QUORA: ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’

 QUORA: ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’

I posted the following answer: 

The question is invalid. Atheism is not an ideology. Ideology is a system of abstract ideas. Atheism (in the conventional sense) is not a  system of abstract ideas. Rather, it is merely the absence of belief in a supernatural God. But I’ll play along.

Communism is atheistic only in the conventional religious sense. It rejects the God of the monotheistic religions. But it doesn’t reject the belief in a “higher” being. It embraces it. It simply secularizes God in the form of a collective that possesses its own consciousness that stands above and separate from the individuals that comprise it, just as religion places its God above and separate from human individuals. This collective, the “community” or society as a whole, is the higher power whose general will is embodied in the state, just as God’s will is embodied in the church (or synagogue or mosque). In Communism's version, the state is in the role of the church, and somehow is able to decipher the will of the collective, and then to impose that will at the point of a gun (there is no other way to impose a collective will).

Of course, the collective doesn’t exist in reality. What exists are individual human beings. The “community” or “society” is an abstraction that, in proper usage, stands for a number of individuals living in a particular geographical region and/or living under a particular legal system. But Communism embodies the idea that the collective stands above and separate from its individual components, who are mere cells in the larger collective organism, and that possesses values and interests and a will that supersedes and are separate from the individuals’ values, interests, and will.

Of course, this cannot be true. The community has no brain or consciousness. It is not an entity. It can’t think, feel, value, or choose. Only actual individuals can do that. Enter the state. Somehow, state officials—holding to the faith of a community “consciousness”—just “knows” what the community thinks, feels, values, or chooses how to act. This is the basis upon which the state acts on what it claims is the community’s good, irregardless of what any of its individual citizens desire. The thoughts, feelings, values, choices, and rights of any particular individuals are irrelevant to the community’s supreme will. This justifies the state’s imposition of communism’s collective moral vision of how the community functions. Being supreme over its individual “cells”, the community is embodied in the state apparatus. The state’s officials or ruling elites consider themselves morally justified to sacrifice any individual’s (or faction of individual’s) interests, wealth, or very lives for the good of the community. This belief system can manifest in no other way.*

Communism, then, rejects the monotheistic God of Christianity or Islam or Judaism. But it does not reject the mystical belief of religion in a higher being. In this broader sense, Communism is not atheistic. It simply secularizes religion’s mysticism, substituting religion’s God with the  Community.** 

Mysticism is the common base of Communism  and religion. A genuine atheist doesn’t believe in any being or deity higher than man. 

To play along, as I said I would do at the outset, let’s reimagine the question. If the question where “Do you think religion or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?”, I would have to say Communism. If the standard is the sheer scale of raw brutality, I would have to say Communism is the most evil. Theocracy, the unity of church and state—which, like communism, also embodies the will of its deity—comes in second place on the scale of brutality.

* [This is why, by its very nature, Communism must inevitably descend into tyranny, poverty, slavery, and murder. Soviet Russia, Red China, Cuba, North Korea, et al, were not aberrations. They were the unavoidable result communist ideology.]

** [Fascism, the other major form of socialism***, also secularizes’s religion’s mysticism. Nazism’s supreme collective is the race. Italian fascism deifies society as a whole. Marxian Communism, for its part, deifies “the proletariat”, or “workers”. 

*** [See my answer to Quora: “Is fascism a capitalist ideology?"]

Related Reading:

QUORA *: ‘Why do people find communism so terrifying as an idea?’

Nazism, Communism, Atheism, and the Enlightenment

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Related Viewing:

Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? —A Debate with Dinesh D'Souza vs. Andrew Bernstein

Yaron Brook Answers: Communism vs. Atheism

Is Capitalism 'Forced Voluntarism?'

 QUORA; ‘If capitalism is simply about "voluntary exchange", then what is wrong with people democratically electing a socialist government? If people simply volunteer to not be part of the system, then isn't it a violation of voluntarism to force capitalism?’

I posted this answer:

It’ll take a little doing to unpack the fallacies and contradictions in the question.

To begin, Capitalism is more than simply “voluntary exchange.” Capitalism is integral to a broadly free society. So for now I will use the broader term “voluntarism.” I will get back to the narrower economic term “voluntary exchange” later. 

Any society has laws that restrain voluntarism—even a fully free society. You can’t, for example, voluntarily decide to disregard traffic laws, thus endangering other drivers. In the broadest philosophical sense, if you want to live in a society, you must obey the society’s laws, which are by nature backed by the police power of the state. So you can’t simply “volunteer to not be part of the system”—that is, wantonly disregard the laws—if you are a civilized person. You’ll end up with fines or in prison. 

Government is the one institution in any society that has a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. Both socialism and Capitalism have governments. So what we’re comparing here is two types of social systems that feature two different legal applications of physical force. The two types of force are, defensive and offensive. Offensive force can be symbolized by a street thug pulling a stickup. Defensive force can be symbolized by the cop that comes to the rescue of the victims of the street thug. 

Both types of government use defensive force. Capitalism features a government that uses force only in defense and only in retaliation against those who initiate its use. While both socialism and Capitalism use defensive force, socialism uses both defensive and offensive (aggressive or initiatory) force against its citizens: In other words, Socialist government protects its citizens only from the private thugs. Its government officials, acting as representatives of the state, are outside the law, taking people’s freedoms at gunpoint (the threat of arrest and incarceration) for its rights-violating collective purposes (wealth redistribution, regulation, controls) regardless of whether the private citizen consents or not. Capitalist government * uses only defensive force, and it constitutionally subordinates its government officials to the same laws as it applies to private citizens. In other words, Capitalism not only protects you from street thugs. It protects you from the government ever becoming the street thug.

In practice, a socialist government is one that empowers an elite (elected or not) to use the coercive legal machinery of the state to force people into its collectivist programs. You can’t “simply volunteer to not be part of the system.” 

Capitalism is the opposite of a socialist system. It’s government protects each individual’s inalienable right to make his own choices, and only steps in against those who violate the same rights of others. In other words, a socialist government is predominantly an offensive force, coercively subordinating the citizen to state interests. A government in a Capitalist society is strictly a defensive force -- an agent of the individual’s self-defense, a protector of individuals’ rights to pursue his own interests. That is the political difference between Capitalism and socialism. It’s a fundamental moral difference. It’s a difference in the legal application of physical force.

Capitalism is the banning of the initiation of force from human relationships, including in the relationships between government and the governed. Returning to the economic concept, “voluntary exchange,” there is no other legitimate kind of exchange. Any method of exchange other than voluntarism is the method of a criminal. Voluntary exchange is the absence of force. To say it is “a violation of voluntarism to force capitalism” is nonsense on stilts. “Forced Capitalism” is a contradiction in terms, because forced voluntarism is a contradiction in terms. 

Let me add, for further clarity, some real life context. Voluntary socialism—socialism separate from the state—is perfectly compatible with a Capitalist society. Fortunately, there is ample historical evidence for this fact. The Communistic Societies of the United States; Harmony, Oneida, the Shakers, and Others by Charles Nordhoff and History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes, both first published in the 1870s, feature first-person accounts by the authors of their experiences living in and/or founding voluntary socialist societies within the American free market system. Socialism separate from the state can, does, and historically has, existed—even in history’s pioneering Capitalist bastion, the United States of America. 

Under Capitalism -- that is, in a free society -- people can form socialist societies or associations through voluntary consent. Like-minded people can voluntarily transfer, by mutual agreement with others who choose to join, their “voluntary exchange” or other freedoms as a means of personal support to a central authority representing the collective. But that is a voluntary contractual agreement. What people can’t do in a Capitalist society is to install, by vote (democratic) or other means, a socialist government to force others to give up those freedoms. People can volunteer to not participate in the Capitalist system, within the confines of the society’s rights-protecting laws—that is, as long as they leave all others free to pursue other values unmolested. You can’t say the same about state socialism. Just observe the myriad socialisms of the past century, from national socialist nations like NAZI Germany or Fascist Italy, to straight-up Communisms like Soviet Russia and Red China, to hybrids like Venezuela. 

