Rothbard on Reagan’s Foreign and Economic Policy

General

  • “The quintessence of Ronald Reagan is that he is a master in supplying the conservative movement with the rhetoric they want to hear. In all politicians there is a gulf between rhetoric and reality, but in Ronald Reagan that gulf has become a veritable and mighty ocean. There seems to be no contact whatever between Ronnie the rhetorician and Ronnie the maker of policy. In that situation it is hard to know which one is ‘the real’ Reagan.”

Foreign Policy – Lebanon

  • “The second flagrant defiance of the law was Reagan’s refusal to obey the War Powers Act, by which Congress ordered the President to subject the maintenance of U.S. troops abroad to its wishes as soon as these troops become subject to actual hostilities. U.S. Marines have been killed in Beirut, and yet the President stubbornly refused to obey the War Powers Act, and only grudgingly agreed to a compromise when Congress knuckled under and ratified the Marines staying in Lebanon for at least another 18 months.”
  • “Just as in Vietnam, we hear from the Reagan Administration that, whether or not the Marines should have been there in the first place, once they are there they cannot be pulled out, else the U.S. will lose its ‘credibility.’ Once a ‘commitment’ is made, no matter how idiotic, it must be pursued to and beyond the bitter end in order to preserve American ‘credibility.’“
  • “It is fitting to conclude by noting Ronald Reagan’s allegedly noble gesture in ‘taking full responsibility” for the fact that the truck-bombing killed 241 ill-prepared and badly defended Marines. In this way, by drawing all sin upon his own head, Reagan let our incompetent military commanders off the hook. A noble gesture? But let us examine this: In precisely what sense did Reagan ‘take responsibility’ for the killing of a large number of Americans? Clearly in no sense, for the limit of Ronnie’s assumption of responsibility is obviously his oral statement. After which statement, we are supposed to forget about the whole thing…What should ‘taking responsibility’ for the deaths of hundreds mean?”

Foreign Policy – Grenada

  • “Reagan on October 25 invaded the tiny island nation of Grenada, along with a few measly troops from neighboring client governments used as a flimsy cover. Not only was this a reprehensible act of aggression…it violated every tenet of international law and of U.S. treaties…Even more of a violation  is a naked act of aggression against another state and its people…As a friend of mine suggested, ‘Reagan has been anxious to Win One for the Gipper, and so he finally picked on a country he could-probably-beat.’ But even teeny Grenada minus an army gave us unexpected trouble, the Pentagon admitting that it had greatly underestimated the fighting capabilities of the Grenadians and of the Cuban construction workers (!) In fact, to defeat several hundred Grenadians, the U.S. had to send wave after wave of fresh troops, totaling over 5,000, from Marines to Army Rangers to the famous 82nd Airborne. “
  • “Another heinous aspect of the [Grenada] invasion was the impudence by which the U.S. barred reporters from accompanying the invading forces. It was an act unprecedented in American history. In fact, when the U.S. troops found four American reporters on the island they promptly shipped them off by force. The insulting excuse was that the U.S. “feared for the safety” of the journalists. Again, phony humanitarianism and liberal paternalism were being used to justify arrant aggression. For, of course, it should be up to the journalists themselves whether they should endanger their safety. Does the Reagan Administration think it owns the bodies of the men and women of the press, and is therefore entitled to make such decisions? The real reason why the press was kept out, while the war was going on, is that the Reagan Administration didn’t want any Vietnam-like repetition of the media taking pictures of innocent civilians butchered by U.S. bombs and bullets. As it was, the Reaganite tactics worked beautifully, the embarrassing photos were avoided, and the pictures could be confined to happy Americans (happy to be evacuated from the Grenada war zone, that is) kissing U.S. soil. Far better for the Reaganite image!”
  • “[Reagan] claimed he acted to protect U.S. citizens in Grenada. But there was no evidence whatever that these citizens, mostly students at the St. George’s University School of Medicine, were under any threat, imminent or otherwise. In fact, the head of the medical school, Charles R. Modica, was bitterly critical of the invasion, and pointed out that the only threat to the lives and persons of the students was that posed by the invasion itself.”

Foreign Policy Cambodia

  • “The Reagan Administration’s continued aid and support to Pol Pot in Cambodia, the most genocidal butcher of our time, is more reprehensible but less visible to most Americans. As a result, Pol Pot’s thugs are mobilizing at this very moment on the Thai border to return and take over Cambodia as soon as the Vietnamese pull out, presumably to renew their bizarre mass murders. ”

Foreign Policy – General

  • “Reagan calls for intervention everywhere, in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, and demands the blockade of Cuba in alleged retaliation for the incursion into Afghanistan. And what is more, in the service of this policy of global war and militarism, Reagan would totally ‘unleash’ the FBI and CIA, to do again their foul deeds of harassing political dissent, or invasion of privacy, or espionage and  assassination.”

Economic Policy

  • “Ronald Reagan was swept into office by the conservative movement, whose leader and spokesman he had become. He made a raft of campaign promises to that movement, each and every one of which he has broken egregiously. He raised income taxes rather than lowered them, he brought us $200 billion deficits rather than balancing the budget…he has deregulated nothing, he has not abolished the Departments of Education and Energy, etc…”
  • “Even though [Martin Anderson was] a top Reagan aide…stories began to appear in the press that he ‘lacked clout,’ and pretty soon he was gone. As White House aide in the…Nixon Administration, Marty had plenty of clout, being largely responsible for the end of the draft and the blocking of the pernicious Moynihan Family Assistance Program. But now, despite his characteristic care in picking his spots for battle, Marty indeed lacked clout. Despite what I am sure were his valiant efforts, he failed to persuade Reagan to follow his campaign promises and abolish the infamous draft-registration program. Until near the end, his only accomplishment was to block a Reaganaut proposal for forcing ID cards on every immigrant alien. Then, it was reported that, among the top White House advisers, only Anderson opposed raising income taxes in 1982.”
  • “Another noxious device of the 1982 Reagan budget is to raise taxes but to call them ‘user fees.’ In some cases they are simply taxes outright. Others might not be called taxes, but they have the same effect of shifting money from private producers to the State apparatus, raising charges for services monopolized by the government.”
  • “He is seeking tax increases, to the tune of $32 billion over the next two years, and his tax raises are more pernicious than mere figures indicate.”
  • “Ever since the Eisenhower Era, every time the Republicans win, the effect has been tragic for free-market..institutions” – Murray Rothbard
  • “The much-heralded 1981 tax cut was more than offset by two tax increases that year.”
  • “Creative semantics is the way in which Ronnie was able to keep his pledge never to raise taxes while raising them all the time.”
  • “How about deregulation? Didn’t Ronnie at least deregulate the regulation-ridden economy inherited from the evil Carter? Just the opposite. The outstanding measures of deregulation were all passed by the Carter Administration, and, as is typical of that luckless President, the deregulation was phased in to take effect during the early Reagan years, so that the Gipper could claim the credit. Such was the story with oil and gas deregulation (which the Gipper did advance from September to January of 1981); airline deregulation and the actual abolition of the Civil Aeronautics Board, and deregulation of trucking. That was it. “
  • “The Reagan Administration, supposedly the champion of free trade, has been the most protectionist in American history, raising tariffs, imposing import quotas, and – as another neat bit of creative semantics”

Happy Birthday Ludwig!

Today is the birthday of Ludwig Von Mises, an influential economist of the Austrian school and author of Human Action. He was born September 29, 1881 and would have been 130 years now if he were still alive. You can read more about him here.

He was given an honorary doctorate at Grove City College. His work has influenced a diverse group of individuals, including Leonard Read, Henry Hazlitt, Max Eastman, Murray Rothboard, Israel Kirzner, Sylvester J. Petro, and Ayn Rand.

Mises had a broad and impressive knowledge of politics, economics and philosophy married with a keen insight about what was transpiring in practical terms.  He was a man ahead of his time, scorned for things that we now see to be fact. Murray Rothbard observed that “Mises’s warnings of financial collapse and depression were remembered after 1929, although they were generally scorned at the time.” Murray Rothbard once said, “In his critique of logical positivism, Mises saw that a philosophy that treated people as if they were stones and atoms, whose behavior could be predicted and determined according to quantitative laws, was particularly likely to lead to the viewpoint of social engineers, who deal with people as if they were inanimate physical object”

Ralph Raico said of him “For over sixty years he was at war with the spirit of the age, and with every one of the advancing, victorious, or merely modish political schools, left and right….Decade after decade he fought militarism, protectionism, inflationism, every variety of socialism, and every policy of the interventionist state, and through most of that time he stood alone, or close to it…But the lack of recognition seems to have influenced or deflected Mises not in the least.”

