What’s Wrong with the World

The word "free market" is equivocal. I doubt many traditionalists would mind freedom for small-business entrepreneurship.But "free market" for international banks and multinationals is something else altogether

Progressives are liars and would use any excuse to advance their agenda. If not this, then that. Plausible or implausible. Now we have State Department monitoring gay rights all over the world.

Also pursuit for material prosperity is never-ending. Else why is the West so roiled-up by a pause in the economic growth when they are at least ten times richer than Philippines.

>>The word "free market" is equivocal. I doubt many traditionalists would mind freedom for small-business entrepreneurship.But "free market" for international banks and multinationals is something else altogether.

As is the acquisitive consumerism that necessarily accompanies modern capitalism. In the long run this would be self-defeating for any sort of moral traditionalism, as the same autonomous individualism that drives capitalist consumerism drives sexual "liberation," even if the latter tends to trail the former culturally.

Gian, what if involvement with multinationals would significantly help the deeply poor in the Philippines? Are you really committed to the proposition that that would be *intrinsically* immoral and therefore never right no matter what the results for real people?

I agree with you that progressives are liars, though. However, I think you might be surprised at the way that some myths (such as that population per se causes poverty) are easier to accept for ordinary people than others. No reason to cater to this one by keeping people in poverty.

NM, ah, I expected you. Yes, well, I guess there's nothing to be done, then. Just leave people poor. Because to do anything that might, God forbid, set free what *you* call "acquisitive consumerism" would be so terrible that it would undermine the society anyway, so better for them to live in virtuous, grinding poverty than to be tempted to buy ipads.

Gian, another point: Countries that are poor and really need foreign aid are a lot more vulnerable to the toxic agendas of the international community. They can't just tell them to go pound sand so easily.

An analogy: Single mothers get interfered with more by Child Protective Services with their busy-body and usually very liberal ideas about child-rearing. Because of their usual comparative poverty they also usually can't afford either to home school or to send a child to Christian school. Intact families are more of a bulwark for the imparting of a traditional Christian worldview to the child in an environment safe from continual liberal interference.

Hey, Lydia, nice of you to put words in my mouth. I guess I should expect that by now, given your constitutional inability to differentiate between free markets and consumerist capitalism. "Agrarian development and small business entrepreneurship" would be greatly helpful. Unfortunately this is not what contemporary free marketeers generally mean when they recommend a dose of capitalism, which usually entails Monsanto and McDonald's more than farms and local businesses.

Well, y'know, just how bad would it be if they got McDonald's in the process or if Montsanto got involved in their agrarian development? Would this be intrinsically wrong? Would this mean that they would all magically turn into sexual libertines? (Maybe there's something in McDonald's french fries that does that to people.) If they were materially better off, would it be some sort of inherently poisonous material well-being because of the involvement of those companies?

Or, to float a slightly less crazy theory, is the idea merely supposed to be that Montanto and McDonald's would use their advertising in the country to promote debauchery while selling their innocent products?

In short, consumerist capitalism, in raising acquisitiveness and freedom of choice to (false) virtues, is necessarily corrosive of the true ones. As the true virtues corrode the vices become more prominent.

So just exactly how to you propose that people should have perfectly legitimate and humanely desirable material well-being and prosperity without becoming "too" acquisitve or having "too many" "consumerist" choices so that they cease being virtuous?

Do we maybe have a central committee that decides what technology represents a need and what represents a want and then outlaw the sale, purchase, or possession of all things designated by the Committee as mere wants? (The choice of which would therefore corrode virtue.)

The thing is, NM, you say sometimes you don't want top-down solutions, but it looks like some top-down failed policies have been imposed on the Philippines here. And the fact is that if you _don't_ do something like I suggested in the previous paragraph, and if a country like the Philippines does enact policies that cause it to become more materially prosperous, it's pretty much inevitable that people are going to begin wanting and buying the things you identify with "consumerism" and don't want people to want or buy. So the options appear to be to keep people in poverty so the issue doesn't arise, to try to allow prosperity with draconian rules to prevent what you consider to be "consumerism," or to allow what you consider to be "consumerism."

Why don't we start by attempting to disentangle "agriculture and small business" from the enthronement of acquisitiveness and Enlightenment notions of choice? How about promoting thrift, prudence and temperance in economics instead of, say, avarice, hoarding, and opportunism?

Why not attempt to reconnect economics and virtue?

I imagine that many Filipinos aren't so bad at thrift, prudence, and virtue as things stand right now. The point I was making in my previous comment, however, is that if you improve the economic conditions of the country and don't forbid ipads, etc., some of them may want to buy them. Or even get on Facebook. Or start a McDonald's franchise. Your abstract advice isn't something I object to in the abstract. But how, concretely, does one connect that benign-sounding advice with your sweeping condemnations of other things without getting draconian? Or for that matter how does one give cash value to the advice at all in your own terms?

I think that one thing that can be done is to resist as much as possible both statist and corporatist "solutions" to the poverty problem, rejecting the notion that either big government or big business (or, God forbid, some unholy amalgam of the two) is the way to fix the thing. As Gian implies, "bigness" is not the answer, as both statists and corporatists generally have other agendas than helping the poor.

The ideas of non-acquisitiveness, stewardship, prudence, etc. should be emphasized from the beginning of the effort, since once the evangelists of bigness get their feet in the door it is devilish hard to get rid of them. It's much easier to avoid the "buy - wear out - throw away - upgrade" cycle altogether than to break out of it once you're in it. The point is to educate people so that they don't want unnecessary crap, not to prevent them from having it. And yes, this involves the reclassification of greed as a vice, and removing it from where it's been on the list of virtues for the past couple hundred years.

NM, I tend to agree with the statement of purposes and of long-range goals. I just don't get what that implies in the concrete, the actually doable here and now.

