A while back we had an interesting discussion about the apparent preponderance of leftist views within American academia. We suggested a variety of possible explanations but they all seemed to fall short for lack of concrete evidence. I'm not particularly interested in returning to this debate, but when I saw this article in the Times--The Left-Leaning Tower--I thought it might be interesting to post as a sort of follow up.
In the article, the author reviews the work of several scholars who have actually studied this phenomenon in some detail. Unfortunately, the results are still rather inconclusive. One the one hand are the findings of a sociologist who identifies himself as a democrat and claims to have found that discrimination is not a factor in the low number of conservatives in academia. On the other hand are a few conservative/libertarian scholars who argue that discrimination may be taking place in more subtle ways at later stages in academic careers--in short if you're a conservative don't get your hope up for tenure.
So basically this supposedly neutral review of empirical studies boils down to yet another he said/she said media sleight of hand using "balance" as a pretext to shore up an untenable position. It turns out that the "liberal" study is based on an extensive investigation of actual behavior in the real world, whereas the conservative counterpart employs much more flimsy evidence--a much smaller survey of attitudes based on hypothetical scenarios. But in reviewing the conservative critique, the author succeeds in voicing several quite insidious stereotypes that feed right into the anti-intellectualism so prevalent in American culture. Two particularly stood out--first that being a professor is a cushy job with four months of summer vacation, and secondly that there is some kind of multicultural and feminist veto over hiring and tenure decisions. Ultimately what gets lost in all of this is the real reason why people go into academia--love of research, teaching and of the life of the mind. More often then not when it comes down to what academics actually study, the crude distinction between liberals and conservatives that dominates our media landscape becomes almost irrelevant.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Liberals and Ideology of failure. Take II
Previous thread with the same title got too cluttered, thus we decided to streamline the discussion and move to a new thread. So, here it is. Enjoy.
Recently, I ran across a blog by some fringe uber-liberal blogger mourning the death of Bin-Laden as a misguided hero willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of "oppressed". Her words turned my mind to the question that puzzled me for a long time. Why is contemporary liberalism simultaneously anti-American (more generally anti-Western in the sense of Western cultural values) and anti-Israel in nature? What is that psychological trait which turns people born in USA and Europe to hate values on which their native civilization was founded? What is it that makes liberal Jews, to whom Israel did nothing bad personally, to hate it that much?
Obviously, liberals are against capitalism, and this explains their hatred for such things as individualism, private property, economic freedom, limited government. Capitalism was invented in the West, and US is perceived as the country embodying it the most, thus the anti-West and anti-US sentiments of the liberals are quite natural. What is more puzzling is why they always go hand in hand with loathing for Israel, which is a country with long-lasting socialist traditions.
In an attempt to find the answer to this question, let me begin by noting that liberalism is based on the idea, originating from Marxists class struggle theory, according to which people belong to one of two categories: they are either oppressors or the oppressed. The latter deserve sympathy and should be defended, while the former must be anathematized and, when possible, destroyed. Practical application of this idea depends, of course, on how one determines who the oppressor is, and who is being oppressed. This is where liberals very successfully play their favorite linguistic game redefining words and giving them new meanings. For me oppression is associated with Stalin's GULAG or with Hitler's gas chambers, but this is not what liberals mean by “oppression” these days. Nothing helps to understand the actual meaning of the words than looking at their usage.
The main favorite oppressor these days is, of course, Israel. Never mind that nobody heard about concentration camps build by Israel for Palestinians or about mass extermination of the latter by the former. (And, yes, I do know about certain incidents perpetuated by Jewish groups in 1948, which, while definitely, regrettable, were committed in the midst of the war and never became official policies of the State of Israel). In modern Israel, Arab citizens have the same civil rights as Jews including their own representation in the Knesset. Living conditions of even those Palestinians, who do sit in Israeli prisons for such insignificant things as blowing up Israeli civilians, are often better than that of their “free” compatriots. There has been a press report recently about two Palestinians refusing to leave the prison so that they could complete their education. So much for being oppressed! But it all does not matter because liberals learned very well Lenin’s dictum: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”. Their demonization of Israel has been so persistent that now everybody is convinced that Jews are the most evil people in the Middle East, and “the pain in the asses” as one famous movie director put it recently.
When liberals do not blast Israelis, they like to talk about global guilt of the West before underdeveloped countries in Africa or Latin America or the same Middle East. Before WW 2, the Western countries "oppressed" the rest of the world directly by colonizing them. What does it matter that those “oppressors” built infrastructure, provided education and medical services to those whom they oppressed? So what that after "liberation" most of this infrastructure, medical and educational institutions fell in disarray, and the newly free nations, especially in Africa succeeded mostly in killing each other? While after the war Europe engaged in restoring their cities and developing their economies, Africa self-destructed. Instead of accepting responsibility for their people, African leaders helped by Western liberals, succeeded mostly in the blame game and stealing whatever resources the West had sent to their countries. The West is being blamed for everything including AIDS epidemics. The idea that one has to use condoms during sex turned out to be much less appealing than suggestions that the Western countries created HIV virus in order to get rid of Africans and to appropriate their resources. And it does not matter how many financial and human resources western countries wasted in Africa, it is never enough. If Africans are miserable, it is because of West's colonial, neocolonial or postcolonial policies.
The faces of oppressors and oppressed back home in the "Land of opportunities" are also well known. The most obvious oppressors are of course the "fat cats” from the Wall street, greedy bankers, and the biggest and the scariest one – the Corporation. Vilification of corporations in liberal media became so beyond any reason that it appears that Corporations are some evil monsters from outer space rather than just one of many ways to organize ownership and governance of a business. Liberals seem to forget that corporations provide hundred thousands of people with jobs and manufacture those things, which liberals do not feel any shame to use in their daily lives.
