In attempt to answer the question PTJ sort of threw around during class on whether it is possible to have bad motives but good effects, I would like to reference, along somewhat the same line of thought, the principle of the double effect.
The principle of the Double Effect basically relies on carrying out an action based on good intentions and being “okay” with it having negative side effects, even if you saw those coming, because you can attribute them to the positive intentions you had originally. An example that came to mind as I was thinking of a way to propose this was precisely Halle’s anecdote, voluntourism, and the detrimental effects engaging in this activity could present to the host community. Voluntourism (volunteer tourism) is defined as the synonym for international volunteering, basically meaning volunteering outside your living comfort zone and broadening your horizons along international aid programs. This could be considered an example of the principle because of the effects you oversee when preparing to engage in the activity, such as creating a relationship with the people you are helping and then having to leave them, wanting to lend a hand but not knowing what it is that they need exactly and end up lending more help than what the target area might need, causing it to be detrimental, which goes back to the example Wyatt brought when talking about the potable water resources at the beginning of the semester. However, the professor’s question is framed around a counteracting doctrine to that of the Double Effect, a case in which you would have bad intentions with socially beneficial outcomes, in which case, I would like to point out long-term positive effects rather than just “good effects.” I thought about taking this into a global scale, referencing a global crisis like 9/11 and point out that even though such terrible situation had highly detrimental effects on society, economy, and individual well being, it did have a long term positive effect in the sense of the United States strengthening their national security (even though the negative effects outweigh the positive ones). Nonetheless, I decided on shifting it into a more local and historic case as with the conspiracy situation in Puerto Rico circa 1868. The conspiracy situation surged while Puerto Rico was still a Spanish colony. The Spanish monarchy had established rules consisting on immediate dismantling and possible prosecution on anyone who participated in these gatherings. The gatherings were usually led by leftist figures who sought to rebel against the Spanish government established in the island and obtain independence. However, the government insisted so heavily to enforce these laws that the citizens unified and rebelled, eventually leading to El Grito de Lares. El Grito de Lares, otherwise known as the Lares uprising, was a Puerto-Rican-led revolt to obtain its independence from Spain’s colonialist oppressive government. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico was able to claim independence for twenty-four hours but regardless, the event evidences the opposite of the Double Effect doctrine. The Spanish government imposed the laws in order to further oppress civilians, yet their actions encouraged rebellious behavior in the people of Puerto Rico, causing them to unite and fight for the cause of independence, the perfect example of negatively targeted governmental decisions that turned into socially beneficial outcomes. References: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy- The Double Effect
0 Comments
Disclaimer: I was absent for the second part of the debate so throughout the substantive I will be referencing last week’s reflexive, my reflexive titled I, the convincing governor of Colorado and Thursday’s part of the debate. How we should go about determining the answer to the question really depends on one’s perspective. I, for one, oppose the bill proposing the rise of domestic contents laws. As I was reading an article published by the Heritage Foundation, it came to my understanding that the debate on whether the bill should be passed or not falls on the two main topics: domestic and foreign matters. In regards to domestic matters, the debate mainly questions job development. It is not questionable that passing the bill will create jobs within the industry (i.e. exports, imports, transportation, manufacturing, etc.) and this is overall, a positive effect of the passing. However, the United States’ current job environment is not only affected by demand of jobs, but by the limits and restrictions the demand and supply of jobs is entitled to. For example, I mentioned in my reflexive post titled I, the convincing governor of Colorado the Ottaviano and Peri model of Immigrant and Native Effects on the Economy and how this could be proposed to the current administration given that it favors the counteracting model, the Borjas Model. The Borjas model basically proposes that immigrants and natives are the perfect substitutes, rather than compliments, and that every time an immigrant worker is employed, a native worker is deprived from his work opportunities. If the United States seeks to create more jobs, it should begin by assessing the roots of the problem rather than by overlooking them; they should be looking at job shifts, not job creations. I now refer to my last post; the way to assess his job shifts relies on the method of purchasing the consumer desires to engage in, in other words it is a very subjective but effective method. The second matter the debate targets is the foreign compound on the table. Any company selling their cars in another country must pay taxes to that country’s government. For example, Toyota has to pay taxes to the US government, and these are subject to the share of sold cars and their revenue; however, Toyota’s Tacoma, which holds the second largest demand for cars in the US, is manufactured in Mexico, meaning the company must also pay taxes to the Mexican government. Furthermore, apart from paying