Nature of Revolution

We were discussing two schools of philosophy, analytical and continental. In Europe, during the early part of the 20th century, they were quite influential. Analytical philosophers tended to be socialists and continentals Marxist or communists.

The discussion got me thinking about the Frankfurt School (founded 1923), a philosophical, sociological movement populated by neo-Marxists. I was thinking, then, that it was a movement of continental philosophers. The philosophy behind the school was based on the idea that a radical change in human governance could cure the ills of modern society. Its philosophy was also based on Hegel’s dialectical theory that perpetual change is essential to keep societies and civilization ‘alive’ and ‘awake’, from stagnating and atrophying. It was Hegel who introduced Marxists to the dialectic, the intellectual, materialistic engine of social change and reform on which the School was based.

The critical theory behind the school was Theodor Adorno’s combination of Marx and Freud. It was base on the idea that the politics of society should be grass roots, determined by the people and not by some hierarchal authority, like in the past. One cofounder of the school, Max Horkheimer wondered who would replace the proletariat as the social agent of revolution. Obviously it was a concern that the proletariat would not always be the cutting edge revolutionists of traditional Marxist thinking. Another member, Herbert Marcuse, gave the answer, that “a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women, homosexuals and other socially marginal elements” would carry on inciting political reform. How right he was. But one revolutionary agent Marcuse overlooked was consumers, whose demands would revolutionize societies more than any other. But, then, consumerism was probably the last thing on their minds and far too hedonistic for the Frankfurt School’s communist sensibilities.

The revolutionary agents Marcuse listed are the revolutionists of liberal democracies. They have been the ones who have kept liberal democracy open, progressive and socially just. These revolutionists, along with their proletariat counterparts, have also been the revolutionists that have transformed authoritarian regimes on their way to becoming open societies. They are the ones who are demanding and causing change in countries like China. The revolutionists that Marcuse listed are the ones who also have transformed American society since the 1950’s, through the civil rights movement, feminism, gay rights and now the environmental movement. The revolutionists for civil rights were the ones who changed America's political landscape sufficiently enough to made the election of Barack Obama possible

I came across BJ Fogg. He is considered a guru. He thinks that technology will be behind the next social revolution. He pointed to Facebook as a demonstration of how powerful it will be. I guess he means that it is changing social attitudes and opening up new avenues of discourse and communications.

Technology is another great agent of social revolution that Marcuse might have mentioned. Technology has been an agent of social revolution ever since the invention of wheel or the printing press. More recently, thought, television, the precursor of the Internet and Facebook, has been the big agent of social revolution. For instance, I don’t think racism in America could have been fought it if it wasn’t for television and the mass message it produced and dispensed. Besides the message, television also created the mass audience to absorb that message, that racism is un-American. It gave Martin Luther King and others the platform to argue against it and convince American’s that it was unjust. Television helped cultivate the political and social pressure that would eventually dislodge racism as an American way of life.

I mention consumerism as an agent of social revolution. It is the agent of social revolution least thought of. But consumerism has changed and transformed societies more than any other. It laid the foundation in the late 19th and 20th century for women to get the vote. As the earliest mass consumers and chief purchaser for the family household, women acquired a lot of influence and respect from merchants. With that respect they wheeled a certain amount of power in the community. Why, then, shouldn’t they get the same respect from their husband’s and government and be granted the vote. They used their position as consumers and providers of the household as leverage, through protests and strikes, to get the vote. And eventually they did. Consumerism is also eroding the authoritarian government in China. As consumerism grows in China the authorities are listing more to the demands of the people because their increasing numbers is putting pressure on authority to change. With consumerism people become more aware of their choices and rights. And China is realizing that to keep social order and stability the government has to respond ever more to the consumer demands of its people, materially and legally.

In the past revolutions were violent and cause a lot of death and destruction, like the French and Russian Revolutions did. Those revolutions occurred because societies were intransigent and would not change, and the hierarchal structures of governance would not budge or give more power to the people. However, civilization cannot afford to endure those kinds of revolutions anymore because they were too violent and destructive. Nevertheless, society still has to go through the process of some sort of revolutionary change in order to be invigorated and renew itself. So History had to devise a more acceptable means of revolution that would allow modern societies to continue without being totally upended or disrupted. It would be instead a sort of benign revolution based on the nonviolent agents mentioned above.

In the 1960s Canada had a revolution that changed the governance and organization of the country. It pitted Canada’s two founding cultures against each other. It was a Hegelian revolution, a revolution of ideas that didn’t insight the violence that could have torn the country apart. The prime minister of the time, Pierre Trudeau, sagely observed that Canada was going through a ‘silent revolution’ because its occurrence was difficult to discern. That is the kind of social revolution we are mostly facing today, stealth like, occurring through the modifying agents mentioned by the Frankfurt School, and the ones it didn’t, technology and consumerism.

A reason for the crisis

The guess is that the financial crisis and economic downturn wont go away any time soon. The consensus is that it will take several years to undo itself.

There are several reason why this crisis occurred, most of them listed before. But one that is never or hardly mentioned is the fact that the economies of the world have overproduced and there is to much stuff out there. The excess and oversupply will take time to be consumed and dealt with. This is a worry Marx had about capitalism, a natural penchant for producing and producing. Marx thought that at some point it would produce too much. Well, the world has. Perhaps there is just to much capitalism occurring in the world.

I think a classic example of overproduction is Dubai. Who is going to occupy all the real estate developed there? It is a place that is competing for the same business and entertainment dollar that a number of other centers around the world are. There just isn't enough consumers in the world to soak all this up. Someone once said, if you build it they will come. However, there is no yet enough prosperity around to absorb the offerings of Dubai and the numerous place like it.

Socialism

George Will, a columnist for the Washington Post, is a conservative, a Republican and is against socialism. He hates socialism like every good American conservative does. The other day he wrote an article in which he sounded very exasperated because no matter who was in power in Washington, be it Republicans or Democrats, Government kept getting bigger and more socialistic. Perhaps he hasn’t been reading the tea-leafs, but maybe socialism is the wave of the future. His article was entitled “‘Socialism’? It’s Already Here”.

When Bill Clinton was president he reformed social welfare and famously declared that era of big government over, then proceed to balance the budget and leave a surplus for the next administration. During his administration America was fairly solid in capitalism’s corner. And George Bush, the next president, reinforced those values by declaring himself a fiscal conservative who promised to keep government small. Ironically, though, it was Bush’s ‘supposedly’ conservative administration that pushed socialism to new heights. If Bush, who George Will enthusiastically supported, and his administration had been better managers, administrators and overseers most likely the creeping socialism America is experiencing today would not be occurring. Bush&Co.'s socialism is manifested in the mass financial bailout and ‘nationalization’ his administration has had to institute to rescue the failing U.S. economy.

In the Guardian Naomi Klein wrote and op-ed piece entitled “The Bush gang’s parting gift: a final looting of the public wealth”. What she was saying is that the bailout money Bush&Co. is spending in combating America’s financial crisis is going to its friends and cronies. Klein mentions that other rulers throughout history, before leaving office, had similarly raided the treasury to distribute money among their friends and supporters. In Klein’s eyes it appears that Bush was doing the same thing. A part of me thinks that perhaps Bush created the financial crisis for that very purpose, so he’d have an excuse to raid the lauder and distribute its goodies to his friends, the people on Wall St., before leaving office. I had a similar thought about 9/11, that Bush let it happen (he was warned about its possibility but ignored it) so he‘d have an excuse to invade Iraq.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bush&Co. is responsible for the financial crisis America and the rest of the world is facing today. It is not that they are responsible for everything that caused it or everything that has gone wrong. To be fair, the seeds of its potentiality were sown over many years, prior to Bush. But it is Bush&Co’s philosophy of unfettered markets and lack of oversight and discipline that pushed it over the top. What compounded the crisis further were Bush’s tax cuts, while simultaneously having a war that dangerously ballooned the deficit. It was all unsustainable. Bush&Co. also conveniently neglected, out of ideological zealousness, the rules and regulations that had developed over years to protect capitalism from its worst excesses. Elliot Spitzer, the former attorney general and governor of New York State, recently wrote an article in The Post on exactly that point. As state attorney general he and the other 49 US state attorney generals wanted to enforce laws to stop the predatory lending practices that were fueled the housing bubble and creating the subprime debacle, which eventually cause the financial crisis. However, they were blocked by Bush&Co. with a little know federal law, from the Civil War era, that was designed for the purpose of blocking states from acting on their own. And this, from a conservative administration that once said it would adhere to the Constitution and not interfere with state rights.

I am surprised that I haven’t heard any conspiracy theories about the financial crisis like those made after 9/11. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might thing Bush&Co created the crisis on purpose, to spread it around the world in order to bring the world to heal and under its influence again because for years America had been losing ground as the financial hub of the world. Until London has been gaining as a money center and much of the world, due to globalization, was bypassing New York as a financial deal maker. I’m thinking that Bush&Co. was also concerned about China and the rich oil producing states, awash in American dollars, that they would use those dollars as a weapon to destabilize and diminish American’s position it the world. My conspiracy mind is thinking that Bush&Co. wanted to preempt those forces that were nibbling at America’s financial prowess by creating a financial contagion, which would leave the rest of the world at the mercy of US and its bailout cure.

There are always unintended consequences, as Margaret Thatcher once pointed out. The unintended consequence Bush&Co. didn’t foresee is that with its financial bailout it was going against its own philosophy, its ideological practice of none interference and leaving markets to their own devises. And all this due to the fact that it acted recklessly and incompetently in economic matters earlier. And with its solutions it fell into the trap of employing the socialistic tactics it abhorred to help resolve the crisis and the contagion it created. Also, in acting this way, in a socialistic manner, with government intervention, America was now moving more in line with the rest of the world, something that sends shudders up the spine of conservatives like George Will. Furthermore, because of this economic crisis Bush&Co. lost political power – the White House, Congress, and demoralized its own Republican Party.

