Posted by
Sir Andrew on Friday, March 21, 2008 1:22:16 PM
There's a hidden treasure in Economics that I never learned about in my
high-school economics class whose name is Friedrich List. I first came
across Friedrich List's work in Pat Buchanan's Day of Reckoning, and since then I have been reading List's full work, The National System of Political Economy.
This book is a treasure trove of American ideals, which remain true up
to this day. Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with
terrorism. First, let me quote from his book-
"In
a condition of merely agricultural industry, caprice and slavery,
superstition and ignorance, want of means of culture, of trade, and of
transport, poverty and political weakness exist. In the merely
agricultural State only the least portion of the mental and bodily
powers existing in the nation is awakened and developed, and only the
least part of the powers and resources placed by nature at its disposal
can be made use of, while little or no capital can be accumulated. Let
us compare Poland with England: both nations at one time were in the
same stage of culture; and now what a difference. Manufactories and
manufactures are the mothers and children of municipal liberty, of
intelligence, of the arts and sciences, of internal and external
commerce, of navigation and improvements in transport, of civilisation
and political power. They are the chief means of liberating agriculture
from its chains..."
Now
what does this mean? Friedrich List says here that manufacturing has a
civilizing effect on societies. Agrarian societies, which do not foster
intellectual growth, do not see any evolution in their humanity, whilst
manufacturing societies have a window opened inside their minds.
Let's
take a look at a piece of American History that we are all familiar
with- the Civil War. If you were to sit inside a highschool American
history class today, you would learn that one of the reasons the North
won was because of their great manufacturing capabilities as opposed to
the South. But let's take this idea a step further. Why did the North
oppose slavery in the first place?
With Friedrich List's idea, the
answer to that question becomes clear- the North had been
intellectually stimulated and its morals now told them that slavery was
wrong.
So how does this apply to terrorism today? The answer
isn't that different than our American History lesson earlier. The
fundamentalism of Islam today is the result of their agrarian
societies. However, one fluke that makes them much more dangerous is
their wealth in one natural resource- oil. Instead of working to build
their own manufacturing power, they simply use the revenue from oil
sales to gain access to modern conveniences. Instead of possessing only
low-grade technology that would suit their society, they possess all
the modern advances that we manufacturing powers enjoy- computers, TVs,
internet, as well as high-tech weaponry. When an agrarian mind is met
with manufactured technology, violence is the inevitable result because
their minds cannot properly handle the technology. This is why Muslims
who are of the manufactured mind, i.e. "moderate muslims" do not have
the same problems as their agrian counterparts.
Would anyone like to challenge my theory?