However, after living in the US for about a decade now, my notions are changing. It all depends on what sort of inputs a person had and how they evolved. IMHO, if an ABD is raised without much knowledge of India (except for exposure to Bollywood), they are the ones who are condescending. But I have also met several ABDs who have more than a glimpse of the classical arts, philosophy, etc and show a deep interest in learning/pursuing those art forms. (www.mythiliprakash.com) is a good example. (though not a common one!). And there are several DBDs I have met, who are full of the money their parents send along with them, who are completely fascinated with the US, put on an American accent the moment their flight takes off from India(well, even back in India that is how they try to speak, I think) and adopt as much of an American lifestyle that they possibly can in the shortest time possible. They are far too snobbish to be seen around with other desis!

From what I have seen, a person who has travelled around the world a bit, who has had to fend for himself/herself for some time at least, has faced some big challenge in life – these are the level headed ones, ABD or DBD or whatever. The rest of us are stuck with our notions, our superiority complexes and all the other crap that we find hard to let go. (Ok, enough philosophy for the day!).

162 · Dr AmNonymous said

The fundamental problem with the broad mass of American libertarianism, aside from its excessive economic conservatism and unwillingness to engage in escaping the blindness that comes with American politics

I would like to engage with you, but if I began my argument by saying, “You are blinded by the shadows of heterodox economists who feel much put upon in the academy” there would be no room for engagement and I see that you do wish to take this approach…I’ll close with Wainaina: “No one can empower you except us. And if you don’t listen to us, our bad people, those RepublicanToryChineseOilConcessioningIanSmithing racists will come to get you: your choice is our compassionate breast or their market forces. In our loving breast you will be a vegan. We will eliminate your carbon footprint, your testosterone, your addiction to religions. You will be kept away from bad bad people, like ALL MEN. We don’t live in harmony with nature and we are farting greenhouse gases all over the place. We will teach you how to live without farting greenhouse gases. We will shut all your industries and build our organic Jeffery Sachs-designed school inside your national parks, where you can commune with nature, grow ecologically friendly crops, trade fairly with eco-tourists and receive visitors from the United Nations every month who will clap when you dance.”

Look, you’re perfectly free to insult me and construct straw-man arguments premised on global imperialism (of the left or right)- I don’t care. If a critique of “the broad mass of American libertarians” (which I assume a reader of the phrase can understand as my own understanding of said group based on my own exposure to) is cause for not engaging with me, that’s fine, though it might help if you quote the whole sentence Let’s not pretend, though, that discourse in this forum is civil or that it’s my responsibility that it’s not, particularly when claims about what solves poverty are being made in a blase fashion. It seems fairer to say, rather than blaming it entirely on me and my writing style, that we have different perspectives which don’t make engagement possible here.

The fundamental problem with the broad mass of American libertarianism, aside from its excessive economic conservatism and unwillingness to engage in escaping the blindness that comes with American politics

I would like to engage with you, but if I began my argument by saying, “You are blinded by the shadows of heterodox economists who feel much put upon in the academy” there would be no room for engagement and I see that you do wish to take this approach. Look if the people at Spiked aren’t comfortable with their current standard of living, they are perfectly justified in disregarding the violence accompanying the formation of their state and taking full advantage of the state’s dole. If you can confuse oligarchy or regulatory regimes created for the largest players in particular market, with the best approximations of free markets that most american libs hope for, i’m afraid you know little of american libertarians (or have ever read an issue of Reason or know that the best civil liberties reporting these days is done by ‘blind’ american libertarians)

I’ll close with Wainaina:

“No one can empower you except us. And if you don’t listen to us, our bad people, those RepublicanToryChineseOilConcessioningIanSmithing racists will come to get you: your choice is our compassionate breast or their market forces.

In our loving breast you will be a vegan. We will eliminate your carbon footprint, your testosterone, your addiction to religions. You will be kept away from bad bad people, like ALL MEN.

We don’t live in harmony with nature and we are farting greenhouse gases all over the place. We will teach you how to live without farting greenhouse gases.

We will shut all your industries and build our organic Jeffery Sachs-designed school inside your national parks, where you can commune with nature, grow ecologically friendly crops, trade fairly with eco-tourists and receive visitors from the United Nations every month who will clap when you dance.”

My family’s connection to New Zealand goes back more than 70 years. I have many family members living there. Aussies and Kiwis generally suffer from insecurities when the come up against Americans, and this is heightened in the brown population. What I detest about Kiwi Indians is their bougie mentality. They person who responded with the multicultural history of NZ won’t tell you that Indians there strive VERY HARD to make sure the white population does not lump them in with other brownies like the Pacific Islanders (who have a very difficult time integrating into society). It’s the rising at the expense of another desi bullshyt which annoys me and makes me avoid my Kiwi cousins whenever they come to visit us in the US.

As an Indian new Zealander, that accusation is true to some extent. But Pacific islanders on the whole, are generally far more accepted as “kiwi’ than say Indians are.They’re socially and economically worse off, certainly.

How noble you are, avoiding your relatives when they come to visit you in a foreign country! How dare they want to succeed! You’re definitely standing for the rights of oppressed people everywhere by doing so! Seriously, do you even have solid proof of how your cousins are personally responsible for every other ‘brownie’ group’s problem in New Zealand?

This is a perfect example of what I mean.

Also, this is simply false. The most recent examples of successful economic development by individual countries involve state coordination of private sector activities (e.g. South Korea), high levels of corruption directed in particular ways that enhance productivity, and a number of other features that fly in the face of neoclassical assumptions and models. At the same time, there is relevance to the argument that the policy prescriptions need to be socially appropriate – what will work in South Korea did not work in Pakistan. Free trade policies have tended to be adopted by imperial powers AFTER they have developed and achieved hegemony, not before.

As for the magic global kitty – well that’s what I call capitalism. Take a look at the portions of profit that each level of the supply chain in the apparel industry gets–you’ll find that Nike and Federated Stores are getting a hell of a lot more than a factory owner, let alone a worker, in Bangladesh or China If you replicate those social relations a million billion times and throw in imperialist policymaking and warfare – well, there’s your magic global kitty Also ripe for Anthro study

The US constitution is a great libertarian document, and you see this conflict in the text.

Yeah, as long as you weren’t a Black person. Or is that 3/5 of a Black person? This is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just a piece of paper whose interpretation has radically evolved, and there is no reason to turn back to it rather than look forward. Why not develop our own ideas with their own philosophical foundations instead of looking to the ideas of people from 200+ years ago who happened to have some power? It’s like relying on Stalin instead of Bakhunin for how to understand Marxism. What is the point of believing in a philosophy of indidiviualism if it doesn’t actually empower you to THINK as an individual to the extent possible (insert Spivak here)?

153 · Dr AmNonymous said

Which comes down to my belief that most of today’s libertarians just want to make excuses to build a system that will allow them to retain and enjoy the fruits of their social position and wealth, without actually contributing back.

I know you did not originally write this, but, it should be addressed. Y’see, the tricky thing about this discussion, is that the greatest anti-poverty force in the world right now is freer trade and this ‘system’ envisioned by wild-eyed detractors as enriching selfish wealth generators has been in place for as long as humans have had to deal with mundane realities like eating, sleeping without fear of animal attack, etc. There is no magical global kitty into which some must pay so that others may be preserved in poverty (and ripe for intrepid Anthros!) and this is a good thing.

This, again, is a gross oversimplification. The global system that exists today has a certain type of trade, which is called “free.” Is migration freer than it was 2000 or even 200 years ago? Hard for me to believe. Is state control stronger through surveillance technologies? Indubitably. Moreover, the global system that exists today is relatively recent – as opposed to trade. Read some Wallerstein–capitalism has very little to do with fearing animal attack and most honest theorists of capitalism (like Adam Smith or Marx) will acknowledge the tremendous social and political violence that was and is inflicted for the establishment of a market. Where they go from there is a different question.

The fundamental problem with the broad mass of American libertarianism, aside from its excessive economic conservatism and unwillingness to engage in escaping the blindness that comes with American politics, is that it doesn’t question social power – why is it better to be oppressed by social power than it is to be a state–and more relevantly, what do you do when the two work together, as in India, where big corporations and the state have worked hand in hand.

Or were we under the illusion that Nehruvian planning benefited the poor more than Tata

153 · Dr AmNonymous said

It would be great if American libertarians would actually be libertarian, as many radical socialists around the world are.

what, like Lula?

Like some of these people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism

ABD speaking here. I can’t stand most ABDs. To generalize, I find most of them to be vapid, materialistic, sheltered, and not very curious about the world. In other words, boring mama’s boys/daddy’s girls.

Word.

(There are, of course, exceptions, and I’ve got some great ABD friends.)

I know I’m awesome Herb, but what’s it going to take to get you to give a Poonjabi a call?