Vacation

This year we took our summer vacation on board The Queen Victoria, the newest cruise ship in the Cunard line. We boarded her in Venice after spending a night there in a wonderful little hotel in the district across the canal from St. Mark’s Square, near the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. From there we began our cruise of the Mediterranean, which was going to conclude in Barcelona after making several stops along the way, which include Istanbul, Massina, the Tuscan region and Marseilles.

We departed from Venice via one of its major canals. It was very impressive to be thirteen stories high on board ship as we floated through the city, looking down on it. I am sure there is no experience like it anywhere, traveling through a city on a massive ship to get out to sea.

Our first stop after leaving Venice was Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast, where the breed of dog with the same name comes from. Dubrovnik is in Croatia, which used to be part of Yugoslavia. Croatia declared independence in 1990, an independence that was instantly recognized by most of world. After it declared independence, though, war broke out, started by the Serbs, who wanted to keep Croatia in the Yugoslav Federation. As our tour guide explained, up until the bombing of Dubrovnik the world hadn’t paid much attention to the war there. What got the world’s attention was Dubrovnik’s designation as a world heritage sight. It was pressure from the rest of the world, which didn’t want to loose this gem on the Adriatic, that eventually stopped its total destruction. Our guide also explained that a major reason for Serbia wanting to keep Croatia in the Federation is that without it Serbia would be landlocked and have no access to the Adriatic Sea. So it was also of economic importance that Serbia keep Croatia within Yugoslavian. Dubrovnik was badly damaged from the bombing but now it is mostly restored. However, even thought it was full of tourists while we were there, with several cruise ships in port, tourism still hasn’t reached its pre-war levels.

We took a coach from Dubrovnik to a country inn where we had a wonderful lunch. On the trip back to the ship our guide said she hoped that we had a wonderful time in her country and hoped that one day we would come back. However, she wished that tourists would also come at other times so as to spread the tourism throughout the year in order to keep people more evenly employed. Tourism there is mostly concentrated over a few months in the summer. One day, for example, our guide told us, twelve cruise ships were in port at once. The place was pandemonium.

From Dubrovnik we sailed into Greek waters, visiting the islands of Katakolon and Mykonos. The islands were hot and full of tourists and merchants trying to sell them stuff. It was quite a sight to see our huge ship docked beside these islands. From there we went on to Istanbul.

It was very impressive sailing up the Bosporus into Istanbul, seeing from our balcony the “Eye of Sophia” and the “Blue Mosque”. After disembarking we met our friend who took us to both those sights and then on a tram ride to the famous Bazaar, where we bought three rugs. Here too it was very hot. But I was very impressed with the modern, articulated trams we rode on, which, although they were always crowded, were comfortable and air-conditioned. We also took a few cabs. I was impressed with the roads and how well the traffic flowed. Later, before boarding the ship, we had tea in a very swank hotel that once used to be a palace, which had fallen into disrepair. Our friend told us that Istanbul has become quite a destination for conventions from around the world. That kind of tourism has enabled the restoration of building like the former palace we had tea in.

From Istanbul we went to Messina, Sicily, where we took a bus tour to a beautiful town in the hills. From there we went on to Rome, where we spent most of the day, seeing such sites as the Coliseum and the Vatican. From there we sailed off to Tuscany. Tuscany was everything one would imagine, from its rolling hills, vineyards, unbelievable villages and beautiful food. Our next stop was Marseilles, from where we took a bus to Ariel where Van Gogh lived, pained and died. The interesting think about Ariel is that it didn't own any paints of the great artist. Barcelona was our port of disembarkation There we visited the famous Gaudi Cathedral, which is still under construction. We spent a pleasant day and night in Barcelona before flying home.

On board ship we had some wonderful meals. I think it was the best food we ever had on a cruise, though I found the coffee disappointing. This was our tenth cruise. We also met some interesting people on board, like always. And like on most cruises we’ve been on the majority of the passengers were Americans. But this time there seemed to more nationalities on board.

While we were on board ship the summer Olympics was happening. And as I noticed, our travels this past summer took us to three cities that once hosted the Olympics, Rome, Munich and Barcelona. Munich was where we change flights, on our way to Venice and on our way back home. And as I recall, we were also on water when the 1992 Olympics happened. That year we went barging on a canal in England. But our first cruise occurred during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. That year we went to Alaska from Vancouver.

We were fortunate, like on most of our cruises. The weather everywhere was great. And our air journeys went smoothly.

Bush Legacy

Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are two corporations that were established by the American government under FDR to make loans to ordinary people so that they could buy homes. They were made necessary because other lenders were often reluctant to make loans to low income and first-time homebuyers. They were established to help fulfill the America dream of being an ownership society. But lately they have been in the news because of the financial meltdown brought on by the bursting of the housing 'bubble' in the US. These two corporations were seriously ensnared in it and have subsequently been nationalized and propped up with taxpayers’ money, because they were unable to survive on their own. I understand, though, that George Bush wanted to reform these institutions in 2006 but was prevent by a Democratic Congress.

Yes, Bush was stopped from reforming Fannie and Freddie. But how serious was he about reforming them? He put party cronies in charge to run those agencies. They were Bush loyalist, but poor administrators, a norm for his administration. This kind of cronyism set the tone for further financial calamities during his term.

Perhaps I don't have it quite right. Kevin Hassett of Bloomberge.com News wrote how the Democrats created the financial crisis by not supporting reform legislation for Fannie and Freddy. But his analysis sounded a bit like a parable that evokes the-barn-door-being-closed-after-the-horse-has-left. Even Kevin Phillips, author of “Bad Money’”, who is more knowledgeable about the origins of the present financial crises, doesn’t make such an indictment. He spreads the blame on many decisions and events, while Hassett’s explanation is just too pat and simple. The Democrats, in voting against reform for Fannie and Freddy, probably did exacerbate the problem, like many other decisions before. But Democrats alone didn’t create the problem. No, the seeds of this financial crisis were sown by many players over many years.

Phillips is a Republican. He foretold the rise of conservatism in America. But in his laying blame for the financial crisis he doesn’t make it a partisan witch hunt, like Hassett does, who is quite partisan and narrow in his criticism and finger pointing. 

If Bush really had wanted to reform those agencies he would have put reformers in charge, to reform things from inside. Instead he gave the jobs to party loyalists. Under those circumstances it's lucky Bush was stopped from reforming and privatizing Social Security, as he desperately wanted to. Image what an additional catastrophe it would have been if Social Security were connected to the performance of the stock market, as Bush wanted?

In a way I think it is fitting that George Bush is ending his tenure on this note, with one of the greatest financial debacles in American history. It is the crowning achievement for his abysmal presidency. Sadly, though, there's still time for him to screw things up.

I wish Milton Friedman were alive today to comment on recent events because of the free marketeer that he was. I am glade the financial meltdown occurred because it has helped put an end to a fallacy that Friedman supported, that the free market is the be-all and end-all. It also puts an end to the Reagan fallacy that government is the problem and not the solution. If one makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy as Bush did, with his neglect and incompetence as a manager, then government is the problem.

It is ironic that Bush was the first president with a MBA (Master of Business Administration). Just goes to show you that strictly MBA holders are not always the smartest people in the room. In Bush's case a MBA was a very hollow achievement, like most of his achievements. He should have also educated himself in other areas, like history and geography.

In the last few months Bush has been looking shell-shocked, like he did after 9/11. It's good that he has recruited grown-ups to look after this crisis, people who are trying to clean up the financial mess he helped create by not enforcing the financial regulations that were on the books.

Thanks to George Bush and his brand of conservatism America has become less influential in the world, and less relevant. When Bush started his presidency I sensed that he would drive America and the world into a state of despair. Low and behold he has. He said he was a uniter, not a divider. However, in most of his dealings he has been a divider and a very divisive president. Ironically, though, this one time, with the financial crisis he helped create, he has united not only America in economic pain but also the world.

When the reality of financial crisis was really beginning to become apparent it is said that Washington DC took on the feeling of a wartime capital, like it did after 9/11, because legislators were feeling shell-shocked by the magnitude and cost of the financial mess America was in. I found this interesting because of Bush's self-proclamation that he was a War President, fighting a ‘war on terror’. But he didn't expect to be this kind of war president, fighting a financial war. However, most of the time as War President, in both cases, he has acted like Don Quixote, tilting-at-windmills.

World Philosophy Congress

This past week the 22nd World Philosophy Congress opened in Seoul, South Korea. It happens every five years. The last one occurred in Istanbul and the one before in Boston.

I first learned of the World Philosophy Congress from an article in The New York Times, about the one in Boston in 1998. It had been held in Boston before, in 1926, one of the few occasions it had taken place outside Europe. For some reason The New York Times article choose to call the event The World Philosophy Congress but its correct title is the World Congress of Philosophy. The first congress took place in Paris in 1900. Today, since 1948, the event takes place under the auspices of UNESO, a United Nations agency, and the International Federation of Philosophical Societies.

Out of curiosity I looked up the history of the WCP to fine out who or how it started. I found nothing about its origin. But I was thinking that since the first one was held in Paris four years after the first modern Olympics were held in Paris there was a connection between the two events, seeing that first Olympics occurred in Greece as did the first philosophizing. It is also casually interesting that Athens bid to host the WCP in 2008, hoping to take it back to the home of Philosophy, but lost out to Seoul. Perhaps it will be announced in Seoul that Athens will get it next. (Seoul held the Olympics in 1988.)

