by Christian C. Sahner
published by: Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good
The controversial Tariq Ramadan’s latest book promotes a “Western” version of Islam. Is he the “Muslim Martin Luther”?
Late last month, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton lifted a six-year visa ban on the Swiss Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan, an Oxford professor and Europe’s premier voice of reformist Islam, had been prohibited by the Bush administration from entering the U.S. on the grounds that he had given money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas – a charge he vigorously denied. Ever since, Ramadan has polarized public opinion in both America and Europe: the left lauds him as a “Muslim Martin Luther,” while the right demonizes him as an extremist in sheep’s clothing. Despite the passionate debate, neither side has shown much interest in the substance of Ramadan’s message – conveniently summarized in his concise new book, What I Believe (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Ramadan wrote What I Believe as “a work of clarification.” In it, he emphasizes that his goal is to fashion a distinctively “Western” expression of Islam that does not require Muslims to choose between their national identities and their religious one. According to Ramadan, a person can be both fully Muslim and fully French, British, or German; these multiple identities shift and blend depending on the situation we face.
Ramadan’s intellectual agenda reflects his own unconventional upbringing: his maternal grandfather was Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical group that championed the establishment of an Islamic state in Egypt and which launched the modern era of Islamist politics. Ramadan’s father, Said, was one of al-Banna’s senior deputies, and after al-Banna’s death, he went into exile with his family in Geneva. There, he committed his life to preserving and disseminating al-Banna’s legacy. The first of Said Ramadan’s children born in Europe was Tariq. Caught between the Islamist cauldron of Egypt and cosmopolitan Geneva, Tariq grew up parsing his multiple and seemingly competing identities. As he writes, “I am Swiss by nationality, Egyptian by memory, Muslim by religion, European by culture, [and] universalist by principle.”
After a secular education at the University of Fribourg and religious training at Al-Azhar University in Cairo (the global center of Sunni learning), Ramadan made a name for himself in the nineties as an expert on European Islam. It was a prescient concern. By that time, it was clear that the latest waves of immigrants—mainly Muslims from North Africa, Turkey, and south Asia, who had come to Europe to jumpstart manufacturing industries left crippled by the war—were not integrating properly. Despite having lived in Europe for decades and even having raised a new generation there, Europe’s immigrant Muslims were steeped in social, economic, and religious discontent. The discontent was exacerbated by widespread unemployment, low rates of education, and a seeming unwillingness to engage with the culture of their new countries. Most disturbingly, the malaise encouraged some young Muslims to experiment with rigid, literalist interpretations of their faith—expressions of Islam that promoted the use of Islamic law, sanctioned honor killings, and even condoned terrorism in the name of religion.
This powderkeg has prompted deep reflection among white Europeans and the European Muslims who live among them: Is Islam fundamentally opposed to European values? How can governments integrate groups unwilling to desegregate themselves? Is Europe a secular or religious continent? These represent the signal questions facing Europe today; and for much of the past fifteen years, Tariq Ramadan has been at the center of the debate.
Ramadan’s fame owes not only to his timely academic interests. He has also attracted considerable controversy. His connections to the Muslim Brotherhood have earned him deep suspicion. Meanwhile, in a 2004 book the French journalist Caroline Fourest chronicled examples of Ramadan’s alleged “double-speak”: instances of Ramadan modifying, even contradicting himself before Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, preaching a liberal message of integration, at the same time urging Muslims to resist European culture. Among his most notorious statements came during a 2003 debate with current French president Nicholas Sarkozy, in which Ramadan called for a “moratorium” on stoning, refusing to support an outright ban.
Despite the rancorous debate surrounding Ramadan’s true beliefs it is worth trying, at least for a moment, to separate the ideas from the man and ask whether Ramadan offers a workable solution to Europe’s “Muslim problem.” Fundamentally, Ramadan’s project focuses on integration. He wants to see Europe’s Muslim communities become full participants in their adoptive cultures, such that “Muslim” and “European” are regarded as complementary identities. Islamic and European values rest on a common bedrock of moral teachings, he argues, grounded in the pursuit of “justice, solidarity, and human dignity.” Acknowledging these shared principles could contribute to several goals: ending the tug-of-war many Muslims sense between their Islamic and European identities reconciling native Europeans with the immigrants who live among them; and building a multi-cultural society where difference flourishes among common civic principles.
Establishing common ground is key if Islam is to become a true interlocutor in the European conversation. To that end, Ramadan urges Muslims to distinguish between the cultural trappings of their faith, which tend to separate them from their new countries, and the essence of their faith, which has the potential to transcend cultures and continents. Many of the most troubling practices in Europe’s Muslim communities—such as stoning or genital mutilation—are “un-Islamic” in Ramadan’s view. They represent vestiges of Algerian, Egyptian, or Pakistani culture that immigrants have failed to jettison as they have settled in their new lands. So long as these groups continue to huddle in ethnic ghettos, resisting pressure to join the mainstream, they will cling to these practices.
Ramadan’s solution is to develop a new “Western Islam”—a radical “reconstruction” of the faith that upholds core beliefs shared by all Muslims, but which also embraces important European values, such as freedom of religion and respect for women. If history furnishes any clues, Ramadan’s “Western Islam” could become a reality one day. Over the centuries, Islam has proven remarkably durable and dynamic, capable of spreading among diverse cultures and across far-flung continents. From the first hundred years, when Muslim armies carved out an empire stretching from Portugal to China, to the fourteenth century, when Sufi missionaries began preaching deep in southeast Asia, to our modern day, when mosques rise around Detroit, Paris, and Rome, Islam has shown itself adept at inhabiting new cultures as it maintains its strong sense of self. While the situation in Europe may appear grim at the moment, there is ample precedent throughout history of Islam’s ability to adapt—even if it often entailed conquest.
On balance, Tariq Ramadan presents an attractive solution for Europe’s “Muslim problem.” Europe’s Muslim communities are not leaving anytime soon, so the present gridlock between them and the European mainstream must come to an end one way or another. There are far worse outcomes than what Ramadan proposes. Yet What I Believe suffers from a few key weaknesses.
First and foremost, for a work of clarification, What I Believe does little to dispel the most trenchant criticisms leveled at Ramadan: his alleged sympathies toward the Muslim Brotherhood and instances of double-speak. He dismisses them offhand, writing, “I will not waste my time here trying to defend myself.” While Ramadan understandably may not want to spend the entire book answering attacks, criticisms leveled against him are deep and detailed, and warrant more than the brief retorts we read.
Second, Ramadan goes to great lengths to portray European Muslims as peaceable, upstanding citizens. This is clearly a corrective to the Islamophobia that festers among certain sectors of the European public. For the vast majority of Muslims, Ramadan is undoubtedly right: Many immigrants have made the transition from Algeria, Turkey, or Pakistan with remarkable ease and now lead successful, stable lives in Europe. But Ramadan seems unwilling to concede that one of the biggest problem facing Europe’s Muslims may not be integration per se, but rather, the temptations toward fundamentalism and violence. Ramadan deals with these explicitly only once in a chapter on “Challenges,” where he commits a paragraph to describing them. Individuals such as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—the Christmas-Day bomber radicalized during his time at University College London—may be few in number, but they are the fruit of a broader culture that, at its worst, sanctions extremism, and at best, finds it difficult to denounce or defuse it.
The book’s third shortcoming concerns identity politics. Throughout, Ramadan argues that Muslims must be given a sense of belonging in European culture if they are ever truly to integrate. But as he reads the accounts narrated in textbooks, university syllabi, and popular culture, he finds a biased version of European history that excludes the achievements of Muslims. If Muslims do appear in the story, it is often as the ominous “other” lurking in the background as Europe undertakes its grand march from “Plato to NATO.”
For Ramadan, this traditional plotline is not only misleading, but also dangerous. It dismisses the major contributions of Islam to European civilization, especially the role of Muslim philosophers in transmitting classical learning to the medieval West. By denying these contributions, he argues, modern-day European Muslims are made to feel like second-class citizens in a civilization their ancestors helped to build, but for which they get no credit.
In principle, Ramadan is correct: without Muslim philosophers such as Avicenna or Averroes, there would have been neither medieval Scholasticism nor the Renaissance. These contributions are substantial, and cannot be underestimated. Yet at the same time, to portray Islam as a constitutive part of Europe, a distinctively European achievement, or a core aspect of European identity from the beginning, is itself a misleading brand of revisionist history. To be sure, Islam played a huge role in the formation of Europe, but primarily as Europe’s existential rival and occasional collaborator. Islam is part of Europe’s modern identity, but it need not justify its place today by rewriting the past. As religious observance declines across Europe and the continent loses touch with its Christian roots, now is precisely the moment to recover a sense of historical self, not dilute it further.
This was part of the message in Pope Benedict XVI’s controversial 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg, where he urged Europeans to recover their true cultural identity—an identity the Pope grounded in the twin legacies of Greek philosophy and Christian faith. For Ramadan, this approach is both reductionist and exclusive, for it essentializes a rich, textured history in order to protest the bugaboo of the multi-cultural present.
But Ramadan misses the point of Benedict’s speech, which in fact contains a kernel of wisdom that might be useful for Europe’s Muslims too. Over the centuries, Christianity has succeeded by translating the philosophical principles undergirding the faith into good public policy. It is no coincidence that secular ideologies such as universal human rights or economic subsidiarity took root in the Christian West; they represent political extensions of Christian ethics. Muslims need to consider the same principles that undergird their faith, and imagine how these principles can help them live as citizens in their new European environment. The currency of debate in Europe is not the Qur’an or the sayings of the Prophet, but the rational convictions enshrined therein. Islam has the intellectual resources in its past to excavate these principles; it just needs to relocate them.
Tariq Ramadan is an optimist, and in these times filled with apocalyptic predictions about “Londonistan” or the minarets of Notre Dame, it is refreshing to hear some good forecasts. Still, Ramadan’s optimism may also be his greatest weakness: In his eagerness to shrink the chasm between Europe and Islam, he seems to have lost sight of their fundamental and abiding differences. Thus, he succumbs to the temptations of flaccid ecumenism, which compels no one to reexamine his fundamental assumptions. Islam is not some exotic form of continental philosophy we can simply drop into the European equation and expect to balance effortlessly. Rather, it is a significantly different variable—and balancing this equation will take a lot more than liberal readings of the Qur’an mixed with a dose of Enlightenment thought. But the existence of a chasm between Europe and Islam does not necessarily entail the spread of bigotry or segregation. Neither group needs to whitewash its convictions or rewrite its past in order to live together. Islam has the power to enrich civil society in Europe—it can begin by identifying first principles it shares with the cultures around it.
Christian Sahner, a Rhodes Scholar, is presently a doctoral candidate in History at Princeton University. In May 2009, he worked with Tariq Ramadan on a symposium on religion and politics at the University of Oxford.
Copyright 2010 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
domingo, 28 de fevereiro de 2010
sábado, 27 de fevereiro de 2010
Debt and the Current Crisis
by Harold James
published by: Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good
As we attempt to revive the global financial system, it may be time to reconsider the long tradition that warned against the dangers of borrowing.
Debt is at the heart of the current crisis. On the one hand there’s the debt of households, consumer credit, and mortgages. On the other hand there’s the huge debt levels between financial institutions, and also the debt levels of states that have taken over or guaranteed bad private and commercial debt.
Financial relationships raise acute moral issues that suddenly appear to be at the heart of the problem. Why should burdensome obligations come with a duty to repay? Is it good to be in debt?
This isn’t a new story. In the early 1930s, the world went through a period of debt-deflation, in which the compulsion to repay forced down prices and increased the real level of debt. Today, we face a milder version of the same phenomenon as banks cut back lending to rebuild their capitalization. The resulting credit difficulties create downward pressure on prices and make for higher and less sustainable debt levels.
The problem is severe. Deflation produces radical anti-capitalism and a demand for a cancellation of debt. Revulsion against the market economy often takes the form of a specific condemnation of debt and debt instruments.
The Saudi cleric Grand Mufti Abdelaziz Al al-Sheikh made the case that the cause of the crisis is interest on debt, and that the sharia principle of risk participation would eliminate the problem. This is a very old answer. The Old Testament famously recommended a cancellation of debt every forty-nine years in a “jubilee.” The medieval church attacked usury. Such arguments are not built on simple obscurantism. Both the medieval church and Islam distinguish between debt that is exploitative, in which individuals are tied in debt servitude, and the relationship that arises out of a sharing of entrepreneurial risk. This tradition invites us to think about how debt today may inhibit free choice and the free development of the human personality.
These critics, ancient and modern, see debt as leading to a fundamental moral flaw. Today debt is much more prominent than it was in medieval Europe. Consumers in advanced industrial countries (and in particular the United States) rely on debt in order to buy. Treasury Secretary Paulson complained that the credit crunch was “making it more expensive for families to finance everyday purchases.” But dependence on debt polarizes societies. Bailout proposals run into opposition from those who are not so highly indebted and see an overall solution as a subsidy for the improvident.
One interpretation of modernity is that we borrow from one another on an increasingly grand scale for a reason, because we are convinced that our utility schedule is more important than someone else’s. If I see a beautiful piece of jewelry or a bright new car in a shop, I am convinced that it should be mine and that it can be more usefully employed in my possession than in that of someone else. In that way greed feeds on a kind of pride or self-regard. This problematical character of debt is captured in an ambiguous phrase of the Lord’s Prayer that refers not only to spiritual offense but to actual debt and was often in the past translated as “forgive us our debts.”
The meltdown of capitalism produced a big blame game both in the 1930s, when industrial capitalism broke down, and today, when it is financially driven capitalism that has gone awry. Today the collapse is widely thought to be the responsibility of poor regulators and monetary policy makers, or unscrupulous mortgage originators, or greedy bankers. Popular commentators like to go back to stereotypes from earlier eras, such as the figure of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street who memorably proclaimed that “greed is good.”
The attributions of blame do not contemplate why a little bit of greed can produce such bad effects. Greed works as a doctrine of management because it is endlessly replicated in everyday behavior, by neighbors who borrow because they want to match other people’s consumption patterns, or buy bigger houses out of a competitive spirit. Wall Street moved prices by means of a “thundering herd,” but it is not the only locus of greed. We might equally look to popular culture, to game shows, or to shopping behavior. In November 2008, the same instincts that drove financial markets produced the post-Thanksgiving shopping consumption-intoxicated herd which trampled a store clerk to death in a Long Island Wal-Mart.
Solutions to the crisis include a simplification of finance, a return to lower levels of debt, and a reduction of flows across long distances. Some natural law traditions point in a very radical direction and demand regular cancellations of debt like the “jubilee.” But how can any of this be achieved?
A less radically intrusive approach would end the incentives that created powerful motives for households and corporations to increase their debt. In particular, the tax deductibility of mortgage-interest payments led to an excessive level of household debt; and tax deductions for interest led to high levels of corporate leverage. Some countries have already experimented with ending or reducing the levels of permissible mortgage-interest deduction.
Debt reduction is not only a good way of avoiding the constant repetition of the kind of disaster that emerging markets went through in the early 1980s and the late 1990s, and the whole world has experienced after 2007. It is also an example of the way in which the application of some natural law principles might lead to a healthier economy.
Harold James is Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, where he is also the Director of the Program in Ethics, Culture, and Economic Development. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.
published by: Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good
As we attempt to revive the global financial system, it may be time to reconsider the long tradition that warned against the dangers of borrowing.
Debt is at the heart of the current crisis. On the one hand there’s the debt of households, consumer credit, and mortgages. On the other hand there’s the huge debt levels between financial institutions, and also the debt levels of states that have taken over or guaranteed bad private and commercial debt.
Financial relationships raise acute moral issues that suddenly appear to be at the heart of the problem. Why should burdensome obligations come with a duty to repay? Is it good to be in debt?
This isn’t a new story. In the early 1930s, the world went through a period of debt-deflation, in which the compulsion to repay forced down prices and increased the real level of debt. Today, we face a milder version of the same phenomenon as banks cut back lending to rebuild their capitalization. The resulting credit difficulties create downward pressure on prices and make for higher and less sustainable debt levels.
The problem is severe. Deflation produces radical anti-capitalism and a demand for a cancellation of debt. Revulsion against the market economy often takes the form of a specific condemnation of debt and debt instruments.
The Saudi cleric Grand Mufti Abdelaziz Al al-Sheikh made the case that the cause of the crisis is interest on debt, and that the sharia principle of risk participation would eliminate the problem. This is a very old answer. The Old Testament famously recommended a cancellation of debt every forty-nine years in a “jubilee.” The medieval church attacked usury. Such arguments are not built on simple obscurantism. Both the medieval church and Islam distinguish between debt that is exploitative, in which individuals are tied in debt servitude, and the relationship that arises out of a sharing of entrepreneurial risk. This tradition invites us to think about how debt today may inhibit free choice and the free development of the human personality.
These critics, ancient and modern, see debt as leading to a fundamental moral flaw. Today debt is much more prominent than it was in medieval Europe. Consumers in advanced industrial countries (and in particular the United States) rely on debt in order to buy. Treasury Secretary Paulson complained that the credit crunch was “making it more expensive for families to finance everyday purchases.” But dependence on debt polarizes societies. Bailout proposals run into opposition from those who are not so highly indebted and see an overall solution as a subsidy for the improvident.
One interpretation of modernity is that we borrow from one another on an increasingly grand scale for a reason, because we are convinced that our utility schedule is more important than someone else’s. If I see a beautiful piece of jewelry or a bright new car in a shop, I am convinced that it should be mine and that it can be more usefully employed in my possession than in that of someone else. In that way greed feeds on a kind of pride or self-regard. This problematical character of debt is captured in an ambiguous phrase of the Lord’s Prayer that refers not only to spiritual offense but to actual debt and was often in the past translated as “forgive us our debts.”
The meltdown of capitalism produced a big blame game both in the 1930s, when industrial capitalism broke down, and today, when it is financially driven capitalism that has gone awry. Today the collapse is widely thought to be the responsibility of poor regulators and monetary policy makers, or unscrupulous mortgage originators, or greedy bankers. Popular commentators like to go back to stereotypes from earlier eras, such as the figure of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street who memorably proclaimed that “greed is good.”
The attributions of blame do not contemplate why a little bit of greed can produce such bad effects. Greed works as a doctrine of management because it is endlessly replicated in everyday behavior, by neighbors who borrow because they want to match other people’s consumption patterns, or buy bigger houses out of a competitive spirit. Wall Street moved prices by means of a “thundering herd,” but it is not the only locus of greed. We might equally look to popular culture, to game shows, or to shopping behavior. In November 2008, the same instincts that drove financial markets produced the post-Thanksgiving shopping consumption-intoxicated herd which trampled a store clerk to death in a Long Island Wal-Mart.
Solutions to the crisis include a simplification of finance, a return to lower levels of debt, and a reduction of flows across long distances. Some natural law traditions point in a very radical direction and demand regular cancellations of debt like the “jubilee.” But how can any of this be achieved?
A less radically intrusive approach would end the incentives that created powerful motives for households and corporations to increase their debt. In particular, the tax deductibility of mortgage-interest payments led to an excessive level of household debt; and tax deductions for interest led to high levels of corporate leverage. Some countries have already experimented with ending or reducing the levels of permissible mortgage-interest deduction.
Debt reduction is not only a good way of avoiding the constant repetition of the kind of disaster that emerging markets went through in the early 1980s and the late 1990s, and the whole world has experienced after 2007. It is also an example of the way in which the application of some natural law principles might lead to a healthier economy.
Harold James is Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, where he is also the Director of the Program in Ethics, Culture, and Economic Development. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.
sexta-feira, 26 de fevereiro de 2010
A ALA NUN'ÁLVARES PEREIRA
vem convidá-lo(a) para a sua próxima conferência, no dia 3 de Março (quarta-feira), pelas 21h15, no Palácio da Independência.
"O futuro da democracia em Portugal nos 100 anos da república", pelo Prof. Doutor Miguel Morgado
Para a primeira conferência de 2010, convidámos o Professor Doutor Miguel Morgado, Licenciado em Economia e Mestre e Doutor em Ciência Política, pela Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Paralelamente à docência universitária e à autoria de diversas publicações na sua área técnica, o nosso convidado dedica uma parte significativa do seu tempo ao debate e à acção política, através do blog Cachimbo de Magritte e como presença frequente em diversos programas televisivos.
Já não somos o Portugal de 1910 e muita coisa mudou desde então. No entanto, a crise política, económica e social que hoje vivemos leva-nos a ver mais semelhanças do que diferenças com tão conturbada época. A crise económico financeira, o desemprego, a corrupção, a insegurança e a crise de valores são apenas alguns exemplos que podem pôr em causa a própria democracia. A sociedade parece estar doente e o futuro de Portugal é uma incerteza.
Acreditamos assim, que o nosso convidado será uma mais valia para nos ajudar a compreender e a discutir o tema que propomos.
Contamos com a sua presença e participação no debate, numa altura critica para Portugal, a que ninguém pode estar indiferente.
Recordamos que a entrada é livre.
vem convidá-lo(a) para a sua próxima conferência, no dia 3 de Março (quarta-feira), pelas 21h15, no Palácio da Independência.
"O futuro da democracia em Portugal nos 100 anos da república", pelo Prof. Doutor Miguel Morgado
Para a primeira conferência de 2010, convidámos o Professor Doutor Miguel Morgado, Licenciado em Economia e Mestre e Doutor em Ciência Política, pela Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Paralelamente à docência universitária e à autoria de diversas publicações na sua área técnica, o nosso convidado dedica uma parte significativa do seu tempo ao debate e à acção política, através do blog Cachimbo de Magritte e como presença frequente em diversos programas televisivos.
Já não somos o Portugal de 1910 e muita coisa mudou desde então. No entanto, a crise política, económica e social que hoje vivemos leva-nos a ver mais semelhanças do que diferenças com tão conturbada época. A crise económico financeira, o desemprego, a corrupção, a insegurança e a crise de valores são apenas alguns exemplos que podem pôr em causa a própria democracia. A sociedade parece estar doente e o futuro de Portugal é uma incerteza.
Acreditamos assim, que o nosso convidado será uma mais valia para nos ajudar a compreender e a discutir o tema que propomos.
Contamos com a sua presença e participação no debate, numa altura critica para Portugal, a que ninguém pode estar indiferente.
Recordamos que a entrada é livre.
sexta-feira, 12 de fevereiro de 2010
Não, o que nos está a acontecer não é normal nem tolerável
Por José Manuel Fernandes?
Os casos recentes são apenas as últimas cenas de um pesadelo que se iniciou quando Armando Vara tutelava a RTP
________________________________
A 25 de Junho de 2009, José Sócrates jantou com Henrique Granadeiro na casa de Manuel Pinho. O chairman da PT informou então o primeiro-ministro que a compra da TVI pela empresa de telecomunicações não se concretizaria. No dia seguinte, no Parlamento, Sócrates anuncia aos jornalistas que se vai opor a um negócio que, nessa altura, já não existia. Estranho? Não, como o mesmo Sócrates explicou quarta-feira: "Do ponto de vista formal, o Governo não foi informado."
Pronto, e assim está tudo resolvido. Do "ponto de vista formal" nunca nada aconteceu. A começar pelo conteúdo das escutas reveladas pelo Sol, pois o senhor presidente do Supremo Tribunal e o senhor procurador-geral entenderam não haver indícios de crime contra o Estado de direito nesses documentos.Logo esses documentos não existem. E tudo o resto quer-se fazer passar por "normal".
Ou seja, é normal que um ex-jotinha de 32 anos, Rui Pedro Soares, seja nomeado para a administração da PT e premiado com um salário anual de mais de um milhão de euros. É normal que esse "gestor" em ascensão trate com Armando Vara, um outro "gestor" de fresca data e socrático apadrinhamento, da compra da TVI pela PT e discuta com ele e com Paulo Penedos a melhor forma de afastar José Eduardo Moniz e acabar com o Jornal de Sexta. É normal que um jornal propriedade de um "grupo amigo" publique manchetes falsas para dar uma justificação política e económica à compra da TVI pela PT. É normal que seja depois esse "grupo amigo" a comprar a TVI beneficiando de apoios financeiros do BCP de Armando Vara e da PT. É normal que, na sequência dessa aquisição, Moniz deixe a direcção da estação e acabe oJornal de Sexta.
Se tudo isto é normal, também é normal que o BCP, que tinha uma participação no jornal Sol, tenha criado dificuldades de última hora à viabilização financeira daquele título, quando nele saíram as primeiras notícias sobre a investigação inglesa ao caso Freeport. Tal como é coincidência Vara já ser nessa altura administrador do BCP. Também será normal que o Turismo de Portugal tenha discriminado a TVI em algumas das suas campanhas - o mesmo, de resto, que fez com o PÚBLICO - e que o presidente desse organismo seja Luís Patrão, o velho amigo de Sócrates desde os tempos de liceu na Covilhã. Como normal será Mário Lino, ex-ministro das Obras Públicas, ter reuniões no ministério com Rui Pedro Soares quando o seu interlocutor natural é o presidente da PT. Como Lino disse à Sábado, é assim quando se conhece muita gente nas empresas. Como homem bem relacionado não se estranha que tenha recebido, de acordo com o Correio da Manhã, uma "cunha" de Armando Vara no âmbito do processo Face Oculta. No fundo é tudo boa gente.
Mas como todos estas factos padecem de várias "informalidades", passemos a eventos mais formais, que sabemos mesmo que aconteceram, que foram testemunhados e até deram origem a processos na ERC. Como o das pressões exercidas pelos assessores de José Sócrates para desencorajarem qualquer referência pelas rádios e televisões à investigação do PÚBLICO sobre as condições em que o primeiro-ministro completou a sua licenciatura. Como o de o Expresso, que rompeu o bloqueio e prosseguiu com a investigação, ter sofrido depois um "boicote claro" e "uma hostilidade total do primeiro-ministro", como escreveu esta semana o seu director, Henrique Monteiro. Ou como o das palavras ameaçadoras dirigidas por Sócrates a um jornalista do PÚBLICO por alturas do congresso em que foi eleito líder, em 2004: "Você tem de definir o que quer para a sua vida e para o seu futuro."
Excessos de quem ferve em pouca água? Infelizmente não. A actuação metódica e planeada sempre foram uma marca deste primeiro-ministro e dos que lhe são mais próximos no PS. Por isso, quando Vara teve a tutela da comunicação social, criou um monstro chamado Portugal Global que integrava a RTP, a RDP e a Lusa e nomeou para a sua presidência um deputado do PS, João Carlos Silva. Pouco tempo depois, caído Vara em desgraça, seria José Sócrates a conseguir colocar na RTP o seu amigo Emídio Rangel. Um favor logo retribuído: na noite eleitoral que se seguiu (e que determinaria a demissão de Guterres), os únicos comentadores em estúdio foram o próprio Sócrates e o seu advogado, Daniel Proença de Carvalho; e na curta travessia do deserto até ao PS regressar ao poder, Sócrates pôde ter, a convite de Rangel, um programa semanal de debate com Santana Lopes. Já primeiro-ministro apressou-se a propor um conjunto de leis - estatuto do jornalista, lei da televisão, lei sobre a concentração dos órgãos de informação - que se destinavam, segundo Francisco Pinto Balsemão, a "debilitar e enfraquecer os grupos privados" de informação - ou seja, os que não dependem do Governo.
E não, não é verdade estarmos apenas perante mal-entendidos, excessos pontuais ou uma mera má relação com as críticas: estamos face a uma forma de actuar autoritária e que não olha a meios para atingir os fins. Até porque o que se relatou é apenas a pequena parte do que temos vivido (vide caso Crespo).
Da mesma forma não existe nenhuma má vontade congénita dos jornalistas para fazer de Sócrates, como lamentou Mário Soares, o primeiro-ministro mais mal tratado pelos órgãos de informação. O que houve de novo foi Portugal ter como primeiro-ministro alguém que esteve várias vezes sob investigação judicial (por causa de um aterro sanitário na Cova da Beira, por causa do Freeport), cujo processo de licenciatura levantou dúvidas e que se distinguiu como projectista de maisons no concelho da Guarda. Isto para além de ter mostrado uma tal incontinência ao telemóvel que somou e soma dissabores em escutas realizadas noutros processos, como os da Câmara da Nazaré, da Casa Pia e, agora, no Face Oculta.
Ainda é possível achar que tudo é normal? Ou porventura desculpável? Só se estivéssemos definitivamente anestesiados.
________________________________
A 25 de Junho de 2009, José Sócrates jantou com Henrique Granadeiro na casa de Manuel Pinho. O chairman da PT informou então o primeiro-ministro que a compra da TVI pela empresa de telecomunicações não se concretizaria. No dia seguinte, no Parlamento, Sócrates anuncia aos jornalistas que se vai opor a um negócio que, nessa altura, já não existia. Estranho? Não, como o mesmo Sócrates explicou quarta-feira: "Do ponto de vista formal, o Governo não foi informado."
Pronto, e assim está tudo resolvido. Do "ponto de vista formal" nunca nada aconteceu. A começar pelo conteúdo das escutas reveladas pelo Sol, pois o senhor presidente do Supremo Tribunal e o senhor procurador-geral entenderam não haver indícios de crime contra o Estado de direito nesses documentos.Logo esses documentos não existem. E tudo o resto quer-se fazer passar por "normal".
Ou seja, é normal que um ex-jotinha de 32 anos, Rui Pedro Soares, seja nomeado para a administração da PT e premiado com um salário anual de mais de um milhão de euros. É normal que esse "gestor" em ascensão trate com Armando Vara, um outro "gestor" de fresca data e socrático apadrinhamento, da compra da TVI pela PT e discuta com ele e com Paulo Penedos a melhor forma de afastar José Eduardo Moniz e acabar com o Jornal de Sexta. É normal que um jornal propriedade de um "grupo amigo" publique manchetes falsas para dar uma justificação política e económica à compra da TVI pela PT. É normal que seja depois esse "grupo amigo" a comprar a TVI beneficiando de apoios financeiros do BCP de Armando Vara e da PT. É normal que, na sequência dessa aquisição, Moniz deixe a direcção da estação e acabe oJornal de Sexta.
Se tudo isto é normal, também é normal que o BCP, que tinha uma participação no jornal Sol, tenha criado dificuldades de última hora à viabilização financeira daquele título, quando nele saíram as primeiras notícias sobre a investigação inglesa ao caso Freeport. Tal como é coincidência Vara já ser nessa altura administrador do BCP. Também será normal que o Turismo de Portugal tenha discriminado a TVI em algumas das suas campanhas - o mesmo, de resto, que fez com o PÚBLICO - e que o presidente desse organismo seja Luís Patrão, o velho amigo de Sócrates desde os tempos de liceu na Covilhã. Como normal será Mário Lino, ex-ministro das Obras Públicas, ter reuniões no ministério com Rui Pedro Soares quando o seu interlocutor natural é o presidente da PT. Como Lino disse à Sábado, é assim quando se conhece muita gente nas empresas. Como homem bem relacionado não se estranha que tenha recebido, de acordo com o Correio da Manhã, uma "cunha" de Armando Vara no âmbito do processo Face Oculta. No fundo é tudo boa gente.
Mas como todos estas factos padecem de várias "informalidades", passemos a eventos mais formais, que sabemos mesmo que aconteceram, que foram testemunhados e até deram origem a processos na ERC. Como o das pressões exercidas pelos assessores de José Sócrates para desencorajarem qualquer referência pelas rádios e televisões à investigação do PÚBLICO sobre as condições em que o primeiro-ministro completou a sua licenciatura. Como o de o Expresso, que rompeu o bloqueio e prosseguiu com a investigação, ter sofrido depois um "boicote claro" e "uma hostilidade total do primeiro-ministro", como escreveu esta semana o seu director, Henrique Monteiro. Ou como o das palavras ameaçadoras dirigidas por Sócrates a um jornalista do PÚBLICO por alturas do congresso em que foi eleito líder, em 2004: "Você tem de definir o que quer para a sua vida e para o seu futuro."
Excessos de quem ferve em pouca água? Infelizmente não. A actuação metódica e planeada sempre foram uma marca deste primeiro-ministro e dos que lhe são mais próximos no PS. Por isso, quando Vara teve a tutela da comunicação social, criou um monstro chamado Portugal Global que integrava a RTP, a RDP e a Lusa e nomeou para a sua presidência um deputado do PS, João Carlos Silva. Pouco tempo depois, caído Vara em desgraça, seria José Sócrates a conseguir colocar na RTP o seu amigo Emídio Rangel. Um favor logo retribuído: na noite eleitoral que se seguiu (e que determinaria a demissão de Guterres), os únicos comentadores em estúdio foram o próprio Sócrates e o seu advogado, Daniel Proença de Carvalho; e na curta travessia do deserto até ao PS regressar ao poder, Sócrates pôde ter, a convite de Rangel, um programa semanal de debate com Santana Lopes. Já primeiro-ministro apressou-se a propor um conjunto de leis - estatuto do jornalista, lei da televisão, lei sobre a concentração dos órgãos de informação - que se destinavam, segundo Francisco Pinto Balsemão, a "debilitar e enfraquecer os grupos privados" de informação - ou seja, os que não dependem do Governo.
E não, não é verdade estarmos apenas perante mal-entendidos, excessos pontuais ou uma mera má relação com as críticas: estamos face a uma forma de actuar autoritária e que não olha a meios para atingir os fins. Até porque o que se relatou é apenas a pequena parte do que temos vivido (vide caso Crespo).
Da mesma forma não existe nenhuma má vontade congénita dos jornalistas para fazer de Sócrates, como lamentou Mário Soares, o primeiro-ministro mais mal tratado pelos órgãos de informação. O que houve de novo foi Portugal ter como primeiro-ministro alguém que esteve várias vezes sob investigação judicial (por causa de um aterro sanitário na Cova da Beira, por causa do Freeport), cujo processo de licenciatura levantou dúvidas e que se distinguiu como projectista de maisons no concelho da Guarda. Isto para além de ter mostrado uma tal incontinência ao telemóvel que somou e soma dissabores em escutas realizadas noutros processos, como os da Câmara da Nazaré, da Casa Pia e, agora, no Face Oculta.
Ainda é possível achar que tudo é normal? Ou porventura desculpável? Só se estivéssemos definitivamente anestesiados.
domingo, 6 de dezembro de 2009
CO2 is Not a Pollutant: Debunking a Global-Warming Myth
(Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good - http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com)
In the wake of the “Climate-gate” controversy, a scientist at Princeton University argues for a sensible view on climate change and CO2.
I believe that the increase of carbon dioxide is not a cause for alarm and, in fact, will be good for mankind. Before I explain, let me state clearly where I probably agree with other writers on the climate issue. We have been in a period of global warming over the past 200 years, but there have been several periods, like the last ten years, when the warming has nearly ceased, and there have even been periods of moderate cooling, as from 1940 to 1970. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased from about 280 to 380 parts per million (ppm) over the past century. The combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—has contributed to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. And finally, increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the earth’s surface to warm. The key question is: will the net effect of the warming, and any other effects of the CO2, be good or bad for humanity?
I predict that future historians will look back on this period much as we now view the period just before the passage of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution to prohibit “the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” At the time, the 18th amendment seemed to be exactly the right thing to do—who wanted to be in league with demon rum? More than half the states enacted prohibition laws before the 18th amendment was ratified. Only one state, Rhode Island, voted against the 18th amendment. There were many thoughtful people, including a majority of Rhode Islanders, who thought that prohibition might do more harm than good. But they were completely outmatched by the temperance movement. Then as now, deeply sincere people thought they were saving humanity, be it from the evils of alcohol or CO2. Prohibition was a mistake, and our country has probably still not fully recovered from the damage it did. Institutions like organized crime got their start in that era. Current proposals to curb carbon emissions could lead to different but no less serious negative effects.