For example, I can agree that a nation of 100,000 successful small farmers is, by and large, better and more wholesome than a nation of 10,000 small farmers that can barely scrape by and 5 large argi-businesses. OK, we agree on that. WHAT, specifically, are we to do to support and promote small farm operations and dis-incentivize large ones? That is to say, what otherwise "free market" choices do we take off the table that large agri-businesses effectively take advantage of that should NOT be available to them? And how do we justify that other than by simply saying we prefer the small owner to the investor in the large corporate owner? And does that rationale justify changing the current playing field rules by which the large agri came to be legally (is it sufficient to effectively de-legitimize existing operations that people invested in with some expectation of continuing under the same playing field rules)?

This may sound like I am opposed to your suggestions. I am not - at least, not generically. I am cautious about them, because I see difficulties. If there are ways past those difficulties, I am interested. Do we, for example, revolutionize corporate law so that many of the ways corporations now operate are no longer possible? Do we simply legislate against large ownership, flat and simple?

Lydia,
My country India has and had many such anti-free market laws.
1) Limit to land holding, say a man may own a maximum of 100 acres. It makes sense in a densely populated country.
2) Multinationals/ foreigners may not buy land freely but on case by case basis.
3) Even Indians are restricted to buy land in the minority-dominated areas.
4) In British times, whole categories of people such as money-lenders were forbidden to buy agricultural land.
5) Small landholders pay less electricity and water tariff.
6) Small industrial enterprises also get preferential treatment in a lot of ways.

I am not opposed to multinationals or large banks. But I do think that a polity has every right to define a playing field. Here I follow Belloc in his chap. Political Theory of the Revolution in the book The French Revolution. Though he is not explicitly talking of free markets but of what a polity might or might not justly do.

Lydia,
You would, I suppose, agree that a nation has right to draft its young men to war.

Then how can you find problematic a simple assertion by the nation that small landholdings are to be preferred to the large ones?

The actual Govts constantly make these kinds of determinations and assertions. Thats why Belloc called the Political Theory of the Revolution true and eternal.

"we prefer the small owner to the investor in the large corporate owner?"

It is a muddle to conflate the ownership with investing. An investor is not really an owner and lacks the connection that a small owner has. Simply put, a small investor is can never be as invested as a small owner is. The managerial capitalism is producing an owner-less society where no one is in charge. Thus, a fall in the stewardship can be expected. I think the current Pope has made this point.

There was a recent headline: Cities to borrow from their own pension funds in order to fund the said pension fund.

Gian, I can't help wondering: How would such rules play out in the Philippines, in terms of helping real people and removing the poverty in the country?

I honestly am a tad bored by talk about governments "having a right" to have this law or that. What does that mean? Either such laws are good and wise or they aren't. That may depend on the concrete circumstances. But look: No doubt you could find plenty of people who would say that the govt. of the Philippines "had a right" to put in place the protectionist, inward-looking laws that Villegas blames for their poverty. (On which point I'm hearing crickets from our defenders of protectionism in this thread, by the way.) So, big deal. So if that's meaningful, the government "had a right" to screw up their economy, prevent economic growth and prosperity, and leave their people at the mercy of UN aid groups. Congratulations to the government for doing what it "had a right" to do. Could they maybe try to do better now?

You would, I suppose, agree that a nation has right to draft its young men to war.

The draft is slavery. Next question.

There was a recent headline: Cities to borrow from their own pension funds in order to fund the said pension fund.

And yet, no mention of the fact that the reason pension funds are collapsing is that democratically elected governments overpromised benefits. It's easy for a politician to raise the defined benefits, but much harder to raise the taxes or shift the budget to make the math balance out.

This is the problem with all of the sentimentalism about human dignity and obligations to the poor that are transferred to state programs. Those who advocate them just say "the math be damned, it's the right thing to do." Then like cavemen gawking up at the heavens, they wonder why things fall apart.

Lydia,

A fairly related, if f-bomb filled story of a Western contractor doing business for an Indian business. It's a good example of what happens when these anti-foreigner policies are actually imposed.

Yes, it's exactly that "math be damned" approach that so annoys me.

Here we have an allegation that inward-looking, oh-let's-restrict-capitalism-for-the-common-good policies of very much the sort that I suspect Nice Marmot and company might have approved of ahead of time have royally messed up a country and left people in poverty. So the recommendation is, let's open the country up and allow the free market to work better, and the _first_ thing I get from readers is, "Now, now, not so fast. Small business, welll, okay, but none of that-there big corporate stuff. And don't countries have the _right_ to restrict land holdings?"

In other words, they just obliviously vault over the fact that apparently setting out with anti-capitalist presumptions can cause real problems and move on as quickly as possible to the _next_ set of recommendations for making sure that darned capitalism doesn't get too carried away while the Filipinos are trying to pull themselves out of abject poverty.

To say that this appears to be a misguided set of priorities and a refusal to stop and learn from history almost seems like an understatement.

Yes, it's exactly that "math be damned" approach that so annoys me.

And you won't get people like Jeff to admit that the "everyone is covered" mandate in EMTALA is precisely what lead us down this road to Obamacare (a government bandaid for a government-inflicted chest wound). The fact is the US has never had enough wealth to provide for the level of care they expect, and even if it did, it would be a transient phase that would last until the culture became accustomed to that level of entitlement. It's like what my wife says about Gene Roddenbury's vision of the future: give them replicators and free basic goods will just become the bare minimum of what people expect for simply existing.

"Now, now, not so fast. Small business, welll, okay, but none of that-there big corporate stuff. And don't countries have the _right_ to restrict land holdings?"

Do bear in mind that Nice Marmot is the one who in a prior thread couldn't name a single positive thing Apple has done to advance the state of computer technology, but he is so absolutely sure they're hucksters who sucker people into vice. Ironically, one of those is the fact that the iOS App Store has successfully created a large market for small developers to make good side money and a number of them have started successful full time businesses. The eeeevil Apple enabling small developers? Not in the narrative.

~~one of those is the fact that the iOS App Store has successfully created a large market for small developers to make good side money and a number of them have started successful full time businesses. The eeeevil Apple enabling small developers? Not in the narrative.~~

Small potatoes compared to the cultural damage. It's all bread and circuses, man, bread and circuses.

"it's exactly that 'math be damned' approach that so annoys me."

False dichotomize much? Oh yeah, of course you do. That's one of the reasons Maximos got the hell out of here.

More later, as at least Tony has some good questions...

Small potatoes compared to the cultural damage. It's all bread and circuses, man, bread and circuses.

Have you noticed that your criticisms have increasingly dropped down to word counts befitting Twitter?

Couldn't tell ya. Don't use it.

Couldn't tell ya. Don't use it.

#agriaranconfail lol

No idea whatsoever what that is. Sorry. But whatever it is, 'agrarian' is spelled wrong therein.

That's one of the reasons Maximos got the hell out of here.

Well, y'know, NM, if you should ever feel like you just can't stand being around...It's not like I'm going to beg you to stay.

But as I said, it's the haste and predictability that especially bothers me (though doesn't surprise me) about your responses here.

Did you say, "Hmm. That's interesting. I should find out what those anti-market measures were to which Villegas is referring. Maybe I need to rethink if they really did that much harm"? Nope. Not a chance.

Did you say, "Yes, protectionism definitely has its limits. I'd only take it x far, and it was going farther than that that messed up the Philippines"? Nope.

Did you even say, "Here are some specific, constructive ways in which countries like the Philippines could galvanize their productiveness while avoiding the stuff I oppose"? Nope, not even that.

Instead, it's just slogans and non-specifics. And a very clear indication that to you, human poverty and misery are _not_ the enemies to be worried about here but rather _restraining_ prosperity, even at the cost of keeping people much poorer, lest people get too "consumerist" for your tastes. You'll excuse me if that seems to me to be a wrong set of priorities, and a set that perhaps you wouldn't have if you or your children were going seriously hungry because you literally couldn't buy food (which I doubt is the case).

Gian got specific, but I have to say that I'm dubious about whether those ideas would be good ones for a country with the poverty problems the Philippines has. To be frank, I kind of doubt they're very good for India's economy and people either.

But I'll say this for you, NM: You don't exhibit a snarling, bitter, leftist contempt for the conservative bourgeoisie and a refusal to admit to having anything in common with them. That's a blessing and one reason you're worth having around, unlike some other people who share your economic proclivities.

"WHAT, specifically, are we to do to support and promote small farm operations and dis-incentivize large ones? That is to say, what otherwise 'free market' choices do we take off the table that large agri-businesses effectively take advantage of that should NOT be available to them? And how do we justify that other than by simply saying we prefer the small owner to the investor in the large corporate owner? And does that rationale justify changing the current playing field rules by which the large agri came to be legally (is it sufficient to effectively de-legitimize existing operations that people invested in with some expectation of continuing under the same playing field rules)?

This may sound like I am opposed to your suggestions. I am not - at least, not generically. I am cautious about them, because I see difficulties. If there are ways past those difficulties, I am interested. Do we, for example, revolutionize corporate law so that many of the ways corporations now operate are no longer possible? Do we simply legislate against large ownership, flat and simple?"

First, I think you get rid of corporate personhood as a legal construct. Giant corporations have far more money and power than any "person" and since they are not persons they should not have the rights thereof. Doing this would at very least reduce cronyism -- it is frankly ridiculous that corporate giants like Bank of America, WalMart and Monsanto are considered "persons" for legal purposes.

Second, I'd say we'd have to move towards ending farm subsidies, but in the mean time, subsidization should be revamped to aim at entities that actually need it. Seriously, do ADM, ConAgra and Monsanto really need government financial support? Why is it that as food prices rise agribusiness profits also rise, while actual farm incomes decrease? This is "get big or get out" with a vengeance. Isn't it telling that all the recent Secretaries of Agriculture have had major agribusiness ties? Is the small landholder really going to get a fair shake under such circumstances?

I've got no problem with some of the things Gian mentions. In fact, up till not too long ago some of the midwestern states had laws on the books that limited the amount of land an out-of-state holder could own (Corporations, of course, eventually found their way around such laws).

In reality though, what really has to change are attitudes. Top down endeavors can in some cases be helpful, but in the long run if we don't lose the sense of entitlement that goes along with materialism and consumerism, nothing the government does will be of much use. We need to stop raising little consumers, programmed from early on to slobber on cue over the latest crap movie or needless electronic gizmo. The "buy-consume-repeat" cycle must be resisted. We must learn that neither price nor choice is everything, and teach our kids likewise. Acquisition and the "right" to freedom of choice are not virtues, and should not be considered as such. Life is not an endless Chinese buffet.

Hey, and if all that is too "general" or "platitudinous" for the marketeers, so be it.

"Instead, it's just slogans and non-specifics. And a very clear indication that to you, human poverty and misery are _not_ the enemies to be worried about here but rather _restraining_ prosperity, even at the cost of keeping people much poorer, lest people get too 'consumerist' for your tastes. You'll excuse me if that seems to me to be a wrong set of priorities, and a set that perhaps you wouldn't have if you or your children were going seriously hungry because you literally couldn't buy food"

Lydia, you're simply a capitalist version of our friend Al. He will never admit that liberalism does anything wrong -- it's always there's not enough of it, or it wasn't instituted correctly, or "you misunderstand it." The fault's never with liberalism per se. Likewise you seem to have precisely the same view about capitalism. Any negatives seemingly caused by capitalism are actually never really caused by it -- it's cronyism, or over-regulation, or not enough freedom, or government intrusion into the market. It seems completely fruitless to engage in discussion with someone who refuses even to entertain the possibility that his ideology may occasionally err.

