Agenda 21--No

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

July 19, 2013

Senator Chuck Schumer

322 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Senator Schumer:

Agenda 21 is a mistake, and I oppose it and Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program.  The concept of sustainability is vacuous.  Like freedom and equality, it can mean anything, and it can be used to institute tyranny.  The Agenda 21 document is based on a fallacy:  rich countries are rich because they make poor countries poor.   I don't know what they taught you at Harvard, but if that belief is consistent with what you know, then Harvard made you ignorant.

People become rich for four reasons:   (1) the marginal value of their labor is high because they have skills that make them productive*,   (2) they work hard, (3) they save their money,  and (4) government provides a stable, limited support to their hard work and  saving and does not arbitrarily interfere, steal or redistribute their earnings.   In contrast, the UN claims that people become rich by stealing from the poor.

The US already has a sufficient level of government.  While coordination among governments is a worthy aim, there is no need for the UN to be involved, even if through a non-binding agreement, with economic regulation.  In fact, though, the implementation of the economic illiteracy in Agenda 21 has not been non-binding.  Through policies like Andrew Cuomo's Leaner and Greener Communities program, one of which is Engage Mid-Hudson, government is turning Agenda 21 into law.

Andrew Cuomo's program is based on deception.  The regional leaders have lied and claimed that there was consensus at the meetings, but there was no consensus.  I was present when the leaders of the Engage Mid-Hudson meeting suppressed those who vocally opposed the ideas that the document expresses.   Opponents were not allowed to be involved in the process.   The document is based on a ridiculous aim, 80% reduction in carbon emissions, that cannot be accomplished without major technological breakthroughs and that, if implemented, will create an unsustainable economy that will make New Yorkers poor.  Who wants to live in a country that will support the Leaner and Greener Communities program, a program that establishes regional soviets to implement ignorant, socialist economic strategies?  My ancestors came here to escape tyranny, not to recreate it.  

The UN has no place in the governance of the American economy, and the US should rescind its association with the Agenda 21 document.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

*William Lewis observed that the organization of work is a critical factor to national productivity levels.  The phrase "marginal value of labor" assumes that hardworking entrepreneurs have, over a period of time, invented work processes with escalating levels of output. Such improvement cannot be accomplished through government because it depends on the ability to fail, go bankrupt, end programs, and learn--processes that no government can implement.