The get-together that took place in Boston was the last one of the 20th century. The theme at that congress was "philosophy educating humanity" and the single question under discussion, appropriately, was "What have we learned from philosophy in the 20th century". (The theme in Seoul was "rethinking philosophy today" and in Istanbul "philosophy facing world problems".) Surprisingly nobody answered the question, some avoided it by talking about 'truth' instead and others got hung-up on the meaning of 'we'.

That kind of behavior is what gives philosophy a bad name among ordinary people and why so many considered it unimportant in the goings on of human affairs. And that's what Julian Baggini of the Guardian, who was covering the WCP opening in Seoul, was saying in an article. He suggested that anybody with a PhD who wants to get a job should keep quite about it. However he defended philosophy. He says that although philosophy is generally consider unimportant in culture, nonetheless, it is all over the place, in thinktanks, politics, science, journalism and ethic committees.

In that case, since philosophy has mostly been hidden from the public in other professions, then there must be things we have learned from it without knowing. What is philosophy about anyways? It is about talking things out and putting theories into practice. If that is the case we have learned a lot from philosophy in the 20th century, in subtle ways. We entrench human rights through philosophical discussion. Einstein philosophizing gave us a better understanding of the universe and physics. Freud philosophizing probed the human psyche so that we could understand ourselves and become better functioning human beings. Philosophical discussions have expanded our minds and made us more tolerant and worldly. And philosophizing about the advantages of democracy has facilitated its expansion around the world.

That reminded me of a question somebody asked: "What could Freud have to do with sustaining democracy?" It was explained like this: "If you're going to ask people to govern themselves then it's important that they know themselves. It is not only the leaders who, in a democracy, need a Freudian awareness of the dark side of the psyche. All men and women should comprehend their proclivities for destruction and self-idealization in order to make the best informed choices."

The World Congress of Philosophy may be to some a waste of time. However it is another means of inoculating the world from future conflicts, by just getting people to know each other better and to discuss their differences. Governments have not always been that good at healing the world's problems. So it’s good to see non-government agencies like the WCP taking up the slack and making a difference, by making people talk to each other and in the process become more conscious of the world's needs and aspirations.

Book reivews

I am reading three books simultaneously. One about Galileo, one about Samuel Johnson, the author of the first comprehensive English dictionary, and the third is called "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria.

I first started reading the book about Johnson called 'Defining The World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary" by Henry Hitchings. The chapters in this book were headed with English words, followed by the definition Johnson gave them. The one revelation in the book that most struck me was in the chapter headed "English". The chapter starts off, " The eighteenth century was seized by a rage for order, manifest in a range of of new phenomenon: price tags, standardized weights and measures, the proliferation of signposts on public highways, the increased use of account books and calendars. The vogue was for organizing, structuring and methodizing" It was in this environment that Johnson compiled his dictionary. He obviously was also consumed by the need to organize and structure things, like his fellow Englishmen.

Galileo was another person who helped organize and structure the world. He straddled the 16th and 17th centuries. Originally he was going to be a doctor but instead he got interest in mathematics, to the chagrin of his father. He is known as the originator of modern science. Up until he came along science was a part of philosophy , its part known as 'natural philosophy'. Most of what was understood as science up to that point was based on what Aristotle had determined about the world, things that few questioned until Galileo came along. Galileo sensed there were things wrong about Aristotelian teaching, like the idea that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun and the planets revolved around it. Another Aristotelian notion he questioned was that a heavier object would hit the ground before a lighter one when dropped from the same height. He discovered this was false. I tried it with the heaviest and lightest books to prove it and both books hit the ground at the same time.

Zakaria book is the heaviest of the three, both in weight and in subject matter. It discusses globalization and the nature of the geopolitical world. But it is also about a world that would not have existed if it wasn't first for organizers like Galileo and Johnson. Galileo got modern science started, the discipline that innovates and launches the technology that sustains us, a disciple that would be impossible for us to live without. Johnson organized the English language, the language that would become the main communications tool of the world.

As Johnson described in his dictionary, English is the language of England. It is interesting to note that with the expansion of the English language around the world followed the expansion of democracy. After all, England was the cradle of modern democracy, which was the home of the Magna Carta, which Zakaria points out, was the first "bill of rights" of the Western World. As a colonial power England spread English around the world and with it followed the seeds of democracy. India, the largest democracy in the world, was colonized by England. And England gave birth to the most powerful democracy, the United States

Milton Friedman

A lot of people think that the economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a god. In his lifetime he was viewed as the god of the free market. His economic theories were adopted by, to name a few, Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. Those economies, like may others, found new life in some of his suggestions, like tight monetary policy, tax cuts and privatization.

What first brought Friedman to prominence, and I think won him the Nobel Prize in Economics (1976), was his theory in monetary policy. He believed that the proper control of the money supply was the fundamental key to a healthy economy and a stable world. Good monetary policy was the key to keeping down inflation, an occurrence that has in the past caused great hardship and instability in many nations. Friedman's fame grew from his theory that if the U.S. had better managed its monetary policy or had controlled its currency better during the Great Depression, it may not have occurred. Likewise, it is believed that if Germany, after WW1, had not printed money like crazy in order to fulfill the financial demands put on it by its vanquishers, it would not have descended into the economic abyss it did and therefore become ripe for the despotism of Hitler.

My thought is that we learn from experience. So I think one should take Friedman's idea, that the Great Depression could have been prevented if the U.S. had managed it currency better, with caution and skepticism. What Friedman suggested, by the sounds of it, is that the U.S. and others, in the 1920's and 30's, had the wherewithal to be good monetarists, but failed to act on it. However, I think they had no such wherewithal in those days because people back then were still inexperience in such matters, such as prudent monetary policies. Nevertheless, people still insist on transposing the knowledge we have today on a less sophisticated world of the past. I mean, sure, with the knowledge we have today we probably could have prevented WW1 or WW2. But that was a different world, absent of the knowledge and the dynamics we have today.

Friedman's policies have railed against socialism. Now, I am not a socialist but I have socialist tendencies, like universal health coverage. Such coverage can lift an anxiety of people’s shoulders which potentially can free people to function better. And by what I see in the countries that do have it, for the most part, the practice of medicine works better than in the U.S. and the costs are lower, and life expectancy is longer. I thus believe in a mixed economy in which aspects of capitalism and socialism are mixed and balanced off against each other. And this type of governance is what is generally emerging around the world, including the US, albeit there, kicking and screaming all the way.

I appreciate and believe in some of Milton Friedman's ideas. And they would probably all work if the conditions were perfect. One thing he did believe is that if you have a free and open market in anything the facts and information about it should also be free and accessible. This is something that did not occur in the 'subprime market' and therefore the calamity that surrounds it. The information and facts surrounding subprime loans and their derivatives was not divulged or been honest. Instead, much of the facts and reality about the subprime market was manipulated by Wall Street and thwarted by the Bush administration in order to fulfill its own agenda of keeping money cheap so as to bolster its "ownership society".

Friedman realized that a measure of regulations and consumer protections had to be in place to keep markets honest and mutually beneficial. He knew that the unfetter market were not on their own the 'hole grail' because of the potential of human weaknesses and failures. This is something the present administration in Washington failed to see in its economic policies of free markets. In the process it has made the U.S. economy worse because it blindly believed that free markets left on their own could solve everything.

Milton Friedman's fundamental policies, in the wrong hands, have encouraged a naive and reckless approach to economic activity. They have also encouraged abuse. But he would be the first to recognize that that's what comes with the territory due to the natural capacity for humans to get things wrong.

War & Capitalism

I discovered that Einstein and Freud corresponded about the inevitability of war. In 1932 Einstein asked Freud if he thought humankind could ever divest itself of war. In his response Freud did not hold out much hope that man could ever stop warring. But what he wrote encouraged Einstein to think that there was a possibility that mankind could live in relative peace. Freud, though, was surprised that Einstein hadn't accepted war as inevitable and that it was an inexorable part of human nature.

Freud was not an optimist. However, in his letter to Einstein he left a ray of optimism in the form of the contradictory nature of mankind. He explained to Einstein a theory he had developed (as the magazine article explained) in reaction to the unprecedented brutality of the First World. Freud said that that man is driven by two equally powerful instincts, an instinct to create and an instinct to destroy, as in war. I don't pretend to understand Freud’s dark, perverse theory but something he said struck Einstein as encouraging, perhaps because Einstein focused more on the creative aspect of man rather that the destructive one, thinking that the creative instinct would some day overcome and harness the destructive one.

Freud's duel instinct theory of man was music to my ears because I've studied the contradictory nature of mankind. My conclusion is that man’s contradiction is part of life, a life force; humans can't exist, function or develop without that perversion, of contradicting themselves. And here, Feud was saying something similar. This also reminded me of the American economist Joseph Schumpeter who described capitalism as 'creative destruction'. That description was probably in reaction to the economic devastation capitalism wrought during the Great Depression. It was similar to Freud's reaction to war. Perhaps Schumpeter got this idea from Freud, or Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote about it before. Was capitalism similar to war?

Overall, Wars have become a thing of the past, especially between nations. Wars have become untenable and too destructive, as the world learned from two world Wars in the 20th century. Ironically, we have Einstein partly to thank for that development because of his discovery in physics, which led to the development of the ultimate weapon of destructive, the atomic bomb. The power of the atomic bomb was so destructive, as witnessed in the dropping of two of them on Japan at the end of WW2, that instead of becoming a weapon of choice it became a weapon for deterring War, as it did during the Cold War that occurred between the two super powers of the time, the U.S and the U.S.S.R. Perhaps Einstein foresaw this development as changing human attitude towards War. For this reason he may have seen Freud’s letter as encouraging because he felt that in time Man would lose his appetite for War as the weapon he helped created became potentially more and more devastating.

