Krugman is a neoliberal stooge. Since when Social Security is an entitlement program. If you start
contributing at 25 and retire at 67 (40 years of monthly contributions), you actually get less then
you contribute, unless you live more then 80 years. It just protects you from "free market casino".
Notable quotes:
"... A "contribution" theory of what a proper distribution of income might be can only be made coherent if there are constant returns to scale in the scarce, priced, owned factors of production. Only then can you divide the pile of resources by giving to each the marginal societal product of their work and of the resources that they own. ..."
"... n a world--like the one we live in--of mammoth increasing returns to unowned knowledge and to networks, no individual and no community is especially valuable. Those who receive good livings are those who are lucky -- as Carrier's workers in Indiana have been lucky in living near Carrier's initial location. It's not that their contribution to society is large or that their luck is replicable: if it were, they would not care (much) about the departure of Carrier because there would be another productive network that they could fit into a slot in. ..."
"... If not about people, what is an economy about? ..."
"... I hadn't realized that Democrats now view Social Security and Medicare as "government handouts". ..."
"... Some Democrats like Krugman are Social Darwinists. ..."
"... PK is an ignorant vicious SOB. Many of those "dependent hillbillies" PK despises paid SS and Medicare taxes for many decades, most I know have never been on foos stamps, and if they are on disability it is because they did honest hard work, something PK knows nothing about. What an ignorant jerk. ..."
"... What is a very highly subsidized industry that benefits Delong and Krugman? Higher education. Damn welfare queens! :) ..."
"... No Krugman is echoing the tribalism of Johnny Bakho. These people won't move or educate themselves or "skill up" so they deserve what they get. Social darwinism. ..."
"... People like Bakho are probably anti-union as well. They're seen as relics of an earlier age and economically "uncompetitve." See Fred Dobbs below. That's the dog whistle about the "rust belt." ..."
"... Paul Krugman's reputation, formerly that of a a noted economic, succumbed after a brief struggle to Trump Derangement Syndrome. Friends said Mr Krugman's condition had been further aggravated by cognitive dissonance from a severely challenged worldview. ..."
"... He is survived by the New York Times, also said to be in failing health. ..."
"... For a long time DeLong was mocking the notion of "economic anxiety" amongst the voters. Does this blog post mean he's rethinking that idea? ..."
"... The GOP has a long history of benefitting from the disconnect where a lot of their voters are convinced that when government money goes to others (sometimes even within their own white congregations), then it is not deserved. ..."
Brad DeLong has an interesting meditation * on markets and political demands - inspired by
a note from Noah Smith ** - that offers food for thought. I wonder, however, if Brad's discussion
is too abstract; and I also wonder whether it fully recognizes the disconnect between what Trump
voters think they want and reality. So, an entry of my own.
What Brad is getting at is the widespread belief by, well, almost everyone that they are entitled
to - have earned - whatever good hand they have been dealt by the market economy. This is reflected
in the more or less universal belief of the affluent that they deserve what they have; you could
see this in the rage of rentiers at low interest rates, because it's the Federal Reserve's job
to reward savers, right? In this terrible political year, the story was in part one of people
in Appalachia angrily demanding a return of the good jobs they used to have mining coal - even
though the world doesn't want more coal given fracking, and it can get the coal it still wants
from strip mines and mountaintop removal, which don't employ many people.
And what Brad is saying, I think, is that what those longing for the return to coal want is
those jobs they deserve, where they earn their money - not government handouts, no sir.
A fact-constrained candidate wouldn't have been able to promise such people what they want;
Trump, of course, had no problem.
But is that really all there is? Working-class Trump voters do, in fact, receive a lot of government
handouts - they're almost totally dependent on Social Security for retirement, Medicare for health
care when old, are quite dependent on food stamps, and many have recently received coverage from
Obamacare. Quite a few receive disability payments too. They don't want those benefits to go away.
But they managed to convince themselves (with a lot of help from Fox News etc) that they aren't
really beneficiaries of government programs, or that they're not getting the "good welfare", which
only goes to Those People.
And you can really see this in the regional patterns. California is an affluent state, a heavy
net contributor to the federal budget; it went 2-1 Clinton. West Virginia is poor and a huge net
recipient of federal aid; it went 2 1/2-1 Trump.
I don't think any kind of economic analysis can explain this. It has to be about culture and,
as always, race.
Regional Policy and Distributional Policy in a World Where People Want to Ignore the Value
and Contribution of Knowledge- and Network-Based Increasing Returns
Pascal Lamy: "When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger..."
Perhaps in the end the problem is that people want to pretend that they are filling a valuable
role in the societal division of labor, and are receiving no more than they earn--than they contribute.
But that is not the case. The value--the societal dividend--is in the accumulated knowledge
of humanity and in the painfully constructed networks that make up our value chains.
A "contribution" theory of what a proper distribution of income might be can only be made
coherent if there are constant returns to scale in the scarce, priced, owned factors of production.
Only then can you divide the pile of resources by giving to each the marginal societal product
of their work and of the resources that they own.
That, however, is not the world we live in.
In a world--like the one we live in--of mammoth increasing returns to unowned knowledge
and to networks, no individual and no community is especially valuable. Those who receive good
livings are those who are lucky -- as Carrier's workers in Indiana have been lucky in living near
Carrier's initial location. It's not that their contribution to society is large or that their
luck is replicable: if it were, they would not care (much) about the departure of Carrier because
there would be another productive network that they could fit into a slot in.
All of this "what you deserve" language is tied up with some vague idea that you deserve what
you contribute--that what your work adds to the pool of society's resources is what you deserve.
This illusion is punctured by any recognition that there is a large societal dividend to be
distributed, and that the government can distribute it by supplementing (inadequate) market wages
determined by your (low) societal marginal product, or by explicitly providing income support
or services unconnected with work via social insurance. Instead, the government is supposed to,
somehow, via clever redistribution, rearrange the pattern of market power in the economy so that
the increasing-returns knowledge- and network-based societal dividend is predistributed in a relatively
egalitarian way so that everybody can pretend that their income is just "to each according to
his work", and that they are not heirs and heiresses coupon clipping off of the societal capital
of our predecessors' accumulated knowledge and networks.
On top of this we add: Polanyian disruption of patterns of life--local communities, income
levels, industrial specialization--that you believed you had a right to obtain or maintain, and
a right to believe that you deserve. But in a market capitalist society, nobody has a right to
the preservation of their local communities, to their income levels, or to an occupation in their
industrial specialization. In a market capitalist society, those survive only if they pass a market
profitability test. And so the only rights that matter are those property rights that at the moment
carry with them market power--the combination of the (almost inevitably low) marginal societal
products of your skills and the resources you own, plus the (sometimes high) market power that
those resources grant to you.
This wish to believe that you are not a moocher is what keeps people from seeing issues of
distribution and allocation clearly--and generates hostility to social insurance and to wage supplement
policies, for they rip the veil off of the idea that you deserve to be highly paid because you
are worth it. You aren't.
And this ties itself up with regional issues: regional decline can come very quickly whenever
a region finds that its key industries have, for whatever reason, lost the market power that diverted
its previously substantial share of the knowledge- and network-based societal dividend into the
coffers of its firms. The resources cannot be simply redeployed in other industries unless those
two have market power to control the direction of a share of the knowledge- and network-based
societal dividend. And so communities decline and die. And the social contract--which was supposed
to have given you a right to a healthy community--is broken.
As I have said before, humans are, at a very deep and basic level, gift-exchange animals. We
create and reinforce our social bonds by establishing patterns of "owing" other people and by
"being owed". We want to enter into reciprocal gift-exchange relationships. We create and reinforce
social bonds by giving each other presents. We like to give. We like to receive. We like neither
to feel like cheaters nor to feel cheated. We like, instead, to feel embedded in networks of mutual
reciprocal obligation. We don't like being too much on the downside of the gift exchange: to have
received much more than we have given in return makes us feel very small. We don't like being
too much on the upside of the gift exchange either: to give and give and give and never receive
makes us feel like suckers.
PK is an ignorant vicious SOB. Many of those "dependent hillbillies" PK despises paid SS and
Medicare taxes for many decades, most I know have never been on foos stamps, and if they are on
disability it is because they did honest hard work, something PK knows nothing about. What an
ignorant jerk.
Exactly the same could be said about many of those inner city minorities that the "dependent hillbillies"
look down on as "welfare queens". That may be one of the reasons they take special issues with
"food stamps", because in contrast to the hillbillies, inner city poor people cannot grow their
own food. What Krugman is pointing out is the hypocrisy of their tribalism - and also the idiocy,
because the dismantling of society would ultimately hurt the morons that voted GOP into power
this round.
"What Krugman is pointing out is the hypocrisy of their tribalism "
No Krugman is echoing the tribalism of Johnny Bakho. These people won't move or educate
themselves or "skill up" so they deserve what they get. Social darwinism.
People like Bakho are probably anti-union as well. They're seen as relics of an earlier age
and economically "uncompetitve." See Fred Dobbs below. That's the dog whistle about the "rust
belt."
His tone is supercilious and offensive. But your argument is that they are not "dependent" because
they earned every benefit they get from the government. I think his point is that "dependent"
is not offensive -- the term jus reflects how we all depend on government services. DeLong makes
the point much better in the article quoted by anne above.
Paul Krugman's reputation, formerly that of a a noted economic, succumbed after a brief
struggle to Trump Derangement Syndrome. Friends said Mr Krugman's condition had been further aggravated
by cognitive dissonance from a severely challenged worldview.
He is survived by the New York Times, also said to be in failing health.
The New York Times is easily the finest newspaper in the world, is broadly recognized as such
and is of course flourishing. Such an institution will always have sections or editors and writers
of relative strength but these relative strengths change over time as the newspaper continually
changes.
NYT Co. to revamp HQ, vacate eight floors in consolidation
"In an SEC filing, New York Times Co. discloses a staff communication it provided today to
employees about a revamp of its headquarters -- including consolidating floors.
The company will vacate at least eight floors, consolidating workspaces and allowing for "significant"
rental income, the memo says."
The GOP has a long history of benefitting from the disconnect where a lot of their voters
are convinced that when government money goes to others (sometimes even within their own white
congregations), then it is not deserved. But if that same government money goes to themselves
(or their real close relatives), then it is a hard earned and well-deserved payback for their
sacrifices and tax payments. So the GOP leadership has always called it "saving social security"
and "cracking down on fraud" rather than admitting to their attempts to dismantle those programs.
The Dems better be on the ball and call it what it is. If you want to save those programs you
just have to prevent rich people from wiggling out of paying for them (don't repeal the Obamacare
medicare taxes on the rich).
On the Pk piece. I think it is really about human dignity, and the need for it. There were a lot
of factors in this horrific election, but just as urban blacks need to be spared police brutality,
rural whites need a dignified path in their lives. Everyone, united, deserves such a path.
This is a real challenge for economists; how do we rebuild the rust belt (which applies to
areas beyond the literal rust belt).
If we do not, we risk Trump 2.0, which could be very scary indeed.
I agree to a point, but what the piece is about is that in search of a solution to the problems
of the rustbelt (whatever the definition is),people voted for Trump who had absolutely no plan
to solve such a problem, other than going back to the future and redoing Nafta and getting rid
of regulations.
Meanwhile, that vote also meant that the safety net that helps all Americans in trouble was
being placed in severe risk.
Those voters were fixed on his rhetoric and right arm extended while his left hand was grabbing
them by the (in deference to Anne I will not say the words, but Trump himself has said one of
them and the other is the male version).
Really? You didn't seem to before. You'd say what Duy or Noah Smith or DeLong were mulling about was
off-limits. You'd ban them from the comment section if you could. "This is a real challenge for economists; how do we rebuild the rust belt (which applies to
areas beyond the literal rust belt).
If we do not, we risk Trump 2.0, which could be very scary indeed." I don't see why this is such a controversial point for centrist like Krugman. How do we appeal to the white working class without contradicting our principles?
By promoting policies that raise living standards. By delivering, which mean left-wing policies
not centrist tinkering. It's the Clinton vs. Sanders primary. Hillary could have nominated Elizabeth Warren as her VP candidate but her corporate masters
wouldn't let her.
"Meanwhile, that vote also meant that the safety net that helps all Americans in trouble was being
placed in severe risk."
That safety net is an improvement over 1930. But it's been fraying so badly over the last 20-30
years that it's almost lost all meaning. It's something people turn to before total destitution,
but for rebuilding a life? A sick joke, filled with petty hassles and frustrations.
And the fraying has been a solidly bipartisan project. Who can forget welfare "reform"?
So maybe the yokels you're blaming for the 10,000-th time might not buy your logic or your
intentions.
... At the height of their influence in the 1950s, labor unions could claim to represent about
1 of every 3 American workers. Today, it's 1 in 9 - and falling.
Some have seen the shrinking size and waning influence of labor unions as a sign that the US
economy is growing more flexible and dynamic, but there's mounting evidence that it is also contributing
to slow wage growth and the rise in inequality. ...
(Union membership) NY 24.7%, MA 12.4%, SC 2.1%
... Are unions faring any better here in Massachusetts?
While Massachusetts's unions are stronger than average, it's not among the most heavily unionized
states. That honor goes to New York, where 1 in every 4 workers belongs to a union. After New
York, there are 11 other states with higher union membership rates then Massachusetts.
Here too, though, the decline in union membership over time has been steep.
... In 2015, 30 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below
that of the U.S. average, 11.1 percent, and 20 states had rates above it. All states
in the East South Central and West South Central divisions had union membership rates
below the national average, and all states in the Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions
had rates above it. Union membership rates increased over the year in 24 states and
the District of Columbia, declined in 23 states, and were unchanged in 3 states.
(See table 5.)
Five states had union membership rates below 5.0 percent in 2015: South Carolina
(2.1 percent), North Carolina (3.0 percent), Utah (3.9 percent), Georgia (4.0 percent),
and Texas (4.5 percent).
Two states had union membership rates over 20.0 percent in
2015: New York (24.7 percent) and Hawaii (20.4 percent).
State union membership levels depend on both the employment level and the union
membership rate. The largest numbers of union members lived in California (2.5 million)
and New York (2.0 million).
Roughly half of the 14.8 million union members in the
U.S. lived in just seven states (California, 2.5 million; New York, 2.0 million;
Illinois, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.7 million; and Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey,
0.6 million each), though these states accounted for only about one-third of wage and
salary employment nationally.
(It appears that New England union participation
lags in the northeast, and also in the rest of
the US not in the Red Zone.)
I have noted before that New England
is doing better 'than average' (IMO)
because of high-tech industry & education.
Not necessarily because of a lack of
unionization, which is prevalent here
in public education & among service
workers. Note that in higher ed,
much here is private.
Private industry here traditionally
is not heavily unionized, although
that is probably not the case
among defense corps.
As to causation, I think the
implication is that 'Dems dealing
with unions' has not been working
all that well, recovery-wise,
particularly in the rust belt.
That must have as much to do with
industrial management as it does
with labor, and the ubiquitous
on-going industrial revolution.
Everybody needs, and desperately crave, self-confidence and dignity. In white rural culture that
has always been connected to the old settler mentality and values of personal "freedom" and "independence".
It is unfortunate that this freedom/independence mythology has been what attracted all the immigrants
from Europe over here. So it is as strongly engrained (both in culture and individual values)
as it is outdated and counterproductive in the world of the future. I am not sure that society
can help a community where people find themselves humiliated by being helped (especially by bad
government). Maybe somehow try to get them to think of the government help as an earned benefit?
"... if neo-liberalism is partly defined by the free flow of goods, labor and capital - and that has been the Republican agenda since at least Reagan - how is Trump a continuation of the same tradition?" ..."
"... Trump is a conservative (or right populist, or whatever), and draws on that tradition. He's not a neoliberal. ..."
"... Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view. He's consistent w/the trade and immigration views but (assuming you can actually figure him out) wrong on banks, taxes, etc. ..."
"... But the next populists we see might be more full bore. When that happens, you'll see much more overlap w/Sanders economic plans for the middle class. ..."
"... There's always tension along the lead running between the politician and his constituents. The thing that seems most salient to me at the present moment is the sense of betrayal pervading our politics. At least since the GFC of 2008, it has been hard to deny that the two Parties worked together to set up an economic betrayal. And, the long-running saga of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also speak to elite failure, as well as betrayal. ..."
"... Trump is a novelty act. He represents a chance for people who feel resentful without knowing much of anything about anything to cast a middle-finger vote. They wouldn't be willing to do that, if times were really bad, instead of just disappointing and distressing. ..."
"... There's also the fact Reagan tapped a fair number of Nixon people, as did W years later. Reagan went after Nixon in the sense of running against him, and taking the party in a much more hard-right direction, sure. But he was repudiated largely because he got caught doing dirty tricks with his pants down. ..."
"... From what I can tell - the 1972 election gave the centrists in the democratic party power to discredit and marginalize the anti-war left, and with it, the left in general. ..."
"... Ready even now to whine that she's a victim and that the whole community is at fault and that people are picking on her because she's a woman, rather than because she has a habit of making accusations like this every time she comments. ..."
"... That is a perfect example of predatory "solidarity". Val is looking for dupes to support her ..."
"Once again, if neo-liberalism is partly defined by the free flow of goods, labor and capital
- and that has been the Republican agenda since at least Reagan - how is Trump a continuation
of the same tradition?"
You have to be willing to see neoliberalism as something different
from conservatism to have the answer make any sense. John Quiggin has written a good deal here
about a model of U.S. politics as being divided into left, neoliberal, and conservative. Trump
is a conservative (or right populist, or whatever), and draws on that tradition. He's not a neoliberal.
... ... ...
T 08.12.16 at 5:52 pm
RP @683
That's a bit of my point. I think Corey has defined the Republican tradition solely
in response to the Southern Strategy that sees a line from Nixon (or Goldwater) to Trump. But
that gets the economics wrong and the foreign policy too - the repub foreign policy view has not
been consistent across administrations and Trump's economic pans (to the extent he has a plan)
are antithetical to the Nixon W tradition. I have viewed post-80 Dem administrations as neoliberals
w/transfers and Repub as neoliberals w/o transfers.
Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view. He's consistent w/the trade
and immigration views but (assuming you can actually figure him out) wrong on banks, taxes, etc.
But the next populists we see might be more full bore. When that happens, you'll see much
more overlap w/Sanders economic plans for the middle class. Populists have nothing against
gov't programs like SS and Medicare and were always for things like the TVA and infrastructure
spending. Policies aimed at the poor and minorities not so much.
T @ 685: Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view.
There's always tension along the lead running between the politician and his constituents.
The thing that seems most salient to me at the present moment is the sense of betrayal pervading
our politics. At least since the GFC of 2008, it has been hard to deny that the two Parties worked
together to set up an economic betrayal. And, the long-running saga of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
also speak to elite failure, as well as betrayal.
These are the two most unpopular candidates in living memory. That is different.
I am not a believer in "the fire next time". Trump is a novelty act. He represents a chance
for people who feel resentful without knowing much of anything about anything to cast a middle-finger
vote. They wouldn't be willing to do that, if times were really bad, instead of just disappointing
and distressing.
Nor will Sanders be back. His was a last New Deal coda. There may be second acts in American
life, but there aren't 7th acts.
If there's a populist politics in our future, it will have to have a much sharper edge. It
can talk about growth, but it has to mean smashing the rich and taking their stuff. There's very
rapidly going to come a point where there's no other option, other than just accepting cramdown
by the authoritarian surveillance state built by the neoliberals. that's a much taller order than
Sanders or Trump have been offering.<
Corey, you write: "It's not just that the Dems went after Nixon, it's also that Nixon had so few
allies. People on the right were furious with him because they felt after this huge ratification
that the country had moved to the right, Nixon was still governing as if the New Deal were the
consensus. So when the time came, he had very few defenders, except for loyalists like Leonard
Garment and G. Gordon Liddy. And Al Haig, God bless him."
You've studied this more than I have,
but this is at least somewhat at odds with my memory. I recall some prominent attackers of Nixon
from the Republican party that were moderates, at least one of whom was essentially kicked out
of the party for being too liberal in later years. There's also the fact Reagan tapped a fair
number of Nixon people, as did W years later. Reagan went after Nixon in the sense of running
against him, and taking the party in a much more hard-right direction, sure. But he was repudiated
largely because he got caught doing dirty tricks with his pants down.
To think that something similar would happen to Clinton (watergate like scandal) that would
actually have a large portion of the left in support of impeachment, she would have to be as dirty
as Nixon was, *and* the evidence to really put the screws to her would have to be out, as it was
against Nixon during watergate.
OTOH, my actual *hope* would be that a similar left-liberal sea change comparable to 1980 from
the right would be plausible. I don't think a 1976-like interlude is plausible though, that would
require the existence of a moderate republican with enough support within their own party to win
the nomination. I suppose its possible that such a beast could come to exist if Trump loses a
landslide, but most of the plausible candidates have already left or been kicked out of the party.
From what I can tell - the 1972 election gave the centrists in the democratic party power
to discredit and marginalize the anti-war left, and with it, the left in general. A comparable
election from the other side would give republican centrists/moderates the ability to discredit
and marginalize the right wing base. But unlike Democrats in 1972, there aren't any moderates
left in the Republican party by my lights. I'm much more concerned that this will simply re-empower
the hard-core conservatives with plausbly-deniable dog-whistle racism who are now the "moderates",
and enable them to whitewash their history.
Unfortunately, unlike you, I'm not convinced that a landslide is possible without an appeal
to Reagan/Bush republicans. I don't think we're going to see a meaningful turn toward a real left
until Democrats can win a majority of statehouses and clean up the ridiculous gerrymandering.
Val: "Similarly with your comments on "identity politics" where you could almost be seen
by MRAs and white supremacists as an ally, from the tone of your rhetoric."
That is 100% perfect Val. Insinuates that BW is a sort-of-ally of white supremacists - an infuriating
insinuation. Does this insinuation based on a misreading of what he wrote. Completely resistant
to any sort of suggestion that what she dishes out so expansively to others had better be something
she should be willing to accept herself, or that she shouldn't do it. Ready even now to whine
that she's a victim and that the whole community is at fault and that people are picking on her
because she's a woman, rather than because she has a habit of making accusations like this every
time she comments.
That is a perfect example of predatory "solidarity". Val is looking for dupes to support
her - for people to jump in saying "Why are you being hostile to women?" in response to people's
response to her comment.
"... In practice, however, neoliberalism has created a market state rather than a small state. Shrinking the state has proved politically impossible, so neoliberals have turned instead to using the state to reshape social institutions on the model of the market - a task that cannot be carried out by a small state. ..."
"... The Neoliberal State ..."
"... Neoliberals are not anarchists, who object to any kind of government, or libertarians, who want to limit the state to the provision of law and order and national defense. A neoliberal state can include a welfare state, but only of the most limited kind. Using the welfare state to realize an ideal of social justice is, for neoliberals, an abuse of power: social justice is a vague and contested idea, and when governments try to realize it they compromise the rule of law and undermine individual freedom. The role of the state should be limited to safeguarding the free market and providing a minimum level of security against poverty. ..."
"... Plant's central charge against neoliberalism is that, when stated clearly, it falls apart ..."
"... Neoliberalism and social democracy are not entirely separate political projects; they are dialectically related, the latter being a kind of synthesis of the contradictions of the former. ..."
"... But it is one thing to argue that the neoliberal state is conceptually unstable, another to suggest that social democracy is the only viable alternative. Neoconservatives have been among the sharpest critics of neoliberalism, arguing that the unfettered market is amoral and destroys social cohesion. ..."
"... Immanent criticism can show that the neoliberal theory of the state is internally contradictory. It cannot tell us how these contradictions are to be resolved - and in fact neoliberals who have become convinced that the minimal welfare state they favour is politically impossible do not usually become social democrats. Most opt for a conservative welfare state, which aims to prepare people for the labour market rather than promoting any idea of social justice. ..."
"... A more likely course of events is that social democracy will be eroded even further. ..."
"... The crisis is deep-rooted, and neoliberalism has no remedy for its own failure. ..."
"... Although the deregulated banking system may have imploded, capital remains highly mobile. Bailing out the banks has shifted the burden of toxic debt to the state, and there is a mounting risk of a sovereign debt crisis as a result. In these conditions, maintaining the high levels of public spending that social democracy requires will be next to impossible. ..."
John Gray Neoliberals
wanted to limit government, but the upshot of their policies has been a huge expansion in the power
of the state. Deregulating the financial system left banks free to speculate, and they did so with
reckless enthusiasm. The result was a build-up of toxic assets that threatened the entire banking
system. The government was forced to step in to save the system from self-destruction, but only at
the cost of becoming itself hugely indebted. As a result, the state has a greater stake in the financial
system than it did in the time of Clement Attlee. Yet the government is reluctant to use its power,
even to curb the gross bonuses that bankers are awarding themselves from public funds. The neoliberal
financial regime may have collapsed, but politicians continue to defer to the authority of the market.
Hardcore Thatcherites, and their fellow-travellers in New Labour, sometimes question whether there
was ever a time when neoliberal ideas shaped policy. Has public spending not continued to rise over
recent decades? Is the state not bigger than it has ever been? In practice, however, neoliberalism
has created a market state rather than a small state. Shrinking the state has proved politically
impossible, so neoliberals have turned instead to using the state to reshape social institutions
on the model of the market - a task that cannot be carried out by a small state.
An increase in state power has always been the inner logic of neoliberalism, because, in order
to inject markets into every corner of social life, a government needs to be highly invasive. Health,
education and the arts are now more controlled by the state than they were in the era of Labour collectivism.
Once-autonomous institutions are entangled in an apparatus of government targets and incentives.
The consequence of reshaping society on a market model has been to make the state omnipresent.
Raymond Plant is a rarity among academic political theorists, in that he has deep experience of
political life (before becoming a Labour peer he was a long-time adviser to Neil Kinnock). But he
remains a philosopher, and the central focus of The Neoliberal State is not on the ways
in which neoliberalism has self-destructed in practice. Instead, using a method of immanent criticism,
Plant aims to uncover contradictions in neoliberal ideology itself. Examining a wide variety of thinkers
- Michael Oakeshott, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, James Buchanan and others - he develops a rigorous
and compelling argument that neoliberal ideas are inherently unstable.
