Another Halloween has come and gone. But the Malthusian virus of doom-and-gloom toward self-interested, voluntary choice rages on. The neo-Malthusians may now concede that we are not running out of resources, but the new line is that we cannot mine and burn what we know we have because we are running out of climate.
More can be added to this list, but the ‘big three’ of today’s alarmism are climate scientist James Hansen, Obama’s science advisor John Holdren, and deep ecologist and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben. Some quotations follow:
“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”
-James Hansen, 2006. “The Threat to the Planet.” New York Times Review of Books
…“We cannot afford to put off [climate policy] change any longer.
Editor Note: Back in 1992, the founder and president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Fred Smith, reviewed Al Gore’s new book, Earth in the Balance. More than two decades later, Smith’s review is still on target and good reading. (One cannot say the same of Malthusian-school writing of the same period.) The review follows:
Al Gore has written, “When giving us dominion over the earth, did God choose an appropriate technology?” And then: “One is tempted to answer, the jury is still out.” Much the same can be said about Governor Bill Clinton’s wisdom in selecting Sen. Gore to be his running mate.
While Mr. Clinton has spent months (if not years) attempting to fashion himself as a moderate Democrat unwedded to the Big Government programs that have dominated his party for so long, the selection of Al Gore signals a return to yesteryear’s agenda.
“Good profit can only result from creating value for the consumer. It is the manifestation of the entrepreneur’s respect for what the customer values.”
– Charles Koch, Good Profit (New York: Crown Business, 2015), p. 244.
In his previous book, The Science of Success, Charles Koch, classical-liberal CEO of Koch Industries, Inc., described heroic, moral capitalism as “maximizing long-term profitability for the business by creating real value in society while always acting lawfully and with integrity.”[1] Real value to Koch comes from the economic means of consumer service, not the political means of special government favor (see here).
Part I yesterday shared some Koch quotations on cronyism from years past. Today, quotations from Koch’s just released book are presented that clearly spell out his views of cronyism in the mixed economy (what has been called political capitalism):
“Good profit comes from making a contribution in society–not from corporate welfare or other ways of taking advantage of people.”…