Political Economist

Research Note on Classical Political Economy

1. Adam Smith’s Theoretical Contributions to Classical Political Economy

The history of economics can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, who tried to theorize the economic foundations for viable and socially desirable political communities. However, no one can deny that modern economics started with Adam Smith, because it was he who perceived modern capitalist economy as a dynamic system which was divided by social classes in conflict, and which had intrinsic tendencies toward continuous expansion. In this short essay, I would like to address the main theoretical contributions of Adam Smith to the development of classical political economy.

First of all, Adam Smith introduced systematic approaches to modern economic phenomena. He treated the introduction of the relationship between capital and labor as a totally new one in human economic history, and believed the division of labor in the process of production, with which he began his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, opened new era in the realm of modern economy. In order to grasp underlying principles in modern capitalist market economy, he examined the history of the introduction of money into the market.

Regarding this phenomenon, Smith raised the following questions: How can different goods and products which have different shapes and utilities be exchanged with each other on the market? How can we measure the value of various products in terms of money? At what point, and how can the price of goods be determined? While trying to answer these questions, Smith differentiated use value (‘value in use’) from exchange value (‘value in exchange’), ‘natural prices’ from ‘market prices’. With the help of Smith’s logical and genealogical inquiries, his theoretical successors such as David Ricardo and Karl Marx developed their own theoretical frameworks. From this perspective, Adam Smith can be justifiably regarded as the founder of classical political economy (Dobb, 1972, pp.53-54).

Smith is also the inventor of the ‘theory of labor value’ which was developed into the ‘theory of surplus value’ by other classical political economists. The main concept of the theory is that only labor can produce the value of a commodity. Without human labor, Mother Nature can only be either an alienated object or wild external threats to human existence. Only with the help of laborers’ productive activity can we buy and sell specific commodities and services on the market.

It was Smith who emphasized the significance of human labor in the production processes. While doing so, Smith also drew a sharp line between ‘wage’ and ‘profit’, between ‘profit’ and ‘rent’. With these distinctions, he revealed the secret sources of the modern concept of profit, which had been previously identified with other types of incomes (Meek, 1967, esp. pp.19-22). According to Smith, the source of an employer’s profit is originated from the employees’ productive labor. The profit is not at all a reward for the direction and/or inspection labor of the capitalist (Smith, 1999: Book Ⅰ, Ch. Ⅵ, p.151). In this very point, we can say that he was the inventor of the labor theory of value, and succeeded in providing us with systematic approaches to modern economic phenomena.

Finally, Adam Smith viewed the modern capitalist market as a continuously expanding economic system. Modern capitalist economy, according to his explanation, has tendencies toward unlimited expansion. Not surprisingly, the basic motive behind capital accumulation lies in capital’s insatiable instinct to amass profit. With the help of technological innovations – it was mainly the introduction of new machinery in Smith’s age –, and with the help of increased labor productivity based on the division of labor, capitalists can accumulate capitals continuously (Smith, 1999: Book Ⅰ, Ch.Ⅰ; Book Ⅱ, Ch. Ⅲ).

The only constraint on capital accumulation is associated with ‘equalization of the rate of profits’ in various production sectors which was forced by ‘market competition’ (Smith, 1999: Book Ⅰ, Ch.Ⅴ-Ⅶ). To put it in modern terms, Smith regarded competition in the market as the driving force of ‘effective resource allocation mechanism’ or ‘equilibrium condition for prices’, because he thought individual economic agents (i.e., laborers, capitalists and even landlords) could withdraw from or invest in particular production sectors their relative capital stock or land due to the existence of market competition. Upon this notion modern neoclassical economists laid their own economic doctrines or sacrosanct presuppositions such as ‘perfect market competition’, ‘transparency of market’ and ‘individual economic agents as utility maximizers’ and so on (For comparisons of different basic premises of neoclassical and post-Keynesian economics, see Shaikh, 2004). In this sense, Adam Smith can be considered one of founding fathers of modern mainstream orthodox economics.

In conclusion, Adam Smith’s classical political economy can be described as the center of theoretical divergence. On the one hand, his systematic and holistic approaches to modern capitalism, especially his primitive labor theory of value, together with his basic concepts of prices, values, and profits, etc., were succeeded by David Ricardo and Karl Marx in the name of ‘radical’ political economy (Ricardo) and ‘critique’ of political economy (Marx). On the other hand, Smith’s distinctive premises such as the primary role of market competition, and the conceptualization of markets as autonomous orders (‘invisible hand’) implicit in his theoretical framework would be exploited by neoclassical economists about 150 years later. All in all, no one can ignore Adam Smith’s theoretical contributions to the development of economic thought. And in this respect we can say justifiably that Smith is still alive.

References

Dobb, Maurrice. “Classical Political Economy.” in Political Economy and Capitalism,

Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1972, pp.34-54.

Meek, Ronald. “Adam Smith and the Classical Theory of Profits.” in Economics and

Ideology and Other Essays, London: Chapman and Hall, 1967, pp.18-33.

Shaikh, Anwar. “The Power of Profit,” Social Research, Summer 2004, Vol. 71

pp.371-381.

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations Books Ⅰ-Ⅲ. Andrew S. Skinner, ed. London:

Penguin Books, 1999.

Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity – Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations, New York: WW. Norton & Company, 1994

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393312925/qid=1123532989/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-4015594-3319237

Paul Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton University, is one of the most well-known scholars in the U.S. Unlike common sense, however, his fame is not from his journalist activities as an opinion editor of the New York Times, but from his ability to offer the most succinct and clearest explanations of current U.S economic affairs. Krugman succeeds in revealing his brilliant talent as an economist in another book, Peddling Prosperity – Economic sense and nonsense in the age of Diminished Expecations (New York: WW. Norton & Company, 1994).

This book deals with the interaction between economic ideas and politics in the U.S from 1973 to early 1990s. More specifically, the author focuses on “the interplay between economists and politicians, about how politicians try to find economists with ideas that they can package, and how economists both develop ideas and try to translate ideas into political influence.”(p.5)

In order to show this interplay, Krugman distinguishes “professional economists” doing research at universities from “economic entrepreneurs” who are ready to translate profound economic ideas into the simplistic version of policy prescriptions for politicians.

According to Krugman, the chosen period for research can be characterized by “the age of diminished economic expectations” in which economic growth and overall standard of livings of the U.S has decreased due to the continuous slowdown of labor productivity, rapid inflation and huge “twin (both trade and budget) deficits.”

In this sense, Paul Krugman’s previous book, The Age of Diminished Expectation – U.S Economic Policy in the 1990s (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990, 1994, 1997, 1999) is a good source to understand what problems the U.S economy has faced and how the government tries to treat those issues. However, while his previous book deals mainly with economic problems and the government’s policy responses, this book focuses more on the underlying economic ideas from which certain economic policy packages have been developed.

From that year, according to Krugman, U.S academia has been influenced by conservative economic ideas such as “monetarism” and “rational expectation school” represented by Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas respectively. Krugman argues that under these conservative influences, a group of policy entrepreneurs, whom he calls “supply-siders” came to the forefront between the realm of academia and political parties as economic advisers to the President and other Republican politicians under both Reagan and Bush administrations.

But, according to Krugman, the ideas of supply-siders not only caused detrimental effects to the U.S trade deficits but also aggravated income inequality among social classes. The underlying policy prescription to the U.S slowdown of productivity and inflation was radical tax cuts and reduction of the government spending. They argue that the U.S Americans have been suffering from heavy burden of taxes, and this in turn reduced the potential source of investment. With its surplus budget, supply-siders argued, the unmonitored government wasted huge amounts of money for bureaucrats and the undeserving poor.

These policy packages were actually adopted by both Reagan and Bush administration. However, the result was a huge and widening income gap between the rich and the poor, as well as budget and trade deficits partly due to excessive military spending.

Due to these disappointing results, there emerged new liberal ideas emphasizing “imperfect market competition” and “the asymmetry of information” in the market. These liberal economists argued that the market was not exempt from turbulent business cycles even when we assumed the “rationality of economic agents.” Furthermore, every economic development has been influenced by its own institutional arrangement and past history. This “path-dependent” property of the market opens the door for the government’s active interventionist policy.

In this way, Krugman points out that the ideological pendulum swung from the prevalent attacks on Keynesian interventionist state to liberal Keynesianism. The theoretical hegemony, escaped from the hands of right-wing conservatives, once again became dominated by liberal economists.

However, there has been also another type of policy entrepreneur, one ready to offer a simplistic version of neo-Keynesianism for Democratic Party politicians. But at this time their focus is not on domestic policy but on international trade area.

Krugman names them “strategic traders” because their main argument is that the U.S government should subsidize certain corporations in value-added industry in order for them to compete with other firms abroad in the global market. In other words, they claim that it is necessary for the government to support strategic corporations in order to reduce trade deficits and raise domestic productivity.

Apart from some simple questions such as who can decide what the strategic firms are, and whether this kind of thinking is simply based on old-fashioned strategic decision making model for business corporations which boomed in the 1960-70s, in other words, whether this idea is based on simple analogy between the business firms in domestic market and national economy as a whole in global context, Krugman argues that strategic traders have the following serious problems.

Firstly, strategic traders overestimate the magnitude and the effects of international trade on the U.S economy. Even though the U.S has involved in global economy, the real percentage rate of the amount of international trade only amounts to 10% of GDP. Furthermore, even though the percentage rate of traditional manufacturing sectors measured in the GDP only accounts for 20%, strategic traders are misleading the reality and may distort the rational allocation of resources by paying exclusive attention to the significance of manufacturing sectors. Their common slogan is that the government should subsidize strategic manufacturing sector to let them win global competition.

Secondly, strategic traders unjustifiably link two unrelated points: the productivity growth and global competitiveness. Productivity growth is necessary for the overall increase in GDP and the improvement of the standard of living. But it has nothing to do with competition in global market. They argue government’s strategic support for selected corporations will bring about much more chance to win more market share in global market, and this in turn will be accompanied by domestic productivity growth. But according to Krugman it is not the case.

