Economics Is For Donkeys

Degrees Are For Donkeys

2012-03-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

Lord Keynes has posted an interesting blog piece on the fact that his namesake, John Maynard Keynes, never actually received a formal economics degree. While it is often pointed out that the founders of the formal discipline of economics were often trained in a traditional liberal arts setting, often emphasizing philosophy and the Greek and Roman classics, it is interesting that as late a figure as Keynes did not receive an economics degree.

My own impression of modern academic economics is that it is a very closed system that does not allow for much curiosity on the part of students. It is notoriously diffcult for economists in the so-called heterodox schools to find work in the academy, so they often must teach the neoclassical orthodoxy to make a living, even if they think the orthodox approach is seriosuly flawed.

In a November 7, 2011 blog post, economist Bill Mitchell does a great job discussing the changes in economic course offerings since the end of the Cold War. Economics departments once offered courses in comparative economics, economic history, and even Marxian economics. This broader perspective has been largely jettisoned in favor of a neoclassical orthodoxy that attempts to ape the natural sciences (especially physcis), but ends up looking more like astrology than astronomy.

Finally, the narrowness of focus in most economics departments is especially harmful because it limits the range of public discourse on economic matters as journalists must rely on the "expertise" of orthdoox economists or run the risk of being accused of slumming among "fringe" figures. The result is that the media simply reflects the biases of the academic economic establishment, which is itself dependent upon private businesses and the governments they control for funds and prestige.

Failing The Young

2012-03-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has an excellent blog post on the grave problem of youth unemployment. Necessary reading.

Trouble-Psalm 9

2012-02-27T19:16:00.001-08:00

For some reason, people are usually surprised when they learn that I am a fan of heavy metal music. I suppose I don't fit the stereotype of the "metalhead." In any event, as of late I have been listening to a good deal of music produced by the American doom metal outfit Trouble. Hailing from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois, Trouble's sound is somewhat reminiscent of early Black Sabbath.

Trouble stood out from the 1980s heavy metal pack with their retro 1970s sound and pro-Christian lyrics, which led some observers to dub their music "white metal" in opposition to the Satanic black metal scene that would eventually become infamous, especially in Norway where black metal musicians were implicated in church burnings and even murder. Anyway, above is the title track from their 1984 debut album Psalm 9. Enjoy.

There Are Alternatives

2012-02-27T17:51:00.000-08:00

Michael Hudson has a great article on Modern Monetary Theory as an alternative to neoliberalism over at his website. A must read.

Confessions Of An Old Labour High Tory

2012-02-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

The indispensable David Lindsay has a new book out. I strongly recommend a purchase. Mr. Lindsay has one of the best blogs out there, and I am sure his newest book will be even better.

Red Statism

2012-02-19T18:05:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman with a very good opinion piece on how many of the most conservative areas of the United States are also the most dependent on Federal spending, here.

Austerity And Its Discontents

2012-02-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

Michael Hudson has an excellent video on his website regarding the savage austerity being imposed on Greece and other countries. A must view.

Woe To You Pharisees

2012-02-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

Rob Urie has an interesting article over at Counterpunch on Charles Murray's new book. Urie does a good job pointing out that the sins of the rich and powerful (starting pointless wars, economic predation) are apparently left out of Murray's calculations, as he prefers to concentrate his definition of morality on unemployment and out-of-wedlock births. It is an interesting point and one that I agree with, even though I think people are right to be concerned with the decline of family life among working-class and poor Americans.

American conservatism often tends toward a Pharisaical kind of morality. As the late Christopher Lasch once noted:

"Conservatives stress the importance of religion, but their religion is the familiar American blend of flag waving and personal morality. It centers on the trivial issues of swearing, neatness, gambling, sportsmanship, sexual hygiene, and school prayers. Adherents of the new religious right correctly reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics."

Lasch's point about American conservatism lacking spiritual insight is especially important. I have seen very few articles coming from prominent conservatives on the subject of the morality of the Iraq War, asking whether we, as a nation, should be engaging in soul-searching over the fact that we fought a major war that led to tens of thousands of deaths, all over fabrications regarding non-existent weapons of mass destruction and a non-existent alliance between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

But we do get plenty of Bill Bennett and others writing about the bad habits of the unemployed and underemployed. Even if you agree with Bennett, it is obvious that the bad behavior of the poor is given a great deal of attention while the sins of businessmen, politicians, and generals are either ignored or excused by appeal to "reasons of state" or "the requirements of the market." I am all for having a debate about morality and public policy, but let us be fair about it and include the high and mighty along with the lowly and weak.

Generation Silly

2012-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

A.J. Dellinger has a revealing article over at Salon about why so many members of Generation Y are enamoured with Ron Paul and libertarianism. It is a rather confused piece, and that is to be expected. Apparently, Generation Y is irreligious, permissive on drugs and social/cultural issues, wants to end foreign military intervention, return to the gold standard, have a zero-percent income tax, and universal healthcare. Supposedly this is some new combination of personal responsibility and libertinism, but really, this just looks like a nicer version of the hippie-turned-yuppie ideals of the 1980s.

I don't understand why this worn out, failed philosophy is still attractive. Dellinger probably overstates how popular Gen Y libertarianism is, but I think there may be some truth to his article. It reminds me of the South Park Republican concept from a few years ago, which was used to describe the beliefs of socially liberal/economically right-wing young people. While I suppose it is a consistent ideology, I find it rather silly, especially because it does not grapple seriously with the question of power, outside of simply mocking powerful institutions.

By contrast, the Europeans seem to understand the issue of power with more seriousness and clarity, given their reactions to austerity and the realization that many of the European Union states are no longer fully sovereign and that national governments can be toppled and replaced with neoliberal "technocrat" administrations. Libertarians, in their blanket condemnation of authority, end up without a serious theory of power. Simply reciting the magic words "liberty," "freedom," and "personal responsibility" isn't going to cut it.

The Whole Story

2012-02-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman has written two great blog posts (entitled "Blaming the Victims of Inequality" and "Wages and Values" respectively) that act as counterpoints against Charles Murray and his analysis of the decline of family life among working-class Americans. Prof. Krugman also links to some other interesting articles by other authors.

Race To Nowhere

2012-02-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

California Constantian has a great blog post that perfectly sums up my feelings on the 2012 U.S. presidential race, here.

Look North

2012-02-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

George Lakey has a very informative article on how Swedish and Norwegian populists succeeded through nonviolent struggle. A very interesting read.

Bad News From Britain

2012-01-31T18:33:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has a sobering blog entry on the disastrous impact of fiscal austerity in the United Kingdom. An important read.

Remembering Charles I

2012-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

David Lindsay and Matthew Franklin Cooper have written two excellent blog posts on this, the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles I of England. To many people this might seem like a rather unimportant day, just another footnote in European history. However, when one looks at the execution of Charles I as an important step in the West's movement from an imperfect Christendom to the bleak world of liberal capitalism, it is pretty clear why we should remember this day as a grim one.

The Education Myth

2012-01-30T16:58:00.000-08:00

David Sirota does an excellent job demolishing the myth that America is losing manufacturing jobs to other countries because the United States does not produce enough math and science graduates. An absolute must read.

Right And Wrong

2012-01-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

Michael Lind has a fantastic article over at Salon discussing how the American Right's propaganda machine has created a conservative movement that is now almost totally divorced from reality. A must read.

Only Fools And Frauds

2012-01-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman has a great blog post on just how bad the GOP primary candidates are, here.

The New Malthusians

2012-01-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

Economist Michael Hudson on the World Bank's population control policy as a direct attack on the nations and peoples of the Third World, here. A must read.

Conservatism And The Accordion Family

2012-01-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Salon has an interesting interview with Katherine Newman, a sociologist at John Hopkins University, regarding the phenomenon of “accordion families,” that is, families where young adults continue to live with their parents. This situation has provided a good deal of fodder both for comedies and for American conservatives seeking to place the blame for high youth unemployment and underemployment on a generation of supposedly lazy Peter Pans.

However, Alice Karekezi’s interview with Newman reveals some interesting problems with the “laziest generation” meme and in doing so destroys many of the arguments coming from conservatives regarding the actual nature of the problems facing families today. I found several of Newman’s insights particularly intriguing.

First, Newman points out that the bad economy has helped to fuel an increase in young people returning home to live with their parents. This is in stark contrast to the more prosperous post-war period, which is the reference point for most baby boomers.

Second, the period of post-war affluence was historically unusual. Poorer families have always been more likely to live together in order to pool resources and many middle-class people in the pre-World War II period also lived in accordion families.

Third, the post-war period of affluence was marked by many government programs, such as the G.I. Bill, that heavily aided in independent family formation. I would also add that high rates of unionization (which peaked at over a quarter of the private sector workforce in the United States during the 1950s) and increased direct hiring by all levels of government also likely made it easier to start a family earlier.

Fourth, the developed countries with the smallest number of accordion families might be located in Scandinavia and this situation is likely due to strong state intervention in the economy, including a robust welfare state. Interestingly, Newman also points out that a potential downside to increased independence may be more loneliness and a feeling of familial detachment, as evidenced in some of the responses by Nordic people who see Mediterranean families (notorious for raising Mama’s Boys) as closer and more affectionate.

After reading the interview, I came away with the impression that if conservatives really wanted to see more people becoming independent and forming families earlier and living with their parents for shorter periods of time, they would adopt left-wing economic policies of the kind that helped young people become independent in the United States during the post-war era and which still apparently do the same trick in Scandinavia today.

Unfortunately, as Newman discussed in her interview, many people forget the role that governments and labor unions played in bringing mass affluence to Americans and others in the post-war period. To some degree this is the product of the understandable tendency to see all of one’s accomplishments in terms of individual initiative alone, as if humans lived in a kind of vacuum. But it is interesting that while conservatives dream of a return to the time of Leave It To Beaver, they fail to recognize that the post-war era was not a very good period for the partisans of laissez-faire capitalism.

Furthermore, it should be noted that American conservatism is itself an odd beast. You would think that folks who always go on about the evils of statism would be happy to see families working together to deal with hard times instead of seeking support from the government. Barring the real instances of lazy, irresponsible children, accordion families can be seen as models of private self-help. However, as Christopher Lasch noted in a powerful 1987 article in Tikkun, American conservatism is really an intense form of individualism. Lasch writes:

“Not only do conservatives have no understanding of modern capitalism, they have a distorted understanding of the “traditional values” they claim to defend. The virtues they want to revive are the pioneer virtues: rugged individualism, boosterism, rapacity, a sentimental deference to women, and a willingness to resort to force. These values are “traditional” only in the sense that they are celebrated in the traditional myth of the Wild West and embodied in the Western hero, the prototypical American lurking in the background, often in the very foreground, of conservative ideology. In their implications and inner meaning, these individualist values are themselves profoundly anti-traditional. They are the values of the man on the make, in flight from his ancestors, from the family claim, from everything that ties him down and limits his freedom of movement. What is traditional about the rejection of tradition, continuity, and rootedness? A conservatism that sides with the forces of restless mobility is a false conservatism.”

