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Title: Economic Science And Catholic Social Teaching
Source: Chronicles Magazine
URL Source: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Storck/NewsTS0617104.html
Published: Feb 6, 2007
Author: Thomas Storck
Post Date: 2007-02-06 19:56:01 by gargantuton
Keywords: None
Views: 1225
Comments: 93

June 17, 2004

ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

by Thomas Storck

Even among otherwise orthodox Catholics in the United States there is generally little knowledge of or interest in Catholic social doctrine, that body of Catholic teachings which concerns man in society, especially with reference to the political and economic orders. Since Leo XIII began vigorously to develop and apply this teaching to the changing conditions of the modern world, especially with his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), Catholic social doctrine has seemed to many to constitute an alternative both to free-market capitalism and all forms of socialism and communism. But lately an objection to Catholic social teaching has arisen from an unexpected source, in fact, from some of those who claim to be especially devoted to Catholic life and tradition as it existed before the Second Vatican Council. This is ironic, for during that era Catholic social teaching was championed much more than it is today by the hierarchy, including the papacy, and was, I think, much more in the consciousness of the ecclesiastically literate Catholic. But the objection that has arisen from some who call themselves traditionalists is novel in one respect, yet in another respect not. It is novel in that it bases its explicit rejection of such doctrine on the supposed teachings of the science of economics. But it is not novel in that the hallmark of dissenters and heretics throughout the ages has been precisely to take some human science, theology or philosophy often, elevate it above the teaching magisterium of the Catholic Church and pose the false quandary: If I accept such and such a teaching of the Church I must go against my God-given reason. But since reason is from God, I cannot contradict it. Therefore I must reject this teaching of the Church.

The latest among those who take this approach is one Thomas Woods, Jr., who argues that Catholic social teaching and economic science are fundamentally at odds, and that it is the former that must yield to the latter. Woods is not shy about stating his position.

The primary difficulty with much of what has fallen under the heading of Catholic social teaching since Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) is that it assumes without argument that the force of human will suffices to resolve economic questions, and that reason and the conclusions of economic law can be safely neglected, even scorned.... This attitude runs directly counter to the entire Catholic intellectual tradition, according to which man is to conform his actions to reality, rather than embarking on the hopeless and foolish task of forcing the world to conform to him and to his desires ["Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension," paper delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 2002, p. 4. The entire paper is available here].

And he dismisses as "perfectly nonsensical" the claim that his position "involves himself in `dissent' from Church teaching" ("The Trouble with Catholic Social Teaching," lecture delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference, Mises Institute, Auburn Alabama, March 2004, p. 2.). Why? Because

In the absence of any attempt to address these issues [i.e., the issues that Woods considers important], it is difficult to see how the economic claims of the social encyclicals can actually constitute authoritative Catholic doctrine binding upon the consciences of all the faithful” ["Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: an Unresolved Tension," pp. 33-34].

And he goes on to say:

One hesitates to describe Catholic social teaching as an abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power, but surely the attempt to impose, as moral doctrine binding the entire Catholic world, principles that derive from the popes' intrinsically fallible reasoning within a secular discipline like economics, seems dubious. At the very least, it appears to constitute an indefensible extension of the prerogatives of the Church's legitimate teaching office into areas in which it possesses no inherent competence or divine protection from error [Ibid., p. 35].

This is the question in a nutshell: Thomas Woods believes that certain teachings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, teachings which these pontiffs certainly conceived of as part of their legitimate teaching authority, are wrong because he thinks they contradict the tenets of economics.

Now in the first place, I must agree with Woods, that both cannot be right. If these economic beliefs are correct then the papal teaching is wrong, for truth cannot contradict itself. Otherwise we would be headed toward the notion of a double-truth which was implicit in some of the theories of the medieval Latin Averroists, that is, that the same thing could be true in philosophy and false in theology. But as every loyal Catholic knows, there is not nor can there be any conflict between authentic Catholic teaching and the genuine findings of any human science. Such as thing is not possible.

What can one say in reply to Woods, then? First, that since a whole series of popes has taught certain moral truths connected with economics which they believed was entirely within their competence, it is monstrous for anyone claiming to be a Catholic to argue against this teaching, and second, that what Woods represents as the teaching of economics is in fact simply one economic view among many, and that thus it is not the science of economics that is at odds with Catholic doctrine, but simply one school of thought representing ultimately the fallible reasoning of human beings.

In the first place, then, any instructed and orthodox Catholic will have no difficulty in dismissing Woods' claims at once, even without investigating his arguments. When confronted, for example, with claims by psychologists or sociologists that the findings of their particular disciplines invalidate this or that teaching of the Church, we can know that their claims are not to be taken seriously. Of course, usually it is necessary to refute them in order to show those outside the Church, or those weak in faith, that the teachings of the Church have not been disproven. But in principle, Woods' claims are no different from those made by many another partisan of one pet theory or idea after another. The popes have been quite explicit about their competence to teach in these areas of economic morality. Let us look at just two of their statements.

We approach the subject with confidence, and in the exercise of the rights which belong to Us. For no practical solution of this question will ever be found without the assistance of Religion and the Church. It is We who are the chief guardian of religion, and the chief dispenser of what belongs to the Church, and We must not by silence neglect the duty which lies upon Us [Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, no. 13].

We lay down the principle long since clearly established by Leo XIII that it is Our right and Our duty to deal authoritatively with social and economic problems. It is not of course for the Church to lead men to transient and perishable happiness only, but to that which is eternal. Indeed "the Church believes that it would be wrong for her to inferfere without just cause in such earthly concerns"; but she never can relinquish her God-given task of interposing her authority, not indeed in technical matters, for which she has neither the equipment nor the mission, but in all those that have a bearing on moral conduct. For the deposit of truth entrusted to Us by God, and Our weighty office of propagating, interpreting and urging in season and out of season the entire moral law, demand that both social and economic questions be brought within Our supreme jurisdiction, in so far as they refer to moral issues [Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, no. 41].

Mr. Woods may think that they have overstepped the bounds of moral theology into technical economic questions, but that is not what they thought. When not just one, but even more so many supreme pontiffs teach the same truths and consider that they have a perfect right to do so without this constituting an "abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power," then surely any orthodox and loyal Catholic must accept the popes' own notions of the limits of their teaching authority. As I said above, every dissenter and heretic in the history of the Church elevates some idea of his own, which he feels he has good reason to accept, into a principle higher than Catholic teaching. What makes Woods different from them? If a psychologist or sociologist claimed that his knowledge made it impossible for him to accept Catholic teaching on sexuality, we would dismiss his arguments as worthless, and rightly so. But who is Thomas Woods to set up his own boundaries as to what is and what is not acceptable for the Church to teach? What are his credentials to constitute a parallel magisterium? The Catholic Church has been teaching in the area of economic morality for centuries. Mr. Woods' quarrel is not with a few recent popes but with the entire tradition of Catholic teaching on economic morality.

Lest anyone argue that the Church has never defined infallibly the social doctrines stated in papal encyclicals, we should remember that infallibility extends beyond merely the teachings of the solemn magisterium to the teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium. (The First Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution, De Fide, chap. 3, taught: "Further, all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal teaching [magisterium], proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.") At least some of the contents of the papal social encyclicals, for example, the doctrine of the just wage, would seem to have been repeated enough times so that they qualify as part of the ordinary and universal magisterium. And even those matters which may not rise to the level of the universal magisterium, are by no means optional matters for Catholics. Pius XII authoritatively stated in his encyclical Humani Generis of 1950 the following:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority [Magisterium]. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority [Magisterio enim ordinario haec docentur], of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"... [No. 20].

And the Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium of 1964, taught:

[A] loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated” [No. 25].

Moreover, when one looks closely at this matter, one will discover that what Woods solemnly proclaims to be the teachings of economics are in fact only the opinions of one particular sect of economists. In fact, the Austrian school, to which Woods adheres, is a minority school of economists. It is true that many neoclassical economists would agree with many of Woods' criticisms, but there are other schools of economic thought whose findings harmonize well with Catholic social thought. Woods himself mentions, and excoriates, the German historical school. There is also the American institutionalist school, and there are others. Woods has no more right to consider his own economic ideas as equivalent to the entire field of economics than a Kantian philosopher has to regard the teachings of Kant as equivalent to the entire field of philosophy. If such a philosopher were to say, "There is a conflict between the teachings of the First Vatican Council and the science of philosophy on the ability of human reason to demonstrate the existence of God," we could easily point out to him that there are other schools of philosophy, such as Thomism, that have no such conflict, and that he is wrong to claim for his own school the mantle of philosophy as a whole. But this is exactly what Woods has done for economics. His own school says this, therefore economics as a whole says this. The faulty reasoning here should be evident. Woods quotes with approval the following statement of Professor William Luckey:

The fact that Catholic economic teaching, put forth as unchanging and required of belief, did not square with what Austrian economists know to be true, has created an agonizing crisis of conscience for such economists ["The Trouble with Catholic Social Teaching," p. 6, my emphasis].

Woods and Luckey have raised the fallible reasoning of a group of economists, a group which does not even command majority opinion within its own discipline, into an infallible voice of truth which they consider to be able to trump the teachings of the supreme pontiffs! Contrary to what Woods continually asserts, to question Austrian economics is not to question the validity of human reason; it is simply to question the validity of certain dubious conclusions reached by one group of men who enjoy no charism of infallibility.

Woods also makes much of the economic teaching of a group of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish theologians who have sometimes been claimed as precursors of Woods's views, or of something like them anyway. There is some reason to question whether this similarity between their views and his own has not been greatly overstated. (I will instance only one example. In his first paper Woods (p. 8) quotes a passage from Juan de Mariana on the folly and evil of a ruler attemping to set a price of a good "in such a way that the legal price should differ from the natural.... Men are guided in this matter by common estimation founded on considerations of the quality of things, and their abundance or scarcity." Now "common estimation" was a traditional scholastic way of discovering a just price. Common estimation was the common opinion of men in general as to what was a reasonable price, and though it might in many cases be based in part on factors that included certain market forces, such as the "abundance or scarcity" of the item in question, the important point to recognize is that common estimation and the market price of Austrian or neoclassical economics do not mean the same thing. That is, even if in some cases they might coincide, they do so for different reasons. Moreover, this subject opens up the entire question of what is a market price, since all markets are subject to legal and customary rules, and whether in fact it makes any sense to speak of a market price. Rather, the question is: what market price exists under such and such a legal and social regime.) In addition, I will point out two things. First, if it were the case that these theologians agreed completely with Woods, what would that mean? Absolutely nothing. They have no special status above other theologians, and against the teaching of the popes their views carry no weight whatsoever, any more than the myriad of theologians of today whose views are widely quoted against authentic papal teaching. And secondly, if, as Woods avers, the vicars of Christ have overstepped the bounds of moral theology by their teachings on economic morality, what gives these Spanish scholastics, who were theologians not economists, any particular authority in this field? Is Woods making an argument from authority? If he is it fails, for by his own claims theology has nothing to say on these particular questions. If, on the other hand, he is simply claiming them as intellectual precursors, and appealing to the weight of their arguments, then I do not see any reason why I should specially attend to them, particularly as they (according to Woods) teach contrary to the popes and are no more infallible than any other economic writers.

Woods is especially agitated because he thinks that without his own conception of economics it must cease to be a science. Although I know of nothing in scripture or tradition that guarantees that economics is a science, nevertheless what he says does not necessarily follow. Heinrich Pesch, the great Jesuit economist, whose thought provided the background for the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, and whom Woods criticizes, strongly defended the status of economics to be a science, but a human and a social science, one that depends at least in part on the free acts of human beings. We are not required to give up the claim that economics is a science if we accept Catholic social teaching.

Although it is not my primary intention to engage in an economic debate with Woods, I must say just a word to show how the economic arguments he makes are far from compelling. The model of an economy which both neoclassical and Austrian economics present, and the economic policies which Austrian economists usually champion, are not the obvious conclusions of economic reasoning as they would have us believe. For economic activity always takes place within a legal, social and technological framework, and the structure of that framework to a great degree conditions and determines the shape which economic activity takes in any particular society. There was no economic reason, for example, why the guilds of the Middle Ages, which controlled the urban economies of Europe and severely limited competition among craftsmen, need have come to an end, and the economy which resulted from the demise of the guilds was largely the creation of a changed intellectual climate, not the result of so-called economic laws. Nor are limited liability corporations, which currently dominate our economy and which were created only in the nineteenth century due to emerging state general incorporation laws, the inevitable products of economic forces, but rather were brought into being by the free acts of legislatures. Market forces always work within a certain framework, and economic outcomes depend more on how these frameworks are structured than on the market forces alone. Thus within broad limits human beings have the ability to structure the way in which they conduct economic activity, and the notion that there is only one way which is sanctioned by so-called economic laws is false. Human beings create their legal and social institutions and can alter them. There is no reason why these institutions cannot be designed or reformed in such a way so as to facilitate the application of Catholic social teaching. (A concrete instance of how market forces always work within an institutional framework is the story of the Nova Scotia fishermen from the 1930s. "Their catch of fish and lobsters was handled by local dealers who in many cases kept the fishermen in a state of peonage. While Maine fishermen were getting about fifteen cents a pound for lobsters, the Nova Scotian fishermen were receiving as little as two cents a pound. All other prices were scaled down in the same ratio. For everything they bought, however, from their scanty food purchases to nets and lines, they paid top prices, with the result that they were invariably bowed down with a load of debts. Appalling poverty, illiteracy, poor health and the worst possible housing conditions existed throughout this section." In order to better their condition, priests from St. Francis College helped the fishermen organize cooperatives. By means of marketing cooperatives they were able to bypass the local middlemen and deal directly with wholesalers in large cities. In their first shipment of lobsters to Boston they received fifteen cents per pound net. The distribution of income before the establishment of the cooperatives was not the result of the operation of economic laws, but rather of the legal and social institutions within which these economic forces operated. These institutions were changed and a new set of institutions was created within which market forces could operate. This is an illustration of the freedom men have to change the framework and thus change the way economic forces operate to bring about a more just distribution of income. See Bertram B. Fowler, The Co-operative Challenge (Boston : Little, Brown, 1947) pp. 128-29.)

Lest any reader be tempted to think that I am too exercised over this topic, and my disagreement with Woods is simply a small matter over different interpretations of Catholic social doctrine, let me quote from Pope Pius XI. In his first encyclical, Ubi Arcano of December 1922, Pius introduced the notion of "social Modernism." He spoke of those Catholics who give lip service to doctrine concerning the social order, including "Catholic teaching concerning...the rights and duties of laborers...in industry" but who "by their spoken and written word, and the whole tenor of their lives" disregard and belittle this teaching. Pope Pius says of this, "In all this we recognize a kind of moral, judicial, and social Modernism, and We condemn it as strongly as We do dogmatic Modernism." I am sure that Thomas Woods would not like to be placed among the dogmatic modernists, but Pius XI definitely places him among the social modernists. And thus that saintly and traditional pontiff condemns Thomas Woods' views, condemns them "as strongly as We do dogmatic Modernism."

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Of course, only I am sharing specifics to political philosophy while speaking with folks who hide their cards and speak in abstractions. I speak of protecting the family unit, the otherside speaks of 'standards of living'. I can point to this or that and say we are descending into barbarianism, while the other folks argue that the government should do more. I accept my duties in the traditions of Western Man (as best I can of course, I am flawed like all of us) the other folks absolve themselves and complain on the Internet as God forbid they practice what they preach.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   10:15:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

The British were reluctant to provide relief to the inferior people of Ireland. In the 1840s, laissez-faire philosophy dominated the British economic policy. The government officials supported a policy of non-intervention, which maintained the belief that it was counterproductive to interfere in economics.(32) The chief instrument of relief came in the form of low-paid work projects to build an infrastructure to promote industrialization and modernize the Ireland.(33) Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws, a protective tariff enabling the Irish to import grain from North America. For this relief measure, Peele was ousted and replaced by Lord John Russell, who was less lenient on the Irish.(34) Relief measures, such as corn importation, were sent from North America; however, these shipments were mere tokens to the necessary relief required to comfort the starving.(35)

Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury under the Prime Minister Lord John Russell, oversaw famine relief efforts. In 1846 Trevelyan wrote: "'The problem of Ireland being altogether beyond the power of man, the cure has been applied by all-wise Providence...'"(36) Various relief schemes were tried and abandoned: public works projects, importing corn from America, soup kitchens, workhouses, even sending agricultural advisors to the west of Ireland where they found no surviving farmers.(37) Ultimately, the Russell government ". . .was not prepared to allocate what was needed to head off starvation, but was always ready to dispatch police and troops of dragoons to help a landlord evict destitute tenants or protect a shipment of cattle or grain export."(38)

In November of 1845, to lessen the plight of the Irish, Russell approved the purchase of corn and meal; however, the shift from potatoes to corn as the staple food caused dysentery and scurvy due to the lack of nutrients and resulted in additional deaths. Additionally, loans of 365,000 sterling were granted to the Irish in 1845-1846 to lessen the starvation.(39) In principle, they believed that the best interests of the Irish were served by exporting agricultural goods from Ireland, so that they could pay their rents.(40)

In 1847 ("Black 47") the public works projects were abandoned by the government and instead poor houses were established by private groups, such as the church and the Quakers.(41) During the famine peak, one hundred and seventy-three workhouses were built throughout Ireland. During Black '47, the Galway Vindicator illustrated the degree of workhouse overcrowding when it cited 2513 occupants in the Limerick workhouse, which was built to accommodate 800 occupants.(42) Generally, poor houses or work houses were mismanaged, overcrowded, and inadequate to provide relief for the starving peasants of Ireland. People entering the workhouses were "forced to wear prisonlike uniforms in fetid male and female dormitories and hoped to avoid the adjacent fever hospital by subsisting on 'poorhouse porridge,' a watery oatmeal soup ladled from a huge iron 'stirabout pot.'"(43) Additionally, soup kitchens gave soup (a broadly defined term) to 3 million people daily.(44)

To limit the number of people seeking relief and the expense to the British government, The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 was instituted to deny aid to tenant farmers with over a quarter acre of land. This Act promoted emigration, increased land clearance, and disintegrated the structure of rural society, which were beneficial to British landowners, who sought profit, power, and larger plots of land. (45) According to the Poor Laws, landlords were bound to support peasants sent to the workhouse, which cost $12 pounds a year. Instead, some landlords sent peasants to Canada on "coffin ships", which cost $6 pounds.(46) Coffin ships were "wet, leaky holds" of timber ships returning to North America that were "crammed in with as many as 900 [people], with barely room to stand."(47) Approximately half of the people died during the voyage and the other half arrived in North America unable to disembark, without assistance, due to sickness and starvation. (48)

The British rationalized that landlords and industries, who needed laborers, would find it in their best interests to protect their investments (human laborers).(49) However, with the industrialization of agricultural processes, the decrease in tenant farmers proved advantageous to most landlords, who were intent on maximizing profit by increasing the size of plots. Thus, the absentee landlords were distanced from the peasants and focused on the maximization of trade and luxuries rather than the welfare of the people.(50)

IRISH POTATO FAMINE AND TRADE (HISTORY) .

You want names of those responsible? What about Charles Trevelyan and Lord John Russell?

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   12:12:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

In the case of the 1846–49 Irish Famine, the response of Tory government head Sir Robert Peel was to purchase some foreign maize for delivery to Ireland, and to repeal the Corn Laws, which prohibited imports of the much cheaper foreign grain to Ireland. The Irish called the maize imported by the government 'Peel's brimstone' — and the nickname was only partly because of the yellow colour of the maize. The repeal of the Corn Laws was enacted over a three-year period from 1846 to 1849 and came too late to help the starving Irish, and was politically unpopular, resulting in the end of Sir Robert's ministry. Succeeding him was a Whig ministry under Lord John Russell, later Earl Russell. Lord John's ministry focused on providing support through "public works" projects. Such projects mainly consisted of the government employing Irish peasantry on wasteful projects, such as filling in valleys and flattening hills, so the government could justify the cash payments. Such projects proved counterproductive, as starving labourers expended the energy gained from low rations on the heavy labour. Furthermore, the paid labour prevented the Irish peasants from returning to their farmlands to grow another harvest and prolonged the famine. Eventually, a soup-kitchen network, which fed three million people, replaced the public works projects.

In the autumn of 1847, the soup-kitchens were shut down and responsibility for famine relief was transferred to the Poor Laws unions. The Irish Poor Laws were even harsher on the poor than their English counterparts; those paupers with over a quarter-acre of land were expected to abandon it before entering a workhouse — something many of the poor would not do. Furthermore, Ireland had too few workhouses. Many of the workhouses that existed were closed due to financial problems; authorities in London refused to give large amounts of aid to bankrupt Poor Laws unions. As a result, disaster became inevitable.

That from the Wikipedia entry Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849).

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   12:16:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

When Ireland experienced an earlier famine in 1782-83, ports were closed in order to keep home grown food for domestic consumption. Food prices were immediately reduced within Ireland. The merchants lobbied against such efforts, but their protests were over-ridden. Everyone recognized that the interests of the merchants and the distressed people were irreconcilable

From the same Wikipedia entry.

That's how the British government acted before the age of laissez-faire.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   12:18:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

I don't follow. Gubmint paper shufflers, by definition n'est ce pas?, can't be classical liberals.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   15:57:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Laissez-faire gubmint projects? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I read this entry as socialists tried more government, government failed.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   15:59:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

LOL, I am throwing a BS flag on this wikpedia entry. The 'merchants' (when that term is used in that context, I smell a Marxist) of Ireland were getting killed in the marketplace with new competition from the Baltics and the Americas for meat, so they were in the process of switching to grain. Seeing is 1782 was the first year of union with the British, I smell a rat.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:10:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

The standard history of the Potato Famine is Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 .

It's been years since I read it, but my recollection is that it basically tells much the same story as the Wikipedia entry.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:12:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Seeing is 1782 was the first year of union with the British, I smell a rat.

The Act of Union uniting Ireland with Great Britain was passed in 1800. However, the nominally separate Kingdom of Ireland that preceded the Act of Union was, to all intents and purposes, run by the British as a satellite kingdom (with the monarch being the same as for Britain.)

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:15:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Okay, official union in 1800, effective union under the Constitution, 1782. Nevertheless, none of this has anything to do with how 'laissez faire' caused the Irish potato famine, and I am still throwing a flag on the accounts of 1782- 83 port closings. The only hit on Google for the claim is that one wikipedia entry.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:23:43 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Gubmint paper shufflers,

Sir Charles Trevelyan, Bt. came from the gentry. He was a grandson of Sir Richard Neave, Bt.

Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell came of course from the Russell family, one of the grandest aristocratic Whig families in England. His father was Duke of Bedford. The founder of the dynasty, John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, served Henry VII and Henry VIII, and was one of the chief beneficiaries of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:24:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

What does that have to do with laissez-faire? You mean, they had bad and incompetent elites too??? I see, he was "civil service reformer" what we call a liberal in today's vernacular. These folks were the original scientific socialists.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:26:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

What happened in 1782 was that Ireland's parliament had some of the restrictions that had been placed on its ability to legislate removed. Before 1782, Ireland was more -- not less -- dependent on England.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:27:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Aristocrats are hardly mere government paper-pushers, especially if they are (as the Russells were -- and are) among the biggest landowners in the country.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:28:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

So, was it the Irish Parliament that closed the ports or the British?

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:29:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Again, what that has to do with laissez faire I have no idea. Elites have always loved socialism and big government as a means to protect priveledge and insure no threats from the middle class or the challenges from a natural elite to their rule.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:29:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

It would have been the Irish Parliament, but it then represented the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The British Parliament, had it been the one to decide, would presumably have done precisely the same thing.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:31:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

threats from the middle class

Middle class? You mean, like government paper-pushers?

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:33:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Well of course the British would have loved to stick it to their rivals, that is a given. I still doubt the account of wikipedia 100%.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:35:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

I see, he was "civil service reformer" what we call a liberal in today's vernacular. These folks were the original scientific socialists.

So your definition of "socialism" is so broad that it includes the High Victorian Liberal Party, as laissez-faire a party as has probably ever existed anywhere.

May I ask who in Victorian England you consider to have been a classical liberal?

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:36:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

No, like bakers, morticians and candlestick makers. Merchants and traders, shippers and fisherman. You know, the people who raise the families, create folk music and sad ballads.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:37:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Like Scrooge, then?

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:38:48 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

I still doubt the account of wikipedia 100%.

So why don't you read Woodham-Smith?

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:39:25 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

My definition of socialism is rather broad. It includes folks who would use government to 'perfect man' and it includes those who would use government and benies taken from Peter to give Paul, to control populations.

I am sure there might have been someone in England who I would call a classical liberal, (peace, trade, no government) I just can't think of anyone. It seems the tradition died with Burke...how bout Lord Acton? He is great.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:44:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

If they were bad people, yes, like Scrooge, but also like Old Fezzywig and Bob Cratchet. All Scrooge had to do, according to Dickens, was lighten up a bit, be more generous etc etc, and hey, he probably ended up making more money that way as his social network grew.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:47:30 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Burke would have been as apalled by the conduct of Lord Russell's laissez-faire government during the Potato Famine as he was apalled by the conduct of Warren Hastings in India. Burke was, after all, above all else, an Irishman.

To understand Burke's sympathies, may I suggest that you read Conor Cruise O'Brien's The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:50:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Burke was closer to an anarchist towards the end of his life, which is a rare breed, and very Celtic. I can sympathize. You can't seem to get your terms straight in an honest manner.

How are you defining Lord Russell with laissez faire? That is absurd. How many times have I asked you to at least attempt to make that case followed by your running off to wikipedia to post nonsense.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   16:54:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Name one government that was ever more laissez-faire than Lord Russell's.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   16:55:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

The Liberal party was an outgrowth of the Whig Whig, English political party. The name, originally a term of abuse first used for Scottish Presbyterians in the 17th cent. ..... Click the link for more information. party that, after the Reform Bill of 1832 (see Reform Acts Reform Act of 1832, enacted under the Whig administration of the 2d Earl Grey , redistributed seats in the interest of larger communities; it also extended the franchise in the ..... Click the link for more information. ), joined with the bulk of enfranchised industrialists and business classes to form a political alliance that, over the next few decades, came to be called the Liberal party. Much of the Liberal program was formulated by an important manufacturing middle-class element of the party known as the Radicals, who were strongly influenced by Jeremy Bentham Bentham, Jeremy, 1748–1832, English philosopher, jurist, political theorist, and founder of utilitarianism . ..... Click the link for more information. . The Liberals distinguishing policies included free trade, low budgets, and religious liberty. Their anti-imperialism reflected confidence in Britain's economic supremacy. Most Liberals believed in the economic doctrines of laissez-faire laissez-faire (ls'
fâr`)and thought labor unions, factory acts, and substantial poor relief a threat to rapid industrialization.

From the Columbia Encyclopedia entry on "Liberal Party".

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   17:00:48 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

...and it is your claim that government projects as used by England to respond to in this case the Irish potato famine (i,e, socialism) is an example of laissez faire classical liberalism? That is just plain silly. Next you will tell me FDR was a New Deal Liberal rather than a European styled fascist.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   17:33:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Government, I hate government. You are asking me to say which punishment in Hell would I like the most...I don't know, probably King Harold's regime in old Britania. I am partial to monarchies.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   17:35:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Laissez-faire English extremists were responsible for the famine deaths in Ireland when a proper English Christian monarch would have done the unmarket thing and saved those poor souls.

Only partly. The other part was a refusal on the part of the Irish to consume items like oats because they felt it was animal feed. There were literally TONS of oats in barns that went unconsumed.

Culture plays a big part in a famine when people refuse to eat what is available as a result of it.

Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.

mirage  posted on  2007-02-07   18:25:27 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

You're just like the Communists who say Communism is not discredited because true Communism has never been tried.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   18:59:34 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Ever been to Ireland? Oatmeal is a very big part of the diet.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   19:00:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Ever been to Ireland? Oatmeal is a very big part of the diet.

It is today :-)

Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.

mirage  posted on  2007-02-07   19:01:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Oh, I see, my point was over your head. I most closely identify with reactionary anarchists; I am philosophically a monarchist. As you have no shared your politics, you are in effect dishonoring this exchange. I see a little nationalism, a little socialism, but god forbid I mention national-socialism and you call out the ADL.

Monarchy: It seems the best gambit, you might get a decent king, and if nothingelse, his time-prefernce/long term planning beats 2-4 year election cycles.

Let me try it another way. We live in a state of anarchy right now. The elites in government and business are actively trying to destroy the people they rule over and the people don't seem to care, even taking time on the Internet to post about how great government can be if only it had a different set of managers. Finding myself in an anarcho-tyranny, I reject it all. My family (extended) unit is the only political unit that matters; the rest of you are either threats or allies to my unit. My duties to my neighbors and friends and blood remain unchanged.

JohnGalt  posted on  2007-02-07   19:08:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Anyhow, along the 'cultural and food' theme - what about the Chinese?

Their main staple historically has been rice and yet they have suffered horrible famines when a blight comes along and wipes out their crop. Why not diversify more than they have?

The answer is simple. In Imperial Days (a long time ago) the Government wanted to tax food production and the Emperor restricted grains to rice so they could get an accurate tally and tax done. Of course, in the mid-1800s, the Emperor also made an edict that any "Westerner" who attempted to learn the Chinese language would be executed. Lots of power centralized in that Chinese Imperial Government.

As a result, heavy rice cultivation made its way into the culture. It is only recently that they started diversifying once again.

The problem with not diversifying the food supply is that you get the occasional famine. And thus, the Chinese have a long history of dealing with famines. In fact, one of the common greetings is simply "Have you eaten yet?" and in Cantonese, the common phrase for "eat food" translates as "eat rice" -- or "sik faahn"

Never discount cultural problems - or Government interference.

Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.

mirage  posted on  2007-02-07   19:16:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

I am rather partial to Burke's politics myself. Then, again, I find a good deal that is attractive in Dr. Johnson's politics. So I suppose I'm a strange mixture of Whig and Tory.

But some things Burke and Johnson shared. For example, neither man was a doctrinaire believer in capitalism or laissez-faire. They despised calculators and economists.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   19:18:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

It's the same in Mandarin. "Have you eaten?' is "Nii chy fann le me?"

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2007-02-07   19:19:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

Interesting this debate over the Irish Potato Famine and laissez-faire capitalism hinges on the claim that the liberal government wasn't actually so, and that the Irish didn't eat their oats... wow...

Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later. --Allan Bloom

"The disgusting stink of a too loud electric guitar; now that's my idea of a good time." -- Frank Zappa

gargantuton  posted on  2007-02-07   19:21:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

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