Writes Robert Higgs:
December 7. When I was growing up, everybody called it Pearl Harbor Day. I have not heard anyone use that term for a long time, but a Web search shows me that some people still do, at least in that quintessential Navy town, San Diego. The ranks of the World War II veterans are dwindling quickly, but as long as some of them survive, commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor will probably continue to be an annual event.
The men of my father’s generation made up the great bulk of the sixteen million Americans who served in the armed forces at some time during the Big One. Although my father, who had been in the Army in the late 1920s, did not serve during the war because the authorities considered his efforts more valuable in the Oklahoma oil fields and later in an Oregon shipyard, many of his friends did serve, and I remember listening in as a wide-eyed little boy on their conversations about the war in the late 1940s. For most of them, it was the defining event of a lifetime, overshadowing even the Great Depression.
As I grew up, it never occurred to me that the “infamy” to which President Roosevelt referred in his famous speech of December 8, 1941, pertained to anybody but the Japanese. After all, as the president said when he asked Congress for a declaration of war, the United States had suffered an “unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan,” so the responsibility for starting the war appeared to belong indisputably to the Japanese – and, of course, it also never occurred to me that I should make any distinction between the Japanese people and the Japanese government in this regard.Just as old dogs can learn new tricks, however, grown men can learn historical facts they were never taught in school, and over the years I have learned a great deal about the wider context and the important antecedents of the December 7 attack. I have even ventured to write a little bit about how U.S. economic warfare provoked the Japanese to take the desperate gamble of launching a war against the United States, Great Britain, and the Dutch government in exile in the East Indies in order to gain access to essential raw materials, especially oil, that the U.S.-British-Dutch embargo was denying them. Their attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet conveniently concentrated at Pearl Harbor was aimed at protecting their left flank as Japanese forces moved to take control of strategic locations across a wide expanse of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.
A short comment is no place to settle the controversies that have raged ever since the attack about what Roosevelt and his chief subordinates knew in advance, but one thing has been known for a long time: however “dastardly” the attack might have been, it was anything but “unprovoked.” Indeed, even admirers and defenders of Roosevelt, such as Robert B. Stinnett and George Victor, have documented provocations aplenty. (See the former’s Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor and the latter’s The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable.) On December 8, the same day that Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan, former president Herbert Hoover wrote a private letter in which he remarked, “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten.”
On the basis of facts accumulated over the past seven decades and available to anyone who cares to examine them, we are justified in saying that Hoover’s characterization of the war’s provocation was entirely accurate – both with regard to the Japanese imperial government as “rattlesnakes” and with regard to the U.S. government’s “putting pins in.” Indeed, we now have a much firmer basis for that characterization than Hoover could have had on December 8, 1941. Countless lies have been told, massive cover-ups have been staged, propaganda has flowed like a river, yet in this one regard, at least, the truth has undeniably been brought out.
Most American historians, of course, no longer bother to deny this truth. They simply take it in stride, presuming that the Japanese attack, by giving Roosevelt the public support he needed to bring the United States into the war against Germany through the “back door,” was a good thing for this country and for the world at large. Indeed, some actually shower the president with approbation for his mendacious maneuvering to wrench the American people away from their unsophisticated devotion to “isolationism.” In no small part, Roosevelt’s unrelenting dishonesty with the American people (Stanford University historian David M. Kennedy tactfully refers to the president’s “frequently cagey misrepresentations”) in 1940 and 1941 – plain enough if one reads nothing more than his pre-Pearl Harbor correspondence with Winston Churchill – is counted among his principal qualifications for “greatness” and for his (to my mind, incomprehensible) status as an American demigod.
I have noticed, however, that in polls of historians or lay persons to determine which presidents were “great,” the dead never have a vote. Lucky for Roosevelt.
{ 39 comments }
Funny…and weird how the world works.
