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Doing No [Business With] Evil
China, a country of over one billion people with arguably the world’s fastest growing economy, presents an attractive investment opportunity for many Western companies. However, doing business under China’s totalitarian regime comes at a price. For Google, the world’s largest search firm, this meant bowing to the government’s strict censorship rules for search results, which compel Google to remove, for instance, references to the Tiananmen Square massacre. For a company whose corporate motto is “Do no evil,” this acquiescence to the regime’s restrictions on basic liberties has long confounded many in the West.
However, following a recent cyber attack on the company that targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google announced an about face on its earlier policy. According to a note published on the company’s public blog:
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
While Google could potentially lose the millions of dollars it has spent on its China operation, this is a risk it could have foreseen long before deciding to do business in a country with an appalling record on civil liberties and property rights. As The Undercurrent’s Gena Gorlin prognosticated in 2006:
If Google applied the same principled approach to its dealings in China that it has applied (up to now) to its search sorting, it would see that no long-term corporate strategy is possible in China—a country where government thugs can capriciously intrude into a corporation's affairs at any moment, for any reason… Google's presence in China may just as easily result in physical harm to both its own employees and to Chinese citizens whose private information the government can access with Google's help.
The company’s public announcement has shined a spotlight on censorship in China, sending tremors through the Communist Party leadership, but it has equally shined a light on the practice of doing business with an inherently corrupt regime. While Google deserves praise for its long overdue but principled stand against Chinese suppression of freedom of speech, many other Western companies continue to accede to China’s oppressive demands. As Google discovered, their acquiescence only furthers the evil ends of a totalitarian regime. At what point will other companies recognize the real cost—the sacrifice of human lives, liberties, and property—that inevitably follows from doing business with evil?
Campus Media Response: The Roots of the Objectivist Campus Revival
Objectivists Expand Presence
The Stanford Review, January 8, 2010
Dear editors,
Jordan Carr claims that a revival of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism at Stanford does not result from any “attitudinal shift” among students. Instead, he thinks, a philosophy that upholds reason, egoism and capitalism is appealing to college students merely because they have “minimal responsibilities to others.”
Does Carr really believe that students such as Dakin Sloss are interested in Rand’s philosophy only because it appears to rationalize breaking free from obligations to others? Why assume so blithely that these students neither have nor recognize such obligations? And why assume that the interests of others cannot be important components of one’s own self-interest?
Indeed, why would Dakin Sloss, the egoist, spend so much time spreading Rand’s ideas of egoism, unless he thought that by helping others to pursue their own happiness, he would be making the world better for himself?
Carr’s greatest injustice is to neglect the possibility that students like Sloss are serious about the possibility that Rand’s ideas are actually true. Ayn Rand herself speculated about the appeal of her ideas among the young. Carr would do well to betray less cynicism about his fellow students, and consider her explanation:
“It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption, whose rapidity differs from man to man. . . . Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential”
(Introduction to The Fountainhead, 1968, pg. 6).
Sincerely,
Valery Publius
www.the-undercurrent.com
This week’s CMR post was drawn from our regularly updated blog of comment-worthy campus opinion pieces. If you would like to receive regular email updates with suggested approaches to writing your own CMR posts, please subscribe to the CMR email list or visit the CMR information page
Photos from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/200330559/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3433398238/
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Less Isn’t More
The flawed logic of conservationism
One can hardly escape the appeals to one of today’s most popular causes: conservationism. The message seems to be everywhere: conserve electricity, conserve water, conserve gas, conserve plastic, conserve paper. The state of California has even begun regulating large screen televisions in the name of conservation.
To many, it seems like a no-brainer. Conservationists claim a long list of benefits, including positive economic and environmental effects, and even a more satisfying way of life. Conservation.org, for example, argues that conservation can “ensure a better life for everyone, everywhere.” The city of Santa Clara, like many other cities and companies, proclaims that “it pays to go green” on their city-sponsored conservation website. The logic seems quite straightforward: the less we use, the more we have.
