justice

You shouldn’t have to go to jail for mental health treatment

R. Horton

Last week I tweeted a link to a Texas Observer article by Emily DePrang about sexual assaults in Harris County jails. DePrang had written about two Bureau of Justice Statistics studies that showed the Harris County Jail on Baker Street had sexual assaults that are higher than national averages.

One survey reported rates of sexual victimization as reported by inmates, and found that inmates reported higher than average rates of victimization from other inmates. The other survey was based on official reports of sexual violence in jails and also reported higher than average rates for the Baker Street jail. DePrang did not discuss, in her short post, all the statistical and methodological limitations of the studies in question.

To my surprise, Alan Bernstein, the director for public affairs at the sheriff’s office tweeted me, saying he hoped someone would fact-check DePrang’s article as it had many mistakes, so I asked him what the mistakes were, and he sent me a list of items he felt were misleading. Later, the Texas Observer agreed to publish his response to the article (his published response was slightly different from what he sent me).

For the most part, his response pointed out the limitations of the study. Also, he noted that only one of four jails in Harris County had a higher incidence of sexual assault, and he also noted that jail had a high percentage of inmates who are under treatment for mental illness. In his note to me, Bernstein asked, “Is touching a clothed inmate’s thigh sexual violence? Maybe so. But this is one of the actions considered sexual victimization in the study.” I will just say that I consider any unwanted touching of my upper thigh over or under clothing to be sexual assault, even if the “violence” seems minor.

In trying to separate the signal from noise, though, what interested me most was not the definition of sexual violence or even the limitations of the study but the fact that the jail had so many inmates on medications. The Houston Chronicle quoted Sheriff Adrian Garcia saying, “The Harris County Jail has been referred to as the largest psychiatric facility in the state of Texas” and “More than 2,000 inmates … are on psychotropic medications on a daily basis.” And in Bernstein’s response, posted on the Texas Observer site, he said:

That building houses the jail system’s inmates with acute mental illness. In fact the statistician who worked on the 2011 study tells us that two-thirds of the surveyed inmates in the so-called “high” rate building had “psychological stress disorders.” We don’t know how that was determined, and we would never allege that people with mental illness fabricate allegations more often than anyone else.

I’m not sure what “acute” means in this context, but I suspect anyone on medication is assumed to have an acute mental illness. Given the number of prescriptions written for antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications these days, I suspect a fairly high percentage of the general population is acutely mentally ill, according to these assumptions. Even someone being treated for mild depression, though, will experience unpleasant side-effects if doses are missed, as they are likely to be missed inside a jail. We should be concerned both about lack of treatment for mental health and the over-prescription of  drugs for depression and anxiety. Withdrawal sometimes leads to aggressive behavior and could account for some problems. On the other hand, mental illness is also stigmatized, and those receiving treatment may become targets for abuse at the hands of other inmates.

Fortunately, I found more information on treatment of the mentally ill in Harris Country jails in excellent article by DePrang titled “Barred Care.” According to the article, the jail “treats more psychiatric patients than all 10 of Texas’ state-run public mental hospitals combined.” And why is that? Because no one else is treating those patients. Again from the article: “Harris County has one of the most underfunded public mental health systems in a state that consistently ranks last, or almost last, in per capita mental health spending.” Some people get so desperate for relief, that they break the law just so they can go to jail and get treatment.

The program in the jail is commendable. The funding priorities of our state government are not. In 2003, the Texas legislature slashed funding for mental health services in Texas. According to DePrang’s article, “In Harris County, the number of law enforcement calls about people in psychiatric crisis jumped from fewer than 11,000 in 2003 to more than 27,000 in 2012.” So, the Harris County jail has a high number of mentally ill as a result of deliberate action of our state’s lawmakers. This should make us all angry. Cutting funding for mental health services only to force the mentally ill into jails is cruel and expensive. No matter what sends people to jail, many will never really recover from the stigma and the trauma of the experience.