As we were returning from my eleven-year-old daughter’s birthday shopping today (forty-eight hours after the actual day, mind you) I realized it was not only Pearl Harbor day, but that this was the actual day of the week the attack occurred.
I took great pains to explain to her the “backstory” with all the details of the embargo and what-not.
How convenient to find this posted when we got home! I simply directed her to read and now she’s on her peecee Googling the details.
LOL
I don’t see it as “totally unprovked” but the Japanese were clearly expansionist before the embargo. The purpose of the embargo was to punish them for and reign in their ongoing invasion of China.
Remember that this was an embargo of American trade after a treaty had lapsed. Which is more like a booycott than other means the term covers. We didn’t prevent other countries from trading with Japan.
The only reason it was so hurtful to Japan is because Europe had dried up as a source of trade because of her own problems, leaving the US as a major source of the oil being used to run the ongoing and expensive war of rape against the Chinese.
It’s not like the US government cut off trade in violation of a treaty, or to a country that was practicing free trade with others.
Japan was only interested in free trade to the extent it wasn’t powerful enough to take it directly by force.
I think it is abolutely wrong to argue Japans side in this. Their strategy went beyond playing by “the rules” long before we acted.
All you can really say is that certain US individuals were wrongfully interfered with. Individuals who wanted to sell oil to a country that was in the process of commiting a crime.
Are you claiming that individuals in the US have a right to trade with and support criminals in furtherance of their schemes?
In essence what the US was doing was declaring the Japanese government to be outlaws, and until they were reigned in preventing anyone from assisting the criminals.
The “provocation” you speak is the only just manner by which a nation can enforce the international law – that each country has the right of sovereignty. To embargo nations who deprive other countries of this right to sovereignty is less a political statement and more an act of self preservation. The Axis powers clearly acted to invade and deprive the rights of the invaded. In such a climate, America was clearly justified to embargo the Axis to slow their war machines. FDR’s extension of the great depression through government intervention is loathsome, but government actions leading to the second world war were levelheaded and conservative.
–”# Brian Macker
It’s not like the US government cut off trade in violation of a treaty, or to a country that was practicing free trade with others”–
Nevertheless, the embargo, among other provocations, was intentionally designed to entice Japan to fire the first shot, thus allowing for FDR’s desire to enter the war. This only succeeded in expanding a war between China and Japan to the majority of East Asia and the Pacific realm.
–”# Brian Macker
Are you claiming that individuals in the US have a right to trade with and support criminals in furtherance of their schemes?”–
The majority of regimes are criminal, including the United States government. If the US government places and embargo on every regime that acts in accordance with a furtherance of criminal behavior then it would be extremely difficult to practice trade with the majority of the planet.
It is also important to keep in mind the following:
“If goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
—-Frederick Bastiat
“If goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” – FB
“If soldiers have already crossed boarders. Goods won’t” – Brian Macker
I think my quote is more applicable.
“Nevertheless, the embargo, among other provocations, was intentionally designed to entice Japan to fire the first shot, thus allowing for FDR’s desire to enter the war. This only succeeded in expanding a war between China and Japan to the majority of East Asia and the Pacific realm.”
But given Japanese ambitions that was where it was going in the first place. Do you honestly think Japan was just going to stop with China?
“The majority of regimes are criminal, including the United States government.”
Welcome to reality. As are the majority of corporations using this standard.
“If the US government places and embargo on every regime that acts in accordance with a furtherance of criminal behavior then it would be extremely difficult to practice trade with the majority of the planet.”
No kidding. Did it ever occur to you that if you got involved trying to stop every person that acted in the furtherance of criminal behavior that you’d be overwhelmed too? The burden would be even further if you tried not to transact business with them all.
You bring them to justice when the costs of not doing so outweight the costs of doing so.
I wasn’t claiming that the US had to act against Japan. I was just claiming that it had a moral reason to do so.
I am saying that there was a qualitative difference between Japan’s reasons for invasion of China, and the US justification of war with Japan.
