The following e-mail correspondences took place during July 4-10, 2007 between President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus and ITSSD CEO/President Lawrence Kogan. The correpondence was prompted by the submission to President Klaus of an ITSSD paper by former ITSSD intern and Whitehead School graduate student Radim Dragomaca, a Czech native. The publication of this e-mail correspondence has been approved by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, author of the book entitled, A Blue, Not a Green Planet: : What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? (Modra, nikoli zelena planeta: Co je ohrozeno: klima, nebo svoboda?). [See: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/users/login.php?story_id=4266&URL=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4266 ]. The President’s book about global warming alarmism will be published in English by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and officially presented by President Klaus in Washington DC on May 28. [See: http://cei.org/2008AnnualDinner ].
Furthermore, as the result of these and other correspondences, Czech President Vaclav Klaus agreed to meet with Lawrence Kogan and former U.S. Ambassador and U.S. Secretary of the Navy, J.W. Middendorf, II, in New York City on September 25, 2007, following the President's September 24, 2007 address to the United Nations General Assembly where he participated in the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Conference on Climate Change. [See: Notes for the speech of the President of the Czech Republic at the UN Climate Change Conference, at: http://www.hrad.cz/cms/en/prezident_cr/klaus_projevy/4853.shtml ; See: Secretary-General’s High-Level Event on Climate Change, at: http://www.un.org/climatechange/2007highlevel/about.shtml.]
From: lkogan [mailto: lkogan@itssd.org] Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 1:14 PM
To: 'Michaela.Dvorakova@hrad.cz'
Cc: 'Radim Dragomaca'
Subject: Lawrence Kogan // ITSSD response to President Vaclav Klaus
Importance: High
Dear Ms. Dvorakova,
I would appreciate your translation of my response to President Klaus' note dated July 4, 2007, set forth below.
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Lawrence A. Kogan, Esq.
President/CEO
Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD)
116 Village Boulevard, Suite #200
Princeton, NJ USA 08540
001-609-951-2222 (o)
001-609-897-9598 (f)
001-609-658-7417 (c)
Dear President Klaus,
I am very flattered and honored to have received your comments regarding the recent paper and press release issued by our Institute this past June. It is not often that I receive comments (especially positive ones) from an experienced and highly regarded head-of-state such as yourself.
I am pleased that my approximately twenty years of international legal and business experience, many of which have been devoted to working with European public and private companies, has permitted me to 'see' things that other Americans have not yet been able to see. More importantly, though, I am extremely gratified by the opportunity that our intellectual connection and mutual understanding brings. And, I look forward to working with you to take advantage of it.
Please excuse me for not elaborating any further at the present time about my ideas for future collaboration. Although I am not yet certain how to proceed, I remain open to your suggestions.
For one thing, I am very eager to read your new book, "Blue, not Green Planet". Is an English translation of it yet available?
In the meanwhile, I would appreciate some time to refine my ideas and to review them with my colleagues at the Institute, before passing them along to you.
Please be assured that I will be able to provide you with some concrete proposals before the end of this month.
Thank you once again for the privilege of receiving your response, and for the unique and exceptional opportunity to work alongside you in the future to address what are critically important issues to us all.
With my best regards,
Lawrence A. Kogan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dvořáková Michaela <mailto:Michaela.Dvorakova@hrad.cz>
Date: Jul 4, 2007 11:44 AM
Subject: FW: ITTSSD - Climate Change - Kogan
To: rdragomaca@gmail.com
Vážený pane Dragomaco,tímto Vám přeposílám email od pana prezidenta Klause adresovaný Vám a Vašemu řediteli Koganovi. S přátelským pozdravemMichaela DvořákováKancelář prezidenta republikyVážený pane Dragomaco,děkuji za Váš email, který jste poslal p. kancléři Weiglovi. Díky tomu jsemobjevil Váš institut, jehož postoje se mi zdají velmi sympatické a děkuji za text Vašeho ředitele L. Kogana, který jsem si velmi pozorně přečetl ajehož názory považuji za mimořádně kvalitní a v dnešní době velmipotřebné. Velmi rád budu jakoukoli formou s Vašim institutemspolupracovat. Je nás pořád málo proti té velké přesile, která existuje. Vím, že bych mohl psát Vašemu řediteli přímo, ale zdá se mi vhodnévložit pár řádek pro něho do tohoto emailu.Vaše jméno to přílišnenaznačuje, ale jak to, že umíte tak dobře česky?Jakoukoli další korespondenci směřujte, prosím, na mou asistentku Michaelu Dvořákovou (viz odesílatel).
S pozdravem
Václav Klaus
Dear Mr. Kogan,
From Radim Dragomaca, research intern at your institute, I got your article "Europe's Warnings on Climate Change Belie More Nuanced Concerns," [accessible at: http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/Europe_sWarningsonClimateChangeBelieMoreNuancedConcerns.pdf ] which I consider excellent. And not only because you so positively quote me.
You probably understand more than anyone else that I am really frustrated with what is going on in Europe and in your country as well. And you know that I try to oppose it in all possible ways - writing, speaking, lecturing etc. Your article goes exactly to the point.
Like you, I speak about "a barely observable rise in global temperatures," not about climate change with a capital "C". As someone who spent years doing econometric research, I am aware of a big difference between causation and correlation as you stress. I don't believe that small warming is man-made, I do not think it will hurt mankind, and especially I do not think anything - government-organized - can change the evolution of global climate.
I agree with you that the main issue is "curtailing individual rights and freedoms," not climate. The subtitle of my recent book, "Blue, not Green Planet," is "What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom." You are right in stressing Europe's role in it. Not many Americans understand that the European global warming hysteria is a substitute activity, that it is an attempt to divert "the public's attention away from the failed draft European constitution" as you put it, that it's an attempt to rationalize the European unification process and the formation of the European supranational state.
I must admit that I did not take any notice of the British Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket's attempt to expand the mandate of the UN Security Council in the field of fighting "collective global environmental threats." It is almost incredible.With my - as I ironically put it - "full-time presidential engagement," I did not notice that in the 2005 amended French Constitution provided"French citizens with the positive right to live in a balanced healthy environment." Again, almost incredible. Of course, your stress on the difference between positive and negative rights is crucial. I am afraid that one has to go through the Communist "experiment" to fully understand it. I am afraid not many Europeans are capable of this. All the more I appreciate your stance.
I will be pleased to stay in touch with you and possibly do something together either here or in your country.
With my best regards,
Vaclav Klaus
Showing posts with label malthusian negative sustainable development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label malthusian negative sustainable development. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Klaus Warns Americans: US Embrace Of Global Warming Alarmism Premised on Europe's Precautionary Principle Will Result In Sacrifice Of Liberty
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120494352520121491.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The Contrarian of Prague
By BRIAN M. CARNEY
March 8, 2008; Page A9
Wall Street Journal, New York
Being president of the Czech Republic is more like being England's monarch than the president of the United States. While the Czech president has veto power over certain types of legislation, his role is supposed to be mostly ceremonial.
But Vaclav Klaus -- who was re-elected last month after being chosen by the Czech Parliament as head of state in 2003 -- has not been content to confine himself to ribbon cuttings and state dinners.
Mr. Klaus has become a globally prominent voice of skepticism about what he calls global-warming "alarmism." This week, while in New York to address a gathering of fellow "non-alarmists" at a conference in Times Square, he took some time to sit down with members of the Journal's editorial board to offer his dissenting views on Russia, Kosovo, America and of course, climate change.
"I am not a climatologist," Mr. Klaus cheerfully admits. "I am not disputing the measurement of the temperature." Even so, Mr. Klaus believes that his many years of experience in the fields of economics and econometrics give him some insight into the nature of the problems faced by climatologists and policy makers. In climatology as in economics, he says, "there are no controlled experiments. . . . You can't repeat the time series." So, just as you can't run a controlled experiment to determine the effect of, say, deficits on interest rates, we can't directly determine the effect of CO2 on climate. All we have are observations and inferences.
Mr. Klaus is also interested in the politics of global warming. He has written a book, tentatively titled "Blue, Not Green Planet," published in Czech last year and due out in English translation in the U.S. this May. The main question of the book is in its subtitle: "What is in danger: climate or freedom?"
He likens global-warming alarmism to communism, which he experienced first-hand in Cold War Czechoslovakia, then a Soviet satellite. While the communists argued that we must all sacrifice some freedom in pursuit of "equality," the "warmists," as Mr. Klaus calls them, want us to sacrifice liberty -- especially economic liberty -- to prevent a change in climate. In both cases, in Mr. Klaus's view, the costs of achieving the goal, and the impossibility of truly doing so, argue strongly against paying a price of freedom.
Furthermore, the fact that there has been some warming over so many years does not, by itself, prove to him that this trend will continue indefinitely. "Undoubtedly there is some warming," Mr. Klaus allows. "But there has never been no change in climate, no change in global temperatures."
The world, he argues, is full of risks, and the risk of catastrophic climate change is just one of them. Therefore, we need a more measured approach to assessing the risks and the costs of mitigating them.
Cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle "are two different methodologies, two different
The Contrarian of Prague
By BRIAN M. CARNEY
March 8, 2008; Page A9
Wall Street Journal, New York
Being president of the Czech Republic is more like being England's monarch than the president of the United States. While the Czech president has veto power over certain types of legislation, his role is supposed to be mostly ceremonial.
But Vaclav Klaus -- who was re-elected last month after being chosen by the Czech Parliament as head of state in 2003 -- has not been content to confine himself to ribbon cuttings and state dinners.
Mr. Klaus has become a globally prominent voice of skepticism about what he calls global-warming "alarmism." This week, while in New York to address a gathering of fellow "non-alarmists" at a conference in Times Square, he took some time to sit down with members of the Journal's editorial board to offer his dissenting views on Russia, Kosovo, America and of course, climate change.
"I am not a climatologist," Mr. Klaus cheerfully admits. "I am not disputing the measurement of the temperature." Even so, Mr. Klaus believes that his many years of experience in the fields of economics and econometrics give him some insight into the nature of the problems faced by climatologists and policy makers. In climatology as in economics, he says, "there are no controlled experiments. . . . You can't repeat the time series." So, just as you can't run a controlled experiment to determine the effect of, say, deficits on interest rates, we can't directly determine the effect of CO2 on climate. All we have are observations and inferences.
Mr. Klaus is also interested in the politics of global warming. He has written a book, tentatively titled "Blue, Not Green Planet," published in Czech last year and due out in English translation in the U.S. this May. The main question of the book is in its subtitle: "What is in danger: climate or freedom?"
He likens global-warming alarmism to communism, which he experienced first-hand in Cold War Czechoslovakia, then a Soviet satellite. While the communists argued that we must all sacrifice some freedom in pursuit of "equality," the "warmists," as Mr. Klaus calls them, want us to sacrifice liberty -- especially economic liberty -- to prevent a change in climate. In both cases, in Mr. Klaus's view, the costs of achieving the goal, and the impossibility of truly doing so, argue strongly against paying a price of freedom.
Furthermore, the fact that there has been some warming over so many years does not, by itself, prove to him that this trend will continue indefinitely. "Undoubtedly there is some warming," Mr. Klaus allows. "But there has never been no change in climate, no change in global temperatures."
The world, he argues, is full of risks, and the risk of catastrophic climate change is just one of them. Therefore, we need a more measured approach to assessing the risks and the costs of mitigating them.
Cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle "are two different methodologies, two different
approaches, two different ways of thinking," he says.
The less desirable precautionary principle "as used by Al Gore and all his fellow travelers" says that "if you are afraid that there are risks to something, you may prohibit everything." He continues: "This is for me
absolutely unacceptable to think about."
Mr. Klaus's contrarian streak is not confined to climate change. He has been one of the few politicians in the European Union to publicly express doubts about the wisdom of recognizing Kosovo's recently declared independence from Serbia.
He fears that Kosovo's independence "will be a very good example for other parts of countries that are not happy with what is going on around them. A domino effect -- let's put it that way. So this is for me a very, very serious issue." He declines to be drawn out on specific examples of regions in Europe that could be emboldened to follow Kosovo's lead -- but it does not take much imagination to guess.
The Czech Republic has a sizable Hungarian minority that has been a periodic source of tension with its neighbor to the south for decades. Czechoslovakia, of course, also had its own unhappy experience with its German minority in the Sudetenland in the 1930s.
Even so, Mr. Klaus, steadfastly keeping to the level of generalities and hypotheticals, says: "I am . . . afraid that there are some countries where it's just the opposite -- a bigger country has a minority somewhere and wants to create a bigger original 'mother country' as it's sometimes called. And that's for me a problem because that could destabilize the situation in Europe."
When it comes to hosting American missile-defense facilities, Mr. Klaus's position is contrary to the dominant view in Europe. Opposition to the radar facilities is, in his view, nothing more than old-fashioned anti-Americanism.
"Some 'Old European' countries," Mr. Klaus says, pointedly borrowing the Rumsfeldian formulation that caused so much angst on the continent earlier in the decade, "take [the installation of the facilities] as our way of saying we are not just locked in Europe. We want to stand on two legs. One of them is the European and the other is trans-Atlantic. And they feel that this is our motivation, not Iran, not North Korea. . . . It's just that simple." For his part, "I want to have close ties with [the U.S.]," which is why he supports the bases.
