@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:I have demonstrated that it is naive, by pointing out that it ignores practical politics, and the reasons why Congressmen and -women vote for aircraft carriers and not to feed starving nations.
Well then you demonstrate that your straw man is naive, because I keep repeating that I don't expect or even call for anyone to try to feed starving people, I want them to have a more level playing field.
And whether it's unpopular or not does nothing to indict the idea, I know Americans don't care enough do change the attitudes I criticize. They'd rather be cynics and talk about how it's not going to perfectly solve world poverty and portray it as futile or, yes, even naive than face the world's poor and look them in the eye.
So what if you don't want to talk about Haiti? Pick any other example of a failed state where the people are not decently fed, housed, educated and provided medical care. Feeding them with foreign aid is just putting a pressure dressing on a serious wound. At some point, the patient will need surgery, and not first aid.
Quote:I haven't said that the American position toward the Soviet Union was justified, but as long as you bring it up, i'd say it was justified. Korea and Vietnam were questionable engagements, but the overall principle was to confront a major military power which was attempting to project, either directly or through surrogates, it's military power into spheres which threatened our national security interests, at least so far as our then political leaders were concerned.
The American policy of Containment was the same thing, a military power projecting power. Kennan's "Long Telegram" and "Containment of Communism" essay both called for the United States to cease cooperation with the Soviets in favor of projection of power to counter the ideology of communism and what Kennan perceived as inherently expansionist Soviets.
I'm saying that the United States was playing the same game, but only with the right economic ideology. The United States made the cold war together with the Soviets and in many cases were the ones militarizing the ideological conflict.
Quote: There wasn't a lot of public objection to the principle, either, at least not initially. And speaking of ipse dixit, straw man arguments and canards, your response ignores the point of that remark, which was that other production and consumer economies used less of their disposable revenue on military expenditures because we were spending so much of ours.
It's completely true that some countries can ignore their own military spends because they ally themselves with the United States. I live in one such country (Costa Rica) that abolished their military which can't happen in a vacuum of power as easily.
But the notion that we are the guardians of the world whose protective wing allows others to develop economically is exaggerated, we are also a huge source of instability for nations who don't want to kiss our asses, and we routinely threaten them and push them into their own wasteful arms races.
It's simply not a benevolent guardianship we have here, and while it surely has benefited some it has wrought havoc on others.
Quote:Another straw man from you, and one with which you ignore an important point. I haven't claimed that you blame America for the poor of the world.
But you argue against my position on the basis of the cause of poverty not being American, that is what a straw man is. You may not explicitly say I said something but you spend nearly your whole argument debunking an argument nobody made.
Quote: I have pointed out that nations, especially failed states like Haiti, suffer from social and political inequities which benefit a few and the majority be damned.
Well, Capitan Obvious, nobody is disputing that. But even if Haiti had perfect equality in wealth it would mean that each Haitian would earn less than $1k per year (their GDP per capita is $1,300).
The bottom line is that countries like this need economic growth in addition to internal political improvements. Neither side can be ignored.
Quote: You certainly did comment on the share of the world economy controlled by the United States. The United States commands such a large sector of the world economy because it has created much (arguably most) of that sector of wealth.
But you portrayed this as me arguing that the United States took the lion's share of a zero-sum game, and that is not an argument I subscribe to or made.
I don't believe economics is a zero-sum game, that is one of the main reasons I advocate what I do, in the long run it's good for America too. Bill argued this explicitly already on this thread.
Quote:You keep attempting to dodge the substance of my argument.
No, your argument lacks substance. I am not dodging any of it.
Quote: It is that so long as nations are controlled by greedy minorities who are fine with export economies which don't benefit the majority of the population, and which prevent their nations from being productive consumer societies, those nations will continue as economically failed states, and feeding them is giving first aid to a critically injured patient.
For the third or fourth time I am not arguing for America to feed other countries.
And as I've already demonstrated, the internal inequality argument doesn't hold up without the increased economic participation I am calling for. These countries don't have large enough economies to distribute equally and pull themselves out of poverty. They need economic growth as well, full stop.
Quote:Making snide remarks about the historical examples i provided of European nations, the United States and Japan creating production and consumer economies simply avoids the issue.
The remarks were snide remarks about how you write a historical essay as if it addresses arguments herein when it doesn't. Nothing you wrote about even begins to address what I've argued for.
Quote:Feeding hungry nations helps nothing without crucial changes to those societies so that they can learn to feed themselves.
For the fifth time with you I will point out that I do not advocate "feeding hungry nations". I advocate trade policies that will help them develop their own industries and exports.