According to Mr. Rothbard’s (Wall Street, Banks, & American Foreign Policy, pdf.), the Plutocracy, Blue-Bloods, have dicated our foreign policy, (political/economic), since the inception of this country. The majority of this “Lording”, and maybe most devastating for the Nation came into full effect, once the Central Bank, (circa 1913) was established.
http://mises.org/rothbard/WSBanks.pdfhttp://mises.org/rothbard/WSBanks.pdf
Pg. 22, regarding WWII.
What really blows my mind, is the aftermath of WWII, and all the concessions to Russia, and the affection, that many here in govt. and abroad had for Stalin. I really can’t see WWII as a Victory for Freedom, when so many were allowed to perish in its aftermath. Makes no sense whatsoever. I might not be able to prove it, but somebody had something to gain from the Cold War.
I’m not one to jump at conspiracy, but men have been conspiring against one another since the beginning. I’m not talking about Area 51, UFO’s, etc. blather, just a part of human nature that most aren’t willing to discuss, (Power/Control over others, through manipulation.)
Central Planning/Mercantilism in the 20th Century gave us nothing, but a massive graveyard at the hands of the “State”. Truly Sad!
The “provocation” you speak is the only just manner by which a nation can enforce the international law – that each country has the right of sovereignty. To embargo nations who deprive other countries of this right to sovereignty is less a political statement and more an act of self preservation. The Axis powers clearly acted to invade and deprive the rights of the invaded. In such a climate, America was clearly justified to embargo the Axis to slow their war machines. FDR’s extension of the great depression through government intervention is loathsome, but government actions leading to the second world war were levelheaded and conservative.
FDR was a fascist monster in both his domestic and foreign policies. As Professor Higgs noted, there is a body of literature that documents this assertion, but it is not what is mentioned in our schools or by the mainstream media. The fact that the vast majority of the American populace regards FDR as a great president in the domestic and/or foreign policy arenas is testimony to how low the knowledge and/or morals of the typical American has declined.
The “provocation” you speak is the only just manner by which a nation can enforce the international law – that each country has the right of sovereignty. To embargo nations who deprive other countries of this right to sovereignty is less a political statement and more an act of self preservation. The Axis powers clearly acted to invade and deprive the rights of the invaded. In such a climate, America was clearly justified to embargo the Axis to slow their war machines. FDR’s extension of the great depression through government intervention is loathsome, but government actions leading to the second world war were levelheaded and conservative.
Re: Mechanized
So, you claim that Japan was justified in attacking us when we cut off ‘their’ oil. Would we be justified in attacking Venezuela or Iran if Hugo Chavez or Ahmedinajahd cut off ‘our’ oil?
It is one thing for your country to stop trading with regimes you deem to be criminal. It is another thing entirely to physically block those same regimes from trading with others who might not see things your way.
The former is an act of principle and the latter an act of war.
There is a fundamental principle of ethics and politics that has been overlooked in this thread. That principle is: a nation ought to restrict its military actions to its own defense from attack or invasion. This principle derives from the prior principle of individual rights that government ought to exist only to uphold and defend. Any military action dedicated to non-defensive yet seemingly laudable ends, such as toppling foreign dictators or upholding democracy or fighting for world peace and etc., violates individual rights. Taxation, conscription, and other state depredations violate the rights of those pressed into non-defensive foreign wars. The carnage and destruction of warfare devastate the rights of those unfortunates who live in the war zone targeted by the aggressive “liberator”.
With this principle in mind, it is clear that FDR’s actions in the years and months leading up to Pearl Harbor were wrong in the extreme. Neither Japan nor Germany posed a realistic threat to the United States. Neither country harbored territorial ambitions that threatened the lives and property of Americans.
