A good fortune for one man, means less for some

Some of you may know the lyrics, and so to you the angle of this post is pretty evident.

I rarely dabble much in this specific corner of the SWC, but I'm going to play devil's advocate for the following question. We've recently spent time discussing the responsibility to protect, and have previously discussed advancing national interests through the strengthening of democratic principles abroad (being mindful of course to avoid hubris along the way).

We've also talked about shared prosperity, and the principles that when a state, tribe, or even a culture enjoy increased prosperity, we all stand to benefit and some of the factors that cause small wars recede. Is this general premise true though, across the long term, and where is the tipping point?

If we work to increase prosperity around the world, how can we do it in a fashion that does not increase the demand for resources to such a degree that conflict ensues? Whether it's water, arable land, oil, or access to minerals and metals, as tribes and states prosper, consumption increases and the realist in me tells me that conflict is inevitable. In logical terms, it seems counter-productive to try to reduce the number of have-nots in the world.

You're exactly right, the rise of the rest has created a huge demand on finite resources. China's market alone uses over half of the world's cement. The growing middle classes and their higher expectations for a Middle Class life (cars, T.V., houses, and so forth) will continue to expand until it can no longer be supported. To maintain stability at home states will have to secure access to needed materials, and that is where the clashes may very well be the future.

We can always hope that science and technology can stay one step ahead of the problem, but even in our country it is politically incorrect to invest in green energy technology, talk about water conservation, or even change the light bulbs we use. China and India don't want to hear our recommendations, since we built our economy through huge expenditures of energy.

Everyone focuses on oil, and while important, but I suspect there will be other resources that ultimately result in conflict such as territorial fights over fishing rights, etc.

Increased prosperity will always mean increased demand for resources, not much anyone can do about that. Certainly there's potential for conflict there, but trying to prevent or avoid increased prosperity for others is certain to provoke conflict.

The rise of the rest is not our doing, and it's not likely that anything we do will affect it much. We can manage our responses as it goes, and as the impacts become clear, but it will happen no matter what we say and do.

Well done Jon, and I would submit that we HAVE to start dabbling in this area. Think of it as bottom-up intel collection dissemination. In order for your specific thoughts/lessons learned not to get filtered/misinterpreted, then you have to make an hypothesis on what they mean at the macro level.

Earth is a closed ecosystem. There is only so much oil, land, food, salt water, fresh water, cement, iron, and so on. Additionally, there are imbalances in access and distribution. Capitalism has an insatiable desire for "prosperity", which translates into wealth accumulation; in other words, unlimited, perpetual resource consumption. Ultimately, somebody somewhere will be left without a chair. When political and economic systems are designed to preserve the privileges of the "prosperous", what options are there other than violence?

China's Rich Consider Leaving Growing Nation
by Frank Langfitt
NPR

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Yang says Chinese like U.S. real estate because they can own it in total and they can pass homes onto their children. In China, the government controls the land. People can own houses, but they can only lease the land underneath.

"We buy the house [and] we can only use it for 70 years," he says. "In America or some other country, we can get the land forever. My clients always want to buy something forever, right."

Yang says most Chinese who apply for investment immigration are legitimate, but he says 5 to 10 percent want to move money they got through corruption.

"These people want to put money outside of China. Washing, we call it washing money," he says. "So I have some clients come to my company [and say] 'I have money. I don't have any documents.' I say no, this is illegal."

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It is a very important question, and one which is difficult to answer. The availability of resources is a complicated topic, with increased demand and price and better technology making sources available which would remain untapped. For example the Swiss were able to greatly increase their food production during WWII with the "Anbauschlacht", by using far more of the relative poor or difficult areas, supporting agriculture with capital and working power and by switching from milk to basic products like grain. During WWII the the German (or Japanese) lack of natural fuel could not be overcome by a belated effort to produce the in-efficient synthetic fuel. The worldwide dominant market economy does not pose such barriers to single countries but the basic forces of available and potential supply, demand, pricing, costs and technology are still there.

A preview to my forthcoming contribution to Foreign Policy Magazine next month, 17. True or false: Americans are safer today than when Obama took office.

