“What is a trade deficit?  How does it export inflation?

Surely the idea of a trade deficit disregards the principle of value-for-value trading, regardless of national borders?

Money is an abstract symbol of values traded (concretized as coins & notes).  If a Chinese manufacturer obtains American money from an American, for goods the American has purchased, then the two men, and the two nations. are value even!  There can be no deficit between them.

The trade deficit idea treats the American *dollar* as a concrete, and as an “American item” being depleted.  It does not consider the value of the goods Americans have imported, & by which Americans will benefit.

Walmart, above all, has understood the economic meaning of Chinese labor, however implicitly, and capitalizes on it. Americans receive an enormous material benefit—whilst economists fret about a trade deficit with China.  American lives are massively eased by the cheap Chinese products bought by American money.  Despite talk of sweat shop labor, American money improves the lives of those Chinese. No, their lives do not match those of Americans, but their lives are improved because of Americans (despite the Chinese Communist government).

If there is any sort of deficit, would it not be a human-value deficit, on China’s part?   China’s  2007 GDP/capita is ~ $5,000.  The province of  Guizhou, with 40 million people, is as poor as Nigeria or the Sudan at only $1500, see GDP/cap  by Chinese province.  Most Chinese labor for a few dollars a day, working Americans earn as much in half an hour.

C.W. may have a point about exporting inflation.  Imagine measuring the economic impact of an increase in fiat American money on the economies of countries that are busy printing  their own money?

I was severely alarmed by the idea that Mike N’s post raised.  So much so, in fact, that I chose to  respond in a post, rather than a mere comment.  I post on the impropriety of advocating legislation that would require ‘idle property’ be put to ‘better’ use.

My first concern was, “by whose standards”?

Whilst the principles I advocate have not changed, I misconstrued at least the view of one or two commenters. My weak explanation for doing so, which does not excuse me, is that I had literally skipped certain commenters’ lines —phone calls & children can really mess one up— and I thereby missed what was their ultimate point.

Fortunately, in his comment to my original version of this post, Shea Levy asked why I thought commenters to Mike N’s post were supporting the idea that “idle property” should, by law, not be permitted (my paraphrasing).  Shea was right to ask!

Shea prompted me to re-read the comments on Ghost Town.  I saw that I had believed comments by Amlan Gupta and Mike N, in particular, were in support of regulating the use of idle property towards more Objective ends, which was not their real position.

That said, the entire issue of property rights for those holding ‘idle property’ is no less worthy of strong reaction. Lionel Griffiths comments, in particular, addressed my immediate reaction.

Although Mike N’s post does not fully endorse the idea that the owner of an idle property should somehow lose his ownership, Mike N’s words DO open a door to that notion. He writes, “What’s important here, and needs to be recognized by our laws, is the principle that property must serve some human purpose and cannot be held idle in perpetuity” (my bolding).

Of course, what does Mike N mean by “cannot be held idle in perpetuity“?

Surely, the idea of “perpetuity” cannot properly apply to individual land ownership, because the owner could sell the property (at a loss or a gain) or, as he ages & dies, he could pass his property to another individual.  That is not a matter of “perpetuity”, it is a simple generational passage of ownership.

Is Mike N. advocating a statute of limitations for ownership of idle property?  There may be reason for that, such as when there are no inheritors, but that is a practical issue for another discussion.  I do not think that is really his avenue of intellectual investigation. He, I think, wants some outside power or principle (by which I read: “the State”) to require that an idle property in question be forced into better use. That is what I am opposed to.

The economy of a region may be so stagnant, mainly due to local politics, that it may take multiple generations before a property can be returned to constructive use.  That period is, to repeat, “not perpetuity”, however ghastly a failure of economics it may represent. In fact, the implication that it is “in perpetuity”, is quite deadly, in a political sense! The open-ended view suggested by “in perpetuity” encourages ’some power’ to view such property as a ‘hoarding’, as a deliberate act against productivity! But why is that property stagnant? Is holding it idle an actual matter of hoarding? Is the fact that it is idle a justification for government interference? Is such hoarding some mysterious capitalist desire to cheat the poor of future financial happiness?

Certainly not.

Given that political destruction of a local economy is the most likely cause of the property lying idle, it would be a terrific injustice to impose legislation that then establishes certain use-requirements on speculating property/business owners.  The stagnation was not the owners’ doing, or wish, yet they are now to be punished for having chosen so stressful a long term speculation.

Indeed, who would impose such legislated requirements other than the politicians who created the problem in the first place?  The entire scenario  is a recipe for power hungry politicians to assert their control over ‘idle’ property. All they need do is increase the political causes of stagnant property, so as to assume legal control over those stagnant properties! What a plan!

