Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has been in the news lately for both business and political reasons. Business wise it had its first drop in profits in ten years. In Germany Wal-Mart decided to cease the operation of it 84 stores because it could not compete. One senior official at Wal-Mart was recently charged with embezzling funds from the company. Politically, it has been criticizing it for its low wages, poor health benefits, employing illegals and forcing American manufactures to go to other countries to remain competitive. The man it hired to head its Public Relations department to improve its image, Andrew Young, recently resigned because of racial slurs he made. Chicago city council said that Wal-mart will have to pay employees more and improve health coverage if it wants to operate in the Chicago area. And in China, a union is trying to organize employees, something Wal-Mart is very much against because that increases costs.

I remember a drive to unionize was successful in a store in Quebec, Canada. But that store was closed down because of Wal-Mart detests unions. It would rather lose a store than unionize. Wal-Mart has a lot of clout because of its size. A lot of communities are afraid to challenge it because its big stores can bring much needed employment and tax revenues. However, a backlash has been growing to keep stores out of some communities because of the destabilizing effect they have. Now Wal-Mart is thinking of creating more intimate stores which can be located in downtown areas.

During Hurricane Katrina Wal-Mart was a savior for many. When the government wasn't there to help and assist those who had been devastated by the Hurricane, Wal-Mart was there distributing essentials and supplying power generators. Many of its stores in the area were badly damaged by the storm but Wal-Mart, with its vast network and expertise, recovered quickly so it could assist the community. It gained many brownie points for that effort.

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in America (in the world) with sales of more than $220 billion dollars. I remember when GM was number one (now #3). I guess the new mantra in business now is , What is good for Wal-Mart is good for America. That saying was coined in the fifties and used to belonged to GM. The only thing is, that new mantra includes a sad turn, the dumbing-down of American business practices. They include no unions, the downsizing or elimination of employees' pension plans, smaller or no health coverage and low, low wages. Wal-Mart has also destroyed many small-town business areas and many state side manufacturing jobs in its ruthless quest for cutting prices. Many mom and pop store have vanished because of Wal-Mart's competition.

Wal-Mart has helped feed and cloth the poorer people of America by keeping prices down, and has kept inflation down by reducing prices. This is very commendable and democratic. But it has also contributed to the widening gap between rich and poor by creating a ripple effect throughout the nation of cost cutting and the elimination of pensions and health plans. All this has created a greater burden for the middle class, which seems to be losing ground.

Wal-Mart has probably done more for the developing world than it has done for America, by creating manufacturing jobs and raising salaries elsewhere. However, I think there is a positive aspect to this. By creating jobs abroad, Wal-Mart has prevented a possible greater hoard of illegal aliens clambering to get into America due to them not having employment at home. Wal-Mart, thus, has made the world saver for America, by helping to level the playing field, increasing living standards and creating manufacturing jobs abroad, making the world more in America's image.

Perhaps a dose of Wal-Martism has been good for America. It has shaken-up the business community. And business communities need shaking up now and then in order to remain viable, so they don't grow stale and atrophy. Wal-Mart has introduced new management techniques and more efficient ways to produce goods and distribute them. By shaking up things it has kept American business competitive. In being so frugal with medical and pension plans it has force competitors and other corporation to reexamine and restructure their bloated medical and pension schemes. One of GM's biggest business problems, one of the main reason for it constantly losing money and market share, is that over the years it has became saddled with very expensive medical and pension programs. Its cars cost more to manufacture because of those expenses. One reasons for Wal-Mart extraordinary success is that it is leaner and meaner than most. Nevertheless, maybe some day in the future Wal-Mart will also loose its vaulted position and be challenged to do better for similar reasons, because it too became top heavy and out of touch.

Fiasco II

I disagree that all aspects of war amount to fiascos. However, there are those who believe the opposite. I guess it depends on what you mean by fiasco. One thing is clear, war is horrible.

The dictionary describes fiasco as a "complete failure". But what is complete failure in war? A war wouldn't be a complete failure if one side defeats an enemy. For instance, Vietnam was a complete failure for the United States but not for the North Vietnamese who were successful in defeating the United States in South Vietnam, reuniting the country. However, in the long run, was the war in Vietnam really a complete failure for the United States? Today America and Vietnam are at peace with each other. Today Vietnam is one of America's trading partners. Where once North Vietnam remained isolated from the rest of the world, the war made it an engaging and active member of the world community. American corporations are now investing heavily in Vietnam, especially in the high-tech industry. American's are traveling to Vietnam. Though Vietnam won the war, it now resembles America more than America resembles it. Vietnam is developing a capitalist economy. Of course, there is a real fiasco involved, that this war took so many American and Vietnamese lives to end and finally bring peace between them, and make them partners in globalization.

War is diplomacy by other means. Could diplomacy have prevented North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam? Probably not. The North was determined to take the South by force and the South was determined to remain free. Antiwar people think America should have stayed out of the conflict and let the warring parties settle their own dispute. However, America was fearful of the South's defeat because of the 'domino effect' that would cause, the theory being that the invasion of South, a non communist country, by the North, a communist country, would lead to other Asian countries falling to communism. America felt democracy was threatened by such a situation, hence it getting involved, to stop the spread of communism. America's involvement in Vietnam was really a fiasco because America kept compounding its failures there, through incompetence, lack of transparency, corruption and its deceit about the war's siccess. If it acted as a peace keeper between the two instead, America's role may not have been such a fiasco.

Somebody said that WW2 was a fiasco because of the Versailles Treaty. The Versailles Treaty was suppose to have ended WW1. Instead, the Treaty really didn't resolve much but made things worse, which in turn led to WW2. The perceived wisdom is that WW2 was an extension of WW1 because WW1 never really ended. However, it is hard for me to understand how or why that made WW2 a fiasco. Agreed, WW2 was a byproduct of the unfinished fiasco of WW1. However, the real fiasco lies in a fact, that the warring parties of WW1 didn't sign an unconditional surrender treaty, only an armistice. One was signed after WW2, clearly ending hostilities. Also, the victors of WW1 did not attempt to rehabilitate the losers like they did after WW2. Since unconditional surrender treaties were signed ending WW2 and rehabilitation was implemented, I believe that WW2 was chiefly a success, not a fiasco as some believe. The world has not had a world war since.

However, just to puncture my argument a bit, WW2 led to another war, the Cold War. Because of that some think that makes WW2 a fiasco because it also left many conflicts unresolved, such as Korea, Vietnam and the growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, it was a cold war that followed, not a hot one, like the other two wars. It was a cold war because during its duration the majority of the world lived in relative peace, in comparison to the experiences of WW1 and WW2. The Cold War managed to contained the outbreak of a third world war, which was real possibly due to the looming conflict between East and West. The lessons learned in WW2 made the Cold War 'cold', not 'hot'. The devastation and destruction caused in WW2 with conventional weapons and the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan brought a realization to the world, that such wars should never happen again. Hence the Cold War. A 'hot' third world war would probably have meant total annihilation. I consider that a partial success, not a fiasco, because lessons were learned from the past, that engaging in total war was no longer an option.

The main reason why one would consider war a fiasco is because of the lives lost and the destruction caused. I understand that. It is such a waste. However, humankind has always been determined to fight. We have had to learn otherwise. Past wars have shown us the futility of war in resolving our differences. We've had to learn the hard way, that wars are futile. I think slowly we have gottten the point; the majority have. We created the United Nations after WW2 in order to prevent future wars, an institution that was tried after WW1 as the League of Nations but failed. Some consider the U.N. a fiasco and a complete failure. I disagree. Yes, the U.N. is dysfunctional. But it reflects the dysfunctionality of its members. At least it has managed to contain this dysfunctionality so that it hasn't manifested itself into a real fiasco, like a WW3, which would truly be a fiasco and a total failure.

Fiasco

From the blog "Crooked Timber" Alex Tabarrok writes that he is dismayed that people would think that the Iraqi war would be anything other than a fiasco. He has been reading Thomas Ricks' book "Fiasco" where Ricks says "the war on Iraq and subsequent occupation was ill-conceived, incompetently planned and poorly executed". No wonder it has been a fiasco, Tabarrok writes, because "all wars are full of incompetence, mendacity, fear, and lies. War is big government, authoritarianism, central planning, command and control, and bureaucracy in its most naked form and on the largest scale".

I agree that the war in Iraq is a fiasco. However, it didn’t have to be that way. Wars aren’t inherently or necessarily fiascos as Tabarrok writes. This Iraq war has been run especially badly. In comparison, though, the first Iraqi war, in 1991, was much better organized and executed and ended in success. In the present war Bush the younger (his father organized the first war) has ignored advice, ignored history and ignored the world. Had Bush&Co not been so arrogant, ignorant and naive this war could have been a success. This war has been waged by children in comparison. This war was based on the lethal combination of ideology, simple mindedness, inherent incompetence, hubris and shear stubbornness. No wonder it has been a fiasco.

