Question 1: What are the primary differences discussed in this week’s videos between Marxism and Marxism-Leninism?

Marx believed that communism was bound to happen after capitalism has peaked within a society. His view was that once a society has experienced the flaws of capitalism they will stand up against it and create a communistic society. This process of communism could be quickened or slowed, but Marx believed it to be inevitable. Lenin on the other hand believed that left to their own devices workers would not rise up and overthrow capitalism, but would rather put their efforts towards becoming more comfortable within capitalism. To truly overthrow capitalism, Lenin believed intellectuals would have to take charge and steer the way towards communism. Lenin created a “Vanguard of the Proletariat”, or in other words a group of people that could become professional revolutionaries against capitalism. He instructed them to complete a violent and bloody uprising, then seize control and create a dictatorship. Lenin’s final goal was liken to totalitarianism, which he saw as the only true path towards communism.

Question 2: Historian Richard Pipes Wrote, “Soviet Russia was the first society in history to outlaw law.” What did he mean by that?

The court system in the time of the Bolshevik’s rule was extremely tainted. For one, the only requirement to become a judge was literacy. No study of law or history was required, one must simply be able to read and write. Since the judges had no knowledge of law they were instructed to make legal decisions based on their “revolutionary conscience”. So basically the judges could rule in whatever way they felt like, and it would always be supported by law. Lenin’s opinion on this was that it would scare away anyone opposing communism, in fact anyone who did support capitalism was immediately arrested and sent to the nearest mental hospital. Things got so corrupted that Lenin was quoted saying the justice system “was not to eliminate terror, but to substantiate and legitimize it.” Instead of providing the people with courage and justice, the legal system of that time rewarded false narratives and belittled, executed, and locked away anyone who dared to question the new revolutionary system.

Question 1: What are some of the factors that have contributed to rising health-care in the United States.

During World War II business’s were getting desperate for more labor, but the government wasn’t allowing the business’s to raise their wages to attract potential employees. An initiative solution to this issue was to provide health-care, which would attract more employees without raising wages. This seemed to stick, and it became the norm for companies to provide their employees with health-care. The companies pay for most medical bills, and in turn the employee doesn’t have to think about pricing. The obvious problem that arises from this system is the medical professionals take advantage of the employees lack of financial restraint. The employee doesn’t have to think about pricing, so he doesn’t. The company pays for the medical bills, and the medical professionals who get paid through insurance can raise their costs as high as they’d like.

Question 2: Evaluate the statement: “World War II was a time of great prosperity in the United States.

World War II was in no way a time of great prosperity in the US. Since it was war time 40% of the working force (namely the healthy men) were in the armed forces. The civilians not apart of the military were either jobless or working extremely labor intensive jobs to support those in the military. So while men were off fighting in the war the women and teenagers had to work long and strenuous hours to support them. That translates to 60% of the US population (excluding the jobless), putting in all their time and labor to support the 40%. As you can imagine that leaves very few economic benefits left over for the 60%, so basically no matter how hard someone worked they’d still most likely be poverty stricken because all of their efforts went towards assisting the war.

Question 1: Based on lesson 117 and the reading, how has it been argued that Woodrow Wilson followed a double standard in his treatment of the British hunger blockade and the German submarine warfare? What policies did he take regarding Americans soiling on ships flying belligerent flags?

In 1914 the British Navy had been blocking any and all food being sent to the German, labeling it as contraband. This violated several international laws, as food was only allowed to be labeled contraband if headed for troupes of war. The food the British were capturing was meant for the civilians, who without it had to subsist on only potatoes and turnips. Winston Churchill said on the matter: “starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission.” Britain had also been violating international law by laying distant blockades: mines meant to destroy any and all vessels crossing over them, belligerent or otherwise. Wilson didn’t have much to say against these two laws broken by the British, but he did have something to say against the Germans. The Germans announced that they would start using submarine warfare against any spotted ships, no matter if they flew neutral flags or not. The reason behind this is Britain would sometimes disguise their war ships with neutral flags, feigning innocence then attacking once the Germans let their guard down. This seems a perfectly reasonable response from the Germans, who were simply watching out for their own best interest. It seemed a stable policy, until a British ship holding a single American was sunk. This caught Wilson’s attention, and he began very much resisting Germany’s violation of neutral rights. His view on it was American citizens must be protected at all costs, even if they are riding on an armed and aggressive ship traveling through a war zone. Once the infamous Lusitania ship had been sunk (which contained over a hundred Americans who had been warned prior they were going through a war zone and that they were traveling at their own risk), Wilson demanded his policy to protect Americans be respected. Wilson’s policy was obviously a double standard. This weeks reading material Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal explained that Wilson and his men had been on Britain’s side since the start. Ignoring the horrors and broken laws caused by the British, and slamming down hard on the Germans simply for protecting themselves should be proof enough.

 

Question 1: What is the problem that Ludwig von Mises identified that a socialist economic planning board faces?

In a capitalistic society business owners are able to calculate profit and loss. They can compare their product to another business’s, contrast the differences in labor and production efficiency, and analyze why their product has become more/less popular than their competitors. Economic calculation allows business’s to make the most rational and efficient financial decisions, it allows for the least wasteful business deals. It also allows for resources to be dealt more fairly, the products most popular with the public are able  to collect more resources to produce their product faster. Theres also pricing, which gets decided upon very quickly in a capitalist society. It mainly gets decided upon by the customer, through bidding, offers and counter offers. Through this auction style buying process the customer decides how much they’re willing to pay, and from that a fair price is born. The problem with the socialist calculation is that, well there is no way to calculate. A panel of government officials plans out everything that is to be produced, and since theres no competitor to compare prices and production costs the financial decisions become far from efficient. There are no real prices, since the central planning board already owns everything. The government is simply distributing produce with no economic calculation whatsoever, and that leads to a lot of economic waste.

Question 2: Evaluate this statement: “Government must intervene in the economy to bring about improved working conditions.”

When faced with a workplace problem (such as underdeveloped safety protocol), the majority of us would look to the government to apply laws to fix it. While this can work to solve some problems, with others government involvement only makes the issues worse. Imagine air conditioner is a new product, fresh on the market and exciting to factory workers who work in less than ideal conditions. Many factories (primarily the wealthy ones) are able to afford this flashy and helpful new product. But many others lack the funds necessary to compensate. The government, hearing of the popularity of AC, steps in and makes it mandatory for all factories to implement this new technology. “We’re helping the underdog,” says the government “Now those penniless factories will receive the air conditioning they deserve!” But no factory receives things for free, and the penniless remain penniless. The only real change is the poor factory (who still fails to provide funds for AC) now is forced out of business. The workers of this factory didn’t much mind the lack of AC, but they certainly mind losing a job. The rich who could afford AC prior to the law change now have an excess of jobless at their door, and are able to pay them less than their last job because it was forced to close. In this scenario the rich get richer, the poor just get poorer.

Question 1: What are the values of Modernism that we see reflected across different fields, and how do they represent a departure from neoclassicism and the Enlightenment?

Modernism was an art and cultural movement made popular around the late 19th century, which then lasted strong into the early 20th century. Sigmund Freud played a large role, contrasting the previous neoclassicism and bringing forth new and powerful world views. Freud believed that the world was not an organized machine as people believed it to be, but instead much more chaotic and complex. He believed humans weren’t naturally good natured, but rather that good nature sprang from a need for personal satisfaction and animalistic instinct. We have many unsavory desires, Freud believed, and to maintain the appearance and reputation required to thrive in society we deny and stuff down those desires. Having no other place to turn to those desires manifest in our unconscious, our dreams. Through the study of dreams we can gain a higher awareness of our personal wants (wholesome and otherwise), and from that gain the grounded base necessary to evolve our character.

With this enormous psychological leap Freud brought on a new cultural era, one where pure reliance on spirituality was slowly being replaced by study of the human psyche. Universal optimism began to be replaced with realism, which can be argued as either helpful or harmful for societies majority. Artistry such as “American Gothic” and “We are Making a New World” began to be produced, which show some reality behind the feign glory of war and the struggle of economic depression. Sigmund Freud has been described as the grandfather of psychology, his work has influenced a cultural shift of such magnitude that we still refer to its modernistic importance to this day.

Question 2: What factors contributed to the coming of World War I?