In addition to large oppressors, there are smaller oppressors, which judging by Obama’s tax proposal, are everyone making more than $250 K per year. They may be not as evil and powerful as Big Oil or Big Farma or Koch brothers are, but they still oppress “less fortunate”, just by the virtue of possessing their “fortune”. One should admire Left’s linguistic abilities in inventing names designed to conceal the actual nature of phenomena they discuss. Term “less fortunate” is supposed to convey the idea that being poor has nothing to do with people making their personal choices, but it just a matter of good or bad fortune. Here are a few examples of those who are encouraged to think about themselves as oppressed. Students at my university feel so oppressed that a week before the finals, instead of studying, went to demonstrate and demand that more money were taken from those who has them and given to them. Another example: welfare mothers, a whole bunch of the “Precious”, who do not have the will and skills or even a desire to hold a job, but dream big about how they magically appear on a brightly lit stage, in a glamorous dress, and are admired by everyone. Also oppressed are the drug dealers and the drug users. The former sell drugs because they are not provided with other economic opportunities and the latter use them for exactly the same reasons. In general, oppressed are those who have “needs” they cannot fulfill and demand that other people were forced to provide for them.
Now, let us see if there is anything in common between these disparate examples of “oppression”. There might be more than one unifying motif here, but the one, which seems almost obvious to me, is that in all these cases oppressors are those cultures, countries, individuals who succeed, and the oppressed are those who fail. Indeed, Israel built a functioning state with a powerful army, modern economics, developed infrastructure, medicine, world-class education, and the level of life unseen in this part of the woods. Palestinians, at the same time, completely failed in developing their territories in spite of streams of money sent their way. This observation also helps me to understand why liberal Jews hate Israel so much that actually covertly want its passing to oblivion. They are psychologically frustrated. They would like to be able to be both good Jews and good liberals, which is not possible while Israel exists as a successful state. If Israel were no more and all the Jews (those who would survive) were scattered again all over the world and persecuted, they could be immediately moved to the category of oppressed. At this point, the liberal American Jews would find themselves in a very comfortable position - once again, they could be good liberals and good Jews saving their fellow compatriots and bringing them back under socialistic banners.
The same idea explains the general animosity of liberals toward principal Western values and their embrace of multiculturalism, which is just a code word for diluting western ideals of individualism, rationality, objectivity with cultural values from other much less successful traditions. The only consequence of this dilution can be diminishing role of those values that brought people from all other the world to the West to enjoy its achievements. The result is not difficult to predict: no more achievements.
One can argue that in the world of limited economic resources, the successful people and countries enjoying the fruits of their success consume too many resources leaving too little for those who are less successful, and therefore they become oppressors immediately once they claim their rights on the fruits of their labor. This argument, however, suffers from two fallacies. First, is the presumption that amount of wealth available for distribution is a conserving quantity so that if one has more than the other necessarily has less. Or if put in terms of the game theory, that economic activity is always a zero sum game. This is, of course, not so. Successful people create something, which would not have existed without them, and this defines their success. In very general terms, they create wealth, and by creating wealth, they increase resources available for everyone, including those who are “less fortunate”. Hayek in his “Road to slavery” gives a perfect example of this phenomenon. The labor of a minimally skilled worker by itself is not worth much. When, however, he becomes a part of a bigger enterprise, a factory, created by a successful individual with vision and talent, the worth of his labor increases by orders of magnitude. The second fallacy consists in the assumption that expropriating wealth created by successful people to achieve its more equitable distribution would have no influence on its overall amount. Ayn Rand showed that this is not so very clearly in her Atlas Shrugged, where she demonstrated with almost mathematical precision what happens to a society, which begins such redistribution.
OK, it is time to wrap it up, as I myself am not able to finish reading this post. To conclude: the liberals hate capitalism because they are ashamed of being successful. They believe that success of some is unfair for the others. It might be so, but to punish people and countries just because they succeeded while others failed is not just more unfair – it makes things worse for everyone, including those whom liberals are purported to defend.
Monday, June 13, 2011
About western values, liberalism and the value of the individual life
In one of his previous posts Nathan suggested that, contrary to what I say, his brand of liberalism has deep roots in the history of Western civilization, and that ideas of modern liberals are representative of the most significant intellectual achievements of the Western thinkers. It is somewhat ironic that to prove his point Nathan resorts to Christianity and the figure of Jesus Christ, even though his ideological comrades routinely disparage Christians for their religiosity. However, I do admit that the term "Western Values" which I used is too broad for discussing this complex conglomerate of often mutually exclusive ideas, so I have to clarify myself.
Among of a great variety of diverse ideas proposed and discussed in the thousand year history of Western civilization, two played a particularly important role. First was the idea that the Universe is the objective reality governed by the universal laws discoverable by a man. The second is understanding that people are self-sufficient individuals possessing rational minds and free will, and that the value of an individual is derived from his individual qualities rather than is handed down to him by his relation to a nations or a state or a king.
The first of these ideas generated unprecedented development of scientific knowledge, while the second one helped people to realize that they have rights to participate in society as independent free agents. This included economic participation and the right to own fruits of their labor and/or ingenuity. The most direct material expression of this realization was the idea of private property as an equivalent of economic freedom. This freedom and scientific progress provided positive feedback to each other resulting in unprecedented development of European nations.
These two ideas, which I consider the foundation of Western civilization, have elevated a human to a position, where instead of being an object of God, or fate, or king, the individual is an actively engaged subject, a creator.
