The Meaning of New Year’s Resolutions

Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute has written a great column about the significance of New Year’s resolutions and why so many people find it hard to keep them:

Every New Year’s Eve millions of Americans make New Year’s resolutions. Whether the resolution is to get out of debt, to spend more time with loved ones, or to quit smoking, these resolutions have one thing in common: they are goals to make our lives better.

Unfortunately, this ritual commitment to self-improvement is widely viewed as something of a joke–in part because New Year’s resolutions go so notoriously unmet. After years of watching others–or themselves–excitedly commit to a new goal, only to abandon the quest by March, many come to conclude that New Year’s resolutions are an exercise in futility that should not be taken seriously. “The silly season is upon us,” writes a columnist for the Washington Post, “when people feel compelled to remake themselves with new year’s resolutions.”

But such a cynical attitude is false and self-destructive…

You can find the rest of the article here.

Putting It In Reverse

The once stalwart US auto industry has been brought to its knees. A plethora of problems, including poor management decisions and crippling labor laws, have virtually wiped out shareholder value and corporate profitability, endangering thousands of jobs and retiree pension benefits. The executives of the “Big Three”—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler —are now asking for taxpayer money to prop them up. The government looks ready to deliver a bailout—but with strings attached.

In exchange for perhaps tens of billions of dollars, the automakers would have to surrender a large degree of their ability to make their own business decisions. For instance, via the office of a “car czar,” the government could mandate that the companies produce vehicles in accordance with certain mileage and environmental standards as well as stipulate limits on executive compensation. And that is just the beginning of the authority the government could have over the companies’ decision-making autonomy.

In capitulating to the authority of a car czar with wide-reaching powers, the companies might be able to borrow enough to survive for a while. But would this be in their long-term interest?

To build and run a corporation the size of Ford or GM requires a huge number of decisions driven by a long-term vision. The astonishing productivity that enabled the Big Three to become automotive giants was made possible by the freedom to build, sell, innovate, and operate as they judged best. Just as the individual’s freedom to think and act independently is the essential requirement of his success in life, so it is with a large company.

When freedom is absent due to government control, production and innovation are stifled. Witness the stagnant and inefficient factories constrained by the rule of Soviet Russia—or the dust bowl that rose from the ashes of American agriculture under FDR’s New Deal. Consequently, the government and its bureaucrats cannot possibly legislate, regulate, or mandate the Big Three back into long-term viability.

By signing their freedom away for a temporary financial reprieve, the auto executives would be giving up any chance of defining and achieving their own vision of long-term success for their companies. Instead of imploring the government to loan out funds confiscated from taxpayers, the automakers should demand the return of the very thing that enabled their ascent in the first place: the freedom to produce. Before the auto executives sell themselves, their employees, their shareholders, and their customers into the slavery of government control, they should ask themselves what they value more: a short-term loan, or freedom itself.

Whole Foods, Partial Rights

In 2007, Whole Foods, the popular purveyor of natural foods, sought to expand its business by acquiring rival grocer Wild Oats. However, the Federal Trade Commission claimed that the merger would violate antitrust laws by creating a natural foods monopoly. Although federal judges approved the deal, the FTC won an appeal a year later, after the merger was well under way, and now the case is set to go to trial in February. The company has already spent $17 million cooperating with the FTC and faces millions more in legal fees should the trial proceed. In response, Whole Foods has filed a lawsuit with the US District Court alleging that the FTC has “violated the company’s due process rights by setting a rapid schedule for the trial that won’t allow Whole Foods adequate time to prepare its defense” [see New York Times].

Why is the FTC concerned with how much market share Whole Foods would gain with the merger? While Whole Foods’ acquisition of Wild Oats created a much larger company, its larger size does not endow Whole Foods with the privilege or power to prevent competitors from entering the market. It must grow its business through investment and by offering a superior product to its customers. Its inability to exercise force preserves the freedom of other companies to enter or remain in the natural foods business. That Whole Foods will give them a run for their money does not deprive other companies of their freedom to make money. To wit, one year after the merger, other companies still vigorously compete with Whole Foods in the natural foods market.

