Various Dichotomies

There have been, throughout my limited history, various dichotomies thrown about.  Let us begin with longest standing and most enduring -- good and evil.  It seems to go without saying that some things must be good, others evil, and life is a long struggle of the good against the evil.  At the macro level, if asked, "raise your hand if you favor evil," not many would do so.  There will be a few, of course, who would raise their hands out of sheer willful perversity, but they would be few and their impulses may not be as evil as they might suggest.  If only, then, we could live out our lives at the macro level, basking in the good, but we cannot.  We must push down into specifics, and as we do so, we bump into dilemmas.

As just one example, to take another dichotomy that had played throughout the years of my youth into my adulthood -- communism vs capitalism.  It would be difficult now to argue for communism as a force for the good, particularly in light of those regimes that purported to be communist, but were instead simply another version of a "theocratic dictatorship."  It might seem odd to label communism a "theocratic dictatorship," but at the core of it was the "worship" of an infallible idea, captured in sacred texts.  As has been said of conservatism today, "communism couldn't fail, it could only be failed," by insufficient faith, insufficient commitment, insufficient or corrupted individuals, et cetera.  If one accepted that the infallible idea was, well, infallible, one was justified in seeking out those who failed the idea, and those who "failed" communist idea met with ends better described by Solzhenitsyn.  Communism, as it actually manifested itself in the world, was clearly enough an "evil."  Regean was not entirely wrong to label communist Russia an "evil empire" to be resisted.

Conversely, of course, we had capitalism.  If communism was an evil to be resisted, then capitalism had to be the force for good.   Well, perhaps, to a limited degree, but let me spend a bit more time on communism.  There was another dichotomy that played throughout the years of my youth -- communism vs democracy.  Though it wasn't quite to apparent in the beginning, as time wore on, it became apparent that the state-planned economies of the soviet block clearly did not function quite so well as those governed by the "invisible hand" of capitalism, in part because the people did not have much in the way of a voice in decisions that dominated their lives.  Decisions, for good or for evil, were made at the "top," but there was no feedback loop of accountability from the people, who were asked simply to endure the hardships.  Again, communism could not fail, it could only be failed by those who demonstrated insufficient endurance on the way to fulfillment of the infallible idea.  At least theoretically, democracy created that feed back loop.  Humans are hierarchical, and where hierarchies don't exist "naturally" we create them, so decision making was and is still made at the "top," but those at the "top" served ostensibly at and for the will of the people.  At least theoretically, in a democracy, we could vote them out of office and replace them with someone who would indeed serve the will of the people.

 I should also point out that capitalism and democracy seemed linked in inextricable ways.  One, it seemed, could not exist without the other.  Just as we had a voice in the success of one "leader" over another, creating a sort of competition between sets of ruling ideas, we had a voice in the success of one "firm" over another.  If dissatisfied with our Ford, we could buy a Chevy.  The competition between "firms" for our business, theoretically, resulted in the "lowest price and the highest quality."  At the macro level at least, voting with our ballots, voting with our pocket books, seemed ultimately to result in a country that reflected, again, the will of the people.

Having said this, however, I should point out that there is no inextricable link between capitalism and democracy.  I take it as something of a truism, for example, but in capitalism, there seems to be an inexorable pressure toward anti-competitive, and in that sense anti-democratic monopoly.  Competition between "firms" results in a good for people in general, but it does not produce the same good for the owners of the firm.  "Lowest price and the highest quality" generally means less money in the form of profit or "surplus."  If one were to limit, or even eliminate competition, then of course the owners would be less constrained in both their pricing and the often costly focus on "quality."  Competition between "firms" also results in winners and losers, as we're reminded often in this presidential race, and the early winners accumulate greater and greater surplus, which allows them to "buy up" or "buy out" or just "out compete" any potential rival.  It pays, in other words, to be an early winner.  We see this playing out in the tech firms today.  Even if we buy into their mythology that they started in a garage with a good idea and a vision, imagine what it would take today to create another Microsoft or Apple to compete on anything approaching equal footing with the existing firms.  If you are sitting in a garage with a good idea, chances are you will be made an offer you can't refuse, riches beyond your immediate reach, and so like the 50s sci-fi blob, the so-called big boys come along and absorb all that might present meaningful competition.

Consider, for example, what Richard D Wolff has to say:

Political democracy has been repeatedly limited, constrained and corrupted by capitalism. That happened because political democracy based on universal suffrage could redistribute or reclaim politically the profits concentrated in capitalists’ hands by the functioning of the capitalist economic system. Majorities by their votes could negate capitalism. To prevent that, capitalists had to control politics. Their financial and related resources bought politicians, parties, mass media, lobbyists, think tanks, public relations experts, etc. With capitalism, democracy thus remained mostly formal, a much-venerated veneer covering the absence of real democracy.

The full essay can be found at (http://www.rdwolff.com/content/alternatives-capitalism).   He proposes a solution that I won't discuss, but the sentiment expressed above seems to be playing out in the general election as well.  Bernie Sanders could have written the same paragraph, and that he is tapping into populist support after announcing himself a democratic socialist indicates that Wolff might well be correct, that there is a "waning of anti-communism as a national paranoia." When we have a theocratically based terrorism, the red menace is no longer so menacing, but I would go on to say that capitalism, if it has worked "well enough," it has worked because the "political democracy" has placed regulatory limits on its internal dynamics.  It is not illegal, per se, to seek monopoly power within a market, but if one actually succeeds, or if it appears that one might succeed through a proposed merger or the like, then the government, reflecting the will of the people, has the right to intervene and "break up the monopoly" and reinstate competitive, democratic capitalism.  Most such regulatory limits work within the tax code and labor laws, and if the Marxist predictions regarding capitalism didn't come about, it's not that he was wrong, per se, about the exploitive, extractive nature of capitalism, but that he underestimated the ability of political democracy to limit its worst excesses.    If political democracy stands against the excesses of kings and tyrants, so too it would appear to stand also as a bulwark against the excesses inherent in the capitalist systems.

Nevertheless, as another potential Bernie Sanders supporter, Allan G. Johnson, has written:

The most important thing to realize about industrial capitalism is that it is not organized to meet the needs of the people who participate in it. It is not the first system for which this has been true, but it is the latest version and it dominates the world. It’s true that capitalists have to produce things that people need (or, if not, to persuade them that they do) in order to sell goods and make a profit. If, as a result, capitalism does happen to meet the needs of people, that’s fine, but that is not the point of the system. The point is to allow individuals to compete with one another in order to maximize personal wealth. How this affects everyone else is, within fairly broad limits, largely beside the point.

The full post can be found here (http://www.agjohnson.us/glad/if-not-capitalism-what/).  There are several arguable assertions here, and in fairness to Johnson, it wast his agenda to argue them fully, but  let's argue, by way of example, just one: "it's true that capitalists have to produce things that people need ... in order to sell goods and make a profit."  Is it true?  Well, first, the whole notion of "need" should be better defined.  What exactly is a "need?"  I am not suggesting that we revert to subsistence living at its most meager, but let's just accept that, say, personal transportation is a "need."  There are many ways, of course, to satisfy that need, but we have evolved, so to speak, into a particular set of circumstances where automobiles, fueled with polluting hydrocarbons, provide personal transportation.  It is easy enough to imagine a different evolutionary path, so to speak, where the need for personal transportation is fulfilled differently, but here we are.  If you think for a moment how many people, big and small, "profit" from the automobile industry, it would be virtually impossible to say, "whoops.  That was a mistake.  Let's try something different."   But it WAS a mistake, an evolutionary path that has brought us, if not to the brink of extinction, then at the very least into a seriously degraded environment.

There is a sort of sunk cost fallacy implicit in a "mistake" of this sort.  We have sunk so much time, effort, money into certain industries, and too many people have become dependent upon those industries for their livelihood, that it might appear we have no choice but to live with them such as they are.  The Clinton brand of pragmatism buys into the sunk cost, and there will be plenty of people, who continue to profit from the "mistake," that will resist even slight shifts away from the status quo.  It doesn't take much to see that "climate scientists" have little to gain by suggesting that "climate changes" are the result of human activity, driving hydrocarbon fueled vehicles among the bigger culprits.  What, for example, do the NASA scientists have to gain by pointing to the diminishing ice caps, to the increasing average annual temperatures, et cetera?   Conversely, it doesn't take much to see that those associated with the production of hydrocarbon fuel, those associated with the automobile industry, et cetera, actually DO have something to gain by denying climate change and resisting any regulatory changes that might divert us from the status quo.   As Johnson put it, how their denial and the preservation of the status quo "affects everyone else is, within fairly broad limits, largely beside the point."   If we are to make changes, it will be political democracy, not capitalism per se, that makes the change, using the tax system to incentivize alternatives (e.g. electric cars) and/or impose sanctions on the status quo (e.g. a meaningful carbon tax) that reduce its profitability.

Having said this, it is perhaps not surprising that the conservative parties, not only here, but throughout the world, have moved toward distortions and at times outright constraints on political democracy.  They are aligned with the "capitalists," not those who would restrain the excesses of capitalism -- not, that is, the people.  The biggest distortion, of late, has been the Citizens United decision, but the efforts to gerrymander districts, impose voter registration limitations, all have their effect.  Setting aside the cynical alignment of religion and conservatism (which, frankly, I see mostly as a red herring -- a side argument that hides the real argument -- except perhaps for a Ted Cruz type who seems to want religion, not the people per se, to regulate capitalism for eschatological
ends) any effort to free capitalism from the constraints imposed by political democracy -- from regulation, from taxes, from legal sanctions -- as I put it in the previous post, simply allows them to keep legally more of what they "extract" and much more latitude in how they go about "extracting" it.   It will free capitalism to fulfill its dynamic, move closer to monopoly power, concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands, allow greater and greater disregard for the planet and those that inhabit it.   In short, less capitalism, more democracy -- that's what the country needs right now.  

Redistribution of Wealth

I read a piece the other day that talked about Obamacare.  My apologies up front, because I cannot remember the piece itself, or who wrote it, only a single point that it made.  In it, the author suggested that progressives and conservatives will never agree on Obamacare.  Even if it is "pragmatically successful" -- that is to say, even if it covers the vast majority of Americans at a reasonable cost to both the individual covered and the taxpayer at large -- conservatives will still not support it because, to their mind, it violates a fundamental "moral" principle.  I am not sure how to characterize the fundamental principle in a way that doesn't betray my bias.  The more Lockian version of the three inalienable rights comes to mind -- life, liberty, and property.   My own less benign characterization would be "what's mine is mine, and no one has a 'right' to it unless I say so."

To a certain extent, we're all in this category, so I will admit a certain amount of hypocrisy right up front.  For the vast majority of my possessions -- those like TVs or cameras that have value beyond sentiment -- should they be stolen, I would feel violated, but not outraged.  As Lora would say, "they must need it more than we do."  Beyond that, she is perpetually sniffing out excess and giving it away.  In her words, she hates "clutter."  For my own part, I have tools that I don't use, and probably never will use, but I would nevertheless be loath to part with them.  Should they be stolen, I would not only feel violated, but "morally outraged."  These are MY tools!  I am a bit more possessive, consider property for the sake of property a bit more sacrosanct, than my wife.  Consequently, it's what I call a "spectrum issue," running from full on white through various shades of grey to full on black.   My wife is always irritated when I force recognition of a "spectrum issue," so too were my students in the past, not because they are necessarily black/white thinkers, but because it becomes an endless parsing of speculative subtleties.  She would prefer to deal with the subtleties as they emerge.

At one end of the spectrum, then, we have the "what's mine is mine, and no one has a 'right' to it unless I say so."  This is a fundamental conservative "moral" principle, and it plays out from top to bottom.  So it is not surprising that conservatives would object to taxes.  All taxes are "redistributive." All taxes take money from some, and "redistribute" it to others.  Some redistributions are easier to swallow than others.  The redistribution to protective functions of government -- e.g. the military and police that help "secure" our property here and abroad -- seems more palatable than redistribution to what might be called the charitable functions of government -- e.g. food stamps or Obamacare.  With protective functions, there is a sense that ALL, including me, benefit from the taxes supporting them.  Those charged to provide protective functions are often portrayed in self-sacrificial and heroic terms, and they are ceremoniously thanked for their service.  With the charitable functions, however, there is a sense that only SOME, specifically excluding me, benefit from the taxes supporting them.  Indeed, if you are in a position to pay taxes, you are by definition excluded from the benefit.  It takes what's mine, my money in the form of taxes, and gives it someone else, with little or no benefit to me, or my "say so."

Here again, I will admit to a certain amount of hypocrisy.  I do feel a bit of resentment at the taxes going to charitable functions, in part because I refuse to romanticize the poor.  There may be a certain amount of nobility in those who renounce possession, but for the most part, the poor that have come my way live cramped, mean-spirited lives.  Hang out for a while in the local trailer park, get a feel for the ambiance.  In many cases -- too many cases -- they are the "hopeless" in every sense of the word.  They have little in the way of "hope" for a better life, and despite our best intentions, there is little "hope" for the success of most interventions.  One might also characterize them as the "increasingly useless."  My wife, as a front line hospice worker, loves her work and is paid reasonably well for it -- better than minimum wage, but less than the minimum wage proposed by Sanders and now Clinton.  Many -- too many -- of her co-workers, however, are "useless."  They cannot get the job because they have various "convictions," mostly drug or theft related, or they cannot keep the job because they have various "attitudinal problems," summarized as "poor work ethic."  They simply don't do the job to keep the job.  If there were a way to automate the care of the elderly and the dying, don't kid yourself, Hearts for Hospice would do it without hesitation.

So I get the resentment.  I feel the conservative pain when I stand in line at the grocery store and watch people pay with food stamps, and think, my tax dollars at work.  But here's the question.  What do we do with them?  The useless and the hopeless?   I believe, despite myself sometimes, that we are creating a "permanent underclass," and it is growing, not shrinking.  Here's something to think about. The Post yesterday ran a story on the neighborhood bank.  The lead read:

That bank branch on the corner — and the one on the way to work — may not be there much longer.
As technology transforms banking, like it has so many other sectors, the consequence could be a dramatic decline in the industry's outposts over the next decade, experts say.

What does that mean?  You guessed it.  Fewer people employed as Bank Tellers.  As they go on to say, "The global industry, under pressure to meet customer demands for automation and cheaper services, will slash employment and branches by 20 percent to 50 percent over the next decade, he estimated," he being  Antony Jenkins, the former CEO of Barclays.  It probably goes without saying that we "demand" cheaper services, but I don't know that customers are "demanding automation," consciously.  Nevertheless, every time one makes a transaction over the phone, it "demands" better, more efficient, more secure automation.  Yes, it will "create jobs," even well paying jobs, for technicians, but they will be far far fewer in number.   Those who own the banks aren't suffering.   The new CEO of Barclays made nearly 400K USD, not in his first year, in his first month.  The bank tellers who lose their jobs, on the other hand, will very likely suffer.

OK, so I get the resentment.  I feel the conservative pain when the laid off bank teller pays with food stamps, but it is not "welfare," per se, that is at fault.  There are, one might argue, plenty of jobs to go around.  That's true, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing sector is "ambulatory health care services," and within that category, the sub-category of "home health aides," of which Lora is one.  The median salary is 10.51 USD an hour, better than the federal minimum wage, but not a whole lot better.  The average hours worked per week hovers at around 32.  What that means, of course, is that very few of the workers are full time.  Just to be above board, the next biggest sector is "food services and drinking places."  These are minimum wage jobs, or worse.  Waitresses are typically paid minimum wage LESS what they can be expected to earn in tips.  If they earn less than expected, sucks to be you, if they earn more, so much the better.  Nevertheless, they stand to earn more -- 11.62 USD per hour.  Their average weekly hours, however, hover at around 24, which again means that the vast majority are part time, hourly workers.  

