ROMANIA'S STRATEGIC DIPLOMACY IN THE POST-SEPT. 11TH PERIOD
Romanian politicians are relying on the success of Romania's diplomatic relations with the United States to map their foreign policy for the next decade. Writing from Constanta on the Black Sea coast (where Ovid was exiled), Ian Fisher observes:
"The ever-closer tie between Romania and the United States is likely to be cemented if, as expected, Romania and perhaps six other nations are invited to join NATO in November. It is but one example of how Sept. 11 has reconfigured the world, in often unexpected ways. Romania is, by any measure, at the rear of Europe's pack: reform withered here, as corruption thrived. The country still has no market economy. Its prospects to be a real part of Europe have looked, at best, long term."
It remains to be seen how the Romanian public will respond to a sustained joint military cooperation with the United States in places as far-flung as Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
IS GORE VIDAL AMERICA'S "LAST SMALL R REPUBLICAN"?
Gore Vidal, whose acute conscientiousness of the often-asserted military-industrial complex has characterized both his fictional and nonfictional work, deserves comment, if for no other reason than that he shares my concern about totalitarianism. What seduces about totalitarianism lies in its mallealibity or its personality. Today one can observe its new potential configurations, particular legislative or judicial interpretations that bring it to the foreground, its insidious masquerade under various His new book, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How America Got to Be So Hated originally got published in an Italian version titled La fine della liberta: Verso un nuovo totalitarismo, which translates to "the end of liberty: toward a new totalitarianism".
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
THE USES OF ANGER IN JUSTICE AND REVENGE
Philosopher Miles Burnyeat pens a riveting review of William Harris' Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity in which he compares anger used to accomplish justice and anger used to accomplish revenge. Following the ends-led thread of Burnyeat's argument through Seneca, Horace, Homer, Galen, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Stoic Marcus Aurelius provides a wonderful history lesson as well as a short philosophical discourse.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
THE BUSH TEAM'S STRATEGIC DIPLOMACY FOR NORTH KOREA: BREATH-TAKING REALPOLITIK
North Korea's recent confession about the success of its nuclear weapons program stunned policy-makers-- a surprise in itself given that rational expectations have led to the conclusion for awhile. There was never doubt concerning Pyongyang's fear of external aggression; given its location and ideological differences with neighbors, one might argue that the pursuit of nuclear weapons would be the only effective deterrent to South Korean or American troops. Howard French points out, North Korea specialists maintain that it acts in a fairly rational manner, enough so its actions can be predicted and the strategic rationale underlying them unveiled. In fact, North Korea's disclosure comes at an appropriate time for the Bush administration's war on terrorism, which has morphed into a war on weapons of mass destruction.
President Bush is using the 1994 arms control accord, which provided western energy aid to Pyongyang in exchange for vows it would not develop nuclear arms, as leverage in negotiations with N. Korea. Though Secretary of State Colin Powell announced on Monday that this pact was "already dead", Powell might be using the assumed policy disconnect between the US State Dept. and the DOD to manuveur
Some analysts in South Korea have expressed concern over Kim Dae-Jung's "surprisingly...calm attitude", which gives the impression that it "interpreted Pyongyang's revelation as an expression of its intention to have dialogue". How should the South Korean government be reacting to this disclosure? Given that US Undersecretary of State James Kelly flew first to Bejiing last week when the news broke, and not to Washington's strongest Asian allies (South Korea and Japan), we might be witnessing a new strategic alignment in Asia.
"John Bolton, another US undersecretary, then headed to Moscow. It was only after two days in China that Mr Kelly arrived in Seoul, before moving to Tokyo yesterday.
The itineraries reflected Washington's belief that it may be North Korea's traditional allies - China and Russia in particular - that hold the key to disarming Pyongyang.
Pakistan, suspected of supplying components for North Korea's uranium enrichment programme, is another country with close ties to Pyongyang that the US will be relying on to isolate the communist regime."
Regional specialists like B. Raman, who has been claiming for the past four years that "North Korea's assistance to Pakistan in the development of its missile capability has been as a quid pro quo for the latter's assistance to North Korea in the development of its military nuclear capability", expect to be vindicated by the recent revelations. It will be interesting to see how US policy develops with respect to containing the North Korean threat-- probably with the help of Pakistan, China, and Russia-- while pursuing a war on terrorism which abandons the very feasibility of containment doctrine.