"Well, y'know, NM, if you should ever feel like you just can't stand being around...It's not like I'm going to beg you to stay."

Yeah, and that's probably not a bad idea. It's just too bad that you can't see the obvious, that A) the modern Leviathan state has a goodly amount of corporate DNA, that B) materialism and consumerism are considerable contributors to this country's downward spiral, and that C) the two observations are related.

But I gather most of those specifics don't apply to the Philippines now, do they? I doubt they are farm subsidizing ConAgra!

Here's a question for you, NM: Why is a post about the apparent failure of anti-capitalist policies, a failure that has harmed real people and made a country vulnerable to a toxic agenda imposed from without, an opportunity to talk about the dangers of capitalism to you? Why is that the first thing you think of? Why, for example, don't you think of trying to find out whether the policies (esp. the protectionism) that seem to have harmed the Philippines and kept Filipinos impoverished are policies you yourself would have supported antecedently and whether this is therefore empirical evidence that should cause you to rethink your impulses in that direction?

First, I think you get rid of corporate personhood as a legal construct. Giant corporations have far more money and power than any "person" and since they are not persons they should not have the rights thereof.

NM, I am afraid you will need to clarify what you mean by this. In some contexts, corporate "personhood" means solely and simply that it is an entity before the law, it is recognized as a coherent entity. For example, in tax law a "person" merely means an entity that can be taxed. Tax law refers to human beings as "individuals", i.e. a special class of entities that can be taxed. But that has absolutely no implication that due to tax law corporations are considered to have personal dignity and inherent personal rights like rights of free speech. The tax law has absolutely no problem keeping them distinct and telling the difference.

Are you saying that you want to do away with corporations altogether, so there is no longer anything that answers to the term "corporate entity"? That would get rid of (besides commercial corporations) also associations, churches, schools, universities, hospitals, etc. Because all of these entities need to be able to operate before the law as a coherent entity distinct from the human beings that make them up.

If, instead, you want to get rid of some of the SPECIAL privileges commercial corporations enjoy, I think you are going to have to enumerate the ones you want to get rid of instead of lumping them under "personhood" (as that is mostly a semantic rather than essential issue.)

Lydia,
I do not claim that all anti-free market laws are good. I criticize many of them, esp that forbid urban people from buying farmland.
My position is, not knowing the details, a move towards a freer market and less regulation is good, since regulation would be written by special interests anyway.

But I do not idealize free markets. An densely populated country would not be happy with a small number of large landholders and a large landless class. Legislators exist to deliberate on the common good. I do not believe in the primacy of self-interest. In fact, I do not find this term very meaningful since 'self-interest' is largely a cultural construct. Consider if you find it in your self-interest that a person sharing your surname only gets to become Mayor of your town. An Indian or Middle Eastern person would have great self-interest but I suspect an American would not find much self-interest here.

There is also a quote on Conservatism I found on Patrick Deneen's site:

What Robert Nisbet teaches conservatives today is a valuable lesson about the inherent dangers of conservatism. Conservatism was born in early-modern times as a reaction to the radicalism of political ideology. It was reactive, and in that sense defined itself in reference to liberalism. In modern American history - in reaction to the radicalism of the Left on the world stage, particularly given the threat of Communism - American conservatism reacted by occupying space that had recently been vacated by the Left. In responding to calls for global citizenship, conservatism defended the nation-state - while losing sight of a deeper allegiance to localities. In responding to the threat of economic socialism, conservatism defended the free market - while losing sight of a deeper allegiance to the associational life that an economy was brought into being to sustain and preserve. In responding to the dogmatic “multiculturalism” on college campuses, conservatism defended a form of rationalist universalism that contributed to the deracination and homogenization of our colleges - while losing sight of a defensible form of true diversity, a diversity of places, localities, and actual cultures. Nisbet, finally, is an invaluable teacher for today’s conservatives because he teaches us that, more than being a simple reaction against, the deepest commitments underlying conservatism must always be for something, and that something must be finally more than merely “the quest for community,” but the reality and flourishing of community itself

I have to admit that I'm not quite sure what the point is about thirty years after WWII. That takes us about to 1975. If those economic policies have been changed since then, why haven't the changes had an effect?

I find the remark odd because the protectionism is there today. Anyway, even if some good would have come about in the 70s, it would have been cancelled out by the blatantly corrupt Marcos administration, which lasted into the mid-80s. There has been some improvement since then.

I'm skimming the comments and some are just odd. So, more capitalism will result in few large landholders, leaving many landless. Yeah, I guess all of those Filipinos dwelling in shanty towns constructed out of scrap metal while corrupt government officials engage in wealth-destroying protectionist policies and deficit spending should be really worried by what capitalism might do to them.

And all of those Filipinos who leave the country to find work should just dread capitalism and economic prosperity, which might help them to stay close to their families instead of being sexually abused in Saudi Arabia.

Don't get me started on the red tape. Just go and buy a kitchen appliance in the Philippines--but be prepared for paperwork.

It is not free market that is problematic but the idea that Consent justifies things.

Consent might maximize satisfaction but that it is wealth-maximizing in the long term, it is neither proven (if at all it is provable) and nor probable. Since we have seen the rapid disintegration of the norms of Western society that even Mises did not conceive of, it is untenable to claim that everlasting growth would resume, given only the unlimited freedom and worship of Consent.