Tabarrok puts the incompetence of this war directly at the feet of the Pentagon. The Bush administration naively gave the Pentagon full command of what was to happen in Iraq, from the execution of the war to the rebuilding and democratizing of it. This completely shut out the State Department which generally is responsible for helping the democratic process in other lands. It is more experienced in such matters. For instance, the State Department played a major role in democratizing Germany and Japan after WW2. The Pentagon doesn't understand diplomacy, an essential factor for ending wars. The Pentagon has monopolized the whole process in Iraq and when monopolizing happens big problems inevitably develop. That is why democracies like the U.S. have developed competing levels of power, to discourage monopolistic practices. Had the Pentagon shared more responsibility with The State Department and others in securing Iraq it most likely would not be the fiasco it is today.

Had the administration not gone it alone this war would not have been a fiasco. Sure, it assembled a “coalition of the willing” but most of that has fallen apart, except for the British, as the situation deteriorated. Had the administration listened more to the military, which had learned valuable lessons from the first Iraqi war and Vietnam, this war would not be a fiasco. Bush&Co seemed to throw past experience out the window when it came to this war, thinking it could do it on the cheap and with minimum effort. Up to this point America had learned to be more cautious and pragmatic about war, especially after Vietnam. Political and economic engagement were now supposed to be the alternatives to war. But the Bush administration refused to do either with Iraq. The “age of reason” did not enter into the equation in this White House. They saw the alternative to war as appeasement and rewarding “evil doers”. The naiveté of this Company and its lack of understanding and nuance is what made this war a fiasco, not the inherent nature of war. Enough has been learned about war to make it reasonable successful, like the one launched against Yugoslavia under the Clinton administration.

Another blogger, Peter Levine, sees the Iraq war as systematic failure, meaning that the whole system of America, the collective zeitgeist of its people, the media, Congress and so on, is responsible. Somebody described what transpired as a group delusion. I agree. However, being the head of the system that failed, Bush&Co. deserve most of the blame. The “buck” stops with Bush. As America’s leader he is ultimately responsible. It is said that people deserve the administration they pick. So, by association the people are also part of the failure, as Levine implies.

After 9/11 America was itching for revenge but Afghanistan, where the attackers were trained, was not a target enough. The public and the media, and perhaps the military, wanted and needed a larger, more visible and rewarding cathartic experience. Afghanistan was not enough, Iraq was. What followed was like sheep following each other over a cliff. Perhaps this blind eagerness helped cause the fiasco.

As for the blog I quoted from at the beginning, “Crooked Timber”, I assume its name comes from something the philosopher Emmanuel Kant said : “From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned”. It is sort of appropriate for this subject because nothing about the Iraqi war has been straight. It was presented crookedly and it was executed crookedly. From such crookedness fiascos are bound to develop.

Philosophy of Containment

Time magazine recently published an essay entitled "Let Your Enemies Crumble" by Peter Beinart. In it he discusses an extremely important lesson of the Cold War that the U.S. forgot or ignored when it came to Iraq. I found the article interesting because I did wonder why this important lesson hadn't been discussed as an option, instead of war. I felt vindicated because the article made a case for a foreign policy I believed was superior to Bush's choice of 'preemptive war', which Beinart said he had initially supported but now acknowledges was a failure.

The gist of Beinart's essay is about the policy of 'containment' America devised to deal with the ideological expansion and military build-up of its arch enemy, the Soviet Union (USSR). This foreign policy was adopted during the Truman administration, following WWII. The idea behind it was that instead of going to war with the USSR, as many wanted, to prevent it from becoming a political and economic threat to the U.S., the USSR would be 'contained' through a number of measures that would limit and thwart its expansion. The idea was that the U.S. would patiently wait out the USSR until it could no longer compete with the U.S. The belief was that eventually the USSR would collapse and crumble of its own accord because its system was inferior and corrupt. In those days, thought, as was with the Iraqi war, it was conservatives who pushed for war. Fortunately, it was liberals who prevailed with their policy of containment, which in the end did the trick. Beinart wondered why liberals didn't evoked this example when it came to Iraq.

One reason America adopted the policy of containment when it did was that America was in no mood to get into another war soon after finishing one. Also, there was fear that a war with the USSR might trigger a third, even more dangerous world war. Under the circumstances, the policy of containment was a prudent choice. Because it didn't start another war, instead, America was free to employ its energies to build and reinforce its democratic institutions, which helped contain the USSR. America's efforts to reinforce democracy at home and abroad succeeded, by way of comparison, in exposing and portraying the USSR's system of governance for what it was, fraudulent and a bad alternative.

This is Wikipedia's definition: "Containment refers to the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War in which it attempted to stop what it called the Domino Effect of nations moving politically towards Soviet Union-based Communism, rather than European-American-based Capitalism."

As Wikipedia added, the strategy and policy of containment became a tactic. The tactic was one of military and economics. Militarily, the idea was to continually keep one step ahead of the Soviet Union through advancements in military technology. That technological advancement could only be achieved if the U.S. invested heavily in science and education, which it did and could. Having a military advantage also acted as a deterrent, which was an intended consequence of containment. Another tactic the U.S. had, which it naturally has at its disposal, was capitalism and the free-market. This was a huge advantage the U.S. had over the Soviet Union - which prohibited free-market enterprise - because the competition generated by capitalism and the free market continually developed and produced the best possible military equipment. This tactic came to a climax under President Reagan, whose huge increases in military spending was virtually the straw that broke the back of the USSR, causing it to crumble. The Soviet Union could not keep up or compete with the U.S.'s industrial-military complex, scientifically or financially. This is a classic example of how the U.S containing the USSR.

The main idea behind containment is that an adversary can be kept at bay and eventually defeated through the superiority of ideas rather than through the use of military power. The practitioners of democracy knew they had a superior product to communism because democracy catered to human nature and its predisposition, unlike communism which tried to subvert and alter it. The pioneers of containment were convinced that the best way to combat the expansion of communism was to promote and cultivate democracy in as many places as possible so as to not only stand-up to communism but to show the world its exceptionalism in comparison. After the second world war The Marshall Plan was set-up specifically to do just this. The Plan's intention was to economically redevelop Europe in free market, democratic principles so that countries there would not be susceptible or vulnerable to communist take over. Communism prayed on economically and politically weak nations. The Marshall Plan was meant to off-set the allure of communism's false promises. The intention was to encircle and contain communism with shining examples of democracy and capitalism, as beacons. Japan and South Korea are other example of America's democracy building for the purpose of resisting and containing communism.

Communism and the USSR were contained and defeated in the manner the original practitioners of containment had envisioned. However, the the policy of containment didn't do it all on its own. It had help from within the enemy that was been containing. Communism essentially brought about its own demise because unlike Democracy it was a stagnant economic and political systems, incapable of reform or reinventing itself. The USSR and communism eventually atrophied and collapsed of its own accord. Containment essential hastened the process because one of the provisions of containment was that no trading be done with the enemy (except for humanitarian aid) that might help sustain it, such as much needed technology, financial assistance or anythings that might help prolong its life. The USSR's economy was inherently such that it was incapable of developing the technologies or financing then so as to keep it up with America or the modern world. This kind of containment, Beinart argues, could have also brought down Iraq because it too was vulnerable to such pressure,

That is the lesson the U.S. forgot when it came to Iraq, that instead of going to war, the U.S., with its allies, could have contained Iraq economically and politically, without firing a shot or killing so many people. And, as it happens, Iraq was on the verge of crumbling anyway. Moreover, because the U.S. couldn't contain its desire for war with Iraq it has seriously damaged its image around the world for being a pragmatic and thoughtful nation. However, the irony is that because of its war and its image problem, it is the U.S. that has been contained. With the Bush doctrine of preemptive war the U.S. acted unilaterally. But as the U.S. has found, to its consternation, containment can also work in reverse. The world, because of its distrust of America's unilateral behavior, has essentially contained the U.S. The majority of world has indicated to the U.S. in various ways that in this modern, globalized world it is imprudent and foolish to act unilaterally, ignoring institutions like the U.N. and bilateral treaties. To compound it all, the cost of the failing war in Iraq has been another self-containing mechanism for the U.S. Because of the expenditure and poor results, the U.S. will now think twist before starting another war, instead relying more on the the time tested policy of containment.

Liberalism vs Liberalism

There is classical liberalism and then there is contemporary, modern liberalism. I have tried to understand the distinction between the two. I have also wondered why conservatives admire and quote classic liberalism but detest modern liberalism. Now I think I have the answers.

Classical liberalism, in many respects, is the foundation of modern conservatism. It started off with the idea that people should be liberated and free from the tyranny of government and that governments should exist for the purpose of helping people purse their own self-interest. Classical liberalism was about "natural rights" as defined by John Locke. Those natural rights are the rights to life, liberty and property. Locke's idea was that government should ensure those rights. Conservatives today whole heartily agree that those rights are sacrosanct, that no government should stand in the way of them.

I suspect that the conservatives of John Locke's day were quite against his liberal ideas because they believed those ideas would challenge the status quo and bring about social upheaval. Conservative in all eras have generally been against social change because it disrupts the existing order they've grown accustom to. Locke's liberalism greatly changed the social and political order of 17th century England. His brand of thinking forced the King of England, Charles I, to relinquish a lot of his authority to Parliament. Because of this, conservatives and liberals battled each other in England's Great Civil War. The conservatives lost. However, in time conservatives adopted the reforms brought about by the civil war and embraced them as sacred conservative values, the rights of life, liberty and property. Today, American conservatives point to the inclusion of those values in their Declaration of Independence as sacred conservative value. However, it was classical liberalism that revealed them and brought them to life.

