The Don Mathews’ article is on a website run by The Mises Institute. Their site reads: “Founded in 1982, [the institute] is the world’s leading provider of scholarly support services for the Austrian School of economics, free-market theory, and libertarian political philosophy.”

They worship at the altar of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian. Come to think of it, didn’t Adolph Hitler come from Austria too? Comparing someone to Hitler is an easy way to demonize, but in this case it’s not a stretch.

Mathews’ article didn’t even bring up issues such as ethnic cleansing. It fails to mention that people have been killed and entire villages forced to flee because somebody wanted to put shrimp farms on their land. This isn’t a one-time occurrence. This is a pattern. It may not be millions like in the Holocaust, but it’s still ethnic cleansing (which includes both genocide and forced assimilation).

This erasure of entire communities is ignored because the profits benefit their nation’s government and our own country’s corporations and consumers. I don’t agree with the cost/benefit analysis. Oppression and death for the implementation of “free” trade? Not a good trade-off.

Laura von Harten

Laura,

There’s some sort of law that says that when a comparison to Hitler or the Nazi’s crops up in an online thread, the discussion will inevitably spiral downwards into meaningless rants from there…

That said, the comparison of Mises to Hitler is absurd. You are committing fallicious reasoning here. Firstly, Mises was a Jew who fled Austria because of the Nazi’s, so your entire non-sense is null and void from the start. Secondly, no-one here “worships” Mises. Mises is criticized even on Mises.org, as you’d know if you looked at some of the articles (see articles on consumer-sovereignty, monopoly, and utilitarianism vs. natural rights).

Regarding your claim of ethnic cleansing to set up shrimp farms: (1) Do you have any references on that; (2) Are you honestly claiming that every, or even most, of the more efficient foreign shrimp farms only exist because emminent domain (and ethnic cleansing) was used? If most of them don’t exist because of that, your point is largely null and void, relating to this discussion (although, of course, such is morally wrong).

Erich,

Your quote only shows more State-intervention (the banning of various shrimp). The free market should be allowed to decide what farming practices are and are not acceptable. However, thanks for the link.

David is right. Any comparison between Mises and Hitler is absurd. Mises was certainly not a fan of the Holocaust (as David points out, he was a near victim of it), nor would he have supported any ethnic cleansing whatsoever.

As far as the Misesian cult… Mises’s writing are far from holy writ to Austrian economists. The more prominent Austrian Economists of our day (Rothbard, Hoppe, and Hulsmann) all have disagreements with Mises on at least one point. Hulsmann, specifically, provides multiple critiques of some of Mises’s most important contributions (Interest Theory and Business Cycle Theory). We may see Mises as an important economist and thinker, but he is far from infallible.

Unlike David, though, I’m not going to require sources for your assertion of ethnic cleansing. As someone that is more interested in theory, I’m content to act as if your assertion is true, and work from there. (Quibbling over empirical questions is often unnecessary.)

The real question, though, is: if ethnic cleansing is the reason for the increased shrimp production, so what? Don’t get me wrong. The people that perpetrated this terrible crime against humanity are criminals of the utmost degree. But, why does this mean that American consumers need to pay the price for someone else’s crime? Justice demands that criminals pay for their actions themselves. Voluntary mercy on the part of the victims, or charity by someone else offering themselves as payment (accepted by the victims, of course) are viable alternatives to justice being paid in its standard fashion. However, forcing someone else to pay for it just piles injustice on injustice. If American consumers decide that they will only eat American shrimp because of these practices, more power to them. However, this does not imply that government has the right to force this decision on consumers. That’s not mercy or charity. That’s being the victim of a crime.

It is a sick sense of justice that says that ethnic cleansing abroad justifies increasing theft at home.

PS Dave, Forrest Gump was a shrimp trawler, not a shrimp farmer, if I recall correctly.

Gresham’s law is stated for currency, not for consumer-products or food. If he thought it applied to food, he would have stated it in a more generalized fashion. It is because of consumer-choices that certain qualities are available at certain prices. If consumers deem that extra quality is not worth the extra price to them, then there will not be products with the extra quality. If they decide that cheaper products do not justify the drop in quality, then there will not be cheaper products at lower qualities. And, of course, it is possible to produce superior products at superior prices. Such is the long-term result of free-market competition.

That Hilter comment is so absurb it’s irrational and almost silly.
As for the dumping laws, I’ve no trust in big government regulations at all. I’m sure anti-dumping laws are put in place for two (or are they the same) purposes: protectionism and lobbying. Both are at the heart of the current era of governmental failures.

In response to the high production costs associated with harvesting wild plant and animal stocks, man developed plant cultivation and animal husbandry. These techniques have become extremely refined over many centuries, with fish farms, domestic buffalo herds, and other creative, sophisticated means of food production resulting in increased supply of ever-cheaper, delicious, nutritious, and exotic foods.

Having been thwarted in their initial efforts to create more undernourished people, the eco-freaks now roll out the junk science, declaring that we are being poisoned, poisoned, by agribusiness. Meanwhile, people enjoy fresh vegetables and meats which were prohibitively expensive to past generations and live longer, healthier lives than ever before.

I can remember when filet mignon was so expensive in real dollars, only the very finest restaurants offered it. I can remember when Romaine lettuce was considered exotic and prohibitively expensive. No middle class household could ever purchase salmon on a weekly basis, or portabello mushrooms and fresh asparagus for that matter.

The environmentalist agenda is not pro-environment, it is anti-human.

Chelsy,

Short term and long term consequences always have to be weighed. Just because one person tends to look more at the short term does not mean that it is right for other people to stomp all over their property rights. Externalities are one thing. If these shrimp farms are doing actual physical damage to other people’s property, they should have to pay for it. And, in fact, the property owners whose property is harmed should be able to force them to stop any activities that cause damage to their property.

But much of your argument is pure drivel, and, frankly, don’t make sense. “All economies on the planet aren’t on equal ground…” Now, usually this kind of statement implies we should feel bad for 3rd world nations and help them out. If that’s what you mean, then how is boycotting their products, as you advocate, helping them? Aren’t you, in fact, further impoverishing them by refusing to engage in mutually beneficial exchanges with them? Or perhaps you meant that the US is the victim here, and is just forced to accept all this low-priced shrimp. That would at least logically fit with your conclusion. But, it’s obviously pretty implausible. Frankly, I don’t know that anyone can force the US to do anything (except maybe the WTO).

All that is necessary for free trade to “work” (that is, to be mutually beneficial) is for force and fraud to stay out of the picture. As long as those aren’t involved, in other words, as long as trade is actually free, it benefits both parties. It’s senseless to say otherwise. After all, would you engage in a trade that, by your evaluation, made you worse off on the whole?