That, to me, is a terrifying fascist/socialist consequence of (any level of) a government’s “idle property” policy. My bottom line: others have no right to interfere with the private property of another —buy them out, or forget it!

In all this, I fear there is a deeper, more vicious, attitude in such treatment of owners of idle property.  Its basis is the idea that someone ought to do more with a property than they are, and it presumes an “I know better than you” approach to a property owner’s rights. It is even an appeal to the Collective Good, rather than to Individual Freedom. Such a view overrides the owners Right to both Property, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  That view presumes “you are not making The World the way I/we want it made (or could make it), so I/we want a law to force you to do so!”

In my view, Real Estate speculation or not, how dare anyone use government force to make the owner alter his property to provide for their ‘better’ way!

The fact is, Stock Market speculators are regularly criticized for seeking wealth by doing nothing more than wait for share values to change.  However, all but rabid-Leftists recognize that that practice is not merely reasonable …it is constructive.  It smoothes spikes in property & stock valuations, because there is always someone who will sell, or buy, sooner, causing a tendency towards the mean —towards the market value of the stock.

In principle, ‘idle property’ owners would be penalized for doing the same thing as stock market investors, i.e. for seeking wealth by doing nothing more than wait for real-estate values to shift, just as they do with stocks.

In fact, every property owner waits for real estate values to change. It is not a new thing. So why suggest it is, when it is done by ‘idle property’ owners? At worst, the ‘idle property’ investment is only an investment over a longer term. It too, may prove to be worthless, but they hope otherwise! Leave such failing, or winning, investors alone!

Property valuations effect owners’ decisions to sell, they effect taxation, and effect one’s sense of total financial value. For a government to step into that system is a sure way to distort or discourage property owners from engaging in rational, real-estate speculation. Government intervention only serves to cause, on average, wealth destruction.

Now here is a radical change of direction on this issue of property ownership.

Consider:
Property ownership is the only legitimate means men have for preserving natural areas for the sake of the plants, animals, resources, and even geology, that they may enjoy. Their alternative is State Parks.   [Due diligence: I happen to love tigers, and hope that conservation will give them a substantial area of land where thy will survive, and not eat people!] Now consider that such nature lovers may love an area of land, whilst also noting that it lies on a large body of tar sands… a future source of wealth. They chose to combine two speculative values in a single land investment. Whatever decisions they may make, the decisions, however others may disagree, are theirs and theirs alone.  They may prefer to create a larger region for tigers, using the wealth they gain from the tar sands, or they may prefer another habitat region, willingly allowing the extinction of tigers. I say, they made their choice, and my view, ultimately, should not be imposed upon their final decision.

Sure, we can talk to them to suggest other uses, but the instant the “idle property” notion is invoked, as a State imposed Statute of Limitation, then the owner’s Right to his Property is violated.

Let us view a real, rather than hypothetical, example: The Michigan Land Conservancy (MLC).

The MLC did NOT (at least, initially) use government funds —which is confiscated taxpayer’ wealth—  to buy natural areas.  Such areas are usually a result of purchase by state and federal agencies.  Instead, the MLC used private donations to obtain thousands of acres of land they deemed to be worthy of preservation (I may or may not agree with their choices).

The MLC  land selections have been funded by supporters and visitors who pay parking and gate fees, so as to visit the trails into those areas.  As I understand it, the MLC manages to survive without government support!  That is utterly distinct from most conservancy and environmentalist organizations, who use donations to advertise for more donations, as they lobby for government legislation that will force citizens to meet environmental goals.  The latter is a vastly more expensive procedure, not to mention a violation of rights. In contrast, the MLC actually achieved its similar goals without such lobbying. GreenPeace, PETA (facetiously: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals), and Meryl Streep’s Environmental Defense Fund, to name three, could do the same thing, but their misanthropic perspective prefers the enslavement of productive human activity.

Does anyone, such as legislators, have the Right to impose their ideals on the people of the MLC , by legislating how the MLC uses its property?  TO DO SO, I would say, is Statist arrogance inherent in the notion that some think they know better than others.  I respond to them, as John Galt did, by saying, “Get the hell out of my way.”

Sure, some see better uses for land than preserving plain Nature, but YOU have no right to force another to agree with that. You may turn such land to your goals if you offer them enough money, but if you cannot, “you have no right to get in their way“. (Besides, it is not morally wrong to love Nature.  It is morally wrong to love Nature by rejecting the greater values of human reasoning and valuing.)

Dictating what urban speculators or the MLC should do with their properties, on the grounds of the “idle property” issue IS a rejection of the owners’ reasoning and values.   If the advocate of legislation likes those lands so much, he should buy them himself!  If the MLC or urban speculator agrees, then the MLC or speculator can buy other, perhaps larger, properties that are consistent with their goals, or reduce possible losses.

To dictate how property should be used is at root a Fascist perspective!

Update 2009/11/14 — minor corrections of grammar, typos and faulty tags

Douglas brought to N. America, the unoriginal, yet winning, political trick…

Yep, citizens of Saskatchewan were willing to vote for whichever politician would spend more of other peoples’ money. Each voter hoped s/he would benefit more than that money, from taxation, would cost them personally . Nor did they care for what the full provincial economic cost would be.  They only hoped that the dollars taken would somehow come their way, when they needed them.  Each citizen hoped that his cost::benefit ratio would be smaller than anyone else’s.

That view has an interesting history.

Picture a starving ‘dirt’ farmer & his family;  e.g. Henry Fonda in the “Grapes of Wrath”:

In those days, 98% of Canadians were farmers. Before Tommy Douglas’s political success, in Saskatchewan, a great many people refused to accept, let alone apply for, such government funds as Workmen’s Compensation, or Unemployment Insurance. Why?

Because they knew they would be using other people’s money, and preferred to starve rather than stoop so low.

That pride, that virtue, is, today, incredible. Who, now, thinks with such integrity? (Certainly not commenter Paulhus) H_ll, the public schools require, by implication, that children think otherwise!

Before Tommy Douglas’s influence, men knew what it meant to be self-reliant rather than parasitic. Such men exist no more. Yes, there are a few statistical exceptions (I must be one of them).

In almost comedic irony, Leftists wail about the selfish greed of the wealthy, yet they hope to greedily steal other peoples’ wealth for their own ‘higher’ ideals.

1. My father’s heart arrhythmias have settled, and his sodium levels have been managed through intravenous fluids and fluid intake restriction.  Though he could barely walk, he was deemed strong enough, to no longer be eligible for a hospital bed.  Indeed, if he chose to stay, three doors from my mother, he would be charged $750 per day!

2. Now, my mother’s TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) levels are unusually high, due to a benign pituitary tumor, causing her thyroid to be dysfunctional.  As a result, she has sudden blackouts due to rapid blood pressure drops (syncope), and must stay in bed.  Her dramatic collapses to the floor —unconscious, eyes open & staring— are terribly distressing.  So far, her falls have been caught every time but one, which fortunately only caused minor bruising.   According to her condition, she can still stay in a hospital bed, for ‘free‘.

Notice how the above bolded portions indicate the rules of socialized medicine that determine the care of the patient.  Sure, Dad could stay in hospital, but the cost is obscene, and the price is clearly set so as to drive patients out.  Only under altruism would such ‘logic’, such treatment, be seen as appropriate, because it serves others in the system.  In a private system the same choice would not be so starkly enforced,  Patients in a free market would have a multitude of choices that are not available in the government system.

Incredibly, another wing of the hospital provides a limited number of beds for “Interim Care”.   These beds are priced at a rate comparable to the Interim Care spaces offered by pseudo-private Long Term and Chronic Care facilities.  As soon as a private space becomes available, either Interim Care or Long Term Care (Dad doesn’t need Chronic Care), Dad must move out of the hospital, and away from his spouse.

If a local Interim Care space does not become available, then Dad will be subject to the “Idle Bed Policy” of the Ontario Government.   By that policy, unless he pays $750 per day, he will be placed in any available long-term-care bed within 150 Km (93 miles) of his home hospital, regardless of where his family or spouse may live.  Sure, over time, he will be a leading candidate for a closer bed, should it become available, but at his age, what is time? Clearly, the message is, Dad is sure to die anyway so why should it matter where he is placed?   Good Luck, Dad, your choices are conditional on the principles of the “Communists”.  You are no longer useful to the “collective”, so who in political power should care?

Imagine, you are struggling for life, yet find yourself some 100 miles from your spouse and family simply because ‘the system’ deems it.  It does not matter what you can afford, regardless of how much you want to be with your spouse, the system sees such things as a luxury it will not provide.

Dad has, for his entire life, been utterly smitten with my mother.  A single night, in a different bed from her, now reduces him to tears, though he stoically deals with it. She feels much the same.  Smacked Down, again and again, Dad struggles to rebound.  He is determined not to die before her, solely to save her from the grief he knows she will suffer if he were to die first.

A few days ago they were three rooms apart, down the hall.  Now, they will be “pets” shunted about at the behest of their masters (the government) based on the (struggling) decisions of their Veterinarian (the doctors who are ruled by their masters).

Things have changed since I started this post.  The scenario, & the hoops patients must jump, have switched.

