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Anatomy of a Delusion
by J. R. Nyquist I was recently invited to hear a talk on peak oil by a local university professor in Humboldt County, California. But the meeting wasn’t about peak oil. Instead, I’d inadvertently fallen in with a group of political activists who’d been persuaded that something has to be done about global warming. According to these folks, sinister corporations have to be restrained. Americans use too much oil and gas. Scandalously, they drive cars and heat their homes. Someone has to put a stop to this, and quickly. The entire world is threatened by America’s hunger for energy. From the activist’s perspective, America is unnecessarily antagonizing the Muslim world because of our addiction to oil. As it happens, one of the meeting’s participants felt the chill of an early fall in the building and rose to adjust the thermostat. “It’s freezing in here,†she declared. Yes, an early fall had begun and the imperative to stay warm suddenly trumped ideology. But the irony was lost on the assembled activists. They were busy throwing out ideas on how to cripple California’s economy with another round of legislation aimed at oil companies and consumers. Already the California legislature has adopted a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent by 2020. The plan will raise energy costs and drive energy-intensive businesses out of the state.
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Socialism did not die after 1989. The partisans of socialism remain in control of the East, and they continue their machinations in the West. Anti-capitalist ideas continue to proliferate in Europe and Asia and California. Despite the victory of the market over the grotesque socialism of Mao and Stalin, a craftier and subtler socialism has come in their place. It is the socialism of the environmentalist, and the socialism of dictators who use capitalism in an effort to defeat capitalism. It must be understood, that those who hate capitalism will not change their goal. But they have changed their tactics. “The man who clings to Socialism,†wrote Mises, “will continue to ascribe all the world’s evil to private property and to expect salvation from Socialism. Socialists ascribe the failures of Russian Bolshevism to every circumstance except the inadequacy of the system. From the socialist point of view, Capitalism alone is responsible for all the misery the world has had to endure in recent years. Socialists see only what they want to see and are blind to anything that might contradict their theory.â€
© 2006 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
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