These concepts, of course, were always in a struggle with another set of ideas emphasizing importance of collective in human behavior. According to them a group of people, a society , a nation, a segregation is more important then any individual in the group. Sacrifice for the well-being of the group is encouraged and sometimes even required. Individual rights of the group members are subjugated to the goals of the collective, the common good, which usually are formulated by an authority figure - a king, a messiah, pope, union leaders, etc. Earlier Christians lived in communities, and naturally, Christian morality was formulated in the collectivist terms (strong must take care of the weak, sacrifice for the group is the reason for canonization, etc). They were poor, hence, the negative attitude toward material wealth, property, and concentration on introvertive life of the soul. In addition of promulgating collectivist ideas, Christianity for a long period of time also insisted on the absence of any rational order in Nature, weakness and inadequacy of human mind. This attitude played a particularly negative role for the European civilization seriously hindering its development for 10 centuries. Only Luther's reformation and development of protestantism, which somewhat freed an individual in a person, weakened the brakes of collectivism, leading up to capitalism, industrial revolution and significant improvement in living conditions of a large number of people.
I think, however, that the religious component of protestantism is incidental in this story. It is not the idea of individual G-d, but the allowance for a much larger degree of individualism in general , made this progress possible. A significant role, of course, was played by protestant ethic, with its emphasize on importance of honesty, hard work, sanctity of a contract, etc, but I do not want to get engaged in the discussion if these ethical values are inherent to the religious world view, or they can be formulated from secular positions. What is important for me now is that Luther allowed Christians to recognise the value of their individuality.
It seems to me that out of all major religions, only protestantism is inherently compatible with capitalism. Ideological foundations of other branches of Christianity (Catholicism and Orthodoxy) as well as of Islam are very much at odds with capitalist approach to life. One can easily find conformation of this proposition by looking at the history of colonization of America, or the states of the modern Europe. Territory, known presently as USA, was colonized mostly by Anglicans and protestants while Mexico and all of the Southern America was colonized by catholic Spain and Portugal. The difference in the results does not need any special discussion. Now, look at the list of European countries with biggest economic problems: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, all with predominantly Catholic or Orthodox populations.
Among of a great variety of diverse ideas proposed and discussed in the thousand year history of Western civilization, two played a particularly important role. First was the idea that the Universe is the objective reality governed by the universal laws discoverable by a man. The second is understanding that people are self-sufficient individuals possessing rational minds and free will, and that the value of an individual is derived from his individual qualities rather than is handed down to him by his relation to a nations or a state or a king.
The first of these ideas generated unprecedented development of scientific knowledge, while the second one helped people to realize that they have rights to participate in society as independent free agents. This included economic participation and the right to own fruits of their labor and/or ingenuity. The most direct material expression of this realization was the idea of private property as an equivalent of economic freedom. This freedom and scientific progress provided positive feedback to each other resulting in unprecedented development of European nations.
These two ideas, which I consider the foundation of Western civilization, have elevated a human to a position, where instead of being an object of God, or fate, or king, the individual is an actively engaged subject, a creator.
These concepts, of course, were always in a struggle with another set of ideas emphasizing importance of collective in human behavior. According to them a group of people, a society , a nation, a segregation is more important then any individual in the group. Sacrifice for the well-being of the group is encouraged and sometimes even required. Individual rights of the group members are subjugated to the goals of the collective, the common good, which usually are formulated by an authority figure - a king, a messiah, pope, union leaders, etc. Earlier Christians lived in communities, and naturally, Christian morality was formulated in the collectivist terms (strong must take care of the weak, sacrifice for the group is the reason for canonization, etc). They were poor, hence, the negative attitude toward material wealth, property, and concentration on introvertive life of the soul. In addition of promulgating collectivist ideas, Christianity for a long period of time also insisted on the absence of any rational order in Nature, weakness and inadequacy of human mind. This attitude played a particularly negative role for the European civilization seriously hindering its development for 10 centuries. Only Luther's reformation and development of protestantism, which somewhat freed an individual in a person, weakened the brakes of collectivism, leading up to capitalism, industrial revolution and significant improvement in living conditions of a large number of people.
I think, however, that the religious component of protestantism is incidental in this story. It is not the idea of individual G-d, but the allowance for a much larger degree of individualism in general , made this progress possible. A significant role, of course, was played by protestant ethic, with its emphasize on importance of honesty, hard work, sanctity of a contract, etc, but I do not want to get engaged in the discussion if these ethical values are inherent to the religious world view, or they can be formulated from secular positions. What is important for me now is that Luther allowed Christians to recognise the value of their individuality.
It seems to me that out of all major religions, only protestantism is inherently compatible with capitalism. Ideological foundations of other branches of Christianity (Catholicism and Orthodoxy) as well as of Islam are very much at odds with capitalist approach to life. One can easily find conformation of this proposition by looking at the history of colonization of America, or the states of the modern Europe. Territory, known presently as USA, was colonized mostly by Anglicans and protestants while Mexico and all of the Southern America was colonized by catholic Spain and Portugal. The difference in the results does not need any special discussion. Now, look at the list of European countries with biggest economic problems: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, all with predominantly Catholic or Orthodox populations.
Thus, of course, modern liberalism does have roots in some of the traditions developed in the West, but my point is that these are not the traditions, which made Western civilization what it is now, at least in terms of its material development.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Liberals and ideology of failure
Recently, I ran across a blog by some fringe uber-liberal blogger mourning the death of Bin-Laden as a misguided hero willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of "oppressed". Her words turned my mind to the question that puzzled me for a long time. Why is contemporary liberalism simultaneously anti-American (more generally anti-Western in the sense of Western cultural values) and anti-Israel in nature? What is that psychological trait which turns people born in USA and Europe to hate values on which their native civilization was founded? What is it that makes liberal Jews, to whom Israel did nothing bad personally, to hate it that much?