Mises discovered the Austrian school of economics through Carl Menger and went on to be one of its leading proponents. I, for one, have found his writings to be very readable, helpful, and simply make a lot of common sense especially when compared with the prevailing misinformation and illogical hogwash that is so commonly labeled “economics”. He also was really good at intellectually demolishing the prevailing pretensions and falsehoods of politics and economics in a very understandable way.

Mises was extremely limited in his teaching post in the University of Vienna, but he ended up lecturing many people, including Friedrich A. Hayek. In the early 1930′s, when people were denying that Nazism could happen in Austria, Mises foresaw what would transpire. In 1940, when the Nazis took over France, Mises and his wife fled to the United States. Mises, lecturing at NYU even up to the age of 87, became the oldest active professor in the U.S.  NYU didn’t pay him, but he was paid through a separate fund, the Volker Fund.

In regard to Ludwig’s marriage with Margrit, Rothbard said that “Margit and Ludwig von Mises were a magnificent team”. Margrit once said that “In the first years of our relationship, Lu[dwig] was almost an enigma to me. I never had seen such modesty in a man before. He knew his value, but he never boasted. … I think it was the extreme honesty in Lu[dwig]‘s feelings that attracted me so strongly to him. These feelings were so overpowering that he, who wrote thousands of pages about economics and money, could not find the words to talk about himself, and explain his feeling.”

Here are a few memorable quotes from Von Mises

  • “Depression is the aftermath of credit expansion.” (Planning for Freedom)
  • “Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.”
  • “Capitalism and socialism are two distinct patterns of social organization. Private control of the means of production and public control are contradictory notions and not merely contrary notions. There is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would stand midway between capitalism and socialism.” (The Anti Capitalistic Mentality)
  • “It is vain to fight totalitarianism by adopting totalitarian methods.” (Omnipotent Government)
  • “The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.” (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science)
  • “As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed at its elimination” (Interventionism: An Economic Analysis)
  • “The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is ‘left’ and what is ‘right’? Why should Hitler be ‘right’ and Stalin, his temporary friend, be ‘left’? Who is ‘reactionary’ and who is ‘progressive’? Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned. And progress towards chaos is not to be commended. Nothing should find acceptance just because it is new, radical, and fashionable. ‘Orthodoxy’ is not an evil if the doctrine on which the ‘orthodox’ stand is sound. Who is anti-labor, those who want to lower labor to the Russian level, or those who want for labor the capitalistic standard of the United States? Who is ‘nationalist,’ those who want to bring their nation under the heel of the Nazis, or those who want to preserve its independence?” (Interventionism, An Economic Analysis)
  • ” It is not because we have distilleries that people drink whiskey; it is because people like to drink whiskey that we have distilleries. One may deplore this. But it is not up to the entrepreneurs to improve mankind morally. And they are not to be blamed if those whose duty this is have failed to do so.”  (Interventionism: An Economic Analysis)
  • “If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.” (Planning for Freedom)
  • “A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police. ” (Liberalism)
  • “Governments which are eager to keep up the outward appearance of freedom even when curtailing freedom disguise their direct interference with consumption under the cloak of interference with business. The aim of American prohibition was to prevent the individual residents of the country from drinking alcoholic beverages. But the law hypocritically did not make drinking as such illegal…It merely prohibited the manufacture, the sale and the transportation of intoxicating liquors, the business transactions which precede the act of drinking. The idea was that people indulge in the vice of drinking only because unscrupulous businessmen prevail upon them. It was, however, manifest that the objective of prohibition was to encroach upon the individuals’ freedom to spend their dollars and to enjoy their lives according to their own fashion.” (Human Actions)
  • “But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.” (Human Action)
  • “The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments.”

