Poor Mexicans Heart Walmart

[rob]

Does anybody else have a copy of this month's Leftist Intellectual that I can borrow? I never got my list of Mexican shopkeepers.

Edited March 6, 2007 by robmcdan

[JayB]

The salient feature of both opposition groups is that they have motives quite apart from the well-being of the poor, despite their claim that it is concern for the poor that animates their opposition to Walmart.

 

 

 

The salient point in every one of your posts is that your leftist intellectual nemesis is a fiction. What do you know about Mexico or Mexican culture, for example? Do you speak Spanish? Have you been there? Do you have Mexican relatives?

The leftist intellectuals you commonly speak do exist...in your own mind, as a mirror image of your own academically cloistered persona...with the volume turned up or down as you see fit.

 

Your policy recommendations, what few you actually put forth, as you are mostly an armchair critic, historically have produced disaster. Your GMO cartoon is a classic example. Please...stay in academia where you can publish little papers that no one will read so you can at least do no harm.

 

So the argument here is that...there are not Leftist intellectuals in Mexico, so the author of the said article had to invent them to add a bit of drama to spice up his article about the retail trade in Mexico, and that even if there are leftist intellectuals in Mexico, they would certainly never dream opposing the elimination of tariffs or subsidies, much less doing so under the guise of fighting Yankee imperialism, economic colonialism, etc. Yes - clearly I am operating in a dreamworld here.

 

The ironic thing about this post - other than the transparent weakness of the argument "Have you touched the surface of the Sun? Then how do you know it's hot?" - is that I made no claims to have any special expertise in all things Mexican. Even if I did, that wouldn't be the least bit relevant here.

 

The whole point is that it's not about what anyone other than the poor Mexicans actually value that matters here. If they decide that they want to use their meager incomes to pay artificially high prices in order to prop up the incomes of the folks that control the local market, they should certainly be free to do so, but they shouldn't be forced to against their will by means of regulations that restrict price competition. If Walmart or any other competitor comes along and they decide that paying inflated prices constitutes an essential part of their culture that they want to preserve, then they can choose to do so no matter who operates a store in their town or village.

 

Judging by the reception that Walmart stores have been getting whenever and wherever they open in Mexico, is seems clear that that they don't consider enduring various kinds of material deprivation, or forgoing some of the choices and conveniences that people in the developed take for granted to be essential elements of the Mexican cultural experience. If you think that they are off base here, rather than sanctioning policies which force them to pay artificially high prices at local retailers thanks to regulations that restrict competition, the more ethical thing to do would be to prop up these retailers with your own cash, instead of insisting that poor people do the same with theirs.

 

Form a Union of Concerned Leftists and notify all of the retailers who are about to be subjected to price competition and inform them that you understand their plight, and you are prepared to help preserve the uniquely valuable contribution that their artificially high prices represent with something other than rhetoric. Tell them to send along their sales records before their competitors come to town. If Juan's Tortilla emporium loses $10,000 in sales during the first year in which he faces competition from the MexiMart down the road, no problem - the Union of Concerned Leftists will subsidize his operation and pay the difference, rather than insisting that the poor folks in the local village do the same.

 

With regards to the recommendations that you mentioned in the previous post, indulge me with some specifics. I'd be curious to know where eliminating regulations that prevent competition and eliminate artificially high prices has brought about the disasters that you alluded to. I'd be especially interested to learn about economic disasters that are analogous to the disasters produced by the likes of...drought resistant crops.

[JayB]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

[Dechristo]

heh heh

[tvashtarkatena]

My Castilliano is improving, and I'm getting the idea that my Spanish supermodels are leftist intellectuals. They won't eat anything because they believe that it's genetically modified and purchased from exploitative big box stores. If it weren't for the monolithic policies of the Trotskyite elite that crush the hopes and dreams of the world's great unwashed who wait for a glimmer of hope that only unregulated profit motive can provide, I'd be nursing these poor supermodels back to health right now with sumptuous feasts of drought resistant corn and steroid pumped chuckroast. When will we throw off the chains of Socialism, Environmentalism, and Half-Caf-Latte-ism, with the help of Mexican illegals, so that we may soar like eagles on the wings of explosive economic growth, beyond the biosphere, to touch the sun? How long must we allow the Long Haired Man to keep us down?

 

Advice?

Edited March 7, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[mattp]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

 

But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote?

 

He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.

[prole]

"Where's Waldo?"

 

How about here:

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power".

 

 

[JayB]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

 

But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote?

 

He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.

 

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

[JayB]

"Where's Waldo?"

 

How about here:

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power".

 

 

That's helpful. Wasn't sure what was the main course, and what was the garnish in the dish that you served up there.

 

I didn't acknowledge these objections or criticisms of Walmart for a couple of reasons, one is that I do think that they fall into the category of externalities that are trivial, entirely subjective, or both. The other is that my opinion here is less germane than the conduct of the Mexican people who, as one can see through their shopping habits, have arrived at conclusions that are identical to my own in this respect.

 

Do me a favor and fly to Mexico, stand in line next to the folks buying their bulk Tortilla's at Walmart, use your best harangue in an attempt to subsidize one of your pet externalities by paying above market rates for their Tortilla's - and film the result. [Jumping up and down] "But what about the externalities, Conseula!!!!! The externaaaaaaaaalities!!!!!!!..." The new content on Youtube's been lacking a bit lately, so this would make a welcome addition to the fare on offer there.

[prole]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

 

But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote?

 

He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.

 

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

 

Translation: As all the world's important questions have been answered, and the remedy to the world's remaining problems can be solved by the application of the correct economic model administered by enlightened technicians, we can do away with the "intellectual in public life". Except of course those whose job it is to explain the model and its effects to the ignorant complainers.

[JayB]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

 

But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote?

 

He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.

 

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

 

Translation: As all the world's important questions have been answered, and the remedy to the world's remaining problems can be solved by the application of the correct economic model administered by enlightened technicians, we can do away with the "intellectual in public life". Except of course those whose job it is to explain the model and its effects to the ignorant complainers.

 

Again, a hit from the inhaler might be helpful here. I hardly think that subjecting those who publicly espouse a particular set of ideas in public to criticism if you think that either their motives or their analysis are suspect amounts to anything quite as dramatic as you are suggesting.

 

Most public intellectuals are not experts in particular field who are producing original work in that field, and who confine the scope of their analysis to those subjects that they have received their training in. We are talking about second-hand dealers in ideas here who know a touch more about a particular topic than the audience that they are addressing and can therefore hold forth with a bit more authority than the average man on the street, but enjoy no such stature amongst experts in the field. I certainly don't think that everyone who aspires to fill this role should be greeted with reverential silence when they share their ideas in public.

 

With respect to "the model," in question, the Mexicans consumers clearly didn't require any coaching or political agitation to change their shopping habits in a manner that they determined was in their best interests, but it did require the agitations of various left-wing activists and shopkeepers who controlled local commerce in order to prevent them from doing so, so these charges of elitism, "explaining the model," etc are rather ironic. Who's the one insisting on reverential deference to one's betters here?

[mattp]

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

 

Nope. Here it is:

 

in·tel·lec·tu·al

1. of or pertaining to the intellect: intellectual ability. 2. Possessing or showing a high degree of intelligence and knowledge. 3. Requiring intelligence or study: intellectual pursuits. -n. A person of trained intelligence, or one whose work requires exercise of the intellect.

 

There certainly is an anti-intellectual reaction against "pointy head" intellectuals or those who reside in the Ivory Tower or whatever, and I'm guessing this is the cartoon character you like to bash, but the word intellectual does not substantially imply out of touch or impractical or -- oh my god -- liberal or whatever connotation those who wage the anti-intellectual campaign may be applying to try to get Americans uncomfortable with smarts or information.

 

At the root of it I think the anti-intellectual campaign is not populist as it purports to be, but really almost the opposite: the idea is that smart and informed people cannot be trusted so therefore you should not listen to anybody who may be intelligent or educated but instead just vote with your gut.

 

I suppose Liberals could play this card, but I'm not sure they do nearly as much as conservatives who, when George Bush said Iraq attacked us on 911 and we should invade Iraq, they were saying "listen to the man" even though anybody who was smart or who actually knew about the situation was saying the premises for the ware were questionable at best and the war plan was poorly conceived. These folks were often branded "antipatariotic," but just as often they were dismissed as the intellectual elite who read the New York Times.