Obviously, liberals are against capitalism, and this explains their hatred for such things as individualism, private property, economic freedom, limited government. Capitalism was invented in the West, and US is perceived as the country embodying it the most, thus the anti-West and anti-US sentiments of the liberals are quite natural. What is more puzzling is why they always go hand in hand with loathing for Israel, which is a country with long-lasting socialist traditions.
In an attempt to find the answer to this question, let me begin by noting that liberalism is based on the idea, originating from Marxists class struggle theory, according to which people belong to one of two categories: they are either oppressors or the oppressed. The latter deserve sympathy and should be defended, while the former must be anathematized and, when possible, destroyed. Practical application of this idea depends, of course, on how one determines who the oppressor is, and who is being oppressed. This is where liberals very successfully play their favorite linguistic game redefining words and giving them new meanings. For me oppression is associated with Stalin's GULAG or with Hitler's gas chambers, but this is not what liberals mean by “oppression” these days. Nothing helps to understand the actual meaning of the words than looking at their usage.
The main favorite oppressor these days is, of course, Israel. Never mind that nobody heard about concentration camps build by Israel for Palestinians or about mass extermination of the latter by the former. (And, yes, I do know about certain incidents perpetuated by Jewish groups in 1948, which, while definitely, regrettable, were committed in the midst of the war and never became official policies of the State of Israel). In modern Israel, Arab citizens have the same civil rights as Jews including their own representation in the Knesset. Living conditions of even those Palestinians, who do sit in Israeli prisons for such insignificant things as blowing up Israeli civilians, are often better than that of their “free” compatriots. There has been a press report recently about two Palestinians refusing to leave the prison so that they could complete their education. So much for being oppressed! But it all does not matter because liberals learned very well Lenin’s dictum: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”. Their demonization of Israel has been so persistent that now everybody is convinced that Jews are the most evil people in the Middle East, and “the pain in the asses” as one famous movie director put it recently.
When liberals do not blast Israelis, they like to talk about global guilt of the West before underdeveloped countries in Africa or Latin America or the same Middle East. Before WW 2, the Western countries "oppressed" the rest of the world directly by colonizing them. What does it matter that those “oppressors” built infrastructure, provided education and medical services to those whom they oppressed? So what that after "liberation" most of this infrastructure, medical and educational institutions fell in disarray, and the newly free nations, especially in Africa succeeded mostly in killing each other? While after the war Europe engaged in restoring their cities and developing their economics, Africa self-destructed. Instead of accepting responsibility for their people, African leaders helped by Western liberals, succeeded mostly in the blame game and stealing whatever resources the West had sent to their countries. The West is being blamed for everything including AID epidemics. The idea that one has to use condoms during sex turned out to be much less appealing than suggestions that the Western countries created HIV virus in order to get rid of Africans and to appropriate their resources. And it does not matter how many financial and human resources western countries wasted in Africa, it is never enough. If Africans are miserable, it is because of West's colonial, neocolonial or postcolonial policies.
The faces of oppressors and oppressed back home in the "Land of opportunities" are also well known. The most obvious oppressors are of course the "fat cats” from the Wall street, greedy bankers, and the biggest and the scariest one – the Corporation. Vilification of corporations in liberal media became so beyond any reason that it appears that Corporations are some evil monsters from outer space rather than just one of many ways to organize ownership and governance of a business. Liberals seem to forget that corporations provide hundred thousands of people with jobs and manufacture those things, which liberals do not feel any shame to use in their daily lives.
In addition to large oppressors, there are smaller oppressors, which judging by Obama’s tax proposal, are everyone making more than $250 K per year. They may be not as evil and powerful as Big Oil or Big Farma or Koch brothers are, but they still oppress “less fortunate”, just by the virtue of possessing their “fortune”. One should admire Left’s linguistic abilities in inventing names designed to conceal the actual nature of phenomena they discuss. Term “less fortunate” is supposed to convey the idea that being poor has nothing to do with people making their personal choices, but it just a matter of good or bad fortune. Here are a few examples of those who are encouraged to think about themselves as oppressed. Students at my university feel so oppressed that a week before the finals, instead of studying, went to demonstrate and demand that more money were taken from those who has them and given to them. Another example: welfare mothers, a whole bunch of the “Precious”, who do not have the will and skills or even a desire to hold a job, but dream big about how they magically appear on a brightly lit stage, in a glamorous dress, and are admired by everyone. Also oppressed are the drug dealers and the drug users. The former sell drugs because they are not provided with other economic opportunities and the latter use them for exactly the same reasons. In general, oppressed are those who have “needs” they cannot fulfill and demand that other people were forced to provide for them.
Now, let us see if there is anything in common between these disparate examples of “oppression”. There might be more than one unifying motif here, but the one, which seems almost obvious to me, is that in all these cases oppressors are those cultures, countries, individuals who succeed, and the oppressed are those who fail. Indeed, Israel built a functioning state with a powerful army, modern economics, developed infrastructure, medicine, world-class education, and the level of life unseen in this part of the woods. Palestinians, at the same time, completely failed in developing their territories in spite of streams of money sent their way. This observation also helps me to understand why liberal Jews hate Israel so much that actually covertly want its passing to oblivion. They are psychologically frustrated. They would like to be able to be both good Jews and good liberals, which is not possible while Israel exists as a successful state. If Israel were no more and all the Jews (those who would survive) were scattered again all over the world and persecuted, they could be immediately moved to the category of oppressed. At this point, the liberal American Jews would find themselves in a very comfortable position - once again, they could be good liberals and good Jews saving their fellow compatriots and bringing them back under socialistic banners.
