In any epoch and in any culture, the human mind displays a
marked tendency to accept the status quo as the default—being so ensconced in
fact that efforts at real change almost inevitably face formidable road-blocks.
In this essay, I analyze the 2014 failed ballot-petition that would have put
the proposal of breaking California into six separate states to Californians. I
contend that the proponents could alternatively have taken up a more optimal
alternative—one much easier to put into effect. Interestingly, that idea comes
from the E.U. rather than the U.S.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Ebola in Liberia: The Government’s Fault?
With the Ebola virus “spreading like wildfire” in Liberia, “devouring
everything in its path,” Brownie Samukai, the state’s defense minister, went on
to tell the U.N. Security Council on September 9, 2014 that “Liberia is facing
a serious threat to its national existence.”[1]
With more than half of the epidemic’s deaths in that state—1,224 out of at
least 2,2296 in West Africa as of September 6, 2014—and new cases “increasing
exponentially,” the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that “the demands
of the Ebola outbreak have completely outstripped the government’s and partners’
capacity to respond.”[2]
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the illness had
severely handicapped the mining, agriculture, and service sectors of the state’s
economy.[3]
Quite understandably, pleas for the government to do more peeled like
frightened bells across the state. “The patients are hungry, they are starving.
No food, no water,” a terrified woman told journalists. “The government needs
to do more. Let Ellen Johnson Sirleaf do more!”[4]
Even if valid, such blame is hypocritical to the extent that the people
themselves had been refusing to do what is necessary to stop such a virus from
spreading.
Concerning the validity of woman’s charge that the
government was not doing nearly enough, Samukai pointed out that the “already
weak health infrastructure” was overwhelmed.[5]
That is to say, the government had to deal with an already-insufficient
healthcare system. Why insufficient? Two theories of development give different
answers. According to dependencia, or dependency theory, the infrastructure of
a colony is oriented to getting commodities out to the colonizer rather than to
developing an internal, web-like system. Roads of a coastal colony, for
example, are prioritized that go from the interior to the coast, where ships
can pick up the goods and transport them to the core economy (e.g., Europe).
The colonists and even their successors cannot be blamed for the lack of
internally-oriented infrastructure, yet at some point after a sufficient amount
of time as a sovereign state the lack of any progress is surely blameworthy.
The modernization theory says that what holds a developing
country back is not its colonial infrastructure, but, rather, things like
tradition and ignorance that a people stubbornly cling to even when offered a
better way. Superstition, for example, may keep people from working on certain
days while tradition has it that a person should stop working as soon as he or
she has enough for subsistence living. This inverse of the Protestant work
ethic can keep capital from accumulating to the point that reinvestment can
broaden an agrarian economy to include manufacturing industries. Rigidly
sticking with the custom that puts child labor above education, a people can
keep its young from becoming professionals, business entrepreneurs, and
managers. Quite understandably, executives of foreign corporations are hesitant
to start operations where such a base labor pool exists and reinforces itself.
Taken together dependencia and modernization theory can
account for the weak health infrastructure in Liberia and other former colonies
in Africa. Health-care of the natives had not been a priority of the
colonizers. Additionally, education and investment, as well as even foreign
direct investment, may be lacking even though they would contribute much to
building a sound healthcare system.
Applied to the Ebola outbreak, we can look beyond the
government and healthcare infrastructure to apply modernization theory to the
people themselves. The funeral custom, for example, of touching the body the
deceased friend or relative is great for the virus, which spreads by touch rather
than air. Even so, the African who have this tradition stubbornly and/or
ignorantly held to it even as the epidemic was spreading. Additionally, villagers
took to hiding sick residents rather than allowing visiting healthcare workers
to take the infected people to makeshift treating facilities out of fear that people
go to die at such places; meanwhile, the villagers themselves could become
infected. In some cases, villagers even attacked the visitors, stubbornly
ignoring their pleas.
Scared villagers in Liberia stand far away from the healthcare worker, even as they risk getting the virus by rubbing up against each other--ignoring the worker's pleas. (Image Source: The Washington Post)
Simply maintaining a distance from other people, rather than
continuing to touch them, would have done a lot to smite the Ebola. Especially
sordid is the assumption that the healthcare workers and government officials
don’t know what they are talking about, especially if the person also assumes
that he or she cannot be wrong—such as in knowing
that touching a dead body brings with it benefits that can keep the person
healthy or safe. Ignorance that cannot be wrong, backed up by tradition, can
indeed be a silent killer, the odor of which can only be pleasing to the Ebola
virus. Blaming the government rings hollow from such a putrid drum, even if
officials could be doing a better job in mopping up the mess.
[1]
Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola
Is ‘Devouring Everything in Its Path.’ Could It Lead to Liberia’s Collapse?”
The Washington Post, September 11,
2014.
[2]
WTO, “Ebola
Situation in Liberia: Non-Conventional Interventions Needed,” September 8,
2014; Elahe Izadi, “Ebola
Death Toll Rises to 2,296 as Liberia Struggles to Keep Up,” The Washington Post, September 9, 2014.
[3]
Anna Yukhananov, “IMF
Says Ebola Hits Economic Growth in West Africa,” Reuters, September 11,
2014.
[4]
Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola.”
[5]
Ibid.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Letter to the Scots: Read between the Lines
The answer may be staring you in the face. Such might be
the best feedback the rest of the world could give the Scots as they discern
whether their region should break off from the state of Britain. How do the English
feel about the Scots? The answer is presumably relevant, as who wants to remain
where they are not liked? On this matter, the Scots could do worse than read
between the lines of a poll done roughly a month before the referendum on what
the English think should be Scotland’s relation to Britain if the region leaves
and if it stays.[1]
"It is striking how tough people in England are on
Scotland whatever the referendum outcome," Jeffery said. The message
appears to be, 'Vote yes, by all means, but if you do, you're on your
own.'" In the poll, two in three respondents in England said they would
not want Scotland to use the British pound even though the Queen would continue
as the head of state (i.e., Scotland would be in the British Commonwealth of
nations--a partial residual of the British Empire). Only 1 in 4 were in favor
of Britain helping an independent Scotland negotiate its accession as a
state alongside Britain in the European Union and membership in NATO.[2]
If the residents in the Scottish region vote against breaking
off from the state, English voters would overwhelmingly be in favor of giving
the region more autonomy from the state government. Lest this seem too good to
be true, those voters "also want to cut funding to Scotland and prevent
Scottish members of the British Parliament from voting on issues concerning
only England." The message here, according to Jeffery, one of the study's
authors, is: "By all means have more devolution, but you can't then have a
role at Westminster you do now, and don't expect any funding to flow northwards
from England."[3]
Either way, the not so subtle message for the Scots is
that they are hardly welcome. Such tension between two groups that both
self-identify as a people in one state is doubtlessly counter-protective from
the perspective of the state itself; two separate states in the E.U. would be
more optimal, for the E.U. federal system permits both homogeneous political
subunits, or states, and a diverse empire-scale polity—hence the advantages of
both. A state of two contending peoples, proverbially at each other’s throats,
is thus far from optimal for the federal system, not to mention the state
itself. Put another way, arguing that the UK is just such a political
arrangement that works best with such a basic contentious difference in terms
of group-identification treats the E.U. state as if it were like the E.U. (or
U.S.) itself, rather than a state thereof. A state in the E.U. cannot logically
be equivalent to the E.U., or then a subunit would be commensurate to that to
which it is a subunit.
For the Scots, the simple message is that it is not good
to remain in close quarters with a people who want the worst rather than the
best for you. Reading between the lines, the English want you out. I submit
that this factor ought not be a trivial one as the Scots deliberate on whether
their region should break off from the E.U. state to become a new, relatively
homogeneous one, and thus more conducive to both Britain and Scotland as states, and to the
E.U. as well.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Natural Rights in Europe and America: Shoring-Up Each Other’s Weak Spots
The Declaration of Independence made by the thirteen newly
sovereign American states in 1776 recognizes “that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights are
not dependent on any government, and thus exist equally so in the state of
nature. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, made in Europe
thirteen years later, omits any mention of a creator-deity. “Men are born and
remain free and equal in rights.” The equality here is more limited, being
solely in terms of rights, “man’s natural and imprescriptible rights” in
particular. These “are liberty, property, security, and resistance to
oppression.” We can thus compare and contrast the two sets of rights, which
important implications for public policy for both America and Europe.
The entire essay is at "Natural Rights in Europe and America."
The entire essay is at "Natural Rights in Europe and America."
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