The simplicity of the argument, however, is deceptive. It is true, for instance, that you still have an apple if you don’t eat it. But this is not automatically a good thing: You’re not nourished as a result, nor do you have more apples than you started with. Putting it in economic terms, conservation is not production—it is simply the act of delaying or forgoing consumption. Sometimes conservation does help create values, such as when you save your stock seed for future planting rather than eating it (or feeding it to the birds). But conserving is not creating, just as fasting is not eating—it is the latter in both cases that ultimately sustains life.
This is important in light of the claim that conservation is the key to a better world. Consider for a moment how we historically arrived at today’s standard of living. Things like electricity, gasoline, clean water, and even food have been, at various points in history, rare luxuries. Over time, consumption of all these things has increased dramatically – we now use thousands of times more energy every day than was possible in centuries past. And yet, as a result, our quality of life has drastically improved. Indeed, we now have more access to all these goods than ever before.
On the premise of conservationism, this is a puzzling outcome. If conservation were the way to a “better life”, then our lives should have been reduced to worse and worse misery over time. But they haven’t, because conservation was not, until recently, sold as the road to prosperity. Rather, it was production that was seen as the antidote to poverty. By producing more, we have more to consume, and our lives are better as a result.
If anything, conservationism has achieved its favorable reputation only through its historical link with production. When your grandmother encourages you to pinch pennies, it is because you can eventually use that money to buy a car or a house—that is, you can ultimately consume your savings. But those who advocate conservationism ignore this connection—and ignore the fact that production, not conservation, is the primary means by which we create the values our lives require.
Should the country have decided in 1920 that too much electricity was being used, and launched a movement to conserve, to use less—if it had begun to regulate the energy use of rotary telephones and Model T’s the way the government is now regulating plasma TVs—if people had felt guilty about the resources needed for newly invented frozen food, and become reluctant to partake in the immense benefits of budding modern transportation—we would be living today in a much more impoverished world, without the benefit brought about by the cultural embrace of mass production.
Production, not conservation, is the only means that can “ensure a better life for everyone, everywhere.” To make possible bigger, better things in greater quantities, more has to be produced. Improvements like the wide availability of modern medicine, iPods, cars, and the like did not come about from conserving resources; it was new labs, hospitals, factories, universities, and power plants that made them possible.
What then do conservationist policies actually achieve? In practice, they ask for all of us to surrender our personal values–the convenience and benefits of driving, the taste of “wasteful” foods like meat, the relaxing entertainment of a big screen TV, and even the pleasure of a long, relaxing shower (to name just a few). In effect, they urge us to be satisfied with less, to shun expansion and growth, to accept a comfortable stagnation—to live lesser lives. They demand this on the grounds of an alleged conflict between enjoying your life and being “responsible” .
Thankfully, there is no such conflict. The course of the industrial revolution and the lead-up to today’s relative abundance demonstrate that man is capable of creating for himself a better world by producing all of the things he needs, in ever greater quantity and quality. Instead of demanding sacrifice and conservation, we should be actively encouraging greater production in every way possible (including savings for the sake of enabling production). If California, for example, enabled rising energy production by increasing the freedom of producers, there would be no basis to consider banning TVs or any other life-serving good. If production were once again defended as morally proper, there is no telling what abundance we could create in this century, and the lengths to which it would improve our quality of life. That is far more practical than anything conservationism could hope to achieve.
To Judge or Not To Judge Mark Sanford
Writing for South Carolina’s Sun News, journalist Isaac Bailey offers us cutting commentary about how his State’s General Assembly recently failed to impeach governor Mark Sanford. Sanford has admitted to lying to his State, flaunting State travel laws, and engaging in a range of disgraceful behaviors to cover his tracks while engaged in an extra-marital affair. Bailey catalogues the negative consequences the governor’s bad choices have had on South Carolina—one of which is potentially costing the State thousands of jobs because of his tarnished reputation.