As to “what is wrong with people democratically electing a socialist government?”—plenty. Such a process means the majority is forcing the minority into socialism. There is nothing voluntary about majoritarian tyranny. It’s just another example of how democracy unconstrained by constitutionally protected individual rights—so-called “pure” democracy or democracy fundamentalism—is just another form of totalitarianism. Democratic socialism is just as immoral and illegitimate and hostile to individual liberty as fascism, communism, theocracy, monarchy, or military dictatorship. An elected legislature can trample an individual’s rights as easily as any dictator can.

* [Or to the extent Capitalism exists: Today’s “capitalist” societies are in reality mixed systems.]

For more of my thoughts on this, see my essays Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society and QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’. Also see Foundations of a Free Society. Also compare through these two essays:

What is Capitalism?—Ayn Rand

What is Socialism?—Robert L. Heilbroner

Both Rand and Heilbroner are consistent, honest advocates of their favored social systems. As you will come to understand, Capitalism is the “laissez-faire” system, leaving peaceful, rights-respecting citizens free to pursue their lives. Socialism, as Heilbroner readily acknowledges, is incompatible with personal freedom, including freedom of speech.

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

QUORA *: ‘What makes someone a socialist?'

On ‘Capitalist Government’ and Corporate Bailouts

Socialism's Totalitarian Nature Cannot Be Obscured by 'Democratic Socialism'

Democracy Fundamentalism vs. Americanism

On This Veterans Day, A Word About Those Who Support the Greatest Military in History

 This is the time of year that America rightly salutes, and gives thanks to, our military veterans who have protected this nation from foreign enemies for more than two centuries. I join in that celebration. My thoughts about them are conveyed in my Memorial Day tribute, and need no restatement here, except to reiterate the essence of that post:

The highest tribute I can pay to those who perished in that cause is to say that they were cut from the mold of the Founding Fathers; that they did not set out to die for their country but rather that they set out to fight, often at great personal risk, for the only values under which they desired to live—that radical set of ideals that is the United States of America. [See Related Viewing link]

But America’s veterans are not the whole story. So, I’d like to use this Veterans Day post to acknowledge the unsung hero of America’s military prowess, the productive American citizen. No military as strong and as competent as America’s can exist in a vacuum. It requires something else - something indispensable – a great economy.

America's economy, historically the most productive the world has ever seen, is the foundation that supports our military personnel. American taxpayers pay trillions of dollars in defense taxes. American defense contractors invest in and produce the most advanced weaponry in the world, weaponry that American soldiers rely upon to do their jobs, stay alive, and defeat the enemy. American technology produces the high tech means for our intelligence community to gather the information our soldiers need to keep track of the enemy.

What enabled the creation of the economic powerhouse that enabled the creation of our military powerhouse? What is the foundation of that foundation?

In 1776, the Founders of this nation signed the Declaration of Independence, which sanctioned the individual to egoistically pursue his happiness in support of his life, by guaranteeing him a government that protected his unalienable individual rights – his liberty – to act upon his own reasoning mind. That short document unleashed the power of the human mind, possessed individually by every person. The result was an unprecedented explosion of productiveness leading to exploding general prosperity and a standard of living unimaginable by the wealthiest noblemen of centuries past. The cause of that progress is simple: the unleashing of every individual to self-interestedly strive to make his own life the best it can be, by his own effort, in voluntary trade with others, free from the coercive interference of his fellow man, including the government. Another name for this social statement—free market capitalism. America was built not by sacrifice, as it is fashionable to assume, but by personal achievement unleashed by individual liberty.

America’s response to the threat of the Axis powers at the onset of World War II demonstrates this incredible power behind America’s military power—American free, private enterprise. If you’ve ever visited the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, you’d be struck—I know I was—by the section that displays the array of private, profit-seeking companies that rose to meet the threat posed by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Companies from Boeing and Caterpillar to Harley Davidson and the Mars Candy Company converted their consumer-oriented production facilities to produce for the war to defend America. Dozens of household names are profiled in the display, and undoubtedly far more smaller companies labored anonymously in support of the war effort.