What should be done? We should lobby our lawmakers to restore funding for mental health services in Texas. We should stop blaming the mentally ill for their problems. We should resist the temptation to treat even minor difficulties with powerful and addicting drugs. We should insist that Texas expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act (this would cost the state nothing) so that people can receive basic medical care and avoid crisis.

In short, we should learn to heal each other. The person with a mental health crisis tomorrow could be you.

Montaigne: We’re all animals

R. Horton3 Comments

I have a bad habit of speculating about what animals, usually my dog or someone else’s pet, are thinking. This leads people close to me to accuse me of anthropomorphism. They say I assume animals experience the world in the same way I do without any real evidence to tell me what kinds of  “thoughts” animals might have.

And it is true; I have no way to verify what animals are actually thinking, but I don’t have any reliable way to know what anyone is thinking, so I go about my day assuming animals, especially mammals, experience life more or less as I do, even if they can’t express it with language. I happen to think those of us who make this assumption are kinder than those who don’t. And if we must make assumptions, anyway, we might as well make assumptions that increase kindness in the world.

In Political Emotions, Martha Nussbaum turns the tables on the critics of anthropomorphism. Rather than accusing people of projecting human emotions onto animals, she questions why humans are so insistent on denying that human and nonhuman animals share some emotional experiences. Rather than anthropomorphism, she says, we are guilty of anthropodenial.

Humans have a long history of placing themselves closer to angels than to other mammals. In fact, many humans see themselves as a sort of angel in waiting. We separate ourselves from other animals by drawing a supposed bright line between ourselves and animals. What’s more, humans have a tendency to separate themselves from other humans by projecting animal qualities on others. Humans in despised and marginalized groups are said to be vicious, savage, smelly, dirty, shameless, and stupid. Being no better than animals, members of such groups are often treated much worse than “angels in waiting.”

Nussbaum’s description seems radical in some ways, but the distinction between writers and thinkers who deny the shared experience of human and nonhuman animals and those who embrace the similarities is ancient. Writing in the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne wrote of his condition tha...
Michel de Montaigne wrote of his condition that, “I am at grips with the worst of all maladies, the most sudden, the most painful, the most mortal and the most irremediable. I have already experienced five or six very long and painful bouts of it.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

made many of the same points as Nussbaum. He notes, first, that the humans are the “most wretched and frail” of species yet also the proudest.

He says the human animal “attributes to himself divine qualities, withdraws and separates himself from the crowd of other creatures, cuts out the shares of the animals, his fellows and companions.” And he challenges the assumption, asking, “From what comparison betwixt them and us does he conclude the stupidity he attributes to them?” He points out that we eat, reproduce, protect our young, and generally try to survive right along with all the other animals. Of course, one of the most important similarities is the way we deal with pain, both physical and emotional. He says, “Our crying is common with the greatest part of other animals, and there are but few creatures that are not observed to groan, and bemoan themselves a long time after they come into the world.”

We suffer and bemoan our fate right alongside our animal companions on the earth. While we may wish to bring the heavens under our feet, as he says, we are lowly animals seeking comfort and refuge from fear, hunger, and loneliness. And if humans are wont to declare themselves superior to animals based on an alleged superiority and favor from God, humans are just as likely to attempt to declare themselves superior to other humans—largely by comparing those humans to animals in an effort to degrade them.

Thus, members of other cultures, skin colors, or practices are seen as being savage or beastlike. Their animalism is evident by their alleged smells, filth, aggression, or unchecked sexuality. Not one to shirk from the most extreme cases, Montaigne examines cultural views of cannibals. He describes in gruesome detail the methods of war, capture, and torture reputed to some classes of cannibalistic humans. After Montaigne has thoroughly disgusted his reader, he declares, “I am not sorry that we should here take notice of the barbarous horror of so cruel an action, but that, seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be so blind to our own.”

Without shirking from the most horrifying practices of cannibalistic cultures, Montaigne then turns to examine his own culture. He says, “I conceive there is more barbarity in eating a man alive, than when he is dead; in tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments, that is yet in perfect sense; in roasting it by degrees; in causing it to be bitten and worried by dogs and swine . . . than to roast and eat him after he is dead.”

He then tells us of a case where cannibals are brought into “civilized” society and shown the pinnacle of human achievement. After they have seen all the finery, the king asked them what they most admired. They said “that they had observed, that there were among us men full and crammed with all manner of commodities, while, in the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors, lean, and half-starved with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange that these necessitous halves were able to suffer so great an inequality and injustice, and that they did not take the others by the throats, or set fire to their houses.”

Be kind to animals. Even human ones.

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Tea Party and the “Mask of Anarchy”

R. Horton1 Comment
Percy Bysshe Shelley, by Alfred Clint (died 18...
Percy Bysshe Shelley, by Alfred Clint (died 1883). See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t think I’m the only one to notice that Percy Bysshe Shelley‘s “Mask of Anarchy” seems amazingly relevant to current efforts to suppress the voices and will of workers around the world. So, I’ve taken the poem almost verbatim, made a few textual changes, and changed the names of the politicians to the names of Tea Party members and others in the Republican party. For more info on the poem, see The Guardian‘s partial explication.

Here is my take:

As I lay asleep in Houston, Texas
I heard a voice declare war on us,
And with great power it led me
To walk in visions of Poetry.
I met Murder as the widows began crying—

He had a mask like Paul Ryan—
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
All were fat in the savage crew,

For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
Next came Fraud, and he had on,

Like John Boehner, an ermined gown;

Official portrait of United States House Speak...
Official portrait of United States House Speaker (R-Ohio). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.
And the little children, who

Believed him to be true,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night.

Like Perry, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,

Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.
Last came Anarchy : he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw—
‘I AM CRUZ, GOD, KING, AND LAW!’

With a pace stately and fast,
Over Texas land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And with a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph they
Rode through Texas proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of wine of wanton destruction.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For from pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.

‘We have waited weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost billions to the nation.

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

‘My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a Change this day;
So long as Anarchy rages on still,
The world awaits a reborn will!

‘He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me—
Misery, oh, Misery!’

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked—and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

To an accent unwithstood,—
As if her heart cried out aloud:
‘People of conscience, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—

You are many—they are few.
‘What is Freedom?—you can tell
That which slavery is, too well—
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

But change rose as a two-headed monster
Each head struggling to devour the other
But Hope nourishes the stricken half
And leaves Gold with a dark epitaph

“Let not this monster rise again.
Squelch the greed that lies within.”
We are not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away.

We ‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake our chains to earth like dew
We are many—they are few.’

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Nussbaum and Rand on the Politics of Love

R. Horton1 Comment

I’m currently reading Martha Nussbaum’s Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Love is an important focus of the book, but it is certainly not the only emotion that Nussbaum considers important to a minimally decent society. Still, love (and its relevant associate, compassion) is an integral part of a stable and humane democratic society.

English: Photograph of Martha C. Nussbaum take...

Nussbaum suggests that it is entirely appropriate for governments to encourage the development of political emotions that are absolutely necessary for a functioning society. Of course, totalitarian, repressive regimes often rise to power on waves of extreme patriotism coupled with xenophobia and violent anger. This is a risk of the state cultivating emotions, but it is also likely that inappropriate emotions arise because we shirk our duty to cultivate the correct emotions. Who decides which emotions are correct? Why, we political liberals, of course. Nussbaum is more optimistic than I about the ability to create a state that will encourage the appropriate arts and literature to cultivate emotions that will engender empathy and promote democratic feeling. Still, we are obligated to make every effort to counter those who would work to destroy both compassion and democracy.

Nussbaum recognizes the potential for paradox in her claim, but she defends her position with depth and detail. The fact that I agree with both her goals and method make it quite easy for me to follow along and hope, against all odds, that is possible to create a more decent society than what I currently see around me, even if I feel we must go it alone without the full support of government.

Ayn Rand

But all this talk of love got me thinking of Ayn Rand, of course, as many things these days get me thinking of Ayn Rand. She said that we should be selfish and never sacrifice ourselves to others. In contrast, many of us have foolishly believed that to love someone was, in fact, to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for his or her well-being. On this point, I think Ayn Rand was able to explain herself quite clearly. When asked whether we shouldn’t be selfless in our romantic relationships, she said,

“When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you.”

She makes a good point. We sacrifice for those we love because we value them so much that their loss is a personal loss to us, and their suffering is a suffering we share. We do not love out of duty; we love for the pleasure it brings us.

For Rand, altruistic concern for strangers entails a denial of self-satisfaction and an indenture to others. By living for the needs of others, we deny our responsibility to determine and seek our own needs. It does not occur to Rand, as it does to Nussbaum, that is possible to value other humans with a love that extends beyond our realm of personal contact. It is possible that I want to preserve the lives of strangers thousands of miles away because I value them, even if abstractly, to the point that their suffering causes me suffering.

I don’t want to live in a world where millions of people starve to death each year, and I do not believe they are starving because of the poor choices they have made. I believe they are starving because of structural economic violence against them. In many cases, the world’s resources have been stolen by brute force (did farmers and fishers in Africa foolishly give their land to oil companies?). Poverty, addiction, and disease are largely a result of violence against people who are not recognized as being fully human, fully deserving of respect.

We don’t have to accept this reality. As Nussbaum says, “We should surely not assume that the form emotions take in the corporate culture of the United States reveals a universal and timeless truth about how things must be.” No, we can work to ensure that our moral imagination can perceive other human beings as beings worthy of respect, dignity, and, yes, love. If we seek to respect ourselves, we must demand respect for all.

Love is possible.

It is Time to Shed Sunshine on Informed Consent

R. Horton1 Comment

Most patients realize doctors receive gifts from the pharmaceutical and device-

A patient having his blood pressure taken by a...
A patient having his blood pressure taken by a physician. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

manufacturing industry. When we see industry logos on pens, clocks and posters, we don’t assume the doctors ordered these items from the merch page of these companies, but most of us aren’t aware of how lucrative the payments to doctors can be.

A story that ran in the New York Times described the experience of Dr. Alfred J. Tria, who made $940,857 in about two years for promoting products and training doctors in Asia to use them. The article notes that Tria’s experience may be exceptional, but in two and a half years, industry paid out $76 million to doctors practicing in Massachusetts alone.  I’ve been reading about this subject for a while, and even I was surprised that someone could make half a million dollars in a year on a side job.

In a slightly different type of payout, Oregon recently concluded a court case against two doctors who “put heart implants into patients without telling them that a manufacturer’s training program put a sales representative into the operating room.” The doctors would receive between $400 and $1,250 each time they completed a surgery using Biotronik defibrillators and pacemakers. The state argued that patients should know when doctors’ recommendations may not be based entirely on the needs of the patient. One of the doctors in the case earned more than $131,000 from 2007 to 2011 through implant surgeries. Doctors also received speaking fees, expensive meals, and other gifts.

As part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the Sunshine Act now requires industry to start collecting data on payments to doctors now, and the information will be made available to the public next year on a government website. This will enable patients to learn how much their doctor receives from the industry each year, though there may still be hidden incentives.

For example, doctors may be in profit-sharing arrangements with facilities or they may actually be the owners of the facility. A recent study by Dr. Matthew Lungren found that doctors who had a financial stake at an imaging facility ordered tests with negative results at a much higher rate (33 percent) than doctors with no financial stake. In other words, it appears that doctors order unneeded tests because they are making money off of them, not because the patients need them. Lundgren suggests that patients should ask whether they are being referred to a facility in which the doctor has a financial stake. I say the doctor should volunteer the information.

Beginning next year, the Sunshine Act will make it much easier for patients to discover their doctors’ financial relationships with industry, and I’m thrilled for this development. For those who think Obamacare is a complete disaster, just take a minute to relish this one positive development.  Still, I think the movement should go further. I think financial disclosure should be part of the informed consent process. When your doctor is telling you all the risks and benefits of treatment, I think he or she should also say, “I get paid $1,000 to do this surgery,” “I will make $100 off this MRI,” or “I own stock in the company conducting this medical research.”

