January 2012

New Trotsky Biography

by Ryan Young on November 19, 2009

in Culture, Personal Liberty, Zeitgeist

Robert Service’s new biography of Trotsky is reviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal. Having read Service’s excellent biography of Lenin a few years ago, this seems like a book worth reading. Joshua Rubenstein’s thoughtful review touches on some thoughts about socialism and socialists.

Socialism had three major failings. The first is what economists study most closely. It is the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism, because of the rejection of prices and money as a medium of exchange. Whether you support socialist ideals or not, it is literally impossible to achieve. Do away with prices and currency, and they will emerge in a different form. They are part of human society.

The second aspect of socialism intrigues philosophers: socialism genuinely sought to change human nature itself. People as they currently are are in no shape to realize Marx’s vision of communist society. So part of the communist program was to actively mold and change people so that vision could one day become a reality.

Before Marx came along, Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia were also written about societies with a fundamentally changed human nature. More, knowing his ideal to be impossible, coined the word “utopia,” which literally means “no place.” His book is a pleasant dream (for a collectivist at least), but More knew it was one that could ever come true. We are they way we are. And we’re stuck that way, for better or worse.

This leads us to the third aspect of socialism, which most concerns Trotsky. This is, for me, the most remarkable part, and the most chilling. It is the sheer violence that accompanied Marxism-Leninism everywhere it was tried. And I mean everywhere. Every single country to adopt communism had a checkered human rights record. No exceptions. Not one had anything resembling freedom of speech or press, or due process, or property rights.

Most historians now estimate that communist governments killed around 100,000,000 people. Mostly their own citizens. At no other point in human history have governments been so murderous of their own people. No other ideology has had consequences so bloody as Marxism and its variants.

One reason for the violence is that it allowed the governments to maintain power; resistance is less likely when the prevailing climate is of fear. Another is that human nature is stubborn. If it is to be changed, force is required. But, of course, the basic tenets of humanity are immutable. We are who we are.

Communist leaders, including Trotsky, were simply chilling. Many of them come off as sadists. They seemed to actually enjoy bloodshed. Revel in it. Yet Trotsky still has his admirers today. They need to answer for why they look up to someone who would even have thoughts like the following, let alone give voice to such brutish impulses in public speeches:

“The strength of the French Revolution,” he shouted to a group of revolutionary sailors, “was in the machine that made the enemies of the people shorter by a head. This is a fine device. We must have it in every city.” And have it they did. Once in power, Trotsky advocated show trials and the execution of political prisoners; he suppressed other socialist parties and independent trade unions; he pushed for the censorship of art that did not support the revolution; and he created the institutions of repression that were later turned against him and his followers.

“Not fit for combat,” my article in Forbes

by Michael Fumento on November 19, 2009

in Odds & Ends

It’s not exactly what Pogo meant when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” But it works out that way. The greatest threat to our national security isn’t terrorist groups, rogue nations with nukes or China. It’s an inability to stock our armed forces with top-quality men and women because too many applicants are uneducated and overweight.

About three-fourths of the nation’s 17- to 24-year-olds can’t join the military, largely due to these problems, says a report from Mission: Readiness, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. It’s one reason President Obama is dithering over whether he should order an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. Today we have just 1.4 million people in the active military, whereas in 1944 we had over 2 million serving in France alone, out of a U.S. population less than half its current size.

Read my Forbes article to find out how our public education system is a serious threat to national defense.

Not sure what DDT does to birds, but I know how it helps people

by Michael Fumento on November 19, 2009

in Health and Illness, Precaution & Risk

There’s been much in the news lately about the brown pelican being delisted as an endangered species since its recovery from the effects of DDT. I happen to know people whose work I trust who disagree as to whether DDT actually thinned bird eggshells and thus led to declines in various species. That said, all of them are agreed as to the value in saving lives in poor areas – including parts of Africa today.
A poignant reminded comes in Rick Atkinson’s wonderful history of the Italian campaign in World War II, The Day of Battle. He first describes the typhus epidemic in recently-liberated Naples that carried off a fourth of its victims. “Carts hauled away the dead at night, as in medieval times. Typhus, which had killed three million people in Russia and Poland during and after World War I, is spread by lice, and 90 percent of the civilian population in Naples reputedly harbored head lice.”
Then:

Mass delousing was planned for the entire populations, which would be spayed “on the hoof” at fifty “public powdering stations.” Transport planes brought emergency supplies of . . . DDT . . . and eventually sixty tons would be shipped to Italy. At one commandeered palazzo, MPs carrying sacks of the stuff stood by with spray guns . . . . “The men were sprayed from head to foot,” [as one witness described it]. “The women were shot down their bosoms and backs and were sprayed back to front” Other spray teams prowled caves and shelters, and soon the typhus epidemic ended.

