Buscaraons

19.9.03

Grasso wasn't a victim of succes envy

140 million$ isn't a reward for services rendered or for success but an obscene pay-off by fats cats to one of their own. It's precisely these astronomical sums that discredit capitalism and tempt state regulation of rewards.. Even the Wall St Journal fulminated against Grasso's payout.

So don't worry Kudlow American entrpreneural capitalism won't be Europeanized if the executives stop rewarding themselves huge sums of money on subjective evaluations of success. It's one thing to be amply rewarded for being succcessful, the thorny question is when is the reward too much and what did you do to deserve the compensation in the end? Further when I heard of Grasso's pay package, it reminded me of how communist leaders and third world dictators give themsleves medals for their brilliance, their insights and courage in the face of the odds etc

Well Grasso's pay (and Welch's and so many other CEOs) is the capitalist equivalent of medal loading. I didn't bother finishing Kudlow's article because it's difficult to stomach his shreiking about how the class-envious, anti success wolfpack mauled Grasso. It's nothing of the sort.

It's the disproportionality of his pay for what he did that offended so many. He didn't found a company, create jobs, sell a service or invent a new product. He simply oversaw the NY stock exchange. Kudlow forgets that as successful as Grasso was at the exchange, he had underlings who executed his orders on a day to day basis so how come they don't get rewared too? 140 million$ would sure fatten up the pay packages of a lot of the ordinary NY Exchange employees who deserve the same credit as Grasso in ensuring the dynamism of American capitalisn, the professionalsim of its instititions and the honest of the stock transactions.

Victor Davis Hanson: here we go again

I enjoyed reading his Culture and carnage book However, his articles are a different matter. Take today's article. I found his analysis about how French decadence that allowed 15 000 elderly to die and contrast it with the American republican rectitude to be rather insufferable. The French are starting to beat themselves over it; the rest of the west has also bereated them over the debacle; enough. Let the French take responsibility for the deaths and let the event sink in as to the atitudinal changes that are required. However, it's his discussion of German reunification that bugs me. Contrary to his assertions, America didn't encourage the reunification. In fact, it was Kohl who siezed the historic opportunity and the Bush p?re Administration didn't oppose the decision but neither was it enthusisatic about it.

In defense of the past: reply to David Adesnik

David Adensik replies to John Coumarinos' article on democracy and elites.

I agree with John and disagree with David with respect for the need to preserve some aristocratic values. My reasoning is rather straightforward: what David blithely dismisses as untoward nostalgia for the past by the neo-conservatives is, at first glance surprising. The attitude that it's the future that informs humanity; not the past Is more typicale of teh revolutionary left than right. However since the Bolshevik recolution, some branches of the contemporary right have also embraced revolution. Unfortunately, this revolutionary right, or if one prefers a more neutral term: revolutionary conservativism, has a paradox. The tradition set of core values is itself premodern: sobriety, prudence and frugality; yet these values are to be mobilized to advance the future!

It's also unfair to characterize the typical conservatives, like myself, with untoward nostalgia for an ever changing past. My conservatism respects the past and desires preserving its best aspects to inform the present and prepare for the future. My goal is to to encourage the better society to sustain the good life. Fran?ois Furet articultes the prototypical conservativism's objections to revolutionary conservatism:

Or, l'existence sociale de cet personage[le bourgeois] de ce personnage historique in?dit est problematique. Le voici brandissant sur le th??tre du monde la libert?, l'?galit?, les droits de l'homme, bref l'autonomie de l'individu, contre toutes les soci?tes de la d?pendance qui ont apparu avant lui. Et quelle est l'association nouvelle qu'il propose? Une soci?t? qui ne mette en commun que le minimum vital, puisque son principal devoir est de garantir ? ses membres la libre exercice de leurs activit?s priv?es et la jouissance libre assur?e de ce qu'ils ont acquis. Quant au reste c'est leur affiares....La soci?t? bourgeoise est aisni d?tach? par d?finition du bien commun. Le bourgeois est un individu s?par? de ses semblables, enferm?s dans ses int?r?ts et ses biens. S?par?,enferm?, il l'est d'autant plus dans son obsession constante est d'accro?te cette distance qui l'eloigne des autres hommes: qu'est-ce que devenir riche, sinondevenir plus riche encore que le voisin? Dans un monde o? aucune place N,est plus marqu?e d'avance, ni acquise pour toujours, la passion inqui?te de l'avenir agite tous les coeure et ne trouve nulle part d'apaisement durable. L'unique repos de l'imagination est dans la comparasion de soi avec autrui dans l'evaluation de soi-m?me ? travers l'admiration, l'envie ou la jalousie des autres....[ pp 20-21; L'illusion du pass?: essai sur l'id?e communiste au XX ^e ]

Hence, a healthy respect for the past is necessary to moderate some of democracy's flaws. That's fundamentally distinct from sentimental nostalgia for a past that never existed as such and typical conservatives like myself never espouse.

