fighting poverty/positive rights

[Robert Sheridan]

Having just noticed this discussion, I read the last few posts with  
interest, because "positive rights" is a new term/idea to me esp. the  
idea that judges should interpret contracts in accord with greater  
societal needs, something our SC justices, some of them, have been  
doing since Day One, to wit:  Marshall, CJ. in McCulloch, Gibbons,  
and others.  The problem is that both sides claim 'greater societal  
benefits,' in any contested case.

What dismayed me was the intro to the Paul Krugman ("a true lefty")  
piece.

"Lefty" is a leftover pejorative from the now defunct (I'd thought)  
Cold War/McCarthy Era period and it's loaded rhetoric.  It means "You  
can disregard this guy, not take him seriously at all, because he's  
the next best thing to a card-carrying Godless Communist, as in  
Commie-Pinko-Red, as opposed to us God-fearing good all-American guys  
who know a lot better."

I think it's a mistake to perpetuate this sort of rhetoric instead of  
taking what the man says on the merits.  Unless that is, one is  
looking for a job in the (moribund, imho) Bush administration.  I was  
going to ask "How far left could PK be, considering that he's  
published regularly in the NYT?" until I realized that people near  
and dear to me refuse to read the Times in the belief it is too far  
to the left and why endanger their far-right beliefs with anything  
that may resemble fact or thought.  If only our MSM (their term for  
mainstream media) would only print the TRUTH about Iraq, all the  
little towns where people aren't being blown up daily, we'd be a lot  
better off in supporting the troops and the war, is their position.   
And I mean REALLY close people to me.

rs
sfls


On Apr 21, 2007, at 5:28 PM, Jeffrey Segal wrote:

>
> Malla Pollak writes:
>
> "I am hardly an expert on this literature. But my current belief is  
> that
> very
> smart persons argued that in theory the market would fix poverty.   
> It has
> now been tried for over 20 years, and the literature I have found  
> says the
> problem has not been fixed.  I would appreciate citations to empirical
> current literature reporting that a nation's general economic  
> improvement,
> without more directed effort, did help the poorest.  My article  
> claiming
> the
> contrary is  Peter Townsend, "The Right to Social Security and  
> National
> Development: Lessons  from OECD Experience for Low-Income Countries,"
> Issues in Social Protection Discussion Paper No. 18, London School of
> Economics & Political Science; London School of Economics,  
> available at
> http://ssrn.com/abstract=958252 (visited April 6, 2007)."
>
> Paul Krugman, a true lefty, writes as if in response:
>
> "The benefits of export-led economic growth to the mass of people  
> in the
> newly industrializing economies are not a matter of conjecture. A  
> country
> like Indonesia is still so poor that progress can be measured in  
> terms of
> how much the average person gets to eat; since 1970, per capita  
> intake has
> risen from less than 2,100 to more than 2,800 calories a day. A  
> shocking
> one-third of young children are still malnourished--but in 1975, the
> fraction was more than half. Similar improvements can be seen  
> throughout
> the Pacific Rim, and even in places like Bangladesh. These  
> improvements
> have not taken place because well-meaning people in the West have done
> anything to help--foreign aid, never large, has lately shrunk to  
> virtually
> nothing. Nor is it the result of the benign policies of national
> governments, which are as callous and corrupt as ever. It is the  
> indirect
> and unintended result of the actions of soulless multinationals and
> rapacious local entrepreneurs, whose only concern was to take  
> advantage of
> the profit opportunities offered by cheap labor. It is not an edifying
> spectacle; but no matter how base the motives of those involved,  
> the result
> has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to
> something still awful but nonetheless significantly better."
> http://www.slate.com/id/1918
>
> Tie in to constitutional law: creating positive rights for judges to
> enforce might be counter-productive.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeffrey Segal
> Distinguished Professor and Chair
> Department of Political Science
> Stony Brook University
> Stony Brook, NY 11794
> phone 631-632-7662
> fax 631-632-4116
> jeffrey.segal at stonybrook.edu
> http://www.sunysb.edu/polsci/jsegal/
>
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