Neoliberals are not anarchists, who object to any kind of government, or libertarians, who
want to limit the state to the provision of law and order and national defense. A neoliberal state
can include a welfare state, but only of the most limited kind. Using the welfare state to realize
an ideal of social justice is, for neoliberals, an abuse of power: social justice is a vague and
contested idea, and when governments try to realize it they compromise the rule of law and undermine
individual freedom. The role of the state should be limited to safeguarding the free market and providing
a minimum level of security against poverty.
This is a reasonable summary of the neoliberal view of the state. Whether this view is underpinned
by any coherent theory is another matter. The thinkers who helped shape neoliberal ideas are a very
mixed bag, differing widely among themselves on many fundamental issues. Oakeshott's scepticism has
very little in common with Hayek's view of the market as the engine of human progress, for example,
or with Nozick's cult of individual rights.
It is a mistake to look for a systematic body of neoliberal theory, for none has ever existed.
In order to criticise neoliberal ideology, one must first reconstruct it, and this is exactly what
Plant does. The result is the most authoritative and comprehensive critique of neoliberal thinking
to date.
Plant's central charge against neoliberalism is that, when stated clearly, it falls apart
and is finally indistinguishable from a mild form of social democracy. Plant is a distinguished
scholar of Hegel, and his critique of neoliberalism has a strongly Hegelian flavour. The ethical
basis of the neoliberal state is a concern for negative freedom and the rule of law; but when these
ideals are examined closely, they prove either to be compatible with social democracy or actually
to require it. Neoliberalism and social democracy are not entirely separate political projects;
they are dialectically related, the latter being a kind of synthesis of the contradictions of the
former. Himself a social democrat, Plant believes that the neoliberal state is bound as a matter
of morality and logic to develop in a social-democratic direction.
But it is one thing to argue that the neoliberal state is conceptually unstable, another to
suggest that social democracy is the only viable alternative. Neoconservatives have been among the
sharpest critics of neoliberalism, arguing that the unfettered market is amoral and destroys social
cohesion. A similar view has recently surfaced in British politics in Phillip Blond's "Red Toryism".
Immanent criticism can show that the neoliberal theory of the state is internally contradictory.
It cannot tell us how these contradictions are to be resolved - and in fact neoliberals who have
become convinced that the minimal welfare state they favour is politically impossible do not usually
become social democrats. Most opt for a conservative welfare state, which aims to prepare people
for the labour market rather than promoting any idea of social justice.
If there is no reason in theory why the neoliberal state must develop in a social-democratic direction,
neither is there any reason in practice. A more likely course of events is that social democracy
will be eroded even further. The banking crisis rules out any prospect of a return to neoliberal
business-as-usual. As Plant writes towards the end of the book: "It has been argued that the central
cause of the banking crisis is a failure of regulation in relation to toxic assets . . . This, however,
completely neglects the systemic nature of the problems - a systemic structure that has itself been
developed as a result of liberalisation, that is, the creation of new assets without normal market
prices and their diffusion throughout the banking system." The crisis is deep-rooted, and neoliberalism
has no remedy for its own failure.
The upshot of the crisis is unlikely, however, to be a revival of social democracy. Although
the deregulated banking system may have imploded, capital remains highly mobile. Bailing out the
banks has shifted the burden of toxic debt to the state, and there is a mounting risk of a sovereign
debt crisis as a result. In these conditions, maintaining the high levels of public spending that
social democracy requires will be next to impossible. Neoliberalism and social democracy may
be dialectically related, but only in the sense that when the neoliberal state collapses it takes
down much of what remains of social democracy as well.
The Neoliberal State
Raymond Plant Oxford University Press, 304pp, £50
John Gray is the New Statesman's lead book reviewer. His book "False Dawn: the Delusions
of Global Capitalism", first published in 1998, has been reissued by Granta Books with a new introduction
(£8.99) His latest book is
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom .
"... The Demon In Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations In Free Societies . ..."
"... Brave New World ..."
"... The Demon In Democracy ..."
"... he explains how Poland cast off the bonds of communism only to find that liberal democracy imposed similar interdictions on free thought and debate: ..."
"... Very quickly the world became hidden under a new ideological shell and the people became hostage to another version of the Newspeak but with similar ideological mystifications. Obligatory rituals of loyalty and condemnations were revived, this time with a different object of worship and a different enemy. ..."
"... The new commissars of the language appeared and were given powerful prerogatives, and just as before, mediocrities assumed their self-proclaimed authority to track down ideological apostasy and condemn the unorthodox - all, of course, for the glory of the new system and the good of the new man. ..."
"... Media - more refined than under communism - performed a similar function: standing at the forefront of the great transformation leading to a better world and spreading the corruption of the language to the entire social organism and all its cells. ..."
"... Trump's victory seems logical as a continuation of a more general process that has been unveiling in the Western World: Hungary, Poland, Brexit, possible political reshufflings in Germany, France, Austria, etc. ..."
"... More and more people say No ..."
"... What seems to be common in the developments in Europe and the US is a growing mistrust towards the political establishment that has been in power for a long time. People have a feeling that in many cases this is the same establishment despite the change of the governments. ..."
"... This establishment is characterized by two things: first, both in the US and in Europe (and in Europe even more so) its representatives unabashedly declare that there is no alternative to their platform, that there is practically one set of ideas - their own - every decent person may subscribe to, and that they themselves are the sole distributors of political respectability; second, the leaders of this establishment are evidently of the mediocre quality, and have been such long enough for the voters to notice. ..."
"... Because the ruling political elites believe themselves to steer the society in the only correct political course it should take, and to be the best quality products of the Western political culture, they try to present the current conflict as a revolt of the unenlightened, confused and manipulated masses against the enlightened elites. ..."
"... The new aristocrats are full of contempt for the riffraff, do not mince words to bully them, use foul language, break the rules of decency - and doing all this does not make them feel any less aristocratic. ..."
"... When eight years ago America elected as their president a completely unknown and inexperienced politician, and not exactly an exemplar of political virtue to boot, this choice was universally acclaimed as the triumph of political enlightenment, and the president was awarded the Nobel Prize in advance, before he could do anything (not that he did anything of value afterwards). The continuation of this politics by Hillary Clinton for another eight years would have elevated this establishment and their ideas to an even stronger position with all deplorable consequences. ..."
"... Many Christians are understandably relieved that the state's ongoing assault on the churches and on religious liberty in the name of sex-and-gender ideology, will probably be halted under the new president. ..."
"... Q: Trump is a politician of the nationalist Right, but he is not a conservative in any philosophical or cultural sense. ..."
"... Had the vote gone only a bit differently in some states, today we would be talking about the political demise of American conservatism. Instead, the Republican Party is going to be stronger in government than it has been in a very long time - but the party has been shaken to its core by Trump's destruction of its establishment. Is it credible to say that Trump destroyed conservatism - or is it more accurate to say that the Republican Party, through its own follies, destroyed conservatism as we have known it, and opened the door for the nationalist Trump? ..."
"... The new generations of the neocons gave up on big ideas while the theocons, old or new, never managed to have a noticeable impact on the Republican mainstream. ..."
"... The Demon in Democracy ..."
"... Today the phrase "more Europe" does not mean "more classical education, more Latin and Greek, more knowledge about classical philosophy and scholasticism", but it means giving more power to the European Commission. No wonder an increasing number of people when they hear about Europe associate it with the EU, and not with Plato, Thomas Aquinas or Johann Sebastian Bach. ..."
"... Considering that in every Western country education has been, for quite a long time, in a deep crisis and that no government has succeeded in overcoming this crisis, a mere idea of bringing back classical education into schools in which young people can hardly read and write in their own native language sounds somewhat surrealist. ..."
"... The results of the elections must have shaken the EU elites, and from that point of view Trump's victory was beneficial for those Europeans like myself who fear the federalization of the European Union and its growing ideological monopoly. There is more to happen in Europe in the coming years so the hope is that the EU hubris will suffer further blows and that the EU itself will become more self-restrained and more responsive to the aspirations of European peoples. ..."
Legutko is a Polish philosopher and politician who was active in the anti-communist resistance.
He is most recently the author of
The Demon In Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations In Free Societies . In this post from September,
I said that reading the book - which is clearly and punchily written - was like
taking a red pill - meaning that it's hard to see our own political culture the same way after
reading Legutko. His provocative thesis is that liberal democracy, as a modern political philosophy,
has a lot more in common with that other great modern political philosophy, communism, than we care
to think. He speaks as a philosopher who grew up under communism, who fought it as a member of Solidarity,
and who took part in the reconstruction of Poland as a liberal democracy. It has been said that the
two famous inhuman dystopias of 20th century English literature - Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's
Brave New World - correspond, respectively, to Soviet communism and mass hedonistic technocracy.
Reading Legutko, you understand the point very well.
In
this post , I quote several passages from The Demon In Democracy . Among them, these
paragraphs in which he explains how Poland cast off the bonds of communism only to find that
liberal democracy imposed similar interdictions on free thought and debate:
Very quickly the world became hidden under a new ideological shell and the people became
hostage to another version of the Newspeak but with similar ideological mystifications. Obligatory
rituals of loyalty and condemnations were revived, this time with a different object of worship
and a different enemy.
The new commissars of the language appeared and were given powerful prerogatives, and just
as before, mediocrities assumed their self-proclaimed authority to track down ideological apostasy
and condemn the unorthodox - all, of course, for the glory of the new system and the good of the
new man.
Media - more refined than under communism - performed a similar function: standing at the
forefront of the great transformation leading to a better world and spreading the corruption of
the language to the entire social organism and all its cells.
And:
If the old communists lived long enough to see the world of today, they would be devastated
by the contrast between how little they themselves had managed to achieve in their antireligious
war and how successful the liberal democrats have been. All the objectives the communists set
for themselves, and which they pursued with savage brutality, were achieved by the liberal democrats
who, almost without any effort and simply by allowing people to drift along with the flow of modernity,
succeeded in converting churches into museums, restaurants, and public buildings, secularizing
entire societies, making secularism the militant ideology, pushing religions to the sidelines,
pressing the clergy into docility, and inspiring powerful mass culture with a strong antireligious
bias in which a priest must be either a liberal challenging the Church of a disgusting villain.
After the US election, Prof. Legutko agreed to answer a few questions from me via e-mail. Here
is our correspondence:
RD:What do you think of Donald Trump's victory, especially in context of Brexit
and the changing currents of Western politics?
RL: In hindsight, Trump's victory seems logical as a continuation of a more general
process that has been unveiling in the Western World: Hungary, Poland, Brexit, possible political
reshufflings in Germany, France, Austria, etc. What this process, having many currents and
facets, boils down to is difficult to say as it appears more negative than positive. More
and more people say No , whereas it is not clear what exactly they are in favor of.
What seems to be common in the developments in Europe and the US is a growing mistrust
towards the political establishment that has been in power for a long time. People have a feeling
that in many cases this is the same establishment despite the change of the governments.
This establishment is characterized by two things: first, both in the US and in Europe
(and in Europe even more so) its representatives unabashedly declare that there is no alternative
to their platform, that there is practically one set of ideas - their own - every decent person
may subscribe to, and that they themselves are the sole distributors of political respectability;
second, the leaders of this establishment are evidently of the mediocre quality, and have been
such long enough for the voters to notice.
Because the ruling political elites believe themselves to steer the society in the only
correct political course it should take, and to be the best quality products of the Western political
culture, they try to present the current conflict as a revolt of the unenlightened, confused and
manipulated masses against the enlightened elites. In Europe it sometimes looks like an attempt
to build a new form of an aristocratic order, since a place in the hierarchy is allotted to individuals
and groups not according to their actual education, or by the power of their minds, or by the
strength of their arguments, but by a membership in this or that class. The new aristocrats
are full of contempt for the riffraff, do not mince words to bully them, use foul language, break
the rules of decency - and doing all this does not make them feel any less aristocratic.
It is, I think, this contrast between, on the one hand, arrogance with which the new aristocrats
preach their orthodoxy, and on the other, a leaping-to-the-eye low quality of their leadership
that ultimately pushed a lot of people in Europe and the US to look for alternatives in the world
that for too long was presented to them as having no alternative.
When eight years ago America elected as their president a completely unknown and inexperienced
politician, and not exactly an exemplar of political virtue to boot, this choice was universally
acclaimed as the triumph of political enlightenment, and the president was awarded the Nobel Prize
in advance, before he could do anything (not that he did anything of value afterwards). The continuation
of this politics by Hillary Clinton for another eight years would have elevated this establishment
and their ideas to an even stronger position with all deplorable consequences.
For an outside observer like myself, America after the election appears to be divided
but in a peculiar way. On the one side there is the Obama-Clinton America claiming to represent
what is best in the modern politics, more or less united by a clear left-wing agenda whose aim
is to continue the restructuring of the American society, family, schools, communities, morals.
This America is in tune with what is considered to be a general tendency of the modern world,
including Europe and non-European Western countries. But there seems to exist another America,
deeply dissatisfied with the first one, angry and determined, but at the same time confused and
chaotic, longing for action and energy, but unsure of itself, proud of their country's lost greatness,
but having no great leaders, full of hope but short of ideas, a strange mixture of groups and
ideologies, with no clear identity or political agenda. This other America, if personified, would
resemble somebody not very different from Donald Trump.
Q: Trump won 52 percent of the Catholic vote, and over 80 percent of the white Evangelical
Christian vote - this, despite the fact that he is in no way a serious Christian, and, on evidence
of his words and deeds, is barely a Christian at all. Many Christians are understandably
relieved that the state's ongoing assault on the churches and on religious liberty in the name
of sex-and-gender ideology, will probably be halted under the new president. From your
perspective, should US Christians be hopeful about their prospects under a Trump presidency, or
instead wary of being tempted by a false prophet?
A: Christians have been the largest persecuted religious group in the non-Western world, but
sadly they have also been the largest victimized religious group in those Western countries that
have contracted a disease of political correctness (which in practice means almost all of them).
Some Western Christians, including the clergy, abandoned any thought of resistance and not only
capitulated but joined the forces of the enemy and started disciplining their own flock. No wonder
that many Christians pray for better times hoping that at last there will appear a party or a
leader that could loosen the straitjacket of political correctness and blunt its anti-Christian
edge. It was then to be expected that having a choice between Trump and Clinton, they would turn
to the former. But is Trump such a leader?
Anti-Christian prejudices have taken an institutional and legal form of such magnitude that
no president, no matter how much committed to the cause, can change it quickly. Today in America
it is difficult even to articulate one's opposition to political correctness because the public
and private discourse has been profoundly corrupted by the left-wing ideology, and the American
people have weaned themselves from any alternative language (and so have the Europeans). Any movement
away from this discourse requires more awareness of the problem and more courage than Trump and
his people seem to have. What Trump could and should do, and it will be a test of his intentions,
are three things.
First, he should refrain from involving his administration in the anti-Christian actions, whether
direct or indirect, thus breaking off with the practice of his predecessor. Second, he should
nominate the right persons for the vacancies in the Supreme Court. Third, he should resist the
temptation to cajole the politically correct establishment, as some Republicans have been doing,
because not only will it be a bad signal, but also display naοvete: this establishment is never
satisfied with anything but an unconditional surrender of its opponents.
Whether these decisions will be sufficient for American Christians to launch a counteroffensive
and to reclaim the lost areas, I do not know. A lot will depend on what the Christians will do
and how outspoken they will be in making their case public.
Q: Trump is a politician of the nationalist Right, but he is not a conservative in any
philosophical or cultural sense.Had the vote gone only a bit differently in some states,
today we would be talking about the political demise of American conservatism. Instead, the Republican
Party is going to be stronger in government than it has been in a very long time - but the party
has been shaken to its core by Trump's destruction of its establishment. Is it credible to say
that Trump destroyed conservatism - or is it more accurate to say that the Republican Party, through
its own follies, destroyed conservatism as we have known it, and opened the door for the nationalist
Trump?
A: Conservatism has always been problematic in America, where the word itself has acquired
more meanings, some of them quite bizarre, than in Europe. A quite common habit, to give an example,
of mentioning libertarianism and conservatism in one breath, thereby suggesting that they are
somehow essentially related, is proof enough that a conservative agenda is difficult for the Americans
to swallow. If I am not mistaken, the Republican Party has long relinquished, with very few exceptions,
any closer link with conservatism. If conservatism, whatever the precise definition, has something
to do with a continuity of culture, Christian and Classical roots of this culture, classical metaphysics
and anthropology, beauty and virtue, a sense of decorum, liberal education, family, republican
paideia, and other related notions, these are not the elements that constitute an integral part
of an ideal type of an Republican identity in today's America. Whether it has been different before,
I am not competent to judge, but certainly there was a time when the intellectual institutions
somehow linked to the Republican Party debated these issues. The new generations of the neocons
gave up on big ideas while the theocons, old or new, never managed to have a noticeable impact
on the Republican mainstream.
Given that there is this essential philosophical weakness within the modern Republican identity,
Donald Trump does not look like an obvious person to change it by inspiring a resurgence of conservative
thinking. I do not exclude however, unlikely as it seems today, that the new administration will
need solely for instrumental reasons some big ideas to mobilize its electorate and to give
them a sense of direction, and that a possible candidate to perform this function will be some
kind of conservatism. Liberalism, libertarianism and saying 'no' to everything will certainly
not serve the purpose. Nationalism looks good and played its role during two or three months of
the campaign, but might be insufficient for the four (eight?) years that will follow.
Q: Though the Republicans will soon have their hands firmly on the levers of political power,
cultural institutions - especially academia and the news and entertainment media - are still thoroughly
progressive. In The Demon in Democracy , you write that "it is hard to imagine freedom
without classical philosophy and the heritage of antiquity, without Christianity and scholasticism
[and] many other components of the entire Western civilization." How can we hope to return to
the roots of Western civilization when the culture-forming institutions are so hostile to it?
A: It is true that we live at a time of practically one orthodoxy which the majority of intellectuals
and artists piously accept, and this orthodoxy - being some kind of liberal progressivism - has
less and less connection with the foundations of Western civilization. This is perhaps more visible
in Europe than in the US. In Europe, the very term "Europe" has been consistently applied to the
European Union. Today the phrase "more Europe" does not mean "more classical education, more
Latin and Greek, more knowledge about classical philosophy and scholasticism", but it means giving
more power to the European Commission. No wonder an increasing number of people when they hear
about Europe associate it with the EU, and not with Plato, Thomas Aquinas or Johann Sebastian
Bach.
It seems thus obvious that those who want to strengthen or, as is more often the case, reintroduce
classical culture in the modern world will not find allies among the liberal elites. For a liberal
it is natural to distance himself from the classical philosophy, from Christianity and scholasticism
rather than to advocate their indispensability for the cultivation of the Western mind. After
all, these philosophies they would say - were created in a pre-modern non-democratic and non-liberal
world by men who despised women, kept slaves and took seriously religious superstitions. But it
is not only the liberal prejudices that are in the way. A break-up with the classical tradition
is not a recent phenomenon, and we have been for too long exposed to the world from which this
tradition was absent.
There is little chance that a change may be implemented through a democratic process. Considering
that in every Western country education has been, for quite a long time, in a deep crisis and
that no government has succeeded in overcoming this crisis, a mere idea of bringing back classical
education into schools in which young people can hardly read and write in their own native language
sounds somewhat surrealist. A rule that bad education drives out good education seems to
prevail in democratic societies. And yet I cannot accept the conclusion that we are doomed to
live in societies in which neo-barbarism is becoming a norm.
How can we reverse this process then? In countries where education is primarily the responsibility
of the state, it is the governments that may - hypothetically at least - have some role to play
by using the economic and political instruments to stimulate the desired changes in education.
In the US I suspect - the government's role is substantially more reduced. So far however the
European governments, including the conservative ones, have not made much progress in reversing
the destructive trend.
The problem is a more fundamental one because it touches upon the controversy about what constitutes
the Western civilization. The liberal progressives have managed to impose on our minds a notion
that Christianity, classical metaphysics, etc., are no longer what defines our Western identity.
A lot of conservatives intellectuals and politicians have readily acquiesced to this notion.
Unless and until this changes and our position of what constitutes the West becomes an integral
part of the conservative agenda and a subject of public debate, there is not much hope things
can change. The election of Donald Trump has obviously as little to do with Scholasticism or Greek
philosophy as it has with quantum mechanics, but nevertheless it may provide an occasion to reopen
an old question about what makes the American identity and to reject a silly but popular answer
that this identity is procedural rather than substantive. And this might be a first step to talk
about the importance of the roots of the Western civilization.
You have written that "liberalism is more about struggle with non-liberal adversaries than
deliberation with them." Now even some on the left admit that its embrace of political correctness,
multiculturalism, and so-called "diversity," is partly responsible for Trump's victory. How do
Brexit and Trump change the terms of the political conversation, especially now that it has been
shown that there is no such thing as "the right side of history"?
Liberalism, despite its boastful declarations to the contrary, is not and has never been about
diversity, multiplicity or pluralism. It is about homogeneity and unanimity. [Neo]Liberalism wants
everyone and everything to be [neo]liberal, and does not tolerate anyone or anything that is not
liberal. This is the reason why the [neo]liberals have such a strong sense of the enemy. Whoever
disagrees with them is not just an opponent who may hold different views but a potential or actual
fascist, a Hitlerite, a xenophobe, a nationalist, or as they often say in the EU a populist.
Such a miserable person deserves to be condemned, derided, humiliated and abused.
The Brexit vote could have been looked at as an exercise in diversity and, as such, dear to
every pluralist, or empirical evidence that the EU in its present form failed to accommodate diversity.
But the reaction of the European elites was different and predictable threats and condemnations.
Before Brexit the EU reacted in a similar way to the non-[neo][neo]liberals winning elections
in Hungary and then in Poland, the winners being immediately classified as fascists and the elections
as not quite legitimate. The [neo]liberal mindset is such that accepts only those elections and
choices in which the correct party wins.
I am afraid there will be a similar reaction to Donald Trump and his administration. As long
as the [neo]liberals set the tone of the public debate, they will continue to bully both those
who, they say, were wrongly elected and those who wrongly voted. This will not stop until it becomes
clear beyond any doubt that the changes in Europe and in the US are not temporary and ephemeral
and that there is a viable alternative which will not disappear with the next swing of the democratic
pendulum. But this alternative, as I said before, is still in the process of formation and we
are not sure what will be the final result.
There will be elections in several key European nations next year - Germany and France, in
particular. What effect do you expect Trump's victory to have on European voters? How do you,
as a Pole, view Trump's fondness for Vladimir Putin?
From a European perspective, Clinton's victory would have meant a tremendous boost to the EU
bureaucracy, its ideology and its "more Europe" strategy. The forces of the self-proclaimed Enlightenment
would have gone ecstatic and, consequently, would have made the world even more unbearable not
only for conservatives. The results of the elections must have shaken the EU elites, and from
that point of view Trump's victory was beneficial for those Europeans like myself who fear the
federalization of the European Union and its growing ideological monopoly. There is more to happen
in Europe in the coming years so the hope is that the EU hubris will suffer further blows and
that the EU itself will become more self-restrained and more responsive to the aspirations of
European peoples.
"The fact that he made some warm remarks about Putin during the campaign does not make me happy."
You would think an advocate against the Western liberal establishment would view Putin favorably,
as Pat Buchanan does. I guess old nationalist rivalries trump sticking it to the snooty elitists
in this case.
[NFR: Are you serious? Legutko's country was occupied and tyrannized by the Soviets for
nearly 50 years. Poland has had to worry about Russian imperialism for much longer than that,
as a matter of national survival. Any Pole that doesn't worry about Putin's ambitions is nuts.
- RD]
"it may provide an occasion to reopen an old question about what makes the American identity and
to reject a silly but popular answer that this identity is procedural rather than substantive"
That's a good assessment, from an outside observer.
However, his anti-Russian views appear to be driven by his own Polish nationalism and past
Warsaw Pact Soviet imperialism, the latter ideologically and practically as dead as Josef Stalin,
and objectivity thus distorted, are much less clear. Imagine, welcoming a foreign imperial occupation
one tied to the very liberal order he critiques so effectively.
I think that anti-interventionists, cheered by those Trump campaign statements questioning
the NATO mission post-communism, and defense cost bearing so that clients become real allies instead,
or not, are far more objectively considerate of Americans' interests through a drawdown from aggressive
globalist/militarist hegemony, than his understandable but very subjective Polish parochial prejudices.
re education: Andrew Pudewa for Secretary of Education! (Seriously, he said on FB he has some
idea what he'd do if he could get that post.)
re Russia: Hillary's rhetoric must not have translated very well over there At any rate, if
the Poles are so scared of Russian attack, they can train their own sons to defend them. Or maybe
they should just learn to get along with their neighbors.
"The liberal progressives have managed to impose on our minds a notion that Christianity, classical
metaphysics, etc., are no longer what defines our Western identity."
I'm sorry, but this is a lunatic idea. Too bad it is the lynchpin of all "new right" thought.
You want to return to some imaginary West in which nothing happened in intellectual life after
about 1650.
It would take a book to properly refute Legutko and I am not inclined to do the work of writing
one but to put it simply, he has no knowledge of how Americans think. Americans are, at heart,
pragmatists. We don't care about ideology and most of the time we don't bother much with religion
either except to give polite lip service to it. It has no claim on the American soul.
Americans are at heart easy going people who have no use for either the loons of Liberalism
or Conservatism. Right now it is the Liberals, with their particular brand of silliness that are
out of favor. A few years ago it was Conservatives that no one wanted for next door neighbors.
The things Legutko writes of Americans could not care less about.
The American embrace of Putin is simply the result of American disgust with Europe, a continent
populated by a peculiar species of coward and ungrateful wretch, a museum that produces nothing
of any value any more and is governed by self-righteous morons who have nothing better to do with
their time than to lecture the infinitely more intelligent Americans. The American attitude towards
Europe is, "To Hell with it." In such an environment, of course we are willing to let Putin have
the damned place and the Devil give him good office. Trump, with his expressed contempt for the
opinions of foreign leaders, especially the Europeans, fits this perfectly.
I think an acceptable deal could be reached with Russia.
