Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 22, 2018

August 16

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Ben Sasse who stated that a government that is big enough to put a business out of business for following the First Amendment is too big. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

On the other hand, we saw in Jim Crow First Amendment rights being used to deny other people their rights. Now either Sasse  doesn't see that other people's rights are being violated when they cannot participate as equals in the marketplace, or he doesn't see that the people whose rights are being violated don't deserve to have equal rights in the marketplace. In either case, Sasse's statement about the size of government should be followed with the question, is a state that is big enough to enforce just laws too big? And in either case, Sasse's statement is more of an attempt at marketing the issue in favor of his views than anything else.

What should also be noted is that while those who advocate the correction of social injustices in ways that violate conservative politics are accused of having inadequate eschatologies by the Heidelblog and other Christians, somehow conservative political views are being advocated. Does that imply that conservative political views have an inadequate concern for social justice?
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August 19

To George Stanciu and his blogpost on the good and bad of Capitalism and how the Christian is to live in such a system. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog

This article shows a good attempt to take a balanced approach to Capitalism. Stanciu did miss one point, that America didn't employ Adam Smith's free trade principles until sometime during the FDR administration. Up until that time, America employed protectionism in order to allow its industries to grow and become competitive.

There is a repeated theme in Stanciu's article, it is that of reductionism and the problems it causes. Adam Smith's reducing human motivation to self-interest, the self-reducing ethic of maximizing profits encourages us to follow the rules only when it costs less to follow them than to break them, and Capitalism's reducing of the labor power of the worker to a commodity making the worker disposable. In the end, the biggest reductionism that we see in Capitalism is that it leads us to reduce the study and practice of economics to that of commerce--a point made by Chiléan economist, Manfred Max-Kneef. Whereas commerce is primarily concerned the buying and selling of goods, the Greek root in the word economics infers a more comprehensive and holistic approach to the study of our system.
I appreciated Stanciu's borrowing from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his description of our society as being thing-oriented. Martin Luther King, Jr. made that observation in his 1967 speech against the Vietnam War. But King had much earlier said something else that pertains to Capitalism. That it leads us to measure life by the things we buy and accumulate rather than how we have contributed to others.

Now some Christians believe that only Christians should enlighten the use of Capitalism by society. That is simply an effort to have one's cake and eat it too. But the constant reductionisms made in Capitalist economic systems causes many of us Christians to start off as Don Quixotes only to see exhaustion change us into becoming cynics. As King would say, not only should we help the individual victims we find on the road to Jericho, we should change that road itself so that there are fewer victims. That implies changing our economic system. And that is the real challenge for the Christian in our Capitalist economic system; it is to work, with some unbelievers, in order to change our economic system so that there are fewer victims on the road to Jericho. For to do charity work only while riding in on the coattails of Capitalism causes the Church to repeat serious mistakes from the past. For we find that in the pre-revoutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain the Church stood with wealth and power. When those respective revolutions came, the Church and the Gospel she is suppose to preach was unnecessarily persecuted.

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August 21

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on whether income disparity is a moral issue. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Perhaps if Carter referred to the Scriptures instead of some principles, he would see why income inequality can become a moral issue.
Of course he speaks about income inequality as a whole implying that all instances of wealth inequality neither pose moral problems nor raise any red flags.

What do the Scriptures say? James says the following to the rich (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5%3A1-6&version=NIV:

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Now some may argue that James is talking to rich individuals. But how does his message not apply to groups of wealthy owners who practice the same treatment of workers that individual wealthy owners do? In addition, we might ask what is the difference between unpaying an employee and keeping their wages from them? Isn't the difference in that when a business owner underpays their employees, they are keep some of the employees wages rather than all as mentioned by James?
Or we can go to Jeremiah 22 and read what Jeremiah has to say to the son of Josiah (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+22%3A13-17&version=NIV ):

“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
not paying them for their labor.
14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace
with spacious upper rooms.’
So he makes large windows in it,
panels it with cedar
and decorates it in red.

15 “Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
17 “But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”

Notice the same sins that James preached against is what Jeremiah preached against. And again, what is the difference between underpaying employees vs not paying them at all? Are not both examples of exploitation?
Or we can read what Isaiah wrote (see  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+58%3A1-3&version=NIV  ):

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Carter cannot see the moral factors that can, though not always do, be involved when there is income disparity. And he cannot see the moral factors because he hasn't dealt with the human elements that can be involved with certain degrees of income disparity. He doesn't not deal with the results exploited workers have to suffer through as a result of income disparity. And he doesn't mention what the wealthy did in order to create income disparity. If he had, then perhaps he would admit that there can easily be a moral factor involved with the existence of income inequality. And again, income disparity becomes a group problem when a group of those who are wealthy act like an individual who is wealthy who exploits their workers.

Comments Which Conservative Block From Their Blogs For March 16, 2016

March 2

To Joe Carter and his blogpost whether Christians should vote when we have factions in our political system. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

A few comments here. The Constitution allows for geographical factions to be represented in government. But since the vocation of a very large majority of our representatives are either public servants (politicians with no other skills), lawyers, or business people the vast majority of us go underrepresented or even unrepresented in government when we consider our vocational interests. Such a representation would have occurred in the USSR if Lenin had not dismantled the soviets because his lust for power and his paranoia.  Soviets were workers' councils where the members are voted into the position by their peers and they used democratic processes to make decisions.

Second, yes the President is in charge of the military so that the gov't can provide the nation with security.  But the President can cause the nation to be at risk in other ways than to not employ the military for our defense. When the President employs the military to intervene in other nations and control or even remove other governments, the President has placed us at risk for retaliation. That retaliation  came true on 9-11. And the atrocities of 9-11 were a response for past American atrocities or our enabling of atrocities by others.

Finally, if we are going to make democracy work, we have to be able to escape many of the factions that separate us from others who are different. Otherwise, our factionalism becomes nothing more than tribalism and we, in various situations, adopt a gang warfare mentality that says what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom.


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To Don Carson and his blogpost on whether we should call for justice. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Anyone who has a sufficient understanding of their sins and their place before God, modifies how they call for justice. It is not necessary for such people to want vindication. In fact, such peope who call for justice are concerned with two things: the cessation of injustice and reconciliation. 

Wanting reconciliation instead of vindication allows us to be more consistent in our call for justice. And our call for justice is important for two reasons. First the obtaining of justice ends the unrighteous suffering of ourselves and others. Second, to call for justice is not just to try to help the victim, it is an effort to call the victimizers to repentance.

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March 5

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost vide on the job of government but is really about exalting the conservative view of American Exceptionalism. This appeared in Heidelblog

What I've noticed about American Conservatives is that there an obsession and compulsion to praise themselves. This is most evident here in the praising of The Constitution and its writers. And writers are often described mythologially as a monolith even though they were neither mythical nor a monolith. And surprisingly enough, such an approach to The Constitution and its writers is an authoritarian approach.  It's authoritarian in that only those who hold to the Conservative mythological view of our founders and The Constitution are counted as valid interpreters of The Constitution while others can be ignored, at the least, or even counted as a saboteur and enemy of the state. So the exceptionalism that is being preached here is not just American Exceptionalism, it is the exceptionalism of conservatism.

We should note what prompted the writing of The Constitution: widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion. Don't believe me? All one has to do to perhaps see my point is to  list all of the references to the militia that are in The Constitution and then add the 2nd Amendment. For the 2nd Amendment couches the right to bear arms in the context of the need for a militia. And, according to The Constitution, the militia was to be armed and supported by Congress, was under the leadership of the President, and its jobs were to repel invasions and put down insurrections.

The Constitutional debates yield even more information. For there was a new kind of aristocracy that was to be supported by The Constitution. This new kind of aristocracy was not based on the privileges provided by one's birth. Rather it was based on one's economic class. And what the writers of The Constitution wanted to do with its document was to preserve the status quo for the benefit of the landed interests. Here we should note that for all of the bragging of the exceptional nature of our founding fathers and The Constitution, the majority were slaveholders who wanted to expand westward regardless of the fact that such would mean the continued displacement of Native Americans.  Now if we add to that that only 5% of the population could vote after the ratification of The Constitution and that 55 consisted of landowners, one has to wonder how any group could put our founding fathers on the pedestal that the Conservatives have when they engaged in ethnic cleansing, holding slaves, and restricting the right to vote. In fact, It was Madison who expressed fear at the thought of elections being opened up to all classes of people in England. He expressed that fear during the Constitutional debates.

Those who have embraced the exceptionalism of conservatism, because of conservatism's constant practice of self-exaltation have most probably joined a cult. And those Christians who have joined this cult can now be considered to be polytheists.

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March 14

To Joe Carter and his blogpost criticizing the Georgia governor’s attempt to use the scriptures to show that Christian businesses should be allowed to refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex marriages. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website. 

With the line of thought employed by Carter here, then Christians opposing integration during Jim Crow for religious reasons had their consciences wrongfully infringed on when the gov't worked to end Jim Crow. 

We have to realize that in society, the conscience has only a sphere of sovereignty, it is not autonomous. And what is and is not included in that sphere of the conscience should be determined on a case by case basis. Certainly, religion should not be used to violate the legitimate rights of others. Some would point out the abortion issue and a women's right to choose as an objection to that line of thinking. The problem there is that such an objection assumes that the unborn have no rights. And thus once recognizing that the legitimate rights of the unborn, then the state should have the right to protect those rights against the individual choices based on conscience made by those seeking abortion. 

It is one thing if the state was protecting religious institutions from having to provide public services to those functions that it could not participate in in good conscience. But that isn't the case here. The issue here is whether Christians business owners have the right to deny goods and services to same-sex marriages, not just weddings, in a Capitalist economy? Here, Christian business owners need to adequately explain why such participation is a true violation of conscience and not an attempt to marginalize the LGBT community in society. So far, I have not heard any legitimate explanations that show it is a true violation.

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March 15

To Denny Burk and his blogpost citing Russell Moore’s voting philosophy which consisted of voting for 3rd party candidates when the candidates from the 2 major parties offer no legitimate moral option. This appeared in Denny Burk’s blog.

Though I don't fully agree with Moore's approach,I respect it for it shows independence and conviction. And we need more truely independent voters like Moore.

Though I am pro-life, I no longer use a stand on abortion litmus test in voting. Why? Because tthere are multiple issues that should be associated with pro-life that are not. With some of these issues,  at least one of the alternatives would move us closer to destroying the world. And to me, if we wreck the world by waging war or destoying the environment, abortion becomes a moot issue. So unless candidates become more consistently pro-life, I can't use the aborition litmus test in voting.

In addition, to make the judgement seat of Christ our #1 concern in voting turns our vision inwards. What will happen to me if I vote for candidate x or candidate y. I think we need to turn our vision outward to see how candidates x or y's election will hurt or help people, especially the multiple varieties of vulnerable people, should determine how we should vote and resign ourselves to whatever judgment God gives..

Finally, the word on my street is that conservative voters have no credibility when it comes to speaking about opposing abortion with pro-choice advocates. The reason for that is consistency. So perhaps it is necessary in order to effectively bring an anti-elective abortion message to more people that we put it on the backburner for now and wait until we show more consistency in our pro-life convictions before making abortion an election issue again.

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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost citing an article that says all forms of socialism end up with the same tyrannical result as was seen in Stalin’s Russia. This appeared in Denny Burk's blog.


