Lula: jugar en primera división sin mojarse by JORGE CASTAÑEDA el Pais.com

Lula: jugar en primera división sin mojarse

JORGE CASTAÑEDA 24/05/2010



Hace tiempo que el Brasil de Lula busca un papel global, y que el mundo reconoce sus méritos y celebra sus esfuerzos. La prensa internacional ha hecho del gigante sudamericano la niña de sus ojos, colocando en un mismo plano el carisma de Lula, el Mundial de Fútbol del 2014, las Olimpiadas del 2016, el desempeño de Itamaratí (la Cancillería) en la Ronda Doha y el creciente papel brasileño en América Latina, desplazando tanto a México como a Estados Unidos, incluso en el patio trasero de ambos: Honduras.


A Washington le irrita que un aliado sin "vela en el entierro" entorpezca sus planes, sean o no justos

Lula puede salir airoso de su mediación en Irán o acabar mal con todos

En realidad, detrás de unas magníficas relaciones públicas y 16 años de buen gobierno (Cardoso y Lula), aunados a un crecimiento económico mediano pero sostenido, se perfilan varias aventuras diplomáticas fallidas, disimuladas por la superficialidad y la inercia mediáticas. Pero quizás se acerque la hora de la verdad, ya sea para confirmar el surgimiento de un nuevo protagonista global, ya sea para corroborar una obviedad: no bastan las ganas para ser una potencia mundial.

En efecto, el intento de Lula por lograr, de la mano de Turquía y de su mágica mancuerna diplomática (el primer ministro Erdogan y el canciller Davutoglu), un acuerdo con el régimen iraní que impidiera la imposición de nuevas sanciones a Teherán puede convertirse en un éxito notable o en una debacle. Los dos miembros no permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU (CSONU) presentaron la semana pasada un acuerdo con el presidente Ahmadineyad cuyo propósito ostensible consiste en evitar que el programa de enriquecimiento de uranio iraní se traduzca en la fabricación de una arma atómica. Para ello, propusieron canjear, en el plazo de un año, uranio enriquecido de bajo grado iraní por varillas occidentales de uranio enriquecido de alto grado, destinadas exclusivamente al reactor de investigación de Teherán.

El propósito real residió, sin embargo, en impedir que el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas considerara -y en su caso aprobara- un paquete de nuevas sanciones contra el país gobernado por los ayatolás. Dicha eventualidad hubiera obligado a Ankara y a Brasilia a afrontar una disyuntiva del diablo: seguir el consenso anti-Teherán y traicionar su propia retórica, u oponerse a una resolución patrocinada por los miembros permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad y quedarse solos en el intento, mostrando el aislamiento y la confrontación que entraña su "nueva diplomacia".

La lógica turca es evidente. La república aún kemalista posee intereses reales en la zona. Lleva a cabo un comercio intenso con su vecino; tiene en común una población kurda significativa; recibe parte de su gas y petróleo de Irán; una proporción importante de la población iraní habla turco. Su nueva política exterior consiste en alejarse de las viejas posturaspro Estados Unidos y pro Israel (Turquía es miembro fundador de la OTAN) y en acercarse a sus vecinos -Siria, Grecia e Irán, por supuesto- y al mundo islámico en su conjunto.

La lógica brasileña es menos obvia. No hay intereses significativos de Brasil en Irán, el antisemitismo de Ahmadineyad es mal visto por la comunidad judía de São Paulo, e Itamaratí sabe muy bien que pocas cosas exasperan más a los norteamericanos que un país aliado sin "vela en el entierro" entorpezca sus propósitos, con independencia de la justeza de estos últimos. En el fondo, el gambito de Lula es otro: utilizar la inminente crisis iraní para consolidar su lugar en el firmamento diplomático internacional.

El problema es que el acuerdo de Teherán no bastó para impedir la presentación de un proyecto de resolución por Washington y los demás miembros permanentes del Consejo, que contempla una cuarta etapa de sanciones con más dientes y más amplias. Todo indica, incluso, que los norteamericanos pudieron contar desde antes del esfuerzo turco-brasileño con los nueve votos necesarios para aprobar su resolución, dada por lo menos la abstención rusa y china para evitar un veto. Austria, Japón, Gabón, Uganda y México se encontraban en principio a bordo y Bosnia-Herzegovina y Nigeria en el limbo. Ya existía en principio una coalición suficiente para imponer nuevas sanciones, incluyendo un embargo de materiales susceptibles de ser utilizados para la construcción de misiles y no sólo de la ojiva nuclear que portarían.

Así, de prosperar la iniciativa de Estados Unidos, Francia y el Reino Unido (apoyada por Alemania y tolerada, en todo caso, por Rusia y por China), Brasil se hallaría en el peor de los mundos posibles. Tendrá que tomar partido, después de buscar evitarlo a través de un compromiso que adoleció de un defecto congénito. Una de las partes, es decir, Washington, nunca estuvo de acuerdo, aunque Davutoglu insista en que todo fue consultado con la secretaria de Estado Clinton. Si Brasil aprueba las sanciones en el CSONU, se habrá desdicho de su rechazo a las mismas; si vota en contra, lo hará en compañía, en el mejor de los casos, solo de Turquía y Líbano. Y si se abstiene, confirmará lo que muchos hemos reiterado: Lula quiere jugar en primera división, pero sin mojarse.

He aquí el quid del asunto. En realidad, Brasil ha logrado poco en el ámbito internacional, más allá de titulares. El objetivo diplomático número uno de Lula -lograr un escaño permanente en el Consejo de Seguridad- se ve, al término de ocho años de esfuerzos, menos viable que nunca. La aventura en Honduras resultó en una tragicomedia tropical: Brasil no pudo restituir a su asilado huésped Manuel Zelaya, este permaneció varios meses en la Embajada brasileña, y hoy Itamaratí solo puede chantajear a españoles y mexicanos con su ausencia en caso de cualquier invitación o reconocimiento al nuevo presidente hondureño. La reanudación de la Ronda de Doha sigue indefinidamente pospuesta, Copenhague no resultó y Cancún no promete, e incluso las diversas iniciativas regionales presentadas por Brasil de la mano con Hugo Chávez se hallan estancadas.

Ello se debe a una debilidad intrínseca del esquema. El tamaño de una economía (Japón) o de una demografía (India) no otorga ipso facto el estatuto de actor mundial. Más bien es la toma de partido, los valores impulsados y la eficacia a escala regional lo que, en su conjunto, pueden (o no) convertirse en una catapulta al estrellato internacional. Brasil linda con nueve países, y todos ellos padecen serios conflictos internos (Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela) o con sus vecinos (Argentina con Uruguay, Colombia con Venezuela y Ecuador, Perú con Ecuador y con Chile, Bolivia con Chile). Pero Lula en ese pantano no ha querido incursionar: mantiene una prudente pasividad antiintervencionista, o un franco respaldo a las posiciones bolivarianas de Chávez, Correa, Morales, Daniel Ortega en Nicaragua y los hermanos Castro en La Habana. Se resiste a impulsar valores, a tomar partido, o a buscar resultados concretos en su propio terreno.

Tal vez resulte más fácil mediar entre Teherán y Washington (aunque nadie lo ha logrado desde 1979) que entre Caracas y Bogotá, o entre Buenos Aires y Montevideo. A pesar de su patente irritación, quizás Barack Obama y Hillary Clinton prefieran darle el beneficio de la duda al proyecto turco-brasileño antes que ceder a la impaciencia de Israel y de Francia. Lula puede salir airoso de su lance en las planicies persas o acabar mal con todos. Posiblemente debiera haberse mostrado satisfecho con las portadas de las revistas, sin buscar en exceso llenarlas de contenido. Suele ser más difícil.

Jorge Castañeda, ex secretario de Relaciones Exteriores de México, es profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Nueva York.

Ensinando o ódio by DEMÉTRIO MAGNOLI

O Estado de S.Paulo - 13/05/10

"Uma certa miopia social pode ser mais produtiva politicamente do que
um olho perfeitamente são." A frase, do ex-diretor da Capes Renato
Janine Ribeiro, conclui uma comunicação acadêmica consagrada às
políticas de identidades - ou seja, no caso do Brasil, especialmente
às políticas de preferências raciais. O cerne do texto encontra-se na
ideia de que "uma estratégia política das diferenças (...) pode
sustentar uma tática política da desigualdade, num sentido fortemente
compensatório - isto é, de que para chegarmos à igualdade será preciso
passarmos pela desigualdade".

Renato Janine é um pensador íntegro, não um panfletário rancoroso. Seu
texto, pontilhado de dúvidas e perplexidade, é algo como uma renúncia
à utopia marxista organizada em torno da luta de classes. No lugar do
fracassado programa revolucionário, seria a hora de aceitar a "miopia"
mais "produtiva" das políticas diferencialistas, que descortina o
cenário de uma sociedade constituída por segmentos identitários:
afro-brasileiros, europeus étnicos, indígenas, quilombolas...

O marxismo, a ditadura do proletariado e o totalitarismo stalinista,
que não são idênticos uns aos outros, certamente formam galhos da
vasta árvore iluminista nascida à sombra do estandarte da igualdade.
Mas, ao contrário do que parece sugerir Renato Janine, a árvore tem
muitos galhos saudáveis. Fora da esfera soviética, as lutas sociais
romperam o círculo de ferro do liberalismo elitista. O voto feminino,
a educação e a saúde públicas, os sistemas de previdência social
atestam a "produtividade" de um credo assentado sobre o princípio da
igualdade política dos cidadãos. Por que motivo deve ser abandonada a
obra infinita, ainda tão precária entre nós? Como se justifica a sua
substituição por uma estratégia que fragmenta o povo em segmentos
circundados pelas muralhas das "identidades"?

