Humanist Association of Orange County - Newsletter for
April 2005
Issue #89 ( HTML format )
Editor: Benito Franqui
Associate Editor: Dave Silva
Send submissions and membership renewals to:
HAOC
2609 Fernside St.
Orange, CA 92865
benfranq@earthlink.net
Articles submitted for publication in the newsletter
must
be received no later than 10 days before the
next
HAOC meeting.
The Humanist Association of Orange County ( HAOC) is a
chapter of the American Humanist Association.
Please visit our website at http://www.ochumanists.org
HAOC Board
President: Pete Anderson
Vice President: Dave Silva
Treasurer:.Harry Becker
Secretary: Jerry Parks
Member at large: Carl Mariz
Member at large: Benito Franqui
NEXT
HAOC MEETING
Sunday, April 17, 1:30 P.M.
Humanism
By
Dr. Tibor R. Machan
Humanism
is often associated with the likes of Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, the
utopian (pre-Marxist) socialists and Karl Marx himself (at least his early
works). These all tend to stress our humanity in terms of our social or
collective nature—"The human essence is the true collectivity of
man" (Marx)—from which an ethics of altruism or utilitarianism tends to
emerge. I will argue that this tradition of humanism obscures the essential
individuality of human beings, another vital aspect of their nature, that would
generate an ethics of classical egoism (a la Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and David L.
Norton).
__________________________________________________
Dr.
Machan is Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Auburn University,
Alabama, and holds the R. C. Hoiles Endowed Chair in Business Ethics and Free
Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman
University. He is research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford
University.
He
has taught at many academic institutions and received many awards,
honors, fellowships, and editorships. He
has written several books and essays for various journals and magazines
including Free
Inquiry.
He is on the advisory boards for several foundations and think tanks and has
hosted or been a guest on television and radio programs.
Additional
biographical data
can
be found at http://radicalacademy.com/machanbio.htm
and
http://ochumanists.org/machanbio.rtf
.
64TH
ANNUAL AHA CONFERENCE
By:
Jerry Wesner, President
Humanist Society of NM
Dear
Fellow Humanist --
I'm sending a special invitation to
you and all your chapter to attend the American Humanist Association conference
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 5 through 8.
Our chapter has been working toward this event for two years, and hopes
to make the entire experience a truly memorable one.
The conference itself, of course, is planned and
carried out by the AHA, its officers, and its staff.
While we have assisted as local coordinators, it's truly their show.
And it looks to be a spectacular one.
If you haven't checked recently, go to http://www.americanhumanist.org/conference/reg_info05.html
and see what they're offering.
But our focus has been on "Come early --
stay late" as we invite our fellow Humanists, while already in New Mexico,
to take advantage of the activities available here.
We're offering a full day tour of Santa Fe, with transportation,
narration, and museum admissions, for $55. Thursday
night
we're
answering the
question
of those who arrive by then, "Where do we eat?"
by leading a Dine Around to nearby restaurants in all price ranges.
Sunday afternoon, immediately following the final AHA session, we have
set up several short local activities. And
finally, we're coordinating pre- and post-conference area tours, helping
interested Humanists create their own tour groups.
All this can be found at http://humanists.net/nm/conference
. Also, we're ready to assist your
planning in any way we can. Just
e-mail me, and I'll answer your question, or put you in touch with someone who
can.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Land of
Enchantment, and want to make this the best conference trip you've ever had.
NEXT
CFI-WEST MEETING
( Costa Mesa )
Sunday, April 17, 4:30 p.m.
( $6.00 or free for Friends of the Center )
Alan
Fiske: "Natural Moralities"
Is divine will the only source of morality--or even the ultimate source? If not,
what makes humans moral animals? Cultural anthropology shows that moralities
differ in innumerable details, but under this cultural diversity, we can see
that all morality is based on four innate intuitions. All human morality is
grounded on communality, authority, equality, and proportionality. The basic
intuitions are (1) that people should care about each other and act
compassionately; (2) that people should respect authority while authorities
protect the people they are responsible for; (3) that people should be treated
equally and respond reciprocally; and (4) that justice should be based on
proportionality, both in rewards and punishment.
