I fail to understand this. From your blog, I gather that you're an intelligent person who takes interest in thinking critically about the world. Your page is littered with anti-Bush links and sentiments. Yet you completeley reject the very notion of freedom and the free market when your own neighbourhood is threatened. This illogic is reflected in vast numbers of blogs and personal pages, not to mention forums like Slashdot. Are most people really so immature?

The world must grow closer: this is driven by technology, and will not stop in the foreseeable future. Think in the long term.

The laughing stranger writes: Yet you completely reject the very notion of freedom and free market when your own neighbourhood is threatened. This statement is typical of many of those on the right of the political spectrum. It attempts to define everything in simple black and white terms. Not even a cursory reading of this blog would provide evidence that I "completely reject freedom and free markets". This leaves me with no real point of departure for a intelligent discussion of the issues. Perhaps the laughing stranger will quit laughing long enough to pose a more thoughtful question. Lets see if I can get him started. I agree with George Lakoff when he says that free markets don't exist that all markets are constructed. I don't care for the way markets are currently constructed, I don't believe they currently serve the majority of the world's population very well. I don't think they serve the best interests of the American people. Lakoff wrote "Because the "free market" doesn't exist. There is no such thing. All markets are constructed. Think of the stock exchange. It has rules. The WTO [World Trade Organization] has 900 pages of regulations. The bond market has all kinds of regulations and commissions to make sure those regulations carried out. Every market has rules. For example, corporations have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder profit. That's a construction of the market. Now, it doesn't have to be that way. You could make that rule, "Corporations must maximize stakeholder value." Stakeholders — as opposed to shareholders, the institutions who own the largest portions of stock — would include employees, local communities, and the environment. That changes the whole notion of what a "market" is." Link There you go stranger something to get you started.

"Are most people really so immature?"

Yes, I think so. Get off your lazy ass and stop relying on tv and the weak-ass Internet to form your worldview. Go out and visit poor neighborhoods in LA or Chicago or Boston. Try to figure out why we live in the most violent and crime-ridden nation of the industrialized, western world. Why is our infrastructure crumbling? Why is privitization of critical government functions (health care, education, etc) the death sentence of our republic? Why won't tax cuts for the wealthy fix our economic problems?

Here you are worrying about the minute odds of another terrorist attack and yet 40 million of your fellow citizens have no access to affordable health care. Millions more live below the poverty line and have little or no hope of upward mobility. What a naive idiot you are. There's no class war in this country because the middle class is numb and has its head buried deep in the sand. Meanwhile the middle class is dwindling and losing more and more political and economic power as we speak.

Instead of listening to Rush or reading the Drudge report, get off your ass and take a look outside your safe and insular little bubble, Laughing Stranger. Maybe lazy asswipes like "Laughing Stranger," bereft of any real or meaningful life experience beyond the smoke and mirrors of pop culture and the coporate media, really and honestly believe the tripe they spew out. The fact their views are laughably childish and incomplete pretty much sums up the quality of their intellect.

Freedom and free markets. What dream world are you living in, Laughing Fuckwit? Globalism is crashing down and is proving to be mostly lies and the worst sort of economic theory imaginable. It doesn't work! Ask Argentina, ask Bolivia, hell, ask the millions of jobless in your own fucking country. We in America have been mired in recession and zero job growth for three years. Where's Milton Friedman's glorious free market paradise? I just returned from a vacation in Spain and I can honestly state the quality of life for ALL Spanish citizens kicks our ass. Those Socialist (they have universal health care, free and excellent public education, superb government-subsidized public transportation, and a generous social system) bastards!

I wonder if Laughing Stranger, who speaks so nobly of freedom and defending it, has ever in his (her) lazy life actually served that cause beyond empty words? Been a soldier, airman, sailor, or marine, Laughing Stranger? Ever served that noble cause of freedom and "free markets" (I dunno if I would have served Milton Friedman's theories when I was a soldier, but never mind, I have always been a socialist) with your own ass on the line and not the son or daughter of someone you don't know? I know the answer without asking this person based solely on the stupid comments above: not only no, but hell no.

And therein lies the cunundrum of our current culture. The lazy turds don't even know what idiots they are.

Keep up the anti-Bush tirades and criticism, Norm. The Laughing Strangers of this world can kiss my fucking ass.

It's really not my intention to start a flamefest. Please calm down.

A couple of facts: I am Indian, and have never been to the US. Obviously I have a bias towards outsourcing to India. Also, I'm not intimate with American politics. The words liberal, conservative, libertarian, right wing etc. don't hold the same connotations for me that they do for you. In this context, thanks to Norm for the very interesting link.

There has always been a strong resistance to open markets in India. Nevertheless, steady decline and systemic rot forced the initiation of reforms in 1991. Anti-globalisation sentiment remains strong even now. This is to be expected, since Indians are scared of exactly the same thing you are: losing jobs due to better competition. No doubt if India were to become a leading economy in the world, all those screaming themselves hoarse about evil multinational companies would perform a dramatic about turn.