 

Another example: if Teddy Bear Bush says there is no such thing as global warming, even though virtually every scientist who has studied the matter for the last 20 years says it is real, we should all rally around Mr. Bush because what do those intellectuals know? That one worked for how many years? Whether you can find where liberals have used this canard or not, the result is kind of the same: the message is "don't think!"

 

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Do me a favor and fly to Mexico, stand in line next to the folks buying their bulk Tortilla's at Walmart, use your best harangue in an attempt to subsidize one of your pet externalities by paying above market rates for their Tortilla's - and film the result. [Jumping up and down] "But what about the externalities, Conseula!!!!! The externaaaaaaaaalities!!!!!!!..." The new content on Youtube's been lacking a bit lately, so this would make a welcome addition to the fare on offer there.

 

And here's where the fool trips over his own model.

 

I've spent more than a year traveling various Latin American countries. You, apparently, have not, otherwise you would know that food in the local markets is much, MUCH cheaper that that found in any supermarket. Furthermore, it is homemade from fresh ingredients that are locally grown. Ie, the money stays in the community.

 

The people in these countries that shop at big box grocery stores like Walmart do so because they can AFFORD THE CONVENIENCE of bulk packaging, processed foods, frozen meals, and preservatives, not because they can't afford to shop elsewhere. Your idiotic tortilla example, the basis for your entire argument here, really, is based on a your signature ignorance of the 'externalities' on the ground.

 

And, like any good intellectual elitist, you will apply your model, ignoring realities even a casual tourist would realize within a couple days of an in country visit, until the very end because, in your own mind, YOU KNOW YOU MUST BE RIGHT. But you don't need any models, graphs, or tear jerking real life examples to best the intellectual elitists of the world. You'll find one staring right back at you in any mirror.

[Peter_Puget]

Do me a favor and fly to Mexico, stand in line next to the folks buying their bulk Tortilla's at Walmart, use your best harangue in an attempt to subsidize one of your pet externalities by paying above market rates for their Tortilla's - and film the result. [Jumping up and down] "But what about the externalities, Conseula!!!!! The externaaaaaaaaalities!!!!!!!..." The new content on Youtube's been lacking a bit lately, so this would make a welcome addition to the fare on offer there.

 

And here's where the fool trips over his own model.

 

I've spent more than a year traveling various Latin American countries. You, apparently, have not, otherwise you would know that food in the local markets is much, MUCH cheaper that that found in any supermarket. Furthermore, it is homemade from fresh ingredients that are locally grown. Ie, the poverty stays in the community.

 

The people in these countries that shop at big box grocery stores like Walmart do so because they can AFFORD THE CONVENIENCE of bulk packaging, processed foods, frozen meals, and preservatives, not because they can't afford to shop elsewhere. Your idiotic tortilla example, the basis for your entire argument here, really, is based on a your signature ignorance of the 'externalities' on the ground.

 

And, like any good intellectual elitist, you will apply your model, ignoring realities even a casual tourist would realize within a couple days of an in country visit, until the very end because, in your own mind, YOU KNOW YOU MUST BE RIGHT. But you don't need any models, graphs, or tear jerking real life examples to best the intellectual elitists of the world. You'll find one staring right back at you in any mirror.

 

 

No one expresses crass parochialism more than a tourist…..

 

link

 

Of course common sesne would suggest that someone in Mexico City might not walk to the field to get his food.......

 

[archenemy]

If you cut off Consuela's legs, you can rename her Cuntsuela.

[JayB]

Do me a favor and fly to Mexico, stand in line next to the folks buying their bulk Tortilla's at Walmart, use your best harangue in an attempt to subsidize one of your pet externalities by paying above market rates for their Tortilla's - and film the result. [Jumping up and down] "But what about the externalities, Conseula!!!!! The externaaaaaaaaalities!!!!!!!..." The new content on Youtube's been lacking a bit lately, so this would make a welcome addition to the fare on offer there.

 

And here's where the fool trips over his own model.

 

I've spent more than a year traveling various Latin American countries. You, apparently, have not, otherwise you would know that food in the local markets is much, MUCH cheaper that that found in any supermarket. Furthermore, it is homemade from fresh ingredients that are locally grown. Ie, the money stays in the community.