I wrote about this before, that liberalism is the wedge behind which social change occurs and conservatives are the ones that conserve, hence the label conservative, and consolidate the best of what liberalism produces. Liberalism also play a much needed and vital role. If it didn't instigate social change, and social change didn't occur periodically, there would be more civil wars like the one which took place in England between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. If social change had occurred in Czarist Russian, and the Czar had relinquished some of his authority to the people, the Russian Revolution probably would not have occurred. Similarly, had the Shah of Iran been liberal minded and brought about social reform in his country he probably would have remained in power.

Classical liberalism and modern liberalism aren't that different. The latter is an extension of the former. However, liberalism today has taken on a derogatory connotation and conservatives have become very expert at painting it that way, especially neoconservatives (new born conservatives). Both have felt that liberalism had become too extreme and socialistic. Yet liberalism's mission is still the same, to fight for and entrench peoples natural rights, those of life, liberty and property. Today's conservatives point to the 1960s as a time when liberalism went extreme.

In the 1960s there was sort of a civil war, a revolution between conservative and liberals. Again, such a social revolution occurred because conservative wanted to keep the status quo, which included the continuance of racial and sexual inequalities and a stubborn support for a ruling class that was proofing illegitimate. Why liberalism went extreme in their demands for sexual and racial equality is because it had to if it wanted to permanently move and over come the conservative mindset that stubbornly refused to budge and implement changes. Conservatives were as determined to keep the status quo of racial segregation and social differences as liberals were determined to change things and create a more open and flexible society.

Classical liberalism as espoused by Locke encompassed something that sounded natural and logical, and is something that was assumed enlightened future generations would naturally bring to reality. Moreover. this Reason was enshrined in one of the most salient and revered documents in history, the American Declaration of Independence, which later became the foundation for the UN Charter. However, though the Declaration and the Charter said life, liberty and property were unalienable and self-evident rights, those rights were not logically or naturally recognized or bestowed to all. In American, many citizens, blacks, women and minorities, were denied them. Those self-evident, unalienable rights were not naturally bestowed to all as the Declaration and the Charter pronounced. It is this state of affairs that gave birth to the modern, more radical liberalism of today. In the case of America, if conservatives had not blocked some of the social changes society was due in the 60s, liberalism would not have taken some of the extreme measures it did, such as affirmative action, busing and sexual promiscuity, extremes that were necessary to ensure that true social change did occur so that people would get what was naturally due them, the rights of life liberty, and property.

Hedonism

The conservative blog I have been reading, The View from 1776, wrote an article on hedonism. Many conservative see the world as full of evil and hedonism is one of these evils. This blog associates hedonism with liberalism which it also sees as evil and destroying society.

Admittedly, the word hedonism sounds harsh and derogatory. It sounds like something akin to cannibalism. However, fundamentally it is not evil. The dictionary describes it as the pursuit of pleasure. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with pursuing pleasure because it makes us happy.

Ironically, the American Declaration of Independence, which The View naturally supports, declares the pursuit of happiness - pleasure, as a fundamental human right. The Declaration sees it as unalienable right. So I find it ironic that The View doesn't support hedonism because it naturally follows if one pursues pleasure, if one purses happiness, which the Declaration says is a fundamentally all right, one is being hedonistic.

The View, though, doesn't connect hedonism with the pursuit of happiness. However, as I see it the pursuit of happiness is inexorably linked to hedonism. The “pursuit of happiness” idea in the Declaration was borrowed from Locke's idea about the right of the individual to pursue and own property. It was changed in The Declaration because "property" sounded unpoetic and too materialistic. However, from what I have read the pursuit of happiness means the same thing as the pursuit of property because such a pursuit leads to happiness. So for The Declaration property and happiness are interchangeable.

The View is a great admirer of Adam Smith. Smith told us about the importance of self-interest and its pursuit. Now, to my way of thinking, the pursuit of self-interest leads to and is hedonism because in that pursuit one is pursuing a pleasure and a happiness, a self-fulfillment. The pursuit of self-interest and hedonism, then, are also one in the same. Smith believed that through an ‘invisible hand’, self-interest - hedonism, inevitably converts and manifests itself into acts of good for the whole of society. So I am surprised that The View despises hedonism because perversely it ends up being good for society as a whole.

The View views the individual as paramount in America. It is constantly tells us that individualism is the foundation of America as The Declaration and Constitution intended it to be, as they proclaimed. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that hedonism exists in America writ large because the pursuit of individualism inevitably encourages hedonism. I don't see how one can separate the two. Individualism is the belief that one’s own interest come first and if so, hedonism is bound to follow. As I see it The View is arguing against itself.

Above all, hedonism protects the individual from the State. The View, being conservative, is constantly telling us we should be protected from the intrusion of the State. One sure way of protecting oneself from the State is to show the State who is number one. By being hedonistic, pursuing self-pleasure and interests, one is definitely showing the State just that. It comparison, hedonism was not permitted under communism. And without that basic right, the communist State trampled on all individual rights.

There is something I didn’t mention about The View. Besides being a conservative blog it is also quite religious. So it views hedonism unchristian. It believes that pursuit of happiness in The Declaration is about the pursuit of moral virtue. Therefore, it believes that America has developed and progressed into the great nation it is by pursuing moral virtue. Well, nothing could be less true. That looks good on paper but it isn't reality. America’s and humankind’s moral virtue has generally come as an after thought, developing out of first amoral behavior. In other words, humankind and America have developed perversely, from first behaving badly and doing wrong and then discovering the errors of their ways.

Let’s say that hedonism is an amoral behavior as The View believes. My argument is that without being hedonistic, pursuing self-gratification first, we would not have the foundation to develop into something better. Humans develop perversely, first pursuing their own self-interest and then realizing and becoming enlightened that one cannot only think about one’s own welfare but also that of others if one want to maintain one’s own.

Hedonism is a necessary evil, a wellspring from which better things develops. America has developed and progressed through material hedonism and the View is denying this.

Jane Jacobs as a Conservative

The View From 1776, the conservative blog I have been reading, wrote a favorable article on Jane Jacobs, about her conservatism and her desire to preserve cities. I am glad that The View wrote of her as a conservative because I think of her as a liberal.

That The View wrote about her as a conservative points to the fine line and the topsy-turvy world which often exists between conservatism and liberalism. Jane Jacobs emblematized both philosophies, depending on the social issue. When it came to the preservation of cities and neighborhoods she was conservative. What made her a liberal is her support for things like affirmative action and social justice. Most of us are like her, a bit of both, depending on the issue. People aren't as black or white as the labels of conservative or liberal placed on them imply.

The idea of conservative comes from conservation. People who conserve are conservatives or conservationists. In politics it is the same. Conservatives want to preserve the old ways. Conservatism, as one conservative commentator wrote, "is the persuasion and mentality that seeks order". Most of us seek order because it gives us stability and security. So liberals have a streak of conservatism in them because they also appreciate order and security.

Jane Jacobs, in her conservatism, wanted to retain the order of neighborhoods and cities that she felt worked well in sustaining and animating urban populations. But she didn't hold that view at the expense of ignoring social improvements that could make neighborhoods and cities better, like the involvement of minority and fringe groups in decision making. Conservatives, then and now, are generally reluctant about such involvement because it upsets the order of the day. However, conservatives have come to realize that they can't remain totally rigged and inflexible about change. Some have realized that in order to maintain a secure and stable social environment they must accept change and the input from minorities in urban and social planning. If conservatives had prevailed in maintaining the status quo the barriers between the races may still exist today and with that an eventual social instability and disorder. So to retain order conservative have had to change, to be flexible and innovative in their social planning and policies, like liberals.

In many respects Jane Jacobs behaved like a liberal rather than a conservative when she protested to preserve the inner cities. She was fighting City Hall, that bastion of perceived order. To be noticed she sometimes broke the law and was jailed. Conservatives normally don't behave that way or indulge in civil disobedience.

The View, in its anti-liberal stance, explains that Jacobs had challenged a liberal notion about how modern cities should be designed. That is what made her a conservative in their eyes, that she challenged the liberal notion that modern people should live in tall buildings, spaced far apart like in a "garden city". In between the widely separated buildings would be a network of highways. On paper this liberal planning looked very orderly and efficient, but sterile and uninhabitable. However, that this liberal notion looked so orderly, with buildings and people in their proper places, the whole concept appeared to be a conservative plan rather than a liberal one. My feeling is that if "The View of 1776" had existed in the 60's when Jacobs was battling City Hall and its planners they would have perceived her as liberal and an anarchist, intent on creating chaos, as they think liberals do today.

A view

I have been reading a conservative blog. It is called “The View From 1776”. From that title you can imagine that it is living in the past. And it does. For instance, it believes that the American Constitution should be interpreted the way it was written, just like the Bible should be interpreted, as it was written. According to this blog the Constitution is not a living, breathing document. It shouldn’t be studied or interpreted in different ways. The View believes that America was based on one idea, individualism, and not the collective. However, it sees that the collective has taken over. This is mainly what The View rails against, that the United States is descending into socialism.