The doctors, who are not Geriatricians, knew that my father was prone to Gout (elevated concentrations of uric acid that crystallizes in joints).  By restricting his fluids, for his heart, they allowed his uric acid levels to rise, through lack of electrolyte elimination (diuresis).  The consequence was that uric acid crystals formed in the most logical, target joint… the elbow he had injured.

Worse, the gout weakened his immune response in that joint, permitting an infection in his elbow, so he is suffering incredible pain, whilst in desperate need of intravenous antibiotics.  If you saw his elbow, you would be horrified; it looks utterly sick.

Now, if you are 30 yrs old, or 40, or even 50, that might not be such a big deal.  You will expect to recover, and to carry on with your life interests.  But, try to place yourself at 89 years of age— that’s 40 years beyond the optimistic 50 yr old!  You KNOW your chances of living another 3 yrs is slim, let alone living another 5 years, or maybe 10?

Worse, if you have ever REALLY loved someone, & find the absolute love of your life is in the same situation… how long can she, or you, sustain so great a value?

Nonetheless, the powers that be have determined to shunt you about as if you were a dog or a cat —a mindless pet— with no intellectual attachments to family, with no regard for your great love of 60 years! Can you grasp that,

Really?

The very accommodating, and sympathetic Discharge Nurse did an enormous amount of work to find the best arrangement, hopefully culminating in both of our parents being placed in the same Long-Term Care, semi-private suite in a local home. Sadly, she admits, she must work within the system.  But worse, for failing to grasp the enormous abstract principles at work, she does so willingly.

As the aging patient, you have no doubt that your placement is utterly beyond your control.

That is how it is under socialized medicine, …so “suck it up”, say the socialists.  There are only so many Long-Term Care beds, and they are not enough (the state moves with glacial speed to meet demand).   Make your choices, as to what homes have the shortest waiting lists, or that provide the environment you can afford, and then wait. Sure, you may die this year or the next, so just as the rest of us have to wait for a teller at our bank, so now you too can wait.

Will your wife of 60 years be allowed to share your double, semi-private room, should you get it?  “Semi-private” means your room may be sharing with a person of your choosing, if both of your health conditions match, but what are the chances of that?  Even so, you & your neighboring semi-private room will still share a toilet/sink —a matter that to many is a huge, personal and problematic, issue of dignity. If you are lucky, you get a chest-of-drawers, can bring in a TV, and can put your favorite pictures on the walls of your one room bedroom.  Oh Gosh, how great is that!  (That was, f0r those who do not appreciate it, is sarcasm.)

Though ‘they’ try to match you with a person of immediate value to you, you have no way of knowing if your roommate will be your spouse or some complete stranger, who was also subject to the idle bed poicy, and had priority.

Yes, you have considerable accessibility to health care —if your assigned doctor is any good, and the bureaucratic limitations match your situation— but, generally, your pets would receive better psychological treatment …your lifetime association with a very specific person, your spouse, is ultimately irrelevant.  You become a ‘body’, shunted about, because you are old.  A ‘body’ is a not-quite-dead thing . Can you sense that sense?  Geriatric patients certainly do.  If you can, then you are starting to understand socialized medicine.

Why…

Because, under socialized medicine, your particular life is not really as important as you might think, the System is done! To people whose primary focus is their bureaucratic budget, their system considers you to be an expense.  That means, by the plethora of younger voters who do not face such issues, that they are of greater importance.  By ignoring the aged, and by pleasing the 19 to 40 age group, a bureaucrat/politician can get the democratic power s/he seeks.

If you, as a teenager or a somewhat older person, want your parent’s, or your own, last days to have some meaning, and want to receive the most beneficial treatment possible, do NOT endorse socialized medicine!  Make your own choices, and put your money behind your choices!

Under socialized medicine, your placement nurse will be entirely sympathetic, but she can only do what the system allows. That is, she is the smiling representative of a system that does not give a tinkers damn.

A finer detail: certain blood tests, from my Mum, were couriered to a major city (Toronto) that is nearly two hours drive away.   Nine days later, the results were faxed to my mother’s doctor.  Nine days!! The blood takes 2 minutes to obtain, & l;ittle longer to test, but the system requires numerous steps, because it is is overloaded, so instead of two days, it takes nine!

So, what is the broad picture of geriatrics in Ontario?

Incredibly, there is only one geriatrician for 30,000 people over 65.  What? …you may ask.
Yes, that is how scarce an enormously important resource is, under Ontario’s socialized medicine.

If you are old, who gives a damn that more is needed to assuage the concerns of the over 50  electorate? They are sure to die.

