A Brief History of Privatization in Croatia

A month or so ago, Anton posted a piece which detailed the economic history of Yugoslavia (you can find that here). This is the second half to the same paper, which I collaborated with him. This portion focuses on Croatia's post-independence transition to capitalism and explores the efforts of privatization undertaken by the its government after the collapse of Yugoslavia. This is a topic which fascinates me, so I may potentially post more research in the future.

I. Post-Independence Recovery and Privatization

After Croatia declared independence in 1991, it would have to begin to deal with the burgeoning economic troubles at hand. The war which broke out as a result of Croatia declaring independence took its toll on the economy, which was in dire straits when Franjo Tuđman was elected president. Tuđman’s presidency would serve as the herald for economic views which now play a large role in the modern Croatian government; privatization and globalization. However, the maladministration of privatization would join a long list of causes of economic problems including damage to infrastructure caused by the war, the refugee population, and disturbance of macroeconomic relationships. Croatia had to overcome two major Yugoslavian legacies in order to properly de-nationalize the country’s economy. Self-management and social ownership were the foundations of Yugoslavian socialism [Franičević 6]. Although dismantling the socialist state was not a popular opinion in the late 1980s, early legislation arose, outlining privatization measures with the goal of benefitting Croatian workers. These initial premises of privatization legitimized the institution in terms of popular opinion. As far as the workers were concerned, “they were the real ‘owners’ of the firm[s]… the obtaining of widespread support for privatization among the working class was regarded as an essential element in its successful implementation” [Franičević 7]. What most Croatians failed to realize, however, was that President Tuđman’s Croatian Democratic Union was the single-party entity which made the system possible. In order to begin to renovate the economy, the Law on the Transformation of Socially Owned Enterprises was enacted. There were two stages to this approach; the first was the transformation of social ownership into private or state ownership, the second was the complete privatization of said state ownership [Franičević 9].

Several of the procedures of the first stage proved to be relatively successful, by the end of 1996 the public debt had been reduced by over 1.8 billion Deutsche Marks [Franičević 12]. However, major difficulties arose with the privatization process, which drew criticism since the process was nontransparent, power was concentrated in a single ruling party, nepotism was prevalent, and blatant corruption plagued the system. The privatization model was constructed in anticipation of foreign capital. This would have been the ultimate goal of the two-phase process; initially, previously nationalized industry would be sold to the private sector and the state, and if all had gone as planned, international corporations would buy into Croatia’s industries. Unfortunately, the corruption of Tuđman’s government made Croatia’s economy extremely volatile, and not one which foreign investors would so readily invest in. Nevertheless, privatization continued throughout the 1990’s until Tuđman’s death in 1999. Its institution wreaked havoc on the Croatian economy, and it was a testament to the dangerous power of uncontrolled state capitalism. Croatian privatization contrasted similar processes in other European nations at the time. A majority of Croatia’s capital was due to the hotel industry, however, throughout the 1990’s, the tourism industry shrunk as a result of violence in the early part of the decade, and economic decline in the latter half. Another difference was due to Tuđman’s strict nationalist control. Because of Croatia’s strong nationalist sentiments, they began to distance themselves from the Balkan states and became ambitious in wanting to be seen as a “Western State”. Tuđman was able to take advantage of this cultural Westernization and apply it to the economic policies of his administration. Whereas privatization by definition should result in less state control, Tuđman’s presidency virtually resulted in quite the opposite. He relied on the state, rather than the private sector of the economy, in order to globalize the country’s economy; however, it was an exercise in futility due to corruption, scandals, and the buying out of Croatia’s capital and industries.

II. Growth in the New Millennium

In spite of the tragedy and controversy that surrounded Tuđman and the Croatian Democratic Union’s privatization scheme, the economy began to take a turn for the better in 2000. With the Croatian Democratic Union defeated in the 2000 elections, structural reforms under Prime Minister Ivica Račan were finally possible. For the three years he was in power, he continued privatization by opening up the economy to the West, which helped to restart Croatia’s GDP growth. Račan also began programs to improve infrastructure, which was essential in assisting the rejuvenation of tourism. After nearly being destroyed in the 1990’s, the industry has steadily increased since 2000, with the inflow of capital further funding infrastructure. Inflation remained stable as well, with the Croatian Kuna maintaining stability with the Euro. Overall, the expansion of the economy was due to said infrastructure programs, Westernization of the markets and tourism, as well as the growth of smaller private corporations. In the nine years from 1999 to 2008, GDP increased by around 4.25% per year.

Croatia’s growth in GDP in the 2000’s was an excellent sign of improvement for the country’s economy; however it failed to match the growth in Yugoslavia in the 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s. Although Croatia remains one of the wealthiest of the former Yugoslav republics, the damage caused by the economic collapse of the 1990’s and subsequent economic policies have left impacts on Croatia on both micro and macroeconomic levels. The unemployment rate in 2011 was 17.9%, with a comparable 18% of Croatians living below the poverty line as of 2009. Even during the dusk of Socialist Yugoslavia, the unemployment rate was lower, at 15%. Although life expectancy and literacy rate have risen to 76 and over 99% respectively, provinces like Krajina are particularly devastated by unemployment. In addition, Croatia’s domestic economy is in need of repair, as it relies far too much on imports and its export sector is minimal.

During a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Croatia in February of 2010, Minister of Economy Duro Popijac summarized the major issues which the nation faces. First is the privatization of shipyards. During Yugoslav socialism, shipbuilding was one of the largest economic sectors, and the Croatian government is currently having difficulty selling the shipyards. Until they are bought, the government must continue to pay to keep them open, which is something the European Union does not permit. Croatia’s candidacy for the EU affects its economy in a big way, as it is doing almost all that it can to meet the Union’s requirements. Minister Popijac highlighted a three-part economic bailout fund, which would include a subsidized loan scheme, government guarantee fund, and the creation of a private equity fund. A majority of Croatia’s microeconomic problems stem from the ineffectualness of government intervention in the private sector, as well as ongoing corruption. All of these, in turn create macroeconomic issues, as they make Croatia an increasingly unstable investment opportunity.