Alan
Page Fiske
is Professor, Department of Anthropology at UCLA, and Director of the Center for
Culture, Brain, and Development. Please join us for this fascinating look at the
nature of morality.
COMMENTS
ON JERRY PARKS' BOOK REVIEW
(
on February 2005 issue )
By
Gene Barmore
Sam Harris, in his book THE END OF
FAITH, presents us with a rather startling proposition, that "The ideal of
religious tolerance...is one of the principal forces driving us to the
abyss." And that, "even religious moderation will do nothing to lead
us out of the wilderness."
Relying on Parks' quotations (I have
not read the book), Harris fails to present any evidence to support his thesis.
Referring to selected parts of the Koran and the Bible (a favorite tactic of
biblical literalists) proves nothing. Several valid observations, i.e., that
religious faith is not a necessary motivation for good, even sacrificial, deeds,
are irrelevant.
And we are to demand that the
religious among us change their thinking?! As Will Durant wrote, “...certainty
is murderous."
Certainly religious belief, and
organized religion, have been responsible for an incomprehensible amount of
killing and maiming. But in the recent conflicts cited, economic, tribal and
nationalistic elements have been present in most, if not all. History provides
numerous examples of man's warlike inclinations sans religion: the Peloponesian
Wars; the Romans against the Etruscans, Carthoginians, Gauls; the Boer War; the
American Revolutionary, Civil and Indian: the Russian Revolution;
Finally, while I agree that the threat
of atomic explosive power in the hands of a religious fanatic is to be taken
seriously, what greater motivation could we offer to such persons than strenuous
opposition to the whole of their religious belief?
Humanism
and deficit spending
By
Gene Barmore
In a column written for the LA Times in 1981, Orange County Congressman
Dannemeyer (R) pointed out areas of conflict between Humanism and
America's religious traditions. (He was clearly against Humanism.)
Interestingly, he raised the question of whether government deficit spending
might "reach the point of theft, prohibited by the 7th
Commandment."
Bet he wouldn't
ask that question today!!!!
CONSPIRACY
THEORIES
By
Dave Silva
Unlike
miracles conspiracies do happen. Watergate
was a conspiracy that unraveled only because it was doggedly pursued by two
reporters. Another example is the
Mafia; organized crime really does conspire to commit unlawful acts.
In fact, one conspiracy theory (hereafter abbreviated as CT) propagated
by Italian American groups and encouraged by the Mafia back in the 50's was that
the Mafia didn't really exist. When
a member of La Costa Nostra described the inner workings in detail before a
Congressional Committee that fiction was no longer credible.
We
are taught as children to respect authority and to believe what we are told.
Gradually, and often painfully, we learn that everything we are told or
that we read in the papers may not be true.
Remember Will Rodgers? He used to say, "All I know is what I read in
the paper." This is
generally true, even among skeptics. To
function in this world we simply can't doubt everything we learn.
We hear something on CNN or read something in the L.A. Times we accept it
as true unless we have a reason to doubt. If
we read an opinion piece that has a point of view or bias we are more skeptical.
And if we see a headline in the National Enquirer or the Globe we
probably dismiss it out of hand. The
government does tell us the truth most of the time.
In George Orwell's novel "1984" People were conditioned to
believe everything the government told them.
No one actually knew whether they lived in the year 1984; they only knew
that Big Brother told them it was 1984. If
Big Brother said it was 1948 then it was 1948.
CTs,
like religion, or science, are an attempt to provide answers to questions.
People basically dislike hearing 'I don't know' even when it is the only
accurate answer. Inquiring minds
want to know. Many people who are
attracted to CTs enjoy the fact that they are a select group who know an
important truth. They feel that they
are in the know while the rest of us are being made fools of.
So in a way they are like heretics railing against popular opinion and
that's exciting. Did you know men
never landed on the moon. That's
right! The entire space program was
a sham to convince to public they had achieved something really big when they
couldn't pull it off. Boy! Are you
gullible if you really think they put a man on the Moon.
Just
like Urban Legends CT are fun to believe and to repeat to others.
This is especially true when you are shielded by the anonymous nature of
the internet. On the internet you
can post stuff that wouldn't ordinarily find its way into print and if it's
nothing more than your view of reality supported by your set of selected facts
you have the satisfaction of knowing it's there for the world to see.
