Individualism, And The Dog (Satire)

Individualism,and The Dog

The liberality of the American public in bestowing pecuniary favours on the animals in a Kabul zoo betrays the preference for animals over humans in western civilisation. This satire takes a look at the western obsession with animals. 

Excerpt:

"Now for the political reason, and this is closely tied to the historical. Animals, we have noted, are all of a piece, and so are birds: a myna is a myna is a myna. Association with the dog began just before the imperial expansions – before the ‘discovery’ and destruction of the ‘Red’ Indians, for instance. By identifying with a lesser creature – the dog – the European was able to assuage his guilt at the torment of an equal – the human being in North America or Africa. By being kind to the former, he could be savage with the latter. Notice the case of the Afghans: people are individuals, and that’s a fact that Americans did not wish to take into account. Animals are uniform: they are the same in every hemisphere. Marjan could equally have been an American lion. Not so the Afghan – heaven forbid! She is Muslim, veiled, says her prayers five times a day, wears her hair long, and has never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart store."

Robert Sowell and history

Robert Sowell makes an absurd claim during the online discussion of his book "Economic Facts and Fallacies".

He maintains that colonialism never touched the poorest places on earth.

What about Congo?

Surely he must have read 'Heart of Darkness'? He will claim that it was post-colonial rule that failed the country; even if that can be proven (and it hasn't been proven), it doesn't alter the fact that colonialism did touch one of the poorest places on earth today. The only country to have benefited from colonialism in Africa was – Belgium.

Throughout his discussion, there is an unhistorical - indeed, anti-historical – bias. It shows when he maintains that markets (say, for credit) don't discriminate against black people because, in that case, they also discriminate in favour of Asians.


Asians are high net-worth people; more so than white people on the average. Asian values are world-famous; so is the "Protestant ethic". And Asian-Americans are immigrants to boot – a group that often out-achieves the natives.

Black Americans did not come to America voluntarily; they were not immigrants; they were not free; they were systematically denied their rights; the net worth of a black person in the bottom quintile is – hold your breath! - $57; while that of a white person runs into five digit figures.

Markets always discriminate – that is their function ("effective demand", remember?). Markets allocate goodies according to purchasing power. To "allocate" is necessarily to discriminate. And why should credit, for instance, be allocated to somebody who's worth $57? Markets don't care about history. They care about returns.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/02/sowell_on_econo.html