Germany’s Hitler was said to have ridiculed America as soft, because America was good at making consumer goods like razor blades and washing machines, but not military hardware like aircraft. This was mentioned in a fantastic film narrated by Tom Hanks titled Beyond All Boundaries, presented by the museum. Indeed, charts on display at the museum showed that, in 1939, America’s military was utterly dwarfed not only by the commulative size of the Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan, but in comparison to those countries individually as well. But just a few short years later, America’s military dwarfed all three combined, as America’s industrial might turned its focus from producing consumer goods to producing for the American military. Hitler obviously underestimated what can happen when a free enterprise nation, which only wants to live in peace, freedom and prosperity, is threatened by tyrannical aggression.

Tyranny, as the history of WW II demonstrates—and as Germany, Italy, and Japan learned the hard way— is no match for a free market capitalist nation when that nation is aroused to turn its industrial might to self-defense. America won not only because of the bravery and skill of its soldiers, but in no small measure because America simply out-produced—in quantity and technological might—the enemy. Not only did America rearm amazingly fast, it did so even while rearming Britain and supplying arms to Russia, China, and other nations battling against the Axis powers. As the museum’s website explains:

Total war meant that all levels of the economy and all segments of society dedicated themselves to victory. FDR urged Americans to join the war effort by “out-producing and overwhelming the enemy.” While scarcity, rationing, and shortages became regular topics of conversation, so too did talk of duty, patriotism, unity, and victory. The United States, which had the world’s 18th largest military in 1939, mobilized itself for total war production almost overnight once the nation entered the war. The immediate conversion of peacetime industries into war production facilities involved companies of all sizes and types. Toy companies began to manufacture compasses. Typewriter companies made rifles and piano factories produced airplane motors. The Ford Motor Company ceased producing cars and began turning out tanks and bombers. And behind each soldier stood hundreds of civilian workers making everything an army needs to fight around the globe. The Depression was over. Full employment was a reality and confidence in victory was strong.

From 1940 until the Japanese surrender, the United States produced more than 300,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, and 12.5 million rifles. Its shipyards were just as productive, building 107 aircraft carriers, 352 destroyers, and 35 million tons of merchant shipping. The US also supplied a majority of war materials for its Allied partners. By 1945, the U.S. had produced more than twice the war supplies of Germany, Italy, and Japan combined.

If Hitler underestimated America, some in Japan, it seems, were more prescient. As Japan’s political leadership confidently prepared for war with America, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto soberly warned:

Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

After his nation's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was said to have uttered, “I fear all we have done today is to awaken a great, sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Indeed, from a starting point of 18th largest military, America had, as FDR envisioned and as Yamamoto feared, out-produced and overwhelmed the enemy. So, let’s celebrate, along with the brave contributions of our vets, the productive American of all income levels—the CEOs, entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists and inventors, workers, investors—and the resultant industrial powerhouse upon whose shoulders our military might stands. Let’s celebrate the individual pursuit of happiness that is the fuel for that American strength. Let’s celebrate his willingness to pay for, build, and support the military whose job it is to protect his pursuit of the good life.

Today, the foundation of America’s economic and military might is under intense attack by those who would “fundamentally change America”—a change that, in actuality, has been going on for decades. Let’s stand up and reject that slow-motion “change” from liberty to tyranny, and instead renew our allegiance to the Founding Fathers, who engineered a change from tyranny to liberty. The best tribute one can give to our military veterans is to vow to fight for the rediscovery and reinstatement of the ideals that this country stands for: the supreme value of the individual human being, his freedom, and a government whose sole duty is to protect his right to live and prosper for his own sake.

Margaret Thatcher correctly observed: "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." That philosophy--the inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--is what the American veteran fought to defend, for herself and for us all. That is the fight that we all--we, as private citizens who value freedom, with freedom's most potent weapon, our individual voices--should continue at home.

Happy Veterans Day!!

