One of the interesting things about keeping an online journal is that it allows me to track dissertation activity and thoughts, because I've pretty much decided it will replace my old dissertation journal when I am writing and/or researching.  For some time I kept a dissertation journal in which I lay out minor problems and their solutions, organizational difficulties, etc.  But I've never kept a daily log when I'm writing.  One thing that comes to mind is that for writing like literature reviews, which I'm working on now for chapter three, I'm always too optimistic!  What that means is, I thought I could bang out that entire thing tonight, and instead only managed to knock out the middle section of it (on Richard Hofstadter's assessment contribution to Progressive historiography).  Tomorrow I shall probably take in UH baseball, which means Saturday, even trying to account for my sense of optimism, I should finish this distasteful part of the chapter and get back to writing about political  philosophy, and one of the most important themes of political philosophy (natural right versus history) in the American context.

I finally took the time earlier to respond to my good friend Mr. Hanna's comments re: one of the short little emails I sometimes send out during the workday when I find tidbits in the news.  I'm going to paste it in as it's one of the things that occupied my brain today (outside of work!).  It's another one of those pieces of writing that is not as clear as I would like:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Hanna" <[email protected]>
To: "youngconservative" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: The nonsense continues


> youngconservative - http://sites.netscape.net/johngaltsturkie/
>
> I don't know, but it seems like a good use of the act and I certainly have
> no objection to treating corrupt governments as shabbily as we treat
> American business.  In fact, it's about time.  Hey, if Mobil and Exxon had
> gotten together and said, let's voluntarily limit production that would be
> something I'd likely accept as an unworkable situation that the market
> itself will fix.  But, OPEC isn't an association of actual oil producers
> limiting production, it is an association of governments of countries
which
> export oil setting legal limits on what oil producers can pump in their
> borders.  It's a government monopoly enforced, as all such things are,
with
> guns.  The proper way to fight it would seem to be with guns of our own
and
> though I'd prefer a more honest approach, this one works.

Without defending OPEC per se, I would point out that most of the countries
in question regard oil as a national resource, something owned by the nation
and, therefore, subject to the conditions of extraction established via
contract by the governments and national oil companies.  If companies enter
into arrangements to extract government-owned oil in exchange for
considerations (i.e. through royalty arrangements, profit oil arrangements,
or service agreements) with the understanding that some governments will
enforce quotas, I find nothing all that troubling about the arrangement in
moral terms (i.e. use of force).  It's a contract that all parties have
agreed to abide by, and in most of these places, the contract is treated
with more sanctity than virtually anything done in the United States.  I'm
fond of saying that Mr. Qadhafi may be an international pariah, but there
have been few better guarantors of a contract in recent memory!

Now, if we would like to contend that oil should NOT be regarded as a
state-owned resource and that true privatization would be a more efficient
method of extracting oil, I think for the most part that's true and has been
proven true empirically as we exmaine countries that have moved from being
closed to foreign oil investment to open.  But I'm not sure that it is
entirely accurate to deem OPEC a monopoly that immorally uses force to
enforce quotas when, in effect, the governments of the countries that
comprise OPEC take a different view of the ownership of oil, a view that
various multinationals readily accept when they sign contracts to extract
the oil.  Another argument might be, of course, that it's hard to view OPEC
as a monopoly when it produces under half of the world's oil!  At least Bill
Gates has a better market share!

I guess the notion I'm trying to get across, however, is that I don't find
it a proper function of the government EVER to hammer any sort of monopoly
(regardless of whether one agrees OPEC is a monopoly), whether it's American
or international (and those terms are growing increasingly irrelevant as the
world becomes more global I think), that antitrust legislation itself is
based on a flawed premise.

And since part of this discussion seems to turn on the international nature
of OPEC, I would further add that I don't find punitive tariffs as a tool of
"making trade fair" to be a proper function of government.  A while back,
this wacky group called Save Domestic Oil attempted to get the U.S.
government to impose trade tariffs on Mexican and Venezuelan oil (also
Saudi, I think, and maybe Kuwait), citing steel dumping case law as
precedent; they were turned down, but if one followed the goofy law strictly
they probably should not have been.  However, one thing this group of idiots
(from Oklahoma *frown*) didn't even consider was the fact that so much of
this oil comes into the country via foreign trade zones or through swapping
that getting AROUND punitive tariffs would not have been a major problem.  I
just find the notion of the government deciding what constitutes "fair"
trade -- whether it's dealing with monopolies or foreign trade -- scary!

> Personally,
> though, I'm in favor of bribery - Mexico wants its currency bailed out,
> "Pump more oil and we'll think about it;"  Kuwait and Saudi Arabia need
> someone to stop Goddum Insane "Pump more oil and we'll think about it."
> Although, speaking of Goddum, maybe we should wake the hell up and let
IRAQ
> sell as much oil as they want.  Enough with this namby pamby crap.  If we
> want to take the bastard out, let's take the bastard out.  Otherwise, at
> some point in a reasonable time frame we have to resume treating Iraq as a
> sovereign nation.

No disagreement with the bribery notion.  If other nations want us to fix
their problems, then they should be prepared to exchange value for value.
No disagreement on Goddum Insane either.  Either take out the guy, take out
his illegal weapons, or give him the spare parts he needs to crank up oil
production!  Current policy is stupid.  Then again, you throw together a
bunch of Carter Administration idiots (Sandy Berger, Madeleine
Not-at-Albright, Strobe Talbott) and let them run foreign policy, why should
we expect any of it to make sense?

Time now to sneak in a little bit of reading of the Kaplan book.  All work and no play, after all, make Kev boring!

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