One thing The View is really against is the New Deal which was introduced during Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. The New Deal is ”the social and economic program implemented from 1933 to the 2nd world war to combat the effects of the great depression of 1929. It used federal funds to strength the economy and relieve unemployment, chiefly through public projects, relief to farmers and small businessmen, economic controls and labor reforms”. The View argues that this policy has trodden on the very individualism American was founded on. The New Deal was a form of economic liberalism and redistribution, which conservative sight and detest as socialism. However, the New Deal saved capitalism from itself.

Recently The View posted an article entitled “ Gasoline Price Gouging?”. The impression I got from this blog is that complaining about high gasoline prices is un-American and doesn’t adhere to the rugged individualism America was founded on. It believes that complaining about high gasoline prices shows a lack of stoicism and a disregard for the free enterprise principles America was founded on, failings which highlight the socialistic tendencies America has adopted.

The View article about gasoline price gouging starts off, "One legacy of New Deal socialism is the now unquestioning assumption that the Federal government can and ought to fix whatever problems come our way, rather than allowing the ingenuity of millions of individuals to find accommodations and solution.”

Isn’t that an exaggeration, about our expectations of government? But, then, we exaggerate to emphasis a point. The View exaggerates here is to impress upon us that the American oil companies are behaving in the true American fashion, in a way that most Americans champion and in a way that the economy depends on to function efficiently. It also exaggerates to scold us for being cry babies. After all, we should also take responsibility for high oil prices because we, as owners of gas guzzlers and being the biggest consumers of energy in the world, have helped push up prices. It is saying something to the effect that we can’t have it both ways. It is saying that without the oil companies profiting we wouldn’t have any oil or gasoline, period.

However, complaining is part of the system and Americans shouldn’t be denied their bitching. Such bitching ‘pushes the envelop’ to find alternatives and, in the sentiment of The View, to ignite the “ingenuity of millions of individuals to find accommodations and solutions”. Complaining and bitching also is part of the American way. Its purpose is to keep the government and the system accountable and transparent. Without it thinks would be worse.

It is not wrong to expect government to help fix and correct things. That is what government is for. That is why it was invented, to maintain and facilitate a healthy infrastructure. For instance, the government should have done a better job after Katrina but instead it made things worse. The people's expectation of good government management after Katrina had nothing to do with the New Deal raising people's expectations as The View would argue. Had the American people a more competent government, whose incompetence, by the way, can’t be blamed on the New Deal, the pain of Katrina would have been far less and oil prices wouldn't be so high.

Maybe there is something there. Perhaps the New Deal can be blamed for the Bush government’s incompetence, like it is blamed by The View for everything else that besets America. If the Bush administration hadn’t been so consumed with trying to undo the legacy of the New Deal, like it was determined to do, it may have been more focused and competent with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and high oil prices.

On that note, can the New Deal and its legacy be blamed for the bungling of the Iraq war by the Bush administration?

A Mystery

I just happened upon a very interesting and fitting article, “The ‘Mystery’ of the Soviet Collapse”, written by Leon Aron in the "Journal of Democracy". He reminds us that we are approaching the fifteen anniversary of this extraordinary event. An article like this is grist for my Mill.

As you may know, my Mill is the study of liberal democracy's ascendancy and the collapse of communism. The name of this Mill is “The Triumph of Liberal Democracy”. However, to understand this triumph, this ascendancy, I've had to discover and understand why communism collapsed. China is one of the few countries that still clings to communism as a central governance but even there its influence is receding. Aron’s article is a nice welcomed opportunity for me to expound on the subject.

Aron’s article mentions the failure of many Sovietontogists to anticipate or explain the death of Soviet communism. They couldn’t understand that such a revolution had occurred without their prior knowledge. He mentioned a 1993 article in “The National Interest” (the magazine that also published Fukuyama's end of history thesis) entitled “The Strange Death of Soviet Communism”. I haven’t read the article but I understand it mentioned a major reason for its death as economic stagnation. However, Aron did not mention economics as a a major possible cause for the Soviet/communist collapse. In fact, he wrote that the economic condition there failed to account for it, even though it appeared to be the chief cause of it.

I concluded some time ago why communism collapsed. The cause is convoluted, but no mystery. Ultimately, it was the lack of economic renewal and reform that did communism in. The lack of political renewal/reform was also a key factor. Renewal of any kind was something the Soviet/communist state was inherently incapable of, chiefly because of its archaic and static ways in state control and central planning. It is for this reason that China, albeit slowly, also is beginning to shed its communist ways.

There are many factors why communism collapsed, but ultimately it was economic. Some have attributed Reagan’s U.S. military build up in the 80s as the chief cause for the Soviet/communism collapse. However, this also is an example of the economy's reach, because it shows that the Soviets did not have the economic resources to compete with America’s military buildup. They did not have the money to pay for new military equipment since they were virtually bankrupt. They also lacked the science and technology required to achieve military parity with the U.S. This lack also points to the ultimacy of economics because it is from good economic stewardship that the Soviets could have afforded the science and technology needed to keep up with the Americans. The type of economics produced under communism was so inferior to that produced under liberal democracy that it is no wonder their failure to muster the finances needed to keep up. Because of the nature of the Soviet/communist economics - the lack of competition and free markets, the Soviet Empire ultimately collapse because of its own economic ineptness, because it didn’t know or follow the economic imperatives of regeneration and renewal. So instead of being the chief reason for the collapse, the Reagan administration’s military buildup really was one final straw that broke the 'camels' back. Without that straw the Empire may have clung to power a little longer but inevitably it still would have collapsed of its own economic incompetence.

Some think Pope John Paul II was responsible for the Soviet/communism collapse. He was a Pope from a communist country, Poland. This was a kin to putting a fox in a chicken coop. This Pope was seen as a threat to communist world because of the Church’s ingrained anti-communism sentiment. This Pope embolden and gave strength to the Polish people to organize and challenge communism’s authority, a challenge that spread to other communist countries. In a sense The Church and the Pope were taking advantage of a growing discontent. The Pope’s threat to communism was taken so seriously that the Soviets tried to kill him. To my way of thinking this Pope’s tenure reflected and paralleled communism’s decline. In hindsight it appears that communism was on the wane when the Pope was elected in 1979. In sensing this decline perhaps The Church, with this Pope, saw the opportunity to once and for all seriously challenge this authority it always found threatening to its religion. However, I think the Pope, like Reagan, rather than being an instigator or a major cause of the Soviet/communism collapse, really was just another straw that broke the 'camels' back.

It is said that humans can’t live by economics alone. It also needs a spiritualism. The Pope didn’t represent or have an economic connection. Instead, he offered and represented a spiritual renewal. That is one reason for his influence in undermining the Soviet/communist regime, because he offered a spiritual renewal where none existed. This inability to spiritually renew made the Soviets and communism vulnerable to the Pope’s “legions”. However, in the final analysis there is a connection because economic renewal does rely on a kind of spiritual renewal. Perhaps that is where the real mystery lies, in understanding that connection.

Liberal democracy as number one

Since he first introduced the subject in his 1989 essay, "The End Of History", Francis Fukuyama has unwaveringly claimed that liberal democracy is today and in the future the only alternative form of government for the world. He came to this conclusion after studying the sudden and unexpected collapse of Communism, up until then the only competition and alternative to liberal democracy. He said this climax represented the end point of humankind's ideological evolution, an evolution to determine how humankind should ultimately govern itself. Fukuyama felt this extraordinary event required an equally extraordinary explanation, hence his end of history analogy. In a sense it was the end of a history. Not only had liberal democracy triumphed over Communism but it had triumphed over all other forms of government known to humankind. He viewed this outcome as historically determined, having come as a result of a human realization and through the empirical process of elimination.

Why didn’t Fukuyama call this final form of government just plain Democracy instead of using the dual term liberal democracy to describe it? After all, that is what it was known as when it was competing and dueling with Communism for 70 years. I thought Democracy was democracy, no matter its composition. By using the split terminology to describe this end point in human governance, Fukuyama introduced some things that need better explaining.

Fukuyama said that “there are two separate motors driving the historical process”. The first motor is economic and the second is what Hegel called humankind’s struggle for freedom and recognition. They are first principles, hence their saliency. Instead of calling the economic motor capitalism, after the most successful and predominant economic system in the world, he called it liberal. He used liberal in its classic sense. Classic liberalism is the origins of capitalism. As he explained, he used liberal instead of capitalism because capitalism had acquired a pejorative connotation. Nevertheless, they both mean free market principles. Democracy is the name of the second motor because democracy is the only means of addressing and satisfying the basic human id, the struggle for freedom and recognition. He linked these two motors because he realized that neither capitalism nor democracy could on their own satisfy the human condition or fulfill the needs and aspirations of the modern world, whether it be in economics or in the struggle, but together they can.