taxes for business and manufacturing, the company also pays taxes to the government of the country in which it is located, which in this case would also be Mexico. It is evident that a company will manufacture its products in whatever country they deem most convenient; for the Tacoma model, Toyota deems Mexico most convenient, but for the Sequoia and Sienna models, it deems the US as most convenient. So if the majority of companies will inevitably manufacture models in the United States because they deem it most convenient, why should there be a raise in the law imposing this? The answer would then be “Well, for those who do not deem it convenient but prefer to sell in the US for their benefit.” If this is your answer, then your main concern is the economy, and to this, I answer that the company will continue to pay business taxes to the government for selling in the country, so the economy is still being affected positively, perhaps not with creating jobs, but money is still coming in. If the United States were to deem necessary to define domestic content for automobiles then they should continue to do as they are doing so, but what they should not do is continue to strive to create awareness of a matter that falls in an area of “American Pride.” All in all, I deem the imposition of Domestic Content Laws either as a means to shift responsibilities to other matters rather than by assessing them, or redundant. References: Domestic Content Laws: Will they save the auto industry?- https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/domestic-content-laws-will-they-save-the-auto-industry Domestic Content Legislation: The Buy American Act and Complementary Little Buy American Provisions- https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/key_workplace/912/ Foreign Cars Made In America: Where does the money go?- https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/foreign-cars-made-in-america-where-does-the-money-go.html Duties, Taxes and Fees on Vehicles Imported from the U.S.-https://www.crossbordershopping.ca/auto-import-guide/vehicle-duties-taxes-fees This week’s arguments on the auto industry’s ability to produce a higher demand for jobs in the United States and the domestic content laws’ effects on these reminded me of a chat we had in my Economics class on jobs. As we were analyzing trade supply and demand, subsidized imports, tariffs and the application of these theories on the job market, it was concluded that it is a common misconception that buying foreign products destroys domestic jobs.
Say you have the United States and China, two countries within the top ten on the list of the leading countries for the production of passenger cars in 2017. And say that on your way home, you drove by a construction site and ran over a nail; you have a flat tire now. You stop to change the tire but realize you already used your spare, so you walk over to the nearest store to buy a new one. You find yourself looking at two tires: one made in South Carolina, which is the leading tire-producing state in the US, and another one made in Qingdao, China. The tire made in South Carolina costs twenty-five dollars while the one made in China is five dollars less. You now have two options, either buy the tire made in South Carolina and help produce jobs in the tire-industry in South Carolina, or you can buy the tire made in China and participate in the much more intricate way of creating jobs in the United States. After a long three minutes of thinking, you decide to save five dollars and buy the tire made in China, but what happens now? When you bought the foreign tire, the money you paid for the tire goes to China’s tire industry. Once in China, the currency is converted into renminbi in order to be able to pay employees. Higher demand leads to higher supply meaning more production which consequently means employees get paid more to produce more, and when pay day comes, employees will have more money to spend on luxuries. Say employee X has little ones at home and now that she has more money to spend on luxuries, she decides to buy her kids a new kitchen play set. After a long hour of choosing whether to buy a toy kitchen set made by Wenzhou Times Arts & Crafts Co. in China, which costs from 100- 380 renminbi by piece (15-55 USD), or one made by American Plastic Toys Company in the US costing 50 USD all piece included (345 renminbi), she decides on buying the one made in the US. The money she spent on the purchase then goes back to the United States and into the toy kitchen set industry in Michigan. Now think of this as happening constantly, higher demand leads to higher supply, which consequently means employees get paid more to produce more. In other words, buying foreign products causes job shifts, not job loss; by buying that tire made in China, you created jobs in other industries, and in this case, the toy kitchen set factories in Michigan. Then again, you bought the tire made in China and saved five dollars, and after a long day (and sweaty hours of having to deal with the flat tire situation), nothing sounds better than a venti Iced Salted Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. With the money you saved from the tire, you bought the Iced Salted Caramel Macchiato, and because Starbucks is a United States company, you further helped create jobs in other industries in the United States. Buy a US tire? You have a tire. Buy a foreign tire? You have a tire and a venti Iced Salted Caramel Macchiato. References: 1. Passenger car production in selected countries in 2017, by country (in million units)- Statista.com 2. American Plastic Toys Company and Wenzhou Times Arts & Crafts Co. websites for information on the price for the toy kitchen set 3. Professor Daniel Lin, Econ. Professor at AU So how can Puerto Ricans overcome double consciousness if home is Puerto Rico, an island in the middle of the Caribbean, but home is also part of the home where I am now, but it’s not considered home given that it is not within the national borders?