De acordo com Renato Janine, a luta de classes tenderia à guerra de
extermínio, enquanto a "política das diferenças" se orienta pela meta
do "reconhecimento do outro". A primeira assertiva é desmentida por
cem anos de lutas trabalhistas nas democracias "burguesas". A segunda,
por genocídios colossais ou pequenos massacres cotidianos que, da
Alemanha nazista à Ruanda hutu e da Índia das castas à Nigéria das
etnias oficiais, formam um plantel de experiências históricas sobre a
dinâmica das políticas identitárias. As pessoas mudam de ideia, de
partido, de estrato de renda e de classe social, mas não podem mudar
de "raça" ou "etnia". Eis o motivo pelo qual as Constituições
democráticas rejeitam a classificação oficial dos cidadãos segundo o
critério do sangue.

"Nós tivemos de ensinar o povo a odiar os sulistas, a enxergá-los como
pessoas que expropriavam os seus direitos", explicou um líder dos
hauçás da Nigéria setentrional, referindo-se ao sistema de
preferências étnicas inscrito nas leis do país. A "estratégia política
das diferenças" é uma pedagogia do ódio destinada a construir
comunidades identitárias coesas. No Brasil, percorremos a etapa
inicial dessa trajetória pedagógica. Como em tantos outros lugares,
tenta-se ensinar o ódio primordialmente na escola. A missão, conduzida
pelo MEC, tem como alvos as crianças e os jovens das escolas públicas.

A palavra "revanche" encontrou sentido positivo na resolução do MEC,
de junho de 2004, que regulamenta as Diretrizes para a Educação das
Relações Étnico-Raciais e para o Ensino de História e Cultura
Afro-Brasileira e Africana. Nela o Brasil é descrito como um país
binacional no qual "convivem (...) de maneira tensa, a cultura e o
padrão estético negro e africano e um padrão estético e cultural
branco europeu". Neste país partido em dois, "não é fácil ser
descendente de seres humanos escravizados", mas também é difícil
"descobrir-se descendente dos escravizadores" e "temer, embora
veladamente, a revanche dos que, por cinco séculos, têm sido
desprezados e massacrados". Qual será a opinião de Renato Janine sobre
tais passagens, convertidas em ato legal por Tarso Genro e
referendadas por Fernando Haddad?

A pedagogia do ódio é também a da falsificação da História. A
resolução, que manda celebrar o 20 de novembro como Dia da Consciência
Negra, não traz palavra alguma sobre o movimento popular
abolicionista, definindo o 13 de maio como "o dia de denúncia das
repercussões das políticas de eliminação física e simbólica da
população afro-brasileira no pós-abolição". No dia de hoje, se os
professores seguirem as diretrizes do MEC, nenhum estudante ouvirá os
nomes de Joaquim Nabuco, José do Patrocínio, Antônio Bento e Luís Gama
ou conhecerá os feitos de incontáveis anônimos, de todas as cores e
classes sociais, que derrotaram a escravidão e derrubaram os pilares
do Império. Por outro lado, serão apresentados a nada menos que um
genocídio racial, evento que clamaria pela "revanche".

As palavras da resolução têm consequências cotidianas. Nas escolas
públicas, o MEC distribui livros didáticos dedicados a dividir os
jovens estudantes em "brancos" ("descendentes dos escravizadores") e
"negros" ("os que, por cinco séculos, têm sido desprezados e
massacrados"), enquanto suas comissões de seleção aplicam as diretivas
oficiais para excluir as obras que não retratam o Brasil como o país
binacional inventado por "uma certa miopia social". Uma gosma de
doutrinação racial escorre para dentro das salas de aula,
emporcalhando todo o sistema de ensino.

As pessoas aprendem a odiar. O ódio racial é um substituto míope, mas
fácil, para a complexa, nuançada reflexão política sobre nossas ruínas
sociais. Renato Janine não deixaria de comparecer ao simpósio
promovido pela Capes e pela British Academy no qual fez o elogio da
miopia. Estará ele presente quando jovens colegas de escolas públicas
atirarem pedras uns nos outros porque os tons da pele separam seus
destinos no umbral da universidade?

SOCIÓLOGO E DOUTOR EM GEOGRAFIA HUMANA PELA USP

Câmbio mata Rubens Ricupero FOLHA DE S. PAULO

Parecem estar contados os dias de saldo comercial; é bom apertar os
cintos para o mergulho na montanha-russa

O CÂMBIO já está estrangulando o setor de maior tecnologia e valor
agregado de nossa indústria (eletrônica, farmacêutica, química,
automobilística e maquinaria). Apenas nos três primeiros meses do ano
esse setor teve o chocante deficit de US$ 13,6 bilhões, maior do que
em todo o ano de 2006 e superior em 42% ao do mesmo período do ano
passado.

Os dados do Iedi (Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento
Industrial) servem de necrológio à indústria brasileira, mostrando que
o câmbio continua sendo tão mortal como no tempo da advertência de
Mário Henrique Simonsen. A tendência está colada à apreciação do real
e ao declínio do saldo comercial em geral, que em abril foi o menor em
oito anos, tendo caído nada menos que 65% em comparação ao de abril de
2009.

Aliás, parecem estar contados os dias de saldo comercial, uma vez que
as importações estão crescendo em ritmo quase duas vezes maior do que
as exportações (65% ante 23%).

É bom apertar os cintos para o mergulho na montanha-russa, já que o
fim do saldo comercial elimina o único fator que compensava em parte o
aumento vertiginoso de todos os demais componentes do deficit em
conta-corrente.

Essa é a cara oculta da atual euforia com o crescimento puxado somente
pelo consumo do governo e das pessoas, com baixa poupança e pouco
investimento. Cada vez se depende mais de recursos de fora para cobrir
o buraco, e a desindustrialização precoce entra no segundo estágio de
agravamento. No primeiro, as importações substituem os componentes
locais, mas o produto continua a ser montado no Brasil; no segundo,
importa-se o produto pronto e as indústrias se tornam meras
distribuidoras e prestadoras de assistência.

A situação tende a piorar com as elevações de juro que o Banco Central
terá de realizar para segurar o superaquecimento do consumo. As
previsões de que no fim do ano o dólar se aproxime de R$ 1,60 ou menos
vão sacrificar ainda mais os manufaturados. Até agora a valorização
dos primários pela demanda da China tem atenuado a deterioração do
comércio exterior. É um erro, porém, imaginar que as commodities
aguentam qualquer valorização da moeda.

Tenho idade bastante para me lembrar do tempo em que quase todos os
produtos primários brasileiros eram gravosos, isto é, seu custo de
produção superava, devido ao câmbio, o preço internacional.

Quando as cotações também caem, como sucede no momento com muitos
produtos agrícolas, a renda do campo sofre duplo golpe: preço e
câmbio.

De onde poderá vir o socorro às contas externas se o panorama negativo
se acentuar, como vem acontecendo há anos? Do petróleo? É o que já
ocorre, como mostra Raquel Landim em perceptivo comentário em "O
Estado de S. Paulo" (4/5/10).

Nele se aprende que o petróleo passou a ser o principal item das
exportações, quase 10% do total! Sem ele, as vendas externas cresceram
apenas 16%, agravando o descompasso com o aumento das importações.

Está aí um bom tema para o debate eleitoral. Em vez da discussão
pueril sobre qual governo foi melhor, por que não debater como evitar
que o Brasil vire uma grande Venezuela, onde 96% das exportações vêm
das commodities? Sem mexer no câmbio, como melhorar a competitividade?
Com esses juros? Com a infraestrutura em pedaços? Com carga tributária
o dobro da da China? Com a redução da semana de trabalho?

20 Things You Will Need To Survive

Quem passou pela vida em branca nuvem
E em plácido repouso adormeceu
Quem não sentiu o frio da desgraça,
Quem passou pela vida e não sofreu...
Foi espectro de homem, não foi homem,
Só passou pela vida e não viveu...
Francisco Otaviano

The Inflationist View of History - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Institute

The Inflationist View of History

Mises Daily: Friday, March 05, 2010 by Ludwig von Mises

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar's Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach.]
Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloon, Paris 1783

A very popular doctrine maintains that progressive lowering of the monetary unit's purchasing power played a decisive role in historical evolution. It is asserted that mankind would not have reached its present state of well-being if the supply of money had not increased to a greater extent than the demand for money. The resulting fall in purchasing power, it is said, was a necessary condition of economic progress. The intensification of the division of labor and the continuous growth of capital accumulation, which have centupled the productivity of labor, could ensue only in a world of progressive price rises. Inflation creates prosperity and wealth; deflation distress and economic decay.[1] A survey of political literature and of the ideas that guided for centuries the monetary and credit policies of the nations reveals that this opinion is almost generally accepted. In spite of all warnings on the part of economists it is still today the core of the layman's economic philosophy. It is no less the essence of the teachings of Lord Keynes and his disciples in both hemispheres.

The popularity of inflationism is in great part due to deep-rooted hatred of creditors. Inflation is considered just because it favors debtors at the expense of creditors. However, the inflationist view of history which we have to deal with in this section is only loosely related to this anticreditor argument. Its assertion that "expansionism" is the driving force of economic progress and that "restrictionism" is the worst of all evils is mainly based on other arguments.

It is obvious that the problems raised by the inflationist doctrine cannot be solved by a recourse to the teachings of historical experience. It is beyond doubt that the history of prices shows, by and large, a continuous, although sometimes for short periods interrupted, upward trend. It is of course impossible to establish this fact otherwise than by historical understanding. Catallactic precision cannot be applied to historical problems. The endeavors of some historians and statisticians to trace back the changes in the purchasing power of the precious metals for centuries, and to measure them, are futile. It has been shown already that all attempts to measure economic magnitudes are based on entirely fallacious assumptions and display ignorance of the fundamental principles both of economics and of history. But what history by means of its specific methods can tell us in this field is enough to justify the assertion that the purchasing power of money has for centuries shown a tendency to fall. With regard to this point all people agree.

But this is not the problem to be elucidated. The question is whether the fall in purchasing power was or was not an indispensable factor in the evolution which led from the poverty of ages gone by to the more satisfactory conditions of modern Western capitalism. This question must be answered without reference to the historical experience, which can be and always is interpreted in different ways, and to which supporters and adversaries of every theory and of every explanation of history refer as a proof of their mutually contradictory and incompatible statements. What is needed is a clarification of the effects of changes in purchasing power on the division of labor, the accumulation of capital, and technological improvement.