True, but this is a false choice. Worrying about being safe is simply fear and insecurity. It is time to stop pondering safety and security and start dreaming about living again. When my daughter goes to sleep at night, I don’t ask her what she fears most. I ask her to imagine what she will be doing in twenty years. Will she be the first woman to land on Mars? Will she travel deep into the heart of the Congo researching some undiscovered plant that will provide a cure for cancer? Will she write the next great American novel? This is the type of thinking that we desperately need. These are the type of questions that we must ask our children. It is time for us to overcome the fear and the hurt and the pain from 9/11 and move on with life.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

Capitalism has an insatiable desire for "prosperity", which translates into wealth accumulation

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Human beings have an insatiable desire for more stuff; this is not a function of capitalism.

There is an absolute contradiction between the desire to alleviate poverty and the desire to reduce pressure on the resource base. There is no "solution" or "answer" to that contradiction, certainly none that the US can persuade or compel others to adopt. It's one of those things we can only manage as we go along, to the extent that we can, as one nation among many.

We are campaigning against AIDS on the African continent. How does increasing the lifespan of a state's or continent's population serve our national interests, assuming that the benefits of longevity only serve to increase the competition for resources across the long run.

Jon,

Reading music...Fuel by Lars Ulrich and the boys

My riposte to the argument advanced by the good Reverend Malthus is that the human animal occupies a very small portion of the 510 million square kilometers, or so, of the Earth and our time as a species has been astonishingly brief as compared to the estimated 4.5 billion years or so our world has been around. As a result, there is much that we as a species do not know of and this further is compounded by the fact that we truly understand very little of what we claim to 'know'.

The cell cycle, or growth patterns (lag, exponential growth, stationary, and endogenous phases), F/M Ratios, the S-Curve, ecological succession, etc are all concepts to think about when describing natural systems but I would also advocate reading Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Consider balancing the concepts of human/economic specialization and market segmentation against the mind boogling biological specialization present in our world as partially described in the epic Bergy's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology...then head on over to descriptions of the other biological kingdoms and take a look at the diversity and specialization on display with respect to the utilization of resources. :wry:

'Brief' local shortages, surely, 'sustained' system-wide shortages, surely not...humans are way too adaptable...when we ran out of caves, we built....

Ask yourself, who is it that definitively knows where the brain-pan currently resides that will help our species to leap today's perceived hurdles? Perhaps that answer should guide our actions in the world...

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Human beings have an insatiable desire for more stuff; this is not a function of capitalism.

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I didn't specify innate human behavior. Capitalism is a form of human relationships that promotes certain actions while discouraging others regardless of mankind's predispositions.

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Originally Posted by Surferbeetle

'Brief' local shortages, surely, 'sustained' system-wide shortages, surely not...humans are way too adaptable...when we ran out of caves, we built....

Ask yourself, who is it that definitively knows where the brain-pan currently resides that will help our species to leap today's perceived hurdles? Perhaps that answer should guide our actions in the world...

---

I think a key matter will be how a brief global shortage of a central element of our modern society, like petroleum will influence the global economy. Today it's slice of the costs in manufacturing most goods and transporting them over the sea is pretty small. A sustained high price should have a ripple effect, allowing for the extraction of so far too costly sources of fossil fuels, make alternative energetic sources more attractive and shift demand away from uses such as heating. The big question is just how smoothly and quickly such adaptions can happen and how far the finite ressourcs can be streched.

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Originally Posted by jcustis

We are campaigning against AIDS on the African continent. How does increasing the lifespan of a state's or continent's population serve our national interests, assuming that the benefits of longevity only serve to increase the competition for resources across the long run.

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Taking it to the extreme the world might be at the first glance whith such a view be better off without the North Americans and European although I think this is currently a to big issue to tackle for the national interests of others.

In general I do think that education and the resulting decline in fertility of others is good news, although it is hard to estimate how exactly it effects the use of ressources. It is an aera which would be worth of personal study, as I know little of it. I just want to add that it is certainly a complex field, with technology, productivity and efficency playing also a big part.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

Earth is a closed ecosystem. There is only so much oil, land, food, salt water, fresh water, cement, iron, and so on. Additionally, there are imbalances in access and distribution. Capitalism has an insatiable desire for "prosperity", which translates into wealth accumulation; in other words, unlimited, perpetual resource consumption. Ultimately, somebody somewhere will be left without a chair. When political and economic systems are designed to preserve the privileges of the "prosperous", what options are there other than violence?

---

That's true ultimately, but it isn't necessarily true at 6bn people, or 10bn people, or 50bn people. Maybe it's only true at 100bn or a trillion. I doubt the limit is that high, but that's my point--we don't know. More efficient use of resources equals, essentially, more resources, and globally our current efficiency is pretty low.

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Originally Posted by jcustis

We are campaigning against AIDS on the African continent. How does increasing the lifespan of a state's or continent's population serve our national interests, assuming that the benefits of longevity only serve to increase the competition for resources across the long run.

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It makes us feel better about ourselves, allowing us more latitude to expand without being held back by remorse.

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Originally Posted by jcustis

We are campaigning against AIDS on the African continent. How does increasing the lifespan of a state's or continent's population serve our national interests, assuming that the benefits of longevity only serve to increase the competition for resources across the long run.

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Back in the early 80's at Edgewood Area -- where rats were still being used -- an E-4 dressed in whites (as I was leaving for Zaire) told me we were looking for a new frontier where the FDA dare not tread. :rolleyes: Their lifespan was already significantly less than even the local CDC imagined and the line of volunteers for non-approved FDA drugs was bordering on 500 meters from the building each morning. It did serve our national interests and I presume had little to do with their longevity.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

I didn't specify innate human behavior. Capitalism is a form of human relationships that promotes certain actions while discouraging others regardless of mankind's predispositions.

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Capitalism is about harnessing human nature, rather than trying to restrain it. An imperfect system of course... but since you seem to dislike it intensely, I'm curious about what you see as an alternative?

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Originally Posted by motorfirebox

It makes us feel better about ourselves, allowing us more latitude to expand without being held back by remorse.

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Agree that the AIDS work is less about saving Africans than about Americans feeling good about themselves... but where exactly do you see the US expanding?

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Capitalism is about harnessing human nature, rather than trying to restrain it. An imperfect system of course... but since you seem to dislike it intensely, I'm curious about what you see as an alternative?

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First, the "natural-ness" of capitalism is very much in dispute. Secondly, I have never stated any dislike or distaste for capitalism. I hate losing, regardless of whatever game is being played or by whatever name it goes by. But let's be clear, everyone here (assuming everyone is a civil servant of some kind) is really not a capitalist in practice. And further, my criticisms of capitalist practices have been narrowed to runaway finance capitalism, which is certainly not the end-all be-all of human nature.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

But let's be clear, everyone here (assuming everyone is a civil servant of some kind) is really not a capitalist in practice.

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Most of us here are participants in a nominally capitalist economic system... of course there has never been a truly capitalist economy, just as there has never been a truly socialist economy.

Why would you assume that "everyone is a civil servant of some kind"? Seems a bizarre assumption to make. I for one am neither servile nor particularly civil.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

And further, my criticisms of capitalist practices have been narrowed to runaway finance capitalism, which is certainly not the end-all be-all of human nature.

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I've seen no such qualification in your previous references to capitalism.

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Originally Posted by Firn

I think a key matter will be how a brief global shortage of a central element of our modern society, like petroleum will influence the global economy. Today it's slice of the costs in manufacturing most goods and transporting them over the sea is pretty small. A sustained high price should have a ripple effect, allowing for the extraction of so far too costly sources of fossil fuels, make alternative energetic sources more attractive and shift demand away from uses such as heating. The big question is just how smoothly and quickly such adaptions can happen and how far the finite ressourcs can be streched.

---

Firn,

Energy disruption resulting from today's geopolitical situation will of course have varying political and economic consequences depending upon one's location, however I do not see it as resulting in the extinguishment of our species. Anything less than the absolute worst case can be dealt with....find a way, make a way! :wry:

Leider habe ich diese bucher nur auf englisch, aber, IMHO they are worth the read:

• For context on our global petroleum economy:

Daniel Yergin's The Prize and The Quest

• For an excellent in depth technical counterpoint to petroleum dependency:

Dr. George A. Olah (Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry), Dr. Alain Goeppert, and Dr. G.K. Surya Prakash, Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy

• For a 'how-to' hobby (if only there was enough time :wry: ):

Joshua Tickell, From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank

And for a quick read...

Gas Bears Up Bets on Catastrophic Surplus, By Asjylyn Loder, January 16, 2012 11:03 AM EST, Bloomberg News

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Hedge funds turned bearish on U.S. natural gas for the first time in eight weeks as a surplus and warmer-than-normal weather pushed the price of the heating fuel to the lowest level in more than two years.

The funds and other large speculators switched from bets that futures will rise to a bearish, or short, position of a net 10,344 futures equivalents in the week ended Jan. 10, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commissions Commitments of Traders report on Jan. 13.

Natural gas plunged 13 percent last week on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the biggest decline since August 2009, after forecasts showed above-average temperatures through January. Stockpiles in the week ended Jan. 6 stood at 3.377 trillion cubic feet, 17 percent above the five-year average, the U.S. Energy Department reported on Jan. 12.

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Storage slipped 95 billion cubic feet in the week ended Jan. 6, compared with a five-year average decline of 128 billion, the Energy Department reported. Inventories rose to an all-time high of 3.852 trillion cubic feet on Nov. 18.

Supplies may reach a seasonal record of 2.4 trillion cubic feet in March, which is when heating demand usually ends and producers begin piping more gas into storage, Cooper said. Unless production falls or cold weather bolsters demand, prices will drop to $2.40 per million Btu, and perhaps below $2, as gas overflows storage caverns and clogs pipelines, he said.

This is a situation that has never been seen before, Cooper said. If we hit 2.4 trillion, youre looking at storage capacity constraints by July or August where you literally have system problems because the system is so full.

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Oil refiners: Europe runs out of gas, Lex, January 8, 2012 5:45 pm, Financial Times, www.ft.com

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Vanishing operating margins and chronic overcapacity. No, not the airline industry. Think Europe’s oil refineries. Petroplus, a Swiss refining company, is dangerously close to collapse. Nine European refineries have closed since mid-2008 and 2.6m barrels a day of refining capacity has been removed from advanced economies since the global financial crisis, according to the International Energy Agency. Moreover, operating margins were negative in November. There could be more casualties ahead.

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A decisive shift in the equation of global energy supply, Roger Altman, January 2, 2012, The A-List, Financial Times, www.ft.com

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Since the embargo of 1973, there has been a global preoccupation with the centrality of oil, its supply, its cost and the international politics of it. As economies grew and global demand for energy increased, oil and gas exploration and production increasingly moved to distant and politically unstable countries, such as Russia, Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela. At the same time, Opec rose to power; the US military assumed protection of the Persian Gulf; and concerns grew that the world might run out of oil.

This difficult era is now approaching an end, and technology is the main reason. New techniques of exploring and drilling in very deep water and tar sands have been developed. New approaches to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have made it possible to extract deposits of oil and especially gas profitably from shale. The implications are huge. Vast reserves of natural gas are now accessible, and the role of gas in world energy supply is growing fast. Within 25 years, gas should outstrip coal to become the second biggest source of global supply, behind oil. This is positive because gas is much cleaner than coal.

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Most of us here are participants in a nominally capitalist economic system...

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Participation in a capitalist economy does not make anyone a capitalist anymore than going to church makes someone Christ. Unless you own the means of production, you are not a capitalist.

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I've seen no such qualification in your previous references to capitalism.

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There are specified and implied statements. Not everything meant is specifically stated. The content of my criticisms of capitalism imply my disagreements with the practices of finance capitalism.

Firn,

I don't see a dramatic or apocalyptic end to the age of oil for humanity in general, though it may more difficult for some states to manage than others. Estimates vary, though I think it's safe to conclude that there's enough recoverable oil to supply the global economy for about a half century or so. States and corporations are already posturing themselves for transition by exploring alternative (and renewable) energy resources. The end of the oil age may mark the end of the current global regime (at least as how we know it), depending on what emerges to replace it and who is best positioned to exploit it. Natural gas seems to be an obvious answer, but it's little more than extension, since consumption-wise, there's plenty of uncertainty and most estimates point to a longevity similar to that of oil. So, a transition is underway, slowly and surely, but without a clear end in sight, nor a clear picture of the winners and losers in the potential outcomes.

If you let this discussion degenerate to discussions on oil it will turn into spin pieces published by those who have the money to buy the research results they want to project, no different than global warming. The truth on these topics are hidden behind a think veneer of spin.

There are plenty of other commodities where secure access to will become increasingly competitive and potentially lead to conflict such as water, farm land, fishing areas, access to precious metals, food, etc. We're seeing chest bumping over fossil fuels in the Asia-Pacific, but we're seeing more aggressive chest bumping over access to fishing rights. Having to pay $5.00/gal for gas is one thing, not being able to put on the table is another.

Watching the demographics in certain countries like China, there will soon be a lot lusting young men and a serious shortage of women. No telling how that will play out, perhaps women from economically deprived areas will migrate to China (assuming their economic growth continues), perhaps illegal human trade will increase, etc. The bottom line is we have no idea what tomorrow will look like, but we can identify "potential" points of conflict now.

Additionally it isn't all about state versus state, but about one the gravest security concerns globally and that is the increasing economic disparity between classes. Combine that with increasing awareness due to information technology and the ability to mobilize identity groups through social media you have the ingredients for some interesting times.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Additionally it isn't all about state versus state, but about one the gravest security concerns globally and that is the increasing economic disparity between classes. Combine that with increasing awareness due to information technology and the ability to mobilize identity groups through social media you have the ingredients for some interesting times.

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It is interesting you say that, since globalism, the war on terrorism, and now the economic crisis has seemed to spawn at least a noticeable movement towards some kind of international class consciousness, even if it's identity is really only defined at this point by opposition to the establishment. Historically, this kind of class consciousness has been torn apart by nationalist and ethnic bitterness (i.e. the US south). That challenge definitely remains but I think the way social media tools helped enable the Arab Spring may provide some insight into how overcome traditional barriers to class mobilization. Will we see the re-emergence of prominent roles for international political parties? Will it be introduced to the United States? Will such a development fuel insecurity or instability?

AP,

This one is for you...:)


Self-interest, without morals, leads to capitalism’s self-destruction, by Dr. Jeffery Sachs, 18 Jan, 2012, The A-List, Financial Times

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Capitalism earns its keep through Adam Smith’s famous paradox of the invisible hand: self-interest, operating through markets, leads to the common good. Yet the paradox of self-interest breaks down when stretched too far. This is our global predicament today.

Self-interest promotes competition, the division of labor, and innovation, but fails to support the common good in four ways.
First, it fails when market competition breaks down, whether because of natural monopolies (in infrastructure), externalities (often related to the environment), public goods (such as basic scientific knowledge), or asymmetric information (in financial fraud, for example).

Second, it can easily turn into unacceptable inequality. The reasons are legion: luck; aptitude; inheritance; winner-takes-all-markets; fraud; and perhaps most insidiously, the conversion of wealth into power, in order to gain even greater wealth.

Third, self-interest leaves future generations at the mercy of today’s generation. Environmental unsustainability is a gross inequality of wellbeing across generations rather than across social classes.
Fourth, self-interest leaves our fragile mental apparatus, evolved for the African savannah, at the mercy of Madison Avenue. To put it more bluntly, our sense of self-interest, unless part of a large value system, is easily transmuted into a hopelessly addictive form of consumerism.

For these reasons, successful capitalism has never rested on a moral base of self-interest, but rather on the practice of self-interest embedded in a larger set of values. Max Weber explained that Europe’s original modern capitalists, the Calvinists, pursued profits in the search for proof of salvation. They saved ascetically to accumulate wealth to prove God’s grace, not to sate their consumer appetites.

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Dr. Jeffery Sachs, bio by Wikipedia

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Jeffrey David Sachs (pronounced /ˈsæks/; born November 5, 1954, in Detroit, Michigan) is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments in the implementation of so-called economic shock therapy during the transition from communism to a market system or during periods of economic crisis. Some of his recommendations have been considered controversial. Subsequently he has been known for his work on the challenges of economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation, and globalization.

Sachs is the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs and a Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia's School of Public Health. He is Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and the founder and co-President of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the United Nations Millennium Project's work on the Millennium Development Goals, eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger, and disease by the year 2015. Since 2010 he has also served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, which leverages broadband technologies as a key enabler for social and economic development.[3] He is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain's Socialist Party's think tank.

Sachs has written several books, including The End of Poverty and Common Wealth, both New York Times bestsellers, and his latest one, The Price of Civilization, released on October 4, 2011. He has been named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" twice, in 2004 and 2005.

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The End of Poverty, by Dr. Sachs

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In order to address and remedy the specific economic stumbling blocks of various countries, Sachs espouses the use of what he terms "clinical economics", by analogy to medicine. Sachs explains that countries, like patients, are complex systems, requiring differential diagnosis, an understanding of context, monitoring and evaluation, and professional standards of ethics.[1] Clinical economics requires a methodic analysis and "differential diagnosis" of a country's economic problems, followed by a specifically tailored prescription. Many factors can affect a country's ability to enter the world market, including government corruption; legal and social disparities based on gender, ethnicity, or caste; diseases such as AIDS and malaria; lack of infrastructure (including transportation, communications, health, and trade), unstable political landscapes; protectionism; and geographic barriers. Sachs discusses each factor, and its potential remedies, in turn.

In order to illustrate the use of clinical economics, Sachs presents case studies on Bolivia, Poland, and Russia, and discusses the solutions he presented to those countries, and their effects. The book also discusses the economies of Malawi, India, China, and Bangladesh as representative of various stages of economic development.

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We've also talked about shared prosperity, and the principles that when a state, tribe, or even a culture enjoy increased prosperity, we all stand to benefit and some of the factors that cause small wars recede. Is this general premise true though, across the long term, and where is the tipping point?

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I don't think it's true at all. There's this belief by many Americans that prosperity and democracy bring peace and IMO, such beliefs are dangerous.

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If we work to increase prosperity around the world, how can we do it in a fashion that does not increase the demand for resources to such a degree that conflict ensues? Whether it's water, arable land, oil, or access to minerals and metals, as tribes and states prosper, consumption increases and the realist in me tells me that conflict is inevitable. In logical terms, it seems counter-productive to try to reduce the number of have-nots in the world.

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Who is the "we" you're talking about? ;)

I think we (the American people and by extension, the American military) need a bit more humility when it comes to what we think we can do. Look at Afghanistan. We went there in the 1950's, built some great projects, did a lot of nation and capacity building. That worked for a while and Afghanistan even became a hippy mecca in the 1960's. Now those agricultural projects from the 1950's are the reason we've spilled so much blood in Helmand and that green zone is used for a very different purpose than originally envisioned - what if, for example, the Helmand river valley project was never built?

The point is that we cannot control the future and we should realize that our attempts to improve the lot of others are limited. We should take, at maximum, a "help people to help themselves" approach assuming we need to get involved at all.

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Participation in a capitalist economy does not make anyone a capitalist anymore than going to church makes someone Christ. Unless you own the means of production, you are not a capitalist.

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By that definition there are a ton of capitalists in the US.

Ken Rogoff - Rethinking the Growth Imperative

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Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy. That message is echoed in political debates, central-bank boardrooms, and front-page headlines. But does it really make sense to take growth as the main social objective in perpetuity, as economics textbooks implicitly assume?

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

Participation in a capitalist economy does not make anyone a capitalist anymore than going to church makes someone Christ. Unless you own the means of production, you are not a capitalist.

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If you have a pension plan, you own a piece of the means of production, albeit a fractional one. in any event, the question of who is or is not specifically "a capitalist" seems exceedingly peripheral to this discussion.

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Originally Posted by AmericanPride

There are specified and implied statements. Not everything meant is specifically stated. The content of my criticisms of capitalism imply my disagreements with the practices of finance capitalism.

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That implication seems rather obscure, and I can't see how anyone could have deduced it from your statements.

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It is interesting you say that, since globalism, the war on terrorism, and now the economic crisis has seemed to spawn at least a noticeable movement towards some kind of international class consciousness, even if it's identity is really only defined at this point by opposition to the establishment. Historically, this kind of class consciousness has been torn apart by nationalist and ethnic bitterness (i.e. the US south). That challenge definitely remains but I think the way social media tools helped enable the Arab Spring may provide some insight into how overcome traditional barriers to class mobilization. Will we see the re-emergence of prominent roles for international political parties? Will it be introduced to the United States? Will such a development fuel insecurity or instability?

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That sort of "international class consciousness" has been waxing and waning for generations, and I don't really see anything new about it. Typically it sparks up during economic downturns and retreats in periods of greater prosperity. When you get beyond the loud voices, the extent of "opposition to the establishment" is not really that clear.

Ironically, "opposition to the establishment" is at its lowest point when the establishment is doing its greatest damage, i.e. when bubbles are growing.

The extent to which "social media tools" helped "enable the Arab Spring" is I think vastly overrated by those seeking a bandwagon to jump on. Of course these movements will use whatever tools are available to them, but if those tools weren't available they'd just use other ones.

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Agree that the AIDS work is less about saving Africans than about Americans feeling good about themselves...

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I would have to disagree with the second part of your statement there. That is an awful lot of money to feel good about ourselves. That kind of money has an ulterior motive attached to it. Someone more cynical than me might suspect an attempt by a Republican president to curry favor with centrist voters but I believe that it is more about trying to gain some control of the narrative in Africa. China is increasingly visible in Africa, often at our expense. Combating AIDS is a fairly low risk investment to rebuild our political capital in Africa. Compared to economic development or conflict resolution it is relatively straight forward and uncontroversial with little chance that we will find ourselves on the wrong side of an issue. Whether we are getting a good return on our investment is debatable but, based on my experience in Africa, we are at least getting some return.

As to the question of whether combating AIDS is worsening things by increasing the demand for limited resources, I would have to say no. I would even say that it is probably reducing it. More and more countries are lowering population growth rates to the "replacement" rate of about 2.1 births. It is paradoxically the poorest states that have the highest fertility rates. HIV/AIDS has been hypothesized to have contributed directly to higher fertility rates as a means to counterbalance the high infant mortality rates. It is not, by far, the only or even the greatest cause of higher fertility rates in poor countries but it is a significant one and lowering the rate of infection will have a positive effect on fertility both directly as infant mortality rates secondary to HIV/AIDS fall and indirectly as the reduction or eradication of infection in a given region will likely have some positive effects on prosperity.

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Originally Posted by Uboat509

I would have to disagree with the second part of your statement there. That is an awful lot of money to feel good about ourselves.

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Why do you think that the money we spend on AIDS gets so much more attention than, say, money spent on controlling malaria? Is that not because AIDS is an issue and a problem with greater resonance for Americans?

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Originally Posted by Uboat509

That kind of money has an ulterior motive attached to it. Someone more cynical than me might suspect an attempt by a Republican president to curry favor with centrist voters but I believe that it is more about trying to gain some control of the narrative in Africa. China is increasingly visible in Africa, often at our expense. Combating AIDS is a fairly low risk investment to rebuild our political capital in Africa. Compared to economic development or conflict resolution it is relatively straight forward and uncontroversial with little chance that we will find ourselves on the wrong side of an issue. Whether we are getting a good return on our investment is debatable but, based on my experience in Africa, we are at least getting some return.

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If that's the goal I suspect we'll be disappointed. Aid of any sort will never bring the kind of influence or favor that investment brings, and I don't think anything we do about AIDS will give us real political capital in Africa or "gain some control of the narrative in Africa".