I had wondered how capitalism and democracy fitted together. Some think that democracy and capitalism are opposing, contradictory systems. However, after some thought I realized that their closeness in western governance has meant and is due to the fact that neither institution can exist without the other in the long run. Their linking together is what has made western governance successful and superior to Communism. Fukuyama understood this. I think he also understood the dualistic nature of the world and its essentialness, hence his understanding the need of two separate motors for a sustaining, meaningful governance. He sensed that the modern world’s needs and aspirations can only be met with two such institutions meshing together. I was thinking the same when I thought that democracy and capitalism could not exist without each other. I also felt Communism collapsed because it lacked such a dualistic nature like that of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy encompasses two interest, private and public, making for a hearty, engaging and active governance. Bifurcation in governance, like that in liberal/democracy or capitalism/democracy, is essential because it affords a feedback system that keeps a governance vital and active, Communism obviously lacked this quality in its single mindedness and composition.

Whether he used the term liberal or capitalism, by joining it with democracy he accredited the idea in me that capitalism and democracy constituted one system, that neither can function well or properly without the other. I don't think he was aware of the implication he made at the time, that good governance requires two separate aspect of itself. Though he didn't say it, I think he believes this, as I do.

The Russian philosopher Berdyeav was astutely aware that a governing system needs a dualistic nature, a bifurcation of authority, to be credible and govern legitimately. He became aware of this as he watched Communism develop under Lenin. Communism was solely base on one theory, that of total state control, without opposition. He instinctively knew that if a government was structured thusly, on one theory, it would lead to totalitarian. He was right because Communism was a totalitarian regime and in time, as we know, a defunct one for it. Democracy and capitalism may have been just as dangerous on there own, without a challenging partner.

Niall Ferguson begged the question, as though suspicious of Fukuyama's claim, "Are capitalism and democracy the 'double helix' of the modern world?". I wondered the same thing. I did imagine that they formed something like the two strands of a governing DNA. I am glad, though, he posed the question first because as a respected scholar he gave the idea gravitus, more than I could have done. I think Ferguson believed they formed a special relationship but couldn’t quite accept the idea that they constitute the final form of human governance as Fukuyama and I believe. However, Ferguson inadvertently implied something profound, that the modern world might not be possible without such a DNA. I agree. If the world was not as advanced as it is today perhaps, then, such a DNA wouldn’t be necessary. I think the pace of this world has made such a partnership/DNA necessary. Prior to this, a DNA has never existed in human governance, either because it wasn’t yet needed or it hadn't yet been realized. The modern world has necessitated such a double helix in human governance for its survive and continue.

As I stated earlier, at first I didn't know what to make of the relationship between democracy and capitalism. Then, I thought, capitalism was an arm of Democracy. Then, because of their close ties, I came to the conclusion that neither one could exist without the other. I realized, with the helpful arguments from Fukuyama and Ferguson, they are two separate branches of the same system. That is why Ferguson's DNA idea appealed to me so much. I was thinking, if all other organic systems in nature require a DNA to keep them healthy and alive, why wouldn't this also apply to human governance. Prior to liberal democracy there had never been a DNA in human governance. Is it that one had to evolve first and then could only emerge under the right circumstances?

Was the war worth it?

In a recent article Time magazine asked whether the war in Iraq was worth it.

I was against the war from the beginning because I sensed that the motives behind it weren't right. There seemed to be an ulterior motive behind it and the politicians involved were not being straightforward about it. I didn't trust the characters involved.

It is too soon to tell whether the war in Iraq war was worth it or not. Perhaps in 20 years. I believe in time it will be grudgingly accepted as so.

Was the Vietnam War worth it? Yes, I believe in the long run it was. Vietnam, especially North Vietnam, was an isolationist nation, not wanting to be part of the greater world. That war forced it to open up. Today, Vietnam is one of America's closest associates, in trade and travel. That war also led to America’s rapprochement of China under Richard Nixon, diffusing possible future conflicts in that part of the world.

Wars, history has shown, have facilitated and forged the world's determined path towards globalization. The Iraqi war, in a characteristically perverse way, as the Vietnam war did, is furthering that process. Saddam Hussein was resisting that process by not cooperating with the rest of the world. Hence, to my way of thinking, the war.

It is unfortunate that the present administration in Washington was so deaf to the advice given it by other, advice that could have made the war in Iraq a success. If the troop levels had been higher, as many in the know had insisted, Iraq today may be more settled and secure. If the troops had protected the existing infrastructure of Iraq, like the hospitals, the energy grid, museums, security forces, things would be much easier. But, then, this administration was from the outset inherently incompetent, because neoconservatives were running things, people who are overly ideological and naive.

Francis Fukuyama, of "The End Of History" fame, originally supported the idea of "regime change" in Iraq. However, he soon changed his mind when he saw how inept and poorly the administration was executing the war. His neocon brothers seemed to be out of their depth, not fully examining and understanding the consequences of such a war. They hadn't learned from the past or the first Iraqi war, ignoring it as though it was irrelevant. He recently wrote an article entitled "After Neoconservatism" in which he voiced his concerns about how neocons are running the war and how it will affect future American foreign policy.

Fukuyama recently discussed the intellect of neocons with the French intellect Bernard-Henri Levy. I don't view the neocons aligned with Bush as particularly intellectual or deep thinkers. They tend to be like MBAers (Master of Business Administration), which Bush also happens to be, who don't or can't see the world as multidimensional, who think the world can be improved or corrected with just a few tweaks. (They are suspicious of intellectuals because they see them as cluttering things up.) If they had thought more deeply about Iraq they may have taken a more coherent, sensible approach in trying to establish democracy there. Democracy is contingent on many things. The Bush neocons thought it would be a cakewalk, done with a few broad strokes. (It took the West centuries to develop and try to get it right.) That is why Fukuyama stands apart from his neocon brothers, because he is a more complex thinker. I don't think of him as a neocon in the conventional sense, but as a pragmatist. If Bush and his neocons had practiced pragmatism - a philosophy ideologues like them detest, - the mess in Iraq would probably not exist today.

Unfortunately, Fukuyama may have had a hand in encouraging neocons to think the way they think, with his "end of history" idea. (I tend to agree with his idea). His idea is that the liberal democracy practiced in America and much of the Western world had become the final form of human governance may have wrongly emboldened neocon. He came to that conclusion because liberal democracy was the only form of human governance left standing after it only rival, communism, collapse. It had triumphed over all others form, implying that it was the holy grail of human governance and that its spread shouldn't be impeded To simplistic thinkers like neocons, such an idea was cart blanche. It made them hubristic and cocky in that they thought they could rightly throw America's hegemony around and it would readily be accepted throughout the world, because, as Fukuyama opined, history had fashioned it that way.

Larry Diamond of Stanford University's Hoover institution was quite exited about going to Iraq at the beginning to help establish democracy. He is an expert on Democracy and he was on a mission, a kind of new frontier mission, landing on the moon. He naively thought democracy was doable in Iraq. He soon had his eyes opened and realized that if you don't have security, which Iraq was loosing rapidly, democracy is not possible. He soon returned to America, saddened and disillusioned. Voting alone was not sufficient enough. Democracy needs institutions to uphold it and they would take years to establish In Iraq.

America and the world have been trying to establish democracy in Haiti for years. After ten years things there are not any better there, but worse. That shows how little we know about what generates and keep democracy afloat.

Sadly, in this world, we sometimes have to get things very wrong to eventually get them right. It shows the perverseness of our development and human advancement. There still is no manual in how to establish democracy in countries that have never experienced it before. It still seems to be a secret as to what really makes it work. Democracy is a system that has developed through try and error. That is what America seems to be experiencing in Iraq.

English as number one.

Perhaps it is arrogant and chauvinistic of me to think that English should be the number one international language since it is the only language I know and am happy to know. Nevertheless, it is my opinion, and judging by its extensive use, from air traffic control to global commerce to the Internet, that English is the only language that is capable of connecting this complex and unavoidably interactive world. It is the chief means of communication between nation with umpteen languages, like those in Scandinavia and Europe. Moreover, it seems logical to me that English should be the international language because it is the mother tongue of democracy and market-oriented economics, the dual system that has virtually come to govern the world.

That English has nurtured and facilitated the world's key governing principles (human rights, rule of law, economic theory and practice, etc.) is an excellent reason why it should be the international language. Those principles were born and cultivated in the British Isles where English started, and from where they were initially exported worldwide. Yet, such an argument doesn't fully explain why English is at this juncture the chosen language of world affairs.

I found a good explanation for English’s predominance in "The Journal of The English-Speaking Union". One of its contributing authors concluded that the dominance of English was significantly due to its being "in the right place at the right time". That makes sense. For instance, English was rightly positioned in two world wars, as the language of the winning side. As a result, English gained a special status, first as the chief language in the fight for freedom, with the efforts of Britain, its colonies and the United States, and then as the language of reconstruction of its defeated enemies. It was the language of triumph. This certainly helped galvanize English as the world's premier language. In the aftermath of the war it became the language of international treaties like those dealing with trade and currency exchanges.

I see a parallel relationship between Democracy's ascendancy and English's ascendancy. English has developed as a user-friendly language, where the user is generally in control of its use. Other languages are not as democratic or user friendly, less flexible and more dictatorial about their use. English is quite a democratic language in that it is organic, constantly adapting and modernizing. I think it is also significant that the two major countries that speak English are the countries that have exported democratic ideals and principles. The Magna Carta, the nascence of democracy, was written in the British Isles. The United States is the one who established lasting democracy in Germany and Japan, the defeated enemies. The U.N., an institution devoted to encourage and reinforce democratic principles and human rights around the world, is headquartered in an English speaking country. English is a modern language. Democracy is a modern governance. The two have a lot in common.

French also had the opportunity of being the international language because it was the instigator of a very important world activity, diplomacy. As the years went by, though, the French and their language lost out to English because of France's losses in colonization, and the influence that went with it. As a result, French was relegated to a second tier language. In directly, those French losses resulted in an introspection, which manifested itself in a protectionist attitude towards the French language which in turn made French less flexible than English and thus less attractive as an instrument of global communications.

Because Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, it could become the international language that English is now. However, I don't think so because it is a very difficult language to learn and use. Another drawback is its inflexibility. This became apparent when China and Taiwan were discussing their separation (Taiwan essentially is a rogue state of China that broke away during the communist revolution) and Taiwan's right or non-right to independence. They had to turn to English for the sake of clarity and reason. Had they continue their exchange in Chinese, the chances of an international incident were very really. Their turning to English may have prevented a war between them. English's usage allowed a vagueness, which English is good at, to enter the discussion, allowing for the ambiguous interpretation of such absolute Chinese terms as nation, state, self-determination, freedom and equality, which otherwise would have been fighting words.

The above explanation of why English is or should be the number one international language may be on their own unsatisfactory, but as a whole those things are what have facilitated English's ascendancy Yet, English itself can also take credit for its rise to the top. As a consummate opportunist it has enrich and advance itself by borrowing from other languages, in the process making itself flexible, resourceful and extremely relevant. However, one historical circumstance above all has given English the opportunity of being number one. Had it not been for the world becoming a sufficiently connected place, the need for a central language of communications would never have been possible or necessary.

Film

I belong to a philosophy forum. A suggestion was made that a 'film club' category should be added to it. I voted against it. Then I realize I may have been too hasty in my decision. When I voted I was thinking it would just turn into a geeky discussion and go of track. But then I thought of the impact movies have had on society since their inception. That impact, I thought, can best be articulated in a philosophical way.

There are many negative aspects about movies, like gratuitous violence and sex. However, I think movies generally have had a positive influential on society. Their mass apply has developed common bonds of understanding. They subliminally have helped align society to function in a coherent fashion, developing common modes of behavior and tastes. In America, where the genre was basically invented, films have helped many new immigrants assimilate to their adopted land. They have also helped expand modernity and democratic values throughout the world. They have, in a perverse way, expanded knowledge in their portrayal of historical events. As propaganda they were encouraging and supportive in defeating the enemy in W.W.II. Often, though, they just have been pure entertainment, a release, like circuses for the masses.

The impact of movies can be enormous. Some impacts are just trivial. Nevertheless, they are indicative of the influence of movies. I remember my father telling me that in one movie Clark Gable was bare chested and not warring at least the customary under shirt. In the following weeks of the release of that movie under shirt sales plummeted and never recovered. A similar thing happened in the wearing of hats by men. Sales of hats dropped as movies portrayed men not warring them as they once did.

Some of the impacts are real and not trivial. Movies can be effective in drawing out social issues that would otherwise be avoided or overlooked. They can raise awareness and provoke much needed discussion. In most respects this task now has fallen on television. But movies still carry a lot of weight in raising conscience. Tom Hanks’ movie “Philadelphia” raised awareness to the needless and thoughtless bigotry displayed towards aids victims. After the movie a more sympathetic and less superstitious attitudes developed towards this once taboo subject. Movies help get out the message and dispel the wrong-headedness that so often has accompanied uncharted social waters. Movies that once portrayed Jews and African Americans as inferior and marginal now portray them as part of the main stream, helping to break down racial barriers and change social attitudes toward them.

There was a time when drunkenness was romanticized on the silver screen. Eventually that stereotype died away under social pressure, helping curtail the number of accidents due to alcoholism. Smoking has declined over the years because similarly it was no longer romanticized in the movies or accepted as a social norm as it once was.

The other day I saw a move called “Far From Heaven”. It was appropriate that I saw it again because of my writing this article. It came out in 2001 but took place in 1957. It was deliberately given a 1957 flavor, in how it was filmed and how it was musically scored. It dealt with two contentious issues that for the most part have been defused today, homosexuality and racial segregation. However, the power of this movie made me feel that those issues were still divisive and with us, that racial segregation and anti-homosexual attitudes were still part of our culture. I remember movies made in that era which portrayed homosexuality and interracial relationships as abhorrent acts, leaving the feeling that they would always be so because the cultural consensus of the day said so. However, many moviegoers back then felt uncomfortable with the discriminator behavior they saw depicted on the screen, about how people were being attacked and marginalized just for being different or themselves. In their discomfort those moviegoers helped change perception and attitudes in future generations. Though this movie reflectively showed how far we have come in changing things, it also was a reminder that we still have a distance to go in making society a truly just and equitable place for everybody.

It is hard to measure how much movies have influenced social change, in making things more just, representative and equitable. My sensibilities, though, tell me that such change could not have happened without the movies, this larger than life art form.

Civilization has needed and had many facilitators to help develop and ease it along, like philosophers, theologians, lawyers and scientists. In the 20th century movies also have played a major role in facilitating and mediating society and individuals, helping us in how we ought to organize and govern ourselves. Some will argue, though, that movies have also perverted society with mindlessness repetition and excessive portrayals of sex, violence and hedonism. All I can say to that is, like all human endeavors, this enterprise also has its negative aspects, its down side. However, overall movies have made life richer and more tolerable.

Holiday in Kariwak Village

I must tell you about the extraordinary vacation I had in February. For openers, it was extraordinary because I did something I said I would never do, go to the Caribbean. Why I never wanted to go there is because I am not a sun worshipper or one to sit around the pool. Anyway, I went to the island of Tobago.

English friends who have been going there for years finally persuaded my wife and I to holiday there. We first arrived in Trinidad and then had a four-hour layover before we continued on our journey to Tobago. I arrived grumpy at our final destination because of the long journey, the lack of sleep and our having to wait for our room. However, the grumpiness soon went as I became acclimatized to the place.

While on vacation I happened to read something about Karl Marx. I tend to search for connections between the things I experience simultaneously. In this case I was searching for a connection between Marx and the surroundings I was in. The connections I made made my vacation more extraordinary and memorable.

Marx was a utopian. The setting I was in seemed utopian to me. Marx believed that the recognition and emancipation of the proletarian - the common workingman, would lead to a utopia. According to Marx, the proletariat's struggle with its opposite, the bourgeoisie, for better pay and working conditions, would lead to a utopia. My feeling was that this vacation spot, Kariwak Village, was populated by the proletarians Marx believed one day would be liberated and become equal to the bourgeoisie. In fact, the proletariat bad become like the bourgeoisie, now also having the money to afford extended vacations in far away places.

The day before we arrived Freddy Laker had died. I read his obituary in The Times, which our friends brought from London. Almost instantly I made a connection between him and this holiday retreat, and also between him and Marx. He was deeply connected with this time and place. Moreover, perhaps he was the one most responsible for the sustainability of this place. You see, he is the one who really made air travel affordable to the masses and the proletariat so they could vacation in such places.

Laker convinced governments to deregulate the airline industry, thus bringing about lower airfares. Lower air fares to such destinations as Tobago also had its Marxist liberating effect on the people that lived in them. It helped bring employment and opportunities to the local people who otherwise wouldn't have them. As The Times put it, Laker saw himself as the champion of the 'forgotten man'. In that thinking he was not only a capitalist but also a true Marxist. Marx would have applauded his helping to emancipate the proletarians and his treating them better and as equals to the bourgeoisie.

Besides there being a connection between Laker and Kariwak there is also a coincidence. Laker's low priced airline, the first in the world, started in 1977. Kariwak Village was started in 1977. It's as though something was in the air; as if they anticipated each other. It's as though the founders of Kariwak sensed a growing need for destinations like theirs. It's as though Laker sensed a growing need for ordinary people to get to vacation spots like Kariwak. Both enterprises were preparing for a growing travel surge, from a public that had more leisure time and money to spend. Both needed the other to succeed. Laker supplied the low airfares and the Kariwaks of the world supplied the destinations.

Kariwak Village considers itself a holistic center. I am one who thinks in holistic terms about the world. Marx was a holistic thinker also, thinking of the world as one. He anticipated globalization and proletarians around the world thinking alike. The tourism that sustains the Tobagos and the Kariwaks of this world is truly a phenomenon of globalization

Our hostess and one of Kariwak's cofounders, Cynthia, is not only gracious but is also a holistic person. If she wasn't I don't think she could or would have envisioned such an enterprise, which require holistic thinking and many different components to succeed. When I mention the connections I had made she looked at me in puzzlement. However, I think I convinced her that all three players I have mentioned are connected, that all are part of the larger scheme of the world, one of globalization and interconnectedness. All have helped facilitate this holistic process.

Does it Matter?

John Maynard Keynes, perhaps the most celebrated economist of our time, once said something to the effect that “in the end it doesn’t matter because we are dead”. He may have said that as an after thought when he was explaining to governments how they could improve their economies. What he meant by that statement is that in the scheme of things it doesn’t real matter what we do to improve our situation because in the end we are dead and we wont know the difference. Nevertheless, I found it an extraordinary thing to say because it does matter what we do while we are alive. And he knew it. Talk about being paradoxical.

What Keyens said makes sense on one level, that in the end it doesn’t really matter. We all understand that. But what about in the interim, before we die, while we are alive? At some point it may not make a difference to the world when we die or whether we accomplish anything. But what about the future and the next generations? I think it makes a difference whether we leave this world with a working legacy or not? So in the end it does matter.

What made me think of Keynes statement is my own writing and whether it matters if I write or not. Who cares? Well, I care. Perhaps it may not mean anything to anyone else whether I write or not or what I write about. Why I write is because I am interested in developing ideas and discussing things that aren't generally thought about. In doing so I can see an enhancing process in me, one which parallels an enhancing process that occurs in society as it does its business and discusses things. What I am trying to say here is that the essence of life is in the doing. So what Keynes said, if taken too literally, is counter productive.

I can’t remember the name of the book, but it is a book that basically said the same thing I said above, that the essence of life is in the doing, in remain engaging and pushing the envelope. The author of this book wrote that when societies work to increase economic production and strive to expand thier lot in life, societies tend to improve and advance. Some might argue the opposite, that expanding our economic capacity and individual wealth, instead, creates more problems for society, like further ruining our environment, creating material shortages and spawning new social ills, rather than advancing us.

The idea that society becomes worse off because of economic expansion and because of our striving for more material wealth was questioned by Julian Simon. He was an optimist. However, as an economist he was also a realist. A colleague of his explained that Simon “believed that the world needs problems because they make us better. Problems make us better off than if they had never occurred.” Simon's conclusion fits right in with my theory that we develop through perverse means. If things were always right, humans wouldn't have to struggle or do anythings. The essence of living is in the doing and resolving, more so than in the final outcome.

Here is one example of Simon's optimism and his not being wrongheaded. In 1980 he bet a group that in ten years the commodity prices of five metals would be below where they were then. During the decade that followed the world's population grew by 800 million, the greatest increase in history, and the store of metals didn't get any larger. And economic production grew during that time. Yet in 1990 the price of those metal dropped by more than half. Shortages and escalating prices brought about a positive effect, conservation, innovations and alternatives. This example turns Malthusian theory on its head, which believed, some 250 years ago, that Civilization would not be here today due to it not being able to sustain itself because of its growing population and increasing consumption of dwindling resources.

I am sure Simon would agree with the author above, whose name I can’t remember, that the expanding of economic activity is good for us because it engages us in new ways, with new problems that require new problem solving. The knowledge gained in one area, like economics, has a way of finding its way to other areas of life, translating itself in other social areas, overall expanding and improving our management and communications skills.

What Keynes said has sort of a defeatist attitude about it. By thinking that way, that in the end it doesn’t matter, because we are dead, sends out a negative signal, like what’s the point of living or trying to resolve problems. I am still puzzled by what he said. However, I think he said it partly in jest and partly in the fact that he knew he was dying.

The Paradox

One of the first books I read about globalization was “Global Paradox” by John Naisbitt. I bought it because I wanted to learn more about globalization. As Naisbitt put it, there is a paradox about globalization in that it makes the world economically bigger and smaller at the same time. After finishing the book I wanted to know more about the paradox.

Naisbitt took it for granted that the reader instinctively knows what the paradox is. Most of use have a cursory knowledge of what it is. It is a phenomenon. But what is a phenomenon?

Knowing the paradox is not easy. I couldn’t find a satisfactory explanation for it. But, then, I was not thinking of it in the traditional, philosophical sense. I was thinking of it as a mechanism, as an action thing, as a phenomenon. What I found instead were explanations for things inanimate. I interpreted Naisbitt’s global paradox to be organic, something that animates and motivates things. He portrayed it as a force that causes change in the world, not as something lifeless and benign.

Hoping to find support for my interpretation, I looked up the paradox in a philosophy dictionary. There, however, I found it described as an abstraction, difficult to understand. There was nothing animating or life-like about it. Then I read a book that discussed the role of the paradox in writing. It described the paradox “as the ‘schizophrenic presentation’ of two or more possibilities, each having equal claim to validity”. It also said that the paradox is a “child of polarity, a linguistic construct by which we give expression to our polarized human existence”. As a linguistic construct it animates what is written through a ‘creative tension’, generated by the ‘schizophrenic’ polemics it incapsulates. A Shakespearian example was given to show this linguistic construct at work where Juliet calls Romeo a "beautiful beast", two conflicting ideas but in combination very revealing and animating. A physical example of the linguistic paradox at work would be the opposing poles of electricity, each also having equal claim to validity, schizophrenically engaging in the creation of energy. This is how I see the paradox, as a power house, a sort of dialectical dynamo.

“The paradox is a child of polarity.” The paradox, then, resembles something in nature, like the the opposite poles of electricity. One of my articles was about contradiction and it being central to reality. Contradiction also is a child of polarity. The paradox and contradiction are related. Contradiction is the stuff of dialectic engines. The paradox is also a dialectical engine. This engine animates, energizes not only the written text but also the world we live in. It also creates and makes things possible. For instance, if the paradoxes of up and down, in and out didn’t exist we wouldn’t have the space we live in.

In many respects globalization and paradox are the same. Both are events. Both have deep meaning and create situations that are puzzling. They both send out mixed signals. Both are mechanisms that facilitate the human enterprise.

The other day I read a blog article that reminded me of the paradox. It presented an explanation for the metaphysical nature of the world. I think it did a good job. The article was entitled "entropy and dialectic".

The article explains that those two events or forces have put pressure on the world to become what it is, globalized and similar. Basically it is this, entropy deconstructs systems of culture and governance all over the world and as they reconstruct and renew themselves they become more alike, following the principles of the second law of thermodynamics about open and closed systems. Communism is a good example of a closed system which suffered permanent entropic damage and then reconstructed itself in its rival's image.

The dialectic, the article argued, adds the paradoxical element to globalization. It is the brain working, saying that despite the growing similarity we don't want everything to be the same. Culture resists sameness. In resisting while also melding with similarity we become wiser and more sophisticated because we are challenged with new concepts and alternatives. The paradox educates and improves our skills because it engages us with conundrums that require dialectical thinking and solutions.

Though entropy and dialectic are two different occurrences they are related. Entropy itself is part of a paradoxical relationship administrated by a form of the dialectic. Entropy is one side of the thermodynamic coin, the side which is about decline and disorder. The other side is about conversion and renewal. Entropy applies to thermodynamics' second law which refers to decline. Renewal applies to the first law. The second law says that in the end systems will come to an end. But the first law says that systems can continue if they are managed well and rejuvenated. What renews and rejuvenates systems is a type of dialectical, polemic action that converts ‘energy’ from less to more, from bad to good, as the first law says. These laws highlight the fundamental paradoxical nature of our world.

The world is always in flux. This flux is due to the polemic nature of the world. Naturally, it is paradoxical flux.

Capitalists and Labor.

The other day I read an article about the violent acts perpetrated by organized labor in the United States during the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, when labor was first organizing. The writer of the article, a conservative, portrayed these violent acts as terrorist acts and blamed them on the growing liberal/progressive element of the time. There is a constant theme to the articles written by this author, one of liberal/progressives bashing and that they throughout history have been the ones who have encouraged and cultivated the environment for terrorism and anarchy.

The liberal/progressives he speaks of in this article worked to advance a just and humane society in America. The author considers those liberal/progressives as subversive elements because in trying to create better working conditions for labor they were disrupting the righteous, free flow of capitalism. According to what I read in this article it was all right for capitalists to exploit labor and deny it better working conditions and salaries but it wasn't all right for labor to demand better treatment for its workers from capitalists. The inference I got is that labor should have been grateful to capitalists for creating jobs and to bad about the abuses perpetrated by them. After all, according to what was inferred, the abuse is part of doing business. However, I don't see those early labor agitators as terrorists or anarchists but as perhaps desperate and cornered people who had little or no recourse to address their labor grievances, hence the violence.

Let me make myself perfectly clear. I don't condone violence. Anyone of reason cannot condone such activity. However, sometimes it has been the only means of recourse because the injustices and intransigencies instigated by humanity wouldn’t resolve themselves through reason. Violence, as we know, gets one's attention like nothing else. And unfortunately, sometimes there is no alternative. It is the means of last resort.

I really don't understand why the writer is against the labor movement. But then, he is a conservative; a state that tends not to support labor unions. And as a traditionalist he has a warped sense of how society ought to function, in a particularly structured, 'ruling class' way. He doesn't realize that the labor movement has had as much a part in creating the capitalist/democratic system we live in, which he seems to admire, as capitalism. The conflict between capitalism and those who have struggled against it for better wages and working conditions is what has made America what it is today, a reasonably decent place to live in. Because of what the labor movement has done for America he should be supportive of it rather than denigrate it.

