One advantage of not being Canadian is that one can avoid being inundated with the unctuous puritanism of sainted Canadian environmentalist and watermelon (more on this later) David Suzuki. To achieve his green goals, this piece of work stoops to preying on children’s fears by telling them that melting Arctic ice will soon drown Santa’s workshop.
H.L. Mencken, one of the most influential American satirists of the early 20th century, defined puritanism as “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Suzuki recently provided us with an excellent example of his puritanism in an article entitled, Is a healthy economy good for people?. Suzuki cites authors John de Graaf and David K. Batkeron some things you can do to keep the economy strong.
You could have a car accident. That would mean money spent on repairs, insurance, investigations, and maybe even a new car. You could get a divorce. All that money spent on lawyers and court services is good for the economy. On a larger scale, you could hope for a massive oil spill. Cleanup costs contribute to a growing economy.
Suzuki’s error (in this case at least), comes from a misguided belief in the Broken Window Fallacy, the economic error which French legislator Frédéric Bastiat identified in his 1850 essay “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen“. Yes, Bastiat tells us, breaking shop windows is great for the glaziers’ business, but what you don’t see is that the shop keeper now has less money to spend on other things. Food, inventory for his shop, or maybe donations to the David Suzuki Foundation. Combine the economic illiteracy of the typical leftist with the scientific illiteracy of the green movement, and you get someone who is green on the outside and Soviet red on the inside. Hence the epithet “watermelon”.
Because, of course a healthy economy is good for people. The alternative is poverty, disease and short painful life spans ended in violence or disease. Ask any North Korean.
I am Canadian. While I am not in full agreement with everything David Suzuki puts out, I point out your comments are taken out of context. Reading the full article, it is true his article quotes the writers you note. However, He makes the point, in its entirety, that full-throttle consumerism is what we are subject to by way of the marketing gods … that being my take on it. Further, the article encourages us to take a close look at what is important … more important than consumerism, to balance that which the ‘marketing gods’ are trying – and doing a good job of, to foist upon the buying public. Again, I encourage consideration of the full article. I suspect we may be gentler to someone who, while not infallible, has done a reasonably good job on much. And so it is.
Dr. Suzuki is an authoritarian. Be careful who you promote. Suzuki not only frightens children, he calls for the jailing of people who disagree with him. Yes, the market serves the best interest of the consumer, but government best serves special interests who can work dangerously against the individual. Who would you rather decide what is important for you? You, or the govenrment?
@ John J Friesen: However good or bad Dr. Suzuki’s points are in the original article, neither economic (or other) fallacies nor economic ignorance are the way to argue for them.