I would add that a conservatism that does not believe in the existence of society is never going to be able to craft a sensible family policy. It does not matter whether one thinks the Swedes or the Italians or some other people have the right idea about family life. Rugged individualism melts away all normal concepts of family life, which is perhaps why American conservatism has such a rabid, mean-spirited edge. It rejects both the familial solidarity of the Latin model and the social democratic paternalism of the Nordic countries. Instead, American conservatism often views Man as a kind of a solitary beast, roaming about the Earth in a grim war for survival.

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching

2012-01-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

William Oddie's article on Rick Santorum and David Lindsay's excellent commentary on same brings up a very sticky subject: is Catholicism compatible with the ethic of capitalism? In the United States, many Catholics have become rather right-wing when it comes to economics. This can only be partially explained by the upward mobility of some sectors of the Catholic population, as many Catholic conservatives are blue-collar workers, the famous "Reagan Democrats," or their children. Furthermore, the importance of social issues such as abortion and gay marriage cannot completely explain the attractiveness of fusionism (the mixture of social conservatism and economic libertarianism), as nobody is forced to intellectually accept both wings of the fusionist platform, even if one might begrudgingly vote for Republicans based on the argument that the Republican Party is "pro-life" (I would argue that the GOP is at best only nominally pro-life, but that is a story for another day).

Fusionism has actually benefited from both ignorance and the misrepresentation of Catholic Social Teaching. Take for example the principle of subsidiarity, which is often used by Catholic libertarians to declare State intervention to be antithetical to Catholic values. But as Dr. Charles M.A. Clark, an economics professor at St. John's University, notes:

"A major thrust of subsidiarity is the contention that if a task can be equally carried out by small or large organizations, the smaller one is preferable. It does not assert that larger organizations, such as the state, have no role to play; just that the state should only carry out activities that are beyond the capabilities of smaller organizations."

Now it may be that in an advanced industrial economy certain activities, such as health care, can only be dealt with adequately on a larger scale. If analyzed in the context of history, an institution such as the United Kingdom's NHS may not violate the principle of subsidiarity. Additionally, the principle of subsidiarity can also be applied to the private sector (although, curiously, among Catholic libertarians this line of analysis does not seem to be as common as attacks on the public sector). Do we really need Home Depot when we can have many small hardware stores instead?

Of course, as with the public sector, the application of the principle of subsidiarity to the private sector must take into consideration the capability of smaller organizations to actually carry out activities given current historical conditions. We wouldn't demand that the the local mechanic also mass-produce automobiles, so why should we demand that the sick rely on local fundraisers to pay for gigantic medical bills?

On an even deeper level, however, there is a clear problem with the concept that the Church supports a minimal "night watchman" government. The Church has always supported the State or other institutions intervening in the economy. As Amintore Fanfani wrote in his landmark book Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism:

"In the Middle Ages, by supporting the intervention of public bodies in economic life as a check to individual activity and to defend the interests of society as a whole; in our own time [in Fanfani's case, the 20th century], by calling for State intervention for the same reasons, the Church has remained faithful to her anti-capitalistic ethics. Both during the predominance of the medieval guild system, and during that of capitalism, the Church, and those Catholics that listened to her voice, set or sought to set bounds not lawfully to be overstepped to the course of economic life - even at the cost of a sacrifice of mechanical and technical progress, which, in the Catholic conception of society, has never been identical with civilization."

From prohibitions on working during religious holidays to more modern demands for family wages and safe working conditions for laborers, the Church has always supported public intervention in economic life. Thus, the recent attempt to combine Catholicism with Austrian School Economics is arguably as bizarre as the campaign by some left-wing Catholics to merge Marxism with Catholicism. While it is of course possible to gain insights into economics from the writings of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx, there are certain aspects of both Austrianism and Marxism that make them rather incompatible with Catholicism.

Indeed, given current realities, it may be "libertarian theology" that is the more dangerous tendency, given the collapse of the more virulent strains of liberation theology and the growth of well-heeled libertarian organizations such as the Acton Institute. The Acton Institute and similar organizations are in the vanguard of a campaign to transform Christianity into the attack dog of capitalism, the ultimate goal being a state of affairs where any critique of capitalism on the basis of Christian thought leads to a questioning of one's orthodoxy.

Social Catholics and socially-conscious Christians in general, however, have a long and impressive history, and there is no reason to give ground to politicians like Rick Santorum on issues of faith and morality. Indeed, opposition to abortion and support for family values can only be enhanced by a greater emphasis on social justice.

Nothing Newt Under The Sun

2011-12-20T18:50:00.000-08:00

Prof. Ha-Joon Chang has a great article on Newt Gingrich's recent comments in favor of child labor and other, more serious examples of the return of discredited economic ideas to mainstream respectability. Please give it a read.

Deconstructing Hitchens

2011-12-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

Michael Lind has a pretty strong article on the legacy of Christopher Hitchens over at Salon. I would almost say it is a bit too harsh given that Mr. Hitchens just passed away, but he was a public figure and given the numerous hagiographies written about the man, something with a punch may be necessary as a counterpoint. I leave it to my gentle readers to decide. Definitely an interesting piece.

Greek Tragedy

2011-12-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

Noelle Burgi has written an excellent article on the devastation wrought by austerity in Greece. A must read, even if it is very depressing.

The New Normal

2011-12-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

Gary Kamiya has an impressive article on the official end of the Iraq War and the growing public apathy toward America's new state of permanent quasi-war (a great phrase that Kamiya uses in his article). An absolute must read.

Hitchens And Iraq

2011-12-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

I was hesitant about posting anything regarding the passing of Christopher Hitchens, as I was sad to see him pass away even though I strongly disagreed with him on most issues. However, I think Alex Pareene's article on Hitchens and his role in providing intellectual support for the disasterous Iraq War is an important piece and says a lot about the role intellectuals sometimes play in providing cover for the corrupt and powerful.

Black Dog Days

2011-12-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has a great blog post on the depressing persistence of neoliberal thinking in some circles of the British Labour Party, brilliantly critiquing the so-called "In the Black Labour" policy proposal of fiscal conservatism. A must read.

The Iron Fist Of The Market

2011-12-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

In light of Neil Clark's excellent article on the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s, I would also recommend Standard Schaefer's wonderful interview with economist Michael Hudson on the neoliberal experiment in Chile. The interview is from 2003 but it is still very relevant.

FDR, LBJ, and Obama

2011-12-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Michael Lind has a great article discussing why modern Democrats are so loath to identify with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, even though they are arguably the most successful center-left presidents in American history (at least on domestic economic issues), and why this is ultimately a bad thing for the future of the Democratic Party. His analysis of the switch from the New Deal philosophy of FDR and LBJ to the neoliberalism of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is really spot on.

Life Is Not A Race (Or At Least It Shoudn't Be)

2011-12-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

I normally wouldn't give much time to Adam Carolla's rant about the "Participation Trophy Generation," but I think there is something important to point out here. First, I will deal with the concept of generational warfare, which seems to be very popular right now. Baby Boomers and members of Generation X are blaming Millennials for being lazy, self-important brats. Millennials are blaming Baby Boomers and others for throwing away relative prosperity in an orgy of unsustainable tax cuts and economic bubbles.

None of this is new or surprising, although it is all quite stupid. I am sure that any person could bring up anecdotes about lazy or irresponsible people no matter what generation they are a part of of. These kinds of arguments predictably go nowhere. We end up with an endless war of anecdotes and everyone leaving with their worst prejudices hardened. There is not much more to discuss here.

However, there is also the problem of focusing the debate around the concept of the "race of life," which is my second point. Carolla makes his argument within the context of children's sports and the practice of giving children awards for merely participating. Within the narrow world of children's sports, I would agree with Carolla that such policies are rather silly and embarrassing for everyone involved. However, when a child loses a race or fails to make the school basketball team, his family members are not deprived of their livelihood. Obviously, the consequences of "losing" in the world of economic competition are far more serious than in the world of children's sports.

Now, what is really interesting is that many of the champions of Occupy Wall Street seem to have essentially the same worldview that Carolla has, only they argue (correctly, in my opinion) that the game is rigged in favor of those who are already rich. True as that may be, why accept the concept of "the race of life" in the first place? To be honest, I don't always oppose privilege. When I do oppose privilege, it is when the privileged refuse to recognize an obligation to the rest of society or when the privileged refuse to allow others to also "feather their nests" through methods like unionization.

I wish we could simply be frank about the lack of meritocracy in America and then realize that a perfect meritocracy is likely impossible and probably undesirable. We can then get on with the real business of deciding what kind of society we want to live in, which is ultimately the real task of the conservative. The concept of the "race of life" is a disgusting idea that devalues the human person and should be anathema to anyone with the heart of a cavalier.

What Would Napoleon Do?

2011-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

While I recognize the differences between the ideals and the reality of the historical French Empires, this excerpt from Des Idées Napoléoniennes, a booklet by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III, is very interesting:

"The Napoleonic idea has as many branches as there are phases of human genius. It vivifies agriculture, it invents new products, it borrows useful inventions from foreign countries; it levels mountains, spans rivers, facilitates intercommunication, and compels nations to shake hands; it gives work to all hands and capacities; it enters the cottage, not holding forth barren declarations about the rights of man, but with means to slake the poor man's thirst, to quench his hunger, and with a glorious story to awaken his patriotism."

In light of the savage austerity forced upon many nations today, the Napoleonic Idea seems rather progressive. Indeed, in the above we can interpret a commitment to full employment, the elimination of material want, the expansion of production and the harnessing of the power of nature for the benefit of all humankind. All of these themes were present in the New Deal tradition in the United States as well as in the various populist and social democratic movements in post-war Western Europe and its offshoots such as Canada and Australia. Even the socialisms trapped under Soviet domination maintained at least a theoretical commitment to the advancement of the material and moral condition of the masses. However, under neoliberalism, workers have actually become poorer.

When I read articles like this one, where an American investor is on some kind of personal crusade against Russia and Vladimir Putin, supposedly because of Russian gangsterism, I have to laugh and remember why strong leaders like Putin are sometimes quite popular with their people, even if they are often far from perfect. It is a bit rich to hear about Western businessmen complaining about gangsterism in Russia when they were supportive of all kinds of nefarious activity in Russia when it was benefiting them and their Russian oligarch friends in the 1990s. Because Putin refuses to kowtow to the Russian oligarchs and Western capitalists, he is decried as a monster.