You have to think about it from their perspective: They have lost all power and influence not
only in the territories that Stalin seized, but also in many that were in the traditional sphere
of the Russian Empire. They view extension of Western influence and NATO into these territories
as an act of aggression and American aggrandizement. The loss of Ukraine is the cruelest cut of
all, because Kiev is the cradle of Russian Orthodox civilization.
Russian nationalists loathe Gorbachev, in part because he could easily have negotiated a deal
enforcing neutrality in formally Soviet-dominated territories as Soviet troops were withdrawn.
Instead, from their point of view, he gave it all away for nothing and left the Motherland open
to encirclement.
There is plainly space for a deal that would include security guarantees for Russia's neighbors
but also mandatory neutrality. Russia would take that deal. So far at least, we wouldn't, because
US policymakers want encirclement and domination in the region.
Let's see if Trump rethinks this. Russia is very imperfect, but we face much bigger and more
important threats. We'd be better off forging an alliance with Russia if we can.
Mr. Legutko is a member of PiS, the party which currently rules Poland. Immediately after coming
to power they turned all public TV Stations into Government mouthpieces, and practically shut
down the supreme court.
Communism is not a "political philosophy"; it's an economic theory. If they guy actually called
it a political theory (he may not have; those may be Rod's words, written in haste) then he's
no more worth listening to than a astronomer who asserts that the sun and planet revolve around
the Earth.
"this establishment is never satisfied with anything but an unconditional surrender of its opponents."
The Right should have learned this lesson with the Regan Amnesty. "A Deal is never a Deal"
with the left. For the Left, any comprise is just an opportunity to move sidelines yard markers.
Rod, do yourself a huge favor and if you don't have it already, pick up a copy of C. Lasch's
posthumous book The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. For some reason
I'd missed this one along the way, but I bought a copy recently and started it over the weekend.
He wrote it in the early 90's, but it's so on-target you'd think it was written yesterday. The
introduction alone is worth the price of the book - obviously he did not have Trump, or even a
Trump-like character in mind, but his observations on conservatism, liberalism, populism, etc.,
are head-shakingly accurate. Not to be missed.
"he explains how Poland cast off the bonds of communism only to find that liberal democracy imposed
similar interdictions on free thought and debate."
I am sorry, but I have travelled throughout Eastern Europe before and after the fall of communism.
Anyone who tells me that liberal democracy there (where it exists) imposes "similar interdictions
on free thought and debate" is just not to be taken seriously.
This is an article I would have posted on Facebook if the tag line were not so inflammatory that
it would go unread and in fact do more harm than good.
This makes perfect sense . . . or it's utter nonsense. The problem is Donald Trump is a wild card.
No one knows exactly how Trump will play or be played. If Trump accepts the role of Head of State,
leaving the details of governing to others (Pense, Ryan, McConnell, whomever) there might be some
consistency. A conservative agenda (as Americans have come to know it) will be possible.
But if the Donald Trump who has displayed zero substantive knowledge about anything decides
to actually govern (or worse yet, sporadically and whimsically govern) then in the immortal words
of Bette Davis: "Fasten your seat belts! It's going to be a bumpy night."
Legutko is going to be disappointed but, I suspect, not surprised when Trump simply throws open
the door. And then asks Putin if he can get the base construction contracts.
I'm reminded of the lyrics in a song by The Who: "Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss." The
song title is "We won't get fooled again." Good luck with that.
Maybe there is just something in the nature of humans which compels us to want to impose our
biases, beliefs, and visions of society and the future upon those around us. Maybe it just boils
down to eventual fatigue from constantly arguing with people who will never end up agreeing to
your point of view: the simple solution has always been to make your opponents shut up. Failing
that, we resort to locking them up, or driving them out, or ultimately killing them.
With regard to this quote:
"Whether these decisions will be sufficient for American Christians to launch a counteroffensive
and to reclaim the lost areas, I do not know. A lot will depend on what the Christians will do
and how outspoken they will be in making their case public."
I'm not sure how to take this. Is he merely hoping to carve out some space for Christians to
co-exist with a larger secular majority. Or does he still harbor hope of restoring Christianity
as a central element of Western Culture, against the resistance of the secularists? If the latter
is his dream, I would point out that using institutional and political power to re-impose Christianity
upon the masses is no different that what the Left is doing now impose its preferred set of beliefs.
He would just be looking for a new Boss, if you will.
With regard to the European Project: It is worth remembering that European Nationalism resulted
many centuries of warfare between contending powers on the continent. It culminated in two world
wars, the second of which left most of that area of the world in ruins. The original motivation
for the European Union was to end that cycle of warfare, by more tightly linking together the
economies of these nations.
Now we see a resurgence of Russian Nationalism, with that country seeking to expand its sphere
of influence again, and gleefully egging on the Nationalists in Western Europe, with the hope
of finishing off the NATO military alliance. As emotionally satisfying as it might be to stop
the drive toward further unification and uniformity, a return to something worse is clearly possible.
Now Legutko clearly believes that the European Union and NATO were failing at the task of restraining
Russian imperialism anyway. From a Eastern European perspective, that is probably true. But if
you look around the conservative blogosphere, it isn't hard to find self described conservatives
who see that as a pragmatic necessity. They say it was a mistake to expand NATO, that those countries
were always naturally in the Russian sphere of influence, and coping with that reality it their
problem, and not our problem. The irony is that the more nationalistic and less global we become
in our perspective, the less likely we are to help protect Legutko's homeland from its larger,
aggressive neighbor to the East.
This guy derides the neocons, but on Russia, he is as bad or worse than them. How is Russia an
imperial nation when they have stood by and let NATO expand to their doorstep when the US promised
it would go no further east than Berlin? How is it imperialist that they secured their military
foothold in Crimea (killing no one I might add) against a US backed, fascist coup against the
democratically elected government of Ukraine?
[NFR: I think you should consider
the history of Poland
in the 19th and 20th centuries - especially from 1945 through 1989 - if you want to understand
why Poles worry about Russian imperialism. - RD]
I loathe the election of Trump and what it will do here (so much so, that our family will likely
move to Switzerland, where my wife is from and in which my 3 daughters all have citizenship),
but one of the quite reasonable things that Trump has said is that "If we got along with Russia,
it wouldn't be a bad thing."
I don't think that means letting Putin do whatever he wants, and I have zero or sub-zero faith
that Trump will implement anything like a sensible approach to whatever Putin does, but trying
to get along with Russia is not crazy.
At any rate, if the Poles are so scared of Russian attack, they can train their own sons to
defend them. Or maybe they should just learn to get along with their neighbors.
These beastly Poles. Always provoking their Russian and German neighbors.
Legato embraces his own set of traumatic, reactionary 'isms' which, like most 'isms', are covered
with a patina of light philosophy to make them seem like the wisdom of the ages. I'm not sure
he's entirely comfortable with the outcomes of the Enlightenment
[NFR: Of course he's not! Neither am I. Where you been? - RD]
"... In a sense Neoliberalism/Neoconservatism (neoconservatives are neoliberals with a gun) is recklessly revolutionary in old Marx's sense - it destroys the existing bonds that hold the society together. ..."
"the Left (or what passes for it in the US) is as much to blame as the Right
in that they haven't offered real substantive alternatives to the NeoLib/NeoCon
orthodoxy that seems to dominate US policymaking."
That's a very apt observation, especially in the part "the Left (or what
passes for it in the US) is as much to blame as the Right ".
The key question here" "Is neoliberalism a flavor of conservatism or not?".
Or it is some perversion of the left? I doubt that "Neolib/Neocon orthodoxy"
that is really completely dominant in the USA can be viewed as a flavor of
conservatism. IMHO it's actually more resembles Trotskyism with its idea of
"world revolution" and classic Marxist slogan "Working Men of All Countries,
Unite!"
The first slogan was replaced with "Permanent neoliberal revolution" and
"New American Militarism" that we saw in action in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Georgia,
Ukraine. They are eager to bring the neoliberal revolution into other countries
on the tips of bayonets.
The second was replaced by the slogan "Transnational corporate and financial
elites unite". Instead of Congresses of "Communist International" we have
similar congresses of financial oligarchy and neoliberal politicians like in
Davos.
In a sense Neoliberalism/Neoconservatism (neoconservatives are neoliberals
with a gun) is recklessly revolutionary in old Marx's sense - it destroys the
existing bonds that hold the society together.
Still in other sense it resembles " the ancien regime", especially in the
USA :
The opening chapters of Maistre's Considerations on France
are an unrelenting assault on the three pillars of the ancien regime:
the aristocracy, the church, and the monarchy. Maistre divides the
nobility into two categories: the treasonous and the clueless. The
clergy is corrupt, weakened by its wealth and lax morals. The monarchy is soft and lacks the will to punish. Maistre dismisses all three
with a line from Racine: "Now see the sad fruits your faults pro-duced, / Feel the blows you have yourselves induced."5
If we equate "ancien regime" with the neoliberalism, the quote suddenly
obtains quite modern significance. It does have a punch. Now we see Trump
supporters attacking neoliberalism with the same intensity. And we can
definitely divide the USA financial oligarchy into "the treasonous" and "the
clueless." While neoliberal MSM are as corrupt as "ancien regime" clergy, if
not more.
Like in the past there is a part of the USA conservatives that bitterly
oppose neoliberalism (paleoconservatives).
The key problem here is that as there is no real left (in European sense) in
the USA, the challenge to neoliberalism arose from the right. Trump with all
his warts is definitely anti-globalization candidate. That's why we see such a
hysteria in neoliberal MSM about his candidacy.
Neoconservatism
The Autobiography of an Idea
By Irving Kristol
Irving Kristol has been a formidable presence in American intellectual life for over forty
years. After an early stint as an editor at Commentary, he helped to start three other influential
magazines -- Encounter, in 1953; The Public Interest, in 1965; and The National Interest, in 1985.
A Trotskyist in his student days, Kristol has moved in stages to the right, first becoming
a liberal anticommunist, then a conservative antiliberal. At one point in this evolution, in the
early 1970s, he embraced the label "neoconservative," which the socialist Michael Harrington had
introduced as a pejorative. Since then he has happily made himself so entirely synonymous with
neoconservatism that he now offers his latest collection of essays as its, not his, "autobiography."
But a label is not necessarily evidence of a coherent philosophy, or of a living one. As Kristol
himself acknowledges, neoconservatism has been swallowed by the larger conservative movement--[neoliberalism movement and ideology --NNB].
And his own views have evolved far beyond what he and others originally conceived as neoconservatism.
Several of his early collaborators at The Public Interest, notably Daniel Bell and Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, have long since parted ways. And well they might, considering the tone and substance
of Kristol's writing in recent years.
When neoconservatism first took shape in the late 1960s and '70s, it seemed to be different
from the older varieties of the American right. The Public Interest, and Kristol himself, accepted
the New Deal, but rejected the political and cultural currents of the '60s.
Yet even with
respect to the policies of that era, their stance was meliorism, not repudiation. They presented
themselves as defending the achievements of a capitalist civilization, often positively described
as liberal and secular, from the assaults of a radicalized liberalism. Nearly all were from New
York, most were Jewish, and they carried with them a sensibility that was urban and modern, even
when arguing on behalf of moral and cultural standards that were traditional or, to use Kristol's
preferred term, "bourgeois."
People who know neoconservatism only from that era might therefore be surprised to read
Kristol's recent fulminations against "secular humanism" and his praise of Christian fundamentalism.
Remembering the calm civility of his earlier essays, they might especially fasten on the following
passage from an article, written in 1993, with which Kristol concludes his new book: "So far from
having ended, my cold war has increased in intensity, as sector after sector of American life
has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos.... Now that the other 'Cold War' is over,
the real cold war has begun." ...
The Myth of the Powell Memo
A secret note from a future Supreme Court justice did not give rise to today's conservative infrastructure.
Something more insidious did.
By Mark Schmitt
At one end of a block of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., sometimes known as "Think
Tank Row"-the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution are neighbors-a
monument to intellectual victory has been under reconstruction for a year. It will soon be the
home of the American Enterprise Institute, a 60,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts masterpiece where Andrew
Mellon lived when he was treasury secretary during the 1920s. AEI purchased the building with
a $20 million donation from one of the founders of the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm.
Right Moves
The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture Since 1945
By Jason Stahl
In the story of the rise of the political right in America since the late 1970s, think tanks,
and sometimes the glorious edifices in which they are housed, have played an iconic role. The
Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the libertarian Cato Institute, along
with their dozens of smaller but well-funded cousins, have seemed central to the "war of ideas"
that drove American policy in the 1980s, in the backlash of 1994, in the George W. Bush era, and
again after 2010.
For the center left, these institutions have become role models. While Brookings or the Urban
Institute once eschewed ideology in favor of mild policy analysis or dispassionate technical assessment
of social programs, AEI and Heritage seemed to build virtual war rooms for conservative ideas,
investing more in public relations than in scholarship or credibility, and nurturing young talent
(or, more often, the glib but not-very-talented). Their strategy seemed savvier. Conservative
think tanks nurtured supply-side economics, neoconservative foreign policy, and the entire agenda
of the Reagan administration, which took the form of a twenty-volume tome produced by Heritage
in 1980 called Mandate for Leadership.
In the last decade or so, much of the intellectual architecture of the conservative think tanks
has been credited to a single document known as the Powell Memo. This 1971 note from future Supreme
Court Justice Lewis Powell to a Virginia neighbor who worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged
business to do more to respond to the rising "New Left," countering forces such as Ralph Nader's
nascent consumer movement in the courts, in media, and in academia....
DeDude -> anne... , -1
The part where the neo-con-men get the scientific process wrong is where they begin with the conclusion,
before they even collect any facts. And then they whine that Universities are full of Liberals.
No they are full of scientists - and they are supposed to be.
What I do not get is how one can call himself/herself a democrat and be jingoistic monster.
That's the problem with Democratic Party and its supporters. Such people for me are DINO ("Democrats
only in name"). Closet neocons, if you wish. The level of militarism in the current US society
and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of
draft) and are limited for libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives. There is almost
completely empty space on the left. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few exceptions
(see
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/must-read-of-the-day-dennis-kucinich-issues-extraordinary-warning-on-d-c-s-think-tank-warmongers/
)
I think that people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney can now proudly join
Democratic Party and feel themselves quite at home.
BTW Hillary is actually very pleasant with people of the same level. It's only subordinates,
close relatives and Security Service agents, who are on the receiving end of her wrath. A typical
"kiss up, kick down personality".
The right word probably would not "nasty", but "duplicitous".
Or "treacherous" as this involves breaking of previous agreements (with a smile) as the USA
diplomacy essentially involves positioning the country above the international law. As in "I am
the law".
Obama is not that different. I think he even more sleazy then Hillary and as such is more difficult
to deal with. He also is at his prime, while she is definitely past hers:
== quote ==
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current
U.S. administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people
chose, and to discuss any problem.
== end of quote ==
Syria is an "Obama-approved" adventure, is not it ? The same is true for Libya. So formally
he is no less jingoistic then Hillary, Nobel Peace price notwithstanding.
Other things equal, it might be easier for Putin to deal with Hillary then Obama, as she
has so many skeletons in the closet and might soon be impeached by House.
Paul Krugman's recent posts have been most peculiar. Several have looked uncomfortably like special
pleading for political figures he likes, notably Hillary Clinton. He has, in my judgement, stooped
rather far down in attacking people well below him in the public relations food chain
Perhaps the most egregious and clearest cut case is his refusal to address the substance of a
completely legitimate, well-documented article by David Dayen outing Krugman, and to a lesser degree,
his fellow traveler Mike Konczal, in abjectly misrepresenting Sanders' financial reform proposals
The Krugman that was early to stand up to the Iraq War, who was incisive before and during the
crisis has been very much in absence since Obama took office. It's hard to understand the loss of
intellectual independence. That may not make Krugman any worse than other Democratic party apparatchiks,
but he continues to believe he is other than that, and the lashing out at Dayen looks like a wounded
denial of his current role. Krugman and Konczal need to be seen as what they are: part of the Vichy
Left brand cover for the Democratic party messaging apparatus. Krugman, sadly, has chosen to diminish
himself for a not very worthy cause.
"... That the economic system is being cannibalized to generate the outsized economic claims on income for capital and their minions among the executive classes is worrying, as is the stagnation and the slow reaction to climate change and other similar issues. The 10% don't seem to be entirely ready to accept the parasitism in every detail. If you poison Flint's water or Well Fargo charges for fake accounts, there's some kind of reaction from at least some of the managerial / professional classes. We have Elizabeth Warren and she can be amazingly effective even if she seems like a lonely figure. ..."
"... But, mostly the parasitism of the financial sector affects the bottom 50%; the 10% get cash back on their credit cards. ..."
"... I personally know a guy who is an expert on the liver and therefore on the hazards posed by Tylenol (acetaminophen or paracetamol); it is quite revealing to hear about how he's attacked by interested corporations. ..."
"... The inverted totalitarianism that Bruce and Rich are referencing here is only apparently a successful marriage of the impulse to control complex processes and the technologies which promise the possibility of that control. ..."
"... Never mind how powerful their tools, managers who want to avoid catastrophic delusions will have to learn a little humility. My advice to them: feed that to your big data and your AI, right along with your fiat money, your global capital flows, and your commodified and devalued labor force. and see where you wind up. Where you're headed now is a dead end. ..."
"... it is not left neoliberalism versus right neoliberalism, but left neoliberalism versus something that is: a: worse b: a predictable consequence of neoliberalism. A being true makes B no less true, and vice versa. ..."
"... Trump is a dispicable human being but he has touched those who are desperate for a change. Unfortunately for them, Trump could never be the change they need whilst Clinton is just more of the same sh*t as we've had for the last 40 years or more. Bernie was the best hope for change but the establishment made sure he could not win by the manipulation of the "super delegate vote"! ..."
But, isn't "boring" an argument too? A third way to
dissolve all the noisier contention, make it meaningless and then complain of
its meaninglessness?
I haven't quite recovered from merian challenging your argument from pattern
and precedent as decontextualized and ahistorical or then announcing that she
was not a supporter of Clinton after having previously justified her own
unqualified (though time-limited) support for Clinton.
I see the rhetorical power of Luttwak's "perfect non-sequitur", which Adam
Curtis explains as a basis for the propaganda of the inverted totalitarian
state in some detail. I've long argued that the dominating power of
neoliberalism - not just as the ideology of the managerial classes, but as the
one ideology to rule them all at the end of history - has to do with the way
(left) neoliberals argue almost exclusively with conservative libertarians
(right neoliberals). It is in that narrow, bounded dynamic of one completely
synthetic and artificial thesis with another closely related and also
completely synthetic and artificial antithesis that we got stuck in the
Groundhog Day, where history tails off after a few weeks and evidence consists
of counterfactuals projected a few weeks into the future.
It is not a highly contested election. It just looks like one and sounds
like one, but the noise (and it is all noise in the end) is drowning out
anyone's ability to figure out what is going on. And, really, nothing is going
on - or rather, nothing about which voters have a realistic choice to make.
That's the problem. (Left) neoliberalism was born* in the decision to abandon
the actual representation of a common interest (and most especially a working
class interest). Instead, it is all about combining an atomizing politics of
personal identity with Ezra Klein's wonkiness, where statistics are used to
filter out more information than revealed and esoteric jargon obscures the
rest. Paul Krugman, Reagan Administration veteran and Enron advisor, becomes
the authoritative voice of the moderate centre-Left.
*That's why the now ancient Charles Peters' Neoliberal Manifesto matters -
not because Peters was or is important, but because it was such a clear and
timely statement of the managerial / professional class Left abandoning
advocacy for the poor or labor interests against the interests of capital,
corporations and the wealthy. The basic antagonism of interests in politics was
to be abandoned and what was gained was financial support from capital and
business corporations. The Liberal Class, the institutional foundations of
which were eroding rapidly in the 1980s, with the decline of social
affiliation, mainline Protestant religions, public universities, organized
labor could no longer be relied upon to fund the chattering classes so the
chattering classes represented by Peters found a new gig and rationalized it,
and that is the (left) neoliberalism we know today as Vox speak.
The 10% gets free a completely artificial (because not rooted in class
interests or any interests) ideology bought and paid for by the 1/10th of 1%
and the executive class) ideology, but it gets it free and as long as the
system continues to lumber along, employing them (which makes them the 10%)
they remain complacent. They don't understand their world, but their world
seems to work anyway, so why worry? Any apparently alarming development can be
normalized by confusion and made boring.
More than 20 years after Luttwak / McMurtry, I would think inability of the
10% to understand how the world works might be the most worrying thing of all.
The 10% are the people who make the world work in a technical sense - that is
the responsibility of the professionals and professional managers, after all.
That the economic system is being cannibalized to generate the outsized
economic claims on income for capital and their minions among the executive
classes is worrying, as is the stagnation and the slow reaction to climate
change and other similar issues. The 10% don't seem to be entirely ready to
accept the parasitism in every detail. If you poison Flint's water or Well
Fargo charges for fake accounts, there's some kind of reaction from at least
some of the managerial / professional classes. We have Elizabeth Warren and she
can be amazingly effective even if she seems like a lonely figure.
But, mostly
the parasitism of the financial sector affects the bottom 50%; the 10% get cash
back on their credit cards.
I read with fascination articles about the travails
of that Virginia Tech guy who persisted in the Flint Water case; again, a
lonely figure.
I personally know a guy who is an expert on the liver and
therefore on the hazards posed by Tylenol (acetaminophen or paracetamol); it is
quite revealing to hear about how he's attacked by interested corporations.
And yet . In the more or less cobwebbed corners of the Internet, like CT, we
are in fact having this conversation, and others much like it - even when, as
inevitably happens, it leaves us vulnerable to accusations of leftist onanism
by self-appointed realists of the status quo. They may not be easy to ignore,
but knowing that their opinions can't possibly be as securely held as they
claim, and are in fact more vulnerable to events than they're capable of
imagining, we shouldn't feel obliged to pay their denunciations any more
attention than they deserve.
The inverted totalitarianism that Bruce and Rich
are referencing here is only apparently a successful marriage of the impulse to
control complex processes and the technologies which promise the possibility of
that control.
If we really want to foster a future in which institutions are
stable again, and can successfully design and implement effective protections
for the general welfare, we're going to have to get a lot more comfortable with
chaos, unintended consequences, the residual perversity, in short, of
large-scale human interactions.
Never mind how powerful their tools, managers
who want to avoid catastrophic delusions will have to learn a little humility.
My advice to them: feed
that
to your big data and your AI, right along
with your fiat money, your global capital flows, and your commodified and
devalued labor force. and see where you wind up. Where you're headed now is a
dead end.
> It is not a highly contested election. It just looks like one and sounds like
one, but the noise (and it is all noise in the end) is drowning out anyone's
ability to figure out what is going on.
Pretty sure it is. Precisely because
it is not left neoliberalism versus
right neoliberalism, but left neoliberalism versus something that is:
a: worse
b: a predictable consequence of neoliberalism.
A being true makes B no less true, and vice versa.
The 50-55 year old male, white, college-educated former exemplar of the
American Dream, still perhaps living in his lavishly-equipped suburban
house, with two or three cars in the driveway, one or two children in
$20,000 per annum higher education (tuition, board and lodging all extras
are extra) and an ex-job 're-engineered' out of existence, who now exists on
savings, second and third mortgages and scant earnings as a self-described
'consultant', has become a familiar figure in the contemporary United
States.
It isn't liberal or conservative. It lives in a [neoliberal] fantasy
land where your station in life is merit based. If you are poor, it's a
personal failing. Rich, you earned every penny.
They incorrectly believe the American Dream is something more than a
fairytale rich people tell themselves to justify the misery they inflict
on the poor.
It's pro technocrat; "we have a perfect solution if it would just get
implemented . It won't rock the apple cart and will have minimum benefits
but it makes us look like we care."
boo321
, 14 Oct 2016 07:53
Neoliberalism has failed the poor, disadvantaged and disabled. Making
these people pay for the mistakes, corruption of our banks and major
institutions is indicative of the greedy rich and elite who don't give a
toss for their suffering.
Trump is a dispicable human being but he has touched those who are
desperate for a change. Unfortunately for them, Trump could never be the
change they need whilst Clinton is just more of the same sh*t as we've
had for the last 40 years or more. Bernie was the best hope for
change but the establishment made sure he could not win by the
manipulation of the "super delegate vote"!
Olens defended Georgia's gay marriage ban and sued the federal government over the transgender
bathroom directive. That's why students organized Monday afternoon's protest and drafted a petition
that has more than 5,000 signatures.
In the petition, students ask the Georgia Board of Regents to not appoint Olens as KSU's next
president.One student, who wouldn't give 11Alive his name, said he's disappointed.
"The support groups would probably be disbanded and not to mention the scholarships that are
offered for people active in LGBT rights," he said
After the rally ended, he stayed around to continue the protest.
"I feel it's my duty. I'm a student here and I have to make sure the school is safe for me
and students. If this place becomes unsafe, I'd have to leave," he said.
Oh for pity's sake, this snowflake thinks hiring the Georgia AG as the school's president would
lead to anti-gay pogroms? I hate the way this Orwellian "safe space" concept has become the cudgel
with which campus progressives use to club the expression of opinions with which they disagree. Anyway,
the reader comments:
Okay, a couple things. First, KSU gives scholarships for "people active in LGBT rights"? I'd
love to know details on that. Second, note the alleged disqualification here: Olens defended the
laws of his state - laws that were created by a democratically elected legislature. In other words,
he did the job he is elected to do. But as you and I know, this now constitutes Thoughtcrime.
Leonard Witt, a KSU professor, wrote
a column
criticizing the choice in which he concludes: "Let's, this time, show the world that
Cobb County carries the torch for all its diverse communities." Yes, diverse communities - as
long as one of those communities isn't Christians or people fulfilling the duties of their elected
office.
Now, I should note that as a college professor myself I happen to agree with Witt's other point:
that a college president should be an academic, not someone plucked from business or politics.
If I taught at KSU, I would oppose Olens for that reason. But this is something different: opposition
to him because of something he believes, and because he did his job according to the constitution
of the state of Georgia.
Eventually we're going to have to call explanations like Witt's the "Eich Maneuver," as an
homage to Mozilla's preposterous explanation that they had to fire Eich because of how much they
value diversity of viewpoint.
The reader says to be sure to note this reasoning from KSU's Prof. Witt (what follows is a quote
from Witt's column):
Already the KSU LGBTQ community members are signing petitions. A headline in Project Q, a popular
Atlanta blog, screams out "Gay marriage bigot Sam Olens to become KSU president." Unfair? Perhaps,
but how do we know,since the selection process is coming from the darkest corners of state government.
As attorney general, Olens ardently opposed both gay marriage and now gender neutral bathrooms.
Hence, the headline.
Given Cobb County's history, try as the chancellor may argue otherwise, important national
constituencies are going to be outraged about the secret meetings aimed at appointing a candidate
who they know will infuriate the LGBTQ community and their allies at Kennesaw State, in Cobb County
and throughout the state and nation.
The nation's largest foundations that support higher education demand respecting diversity
in all its forms. An active foe of gay marriage or transgender neutral bathrooms for KSU president?
Cobb County again? We have better places to put our money. Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nike and
just about every other major corporation may well openly or silently boycott Kennesaw State University.
Plus, the tainted brand name will not exactly be a student resume builder.
Says the reader:
Echoes of Indiana and RFRA.
If we don't keep up with the LGBT agenda, no corporations will
want to do business with us!
And note the fear that we could "infuriate the LGBTQ community
and their allies." If I even mentioned to my academic colleagues that something could upset we
Christians and our allies, I'd probably hear laughter.
We should be hearing Republican politicians, churches, and civic leaders calling this stuff out
for what it is: diversity McCarthyism. Olens may or may not be qualified to run the university, but
what these SJWs are attempting is frightening - or should be. Where does it stop?
Bobby M. Wilson
(bio)
In the era of neoliberalism, human beings are made accountable for their
predicaments or circumstances according to the workings of the market as
opposed to finding faults in larger structural and institutional forces like
racism and economic inequality. The market exchange is an ethic in itself,
capable of acting as a guide for all of human action (
Harvey
2005
). In many ways, the discourse of neoliberalism represents a radical
inversion of the notion of "human agency," as conceived through the
prophetic politics of Martin Luther King. As originally conceived, human
agency focused on people's capability of doing things that can make a
difference, that is, to exercise some sort of power and self-reliance. As a
central concern among many in the social sciences, this concept sought to
expose the power of human beings. Reverend Martin Luther King's prophetic
politics were determinedly "this worldly" and social in their focus. He
encouraged people to direct their attention to matters of social justice
rather than concern for personal well-being or salvation. He believed in the
power of people to make a difference.
But the concept of "justice" has
been reconstructed to fit neoliberal political and economic objectives. This
reconstruction is part of a larger discourse to reconstitute liberalism to
include human conduct. The invisible hand of the market not only allocates
resources but also the conduct of citizens. Economie agency is no longer
just about the market allocation of resources, but the allocation of people
into cultural worlds. This represents a radical inversion of the economic
agent as conceived by the liberalism of Adam Smith. As agents, humans are
implicated as players and partners in the market game. The context in which
individuals define themselves is privatized rather than publicized; the
focus of concerns is on the self rather than the collective. Power operates
internally, not externally, by inducing people to aim for
"self-improvement." The effect has been to negate the "social" in issues of
"justice" or "injustice." Individual subjects are rendered responsible,
shifting the responsibility for social risk (unemployment, poverty, etc.) to
the individual.
Black inner city spaces compete freely within a deregulated global
market. Central cities of large metropolitan areas have become the epicenter
of segregation. In 1988, approximately 55% of black students in the South
attended schools that were 50% to 100% minorities. By 2000, almost 70%
attended such schools. Only 15% of intensely segregated white schools are
schools of concentrated poverty, whereas 88% of the intensely segregated
racial minority schools are schools of concentrated poverty. Fifty years
after the
Brown
decision, we continue to heap more disadvantages on
children in poor communities. The community where a student resides
[End Page 97]
and goes to school is now the best predictor of
whether that student will go to college and succeed after graduation. High
school graduation rates in the South were lowest in the most isolated
black-majority districts-those separated by both race and poverty. Across
the South, we have created public and private systems that encourage the
accumulation of wealth and privilege in mostly white and socially isolated
communities separated by ever greater distances from the increasingly
invisible working poor (
Orfield
and Mei 2004
).
The most fundamental difference between today's segregated black
communities and those of the past is the much higher level of joblessness (
Wilson
1997
). Black unemployment and poverty level consistently remains at
twice the level of the total population. Access to jobs, already
disproportionately tenuous for black workers, has become even more
constricted in the current era of global capital. Without meaningful work,
the impact of racially segregated communities is much more pervasive and
devastating. The vast majority of intensely racial and ethnic segregated
minority places face a growing surplus labor determined to survive by any
means necessary. Two-thirds of the people in prison are now racial and
ethnic minorities. The proportion of young black males who are incarcerated,
on parole, or on probation nationwide continues to reach record levels.
Blacks represent 12.3% of the total population but make up 43.7% of the
incarcerated population. The number of black men in prisons increased from
508,800 in...
"... the point that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism is a good one, repeated often but not often enough, even if in your case it comes in the stale clichιd context of "therefore First-World leftists need to shut up". ..."
"... in still-existing Communist Party regimes like the People's Republic of China, the party cadres are the neoliberal capitalist elites, no political transition required at all. ..."
"... It's George Orwell's final ironic revenge on those who would conscript his Animal Farm into service as a procapitalist propaganda tract: they forget that the final lines aren't just an indictment of the pigs (Communist nomenklatura) for being no better than the men (capitalists) but also of the men for being no better than the pigs. ..."
A side note: there was some conversation above about the interests of an aristocracy, which
of course prompted the idea that the aristocracy is long gone. But meritocracy is a kind of
aristocracy.
This is an interesting observation. BTW other aspect of the same is related to the "Iron law
of oligarchy". Also both aristocracy and meritocracy are just variants of oligarchy. The actual
literal translation from the Greek is the "rule of the few".
At the same time traditional aristocracy is not fixed either and always provided some "meritocratic"
mechanisms for entering its ranks. Look, for example, at British system where prominent scientists
always were awarded lordship. Similar mechanism was used in in many countries where low rank military
officers, who displayed bravery and talent in battles were promoted to nobility and allowed to
hold top military positions. Napoleonic France probably is one good example here.
Neoliberal elite like traditional aristocracy also enjoys the privilege of being above the
law. And like in case of traditional aristocracy the democratic governance is limited to members
of this particular strata. Only they can be viewed as political actors.
USSR nomenklatura is yet another example of the same. It was so close in spirit to neoliberal
elite, that the transition in 1991 was almost seamless.
In other words, vertical mobility can't be completely suppressed without system losing the
social stability and that's was true for classic aristocracy as well as modern neoliberal elite
(actually vertical mobility is somewhat higher in European countries then in the USA; IMHO it
is even higher in the former Eastern block).
Re Will G-R: Your constant references to "liberals" as if they are all hideous, foul, disgusting,
and evil, dripping in blood of the victims of global capitalism's exploitative ways (do you
have a smartphone by the way? [I don't]; do you know who mined its ingredients?) is getting
perhaps a bit, um, repetitive.
If by liberals we would understand neoliberals, this might not be an overstatement. Neoliberals
destroy the notion of social justice and pervert the notion of the "rule of the law". See, for
example, The Neo-Liberal State by Raymond Plant
social justice is incompatible with the rule of law because its demands cannot be embodied
in general and impartial rules; and rights have to be the rights to non-interference rather
than understood in terms of claims to resources because rules against interference can be understood
in general terms whereas rights to resources cannot. There is no such thing as a substantive
common good for the state to pursue and for the law to embody and thus the political pursuit
of something like social justice or a greater sense of solidarity and community lies outside
the rule of law.
But surely, it might be argued, a nomocratic state and its laws have to
acknowledge some set of goals. It cannot be impartial or indifferent to all goals.
Law cannot be pointless. It cannot be totally non-instrumental. It has to facilitate
the achievement of some goals. If this is recognized, it might be argued, it will
modify the sharpness of the distinction between a nomocratic and telocratic state,
between a civil association and an enterprise association.
IMHO for neoliberals social justice and the rule of law is applicable only to Untermensch.
For Ubermensch (aka "creative class") it undermines their individual freedom and thus they need
to be above the law.
To ensure their freedom and cut "unnecessary and undesirable interference" of the society in
their creative activities the role of the state should be limited to safeguarding the free market
as the playground for their "creativity" (note "free" as in "free ride", not "fair")
LFC, the point that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism is a good one, repeated
often but not often enough, even if in your case it comes in the stale clichιd context of "therefore
First-World leftists need to shut up". The point about repetition is particularly ironic,
though, coming in the midst of yet another repetitive liberal circlejerk about Donald Trump blowing
the Gabriel's trumpet of a civilization-destroying neo-Nazi apocalypse.
likbez: "USSR nomenklatura is yet another example of the same. It was so close in spirit to
neoliberal elite, that the transition in 1991 was almost seamless."
One doesn't even have to compare different types of government to grasp this point, when
in still-existing Communist Party regimes like the People's Republic of China, the party cadres
are the neoliberal capitalist elites, no political transition required at all.
It's George Orwell's final ironic revenge on those who would conscript his Animal Farm
into service as a procapitalist propaganda tract: they forget that the final lines aren't
just an indictment of the pigs (Communist nomenklatura) for being no better than the men (capitalists)
but also of the men for being no better than the pigs.
"It's George Orwell's final ironic revenge on those who would conscript his Animal Farm
into service as a procapitalist propaganda tract: they forget that the final lines aren't just
an indictment of the pigs (Communist nomenklatura) for being no better than the men (capitalists)
but also of the men for being no better than the pigs."
"... Reality always has this power to surprise. It surprises you with an answer that it gives to questions never asked - and which are most tempting. A great stimulus to life is there, in the capacity to divine possible unasked questions. ..."
"... - Eduardo Galeano ..."
"... Fred Jameson has argued that "that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism." ..."
"... One way of understanding Jameson's comment is that within the ideological and affective spaces in which the neoliberal subject is produced and market-driven ideologies are normalized, there are new waves of resistance, especially among young people, who are insisting that casino capitalism is driven by a kind of mad violence and form of self-sabotage, and that if it does not come to an end, what we will experience, in all probability, is the destruction of human life and the planet itself. ..."
"... As the latest stage of predatory capitalism, neoliberalism is part of a broader economic and political project of restoring class power and consolidating the rapid concentration of capital, particularly financial capital ..."
"... As an ideology, it casts all dimensions of life in terms of market rationality, construes profit-making as the arbiter and essence of democracy ..."
"... Neoliberalism has put an enormous effort into creating a commanding cultural apparatus and public pedagogy in which individuals can only view themselves as consumers, embrace freedom as the right to participate in the market, and supplant issues of social responsibility for an unchecked embrace of individualism and the belief that all social relation be judged according to how they further one's individual needs and self-interests. ..."
"... The unemployment rate for young people in many countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece hovers between 40 and 50 per cent. To make matters worse, those with college degrees either cannot find work or are working at low-skill jobs that pay paltry wages. In the United States, young adjunct faculty constitute one of the fastest growing populations on food stamps. Suffering under huge debts, a jobs crisis, state violence, a growing surveillance state, and the prospect that they would inherit a standard of living far below that enjoyed by their parents, many young people have exhibited a rage that seems to deepen their resignation, despair, and withdrawal from the political arena. ..."
"... They now inhabit a neoliberal notion of temporality marked by a loss of faith in progress along with the emergence of apocalyptic narratives in which the future appears indeterminate, bleak, and insecure. Heightened expectations and progressive visions pale and are smashed next to the normalization of market-driven government policies that wipe out pensions, eliminate quality health care, raise college tuition, and produce a harsh world of joblessness, while giving millions to banks and the military. ..."
"... dispossessed youth continued to lose their dignity, bodies, and material goods to the machineries of disposability. ..."
"... Against the ravaging policies of austerity and disposability, "zones of abandonment appeared in which the domestic machinery of violence, suffering, cruelty, and punishment replaced the values of compassion, social responsibility, and civic courage" (Biehl 2005:2). ..."
"... In opposition to such conditions, a belief in the power of collective resistance and politics emerged once again in 2010, as global youth protests embraced the possibility of deepening and expanding democracy, rather than rejecting it. ..."
"... What is lacking here is any critical sense regarding the historical conditions and dismal lack of political and moral responsibility of an adult generation who shamefully bought into and reproduced, at least since the 1970s, governments and social orders wedded to war, greed, political corruption, xenophobia, and willing acceptance of the dictates of a ruthless form of neoliberal globalization. ..."
"... London Review of Books ..."
"... This is not a diary ..."
"... Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment ..."
"... Against the terror of neoliberalism ..."
"... Against the violence of organized forgetting: beyond America's disimagination machine ..."
"... Debt: The First 5,000 Years ..."
"... The democracy project: a history, a crisis, a movement ..."
"... 5th assessment report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change ..."
"... Unlearning With Hannah Arendt ..."
"... Agnonistics: thinking the world politically ..."
Reality always has this power to surprise. It surprises you with
an answer that it gives to questions never asked - and which are most tempting.
A great stimulus to life is there, in the capacity to divine possible unasked
questions.
- Eduardo Galeano
Neoliberalism's Assault on Democracy
Fred Jameson has argued that "that it is easier to imagine the end of
the world than to imagine the end of capitalism." He goes on to say that
"We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way
of imagining the end of the world" (Jameson 2003). One way of understanding
Jameson's comment is that within the ideological and affective spaces in which
the neoliberal subject is produced and market-driven ideologies are normalized,
there are new waves of resistance, especially among young people, who are insisting
that casino capitalism is driven by a kind of mad violence and form of self-sabotage,
and that if it does not come to an end, what we will experience, in all probability,
is the destruction of human life and the planet itself. Certainly, more
recent scientific reports on the threat of ecological disaster from researchers
at the University of Washington, NASA, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change reinforce this dystopian possibility. [1]
To read more articles by Henry A. Giroux and other authors in the
Public Intellectual Project, click
here.
As the latest stage of predatory capitalism, neoliberalism is part of
a broader economic and political project of restoring class power and consolidating
the rapid concentration of capital, particularly financial capital (Giroux
2008; 2014). As a political project, it includes "the deregulation of finance,
privatization of public services, elimination and curtailment of social welfare
programs, open attacks on unions, and routine violations of labor laws" (Yates
2013). As an ideology, it casts all dimensions of life in terms of market
rationality, construes profit-making as the arbiter and essence of democracy,
consuming as the only operable form of citizenship, and upholds the irrational
belief that the market can both solve all problems and serve as a model for
structuring all social relations. As a mode of governance, it produces identities,
subjects, and ways of life driven by a survival-of-the fittest ethic, grounded
in the idea of the free, possessive individual, and committed to the right of
ruling groups and institutions to exercise power removed from matters of ethics
and social costs. As a policy and political project, it is wedded to the privatization
of public services, the dismantling of the connection of private issues and
public problems, the selling off of state functions, liberalization of trade
in goods and capital investment, the eradication of government regulation of
financial institutions and corporations, the destruction of the welfare state
and unions, and the endless marketization and commodification of society.
Neoliberalism has put an enormous effort into creating a commanding cultural
apparatus and public pedagogy in which individuals can only view themselves
as consumers, embrace freedom as the right to participate in the market, and
supplant issues of social responsibility for an unchecked embrace of individualism
and the belief that all social relation be judged according to how they further
one's individual needs and self-interests. Matters of mutual caring, respect,
and compassion for the other have given way to the limiting orbits of privatization
and unrestrained self-interest, just as it has become increasingly difficult
to translate private troubles into larger social, economic, and political considerations.
As the democratic public spheres of civil society have atrophied under the onslaught
of neoliberal regimes of austerity, the social contract has been either greatly
weakened or replaced by savage forms of casino capitalism, a culture of fear,
and the increasing use of state violence. One consequence is that it has become
more difficult for people to debate and question neoliberal hegemony and the
widespread misery it produces for young people, the poor, middle class, workers,
and other segments of society - now considered disposable under neoliberal regimes
which are governed by a survival-of-the fittest ethos, largely imposed by the
ruling economic and political elite.
That they are unable to make their voices
heard and lack any viable representation in the process makes clear the degree
to which young people and others are suffering under a democratic deficit, producing
what Chantal Mouffe calls "a profound dissatisfaction with a number of existing
societies" under the reign of neoliberal capitalism (Mouffe 2013:119). This
is one reason why so many youth, along with workers, the unemployed, and students,
have been taking to the streets in Greece, Mexico, Egypt, the United States,
and England.
The Rise of Disposable Youth
What is particularly distinctive about the current historical conjuncture
is the way in which young people, particularly low-income and poor minority
youth across the globe, have been increasingly denied any place in an already
weakened social order and the degree to which they are no longer seen as central
to how a number of countries across the globe define their future. The plight
of youth as disposable populations is evident in the fact that millions of them
in countries such as England, Greece, and the United States have been unemployed
and denied long term benefits. The unemployment rate for young people in many
countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece hovers between 40 and 50
per cent. To make matters worse, those with college degrees either cannot find
work or are working at low-skill jobs that pay paltry wages. In the United States,
young adjunct faculty constitute one of the fastest growing populations on food
stamps. Suffering under huge debts, a jobs crisis, state violence, a growing
surveillance state, and the prospect that they would inherit a standard of living
far below that enjoyed by their parents, many young people have exhibited a
rage that seems to deepen their resignation, despair, and withdrawal from the
political arena.
This is the first generation, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues, in which
the "plight of the outcast may stretch to embrace a whole generation." (Bauman
2012a; 2012b; 2012c) He rightly insists that today's youth have been "cast in
a condition of liminal drift, with no way of knowing whether it is transitory
or permanent" (Bauman 2004:76). Youth no longer occupy the hope of a privileged
place that was offered to previous generations. They now inhabit a neoliberal
notion of temporality marked by a loss of faith in progress along with the emergence
of apocalyptic narratives in which the future appears indeterminate, bleak,
and insecure. Heightened expectations and progressive visions pale and are smashed
next to the normalization of market-driven government policies that wipe out
pensions, eliminate quality health care, raise college tuition, and produce
a harsh world of joblessness, while giving millions to banks and the military.
Students, in particular, found themselves in a world in which unrealized aspirations
have been replaced by dashed hopes and a world of onerous debt (Fraser 2013;
On the history of debt, see Graeber 2012).
The Revival of the Radical Imagination
Within the various regimes of neoliberalism that have emerged particularly
in North since the late 1970s, the ethical grammars that drew attention to the
violence and suffering withered or, as in the United States, seemed to disappear
altogether, while dispossessed youth continued to lose their dignity, bodies,
and material goods to the machineries of disposability. The fear of losing everything,
the horror of an engulfing and crippling precarity, the quest to merely survive,
the rise of the punishing state and police violence, along with the impending
reality of social and civil death, became a way of life for the 99 percent in
the United States and other countries. Under such circumstances, youth were
no longer the place where society reveals its dreams, but increasingly hid its
nightmares. Against the ravaging policies of austerity and disposability, "zones
of abandonment appeared in which the domestic machinery of violence, suffering,
cruelty, and punishment replaced the values of compassion, social responsibility,
and civic courage" (Biehl 2005:2).
In opposition to such conditions, a belief in the power of collective resistance
and politics emerged once again in 2010, as global youth protests embraced the
possibility of deepening and expanding democracy, rather than rejecting it.
Such movements produced a new understanding of politics based on horizontal
forms of collaboration and political participation. In doing so, they resurrected
revitalized and much needed questions about class power, inequality, financial
corruption, and the shredding of the democratic process. They also explored
as well as what it meant to create new communities of mutual support, democratic
modes of exchange and governance, and public spheres in which critical dialogue
and exchanges could take place (For an excellent analysis on neoliberal-induced
financial corruption, see Anderson 2004).
A wave of youth protests starting in 2010 in Tunisia, and spreading across
the globe to the United States and Europe, eventually posed a direct challenge
to neoliberal modes of domination and the corruption of politics, if not democracy
itself (Hardt & Negri 2012). The legitimating, debilitating, and depoliticizing
notion that politics could only be challenged within established methods of
reform and existing relations of power was rejected outright by students and
other young people across the globe. For a couple of years, young people transformed
basic assumptions about what politics is and how the radical imagination could
be mobilized to challenge the basic beliefs of neoliberalism and other modes
of authoritarianism. They also challenged dominant discourses ranging from deficit
reduction and taxing the poor to important issues that included poverty, joblessness,
the growing unmanageable levels of student debt, and the massive spread of corporate
corruption. As Jonathan Schell argued, youth across the globe were enormously
successfully in unleashing "a new spirit of action", an expression of outrage
fueled less by policy demands than by a cry of collective moral and political
indignation whose message was
'Enough!' to a corrupt political, economic and media establishment that
hijacked the world's wealth for itself sabotaging the rule of law, waging
interminable savage and futile wars, plundering the world's finite resources,
and lying about all this to the public [while] threatening Earth's life
forms into the bargain. (Schell 2011)
Yet, some theorists have recently argued that little has changed since 2011,
in spite of this expression of collective rage and accompanying demonstrations
by youth groups across the globe.
The Collapse or Reconfiguration of Youthful Protests?
Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki,
writing in The Guardian, argue that as the "economic and social
disaster unfolded in 2012 and 2013", youth in Greece, France, Portugal, and
Spain have largely been absent from "politics, social movements and even from
the spontaneous social networks that have dealt with the worst of the catastrophe"
(Lapavitsas & Politaki 2014). Yet, at the same time, they insist that more and
more young people have been "attracted to nihilistic ends of the political spectrum,
including varieties of anarchism and fascism" (Lapavitsas & Politaki 2014).
This indicates that young people have hardly been absent from politics. On the
contrary, those youth moving to the right are being mobilized around needs that
simply promise the swindle of fulfillment. This does not suggest youth are becoming
invisible. On the contrary, the move on the part of students and others to the
right implies that the economic crisis has not been matched by a crisis of ideas,
one that would propel young people towards left political parties or social
formations that effectively articulate a critical understanding of the present
economic and political crisis. Missing here is also a strategy to create
and sustain a radical democratic political movement that avoids cooptation of
the prevailing economic and political systems of oppression now dominating the
United States, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, France, and England, among other countries.
This critique of youthful protesters as a suspect generation is repeated
in greater detail by Andrew R. Myers in Student Pulse (Myers 2012).
He argues that deteriorating economic and educational conditions for youth all
over Europe have created not only a profound sense of political pessimism among
young people, but also a dangerous, if not cynical, distrust towards established
politics. Regrettably, Myers seems less concerned about the conditions that
have written young people out of jobs, a decent education, imposed a massive
debt on them, and offers up a future of despair and dashed hopes than the alleged
unfortunate willingness of young people to turn their back on traditional parties.
Myers argues rightly that globalization is the enemy of young people and is
undermining democracy, but he wrongly insists that traditional social democratic
parties are the only vehicles and hope left for real reform. As such, Myers
argues that youth who exhibit distrust towards established governments and call
for the construction of another world symbolize political defeat, if not cynicism
itself. Unfortunately, with his lament about how little youth are protesting
today and about their lack of engagement in the traditional forms of politics,
he endorses, in the end, a defense of those left/liberal parties that embrace
social democracy and the new labor policies of centrist-left coalitions. His
rebuke borders on bad faith, given his criticism of young people for not engaging
in electoral politics and joining with unions, both of which, for many youth,
rightfully represent elements of a reformist politics they reject.
It is ironic that both of these critiques of the alleged passivity of youth
and the failure of their politics have nothing to say about the generations
of adults that failed these young people - that is, what disappears in these
narratives is the fact that an older generation accepted the "realization that
one generation no longer holds out a hand to the next" (Knott 2011:ix). What
is lacking here is any critical sense regarding the historical conditions and
dismal lack of political and moral responsibility of an adult generation who
shamefully bought into and reproduced, at least since the 1970s, governments
and social orders wedded to war, greed, political corruption, xenophobia, and
willing acceptance of the dictates of a ruthless form of neoliberal globalization.
In fact, what was distinctive about the protesting youth across the globe
was their rejection to the injustices of neoliberalism and their attempts to
redefine the meaning of politics and democracy, while fashioning new forms of
revolt (Hardt & Negri 2012; Graeber 2013). Among their many criticisms, youthful
protesters argued vehemently that traditional social democratic, left, and liberal
parties suffered from an "extremism of the center" that made them complicitous
with the corporate and ruling political elites, resulting in their embrace of
the inequities of a form of casino capitalism which assumed that the market
should govern the entirety of social life, not just the economic realm (Hardt
& Negri 2012:88).
Henry A.
Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship
in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and a
Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University. His most recent
books include: Youth in Revolt: Reclaiming a Democratic Future (Paradigm 2013),
America's Educational Deficit and the War on Youth (Monthly Review Press, 2013)
Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education (Haymarket Press, 2014), and The Violence
of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine (City
Lights, 2014). The Toronto Star named Henry Giroux one of the twelve Canadians
changing the way we think! Giroux is also a member of Truthout's Board of Directors.
His web site is www.henryagiroux.com.
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed
the reality of the heightened sense of entitlement that the very rich possess,
as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them.
The rich shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some other
societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to senior party members,
senior clergymen, or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money
at all).
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary
rival, but in this instance I think the debunking is merited. It's quite
possible that rich people act the way we would act if we were rich, and
that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession with rich people didn't cut very deep.
Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change
as well. It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the
way they think, does not change the fact that, while they have more money,
they think differently, and different rules apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone
else was the Alpha Chimp does not change the fact that an Alpha Chimp has
fundamentally different behavior than the rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's.
According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me.
Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between
Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other
people is that the rich have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasnt about Fitzgerald
and wasnt even by Hemingway. Anyway I was more attacking the "rich have
more money" thing than I was trying to defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald
got the basic idea right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of
those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered
by events, including the loss of economic status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we
are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life
for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below
us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored
of the rich, seeing them as a "special glamorous race" but ultimately became
disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found
they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked
him."
"... I think the key difference between successful politicians and business people is patience. When you look at the careers of successful politicians, you can often see many years of pure relentless grind going into a few years of glory in a senior position. Endless committee meetings, rubber chicken dinners, being nice to people you loath, the inevitable humiliation of losing elections. Most business leaders simply lose patience after a few years after they go into politics. ..."
"... "The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." ..."
"... Neoclassical economics hid the work of the Classical Economists and the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income. ..."
"... Once you hide this it is easy to make it look as though the interests of business and the wealthy are the same. ..."
"... There should not really be any tax on "earned" income, all tax should fall on "unearned" income to subside the productive side of the economy with low cost housing and services. ..."
"... "The Labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers." ..."
"... Adam Smith saw landlords, usurers (bankers) and Government taxes as equally parasitic, all raising the cost of doing business. ..."
"... " who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." Adam Smith just described the modern Republican Party and movement Conservatives. ..."
"... The children of the US elite were the storm troopers of this ideology and they headed out from their elite US universities to bring this new ideology to developing nations. ..."
"... "The Chicago Boys" headed out from the University of Chicago to bring the new way to South American nations and "The Berkley Mafia" headed out from the University of Berkeley, California to bring the new way to Indonesia ..."
"... Any means were deemed acceptable to implement the one true solution and the new ideology, e.g. torture, terror, death squads, snatching people off the streets and making them disappear permanently. Any left wing resistance had to be quashed by whatever means necessary ..."
"... Their revolutions always massively increased inequality, a few at the top became fabulously wealthy and extreme and widespread poverty became prevalent at the bottom. Mixing with the people at the top, the elite US storm troopers deemed their revolutions a huge success. This ideology was ready to roll out across the world. ..."
"... Under this new ideology, the UK dream is to emulate the idle, rich rentier with a BTL portfolio, living off "unearned" income extracted from the "earned" income of generation rent, whilst doing as little as possible and enjoying a life of luxury and leisure. ..."
"... Obfuscating the relationship between free markets and the role of government is coming to an end. So much failure and misdirection cannot hide forever. The cognitive dissonance set up in society is unsustainable- people don't like to feel or experience crazy. ..."
"... Markets are stronger and healthier when backed by functioning government. Defining what good government is and demanding it is required today. That is the revolutionary force, finally turning back the negative campaign against government and demanding good government- fighting for it. ..."
"... "Enoch Powell once remarked that all political lives end in failure. It is also true of most business leaders." But that is also what they say about love. No good end can come of it. ..."
"... This bit of convenient fiction caught my eye: "Political leaders must also manage for the entire population rather than the narrow interest of investors." ..."
"... Perhaps political leaders should do this but, as has been recently shown, there is no basis in reality that this is any kind of requirement (as in "must"). ..."
"... Perhaps his use of "must" in this case is talking about the intrinsic requirement. In other words, even if they are managing negatively for some and positively for others, they are managing for all. ..."
Electorates believe that business leaders are qualified for and likely to
be effective in politics. Yet, with some notable exceptions, business people
have rarely had successful political careers.
The assumption is that corporate vision, leadership skills, administrative
skills and a proven record of wealth creation will translate into political
success. It presupposes personal qualities such drive, ambition and ruthlessness.
The allure is also grounded in the romantic belief that outsiders can fix all
that is wrong with the political process. The faith is misplaced.
First, the required skills are different.
Successful business leaders generally serve a technical apprenticeship in
the business, industry or a related profession giving them familiarity with
the firm's activities. Political success requires party fealty, calculating
partisanship, managing coalitions and networking. It requires a capacity to
engage in the retail electoral process, such as inspirational public speaking
and an easy familiarity with voters in a wide variety of settings. It requires
formidable powers of fund raising to finance campaigns. Where individuals shift
from business to politics in mid or later life, he or she is at a significant
disadvantage to career political operatives who have had years to build the
necessary relationships and organisation to support political aspirations.
Second, the scope of the task is different. A nation is typically larger
than a business. The range of issues is broader, encompassing economics, finance,
welfare, health, social policy as well as defence and international relations.
Few chief executives will, during a single day, have to consider budgetary or
economic issues, health policy, gender matters, privacy concerns, manage involvement
in a foreign conflict in between meeting and greeting a range of visitors varying
from schoolchildren to foreign dignitaries as well as attending to party political
matters.
Political leaders must also manage for the entire population rather than
the narrow interest of investors. They must take into account the effect of
decisions on a wide range of constituencies including many implacably opposed
to their positions.
Third, business objectives, such as profit maximisation, are narrow, well
defined and constant. Political objectives are amorphous and ideological. The
emphasis is on living standards, security and social justice. Priorities between
conflicting objectives shift constantly. The benefits of decisions by governments
in infrastructure, education and welfare are frequently difficult to measure
and frequently will not emerge for a long time.
Business decisions rarely focus on the societal impact. Firms can reduce
workforce, shift production overseas, seek subsidies or legally minimise taxes.
Politicians must deal with the side effects of individual profit maximisation
decisions such as closed factories, reduced employment, welfare and retraining
costs, security implications as well as social breakdown and inequality or exclusion.
Fourth, the operating environment is different. Businesses usually operate
within relatively defined product-market structures. In contrast, governments
operate in a complex environment shaped by domestic and foreign factors, many
of which they do not control or influence. Government actions require co-operation
across different layers of government or countries. Businesses can withdraw
from certain activities, while government do not have the same option.
Fifth, within boundaries set by laws and regulations, business leaders enjoy
great freedom and power to implement their policies. Boards of directors and
shareholders exercise limited control, usually setting broad financial parameters.
They do not intervene in individual decisions. Most important government actions
require legislative or parliamentary support. Unlike commercial operations,
government face restrictions, such as separation of powers, restraints on executive
or governmental action and international obligations.
Business leaders have unrivalled authority over their organisation based
on threats (termination) or rewards (remuneration or promotion). Political leaders
cannot fire legislators. They face significant barriers in rewarding or replacing
public servants. Policy implementation requires negotiations and consensus.
It requires overcoming opposition from opposing politicians, factions within
one's own party, supporters, funders and the bureaucracy. It requires overcoming
passively resistance from legislators and public servants who can simply outlast
the current incumbent, whose tenure is likely to be shorter than their own.
The lack of clear goals, unrivalled authority and multiple and shifting power
centres means that political power is more limited than assumed Many Presidents
of the United States, regarded as the most powerful position on earth, have
found that they had little ability to implement their agendas.
Sixth, unless they choose to be, business leaders are rarely public figures
outside business circles. Politicians cannot avoid constant public attention.
Modern political debate and discourse has become increasingly tabloid in tone,
with unprecedented levels of invective and ridicule. There is no separation
of the public and the personal. Business leaders frequently find the focus on
personal matters as well as the tone of criticism discomforting.
There are commonalities. Both fields attract a particular type of individual.
In addition, paraphrasing John Ruskin, successful political and business leaders
not only know what must be done but actually do what must be done and do it
when it must be done. A further commonality is the ultimate fate of leaders
generally. Enoch Powell, himself a long-serving Member of the British Parliament,
once remarked that all political lives end in failure. It is also true of most
business leaders.
I think the key difference between successful politicians and business
people is patience. When you look at the careers of successful politicians,
you can often see many years of pure relentless grind going into a few years
of glory in a senior position. Endless committee meetings, rubber chicken
dinners, being nice to people you loath, the inevitable humiliation of losing
elections. Most business leaders simply lose patience after a few years
after they go into politics.
Much the same seems to apply to military leaders, although off the top
of my head I can think of more successful examples of the latter than of
business people (Eisenhower and De Gaulle come to mind). Berlusconi comes
to mind as a 'successful' politician and businessman, but then Italy does
seem to be an outlier in some respects.
One key difference I think between 'good' politicians and 'good' businesspeople
is in making decisions. Good businesspeople are decisive. Good politicians
never make a decision until they absolutely have to.
This is clearly a consequence of 'The government is like a household'
misinformation campaign, which I think is really conceptualized as 'government
is like a small business.' So why not get a businessman to run the thing?
Interesting point. It also comes out of 30+ years of demonization of
government as being less well run than business, when IMHO the problems
of government are 1. the result of scale (think of how well run GM and Citigroup
were in the mid 200s and both are better now that they have downsized and
shaped up) and 2. inevitable given that you do not want government employees
making stuff as they go, i.e., overruling the legislature and courts. The
latter point is that some rigidity is part of how government works, and
it's necessary to protect citizens.
Adam Smith on the businessmen you shouldn't trust:
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes
from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and
ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined,
not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention.
It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with
that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to
oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both
deceived and oppressed it."
What they knew in the 18th century, we have forgotten today, but nothing
has changed.
Neoclassical economics hid the work of the Classical Economists and the
difference between "earned" and "unearned" income.
Once you hide this it is easy to make it look as though the interests
of business and the wealthy are the same.
We lowered taxes on the wealthy to remove free and subsidised services
for those at the bottom. These costs now have to be covered by business through wages. All known and thoroughly studied in the 18th and 19th Centuries, they
even came up with solutions.
There should not really be any tax on "earned" income, all tax should
fall on "unearned" income to subside the productive side of the economy
with low cost housing and services.
This allows lower wages and an internationally competitive economy.
Adam Smith:
"The Labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed
to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained
in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is
supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy
who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money.
But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords,
no usurers and no tax gatherers."
Adam Smith saw landlords, usurers (bankers) and Government taxes as equally
parasitic, all raising the cost of doing business.
He sees the lazy people at the top living off "unearned" income from
their land and capital.
He sees the trickle up of Capitalism:
1) Those with excess capital collect rent and interest.
2) Those with insufficient capital pay rent and interest.
He differentiates between "earned" and "unearned" income.
The UK dream is to emulate the idle, rich rentier with a BTL portfolio,
living off "unearned" income extracted from the "earned" income of generation
rent, whilst doing as little as possible and enjoying a life of luxury and
leisure.
" who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public,
and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed
it." Adam Smith just described the modern Republican Party and movement Conservatives.
We have seen left wing revolutions before; we are now dealing with a
right wing revolution.
Left wing revolutions usually involve much violence and eventually lead
to tyranny, as any means are deemed acceptable to implement the one true
solution and the new ideology. Pol Pot was the most extreme example where
he decided to return to year zero by wiping out the bourgeoisie in Cambodia.
When the dust has settled the revolution just leads to a new elite who maintain
their ideology with force and brutality.
When Francis Fukuyama talked of the end of history, a new year zero was
envisaged, this one based on a right wing ideology. A right wing revolution
that could take place globally and was not confined to individual nations
like left wing revolutions.
Its theories had already been tested in South America and Indonesia where
extreme brutality was employed to implement their one true solution and
the new ideology. The children of the US elite were the storm troopers of
this ideology and they headed out from their elite US universities to bring
this new ideology to developing nations.
"The Chicago Boys" headed out from
the University of Chicago to bring the new way to South American nations
and "The Berkley Mafia" headed out from the University of Berkeley, California
to bring the new way to Indonesia.
Any means were deemed acceptable to implement the one true solution and
the new ideology, e.g. torture, terror, death squads, snatching people off
the streets and making them disappear permanently. Any left wing resistance
had to be quashed by whatever means necessary.
Their revolutions always massively increased inequality, a few at the
top became fabulously wealthy and extreme and widespread poverty became
prevalent at the bottom. Mixing with the people at the top, the elite US
storm troopers deemed their revolutions a huge success. This ideology was
ready to roll out across the world.
Under this new ideology, the UK dream is to emulate the idle, rich rentier
with a BTL portfolio, living off "unearned" income extracted from the "earned"
income of generation rent, whilst doing as little as possible and enjoying
a life of luxury and leisure.
Obfuscating the relationship between free markets and the role of government
is coming to an end. So much failure and misdirection cannot hide forever.
The cognitive dissonance set up in society is unsustainable- people don't
like to feel or experience crazy.
Markets are stronger and healthier when backed by functioning government.
Defining what good government is and demanding it is required today. That
is the revolutionary force, finally turning back the negative campaign against
government and demanding good government- fighting for it.
Fighting fraud and corruption follows these same lines. Reading about
the various forms of fraud and corruption here at NC daily provides the
framework to address the problem. The real work begins convincing fellow
citizens to not accept the criminality- the new normal. It is sometimes
distressing seeing the reaction of fellow citizens to these crimes not as
outrage, but more along the lines of begrudging admiration for the criminals.
The subtile conditioning of the population to accept criminality needs a
countervailing force.
Modern mass media projects a false picture of the world. The meme they
push is that violence and corruption are so pervasive in the world, vast
resources must be expended addressing the problem, and when these efforts
fail, settle for apathy and avoidance. The creation of the Businessman/Politician
is the perfect vehicle to move this agenda forward.
Politics controlling and driving business decisions must be reestablished,
not the other way around- business driving politics and society. That truly
is the distinction between authoritarianism and democracy. Small authoritarians
are tolerable in society- large ones not so much.
Bang on. Especially being a political leader in a democracy is too tough
and I am surprised that people want the job given the landmine they have
to navigate and the compromises you have to make on a daily basis. Similarity
is closest when you compare a benevolent dictator and a successful businessman,
something like how Lee Kuan Yew ran Singapore.
"Enoch Powell once remarked that all political lives end in failure.
It is also true of most business leaders." But that is also what they say
about love. No good end can come of it.
There is a mistaken assumption here that business people are responsible
for their own or their organization's success. Or even that they're qualified
as business people. The higher up the business ladder you go, the more it
is other people making the important decisions, even deciding what you think,
do and say.
In this way it's similar to politics. It's likely that neither the successful
business person nor the politician is qualified for their roles, that nobody
can be. Also their roles are essentially to be authorities, and likewise
nobody is truly qualified nor has the justification or legitimacy for authority.
This bit of convenient fiction caught my eye: "Political leaders must also manage for the entire population rather
than the narrow interest of investors."
Perhaps political leaders should do this but, as has been recently shown,
there is no basis in reality that this is any kind of requirement (as in
"must").
Perhaps his use of "must" in this case is talking about the intrinsic
requirement. In other words, even if they are managing negatively for some
and positively for others, they are managing for all.
This is part of the introduction to an essay by Mike Konczal on how to "insure
people against the hardships of life..., accident, illness, old age, and loss
of a job." Should we rely mostly upon government social insurance programs such
as Medicare and Social Security, or would a system that relies upon private
charity be better? History provides a very clear answer:
The Voluntarism Fantasy: Ideology is as much about understanding the
past as shaping the future. And conservatives tell themselves a story, a
fairy tale really, about the past, about the way the world was and can be
again under Republican policies. This story is about the way people were
able to insure themselves against the risks inherent in modern life. Back
before the Great Society, before the New Deal, and even before the Progressive
Era, things were better. Before government took on the role of providing
social insurance, individuals and private charity did everything needed
to insure people against the hardships of life; given the chance, they could
do it again.
This vision has always been implicit in the conservative ascendancy. It
existed in the 1980s, when President Reagan announced, "The size of the
federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable
concern," and called for voluntarism to fill in the yawning gaps in the
social safety net. It was made explicit in the 1990s, notably through Marvin
Olasky's The Tragedy of American Compassion, a treatise hailed by the likes
of Newt Gingrich and William Bennett, which argued that a purely private
nineteenth-century system of charitable and voluntary organizations did
a better job providing for the common good than the twentieth-century welfare
state. This idea is also the basis of Paul Ryan's budget, which seeks to
devolve and shrink the federal government at a rapid pace, lest the safety
net turn "into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency
and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make
the most of their lives." It's what Utah Senator Mike Lee references when
he says that the "alternative to big government is not small government"
but instead "a voluntary civil society." As conservatives face the possibility
of a permanent Democratic majority fueled by changing demographics, they
understand that time is running out on their cherished project to dismantle
the federal welfare state.
But this conservative vision of social insurance is wrong. It's incorrect
as a matter of history; it ignores the complex interaction between public
and private social insurance that has always existed in the United States.
It completely misses why the old system collapsed and why a new one was
put in its place. It fails to understand how the Great Recession displayed
the welfare state at its most necessary and that a voluntary system would
have failed under the same circumstances. Most importantly, it points us
in the wrong direction. The last 30 years have seen effort after effort
to try and push the policy agenda away from the state's capabilities and
toward private mechanisms for mitigating the risks we face in the world.
This effort is exhausted, and future endeavors will require a greater, not
lesser, role for the public. ...
The state does many things, but this essay will focus specifically on its
role in providing social insurance against the risks we face. Specifically,
we'll look at what the progressive economist and actuary I.M. Rubinow described
in 1934 as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: "accident, illness, old
age, loss of a job. These are the four horsemen that ride roughshod over
lives and fortunes of millions of wage workers of every modern industrial
community." These were the same evils that Truman singled out in his speech.
And these are the ills that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance,
and our other public systems of social insurance set out to combat in the
New Deal and Great Society.
Over the past 30 years the public role in social insurance has taken a backseat
to the idea that private institutions will expand to cover these risks.
Yet our current system of workplace private insurance is rapidly falling
apart. In its wake, we'll need to make a choice between an expanded role
for the state or a fantasy of voluntary protection instead. We need to understand
why this voluntary system didn't work in the first place to make the case
for the state's role in fighting the Four Horsemen. ...
"... That was the sad tragedy of Marx and Marxism. Instead of focusing on a practical agenda for achieving and sustaining a democratically administered state in an imperfect human world, a state based on a more equal distribution of capital, a workable balance between private and public ownership of capital, and a regulatory framework and rule of law designed to sustain this balance in the face of social and economic forces that will *always* be acting to disrupt it, Marx veered off into the fantasy lands ..."
"... In this utopian future, every single person is intelligent, relaxed, cooperative, and preternaturally enlightened. There are no thieves, psychopaths, predators, raiders or uncooperative deadbeats and spongers. Since there is no law, there is no government; and since there is no government; there are no elections or other ways of forming government. There is also no division of labor, because somehow human beings have passed beyond the "realm of necessity" into the "realm of freedom." ..."
"... Marx himself was one of these underminers, pissing all over the very progressive Gotha program and the very idea of a well-governed state in the name of his dreamy "communist society." ..."
"... In the end, Marx had a very unrealistic view of human nature and history. His analytic and scientific powers were betrayed by an infantile romanticism that both weakened his social theory and crippled much of left progressive politics for a century. The problem is still floating around with the insipid anarcho-libertarian silliness of much of the late 20th and early 21st century left. ..."
"... The key value of Marxism is that it gave a solid platform for analyzing capitalism as politico-economic system. All those utopian ideas about proletariat as a future ruling class of an ideal society that is not based on private property belong to the garbage damp of history, although the very idea of countervailing forces for capitalists is not. ..."
"... In this sense the very existence of the USSR was critical for the health of the US capitalism as it limited self-destructive instincts of the ruling class. Not so good for people of the USSR, it was definitely a blessing for the US population. ..."
"... Now we have neoliberal garbage and TINA as a state religion, which at least in the level in their religious fervor are not that different from Marxism. ..."
"... Republicans (US 'capitalism' salespersons) believe that "liberty", the right of property, is necessary for "freedom". State is necessary for property despite what the Hobbits (libertarians) preach. Communism is as far from Marxism as the US billionaire empire is from capitalism. Marx was a fair labor economist. ..."
"... {Marx stressed that ... the labour market is an arena in which power is unbalanced...} ..."
"... Thus, capitalism is an integral and key part of the market-economy since it provides the means by which the other major input-component is labor. Capital is an investment input to the process, for which there is a Return-on-Investment largely accepted as bonafide criteria of any market-economy. ..."
Chris Dillow on common ground between Marxists and Conservatives:
Fairness, decentralization & capitalism: Marxists and Conservatives have more in common than
either side would like to admit. This thought occurred to me whilst reading a superb
piece by Andrew Lilico.
He describes the Brams-Taylor
procedure for
cutting a cake in a fair way - in the sense of ensuring envy-freeness
- and says that this shows that a central agency such as the state is unnecessary to achieve
fairness:...
The appropriate mechanism here is one in which there is a balance of power, such that no individual
can say: "take it or leave it."
This is where Marxism enters. Marxists claim that, under capitalism, the appropriate mechanism
is absent. Marx stressed that ... the labour market is an arena in which power is unbalanced...
Nor do Marxists expect the state to correct this, because the state is
captured by capitalists - it is "a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie."...
Instead, Marx thought that fairness can only be achieved by abolishing both capitalism and
the state - something which is only feasible at a high level of economic development - and replacing
it with some forms of decentralized decision-making. ...
In this sense, Marxists agree with Andrew: people can find fair allocations themselves without
a central agency. ...
How silly. Marxism and its centralization of power will attract the hyper control freak who
are not likely to ever give up power. Disingenuous utopianism.
Dan Kervick:
That was the sad tragedy of Marx and Marxism. Instead of focusing on a practical agenda
for achieving and sustaining a democratically administered state in an imperfect human world,
a state based on a more equal distribution of capital, a workable balance between private and
public ownership of capital, and a regulatory framework and rule of law designed to sustain this
balance in the face of social and economic forces that will *always* be acting to disrupt it,
Marx veered off into the fantasy lands of his hectoring anarchist critics and adversaries,
and came up with a social pseudo-science positing a millennarian heaven on earth where somehow
perfect voluntariness and perfect equality magically come together. The Marxists are still twisted
up in that foolishness, perpetually incapable of formulating practical political plans and agendas
because they have some "crisis theory" telling them that the current messes are the harbingers
of a revolution that are going to actualize that kingdom of heaven.
Peter K. -> pgl...
yes Kervick again provides a fact-free rant. The Communist Manifesto demanded many reforms
that came pass:
"The section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands - among them a progressive income
tax; abolition of inheritances; free public education etc.-the implementation of which would
be a precursor to a stateless and classless society."
"Short-term demands" as you say: Marx and Engels saw such socialist measures as merely a transitional
stage on the way via the dictatorship of the proletariat to a classless and stateless society
in which even the rule of law would not exist, since human beings would somehow manage to coordinate
all of the economic functions of a complex society through 100% non-coercive means.
In this utopian future, every single person is intelligent, relaxed, cooperative, and preternaturally
enlightened. There are no thieves, psychopaths, predators, raiders or uncooperative deadbeats
and spongers. Since there is no law, there is no government; and since there is no government;
there are no elections or other ways of forming government. There is also no division of labor,
because somehow human beings have passed beyond the "realm of necessity" into the "realm of freedom."
Real-world possibilities for democratic socialist alternatives under a practical and egalitarian
rule of law have frequently been thwarted and undermined by Marxian communists drunk on these
infantile millenarian fantasies, and the Marxian pseudo-sciences of underlying dialectical laws
of social evolution directing history toward this fantastical telos.
Marx himself was one of these underminers, pissing all over the very progressive Gotha
program and the very idea of a well-governed state in the name of his dreamy "communist society."
Guess what guys. Maybe I have actually read some of this stuff.
likbez -> Dan Kervick...
Marxism has two district faces. A very sharp analysis of capitalist society and utopian vision
of the future.
=== quote ===
Marx himself was one of these underminers, pissing all over the very progressive Gotha program
and the very idea of a well-governed state in the name of his dreamy "communist society."
=== end of quote ===
Very true. Authors of Gotha programs were nicknamed "revisionists" by Orthodox Marxists.
mulp:
"He describes the Brams-Taylor procedure for cutting a cake in a fair way - in the sense of
ensuring envy-freeness - and says that this shows that a central agency such as the state is unnecessary
to achieve fairness:..."
That is exactly the description of "authoritarian elite intellectual technocrats dictating
how society works."
Conservatives would never accept that solution because they would immediately argue that not
everyone deserves an equal portion, and that the liberal elites are dictating from on high.
Marx would simply point out that conservatives would never accept that based on their denial
of equality as a principle and would require evolution of man, or too few or too many resources
to care about dividing. But that would never satisfy conservatives....
Obviously actually existing socialist nations ruled by Communist parties have always featured
highly centralized authoritarian non-democratic systems (although China is somewhat of an exception
regarding the matter of centralization, with its provinces having a lot of power, but then, it
is the world's largest nation in population).
As it was, Marx (and Engels) had a practical side. One can see it in the "platform" put forward
at the end of the Communist Manifesto. Several of the items there have been nearly universally
adopted by modern capitalist democracies, such as a progressive income tax and universal state-supported
education. Others are standard items for more or less socialist nations, such as nationalizing
the leading sectors of the economy.
Only one looks at all utopian, their call for ending the division between the city and the
country, although this dream has inspired such things as the New Town movement, not to mention
arguably the suburbs.
It was only in the Critique of the Gotha Program that Marx at one point suggested that eventually
in the "higher stage of socialism" there would be a "withering away of the state." Curiously most
nations ruled by Communist parties never claimed to have achieved true communism because they
were aware of this statement and generally referred to themselves as being "in transition" towards
true communism without having gotten there. Later most would turn around have transitions back
towards market capitalism.
DrDick -> Barkley Rosser...
All existing and former communist countries are Leninist and not Marxist, with a large influence
from whatever the prior local autocratic system was.
Dan Kervick -> Barkley Rosser...
"It was only in the Critique of the Gotha Program that Marx at one point suggested that
eventually in the "higher stage of socialism" there would be a "withering away of the state.""
That's what I meant by the tragedy of Marxism. In the end, Marx had a very unrealistic
view of human nature and history. His analytic and scientific powers were betrayed by an infantile
romanticism that both weakened his social theory and crippled much of left progressive politics
for a century. The problem is still floating around with the insipid anarcho-libertarian silliness
of much of the late 20th and early 21st century left.
likbez:
Actually Marxism was the source of social-democratic parties programs. Which definitely made
capitalism more bearable.
The key value of Marxism is that it gave a solid platform for analyzing capitalism as politico-economic
system. All those utopian ideas about proletariat as a future ruling class of an ideal society
that is not based on private property belong to the garbage damp of history, although the very
idea of countervailing forces for capitalists is not.
In this sense the very existence of the USSR was critical for the health of the US capitalism
as it limited self-destructive instincts of the ruling class. Not so good for people of the USSR,
it was definitely a blessing for the US population.
Now we have neoliberal garbage and TINA as a state religion, which at least in the level in
their religious fervor are not that different from Marxism.
And neocons are actually very close, almost undistinguishable from to Trotskyites, as for their
"permanent revolution" (aka "permanent democratization") drive.
Ben Groves -> likbez...
You obviously think it wasn't that good for the USSR people, yet don't understand the Tsarist
wreck that Russia itself had turned into. With the Soviet, they became strong at the expense of
what they considered colonies.
The true origin of Bolshevism isn't Lenin or Trotsky, but the anti-ashkenazi anti-European
movement. Stalin joined them in 1904 for this very reason and blasted the Menhs as jews. Thus
the program had to cleanse out people who still insisted Russia be European and instead, push
a Asiatic program they believed they really were.
kthomas:
Though I do love seeing this argument being made, I'm not sure we can derive any real benefits
from having it anymore. Ideology is one thing. If we are discussing Power, and how it attracts
the Power Hungry, that is a separate argument, one largely covered by Machiavelli.
As for Marx, I do not ever recall him advising on the abolishment of the State. He was not
an Anarchist.
Ben Groves:
The state can't be abolished. It simply changes by what part of nature controls it.
Only the anarchists thinks the state can be abolished. The state is eternal. Whether it is
the Imperial State (the true conservative organic ideal) City State, the Nation State, the Market
State, the Workers State, the Propertarian State. There will always be rule.
DrDick -> Ben Groves...
The state is far from eternal. It is in fact a very recent development in humanity's 3.5 million
year history, having arisen about 5500 years ago. States can and do collapse and disappear, as
has happened in Somalia.
likbez:
I think the discussion deviated from the key thesis "Marxists and Conservatives Have More in
Common than Either Side Would Like to Admit"
This thesis has the right for existence. Still Marxism remains miles ahead of conservatives
in understanding the capitalism "as is" with all its warts.
Neoliberalism is probably the most obvious branch of conservatism which adopted considerable
part of Marxism doctrine. From this point of view it is a stunning utopia with the level of economic
determinism even more ambitious than that of Marx...
The simplest way to understand the power of neoliberalism as an ideology, is to view it as
Trotskyism refashioned for elite. Instead of "proletarians of all countries unite" we have slogan
"neoliberal elites of all countries unite". Instead of permanent revolution we have permanent
democratization via color revolutions.
Instead of revolt of proletariat which Marxists expected we got the revolt of financial oligarchy.
And this revolt led to forming powerful Transnational Elite International (with Congresses in
Basel) instead of Communist International (with Congresses in Moscow). Marx probably is rolling
in his grave seeing such turn of events and such a wicked mutation of his political theories.
Like Trotskyism neoliberalism has a totalitarian vision for a world-encompassing monolithic
state governed by an ideologically charged "vanguard". One single state (Soviet Russia) in case
of Trotskyism, and the USA in case of neoliberalism is assigned the place of "holy country" and
the leader of this country has special privileges not unlike Rome Pope in Catholicism.
The pseudoscientific 'free-market' theory which replaces Marxist political economy and provides
a pseudo-scientific justification for the greed and poverty endemic to the system, and the main
beneficiaries are the global mega-corporations and major western powers (G7).
Like Marxism in general neoliberalism on the one hand this reduces individuals to statistics
contained within aggregate economic performance, on the other like was in the USSR, it places
the control of the economy in comparatively few hands; and that might be neoliberalism's Achilles
heel which we say in action in 2008.
The role of propaganda machine and journalists, writers, etc as the solders of the party that
should advance its interests. Compete, blatant disregard of truth to the extent that Pravda journalists
can be viewed as paragons of objectivity (Fox news)
== end of quote ==
ilsm:
Republicans (US 'capitalism' salespersons) believe that "liberty", the right of property,
is necessary for "freedom".
State is necessary for property despite what the Hobbits (libertarians) preach.
Communism is as far from Marxism as the US billionaire empire is from capitalism. Marx was a fair labor economist.
Lafayette:
MARKET ECONOMY CRITERIA
{Marx stressed that ... the labour market is an arena in which power is
unbalanced...}
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with "capitalism", which is fundamentally this:
An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals
or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Which was common up to and including the latter decades of the last century. Wherein, some
countries adopted state-enterprises to have either entire monopolies or substantial presence
in some sectors of the market-economy. The ownership of the means of production were owned by
the state and management/workforce were state employees.
This applies to any entity the object of which is provide to a market goods and services. One
can therefore say the defense of the nation is a service provided by a state-owned entity
called the Dept. of Defense (in the US and similarly elsewhere).
Moreover that practice can be modified to other areas of public need, for instance
health-care and education. Where the "means of production" of the service are owned once again
by the state, but this time the management and workers are independent and work for
themselves. (In which case they may or may not be represented by organizations some of which
are called "unions".)
The above variations are all well known in European "capitalist" countries - which employ
capital as central financial mechanism. Capital is "any form of wealth employed or capable of
being employed in the production of more wealth."
Thus, capitalism is an integral and key part of the market-economy since it provides
the means by which the other major input-component is labor. Capital is an investment input to
the process, for which there is a Return-on-Investment largely accepted as bonafide criteria
of any market-economy.
Likewise, there should therefore be accounted a Return on Labor, and that return should be
paid to all who work in a company - not all equally but all equitably. A Return-on-Labor is
also a bonafide criteria of any market-economy.
There is no real reason why the RoI should be the sole criteria for investment purposes,
except that of common usage historically. RoC should also have its place as a bonafide
criteria for investment purposes - and probably one that determines which "services" are
better performed by government-owned agencies and which not.
How much is the RoC of Defense worth to you and our family? How much is HealthCare? How
much Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education?
"... If those who have not lost to trade think Hillary might help them..... I just wasted* 2+ hours with a bunch of Hilbots.... all I heard is Trump is so evil and his supports are so dumb or racist or anti Planned Parenthood. Not a word to defend Killary except she could not be evil she is watched so much. And Obama called off the DoJ. ..."
"... It is not only disregard, but active mockery and defamation - accusing the "losers" of hedonism, entitlement thinking, irresposibility, lack of virtue, merit, striving, intelligence, etc. ..."
"... I.e. reverse puritanism of sorts - lack of success is always to be explained in terms of lack in virtue and striving. ..."
"... Yes. This include the bulk of the liberal merit class winners too Their support for the tax and transfer system Humanist noblesse " oblige". ..."
"... . "This include the bulk of the liberal merit class winners too" ..."
"... This is where the "limousine liberal" meme comes from (or more precisely gets it support and success from). ..."
"... Of course all the claimed demerits exist plenty among the people so accused (as well as among the winners) - though they always did, but I'm under the impression that before Globalization_blowback/technology supported loss of leverage and thus prestige, it wasn't a *public* narrative (in private circles there has always been "if you don't make an effort in school you will end up sweeping the streets", and looking down on the "unskilled", etc. - with the hindsight irony that even street sweeping has been automated). ..."
The disregard of the winners towards the losers helps to bring about the
popularity of people like Trump. I am not at all surprised at the level
of his popularity, even though I personally despise him.
If those who have not lost to trade think Hillary might help them.....
I just wasted* 2+ hours with a bunch of Hilbots.... all I heard is Trump
is so evil and his supports are so dumb or racist or anti Planned Parenthood.
Not a word to defend Killary except she could not be evil she is watched
so much. And Obama called off the DoJ.
A room full of cognitive dissonance and brainwashed.
It is not only disregard, but active mockery and defamation - accusing
the "losers" of hedonism, entitlement thinking, irresposibility, lack of
virtue, merit, striving, intelligence, etc.
Yes. This include the bulk of the liberal merit class winners too
Their support for the tax and transfer system Humanist noblesse " oblige".
In their opinion the system of merit rewards is largely firm but fair
cm said in reply to Paine...
"This include the bulk of the liberal merit class winners too"
This is where the "limousine liberal" meme comes from (or more precisely
gets it support and success from).
Of course all the claimed demerits exist plenty among the people
so accused (as well as among the winners) - though they always did, but
I'm under the impression that before Globalization_blowback/technology supported
loss of leverage and thus prestige, it wasn't a *public* narrative (in private
circles there has always been "if you don't make an effort in school you
will end up sweeping the streets", and looking down on the "unskilled",
etc. - with the hindsight irony that even street sweeping has been automated).
TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (MNA) -- Most of the neoconservatives in the United States advocate globalization
and the neoliberal economic model. What's wrong with this picture?
At first glance, nothing is wrong with the statement because it is basically true. At second glance,
everything is wrong with it.
Liberal and conservative used to be opposites. Now we have neoliberal neoconservatives. If the
neocons are also neoliberals, how do we avoid confusion when using the words liberal and conservative?
It is natural for language to evolve, but when antonyms become synonyms, there is a problem.
The situation is similar to the Newspeak and doublethink of George Orwell's book 1984. Newspeak
was a language meant to control people by decreasing their power of reasoning through oversimplification
of the language and doublethink.
Orwell wrote: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind
simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
There are now countless examples of this in the English language.
In war, civilian casualties are called collateral damage. The use of the expression collateral
damage allows people to avoid the unpleasantry of having to think about innocent civilians being
killed.
Every country used to have a war ministry, but they all later changed the name to the defense
ministry or the defense department. In 1984, it was called the Ministry of Peace, or Minipax in Newspeak.
Try this simple exercise. Imagine you are listening to the radio and the newscaster says: "The
war minister has just issued a statement."
Now suppose the newscaster said: "The defense minister has just issued a statement." Notice how
a change of one word changed your reaction.
Consider the many acronyms that have entered the language such as NATO, NAFTA, and CIA Their
complete names, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, North American Free Trade Agreement, and Central
Intelligence Agency, contain the words treaty, free, free trade, agreement, and intelligence. On
hearing these words, the mind naturally makes many free associations that cannot occur when the acronyms
are used.
The neoliberal neocons themselves use a form of Newspeak.
The most glaring example of this is when neoliberal neocon officials in the United States tell
citizens that they must take away some of their freedom in order to protect their freedom. Shades
of Orwell's "freedom is slavery".
U.S. officials have spoken of the need to cancel elections in order to safeguard democracy if
a serious crisis arises. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that in a national emergency the
U.S. Constitution may have to be temporarily suspended in order to protect the civil liberties enshrined
in that document.
Bizarrely, very few U.S. citizens are protesting. Apparently, they have already learned how to
employ doublethink.
Language is being used to control people. People are actually subconsciously brainwashing themselves
through the language they use.
The word neocon itself is Newspeak since its use in place of the longer form eliminates all the
connotations of the words neoconservative and conservative.
Let's look at a few more quotes from 1984 to get a better understanding of what is happening today.
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed
lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and
believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to
it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to
forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment
when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process
to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and
then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand
the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
"The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry
of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental,
nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it
is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could
the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted -- if the High, as we have
called them, are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental condition must be
controlled insanity."
"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and
mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical
thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable,
at least so far as thought is dependent on words."
"Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was
indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum."
"But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was not so much
to express meanings as to destroy them."
"The intention was to make speech, and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neutral,
as nearly as possible independent of consciousness."
"Ultimately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the
higher brain centres at all."
The advocates of globalization often use a form of Newspeak.
When government officials and economists say the economy of a Third World country is booming,
despite the fact that they know the masses live in abject poverty, and the media repeat the lie,
that is doublethink through Newspeak. Of course, the economy of the country in question is only booming
for the globalist and local upper classes, and perhaps also for the middle classes, but somehow almost
nobody questions the lie. And the neoliberal globalists are laughing all the way to the bank.
The acceptance of such a lie by the general public is an even greater real-life catastrophe than
the fictional one described in 1984. Worse still, some people acknowledge that it is a lie but respond
with apathy or slavish resignation in the belief that nothing can be done about the situation.
Do we want to live in dystopia, the worst of all possible worlds, the doubleplusungood of all
possible worlds?
If not, we should watch our language and take care that we are still using our higher brain centers.
"... People don't yet understand that this is just how neoliberals are. The two fundamental loyalties in a state party system have nothing to do with solidarity: they're loyalty up, and loyalty down. Neoliberals are happy to accept whatever loyalty up they are given by fools and suckers: they have no loyalty down at all and will never do the elementary political operations of repaying their base ..."
"... On solidarity: solidarity isn't about the (hierarchy of) relationships among politicians or political operatives. Solidarity is about membership, not leadership. ..."
"... Solidarity is the means to great common, coordinated efforts, that is to trust in leadership and that great solvent of political stalemate: sacrifice to the common good. ..."
"... Solidarity is a powerful force, sometimes historically an eruptive force, and though not by itself intelligent, not necessarily hostile to intelligent direction, but it calls on the individual's narcissism and anger not rational understanding or calculation. It is present as a flash in riots and a fire in insurrections and a great raging furnace in national wars of total mobilization. Elites can fear it or be enveloped by it or manipulate it cynically or with cruel callousness. Though it is a means to common effort and common sacrifice, it demands wages for its efforts and must be fed prodigious resources if it is long at work. ..."
"... What we've got here is a distorted or atrophied sense of the relationship between solidarity and the consent of the governed, between democracy and legitimacy, or more generally, between the individual and the collective ..."
"... If so, maybe we ought to try being a little more honest about what we're willing to pay as individuals for what we get as members of a group. Otherwise, it's hard to see how we can come to terms with our confusion, or survive the malignancies that being confused has introduced into all our group dynamics, not just the overtly political ones. ..."
CR: "that strategy actually runs the risk of harming down-ballot Democrats
running for office in Congress and state legislatures. It may help Clinton,
but it's not good for the party."
It's Obama redux. Remember how he wanted
to work with his friends across the aisle in a Grand Bargain that would
bring moderation and centrist agreement to all things? He validated budget-balance
mania during austerity and would have bargained away Social Security if
he could have. He predictably lost the Congress in the first mid-term election
and did nothing to build the party back up.
People don't yet understand that this is just how neoliberals are.
The two fundamental loyalties in a state party system have nothing to do
with solidarity: they're loyalty up, and loyalty down. Neoliberals are happy
to accept whatever loyalty up they are given by fools and suckers: they
have no loyalty down at all and will never do the elementary political operations
of repaying their base or creating a party that will work for anyone
else. This goes beyond ordinary political selfishness to the fact that they
don't really want a populist party: that would push them to harm the interests
of their real base.
And people don't react to this, fundamentally, because they don't really
do politics outside of 4-year scareathons. Look at LFC's description above
about how people should march if candidates don't follow through on their
promises. Why aren't they marching now: why haven't they in the Obama years?
I am with you on your main thesis, but I thought
I would offer this sidenote.
On solidarity: solidarity isn't about the (hierarchy of) relationships
among politicians or political operatives. Solidarity is about membership,
not leadership.
Solidarity can feel good. "We are all in this together, united."
Or, it can feel constricting, as it demands conformity and senseless uniformity,
obeisance to unnecessary authority. Resentments are its solvent and
its boundary-keepers. Social affiliation and common rituals are its nurturers
in its fallow times, which can be historically frequent and long. Solidarity
is the means to great common, coordinated efforts, that is to trust in leadership
and that great solvent of political stalemate: sacrifice to the common good.
Solidarity is a powerful force, sometimes historically an eruptive
force, and though not by itself intelligent, not necessarily hostile to
intelligent direction, but it calls on the individual's narcissism and anger
not rational understanding or calculation. It is present as a flash in riots
and a fire in insurrections and a great raging furnace in national wars
of total mobilization. Elites can fear it or be enveloped by it or manipulate
it cynically or with cruel callousness. Though it is a means to common effort
and common sacrifice, it demands wages for its efforts and must be fed prodigious
resources if it is long at work.
As American Party politics have degenerated, solidarity has come to have
a fraught relationship with identity politics. In both Parties.
I don't see anything in the conceptual logic driving things forward.
I see this state of affairs as the playing out of historical processes,
one step after another. But, this year's "scareathon" puts identity politics
squarely against the economic claims of class or even national solidarity.
The identity politics frame of equal opportunity exploitation has Paul Krugman
talking up "horizontal inequality". Memes float about suggesting that free
trade is aiding global equality even if it is at the expense of increasing
domestic inequality. Or, suggesting that labor unions were the implacable
enemy of racial equality back in the day or that FDR's New Deal was only
for white people. Hillary Clinton's stump speech, for a while, had her asking,
"If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, . . . would that end racism? would
that end sexism?"
It is convenient politics in several ways. First, no one can hold Clinton
responsible for not ending racism and sexism any more than GWB could be
held responsible for not winning the war on terrorism. These are perpetual
struggles by definition.
Second, it combines the display of righteous do-good ism with a promise
of social progress that might actually benefit directly the most ambitious,
even if it leaves most people without support. People who have done well
in the system, or who might expect to, can feel good about themselves. And,
ignore the system or rationalize away the system's manifest shortcomings.
The people who are complaining are racists! BernieBros! It is all about
the loss of status being experienced by white men, and they shouldn't be
heard anyway.
The moral righteousness of identity politics adds in an element that
goes way beyond the lazy failure to hold politicians accountable or the
tendency to explain away their more Machiavellian maneuvers. There's both
an actual blindness to the reactionary conservatism of equal opportunity
exploitation and a peremptory challenge to any other claim or analysis.
If police practices and procedures are trending in an authoritarian direction,
they can only be challenged on grounds of racist effect or intent. The authoritarianism
cannot be challenged on its own merit, so the building of the authoritarian
state goes on unimpeded, since the principle that is challenged is not authoritarianism,
but a particular claim of racism or sexism.
What we've got here is a distorted or atrophied sense of the relationship
between solidarity and the consent of the governed, between democracy and
legitimacy, or more generally, between the individual and the collective.
I suppose you could argue that we've evolved beyond what we were when we
first came to understand these relationships in the abstract (in the 18th
century?), and that, accordingly, they can no longer be understood in the
way we once thought we understood them.
If so, maybe we ought to try
being a little more honest about what we're willing to pay as individuals
for what we get as members of a group. Otherwise, it's hard to see how we
can come to terms with our confusion, or survive the malignancies that being
confused has introduced into all our group dynamics, not just the overtly
political ones.
engels @ 706: Narcissism by definition involves a failure to connect with others whereas solidarity
requires it. So I find the claim the two are linked more than a little baffling.
Narcissism
gets a bad rap from its associations with attempts to pathologize normal human functioning. A
healthy narcissism expressed in a pride in one's appearance, confidence in one's own capacities
is nothing bad. People should seek and find ways to admire themselves and to be selfish - it is
important to finding a center and balance.
Narcissism, strictly speaking, is not the failure to connect with others, but the failure to
distinguish the self from others. In that sense, solidarity, which is identifying one's self with
the group of which one is a member, is narcissistic. Un pour tous, tous pour un, as the
Musketeers said.
Pathological narcissism may be hinted at in the form of parental praise used as a cliche in
America in place of expressions of admiration: "I'm so proud of you." As if your achievements
were somehow the speaker's achievements.
Pejorative uses of narcissism as a synonym for selfish tend to emphasize narcissism as excessive,
but actual pathological narcissism is pathetic: it is the normal capacity to be self-centered
broken: the beautiful woman insatiably seeking admiration but who cannot stand to be touched.
bruce wilder 08.13.16 at 12:34 am
F Foundling @ 705: In any case, [solidarity] doesn't need to be irrational or to have to do
with narcissism (as suggested in 687) any more than acting in your own personal interests needs
to be irrational or to have to do with narcissism.
Thank you for thoughtful remarks @ 705
and @694.
"Rational" and "irrational" can be a cause of great confusion. It is not some virtue I wish
to ascribe, but, rather, to my mind, a matter of gamesmanship. As a strategy, not an ethic, solidarity
is a way of committing one's self irrationally to not reconsider one's interests.
The rat, betraying solidarity, is rational and selfish and calculating. Upholding solidarity
requires an irrational ethic to trump strategic reconsideration.
There can certainly be an element of enlightened self-interest in a commitment to solidarity.
We hope this gift of the self to the community is not done stupidly or without some deliberate
consideration of consequences.
But, in the game, in the political contest where solidarity matters, where elite power is confronted,
solidarity entails a degree of passionate commitment and even self-sacrifice. Whether expressed
as an individual act of "altruistic punishment" or the common unwillingness to cooperate with
the powers-that-be in a labor strike, there has to be a willingness to bear costs and forego opportunities.
Appreciate Michael Pettis on the Trump phenomenon. He wrote this piece back in March and for reasons
I cannot quite fathom he tried to tie in the Jacksonians - as if Donald Trump is some faded reprint
of Andrew Jackson. But, ignore the part about the Jacksonians in American history and pay attention
to what he says about his friend who is a supporter of Trump. It will complement Doug Henwood
nicely, I suspect.
And, Pettis has nothing nice to say about Trump - so no fear!
@ bruce wilder 718
> The rat, betraying solidarity, is rational and selfish and calculating. Upholding solidarity
requires an irrational ethic to trump strategic reconsideration.
Well, this presupposes that
pursuing one's self-interest as an end in itself is natural, self-evident and hence purely rational,
whereas striving to further the interests of someone else as an end in itself or striving to adhere
to ethical behaviour as an end in itself is abnormal and irrational. I see no particular reason
to assume this view. Assessment of rationality is possible with respect to the choice of means
to a given end, but not in the choice of the end itself. Second, even in terms of self-interest,
it is far from clear in each particular case whether solidary behaviour will be beneficial or
harmful to the individual on balance, and whether the forgoing of costs will not result in better
opportunities in the long run (the various Prisoner's Dilemma scenarios and suchlike are anything
but straightforward and depend on many variables).
On selfishness and solidarity again:
The way I see it, pursuing one's own interests is not selfishness, but just a matter of practical
division of labour and responsibilities. Everyone deserves well-being equally, but by default
everyone is entrusted with his own well-being it's simply the most practical arrangement. To
take an extreme and comical example, I can recognise that my digestion is objectively no more
important/valuable than that of any other person, but in practice it is obviously most efficient
that *I* should take it upon myself to chew the food that *I* will digest, and *others* should
take care of the chewing of *their* food. :) Selfishness begins where you consider yourself and
your needs to have greater value than others, which may result in potentially unethical choices
where interests conflict (say, taking others' food, not sharing the food fairly, letting others
starve, etc.).
In that sense, solidarity might be said to include a measure of this sort of responsiblity
on a collective level. It is understood that if someone in my neighbourhood needs help, it's up
to *me* to volunteer to help first, not to someone living in a different city altogether. This
need not imply that I consider a person to be more valuable just because he lives closer to me,
or that I should defend him if he wrongs someone living in a different city. The first would be
extended personal responsibility, the second would be extended selfishness and narcissism, but
both can be described as 'solidarity (at neighbourhood level)'.
Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution by Lars Cornelissen
Wendy Brown Zone Books, New York, 2015, 296pp., $29.95/£20.95 (hc),
ISBN: 978-1935408536
University of Brighton, Brighton BN2 4AT, UK
Undoing the Demos argues that 'neoliberalism is profoundly destructive to
the fiber and future of democracy in any form' (p. 9). More precisely, it is concerned with mapping
the myriad ways in which neo-liberalism, conceived as a productive mode of reason that today saturates
ever more spheres of life, articulates crucial elements of democratic language, practice and subjectivity
'according to a specific image of the economic' (p. 10). In so doing neo-liberalism directly assaults
the democratic imaginary that animated so much of modernity, hollowing out liberal democratic practices
and institutions while at the same time cauterising radical democratic expressions.
Undoing the Demos is divided into two parts: the first, 'Neoliberal Reason
and Political Life', puts forward the book's main argument and is moreover concerned with Michel
Foucault's account of neo-liberalism, developed in his 19781979 lectures at the Collθge de France,
and discusses its merits and its shortcomings in detail; the second, 'Disseminating Neoliberal Reason',
is concerned with how neo-liberal rationality is extended to spheres heretofore untouched by economic
parameters, including 'statecraft and the workplace, jurisprudence, education, culture, and a vast
range of quotidian activity' (p. 17). The central argument of the book is that 'neoliberalism assaults
the principles, practices, cultures, subjects, and institutions of democracy understood as rule by
the people' (p. 9). Brown sets out to understand how it does so and develops a theoretical framework,
deeply reliant upon, but not uncritical of, Foucault's seminal account.
In the first chapter Brown does the theoretical legwork upon which the entire argument
rests. While democracy is understood simply (and, in my view, problematically an issue I will return
to below) as 'rule by the people' (p. 19; cf. pp. 9, 20, 178, 202, 209), neo-liberalism is understood,
with Foucault, as 'a distinctive mode of reason, of the production of subjects, a "conduct of conduct",
and a scheme of valuation' (p. 21). Neo-liberalism, then, is not the name given to capitalism's latest
guise, nor is it an ideology that masks the resurgence of class politics. Instead, it is conceptualised
as a mode of reason, a 'political rationality' (pp. 2021; cf. Chapter 4), that today invades all
spheres of life and recasts in an economic register their constituent concepts, practices, institutions,
subjects and truths. Accordingly, the book is not concerned with studying neo-liberal techniques
of government, but with the rationality, the regime of truth, that underlies them.
Chapters 2 and 3 offer a systematic reading of Foucault's lectures on neo-liberalism
(later published as The Birth of Biopolitics) and lead to a number of significant insights
that expand the Foucauldian approach beyond his own groundwork. Importantly, Brown signals no less
than 12 features of the contemporary neo-liberal landscape that Foucault could not account for because
they either did not yet exist or were still only nascent (pp. 7072). These include the rise of finance
capital, permanent financial and social crises and crisis-fuelled austerity politics, the rise of
governance, and, for Brown perhaps most profound, a number of changes within the neo-liberal subject,
who is now tethered to competitive markets in such a way that she has lost all remnants of protection
against brutal and impersonal market forces. This last feature is related to what Brown takes to
be the biggest flaw in Foucault's analysis: it is not attentive towards homo politicus and
its subsequent extinction by neo-liberal reason. Homo politicus, referred to as the 'demotic
subject' (p. 87), theorised first by Aristotle, whose morphology changes continuously throughout
her odyssey through occidental thought via, inter alia, Locke, Smith, Bentham, Marx and
Freud (see pp. 8799) is finally usurped by homo oeconomicus. When the economic subject
reigns, what is vanquished is the form of subjectivity that animates democracy a member of a demos,
a democratic citizen, an autonomous, sovereign, Kantian subject.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 which make up the second part of the book map the different
ways in which neo-liberal rationality is disseminated through legal reason (Chapter 5) and through
higher education (Chapter 6). This dissemination is made easier by contemporary governance practices
(discussed in Chapter 4), which are 'not identical with or exclusive to neoliberalism' (p. 122).
In other words: governance is not born of neo-liberal rationality, but once articulated to it, gives
rise to novel ways of managing and disciplining subjects, states and firms. Governance practices
thus provide the tools through which neo-liberal reason flows smoothly from sphere to sphere, including
devolution, responsibilisation, 'benchmarking' and 'best practices' (see pp. 131142). Through meticulous
analysis of legal jargon, Brown shows, in Chapter 5, how the US Supreme Court opinions have in recent
years been saturated with neo-liberal reason, thus assisting in discursively reconstructing democracy
both at home and abroad. She further maps, in Chapter 6, how neo-liberalised higher education undercuts
the formation of a critical, educated citizenry, without which democracy cannot survive.
Because its main aim is to study neo-liberal rationality, which has not been studied
so rigorously before, Undoing the Demos is a timely and innovative book. At the same time,
however, its scope invites some issues that have, on different levels and in different ways, a negative
bearing on the strength of the argument. One such problem is that because Brown sets out primarily
to understand neo-liberal rationality and how it is disseminated she pays little or no attention
to elements that, although they fall outside of this scope, are arguably intimately related to the
problem of rationality. For instance, the book does not engage in much depth with the problem of
resistance to neo-liberalism (see pp. 220222); with other de-democratising rationalities and their
relationship to neo-liberal rationality; or with those theorists who were crucial in shaping the
discursive framework from which neo-liberal rationality now draws (Rφpke, Eucken, Hayek, Friedman,
Becker and so on). The point is not so much that Brown should have investigated all of these separate
issues, but that she provides few to no conceptual tools for investigating them or their relationship
to neo-liberal rationality either.
A related concern is that Undoing the Demos is all-too-narrowly focused on
a specific and contemporary (Anglo-)American form of neo-liberalism. While Brown acknowledges at
the outset that she is aware of neo-liberalism's internal complexity and heterogeneity (see pp. 2021)
the rest of the book falls short of developing a convincing account of how neo-liberal rationality
functions when it enters into different contexts. This is a book about present-day North American
neo-liberalism, and little work is done to move outside of that context, even to Europe, let alone
the rest of the world. Accordingly, Brown's ahistorical and geographically limited approach cannot
explain how the neo-liberalisation of, for instance, British universities has insidiously merged
with the already deeply entrenched class-based education system. Likewise, the reader is left guessing
whether legal reason has been neo-liberalised in, for instance, Northern Europe in the same way as
it has in the United States. Here again the point is not that Undoing the Demos should have
been a book about contextually specific neo-liberalisms, but that it remains silent on the question
of how neo-liberal rationality takes shape when it is inserted into the messy and complex landscape
of micro-politics, where it will inevitably have to negotiate with pre-existing discourses or with
stubborn remnants of previously hegemonic rationalities.
A final objection revolves around the notion of democracy and how Brown defines it.
In defining democracy as 'rule by the people' Brown deliberately sticks to an 'open and contestable'
(p. 20) understanding of democracy in order to show not just how a specific model of democracy
(liberal, social, deliberative, elitist and so on), but also how 'the bare promise of bare democracy'
(p. 203) tout court is undone. There are several problems with such a strategy. First, the
Greek δημοκρατία does not straightforwardly translate into 'rule by the people', as Brown
says it does (see pp. 19, 202), grounding the argument in a problematic claim from the start. Second,
Brown wants to show that neo-liberalism is destructive of 'democracy in any form', meaning that it
undermines the 'bare promise of bare democracy'. However, it could be argued that this promise is
not at all shared by all forms of democracy: Does Schumpeterian elitist democracy really promise
that 'all might be regarded as ends, rather than means' or that 'all may have a political voice'
(p. 203)? Notwithstanding Brown's insistence on the openness of her definition, we appear to still
be talking about quite a specific conception of democracy. Third, because of her definition, Brown's
primary focus is on the people that ought to rule that is, on demotic subjectivity
and the exercise of sovereignty. Yet this focus cannot capture how neo-liberal rationality rearticulates
notions outside of that definition, such as, to name but one element, the legitimacy of the legislature
(which surely is different both from the legitimacy of the state and from popular sovereignty, which
Brown does discuss because they do fit inside the scope of her definition). Brown's open and contestable
definition, in brief, in fact limits her scope and thus the force of her argument.
While I think Undoing the Demos would have been all the better for pre-empting
these issues, the book's merits outweigh these shortcomings. Besides providing a theoretical framework
that allows for a deep understanding of neo-liberal rationality, it does so accessibly. More than
merely speaking to Brown's comrades-in-arms on the Left, the book appears to be written for a broader
audience and Brown's familiar style lucid and rhythmic yet rigorous makes even intricate Foucauldian
claims easily digestible.
Undoing the Demos conveys a sober and mournful message: democracy is under
attack and it might not survive. The book will leave anyone looking for strategies of resistance
disappointed. But whoever wants to understand the rationality that informs and governs so much of
our lives today would do well to read it.
"... A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. ..."
"... All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. ..."
"... We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. ..."
"... If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. ..."
"... At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family ..."
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your
own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity,
to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend
and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common
good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as
a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those
in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care
for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.
... ... ...
All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation
of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities,
committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms
of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive
to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required
to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while
also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another
temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good
or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds
which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization
which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy
without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants
and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.
...We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical
and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are
all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments
and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as
one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished
so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency
of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another,
with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening
society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for
it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each
society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery,
born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social
consensus.
...If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot
be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling
need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which
sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests,
its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in
this effort.
... ... ...
The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially
in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.
It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth.
The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the
spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and
sustainable. "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world.
It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees
the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good" (Laudato Si', 129).
This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote
in order to "enter into dialogue with all people about our common home" (ibid., 3). "We need a conversation
which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots,
concern and affect us all" (ibid., 14).
In Laudato Si', I call for a courageous and responsible effort to "redirect our steps" (ibid.,
61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.
I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States and this
Congress have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies,
aimed at implementing a "culture of care" (ibid., 231) and "an integrated approach to combating poverty,
restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature" (ibid., 139). "We have
the freedom needed to limit and direct technology" (ibid., 112); "to devise intelligent ways of .
. . developing and limiting our power" (ibid., 78); and to put technology "at the service of another
type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral" (ibid., 112). In
this regard, I am confident that America's outstanding academic and research institutions can make
a vital contribution in the years ahead.
... ... ...
...At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures
young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same
culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.
The analogy with Trotskyism, which is also a secular religion here are so evident, that they can't
be missed. And that explains why it is so tenacious: all cults are extremely tenacious and very difficult
to eradiate.
Notable quotes:
"... As the neoliberal revolution instigated by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980 has spread, however,
Polanyi has been rediscovered. His great book now republished with a foreword by Joseph Stiglitz
has attracted a new generation of readers. ..."
"... The cult of free market fundamentalism has become so normative in our times, and economics
as a discipline so hidebound and insular, that reading Polanyi today is akin to walking into a stiff
gust of fresh air. We can suddenly see clear, sweeping vistas of social reality. Instead of the mandarin,
quantitative and faux-scientific presumptions of standard economics an orthodoxy of complex illusions
about "autonomous" markets Polanyi explains how markets are in fact embedded in a complex web of social,
cultural and historical realities. ..."
"... Markets can only work, for example, if political and legal institutions contrive to transform
people, land and money into assets that can be bought and sold. Polanyi calls these "fictional commodities"
because people, land and money are not in fact commodities. People and land have their own existence
and purposes apart from the market and money is a social institution, even if many pretend that gold
is a self-evident medium of value. ..."
"... Block and Somers point to a closed and coherent ideational scheme that knits together several
key belief systems. The first is the idea that the laws of nature govern human society, and thus the
workings of the economy are seen as a biological and evolutionary inevitability. A second theme is the
idea of "theoretical realism," a belief that the theoretical schema is more true and enduring than any
single piece of empirical evidence, and thus one can argue from the claims of theory and not from facts.
..."
"... Finally, a "conversion narrative" enables free marketeers tell to neutralize and delegitimate
any contrary arguments, and enabling them to introduce its alternative story. This approach is routinely
used to re-cast the reasons (and blame) for poverty. ..."
"... What makes The Power of Market Fundamentalism so illuminating is its patient, careful reconstruction
of these recurring and deceptive polemical patterns. The wealthy invoke the same rhetorical strategies
again and again over the course of hundreds of years in extremely different contexts. With their mastery
of an enormous contemporary literature, Block and Somers document the remarkable parallels and show
just how deep and durable Polanyi's analysis truly is ..."
One of the great economists of the twentieth century had the misfortune of publishing his magnum
opus, The Great Transformation, in 1944, months before the inauguration of a new era
of postwar economic growth and consumer culture. Few people in the 1940s or 1950s wanted to hear
piercing criticisms of "free markets," let alone consider the devastating impacts that markets tend
to have on social solidarity and the foundational institutions of civil society. And so for decades
Polanyi remained something of a curiosity, not least because he was an unconventional academic with
a keen interest in the historical and anthropological dimensions of economics.
As the neoliberal revolution instigated by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980 has spread, however,
Polanyi has been rediscovered. His great book now republished with a foreword by Joseph Stiglitz
has attracted a new generation of readers.
But how to make sense of Polanyi's work with all that has happened in the past 70 years? Why does
he still speak so eloquently to our contemporary problems? For answers, we can be grateful that we
have The Power
of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique, written by Fred Block and Margaret R. Somers,
and published last year. The book is a first-rate reinterpretation of Polanyi's work, giving it a
rich context and commentary. Polanyi focused on the deep fallacies of economistic thinking and its
failures to understand society and people as they really are. What could be more timely?
The cult of free market fundamentalism has become so normative in our times, and economics
as a discipline so hidebound and insular, that reading Polanyi today is akin to walking into a stiff
gust of fresh air. We can suddenly see clear, sweeping vistas of social reality. Instead of the mandarin,
quantitative and faux-scientific presumptions of standard economics an orthodoxy of complex illusions
about "autonomous" markets Polanyi explains how markets are in fact embedded in a complex web of
social, cultural and historical realities.
Markets can only work, for example, if political and legal institutions contrive to transform
people, land and money into assets that can be bought and sold. Polanyi calls these "fictional commodities"
because people, land and money are not in fact commodities. People and land have their own existence
and purposes apart from the market and money is a social institution, even if many pretend that
gold is a self-evident medium of value.
Notwithstanding these realities, capitalist societies ahve created these fictional commodities.
People have in effect been transformed into units of "labor" that can be bought and sold in the market,
and discarded when their value is depleted. Land, too, is treated as a market asset that has no connection
to a larger, living ecosystem or human community. Inevitably, people and users of land (and ecosystems
themselves) rebel against their treatment as raw commodities. The result is a permanent counter-movement
against those who insist upon treating people and land as commodities.
Unlike Keynes, who was willing to accept some of these economic illusions in order to have political
impact, Polanyi rejected them as a recipe for a dangerous and unachievable utopianism. That is in
fact what has emerged over the past several generations as business ideologues have advanced quasi-religious
visions of free market fundamentalism. The planet's natural systems and our communities simply cannot
fulfill these utopian dreams of endless economic growth, vast consumption of resources and the massive
social engineering. And yet it continues.
Polanyi was courageous enough to strip away the pretenses that the economy is a "force of nature"
that cannot be stopped. The economy, he said, is an "instituted process," not a natural one, and
it can only survive through massive governmental interventions and cultural regimentation. The free
market system is hardly autonomous and self-executing. It requires enormous amounts of government
purchasing, research subsidies, legal privileges, regulatory agencies to enhance fairness and public
trust, military interventions to secure access to resources and markets, and the sabotage of democratic
processes that might threaten investments and market growth. The 2008 financial crisis revealed in
outrageous detail how financial markets are anything but autonomous.
So what accounts for the insidious power of market fundamentalism and its illusions? Why do its
premises remain intact and influential in the face of so much contrary evidence?
Block and Somers point to a closed and coherent ideational scheme that knits together several
key belief systems. The first is the idea that the laws of nature govern human society, and thus
the workings of the economy are seen as a biological and evolutionary inevitability. A second theme
is the idea of "theoretical realism," a belief that the theoretical schema is more true and enduring
than any single piece of empirical evidence, and thus one can argue from the claims of theory and
not from facts. Free market narratives assert their own self-validating claims to what is true;
epistemological categories trump all empirical challenges.
Finally, a "conversion narrative" enables free marketeers tell to neutralize and delegitimate
any contrary arguments, and enabling them to introduce its alternative story. This approach is routinely
used to re-cast the reasons (and blame) for poverty. Instead of acknowledging institutional
or structural explanations for why many people are poor, the free market narrative boldly attacks
government for making people poor through aid programs. Government programs supposedly have
a perverse effect, aggravating, not aleviating poverty. The poor are cast as morally responsible
along with government for their own sorry circumstances. Thus, a higher minimum wage is perverse,
say free market champions, because it will hurt the poor rather than help them.
What makes The Power of Market Fundamentalism so illuminating is its patient, careful reconstruction
of these recurring and deceptive polemical patterns. The wealthy invoke the same rhetorical strategies
again and again over the course of hundreds of years in extremely different contexts. With their
mastery of an enormous contemporary literature, Block and Somers document the remarkable parallels
and show just how deep and durable Polanyi's analysis truly is .
"... Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection. Existing environmental laws need to be enforced. ..."
"... My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking, accurately stated & precise. ..."
"... I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping . ..."
"... He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky. ..."
"... "The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption. ..."
"... Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches. ..."
I do not mean to misquote him. Pope Francis is a good man, but before he lectures the US on
capitalism, he needs to remember that the Vatican bank has been embroiled in their own banking
scandals. I was raised Catholic. I do not have a good impression of the men who run the church.
They spend a lot of time asking for money, and I always wonder if they are spending it hiring
lawyers for pedophile priests. I like the Pope though. He seems better that the rest of the lot.
I think the tax exemptions for religions should be stopped. Religions spend too much time discriminating
against certain segments of society. I think they are wolves in sheep's clothing.
RoachAmerican 13 Jul 2015 20:19
Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is
not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed
by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out
excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection.
Existing environmental laws need to be enforced.
William Brown 13 Jul 2015 20:05
I imagine The Pope will say something about an 'eye of a needle'
brianboru1014 13 Jul 2015 19:52
Wall Street via the New York Times and the WS Journal is well on the way to denigrating this
man. Even though most Americans support him, these publications will do everything to belittle
him.
The US government gives "only" tax exempt status. On the other-hand, citizens of the US very
likely raise more money for the Catholic Church than the citizens of any other country.
Ken Barnes -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:30
My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent
unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking,
accurately stated & precise. It helps no one in a discussion to change what another has said
& then attempt to debate the misquote.
Greenshoots -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 19:29
And a shedload of other "purposes" as well:
The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational,
scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports
competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its
generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged;
advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings,
monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating
prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community
deterioration and juvenile delinquency.
Richard Martin 13 Jul 2015 19:20
Francis really follows in the footsteps of the First Fisherman, radicalised in God's format
.
I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries
on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role
of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities
upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping
.
John Fahy 13 Jul 2015 19:16
He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing
much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky.
goatrider -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:01
As it does every other religion----
TerryMcGee -> Magali Luna 13 Jul 2015 19:00
Up until this pope, I would have agreed with you. But this pope is different. In one step,
he has taken the papacy from being a major part of the problem to a major force for good. We can't
expect him to fix all the problems in the church and its doctrines - that's not the work of one
generation. But if he can play a major part in fixing the two massive world problems he has focussed
on - climate change and rampant capitalism - he will have done enough for one lifetime.
And I get the impression that he's only warming up....
LivinVirginia -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 18:34
"The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption.
David Dougherty 13 Jul 2015 18:13
Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose
the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope
will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope
that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches.
Cooper2345 13 Jul 2015 17:59
I like the gift that Morales gave to the Pope, the crucifix over the hammer and sickle. It
shows the victory of Christianity over Soviet communism that one of Francis' predecessors helped
to shepherd. It's a great reminder of a wonderful triumph and reason to be thankful for the genius
of St. John Paul II.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with http://neweconomicperspectives.org " rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... laissez faire. ..."
"... The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate
professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with
http://neweconomicperspectives.org" rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives
A New York Times
article entitled "Championing Environment, Francis Takes Aim at Global Capitalism" quotes a conventional
Harvard economist, Robert N. Stavins. Stavins is enraged by Pope Francis' position on the environment
because the Pope is "opposed to the world economic order." The rage, unintentionally, reveals why
conventional economics is the most dangerous ideology pretending to be a "science."
Stavins' attacks on the Pope quickly became personal and dismissive. This is odd, for Pope Francis'
positions on the environment are the same as Stavins' most important positions. Stavins' natural
response to the Pope's views on the environment had Stavin not been an economist would have been
along the lines of "Pope Francis is right, and we urgently need to make his vision a reality."
Stavins' fundamental position is that there is an urgent need for a "radical restructuring" of
the markets to prevent them from causing a global catastrophe. That is Pope Francis' fundamental
position. But Stavins ends up mocking and trying to discredit the Pope.
I was struck by the similarity of Stavins response to Pope Francis to the rich man's response
to Jesus. The episode is reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in similar terms. I'll use Matthew's
version (KJAV), which begins at 19:16 with the verse:
And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?
Jesus responds:
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but
if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
The young rich man wants to know which commandments he needs to follow to gain eternal life.
He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
The young, wealthy man is enthused. The Rabbi that he believes has the secret of eternal life
has agreed to personally answer his question as to how to obtain it. He passes the requirements the
Rabbi lists, indeed, he has met those requirements since he was a child.
But then Jesus lowers the boom in response to the young man's question on what he "lacks."
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
We need to "review the bidding" at this juncture. The young man is wealthy. He believes that Jesus
knows the secret to obtaining eternal life. His quest was to discover and comply with the requirement
to achieve eternal life. The Rabbi has told him the secret and then gone well beyond the young
man's greatest hopes by offering to make him a disciple. The door to eternal life is within the young
man's power to open. All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor. The Rabbi goes further
and offers to make the young man his disciple. In exchange, the young man will secure "treasure in
heaven" eternal life and a place of particular honor for his sacrifice and his faith in Jesus.
Jesus' answer the answer the young man thought he wished to receive more than anything in the
world the secret of eternal life, causes the young man great distress.
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
The young man rejects eternal life because he cannot bear the thought of giving his "great possessions"
to "the poor." Notice that the young man is not evil. He keeps the commandments. He is eager to do
a "good thing" to gain eternal life. He has "great possessions" and is eager to trade a generous
portion of his wealth as a good deed to achieve eternal life. In essence, he is seeking to purchase
an indulgence from Jesus.
But Jesus' response causes the young, wealthy man to realize that he must make a choice. He must
decide which he loves more eternal life or his great possessions. He is "sorrowful" for Jesus'
response causes him to realize that he loves having his great possessions for his remaining span
of life on earth more than eternal life itself.
Jesus offers him not only the means to open the door to eternal life but the honor of joining
him as a disciple. The young man is forced by Jesus' offer to realize that his wealth has so fundamentally
changed him that he will voluntarily give up his entry into eternal life. He is not simply "sorrowful"
that he will not enter heaven he is "sorrowful" to realize that heaven is open to him but he
will refuse to enter it because of his greed. His wealth has become a golden trap of his own creation
that will damn him. The golden bars of his cell are invisible and he can remove them at any time
and enter heaven, but the young man realizes that his greed for his "great possessions" has become
so powerful that his self-created jail cell has become inescapable. It is only when Jesus opens the
door to heaven that the young man realizes for the first time in his life how completely his great
possessions have corrupted and doomed him. He knows he is committing the suicide of his soul and
that he is powerless to change because he has been taught to value his own worth as a person by the
extent of his great possessions.
Jesus then makes his famous saying that captures the corrupting effects of great wealth.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter
into the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
The remainder of the passage is of great importance to Luther's doctrine of "justification by
faith alone" and leads to Jesus' famous discussion of why "the last shall be first," (in which his
anti-market views are made even more explicit) but the portions I have quoted are adequate to my
purpose.
Pope Francis' positions on the environment and climate are the greatest boon that Stavin has received
in decades. The Pope, like Stavins, tells us that climate change is a disaster that requires urgent
governmental action to fix. Stavins could receive no more joyous news. Instead of being joyous, however,
Stavins is sorrowful. Indeed, unlike the wealthy man who simply leaves after hearing the Rabbi's
views, Stavins rages at and heaps scorn on the prelate, Pope Francis. Stavins' email to the New
York Times about the Pope's position on climate change contains this double ideological smear.
The approach by the pope, an Argentine who is the first pontiff from the developing world,
is similar to that of a "small set of socialist Latin American countries that are opposed to the
world economic order, fearful of free markets, and have been utterly dismissive and uncooperative
in the international climate negotiations," Dr. Stavins said.
Stavins' work explicitly states that the "free markets" he worships are causing "mass extinction"
and a range of other disasters. Stavins' work explicitly states that the same "free markets" are
incapable of change they cause incentives so perverse that they are literally suicidal and the
markets are incapable of reform even when they are committing suicide by laissez faire.
That French term is what Stavins uses to describe our current markets. Pope Francis agrees with each
of these points.
Pope Francis says, as did Jesus, that this means that we must not worship "free markets," that
we must think first of the poor, and that justice and fairness should be our guides to proper conduct.
Stavins, like the wealthy young man, is forced to make a choice. He chooses "great possessions."
Unlike the wealthy young man, however, Stavins is enraged rather than "sorrowful" and Stavins lashes
out at the religious leader. He is appalled that an Argentine was made Pope, for Pope Francis holds
views "that are opposed to the world economic order [and] fearful of free markets." Well, yes. A
very large portion of the world's people oppose "the Washington Consensus" and want a very different
"world economic order." Most of the world's top religious leaders are strong critics of the "world
economic order."
As to being "fearful of free markets," Stavins' own work shows that his use of the word "free"
in that phrase is not simply meaningless, but false. Stavins explains that the people, animals, and
plants that are the imminent victims of "mass extinction" have no ability in the "markets" to protect
themselves from mass murder. They are "free" only to become extinct, which makes a mockery of the
word "free."
Similarly, Stavins' work shows that any sentient species would be "fearful" of markets that Stavins
proclaims are literally suicidal and incapable of self-reform. Stavins writes that only urgent government
intervention that forces a "radical restructuring" of the markets can save our planet from "mass
extinction." When I read that I believed that he was "fearful of free markets."
We have all had the experience of seeing the "free markets" blow up the global economy as recently
as 2008. We saw there, as well, that only massive government intervention could save the markets
from a global meltdown. Broad aspects of the financial markets became dominated by our three epidemics
of "accounting control fraud."
Stavins is appalled that a religious leader could oppose a system based on the pursuit and glorification
of "great possessions." He is appalled that a religious leader is living out the Church's mission
to provide a "preferential option for the poor." Stavins hates the Church's mission because it is
"socialist" and therefore so obviously awful that it does not require refutation by Stavins. This
cavalier dismissal of religious beliefs held by most humans is revealing coming from a field that
proudly boasts the twin lies that it is a "positive" "science." Theoclassical economists embrace
an ideology that is antithetical to nearly every major religion.
Stavins, therefore, refuses to enter the door that Pope Francis has opened. Stavins worships a
system based on the desire to accumulate "great possessions" even though he knows that the markets
pose an existential threat to most species on this planet and even though he knows that his dogmas
increasingly aid the worst, most fraudulent members of our society to become wealthy through forms
of "looting" (Akerlof and Romer 1993) that make other people poorer. The result is that Stavins denounces
Pope Francis rather than embracing him as his most valuable ally.
Conclusion: Greed and Markets Kill: Suicide by Laissez Faire
The old truths remain. The worship of "great possessions" wreaks such damage on our humanity that
we come to love them more than life itself and act in a suicidal fashion toward our species and as
mass destroyers of other species. Jesus' insight was that this self-corruption is so common, so subtle,
and so powerful that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God." Today, he would probably use "economist" rather than "camel."
Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins admits
poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to Stavins, he
chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and incapable of self-reform.
The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins worships are suicidal and incapable
of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction" is that the markets are a system based
on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions" even if the result is to damn us and life on
our planet.
Adam Smith propounded the paradox that greed could lead the butcher and baker (in a village where
everyone could judge reputation and quality) to reliably produce goods of high quality at the lowest
price. The butcher and baker, therefore, would act (regardless of their actual motivations) as if
they cared about their customers. Smith observed that the customer of small village merchant's products
would find the merchant's self-interest a more reliable assurance of high quality than the merchant's
altruism.
But Stavins makes clear in his writing that this is not how markets function in the context of
"external" costs to the environment. In the modern context, the energy markets routinely function
in a manner that Stavins rightly depicts as leading to mass murder. Stavins so loves the worship
of the quest for "great possessions" that he is eager to try to discredit Pope Francis as a leader
in the effort to prevent "mass extinction" (Stavins' term) suicide by laissez faire.
(No, I am not now and never was or will be a Catholic.)
The Pope's recent comments stirred an old memory from when I was a child, for some reason.
Growing up in England in the 1980's, it didn't escape even my childish notice that the series
"Dr. Who" was often a vehicle for what would now been deemed outrageously left wing thinking and
ideas.
One such episode was
The Pirate Planet. The plot's premise was that a race had created a mechanism for consuming
entire planets at a time, extracting mineral wealth from the doomed planet being destroyed in
the process and using energy and resources for the benefit of a tiny ruling elite with the remnants
being offered as trinkets for the masses.
A small subset of the evil race was subliminally aware of what was happening. One of the lines
spoken by a character really stuck in my mind, when he said after the reality of their existence
was explained to him "so people die to make us rich?"
At the time, it was intended I think more as an allegory on the exploitation of South African
gold miners under apartheid than as a general critique of capitalism by the prevailing socialist
thinking in Britain in that era (it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain
was in the late 1970s and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels
like it was a completely different country. Perhaps it was ). No wonder the Thatcher government
aggressively targeted the BBC (who produced the show), seeing it, probably rightly, as a hotbed
of Trotskyite ideology.
But the point the show was trying to make is as valid now as it was then and is the same point
the Pope Francis is making. A great deal of our material wealth and affluence is built on others'
suffering. It is wrong. And the system which both perpetrates the suffering and the people who
benefit from it needs to change. Us turkeys are going to have to vote for Christmas.
Nice post, Clive. But I thought Brits ate goose at Christmas, and Americans eat turkey at Thanksgiving
;-)
Yes, where have all the leftists gone? Is Cornel West the only one "left" in America? Forty
years ago I was moving to the Right, in reaction to the Left. The Cold War was still on, patriotism
et al.
The current paradigm is insane so nature will not allow it to continue much longer. G-d not
so much. The US today is qualitatively different than it was in the 70s.
Trotsky was one of the first people to understand Hitler. Stalin not so much. Our current crop
of elder pundits of Neoliberalism originally were Jewish trotskyites back in the 60s. Neoliberalism
was perhaps pragmatic back then, but has outlived its usefulness.
The overweening arrogance of the Thatcherites and the neoclassical ideologues that are in evidence
at Harvard is their insistence that what they peddle is not a set of values, but a "science",
and that their set of values is the only set of values even worth considering (TINA). The Pope's
job is to remind us all of another possible set of values and organizing principles. No one said
you have to believe in them. But they have a right to be on the table when we collectively chose
what kind of world we want to live in.
"All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor." Bill Black
No. He is to sell all he owns but Jesus does not say that he is to then give away ALL the money.
The rich guy's problem is his possessions, not money. Note that Matthew, another rich guy, did
not give away all his money yet he was a disciple of Jesus.
As for "free markets", what is free market about government-subsidized/privileged banks?
something didn't read right about this piece to me. hard to put my finger on it, but it came
across as a bit hypocritical and a lot bitter. apart from that, the style is eclectic and the
thoughts are scrambled all over the place. more a rant than a coherent argument.
It all began when I arrived. After travelling some 48 hours from South Africa to Southern
California, carrying films and books for the conference, I was not even met at the airport.
So I took a taxi. But nobody met me at the place where I was supposed to stay. I stood on the
street for more than one hour.
in this passage he sounds like he suffers from affluenza. in those poor but righteous third
world countries, he is treated like a rockstar. in the rotten US, he is dismayed at the lack of
attention. although no doubt he has a point, it smacks a bit of entitlement.
not vltchek's best work, but then again, he did admit to writing most of it on the plane.
it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain was in the late 1970s
and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels like it was a completely
different country.
True. And greed, as described by Bill Black. has no limits.
"Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins
admits poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to
Stavins, he chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and
incapable of self-reform. The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins
worships are suicidal and incapable of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction"
is that the markets are a system based on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions"
even if the result is to damn us and life on our planet."
This is an extremely important point. We cannot combat neoliberal ideology as if it were simply
a set of rational assumptions, albeit flowing from flawed premises. No, it is a religious
dogma of greed, set up to combat all of the more communitarian and gentle schools of
religious thought including the Christianity of Pope Francis, or the environmentalism of St.
Francis, the patron saint of ecologists.
Good to see that someone else pulls out the "rich young man" bit occasionally. Not many Christians
I've talked to seem to be aware of it, much less of the implications. Good on ya'.
fundamentalists like to take things in the bible literally, but they know that jesus
didn't mean it when he said that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God"
Maybe he didn't realize that his possessions owned him, but the rich young man knew that *something*
was wrong. For all his virtue and good works, he could feel things weren't right inside himself.
Pope Francis probably hasn't read The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein. If
he had read it, he would know that investment bankers are doing God's work.
"... Senior Catholic figures in the US and UK have said the Pope's central message is: what sort of world do we want to leave for future generations? ..."
"... Kurtz deflected criticism from Republican president contenders such as Jeb Bush that the Pope was straying from the pulpit into political terrain. "I don't think he is presenting a blue print for saying this is exactly a step by step recipe," Kurtz said. "He is providing a framework and a moral call as a true moral leader to say take seriously the urgency of this matter." ..."
The Pope
has warned of an "unprecedented destruction of ecosystems" and "serious consequences for all
of us" if humanity fails to act on climate change, in his encyclical on the environment, published
by the Vatican on Thursday.
Senior Catholic figures in the US and UK
have said the Pope's central message is: what sort of world do we want to leave for future
generations?
The UN secretary general, the World Bank president, plus the heads of the UN climate talks
and the UN environment programme have all welcomed the encyclical, along with scores of charities
and faith groups.
Church leaders will brief members of Congress on the encyclical on Thursday, and the White
House on Friday on the encyclical. "It is our marching orders for advocacy,"
said Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishop
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the pope's top official on social and justice issues, flatly rejected
arguments by some conservative politicians in the US that the pope ought to stay out of science.
"Saying that a pope shouldn't deal with science sounds strange since science is a public domain.
It is a subject matter that anyone can get in to," Turkson said at a press conference on Thursday.
The pontiff's upcoming document is being hailed as a major intervention in the climate change
debate but what exactly is an encyclical?
In an apparent reference to comments by Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush, who said
he did not take economic advice from the pope, Turkson said that politicians had the right to
disregard Francis's statement, but said it was wrong to do so based on the fact that the pope
was not a scientist.
"For some time now it has been the attempt of the whole world to kind of try to de-emphasise
the artificial split between religion and public life as if religion plays no role," he said.
Then, quoting an earlier pope, he said the best position was to "encourage dialogue between faith
and reason".
The secretary-general welcomes the papal encyclical released today by His Holiness
Pope Francis which
highlights that climate change is one of the principal challenges facing humanity, and that it
is a moral issue requiring respectful dialogue with all parts of society. The secretary-general
notes the encyclical's findings that there is "a very solid scientific consensus" showing significant
warming of the climate system and that most global warming in recent decades is "mainly a result
of human activity".
Ban called on governments to "place the global common good above national interests and to adopt
an ambitious, universal climate agreement" at the UN climate summit in Paris this December.
There are shades of the Pope's own language there. In the encyclical, he says: "International
[climate] negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which
place their national interests above the global common good".
US church leaders said they saw the message as an urgent call for dialogue
and action one they intend to amplify on social media and in the pulpit.
"It is our marching orders for advocacy," Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of
Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Louisville. "It really brings about a new urgency for us." Church leaders will brief members of Congress on Thursday, and the White House tomorrow on the
encyclical.
Kurtz deflected
criticism from Republican president contenders such as Jeb Bush that the Pope was straying from
the pulpit into political terrain. "I don't think he is presenting a blue print for saying this is exactly a step by step recipe,"
Kurtz said. "He is providing a framework and a moral call as a true moral leader to say take seriously
the urgency of this matter."
Here's a selection of some more US faith group reaction: Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton:
This document written for all people of good will challenges institutions and individuals to
preserve and respect creation as a gift from God to be used for the benefit of all.
Rabbi Marvin Goodman, Rabbi in Residence, Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, San
Francisco:
I'm inspired and grateful for the Pope's high profile leadership and commitment to environmental
justice.
Imam Taha Hassane, Islamic Center of San Diego:
Local and National Muslim Leadership support policies that both halt environmental degradation
and repair that which has already occurred. We stand with any leader, secular or spiritual,
who is willing to speak out against this issue.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols in the UK has echoed
US Archbishop Joseph Edward Kurtz in his view of what the Pope's central message is: what sort
of world do we want to leave for future generations to inherit? The Press Association reports:
Speaking at Our Lady & St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, in Poplar, east London, against the
backdrop of the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said one of the key messages
of the document was asking "what kind of world we want to leave to those who come afterwards".
The pope's message challenged the idea that infinite material progress was possible, with more
goods and more consumption, that "we have to have the latest phone", said the cardinal, who is
head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
The US House of Representatives'
Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition says in an apparent reference to climate denial
on the US right that "the political will of many is still askew" when it comes to tackling global
warming. It hopes the Pope's encyclical might change that:
For those unmoved by the science of climate change, we hope that Pope Francis' encyclical demonstrates
the virtue and moral imperative for action. Today's announcement further aligns the scientific
and moral case for climate action, yet the political will of many is still askew. The time to
act on climate is now, and failure to do so will further damage the planet, its people, and our
principles.
Pope Francis's guidance as a pastor and a teacher shines a light on the moral obligation we all
share to address the climate crisis that transcends borders and politics. This Encyclical underscores
the need for climate action not just to protect our environment, but to protect humankind and
the most vulnerable communities among us. The vision laid out in these teachings serves as inspiration
to everyone across the world who seeks a more just, compassionate, and healthy future.
In case you don't have enough time to read the 100+ page encyclical itself (the length varies depending
on the language and font size of the versions kicking around),
Some more reaction from UK charities on how governments meeting in Paris later this year should listen
to the Pope.
Adriano Campolina, chief executive of ActionAid International, said:
The Pope's message highlights the important links between climate change, poverty and overconsumption.
They are part of the same problem and any lasting solution to climate change must tackle these
fundamental issues.
The powerful truth in Pope Francis' message reaches far beyond the Catholic
Church or climate campaigners. Action on climate requires both environmental and social justice.
As negotiators work on a climate deal for Paris, our leaders must show the same moral and political
courage that Pope Francis has.
Christian conservation group A Rocha said: "national governments should follow the Pope's example
and take 'meaningful action' on climate change".
One of the most senior figures in the US Catholic church, Joseph Edward Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville,
has been speaking at a US press conference. He said that that perhaps the central message of the
encyclical is: what kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us?
Here are some
highlights from Kurtz:
It's really a very beautiful and very extensive treatment of what Pope Francis has called our
common home.
...
The Pope over and over again says that care for the things of this Earth is necessarily bound
with care for one another and especially those who are poor. He calls it an interdependency.
...
He speaks on very indivudal choices as well as the public sphere
...
Over and over again he talks about the world as a gift
...
He uses a phrase he's used very often: to reject a throwaway culture.
...
He talks about very specific things, about slums in which people are forced to live, the lack
of clean water, about the consumerism mentality.
And that perhaps this is the centre of his message: what kind of world do we want to leave
to those who come after us?
...
Our pope is speaking with a very much pastor's voice and with a deep respect for the role of
science.
Three essential areas that our Catholic community is being called to being involved in:
1) to advocate, a local, national and global level, to advocate for the common good. We know
that faith if done well, actually enriches public life. And we know that technology tells us what
we can do, but we need moral voices that tell us what we should do
2) [the video cut out at this point so I'm afraid I missed his second point]
3) The use of our resources, in whole we build buildings, should honour the Earth
Here's the Pope himself on that issue of what we leave future generations:
Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us. The issue
is one which dramatically affects us, for it has to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly
sojourn.
We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace
of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet's capacity that our
contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those
which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present
imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now.
Summary
The Pope
has warned of an "unprecedented destruction of ecosystems" and "serious consequences for all
of us" if humanity fails to act on climate change, in his encyclical on the environment, published
by the Vatican on Thursday
The
pontiff said that the world should phase out coal in favour of gas, while renewable energy
technology scales up
The heads of the
UN climate talks and the
UN environment programme have said the Pope's intervention should act as a "clarion call"
for governments meeting in a bid to work out a climate change deal at a summit in Paris later
this year
Today's release of Pope Francis' first encyclical should serve as a stark reminder to all of us
of the intrinsic link between climate change and poverty. We know the scientific, business and
economic case for action to combat climate change and I welcome the pope's emphasis on our moral
obligation to act.
He added:
The pope's encyclical comes at a pivotal moment in the lead up to December's Paris meeting on
climate change.
The World Council of Churches welcomes Pope Francis' encyclical which catalyses what churches
and ecumenical organizations have been doing for decades on caring for the earth and climate justice
issues. By affirming human induced climate change and its impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable
communities, the Encyclical is an important call to urgently act as individuals, citizens and
also at the international level to effectively respond to the climate crisis.
Dr. Steven Timmermans, executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, said:
We affirm Pope Francis' moral framing of the threats posed by climate change. We have too many
brothers and sisters around the world living on the edge of poverty whose livelihoods are threatened-and
too many little ones in our congregations set to inherit a dangerously broken world-to believe
otherwise. For too long the church has been silent about the moral travesty of climate change.
Today, the Pope has said, 'Enough is enough,' and the Christian Reformed Church welcomes his voice.
Sister Pat McDermott, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, said:
We welcome Pope Francis' critique of the current, dominant economic model that prioritizes the
market, profit and unharnessed consumption and regards Earth as a resource to be exploited.
Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the US-based Evangelical Environmental Network, which lobbies American
politicians on environmental issues, welcomed the Pope's encyclical. He
said:
It's time to make hope happen by fuelling the unstoppable clean energy transition, stopping the
ideological battles, and working together.
Creating a new energy economy that benefits all and addresses climate change is not about a
political party but living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We urge all people of good will, especially
fellow Christian conservatives to read and study these timely words from Pope Francis.
The New York Times' Justin Gillis says (fairly, in my opinion) that the Pope is more cautious on
the science behind climate change than many scientists.
...amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right?
The short answer from
climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious
document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to
offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts.
For example, a substantial body of published science says that human emissions have caused
all the global warming that has occurred over the past century. Yet in his letter, Francis does
not go quite that far, citing volcanoes, the sun and other factors that can influence the climate
before he concludes that "most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration
of greenhouse gases" released mainly by human activity.
The world's most authoritative body on climate science, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, found in
its landmark report last year that global warming is "unequivocal" and humanity's role in causing
it is "clear".
In some places, cooperatives are being developed to exploit renewable sources of energy which
ensure local self-sufficiency and even the sale of surplus energy. This simple example shows that,
while the existing world order proves powerless to assume its responsibilities, local individuals
and groups can make a real difference.
Bob Perciasepe of US thinktank Center for Climate and Energy Solutions,
has blogged on the unique role the Pope can play in the climate change arena and how he might
influence American minds:
Scientists, environmentalists, politicians, business executives, and military leaders have all
raised concerns for years about the real risks of climate change. But few individuals are as influential
as the pope. By calling on people to act on their conscience, Pope Francis provides a powerful
counterpoint to what has become a largely ideologically-driven debate, especially here in the
United States.
The publication of the Pope's encyclical is of enormous significance. He has shown great wisdom
and leadership. Pope Francis is surely absolutely right that climate change raises vital moral
and ethical issues. It is poor people around the world who are most vulnerable to the impacts
of climate change, such as an intensification of extreme weather events. And the decisions that
we make about managing the risks of climate change matter not only for us, but also for our children,
grandchildren and future generations.
He added:
Moral leadership on climate change from the Pope is particularly important because of the failure
of many heads of state and government around the world to show political leadership.
And here's what the Pope himself says about world leaders' failure to act on climate change and
environmental problems:
Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned
with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of
the negative impacts of climate change.
The pope's effort to sever the link between population growth and environmental deterioration
should not, however, detract from the importance of what else he has to say. This is the first encyclical
to be devoted entirely to environmental issues, though it is certainly not the first time a pope
has spoken out on the destruction of the environment.
As the encyclical notes, Paul VI first raised the issue as long ago as 1971, describing it as
a "tragic consequence" of uncontrolled human activity. Saint John Paul II and his successor, Benedict
XVI, inveighed against mankind's ill-treatment of nature or as they viewed it, creation.
Far more explicitly than his predecessors, however, Francis heaps the blame on to the part of
humanity that is rich. He accepts that the poorer nations should "acknowledge the scandalous level
of consumption in some privileged sectors of their population and combat corruption more effectively."
They ought also to develop less pollutant sources of energy.
The Pope suggests that you can't care about nature and support abortion, which the Catholic church
strongly opposes:
Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with
the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other
vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human
embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?
The other elephant in the room is birth control and overpopulation, though the Pope seems to have
anticipated criticism on that. He takes the line,
supported by many environmentalists, that consumption is the problem, not overpopulation. The
encyclical says:
To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is
one way of refusing to face the issues.
The head of the UN's environment programme, Achim Steiner, has echoed
the UN's climate chief in saying today's text should be a clarion call for action.
This encyclical is a clarion call that resonates not only with Catholics, but with all of the
Earth's peoples. Science and religion are aligned on this matter: The time to act is now.
We
(UNEP) share Pope Francis' view that our response to environmental degradation and climate change
cannot only be defined by science, technology or economics, but is also a moral imperative. We
must not overlook that the world's poorest and most vulnerable suffer most from the changes we
are seeing. Humanity's environmental stewardship of the planet must recognise the interests of
both current and future generations.
Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never
know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority
become extinct for reasons related to human activity.
...
a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service
of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever
more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly.
We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something
which we have created ourselves.
On GM
It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM) ... The risks involved
are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application
... This is a complex environmental issue
On water quality
One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor. Every day, unsafe
water results in many deaths and the spread of water-related diseases, including those caused
by microorganisms and chemical substances.
On fossil fuels
We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels especially coal, but
also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas needs to be progressively replaced without delay. Until
greater progress is made in developing widely accessible sources of renewable energy, it is legitimate
to choose the lesser of two evils or to find short-term solutions.
At the Vatican press conference, Peter Turkson, a Ghanian cardinal of the Catholic church, says US
climate sceptics are entitled to their view.
"The other big thing about Republicans and presidential figures saying they will not listen to
the Pope is that is their freedom, their freedom of choice," he said, in an apparent reference to
Jeb Bush (see
11:21).
He said "it's easy to say because the Pope is not a scientist he shouldn't talk about science",
and said "I would not attach much credibility" to those criticisms.
The pontiff included a personal handwritten note in his communication. It ended with a plea for help:
"United in the lord, and please do not forget to pray for me."
One recurring motif throughout the encyclical is a general scepticism or outright hostility to
technological solutions to environmental challenges, and to the role that big business should play
in tackling climate change.
For example:
Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way of solving these
problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things
and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others
...
To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate
what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system.
He doesn't like carbon trading either. In this passage he seems to be referring to the only current
global carbon trading scheme, the
CDM:
The strategy of buying and selling "carbon credits" can lead to a new form of speculation which
would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide
a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no
way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply
become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.
And some sections sound like they could have been ghostwritten by Guardian columnist George Monbiot:
Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect
on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?
The Pope isn't just concerned about climate change. He has some very colourful turns of phrase about
other environmental problems, such as pollution and waste:
The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many
parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.
The Pope makes reference to the huge body of work by national science academies and international
bodies such as the IPCC on climate science:
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming
of the climatic system.
He warns of serious consequences if we don't act on climate change:
If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an
unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.
As many studies have already pointed out, the Pope notes that the world's poor are expected to
suffer most from global warming:
It [climate change] represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its
worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor
live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence
are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing
and forestry.
The message brought an outpouring of support from environmental groups, climate scientists, and
leaders of all religions, eager to counter a series of pre-emptive attacks on the Pope from conservatives.
The response was a first glimpse of a vast and highly organised mobilisation effort around the
letter visit, and a papal visit to the US in September.
The Pope will get an another chance to exhort leaders to act this time in person when he addresses
both houses of Congress.
With that high profile visit in mind, campaigners argued the Pope's intervention had re-set the
parameters of the discussion surrounding climate change, from narrow political agenda to broader
morality. The Pope's message was above religion, they said.
"The Pope's message applies to all of us," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense
Council. "He is imploring people of good will everywhere to honour our moral obligation to protect
future generations from the dangers of further climate chaos by embracing our ethical duty to act,"
she said.
Cafod, the Catholic charity went so far as to suggest that that was the Pope's design all along.
"The Pope has deliberately released the encyclical in a year of key UN moments that will affect
humanity," said Neil Thomas, director of advocacy. "He is reading the signs of his times and telling
us that the human and environmental costs of our current way of life are simply too high."
Ray Bradley, the climate scientist, said: "He has no political agenda. He speaks from the heart
(not the Heartland) with unimpeachable moral authority. Who else can address this issue without the
taint of politics? Moreover, Pope Francis has a particular responsibility to those without a voice
at the centres of power in affluent countries.
But the Pope's message is expected to resonate most strongly among the environmental campaigners
operating within the Church.
For activist priests and nuns, who have lobbied oil companies and called on their own parishes
to divest, the encyclical puts the Vatican's stamp of approval on years of effort, often at the sidelines.
That on its own has galvanised campaigners, said Sister Joan Brown, a Franciscan in New Mexico
who has worked on climate change for more than 20 years.
"I've never seen anything like this in the faith community or otherwise," she said.
The pope's message set off a flood of new activity that has been more than a year in the planning.
In deference to the Pope, mainstream environmental groups will be operating in the background.
"We've been asking environmental groups to hold back on this...so that the message isn't one that
would maybe cause more polarisation, rather than less," Sister Joan said.
But the Catholic church and activist wings among other religious communities are jumping in
to try and amplify thePope's message and build momentum for action on climate.
The archbishop's office in Atlanta signed up scientists and engineers to help parishes, and parishioners,
reduce their carbon footprint. The Bishop of Des Moines is planning to hold a press conference at
a wind farm.
The Evangelical Environmental Network also came out strongly behind the Pope.
More than 300 rabbis signed on to a letter calling on Jewish institutions and individuals to divest
from "carbon Pharaohs" or coal-based electric power, and buy wind power instead.
As Pope Francis reaffirms, climate change is an all-encompassing threat: it is a threat to our
security, our health, and our sources of fresh water and food ... I applaud the Pope for his strong
moral and ethical leadership. We need more of such inspired leadership. Will we see it at the
climate summit in Paris?
The Pope is right climate change is a problem for all of humanity that is hitting the world's
poorest hardest. His words could and should add real urgency to efforts to protect people and
planet. World leaders meeting at the UN climate talks in Paris later this year should be in no
doubt that the world expects them to put aside short-term national interest and move us all closer
to a safer and more prosperous future.
Andrew Steer, president and chief executive of the US-based World Resources Institute:
The pope's message brings moral clarity that the world's leaders must come together to address
this urgent human challenge. This message adds to the global drumbeat of support for urgent climate
action. Top scientists, economists, business leaders and the pope can't all be wrong.
The encyclical is unimpressed by those who deny the science of climate change:
regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective,
not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist
attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference,
nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions.
The pushback from Republican and the rest of the US right, where climate scepticism is a badge
of honour, has already begun. Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate,
said yesterday: "I hope I'm not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home,
but I don't get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinal or my pope."
And as our US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg found out last week at a gathering
of US climate sceptics, the Pope's encyclical is at the top of their list of concerns.
Suzanne Goldenberg visits the Heartland Institute's conference in Washington, an annual gathering
of climate sceptics, to hear what delegates including US senator James Inhofe and blogger Marc
Morano think about the Pope's encyclical on the environment and climate change
Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, says the Pope's intervention should act as a "clarion
call" for a strong deal at Paris:
Pope Francis' encyclical underscores the moral imperative for urgent action on climate change
to lift the planet's most vulnerable populations, protect development, and spur responsible growth.
This clarion call should guide the world towards a strong and durable universal climate agreement
in Paris at the end of this year. Coupled with the economic imperative, the moral imperative leaves
no doubt that we must act on climate change now.
Christiana Figueres. Photograph: Martin Godwin/Martin Godwin
But the Pope isn't very impressed by more than 20 years of UN climate talks. He says the annual
summits have produced "regrettably few" advances on efforts to cut carbon emissions and rein in global
warming. The encyclical says:
It is remarkable how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits
on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There
are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good
and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.
John Schellnhuber, Angela Merkel's climate adviser and a leading climate change scientist, is punning
his way through a presentation at the encyclical's launch, "praying" his Powerpoint will work.
Of the encyclical, he said:
it is very unique in the sense that it brings together two strong powers in the world, namely
faith and moral and on the other reason and ingenuity. It's an environmental crisis but also a
social crisis. These two things together pose an enormouse challenge. Only if these two things
work together, faith and reason, can we overcome it
A spokesman for the Vatican told a packed press conference in the Vatican audience hall this morning
that in his 25 years there he has worked there, he has never seen as much prolonged, global and intense
anticipation for a single document, AP reports.
The press conference is being live-streamed on YouTube:
The more-than-100 page text is wide-ranging,
majoring on climate change, but also touching on pollution, biodiversity loss, the oceans, man's
modern relationship with nature, the dangers of relying on the markets and technology, and overconsumption.
The more than 190 countries involved in the international climate change will be keenly watching
the text too it could have a big impact on the talks ahead of a
major summit in Paris later this year.
"... "Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds. ..."
Pope Blames Markets for Environment's Ills. Pontiff condemns global warming as outgrowth of global consumerism. Pope Francis said human activity is the cause of climate change, which threatens the poor and
future generations.
ROME- Pope Francis in his much-awaited encyclical on the environment offered a broad and uncompromising
indictment of the global market economy, accusing it of plundering the Earth at the expense of the
poor and of future generations.
In passionate language, the pontiff attributed global warming to human activity, blamed special
interests for holding back policy responses and said the global North owes the South "an ecological
debt."
The 183-page document, which Pope Francis addresses to "every person living on this planet," includes
pointed critiques of globalization and consumerism, which he says lead to environmental degradation.
"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," he writes.
The encyclical's severe language stirred immediate controversy, signaling the weight the pontiff's
stance could have on the pitched debate over how to respond to climate change.
"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given
to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain," he writes. "As a result, whatever is fragile,
like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become the
only rule."
The Vatican published the document, titled "Laudato Si" ("Be praised"), on Thursday. The official
release came three days after the online publication of a leaked version by an Italian magazine.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had described the leaked Italian text as a
draft, but the final document, published in eight languages, differed only in minor ways, while the
pope's main points were identical. An encyclical is considered one of the most authoritative forms
of papal writing.
In the encyclical, Pope Francis wades into the debate over the cause of global warming, lending
high-profile support to those who attribute it to human activity.
A "very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming
of the climactic system," contributing to a "constant rise in the sea level" and an "increase of
extreme weather events," he writes.
"Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption,
in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he
adds.
While acknowledging natural causes for climate change, including volcanic activity and the solar
cycle, Pope Francis writes that a "number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming
in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity."
The pontiff goes on to argue that there is "an urgent need" for policies to drastically cut the
emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and promote the switch to renewable sources of energy.
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On Global Warming, Pope Francis Is Clear but U.S. Catholics are Divided
Scientists Back Pope Francis on Global Warming
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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