At the time directly before World War I Germany was worried about being geographically surrounded by enemies. There was Lithuania and Poland to the east, Denmark to the north, and a long time German enemy to the west in the form of France. So Germany turned to the south. At the time the Southern Slavs were under a duel monarchy run by the Magyars and Austrians. In 1879 Germany organized a defensive alliance with Austria to keep France at bay, and Italy joined the pack soon after. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany had a peace treaty with Russia at the time, but he abandoned it to pursue more powerful political alliances. What he didn’t expect was for Russia to team up with France, the two countries were about as polar opposite with their ruling styles as you can get. But they found common ground (in their shared hate of Germany), and in 1894 the two assembled an alliance to surround and attack it. The majority of Europe actually thought very little of the war when it initially began, expecting it to be completely finished by Christmas of that same year. As history would tell thats far from what actually unfolded, and the war would turn into the beginning of a massacre.

The prompt for this years term paper is how optimism has effected western literature. This is my preliminary outline for it. As a warning I wanna say that my final draft may look nothing like this, for me writing off the top of my head while i’m in the moment is one hundred times easier than attempting to organize it beforehand. But this was assigned so here we go.

 Introductory hook and thesis statement

Definition of optimism and general overview of what i’m about to talk about

Topics of analyse:

Utopia, Doctor Faustus, Macbeth, Bacon, Paradise Lost, Mandeville, Robinson Crusoe, Candide, Wesley, Wilberforce

Conclusions and summary

Call to action

 

Does this really help folks feel more organized in their writing?  I feel like it would be easier to just write the essay and then break it up like this after completion. Trying to deconstruct that which is yet to be constructed is like trying to describe a blank canvas.

 

Question 1: What are the arguments for and against government science funding?

The initial argument in favor of government funded science is rather simple: people assume that without backup from the government science will lose its funds. People rely on the government so insistingly that they have lost faith in the adequacy of their fellow man, and in doing so they forget the most fundamental truth of government. The truth that government is run and maintained by their fellow man, not by an all knowing inhuman force. People who insist on government funded science make the argument that since science does not wield immediate profit the public will lose interest, and because of this lack of interest we will be intellectually impoverished.

Lets disprove this theory by taking a look at history. In the 19th century the British spent hardly any government funding on science, while their competitors such as the German and French spent a substantial amount. Yet somehow, the British consistently remained dominant when it came to European scientific discovery. Lets move east and look at Japan, a country who holds some of the most privatized research and development in the world. It turns out their scientific discovery is extremely advanced, but instead of being done in tax funded universities Japan does its science in industrial laboratories. The agreement held between the government and the researchers seems both basic as well as efficient: the researchers are provided labs as long as they continue to research. Doesn’t that sound like the exact exchange we expect from this relationship? If so why, and more importantly what are our “essential” government funds going towards?

Question 2: What have been the effects of foreign aid programs, such that virtually everyone was describing them as failures by the 1990s?

Foreign aid programs at first glance seem extremely empathetic. We maintain a prosperous country, so when we see a poor country most peoples first instinct is to financially assist them. But if we look as history we see many examples where no matter how many trillions of dollars we send their way they remain financially lackluster. The initial popularity of foreign aid programs first appeared after the Marshal plan helped western Europe recover after World War II, but as it turns out the Marshal plan was not the main cause of Europe’s recovery and in fact played a very small role in their recovery. But none the less the idea gripped the minds of the public, and the theory of throwing money at countries to solve their problems became mainstream.

As it turns out many financially despaired countries became that way because of dictatorships and regimes, and giving these dictators a large amount of money was doing the exact opposite of helping the poor citizens. Giving the dictators money simply insulated them from their terrible economic decisions, it gave them a financial shield so they didn’t have to feel the consequences of their actions. With this shield these now rich dictators could continue their destructive behavior, overtaxing and ruining the lives of the poor citizens the money was initially sent to help. It was only after we threatened to cut off the foreign aid that the economic systems of these countries began to improve.

The foreign aid politicized the lives of many groups. It began splitting people apart and creating violence, since every group wanted to steal this free money from the other. It also took peoples focus away from what would actually solve their problems, that being reforming their economic systems. Now there was no reason to reform, since they could just continue receiving free foreign aid without having to improve themselves. Peter Bower predicted this back in the 50’s, saying that these foreign aid programs would only serve to divert peoples attention away from bettering themselves. He also predicted these foreign aid programs would help prop up rotten regimes, making us think we were helping the poor when really we were only helping the regimes milk the poor for all they were worth. The only way to actually help the poor is with strict protection of private property, fair and unbiased government, and an entrepreneurial spirit from the people. These three things are the backbone of a prosperous country, the answer is not simply throwing funds at those in power who created their countries problems to begin with.

