Karl Marx Lives On
Karl Marx wrote “From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs” in 1875.
In November 1987, the United
Nations adopted resolution 42/187 titled “Report of the World Commission on
Environment and Development” stating “… Believing that sustainable development,
which implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs, should become a central guiding
principle of the United Nations, Governments and private institutions,
organizations and enterprises …”. This definition was also stated in the so called
Brundlandt Report of the same year.
I think the similarity between
these two statements is striking. Both express a desire unfulfillable without a
totalitarian, big government. Both are clearly utopian and reek of paternalism.
Both are based on unsustainable and wrong premises. Both are born out of hubris
or the pretense of knowledge (see Friedrich Hayek).
What A Misguided Principle
To pretend to know the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs is preposterous and wrought with
controversy.
To meet the needs of the
present generations without compromising those of future generations is an
extreme or radical command as typically uttered by fanatics.
Maurice Strong Behind Sustainable
Development
A man with a colorful
biography. A former businessman with a collectivist or socialist mindset. A long
time mastermind of international environmental politics. He was also a member
of the so called Brundtland Commission (formally known as UN World Commission
on Environment and Development). As an advisor to the UN Secretary General and
Special UN Envoy to North Korea (of all places), he is implicated in the
infamous UN Oil For Food scandal as having personally received a check of $1
million from a North Korean lobbyist issued by a Jordanian Bank, but the money
came from Saddam Hussein. Here is a link to an interview conducted in 2008 with
this gentleman by the Wall Street Journal:
A few selected quotes taken
from two public speeches, i.e. his opening statement (6/3/1992) and closing
statement (6/14/1992) to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, to highlight his warped
thinking (emphasis added):
·
“… The wasteful
and destructive lifestyles of the rich cannot be maintained at the cost of
the lives and livelihoods of the poor, and of nature. …”
·
“…and an
economic system that takes no account of ecological costs or damage - one
which views unfettered growth as progress. We have been the most successful
species ever; we are now a species out
of control. …”
·
“Agenda 21 measures for eradication of poverty and the economic
enfranchisement of the poor provide the basis for a new world-wide war on poverty. Indeed, I urge you to adopt the eradication of poverty as a priority
objective for the world community as we move into the 21st century.”(I have
written a separate blog about this nonsense of eradication of poverty or war on
poverty)
·
“We reinstate in our lives the ethic of love and respect for the Earth which traditional peoples have retained as central to their value systems.
This must be accompanied by a revitalization of the values common to all of our
principal religious and philosophical traditions.”
·
“The New
World Order, Mr. President, must
unite us all in a global partnership which, of course, has to respect
national sovereignty as a basic tenet, but must also recognize the transcending sovereignty of nature, of
our only one Earth.”
·
“We must
bring our species under control, for our own survival, for that of all life
on our precious planet.”
How did a lunatic or fanatic
like this become such an influential player for decades at the UN?
Just An Extension Of The Club Of Rome
I suspect that the flawed
ideology of sustainable growth is just a successor or extension of the work of
the Club of Rome.
In the early 1970s, the Club
of Rome published its seminal study titled “Limits to Growth”. This study has
been thoroughly discredited. Its underlying computer model projections into the
distant future were deterministic, mechanistic and based on obviously
simplistic assumptions. In fact, the assumptions were deliberately chosen to
produce the desired doomsday effect, i.e. exponential growth vs. linear
resources development, which by sheer virtue of its assumptions are
unsustainable. Thus, it has been a nice fallacy (petitio principii or begging
the question?) to fool people. Human ingenuity and the power of free markets to
deal with almost any major issues were omitted. This study is also one of the
origins of the peak oil hoax. This study is not much more than scientifically dressed
up doomsday speculation.
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