 

The people in these countries that shop at big box grocery stores like Walmart do so because they can AFFORD THE CONVENIENCE of bulk packaging, processed foods, frozen meals, and preservatives, not because they can't afford to shop elsewhere. Your idiotic tortilla example, the basis for your entire argument here, really, is based on a your signature ignorance of the 'externalities' on the ground.

 

And, like any good intellectual elitist, you will apply your model, ignoring realities even a casual tourist would realize within a couple days of an in country visit, until the very end because, in your own mind, YOU KNOW YOU MUST BE RIGHT. But you don't need any models, graphs, or tear jerking real life examples to best the intellectual elitists of the world. You'll find one staring right back at you in any mirror.

 

Cough.

 

"In recent months, as rising prices for U.S. corn pushed up the price of Mexico's corn tortilla, a staple for millions of poor, Wal-Mart could keep tortilla prices largely steady because of its long-term contracts with corn-flour suppliers. The crisis turned into free advertising for Wal-Mart, as new shoppers lined up for the cheaper tortillas.

 

Wal-Mart also overcame a Juchitán cacique, or local boss: Héctor Matus, a trained doctor who goes by La Garnacha, the name for a fried tortilla snack popular in town. Dr. Matus, 55, owns six pharmacies, stationery stores and general stores. He has also held an array of political posts, including Juchitán mayor and state health minister. As town mayor from 2002 to 2004, he says he blocked a national medical-testing chain from opening in town because it meant low-price competition to local businessmen doing blood work.

 

But Dr. Matus couldn't persuade local and state officials to block Wal-Mart, and he is feeling the pinch. Sales are off 15% at his stores since Wal-Mart arrived, and he is now lowering prices in response."

[JayB]

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

 

Nope. Here it is:

 

in·tel·lec·tu·al

1. of or pertaining to the intellect: intellectual ability. 2. Possessing or showing a high degree of intelligence and knowledge. 3. Requiring intelligence or study: intellectual pursuits. -n. A person of trained intelligence, or one whose work requires exercise of the intellect.

 

There certainly is an anti-intellectual reaction against "pointy head" intellectuals or those who reside in the Ivory Tower or whatever, and I'm guessing this is the cartoon character you like to bash, but the word intellectual does not substantially imply out of touch or impractical or -- oh my god -- liberal or whatever connotation those who wage the anti-intellectual campaign may be applying to try to get Americans uncomfortable with smarts or information.

 

At the root of it I think the anti-intellectual campaign is not populist as it purports to be, but really almost the opposite: the idea is that smart and informed people cannot be trusted so therefore you should not listen to anybody who may be intelligent or educated but instead just vote with your gut.

 

I suppose Liberals could play this card, but I'm not sure they do nearly as much as conservatives who, when George Bush said Iraq attacked us on 911 and we should invade Iraq, they were saying "listen to the man" even though anybody who was smart or who actually knew about the situation was saying the premises for the ware were questionable at best and the war plan was poorly conceived. These folks were often branded "antipatariotic," but just as often they were dismissed as the intellectual elite who read the New York Times.

 

Another example: if Teddy Bear Bush says there is no such thing as global warming, even though virtually every scientist who has studied the matter for the last 20 years says it is real, we should all rally around Mr. Bush because what do those intellectuals know? That one worked for how many years? Whether you can find where liberals have used this canard or not, the result is kind of the same: the message is "don't think!"

 

 

 

I'm honsetly not even sure what you are responding to here Matt.

 

If I had issued a blanket indictment against analysis, reason, and intelligence your response would make sense. Since I did nothing of the kind, but offered a specific critique of the ideas and the motives of a particular class of activists. You could have argued the contrary case and come up with an argument for why it is that people with more income and education arguing on behalf of regulations that force people with much lower incomes in isolated or underserved markets to pay inflated prices for consumer goods is both ethically and economically sound - but for some reason you declined the task.

 

Inasmuch as I've offered a critique of "intellectuals," it's been confined to stating that not everyone who is or aspires to be known as such has qualifications that warrant automatic deference to their opinions, and this is particularly true when they venture outside of those areas in which they have developed their expertise and earned their reputation. How insisting on subjecting their opinions to analysis and scrutiny constitutes an invocation to "not think" is beyond me.

 

 

 

[olyclimber]

jayb, if you had an argument with yourself, who would win?

[olyclimber]

Why it is that people with more income and education arguing on behalf of regulations that force people with much lower incomes in isolated or underserved markets to pay inflated prices for consumer goods is both ethically and economically sound?

[prole]

Your outpouring of paternalism and ongoing crusade for "economic freedom" once again masks the savagely elitist and cynical underpinnings of that ideological freakshow that comprises your worldview. You should be more honest with your CC.com audience instead of treating them like children, doling out crumbs of disaggregated data and economic arcana with large dollops of tired Friedmanite clarion calls to capitalist utopia.

Your inability to recognize or answer to any of the charges made against Wal-mart by the other posters speaks volumes about your use of narrow economistic criteria here and elsewhere. The myriad (and thoroughly documented) ways in which Walmart has harmed communities apparently represent either externalities or are trumped by the manna of "increased purchasing power". Even disregarding for a moment the systemic injustices perpetrated by this leviathan, are you so dazzled by the spectacle of the array of "goods and services", efficiencies of scale, the MAGIC of the marketplace as to actually believe that the production and consumption of mass produced, overly-processed, monocropped, exported, cheap plastic crap is the highest aspiration of humanity? Oh, but of course, we are talking about the poor, the objects of all your paternalistic attentions, the patients who never seem to survive (or survive in spite of) the administration of your economic medicine. Given the proliferation of WalMarts across the landscape, one would expect poverty to have been eradicated completely! But that isn't what you are saying. Purchasing power! Yeah, only if it's shoddy enough, dangerous enough. For you, it's okay for people to be poor, in fact it's natural and beneficial for your system as a whole (and for WalMart especially). They just need more change in their pockets for 2-liters of Coke and lawn furniture. Voile! Now they're "absolutely" wealthy! Wealth creation? All that's being created is a new dependency that parasitic companies like Walmart exist on by exploiting. At least be honest about what you and your philosophical forebears really think about greed, class-rule, and "human nature" instead of exploiting people's natural empathy to further your fucked worldview by appealing to the poor. Whack MC indeed. You should've been a preacher.

Leftist intellectuals? Instigators and provocateurs? As if poor and working-class people don't know when they’re getting screwed! But of course your economic technocratic elitism only requires that they understand the model. Anybody who complains is just ignorant even when they can see with their own eyes that it’s rotten. Give us some graphs Jay_B. Make us understand. All will be revealed behind the curtain! You're a shyster, a snake oil salesman and the planet is starting to awake from your spell.

By the way, your anti-intellectualism should surprise no one, it's become a hallmark of all your postings. It's also a hallmark of fascist and totalitarian regimes that have always made appeals to "common sense", the "common man" and the poor. Go figure.

 

Is this the intellectual equivalent of "Where's Waldo?," where the Waldo in question is a coherent argument? Try taking a hit on the inhaler between sentences next time.

 

After reading your missive, I'll attempt to paraphrase a bit for the sake of clarity. "All people of conscience should support regulations that force poor people, especially in third world countries, to pay artificially high prices for food, clothing, and other consumer staples in order to satisfy the ideological strivings of vastly more fortunate North American parlor activists like me, and I don't care for people who suggest otherwise."

 

How's that?

 

But what about the folks who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes? Don't they get a vote?

 

He's got a point about your anti-intellectual schtick, in my opinion. What exactly is wrong with being either educated or intelligent - the core of Webster's definition of the term? In attacking the "ivory tower" or whatever it is (that is Fairweather's whipping post, I think, and maybe not yours) you often seem to reduce the whole thing to a cartoon just like railing about the ininformed opinions of those who wear Birkenstocks and sip Lattes.

 

There's a number of distinctions between intelligence and/or educational attainment and the identity and character of those who fill or aspire to fill the role of the "intellectual" in public life that I think you are either unaware of or have deliberately ignored here.

 

Translation: As all the world's important questions have been answered, and the remedy to the world's remaining problems can be solved by the application of the correct economic model administered by enlightened technicians, we can do away with the "intellectual in public life". Except of course those whose job it is to explain the model and its effects to the ignorant complainers.

