Left of Liberal

Sam Sussman on Political Philosophy

The Rand Reconciliation: Liberals and the Market Godess

4

Mike Droste on Swarthmore Poltiics

Campus Divestment Campaign: Right Target, Wrong

Strategy

15

Lorand Laskai on Foreign Policy

Dismantling Empire: The Global War on Drugs,

:DVKLQJWRQ¶V�,QVWLWXWLRQDOL]HG�&RQÀLFW10

Katie Rydlizky on Enviromental Politics

The Enviromental Imperative: Back To First Principles

On Preservation

22

Tommy Fortuna on Political Economy

Against Inequality: Labor-Capital Tensions and the

Growing Income Gap

18

Taylor Arluck on Revisionist History

The Dawn of American Empire: The Imperial Ethic In

Early U.S Foreign Policy

25

2

Left of Liberal: Statement of Purpose

The past year has seen world-historical events around the globe, as well as within the United States.The Arab Spring –which thus far has culminated in regime change in Tunisia, Egypt, Ye-men andLibya, and ongoing resistance movements in Bahrain and Syria– has reinvigorated the spirit ofparticipatory democracy. Protest movements in Russia, China and India now promise to leave theirmark on the political arrangements of those societies. In the United States, thirty years of risingi ncome inequality, and the unabated suffering induced by the Great Recession, have manifested in Occupy Wall Street. The movement, which comes on the heels of labor activism that VZHSW�WKH�0LGZHVW�LQ�0DUFK��UHSUHVHQWV�WKH�¿UVW�VLJQ�RI�UHDO�OHIW�SRSXOLVP�VLQFH�WKH�PDVV�VWULNHV�of 1934 that helped birth the New Deal.

Many Swarthmore students are engaged, and often participate, in the events of these excitingtimes. Yet the campus lacks a coherent forum for robust debate on pressing issues. Campus poli-tics seems to break down into two groups: a large chunk of apathetic liberals, and a small strand ofradical left politics unrepresentative of the broader community. In its unyielding idealism, epito-mized by an indelible insistence on “revolution or nothing,” the latter contributes as little to nu-anced debate as those merely interested in toeing the hackneyed liberal line.

We believe there is much to be discussed and debated amongst Swarthmore’s liberal-left factions,and that the College’s impressive activist tradition is best served by the type of substantive dia-logue we wish to start on these pages.

In this context, Left of Liberal seeks to offer a forum for lively debate on issues ranging from cam-pus international politics. Crucially, we seek to offer a sorely missed left-liberal perspective. In thisregard, we identify with the reformist wing of the Occupy movement, with its focus on revitaliza-tion of the egalitarian, socially mobile democracy of the prosperous early post-war period (this time without the segregation). We differ from radical critics insofar as we appreciate the long-term success of the capitalist project, and see reform in the social democratic spirit, not revolu-WLRQ��DV�WKH�HQWHUSULVH�RI�RXU�WLPH��6LPLODUO\��ZH�DUH�OHVV�WKDQ�VDWLV¿HG�ZLWK�WKH�SDURFKLDO�FHQWULVP�RI�WRGD\¶V�'HPRFUDWLF�3DUW\��ZLWK�LWV�WHSLG�DQG�LQVXI¿FLHQW�HPEUDFH�RI�WKH�SRVW�ZDU�HJDOLWDULDQ�order.

While our publication undoubtedly brings its own political orientation to the table, our ultimatepurpose is to advance campus dialogue on pressing local, national and international questions. Inthis spirit, we welcome well-crafted criticisms of our views and will enthusiastically print critiques from other campus voices.

:LWK�WKLV�VDLG��ZH�ZHOFRPH�\RX�WR�ZKDW�ZH�KRSH�LV�WKH�¿UVW�RI�PDQ\�LVVXHV��3OHDVH�WDNH�RII�\RXUboxing gloves and step into the debate parlor.

Cheers,The Editors

3

Opinionated? Critical? Interested in sharing your views?

Left of Liberal is now accepting submissions for next issue

Submit an independent polemic or critique/review of a piece in this or another publication/book. Pieces should be 1500-3000 words and

submitted by midnight on Thursday, April 20th.

Submissions and questions can be directed to

LeftofLiberal.Swarthmore@gmail.com

OHIWRÀLEHUDO�WXPEOU�FRP

4

The Rand Reconciliation: Liberals

And The Market Goddess

OI�DOO�WKH�¿QH�IRLOV�RI�PRGHUQ�OLEHUDOLVP��QRQH�rankles more egalitarian feathers than Ayn Rand. The woman whose very name manages to speak at once to both alleged individualistic hedonism and corporate capitalism has left a magical legacy that is unmatched in the regular-ity with which it sends its liberal jousters into ¿WV�RI�XWWHU�IXU\��5DQG¶V�QRYHOV�DUH�GHQVHO\�DU-gued, thousand- page analytic tracts that build her case for Objectivism around the complex motives and fates of characters who we fol-low through decades worth of identify-forging deliberation. It is no wonder then that the less than accessible Rand, strident in everything from her politics to her sex, leaves liberals sheepishly admitting that no, they have not re-ally read all of the John Galt speech. Yet in their visceral rejection of Rand, what liberals miss is that liberalism and Randian thinking in princi-pal stand in a mutually enhancing, if counter-intuitive, consonance.

This surface-level dismissal is the consequence of a Randian caricature that fails to capture the best and beautiful of what even her critics must admit is a remarkable life. Liberals, I am sure, are thoroughly acquainted with this dismissal, if not because they have made it themselves, then because they have been hearing it in col-lege parlors and cocktail parties –the sort of places where brownie points are easily acquired with overarching, hollow declarations to which everyone can uncontroversially agree– for longer than is tolerable. In this narrative that epitomizes what J.S. Mill had in mind when he spoke of “the deep slumber of a decided opin-ion,” Rand is a hedonistic self- maximizer who advocates no restraints to self-enrichment, a theorist whom, as a Swarthmore professor de-scribed her last month, is paradoxical insofar as her unbreakable marriage to self- interest ends up justifying virtually anything. This includes, in the parochial analysis of this particular pro-fessor, the violence of the Bolshevik revolution.While this “violence-wealth-self-interest, oh

my!” parody is a bit much, it is true that the Rand of Atlas Shrugged is an unapologetic Darwinian capitalist. In this, her magnum opus, the characters we are directed to admire –Hank Reardon, Francisco d’Anconia, Ragnar Dan-neskjold, Dagny Taggart, and of course, the PDJQL¿FHQW�*DOW±�H[SUHVV�WKH�LQJHQXLW\�DQG�creativity that Rand understands as best in us through excellence in the market forum. They are inventors and entrepreneurs of unrivaled talent, whose abilities, vigor and love of life the reader instantly admires. To give just a single example, Rand devotes nearly an entire chapter in the early portion of the novel to the develop-ment of d’Anconia’s remarkable curiosity. His indelible appetite for experimentation ranges from motorboats to mathematics, and is sat-isfactorily whetted only by the worldly travels afforded him by his aristocratic youth.

In adulthood, as plot climaxes, d’Anconia joins the others as they invert the traditional method of popular resistance by striking against a soci-ety that has lost respect for the creator’s right WR�WKH�SUR¿WV�RI�KLV�SURGXFWLRQ��,Q�RWKHU�ZRUGV��they are greedy capitalist pigs. Lloyd Blankfein would be proud. These “creators” are locked in battle with the demons of Atlas, those Rand has politely deemed the “moochers.” Like Rear-don’s pathetic younger brother, these do-good-ers speak wistfully of the “right to a job,” and demand a sense of “social responsibility” from Rand’s protagonist- entrepreneurs. Long story –and as those who have ever lugged the 1,000 page novel around for the month it took them to read it can attest, I mean long story– short, the global capitalist system collapses as it rolls off the shrugging shoulders of these capitalist giants. It is an argument for the wealthy that ZRXOG�VHQG�-RKQ�%RHKQHU�LQWR�D�JHQXLQH�¿W�RI�joyful tears.

So it should be no surprise that the novel’s fan-tastic success has earned Rand the frustrated wrath of the liberal-left. Yet what those too of-

5

fended by Rand’s visceral anti-egalitarianism to venture beyond Atlas miss is the marginal role of her political and economic thinking in her broader philosophical project. Rand’s ultimate concern –the cornerstone of her Objectivism, developed at length in The Fountainhead, At-las’ predecessor– is the essential role of creative expression as an ennobling force in the human condition. For Rand, art is a powerful vehicle for the expression of an individual’s highest val-ues, an enduring testament to the dynamic and creative within each of us.

In The Fountainhead, Rand’s protagonist is no titan of industry. Rather, Howard Roark is a contrarian architect who prefers life as a starv-ing artist to the inconsiderable possibility of compromising his aesthetic vision. Roark time and again refuses prestigious projects, chasing off would-be clients with demands for complete FRQWURO�RI�DOO�¿QDO�DUFKLWHFWXUDO�GHFLVLRQV��+H�¿QGV�RFFDVLRQDO�ZRUN�ZLWK�WKH�RGG�SDWURQ�KHUH�or there who appreciates Roark’s unique vision, but the dearth of such men leave him struggling to pay the heat bill.

While Roark lives in poverty, rival architect and former classmate Peter Keating whores himself to the general public, groveling for projects that offer fame and wealth without regard for his own –albeit feeble– creative vision. Though Ke-ating is thought the greatest of the young archi-WHFWV��KLV�PRVW�LPSRUWDQW�SURMHFWV�¿QG�WKHLU�ZD\�to Roark’s desk, accompanied with a plea for succor from the soulless Keating. This is agree-able enough to Roark, who leaps at the chance to pass off his own controversial work through his established rival. The speech with which 5RDUN�DJUHHV�WR�GHVLJQ�WKH�KLJK�SUR¿OH�SXEOLF�housing unit Cortland Homes sheds much light on the relationship between wealth and creative expression in Rand’s thinking:

“I’ve been working on the problem of low-rent hous-ing for years. I never thought of the poor people in the slums. I thought of the potentialities of our modern world. The new materials, the means, the chances to take and use. There are so many products of man’s genius around us today. There are so many possibilities to ex- ploit. To build cheaply, simply, intelligently... I worked because it was a problem

and I wanted to solve it...I want you to think and tell me what motivated me. Mon- ey? Fame? Charity?...No, Peter, I love this work. I want to see it erected. I want to make it real, living, functioning, built. I want to design Cortland. I want to see it built. I want to see it built exactly as I design it....the only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself.”

The Rand of The Fountainhead is certainly no altruist, but it is essential to appreciate her hierarchy of values. Valued above all else is creative expression and artistic integrity, which to Rand transcend wealth. Roark tells Keating directly: “I like to receive money for my work... [But] the only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself.” This is far from the ruthless, inhumane capitalist lampooned by her liberal detractors.The insurmountable value of creative expres-sion is etched in the Randian stone when the less than tenable Keating-Roark arrangement breaks down over Keating’s failure to prevent a committee of architects from altering Roark’s Cortland blueprint. Unwilling and unable to see his artistic vision trampled by the talent-less Keating, Roark dynamites the building in a Robert Jordan-esque last defense of his artistic integrity. Then, after a powerful ten-page orato-ry performance built around the claim that “the integrity of man’s creative work” is the highest human value, Roark is set free by the jury.

The Fountainhead is instructive insofar as it indicates that Rand’s primary philosophical concern is creative expression, and the vicious political economy of Atlas is merely a misguid-ed attempt to ensure the space from the state requisite for creative expression. Rand’s liber-tarianism is thus not itself the jewel of her phi-losophy, but rather the protective moat around the castle of her aesthetics. In dismissing her outright, liberal egalitarians miss that the val-ues Rand is seeking to defend –in a misguided fashion, no doubt– are in fact not dissimilar from those they cherish themselves.