The same idea explains the general animosity of liberals toward principal Western values and their embrace of multiculturalism, which is just a code word for diluting western ideals of individualism, rationality, objectivity with cultural values from other much less successful traditions. The only consequence of this dilution can be diminishing role of those values that brought people from all other the world to the West to enjoy its achievements. The result is not difficult to predict: no more achievements.
One can argue that in the world of limited economic resources, the successful people and countries enjoying the fruits of their success consume too many resources leaving too little for those who are less successful, and therefore they become oppressors immediately once they claim their rights on the fruits of their labor. This argument, however, suffers from two fallacies. First, is the presumption that amount of wealth available for distribution is a conserving quantity so that if one has more than the other necessarily has less. Or if put in terms of the game theory, that economic activity is always a zero sum game. This is, of course, not so. Successful people create something, which would not have existed without them, and this defines their success. In very general terms, they create wealth, and by creating wealth, they increase resources available for everyone, including those who are “less fortunate”. Hayek in his “Road to slavery” gives a perfect example of this phenomenon. The labor of a minimally skilled worker by itself is not worth much. When, however, he becomes a part of a bigger enterprise, a factory, created by a successful individual with vision and talent, the worth of his labor increases by orders of magnitude. The second fallacy consists in the assumption that expropriating wealth created by successful people to achieve its more equitable distribution would have no influence on its overall amount. Ayn Rand showed that this is not so very clearly in her Atlas Shrugged, where she demonstrated with almost mathematical precision what happens to a society, which begins such redistribution.
OK, it is time to wrap it up, as I myself am not able to finish reading this post. To conclude: the liberals hate capitalism because they are ashamed of being successful. They believe that success of some is unfair for the others. It might be so, but to punish people and countries just because they succeeded while others failed is not just more unfair – it makes things worse for everyone, including those whom liberals are purported to defend.
Obviously, liberals are against capitalism, and this explains their hatred for such things as individualism, private property, economic freedom, limited government. Capitalism was invented in the West, and US is perceived as the country embodying it the most, thus the anti-West and anti-US sentiments of the liberals are quite natural. What is more puzzling is why they always go hand in hand with loathing for Israel, which is a country with long-lasting socialist traditions.
In an attempt to find the answer to this question, let me begin by noting that liberalism is based on the idea, originating from Marxists class struggle theory, according to which people belong to one of two categories: they are either oppressors or the oppressed. The latter deserve sympathy and should be defended, while the former must be anathematized and, when possible, destroyed. Practical application of this idea depends, of course, on how one determines who the oppressor is, and who is being oppressed. This is where liberals very successfully play their favorite linguistic game redefining words and giving them new meanings. For me oppression is associated with Stalin's GULAG or with Hitler's gas chambers, but this is not what liberals mean by “oppression” these days. Nothing helps to understand the actual meaning of the words than looking at their usage.
The main favorite oppressor these days is, of course, Israel. Never mind that nobody heard about concentration camps build by Israel for Palestinians or about mass extermination of the latter by the former. (And, yes, I do know about certain incidents perpetuated by Jewish groups in 1948, which, while definitely, regrettable, were committed in the midst of the war and never became official policies of the State of Israel). In modern Israel, Arab citizens have the same civil rights as Jews including their own representation in the Knesset. Living conditions of even those Palestinians, who do sit in Israeli prisons for such insignificant things as blowing up Israeli civilians, are often better than that of their “free” compatriots. There has been a press report recently about two Palestinians refusing to leave the prison so that they could complete their education. So much for being oppressed! But it all does not matter because liberals learned very well Lenin’s dictum: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”. Their demonization of Israel has been so persistent that now everybody is convinced that Jews are the most evil people in the Middle East, and “the pain in the asses” as one famous movie director put it recently.
When liberals do not blast Israelis, they like to talk about global guilt of the West before underdeveloped countries in Africa or Latin America or the same Middle East. Before WW 2, the Western countries "oppressed" the rest of the world directly by colonizing them. What does it matter that those “oppressors” built infrastructure, provided education and medical services to those whom they oppressed? So what that after "liberation" most of this infrastructure, medical and educational institutions fell in disarray, and the newly free nations, especially in Africa succeeded mostly in killing each other? While after the war Europe engaged in restoring their cities and developing their economics, Africa self-destructed. Instead of accepting responsibility for their people, African leaders helped by Western liberals, succeeded mostly in the blame game and stealing whatever resources the West had sent to their countries. The West is being blamed for everything including AID epidemics. The idea that one has to use condoms during sex turned out to be much less appealing than suggestions that the Western countries created HIV virus in order to get rid of Africans and to appropriate their resources. And it does not matter how many financial and human resources western countries wasted in Africa, it is never enough. If Africans are miserable, it is because of West's colonial, neocolonial or postcolonial policies.
The faces of oppressors and oppressed back home in the "Land of opportunities" are also well known. The most obvious oppressors are of course the "fat cats” from the Wall street, greedy bankers, and the biggest and the scariest one – the Corporation. Vilification of corporations in liberal media became so beyond any reason that it appears that Corporations are some evil monsters from outer space rather than just one of many ways to organize ownership and governance of a business. Liberals seem to forget that corporations provide hundred thousands of people with jobs and manufacture those things, which liberals do not feel any shame to use in their daily lives.