Monday, October 21, 2002
WHY MULTICULTURALISM COMES UNDER ATTACK MOST PROMINENTLY DURING TIMES OF NATIONAL CRISIS
When a nation goes to war or hits an economic speed-bump, the most effective way to rally the populations behind the executive so that he can "fix" the problem is by resorting to ideological propaganda. Take, for instance, the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" or Ronald Reagan's "evil empire"-- what such strategic designations share is the black and white, good v. bad dichotomy assumed by their use and ends. President Bush's comment "you are either with us or you are against us" only emphasizes the extent to which the American war on terrorism is a war against "bad", against an idea. Such wars are impossible to win in any military sense which, so far, has been the Bush administration's primary means of pursuing victory.
It has been argued that Islamism, or Islamic fundamentalism (really not an appropriate term), is a reaction to the "excessive" presence of American influence across the globe. This is a difficult proposition to disprove in that the only way to check it involves reference to popular opinion, not easily quantified. If American cultural influence is resented, then it is mainly resented by those who find themselves disempowered by it. To the extent that this influence tends towards the progressive, cultural conservatives of all shapes and stripes will unite to oppose this threat to their authority. We can observe this reaction on the part of the American religious right with respect to the increased secularization of society, which threatens to undermine the legitimacy of Christian leaders in both moral and social terms.
The question then becomes: Should other nations fear American cultural influence? To this effect, John Nolan mentions the possibility of "death by Americanization" for transition states, which seems like an offshoot of the anti-globalization argument that focuses on standardization of culture. If the governments of these nations pursue policies that are not in accordance with the Bush administration's perception of American interests, then they have every reason to be afraid. I say this because Bush has demonstrated the willingness to take unilateral "preemptive" action against such threats, even if they are rooted in something as fluid as ideology.
September 11th did not herald the beginning of the "end of ideology" debate. More recently, Benjamin Barber dealt with this from a distance in Jihad versus McWorld, though his main concern was the impact of globalized culture on democratic institutions and norms in the post Cold War period.
Odd as this may sound, I think the biggest cultural influence on transition states has come in the form of what Ralph Joseph calls Kalashnikov culture joined with the culture of corruption. Between the two, there is very little room to accomodate democratic niceties like the rule of law.
However, granting this, we must also grant that the Bush administration might not care too much about democratic niceties-- the fact that he uses ideologically-forceful arguments says little about his opinion as to whether or not democracies abroad would be in America's interest. The longstanding US support of the Saudi regime might even lead us to the opposite conclusion, namely, that dictators are easier to manipulate than democratic leaders because they lack the problems of electoral politics and/or the need to please their constituencies. Intelligent scholars like Richard Posner and Richard Rorty would do well to realize that, while pragmatism may be ideal for running a household or a personal life, it ignores the overwhelming power and influence wielded by ideology-- something that Clifford Geertz and Robert Higgs have dealt with in their work.
Monday, October 21, 2002
THE THINGS STATES DO FOR HELEN
Monday, October 21, 2002
SERIOUS CROSSWORDS FOR SERIOUS SCHOLARS
The time has come to get serious about Kofi and prospects of UN intervention. I think the best strategy in pursuit of such seriousness involves completing this crossword puzzle, which covers a broad range of important facts about Kofi and Co., albeit leaving out the crucial point that his favorite color cardigan is navy blue. Such is the stuff that global politics are made of.
Monday, October 21, 2002
HITCHENS ENJOYS THE ADIEU SCENE
The latest from Chris Hitchens, who starts off by saying, "So long, fellow travelers". Some people just like to be contrary. Now that Hitchens is in search of a new niche, perhaps he might be interested in a little religious dive. Certainly the folks at Landover Baptist Church are seeking new self-righteous prophets.
Little did I know that this weekend would introduce me to the very interesting and controversial Serbian commentator Nebojsa Malic. While his articles sometimes veer towards the excessively spirited, Malic, in person, while certainly engaging, has mastered the art of conversing on the straight side. Perhaps what I enjoyed the most about conversing with Malic was his familiarity and comfort with historical arguments and explanations. Those who have spent any time in the Balkans know that talking to a Central or East European means talking to their ancestors. I appreciate Malic's sensibility and sensitivity to the importance of history on a continent where, unlike the 200-year narrative history so passionately lectured in American public schools, a nation's history is often characterized more by defeat and legend than by victory.
Sunday, October 20, 2002
A FEW WORDS FROM RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.
Sunday, October 20, 2002
SOCIAL SCIENTISTS GET TOGETHER (YES, ECONOMISTS, THAT INLCUDES YOU TOO)FOR DIALOGUE ON DEVELOPMENT POLICY.
"Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth. When gold is accepted as the medium of exchange by most or all nations, an unhampered free international gold standard serves to foster a world-wide division of labor and the broadest international trade. Even though the units of exchange (the dollar, the pound, the franc, etc.) differ from country to country, when all are defined in terms of gold the economies of the different countries act as one-so long as there are no restraints on trade or on the movement of capital."
