Fred L. Smith on the anti-business policy agenda of the left:
Ignored (in the storm about the Heartland documents), however, (is) a larger and even more serious issue – the growing effort to drive the market (and market-friendly voices) from the marketplace of ideas. The left has found that their statist alliances – trial lawyers and environmentalists, unionists and consumer groups – have been powerful in advancing their agenda. They’re not eager to see economic liberals do the same.
Note their systematic ideological-cleansing program: no one with any business links serving on a government policy advisory group; no one with a business background to serving in government; pejorative labeling in academic journals of any business-funded research; banning academics funding by business; passing stockholder resolutions against companies assisting pro-market policy allies..
If these efforts succeed, then the only legitimate voices in the policy debates will be crony capitalists and statist intellectuals. A serious threat and one that the Heartland incident should alert us to.
I Urge anyone who wants to understand the ideological roots of the current anti-prohress, anti-tech neo Luddite mentality of the greens and academia, please find and read Ayn Rand’s “the new left: the anti-industrial revolution.
The fact she wrote in the 60s about how unreasoning anti-develpoment and green obsessing on the left would lead to the orced austerity and rationing of resources and technology in an age of abundance (such as sustainability policies demand), is truely clarvoiant.
“crony capitalists”
is there any other kind?
They don’t want Christians either in any policy making. From school boards to being teachers.
“…The left has found that their statist alliances – trial lawyers and environmentalists, unionists and consumer groups – have been powerful in advancing their agenda…”
Missed one key ingredient: spineless, gutless, brainless voters. I knew Ontario would be a case study one day…
What is disturbing about this agenda is the removal of the middle class, which is the economic class, from governance. And the establishment of an ideological class, unconnected to the generation of economic wealth in the nation, as the ‘Governance’.
The generation of wealth, ie, surplus that can be Invested into an expanding wealth-producing infrastructure (factories, new technology, new businesses) is the sole domain of the middle class. This class is capitalist, ie, made up of individuals who, on their own, start up and maintain market-based businesses to produce goods and services. This is the wealth producing, the job producing class and has a flexible open membership (you can succeed or fail).
This class MUST have political power, for you cannot have an economy with no voice in the legislature of the nation. The rise of the middle class and capitalist economy coincided with the devt of democracy. Democracy empowers the majority of the population – and this majority must be the middle class.
What we see here in this agenda, is a rejection of the authority of those engaged in the basic economic infrastructure of the society – and a retreat into a TWO-CLASS structure of an ideological Elite Set of Rulers…and the Ruled.
A two-class structure is frozen, unable to generate new wealth producing infrastructures, since it rejects individual entrepreneurship and innovation. We can see this happening under Obama, with his unelected administrators imposing massive job-destroying regulations and restrictions, and new costs imposed on small and medium businesses thus driving them out of the market.
“If these efforts succeed, then the only legitimate voices in the policy debates will be crony capitalists and statist intellectuals. A serious threat and one that the Heartland incident should alert us to.” But they are NOT “legitimate”, they have an aligned agenda, there is no effective debate.
ET’s points are essential to maintain real democracy and a healthy growing economy. The alternative ultimately reduces the economy to a zero-sum game.
A possible correlation found in nature…
Tick Life Cycle and Habits
Ticks have four stages in their life cycle: egg, larva, nymph and adult. Mating usually occurs while adult ticks are on the body of the host animal. The female then drops to the ground and deposits her eggs. Adult female hard ticks feed only once and lay one large batch of eggs, often containing as many as 10,000 or more. Some adult female soft ticks will feed several times and lay 20 to 50 eggs after each meal. depending on such conditions as temperature and humidity, larvae will hatch from the eggs in anywhere from two weeks to several months.
The first immature stage (larvae, which are many times called seed ticks) have only six legs. These larvae must find and attach themselves to a host in order to get a blood meal. After obtaining this blood meal they usually drop to the ground, shed their skin and emerge as 8-legged nymphs. Larvae of some ticks which feed only on one host remain on the host to molt. Because of the difficulty of finding a suitable host, larvae can withstand long periods without feeding.
Nymphs resemble the adult tick in that they have eight legs. They do not, however, have a genital opening. Like the larva, the nymph must be able to live without feeding for long periods of time until it finds a suitable host. After finding a host and feeding, the nymph molts and becomes an adult tick. Hard ticks have only one nymphal instar while soft ticks may have several. A few ticks, such as the cattle, Boophilus annulatus, have only one host and molt on it, leaving the host only to lay eggs.
Adult ticks may require several days of feeding before they are able to reproduce. Male hard ticks usually die soon after mating, and females die soon after laying their eggs. Adult soft ticks are generally longer-lived, and egg-laying is a periodic activity of the female.
Most ticks spend the bulk of their life on or near the ground, waiting for a suitable host animal. Since they cannot run, hop, fly or move quickly, ticks must climb onto an appropriate object such as tall grass or weeds or up onto fences and siding of buildings. It is from these advantageous positions that they wait for a suitable host to pass by. When they detect vibrations and chemical cues such as host odors or exhaled carbon dioxide, ticks will fall from their perch or stretch out (holding on to their perch with only 2 or 4 of their rear legs) and hope to snag or attach onto a passing host (e.g., a mammal with a fur coat or pants and socks worn by humans.) Ticks are also capable of detecting shadows cast by a passing host. These tick behaviors are important to understand and recognize in order to make thorough and effective applications of acaricides, pesticide dusts or sprays labeled for eliminating ticks and other arachnids. These behaviors also explain why ticks crawl up exterior or interior surfaces of homes and often lodge in cracks and crevices below shingles, clapboard siding, window molding, baseboards, etc. In these latter cases, you must understand this aspect of tick behavior and carefully inspect and treat all these crack and crevices with a good insecticide dust.