Bailey then writes, sarcastically, that Governor Sanford “can do all these things because moral judgment ‘rests solely with his creator’”. Bailey’s jab at turning-the-other-cheek is pertinent, given that South Carolina is a Bible Belt state full of citizens steeped in Christian forgiveness.
Bailey’s conclusion? Biting sarcasm:
“Congratulations, Gov. Sanford. While campaigning, you promised to set a new standard of leadership. Mission accomplished.
I'm sure those vying to replace you are much obliged.
Now they know they don't have to be morally principled or disciplined or even know how or attempt to lead.
They know that once elected, they don't even have to show up for work.”
Bailey’s sarcasm, unfortunately, fails to offer an alternative. It does not offer any deeper understanding of why South Carolina’s General Assembly—politicians who day and night kowtow to public sentiment—were willing to let Sanford remain as Governor.
The problem that Bailey refers to only sarcastically and in passing—the religion-inspired aversion to judgment—is actually the real culprit protecting men like Sanford. What Bailey identifies acerbically is in fact the real source of Sanford’s ability to keep his job—the public’s unwillingness to judge him by his actions.
Consider a different view:
One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment.
Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.
It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men’s virtues and from condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you—whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?
These words, from philosopher Ayn Rand, reflect a different approach to moral evaluation, one in which the proper maxim is not “judge not lest ye be judged” but rather, “judge and be prepared to be judged”.
On Rand’s view, there is nothing to gain and much to lose by withholding judgment, and the truth is a value we should embrace, not shirk. Bailey gets us halfway there—he offers us a clear account of the moral corruption of Sanford, and of his enablers in the General Assembly (and, by implication, in the general public). But he does not go far enough in implicating the underlying moral timidity that deserves our real scrutiny, and which will have to be discredited if people like Mark Sanford are to get what they deserve.
Toddlers--Selfish or Selfless?
Are children naturally altruistic? A recent study seems to suggest so:
“When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help" Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October.
Dr. Tomasello’s research shows that very young children offer helpful behavior indiscriminately, and then later as they grow, come to direct it more selectively towards specific individuals. From this, Tomasello reasons that children start out with an innately altruistic impulse, one which then wanes as the child grows. Implicit in the Times article—and presumably in the study itself—is the idea that the child’s helpful behavior is inherently an expression of altruism, the selfless sacrifice of one’s own goals and needs to serve the interests of others. In other words, helping others is taken to be antithetical to self-interest.
According to the Times, Tomasello argues that because a child becomes more selective as he ages, the child is moving away from what is initially an altruistic impulse. But a simpler explanation is that the change is just a change in degree. A growing child initially finds joy in human interaction generally, and then gradually comes to care about certain specific people more than others. The fact that he develops stronger and narrower preferences over time is not a reason to think that he was initially being self-effacing—it just shows that with experience he comes to refine and develop his judgment of which people matter most to him.
In helping those we care about—including in some situations complete strangers—we do not necessarily subordinate our own goals and values to the needs of others. Such a view would imply that we don’t have anything to gain from cooperative endeavors. In fact, we gain tremendously from working and socializing with others. As Tomasello himself points out, even in hunter-gatherer societies, let alone our modern world today, individuals benefit immensely from cooperative endeavors. Given this benefit, there are selfish reasons to be kind to others—i.e. to treat them as the potential value that they are.
Dr. Tomasello, in identifying that young children engage in spontaneous acts of helpfulness, is recognizing that young children come to (implicitly) value human interaction, i.e. that they realize and appreciate how much it can benefit their own lives. This makes sense—human relationships are one of the greatest joys that life has to offer. But for precisely this reason, such acts of kindness are a far cry from exhibiting a tendency towards self-sacrificial altruism. They are, to the contrary, the natural expression of self-interest that one would expect to see at an age when altruism-induced guilt and cynicism have not yet made their mark.
To learn more about the difference between cooperation and altruism, see:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html
Campus Media Response: Holiday Materialism Serves Spiritual Needs
Consumerism masks true significance of Christmas
The Daily Nebraskan, December 7, 2009
Dear editors,
Monica Sanford rehearses the cliché that consumerism and materialism have corrupted the "true significance" of Christmas. Though Sanford is not a Christian, she trots out the artificial meaning Christians have assigned to the holiday to support the cliché.
It is widely acknowledged that Christianity co-opted December 25th from pre-Christian pagans, who at this time of year celebrated the first lengthening of daylight hours during the depth of winter. One does not need to believe in a sun god to appreciate the psychological and spiritual significance of a winter holiday—and one cannot neglect the material dimension of this spiritual celebration.
In the darkness of winter, we need to see light. The need is not merely psychological. Along with the dark, there is the cold and the general onslaught of the elements. In winter, we remember more clearly how our survival depends on the outcome of our struggle with nature.
At Christmas, we purposefully enjoy the warmth of our homes, the comfort of new clothing, the delight of candy and cookies, and the exotic luxury of placing a tree in our living rooms. By decorating with colorful lights and reveling in material consumption, we celebrate our victory over the elements.
Gift exchange is not incidental to this celebration. Well-chosen gifts express intimacy towards our loved ones, when we thoughtfully anticipate their interests or needs.
Is brightening a dreary winter and sharing material comfort with friends significant for the human spirit? If the spirit lives here on earth—contrary to Christianity—then the answer is yes.
Sincerely,
Valery Publius
www.the-undercurrent.com
Photo by Miss Bossy on Flickr
Campus Media Response: Immigration – Both Left and Right are Wrong
Campus groups share thoughts on immigration reform
Daily Illini, November 20, 2009
Dear Daily Illini,
In her article, Lori Bell portrays the classic positions of the Right and the Left on immigration. The Right wants a slower influx of immigrants, and wants measures in place to ensure that they will not receive government aid. The Left wants more immigrants to come to America, and wants every single one of them to be offered a full slate of government aid. The two sides present their positions as if they were the only available options, with disregard to any other solution.
The Left’s position is clear: Americans—the haves—ought to sacrifice their own well being for the sake of foreigners seeking to immigrate—the have-nots of the moment. The Right’s position, however, is much more hypocritical. The Right alleges that it is concerned about the economic toll that increased immigration will place on Americans. But if this is really the concern, why not advocate for free immigration with no welfare for immigrants? Such a plan easily addresses the alleged problem—it requires no sacrifices from current American citizens, and allows immigrants to enter the country freely to produce and trade.
The United States is a free country built by the pioneering immigrant spirit that yearns for freedom. “Receive the fugitive,” Thomas Paine implored Americans in 1776, “and prepare an asylum for mankind”. Paine recognized that part of being a free country is the right to let people come and work as they wish, so long as they respect the law. How could one claim to stand for freedom, while denying others the right to be free?
Sorry to say for the Right, but to stand for freedom while opposing free immigration is a contradiction in terms. You can’t be an advocate of freedom while forbidding your own citizens from employing and trading with men cursed to be born in non-free countries. (And sorry to say for the Left, but freedom does not mean the right to take things from hard working Americans and give them to the “needy”–whether American or not.)
Many on the Right argue that immigration would cost Americans jobs, money, or their culture, but this is a smokescreen. No American has a right to a job, or to a wage, or to make his neighbor speak his language. He has a right only to his life and what he can produce, so an immigrant takes nothing from him. And by allowing more immigrants to enter the country, Americans invite more competition, more opportunity, and more people of ability into their borders. Furthermore, without welfare, immigrants would work to support all the institutions and businesses Americans already enjoy, thus strengthening the economy.