On the other hand, consider the indisputable monopolies that exist in America today, those that actually bar entry into markets. Amtrak has a monopoly on passenger rail travel. The USPS system has a monopoly on the delivery of letters and access to mailboxes. Myriad companies have monopolies on electricity, water, and cable in cities across the country. In all cases, these monopolies create legal barriers to entry, eliminate even the possibility of competition, and abrogate the rights of potential entrepreneurs and customers to do business with whomever they please. As Ayn Rand poignantly observed, “Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.” Whereas Whole Foods has expanded its market share through voluntary transactions—i.e., by selling customers goods they want to buy and then investing those profits in the purchase of Wild Oats—these coercive monopolies were created by government edict and are maintained by government force. The FTC is both a product and an instrument of such coercion.

While government monopolies forbid freedom in the industries they dominate, the FTC works to thwart the freedom of innocent companies to engage in legitimate business practices, arbitrarily exercising its power to approve or reject business decisions. This is an affront to property rights, the foundations on which a free and prosperous economy is built. As such, the FTC has not violated merely Whole Foods’ right to due process—it has violated the company’s basic right to freely conduct its business as it sees fit. It is a travesty that Whole Foods has to sue the FTC to protect its right to defend itself in a trial the commission has no right to prosecute in the first place. People and companies will never be truly free to go about their business as long as the FTC and government monopolies stand in their way. That they exist at all is the real crime.

Alan Greenspan is not an Objectivist

Larry Breinhart of the Huffington Post and Barrett Sheridan of Newsweek are two of many commentators to use Alan Greenspan’s connection to Ayn Rand and Objectivism as a means to prove that Rand’s philosophy is incorrect and cannot work in the real world. The financial crisis, the argument goes, is directly due to Greenspan’s “full faith in the markets” and his reluctance to regulate the financial sector.

Any attempt, however, to ascribe Greenspan’s actions to Objectivism depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of Rand’s philosophy. Objectivism holds that laissez-faire capitalism is the only moral political/economic philosophy. Laissez-faire capitalism, as Rand stated, demands a complete separation between state and economics. It is incompatible with a Federal Reserve system, in which the government controls interest rates and the money supply by fiat. By running the Federal Reserve, Greenspan wasn’t acting on Objectivist principles–he was betraying them. Worse still, by keeping interest rates artificially low during the first half of this decade, Greenspan was one the principal architects of the current financial crisis. Manipulation of the money supply so often leads to boom and bust cycles, which is one of the many reasons Rand outright opposed the Federal Reserve and any other government intervention in the economy.

Greenspan was at one time a close associate of Ayn Rand. Nonetheless, as Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights puts it, “any belief Greenspan ever had in truly free markets was abandoned long ago”.

Defending Property Rights—It’s No Day at the Beach

Thirty years ago, George and Sharlee McNamee purchased a beachfront house in California, hoping to create a home in which to spend their retirement. Over the years, the McNamee’s made various improvements to their beach property, installing picnic tables for entertaining and a shade to allow Mr. McNamee protection from a repeated bout with deadly melanoma. Throughout this time, the McNamee’s have generously allowed the public visiting the state-owned portions of the beach to use the facilities on their property.

But the California Coastal Commission claims these are illegal developments. According to the LA Times, the Coastal Commission is charged with enforcing the 1976 Coastal Act, which decrees “private and public shorefront property are subject to state regulation to protect the environment and ensure public beach access.” Notwithstanding that the McNamee’s gardens prevent erosion and their facilities enhance the public’s access to the beach, the Coastal Commission has embroiled the retired coupled in a decade-long battle that has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The state claims that the McNamee’s development “gives the perception of a private beach—intimidating beachgoers into avoiding the public sand nearby.” The fact of the matter is that the McNamee’s are giving the public a perception of reality: the couple’s property is a private beach. The uninvited public who use the couple’s property do so only out of the McNamee’s generosity and goodwill—and the public benefits from it, to boot. But whether the Coastal Commission believes that their use of their property is illegal is irrelevant. As Mrs. McNamee succinctly puts it, “We think you should be able to dispose of your property as you see fit, as long as you’re not harming anyone else.” The Commission disagrees.

The state of California is making it clear that in its view, property owners do not have a right to use their property as they see fit. The McNamee’s have invested the financial fruits of their life’s labor into building a spot on the beach for their retirement. But according to the state of California, the McNamee’s are only permitted to enjoy their property if they remove the improvements they’ve made that allow them do so—including the shade canopy built to protect Mr. McNamee from cancer. As Ayn Rand explained, “since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.”

