In this post, I mentioned that I hadn’t seen any commentary from pro-war bloggers on reports that the US will spend no more on Iraqi infrastructure once the current allocation of $18 billion, most of which was diverted to military projects, is exhausted. Although there was lengthy discussion both here and at Crooked Timber, no one pointed to any examples of comments on the topic.
I said at the time I didn’t want to get into a “Silence of the Hawks” pointscoring exercise on this. As a general rule, no particular blogger is obliged to post on any particular topic. But I would have thought, if you made it your business to report regularly on Iraqi reconstruction, that such a report was worth covering or correcting.
The Winds of Change website gives a weekly report on Iraq, with a focus on reconstruction news. It appears to be a successor to Chrenkoff’s Good News from Iraq, though less relentlessly upbeat. This week’s report contains no mention of the end of reconstruction funding. In case the WOC editors missed it, the WP report is here.
Update Armed Liberal at WoC responds (graciously) to this provocation, calling the Administration’s decision “bizarre” and pointing to an earlier critique of the wiretapping policy. That still leaves the policy undefended, so I thought I’d try again.
Instapundit is usually quick to disseminate pro-Administration talking points (for example on wiretapping) and has posted regularly on Iraqi reconstruction. Only a month ago, Instapundit linked to an Austin Bay post headed (rather ironically in retrospect) The White House Finally Gets Serious About Iraqi Reconstruction. So, now that the nature of “seriousness” in the White House has become clear, does Glenn Reynolds support the cessation of reconstruction funding? Does anybody? End update
Oddly enough WOC links to a WP piece from October 2004 on the diversion of funds to military purposes with the revealing quote
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a written statement that the administration always knew that “reconstructing Iraq’s infrastructure would require enormous resources beyond what the Congress appropriated — after 30 years of neglect, decay and corruption.”
Whitman said the United States is working to ensure it is “not starting any project without finishing it.”
Presumably that statement does not apply to the big project of building a “peaceful and prosperous” Iraq.
Winds of Change has done a more reasonable job than many of presenting a case for war, but they’ve relied heavily on the assumption that the Administration is committed to the task of leaving Iraq, in its own words “peaceful and prosperous”. Now that the second of these goals has been abandoned, thereby undermining the first (which in any case looks further away than ever), I’d be interested to know if their views have changed.
A final note on all this is that Kim Beazley, has finally called for the withdrawal of Coalition troops from Iraq, arguing, correctly in my view, that their presence is doing more harm than good. Given Beazley’s extreme caution and love of all things military, he must really believe that the whole project is beyond any chance of redemption.
John Quiggin 
I did read it all SJ. The responses to some questions seem to contradict other responses. I think I quoted the most salient findings.
If you disagree then we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I don’t think that you fairly represented the data.
You said: “If you exclude Saddam’s “blue-eyed boysâ€?, the Sunnis, support for the invasion is overwhelming.”
So 46% of Iraqis overall think that the invasion was justified, and 80% of Kurdish Iraqis agree. I don’t think that’s exactly “overwhelming”.
But you omitted any mention of what actually is overwhelming opposition to the continued presence of the coalition troops.
The only ambiguous bits in the data are exactly when the Iraqis want the coalition forces to f*** off.
I left unstated something that I thought was obvious, but which on second thought may not be. Kurds make up something like 15% of the population of Iraq. Overwhelming support in a small minority of the population doesn’t make the overall result overwhelming.
Kurds actually make up about 20% of the Iraqi population.
Sunnis are also about 20% and Shiites about 60%. These are rough figures, as other groups like Sabaens and Christians are also present.
I feel sorry for the Kurds, who have been slaughtered like dogs in Saddam’s Iraq and also in Turkey.
The US intervention in Iraq has probably saved hundreds of thousands of Kurdish lives. It is a pity so few care.
“Katz, why is it that the opinions of the Iraqi people never rate a mention in your anti-war rants? Is it because they are little brown people who need to be patronised by those who know better?’
It’s Bush who is turning off the funds for these “little brown people”, not me.
Your recognition of the significance of this fact and your recovery from a protracted case of denial will occur more or less simultaneously
All the best for your recovery.
(And the same to Pablo for his recovery from what seems to be a nasty dose of Tourette Syndrome.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourettes
SJ (quoting the Iraq Index): “Iraqis who believe attacks against British and American troops are justified: 45% (65% in Maysan province)”
This is a particularly worrying figure because Maysan isn’t Sunni – it’s a shi’ite-majority provience in the south.
Steve Munn: “The US intervention in Iraq has probably saved hundreds of thousands of Kurdish lives. It is a pity so few care.”
This is true of the post-Gulf War I intervention but not of the current invasion and occupation.
You talk about the Kurds murdered by Saddam and the Turks and ask where’s the sympathy for them – but where’s your sympathy for the Turkish civilians murdered by the PKK Kurdish terrorists operating from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan?
“The Democrat members of the committe made dissenting comments at a number of points. Presumably they would have done likewise in relation to Kwiatkowski if they found her evidence compelling.”
I don’t know the details on this one Ian. You may be correct.
You have to look at the individual Democrats on the Committee. Many Demorats were pro-war, many were reluctant to allege malfeasance by the executive branch, some may have been reluctant to give oxygen to a whistle-blower, some may have disbelieved her.
It is possible that staffers under the authority of the Chairman did the necessary vetting.
Whatever, it is possible to read Kwiatkowski’s observations against the known facts. She may well be wrong on details but no one disputes her proximity to the action during the period of operation of Cheney’s Office of Special Plans.
US intervention saved lives in Kurdistan like hell. It enabled Kurdish ethnic cleansing, which when complete will be far worse.
When I was a child in Iraq we had an Armenian nany who had been through the Armenian genocide herself as a child. She told how the Kurds were far worse on the Armenians than the Turks – and now, of course, all the other minorities are open to them. They are not the good guys here, there are no good guys.
Ian Gould, the US “No Fly” zone after the first Gulf War stopped Saddam obliterating the Kurds. Do you at least concede this point?
I must plead ignorance on your claims about the PKK in Turkey. Have you any sources to back your claim?
PML, had Saddam been allowed to reassert his power in the north after Gulf War I, he would probably have continued his campaign of ethnic cleansing and liquidation of Kurdish clans that supported independence.
The US intervention prevented that.
I broadly agree with your assessment of the likely future course of events in northern Iraq but the Bush 41 and Clinton administration’s policy of effectively freezing the front-line did have the effect of saving lives in the short term.
Katz Says: January 12th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
“The Democrat members of the committe made dissenting comments at a number of points. Presumably they would have done likewise in relation to Kwiatkowski if they found her evidence compelling.�
“I don’t know the details on this one Ian. You may be correct.”
Katz, why didn’t you admit you ‘didn’t know the details’ at the time when you dismissed my references to this inquiry? Selective ‘special pleadings’ on your part?
“Katz, why didn’t you admit you ‘didn’t know the details’ at the time when you dismissed my references to this inquiry? Selective ’special pleadings’ on your part? ”
Happy to oblige Weekly. And no, not special pleadings at all. (BTW, well done on keeping up with your recommended reading.)
As you should be able to perceive, Ian Gould’s question was much more focused than yours. The link to the Senate Inttligence Committe inquiry from Wikipedia is broken and I couldn’t find it by other means. (If anyone can provide a working link to the report I’d be obliged)
Your references to the inquiry, on the other hand, could be answered with simple reference to normal parliamentary procedure, without needing to know what went on at the inquiry itself.
BTW I did find the following approving reference to Kwiatkowski’s observations about the operation of the Office of Special Plans in a House Judiciary Inquiry, along with much corroborating evidence:
Click to access section3b.pdf
“There is significant evidence that the Pentagon=s newly created Counter
Terrorism Evaluation Group (CTEG) under Douglas Feith B which is currently under
investigation for wrongdoing was used to place undue pressure on both the State
Department and the CIA linking Iraq with al Qaeda, to cherry-pick and stovepipe such
information directly to the White House, and to leak classified information regarding
this linkage to the press.” [Kwiatkowski and several other witnesses are acknowledged approvingly in an accompanying footnote.]