Let’s make this clear.  My ex-wife is a geriatrician.  In a casual phone conversation, in five minutes, she was able to offer more advice for my aging parents than the Internists that were treating my parents had come up with, in four weeks of care!  THAT is the nature of government-provided health care; so few geriatricians exist that one needs personal connections to get proper medical advice.  So, in a market of 30,000 patients over 65 years of age, per geriatrician, young doctors should be rushing towards the opportunity to make a difference, so as to make a financial living.  Yet, they don’t, because under the supposedly moral system of socialized medicine, the state is the greater authority that chooses what is in the minimal interest of all patients.  Any selfishness of doctors or citizens, for the health care profits that might suit them, must be expunged, …and the state will ensure that it is.  No one observes that the whole altruistic system costs a lot more than would a free, capitalistic, and egoistic, trading system.

My Dad’s situation may not be entirely ‘routine’, as Paulhus suggests, but his inappropriate care, is no less disgusting for being so readily accepted, and is no less a function of  ‘the system’.  There are many other such occurrences.  Paulhus’s uncle’s experience may be a ‘majority’ example, but that kind of success can be found in any large scale operation.

That is, “Lemon” cars exist, but smart shoppers still look for the vehicle make and model that is least likely to result in their buying a lemon.  By his ‘majority’ argument Paulhus (unthinkingly) presumes it is okay to sacrifice My father to the system, since His uncle is doing fine.  Would he care to  have them switch places, and give his uncle the ‘lemon’… it is, after all, the same “fantastic” system?

Paulhus questioned my knowledge of the realities of a socialized, single-payer* medical system.  For whom this matters: —of course my opinion on Socialized Medicine is based on facts.  Many come from direct observation:- my first 35 years were prior to Ontario medicine becoming socialized in 1985, followed by 24 years whilst living under it.  Furthermore, I watched my wife’s experiences with socialized medicine as an Internist, a Geriatrician, and a Chief of Staff, and I learned lots!  There were also all the interactions I had with other doctors, nurses, and administrative staff with whom we associated.

(*Observe that “single payer” is an anti-concept designed to drive out the understanding that when a patient pays for care, s/he is a single payer. It really means one payer & one decision maker, for ALL patients.  It is Statism, whether fascist or socialist. )

The present US system is mainly fascist: it is heavily regulated, its medical staff are subject to extraordinary liability insurance costs due to a litigious judicial system, with lawyers operating on a Deep Pocket approach to handling cases.  Jurors assign massive payouts to those they see as victims because, after-all, “the insurance companies can afford it”, never grasping how it is ‘afforded’.  The American system already divorces the patient from the insurance companies (a point Paulhus correctly addressed) .  Generally, the employer of a patient decides what insurer to use, so patients have to accept whatever that insurer provides.  Medicare & Medicare has driven many doctors to opt-out, whereupon they discover they can provide better care & have happier patients.

Paulhus may be pleased with his experiences with his Saskatchewan system (the first in Canada, thanks to Premier Tommy Douglas, first socialist government in N. America) but he ignores other, hidden & not so hidden, elements of the nature of socialized medicine:

1. Morally, it approves the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and promotes widespread cultural approval of theft.  More and more rationalizations emerge by which such thefts are multiplied;
2. Like every other government service, the cost per person, of those actually using the system, invariably climbs beyond what truly free systems are able to achieve;
3. It depletes the resources (wealth and potential wealth) of those —Peter, above— who suffer greater wealth confiscation by taxation;
4. Peter is less able to a) enjoy the fruits his productive effort because others claim a greater right to them than he, and b) if he wishes to increase his productive effort by re-investing his profits into it, he simply cannot;
5. Then, from 4b), that productive effort declines, fewer people are hired, fewer new products emerge and the economy increasingly stagnates, a few unreported businesses at a time;
6. The more 5) occurs the more those most benefiting from socialized medicine become unable to afford private health care, as well as food, clothing, housing and so on.  In fact, by voting for it, the economic source of their incomes —the blooming economy of the Peters— declines.   Unfortunately that decline in medicine itself can take 20+ years before it becomes apparent.  Economically & medically, supporters of socialized medicine shoot themselves in the foot;
7. As medical staff become increasingly strapped for resources, only those most willing to live in such circumstances remain.  They view the decaying system as ‘normal’, and however nice they may sound, they choose to work with inept policies, bureaucratic (Cover-Your-Ass-from-the-government) paper work.   They become increasingly stressed, and/or lose sight of the patient as an individual… “it’s the system” they say, thinking they are being empathetic.  Worse, the less competent practitioners become harder to weed out;
8. As the confiscated money pours into the bloated and inefficient system, weaknesses in the system grow larger and costs escalate, but now it’s per patient cost cannot be compared with anything.  The medical market is detached from reality, it is economically adrift;
9. More and more regulations, restrictions and improper policies are tried to improve the system but only reduce health care quality further…
10. As with all government services, ‘shortages’ begin to appear that remain uncorrected until the outcry is great enough.  Certain services are refused, others entail wait times that can be fatal.   Often, some services get undue attention & financing for political reasons, e.g. consider the disproportionate NIH spending revealed in this table (an excerpt from here):
    

