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."]
I wouldn't call Mellon Foundation industry.
Yeah, and for thousands of years it was done by the governments. No entrepreneurs there.
You know, in Hong Kong they quarantined all sick ones, not merely those who "tried". And they prevented their families from visiting them too. Plenty coercion, little free market there.
Then maybe you're unclear as to what private industry is.
Andrew W. Mellon was an entrepreneur and a private investor who made excellent business ventures into banking, oil, steel, carborundum, etc.
When he died in 1937, he left the money he had privately earned in the private sector and created a Foundation to fund worthwhile projects - just as he had privately funded worthwhile projects (like the coke industry) while he was alive.
His executors distributed some of this private wealth to Jonas Salk's research laboratory. Just because Andrew Mellon died doesn't mean that his money automatically became public funds - to the contrary.
You seem to be somewhat confused.
First of all, Hong Kong is ruled by a Communist regime, so the terms of the quarantine there may be more onerous than those acceptable to a free society. Your assumption that because I support the idea of a quarantine I must therefore support any kind of quarantine imposed by anyone is a bit of a stretch and an exercise in straw man building.
But a quarantine is certainly appropriate in a free society. If one has a disease communicable by routine social contact, the people one encounters can be exposed to it by the infected person's coercive insistence on exposing them.
It is a violation of a person's liberty to expose them to a disease without their free consent.
If the infected person's family wanted to join them in quarantine, that would certainly be permitted to in a free society.
Then maybe you're unclear as to what private industry is.
Perhaps I should become patronizing too, and suggest that your reading comprehension skills are lacking. First of all, I wrote industry not private industry. Secondly, a philantropic institution is not industry. That is the name we give to ones like Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline etc.
The only "vagueness" here is your lack of clarity in defining concepts - e.g. your inability to distinguish between human action and animal instinct.
Let's see. The Mellon Foundation's money consisted at the time of the Salk grant of various ownership interests in banking, mining, oil exploration, toolmaking, etc.
So the Salk grant consisted of money transferred from an industrialist's ownership of various industrial companies.
In what sense was the Mellon Foundation's money not the money of American industry freely given by an American industrialist?
By giving money in this way, Andrew Mellon found a creative means to reduce the taxes on his estate by distributing industrial profits to worthy undertakings rather than the political slushfund known as the US Treasury.
What does this have to do with free markets and free trade? Malthus was wrong.
No - it speaks of a response to nature commonly defined as such.
My post in 25, by speaking of a response to nature clearly depends upon a distinction being drawn between nature and natural law.
At no point have I invoked nature as a source of morality in place of natural law.
If you are operating with a definition of nature different from the common acceptation, maybe you should proffer it.
You seem to be somewhat confused.
Still in the patronizing mode, huh?
First of all, Hong Kong is ruled by a Communist regime, so the terms of the quarantine there may be more onerous than those acceptable to a free society. Your assumption that because I support the idea of a quarantine I must therefore support any kind of quarantine imposed by anyone is a bit of a stretch and an exercise in straw man building.
Again, your reading comprehension skills seem to be lacking. In my original text, I am not assuming anything about what you support. What I am pointing out is that until the free market produces a SARS vaccine (which may take years,) quarantine is the only thing we can do, and it's done by governments.
Yet at the same time he advocated social programs to eliminate excess numbers of poor people, as Zack Nguyen has cited.
Which is it?
Note that Malthus only opposed birth control for the poor. He sez nothing about birth control for the powerful.
In point of fact, he never mentions birth control for anyone in any context.
Why?
Because as a educated Christian of the XVIIIth century he was taught that birth control of any kind was immoral.
What we have in the case of Malthus is someone trying to square the circle:
He wants to be a Christian and acknowledge that artificial birth control is immoral, but at the same time he buys into the unscientific idea that economies are closed systems and zero sum games and that the mythical state known as "overpopulation" is possible.
Therefore he offers the "solution" of neglect as a Christian compromise. It isn't really Christian however - he has avoided one unChristian evil only to embrace another.
Some governments are governments authorized by and acting on behalf of free peoples, and some governments aren't.
Quarantines are eminently compatible with the proper governance of a free society.
Which of course he wasn't.
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