And as for myths, over the past hundred years, population of India has increased more than five-fold and wealth has also increased, people are no longer starving, even in villages, people have motor cycles, but still the myth makers are undaunted. They explicitly blame the Reforms of 1991 for increasing poverty. They still call for greater population control measures. And they are succeeding. Reforms have stalled in last five years and socialism is on march again.

"Why is a post about the apparent failure of anti-capitalist policies, a failure that has harmed real people and made a country vulnerable to a toxic agenda imposed from without, an opportunity to talk about the dangers of capitalism to you?"

Simple. I don't want to see a "cure" imposed that is in the long run worse than, or at least equal to, the disease. It seems to me quite wrongheaded simply to impose capitalism while saying, "We'll worry about its problems later," when we can at least be cognizant of those problems and shape the response accordingly. To do otherwise is to take exactly the same tack that liberals do with welfare.

Above I said, "In reality though, what really has to change are attitudes." Ran across this quote in Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation this morning which says it much better than I can:

"The underlying problem is that most people seek -- and through relentless advertising are encouraged to pursue -- ever greater material affluence and comfort...Westerners now live in societies without an acquisitive ceiling: a distinctly consumerist (rather than merely industrial) economic ethos depends precisely on persuading people to discard as quickly as possible what they were no less insistently urged to purchase, so that another acquisitive cycle might begin. In proportion as an individual's identity is derived from consumption, the quest to (re)construct and (re)discover oneself is inseparable from endless acquisitions--there can never be 'enough' if to be is to buy, if self-fashioning depends on ever more and newer fashions for the self. This sort of consumerist ethos has consequences. In the United States, 'excess' has now lost any socially significant moral meaning: there is literally no such thing as 'too much,' so long as one has the economic means to do as one pleases."

Christian conservatives should abhor such notions, and should not be party to fostering them in other nations. I don't see the value in fighting poverty via applications of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. (Oh and by the way, those who are concerned about sexual matters in our culture may want to ask themselves why St. John links these three things together.)

I humbly suggest that if you do not see the reality of these observations, or you do see them but do not find them problematic, you are yourself a victim of the very cycle that Gregory describes, and as a result cannot see the forest for the trees.

Gian: "I do not claim that all anti-free market laws are good...But I do not idealize free markets." and "It is not free market that is problematic but the idea that Consent justifies things."

Spot on.

J.W.: "I guess all of those Filipinos dwelling in shanty towns constructed out of scrap metal while corrupt government officials engage in wealth-destroying protectionist policies and deficit spending should be really worried by what capitalism might do to them."

Exactly the sort of crappy false dichotomy I mentioned above.

Christian conservatives should abhor such notions, and should not be party to fostering them in other nations. I don't see the value in fighting poverty via applications of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. (Oh and by the way, those who are concerned about sexual matters in our culture may want to ask themselves why St. John links these three things together.)

Who says we don't, while admitting that a solution is extremely difficult? Lydia was right in saying that you are extremely facile in your handling of the very thin line between needs and wants. In your hands, an iPad is a toy. In the hands of a software developer it is a creative platform for making new things possible. Things like this where a little girl with a learning disability is actually learning to speak properly because of an iPad app.

Oh but in your worldview she can just go [ed.] little four year old self if she wants to play with a "toy" that happens to be helping her overcome a mental problem. She must be sacrificed on the altar of ascetic piet.

Baloney, Mike. Read that quote from Gregory again. He's obviously not talking about legitimate needs, and neither am I. Again, you seem unable to make the distinction between the true blessings of technology and cultural addiction to its frivolities and frippery.

I hate to break it to you, NM, but some people are going to use apps. as "frivolity and frippery" and some are going to make more serious uses of them. And the developers are going to develop them for a larger market.

What kills me is your joylessness about this stuff. I mean, seriously: Frivolity and frippery? For goodness' sake, lighten up already!

And exactly how do you propose to keep "frivolity and frippery" out of the Philippines? By giving them lectures? "Hey, guys, we want to get you out of poverty here by freeing up your economy, but whatever you do, when you're better off, *don't start buying stuff you don't need*, 'k?"

Maybe abolishing corporations worldwide is supposed to do the trick on your view. Good luck getting poor countries and people out of poverty once you've abolished all corporations. You can let me know how that works out for you later. On the other hand, perhaps _that_ should be the sort of thing we don't just do now and "worry about the problems later."

Still crickets on protectionism messing up the Philippines and on whether you would have supported those policies.

Thanks for the info., JW, and excellent comment. Maybe the ongoing protectionism, etc., is what Villegas needs to address as well.

He's obviously not talking about legitimate needs, and neither am I. Again, you seem unable to make the distinction between the true blessings of technology and cultural addiction to its frivolities and frippery.

I am pointing out that the cultural addiction to technology is what actually lead to the creation of that app since tablets were considered a device without a market until Apple turned that on its head with the iPad. You're mistaking my acknowledgement that you cannot separate the good from the bad for not understanding the difference.

Maybe you favor something like Japan's MITI...

"What kills me is your joylessness about this stuff. I mean, seriously: Frivolity and frippery? For goodness' sake, lighten up already!"

Hey, sorry if I don't find any joy in narcissism, conspicuous consumption, and brainless acquisitiveness.

In any case, this is fruitless. The culture's on its way to hell in a handbasket, and you guys seem to be primarily concerned that we've got a lot of toys and snacks for the trip!

you guys seem to be primarily concerned that we've got a lot of toys and snacks for the trip!

No, NM, I think my position has been clear: Policies designed to "curb the market" per se harm real people. The Philippines is a poor country, unnecessarily, apparently because of such policies, a point which you persistently refuse even to acknowledge, much less address. (I think that's rather telling, actually.)

Now, here's the deal: If things are freed up in the Philippines and they start not being so dirt poor, chances are very high that people will get access to those "toys and snacks," those "fripperies and frivolities" that you're so concerned about. In fact, it seems practically speaking impossible to have prosperity in this day and age without access to things you would think of as frivolities, unless one tries to outlaw them directly.