After all, it is from the same notion, imbedded in the Anglican reformist movements of the turn-of the 20th century, that the state should seek out institutional arrangements that allevi-

6

ate constraints that prevent self-actualizing, from which liberal politics derive. Thus the liberal project, from Mill to Rawls, is primarily concerned with creating the space for creativity and actualization of which Rand dreams. This is the essential logic of John Adams declara-tion that: “I must study politics and war so that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study math-ematics, commerce and agriculture, to give their children a right to study painting, poetry and music.” Yet like an atheist so virulent in his nonbelief that he misses even the beauty of nar-rative in biblical texts, liberals seem to miss this most fruitful of marriages.

If we take seriously both Rand’s theory of art as ennobling, and her immovable insistence on individual, objective engagement with subject matter, the operative question –and here I em-phasize that this is a question of social science– is what institutional arrangement best provides the liberal space prerequisite for self-actualiza-tion. My contention is that by correcting Rand the quasi-social scientist, we can redeem Rand the aestheticist—and, in so doing, build an ever more compelling case for our own conception of the political good.

But to the question of social science. The fact is that not all types of freedom are the same. The particular type of freedom we want if we are concerned with creating the proper institutional structure to birth maximum creative space is not that of the so frequently mocked minimal-ist state of Rand’s novels. Rather, we want a society in which the basic preconditions to individual ennoblement –access to health ser-vices, education, shelter and employment– are universally provided, so that not just aristocrats like d’Anconia can enjoy the wonders of creative expression and experimentation.

It might seems obvious, but apparently bears repeating that the artist can hardly paint his masterpiece if he is ill in bed, or worse; that the would-be writer cannot move beyond the state of intellectual fetus if he has not access to prop-er and thorough education; that the will-sap-ping power of destitution is hardly conducive

to creativity for any but a Randian protagonist. This is hardly to get at what a wonderful world it would it be if, as in most of the industrialized west during the Great Depression, artists were paid to paint, write, act, design and think.

Then there is the economic logic of such a system. It is now common refrain to repeat the damning statistic that the United States spends twice as much per capita on health services as European universalized systems, without cover-ing one sixth of its population. Equally damn-ing is the failure of the exorbitantly expensive American higher education system to engender durable skill formation in the context of a com-petitive global economy. The worst-of-both-worlds consequence is that the U.S. has been outdone by cheap labor in East Asia and skilled labor in Europe, leaving its manufacturing base as ragged as Roark’s impoverished clothing.

If we are to take this analysis a step further, ZKDW�ZH�ZLOO�¿QG�LV�WKDW�WKH�KLJKO\�XQHTXDO�VRFLHW\�FUHDWHG�E\�WKH�KHJHPRQ\�RI�WKH�¿QDQ-FLDO�VHFWRU�±LQ�WKH�\HDU�EHIRUH�WKH������¿QDQ-FLDO�FULVLV������RI�FRUSRUDWH�SUR¿WV�ZHUH�LQ�¿QDQFH±�LV�DOVR�D�ORJLVWLFDOO\�XQVXVWDLQDEOH�RQH��The demand rut in which the U.S. economy has found itself over the past three years speaks to this. Economies grow when wages rise with productivity, incentivizing further production by allowing middle and low- income workers to buy the goods they produce. When more and more income is siphoned off into the coffers of the wealthy few, demand falls while saving rates amongst the well-to-do skyrocket, incentivizing HYHU�ULVNLHU�VSHFXODWRU\�YHKLFOHV�LQ�FDSLWDO�ÀXVK�¿QDQFLDO�PDUNHWV�

I can already hear the objections of the Rand loyalists. “Egalitarianism! Progressive taxation! What an abominable usurpation of liberty!” they cry. “Does not the productive individual KDYH�DQ�LQYLRODEOH�ULJKW�WR�WKH�SUR¿WV�RI�KLV�HI-forts?” The operative points here are two. First, it should be apparent even to the most casual of observers that liberty is a term applied too broadly and too frequently, and that analytic discrimination in terms of what liberties we understand as more and less essential is an

7

unavoidable task. Charles Taylor well illustrates this point by comparing Albania, a country with IHZ�WUDI¿F�OLJKWV�DQG�D�WRWDO�EDQ�RQ�RUJDQL]HG�religion, to Britain, a country with many traf-¿F�OLJKWV�DQG�UHOLJLRXV�IUHHGRP��)URP�D�SXUHO\�quantitative perspective, Albania is more free than Britain, as most individuals confront many WUDI¿F�OLJKWV�HYHU\�GD\�RI�WKH�ZHHN��EXW�RQO\�D�marginal proportion practice religion, and only once per week at that.

It appears that what is needed is a guiding prin-ciple to construct a hierarchy of liberties. Taylor has in mind what he terms “import-attributing” freedoms, those liberties which concern the ex-istential in each of us. Gerald Gaus, too, speaks of “valuable freedoms,” by which he means simply that essential, inviolable range of con-duct that enables us to experiment and explore in ways that are essential to our identity. Here it LV�ZRUWK�UHÀHFWLQJ�WKDW�WKH�PDUJLQDO�GLIIHUHQFH�EHWZHHQ�D�WD[�UDWH�RI�¿IWHHQ�DQG�WKLUW\�SHUFHQW�on a millionaire is hardly a usurpation that meaningfully imposes on this essential negative space. While I don’t know the gent personally, I’d be more than willing to wager that Jamie Diamond’s ability to achieve his Platonic best is hardly affected by whether he at any time has ¿IWHHQ�RU�WZHQW\�\DFKWV��:KDW�LV�PRUH�LPSRU-WDQW��DQG�LQ¿QLWHO\�OHVV�FRQWHVWDEOH��LV�WKH�FODLP�WKDW�WKH�PDUJLQDO�GLIIHUHQFH�EHWZHHQ�D�ÀDW�and progressive tax rate on Diamond’s income LV�VXI¿FLHQW�WR�SURYLGH�WKDW�VSDFH�WR�SHUKDSV�millions of people, insofar as we understand the alleviation of hunger, sickness, penury and joblessness as a precondition to individual en-noblement. Wealth, so to speak, has diminish-ing returns in terms of self-actualization.

The second point is that no political system is exempt from the original sin of liberty con-straint. If we conceive of negative liberty as the unmitigated range in which we have the physi-FDO�FDSDFLW\�IRU�DFWLRQ��WKHQ�ODZ�E\�LWV�GH¿QL-tion limits the legitimate deployment of that capacity. So the question is not whether liberty will be constrained, but for what purpose. In the design of social institutions from the blank slate, it would seem that the operative principle here is, following Taylor, the maximization of

individual self-mastery, or the pursuit of “the higher self.” A theoretical framework through ZKLFK�VXFK�D�SULQFLSOH�PLJKW�¿QG�ELUWK�ZRXOG�surely elevate human values such as health, education, gainful employment, science and the arts. It is by such reasoning that the public expropriation of funds by marginal progressive taxation to provide the economic preconditions of self-mastery to all is legitimized.

The Randian response is sure to run along the Hayaken line that centralization of economicpower leads inevitably to state repression. While it is easy to see why Rand –whose for-mative years were spent in the nascent Soviet Union– might come to this conclusion, her contemporary followers deserve less generosity. The plethora of institutional safeguards imbed-ded in the constitutional design of the modern state can –and have– prevent such degenera-tion. The successful abatement of the authori-tarian threat via division of powers, federalism, popular press and increasing transparent public apparatus (think Wiki leaks) lends less cre-dence than ever to the notion that the minute risk of authoritarianism renders inaccessible the rewards of centralized welfare provisions.

What these safeguards are inadequate in guarding against is the inverse of the Hayaken nightmare: that instead of the welfare state and democracy being incompatible, it is rather the free market and democracy that cannot coexist. As mainstream economists from Simon John-son to Jeffrey Sachs have well documented, the DEVHQFH�RI�VHULRXV�UHJXODWLRQV�RQ�WKH�LQÀXHQFH�of money in politics have enabled concentrated capital to capture policy processes, preventing needed regulation of the given sector and secur-ing in its place generous subsidies. Through the lethal triangle of campaign donations, regu-latory capture and pseudo-intellectual think WKDQNV��WKH�ODUJHVW�¿UPV�LQ�WKH�ODUJHVW�VHFWRUV�have managed to overrule the general public on a plethora of issues. Take for example the 81% of the public that wants a millionaire’s surtax, the 76% that wants reduced defense spending, the 65-75% that consistently expressed ap-proval for a public option during the disastrous 2009-10 health care debate, or the 74% of the

8

public that supports eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industry. The fact that these overwhelming public preferences have been WLPH�DQG�DJDLQ�RYHUUXOHG�E\�WKH�LQ¿QLWHVLPDO�corporate elite speaks to the tension between the free market and democracy sans regulations RQ�WKH�LQÀXHQFH�RI�ZHDOWK�LQ�SROLWLFV�

0RUHRYHU��WKLV�VWUXFWXUDO�PDFUR�OHYHO�GLI¿FXOW\�is compounded by the micro-level coercive force imbedded in the hierarchal nature of much labor market activity. The universality of human vulnerability enables market power play in which a single actor can exploit the needs for some basic social product to gain undue advan-tage of those with less market power. Think of the hackneyed example of the manufacturing ¿UP�RI�WKH�VHFRQG�,QGXVWULDO�5HYROXWLRQ��LQ�which excess supply of unskilled labor forces workers to comply with conditions –sixteen hour work days, six day work weeks, penny wages and a dangerous work environment– that deprive even the proudest person of digni-ty. Libertarianism, with what Claude Galipeau mocks as “an exclusively physicalist model of human agency” nonetheless contends that even those forced into such conditions are techni-cally “free,” even if dearth of marketable skills, access to education or health treatment offers no alternative. But to those who care genuinely about the ability of each to best ennoble his in-dividual existence, we must ask: Is this liberty?

The suggestion here is that casting Rand as an immovable advocate of the corporate class misses that both her and the liberal-left are pri-marily concerned with the self-actualization of the individual. I well realize that my point may garner little more than a “So what?” from most liberals. A good deal of conservatives, and cer-tainly most political theorists, claim to be con-cerned with creating the conditions requisite for self-actualization. What I want to suggest is that in an age in which the largest corporations have essentially captured the public policy pro-cess, eviscerated regulatory structures and dra-matically shifted tax burdens from the wealthy to the working class, this assumption is overly benevolent, even naïve. It is not now excessive to suggest that the Republican Party–which, it

might be mentioned, Rand considered repul-sive– is made up of no more than the shills of the banking, oil and gas, and defense contract-ing sectors. Look no further than Crossroads GPS, the SuperPAC that has outraised both the Republican and Democratic Parties in the past quarter, mostly thanks to the leading lobbyists in the sectors listed above. According to Salon, 91% of the donors were billionaires. It is now fair to classify the visceral insistence on corpo-rate domination of the American right as dan-gerously beyond the democratic pale. It is also fair to note that these were not the politics of Rand. Atlas is riddled with harsh condemnation of political bribery; in fact, despite her infatua-tion with wealth, the characters Rand portrays as most despicable are corporate lobbyists.

6R�DV�WKH�2FFXS\�PRYHPHQW�¿JKWV�DJDLQVW�YDVW��potential-sapping inequality in the United States, and European left parties cling to social democracy against continuing deindustrializa-tion and changing demographic trends, liberals would do well to remember why it is that we wish the political arrangements we do. In this regard, Rand’s articulation of the axiomatic virtue of self- actualization may be the tonic liberal need. These movements represent para-digmatic shifts in our understanding of social mobility and individual opportunity. There is no reason that the minds they are sure to change cannot include those of all traditions of political economy. Then, just as both Rand and Rawls sit so comfortably next to one another on my bookshelf, all those who genuinely believe in the ennoblement of the human condition as the proper political modus operandi can join in a candid call for universal access to the prereq-uisites of self-actualization.

