What We're Up Against: Critique of a Contemporary College Text

What We're Up Against: Critique of a Contemporary College Text
by Ed Thompson

This essay serves the specific purpose of arming reasoners against the onslaught of contemporary academia. It highlights major positions taken by academia, and it offers major rebuttals to such positions. In a war for men's minds, one must come to battle with the proper armor. This essay provides it.

The third ideal diet concept is the hunter-gatherer's diet. Our human ancestors' bodies presumably had time (50,000 generations) for genetic adaptation to diets of this type, which all humans ate until agriculture started only 10,000 years ago. These hunter-gatherers' diets contained a great range of parts of plants and animals but did not contain cereals or milk (after early childhood), sugar, salt, or alcohol (96,97). To look backward at such diets is probably of more philosophic than practical value.
-- Shils ME et al. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 1999. p. 1739

Though the particular text (that serves as the source of this particular quote) is not the primary focus of this particular essay, it does highlight what it is that we are up against. It uncovers deep rifts that have been arbitrarily opened regarding contemporary schooling on the one hand, and our desperate, unfulfilled need for cultural advancement, on the other. In short, the main line of argument in the quote above entails a wrong-headed philosophic/practical dichotomy (i.e., the notion that that which is philosophic cannot, ipso facto, be practical). This dichotomy must be busted sky-high, if we are to properly advance as a modern culture.

It may be asked: What are we to take away from this gene/nutrient interdependence? Nothing. That is the conventional answer. Don't look to evolution, when formulating your daily menu -- because it's 'merely' philosophic (and not 'practical') to do so. Ignore genetics while formulating an eating plan?? Bullpucky! All of biology makes sense only in light of genetics; none of it should be 'entertained' without firm establishment -- and acknowledgment -- of this genetic base.

Now that I've shown how anti-philosophical contemporary researchers can be, let's move on to perhaps a more pressing issue: environmental science. The particular book -- which I am about to devastatingly critique -- is: Miller, GT Jr. Environmental Science (Working with the Earth). Toronto: Brooks/Cole-Thomson; 2004. The particularly critical point occurs in chapter 2 and entails a depiction of capitalism that is off the mark, either deliberately, or by an (inherently correctable!) gross error of knowledge.

The gross obfuscation starts here (p 20):

"Market economic systems can be divided into two types: pure free market and capitalist market."

Already, we can see the wrong-headed, non-dichotomous dichotomy unfold: There is, supposedly, a "pure free market" on the one hand, and a "capitalist market" on the other. Reading on, we find the 4 fundamentals of the 'pure free markets':

1. " ... buyers (demanders) and sellers (suppliers) of economic goods interact without any government interference."

Note: No problems here

2. " ... all buying and selling would be based on pure competition, in which no seller or buyer can control or manipulate the market."

Note: Big Problem here: think about this (not the pure competition, but the market manipulation). An agent who can't manipulate the market? What codwaddle! Producers can -- and do -- manipulate the market (and that is a good thing)!
These far-sighted producers, directly or indirectly, give consumers cues about where to spend their money! This brings to light the "pyramid of ability" that Rand identified, where genius benefits the mediocre-minded through the invention of better ways for them to be productive (of value) in their lives! The rock-bottom issue is whether a producer is manipulating the market via force, or sheer productiveness. However, this college text makes absolutely no distinction between these two diametric opposites, forever (and wrongfully) damning 'capitalism' as inherently unjust.

3. " ... all sellers and buyers would have full access to the market and enough information about the beneficial and harmful aspects of economic goods to make informed decisions."

Note: This notion ignores the ongoing learning (of which Rand spoke in CUI, p. 24) that only occurs in free markets. It takes omniscience as the standard of the good (where you have to know all of the distant effects of any decision taken). It ignores that markets "teach" agents how and what to trade (via monetary reward/punishments); forever (and wrongfully) damning 'capitalism' as inherently unachievable. By wrong-headedly setting a standard which is humanly unachievable, the anti-free-market mentalities confirm their previous and whimsical bias -- via nothing other than an arbitrary, self-fulfilling prophecy.

4. " ... prices would reflect all harmful costs to society and the environment (full-cost pricing)."

Note: This notion brazenly -- and arbitrarily -- smuggles "environmentalism" into free market capitalism. In effect, it says: In order to have a fully-free market, environmental effects would have to be uniformly and immediately accounted for. But this is not a reality.