But what about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated. Let me turn now to the science and try to explain why I and many scientists like me are not alarmed by increasing levels of CO2.
The earth’s climate really is strongly affected by the greenhouse effect, although the physics is not the same as that which makes real, glassed-in greenhouses work. Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life. However, the largest single contributor to the greenhouse effect is water vapor and clouds, which studies indicate are responsible for between 66% and 85% of the total effect. Carbon dioxide contributes a smaller amount, no more than 25%. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration would produce a small increase in the earth’s temperature—on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. It is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but you are only wearing a windbreaker. To really get warmer, you need to add a warmer jacket. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thinks that this extra jacket is water vapor and clouds.
Since most of the greenhouse effect for the earth is due to water vapor and clouds, added CO2 must substantially increase water’s contribution to lead to the frightening scenarios that are bandied about. The buzz word here is that there is “positive feedback.” Some recent observations, however, have indicated that this positive feedback mechanism may not be as large as previously expected. The evidence here comes from satellite measurements of infrared radiation escaping from the earth into outer space, from measurements of sunlight reflected from clouds and from measurements of the temperature the earth’s surface or of the troposphere, the roughly 10 km thick layer of the atmosphere above the earth’s surface that is filled with churning air and clouds, heated from below at the earth’s surface, and cooled at the top by radiation into space.
But the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing. Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect? There have been similar warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming may very well also be due mostly to natural causes, not to industrial activity.
There is much talk about the “pollutant CO2,” or about “poisoning the atmosphere” with CO2. We are told that we need to minimize our “carbon footprint.” But CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving “pollutant” and “poison” of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. We try to keep CO2 levels in our US Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 times current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels (while too much C02 is poisonous for animals, including humans, no one suggests that anthropogenic emissions could ever cause atmospheric levels to reach anywhere near the level of C02 that is directly toxic).
We are all aware that “the green revolution” has increased crop yields around the world. Part of this development is due to improved crop varieties and better use of mineral fertilizers and herbicides. But no small part of the yield improvement may have come from increased atmospheric levels of CO2. Plants photosynthesize more carbohydrates when they have more CO2. Plants are also more drought-tolerant with more CO2, because they need not “inhale” as much air to get the CO2 needed for photosynthesis. At the same time, the plants need not “exhale” as much water vapor when they are using air enriched in CO2. Plants decrease the number of stomata or air pores on their leaf surfaces in response to increasing atmospheric levels of CO2. They are adapted to changing CO2 levels and they prefer higher levels than those we have at present. If we really were to decrease our current level of CO2 of around 400 ppm to the 270 ppm that prevailed a few hundred years ago, we could lose some of the benefits of the green revolution. Crop yields may well continue to increase as CO2 levels go up, since we are far from the optimum levels for plant growth. Commercial greenhouse operators are advised to add enough CO2 to maintain about 1000 ppm around their plants. One possible conclusion that can be drawn from a recent study by Dr. Robert Mendelsohn at Yale University is that moderate warming may be an overall benefit to mankind in part because it could lead to higher agricultural yields.
In Voltaire’s Candide, Dr. Pangloss repeatedly assured young Candide that they were living in “the best of all possible worlds,” presumably also with the best of all CO2 concentrations. That we are (or were) living at the best of all CO2 concentrations seems to be a tacit assumption of the IPCC executive summaries for policy makers. Enormous effort and imagination have gone into showing that increasing concentrations of CO2 will be catastrophic. Alarmists have said that cities will be flooded by sea-level rises that are ten or more times bigger than even IPCC predicts, there will be mass extinctions of species, billions of people will die, tipping points will render the planet a desert. A few months ago I read that global warming will soon bring on a devastating epidemic of kidney stones. If you write down all the ills attributed to global warming you fill up a very thick book.
It is frequently asserted that there is a consensus behind the idea that there is an impending disaster from climate change, and that it may already be too late to avert this catastrophe, even if we stop burning fossil fuels now. We are told that only a few flat-earthers still have any doubt about the calamitous effects of continued CO2 emissions. There are a number of answers to this assertion. Indeed, we are not facing a crisis unless we create one for ourselves.
The sea level is indeed rising, just as it has for the past 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Fairly accurate measurements of sea level have been available since about 1800. These measurements show no evidence of any acceleration—in spite of the increased levels of CO2. The naturally rising sea level can be a serious local issue for heavily-populated, low-lying areas like New Orleans, where land subsidence compounds the problem. But to think that merely limiting CO2 emissions will stop sea level rise is a dangerous illusion. It is also possible that the warming seas around Antarctica will cause more snowfall over the continent and will counteract the sea-level rise. Indeed, recent observations suggest that exactly this effect is operative in certain parts of Antarctica where ice coverage has been increasing. In any case, the rising sea level is a problem that needs quick local action for locations like New Orleans rather than slow action globally.
It is regrettable that the climate-change issue has become confused with immediate and serious problems like secure energy supplies, protecting our environment, and figuring out where future generations will get energy supplies or chemical feedstocks after we have burned all the fossil fuel we can find. We should not confuse these laudable goals with hysterics about carbon footprints. For example, when weighing pluses and minuses of the continued or increased use of coal, our worry should not be increased atmospheric CO2, which may well be good for mankind. We should focus on real issues like damage to the land and waterways by strip mining, inadequate remediation, hazards to miners, the release of real pollutants and poisons like mercury, other heavy metals, organic carcinogens, etc. Much of the potential harm from coal mining can be eliminated, for example, by like strict requirements that strip-mined land be restored to a condition that is as least as good, and preferably better than when the mining began. Life is about making decisions and decisions are about trade-offs. We can choose to promote investment in technology that addresses real problems and scientific research that will let us cope with real problems more efficiently. Or we can act on unreasonable fears and suppress energy use, economic growth and the benefits that come from the creation of national wealth.
William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University. From 1991 to 1993 he served as director of the Office of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy.
This paper was adapted from testimony given before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on February 25, 2009.