Perhaps the most surprising and counterintuitive position he took during our meeting concerned Russia. The former Soviet satellites in Central Europe are often thought of as reliable skeptics of Russian intentions. But Mr. Klaus expresses a more sanguine view, even arguing that Western fears about Russia and Vladimir Putin are misplaced.
"I was one who always rejected the high-brow approach, [which says], 'Well, it's not good that they're not doing as well as some other countries in Central Europe.' That's a cheap criticism that I don't accept." So, does he not think that, through its supply of arms to Syria and Iran, and its obstructionism over Iran at the U.N. Security Council, Russia is once again picking a fight with the U.S. -- or at least in danger of doing so?
His response is at turns heated and pleading: "No one is thinking about that in Russia. Why do you think that's the way [they think]? Simply, Russia was totally lost and pushed to the floor and simply wants to be a normal country again. Don't interpret all the attempts to be accepted as a normal country as an aggressive position vis-à-vis the United States. This is not that way. I'm afraid that this is the mantra in the American newspapers but please, please, think about it twice because this is a tragic mistake."
What about the danger that Russia could use its role in supplying oil and gas to the rest of Europe as a weapon against EU economies? Again, the response is passionate: "I don't see it. This is for me . . . cheap, cheap headlining to say that, really. I live in a country where we are totally dependent -- we used to be totally dependent on Russian oil and gas. In my life, and I will be 67 this June, it has never happened for one minute that there has been cutting of deliveries of oil and gas. Please don't -- don't -- exaggerate that point. It's such cheap writing. Don't do it."
It's a strange moment. Here is a man who built his political career on his reputation for leading post-communist Czechoslovakia out of its socialist past, and who by his own account was banished into a kind of internal exile for championing liberalization ahead of the Warsaw Pact invasion of his country in 1968. Now he is urging his listeners to give Moscow the benefit of the doubt.
And yet when pressed, he pleads sudden ignorance of the country whose intentions he has just been defending. "You know, I am not an expert on Russia. You know more about it."
That seemed to end the matter, so we tried to return to global warming. But he interrupts to add a final thought on Russia: "Russia is more free now than in any time in its 2,000 years of history. So to speak about dictatorship is misusing the terminology, devaluing the terms that we use. This is something we should not say."
This is not to say everything is sunshine in Russia. "They are much less free than the Americans and the Czechs would accept. . . . Let's be clear about this. Is that clear?
"For me it is unacceptable to have such a relatively closed political system. Personally unacceptable, and being in Russia I would fight against it. But that's a different story than speaking of a dictatorship or not putting it in a proper historical perspective."
He goes on. "To say 'dictatorship' or to speak about Putin as the 'KGB man,' I would be [embarrassed] to use such a term. That is maybe for some boulevard journalist, but this is definitely much more complicated. Putin is a much more complicated and structured personality than just the 'KGB man.' And I'm sure you know it."
But here his account took an inexplicable turn. Mr. Klaus, by his own description "no expert" on Russia, points to "a growing decentralization in the country. The role of the individual regions and those governors, they create a different style of thinking and I see an evolution in Russia."
These are the same governors that, formerly directly elected, are now appointed by Mr. Putin himself, which hardly seems a recipe either for decentralization or independence from Moscow. Even so, Mr. Klaus argues that "to be blind . . . to the real changes that have been going on there probably would be a mistake."
In Europe, Mr. Klaus has the reputation of a firebrand, if not a loose cannon. This is a president, after all, who calls global warming "alarmism" a "radical political project" based in a form of "Malthusianism" that is itself grounded on a "cynical approach [by] those who themselves are sufficiently well-off."
"It is not about climatology," he insists. "It is about freedom." Mr. Klaus left his hosts with a clear idea of why he so infuriates his opponents. There's no doubt, either, that he enjoys his self-assigned role as a contrarian.
Mr. Klaus's contrarian streak is not confined to climate change. He has been one of the few politicians in the European Union to publicly express doubts about the wisdom of recognizing Kosovo's recently declared independence from Serbia.
He fears that Kosovo's independence "will be a very good example for other parts of countries that are not happy with what is going on around them. A domino effect -- let's put it that way. So this is for me a very, very serious issue." He declines to be drawn out on specific examples of regions in Europe that could be emboldened to follow Kosovo's lead -- but it does not take much imagination to guess.
The Czech Republic has a sizable Hungarian minority that has been a periodic source of tension with its neighbor to the south for decades. Czechoslovakia, of course, also had its own unhappy experience with its German minority in the Sudetenland in the 1930s.
Even so, Mr. Klaus, steadfastly keeping to the level of generalities and hypotheticals, says: "I am . . . afraid that there are some countries where it's just the opposite -- a bigger country has a minority somewhere and wants to create a bigger original 'mother country' as it's sometimes called. And that's for me a problem because that could destabilize the situation in Europe."
When it comes to hosting American missile-defense facilities, Mr. Klaus's position is contrary to the dominant view in Europe. Opposition to the radar facilities is, in his view, nothing more than old-fashioned anti-Americanism.
"Some 'Old European' countries," Mr. Klaus says, pointedly borrowing the Rumsfeldian formulation that caused so much angst on the continent earlier in the decade, "take [the installation of the facilities] as our way of saying we are not just locked in Europe. We want to stand on two legs. One of them is the European and the other is trans-Atlantic. And they feel that this is our motivation, not Iran, not North Korea. . . . It's just that simple." For his part, "I want to have close ties with [the U.S.]," which is why he supports the bases.
Perhaps the most surprising and counterintuitive position he took during our meeting concerned Russia. The former Soviet satellites in Central Europe are often thought of as reliable skeptics of Russian intentions. But Mr. Klaus expresses a more sanguine view, even arguing that Western fears about Russia and Vladimir Putin are misplaced.
"I was one who always rejected the high-brow approach, [which says], 'Well, it's not good that they're not doing as well as some other countries in Central Europe.' That's a cheap criticism that I don't accept." So, does he not think that, through its supply of arms to Syria and Iran, and its obstructionism over Iran at the U.N. Security Council, Russia is once again picking a fight with the U.S. -- or at least in danger of doing so?
His response is at turns heated and pleading: "No one is thinking about that in Russia. Why do you think that's the way [they think]? Simply, Russia was totally lost and pushed to the floor and simply wants to be a normal country again. Don't interpret all the attempts to be accepted as a normal country as an aggressive position vis-à-vis the United States. This is not that way. I'm afraid that this is the mantra in the American newspapers but please, please, think about it twice because this is a tragic mistake."
What about the danger that Russia could use its role in supplying oil and gas to the rest of Europe as a weapon against EU economies? Again, the response is passionate: "I don't see it. This is for me . . . cheap, cheap headlining to say that, really. I live in a country where we are totally dependent -- we used to be totally dependent on Russian oil and gas. In my life, and I will be 67 this June, it has never happened for one minute that there has been cutting of deliveries of oil and gas. Please don't -- don't -- exaggerate that point. It's such cheap writing. Don't do it."
It's a strange moment. Here is a man who built his political career on his reputation for leading post-communist Czechoslovakia out of its socialist past, and who by his own account was banished into a kind of internal exile for championing liberalization ahead of the Warsaw Pact invasion of his country in 1968. Now he is urging his listeners to give Moscow the benefit of the doubt.
And yet when pressed, he pleads sudden ignorance of the country whose intentions he has just been defending. "You know, I am not an expert on Russia. You know more about it."
That seemed to end the matter, so we tried to return to global warming. But he interrupts to add a final thought on Russia: "Russia is more free now than in any time in its 2,000 years of history. So to speak about dictatorship is misusing the terminology, devaluing the terms that we use. This is something we should not say."
This is not to say everything is sunshine in Russia. "They are much less free than the Americans and the Czechs would accept. . . . Let's be clear about this. Is that clear?
"For me it is unacceptable to have such a relatively closed political system. Personally unacceptable, and being in Russia I would fight against it. But that's a different story than speaking of a dictatorship or not putting it in a proper historical perspective."
He goes on. "To say 'dictatorship' or to speak about Putin as the 'KGB man,' I would be [embarrassed] to use such a term. That is maybe for some boulevard journalist, but this is definitely much more complicated. Putin is a much more complicated and structured personality than just the 'KGB man.' And I'm sure you know it."
But here his account took an inexplicable turn. Mr. Klaus, by his own description "no expert" on Russia, points to "a growing decentralization in the country. The role of the individual regions and those governors, they create a different style of thinking and I see an evolution in Russia."
These are the same governors that, formerly directly elected, are now appointed by Mr. Putin himself, which hardly seems a recipe either for decentralization or independence from Moscow. Even so, Mr. Klaus argues that "to be blind . . . to the real changes that have been going on there probably would be a mistake."
In Europe, Mr. Klaus has the reputation of a firebrand, if not a loose cannon. This is a president, after all, who calls global warming "alarmism" a "radical political project" based in a form of "Malthusianism" that is itself grounded on a "cynical approach [by] those who themselves are sufficiently well-off."
"It is not about climatology," he insists. "It is about freedom." Mr. Klaus left his hosts with a clear idea of why he so infuriates his opponents. There's no doubt, either, that he enjoys his self-assigned role as a contrarian.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Is the US Heading Down the Primrose Path Towards European Socialism??
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/03/06/beck.president.klaus.intv.part.2.cnn?iref=videosearch
Reality Czech part 2
HLN's Glenn Beck and Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, discuss America's seeming march towards socialism.
Reality Czech part 2
HLN's Glenn Beck and Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, discuss America's seeming march towards socialism.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Klaus Educates the IPCC: Freedom, Not Climate is Endangered
http://www.klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=XpAV39wT4A32
4.3.2008 - ENGLISH PAGES
From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like first of all to thank the organizers of this important conference for making it possible and also for inviting one politically incorrect politician from Central Europe to come and speak here. This meeting will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the moving away from the irrational climate alarmism to the much needed climate realism.
I know it is difficult to say anything interesting after two days of speeches and discussions here. If I am not wrong, I am the only speaker from a former communist country and I have to use this as a comparative – paradoxically – advantage. Each one of us has his or her experiences, prejudices and preferences. The ones that I have are – quite inevitably – connected with the fact that I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: “Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism.
This fear of mine is the driving force behind my active involvement in the Climate Change Debate and behind my being the only head of state who in September 2007 at the UN Climate Change Conference, only a few blocks away from here, openly and explicitly challenged the current global warming hysteria. My central argument was – in a condensed form – formulated in the subtitle of my recently published book devoted to this topic which asks: “What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?” My answer is clear and resolute: “it is our freedom.” I may also add “and our prosperity.”
What frustrates me is the feeling that everything has already been said and published, that all rational arguments have been used, yet it still does not help. Global warming alarmism is marching on. We have to therefore concentrate (here and elsewhere) not only on adding new arguments to the already existing ones, but also on the winning of additional supporters of our views. The insurmountable problem as I see it lies in the political populism of its exponents and in their unwillingness to listen to arguments. They – in spite of their public roles – maximize their own private utility function where utility is not any public good but their own private good – power, prestige, carrier, income, etc. It is difficult to motivate them differently. The only way out is to make the domain of their power over our lives much more limited. But this will be a different discussion.
We have to repeatedly deal with the simple questions that have been many times discussed here and elsewhere:
1) Is there a statistically significant global warming?
2) If so, is it man-made?
3) If we decide to stop it, is there anything a man can do about it?
4) Should an eventual moderate temperature increase bother us?
We have our answers to these questions and are fortunate to have many well-known and respected experts here who have made important contributions in answering them. Yet, I am not sure this is enough. People tend to blindly believe in the IPCC’s conclusions (especially in the easier to understand formulations presented in the “Summaries for Policymakers”) despite the fact that from the very beginning, the IPCC has been a political rather than a scientific undertaking.
Many politicians, media commentators, public intellectuals, bureaucrats in more and more influential international organizations not only accept them but use them without qualifications which exist even in the IPCC documents. There are sometimes unexpected and for me unexplainable believers in these views. Few days ago, I have come across a lecture given by a very respected German economist (H. W. Sinn, “Global Warming: The Neglected Supply Side, in: The EEAG Report, CESifo, Munich, 2008) who is in his other writings very critical of the German interventionist economic policies and etatist institutions. His acceptance of the “conventional IPCC wisdom” (perhaps unwisdom) is striking. His words:
- “the scientific evidence is overwhelming”;
- “the facts are undeniable”;
- “the temperature is extremely sensitive to even small variations in greenhouse gas concentration”;
- “if greenhouse gases were absent from the atmosphere, average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be -6°C. With the greenhouse gases, the present average temperature is +15°C. Therefore, the impact of CO2 is enormous”;
- he was even surprised that “in spite of all the measures taken, emissions have accelerated in recent years. This poses a puzzle for economic theory!” he said.
To make it less of a puzzle, let me make two brief comments.
As an economist, I have to start by stressing the obvious. Carbon dioxide emissions do not fall from heaven. Their volume (ECO2) is a function of GDP per capita (which means of the size of economic activity, SEA), of the number of people (POP) and of the emissions intensity (EI), which is the amount of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP. This is usually expressed in a simple relationship which is, of course, a tautological identity:
ECO2= EI x SEA x POP
but with some assumption about causality it can be turned into a structural equation. What this relationship tells is simple: If we really want to decrease ECO2 (which most of us assembled here today probably do not consider necessary), we have to either stop the economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of living, or stop the population growth, or make miracles with the emissions intensity.
