For the next little while, I don’t know what posting’s going to look like.
The SAT and the NCFCA National Speech and Debate tournament are approaching, which will keep me traveling and/or studying until the second week of June.
After that, Lord willing, I can do some writing about TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.
For the economically inclined, a query: are economic sanctions morally justified? I just watched a debate on that issue, and then had a lively discussion with my mother. If you have any thoughts, pray tell.
I learned a new word today, from Michael Butler and Doug Phillips - marginalia. Splendid, no?
4 comments:
We'll miss you Karen!!
Marginalia... must add to growing vocabulary!! I hope your SATs and debates go well!
Economic sanctions are morally justified. It involves one country choosing not to do business with another country. Sanctions just require enough justification for a particular application of the doctrine. It's normally got to be more than price, because a positive choice to prohibit business dealings (like the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938) is so severe that it smacks of criminal or securities law, which are ethically justified.
However, as in securities or antitrust law, unethical price fixing or cartels could be a justification for sanctions.
What requires more justification is the freezing and confiscation of assets. This type of measure directly abrogates property rights. It also diminishes confidence in banking and investment. Freezing of assets is justified in the case of police action against racketeers or terr.rists (subversive organizations). It helps law enforcement by pinching the criminal's pocketbook. It carries the same justification as not enforcing contracts that have illegal subject matter.
Besides the Ag. Adjustment Act of 1938 (which could be seen as a domestic sanction), another policy that makes me angry is the one expressed in United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324 (1937).
The Soviet government in 1918 dissolved a Russian corporation and stole all its assets, foreign and domestic, including a sum deposited with a banker in New York. The U.S. later settled accounts with the U.S.S.R. so the federal government was assigned all of Russia's economic claims against American citizens. The U.S. sued the banker's estate to get the money because the banker (and the State of New York) refused to recognize the legitimacy of the confiscation.
The federal government won because of the treaty that officially recognized the USSR and legitimized their claims.
Politically, though, it makes me sick.
Post a Comment