User:Gaeanautes/Drafts

Presenting draft #6

I have now worked out a sixth draft on the 'Fascism' section to present; but first, some explanatory notes are called for (as last time around):

– The text on Kagan has been cut back somewhat.

– In the paragraph on Riotta, I have replaced the word 'admits' with 'concedes'. User: Neutrality wanted to use the word 'write' instead, because it appears more neutral. I disagree with this. Riotta's general argument is that Trump is not a fascist; but Riotta also points to some circumstances that may make people wrongfully believe that Trump is a fascist. This is a concession made in his general argument. Hence, the word 'concedes' better describes Riotta's line of reasoning, I say. Note that sticking to the source by paraphrasing it may involve the use of words that are value-laden (non-neutral) by themselves.

– User: Nowa has expressed the concern that the previous version of the draft was too long, and that the basic message drowned in explanations. This time around, I've added a summary to be used in the lead section, it's been put in between the article text itself and the references below it.

– I've replaced the earlier genre image of fascism with a new one. The bird's-eye view in this new image makes the mass of uniformed people appear less intrusive when compared to the earlier one. The swastika is still present, a total of three in the background, actually — but they're minuscule, so nobody should get too crossed about them, he-he (pun intended, please smile or chuckle). Yes, A. H. is present at the very center of the image, although he's barely recognizable. However, Trump has already been widely nicknamed 'Mein Trumpf' and 'Mein Drumpf', an obvious allusion to A. H.'s well known manifesto on Mein Kampf ('My Struggle'). In effect, the presence of A. H. in the image is relevant to the article as a whole, I say. (Editors are encouraged to make their own Google search including the 'Mein [T/D]rumpf' keyword string to see what pops up; be sure to enjoy some of the images as well — especially this one.)

– I have added a new paragraph on Trump's bad nicknames.

So, here goes:

Fascism

Commentators and experts have discussed the resemblance between Trump and fascism

Commentators have argued that Trump's personality, political positions and style of campaigning all resemble fascism to some extent. Hence, neoconservative historian and columnist Robert Kagan has made the point that Trump's lack of a coherent ideology, compensated for by his popular appeal of a strongman who can be entrusted the fate of a nation, is a phenomenon earlier known as 'fascism'. Kagan predicts that fascism will come to America "... with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party ... falling into line behind him." Kagan's column gained some interest in the media.

Journalist and author Carl Bernstein has argued that Trump is 'a neo-fascist' representing "... a kind of American fascism that we haven't seen before..." Professor Robert Reich, political commentator and author, has labeled Trump 'a fascist', whose "... verbal attacks on Mexican immigrants and Muslims ... follow the older fascist script." In Canada, leader of the New Democratic Party Tom Mulcair has labeled Trump 'a fascist', as Trump appeals to "the lowest feelings in human nature."

Professor emeritus Robert Paxton, a scholar of fascism, has cited a number of parallels between Trump's campaign and the fascist movements of the 20th century, including "nationalism, aggressive foreign policy, attacks on the enemies inside and out without much regard for due process"; an obsession with perceived national decline; and the belief that the country needs a strong leader. Paxton and other fascism scholars, including Roger Griffin, Stanley G. Payne and Jeffrey Herf, all classify Trump as a right-wing populist rather than a neo-fascist.

Italian journalist Gianni Riotta, who had first-hand experience of Italian neo-fascism during the Years of Lead in the 1970s, argues that Trump is not a fascist. Riotta concedes that while Trump's "xenophobic rhetoric" and "demagoguery ... certainly borrow from the fascist playbook," Trump is "fundamentally, a blustering political opportunist courting votes in a democratic system" without the intent to "kill democracy and install a dictatorship" that characterizes fascism.

According to The New York Times, comparing Trump's campaign to fascism is regarded by his supporters as "... deeply unfair smear tactics used to tar conservatives and scare voters," that fails to acknowledge "... widespread popular anger at the failure of both parties to confront the nation's challenges."

Trump has been widely nicknamed 'Mein Trumpf' and 'Mein Drumpf', an allusion to Adolf Hitler's manifesto on Mein Kampf ('My Struggle').

[Text to be put in the lead section as a summary of the section above:] Commentators have argued that Trump's personality, political positions and style of campaigning all resemble fascism to some extent. However, leading scholars on fascism have all classified Trump as a right-wing populist rather than a neo-fascist. Nonetheless, Trump has been widely nicknamed 'Mein Trumpf' and 'Mein Drumpf', an allusion to Adolf Hitler's manifesto on Mein Kampf. [To be placed by the very end of the lead section, after the lengthy paragraph documenting Trump's spectacular campaign rallies (a suitable place to put it, I say).]

References

End of draft. End of post. [User:Gaeanautes|Gaeanautes]], tildes

Tyranny

Plato once described how a tyrant may appear from an exhausted democracy

See also: Plato, Republic (Plato) § Book VIII, and Tyrant

In a lenghty essay, English author and blogger Andrew Sullivan has argued that Trump's personal background and style of campaigning make him resemble the appearance of a tyrant as once described by Plato, the first political philosopher of note in Western civilization. According to Plato, a democracy is exhausting itself when its leveling culture erodes the authority of the ruling class, whose competing factions then give up on negotiating reasonable compromises among themselves for the benefit of the electorate. Instead, politics slowly disintegrates into endless partisan manoeuvring producing only few useful results. At this point, a would-be tyrant may appear out of the ruling faction that has provided him with his power and privileges so far. The tyrant is a man flooded with passion — but while not having control of himself, he still attempts to rule others. The tyrant begins his moves by cutting off all ties to his earlier faction and betray its beliefs and best interests. Then the tyrant turns towards his supporters among the electorate and starts elevating their resentments directly into policymaking and statesmanship, proceeding unprincipled and with no regard for any expert advice. Once the tyrant has assumed formal office at an adequate level of government, he puts aside the constitutional bonds and starts undermining the institutions of the state still standing in his way, corrupting government from within. Finally, the democracy is no longer a democracy, but a tyranny where the tyrant rules supreme. According to Plato, this is how an exhausted democracy may be taken over by a tyrant, so Sullivan argues in his essay.

Sullivan's essay created some discussion among commentators.

Reference

Washington Post rules out endorsement of Trump

On 22 July 2016, one day after the Republican National Convention had ended, the editorial board of The Washington Post published an editorial, ruling out the possibility of any future endorsement of Trump as the Republican nominee for the presidency. According to the headline of the editorial, "Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy," and the substance to the argument was that Trump's ignorance, arrogance, habitual lying, litany of victimization and authoritarian contempt for democratic norms and limitations all make him a unique and present danger to the Constitution itself.

The Post's non-endorsement of Trump appeared about three months earlier than the Post has ever endorsed — or not endorsed — a candidate for president before the actual election. The editorial board on the Post recognized that the editorial was not a "... usual moment to make such a statement" already, but that they were led by their conviction that "A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world."

Other media reacted to the Post's editorial by commenting that it was unprecedented for a U.S. newspaper to write against a presidential candidate so soon before the election, and that the language used was remarkably rough. Associate Professor Brendan O'Connor, an Australian specialist on U.S. affairs, predicted that even the most conservative media in the U.S. would start writing editorials against Trump in the coming months.

Reference

Technology assessments: Interstellar travel

Georgescu failed to assess the (still) emerging technology of asteroid mining as a potential for compensating for this future scarcity constraint facing mankind; nor did he assess the potentials of terraforming Mars or any other celestial body in our solar system, turning them into new homes for mankind; but he did assess the possibility of interstellar travelling, transporting man to distant, yet habitable exoplanets elsewhere in the galaxy for colonisation and further survival there — however, he dismissed the idea by objecting that "... it is highly probable that life there would be facing the same problems of resource scarcity as those [on Earth] from which we would like to escape."

References

On Malthus

Later responses

Bjørn Lomborg...

From the opposite angle, Romanian American economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a progenitor in economics and a paradigm founder of ecological economics, has argued that Malthus was too optimistic, as he failed to recognize any upper limit to the growth of population — only, the geometric increase in human numbers is occasionally slowed down (checked) by the arithmetic increase in agricultural produce, according to Malthus' simple growth model; but some upper limit to population is bound to exist, as the total amount of agricultural land — actual as well as potential — on Earth is finite, Georgescu-Roegen points out. Georgescu-Roegen further argues that the industrialised world's increase in agricultural productivity since Malthus' day has been brought about by a mechanisation that has substituted a scarcer source of input for the more abundant input of solar radiation: Machinery, chemical fertilisers and pesticides all rely on mineral resources for their operation, rendering modern agriculture — and the industrialised food processing and distribution systems associated with it — almost as dependent on Earth's mineral stock as the industrial sector has always been. Georgescu-Roegen cautions that this situation is a major reason why the carrying capacity of Earth — that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels — is bound to decrease sometime in the future as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently being extracted and put to use. Political advisor Jeremy Rifkin and ecological economist Herman Daly, two students of Georgescu-Roegen, have raised similar neo-Malthusian concerns about the long run drawbacks of modern mechanised agriculture.

Later influence

Albert Allen Bartlett...

Ecological economist Herman Daly has recognized the influence of Malthus on his own work on steady-state economics.

References

See also

• Ecological economics
• Degrowth
• Club of Rome

¤Earth Economics (policy think tank)

• Jevons paradox
• Uneconomic growth
• Ecological footprint
• Population dynamics
• Sustainability: Carrying capacity
• Peak minerals

¤Economic equilibrium

• E. F. Schumacher
• Kenneth E. Boulding
• Herman Daly
• Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen: Criticising Daly's steady-state economics

¤The Limits to Growth

Interchange with User Inkathi

SSE Talk page:
Edit summary: Discussion of Smith's concept of the stationary state, following User Inkathi's edits

Discussion of Smith's concept of the stationary state
On 5 June 2017, User <<U|Inkathi>> has made several major edits of the section text on Smith. In one of the edit summaries, Inkathi objects that "while Smith theorised on the stationary state, he did not 'conjectur[e] that any national economy in the world would sooner or later settle in a final state of stationarity'." In the new section text, added by Inkathi, readers are told instead that "Yet, while thus giving some importance to natural limits to growth, the decisive factor for economic growth, according to Smith, were human institutions." The general conclusion of the section, according to Inkathi, should be that "It is thus unclear whether Smith believed in a final stationary state, beyond which no growth was possible because of natural limits, or whether stationary states were temporary and/or induced by the wrong economic policies alone."

I think User Inkathi's perspective on Smith is completely mistaken. A careful exegesis of the Wealth of Nations, Chapter Nine in Book One, "Of the Profits of Stock", reveals that Smith is examining the long-term trend in the rate of profit in any economy of the world. One of the opening statements runs: "The increase of stock, which raises wages, tends to lower profit." Smith's view is that the trend in the rate of profit can be roughly inferred from movements in the market rate of interest. He finds that the rate of interest has been falling for centuries and seems everywhere inversely related to the degree of economic development in a country. Generally, wages rise and profits fall in the process of capital accumulation. The only exception to this rule is provided by the colonies (North America), where Smith observes that "High wages of labour and high profits of stock ... scarce ever go together, except in the peculiar circumstances of new colonies." But even in the colonies, this situation will sooner or later wear off: "As the colony increases, the profits of stock gradually diminish. When the most fertile and best situated lands have been all occupied, less profit can be made by the cultivation of what is inferior..." Further on in the chapter, Smith spends two full paragraphs describing how the future stationary state — or, the 'full complement of riches' — may come to look like in any country of the world. The first paragraph, at p. 78, was already quoted in the previous version of the section text — and, fortunately, left untouched by Inkathi; the second paragraph, at p. 79, reads as follows:

“ In a country which had acquired its full complement of riches, where in every particular branch of business there was the greatest quantity of stock that could be employed in it, as the ordinary rate of clear profit would be very small, so the usual market rate of interest which could be afforded out of it would be so low as to render it impossible for any but the very wealthiest people to live upon the interest of their money. All people of small or middling fortunes would be obliged to superintend themselves the employment of their own stocks. It would be necessary that almost every man should be a man of business, or engage in some sort of trade. The province of Holland seems to be approaching near to this state. It is there unfashionable not to be a man of business. Necessity makes it usual for almost every man to be so, and custom everywhere regulates fashion. As it is ridiculous not to dress, so is it, in some measure, not to be employed, like other people. As a man of a civil profession seems awkward in a camp or a garrison, and is even in some danger of being despised there, so does an idle man among men of business. ”

This adds up to two full paragraphs on the future stationary state, expounded in very general terms. We may nowadays question Smith's predictive powers; but the fact remains that he definitely attempted to make a prediction on the subject matter.

Inkathi is stirring up much fuss about Smith's account of China's backward laws and institutions, and quotes Smith in full on this; but even this paragraph in the chapter fails to substantiate Inkathi's general perspective on Smith. Consider more carefully the first and most important part of the quote:

“ ... China seems to have been long stationary, and had probably long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent with the nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions, the nature of its soil, climate, and situation might admit of. A country which neglects or despises foreign commerce, and which admits the vessels of foreign nations into one or two of its ports only, cannot transact ... [etc.] [emphasis added] ”

So, even in the case of China, the full (potential) complement of riches is something that the nature of its soil, climate, and situation 'might admit of', Smith argues, eh...? Or, put in other words, natural limits are ever present in China, like anywhere else, regardless of the prevailing laws and institutions in the country. I believe Inkathi is losing the argument right here.

Taken together, it is completely wrong to assert that "It is thus unclear whether Smith believed in a final stationary state... [etc.]", as Inkathi does. The correct conclusion is that Smith fully believed in a final stationary state, brought about by the combination of a falling rate of profit and scarcity of natural resources (soil, climate, and situation, specifically) everywhere in the world.

Among Inkathi's deletions is the commentary placed immediately before the lengthy quote on Smith's concept of the stationary state, saying that "In an 18th-century anticipation of The Limits to Growth, Smith described the state as follows: ..." According to Inkathi's edit summary, the deletion of this commentary forms part of his effort to create "... a more complete and balanced picture." I could hardly disagree more on this point. There are plenty of contemporary secondary sources available where Smith's concept of the stationary state is referred to in general discussions of the present 'limits to growth' predicament. In effect, this particular commentary finely live up to the WP due weight criteria, I say.

As a consequence of all of the above, I have deleted Inkathi's mistakes, and restored the previous version of the section text instead (which happens to be the very version already written by yours truly). However, I do want to accommodate Inkathi's concerns as much as the available space and the subject matter allow. Hence, I have added one sentence to the previous version at the proper place, stating that "Smith believed the laws and institutions of China prevented this country from achieving the potential wealth its soil, climate and situation might have admitted of." That should suffice for the present purposes.

In case User Inkathi or any other editor want to raise objections to this post, please leave another post below before reversing my edit (or restoring Inkathi's edits, either partly or completely); but first, do consider reading Smith's chapter 'Of the Profits of Stock', it is only a bit more than eight pages long and very readable; even more, it is available online. Thank you.

References

End of post. Signature tildes.

Ivmbox

[Earlier text of main article]

Editor's note: Due to copyright restrictions, Wikipedia is currently unable to display a suitable image of Herman Daly here. Readers are advised to either use a search engine, or to follow this external link.

Editor's note: Due to copyright restrictions, Wikipedia is currently unable to display a suitable image of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen here. Readers are advised to either use a search engine, or to follow this external link.

[Later text of main article]