Winifred Curran’s entire argument is an implied “nature is good, and anything that interferes with nature is bad”. I simply ask: why? Additionally, I will show that Curran’s argument doesn’t make sense intuitively, doesn’t make sense practically, and doesn’t make sense ideologically.
Natural is defined as “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind”. Curran’s argument is that displacement of manufacturing business in Williamsburg is not caused by natural, or as he calls it “inevitable outcome of global competition”, but by unnatural, or an “active process undertaken by real estate developers, city planners, policy-makers…”.
Curran is saying that if the displacement were to be a natural (unplanned and not thought out) consequence of global competition it would be fine, but since it’s an active (planned and prepared for) process, there’s a problem. It seems he wants the economy to somehow just …happen. That’s just not how the world works (unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t believe in free will, which is outside the scope of this article).
As Curran also mentioned, many of the people in the manufacturing industry stimulate this change purposefully. Those who own the land they work in frequently choose to embrace the change and sacrifice their business to apply for a variance. This shows that the real estate developers, city planners, and others are not some evil cunning group because they want to make money; the manufacturers are trying to do the same thing.
Ideologically, most Americans believe in some form of capitalist society. In a capitalist society, it makes no sense to portray people aiming to make money as bad or something we should strive to avoid. America and especially NYC are extremely in favor of hard, skilled work for high pay, and low effort or low-skilled work for low pay. He references how this creates a large gap in income between the skill classes. He doesn’t explain why this is a bad thing. In my opinion, it promotes competition, by pushing those at the bottom to try their hardest to get to the top. If they don’t make it, then it’s good for society as a whole, because we have only the best doing the important work.
Americans and New Yorkers frequently forget that the outside world exists. We aren’t only competing with each-other; we are competing with China, Russia, Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the European Union. America’s power is already in decline, and it cannot afford to keep going that direction forever. Russia is ruthless. China is ruthless. If America tries to support everyone and falters, I doubt they’ll just stand by or help us.
Anyone remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
