23 Language, Once Again: Civil War, Inclusive Language, Economic Warfare, National Wealth #
Civil War
What took place in 1861 in the U.S. was not a “civil war.” There were not two contending armies, each one trying to rule the other. Rather, this was a war over secession.
For an example of a true civil war we might consider the Spanish Civil War of 1936. There, two groups fought each other, and each wished to rule over the entire country. On the one side were the fascists, under Franco; on the other side were the communists.
Why call what happened in the mid-nineteenth century in the U.S. a “Civil War?” A true civil war, as we all know, is between two contending parties, each of whom wants to rule the other, or, govern the entire society, composed of both elements.
In the war of 1861, this applies, full well, to the North. But the South did not want to rule the North, nor the entire country composed of both. It only wanted to separate from the North, or secede from the union. In my view, it takes “two to tango.” You can’t have a civil war if only one side wants to rule the other.
Here are some more accurate names for that tragic event:
A. Neutral
War of 1861
War between the North and the South
War between the states
B. Slightly pejorative
War of Southern Secession
War for Southern Independence
C. Very pejorative
War of Northern Aggression
Lincoln’s War
War to Prevent Southern Independence
Second American War for Independence
The Third American War for Independence
The Rape of the South by the North
D. Radical
- First War of Southern Secession
The first category, A. Neutral, includes three entries, all of which are nondebatable. That is, they are highly descriptive, and, presumably, will not offend anyone. They are: War of 1861, War between the North and the South, and War between the states. No one could rationally object to War of 1861, or, perhaps, War of 1861–1865. After all, those were the undisputed years of the fighting. Nor can the geographical descriptions, war between the North and the South or between the states, be rejected. They are, it cannot be denied, highly accurate, and not under contention.
The second category, B, is slightly pejorative in that it explicitly blames the North for the conflagration. Both War of Southern Secession and War for Southern Independence indicate that it was the North that attempted to force an unwilling South into something of which it no longer wanted to be part. Were the North and the South a married couple, we might say that the South wanted a divorce, and the North was unwilling to grant one to it. We have a phrase that describes such an event between a man and a woman: marital rape.
But what about slavery, it might be objected? If there is any true rape going on in this situation, it was not perpetrated by the North against the South. Rather, both literally and figuratively, it far better describes what the South was doing to the slaves.
Not so, not so. For there was slavery in the North as well! It gives the North way too much credit to put matters in this way. As both parts of the country were guilty of enslaving innocent people,1 this horrific crime cannot be used to distinguish the parties. Slavery, as it were, gets cancelled out of the equation, and we are left with one group of people who no longer wanted to politically associate with another group of people, and yet were forced to do just that, against their will.
As well, there were several New England states that seriously discussed secession in the 1820s, as a protest against slavery, not in its support, and there were no hues and cries from “progressives” that this would have been illegitimate.2
In category C, we arrive at very pejorative appellations that quite properly indicate the guilt of the North and innocence of the South in no uncertain terms. The War of Northern Aggression, Lincoln’s War,3 the War to Prevent Southern Independence, the Second American War for Independence, and the Third American War for Independence4 all lay the blame squarely on the guilty party. The rape of the South by the North does this in spades.
The South fought a valiant battle against the North.5 Unfortunately, the latter vastly outnumbered them, both in terms of men and material.
With category D, we arrive at the most radical of all nomenclature: the First War of Southern Secession. The implication is that what occurred in 1861 will once again take place, only this time the results will be very different. A group that would likely welcome this eventuality is the League of the South ( http://www.dixienet.org/). More power to them.
Inclusive Language
When I was a young lad, the people who caught fish were always called “fishermen.” Nowadays, those who perform this task are referred to as “fishers.” Why the sudden, ok, not so sudden, change? This obviously stems from the genus political correctness, species, feminism. “Fisher” is inclusive of males and females, while “fisherman,” seemingly, excludes the latter. A similar analysis applies to “actor” and “actress,” to “firefighter” and “fireman.” The former two of each of these pairs, “actress” and “fireman,” although in use for eons, have now been banished down the memory hole. There used to be “chairmen”; now, there are only “chairs” in polite society. Why? This can only be to satisfy the perverse desires of feminists. In the pre-feminized language, the male nomenclature typically included both genders. That is, although women rarely were firemen or fishermen, they most certainly could be, insofar as the language was concerned.6
And why do feminists favor such language? Much like the natives of cargo cult fame,7 they feel that if they can but change something superficial, then real results are sure to follow. That is, males and females will be treated equally, if inclusive language is but utilized by all. Just as cargo cult members do not realize there are good and sufficient reasons why airplane delivery of goods is strictly limited to legitimate airports, feminists do not appreciate there are compelling economic and biological reasons why females, on average, earn less money than do males.8 A similar phenomenon seems to be operating with regard to blacks in television shows and movies. They are typically portrayed as doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, in numbers far in excess of their actual representation in these professions. This is yet another example of the triumph of hope over reality.9
Further, these innovations really bollix up the language.10 Consider the following confusions between the singular and the plural:
“‘If you love someone, set them free’ (Sting); ‘It’s enough to drive anyone out of their senses’ (George Bernard Shaw); ‘I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong’ (George Eliot).”11
One way out of this infelicity is to use the plural instead of the singular. “For instance, instead of ‘As he advances in his program, the medical student has increasing opportunities for clinical work,’ try ‘As they advance in their program, medical students have increasing opportunities for clinical work.’”12 Or, “Each professor decides their own reading lists.”13 But, who wants to be confined to the straightjacket of use of the plural forever. What did the singular ever do to deserve such a fate?