In addition to large oppressors, there are smaller oppressors, which judging by Obama’s tax proposal, are everyone making more than $250 K per year. They may be not as evil and powerful as Big Oil or Big Farma or Koch brothers are, but they still oppress “less fortunate”, just by the virtue of possessing their “fortune”. One should admire Left’s linguistic abilities in inventing names designed to conceal the actual nature of phenomena they discuss. Term “less fortunate” is supposed to convey the idea that being poor has nothing to do with people making their personal choices, but it just a matter of good or bad fortune. Here are a few examples of those who are encouraged to think about themselves as oppressed. Students at my university feel so oppressed that a week before the finals, instead of studying, went to demonstrate and demand that more money were taken from those who has them and given to them. Another example: welfare mothers, a whole bunch of the “Precious”, who do not have the will and skills or even a desire to hold a job, but dream big about how they magically appear on a brightly lit stage, in a glamorous dress, and are admired by everyone. Also oppressed are the drug dealers and the drug users. The former sell drugs because they are not provided with other economic opportunities and the latter use them for exactly the same reasons. In general, oppressed are those who have “needs” they cannot fulfill and demand that other people were forced to provide for them.
Now, let us see if there is anything in common between these disparate examples of “oppression”. There might be more than one unifying motif here, but the one, which seems almost obvious to me, is that in all these cases oppressors are those cultures, countries, individuals who succeed, and the oppressed are those who fail. Indeed, Israel built a functioning state with a powerful army, modern economics, developed infrastructure, medicine, world-class education, and the level of life unseen in this part of the woods. Palestinians, at the same time, completely failed in developing their territories in spite of streams of money sent their way. This observation also helps me to understand why liberal Jews hate Israel so much that actually covertly want its passing to oblivion. They are psychologically frustrated. They would like to be able to be both good Jews and good liberals, which is not possible while Israel exists as a successful state. If Israel were no more and all the Jews (those who would survive) were scattered again all over the world and persecuted, they could be immediately moved to the category of oppressed. At this point, the liberal American Jews would find themselves in a very comfortable position - once again, they could be good liberals and good Jews saving their fellow compatriots and bringing them back under socialistic banners.
The same idea explains the general animosity of liberals toward principal Western values and their embrace of multiculturalism, which is just a code word for diluting western ideals of individualism, rationality, objectivity with cultural values from other much less successful traditions. The only consequence of this dilution can be diminishing role of those values that brought people from all other the world to the West to enjoy its achievements. The result is not difficult to predict: no more achievements.
One can argue that in the world of limited economic resources, the successful people and countries enjoying the fruits of their success consume too many resources leaving too little for those who are less successful, and therefore they become oppressors immediately once they claim their rights on the fruits of their labor. This argument, however, suffers from two fallacies. First, is the presumption that amount of wealth available for distribution is a conserving quantity so that if one has more than the other necessarily has less. Or if put in terms of the game theory, that economic activity is always a zero sum game. This is, of course, not so. Successful people create something, which would not have existed without them, and this defines their success. In very general terms, they create wealth, and by creating wealth, they increase resources available for everyone, including those who are “less fortunate”. Hayek in his “Road to slavery” gives a perfect example of this phenomenon. The labor of a minimally skilled worker by itself is not worth much. When, however, he becomes a part of a bigger enterprise, a factory, created by a successful individual with vision and talent, the worth of his labor increases by orders of magnitude. The second fallacy consists in the assumption that expropriating wealth created by successful people to achieve its more equitable distribution would have no influence on its overall amount. Ayn Rand showed that this is not so very clearly in her Atlas Shrugged, where she demonstrated with almost mathematical precision what happens to a society, which begins such redistribution.
OK, it is time to wrap it up, as I myself am not able to finish reading this post. To conclude: the liberals hate capitalism because they are ashamed of being successful. They believe that success of some is unfair for the others. It might be so, but to punish people and countries just because they succeeded while others failed is not just more unfair – it makes things worse for everyone, including those whom liberals are purported to defend.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Why the situation in Libya scares the hell out of me?
Before I begin I have to make a disclaimer: this is a pure opinion piece not pretending at any degree of analysis. I just wanted to express the feelings I have been having since the beginning of the latest adventure of western powers in Africa.
Airways are full of news from Libya: brave pilots of coalition forces bombed this and that and completed establishing a no-fly zone all over the Libya, hurray –hurray! What a great victory over an air force with two and a half planes from the prehistoric era and the pilots who think that an airplane is just like a camel only with wings! Apparently, we are supposed to fall into an ecstasy about our Western might. Do not get me wrong, I am not mocking here the coalition pilots, who are doing their jobs at highest professional level, risking their lives as routinely as we are going out for the cup of coffee at Starbucks. My beef is with those morons who actually made the decision to begin this whole operation. Or may be it is better to say, half-made, half-decision?
My problem is with so called leaders of the free world, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Cameron. No, I have not forgotten about Mr. Obama, I did not include him in the above list intentionally. I just recognize the simple truth that Mr. Obama’s behavior in this situation is anything but leadership. He looks more like a child forced by his parents to do his chores. He does not want to, but is too afraid to refuse. So, let’s talk about our brave Frenchman, and his supporting star, Mr. Cameron. They scare me because I do not understand what they are doing in Libya, and whenever I do not understand something, I get scared. Now, may be this is it: I just do not understand. May be Mr. Sarkozy and Co. have a great design imperceptible by regular folks, like me, and I have really nothing to worry about. Daddy knows better, and children must just relax and trust daddy. This is probably what they told to Mr. Obama.
Even though I admit remote possibility of this scenario, it does not seem too likely. No one can keep secrets nowadays for too long, and if there were a hidden design, someone, somehow would have leaked at least a glimpse of it. However, all what we hear and read is about the great mission of protecting Libyan revolutionaries from evil Qaddafi. O, he is evil indeed, there is no doubt about that, but do we really go to war these days to protect one side in the civil war against the other? The idea itself seems quite absurd to me, and I know from my pre-American experience that civil wars are never about good versus evil, it is usually, evil of one kind versus evil of another kind.