In the recent Peter Jennings show "Seeing is Believing," most
people put a lot of credence in eye-witness testimony even though experts have
shown it to be far less reliably than people believe it to be.
People don't want to be told that it is more likely that their memory may
be faulty or that the alien spaceship they saw may be a more mundane
explanation. If they think they have
seen a UFO they believe.
Alien
abduction support groups estimate that about 3 million people have been abducted
by aliens in flying saucers. Most of
these aliens are the familiar Grays, skinny limbs, large eyes and bald heads.
They believe that the aliens perform medical experiments where they
extract genetic material and sometimes impregnate their victims and track them
with implants. Many think these
abductions occur over a period of generations.
They argue that it must be true because so many people have claimed this
experience that they couldn't all be hallucinating or making it up.
In
1966 there was a book called "Interrupted Journey" about the abduction
of Barney and Betty Hill, which was written by their psychiatrist John Fuller
who by hypnosis recovered memories of their ordeal.
In 1975 it was made into an NBC movie.
Before 1966 there were no claims of alien abductions.
In 1987 a science fiction writer Whitley
Strieber wrote "Communion" about his alien abduction
experiences and went on TV programs plugging his book.
Before 1966 there are no alien abduction stories.
Despite their sincerity and their
numbers it is hard to take the phenomenon seriously. It would take an
intelligent race that had somehow developed a faster than light drive, which
would violate the laws of psychics as we know them.
Even if you grant there could be theoretical ways around the universal
speed limit why would an alien race send thousands of ships to abduct millions
of people to perform the same experiments over and over again.
Also, would they be able do this in secrecy, leaving no trace of their
superior science, their superior knowledge or any hard evidence over the past 50
years. Government secrecy often
fuels CT. When the Air Force started
"Project Blue Book" as an objective investigation into UFO's people
began to realize its agenda was to discredit all UFO sightings; this convinced
some people that the military was hiding something.
When
you go back in history you often find that when people don't know the answer
they will make one up. During the
black plague in Europe they knew nothing about germs so they blamed the Jews for
poisoning the wells. If your cow got
sick and died you could accuse your neighbor of being a witch.
There wasn't much satisfaction in blaming God or Satan, since that wasn't
going to help.
More
and more CT are political in nature. Hitler
brought propaganda to new heights rallying people under the banner of patriotism
and the fear of enemies within. He
fostered a feeling of my country right or wrong and you are either with us or
against us. This tactic was not
isolated to tyrants like Hitler and Stalin who saw conspiracies behind every
tree it also happened here. You had the witch hunts of the McCarty era and this
was the same mentality that brought about the Watergate conspiracy and later the
Iran Contra scandal. Remember
Nixon's enemy's list and Reagan's deniable accountability.
Some CT are motivated by racist fears of groups like the KKK and Aryan
Nation that convince themselves that white people are discriminated against.
Then you have the Paramilitary groups that believe the UN is trying to
take over America and that there is a liberal conspiracy to take their guns
away. Maybe Michael Moore and I
would like to take their guns away, because I find them very scary, but their
belief about the UN is sheer paranoia.
While
the right is more prone to believe CT I can recall listening to KPFK during Iran
Contra and day after day they talked about things you didn't read in the paper
or see on TV. Like the CIA running
drugs to fund the Contras and other covert operations.
One
CT that won't go away is the various rumors about 911.
In the March issue of Popular Mechanics they debunk some of the claims
about 911. This was three and a half
years after 911. Again you have a
reluctant and belated investigation into 911 that creates an air of suspicion.
It was claimed that seismic reading show the fall of the twin towers was
consistent with the demolition of a building by explosive charges.
Seismologist Lerner-Lam says that simply isn't true.
What the reading indicate is consistent with a 110 story building
collapsing. In the film
"Painful Deceptions" they state that no steel reinforced building has
ever collapsed due to a fire before or since 911.
Interestingly enough Popular Mechanics doesn't dispute this.
What they do is rely on the pancake theory to explain the collapse of the
twin towers and building 7 which was hit by debris from the fall of the towers.
Perhaps the reason a high rise steel girded building never collapsed is
that one was never hit by a large jet airplane!
Certainly the firefighters didn't expect it to fall they were going in to
put out fires. The pancake theory Popular Mechanics advocates goes something
like this. The heat from the jet
fuel, while not nearly hot enough to melt the massive steel girders weakened
them enough so that they lost most of their integrity and began to expand at
both ends, which caused the concrete around them to crack.
When the weakened floors above fell on the floor below it caused a chain
reaction like a sledgehammer. You
could see concrete debris flying out the windows as each floor squeezed the air
out of the space and it all happened very quickly.
Critics say the pancake theory is inconsistent with the large clouds of
concrete, the virtual free-fall collapse of the towers and the lack of photo
evidence of twisted steel girders predicted by the theory.
The Popular Mechanics report answered some of the questions but left many
questions in doubt and open to speculation.
One
of the bizarre events of 911 was that at 8:30 that morning George W. Bush was
having breakfast the head of the Ben Laden family, who is an old friend and
business associate. As Michael Moore
pointed out in "Fahrenheit 911" while all air traffic in the country
was grounded Saudis were being flown back home.
However, this seems to be nothing more than a coincidence that leads only
to CT.
CT
are going to be all over the internet, on talk radio and in underground papers.
Humanists are going to have to deal with them in a rational, objective
way. Hear both sides, don't jump to
conclusions and weigh the evidence. Conspiracies
do happen but not as often as CT indicate. What
we as Humanists, who pride ourselves on knowing the truth need is what Carl
Sagan called as good baloney detector. That
is easier said than done because there is a lot of information out there so it
takes good judgment and experience to decide what is the truth and what we
should be skeptical about. That
said, we should be open to new ideas and discoveries until we know more about
them.
Beginnings,
Ends, and Brains
by
Edd Doerr
By now nearly everyone is tired of
hearing and reading about the tragic Terri Schiavo case and Republican
grandstanding over it. Yet there are
more aspects of it that need to be discussed.
As it happens, these inadequately considered issues were neatly bracketed
by two debates in which I was involved recently.
Both debates were before fairly large
groups of Jewish high school students, sponsored by the Institute for Jewish
Leadership and Values’ “Panim el Panim” (Hebrew for “face to face”)
seminar in Washington program. In
the first program, on February 21, I debated abortion rights with Miss (sic)
Nellie Gray, organizer of the annual January anti-Roe demonstration in
Washington. In the second, on March
21, I debated Paul Weber, a legislative aide to Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), one of
the main organizers of the congressional intrusion into the Schiavo case, on the
subject of the “right to die” (remarkable timing, that).
These two issues deal with the all
important central question, when does human “personhood” begin and end?
The question is not when “life” begins and ends but when personhood
begins and ends. Human life began
millions of years ago when our ancestors reached a stage of evolution that
permitted what we call consciousness (which, we have learned in the last fifty
years, is shared with us to a degree by our nearest relatives, the great apes).
Human life will end when our species becomes extinct.
Roe v. Wade and the Fourteenth
Amendment define personhood as beginning at birth, a view similar to that of
neurobiologists. This issue was
examined at a conference on May 30, 1987, sponsored by Americans for Religious
Liberty and organized by myself and former AHA board member and developmental
psychologist Jim Prescott. The
conference featured addresses by theologians, attorneys, neurobiologists, and
social scientists. The papers were
collected in a book published in 1989 and reissued in 1990, Abortion Rights and
Fetal ‘Personhood’.
The neuroscience presented at the
conference became the basis of an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court that
I organized in 1988 in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, signed by twelve
Nobel laureates and 155 other distinguished scientists.
The brief concluded that “the neurobiological data indicate that the
fetus lacks the physical capacity for the neurological activities we associate
with human thought until sometime after 28 weeks of gestation.”
The brief added that “the cerebral cortex is relatively nonfunctional
even in normal newborns.”
Parenthetically, it might be noted that this scientific framework bears a
certain resemblance to the traditional Judeo-Christian view that humans are
created “in the image of God.” Since
“God” is not conceived of as flesh and blood and DNA, but rather as
“spirit” and will and consciousness, it is reductionist and crudely
materialistic to regard embryos and fetuses prior to 28 weeks or so as persons.