I believe patients want this information, and I don’t think they feel it is their responsibility to search for it. True informed consent is only possible in light of complete financial disclosure.

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Corporate Greed Is Not The Problem

R. Horton1 Comment

English: Coalition of Immokalee Workers logo

In the battle between conservatives and progressives, we are generally presented with a false dilemma. We are expected to choose between two positions: 1. Corporate greed is evil. 2. Profit is what drives innovation and improvements to our standards of living. Unfortunately, it is the progressives who are making the mistake here. Greed is only a problem because it results in human rights abuses, criminality, and grave injustice. We do better to focus on the abuses rather than the rather nebulous harm of greed itself.

When I talk to conservatives about specific instances of corporate criminality, they generally acknowledge that something should be done in such cases. For example, seven court cases from 1997 to 2008 resulted in convictions for slavery in Florida.  Those convicted of slavery “threatened the immigrants, held their identification documents, created debit accounts they couldn’t repay and hooked them on alcohol to keep them working.” The workers were also beaten and forced to live in substandard conditions.

As the accounts of slavery came to light, activists organized and demanded that restaurants pay more for tomatoes in order to provide an actual wage for tomato workers. By May 2008, Burger King had joined McDonalds and Yum! Brands in meeting the demands of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and paying more for tomatoes. It was a notable success, but the activism of the CIW continues. After progressive strides with fast-food restaurants, the coalition ran in to resistance from grocery giant Publix, which refused to join any agreements to improve working conditions. In 2010, a Publix spokesperson said, “If there are some atrocities going on, it is not our business.”  Publix has not budged yet, but the Coalition of Immokalee Workers continue their work and will receive 2013 Freedom from Want Medal from the Roosevelt Institute.

When progressives argue that corporate greed leads to great evil, they may be correct, but they make it too easy for conservatives to simply point out all the innovation and convenience the profit motive has produced. When we argue against slavery, however, we force conservatives to either defend slavery or admit that the industry must be reformed in one way or another. It is not likely that progressives and conservatives will agree on what kind of reform is necessary, but at least the conversation has begun with some possibility of tangible results, as we see in the case of the Immokalee workers. Knowing of specific abuses, such as in the FoxConn factory in China or the sweatshops in Bangladesh, most consumers, both progressives and conservatives, demand reform, and corporations do listen to them. Progress is slow and frustrating, but it is progress.

It may be possible that severe and systemic structural reforms are required to eliminate slavery and other forms of corporate abuse, but it is the abuse and the desire to eliminate abuse that must motivate the change.

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How to Destroy Education (And a Nation)

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Woman teaching geometry, from Euclid's Elements.
Woman teaching geometry, from Euclid’s Elements. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
  1. Instead of having instructors rate the scholastic achievements of their students according to effort and ability, rate the performance of instructors by how many of their students pass the class (or a standardized test). Alternatively, rate the performance of teachers by how entertaining their students find them to be.
  2. Turn student assessments over to the same corporation that prepares your textbooks and classroom resources.
  3. Expand online classes and purchase instructional modules prepared by the same corporation.
  4. Use instructional modules for both online and classroom lectures, reducing teaching to rote repetition of corporate-sponsored material.
  5. Tell instructors that the lecture is dead and should be replaced with professionally prepared audio and video materials, conveniently provided by corporate textbook publisher/testing service.
  6. Have students rate professors’ “effectiveness” as teachers.  A study by Scott Carrell and James West found that “student evaluations reward professors who increase achievement in the contemporaneous course being taught, not those who increase deep learning.”
  7. By judging teachers on student success, ensure that teachers at the most selective schools are judged to be the best teachers.
  8. Promote best practices for teaching that are based on the success of teachers at the most selective schools.
  9. Ensure that teachers fear retaliation if sufficient students do not pass their classes. Establish a quota for passing grades.
  10. Give students the impression that they will pass the class no matter how little work they do (see previous). A blog post by Richard Vedder notes that a National Bureau of Economic Research study by Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks found that “In 1961, the average student spent 40 hours a week engaged in their studies—attending class and studying. By 2003, this had declined by nearly one-third to 27 hours weekly.” Probably gotten worse since 2003. Students are doing less and less work while simultaneously being rewarded with better grades.
  11. Cut funding for education, forcing colleges to seek “public-private partnerships,” which enable corporations to determine the educational objectives of the college.
  12. Have adjuncts teach most of your classes with low pay and no benefits.

Is Bill Gates a Trojan Horse?

R. Horton1 Comment

Bill Gates gives away huge sums of money. I could provide some links here to verify that he gives away huge piles of cash, but, really, is anyone going to claim he does not? It is obvious that he could not give away so much money if he did not happen to have enormous bank balances to begin with. So, thank goodness Bill Gates was able to become so insanely rich. And thank goodness all those corporate sponsors of aid were able to amass gigantic storehouses of funds to distribute globally to alleviate poverty and disease while promoting free markets and democracy. Except maybe it is not that simple.Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie saw philanthropy as a duty of the wealthy. The mere fact that someone was able to obtain great wealth is evidence enough for man that that person is a great judge of what should be done with the money. The wealthy must serve as role models and administer funds in ways that are good for the poorer members of society, even if their choices are not popular. Carnegie said:

“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community–the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”

Apparently, the wealthy fear giving the money directly to the poor might corrupt them or tempt them to bring about their own destruction. So, the benevolent man of means, and Carnegie does not mention women of wealth, should work for the care and improvement of the lower classes.

And in doing so, the wealthy establish not only their honor, but also their power. As Thomas Hobbes said, “There can be no greater argument to a man, of his own power, than to find himself able not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to assist other men in theirs: and this is that conception wherein consisteth charity.”  Through charity, the wealthy shape the aspirations of society, the resources for improvement, and the goals of the impoverished. The poor cannot be trusted to make autonomous decisions about what is good and proper for the course of society. In order to receive the generosity of the powerful, the weak must assume a position of obedience and servitude. The superior minds will lead with love if only the grateful masses will follow.

But it does not end there—the wealthy engage in a kind of philanthropy that actually seeks to oppress and exploit the poor. This is true in many instances, but it currently most obvious in some forms of foreign aid donations.

In the current political climate in the United States, we often hear that aiding people engenders a culture of dependence. Most people imagine that the recipients of aid become too lazy to work for their own improvement, but that is not how aid creates dependence. Rather, it can create dependence by destroying any possibility of self-sustaining local markets. Economist Dambisa Moyo sums up the problem of aid to Africa when she says, “One wonders how a system of flooding foreign markets with American food, which puts local farmers out of business, actually helps better Africa.” Michaela Schieesl made a similar point, saying, “The United States spends $1.2 billion on food for the world’s hungry, making it the biggest provider of food aid. It is also the biggest contributor to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). But this seemingly charitable commitment comes with a major hitch: Instead of donating money, the United States donates food, almost all of which it produces itself.”

The US donates food not as a means of helping struggling societies, but rather as a means of subsidizing American farmers and agribusiness. By dumping free food grown in the US, farmers in foreign countries are put out of businesses. Of course, if they turn to alternative crops such as poppy, coca or even tobacco, the farmers are condemned for contributing to the global drug trade and supporting violence and addiction.

The ETC Group in Canada now warns us of another scheme to use philanthropy to help entrench monopoly powers of transnational corporations under the guise of aiding poor farmers:

“The world’s two richest men – Bill Gates and Mexico’s Carlos Slim – are working with CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) to make bargain GE seeds and traits available to farmers in the global South. The notion that farmers will benefit from a post-patent regulatory regime and Gene Giant charity is patently absurd.”

This international aid effort has the effect of ensuring more and more of the world’s food production will be controlled by transnational corporation promoting market-based “solutions” to global food insecurity. The ETC Group notes that the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture, which includes all the giant gene producers, describes itself as working with G8 and G20 to “foster multi-stakeholder collaboration to achieve sustainable agricultural growth through market-based solutions.”

Not all aid is bad, however, and giving can save and improve lives. Moyo and other critics of aid are quick to point out the difference between rescue or relief aid and aid that permanently alters economic structures. My opinion is that smaller donors tend to choose charities based on how they relieve suffering rather than how they either guide, manipulate, or oppress the poor. Modest earners give a higher percentage of their income than the super rich.  In an article for The Atlantic, Ken Stern noted,  “In 2011, the wealthiest Americans—those with earnings in the top 20 percent—contributed on average 1.3 percent of their income to charity. By comparison, Americans at the base of the income pyramid—those in the bottom 20 percent—donated 3.2 percent of their income.”   Stern added that among donations from the wealthy,  “Not a single one of them went to a social-service organization or to a charity that principally serves the poor and the dispossessed.” More modest earners are more likely to look out for the interest of the poor.

Addressing income inequality would have two positive effects: First, it would help alleviate the need for any aid. Second, it would help more modest earners to give more and give more effectively. And, no, lifting people off the floor will not make them behave as those at the very top (in the stratosphere of wealth disparities). Rather, as the poor enter the middle class, they give more than the super wealthy and give with an aim to relieving suffering and not to creating monopoly power or consumer dependence.

Also, be sure to read Peter Buffett’s comments on the same subject here.

Finally, for an example of a charity operating from the ground up, please see Shoulder to the Stone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlnLojVPacM]

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Teaching Ethics to Greedy Bastards

R. Horton3 Comments

When a corporate executive, high-powered lawyer, or well-funded medical researcher is exposed for egregious unethical behavior, we often say it would have been a good idea for that person to have had a class in ethics with some follow-up training. We’d like to think that with the proper ethics training even the most heartless sociopath could be encouraged to at least follow some of the rules.

And if we can’t (note: we can’t) encourage bad people to be good people, what are ethicists worth? Well, our roles fall into several categories: 1. Providing ethical answers to dilemmas. 2. Offering ethical analysis of a particular problem. 3. Teaching ethical decision-making, which makes a good-faith assumption that the decision maker is sincere in wanting to be ethical. 4. Holding wrongdoers accountable for their behavior.

The first category is offered to clients who don’t want to take complete responsibility for their ethical decisions. Once a professional ethicist has offered an opinion on whether something is above board, an organization can say, proudly, “All our policies and procedures have been reviewed by someone with extensive training and expertise in ethics and found to be compliant with all ethical and legal codes.” Indeed, it can be a very good idea for an organization to get an outsider to review policies for possible ethical problems.

The second category is related, perhaps a subset of the first. When institutions encounter a particularly sticky issue, they might ask an ethicist to help them work through all the ethical considerations and explore how various ethical theories can help them solve the dilemma. Again, a useful role for the ethicist.

The third category involves training. Rather than giving answers to ethical questions, the ethicist can teach motivated individuals to analyze various conflicts on their own. Most people know how to think ethically, but they sometimes forget some of the considerations that professionals might find to be second nature.  Developing a more thorough approach to ethical approaches can benefit individuals and organization alike. It cannot, however, turn a bad person in to a good one. Evil people don’t lack ethical tools—they lack a conscience.

So, what do we do about the evil people? An important role for ethicists, in my considered and passionately held opinion, is to cry foul when individuals and institutions engage in egregious behavior. And when ethicists disagree on what is an egregious action, fervent debate erupts in the public sphere, benefitting the public and everyone involved, or so it should be. When ethicists sound the alarm that some behavior is abhorrent and shameful, a public chorus against such actions can at least ensure that the bad actors confront public scrutiny.

Think it doesn’t work? Remember in 2011 when executives at Transocean received bonuses for their safety record after the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 and sent millions of gallons of oil streaming into the water? After public outcry, the executives thought better of keeping those bonuses and donated them to the Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund. Social regulation pushes and pulls behavior through honor and shame. In responding to abhorrent behavior, Kwame Anthony Appiah says, “Shame, and sometimes even carefully calibrated ridicule, may be the tools we need. Not that appeals to morality—to justice, to human rights—are irrelevant.”

Most of us evaluate ethical theories in the following way: Knowing that I am an ethical person, which ethical theory best fits my behavior? Following this method, we can all justify our actions through theoretical ethics as we simply seek out the theories that validate our behavior. Given that we all have justification for our behavior, public outcry is not likely to immediately shake our perception of what is appropriate, and, indeed, the public rarely speaks as one voice. Further, the common view is often wrong, or so I judge it to be. Bertrand Russell once said, “In view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” Indeed.

Many people, especially those in power, feel their behavior is beyond reproach. They seem to think they could not have gained power if they were not deserving of it. Public outcry and public discourse, can remind them that they are, in common with the rest of us, flawed and fallible human beings. What this means is that we must raise our voices, express what we find shameful and honorable, and join or create a conversation over morality, dignity, and justice. Only when we suppress our voices do we lose. Only our common humanity makes our salvation possible.

Modern Libertarians Hate Thomas Malthus

R. Horton3 Comments

Whether they are familiar with his work or not, many modern libertarians echo some of the ideas of Thomas Malthus when they advocate austerity in public policy. Most notably, Malthus claimed that the “poor laws” of England of his time deprived the poor of any liberty and independence. He felt that the poor would have more self-respect and freedom if they could provide for themselves and their families through their own labor.

Thomas Malthus

It was Malthus, not Darwin, who first mentioned a struggle for existence. In his 1798 screed, “An Essay on the Principle of Population,” he
wrote,

“Restless from present distress, flushed with the hope of fairer prospects, and animated with the spirit of hardy enterprise, these daring adventurers were likely to become formidable adversaries to all who opposed them. The peaceful inhabitants of the countries on which they rushed could not long withstand the energy of men acting under such powerful motives of exertion. And when they fell in with any tribes like their own, the contest was a struggle for existence, and they fought with a desperate courage, inspired by the rejection that death was the punishment of defeat and life the prize of victory.”

In the essay, Malthus basically argued that hardship limits population but abundance leads to population explosions. For this reason, feeding the poor is a bad idea, as it will encourage wanton reproduction and the survival of infants into adulthood. By helping the poor survive, they would then multiply and deplete the planet of all its resources. It is the wealthy, of course, who consume the most resources, but even at that, Malthus did not have quite the same view of some austerity minded people of the 21st century.

For one, Mathus wanted to protect the value of farm labor. He said,

“Every endeavour should be used to weaken and destroy all those institutions relating to corporations, apprenticeships, etc., which cause the labours of agriculture to be worse paid than the labours of trade and manufactures. For a country can never produce its proper quantity of food while these distinctions remain in favour of artisans. Such encouragements to agriculture would tend to furnish the market with an increasing quantity of healthy work, and at the same time, by augmenting the produce of the country, would raise the comparative price of labour and ameliorate the condition of the labourer.”

Efforts to drive down the wages of farm labor are, then, anti-Malthusian. He also did not believe in leaving the poor with no help for work and redemption. While he objected to the “poor laws” of his day, he did believe in a tax-supported programs to provide employment for the poor. Thus,

“County workhouses might be established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom, and free for persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations. The fare should be hard, and those that were able obliged to work. It would be desirable that they should not be considered as comfortable asylums in all difficulties, but merely as places where severe distress might find some alleviation. A part of these houses might be separated, or others built for a most beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently taken notice of, that of providing a place where any person, whether native or foreigner, might do a day’s work at all times and receive the market price for it.”

Public works projects, such as those put in place by FDR, can alleviate much suffering while also benefitting the public good through improved infrastructure and public service. Note that Malthus did not advocate putting poor people in prison and forcing them to work for free.  Malthus did believe in treating the poor with respect and providing opportunities for honest employment for the betterment of society. Modern libertarians would do well to recognize the basic human desire for dignity and self-respect. When we help one another, we are free.