Posted on 05/13/2003 6:02:52 AM PDT by A. Pole
Some material to ponder for our free market/free trade fundamentalists
Initial quote about Thomas Malthus, a disciple of Adam Smith:
"[...] In order to have a supply of labor exceeding demand -- thereby keeping labor costs low -- Malthus was a profound enemy of birth control. The more children these poor engender, the larger is the supply of cheap labor. In order that these masses of children do not constitute a drain on welfare dollars, Malthus proposes to just let the sick, little blighters die. He defends these deaths by saying that it is really to the benefit of the working class to do away with so many little ones. That way the labor pool would diminish and labor could demand a higher wage. It all follows the simple law of supply and demand. Human life is commercial commodity![...]"
The whole article:
For most of recorded history, the vast majority of humankind has not been well served by prevailing economic systems. Forever and a day, a few avaricious alphas amassed obscene assets while most people had a hard time keeping body and soul together. Getting people to submit to such injustice and discrimination required a belief system embraced by most individuals. From dim historical recesses until about the 1800s, religions provided the anesthetic that made most people accept an economic system benefiting only a few. The cant was that God ordained everyone's station in life. Kings ruled by divine right. God appointed clergy to proclaim God's absolute truths. God himself assigned slaves, serfs, and workers to their lowly rungs on life's ladder. However, if they behaved in accordance with the Church's doctrines, they would be assured of a heavenly hereafter complete with robes, wings, and harps. Most people swallowed that bait hook, line, and sinker.
In the late 1700s, there was an awakening of the people. They got tired of being shafted. The American Revolution proved that King George III did not rule by divine right. The French Revolution guillotined masses of aristocrats who had hidden their shameful distain for the lower classes under the guise of God's will. A breath of freedom, a sense of equity, and promises of a new order permeated the air. Perchance the time had come for a new world order. But it was not to be. A new dogma, in a sense a new religion, was birthed. It did not rely on supernatural manifestations of the divine but proved just as repressive for the vast majority of humankind as did the rule of the gods. The people were duped into a system appearing to have the stamp of rationality imprinted upon it.
The human brain has the uncanny ability to vindicate the unreasonable, to justify the unjustifiable, and to defend the indefensible. This capability is not limited to people of low estate and/or moderate intellectual capabilities. Some of the most brilliant people in the world's history have been guilty of the most crass self-deceptions. Plato saddled the world with a belief in the absolute nature of God. He established the rationale providing religious, political, and every other kind of pundit with the authority to shroud their pronouncements with the mantle of absolute truth. Belief in polar absolutes is probably as responsible as any other single factor, except the behavioral imprints in the human reptilian brain, for the murderous behavior of our species. Believing our ideas to be absolutely correct and backed by stacks of holy scriptures, pronouncements of assemblies meeting in God's name, and having been prayed over, we bash in anyone's head who does not agree with the words we issue in the name of our god. The brilliant Newton lent his significant scientific reputation to authenticate the nonsense of belief in absolute polarities.
Over time, belief in God's absolute power to predestine every action in our universe diminished. This was also the beginning of the industrial era. As these two forces merged, someone very smart had to come up with some highfaluting reasons allowing perpetuation of the economic ravishing of the masses. That someone was the admired, esteemed, and highly respected saint of the American economy, Adam Smith. While trained as a moral philosopher, he shed almost all of his morals in the development of the new religion flying under the banner of capitalism. A curia consisting of most CEOs, Deans of Schools of Business, and a coterie of politicians are the administrators of the Articles of Religion of the New Faith. In essence, only the names, dates, and places have changed since our species believed in the divine right of kings. The new kings think of themselves as no less divine than Egyptian Pharaohs. What is this hoax that has become the altar at which we worship the new god? What is the phantasmagoria providing the equivalent of a new theology continuing the enslavement of most of the world's people?
The new illusion contains only two major Articles of Faith. Volumes have been written in the worship of these twins keeping bread from the mouths of babes, perpetuating a consistent sense of uncertainty about a workingman's ability to provide for his family, and causing the world to descend into periodic economic depressions and major wars. Yet, the little people of the western world have swallowed this poison depriving them of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "The king is dead. Long live the king." Nothing new has happened. The old tyranny has simply been baptized with a new name. The substance remained the same.
