Not Saches-ually Appealing: Sachs on the War on Terrorism, Environment, and the U.N.

Disclaimer: Aditya and I have not read Sach's latest book. Our criticism is based on his speech primarily.

CJ's Note: While we recognize that this post may not be explicitly about Claremont McKenna or the Claremont Colleges, many of the statements Sachs makes have been echoed by Bono (who recently spoke at Claremont McKenna College) and by Claremont students. (You'll also notice that CGU's Ira Jackson interviewed Sachs and therefore the Claremont connection is there.)

Sachs being Sachs, he says a lot and so this post will be very long. I apologize but I'll try to bold the important sections so you can check out of topics that don't interest you.

The statements that Sachs makes are worthy of examination and rejection. Here's why.

Crowd: It's a bird, it's a plane, no! It's Jeffrey Sachs! Africans, run for your lives! Americans, hide your wallets!

I was hoping that Jeffrey Sachs and Ira Jackson's conversation would be more than boilerplate left-wing criticisms of the world economy. (I've already blogged about Ira Jackson and he said very little worth discussing, excepting his dismay that the United States did not sign the flawed Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. The person introducing Jackson uncritically discussed the Massachusetts Miracle. I've written about my problems with that myth here.)

Sachs's new book, Economics for a Crowded Planet, seems like an updated Malthusian horror tale in which the only panacea is a corporatist government in which "private public partnerships" teeming with volunteers, businesses, churches, governments, universities, everyone works together. (Oh brother!)

Sachs, sensing a very uncritical audience, left me very disappointed. Fortunately, he said a lot of nutty things that kept me awake and taking notes. As Aditya promised, I'll be examining his ten things that the next president needs to do to save the world. (He didn't quite put it that way, but the implication was clear.)

Before we begin, let's talk about one of my favorite fallacies: his insistence that we could take the 700 billion we spend on the military per annum -- what Sachs calls the "offensive military budget" and spend it on saving children dying of malaria. He says uncritically that if the Pentagon took one day off, we could save the world. (What Sachs leaves unexamined is how DDT is much cheaper and could save more lives than his malarial nets ever could. Sachs encouraged all of us to spend the ten dollars to get the malarial nets to Africa. Sachs' tendency to ignore science is a common theme, as we shall soon see.)

I suppose we could do that. Then again we could also gut Medicare, Social Security, and other unnecessary social spending here at home, but Sachs isn't suggesting that. Instead he wants you to believe that the war on terrorism is a war of terrorism.

Sachs calls the attacks of 9/11 "a tragedy that misdirected us" and spoke critically of Senator McCain's declaration to fight the jihadists. Sachs says we will make a mistake "if we elect someone who believes the transcendent issue of our time is Islamic extremism or some such nonsense like that."

Sachs then discussed how the world is on a crash course with a "brick wall" or moving towards a "a cliff." (He stuck with this metaphor.) "We are literally unsustainable." He also repeated that the world's "really filling up."

He then took a swipe at those who "read the Wall Street Journal editorial page for their science." (I suppose that's much worse than watching the throughly discredited Inconvenient Truth for your science, a movie which Sachs lauds along with its hot air filmmaker, Al Gore, but alas.)

Then Sachs discussed human development since the Industrial Revolution. He then jumps a few hundred years to talk about how he believes in economic growth, but "if we simply replicate our model, it can't work actually." (Sachs makes this claim again and again, but what Sachs fails to understand is that as nations get richer they get more efficient and therefore we aren't locked into current consumption.)

He then launched into a discussion of how bad the ultra cheap Tata Nanos ($2500) are because they take up oil which will run out very quickly. By making this observation Sachs makes two errors: 1) that we should consign Indians to poverty because of some as yet unfounded global warming fears. 2) that oil is going to be gone any time soon. Isn't the whole purpose of global warming to save people from drastic conditions? Surely poverty is worse -- and real. After all, you wrote the book on how to get "rid" of it.

The criticisms of the Tato Nano have been rejected here, so I won't dwell on them. As for the oil assertion, well, I'll just leave you with this tid bit.

Proven reserves (that is, oil that can tapped and marketed today at a profit) are 15 times larger today than they were in 1948. Moreover, given present consumption levels, the Energy Information Administration reports that oil fields could last another 230 years before running dry and that unconventional petroleum sources (tar sands, shale, and the like) could meet present demands for an additional 580 years.

Sachs then moved into his sensationalist China fears which seem fashionable as of late. The Chinese, Sachs said, are opening up a coal-fired plant every week. Coal is bad because it leads to global warming. (Global warming, not Islamic terrorism, is one of the transcendent issues of our day, says Sachs. Because you know the threat from global warming is far more real than pesky terrorist attacks like say, 9-11.)

Sachs suggests that we "mobilize" the public to create funds for the development of solar technology. Sachs must make this assertion because to suggest that we use proven and reliable sources of nuclear energy to meet our energy demand run afoul of his environmentalist sympathizers.

Sachs, to his credit, conceded that solar energy costs about four times what our current energy costs and he suggested that we have a Manhattan Project-like initiative. Because, he says, sunny North Africa could provide all of Europe's electricity. (You know that's a good idea, right? Giving a bunch of former colonized Muslim nations control over your energy market, right? Aren't we already doing that with oil-- and isn't it cheaper?)

Sachs then talks about the horrible problems facing the world's supply of fish. Here Sachs correctly identifies a problem -- the vanishing fish stocks -- but incorrectly prescribes a solution: the use of aqua culture and the U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (more on that in a moment).

These two proposals are mutually exclusive because if the oceans are owned by the international community as provided by Law of the Sea Treaty [elephants and ivory?] than the national incentive to make fisheries flourish diminishes, but Sachs didn't even allude to this problem. Instead, he criticizes aqua culture as unsustainable, but better than what's currently going on. My response, "so what if they are unstainable?"

Better to privatize all of the ocean for fish farming for the simple reason of the tragedy of the commons. Moreover, it's government's inability to properly define property rights that is leading to mass extinction of species.

Jackson then asks Sachs, who is a big backer of the United Nations and who has served on numerous U.N. committees, why he believes the U.N., which is seen as feckless and corrupt, can solve all of these problems.

Sachs responds that the U.N. "is tied up in knots because the U.S. and other leading powers want it to be." He blames the Bush Administration for believing that the U.N. is "nothing but handcuffs."

(Right, because you know the U.S. was behind the largest scandal in the history of mankind, the Oil-for-Food program. What's that? It wasn't? Oh no. Next you'll tell me we were responsible for the sexual abuse of children in peacekeeping operations. What's that? We didn't do that either? Aww, nuts. What's an America hater to do?)

Sachs said that he believes "in the end what really stops us is the lack of clarity. We live in a world of spin and we still need to find low cost solutions to high cost problems."

Sachs totes his malarial nets as exhibit A, but we've already seen that D.D.T. would be far more effective, cost less, require less education, and save more lives and yet Sachs opposes it no doubt because it conflicts with international agreements, which he says we need to ratify immediately.

Sachs moved into a criticism of free markets, which he says "have to be directed the right way." Yep, that's from a tenured professor economics.

Finally, he ended his discussion with talking about the importance of plug in hybrids. Sachs says that that might be one of the solutions to our energy problems. In fact, plug in hybrids may actually lead to more air pollution.

No Sachs Appeal

Charles, Josh Siegel and I just came back from the Los Angeles Central Library, where Drucker School Dean Ira Jackson interviewed economist Jeffrey Sachs on his new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Plant.

Dean Ira Jackson (Right) interviews Professor Sachs (Left)

Sachs made our job easy by stating 10 suggestions he would give to the next White House administration. We disagree with 9.

I will post a summary of his speech and Sach's '10 points memo' with an analysis in the next post(s).

Charles Kesler on Hope, Change, and All that Obama Jazz

Claremont's Philosopher King Slays Obama's Philosophizing

Here's the link to the article in Imprimis (Publication of Hillsdale College). (I'm assuming it's from Claremont Review of Books.)

Charles Kesler demolishes the Obama movement.

"Of all the presidential contenders' slogans this year, Barack Obama's have been the most interesting. His campaign creed is: 'Yes we can.' To which any reasonable person would ask: 'Can what?' The answer, of course, is 'Hope.' But again, a reasonable person might ask: 'Hope for what?' To which the answer confidently comes back from the Obama campaign: 'For change.' Indeed Obama's signs say, 'Change We Can Believe In,' as opposed, one supposes, to the unbelievable changes. But the elementary problem with this - which any student of logic might raise - is that change can be for the better or for the worse."

. . .

"Democrats in general, I would submit, confuse change with improvement. They fail to weigh the costs and benefits of change, to consider its unintended consequences or to worry about what we need to conserve and how we might go about doing that faithfully. They ask Americans to embrace change for its own sake, in the faith that history is governed by a law of progress, which guarantees that change is almost always an improvement. The ability to bring about historical change, then, becomes the highest mark of the liberal leader."

Pitzer Turns Down Masculinist For Third Time

Yep. We pretty much knew they were going to be denied. According to Dashiell, only six of the 25 student senators voted to fund the group. What's worse, one of the students present said the group's name was similarly offensive to a Nazi group or the Ku Klux Klan, Driscoll said.

