Libertarians, and some on the political right, sometime refer to those in the green movement as watermelons. They are green on the outside and red (communist) on the inside. They advocate environmentalism to cover for their socialism.
When communism/ socialism fell out of favor with the fall of the Soviet Union, the proponents of this violent philosophy needed some cover, so they turned to environmentalism. After all, who can argue with wanting a clean environment?
Of course, with the modern-day green movement, virtually everything they advocate involves more government control and intervention. It is an excuse to bring us socialism under a different name.
This past week, one of the winners named for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was William Nordhaus. To quote Wikipedia about the prize, “As it is not one of the prizes that Alfred Nobel established in his will in 1895, it is not a Nobel Prize.” Still, it is highly regarded by many.
The prize is mostly an award given by the establishment. It has typically gone to Keynesians or other types who advocate big government. There are exceptions. The most notable exception was when it was awarded to F.A. Hayek in 1974. While I prefer Ludwig von Mises to Hayek, Hayek had many great contributions as a member of the Austrian School of Economics.
Nordhaus won the prize for “integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis”. In other words, he is a watermelon. He has helped to justify government intervention into the marketplace by using so-called climate change as a basis.
This is typical of the establishment. They will always find some “expert” to validate what they want validated. I have said before that if Keynes hadn’t existed, then they would have found someone else to justify the economic interventions of the 1930s and beyond. They would have found some other “expert economist”.
You will find the same thing with any other topic involving state intervention. Whether it is foreign policy, or healthcare, or monetary policy, or education, the establishment will find some “expert” – as chosen by the establishment – to present what they want presented.
Nordhaus is Leaky
Nordhaus is the co-author of the textbook Economics. Paul Samuelson – another Nobel Laureate – wrote the original editions.
One of the quotes pulled out of the Economicstextbook is as follows:
“The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.”
How did that theory work out for them?
That was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It really was like Bangladesh with missiles.
No matter how hard the watermelons try to cover up their radical violent beliefs (because communism and socialism require extreme violence), they can’t help themselves sometimes.
Sometimes the red leaks out. They are leaky watermelons. William Nordhaus is a leaky watermelon.
He will promote his green agenda and tie it into his socialist economics, but sometimes he can’t help himself and his socialism is fully exposed. It becomes obvious that he cares more about his socialist command economy than he has ever cared about the environment.
This is the kind of garbage that will get you the title of Nobel Laureate. If you can help justify the command economy based on environmentalism, then you have a place in the establishment.
It is sad that someone can be an advocate of the Soviet command economy, yet receive this prize, let alone be respected at all in the field of economics. The communism of the Soviet Union produced great poverty and misery. And the system could only be enforced at the point of a gun, which resulted in tens of millions of deaths. That is quite a record. It’s no wonder the socialists need to find some cover.