In dealing with this problem one cannot satisfy oneself with the refutation of the arguments advanced by the inflationists in support of their thesis. The absurdity of these arguments is so manifest that their refutation and exposure is easy indeed. From its very beginnings economics has shown again and again that assertions concerning the alleged blessings of an abundance of money and the alleged disasters of a scarcity of money are the outcome of crass errors in reasoning. The endeavors of the apostles of inflationism and expansionism to refute the correctness of the economists' teachings have failed utterly.

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The only relevant question is this: Is it possible or not to lower the rate of interest lastingly by means of credit expansion? This problem will be treated exhaustively in the chapter dealing with the interconnection between the money relation and the rate of interest. There it will be shown what the consequences of booms created by credit expansion must be.

But we must ask ourselves at this point of our inquiries whether it is not possible that there are other reasons that could be advanced in favor of the inflationary interpretation of history. Is it not possible that the champions of inflationism have neglected to resort to some valid arguments that could support their stand? It is certainly necessary to approach the issue from every possible avenue.

Let us think of a world in which the quantity of money is rigid. At an early stage of history the inhabitants of this world have produced the whole quantity of the commodity employed for the monetary service which can possibly be produced. A further increase in the quantity of money is out of the question. Fiduciary media are unknown. All money-substitutes — the subsidiary coins included — are money-certificates.

On these assumptions the intensification of the division of labor, the evolution from the economic self-sufficiency of households, villages, districts, and countries to the world-embracing market system of the 19th century, the progressive accumulation of capital, and the improvement of technological methods of production would have resulted in a continuous trend toward falling prices. Would such a rise in the purchasing power of the monetary unit have stopped the evolution of capitalism?

The average businessman will answer this question in the affirmative. Living and acting in an environment in which a slow but continuous fall in the monetary unit's purchasing power is deemed normal, necessary, and beneficial, he simply cannot comprehend a different state of affairs. He associates the notions of rising prices and profits on the one hand and of falling prices and losses on the other. The fact that there are bear operations too and that great fortunes have been made by bears does not shake his dogmatism. These are, he says, merely speculative transactions of people eager to profit from the fall in the prices of goods already produced and available. Creative innovations, new investments, and the application of improved technological methods require the inducement brought about by the expectation of price rises. Economic progress is possible only in a world of rising prices.

This opinion is untenable. In a world of a rising purchasing power for the monetary unit everybody's mode of thinking would have adjusted itself to this state of affairs, just as in our actual world it has adjusted itself to a falling purchasing power of the monetary unit. Today everybody is prepared to consider a rise in his nominal or monetary income as an improvement of his material well-being. People's attention is directed more toward the rise in nominal wage rates and the money equivalent of wealth than to the increase in the supply of commodities. In a world of rising purchasing power for the monetary unit they would concern themselves more with the fall in living costs. This would bring into clearer relief the fact that economic progress consists primarily in making the amenities of life more easily accessible.

In the conduct of business, reflections concerning the secular trend of prices do not play any role whatever. Entrepreneurs and investors do not bother about secular trends. What guides their actions is their opinion about the movement of prices in the coming weeks, months, or at most years. They do not heed the general movement of all prices. What matters for them is the existence of discrepancies between the prices of the complementary factors of production and the anticipated prices of the products. No businessman embarks upon a definite production project because he believes that the prices, i.e., the prices of all goods and services, will rise. He engages himself if he believes that he can profit from a difference between the prices of goods of various orders. In a world with a secular tendency toward falling prices, such opportunities for earning profit will appear in the same way in which they appear in a world with a secular trend toward rising prices. The expectation of a general progressive upward movement of all prices does not bring about intensified production and improvement in well-being. It results in the "flight to real values," in the crack-up boom and the complete breakdown of the monetary system.

If the opinion that the prices of all commodities will drop becomes general, the short-term market rate of interest is lowered by the amount of the negative price premium.[2] Thus the entrepreneur employing borrowed funds is secured against the consequences of such a drop in prices to the same extent to which, under conditions of rising prices, the lender is secured through the price premium against the consequences of falling purchasing power.

A secular tendency toward a rise in the monetary unit's purchasing power would require rules of thumb on the part of businessmen and investors other than those developed under the secular tendency toward a fall in its purchasing power. But it would certainly not influence substantially the course of economic affairs. It would not remove the urge of people to improve their material well-being as far as possible by an appropriate arrangement of production. It would not deprive the economic system of the factors making for material improvement, namely, the striving of enterprising promoters after profit and the readiness of the public to buy those commodities that are apt to provide them the greatest satisfaction at the lowest costs.

Such observations are certainly not a plea for a policy of deflation. They imply merely a refutation of the ineradicable inflationist fables. They unmask the illusiveness of Lord Keynes's doctrine that the source of poverty and distress, of depression of trade, and of unemployment is to be seen in a "contractionist pressure." It is not true that "a deflationary pressure … would have … prevented the development of modern industry." It is not true that credit expansion brings about the "miracle … of turning a stone into bread."[3]

Economics recommends neither inflationary nor deflationary policy. It does not urge the governments to tamper with the market's choice of a medium of exchange. It establishes only the following truths:

1.

By committing itself to an inflationary or deflationary policy a government does not promote the public welfare, the commonweal, or the interests of the whole nation. It merely favors one or several groups of the population at the expense of other groups.
2.

It is impossible to know in advance which group will be favored by a definite inflationary or deflationary measure and to what extent. These effects depend on the whole complex of the market data involved. They also depend largely on the speed of the inflationary or deflationary movements and may be completely reversed with the progress of these movements.
3.

At any rate, an expansion results in misinvestment of capital and overconsumption. It leaves the nation as a whole poorer, not richer.
MP3CD

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Audiobook read by Jeff Riggenbach
4.

Continued inflation must finally end in the crack-up boom, the complete breakdown of the currency system.
5.

Deflationary policy is costly for the treasury and unpopular with the masses. But inflationary policy is a boon for the treasury and very popular with the ignorant. Practically, the danger of deflation is but slight and the danger of inflation tremendous

A decepcionante visita de Lula by MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - 07/03/2010


Minha capacidade de indignação política atenua-se um pouco nos meses do ano que passo na Europa. Suponho que a razão disso seja o fato de que, lá, vivo em países democráticos nos quais, independentemente dos problemas de que padecem, há uma ampla margem de liberdade para a crítica, e a imprensa, os partidos, as instituições e os indivíduos costumam protestar de maneira íntegra e com estardalhaço quando ocorrem episódios ultrajantes e desprezíveis, principalmente no campo político.

Entretanto, na América Latina, onde costumo passar de três a quatro meses ao ano, esta capacidade de indignação volta sempre, com a fúria da minha juventude, e me faz viver sempre temeroso, alerta, desassossegado, esperando (e perguntando-me de onde virá desta vez) o fato execrável que, provavelmente, passará despercebido para a maioria, ou merecerá o beneplácito ou a indiferença geral.

Na semana passada, experimentei mais uma vez esta sensação de asco e de ira, ao ver o risonho presidente Lula do Brasil abraçando carinhosamente Fidel e Raúl Castro, no mesmo momento em que os esbirros da ditadura cubana perseguiam os dissidentes e os sepultavam nos calabouços para impedir que assistissem ao enterro de Orlando Zapata Tamayo, o pedreiro pacifista da oposição, de 42 anos, pertencente ao Grupo dos 75, que os algozes castristas deixaram morrer de inanição - depois de submetê-lo em vida a confinamento, torturas e condená-lo com pretextos a mais de 30 anos de cárcere - depois de 85 dias de greve de fome.

Qualquer pessoa que não tenha perdido a decência e tenha um mínimo de informação sobre o que acontece em Cuba espera do regime castrista que aja como sempre fez. Há uma absoluta coerência entre a condição de ditadura totalitária de Cuba e uma política terrorista de perseguição a toda forma de dissidência e de crítica, a violação sistemática dos mais elementares direitos humanos, de falsos processos para sepultar os opositores em prisões imundas e submetê-los a vexames até enlouquecê-los, matá-los ou impeli-los ao suicídio. Os irmãos Castro exercem há 51 anos esta política, e somente os idiotas poderiam esperar deles um comportamento diferente.

DESCARAMENTO

Mas de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, governante eleito em eleições legítimas, presidente constitucional de um país democrático como o Brasil, seria de esperar, pelo menos, uma atitude um pouco mais digna e coerente com a cultura democrática que teoricamente ele representa, e não o descaramento indecente de exibir-se, risonho e cúmplice, com os assassinos virtuais de um dissidente democrático, legitimando com sua presença e seu proceder a caçada de opositores desencadeada pelo regime no mesmo instante em que ele era fotografado abraçando os algozes de Zapata.

O presidente Lula sabia perfeitamente o que estava fazendo. Antes de viajar para Cuba, 50 dissidentes lhe haviam pedido uma audiência durante sua estadia em Havana para que intercedesse perante as autoridades da ilha pela libertação dos presos políticos martirizados, como Zapata, nos calabouços cubanos. Ele se negou a ambas as coisas.

Não os recebeu nem defendeu sua causa em suas duas visitas anteriores à ilha, cujo regime liberticida sempre elogiou sem o menor eufemismo.

Além disso, este comportamento do presidente brasileiro caracterizou todo o seu mandato. Há anos que, em sua política exterior, ele desmente de maneira sistemática sua política interna, na qual respeita as regras do estado de direito, e, em matéria econômica, em vez das receitas marxistas que propunha quando era sindicalista e candidato - dirigismo econômico, estatizações, repúdio dos investimentos estrangeiros, etc. -, promove uma economia de mercado e da livre iniciativa como qualquer estadista social-democrata europeu.

Mas, quando se trata do exterior, o presidente Lula se despe de suas vestimentas democráticas e abraça o comandante Chávez, Evo Morales, o comandante Ortega, ou seja, com a escória da América Latina, e não tem o menor escrúpulo em abrir as portas diplomáticas e econômicas do Brasil aos sátrapas teocráticos integristas do Irã.