III. The Current Dilemma & What the Future Holds

The transformation from Yugoslav socialism to modern Croatian capitalism has stretched over half a century. There were a myriad of changes from one extreme to another; the hasty implementation of privatization is perhaps to blame for Croatia’s current economic troubles. This increased Croatia’s interdependence with other European nations after the Yugoslav Civil Wars, rather than fostering its own industrial-based economy. Furthermore, additional privatization has essentially become the only way out of Croatia’s economic dilemma in their eyes, despite it being what caused the economy to become so unstable. The ultimate root of Croatia’s economic problems, however, is cultural. The current policies are not working, yet there is hardly any opposition. Croatia yearns to further westernize themselves and their economy, to the point where their extreme nationalism is beginning to hinder progress and harm them. The nation is taken by the allure of pure capitalism, further fueled by their desire to join the EU, and there is no tolerance or consideration for any other economic viewpoints. Although Croatia’s economy appears to be relatively growing, successful measures need to be taken to address their high foreign debt, weak industrial export sector, crumbling bureaucracy, and large reliance on tourism. Until those issues are addressed in a more open minded way, Croatia will never be free of its economic dependency on stronger powers.

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-Ballinger, Pamela. "Selling Croatia or Selling Out Croatia?" Bowdoin College, 24 Oct. 2003. Web.

-Franičević, Vojmir. "Privatization in Croatia: Legacies and Context". Eastern European Economics, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Mar.-Apr., 1999), pp 5-54

-Government of the Republic of Croatia - Information on Croatian Economy 

http://www.vlada.hr/en/about_croatia/information/croatian_economy 

The American Phenomenon

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner presented his landmark essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" to a gathering of academics at the World's Columbian Exposition. Turner, in his thesis, argued that the unique American frontier experience shaped the United States' development and created a distinct culture and political condition. In essence, the frontier was responsible for molding the American character into what it is. 

While his thesis certainly stands true, the "Old West" also brought with it an economic anomaly -- a differentiating aspect that made the United States' economic upbringing particularly strange. From its colonial origins and throughout the 1800s, the U.S economy was consistently plagued with shortages of labor. These shortages would influence the development of slavery in the South, where plantation owners find it necessary to import more slaves to sustain their agricultural output. These shortages would also be the reason for the influx of immigrants throughout the 1800s, from which stemmed the extreme prejudice from nativists once some forms of unemployment actually became evident.

The above graph depicts estimates made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, they are relatively high due to the impossibility of knowing the actual levels of unemployment. Little surveying was done, regional statistics were not kept, and much of the American population was self-employed. This makes assessing the unemployment rate during this period of exceptional American growth difficult. And further complications arise when youth employment is added into the calculations --  which customarily started the from age of 10 in most areas. Since not all households required their children to work, making fully accurate estimates is nearly impossible. 

However, given the growth of American industry during the 1800s, basic assumptions can be made. For one, the inventiveness of the U.S industrial economy can be properly explained if the labor shortages are taken into account. Because of the lack of labor in the United States, industrial capitalists had to rely on new technology to be able to increase their output and balance the lack of laborers. From this predicament, the American System of Manufacturing, as it was called, was developed. Because of its efficiency, it was revered amongst industrialists in Europe. The most important contribution being -- the creation of interchangeable parts. This allowed industry to drastically increase their output and keep costs to a minimum. This also coincided with the high degree of mechanization that was starting to take root in the United States with the beginnings of the first Industrial Revolution.

Much of this technological advancement was also a product of the contention between agricultural and industrial regions during the United States' great economic expansion. Although these clashing interests date far back to colonial times, the creation of the General Land Office  in 1812 was a turning point. This independent federal agency was responsible for distributing and surveying public domain land in the largely unexplored territories of the United States. Two laws in particular addresses the rationing of these lands -- the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act. The former was passed to ration pieces of the uncultivated territory at a price. Up to 160 acres could be purchased at a time, and at very low prices. It was done to encourage those already occupying federal lands to purchase them. The Homestead Act, first enacted in 1862, was similar in its intent. Its aim was giving applicants roughly 160 acres of land free of charge west of the Mississippi River. Now, northern industrialists not only had to deal with labor shortages -- they also had to satisfy their workers enough so they would not opportunistically leave and go westward. 

The frontier experience did much more than cultivate the unexplored land westward; it intensified the shortages of labor in the United States. This scarcity created an inventive industrial sector that had to compensate by developing new technology, which would ultimately lead the United States to the economic dominance it enjoys today. Economist Richard Wolff, in a few of his lectures and writings, theorizes that it was this remarkable condition that created a very different experience for those living in the United States.

"What distinguishes the United States from almost every other capitalist experiment is that from 1820 to 1970, as best we can tell from the statistics we have, the amount of money an average worker earned kept rising decade after decade. This is measured in “real wages,” which means the money you earn compared to the prices you have to pay. That’s remarkable. There’s probably no other capitalist system that has delivered to its working class that kind of 150-year history. It produced in the U.S. the expectation that every generation would live better than the one before it, that if you worked hard, you could deliver a higher standard of living to your kids."

Frankly, Wolff's analysis makes sense. Rising wages kept the worker class's morale high, and attracted immigrants -- it also served as an incentive for working people to stay as laborers rather than receive land and move westward.  So, fundamentally speaking, American employers experienced competition in the labor market for two specific reasons. One, the federal land programs provided incentives for workers to move westward and entrepreneurs had to provide reasons for them to stay and work in the form of higher wages. And second, since the labor supply was constantly in high demand, workers were not easily replaceable. This implicitly forced firms to increase their wages, to attract laborers to their respective industries. 

In 2006, Michael Lind published an article in the Financial Times titled "A Labour Shortage Can be a Blessing," which indirectly supports Wolff's thesis on wages. He writes: 

"In the ageing nations of the first world, the benefits of a labour shortage, in the form of higher productivity growth and higher wages, might outweigh the costs. Where labour is scarce and expensive, businesses have an incentive to invest in labour-saving technology, which boosts productivity growth by enabling fewer workers to produce more. It is no accident that the industrial revolution began in countries where workers were relatively few and had legal rights, rather than in serf societies where people were cheaper than machines."

In order to validate Lind's and Wolff's claims, two specific economic topics must be properly historically analyzed. The first one being -- is there evidence for such a labor shortage, and if so, how severe was it?