Question 1: What was the Kulturkampf?

The Kulturkampf, or cultural battle, was a struggle between the Prussian Prime Minister Otto van Bismarck and the slice of the Roman Catholic Church that lived in Prussia at the time. Bismarck was pushing for a unified Germany, and the Roman Catholic Church got in the way of that. The feud lasted from 1872 to 1878, and consisted mostly of differing opinions regarding educational and ecclesiastical values.

Question 2: Discuss the arguments advanced in favor of and against the British Empire in the two articles you read.

The horrific methods taken by the British and US militaries to remove the locals of Diego Garcia island are truly unspeakable. If you haven’t heard of the Diego Garcia island think of it as a strategically placed and far more secretive Guantanamo Bay. The beatific landscape is now a American military hub, playing a key role in wars such as the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq, the war on Afghanistan, and most recently the bombing attacks against Iraq and Syria. If you think the current lifestyle of the island is bloody than you haven’t heard of the initial takeover performed by the US in the late 1960’s. The Ilois (Islanders) as they called themselves first arrived at Diego Garcia around the late eighteenth century. They initially were enslaved Africans brought over to work at coconut plantations, then along with Indian laborers they created a new and diverse society. They created their own culture, lifestyle, and a new language called Chagos Kreol. The Ilois lived happily on the island for the nearly a century.

Then during the Cold War US officials became worried that they had no military bases within the Indian Ocean, so they talked British officials into giving them “exclusive control” over Diego Garcia. The British agreed to have the island “sanitized” of the locals, and with that the violence began. Did I mention the exchange of notes between the British and the US went around the congress and the parliament, allowing both countries to go through with their plans with no restrictions whatsoever? This agreement was so secretive that one US official described the attack against the locals as: “We are able to make up the rules as we go along.” And they did. First they rounded up and executed all of the domesticated dogs, the methods of these executions ranged from guns to gassing. Next they rounded up the near 2,000 residents of the island, and a top ranking official named Elmo Zumwalt delivered to them their sentence: “Absolutely must go.” With that the Ilois were sent to pack up a single box of belongings, along with a thin sleeping mat, and sent away on overcrowded cargo ships to Mauritius and the Seychelles.

The Ilois were given no rehoming assistance, and to this day are some of the most poverty stricken peoples living within their reassigned living destinations. I could certainly go on about their suffering, but i’d say the canine executions alone are enough to sum up my points. The prompt for this asked me to also argue the points in favor of the British, but the only real aspects the British and Americans have to defend themselves with are curbs, excuses and denial. There is no excuse for these officials, not unless war is an excuse for mindless violence against an uninvolved people. The only compliment I can give to the officials that carried out this horror is.. at least they reassigned the location of the Ilois instead of exterminating them? But that isn’t high praise. The surviving Ilois people are now starting to push for their homeland back, and the secret carnage of this island and its culture is finally starting to become exposed. Theres still a lot of work to be done to even somewhat redeem the terrible deeds of this military invasion, but the issue is finally starting to be recognized by the public. I hope that these horrible deeds coming into light will help the ancestors of Ilois, and I hope the empathy and acknowledgment of the public will be enough to give the remaining Ilois people some long awaited sense of hope.

Question 1: What are some of the problems with the concept of public goods?

Public goods are defined as a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization. The idea behind them is the government will organize and and decide upon the most efficient strategy of creating, then tax the public in order to build. Once the public good is   built (whether it be a lighthouse, a highway, etc.) the public will have the right to use and gain the benefits from it. On paper this sounds like a flawless system, though it does raise the question of why the government excludes the free market from the organization and creation process.

Well, for one the government can use public goods as an excuse to tax the people much heavier then they’d be able to if a private organization was in charge. They say the tax money is all going towards public goods, when in reality only about 2/5th’s of it goes into the creation of public schools and roads. The rest goes towards the military, the government’s stocks, the government’s private commerce, and of course the government workers paycheck. Because of this the government has an incentive to try to get as much tax money as possible, and therefor they look for the most expensive way of creating the public good. Say the government is building a highway. They can either go over the hill, which would be cheap and time efficient but would only allow two gas stations to be built. Or they could go around the hill, which would be much more expensive and take much more time. But it would also allow for six gas stations to be built instead of only two. Going around the hill would not only let the government tax people more for its building funds, but it would also allow for more businesses that would also be taxed. So the government builds the road around the hill, and the public has to pay higher taxes and drive for a longer time.