Most ticks will feed on blood from a wide variety of animals, with only a few tick species feeding on but one kind of host. In some tick species the immature stages will feed on different hosts than do the adults. reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds are all vertebrates which ticks may parasitize. Migratory song birds regularly spread ticks across wide regions of the United States as they move about enroute to their seasonal habitats.
Now the challenge here is to identify which stage of tick we are currently infested with. Have at it.
ET “What we see here in this agenda, is a rejection of the authority of those engaged in the basic economic infrastructure of the society – and a retreat into a TWO-CLASS structure of an ideological Elite Set of Rulers…and the Ruled.”
Exactly and this is the ultimate aim of the left. They want to re-create the Soviet Union.
By the way, ‘cronyism’ isn’t found only within capitalism. Indeed, it has nothing to do with capitalism but is a basic pyschological attribute of mankind. That is – aligning yourself with kin, friends, others whom you trust or feel that you can control.
It’s found in, of course, tribalism where it is both economic and psychological – and socialism, communism, fascism – which are similar in that they are all focused on the collective and thus, on ‘cronyism’…as well as in capitalist economies. But it’s a psychological factor, not economic, in this latter case.
Excellent points. I notice for example that in school my kids are never taught about the market, or capitalism. All they are taught is how bad business is, and that all that is important in life is tree hugging, human rights, feeding the poor in Africa and global warming.
Well said ET. I continue to be amazed by our society’s natural tendency to want to be ruled by “philosopher kings”. I think it is a throwback to our tribal background. We were ruled by “Big Men” and “Chiefs”. The disconnect is that then we lived in small groups that did not require a complex economy with private property and individual freedom. The world has changed. The time for philosopher kings and celebrity CEO’s (their equivalent in business) is past.
And I observe that no man’s liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session – especially if the legislature is made up of philosopher kings and celebrity CEO’s!
That should be “ignoring the storm about the Heartland documents” which I see that everyone so far has sedulously done.
So will I. Taking a sliver from this block ” pejorative labeling in academic journals of any business-funded research” presumably refers to the requirement in academic journals to “declare any financial interest” or state where the funding comes from.
Why not? That is, if one is not ashamed to be doing physics for the military or chemistry for |L”Oreal. Burned by tobacco-funded reasearsh and the like, journals have to look to their credibility.
Occam: Your slight of Luddites distresses me – IMHO they were not so much opposed to progress as they were to the loss of personal empowerment. The term has been hijacked by the PTB (Predators That Be) to unfairly vilify anyone skeptical of their proposals for progress. As a neo-Luddite (or reform Luddite if you will) I’m all in favour of advances in technology, but always very wary of its unintended consequences.
Maybe not a perfect fit, but:
From Human Action by Ludwig von Mises:
I present this just in case some one here wishes to read about something that is a little different and deals with the economy.
The world has probably changed forever. It has nothing to do with lefties or righties. Read about it here (and see how well or poorly the article is discussed in the comments).
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8944
Such a fine display of critical thinking ought not be kept all to oneself, but shared with all who might benefit from it.
The Wet One
remember, it’s your money..use it wisely….
After filing their personal tax returns by April 30th, many Canadians will again receive a tax refund.
This is indeed a very exciting program, and I’ll explain it in a Q & A format:
Q. What is a tax refund payment?
A. It’s money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
…
Q.. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen of it.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment ?
A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set,thus stimulating the economy.
Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.
Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the Canadian economy by spending your tax refund wisely:
* If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China or Sri Lanka.
* If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
* If you purchase a computer, it will go to India, Taiwan or China
* If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
* If you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea..
* If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan.
* If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.
Instead, keep the money in Canada by:
1) Spending it at yard sales, or
2) Going to hockey games, or
3) Spending it on prostitutes, or
4) Beer or
5) Tattoos.
(These are the only “truly” Canadian businesses still operating)
Conclusion:
Go to a hockey game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day!
No need to thank me, I’m just glad to be of help.
” the anti-business policy agenda of the left ”
Kind of sounds like a page taken out of Orwell’s 1984
Sshh.. y’all. The economic collapse is a necessary first step in turning back the tide of Islamisation.
Know why Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, fell, and why Iran is collapsing? Because we stopped buying their oil. Syria’s chief source of funding is Iran and China. China depends on us to buy their cheap crap. And Iran depends on Iran to buy their oil to make all that cheap crap for us.
Global Depression will be very good for us in the long run, as the white-man money spigot runs dry, and you get to watch all the dirtbag sh**hole countries really go down the toilet. Let the bastards feed themselves. In the meantime, we’ll be able to rebuild our economies, force the hippies back to work at “gunpoint (or they’ll starve), and become self-reliant and free once more, as the statists finally run out of cash.
Eerr… Iran depends on CHINA to buy their oil,… etc. Sorry.
The story: A respected and accomplished climate scientist who chairs an ethics committee commits fraud and information theft in an attempt to uncover a “smoking gun” to discredit and silence skeptics of AGW.
The Headline: HOW TO WIN WHEN THE SCIENCE ISN’T WORKING