So you can see Weekly, Kwiatkowski has her supporters in the Congress, which is a fairly thorough refutation of your assertion that her evidence was universally dismissed as unreliable.
So I thank you for pushingme on this one. I now know more about Kwiatkowski’s role and reputation than I did. And I await the opportunity to read the full text of the Senate Intelligence Committee comments on Kwiatkowski.
Pablo you were completely nailed back there. Sometimes it’s gracious to admit you are wrong, for example misunderstanding that it is not the opinion of the Guardian that is being reported, but that of a senior british officer.
The question remains, are you saying the British officer is a ranting lefty?
On reflection, I suppose i’d change tack too if I was in your position.
Katz, happy to oblige re: “So I thank you for pushingme on this one.” By the way what brand of patronising tablet do you take?
Update on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s dealings with Kwiatkowski:
The Report is to be found here:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html
The precise reference is to be found in:
IX. Pressure on Intelligence Community Analysts Regarding Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Capabilities (pp 242-84 refer to Kwiatkowski)
Kwiatkowski was indeed interviewed by staffers. The questions were about “pressure” applied by Cheney et al upon the CIA to falsify intelligence. Kwiatkowski said it didn’t happen. But that has never been her argument. She alleges that Cheney et al redacted the intelligence material themselves. Thus there is no disagreement.
The failing of this section of the Report, therefore, is that they asked the wrong questions. The critcal test would be to compare the raw material produced by the intelligence community with the redacted material of the Office of Special Plans. This process has a name: stove-piping.
The Wikipedia entry on this incident misrepresents the truth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Kwiatkowski
“The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dismissed her allegations as baseless in its report on pre-war intelligence. (pp. 282-283”
In fact she answered the not particularly relevant questions satisfactorily. If she was asked the relevant questions, her responses weren’t recorded.
So the big picture seems to be that the Senate Committee did not address Kwiatkowski’s important observations. However, the House Committee (noted above) did, approving of her account of “stove-piping” by the OSP.
And of course all this points back to the need for supporters of the Iraq War to address the manifold failures of intellect and will by the Bush Administration.
And finally, I don’t need medication to patronise you, Weekly.
“Pablo you were completely nailed back there. Sometimes it’s gracious to admit you are wrong, for example misunderstanding that it is not the opinion of the Guardian that is being reported, but that of a senior british officer.”
The Guardian is hugely anti-American. Pablo was not wrong about that.
Pablo was not wrong about that. Pablo was totally wrong about what was being said though, and didn’t take the time to read the article or follow it up, or, when the link was provided to deal with its substance.
So I’m going to ignore everything else he ‘contributes’ here. I’m sure that he will cry a river at that news…
Armaniac, I would just say, consider the media source. As Avaroo said of my earlier comments, the Guardian is only reporting the British officer’s views, not as some random exercise, but because his views support the Guardian’s own views. Doesn’t mean that the British officer is wrong, but just consider why you see his view being pushed in that paper, and not a different view from the other thousands of officers out there.
.
Much of the media is into “opinion making”, not objective reporting.
No Pablo wasn’t wrong. Sorry.
Yes Wilful, I am crying now.
LOL! Oh my god, if I try to write as ‘Pablo’, it says “Your comment is awaiting moderation’.
.
It’s like as if Keating was in power up to now, that message would come up everytime you sent an email or text message on your phone while some Maoist passed it or rejected it, LOL!
.
But if JQ wants to keep his blog as a slice of socialist heaven, well, fair enough, it is his.
Regardless of the justice of British Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster’s comments about the capabilities of the US military, those Americans who aren’t denouncing him as “an insufferable British snob” are inclined to agree that he has some pertinent points to make about US performance in Iraq.
One salient point here is that this is the kind of finger pointing that goes on when things turn sour. British and US military authorities are beginning to play the blame game.
Success has a thousand fathers. Failure dies an orphan.
Instead of grindingtheir teeth at people who have been against the War from the beginning, it remaining supporters should be trying to convince people like Andrew Reynolds to get back on the program.
Or does that take too much mental effort?
Katz, I think you fancy yourself as being intellectually ‘superior’ to people who disagree with you. Please keep doing that. Please keep thinking your opponents (in the real world) are stupid.
The Guardian is the text version of Leunig cartoon. Nobody in their right mind would accept at face value ANYTHING written in the guardian, it is little more than the green left weekly without the blatant hate articles.
Green Left Weekly is great for a laugh! Absolutely crazy that there are people out there like that, and they are fully grown adults, not just 19 year olds going through a ‘phase’! That is a bit disturbing actually.
The Left has lost the plot. The other day I read a story about a man robbing a grocery store. What did the left have to say about it? Nothing. They were too busy trying to free Saddam Hussein and David Hicks. The Left is a disgrace: they hate Australians, yet love Saddam Hussein.
Another example: they are always going on about rights. What about obligations? They sip chardonnay all day yet never drink beer, like real Aussies. If they drank beer and instant coffee perhaps they wouldn’t go on all the time about David Hicks.
Pablo: “Armaniac, I would just say, consider the media source. As Avaroo said of my earlier comments, the Guardian is only reporting the British officer’s views, not as some random exercise, but because his views support the Guardian’s own views.”
So I assume that if the Weekly Standard or the Washington Post published an article critical of the Democratic Party you’d reject it out of hand on the same grounds?
He’s not rejecting it. He’s clearly said that the British officer isn’t wrong only that his views are available for reading in the Guardian because the Guardian agrees with the officer.
If the British officer had said those American chaps are just the nicest, most decent sort of guys, helping all those Iraqi children, do you think the Guardian would’ve published it?
“The Guardian is the text version of Leunig cartoon. Nobody in their right mind would accept at face value ANYTHING written in the guardian, it is little more than the green left weekly without the blatant hate articles.”
Funny, I didn’t notice the GLW supporting the Iraq war or going into bat for Tony Blair. Every George Monbiot is balanced by a David Aaronovich in their commentary. Paul Foot is no longer with us. Very tepid left line on some issues, lukewarm right on others. Pro-privatisation and PPP, much no doubt to Prof Q’s distaste. Looks like you’ve picked up your prejudices from Gerard Henderson, Steve – he’s about the only commentator that rails against the Guardian as a socialist rag these days.
Paul Kelly sounds a lot like Sam Kekovich. What are your thoughts on vegetarians and lamb?
Steve Munn: I just spotted your question re. the PKK, I’ll respond with details when I have soem mroe time.
Turk police detain 7 Kurd rebels, seize explosives
ISTANBUL: Turkish police said today they had detained seven suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with more than 12 kg of plastic explosives in their possession.
Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since they launched an armed struggle in 1984 for a separate Kurdish homeland in the southeast of the country.
The state Anatolian news agency quoted Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah as saying those arrested had been planning a ”sensational action” in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city.
He said they had received training in ”military and political camps abroad”, but he did not say where.
http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=82510
Before Al-Qaeda’s fanatics were blowing themselves up in Iraq, members of Abdullah Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were terrorizing Turkey in the 1990s. According to Yoram Schweitzer from the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, between 1996 and 1999, the PKK carried out 16 suicide bomb attacks (plus 5 failed attacks), “killing 20 people and wounding scores.� Schweitzer adds that “PKK suicide attacks were inspired and carried out on the orders of the organization’s charismatic leader Ocalan, who was perceived by the members of his organization as a ‘Light to the Nations.’�[i] Ocalan, also known as Apo, sees himself as a model to be emulated. “Everyone should take note of the way I live and what I don’t do� he told the Turkish Daily News in 1998. “The way I eat, the way I drink, my orders and even my inactivity should be carefully studied. There will be lessons to be learned from several generations because Apo (Ocalan) is a great teacher.� [ii] Like a teacher, Ocalan enjoyed lessons, except he favored bloody ones: in the 1980s, the PKK slaughtered the inhabitants of Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey who were unsympathetic to its cause in order to coerce other nearby villages into submission. In August 20, 1987 the PKK killed 24 inhabitants of the Kilickaya village of Turkey’s Siirt province, including 14 children. The lesson to the villages around Kilickaya was clear: “either you join Apo or you are dead.�
…
Ocalan also utilized a second post-1990 development to his benefit when Washington established the no-flight zone in northern Iraq following the Gulf War. The no-flight zone aimed to take northern Iraq out of Saddam Hussein’s hands and to provide the Iraqi Kurds with a safe haven. However, it enabled Ocalan to establish the PKK in northern Iraq. The two Iraqi Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), controlled this region after 1991 and were unwilling to take action against the PKK. Therefore, parts of northern Iraq became a no-man’s land with PKK bases. The group could now launch cross-border operations into Turkey. What followed was an unprecedented rise in PKK violence in Turkey.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20778
(I’m loathe to use Frontpage magazine as a source but they’re the first source I could find and I doubt many people are going to accuse them of left-wing or anti-American bias.)
Avalon Says:
It’s kinda hard to imagine a bunch of doltish camp-followers with internet access from their moms’ basements as some kind of real world opponents.
left-libertarian is a contradiction in terms. All of the libertarian socialist types have a fundamental problem at the heart of their philosophy. They believe in removing the coercive arm of government… but then they want to ban a set of voluntary actions. Well — who is going to do the banning? This was played out clearly in anarcho-syndicalist spain… where they had to set up a organisation that set the rules of how to deal with each other, control their ‘shared’ assets, allocate work etc. They didn’t call it ‘government’, but changing the name doesn’t change what it is.
And of course (as if it even has to be mentioned) the idea of the market is non-coercive by definition. The definition of a market is a place where people can exchange voluntarily. Sure — the outcome isn’t always great. Sure — different people have different bargaining power. Sure — sometimes people break the rules. But none of those things change the definitions of ‘voluntary’ or ‘coercion’ or ‘market’.
Though sometimes when people say ‘left-libertarian’ what they mean is that they are a civil libertarian and an economic socialist. Which has been the position of ‘democratic socialists’ for years…
And Andrew — did you check on what the benefits of removing the WMDs would be and the costs of the war before endorsing the invasion? Pretty much no honest assessment of benefits and costs (including an assumption of WMDs) can get a positive outcome. Would you endorse any other huge government spending program without doing a thorough benefit-cost analysis and risk assessment?
John, I used to consider myself a left-libertarian, I no longer do for a variety of reasons but I think I can respond to a number of your points:
1. I forget the source of the quote (and it may be inaccurate): “The law in its wisdom forbids rich and poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.”
Left libertarians would argue that current economic relations are the product of centuries of theft, fraud and government intervention in the economy on behalf of politically favored individuals and groups and that to permit them to persist indefinitely into the future would simply be to entrench these injustices.
You are also discussing a very idealised and unrealistic version of market economics. If I’m the only petrol station for five hundred miles you have the choice of paying the price I set or putting on your walking shoes. (This is of course a very general and rather flippant shorthand for a whoel series of cases in which unregulated markets fail to produce optimal outcomes.
2. There’s no reason to assuem that work-owned co-operatives in a hypothetical left libertarian/anarcho-syndicalist economy wouldn’t sell goods in competitive markets and compete with each other.
3. You poit out the need for soem form of minimal government – I agree however I would argue that this is as much or more a defect in the more extreme versions of right libertarianism.
If you are prepared to tolerate extreme variations in wealth, the need for a countervailing governing entity to prevent abuse of that economic power is porbably greater.
Most left libertarians don’t dispute the need for soem form of government, rather they argue for devolution of political power to the lowest practicable level and maximising direct rather than representative forsm of democracy.
That’s one of the areas here I think they actually agree to a large extent with most right libertarians.
Ian, I accept your point that Kurds haven’t always been sweet little angels. But I would argue that practically every single ethnic/religous group in the Middle East has plenty of blood on its hands. This includes groups many of us would like to think of as “nice”, like the Christians in Lebanon and the Jews in Israel.
I have some sympathy for the Palestinians, despite their propensity for terrorism. Ditto for the Kurds.