    Disease	Research DOLLAR$	Deaths Per  Disease	$ Per Patient Death
    Breast Cancer	716 Million	40,910	17,501
    Cardiovascular Disease	2.3 Billion	871,500	2,639
    HIV/AIDS	2.9 Billion	16,316	178,046
    West Nile Virus	63 Million	161	390,304

Under socialized medicine, the patient becomes the equivalent of a voiceless pet, as the Vet (the MDs) debates with the owner—who owns the animal clinic and has final say— as to what the best medical treatment should be.  (See Germany and Britain’s Nationalized Systems —they are moving towards greater privatization);

In contrast, free markets always seek to provide as much of any and all products or services to as great a degree as the market will bear… shortages of milk, paper, building materials, software, iPhones, are quickly resolved for that exact reason.  The same is, or would be, true of private medicine, through demand and competition.   Of course, that requires a judicial system that properly enforces contracts and punishes fraudulent practices.

Were Paulhus to check his terms he would find he is absurdly wrong to suggest that the single-payer idea is “not socialized medicine”  He even argues that American insurance companies transgress Individual Rights.  This thinking, which is common among Canadians, presumes that rights are provided by the State.  Thus, if an individual (or corporation) does not succour some need, even if acting according to laws imposed upon them by their governments, then some ‘right’ must have been violated.  In America, health care is a mess of blindly pragmatic government health care regulations that have violated the Individual Rights of pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and employers (all of which are run by individuals).  It is the violation of Rights that is the cause America’s health care problems.  More such violations can only make it worse.

In fact Obama sees that his prize only means that he stands for the hope of peace.

This view, of the Far Left Nobel Committee, is as appalling as it is unsurprising.  Does the Nobel Committee see Obama’s wishes as sufficient reason for his award?  Sure, Obama wants peace, but even he knows he has not succeeded in achieving what peace requires.  His wish for that achievement means nothing.

As the expression goes, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride“.  Does the Nobel Committee hope to give Obama a horse, simply by presuming that his wishing is a value?  Put another way, should the fervently spoken hopes for World Peace expressed by a top Beauty Pageant contestant, gain her a Nobel Peace Prize?

All that is embarrassing enough, but this ‘award’ has already been besmirched by having been awarded to the impotent Jimmy Carter, the duplicitous Yasser Arafat, and irrational, power-seeking Al Gore!  Clearly the Nobel Peace Prize goes to the most impotent and least successful.

The Nobel Peace prize is not so much a praise of Obama, as a condemnation.  That he sees it as such is fascinating.  A *prestigious award* is given to a significant political figure, yet so serves to wreck his career that his acceptance speech must also perform damage control.

Are they that superficial, or are they just lying? The resemblance is no accident of graphic options, or of RGB-‘Posterizing’ in Photoshop. It derives directly from the artistic and philosophical leanings Fairey has adopted.

From Wikipedia (i.e. to be taken with-a-grain-of-salt):
Shepard Fairey (née 1970) began as a skate-boarding street artist, with a bent to rebel against, or at least expose, the Big Powers around us that we blindly accept, take for granted, and obey.  (The name of his website is “ObeyGiant ”.)  He began his career approach by posting this graffiti image of André the Giant, with or without the “Obey” epigram, everywhere he could:

(André was 7’4”, 540 lbs; some may recall his hilarious role in The Princess Bride)

Artistic Leanings

In The Washington Post, William Booth describes Fairey’s mindset for developing  the Obama Hope poster  (“Obama’s On-The-Wall Endorsement”, 2009/o5/18):

… he wanted to make posters that the cool cats would want. The 2008 Democratic primary season equivalent of the Che poster (with all that implies). More Mao, more right now. The kind of poster that might make its way onto dorm room walls of fanboys. The kind of poster that might sell on eBay, as a signed Fairey Obama recently did, for $5,900. He wanted his posters to go viral.  (my emphasis)

Note the implicit wish for the ‘good old [beatnik & hippie] days’ when socialism was “cool”.  (Just throw in some Democrat Blue:)

Booth, rightly, ties Fairey’s works to the Russian Constructivists of 1919:

Fairey’s artwork follows the style of his predecessors. His Obama posters (and lots of his commercial and fine art work) are reworkings of the techniques of revolutionary propagandists — the bright colors, bold lettering, geometric simplicity, heroic poses — the "art with a purpose" created by constructivists in the early Soviet Union, like Alexander Rodchenko and the Stenberg brothers,

Exactly —Fairey’a art is nearly identical in style to the artwork of early communists, whether in Russia, China, S.W. Asia or Central & South America.   Why?