I'm quite happy directly to outlaw truly evil products, products that ought never to exist at all, such as pornography. But I think it would be extremely stupid to try to outlaw everything that isn't considered a "need" or everything considered frivolous.

The questions therefore arise: Are you willing to see countries like the Philippines come out of poverty even if that means that the people in them get to use ipads and Facebook and maybe even waste some time that way? And are you willing to confront the fact that the protectionist policies you favor are causing real poverty for real people?

There are issues in the world besides "the culture's on its way to hell in a handbasket." Issues like the inability to get food or the temptation, as JW pointed out above, to send your daughter off to be a maid in Saudi Arabia where she may well be horribly mistreated.

Moreover, the I think rather interesting point in the main post, which you don't really seem to give a damn about, is that extreme poverty in a country makes it a dependent country, and dependent countries in this world have their moral cultures directly undermined by rapacious NGO's as a condition of receiving the aid they need. Wouldn't it be better for them to be able to tell the NGO's to jump in the lake? Ah, but for that purpose, you might need to enact some policies that would have as a side effect the entry into the country of...frippery and frivolity. Not to mention McDonald's french fries.

In any case, this is fruitless. The culture's on its way to hell in a handbasket, and you guys seem to be primarily concerned that we've got a lot of toys and snacks for the trip!

You're ignoring other factors here. The reason you have such a rapid turn over of products with electronics is because engineers are constantly competing with one another to outdo each other. The New iPad is actually a substantially better product than the iPad 1 even though there's just 2 years difference in age. There was nothing in antiquity that could have prepared classical philosophers for the rapid rate at which technology would evolve and change tastes, expectations, possibilities, etc.

You seem to focus on one variable when the problem has many. Technology enabled the sexual revolution, but philosophy played the primary role in making it happen. The Pill is no more to blame for sexual license than guns are for violence. Even if you believe the Pill is unequivocally evil, it is just a thing.

The truth is you could probably alleviate a large amount of the damage by simply regulating marketers' use of sensuality. Sensuality is particularly potent with women. Have you ever noticed how most ads for products target women that are meant to appeal to a woman's idea of fun involve direct attacks on classic virtues such as "indulge yourself," "you're worth it," etc.? Stop blaming technology for all of this.

"I think rather interesting point in the main post, which you don't really seem to give a damn about, is that extreme poverty in a country makes it a dependent country, and dependent countries in this world have their moral cultures directly undermined by rapacious NGO's as a condition of receiving the aid they need."

No, I actually do give a damn about it, but I would expand the concern to include dependency on multinationals, which you don't seem to give a damn about.

"Stop blaming technology for all of this."

This is a vicious circle, as has been recognized by critics of mass advertising since the 1930's, and as such all facets of the thing must bear the blame. Technology is not developed in a moral vacuum, except in the minds of the developers.

NM, stop already with the obfuscation. In your rhetoric you are associating the expression "free market" as being interchangeable with "the sort of free market we have right now in which multinationals have virtually no effective restraints on them." That's NOT what Lydia or Mike are suggesting at all. In other posts on related topics, Lydia has made it absolutely clear that she criticizes godless huge corporations for a number of ills. The fact that our current framework of markets have unfortunately spawned a number of grave ills, including those from unrestrained multinationals and Bank-of-Enormous-conglomerate doesn't mean "free market" as such is a defective conceptual underpinning of economic organization. It means that SOME sorts of markets are bad sorts. OK. But that's logically different.

Let me phrase it another way: is there a free market arrangement that would serve the Philippines better than the old arrangement? Yes. Of the sheaf of possible decent-to-good arrangements, which ones are politically possible?

Technology is not developed in a moral vacuum, except in the minds of the developers.

You don't seem to have an actual moral framework capable of informing what particular technologies are harmful, when they are harmful, etc. You've spoken almost exclusively in generalities, your vehement hatred of Apple notwithstanding. Even there, you couldn't name much of any particular things they've done other than the sort of things you could read on the NY Times about a product release which suggests that you don't know much about them. I could probably mention the fact that one of the most exciting advances in compiler technology, LLVM, got off the ground because Apple has funded the heck out of it, but what's the point? You're content to just rip on them about consumerism, baubles, etc. without making balanced arguments that show you can see good and bad.

Moreover, the I think rather interesting point in the main post, which you don't really seem to give a damn about, is that extreme poverty in a country makes it a dependent country, and dependent countries in this world have their moral cultures directly undermined by rapacious NGO's as a condition of receiving the aid they need. Wouldn't it be better for them to be able to tell the NGO's to jump in the lake? Ah, but for that purpose, you might need to enact some policies that would have as a side effect the entry into the country of...frippery and frivolity. Not to mention McDonald's french fries.

Yes, that is an interesting point that I think deserves more attention. I don't know too much about the influence of NGOs on Philippine policy specifically other than what you mentioned here, although I did catch an article about how one NGO that was a Planned Parenthood donor was pushing a "reproductive health" law, perhaps an earlier version of the one discussed in the Human Life Review article. I think that your observation is apt that poorer countries are at greater risk of this sort of meddling, not because they are poor per se but because their government officials are looking for handouts (and perhaps even for a bit of recognition that they're "progressive" just like the officials of more prosperous countries).

To respond to this point (or deflect it) by saying that those very same government officials should restrict licit economic activity in order to socially engineer a more virtuous society is, I think, absurd. Not long ago the Filipinos overthrew a dictator whose wife had by then amassed an extensive collection of about three thousand pairs of shoes. Frivolity indeed. But I'm sure that the officials today are moral exemplars whose taxing, spending, and regulatory powers are directed to the common good.