The reality is that traders trade to mutual benefit -- no exceptions. To be sure, their environment is one of the possible benefits. Its place in trade will fall, accordingly, along a hierarchy of value -- not necessarily as the cornerstone of all value (as this book alludes). The cornerstone of all value is human happiness, not necessarily, for instance, the unilateral preservation of an all-but-extinct, bottom-feeding species of plankton. This 'fundamental' of pure free markets, is but a stolen concept -- and it is nothing more.

Moving on to what the book then says about 'capitalism' ...

"Here are six rules for maximizing success for a company operating in the world's capitalist market economies:

1. " ... drive out all competition and gain monopolistic control of market prices on a global scale."

Note: If the 'control' is gained by merit (i.e., by offering better products at better prices), then there is no problem -- but that is not what this book insinuates. The focus ought to be on coercive vs. non-coercive monopolies, but this crucial distinction is undeniably obscured by this text.

2. " ... lobby for unrestricted global free trade that allows anything to be manufactured anywhere in the world and sold anywhere else."

Note: Aside from the idea of 'having to' lobby for this already unalienable right, there is no problem here.

3. " ... lobby for government subsidies, tax breaks, or regulations that give the company's products a market advantage over their competitors and for governments to bail the company out if it makes bad investments."

The travesty of calling the above something commensurable with capitalism is gut-wrenching. This is a case of saying that what is, is as it should be. The idea that capitalism -- in the 'unknown ideal' sense of which Rand spoke -- lends itself to pull-peddling and corporate welfare, is pure, and total, nostrum. This myth needs to be exploded, if ever folks are to gain a correct and productive idea of the inherent benevolence of capitalism. The conflation of centralized initiation of force ("subsidies," "regulations," and bailouts for bad investments) with capitalism is the pivotal issue at hand. This wrong-headed view must be countered by correct epistemology and ethics. It must not continue to infect the minds of the masses. If ever there were a false dichotomy, then this is it. These text writers ought to be brought out in public for a radical -- and rational -- cross-examination.

4. " ... try to withhold information from consumers about dangers posed by products. This makes it difficult for consumers to make informed choices about what to buy."

5. " ... maximize profits by passing harmful costs resulting from production and sale of goods and services on to the public, the environment and in some cases future generations."

Note: If you are now sick to your stomach, that is because you ought to be. These nostrums completely ignore the role of reputation in a free market. I will say no more, because I too, am sick to my stomach.

6. " ... recognize that a company's primary obligation is to produce the highest profit for the owners or stockholders whose financial capital the company is using to do business."

Note: No problems here (though the text's tone tries to imply something sinister). As an exercise for the reader: Imagine this point's opposite. Think of a company without the primary obligation to produce profit. Now extend that thought through time. Note how well that that company will fare -- against the others who are producing profits. Hmmm.

Now we are on to government intervention in markets. This book is unabashedly statist on this point. Check out the "reasons for government interventions":

"Provide basic services such as national security, education, and health care."

Note: What a gross conflation of national security (a power granted by the U.S. Constitution) with education and health care (things not mentioned, at all, in the Constitution)!

"Provide an economic safety net for people who because of health, age, and other factors cannot work and meet their basic needs."

Note: Safety nets are unconstitutional.

"Protect people from fraud, trespass, theft, and bodily harm."

Note: No problems here. Though it is curious as to why this point shows up in the middle -- rather than near the beginning-- of the array of bullet points mentioned.

And finally, on reducing poverty, this book is especially myopic ...

"Rich countries and individuals could essentially eliminate poverty within a decade by sharing more of their wealth."

Note: What uninsightful rhetoric! The idea that poverty can be eliminated by something other than property rights and rule of law (which protects those property rights), is patently absurd! Of course, reasonable thinkers know this -- but college texts aren't necessarily written by reasonable thinkers (and that is the problem we face). Wealth is produced, and it is produced by human minds -- under the express purpose of earning (i.e., keeping) value.

There is a long (but good) fight ahead. The quotes above represent a majority of the opposition -- an opposition which must be defeated if our society is to rediscover objective values. I have written this piece to make permanent those transgressions against reason and humanity which hold value-attainment back. I have written this to empower real value-seekers -- in an ongoing battle for men's minds.

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