I went back home two weeks ago, and I usually go back home thinking “Whew. I don’t have to speak English here. I don’t have the noticeable accent now, therefore people won’t pinpoint me as being from the outside. I don’t have to answer any more weird questions or worry about what the President says, etc.”, but no. I feel a sense of relief whenever I go back home, but that’s just wrapped up and thrown away by the fact that even when I go back home, I then form part of the majority, which is considered inferior to the majority in the States. Then, if going back home doesn’t solve the double consciousness barrier, what will? I thought of La ley Promesa immediately. La ley Promesa was issued by President Obama after the news came out that Puerto Rico was facing a seventy billion dollar debt. Obama stated that the fellow citizens of Puerto Rico were not to be abandoned or forgotten, therefore, he would create a law that would send the pertinent legislation, in this case a Fiscal Control Committee, in order to help the island reprogram its Fiscal Government Plan. Now, this law’s repercussions have proved to be extremely detrimental to Puerto Ricans for the past two years, but the US is getting their money back and that is all that matters. Promesa also included a Referendum; a referendum that was supposed to be honored by the Congress resulting in the political status of Puerto Rico being decided once and for all. The Referendum was performed on June 11, 2017, and had three options in the ballot: statehood, commonwealth and independence. These were widely argued given that the Congress had initially written two options, statehood and independence, in order to resolve the issue, but the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, argued for the addition of the commonwealth option, given that he feared the referendum would evidence a majority vote for independence and then have to deal with the complete opposite of his advocacy. Nonetheless, the results showed a 97.18% vote for statehood. Long story short, Congress didn’t honor the referendum given that agencies speculated that the government had tampered with the results due to the fact that there were more votes than ballots (as if this were not going to be obvious in the counting.) However, for a second, Puerto Ricans thought that this would put an end to the double consciousness the United States has in regards to Puerto Rico, myself included. This continued to be my thinking until we tied it to past situations. Slavery was abolished in 1863, and although it wasn’t put into practice until December of 1865, this was still more than a century and a half ago, and still, African Americans are deemed as inferior by some of the population in the United States because of this past notion, then predominant in the nation. Now, because we Puerto Ricans have been seen as a colony, as the outsiders, and as the inferiors for over a century, the notion of Puerto Ricans still being all of the previously mentioned will not change even if we became a state. It is just something we have to deal with, given that we cannot annex the island and call ourselves the fifty-first state, and something we must acknowledge as, unfortunately, a barrier that cannot be overcome. References: The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's Fiscal Plan- https://noticiasmicrojuris.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/16-10-14fiscalplanvfinal.pdf It has always amazed me how documents written a century ago, and sometimes even more, still maintain such relevancy in modern day society. The fact that this continues to occur gives a lot to say about who we are and where we are headed. “The Souls of Black Folks” by W. E. B. Du Bois is one of these pieces; it was written in nineteen o’ three, yet, it can be shocking how most people might think this was written not long ago considering how specific the argument’s applicability is in the current era. Dubois’s argument relies on how African American capability is overlooked by society given that they are a minority in regards to their white counterparts. He emphasizes on the unequal treatment and the double consciousness people have assessing the situation. This can also be applied on minorities as a whole; minorities such as religious groups, cultural minorities, or even political minorities. Dubois’s concept of how a double consciousness with is a burden he has to deal with on daily basis is very relatable given that he explains it as it happening when people you engage in conversations with try to frame their words around you, which is how people should always act, but when you are part of a minority, this deepens. He talks about when people used to comment on how they knew successful black men in order to make DuBois feel like they don’t discriminate on how successful African Americans can be, but it is a reminder of how aware you are of that double consciousness, or even say that they fought in the battle of Beaver Dam Creek so he wouldn’t feel like Mechanicsville is a foreign area. His argument is very specific in terms of relating to it because when you are part of a minority you experience this first-hand; whenever you talk about past situations or mention a subject of importance for such group. It is certain that there are other groups that experience double consciousness treatment in the United States, in America and throughout the world. The minority I can talk first-hand of is the Puerto Rican minority, or Latinos for that matter, and I will talk about this referring to the Blog post I did on that hurricane Maria. When coming to the states about two