As war among nations declined capitalism’s prominence in the world rose. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Capitalism, apart from becoming the chief economic engine of mankind, became the foremost outlet and main envelopment of mankind’s two powerful driving instincts, creativity and destruction, as the economist Schumpeter identified. Capitalism harbored both instincts but in a more peaceful and productive manner than war. Had capitalism become the new war?

Wars were, unfortunately, once essential for reforming and shaping the world. Wars have removed many of mankind’s intransigencies and ironically have brought a unity to the world. But in the end war's destruction capability became too great, outweighed any gains they might have produced. However, without war as a means of world reform or as a manifestation of the destructive tendencies of man, mankind had to find another outlet for releasing its destructive tendencies. Man's inherent destructive nature had to be channeled elsewhere, into a less destructive but more productive means. This truly represents a paradigm shift. It came in the form of capitalism. Capitalism to my mind is the alternative to war. It also harbors a destructive nature as Schumpeter had observed but it also harbors the creative tendencies of mankind. Moreover, with its creative/destruction it is also the harbinger of the change and reform that is essential for mankind's survival, so that it remains vital without destroying itself. Even though capitalism does uproot lives and communities, as a form of change it is more desirable and much easier to stomach than war. So, capitalism is not only our chief provider it is also the chief catalyst for essential social reform.

Capitalism has now become worldwide, through the auspices of globalization. In hand with globalization it has united the world in a common activity and transcended the tribalism in the world that often led to wars. It has created a network and interdependence between nations that has defused the possibility of war between them. Capitalism has toned down and restructured the destructive nature of man so it is more bearable than war. Nevertheless, capitalism understands that a measure of destruction, in the form of competition and obsolescence, is still necessary to keep the world alive and awake. Its destructive, disruptive aspect is essential to keep mankind vital, innovative and agile, so that it has a future.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter labeled capitalism as 'creative destruction'. Creative destruction is a form of revolution. Mankind needs a certain level of revolution and reform to remain vital. War is no longer an option in that pursuit. But capitalism is.

Letter

I haven't written anything recently because nothing much has inspired me to do so. So for those of you who are wanting and expecting some new words of wisdom from me I will post a letter of mine that was published in a philosophy magazine. The subject deals with pop-culture, which was the theme of the particular issue of the magazine I responded to. And the particular subject I responded to was about "Captain America".

Here is the letter:

As I was working away framing pictures I was also trying to frame a philosophical idea in my head. Framing pictures and framing ideas are similar activities: both need boundaries to help define and animate them. The idea I was trying to animate has to do with Major Todd A. Burkardt's article 'Operation Rebirth: Captain America and the Ethics of Enhancement' in Issue 64. Burkardt portrays Captain America as an individual, but his creator might have intended him to represent all Americans. In other words, Captain America is symbolic and representative of the exceptionalism of America, in terms of its focus on freedom and liberty for all.

I think Kant would have liked the representation of Captain America as emblematic of peace, because he wanted to see people and nations live in peace. And Kant was right to speculate that democracies needn't go to war with each other. Creating enhance soldiers, as Burhardt advocates, would be counterproductive to the world's continuing efforts through agencies like the UN to make war a thing of the past. Creating enhanced soldiers would send the wrong message, certainly not one of peace. Instead we should work to enhance democracy so that countries don't go to war with each other, thus having no need for enhance soldiers. Enhanced soldiers, like any soldier, can't impose democracy, as we have recently learned with Iraq.

Hegel and politics

I'd like to expand on the idea that the dialectic is a metaphysical phenomenon which makes civilization possible.

As I wrote in an earlier essay, Robert Fulford of the National Post wrote an article about a metaphysical, behind the scene characteristic that is at the core of our existence. The article was "What divides us makes us Hegel". The article discussed the division that has existed between Canada's two founding but conflicting cultures, English and French. He writes that this division paradoxically has made Canada what it is today, an exceptional country. But as I see it he also could have been writing about the world in general.

Hegel, who popularized the dialectic, was a world-system thinker and a visionary. He saw a grand plan for the world, not determined by individuals but by civilization itself. He believed the whole world represented a single civilization on a common course. His thinking foresaw today’s globalism. However, he must have known that the coming together of the world wasn't going to be easy as he saw from the divisiveness that engulfed his beloved Europe of the 19th century. He believed, though, that unification would eventually come through the  political reconciliation of differences. He named the process by which it would happen the dialectic - the argument – the conflict/contradiction of opposing ideas culminating in resolution. Through the dialectical process Hegel believed humans would discover common sense and Reason, which would advance them and teach them to live in harmony. He believed that in the discourse of the dialectic the world would become a pragmatic place, where future human confrontations would be of a cognitive nature rather than physical ones. He saw the dialectic as a life force for human progress.

When Hegel formulated his theory of the dialectic shaping and making the world more intelligent he couldn't have imagined the physical conflicts the world would first have to endure, such as two world wars and countless other skirmishes, before it found a measure of common sense and Reason. Looking back one might imagine that after the destruction of WW1 the world might have learned a lesson or two and resolved to create the League of Nations, like many leaders wanted, in order to stop similar horrific acts. Obviously, though, WW1 was not horrific enough to bring sufficient reconciliation between nations as one might have imagined. The dialectic of ideas WW1 provoked was obviously not sufficient enough to bring Reason to bear so that the world might organize itself in order to prevent future wars. WW1 did not smarten up the world as Hegel might have hoped. It took a second world war to dialectically induce the world with sufficient Reason to establish a agency that could put an end to such wars, like the United Nations.

Hegel believed that we need conflict to remain alive and awake, to keep us from growing stale and atrophying. He didn't mean physical conflict but the conflict brought on by politics and the world of ideas. He believed that the conflict of ideas - the dialectic, and the struggle for resolution stimulates us cognitively , provoking further thinking and new ideas. This process not only revitalizes us but also keeps us lucid of mind and adds to our intelligence. The process is one of mentally spiraling upwards in which we develop new skills, which also brings forth solutions to complex problems we may never have imagined possible.

This is what Fulford was writing about, that the divisive and contradictory make up of Canada, with its two opposing cultures, is the engine that keeps Canada humming, in tune and alive. Canada, in true dialectic fashion, has used this division and the conflict that arises from it to its  advantage. It has learned from it, developed and improved its operational philosophies. Instead of these opposing cultures continuing to quarrel with each other they have learned to coexist and created an exceptional state of affairs. Subsequently, in its struggle to equalize things between the English and the French, Canada developed extraordinary governing skills that have become extremely useful in managing another of it unique situation, its growing multicultural society. Intellectuals recognized Canada as a Hegelian nation years ago because of its dualistic nature and that it didn't completely try to extinguish the clash between its two founding cultures but used it in a dialectical fashion to create a unique and exceptional country, something that would have made Hegel proud. And it the course of things Canada‘s experience has become an example for the rest of the world.

I want to use a phrase I just made up, ‘deliberative philosophy’. It is akin to deliberative democracy, a process that helps sustain Democracy. In a discoursive manner deliberative philosophy also is sustaining and is what the dialectic process is all about. Through the clash and the deliberation of two opposing forces, two ideas that are contradictory but are assumed equally valid, (like Canada’s two founding cultures) it reasons out and synthesizes a pragmatic philosophy and a course of action that is mutually beneficial. Confronted by two contradictory forces, its two cultures, Canada was wise not to abandon one in favor of the other but instead used both, through discoursive give and take, to devise a philosophy and political policies that has made it socially richer and more harmonious. Had Canada not taken this route and instead favored one culture over the other as its chief governance there certainly would have been a ‘clash of civilizations’ which most likely would have torn the country apart. One thing that has encouraged this process in Canada, of reaching out, is that the alternative was not an option and unthinkable.

I am fond of saying litigation creates civilization. What happens within the dialectic is a litigation of sorts. Under the proper conditions the dialectic provokes and enables litigation and mediation in resolving political and cultural differences, as those between the English and the French in Canada. As a result Canada has developed a unique civility between diverse cultures.

The economist Julian Simon once made a classic Hegelian remark, "that the world needs problems because they make us better. Problems make us better off than if they never happened." I am sure you can imagine what Simon was saying, that in having problems intelligent people work together and seek solutions, thus advancing themselves. However, I think Simon made that remark unsuspectingly because he was no Hegelian. Nevertheless, I think his remark proves that we live in a Hegelian, dialectic world whether one knows it or not. It also shows that what conflicts us can make us stronger if we work to resolve it. For example, after 9/11 a clash of civilizations didn't occur as some had predicted but instead the world that existed prior to it continued in its globalism and interdependence because people came together to resolve their differences, because there was the understood that we are all in the same boat and have common goals, of common needs and aspirations.

Hegel didn’t invent this system of the dialectic. He discovered it as he observed the world, knowing that it was the natural procedure of things. He also discovered it with the help of a previous thinker, Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher who realized that the world is made of contradictions and that their existence and reconciliation makes the world possible. In his article Fulford expounded on this theme and the cultural contradictions that makes Canada possible, exceptional and vibrant.

Multiculturalism in Canada

The National Post has been doing a series of articles about some of the biggest political mistakes in Canada. Barbara Kay wrote an article about multiculturalism being Canada's biggest mistake. I composed a letter in response and this is what I wrote:

Hi Barbara,

Thanks for the provocative article. It appeared to me in a timely fashion as I was contemplating the subject.