U.S. Presidents & Debt Ceiling Raises

Ronald Reagan (~280% increase)

  • $985 billion in February 1981;
  • $999.8 billion in September 1981;
  • $1.0798 trillion September 1981;
  • $1.1431 trillion in June 1982;
  • $1.2902 trillion in September 1982;
  • $1.389 trillion in May 1993;
  • $1.49 trillion in November 1983;
  • $1.52 trillion in May 1984;
  • $1.573 trillion in July 1984;
  • $1.8238 trillion in October 1984;
  • $1.9038 trillion in November 1985;
  • $2.0787 trillion in December 1985;
  • $2.111 trillion in August 1986;
  • $2.3 trillion in October 1986;
  • $2.32 trillion in July 1987;
  • $2.352 trillion in August 1987;
  • and $2.8 trillion in September 1987.

George Bush Sr (~48% increase):

  • by $70 billion to $2.87 trillion in August 1989;
  • by $252.7 billion to $3.1227 trillion three months later, in November 1989;
  • by $107.3 billion to $3.23 trillion 11 months later, in October 1990;
  • and by $915 billion to $4.145 trillion one month later, in November 1990.

Bill Clinton (44% increase):

  • by $225 billion to $4.37 trillion in April 1993;
  • by $530 billion to $4.9 trillion four months later, in August 1993;
  • by $600 billion to $5.5 trillion two years and seven months later, in March 1996;
  • and by $450 billion to $5.95 trillion 17 months later, in August 1997.

George Bush Jr (~90% increase):

  • by $450 billion to $6.4 trillion in June 2002;
  • by $984 billion to $7.384 trillion 11 months later, in May 2003;
  • by $800 billion to $8.184 trillion 18 months later, in November 2004;
  • by $781 billion to $8.965 trillion 16 months later, in March 2006;
  • by $850 billion to $9.815 trillion 18 months later, in September 2007;
  • by $800 billion to $10.615 trillion 10 months later, in July 2008;
  • and by $700 billion to $11.315 trillion three months later, in October 2008.

Barack Obama (~26%):

  • by $789 billion to $12.104 trillion in February 2009, Obama’s first year in office
  • by $290 billion to $12.394 trillion ten months later, in December 2009;
  • and by $1.9 trillion to $14.294 trillion two months later, in February 2010.

Happy Birthday Ludwig

Today is the birthday of the great Austrian economist, Ludwig Von Mises. I have very much appreciated his scholarship and I know many others do. Perhaps today would be a good day to crack open an Austrian beer and toast it to the legacy of Ludwig. He very much established much of the intellectual landscape of the libertarian movement.

HT: Mark Horne

Nationalize GM? That Was Called Out in 1967

In 1967, Marxist intellectuals and other radicals gathered together in London for The Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation. Among those who gave speeches where the likes of Herbert Marcuse, Stokely Carmichael, R.D. Laing, and others.

One of the speakers, John Gerassi, talked about Imperialism and Revolution in America. In speaking about a leftist revolution in America, he said:

And where is the revolutionary programme of the US? Where is that programme that says that we must nationalize General Motors, and explains what we will do with General Motors

(The Dialectics of Liberation, Penguin Books, 1968, p.92-93)

Here you are. That was 1967, this is 2009.  May I introduce Government Motors.

Reformational Progress

“Although the Reformation manifested itself in various ways in different areas of Europe, it shared a number of common denominators. The feudal nobility and the Roman Catholic church hierarchy suffered a loss of power and prestige, which benefited the bourgeois middle class and the monarchs of Europe’s emerging nation states. Regions such as The Netherlands, which were formerly under Spanish or German domination, gained independence, and even in areas where Catholicism prevailed, religious independence gelled through the wide dissemination of Christian literature and Bible translations in the vernacular instead of Latin. Education was stimulated through the establishment of numerous schools and became accessible to the new new middle classes. This, in turn, cultivated a spirit of individualism and critical thinking.

This spirit of individualism which Protestantism fostered was to have long-ranging effects on Western culture. It was a catalyst in the development of democratic forms of governments which further undermined the medieval political and ecclesiastical hierarchies. This opened the door to the elimination of religious restrictions on trade and banking, removing a large obstacle to the development of modern capitalism.”

from The Fall of Christendom and the Rise of the Church by Peter Pikkert, p200-2001

Social Policy Seminar 2009

Introduction

The Institute for Liberal Studies (a non-partisan liberty-minded organization promoting economics, philosophy, history and policy from a classical liberal perspective) put on a Social Policy Seminar this weekend at the University of Windsor. I attended their Windsor Liberty Seminar last year and it was fantastic (here’s my report on it).

These events provide a much needed balance to much of the intellectual and political climate of this area.