O que significa esta duplicidade? Que Lula nunca mudou de verdade? Que é um simples mascarado, capaz de todas as piruetas ideológicas, um político medíocre sem espinha dorsal cívica e moral? Segundo alguns, os desígnios geopolíticos para o Brasil do presidente Lula estão acima de questiúnculas como Cuba, ou a Coreia do Norte, uma das ditaduras onde se cometem as piores violações dos direitos humanos e onde há mais presos políticos.

O importante para ele são coisas mais transcendentes como o Porto de Mariel, que o Brasil está financiando com US$ 300 milhões, ou a próxima construção pela Petrobrás de uma fábrica de lubrificantes em Havana. Diante de realizações deste porte, o que poderia importar ao "estadista" brasileiro que um pedreiro cubano qualquer, e ainda por cima negro e pobre, morresse de fome clamando por ninharias como a liberdade? Na verdade, tudo isto significa, infelizmente, que Lula é um típico mandatário "democrático" latino-americano.

Quase todos eles são do mesmo feitio, e quase todos, uns mais, outros menos, embora - quando não têm mais remédio - praticam a democracia no seio dos seus próprios países, mas, no exterior, não têm nenhuma vergonha, como Lula, em cortejar ditadores e demagogos, porque acham, coitados, que desta maneira os tapinhas amistosos lhes proporcionarão uma credencial de "progressistas" que os livrará de greves, revoluções e de campanhas internacionais acusando-os de violar os direitos humanos.

Como lembra o analista peruano Fernando Rospigliosi, em um artigo admirável: "Enquanto Zapata morria lentamente, os presidentes da América Latina - entre eles o algoz cubano - reuniam-se no México para criar uma organização (mais uma!) regional. Nem uma palavra saiu dali para exigir a liberdade ou um melhor tratamento para os mais de 200 presos políticos cubanos." O único que se atreveu a protestar - um justo entre os fariseus - foi o presidente eleito do Chile, Sebastián Piñera.

De modo que a cara de qualquer um destes chefes de Estado poderia substituir a de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, abraçando os irmãos Castro, na foto que me revoltou o estômago ao ver os jornais da manhã.

Estas caras não representam a liberdade, a limpeza moral, o civismo, a legalidade e a coerência na América Latina. Estes valores estão encarnados em pessoas como Orlando Zapata Tamayo, nas Damas de Branco, Oswaldo Payá, Elizardo Sánchez, a blogueira Yoani Sánchez, e em outros cubanos e cubanas que, sem se deixarem intimidar pelas pressões, as agressões e humilhações cotidianas de que são vítimas, continuam enfrentando a tirania castrista. E se encarnam ainda, em primeiro lugar, nas centenas de prisioneiros políticos e, sobretudo, no jornalista independente Guillermo Fariñas, que, enquanto escrevo este artigo, há oito dias está em greve de fome em Cuba para protestar pela morte de Zapata e exigir a libertação dos presos políticos.

O curioso e terrível paradoxo é que no interior de um dos mais desumanos e cruéis regimes que o continente conheceu se encontrem hoje os mais dignos e respeitáveis políticos da América Latina

Justice and Property Rights: The Failure of Utilitarianism

Justice and Property Rights: The Failure of Utilitarianism

Mises Daily: Monday, January 25, 2010 by Murray N. Rothbard

[From Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays]

Until very recently, free-market economists paid little attention to the entities actually being exchanged on the very market they have advocated so strongly.

Wrapped up in the workings and advantages of freedom of trade, enterprise, investment, and the price system, economists tended to lose sight of the things being exchanged on that market.

Namely, they lost sight of the fact that when $10,000 is being exchanged for a machine, or $1 for a hula hoop, what is actually being exchanged is the title of ownership to each of these goods.

In short, when I buy a hula hoop for $1, what I am actually doing is exchanging my title of ownership to the dollar in exchange for the ownership title to the hula hoop; the retailer is doing the exact opposite.[1] But this means that economists' habitual attempts to be wertfrei, or at the least to confine their advocacy to the processes of trade and exchange, cannot be maintained. For if I and the retailer are indeed to be free to trade the dollar for the hula hoop without coercive interference by third parties, then this can only be done if these economists will proclaim the justice and the propriety of my original ownership of the dollar and the retailer's ownership of the hula hoop.

In short, for an economist to say that X and Y should be free to trade Good A for Good B unmolested by third parties, he must also say that X legitimately and properly owns Good A and that Y legitimately owns Good B. But this means that the free-market economist must have some sort of theory of justice in property rights; he can scarcely say that X properly owns Good A without asserting some sort of theory of justice on behalf of such ownership.

Suppose, for example, that as I am about to purchase the hula hoop, the information arrives that the retailer had really stolen the hoop from Z. Surely not even the supposedly wertfrei economist can continue to blithely endorse the proposed exchange of ownership titles between me and the retailer. For now we find that the retailer's, Y's, title of ownership is improper and unjust, and that he must be forced to return the hoop to Z, the original owner. The economist can then only endorse the proposed exchange between me and Z, rather than Y, for the hula hoop, since he has to acknowledge Z as the proper owner of title to the hoop.

In short, we have two mutually exclusive claimants to the ownership of the hoop. If the economist agrees to endorse only Z's sale of the hoop, then he is implicitly agreeing that Z has the just, and Y the unjust, claim to the hoop. And even if he continues to endorse the sale by Y, then he is implicitly maintaining another theory of property titles: namely, that theft is justified. Whichever way he decides, the economist cannot escape a judgment, a theory of justice in the ownership of property. Furthermore, the economist is not really finished when he proclaims the injustice or theft and endorses Z's proper title. For what is the justification for Z's title to the hoop? Is it only because he is a nonthief?

In recent years, free-market economists Ronald Coase and Harold Demsetz have begun to redress the balance and to focus on the importance of a clear and precise demarcation of property rights for the market economy. They have demonstrated the importance of such demarcation in the allocation of resources and in preventing or compensating for unwanted imposition of "external costs" from the actions of individuals. But Coase and Demsetz have failed to develop any theory of justice in these property rights; or, rather, they have advanced two theories: one, that it "doesn't matter" how the property titles are allocated, so long as they are allocated precisely; and, two, that the titles should be allocated to minimize "total social transaction costs," since a minimization of costs is supposed to be a wertfrei way of benefitting all of society.

There is no space here for a detailed critique of the Coase-Demsetz criteria. Suffice it to say that in a conflict over property titles between a rancher and a farmer for the same piece of land, even if the allocation of title "doesn't matter" for the allocation of resources (a point which itself could be challenged), it certainly matters from the point of view of the rancher and the farmer. And second, that it is impossible to weigh "total social costs" if we fully realize that all costs are subjective to the individual and, therefore, cannot be compared interpersonally.[2] Here the important point is that Coase and Demsetz, along with all other utilitarian free-market economists, implicitly or explicitly leave it to the hands of government to define and allocate the titles to private property.
"Coase and Demsetz, along with all other utilitarian free-market economists, implicitly or explicitly leave it to the hands of government to define and allocate the titles to private property."

It is a curious fact that utilitarian economists, generally so skeptical of the virtues of government intervention, are so content to leave the fundamental underpinning of the market process — the definition of property rights and the allocation of property titles — wholly in the hands of government. Presumably they do so because they themselves have no theory of justice in property rights; and, therefore, place the burden of allocating property titles into the hands of government.

Thus, if Smith, Jones, and Doe each own property and are about to exchange their titles, utilitarians simply assert that if these titles are legal (that is, if the government puts the stamp of approval upon them), then they consider those titles to be justified. It is only if someone violates the government's definition of legality (for example, in the case of Y, the thieving retailer) that utilitarians are willing to agree with the general and the governmental view of the injustice of such action. But this means, of course, that, once again, the utilitarians have failed in their wish to escape having a theory of justice in property. Actually they do have such a theory, and it is the surely simplistic one that whatever government defines as legal is right.

As in so many other areas of social philosophy, then, we see that utilitarians, in pursuing their vain goal of being wertfrei, of "scientifically" abjuring any theory of justice, actually have such a theory: namely, putting their stamp of approval on whatever the process by which the government arrives at its allocation of property titles. Furthermore, we find that, as on many similar occasions, utilitarians in their vain quest for the wertfrei really conclude by endorsing as right and just whatever the government happens to decide; that is, by blindly apologizing for the status quo.[3]

Let us consider the utilitarian stamp of approval on government allocation of property titles. Can this stamp of approval possibly achieve even the limited utilitarian goal of certain and precise allocation of property titles? Suppose that the government endorses the existing titles to their property held by Smith, Jones, and Doe. Suppose, then, that a faction of government calls for the confiscation of these titles and redistribution of that property to Roe, Brown, and Robinson. The reasons for this program may stem from any number of social theories or even from the brute fact that Roe, Brown, and Robinson have greater political power than the original trio of owners. The reaction to this proposal by free-market economists and other utilitarians is predictable: they will oppose this proposal on the ground that definite and certain property rights, so socially beneficial, are being endangered. But suppose that the government, ignoring the protests of our utilitarians, proceeds anyway and redistributes these titles to property. Roe, Brown, and Robinson are now defined by the government as the proper and legal owners, while any claims to that property by the original trio of Smith, Jones, and Doe are considered improper and illegitimate, if not subversive. What now will be the reaction of our utilitarians?

It should be clear that, since the utilitarians only base their theory of justice in property on whatever the government defines as legal, they can have no groundwork whatever for any call for restoring the property in question to its original owners. They can only, willy-nilly, and, despite any emotional reluctance on their part, simply endorse the new allocation of property titles as defined and endorsed by government. Not only must utilitarians endorse the status quo of property titles but also they must endorse whatever status quo exists and however rapidly the government decides to shift and redistribute such titles. Furthermore, considering the historical record, we may indeed say that relying upon government to be the guardian of property rights is like placing the proverbial fox on guard over the chicken coop.
"It is a curious fact that utilitarian economists, generally so skeptical of the virtues of government intervention, are so content to leave the fundamental underpinning of the market process wholly in the hands of government."