-Mike LaFerrara

Related Reading:

Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II -- Arthur Herman

Atlas Shrugged – America's Second Declaration of Independence

The Military Protects Our Borders. Defending Freedom is up to We, the People--as Activist Individuals

Related Viewing:

Why a Free Man Fights—Lt. Col. Scott McDonald, USMC

Menendez Caves

 Previously, I highlighted New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez’s seemingly strong opposition to his party’s bill to grant Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices. Menendez said:

“My goal, which I have not seen in any proposal so far, is to ensure that the consumer at the counter gets relief and not just simply the government,” Menendez told NJ Advance Media.

“Otherwise, we will have done all of this, we will have taken billions from an industry that’s important to the nation, as we just saw with COVID, that’s important to New Jersey, but we still won’t have dealt with the cost of prescription drugs over the counter.”

Apparently, Menendez’s strong statements against Medicare drug price controls, masquerading as “negotiation,” were hollow. In N.J.’s Menendez backs deal to lower drug prices after opposing earlier proposals, Jonathan D. Salant reports: 

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who had opposed House legislation designed to lower the prices of prescription drugs, endorsed a compromise proposal on Tuesday that would allow Medicare to negotiate on some drugs and cap seniors’ out of pocket expenses.

Menendez said he had insisted that any drug pricing legislation would make sure “New Jerseyans and Americans all across the country finally see a meaningful reduction in the rising cost of drug prescriptions while protecting innovation on life-saving treatments.”

Medicare’s negotiating authority would be limited, under this “compromise.” 

Under the provision, Medicare will be able negotiate prices for up to 10 high-cost prescription drugs in 2023, with the new lower prices available beginning in 2025. The number of drugs subject to negotiation eventually will increase to 20.

But the door to price controls is cracked open. Does anyone really believe it won’t be swung wide open, eventually? The pharmaceutical Industry’s trade association explained the practical problem:

The drug industry’s trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the new proposal had all the problems of the old one.

“Under the guise of ‘negotiation,’ it gives the government the power to dictate how much a medicine is worth and leaves many patients facing a future with less access to medicines and fewer new treatments,” said Stephen J. Ubl, president and chief executive.

It’s also deceptive for labeling it “negotiation” and immoral for denying drug companies any real choice in pricing the medicines they create. Hopefully, other Democrats—it’ll only take one in the Senate—will see the danger and block the bill.

Related Reading:

NJ Senator Menendez Applies the Brakes to the Dem’s Push for Drug Price Controls

The Star-Ledger’s Medicare/Prescription Drug Misinformation Campaign

Pharma Can’t ‘Bargain’ With a Medicare Monopsony

Merck- Villain or Victim?

Huber on the Personalized Medicine Revolution—and the Government Roadblocks

How the FDA Violates Rights and Hinders Health—Stella Daily Zawistowski

QUORA: ‘Why is there such strong pushback on climate change at the same time as we are seeing overwhelming proof of weather extremes in the USA?’

 QUORA: ‘Why is there such strong pushback on climate change at the same time as we are seeing overwhelming proof of weather extremes in the USA?’

I posted this answer:

“Pushback on climate change” is unusably vague. So I’ll assume that what is meant is “pushback on government policies to “fight” climate change.” 

The reason is simple. Climate change danger has been vastly exaggerated to advance an anti-human agenda that values raw nature over human life, and that consequently aims to eliminate vital reliable energy; nuclear, hydro, and especially fossil fuels. There is no “climate crisis” (the term itself is conceptually senseless). The truth is, there would be an unprecedented human catastrophe if reliable energy were eliminated in favor of unreliable, super-expensive “renewables” like solar and wind. 

As to weather extremes, there was never a time, in the USA or worldwide, in which there was not “overwhelming proof of weather extremes.” They’ve always existed, and contrary to the perpetually failed predictions of the climate alarmists, there is as of yet little evidence that they are becoming meaningfully more extreme (although the possibility of some weather events becoming more intense in the future are plausible expectation). We’re living in a relatively tame period, in terms of swings in climate and extreme weather. If you want to see weather extremes, read Brian Fagan’s book The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850. What we are experiencing today is not only routine, it is mild compared to the rapid shifts in ocean currents, climate, and extreme weather that people endured during that period. What we have today is more akin to the comparably tranquil conditions of the Medieval Warm Period. *

What is undeniably true today is that climate livability and safety has surged. 

