Much to agree with in this Op-Ed here at The Fiscal Times.
His is a world of hair shirts and poverty vows – not of iPhones and Pop Tarts. It is a world where the desire for consumer goods, like roofs and soybeans, for instance, should not vault ahead of spiritual connections to Mother Earth and care for all living things.
While the message has an Elvira Madigan appeal – feeding sparrows trumps making plastics -- it is mainly appealing to (and directed at) those living in wealthy industrialized countries who eat three meals a day and have heat in the winter.
Poor people in India or Africa may not be so enthusiastic. The Pope’s encyclical is a grumpy but also revolutionary – and perhaps even dangerous -- document.
...though his ambitions are no doubt pure, his conclusions are wrong-headed. The poor .... will prosper through growth and development;
If we were ever to eradicate poverty in real terms, it would result in large measures of "economic growth" as defined by the financial terms in the NIA framework... so what?
Our indignation resulting from our observation of socio-economic injustice should not be activated by our observation of these injustices in USD terms.
He's sure up to snuff on junk science.
ReplyDeleteThis author is a Wall Street, thoeclassical far right wing nut job.I am however fully enjoying the right wing going apoplectic over Pope Francis.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the high among us sometimes driven back towards a feral state of/for humanity:
ReplyDeleteKing Nebuchadnezzar II; in Daniel 4, it describes how he was driven to a feral state:
"He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird." Dan 4:33
This is the same thing here with Francis... he'd rather have us in some sort of feral state and that would be fine with him as long as we ALL were in the same feral state... this is where he would have us...
NO THANKS!
The guy is all caught up in the NIA framework with the rest of them.... he doesnt understand this scripture:
"Be paying, then, Caesar's to Caesar, and God's to God." Mat 22:21
He can't functionally discern between the financial terms and the real terms....
rsp,
Here we go again. "Development" and endless "growth" will solve all problems. The science and technology god will save us all. Third world poverty is directly the result of colonialism--I include modern IMF-World Bank-Corporate colonialism. Couple the agricultural and cultural devastation of this colonialism, with invasive modern medicine to increase birth rates beyond control, and you get exactly what we have. India and its suicidal farmers are emblematic. Also, the colonialism in question creates incredible government corruption and bureaucratic inflation.I've lived abroad almost my whole adult life (over 40), and I could tell stories. It's a very dirty world out there, and the "clean" world was built on an ocean of blood, sweat, and tears; lots of tears.
ReplyDeleteJames we dont have colonialism any more ... this is 2015....
ReplyDeleteall of that colonialism was an effort to acquire mass measures of the metals gold, silver and copper.... all exclusively in column 11 of the PTE and have full D electron bands... very unique... (dont ask me...)
We are not under the metals any more we have state currencies, so such "colonialism" is history and not applicable to the current situation...
Technology will not "save us all" as "in the long run we are all dead" .... but it can help to make our lives easier and more enjoyable if applied correctly.... it can lead to more "well being" in materialist terms at least...
"growth" itself cannot be seen to solve problems but technology manifestly can... usually we pursue new technologies to solve material system "problems"... or fulfill material desires... there is nothing wrong with this...
If we pursue policies to eradicate poverty and are successful, then in the financial terms of the NIA we will observe "growth" or "economic growth"... so what? who cares?
rsp,
Ok, Matt, you're like a fundamentalist in your literalism. How about "colonialism" in quote marks? It is colonialism in another mode. Also, I absolutely do not share your technological gospel and optimism. I'm afraid we have to agree to disagree.
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ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/embed/WfGMYdalClU
Matt, how do you characterize the US foreign policty, then? Fine, not colonialism; imperialism, actually. But wait, colonialism was for the sake of empire, and America is indeed "the empire of chaos," complete with its vassal states. It is the exceptional country, the one with hegemonic ambitions, and a heavenly mandate "doing God's work," the country which is acting according to the Wolfowitz doctrine, the country that has some thousand military bases around the globe, the country that is behind NATO's regime changes and civilian murders, the country of Falluja and Abu Ghraib and Vietnam, the country of the petrodollar, the country that has its benevolent corporations and also its NGO's everywhere, the country behind the World Bank and the IMF, the country that supports Israel and Zionism no matter what, including its continual law breaking, genocide, and nuclear armaments stash, etc., etc., etc. The US has world domination in view. This is a form of "colonization". I'm astonished one has to make this point in the face of what is glaringly obvious. The whole world speaks of American imperialism except for Matt and the people who watch TV for their information. They say, "What imperialism?" Amazing, all those countries trying to hem our bases in. Or, is this the reality: “It is NATO that is moving towards our border and we aren’t moving anywhere.”
ReplyDeletehttp://williamblum.org/intervention-map
Not economic liberalism but neoliberalism (not laissez-faire but elite freedom to extract rent).
ReplyDeleteNot imperialism but neo-imperialism (empire without an emperor).
Not colonialism, but neo-colonialism (colonialism without colonies directly ruled by and flying the flag of the colonialist).
Elites have always needed to control workers and resources, and under capitalism, markets. At the time of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, from the agricultural to the industrial age, this resulted in the adaptation of feudal institutions to "liberal" ones. Neoliberalism is just a distancing from the feudal institutions themselves but the basis remains the same — elite control of workers, resources, and markets.
How easily you glide from era to era. It's all a matter of elites, eh? Bloody, harebrained "enlightenment" and "revolutionary" "liberté, fraternité, egalité. You blur too many distinctions, throw out too many babies with the bath water. But let's drop it. Waste of time.
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