Bonapartist authoritarianism derives its strength from the excesses of wealthy oligarchs who hide behind the masks of constitutionalism, liberalism and sometimes even democracy. Indeed, wealthy interests are increasingly doing away with even these pretenses as evidenced by the installation of banker puppet regimes in Greece and Italy. The modern champions of plutocracy claim the mantle of objective technocracy, but most sensible observers recognize the absurdity of this claim when so many technocrats are connected to Goldman Sachs and other financial powerhouses. In light of this reality, I have to ask: what would Napoleon do?

The Bleeding Of Britain

2011-11-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman has an excellent blog post on the Cameron government's disastrous austerity policies in Great Britain. A must read.

Frank Miller And The Decline Of Hollywood

2011-11-28T21:12:00.000-08:00

I usually stay away from articles that try to analyze politics through the lens of popular culture, as I tend to think that they are often a bit overblown. However, I believe that Rick Moody has written a very good piece on Frank Miller's attack on Occupy Wall Street specifically, and on the degeneration of Hollywood in general.

I think Moody is essentially correct in his critique of Miller and Hollywood. The American movie industry was never perfect, but it used to produce some very good, humanistic films. I know the inevitable reaction to this sort of critique is something like, "hey, I just go to the movies to escape reality and enjoy myself, not to receive a lecture in moral philosophy!" Of course a little escapism is fine, but like sugary sweets, it is best to only consume so much. Furthermore, the content of the escapism matters as well. I would much rather watch an old Ray Harryhausen fantasy film than most of the CGI-laden dreck that comes out nowadays.

More importantly, Moody is right to criticize the intensely militaristic and stupidly violent nature of modern action films. He is also right to see the modern, glitzy action film as worse than the more obviously silly action movies of the 1980s, which were often rather hammy compared to the more polished ideological blockbusters of today.

The fact that Frank Miller's tirades about "Islamicism" are not much different from the nonsense you might read in any typical neoconservative magazine is a rather frightening thought given the reality that these ideas are not really outside of the political mainstream, having influenced at least one American presidential administration. We have come a long way from Sylvester Stallone's portrayal of the Vietnam War veteran John Rambo in First Blood, which was at least somewhat interesting, not to mention other, superior films made in Hollywood's Golden Era.

Metternich And Socialisme Conservateur

2011-11-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

Matthew Franklin Cooper has a great post on the continuing relevance of Prince Metternich. Definitely worth a read.

Double Dipping

2011-11-28T15:50:00.000-08:00

David Lindsay has an excellent post on the economics of a double-dip recession. A must read.

The Spanish Pain

2011-11-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

David Lindsay has an excellent post on the recent election in Spain. A must read.

When Small Isn't Beautiful

2011-11-21T17:42:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has a very good critique of microfinance and other alternatives to direct job creation via state action, here.

Austerity Then And Now

2011-11-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

While I realize that I have been linking to Paul Krugman a lot lately, he has been writing some very informative articles on the economic crisis in Europe. Prof. Krugman's blog post "Austerity Then And Now" explains why reactions to austerity today are much different than the reactions in postwar Great Britain. It is a great piece, please give it a read.

The Hypocrisy Of The Euro Cabal

2011-11-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has another great blog post on the Eurozone crisis. Definitely worth a read.

Don't Blame The Welfare State

2011-11-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman has been on quite a roll lately. He has a great piece debunking the myth that Europe's recent economic woes are the result of generous welfare states. Definitely worth a read.

Breaking The Spell

2011-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

I was genuinely surprised to see Mark Skousen's review of Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, in which he lambastes John Maynard Keynes and Keynesianism generally, getting some pretty unfavorable comments over at The American Conservative. I admit that I don't read paleoconservative publications as much as I used to, but I wonder, are more conservatives starting to see the problems with what has passed for economic conservatism for the last thirty or so years? It is hard to argue that "socialists" rule the roost these days, as the economic right has gotten almost everything it has asked for short of the most extreme libertarian proposals.

Indeed, it was Pat Buchanan's critique of free trade and globalism generally that started me on my path away from typical Republican partisanship to wherever the heck I am on the political spectrum today. Just from an everyday standpoint, I think it is plain to most regular Americans that, where it matters, they are worse off today then they were in the 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1970s, and that this worsening of living standards is not just the product of the latest recession, but a process of decay that has been going on for decades. Now that this reality is being brutally hammered home by austerity and doggedly persistent unemployment, perhaps we will see the end of the era of voodoo economics and the diabolical spell it has long cast over American conservatism.

Nationalize Qantas

2011-11-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

Bill Mitchell has a good piece advocating the re-nationalization of Australia's largest airline. Definitely worth a read.

What's Good For The Goose...

2011-11-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

Michael Lind is in fine form, this time explaining how CEOs, bankers and affluent professionals rig the economic system in their favor, while denying the same protectionist measures to the great mass of workers. A must read.

A Boom For Whom?

2011-11-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman debunks the myth of the post-Reagan boom, here.

Debunking Brooks

2011-11-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Alyssa Battistoni does a very good job critiquing David Brooks and his recent article about economic inequality in the United States. Battistoni is right to point out that the problem of inequality is really a political problem and that the growing power of the very wealthy is largely due to their success in obtaining the kinds of laws and public policies that favor their interests.

Indeed, what I like most about Battistoni's article is that she seems to dispense with the common progressive obsession with college education and meritocracy, an obsession shared by David Brooks and other mainstream voices who refuse to discuss the question of political power as the main source of economic phenomena (remember, economics was once more realistically called "political economy" before economists decided that they must ape the natural sciences in order to obtain "scientific" respectability).

Instead, Battistoni points out that a living wage (I prefer the term "family wage") and robust benefits are the keys to combating inequality, and that one should not have to attend college to be able to make a proper income. This is precisely the kind of thinking that we need in this country and around the world. There must be a recognition that an income supportive of a dignified family life should not be based on the cruelties and uncertainties of some "race of life," a race is that is already unfair to begin with.

Remembering Giorgio La Pira

2011-11-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

On this, the 34th anniversary of the passing of Giorgio La Pira, please visit David Lindsay's blog, where he kindly reprinted my summary of La Pira's life. Also, please visit the website of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, where Father Francis Belanger, O.P. has written a great little piece on La Pira.

Ora pro nobis

The Wisdom of Pope John Paul I

2011-11-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

During the 1970s, Albino Luciani, then Patriarch of Venice, wrote a series of letters to various historical and fictional figures for a Christian publication in Italy. In 1976, the collection of letters was published in Italy as a book with the title Illustrissimi, or "To the Illustrious Ones." Luciani would later become pope in 1978, taking the name John Paul. Unfortunately, Pope John Paul I would pass away on September 28, 1978, after a brief reign of only 33 days.

While John Paul I is probably best known for his sudden and tragic passing as well as his humble and friendly demeanor, leading many to dub him the "Smiling Pope," Papa Luciani also had a keen understanding of the world. In his Feburary, 1971 letter to British author Charles Dickens, the future pope makes clear his opinion of capitalism, especially the laissez-faire variety, writing:

"The union of workers in defense of their own rights was, in fact, first declared illegal, then it was tolerated, and finally it was recognized by law. The State at first was a 'policeman-state,' declaring labor contracts a completely private matter, forbidding collective bargaining; the boss had the upper hand; laissez-faire reigned without control. 'Are two bosses after the same worker? Then the worker's wages will rise. Are two workers pleading with a boss for a job? Then wages will drop.' This is the law, people said, and it leads automatically to a balance of power! But, on the contrary, it led to the abuses of a capitalism that was, and in some instances still is, a 'wicked system.'" (Luciani 1978: 6).

While recognizing that workers, especially in the First World, had made important gains in rights and living standards, Luciani still understood that much work had to be done as injustice remained even in the rich countries. He writes:

"But even in these privileged countries there are many pockets of poverty and insecurity. Many workers are unemployed or fear for their jobs. They are not always sufficiently protected against accidents, and often they feel treated as mere tools of production and not as human protagonists." (Luciani 1978: 7).

Luciani also discusses the problems of consumerism, the abuse of the natural world and conflicts between the Third World and the rich nations. What answer did the Patriarch of Venice have for suffering humanity? Nothing less than solidarity between people and trust in God, writing:

"We are all in the same boat, filled with peoples now brought closer together both in space and in behavior; but the boat is on a very rough sea. If we would avoid grave mishaps, the rule must be this: all for one and one for all. Insist on what unites us and forget what divides us." (Luciani 1978: 7-8).

In our age of extreme individualism, the words of John Paul I offer us a great challenge. Can we survive as a civilization when we are willing to ignore the degradation of the weak while concentrating only on our own comfort? Will it take even more economic shocks, wars, and other catastrophes to wake us up to the reality that we have not arrived at the "End of History," but instead, are facing the possibility of a grim future? Hopefully, more of us will listen to the wisdom of John Paul I and see that it is impossible to escape the coming storms without faith and solidarity.

WORKS CITED

Luciani, Albino. Illustrissimi: Letters from John Paul I, trans. William Weaver (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1978).

Krugman On Military Keynesianism

2011-11-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman has an interesting piece on the Republicans and their penchant for Military Keynesianism. Definitely worth a read.

Cafeteria Conservatives

2011-11-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

While I dislike the term "liberal Catholic" as much as "conservative Catholic," E.J. Dionne, Jr. has a good article on the conservative reactions to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and its critique of the financial system, here.

Constitutional Realism

2011-10-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

California Constantian does an excellent job providing a reality check to the people who worship the United States Constitution (or any constitution) as a kind of holy scripture. To be frank, as much as law is to be respected, it is rather naive to believe that laws, by themselves, will protect people from oppression. Just look at such dreadful U.S. Supreme Court cases as Dred Scott v. Sandford and Buck v. Bell.

Greek Mythology

2011-10-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau do a great job demolishing the myth that the Greeks are in economic trouble because they are a bunch of lazy, profligate bums. With neoliberal capitalism in a state of severe crisis, we are increasingly treated with the silly stereotypes that seem to pass for economic analysis in much of the mainstream media and in elite political discourse.

People in the developing world would find none of this surprising, as they have long been characterized as lazy, corrupt, uncooperative, prone to authoritarianism, overly emotional, etc., and these stereotypes have been used to justify brutal neoliberal "reforms" in countries across the globe.

Now, with the Eurozone in trouble, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and others are being blamed for crashing the system through their bad "Mediterranean" habits. The result is that neoliberal capitalism and its wealthy supporters are left off the hook while ordinary people must suffer brutal austerity. This is not a just system.

A Bonapartism For The Workers?

2011-10-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I wrote a post defending Bonapartism as preferable to neoliberal plutocracy. Of course, my defense of Bonapartism was a relative one. The actual record of authoritarian democracy has been decidedly mixed. The history of the House of Bonaparte is a good example of this problem. For example, while Napoleon III built a good deal of infrastructure (including his famous modernization of Paris) and gave French workers the right to strike and form unions, among other social reforms, his intervention in Mexico and a disastrous war with Prussia would prove to be the Emperor's undoing.

Following the collapse of the Second French Empire, while most Bonapartists would take a fairly right-wing approach to France's pressing socio-economic issues, a few others would move in a different, more populist direction. For example, Albert Richard (1846-1925) was a French anarchist and a member of the International, rubbing shoulders with men such as Mikhail Bakunin, who would later write a letter to Richard opposing his recent conversion to Bonapartism. Following the failure of the Lyon uprising and the Paris Commune, Richard abandoned his revolutionary ideology in favor of worker self-help and solidarity within a fairer economic system. Apparently, Richard even visited Napoleon III while the latter was in exile at Chislehurst in Great Britain.

More important than Richard was Jules Amigues (1829-1883). Amigues was an interesting man with many unsuccessful business ventures to his name, but he also had a strong social conscience. Amigues made his pilgrimage to Chislehurst in 1872 and apparently made a good impression on Napoleon III. After his meeting with the Emperor, Amigues set up a Bonapartist newspaper, the L'Esperance nationale. When Napoleon III died in 1873, Amigues led a delegation of working-class Bonapartists from the poorer sections of Paris to attend the Emperor's funeral.

As far as economic theories were concerned, Amigues supported the organization of workers into guilds and guild federations with the power to deal with employers on an equal basis. Amigues also supported more recognizable social reforms such as universal, free education, public provision for the care of the elderly, and an income tax as opposed to regressive taxes on consumption.

Amigues never received much support from the Bonapartist mainstream, and after the death of Napoleon III, he received few subsidies from the regular Bonapartist party. Undaunted, Amigues continued to campaign for the House of Bonaparte in the working-class districts of France, despite the indifference and sometimes outright hostility of the Bonapartist mainstream. In 1877, however, Amigues, running on his own and without any support from the official Bonapartist party, won a shocking victory over his Republican opponent, a wealthy industrialist, in one of the electoral districts in Cambrai. Amigues owed his victory to the struggling weavers of the region. As John Rothney wrote:

"What seems to have tipped the balance [in favor of Amigues] was his poster. In it, he quoted his opponent's speeches urging workers to be thrifty and temperate and pointed out that in fact workers had no clothes for their children and only water to drink." (Rothney 1969: 93).

Unfortunately for Amigues, the Republicans would later invalidate his election and by and large the Bonapartists failed to take up his crusade to win over France's workers to the cause of the Empire. It is interesting to note, however, that the turn of official Bonapartism to a more conventionally right-wing orientation occurred after the death of Napoleon III, who continued to be interested in reformist and even socialist ideas, despite the many failures and compromises of his reign. Indeed, the fact that the Emperor himself was much more populist than most of the politicians who fought for his dynasty after his death reveals the kernel of truth in the Napoleonic Idea.

WORKS CITED

Rothney, John. Bonapartism after Sedan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969).

Confucianism and Liberalism

2011-10-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Matthew Franklin Cooper has a very interesting post on Confucianism and modern Western liberalism. Highly recommended.

The Neoliberal Nanny State

2011-10-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

I don't like welfare (as opposed to social insurance), but I really don't like intrusive means testing for welfare recipients if we must have welfare programs. Of course, I don't approve of drug use either. What is the alternative? Why not just have the State directly employ people, in public works or state-owned industries if need be? Then any drug testing can be made rationally related to work performance and not just a way to essentially humiliate people who are already miserable.

There used to be a time when socialism/social democracy was seen as an important weapon against the nagging problem of substance abuse among the poor. Now that the State refuses to intervene to create or protect high-wage, high-status employment and just pays people to be idle instead of directly employing them (because that would be Marxism!), we are supposed to be surprised when they turn to drugs.

On a related note, is it just me or has the nanny state expanded alongside neoliberalism? It may seem counterintuitive, but as the State receded in some areas (deregulation, privatization, etc.) it became much more intrusive in other areas, such as family life (for example, divorce liberalization has resulted in much more governmental meddling in family affairs), that used to be considered mostly private. Today, it seems as if the dominant impulse is to control and manage the poor instead of helping to uplift the unfortunate through appropriate public action.

Trustworthy

2011-10-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

Another gem from David Lindsay, this time on the issue of the National Trust in the United Kingdom. Again, I must ask, what good is conservatism if it does not conserve anything of value? Mr. Lindsay gives us a good picture of what true conservatism is all about. Definitely worth a read.

One Nation

2011-10-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

The indispensable David Lindsay has a very interesting post on the tradition of the One Nation Tories in Great Britain. A very educational read, especially for those conservatives who believe that conservatism must be allied with neoliberalism or related economic doctrines.

State of Uncertainty

2011-10-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

Lord Keynes has an excellent post on state intervention and the uncertainty problem, here.

Pichot on Liberalism and Social Darwinism

2011-09-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

I have just finished reading the book The Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler (Verso, 2009) by André Pichot. Pichot's book covers a wide range of topics dealing with political biology, including eugenics. The subject of eugenics comes up a lot these days, especially on the Right. While right-wingers such as Glenn Beck are indeed correct to point out that, historically, many progressive figures supported eugenics as a way to solve social problems, it is important to keep in mind that this type of argument is part of a general campaign to paint every modern ideology other than classical liberalism (what Americans call "conservatism") as a variety of totalitarian statism. In this political taxonomy, fascism, state communism, social democracy and even mild reformism are all in the same statist boat, never mind the enormous differences between them.

Unfortunately for the champions of classical liberalism, laissez-faire ideology was not without its own favorite sociobiological theories. Thus, Pichot writes on the subject of positive and negative eugenics (bold text reflects my emphasis):

"The word 'eugenics' was invented by [Francis] Galton in 1883 from the Greek eugenes meaning 'well born.' It claimed to be based on Darwinism and genetics, or, more exactly, on the application of these to human society

Two forms of genetics are generally distinguished: negative and positive.

Negative eugenics seeks to prevent the multiplication of individuals deemed 'inferior' from a biological, psychological or intellectual point of view. It postulates that this inferiority is hereditary and seeks to prohibit the individuals in question from having children - or, more rarely, advises them against doing so. The methods employed are more or less brutal and coercive: the banning of marriage, imprisonment, but above all sterilization (which is particularly the issue here when we speak about eugenics). The harshest version is the pure and simple elimination of so-called inferior individuals by Nazi Germany.

Positive eugenics, on the other hand, seeks to improve society by encouraging the reproduction of 'superior' individuals, in the extreme case organizing this either through human 'stud farms,' where chosen reproducers are asked to procreate, or with the aid of sperm banks whose repositories have been donated by great men (nowadays, egg banks could also be envisaged).

These two forms of eugenics are distinguished from social Darwinism - a different application of evolutionism to human society - in that they are based on a more or less strong intervention of the state by way of constraining legislation. Social Darwinism, on the contrary, is a laissez-faire doctrine that rejects state intervention. It is an extreme liberalism, even rejecting protective social legislation, with the goal of enabling selection to do its work in society as it supposedly does in nature, i.e., by eliminating the least competitive individuals. Historically, the liberal form was conceived first, with the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, whereas eugenics was only theorized somewhat later in the 1880s.

Social Darwinism, and both negative and positive eugenics, are related and interacting doctrines. They come in a pessimistic version (when they claim to struggle against the degeneration induced by the disappearance of natural selection in human society) and an optimistic version (when they claim to improve the human species and produce supermen, after the model of the improvement of breeds of domestic animal).

The motivations behind them, whether avowed or implicit, are very diverse. They run from pure and simple economics (damaged individuals cost society dearly)- hence measures such as a charity that would seek to spare unfortunate individuals the wretched life awaiting them in a world for which they are not adapted - through to an idealism that may be racial or aesthetic or espouse a certain virtue (the production of supermen who are beautiful, intelligent, healthy, efficient, etc.). These diverse motivations can be combined in different proportions." (Pichot 2009: 110-11).

More directly, Pichot discusses the issue of liberalism, Social Darwinism and eugenics by writing:

"Apart from the Catholic Church and the Lysenko school in the Soviet Union, the only current of thought that avoided any compromise with eugenics was extreme liberalism of the Anglo-Saxon type, which rejected the intervention of law and the state into what it saw as pertaining only to private life. Very often, however, such liberals appealed to social Darwinism, claiming that the abolition of all socially protective legislation would re-establish natural selection as a sorting mechanism in society; the 'invisible hand' would then be at work in human biology just as in economics. From this point of view, the alcoholic worker might well have a whole tribe of children - often defective- but as he could neither feed nor care for them, they would die off. It was a kind of liberal optimism, opposed to the pessimism of the champions of state intervention who would impose sterilization on alcoholics." (Pichot 2009: 126-127).

Pichot's analysis of the ideology of Social Darwinism and its relationship to laissez-faire liberalism should give pause to modern libertarians who think that their ideology is the only modern political tradition that is free from the stench of dehumanizing sociobiological thought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pichot, André. The Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler (New York: Verso, 2009).

Kiwi Keynesianism

2011-09-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

Lord Keynes has an excellent post on New Zealand's use of Keynesian stimulus in the 1930s. A very interesting read.

Moral Reasoning and Community Life

2011-09-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Matthew Franklin Cooper has an excellent piece on modern moral reasoning, community life, and the impact of neoliberal economics on such issues, here..

Close Encounters of the LaRouche Kind

2011-09-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

Last week I had an encounter with some members of the Lyndon LaRouche movement. I was going to the local post office to drop off some mail and was surprised to find two LaRouche movement members camped outside with some literature and their now-infamous "Obama Hitler" sign. I could tell that the post office patrons were not too happy about the situation, but being a curious (or foolish) fellow, I walked over and started talking with one of the LaRouchies, a woman, probably in her 50s or early 60s.

The conversation was rather one-sided. I heard some of the usual LaRouche conspiracy theories about the "British Empire" and whatnot. However, when it came to topics such as labor rights and austerity, I found myself agreeing with the LaRouchies, or at least with this particular LaRouche movement member. The woman made the point that a society that squeezes fire and police department budgets but lavishes money on banks to make up for their speculative losses is a dysfunctional one. While I found some common ground on some topics, I just couldn't get past the conspiracy theories and the lionization of the bizarre Lyndon LaRouche. I accepted some literature (which, to be honest, I disposed of as soon as I got home) and politely made my exit.

At a time when so many people are dissatisfied with the political mainstream, it is not surprising that conspiracy theorists such as Lyndon LaRouche and Alex Jones receive so much attention. On the other hand, conspiracy theories often do not accurately depict reality and prevent people from engaging in systemic, institutional or philosophical analysis. At their worst, conspiracy theories can lead to the scapegoating of unpopular groups, as is the case with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, for example.

That being said, I do not see the growth of "fringe" movements as a huge problem, despite fears that one of these relatively small groups will transform into a powerful fascist movement. More worrisome is the alienation of increasingly large numbers of people from public life. I see mass resignation as the most likely result of the transformation of politics into a wholly plutocratic affair. It seems that if democracy is on its way out, it will go out with a whimper, not a bang.

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day to all workers all over the world. Here is Jim Connell's great labor anthem "The Red Flag." Enjoy!

Justice for the Victims of Eugenics

2011-09-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

Author Edwin Black has an excellent article on the issue of compensation for the victims of American eugenics programs. A very important article on an issue that is definitely not discussed enough.

Secure The Future

2011-09-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Michael Lind has another excellent article on the deficiencies of the major ideologies of the United States. According to Lind, conservative attempts to create an “ownership society” of home owners and miniature capitalists failed dismally when the bubble economy collapsed, taking real estate and private savings accounts down with it. On the Left, the progressive project of creating a nation of well-educated professionals has also failed given the decline of good jobs outside of the protected, guild-like professions such as law and medicine.

At the end of Lind’s article, he makes a point that is very much out of step with much of the American ideological mythology that dominates both the Right and the Left in this country. Lind writes:

"Supporters of the ownership society and the knowledge economy alike have emphasized economic aspiration above economic security. That might have seemed plausible during the bubble years, but it does not fit the conditions of distressed workers in today's post-crash, slow-growth economy. Whatever forms the next conservatism and the next liberalism take in the US, they may be based as much on a politics of security as the politics of aspiration."

Now, the idea that Americans should value economic security over aspiration seems downright treasonous. Placing economic security above upward mobility sounds like something those socialist Europeans would support. For pioneering Americans, it is nothing less than a betrayal of our highest ideals, our very nature as a people! Or is it?

Many Americans can remember a time when even blue-collar workers with little education made comfortable livings. Sure, they did not make enough to travel to exotic locations on holiday or eat out at the swankiest restaurants every week, put workers made enough to support a family in relative comfort, often on only one breadwinner’s income. They did not need to become doctors or lawyers, nor did they need to become real estate moguls or stock market gurus. They worked hard but they were paid proper wages, thanks to a number of factors, but often because they were members of powerful labor unions.

The 1950s may have been stuffy and conformist, but at least the post-war era produced a society that gave most Americans a good opportunity to find decent work at a decent wage and also to afford to raise a family. As more and more young people find their futures looking bleaker and bleaker, we may very well see an end to America’s obsession with upward mobility and a new emphasis on economic security. The devastation wrought by neoliberalism may prove to have been useful after all if it leads to the destruction of the Horatio Alger and meritocracy myths that have been so detrimental to American society.

Crude Summer

2011-08-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

Chris Floyd has an interesting article over at CounterPunch on the recent events in Libya, with a special emphasis on the motives behind Western military intervention. Definitely worth a read.

The David Lindsay Experience

2011-08-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

Tired of the same views on politics, culture, economics and religion from the usual suspects on the Right, Left, and Center? I strongly suggest picking up the new book by the indispensable David Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay has one of the best blogs on the Net, so I know his book will also be great.

Giorgio La Pira: Against Abortion

2011-08-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

Another gem from the website of the Fondazione Giorgio La Pira, this time with excerpts from Giorgio La Pira’s March 19, 1976 article "Faced with Abortion," published on the front page of L’Osservatore Romano. La Pira writes:

Are there not great deficiencies, great “gaps”, in the social and juridical structures that are not as capable as they should be of protecting the unborn? They must be eliminated, with great urgency and determination, with adequate legislative measures; but never by taking the being, the life of the unborn baby. Do not kill: this is the uncrossable frontier of our true, unique, shared human civilization.

(...) Abortion is not only the killing of an unborn child ("murder" is what the Church Fathers call it): it has been "introduced" into history's teleological plan, tarnishing it, into the history of hope, producing immeasurable upheaval in the historical transcendence of God: by bringing on the "collapse" -if such a thing is possible- of the entire human civilization, the mystical body and the whole body of nations.

(...) Abortion is not an act that liberates women, but rather, in a certain sense, a form of inner slavery: no "human intervention" can free her.

There is no social reform, as vast as it is, or change in economic, political, or welfare structures etc. ... that can liberate women from this "true inner alienation" that abortion invariably causes.

La Pira’s stance on abortion is one that I think many members of the pro-life Left can get behind. He points out that “great deficiencies” exist in the protection of unborn life. I would argue that, in light of La Pira’s tireless work for social justice, he would approve of measures to reform the economic system to take into account the needs of unborn children. Indeed, how can the Left deny the unborn a place at the economic table while claiming to support the weak against the strong? And how can Christian politicians claim to defend the rights of the unborn but do nothing to alleviate the economic pressures that drive some women to choose abortion over life?

However, as La Pira points out, reforms by themselves cannot erase the stain of abortion. Abortion cannot simply be made “safe, legal, and rare.” Abortion must be eliminated from human culture as any other inhuman practice should be. Economic and political reforms must be a part of any successful pro-life strategy, but we must always keep in mind that the elimination of the practice of abortion is our ultimate goal.

Neoliberalism Is Anti-Family

2011-08-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my August 06, 2011 post on family policy, I want to point out that the Japanese economist Makoto Itoh wrote an excellent article in the April, 2005 issue of the Monthly Review. While it is an old article, Itoh does an excellent job describing how neoliberalism has damaged family life and helped to drive down the birth rate in Japan. Much of what Itoh writes also applies to other nations. Itoh writes:

Another important symptom of deteriorating social conditions for Japanese working people is a sharp decline in the average birth rate. Needless to say, the average birth rate needs to be more than two per woman if population is not to decrease. It remained above two for Japanese women at the beginning of the 1970s, but thereafter fell continuously to 1.29 in 2003. Thus it is estimated that the Japanese population will begin to decline after 2006. Speculative long-term extension of this trend shows Japan’s population halved by the end of this century and back to the size of the feudal Edo period toward the end of the next century.

A fall in birth rate is more or less common in many advanced countries (excepting a few such as the United States), but Japan is among those with the highest rapidity of change. A prompt shift to an aged society upsets all the relatively stable proportions of Japan’s postwar economy. The shift threatens to undermine accustomed expectations for pension plans, medical public insurance, and educational institutions; the budget crisis of the state; and national economic vitality in relation to prospects for the growth of both consumption demand and the supply of labor-power. Thus, this aspect completes a vicious circle of the Japanese economy in structural difficulties.

Marx in Capital (vol. 1, chap. 25, sec. 4) formulates as “a law of capitalist society” that “not only the number of births and deaths, but the absolute size of families, stands in inverse proportion to the level of wages, and therefore to the amount of the means of subsistence at the disposal of different categories of workers.” He quotes Adam Smith’s statement “Poverty seems favorable to generation,” as well as Samuel Laing’s prediction that “If the people were all in easy circumstances, the world would soon be depopulated.” This law may well apply to the pressure of population explosion in many of the developing countries in the contemporary world. However, the depopulation trend in Japan and other advanced countries is not a result of easy circumstances among working people.

On the contrary, marriage has been delayed by the massive mobilization of relatively cheap female workers into automated workplaces equipped with various information technologies (IT) in the process of capitalist restructuring under the pressure of continuous depressions and neoliberal ideology. Social care systems such as access for young people to reasonably priced dwellings, guarantees for child-bearing leave, and public child-care centers, have remained quite insufficient and unimproved by neoliberal “reforms.” Under the pressure of long hours and poor wages in not very promising jobs (or the greater pressure of unemployment) the traditional pattern of raising a family in a home of one’s own has become harder for a large portion of the younger generation.

Capitalism has developed on the ground of commodification of human labor-power by disintegrating communal social units and formations. Starting with the destruction of communal feudal social orders, Japanese capitalism mobilized more and more workers into the urban labor market. The total population quadrupled since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, as a result of the abolition of feudal demographic restrictions. Especially in the postwar period of high economic growth until 1973, large families (typically with three generations) were broadly divided into nuclear families with two generations as the younger generation moved into urban capitalist work places. Thereafter under the influence of both IT in a capitalist firms-centered society and the pressure of neoliberal initiatives to meet global competition, nuclear families seem to have been further fragmented so as to expand the supply of single workers’ cheaper labor-power, as well as the demand for those highly profitable consumer goods and services—such as cell phones, personal music players, and computer games—which, by their nature, are not sold to the whole family, but to individuals.

Thus, in a sense, contemporary advanced capitalist societies like Japan are paradoxically undermining their own social foundation in the reproduction of human beings, as a result of the excessive success of the commodification of labor-power, by the formation of an extremely individualistic market society. Depopulation in Japan thus does not at all signify the easy circumstances of working people, but it is rather a symptom of a deep structural disease rooted in the basic historical tendency of a capitalist market economy, tendentiously driving societies toward atomistic individualism.

Please read the rest of the article for Itoh's detailed description of the worsening fortunes of Japanese workers and other problems associated with neoliberalism in Japan, much of which is still relevant in 2011 and not just for Japan.

WORKS CITED

Itoh, Makoto. "The Japanese Economy in Structural Difficulties," Monthly Review Volume 56, Issue 11 (April, 2005).

Ratings Reality

2011-08-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

Bill Mitchell has an excellent blog post on the US government debt downgrade, here.

Edit: Hat tip to the invaluable Lord Keynes for the source of the link.

Nanny State or Pater Familias?

2011-08-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

When I read news stories such as this one on the think tank CentreForum’s “five a day” checklist for improving parenting, I sometimes want to revert back to my former libertarianism. The welfare state sometimes has a certain busybody element to it that becomes more prominent when benefits become increasingly means tested or when they are attached to certain patronizing requirements like attending parenting classes or only purchasing certain types of food with government food subsidies.

A better course of action would be for the State to enact policies that improve the environment for raising families and leaving the rest for actual families to sort out organically. For example, supporting full employment and high wages, especially for male workers, can help strengthen families by providing the necessary economic base for paternal authority within families while at the same time obviating the need for mothers to find employment outside of the home or to put children in daycare centers. Additionally, making divorce more difficult would strike at the heart of the culture of caprice that is reflected in many of the social problems present in today’s society.

More Than A Martyr

2011-08-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have written a substantive post. However, I have been doing some research of sorts and have stumbled upon a veritable treasure trove in the form of a website devoted to the study of the life and thought of the late Aldo Moro, the former Prime Minister of Italy. Tragically, Moro is mostly known for being the victim of a brutal assassination by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization. Moro was murdered by left-wing extremists because of his work to save Italian democracy by integrating the whole nation into a revitalized democratic system. Moro’s Historic Compromise with the Italian Communist Party angered Washington and Moscow, as well as the intransigent sections of the Italian Right and the Left.

As I see it, Moro’s death was a severe blow to Italy. A tremendous mediator within his own faction-ridden Christian Democratic Party, Moro may have been the only Italian politician with the ability to hold together a country that, in many respects, was only superficially united. Additionally, far from simply being a milquetoast master of compromise, Moro was also a progressive in the best sense of the word. Like other left-leaning Christian Democrats, Moro looked to the British Labour Party, and especially the government of Clement Attlee, as a source of inspiration. Moro’s vision of democracy was social democracy, not the pale imitation of democracy that has developed under plutocratic neoliberalism.

Because of the dramatic and controversial circumstances of Moro’s murder (including a wide array of conspiracy theories that rival those surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination), I gather that most people are more familiar with his death than with his life. This is an unsurprising yet unfortunate state of affairs, as Moro was an important thinker in addition to being a politician. I hope to be able to present my own thematic posts focusing on interpretations of different aspects of Moro’s thought and its significance for our own time.

In the meantime, I highly recommend the website of the Academy of Historical Studies – Aldo Moro, along with its blog, as a resource for those interested in Aldo Moro and his life and work.

Recovery For Whom?

2011-08-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, he is a Marxist or “Marxian” if you prefer, but Prof. Richard D. Wolff is spot on in his analysis of the phantom “recovery” in the United States. Definitely worth a read.

Lincoln and the Confucians

2011-07-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Matthew Franklin Cooper has an extremely interesting post on his blog, "Matt's Existential Musings," discussing the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, the Confucians, and more! A really tremendous read.

Attack of the Zombie Ideologies

2011-07-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

Michael Lind has an excellent piece over at Salon on the decaying state of both American conservatism and American progressivism. Definitely worth a read.

Destructive Cult

2011-07-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman has a great blog post on the Cult of Centrism that is ruining the United States. Definitely worth a read.

The Human Cost of Austerity

2011-07-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

The excellent Lord Keynes has another great blog post on the human cost of austerity in Latvia. A sobering but necessary piece.

The Blame Game

2011-07-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Conor Friedersdorf has written an excellent article for the The Atlantic that largely echoes my own opinions regarding the journalistic battles over the dreadful Norway attacks and whether certain writers should be chastised for their rhetoric. Definitely worth a read.

Thoughts On The Tragedy In Norway

2011-07-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

As more details emerge about Anders Behring Breivik, the alleged perpetrator of Friday’s vicious terrorist attacks in Norway, I can’t help but notice how eerily similar some of his rhetoric is to some of the ideas floating around on the American Right, and not just the underground far-right. The wild claims that President Obama was somehow leading or abetting a Marxist/Islamist alliance to destroy Christian America were not just found on extremist neo-Nazi websites, but could be seen on Tea Party signs and heard on right-wing talk radio.

Of course, none of this means that Tea Party members or avid listeners of right-wing radio host Michael Savage are going to go out and kill people. However, ideas have consequences, and it is important to be wary of certain ideas that threaten to dehumanize people. Before left-wingers start to gloat, it is also important to remember that the Left has also had its share of violent terrorists as well, and that the language of class war, taken too far, can also lead to violence.

Politics has always involved strong language, and I would not want to see a “speech police” developed to quiet firebrands, including those who develop the conspiracy theories that often fuel (even if unintentionally) extremist violence. But the fact that so many people believe tales about a Marxist plot to take over the world, when Marxism as an organized, active ideology is perhaps at its weakest point in over a century, is just one example of how conspiracy theories can take one’s mind off of understanding the world from the standpoint of reality. Once we understand the world as it is, then hopefully we can change it for the better. As Pope Leo XIII advised: “There is nothing more useful than to look at the world as it really is — and at the same time look elsewhere for a remedy to its troubles.”

Red In Tooth And Test Tube

2011-07-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

The July 21, 2011 Los Angeles Times opinion piece by Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich is pretty much what you would expect from the Malthusian elite. Malthusianism is one of those bad ideas that just won’t die. My guess is that, like many bad ideas, Malthusianism continues to live because certain very rich people find it an attractive vehicle for their prejudices while all the while declaring their prejudices to be nothing more than the "inconvenient truths" of science. John Médaille wrote an excellent blog post on the subject of Malthusianism back in 2008 and I highly recommend it as an answer to the likes of Harte and Ehrlich.

Besides Malthusianism, many other nasty ideas originating from the dark recesses of classical liberalism are making a comeback, and laissez-faire economics is perhaps the least worst. Biological determinism, for example, has made a major comeback in the last several decades on the back of exaggerated claims of some scientists and journalists who are willing to bend the truth in order to gain more grant money or more profitable advertisers. Malthusianism and biological determinism are useful tools for the elites because they put a brake on the discussion of social reforms that may harm their interests.

For the followers of Malthus, the problem is too many people, not too little development or an uneven distribution of the Earth's material product. For biological determinists, the problem of poverty has little to do with government policy that favors the wealthy or with an unfair distribution of power within firms. Instead, it is entirely the result of the basic biological inferiority of the poor.

Not surprisingly. Malthusianism and biological determinism end up feeding off one another. If one believes that poor people, and especially poor people of color, are simply too biologically deficient to develop proper economies, then it makes more sense to limit their reproduction so that they do not become a burden on themselves or on the wealthy societies that end up having to support them.

Malthusianism and biological determinism are perhaps the most extreme examples of the "there is no alternative" ideology promoted by Margaret Thatcher and others like her. When liberalism is challenged in a sufficiently powerful manner, it has always fallen back on supposedly scientific arguments to avoid dealing with the hypocrisies that characterized the original liberal revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While traditionalist conceptions of the "Grace of God" or the "Mandate of Heaven" were always pregnant with the idea that a ruler could lose the favor of the Divine, especially if they were cruel or unjust towards the poor (look at how the powerful were reprimanded by the prophets of the Bible for crushing the poor!), bourgeois liberalism has always supported a kind of conceited, pseudo-scientific meritocracy that, in its worst moments, produced significant human suffering.

Don't Eat Your Peas

2011-07-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Lind has a very good article on the “Pea Party,” the group of elitist, pro-austerity figures who unfortunately have a good deal of influence in the Obama Administration. Definitely worth a read.

Guild Socialism and Media Reform

2011-07-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

The wonderful Matt Smith with an excellent proposal for reforming the media along guild socialist lines, here.

The Emilia-Romagna Model

2011-07-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Joe Sarling at the Blue Labour blog has an excellent post about the cooperative economy of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Definitely worth a read.

The Case for Radical Conservatism

2011-07-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

Reading Danny Kruger’s review of the book The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox, I am reminded of the quote by economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who remarked that, “the modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” To be sure, Kruger has some nice things to say about Maurice Glasman, Jonathan Rutherford and the Blue Labour philosophy they represent. However, Kruger’s admiration for Blue Labour only goes so far. For example, he chastises Glasman and Rutherford for failing to exorcise the egalitarian ghost from the Labour tradition, writing that because of its support for equality, “Blue Labour remains infected with the modernist virus.” Instead, Kruger argues that “true fraternity depends upon liberty, not equality.”

It is humorous that Kruger, in a later portion of his article, describes the Left as “unhistorical,” yet it is hard to find a more historically ignorant opinion than Kruger’s argument that equality is not necessary for the development of a fraternal society. The history of the extremely unequal nineteenth century and the violent social conflicts that it spawned should be enough to defeat Kruger’s argument. Indeed, we seem to be moving toward a recreation of the “Two Nations” social model, with a haughty upper class on top and a vast, degraded underclass on the bottom. The expanding differences between the affluent and the poor in terms of marriage and family life is probably the most obvious and egregious manifestation of the new bifurcated society that is being built.

Indeed, I would argue that it is impossible to support a viable form of conservatism without at least some support for egalitarianism (which, of course, should not be confused with a kind of drab, mechanical equality where everyone is exactly the same). For example, historians have argued that one of the major reasons why the Vendée region of France did not explode into revolution in 1789 was because class differences were not as great as in the rest of France. Aristocrats continued to live in the region along with the peasants and the local clergy, unlike the rest of the absentee French nobility that gravitated toward Paris. More importantly, the old system of rights and duties continued to exist, creating a stable, integrated society.

By failing to recognize how vast inequality poisons social relations, Kruger and others like him risk recreating the conflict-ridden society that he claims Glasman supports. Indeed, if Glasman does advocate conflict between capital and labor, this seems to be out of a realistic appraisal of the current state of affairs under neoliberalism. Neoliberals have unfortunately created a situation where conservatives must be radicals because of how far we have allowed the market society to dictate our values.

Kruger may claim, as so many liberal conservatives do, that his is the only “real” political position, but this is only true to the extent that his brand of conservatism is about protecting whatever special interests happen to be the most powerful at the moment. Conservatism must rediscover its radical soul in order to use the past to craft an alternative modernity, while always keeping in mind the importance of safeguarding the rights of the human person. Any other type of conservatism is just, as G.K. Chesterton put it, “... preventing mistakes from being corrected.”

The Life and Thought of Giuseppe Lazzati

2011-07-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have written a new post on the Italian Social Catholics, but I have found an excellent article on the life and work of Giuseppe Lazzati by Piotr Kulczycki that is better than anything I could ever write. Please give Kulczycki's article a read and please forgive me for my laziness.

Athanasius Wept

2011-07-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

Kenneth C. Davis has an interesting piece arguing that the United States is not a Christian nation. I have to agree with Mr. Davis, especially since his article is a good example of why America should not be seen as the leading Christian nation in the world today. For starters, Mr. Davis himself seems confused as to what constitutes orthodox Christian doctrine. For example, Mr. Davis writes:

“No one can argue, as 'Christian Nation' proponents correctly state, that the Founding Fathers were not Christian, although some notably doubted Christ's divinity.”

I would think that doubting Christ’s divinity would, at the very least, make one’s commitment to Christianity questionable. But then Mr. Davis makes an even more egregious error by lumping Mormons in with Baptists as Christian “sects.” While I am definitely not a theologian, Mormon rejection of the Trinity is just one of the many areas where the Latter Day Saint movement deviates tremendously from orthodox Christian doctrine as passed down throughout the centuries. This confusion about what constitutes basic Christian doctrine is very common in the United States, where Mormons, Unitarians, and a host of other non-orthodox groups get lumped in with Catholics, Orthodox Christians and mainstream Protestants.

None of this is surprising given America’s history as a breeding ground for non-orthodox interpretations of Christian doctrine and the current lack of religious knowledge among even devout Americans reflects the sorry state of religious education in the country. While these issues may seem academic, they actually have important consequences for the country and the world. For example, it is certainly worth arguing that the belief that America is some kind of holy nation ordained by God to spread it ideals across the globe has helped to fuel American military intervention abroad. When combined with a general ignorance regarding the history of Christianity, you end up with the Iraq debacle and the devastation of the ancient Iraqi Christian community by forces let loose by our invasion. I won’t even get into the Christian Zionists and related End Times theologies, but I think we can see how these ideas can be problematic for America and the rest of the world.

Happy Independence Day

2011-07-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

Joshua Holland has an excellent article about the bizarre American penchant for treating the Founders like prophets and the Constitution like holy scripture and why it makes no sense. Important and sobering words for all Americans to remember on this day.

In Defense of Bonapartism

2011-06-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

A recent Foreign Policy article by Leon Aron is illustrative of the sorry state of modern conservatism. Aron generally supports the legacy of Boris Yeltsin and the devastating neoliberal "shock therapy" that ushered in an era of gangster capitalism, complete with dramatic increases in suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, and a whole host of other catastrophes, including a demographic disaster. Aron's ideology is a good example of the radical neoliberalism that is usually called “conservatism” in the United States.

Predictably, Aron takes shots at Vladmir Putin, warning of the dangers of “neo-authoritarian Putinism.” I suppose that for today’s Jacobins, Putin is the new Bonaparte. Of course, from a populist perspective, better Bonapartists than neoliberal/neoconservative radicals. At least under Bonapartist political theory, the emperor is supposed to stand above all classes and rule justly in the name of the people, not just for the benefit of a few plutocratic oligarchs.

Indeed, is it just a coincidence that both Trotskyists and neoconservatives have spilled so much ink writing against Bonapartism, and Left Bonapartism in particular? Even though the neocons don’t often use terms like “Bonapartism,” terms such as “neo-authoritarian” and even “fascist” are often used by neoconservatives to describe populist figures who refuse to bow down to the neoliberal consensus on economics and culture. Yes, they might very well be authoritarians (which, emphatically, is not the same thing as being a fascist!), but can we blame people for preferring authoritarian leaders who give them domestic peace and some measure of economic security and justice versus anarchy and gangsterism?

Giorgio La Pira: The Five Principles of Social Morality

2011-06-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

First published in 1939 in L'Osservatore Romano, this excerpt is from an article by Giorgio La Pira on Christian social thought. Please visit the website of the Fondazione La Pira to see the original source, and do look around the site, there is a lot of great stuff there, much of it available in English.

Now, to La Pira:

First principle: all men are brothers because they are all created by the one God and all redeemed by the one Saviour. (...) If a doctrine undermines the basis of the gospel it is anti-Christian. It must be rejected as anti-human. It is bad. It comes from Cain. In no way does it conform to the divine goodness of Christ. (...)

Second principle: these brothers are not "isolated": the love that unites them in God and each other is whole: in other words, it makes them members of one organism, like the parts of one body: the mystical body of Christ. (...) Here is the divine view of life. It embraces heaven and earth, past and present, present and future, and makes the earthly city move towards the heavenly city.

Third principle: every human creature, as, indeed any other creature, has a task to carry out in life. Each human creature is a worker, and God himself assigns the work to be done. (...) I do not work to kill or to overwhelm my brother. I work for him when I work to build my real house. When I work illuminated by the light of reason and, even more, by the light of faith, I plough the furrow in my land, but the seed I sow will provide grain for many, will provide grain for everyone! Free labour, labour of love (...)

Fourth principle: the order of the Mystical Body, the City of God, has gradations (...) my family is sacred. God wishes it. My city is sacred. My country is sacred. My lineage is sacred, and, conversely, the family is sacred, the city, the country and the lineage of my brothers.

Fifth principle: the four principles above are true in the supernatural order and are equally true in the natural order. Because grace heals and elevates nature. It works as nature works: in the same direction, according to the same laws and the same true and good inclinations. The Gospel is also the revelation of the natural order!

Father Knows Best

2011-06-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

The great David Lindsay has an excellent post for Father's Day. Please give it a read.

Marriage As Luxury Good

2011-06-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

June Carbone and Naomi Cahn have a depressing but important article on the decline of marriage and family life among lower income Americans over at New Deal 2.0. Definitely worth a read.

Down With The Meritocracy!

2011-06-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

Kim Brooks writes in Salon about "killing" the liberal arts degree in America. Yawn. You can find these kinds of pieces all over the place these days. While it is understandable given the many college graduates who will be unable to find work in this awful job market, these kinds of angst-ridden articles are really a symptom of America’s deadly meritocracy disease. This disease can be found among both conservatives and progressives, but it is much worse among progressives. Modern progressivism is obsessed with sending working-class Americans to college and making them part of some mythical vast upper-middle class, undoubtedly shedding their regressive cultural tendencies in the process. Oh, and they will have plenty of money for expensive hybrid cars and other status symbols of the progressive merit class.

Unfortunately, this progressive dream is turning into a nightmare as more and more graduates find themselves stuck in a bad economy with loads of debt and poor job prospects. Not surprisingly, the arts and humanities are taking a beating as both business conservatives and meritocratic progressives attack so-called “useless” subjects in favor of a greater emphasis on practical subjects. However, the problem does not seem to be too many humanities graduates, as their numbers are relatively small. Indeed, business, an exemplary practical major, is one of the most popular degree fields in the United States, although it also seems to be one of the less academically rigorous. Add all of the various degree mills peddling certifications in nursing, computer science, and other practical fields, it would seem that Americans are not jumping into Chaucer and Aristotle as readily as some would have it.

And yet, we still have vast numbers of unemployed and underemployed people in the country. Are all of these folks History and English Literature majors? I doubt it. The arts and humanities are being used as the whipping boys for the failures of neoliberalism and meritocratic progressivism. Indeed, the entire emphasis on education is flawed. While educational policy is doubtlessly important, the economic superstructure in which educational policy is crafted is the really important factor. A country may use educational policy to produce engineers in great quantities, but if there is little industry in the country an engineering degree may not be so useful. A country may even have an excellent educational system that produces plenty of math and science graduates and also have plenty of heavy industry, but if the underlying assumptions of the economic system are faulty, all of those math and science graduates will not save the system. Just ask the citizens of the former Soviet Union about that one.

The real conflict, then, is not the arts and humanities versus math and science. There is no reason for the different branches of human knowledge to be at war with each other. Instead, the conflict must be between different political visions of society. In the contemporary United States, the conflict is between conservative and progressive meritocracy on one side and the social democratic and populist vision of full employment at family wages. Conservative and progressive supporters of meritocracy are different to the extent that the conservatives have a much more Darwinian concept of meritocracy, one without much concern for the losers in the race of life. The progressives, on the other hand, support the more popular vision of meritocracy based on increasing social mobility and prosperity through higher education. The greater emphasis on math and science among progressives is supposed to be a realistic concession to the demands of global competition.

But how realistic is it to expect to transform much of the population into an army of engineers and scientists? Not very. It is a fever dream best left in the realm of science fiction. It is about as realistic as thinking that every Chinese and Indian child is proficient in calculus by the age of four, something one could be forgiven for believing if you listened to President Obama and others when they discuss these matters. You can’t blame them though, they are trying to remake the American people in their own image of the successful, highly-educated professional.

The other vision of American society, once the dominant vision on the Left and even on much of the Right, was a social democratic/populist vision based on a commitment to full employment and high wages. This vision was dominant throughout the New Deal era of American politics, which began in the 1930s and ended in the 1970s. This was an era when Americans and Western workers generally saw the largest advances in popular living standards and income equality in human history all without sacrificing economic growth. Even relatively poorly educated workers enjoyed the fruits of a middle-class lifestyle.

Now, I want to address all of the young people today obsessing about their educational choices: just think about some of the older people you known. It could be your grandparents, for example. Don’t be surprised if you realize that your grandfather was able to support his wife and children, (none of them working full time, mind you) in relative comfort without a college degree, or perhaps even without a high school or technical degree. How did they do this? Don’t be surprised if they were in a labor union or were employed by the government, or perhaps both. Also, don’t be surprised if they were in an industry formerly protected and encouraged by government policy as an important component in a general industrial policy aimed at national economic prosperity instead of predatory usury and the rentier economy.

Now, instead of sulking, you should be good and angry and progressive meritocrats ought to be one of the objects of your rage. They abandoned the American worker in order to create their professional-class utopia. To the progressive meritocrat, the unionized, blue-collar laborer was personified by All in the Family's Archie Bunker, who is portrayed as an ignorant bigot. The new meritocratic economy had no place for dinosaurs like Archie Bunker, nor for the labor unions that were supposedly riddled with Archie Bunker types. The New Economy would dispense with the labor union as an almost medieval relic of a blinkered past.

We must bury the pernicious ideology of meritocracy once and for all and instead adopt an economic strategy aimed at materially supporting the human family, whether the head of that family is a doctor or a janitor. Obsessing over educational policy while ignoring how the economy is structured and how plutocratic forces use state power to advance their interests while hurting the rest of us is a recipe for disaster. It plays into the hands of the atomistic, individualistic ideology that has done so much harm to Western culture. Unnecessarily attacking the arts and humanities will only hasten the death of the civilization that our political class disingenuously claims to be defending.

Ayn Rand vs. Jesus

2011-06-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

Please watch this fantastic video by The American Values Network. These are exactly the kinds of points that the Left must make in order to bring religious people back into the left-wing fold and rekindle the heady days of the original Populist Movement. The current capitalist crisis has exposed the deep tensions within the fusionist alliance between Social Darwinist capitalists and social conservatives. Christian socialists and others should jump at this opportunity to destroy fusionism once and for all while also reducing the power of the anti-religious Left, which has been such a stumbling block on the road to rebuilding authentic populism.

From Il Santo to Bunga-Bunga: Italy’s Road to Political Perdition

2011-06-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

The Savoyard writer Joseph de Maistre once wrote that “Every country has the government it deserves.” It is fitting that Joseph de Maistre was a subject of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, the country that would one day form the nucleus of a unified Kingdom of Italy.

Italians are currently celebrating 150 years of national unity while Italy's government is mired in the so-called “Rubygate” scandal centered around Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s alleged sexual activities with a then-underage Moroccan nightclub dancer, as well as other allegations that the Prime Minister was hosting erotic “bunga-bunga” parties with other women in an underground salon at his Villa San Martino estate. At this point, it may behoove Italians to remember the words of Joseph de Maistre as they ponder the post-Berlusconi future of their country.

While it would be wrong to blame an entire country for the failures of its leader, Italians were comfortable with Berlusconi for much too long. As Hans-Jürgen Schlamp writes in Der Spiegel:

“The recipe [for Berlusconi’s political success] was simple: A bit of polemic against the ‘communists’ and the judiciary; a dash of invective against gays, Gypsies and Muslims; a couple of cheap promises, such as imposing caps on taxes and creating jobs. He then spices up the mixture with a few off-color macho witticisms -- and voilà.”

Many Italians were easily seduced by the character of Berlusconi as much of the nation embraced the trash television morality he represented on his networks and in his personal life. As Italians now prepare for the future, they would do well to look back to figures like Giorgio La Pira and others who represented a Christian conception of Italy that was devoted to traditional morality, social justice, and peace. By embracing the trashy values of modern consumerism, Italy lost its nobler traditions that often pierced through the dark layers of the country, whether it was Fascism or the reality of political corruption and organized crime. Italians must choose between the tradition of Il Santo or that of Silvio “bunga-bunga” Berlusconi. They cannot coexist.

America’s Dystopian Future

2011-06-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

Nicholas D. Kristof has an excellent piece on how the economic ideology of the GOP is helping to erode America’s position as a First World country. I would add that the United States is only adopting the unfortunate aspects of poorer countries. I don’t really see families or communities becoming stronger and more cohesive in the States, at least not among the less affluent. Instead, if things continue on the present trajectory, I don’t think it is outlandish to say that the United States might end up looking like a cyberpunk dystopia. Glitzy technology will help to mask the miserable social, moral, and cultural conditions of the majority of the population, as it already does to a certain extent today.

Europe's Road to Serfdom

2011-06-05T15:08:00.001-07:00

Michael Hudson with an excellent article on the austerity measures being pushed on Greece and other European nations, here.

Edit: I want to add another great article under the same title, as it also deals with austerity in Europe. Please read this great post by Lord Keynes on the failure of austerity in Latvia, it is very informative.

Kids These Days

2011-06-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

David Brooks has an interesting piece in The New York Times about how our young people are not prepared to enter the world of adulthood due to a toxic mixture of overzealous parenting and hippie “find yourself” individualism. Oh, and the job market is bad too, but really the problem is that our graduates are too full of themselves and their parents encouraged this kind of thinking by being “helicopter” parents.

While I agree with some of what Brooks has to say (perhaps young people are too narcissistic these days), I think he misses the greater point, which is that much of the extreme emphasis on a structured childhood was probably a product of changes in the economy. Brooks and others in the bubble world of the punditocracy fail to realize how much status anxiety there is among the American middle class. Gone are the days when even a manual laborer could expect to have an income sufficient to support a family in relative comfort on one working adult’s income. Instead, the American people were told by all of the Very Serious People in politics, business, and the media that education was the only way to avoid sinking into the new low-wage, low-skilled underclass being created by America’s embrace of neoliberal economics.

Not surprisingly, the result was an almost neurotic reaction by frightened middle-class parents. Parents were told that little Jimmy and little Susie had to be loaded up with extracurricular activities to make their college applications more attractive, had to take expensive test prep courses to be able to succeed at ultracompetitive standardized tests, and that an unstructured childhood was a relic of the past, or worse, a symptom of a lower-class lifestyle, as exemplified by the media's portrayal of poor and working-class children as wild and uncontrollable.

Unfortunately, Brooks is yet another in a long list of media figures who refuse to look at how the American economy has changed structurally and instead seems satisfied with turgid lectures on how suffering builds character. Alternatively, Times writer Paul Krugman’s recent piece on the devastating impact of long-term unemployment in a stalled economy is much more appropriate given the reality of the economic world recent graduates are being forced to contend with and has the added benefit of pointing out that things don’t have to be as bad as they are.

While Brooks is correct to point out how corrosive extreme individualism has been for American culture, he seems to use an individualistic methodology when writing about the problems young people will face in the near future. Besides a ritualistic nod to the problem of debt (without really discussing how and why that debt came into existence), Brooks avoids discussing the wider social forces that may have led parents to become overindulgent and their children increasingly narcissistic. While we should avoid the trap of blaming social forces for all individual failures or misfortunes, we should also discard the old tricks of the classical liberals who used philosophical individualism mixed with puritanical moralism to shame the poor and unfortunate into accepting their miserable status in an often exploitative and unjust economic system, all while absolving those at the top of the economic ladder from any moral responsibility to society.

If David Brooks is really interested in turning young people into responsible adults with “sacred commitments” then he should support policies such as public employment, a national commitment to a family wage, and proper regulation of the economy to avoid the devastating economic bubbles that he apparently opposes. Unfortunately, such ideas are not taken seriously by the Very Serious, Moderate types like David Brooks, despite the fact that we already had such a system (or something close to it) under the Keynes-Beveridge consensus, and it actually worked pretty well.

The continued attack on young people is combined with a blatant refusal to do anything about the problems facing the young. In a few years from now, when David Brooks will no doubt be writing about the social decay unleashed by the creation of a permanently unemployed or underemployed underclass, I hope people remind him that all he had to offer the suffering masses were empty platitudes.

Fear of a Black Planet

2011-05-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

So, it look like the usual suspects are out telling black Africans that they should stop having so many children. Interestingly, nobody seems worried about French and Swedish schemes to increase national fertility. Perhaps that is because they are wealthy white countries? I also find it interesting that Jeffrey "Shock Therapy" Sachs is the UN official pushing for limiting the number of children Nigerians should have, given his history as one of the architects of the devastation of the former communist nations of Eastern Europe, although I guess that does qualify him as an expert on depopulation.

While I recognize that poverty is a large problem in countries such as Nigeria, the answer to such poverty is development not depopulation. You don't eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor, unless perhaps you are a devotee of the wicked ideology of eugenics. We have gone a long way from the days of the post-war consensus, with its support for industrial development and the material and cultural uplifting of the poor.

The current neoliberal consensus is a Neo-Malthusian brew that seeks to turn places like Africa into permanently poor extraction economies that exist to serve the consumer needs of First World peoples while also serving as theme parks for the very rich, hence the constant attempt to convince Third World countries to invest in low-productivity ecotourism as opposed to heavy industry. The rich nations, through their control of international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, also force policy straitjackets on the poor nations to prevent them from using the same state-led models of development that were used by practically all of today's wealthy nations when they were developing.

Much of the Left, especially the execrable Green Movement, has foolishly fell for much of this claptrap, despite the fact that Neo-Malthusian policies primarily target the poor, the very people that the Left is supposed to represent and defend. Given these facts, it is not surprising that so many people in the developing world are attracted to violent ideologies that view the West as a malevolent force bent on oppressing the rest of the world. As heinous as these ideologies are, Western actions help to fan the flames of anger and resentment. Africans have already suffered enough from the depredations of foreign meddlers and they don't need ghouls like Jeffrey Sachs to "help" them have fewer children.

Gramsci the Catholic, Gramsci the Conservative?

2011-05-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

I know this is several years late, but I simply could not pass up this interesting post by Martin Robb on Antonio Gramsci's possible deathbed conversion to Catholicism and the parallels between Gramsci's thought and Catholic theology. I have been meaning to get into Gramsci for a while now, ever since I heard about his possible deathbed conversion and the utilization of Gramscian thought by social conservatives such as Eugene D. Genovese and Christopher Lasch. Hopefully, a copy of the Prison Notebooks will be available at my local library.

The Privatization Hoax

2011-05-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Charles Davis has an excellent post on the privatization of GUATEL, the Guatemalan state telecommunications company, and touches on some topics relating to privatization and libertarianism in general. Definitely worth a read.

Fund the Right Thing

2011-05-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

Melinda Henneberger has an interesting piece at Commonweal assailing both Republicans and Democrats for exaggerating the issue of federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Fair enough. But it is rather unfortunate that we are still funneling money to wretched outfits like Planned Parenthood to aid poor women at all, even if the federal money does not go toward the funding of abortion services. The best way to support poor women would be to restore full employment at high wages as the cornerstone of American economic policy, with a special emphasis on male employment, ending the downward spiral of male idleness and the social and cultural decay that results from such idleness, with tremendous negative spillover effects for women and children.

Communism and the Culture War

2011-05-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Life magazine has an interesting slideshow of different photographs comparing capitalist with “commie” architecture. While my general impression is that the differences between the two are not as large as some would have it, I found some photos to be rather interesting. For example, while Life was sure to show a picture of a modest wooden house from Siberia, where were the pictures of dilapidated housing or trailer parks that you might see in many areas of the United States?

However, what struck me the most was the contrast between tacky symbols of American consumerism such as a Wal-Mart store and the Mall of America, and the National Gallery of Armenia and the Yerevan Opera House, also in Armenia. While I admit the economic superiority of capitalism, I sometimes wonder if, culturally speaking, we are worse off under modern capitalism than the peoples of Eastern Europe were under communism. In 2009, Zsuzsanna Clark wrote an excellent article about the positive aspects of growing up in Communist Hungary, including the promotion of high culture by the government.

While I enjoy some of the sillier aspects of American popular culture, such as kitschy velvet paintings of Elvis Presley, contemporary American pop culture is now exceedingly vulgar. Reality television invites us to be mean-spirited and to take joy in the misery and embarrassment of others, and not in an innocuous, slapstick manner, but in a very cruel way. This cultural degradation likely has its most destructive impact on working-class and poor people, who are not only debased in our popular culture but debased by it.

While communism had a bloody and cruel history, including the often violent suppression of religion, there might be something that social conservatives can learn from the communist experiment. Social conservatives often rail against the vulgarity of modern popular culture but often seem to miss the fact that it is the business world that creates most of our junk culture, not the government.

Social conservatives can complain about Marxist professors and Hollywood liberals, but the fact is that businessmen such as Hugh Hefner were probably much more influential than Leftist academics when it came to spreading the Sexual Revolution among the masses. Social conservatives would do well to look to some of the better ideals of socialism and communism, such as spreading high culture among the masses, while socialists and communists would benefit from recognizing the important role that religion has played and can continue to play in the development of cultural excellence.