Finally, they also argue that strategic subsidies are necessary to develop high-value industry and secure job stability. But under what criteria can we decide which industry is better than others? Moreover, the increasing job instability stems not from aggravated global competitions but from the development of technology itself. Thus, “deindustrialization” or “industrial hollow” has nothing to do with globalization, and does not support strategic traders’ ideas.

In this way, Krugman criticizes various sheer economic non-senses advocated by policy entrepreneurs during two conservative administrations and the Clinton government. In so doing, he draws clear pictures of the history of the development of the U.S economic thinking.

On the whole, he seems to succeed in offering us how hegemonic shifts from the U.K to the U.S occur in the realm of economics. The most interesting point was that this process was not purely theoretical occurring in the ivory tower, but was also accompanied by the rise of the U.S economic hegemony after World War Ⅱ.

Considering the devastating repercussions of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the war, it was not surprising to see that both the theoretical pavement and barrier was Keynesian economics at that time. Krugman leads us to see how after-war-economists in the U.S have tried to overcome the Keynesian notion of active government policy in the name of monetarism and the rational expectation revolution since the 1970s.

He also shows us how the ideological pendulum swings from the myth of self-governing market to path-dependence approach to economic development. However, he introduces how so-called economic policy entrepreneurs have taken the place to access political power and mislead the reality in the name of self-righteous policy recommendations.

Written in plain English, Krugman’s book has strong merits with respect to its style and structure. Even ordinary readers will not find any serious difficulties in understanding the author’s main arguments. This book will be a useful guide for those who are interested in the history of U.S economic policy and real economic development process. Furthermore, readers interested in what kinds of economic policies the U.S government would likely adopt in the near future to deal with various global economic affairs will find this book a good guide.

* For those who want more information on current issues of the U.S economy, Joseph Stiglitz’s book, The Roaring Nineties – A new history of the World’s most prosperous decade will be a good supplementary material. You can compare these two famous economists’ arguments on current U.S economic affairs.

* If you are interested in the U.S financial and banking system, the book Secrets of the Temple – How the Federal Reserve runs the country will provide you with clear image of the operation and the function of the FED in the global context.

The following is an essay that I wrote for English Writing class. Most debates related with gay and lesbian marriage in the United States are based on the concept of morality derived from Christian religious principles. That is why the debates sometimes become over-politicized. In this essay, I approached the issue not from religious perspective, but from civil rights.

Those who oppose same sex marriage claim that gay and lesbian marriage will bring about the collapse of the traditional concept of family and marriage, thereby leading to moral decadence. However, their concept of morality is based on prejudice against social minorities and may lead to the violation of basic human rights. In this essay, I will address this issue focusing especially on the concept of the traditional family and marriage, morality and future implications of same sex marriage.

Firstly, most opponents of same sex marriage are inclined to draw their argument based on the traditional concept of marriage and family. They argue same sex marriage will bring about the deconstruction of the traditional family and the concept of marriage. But it is not so easy to understand what their images of traditional family and marriage are. Sometimes, they seem to be based on the idealized image of the monogamous family which is composed of one male husband/father and one female wife/mother and their children. Admittedly, this type of marriage and family can be justifiably attributed to the traditional concept of family because it has a long history in the modern world.

However, it is also true that this traditional family is becoming obsolete due to various socio-economic changes; the number of single parents with children, and those who want to live alone among adult persons are increasing in the most advanced capitalist countries partly because of high divorce rates and various economic reasons. For example, those who are worried about the deconstruction of the traditional family should consider the fact that only 15% of the whole U.S family can be categorized as traditional family. If it is true, the main threat of so-called traditional family is not same sex marriage itself but various socio-economic changes of the society. Then why should same sex marriage be blamed for the collapse of traditional family value?

Secondly, another critique of same sex marriage is based on the narrow concept of morality. Those who do not want to accept same sex marriage claim that the homosexuality is the violation of morality of the society. But I cannot understand what they are talking about morality. The homosexuality is just about the difference of sexual preferences of individuals. It has nothing to do with morality.

If they really want to argue that the homosexuality is the violation of the underlying principle of morality, then they should offer their own definition of morality. Whatever they say, however, their own concepts of morality will turn out to be different from those of the advocates of same sex marriage. From this juncture, the collision between different moralities can become a legal issue.

In other words, the homosexuality should not be judged by the narrowest concept of self-righteous morality of the opponents. The homosexuality is about different sexual preferences, and same sex marriage is about the legal protection for the minority. There is no such a thing as privileged moral authority in discussing the issue of the homosexuality and same sex marriage.

Finally, those who oppose same sex marriage argue that the legal protection for gay and lesbian couples would open the door to various kinds of heterosexual couples, thereby in extreme cases leading to the polygamy. Thus, the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s ruling on the rights of same sex marriage should be banned by the Federal Supreme Court of Justice.

However, there is no logical causal relationship between same sex marriage and the polygamy in the first place. The argument that same sex marriage is a sort of slippery slope leading to polygamy is an extreme argument without any substantial evidence.