Interestingly, there is very little information available about those rebels. I have not heard the media discussing their ideology, political goals, and such, except of that part, where they want to get rid of Qaddafi. Well, Osama bin Laden would love to get rid of Qaddafi, too, but I presume it does not mean that we have to help them, does it? Or we do? A few days ago, a guy from Bush’s counterterrorism team stated on NPR that at least some of these rebels are indeed connected with militant Islam, and we do provide them with air cover. What an insane world are we living in?
Still, let give our coalition a benefit of a doubt. Let assume that these rebels are indeed freedom-loving people ready to give their lives to establish a western style democratic government in Libya. Is it still a sufficient reason to go to war? I would understand it if Sarkozy and Cameron would have told Qaddafi: “Dear Colonel, we have invested billions into your country, and we need your oil. So, if you are going to f-ck with us, we will come and get you.” I, personally, do not see anything wrong with going to war to defend one’s vital economic interests and investments. Of course, any war is bad, and should be avoided, but when nothing else works, responsible governments must do whatever it takes to defend interests of their citizens. And, of course, it is reasonable to suspect that French and British doing in Libya exactly that, but why all this pretense? Since when did it become so shameful to defend one’s economic interest that some bogus “humanitarian” reasons must be invented to justify such actions? It probably happened at the same time when “profit” became a dirty word, and self-interest became something like masturbation – everybody does it, everybody knows that everybody does it, but it is improper to mention it in public.
So, while I can see legitimate reasons for the Brits and French to be angry with Qaddafi and wanting to get rid of him, I do not understand how their current actions will achieve this. Instead of a quick and decisive Falkland Islands or Grenada style operation, they conduct a bombing campaign and establish a no-fly zone. Where in the annals of the history of military art have they read that bombing can win a war? Haven’t they learned the lessons of Iraq and Kosovo? I am completely flabbergasted by their shameful bickering about the chain-of-command, by their unwillingness to accept painful reality that there can be no victory without causalities. I am stupefied that they care more about nonsensical things such as reaction of the Arab world to their action, instead of thinking how to achieve their objectives in the quickest and most efficient way. And this scares the hell out of me. If this is how our “leaders” are going to defend our way of life, we are doomed. I still hope though, that I am wrong, that there is something out there, which I am not aware of. May be some special op forces inserted on the ground in such a clandestine manner that even the journalists did not get the wind of it. Well, hope dies last, but as of now, it is hardly breathing.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Again about unions
I decided to continue our discussion of unions on a new thread since the previous one became too clattered with particulars. Do not get me wrong, though. I would be happy tot talk about Keynesian versus Friedman economics, or about education any time, but I believe that these topics are too important to be buried somewhere in the middle of the discussion about unions.
Nathan, in one of his last comments, very passionately defended union’s role during Gilded Age and the first Progressive era of American history. I am afraid, however that he has wasted all this passion busting a door, which was already open. Presently, hardly anyone (with a possible exception of extremely hardcore libertarians) doubts that at that time unions played an important role in funneling angst of the workers into a socially more or less acceptable form. Even though Adam Smith considered collective bargaining analogous to price fixing by manufacturers, and, therefore going against the free market principles, one can still accept this practice as a way to compensate extensive power of the Capital against a much weaker position of an individual easily replaceable worker.
One, however, must clearly separate private sector unions and organizations of state employees. In the early days of the labor movement, the idea of unionizing workers on government’s payroll was perceived as a perversion even by labor leaders, and for very good reasons. First, the politicians and appointed by them bureaucrats, who negotiate salaries and benefits of people working for government, divide money, which is not theirs. All these salaries and benefits come from the taxes, but the taxpayers have no say in the negotiation process. Therefore, out of share sense of fairness, the suggestion by Wisconsin governor that all pay raises for governmental workers going beyond the corrections for inflation must be approved by the taxpayers makes to me a lot of sense. If this idea seems too extreme, one could delegate this decision to the local legislatures, which are elected, and are, therefore, responsible before the taxpayers. Unions, in this case would have to “negotiate” with the public convincing them that their members do such a good job that they deserve a pay raise.
Second argument against collective bargaining by government workers has been restated many times, but is still misunderstood, thus I will repeat it here. If a politician is elected with a primary support (financial and organizational) of people whose salary he/she is supposed to negotiate, this process becomes inherently and irrevocably corrupt. In this case, they are not negotiating, they are fulfilling their campaign promises, and since the money does not come from their personal pockets, they do not care much if they are spent efficiently or not. They main area of concern for the politicians is to deliver on the promises in order to get support for the next election.
The rule is, of course, not absolute, as nothing in politics is absolute. An interesting situation is developing in Connecticut, where the new governor, a democrat, who was elected with a heavy union support, suddenly demanded huge concessions from the unions. The union’s reaction was sheer disbelief in what is happening: their man turned against them, a scandal! The problem for the unions in this particular case came from changing political situation due to events in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Besides, the governor Malloy was elected with a very narrow margin, and perceived that union’s support actually coasted him votes. Thus, there is nothing surprising in Connecticut’s events, just a politician being a politician, and nothing is really new or unusual: investment in politicians always carries a risk. This is true for unions or for any other donor giving monies to politicians.
This brings me to Nathan’s assertion that union’s support of politicians is no different from the similar support of, for instance, defense contractors, contributing financially to politicians making decisions about defense spending and writing military appropriation bills. I agree that these relationships can and often do result in corruption, which is an unavoidable evil of government interaction with private companies. Still, since we cannot privatize defense, in this area government and private sector are necessarily intersect and corruption becomes an issue. However, I do not think it is correct to compare the political support provided to politicians by private firms, even if they receive governmental contracts, with support provided by unions. Private companies, unlike unions, receive taxpayers’ money as a payment for goods, which government needs (tanks, airplanes, etc.). Obviously, these companies sell these things to the government at a profit, and it is this profit, which they use to secure a continuous flow of governmental orders by supporting “friendly” politicians. Besides most government contracts are awarded on a very competitive basis (with few exceptions, when there exist only few companies able to produce required goods, like Boeing), so that even if you pay off a politician or two you still must be able to deliver the tangible goods to win the contract. At the same time, there cannot be any competitors for unionized government workers, and their financial support of elected officials is pure ugly bribery. It is even uglier than usual corruption involving private companies and municipal bureaucrats, because in the case of unions, the bureaucrats virtually paying bribes to themselves using unions simply as a conduit for the money.