We see, therefore, that the supposed defense of the free market and of property rights by utilitarians and free-market economists is a very weak reed indeed. Lacking a theory of justice that goes beyond the existing imprimatur of government, utilitarians can only go along with every change and shift of government allocation after they occur, no matter how arbitrary, rapid, or politically motivated such shifts might be. And, since they provide no firm roadblock to governmental reallocations of property, the utilitarians, in the final analysis, can offer no real defense of property rights themselves. Since governmental redefinitions can and will be rapid and arbitrary, they cannot provide long-run certainty for property rights; and, therefore, they cannot even ensure the very social and economic efficiency which they themselves seek.[4] All this is implied in the pronouncements of utilitarians that any future free society must confine itself to whatever definitions of property titles the government may happen to be endorsing at that moment.

Let us consider a hypothetical example of the failure of the utilitarian defense of private property. Suppose that somehow government becomes persuaded of the necessity to yield to a clamor for a free-market, laissez-faire society. Before dissolving itself, however, it redistributes property titles, granting the ownership of the entire territory of New York to the Rockefeller family, of Massachusetts to the Kennedy family, etc. It then dissolves, ending taxation and all other forms of government intervention in the economy. However, while taxation has been abolished, the Rockefeller, Kennedy, etc., families proceed to dictate to all the residents in what is now "their" territory, exacting what are now called "rents" over all the inhabitants.[5]

It seems clear that our utilitarians could have no intellectual armor with which to challenge this new dispensation; indeed, they would have to endorse the Rockefeller, Kennedy, etc., holdings as "private property" equally deserving of support as the ordinary property titles which they had endorsed only a few months previously. All this because the utilitarians have no theory of justice in property beyond endorsement of whatever status quo happens to exist.

Consider, furthermore, the grotesque box in which the utilitarian proponent of freedom places himself in relation to the institution of human slavery. Contemplating the institution of slavery, and the "free" market that once existed in buying, selling, and renting slaves, the utilitarian who must rely on the legal definition of property can only endorse slavery on the ground that the slave masters had purchased their slave titles legally and in good faith. Surely, any endorsement of a "free" market in slaves indicates the inadequacy of utilitarian concepts of property and the need for a theory of justice to provide a groundwork for property rights and a critique of existing official titles to property.
Toward a Theory of Justice in Property

Utilitarianism cannot be supported as a groundwork for property rights or, a fortiori, for the free-market economy. A theory of justice must be arrived at which goes beyond government allocations of property titles, and which can, therefore, serve as a basis for criticizing such allocations. Obviously, in this space I can only outline what I consider to be the correct theory of justice in property rights. This theory has two fundamental premises:

1. the absolute property right of each individual in his own person, his own body; this may be called the right of self-ownership; and
2. the absolute right in material property of the person who first finds an unused material resource and then in some way occupies or transforms that resource by the use of his personal energy.

This might be called the homestead principle — the case in which someone, in the phrase of John Locke, has "mixed his labour" with an unused resource. Let Locke summarize these principles:

[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men.[6]

Let us consider the first principle: the right to self-ownership. This principle asserts the absolute right of each man, by virtue of his (or her) being a human being, to "own" his own body; that is, to control that body free of coercive interference. Since the nature of man is such that each individual must use his mind to learn about himself and the world, to select values, and to choose ends and means in order to survive and flourish, the right to self-ownership gives each man the right to perform these vital activities without being hampered and restricted by coercive molestation.

Consider, then, the alternatives — the consequences of denying each man the right to own his own person. There are only two alternatives: either

1. a certain class of people, A, have the right to own another class, B; or
2. everyone has the right to own his equal quotal share of everyone else.

The first alternative implies that, while class A deserves the rights of being human, class B is in reality subhuman and, therefore, deserves no such rights. But since they are indeed human beings, the first alternative contradicts itself in denying natural human rights to one set of humans. Moreover, allowing class A to own class B means that the former is allowed to exploit and, therefore, to live parasitically at the expense of the latter; but, as economics can tell us, this parasitism itself violates the basic economic requirement for human survival: production and exchange.

The second alternative, which we might call "participatory communalism" or "communism," holds that every man should have the right to own his equal quotal share of everyone else. If there are three billion people in the world, then everyone has the right to own one-three-billionth of every other person. In the first place, this ideal itself rests upon an absurdity — proclaiming that every man is entitled to own a part of everyone else and yet is not entitled to own himself. Second, we can picture the viability of such a world — a world in which no man is free to take any action whatever without prior approval or indeed command by everyone else in society. It should be clear that in that sort of "communist" world, no one would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly perish. But if a world of zero self-ownership and one-hundred-percent other-ownership spells death for the human race, then any steps in that direction also contravene the natural law of what is best for man and his life on earth.

Finally, however, the participatory communist world cannot be put into practice. It is physically impossible for everyone to keep continual tabs on everyone else and, thereby, to exercise his equal quotal share of partial ownership over every other man. In practice, then, any attempt to institute universal and equal other-ownership is utopian and impossible, and supervision and, therefore, control and ownership of others would necessarily devolve upon a specialized group of people who would thereby become a "ruling class." Hence, in practice, any attempt at communist society will automatically become class rule, and we would be back at our rejected first alternative.
"Considering the historical record, we may indeed say that relying upon government to be the guardian of property rights is like placing the proverbial fox on guard over the chicken coop."

We conclude, then, with the premise of absolute universal right of self-ownership as our first principle of justice in property. This principle, of course, automatically rejects slavery as totally incompatible with our primary right.[7]

Let us now turn to the more complex case of property in material objects. For even if every man has the right to self-ownership, people are not floating wraiths; they are not self-subsistent entities; they can only survive and flourish by grappling with the earth around them. They must, for example, stand on land areas; they must also, in order to survive, transform the resources given by nature into "consumer goods," into objects more suitable for their use and consumption. Food must be grown and eaten, minerals must be mined and then transformed into capital, and finally into useful consumer goods, etc. Man, in other words, must own not only his own person, but also material objects for his control and use. How, then, should property titles in these objects be allocated?

Let us consider, as our first example, the case of a sculptor fashioning a work of art out of clay and other materials, and let us simply assume for the moment that he owns these materials while waiving the question of the justification for their ownership. Let us examine the question: who should own the work of art as it emerges from the sculptor's fashioning? The sculpture is, in fact, the sculptor's "creation," not in the sense that he has created matter de novo, but in the sense that he has transformed nature-given matter — the clay — into another form dictated by his own ideas and fashioned by his own hands and energy. Surely, it is a rare person who, with the case put thus, would say that the sculptor does not have the property right in his own product. For if every man has the right to own his own body, and if he must grapple with the material objects of the world in order to survive, then the sculptor has the right to own the product which he has made, by his energy and effort, a veritable extension of his own personality. He has placed the stamp of his person upon the raw material by "mixing his labour" with the clay.

As in the case of the ownership of people's bodies, we again have three logical alternatives:

1. either the transformer, the "creator," has the property right in his creation; or
2. another man or set of men have the right to appropriate it by force without the sculptor's consent; or
3. the "communal" solution — every individual in the world has an equal, quotal share in the ownership of the sculpture.

Again, put baldly, there are very few who would not concede the monstrous injustice of confiscating the sculptor's property, either by one or more others, or by the world as a whole. For by what right do they do so? By what right do they appropriate to themselves the product of the creator's mind and energy? (Again, as in the case of bodies, any confiscation in the supposed name of the world as a whole would, in practice, devolve into an oligarchy of confiscators.)

But the case of the sculptor is not qualitatively different from all cases of "production." The man or men who extracted the clay from the ground and sold it to the sculptor were also "producers"; they, too, mixed their ideas and their energy and their technological know-how with the nature-given material to emerge with a useful product. As producers, the sellers of the clay and of the sculptor's tools also mixed their labor with natural materials to transform them into more useful goods and services. All the producers are, therefore, entitled to the ownership of their product.

The chain of material production logically reduces back, then, from consumer goods and works of art to the first producers who gathered or mined the nature-given soil and resources to use and transform them by means of their personal energy. And use of the soil logically reduces back to the legitimate ownership by first users of previously unowned, unused, virginal, nature-given resources. Let us again quote Locke:

He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And 'tis plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put the distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they became his private right. And will anyone say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him…. Thus, the grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have digged in my place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.[8]

Henry George

If every man owns his own person and therefore his own labor, and if by extension he owns whatever material property he has "created" or gathered out of the previously unused, unowned "state of nature," then what of the logically final question: who has the right to own or control the earth itself? In short, if the gatherer has the right to own the acorns or berries he picks, or the farmer the right to own his crop of wheat or peaches, who has the right to own the land on which these things have grown? It is at this point that Henry George and his followers, who would have gone all the way so far with our analysis, leave the track and deny the individual's right to own the piece of land itself, the ground on which these activities have taken place. The Georgists argue that, while every man should own the goods he produces or creates, since Nature or God created the land itself, no individual has the right to assume ownership of that land.

Yet, again, we are faced with our three logical alternatives: either the land itself belongs to the pioneer, the first user, the man who first brings it into production; or it belongs to a group of others, or it belongs to the world as a whole, with every individual owning an equal quotal part of every acre of land. George's option for the last solution hardly solves his moral problem: for if the land itself should belong to God or Nature, then why is it more moral for every acre in the world to be owned by the world as a whole, than to concede individual ownership? In practice, again, it is obviously impossible for every person in the world to exercise his ownership of his three-billionth portion of every acre of the world's surface; in practice, a small oligarchy would do the controlling and owning, rather than the world as a whole.

But apart from these difficulties in the Georgist position, our proposed justification for the ownership of ground land is the same as the justification for the original ownership of all other property. For as we have indicated, no producer really "creates" matter; he takes nature-given matter and transforms it by his personal energy in accordance with his ideas and his vision. But this is precisely what the pioneer — the "homesteader" — does, when he brings previously unused land into his private ownership. Just as the man who makes steel out of iron ore transforms that ore out of his know-how and with his energy, and just as the man who takes the iron out of the ground does the same, so too does the homesteader who clears, fences, cultivates, or builds upon the land. The homesteader, too, has transformed the character and usefulness of the nature-given soil by his labor and his personality. The homesteader is just as legitimately the owner of the property as the sculptor or the manufacturer; he is just as much a "producer" as the others.

Moreover, if a producer is not entitled to the fruits of his labor, who is? It is difficult to see why a newborn Pakistani baby should have a moral claim to a quotal share of ownership of a piece of Iowa land that someone has just transformed into a wheat field and vice versa, of course, for an Iowan baby and a Pakistani farm. Land in its original state is unused and unowned. Georgists and other land communalists may claim that the entire world population "really" owns it, but if no one has yet used it, it is in the real sense owned and controlled by no one. The pioneer, the homesteader, the first user and transformer of this land, is the man who first brings this simple valueless thing into production and use. It is difficult to see the justice of depriving him of ownership in favor of people who have never gotten within a thousand miles of the land and who may not even know of the existence of the property over which they are supposed to have a claim. It is even more difficult to see the justice of a group of outside oligarchs owning the property, and at the expense of expropriating the creator or the homesteader who had originally brought the product into existence.
"Since they provide no firm roadblock to governmental reallocations of property, the utilitarians, in the final analysis, can offer no real defense of property rights themselves."

Finally, no one can produce anything without the cooperation of ground land, if only as standing room. No man can produce or create anything by his labor alone; he must have the cooperation of land and other natural raw materials. Man comes into the world with just himself and the world around him — the land and natural resources given him by nature. He takes these resources and transforms them by his labor and mind and energy into goods more useful to man. Therefore, if an individual cannot own original ground land, neither can he in the full sense own any of the fruits of his labor. Now that his labor has been inextricably mixed with the land, he cannot be deprived of one without being deprived of the other.

The moral issue involved here is even clearer if we consider the case of animals. Animals are "economic land," since they are original nature-given resources. Yet, will anyone deny full title to a horse to the man who finds and domesticates it? This is no different from the acorns and berries which are generally conceded to the gatherer. Yet in land, too, the homesteader takes the previously "wild," undomesticated land, and "tames" it by putting it to productive use. Mixing his labor with land sites should give him just as clear a title as in the case of animals.

From our two basic axioms, the right of every man to self-ownership and the right of every man to own previously unused natural resources that he first appropriates or transforms by his labor — the entire system of justification for property rights can be deduced. For if anyone justly owns the land himself and the property that he finds and creates, then he, of course, has the right to exchange that property for the similarly acquired just property of someone else. This establishes the right of free exchange of property, as well as the right to give one's property away to someone who agrees to receive it. Thus, X may own his person and labor and the farm he clears on which he grows wheat; Y owns the fish he catches; Z owns the cabbages he grows and the land under it. But then X has the right to exchange some of his wheat for some of Y's fish (if Y agrees) or Z's cabbages; and when X and Y make a voluntary agreement to exchange wheat for fish, then that fish becomes X's justly acquired property to do with what he wishes, and the wheat becomes Y's just property in precisely the same way. Further, a man may, of course, exchange not only the tangible objects he owns, but also his own labor, which of course he owns as well. Thus, Z may sell his labor services of teaching farmer X's children in return for some of the farmer's produce.

We have thus established the property-right justification for the free-market process. For the free-market economy, as complex as the system appears to be on the surface, is yet nothing more than a vast network of voluntary and mutually agreed upon two-person or two-party exchanges of property titles such as we have seen occurs between wheat and cabbage farmers, or between the farmer and the teacher. In the developed free-market economy, the farmer exchanges his wheat for money. The wheat is bought by the miller who processes and transforms the wheat into flour. The miller sells the bread to the wholesaler, who in turn sells it to the retailer, who finally sells it to the consumer. In the case of the sculptor, he buys the clay and the tools from the producers who dug the clay out of the ground or those who bought the clay from the original miners, and he bought his tools from the manufacturers who, in turn, purchased the raw material from the miners of iron ore.

How "money" enters the equation is a complex process, but it should be clear here that, conceptually, the use of money is equivalent to any useful commodity that is exchanged for wheat, flour, etc. Instead of money, the commodity exchanged could be cloth, iron, or whatever. At each step of the way, mutually beneficial exchanges of property titles — to goods, services, or money — are agreed upon and transacted.
"Surely, any endorsement of a 'free' market in slaves indicates the inadequacy of utilitarian concepts of property and the need for a theory of justice."

And what of the capital-labor relationship? Here, too, as in the case of the teacher selling his services to the farmer, the laborer sells his services to the manufacturer who has purchased the iron ore or to the shipper who has bought logs from the loggers. The capitalist performs the function of saving money to buy the raw material, and then pays the laborers in advance of sale of the product to the eventual customers.

Many people, including such utilitarian free-market advocates as John Stuart Mill, have been willing to concede the propriety and the justice (if they are not utilitarians) of the producer owning and earning the fruits of his labor. But they balk at one point: inheritance. If Roberto Clemente is ten times as good and "productive" a ball player as Joe Smith, they are willing to concede the justice of Clemente's earning ten times the amount; but what, they ask, is the justification for someone whose only merit is being born a Rockefeller inheriting far more wealth than someone born a Rothbard?

There are several answers that could be given to this question. For example, the natural fact is that every individual must, of necessity, be born into a different condition, at a different time or place, and to different parents. Equality of birth or rearing, therefore, is an impossible chimera. But in the context of our theory of justice in property rights, the answer is to focus not on the recipient — not on the child Rockefeller or the child Rothbard — but to concentrate on the giver, the man who bestows the inheritance. For if Smith and Jones and Clemente have the right to their labor and their property and to exchange the titles to this property for the similarly obtained property of others, then they also have the right to give their property to whomever they wish. The point is not the right of "inheritance" but the right of bequest, a right which derives from the title to property itself. If Roberto Clemente owns his labor and the money he earns from it, then he has the right to give that money to the baby Clemente.

Armed with a theory of justice in property rights, let us now apply it to the often-vexed question of how we should regard existing titles to property.
Toward a Critique of Existing Property Titles

Among those who call for the adoption of a free market and a free society, the utilitarians, as might be expected, wish to validate all existing property titles, as so defined by the government. But we have seen the inadequacy of this position, most clearly in the case of slavery, but similarly in the validation that it gives to any acts of governmental confiscation or redistribution, including our hypothetical Kennedy and Rockefeller "private" ownership of the territorial area of a State. But how much of a redistribution from existing titles would be implied by the adoption of our theory of justice in property, or of any attempt to put that theory into practice? Isn't it true, as some people charge, that all existing property titles, or at least all land titles, were the result of government grants and coercive redistribution? Would all property titles, therefore, be confiscated in the name of justice? And who would be granted these titles?

Let us first take the easiest case: where existing property has been stolen, as acknowledged by the government (and, therefore, by utilitarians) as well as by our theory of justice. In short, suppose that Smith has stolen a watch from Jones. In that case, there is no difficulty in calling upon Smith to relinquish the watch and to give it back to the true owner, Jones. But what of more difficult cases — in short, where existing property titles are ratified by State confiscation of a previous victim? This could apply either to money, or especially to land titles, since land is a constant, identifiable, fixed quotal share of the earth's surface.

Suppose, first, for example, that the government has either taken land or money from Jones by coercion (either by taxation or its imposed redefinition of property) and has granted the land to Smith or, alternatively, has ratified Smith's direct act of confiscation. What would our policy of justice say then? We would say, along with the general view of crime, that the aggressor and unjust owner, Smith, must be made to disgorge the property title (either land or money) and give it over to its true owner, Jones. Thus, in the case of an identifiable unjust owner and the identifiable victim or just owner, the case is clear: a restoration to the victim of his rightful property. Smith, of course, must not be compensated for this restitution, since compensation would either be enforced unjustly on the victim himself or on the general body of taxpayers. Indeed, there is a far better case for the additional punishment of Smith, but there is no space here to develop the theory of punishment for crime or aggression.

Suppose, next, a second case, in which Smith has stolen a piece of land from Jones but that Jones has died; he leaves, however, an heir, Jones II. In that case, we proceed as before; there is still the identifiable aggressor, Smith, and the identifiable heir of the victim, Jones II, who now is the inherited just owner of the title. Again, Smith must be made to disgorge the land and turn it over to Jones II.

But suppose a third, more difficult case. Smith is still the thief, but Jones and his entire family and heirs have been wiped out, either by Smith himself or in the natural course of events. Jones is intestate; what then should happen to the property? The first principle is that Smith, being the thief, cannot keep the fruits of his aggression; but, in that case, the property becomes unowned and becomes "up for grabs" in the same way as any piece of unowned property. The "homestead principle" becomes applicable in the sense that the first user or occupier of the newly declared unowned property becomes the just and proper owner. The only stipulation is that Smith himself, being the thief, is not eligible for this homesteading.[9]
"It is difficult to see why a newborn Pakistani baby should have a moral claim to a quotal share of ownership of a piece of Iowa land that someone has just transformed into a wheat field and vice versa, of course, for an Iowan baby and a Pakistani farm."

Suppose now a fourth case, and one generally more relevant to problems of land title in the modern world. Smith is not a thief, nor has he directly received the land by government grant; but his title is derived from his ancestor who did so unjustly appropriate title to the property; the ancestor, Smith I, let us say, stole the property from Jones I, the rightful owner. What should be the disposition of the property now? The answer, in our view, completely depends on whether or not Jones's heirs, the surrogates of the identifiable victims, still exist. Suppose, for example, that Smith VI legally "owns" the land, but that Jones VI is still extant and identifiable. Then we would have to say that, while Smith VI himself is not a thief and not punishable as such, his title to the land, being solely derived from inheritance passed down from Smith I, does not give him true ownership, and that he, too, must disgorge the land — without compensation — and yield it into the hands of Jones VI.

But, it might be protested, what of the improvements that Smiths II–VI may have added to the land? Doesn't Smith VI deserve compensation for these legitimately owned additions to the original land received from Jones I? The answer depends on the movability or separability of these improvements. Suppose, for example, that Smith steals a car from Jones and sells it to Robinson. When the car is apprehended, then Robinson, though he purchased it in good faith from Smith, has no title better than Smith's which was nil and, therefore, he must yield up the car to Jones without compensation. (He has been defrauded by Smith and must try to extract compensation out of Smith, not out of the victim Jones.) But suppose that Robinson, in the meantime, has improved the car? The answer depends on whether these improvements are separable from the car itself. If, for example, Robinson has installed a new radio which did not exist before, then he should certainly have the right to take it out before handing the car back to Jones. Similarly, in the case of land, to the extent that Smith VI has simply improved the land itself and mixed his resources inextricably with it, there is nothing he can do; but if, for example, Smith VI or his ancestors built new buildings upon the land, then he should have the right to demolish or cart away these buildings before handing the land over to Jones VI.

But what if Smith I did indeed steal the land from Jones I, but that all of Jones's descendants or heirs are lost in antiquity and cannot be found? What should be the status of the land then? In that case, since Smith VI is not himself a thief, he becomes the legitimate owner of the land on the basis of our homestead principle. For if the land is "unowned" and up for grabs, then Smith VI himself has been occupying and using it, and, therefore, he becomes the just and rightful owner on the homestead basis. Furthermore, all of his descendants have clear and proper title on the basis of being his heirs.

It is clear, then, that even if we can show that the origin of most existing land titles are in coercion and theft, the existing owners are still just and legitimate owners if

1. they themselves did not engage in aggression, and
2. no identifiable heirs of the original victims can be found.

In most cases of current land title this will probably be the case. A fortiori, of course, if we simply don't know whether the original land titles were acquired by coercion, then our homestead principle gives the current property owners the benefit of the doubt and establishes them as just and proper owners as well. Thus, the establishment of our theory of justice in property titles will not usually lead to a wholesale turnover of landed property.

In the United States, we have been fortunate enough to largely escape continuing aggression in land titles. It is true that originally the English Crown gave land titles unjustly to favored persons (for example, the territory roughly of New York State to the ownership of the Duke of York), but fortunately these grantees were interested enough in quick returns to subdivide and sell their lands to the actual settlers. As soon as the settlers purchased their land, their titles were legitimate, and so were the titles of all those who inherited or purchased them. Later on, the United States government unfortunately laid claim to all virgin land as the "public domain," and then unjustly sold the land to speculators who had not earned a homestead title. But eventually these speculators sold the land to the actual settlers, and from then on, the land title was proper and legitimate.[10]
"From simply a utilitarian consideration of consequences, the utilitarian free-marketeers have done very badly in the undeveloped world."

In South America and much of the undeveloped world, however, matters are considerably different. For here, in many areas, an invading State conquered the lands of peasants, and then parcelled out such lands to various warlords as their "private" fiefs, from then on to extract "rent" from the hapless peasantry. The descendants of the conquistadores still presume to own the land tilled by the descendants of the original peasants, people with a clearly just claim to ownership of the land. In this situation justice requires the vacating of the land titles by these "feudal" or "coercive" landholders (who are in a position equivalent to our hypothetical Rockefellers and Kennedys) and the turning over of the property titles, without compensation, to the individual peasants who are the "true" owners of their land.

Much of the drive for "land reform" by the peasantry of the undeveloped world is precisely motivated by an instinctive application of our theory of justice: by the apprehension of the peasants that the land they have tilled for generations is "their" land and that the landlord's claim is coercive and unjust. It is ironic that, in these numerous cases, the only response of utilitarian free-market advocates is to defend existing land titles, regardless of their injustice, and to tell the peasants to keep quiet and "respect private property." Since the peasants are convinced that the property is their private title, it is no wonder that they fail to be impressed; but since they find the supposed champions of property rights and free-market capitalism to be their staunch enemies, they generally are forced to turn to the only organized groups that, at least rhetorically, champion their claims and are willing to carry out the required rectification of property titles: the socialists and communists.

In short, from simply a utilitarian consideration of consequences, the utilitarian free-marketeers have done very badly in the undeveloped world, the result of their ignoring the fact that others than themselves, however inconveniently, do have a passion for justice. Of course, after socialists or communists take power, they do their best to collectivize peasant land, and one of the prime struggles of socialist society is that of the State versus the peasantry. But even those peasants who are aware of socialist duplicity on the land question may still feel that with the socialists and communists they at least have a fighting chance. And sometimes, of course, the peasants have been able to win and to force communist regimes to keep hands off their newly gained private property: notably in the case of Poland and Yugoslavia.

$20 $15

The utilitarian defense of the status quo will then be least viable — and, therefore, the least utilitarian — in those situations where the status quo is the most glaringly unjust. As often happens, far more than utilitarians will admit, justice and genuine utility are here linked together.

To sum up, all existing property titles may be considered just under the homestead principle, provided

1. that there may never be any property in people;
2. that the existing property owner did not himself steal the property; and particularly
3. that any identifiable just owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School. He was an economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher. See Murray N. Rothbard's article archives.

Quotes of the day

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."
-- Thomas Paine, 1777

Quotes of the Day

"It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living." by Simone de Beauvoir

A coluna assombrada by ROBERTO DaMATTA

Como somos uma sociedade construída em cima da escravidão; da arrogância e da ignorância aristocrática e senhorial; do poder autoritário e revanchista que pensa primeiro nos nossos; da estadomania que tudo resolve, prevê e legaliza para justamente produzir o oposto, temos sido recorrentemente assombrados por fantasmas bem conhecidos. O maior deles é o da desonestidade governamental que cinde pela raiz o elo entre Estado e sociedade.

Nossas almas do outro mundo aparecem na televisão recebendo o fruto de seu vil trabalho: os pacotes de dinheiro vivo que, escondido na cueca, na meia ou em elegantes sacolinhas, têm o dom de revelar o estado geral da nobre arte de roubar o dinheiro público impunemente. Esse apanágio dos políticos brasileiros de todos os poderes e níveis. Que roubam planejadamente porque têm a mais absoluta certeza de que jamais serão punidos. Entremeados, porém, a esses fantasmas rotineiros surgem os dos desastres que causamos porque não conseguimos, apesar de todas as repúblicas e cidadanias, seguir nenhuma norma. A tragédia dos deslizamentos, que inaugura 2010 contando desaparecidos, é um exemplo flagrante da aplicação de um dos mais ofensivos slogans jamais inventados por um político e ex-prefeito: "É ilegal, e daí?" Esse "estou me lixando" para a lei porque ela é boa para ser escrita, mas não para ser honrada, confirma o nosso caminho hierárquico. Quando o fantasma do roubo do dinheiro público aparece, a culpa é sempre dos subordinados; ou surge na forma de um cinismo ofensivo quando um Arruda, cercado de asseclas, diz que perdoou para ser perdoado de modo que os que estão do topo livram-se automaticamente de qualquer responsabilidade.

É uma ofensa imperdoável aos cidadãos honestos que ele continue tocando as suas 2 mil e tantas obras sem que se faça uma intervenção para investigar o que foi visto em nossas casas.

Que diferença do outro hemisfério, quando o presidente Barack Obama, em face da incompetência dos serviços de segurança antiterrorista do seu país, e diante do fantasma do terror, assume o erro e a responsabilidade que, afinal de contas, é dele menos como "supremo magistrado da nação", como gostamos de repetir pomposamente no Brasil, e muito mais como o administrador da justiça, da segurança e do cumprimento das leis que, em crises morais dessa magnitude, cabe ao presidente ou à mais alta autoridade assumir e resolver.

No caso de Angra e da Ilha Grande, dos estados sulinos e da Amazônia, a assombração aparece para todos, mas só os inferiores são responsáveis pelas rezas que imploram o cumprimento das promessas.

Os responsáveis evocam a litania mentirosa do "eu não sabia". No caso americano, o subordinado sabe que vai ser cobrado porque quem assumiu o erro foi o superior.

A mesma atitude de fuga dos problemas permeia outros fatos. Dom João VI abandonou o reino do qual, pelo credo da realeza, era indissociável do seu corpo físico e espiritual (os reis tinham dois corpos), pois eram responsáveis pelo bemestar moral do seu reino (que incluía o povo e também a natureza).

Dom Pedro I oscilou entre ir ou ficar.

Pedro II administrou institucionalmente, como um estrangeiro. Getúlio deu um tiro no Brasil que estava formado no seu coração e reverteu a crise deflagrada pela tentativa de liquidar a oposição liderada por Carlos Lacerda; e Jânio Quadros renunciou à Presidência, para a qual fora eleito portando uma vassoura que limparia o Brasil dos mensalões, lalaus, malufes e arrudas da época, levando a uma crise institucional da qual até hoje não saímos, como revela esse decreto de mudança cultural centralizador assinado pelo presidente Lula, às vésperas do Ano Novo.

Volta e meia, surgem assombrações. Mas vale a pena assinalar que no Brasil elas voltam para pedir orações e cobrar dívidas, pois como disse num livro escrito faz tempo — "A casa e a rua" —, entre nós, a morte mata mas os mortos não morrem. A saudade que exprime os elos perpétuos com eles patrocina o retorno. Eles são a ponte que sustenta a continuidade entre este mundo e o outro. Tal como no plano político a corrupção e a má-fé são o fantasma de um passado familístico e hierárquico ainda não resolvido.

Nos Estados Unidos, porém, quando surge um fantasma, como ocorreu com uma amiga americana numa casa assombrada na Universidade de Brown, ela — ao ver-se em plena madrugada diante do espectro de um jovem que morrera afogado e ficara ligado à residência que hoje serve de mini-hospedaria para professores visitantes — não hesitou em perguntar em alto e bom som um "what do you want?" (o que é que você quer?). O enfrentamento, contou-me, dissipou imediatamente a assombração. Já no nosso caso, as oscilações expressas em continuidades mal resolvidas fazem com que sejamos eternamente assombrados. Pois aí estão, com as vítimas, os fantasmas da covardia e da corrupção, demandando, como é o seu papel, honestidade e transparência.

