Sciabarra's "Critique" of Schwartz

[argive99]

There is an argument that Sciabarra and his cohorts (Silber and other various "Randian" libertarians) make all the time. They constantly refer to something they call the "welfare / warfare" phenomenon. They take this from Ayn Rand's identification of "parasites on parasitism"; namely that in a welfare state there will be political minded businessmen who will seek to establish markets by pull and subsidy rather than by merrit. All fine and good. But Sciabarra goes on to make claims that this phenomenon is at the heart of our foreign policy, that corporations are profitting from our overseas wars and even that one of the main motives for many of our engagements overseas is corporate profits. (Arthur Silber makes these points quite frequently also. He had a link to a report showing that US agri-giant Monsonto was granted a monopoly selling Iraqi farmers crop seeds. The Iraqis are not allowed to use their own seeds they had been growing for years but must buy them from Monsonto. If this is true, its yet another example of pragmatic bussinessmen.) He agrees that altruist motives are given but only as veneers for this military / industrial parasitism. (While he doesn't go as far, its not a far leap from his arguments to Micheal Moore's anti-corporate fantasy. But as I say, the pull pedlers phenomenon does exist nevertheless.)

Here are links to his criticism of Peter Scwartz's book on rational foreign policy:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog/

Its a five part series with the title: "Peter Schwartz and the Abandonment of Rand’s Radical Legacy". Gee, do you think he has an axe to grind? My reason for posting this is that, on the surface anyway, I agree with one thing. Nowhere in Schwartz's book does he get into the history of American corporate interests in the middle east. Sciabarra in essence accuses him of rationalism, of broad sweeping ethical principles which ignore the details and context of the history of the American / Middle East relations.

From Sciabarra:

"Schwartz misses the underlying dynamic at work in the current political system. That’s because, almost without fail, he focuses on moral issues acontextually; he insists on pronouncing sweeping moral judgments on various global phenomena but frequently brackets out any discussion of the actual history—the actual context—within which these phenomena have evolved. We are left, in the end, with moral generalizations that are disconnected from the concrete circumstances with which Schwartz attempts to grapple."

I have read Schwartz's book and I loved it. I thought it dealt with basic principles and in my thinking, if the US had followed Schwartz's policies, situations like the one we find ourselves in today would never have happened. So I am trying to figure out if there is any relevance to Sciabarra's criticism and the fact that Scwartz did not include in his book historical descriptions of America's past and present corrupt economic relations with the middle east. I also note that Sciabarra does not disagree with any of Scwartz's "sweeping moral judgements". He just says they are ungrounded.

Some final notes. I am not a fan of Sciabarra. I ocassionally read his essays because I find through correcting his mistakes I end up with greater knowledge of Objectivism. My comments on Schwartz's book are very similar to the comments made by Free Capitalist on Yaron Brook's Morality of War lecture; ie that I fully endorse it but would like to see more historical details added to give the arguments greater context and completeness.

[punk]

I've read similar critiques of empires.

The basic points are that empires generate a net loss of wealth for the imperial nation. However they generate a net gain in wealth for certain powerful interests with a hold on the government.

It basically works like this: The imperial states uses the resources of the nation as a whole to secure the empire, and must continually pump money into the empire to maintain it. The powerful interests make a profit from the empire, but this profit is much less than the amount of money the imperial nation pumped out to secure it for them. It really just boils down to a horrific case of private interests externalizing the costs to the nation as a whole.

This is one of the problems with a state that isn't capitalist, but has strong statist elements (and note that the United States is a very statist entity). A true capitalist state wouldn't be able to secure an empire, simply because it would have to generate a huge amount of income from its core and this would mean taxation of some kind well beyond what is allowable to a capitalist state.

The important point here is that this is exactly what the US is doing in Iraq, certain powerful corporations have positioned themselves to make huge profits while the US taxpayer pays for infrastructure and security (and of course the invasion itself). This could never be done for a profit, so corporations need to externalize the costs.

[ex_banana-eater]

Did Peter Schwartz ever advocate some type of "empire" in his book that Sciabarra is riling against? From what I understand of capitalism, the moral country destroys the enemies and then leaves.

[BurgessLau]

[...] and note that the United States is a very statist entity).

By what standard?

How can we measure the level of freedom in a country? Likewise, how can we even compare the level of statism in one country to another? Should we make a list of conditions and then answer true/false? Surely there must be a more systematic and logical way.

I have not found a solution to this problem. I can suggest that the measurement or comparison should first involve basic rights -- those that affect every peaceful, honest individual -- rather than secondary rights. An example of a basic right is the right to property; a secondary right would be copyright protection (which is based on the property right, but which doesn't directly affect most individuals).

Solutions?

[Bowzer]

Did Peter Schwartz ever advocate some type of "empire" in his book that Sciabarra is riling against?

I have read Mr. Schwartz's book and although I have not and will not be reading the above reference to Sciabarra, here is a quote from The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest:

A free country’s interests lie in being left alone—i.e., in not being subject to force—in the same way and for the same reason that it does not initiate force against others. A free country has no need, and no desire, for conquest. It grows prosperous by production and trade, not by coercion and oppression (which is why wars do not occur between free, capitalistic nations). A free country’s pursuit of its self-interest entails not sacrifice—neither of itself to others, nor of others to itself.

That doesn't sound very imperial to me.