Another objection is based on logic. Inclusive language replaces every use of “man” it can get its hands on, and replaces it with “human.” For example, “man” becomes “human,” “mankind” gets converted to “humankind,” “straw man” morphs into “straw person,” etc. Often “person” is substituted. For example, “He went to the store” becomes “A person went to the store.”
The problem, here, is with the last part of “human” and “person,” namely, “man” and “son.” If the feminists were logically consistent, they would first insist on “huwoman,” instead of human.” But this too presents difficulties as “woman” ends in the dread “man.” Maybe “hudaughter” should be used instead of “human” and “perdaughter” in place of person.
Economic Warfare
Pundits are accustomed to utilizing the language of war and strife to depict economic relationships. This is confusing, irrational and misleading. For the dismal science addresses mutual benefit, or positive sum games. All participants gain whenever a trade, a purchase, sale, rental agreement, job, etc., gets consummated; necessarily so in the ex ante sense, and in the overwhelming majority of cases ex post.
For example, if I purchase a newspaper for $1, it is an apodictic undeniable truth that at that moment, I ranked the periodical more highly than the money I had to pay for it. Why else, for goodness sakes, would I have been willing to engage in this commercial transaction was this not so? I anticipated that I would benefit from this trade. Even in the ex post sense, from the vantage points of afterward, in virtually all such cases I and everyone else in this position gains. Rare is the case where I, or anyone else for that matter, regrets the purchase of a paper on the ground that there was no good news in it after all, and that was what the buyer was seeking and expecting.
Consider in this regard, then, concepts such as “price war,” or “hostile takeover.” Here, it would appear, there is not mutual benefit occurring in the market, but rather an antagonistic relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Take the latter first. This charge is fueled by the spectre of corporate raiders who swoop down on a helpless firm, engage in a “hostile takeover,” sell off its assets, and fire all the employees. There are numerous fallacies here. First of all, unemployment is created by artificially boosting wages above workers’ productivity. If the minimum wage law, or a union, insists that an employee be paid $10 per hour, but he is only worth $7 in terms of productivity, he will be unemployed, period. This has nothing to do with so-called hostile takeovers. Yes, people are fired, but unemployment is no higher in industries that witness such activities than in any other.
But do not corporate raiders sometimes dismember firms for their assets? Indeed, they do. However, they only earn a profit when these selfsame assets are actually worth more in other areas of endeavor than where they were first deployed. This means that if jobs are lost in one corporation, they will be created in others, to the places where the assets are now more productively employed, thus raising wages.
Another socially beneficial effect of the corporate raider concerns salaries of chief executive officers. Many commentators complain that CEO salaries have hit the stratosphere, and constitute an unconscionable exploitation of the workingman. Suppose that the capital value of a firm would have been $100 million if the CEO salary was “moderate,” but, because of a stupendous compensation package, it is now worth only $10 million. Such a firm would be ripe for the pickings of a corporate raider. He would purchase this business for, say, $11 million, fire the parasitical CEO, watch the firm’s value rise to its “proper” $100 million, and pocket a hefty $89 million in profit. The corporate raider is to outrageous CEO salaries what the canary is to coal mine safety; only he does the bird one better: not only does he warn of a problem, he solves it in one fell swoop. Yet, government, in jailing people like Michael Milken, has obliterated this beneficial market mechanism. And now they have the audacity to complain of out-of-control CEO pay.
As for “hostility” there is no such thing between the buyer and seller of stock. The only “hostile” person is the CEO who was ripping off the firm. But when we say that in the market there is only peaceful cooperation, we mean on the part of those who engage in any specific transaction; e.g., the newspaper buyer and seller. Third parties, of course, can always be hostile. A Marxist, for example, might have his nose put out of joint by all commerce. He is “hostile” to all of them. So what?
What of price war? This, too, is a linguistic contortion. When grocers, or filling stations, for example, lower their prices in an attempt to attract customers, they are very far from having a “war” with those who buy from them. Very much the opposite is the case. As far as the relation of these vendors with each other, the supposed participants in this “war,” they are in the same position as the too-high-salaried CEO and the corporate “raider.” They are third parties to all these transactions, and, as such, have no standing in any of them. They cannot reveal or demonstrate (Rothbard 1997) their hostility. That is, when customer A purchases groceries or gasoline from seller a, seller b might not like it, but he is not part of this transaction.
National Wealth
We have often been told that the richest X percent of the people own Y14 percent of the national wealth. It is usually far more than their proportion of the population, as might be expected in the context of not exactly equal wealth on the part of all people. But this X percent of the population do not own any of the national wealth. They, of course, can claim all of their own wealth, but none of anyone else’s.
Putting matters in terms of national wealth, and then noting that it is unequally distributed, is a recipe for complaints on the part of the poorest elements of the population, and their self-styled spokesmen.
Implicit in this notion is the idea that the best way to attain “equity,” defined, typically, as almost absolute income equality, is to take income or wealth from the rich and simply give it to the poor. One could do so by instituting a highly progressive income or wealth tax.
There are many problems with any such course of action. First, it reduces the incentive of both rich and poor to earn income and be productive. The former will not work as hard, at the margin, if what they produce will be taken from them. But this applies to the latter as well, since they will not be given as much of the wealth of other people if they earn their own.15 Second, “equity” is not at all the same thing as “equality.” The first term denotes fairness, while the second merely indicates a certain mathematical relationship. But what is so fair about expropriating, at the point of a gun, money from those who have earned it, and giving it to those who have not? Third, a country that engages in such practices to a great degree may well approach “equality,” but it will be only equality of the sort where everyone starves equally.
Fair Trade
What could be fairer than “fair trade?” The superficial answer is that nothing could be. But a more careful analysis of language reveals that there is nothing at all fair about “fair trade,” and that really fair trade is free trade.
Let us begin by defining our terms. “Fair trade,” thanks to the perversion of language, is a system where people are prevented from trading as they wish. Instead, barriers to trade are enacted, in order to counteract environmental and labor standards prevailing in other countries.16 In other words, if an exporting country in South America or Africa pays wages lower than those deemed appropriate by busybodies and do-gooders in the first world, tariffs and even quotas will be placed in the path of imports emanating from that source. Why it is “fair” to create unemployment in these third world countries by forcing wages above productivity levels is never explained.
Taken to its logical conclusion, and where else are we to take it, “fair” trade is really an attempt to remove any competitive advantage that these nations might have vis a vis those in Europe or North America. If we could impose the same stringent labor and environmental legislation on these countries as now prevails domestically, exports from these poorer areas would no longer be competitive with the product of locals. Ultimately, this would pretty much spell the death knell for any trade between rich and poor global communities.
This would harm all of those in wealthy countries, particularly the less well off there. But the biggest victims would be inhabitants of the poorer sectors of the world. It is no accident that those parts of Africa, in an earlier century, that came into contract with the more advanced West (that is, those on the coast) developed more quickly than those internal to that continent, where traders seldom ventured.17 Most global trade takes place within the advanced areas, not between them and those suffering from dire poverty. To deprive these parts of the world of the relatively little trade they presently enjoy would be to treat the poor, then, in a particularly vicious way. Is it any accident that those most intent on promoting “fair trade” are the leftists who have infested the labor and left-wing environmental movements in the West? This is far from the only instance where those who pose as the friends of the poor are actually their greatest enemies.
In very sharp contrast, free trade18 is the last best hope for the poor, of all nations, as well as for promoting worldwide specialization and division of labor, which benefits all trading partners, at least in the ex ante sense.
Printed with kind permission of Mr. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. This article was initially posted on http://www.lewrockwell.com website.
1 For the argument in favor of legalizing voluntary slavery, an entirely different matter, see Block (1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006).
2 For a defense of secession, see Adams (2000); Gordon (1998); Kreptul (2003); McGee (1994); Rothbard (1967).
3 DiLorenzo (2002) makes the case for this appellation.
4 Since the War of 1812 was the second. I owe this point to Larry Sechrest.
5 See the movie, “Gods and Generals” ( http://www.godsandgenerals.com).
6 True, there never was any such thing as a “farmerman.” There were always, and ever, only “farmers.” This would appear to be an exception that proves the rule.
7 These pre-civilized people believe that if they build runways, out of straw or other handy material, in the middle of the jungle, airplanes will swoop down out of the sky and deliver cargo to them. (See on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult)
8 See chapter 12 of the present book for an elaboration of this claim.
9 Another explanation for this phenomenon is to try to get the masses of people to become comfortable with, and accustomed to, females and blacks in nontraditional high prestige occupations, as a support for affirmative action policies that elevate their numbers there compared to what they would have been in the absence of such unjust programs. I anxiously await the fictional depiction of old fat Jews such as myself as sports heroes, sexual studs and rap singers.
11 http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html
12 Ibid.
13 http://www.marquette.edu/wac/neutral/NeutralInclusiveLanguage.shtml
14 Eugene Paczelt suggested this term to me as problematic.
15 A popular bumper sticker reads: “Work harder. Millions of welfare recipients are counting on you.”
16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade
17 Bauer (1981, 1984); Bauer and Yamey (1957).