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The road to ruin runs to Paris.

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The 'experts' said that Greece did not matter. These apologists cited Greece's small economy, 10 million population [1/3 the size of Beijing]; and its peripheral nature to the German dominated Euro bloc. So much for being experts. In 18 months the Euro has fallen from $1.46 to $1.28. This is just the beginning of the Euro's path to being a Zeuro. No 'expert' today can make a coherent argument as to why the Euro is worth more than the US dollar. European per capita income, living standards and assets per household are 30% less than in the US. The Americans have their own bankruptcy issues of course. But the game is further along in communal Europe. In the Euro zone of 17 disparate states with little in common, real debt levels are well above the government stated ratios of 90-130% of GDP. If you add in the $1 Trillion plus in promises to bail out Greece, Spanish banks and Franco-German banks with poor assets in Spain and Italy, the average debt to GDP ratio is well above 150% - even for France and Germany.

So Greece did matter. The big brains were wrong. This bankrupted state, which lied to get into the Euro-zone to hide its debts under a DM-Euro currency union, and to receive monies from European 'Stabilization Funds'; was apparently not big enough to matter. Or, as the Keynesians argue, it has not received enough 'fiscal stimulus' from the Franco-German core, itself a collection of 2 nations verging on insolvency. The fact that Greece will exit the Euro currency bloc is simply a foretaste of more to come. First Greece, then eventually France. The road to the Zeuro passes through Madrid and Rome, but terminates in gay Paris.

The only way to 'hold' the fixed exchange rate disaster which is the Euro 17, is to literally print $3 Trillion to $5 Trillion Euros. A fantastic sum. The ECB will have to print this much money to 'save' Greece [$250 billion]; Spanish banks [$500 billion]; Italian banks [$500 billion] and Franco-German banks with exposure to non-performing assets in Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe [$1 Trillion at least]. Along with financing Greece, and various national banks, the ECB will have to print money to replace lost fiscal power, or to substitute for the inability of Euro governments to go to debt markets and sell their bonds at high rates of interest to fund their extravagant socialist paradises.

This gap in 'funding' the socialist welfare nirvana in the core Euro countries is easily $1 Trillion over the next few years. The Euro 17 spends $6.5 Trillion per annum, or 55% of total GDP. The ECB is going to have to print money; give it to the banks; who will then in turn 'lend' it to national governments. This process has been going on of course for 20 years. This is why Europe is in such a mess. So the smart people will answer that more of what fails needs to be tried [maybe with a little more emotion and rhetoric]. Clever words will be used to categorize this fraud such as 'quantitative easing', or 'economic stimulus creation'. Little pieces of pretty coloured paper untethered to a metallic standard will at some point in time, become worthless.

Four questions remain about the Zeuro zone.

How long will it hold together ?

How many trillions of Euros will be printed ?

What will the real inflation rate be ?

What are the real-world consequences from this failed experiment at political and monetary socialism ?

Greece will be forced to exit the Zeuro zone. Spain will be next. Why ?Spain has $332 billion of liabilities to the Euro central bank [ECB], $125 billion already committed to the Euro-stabilization fund, and another $99 billion for the wonderfully named 'Macro Financial Asset Fund', and various guarantees for other bank and European funds, all of which totals over $600 billion. Spain's public debt-to-GDP ratio is only 69%, but add in these other guarantees and commitments and the real number is well over 130%. This is before the needed bailouts of their banks. If Greece is bankrupt what is Spain?

France's 'official' debt-to-GDP is 86%; but as with Spain, when you include France's commitments to the ECB, the ESFS, ESM, EIB and other programs, the number is about 150%. Besides these transnational and financial supports, the French state is a committed socialist construct with welfare, transfers, agro supports, pensions and public spending to buy votes and produce obedient knaves that consume 56% of GDP. There is no chance of 'austerity' or spending cuts within France, especially with Hollande and the far left radicals [in post-moderm terms these are now called 'centrists'], in power. The French have not balanced a budget since 1974. It is highly unlikely that a higher tax and spending regime under Hollande will acquaint itself with fiscal and market reality. Borrowing costs in France will rise, putting more pressure on the Euro. The Economist recently wrote:

"...France has not balanced its books since 1974. Public debt stands at 90% of GDP and rising. Public spending, at 56% of GDP, gobbles up a bigger chunk of output than in any other euro-zone country – more even than in Sweden. The banks are under-capitalized. Unemployment is higher than at any time since the late 1990s and has not fallen below 7% in nearly 30 years, creating chronic joblessness in the crime-ridden banlieues that ring France's big cities. Exports are stagnating while they roar ahead in Germany. France now has the euro zone's largest current-account deficit in nominal terms. Perhaps France could live on credit before the financial crisis, when borrowing was easy. Not anymore. Indeed, a sluggish and unreformed France might even find itself at the center of the next euro crisis."

If Spain defaults on its debt or on its obligations to the sundry Euro bailout funds; or cannot bail out its banks without massive [read $500 billion or more] of freshly printed beautiful pieces of paper [which some call money]; then we will see French banks default. Not only is the socialist political-economy of France unsustainable and insidious, but the entire nexus of government and banking, a cozy relationship full of corruption, greasy palms and political settlements, will unravel. When it does happen the Euro will be dead.

The 'crisis' in Europe is just beginning. In 2013 many states have to roll over sizeable amounts of debt. Depending on what happens in Spain the interest rates for this debt must rise and do so considerably. Nations like France can ill afford more interest payments and will be squeezed. One should not expect any austerity worth the name in France or Spain. In Euro-Janus-face speak, austerity means 1-2% of GDP in spending cuts. What the Euro states need is 20-30% reductions in spending and flatter, more intelligent tax structures to attract capital and jobs. It will never happen. The only question for the Euro is when does it die ? What year will it be buried ? That is the only debate.

The Euro's ultimate failure.

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In America vs. Europe, the potentially destructive nature of the Euro-zone was summarized:

“With declining productivity, government control of the economy has increased during the past 10 years. The average share of government tax revenues as a % of GDP is just over 50% throughout the EU. This does not include regulatory costs...Fiscal imprudence, rising government control, labour and market rigidity and manipulation of treaty obligations are serious issues that point out the need for liberalization within the EU.” [p. 174-5]

Since this was written things have gotten a lot worse. The EU and its subset, the Euro-17 nation currency union, has been without question, a signal failure. Why is this so? Let's look at the Euro and list 3 obvious reasons why it has failed:

The Euro was in part the attempt by Germany to guarantee her exports under an Euro-DM currency. Since the inception of the Euro German exports have risen by 80% in 10 years. It has not stimulated, however, economic development in the other Euro states.

The Euro raised prices across Europe through artificially over-stating a fixed rate between national currencies and the DM [or Euro]. This has raised wages, production and consumer costs across the Euro 17, depressing competitiveness, innovation and business activity. Unit Labour costs in Europe 2000-2012
The Euro was not only a political project, but also a means to hide national debts behind a DM backed supra-national currency. Governments ignored the Maastricht criteria on deficits and debt to GDP. They have merrily spent as much as they wished to buy votes and socially engineer their Euro paradises believing that the DM [read Euro] financier [namely Germany], would bail them out.

The Euro inflicted the worst of fiscal and monetary moral hazard on European citizens and businesses. It has allowed governments to lie about deficits and debts, and not even mention off the balance sheet liabilities which total some $100 Trillion. It did nothing to force reforms in the distorted and corrupted practices of government, big labour groups and unions whose power blocks capital and job formation. The nexus of big governments, unions and corporations is alive and well and even flourishing as never before. No reforms in labour practices or in capital markets have been seen since the advent of the Euro. No structural changes have occurred in the past 10 years.

The Euro simply entrenched and deepened the European fetish for socialism and state power. It will lead to bankruptcy and the dissolution of an unnatural currency area, in which disparate nation states do not share common monetary, fiscal, trade, labour or capital cycles and flows. In following the Euro 'crisis' the media will of course focus on 'left' vs 'right', and 'austerity' [of which there is very little] versus 'stability'. 'Radical' reforms will be juxtaposed against 'moderate', 'balanced' plans to address Europe's debt bomb. Odes to Europe needing 'bazookas', 'more firepower' and 'overwhelming force' to deal with its inevitable fiscal implosion will tantalize these mainstream media 'experts'.

Of course these mavens of analysis will completely miss reality and the relevancy of facts. The Euro is unnatural; it has created massive moral hazard; it defies economic logic; it is ultimately un-democratic; and it will certainly fail. The Euro dream of supplanting the US$ and becoming the world's reserve currency, and giving European 'soft power', hard economic leverage is a shambles and will be shelved within 5 years.

Book Review: 'Seven Lies about Catholic History', Diane Moczar

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ms Moczar is an American professor of Medieval history and a practising Catholic. For over 30 years she has had to fight against both anti-Church [read anti-Catholic] bigotry within academia and the classroom and the categorization and depiction of the Middle Ages as some mindless 'Dark Age'. As with 'Global Warming' such ideas are 'settled science', even if they are spectacularly wrong and insipid. But then again Aristotle's 'vitalism' in which life forms just spontaneously appear was 'consensus science' for 2000 years.

This short book at 190 pages, is a good summary of the 7 great lies often told against the Catholic Church. Anyone interested in the Church, or in knowing the real story behind the lies needs to read this book. These 7 myths pervade our culture and educational systems, but they are premised not on facts, but fancies and sometimes, open bigotry. Voltaire's musings that Gothic Cathedrals could only have been built by uncivilized Gothic tribes after Rome's non-existent 'fall', and that nothing before the age of Descartes mattered until one ran into the late Roman empire; has about as much connection to reality as a trace chemical causing climate catastrophe. The Middle Ages were anything but dark and ignorant. Indeed compared to the proliferation of cults today they might appear to be profoundly enlightened. But as with many good lies Voltaire's ignorance gets transformed into fact.

Moczar compiles and refutes the 7 most egregious and obvious lies about the Catholic Church which are:

The Dark Ages
The Church as the enemy of progress
The Crusades as all bad
The Inquisition
The Church against Galileo
The Corrupted Church
The Church as the destroyer of the Ameri-Indians

An infamous lie is of course the 'trial' and non-torture of Galileo:

“That brief episode in 1633 has become both legendary and infamous....St. Robert Bellarmine, cardinal and friend of the Galileo's, had made it clear that since the astronomer's theory had not been proven to be true, it must be held only as a theory....Why did the Church go to such lengths to obtain a retraction from Galileo?....the public mocking of the Pope, in the Dialogue that Galileo had published in 1632...the blanket discrediting of scientific...authorities such as Aristotle, whose thought contained much that was valuable for Christian scholarship; the possibility that there existed some alternative theory...Galileo's theory included erroneous details...” [p. 109-12]

Galileo's 'trial' was a quick affair with 4 people attending and after he signed his retraction he went back to live comfortably at his Tuscan villa working happily until his death on physics.

There are plenty more lies about the Catholic Church of course, but Moczar is writing a short summation, not an Encyclopedia. We know that the Dark Ages were remote but hardly barbaric. There was a contraction in Europe beginning with the Moslem invasions of the Mediterranean in 632 AD, which cut off the Mare Nostrum from Eastern trade routes and supplies of materials, including that of Papyrus. The 'Dark Age' may have lasted from the Moslem takeover and destruction of civilized Visigothic Spain to about 900 AD or some 200 years. Indeed the socio-economic progress post the Moslem invasions of the 8^th and 9^th centuries, and that of the Vikings and Avars in the 9^th and 10^th centuries are staggering. Rationality flourished as did technological progress. This says nothing – as Moczar explains – of the artistic, literary, and educational developments during this period. Everything from hospitals [5^th century Monkish inventions], to university curricula and advance agro-production were invented in the supposed Dark Ages.

Moczar explains the above and makes some key points in dismissing the other lies about the Catholic Church, including the incredibly ignorant premise that the Church held back development in Europe. Without the Church of course, there would not have been a European civilization worthy of that name, nor would Europe have conquered the world. Some facts presented by Moczar:

-Early Churchmen encouraged the development of both religious and secular learning

-The Church created the first public school system in the world in late Roman antiquity

-Convents and monasteries establish nurseries, orphanages, and libraries starting from the 4^th century.

-The Church defended both religious and secular freedoms and academic inquiry into irreligious subjects.

-Examples of medieval scholarship “would fill volumes.” Indeed the list of thinkers, tinkerers, scientists and innovators is huge.

-The 'Thomistic' method dating from the 12^th century and premised on the rationalist faith of St. Thomas was 'the real cause of the scientific breakthrough', developed by Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Descartes.

-Church 'philosophers' maintained since the time of Augustine that the highest faculty of the soul was the intellect and that truth was an artifact of divine creation. Faith is only achieved by rationality.

-As trade developed the Church dropped its opposition to charging interest on loans or making a healthy profit. The ban on usury was adopted in a localized-agriculturally-based economic age. As manufactures and commerce spread out from localities to the international market, the charging of interest and profit became accepted by the Church by the 11^th century.

-Medieval Guilds established a welfare state with payments for sick days, hospital visits, and even death benefits for families.

-The Crusades in many ways saved Europe. See here for more details.

-The Church never forced conversions – except in the cases of Moslems and Jews in Iberia and that policy was enacted for good historical reason, namely the former destruction of Visigothic Christian and quite superior [to anything the Moslems built in Spain] Christian culture by the Moors along with their Jewish helpers.

-The Inquisition was a state policy, not a Church policy. The Church turned over 'heretics', or those who were creating social discord including acts of treason, to the secular state. It was the state which 'burned' those found guilty, though most people convicted of social malfeasance were let go, or given light prison terms. Torture was not use by the Church to exact confessions – contrary to Hollywood portrayals.

-Some of the 'Inquisition' was appropriate in that 'dualism' or the embracing of death [to free the soul] as coveted by the Albigensians became serious cults of sociopathy and carnage. Babies were starved to death for example in order to free the soul from the chains of materialism.

-During the 16^th century the Spanish Inquisition executed less than 2 people a year on average or about 170 in total. This is 1/10 the number of young Moslem girls who are killed each year in dis-honour killings by Moslem families.

-The burning of Witches was mostly a Protestant reaction consuming 10.000 men and women during the 'Enlightenment' period, and mostly along the Rhine area.

-Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe and even Galileo were all funded by the Church. All of them were men of faith.

-Cortes and the Spaniards outlawed the slavery of Indians by 1538. La Casa and other church leaders established natural law rights and private property rights for Indians in the New World.

-By 1540 in the New World printing presses, hospitals and even public schools for Indians had been set up.

-There is little doubt that the Indians were better off under Catholic rule, than Protestant.

There is of course much more. But the above is a good sample of what Moczar offers. The anti-Catholic bigotry which pervades most of the modern world, is a product of course, largely of Protestant initiated slander and misrepresentation. There are many reasons for this including the rather extreme positioning of Luther and the Reformation; the anti-Spanish nature of English Protestant writers; the need for many in both the Protestant and secular realms to defame the Church for both religious and political reasons; and perhaps the attempt to rewrite history by modern Marxists and the cult of science [scientism] to cast any metaphysical project [excepting Islam usually], in the worst light possible viz a viz rationality, progress and 'progressive thinking'.

Keep in mind that today's world is beset by cults – the cult of warm, the cult of homosexuality, the cult of narcissism, the cult of science explaining 'all', the cult worship of the state, the cult of relativity and so on. Slandering the Church might make people feel emotionally satisfied but misrepresenting reality is hardly a sign post of rationality and intelligence. It is bigotry and myth-making. That is all it is. A good book and a great read for anyone interested in the reality of the Catholic Church and how it bequeathed – at least in part – the modern world to our present age.

Changing Geo-Economic reality

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Copied with permission. Old, indebted, state ridden Japan, US and Europe. Hungry, ambitious and energetic China, India and Brazil.

Next we have a chart shared with us by Niall Ferguson, showing how the US and Japan (and to some extent Germany) have seen their share of world GDP fall relative to China and India. He argued (as did several speakers) that the relative growth in the world is moving from Europe, Japan, and the US to the emerging markets. This is estimated data through 2016 from the IMF.

The following chart is also from Niall and shows gross government debt-to-GDP. This may be difficult if you are not looking in color, but the US (when all debt is counted) does not look all that much better than some of the problem countries in Europe.

"We are monitoring the BROAD rise in Youth Unemployment Rates, across the EU (this March, versus March of last year):

--- Bulgaria ... 32.8% ... up from 26.7%
--- Portugal ... 36.1% ... up from 27.6%
--- Denmark ... 15.1% ... up from 13.7%
--- Ireland ... 30.3% ... up from 28.7%
--- Cyprus ... 28.8% ... up from 18.8%
--- Hungary ... 28.8% ... up from 25.4%
--- Netherlands ... 9.3% ... up from 6.9%
--- Poland ... 26.7% ... up from 25.7%
--- Slovenia ... 16.5% ... up from 16.3%

"The Summer of 2012 could easily become the Summer of Social Dissent in the EU..."

Europe's 'Austerity' Myth.

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There is no austerity going on in Europe. The 'cuts' to public spending are a piffle compared to total GDP, or total spending. They are fiddling at the margins. The spending 'reductions' and tepid 'reforms' are so laughable that only the media could call them austerity.

austerity [ɒˈstɛrɪtɪ]

n pl -ties

1. the state or quality of being austere

2. (often plural) an austere habit, practice, or act

3. (Economics)

a. reduced availability of luxuries and consumer goods, esp when brought about by government policy

b. (as modifier) an austerity budget

Perhaps given the above definition of 'austerity', which is the reduction of goods provided by a government, the Europeans are in the desperate throes of 'austerity'. Woe betide anyone who actually wants to seriously reduce government however. The Euros are fiddling at the margins of their massive welfare state, with various 'austerity' packages amounting to less than 1% of GDP. Consider these facts:

Total 17 Euro Nation GDP: U$12.5 Trillion

Total 17 Euro Nation Government Spending: 51 % of GDP or U$ 6.4 Trillion

Total 17 Euro Nation 'Austerity': Billions US$: less than 60 billion or .9% of total spend.

These massive Euro cuts, which are 'destroying' the fabric of European society are certainly, in-toto, less than $100 Billion USD, juxtaposed against the Leviathan spending of some $6.4 Trillion! What austerity exactly is the media chattering about?

In Spain rioting over not much:

“Spain is bracing for a series of demonstrations against austerity and labor-market reforms this week, including May Day rallies on Tuesday and potential marches in Barcelona on Thursday, when the European Central Bank holds its governing-council meeting in Spain's second-largest city. The Spanish government has imposed border checks in case activists try to disrupt the ECB meeting.”

What huge, dislocating 'reforms' and cuts are the Spanish unhappy about?:

“Spain's government continues to push its austerity program. On Monday, a top Spanish official said the government will seek an additional €10 billion ($13 billion) in spending cuts from regional and local governments, bringing the total to €20 billion this year. The measures, which include lower spending on public services such as health care and education, are part of a broader package of painful cuts already stirring a public outcry amid surging unemployment.”

Wow!

The Spanish economy's GDP is U$1.5 Trillion. So a $20 billion cut equals an unbelievably painful and offensive 'cut' of 1.3% of GDP or 2.6 % of total government spend. Zowie. Spaniards are rioting over cuts – many proposed not implemented – equalling 20% of the amount of fraud that they wasted on solar panel firms and installations, a program since disbanded. The Spanish will happily expend $100 billion on green tech corruption, but riot in the streets over 'austerity' totalling next to nothing and not affecting their balance sheet whatsoever.

The situation in Greece is similar. A population of 10 million has about $500 billion in declared national debt, probably far less than what it really has in debts and exclusive of off-the-balance-debt which the good politicians in the interests of the children's future never mention. Greece's 'austerity reform' and 'massive cuts' total $5 billion or next to nothing for an economy of $350 billion. The BBC:

“The austerity measures include: 15,000 public-sector job cuts, liberalisation of labour laws, lowering the minimum wage by 20% from 751 euros a month to 600 euros...”

Wow, what austerity. Relieving the job-killing burdens of over-regulation in the labor market? Positively neo-con. Lowering the minimum wage which if too high, will force employers not to hire lower-skilled workers. Positively right-wing. Firing a small fraction of those hard-working unionized bureaucrats who retire at age 52. Positively fascist or evangelical, or both.

Nothing illustrates the myopia and dystopia of public discourse, media misinformation and Euro-zone socialism better than discussing Europe's 'austerity'. What austerity? Without reforms to to the tax system, labour and capital markets, the Euro-zone will simply fade into irrelevancy and the Euro itself will be disbanded.

Gottlieb part 2: The Dream of Reason, A History of Philosophy

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The first part of the book reviewed here, outlining 'pre-Socratic' philosophy is quite enjoyable. The second part of this 431 page opus is not nearly as good. From Socrates down to Aristotle – difficult men to understand to be sure – the text is too dense and littered with abstruse howlers aimed at Christianity, intended to debase 'religion', but which only serve to depreciate his own work. The intended audience is the layman, and in that regard the philosophies of ancient Greece from the 5^th to 3^rd centuries need to be simplified and presented in less detail. At times it is quite hard to follow the complexity of discussion. The author is certainly knowledgeable and has the ability to get to the heart of what these men have 'invented' and what they are trying to say; yet at times he engaged in an awful amount of verbal gymnastics to get to the point.

Gottlieb is obviously a 'scientist' in the sense that he believes philosophy and science are entwined. At one point he mentions that science and philosophy may have parted ways in the 6^th century BC [Pythagoras]; or perhaps post-Socrates [4^th c. BC]; or maybe even as late as the 17^th century AD [the so-called, self-proclaimed 'Enlightenment']. It is clear that this philosopher feels that both science and philosophy are self-reinforcing. In that vein Gottlieb is clearly part of 'scientism', the cult of which maintains that science can and will explain everything and that any philosophizing to the contrary is the hobgoblins of little Christian minds, medieval, dark and superstitious.

This constantly reiterated theme becomes boring and dogmatic, denigrating both his work and the reader. It reminds me of a book medievalist Cantor wrote, in which he ranted about the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by his personal bete-noir, the liberal anti-Christ G.W. Bush. Such references and personal animosity have no place in a work on the Middle Ages. Gottlieb falls into the same trap. At the very least his jihad against 'faith' is unbalanced and certainly not evenly or intelligently discussed. Science can't explain everything, it never has. 'Evolution' is valid but does not explain the world at large in-toto – in many ways it is still a theory waiting to be proved. Inanimate material cannot become animate. Single cells cannot self-produce to become multi-cell. Life-forms have appeared and disappeared en-masse [many more time than just the extinction of the dinosaurs]. Hard-core atheists like Anthony Flynn studied science and converted to the Church on the premise that rationality and reason could only point to Plato's 'master craftsman', or Newton's 'watchmaker'. Science can be as much of a cult as any pagan construct.

Gottlieb relates the story of Aristotle's 'settled science' which was a 'consensus' for 2000 years that all smart people subscribed to. This was of course the theory of self-generation, or the idea that life just appears when it wants to. Aristotle called this 'vitalism'. This mystical theory of self-propagation was accepted by all 'scientists' and philosophers until the 19^th century when thanks to Pasteur and others who studied and experimented with germs and the genesis of disease, it was demolished as physically impossible. So much for consensus science. A fact to be kept in mind when the faithful of the cult of GlobaloneyWarming invoke 'science' in their case. Ask them for their source data, their models, their inputs, their calculations and experimental proof and ask them why a trace chemical emitted by the earth mother would affect anything. Activists are not scientists and neither are philosophers like Gottlieb though such people like to hide under the cult brand of scientism.

Gottlieb's main error is to assume that the 'Church' was hostile to science or inquiry. This is bunk. The Church funded most of the main scientific work of the Middle Ages including the work of Galileo whose astronomy was not novel, [he got it from Copernicus who was also funded in total, by the Church] and whose trial is largely a myth [4 people were at the trial and it amounted to Galileo signing a paper that he would stop attacking the person of the Pope in his missives]. When philosophers such as Gottlieb drenched in their own theology – that of scientism – go outside the boundaries of their domain knowledge, they go from a higher purpose [a truly remarkable compendium of ancient philosophers and their ideas] to the basely stupid and ignorant. Christianity as a theology is not 'afraid' of science, anymore than Christian scientists from Roger Bacon, to Copernicus, to Harvey were afraid of 'science'. The great age of 'Reason' was developed in the Middle Ages. It is only ignoramuses during the 'Enlightenment' era, in which secular witch-burnings were common [10.000 dead mostly along the Rhine area]; who labelled everything before as dark; and who bowed down like simpletons to all things 'classical' and ancient. Gottlieb's mistake and one which is a serious weakness in this book, is that the gratuitous attacks on Christianity reveal more about his own shortcomings and lack of knowledge, than anything else. They also have absolutely nothing to do with the topic he is writing about.

Some fatuous phrases include:

“God of Genesis. Reading Plato without biblical blinkers, we can see that this requited plenty of imaginative interpretations; but the Christians were happy to provide it. The main differences between Plato's God and the biblical one are these: his God is not the most important thing in the universe...he is not the only God but has many assistants; his is not omnipotent...” p. 204

This is called polytheism, Christianity is called a monotheism...

“Kant pointed out three drawbacks of such attempts to pull a Christian rabbit out of a celestial hat. First, much of the apparent harmony of nature follows necessarily from the laws of matter; so any Being offering further 'counsel and dominion', is....redundant...Secondly, seeing nature primarily in terms of the purposes of an intelligent being can make scientific inquiry lazy....it might point to a Master-Craftsman who has organized pre-existing matter, but it cannot reach further...” p. 205

Christianity embraces natural law and the development of nature as proof of a divine essence, and far from making people lazy, it was only in Christian Europe that the principles of scientific inquiry were implemented and developed. Nowhere else in history do they make an appearance.

“...in the seventeenth century, William Harvey [a practising Christian] attributed his discovery of the circulation of the blood to his belief in the intelligent design of the human body....[his] hunch paid off, so the Master-Craftsman with his rational designs has had his uses, even if he is in fact non-existent.” [p. 217]

And what have the 'evolutionists' ever discovered in the areas of science, math and medicine ? And on what authority and with what proof do we know that Harvey's inspiration does not exist? Gottlieb's musings and his hatred of anything opposed to the cult of science?

“Darwinian natural selection does indeed show how it is unnecessary to postulate any sort of God, or occult mechanism...” p. 235

Christianity is not occult but rational. Faith can only be achieved by applying reason. Scientism requires blind faith. Gottlieb must surely know that huge gaps exist in Darwin's theory, a fact borne out by Darwin himself who said that his findings were contradicted in part by the geological record. His theory also does not answer the origin of life question, something that science has no explanation for, unless you believe that dead matter springs into life-matter.

“From the point of view of an especially narrow-minded and conservative Christian living in the later Middle Ages, that might be a fair summary of some of Aristotle's effects on Western thought..before Christianity found ways to assimilate them, they were viewed with suspicion and sometimes banned.” p. 279

This is simply a lie. Christianity debated Aristotle long before the 12^th century. From the 4^th century AD onwards there are numerous Christian thinkers who melded parts of Aristotle and Plato into theology. These works were never banned and Gottlieb offers no proof that they were. He simply dismisses Christian scholaticism as some expression of the 'occult'. In fact one can list hundreds of Christian rationalists who merged ancient philosophy into Church doctrine. Moslems can point to at most 2 such individuals. Other mysticisms have few if any intellects who attempted the same.

There is a lot of utility in this book. The section on the Epicureans, Stoics and Sceptics for instance is particularly interesting in that the influences of all 3 are still with us today. But the constant and rather idiotic refrains against Christian theology, about which the author has little knowledge, detracts from the worth of the entire effort. Instead of promulgating his cult of scientism in which Darwin explains all [or that rationality is the only reality, which it clearly is not]; the author would have produced a truly exceptional and important summary of philosophy, if he had only stayed in the domain of objective philosophy. Scientism promulgated as a model to explain everything is not only rationally deficient it must leave its adherents somewhat cold, lifeless and bigoted.

Churchill on Freedom and Tyranny.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

[Carried on from another article]

Churchill's 1937 essay "This Age of Government by Great Dictators" is a meditation on political change. It is an essay of sweeping historical breadth, telling a tale that begins with early European history, where kings were granted a power sufficient to remedy the defects of an earlier, chaotic age and were elevated to an almost godlike status. While this was an improvement on anarchy, the accidents of individual birth and character were unstable foundations on which to risk the fortunes of nations: "At one period Pericles or Augustus, at another Draco or Caligula!"

Once society was set on a firm footing, various kinds of constitutions were invented to restrain the excesses of kings. This idea took special hold in Britain:

[T]his doctrine of averaging risks by means of constitutions, and of keeping kings without returning to anarchy, became deeply ingrained in the people of a small island amid the northern mists who seemed to have a genius for common sense. Out of it arose by many painful processes the famous English Parliamentary system and constitutional monarchy.

Pomp and power were separated, and power underwent division and subdivision, ensuring the rule of law rather than whim. These ideas spread across the globe to the great benefit of mankind; the political forms and institutions to which they gave rise varied, but the fundamental conceptions remained the root from which civilization flourished and spread:

The English conception, wrought by the island nobility from the Magna Charta to the age of Anne, spread over wide portions of the globe. The forms were often varied, but the idea was the same. Sometimes, as in the United States, through historical incidents, an elected functionary replaced the hereditary king, but the idea of the separation of powers between the executive, the assemblies and the courts of law widely spread throughout the world in what we must regard as the great days of the nineteenth century.¹⁹

The point of "This Age of Government by Great Dictators" is to convey a warning. The story Churchill tells does not end with the "great days of the nineteenth century" in which the continued progress of the world seemed assured. It was just when the progressive faith was at its greatest, when the illusion of mastery over the fortunes of man had taken on its most vibrant hues, that hopes failed:

"Then came terrible wars shattering great empires, laying nations low, sweeping away old institutions and ideas with a scourge of molten steel."

The 20th century did not live up to the promise of progress. The world now learned (or re-learned what had been forgotten) that political change does not necessarily follow any consistent direction. The 19th century thinkers had pinned their hopes on the spread of democratic institutions and principles, believing that, once built, their temples would stand forever; but their mistake was soon to be revealed. Churchill points out that democratic regimes are as subject to degradation as any other because they, like other political forms, carry their own dangers with them:

Democracy has been defined as "the association of us all in the leadership of the best." In practice it does not always work this way. Vast masses of people were invested with the decisive right to vote, while at the same time they had very little leisure to study the questions upon which they must pronounce; and an enormous apparatus for feeding them with propaganda, catchwords and slogans came simultaneously into existence.

Democratic regimes, because they demand the participation of their citizens, demand responsibility from their citizens. When responsibilities are shirked, either because conditions are not favorable to duty or through laziness, the control of the people will become an illusion and, eventually, not even the illusion will remain. Flatterers will sway the people. Demagogues will convince them to surrender their power for safety or comfort. Propagandists will play on their fears. Tyrants will be born:

Alike in fear of anarchy and in vague hopes of future comforts a very large proportion of Europe have yielded themselves to dictatorship. Nations which had either driven out or confined within constitutional limits the old careful kingships of the past, made haste to rally in the parades and processions of a set of violent, wrathful, resourceful, domineering figures cast up by the bloody surge of war and its cruel lacerating recoil. We have entered the age of the dictators.

Thus, the 20th century witnessed a regression in political terms. Nations were again subject to lords, but their new masters wielded power many times greater than the ancient kings. The reader recognizes the spirit of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, but Churchill's warning is for those who have not yet fallen under the yoke of such men, for those countries which imagine themselves immune from such a transformation, including Britain. He warns that whatever political victories may have been won, the danger of tyranny is never finally removed.

Churchill on Roosevelt and American Socialism in the 1930s

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

[Follow up from another article]

The common political heritage shared by America and Great Britain was the basis for Churchill's appeal for aid from the United States in the early years of the Second World War. The initial success of that appeal had much to do with a personal relationship. Churchill worked very hard at strengthening the bonds with the leader of Britain's greatest ally, and the working friendship between Churchill and President Roosevelt has rightly received a great deal of scholarly attention. But have Churchill's criticisms of FDR been lost or ignored in the shadow of their wartime partnership? The two had their disagreements, even over the conduct of the war, and they certainly did not see eye to eye on dealing with the Soviets with regard to post-war arrangements.

Less well-known and almost completely ignored are Churchill's comments on the political, economic, and social policies Roosevelt pursued in the New Deal. Churchill's critique of the New Deal reflects a concern that even regimes built on the principles of freedom can become corrupted and lose their way. Writing in a period in which dictatorships were thriving, he pointed out that the United States was not immune to the political degradation that was affecting much of the rest of the world. He warned America, in a lesson equally apt today, that the moment of social and economic crisis is also the moment of political danger.

In "Roosevelt from Afar,"²¹ Churchill expresses sympathy with and admiration for Roosevelt's desire to deliver his people from the economic problems that had plagued America since the Great Depression, but the essay has another purpose as well, as he wrote to the editor of Collier's: to warn against the possible ill-effects that New Deal programs might bring about. "I have tried to strike a note of warning while at the same time expressing my sincere sympathy with the great effort the President is making," Churchill writes.

This article was a difficult undertaking. For a statesman to remark on the domestic policies and personalities of another country without exciting resentment or even wrath requires diplomatic skill. We can therefore believe that Churchill was very careful in his writing. We know that he went so far as to leave final judgment to the American editor: "if there are any phrases which you think would cause offence...you are quite at liberty to soften or excise them without reference to me."²² Yet despite his caution, "Roosevelt from Afar" does manage to convey serious warnings about America's Depression-era economic and social policies.

Churchill begins by describing the severe economic crisis affecting America and the world, and he expresses admiration for Roosevelt's willingness to take up the challenge:

Although the policies of President Roosevelt are conceived in many respects from a narrow view of American self-interest, the courage, the power and the scale of his effort must enlist the ardent sympathy of every country, and his success could not fail to lift the whole world forward into the sunlight of an easier and more genial age.

Churchill describes Roosevelt's challenges as he arrived at America's highest office at the moment of crisis: "He arrived at the summit of the greatest economic community in the world at the moment of its extreme embarrassment. Everybody had lost faith in everything." The United States was gripped by desperation. It was a moment of both opportunity and danger. Great or terrible things might be done:

"We must never forget that this was the basis from which he started. Supreme power in the Ruler, and a clutching anxiety of scores of millions who demanded and awaited orders."

Roosevelt chose to seize direction of the whole scene, and "[s]ince then there has been no lack of orders," writes Churchill. (That is certainly true, given that Roosevelt issued an extraordinary number of executive orders--more than all of his successors through Bill Clinton combined.)

Using a word that must be shocking to Roosevelt apologists, Churchill notes that the President aspired to a very high degree of control:

"Although the Dictatorship is veiled by constitutional forms, it is none the less effective. Great things have been done, and greater attempted."²³

But Churchill is very careful to attribute any of Roosevelt's possible excesses to misguided followers rather than to Roosevelt himself. "[T]he President has need to be on his guard," he writes; "[t]o a foreign eye it seems that forces are gathering under his shield which at a certain stage may thrust him into the background and take the lead themselves. If that misfortune were to occur, we should see the not-unfamiliar spectacle of a leader running after his followers to pull them back."²⁴

These, however, are the forces that Roosevelt deliberately set loose and encouraged. While Churchill describes them as dangers to "President Roosevelt's valiant and heroic experiments," it is clear from the essay, as well as from the history of the New Deal, that these are in fact dangers arising from those very experiments.

The Trade Unionism Threat

The first great danger Churchill addresses is the rise of trade unionism. Once again, he begins by praising Roosevelt for his attempt to reduce unemployment by shortening working hours and thus to spread employment more evenly through the working class:

Thus the Roosevelt adventure claims sympathy and admiration from all of those in England, and in foreign countries, who are convinced that the fixing of a universal measure of value based not upon the rarity or plenty of any single commodity, but conforming to the advancing powers of mankind, is the supreme achievement which at this time lies before the intellect of Man.

But this remark is immediately followed by a warning:

"[V]ery considerable misgivings must necessarily arise when a campaign to attack the monetary problem becomes intermingled with, and hampered by, the elaborate processes of social reform and the struggles of class warfare."²⁵

Great Britain had much experience with trade unionism, as had Churchill himself. As President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill had been involved in shaping government policy toward labor disputes and strikes. The General Strike of 1925-1926, and its political implications in particular, had given Churchill strong negative views on the subject:

[Labor unionism] has introduced a narrowing element into our public life. It has been a keenly-felt impediment to our productive and competitive power. It has become the main foundation of the socialist party, which has ruled the State greatly to its disadvantage, and will assuredly do so again. It reached a climax in a general strike, which if it had been successful would have subverted the Parliamentary constitution of our island.

On the other hand, Churchill was willing to admit that the trade unions in Britain had become a stable force in the industrial development of Britain and were, in any case, much better for society than "communist-agitated and totally unorganized labour discontent."²⁶

Churchill's warning for Roosevelt and America consists in the observation that the development of trade unionism in Britain occurred over a period of some 50 years, allowing time for economic adjustments and the abatement of immediate passions. The New Deal aimed at greatly accelerating this process, which he said posed real dangers:

"But when one sees an attempt made within the space of a few months to lift American trade unionism by great heaves and bounds to the position so slowly built up--and even then with much pain and loss--in Great Britain, we cannot help feeling grave doubts."²⁷

The conflicts involved in such a transformation, he warns, could "result in a general crippling of that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but the happiness of modern communities depends."

Nor was this transformation occurring through a careful balancing of the interests of employers, labor, and society as a whole; rather, it was occurring through accelerated government intervention:

Our trade unions have grown to manhood and power amid an enormous network of counter-checks and consequential corrections; and to raise American trade unionism from its previous condition to industrial sovereignty by a few sweeping decrees may easily confront both the trade unions and the United States with problems which for the time being will be at once paralyzing and insoluble.²⁸

Yet such sweeping decrees are exactly what characterized the New Deal under Roosevelt, as illustrated by the compulsory unionism of the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) and the National Labor Relations Act (1935).

Redistribution

The second great danger involved in Roosevelt's experiments is "the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts." Churchill notes that this is "a very attractive sport" and one common to societies plagued with economic woes. But economic redistribution through penalties on the wealthy does not benefit a society in the long run because it drains the wellsprings of economic development:

The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic animal. He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency from all quarters. In this process, far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, he launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth.

Moreover, the rich man is elusive prey. It will take time and determined effort to finally bring him to bay and wrench his wealth from him. Until then, it will be squirreled away for protection and so will not be spurring enterprise. The chase may be exciting, but the returns are poor, Churchill argues:

But meanwhile great constructions have crumbled to the ground. Confidence is shaken and enterprise chilled, and the unemployed queue up at the soup-kitchens or march out to the public works with ever growing expense to the taxpayer and nothing more appetizing to take home to their families than the leg or the wing of what was once a millionaire.... It is indispensable to the wealth of nations and to the wage and life standards of labour, that capital and credit should be honoured and cherished partners in the economic system.

Churchill notes that there is some justification for the anger of the American people against their great leaders of finance but cautions against indulging anger at the cost of destructive economic policy. Given that some abuses exist, the question becomes how to resolve them:

"The important question is whether American democracy can clear up scandals and punish improprieties without losing its head, and without injuring the vital impulses of economic enterprise and organization."²⁹

Churchill places this American dilemma in a broader context by pointing out that the U.S. is not the first country to deal with the question of whether "it is better to have equality at the price of poverty, or well-being at the price of inequality." Churchill lamented the drift toward socialist policies in his own country in the 1920s (and, as pointed out earlier, again in the 1940s), pointing out that these schemes produced little but economic disaster.³⁰ He did favor government action to ease the pains of the poor in modern industrial society, however. Indeed, his political career is marked by a great concern for social justice, a concern which is echoed in his cautious admiration of FDR.

Ultimately, however, Churchill held that free markets should be allowed to operate without centralized, bureaucratic controls destroying the principle of competition that is the mainspring of economic health.³¹The capitalist system can create concentrations of wealth, since free competition results in inequalities of property, but the removal of reward for investment and risk will stultify economic development and ultimately harm society as a whole.

Throughout his discussion of the economic choices America faces, Churchill refers to "the Russian alternative"--the nationalization of production, distribution, credit, and exchange to cure the abuses and inequities of the capitalist system. While this is not a choice Churchill recommends, other countries have made it, and it was an option. "It is, however, irrational," he argues, to take a middle ground between the two systems and "to tear down or cripple the capitalist system without having the fortitude of spirit and ruthlessness of action to create a new communist system."

Furthermore, Churchill believed that the American people would never willingly accept the "dull brutish servitude of Russia," though he also believed that a nation can slide into doctrines it would not accept wholesale with open eyes. Choices can sometimes be clearer to outside observers, and Churchill warns that America should not weight the scales against capitalism:

There it seems to foreign observers, lies the big choice of the United States at the present time. If the capitalist system is to continue, with its rights of private property, with its pillars of rent, interest and profit, and the sanctity of contracts recognized and enforced by the State, then it must be given a fair chance.

This means that government should not make it impossible for private business to thrive by suppressing free-market competition: "There are elements of contrivance, of housekeeping, and of taking risks which are essential to all profitable activity. If these are destroyed the capitalist system fails, and some other system must be substituted."

Given the regulatory activities of the National Recovery Administration, increases in taxes on successful businesses, frequent anti-trust lawsuits, and FDR's anti-business rhetoric, Churchill's words can only be read as a rebuke to the New Deal approach to reining in "the vital impulses of economic enterprise and organization."³²

Conclusion

Churchill's critique of the New Deal does not, of course, nullify his admiration for FDR, especially as it developed through what is known as the special relationship in the Second World War. While they had their disagreements, Churchill's gratitude toward Roosevelt was immense. Speaking in the House of Commons a few days after Roosevelt's death, he expressed that gratitude not only for himself, but for Britain and for Europe as a whole: "For us, it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known, and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old."³³

The critique does, however, have importance. Written in the context of worldwide collectivist trends which were destructive of freedom, it reveals his opposition to the philosophy of the New Deal as equally dangerous to political and economic liberty. Churchill thought seriously about not only the unity of spirit between Great Britain and the United States, but the ways in which both countries were subject to the dangers of abandoning the supports of law and liberty in times of crisis. Britain and the United States were bound together in the defense of freedom, and Churchill knew that freedom must be guarded internally as well as externally.

[19] Winston S. Churchill, "This Age of Government by Great Dictators," in Michael Wolff, ed., The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol. IV, Churchill at Large (Bristol: Library of Imperial History, 1976), p. 394.

[20] Ibid., pp. 394-395.

[21] Written for Collier's in 1934 and included in some editions of Great Contemporaries. See Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (University of Chicago Press, 1973). Cited hereafter as Great Contemporaries.

[22] Letter of September 13, 1934, in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume 5, Part 2, The Wilderness Years 1929-1935 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), pp. 870-871.

[23] Great Contemporaries, pp. 373-374.

[24] Great Contemporaries, p. 381.

[25] Great Contemporaries, pp. 374-375.

[26] Great Contemporaries, p. 375.

[27] He was to echo this concern in "Roosevelt and the Future of the New Deal," The Daily Mail, April 24, 1935; see Wolff, The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol. II, p. 372.

[28] Great Contemporaries, p. 376.

[29] Great Contemporaries, pp. 376-379.

[30] "Socialism," February 12, 1929, in Complete Speeches, Vol. V, pp. 4551-4552: "Show me the parts of the country which at the present time are in the deepest depression, show me the industries which are most laggard, and at the same time you will be showing me the parts where these withering doctrines have won their greatest measure of acceptance."

[31] See, for example, Liberalism and the Social Problem (New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1973; reprint of 1909 ed.), pp. 82-83.

[32] Great Contemporaries, pp. 379-380.

[33] "President Roosevelt," April 17, 1945, in Complete Speeches, Vol. VII, p. 7141.

Churchill and Socialism in the 1930s

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

During the 1930s Churchill wrote many articles on the fact that collectivist trends were ultimately destructive of personal freedom, and that even in times of great domestic political crisis the liberties and freedoms of the individual must remain supreme above the needs of the state.

Churchill was particularly aghast and against the National Socialist and Marxist concepts of the redistribution of wealth. Churchill rightly believed that state power in which private property and wealth would be 'relieved' from one 'class' and given to another class, [which then in turn would became a dependent of the state], ultimately leads to the destruction of personal freedom.

There is no factual evidence to counter this argument. Churchill correctly had faith for example, in the honour and the ideals of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in which personal and individual freedom, would in good measure provide adequate support and protection for those who needed it. Socialism in any of its variants leads to the destruction of culture, wealth and opportunity. Yet in the modern era the opposite conclusions are forwarded as both moral beacons and economic truths.

----------

In the 1920s and '30s Churchill surveyed with unease the collectivist trends that were sapping the internal strength of his own country and threatening to create instability abroad. Looking at Churchill's political thought as a whole, we see a statesman in agreement with America's first principles and a staunch defender of individual liberty, Anglo-American constitutionalism, and limited government in Britain and worldwide. Churchill's ideas on these matters stemmed from his explicit agreement with the crucial statements of these principles by the American Founders.

During World War II, Churchill and England of course, needed American support and intervention in order to survive the onslaught of Jihadic National Socialism. This self-interested policy should not tempt hobbyist historians into assuming that Churchill supported FDR's policies, in-toto, in either foreign or domestic affairs. When you are in desperate need of help, you can usually overlook themes, policies or ideas that you might find offensive.

At a time when America was undergoing significant political change due to the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal, Churchill had much to say about political change in the United States. It was Churchill's view that, while the governing forms of the United States and Britain differ, the governing principles are the same: Both countries were built upon principles of freedom.

“They do not belong to the State or Government as a right. Their exercise needs vigilant scrutiny, and their grant may be swiftly withdrawn. This terrible twentieth century has exposed both our communities to grim experiences, and both have emerged restored and guarded. They have come back to us safe and sure. I speak, of course, as a layman on legal topics, but I believe that our differences are more apparent than real, and are the result of geographical and other physical conditions rather than any true division of principle.^”

Churchill was not engaging in sentimental reflection when he gave such speeches. The unity of principle he pointed to was, and always had been in his view, the basis for unity of action. Churchill was never hesitant to proclaim the benefits of the Anglo-American political tradition, which he often touted as a blueprint for other nations:

“All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind.^”

Churchill noted that socialism grafts itself onto nationalism and the particular features of the nations it has infected. In Germany, the Weimar regime was destroyed and Hitler was propelled to power through national patriotism, tradition, and pride combined with discontent about inequalities of wealth. In Russia, the program of Communism was buttressed by national sentiment and imperialist aspirations. The next country Churchill mentions, in a shift that must be shocking to those who wish to read the article as simply a pro-New Deal argument, is the United States, which he says has experienced developments similar to those inspired by socialism in the dictatorships:

In the United States, also, economic crisis has led to an extension of the activities of the executive and to the pillorying, by irresponsible agitators, of certain groups and sections of the population as enemies of the rest. There have been efforts to exalt the power of the central government and to limit the rights of individuals.

The combinations at work in the United States during the 1930s, were however different. Passions and economic jealousies have been unleashed, but they have formed combinations not with imperial ambition or twisted racial pride, but with a sense of public duty and the desire for national prosperity. However, the result, Churchill warns, can be just as dangerous:

"It is when passions and cupidities are thus unleashed and, at the same time, the sense of public duty rides high in the hearts of all men and women of good will that the handcuffs can be slipped upon the citizens and they can be brought into entire subjugation to the executive government."

He had always rejected any policy or propaganda that would use crisis to extend the power of the state as subverting individual liberty and perverting the purpose of government:

“I hold that governments are meant to be, and must remain, the servants of the citizens; that states and federations only come into existence and can only be justified by preserving the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the homes and families of individuals. The true right and power rest in the individual. He gives of his right and power to the State, expecting and requiring thereby in return to receive certain advantages and guarantees.”

When one has once defined government in terms of its purpose, a test has been introduced by which to judge the goodness and legitimacy of the government. Churchill gives the tests by which he judges the civilization of any community:

“What is the degree of freedom possessed by the citizen or subject? Can he think, speak and act freely under well-established, well-known laws? Can he criticize the executive government? Can he sue the State if it has infringed his rights? Are there also great processes for changing the law to meet new conditions?”

Churchill judges Great Britain and the United States to be in the forefront of civilized communities according to these standards. This status is due only in part, Churchill writes, to "the good sense and watchfulness of our citizens." A vital support for freedom also lies in the independence of the courts:

“In both our countries the character of the judiciary is a vital factor in the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the individual citizen. Our judges extend impartially to all men protection, not only against wrongs committed by private persons, but also against the arbitrary acts of public authority. The independence of the courts is, to all of us, the guarantee of freedom and the equal rule of law.”

In other words, the safeguard is to be found in a structural feature of both the American and British constitutional arrangements.

These remarks hardly appear sympathetic for instance, to FDR's frustration with the Supreme Court's repeated striking down of New Deal programs as unconstitutional and his active search for ways to limit the powers of the Court. Of course FDR famously tried to "pack" the Court with justices more subservient to his political will. Churchill's position is that the United States, a political union with a complexity analogous to the Empire, requires both federalism in order to function properly and the Supreme Court to enforce the principle, especially in time of crisis.

A perusal of Roosevelt's speeches will readily show that he was impatient with those like Churchill who would oppose an evolving interpretation of the Constitution that would permit the federal government to take an increasingly active role in the life of the states. In his Annual Message to the Congress in 1937, for example, Roosevelt called for an "enlightened view" of the Constitution:

"Difficulties have grown out of its interpretation but rightly considered, it can be used as an instrument of progress, and not as a device for the prevention of action."

Churchill defends the "rigidity" of the American Constitution as a safeguard of freedom rather than seeing it as an obstacle to the political programs of the New Deal.

“A true interpretation, however, of the British or the American Constitution is certainly not a chop-logic or pedantic interpretation. So august a body as the Supreme Court in dealing with law must also deal with the life of the United States, and words, however solemn, are only true when they preserve their vital relationship to facts. It would certainly be a great disaster, not only to the American Republic but to the whole world, if a violent collision should take place between the large majority of the American people and the great instrument of government which has so long presided over their expanding fortunes.^”

FDR's radical socialism was an experiment in vogue with the times which lauded statism, 'great man' power, relativity and the creation of a leviathan to control society and enforce social peace. FDR's New Deal was of course a dismal failure. It buried the US with debt, bureaucracies, social programs and 'guarantees'; and invited the US Federal government to micro-manage most aspects of existence either in business, or in private social affairs. It is simply a lie to credit these policies of failure with 'saving' the US from the Depression. They made things worse, a fact born out by the reality that US unemployment, business activity, investment levels and social discord were higher in 1939, than in 1930. Government and state power, rarely make things better. Trampling on the Constitution is not a program of enlightenment but despotism. These insights were plain to Churchill who wrote about them with intelligence and vigour during the 1930s.

========

Sources: Reprinted and reassembled and edited with permission, URL

"Liberty and the Law," July 31, 1957, in Complete Speeches, Vol. VIII, pp. 8682-8683.

"The Sinews of Peace," March 5, 1946, in Complete Speeches, Vol. VII, p. 7289.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. 3, The Politics of Upheaval (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960), p. 495, quoting from Winston S. Churchill, "What Good's a Constitution?" Collier's, August 22, 1936.

"Party Politics Again," June 4, 1945, in Complete Speeches, Vol. VII, pp. 7171-7172.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Annual Message to the Congress," January 6, 1937.

"What Good's a Constitution?" Quoted in Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, pp. 495-496.

Book Review part one: 'The Dream of Reason, A History of Philosophy', by A. Gottlieb

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

“Philosophers have regularly cocked an eyebrow at what passes for the common sense of the time; the punch line comes later, when it is 'common sense' that turns out to be have been uncommonly confused.”....

”Many of the earliest known philosophers made their first reputations in what could be regarded as a branch of show business. They appeared in public, often in resplendent clothes, and held discourses or recited poems. Such performances attracted passing audiences, devoted followers, and sometimes ridicule.” [p.3]

This is a clear, entertaining and excellent synopsis in the first place, of ancient Greek philosophy and the path to 'reason' and the methods of science in accounting for natural phenomena, and the 'laws' of physics and indeed of existence. The author is a philosopher who recounts with great knowledge the real facts behind the 'great thinkers' of the Greek tradition, traducing myths, fables, and inaccurate theories about who these men were, and what they were really trying to do and say. The husking of the real philosophical wheat from the irrelevant and mythical chaff is one good reason to read this book.

The author does a marvellous job of placing pre-Socratic and Platonic philosophy and the first forays into scientific thought, into perspective relating the development of early philosophy [co-joined with science], in its proper historical and cultural context. This is usually missing in many accounts or summaries of ancient patterns of thought, theologizing, rationalization or enquiry.

The reader will discover the following for example, which is new for many people, especially those who are not deep into the study of the ancients:

-”Even if those who believed in Poseidon and the other gods also entertained the possibility that there were natural explanations for earthquakes and such things, the fact is we do not know of anybody before the Milesians [Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor] who actually came up with any such explanations [in referencing the big '3' of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes in the 7^th century BC].

-”Alphabetic writing first arose in Greece in around the eighty century and was becoming widespread by the sixth. This allowed everything that could be said to be written down easily, a novelty that is hard for us to appreciate. By crystallizing beliefs, myths, theories and stories of all kinds, it made them available for examination and criticism...for all their shortcomings the Milesians seem have been the first to try and exploit this opportunity.” [p.20]

-”If the philosophy of Thales demonstrated one essential facet of scientific thinking, namely the urge to simplify and reduce observable phenomena, Anaximander's work exemplified an additional and equally fundamental one: science says there is more to the world than meets the eye.” [p.10]

-”Aristotle wrote – exaggerating, but not ridiculously – that Plato's philosophy 'in most respects followed' the Pythagoreans. It is certainly true that Pythagorean ideas were swallowed up by Platonism...”

-”....what exactly is it on which the philosopher is supposed to fix his gaze? For the Pythagoreans, it was apparently the heavenly bodies, wheeling in their orderly and harmonious paths through the sky. For Plato, it became something more abstract, which the heavenly bodies symbolized: the ideal Forms, of which earthly things are inferior copies...” [p. 29]

-”Kepler [1571-1630] was a confirmed (if rather belated) Pythagorean. His faith that the heavens must be arranged in a harmonious pattern that reveals itself in simple mathematical relationships led him to formulate several generalizations about the planets. Some of them are misguided fantasies....” [p. 37]

-”However, although we can safely say that the notion of mathematical proof was developed by the Greeks, and at some time before Euclid..[4^th century BC]...there is no reason to think it is Pythagoras or his followers who deserve all or even any of the credit for inventing it. Rigorous deduction is more clearly seen in the work of Parmenides...” [p. 39]

-[Heraclitus late 6^th century BC] “You will not find out the limits of the soul by going, even if you travel over every way.” So his voyage of discovery sailed inwards. He turned to introspection to describe...dreams, the emotions, and character (Man's character, he reflected, is his fate).” [p. 43]

-”In Parmenides' [who lived in the late 6^th century BC in Grecian Italy] version, nothing ever changes, whereas in Heraclitus' everything always does....It was the thought of Parmenides which had a far greater impact. The ideas of Heraclitus survived only in Plato's misappropriation of them.” [p. 51]

-”Parmenides abstract argument may be reason run riot, but at least it is reason running, and apparently for the first time. By its attempt to spin a web of ideas out of one principle – that of avoiding all thought of 'what is not' – in a logically rigorous way, it inaugurated the systematic use of deduction outside of mathematics.” [p. 62]

-”....extreme examples [of Parmenidian logic].. are the writings of Hegel and his followers. In his lectures on the history of philosophy, Hegel said that 'Parmenides began Philosophy proper', buy which he seems to have meant that Parmenides was the first thinker wise enough to anticipate Hegel.” [p. 63]

-”Zeno's paradoxes [5^th century BC follower of Parmenides who created riddles ridiculing other philosophical theories through logical examination], particularly those about motion, have outlived the other main arguments in Presocratic thought. They have been discussed in detail by mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers from his day to this.” [p. 67]

-”Empedocles' [5^th century BC from Greek Sicily] earth, air, fire and water – the pigments of which the real world were mixed – were not quite the same as what we mean by those words. 'Air' covered all gases, and 'water' all liquids, and metal counted as a liquid because it melts...” [p. 76]

-”On the central question of biology, Empedocles hit the mark with surprising accuracy. He said that creatures owe their useful and fortunate features to the fact that there were originally many sorts of creatures and that the strange, deformed ones failed to survive..” [p. 79]

-”It is not true that philosophy was solely concerned with scientific questions until Socrates came along. Several philosophers, including Pythagoras and Heraclitus, discussed 'questions about life and morality and things good and evil' long before he did.” [p. 85]

-”...highpoint in the ancient world with the so-called 'atomists', Leucippus and Democritus [5^th century BC], who can in some respects be seen as seventeenth century [AD] thinkers ahead of their time.” [p. 88]

-”Democritus studied with Leucippus and took over the one idea for which the latter is remembered: that innumerable tiny atoms career around in empty space (called 'the void') until they collide and adhere to one another...” [p. 97]

-Lucretius [who wrote On the Nature of things, 1rst century BC] made it plain that his poem was designed to liberate man from superstition, the fear of death and the tyranny of priests: When man's life lay for all to see foully grovelling upon the ground, crushed beneath the weight of Superstition, which displayed her head from the regions of heaven...a man of Greece was the first that dared to uplift mortal eyes against her...Lucretius' heroic 'man of Greece' was Epicurus; but it was really Democritus and Leucippus who first rattled the bars of nature's gates in the name of atomism.” [p. 96]

-”What these Sophists wanted [5^th century teachers of higher education paid for their services and notable in rhetoric and legal education and full of moral and cultural relativity]; was a philosophy that embraced everyday experience. This desire puts them in the opposite corner of the philosophical ring to Plato....[who] had a view of knowledge that was bulging with veins of Orphism [life after death, transmigration of souls] and Pythagoreanism...beyond the world of everyday experience to the purified truths of reason.” [p. 118]

-”Protagoras [5^th century Sophist] meant when he famously said that 'Man is the measure of all things'. This sort of view is relative to each believer, because it holds that truth is relative to each believer, or, more often nowadays, relative to each group or community of believers.” [p. 119]

This is but a small taste of the pre-Socratic philosophy which is offered. The only small criticisms or observations are that the author does not include the Near Eastern influences on Greek thought. Sumeria, Babylon, Hurria, Mitana, Assyria and empires in Syria, Anatolia and Israel [via the Hebrews a Canaanite sect], all had a significant impact on Greek development. As well no mention is made of Minoan and Egyptian influence on the perspective of Mycenaean and later Doric Greek society. One of the key central facts of Greek history is that the imperial regime of Mycenaean civilisation is replaced with a society of independent and autonomous Greek poli or city states. This happened after the Dorics wiped out the existing Cycladian and Minoan civilizations. The establishment of this new order is of central importance in the development of the Greek 'golden age'.

As well the author is adamantly hostile to organized religion even though Christian theology melds both Platonic and Socratic methods, along with the rationality of Aristotle and even of Empedocles and Democritus with metaphysics. No mention is made of the 1500 years of Christian philosophical mutation and growth, in part adduced to the secular theologies of both pre-Socratic and post-Platonic and Aristotelian cadres of philosophy. The sterile refrain of modernity that 'science is good' and 'Christianity is bad' is simplistic and ignorant.

But this is of course a book on philosophy not history or theology. In that regard it is well worth reading and learning from the author's profound knowledge of the subjects he discusses.