tendrá una relevancia de alto impacto en la lucha que realizan movimientos progresistas (conocidos también como liberales en EE.UU., liberales de izquierda, y/o como seguidores del social liberalismo) en la búsqueda por resolver conflictos históricos que armonicen el funcionamiento de un mercado regulado con una participación del Estado en la garantización de igualdad de  competencia y la corrección de desigualdades heredadas del período colonial y/o desigualdades que resultaron de la institucionalización política o social de prácticas racistas, clasistas, machistas, entre otras.

El juicio contra Ríos Montt, que podría convertirse en el “Juicio del siglo” de los intereses ideológicos progresistas latinoamericanos, tomó vuelo luego de que el 19 de marzo de 2013, una jueza guatemalteca abriese formalmente juicio contra el exdictador, acusándolo de genocidio contra miles indígenas durante su régimen de gobierno (1982-1983).  El genocidio es un delito internacional que comprende “cualquiera de los actos perpetrados con la intención de destruir, total o parcialmente, a un grupo nacional, étnico, racial o religioso como tal; estos actos comprenden la matanza de miembros del grupo, lesión grave a la integridad física o mental de los miembros del grupo, sometimiento intencional del grupo a condiciones de existencia que hayan de acarrear su destrucción física, total o parcial, medidas destinadas a impedir nacimientos en el seno del grupo, traslado por la fuerza de niños del grupo a otro grupo.” (via: Estatuto de Roma de la Corte Penal Internacional, 1998-2002 y la Convención para la Prevención y la Sanción del Delito de Genocidio de 1948).  La legislación guatemalteca incluye pena de prisión de 30 a 50 años para los culpables de estos delitos. Continue reading →

Life underground

muricaderp Economics, Liberty, Links

Fabius Maximus tweeted an amazing series of links yesterday to articles about people literally living underground in US cities. Few manifestations of homelessness really surprise me, as opposed to merely saddening or disturbing me; these did.

The preceding link is to an article summarizing the others that Fabius Maximus publicized. The tone of this summary article is m0re breathless than it need be, as might be expected from a blog called The Economic Collapse, and it jumps to some of its conclusions in a manner that might be considered paranoid or conspiratorial, but if nothing else it’s fun reading, and quite illuminating to boot. The other caveat to keep in mind is that it’s probably erroneous to imply that these underground encampments are uniquely American or solely the result of uniquely incompetent and cruel US social services policy. I’d be quite surprised, in particular, if there are no such encampments beneath Paris, which has a renowned community of egoutophiles, who might be called “sewer lovers” in English, and a homeless problem of its own, which the authorities have been known to address by rounding up transients and busing them to the suburbs.

The “Tunnel People” may be down-and-out addicts and losers, but they’re damn well resourceful. Some of the people living in the storm drain system of Las Vegas (estimated at about 1,000 in all) have outfitted their living quarters with beds, closets, office chairs, and bookshelves, usually elevated on crates for protection from runoff. Check out the pictures. One of the couples living in this environment supports itself in part through “credit hustling,” i.e., collecting gambling credits that absentminded gamblers have left on slot machines: not particularly honorable, perhaps, but it takes some gumption.

Another population, known locally as the “mole people,” lives in access tunnels fronting passenger rail tunnels in Midtown Manhattan. According to the New York Post, “Travolta, originally from the Dominican Republic, claims to have lived in these dark, rat-infested spaces beneath Manhattan for the past 20 years.” The other John Travolta owns a Boeing 707; this one uses a 7:15 am train as his alarm clock.

The most enterprising group of tunnel dwellers, however, is probably the group that was recently evicted from a network of apparently hand-excavated tunnels on the northeast side of Kansas City, MO. Police and social services believe that infants were being raised at that site because they found soiled diapers there.

The Kansas City and Las Vegas cases are unconscionable for another reason: these cities have lax housing markets. In contrast to New York, housing supply exceeds demand in these cities. To be succinct, and maybe a bit pat, about it, the original failure to house the residents of the underground encampments in Las Vegas and Kansas City is not a logistical problem, but a cultural and policy problem. I fear that it is one that will not be fixed until Americans stop thinking of housing as an investment and start thinking of it as a utility.

Moral Markets and Immoral “Capitalism”

Fred Foldvary Current Events, Economics , , , , , , , , ,

The question, “Is capitalism moral?” was raised by Steven Pearlstein in a 15 March 2013 article in the Washington Post. He is a professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University and a column writer for the Washington Post.

Pearlstein writes that we in the US are engaged in a “historic debate over free-market capitalism.” Maybe so, but “free-market capitalism” is a contradiction in terms. There are two reasons why the economic system is called “capital”ism rather than “laborism” or “landism.” First is that capital dominates labor. The second reason to call the system “capitalism” is to hide the role of land, so that people focus only on the conflict between workers and capitalists. The chiefs of finance and real estate are able to dominate because of their political clout. They obtain privileges from government in subsidies, limits on competition, and periodic bail outs. In contrast, in a free market, there is no domination, with neither subsidies nor imposed costs.