There were less people than last time around and I can’t say the topics/speakers quite blew me away to the extent they did last year. However, it was very well worth attending and the directors involved (Matt Bufton and Janet Neilson) really did a fantastic job in putting on this event.

Dan Rothschild’s Talk

Dan Rothschild spoke on the recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Dan is the associate director of the Mercatus Center’s Global Prosperity Initiative.  In my opinion, this was the best presentation and also had the best discussion period as well.   He presented a compelling treatment of the situation from a classical liberal perspective, and it sure didn’t hurt that he dealt with a situation that is still very fresh in our memories. Dan presented his organization’s approach, which is really quite interesting. They have been conducting economics through field work, something which economists don’t normally do. They are covering the “political economy of every day life”.

Dan’s talk was very conceptual, and brought up a lot of good “frameworks” to understand what is going on, and also to help understand the classical liberal way of understanding disaster response.  He had a very ‘economic’ talk, but really brought it down to a conceptual/philosophical/political level which is very understandible to non-economists.

Dan brought an interesting aspect of the situation when he highlighted the difference between facts and interpretation, illustrating this with the example of “looting” (which is an interpretation of “theft”).  He stressed how that while the difference between facts and interpretation is not always cut and dry, it is an important distinction, because interpretations turn into the histories we write. And he also showed how interpretations which arise from the facts create mental models which subsequently reinforce the way we make subsequent interpretations. Dan also introduced a number of  important concepts such  “rules of the game” and also a three-legged stool (political, social, and economic) as representing the resilience of society.

Dan granted that the classical liberal response to disasters is imperfect, since there really is no silver bullet to emergencies. He presented it as having three I’s:  Innovation, Information, and Incentives.

He talked about the Incentives operative in each actor in a disaster situation. For the politicians, the incentive is to get re-elected. So, the idea is consequently not so much doing the right thing, but rather being seen as doing the right thing. This was illustrated by the fact that George W. Bush was criticized for not appearing on the scene, while really his mere appearance on the scene would really not help the people there in any concrete way.  For the residents, the main incentive is normalcy, to have things return to normal. For entrepreneurs, they want to resume business as normal. A main part of the talk of incentives was how bad policies mute incentives.

He then talked about Information, and how price conveys information and sends meaningful signals.   He presented two basic models of how this works, either bottom-up (which encounters the challenge of nobody wanting to be the first to convey information after a disaster) or top-down (via government planning–where the government substitutes economic information with political information by putting up the details up to a vote). He then talked about the critical aspect of Innovation, which comes about by innovation + incentives

Connected to Dan’s talk were some great discussions of what place planning has, the problems with centralization, and what the government’s involvement in disaster planning/response should be.  He really did a fine job of bringing out audience participation, both in asking questions and responding to questions.

David Beito’s Talk

David Beito is the author of a soon to be published autobiography of T.R.M. Howard, a doctor and black civil rights activist. David is a professor of history at the University of Alabama. He described how he became interested in and was led to write about this fascinating and yet generaly ignored early civil rights activist.

David spoke about Howard’s life, his roots being born in poverty and his involvement in the 7th Day Adventist movement, and his eventual involvement in various fraternal societies in Mississippi.

David focused quite a bit on fraternal societies as both important contextual information regarding Howard’s life, and also as a topic of interest due to their provision of material aid OUTSIDE of the welfare state. An underpinning concept of David’s talk, was how the tradition of mutual aid (outside of the welfare state) really paved the way for the civil rights movement.

Howard  became the first chief surgeon at the Taborian hospital (a hospital founded by a fraternal organization). in Mount Bayou.  Eventually, he became increasingly dissatisfied with this hospital, and founded a hospital across the street (Friendship Clinic). While some would think this would hurt the Taborian hospital, it actually seems like this move may have benefited both establishments.

Besides his involvement with the hospitals, Howard was a really motivated entrepreneur, leading him to start many ventures. A major emphasis of David’s talk was how entrepreneurship played a key role in the civil rights movement in Mississippi.  He commented on how the role of the Black Church is often over-emphasized (though it was very prominent in Alabama) and the role of entrepreneurship in black civil rights is often neglected or disregarded.

