Political Economist

The following essay was written for my personal heurstical purpose. It is about human stem cell research. Even though current debates associated with stem cell research have been usually accompanied by religious, moral assumptions, I tried to exclude those metaphysical aspects of the debate. I hope you will have a good chance to think about the issue while reading this essay.

Stem Cell Research, Human Cloning, and then What?

Scientific research on human stem cell has been developing rapidly for the last decade or so. Since the cloned sheep Dolly appeared in the world in the late 1997, another pioneering research on embryonic stem cell engineered by a group of Korean scientists started to decorate news headlines nowadays. However, those who propose human cloning research should consider the potentially detrimental repercussions of the research on human dignity, the danger of the polarization of a society by genetics and various other unknown consequences of the research.

One of the most frequently cited examples for the human stem cell research is its potentially positive contribution to the longevity of human life. It is also argued that scientists can prevent probable diseases in advance due to the broadened knowledge of human stem cell. However, it will be possible only at the expense of the violation of human dignity.

Firstly, until now the most dangerous human disease does not originate from the mutation of human cell itself but from various infectious diseases. It is widely known that at least 3,500 children are still dying in every 10 minutes from chronic malnutrition due to persistent poverty and various contagious diseases such as typhoid fever, measles and AIDS in South Asia and most African countries. Talking about extended longevity of life expectancy and the necessity of preemptive medical care cannot be justified in the name of human dignity once we consider these nonsensical deaths.

Secondly, there is another aspect of human dignity in this matter. Suppose that you can produce one part of the human body due to stem cell research. Imagine that David can buy one eye and one left leg from a university hospital refrigerator. With these supplemental organs, suppose that David can replace his weak or problematic organs whenever he wants, then how can he define himself as a human or an individual? How do we know whether David is still David if he has replaced every part of his body with a stronger or younger head, hands or heart? How, then, is it far from the callous story of humanoid? Can we still talk about human dignity in this new brave world?

In this sense, the problem is not about technology or our lack of sufficient medical knowledge, but about the political and social structure in which those who are suffering from various infectious diseases do not have access to proper medical treatment. Thus those who argue that stem cell research is necessary for human beings’ welfare are misleading the reality. We are suffering not from sufficient medical knowledge but from lack of proper ways to distribute this knowledge.

We should also consider the demographic aspect of stem cell research. Let us suppose that there are no serious technological barriers to human cloning. In other words, suppose that it is perfectly possible to produce another human body with the same genome. By this juncture, it will be also likely that scientists can differentiate potentially problematic gene from healthy and intelligent gene. From this stage, it is not so great a leap to imagine various situations where every parent competes to transplant better or perfect gene into their test tube babies.

Since it is quite natural to think of a society where most human beings are not totally different from those of the society today, in other words, there is no guarantee that future society will be filled with more moralistic and egalitarian citizens, it is also plausible to imagine endless competition among people to achieve perfect genome for their children. Like the present days, this endless competition among citizens of a future society will be determined by uneven economic and political powers in the end.

If that is the case, nobody can guarantee that the society will not be divided into two or three groups of people; those who have superior gene and those who do not have. From this stage, society will be burdened not only with unequal income distribution, which has been the main determinant of social classes, but also with unequal genome distribution, which will be an advent of the “brave new world,” genetically divided new caste system. In this way, another serious socio-political problem will be derived from seemingly scientifically neutral stem cell research.

Someone may argue that the government can control the goals and objects of stem cell research or at least will succeed in channeling the direction of the research; The government can protect the society from potentially detrimental negative side effects of the research through its active policy intervention. For example, the government can ban human cloning even though it allows cloning itself on animal experiments; It is also possible to imagine that the government will pass a law encouraging medical researches based on the knowledge of human stem cell but banning commercial trades of human embryo and genome and so and so forth.

However, we do not have to be economists in order to see how the government has been misguided by the myth of free market fundamentalism, and how various social institutions have shown their lethargy in protecting public goods in front of market forces. We do not have to be nuclear physicians to see how previous scientific researches on atom have brought unexpected catastrophes to society. The idea that the government or more abstractly speaking ‘society as a whole’ can draw clear lines between positive potentials and usages of the stem cell research and its probable abuses is hardly convincing. There is no such an omnipotent institution or a spiritual mighty which can easily overcome this slippery slope.

Thus, if we have to decide to do something about stem cell research, it is not about whether we should ban or allow the research; it is about when we should prohibit this potentially detrimental play which is still being committed by arrogant ‘as-if-God-human creatures.’ All arguments on the potentially beneficial effects of stem cell research such as extended human longevity, preemptive medical care are based on a total ignorance of the political and socio-economic complexities of human society.

The Differences between Political Science and Economics

When I was in Korea, some of my friends and younger students sometimes asked me why I had chosen to study political science. They wanted to know whether there were special reasons for me to choose that particular area of study in social science. I have been asked the same question since I studied economics in the U.S.

Personally speaking, I studied political science as my undergraduate and graduate major for about 6 years in Seoul. Recently, I am studying economics in New York. Due to this personal experience, I am in a better position to draw big pictures of two major social science research areas.

In this essay, I would like to introduce some similar aspects and major differences between political science and economics for those who are about to choose either of two area of study in social science.

Historically, political science dates back to classical Greek’s philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. They tried to provide us with general principles of and foundations for good commonwealth in their major works.

Compared to political science, the history of modern economics originated from J.M. Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money published in 1939. In his book, Keynes paved the ways for modern macroeconomic analyses of capitalist economy.

Even though, some economic historians argue that the history of economics can be traced back to the date earlier than Keynes’ era, it is widely accepted that before 1939 any economic analysis could been incorporated into other social science disciplines such as politics and sociology. Thus, the origin and history of each study are different from each other.

Secondly, both political science and economics have their own distinctive goals and objectives. While political science has been oriented to offer normative rules and principles for desirable community, economics has limited its roles only for the predictable analysis of economic phenomena. Thus, while political science has normative and idealistic properties, economists usually have circumscribed their roles to mathematical data analysis and policy recommendation.

Admittedly, it is also true that there has been a certain level of convergent tendency in both methodology and area of interest between two studies; if you have chances to take one or two classes in a political science department related with comparative politics and international relation, you would easily find these subfields of political science have been highly influenced by modern economics’ methodology.

Similarly, if you are planning to study macroeconomics for your major area of study in economics, you will also have to delve into the role of government and bureaucracy in the economic development process and public policies. In other words, various political foundations for economic development are one of the most significant areas of study not only in political science but also in economics.

However even when we consider this similarity, there are enough reasons for economics to be called economics, not political science. Most of all, economists are all interested in macroeconomic phenomena and economic indicators such as inflation, unemployment and international trade (deficit) even when they take the role of government and bureaucracy into account. In other words, even when they analyze a particular government’s economic policy, they usually focus on the policy with its economic consequences, not on the party politics or the decision making process in which most political scientists are interested.

Finally, due to these different academic orientations, economics has traditionally developed highly abstract mathematical methodologies for its analysis. Recently, contemporary economists especially those who are influenced by the U.S-dominant academic trend have attempted to incorporate human needs and subjective desires into their mathematical equations.

Compared to recent trends of economics, political science mostly employs logical inference as its main approach. Even though there are various political scientists who are ready to borrow mathematical data analysis from economics, who eagerly use anthropological observations as their powerful methods, these trials are still in their incipient stage.

In sum, both economists and political scientists try to offer scientific analysis of certain social phenomena. However, their methodology and area of interest, not to mention their respective objectives are significantly different from each other. Thus, those who want to learn the history of political philosophy, and want to know how the society as a whole works will surely prefer political science. By the same token, for those who are interested in the dominant roles of economy in society, for those who want to know how the economy grows in historical perspective, I would like to recommend them to choose macroeconomics for their major area of study.

The Case of Andre Stein

Andre Stein is a professor of Human Communications at the University of Toronto. He is also practicing psychotherapy for Holocaust survivors. According to his own explanation, he survived the Holocaust when he was a young child. (255) Due to this personal experience, he might be invited to respond to Simon’s Dilemma.

Stein begins his essay with quotation of some sentences from The Sunflower. According to him, Simon’s silence as a response to Karl’s request for forgiveness was inevitable, choice-less choice considering the situations of the concentration camp Simon had to face.

With this introduction, he starts to deal with various important moral, religious and sociological issues raised by Simon’s story. They are all about Karl’s role in this story, the necessary condition for true repentance, the meaning of Simon’s two silences (one to Karl and the other to Karl’s mother) and the possibility of collective guilt or German’s collective responsibility of massacre of the Jew.

Firstly, there is an issue of Karl’s attitude. With respect to this question, Stein argues that Karl does not have any right to ask for forgiveness from a Jew in the first place. Karl, the dying SS man, could have followed his own religious faith and moral values of his family. However, it was the young SS murderer himself who volunteered the military personnel, and joined in collective massacre of the Jews. In this respect, Karl’s “moral pains” are not so greater than those of Simon and other Jewish prisoners, or are not pains at all. (251)

Furthermore, Stein argues that Karl does not show any truly repentant attitude toward Jewish people. Rather, the dying SS man had the nurse to bring him a Jew – “any Jew” – so that he could confess and receive the Jew’s forgiveness in order to die in peace in his own way. According to Stein, this kind of request is not only absurdity itself but also shows the fact that the dying SS man still think of the Jew as an object, or instrument of his own salvation, not as an individual subject or fellow human being. (252) In other words, Karl did not change his prejudice against the Jew even before his death, and this attitude cannot be understood as true repentance.

For this reason, those who blame Simon for his not forgiving Karl can only be understood that they have a greater affinity with the dying murderer than with his victims. Furthermore, those who grant forgiveness to the SS man show that they do not know about Nazism at all. In other words, only those who do not have the same experience as Simon and his colleagues did, namely only those who do not understand fully their situations can either blame Simon or argue that Karl deserves to be forgiven. (251)

Second question is about Simon’s silence. How can we understand and judge Simon’s silence in front of Karl’s death? As we already know, Simon kept silent while listening to the dying SS man’s confession and request for forgiveness. To Stein, Simon’s attitude was charitable enough to the dying SS man because he had listened to the young murderer’s confession not by “his own ears but also by ears belonged to the dead and other dying Jewish people such as Eli and his mother and his comrades” at the situation; Simon could have told Karl, “I heard what you did, how you feel about it. I can see how scared you are of dying with a burdened conscience. And this is all that I can do. I am not telling you how much I hate you, for the flames of my hatred would burn me before they would reach you. I cannot forgive you not only because I have no right to speak for your victims but also because you have forced me to listen to your story. For me this is another curse.” According to Stein, not saying these words, keeping silence was sufficient charity that Simon could show toward Karl. (253)

In addition, Simon did not treat the dying SS murderer as a monster. Instead, he respected the last humanity of a human who had lost his humanity; He listened to Karl’s confession quietly. He even flied away the fly from Karl’s head. Even though listening to Karl’s murderous misdeeds was another mental torture to Simon, he did neither condemn Karl nor get away from the chamber. To stein, this attitude was the most honorable deed that Simon, a Jewish concentration camp prisoner, could show toward the murderer. Thus, Stein argues that Simon should not be troubled anymore by those who blame him for not granting forgiveness to Karl. (253)

The final argument that Stein addresses is about Simon’s another silence in front of Karl’s mother and German’s collective responsibility of the crimes. Stein argues that Simon should have told the truth to Karl’s mother. To Stein, “Simon had a responsibility toward past and future victims to tell her the truth. And Karl’s mother had the responsibility of rising above her personal pain and telling the world what her son had done.” “Karl’s mother should have taken some of the burden of a guilty collective conscience. We must not forget that millions were murdered by a nation of good sons. Thus everyone who holds on to a pristine moral image of his or her children is a collaborator in their crime.” In this respect, Stein argues that “Karl’s parents are not guilt-free in his joining the SS. And by keeping the truth under cover, Simon enabled Karl’s mother to live a nasty lie.”(255)