As a nice little war has just ended in Georgia, and the vistas open up yet more for the weaponsmongers, always benefiting from Bush' policies - perhaps the only consistent winners - it is worth remembering and repeating the words of warning from Dwight D. Eisenhower more extensively:
"[W]e have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Thus spake a true patriot. Where do we find such today, when the weapons industry has its representatives inside the White House, where the administration is delivering yet more money from the public purse to the weapons manufacturers? Where do we find such clarity of vision when, in reality, the weapons industry is dictating policies?
The Moral Economy of Sustainable and Democratic Societies
This is held to be among reasonable and convincing premises for the long term success and survival of liberal and democratic societies:
’In A Theory of Justice, [John] Rawls defends a conception of “justice as fairness.” He holds that an adequate account of justice cannot be derived from utilitarianism, because that doctrine is consistent with intuitively undesirable forms of government in which the greater happiness of a majority is achieved by neglecting the rights and interests of a minority. Reviving the notion of a social contract, Rawls argues that justice consists of the basic principles of government that free and rational individuals would agree to in a hypothetical situation of perfect equality. In order to ensure that the principles chosen are fair, Rawls imagines a group of individuals who have been made ignorant of the social, economic, and historical circumstances from which they come, as well as their basic values and goals, including their conception of what constitutes a “good life.” Situated behind this “veil of ignorance,” they could not be influenced by self-interested desires to benefit some social groups (i.e., the groups they belong to) at the expense of others. Thus they would not know any facts about their race, sex, age, religion, social or economic class, wealth, income, intelligence, abilities, talents, and so on.
In this “original position,” as Rawls characterizes it, any group of individuals would be led by reason and self-interest to agree to the following principles:
(1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
(2) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.’
(from Encyclopædia Britannica, on ’John Rawls’)
Taken as an ideal of policymaking, the above stands in stark contrast to the actual policy processes of today, were MNCs and their self-serving CEOs – "the military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned against – have pocketed legislative bodies across the globe. This may read like populism, but is intended to make us realize the gravity of the current situation, and open up for a discussion on how to reverse these processes.
Again in Eisenhower's words, so different in profundity from the leaders of today: "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
’In A Theory of Justice, [John] Rawls defends a conception of “justice as fairness.” He holds that an adequate account of justice cannot be derived from utilitarianism, because that doctrine is consistent with intuitively undesirable forms of government in which the greater happiness of a majority is achieved by neglecting the rights and interests of a minority. Reviving the notion of a social contract, Rawls argues that justice consists of the basic principles of government that free and rational individuals would agree to in a hypothetical situation of perfect equality. In order to ensure that the principles chosen are fair, Rawls imagines a group of individuals who have been made ignorant of the social, economic, and historical circumstances from which they come, as well as their basic values and goals, including their conception of what constitutes a “good life.” Situated behind this “veil of ignorance,” they could not be influenced by self-interested desires to benefit some social groups (i.e., the groups they belong to) at the expense of others. Thus they would not know any facts about their race, sex, age, religion, social or economic class, wealth, income, intelligence, abilities, talents, and so on.
In this “original position,” as Rawls characterizes it, any group of individuals would be led by reason and self-interest to agree to the following principles:
(1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
(2) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.’
(from Encyclopædia Britannica, on ’John Rawls’)
Taken as an ideal of policymaking, the above stands in stark contrast to the actual policy processes of today, were MNCs and their self-serving CEOs – "the military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned against – have pocketed legislative bodies across the globe. This may read like populism, but is intended to make us realize the gravity of the current situation, and open up for a discussion on how to reverse these processes.
Again in Eisenhower's words, so different in profundity from the leaders of today: "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Sep 6, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment