Home
In this issue

Sept. 4, 2008

Ron Kampeas: Biden, Palin take lead in clash on Mideast issues

Bruce Dancis: With humor as their weapon, the Three Stooges took on Hitler

Sept. 3, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: Productive school years don't just happen

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Quick lamb stew serves up flavors of India

Sept. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Costly Advice

Caroline B. Glick: Calling Israel's bluff

JWisdom: Wandering in Wonder by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 29, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: 20/20 sightlessness

Caroline B. Glick: When history is not repeated

JWisdom: Blessed or Cursed: It's Really Up to You by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 28, 2008

Steve Lipman: A Comeback for the 'Jewish Jordan'

Jeffrey Weiss: Researcher reports 'intriguing' diabetes breakthrough

August 27, 2008

Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald: Removing the perfectionist's mask

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Nunn: Summer harvest linguine

JWisdom:: The Missing Link in Spiritual Life by Rabbi David Aaron

August 26, 2008

Yaffa Ganz: Grandma gets lessons in staying cool

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: The Dems' 'soft' jihadist

JWisdom:: Today: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Plague of indifference

August 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: A friend is bearing a silly grudge from a supposed wrong. What recourse do I have?

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

JWisdom:: The knowledge you need to overcome your insecurities by Malka Schulman

August 22, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Life's essential ingredient

Caroline B. Glick: Dominos anyone?

JWisdom:: Actually, Do Sweat the Small Stuff! by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 21, 2008

Today in Biblical History by Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Popularization of Kabbalah: 20 Menachem-Av 1558 CE

Jonathan Rosenblum: Lessons from the Beyond

JWisdom: : The Olympian within is rooting for you -- yes, you! –- to go for the gold

August 20, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Misleading Platform Platitudes

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Chicken Salad with Asian Dressing

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: America's Defense of the Jews --- Until WWII by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

August 19, 2008

Dennis Prager: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Obama's Islamist problem has nothing to do with his upbringing

JWisdom: Think your life is messed up? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 18, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Business with Friends

Diana West: Roars About Russia, Bare Whispers About Islam

JWisdom: Relationship agony: The real cause by Malka Schulman

August 15, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: To love the Divine

Caroline B. Glick: Georgia, Israel, and the nature of man

JWisdom: The Truly Righteous Don't Demand Entitlements by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 14, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Confessions of broken spirit

Libby Lazewnik: The Numbers Game

JWisdom: Six Questions You'll Be Asked in Heaven? - Uh - Let's Just Take One for Now! by Gavriel Aryeh Sanders

August 13, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Georgia should be on their minds

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Go Greek: Pair flavorful lamb kebabs with a hearty salad

JWisdom: Human hybrids aren't science fiction by Rabbi David Aaron

August 12, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bless us

Daniel Pipes: The West's Islamist Infiltrators

JWisdom: From Sadness to Gladness: The Route from Tisha b'Av to Rosh Hashana by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 11, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: A Jewish view on fair pricing

Caroline B. Glick: Ignoring failure in Gaza

JWisdom: 'Communication' Is Not The Answer! by Malka Schulman

August 7, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Continuing Story With a Sustaining Goal

Rabbi Berel Wein: Mourning and morning

JWisdom: Yes, we are still in exile by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 6, 2008

David Ashenfelter: Government made military engineer's life a living hell because of his faith, Defense Department report documents

Jonathan Tobin: Speak the Truth; Defeat the Lies

JWisdom: Jewish Spirituality: Fusion or Confusion? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 5, 2008

Chris Leppek: Church/state wall beginning to crumble?

Paul Greenberg: Exit Olmert (no encore, please)

JWisdom: Serenity: Make the commitment by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders)

August 4, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Am I taking advantage of another's psychological quirk?

Andrew Silow-Carroll: A black and a Jew walk into the White House…

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Edward R. Morrow visits the ‘living dead’ by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2006 /30 Shevat, 5766

Creators versus critics

By Paul Johnson


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | One of the fascinating things about studying history is to see the way in which man's extraordinary creative and inventive faculties are in a continual battle with his critical and destructive faculties. If only the first were in operation, humanity would have advanced far more rapidly. We'd now be enjoying living standards we won't reach until 3000 to 4000. We'd be making regular trips to our solar system's planets (and exploiting them) and possibly to the stars beyond.


But the other aspects of man's nature act as a continual brake on progress. I'm not thinking so much of war, since it's as effective at promoting invention and creativity as it is at destroying existing wealth. World War II, for instance, accelerated enormously the development of radar, electronics, jet propulsion and nuclear energy. What I mean, rather, is our negative propensity to find reasons — especially moral or scientific ones — to oppose the creative forces in the world. A primary example of this was the mid-19th-century reaction to the capitalist Industrial Revolution.


Just as a disruptive and painful period of capital accumulation was coming to an end in advanced economies such as Britain's — wages were rising, working hours decreasing and factory conditions improving — along came thinkers like Karl Marx, who argued that capitalism was an unprecedented threat to human happiness. They succeeded in setting up a collectivist counterforce to capitalism that maintained itself intellectually for a century and at one time controlled nearly a quarter of the world's surface area, killed scores of millions and wasted untold trillions of dollars of wealth. This force was not discredited until the late 1980s, when Soviet Communism began to collapse and its Chinese cousin embraced capitalism.

CLEVER CRITICS
During the 20th century a series of revolutions in technology again made it possible to accelerate the production of wealth and improve the ways in which it is distributed to reach even the poorest enclaves of the world. But once again the negative critical and destructive forces have combined to put the brakes on and, if possible, reverse this process. Clever people calling themselves environmentalists, human rights campaigners, tort lawyers, etc. have played on fears and superstitions and employed ingenious arguments based on science and pseudoscience to mount a counteroffensive against capitalist advances. They have used the courts, media, international conferences and laboratories — all with enormous cunning and effrontery — to win many partial and some absolute victories.


One of their biggest successes has been to halt the building of nuclear power plants in the U.S., Britain and other countries. This has seriously increased the destructive impact of the oil shortages brought on by China's and India's industrialization. At the same time environmentalists, claiming that global warming is the result of industrial activity, seek to force compulsory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, which will hugely reduce industry's efficiency and profitability. This frontal attack on the production and profitability of the capitalist system is, in its own way, as dangerous as Marxism was.


Capitalism is also being slowed down and damaged by tens of thousands of lawyers who have discovered they can use the courts to transfer vast sums of money from business to individuals who believe they've been harmed by business, in the process enriching the legal profession and its more active entrepreneurs. In this war between business and its enemies, the brains are evenly divided on both sides of the trenches. There are as many clever young men and women pouring out of college and going into jobs that make them critical of capitalism as there are going into junior-executive work in finance and industry — a fact of life likely to continue.

GOVERNMENT'S ROLE
Criticism is a luxury advanced civilizations can afford, but creativity is an essential. Government must uphold the rule of law. But if it becomes too evenhanded in the battle between the creative and the critical and leaves the creators to fend for themselves, it's certain that growth will eventually slow down and the economy stagnate.


This is what's happened in the Eurozone over the past decade. The result: huge unemployment and about zero growth. This also happened in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, until Margaret Thatcher took office. By swinging government heavily onto the side of wealth production, she changed Britain from a low-growth to a high-growth economy. But the positive effects of this are now wearing off. The impact of New Labour — in power for nine years — has been to align government behind the critics and negative forces in society. The economy is slowing, and bad times are ahead for capitalism in Britain.


U.S. administrations over the past 25 years have, on the whole, given business a square deal, and the American economy has continued to grow. President Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty was symbolic, a signal act of courage reflecting the economics of common sense. But there are many signs that the critics are gathering strength. More regulations being imposed at state and federal levels, rising antibusiness litigation and hostility in the media, fueled by criminal trials and scandals, bode ill for growth.


Left to themselves, the creative forces in society will always deliver, but keeping them reasonably free to do so is a perpetual, grinding battle. It is one that must never be lost.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


BUY THE BOOK

Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.).

Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here.



Previously:

02/21/06: The Rhino Principle

© 2006, Paul Johnson

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Rod Dreher
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Michael Goodwin
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 James Klurfeld
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Jonathan Last
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 The Medicine Men
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Jonathan Tobin
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Jeff Stahler
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Know-It-All
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 Marybeth Hicks
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Nutrition Myths
 Supermarket Shopper
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works