Philosophic Leanings

Fairey graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration.  He  links his work to Heidegger’s views of Phenomenology (originated by Hegel,  and expanded by Husserl) .

Phenomenology was believed to be a pursuit of objectivity, but it is really a variation of Kantianism masked by different language.  For example, in Kant’s language, categories of consciousness limit how we experience the phenomena of our senses.  In Phenomenological language, our experience of an object is “constituted” in consciousness in different ways, through perception,  memory, retention (of a raw percept), protention (expectation of a new perception), and signification (symbolic or semiotic values).  “Knowledge of essences would only be possible by "bracketing" all assumptions about the existence of an external world and the inessential (subjective) aspects of how the object is concretely given to us.” This latter is just an echo of Kant’s division of all Existence  into noumena and phenomena … the former we can only assume (take on Faith), and the latter has only a Platonic resemblance to Reality.

The Phenomenology Wiki sums it up:

“Husserl’s method … entails the suspension of judgment while relying on the intuitive grasp of knowledge, free of presuppositions and intellectualizing.”

To Shepard Fairey’s slim credit, if I read him correctly, he prefers Heidegger’s view of Phenomenology.  Heidegger held a vaguely more Primacy of Existence view.   He argued that a person’s Existence (Being) and Consciousness were inseparable, as “Dasein” —that is, there is an undeniable Existence of which our individual Consciousness is a part.  Unfortunately, that view does nothing to close the Kantian gulf between consciousness and its ability to acquire a valid conceptual grasp of Existence, and is no less linguistically convoluted.   Phenomenology, with or without Heidegger’s help, was inescapably doomed to Primacy of Consciousness subjectivism.

No wonder, therefore, the subtitle for an article Fairey has posted on his site reads:

”Shepard Fairey On Graffiti, Breaking the Law, and the Meaningless of Meaning.” (my emphasis)

Heidegger, somewhat logically, had significant intellectual and practical ties with the Nazis, whom he publicly endorsed.  He was, a full blown collectivist —hardly the kind of ideology Americans need!

Popular art always follows cultural mindsets, it does not lead them.  So it is that Fairey’s art follows.  There are good reasons why Constructivist ‘art’ appeals to collectivist ‘revolutionaries’ and propagandists. 

The communist/leftist ideology views individual men as rather insignificant creatures with little capacity ‘to make their own mark’ in the World. It is a phenomenal world that is only comprehensible through collective understanding.  The only ‘real’ asset common to men is their capacity for labour.  They must group together to take on the greater, largely inexplicable, forces they believe confront them.  They must altruistically place their hopes in, and sacrifice themselves to, the moral glory of the greater whole, of the Collective, and at the same time hope that the Collective will save them.

(Of course they will also seek to have —or to align themselves with those who have— the power to use Collectivism to rule the rest.  What else is there?  c.f. ObeyGiant)

With the above cultural mindset, art reduces the insignificant individual man to stylized symbols.   All that matters is his position in the Collective.  Thus Socialist propaganda ‘art’ presents men, even leaders,  in unrealistic ‘high contrast’ lines, in powerful forward looking poses that presuppose Collective success. Characters & objects are variously surrounded by celestial (holy?) rays or halos. Often, sharp distortions of scale suggest a majesty of ability &/or character (e.g., a personality cult).  The images make extensive use of stark, politically meaningful colors, and usually incorporate a related, inspiring epigram or motto.

Fairey’s work, and the Obama campaigners’ eager acceptance of it, is no accident.

Below is a 21 image overview of propaganda ‘art’.  They demonstrate how the Constructivist art characteristics recur in otherwise wildly different cultures: Oriental, Slavic, Western Spanish etc. as socialist collectivism acquires political power.  The images also show that not all propaganda is Constructivist*.

• Perhaps frighteningly, three images are less than a decade old, and two of those are by Shepard Fairey.
• Three offer us some amusement, as knockoffs.
• The last five were made in America, but only four are American…

To me, those last four images project respect & admiration for a man —for his life, for his ability, & for his individual sovereignty!  That is what Collectivists cannot grasp, or are afraid to face, about themselves (and is something power-lusters must never encourage).  That is what Americans fought and died for in WW2, and must now peacefully fight for within their own nation!

