Oct 17
To John Gallagher and his blogpost that commends President Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
The logic and facts used by Gallagher in the above article are deeply flawed. For one thing, criticisms of the Paris Climate Agreement from environmentalists is because the agreement is inadequate, not invasive. And it seems that the Trump Administration's objections to the agreement has nothing to do with forging our nation's own path in protecting the environment. For his administration is cutting the clean air and water standards set by the Obama Administration. Rather, the actions of his administration revolve around cutting social responsibilities for corporations so that they can increase short-term profits and ROIs for investors instead of spending money on protecting the environment.
Gallagher's use of the failure of the Kellogg-Briand Pact as an argument for rejecting the Paris Climate Agreement is logically flawed. How is that we can develop a precedent for refusing to participate in all international agreements based on a failed agreement from the 1920s?
And celebrating Trump's withdraw from the agreement because it is an exercise in national sovereignty when the issue is the environmental health of the world is like celebrating the decision of a person who drives their car without any regard for traffic laws as an exercise in personal freedom.
Some controls that government puts on us citizens are valid and are for the protection and welfare of others. The same applies to some international agreements that can serve to protect other nations and promote their welfare.
Whether its Gallagher's thinking that one failed international agreement implies that we must reject all international agreements or his warning that progressives are looking to control our future implying that we must reject all progressive proposals and ideas exhibit all-or-nothing thinking patterns that reject the notion that we examine proposals and agreements on a case-by-case basis. Such thinking is not psychologically healthy for it is overly simplistic and fails to recognize the complexities of the world around us.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost that celebrates the reduction in the number of people who living in extreme poverty across in the world. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition blog.
The logic behind Carter's article is flawed? Why? Because the eradication of extreme poverty is based on the measuring of a single variable based on a single standard without regard for understanding any of the dynamics involved. So assume that extreme poverty has diminished, what grounds, given in the article, do we have for concluding that such a reduction will continue or mean anything?
We should note the price China has had to pay for the reduction of extreme poverty in their nation. Not only do you have many people in China working in sweatshop labor conditions, we have seen a monumental increase in the pollution of the environment there. In addition, how many people in China actually escape extreme poverty just because they are living on $1.90 or more per day? Does living on $1.90 per day in major city in China mean that one is not living in extreme poverty? And what should we say about China's political/economic system, which is far different from the political/economic system in Western nations simply because fewer people in China are living on less than $1.90 per day?
We might also ask who suffered in order for China to reduce the number of people? Are there more people living in poverty, though not extreme poverty as measured by the less than $1.90 per day standard elsewhere because they lost their jobs to Chinese workers?
And when talking about India, we might want to consider that the number of people who are forced into slave labor has significantly increased in the recent past. So do slaves makeup some of those who are now living on $1.90 or more per day? If so, how the reduction in number of those who live on $1.90 per day significant?
How much is there to really celebrate here?
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To Caroline Roberts and her blogpost that cites a Samuel Gregg article on the relationship between intellectuals and the free economy. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Link to cited article:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/10/20255/
There are at least a couple of Gregg's ideas that need to be challenged. First, that there is more than one role government can play with regard to the economy. Yes, government can see itself as a manager of the economy. And in order to justify such a position, government can claim to be a vanguard for the interests of the people. But that claim to having a vanguard role, as seen with Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution, can be more of a rationalization rather than a justification for exercising control in the nation's economy.
On the other hand, government can act as the representative of the people to those in business telling them how they can act in society. Whether government acts this way depends on the integrity of its elected representatives and/or a structure of government where people are represented by both vocation. We should note that before Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution, the creation of soviets was providing for the Russian government the capability to allow for the representation of people based on vocation provided that one's vocation was practiced by the proletariat. That kind of capability was rejected by both the Tsars and Lenin. That rejection exercised by Lenin triggered Rosa Luxemburg's charge that Lenin had instituted a bourgeois dictatorship rather than a Marxist regime. We should note that in America, we are doubly represented by location with no representation by vocation for those jobs that are considered to be proletariat vacations.
BTW, we should note that government can also act as a servant of business. Whether we want to look at the neoliberal revolution-coups that existed in South America, such as in Chilé in 1973 or Argentina in the 1970s, we see that coups were supported by the US to install governments that were friendly to a kind of free market economy called neoliberalism. We should note that in such instances, only the markets were free while the government acted as a ice hockey enforcer on all those who resisted or sometimes even questioned the validity of radically free markets. We should note that some consider our political system to be an oligarchy rather than democracy (see http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ).
The second of Gregg's points that needs to be challenged is the roll of intellectuals in the economy. Gregg cited Marx's influence as an example where an intellectual gave direction for economics. Here we should note that intellectuals cannot provide a recognized way forward unless their analysis of the past or present resonates with the perceived experiences of enough people. Why was Marx seen as a leading intellectual? It was because of the accuracy of his analysis of both some of the past and the present economic conditions of his time. But for the analysis of any intellectual to gain public favor, the analysis must also resonate with the values of enough people. This is why Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has become so influential. It is because her values that celebrates selfishness resonate with enough who have means and live privileged lives that her ideas are so influential in our economy. In that sense, the role of intellectuals, while providing leadership, does not provide the kind of leadership over the economy which Gregg sees.
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