WTO, IMF, UN- Help Finding Books

[Atlas-shrugged5]

Hi

I am wondering if someone here might be able to help me before I loose my mind. I am in this class and all this professor is doing is ranting at how important the WTO, IMF, and UN are. While I can argue in general, based largely on bigger principles, why these organizations are a danger, I need to make a more detailed case in order to best this professor in class.

So I am looking for some help in finding some literature that will be helpful in arguing against these institutions, and making the case on why the need to go.

Thank You

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Student bests teacher student loses.

--Brant

plus, has to pay back student loan anyway

[Reidy]

This is an unrealistically large order. If I knew where to send you (I don't), what you're asking for would be too long and detailed to absorb during the current turn. Here's an alternative course of action:

Listen and learn. You've learned when you can give a coherent account of the cases your teacher is making for these institutions and can cite at least some facts in favor of these cases. Then, when the class is over, as time permits, get to know the case against them and, as you work through it, connect your new knowledge to ("integrate it with" would be the standard Objectivist jargon) the arguments you learned in class. Rational understanding takes nothing less.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

I agree with Pete.

You have to understand correctly before you can evaluate correctly. You are trying to take an evaluation from the Rand camp, adopt it as your own, then argue it without understanding it first. Apropos, I agree with the Randian evaluation (with some small differences), but I have done the donkey work. I thought it through and consulted a lot of sources.

Here is a broad overview of a few points to look out for as you learn this stuff.

1. There is a crap-load of differences among people who are against these world organizations. So reading one Rand-friendly author will generally leave you confused when you move to the next. They are often nasty to each other. That is unless you are reading people who merely parrot Rand.

This is because libertarian and constitutional-minded people tend to be utopic in their thinking. Not all, but way too many. That makes for dogma and lots of name-calling when they disagree with each other, which is constantly--especially on social issues like abortion, religion and so on.

2. There is a crap-load of smoke and mirrors thrown out by people who are for these organizations. They will try to tie you into knots with mountains of irrelevant details, histories, stats, and so on when you try to pin down essential principles. They tend to agree with each other more than the opponents do, but there is still a lot of infighting among them. They all say they are interested in social justice and other lofty-sounding missions, but their real interest at root is power. Some want raw naked power (most, in fact) and others want power so they can enact their collectivist vision of how the world should be. The smoke and mirrors is meant to obscure this ugly truth while they tell you beautiful tales of poetic visions of the future.

3. Actually, the idea behind these organizations is not so bad. Although the roots go back to Woodrow Wilson, the more modern intent (which started with a thing right after WWII called the Bretton Woods agreement) is what holds them in place. It goes like this. Since the world is capable of blowing itself up, we need to provide safeguards against this as much as possible.

The formula adopted by the designers of these world organizations (who were progressives) is to interconnect all countries financially to the extent that if one fails, it will take the economy of the other countries down with it. That way, the group of countries will exert pressure against any single country that starts thinking about world domination and acting on it. They will stop such country before it goes too far. That's the theory.

It's not working out that way (nor could it), but I do give them brownie points for trying something other than nukes and mutually assured destruction as a deterrent.

4. These world organizations get into a lot of sleazy monkey-shines that have nothing to do with their purposes. This is because, despite the good intentions behind them (and remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions), power is still power and hell is still hell. When a democratic republic sits down with a bloody dictator to decide on world policy, the interests of the bloody dictator don't change just because he says he will be good from now on. In fact, he manipulates the system as much as he can get away with. Lots and lots of corruption.

5. One of the biggest complaints I have is that the USA tries to be a covert controller of these world organizations while pretending to be an equal-partner member. In other words, the USA is trying to outsmart the world's most cunning dictators at their own game (and other leaders, of course). That's not only undignified, it also allows a crack in the system for the worst actors in America to gain a foothold (think crony capitalism and rule by technocrats).

6. A tendency to set up a single world government rather than there being a bunch of sovereign nations is inherent to the existence of these organizations. Just look at their history and you will see that is their drift. Not as batshit crazy as a lot of the conspiracy theorists, but the drift is there. A fact is a fact.

Until the entire world adopts individual rights and freedom as the foundations for government, I personally see no reason to dilute America's power to the benefit of dangerous dictators. If, by some miraculous intervention or lucky chance, the world became rational and freedom-promoting, I would have no objection to simplifying government to have fewer nations in the world.

But for now, It is better for the USA to be a strong enemy of bloody dictators than a vulnerable friend.

I could go on, but those are some of the basic things to look for as you learn.

There are people who disagree with me on this point or that, but these are the things I look for. I have found that if you scratch most of the facts people throw at you about the UN, WTO, IMF, World Bank and so on, you will find out they end up in one category or another.

But back to point. You want to argue with your teacher? That would be like arguing with a fundamentalist Christian about whether God exists.

Back to what Pete said. Right now your task (at your level or knowledge) is to understand this stuff, to learn it and learn it well, not to preach that it is evil to a well-versed zealot.

As the saying goes, you can't teach a pig to sing. You will waste your time. The song will never sound right. And you will irritate the pig.

But don't wrestle with a pig, either. You will get filthy and the pig likes it.

(btw - Welcome to OL. )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

You might switch your major to something that will help your post-grad employment and study the Liberal Arts on your own, but you'd really have to work at it, especially by getting reading lists* for the courses you don't actually take plus read libertarians who have written on politics, economics and history.

Doesn't apply if you intend to go to graduate school.

--Brant

*not so much to read those books as to go get better ones on the same or ancillary subjects

[jts]

Hi

I am wondering if someone here might be able to help me before I loose my mind. I am in this class and all this professor is doing is ranting at how important the WTO, IMF, and UN are. While I can argue in general, based largely on bigger principles, why these organizations are a danger, I need to make a more detailed case in order to best this professor in class.

So I am looking for some help in finding some literature that will be helpful in arguing against these institutions, and making the case on why the need to go.

Thank You

Adam

Very simple. Tell your perfesser that everything he says about government institutions being bad is a conspiracy theory. End of discussion. A conspiracy is 2 or more people secretly planning something illegal or immoral. There are no conspiracies. The only evidence of a conspiracy is that there is no evidence. And anyone who believes in conspiracies is a kook. If you can't answer what he says, you can always call him names.

What it boils down to is: do you trust government? Rational people trust government. Whatever government says is true. It is inconceivable to a rational person that government can tell lies or be bad. Government is the ultimate authority in the life of a rational person, maybe next to Ayn Rand. People who don't trust government are at best kooks and at worst terrorists.

[Brant Gaede]

Hi

I am wondering if someone here might be able to help me before I loose my mind. I am in this class and all this professor is doing is ranting at how important the WTO, IMF, and UN are. While I can argue in general, based largely on bigger principles, why these organizations are a danger, I need to make a more detailed case in order to best this professor in class.

So I am looking for some help in finding some literature that will be helpful in arguing against these institutions, and making the case on why the need to go.

Thank You

Adam

Very simple. Tell your perfesser that everything he says about government institutions being bad is a conspiracy theory. End of discussion. A conspiracy is 2 or more people secretly planning something illegal or immoral. There are no conspiracies. The only evidence of a conspiracy is that there is no evidence. And anyone who believes in conspiracies is a kook. If you can't answer what he says, you can always call him names.

What it boils down to is: do you trust government? Rational people trust government. Whatever government says is true. It is inconceivable to a rational person that government can tell lies or be bad. Government is the ultimate authority in the life of a rational person, maybe next to Ayn Rand. People who don't trust government are at best kooks and at worst terrorists.

The prof. says what?

--Brant

and maybe your sarcastic conceptual inversions will blow out Adam's circuit breakers