Making straw men and knocking them down is bad enough, but using the same old beat-up straw man so many times is even more intellectually dishonest.
Again: I
do not advocate that America "feed hungry nations". Stop arguing against this straw man.
Quote: Pointing out that the United States was not the first or the greatest industrial society would, to someone who had an open mind rather than someone just looking for a rhetorical fight, show that a nation need not be heavily industrialized to create a production and consumer society which would sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, accumulate wealth from the wise management of resources and productive capacity. The point about the United States, since you seem so slow to have picked it up, as that agrarian societies can do this, too.
It's a pointless point, what I advocate would allow them to do so more rapidly, and pointing out that the US was not the first to do so doesn't begin to say anything about what I have been arguing.
Would more favorable trade policies help create more favorable conditions for them to develop their own industries? Yes! Does the fact that the US was not the first industrialized nation change this? No.
It's a wholly irrelevant argument, and like I said, transcribing history of tenuous relation to the topic at hand is your stock and store.
Quote:It indicts your economic theory because your economic theory does not address how nations which can't feed themselves are supposed to rectify that situation. Simply feeding hungry nations will do nothing without drastic social and political reform.
For the sixth time, I do not advocate "simply feeding hungry nations". You are beating the **** out of a straw man of your own creation.
Quote:Replying with an historical non-sequitur just makes you look stupid, not me.
I didn't think you looked stupid, but I can see how you'd want to think I do.
Quote: My remark about Ford was part and parcel of the issue of a production and consumer economy. It's hardly might fault that you can't connect the glaringly obvious dots.
There's no connection to your dots and my argument. You can't make the connection yourself.
Quote:I didn't say that we give up building carriers to feed Haiti, i'm just referring to the silly example with which you started this thread.
You distorted the example to portray it as silly. The initial example is simple fact relating to the world's aircraft carriers and their costs. I was not advocating that we give that money to Haiti. This is a straw man George already beat up soundly and then you piled on. But it's still a straw man.
Quote: If you want to give away one percent of our revenues, and you convince the American people to do so, whether or not it feeds Haiti or stops the construction of aircraft carriers, it still won't have solved the problems which leave nations starving.
Nope, it won't. That's why it's on the bottom of my list and things like more favorable trade relations are at the top. Our foreign aid is often not helpful to the world's poor at all (it's usually more political than real aid) but I still think it is a tool that has utility.
Giving to corrupt regimes for geopolitical reasons is not helpful to the world's poor, but that indicts giving to corrupt regimes, not giving overall. There are plenty of perfectly useful causes for foreign aid and that it won't end world poverty is to demand impossible perfection to indict the concept of it being good at all.
Quote:You can keep ranting about straw man arguments, but it won't change that your thesis is naive, and does not address either practical political considerations, or the ways and means to make nations self-supporting in terms of food and economic security.
You can keep creating straw men to simply repeat that my arguments are "naive" but you'd make a better case for that if you weren't making up the arguments for me.
A more intellectually honest approach would be to address the arguments I do make, instead of ganging up on the straw men arguments that I did not make.
Quote:My remarks are not non sequiturs. They are very much to the point. If you want to devote one percent of our government's revenues to foreign aid in order to feed the world's poor, you're going to have to deal with practical politics.
I said nothing at all about dedicating foreign aid to feed the world's poor in this entire thread. The only time I ever called for foreign aid was when I said we should increase our share of foreign aid from 0.22% of our GDP to 1% (in line with Sweden).
I don't think this aid is best spent feeding anyone. I think it's best spent as a political carrot towards development and constructive policies. Most of our foreign aid is not for "feeding" anyone it's for bribing governments into adopting policies we advocate.
See how this is a straw man? I never
once advocate more foreign aid to "feed the world's poor" but you beat the hell out of that straw man anyway.
Quote: Specifically, you're going to have to deal with the inevitable objection of the taxpayer that they're not responsible for that poverty, and variations of the theme of god helps those who help themselves.
And that's why your diatribe is naive.
I think you just like to portray my argument as naive, even if you have to ignore that much of my diatribe is directed at exactly that fact that Americans are too selfish to adopt the policies I advocate and that they would rather point out that they aren't responsible (even if nobody is saying they are) than try to help.
So basically, you call me naive for saying the same thing you are (that Americans won't go for this) but for calling for it instead of cynically dismissing the notion like you would prefer.
I know the attitudes I criticize are unlikely to go away, I have no naiveté in this regard, I have disdain for the selfish, insular first-world bubble.