Yet FDR was determined to drag a reluctant American populace into Europe’s war, by whatever means necessary. Toward this end, he conducted warfare on the Atlantic against Germany, seeking to provoke hostilities; while sending illegal assurances to Churchill and the French that America would enter the war against Germany. Toward Japan, he embarked on an intentional collision course to provoke Japan “to fire the first shot” so that Americans could be dragged into Europe’s war “through the back door”. FDR’s belligerent campaign included the prohibition of trade with Japan by American business people; the seizure of Japanese assets deposited with US banks; maneuvering to persuade the Dutch to further isolate Japan from oil and other trade with the East Indies; and the decision to ignore repeated and frantic 11th hour Japanese diplomatic overtures that included an offer of relinquishing Japan’s conquered territory in China.
In the months before Pearl Harbor, FDR grew restless and disenchanted with his heretofore unsuccessful campaign to provoke hostilities with Japan. During a cabinet meeting, FDR proposed “pop-up cruises”, in which US naval cruisers were ordered to venture into Japanese territorial waters with the aim of drawing fire. Roosevelt was recorded on audio tape stating that he did not want to lose (paraphrasing) “more than one or two American (heavy) cruisers” in any such hostile encounter with the Japanese navy. Cabinet members in attendance later confirmed this conversation.
Here is direct evidence of FDR’s treacherous ambition, wherein he sought to provoke war with Japan for the opportunity to drag Americans to war against Germany. That his pop-up cruise provocation, if successful, would cost hundreds of trusting American sailors their lives did not deter him. Like Churchill and Stalin, FDR viewed the lives of others as means to his ends.
Robert Stinnett proves clearly and compellingly that FDR had abundant advance knowledge of Japan’s “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, where roughly 3,000 Americans were murdered. But gauzy-eyed romantics, steeped in their beloved mythology about America’s “Good War”, have no interest in Stinnett’s evidence. For these people, defending their fuzzy good feelings is far more important than understanding what actually happened.
Very brave of you Lew, a proper analysis of US foreign policy requires that no wars, not even WWII or the Civil War can be held sacred from scrutiny.
Charles Tansill’s book Backdoor to War is the essential reference to US diplomatic policy toward Japan and Germany in the decades prior to WWII. For instance, it may surprise one to learn that the US supported and even subsidized Japanese colonialism in Manchuria when the Japanese were opposing Tsarist Russia’s colonial activities there. The policy changed only after the Bolshevik’s came to power.
People may be interested in this take on the matter, that Jerry Pournelle mentions.
I agree with Chris G in and also wonder what is the fascination with Libertarians and their hatred of the U.S.A. and the West? The U.S. should have helped fund Japanese Imperialism by selling them the oil they needed? Or a gun shop owner is perfectly free to sell a guns & ammo to someone he knows is pro-active serial killer arguing he is doing a free market transaction and what the customer does in his spare time is his own business? Or, if the gun owner refuses, he is infringing on the serial killer’s right to a free market transaction because the serial killer does in his spare time is his own business and the gun shop owner deserves a punch in the nose?
P.S. Many here may like to read of failed mission of noble patriots who tried to assassinate F.D.R. but were foiled by the traitorous Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=883#more-883
“The U.S. should have helped fund Japanese Imperialism by selling them the oil they needed?”
Actually, it was more than that. The USA prevented Japan from getting oil from any sources (by pressuring Britain and Holland, and stopping shipping from Latin America as well as its own supplies), in circumstances that would have led to a mega-Stalingrad for Japanese forces in China without leaving them any means to extricate themselves from that, let alone a face saving one. That is, US measures did not allow Japan any way to avoid military disaster, save the long shot it took (which gained it oil from the East Indies). There would have been no problem if the USA had only cut off its own oil – Japan could have bought it from the East Indies, Burma, Venezuela and possibly the Persian Gulf once that stopped being a war zone, as it did in late 1941.
The thought occurs to me: suppose Japan and the USSR could have made a deal to get central Asian oil over the Trans-Siberian Railway in return for material assistance? They cut enough of a deal that Far Eastern troops were released for the relief of Moscow.