The rejection of property rights is the rejection of the right to life, and in the McNamee’s case, this is quite palpably an issue of life or death. Well into their 70s, the couple is losing the will to fight the Coastal Commission, which Mrs. McNamee rightfully claims “is depriving us of a portion of our lives.” Should the Commission succeed in depriving the couple of the rest of it?

Readers who wish to voice their support of the McNamee’s efforts to resist government pressure to capitulate can write to the California Coastal Commission. (Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the Commission fails to provide an email address at its website, so feedback has to be sent via phone calls or snail mail.) Interested parties may also contact the Undercurrent; all comments and/or contact information will be forwarded to the McNamee’s.

Hell on Earth and Good Will Toward Men

President-elect Barack Obama has announced his intention to present a “major” speech in the capital of a Muslim country soon after his inauguration. Obama says this is an opportunity to repair the damage done to America’s global reputation in the past eight years, especially in the Muslim world. According to Yahoo! News, Obama intends to “create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together.”

So which capital of which country teeming with “good will who wants their citizens and ours to prosper together” will he choose?

Will he speak in Tehran, Iran—where mullahs and ayatollahs have for nearly thirty years preached “death to America,” where young men and women are stoned to death or hanged in public for the “crime” of being gay, and where critics of the government are thrown into jail?

Or will he speak in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—where women are forced to endure life under the effacing repression of the hijab, where religious police arrest men and women for enjoying each others’ company if they are not related, where a woman who suffered a gang-raping was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison because she violated those same laws segregating the sexes?

Perhaps he will speak in Kabul, Afghanistan—where a young man was sentenced to death for suggesting the “blasphemy” that women have rights and the public cheered the fact that an innocent man was to be murdered by judicial decree.

Or maybe Obama meant he will speak to the peoples of good will in Mogadishu, Somalia or Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso or one of the dozen other Islamic African capitals where young girls experience the horror of genital mutilation and forced marriages.

This is but a sampling of the horrendous and revolting rights abuses that men, women, and children experience under Islamic regimes every day. These are not the actions of good willed nations seeking prosperity, but of barbaric despots seeking to create Jahannum on earth. Countries of goodwill that want their citizens to prosper uphold the individual rights of their people. There is no basis for or possibility of a “relationship of mutual respect and partnership” with countries that brutalize and murder their own citizens. That the President-elect of the freest, most prosperous, and most good-willed country on earth suggests there is such common ground between America and any Islamic nation makes one wonder if this is merely his typical empty rhetoric or a forewarning of hellish things to come.

Condemned By Democracy

Recently in Afghanistan a young man–Parwez Kambakhsh–was arrested, imprisoned, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. After the death penalty was announced, demonstrations were held in the streets applauding the verdict and prominent clerics declared that he deserved execution.

Kambakhsh was condemned for blasphemy—the crime of holding an idea—against Islam in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He also attempted to disseminate those ideas and was tried for that as well.

What was the blasphemous idea? That a woman is a human being and has rights.

Many commentators have said that this case shows the lack of independence of the Afghani judiciary. Media and human rights organizations have expressed their concern over the apparently growing influence of Islam seen in this case. Brad Adams, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch, decried the lack of “judicial independence” shown by this case.

As to how the trial was conducted, one reporter noted that “Kambakhsh’s supporters have said the case should be thrown out because the previous trial was held in secret and he was denied legal representation—not an uncommon occurrence in Afghan courts. Reformers say the case exemplifies the continuing failure of the Afghan government to establish a free and independent judiciary.”

To many in the West, it seems obvious that the judiciary should be free from Islam and conducted according to the rules of due process. And after a worldwide outcry against the court’s original ruling, an appeals court recently commuted the sentence to 20 years in prison. But what is responsible for the courts’ rulings in the first place?

Most commentators agree that the courts’ decisions were undemocratic. But democracy per se does not tell you what type of decisions a court will make. Democracy is just majority rule. It does not guarantee any particular policy (such as the protection of free speech). All that democracy means is that laws are enacted on the basis of popularity. The courts’ decisions and treatment of intellectual beliefs as criminal acts are perfectly consistent with what’s popular in Afghanistan. Contrary to common belief, including the beliefs of media and human rights organizations commenting on this case, intellectual freedom and due process are not a part of democracy.