Furthermore, even though we admit this unsubstantial assumption that allowing legal protections for gay and lesbian couples may induce polygamous family, there is no legal legitimacy for the Court to ban same sex marriage in advance if that marriage does not do any harm to public health, safety and welfare. It is common sense that any legal and political authorities can only be justified or legitimatized when they protect civil rights based on an appropriate legal framework.

Finally, the polygamy is another traditional type of marriage based on individuals’ own moral, sexual judgment like the monogamy. It is a quite common phenomenon even in certain states of the U.S. If it causes sexual abuses, discrimination against gender, then it should be punished by appropriate laws. But there is no rational reason to ban the polygamy in the name of the conservation of traditional family values. Nobody can justifiably argue that the monogamy is superior both morally and sociologically to the polygamy.

Most ordinary Americans seem to be over-politicized over the same sex marriage issue. But once they recognize the fact that the homosexuality is not a moral issue but a different sexual preference, they will realize that same sex marriage is a simple matter of legal statement. And if so many gay and lesbian couples are really suffering from lack of proper legal protection, then this issue should be viewed as a serious violation of basic human rights. In sum, those who have homosexual preferences deserve to have their own family and should be protected by the same laws like heterosexual family.

Comment 1 (from one of my friends) I like your essay organization. It was clearly divided. But I did not understand your concept of morality and are you pro-polygamy? I am not sure but maybe you should talk about ‘civil right’ instead of ‘human right.’ If you are pro-same sex marriage, you should not bring up the polygamy issue that is very polarizing.

Comment 2 (from the instructor): The problem with the argumentation is that we know what the idea of morality is based on. It is based on the Bible which rejects polygamy and homosexual relations – the question is whether this is what should define morality rather than what morality is based on.

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)

Allan Greenspan’s testimony to Congress and the U.S FED interest rate policy

Greenspan’s last words?

Jul 20th 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda

Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America’s Federal Reserve, has given what may be the last of his twice-yearly speeches to Congress on monetary policy before his expected retirement. Those pleading for lower interest rates—or at least an end to the rises—found that he has not gone soft in his old age

OVER the last decade, as the baby-boomers have watched retirement lurching closer, an aura of mania has hovered over the American marketplace. Telecoms were going to carry workers along the information superhighway to the land of effortless wealth, and dotcoms promised to turn the stock market into a sort of perpetual-motion money-making machine—at least until the Y2K bug brought the entire world to a crashing halt. Now those fads are regarded with (rueful) nostalgia, and Americans are ploughing their money into real estate, with expectations of recouping a modest 20% or so a year on their investment.

Despite the madness of the crowd, at least one man has remained remarkably steady: Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America’s Federal Reserve. Credited with godlike powers by the markets in the late 1990s, he has taken something of a shellacking in the press in recent years for the usual sins with which central bankers are charged: making monetary policy too easy, which causes inflation and encourages people to bury themselves in debt; or making monetary policy too tight, which throws people out of work and makes it hard for people to pay the debts they amassed when monetary policy was looser. Open a newspaper these days, and you can often find him accused of both within a few pages.

Despite entreaties from both sides, Mr Greenspan has held his ground. The Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates at the slow, steady pace originally promised as the economy inched out of the 2000-01 recession. As he headed into his biannual testimony on monetary policy before Congress on Wednesday July 20th, all eyes were watching to see if his words would presage any wavering from this course. With Mr Greenspan expected to step down in January, two months before his 80th birthday, this may be his swan-song before the legislative body.

The dollar rose sharply ahead of Mr Greenspan’s testimony, in the expectation that he would hint at more interest-rate rises to come—as indeed he did. Even so, there are those who feel it is nearing time for Mr Greenspan to let them level off, as they approach the range which many analysts believe to be “neutral”—neither low enough to spur economic growth, nor high enough to hinder it. That level is believed to be somewhere between 3.5% and 4.5%. In recent months, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates in quarter-point increments, most recently to 3.25% (see chart above).

Though economic growth has remained strong (especially compared with sluggish Europe), there are ample worries to fuel the case for restraint. Oil, the fuel of the world’s economy, remains expensive. And America’s job market is still surprisingly subdued considering how far the nation is into the current economic expansion. Unemployment stands at 5%, down from a high of 6.3% in June 2003, but much of the early improvement came from workers leaving the labour force, rather than job creation. Labour-force participation remains well below its 2000 peak, and payroll headcounts have only this year returned to their 2001 levels. Consumer spending remains strong, but (it is feared) increasingly dependent on housing wealth and desperate corporate measures to shake consumers loose from their hard-earned dollars—the Big Three automakers have offered their employee discounts to the entire country to move backlogs of 2005 models off the lots.

Nonetheless, even before he testified it was clear that Mr Greenspan's words would not satisfy those hoping for easier money. In a July 11th letter to Representative Jim Saxton, the chairman of Congress’s joint economic committee, the Fed chief said that the economy seemed to be coping with higher oil prices, and that the narrowing spread between short-term and long-term interest rates, which can herald a recession, should not be cause for alarm. Mr Greenspan's testimony confirmed this view. Saying that “the US economy has remained on a firm footing, and inflation continues to be well contained”, Mr Greenspan made it clear that the bank is not done yet with rate increases. Another 0.25% increase is expected in August, and rates are likely to hit 4% by the end of the year—provided the economy remains co-operatively robust.