The point of this is government officials aren’t gods of economics who can mystically plan out a perfect layout for humanity, they are simply humans who want to rake in as much personal benefit as possible. Saying the free market would screw things up if given control is only a way for the government workers to maintain economic dominance. Instead of letting the people who actually use the new road decide which route is best the government claims it can decide for us, and decide more efficiently at that. It’s an idealistic claim, but just because you have government status does not mean you lose your avarice. Just like anyone given full control over a economic project, government officials will usually look for a way to skim something for themselves off the top.

Question 2: Describe the process by which the market economy tends toward an improvement in the standard of living.

In a capitalistic economy society tends to get richer and richer the more time that goes by. The reason isn’t because of government intervention, but rather through individuals hard work and savings. Lets say someone creates a business drawing cartoons. Now, back in the twenties you would need many people putting in hours and hours of drawing by hand to make a decent cartoon. But as time continues better animation techniques and inventions are created, and soon it takes less people and less time to animate. People start getting more free time, which allows them to further improve the way work gets done. The business continues in this way, and over time the cost to create these cartoons falls dramatically. Now the business owner is able to save a lot more of his income, which he can invest into the improvement of his art. The price to create goes down, while the quality goes up. The business flourishes, and through clever investments receives more income than it spends. Through this process of developing, improving, and investing the business owner is able to produce more while spending less.

Some people say the poor just keep getting poorer, but this is ridiculously incorrect. The truth of the matter is we’ve gotten so collectively wealthy that we have begun perceiving luxuries as basic necessities. We take for granted things that would have been seen as science fiction a mere hundred years ago. The “poor” of todays time have more than the wealthiest people of the past. Microwaves, televisions, wireless telephones, refrigerators, security systems, personal automotive vehicles, hair dryers; all of these wonderful inventions we take for granted. How long do you think it took before we were able to create a hair dryer that didn’t catch the occasional head of hair ablaze? And how inspirational and wondrous did it seem when the icebox was first replaced with the refrigerator? These are things we don’t even acknowledge today, let alone think of as luxuries. But they are luxurious, from a three year olds walkie talkie to a 10,000$ computer. These miracles of science weren’t created by government employees deciding the blueprint of humanity, but by passionate capitalists trying to create products that people would want to buy. Through individual development, improvement, and investment we’ve created a country where luxuries are the norm, a country where we can actually fight poverty instead of accepting it and submitting to the thought that its unavoidable. The market economy raises income while lowering labor, and because of the market economy we now live in a world that would have been seen as utterly impossible a handful of decades ago.

What were the key steps in the process of Italian unification?

Count Camillo di Cavour became the prime minister of Piedmont in 1852. To gain the favor of France he stepped in to contribute troops towards the anti-Russia faction of the Crimean War. Because of this goodwill between the Italians and the French when Austria stepped in and attempted to claim Piedmont France leant a hand and helped drive the Austrians away. Piedmont gained Lombardy, and started building plebiscites throughout northern Italy in an attempt to persuade the public about the positives of Italian unification. A retired general named Giuseppe Garibaldi captured some sections of south Italy then gifted them to Piedmont. Afterwards Piedmont claimed the Papal states and Venetia, and (besides the Vatican) they had all they needed to put the final details on a unified Italy.

What were the key steps in the process of German unification?

The very ambitious prime minister of Prussia, Otto Von Bismark, first teamed up with Austria to ravage and overtake two territories in Denmark. Each country took a territory, and it seemed to be a happy compromise for everyone except Denmark. But then Prussia turned around and stabbed its former ally in the back, attacking Austria and stealing away the Danish territory it had taken. This was Prussia’s way of displaying dominance over Austria, forcing them to stay out of German affairs from then on. Prussia went on to attack and steal a territory from France, which along with the previous victory impressed the southern German states. They liked Prussia’s moxie, agreed with the ambition and determination of Bismarck, and readily unified.