Sam Sussman is a junior student of politics, philosophy and literature. His published political commentary as ap-peared in The Oxford Left Review, The Daily Gazette, The Phoenix, the Bing-hamton University Journal of Philoso-phy, Politics and Law and The Times Herald Record, among others. Contact him at sussman.sam@gmail. com.

10

Dismantling Empire: The Global War

on Drugs, Washington’s

Institutionalized Conflict

With two wars and countless foreign com-mitments, the United States has done plenty of erring abroad in recent years. Today the U.S is an exhausted empire. An unsustainable national debt, mortally exhausted military, and disillusioned public are all chronic signs of “empire fatigue,” the inevitable result of impe-rial overstretch, a term historian Paul Kennedy coined to describe when an empire’s commit-ments outpace its supportive capacity. How-ever, overreach would be a mischaracterization of the past ten years. We’ve more than over-reached our limits. With an unyielding faith in American might, we’ve thundered pass them in a grand attempt to unequivocally reassert American global hegemony. Of this the Iraq War marked an obvious crescendo. No matter which motive supportive personally ascribed to—the moral imperative of extinguishing op-SUHVVLYH�UHJLPHV��WKH�H[LJHQF\�RI�¿QGLQJ�6DG-dam’s WMDs, or a simple oil craving—faith in American might was uniform. The gritty reality of war, however, quickly shattered the illusion. America’s “Shock and Awe” was no match for a homegrown insurgency. Americans came to ask the inevitable question: what are we doing here?

It is clear that the nation has drawn the right message: it is time to divert our attention abroad and, as President Obama recently put it, “focus on nation-building here at home.” We have departed from Iraq and will soon do the same from Afghanistan. While military hawks UHÀH[LYHO\�FODPRU�IRU�WKH�QH[W�ZDU��WKLV�WLPH�against Iran, their calls have so far fallen on uninterested ears. And if the recent Libya inter-vention, a textbook example of multilateralism, is of any indication, an era of American machis-mo is being superseding by one of restraint.But this may not be enough—larger challenges lay ahead in dismantling America’s bloated empire. At a staggering pace, our remaining

foreign engagements result not from misplaced faith or misguided policy, but institutional de-VLJQ��([WULFDWLQJ�RXUVHOYHV�IURP�WKHVH�FRQÀLFWV�will require more than acknowledging their faults. They will require overturning a system, as if withdrawing from Iraq required disman-tling and revamping the Pentagon.

In what is intended to be a multipart series, I ZLOO�H[SORUH�WKHVH�FRQÀLFWV�ZLWKLQ�WKH�FRQWH[W�RI�their institutional design. In doing so I will be outlining a system—a system that is rendered intractable by the interests of select actors. It stands as testament to its longevity and breath that I start with the most institutionalize of them all: the Global War on Drugs. After forty years, the Global War on Drugs, despite its dismal record, has endured and grown inexo-rably, costing tax- payer $120B annually while harming America’s image abroad. It is but one H[DPSOH�RI�HQWUHQFKHG�FRQÀLFWV�WKDW�SODJXH�$PHULFDQ�IRUHLJQ�SROLF\��(QGLQJ�WKHVH�FRQÀLFWV�may be the ultimate test in meaningful foreign policy reform.

Initiated by President Nixon in 1971, after American troops returned from Vietnam with new and exotic addictions to opium and mari-juana, the War on Drugs has since escalated to unimaginable proportions. The punitive ap-proach adopted is perhaps best epitomized in the Nixon’s 1971 speech: drugs were to be “pub-lic enemy number one.” Enforcement agencies were to “strike at the ‘supply’ side of the equa-tion”—that is, the drug dealers and smugglers— thereby raising prices on the streets, and stav-ing U.S of its addiction. Following presidents have ramped up the tough rhetoric, backing their words with more extravagant and costly VFKHPHV�RI�HQIRUFHPHQW��7RGD\¶V�GUXJ�¿JKWLQJ�budget is thirty-one times Nixon’s original. And while Nixon only dabbled in a narco-oriented foreign policy, the war has since taken an inter-national scope, expanding it to the real source—

11

the drug producing countries—and the Caribbe-an and Mexican border, the two causeways into American markets. Indeed, with drug-related operations spanning the globe, from combat-ing Mexico’s drug cartels to poppy eradication efforts in deserts of Afghanistan, drone fumiga-tion operations over the hills of Colombia—and the America’s diplomatic wrath for any foreign government unwilling to enlist in Washington’s war—today’s Drug War has no bounds.

Its problems begin in its name. Drugs, like many illicit activities, historically exist in all so-FLHWLHV��-XVW�DV�WKH�4LQJ�'\QDVW\�ÀDLOHG�IXWLOHO\�to prevent cheap British opium from entering China in the nineteenth century, U.S Prohibi-tion never succeeded in ending the domestic consumption of alcohol. Declaring war on drugs is declaring a war without a “center of gravity”—that is, without a winnable objective, a war that Clausewitz himself would have frowned upon. The U.S cannot defeat an economic market; as long as demand for drugs exist, some entrepre-neurial spirit will create a supply, no matter the danger.

The matter is one of simple economics. The demand for drugs is inelastic, that is, it remains largely stable relative to changes in price. A GUXJ�DGGLFW�QHHGV�KLV�¿[��QR�PDWWHU�WKH�SULFH��Thus when the U.S Border Guards seize a cache of drugs making its way across the U.S-Mexico border, theoretically lowering domestic supply and raising prices, drug consumption remains static. Higher prices do not deter usage. They instead translate into lucrative earning for drug dealers, the sorts to which any deliberate price ¿[LQJ�FDEDO�ZRXOG�HDJHUO\�FRQVHQW��+LJKHU�prices also translate into higher incentives for entrepreneurial individuals to enter the drug trade, once again increasing supply and lower-ing prices. This is the logic of the market, and it is what the U.S has been unsuccessfully waging war against for forty years.

7KLV�ÀDZHG�SUHPLVH�KDV�SUHGLFWDEO\�WUDQVODWHV�into elusive results. In 1993 American drugs agents thought they had struck a fatal blow, when Colombian billionaire and drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was killed in a theatric standoff

ZLWK�JRYHUQPHQW�RI¿FLDOV��+LV�GHDWK�VSHOOHG�an end to the Medellín cartel, the biggest co-caine producer in the world. Victory in the War against cocaine, many thought, was near. Such faith was tragically misplaced, however. Cocaine supply did not fall, and within years reports circulated Washington that the FARC, Colombia’s leftist-guerrillas, had inherited Es-cobar’s market share. Frenzy over “nacro-guer-rillas” prompted Congress to pass Plan Colom-bia, a $7.5 billion dollar military aid package to help the Colombian military combat the guer-rillas and eradicate coca production. Eleven years and multiple more aid packages later, the results are ambiguous. Some have hailed the FARC’s retreat from lucrative coca producing WHUULWRU\�DV�GH¿QLWH�YLFWRU\��<HW�D�GDPQLQJ�WUXWK�is whispered around Washington: the price of cocaine on American streets has only increased. Plan Colombia is but one example in a legacy of failure. Most recently, in 2008 Congress approved the Mérida Initiative—a military aid package, similar to Plan Colombia, intended to combat the Mexico’s powerful cartels, which Plan Colombia dwarfs Plan Colombia in size. Here, again, the results are scarce. Forty years DIWHU�1L[RQ�¿UVW�GHFODUHG�WKH�:DU�RQ�'UXJV��LW�has little more than rhetorical ploys to show for itself—and at what cost? It today claims the exorbitant price tag of $1 trillion dollars.

Yet the utter futility of Washington’s ap-proach—that is, of going after the drug supply—has been common knowledge among policy-makers even before Plan Colombia, when in 1994, when the reputed RAND Corp. issued a seminal study on the Drug War. Rather than waging the traditional supply-side war, it said, government resources are vastly more effec-tive when dedicated to demand- side initia-tives, like rehab, which aimed at shrinking the demand-base. In near concert, President Clin-ton appointed a new Drug Czar, Lee Brown, a thirty-year veteran cop, whose experiences with narco-crime on the streets of San Jose made him acutely aware of the Drug War’s failings. Brown vocally called for a rethinking of the War on Drugs and submitted a drastically revised budget, comprised of greater funds for rehabili-tation care and less for putative enforcement.

12

Yet nothing came of it. Brown’s reformist bud-get passed Congress with the mere semblance of its original intent. Brown, himself, was even-tually replaced with Barry McCaffrey, a military man and zealous preacher of Washington’s tradition hardline. When Bush succeeded Clin-ton, the Drug War returned to its natural cycle RI�DQQXDO�UHFRQ¿UPDWLRQ�DQG�HVFDODWLRQ��7KH�consensus in Washington established by RAND, nevertheless, stands: the War on Drugs is counterproductive. It came as no surprise, then, when Obama’s Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, recently declared the War on Drugs was a fail-ure, but admitted, when pressed, that no major policy departure was being considered.

Given Washington’s mood of austerity—of “liv-ing within our means”—how is it that the util-ity of funding the War on Drugs has not been called into question? In fact, it is one of the few programs with an expanding budget. Despite Gil Kerlikowske’s admission of the war’s failure, the Obama administration has expanded law enforcement and interdiction funding to record levels. In this light, the War on Drugs appears incomprehensible—almost Kafkaesque—illogi-FDOO\�LPPXQH�WR�LWV�RZQ�ÀDZV�DQG�IDLOXUHV��DQG�growing inexorably in cost and scope.

There is a logic, however—which brings me to the institutional design at the heart of this article and series. Understanding the War on Drugs requires understanding a system of inter-ests, one that begins with the ground soldiers in the Drug War: the bureaucrats and enforcers that carry out Washington’s mandate.

When Max Weber said of the bureaucracy that it “stands in the same relationship to other forms as does the machine to the non-mechan-ical production of goods,” he probably did not have the narco-bureaucracy in mind. These agencies, together, form a vast and sprawling network that that are riddled with overlap-SLQJ�PDQGDWHV�DQG�FRQÀLFWLQJ�REMHFWLYHV��7KH�Drug and Enforcement Agency (DEA) leads all efforts—although, agencies, from the Trea-sury Department to the IRS and National Park Service, house programs or divisions dedicated to some aspect of the drug war, together com-

prising a similarly vast and sprawling narco-bu-reaucracy. When President Reagan by executive RUGHU�HQOLVWHG�WKH�&,$�DQG�1DY\�LQ�WKH�¿JKW��amending the Posse Comitatus Act, and thereby ending a century of military non-involvement in civilian affairs, he only added to the intricacy and redundancy of the narco-bureaucracy. This has occasionally escalated to embarrassingly public proportions. In 1987 a public stand-off between the Coast Guard and U.S Custom Agency over interdiction operations in the Ca-ribbean led Charles Rangel (D-NY), who was at the time chairman of the Committee on Narcot-ics Abuse and Control, to express in bemuse-ment that “agencies cannot agree over who has jurisdiction over the land, the sea, or even which coast or boarder.” He continued on to chide them: “We are in the midst of a war. This is neither the time nor place for tuft battles, misplaced agency loyalty or false bravado.”

His admonishment was of little avail. While competition between agencies enlisted in the VDPH�¿JKWLQJ²SUHYHQWLQJ�GUXJV�IURP�UHDFKLQJ�American shores, in this case—make little sense to Charles Rangel, or anybody else for that mat-ter, there is a compelling bureaucratic logic to it, which is at heart of both the War on Drugs.