Howard was unique in many ways. He combined diplomatic skills and ability to charm even his enemies, with a marked militancy.  Since he was marked out by the Klu Klux Klan he often travelled armed to the teeth. Incidentally, David commented on how early gun controls were mainly targeted towards blacks, and Howard had to frequently pay fines for carrying weapons. He led a successful campaign to boycott gas stations that didn’t provide washrooms for blacks and he also gathered together impressive rallies of 10,000 in small towns of perhaps 1,000 inhabitants.  He was well known for his advocacy in the Emma Till murder case and also his confrontation with the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

David also covered many of Howard eccentricities, the way he was rather ostentatious for a member of a minority group and how he was a game hunter, and how he confronted some of the earliest endangered species acts. And as any good biographer does, David outlined how Howard’s legacy was by no means without considerable controversy. Of particular controversy is how Howard performed illegal abortions (often for white woman) in his clinics, causing many people in the black civil rights movement to distance themselves from him.

John Murray’s Talk

The last talk was by John Murray, who is a professor of economics in Toledo (no.. he’s not John Murray the reformed theologian risen from the dead!).  He spoke of comparing health insurance models from an economic perspective, as opposed to the way it has been presented in historical literature.

John started by sharing how the conventional wisdom is that the American system is broken and the other systems have worked. However, he proposed that instead of taking that approach, we should understand why the American system is unique and why it developed the way it did. He talked about the difference between “Sickness Insurance” and “Health Insurance”, and how these terminologies have become political.

I must say that I had the hardest time following John’s presentation, as relevant and important as the topic is, just because it was steeped in a more academic economic approach. He made a very detailed historico-economic comparison of systems implemented in France, Germany, Britian and other European countries and contrasted them with the trends in the U.S., specifically focusing on “Mutual Benefit Funds”.

John explained “Mutual Benefit Funds” as  small private associations that are alternatives to dependence on the State.  He showed how this concept is NOT unique to the U.S., and how it has also been implemented in the form of “micro insurance” in West Africa.

John put forward the issue of whether the insurance was compulsary or voluntary as the key question and also the main focal point of his comparative studies. He also drew attention to te issue of who pay sfor it? Whether the workers, which can involve direct or indirect payment, or whether te employer, or the State (which of course trickles down to the workers indirectly). He also spoke of some “non-member” payments systems. Which included deriving the funds by putting on various forms of “entertainment” as well as a “honorary member” model. The “Honorary Member” model involved a sort of civic minded bourguise which contributed into the funds while opting out of benefits. This system became problematic, because even though these honorary members opted out of benefits, they did have “expectations” in return.

John talked about the role of “informal asymmetries”, such as “moral hazard” (the change of behavior because a person is covered by insurance) and “adverse selection (how people who need insurance are more likely to sign up for it–voluntary funds tend to attract older, sicker workers). He also talked quite a bit about how compulsary funds resulted in increasing paid absences, while voluntary funds resulted in declining paid absences.

According to historical literature, the U.S. turned out different than other systems because either: 1. Various actors (doctors, employers, insurance companies) opposed government health care. 2. It was known that there was too much corruption in government for them to handle such a large fund. 3. Too much democracy was present, and the whole progression of health insurance was held up by the process of democracy. John then made a number of comments on these, and showed ow each assumption is not really satisfactory.

John brought out an interesting point when he highlighted how the progressives who were pushing reforms had a very negative view of the working class. He also showed how the mutual health funds were actually popular, and the progressives reforms were normally opposed by the majority of the working class, there was never really wide-spread working class interest in government insurance.  He also made the point that while the progressive’s vision of health insurance may have delivered slightly more benefits, it was also far more costly than the American system of mutal health funds, requiring far more to be deducted off paychecks.  Ultimately, the mutal health fund system was a more efficient use of the workers money, which is really the best explanation of why the American system turned out the way it did.

I don’t know how well I covered this particular talk since it sort of lost me at a few points, but I think I’ve covered some of the main themes in a descent amount of detail. I must confess I got sort of tired during this topic, though I know the economic-history buffs in the room were just drooling!

Concluding Remarks

Now that I’ve given the wraps on the topics, I’d like to mention that I got another signed book by a great Canadian philosopher, Jan Narveson:  “Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice”.  He’s a retired professor of philosophy from the University of Waterloo, and apparently he’s Canada’s most published philosopher.  Another highlight was the short chat a friend and I was able to have with him. It sort of got cut off by a presentation, and unfortunately we never got to continue it!

