Globalization has eradicated great power war, dedev reverses
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A2: Growth Bad ModulesA2: Endocrine DisruptionNatural endocrine disruptors in our diet outweigh human-made ones Safe, ’04 (Stephen, Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology at Texas A&M University, director of the Center for Environmental and Rural Health, USA, “Environment & Health: Myths & Realities”, June, Pg 43-44, International Policy Press http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/Env&Health_ch_2.pdf) My participation in the debate on environmental endocrine disruptors and their potential adverse impacts on human health has been a learning experience. During the 1970s and early 1980s, my research on PCBs and related compounds and the TEF concept contributed to the development of regulatory measures that have resulted in reduced emissions and environmental levels of these compounds. This research was primarily supported by federal funding agencies (the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences). Although I am still concerned about environmental impacts of organochlorine pollutants and some endocrine disruptors, I have remained skeptical of the hypothesis that these chemicals are currently having global impact on human health. My skepticism is reinforced by the recently published scientific data that have been referenced in this chapter. My views are also due, in part, to the concepts put forward by Bruce Ames and Lois Gold, who pointed out that the human diet contains multiple toxins and carcinogens that occur naturally in food or are formed during cooking.46 Moreover, levels and often the potencies of “natural” carcinogens in the diet are far higher than those of carcinogenic industrial contaminants. A similar argument also holds true for endocrine disruptors where dietary intakes of phytoestrogens, and other endocrine-active substances including Ah receptor-active compounds, far outweigh the intakes of endocrine-active manmade environmental contaminants. Unlike many other scientific controversies, the endocrine disruptor issue has engendered partisan and inflammatory debate on both sides of the issue. My views and statements contributed to this problem, particularly in two articles written as editorials in the Wall Street Journal (20 August 1997) and the New England Journal ofmMedicine.47 Both articles commented on recently published data that clearly did not support the endocrine disruptor hypothesis, and it was (and is) my view that scientists and the public should be made aware of these results and their significance. Their studies are wrong – no evidence that endocrine disruptors have a major effect Breithaupt, ’04 (Holger, Editor Science & Society Company and EMBO reports. “A cause without a disease”, EMBO reports, Jan 1, https://s100.copyright.com/AppDispatchServlet?publisherName=NPG&publication=EMBO%20reports&title=A%20cause%20without%20a%20disease&author=Holger%20Breithaupt&contentID=10.1038/sj.embor.7400063&publicationDate=01/01/2004&Vol=5&Issue=1) The only problem is that nobody actually knows whether the levels of endocrine disruptors in the environment are a threat to public health. "The so-called epidemic of endocrine diseases remains to be established," said Raphael J. Witorsch, Professor of Physiology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, USA. A working group, convened by the Royal Society of London, UK, that investigated the health threat of endocrine- disrupting chemicals (EDCs) came to the same conclusion: "whilst high levels of exposure to some EDCs could theoretically increase the risk of such disorders, no direct evidence is available at present" (The Royal Society, 2000). Richard Sharpe, one of the original authors of the endocrine disruptor hypothesis, also acknowledged that "the threat [to human health] is minimal." In fact, a series of studies that closely investigated the original publications claiming an increase in breast and prostate cancer and a decline in male fertility found that this is not so. "We now know that this is absolutely not true," Safe said about health advocates who warn that endocrine disruptors could cause a worldwide epidemic of disorders and diseases. According to Witorsch, many of the original epidemiological analyses were flawed and lacked confounding factors. Natural oils are responsible for declining sperm counts Fumento, ’96 (Michael, was the 1994 Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and has been a fellow with Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and Consumer Alert in Washington, D.C., “OUR STOLEN FUTURE? NOT EVEN MISPLACED,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 21, pp. LN, bgm) Tolman says that if human sperm counts were declining, the most likely culprits would be plant oils, especially from soybeans and cotton seed oil. Crude cotton seed oil was accidentally found to completely prevent fertilization in a Chinese village in the 1950s. Numerous studies have shown that soybeans contain significant levels of two estrogen-like chemicals, including one that acts as birth control in Australia’s sheep. Soybeans are a relatively new addition to the human diet, practically unknown before the turn of the century. Today it’s our most ubiquitous oil and an average person consumes an estimated 65 pounds per year. Endocrine disruptors are not linked to low sperm counts Safe, ’04 (Stephen, Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology at Texas A&M University, director of the Center for Environmental and Rural Health, USA, “Environment & Health: Myths & Realities”, June, Pg 43-44, International Policy Press http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/Env&Health_ch_2.pdf) The hypothesis that environmental endocrine disruptors may contribute to diseases of the male reproductive tract has prompted considerable research on this area, with a particular emphasis on changes that have occurred over time. There are no apparent global changes in sperm counts and fertility, rates of hypospadias and cryptorchidism, and birth sex ratios. Testicular cancer is increasing in most countries, but it is not correlated with other indicators of male reproductive capacity. Moreover, testicular cancer is increasing while DDE and other POPs are decreasing, suggesting that exposure to these compounds is not linked to testicular cancer. For many of these responses, there are large differences in incidence rates between and within various countries, and possible etiologic factors that can account for these differences are unknown. Persistent organic pollutants that bioaccumulate are not highly variable within most countries/regions and therefore cannot be responsible for the observed demographic-dependent differences in incidence rates. Research designed to study the reason for regionspecific differences in diseases/problems in the male reproductive tract will require new hypotheses and paradigms that include genetic susceptibility, diet, lifestyle factors, and other environmental exposures (including chemical contaminants). ---No Impact to Endocrine Disruption --- The only scientific publication in support of their theory was withdrawn under suspicion of fraud.Heartlander 1998 Endocrine Disruption Theory Takes Serious Hit, January 1st, http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/1998/01/01/endocrine-disruption-theory-takes-serious-hit In 1997, endocrine disruptors joined radon, Alar, dioxin, asbestos in schools, and electromagnetic fields in the rogues’ gallery of environmental hoaxes. In a letter published in the July 25 issue of Science, John A. McLachlan of the Tulane-Xavier Center for Environmental Research at Tulane University took the wind out of sails he himself had hoisted a year earlier with the publication of a study concluding that many pesticides and other chemicals were far more toxic in combination than they are individually. McLachlan’s findings seemed to confirm the scientifically controversial but widely publicized views found in Theo Colburn’s book, Our Stolen Future. There, Colburn had argued--more anecdotally than scientifically--that combinations, or synergies, of synthetic chemicals were wreaking havoc on human hormonal processes. Publication by Science of the Tulane study received worldwide press attention and prompted Congress to include estrogen research requirements in the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Food Safety Protection Act passed in 1996. EPA Administrator Carol Browner was effusive in her praise of the Tulane study, telling the Washington Post that, “The new study is the strongest evidence to date that combinations of estrogenic chemicals may be potent enough to significantly increase the risk of breast cancer, birth defects, and other major health concerns.” Browner promised to change EPA research priorities accordingly. Yet, while the praise was pouring in and the research dollars pouring out, trouble was brewing. Teams of researchers at four other major laboratories reported they were unable to duplicate the Tulane results. Worse still, the Tulane researchers themselves couldn’t reproduce their findings. Faced with an increasingly embarrassing situation, the humbled Tulane researchers quietly withdrew their study, explaining in the letter to Science that, “Whatever merit this publication contained, and despite the enthusiasm it generated, it is clear that any conclusions drawn from the paper must be suspended until such time, if ever, as the data can be substantiated.” The Tulane paper’s withdrawal should have been accorded by the media the same sensational treatment that its original publication a year earlier received. But, as the intrepid Diane Katz of the Detroit News has meticulously documented, those reporters so eager to hype the original scare chose, with few exceptions, to look the other way when it was revealed that the apocalypse had been canceled. A2: OzoneNo impact to loss of ozone layer Lieberman 2007 Ben Lieberman is a senior policy analyst for energy and environment at the Heritage Foundation, Washington Times, 9-19-2007 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/ozone-the-hole-truth/ Environmentalists have made many apocalyptic predictions over the last several decades. Virtually none has come to pass. Yet each time, the greens and their political allies proclaim victory, arguing their preventive prescriptions averted disaster. Such is the case with the 1987 Montreal Protocol On Substances That Deplete The Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol). The lurid predictions of ozone depletion-induced skin cancer epidemics, ecosystem destruction and others haven't come true, for which Montreal Protocol proponents congratulate themselves. But in retrospect, the evidence shows ozone depletion was an exaggerated threat in the first place. As the treaty parties return to Montreal for their 20th anniversary meeting it should be cause for reflection, not celebration, especially for those who hope to repeat this "success story" in the context of global warming. The treaty came about over legitimate but overstated concerns that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, a then-widely used class of refrigerants) and other compounds were rising to the stratosphere and destroying ozone molecules. These molecules, collectively known as the ozone layer, shield the Earth from excessive ultraviolet-B radiation (UVB) from the sun. The Montreal Protocol's provisions were tightened in 1990 and again in 1992, culminating with a CFC ban in most developed nations by 1996. So what do we know now? As far as ozone depletion is concerned, the thinning of the ozone layer that occurred throughout the 1980s apparently stopped in the early 1990s, too soon to credit the Montreal Protocol. A 1998 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report said: "Since 1991, the linear [downward] trend observed during the 1980s has not continued, but rather total column ozone has been almost constant." However, the same report noted that the stratospheric concentrations of the offending compounds were still increasing through 1998. This lends credence to the skeptical view, widely derided at the time of the Montreal Protocol, that natural variations better explain the fluctuations in the global ozone layer. More importantly, the feared increase in ground level UVB radiation has also failed to materialize. Keep in mind that ozone depletion, in and of itself, doesn't really harm human health or the environment. It was the concern that an eroded ozone layer will allow more of the sun's damaging UVB rays to reach the Earth that led to the Montreal Protocol. But WMO concedes no statistically significant long-term trends have been detected, noting earlier this year that "outside the polar regions, ozone depletion has been relatively small, hence, in many places, increases in UV due to this depletion are difficult to separate from the increases caused by other factors, such as changes in cloud and aerosol." In short, the impact of ozone depletion on UVB over populated regions is so small it's hard to detect. Needless to say, if UVB hasn't gone up, then the fears of increased UVB-induced harm are unfounded. Indeed, the much-hyped acceleration in skin cancer rates hasn't been documented. U.S. National Cancer Institute statistics show malignant melanoma incidence and mortality, which had been undergoing a long-term increase that predates ozone depletion, has actually been leveling off during the putative ozone crisis. Further, no ecosystem or species was ever shown to be seriously harmed by ozone depletion. This is true even in Antarctica, where the largest seasonal ozone losses, the so-called Antarctic ozone hole, occur annually. Also forgotten is a long list of truly ridiculous claims, such as the one from Al Gore's 1992 book "Earth in the Balance" that, thanks to the Antarctic ozone hole, "hunters now report finding blind rabbits; fisherman catch blind salmon." No ozone depletion – flawed studies Singer 10 (S. Fred, Ph.D., president science and environment policy projects, November 30, http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/article/28896/The_OzoneCFC_Debacle_Hasty_Action_Shaky_Science.html) The question of global ozone depletion has been bedeviled by doubts about the quality of the data. Readings from Dobson ground observatories can be contaminated by long-term trends in SO2 pollution of the lower atmosphere. DeMuer and DeBacker have demonstrated that the Dobson ozone meter can misinterpret the downward trend of SO2 pollution, giving rise to a "fictitious" ozone trend (19). (Their finding was confirmed by a task group, chaired by Robert T. Watson, in a Joint Workshop of the IPCC and the International Ozone Assessment Panel in May 1993). Another, quite separate problem is produced by the extreme noisiness of the ozone record. To establish the existence of a small, long-term trend it is necessary to eliminate the large natural variations, especially also those correlated with the 11-yr sunspot cycle. This is an impossible task given the shortness of the record and the virtual absence of data on long-term variations of the solar far-UV radiation that produces ozone in the upper atmosphere. The analysis fails a simple test: The "trend" is found to depend strongly on the choice of time interval (20). An additional problem in identifying a man-made trend arises from long-term trends in sunspot number, and therefore long-term ozone trends of natural origin (21). Thus, the issue of whether the global ozone layer shows a steadily depleting trend is still controversial. Satellite data on global ozone content are not subject to interference from low-altitude pollution, but long-term calibration drift presents a problem; the TOMS data from satellites appear to have a calibration drift due to nonlinearities in the photomultiplier (22). In any case, the shortness of the record, 1979 to present, makes the solar-cycle correction problematic (23). Ozone depletion is rapidly undone, caused by nature, and harmless Davis 0 (Robert E., PhD, December 1, http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/article/9587/Ozone_hole_Much_ado_about_nada.html) Then, the World Meteorological Organization, which measures ozone depletion slightly differently, spun its own ozone yarn, declaring that the end of September’s depletion was the worst on record. But once again, as is unfortunately common with most environmental news, this is much ado about nada. First, the size, shape, and amount of ozone depletion are significantly affected by the weather. The Antarctic stratosphere was cold this past winter (global warming?), which resulted in more depletion than normal. That minor factoid was buried in the last paragraph of CNN’s coverage of this nonstory. As NOAA’s Hoffman explained, “year-to-year fluctuations in the geographical size of the ozone hole and the timing of the ozone production are believed to be related to meteorological factors such as temperature and winds, rather than further increases in ozone-destroying chemicals in the atmosphere.” Second, if these levels of ultraviolet radiation seen in Punta Arenas were truly harmful, most of the world’s population would be in grave danger. Most of us, on a regular basis, are exposed to solar radiation far more intense than that seen in southern Chile. An index of global ultraviolet light levels, assuming cloud-free and unpolluted skies, was constructed for October 11, the same day as the 175 Dobson Units reading in Punta Arenas. The UV index there of around 9 is much lower than UV levels across more than half of the planet. Most places receive more intense solar rays than Punta Arenas does. Third, the expanded ozone hole is short-lived. By November, as Antarctica warms, the vortex of winds that effectively isolate Antarctica from the rest of the planet weakens, and high ozone levels over the rest of the hemisphere quickly fill the so-called hole. That process only serves to highlight the climatological uniqueness of the situation over Antarctica. Ozone thinning isn’t caused by humans Environment & Climate 99 (News Staff, March 1, http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/article/13345/Media_Ignores_the_Hole_Ozone_Story.html) Not all climate scientists accept the argument that human emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for a thinning of the Earth's ozone layer. But the skeptics’ views are consistently ignored by a news media that apparently does. In an article titled "Gaping Hole in Ozone Reporting," writers for the Free Market Project note that "the networks for years have engaged in one-sided reporting on global warming, ignoring those climate scientists who point out, for instance, that most of the Earth’s warming over the past hundred years occurred prior to the 1940s, while most greenhouse gas emissions have occurred since the 1940s." The article appeared in the October issue of MediaNomics, a monthly newsletter of the Media Research Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The publication highlights reports by NBC and CBS, on September 10 and October 6, respectively, in which "neither (reporter) bothered to interview a climate scientist skeptical of such ozone theories.” "Every year at about the same time, there is a predictable press release issued by the World Meteorological Organization quoting its ozone scientist, Rumen Bojkov, with some alarmist pronouncement," climate scientist S. Fred Singer told the Media Research Center. "The truth of the matter is that the hole, a temporary thinning of the layer, has pretty well stabilized within the last decade, and now fluctuates according to the climate, from day-to-day and from year-to-year," Singer said. "There has been no report published showing an increasing trend in solar ultraviolet radiation on the ground. And that’s the only thing that counts if we’re talking about the effects of ozone changes." Ozone depletion isn’t caused by humans Maduro 2 (Rogielo, Co-author, The Holes in the Ozone Scare, January, http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/Crista.html) They discovered that changes in the ozone layer were directly caused by the horizontal and vertical movement of air masses (that is, wind dynamics). A close analysis of the data also demonstrated that chemistry played no role in the thickness of the ozone layer over these stations. The authors discuss the implications of their work in detail: Intensive investigations on irregular variations of the total ozone during the last years point out many phenomena as possible sources. Influences related to homogeneous and heterogeneous chemistry, volcanic activity, solar proton events, and other forms of solar activity are documented ... The main cause, however, may be influences from meteorological conditions, and these relations have got much less attention. The role of horizontal advection and vertical motion as a significant source for ozone column variations has been studied more than 40 years ... Recently Rabbe and Larsen (3) have indicated dynamic processes in the atmosphere as a main reason of ozone variations and ozone "miniholes." They show that ascending motion of the air is accompanied by dilution of the ozone layer, and vice versa, descending motion of the air causes enhanced density of the ozone layer. The causes of ascending and descending motions are often winds blowing across mountain ranges. Such vertical air movements will cause adiabatic expansion and compression with cooling and warming in time scales down to a few hours. Chemical processes can also contribute to ozone variations, but here the time scales are days. On the other hand, ozone variations with periods in the order of 10 days, and seasonal variations as well can also be explained by dynamic meteorological reasoning. After a detailed analysis of the Russian data, Henriksen and Roldugin conclude with a sharp reminder to the promoters of the ozone depletion fraud that they cannot arbitrarily exclude factors other than chemistry from their models: The question of so-called "ozone depletion" has to be investigated from the point of view of long-term variation of general circulation in the atmosphere. Models of "the depletion," as summarized in [the World Meteorological Organization's] WMO Report, must realize that the meteorological conditions have significant effects on the ozone layer, being the main cause of seasonal as well as most of the shorter and apparently arbitrary density and thermal variations. The ozone hole is caused primarily by nature Singer 10 (S. Fred, Ph.D., president science and environment policy projects, November 30, http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/article/28896/The_OzoneCFC_Debacle_Hasty_Action_Shaky_Science.html) It is generally agreed that natural sources of tropospheric chlorine (volcanoes, ocean spray, etc.) are four to five orders of magnitude larger than man-made sources (9). But it is what gets into the stratosphere that counts. The debate has degenerated into arguing about how much chlorine is rained out in the lower atmosphere (10) rather than measuring whether stratospheric chlorine is actually increasing. Contrary to the claims of some skeptics, CFCs do indeed reach the stratosphere; the secular increase of fluorine, in the form of HF, as reported by Belgian researcher R. Zander, may be sufficient proof (11,12). But as late as 1987, Zander found no long-term increase in HCl, suggesting that stratospheric chlorine comes mostly from natural sources, which are not expected to increase over time. The situation changed in 1991, however, when NASA scientist C. Rinsland published data showing HCl increasing at about half the rate of HF, suggesting both natural and man-made sources (13). Yet the Montreal Protocol to freeze CFC production and roll it back to lower levels was signed in 1987, at a time when published work still indicated little, if any, contribution from CFCs. A2: Water Wars / ScarcityTechnology solves water shortages BBC News ‘4 October 19, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3747724.stm New technology can help, however, especially by cleaning up pollution and so making more water useable, and in agriculture, where water use can be made far more efficient. Drought-resistant plants can also help. Drip irrigation drastically cuts the amount of water needed, low-pressure sprinklers are an improvement, and even building simple earth walls to trap rainfall is helpful. Some countries are now treating waste water so that it can be used - and drunk - several times over. Desalinisation makes sea water available , but takes huge quantities of energy and leaves vast amounts of brine. The optimists say "virtual water" may save the day - the water contained in crops which can be exported from water-rich countries to arid ones. ( ) No shortage of water Radford 8 (Benjamin, Writer for Skeptical Inquirer, “The Water Shortage Myth”, 6-23, http://www.livescience.com/environment/080623-bad-water-shortage.html) Our planet is not running out of water, nor is it losing water. There's about 360 quintillion gallons of water on the planet, and it's not going anywhere except in a circle. Earth's hydrologic cycle is a closed system, and the process is as old as time: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, and so on. In fact, there is probably more liquid water on Earth than there was just a few decades ago, due in part to global warming and melting polar ice caps. The problems No, there is plenty of water. The problem is that the vast majority of Earth's water is contained in the oceans as saltwater, and must be desalinated before it can be used for drinking or farming. Large-scale desalination can be done, but it is expensive. But nor is the world running out of freshwater, either. There's plenty of freshwater on our blue globe; it is not raining any less these days than it did millennia ago. As with any other resource, there are of course regional shortages, and they are getting worse. But the real problems are availability and transport; moving the freshwater from where it is plentiful (such as Canada, South America, and Russia) to where it is scarce (such as the Middle East, India, and Africa). Water is heavy and costly to transport, and those who can afford it will always have water. Water, not global warming, is likely to be the greatest environmental challenge facing the world in the coming decades and centuries. To find solutions, it's important to understand the problem. Water is never really "wasted." It simply moves from one place to another. If you let your faucet drip all day, that's clean water going back into the system, the water isn't "lost." What is lost is usefulness, money, and energy, because it takes energy to purify and distribute the water. No water shortage --- most recent report is on our side Yeo, 4/27/2012 (Daniel, Landmark report tackles myths and fears about water scarcity in Africa, Trust, p. http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/africa-views/landmark-report-tackles-myths-and-fears-about-water-scarcity-in-africa/) DFID-funded work by the British Geological Society has revealed that there are huge amounts of groundwater available in Africa – 100 times the amount found on the surface. This is being widely reported as a landmark study – “we’ve finally found water in Africa!”. And it is a landmark study – not because we now know that there’s enough water in Africa (we’ve always known this...), but because it tackles the public story on water. The “world’s water crisis” is often told as a story of scarcity and running out of water – this is not the truth and this report takes on the myths and helps take the scare out of scarcity. Groundwater: hidden and misunderstood... The vast majority of the world’s water is groundwater – around 30% of the world’s freshwater is in the ground, compared to less than 0.5% on the surface (the rest is locked up in glaciers and snow). Yet we tend to ignore it because it is not visible. People are aware of the concept of ‘the water table’, which evokes an image of a nice, level pool of water hiding just beneath the surface. Groundwater is much more complex – water is stored in a variety of underground pockets. Some big, some small, some like a sponge, some like a cracked pavement. Some are easy to get water out of, some less so. This report is the first time that this complex mess has been quantified in this detail. New distribution systems and water importation prevent the impacts Lonergan ‘3 Steve, Director of the Division of Early Warning and Assessment at UNEP,; http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/154/lonergan.html The greatest improvements can be made in agriculture, since irrigation here accounts for almost 70 per cent of water use worldwide. As the price of water increases, different distribution systems are coming into operation: water moved by tanker, by long-distance pipeline and even by plastic bags. There may also be greater use of desalination technology, although to date it has been prohibitively expensive and operations are confined primarily to countries with surplus energy supplies. Importing water – as in Singapore – may become more normal. A2: EthicsJudging the morality of economic systems is impossible – yet, capitalism is still mos ethical Crouch, 12 [Sustainability, Neoliberalism, and the Moral Quality of Capitalism Colin Crouch Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick, UK, Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 31:2, 2012 pp. 363–374 DOI: 10.5840/bpej201231218] To ask such a question as whether capitalism might have become ‘evil’ implies that capitalism might also be moral, and that takes us to the heart of a deep, long-running debate. For orthodox economic theory, a firm has neither the duty nor the right to decide what is moral behaviour (Jensen 2001; Sternberg 2000). Its task is to maximize profits. If it tries to do this in ways that morally offends customers, it will lose business and therefore have to change its behaviour if it wants to achieve its goal. In this way, morality would be imposed in the market on firms, not hierarchically by them. If not many customers are interested in morality, then so be it. Capitalism by itself is not capable of being either moral or evil. It responds to the society around it, and cannot display a higher morality than that society. Furthermore, it is not democratic if an economic system imposes certain moral values on people, as state socialism used to do. It is better, it can be argued, if the economy enables us to express our own moral preferences—or not, if we have none—and the capitalist market does this better than any other system. An amoral but open, liberal capitalism is thus seen as the best vehicle for morality in complex, multi-cultural, secularized societies in which many people would like to act in an ethical way, many do not care, and where there is in any case diversity and disagreement over how ethical behaviour is to be defined. The alternative is evil – capitalism is the most moral. Edward Romar, Lecturer in Management – U. Mass. Boston College of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, “Noble Markets: The Noble/Slave Ethic in Hayek’s Free Market Capitalism”, 85:57-66, 2009, Springer The question, then, is what principles underlie the free market and other social systems? Hayek in many ways is a supporter and heir to the liberal traditions of Adam Smith, David Hume, J.S. Mill and others. In this respect, there appears to be a strong utilitarian aspect to his views of freedom and markets. Allowing markets to develop spontaneously and with very limited restrictions enables progress to take place and civilization to advance. For Hayek these are synonymous. ‘‘In one sense, civilization is progress and progress is civilization…Progress is movement for movement’s sake, for it is in the process of learning, and in the effects of having learned something new, that man enjoys the gifts of his intelligence’’ (Hayek, 1960, pp. 39, 41). Therefore, humanity can only benefit from the spontaneous development created by markets and the freedom they require to operate effectively. This beneficial spontaneous development is founded upon ‘‘rules of human conduct that gradually evolved (especially those dealing with several property, honest contract, exchange, trade, competition, gain, and privacy)’’ (Hayek, 1988, p. 12). One might see in this a utilitarian approach. In one sense this is true, but it may be characterized better as a ‘‘general consequentialism.’’ Hayek is convinced humanity is far better off in a world where spontaneity is welcome and only basic rules accepted. This allows for freedom, which is unquestioningly good, change and movement for change and movement sake, and the advancement of civilization. Hayek rejects utilitarianism except in what he calls a wide sense and general sense.7 Freedom, as the basic foundation of the just and moral society ‘‘will prevail only if it is accepted as a general principle whose application to particular instances requires no justification’’ (Hayek, 1973, p. 61). Therefore, the general rules regulating markets have utility because they can be defended on historical grounds through their contribution to change and progress and not on the basis of any specific outcome or future benefit. Hayek uses the term utilitarianism in what he calls the narrow sense. Originally, the term simply meant useful. Since Bentham, it has come to mean something more specific. Now utilitarian means that something can contribute to a particular outcome and be associated with particular acts. Thus utility is no longer a general quality but something quite specific to a desirable outcome. ‘‘Bentham’s conception of a calculus of pleasure and pain by which the greatest happiness of the greatest number is to be determined presupposes that all the particular individual effects of any one action can be known by the acting person’’ (Hayek, 1976, p. 19). Furthermore, rule utilitarianism cannot be the foundation for society’s rules because ‘‘no system of generic or rule utilitarianism could treat all rules as fully determined by utilities known to the acting person …’’ (Hayek, 1976, p. 20). Utilitarianism of whatever flavor is a false foundation for moral rules because it requires omniscience when in fact ignorance makes the rules necessary. ‘‘Man developed rules of conduct not because he knows but because he doesn’t know what all the consequences of a particular action will be’’ (Hayek, 1976, p. 20). In the moral and just society the foundation for human interaction is the limited number of abstract rules supporting freedom, private property and so forth. Since this situation provides for the maximum human freedom and responsibility, the issue of what regulates human behavior becomes critical. Just as human institutions and society have evolved, so has humanity. Social customs and morality have evolved from a small group focus, where individual success depended upon group survival, to one where the individual is more independent because of a wider and more complex set of relationships, what Hayek calls the extended order that goes far beyond the small band and group. Morality has evolved from an altruism, where the individual must subordinate individuality to group success, to one based upon the individual alone. As humanity develops, ethics become individual and the individual must become more responsible for her behavior. However, though she may be responsible, her responsibility can only be limited because individual knowledge is incomplete and no individual can understand the full consequences of her actions.8 A2: VtLCapitalism best ensures value to life – don’t endorse sexist language Tracinski, ’08 (Robert, editor of the Intellectual Activist, The Moral and the Practical, http://www.moraldefense.com/Philosophy/Essays/The_Moral_and_the_Practical.htm) Stated in more fundamental terms, capitalism is practical because it relies on the inexhaustible motive-power of self-interest. Under capitalism, people are driven by loyalty to their own goals and by the ambition to improve their lives. They are driven by the idea that one's own life is an irreplaceable value not to be sacrificed or wasted. But this is also a crucial moral principle: the principle that each man is an end in himself, not a mere cog in the collective machine to be exploited for the ends of others. Most of today's intellectuals reflexively condemn self-interest; yet this is the same quality enshrined by our nation's founders when they proclaimed the individual's right to "the pursuit of happiness." It is only capitalism that recognizes this right. The fundamental characteristics that make capitalism practical—its respect for the freedom of the mind and for the sanctity of the individual—are also profound moral ideals. This is the answer to the dilemma of the moral vs. the practical. The answer is that capitalism is a system of virtue—the virtues of rational thought, productive work, and pride in the value of one's own person. The reward for these virtues—and for the political system that protects and encourages them—is an ever-increasing wealth and prosperity. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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