Harvard Medical School Dean Gives ObamaCare a “Failing Grade”

by Hans Bader on November 18, 2009 · 5 comments

in Features, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

The Dean of Harvard Medical School just gave the Obama health care plan a “failing grade,” saying it will harm America’s health and finances, and hamper the medical innovation needed to save patients’ lives. Dean Jeffrey S. Flier writes,

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system.

[. . .]

Worse, [the] legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies . . . rather than the patients who should be our primary concern. . . Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all. [emphasis added]

The health care “reform” bill backed by President Obama “would reduce senior care,” increase “medical costs,” and “could jeopardize access to care for millions,” report health care experts at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The House recently passed the bill by a vote of 220 to 215.

The bill will raise taxes on the middle class. It will also explode state and federal deficits and cost far more than promised. It contains special-interest pork, such as payoffs for trial lawyers, and racial preferences.

The bill will increase tax rates to “European levels of taxation.” It restricts national competition in health insurance, which is permitted in countries with cheaper health care.

ObamaCare spends money on frills like “cultural competency,” while cutting spending on crucial things like anesthesia.

“ObamaCare is all about rationing,” and tax increases, says one of Obama’s own economic advisers, Martin Feldstein.

Fact-checkers say Obama is lying about health care. Obama often contradicts himself. In the very same speech, Obama claimed that Medicare is “unsustainable” and “running out of money,” then contradicted himself by claiming that “Medicare is a government program that works really well,” making it a model for national health care.

CNN noted that Obama’s plan would take away “5 freedoms.”

The Economic Way of Thinking about Stimulus Packages

by Ryan Young on November 18, 2009

in Economy, Stimulus to Nowhere

“[A] government can spend or invest only what it takes away from its citizens… its additional spending and investment curtails the citizens’ spending and investment to the full extent of its quantity.”

-Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th ed., (Irvington-on-Hudson New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1949], p. 744.

Making Broadband Accessible: Innovation, Not Intervention

by Ryan Young on November 18, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Regulation, Tech & Telecom

FCC regulators want to provide wider and cheaper broadband access by subsidizing it, raising taxes, and forcing network owners to share their network infrastructure with competitors.

A few things the FCC should consider:

-Subsidies don’t make broadband access any less expensive. They just change who pays for it. In this case, that would be anybody with a phone. Which probably includes you. The great economist Ludwig von Mises observed that “A government can no more determine prices than a goose can lay hen’s eggs.”*

-The tax would make owning a phone more expensive. And when something becomes more expensive, people consume less of it. With tax-exempt technologies like Skype and Google Voice now available, people can switch away from a taxed phone to something cheaper more easily than ever. The more people who do that, the less revenue the phone tax would generate, defeating its very purpose.

-If a company has to share its network infrastructure with its competitors, it loses the incentive to maintain and improve that network. Why invest millions of dollars if it will help your competition just as much as yourself? Quality suffers. So does innovation. In the long run, it is innovation, not FCC intervention, that will make broadband affordable and accessible for everyone. The long-run view is just as important as the short-run view here.

-Land-based networks are expensive to build in rural areas. The cost per customer is huge compared to denser urban areas. Fortunately, that isn’t as much of a problem for wireless technologies. The FCC seems hellbent on the land-based networks since wireless networks aren’t yet advanced enough for mass-market broadband service. But they will be soon enough. And every dollar spent on old-fashioned wired networks is a dollar unavailable for improving wireless service. An unintended consequence of FCC intervention would be slower innovation.

*Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th ed., (Irvington-on-Hudson New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1949], p. 397.

Senate Committee Rubberstamps Left-Wing Ideologue to Head Powerful OSHA Agency Despite His Anti-Gun and Pro-Junk-Science Views

by Hans Bader on November 18, 2009 · 2 comments

in Employment, Health and Illness, Labor, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

David Michaels, a left-wing ideologue who supports junk science and seeks to restrict gun possession, has been approved by the Senate Health Committee to head the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Only two committee members, both Republicans, voted against Michaels.

The vote occurred with no discussion, and no hearing was even held on his nomination, although hearings have consistently been held on OSHA nominees in the past, even for far less controversial picks.

Lawyer and Second Amendment expert, David Kopel explains how Michaels wants to ban guns in and near workplaces, and could use his position at OSHA to do so, if the political climate shifts in favor of gun control. (Some businessmen in high-crime areas possess guns to protect themselves against armed robbers, and even strict local gun-control laws have generally contained exceptions to allow such businesses to defend themselves.)

The fact that such bans might undermine, rather than enhance, workplace safety would not deter Michaels, who would be happy to rely on junk science.   Michaels wants to reverse the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision limiting the use of junk science.

As the Washington Times noted, “Mr. Michaels also is an anti-gun zealot who has described ‘gun violence’ as an issue of ‘public health’ that ‘invariably demands more and stronger regulation, not less.’ As Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute explained, by way of warning, on Aug. 15: ‘That’s by no means irrelevant to the agenda of an agency like OSHA, because once you start viewing private gun ownership as a public health menace, it begins to seem logical to use the powers of government to urge or even require employers to forbid workers from possessing guns on company premises, up to and including parking lots, ostensibly for the protection of co-workers. In addition, OSHA has authority to regulate the working conditions of various job categories associated with firearms use (security guards, hunting guides, etc.) and could in that capacity do much to bring grief to Second Amendment values.’”