There are worries in some quarters, however, that this is not hawkish enough. Mr Greenspan’s letter also indicated that the bank is not acting to rein in the bubble which many fear has developed in America’s housing market. Mr Greenspan has long held that interest rates are not a good tool for bursting asset-price bubbles. This position has brought him grief from critics who blame him for allowing the stock market bubble of the late 1990s to continue to inflate long after he warned of its “irrational exuberance”. There are fears that the economy has simply lurched from depending on increasing stock prices to relying on house price appreciation to fuel growth—and that the longer this goes on, the stiffer the price Americans will pay when the bubble pops.

Rational exuberance

Mr Greenspan's testimony acknowledged the fears of both sets of critics, pointing to three primary areas of uncertainty that could derail his current, favourable assessment of the economy's prospects. Unit labour costs, which have remained subdued in recent years, have turned up of late, which will put upward pressure on inflation if the trend continues.

The possibility of further increases in energy prices threatens not only higher inflation but also slower economic growth, though Mr Greenspan noted that the forecast currently embedded in futures markets is for oil and gas prices to level off. And the unusual behaviour of long-term interest rates, which are currently hovering abnormally close to short-term rates, entails a current risk of excess borrowing, particularly in the housing market, and a future risk of higher rates and slower growth.

Mr Greenspan endorsed the view expressed by Ben Bernanke, the chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, that at least part of the unusual narrowing is due to a mismatch between high levels of global savings and relatively low levels of global capital investment. With capital investment recovering in America and Japan, this problem may heal itself. But it will remain worrying until it does. As will the housing bubble: Mr Greenspan noted that, at a minimum, some local markets are distinctly frothy and a decline in prices would undoubtedly entail economic distress. However, he was careful to add that such a decline is by no means inevitable, nor sure to produce large macroeconomic effects even if it does occur.

Mr Greenspan's speech will probably reassure those who fervently hope he is steering America between the Scylla of speculation and the Charybdis of contraction. Interest rates high enough to pop a bubble could be high enough to throw the economy into a tailspin, causing more damage than they avert. Interest rates low enough to stimulate employment may also be low enough to unleash inflation, as the central bankers of the 1970s found to their dismay. So far, America seems to be muddling through. Economic growth is strong, payrolls are recovering (however slowly), and America’s monetary policy seems to be reviving the dollar from its recent lows, which should give another fillip to consumer wallets. Mr Greenspan’s powers may not be quite godlike, but many hope that he may yet have a couple miracles up his sleeve.

The following is one article of The Economists dealing with China's exchange rate policy change.

China lets the yuan rise—but how far?

Jul 22nd 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda

So far, it is not clear exactly how the new system will operate. The Chinese called it a “managed floating exchange-rate regime”, which may well imply more management than floating. Neither the currencies in the basket used to set the level of the yuan, nor their weights, have been disclosed. The fact that the Chinese have acted at all is important. But the eventual economic and political effects of the revaluation will depend on how far and how fast the yuan moves from now on. In Friday's trading it barely budged—and in fact closed a fraction below 8.11 to the dollar, suggesting the authorities are keen to damp down market expectations of further rises.

Such a slight initial revaluation is unlikely to do much to slow China's fast-expanding economy. The day before the currency regime changed, the country's official statisticians said that GDP in the second quarter of 2005 was 9.5% higher than a year before—more than most pundits had forecast and only a shade less than the figure for the same period of 2004 (see chart below). Growth rates of industrial production, ahead by 16.8% in the year to June, and investment in fixed assets, up by 25.4% in the first half, year on year, have both eased from their levels at the end of 2003, but remain strong. Inflation, as measured by the consumer-price index, is mild. It slid to 1.6% last month, down from 5%-plus a year ago.

In truth, the economy is slowing more markedly than these (highly suspect) official figures suggest. Many economists say that China has an institutionalised bias to over-reporting growth at the bottom of a cycle and under-reporting it at the top, to reduce the volatility of the numbers. Judged by physical indicators, such as electricity consumption or freight volumes, GDP growth probably peaked at over 12% in 2003 and should slow to 8% by 2006. Since China's macroeconomic growth is driven more by fixed investment than by household consumption (which dominates in the West), it is especially vulnerable to any slowing of corporate investment or public spending on infrastructure.

“In investment cycles,” says Andy Xie, Asia economist at Morgan Stanley, “the leading indicators are profit margins, product prices and property prices, which forecast corporate cash flow or ability to borrow.” These three indicators are slowing. For the past five years, Chinese industrial firms have enjoyed record profit margins as revenue growth has outpaced the increase in wages and raw-material costs. In 2003 and 2004, industrial production and sales grew at an annual rate of nearly 30% in real terms, analysts estimate, but in 2005 the pace has slowed to around 15%. With commodity prices high, companies' margins are being squeezed: overheated industries such as cars, steel, cement and basic materials are suffering especially.

Property prices are also moderating after a period of extraordinary growth, particularly in big cities. Shanghai house prices, up by half since 1998 and by almost 10% in the first quarter of this year, have fallen back by 10-20% since mid-April. Transaction volumes in most urban centres have also dropped, because the government has imposed a property-sales tax and tightened mortgage requirements.

Overall, however, China seems to be managing the soft landing that it wants. The authorities have acted earlier and more decisively than they did in the mid-1990s, curbing growth before it gets out of hand. Policymakers have also been more sophisticated, targeting selected sectors with administrative restrictions while shifting to market-based measures, including last October's increase in interest rates, to rein in money and credit growth. A dearer yuan—but much dearer, probably, than after this week's move—would give the economy another downward nudge.

In addition, the economy is looking better balanced: there are signs that consumer spending is doing more to support the economy, alongside fixed investment and exports. Rising incomes are boosting households' spending power, lifting retail sales by 13% in the first half of the year, compared with the same period of 2004. And the countryside is finally playing a part: after six years of lacklustre growth, rural incomes rose by 12.5% in the first half.

That said, China's policymakers cannot afford to rest on their laurels. On the one hand, there is a risk that the economy will steam away again as spending for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 takes off. On the other, the vast amount of manufacturing capacity built up over the past few years means that a slightly sharper slowdown, perhaps triggered by lower growth in America, could tip the country back into deflation. Already, a staggering nine-tenths of manufactured goods in China are thought to be in oversupply.

In the short term, the biggest worry is that China becomes a victim of its own international success. Until recently China has been a powerful engine driving the world economy. If it slows, existing political and trade tensions could still worsen. Thus an unfortunate side effect of China's attempts to cool its domestic economy has been an exploding trade surplus, because import growth has softened while exports have remained robust. In June, China's exports rose by 30.6%, year-on-year, while imports grew by just 15.1%, widening the monthly trade surplus to $9.7 billion. The cumulative surplus for 2005 is now nearly $40 billion, more than for the whole of last year. This year's current-account surplus could reach 9% of GDP. “Just one year ago, China was the world's fastest-growing importer of heavy industrial products,” says Jonathan Anderson, chief Asia economist at UBS. “Today, the mainland is actually a growing net exporter, with shipments of not only textiles but also steel, other metals and chemicals accelerating visibly.”

Slowing imports (of everything but commodities) are bad news for international companies, at a time when those doing business in China are already suffering from increased competition and oversupply. And mainland firms are becoming aggressive exporters of everything from textiles and steel to electronics and even cars. Ningbo Bird, based in Zhejiang province, is flooding Asia with cheap mobile-phone handsets it cannot sell profitably at home.

Revaluing the yuan should make some of the tensions created by all this less acute. American politicians, in particular, have been demanding a step in this direction—President George Bush's spokesman welcomed the move. However, some congressmen have been demanding a much bigger stride. And investment is becoming as touchy an issue as trade has been. China is no longer using its huge stock of foreign-exchange reserves—over $700 billion—merely to buy American Treasury bonds, but to snap up physical assets too. The $18.5 billion contested bid by CNOOC, a big Chinese oil company, for America's Unocal is causing an uproar in Washington, DC. China's currency move may dampen calls for trade protection and revaluation for a while. But if its domestic economy slows and thus becomes less supportive of global growth, such calls are likely to return soon.

* The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is one of the most prestigious spiritual leaders of Buddhism not only in his own country, Tibet, but also around the world. After the Chinese government’s invasion and occupation of Tibet, he escaped to India in 1959. Since then he has continued to preach to Tibet people nonviolent and peaceful independence movement.

As a Buddhist spiritual leader, he asserts that we “should forgive persons who have committed crimes against oneself and humankind.”(129) According to him, however, this forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting those atrocities. Instead, it is necessary not to forget in order to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. Thus, his opinion to Simon’s dilemma is to forgive, but never forget.

However, Simon has no right to forgive the dying SS man on behalf of other victims in the first place. As a respected Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama has to say that we should forgive criminals. But it is very hard for ordinary man and woman to follow his maxim.

* Mary Gordon + Cynthia Ozick

Mary Gordon is a novelist and a professor of English at Barnard College. I do not have any clues for understanding why she has been invited to respond to Simon’s dilemma, but her opinion is one of the clearest ones. Instead of asking how Simon should have behaved in such a circumstance, she asks what the dying Nazi expected from a desperate Jew. According to Gordon, Karl’s request to forgiveness from Simon was a mere “narcissistic act,” not a moral one.

From this perspective, she argues that the dying SS man’s request for forgiveness was wrong in following two reasons: firstly, by asking forgiveness, the dying SS man was asking Simon to “serve as a public symbol for all Jews.” However, Simon was not able to be such a public symbol in that circumstance. In other words, he was not in the position granting forgiveness on behalf of others. Thus, the dying SS man was asking something impossible from Simon; secondly, the dying Nazi misunderstood the meaning of confession. Even in Catholic Church, according to Gordon, sinners must acknowledge their guilt publicly before asking for absolution if their crimes had affected the public. Thus, Simon, neither as a Catholic priest nor as somebody who has moral authority, cannot grant forgiveness to Karl.

Like Mary Gordon, Cynthia Ozick is also a famous novelist. Her essay is composed of 4 parts, each of them dealing with the characteristics of Hitler’s Third Reich, differences between vengeance and forgiveness as a response to crimes, and the significance of moral responsibility of intellectuals. Even though her essay is filled with so many metaphoric expressions, it is evident from the beginning that her position to the question of forgiveness is explicit and stubborn; she asserts that it is impossible to forgive the Nazi soldier.

Ozick starts her essay by mentioning the fact that the dying SS Nazi has Catholic education. However, whether or not the dying SS man had Catholic education before does not have any significant meaning in this story. So this fact has nothing to do with the question of forgiveness.

Secondly, Ozick reveals that the Third Reich was a sort of Moloch state demanding human’s live flesh and blood to live on by citing the Second Commandment of the bible. If that is the case, how can we deal with these collective crimes? Ozick asserts the necessity of vengeance, not forgiveness. She argues that forgiveness is possible only when there is a possibility of repentance on the condition that there will not be the same mistake. However, if a murderer kills somebody, this murder cannot be “revocable” and “reversible.” In these extreme cases, she argues that there is no room for forgiveness to the dying Nazi soldier.

Of course, Ozick admits, even if we revenge somebody, this act will not also be able to bring the dead back. Yes, it is true. But this vengeance can bring public justice to evil. Contrary to public justice, forgiveness sometimes became merciless to victims, not to murderers. “Vengeance, only vengeance, knows pity for the victims,” she says.

In the last part of the essay, Ozick deals with the problem of moral responsibility. As we already know, the dying SS personnel was not the same as other brutal SS soldiers; he had a moral temperament. He was educated in Catholic Church. He was also intelligent enough to think what his crimes would bring about.

However, Ozick argues that this difference cannot be a tool for immunity privilege of the SS man’s crimes. Rather, the Nazi soldier should be punished more severely than other brainless brutes because he committed the same crimes even though he had conscience and sensibility. “The intelligent man of conscience also shovels in the babies, and it does not matter that he does it without exaltation. Conscience, education, insight – nothing stops him. He goes on shoveling. --- He is a morally sensitive man, and he shovels babies to glut the iron stomach of the idol. --- The morally sensitive SS man goes on shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.”(219) Here Ozick seems to insinuate the heavy moral responsibility of the intellectuals.

*  Dith Pran

Dith Pran is a New York Times journalist and a survivor of Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime’s labor camp. As a survivor of the brutal military regime’s concentration camp, he says that “he can never forgive or forget what the top leadership of the Khmer Rouge has done to him.”(230)

However, he asserts that we should differentiate ordinary soldiers from the leadership of the regime because what they did was to follow the orders from the above under the threat of death. Even though these ordinary soldiers are not without guilt, “there is a chasm between someone who intentionally plots to destroy the very souls of people and someone who is not only stupid and brainwashed, but fears death enough to be forced to do wrong.”(232) In this perspective, Pran says he would have forgiven the dying SS man if he were Simon.

His argument on (the necessity of the) distinction between the top leadership of Khmer Rouge and ordinary soldiers is very interesting point and seems to be very useful especially when we judge the degree of crimes. However, the problem is that this kind of distinction is not evident from the beginning. Sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate those who are mainly responsible for the crimes from those who involuntarily follow the orders. How about those who voluntarily followed the orders or voluntarily involved in such crimes without any physical or mental threats? Should we forgive them? How and why?

Furthermore, it may be also argued that the distinction between two groups of criminals has nothing to do with forgiveness. Even though someone admits the necessity of the distinction between two or three (or more) groups of people according to their relative degrees of crimes, he or she can also argue that they do not deserve to be forgiven. In other words, the differentiation of the degree of crime has nothing to do with forgiveness because it is not about moral judgment but about the issue of legal punishment.

Thus, once again the question of forgiveness still remains untouched. Should we forgive the dying SS man. His relative degree of guilt is, of course, slighter than Hitler or Himmler. He was not an architect of the notorious gas chamber. However, he is not like “ordinary soldier” Pran mentioned. He was engaged himself in the massacre of the Jews even though he was repenting his crimes. Should we forgive him?

* Mattheiu Ricard

Mattheiu Ricard is a Buddhist monk and serving as a French language interpreter for the Dalai Lama. As a sincere Buddhist, he says that “forgiveness is always possible and one should always forgive” in any cases. According to him, “forgiveness does not mean absolution, but an opportunity for “the inner transformation” of both victim and perpetrator.” Forgiveness is a way of transforming the victim’s own grief, resentment or hatred into good.

Furthermore, the author argues that Simon should have said to the dying SS man that he should pray that he would be able to atone for his crimes by doing as much good as he had done evil in his future.” As a Buddhist, the author also argues that Simon should have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims, but for all sentient beings in the world until endless cycles of suffering end.

Even though the feeling of mercy and pity is one of the most significant virtues in Buddhist teachings, however, I think the author’s argument does not have any relevance to Simon’s case. Firstly, the argument that “an action cannot not be considered negative or sinful in and of itself” has nothing to do with true Buddhism. As far as I know, Buddhism is not a religion without any moral, ethical judgments regarding human behaviors. Rather, Buddhism is based on the most ethical and highly moral sentiments on human being. In other words, every human is always deemed to be judged by their action.

Secondly, if human beings are surely supposed to suffer continuously in later world due to their misdeeds in this world, there is no room for forgiveness in this world. Nobody can forgive someone who commits crimes because he or she will surely be suffering someday in the later world due to his or her own deeds. Thus if we once accept the principle of chain rule of suffering, we don’t have to decide to forgive or not to forgive the criminals. In other words, this basic circular viewpoint of the world contradicts to another Buddhist principles; so-called unconditional possibility of forgiveness.

Thirdly, I cannot accept this Buddhist’s indiscriminative attitudes toward victims and perpetrators. It may be true that “inner transformation” is the most important moment for both victims and perpetrator. However, most innocent victims are already dead without having chances for what is called inner transformation or giving forgiveness to perpetrators. The problem was that Simon was expected to forgive the dying perpetrator on behalf of other Jews who are already dead. Thus, the argument on the significance of the moment of inner transformation can only be uttered at the expense of the ignorance of sacrificed victims.

Finally, it is surprising to see this Buddhist’s ignorance of the situations. Ricard does not want to see the situations where Simon was forced into. Simon was under the continuous threats of death in concentration camp. If he really knew what was going on in the camp, can he still argue that Simon should deliver these kinds of abstract Buddhist cannon – Buddhist would have felt compassion not just for the soldier and his victims but for all sentiment beings until endless cycles of suffering ends - in such a horrible situation?

In sum, Mattheiu Richard’s opinion seems to be based on either so highly unrealistic principles or total ignorance of the situations that Simon would not be able to find proper answer to his dilemma.

* Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu is a South African bishop and a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He argues that Simon should have forgiven Karl on his death chamber. In order to justify his response, he cites various examples of forgiveness in his home country. Among them are those who “have been tortured, whose loved ones were abducted, killed and buried secretly,”(267) but in front of the commission’s testimony say that they are ready to forgive. Nelson Mandela’s sublime attitude toward former Apartheid regime was also cited as a good example of forgiveness.

However, there seems to be nontrivial difference between these examples Tutu cites and Simon’s case. Contrary to Simon’s case, former victims including Nelson Mandela in South Africa are all on the winner’s position both morally and politically when they say they can forgive the former perpetrators.

For them, forgiveness may be “practical politics.” But, for Simon, who had to face ceaseless threat of death and humiliation without any hope for surviving in concentration camp, forgiveness cannot be conceived as practical politics.

From this significantly different circumstance emerge Simon’s dilemma: he had to decide to forgive or not to forgive the dying SS man when he was a prisoner of concentration camp, not as a investigation commission member; he had to accept lots of innocent Jewish people’s death as their common fate in the camp; under this gruesome circumstance he also had to decide whether or not he could forgive the dying, repenting SS man on behalf of other Jewish victims.

Once this different situation is considered, then the question of forgiveness can be justifiably brought back to Tutu and other South African leaders in different form: Can you forgive them if you were still in the position of victims? Can you forgive white racist police officers, who are torturing you, intimidating you, killing your loving sons and daughters, if you are still forced into as a prisoner of Apartheid camp? Can you justifiably say that forgiveness is always practical politics in such a situation?

* Harry Wu

Harry Wu is a Chinese writer and a human rights activist. He had experienced Chinese prisoner’s labor camp for 19 years. Instead of dealing with Simon’s moral question of forgiveness directly, he introduces his own experiences as a political conscience prisoner of communist labor camps; he was detained and imprisoned due to his refusal to join in self criticism and “struggle session.” He experienced harsh treatments and humiliations by the prisoner guards.

Upon released from the camp, he had a chance to meet Comrade Ma who played major role in his indictment and imprisonment. However, she did not apologized to him or asked for his forgiveness. Instead, she advised him to forget the past.

Harry Wu thought that Comrade Ma was a typical character the Chinese communist regime had produced. Compared to the dying SS soldier, Harry Wu exclaimed that there had been no such a person like Karl who had asked for forgiveness in China. Rather, at least for him, communist China was filled with so many “Comrade Ma” who did not care about an individual’s well-being.

In the end, Wu says that he would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier on his deathbed, but “I would have been able to say to him: I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you.”(274)

This book is about the U.S economy in 1990s, what the author calls “the age of diminished expectation.” Paul Krugman, a professor of economics at Princeton University and New York Times columnist, aims to deal with main economic problems and successes of the current U.S. economy.

In order to present the reasons for economic success and follies, he traces back to the early 1930. Unlike the age of welfare, current U.S economy is characterized by the slowdown of labor productivity since 1980s, increasing income gap among social classes and the fear of rapid inflation. Thus, according to Krugman, without the turnaround of productivity growth, the contemporary pressing issues in the U.S economy such as trade and budget deficit, financial market volatility cannot be solved.

This book is composed of 5 chapters, dealing with the roots of economic welfare after the 2nd world war, current economic problems such as twin deficit and inflation. While analyzing these issues, he also introduces how the U.S government and the Fed have adopted economic and public policies to deal with the problems not only arising from domestic market but also from international financial market.