Perhaps multiculturalism is a mistake but I don't think it's been a matter of much choice. Canada had multiculturalism thrust open it from the beginning with its to founding cultures, English and French. Canada was wise to adopt both cultures for its governance. If it hadn’t it truly may have been a 'clash of civilizations', one that would have torn the country apart. Similarly, it has been wise of Canada to allow the cultural differences of others to survive and continue because stymieing them could have led to social unrest. Instead Canada has learned to cultivate them all, maximizing their potential.

In contrast, had multiculturalism been practiced in Yugoslavia and its different cultures been treated equally it probably would not have been torn apart as it was. Tito, who ruled the country with an iron grip, forced everybody to coexist, but mainly his ethnic group ruled the country. Subsequently, after he died, the country and Tito's cohesion fell apart.

You deny that multiculturalism has made the country richer. Dynamically it has, economically and in overall human relations. It has made Canada an exceptional country and an admiration of the world. People who have experience multiculturalism in other parts of the world find it blends best in Canada because of it unique situation and of it first having two founding cultures that prepared it for more.

People think that in multiculturalism each separate culture carries on as it wants. That misconception is why people are bothered by it. But in all fairness, the people who come from other countries culturally assimilate more to Canada's way of life than Canadians do to theirs. For instance, they adopt Canada's laws, we don't adopt theirs. For the most part they adopt the countries values and practice its philosophies of democracy and capitalism. In fact, multiculturalism helps expand democracy because it encourages diversity, putting pressure on democracy to live up to it reputation of being an all-inclusive governing system. For democracy to remain legitimate and vital it require many masters, which multiculturalism tends to be. The demands of multiculturalism rejuvenate democracy.

Some people think multiculturalism doesn’t make common sense because it defies a ‘centre’. Yeats said of a civilization, if the centre doesn’t hold things fall apart. He would have viewed multiculturalism as having not center. However, he said that in a less sophisticated world, a world that was still chiefly racist and xenophobic, and less understanding of diversification. Today, with human rights at the center of world politics, racism has subsided and the world is more diversified. The championing of multiculturalism has been one way of combating racism and promoting human right, with the freedom to choose and keep one's identity. Canada, with its multiculturalism, is at the forefront of this brave new world.

Robert Fulford, another writer at the Post, wrote an article entitled "What divides us makes us Hegel". He was writing about the division that has existed between the English and the French. As he says, that division has paradoxically made Canada possible and exceptional. Canada wisely did not pick one founding member in favor of the other for its governance. Instead it has worked to reconcile the division between the two and in so doing has developed and incrementalized its governing skills and operational philosophies. Multiculturalism has further heightened this exceptional about Canada because it encourages Canada to constantly reflect and refine its skills. Multiculturalism has kept Canada politically alive and awake.

In multiculturalism Canada has been an example and a laboratory to the world. Canada is really a harbinger of the world to come, or the one that is already hear because of globalization.

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Barbara Kay was kind to write back but she thought I had the wrong end of the stick. She said that she isn’t against biculturalism, the origin of this country, and that I had it confused with multiculturalism. However, I made the connection because Canada’s biculturalism in many respects laid the ground for the later acceptance of multiculturalism. In other words, biculturalism morphed in multiculturalism. She also contrasted Canada with the US. She wrote. “ As for making a country great, what greater country is there than the US, made great by the melting pot and forced integration? If you consider Canada great now, imagine it 10 times greater, which is what forced integration would have done.”

All I can say is that the US and Canada are different places. I don’t think integration, per se, was forced on Americans. It happened sort of naturally, like multiculturalism happened sort of naturally in Canada. Each country made different choices. People went to each country for different reasons. Moreover, the US is more densely populated than Canada so cultural differences there, personified, would have been more frictional and perhaps worse. One thing that has makes the US different is a common patriotism, crossing all cultures lines. Canada didn’t go that route. But I think Canada is better prepared for a globalized world because of its multiculturalism. And today we notice how different the makeup of the US is becoming with more people choosing to keep their own cultural identities.

The Dialectic

It just dawned on me that the dialectic is a metaphysical phenomenon. The dialectic is a behind the scenes phenomenon, like anything metaphysical, which makes civilization possible.

I got the idea after reading an article entitled "What divides us makes us Hegel" by Robert Fulford in the National Post. He writes that the division that has existed between Canada's two founding cultures, English and French has made Canada not only possible but exceptional, due to its dialectical nature.

Instead of adopting one culture and one language to govern the country Canada went the duality route and adopted both cultures. This certainly made it more difficult to run the country but in the process of reconciling its two conflicting members, as in the dialectic, Canada has become a richer and a more sophisticated nation. As Hegel argued, the clash of ideas, as has been occurring between the English and the French in Canada, has an incremental effect on people and in the process expands their skills and improves their operational philosophies.

The clash of ideas causes problems but it also forces a mindful and determined nation like to Canada to seek solutions. In its clash between English and French identities, Canada's dialectically has developed and implemented a unique form of governance that makes it not only exceptional in the world but has prepared it to be home for other ethnic groups and to become a truly multiculturalism nation.

"Behind the 'Modern' China"

As I was thinking about what else I could say about democracy I came across Robert Kagan's article in The Washington Post, "Behind the 'Modern' China". The article is about the lack of real democracy in China. Kagan emphasizes the word 'Modern' to emphasize the presumption of China's modernity. Just because it has embraced capitalism and free-market principles doesn't mean China is modern. Kagan says that without democracy China isn't real a modern country or living in the 21st century. In fact, he says, it is still living in the 19th century.

He has a point. A country has to be modern, more like postmodern, to deal with democracy. Nevertheless, there is a modernity to China in that it does accept capitalism and the free market. But capitalism generally comes easier to most nations because it appeals to the human predisposition for consumption and wealth. Democracy, though, requires a higher and more sophisticated level of modernity, or postmodernity, which China doesn't yet have. However, Kagan thinks that China will never become that sophisticated.

There are other things Kagan has been wrong about, likes the war in Iraq, the staying power of neoconservatism and America's hegemony. I think that eventually he will be proven wrong about the emergence of democracy in China. In his argument he forgets about all the historical baggage China has to deal with before its people can truly adjust and deal with democracy. (China’s autocracy is preparing its people for democracy.) Moreover, the Chinese people have more freedoms than they had a generation ago, in personal mobility, employment and consumption, freedoms that eventually will lead to democracy. And there is a parallel between China's fledging democracy and America's since economic freedoms also first came to America before full-blown political freedom. He also forgets that South Korea and Taiwan, countries with similar backgrounds to China, were once dictatorships. But as they industrialized and got richer they eventually evolved into democracies. Kagan should be more patient.

There is something naive about Kagan's analyses. In the past he showed his naivety in supporting the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, preemptive war and neoconservatism. Now he shows his naivety about democracy.

I don’t think he realizes that democracy can be very destabilizing for countries that have never practiced it before, hence their reluctance to embrace it. For instance, when Russia first attempted democracy in the 90's it was very destabilizing and ruinous for its people. Some people really took advantage of it for their own personal gain, at the expense of everybody else. As a result most people in Russia were in favor of some form of autocracy to stabilized thing, hence Putin and his strong-arm tactics. Similarly, the Chinese people are not ready for full-blown democracy, because they are not familiar with its ins and outs as we are in the West, where it has taken centuries to develop. Chinese leaders are aware of the instability democracy can bring if one is not versed in its nuances. That's why their cautious and leery approach to it.

Kagan points to a long held doctrine in the West that believes if autocracies are engaged economically they will eventually liberalize themselves politically. Well, he says, it hasn't happened in places like Russia or China. In fact, he adds, as these countries have gotten richer they have shunned the political liberalization that was supposed to have accompanied the liberalization of their economies. However, he doesn’t see to the underlying things that are occurring in both these countries that eventually will lead to more political freedom.

Trade with China has had its liberalizing effects in that it has encouraged a more open society there. Though Kagan knows this he hasn’t mention it. An 'open society' is a prerequisite for democracy. There was an instance recently where China was distributing tainted products throughout the world, products as diverse as toys, pet food and medical ones. People and pets have died from these tainted products. This has come back to China with demands from its trading partners that it cleanup its act and adopt stringent regulation to protect people from tainted products if it wants to continue to trade with the West. This ultimately has opened many aspects of China's economy to internal and external scrutiny. China, therefore, has had to become more transparent and accountable, in the process opening itself up and preparing itself for more liberalization and democratic procedures.

Another incident that has contributed to China becoming more open, because of it economic engaged with the rest of world, is SARS. SARS created quite a health scare around the world, as we know in Canada. Canada, like China, was negatively impacted by it, financially. Again, if China wanted to be part of the global community and prosper from world trade it had to clean up its act in regards to health because people were not willing to do business in or with a country that had contagious deceases. In the past, when China was more isolated, it could hide contagious deceases from the rest of the world and its people. However, now that it has integrated itself into the rest of the world in has to act more responsible and open about such matters. As a result every individual has had to become more responsible in order to insure a healthier China. This rise and expectation of individual responsibility is further preparation for the emergence of democracy.

With their newfound wealth and economic freedoms the Chinese are doing a lot of traveling, something they could not have done under communism. Travel has an incremental democratizing effect on people and a nation, especially when done on mass as the Chinese are doing. As Jeffery Sachs said, “ Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” The removal of those negative attitudes bodes well for the development of democracy in that it also contributes to a more open society. And travel is also fatal to an autocracy because people who travel tend to get infected with new ideas and a sophistication that ultimately questions authority. The Olympics and trade have also incrementally opened China the other way, in that it has brought travelers into China who have also brought with them ideas and procedures that eventually challenge authority. Trade and travel are cotangents that unhinge autocracies.