I am afraid there are people who want to stop the economic growth, the rise in the standard of living (though not their own) and the ability of man to use the expanding wealth, science and technology for solving the actual pressing problems of mankind, especially of the developing countries. This ambition goes very much against the past human experience which has always been connected with a strong motivation to go ahead and to better human conditions. There is no reason to make the, from above orchestrated, change just now – especially with arguments based on such an incomplete and faulty science as is demonstrated by the IPCC. Human wants are unlimited and should stay so. Asceticism is a respectable individual attitude but should not be forcefully imposed upon the rest of us.
I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions, want to regulate and constrain the demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to think about or experiment with. Without resisting it we would find ourselves on the slippery “road to serfdom.” The freedom to have children without regulation and control is one of the undisputable human rights and we have to say very loudly that we do respect it and will do so in the future as well.
There are people among the global warming alarmists who would protest against being included in any of these categories, but who do call for a radical decrease in carbon dioxide emissions. It can be achieved only by means of a radical decline in the emissions intensity. This is surprising because we probably believe in technical progress more than our opponents. We know, however, that such revolutions in economic efficiency (and emissions intensity is part of it) have never been realized in the past and will not happen in the future either. To expect anything like that is a non-serious speculation.
I recently looked at the European CO2 emissions data covering the period 1990-2005, which means the Kyoto Protocol era. My conclusion is that in spite of many opposite statements the very robust relationship between CO2 emissions and the rate of economic growth can’t be disputed, at least in a relevant and meaningful time horizon. You don’t need huge computer models to very easily distinguish three different types of countries in Europe:
- the EU less developed countries – Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – which during this very period tried to catch up with the economic performance of the more developed EU countries. Their rapid economic growth led to the increase of their CO2 emissions in 15 years (in which they signed Kyoto) by 53%;
- the European post-communist countries which after the fall of communism went through a fundamental, voluntarily unorganizable transformation shake-out and an inevitable radical economic restructuring with the heavy industry disappearing (not stagnating or retreating) practically over night. Their GDP drastically declined. These countries decreased their CO2 emissions in the same period by 32%;
- the “normal” EU, slow-growing if not stagnating countries (excluding Germany where it’s difficult to eliminate the impact of the fact that the East German economy almost ceased to exist in that period) increased their CO2 emissions by 4%.
The huge differences in these three figures – +53%, -32% and +4% – are almost fascinating. And yet, there is a dream among European politicians to reduce CO2 emissions for the entire EU by 30 per cent in the next 13 years (compared to the 1990 level). What does it mean? Do they assume that all countries would undergo a similar economic shock as was experienced by the Central and Eastern European countries after the fall of communism? Now in the whole of Europe? Do they assume that European economically weaker countries would stop their catching-up process? Or do they intend to organize a decrease in the number of people living in Europe? Or do they expect a miracle in the development of the emissions/GDP ratio, which would require a technological revolution of unheard-of proportions? With the help of a – from Brussels organized – scientific and technological revolution?
What I see in Europe (and in the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project.
This brings me to politics. As a politician who personally experienced communist central planning of all kinds of human activities, I feel obliged to bring back the already almost forgotten arguments used in the famous plan-versus-market debate in the 1930s in economic theory (between Mises and Hayek on the one side and Lange and Lerner on the other), the arguments we had been using for decades – till the moment of the fall of communism. Then they were quickly forgotten. The innocence with which climate alarmists and their fellow-travelers in politics and media now present and justify their ambitions to mastermind human society belongs to the same “fatal conceit.” To my great despair, this is not sufficiently challenged neither in the field of social sciences, nor in the field of climatology. Especially the social sciences are suspiciously silent.
The climate alarmists believe in their own omnipotency, in knowing better than millions of rationally behaving men and women what is right or wrong, in their own ability to assembly all relevant data into their Central Climate Change Regulatory Office (CCCRO) equipped with huge supercomputers, in the possibility to give adequate instructions to hundreds of millions of individuals and institutions and in the non-existence of an incentive problem (and the resulting compliance or non-compliance of those who are supposed to follow these instructions).
We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Now it concerns the whole mankind, not just the citizens of one particular country. To discuss this means to look at the canonically structured theoretical discussion about socialism (or communism) and to learn the uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom. This should be the main message of our conference.
Václav Klaus, Notes for the speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 4, 2008
4.3.2008 - ENGLISH PAGES
From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like first of all to thank the organizers of this important conference for making it possible and also for inviting one politically incorrect politician from Central Europe to come and speak here. This meeting will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the moving away from the irrational climate alarmism to the much needed climate realism.
I know it is difficult to say anything interesting after two days of speeches and discussions here. If I am not wrong, I am the only speaker from a former communist country and I have to use this as a comparative – paradoxically – advantage. Each one of us has his or her experiences, prejudices and preferences. The ones that I have are – quite inevitably – connected with the fact that I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: “Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism.
This fear of mine is the driving force behind my active involvement in the Climate Change Debate and behind my being the only head of state who in September 2007 at the UN Climate Change Conference, only a few blocks away from here, openly and explicitly challenged the current global warming hysteria. My central argument was – in a condensed form – formulated in the subtitle of my recently published book devoted to this topic which asks: “What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?” My answer is clear and resolute: “it is our freedom.” I may also add “and our prosperity.”
What frustrates me is the feeling that everything has already been said and published, that all rational arguments have been used, yet it still does not help. Global warming alarmism is marching on. We have to therefore concentrate (here and elsewhere) not only on adding new arguments to the already existing ones, but also on the winning of additional supporters of our views. The insurmountable problem as I see it lies in the political populism of its exponents and in their unwillingness to listen to arguments. They – in spite of their public roles – maximize their own private utility function where utility is not any public good but their own private good – power, prestige, carrier, income, etc. It is difficult to motivate them differently. The only way out is to make the domain of their power over our lives much more limited. But this will be a different discussion.
We have to repeatedly deal with the simple questions that have been many times discussed here and elsewhere:
1) Is there a statistically significant global warming?
2) If so, is it man-made?
3) If we decide to stop it, is there anything a man can do about it?
4) Should an eventual moderate temperature increase bother us?
We have our answers to these questions and are fortunate to have many well-known and respected experts here who have made important contributions in answering them. Yet, I am not sure this is enough. People tend to blindly believe in the IPCC’s conclusions (especially in the easier to understand formulations presented in the “Summaries for Policymakers”) despite the fact that from the very beginning, the IPCC has been a political rather than a scientific undertaking.
Many politicians, media commentators, public intellectuals, bureaucrats in more and more influential international organizations not only accept them but use them without qualifications which exist even in the IPCC documents. There are sometimes unexpected and for me unexplainable believers in these views. Few days ago, I have come across a lecture given by a very respected German economist (H. W. Sinn, “Global Warming: The Neglected Supply Side, in: The EEAG Report, CESifo, Munich, 2008) who is in his other writings very critical of the German interventionist economic policies and etatist institutions. His acceptance of the “conventional IPCC wisdom” (perhaps unwisdom) is striking. His words:
- “the scientific evidence is overwhelming”;
- “the facts are undeniable”;
- “the temperature is extremely sensitive to even small variations in greenhouse gas concentration”;
- “if greenhouse gases were absent from the atmosphere, average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be -6°C. With the greenhouse gases, the present average temperature is +15°C. Therefore, the impact of CO2 is enormous”;
- he was even surprised that “in spite of all the measures taken, emissions have accelerated in recent years. This poses a puzzle for economic theory!” he said.
To make it less of a puzzle, let me make two brief comments.
As an economist, I have to start by stressing the obvious. Carbon dioxide emissions do not fall from heaven. Their volume (ECO2) is a function of GDP per capita (which means of the size of economic activity, SEA), of the number of people (POP) and of the emissions intensity (EI), which is the amount of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP. This is usually expressed in a simple relationship which is, of course, a tautological identity:
ECO2= EI x SEA x POP
but with some assumption about causality it can be turned into a structural equation. What this relationship tells is simple: If we really want to decrease ECO2 (which most of us assembled here today probably do not consider necessary), we have to either stop the economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of living, or stop the population growth, or make miracles with the emissions intensity.
I am afraid there are people who want to stop the economic growth, the rise in the standard of living (though not their own) and the ability of man to use the expanding wealth, science and technology for solving the actual pressing problems of mankind, especially of the developing countries. This ambition goes very much against the past human experience which has always been connected with a strong motivation to go ahead and to better human conditions. There is no reason to make the, from above orchestrated, change just now – especially with arguments based on such an incomplete and faulty science as is demonstrated by the IPCC. Human wants are unlimited and should stay so. Asceticism is a respectable individual attitude but should not be forcefully imposed upon the rest of us.
I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions, want to regulate and constrain the demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to think about or experiment with. Without resisting it we would find ourselves on the slippery “road to serfdom.” The freedom to have children without regulation and control is one of the undisputable human rights and we have to say very loudly that we do respect it and will do so in the future as well.
There are people among the global warming alarmists who would protest against being included in any of these categories, but who do call for a radical decrease in carbon dioxide emissions. It can be achieved only by means of a radical decline in the emissions intensity. This is surprising because we probably believe in technical progress more than our opponents. We know, however, that such revolutions in economic efficiency (and emissions intensity is part of it) have never been realized in the past and will not happen in the future either. To expect anything like that is a non-serious speculation.
I recently looked at the European CO2 emissions data covering the period 1990-2005, which means the Kyoto Protocol era. My conclusion is that in spite of many opposite statements the very robust relationship between CO2 emissions and the rate of economic growth can’t be disputed, at least in a relevant and meaningful time horizon. You don’t need huge computer models to very easily distinguish three different types of countries in Europe:
- the EU less developed countries – Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – which during this very period tried to catch up with the economic performance of the more developed EU countries. Their rapid economic growth led to the increase of their CO2 emissions in 15 years (in which they signed Kyoto) by 53%;
- the European post-communist countries which after the fall of communism went through a fundamental, voluntarily unorganizable transformation shake-out and an inevitable radical economic restructuring with the heavy industry disappearing (not stagnating or retreating) practically over night. Their GDP drastically declined. These countries decreased their CO2 emissions in the same period by 32%;
- the “normal” EU, slow-growing if not stagnating countries (excluding Germany where it’s difficult to eliminate the impact of the fact that the East German economy almost ceased to exist in that period) increased their CO2 emissions by 4%.
The huge differences in these three figures – +53%, -32% and +4% – are almost fascinating. And yet, there is a dream among European politicians to reduce CO2 emissions for the entire EU by 30 per cent in the next 13 years (compared to the 1990 level). What does it mean? Do they assume that all countries would undergo a similar economic shock as was experienced by the Central and Eastern European countries after the fall of communism? Now in the whole of Europe? Do they assume that European economically weaker countries would stop their catching-up process? Or do they intend to organize a decrease in the number of people living in Europe? Or do they expect a miracle in the development of the emissions/GDP ratio, which would require a technological revolution of unheard-of proportions? With the help of a – from Brussels organized – scientific and technological revolution?
What I see in Europe (and in the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project.
This brings me to politics. As a politician who personally experienced communist central planning of all kinds of human activities, I feel obliged to bring back the already almost forgotten arguments used in the famous plan-versus-market debate in the 1930s in economic theory (between Mises and Hayek on the one side and Lange and Lerner on the other), the arguments we had been using for decades – till the moment of the fall of communism. Then they were quickly forgotten. The innocence with which climate alarmists and their fellow-travelers in politics and media now present and justify their ambitions to mastermind human society belongs to the same “fatal conceit.” To my great despair, this is not sufficiently challenged neither in the field of social sciences, nor in the field of climatology. Especially the social sciences are suspiciously silent.
The climate alarmists believe in their own omnipotency, in knowing better than millions of rationally behaving men and women what is right or wrong, in their own ability to assembly all relevant data into their Central Climate Change Regulatory Office (CCCRO) equipped with huge supercomputers, in the possibility to give adequate instructions to hundreds of millions of individuals and institutions and in the non-existence of an incentive problem (and the resulting compliance or non-compliance of those who are supposed to follow these instructions).
We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Now it concerns the whole mankind, not just the citizens of one particular country. To discuss this means to look at the canonically structured theoretical discussion about socialism (or communism) and to learn the uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom. This should be the main message of our conference.
Václav Klaus, Notes for the speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 4, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
When Will European Politicians Speak the Truth About Economic Freedom and Their Desire to Retain Control Over the Masses?
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10765186&subjectID=423172&fsrc=nwl
Charlemagne
The Economist print edition
Charlemagne
The Economist print edition
Winners and losers
Europe is a big winner from globalisation. If only politicians would say so
“LET us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good,” a British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, once said. The phrase entered the political lexicon, and “Supermac” went on to win re-election in 1959. The lesson seems clear enough: for a politician, delivering good news is a winner.
If only it were that simple. Half a century on, a growing body of research makes the case that, contrary to widespread belief, globalisation has made life better for most European citizens. What is more, Europe is unusually good at it. Yet political leaders seem wary of delivering the good news. With few exceptions, the political rhetoric when it comes to globalisation ranges from grim resolve (this challenge can be managed) to plain grim (we must tame this menace).
Defending globalisation is left to a cottage industry of think-tanks, academics and business lobbies (although some of the most thoughtful studies are quietly financed by pro-market governments, from Finland to the Netherlands, or by the European Union).
What is going on? Politics, mostly. Today's Europeans fear that globalisation may not be good for most people. Or, to be more precise, even if they notice the diffuse benefits (cheap jeans and high-tech gadgets), they fret about the visible losers, starting with workers whose jobs are shipped overseas. Worse, with globalisation disrupting business models at an ever finer level of detail many citizens feel they cannot be sure if they will be next.
A new book* by a pair of academics from America's Johns Hopkins University finds lots of facts to cheer Europeans up. European consumers (ie, all Europeans when they are shopping) are big winners from globalisation, which has delivered cheap imports, held down inflation and kept interest rates low. Despite the fuss about China and India, the EU's share of world exports rose slightly between 2000 and 2006. What is more, two-thirds of Chinese exports involve foreign brands, a good chunk of which are European. Nor does a “made in China” tag mean big revenues for Chinese firms. In a recent speech defending globalisation, the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, cited a University of California study into who gains when an iPod is sold in America for $299. Only $4 stays in China with the firms that assemble the devices, Mr Mandelson explained. $160 goes to American companies that design, transport and retail iPods. A similar pattern holds for many European products.
Europeans worry a lot about wage competition. The researchers note that globalisation is not just about wages, but more broadly about finding efficiencies anywhere along complex supply chains. After all, most non-EU employees of European firms live in America, not China (EU and Swiss firms employ some 3.5m workers in America). Yes, European jobs have been lost by offshoring, but unevenly. In France only 3.4% of jobs lost in 2005 could be blamed on offshoring, though there has been a wave of factory closures more recently (see article). Portugal has suffered more: a quarter of its job losses between 2003 and 2006 involved jobs heading overseas, mostly to new EU members.
Stick to the data, and globalisation Angst in Europe can look like the tail wagging the dog. Italian producers have demanded anti-dumping duties of tens of millions of euros on Chinese air compressors, to preserve just 500 jobs. Yet in a political world, data get you only so far. A politician seen as heartless towards 500 workers risks punishment by millions of watching voters. EU economies may have created 18m more jobs than they shed in the past decade. But the jobs are different: like America, Europe has shed manufacturing and farming jobs, and created new ones in services. Many Europeans suspect these of being precarious and low-paid. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is not alone in fuelling such suspicions, visiting factories to vow that France will remain an industrial power—with state help if need be—and deriding those who say that services are the future.
Such populism wilfully ignores European strengths. France has a particular genius for exporting services (if you are after striking symbols, a French firm, Sodexo, feeds both the American Marines and the British garrison on the Falklands). Furthermore, wages and conditions in services vary widely; and not all factory jobs were fun. Yet Mr Sarkozy and his kind may be expressing something else: a sense that a shift towards globally traded services involves a loss of control. Many Europeans have grown up in corporatist systems, dominated by trade unions, employers' groups and politicians. Globalisation is bad for such a model. That can be liberating, if annoying to French Gaullists. But it can be bruising as well.
Globalisation is one reason why European wage demands have been so restrained in recent years. It is easier for bosses to say no when workers fear that their jobs might be shipped to Shenzhen. That has been good for EU competitiveness. But it is not nice to hear your boss making the threat. Arguably, the European model has more niceness built into it than the American version, thanks to social safety nets of various sorts. Some, like Denmark's pricey “flexicurity”, look tailor-made for a globalised world thanks to their focus on supporting and retraining individual workers, not protecting jobs.
Politicians should not skate over risks (to be fair, in his 1957 speech, even Mr Macmillan confessed to worrying: “is it too good to last?”). But they should not conceal good news from voters, either, just because it runs counter to popular gut instinct. Although many Europeans do not seem to realise it, globalisation has been good for them—and the protection some crave would do far more harm than good. Will today's politicians ever be frank enough to tell them?
* “Globalisation and Europe: Prospering in the New Whirled Order”. By Daniel S. Hamilton and Joseph P. Quinlan, Centre for Transatlantic Relations.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Indian Environmental Scientist Declares Opposition to Economic Freedom and Technological Innovation; Support for 'Negative' Sustainable Development
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
"Vandana Shiva on Wal-Mart in India"
Vandana Shiva with Amy Goodman
Democracy Now (a partisan editorial, not journalism-based organization promoting multilateralism at the expense of individualism, free enterprise and private property rights)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1451229
[ORIGINAL ARTICLE WAS RELEASED ON DECEMBER 13, 2006, & WAS ENTITLED, Vandana Shiva on Farmer Suicides, the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal, Wal-Mart in India and More.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/13/vandana_shiva_on_farmer_suicides_the
ERGO, THIS ARTICLE WAS RECYCLED FOR POLITICAL EFFECT]
We speak with world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, VandanaShiva. A physicist and ecologist, Shiva is author of many books, herlatest is "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace."
[THE APPEAL TO EMOTIONS...]
In India, more than three hundred farmers climbed water tanks in thecountry's central Vidarbha region, many of them threatening to commit suicide unless the government fulfilled their demands to lift them outof poverty. Throughout India, more and more troubled farmers arekilling themselves. Up to three farmers a day swallow pesticides, hangthemselves from trees, drown themselves in rivers, set themselves onfire or jump down wells. Many of them are plagued by debt, poor cropsand hopelessness.
Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader and thinker. She is also a physicist and ecologist and the Director of the ResearchFoundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is the founder of Navdanya–"nine seeds", a [NATURE] movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds. Dr. Shiva was the 1993 recipient of the AlternativeNobel Peace Prize [??] The Right Livelihood Award. And she is the author ofmany books, her latest is "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability,and Peace."
AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva remains with us, physicist; ecologist;director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, andEcology; in `93, awarded the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the RightLivelihood Award; her latest book, Earth Democracy: Justice,Sustainability, and Peace. There is an epidemic you write about in India of farmer suicides. Can you explain what's happening and where this is happening?
VANDANA SHIVA: Indian farmers have never committed suicide on a largescale. It's something totally new. It's linked to the last decade ofglobalization, trade liberalization under a corporate-driven economy.The seed sector was liberalized to allow corporations like Cargill andMonsanto to sell unregulated, untested seed. They began with hybrids,which can't be saved, and moved on to genetically engineered Btcotton. The cotton belt is where the suicides are taking place on avery, very large scale. It is the suicide belt of India.
And the high cost of seed is linked to high cost of chemicals, because these seeds need chemicals. [THIS IS NEWS TO US] In addition, these costly seeds need to be bought every year, because their very design is to make seeds nonrenewable, seed that isn't renewable by its very nature, butwhether it's through patenting systems, intellectual property rightsor technologically through hybridization, nonrenewable seed is beingsold to farmers so they must buy every year.
There's a case going on in the Supreme Court of India right now on the monopoly practices of Monsanto. An antitrust court ruled against Monsanto, because the price is so high, farmers necessarily get into a debt trap, which is why I was talking about credit, for the wrongthing, could actually be a problem and not a solution.
[ALLEGED CAUSATION OF FARMER SUICIDES IS GLOBALIZATION???]
In addition, the price of cotton is collapsing under the huge $4billion subsidies given to agribusiness in the United States, which then dumps cotton on a world market with 50% reduction of price artificially. This is what led to the Cancun failure of WTO, but this is what is killing Indian farmers. Just three days ago, farmers wereprotesting against the low prices of cotton. They went to thegovernment agency, which before globalization used to buy cotton at afair price. One farmer was shot dead. So we're not just seeing suicides, we're also seeing farmers' protests treated as a new threat to the regime.
AMY GOODMAN: These descriptions of desperation, up to three farmers aday swallow pesticides, hang themselves from trees, drown themselvesin rivers, set themselves on fire, or jump down wells, many of themplagued by debt, poor crops and hopelessness?
VANDANA SHIVA: 90% of the farmer suicides—we've studied it. Every year we bring out a report called "Seeds of Suicide." We started the first report in '97, which was the first suicide in the district of Warangalin Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh—
AMY GOODMAN: Where is it in India?
VANDANA SHIVA: Andhra Pradesh is kind of southern India. But AndhraPradesh had a government that responded [TO FARMERS INSPIRED BY ENVIRONMENTAL NGO ACTIVIST CAMPAIGNS & HARRASSMENT OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS], and that's the government that took Monsanto to court. Vidarbha in Maharashtra has emerged asthe epicenter. This is where the Prime Minister visited, because the suicide issue had become so intense. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister offered exactly the same package, more of the same, as a solution. Included in this package is a 20 billion rupee seed replacement package, which means what seed farmers has gets further destroyed, so they have no renewable seed, no affordable seed. They must buy on the market every year. Farmer suicides in Vidarbha are now eight per day.
A few weeks ago, I was in Punjab. 2,800 widows of farmer suicides whohave lost their land, are having to bring up children as landlessworkers on others' land. And yet, the system does not respond to it,because there's only one response: get Monsanto out of the seedsector—they are part of this genocide—and ensure WTO rules are notbringing down the prices of agricultural produce in the United States,in Canada, in India, and allow trade to be honest. I don't think weneed to talk about free trade and fair trade. We need to talk abouthonest trade. Today's trade system, especially in agriculture, isdishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It's become a genocide. [NOW THIS IS CREATIVE ADVOCACY AND SUBJECTIVE JOURNALISM!!]
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the water tower protests?
VANDANA SHIVA: In the state of Rajasthan, which is the capital of the production of mustard—and mustard in India is very symbolic. It's the color of our spring. When spring comes, we dress in the yellow of the mustard flower. It's our staple oil, and we love the pungency of it.
1998, Monsanto and Cargill managed to get a ban on indigenous oils in order to create a market for soya oil, something we've never eaten before. We led a movement of women to bring back the mustard. But today, 70% of the oil India is eating, edible oil—and India was the capital of edible oil production—mustard, sesame, linseed, coconut,wonderful healthy oils—today, 70% of our edible oil market is soya oil dumped on us, palm oil dumped on us. And, as you know, today soya is being cultivated in cutting the Amazon, and palm oil is being cultivated cutting the rain forest of Borneo.
When the farmers can't sell their mustard—nobody's buying it—they'vehad protests. Twelve farmers were killed in Central India. And therewas a farmer who climbed onto the water tower a few months ago,mimicking a Bollywood film, but basically saying he would jump tosuicide if the farmer's mustard was not bought. This hijacking of the market for agriculture by a handful of agribusiness, which is what the rules of WTO are—the Agreement on Agriculture is basically putting all of agriculture into the hands of ADM, ConAgra and Cargill, and all the seed sector into the hands of Monsanto—it must necessarily destroy more and more farms, more and more farming, and push more farmers to suicide for a while, unless we get a change.
[WHILE WE DISPUTE THE ATTEMPTED CORRELATION BETWEEN WTO LAW, ECONOMIC NEO-LIBERALISM, FREE TRADE & FARMER SUICIDES, REASONABLE PERSONS COULD AGREE THAT NOT ENOUGH SMALL & MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES OPERATING IN WTO MEMBER COUNTRIES ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE FREE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY THE WTO AGREEMENTS. THIS IS THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE DOMINANCE OF THE LARGE PUBLICLY TRADED MULTINATIONALS]
We work for the change, and our work in Navdanya shows that farmerscan double their incomes by using their own seeds, doing organicfarming. All they need is a joining of hands with urban consumers anddefinitely a change in the rules of trade, which have treated therights of Cargill as fundamental rights.
[NUCLEAR BLACK HELICOPTERS???]
And something Americans don't know much about, the nuclear deal withIndia has a twin agreement, and that twin agreement is on agriculture.It's called the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture, and on the boardof this agreement are Monsanto, ADM and Wal-Mart. So a grab of theseed sector by Monsanto, of the trade sector by the giantagribusiness, and the retail sector, which is 400 million people inIndia, by Wal-Mart. These are issues that are preoccupying us forabout democracy in India right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva, I want to go back to that deal that justwas announced this weekend, surprised some. The US will send nuclear fuel shipments for civilian use, critics saying it will allow India touse its existing nuclear fuel to build up to 50 nuclear weapons. And then I want to ask you to expand on this corollary that we definitelydidn't know about. [WHERE'S THE BEEF??? NO EVIDENCE???]
VANDANA SHIVA: You know, the nuclear deal with India, in fact, showsthe double standards of US nuclear policy, because for the same thingsthat Iran does—Iran is axis of evil—but India here, through this nuclear agreement, is being told, we will separate civilian use and military use. Military use will be India's sovereign decision. I don't think it will be India's sovereign decision, because I think in thisdeal is a strategic use of India for Asia, for a containment for China. But in addition to that, there is turning India into a nuclear market: a sale of nuclear technologies, of nuclear fuel. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE???]
And I think we need to contextualize this in the context of theclimate debates. Climate change has made us recognize that we can'tkeep messing up the atmosphere and pumping more carbon dioxide. But nuclear doesn't become clean automatically just because carbon dioxide has destabilized the climate. Nuclear is being offered as a clean development mechanism [PURSUANT TO THE ILL-FATED KYOTO PROTOCOL]. And not only will it spread nuclear risks and hazards in India, [ADVOCATE OF PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE???] it will also allow corporations, like General Electric and others who pollute with carbon dioxide, as well as them,get quotas through emissions trading and markets for nuclear technology.