The first Article of Faith of this new religion is found in Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 2.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,Smith admits that humans, as distinct from all other animals, need each other in order to meet their needs. They use barter and trade to find satisfaction of their wants. In effecting this exchange, Smith continues,
that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their (that is the baker's, the butcher's, the candlestick maker's) humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their own advantage.Smith posits utter selfishness as the reason for commerce, trade, and business. This, of course, is the mantra that encourages companies like Enron to hide the actual state of their business in offshore companies. It is the Declaration of the New Ethics that causes high and mighty executives of Arthur Anderson to shred documents. The new economic faith established self-interest as the only "raison d'etre" for the conduct of business. Human selfishness lies at the heart of bartering and trading.
However, Smith, having a background as a moral philosopher, probably had a twinge of conscience when he realized that he simply gave a new name to the old "dog eat dog" philosophy. What to do? So, the second Article of Faith was developed. In book 4, chapter 2, Smith writes,
...by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he (our butcher, baker, and candlestick maker) intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.So now we are back to angels and seraphim, gods and, perchance, aliens landing in UFOs looking out for the good of society. Smith advocates the most crass sort of self-centered greed and then trusts some invisible hand making sure that no one gets hurt. Holy cow! I could have sold that guy the Brooklyn Bridge! Pretty naïve, isn't he? Of course there is no unseen hand looking after anybody. There was no such hand when kings ruled by divine right and there isn't one now that the magnates of industry continue their rule of greed.
I must be honest and admit that it is possible in the early stages of a business to achieve public benefits that are not its direct intent. When, for instance, a man decides to build gas stations, his primary interest is to sell gas so he can make a profit. The people benefit from such a self-centered goal. They now have a convenient place to obtain gas. However, selfishness being what it is, our good merchant will combine with other sellers of gas and, eventually, there will be price-fixing. Then self-interest dictates that our good merchant obtains a share in the production of crude oil, its refining process, and its distribution system. Working interest in drilling companies, oilfield service companies, manufacturing of compressors and drilling rigs are the natural results of the new economic order. With monopolistic tendencies, engendered by selfishness, sooner or later our good merchants will gain control of the government. Then war is declared against those nations possessing the largest known oil reserves. While some initial good results from our paragon's selfishness, the ultimate end is body bags and worldwide upheaval. In my book, that is not a desirable Article of Faith.
Thomas Malthus, a disciple of Smith's "new" economic order, is best known for his proposition that populations increase in geometric proportions whereas food supply follows an arithmetic growth curve. It is not so well known that Malthus looked upon the poor of England -- and, by implication, any society --as being nothing more than an increment of the economic pie. Concern for humane values does not exist in this new order. In order to have a supply of labor exceeding demand -- thereby keeping labor costs low -- Malthus was a profound enemy of birth control. The more children these poor engender, the larger is the supply of cheap labor. In order that these masses of children do not constitute a drain on welfare dollars, Malthus proposes to just let the sick, little blighters die. He defends these deaths by saying that it is really to the benefit of the working class to do away with so many little ones. That way the labor pool would diminish and labor could demand a higher wage. It all follows the simple law of supply and demand. Human life is commercial commodity!
Malthus even wrote that infants are of little value because as soon as one dies, another one takes its place. Somehow, the invisible hand will take care of everything. Is it any wonder that unrest and malcontent undermine the foundations of our society?
Now comes the real sleeper in this august form of economics. Malthus suggests that it is evil for governments to impose any restrictions whatsoever on what is essentially a license to practice unlimited greed. However, it seems to be quite all right for the government to enact legislation granting special rights and privileges to large, moneyed interests. Smithian religion approves what America's dot.coms did. Deceit and fraud is not only right, it is the most supreme form of worship to the Golden Calf of Mammon. Congress made sure that chicanery, deceit, and fraud were legal.
Well, it's a rotten system, hell-bent on destroying the vast majority of people both in America and elsewhere. Such a system must come to an end. If human life means anything at all, then this nefarious economic theory must be dismembered and tossed overboard. If the mighty and all-powerful captains of industry do not heed the call of an abused humanity, then the wheels of history grinding slowly but consistently will produce the antithesis that will annihilate the present system.
Whether the new system will place world-wide dominance into a few hands -- with its concomitant results of continuous sabotage, terrorism, and riots -- or whether our species shall put in place a just and equitable system of distribution of goods remains to be seen.
Sooner or later the present appetite for power by the few will evolve into something like the man-eating plant in The Little Shop of Horrors. Even the moguls will be devoured by what they created. The Hegelian dialectic is alive and well. Can't we figure out a system providing a synthesis based on equity and justice and thereby prove Hegel wrong?
[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations."]
Like all Christians everywhere before 1930, he knew that artificial birth control is evil and against God's Word and God's law.
Only in a post-Christian age mired in the culture of death have people begun to believe that artificial birth control is morally acceptable.
That is a most weighty and deep insight, yet little remarked. To throw down that long-established concept, the divine right of kings -- a false conceit -- took an amazing degree of fortitude and vision, for each individual and for the nation in its wholes.
My impression is that he does NOT want those things! But he is worried that such systems (or something similar) will replace present system if moderation and wisdom is lacking. The quote:
"If the mighty and all-powerful captains of industry do not heed the call of an abused humanity, then the wheels of history grinding slowly but consistently will produce the antithesis that will annihilate the present system."
God gave man reproductive capacity, but he gave him a brain as well. Birth control amounts to using the brain to prevent turning the planet God gave us into a total slum with only rats, cockroaches, and humans living in it.
Thomas Malthus was a nineteenth-century cleric and sometime professor of political economy whose theories of population growth and economic stability quickly became the basis for national and international social policy throughout the West. According to his scheme, population grows exponentially over time, while production only grows arithmetically. He believed a crisis was therefore inevitable--a kind of ticking population time bomb that he believed threat- ened the very existence of the human race. Poverty, deprivation, and hunger were the evidences of this looming population crisis. He believed that the only responsible social policy would be one that addressed the unnatural problem of population growth-by whatever means necessary. Every social problem was subordinate to this central cause. In fact, Malthus argued, to deal with sickness, crime, privation, and need in any other way simply aggravates the problems further; thus, he actually condemned charity, philanthropy, international relief and development, mis- sionary outreaches, and economic investment around the world as counterproductive.
In his magnum opus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in six editions from 1798 to 1826, Malthus wrote:
"All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons. . . . Therefore . . . we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague, In the country, we should build our villages near stag- nant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should repro- bate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders."
Does not sound especially Christian to me. In fact the author links this thinking to the wide-spread Eugenics movement in America of the early-mid 20th century. Is this taken out of context?
One hundred years before the American War of Independence the English had their Glorious Revolution.
The situation was this: the rightful possesor of the English throne, by heredity, was King James II. However, King James was a Catholic and his kingdom was mostly Anglican. The Parliament decided that it was in the best interests of the English people to have a monarch which reflected the religion of the majority.
The Parliament deposed the King in favor of George III's ancestor - the closest Anglican relative of King James.
King James declared that Parliament had no right to depose him becuase of his divine right to the throne. The Parliament responded that the will of the governed was what mattered, not the divine right he claimed.
George II's father, George II, fought a civil war against King James' grandson who invaded England attempting to reassert his divine right to rule in 1745.
George III's claim to the colonies was not that he had a divine right of rulership, but that since the colonies were the private property of the English Crown, he had a right to manage his own property according to his own lights, as long as Parliament approved of his stewardship.
Man has a brain, and the purpose of that brain is to employ it with right reason to discern and obey the natural law.
Your remarks presume that economics is a zero-sum game, that human beings are net expenses rather than value-creating individuals, and that we should presume to play God.
Artificial birth control, cloning, abortion, euthanasia, sterilization etc. are all part and parcel of this anti-human attitude, and I reject them along with all the shop-worn, long-exploded arguments in their favor.
Does not sound especially Christian to me.
Of course it is very anti-Christian. But there is a form of degenerate pseudo-Christianity derived from post-Puritan England which worships wealth, power and social proto-Darwinism. This heresy finds its expression in forms of free market muscular "Christianity" among some American Protestants.
He was only concerned that birth control not limit the production of worker drones needed to power the economy.
Therefore he took a very proto-Darwinian view of the human condition.
His attitude is not, in my opinion, consistent with Christian charity and I do not think it is taken out of context.
My point was that to him, interfering with the processes of human reproduction would be almost unthinkable - better to take one's chances with disease than to be prevented from existing.
There is a reason why Spain was the first European economy to surpass ancient Rome in wealth and expansionism: market-based initiatives.
I suspect that some of free market fundamentalists welcome the spread of SARS and hope that any public subsidies of the medical care will be restricted so the "proper" Darwianin culling of human race can take place.
No.
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