One of the many institutions that have developed in Russia and China is that of private ownership. Under communism private ownership was forbidden. Private ownership is now a way of life in these countries and more and more protected by laws. Private ownership is a bedrock of capitalism and of eventual democracy. As the wise Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once said, "Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom". Both Russia and China have opened that Pandora's box, one that is unlikely to be closed by anyone.

Creative destruction.

When I think of the subprime debacle I think of "creative destruction". That sort of puts a positive spin on it.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the phrase. He attributed it to capitalism, about its capacity to cause economic ruin but then invent something new from the aftermath and rubble. In other words, capitalism is a rejuvenator and a restorer. So from the destruction left in the wake of the subprime debacle and the housing bubble it spawned we can expect an economic revival, like grew out of other past economic quakes.

The subprime debacle has certainly wrought economic upheaval and destruction. Subprime loans helped enable the housing bubble that subsequently burst, forcing many people to give up their homes, builders to go bankrupt, financial institutions to quake and communities to suffer financially. The ripple effect has staggered many sectors of the economy in America and abroad. Prior to the housing bubble there was the dot-com/technology bubble of the 90’s, which collapsed in 2000, ushering in the longest bear stock market in 60 year. It is hard to imagine how those collapses could be viewed as creative destruction. Nevertheless, past economic disasters heralded new technologies, management skills and resources to sustain economic activity in the future.

Capitalism's creative destruction is rooted in nature where nothing remains static and is constantly changing. Capitalism is a social construct designed to manage it better, the effects of the natural, cyclical deterioration and renewal of material on society. Capitalism's creative destructive style is also seen in the creative but some times destructive manner it replenishes and restores the resources we consume.

Let's examine another example of creative destruction in the mode of nature and capitalism. Some may consider it a sick example of creative destruction. Nevertheless it is. The event was 9/11. After 9/11 there was a rebirth and renewal. Some economists and intellectuals saw 9/11 as the harbinger of things to come, as the end of how things once were, the end of capitalism and globalization. However, what transpired after that horrendous event was the opposite. The world proceeded to continue on the same trajectory as before, of globalization and interdependence, only to a greater extent, as though validating what transpired before 9/11. Moreover, New York City, where 9/11 occurred, continues to grow and prosper, as did the rest of the world, and not go down hill as many had predicted. And 9/11 did not bring about the ‘clash of civilizations’ as some had anticipated but instead reinforced the globalization that was already happening throughout the world.

Creative destruction is a paradoxical phenomenon. In a brutal way it reinforces that which is essential and legitimate. I have a theory as to why it occurs, because societies and governing systems sometimes grow inadequate, become complacent and stale, and need disrupting. Societies periodically have to be awakened from their complacency and staleness, hence the need for the imposition and agitation of creative destruction. In the past nations used war as a form of creative destruction, to overcome the slumber and decay they fell into. Today, though, for obvious reasons, wars have become less of an acceptable way to achieve the creative destruction needed to keep a society from atrophying. Wars tended to throw the baby out with the bath water, so it was essential the civilization find an alternative form of creative destruction. Today that mantle has passed on to the discipline of economics because wars have become far too destructive and now not very creative. The world can no longer endure or afford the 'creativeness' of wars, hence the creative destruction of economics and capitalism. The creative destruction that wars once brought about, and now economics does, was also an historic meant to transcend many of the obstacles that humankind had erected, like those of isolation, racism, inequality and complacency.

Systems of governance have collapsed because they ignored or thwarted the cycle of economic creative destruction. Communism is the last such system to collapse because it did. Inherently, creative destruction is incompatible with communism, because it is a closed system that doesn't allow for such flexibility. It forbad any creative destruction through stringent controls and the manipulation of markets. In capitalism creative destruction emanates from individuals, individuals who ‘rock the boat’. Communism, to its determent, didn’t recognize the individual, just the collective. Creative destruction also occurs naturally. Capitalism has acknowledged and incorporated this fact when it harnesses and cultivates its forces, allowing individuals to take the lead. Communism thwarted and denying this organic order of things. Because communism didn’t acknowledge its existence it was domed and unable to renew itself, collapsing in favor of capitalism. Without creative destruction and its agitating forces communism didn’t develop the necessary technologies, resources and management skills to keep going.

To many it doesn’t seem right that we should have to endure these cycles of capitalism’s creative destruction. Why do we need so much creative destruction? The creative destruction capitalism foments does seem exaggerated at time, what with its disruptive ways of out-sourcing jobs, plant closures, market sector collapses and constant socioeconomic upheavals. One reason economic creative destruction seems so have intensified lately is because, as mentioned above, there aren’t the wars like before to change things. Also, the pace of the world has intensified, therefore increasing the need for renewal and the need for other alternatives and additional ways of doing things. The pressure has intensified to keep civilization humming, so it can and will combat its natural tendency to grow complacent and static.

The subprime debacle is not the best example of creative destruction. Perhaps it’s been too destructive and its creative abilities are still questionable. The subprime debacle really shouldn’t have happened in this age of economic savvy and sophistication. People knew better. However, one reason it happened is because the economic lessons learned in the past were taken for granted or ignored. Some people thought they had discovered a new economic nirvana, a new paradigm, or that the laws of economics had been repealed. People weren’t using common sense and forgot that what goes up must come down and that there are limits to borrowing and spending and borrowing and spending. So if there is a creative aspect to this latest economic crisis it is its bringing attention to the fact that the economic principles learned in past still stand and should be relearned. What also must be relearned is the fact that the free market is not the be-all and end-all as some believe it is. For another, the free market shouldn’t be completely left unfettered, but at times needs selective regulation so that it acts less destructive and more mutually beneficial.

Spitzer, sex and subprime.

I think that Eliot Spitzer's downfall was politically motivated. If it wasn't it sure looks suspiciously like it was.

For those who don't know, Eliot Spitzer resigned as the governor of New York because it was revealed that he had sex with a prostitute. He was found out through a supposedly suspicious money transaction. He had transferred something like $15,000 from one bank account to another in order that he could make secret payments to an escort agency. This movement of money looked suspicious to the banks, so they reported it to the US Treasury. The reason it was reported is because after 9/11 it became mandatory to report such movement of money, because such transfers might be for financing terrorism. It was also thought that Spitzer might be laundering money or that he was being blackmailed. (I think that last explanation was a cover, to legitimize the government's monitoring of him, as though it was trying to protect him.)

Spitzer met the prostitute in a Washington hotel on Feb. 13th. By coincidence an article by him appeared in the editorial pages of the Washington Post on Feb. 14th entitled "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime" It outlined how the Bush administration had enabled the "subprime" debacle. Perhaps the excuse he used to go to Washington was to submit his article to the Post.

His article stated that Bush and his administration were partially and criminally responsible for the financial mess that the US was finding itself in due to subprime leading and the housing bubble that followed. He also charged that the Bush administration looked the other way when it was known that lenders and bankers were making predatory mortgage loans to unsuspecting borrower. The loans that were been made were called teaser loans where a loan would be made at a ridiculous low interest rate and then jacked-up to unaffordable level at renewal time. Spitzer, as New York's attorney general, along with other state attorney generals, tried to implement laws that would protect consumers from this blatant, fraudulent practice. However, the Bush administration used its federal powers to block the enactment of suchlaws that would stop this predatory lending.

The reason why Bush&Co blocked the passage of legislation to stop such questionable loans was because it might stop the realization of one of its pet projects. That project was the expansion of America’s "ownership society". Cheap loans would enable the poorest of people to afford a home and buy into the American dream. If Spitzer and his colleges had their way, of stopping such loans, he could ruin the chances of Bush realizing his dream. Spitzer actions could also endanger the unfettered ways of the market place that Bush&Co. worshipped so much.

My feeling is that someone in the administration wanted to pin something on Spitzer because of his efforts to derail the administration dream of expanding America’s ownership society through cheap loans. Stopping such a practice would also affect the banking industry that was aligned with Bush. The banking industry profited handsomely from these types of loans. No, I think that someone deliberately wanted to pin something on Spitzer because of the trouble he had been causing Bush&Co and its associates on Wall Street who had profited so much from these loans. Spitzer was viewed as a pest and had to be stamped out.

When one thinks about it the money transferred by Spitzer from one bank to another wasn't that large and may have otherwise gone unnoticed. As Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor and one time teacher of Spitzer, pointed out to The Times of London, "The movement of the amounts of cash required to pay prostitutes, even high-priced prostitutes over a long period of time, does not commonly generate a full-scale investigation.” The Times added, "Others on Wall Street were wondering whether Spitzer’s financial dealings had been singled out for scrutiny as revenge for his past prosecutions." Spitzer over the years had prosecuted and won against a number of Wall Street financiers.

There are several theories as to why Spitzer got himself into the sexual mess he did. One is that he got so involved in the prostitute business when he prosecuted it as New York's attorney general that he got ensnared in it. He got caught in its vortex. Another explanation is that his arrogance got the better of him, believing that he, as a 'captain of the universe’, was above the law and couldn’t be caught. Spitzer was also a powerful politician. It has been theorized that some powerful men feel so guilty about wielding so much power that they feel the need to be subservient and dominated. With a prostitute they could fulfill that need.

Another theory is about Spitzer being an 'alpha male'. I tend to agree more with this one. The theory goes that alpha males are so work and career oriented that that they are incapable of intimacy. This lack of intimacy hinders and damages their sexual relation with their partner because they avoid and shun closeness. Nevertheless, sex in such a person is still desirable, but with a prostitute it can be had without being intimate.