months ago, I was asked a bunch of times where I was from and every time I answered, I would see people’s faces turn puzzled immediately. Their first comment is usually “Wow, but you speak English.”, which is exactly like the “I know an excellent colored man in my town” remark. The next connection they make to me being from Puerto Rico is the hurricane. I would tell them that I am fine at the moment but that a lot of us are not “doing fine” back home. Some of them, and I heard this quite more than I thought I would, said “Oh wow, once I was without power for a week/ weekend and it was terrible. I couldn’t blow dry my hair, watch TV or connect to the Wi-Fi.”, or any other version of that statement for that matter. Again, this is their way of relating to the situation even though they are just not quite there yet, which kind of seems like Du Bois’s Mechanicsville anecdote. But then there are the people that talk to you as if they were walking on glass, which is what Du Bois emphasizes on. Anything this would have helped the situation more, or the conversation for that matter, than those comments I mentioned earlier, but the fact that, in both ways, people will treat you as a problem is definitely not a situation in which you want to be placed it at any time, even less on a daily basis. The argument is definitely helpful in understanding this concept because he emphasizes on how this is a burden. It is a burden that you live with, it becomes a burden that you cannot overcome because that is just the way society is designed, and can even be a curse, which is the way Du Bois refers to being on the other side of the double consciousness with the Seventh Son allusion. I especially like the part when he talks about not wanting to deny his American soul because he feels that America has something to teach the world, and that he would not deny Negro soul given that the Negroes have a message for the world. I felt identified in this because even though I am a US citizen I do not benefit of the rights that US citizens on the mainland have, and I would love to do so, but in order to do so it would mean rejecting my Puerto Rican identity, and I can in no way deny my Puerto Rican identity because it is the biggest part of who I am, and what makes me, me. I feel like it talks more about me than I could about it; you can hear it in the way I speak, can see it in the way I act, you can identify it in the perspective I have on a lot of topics, etc. It is also helpful to understand the concept through his argument on how there are prizes that were not his male counterparts’ to keep. I think a lot of “US citizen” rights are prizes and they are supposed to be extended to anyone who is one, and rights are things that a lot of people do not see as prizes because they are taken for granted. I think voting is a prize, and I consider it to be one of the most important prizes you’re supposed to receive being a US citizen. Puerto Ricans back home do not have the right to vote, we are all US citizens and we have all the responsibilities all of you have, but do not enjoy all of the rights you get to take part in (which just goes back to the secondhand citizenship I talked about in the Hurricane María post and the lack of education there is on the matter.) The double consciousness is also evident in what Blake was talking about, which is more relevant to the Enloe reading, but he mentioned that you have to speak the majority’s language along your thinking in order to make your voice heard and convince them. This is something Puerto Ricans have done for more than century; our government has to appeal to the Federal Government’s way of thinking in order to receive at least a quarter of the resources that all other U.S. citizens benefit form, and this has gotten to the point were the current governor, being democrat, must publicly say that he is Republican so the current administration would listen to anything he has to say, otherwise, he would be treated like Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulín has been treated. It was particularly evident throughout the process of reconstruction after Hurricane Maria when the president issued a statement saying that Puerto Rico was inaccessible and that we couldn’t get the resources any other state would get because we were “in the middle of the ocean” (yet this wasn’t an issue one hundred and twenty years ago when the US colonized Puerto Rico, and here I was, thinking that we had advanced in at least one way maritime-wise or technology-wise for that matter.) I also think that along Katie’s line of thought, W.E.B. Du Bois’s argument helps people who are part of the majority to see what they’re missing. They might be lacking empathy, initiative or even be missing the big picture, and his argument is definitely successful in getting this message across. References: "The Souls of Black Folks" by W.E.B. Du Bois “One-third to one-half of the American white working-class vote Republican, and this is true whether one defines working class by income, education, a combination of the two, or subjective self-identification.” After reading the researched argument “Walking the Line”, I introspected and recognized that Colorado is a split state in terms of political identification. What this means is that, as a state, they do not identify as either Republican or Democrat. If I were the governor of Colorado, I would convince my community to move forward through education and policy initiatives. In order to do this, I have divided the approaches into two: education and environment. However, I will only further explain the educational approach.