I agree with Chris G in and also wonder what is the fascination with Libertarians and their hatred of the U.S.A. and the West?
Perhaps I am mistaken, in which case I urge you to correct me, but I’ve gone over this page several times and I’ve yet to see anyone either A) claim to be libertarian, or B) claim to hate either the West or the USA.
The U.S. should have helped fund Japanese Imperialism by selling them the oil they needed?
Don’t see anyone claiming that either – Are we reading the same page? Does your browser render something I can’t see?
Or a gun shop owner is perfectly free to sell a guns & ammo to someone he knows is pro-active serial killer arguing he is doing a free market transaction and what the customer does in his spare time is his own business? Or, if the gun owner refuses, he is infringing on the serial killer’s right to a free market transaction because the serial killer does in his spare time is his own business and the gun shop owner deserves a punch in the nose?
So many straw men, so little time…
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -C.S. Lewis
So many wars were fought for the wrong reason, but WW2 was the least so, even if you are right. Plus, we can never be certain that Japan wouldn’t have territorial ambition beyond Asia. Just look at the expansion of U.S. military power around the globe, unthinkable 60 years ago. It’s not inconceivable that in order to compete with German dominated Europe and Japan dominated Asia, the U.S. would have been forced to lash Latin America to itself, just to maintain the military required to deter the other super powers.
Isn’t it likely FDR was afraid of the future? It seems he felt a future war with an even more powerful Axis was a bad bet. Is there any good evidence that the Axis powers would not have grown powerful enough to invade or strike the US?
Based on the history of events, it seems possible the Nazis would have had a nuke first, and that would have been the end (understanding FDR did know nukes were coming, but rather knew of general technological advancement in war). I’d guess FDR felt he did what he had to do.
(I haven’t read much on this, but vaguely remember some documentary mentioning how he was supportive of Europe allies against isolationist pressure at home; also recall some mention of economic reasons for Pearl Harbor.)
Funny, no one is talking about the duty to China that the U.S. had. It was at minimum a duty to abstain from helping their invaders.
Where is all the moral indignation in that respect?
We didnt blockade anyone. To equate a blockade from abstaining from assisting in imperialist violence is laughable.
Redshirt, anyone that has read anything of substance on Hitler knows that his ultimate ambition was a fight between the United States and Germany. He was obsessed with epic and historic battles, and saw the United States as the ultimate battle to prove Germany’s superiority.
Hitler would have attacked the United States. The Axis would have an unimpeded threat against the mainland. The US would have been literally defending the homeland from East and West, Pacific and Atlantic if it would have waited.
The “moral” and “peaceful” thing to do was to help arm the Japanese with the resources they needed to murder and colonize?
Gee, I am continually suprised to how far you can twist logic to fit an anti-American point of view.
What “empires” throughout history have ever lasted? Answer. None. There exists no power on earth that enables one group to enslave another for eternity. The United States would do well to heed the advice of the Founders, and begin to “detangle” herself from globalism. To end its’ part in the United Nations, the WTO, NAFTA, et al. And return to the original intent of free trade and goodwill to all. And to reserve the right to deny trade or relations with any nation that it feels necessary when in disagreement with ambition or policy.
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which have to us none, or very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collusions of her friendships or enmities. “Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?” (George Washington’s Farewell Address)
“I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one] which ought to shape its administration,…peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Thomas Jefferson-First Inaugural Address. Bergh 3:321. (1801.)
“America has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings….She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” (John Quincy Adams, Speech Delivered in Washington DC 04 July 1821)
“In the wars of European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do….Our policy in regard to Europe…is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers…” (James Monroe, Monroe Doctrine)
Governments that stop their own citizens from trading with the citizens of other nations are committing an evil, whatever their reasons for doing so. U.S. restrictions on trade with other nations is a violation of the rights of the American citizen, not some morally-justified action against a foreign nation.
Michael
Do you mean that for all goods that could be in consideration?
Laissez-faire does not mean “lawlessness”. Preventing some citizens from entangling an entire nation in the murderous pursuits of tyrrants is not “interventionism”. Weapons manufacturers dont have the right to sell military secrets. Individual citizens dont have the right to supply foreign armies that display a willingess to colonize, conquer, and ultimatly threaten our soveringty.
That oil Japan thought we should be selling them was for one purpose only: colonization of China.
IBM also “leased” the tabulating machines Hitler needed to identify people of Jewish desent. This was an impossible task without the help of IBM, and IBM insisted in a month to month involvement in the process. It was in their contract that only IBM could supply the punch cards, and only IBM could make the monthly adjustments the machines needed. There were IBM employees visiting these machines in Nazi Germany, many of which were installed by IBM and maintained in service inside of the concentration camps.
Sorry, but IBM didnt have the right to do that. The US Government was well in the right to prevent a few citizens from entangling the United States in that in the name of “free and open commerce”.
Sorry, but an adherence to free markets doesnt mean a blind collussion with mass murder or tyrrany.
“Sorry, but an adherence to free markets doesn’t mean a blind collusion with mass murder or tyranny.”
True…Lenin’s quote that capitalism would sell the rope that would be used to ultimately hang itself comes to mind.
Funny, no one is talking about the duty to China that the U.S. had. It was at minimum a duty to abstain from helping their invaders.
We had no duty to China as we had no treaty with China. In fact, China was at war with herself and any treaty would either be void or we would have had to choose sides. What then?
Where is all the moral indignation in that respect?
Asked and answered.
We didnt blockade anyone. To equate a blockade from abstaining from assisting in imperialist violence is laughable.
When a country like the US, and an empire like Britian (who had engaged in her share of imperialist violence by the way) place an embargo on you, it may as well be physical. They will use their considerable clout to ensure that you are isolated.
The Japanese were besieged on all fronts – most of their own making and mostly with the Chinese – but throughout 1941 the American Volunteer Group (AKA Flying Tigers) and other quasi-military and actual military forces were conducting active military campaigns against the Japanese in and around China.
In addition, in the final year before the Pearl Harbor attacks, Japan tried more than once to set up conferences and meetings with FDR so they could make concessions, return at least some of the Chinese land, and open up the oil spigots. They were all rebuffed. In the end, they were faced with the choice of accepting the death of their empire or fighting to preserve it. They chose the latter and with that choice, they had no other option but to try to take the resources they needed by force – from the Dutch East Indies – And the only force capable of interfering was the US fleet – recently relocated from San Diego to Honolulu.
I’d be interesting to hear the response to Spengler’s new article praising then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1985 paper predicting a collapse of the global economic system due to a lack of morality.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JL09Dj02.html
http://www.acton.org/publications/occasionalpapers/publicat_occasionalpapers_ratzinger.php?view=print
A.E.
IBM had a right to sell computers to the Nazis and American oil companies to sell to Imperial Japan, but American consumers also have the right to then boycott the companies, publicize their dealings in the media, and/or ostracize those in their community who dealt/worked with them if they felt compelled to do so. When your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
8
Yes, heaven forbid (no pun intended) we stay on topic here or anything…
PEARL HARBOR WAS INDEED A DAY OF INFAMY
THE UNPROVOKED ATTACK WAS THE MOST DIRTY UNDERHANDED DEAL THAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE USA
DONT TRY TO WHITEWASH THOSAE DIRTY COWARDS
WE SEE TODAY WHERE OUR AUTO INDUSTRY IS DUE TO MORE BIG MISTAKES BY GOVERNMENTS
WHITEWASH NEVER LASTYS
PEARL HARBOR WAS INDEED A DAY OF INFAMY
THE UNPROVOKED ATTACK WAS THE MOST DIRTY UNDERHANDED DEAL THAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE USA
DONT TRY TO WHITEWASH THOSAE DIRTY COWARDS
WE SEE TODAY WHERE OUR AUTO INDUSTRY IS DUE TO MORE BIG MISTAKES BY GOVERNMENTS
WHITEWASH NEVER LASTYS
@Erwin
Put down the coffee and slowly back away from the keyboard…
” In the end, they were faced with the choice of accepting the death of their empire or fighting to preserve it . . .”
If that story was essentially true was the attack of Pearl Harbor in self-defence against an aggressor then? If so, then could be argued there was nothing wrong with Japanese work camps and ‘comfort women’ and was a retalitory effort to get the aggressors to repay what they destroyed.
Tomas,
As mentioned earlier laissez-faire doesnt mean lawlessness. The Constitution is not a pact of anarchy where other citizens have to do the job of defending against Imperial tyrrany from abroad, or policing their other citizens from collaborating with mass murder, or commiting treason.
The Constitution is NOT and was never intended to be a suicide pact. Supplying the Axis so they could continue their Imperialist and murderous campaign would have been exactly that…………and in doing so, a afront to the liberty of fellow citizens that these oil companies and IBM had a duty to.
Neither IBM or these oil companies had the right to cooperate with an agressor and as a result significantly endanger the life of their fellow citizens or the well being of the country. They were not selling toys, clothing, or food. They were selling the goods necessary for conquest or mass murder. THis was not day to day commerce. It was clearly warmongering via the supply of the resources needed for major warfare and unprecedented mass murder.
Their actions implicated their fellow citizens, and infringed on the rights of others to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. IF they were selling baby milk or something else, that would be different……but neither IBM or the oil companies can claim they thought otherwise.
Also, to be gullible enough to think that the Japanese offers of land concessions was legitimate would have been credulous and naive to an embarassing degree on the part of Roosevelt. Can anyone say CHAMBERLAIN????
8: “I’d be interesting to hear the response to Spengler’s new article praising then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1985 paper predicting a collapse of the global economic system due to a lack of morality.â€
Ratzinger: “The economic inequality between the northern and southern hemispheres of the globe is becoming more and more an inner threat to the cohesion of the human family.â€
That would be true if you believed that the north took its wealth from the south as socialists do. The truth is that the south is far wealthier than it was at any time in the past. The north has merely grown its wealth faster. The North has tried to help the south grow faster, but after 50 years has realized that the problem lies in their institutions, which we can do nothing about.
Ratzinger: “Following the tradition inaugurated by Adam Smith , this position holds that the market is incompatible with ethics because voluntary “moral†actions contradict market rules and drive the moralizing entrepreneur out of the game.â€
With all due respect, that’s a very poor characterization of Smith. He was a moral philosopher first and economist second. “Wealth of Nations†was nothing but the application to the realm of economics the principles he developed in “Moral Sentiments.†He concluded that free markets best protect morality in business. State attempts to enforce morality are usually nothing but a cover for theft. Of course, Smith and most economists have assumed that the institutions necessary for free markets to operate exist already. They take them for granted. Those include the rule of law, the morality of private property, just courts and honest police. Economics has always assumed a certain level of morality, knowing that if you take away property rights and honest courts you end up with Russia.
Ratzinger: “This determinism, in which man is completely controlled by the binding laws of the market while believing he acts in freedom from them, includes yet another and perhaps even more astounding presupposition, namely, that the natural laws of the market are in essence good (if I may be permitted so to speak) and necessarily work for the good, whatever may be true of the morality of individuals.â€
This demonstrates a misunderstanding of what classical liberal economics has taught. No economist has ever believed that laws outside of mankind exist in economics as they do in physics. For example, gravity has nothing to do with human decisions. Economics has no laws similar to gravity. In economics, everything is about “Human Action.†The laws of economics are nothing but descriptions of human behavior. If people are subject to the “law of the market†that means nothing more than that they must take into account the decisions of others.
As for the outcomes of the market being good, I thought the scholastics of the 16th and 17th centuries settled that for the Church. The only just price is the price determined in the free market. In addition, trade between individuals in a free market must benefit both or the transaction won’t take place. That makes them morally good. State intervention in the market destroys the just price and mutual benefit and is therefore immoral by traditional church standards.
Ratzinger: “…a sentence of Peter Koslowski’s that illustrates the point in question: “The economy is governed not only by economic laws, but is also determined by men…â€.
Again, this is a complete misunderstanding of liberal economics. The laws of economics are determined by human nature, not some outside force.
Ratzinger: “…the market rules function only when a moral consensus exists and sustains them.â€
That’s correct if you’re talking about a consensus around the right to property and a free market as the institution that implements property rights. Market rules, that is, human decisions, function only when property rights and the free market are respected.
Ratzinger: “For while the market economy rests on the beneficial effect of egoism and its automatic limitation through competing egoisms, the thought of just control seems to predominate in a centralized economy, where the goal is equal rights for all and proportionate distribution of goods to all. The examples adduced thus far are certainly not encouraging, but the hope that one could, nonetheless, bring this moral project to fruition is also not thereby refuted. It seems that if the whole were to be attempted on a stronger moral foundation, it should be possible to reconcile morality and efficiency in a society not oriented toward maximum profit, but rather to self-restraint and common service.â€
Here he repeats the Catholic Church’s constant search for a third way. Again, he misunderstands the foundations of the market economy. He resorts to old Marxist propaganda rather than the actual writings of liberal economists. In addition, he makes the common and popular mistake that the failure of central planning lays in human weakness. It doesn’t, as Mises and Hayek have explained many times. It fails because it distorts prices. It fails from hubris. And it is unjust and immoral because it destroys the free market in which the Scholastics firmly asserted the only just price exists.
Ratzinger: “Thus in this area, the argument between economics and ethics is becoming ever more an attack on the market economy and its spiritual foundations, in favor of a centrally controlled economy, which is believed now to receive its moral grounding. ”
That’s true only if equality of wealth is the only moral principle. If property and just prices are moral, then central planning is immoral on its face.
Ratzinger: “It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. 9 Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.â€
I have to agree here, but not for the reasons given. The common good requires the moral commitment to free markets and respect for property. The West has abandoned those moral principles only after it abandoned traditional Christianity. Capitalism came about because the Protestants of the Dutch Republic applied the Catholic teachings on property and markets. Lessius acted as the guide. Capitalism is Christian economics. According to the teaching of the Scholastics, state intervention in the economy is immoral.
“When a country like the US, and an empire like Britian (who had engaged in her share of imperialist violence by the way) place an embargo on you, it may as well be physical.”
Sounds like arguments I’ve heard arguing against big business. Sure they didn’t really use coercion but they might have well have really done it.
Nonsense. If the British decided to go along with us, and others that is NOT the same as a physical blockade.
I think we’re all forgetting something here.
OUR imperialism is better than THEIRS!
I mean, that’s why we’re in the right for imposing embargos, right? I mean, the Japanese were racist to the extreme, while our detaining of Americans with squinty eyes was racism-lite. Also, our fire bombing of Japan couldn’t compare to…and the dropping of nukes even after Japan wanted to surrender…and uh…
I think Mises had it right: “Force is evil.” The rest of the above discussion is card dealing by devils.
What should we have done? How about minding our own business, or perhaps offering help to the true victims of war (not the governments who didn’t borrow enough money from Wall St. banks, but, say, children without limbs).
Japan’s imperial fervor would have fizzled like every other in the history of man. Empires die, and, soon after, the imperial mindset. The mindset which allows people to believe such foolishness (evilness?) such as righteous embargoes for the imposition of treaties.
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