Never matter. Dashiell is pressing on.

Here's Will Bigham's piece on it for the San Bernardino Sun.

"They just think we're going to go away, and we're not going to go away," said Dashiell Driscoll, a junior at Pitzer. "We'll be here permanently whether they fund us or not."

Driscoll said the group will go before the Student Senate "every Sunday until we get funding recognition."

Now here's the funny part. Because Pitzer College has been denying him funding, Dashiell's been raising a lot of money on his own just to spite them. (He's proving my fund raising point some more.)

In addition to the money he was given by Ralph Garman, many locals have stepped up to help him out.

Driscoll said opposition to the Masculinist Coalition has helped the group recruit sympathetic members.

The publicity the group has received has also helped its fundraising efforts, Driscoll said. He said he plans to create an account to allow online donations.

Chino resident Ray Moors said Monday he plans to donate $150 to Masculinist Coalition after reading a news article about the group.

They even have their own T-Shirts. Their design tastes could leave something to be desired.

Let me get this straight: Pitzer denies him funding and makes him a martyr and he makes more money than any other group because of the all the publicity Pitzer gives him by rejecting his funding proposals.

Clearly no one understands how incentives work at Pitzer College. Maybe Sociology and Womyn's Studies doesn't cover everything...

Bromance, "Celebration of Man," and Pitzer College

We've blogged about the Masculinist Coalition already. Its president Dashiell Driscoll wants to create a "celebration of man."

Now we must blog about bromance and Pitzer College.

According to Peter Nardi, a sociologist at Pitzer College who specializes in male friendships, all these phrases are safer than they used to be because men are less afraid of being perceived as gay. It has become more acceptable for them to show some emotion. Al Gore and Bill Clinton hugged when they won the 1992 election and sports figures cry on camera when they're busted for steroids, Nardi pointed out.

Is it just a coincidence? A Pitzer student wants a club to celebrate manliness and a Pitzer professor writes about the social acceptability of homosexuality?
Are the blogging gods trying to tell us something?

Don't know, don't know.

On CMC's Mission and the Liberal Arts

Since Charles and Aditya have been blogging much about Gann and Oxotoby's speeches on the liberal arts in Singapore, I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

My general thinking is that the breadth offered by liberal arts is very important. Even if one is committed to a specific discipline, he cannot really master it without understanding its place in the broader realm of ideas. An insular education is a very insignificant one--it can't even defend its merits against the challenges from other disciplines.

A liberal arts education opens students to ideas and disciplines they may have never considered, and more importantly it introduces all students to the deepest thoughts by the greatest thinkers about what is the best way to live--the ultimate question students should be considering.

And in the context of a political community, a liberal arts education helps train students in the moral habits and intellectual virtues that make free life possible (and desirable). A corrupt, hedonistic, and relativistic people does not stay free for long. They tends to equate "rights" with whatever they demand, and they become so tolerant that they cannot discern what is intolerable. They can offer no real argument against someone of a more illiberal bent (like say, a religious radical). Education is important not only for profit and innovation, but because it sustains the very conditions of freedom.

But that said, I don't think we should exclusively study great books, because I think there should be room to see how the great ideas play out in modern life and in specific disciplines. Furthermore, I think that when students are free to tailor their education in some ways, they make it their own and take more from it. We seek both breadth and depth. Obviously, freedom comes with its limits: I believe there are some books everyone should read and some courses everyone should take.

A place like CMC provides a unique opportunity. We have made it our mission to train our future statesmen and leaders--a natural aristocracy that is essential to the survival of any free republic you might say. So this means we must have particularly strong departments in government and economics that offer a wide range of courses in these fields. This is good because no school can be strong in all areas. Because all good statesman must have exposure to the practical as well as the theoretical arts, we provide a broad education with a handful of especially great flavors. (This is why a student would choose to come here rather than another school.)

To do otherwise would be unwise. Resources are limited. We would end up holding back our most excellent departments in the attempt to make all departments equally excellent. This is why I am skeptical of the recent move to focus on science and technology. Students seeking these specialties already have a home at Harvey Mudd.

But even our strong suits could work against us. If we emphasize fields like accounting and finance too heavily, we might see them shape and draw in students who have little time for the flights of the mind and intellectual journeys that the liberal arts inspires. I am always concerned that a big portion of the school will be devoted pre-business school education--which, with its focus on management tools and technical skills, can be rather hollow. We should be educating future businessmen with grander horizons.

So CMC also has a unique challenge: to provide a superior education in politics and economics while maintaining a solid foundation in the liberal arts that makes those pursuits worthy.