This was essentially the view of the leading Christian theologian Thomas
Aquinas, as well as of English/American common law until the early 19th century.
So, to science the idea of personhood
makes little sense until quite late in gestation, when the cerebral cortex is
“wired up” and ready to function.
Now, as for the end of life, which is
what the Schiavo case is all about, modern medicine regards “brain death” or
permanent cessation of cerebrocortical function or being in a “persistent
vegetative state” as the end or personhood.
At that point viable organs may be removed and used to help other people.
Isaac Asimov used to say that a person
can live without many body parts or with heart, lung, kidney, or other
transplants, but not without a functioning cerebral cortex.
Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist who has examined Terri Shiavo, has
said that a CT scan of her brain shows very little but scar tissue and spinal
fluid, and that an EEG showed no evidence of continued cortical function.
Thus it seems clear that the
many courts and judges who have dealt with the Schiavo case were correct
in deferring to her husband’s request to end life support.
Also, a CBS News poll released on March 24 found that 82% of respondents
believe that the President and Congress should not have intervened in the
matter.
Incidentally, it is interesting to
note that President Bush, who has made such a big fuss about the Schiavo case,
signed a bill into law while governor of Texas that allows hospitals the right
to remove life support if the patient can’t afford to pay and there is no hope
for survival, no matter what the family might wish.
That law was used on March 16 to unplug a baby against his mother’s
wishes. As one writer put it,
“Bush killed that baby so that hospitals can make more money.”
So much for being a “pro-life” politician.
Personhood is precious.
All human persons the world over have equal rights to life, sustenance,
and freedom. That is the proper
business of governments, not restricting reproductive rights or the right of a
mature sane person facing a painful death to seek medical help in dying.
The Supreme Court, by the way, has announced that it will hear an appeal
in former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s challenge to Oregon’s physician
assisted suicide law.
Government should concern itself with
the lives and welfare of persons, something that Bush and his pals in Congress
should think about.
____________________________________________
Edd
Doerr, president of Americans for Religious Liberty, headed the American
Humanist Association for 14 years. He
is the author, co-author, or editor of 24 books, and author of more than 2,500
published articles, reviews, and letters. His
regular column in the Humanist was terminated in 2004.
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION
By
Ed Doerr
Dear fellow humanist:
I would like to recommend to you an
important new book from Prometheus Books, Toward a New Political Humanism,
edited by Barry F. Seidman and Neil J. Murphy (2004, 418 pp, $32).
The book's great strength is that its
tone is positive and that the progressive values it espouses are widely shared
with a great many Christians, Jews, and others. (One small weakness is that too
few of the 25 authors acknowledge that fact.)
One of the best sections is Katherine
Yurica chapter, "The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush Became the
Head of the New American Dominionist Church/State". She explores how Pat
Robertson, R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Herb Titus, Charles Colson, Tim LaHaye,
Gary Bauer, the late Francis Schaeffer, Paul Crouch, and other "dominionist"
fundamentalists created a powerful, under the radar in its early days, political
movement that is well on the way to
taking over this country for purposes antithetical to the interests of the
overwhelming majority of Americans. She ties in the little known but influential
political scientist Leo Strauss and such intellectual progeny as Irving Kristol,
William Kristol, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, John
Ashcroft, Newt Gingrich, and others.
Equally valuable is the section by
Nigerian professor Agwonorobo Eruvbetine, who makes the point that in the
interest of openness and cooperation "an examination of religion and its
input into public life would foreground the
fact that virtually all religions, in their genuine manifestations, are guided
by the quintessential humanist ethos". In other words, humanists, though
not numerous organizationally, must work with people of all persuasions to
promote progressive ideas, such as those summarized in the book's last chapters
by Arnell Dowret as including "guaranteed minimum income; democratic
education; ... the end of capital punishment; progressive prison reform;
community-based home care for seniors and persons
with disabilities;global pacifism; single-payer universal health
care;" etc.
I can't recommend this book too
highly.
By the way, you will notice that I
will not be presenting my usual church-state workshop at this year's AHA
conference in May in Albuquerque, as I have done for over 20 years. This is not
because of my declining but because I have been excluded by the new AHA
leadership, just as my column in The Humanist was recently terminated after 35
years.
Meanwhile, if you would like to keep
up to date on church-state matters, you can get a free sample copy of the
Americans for Religious Liberty expanded newsletter by contacting me at the
address below, or by checking our website -- www.arlinc.org
Our
Currency, Your Problem
by
Niall Ferguson
New
York Times.
Published: March 13, 2005
Every
congressman knows that the United States currently runs large ''twin deficits''
on its budget and current accounts. Deficit 1, as we well know, is just the
difference between federal tax revenues and expenditures. Deficit 2 is generally
less well understood: it's the difference between all that Americans earn from
foreigners (mainly from exports, services and investments abroad) and all that
they pay out to foreigners (for imports, services and loans). When a government
runs a deficit, it can tap public savings by selling bonds. But when the economy
as a whole is running a deficit -- when American households are saving next to
nothing of their disposable income -- there is no option but to borrow abroad.
There
was a time when foreign investors were ready and willing to finance the U.S.
current account deficit by buying large pieces of corporate America. But that's
not the case today. Perhaps the most amazing economic fact of our time is that
between 70 and 80 percent of the American economy's vast and continuing
borrowing requirement is being met by foreign (mainly Asian) central banks.
Let's
translate that into political terms. In effect, the Bush administration's
combination of tax cuts for the Republican ''base'' and a Global War on Terror
is being financed with a multibillion dollar overdraft facility at the People's
Bank of China. Without East Asia, your mortgage might well be costing you more.
The toys you buy for your kids certainly would.
Why
are the Chinese monetary authorities so willing to underwrite American
profligacy? Not out of altruism. The principal reason is that if they don't keep
on buying dollars and dollar-based securities as fast as the Federal Reserve and
the U.S. Treasury can print them, the dollar could slide substantially against
the Chinese renminbi, much as it has declined against the euro over the past
three years. Knowing the importance of the U.S. market to their export
industries, the Chinese authorities dread such a dollar slide. The effect would
be to raise the price, and hence reduce the appeal, of Chinese goods to American
consumers -- and that includes everything from my snowproof hiking boots to the
modem on my desk. A fall in exports would almost certainly translate into job
losses in China at a time when millions of migrants from the countryside are
pouring into the country's manufacturing sector.
So when Treasury Secretary John Snow
insists that the United States has a ''strong dollar'' policy, what he really
means is that the People's Republic of China has a ''weak renminbi'' policy.
Sure, this is bad news if you happen to be an American toy manufacturer. But
there are three good reasons that the administration is tacitly delighted by the
Asian central banks' support. Not only is it keeping the lid on the price of
American imports from Asia (a potential source of inflationary pressure). It is
also propping up the price of U.S. Treasury bonds; this in turns depresses the
yield on those bonds, allowing the federal government to borrow at historically
very low rates of interest. Reason No. 3 is that low long-term interest rates
keep the Bush recovery jogging along.
Sadly, according to a growing number
of eminent economists, this arrangement simply cannot last. The dollar
pessimists argue that the Asian central banks are already dangerously
overexposed both to the dollar and the U.S. bond market. Sooner or later, they
have to get out -- at which point the dollar could plunge relative to Asian
currencies by as much as a third or two-fifths, and U.S. interest rates could
leap upward. (When the South Korean central bank recently appeared to indicate
that it was shifting out of dollars, there was indeed a brief run on the U.S.
currency -- until the Koreans hastily issued a denial.)
Are the pessimists right? The U.S.
current account deficit is now within sight of 6 percent of G.D.P., and net
external debt stands at around 30 percent. The precipitous economic history of
Latin America shows that an external-debt burden in excess of 20 percent of
G.D.P. is potentially dangerous.
Yet there is one key difference
between the United States and the countries south of the Rio Grande. Latin
American economies have trouble with their foreign debts because those debts are
denominated in foreign currency. The United States' external liabilities, by
contrast, are almost entirely denominated in its own currency.
It therefore makes more sense to
compare the United States with other members of that exclusive club of countries
that have produced -- and hence been able to borrow -- in international
currencies. The most obvious analogy that springs to mind is the United Kingdom
60 years ago.