Now, I fully agree with you about the danger of oversimplification. There is no such thing as a 'rule-less' economy. I am not arguing that the current set of rules is the best - far from it. Any implementation of a theory or ideology will be real and so by definition not ideal. This does not reduce the value of trying (through reasoned debate) to define the best possible core ideals, and the best way to realise them practically. In this spirit, I say that your comment denigrating Gregory Mankiw went against the fundamental ideal of free trade. An argument against this would make this exercise interesting.

mat: You talk of poverty, crime and apathy. I can assure you that I have seen (and partially experienced) much worse, and it wasn't due to

Excuse me for choosing what I thought was an amusing nickname for leaving anonymous comments. I wasn't implying that I was laughing at you. Personal attacks aren't the most convincing vehicle for argument, you know.

The concept of 'defending' freedom by joining the worst artifact of human society, the Army, is alien and ridiculous to me.

I detest Bush fully as much as you. I take being anti-Bush as a sign of intelligence. I think we agree here.

First of all, the big myth of globalization is the idea that free markets = democracy.

The truth is that free market economics thrive better under various forms of tyranny (ask Chile: they thrived under Pinochet. Or Korea: under the tyrannical government of Chun Doo Hwan in the 80's, they thrived economically; when democratic reforms came about in the 90's, their economy faltered.).

The problem of democracy and free market economics living in complete peace are those damn debates and compromises necessary in a democratic society, which actually HINDER the idea of a free and unregulated market. Democracy is a mechanism of governance that gives power to the people in a nation-state to protect their self-interest. Free market economics and globalization is all about putting power in a market above nation-states, free to exist, unregulated, worldwide. So regulation is good locally even if it is bad globally. Take away citizens' rights to protect their nation state from an unregulated market and you destroy the power of democracy.

Globalization, to me, is undemocratic. Regulation of markets is VITAL to democracy and freedom. I don't want some Swiss or Dutch multinational corporation to fuck with my little piece of the world here in Philadelphia, and my democratic rights help to ensure that my fellow citizens and I don't allow the "free" market to destroy our part of the world.

Globalization is just another silly economic religion that has proven to be false and incapable of working any better or worse than any other. Most countries (Argentina, Bolivia, most of Africa, and much of Asia) have actually seen less growth and more polarization of the rich/poor since the IMF and World Bank pressured them to liberalize their economies and markets and set aside regulations and protectionist policies.

The problem with the proponents of the globalization religion is they refuse to face the facts of its utter failure, but instead, like any religious fanatic, keep dispensing their religion even in the face of failure because they cannot believe it isn't real. Most governments in Europe and Asia, however, have quietly begun turning back to more regulation and less liberalization of their markets.

Nations that rejected the IMF and World Bank reforms have actually thrived--Malaysia comes to mind as proof that rejecting IMF and World Bank "globalization" reforms is not a bad thing.

In the United States it has led to us being a country that doesn't produce anything any more, and we've become addicted to cheap prices for good at the loss of most of our goods-producing jobs that have been shipped to labor rackets in China and other Third World tyrannical nations (Mexico, Pakistan, et al.) with little or no regulation of the labor market or environment.

Are we better off in 2004 than we were in 1945-1973? The statistics say no. If you are one of the über-wealthy in this country, sure, you are better off. If you are middle class and poor, the answer is no.

Secondly, defending freedom with arms is a necessary evil. Maybe it is distasteful to you, but you should thank the stars that there are men and women who don't have your "progressive" way of thinking. Because every generation of man since the dawn of time has had tyrants and bullies who do not share your sophisticated worldview and who would stomp your head into the ground with glee. I, for one, see the need to fight those who deny freedom with force by using force. But I am a vulgar and emotional man.

Lastly, to those who say my anger and emotion about the state of the world should be quieted and I should be more "calm" and "rational":

I am reminded of World War I, when the calm, rational, educated French, German, and British generals, safe behind the lines, made, calm and rational decisions to send millions upon millions of men to their deaths. These were men of reason, schooled in the great universities of their time in scientific management and were champions of the Age of Reason. Yet, despite their "rational" brilliance, they failed to recognize how this slaughtering of their own men in massive numbers STILL would not affect the outcome of the battle or war--because, in the end, their insane strategies in this war of attrition never worked. So calm and rational may not always be smart or wise. Maybe a general or two, in a fit of emotion or panic, might have stopped the senseless slaughter a little earlier than 1918.

And hence the modern free market economist is of the same ilk as the idiot WW I generals. Failure? We are men and women of reason, we don't fail! We've been to the BEST schools, we know what is best for everyone, and we will remain calm and rational as we ruin the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the execution of our theories. When our theories don't work, we'll just change the tune and keep trying our best to prove our insane theories have merit and WILL EVENTUALLY WORK, somehow, some way---even if there's not proof they will.

To me, a little passion and anger is both healthy AND necessary when I think it is warranted. I simply do not trust those who try to remain "calm" and "rational" when the dam has broken and the water is crashing in. Those types typically drown. Those who panic a little and recognize the danger usually live.

And, believe me, the dam has broken. So emotion--and, yes, a little panic--just might be necessary.