Dr. Clark,
To treat socialism as a monolith, as the article you referenced does, is ignorance for some, but not for all. To ignore the criticisms that socialists had of Lenin's model of government in order to group all socialists together so one can conclude that Stalin's gov't is the destination of all forms of socialism is to deliberately ignore the different forms of Socialism that has been tried and discussed. And limiting one's sources on Socialism to just its antagonists is simply intellectually dishonest.

Yes, there have been forms of socialism that have led to tyranny. For example, when Iran's (1953) democratically elected leader Mossadeg moved to nationalize oil resources, both England and the US orchestrated a coup that replaced Mossadeg with a brutal tyrant, the Shah. When Chile's(1973) democratically elected leader moved to nationalize certain industries, the US orchestrated a military coup to install the tyrant General Pinochet as its leader. Pinochet would later be indicted for crimes against humanity but died before he could be tried. When Guatemala's (1954) democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz pushed land reform, the US orchestrated a coup that installed the military dictator Carlos Armos. When it was possible that Greece's 1967 election could have produced a left-leaning government, Colonel Papadopoulos used a NATO plan designed to keep Greece from falling to communism to orchestrate a coup prior to the election so that a military junta would rule Greece. BTW, one should read the LBJ quote that was part of the conversation between the Greek PM who was in power before the coup  (see http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/junta.htm   ). 

Of course anti-Capitalists experiments like the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution serve as stark counterexamples to the claim that Socialism always leads to a Stalin type tyrannical regime. So do certain forms of Socialism such as Libertarian Socialism. Libertarian Socialism does not support a central state government.

But what is even more disengenous than what was written in the article referenced is that Sanders has carefully equated his idea of Socialism with FDR's New Deal. If FDR's presidency could be called Socialist, then the result of FDR's programs contradict the basic claim made by the article referenced. But what we have seen instead is a more gradual approach to the trend established above. We are now classified as a oligarchy, not a democracy. And part of that oligarchy has been a move away from FDR's programs to what existed before (see  http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746  ) because such programs interfere with state Capitalism--something Eisenhower warned us against when he spoke against the Military Industrial Complex.

At Westminster, we were constantly challenged to go to the original sources to learn about what was being taught. But such a principle doesn't apply on this board when talking about Socialism. And the information is easily available. One could read Rosa Luxembourg, Anton Pannekoek, Noam Chomsky, and others to see what Socialists are saying for themselves. The road chosen by this board is to remain insular and only read Socialism's antagonists to learn about Socialism. Of course, doing so is like investigating Christianity by only talking with Bill Maher. 

Quite simply, the article this post referenced is intellectually dishonest. And if I was a nonChristian, it would give me grounds for not believing any gospel preached by you since you refuse to go to original sources to see what Socialists say for themselves. If you were to do that, you will find a variety of views of Socialism.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how increasing economic freedom can reduce human trafficking. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There is no doubt that greater financial opportunities can lead to less human trafficking. On the other hand, greater economic freedom isn't always used to increase the flourishing of all people. Some economic freedom, such as a relaxation of labor or environmental laws, allows the beneficiaries of economic freedom to exploit others. Allowing employers to pay employees poverty wages is an economic freedom for the employer which does not help the employee. Allowing owners to offshore jobs can bring economic freedom to owners but that freedom  is used to take advantage of places with inadequate regulations and laws. In addition, allowing economic freedom for some can also mean excusing owners who benefit the most from infrastructure from paying taxes to maintain that infrastructure. We should also note that some who have become victims of trafficking were lured into captivity by the promise of economic opportunity.

IN short, to talk about economic freedom in general as a tool to help people escape dire circumstances is very similar to talking about reducing regulations to help businesses. The general concept is too ambiguous to be meaningful and thus what is needed is not talk about increasing economic freedom in general, but talk about whose economic freedom is being created and what specific freedoms are being afforded.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost containing a video presentation by William Voegeli on Government growing too big by trying to provide too much for its people. This appeared in the Acton Blog

This presentation is rather intellectually dishonest in a couple of ways. When talking about the government intended by our founders, we need to realize that since The Constitution was written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion, it was written to strengthen the Federal government by increasing its ability to respond to future rebellions that were challenging the status quo. One only needs to read all of the references to the militia made in The Constitution to see substantial evidence that would support that interpretation.

In addition, while the presentation talks about the growth in the government outlay for social benefits, the two largest social outlays are self-funded: Social Security and Medicare. In fact, Social Security is the biggest holder of our National Debt. And cutting Medicare expenses has been hampered by Federal law that prohibits the from negotiating on pharmaceutical products. The prices of our drugs cannot be explained by R&D costs since bulk of those costs are paid for by taxes that fund the research performed by the NIH. Rather, the pharmaceutical prices are there to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide an ever growing ROI for its shareholders. This is what the price gouging of opportunists like Martin Shkreli points out.

In addition, what is not mentioned at all in terms of the growing percentage of government spending in relation to our GDP is the prosecution of unfunded wars such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, Chalmers Johnson pointed out in around 2008 that the total US spending on defense, which is well distributed among several federal budges such as the DOD, Treasury, and the Atomic Energy Agency to name a few totals over $1 trillion. Why was that never mentioned? And another omission is how our Federal gov't continues to support our financial institutions in ways that allow these institutions to significantly increase profits.

It seems that the conservative approach to discussing big government is to lay the blame for such government at the hands of the vulnerable with many of those vulnerable having been victims of our economic system. Such is morally wrong and the way it is discussed is intellectually dishonest.

Finally, we should note that government is like love in one way: size doesn't matter, fidelity does. A small impotent government is has harmful to the population as a large government whose first love consists of certain private sector elites--this is commonly called Crony Capitalism. Government should be big enough to protect the people from both internal and external threats to justice. And people living in poverty provide examples of injustice especially when that poverty is caused by exploitation and the hoarding of wealth.

We should note that here in America, the Conservative Church is coming alongside of those with wealth and power just as the Roman Church did in France and Spain prior to their Revolutions and the Orthodox Church did in Russia prior to its Revolution. The protection of wealth and power by the Church caused the Church and its Gospel to be despised by those seeking revolution. Will the Conservative Church repeat an ugly part of Church history? Only time will tell though we should note that with time running out, it looks like it will.

Understanding The Conservative Whipping Boy: The State

The Imaginative Conservative blog just posted an article by Joseph Sorban (1946-2010) on what we are obligated to give to the State (click here). In one sense, this article by Joseph Sorban is a followup article on another article that briefly described how democracy has failed because it did not hold the size of government and the state in check (click here for that article).

In this article, Sorban wants to question the credentials of state because, regardless of its form, democratic or otherwise, the state seems to always become like the Hulk. As it grow bigger, it becomes more destructive. And certainly, Sorban does not have to work hard at finding a number of examples where this is true. The state, in way too many cases, abuses its power and, in one way or another, falsely tells us that what it commands us to do are moral mandates.

However, one must realize that Sorban is judging the state from a conservative-libertarian point of view. That view states that the state should take a minimalist approach at how it should govern its people. The conservative-libertarian view states that individual liberty should be king and what prevents individual liberty from harming others is a notion of 'natural order.' Natural order, according to Sorban is a self-evident set of standards that should prevent us from using individual liberty as a license to kill and steal. Some call similar sets of standards 'the created order' while others refer to them as 'natural law.' And though the standards may not be identical, the general result is. That is there exists a moral code that keeps practitioners of individual liberty from reaching a state of mutually insured destruction.

At this point, we should note the first comment posted is my comment. In that comment, I briefly described what I think are the problems of Sorban's position. The first problem is that the state, according to Sorban, is what I call an 'amorphous monolith.' By that I mean that the form of the state is meaningless because he is judging the state solely by its size. Thus, a big government or an intrusive state makes all state or governments look the same.