During the Second World War, Britain
financed its wartime deficits partly by borrowing substantial amounts of
sterling from the colonies and dominions within her empire. And yet by the
mid-1950's, these very substantial debts had largely disappeared. Unfortunately,
this was partly because the value of sterling itself fell significantly.
Moreover, sterling's decline and fall did not reduce the U.K.'s chronic trade
deficit, least of all with respect to manufacturing. On the contrary, British
industry declined in tandem with the pound's status as a global currency. And,
needless to say, the decline of sterling coincided with Britain's decline as an
empire.
From an American perspective, all this
might seem to suggest worrying parallels. Could our own obligations to
foreigners presage not just devaluation but also industrial and imperial
decline?
Possibly. Yet there are some pretty
important differences between 2005 and 1945. The United States is not in nearly
as bad an economic mess as postwar Britain, which also owed large sums in
dollars to the United States. The American empire is also in much better shape
than the British empire was back in 1945.
Even the gloomiest pessimists accept
that a steep dollar depreciation would inflict more suffering on China and other
Asian economies than on the United States. John Snow's counterpart in the Nixon
administration once told his European counterparts that ''the dollar is our
currency, but your problem.'' Snow could say the same to Asians today. If the
dollar fell by a third against the renminbi, according to Nouriel Roubini, an
economist at New York University, the People's Bank of China could suffer a
capital loss equivalent to 10 percent of China's gross domestic product. For
that reason alone, the P.B.O.C. has every reason to carry on printing renminbi
in order to buy dollars.
Though neither side wants to admit it,
today's Sino-American economic relationship has an imperial character. Empires,
remember, traditionally collect ''tributes'' from subject peoples. That is how
their costs -- in terms of blood and treasure -- can best be justified to the
populace back in the imperial capital. Today's ''tribute'' is effectively paid
to the American empire by China and other East Asian economies in the form of
underpriced exports and low-interest, high-risk loans.
How long can the Chinese go on
financing America's twin deficits? The answer may be a lot longer than the
dollar pessimists expect. After all, this form of tribute is much less
humiliating than those exacted by the last Anglophone empire, which occupied
China's best ports and took over the country's customs system (partly in order
to flood the country with Indian opium). There was no obvious upside to that
arrangement for the Chinese; the growth rate of per capita G.D.P. was probably
negative in that era, compared with 8 or 9 percent a year since 1990.
Meanwhile, the United States may be
discovering what the British found in their imperial heyday. If you are a truly
powerful empire, you can borrow a lot of money at surprisingly reasonable rates.
Today's deficits are in fact dwarfed in relative terms by the amounts the
British borrowed to finance their Global War on (French) Terror between 1793 and
1815. Yet British long-term rates in that era averaged just 4.77 percent, and
the pound's exchange rate was restored to its prewar level within a few years of
peace.
It is only when your power wanes -- as
the British learned after 1945 -- that owing a fortune in your own currency
becomes a real problem. As opposed, that is, to someone else's problem.
ON
THE LIGHT SIDE
Then
and now:
1975:
Long hair
2005: Longing for hair
----------------------------
1975: KEG
2005: EKG
--------------------------------
1975: Acid rock
2005: Acid reflux
---------------------------------
1975: Moving to California because it's cool
2005: Moving to California because it's warm
--------------------------------
1975: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2005: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
--------------------------------
1975: Seeds and stems
2005: Roughage
---------------------------------
1975: Hoping for a BMW
2005: Hoping for a BM
--------------------------------
1975: The Grateful Dead
2005: Dr. Kevorkian
---------------------------------
1975: Going to a new, hip joint
2005: Receiving a new hip joint
-------------------------------
1975: Rolling Stones
2005: Kidney Stones
---------------------------------
1975: Being called into the principal's office
2005: Calling the principal's office
---------------------------------
1975: Screw the system
2005: Upgrade the system
---------------------------------
1975: Disco
2005: Costco
---------------------------------
1975: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2005: Children begging you to get their heads shaved
---------------------------------
1975: Passing the drivers' test
2005: Passing the vision test
---------------------------------
1975: Whatever
2005: Depends
---------------------------------
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