The last arguments explaining why unions of government workers should not have rights for collective bargaining was presented recently in a very clear form by Thomas Sowell in National Review On Line. Basically he makes a point that competition makes unions in the private sector responsible for their action, while lack of thereof in governmental sector enables unions of state employees make exuberant demands without any real consequences for union bosses and their membership. For instance, unions virtually destroyed the coal industry in this country, but paid for it with its own extinction. Unions of public employees, however, do not have to face reality of the market, and, therefore, their power can only be limited by limiting their right to bargain.
Nathan, in one of his last comments, very passionately defended union’s role during Gilded Age and the first Progressive era of American history. I am afraid, however that he has wasted all this passion busting a door, which was already open. Presently, hardly anyone (with a possible exception of extremely hardcore libertarians) doubts that at that time unions played an important role in funneling angst of the workers into a socially more or less acceptable form. Even though Adam Smith considered collective bargaining analogous to price fixing by manufacturers, and, therefore going against the free market principles, one can still accept this practice as a way to compensate extensive power of the Capital against a much weaker position of an individual easily replaceable worker.
One, however, must clearly separate private sector unions and organizations of state employees. In the early days of the labor movement, the idea of unionizing workers on government’s payroll was perceived as a perversion even by labor leaders, and for very good reasons. First, the politicians and appointed by them bureaucrats, who negotiate salaries and benefits of people working for government, divide money, which is not theirs. All these salaries and benefits come from the taxes, but the taxpayers have no say in the negotiation process. Therefore, out of share sense of fairness, the suggestion by Wisconsin governor that all pay raises for governmental workers going beyond the corrections for inflation must be approved by the taxpayers makes to me a lot of sense. If this idea seems too extreme, one could delegate this decision to the local legislatures, which are elected, and are, therefore, responsible before the taxpayers. Unions, in this case would have to “negotiate” with the public convincing them that their members do such a good job that they deserve a pay raise.
Second argument against collective bargaining by government workers has been restated many times, but is still misunderstood, thus I will repeat it here. If a politician is elected with a primary support (financial and organizational) of people whose salary he/she is supposed to negotiate, this process becomes inherently and irrevocably corrupt. In this case, they are not negotiating, they are fulfilling their campaign promises, and since the money does not come from their personal pockets, they do not care much if they are spent efficiently or not. They main area of concern for the politicians is to deliver on the promises in order to get support for the next election.
The rule is, of course, not absolute, as nothing in politics is absolute. An interesting situation is developing in Connecticut, where the new governor, a democrat, who was elected with a heavy union support, suddenly demanded huge concessions from the unions. The union’s reaction was sheer disbelief in what is happening: their man turned against them, a scandal! The problem for the unions in this particular case came from changing political situation due to events in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Besides, the governor Malloy was elected with a very narrow margin, and perceived that union’s support actually coasted him votes. Thus, there is nothing surprising in Connecticut’s events, just a politician being a politician, and nothing is really new or unusual: investment in politicians always carries a risk. This is true for unions or for any other donor giving monies to politicians.
This brings me to Nathan’s assertion that union’s support of politicians is no different from the similar support of, for instance, defense contractors, contributing financially to politicians making decisions about defense spending and writing military appropriation bills. I agree that these relationships can and often do result in corruption, which is an unavoidable evil of government interaction with private companies. Still, since we cannot privatize defense, in this area government and private sector are necessarily intersect and corruption becomes an issue. However, I do not think it is correct to compare the political support provided to politicians by private firms, even if they receive governmental contracts, with support provided by unions. Private companies, unlike unions, receive taxpayers’ money as a payment for goods, which government needs (tanks, airplanes, etc.). Obviously, these companies sell these things to the government at a profit, and it is this profit, which they use to secure a continuous flow of governmental orders by supporting “friendly” politicians. Besides most government contracts are awarded on a very competitive basis (with few exceptions, when there exist only few companies able to produce required goods, like Boeing), so that even if you pay off a politician or two you still must be able to deliver the tangible goods to win the contract. At the same time, there cannot be any competitors for unionized government workers, and their financial support of elected officials is pure ugly bribery. It is even uglier than usual corruption involving private companies and municipal bureaucrats, because in the case of unions, the bureaucrats virtually paying bribes to themselves using unions simply as a conduit for the money.
The last arguments explaining why unions of government workers should not have rights for collective bargaining was presented recently in a very clear form by Thomas Sowell in National Review On Line. Basically he makes a point that competition makes unions in the private sector responsible for their action, while lack of thereof in governmental sector enables unions of state employees make exuberant demands without any real consequences for union bosses and their membership. For instance, unions virtually destroyed the coal industry in this country, but paid for it with its own extinction. Unions of public employees, however, do not have to face reality of the market, and, therefore, their power can only be limited by limiting their right to bargain.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Should teachers be paid more?
There was a column in the Times today that touched on the topic of our previous discussion of unions and budget cutting. As you'll see, Nicholas Kristof is no fan of teachers unions, in fact he echoes a few of Lev's points, but his argument that we do a disservice to ourselves by treating teachers poorly is very well taken.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html?hp
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