Recasting Avatar

The VC has already brought attention to one property rights interpretation of a tale generally thought to be left-leaning (The Lorax). Today, Ilya Somin points to another example of the genre: David Boaz on Avatar:

Conservatives have been very critical of the Golden Globe-winning film “Avatar” for its mystical melange of trite leftist themes. But what they have missed is that the essential conflict in the story is a battle over property rights....

But conservative critics are missing the conflict at the heart of the movie. It’s quite possible that [director] Cameron missed it too.

The earthlings have come to Pandora to obtain unobtainium. In theory, it’s not a military mission, it’s just the RDA Corp. with a military bigger than most countries. The Na’vi call them the Sky People.

To get the unobtainium, RDA is willing to relocate the natives, who live on top of the richest deposit. But alas, that land is sacred to the Na’vi, who worship the goddess Eywa, so they’re not moving. When the visitors realize that, they move in with tanks, bulldozers and giant military robots, laying waste to a sacred tree and any Na’vi who don’t move fast enough.

Conservatives see this as anti-American, anti-military and anti-corporate or anti-capitalist. But they’re just reacting to the leftist ethos of the film.

They fail to see what’s really happening. People have traveled to Pandora to take something that belongs to the Na’vi: their land and the minerals under it. That’s a stark violation of property rights, the foundation of the free market and indeed of civilization.

I think that's a perfectly tenable interpretation of the movie. I'd question, though, how strong the dissonance is with the "face" (leftist) message.

It is certainly true that the sort of leftist thought that Boaz is identifying Avatar with hardly identifies as capitalist. But that hardly means they can't speak in term of property rights. Indeed, while the anti-colonialist theory being drawn from here would likely not cast things in terms of individual plot ownership, they certainly are quite willing to assert cultural "ownership" of certain plots of land, territories, or resources. Indeed, the Na'vi seem to view these territories as collectively owned by "the people" (there is no indication that any one person in the community owns the land or the unobtanium). This raises a harder question for capitalist theorists than Boaz cares to admit, as capitalist entities have always had trouble figuring out how to handle (read: have felt comfortable ignoring completely) notions of property ownership that were not sufficiently individualistic. The doctrine of terra nullius was applied to claim that places such as Australia weren't actually "owned" by anyone, since the land wasn't titled in a manner that was comprehensible according to contemporary proto-capitalist norms.

But anyway. I think contemporary leftists are more anti-corporate than they are anti-capitalist. The argument in Avatar is that given sufficient power, corporations would be quite willing to ignore such capitalist niceties as property rights and freedom of contract (at least when it suits them). Put differently, the same priors that suggest a corporation would be indifferent to good liberal values like "don't slaughter the natives" would equally suggest that the corporation would be indifferent to good libertarian values like "contract with the natives". The corporation is going to take the least expensive path, whatever that may be, and unless some entity is their to raise the cost of the "killing the natives and taking their property", there's no reason to believe that market economics of all things will act as a restraining force.

So Avatar is an indictment of anarcho-capitalism, to a point, but the twist is it making the further claim that the necessary condition for an anarcho-capitalist hell is not absence of government, but simply corporations more powerful than government. The Ecuador example* I've sometimes cited would seem to be most directly on point.

There, the state had given the Texaco Oil virtually free reign in the country's outland regions. The company responded by engaging in massive environmental degredation at the expense of the nation’s Amazon community. Affected citizens were told that there was no redress available from the company because Texaco was a private corporation and thus not party to relevant treaty law, they would have to go to the state for aid. However, since Texaco’s revenues were 4x the entire GNP of country, and in any event the company was actively backed by the US government, few believed that the nation could stop the environmental destruction even if it were so inclined.

Obviously, there's two problems going on here. The first is the Ecuadorian government's willingness to enable Texaco's predations at the expense of the property rights of the locals. The second is Texaco's willingness to completely circumvent normal legal protections and remedies for the local populace, simply by virtue of the fact that it was actually "bigger" than the state itself.

It is quite easy to see why a country like China would dislike Avatar -- it threatens their exploitative ideology just as much as it would Texaco's. But the moral of the story isn't "yay for market power" so much as it is illustrative of the need to a) establish governmental norms that strongly protect personal rights, particularly of marginalized groups and then b) make sure corporations don't gain so much power that they're able to out-muscle the government.