(*Yes, some American war propaganda probably was Constructivist art.  I am not suggesting American culture was immune it. )

_______________________________

Do you recognize each image? For a brief description, hold down the left mouse-button while dragging the pointer across the white space above each image.  Images are hyperlinked to their source.

Mao:	A return to trueMaoism?:
The Sandinistas:	Ho Chi Min regards Lenin:
Marx knockoff?:	Chavez:
Shining Path:	Presidente Gonzalo (Shining Path founder)
Less crude Constructivism	Just as crude
Fairey (Staliesque Muslim?):	Imposter:
Lenin:	Stalin (1939):
Kim Il  Jong:	Charles Darwin:
#1	#2
#3	#4

#5

For those who are interested, RightIsBest also has (quite independently) compiled a much larger listing showing poster and image parallels between Obama and other socialist leaders.

On Monday, Aug 17th, he stumbled, fell, and broke his elbow.  An ambulance took him to the local hospital.  There the emergency doctor told Dad they could NOT set his arm.  He would have to be taken to a larger hospital (a half-hour’s drive), when there was an opening in the Orthopaedic Surgeon’s schedule.

Dad was to wait, in the local hospital’s bed, numb with morphine.  Imagine —uncertain days of pain, medicated fog and dysfunction, imposed upon you because Universal Health Care could not ‘fit you in’?  My mother lay awake, alone, for two nights, sharing his discomfort, and fearing his death, until that opening appeared on Wed Aug 19th.

An ambulance van drove Dad to the scheduled appointment with the Orthopod.   “We’re sorry, an emergency came up”.  The window of opportunity had closed.  At least Dad was now at the hospital where the Orthopod worked.

It was not until the next day, and another empty night for my mother, that Dad’s elbow was set!

The recovery time for an aging person’s injury is many times longer than that of the young.  Time IS life.  This delay will extend Dad’s recovery even longer than it might otherwise have been.  Dad knows his days are numbered, and now he will spend a substantial portion of those days in achingly slow recovery.

Many Canadians, when waiting for treatment, simply assume that someone else was suffering a more urgent crisis… and of course, that is true.  But, note the altruist lean their view reflects:  “someone else’s need was greater, so we should politely wait.”

Nonsense!

Dad’s simple broken elbow was not set for three days & nights, at a time without a flood of injured people from a wrecked passenger train or airliner (imagine if there were).  It was NOT that a greater emergency took precedence,  it was because the Health Care system could/would not accommodate him.  For all intents and purposes, Dad’s experience was routine.

Sure, all the medical staff involved were trying hard, and cared, but all of them were content to work in that state run system.  Yes the doctors accepted such treatment of their patients/customers as being the nature of ‘health care’. As Dr Hendricks put it: people must discover that, “it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.” (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand)

The politicians that put this system in place in Ontario, in 1985, gave it the Orwellian name, “The Health Care Accessibility Act”.

I predicted that it would be 15 – 20 years before it brought about a publicly noticeable decline in health care.  Yes, in the first five years, or so, lots of money was pushed into the system.  That ‘flush’ period is characteristic of socialist funding of any portion of an economy.

Then conservative journalists publicized the sky rocketing costs of Health Care.  The same Liberal government that pushed through “The Health Care Accessibility Act” insisted that it could contain provincial Health Care costs by reducing the number of doctors. (Think about that one!) Even as facility improvements were common, the Ministry of Health set about limiting per-student funding to university medical programs!

Then Health Care ceased to be news.

In ~1995, through a Chief of Staff, I learned that a major hospital was using an entire ward for equipment storage rather than patients.  At the same time there were patients lying on gurneys in the halls, until beds became available.  The hospital is located in a rapidly developing city of 750,000 people, and an entire ward is closed!  Why?  Because the government would not provide enough funding for extra nurses to staff the closed ward.   Clearly, health care was experiencing certain forms of decline.  I knew it, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel knew it, but it was not newsworthy.  Politicians kept announcing that we had The Best Health Care System in the World.

The first complaints large enough for the media to report started appearing about the year 2000: someone had noticed that thousands of Ontarians could not sign on with a Family Doctor.  No matter what their medical concern, they could only go to an Emergency Ward.  Family Doctors had too many patients. If they took on more patients, an MD risked billing more than the established caps, and the government would not pay. The MD would have to work for nothing if s/he were to accept another patient.  Thus, no health expert was tracking the health of thousands of people, except insofar as Emergency Wards keep records.

Now, after 24 years, most functioning Ontario doctors do not resent socialized medicine enough to speak against it, and a great many promote it.  Dr. Hendricks would not feel very safe here.   “Health Care Accessibility”? —in a pig’s eye!