Republicans believe in a restructuring of higher education, which would lead to more students being prepared in their desired fields instead of diverting into minimum wage jobs. In order to appeal to the Republican education standards, I propose advocacy of the immigrant-tolerant policies followed by the Ottaviano and Peri Model. Republicans are also very intolerant to immigration, however, according to this model, immigrants and natives are complements, and businesses invest more in physical capital this way. This predicts that immigration increases demand for native labor while it increases the supply for immigrant labor. As a result, native labor wages increase. If Republicans want economic prosper and their children to be able to focus only on field-oriented jobs so they can work in jobs with what they consider “good pay” then this model favors their desires, while it promotes a change for the better good. Moreover, Republicans believe in an “English First” approach on children’s education. While this does support their belief that it will help the child accustom to the “All-American” way of teaching, it will not necessarily favor them in the long run. Therefore, I propose educating young children equally bilingual; children will inevitably learn English as their first language given that English speakers surround them, but will also be in an advantageous position given that when they graduate, and are newcomers in the job market, bilingual candidates are significantly favored. By doing this, the state will have more demand for immigrant-led jobs given that we would require and will enhance the economy according to the Ottaviano and Peri Model. Now this is what, this governor considers the first step to a major convincing win-win. References: "Walking the Line"- Monica Prasad, Steve G. Hoffman, Kieran Bezila When talking about the differences between persuasion and what it means to convince, the words “propaganda” and “factual evidence” come to mind respectively. As seen from Shotter’s perspective, persuasion is considered to be the act of getting someone to support your stance by reasoning and argument; on the other hand, to convince is seen as the act of getting someone to fully believe and support tour cause through factual evidence.
The word that comes to mind first, propaganda, can be defined as information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view (Merriam Webster), and when I think about where propaganda thrives, an example that comes to mind is the United States. I am sure you've all heard of the nation's greatest, Uncle Sam. For those of you who did not know, the figure of Uncle Sam made its first appearance during the War of 1812 as the result of Samuel Wilson, a meat packager, and his stamp on the products he supplied to the United States government during the war. The barrels of beef were labeled with the letters “US” as to show that the packages were property of the United States government. The letters were then assumed to be initials for someone named Uncle Sam and eventually caught on to be a reference to the United States. A century and a few years later, the Vietnam War came around, and the country was experiencing a shortage on military reinforcement. The United States government had begun utilizing Uncle Sam's image as a national figure during the World Wars in order to recruit soldiers, so they figured it would be just as effective then. Uncle Sam came to symbolize patriotism, and the most approachable governmental figure some had given that it was a personification of the US government. The propaganda poster was appealing to ethos–it was an elderly man, who had attempted to live the American Dream before you, and was urging you to support the nation during a time of need – and citizens felt the need to engage in any possible activity that would help the nation during the period of crisis. This being said, it can be concluded that by appealing to one's reasoning, may it be emotional or logical, one may be able to influence a person's resulting act more than if convincing were the method used. In a case like this, convincing would be the government presenting factual evidence on the benefits of being a veteran in the long run, or the triumphs the US had in the World Wars, etc. Nonetheless, the downside to the act of convincing is that the knowledge exposed is limited, given that you try not to say anything the person does not want to hear, otherwise you might not convince them at all. For these reasons, I agree that persuasion is a less ethical yet more effective way of getting someone to share your line of thought (I think the even the word itself has a more cunning connotation than the word convincing does). It is less ethical given that there are many methods of persuasion and some might not be as good-natured as they could be, but they are broadly utilized because they have proved effectiveness. By attempting to convince, on the other hand, you can expose your facts but, derived from those, the person will assume their own stance and it might just backfire. References: Uncle Sam as the United States symbol- Britannica Propaganda definition- Merriam Webster In attempt to comply with that last option of writing a reflection post on the impact the World Politics class has had on me so far that is mentioned on the syllabus, I’d figure instead of writing a reflection on the class, I’d write a reflection on the movie District Nine. First of all, disclaimer, I ‘m not a fan of science fiction movies. I went in with a very dystopian, The Giver/ Hunger Games type of mindset, and ended up leaving the South Lounge feeling unsatisfied and in a sense, disgusted.
Usually, or at least the ones I have seen, Sci-Fi movies are not as graphic and gory as District Nine was. The movie has very detailed scenes overall: the protagonist biting his nails off, cutting his arm off, almost ripping his eyes out, etc., all of which I am not fond of at all. Then again, some argue that this makes the movie, and is the key factor for watchers to feel impacted and included in the whole “Let’s get the antidote back and kill my father in law” adventure. I could potentially agree with this given that if I enjoyed Sci-Fi movies, I would have loved this graphic, gory approach into the protagonist’s human to alien transformation, but in this case, it just made me not want to see the rest of the movie. Another factor that played a key role in the movie was the filming technique. Because it was a documented trama, the movie is filmed with “Go-Pro perspective”, which was fine for the first half of the movie but then it just got visually tiring and contributed to not wanting to continue watching the movie because you were focused on the motion of the recorder instead of what was being filmed. The movie reached an inconclusive, yet predictable ending; it had some loose ties here and there, but it was overall a good proposition for a movie. I’m definitely not even an eight of a Rotten Tomatoes film critic, but I would not give it the ninety percent it got on the Tomatometer anyways. In his Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke argues that every citizen is entitled to his or her own civil rights, and that religious toleration is an aspect within this that must respected by everyone, including the magistrate. He further explains the role of the magistrate, the difference between church and state, and proposes the limits for toleration. By doing so, he attempts to introduce an idea that at the time was not yet formally formulated, otherwise known as the separation of church and state. Because modern society has, for the most part, an acknowledgeable separation between church and state, Locke’s idea of religious toleration can be applied at distinct degrees.
A degree to which Locke’s idea of religious toleration can be applied to would be on societies. A societal religious toleration example would be that which was alluded to in class, Flat-Earthers. Anyone could infer, as the name probably gives out, Flat-Earthers base their ideals on the sole belief of Earth being flat. They do not identify themselves as a religion, given that the concept of a religion involves believing in a superior being, but rather a society. Locke’s first limit on toleration states that “No private person has any right to encroach in any way on another person’s civil goods because he declares his allegiance to another church or religion”(or society), for we cannot act as the civil magistrate and intervene, or strip, a person of his rights because he is not compliant with a country’s majoritarian belief. Another degree to which Locke’s idea of religious toleration can be applied to would be on minor religious groups, such as Nuwaubianism. Nuwaubianism is an identified minor religious whose religious basis is built on societies such as that of the Freemasons and the Shriners. Some of the Nuwaubian beliefs rely on ideas such as that in which humans were once perfectly symmetrical and ambidextrous, but then a meteorite struck Earth and tilted its axis causing handedness and shifting the heart off-center in the chest, the belief that each human has seven clones around the world, that Tesla came from planet Venus and that the Illuminati has a child that was born to the Kennedy’s and raised by former United States President Richard Nixon. These ideas might seem a bit off to some of us, in fact, most of these seem to be none other than matters that merit no questioning, for they appear to be just “there”. Locke’s second limit on toleration, which relies on the belief that if a person is worshipping or revering a superior being or ideal in a manner that does not intervene with another person’s civil rights, then the act should be tolerated, can be applied to this example. Finally, the last thought-of example of a degree to which Locke’s idea of religious toleration can be applied to would be on church as a whole, which is the ultimate goal in Locke reasoning, as derived from his statement, “A church starts as a free and voluntary society.” His third limit on toleration can be referenced to in this situation, “What I say about toleration between private persons who differ in religion applies also to particular churches; they relate to one another pretty much as private persons do, with none of them—even ones to which the civil magistrate belongs—having any kind of jurisdiction over any