Now lest one assumes that only conservatives have the problem of using stereotyped scapegoats, my fellow political Leftist do the same to the Rich as conservatives, like Sorban, do to big government (see here). 

My next point regarding Sorban's article is that his emphasis on natural order or law, whatever you want to call it, leads to an elite-centered type of rule. That is because we must have the right group of people who can discern between what is part of the natural order and what isn't. And since not all share the same view of either natural law or order or how it should be implemented today, this right group of people have the duty to lead all others to follow natural law or order regardless of what anyone else has to say.

At this point, we should note that, in reality, a government based on elite-centered rule rather than democratic rule is more than easily distinguishable from those governments that employs democracy. This distinguishability contradicts Sorban's treatment of all big governments as being the same. This is shown by a previous blogpost (click here) that used a 2-dimensional model with one of the dimensions being the degree to which power is distributed. 

When power is dispersed, as should occur in a democracy, then we limit the power of government. However, we should note that a true democracy requires more than just certain political structures. It also requires enough people to hold to a certain cultural and societal ethic that leads people to share society as equals with those who are different. The failure to do so not only keeps a nation with democratic political processes from being a true democracy, it shows that, especially in America's case, its economic values of competition and conquest are counted as being more important than its democratic values of sharing and equality. Otherwise, democratic values would be crossing the border into how our economic system works rather than our capitalists values of competition and conquest have been bleeding into our political structures.

One might be tempted to say that this missing ethic of how to share society could be the reason why some, like Sorban, think democracy has failed. In essence, we've never tried democracy. And that is because, again, democracy requires both political structures and a certain societal ethic that revolves around sharing.

The conservative approach to government is one designed to enable elite-centered power. We should note that the liberal approach to government does the same. The difference between the two groups is that the elites who rule in the conservative scheme tend to be from the private sector while the elites who rule in the liberal scheme tend to be from the public sector. In either case, most of the people are being told what to do and what to either like or tolerate. And was pointed out in my comment attached to the article being reviewed, elite-centered rule will cause power structures to grow. This growth guts Sorban's black-white view of the state.

One final point that was not touched on in my comment to this article. The conservative view of government presupposes that government is an alien being to the people. And in many cases, that has shown itself to be true. But it does not have to be the case. What enables government to be an alien force is for the people to let be that way. And we often let government become an alien force when our pursuit for prosperity and/or distractions rob us of either the time or the desire to be involved with our government and hold it accountable. Of course, since Sorban's criteria for what makes government good is getting government out of the way of the right elites, he could have never appreciated a true democratic society.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 14, 2014

May 7

To Greg Forster and his blogpost on hating the Bourgeoisie. This appeared on the First Things blog.


What is the point of creating a buffer class? Is it so that one class can continue to live in an economic apartheid of his/her own choosing while the other is forced to sing, "Que sera, sera"? This only transfers to the wealthy and the poor what has been true about the powerful and the weak: That one does as they wish while the other endures what they must.

If we know that human nature, which includes all people, has a problem with greed, then should we have adopted an economic system that encourages greed because it claims to have the tools to make the necessary corrections for its abuse? For this is how the free market is sold. Since the market is self-correcting, then one can indulge in self-interest without any worry or pangs of conscience. And what becomes true of the market is what Marx observed about the Bourgeoisie, that all human connections become based in "naked self-interest." And when all 3 classes become infected with this ethic, then instead of 2 classes at war with each other, we have 3.

We should also note the psychological problem that comes with reducing all interest to self-interest. The problem is that we end up with a reduced thinking capacity because we can only exercise 2-dimensional,  all-or-nothing thinking. In contrast, the more we have to consider the interests and welfare of others, the more complex, and thus expanded, our thinking becomes.

So again, if greed is a problem, is it logical to cleave to a system that tells its participants to embrace greed because it has the capacity to make the necessary corrections? Or will such a system only increase the greed in all existing classes?

One other point, doesn't our current system place a higher value on wealth than work? That is that work is the price of admission to gaining wealth but once one has paid the price, one can live off the work of others and thus we have the rich shareholders. And one of the perks of being that rich is that one can be represented by purchased lawmakers whose legislation creates an economic apartheid.

I don't see how the existence of the middle class can mediate between the classes with the above mentioned values. Rather, the solution is to have an economic rights movement much like we saw in the  Civil Rights movement. Such a movement would constantly invite those who oppress to join the oppressed but until that time comes, controls from our Democracy could be used to prevent the spirit of gradualism from preventing any change at all. And one of the tasks of this economic rights movement would be to usher in a different economic system that does not sell us a bill of goods regarding greed.

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May 8


To Dale Coulter and his blogpost on the bourgeois which followed up on Forster's blogpost. This appeared in the First Things blog.


First, like Socialism, Capitalism cannot be spoken of as a monolith. From after WWII to the mid seventies, we saw the Bretton-Woods system which allowed countries to control currency and flow of capital. After that time, we saw neoliberal Capitalism gradually come into play where businesses sought freedom from the chains of social responsibilities and more latitude with less gov't oversight over how they conducted their affairs. In addition, neoliberal capitalism saw the end of countries having control over their currency and the flow of capital. In both periods, you saw certain players from the private sector benefit from State Capitalism--that is where businesses were either kept alive or thrived due to gov't contracts or the results of gov't research such as in the hi-tech industry.

We should note that in the current state-capitalism arrangement, many corporations are using gov't assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls while trying to avoid paying taxes. In addition, state-capitalism as seen in the military industrial complex but also in pharmaceutical companies and gov't health programs to ensure an adequate customer base with profitable prices and are facilitating a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector. This was also seen in the bailout programs for financial institutions  that fraudulently sold defective financial products and then got very low interest loans to recover from the failure of their activities. BTW, the private sector made sure that the gov't didn't significantly change the rules of the game that would enable another collapse.

And so what should we make of the sentence, "Capitalism, at its best, unleashes the creative impulse commensurate with human freedom" when the private sector elites are so dependent on the gov't for their success in the first place? In addition, the freedom spoken of here is individual freedom, the kind of freedom that allows the individual to excel but sometimes at the expense of one or more communities. We should note that not only do we have individual liberty to maintain, we have corporate (nonbusiness) liberty, which is demonstrated in a democratic society, to maintain. The latter allows society to determine how we will live with each other. Understanding that there is an inverse relationship betweenindividual liberty and   corporate (nonbusiness) liberty, we should seek a balance between the two but that is precisely what is being prohibited by today's neoliberal Capitalism. For its adherents cry tyranny and ask where is individual liberty should Society use democracy to place limits what the individual business, corporation, or financial institution can do.

So where is the middle class person who mediates between the upper class bourgeoisie and the poor? Is he/she there to make life endurable for the poor while the rich find their own Galt's Gulch? What the middle class is being told is to support the rich in their attempts to free themselves from whatever social responsibilities they have left because their battle is also the battle of the Middle Class. At the same time, the  Middle Class is suffering because of this increased individual liberty for the rich. First, the Middle Class jobs are disappearing either because the jobs vanish or the pay does. Second, the tax burden is being shifted from corporations and the rich to the Middle Class--please remember the French Revolution here. This results in less public services for the Middle Class as well as a crumbling infrastructure. It also causes some in the Middle Class to treat the poor the way that the rich have treated them. Third, demands by the rich limit how some in the Middle Class do their jobs. For example, some franchise owners are being squeezed by the demands that corporate shareholders place on them through their representatives.

Finally, what is meant by the term "free markets?" What is meant is that big businesses have more latitude and less social responsibilities in how they conduct business. And sometimes, free markets are forced on nations by those who have developed their own comparative advantage.

I don't believe in denouncing anyone because we all have faults. But we need to take an honest look at the system in which we live and hail as being free and the producer of wealth. And if the above does not make us question our current system, our growing wealth disparity and the immunity to criminal charges enjoyed by private sector elites should.

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May 10

To Frank's comment on a blogpost commemorating Churchill's announcement about the end of the war in Europe. His comment asked where certain qualities like patriotism, leadership, civilization, and resolve were. This appeared on the Heidelblog.



Frank,
    Sometimes leadership is nothing more than authoritarianism, patriotism becomes tribalism, and civilization glorifies privilege while hiding exploitation. So what does resolve become when any of those three are true?

    To give an example, after we fought so hard and lost so much to free Europe, we helped the French as they tried to recolonize Vietnam.

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To Sarah Stanley and her blogpost against government expansion. This appeared on the Acton blog.


What the Conservatives often miss about State power is this, it is not the only issue. What is another just as important issue is the degree of citizen participation in the state. For as long as I lived, what Americans want is a laissez-faire relationship with the government. They want to elect officials every x number of years and then be able to go on with their lives without having to think about or have to petition their government for anything. If the government demanded citizen attention outside of the elections, then it was because it had misbehaved. I should note that such a view shows that I grew up in the midst of Middle Class privilege.

But the tradeoff we experience on such a laissez-faire relationship with government is that government is viewed more as alien entity. Such is not a government of the people but a government of a necessary evil.

The trouble with such a view of government is that is ignorant of others, particularly those with or who are seeking wealth, who know what a valuable resource government can be in helping them gain wealth and power. The conservative response to this is to limit the size of government so as to control the damage it can cause. But those with wealth know that they can also gain power in the face of an impotent government, which can be characteristic of small government, as much as they can when government is big enough to be a resource. And this is what the conservative approach to limiting government in the name of freedom never addresses.

In any form of democracy, we have two kinds of liberties: individual and corporate or societal. The former concerns what we can do as individuals and the latter is concerned with how we as a society wish to live with each other. Since there is an inverse relationship between these two kinds of liberty, we need to hold them in balance. What Conservatives fail to realize is that the more we take an all-or-nothing approach to individual liberty, the more we court tyranny. The more we stress individual liberty, the more we limit corporate liberty which democracy enables. The more we limit democracy, the more we empower elites whose concern is to either maintain or improve their current status. Thus, without a proper balance between individual and corporate liberty, we court tyranny--and there goes your liberty.

What enables corporate liberty is citizen participation in the government. Such participation prevents government from becoming an alien power. And without that participation, the more those who financially excel in society will have opportunity to limit our freedom if the government doesn't. So it isn't government expansion that is the only issue.

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May 13

To Jonathan Witt and his blogpost on Tolkien and war. This appeared on the Acton blog.


What we should note here is that according to the Just War Theory, we might not have gotten involved in some of the post WW II intervention that we did. Why? The civilian casualty rate. That Cuban civilians were targeted by the US right after the revolution and up to the Bay of Pigs.  That civilian casualties soared during Vietnam and why not with how we conducted bombings. Civilians again became targets by the people we sponsored in Central America during the 80s as was the case in Afghanistan. And what about the civilian casualties from our two wars with Iraq. The first was caused by the combination of the aftermath of attacks on the infrastructure along with sanctions, and the second because that is where the fight was. And before closing the book on Iraq, we should remember that we supported and armed the leader we eventually fought.  If we went by the Just War Theory, would we have done much of what we did since WWII especially with the motivations we acted on?

We might also want to note how the Just War Theory was written before the development of WMDs. And even before proliferation became a foreseeable inevitability, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto told us that, without a doubt, we had to choose between war and existence. And now that proliferation is an inevitability, how much more true is that choice today?

Most wars are fought for avarice and ambition, something patriotism blinds from seeing when looking in the mirror. So perhaps that song War, What Is It Good For  has a message we need to hear more than reading Tolkien.