Maybe the following little excerpt brings to mind a certain period, now reluctantly described as "the golden age of Clinton", existing prior to its alleged destruction by the evil "bubble":
"When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage...... The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates. The "Fed" succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market-triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's."
Greenspan explains the federal government's abandonment and later disavowal of the gold standard as follows:
"The opposition to the gold standard in any form-from a growing number of welfare-state advocates-was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.
Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which-through a complex series of steps-the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets.
The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
For Congress-watchers, one of the best moments in Congress this year took place when Congressman Paul confronted Greenspan about the current economic condition of the United States. Donald Luskin describes the moment:
Ron Paul looked the Master of the Universe in the eyes and said, "…we have nearly a $6 trillion debt… Now the Federal Reserve comes in and they buy that debt in order to maintain the interest rate that they think is the right interest rate, and they take that and they use it as an asset. You put it in the bank, you call this debt that we have created an asset, and you use it as collateral for our Federal Reserve notes. So that's a pretty good scheme. And I think in moral terms, as well as in economic terms, it's very similar to how Enron operates.Paul went on for a while longer, talking about the perils of inflated paper money -- fiat currency not backed by gold -- issued by governments throughout history. And then the big finish: "…So I would ask you, can you see any corollary whatsoever on what you're asked to do in running our monetary system to that which Enron was involved in?"
Ron Paul brought a copy of this article with him because he wanted Greenspan to sign it for him. When Greenspan finished the last flourish of his signature, Ron Paul asked him if he didn't wish to repudiate the article he had just signed, given its open opposition to his current career choice as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, not to mention his recent testimony before Congress. Without batting an eye, Greenspan replied, "No, I still stand by what I said in this article. I wouldn't change a single word".
In Romania, we have a word for this type of situation-- "theatre of the absurd". Ceausescu's government excelled at making mockery of truth and reality. It is a pity that Congressman Paul must see these sorts of performances as often as he does. Men like Ron Paul are far and few between in a city that prides itself on its efficient duplicity. Perhaps from now on, we should refer to legislation and bills as "theatre programs", and hope the humor is not lost on Congress' most willing actors.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
A FIFTH COLUMN WITHIN THESE NOT-SO-UNITED STATES
The importance of intellectual responsibility during time of national crisis has not been lost on all Americans. Not In Our Name, a group linked to the Bill of Rights Foundation, compiled a list of signatures including American public figures and intellectuals that refuse to counter the absolutism of President Bush's declaration, "You're either with us or against us". If every citizen living under communism had stood up to protest the shameful behavior of their governments, communism could never have survived as long as it did. By refusing to protest out government's actions, we legitimize them-- we make them okay by evening out the potential for cognitive dissonance.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
WHY DO CEO'S MAKE SUCH OUTLANDISH AMOUNTS OF MONEY? tHE MAGIC WORDS: "INSIDER LOANS".
According to a study to be published in November by the Corporate Library, a firm based in Portland that analyzes corporate data and advocates greate accountability to shareholders, about three-quarters of the nation's top 1, 500 corporations (exactly 1,133) disclosed loans to insiders in recent regulatory filings. Congress reacted to the problems of corporate accountability fairly rapidly after the Enron debacle by passing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which bans insider loans for stock insurance or anything else. However, Judith Fischer, managing director of Executive Compensation Advisory Services, a firm based in Alexandria that designs compensation strategies, doesn't think the "addiction" to offering insider loans as a means of attracting corporate executives will be an easy one to end, given both its long history and its deeply embedded ethos. Indeed, stock-purchase loans programs started being used during the 1980's bull market. It's been an uphill climb since then, with disclosure policies not doing much to prevent insider loans.
So what to do if common knowledge stipulates corporations will just do their best to get around the new disclosure mandates and loan bans? Scholars have suggested that the USC rule in favor of protecting earnings as art in order to get around some of the recent problems with insider loans and forgiveness policies for corporate executives.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
WHERE PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS MEET. AWKWARDLY.
So classical liberalism is responsible for all the evil in the world and the plunders of privatization must be rememdied through reparations, or so says Dana De Zoysa in her review of David Bollier's latest spin on sophisticated self-flagellation. Just when I am ready to yawn and color myself that lovely blue shade of bored, I hear a rumour about a new philosophy which incorporates economics, known as The School of Economic Science, more commonly abbreviated as SES. A little sample of logic according to the SES view....
"All trains are long. All coaches are long. Therefore, all trains are coaches....That is logic, and it is no good for anything at all. There is absolutely no relationship between rationality and logic."
Suddenly, the yawn tempts me again. Alas, what can I say? I'm getting old. Just color me Austrian.