[WE ACTUALLY AGREE THAT A CARBON EMISSIONS TRADING SYSTEM IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CAREFULLY CRAFTED 'SMOKE & MIRRORS' REGIME TO BE EXPLOITED BY SOME LARGE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS THAT WISH TO REDUCE THEIR BALANCE SHEET REGULATORY & REPUTATIONAL RISKS WITHOUT ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATING THAT THEY HAVE REDUCED THEIR EMISSIONS OF THE ALLEGED 'AIR POLLUTANT' KNOWN AS CARBON DIOXIDE].
You know, I was a nuclear physicist. I left my career in 1972. I wastraining to be a nuclear physicist in India's atomic energy program inthe Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and I left because I realized very clearly nuclear power, as much as nuclear war, are systems where you cannot have democracy. They're inconsistent with democracy. And I lovedemocracy too much. So I went on to do theoretical physics.
[WHAT TYPE OF DEMOCRACY ARE SPEAKING OF?? DIRECT DEMOCRACY WHICH IS UNWIELDY & IMPRACTICAL, OR REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY WHICH ACTUALLY WORKS???]
AMY GOODMAN: So explain further this corollary that involves these other large multinational corporations. And why is it part of the nuclear deal?
VANDANA SHIVA: Well, two days ago the US representative—I think it's Mr. Burns who announced that the nuclear deal is the cutting edge, but what the United States is really seeking is agricultural markets and real estate markets, the land of the poor in India. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE??] And if you look at cities like Bombay, you look at cities like Delhi, you look at cities like Bangalore, they're exploding because there's this global hungry finance moving in to take over the land of people, not through a market mechanism, but using the state and an old colonial law of land acquisition to grab the land by force everywhere where this is happening. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE?? ARE YOU NOW SUGGESTING YOU SUPPORT FREE MARKETS??] There is a war going on, outside Delhi in Dadri, outside Calcutta in Singur, everywhere. Peasants are being shot and killed in order to take away the last resort and the last asset of the poor.
The agreements, nuclear and agricultural agreements, came out of a July visit of our prime minister in 2005, were then moved forward inthe March visit of President Bush to India, which saw huge protests,by the way—I'm sure it wasn't covered—but huge protests, where these deals, as well as the Iraq war, were the issue in India. And the two are twin programs. They are twin programs about a market grab and a security alignment.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Wal-Mart. They have just announced they'regoing to be opening 500 stores in India, the first to open in Augustof 2007.
VANDANA SHIVA: We've been organizing the unorganized retail sector of India. The retail sector of India, to me, is the ultimate practice of democracy. When you go into a tiny vegetable market, the women put out their mats, they've brought the tomatoes they've grown outside the city, put it down, maybe five kilos of tomatoes, sell it for the day, go back home, feed their children. It's a community market. 400 people dependent on retail, 14 million people dependent on little hawking, you know, a tiny moveable cart, which goes door-to-door. 90% of our vegetables come to our doorstep. We don't have to go anywhere.
Wal-Mart's entry into India, 500 stores, cannot go hand-in-hand with the giant retail economy of India, which is giant not by being one big store, but by having millions of small sellers. And that is what hascreated the vibrance of India's markets, the democracy in India's markets.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you very much, Vandana Shiva, for joining us. Her new book is Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.
The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
"Vandana Shiva on Wal-Mart in India"
Vandana Shiva with Amy Goodman
Democracy Now (a partisan editorial, not journalism-based organization promoting multilateralism at the expense of individualism, free enterprise and private property rights)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/1451229
[ORIGINAL ARTICLE WAS RELEASED ON DECEMBER 13, 2006, & WAS ENTITLED, Vandana Shiva on Farmer Suicides, the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal, Wal-Mart in India and More.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/13/vandana_shiva_on_farmer_suicides_the
ERGO, THIS ARTICLE WAS RECYCLED FOR POLITICAL EFFECT]
We speak with world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, VandanaShiva. A physicist and ecologist, Shiva is author of many books, herlatest is "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace."
[THE APPEAL TO EMOTIONS...]
In India, more than three hundred farmers climbed water tanks in thecountry's central Vidarbha region, many of them threatening to commit suicide unless the government fulfilled their demands to lift them outof poverty. Throughout India, more and more troubled farmers arekilling themselves. Up to three farmers a day swallow pesticides, hangthemselves from trees, drown themselves in rivers, set themselves onfire or jump down wells. Many of them are plagued by debt, poor cropsand hopelessness.
Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader and thinker. She is also a physicist and ecologist and the Director of the ResearchFoundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is the founder of Navdanya–"nine seeds", a [NATURE] movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds. Dr. Shiva was the 1993 recipient of the AlternativeNobel Peace Prize [??] The Right Livelihood Award. And she is the author ofmany books, her latest is "Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability,and Peace."
AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva remains with us, physicist; ecologist;director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, andEcology; in `93, awarded the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the RightLivelihood Award; her latest book, Earth Democracy: Justice,Sustainability, and Peace. There is an epidemic you write about in India of farmer suicides. Can you explain what's happening and where this is happening?
VANDANA SHIVA: Indian farmers have never committed suicide on a largescale. It's something totally new. It's linked to the last decade ofglobalization, trade liberalization under a corporate-driven economy.The seed sector was liberalized to allow corporations like Cargill andMonsanto to sell unregulated, untested seed. They began with hybrids,which can't be saved, and moved on to genetically engineered Btcotton. The cotton belt is where the suicides are taking place on avery, very large scale. It is the suicide belt of India.
And the high cost of seed is linked to high cost of chemicals, because these seeds need chemicals. [THIS IS NEWS TO US] In addition, these costly seeds need to be bought every year, because their very design is to make seeds nonrenewable, seed that isn't renewable by its very nature, butwhether it's through patenting systems, intellectual property rightsor technologically through hybridization, nonrenewable seed is beingsold to farmers so they must buy every year.
There's a case going on in the Supreme Court of India right now on the monopoly practices of Monsanto. An antitrust court ruled against Monsanto, because the price is so high, farmers necessarily get into a debt trap, which is why I was talking about credit, for the wrongthing, could actually be a problem and not a solution.
[ALLEGED CAUSATION OF FARMER SUICIDES IS GLOBALIZATION???]
In addition, the price of cotton is collapsing under the huge $4billion subsidies given to agribusiness in the United States, which then dumps cotton on a world market with 50% reduction of price artificially. This is what led to the Cancun failure of WTO, but this is what is killing Indian farmers. Just three days ago, farmers wereprotesting against the low prices of cotton. They went to thegovernment agency, which before globalization used to buy cotton at afair price. One farmer was shot dead. So we're not just seeing suicides, we're also seeing farmers' protests treated as a new threat to the regime.
AMY GOODMAN: These descriptions of desperation, up to three farmers aday swallow pesticides, hang themselves from trees, drown themselvesin rivers, set themselves on fire, or jump down wells, many of themplagued by debt, poor crops and hopelessness?
VANDANA SHIVA: 90% of the farmer suicides—we've studied it. Every year we bring out a report called "Seeds of Suicide." We started the first report in '97, which was the first suicide in the district of Warangalin Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh—
AMY GOODMAN: Where is it in India?
VANDANA SHIVA: Andhra Pradesh is kind of southern India. But AndhraPradesh had a government that responded [TO FARMERS INSPIRED BY ENVIRONMENTAL NGO ACTIVIST CAMPAIGNS & HARRASSMENT OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS], and that's the government that took Monsanto to court. Vidarbha in Maharashtra has emerged asthe epicenter. This is where the Prime Minister visited, because the suicide issue had become so intense. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister offered exactly the same package, more of the same, as a solution. Included in this package is a 20 billion rupee seed replacement package, which means what seed farmers has gets further destroyed, so they have no renewable seed, no affordable seed. They must buy on the market every year. Farmer suicides in Vidarbha are now eight per day.
A few weeks ago, I was in Punjab. 2,800 widows of farmer suicides whohave lost their land, are having to bring up children as landlessworkers on others' land. And yet, the system does not respond to it,because there's only one response: get Monsanto out of the seedsector—they are part of this genocide—and ensure WTO rules are notbringing down the prices of agricultural produce in the United States,in Canada, in India, and allow trade to be honest. I don't think weneed to talk about free trade and fair trade. We need to talk abouthonest trade. Today's trade system, especially in agriculture, isdishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It's become a genocide. [NOW THIS IS CREATIVE ADVOCACY AND SUBJECTIVE JOURNALISM!!]
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the water tower protests?
VANDANA SHIVA: In the state of Rajasthan, which is the capital of the production of mustard—and mustard in India is very symbolic. It's the color of our spring. When spring comes, we dress in the yellow of the mustard flower. It's our staple oil, and we love the pungency of it.
1998, Monsanto and Cargill managed to get a ban on indigenous oils in order to create a market for soya oil, something we've never eaten before. We led a movement of women to bring back the mustard. But today, 70% of the oil India is eating, edible oil—and India was the capital of edible oil production—mustard, sesame, linseed, coconut,wonderful healthy oils—today, 70% of our edible oil market is soya oil dumped on us, palm oil dumped on us. And, as you know, today soya is being cultivated in cutting the Amazon, and palm oil is being cultivated cutting the rain forest of Borneo.
When the farmers can't sell their mustard—nobody's buying it—they'vehad protests. Twelve farmers were killed in Central India. And therewas a farmer who climbed onto the water tower a few months ago,mimicking a Bollywood film, but basically saying he would jump tosuicide if the farmer's mustard was not bought. This hijacking of the market for agriculture by a handful of agribusiness, which is what the rules of WTO are—the Agreement on Agriculture is basically putting all of agriculture into the hands of ADM, ConAgra and Cargill, and all the seed sector into the hands of Monsanto—it must necessarily destroy more and more farms, more and more farming, and push more farmers to suicide for a while, unless we get a change.
[WHILE WE DISPUTE THE ATTEMPTED CORRELATION BETWEEN WTO LAW, ECONOMIC NEO-LIBERALISM, FREE TRADE & FARMER SUICIDES, REASONABLE PERSONS COULD AGREE THAT NOT ENOUGH SMALL & MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES OPERATING IN WTO MEMBER COUNTRIES ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE FREE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY THE WTO AGREEMENTS. THIS IS THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE DOMINANCE OF THE LARGE PUBLICLY TRADED MULTINATIONALS]
We work for the change, and our work in Navdanya shows that farmerscan double their incomes by using their own seeds, doing organicfarming. All they need is a joining of hands with urban consumers anddefinitely a change in the rules of trade, which have treated therights of Cargill as fundamental rights.
[NUCLEAR BLACK HELICOPTERS???]
And something Americans don't know much about, the nuclear deal withIndia has a twin agreement, and that twin agreement is on agriculture.It's called the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture, and on the boardof this agreement are Monsanto, ADM and Wal-Mart. So a grab of theseed sector by Monsanto, of the trade sector by the giantagribusiness, and the retail sector, which is 400 million people inIndia, by Wal-Mart. These are issues that are preoccupying us forabout democracy in India right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva, I want to go back to that deal that justwas announced this weekend, surprised some. The US will send nuclear fuel shipments for civilian use, critics saying it will allow India touse its existing nuclear fuel to build up to 50 nuclear weapons. And then I want to ask you to expand on this corollary that we definitelydidn't know about. [WHERE'S THE BEEF??? NO EVIDENCE???]
VANDANA SHIVA: You know, the nuclear deal with India, in fact, showsthe double standards of US nuclear policy, because for the same thingsthat Iran does—Iran is axis of evil—but India here, through this nuclear agreement, is being told, we will separate civilian use and military use. Military use will be India's sovereign decision. I don't think it will be India's sovereign decision, because I think in thisdeal is a strategic use of India for Asia, for a containment for China. But in addition to that, there is turning India into a nuclear market: a sale of nuclear technologies, of nuclear fuel. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE???]
And I think we need to contextualize this in the context of theclimate debates. Climate change has made us recognize that we can'tkeep messing up the atmosphere and pumping more carbon dioxide. But nuclear doesn't become clean automatically just because carbon dioxide has destabilized the climate. Nuclear is being offered as a clean development mechanism [PURSUANT TO THE ILL-FATED KYOTO PROTOCOL]. And not only will it spread nuclear risks and hazards in India, [ADVOCATE OF PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE???] it will also allow corporations, like General Electric and others who pollute with carbon dioxide, as well as them,get quotas through emissions trading and markets for nuclear technology.
[WE ACTUALLY AGREE THAT A CARBON EMISSIONS TRADING SYSTEM IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CAREFULLY CRAFTED 'SMOKE & MIRRORS' REGIME TO BE EXPLOITED BY SOME LARGE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS THAT WISH TO REDUCE THEIR BALANCE SHEET REGULATORY & REPUTATIONAL RISKS WITHOUT ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATING THAT THEY HAVE REDUCED THEIR EMISSIONS OF THE ALLEGED 'AIR POLLUTANT' KNOWN AS CARBON DIOXIDE].
You know, I was a nuclear physicist. I left my career in 1972. I wastraining to be a nuclear physicist in India's atomic energy program inthe Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and I left because I realized very clearly nuclear power, as much as nuclear war, are systems where you cannot have democracy. They're inconsistent with democracy. And I lovedemocracy too much. So I went on to do theoretical physics.
[WHAT TYPE OF DEMOCRACY ARE SPEAKING OF?? DIRECT DEMOCRACY WHICH IS UNWIELDY & IMPRACTICAL, OR REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY WHICH ACTUALLY WORKS???]