other.”, for a follower of a religion, or a church for that matter, cannot deem the practicing of another society or religious group not legal for being distinct to their own. That being said, I agree with Locke, in the sense that ideal practices distinct to personal ones should be tolerated, and in this case, it includes the Flat Earth society. On another note, I do not know if Locke would necessarily agree with Flat-Earthers being religiously tolerated given that they, like atheists, do not have a book to swear on, and can be deemed as non-reliable or untrustworthy, but that is another argument for another blog post. References: 1. John Locke's A Letter On Toleration 2. Extremely Weird Religions http://listverse.com/2009/09/10/10-extremely-weird-religions/ It is nearly indisputable to argue that Machiavellian strategies will get you anywhere else but to the top of the “Most Powerful Countries” list in modern day times. Even though some of us on a personal level may or may not agree, it is evident that most of the word rulers assess matters in a Machiavellian manner. However, there is a certain sense of doubt I presence from this fact if I place it in modern day context. Machiavelli’s rules describe a prince’s way to accomplish power, to be respected, to serve thy country and to maintain it. He says that it is better to be feared than loved, and that a prince must be at the masses’ disposition yet able to turn to cruelty if necessary. Then again, I question, are Machiavellian rules competent in modern day politics? By this, I mean, is it more practical to be a country who is feared and who assumes a definite political standing, or is it better to be a loved, neutral country instead?
In order to explain my reasoning, I will use the example of a country viewed as politically neutral all else equal, and to some extent, loved, Switzerland, and that of a politically definite, publicly feared country, Russia. Switzerland declared its perpetual neutrality during the 1815’s Congress of Vienna. Following this, the country has passed on to be a prosperous and modern market economy with low unemployment, a highly skilled labor force, and a per capita GDP among the highest in the world. Switzerland's economy benefits from a highly developed service sector, led by financial services, and a manufacturing industry that specializes in high technology, knowledge-based production. Its economic and political stability, transparent legal system, exceptional infrastructure, efficient capital markets, and low corporate tax rates also make Switzerland one of the world's most competitive economies. On the other hand, Russia remains a predominantly statist economy with a high concentration of wealth in officials' hands. Economic reforms in the 1990s privatized most industry, with notable exceptions in the energy, transportation, banking, and defense-related sectors. The protection of property rights is still weak, and the state continues to interfere in the free operation of the private sector. A combination of falling oil prices, international sanctions, and structural limitations pushed Russia into a deep recession in 2015, with GDP falling by close to 2.8%. The Swiss government’s military expenditures in total form less than .8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, while a powerful country such as Russia invests approximately 5.4 percent on military expenditures. After this brief summary of Russian and Swiss economy and transnational issues, we could infer that Russia follows Machiavellian rule to a greater extent. Now, in attempt to analyze effectiveness, we must analyze the countries’ opportunity costs if a war were to break. Swiss opportunity cost will be minimum, given that a neutral country will have little to no military expenditures, a stabilized economy, and nearly no deaths that could have a negative effect on human capital and the country’s marginal product of labor, generally speaking, while Russia struggles with entirely the opposite situation. However, Switzerland’s economy is dependent on trade for raw materials, machinery, chemicals, vehicles, metals, agricultural products, and textiles, and has politically defined countries as trading partners, which means that in the case of war, their economy could become unstable at any moment. Meanwhile, Russian economy’s only major depend is oil, yet it also has politically defined countries as trading partners. I was not able to draw a sole conclusion to my question, therefore I call on whoever might read my post this week to comment their opinions and propose their own conclusions to the question. References
|
Author's QuoteWell, if droids could think, there’d be none of us here, would there? Archives
December 2018
Categories |