Copyright 2009 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
sábado, 28 de novembro de 2009
Falso coma de Rom Houben não é caso isolado
Durante 23 anos ele pôde sentir e ouvir
“Eu gritava mas ninguém me escutava”, declarou Ron Houben, agora com 46 anos, à revista alemã Der Spiegel. O paciente, aficcionado por artes marciais e estudante de engenharia, passou 23 anos em um suposto estado de coma após um acidente de trânsito. Em 2006, Houben conseguiu novamente se comunicar, por meio de um teclado especial, graças a que o neurologista Steven Laureys, da Universidade de Lieja, descobrisse que os médicos tinham se equivocado em seu diagnóstico inicial. Sua história foi revelada esta semana através de um ensaio publicado na revista BioMedCentral Neurology.IncomunicávelPouco tempo depois do acidente, ocorrido em 1983, os médicos e enfermeiros que atenderam Houben na cidade de Zolder (Bélgica), asseguraram que não existia nenhuma esperança de que pudesse despertar do suposto coma.“Eu gritava sem que ninguém pudesse escutar”, assegurou Houben. “Fui testemunha do meu sofrimento enquanto meus médicos tentavam falar comigo, até o dia em que renunciaram”, indicou.O paciente assinalou que, ainda que permaneceu tanto tempo incomunicável, “agora quero ler, falar com meus amigos por meio do computador e aproveitar minha vida, agora as pessoas sabem que não estou morto”.Sua mãe, Fina Houben, que cuidou dele durante todos estes anos, assegurou que sempre acreditou que seu filho estava consciente. “Pequenas coisas me demonstravam isso. Quando eu lhe dizia que me olhasse, ele levantava um pouco a cabeça e me olhava um pouco. Dizia-lhe para virar a cabeça, e ele tentava”.Por sua parte, o neurologista Steven Laureys assinalou que cerca de 40% dos casos em que se diagnostica estado vegetal são equivocados e que um estudo mais exaustivo pode revelar neste percentual vários sinais de consciência.Laureys conta que com a nova tecnologia de “scanning”, os especialistas puderam demonstrar que a atividade cerebral do paciente não tinha sido interrompida. Logo utilizaram um instrumento de alta sensibilidade em que puderam registrar mínimos movimentos dos quais se valeram para “falar com Rom”, que pôde contar sua história.Dr. Laureys sustenta em seu informe que o termo “estado vegetal”, em grande parte dos casos, consiste em uma questão de “etiquetas que se colocam no paciente” e que podem marcar uma grande diferença entre a vida e a morte.O próprio Houben, ao se comunicar, indicou: “se uma pessoa em uma cama de hospital tem uma etiqueta em que diz “estado de mínima consciência” ou “estado vegetal”, dificilmente se poderia tirar”.Sobre este tema, o médico Fulvio De Nigris, diretor da casa de cuidados intensivos “Luca De Nigris”, em Bolonha, assinalou que tanto para ele como para seus colegas, este fato “não é uma novidade”, e que, ao contrário, pode reforçar “a esperança que os familiares têm de que qualquer coisa pode ocorrer”, disse à Rádio Vaticano.Nigris assegurou que o aspecto mais difícil e mais valente nestes casos é “olhar para estas pessoas com os olhos da sensibilidade, da sociabilidade e da democracia”.
Carmen Elena Villa (in zenit.org)
segunda-feira, 9 de novembro de 2009
The Financial Crisis and the Challenge of Natural Law
by Harold James
Is the current financial crisis simply a technical failure, or does it derive from some more basic problem? Economists may need to begin addressing fundamental questions concerned with value, and for that, they may turn to the natural law tradition.
One of the fallouts of the global financial crisis, especially in the wake of the Lehman collapse in September 2008, has been a questioning of the value of much economics, whether as delivered by the mathematical adepts of sophisticated financial modeling in the business world, or by academia. Both kinds of economics promised a rational world of ever-increasing happiness and stability. But now that tool box appears to be rather empty.
Many observers have commented that much conventional economics has failed empirically, in that it ignored themes such as financial instability or the possibility of multiple equilibria leading to sub-optimal outcomes. Such prominent figures as Paul Krugman have joined in the orgy of recrimination and castigation (though rarely self-castigation).There is no doubt about the extent of the empirical shortcomings, and that many prominent economists followed the maker of the rational choice revolution, Robert Lucas, in erroneously claiming that improved economics made financial crises an impossibility. Consequently, many people, including many economists, have complained that “economic theories failed just when we needed them most.”
As a result, the crisis has led to a battery of worrying policy initiatives. Will temporary surges in state spending to deal with the aftermath of banking crises lead to permanently higher levels of government spending and indebtedness? How can they be financed? Is there a danger of inflationary developments as a consequence of ballooning public sector deficits? Citizens should ask precisely what is worrying in the new policy initiatives: only with an articulation of that concern will it be possible to formulate legitimate policies. Often, complaints about the inadequacy of economics are linked to advocacy of some policy position in response to the crisis. Such policy positions are fiercely contested, and many of them appear linked to particular and powerful interests: banks and financial services, lawyers, automobile producers and automobile trade unions are all groups that have tried to assert that a general good depends on the subvention and rescue of their particular kind of activity.
Most recently, the issue of executive compensation has dominated national and international debates. What sorts of compensation level are appropriate, and how should these levels be determined? What criteria can be used in setting levels of compensation? Or is this an activity which the state should not be involved in at all, and which should be left as the outcome of market processes? The most divisive issue at the G-20 Pittsburgh meeting concerned precisely the appropriate response to the problem of remuneration in the financial sector. Most Americans are prepared to argue that high pay levels are not appropriate where losses mean that financial institutions need to be bailed out with public money. Some others argue that a distorted incentive system in the past led bankers to take inappropriate risks, and that consequently, for pragmatic reasons, the incentives should be better adjusted to mirror long-term performance (and also long-term social or general gains). By contrast, some European governments and thinkers suggested that excessive pay levels were in themselves wrong—regardless of whether they led to losses and inappropriate gains or not.
None of these controversies really address the causes of the perceived failure of conventional economics. The question remains whether this is simply a technical failure, or whether it derives from some more basic problem. Is there a more general failure because of an unwillingness among economists to discuss fundamental questions concerned with value?
What are the value of public goods such as currency stability? Why should we place a value on open markets? For what reasons should people have the opportunity of undertaking employment?
Sometimes discussions of such motivations revolve around concepts of natural rights: a right to employment, to a fair income, or to access to markets. What is the source of such rights, and how can conflicts of rights be arbitrated?
It is not surprising, then, that there is a new concern of some economists with justice and with ways of interpreting justice that do not necessarily involve the clash of two or more conflicting rights but rather as a way of developing potentials that are inherent in human beings. One interesting consequence of this new concern has been a revived interest in how different cultures have handled the problem of clashes of interest, as in Amartya Sen’s new book The Idea of Justice. Often the idea of precepts that can be derived from reason is traced back to Greek philosophy, especially to Aristotle, and especially as mediated in medieval philosophy in the writings of Averroes and Aquinas. But Sen has pointed out how Indian thinkers evolved a rather parallel discourse to that of Aristotle; Arthur Waldron has identified the same debate in China over two millennia ago.
It is reasonable to think that the crisis in empirical economics and the broader crisis in values are connected. This is where natural law thinking can be a powerful corrective. For in the natural law tradition, a body of guiding principles can be derived from the application of reason. But integrating the natural law tradition with contemporary economics may prove difficult.
One outstanding problem is that differing traditions of analysis have no way of speaking directly to each other. Moral philosophy is normative, while economics self-consciously avoids the creation of norms, and instead analyzes the relationships inherent in empirical data. The different approaches look as a consequence like endless parallel bars, inviting impossible intellectual and moral gymnastics between is and ought.
Both disciplines in consequence have their own very distinct version of a crisis. For moral philosophers, the world of the market does not behave as they hold it should, while economists have discovered that the market does not behave as they think it will.
There are also different views of the time framework for analysis, each of which presents its own peculiar problems. The concepts of justice are eternally valid, with the result that many will ask how they should adjust to a world which is constantly changing and generating new problems that require new analyses. By contrast, the problem of utility is that it may be a very short-term concept. Indeed, much of the literature on happiness has been devoted to showing that many forms of consumption generate only a short term surge in happiness without leading to a long-term increase in wellbeing. As a result, many argue that a truer measure of felicity would need to examine long-term contentment. Latin distinguishes very clearly between the short-term state of happiness (felix) and the longer-term state (beatus).