At first blush the crime committed by Spitzer, if it was a crime, is quite off-putting and serious. But in comparison, his crime is no match to the crimes Bush has perpetrated against the American people, from lying to them about Iraq, to administrative corruption, to his allowing and enabling the fleecing of America.

The subprime market debacle

"Subprime” refers to an unusual and complex economic situation that has been unfolding in the United States. The term conveys a negative situation, which is the intent.

I’m fascinated with the subprime market debacle and its repercussions. I’m waiting for someone to write a definitive book on the subject. I’m surprised nobody has yet. But that might be due to the fact that it is such a convoluted subject and still unfolding. It’s like a pyramid scheme. The phenomenon is like an octopus, with tentacles reaching out into numerous finance markets and who knows where else. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it but here’s what I understand about it.

What people associate most with subprime is the housing market and the real estate bubble it created. But it is also about its contagions in other areas of finance and commerce. If there were a beginning to the whole thing it might be the recession of 2000-1 and the weak stock market that followed. However, there are also other factors that occurred before which helped enable it. Also, a big part of its happening has to with American culture and its attitude towards capitalism.

There are many reasons why something occurs. It's never just one thing why something happens or becomes possible. It’s a combination of things. I keep saying that about democracy. The subprime debacle is no exception. Nevertheless, everybody likes a starting point. So if there were really a starting point it would have to be human greed, and the personal need for more. It also has to do with the American way of life and its pursuit of happiness. And then there is the bandwagon effect, with people saying “me too, me too".

The greed factor is not just an American trait. However, in many democratic societies we tend to have laws that protect us from ourselves, from the worst aspects of human behavior. Americans tend not to like such restrictions because they are more libertarian and distrustful of government interference, on telling them how to live.

Back in the 1990's banks demanded looser restrictions on their activities. Many of those restrictions were established during the Great Depression in which many bank failures occurred. The pro-business Republican Congress in the 90's obliged the banks and dropped many restrictions. This allowed the banks to be more aggressive and creative, allowing them to design many exotic and complex investment vehicles know as derivatives. In time some of those derivatives would incorporate and hide the subprime loans that would later act like time bombs, affecting other areas of the economy.

What also made subprime loans possible were low interest rates. The Federal Reserve of the US had cut interest rates almost to the bone to get America spending and out of the recession, to keep the economy growing. Money was very cheap to borrow and available to almost anybody who wanted it; to almost anybody who could breath, as the saying goes. It was lent even to those who seemed to have no chance of repaying it. But that didn't stop lenders because in a sense the rules had changed, like the laws of economics and what-goes-up-must-come-down had been repudiated. Logic and reason about lending and borrowing money seemed to have gone out the window. And the government and its financial regulators watched all this as though nothing was wrong, as though a new dawn had graced America.

Another thing that enabled the subprime debacle was the huge drop in the stock market in 2000-1. Investors were unwilling to invest in it because the returns were unfavorable. Instead they turned to real estate and housing which was relatively cheap and cheap money made it even cheaper. People thus started to invest and trade in housing like it was a commodity, "flipping" properties and houses left and right. From my perspective it seemed crazy because the prices where spiraling ever upward and becoming ridiculous, Nevertheless, the practice continue for many years, as long as money remained cheap.

All this frenzy inevitably begot more frenzy with every "Tom, Dick and Harry” getting into the act. It also spawned unscrupulous mortgage lenders, mostly due to the lack of government oversight and the relaxation of mortgage and banking regulations. But all this was also made possible by the philosophy of the Bush administration, which encouraged such practices. It had total confidence in the freedom of market, as though it was some elixir. Its philosophy was to encourage an "ownership society" which dovetailed nicely into the subprime activity. People who normally were unable to buy or own a house, because of a poor credit rate or lack of sufficient capital were now owners. Bush&Co, which seems to have a C- in economics, were ecstatic with the results because the subprime market was expanding the ownership society.

The market and the people involved thought that this 'game' could continue forever. And the surprising thing is that people that we would think of as intelligent and in the know, like two Federal Reserve chairmen, thought everything was just fine, that people could continue to push up prices and spend money like there was not tomorrow. To them it was just a bit of "irrational exuberance". Eventually, though, the cost of borrowing money increased, ending the party and forcing many people to give up their houses because they could not afford their escalating mortgages.

All this frenzy eventually led to overbuilding, which then put downward pressure on the value of properties. In many cases the value of the property became lower than the mortgage. As a result lenders would instigate foreclosure proceedings and called in their loans for fear of losing their money, further exacerbating the situation.

Like all bubbles the housing bubble burst, last year, sending shock waves through the financial markets, which had packaged and buried many of the bad housing loans in the derivatives they had devised and sold to unsuspecting investors. Some of the big institutional investors did know what was taking place but thought that since this was a brave new world, as they imagined, the market was immune to the shocks this activity might cause.

One thing that has suffered through all this is, trust. Banking and financial markets operate on trust. Members trust each other to tell the others about the possible risks involved. They generally support each other in times of financial upheavals. But this time it's different. It's as though a line was crossed and a bond was broken. In the old days derivatives involving things like subprime loans were consider "junk". This time they were peddled as if they were prime and classified as AAA. Those who held large positions on those derivatives had the rug pulled out from under them. That trust will take time to rebuild. One other major fallout from all this is that many credit markets and sources of venture capital have dried up, vehicles that are essential for keeping the economy going.

There's lots more to be said about the subprime market.

Global warming

Philosopher Nicholas Maxwell asks the question "Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming? It’s an odd question and he admits it.

At first I thought the question was absurd but then I saw the merit in it.

What Maxwell is trying to say is that if philosophers had spoken up earlier about the perils of carbon dioxide, that it is a greenhouse gas, the world would not be going through the climate change that is occurring now. He pointed out that as early as 1859 a John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas and that a Svante Arrhenus in 1896 speculated that it would cause global warming. According to Maxwell we should have acted on this information sooner.

Now, philosophers have done some great things throughout history. What philosophers do best is discuss ideas and speculate about how humankind can improve itself. They throw out ideas about how we ought to behave and how we might best govern ourselves. They ponder why things are and attempt to explain what they discover to the rest of us. The first such pondering by philosophers led to the natural and social sciences. There would be no science if philosophers hadn't first asked questions about the nature of things and the world around us. Before philosophy, and the sciences that arouse from it, the world was governed by mythology and superstition. Today, one of philosophy's jobs is to challenge its creation and ask ethical questions of science, so as to make sure that it works in the world's best interest.

One thing Maxwell is saying it that philosophers in the past have not challenging science enough on subject of greenhouse gas and the technologies that spews them out. However, philosophy may have been blind-sided by science and that’s why it didn't speak up early. Science has had this alluring, magic appeal and for years has told us that it could fix and cure what ails humankind. For example, one major aspect of human governance, communism, was founded strictly on science, believing that the world could be organized just on scientific principles, without having to be questioned by philosophers. It took years to discover that fallacy. Within democracy we hardly did much better but at least we let the philosophers who criticized live.

Maxwell thinks that if the idea of global warming had been introduced into the curriculum and in the press years ago we would have done something about it sooner. But I don't think it is philosophers fault that they hadn't managed to reach a consensus on global warming earlier. I think that back then, as far back as Maxwell goes in his admonishment, people were not ready to hear or deal with this stuff. People were to busy dealing with other things in history and first getting them out of the way. Now that the world is more settled and basically thinking as one, we can truly start thinking about and dealing with global warming.

I think many other things had to transpire before we could begin to think about global warming, like, for instance, seeing the world from outer space. For another, we first had to develop a political will to do something about it. And seeing the world from outer space as we did for the first time, in its solitude, gave many of us a sense of how fragile the world can be. From that episode Earth Day was born and thus our more unanimous concern for the planet we live on. And until recently we never had a person like Al Gore, who has been the pied piper of global warming's consequences.

There is one thing that Maxwell neglected to address in his argument, the hurdles philosophers may have faced in trying to impress upon the rest of us about the need to do something about global warming. He wishes that philosophers had been able to warn the rest of us about climate change earlier. However, he didn't consider the fact that there have been skeptics and obstructionists in great numbers that have made it difficult to convince a large enough number of us that global warming is a threat, and due to human activity, so that we could start doing something about it. Skeptics and obstructionists probably have been drowning out the voices of reason on this issue for decades.

Today, though, those obstacle are not as prevalent as they used to be because reason has succeeded in convincing most of us that human activity does cause climate change. The skepticism is being swept away by hard evidence. And now what Al Gore has been saying makes perfect sense to the majority of us, the people who count, who care and are rational; the people who want to make a difference and improve the world.

And that is one thing philosophers also do, they bear reason on the world. On this score Maxwell only wishes it could have happen sooner.

Common Sense

The idea for this post came from a review I read about a book that talks about common sense. This book was written by a French sociologist, Raymond Boudon, and is entitle "Renouveler la democratie", which I think means 'renewing democracy'. As I understand it, the theme of this book is that common sense is needed for reviving the democratic process. The author thinks democracy has been flagging recently due to the lack of common sense.

The reviewer of the book, Stein Ringen, is also a sociologist. He tells us about a powerful idea in today’s world, "relativism", or postmodernism. He says that at its extreme relativism means "there are no truths or objective facts, and all opinions are equally valid”. (I think that is an exaggeration.) However, he says, there is a counter-idea to relativism, common sense. Like Boudon he believes common sense is a rational thing whereas relativism is not. Both Boudon and Ringen believe that relativism poses a threat to democracy because it doesn't foster the common interests that democracy depends on. They also believe that relativism doesn't foster the social cohesive on which democracy is very dependent on to survive. Well, I think both men are really talking about multiculturalism, which is a relativism. They think that multiculturalism doesn't make common sense and like relativism it is divisive and destabilizing to democracy.

I never though of common sense as a counter-idea to relativism or postmodernism, so I was drawn to the idea. However, I do think there is a common sense in relativism. Relativism, as multiculturalism, allows for many cultures to coexist and thrive together. In many mature democratic countries that recognition is prudent to keep harmony. But this does not mean a different set of laws and rules for different cultures as some argue. It does, though, make sense because relativism/multiculturalism in many ways adds to the polyphony democracy thrives on, to keep it vital, legitimate and relevant. In Canada multiculturalism makes sense. Canadians have learned to view multiculturalism as making perfect sense, embracing and cultivating it. If Canadians didn't, there certainly would be some serious social unrest, considering Canada's bicultural British and French background and the multiculturalism it has spawned.

I think it’s worth repeating that I think Boudon’s common sense views sounds anti-multiculturalism, since multiculturalism is a relativism. Some people think that multiculturalism, like relativism, is a threat to social cohesion. However, the reverse behavior can also threaten social cohesion, by denying diversity and multiculturalism, forcing people to assimilate culturally. Such a denial can produce clashes that can destroy any possibility at social cohesion. However, multiculturalism does not mean the flaunting of the basic, common laws of the land as some have argued. And there can be comfort in that fact because the common laws of a country like Canada are what unity people and in a way nullify the aspects of relativism that many find harmful to democracy.

The review by Ringen appeared in TLS. It is written under the caption "Trust the people" as though to say that the people are the source of common sense. And this is what Boudon is saying in his book, that the source of democracy comes from the common sense of the people. That common sense is a wellspring for democracy. He also equates common sense with ordinary thinking. Ordinary thinking comes from ordinary people. And ordinary people are what makes democracy possible, government of the people, for the people and by the people.

However, the common sense or ordinary thinking that is behind democracy has not always been there. It has taken time for much of the common sense that is behind democracy to surface. For instance, it wasn't always common sense that blacks and women should have the vote or that people should be treated equally under the law. No, there are very few things on their own that make common sense. Common sense is something that has usually evolved into common sense. Oh, there are some common sense ideas that come naturally, like don’t lend money to people who can’t pay it back. But even that common sense comes from experience.

Culture can determine common sense. The recent brouhaha in Britain about the using of sharia law attests to that. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, suggested that the incorporation of parts of sharia law into British civil law would make perfect sense. In his view aspects of sharia law could be utilized to help cultivate social unity, to help integrate the Islamic population in Britain into the rest of society. Sharia law, he argued, would help the Muslim population traverse and navigate many of the difficulties it has had in simulating into British society.

Well, the majority in Britain thinks that Dr. Williams’ proposal makes no sense at all. Sharia, many argue, would have a negative impact on social cohesion because there would be two sets of laws that would further divide society. As the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out, sharia law goes against the grain of the land and its democratic institutions. Lord Carey said, “There can be no exception to the laws of our land, which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights”. In that light sheria law doesn’t make common sense for a secular culture like that of Britain's.

Sharia law makes perfect sense to some. But it doesn’t make secular sense, the sense Democracy depends on.

Progress and innovation

I was wondering what to write about next and then came upon this question: "Is progress and invention natural or cultural phenomena?"

Well, in many ways it is a cultural phenomenon. Most of the progress and innovation in the last 500 years has occurred in Western culture. Jarad Diamond speculated in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" why this is so, because of the openness and flexibility of the West, especially during pre-Columbus Europe. Europe, the cradle of Western civilization, has been the fermentation of this cultural phenomenon. The culture of democracy and capitalism, which the West instigated, has also been a hot bed for progress and innovation, which is today's chief hot bed for progress and innovation.

In comparison, other cultures have been 'closed' and not receptive to the new ideas that have sparked progress and innovation. Take a look at the Islamic world in recent years where not even a handful of new books have been published. Furthermore, what sustains the Arab and Islamic world economically is the progress and innovation that was mostly formulated in the West. Now, Communism as a culture was innovative but it didn't progress because it lacked the open society that is essential to achieve progress and sustain technological innovations.

What make progress and innovation 'natural' is that sooner or later it is going to happen. And generally it has been the West that has been receptive to this natural process. The West has embraced this natural process more readily and enthusiastically than any other culture. This is why the rest of the world is more and more resembling Western culture, because it has the progress and innovations to best sustain and maintain all civilization.

The inevitability of the Cold War

The other day I read a book review about the Cold War. The book was entitled “For The Soul Of Mankind” by Melvyn P. Leffler. I’ll comment on what I learned from the review.

Leffler’s premise is that the Cold War, which existed between the Soviet Union and the United States for over forty years, didn't necessarily have to happen or last as long as it did. It ended in 1989 with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. He argues that it was not inevitable, “that it could have been avoided at the outset and stopped on at least three occasions before Mikhail Gorbachev.” Nevertheless, I think history made it inevitable and necessary.

As the book reviewer noted, two themes underline the Cold War, the fear of a reunified Germany, especially among the Soviet leaders, and the mission that the leaders of both the Soviets and Americans felt they had, “to save mankind through the triumph of [their] ideology, whether that was liberal democracy or Communism”.

The book has an appropriate title for an event that propelled the world to a more peaceful and secure placed. Prior to the Cold War and for much of its duration the world was a tense and divided place. But the book's title, “For the souls of Mankind”, suggests this was a period of progress and healing, with the conversion of souls working to defuse a potential dangerous global situation. During the Cold War souls and attitudes were changed, making the world a more harmonious and peaceful place. However, the way Leffler writes it, about it not necessarily being an inevitability or that it might have ended sooner, shows a lack of appreciate for this event and its duration. For instance, if it hadn't lasted as long as it did it couldn't have converted and won over as many souls as it did to make the world a more peaceful place. Winning souls is a time-consuming endeavor and the Cold War, by not being hot, afforded the time for leveler heads and reason to eventually prevail.

Leffler mentions the fear of a reunified Germany as one big reason for the Cold War. Well, Germany eventually did reunify but only after the collapse of communism and when it was clear that Germany no longer posed a threat to the rest of the world as it once did. Accepting the reunification of Germany was certainly a soul-converting event that couldn't have happened if the Cold War had not afforded the years needed to digest and convince people that a unified Germany was no longer a threat.

I think there was another reason why the Cold War was inevitable and lasted as long as it did. It had an important mission to accomplish, if you will, that of defining the political and economic system that would run the world in the future. The Cold war, in other words, was necessary in order to fashion out what governing system would eventually govern all of humankind, whether it be liberal democracy or communism. A unified, standard system of human governance and organization was essential because, as history observed, humankind was becoming more homogenous and interdependent. Under such circumstance two compete forms of governance would have been inefficient and self-defeating. Also, this period was a time for the world to work out still outstanding issues that plagued the world, such as the illusiveness of world peace. WWII had not completely eliminated the desire for wars between nations. The Cold War was a necessary event and a stopgap period in which the world could learn to divest itself of its still war like instincts. The standoff, tense but ostensibly peaceful, that existed between the two nuclear power, the Soviets and Americans, gave the world the opportunity and breathing space to develop and entrench mutually peaceful agencies like the United Nations.

The Cold War kept a world war from becoming hot. After the Second World War there were those in America, staunch anti communists, who thought that America should militarily engage the Soviet Union because they saw its newfound power a threat to democracy and America’s influence in the world. Fortunately, there were those in the administration who were more pragmatic and realized that this stance would inevitably lead to another great world war, this time with the prospects of having no world left. The pragmatists won and instead developed a policy of containment that would contain the Soviet Union’s expansionist ambitions around the world. This policy did contribute to the length of the Cold War because the Soviet Union was just as determined to carry on and wasn’t going to be put off in their expansion efforts by U.S. policy. Another thing that made the Cold War a cold war is that both sides were basically matched in their nuclear capability and their going to war would have been a no win situation for everybody.

During the Cold War liberal democracy developed into the preeminent governing system it is today. The competition it got from communism during those years only strengthened it while showing communism to be the fraudulent and incapable system it was. During those years America tried harder to resolve its racist problems because of the antagonism it got from the Soviets in showing the U.S. as a racist nation, as inferior and undemocratic in its human relations. Liberal democracy in turn, through the economic development that was occurring in Western Europe, was really contrasting itself against the much lower living standards of Eastern Europe that communism offered. During this time it became quite clear that the Soviet Empire had to use force to keep its citizens in line whereas the liberal democracy gained in stature and support by being an open society, which required no force to keep it so. During the Cold War the West made it abundantly clear to skeptics around the world that liberal democracy was the superior system. It had sustainability, whereas the communist economic system, it became obvious, was inherently fraught with waste, inefficiencies, ineptitude, corrupt and unsustainiblity.

Alexandre Kojeve, a Hegelian philosopher, speculated that communism and liberal democracy rivaled each other to determine the nature of the system of governance that would eventually govern all humankind. He may have imagined a homogeneous human race somewhat the globalism we see today, in need of a standard, unifying governance. Moreover, in a complex, tightly woven world like was emerging two competing and feuding forms of governance would have complicated things and hindered progress. The Cold War afforded liberal democracy the stage for convincing the world it was the right system, which could also do things communism promised to deliver but couldn’t. Communism couldn’t address people’s needs and aspiration. Liberal democracy not only proved that it could, and provide economic sustainability for the modern world, but it also could deliver on the freedom and recognition that all people of world desired and wanted.