“My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues…” Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged
55 years ago was published the book Atlas Shrugged written by Ayn Rand. I love this book because it tells wonderfully Ayn Rand’s philosophy of life in the form of a psychological thriller. As many of my usual readers know, I have been a student of Objectivist Philosohpy for many years and I apply her ideas in the understanding of Global History.
At the core of Objectivism is the morality of reason. It is because of this approach to morality, that the book Atlas Shrugged is more than amazing fiction for me. I consider the book one of the most valuable instruments I have to guide my life, my writings and my decisitions. If you have not read Atlas Shrugged today would be a great day to begin the journey. If you have already read it, I want to congratulate you for having found out Who was John Galt?
I was just told about this ad campaign and I couldn’t more than agree. Because #FirstWorldProblems are not real problems when understood in a global context,
DDB New York has created an ad for the Haitian charity “Water Is Life” that humiliates whiners on Twitter who use the “#Firstworldproblems” hashtag to complain about life’s trivial challenges.
In the video (below), ordinary Haitians — standing amid shanty huts, broken school buses and wrecked buildings — read the inane tweets of self-entitled idiots who complain about phone cords that won’t reach their beds, and leather car seats that aren’t heated.
Cuba arrested dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez once again and after been released she tell her terrible story inside Cuban’s prison.
Over the past several decades we have witnessed a marked pattern of violent pseudo-democratic governments that have curtailed the citizen’s right to Freedom of Speech. What is required to defend freedom of speech we need to do a a moral declaration of an unwavering commitment to freedom in thought and expression. A way of doing this is by sharing this post and reading it out loud.
Links to the Spanish and English language blogs of a brave Cuban blogger have been on this blog for years. This courageous anti-dictatorship woman’s name is Yoani Sanchez. She was arrested recently by the Castro fascist police. Below is her communication from the English language blog. Notably, I was unable to reach her Spanish blog today.
Help by sharing this posting. It also helps if you visit her blog. Just activate the link on this blog: Generation Y.
“The sweat of the three women who put me into a police car still sticks to my skin and in my nostrils. Huge, hulking, ruthless, they took me into a windowless room where the broken fan only blew air towards them. One looked at me with particular scorn. Maybe my face reminded her of someone in her past: an adversary in school, a despotic mother, a lost lover. I don’t know…
A month ago the world’s richest woman made a comment that got everyone’s attention. Major sensationalist papers in the globe elaborated different arguments on Gina Rinehart case for a $2-a-day pay. But putting emotions aside, what was she really talking about? Well, she was explaining in very rough terms what globalization is about and what is the role of competition in the global political economy.
In order to understand what Ms. Rinehart referred to, it is necessary first to briefly evaluate the history of the word competitiveness. The term is historically rooted in the writings of classical economics. Its core is the theory of comparative advantage expressed by David Ricardo in 1819, in which he underlined how countries should/do compete. Later on, the term was used by Marxist economists starting with Marx’s “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy” where he emphasized the impact of the sociopolitical environment on economic development in a global perspective, and therefore the communist idea that changing the political context should precede economic performance. Later, in 1942 the term was integrated to the role played by capitalists and entrepreneurs in the writings of Joseph Schumpeter, who stressed their creative and economic (“economic” here refers to capital as a mean of production) role as a factor of competitiveness by underlining that progress is the result of disequilibrium, which favors innovation and technological improvement. Further, Israel Kirzner’s emphasis on the redefinition of entrepreneurship by highlighting how global competitiveness is more about the capitalist’s innovative abilities rather than just the capital accumulated and how he/she invests it.
Ms. Rinehart’s comment reflects both the impact she plays as an actor in the global sociopolitical environment and her role as a capitalist and entrepreneur capable of generating innovation and of inciting creative destruction.
A $2-a-day pay in Africa means that many capitalists and entrepreneurs as Gina Rinehart are considering the possibility of moving their investments from less competitive continents to places in which competitiveness allow them to produce at lower costs.
Unfortunately, the region Ms. Rinehart was referring to has disincentives to competitiveness and innovation. Competitiveness is more than just lower wages and a cheap offer of labor. By following Ricardo, Marx, Schumpeter and Kirzner in order for Africa to become competitive in global terms the regions will require also to achieve what Stéphane Garelli in the “IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012” explains as the need to also A.) Create a stable and predictable legislative and administrative environment. B.) Ensure speed, transparency and accountability in the administration, as well as the ease of doing business. C.) Invest continually in developing and maintaining infrastructure both economic (road, air, telecom, etc.) and social (health, education, pension, etc.). And finally, D.) Strengthen the middle class: a key source of prosperity and long-term stability.
Ms. Rinehart’s comments were not a call for Australians to lower their wages to a $2-a-day pay since they have already achieved other of Garelli’s requirements for competitiveness. Her comments are a very clear example on how global economy works. If African governments manage to improve the rule of law in their territories, develop infrastructure and allow for a stronger middle class then the chances that investment will move to Africa are going to be higher. As such, economies as Australia’s should continue producing at the same efficiency rates or improve and innovate in order to avoid losing investors. Ms. Rinehart’s comment on how “her country’s mining industry couldn’t compete with nations that are willing to pay workers less than $2 a day for their sweat and labor” is as such partially truth. Australia’s economy has many other competitive assets to offer and as such do not require to compete by offering lower wages. The country has many other competitive assets to offer for investors. However, as time has passed since Australia’s boom in the last decades many other countries are also trying to spur competitiveness.
There is much more to be said about this topic and on how global competitiveness allows for rising standards of life and prosperity. Also there is much more to be said on how competitiveness in other regions of the world can destroy (remember Schumpeter’s work) the not-so efficient economies of other countries that have not managed to cope with a changing global economy.
This is exactly what Global Studies is all about. Of all the exotic images that the West has ever projected onto Tibet, that of the Nazi expedition, and its search for the pure remnants of the Aryan race, remains the most bizarre. In April 1938 the SS undertook its biggest and most ambitious expedition to Tibet, led by Ernst Schäfer, a veteran explorer, and the anthropologist Bruno Beger. On the nineteenth of January 1939, the five members of the Waffen-SS, Heinrich Himmler’s feared Nazi shock troops, passed through the ancient, arched gateway that led into the sacred city of Lhasa. Like many Europeans, they carried with them idealized and unrealistic views of Tibet, projecting, as Orville Schell remarks in his book Virtual Tibet, “a fabulous skein of fantasy around this distant, unknown land.” The projections of the Nazi expedition, however, did not include the now familiar search for Shangri-La, the hidden land in which a uniquely perfect and peaceful social system held a blueprint to counter the transgressions that plague the rest of humankind. Rather, the perfection sought by the Nazis was an idea of racial perfection that would justify their views on world history and German supremacy.
Globalization & Capitalism 