Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

USEFUL IDEAS FOR DEFENSE OF CONSERVATIVE IDEAS On [online magazine] Counterpunch today, Paul Craig Roberts asks Is Western Democracy Real or a Facade? He starts with:

The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a bastion of democracy?

He then goes on to list a number of American sins that broadcast to the world our hypocrisy. It’s a straw man argument that seeks to reframe historical American strategic policy into current populist jargon for what must be purely political reasons. I have only met Paul once, quite a few years ago, and only for a few minutes of discusion at a conference, but he appears to be an honest man, and I can only attribute this article to the effects of accumulated frustration. Which I can understand. But a questionable portrayal of events hinging upon a specious moral argument does nothing to improve matters at all. It’s much more helpful to deal with the facts and determine where we go from there: GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGY REGARDING THE MUSLIM WORLD1) The United states government has been attempting to contain the Muslim world since the fall of the British Empire for the following reasons:

Americans are pragmatic. They ally with successful states and not with failed or failing states. The determine failed or failing by the level of internal conflict. As the world’s policemen Americans see conflict as requiring their involvement, and at great cost. So they are simply pragmatic in seeking to support ‘successful’ states: those without violent conflict. THE WORLD’S POLICEMEN America has assumed the role of the world’s policemen for two reasons:

Both the assumption of the system of trade, and the the desire to provide an alternative to world communism, are pragmatic choices, not ideological choices. For some reason americans are comfortable criticizing a political ideology like communism that is little more than a religion wrapped in pseudo economic dogma, than they are in criticizing a religion that is little more than a political movement. If americans would correct this error in their ‘talking points’ the battle against Islam would be much easier. Islam is not a religion. It is a political system, and a religion in name only. AMERICAN STRATEGIC ERRORS American errors over the past decades have been the following:

Historian Oswald Spengler called western civilization Faustian: westerners keep pursuing this ideological view of human nature despite the obvious fact that we are making a deal with the devil in order to achieve the impossible. The west is exceptional. Our culture can never be universal. Criticisms of the NeoCons are correct in that they assume human consensus with western values and where they attempt nation building. Criticisms of the NeoCon’s are wrong where they seek to contain islamic civilization by military means. Islam is far worse a threat than marxism. At least marxism was subject to rational criticism. Muslims appear entirely happy to think themselves self righteous and holy as they descend into permanent ignorant illiterate abject poverty and vent their failure outward as terrorism. THE COMMERCIAL SOCIETY2) The US does not support Democracy. It supports success. Americans are a commercial people. Much more commercial even than Europeans (which is why they don’t understand Americans at times.) In fact, the only thing Americans have in common is their commercial sentiments. CONSUMER CAPITALISM NOT DEMOCRACY3) The US advances “Consumer Capitalism” not Democracy. Democracy is a code word for “Consumer Capitalism”.

POLITICAL COMPATIBILITY OF CONSUMER CAPITALISM4) Consumer Capitalism is not incompatible with what we popularly call Social Democracy: Redistributive Social Democracy. Under Redistributive Social Democracy, profits are captured through taxation and redistributed, allowing the market system to function using both incentives and the information embodied in prices. Consumer capitalism is incompatible with Socialism and Communism, both of which destroy incentives and the information embodied in prices. Consumer capitalism is compatible with libertarianism, conservative classical liberalism, and progressive social democracy – all of which interfere in the economy to varying degrees. Consumer Capitalism is just not compatible with a managed economy. Americans are exporting social democracy and consumer capitalism. But they’ll take consumer capitalism alone if they can get it. Why? Because it decreases the cost of policing and decreases the risk to the average American (Canadian, Brit, German, Belgian, Italian, Australian.) WE’RE A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC NOT A DEMOCRACY5) Technically speaking, the USA is not a democracy. It’s a representative republic. That’s why we have the Senate and the Electoral College: to inhibit the dangers of democracy. In particular, our political system is organized to prevent democratic ‘fashionability’ with a hard constitution (that the progressives have effectively ruined via the commerce clause, and through judicial activism rather than calling for a constitutional convention) a high-turnover house, and a longer turnover senate (that was originally appointed not directly elected). So technically, we’re exporting “Social Democratic Republican Consumer Capitalism.” ECONOMIC IMPACT AND ANALYSIS6) If America loses its military power, its control over oil, or the dollar’s status as a reserve currency, then the ‘average’ American, if there even is such a thing, will experience a drastic reduction in standard of living. We complain about our national debt and our military expense. But really, this is how it all works out: We spend a lot of money policing the world. We export debt to pay for it. The debt encourages the world to support our policing activities. We inflate the debt away. And we obtain economic advantage that directly benefits the average American raising his or her economic class by something on the order of 50%. If you travel the world, and then come back to the states,its blatantly obvious the average person can consume vastly more as an American than anyone else on earth: more living space, more heat and air conditioning, more varieties of food, more kinds of entertainment, more information, and more air travel, more car travel, more free time. More everything. So, the pure COST of our military activity is a cheap return. It costs $700B this year, and our entire interest burden is $227B. Over the next three years alone, the American government will inflate 30% of that debt away.  We do not directly bill the world for our services, but we DO INDIRECTLY charge them for it, and it is our MOST PROFITABLE export.  There is a difference between wasting money and putting it to good use. Our military is not a poor use of funds. BUT the cost of nation building is impossible to bear. If we must bomb a country into submission that’s one thing. In many cases — preventing communism, preventing a nuclear Iran — its the lesser of two evils. But we cannot transform its culture or its economy. We can’t. That cost is infinite. And it’s futile. Thanks Curt Doolittle