AMY GOODMAN: So explain further this corollary that involves these other large multinational corporations. And why is it part of the nuclear deal?
VANDANA SHIVA: Well, two days ago the US representative—I think it's Mr. Burns who announced that the nuclear deal is the cutting edge, but what the United States is really seeking is agricultural markets and real estate markets, the land of the poor in India. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE??] And if you look at cities like Bombay, you look at cities like Delhi, you look at cities like Bangalore, they're exploding because there's this global hungry finance moving in to take over the land of people, not through a market mechanism, but using the state and an old colonial law of land acquisition to grab the land by force everywhere where this is happening. [WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE?? ARE YOU NOW SUGGESTING YOU SUPPORT FREE MARKETS??] There is a war going on, outside Delhi in Dadri, outside Calcutta in Singur, everywhere. Peasants are being shot and killed in order to take away the last resort and the last asset of the poor.
The agreements, nuclear and agricultural agreements, came out of a July visit of our prime minister in 2005, were then moved forward inthe March visit of President Bush to India, which saw huge protests,by the way—I'm sure it wasn't covered—but huge protests, where these deals, as well as the Iraq war, were the issue in India. And the two are twin programs. They are twin programs about a market grab and a security alignment.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Wal-Mart. They have just announced they'regoing to be opening 500 stores in India, the first to open in Augustof 2007.
VANDANA SHIVA: We've been organizing the unorganized retail sector of India. The retail sector of India, to me, is the ultimate practice of democracy. When you go into a tiny vegetable market, the women put out their mats, they've brought the tomatoes they've grown outside the city, put it down, maybe five kilos of tomatoes, sell it for the day, go back home, feed their children. It's a community market. 400 people dependent on retail, 14 million people dependent on little hawking, you know, a tiny moveable cart, which goes door-to-door. 90% of our vegetables come to our doorstep. We don't have to go anywhere.
Wal-Mart's entry into India, 500 stores, cannot go hand-in-hand with the giant retail economy of India, which is giant not by being one big store, but by having millions of small sellers. And that is what hascreated the vibrance of India's markets, the democracy in India's markets.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you very much, Vandana Shiva, for joining us. Her new book is Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Mr.Obama: Does Your Call for 'Change' Really Mean Malthusian 'Negative' Sustainable Development & Al Gore's 'Wrenching Transformation of Society'??
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1254
Sustainable Development: The Root of All Our Problems
By Tom Deweese
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Canada Free Press
In his book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore warned that a “wrenching transformation” must take place to lead America away from the “horrors of the Industrial Revolution.” The process to do that is called Sustainable Development and its’ roots can be traced back to a UN policy document called Agenda 21, adopted at the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992.
Sustainable Development calls for changing the very infrastructure of the nation, away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of central planning of the entire economy - often referred to as top-down control. Truly, Sustainable Development is designed to change our way of life.
Many are now finding non-elected regional governments and governing councils enforcing policy and regulations. As these policies are implemented, locally-elected officials are actually losing power and decision-making ability in their own communities. Most decisions are now being made behind the scenes in non-elected “sustainability councils” armed with truckloads of federal regulations, guidelines, and grant money.
In fact, a recent study reported that elected city councils and commissioners have lost approximately 10% of their legislative power during the past 10 years, while, through the consensus process, the power of private groups called Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has increased by as much as 300%. It is a wrenching transformation, indeed.
The Three Es
According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity.
The Sustainablists insist that society be transformed into feudal-like governance by making Nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. As such, every societal decision would first be questioned as to how it might effect the environment. To achieve this, Sustainablist policy focuses on three components; land use, education, and population control and reduction.
The Sustainable Development logo used in most literature on the subject contains three connecting circles labeled Social Equity; Economic Prosperity; and Ecological Integrity (known commonly as the 3 Es).
Social Equity
Sustainable Development’s Social Equity plank is based on a demand for something called “social justice.” It should be noted that the first person to coin the phrase “social justice” was Karl Marx. Today, the phrase is used throughout Sustainablist literature. The Sustainablist system is based on the principle that individuals must give up selfish wants for the needs of the common good, or the “community.” How does this differ from Communism?
This is the same policy behind the push to eliminate our nation’s borders to allow the “migration” of those from other nations into the United States to share our individually-created wealth and our taxpayers-paid government social programs. Say the Sustainablists, “Justice and efficiency go hand in hand.” “Borders,” they say, “are unjust.”
Under the Sustainablist system, private property is an evil that is used simply to create wealth for a few. So too, is business ownership. Instead, “every worker/person will be a direct capital owner.” Property and businesses are to be kept in the name of the owner, keeping them responsible for taxes and other expenses, however control is in the hands of the “community.”
Economic Prosperity
Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based on one overriding premise: that the wealth of the world was made at the expense of the poor. It dictates that, if the conditions of the poor are to be improved, wealth must first be taken from the rich. Consequently, Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based not on private enterprise but on public/private partnerships.
In order to give themselves an advantage over competition, some businesses - particularly large corporations - now find a great advantage in dealing directly with government, actively lobbying for legislation that will inundate smaller companies with regulations that they cannot possibly comply with or even keep up with. This government/big corporation back-scratching has always been a dangerous practice because economic power should be a positive check on government power, and vice versa. If the two should ever become combined, control of such massive power can lead only to tyranny. One of the best examples of this was the Italian model in the first half of the Twentieth Century under Mussolini’s Fascism.
Together, select business leaders who have agreed to help government impose Sustainablist green positions in their business policies, and officials at all levels of government are indeed merging the power of the economy with the force of government in Public/Private Partnerships on the local, state and federal levels.
As a result, Sustainable Development policy is redefining free trade to mean centralized global trade “freely” crossing (or eliminating) national borders. It definitely does not mean people and companies trading freely with each other. Its real effect is to redistribute American manufacturing, wealth, and jobs out of our borders and to lock away American natural resources. After the regulations have been put in place, literally destroying whole industries, new “green” industries created with federal grants bring newfound wealth to the “partners.” This is what Sustainablists refer to as economic prosperity.
Ecological Integrity
“Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual and material) where humans are one strand in nature’s web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore the natural way is the right way and human activities should be molded along nature’s rhythms.”
From the UN’s Biodiversity Treaty presented at the 1992 UN Earth Summit.
This quote lays down the ground rules for the entire Sustainable Development agenda. It says humans are nothing special - just one strand in the nature of things or, put another way, humans are simply biological resources. Sustainablist policy is to oversee any issue in which man reacts with nature - which, of course, is literally everything. And because the environment always comes first, there must be great restrictions over private property ownership and control. This is necessary, Sustainablists say, because humans only defile nature. In fact, the report from the 1976 UN Habitat I conference said: “Land ...cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore, contributes to social injustice.”
Under Sustainable Development there can be no concern over individual rights - as we must all sacrifice for the sake of the environment. Individual human wants, needs, and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of social planners. The UN’s Commission on Global Governance said in its 1995 report: “Human activity...combined with unprecedented increases in human numbers...are impinging on the planet’s basic life support system. Action must be taken now to control the human activities that produce these risks.”
Under Sustainable Development there can be no limited government, as advocated by our Founding Fathers, because, we are told, the real or perceived environmental crisis is too great. Maurice Strong, Chairman of the 1992 UN Earth Summit said: “A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally-damaging consumption patterns. The shift will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”
The politically based environmental movement provides Sustainablists camouflage as they work to transform the American systems of government, justice, and economics. It is a masterful mixture of socialism (with its top down control of the tools of the economy) and fascism (where property is owned in name only - with no control). Sustainable Development is the worst of both the left and the right. It is not liberal, nor is it conservative. It is a new kind of tyranny that, if not stopped, will surely lead us to a new Dark Ages of pain and misery yet unknown to mankind.
Posted 01/8 at 08:56 AM Email (Permalink)
Sustainable Development: The Root of All Our Problems
By Tom Deweese
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Canada Free Press
In his book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore warned that a “wrenching transformation” must take place to lead America away from the “horrors of the Industrial Revolution.” The process to do that is called Sustainable Development and its’ roots can be traced back to a UN policy document called Agenda 21, adopted at the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992.
Sustainable Development calls for changing the very infrastructure of the nation, away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of central planning of the entire economy - often referred to as top-down control. Truly, Sustainable Development is designed to change our way of life.
Many are now finding non-elected regional governments and governing councils enforcing policy and regulations. As these policies are implemented, locally-elected officials are actually losing power and decision-making ability in their own communities. Most decisions are now being made behind the scenes in non-elected “sustainability councils” armed with truckloads of federal regulations, guidelines, and grant money.
In fact, a recent study reported that elected city councils and commissioners have lost approximately 10% of their legislative power during the past 10 years, while, through the consensus process, the power of private groups called Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has increased by as much as 300%. It is a wrenching transformation, indeed.
The Three Es
According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social, and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity.
The Sustainablists insist that society be transformed into feudal-like governance by making Nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. As such, every societal decision would first be questioned as to how it might effect the environment. To achieve this, Sustainablist policy focuses on three components; land use, education, and population control and reduction.
The Sustainable Development logo used in most literature on the subject contains three connecting circles labeled Social Equity; Economic Prosperity; and Ecological Integrity (known commonly as the 3 Es).
Social Equity
Sustainable Development’s Social Equity plank is based on a demand for something called “social justice.” It should be noted that the first person to coin the phrase “social justice” was Karl Marx. Today, the phrase is used throughout Sustainablist literature. The Sustainablist system is based on the principle that individuals must give up selfish wants for the needs of the common good, or the “community.” How does this differ from Communism?
This is the same policy behind the push to eliminate our nation’s borders to allow the “migration” of those from other nations into the United States to share our individually-created wealth and our taxpayers-paid government social programs. Say the Sustainablists, “Justice and efficiency go hand in hand.” “Borders,” they say, “are unjust.”
Under the Sustainablist system, private property is an evil that is used simply to create wealth for a few. So too, is business ownership. Instead, “every worker/person will be a direct capital owner.” Property and businesses are to be kept in the name of the owner, keeping them responsible for taxes and other expenses, however control is in the hands of the “community.”
Economic Prosperity
Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based on one overriding premise: that the wealth of the world was made at the expense of the poor. It dictates that, if the conditions of the poor are to be improved, wealth must first be taken from the rich. Consequently, Sustainable Development’s economic policy is based not on private enterprise but on public/private partnerships.
In order to give themselves an advantage over competition, some businesses - particularly large corporations - now find a great advantage in dealing directly with government, actively lobbying for legislation that will inundate smaller companies with regulations that they cannot possibly comply with or even keep up with. This government/big corporation back-scratching has always been a dangerous practice because economic power should be a positive check on government power, and vice versa. If the two should ever become combined, control of such massive power can lead only to tyranny. One of the best examples of this was the Italian model in the first half of the Twentieth Century under Mussolini’s Fascism.
Together, select business leaders who have agreed to help government impose Sustainablist green positions in their business policies, and officials at all levels of government are indeed merging the power of the economy with the force of government in Public/Private Partnerships on the local, state and federal levels.
As a result, Sustainable Development policy is redefining free trade to mean centralized global trade “freely” crossing (or eliminating) national borders. It definitely does not mean people and companies trading freely with each other. Its real effect is to redistribute American manufacturing, wealth, and jobs out of our borders and to lock away American natural resources. After the regulations have been put in place, literally destroying whole industries, new “green” industries created with federal grants bring newfound wealth to the “partners.” This is what Sustainablists refer to as economic prosperity.
Ecological Integrity
“Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual and material) where humans are one strand in nature’s web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore the natural way is the right way and human activities should be molded along nature’s rhythms.”
From the UN’s Biodiversity Treaty presented at the 1992 UN Earth Summit.
This quote lays down the ground rules for the entire Sustainable Development agenda. It says humans are nothing special - just one strand in the nature of things or, put another way, humans are simply biological resources. Sustainablist policy is to oversee any issue in which man reacts with nature - which, of course, is literally everything. And because the environment always comes first, there must be great restrictions over private property ownership and control. This is necessary, Sustainablists say, because humans only defile nature. In fact, the report from the 1976 UN Habitat I conference said: “Land ...cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore, contributes to social injustice.”
Under Sustainable Development there can be no concern over individual rights - as we must all sacrifice for the sake of the environment. Individual human wants, needs, and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of social planners. The UN’s Commission on Global Governance said in its 1995 report: “Human activity...combined with unprecedented increases in human numbers...are impinging on the planet’s basic life support system. Action must be taken now to control the human activities that produce these risks.”
Under Sustainable Development there can be no limited government, as advocated by our Founding Fathers, because, we are told, the real or perceived environmental crisis is too great. Maurice Strong, Chairman of the 1992 UN Earth Summit said: “A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally-damaging consumption patterns. The shift will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”
The politically based environmental movement provides Sustainablists camouflage as they work to transform the American systems of government, justice, and economics. It is a masterful mixture of socialism (with its top down control of the tools of the economy) and fascism (where property is owned in name only - with no control). Sustainable Development is the worst of both the left and the right. It is not liberal, nor is it conservative. It is a new kind of tyranny that, if not stopped, will surely lead us to a new Dark Ages of pain and misery yet unknown to mankind.
