Freedom At Risk
Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus points out that freedom is again being threatened. This time it is not communism, but pessimism (in the form of "ambitious environmentalism").
As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.
The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.1
Thomas Malthus was the English economist who theorized that population increases faster than the means of subsistence and population growth must be held in check (by morality, war, famine, disease, etc.) to prevent widespread poverty.2
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Source:
1. Vaclav Klaus. Freedom, not climate, is at risk.
Financial Times. June 13, 2007.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9deb730a-19ca-11dc-99c5-000b5df10621.html.
2. Merriam-Webster. Malthusian.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary/malthusian
© 2007 Michael Cale