Given the estimates made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it would be safe to assume that unemployment was not a major issue during the 1800s. When youth employment is taken into consideration, the estimates become very inflated, since the labor pool was so large. However, beside macroeconomic analysis, there are specific scenarios which shows that such a dilemma in production was indeed persistent in the United States during the 19th century. The PBS television series "American Experience" gives one particular scenario during the construction of railroads in the 1860s that validates this assumption.

"In early 1865 the Central Pacific had work enough for 4,000 men. Yet contractor Charles Crocker barely managed to hold onto 800 laborers at any given time. Most of the early workers were Irish immigrants. Railroad work was hard, and management was chaotic, leading to a high attrition rate. The Central Pacific management puzzled over how it could attract and retain a work force up to the enormous task. In keeping with prejudices of the day, some Central Pacific officials believed that Irishmen were inclined to spend their wages on liquor, and that the Chinese were also unreliable. Yet, due to the critical shortage, Crocker suggested that reconsideration be given to hiring Chinese..."

Historian Rickie Lazzerini portrays a similar issue in Cincinnati, Ohio during the beginning of the 1800s. 

"...the busy industries created a constant and chronic labor shortage in Cincinnati during the first half of the 19th century. This labor shortage drew a stream of Irish and German immigrants who provided cheap labor for the growing industries."

The second question that must be asked is -- was there actually a persistent increase in wages during the 1800s? 

To properly answer this question is immensely complex, since such little data is available. However, there exists one specific academic paper on the subject that addresses this question and the one posed prior. In 1960, economist Stanley Lebergott authored a chapter addressing wages in 19th century United States in a full volume called "Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century" published by the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth. The chapter itself was titled "Wages Trends, 1800 - 1900." He writes:

"Associated with the enormous size of these establishments was the
need to draw employees from some distance away. Local labor supplies
were nowhere near adequate. One result was the black "slaver's wagon"
of New England tradition, recruiting labor for the mills. The other was
the distinctly higher wage rate paid by such mills in order to attract
labor from other towns and states. Humanitarian inclinations and the
requirements of labor supply went hand in hand. Thus while hundreds
of small plants in New York, in Maine, and in Rhode Island paid 30 to
33 cents a day to women and girls, the Lowell mills generally paid
50 cents" [451].

Regions that lacked adequate quantities of labor had to rely on larger wages to attract workers from afar. However, apart from the industrial north of the United States, farm wages also increased -- perhaps signifying a competitive rift between the agricultural sectors and the industrial ones. 

Professor Lebergott, later in his analysis, then provides the full wage computations that he was able to calculate given individual data and trends recorded by local media. He combined the data he acquired on a state by state basis, starting locally and then branching out to create a national average. Also note, the drop in wages between 1818 - 1830 he attributes to "the close of the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the non-importation agreement."

Based on economist Stanley Lebergott's analysis, Richard D. Wolff's assertions are validated; the United States, for the most part, did enjoy increasing real wages throughout the 19th century. Even more so, it goes further in proving Michael Lind's claim that shortages of labor can indeed cause wage increases and heighten technological innovation. It is very likely that the combined frontier experience and shortages in the production processes created a unique variant of capitalism that was unique to the United States. It gave American households the confidence that if they worked harder, they would earn a better living. It also gave to them the optimism that their children would enjoy a better standard of living.

This unprecedented century of growth and success also had often overlooked impact on the American psyche. Because of the inflated expectations, it instilled a unique mentality amongst working class Americans. As John Steinbeck put it, the poor don't see themselves as victims -- but rather as "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires." It is this aspect of the American psyche that has allowed the broken system to flourish in the decades since the persistent stagnation of wages of the 1970s. Admitting the issue is just to difficult, for some; if we believe enough, the American dream just might become real again, as it was for those traveling out West to find riches and fortunes. In retrospect, the sooner working class Americans awake from this fantasy, the sooner they will realize that times have changed -- and not in their favor.

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- A lecture where Wolff discusses the frontier experience and 19th century wage increases.

- Some statistics and fact on U.S economic growth during this time period.

- A decent article on this topic from the Wall Street Journal (you need a subscription to view it).

Webster's Defense of Liberty

The War of 1812 was a brutal conflict between the infantile United States and the British Empire, and the culmination of years of unsettled dues from the Revolutionary War. The first real test of power since its independence, aside from the Barnaby Wars, the United States was faced with a dilemma; they lacked the proper ground troops to deal with such an impending crisis from the British Crown. Scrambling for solutions, then-president James Madison sought advice from his Secretary of State James Monroe who then pitched in his two cents -- instate a national draft of 40,000 men. It was this proposal that Senator Daniel Webster fiercely criticized on the House floor in his December address during the winter of 1815. His words are perhaps one of the most eloquent defenses I have read against conscription, against tyranny, and for liberty. Here's some food for thought:

"...Is this, Sir, consistent with the character of a free Government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No Sir, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libelled, foully libelled. The people of this country have not established for themselves such a fabric of despotism. They have not purchased at a vast expense of their own treasure and their own blood a Magna Carta to be slaves. Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, & parents from their children, & compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of Government may engage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous & baleful aspect, to trample down & destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty? Who will show me any constitutional injunction, which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, & even life itself, not when the safety of their country & its liberties may demand the sacrifice, but whenever the purposes of an ambitious & mischievous Government may require it? Sir, I almost disdain to go to quotations & references to prove that such an abominable doctrine has no foundation in the Constitution of the country. It is enough to know that that instrument was intended as the basis of a free Government, & that the power contended for is incompatible with any notion of personal liberty. An attempt to maintain this doctrine upon the provisions of the Constitution is an exercise of perverse ingenuity to extract slavery from the substance of a free Government. It is an attempt to show, by proof & argument, that we ourselves are subjects of despotism, & that we have a right to chains & bondage, firmly secured to us & our children, by the provisions of our Government. It has been the labor of other men, at other times, to mitigate & reform the powers of Government by construction; to support the rights of personal security by every species of favorable & benign interpretation, & thus to infuse a free spirit into Governments, not friendly in their general structure & formation to public liberty."