Posted 01/8 at 08:56 AM Email (Permalink)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Europe’s Philosophy of Failure: Economic Freedom for French & German Citizens Squandered
Europe’s Philosophy of Failure
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095
By Stefan Theil
January/February 2008
Foreign Policy Magazine
In France and Germany, students are being forced to undergo a dangerous indoctrination. Taught that economic principles such as capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship are savage, unhealthy, and immoral, these children are raised on a diet of prejudice and bias. Rooting it out may determine whether Europe’s economies prosper or continue to be left behind.
Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.
What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society’s historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on—over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.
Just as schools teach a historical narrative, they also pass on “truths” about capitalism, the welfare state, and other economic principles that a society considers self-evident. In both France and Germany, for instance, schools have helped ingrain a serious aversion to capitalism. In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce. In Germany, meanwhile, support for socialist ideals is running at all-time highs—47 percent in 2007 versus 36 percent in 1991.
It’s tempting to dismiss these attitudes as being little more than punch lines to cocktail party jokes. But their impact is sadly and seriously self-destructive. In Germany, unemployment is finally falling after years at Depression-era levels, thanks in no small part to welfare reforms that in 2005 pressured Germans on the public dole to take up jobs. Yet there is near consensus among Germans that, despite this happy outcome, tinkering with the welfare state went far beyond what is permissible. Chancellor Angela Merkel, once heralded as Germany’s own Margaret Thatcher, has all but abandoned her plans to continue free-market reforms. She has instead imposed a new “rich people tax,” has tightened labor-market rules, and has promised renewed efforts to “regulate” globalization. Meanwhile, two in three Germans say they support at least some of the voodoo-economic, roll-back-the-reforms platform of a noisy new antiglobalization political party called Die Linke (The Left), founded by former East German communists and Western left-wing populists.
Many of these popular attitudes can be traced to state-mandated curricula in schools. It is there that economic lessons are taught that diverge substantially from the market-based principles on which the Western model is based. The phenomenon may hardly be unique to Europe, but in few places is it more obvious than in France and Germany. A biased view of economics feeds into many of the world’s most vexing problems, from the growth of populism to the global rise of anti-American, anti-capitalist attitudes.
economics à la carte
“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities. The past 20 years have “doubled wealth, doubled unemployment, poverty, and exclusion, whose ill effects constitute the background for a profound social malaise,” the text continues. Because the 21st century begins with “an awareness of the limits to growth and the risks posed to humanity [by economic growth],” any future prosperity “depends on the regulation of capitalism on a planetary scale.” Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972.
[ITSSD RESEARCH CONFIRMED ONCE AGAIN!!]
When French students are not getting this kind of wildly biased commentary on the destruction wreaked by capitalism, they are learning that economic progress is also the root cause of social ills. For example, a one-year high school course on the inner workings of an economy developed by the French Education Ministry called Sciences Economiques et Sociales, spends two thirds of its time discussing the sociopolitical fallout of economic activity. Chapter and section headings include “Social Cleavages and Inequality,” “Social Mobilization and Conflict,” “Poverty and Exclusion,” and “Globalization and Regulation.” The ministry mandates that students learn “worldwide regulation as a response” to globalization. Only one third of the course is about companies and markets, and even those bits include extensive sections on unions, government economic policy, the limits of markets, and the dangers of growth. The overall message is that economic activity has countless undesirable effects from which citizens must be protected.
No wonder, then, that the French default attitude is to be suspicious of market forces and private entrepreneurship, not to mention any policies that would strengthen them. Start-ups, Histoire du XXe siècle tells its students, are “audacious enterprises” with “ill-defined prospects.” Then it links entrepreneurs with the tech bubble, the Nasdaq crash, and mass layoffs across the economy. (Think “creative destruction” without the “creative.”) In one widely used text, a section on technology and innovation does not mention a single entrepreneur or company. Instead, students read a lengthy treatise on whether technological progress destroys jobs. In another textbook, students actually meet a French entrepreneur who invented a new tool to open oysters. But the quirky anecdote is followed by a long-winded debate over the degree to which the modern workplace is organized along the lines imagined by Frederick Taylor, the father of modern scientific management theory. And just in case they missed it in history class, students are reminded that “cultural globalization” leads to violence and armed resistance, ultimately necessitating a new system of global governance.
This is a world apart from what American high school students learn. In the United States, where fewer than half of high school students take an economics course, most classes are based on straightforward, classical economics. In Texas, the state-prescribed curriculum requires that the positive contribution of entrepreneurs to the local economy be taught. The state of New York, meanwhile, has coordinated its curriculum with entrepreneurship-promoting youth groups such as Junior Achievement, as well as with economists at the Federal Reserve. Do American schools encourage students to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates or become ardent fans of globalization? Not really. But they certainly aren’t filling students with negative preconceptions and suspicions about businesses and the people who run them. Nor do they obsess about the negative side effects and dangers of economic activity the way French textbooks do. French students, on the other hand, do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools.
Germans teach their young people a similar economic narrative, with a slightly different emphasis. The focus is on instilling the corporatist and collectivist traditions of the German system. Although each of Germany’s 16 states sets its own education requirements, nearly all teach through the lens of workplace conflict between employer and employee, the central battle being over wages and work rules. If there’s one unifying characteristic of German textbooks, it’s the tremendous emphasis on group interests, the traditional social-democratic division of the universe into capital and labor, employer and employee, boss and worker. Textbooks teach the minutiae of employer-employee relations, workplace conflict, collective bargaining, unions, strikes, and worker protection. Even a cursory look at the country’s textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract. Bosses and company owners show up in caricatures and illustrations as idle, cigar-smoking plutocrats, sometimes linked to child labor, Internet fraud, cell-phone addiction, alcoholism, and, of course, undeserved layoffs. The successful, modern entrepreneur is virtually nowhere to be found.
[See ITSSD Journal on PATHOLOGICAL COMMUNALISM]
German students will be well-versed in many subjects upon graduation; one topic they will know particularly well is their rights as welfare recipients. One 10th-grade social studies text titled FAKT has a chapter on “What to do against unemployment.” Instead of describing how companies might create jobs, the section explains how those without jobs can organize into self-help groups and join weekly anti-reform protests “in the tradition of the East German Monday demonstrations” (which in 1989 helped topple the communist dictatorship). The not-so-subtle subtext? Jobs are a right to be demanded from the government. The same chapter also details various welfare programs, explains how employers use the threat of layoffs as a tactic to cut pay, and concludes with a long excerpt from the platform of the German Union Federation, including the 30-hour work week, retirement at age 60, and redistribution of the work pie by splitting full-time into part-time jobs. No market alternative is taught. When fakt presents the reasons for unemployment, it blames computers and robots. In fact, this is a recurring theme in German textbooks—the Internet will turn workers into “anonymous code” and kill off interpersonal communication.
[LONG LIVE SOLIDARITY & WELFARE STATE ECONOMICS!!]
Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed “The Revival of Manchester Capitalism,” “The Brazilianization of Europe,” and “The Return of the Dark Ages.” India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.
One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems. Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually. And it’s a belief system that must eventually appear to be the truth.
can old europe do new tricks?
This bias has tremendous implications that reach far beyond the domestic political debate in these two countries. These beliefs inform students’ choices in life. Taught that the free market is a dangerous wilderness, twice as many Germans as Americans tell pollsters that you should not start a business if you think it might fail. According to the European Union’s internal polling, just two in five Germans and French would like to be their own boss, compared to three in five Americans. Whereas 8 percent of Americans say they are currently involved in starting a business, that’s true of only 2 percent of Germans and 1 percent of the French. Another 28 percent of Americans are considering starting a business, compared to just 11 percent of the French and 18 percent of Germans. The loss to Europe’s two largest economies in terms of jobs, innovation, and economic dynamism is severe.
[SO MUCH FOR ACHIEVING THE LISBON AGENDA! THAT IS, UNLESS EUROPE IS SUCCESSFUL AT REGULATING OTHER COUNTRIES' INDUSTRIES!!]
Attitudes and mind-sets, it is increasingly being shown, are closely related to a country’s economic performance. Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, contends that attitudes toward markets, work, and risk-taking are significantly more powerful in explaining the variation in countries’ actual economic performance than the traditional factors upon which economists focus, including social spending, tax rates, and labor-market regulation. The connection between capitalism and culture, once famously described by Max Weber, also helps explain continental Europe’s poor record in entrepreneurship and innovation. A study by the Massachusetts-based Monitor Group, the Entrepreneurship Benchmarking Index, looks at nine countries and finds a powerful correlation between attitudes about economics and actual corporate performance. The researchers find that attitudes explain 40 percent of the variation in start-up and company growth rates—by far the strongest correlation of any of the 31 indicators they tested. If countries such as France and Germany hope to boost entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic dynamism—as their leaders claim they do—the most effective way to make that happen may be to use education to boost the cultural legitimacy of going into business.
The deep anti-market bias that French and Germans continue to teach challenges the conventional wisdom that it’s just a matter of time, thanks to the pressures of globalization, before much of the world agrees upon a supposedly “Western” model of free-market capitalism. Politicians in democracies cannot long fight the preferences of the majority of their constituents. So this bias will likely continue to circumscribe both European elections and policy outcomes. A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.
Minimal reforms to the welfare state cost former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder his job in 2005. They have also paralyzed modern German politics. Former communists and disaffected Social Democrats, together with left-wing Greens, have flocked to Germany’s new leftist party, whose politics is a distasteful mix of anticapitalist demagoguery and right-wing xenophobia. Its platform, polls show, is finding support even among mainstream Germans. A left-leaning majority, within both the parliament and the public at large, makes the world’s third-largest economy vulnerable to destructive policies driven by anticapitalist resentment and fear of globalization. Similar situations are easily conceivable elsewhere and have already helped bring populists to power in Latin America. Then there is France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to “rupture” with the failed economic policies of the past. He has taken on the country’s public servants and their famously lavish benefits, but many of his policies appear to be driven by what he calls “economic patriotism,” which smacks of old-fashioned industrial protectionism. That’s exactly what French schoolchildren have long learned is the way the world should work.
Both the French and German cases show the limits of trying to run against the grain of deeply held economic ideology. Yet, training the next generation of citizens to be prejudiced against being enterprising and productive is equally foolhardy. Fortunately, such widespread attitudes and the political outcomes they foster aren’t only determined by tradition and history. They are, to a great extent, the product of education. If countries like France and Germany hope to get their nations on a new economic track, they might start paying more attention to what their kids are learning in the classroom.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095
By Stefan Theil
January/February 2008
Foreign Policy Magazine
In France and Germany, students are being forced to undergo a dangerous indoctrination. Taught that economic principles such as capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship are savage, unhealthy, and immoral, these children are raised on a diet of prejudice and bias. Rooting it out may determine whether Europe’s economies prosper or continue to be left behind.
Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.
What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society’s historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on—over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.
Just as schools teach a historical narrative, they also pass on “truths” about capitalism, the welfare state, and other economic principles that a society considers self-evident. In both France and Germany, for instance, schools have helped ingrain a serious aversion to capitalism. In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce. In Germany, meanwhile, support for socialist ideals is running at all-time highs—47 percent in 2007 versus 36 percent in 1991.
It’s tempting to dismiss these attitudes as being little more than punch lines to cocktail party jokes. But their impact is sadly and seriously self-destructive. In Germany, unemployment is finally falling after years at Depression-era levels, thanks in no small part to welfare reforms that in 2005 pressured Germans on the public dole to take up jobs. Yet there is near consensus among Germans that, despite this happy outcome, tinkering with the welfare state went far beyond what is permissible. Chancellor Angela Merkel, once heralded as Germany’s own Margaret Thatcher, has all but abandoned her plans to continue free-market reforms. She has instead imposed a new “rich people tax,” has tightened labor-market rules, and has promised renewed efforts to “regulate” globalization. Meanwhile, two in three Germans say they support at least some of the voodoo-economic, roll-back-the-reforms platform of a noisy new antiglobalization political party called Die Linke (The Left), founded by former East German communists and Western left-wing populists.
Many of these popular attitudes can be traced to state-mandated curricula in schools. It is there that economic lessons are taught that diverge substantially from the market-based principles on which the Western model is based. The phenomenon may hardly be unique to Europe, but in few places is it more obvious than in France and Germany. A biased view of economics feeds into many of the world’s most vexing problems, from the growth of populism to the global rise of anti-American, anti-capitalist attitudes.
economics à la carte
“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities. The past 20 years have “doubled wealth, doubled unemployment, poverty, and exclusion, whose ill effects constitute the background for a profound social malaise,” the text continues. Because the 21st century begins with “an awareness of the limits to growth and the risks posed to humanity [by economic growth],” any future prosperity “depends on the regulation of capitalism on a planetary scale.” Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972.
[ITSSD RESEARCH CONFIRMED ONCE AGAIN!!]
When French students are not getting this kind of wildly biased commentary on the destruction wreaked by capitalism, they are learning that economic progress is also the root cause of social ills. For example, a one-year high school course on the inner workings of an economy developed by the French Education Ministry called Sciences Economiques et Sociales, spends two thirds of its time discussing the sociopolitical fallout of economic activity. Chapter and section headings include “Social Cleavages and Inequality,” “Social Mobilization and Conflict,” “Poverty and Exclusion,” and “Globalization and Regulation.” The ministry mandates that students learn “worldwide regulation as a response” to globalization. Only one third of the course is about companies and markets, and even those bits include extensive sections on unions, government economic policy, the limits of markets, and the dangers of growth. The overall message is that economic activity has countless undesirable effects from which citizens must be protected.
No wonder, then, that the French default attitude is to be suspicious of market forces and private entrepreneurship, not to mention any policies that would strengthen them. Start-ups, Histoire du XXe siècle tells its students, are “audacious enterprises” with “ill-defined prospects.” Then it links entrepreneurs with the tech bubble, the Nasdaq crash, and mass layoffs across the economy. (Think “creative destruction” without the “creative.”) In one widely used text, a section on technology and innovation does not mention a single entrepreneur or company. Instead, students read a lengthy treatise on whether technological progress destroys jobs. In another textbook, students actually meet a French entrepreneur who invented a new tool to open oysters. But the quirky anecdote is followed by a long-winded debate over the degree to which the modern workplace is organized along the lines imagined by Frederick Taylor, the father of modern scientific management theory. And just in case they missed it in history class, students are reminded that “cultural globalization” leads to violence and armed resistance, ultimately necessitating a new system of global governance.
This is a world apart from what American high school students learn. In the United States, where fewer than half of high school students take an economics course, most classes are based on straightforward, classical economics. In Texas, the state-prescribed curriculum requires that the positive contribution of entrepreneurs to the local economy be taught. The state of New York, meanwhile, has coordinated its curriculum with entrepreneurship-promoting youth groups such as Junior Achievement, as well as with economists at the Federal Reserve. Do American schools encourage students to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates or become ardent fans of globalization? Not really. But they certainly aren’t filling students with negative preconceptions and suspicions about businesses and the people who run them. Nor do they obsess about the negative side effects and dangers of economic activity the way French textbooks do. French students, on the other hand, do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools.
Germans teach their young people a similar economic narrative, with a slightly different emphasis. The focus is on instilling the corporatist and collectivist traditions of the German system. Although each of Germany’s 16 states sets its own education requirements, nearly all teach through the lens of workplace conflict between employer and employee, the central battle being over wages and work rules. If there’s one unifying characteristic of German textbooks, it’s the tremendous emphasis on group interests, the traditional social-democratic division of the universe into capital and labor, employer and employee, boss and worker. Textbooks teach the minutiae of employer-employee relations, workplace conflict, collective bargaining, unions, strikes, and worker protection. Even a cursory look at the country’s textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract. Bosses and company owners show up in caricatures and illustrations as idle, cigar-smoking plutocrats, sometimes linked to child labor, Internet fraud, cell-phone addiction, alcoholism, and, of course, undeserved layoffs. The successful, modern entrepreneur is virtually nowhere to be found.[See ITSSD Journal on PATHOLOGICAL COMMUNALISM]
German students will be well-versed in many subjects upon graduation; one topic they will know particularly well is their rights as welfare recipients. One 10th-grade social studies text titled FAKT has a chapter on “What to do against unemployment.” Instead of describing how companies might create jobs, the section explains how those without jobs can organize into self-help groups and join weekly anti-reform protests “in the tradition of the East German Monday demonstrations” (which in 1989 helped topple the communist dictatorship). The not-so-subtle subtext? Jobs are a right to be demanded from the government. The same chapter also details various welfare programs, explains how employers use the threat of layoffs as a tactic to cut pay, and concludes with a long excerpt from the platform of the German Union Federation, including the 30-hour work week, retirement at age 60, and redistribution of the work pie by splitting full-time into part-time jobs. No market alternative is taught. When fakt presents the reasons for unemployment, it blames computers and robots. In fact, this is a recurring theme in German textbooks—the Internet will turn workers into “anonymous code” and kill off interpersonal communication.
[LONG LIVE SOLIDARITY & WELFARE STATE ECONOMICS!!]
Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed “The Revival of Manchester Capitalism,” “The Brazilianization of Europe,” and “The Return of the Dark Ages.” India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.
One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems. Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually. And it’s a belief system that must eventually appear to be the truth.
can old europe do new tricks?
This bias has tremendous implications that reach far beyond the domestic political debate in these two countries. These beliefs inform students’ choices in life. Taught that the free market is a dangerous wilderness, twice as many Germans as Americans tell pollsters that you should not start a business if you think it might fail. According to the European Union’s internal polling, just two in five Germans and French would like to be their own boss, compared to three in five Americans. Whereas 8 percent of Americans say they are currently involved in starting a business, that’s true of only 2 percent of Germans and 1 percent of the French. Another 28 percent of Americans are considering starting a business, compared to just 11 percent of the French and 18 percent of Germans. The loss to Europe’s two largest economies in terms of jobs, innovation, and economic dynamism is severe.
[SO MUCH FOR ACHIEVING THE LISBON AGENDA! THAT IS, UNLESS EUROPE IS SUCCESSFUL AT REGULATING OTHER COUNTRIES' INDUSTRIES!!]
Attitudes and mind-sets, it is increasingly being shown, are closely related to a country’s economic performance. Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, contends that attitudes toward markets, work, and risk-taking are significantly more powerful in explaining the variation in countries’ actual economic performance than the traditional factors upon which economists focus, including social spending, tax rates, and labor-market regulation. The connection between capitalism and culture, once famously described by Max Weber, also helps explain continental Europe’s poor record in entrepreneurship and innovation. A study by the Massachusetts-based Monitor Group, the Entrepreneurship Benchmarking Index, looks at nine countries and finds a powerful correlation between attitudes about economics and actual corporate performance. The researchers find that attitudes explain 40 percent of the variation in start-up and company growth rates—by far the strongest correlation of any of the 31 indicators they tested. If countries such as France and Germany hope to boost entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic dynamism—as their leaders claim they do—the most effective way to make that happen may be to use education to boost the cultural legitimacy of going into business.
The deep anti-market bias that French and Germans continue to teach challenges the conventional wisdom that it’s just a matter of time, thanks to the pressures of globalization, before much of the world agrees upon a supposedly “Western” model of free-market capitalism. Politicians in democracies cannot long fight the preferences of the majority of their constituents. So this bias will likely continue to circumscribe both European elections and policy outcomes. A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.
Minimal reforms to the welfare state cost former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder his job in 2005. They have also paralyzed modern German politics. Former communists and disaffected Social Democrats, together with left-wing Greens, have flocked to Germany’s new leftist party, whose politics is a distasteful mix of anticapitalist demagoguery and right-wing xenophobia. Its platform, polls show, is finding support even among mainstream Germans. A left-leaning majority, within both the parliament and the public at large, makes the world’s third-largest economy vulnerable to destructive policies driven by anticapitalist resentment and fear of globalization. Similar situations are easily conceivable elsewhere and have already helped bring populists to power in Latin America. Then there is France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to “rupture” with the failed economic policies of the past. He has taken on the country’s public servants and their famously lavish benefits, but many of his policies appear to be driven by what he calls “economic patriotism,” which smacks of old-fashioned industrial protectionism. That’s exactly what French schoolchildren have long learned is the way the world should work.
Both the French and German cases show the limits of trying to run against the grain of deeply held economic ideology. Yet, training the next generation of citizens to be prejudiced against being enterprising and productive is equally foolhardy. Fortunately, such widespread attitudes and the political outcomes they foster aren’t only determined by tradition and history. They are, to a great extent, the product of education. If countries like France and Germany hope to get their nations on a new economic track, they might start paying more attention to what their kids are learning in the classroom.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Europe in the vice
http://igst.blogspot.com/2007/12/europe-in-vice.html
The structure of the European Union is such that power will ebb inexorably away from national governments and flow to Brussels. European Union laws supersede national laws and can be enacted to some degree free of control by national legislatures. This bodes ill for Europe.
Any hope that there are strong constituencies within the European Union willing to safeguard democratic control of government cannot but be dashed when there is such evident contempt for voters in European political circles as evidenced by the manner in which they are attempting to implement the defunct E.U. Constitution.
First, the structure of the E.U. that facilitates centralization:
[L]aws in the EU are made by the Council of Ministers, i.e. the committee of 27 ministers for whichever subject is being voted on, EU integration means that governments receive wide-ranging law-making powers.
This is, of course, incompatible with the principle of the separation of powers. According to that principle, the executive power (the government) should be separate from, and accountable to, the legislature (the national parliament) and of course the judiciary. Dictatorship is precisely the form of government in which the executive is not so constrained, and this is also the case in the EU.
Because the EU represents a dramatic and constant transfer of legislative power from national legislatures to national executives (sitting in the Council of Ministers), it can also be dubbed “a permanent coup d’état”. . . . The fact that the Council of Ministers, the EU’s legislature, meets and votes in secret only makes the fundamentally anti-democratic character of the European construction even clearer.[1]
The structure of the European Union thus favors a dangerous transfer of power to a Council of Ministers meeting and voting in secret.
The conduct of the E.U.'s proponents, as opposed to its structure, shows similar contempt for democratic governance. Witness the underhanded way in which the previously rejected-by-voters E.U. constitution is being foisted back on the people of Britain and Europe by merely breaking apart the same constitution and attaching those parts to existing treaties. This is being done by a process of amendment, which amendments deliberately use impenetrable hypertechnical language and require the interested observer to plough back through the extant treaties to understand how a disembodied amending provision relates back.
Then there's always the aboveboard contempt for European voters. From Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France:
The rejection of the constitution [by the voters in referendums] was a mistake which will have to be corrected [by more sagacious people].[2]
And:
"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly [...] All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.[3]
This drift toward a powerful and unconstrained executive in the European Union is deathly serious. It is the opposite approach taken by our founding document, which should be as useful a guide to Europeans as it is -- or might be -- to us.
Alas, European political leaders now flirt with centralization of power in a manner demonstrating that the preeminent political lesson of the twentieth century was not learned. They thus risk laying the foundation for an oppressive superstate. How far this process will go before Europe slides back into black fascism or red fascism is no small question.
Tragically, at the same time, these political leaders remain blind to – or cowed by -- the totalitarian menace growing in their midst, but which has its roots not in the twentieth but in the seventh century.
Europe is now effectively caught between the arms of a vice.
Notes
[1] "Why Europe’s National Politicians Sign Away National Sovereignty." By John Laughland, The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07 (emphasis added).
[2] "The Betrayal of Freedom in Europe: Back in the EUSSR." The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07.
[3] Id. (Emphasis added.)
posted by Col. B. Bunny at 12/19/2007
The structure of the European Union is such that power will ebb inexorably away from national governments and flow to Brussels. European Union laws supersede national laws and can be enacted to some degree free of control by national legislatures. This bodes ill for Europe.
Any hope that there are strong constituencies within the European Union willing to safeguard democratic control of government cannot but be dashed when there is such evident contempt for voters in European political circles as evidenced by the manner in which they are attempting to implement the defunct E.U. Constitution.
First, the structure of the E.U. that facilitates centralization:
[L]aws in the EU are made by the Council of Ministers, i.e. the committee of 27 ministers for whichever subject is being voted on, EU integration means that governments receive wide-ranging law-making powers.
This is, of course, incompatible with the principle of the separation of powers. According to that principle, the executive power (the government) should be separate from, and accountable to, the legislature (the national parliament) and of course the judiciary. Dictatorship is precisely the form of government in which the executive is not so constrained, and this is also the case in the EU.
Because the EU represents a dramatic and constant transfer of legislative power from national legislatures to national executives (sitting in the Council of Ministers), it can also be dubbed “a permanent coup d’état”. . . . The fact that the Council of Ministers, the EU’s legislature, meets and votes in secret only makes the fundamentally anti-democratic character of the European construction even clearer.[1]
The structure of the European Union thus favors a dangerous transfer of power to a Council of Ministers meeting and voting in secret.
The conduct of the E.U.'s proponents, as opposed to its structure, shows similar contempt for democratic governance. Witness the underhanded way in which the previously rejected-by-voters E.U. constitution is being foisted back on the people of Britain and Europe by merely breaking apart the same constitution and attaching those parts to existing treaties. This is being done by a process of amendment, which amendments deliberately use impenetrable hypertechnical language and require the interested observer to plough back through the extant treaties to understand how a disembodied amending provision relates back.
Then there's always the aboveboard contempt for European voters. From Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France:
The rejection of the constitution [by the voters in referendums] was a mistake which will have to be corrected [by more sagacious people].[2]
And:
"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly [...] All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.[3]
This drift toward a powerful and unconstrained executive in the European Union is deathly serious. It is the opposite approach taken by our founding document, which should be as useful a guide to Europeans as it is -- or might be -- to us.
Alas, European political leaders now flirt with centralization of power in a manner demonstrating that the preeminent political lesson of the twentieth century was not learned. They thus risk laying the foundation for an oppressive superstate. How far this process will go before Europe slides back into black fascism or red fascism is no small question.
Tragically, at the same time, these political leaders remain blind to – or cowed by -- the totalitarian menace growing in their midst, but which has its roots not in the twentieth but in the seventh century.
Europe is now effectively caught between the arms of a vice.
Notes
[1] "Why Europe’s National Politicians Sign Away National Sovereignty." By John Laughland, The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07 (emphasis added).
[2] "The Betrayal of Freedom in Europe: Back in the EUSSR." The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07.
[3] Id. (Emphasis added.)
posted by Col. B. Bunny at 12/19/2007
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