Update: After I finished writing this post I came across Oswaldo Sobrino's post on the American pursuit of success It's a more theological critique of the revolutionary conservatives' values in pursuit of the future as articulated by the ideology of the virtue of prosperity..
The party of nah isn't always wrong for opposing the Yah's escathological organism for a technophilic future. The later commit the same anthropological error as communism, fascism and nazism: heaven will not be brought to earth; the poor will still be with us, scarcity won't be overcome and we'll eventually die.

¶ 13:16

17.9.03

Cancun's failure: it's not just the rich countries' fault

Yesterday I passed by Geitner's blog and came across this fascinating post about how the midlevel developed countruies like China, Brzil and India also played a role in scuttling the Cancun meeting. I might say that Geitner's post was quite eye opening for me. I blamed the rich countries for their hypocrisy. They demand that the poor countries open their market to free trade but the former won't reciprocate. Well it turns out that the midlevel countries are just as guilty of stifling free trade with monetary and non monetary tariffs. So it's too facile to blame just the rich countries. Pretty much everyone is still scared of completely opening their domestic markets to international free trade.

The west still exists

I'm a bit late commenting on this post about how the west doesn't exist and it's really just the Anglosphere that's the bulwark in the war on terrorism. I wrote in the comment section that I disagreed with Littlejohn's assessment. My principal irritation is there's a conceited attitude that the rest of the west are pusillanimous cowards while the Anglosphere is the only entity taking the fight to the terrorists. Kris- Iain's wife- pointed out that it's not the populations that are cowardly but the governments. Again I disagree because German and canada have deployed the tow largest contingents for the ISAF in Afghanistan; Spain has sent off troops to Iraq and so on. Randy Paul concours with my general disagreement and kindly sent me a post from his old blog. To reiterate my comments just because some Western countries didn't send soldiers to Iraq or display quixotic sentiments about the threat that Islamism represents for our open society, signifies, neither cowardice, appeasement or pusillanimousness.

¶ 15:03

15.9.03

Anti-Americanism, left and right

I disagree with a minor point of Ian Buruma's article That anti-Americanism on the left comes only after the Second world war.

My disagrements is influenced by Fran?ois Furet's le Pass?e d'une illusion: essai sur l'id?e communiniste au XXe si?cle (in English)

I happen to be in the midst of the chapter devoted to communism and fascism. It's a fascinating section and one of the common themes that unites the fascists, nazis and communists are their visceral, pathological hatred of the liberal society that emerged since the late 18^th century; and more particularly since the French Revolution. America is simply the latest victim of this hate. America incarnates all those virtues and vices of the liberal society. So while it might appear new; it's really an old bugaboo that periodically rises whenever a liberal society is threatened or under enormous political stress.

My disagreement doesn't taking any of Buruma's cogency of his principal arguments that there's a confluence of agreement between the extreme right and left since the French revolution.

L'?chec du conf?rence OMC du Cancun

C'est vraiment triste de lire que le conf?rence du Cancun qui visait ? abolir les suventions agricoles de pays riches a ?chou? Sans doutes les anti-mondialistes chanteront les louange de ce d?fait mais ce n'est pas leur victoire non plus.

Au contraire, je me demande si le monde se plongeront de nouveau dans un recession mondiale qui aggravera la crossiance,l'emploi et contribuera ? des conflit socix plus aig? en cons?quence. Ce qui me f?che c'est pourquoi dois-je prot?ger la vie et les emploi des cultivateurs? Notre pays est assez munis de sp?cialistes qui pourront aider les cultivateurs de se reconvertir pour un autre emploi. Ce qui sont dans le cinquantaine, on pourrait r?gler quelque chose qui ne tombe pas dans la pauvraut? parce que personne ne les veuillent pas.

ais ce qui est pire c'est comment les pays riches traitent les paysans des pays pauvres comme de caves. Honn?tement, les paysans du Tier Monde sont autant entrepreuriels que nos cultivateurs mais les lobbys cultivateurs des pays riches ont tellement peur de comp?tionner qu'ils pr?f?rent que leurs gouvernements respectifs fermes les march?s et y subventionner.

Un sombre bilan qui risque ? relantir le commerce international pour apaiser un lobby influent.

¶ 13:57