As I noted in a New York Times story, Michaels’ appointment could “dramatically alter OSHA’s approach to ensuring workplace safety.” Michaels has been called “one the nation’s foremost proponents of allowing junk science to be used in jackpot-justice lawsuits.”

Many business groups raised concerns about his nomination and extreme views.

Iain Murray notes that Michaels seeks to ban useful products from the workplace based on imaginary risks. One newspaper calls Michaels “virulently anti-business.”

The lopsided committee vote in favor of Michaels is probably explained by log-rolling.  As The Wall Street Journal has noted, some Republican committee members likely voted along with their Democratic colleagues to approve Michaels, in exchange for Obama’s recent nomination of an aide to the ranking Republican committee member, to sit on the board of an independent agency that is supposed to be bipartisan (the NLRB), but which Obama could conceivably have made even more partisan and liberal than it is by nominating a liberal RINO rather than a GOP aide to that post (that might have invited a filibuster, but there are only 40 Republican Senators, and it takes 41 votes to successfully filibuster a nomination).

Friedman embraces “E.T.” as solution to energy problems

by Fran Smith on November 18, 2009

in Energy, Environment, Global Warming

et

Thomas L. Friedman’s op-ed in the NYT today could have been written by Paul Krugman.  And that’s not a compliment.

Friedman, like Krugman, waxes hysterical about those who are opposing  the cap-and-trade energy bill – those “deniers.” And, also like Krugman, he sets up those opponents as straw men that he can readily knock down.  In today’s article, Friedman worries about U.S. dependence on foreign oil supplied by  ”petro-dictators” and he fears ever-rising prices for increasingly scarce fossil fuels.

So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far and, therefore, we shouldn’t raise taxes to stimulate clean, renewable alternatives and energy efficiency.

Friedman’s terror about world population growth, especially growth in developing countries, is Malthusian.  (See Julian Simon on population and natural resources in “The Ultimate Resource II.”) . And Friedman  doesn’t seem to want those people to use energy to improve their standard of living.  Here’s what he says about that dream for a better life:

The world keeps getting flatter – more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” – with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs.

Such horror one can’t imagine for a person living at a subsistence level in India or China.

In his article, Friedman says that “clean energy” is the answer to the world’s energy problems.  He embraces  “E.T.” (no, not that visitor from another planet), but “energy technology”  that is carbon-less and efficient.

And we believe the best way to launch E.T. is to set a fixed, long-term price on carbon – combine it with the Obama team’s impressive stimulus for green-tech – and then let the free market and innovation do the rest.

His solution then is to tax conventional energy and subsidize alternative energy sources. Right.  That’s clearly an innovative solution that nobody has thought of.  And how would this affect the population bomb he fears?  Undoubtedly, raising the price of fossil fuels could indeed have an effect on developing countries’ populations.  While waiting for those alternative energy sources to develop, they’ll  continue to face poverty and resultant devastating diseases.  Not surprisingly, Friedman doesn’t address that problem.

Regulation of the Day 74: Grass Length in Jupiter, Florida

by Ryan Young on November 18, 2009

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

In Jupiter, Florida, residents whose lawns are taller than eight inches risk $250 per day fines. The city council voted last night on raising the fines to $1,000 per day.

Jupiter, of course, is about as far away from America as one can get.

But wait, there’s more:

The town code regulates items such as when garbage cans can be placed outside, noise volume, parking of boats, heights of fences, the number of tenants and landscaping. Lawns cannot be higher than eight inches in developed residential areas.

Obvious answer to electric car “range anxiety” – gov’t handouts!

by Michael Fumento on November 18, 2009 · 1 comment

in Energy

What’s the greatest fear of the owner of a purely electric car? Running out of juice, of course! Not even a tiny gasoline engine to chug on home or to the nearest gas station. This not only eliminates long trips but can induce a nervousness even around town dubbed “range anxiety.” But fear not; there’s an answer! Installing recharging facilities – and lots of ‘em because juicing up a car battery is a sloooooooow process. (Car owners, bring a book. Like “War and Peace.)

On Monday, reports the Washington Post, a coalition of companies including “Nissan, FedEx, PG&E and NRG Energy issued a report calling for billions of dollars in government aid to support the transition of the U.S. vehicle fleet to cars that run on batteries. The group is asking for $124 billion in government incentives over eight years including $13.5 billion for tax credits to build public charging stations.”

What shock! (Pardon the pun.) Aren’t government handouts, including corporate welfare, the answer to all problems? And everybody knows about the big fat surplus the Obama Administration is running. Meanwhile, buyers of electric cars are already getting a fat $7,500 write-off.

Message to electric car sellers and buyers about “range anxiety”: Sounds like a personal problem.

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →