“Selfish materialism” is a Trojan horse to get past the defensive gates of rational discussion, to enable some to impose their views on others

Markets Are About Much More

 Than Material Goods

by Gary Galles

Murray Rothbard once noted that “One of the most common charges leveled against the free market is that it reflects and encourages unbridled ‘selfish materialism’ ... it distracts man from higher ideals. It leads man away from spiritual or intellectual values.” But that allegation is far from true.

Freedom in making economic arrangements does not directly address people’s ultimate, higher ends. But that is because they are internal to each individual. However, the same thing is true of all external expedients. None can directly advance higher ends, which cannot be imposed from without. However, freedom does advance the potential for greater achievement of those ends, by offering individuals the most effective means of removing scarcity’s impediments.

Think of time spent toward ultimate goals as time available, minus time spent on other concerns. The less time necessary to support oneself and one’s family, the more “ultimate time” is available. This is advanced by gains in productivity, for which freedom has no peer. When freedom is externally restricted, ultimate time must also be reduced by time “governors” spend trying to control, dictate, or enforce compliance on others and time the “governed” spend in complying with or evading those impositions. These diversions, which arise from every alternative to freedom, further detract from individuals’ ability to pursue their ultimate ends, while violating and corrupting morality by necessitating the use of harmful means.

In contrast to critics’ assertions, the worldly arrangements that freedom makes so much more productive do not distract individuals from advancing ultimate ends. They reduce the necessary distractions of earning a living. By reducing that inescapable toll on our efforts, freedom is not a substitute for those ends, but a complement to them, enabling them to be more effectively attained.

Economic freedom also requires that our efforts that allow us to advance toward our ultimate ends simultaneously advances others’ prospects for achieving their ultimate ends. Coercion, in contrast, advances one’s ultimate ends at the expense of others’ efforts in the same direction.
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Read more: mises.org

Economist Ludwig von Mises demonstrated almost 100 years ago that a state managed economy will simply not work

Thomas Piketty’s Improbable Data

by Hunter Lewis

A state managed economy will simply not work, because among other problems it cannot set workable prices. Only a consumer run economy can do that.

Keynes’s keynote book, The General Theory, is loaded with economic theory. There are only two pages of data in that book, and Keynes dismisses the scant data he cites as “improbable.” By contrast, Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, is stuffed with data. Indeed Piketty considers himself a successor to the economist whose data Keynes dismissed, Simon Kuznets. Almost everyone admits that Piketty’s theoretical case is weak — but, his supporters say, look at all this data. You can’t argue with this mass of historical evidence!

Piketty’s primary argument is that wealth (which tends to be concentrated in few hands) grows faster than the economy, so that those with a lot of wealth keep getting richer relative to everyone else. This is supposed to be an inescapable feature of capitalism. (If this sounds familiar, it should be. It echoes both Marx and Keynes, although we should remember that Keynes mocked most of what Marx said as “hocus-pocus.”)

So what then is the evidence that wealth has grown faster than the economy?

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Read more: mises.org

A good opportunity to clarify the Church’s teaching about divorce

Remedying the Divorce Culture

by Arland K. Nichols

In light of Jesus’ words and our cultural milieu I highlight five essential teachings for remedying the dominant divorce culture and its problematic consequences.

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The consequences resulting from the civil divorce of so many validly married Catholics are truly troubling and often tragic. We cannot become comfortable with the culture of divorce that so impacts society and, we must make every effort to foster a culture of marriage in our own marriages, our homes, the Church, and society at large. It is our obligation and privilege to stand up for the permanence of marriage and to walk alongside those who suffer from troubled marriages, civil divorce, and its consequences.

Both John Paul II and Pope Francis have emphasized the need for pastoral care that remains sensitive to the challenges and circumstances of spouses while being equally committed to the truth that marriage is “until death do us part.” Commitment and attentiveness to these five teachings of the Church, along with a deep appreciation for marriage itself, is necessary for remedying the culture of divorce that permeates society and successfully fostering a culture that honors marriage.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

This is the kind of Marxism we need today. People who really want to work, make things, build families and communities and dig deep roots—Unite!

How Red (State) Is Marx?

By PATRICK J. DENEEN

May Day, 2014

Not since the 1960s has Marx’s name been so widely invoked as a guide and sage. Except in a few academic outposts—mainly “culture studies,” not in the disciplines in which Marxism was once most vital, political science and economics—Marx had almost wholly disappeared as a serious contender of our attention. By the early 1970s, Rawls had replaced Marx as the main object of the devotions among those on the Left, by which time the Marxist experiments in Russia, China, Vietnam, and elsewhere seemed to have left it wholly discredited. The American Left had made its peace with liberalism, and while it remained egalitarian, redistributist, and enamored of centralization, it largely made its peace with capitalism.

With the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Marx is back in vogue, though—as is the case with Piketty as well—likely more invoked than read. In the backdrop of a range of statistics showing that economic inequality has deepened over the past several decades and accelerated since the Great Recession of 2008, and the broader anxiety felt nearly everywhere that the nation is heading in the wrong direction, Piketty’s argument is riding high on the wave of the Zeitgeist. Critiques of capitalism are in vogue in salons and academe and in the media, and calls for radical rethinking are the order of the day.

But as in early-20th century, those who most ardently embrace Marx tend not to be the dispossessed, but educated and wealthy elites. The revolution—such as it is—once again seems to be the cri de coeur of the nation’s educational, media, and even business liberal elites. The object of their critique would seem to be—themselves. As Matt Continetti recently documented, those most likely to be in the 1 percent (or at least 5 percent) today are documented liberals.

But, read your Marx: Marx knew that the revolution of the proletariat was not likely to be advanced by the proletariat: it would, in fact, be the enlightened segment of the bourgeoisie who would lead the charge in transforming of society. They would constitute the “vanguard” who would act on behalf of the dispossessed workers, and then rule on their behalf until society was sufficiently transformed that true equality could be established and the “State” could finally wither away.

In fact, the lower classes on whose behalf the enlightened would act could not be trusted: they were in the grip of “false consciousness,” deceived about the nature of their true condition, likely to “cling” to their religion and other backward beliefs. Marx was clear who constituted the true opposition: not the wealthy, from whom the enlightened were to be drawn; it was the lower-middle class, the “conservative” element of society. As Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto,

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionaries, but conservative. Nay, more they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history.

The elites would invoke the anxieties of these classes—wrought above all by the dislocation of capitalism—to justify the displacement of the old aristocracy with their replacement by the temporary dictatorship of the enlightened. The enlightened would rule for an unspecified time until the “reactionaries” could be re-educated, and then all divisions would cease: no more war, no more countries, no more religion, no more possessions. Imagine!—it’s easy if you try.

The story of the rise of conservatism and the defeat of communism in the 1980s was in large part “the revolt of the masses” against their enlightened saviors. In Eastern Europe, ordinary people rose up against their Soviet occupiers, throwing off decades of brutal rule that had been justified in the name of and for the benefit of the working classes. This past Sunday’s canonization of John Paul II in part recalls and honors his role in combatting communism in Poland, acting with the ordinary Polish workers—Solidarity—who sought to reclaim basic human dignity and freedom, including the freedom to worship God without oppression and interference.

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Read more: www.theamericanconservative.com

La Russie : artisan d’un nouvel ordre mondial ?

La Russie, par-delà l’Europe ?

par Alexandre Latsa

• A la fin de l’année 2010, j’écrivais un texte intitulé Moscou, capitale de l’Europe dans lequel j’appelais à la réalisation d’un projet politique reposant sur la création d’une entente approfondie entre Paris, Berlin et Moscou.

• Une entente des nations dominantes du continent afin de permettre la réalisation du projet français d’union continentale, un demi-siècle après qu’il ait été formulé par le Général De Gaulle.

• Ce projet aurait eu le double intérêt historique et géopolitique de permettre le rapprochement de l’Europe de l’Ouest et de la Russie mais aussi et surtout de permettre le renforcement d’une forme d’équilibre et de multipolarité au sein de l’hémisphère nord.

• Près de quatre ans après la publication de ce texte, il semble que la chance de voir se réaliser ce moment historique, destiné à permettre l’émergence d’un monde multipolaire et donc d’équilibre des puissances, soit totalement passée.

Lire la suite: http://french.ruvr.ru/2014_04_27/La-Russie-par-dela-l-Europe-8572/

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Le problème du modèle Occidental

Mais à la différence de cet intervalle historique de moins d’un demi-siècle, si le monde Occidental a accentué son extension territoriale, politique et miliaire à l’Est et vers l’Est, il est désormais considérablement affaibli, ruiné et surtout sans nouveau modèle à proposer autre que celui de l’après-guerre froide, fortement mis à mal par la crise de 2008.

Le bloc de l’Est en constitution est lui concentré autour d’une Russie qui a désormais de nouveau les moyens de ses ambitions mais aussi et surtout dispose d’une élite ayant une stratégie définie et une forte volonté politique. Une élite qui a clairement défini les objectifs stratégiques qu’elle entend affirmer et ambitionne de plus en plus clairement le développement de son propre modèle, un modèle que la Russie entend faire rayonner au cœur du « Monde russe ».

Si les événements en Géorgie en 2008 puis en Crimée en 2014 ont démontré que Moscou ne souhaitait définitivement plus se voir imposer la géostratégie de son étranger proche, un autre grand changement stratégique semble s’être lentement mais sûrement opéré au sein des élites russes au cœur des dernières années et notamment depuis le début du troisième mandat de Vladimir Poutine.

Un changement survenu lors de la dernière réunion du club de Valdaï pour l’analysteAlexandre Rhar, puisque Vladimir Poutine y a utilisé une rhétorique très conservatrice et montré qu’il préparait la Russie à autre chose et notamment au fait qu’elle n’appartient pas à l’Ouest, comme c’était plus ou moins admis jusqu'à récemment.

Le retour de l’idéologie en Russie ?

Ce changement structurel semble se traduire par la certitude que la Russie n’aspire désormais plus à rattraper l’Occident sur le plan moral, sociétal ou culturel, comme ce fut systématiquement le cas depuis 1991. Moscou a visiblement pris l’initiative de clairement accentuer la tendance à la rupture en insistant désormais clairement sur les différences de civilisation entre la Russie et l’Ouest. Les autorités russes viennent à ce sujet de confier au ministère de la Culture (dirigé par Vladimir Medinski) l’élaboration d’une nouvelle politique culturelle qui permet de mieux comprendre le contour civilisationnel que la Russie souhaite s’attribuer et donc la direction que devrait suivre sa géopolitique du futur proche.

Le rapport semble déterminer la fin du processus entamé en 1991 à la chute du mur, concrétisé au sein de la constitution de 1993 qui affirmait qu’aucune idéologie ne pouvait être désormais établie comme idéologie d’Etat.

Axé sur le thème global « La Russie n'est pas l’Occident, l'Europe ni l’Orient », le rapport définit la Russie comme une civilisation distincte, avec ses modes de fonctionnements propres, comme une civilisation complexe et multiforme. Une définition que l’on peut rapprocher duterme utilisé par Vladimir Poutine lors de ce même dernier sommet de Valdaï, lorsqu’il avait qualifié la nature de l’Etat civilisation russe de « complexité florissante » (Цветущая Сложность), une expression créée par l’un des pères de l’Eurasisme politique et philosophique, Constantin Leontiev .

Vers l’apparition d’un modèle russe ?

Le rapport définit cette « culture » comme l’ensemble des valeurs et des normes de conduite contenues dans le patrimoine culturel et historique, matériel et immatériel. La culture y est également définie comme le cadre unificateur de la société russe et la manifestation du code civilisationnel du pays.

Le rapport constate l’échec du système civilisationnel communiste comme du modèle libéral-occidental post-communiste mais affirme qu’au travers de ces différentes périodes, le « noyau civilisationnel » de la Russie est restée inchangé, ce qui témoigne de sa continuité, terme sur lequel le rapport insiste.

Le modèle occidental fondé sur la tolérance et le multiculturalisme y est clairement rejeté, le rapport préconisant lui une immixtion accrue de l’Etat au sein du management de la politique culturelle et surtout au sein des relations interculturelles, interreligieuses et interethniques afin de favoriser l’unité du pays et protéger le pays des vagues d’agression informatives (un rapport avec les récentes accusations russes contre le bureau de l’Otan accusé de zombifierla jeunesse russe ?) qui détruisent son identité, menacent sa souveraineté culturelle, entravent le développement humain, détruisent son héritage, le ridiculisent et le dénaturent.

Signe de la défiance lourd envers le modèle européen le ministre de la Culture, Vladimir Medinski s’est également félicité du fait que la Russie ne « devienne pas une seconde hollande, ce pays où l’on légalise le mariage pour tous et on l’on fume de la marijuana ». Il a également critiqué et lourdement remis en question le modèle d’intégration à la française selon lui en plein échec.

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Lirela suite: french.ruvr.ru

Lire la suite: http://french.ruvr.ru/2014_04_27/La-Russie-par-dela-l-Europe-8572/

Iran: continued development of an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle and weapons capability ...

The Ukrainian crisis: 

A ‘divine blessing’ for Iran?

by J. Matthew McInnis

From the outset of the nuclear negotiations the Supreme Leader has made it clear that there is no wiggle room on Iran’s right to enrich. At the next round of talks on May 13th in Vienna, Iran’s negotiating team will come to the table with an additional six red lines from Khamenei himself (the most notable of these being that “nuclear scientific movement must not cease nor slow down whatsoever”) that would allow for the continued development of an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle and weapons capability.

The interim deal does not call for the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. This has resulted in a number of critical conservative hardliners significantly toning down their rhetoric. In fact, IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari – who initially ardently opposed negotiations – has urged the negotiations team to exploit the ambiguities of the Joint Plan of Action to ensure an agreement that reinforces the Islamic Republic’s national interests. The West shouldn’t expect much, if any, give on Iran’s position at the upcoming talks following Khamenei’s April 30th remarks in which he stressed the importance of national “strength”:

Whenever we stand up on our own feet and we become strong, they are forced to behave politely and rationally…The irrational behaviors of the world bullying powers against the Islamic Republic of Iran depend on Iran’s weakness or strength.

Read more: www.aei-ideas.org

The most direct and serious threats to freedom in every country come from the erosion of political rights and civil liberties at home

The Many Flaws of  “Conservative Internationalism”

Stability and freedom in eastern Europe and Israel aren’t at risk because of the Ukraine crisis or the Syrian civil war.  It’s possible that these things may be threatened in some or all of these countries to one degree or another, but it isn’t because of an external threat.  One of the many flaws in thinking about these issues in terms of expanding the “borders of freedom” is that it encourages alarmism and threat inflation.  Another flaw is that it can distract people from the reality that the most direct and serious threats to freedom in every country come from the erosion of political rights and civil liberties at home. Read more: theamericanconservative.com  Also this week: Weakness Can Be Provocative, But Deliberate Provocation Always Is Obama’s Foreign Policy Is Unpopular Because He Takes Unpopular Actions The War of 1812: Not Much For Americans To Celebrate    Elsewhere How many people have died in Syria's war? Laia Balcells, Lionel Beehner, and Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl assess the competing claims and casualty figures. Veterans of the burn pits. Kelley Vlahos reports on the severe health problems of U.S. soldiers exposed to toxic substances from burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The illusion of geopolitics. John Ikenberry rejects Mead's assertion that Russia, China, and Iran aspire to dismantle the post-Cold War order: But Mead’s alarmism is based on a colossal misreading of modern power realities. It is a misreading of the logic and character of the existing world order, which is more stable and expansive than Mead depicts, leading him to overestimate the ability of the “axis of weevils” to undermine it. And it is a misreading of China and Russia, which are not full-scale revisionist powers but part-time spoilers at best, as suspicious of each other as they are of the outside world. Local foreign policy-making. Citing the relationship between Houston and Baku, Joshua Walker describes the role that businesses and local governments can have in shaping relations with other countries. The U.S. has little at stake in Ukraine. Christopher Fettweis identifies some of the "deeply pathological beliefs" on display in the Ukraine debate. Understanding the Budapest Memorandum. Philipp Bleek explains what the 1994 agreement requires. How important is Gerry Adams' arrest? Henry Farrell answers five questions on the significance of Adams' arrest for Irish politics and peace in Northern Ireland. The perils of NATO expansion. Bill French finds that the costs of adding new members greatly outweigh the benefits. The assassin that triggered WWI. Ian Thomson reviews Tim Butcher's The Trigger, which tells the story of Gavrilo Princip and his plot to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand.