Author: Anonymous

You are the general manager of a regional chemical company. …

You are the general manager of a regional chemical company.  In the course of producing your bulk chemicals, large amounts of particles and smoke are emitted through your plant’s smokestack.  The level of pollutants is below the current EPA regulations, and you are not violating any laws, but one of the community groups is complaining about minor health problems caused by the smoke. After investigating numerous alternatives, the operations team determines that the most effective solution would be to install a “scrubber” system, which will remove 90% of the pollutants and ash. Cost =$1 million.  Identify four stakeholder groups  In your opinion, would it be ethical for the company to spend one million dollars to install the scrubber system, knowing that the company is not breaking any laws. Using the Utilitarian reasoning (cost-benefit analysis) present a compelling argument for or against installing the scrubber system. To receive full credit you must briefly explain how installing the scrubber system can affect each one of the four stakeholders groups that you have identified and then state your conclusion. Lastly, explain why your proposed solution is the most logical alternative.

  CHAPTER. V.    OF PROPERTY. [Professor’s note: this chapte…

  CHAPTER. V.    OF PROPERTY. [Professor’s note: this chapter is Locke’s greatest unintentional contribution to political theory, as it sets the foundation for what is later known as the labor theory of value. This chapter is quite important to the overall argument, because it shows that property does exist in a state of nature, and that a revolution would be unjustified in taking away the property of persons, that is, a revolution would be limited to a change in government, but would have to leave ownership of property largely untouched. Notice also the use of tacit consent and the laws of nature. This chapter is also important for both libertarian and Marxist approaches in political theory.]   Sect. 25. Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation…it is very clear, that God has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing?…But I shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners. Sect. 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience…. And no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his, i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life. Sect. 27. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. Sect. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian’s who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place… Sect. 31. The same law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too…But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy… Sect. 33. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use…. Sect. 36. The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men’s labour and the conveniencies of life: no man’s labour could subdue, or appropriate all; nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon the right of another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good, and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was appropriated. This measure did confine every man’s possession to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without injury to any body, in the first ages of the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant in… Sect. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use: yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry. Sect. 38. The same measures governed the possession of land too: whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of, before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right; whatsoever he enclosed, and could feed, and make use of, the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering, and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other…. Sect. 40. Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to over-balance the community of land: for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour… Sect. 44. From all which it is evident, that though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that, which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniencies of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others. Sect. 47. And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life. Sect. 48. And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them… Sect. 50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions. Sect. 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it. So that there could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave. Right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for encroachment on the right of others; what portion a man carved to himself, was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed.    

Capitalism, Socialism, Nihilism   Irving Kristol, The Public…

Capitalism, Socialism, Nihilism   Irving Kristol, The Public Interest, 1972 *As always, heavily edited for content and clarity.   Wherever and whenever the defenders of “free enterprise,” “individual liberty,” and “a free society” assemble these days, one senses a peculiar kind of nostalgia in the air. It is a nostalgia for that time when they were busily engaged in confronting their old and familiar enemies, the avowed proponents of a full-blown “collectivist” economic and social order. In the debate with these traditional enemies, advocates of “a free society” have, indeed, done extraordinarily well. It is therefore a source of puzzlement to them why, though the other side seems to have lost the argument, their side seems somehow not to have won it…Friedrich Hayek is not Milton Friedman, nor vice versa, and there are interesting differences between them but their thinking has converged into a powerful attack on the traditional socialist notions of central economic planning and a centrally-administered economy. As a result of the efforts of Hayek, Friedman, and others, the idea of a centrally-planned and centrally-administered economy has been discredited. Even in the socialist nations, economists are more interested in reviving the market than in permanently burying it. The question then naturally arises: If the traditional economics of socialism has been discredited, why has not the traditional economics of capitalism been vindicated? I should say that the reasons behind this state of affairs are quite obvious and easily comprehensible, even if the economists cannot understand them.             Question: what is he arguing about the libertarian position here?     On “thinking economically”   The original appeal of the idea of central economic planning-like the traditional appeal of socialism itself was cast primarily in economic terms. It was felt that such planning was necessary to (a) overcome the recurrent crises-i.e., depressions-of a market economy and (b) provide for steady economic growth and greater material prosperity for all. This importance which the structural Marxism of the Old Left, as we would call it today rested on the view they had discovered the laws of economic development, indeed, through the theory of surplus value they believed to have discovered the contradiction in all of capitalist economics. But the socialist impulse always had other ideological strands in it, especially a yearning for “fraternity” and “community,” and a revulsion against the “alienation” of the individual in liberal bourgeois society. These ideological strands were prominent among the “utopian socialists,” as Engels was to label them, and in the early thought of Karl Marx himself, in which economics received much less attention than religion and political philosophy. Question: what does Kristol think of the “utopian socialists”, why does he think their message is stronger than the structural Marxists? These non-economic values are prominent again today, in the thinking of what is called the “New Left.” The Old Left has been intellectually defeated on its chosen battleground, i.e., economics. But the New Left is now launching an assault on liberal society from quite other directions. One of the most astonishing features of the New Left-astonishing, at least, to a middle-aged observer is how little interest it really has in economics. I would put it even more strongly: The identifying marks of the New Left are its refusal to think economically and its contempt for bourgeois society precisely because this is a society that does think economically.             Question: what does the New Left share with the utopian socialists? What do I mean by “thinking economically”? I have found that it is very hard to convey this meaning to economists, who take it for granted that this is the only possible way for a sensible man to think -that, indeed, thinking economically is the same thing as thinking rationally. Economics is the social science par excellence of modernity, and economists as a class find it close to impossible to detach themselves from the philosophical presuppositions of calculated and rational self-interest. One of the keystones of modern economic thought is that it is impossible to have knowledge of what constitutes happiness for other people; that such knowledge is incorporated in an individual’s “utility schedules”; and this knowledge, in turn, is revealed by the choices the individual makes in a free market. This is not merely the keystone of modern economic thought-it is also the keystone of modern, liberal, secular society itself. It is at the heart of libertarian and utilitarian philosophy as well. This belief is so deeply ingrained in us that we are inclined to explain any deviation from it as perverse and pathological. Yet it is a fact that for several millennia, until the advent of modernity, people did not believe any such thing-would, indeed, have found such a belief to be itself shockingly pathological and perverse. Question: list as many of the thinkers as possible from this course that Kristol is criticizing here. In other words, which thinkers are dominantly “thinking economically”? For all pre-modern thinkers, knowledge of what constituted other people’s happiness was not only possible, but it was also a fact. True, such knowledge was the property of a small elite-religious, philosophical, or political. But this was deemed to be altogether proper: Such uncommon knowledge could not be expected to be found among common men. Question: which thinkers from this course would agree with Kristol that a different type of happiness is possible? You did not need a free market or a free society to maximize individual happiness; on the contrary, a free market, not being guided by the wisdom of the elite, was bound to be ultimately frustrating, since the common people could not possibly know what they really wanted or what would really yield them “true” happiness. Now, we know from our experience of central economic planning that this pre-modern approach is fallacious-but if, and only if, you define “happiness” and “satisfaction” in terms of the material production and material consumption of commodities. But, if you do not define happiness as consumption that is, if you refuse to “think economically,” then the pre-modern view is more plausible than not. It is, after all, one thing to say that there is no authentically superior wisdom about people’s tastes and preferences in commodities; it is quite another thing to deny that there is a superior wisdom about the spiritual dimensions of a good life. Question: do you agree that market consumption misunderstands true happiness? Notice we are back to the ancient political theory question of virtue ethics! Even today, that last proposition does not sound entirely ridiculous to us. And if you believe that man’s spiritual life is infinitely more important than his trivial and transient adventures in the marketplace, then you may tolerate a free market for practical reasons, within narrow limits, but you certainly will have no compunctions about overriding it if you think the free market is interfering with more important things.   The rejection of “thinking economically”   Modern economists are for the most part unaware that their habit of “thinking economically” only makes sense within a certain kind of world, based on certain peculiarly modern presuppositions. Thus, one of our most distinguished economists, Ludwig Von Mises wrote: Economies is a theoretical science and as such abstains from any judgment of value. It is not its task to tell people what ends they should aim at. It is a science of the means to be applied for the attainment of ends chosen, not a science of the choosing of ends. That statement sounds terribly modest and uncontroversial and platitudinous. But is it? Is it really so easy to separate means from ends?             Question: what is Ludwig von Mises arguing here? What if we are members of a monastic community and our end is holy poverty–not just poverty but holy poverty, a poverty suffused with a spiritual intention? Can economies help us attain this end? Or, to take a somewhat less extreme instance: What if we are loyal members of the kind of Orthodox Jewish community that even today is to be found in sections of New York City? In such a community, where most people are engaged in business, there unquestionably is some role for an economist–but only within narrow limits. In the end, the superior purpose of such a community is obedience to sacred Law and meditation on the meaning of this Law. For the maximization of such an end, economics is of little use.             Question: what is your highest end? Reflect on your own life for a minute! Modern, liberal, secular society is based on the revolutionary premise that there is no superior, authoritative information available about the good life or the true nature of human happiness-that this information is implicit only in individual preferences, and that therefore the individual has to be free to develop and express these preferences. What we are witnessing in Western society today are the beginnings of a counterrevolution against this conception of man and society. It is not an extension of modern principles, as the advocates claim, but instead a complete rejection of modernity.