Hal 9000, I didn’t pick up my “predjudices” (as you so quainly term common sense) from any Gerard Henderson, as I have never heard of him.
However if you think the Guardian is middle of the road, then it is high time you put down the latte & stepped out of the coffee shop on Glebe Point Road, see a bit of the world.
Ian Gould presents a very fair summary of some of the major elements of left libertarianism.
As I raised the subject, I should qualify my commitment to left libertarianism with the observation that utopian schemes never work.
Thus, my commitment to left libertarian principles is tempered by caution and pragmatism.
These ideas are essentially a guide which I hope allows me to answer the following questions about a workable and sustainable set of social, political and economic arrangements:
1. What is the minimum amount of hierarchy?
2. What is the minimum influence of deadening tradition?
3. What is the maximum amount of personal freedom?
It should be clear that inevitably these priorities become contradictory. (That’s a universal quality of utopian schemes.) That’s where caution and pragmatism enter the equation.
People and societies fall in and out of love with these ambitions. History carves a crooked trail. But in the long term we see these qualities gradually and tentatively emerging as goals for larger numbers of individuals and movements.
Thus despite everything I’m guardedly optimistic about the future of the human condition.
JH, IG, Katz – I suggest you look at this site for some current examples of what might loosely be called “left libertarian”.
Ian, thanks for your reply.
I’m sure left libertarians do argue that current allocatin of wealth is bad. That doesn’t make their system workable.
I wasn’t discussing an idealised version of the market. I said what it is. I never said it created perfect outcomes, equal wealth, or anything else. However, even if it leads to a bad outcome (e.g. no petrol station), that does not make the market coercive. Coercive has a meaning, and that isn’t it.
I happen to think that the market does tend towards a decent set of outcomes. But that’s a different topic.
If a left libertarian world came about voluntarily, then there is no difference between left libertarianism and libertarianism. Indeed, I think that “right” libertarianism would shift (voluntarily) in the direction of left-libertarianism as people got richer… though I would not use force to make this happen and I don’t think the transformation would ever be complete.
I’m glad you agree with the need for a government in any socialist system. However, libertarian socialists historically have not. That is why they call themselves ‘libertarian socialists’ and not just ‘socialists’. Consequently (and I hope you agree) their philosophy is unsustainable and internaly inconsistent.
On the other hand, right-libertarianism can be extended to anarchy in an internally consistent framework. Whether such a polity is desirable is another debate…
P.S. I see no need to prevent “abuse” of economic power. Economic power is nothing more or less than influence. People are free to live a life without Coke and Nike and Microsoft if they so choose. Some people even live non-coerced lives without cars and mobile phones! God forbid! 🙂
P.P.S. I’m also a big fan of decentralising political power and some instances of direct democracy.
“I see no need to prevent “abuseâ€? of economic power. Economic power is nothing more or less than influence.”
In the narrowest sense of the word “economic” no intelligent left libertarian would disagree with this statement.
However, as Ian Gould has reminded us above:
“Left libertarians would argue that current economic relations are the product of centuries of theft, fraud and government intervention in the economy on behalf of politically favored individuals and groups and that to permit them to persist indefinitely into the future would simply be to entrench these injustices.”
Right libertarians tend to assume a quite mythical past. In general terms, this past is a gloss on Lockeanism. Human beings were supposed to have ventured out into the wilderness and transformed nature into product for the benefit of all. Right libertarians tend to assume that economic actors, corporations, partnerships, small businesses, are simply carrying on that fine Lockean tradition.
In fact all economic relations, from the lord-serf relationship of the Middle Ages, through the many trading monopolies of the early modern period, the legal protection of investors in the limited liablity corporation, through to most of the monopoly-protected money-making ventures of persons like Murdoch and the Packers, have been promoted and protected by state power.
In all the transactions that have occurred under those regimes state coercion has influenced who are the winners and who are the losers.
It cannot be denied that access to favourable treatment by the coercive arms of government has a market value, just like “good will”. Yet I am unaware of any instance where it appears on the balance sheets of businesses.
Would right libertarians object to such an item appearing on the balance sheets of corporations?
Do they assert that this influence is not economic? And if it isn’t economic, what is it?
John Humphreys: I see no need to prevent “abuse� of economic power.
John, like most (right) libertarians you are (perhaps wilfully) either unaware of, or are choosing to ignore, about 150 years of economic theory and observation on issues such as monopoly; monopolistic competition, externalities, economic rents and the tragedy of the commons.
Katz says: “In fact all economic relations, from the lord-serf relationship of the Middle Ages, through the many trading monopolies of the early modern period, the legal protection of investors in the limited liablity corporation, through to most of the monopoly-protected money-making ventures of persons like Murdoch and the Packers, have been promoted and protected by state power.”
Let me dumb this down a little for those in the “right libertarian” fairyland by giving a real-world example:-
Just how rich would Kerry Packer be if the federal government didn’t restrict the number of commercial television licences to a grand total of three?
I’m glad we agree on something Katz 🙂
Dear John
I think it is important that we should engage with those who advocated the war against the people of Iraq. We should try to understand them and learn what they now think will be the outcome of this unprovoked aggression. We should ask them how much the war reparations should be. How much would it have been worth if we were attacked, invaded and occupied?
Of course they would not be silly enough to start all over again with the 70 million people of Iraq, would they.
Perhaps John Howard will be able to tell us if we all write to him. Don’t expect him to apologise. He would not like to admit that he was legally liable.
Regards
Willy bach
Of course they would not be silly enough to start all over again with the 70 million people of Iraq, would they.
Of course, I meant Iran!
Katz,
One of the points is that these differences do not persist indefinitely into the future. There is a quite well known cycle, which tends to correct for the short term differences you identified. In general, the first generation makes the wealth, the second generation maintains it and the third loses it. Apart from those whose wealth has been maintained by the State (for example the royal families) it is a real challenge to name a single family that was wealthy and powerful in 1800 and still the same in 2000.
Even most of the crowned heads of Europe in 1800 had lost most of their wealth by 2000.
I would agree that the abuse of state power to promote monopolies or oligopolies is wrong – but blaming the capitalist system for abuses committed by government is like me claiming that socialism works because smuggling reduces its effects.
The problem with left-libertarianism is the tragedy of the commons, Katz, at least as far as I understand the terms. It seeks to reduce all property to commons. Perhaps, though, next time you are in Perth we should meet for a beer to discuss.
.
Steve,
Perhaps we should dumb down libertarianism so that you can understand it. On the other hand, ‘libertarianism’ involves more that two syllables, so we are really starting off on the wrong foot. If you do not understand why your question makes no sense, than there is little hope you would understand the answer.
In brief, though, the answer is that guys Like Mr. Packer would not be likely to have make above market returns on their money. Oops, and look, he did not. He, and his family, would have done much better out of just putting the money into a diversified portfolio of shares over the period he had control of the family assets. Effectively, he only maintained the money his father had made, if that. It remains to be seen what his son, the third generation, will do with it.
Linda Bilmes (Harvard) and Joseph Stiglitz (Colombia) “The Economic Cost of the Iraq War� (January 2006).
The authors estimate the budgetary direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war from the perspective of the USA.
Click to access Cost_of_War_in_Iraq.pdf
AR, the “capitalist system” as you would like it to be known, has never existed. It has always come with the baggage that has been described in the last few posts in this thread. And I want to convince you that these distortions have grown rather than shrunk.
Capitalism, like all of those great utopian isms of history, has never really been tried. However, there have been several approximations of it that partially satisfy my requirement for devolved power. That’s why I don’t call myself a socialist.
You’re right that the nature of the owners of capital has undergone enormous change in the last two centuries, from landed magnates, through robber barons (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick, Morgan, etc.) , to today when our very own pension funds control a large proportion of available private capital.
But look at the distortions that have been built into the incentives for the baby boomers to invest in their lengthy post retirement life-styles. The laws are a maze of tax concessions and time penalties. This is capitalism as perceived in the reflection of a distorting mirror.
Thus, as ownership of free capital has become more widely dispersed, the distortion of capitalist principles has become more, not less extreme.
Is this an accident?