He goes on to articulate the gruesome effects of the war on families and lives:

"...Sir, I invite the supporters of the measures before you to look to their actual operation. Let the men who have so often pledged their own fortunes & their own lives to the support of this war, look to the wanton sacrifice which they are about to make of their lives & fortunes. They may talk as they will about substitutes, & compensations, & exemptions. It must come to the draft at last. If the Government cannot hire men voluntarily to fight its battles, neither can individuals. If the war should continue, there will be no escape, & every man's fate, & every man's life will come to depend on the issue of the military draught. Who shall describe to you the horror which your orders of Conscription shall create in the once happy villages of this country? Who shall describe the distress & anguish which they will spread over those hills & valleys, where men have heretofore been accustomed to labor, & to rest in security & happiness. Anticipate the scene, Sir, when the class shall assemble to stand its draft, & to throw the dice for blood. What a group of wives & mothers, & sisters, of helpless age & helpless infancy, shall gather round the theatre of this horrible lottery, as if the stroke of death were to fall from heaven before their eyes, on a father, a brother, a son or an husband. And in a majority of cases, Sir, it will be the stroke of death. Under present prospects of the continuance of the war, not one half of them on whom your conscription shall fall will ever return to tell the tale of their sufferings. They will perish of disease & pestilence, or they will leave their bones to whiten in fields beyond the frontier. Does the lot fall on the father of a family? His children, already orphans, shall see his face no more. When they behold him for the last time, they shall see him lashed & fettered, & dragged away from his own threshold, like a felon & an outlaw. Does it fall on a son, the hope & the staff of aged parents. That hope shall fail them. On that staff they shall lean no longer. They shall not enjoy the happiness of dying before their children. They shall totter to their grave, bereft of their offspring, & unwept by any who inherit their blood. Does it fall on a husband? The eyes which watch his parting steps may swim in tears forever. She is a wife no longer. There is no relation so tender or so sacred, that, by these accursed measures, you do not propose to violate it. There is no happiness so perfect, that you do not propose to destroy it. Into the paradise of domestic life you enter, not indeed by temptations & sorceries, but by open force & violence."

Powerfully speaking, he once again affirms the principles of a free society:

"...In my opinion, Sir, the sentiments of the free population of this country are greatly mistaken here. The nation is not yet in a temper to submit to conscription. The people have too fresh & strong a feeling of the blessings of civil liberty to be willing thus to surrender it. You may talk to them as much as you please, of the victory & glory to be obtained in the Enemy's Provinces; they will hold those objects in light estimation, if the means be a forced military service. You may sing to them the song of Canada Conquests in all its variety, but they will not be charmed out of the remembrance of their substantial interests, & true happiness. Similar pretences, they know, are the graves in which the liberties of other nations have been buried, & they will take warning. Laws, Sir, of this nature can create nothing but opposition. If you scatter them abroad, like the fabled serpents' teeth, they will spring up into armed men. A military force cannot be raised, in this manner, but by the means of a military force. If the administration has found that it cannot form an army without conscription, it will find, if it ventures on these experiments, that it can not enforce conscription without an army. The Government was not constituted for such purposes. Framed in the spirit of liberty, & in the love of peace, it has no powers which render it able to enforce such laws. The attempt, if we rashly make it, will fail; & having already thrown away our peace, we may thereby throw away our Government."

Part of the Great Triumvirate of the Senate, Daniel Webster could not have used his talent of speaking more masterfully -- his speech is still very much relevant. Hopefully I am not being too chauvinistic, but let me say this; even in today's technocratic society, even in today's late industrial age, the principles Webster espouses is still very much alive, or at least something we should still hold dear. 

Lincoln, Marx, & the Civil War

The election of 1864 was a bitter one for the wounded United States, having still been severely torn on strict sectional divides. In a strategic effort to garner nonpartisan support, Lincoln attempted to appeal to the splintered Democratic Party where there was a rift between War Democrats and the Copperheads (anti-war Northerners). He ran under the "National Union Party," in an effort to show American unity during a time of severe crisis and chose Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat, as his running mate. They would go on the capture the imagination of the North, winning the election of 1864 in a landslide against former General George B. McClellan who was running on the Democratic ticket.

Shortly after the election victory, an uncanny letter was handed to U.S Ambassador Charles Francis Adams with the instructions being that it be given to newly-elect, Abraham Lincoln. It was from the First International, and it was written by Karl Marx himself, congratulating Lincoln's efforts during the United States' time of war. It was praising and optimistic of the future of labor in the United States. It read:

We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.

Marx goes on to further show eloquently his sincere support and bright anticipation of the workers' future:

While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war. The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

It becomes apparent from this writing that Marx understood the dilemma of the laborers in the United States. Divided between racism, a blemish that became more visible during the eve of the Civil War, the working class was unable to mobilize. They lacked the capacity in numbers and in heart - being divided by systemic racial scapegoating that pitted them against their fellowman. Karl Marx even directly mentions this in his book 'Das Capital.' He writes:

In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.

It would be naive for anyone to believe that liberation and class struggle could properly take place with the institution of slavery still intact. Marx fully understood this. He considered it a necessary step in bourgeoisie history for it to be abolished; it being a vital precursor to real proletariat efforts. 

A reply to the commemorative letter from Marx was actually given by Ambassador Adams in January of 1865. Seemingly, Lincoln enjoyed the warm support he received from the First International:

So far as the sentiments expressed by it are personal, they are accepted by [President Lincoln] with a sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy of the confidence which has been recently extended to him by his fellow citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity and progress throughout the world.

The rest of the response goes on to espouse a surprisingly internationalist tone:

Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse and example. It is in this relation that the United States regard their cause in the present conflict with slavery, maintaining insurgence as the cause of human nature, and they derive new encouragements to persevere from the testimony of the workingmen of Europe that the national attitude is favored with their enlightened approval and earnest sympathies.

It was perhaps, in this reply and in the events unfolding, the First International saw a glimmer a hope for the emancipation of the laborers in the United States. It was the start of a new 'epoch,' as they call it, but however it is disheartening to note that Marx wrote little to nothing on the events that would follow during the Reconstruction. He turned his attention elsewhere, abandoning the struggle in the Western Hemisphere and instead turning to a more Eurocentric revolutionary approach - which was perhaps a mistake in and of itself.