The judicial system is a branch of government, not a different tree - not an independent entity. There is no such thing as a court free from the government and laws that govern it. The legislature writes the laws and the judicial system is the messenger of those laws. In a democracy, the foundational principle is that the will of the majority directs the actions of government. Kambakhsh’s case is a straightforward reflection of this–the majority has voted for and endorsed the implementation of religious law.

Reports condemn what they regard as an unfair trial without identifying that the lack of due process is merely a symptom. The sickness itself is mob rule, which in this case happens to be based on Islamic ideals.

If one wants to oppose such governmental power, one ought to ask: What is the argument for the limitation of democratic process to the election of the political representatives rather than the core policies of government?

The argument is the original American idea of individual rights. It is the idea that an individual is properly free to pursue his own happiness, regardless of what a majority thinks. The only argument against the condemnation Kambakhsh may suffer is that a government’s proper function is to act in accordance with a Constitution specifically formulated and dedicated to protecting individual freedom—and that any other form of government is evil and invalid.

The American Founders, who fought a war for rights, understood that the answer to dictatorial, monarchical tyranny is not mob tyranny, but individual rights. A lesson we would do well to remember as an Afghan man is condemned for joining that fight.

Welcome to the Post-Danish-Cartoons World

The BBC News reports that, on the eve of its long-anticipated release, Sony recalled its latest video game, LittleBigPlanet, from stores worldwide. The problem? After it had been distributed, one of the game’s music tracks was discovered to contain a few lyrical verses that certain consumers may have found offensive.

In today’s world of complex computer programs, patches are the normal means of resolving post-production issues. Software recalls are almost unheard of, especially on a global scale. Indeed, soon after the lyrics were discovered LittleBigPlanet’s developers created a patch which removed the music and could have been made available to consumers who found it offensive. Yet Sony executives ruled against issuing the patch—a far less expensive option. What could have possibly been so offensive as to warrant the massive expense and embarrassment of an international recall, rather than simply offering a patch for those who were offended?

The music track at issue contains Koranic verses and it turns out that in Islam, there is a precept forbidding the singing of such lyrics. Sony’s videogame was hence guilty of inadvertently violating the theological rules of Islam.

But Sony is not a Muslim company, so why would it matter if it failed to follow the rules of Islam? Even if Sony initially created the game with political correctness in mind, one could not justify the cost of the recall from a business perspective. The patch could have resolved the error for any consumer who wished it. And the enormous cost of delaying the release, recalling the games, and distributing new ones would far outweigh the cost of losing a few offended customers (if any) who would only be satisfied with a total recall.

What about the risk of bad press—could that have been Sony’s motivation? Sony executives may not care about Islamic precepts, and most of their customers probably don’t either, but perhaps they were worried that the media would attack them for being insensitive to Islam. Most businesses fear bad press and one could certainly imagine the media jumping all over a case like this, if they thought Sony was deliberately trying to antagonize Muslims. But that wasn’t the case here—this was clearly accidental and the company took immediate action as soon as it came to their attention. If they had apologized and released a patch (instead of recalling the game), not even the most zealous advocates of political correctness could have accused them of Islamaphobia.

Another argument against the bad press interpretation is that Sony has shown a willingness to risk offending the religious before. Last year it released a game deliberately containing a violent scene inside a church, which sparked criticism from Christian leaders—yet Sony did not delay or recall the game. Why would Sony respond so differently to Christian versus Muslim sensibilities? The answer to this question is that we live in a post-Danish Cartoons world—a world in which virtually everyone trembles at even the slightest hint that something might offend Muslims. Through death threats, violent protests, and even murder, radical Muslims attempt to intimidate into silence anyone who impinges the beliefs of Islam, whether deliberately or inadvertently. Today the whole world is walking on eggshells.

Businesses, journalists, and politicians have all taken to cautiously avoiding any statement or action that might offend Muslims. (See this article by Undercurrent author Kelly Cadenas for evidence of this phenomenon on college campuses.) The LittleBigPlanet recall is the latest instance of self-censorship that has resulted from radical Islam’s campaign of intimidation, and is indicative of the extent to which our culture is tacitly deferent to Islam and Islamic values. Afraid of unintentionally igniting the wrath of the Jihadists, Sony plays it safe by censoring itself—and thereby hands a victory to those who silence their critics through fear.