* Chris Jochnick, "Confronting the Impunity of Non-State Actors: New Fields for the Promotion of Human Rights." Human Rights Quarterly 21.1 (1999) 56-79

Chavez, Morales, and Robertson Duke It Out

For supremacy in the idiotic comments about Haiti contest. We've already discussed Robertson's contribution. Here's Morales:

President Evo Morales said Wednesday that Bolivia would seek U.N. condemnation of what he called the U.S. military occupation of earthquake-stricken Haiti. "The United States cannot use a natural disaster to militarily occupy Haiti," he told reporters at the presidential palace.

"Haiti doesn't need more blood," Morales added, implying that the militarized U.S. humanitarian mission could lead to bloodshed. His criticism echoed that of fellow leftist, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who said Sunday that "it appears the gringos are militarily occupying Haiti."

When asked Wednesday about the possibility of the U.N. General Assembly condemning the U.S., assembly spokesman Jean Viktor Nkolo pointed to previous U.N. statements expressing gratitude for U.S. help in Haiti.

The United Nations will soon sign an agreement with the U.S. stipulating the U.N. as the lead organization for security in Haiti, Edmond Mulet, acting U.N. special envoy to Haiti, said Tuesday.

And here's Chavez:

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a 'tectonic weapon' to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.

President Chavez said the US was "playing God" by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.

One thing that is missing from this "analysis" is why America has any particular interest in occupying Haiti. At least with Iraq, we have a facially plausible, though conspiratorial, interest in Iraq's oil (left unclear is why we couldn't just buy it from the Hussein regime, as he would have been quite glad to sell it to us). Haiti carries with it no such natural wealth; an occupation would be a massive expenditure of American resources (at a time when they are locked up in various other locations) for no apparent gain. I'm uncomfortable enough with bare materialist explanations for behavior (particularly when they are cast as a dualism: one side is materialist, the other side, of course, morally pure), but what we are supposed to imagine is that American's have some innate, pathological desire to control the world -- something in our national biology apparently turns us into sociopaths. We might describe such a view as racist.

UPDATE: The Chavez quote, at least, appears to be a fabrication that managed to get some legs in the global media. Interestingly, the statement was repeated both by anti-Chavez outlets like Fox News and pro-Chavez entities like Iran's Press TV, apparently because, as Harry's Place put it, it panders to the prejudices of both those who think Chavez is crazy, as well as those who think that America is.

Blow Me Away

You know, the more I read about Hugo Chavez, the more I'm convinced that he doesn't so much dislike "imperialism" as he is jealous of it. His forays into naked authoritarianism are well documented, but the implied threat to invade nearby countries (in this case, Honduras) is a different animal.

To be sure, I oppose the coup in Honduras -- even though the President appeared to be breaking the law (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) in forcing through a referendum on whether to amend the constitution to allow him to run for subsequent terms. Most other governments rightly have come out against it, and Chavez -- who was nearly the victim of a coup himself in 2002 -- certainly is quite proper to join them (of course, the fact that he attempted to launch a coup to come to power back in 1992 shows he resides in quite the glass house). Coups aren't the way modern democracies do business. But I was under the impression we had all learned a valuable lesson about getting too trigger happy in trying to convert or revert regimes to the styles and behaviors we preferred.

So You Think You Have a Sovereign Nation?

John Derbyshire lays down the law for Iraqis. Democracy? That's for suckahs! We'll do what we want to do in your "country", because we're big, you're little, and we can.

The Will to Power

"What do you want to do today, Brain?"
"Same thing we do everyday, Pinky.... Take over the world."

In response to my denial post, Mark argues that America's problem isn't denial but a failure of the will to confront evil. At root, this is Green Laternism gone totally haywire, as Mark seems to think every problem in the whole world could be solved through strong application of American Will. But while this practically unrealistic (not every problem can be solved by mere willpower, and America doesn't possess infinite resources to enact will into policy), the disjuncture with reality is actually less frightening to me than the theory itself. The "will" Mark demands America use would appear to involve the US invading, occupying, bombing, or otherwise attacking a huge chunk (well over half) of the world over the course of the last 60 years.*

But Mark doesn't just want to impose American will on any country. It's not even the relatively simple metric of imposing our will on evil countries. Evilness is certainly a part of Mark's criteria. But the bigger one is alignment. Countries which are doing nothing actively wrong, but seem broadly aligned on an anti-American axis, are legitimate targets of our Will (Chile, 1973). And, as Mark's post was a prolonged justification for allying with undeniably evil groups (such as death squads) so long as they were on "our side", I assume the reverse is also true: a country that is aligned with us ought to be spared facing America's Will -- or even get the support of American Will against rebel forces. Beyond that, for countries or organizations who are not aligned for us or against us (or perhaps, are too unimportant to matter), then evilness becomes the defining factor (Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, for example).

So, using that as our criteria, which countries in the post-WWII era should have faced (or benefited from!) America's Will? Well, let's start with the one's that Mark appears to explicitly endorse in his post: Chile, Nicaragua, North Korea (he says we shouldn't have accepted the "stalemate" at the end of the Korean War), Vietnam, Uganda. Where else? Well, there are the other locations where America has Exerted Our Will since World War II; places such as Iraq, Columbia, Granada, El Salvador (hell, virtually all of Central America saw US Marines at one point or another during the 20th century), The Balkans, and Iran (imposing the Shah). Each of these would seemingly be okay with Mark. But now let's move into hypotheticals. Where did American Will fail to manifest itself, when it should have?

Start with the Americas. We already mentioned that basically all of Central America was forfeit, but Cuba deserves special mention for being the Communist Big Papa -- and the Bay of Pigs hardly was a sufficient statement of Will. Venezuela, today, is an easy mark (and we did support a coup there). Bolivia? Maybe. Brazil escapes because it went socialist (Lula) after the Cold War ended, but during the Cold War it was an ally (so who cares that it tortured folks constantly?).

In Europe, we have -- the entire Soviet Bloc. And the Soviet Union. But particularly Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Could France be considered anti-American enough to render it vulnerable to America's Will? Maybe.

Africa is another place where we could justify sending troops nearly anywhere this side of Botswana, either to overthrow communist leaning dictatorships or to support Western-leaning regimes against communist backed rebels. But certainly, Libya, Sudan (even prior to Darfur, with the North/South civil war), Ethiopia, Rwanda, Rhodesia (supporting the White apartheid government), South Africa (ditto), and Angola all were legitimate targets of The Will.

The Middle East, amazingly, gets mostly a pass, on the grounds of "alignment". Iraq is an exception -- but only after the Cold War (when they actually were gassing their own people, they're cool. Invading Kuwait is a problem). Syria, too, probably should face the Will of America. But Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, UAE? All okay.

Central Asia is a fun one. Pakistan escapes -- narrowly -- on alignment grounds. Uzbekistan, despite being far eviler than Pakistan, is an easier non-call than Pakistan, as it is firmly on our side. But Afghanistan gets to enjoy US will twice: once in support of the Taliban against the Russians, and once in support of the North Alliance against the Taliban. Iran, obviously, must face American Will again.

East Asia also sees plenty of action. We already got Korea, and China, too, is a definite. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are further obvious choices. Indonesia gets supportive Will of America in its anti-communist fight as Suharto slaughtered 300,000 people. He may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch, after all.

So what's the final tally? Basically all of Latin America and Eastern Europe, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, Chile, Venezuela, Columbia, the USSR, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Iran (twice), Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Syria, Korea, and Libya. And possibly France. Some places we did attack (but in many of these, Mark thinks that still our Will was not sufficiently imposed), some we did not

I don't oppose the use of military force in all circumstances. But this...this is imperial hell. I am glad we have not "The Will" to undertake it.

"I believe in something greater than myself. Building a better world. A world without sin...."

"I don't murder children."

"I do. When I have to."

* * *

* In the comments, Mark denies that his "will" is necessarily military force. But every example he's ever given of the proper use of will was a military option, and I can't conceive of a non-military response he would find sufficiently "willful" in most of the countries I'm laying out. Indeed, in some of the cases, he finds even what military response the US did initiate to be insufficient (Vietnam, Central America). But for the sake of defusing conflict, I'll refer to what Mark wants to do to these nations as "imposing our will."