Good bureaucrats, to start, are measured not by HI¿FDF\��EXW�UDWKHU�WKHLU�DELOLW\�WR�VHFXUH�JRY-ernment funding. All agencies live and die by their ability to secure and maintain government funding. Thus each agency has a strong incen-tive to protect their current programs while seeking to expand and acquire new funding—this produces a number of powerful dynamics. First, agencies have an interest in attaching themselves to politically opportune causes. The frenzy over escalating drug abuse that led for Nixon’s initial escalation of the War on Drugs, for instance, made drug abuse the “hot” place to secure funding. Agencies tailored their op-erations accordingly. In the waning years of the Cold War, the Pentagon, too, engaged in the game of political bandwagoning in order to VHFXUH�IXQGLQJ��$V�D�IRUPHU�3HQWDJRQ�RI¿FLDO�recalls, despite internal opposition to entering the Drug War, many viewed it “as an opportuni-ty to subsidize some non-counternarcotic effort

13

struggling for funding approval.” Funding, once secured, begets entrenchment. Agencies mount powerful resistance against attempts to discon-tinue funding—more of less adding an element of permanency to any bureaucratic operations. In addition, the inevitable overlaps in mandates and jurisdictions often give way bitter “turf wars,” as seen in the public debacle between the National Guard and Customs Department.

In this stark reality that is bureaucratic poli-tics, it is little surprise that few question the assumptions buttressing the War on Drugs, de-VSLWH�WKHLU�LQ¿QLWH�DEVXUGLWLHV��,Q�D�ZRUOG�ZKHUH�a bureaucrats only means to winning program funding is by being the most zealous imple-menters of Washington’s will, mavericks and reformers are haplessly out of place. Results of these programs, it would seem, would eventual prompt their congressional handlers to ques-tion the utility of funding them. However, even the most abysmal results can be distorted or altered into something positive to report. For instance, when appealing for additional fund-ing the DEA, Customs Service, and State De-partment systematically frame their success in statistics such as the number of shipments seized or interdicted, lavatories raided, or arrest made. All of this is misleading: any real success can only be measured by its effect on domestic drug prices—raising these prices, after all, is the purported goal that underpins their the supply-side approach. All other statistics are irrelevant and meaningless. Their use only illuminates the utter impossibility of the actual goal. It is HVWLPDWHG�WKDW�WZHOYH�WUDFWRU�WUDLOHUV�¿OOHG�ZLWK�cocaine could supply the U.S market for a year. Seventy thousand (70,000) cross the U.S-Mex-ican Border daily. It is no wonder that the price of cocaine has remained static.

But misleading statistics alone would not fool Congress—if they were not themselves com-plicit in perpetuating the War on Drugs. Hence the second level of the system: our leadership. Being “tough on drugs”—Politicians are well aware of the politically opportune connotations RI�WKLV�VWDWHPHQW��,W�PHDQV�¿JKWLQJ�FULPH��GHGL-cation to “law and order;” and family values—drugs, after all, are a centerpiece of the coun-

terculture. Politicians, including presidents, have predictably seldom hesitated to tout their credentials for being “tough on drugs.” Nixon, indeed, launched the Drug War right before the 1972 election. While Nixon claimed victory over drugs, taking America’s drug problem off the agenda, usage remained about the same. A far more probable explanation is that the war served its political value in helping his reelec-tion bid. Now, with a budget to balance, contin-ued escalation was pointless. Congress did not share the president’s calculus, though. A con-gressmen’s ability to go back to his constituency and claim they were “tough on drugs” always has its value. Congress thus quickly slipped into WKH�UK\WKP�RI�DQQXDOO\�UHFRQ¿UPLQJ�DQG�HVFD-lating the drug war, all while reaping the politi-FDO�EHQH¿W�RI�D�³WRXJK�RQ�GUXJV´�VWDQFH�

The dynamic, furthermore, works both ways. Not all presidents or politicians have been militantly anti-drugs or willful exploiter of drug policy for political gains. Ford, Carter, Clinton, and Obama have all been pragmatic and open about the war’s failure. However, their attempts to reign in the war’s unmitigated expansion have come at a political cost. Pragmatism in the War on Drugs, indeed, has left politicians vulnerable to attacks over their “law and or-der” credentials. Coupled with resistance from entrenched bureaucratic interests and low political payoff, reform in the War on Drugs has proven to be a costly endeavor. Clinton discov-ered this after nominating Lee Brown, whose reformist proclivities exposed the President to an array of right wing attacks. With host of other political problems, Clinton, as aforemen-tioned, eventually succumbed and nominated Barry McCaffrey. The political cost outweighed the political reward.

7KLV�EULQJV�PH�WR�WKH�WKLUG�DQG�¿QDO�OHYHO�RI�WKH�system: the public. It is from the public’s whims and normative disposition that politicians’ basic incentives arise. It follows that if drug abuse were viewed as a public health issue, reformist-PLQGHG�SROLWLFLDQV�ZRXOG�¿QG�KXJH�UHZDUGV�in dismantling the War on Drugs. Instead the public has long considered drug abuse foremost a breach of law, an inherently immoral act,

14

which must be dealt with accordingly—that is, by “getting tough.” Consequently, the public has consistently awarded politician who capitalized on an aggressive posture towards drugs. They reelected Nixon after his declaration that drugs were “public number one,” and lauded Nancy Regan for her “just say no” anti-drug campaign.

The history of the public’s perception towards drug abuse, moreover, is laden with racial and nativist anxieties directed primarily towards immigrants. The wave of Chinese immigrants at the end of the 19th century coincided with growing paranoia over the harms of opium. Similarly, fears over the Mexican migration rose in tandem with an obsession over the “destructive” effects of marijuana. With conno-tations like these, it is unsurprising that Ameri-can politicians continue to support this failed war with impunity.

Presented in this systemic level, the prospect of ending the War on Drugs appears dim. Indeed, while the failure of Iraq War, and to lesser extent Afghanistan, altered actor incentives and the public’s disposition, creating an impetus for draw down, the Drug War has trotted on untar-nished by its failures.

Yet there are reasons to be hopeful. The public’s disposition and deep-seated normative assump-tion on drug abuse is slowly changing. Domes-tically, the Drug War has long ravaged under-SULYLOHJHG�FRPPXQLWLHV��RYHUÀRZLQJ�RXU�MDLOV�with petty offender—and the publics discontent PD\�EH�¿QDOO\�UHDFKLQJ�FULWLFDO�PDVV��0RUHRYHU��ZLWKRXW�VRXWKHUQ�QHLJKERU�¿JKWLQJ�DQ�H[LVWHQ-tial war against its powerful drug cartels, Amer-LFD¶V�ÀDZHG�QDUFR�IRUHLJQ�SROLF\²KHUHWRIRUH�outside the reach or concern of average Ameri-cans—is beginning spill over our borders. Drug crime and violence has hit the homeland, and now Americans are beginning to demand more effective policy. These tectonic shifts in public opinion have manifest strongest in the growing movement to legalize marijuana. The legaliza-tion effort for a drug once considered irrepa-rably destructive, if not nefarious, now enjoys historic 50% approval among Americans. While WKLV�PD\�UHÀHFW�QRUPDWLYH�FKDQJHV�DPRQJ�WKH�

SRSXODFH��LW�DOVR�UHÀHFW��LQ�D�GDPQLQJ�UHSX-diation of Drug War’s supply side approach, a growing pragmatic consensus that the legaliza-tion of marijuana would reduce demand, strik-LQJ�DW�WKH�FRUH�WKH�GUXJ�FDUWHOV�SUR¿WV�

Nevertheless, work remains to be done. Shifts in public opinion have yet to make it political advantageous for politicians to take a strong reformist stance. That Obama remains a wary critic of the war, unwilling to embrace it but WRR�WLPLG�WR�UHSXGLDWH�LW��UHÀHFWV�LWV�GHHS�HQ-trenchment in America’s political institutions. Whether or not defeat in the War on Drugs LV�HYHQWXDOO\�DGPLWWHG�ZLOO�UHÀHFW�WKH�WHQDF-ity and will of our political system. Until then the War on Drugs will continue to be wage on illogical bounds in wait of day that everyone in :DVKLQJWRQ�¿QDOO\�DGPLWV�ZKDW�WKH\�DOO�NQRZ��America is waging a war of absurdity.

Lorand Laskai is a junior from Berke-ley Heights, NJ who studies political science and history. Contact him at lorand.laskai@gmail.com.

15

Divestment: Right Target, Wrong

Strategy

Swarthmore College student group Mountain Justice has for several months been advocating a divestment campaign against Big Oil corpora-tions whose damaging rent-seeking and envi-ronmental policies undeniably deserve scorn. While the group should be commended for its advocacy of corporate social responsibility, the uncomfortable fact is that a growing body of evidence suggests that this form of ‘economic sanction’ is an ineffective strategy for applying social pressure. In the context of Swarthmore, the scale of the College’s endowment and the manner in which it is handled prevents any sort of autonomous control over investment. More EURDGO\��DJHQWV�LQ�¿QDQFLDO�PDUNHWV�EDVH�WKHLU�GHFLVLRQV�RQ�SUR¿W��QRW�VRFLDO�SUHVVXUH��*LYHQ�this and a host of other concerns raised by the implementation of divestment, individuals in the college community and elsewhere ought to reconsider the strategy behind divestment campaigns.

On the surface, divestment might seem to be an appealing tool for combating social injustice. The largest divestment campaign in history, WDUJHWLQJ�6RXWK�$IULFDQ�¿UPV�LQ�VXSSRUW�RI�apartheid, won the support of numerous public and private entities and led many to credit the campaign with the end of apartheid. Indeed, 6RXWK�$IULFDQ�¿UPV�ORVW����ELOOLRQ�GROODUV�LQ�foreign investment through the 1980’s. This ¿JXUH�XQGRXEWHGO\�LQÀXHQFHG�WKH�WXUEXOHQW�South African economy of the period. But a closer examination reveals that the impact of South African divestment was far more ambigu-ous – a 1996 article in the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance found that companies who resisted the international community’s at-tempts to end apartheid outperformed compa-nies that disavowed apartheid. This effect held WUXH�DFURVV�¿UP�VFDOH�

Furthermore, analyses of businesses operating LQ�6RXWK�$IULFD�VKRZV�WKDW�WKHUH�ZDV�QR�VLJQL¿-cant response to the passage of larger binding

divestment legislation. In an analysis of the South African divestment by Teoh, Welch and Wazzan (1999), the authors bluntly state that divestment efforts “had no discernible effect on the valuation of banks and corporations with South African operations or on the South Af-ULFDQ�¿QDQFLDO�PDUNHWV�´�,Q�����±�ZKHQ�FDOOV�for divestment had been reverberating for two decades and over 250 private organizations had sold hundreds of billions in South African investments – the South African economy grew at the near-record pace of 4%. Compounding this ambiguous picture of cause and effect is the crash of gold prices that occurred in the 1980’s, which took a toll on South African exports and, ostensibly, foreign investment as well. Given that South African divestment campaigns began WZHQW\��¿YH�\HDUV�EHIRUH�DQ\�DFKLHYHPHQWV��it is unreasonable to ascribe the abolishment of apartheid to divestment for the same rea-sons that it is unreasonable to credit the Soviet Union’s collapse to the Reagan administration.

More recently, a humanitarian crisis in Darfur sparked a divestment campaign comparable in scale to earlier efforts in South Africa. Here, too, the effect of divestment is ambiguous. A number of states and educational institutions have enacted policies that aim to curb invest-ment in the region, primarily targeting a hand-ful of multinational oil companies. Yet when WKHVH�¿UPV�KDYH�EHHQ�WKH�WDUJHW�RI�:HVWHUQ�divestment campaigns, they have been vocal in stating their assurance that other sources of for-HLJQ�LQYHVWPHQW�ZHUH�VXI¿FLHQW�WR�UHVLVW�SUHV-sure. The data tell a similar tale: oil manufac-turers engaging in business with the Sudanese JRYHUQPHQW�KDYH�¿UPO\�UHVLVWHG�DWWHPSWV�WR�leave the region. This is not an exception to the rule; the vast majority of divestment campaigns will see no concessions made by the targeted entity. Divestment campaigns have been waged against Israel, Burma, Iran and China, with the only discernible impact being that those who have divested have constrained their choices

16

of investment and indirectly lowered their own returns.

There are sound explanations for why divest-ment – even in the extraordinary campaign against apartheid – has failed to achieve clear victories. The most intuitive explanation is that LQGLYLGXDOV�ZKR�EX\�DQG�VHOO�¿QDQFLDO�LQVWUX-PHQWV�DUH�SUR¿W�VHHNLQJ��DQG�WKDW�DQ\�QHJDWLYH�impact on asset prices created by a divestment FDPSDLJQ�ZLOO�EH�RXWZHLJKHG�E\�WKH�SUR¿W�PD[-imizing behavior of other marketplace agents. In other words, downward trends in stock prices will be offset by those marketplace actors who don’t value a given divestment campaign more than potential returns.

The relation between a company and their stock shares is operative here. First, we should QRWH�WKDW�WKH�LPSDFW�RI�VWRFN�WUDGHV�RQ�D�¿UP�is indirect – once a stock has been created and disbursed, a company has received all the capi-tal it will ever receive from that share. A divest-ing entity cannot choose to simply destroy the stock, lest they decrease the number of shares outstanding and do the company a favor – they must instead sell it to an entity who may not discount the stock’s value for social pressure. Furthermore, an individual who sells all of his or her stock in a given company relinquishes any voting rights that they have acquired. Simply put, divestment encourages those who are not divesting to buy stock at bargain prices DQG�HOLPLQDWHV�WKH�DELOLW\�RI�GLYHVWLQJ�¿UPV�WR�GLUHFWO\�LQÀXHQFH�FRPSDQ\�SROLF\�E\�YRWLQJ�shares.

Divestment campaigns are also burdened by scale and coordination; in order to have any HIIHFW��WKH�FDSLWDO�ÀLJKW�IURP�DQ\�JLYHQ�HQ-WLW\�PXVW�EHFRPH�D�VLJQL¿FDQW�VKDUH�RI�WKDW�target’s total capitalization in a short span of time. Exxon, for example, is capitalized at four hundred billion dollars, and targeting a nation implies an even larger total capitalization for associated industries. Given that a divestment’s stock sell-off implies there are purchases be-ing made elsewhere, a divestment’s impact on market capitalization is the difference between the market price of all associated shares before

and after divestment. In effect, very little. We also know that people spread their investment across many types of assets to mitigate risk, so WKHLU�LQÀXHQFH�RYHU�DQ\�RQH�LQYHVWPHQW�LV�IDU�lower than their net savings. Given these fac-WRUV��LW�LV�H[FHHGLQJO\�GLI¿FXOW�WR�FRRUGLQDWH�between the large number of investors needed for divestment to prove effective.

Finally, a number of ethical dilemmas are introduced by divestment campaigns. Con-sider the investment broker, who must decide how to allocate the collective wealth of many sources – should their job be to maximize return on investment, or should they forgo a portion of these returns out of moral obliga-tion? In the context of Swarthmore, the Col-lege’s endowment invested in tandem with a number of other investors. It would be a logis-tical nightmare and practical impossibility to weight the social preferences of Swarthmore College against the rest of the investment port-folio. Larger institutions may opt to invest their endowments independently, but doing this for the purpose of divestment represents a cost that is certainly not valued uniformly through-out the College. Another problem introduced by divestment campaigns is any imposed cost would be felt disproportionately by ‘bystand-ers’. Remember that a successful divestment campaign should counter social concerns with HFRQRPLF�SUHVVXUH��IRUFLQJ�D�FRXQWU\�RU�¿UP�WR�experience economic duress will certainly harm the lowest rung of those entities – whether they are workers displaced by layoffs or citizens cast into poverty by the pervading economic climate – but these costs will not be realized in full by those executives and policymakers who must ultimately be held accountable.

By comparing the stated goals of divestment with the undesirable realities of divestment practice, it becomes easy to determine that di-YHVWPHQW�LV�LQHI¿FLHQW�DW�FUHDWLQJ�VRFLDO�FKDQJH��No matter what the target of a particular divest-ment campaign might be, virtually all of them seek to pressure an entity for high-level policy for which only a few members of an organiza-tion can be held responsible. Unfortunately, the costs imposed by divestment are not felt by

17

these individuals – instead, they are distributed among the divesting entities (who lose return on investment) and the target entity as a whole, in particular the most vulnerable elements of society. Meanwhile, historical examples tell us that even the most successful divestment campaigns have a tenuous effect on the target’s economic well-being.

The possibility remains that divestment could SRWHQWLDOO\�LQÀXHQFH�D�EXVLQHVV�WR�FKDQJH�LWV�behavior, but the extraordinary amount of capi-tal that would have to be leveraged in a coordi-nated manner has yet to be realized in practice. Analyses of historical data has revealed little LPSDFW�RQ�WKH�¿QDQFLDO�PDUNHW�LQ�QHDUO\�DOO�divestment campaigns, and an increasingly-glo-EDOL]HG�¿QDQFLDO�PDUNHWSODFH�ZLOO�PDNH�WKH�VRUW�of mass collaboration and market power needed to strengthen a divestment campaign more GLI¿FXOW�WR�DFKLHYH��7KRXJK�WKLV�LVVXH�KDV�ORQJ�been marred with political implications, the re-ality of divestment practices is not. Divestment LV�DQ�LQHI¿FLHQW�VWUDWHJ\�WR�H[HUW�VRFLDO�SUHV-sure; policymakers and Swatties alike would be wise to invest their time in other strategies of resistance to harmful corporate policy.

Mike Droste is a sophomore student in economics and public policy from Cedar Falls, Iowa. Contact him at mdroste1@swarthmore.edu

18

Against Inequality: Labor-Capital

Tensions and the Growing Income

Gap

Imagine this: you have been laid off, cannot ¿QG�ZRUN��DUH�KRPHOHVV��DQG�DUH�VWUXJJOLQJ�to feed your two children, ages eight and ten. Always hard-working and self-reliant before, \RX�QRZ�VDFUL¿FH�\RXU�SULGH�DQG�VHOI�UHVSHFW��and beg on the street. But you are middle-aged and garner less sympathy than would be neces-sary to feed your children in this way. You can-not forgive yourself for doing this, but you feel forced to ask your children to skip school to beg ZLWK�\RX�VR�\RX�FDQ�¿QDOO\�IHHG�WKHP�

Before the recession, I remember my local news station running that story, and I live in Con-necticut-- one of the richest states in the coun-try. A century ago, mothers in America used to lie about their children’s ages so that their young sons and daughters could work in dan-gerous, exploitative factories for cents a day. It was the only way that they and their children could survive. Yet for all our progress over the last century, a parent can still feel cornered into having to ask a child to skip school to beg on the streets. It is unconscionable that the richest country in the history of the world would allow anyone to be put into such a cruel situation.When we are talking about economic inequal-ity, we usually use statistics because they reveal the absurdity of America’s profound wealth gap. But I want us to keep in mind that those statis-tics translate into enormous amounts of suf-fering, whether it is the homelessness and food LQVHFXULW\�RI�WKH�SRRU�RU�WKH�VWUHVV�RI�¿QDQFLDO�insecurity that burdens millions of hard-work-ing, middle class Americans.

Let me clarify. I am not an egalitarian; I do not care about equality for its own sake. You can RQO\�VHUYH�RQH�JRG��DQG�PLQH�LV�WKH�ÀRXULVKLQJ�and subjective well-being (SWB) of conscious life-- that is the one and only thing I consider intrinsically good. As a prioritarian, I care about improving each and every person’s SWB,

but assign higher priority to the worst off be-cause empathy invariably leads us to be more concerned with those who suffer most.

7KH�¿UVW�WKLQJ�GHIHQGHUV�RI�LQFRPH�LQHTXDO-ity try to claim is that somehow concentrating wealth in the hands of a very small minority actually improves everybody’s lot. Well, U.S. policy makers have been trying this strategy for the past few decades and economic growth has only gotten worse. Economic growth in chained 2005 dollars has fallen steadily from 51% in the 1960s to 37% in the 1970s to 35% in the 1980s WR�����LQ�WKH�����V��DQG��¿QDOO\��WR�DQ�LPSUHV-sive 13% in the 2000s. At the same time, child poverty has gone from 14% in 1969 to 22.7%. In ������¿IW\�PLOOLRQ�SHRSOH�OLYHG�LQ�IRRG�LQVHFXUH�American households.

I am admittedly not the sharpest tool in the shed. But it is hard for me to understandhow the concentration of wealth helps every-one: the expectation is that the wealthy create jobs, but, without coordinated investment in human capital, potential productivity, and, therefore, earnings suffer, reducing potential consumption and undermining long- term economic growth. Today, out of the 24 OECD countries for which data is available, children in the United States have the second most unequal material well-being, the third most unequal health well-being, and the sixth most unequal education well-being. These deprivations are QRW�PHUHO\�XQHWKLFDO��EXW�DOVR�LQHI¿FLHQW��ZKHQ�we allow a lack of quality education and ma-terial well-being to diminish the potential of millions of our neighbors, we do so not only at their expense, but ours as well.

According to a 2007 report, child poverty alone costs the U.S. $500 billion annually through lower productivity, lower earnings, higher incarceration rates, and more health-related expenses. More recently, the IMF reported

19

that more equality was better for sustained, long-term economic growth: “a rising tide lifts all boats, and our analysis indicates that help-ing raise the smallest boats may help keep the tide rising for all craft, big and small.” While many studies have corroborated the notion that income inequality and economic growth are negatively correlated, a critical 2001 study still admitted that inequality after redistribution is VLJQL¿FDQWO\�QHJDWLYHO\�FRUUHODWHG�ZLWK�JURZWK��Health and education inequality are also strongly negatively correlated with growth. Im-portantly, societies with higher capital shares (share of income going to capital) invest less in both, reducing human capital accumulation, and, in turn, reducing growth.

Of particular concern in the United States is worsening education inequality. As The New York Times reported this February, the gap in WHVW�VFRUHV�EHWZHHQ�DIÀXHQW�DQG�ORZ�income students has grown by about 40% since the 1960s. But not only is the education inequality growing, even those in the lower income class who do well have a much lower chance of completing college. Of high-scoring, low-income students, only 29% will complete college, compared to 74% of high-scoring, high-income students. Moreover, even low- scoring, high-income students have a higher college FRPSOHWLRQ�UDWH��DW������7KLV�LV�D�VLJQL¿FDQW�waste of human capital that will become in-creasingly damaging to the country as we tran-sition towards a knowledge-based economy.But too bad if the children are not at fault for their predicament, or that inequality hurts us all by reducing the growth of the pie-- it must be admitted that the lower classes do not de-serve a larger share of the wealth. It is only the genius and industriousness of a select few elites that fuel our economic growth, so they deserve QHDUO\�DOO�WKH�EHQH¿WV�IURP�WKDW�JURZWK��,W�LV�fair and just that the after-tax income of the top 1% grew 275% over the past thirty years, com-pared to an 18% increase for the bottom quin-tile. Generously, the top 1% only captured 58% of the total income growth from 1976-2007, benevolently allowing the rest of the country to share the remainder. As Ayn Rand has taught me, the 99% are just parasites leaching of the

greatness of the 1%. Society oppresses and exploits these Randian heroes, because the rest of us are dependent on these completely inde-pendent individuals, our saviors, who, presum-ably, as self-reliant individuals, never learned anything from anyone else, provide their own health care, and produce their own food, cloth-ing, shelter, transportation, luxury goods, con-sumer durables, etc.

It is not like workers did anything to warrant increased compensation, such as increasing their productivity. Right? In the last thirty years, hourly labor productivity in the busi-ness sector increased 92%, while compensation only went up 40%. Similarly, in the last twenty years, labor productivity in the manufacturing sector increased 105%, while compensation im-proved by a measly 32%. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that productivity increas-es can be mostly explained by technology, it was surely those who already had the concentrated capital to buy that technology, not those who GHYHORSHG�LW��ZKR�ZHUH�WKH�EHQH¿FLDULHV�

The research of several economists who have performed an econometric study of occupa-tional wage inequality and productivity sub-stantiates this. Their study concludes that “the DEVHQFH�RI�VLJQL¿FDQW�SURGXFWLYLW\�GLIIHUHQFHV�between occupations suggest that occupations at the top of the wage hierarchy are overpaid with respect to their marginal productivity and occupations at the bottom (are) underpaid.” What is even more amazing is the fact that this study used data from Belgium, which already has one of the most equal income distributions. One can only imagine what the results would be using American data. Obviously there are other factors which determine income distribution, like the rarity of one’s skills and education, the attractiveness of the occupation, performance incentives, etc., but these are all relative. The implication is that inequality can be reduced while maintaining worker’s relative position. Even if we concede that those in the 1% should be in the 1%, or that those in the bottom 20% should be in the bottom 20%, it would still be PRUH�HFRQRPLFDOO\�HI¿FLHQW��PRUH�MXVW��DQG�more humane to reduce the gap between the

20

two.

On the question of merit, consider this point. In 2009, 10.4 million impoverished Americans spent at least half the year in the work force, making them the “working poor.” In fact, 4.3 million Americans worked full-time, year-round and still fell below the poverty level in 2009. Meanwhile, in 2009, Lawrence Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, was paid $557 million. I ¿QG�LW�KDUG�WR�EHOLHYH�WKDW�DQ\�WZR�KXPDQ�EH-ings could be so unequal in their value to the economy that one person could work full-time, year round and not escape poverty, while an-other could make more than 25,000 times the poverty rate for a family of four. But not only is he more valuable than a city of poor people; he is also 3,200 times more valuable than the average CEO, who earns $173,350. For some perspective, a four-star general with over forty years of service earns only ten times as much as a private with just one year of service. Perhaps we should wonder if Mr. Ellison is God incar-nate.

Of course Ellision is not the only divine pres-ence amongst us mere mortals; the average S&P 500 CEO makes 344 times the average Ameri-can worker. And in 2010, hedge fund manager John Paulson made $4.9 billion, a sum greater than the 2010 GDP of forty different countries, and half a billion more than the combined GDP of the smallest ten. My lack of imagination prevents me from believing that one individual brings more real value into the world than ten countries combined. If he were taxed at a rate of 99.99%, Paulson would still have earned $490,000, well above the minimum thresh-old for the 1%. The surplus wealth could have ended hunger and starvation among African children (the World Food Programme estimates $5 billion is needed). But, hey, this is capital-ism; we must remember our priorities.

I am not arguing for direct money transfers, but rather for increased investment in human beings and labor remuneration. Denmark offers a prime example in its comprehensive lifelong learning strategies, effective active labor market policies and modern social security systems.”

6XFK�SROLFLHV�DOORZ�HPSOR\HUV�WKH�ODERU�ÀH[LELO-ity they need, while ensuring that workers have UHTXLVLWH�WUDLQLQJ�DQG�¿QDQFLDO�VHFXULW\�

The United States lags in each of these areas. The percentage of males age 25- 29 who have completed four years of high school has re-mained unchanged since the mid- 1970s. The same is true of the percentage who have com-pleted four or more years of college. Consider-ing that 12% of schools account for half of all American dropouts, it is reasonable to suggest that our society is failing millions of underprivi-leged youth. We need a comprehensive strategy for improving their outcomes, from universal childcare and early education, to programs that help combat the harmful impact of poverty on children’s the U.S. ever got serious about solv-ing poverty, effective residential education programs could help deliver a major blow to the cycle (and culture) of poverty, and would prob-ably pay for themselves many times over in the long run.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing that that the in-come inequality is being driven by educational differences-- that the 21st economy rewards education. It is true that educational attain-ment is a factor in income inequality, but gain-ing an education hardly ensures a fair wage. From 1991-2010, high school graduates saw their median income decline by $3,400, while those with some college or associates degrees declined by $5,000. Even those with bachelor’s degrees or more declined by almost $1,000. Since the second quarter of 2010, worker’s wages as a percentage of the national income KDV�GLSSHG�EHORZ�����IRU�WKH�¿UVW�WLPH�RQ�UH-cord. While you will hear companies blame this on external factors such as rising medical insur-ance costs, worker compensation (salary plus EHQH¿WV��DV�D�SHUFHQWDJH�RI�WKH�QDWLRQDO�LQFRPH�LV�DW�D�IRUW\�¿YH�\HDU�ORZ��0HDQZKLOH��DIWHU�WD[�FRUSRUDWH�SUR¿WV�DUH�QRZ�DW������WKH�KLJKHVW�RQ�record.

In capitalism, labor and human capital will never be properly compensated or appreciated, but I think it is hard to argue that work has not become less rewarded in the last thirty years,

21

ZKLOH�¿QDQFH�DQG�FDSLWDO�KDYH�DVVXPHG�D�GRPL-nance unsurpassed in our historical data. And as we have seen, this has had terrible social and economic consequences. These consequences are only exacerbated by the fact that the U.S. KDV�QHLWKHU�D�VRFLDO�VHFXULW\�V\VWHP�VXI¿FLHQW�WR�adequately retrain and support workers during transition and/or unemployment periods, nor the political will to directly put people to work. Government job creation, of course, which would violate our dogma that “government does not create jobs” (this might more appropriately be rephrased as “government is not allowed to create jobs”).

I would like to end by mentioning that we focus a lot on income inequality, but it is the wealth inequality in the U.S. that is truly unfathom-able. According to the most recent data (from ������WKH�WRS����WDNHV�KRPH�DERXW�D�¿IWK�RI�the total income after taxes and owns 35% of America’s household net. Compare this to the top quintile, which earns roughly 60% of to-tal income, and owns 85% of the country’s net worth. Meanwhile, the incomes of the bottom 40% equal roughly 10% of total income, owns 0.2% of the net worth. Remarkably, the bottom 40% own -1% of non-home wealth, meaning that this constituency is hobbled by net debt.The economic crisis has only exacerbated wealth inequality. New York University econo-mist Edward Wolff expects that the top 1% probably now own about 37% of the country’s household net worth. The pattern is the same across the world; extreme income inequality is just a shadow of the even more colossal wealth inequality. If we want a society in which one’s wealth share is proportional to effort and pro-ductivity, and income represents just remuner-ation, income must be more justly distributed.

Yet this can never be in a capitalist society because wealth is valued more than labor. By capitalism’s very design the wealthy will end up with a larger percentage and laboring lower classes will end up with a smaller percentage of the total wealth than was earned through pro-ductivity. Obviously, any economy has a need for capital accumulation and investment, but WKDW�UROH�GRHV�QRW�QHFHVVDULO\�KDYH�WR�EH�IXO¿OOHG�

by private investors. Instead, sovereign wealth funds –the most successful of the type of pub-lic investment hinted at by J.M. Keynes in his General Theory– could replace feasibly replace private investors. Countries such as Norway provide a model of how this can be done in a relatively non- politicized, corruption-free way. The losses have already been socialized; why not socialize the gains?

Even the founder of the World Economic Fo-rum, German economist Klaus Scwab, recently said, “Capitalism is outdated. Capitalism was born when capital was the most important resource. Today, it is talent that is most im-portant.” We need a society which is focuses on developing human potential and improving subjective well-being, and which utilizes its economy in a sustainable manner as a means to that end. We do not need a system that rewards wealth and the creation of wealth; we need a system that rewards work and the improvement of well-being.

Tommy Fortuna is a freshman from New Haven, Connecticut, who spent five years in the U.S. Marines. Contact him at tfortun1@swarthmore.edu.

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The Enviromental Imperative: Back To

First Principles On Preservation

What has been said before must be said again: policy makers need to work harder toward environmental preservation. Although “being green” has been in popular fashion lately, it has been given little more than lip ser-vice by advertisers who boast little more than 10% recycled paper notebooks. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been able to give cursory nods to environmental groups and the Environmental Protection Agency to enact valuable emissions standards, but this is hardly enough to reverse troubling climate change trends. Obama seems content to kowtow to big business’ whining about the economic costs of preventing green house gasses and toxins, while counting on support from his environmentalist base that can hardly turn to the climate change-denying GOP.

This failure is deplorable both in terms of envi-ronmental and health policy. Not only do green-house gases and toxins such as CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and mercury create a whole host of environmental problems ranging from en-dangerment and extinction of countless species to rising sea levels, but they also compromise public health by damaging drinking water and clean air. Even if explaining the technical sci-ence of climate change is too complex, Obama must rally public concern around these threats to public health.

Corporate tycoons do not and will probably never give a whit about drowning polar bears. They vehemently voice the oft cited “facts” that environmental regulations lead to the destruc-tion of business and job outsourcing. And yes, China has virtually no regulations, either en-vironmental or labor, to speak of. Yet China is paying for this, as home to sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities. Environ-mental regulation is, of course, the side point. America’s at least nominal recognition of work-HUV¶�ULJKWV�PHDQV�LW�LV�XQ¿W�WR�FRPSHWH�DJDLQVW�

the near slave worker conditions of Chinese fac-tories. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that corporate America will be lining up for Al Gore’ to sign its copy of An Inconvenient Truth anytime soon.

Corporate cynicism is compounded by the resis-tance of rural communities struggling through recession to recognize the need for green lifestyle change without concrete evidence of climate change. Yet the troubling threat of birth defects should be enough to spark public out-rage: When pregnant women are exposed to excess levels of ozone and carbon monoxide, studies have shown that their children are up to three times as likely to have heart defects, and exposure to mercury can cause the neurological disease minamata.

The point here is that what is needed in envi-URQPHQWDO�SROLF\�LV�D�UHWXUQ�WR�¿UVW�SULQFLSOHV��The formation of the EPA came on the heels of SHDFH��ORYH��DQG�ÀRZHU�SRZHU��,W�ZDV�WKH�FKLOG�of a powerful new ethos that reconnected the American people with the environment after the domestication of the ‘50s epitomized by the newfound prevalence of plastic, Styrofoam TV dinners. That ethos was informed by moving works like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which, in its description of the dangers of such pesti-cides as DDT, framed vigorous environmental regulation as a matter of both moral steward-ship of the earth and sensible public health policy.

In the decade after Nixon created the EPA in 1970, a series of unfortunate events created political conditions conducive to the agency’s empowerment, the most prominent of which were the disasters at Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Love Canal, in seemingly soothing Niagara Falls, was a quagmire waiting to hap-pen, a series of errors that can be dated to the 1890s that ultimate resulted in a disaster the consequences of which are still fenced off from the public today. In the 1890s William T. Love

23

conceived of a canal connecting Lake Ontario to WKH�1LDJDUD�5LYHU��7KH�FDQDO�ZDV�KDOI�¿QLVKHG�before it was abandoned, and in the next thirty years became a local swimming hole for the general public. Yet it soon became a forum for government and corporate recreation, too, as a dumping ground for all kinds of toxic waste. Throughout the 1920s the canal was a dump site for the illustrious waste of the City of Ni-agara, and by 1940s the U.S. Army was using the canal for its garbage – including chemical waste from the Manhattan project. Then, be-tween 1942 and 1953 Hooker Electrochemical Company obtained permission to dispose toxic waste in the canal, and promptly buried 21,000 tons in the area.

In 1953, in need of municipal land, the city de-cided to capitalize on the cheap land and con-struct a school in the area. Residents began to populate the neighborhood around Love Canal neighborhood. In the process of constructing sewer beds to accommodate the growing popu-lation, the canal walls were breached and toxic waste mercilessly permeated the ground and rainwater.

)DVW�IRUZDUG�WZHQW\�¿YH�\HDUV��E\�ZKLFK�WLPH�more than 50% of children born in the area had at least one birth defect– including enlarged feet, heads, legs, and hands. The rate of miscar-riages had increased 300%, and newborns were exposed to dangerous chemicals through breast milk. Residents also had unusually high num-bers of white blood cells, a precursor of leuke-mia. Moreover, one third of the population had chromosomal damage, as opposed to a normal rate of 1%. The horrendous situation culmi-nated in the declaration of a state of emergency in the Love Canal region in August 1978. Then, in 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which empowered the EPA to hold polluters accountable for public health disas-ters.

The nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island in 1979, while much more straightforward, cre-ated far more environmental problems. More than 40,000 gallons of radioactive waste were

released into the Susquehanna river, and ra-dioactive iodine and radioactive gasses were also released into the environment. Cleanup HIIRUWV�ODVWHG�QHDUO\�¿IWHHQ�\HDUV�DQG�FRVW�RQH�billion dollars. Prime among the effects is the fear of nuclear power the crisis induced, which led only to even greater dependency on fossil fuels. It is such fuels, the dreaded producers of greenhouse gasses, that are widely understood as major contributors to climate change. In a positive step forward –yet one which, nonethe-less, speaks to the inexcusable snail-like pace of environmental policy making– last January the EPA began regulating GHG from mobile and stationary sources.

If the American economy is to move beyond its harmful addiction to fossil fuels, much more rapid progress will have to be made. 2010 brought us perhaps the most compelling re-minder of this uncomfortable fact in the form of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, an event colloquially known as “that time BP dumped 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.” Now, a year and a half later, 75% of the oil spilt in this, the biggest marine oil spill in world history, remains in the Gulf. In the context of the far reaching effects on wildlife, human health, and industries such as tourism DQG�¿VKHULHV��WKLV�LV�WRWDOO\�XQDFFHSWDEOH�

This brings us to President Obama’s environ-mental record. Kudos are certainly deserved for the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline permit. This pipeline would have traversed six states and both the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, going through both agricultural and wildlife areas, risking toxic oil spills, polluted water, and disruption of habitat. It also would have cut through the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies 30% of groundwater in the United States. The Administration’s most praiseworthy environmental policy is surely a new set of rules concerning EPA regulation of coal and oil en-ergy plants, which Obama claims will “prevent thousands of illnesses and deaths every year.”

This may very well be true, but the real question is: Is this enough? Sure, Obama’s environmen-tal record is better than Bush’s, but that that is

24

no benchmark by which to measure. Those con-cerned with the pressing questions of climate change and public health have been rightfully disappointed in Obama’s embrace of hydraulic fracking in his State of the Union address and his authorization of 75% of offshore oil and gas reserves for exploitation.

If Obama is content to open more and more oil rigs offshore in order to appease the gas guz-zling public, we may be in more trouble than we thought. What is needed is a tough, proactive stance on climate change and environmental preservation, as well as the human health issues implicated in these matters. In this we need a UHWXUQ�WR�¿UVW�SULQFLSOHV�DORQJ�WKH�OLQHV�RI�WKRVH�that birthed the EPA four decades ago, and gave it real teeth a decade later. The era of the oil-driven economy is ending for reasons both economic and environmental. Future prosper-ity and preservation require both vigorous environmental regulation in the present and responsible preparation for the future.This means large-scale investments in renew-able sources, not drilling and hydraulic fracking at public health risk.

Katie Rydlizky is a freshman from Ellsworth, Maine, who has spent two summers conducting research at the Mount Desert Island Biological Labora-tory. Contact her at krydlizky@gmail.com.

25

The Dawn of American Empire:

The Imperialist Ethic in Early U.S.

Foreign Policy

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. !e eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open

the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God.John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” preached in 1630

Long before John L. O’ Sullivan coined his perennial praise “manifest destiny” it was the intention of the founding fathers and ambi-tion of the new American republic to attain indomitable power emulative of the empires of old Europe. Indeed, imperial ambition may be traced back to the Puritan exodus from Eng-land to their arrival in the new world. John Winthrop’s “shining city upon a hill,” which would bear the standard of Jonathan Edwards’ “gospel of Christ” a century later would prove to be the catalyst of the U.S.’s Declaration of Independence. Faced with the austerity of New England terrain, endemic pathologies and open channels, it was no surprise that the Puritans possessed a frenzied zeal for rapacious expan-sionism in search of arable land and accessible ports. Proximity to the oceanic gateway of the Atlantic would inevitably subject Puritan soci-ety to all of the symptoms of commercial ac-tivity and market transaction; symptoms that would further incense their desire for continen-tal aggrandizement.

So tempting were the prizes of trade that fron-tier farmers satiated their lust for bountiful soil with the blood of natives in what would come to be understood as Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. American historian Robert Kagan has written that “the constant availability of land...created a scarcity of laborers, which in turn drove wages in the colonies higher than they were in Eu-rope.” The supply of land and the demand for labor, elementary forces of economics, ensured WKDW�WKH�¿UVW�JUHDW�SRVW�3XULWDQ�PLJUDWLRQ�WR�North American shores expanded out both south and westward.

Despite the Puritans’ hiatus from English shores, they never considered themselves agents of an alternative power or cause; on the contrary, they saw themselves as harbingers of a restored vision of Old England. The provincial Eden the Puritans sought to construct upon New England soil were built from the work ethic of old English stock. Political scientist Howard Fineman has written that the Puritans were consumed with “Reformation ideas...bear-ing new ways of thinking and guiding their lives created by post- Gutenburg technology and in-dividualistic, post-Martin Luther theology.” The species of classical liberalism that derived from the Protestant ethic found enduring sanctuary in the American environment of free enterprise, individual liberty and expansion which were in-extricably linked to eastern seaboards, western wildernesses and southern plantations.

Mercantilist British policy towards their prized colonies further coddled the Herculean giant slumbering in its cradle. Salutary neglect, the %ULWLVK�JRYHUQPHQW¶V�RI¿FLDO�SROLF\�WRZDUG�WKH�Americans, allowed for vast colonial expan-sion and fostered the dangerous thought of independence through independently obtained continental dominance. By the middle of the eighteenth century colonial expansionists had their hill for the shining city. Lands exhausted but appetites wetted, colonial imperialists lob-bied the English crown for sanction to advance implacably westward, beyond the Allegheny Mountains. None among the Americans argued more vehemently for the expansion of the colo-nies than Benjamin Franklin was later among WKH�¿UVW�WR�HQWHUWDLQ�GUHDPV�RI�$PHULFDQ�H[-pansion through his Albany Plan of Union of 1754.

26

Occupying a loftier position on the world stage than her colonial wards, Great Britain failed to grasp the logic of the emerging territorial empire in the sparsely populated Americas. Furthermore, adopting the “realist” interna-tional strategy of Thucydides, Britain refused to incense French passions over their colonial brethren’s desires to occupy the coveted and contested Ohio River Valley. International equilibrium was to be maintained, the Crown strategized, through the systematic partition-ing of mutual European imperial ambitions. On numerous occasions colonial zeal required the temperance and sobriety of regal prudence. 7KH�7UHDW\�RI�8WUHFKW��������UDWL¿HG�VSHFL¿F�contours along North American soil, depriving the colonists of their prize beyond the common-wealth they already called their own.

Protection provided for Indian hamlets and )UHQFK�IRUWL¿FDWLRQV�DORQJ�FRORQLDO�ERUGHUV�proved too offensive a policy to “the body of the >FRORQLVWV@�LQ�VXFK�DQ�HPSLUH�´�%ULWLVK�FRQÀLFW�with France during the early eighteenth cen-tury proved unable to usurp English faith in the balance of power, despite colonial rapacity for blood, glory and estate. Versed in the logisti-cal intricacies of the terrain, American settlers pursued a strategy of geographical division between French claims in Canada and Loui-siana to assimilate each in turn. The French retort came from the reinforcement of garrisons along Ohio and the enlistment of several native tribes. Checked by colliding French ambition, Americans feared invasion, which proved only to further galvanize their rage. Constant raids renewed in earnest as the colonists redoubled their efforts for continental supremacy, borrow-ing from Catherine the Great’s perverse logic that “I have no way of defending my borders but to extend them.”

.DJDQ�ZULWHV�WKDW�ZDU�ÀRXULVKHG�EHFDXVH�³DI-ter decades of relative neglect towards North America in favor of preserving a balance of power in Europe, British public opinion in the late 1740’s and early 1750’s [became more] bel-licose.” At long last the Americans had con-vinced their kin across the Atlantic of the glory that total trans-hemispheric empire would

yield. The Seven Years War, which spanned from 1754 – 1763, unleashed the muzzle of the colonial war machine. No longer shackled by British condemnation or parchment, the Ameri-cans in a spectacle of unprecedented unity req-uisitioned resources from all of the colonies to wage their coveted war. Of the forces that had drawn the Puritans to America over a century ago, faith, commerce, territory and imperial ambition, such energies would infuse a bestial spirit in the bosoms of those who fought in their honor. Victory arrived with the French capitu-lation in Canada as the colonists infested their enemies’ strongholds, consuming them in a maelstrom of blood and steel. Triumphant, the FRORQLVWV�KDG�KDG�WKHLU�¿UVW�VLS�DW�WKH�FKDOLFH�of power. It was a drink that would prove too intoxicating to resist.

Observant of precedent and compelled by Burkean conservatism, English parliamen-tarians resurrected their commitment to the international chessboard that had existed prior to the war. Having spent vast sums in both trea-sure and blood, the British thought it unwise to further provoke French passions with a punitive peace treaty. Furthermore, English contempt had begun to swell towards those whom they saw as their subordinates across the Atlantic. General sentiment in the English military and government was that the colonists had failed WR�VXI¿FLHQWO\�FRPPLW�WKHLU�RZQ�UHVRXUFHV�WR�combat, especially since they stood to dispro-SRUWLRQDWHO\�EHQH¿W�IURP�WKH�QHZO\�FRQTXHUHG�territory.

The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763 by the Brit-ish and French, had profound impacts on this emerging and contentious dynamic. It stipulat-ed that the lands which the colonists had fought so fervently for were to be denied to them once more. Furthermore, to placate British taxpay-ers and reestablish royal dominance, Parlia-ment had begun the process of drafting legis-lation that later evolved into the Navigation, Sugar, Stamp, Declaratory, Tea, Quartering and Townsend Acts. All would stir the beast’s wrath in the years to come.

** *

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The colonial crisis that ensued spawned desires for the independence Americans would fa-mously declare a little more than a decade after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Con-trary to popular opinion, Britain possessed the ability to stave off the nascent independence movement emerging in America. Again, Ka-gan: “American independence might have been delayed, perhaps for decades, had the British government pursued a looser style of impe-rial management after the Seven Years’ War.” 0RQHWDU\�UHVWULFWLRQV�DQG�LQFUHDVHG�¿VFDO�intervention in the colonial economies further enraged the colonists after what they believed ZDV�D�VLJQL¿FDQW�GHJUHH�RI�SHUVRQDO�FDSLWDO�spent towards the war in pursuit of their own mere survival. Adam Smith’s magnum opus The Wealth of Nations highlighted for the colonists one of the essential “rights of Englishmen,” the protection of property, which later manifested in the immortal cry against “taxation without representation.” Having seen the result of the measures his government had levied on the col-onists, Edmund Burke realized that the revenue spigot originally hoped for would spew naught but bile and malice towards its operator:

³5HÀHFW�KRZ�\RX�DUH�WR�JRYHUQ�D�SHRSOH�ZKR�WKLQN�WKH\�ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disor-der, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found.”

Burke’s nightmare was realized two years later, as the chattel of his Majesty’s crown denuded free the noose of servitude. It is often purported that the Declaration of Independence was what Professor Richard Kohn has called America’s original “act of isolation, a cutting of the ties with the Old World, the deed of society which felt itself different from those which existed on the other side of the Atlantic.” On the contrary, WKH�'HFODUDWLRQ�ZDV�WR�EHFRPH�$PHULFD¶V�¿UVW�attempt at foreign policy in order to establish herself as a legitimate state. The statesman that ZRXOG�FRQWLQXH�WR�VLJQ�RQH�RI�KLVWRU\¶V�¿Q-est documents realized full well the scope and might of the English military. The purpose of the Declaration was to have America introduce

itself on the world stage as independent for WKH�VDNH�RI�¿QDQFLDO�DQG�PLOLWDU\�DLG�QHFHVVDU\�to maintain its newly declared independence. Indeed, in the section of enumeration, in which Jefferson makes clear the authorities of the new nation, he purposefully includes the very power that allowed America to be recognized: That these united Colonies... as Free and Indepen-dent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

It was on such alliances that the colonies ulti-mately came to depend upon during the Revo-lutionary War. French and Dutch capital mar-NHWV�ZLWK�WKH�DVVLVWDQFH�RI�LQÀDWHG�&RQWLQHQWDO�currency) appropriated the necessary requisi-tions of war the colonial dissenters demanded. Early matters of American foreign intrigue can be seen by the extent to which some of the most prominent founders spent abroad to secure their freedom at home. John Adams, for ex-ample, cajoled a two-million dollar loan from Amsterdam; both Franklin and Jefferson also spent time overseas securing funds for the na-scent American republic.

Victory at Yorktown in 1783 did not signal the end of American diplomacy. Having won her freedom only through the enlistment of for-eign aid, America was now focused on how to placate creditors and garner respect abroad. With the glaring inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation now apparent in the absence of war, several founders saw it necessary to revise America’s constitutional mandate. Protesting WKH�LQ¿UPLW\�RI�WKHLU�VFRSH��)HGHUDOLVW�$OH[DQ-der Hamilton begged rhetorically, “who would lend to a government, that prefaced its over-tures for borrowing by an act which demon-strated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying?”

The drafting of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 was to a great extent an attempt to restore the legitimacy of the central government by forg-ing a proper union to suppress insurrections (as in Shay’s Rebellion) as well as to reassure creditors by endowing itself with the pecuniary

28

powers of any self-respecting sovereign state. A Federalist invention having been transcribed by James Madison, the Constitution contained the broad language that would allow for the cre-ation of a powerful state apparatus to reinvigo-rate the nation’s sword and purse.

+DYLQJ�EHHQ�DSSRLQWHG�WKH�¿UVW�6HFUHWDU\�RI�the Treasury, the expansionary nationalist Hamilton sought the broad powers Great Brit-ain employed to plant America aloft the altar of future greatness. Biographer Ron Chernow UHÀHFWV�WKDW�+DPLOWRQ�³WUDFHG�WKH�ULFKHV�RI�Venice, Genoa, Hamburg, Holland and England WR�WKHLU�ÀRXULVKLQJ�EDQNV��ZKLFK�HQKDQFHG�VWDWH�power and facilitated commerce...Hamilton KDG�GHYHORSHG�D�¿QH�DSSUHFLDWLRQ�RI�(QJOLVK�institutions...he contended that America should imitate British methods and exploit the power of borrowing.” For Hamilton, such borrow-ing could not come from the groveling of petty VWDWHV��EXW�UDWKHU�IURP�D�SRZHUIXO�DQG�XQL¿HG�central government.

Moreover, for a central government to establish the necessary credit to command loans from foreigners it would need the instruments of empire: standing armies, a uniform currency, comprehensive taxing powers, mobile naval contingents, executive power, a national bank and broad constitutional language. To prevent extortion from creditors during incidents of future exigency, Hamilton realized that the debt of the Revolution had to be paid in full. Eco-nomic historian Niall Ferguson has observed that “Hamilton successfully converted the debt of the bankrupt Confederation into new bonds, at an interest rate of 6%, redeemable in the same fashion of British government bonds.” Under the auspices of Hamilton’s leadership, the United States became as creditworthy as any European nation within two generations.

If indeed the aphorism that “all politics is local” is true, then early American politics proved to be the exception. In the aftermath of suc-cessful revolution, American electoral politics turned not inwards but abroad. The political gyrations occurring in Europe towards the end of the eighteenth century fostered the growth

of internal political parties, each attempting to mold America into one of Europe’s contem-porary great powers. Chernow observes that, “England and France functioned as proxies in the domestic debate over what kind of society America should be.” Why, if in fact early ante-bellum America was isolationist, did it strive so greatly to emulate that of other nations, no less that of other empires, the British in particular? Renouncing diplomatic ties with France and ratifying the Jay Treaty, America continued its grand foreign policy of expansion and trade. 7KH�¿UVW�VXFK�SROLF\�FDPH�DERXW�DV�$PHULFDQ�diplomats and statesman processed the ghastly, bloody spectacle of the French Revolution. Viewing Jacobin France as a separate entity from its royal predecessor, America detached herself from her prior diplomatic obligations towards France under the leadership of the Anglophile Federalists in order to garner more intimate relations with England.

Extremely controversial given the gravity of foreign policy at the close of the eighteenth century, the Jay Treaty nonetheless came to be the imperial parchment of American expan-sion westward. Its mission being to reconcile differences between America and Britain, the Jay Treaty contained the British concession of military forts and territorial claims along the western borders of the free republic. This would allow for the now free colonists to reap the ter-ritory they had coveted since the Seven Years’ War’s conclusion. Mild attempts to quell impe-rial ambitions prior to the Revolution by colo-nial moderates were hastily defeated. Ferguson has keenly observed that when, in the course of debate concerning the Articles of Confederation in July 1776, the proposition came forward that western boundaries should be set, the idea was swiftly discarded in committee.

Indeed, of what few accomplishments the Ar-ticles did achieve, the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 both managed to become instruments for future American imperialism across the North Ameri-can continent. When crafting the Constitution, Madison’s inclusion of the third section in Ar-ticle IV provided for the creation of new states,

29

ensuring the expansion of the union west-ward and beyond. This clause permitted him to answer the rhetorical question he posed in )HGHUDOLVW�1R������GRXEWLQJ�WKH�HI¿FDF\�RI�VPDOO�republics in serving the greater good; “The question resulting is, whether small or exten-sive republics are most favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter.” Com-pounding the gains American diplomats made in extending westward claims, American mili-tary conquest within the lands formerly blocked by the Proclamation of 1763 further advanced imperial causes. The extra-constitutional wars waged by the newly independent U.S. against the Native Americans (they were never formally declared by Congress) in the west set the prec-edent for unabashed American imperialism across the continent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Victory culminated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers which forced the Treaty of Grenville in 1795, opened up the Ohio territory at long last.

Of course, revisionist scholars who care little for addressing the U.S.’s early imperialist stains take shelter in the much vaunted Washington farewell address. Yet these scholars dig little deeper than the well-advertised line that, “it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent al-liances with any portion of the foreign world.” However, elsewhere in the address Washing-ton’s words continued to allude towards the possibility of exception to this cardinal rule of early American foreign policy. Washington continues to state that the U.S. must “take care always to keep ourselves by suitable establish-ments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for ex-traordinary emergencies.” This exception would conveniently recur time and again in forging alliances among certain Native American tribes in order to pursue a divide and conquer cam-paign across land beyond the Mississippi River to open up colonization of the west to white settlers.

Hamilton, who helped pen Washington’s ad-dress, wrote at the same time of his desires “to collude with Britain to take over Spanish ter-

ritory east of the Mississippi, while wresting Spanish America from Spain.” Chernow sheds historical light on these ambitions: “Hamilton believed that the U.S. should preemptively seize Spanish Florida and Louisiana, lest they fall into hostile French hands.”

Such policies did not end with Washington’s retirement. The Adams administration con-tinued to aggrandize federal clout through the exercise of several executive powers, several of unconstitutional nature. Less than a decade after the passage of the Bill of Rights the fed-eral government became embroiled in another XQFRQVWLWXWLRQDO�FRQÀLFW��WKLV�WLPH�ZLWK�)UDQFH�over the seizing of American naval vessels. The Quasi-War of 1798 consumed the Adams presi-dency, due to the unpopularity of the taxes used to fund it as well as because of the residualsympathies towards the French from the Amer-ican Revolution, particularly among Thomas Jefferson’s emerging Republican Party. The in-famous Alien & Sedition Acts, implemented out of Federalist fear of domestic insurrection, was WKH�¿UVW�RI�PDQ\�SROLWLFDO�ZHDSRQV�XVHG�E\�&RQ-gress to erode civil liberties in the name of law and order. Among the more contemporary are Woodrow Wilson’s Sedition act (1918), Franklin Roosevelt’s Smith Act (1940) and George W. Bush’s Patriot Act (2001).

** *

Despite Republican cries for strict construction-ism and tepid federal authority, U.S. imperial-ism quickly became an integral part of an early bipartisan consensus in American politics. Jef-ferson’s remark in his Inaugural Address that “we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists” seemed soon as much reality as rhetoric: The man who once denounced federal supremacy now found Hamilton’s levers of implied power WRR�WHPSWLQJ�WR�UHVLVW��.DJDQ�UHÀHFWV�WKDW�³-HI-ferson...infuriated by the attacks of the Barbary powers against American traders...concluded it would be necessary for the U.S. to open the sea-lanes by force.” Jefferson’s expansion of the na-val forces and creation of the U.S. Marine Corps increased American power auguring the rise of WKH�RFHDQLF�ÀHHW�WKDW�ULYDOHG�(QJODQG¶V�E\�WKH�

30

end of the nineteenth century. Cognizant of the advantages naval power bestows long before Alfred Thayer Mahan, Jefferson worked quickly to make the early republic a naval power.

However, no event in Jefferson’s administra-tion proved more imperial in nature than the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Suffering punish-ing losses in the Haitian Rebellion and Napo-leonic Wars, France grew increasingly desper-ate for funds. Viewing America as a potential source of aid, Napoleon offered the United 6WDWHV�LWV�¿UVW�FRPPHUFLDO�DFTXLVLWLRQ�IRU�KHU�continental portfolio. Given the intrigue France and Spain had exhibited in North America it was in America’s national interest to deny it to others, lest it squander the chance of claiming it IRU�LWV�RZQ��-HIIHUVRQ�YHLOHG�KLV�LURQ�¿VW�EHQHDWK�a velvet glove, speaking the language of impe-ULDO�OLEHUDWLRQ�WKDW�KDV�ORQJ�VLQFH�GH¿QHG�$PHU-ican foreign interventionism since. In purchas-ing the land in 1803, he addressed the question of Native Americans by proclaimed the Ameri-can mission to be predicated “not on conquest, but on principles of compact and equality.”Jefferson’s decision denied foreign power ac-cess to the continent, while laying the ground-work for his “empire of liberty” to march on westward. Spanish Florida and British Canada would now remain prizes for the Madison ad-ministration to seize. Madison found his excuse for war against Britain in British impressment and assaults on American naval vessels (despite the fact that France was guilty of sabotage as well). While the War of 1812 America resolved neither issue with Britain by the time of the Treaty of Ghent in 1815, the use of preemptive action is notable. Kagan argues that “U.S. ac-tions in Florida after the War of 1812 constitute the clearest example of preemption during the Early Republic.”

The fundamental belief in American expansio-noism was evident in the thought and conduct of the nation’s earliest political leaders. This essay has sought to confront the safely guarded myth of the revisionist academy that U.S. for-eign policy during the early years of the repub-lic constituted benign isolationism. My purpose has been to offer an original retort to the distor-

tions offered by too many American academ-ics in their sorry attempt to cloak our nation’s imperial past. From the zealous expansionism of early Puritan society to the imperial glories promulgated by the Founding Fathers, empire is at the heart of America’s origin. This lost early American history is essential to analyzing recent executive action and assessing it in the context of the origin of American foreign policy.

Taylor Arluck is a guest contributor and un undergraduate student of phi-losophy, politics and law (PPL) and economics at Binghamton University. His published po- litical commentary has appeared in the Binghamton Uni-versity Journal of Philoso- phy, Politics and Law, the Binghamton Review and the Binghamton Pipe Dream. He can be contacted at tarluck1@binghamton.edu.