The Danish cartoons represented a critical moment in the struggle between Islamic radicals and the West. That event established on a world stage that one could not and dare not intentionally write anything critical of Islam with impunity. Now, not surprisingly, that standard is extending to inadvertent offence of Islam. What’s next: restaurants “voluntarily” taking pork (considered unholy by Muslims) off their menus? Banning pornography? Taking the vote away from women? Stoning heretics? These steps may seem unimaginable, but on a historical scale, they are not so inconceivable in a post-Danish cartoons world.

We cannot allow this trend to continue. Americans must stand up for their right to speak freely, regardless of who might be offended. The government needs to do its part by vigorously defending free speech, and the intellectual establishment must denounce the absurdity of Muslim hypersensitivity whenever it occurs, so that companies like Sony won’t feel a need to censor themselves. If we want to keep our rights, we must be willing to proudly and self-confidently defend them. Otherwise we risk regressing to the status of the Islamic theocracies where force rules and the right to free speech is all but nonexistent.

I encourage you to read A. Chamber’s most recent article for an example of the trampling of individual rights which is characteristic of Islamic theocracies.

Hope Your Medical Emergency Can Wait

President-elect Barack Obama has said he favors a single-payer health care system such as the one Canada has now. But the inefficiency of the single-payer system often leaves Canadians facing life-threatening waits for care. Lindsay McCreith from Ontario is one example. When his doctor told him he might have a brain tumor, McCreith paid for treatment in the U.S. rather than endure months of headaches, seizures, and possibly life-threatening delays in Canada.

McCreith’s story is not an isolated one. Thousands of Canadian patients with life-threatening hemorrhages and Canadian women about to give birth have had to come to the U.S. to receive medical care. Even patients who simply need MRIs or CTs so that their doctor can diagnose their problem travel to the U.S. to have them done – the only alternative, in some provinces, is to wait up to half a year for the free public MRI or CT. According to a study released last month by the Frasier Institute, over 750,000 Canadians are currently on waiting lists for treatments – and this figure doesn’t include the tens of thousands of others on wait lists just to see a specialist or to get diagnostic testing.

Where will Canadians – and Americans – desperate for live-saving care go if the U.S. further socializes our healthcare system?

For more on problems in the Canadian single-payer system see here and here. For information on the United States’ slow drift in the same direction, see here and here.

Measure Q and the Lending Crisis in Education

The city of Los Angeles passed a $7 billion bond measure to refurbish public schools on Election Day. “Measure Q,” the fifth education-related bond measure since 1997, will go towards renovating buildings and creating new preschools and adult education centers.

Figures on LA’s total per pupil revenue from local, state, and federal government’s are difficult to obtain, but they are likely in excess of $10,000 per student. Measure Q will increase that amount considerably.

Supporters argued that the measure is needed because too many of LA Unified’s buildings are in a state of disrepair, and that better facilities with modern equipment will significantly improve student education. Opponents, however, pointed out that the bond places a great burden on taxpayers, who are already on the hook for $19.3 billion in bond money, plus interest, in the last decade alone. Indeed, the Los Angeles Times recently reported that such “…bonds result in property tax increases.”

The fiscal irresponsibility of LA’s school board is even more distressing when one considers that plenty of for-profit schools around the country engage in renovations all the time without pleading taxpayers to foot the bill. One might imagine that this is because private institutions have greater economic resources, but this is very often not the case. Despite usually receiving more revenue than private schools, public schools are still unable to maintain quality facilities. And what is the government’s response to this incompetence? Give them more money. Measure Q and similar measures across the nation, enable the government to solve past mismanagement by simply borrowing more. Must we keep pouring money into a dysfunctional educational system that has shown itself clearly incapable of translating that money into a quality product?

According to the US Census Bureau, the national average per student government spending on education in 2006 (the latest year for which the figures are available) is $9,138. Imagine the quality of education these students would receive if parents had that money to spend on private schools. The public education system is gigantic and as a result benefits from tremendous economies of scale. Yet scores of private schools around the country are able to provide a vastly superior education for a far lower tuition, despite the fact that their operations are much smaller in scale.

For-profit education is making a comeback in America, as parents become increasing fed up with public schools. Rather than perpetuating a system that clearly does not work by borrowing and wastefully spending yet more public money, perhaps LA Unified and school districts across the country should recognize that public education has failed. It’s time to begin the slow process of removing government from the education business, so that those actually capable of providing a quality product to students and parents can do so.