Climate Alarm: What We Are Up Against, and What to Do Written By: Richard S. Lindzen

Climate Alarm: What We Are Up Against, and What to Do
News Releases > March 2009
Environment > Climate: Realists
Environment > Climate: Richard Lindzen

Written By: Richard S. Lindzen
Published In: News Releases > March 2009
Publication date: 03/08/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Global warming alarm has always been a political movement, and opposing it has always been an up-hill battle.

In this talk I wish to point out some simple truths that are often forgotten by our side of this issue.

First, being skeptical about global warming does not, by itself, make one a good scientist; nor does endorsing global warming make one, per se, a poor scientist. Most of the atmospheric scientists who I respect do endorse global warming. The important point, however, is that the science that they do that I respect is not about global warming. Endorsing global warming just makes their lives easier.

For example, my colleague, Kerry Emanuel, received relatively little recognition until he suggested that hurricanes might become stronger in a warmer world (a position that I think he has since backed away from somewhat). He then was inundated with professional recognition.

Another colleague, Carl Wunsch, professionally calls into question virtually all alarmist claims concerning sea level, ocean temperature, and ocean modeling, but assiduously avoids association with skeptics; if nothing else, he has several major oceanographic programs to worry about. Moreover, his politics are clearly liberal.

Perhaps the most interesting example is Wally Broecker, whose work clearly shows that sudden climate change occurs without anthropogenic influence, and is a property of cold rather than warm climates. However, he staunchly beats the drums for alarm and is richly rewarded for doing so.

For a much larger group of scientists, the fact that they can make ambiguous or even meaningless statements that can be spun by alarmists, and that the alarming spin leads politicians to increase funding, provides little incentive to complain about the spin.

Second, most arguments about global warming boil down to science versus authority. For much of the public, authority will generally win since they do not wish to deal with science. For a basically political movement, as the global warming issue most certainly is, an important task is to coopt the sources of authority. This, the global warming movement has done with great success.

Thus, for over 20 years, the National Academy had a temporary nominating group designed to facilitate the election of environmental activists. The current president of the academy is one of these. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has been headed by James McCarthy and John Holdren in recent years, and these have been public advocates for global warming alarm. Holdren is now President Barack Obama’s science advisor.

There are numerous further examples. How often have we heard a legitimate scientific argument answered by the claim that the alarmist scenario is endorsed by, for example, the American Physical Society (regardless of their lack of expertise in the issue)? How often have you heard innocuous claims by some society or another taken as endorsements of alarm? How often have you heard that any particular argument has been dealt with by realclimate.org (a clear advocacy Web site designed to assure warming alarmists that the basis for alarm still exists)?

Third, the success with respect to the second item also gives the climate alarm movement control over carrots and sticks -- which, in turn, is what makes it convenient for most scientists to go along. Note that the carrots are as important as the sticks.

Thus, for example, John Holdren was long on the board of the MacArthur Foundation, which has awarded ‘genius’ grants to numerous environmental activists. Ironically, an award allegedly honoring the late Bill Nierenberg, a very perceptive and active skeptic of climate alarm, is now given annually to an alarmist.

One could go on at great length.

The process of coopting science on behalf of a political movement has had an extraordinarily corrupting influence on science -- especially since the issue has been a major motivation for funding. Most funding for climate would not be there without this issue. And, it should be added, most science funded under the rubric of climate does not actually deal with climate, but rather with the alleged impact of arbitrarily assumed climate change.

All impacts depend on regional forecasts, and quoting the leading scientist at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (widely regarded as the foremost atmospheric modeling center), Tim Palmer, such forecasts are no better than guesses. Nonetheless, regional forecasts are at the heart of numerous state initiatives to ‘fight’ climate change. These initiatives are usually prepared by the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a Pennsylvania-based environmental advocacy group that purports to help states determine for themselves how to develop climate change policies.

In reality, according to Paul Chesser of the John Locke Foundation, CCS tightly controls these commissions, who consider proposals mostly from a menu of options presented by CCS themselves. Nearly all the choices represent new taxes or higher prices on energy, increased costs of government, new regulations for businesses, and reduced energy-producing options for utilities, and therefore consumers. CCS is funded largely by a multi-million-dollar global warming alarmist foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

What can be done?

The most obvious point is to persevere, to better understand the science, and to emphasize logic, which ultimately has to trump alleged authority. Generally, there is a deep disconnect between consensus statements that commonly only repeat the trivial points that there has been some warming and that man’s emissions have caused some part of this, and the claims of catastrophe made by advocates; stress these differences.

With respect to better understanding the science, it is my view that the observations of almost a decade ago that outgoing long wave radiation associated with warmer surface temperatures was much greater than models predicted; this was as good evidence that model sensitivities were much too high as one could hope for. However, without an adequate understanding of the physics, the point is largely missed. How can one communicate this to the public? Actually, the science isn’t all that hard.

John Sununu offered an easily appreciated example of positive and negative feedback. In your car, the gas and brake pedals act as negative feedbacks to reduce speed when you are going too fast and increase it when you are going too slow. If someone were to reverse the position of the pedals without informing you, then they would act as positive feedbacks: increasing your speed when you are going too fast, and slowing you down when you are going too slow.

Stress that alarming predictions depend critically on the fact that models have large positive feedbacks. The crucial question is whether nature actually behaves this way? The answer is unambiguously no.

In the common (though admittedly somewhat inaccurate) picture of the greenhouse effect, greenhouse substances (mainly thin high clouds and water vapor, but also CO2, methane, freons, etc.) act as a blanket, inhibiting the emission of infrared (heat) radiation. We know that in the absence of feedbacks (in which water vapor and clouds allegedly act to amplify the effect of added CO2), an increase in temperature will lead to a certain increase in this heat radiation (also known as outgoing longwave radiation, OLR). With positive feedbacks, this amount of radiation will be reduced (in terms of the ‘blanket’ imagery, the blanket has gotten thicker). Current models do, indeed, predict this. We also know that the 1990s temperature was warmer than in the 1980s.

During this period, satellites were measuring the emitted heat radiation. What at least four groups all confirmed was that emitted heat radiation during the ‘90s was not only much greater than what models predicted, but also greater than what would have been expected if there were no feedback at all.

This implies that nature is, as any reasonable person might suppose, dominated by stabilizing negative feedbacks rather than destabilizing positive feedbacks. It has been noted that the climate in models is an example of unintelligent design -- something modelers are far more capable of than is nature.

Getting people (including many scientists) to understand this is crucial. Once it is understood, the silliness of the whole issue becomes evident -- though those who are committed to warming alarm as the vehicle for a postmodern coup d’etat will obviously try to obfuscate matters.

As important as the above is, it does not eliminate the possible need for more institutional approaches. These are limited by the minimal resources available to rectify the present situation. Indeed, given the minimal resources available to those who are truly interested in how climate actually works, and the immense resources and power of the environmental movement, it is astounding that resistance has been as effective as it has been. That said, one should not underestimate the impressive degree of organization behind the climate alarm movement.

Notable, in this regard, has been the Climate Action Network that has coordinated the activities of hundreds of environmental NGOs since 1989.

However, should some benefactor create a climate institute that could recruit outstanding scientists regardless of their position on global warming, and provide the resources for truly independent research protected from political manipulation, then it is possible that the corrupt state of the science could, in time, be rectified. So far, however, this would appear to be a pipe dream.

A possibly more practical undertaking would be to undermine the authority of scientific organizations wherein a few activist members have managed to speak for the entire membership.

A major campaign is needed to get thousands of scientists to resign from professional societies that have taken unrepresentative stands on the warming issue, while making the reason for the resignation unambiguous and public. This would, in my opinion, be far more effective than simply collecting thousands of signatures for petitions.

The global warming issue has done much to set back climate science. In particular, the notion that climate is one-dimensional -- which is to say, that it is totally described by some fictitious global mean temperature and some single gross forcing a la increased CO2 -- is grotesque in its oversimplification. I must reluctantly add that this error is perpetuated by those attempting to ‘explain’ climate with solar variability. Unlike greenhouse forcing, solar forcing is so vague that one can’t reject it.

However, acting as though this is the alternative to greenhouse forcing is asking for trouble.

Remember, we are dealing with a small amount of warming (concentrated in two relatively brief episodes) in an inadequately observed system. The proper null hypothesis is that there was no need whatsoever for external forcing in order to produce such behavior. The unsteady and even turbulent motions of the ocean and atmosphere are forever moving heat from one place to another on time scales from days to centuries and, in doing so, they leave the system out of equilibrium with the sun leading to fluctuations in temperature.

The thought that these turbulent fluctuations demand specific causes is absurd -- almost as absurd as calling for specific causes for each whirl in a bubbling brook.

Finally, I would suggest that however grim things may appear, we will eventually win against anthropogenic global warming alarm simply because we are right and they are wrong.

There are many reasons for being confident of this. However, we have just gone over one of the most important scientific reasons. The satellite records of outgoing heat radiation show that the climate is dominated by negative feedbacks and that the response to doubled and even quadrupled CO2 would be minimal. In a field as primitive as climate science, most of the alleged climate scientists are not even aware of this basic relation. And these days, one can be confident that once they are, many will, in fact, try to alter the data. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that the public is not likely to understand this as well.

On the other hand, the fact that the global mean temperature anomaly has not increased statistically significantly since at least 1995, does not actually disprove anthropogenic global warming, but for the public this fact is likely to be crucial.

For some of us, this is an occasional source of frustration, but one must always remember that this is a political rather than a scientific issue, and in a political issue, public perception is important.

Moreover, the temperature record does demonstrate at least one crucial point: namely, that natural climate variability remains sufficiently large to preclude the identification of climate change with anthropogenic forcing. As the IPCC AR4 noted, the attribution claim, however questionable, was contingent on the assumption that models had adequately handled this natural internal variability.

The temperature record of the past 14 years clearly shows that this assumption was wrong. To be sure, this period constitutes a warm period in the instrumental record, and, as a result, many of the years will be among the warmest in the record, but this does nothing to mitigate the model failure to show continued warming. To claim otherwise betrays either gross ignorance or grosser dishonesty.

When it comes to global warming hysteria, neither has been in short supply.

Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave one of the keynote addresses Sunday, March 8, 2009 at the second International Conference on Climate Change.