 

 

With respect to "the model," in question, the Mexicans consumers clearly didn't require any coaching or political agitation to change their shopping habits in a manner that they determined was in their best interests, but it did require the agitations of various left-wing activists and shopkeepers who controlled local commerce in order to prevent them from doing so, so these charges of elitism, "explaining the model," etc are rather ironic. Who's the one insisting on reverential deference to one's betters here?

 

Again, a hit from the inhaler might be helpful here. I hardly think that subjecting those who publicly espouse a particular set of ideas in public to criticism if you think that either their motives or their analysis are suspect amounts to anything quite as dramatic as you are suggesting.

 

Your increasingly Fairweather-esque red-baiting and and broad-brush generalizations about "intellectuals" hardly amounts to legitimate criticism in my mind, at least. I think anyone who values critical thought and open inquiry should find it quite disturbing, given the historical record of such attacks.

 

 

Your response above to the issue of externalities confirms the critique of economists as myopic, graphpaper-brained technicians unable to relate to culture, history, human social interation to their dry quantitative analyses. The anecdote you cited above is not suprising. The poor by definition must be primarily concerned with price as their self-interest may lie only with getting their next meal. But only by the narrowest defintion of self interest (the price of tortillas) can one be said to be acting in self-interest. This is why economists and the business press push so hard for human beings to place themselves in the role of consumer. Only when we identify and understand ourselves as "consumers" while supressing our identities as workers, children, parents, Mexicans, elderly, environmentalists, intellectuals, etc. do the arguments placing the "lowest price" in a priviledged position make any fucking sense at all. This is why the POOR place so prominently in economistic criticisms of antiglobalizationists, leftists, etc. because by definition the poor MUST privilege price without regard where and how something was actually produced. Anyone arguing against the lowest possible price for anything or for the internalization of environmental costs or the raising of wages or the collective bargaining rights of workers then become anti-poor by definition. Quizzically, this is the rare time when the poor actually make an appearence in the arguments by proponents of market fundamentalism. Poor people priced out of markets by regulation=BAD; poor people priced out of markets by the "natural" operation of the market=GOOD. Furthermore this argument says nothing at all about poverty, its source or prescriptions for eradicating it. Has Walmart actually done anything to improve the lives of its shoppers? No. Is there evidence that Walmart does more to degrade the communities in which it does business? Yes. Has the Walmart economy proved sustainable, viable, and beneficial in the places where they are already established? No. By appealing to those who have no other choice than Walmart because they are absoutely destitute while accepting their situation as natural and disregarding any alternatives to their predicament is cynical, unimaginative, disingenuous and exploitative. Perhaps, instead of using poor people to prove that Walmart is actually good in contradiction to the vast evidence that Walmart is a parasite, you may start working towards a global society in which people can look beyond the lowest possible price for their most basic necessities.

By the way, your suggestion that the left is entirely or primarily composed of intellectuals or of the middle-class is historically inaccurate as a whole and for Mexico in particular.

[olyclimber]

jay is just playing devils advocate. he actually went back east to join a commune and study marx.

[archenemy]

But wait, there's more.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/03/07/mexico.affordable.ap/index.html

[mattp]

I'm honsetly not even sure what you are responding to here Matt.

I’m sorry to offend you, Jay. As you sit smugly behind that keyboard of yours throwing in those little barbs and bits of bait, just for fun and in the spirit of cc.com, you gotta expect some knee jerk liberal latte sipping suv driving birkenstock wearing pseudo intellectual such as myself to bristle once in a while. It drives me to a frenzy, and I spend hours looking up the definition of "intellectualism" and re-reading Franz Fanon to come up with the answer to your jab at liberals, intellectualism, the notion that poverty causes terrorism, or whatever. You're good at this: I think you revel in it. So I'm sorry but only a little bit sorry.

 

By the way, you should try some Birkenstocks some time. I haven’t had a pair for years but they are the most comfortable footwear there is and pretty versatile - equally at home on the office carpet or while trekking over the snow at 17,000 feet (ask a German tourist). They're the perfect compliment to your spring wardrobe.

[olyclimber]

Not only that but the pony tail for men is coming back bigtime. Also, I heard that there is a new Versace line of tie-died shirts. But why pay so much when you can express yourself by making your own? Take back the power from the liberal intellectual elite!

[G-spotter]

You know who killed intellectuals? Pol Pot, that's who. Jay_B, with your hatred of intellectuals, are you stirring the Pot?