The struggle between labor and management is what has given capitalism and free-market economics its legitimacy. If capitalists ran the whole show without labor’s input, as our writer suggests should have been the way, capitalism would have destroyed itself long ago like Marx observed. Marx believed, and rightly so, that capitalism's contradictions would be the death of it. Contradictions must to be resolved. Labor has challenged capitalism’s contradictions and altered many of them so as to make it fair and accessible to all. I don’t think our writer who is anti-Marxist wants to prove Marx right. So instead he should be supportive of the labor movement.

The way I understand it, our writer believes that from its beginnings capitalism was a fully developed system, like there was some sort of manual/bible out there on how it ultimately should be conducted. No. Capitalism has had to learn itself and its mode of operation from the bottom up just like has every other worthwhile system of human governance. The labor movement and the violence it sometimes provoked were part and parcel of its development. If capitalism had been full of clarity and wisdom from the start about how to properly conduct itself it would have known initially how to treat labor properly and avoid all the violence that has occurred in its name. But it didn't, hence the need for labor's participation to help shape it. It is, after all, a two way street.

Humans have always learned best and more convincingly through experience. An a priori wisdom has never been enough. For instance, just because the Ten Commandments told us how to behave we didn't follow it advice. No, we have learned its wisdom by first breaking its rules. True wisdom has always been gained through experience, practice and transformation. The free market place of ideas and commerce we reside in today was developed this way and unfortunately also through violent clashes, as those between labor and capitalism.

Capitalism on its own, without the labor movement, would have truly created a system of the survival of the fittest, a system to benefit a few, a system that would eventually have destroy itself or brought barbarians to its gates. Our writer’s criticism, though, is legitimate and worthy because such criticism in the larger arena has helped temper some of the outrages committed by the labor movement. As a criticizer of the labor movement he serves the same great purpose as those who criticize capitalism, tempering capitalism's extremes and helping to make it into something everybody can survive and benefit from, not just a few.

Natural Law II

I showed an acquaintance , JB, the article I wrote on “Natural Law”. I think he was impressed and thought I captured its essence pretty well. Interestingly, he focused on one particular idea I mentioned, “ruling class”.

One thing JB said that is interesting is, “rudimentary to ruling class is the concept of the ‘survival of the fittest’. He said that those two concepts are essentially conservative ones, confirming what I thought. What he said also added support to my argument that the person who originated the phrase “survival of the fittest”, Herbert Spencer, was a conservative. I was challenged on that point by another acquaintance.

JB wrote “natural law is unavoidable and it is the reason why neither communism or socialism are a viable system of economic and human governance”. I agree with him. It is an idea that I have been trying to articulate in past essays. He is saying that natural law doesn’t only apply to human existence but also to governing systems. What ‘natural law’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ are saying is that communism and socialism were not fit to survive because they didn’t follow natural law, the law of the ‘jungle’, which says that you have to remain current and adapt if you want to survive. Also, those systems tried to circumvent and reinvent natural law. All systems have to renew themselves to survive. That is natural. Communism in particular was inherently incapable of renewing itself. There are forces in nature that eat equally away at both physical and abstract systems. Natural law cannot distinguish between them. Abstract systems like human governance suffer from the same deteriorating forces of atrophy and entropy as do physical systems. They suffer from ware and tare, obsolescence and neglect. In physical systems parts have to be replaced. In abstract systems ideas and methods have to be replaced. Both systems also require maintenance. Communism, unlike Democracy, was incapable of replace worn out, static methods and ideas in its governance with new and fresh ones, Inherently it didn’t have the means or compulsion to do so. Communism succumbed to the dictates of natural law. It couldn’t avoid them. Hence its collapse.
 
“But also a natural law is the human desire to "level the playing field" for those unable to do so on their own. So no matter the dismal historical outcome of such efforts, we try and try again...thinking that we just have not hit on the right combination yet...struck the right balance so to speak.” After reading that I think natural law can be manipulated and transcended. How did I deduce that from what JB wrote? Let me explain.

There is Natural Law and then there is natural law, the latter is the advent of humans. Humans, in a sense , have transcended some aspects of Natural Law. JB implies this, although not intentionally. First of all, he believes and said, like a true conservative, that natural law says there are those who are born to govern and those who are born to be governed. But he is also saying that in doesn’t necessarily have to be that way because of the desire to “level the playing field”. For instance, there have been people from humble backgrounds with no governing experience that have become presidents and prime ministers. Such a transition has occurred mostly under Democracy, a system that has transcended and transformed the natural laws of the past. Natural law now believes more in equally than it did in the past, leveling the playing field as JB said. Whereas in the past natural law said it was only natural for kings and monarchies to rule, it now says it is natural for anybody who thinks she/he can be a leader to be a leader. Natural law doesn’t discriminate like it used to or is socially imposed as it used to be. Today’s natural law also says you don’t have to remain poor because you were born poor. It also says that one can move beyond one’s ‘station’ if one has the ability or desire.
 
I sort of get the impression that JB thinks, showing his conservative colors, it is futile to for people to try and transcend natural law and the ‘stations’ in life they have been handed. However, America, where he resides, is a great example of transcending what was once presumed to be social nature law. For instance, social natural law in the past was totally against same sex relationships. However , today it is almost as natural as heterosexual relationships. Also, years ago it was believed that blacks would never be equal to whites. That’s no longer is naturally accepted. I remember reading that in the 50’s it was natural to think that Jews, minorities and women would never rise to senior management position in large corporations. It also was unnatural for them to be in politics. Today those old natural laws have been transcended and the world has not fallen apart.

Natural law

I’ve had trouble understanding “natural law”. Some traditional conservatives and religious people talk about it as thought it should be the guiding principle of life. One article defined natural law as “the innate sense of morality that is believed to be written on people’s hearts and can be divined by human reason.” An encyclopedia defined it the “ theory that some laws are basic and fundamental to human nature and are discovered by human reason without reference to specific legislative enactments or judicial secessions.” It goes on to say, “Natural law is opposed to positive law, which is human-made law, conditioned by history and subject to continues change.” I am still unsure of it.

I guess there is a connection between natural law and religion because it is mentioned as a basis for morality and common sense. The Ten Commandments is a form of natural law because they do make common sense and are hard to argue with. Perhaps it also has to do with the idea that humankind is an extension of God. The rational behind that, I would think, is that God has instilled in us certain unalienable, 'God' given rights.

There is a connection between natural law and natural rights. John Locke (1632-1704) made the connection. Natural law and natural rights are connected because they both make perfect sense. A natural right Locke said individuals have is the right to own property. This natural right is a corner stone of America’s Declaration of Independents. In the Declaration it is worded as the right to pursue happiness. It was worded that way so as not to sound mercenary and selfish. In the Declaration there also are other natural rights Locke spoke of, the rights to life and liberty. It is also natural and natural law to think, Locke said, that one’s own labor is one’s property, belonging to them and should be paid for if employed by others.

Natural law and positive law are not as opposed to each other as one might think. In theory they are supposed to be. But in practice they aren’t that estranged. The Declaration and The Constitution of the United States together is a perfect example of this. The Declaration spells out the natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the Constitution encompasses the positive law that respect and uphold those natural rights. The framers of the Constitution knew full well that people by nature wouldn’t or couldn’t uphold and practice natural law on mere faith, just because it was declared as self-evident. For it to be respected and endure, natural law has to be supported by positive law of legislation and the courts.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that natural law emerged as an idea when it did, during Locke’s time. At the time the scientific revolution was in full swing and philosophers and scientists were beginning to understand the mechanics and logic of nature. They believed if such logic exists and works for nature why could it not be applied to the organization and workings of humankind. The word natural became synonymous with things that make sense and work. It was reasoned that if natural law and its derivatives was applied to the working of humankind and society they would function better and more logically.

Edmund Burke, the supposed founder of modern conservatism, didn’t believe in natural law. I thought he would have because today’s conservative do. However, conservatism in his day was different. He believed in a class structure and wasn’t for the common man. Natural law and its natural rights meant that under it the masses would be liberated and have input in the running of government. Burke didn’t think the masses were capable of organizing and governing themselves. A ruling class should continue to exit, he thought. Today, however, natural law is a cannon of conservative thinking. In Burke’s day it was viewed as liberal thinking. That reversal emphasizes something I have been thinking about, the topsy-turvy relationship that exists between conservative and liberal thinking, often trading places on issues.

I don’t think natural law is as natural as it is made out to be, especially when it comes to natural rights. I guess they feel natural because they obviously feel instinctive and inherently right. They are, after all, hard to argue with, like it is hard to argue with Mother Nature. However, it took some deliberation and education to open our eyes to them, to discover they were natural and inherent to all of us. It took someone like Locke to point out that they are and should appear as self-evident. He pushed the idea of natural rights as a way of making government realize that they are responsible to us, their constituents, not the other way around. When Locke first introduced them to us they didn’t appear to be so natural. However, now that we have a greater awareness and understanding of them they come to us as ‘second nature’, like the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What could be more natural?

Finally, I think natural law implies a responsibility. If we are to expect natural rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we must show responsibility and know they come with strings attached. They shouldn't be abused. And if we are to have them for ourselves we must acknowledge them for others. Also, natural rights require a vigilance because there is always someone around who wants to deny them to us. If we take them to much for granted we could lose them. And that is also natural law.