A Cup of Holiday Guilt?
A Cup of Holiday Guilt?
With the arrival of the movie Blood Diamond, a new awareness of what those less fortunate than ourselves must endure to earn a living has been brought into the American consciousness. On Dec. 15th, the Louisville Courier-Journal condemned all who enjoy cheap prices for clothes, food, electronics, and toys for "exploiting the natural resources of the world's poorest countries and their poorest people." Show more sophistication when buying, the CJ admonishes; don't just ask how big and how much. To this I say: "Humbug!"
Lest we forget the state of humankind just a few centuries ago, recall Hobbes's description of the life of man: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Were it not for "exploitation" of the world's natural resources, humans would still be living as hunter gatherers, roaming the earth in constant search of their next meal. Man's ability to understand life and his environment on a conceptual level is what separates us from all other animals. Nature gave us brains to think and hands to dig and build.
Mining coal, drilling oil, cutting timber, plowing fields, husbanding animals, and fishing the seas serve as primary activities for man to feed, cloth, house, and warm himself. And while diamonds (and gold) have important industrial uses today, should we feel guilty about enjoying them as jewelry? If so, should we renounce all luxuries? Aren't toys and electronics luxuries? Electric lights, automobiles, and penicillin? Some remote cultures exist without any of these items; does that make these uneducated savages our moral superiors?
To portray diamond hunting by hungry Africans as an immoral pursuit because the monetary rewards are diverted towards the purchase of guns by warring tribes speciously connects two unrelated activities. Consider the work you do and the taxes you pay that allow the USA to wage war on Iraq. I aver the culprit is not the productive work you do to feed your family; rather it is government's desire to meddle in foreign affairs and its power to finance this aggression through forced taxation. Washington, DC acts no different than Sierra Leone in that regard.
Were it not for the diamonds, clothes, toys, electronics, and cars that we purchase overseas, those workers would be earning less money than they do now. Alternatives include starvation, military conscription, or back breaking subsistence farming in searing heat or pouring rain. Never forget the sacrifices our forebears (many of them immigrants) made when America industrialized. Initially the jobs in factories paid little, and hours were long.
"Exploitation" was a term favored by Karl Marx; interestingly we hear the same language from the Courier-Journal. Would the CJ advocate further support of the failed policies of socialism, Marxism, and communism as a solution to the miserable conditions in Africa? In fact, we know them to be the problem.
In contrast, behold the wealth that free trade and a market economy have brought to China and other Asian countries. Having just returned from a business trip to Guangzhou, I can report firsthand the magnificent bridges we dally with here have already been constructed there. Cranes crowd the sky; modern trains crisscross the landscape, and the beckoning hustle of neon chases away the night.
Some consider this growing economic superpower a threat to the USA, but this fear is misplaced. Recall the sage words of Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none…these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."
So here's my cup of Holiday cheer: pray spend your money on goods of all nature and origins, both luxury and necessity. Take joy in the happiness these gifts bring, and know that in your purchases, you lift others from poverty. Worry not about free exchange with your neighbor, be he from Indiana or India. Yearn only for truth and knowledge.
George Conrad Dick
Chairman Libertarian Party of Kentucky
With the arrival of the movie Blood Diamond, a new awareness of what those less fortunate than ourselves must endure to earn a living has been brought into the American consciousness. On Dec. 15th, the Louisville Courier-Journal condemned all who enjoy cheap prices for clothes, food, electronics, and toys for "exploiting the natural resources of the world's poorest countries and their poorest people." Show more sophistication when buying, the CJ admonishes; don't just ask how big and how much. To this I say: "Humbug!"
Lest we forget the state of humankind just a few centuries ago, recall Hobbes's description of the life of man: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Were it not for "exploitation" of the world's natural resources, humans would still be living as hunter gatherers, roaming the earth in constant search of their next meal. Man's ability to understand life and his environment on a conceptual level is what separates us from all other animals. Nature gave us brains to think and hands to dig and build.
Mining coal, drilling oil, cutting timber, plowing fields, husbanding animals, and fishing the seas serve as primary activities for man to feed, cloth, house, and warm himself. And while diamonds (and gold) have important industrial uses today, should we feel guilty about enjoying them as jewelry? If so, should we renounce all luxuries? Aren't toys and electronics luxuries? Electric lights, automobiles, and penicillin? Some remote cultures exist without any of these items; does that make these uneducated savages our moral superiors?
To portray diamond hunting by hungry Africans as an immoral pursuit because the monetary rewards are diverted towards the purchase of guns by warring tribes speciously connects two unrelated activities. Consider the work you do and the taxes you pay that allow the USA to wage war on Iraq. I aver the culprit is not the productive work you do to feed your family; rather it is government's desire to meddle in foreign affairs and its power to finance this aggression through forced taxation. Washington, DC acts no different than Sierra Leone in that regard.
Were it not for the diamonds, clothes, toys, electronics, and cars that we purchase overseas, those workers would be earning less money than they do now. Alternatives include starvation, military conscription, or back breaking subsistence farming in searing heat or pouring rain. Never forget the sacrifices our forebears (many of them immigrants) made when America industrialized. Initially the jobs in factories paid little, and hours were long.
"Exploitation" was a term favored by Karl Marx; interestingly we hear the same language from the Courier-Journal. Would the CJ advocate further support of the failed policies of socialism, Marxism, and communism as a solution to the miserable conditions in Africa? In fact, we know them to be the problem.
In contrast, behold the wealth that free trade and a market economy have brought to China and other Asian countries. Having just returned from a business trip to Guangzhou, I can report firsthand the magnificent bridges we dally with here have already been constructed there. Cranes crowd the sky; modern trains crisscross the landscape, and the beckoning hustle of neon chases away the night.
Some consider this growing economic superpower a threat to the USA, but this fear is misplaced. Recall the sage words of Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none…these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."
So here's my cup of Holiday cheer: pray spend your money on goods of all nature and origins, both luxury and necessity. Take joy in the happiness these gifts bring, and know that in your purchases, you lift others from poverty. Worry not about free exchange with your neighbor, be he from Indiana or India. Yearn only for truth and knowledge.
George Conrad Dick
Chairman Libertarian Party of Kentucky
posted by George Conrad Dick at 7:33 AM
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