The most basic issue in the debate on the contribution of natural law thinking to economics is the question of the realization of human freedom. Over the past thirty years, a prominent theme of much analysis has been that political and economic freedom produce benefits, in particular gains in well-being. Sophisticated measures such as those provided annually by Freedom House are used to establish the empirical veracity (over fairly narrowly defined time periods) of this social-science claim. A parallel stream of thought tried to make the claim that religious practice was desirable and beneficial because—again as demonstrated empirically—it was associated with gains in income and wealth. The social-science analysis of religion in this kind of way goes back at least to Max Weber’s famous identification of the Protestant ethic with the “spirit of capitalism.”
The empirical argument for faith and freedom can be deeply distorted and quite destructive. Freedom has a value—or represents a truth—in itself. Religious values are not derived from their potential material benefits but from a transcendent order. Even though it may be true that faith and love represent a powerful tool in tackling poverty, they do that because of their intrinsic value as expressions of what is truly human. The greatest contribution that the natural law tradition provides is its powerful insistence on a hierarchy of value, in which value as such is recognized, rather than appearing as an instrumental tool for some other purpose.
One of the fallouts of the global financial crisis, especially in the wake of the Lehman collapse in September 2008, has been a questioning of the value of much economics, whether as delivered by the mathematical adepts of sophisticated financial modeling in the business world, or by academia. Both kinds of economics promised a rational world of ever-increasing happiness and stability. But now that tool box appears to be rather empty.
Many observers have commented that much conventional economics has failed empirically, in that it ignored themes such as financial instability or the possibility of multiple equilibria leading to sub-optimal outcomes. Such prominent figures as Paul Krugman have joined in the orgy of recrimination and castigation (though rarely self-castigation).There is no doubt about the extent of the empirical shortcomings, and that many prominent economists followed the maker of the rational choice revolution, Robert Lucas, in erroneously claiming that improved economics made financial crises an impossibility. Consequently, many people, including many economists, have complained that “economic theories failed just when we needed them most.”
As a result, the crisis has led to a battery of worrying policy initiatives. Will temporary surges in state spending to deal with the aftermath of banking crises lead to permanently higher levels of government spending and indebtedness? How can they be financed? Is there a danger of inflationary developments as a consequence of ballooning public sector deficits? Citizens should ask precisely what is worrying in the new policy initiatives: only with an articulation of that concern will it be possible to formulate legitimate policies. Often, complaints about the inadequacy of economics are linked to advocacy of some policy position in response to the crisis. Such policy positions are fiercely contested, and many of them appear linked to particular and powerful interests: banks and financial services, lawyers, automobile producers and automobile trade unions are all groups that have tried to assert that a general good depends on the subvention and rescue of their particular kind of activity.
Most recently, the issue of executive compensation has dominated national and international debates. What sorts of compensation level are appropriate, and how should these levels be determined? What criteria can be used in setting levels of compensation? Or is this an activity which the state should not be involved in at all, and which should be left as the outcome of market processes? The most divisive issue at the G-20 Pittsburgh meeting concerned precisely the appropriate response to the problem of remuneration in the financial sector. Most Americans are prepared to argue that high pay levels are not appropriate where losses mean that financial institutions need to be bailed out with public money. Some others argue that a distorted incentive system in the past led bankers to take inappropriate risks, and that consequently, for pragmatic reasons, the incentives should be better adjusted to mirror long-term performance (and also long-term social or general gains). By contrast, some European governments and thinkers suggested that excessive pay levels were in themselves wrong—regardless of whether they led to losses and inappropriate gains or not.
None of these controversies really address the causes of the perceived failure of conventional economics. The question remains whether this is simply a technical failure, or whether it derives from some more basic problem. Is there a more general failure because of an unwillingness among economists to discuss fundamental questions concerned with value?
What are the value of public goods such as currency stability? Why should we place a value on open markets? For what reasons should people have the opportunity of undertaking employment?
Sometimes discussions of such motivations revolve around concepts of natural rights: a right to employment, to a fair income, or to access to markets. What is the source of such rights, and how can conflicts of rights be arbitrated?
It is not surprising, then, that there is a new concern of some economists with justice and with ways of interpreting justice that do not necessarily involve the clash of two or more conflicting rights but rather as a way of developing potentials that are inherent in human beings. One interesting consequence of this new concern has been a revived interest in how different cultures have handled the problem of clashes of interest, as in Amartya Sen’s new book The Idea of Justice. Often the idea of precepts that can be derived from reason is traced back to Greek philosophy, especially to Aristotle, and especially as mediated in medieval philosophy in the writings of Averroes and Aquinas. But Sen has pointed out how Indian thinkers evolved a rather parallel discourse to that of Aristotle; Arthur Waldron has identified the same debate in China over two millennia ago.
It is reasonable to think that the crisis in empirical economics and the broader crisis in values are connected. This is where natural law thinking can be a powerful corrective. For in the natural law tradition, a body of guiding principles can be derived from the application of reason. But integrating the natural law tradition with contemporary economics may prove difficult.
One outstanding problem is that differing traditions of analysis have no way of speaking directly to each other. Moral philosophy is normative, while economics self-consciously avoids the creation of norms, and instead analyzes the relationships inherent in empirical data. The different approaches look as a consequence like endless parallel bars, inviting impossible intellectual and moral gymnastics between is and ought.
Both disciplines in consequence have their own very distinct version of a crisis. For moral philosophers, the world of the market does not behave as they hold it should, while economists have discovered that the market does not behave as they think it will.
There are also different views of the time framework for analysis, each of which presents its own peculiar problems. The concepts of justice are eternally valid, with the result that many will ask how they should adjust to a world which is constantly changing and generating new problems that require new analyses. By contrast, the problem of utility is that it may be a very short-term concept. Indeed, much of the literature on happiness has been devoted to showing that many forms of consumption generate only a short term surge in happiness without leading to a long-term increase in wellbeing. As a result, many argue that a truer measure of felicity would need to examine long-term contentment. Latin distinguishes very clearly between the short-term state of happiness (felix) and the longer-term state (beatus).
The most basic issue in the debate on the contribution of natural law thinking to economics is the question of the realization of human freedom. Over the past thirty years, a prominent theme of much analysis has been that political and economic freedom produce benefits, in particular gains in well-being. Sophisticated measures such as those provided annually by Freedom House are used to establish the empirical veracity (over fairly narrowly defined time periods) of this social-science claim. A parallel stream of thought tried to make the claim that religious practice was desirable and beneficial because—again as demonstrated empirically—it was associated with gains in income and wealth. The social-science analysis of religion in this kind of way goes back at least to Max Weber’s famous identification of the Protestant ethic with the “spirit of capitalism.”
The empirical argument for faith and freedom can be deeply distorted and quite destructive. Freedom has a value—or represents a truth—in itself. Religious values are not derived from their potential material benefits but from a transcendent order. Even though it may be true that faith and love represent a powerful tool in tackling poverty, they do that because of their intrinsic value as expressions of what is truly human. The greatest contribution that the natural law tradition provides is its powerful insistence on a hierarchy of value, in which value as such is recognized, rather than appearing as an instrumental tool for some other purpose.
Harold James is Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, where he is also the Director of the Program in Ethics, Culture, and Economic Development. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.
Copyright 2009 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
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