For example, climate related deaths from weather extremes (and natural disasters more generally) have plunged 98% to 99% over the past 100 years. Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey documents that the risk of dying from extreme weather since the 1920s has dropped by 99.75 percent. (Hurricane Ida, Climate Change, and Falling Trends in Global Deaths From Natural Disasters). If you want a really dramatic specific example of the tremendous positive trend in human climate safety and livability, consider two Indian ocean hurricanes of recent weather history, 1970’s  Bhola cyclone and 2019’s Cyclone Bulbul. The two storms struck the same area of India/Bangladesh, and were of comparable strength (tropical cyclones in this part of the world are called simply “cyclones” rather than hurricanes). Bhola killed about 500,000 people, Bulbul 24! As Aljazeera reported,

Bangladesh’s low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, and India’s east are regularly battered by cyclones that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in recent decades.

While the storms’ frequency and intensity have increased – partly due to climate change – the death tolls have come down because of faster evacuations and the building of thousands of coastal shelters.

That’s real progress in protection from extreme weather in just 5 decades, and the progress happened in the time period in which we are constantly told we are facing a “climate crisis.” And it was made possible by the adoption in that part of the world of fossil fuels, including coal, which more broadly powers the industrialization that actually makes us safer from climate dangers.

The statement “we are seeing overwhelming proof of weather extremes in the USA?” is childish. It’s akin to religionists asserting “overwhelming proof of God” in everything, without ever having to offer proof of anything. There is “such strong pushback on climate change” not because people don’t recognize that climate change is a natural feature of Earth’s weather or that human activity may be influencing climate, but because “climate change” is used to whip up unwarranted hysteria geared toward policies that would cripple industry and consumers of energy and cause, if fully implemented, unimaginable human harm. Climate change hystericists vastly exaggerate the danger while ignoring or minimizing the enormous benefits that accompany human influence on the climate.

Before we consider any political climate agenda, we should start with the age-old wisdom, “First, do no harm.” Don’t let the “climate crisis” hysteria of political and crony business interests, Environmentalist anti-industrial revolutionists, and the concerted media propaganda campaign that backs it to constrict your thinking. There’s more to this story. Broaden your mind. By all means, listen to the alarmists. I do. But be objective. Get informed about the motives behind the climate panic mongering, the vital importance of energy to our everyday lives, the actual facts about extreme weather trends today, the actual history of weather and climate, what the evidence shows about the relationship between weather-related disasters and climate, the positive state of human flourishing and the planet today that the climate fear mongering camouflages, and the continued industrial/technological progress and the enabling Capitalist freedom needed to foster both growing worldwide prosperity and the tools to deal with whatever extreme weather awaits us in the future.   

* [The 2019 edition includes an added Afterword by the author that the original 2000 edition did not have. Unfortunately, the conclusion of that Afterword gives an inexplicable nod to today’s climate catastrophism movement, complete with the usual straw man tactics. I say inexplicable because the last two pages of the Afterword contradicts the entire book. Nonetheless, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850, 2019 edition, provides invaluable context for evaluating today’s raging climate change contraversy and debate.]

Related Reading:

The Collectivist Left Media Launches Major ‘Climate Crisis’ Propaganda Campaign

The Anti-human Tyrade of an Ungrateful 16-Year-old

We Owe Our Children a More Technologically Advanced Society, Not 'Preserved' Nature

It’s Time to Listen to the ‘Climate Denialists’

We Are Doomed Without, Not Because of, Fossil Fuel Use

CLIMATE VULNERABILITY AND THE INDISPENSABLE VALUE OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM—Kieth H. Lockitch 

Capitalist Industrialization, Not Handouts, is “Poor” Countries' Best Protection Against Natural Disasters

Stop ‘Denying’ the View From Outside the Climate Catastrophist Government Establishment