The seminar cost $20, which includes cofee/tea and a pretty good lunch! These events are well worth attending, if you can show up next time they put it on! It will be sure to challenge and inform you. Even if you don’t agree with everything, you will find that these events have topics that are well-thought-out with very intelligent speakers. And the organizers really want to get the attendees involved with break-out sessions and what not as well, giving you a chance to chime in.

The Garden of Eden in Schopenhauer and Watts

The narrative of the fall in the Garden of Eden is of utmost important to the Christian faith, particularly in explaining The Fall, Sin, and redemption.

Non-Christian thinkers have also recognized the importance of the Garden of Eden. Individually, they have assessed it in different ways, some ridiculing it and others outlining its importance and yet reinterpreting it allegorically. In effect both of these poles entail rejecting its meaning as defined by Christianity.  But one way or the other, these thinkers have rightly understood how crucial the Garden and The Fall are in the Christian understanding of history.

First, I wish to refer to what Arthur Schopenhauer has to say about it. He simultaneously gives it credit as being a uniquely important part of the Old Testament, and yet  simultaneously frames it allegorically:

Accordingly, the sole thing that reconciles me to the Old Testament is the story of the Fall. In my eyes, it is the only metaphysical truth in that book, even though it appears in the form of an allegory. There seems to me no better explanation of our existence than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which we are paying the penalty.

(The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism, )

Next, I will refer to Alan Watts (for an explanation as to why I am venturing into studying some of his thought, please read this post), who is far more overtly flippant and careless with interpreting the story.

This is, of course, what happened to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and perhaps it was an unripe apple that made Eve ill. It is not usually understood that she was a little girl and Adam a little boy, because they are always portrayed as mature adults, but they were obviously a couple of kids scrounging around Big Daddy’s garden. Having thoroughly satisfied themselves on gooseberries, raw peas, and green apples, they hid between the tomato parts and began to examine each other’s private parts. But just then Big Daddy came along and said, “God damn it, get the hell out of here, you little bastards!”

(In My Own Way: An Autobiography, Alan Watts, 1972, p22)

As you can see, Schopenhauer’s approach avoids the vulgarity and flippancy of that of Watts. And Watts makes a number of inferences that are pretty far out there, probably mainly tounge-in-cheek..I don’t think he’s that ignorant of the details of the Garden Narrative.

However, when it comes down to it, the truth is that both are playing fast and loose with God’s revelation, and ultimately picking out parts that they want.  Just because Schopenhauer frames his terms in a less confrontational manner, does he mean he is ultimately treating God’s revelation with any more reverence than Watts.  In fact, while Watts may seem rather sacriligous, it appears that if anything, Watts for all his unbelief better understood the theological impact of the garden narrative than Schopenhauer.  He understood it could not be simply explained away by making it allegorical.

Schopenhauer thought he could affirm The Fall’s importance (while relegating the rest of Old Testament revelation to uselessness) by relegating it to the allegorical. Alan Watts seemed to better understand the interconnectedness, and rather takes a skewed interpretation of the narrative, which is ultimately wrong but retains the seriousness of it. In a footnote, Watts also explains his vulgar language in describing the narrative with the following statement:

The vulgar language is, as always, soundly grounded in theology. In the Catholic and Christian scheme of things we are sons of God by adoption and grace, not by nature, since God has only one Son, rendering the rest of us bastards essentially damned and in hell.

(In My Own Way: An Autobiography, Alan Watts, 1972, p22)

So, while both Schopenhauer and Watts present The Fall framed in a context of unbelief, the “less overt” unbelief (of Schopenhauer)  is in some limited ways less insidious than the “more overt” unbelief (Watts).  Schopenhauer couches his unbelief in feigned respect for the narrative and appeals to allegory, while Watts is more direct and clear in his unbelief.  And it appears to me that this signals that Watts is actually the one who better understands (but of course, rejects) the real meaning of The Fall. I would say that the unbelief of Schopenhauer has done more damage, simply because it is couched in language that by nature appeals more to the Christian church and people with Christian language.  In Alan Watts’ assesment, there is a stark contrast between belief unbelief, but in Schopenhauer there is a dangerous ambivalence which mirrors the way the modernists of “liberal Christianity” have similarily done much damage by making their unbelief “more palpable”.