Despite this, a portion of Marx's predictions came true. There was indeed a shift in the workers' mentality in the decades after the Civil War. The National Labor Union (NLU), founded in 1866, was the first national labor organization in the United States. Many such organizations formed likewise in the age of railroad tycoons, demanding higher wages and shorter hours. The telling revelation here is that, when compared to the building of the canals during the decades after the turn of the 19th century, the consciousness of the workingman changed. Over a thousand men died from swamp fever during the construction of the Eerie Canal, but little to no backlash followed. Many more worked long and difficult hours on similar projects during that time, but there were no strikes nor was there much violence. This only changed after the institution of slavery was abolished. Marx's optimism was therefore fulfilled, in some respects; The emancipation of slaves also emancipated the rest of the United States - in body and in mind. Frankly, although some initial momentum was lost after Reconstruction ended, it heightened the peoples' sensitivity to their impoverished state with which they responded by organizing - such that would be violently repressed years later during the wealth-concentrated time of the Gilded Age, where money was the utmost desire and politics was the wealthy man's game.

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The First International Letter to Lincoln, and the response, can be found here.
More writing by Marx on the Civil War can be found here.
Also, a letter exchange on this topic in the Fourth International (2009) can be found here.
And finally, here is an interesting article from International Socialist Review where they analyze Lincoln from a Marxist perspective.

The Tragedy of Privatization (I)

In 1968, Garrett Hardin posted an article in the magazine Science called "Tragedy of the Commons" and it was an attempt at proving that private property was the most efficient method of rationing goods and maintaining resources efficiently. It is oftentimes used in arguments favoring the privatization of common resources. His theoretical scenario was as follows:

There is a plot of land in the middle of a small peasant town. The plot of land is commonly owned, and is used for grazing; it is open to anybody that wishes to send their cattle there. Each peasant owns livestock and must use that land to feed their livestock. Knowing that each individual wants to maximize what they can get from the fertile acreage, each peasant brings as many animals as they can to the pasture, therefore, ruining the pasture for everyone. This is what Hardin calls 'the tragedy.' Each peasant wants to maximize their 'grazing' because they knew that if they don't, somebody else would. Garrett Hardin calls this outcome "inevitable," which he says makes it all the more tragic. He goes on to say there are two possible solutions to prevent such an outcome: either through regulation by an overseeing government body or through privatization of the common pasture so each peasant is responsible for his or her piece of land.

The original article from 1968 can be found here. And here's a corresponding video with Garrett Hardin talking about his scenario.

Now, there's a few issues that arise when Hardin's scenario is contested in a real world environment. He makes three assumptions that do not stack up to what actually happened in the famous commons of England and elsewhere. They are as follows:

1. Each individual is working to maximize his or her profit
2. The peasants do not communicate with one another
3. That the pasture is open for anybody to use freely 

What actually happened in the commons of England, where the peasants lived after being freed from the shackles of feudalistic rule, was very different than Hardin describes. In these small villages, these commoners were very careful not to abuse the land that they had because they knew if they did the entire community would starve. The communicated with one another to prevent such happenings, and overgrazing was for the most part prevented. And since they were not functioning in a money economy, by growing their own food, they had little incentive to grow beyond what they needed - and if more was grown it was for surplus in case of shortages. And finally, these pastures were not open to everyone; it was established by common law, assumed through interaction, that the land was to be used only by those that have agreed to take care of it. Essentially, it was to be used only by the peasants living in the village itself. 

Common grazing areas for livestock were a commonplace from the Middle Ages until the beginnings of the modern era. Farms were oftentimes broken up into three sections; one for wheat, one for barley, and one for grazing. This three-section open field was popular even after feudalism collapsed, until the advent of a market economy which specifically required the enclosure of common pastures. So the tragedy Garrett Hardin actually describes was seemingly backwards; rather than privatization of the commons being the solution to overgrazing, it became the tragedy itself. 

Gilbert Slater, a British economist and social reformer, wrote a book in 1907 titled "The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields." He describes the coercive methods of enclosure:

Enclosure of the common fields, meadows and pastures, of
any particular village may have taken place in the following
ways : — 

(1) By Act of Parliament, viz., (a) by a private Act, (b) under
the authority of the General Enclosure Acts of 1830 and 1836,
(c) by the Enclosure Commissioners and their successors, the
Board of Agriculture, under the General Enclosure Act of 1845
and its amending Acts.
(2) By common agreement of all the collective owners.
(3) By the purchase on the part of one owner of all conflicting
rights.
(4) By special licence of the Tudor monarchs.
(5) By various forms of force and fraud. 

Commonable waste may have been enclosed in any of the
above ways, and also under the Statutes of Merton and Win-
chester (1235 and 1285), which give Lords of the Manor the right
of enclosing commons provided proof is given that the tenants of
the manor are left sufficient pasture.

Specifically speaking, the most devastating were the Inclosure Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that stripped away the rights of common ownership from the local peoples by government force. This completely replaced the common law once understood by the peasant class, and put in its place a codified method of enclosure that many of the poor farmers did not agree to - this was mostly because many were illiterate and did not understand (for the most part only the nobles were educated).

A 17th century poem fully describes the real tragedy this caused to the local folk:

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back. 

William Cobbett, an notable English pamphleteer and journalist, recorded what he saw after the land on the Isle of Thanet was appropriated by the wealthy:

"In this beautiful island every inch of land is appropriated by the rich. No hedges, no ditches, no commons, no grassy lanes: a country divided into great farms; a few trees surround the great farm-house. All the rest is bare of trees; and the wretched labourer has not a stick of wood, and has no place for a pig or cow to graze, or even to lie down upon. The rabbit countries are the countries for labouring men. There the ground is not so valuable. There it is not so easily appropriated by the few. Here, in this island, the work is almost all done by the horses. The horses plough the ground; they sow the ground; they hoe the ground; they carry the corn home; they thresh it out; and they carry it to market: nay, in this island, they rake the ground; they rake up the straggling straws and ears; so that they do the whole, except the reaping and the mowing. It is impossible to have an idea of anything more miserable than the state of the labourers in this part of the country." [1823]

Enclosure did much more than take away common land from the peasants; it was much more elaborate of a scheme. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the newly emergent capitalist class in North Britain found a new labour supply - the landless disfranchised peasant class that was distraught from centuries of enclosures. The self-sufficient yeomen was crushed, and what was created was a class dependent on wage labour for which they had to relinquish their self-autonomy to feed their families; they had no choice, they had to work. It was this phenomenon that soon followed suit in much of the rest of the world, for England was a colonial power and its influence was global. 

One of the leading forces during the Industrial Revolution were textile mills and these required wool to function. The dilemma was, however, that it required taking away common land from the peasants to raise more sheep. The nobles of Britain than turned to Parliament, because they knew if the government forced the peasants to enclose, they would have no choice. Their lobbying and influence ultimately succeeded, and the majority of the Inclosure Acts were actually passed between 1750 and 1860, involuntarily taking away the land of the commoners. 

Many of the emerging industrialists and its supporters called the peasants lazy, and they used such justification in advocating for their usage as labourers. Many Quakers and English Protestants also found laziness, which they saw as sloth (one of the Seven Deadly Sins), to be repugnant to a moral English society. John Bellers, a Quaker himself and an educator, tells of such things in his book 'About the Improvement of the Physick' and his other writings and expressed his contempt for such idleness: 

“Our Forests and great Commons (make the Poor that are upon them too much like the Indians) being a hindrance to Industry, and are Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence." [1714]

Thomas Pennet, a noted Enlgish botanist, antiquarian, and noble, wrote of the peasants in his journal in 1772 while in Edinburgh, England and denounced them in the same fashion:

“I was informed that the labor is dear here... the common people not being yet got into a method of working, so do very little for wages." 

"...The manners of the native Highlanders may be expressed in these words: indolent to a high degree, unless roused to war, or any animating amusement.”

He goes on to describe their physique:

"The inhabitant live very poorly... The man are thin, but strong; idle and lazy... they are content with their hard fare, and will not exert themselves father than what they deem necessaries."

The general attitude of the landowners was much the same. A snippet from Commercial, Agricultural, and Manufactures' Magazine in 1800 read as follows:

"When a labourer becomes possessed of more land than he and his family can cultivate in the evenings... the farmer can no longer depend on him for constant work..."

This type of mentality was common amongst the industrialists at the time; if the poor were given enough land to be self-sufficient and independent, than they would not be forced to work in the factories. They would be given a choice which would ultimately hurt the industrial North of Britain. 

After an analysis of the commons of England, it is apparent that the"Tragedy of the Commons" does not hold up to historical scrutiny. The reality is that peasants lived in harmony in the commons for centuries, and it was not until the emergence of a market economy do we see the dismantling the such a system. The 'inevitability of a tragedy' that Garrett Hardin theorizes is set in his own limited scenario; one that does not correlate with actual common ownership. The real tragedy here, it seems, is the exploitation of the peasant class from their land and state coercion that was involved in making them work as wage labourers. It is this state-market cooperative dynamic that will become a staple in the capitalist economy in the centuries ahead, and it is even more apparent in today's globalized economic system - albiet it's inherent problems are bit more subtle, but all the more the same just on a larger scale.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Beller's book: Proposals for Raising a Colledge of Industry (1696)
Gilbert Slater's book: The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields (1907)
A short history of enclosure in Britain can be found here.
An article on how the English people became landless.
These enclosures did not come without backlash. Some info can be found here and here.

The Spanish Revolutionary Spirit

As eloquently described by George Orwell in 'Homage to Catalonia:'

"...It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being sytematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Señor' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou,' and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias.'" 

"...There were no private motor cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and the taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, and the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds tha was queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small umber of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State.." 

Info on worker's self-management in the public transportation system of anarchist Catalonia can be found here. Also more general info on the Spanish anarchist experiment can be found by clicking on this link, here.

The Politics of Historical Revisionism

The American republic has been steadily degenerating in recent years - and it seems some want to resuscitate some lost patriotic zeal of the American dream with obscurity and contradictions. A deliberate false historic revisionism is happening; a 'rereading' of American history in an effort to make it fit with today's United States. This is the modern system that the founders envisioned, they argue, and we have to keep the status quo 'alive and well.' They are trying to put a square peg in a round hole and they have an entire rightist movement fooled. 

Thomas Jefferson, especially, has become a victim to this type of slander. He is portrayed, by the Tea Party and others, in cliché slogans of little to no historical significance. He is used falsely as a rallying call for free market-eteers; serving as an example that the United States was founded on the principles of "modern capitalism and democracy" and that this "still lives on today." In recent memory, he has been attributed to this false quote:

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not,"

Fits right into the right-wing anti-Obama agenda, seldom a surprise.

Thomas Paine's real reputation has also been ravaged and hijacked, even recently. The former conservative TV host Glenn Beck used to pride himself on being a scholar of the American founding fathers. He attempted to christen Thomas Paine as the new figure of conservatism - an obvious contradiction to anybody with a vague recollection of American revolutionary history. Thomas Paine was a radical leftist, an enemy of privilege and aristocracy, an anti-religious pamphleteer, a skeptic of capital accumulation, and a contrarian of his time. He died penniless and with little friends, a testament to his passion; in no alternate world would he ally himself with a wealthy Christian-conservative TV star. Not only that, he is diametrically opposed to the domestic conservative platform. He is credited as the precursor to the modern 'Social Security System,' in his work titled 'Agrarian Justice' he writes:

"In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period."

He goes on to advocate a 'National Fund' to guarantee such improvement:

"To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:
And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age."

He then goes into monetary details; breaking down costs in Britain at the time and how the system would be implemented. He also criticizes the institution the private property as being naturally restrictive and, if left to its own ends, would accumulate to a minority elite. He promoted his 'National Fund' idea to cure this malady of capitalism; and bear in mind this was formulated in a predominately pre-capitalist era. This was written over two centuries ahead of his time, remarkable in any respect.

Now, does this correspond with any right-wing rhetoric? This historical obscurity is a symptom of a broken political sphere where revisionism is deemed a valid strategy; this becoming the rule rather than the exception. Trying to push a ideology of 'American Exceptionalism' by disguising the historicity of American figures is dangerous in hindsight for it fools the public into believing that the modern status quo is what was intended at this nation's founding. It is this that perhaps, albeit subtly, discredits anybody questioning today's illusive 'American Dream.' The response has become "you're going against the American tradition." This is a kind of political religion, a type of dogma, and a false one at that.

And one just as the founders intended, surely - or so these modern 'patriots' claim. 

The 18th Century Radical

In the 18th century Europe underwent a cultural and intellectual; sometimes rather violent; revolution that took it to a new form of consciousness and populist fervor. The Enlightenment was a pivotal step in human development, which freed it from the shackles of superstitions and divine titles of power. In Immanuel Kant's essay "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment," he calls it;

Mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.

It is from this ideology, and its logical conclusions, the radical was born. Radicalism in the 18th century was much more than a realization that man's mind is his greatest tool; it involved being skeptical of the entire system and the very existence of entitlement, aristocracy, and power. And moreover, it was was the realization that liberty is seldom a vice.

Oftentimes, radicalism would violently clash with the forces they were working against; The French Revolution was a climactic bloodbath after centuries of feudal and royal rule - a rebellion against the divinely sanctioned institutions that was oppressing the commoner. It was the first truly violent overthrow of old order based on Enlightenment principles (the American Revolution was arguably not quite as great of an social upheaval), and ushered in the principles of inalienable natural rights, equality of peoples, and 'universal' citizenship. It was also perhaps the first time in Europe that the labouring class was successively mass-mobilized against aristocracy and oppression in regiments called the Sans-culottes; which favored revolutionary proto-Marxist ideas such as socio-economic equality, anti-free market ideologies, direct democracy, and availability of affordable necessities. Radical even by today's imagination.

Sadly many of these egalitarian Enlightenment attitudes evaporated in the aftermath of the Reign of Terror that ensued after the French Revolution, led by Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre, albeit some were kept alive in the United States in the years following the American Revolution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man however, the most beautiful creation during the French Revolution, seemingly lived on; standing as the ultimate testament to Enlightenment idealism inspired by the works of Jean-Jacques Roussaeu, Baron de Montesquieu, John Locke, and the American Revolution. It espoused in Article I, eloquently;

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

Although improperly put in practice, it served as an ideal and a reason for struggle for the French in years that followed, especially in the Revolution of 1848.

In the United States, many American radicals were in solidarity with the French struggle for equality, but were somewhat saddened by the widespread violence. Thomas Jefferson, a radical of the Enlightenment and father of the American republic, wrote very favorably of the French in principle, and was captivated by their vigor and passion, but could not ignore the bloodshed and killings of the 'counter-revolutionaries.' He writes in a private letter to American ambassador William Short;

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is. I have expressed to you my sentiments, because they are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens. The universal feasts, and rejoicings which have lately been had on account of the successes of the French shewed the genuine effusions of their hearts. You have been wounded by the sufferings of your friends, and have by this circumstance been hurried into a temper of mind which would be extremely disrelished if known to your countrymen [1793].

Despite the violence, Jefferson remained optimistic of the ultimate end of despotism and tyranny. He writes in great hope and admiration commenting on the ongoing struggle in the French Republic and the Batavian Republic of Holland in a letter to Tench Coxe;

This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe, at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. It is our glory that we first put it into motion [1795].

This Jeffersonian idealism 'lives on', or rather should, in principle and in policy. The intellectual triumphs of the American and French Revolutions should not be forgotten nor ignored; and the principles written in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, on which Enlightenment social precepts were founded on and which Jefferson revered, will always stand true;

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.

It is on this basis that a free democratic society is formed and it is likewise why natural rights should never be forgone - no matter how noble the end result.

Colonialism in the 21st Century

In modern history courses, it is implied the age of colonialism ended after the decolonization of Africa in the years after WW2. After the mass exploitation of indigenous persons, the destruction of their cultures, and the genocide of their peoples - the Western powers are sorry for what they've done, and they've shown their gratitude by leaving them to their own. The "White Man's Burden" is over; we've changed.

But what do we make of the humanitarian wars and the imposed economic globalization through international institutions? Is this something to embrace, or is it rather neocolonialism "with a human face?" 

If there is one thing we can learn from the tragedy of 19th and 20th century colonialism is that the interests are seldom explicitly stated. It is illustrated as the noblest of causes; it was the duty of 'civilized' to help those less fortunate and rid them of their immoral cultures. It is this relationship between the colony and the colonizers that is seemingly most dangerous, and established cultural hegemony [a term borrowed from Anton Gramsci's writings] on those under occupation, making them disillusioned of what the future held. In of itself, this creates an atmosphere of implied prejudice and dependence that severely dismantles the cultural balance and solidarity among the peoples of that area. On a tangible level it strips them of their natural resources, impoverishing them, and leaving them to wallow in their suffering.

On the topic of the noble portrayal of colonialism - each Empire had their own distinct form of doublespeak used for garnering support. For the French and Portuguese it was the "civilizing mission," all in effort to tame the 'backward people' in order to forcibly assimilate them into the social mores of the respective empire. For the Americans, and the British also, it was predominately the "White Man's Burden" based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling which portrayed the imperialism as a noble enterprise and seemingly divinely sanctioned. For other empires, their reasons were almost explicitly nationalistic with little 'noble' justification. The German and Italian Empires both wanted their "place in the sun," especially Germany after Kaiser Wilhelm II's rise to power and his doctrine of Weltpolitk. The Japanese empire was the only non-western imperialistic power and they based their doctrine on anti-western ideals and nationalism; the foreign policy of the Shōwa period was dominated by the concept of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" which attempted to create a domineering Japanese presence in Eastern Asia. It's underlying motive was similar to that of the American ideology of "Manifest Destiny" and many Japanese felt it was self-evident they would expand after the many wars Japan engaged in, particularly with China and Russia. 

Not surprisingly so, much of the language used during the apex of what I call 'classical modern colonialism' is still prevalent today, albeit in a different more obscure context. The public reasons for militarization and dominance have changed and the functions of a physical empire have exhausted their use; however, the motivations for a commercial one are still very present in policy - and the reasoning may very well be very much the same; It is the public admission that we're "civilizing" them, but not with culture this time [as least not directly], but rather with "democracy" and "liberal capitalism." This was the justification for American-backed coups d'état of the 20th century, to eliminate any threat to American hegemony on the global stage, which was then communism. It was driven by fear and perhaps even more fundamentally 'American Exceptionalism' of which is staple of any imperialistic power. The reality of the Iraq War, the United States' current occupation of Afghanistan, and the drone strikes all over the Middle East only enforces that this concept is still very fresh in the minds of American policymakers. It seems Americans have already forgot the tragedy of Vietnam, which they swore they would never allow to happen again. Noam Chomsky described the danger of this anomaly as such:

"Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral & intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that lie ahead.."

And in this respect, I cannot agree more. Historical amnesia and an ignorant public is always benefit to the policymakers - it is institutionalized ignorance and a product of exactly how the system was created to function in an effort to engineer a passive social order, and the assumed 'benevolence' of today's major powers is only the tip of the iceberg sadly enough.

Aside from the United States, Western Europe is engaging in very similar neo-imperial activity to maintain at least some form of economic, political, or military control on the former colonies. France's policy of Françafrique, which was once hailed to be a mutually beneficial relationship, is inherently exploitative. France's supporting, and subtle funding, of resource-rich dictatorships such as that of the Democratic Republic of Congo [dictatorship until 1997] and Gabon [whose dictator died in 2009, but his son is now in power] are dissuading and rendering it near impossible for the native people there to establish their own system. This populist disconnect from policy and reality is a feature created by the former colonizers and was mostly promulgated during the Cold War, with the establishment of anti-Communist dictatorships, but is still very much a systemic staple of Western foreign policy today; all done in the name of safety, democracy, and 'moral doctrines.'

Although current French President Sarkozy has attempted to distance himself from Françafrique, it's implications are still felt and still being pursued. France has been in more military operations in the past few years than it has been in the last 50; its intervention in its former colony Ivory Coast, its intervention in the Libyan Civil War (which it conducted before the emergency meeting of Western powers in Paris), its co-opting [with the U.S primarily] of the 2004 Haitian coup d'état of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, its troop deployment into the former French colony of Chad, and its military involvement in the Afghanistan War. All of these, claimed to be purely humanitarian wars, have much of the criteria of a neo-colonial mentality - and aims at establishing French (or Western) dominance in these regions of the world.

And perhaps equally commercially imperialistic is the World Bank and the WTO, where the World Bank gives loans to autocratic regimes in the Third World, only to see that money go to waste and then asking the WTO to demand repayments; which always comes in the form of severe cuts for programs necessary for those not in power. It is this dynamic that is exploitative and ultimately prevents these nations from ever reaching real global status, among other things.

Seemingly so, ignorance always benefits the state - and that certainly holds true in this case. The disillusionment of the public on foreign policy is rather frightening, and the imperial trends will continue to be cyclic and unbroken until it is realized. I take an anti-imperialist stance from an ethical, philosophical, and morally-pragmatic perspective; because the self-determination of peoples in realizing their own destinies cannot be undermined, no matter how elusively humble the cause or how great the safety that is promised thereafter.

Christianity and the Founding of the United States

In response to an individual who used the founding of the United States to justify opposing gay marriage:

Well I would expect you to at least give me one example as to why [the right to marry established in Supreme Court cases overturning interracial marriage laws] doesn't apply to gay marriage, or to recall your statement that marriage is a "privilege" but I suppose that would be too much to ask:

And don't justify your religious agenda by using "this nation was founded on theistic religious belief." This is the most overused, and misrepresented argument uttered by conservatives in defense of injecting religion and legislating morality in public policy. No, this nation was not founded on "theistic religious belief" and let me elaborate;

Firstly, many of our Founding Fathers were deists or anti-clerical, but most importantly they were children of the Enlightenment, believing in empiricism and the worth of scientific endeavors to support a seemingly naturalistic world view. This isn't to say they were all deists, some were religious, one being John Jay who believed that Christians are best fit to serve this country, but does not represent a public policy position. For that, you have to look at the ideas that were behind the Founding Documents.

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was vehemently opposed to religion. In his letters to Adams, he talks of the religious superstitions of Christianity as "one day being amongst the likes of Jupiter and other false gods." He authored the Jefferson Bible, where he rewrote the New Testament taking out the supernatural, believing strongly in the ethical teachings of Jesus but denying his divinity. Jefferson was the first to note and advocate the "wall between church and state" of the Founding Fathers, initially used by the founder of Rhode Island Baptist Roger Williams. He demonstrated his support of this separation in public policy as well apart from his private letters, writing the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which would become the basis for the First Amendment and the Free Exercise Clause in the Constitution.

James Madison, the author of the Constitution, has expressed in countless letters his original secular intent of the government, calling for the "perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters" in a letter he wrote to Edward Livingston in 1822. He even expressed opposition to Congressional chaplains and days of prayer.

George Washington was arguably a deist, or at least a nonreligious man, although not expressing it in public, but rather his personal letters. He refused to take Holy Communion on Sundays. Benjamin Franklin was a deist, denouncing religion in many of his writings; "The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason." John Adams expressed doubts, especially in his writings to Jefferson. And Thomas Paine was perhaps the most outspoken of them all, completely denouncing religion and despising it in his book "The Age of Reason" and his other writings.

Also you should note, the Constitution makes no mention of "Jesus Christ, divinity, Bible, Creator, Divine, or God." And the Declaration of Independence, although mentioning the rights "endowed by our Creator," this does not make it explicitly Christian, it was simply the reiteration of a Lockean concept that Jefferson elaborated on.

And lastly one of the most important pieces of evidence for the secular intent of the United States is the Treaty of Tripoli signed in 1797. "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" is the direct quote from it, and was passed unanimously in the Senate, being read out loud on the Senate floor and copies being passed out for each Senator to read. There were no objections, because the secular intentions were clear, no matter how religious these Senators were they agreed on this basic concept of separation because they feared religion in politics would be destructive in the United States, as it had been in Great Britain. It was even published in the Pennsylvania Gazette with no public backlash. Although this treaty is now defunct, it makes the position of the Founding Fathers quite clear; that we were to be seen as a secular nation throughout the world, that we do not profess any particular faith, and that we are a nation that allows all different creeds none of which would ever hold an advantage or special privilege in the rule of law.

I hope that clears everything up for you, and I hope you also realize that even if all of this nation was Christian that would not make the United States a Christian nation. We are, at least our original intent was, to be a secular republic that does not succumb to mob rule of the majority; where the rights of the peoples are protected, and this includes their right of religion or belief not to be infringed by the legislating power of another. It was a pure product of the intellectual followers of the Enlightenment, and its importance cannot be understated.