Raising the specter of McDonald's is amusing to say the least. The major fast food chain in the Philippines is Jollibee, which was incorporated a few years before the first Philippine McDonald's was built and which now has far more locations within the country than McDonald's. So it was unnecessary for some enterprising gent to introduce a foreign franchise into the Philippines for Filipinos to enjoy whatever "frippery" comes with a fast food chain.

By the way, Jollibee has extended into other countries, so it's now a multinational corporation, and McDonald's Philippines is now completely owned by Filipinos. I guess we have to rethink what's local and what's not--as if all that really matters anyway.

But capitalism isn't about whether there are more fast food joints or more family farms; it's about the freedom of people to cooperate with each other and make better lives for themselves. It doesn't help (to take one example) that starting a business, officially, takes over a month to accomplish due to government bureaucracy:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/philippines

Of course people will buy and sell frivolous things, so long as people are frivolous. I've heard that there are products in the Philippines that one can use to lighten one's skin (to look more Western, I guess). That doesn't make sense to me, just like the existence skin-darkening products and processes in the U.S. We'd probably all be better off without this stuff. But I'd rather that people be allowed to make exchanges for such products while we are free to encourage each other to appreciate our natural beauty than for government to restrict trade in general and to tell us simply that it's for our own good.

The expansion of government restrictions and excessive regulations of licit economic behavior (viz., the myriad of ethical exchanges that people make with each other) in poorer countries plays right into the hands of NGOs interested in pushing population control and other such wicked policies. Depending on the level of government intervention, the result is continued poverty and delayed prosperity, which in turn renders NGO offers of handouts more likely and the temptation of government officials to comply with their requests more acute. And the expansion of government power generally makes more possible such misguided ventures as parental certification, which is under a strictly limited government untenable, even unthinkable. On a related note, it's not surprising that mainland Chinese dodge the one-child policy by giving birth in Hong Kong.

"I'll say this for you, NM: You don't exhibit a snarling, bitter, leftist contempt for the conservative bourgeoisie and a refusal to admit to having anything in common with them. That's a blessing and one reason you're worth having around, unlike some other people who share your economic proclivities."

Just now saw this. Well, who else here shares my "economic proclivities" around here? Get a lot of agrarian-leaning conservatives, do ya?

"NM, stop already with the obfuscation. In your rhetoric you are associating the expression 'free market' as being interchangeable with 'the sort of free market we have right now in which multinationals have virtually no effective restraints on them.' That's NOT what Lydia or Mike are suggesting at all."

No obfuscation going on on my part. I have made it quite clear many times here that I DO NOT equate "free market" with "contemporary corporate capitalism." Yet when I criticize the latter, I am inevitably accused of attacking the former. So exactly who's doin' the obfuscatin'?

The short version: I believe that free market ideas/practices can be greatly helpful to the Phillipines, but in implementing them care must be taken not to exchange one sort of dependency for another. Got it? Let's flippin' hope so, because it's not exactly particle physics.

"You don't seem to have an actual moral framework capable of informing what particular technologies are harmful, when they are harmful, etc."

Suggested readings:

The Gutenberg Elegies- Sven Birkerts
Technopoly and Amusing Ourselves to Death-- Neil Postman
The Shallows -- Nicholas Carr

Not having read all the comments here, I may be stepping on a land mine, but I believe that the question of free market liberalism is largely orthogonal to the question of moral traditionalism anyway. The extent to which a market ought to be free is a strictly prudential decision based on what we hope is best for the common good. Obviously, any such decision by sovereign powers, in any direction, will cause there to be winners and losers. A moral traditionist need not, probably ought not, be an economic fundamentalist of any kind. So it would be no surprise to me if protectionism has contributed to poverty in the Philippines, and it would be no surprise to me if freer markets led to greater prosperity; it would also be no surprise to me if these diverse conditions led to greater religious devotion on the part of Philippino Catholics, nor that either led to lesser devotion.

I, too, tend to think of them as orthogonal at least in direct terms. For that very reason, and since poverty for a whole country seems like a legitimate concern of the government, the government should be willing to adopt policies that will lead to greater prosperity without assuming that greater prosperity is going to be bad for traditionalism.

My post was chiefly meant to offer a perspective on those connections that I thought might strike some of my more anti-capitalist readers as a new thought. You are no doubt familiar with a commonplace to the effect that material prosperity in a country undermines traditional moral values. I was pointing out a perhaps unexpected route by which poverty can bring an unwanted political agenda from those who will quite deliberately undermine traditional moral values in a country.

NM

Well, who else here shares my "economic proclivities" around here? Get a lot of agrarian-leaning conservatives, do ya?

In all seriousness, we used to have several more. One or two, possibly three, met IMO the negative description I gave above. They are no longer around.

I now have one highly esteemed blog colleague presently here at W4, Jeff Culbreath, who shares at least some of your economic proclivities, but I want to emphasize in the strongest possible terms that the above negative description does *not* apply to him and was not in any way intended to. He is a real gentleman and someone I'm proud to work with, despite the fact that we have fairly deep economic disagreements.

The short version: I believe that free market ideas/practices can be greatly helpful to the Phillipines, but in implementing them care must be taken not to exchange one sort of dependency for another.

Okay, great, let's start there. First of all, protectionism. What do you say about that? Would you be willing to suggest that the Philippines drop it, despite the fact that you've applauded it for the U.S.? If so, might it not be such a good idea for the U.S. either?

Second, how, in concrete, do you suggest that the Philippines avoid developing the "dependency" you fear? Please note that I've already asked this question several times. For example, are we just talking about haranguing people on not starting to buy "frivolous" things? Are we talking about outlawing McDonalds? Or what? Please note JW's well-informed points about the complexities of distinguishing local from non-local food chains.

Third, on your suggestion (which I guess would apply to the Philippines as well) that we "abolish corporate personhood," please see Tony's above excellent comments. Maybe you don't want to respond to them, but you might ponder them. They're the best comments I've seen yet, and in such concise form, on this oft-repeated suggestion we see from leftists and paleocons to the effect that we should "abolish corporate personhood." Everything Tony asks and says there is worth thinking about before you make that suggestion in those terms again.

I would note, too, that literally abolishing all corporations worldwide would likely _not_ be helpful to getting the Philippines out of poverty. And that's putting it mildly.

Just now saw this. Well, who else here shares my "economic proclivities" around here? Get a lot of agrarian-leaning conservatives, do ya?

We have more in common than you might think. The problem is you have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water in some of your criticisms of capitalism. Any major reforms will be necessarily complicated much lIke doing invasive surgery. If you don't approach the problems of capitalism with a real eye for how intertwined the good and bad are you are likely to only make things worse.

(Posted from my new iPad)

"protectionism. What do you say about that?"

I don't have an ideological commitment either to protectionism or against it. I tend to see it as a prudential thing, dependent on the specific time, place and circumstances. As far as I know I've never "applauded it for the U.S."

"how, in concrete, do you suggest that the Philippines avoid developing the 'dependency' you fear?"

The starting point would to be as careful about multinational corporate "strings" as you would be about government and NGO ones when developing and implementing anti-poverty measures. Another would be to adopt measures than lend themselves to local self-sufficiency and sustainability as opposed to distant dependency and/or control. A third would be to foster measures that have some connection to Filipino society/culture as opposed simply to pouring modern Western ideas in from the top.

As far as corporate personhood goes, the problem with it is that of exactly what rights of actual persons can be extended to corporations. This is the thing that creates the thicket. It would not seem fair to deem corporations "persons" for the purpose of taxation alone, since that would involve liability with no benefit. On the other hand some rights can be extended to corporations only with possibly large negative consequences. I believe that corporations should not be considered "persons" under the 14th amendment, as it is obviously the case that the original intent of that amendment did not include them. If that understanding were negated it might free us to look at the issue more objectively, without the 14th amendment "baggage."

"You are no doubt familiar with a commonplace to the effect that material prosperity in a country undermines traditional moral values. I was pointing out a perhaps unexpected route by which poverty can bring an unwanted political agenda from those who will quite deliberately undermine traditional moral values in a country."

I don't see why both cannot be true. And anyways it's not simply material prosperity that undermines traditional morality, if prosperity is understood as having enough to meet basic human needs for the majority of people. The problem's with excess, not adequacy, whether an excess of money or an excess of stuff. It's not with having barns, but with "I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones."

"If you don't approach the problems of capitalism with a real eye for how intertwined the good and bad are you are likely to only make things worse."

No doubt. But hey, I'm making progress. You've admitted there actually is some bad in capitalism.

"(Posted from my new iPad)"

(Posted from the public library's desktop, as my six yr. old laptop is on its last legs and I do not intend to replace it when it dies. Yes -- oh, the horror of it! I shall be computer-less!!)

be as careful about multinational corporate "strings"

What sort of strings, actual strings, do multinational corporations put on their opening up business in a country like the Philippines that you think should be rejected? I'm asking seriously.

I believe that corporations should not be considered "persons" under the 14th amendment, as it is obviously the case that the original intent of that amendment did not include them. If that understanding were negated it might free us to look at the issue more objectively, without the 14th amendment "baggage."

I do too. Fortunately, the SC never actually decided that the 14th does apply to corporations simply, and it has permitted limitations and qualifications on that application. So it wouldn't be an extreme stretch to get an SC decision that says the 14th does NOT apply to corporations.

"What sort of strings, actual strings, do multinational corporations put on their opening up business in a country like the Philippines that you think should be rejected?"

I'm thinking of scenarios like those in which a corporation will limit a farmer to using only its other supplementary products (fertilizer, pesticides, etc.) if the farmer decides to use its seed, or where the farmer is bound under contract to use only that company's products for a certain amount of time. Monsanto is famous for stunts like that.

"Fortunately, the SC never actually decided that the 14th does apply to corporations simply, and it has permitted limitations and qualifications on that application. So it wouldn't be an extreme stretch to get an SC decision that says the 14th does NOT apply to corporations"

That would be a good start -- it would clear the air surrounding the whole issue.

You think this is bad ? In fact, despite being a predominantly Catholic nation where abortion is illegal,illegal abortions are still very common there.
In fact,these family planning programs could very well DECREASE the abortion rate there significantly. Pretty ironic,isn't it ?

I'm thinking of scenarios like those in which a corporation will limit a farmer to using only its other supplementary products (fertilizer, pesticides, etc.) if the farmer decides to use its seed, or where the farmer is bound under contract to use only that company's products for a certain amount of time. Monsanto is famous for stunts like that.

Those sound like extremely annoying contracts, and they are the kinds of things I dislike intensely in other areas. I would have to think about outlawing such contracts directly, but I wouldn't be entirely closed to doing so (or, which would come to the same thing, writing a law that they are unenforceable). There are at a minimum monopoly issues that arise there.

Hmmm. So, what happend to "the government has no business in anyone's bedroom"?

Oh, that's, right! Leftists will say *anything* ... and its opposite ... as the perceived need of the moment dictates.

The Philippine government has been subsidizing Monsanto corn:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080118063549/http://www.visayandailystar.com/2008/January/14/businessnews2.htm

R.B.: Thank you for your baseless conjecture.

"There are at a minimum monopoly issues that arise there."

Right -- it is this sort of monopolism or quasi-monopolism that I'd be wary about. Besides its own problematic nature it also lends itself to cronyism.

Roger,

Reduced abortion rates have worked out great for us haven't they, where abortion doctors are being charged with murder.