Pearlstein then says that if “markets” were providing prosperity for most folks, there would be no need for governmental intervention. But we don’t have pure markets. We have a mixed economy, with intervention into markets, so one has to first analyze whether it is markets or else interventions that cause high inequality, instability, poverty, and unemployment. Since pure markets are not given an opportunity to work, how can they be responsible for economic woes?

He then asserts that for the past 30 years, the world has been moving towards a greater role for markets. That is so for China and the countries previously dominated by the USSR, and these economies have indeed experienced greater growth and prosperity.

But, contrary to Pearlstein’s assertion, the US has been moving away from a market economy. Frequent governmental crises – the fiscal cliff, budget deadlines, ever changing tax rates – threaten the stability of financial, industrial, and labor markets. The subsidies to real estate and its financial allies have never been greater. The domination of the Federal Reserve over money, banking, and interest rates has reached historic heights. The tax reforms of the 1980s have been reversed by Congress, which has made income taxes ever more complex. Costly regulations continue to pour out of Washington DC by the thousands each year. And now the government will dominate medical provision like never before.

The decline in the role of markets can be measured by an index of economic freedom. According to the Fraser Index of Economic Freedom, U.S. market freedom peaked out in the year 2000 at a rating of 8.5 out of 10, and then declined to 7.69 in 2010 as intervention grew. The US freedom ranking among countries dropped from third place in 2000 to 18th out of 144 in 2010, and most probably has continued sinking since then.

Critics of markets have asserted that stagnant household incomes and financial crises are the fault of a greater role for markets, when in fact, in the US and Europe, massive subsidies to real estate caused the recession, excessive government borrowing has caused the fiscal crises, and a governmental redistribution of wealth from workers to landowners has stagnated net wages.

I agree with Pearlstein that we should welcome the debate on economic morality. But we should use words that have real economic meaning, rather than propaganda terms. Any person who refers to “capitalism” other than with critical quotation marks contributes to the confusion. The critics of markets opportunistically use the term “free market” to refer to the mixed economy, and then use the term “capitalism” also for the concept of a pure free market. Hence they argue that “capitalism,” as the mixed economy, suffers from economic woes, and then jump to the false conclusion that “capitalism,” meaning the pure market, causes the problems.

A real debate should also unmask the role of land that hides under the label “capital”ism. Critics who speak of the “market’s” unequal distributions overlook the massive redistribution of income from workers to landowners, as taxes on wages pay for public goods that pump up rent and land values. Their call for higher taxes on the rich disregards the distinction between earned income from entrepreneurship and unearned income from governmental subsidies.

Pearlstein admits that “many of the arguments have been a bit flabby, with both sides taking refuge in easy moralizing.” That is true. An honest and robust debate should avoid the deceitful switching of meanings for “capitalism”, and indeed avoids using the flabby term altogether. Instead, use the clear and honest words “pure market,” “intervention,” and “mixed economy.” If we say that the mixed economy has economic woes, one cannot then conclude that the pure market has caused them, because the mix also includes intervention. Clear thinking about economic morality cannot begin until we have clear terms that reflect the full-spectrum of economic reality.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , ,
  1. Superior Mayan Engineering.
  2. Gary North: The Libertarian Taliban.
  3. How Much Does the Market Organization of Economic Life Matter?
  4. Margaret Thatcher’s Triumph.
  5. The Republic of Baseball.

Débat sur le menteur.

Jacques Delacroix Comments, Current Events, Politics , , , ,

Mon essai “Un Menteur bien français” affiché sur ce blog le 9 Avril a aussi été affiché sur le blog-copain Notes On Liberty oùil a donné lieu à cette réponse indignée:

Je ne connais pas ce type, mais avant de taper sur les Français il conviendrait de ne pas oublier les tonnes de calomnies dégueulasses racontées par une certaine presse américaine ( un grand nombre !) contre la France après 2003 et l’Irak . Au point qu’aujourd’hui tous les Américains qui n’ont pas fait d’études les croient encore . En termes de proportions, mettre en parallèle les idoties de deux ou trois journalistes et le lynchage au rouleau compresseur lancé par Fox News et autres détritus n’est pas juste .

D’autre part les tabloïds n’existent pas en France . Tout ce que balancent le Sun et ses copains en Grande-Bretagne est bien plus énorme que ce que dit ce type de TV5 .

Alors oui la presse est un problème en France, mais c’en est un bien plus honteux chez les Anglophones .

S’il n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer! (Je jure que je n’ai rien fait de semblable. Pourtant, c’ était tentant.) Continue reading →