To oppose free immigration is to stand against the very idea of freedom. Freedom is not a nationalistic dogma, it is a philosophic principle that should know no borders, and it should certainly not be limited by an artificial cap. It is a right all men have, and Americans should be the first to offer it to them as the champion of personal liberty.
Sincerely,
Daniel Casper
The Undercurrent, Guest Editor
www.the-undercurrent.com
Photo by Alex Jagendorf on Flickr.
Obama's Cynical View of Human Nature
President Obama has received praise from left and right for his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Commentators applauded Obama’s recognition that force and war are sometimes necessary to secure peace. Obama openly states that evil exists in the world, and that force is sometimes the only way to eradicate that evil. “A nonviolent movement,” he reminds us, “could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”
But Obama goes further than simply asserting the need for force. He also gives us his grounds for holding this view: “To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism—it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
Force is necessary, Obama seems to be arguing, because man is flawed. Contrary to the President’s own prefatory comment however, this is a call to cynicism. A recognition of history—the imperfections of man—the limits of reason? Are these not indicators of a cynical view of human nature?
Perhaps the widespread praise springs not merely from Obama’s acknowledgement that force is necessary, but from his underlying appeal to an equally widespread view of human nature—a view that sees man as inherently flawed. In different ways, both the left and the right accept this view—so it is any surprise that they both admired the President’s application of it?
The President of the United States of America had a world stage upon which he could have validated and celebrated human nature. He could have said that force is necessary because some men choose to abandon their human nature—a nature which is good and noble and capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. He could have said that force is necessary because human beings possess the power of reason, and that in reason the appropriate response to someone who chooses to live like a brute is to treat them like a brute through retaliatory force.
Instead, Obama justified his position by cashing in on the age-old idea of original sin. Rather than offering a fresh analysis of the nature of evil, he pleased left and right with the same appeals to the human imperfection that have long dominated the political and cultural landscape. Fortunately, this view is false. The choices of some to engage in evil speak only of them, not of human nature as a whole, and we, the innocent, should reject the idea that their actions incriminate us in any way.
Photo by Activioslo on Flickr.
Rhodes Scholars take the Road to Wall Street
Elliot Gerson, secretary of the Rhodes trust, points to an interesting trend: In the past thirty or so years, Rhodes Scholars have disproportionately chosen to go into Wall Street careers. He writes:
Gerson notes that some of those who have gone into business "have gifts that realistically could [have been] expected to lead to world-changing breakthroughs, cures or innovations; to greater respect for politics; or to hundreds of profoundly moved and inspired students." But in going to Wall Street in pursuit of profits, they abandon this idealism. In choosing to make money, they forsake the more noble career that could have been theirs.
The root of the problem, according to Gerson, is too much money on Wall Street. He laments that what many hoped would be "a silver lining of last year's financial crisis"—a significant drop in earnings differentials on Wall Street—has turned out not to have occurred, and concludes cynically, "So how many more of America's young and brightest will ask themselves what kind of chumps they are to give up the chance to earn 100 or 500 times as much as their mentors, their doctors, their favorite professors, their idols and heroes?" <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112003374.html>.
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand presents an entirely different view of money:
"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.'
In short, Ayn Rand viewed the act of making money as the most noble, productive goal a person could hold. She rejected the notion that we should spend our lives, not trying to achieve our values, but sacrificing them for the supposed betterment of humanity.
She considered producing values—whether in the form of creating art, researching a new technology, or acquiring stock trading skills—a primary virtue. And money symbolized and quantified that virtue. Sure, she knew that some people had pretentious motives—but she didn’t see that as essential or important or representative of the value-producing, money-making personality.
Those Rhodes scholars that have pursued careers in Wall Street in an effort to honestly earn a high standard of living should be commended for their dedication to such a demanding, important industry. Instead of condemning their choice, we should be supporting these individuals, who are some of the brightest people in our nation today. And we should applaud them for exercising their high-mindedness in the pursuit of lofty profits.
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