Mr. Cowen supports a straw-man fallacy - Reader comments at The New York Sun

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Submitted by Josh, Nov 5, 2007 11:46

What you fail to realize in your assertion that Klein is indeed attacking the classical liberals, is that she isn't. The main focus of her book, contrary to your rather despicable straw-man fallacy, is the failure of NEO-liberals to implement their own proposed policies, and their additional pending criminal records that follow. While your examples of failed socialism and successful capitalism extend back to Maoist China and the New Deal, pre-cold war politics are not the focus of the book. Klein, as you mentioned, has focused on intrusive and unfettered free markets in the past 30 years in which Leaders such as Salvador Allende were killed in US sponsored coups for merely trying to nationalize their natrural resourses, such as copper. The US is being held accountable not for their inconvenient presense, but rather their insistance upon keeping rising nations in the third world by allowing ourselves access to their resourses for by our markets. I live in New Orleans right now and take great offense at your coldly callous denial of the reality that the city which once was home to many lower class communities is now becoming privatized for the sake of profiting out of state contractors like Blackwater, who runs security in our public schools. This book is only emotional in the truths that it reveals to a nation that hasn't been told these sad realities through major news sources. The research is astoundingly thorugh and unbiased. This book is less anti-capitalism, and rather simply more in line with holding our leaders accountable for their misbehavior at home and abroad. Your sparse and misleading examples of her misrepresentations prove your ignorance, and do a great injustice to any viable cases for globalizing the free market. As Klein mentions, Friedman, who died in 2006, was the last true champion of monetarism and his other causes. Perhaps upon reading her book in its entirety, you'll realize that while capitalists enjoy a blank slate for domestic progress, we might envisage a blank slate for our current policies. Do you truly believe that socialism, which basically means improving upon the status quo socio-economically is that incredibly worse than maintaining our current status quo.? It should seem a professor in economics could see the benefits and drawbacks of either, and given your stance, your logic could likely use an adjustment.

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