So, let's put it into perspective.  If one assiduously attends to a job in one of the fastest growing sectors, what does that mean?  Full time, one can expect to earn 21,860 USD per year as an ambulatory care worker.  One can, at least, support one's self in such a way, but it is right at the federal poverty guideline for a family of three.  The reality, however, is more complicated.   As I suggested, no such jobs are full time.  They are, at best, 29 hours per week, and are without benefits of any sort.  The maximum one can earn at a single employer, minimum wage, is 15,849 USD per year.  That is below the federal poverty guidelines for a family of two.  Let us assume that they hold two such jobs for the "equivalent" of a full time job, but then what about health care?  

Here I need to point out that most "true" conservatives want to do away not only with Obamacare, but the minimum wage.  So let us assume that Obamacare doesn't exist.  The full cost of my health care plan is 11,100 USD per year.  That represents nearly 100 percent of a single ambulatory care job, and nearly 50 percent of two minimum wage jobs combined into full time.  It makes no sense to fork out that much money when there is rent to pay, food to buy, et cetera.   Let's assuming that they "bought into the system," with or without subsidy.  If the assiduous ambulatory care worker were themselves to get sick, they would still have to pay $5000 out of pocket.  Even so, part time, minimum wage jobs do not have "sick time" -- no hours, no pay -- and so they would be faced with a hefty bill right when they can no longer work to pay it, or anything else for that matter.  I have just outlined the NEW american dream -- work hard, at a physically and emotionally taxing job, and you will sink even further into poverty.

When we look at the wealth of the uber-wealthy, where did it come from?  Let's not be coy about this.  It came from you and me, as "profit" from goods and services, especially those basic goods and services we cannot do without.  They took it because they have the means to do so.  This is an "extractive" economy.   It shouldn't be surprising that people are asking for cheaper and more convenient, because they have less money and less time, but the "satisfaction" of that demand pushes even more people out of jobs, or into poorly paying jobs, and who cares?  so long as I still have mine.  There has been a massive redistribution of wealth in this nation over the last few decades -- just not by taxes -- just not from the rich to the poorer members of our society -- but rather from the poorer members to the increasingly disparate  and distant rich.

The core conservative economic stance, lower taxes, less gov'ment regulation, simply allows them to keep legally more of what they "extract" and much more latitude in how they go about "extracting" it.   The core conservative moral stance should be amended to read, at least for the ideologues in charge, "what's mine is mine, and what's yours will soon enough be mine." There's little mystery in this,.  The conservative ideologues in charge are all for a redistribution of wealth, but they want the redistribution to continue in their direction.  For the so-called conservative core, those salt-of-the-earth rural folk, those angry trump supporters, those evangelical cruz supporters, well, they can take pride in their latest find at the garage sale.  Look!  It's almost like new!  Hey I found it first.  It's mine!  For the sitting in the driveway raking in the nickels, I'm sure he'd agree -- keep your grubby gov'ment hands off my profits!  

Moral Red Lines

In a recent podcast (Common Sense 303) Dan Carlin spoke of moral red lines.  They are those proverbial lines in the sand that we cannot cross without running the danger of becoming something else.  He spoke extensively of torture -- not the isolated incident, not of the ticking time bomb variety, but of programmatic and state sanctioned torture -- as one of those red lines.  He was specifically referring to those statements made during the candidacy of the donald -- that, if elected, he would use "water boarding and more" to get the information he needed to prevent future terrorist attacks.  He also seemed to sanction the killing of innocents -- e.g. the families of terrorists -- as a preventative or deterrent measure.  He believes, and I would agree, that both programmatic torture and the deliberate targeting of innocents cross a moral line that cannot be uncrossed.

Let me set aside a couple of things.  Carlin talks about these as well, but it's worth repeating.  We are not talking about the isolated incident perpetrated by the so-called lone wolf.  We have seen this type popularized time and again in the popular media.  The archeype is typically a cop, but it could easily be and has been an intelligence operative, and he is the one that doesn't "go by the book," using methods that are not sanctioned within departmental regulations.  Often these methods include a form of torture, or "police brutality."  While there is friction with the "brass," and occasionally the "unorthodox" methods are called out for sanction, they are nevertheless the one's called upon in difficult situations "to get results."   There are, of course, infinite variations on the archetype, and it seems to have enduring popularity.   We empathize with the "lone wolf," particularly within American culture, and particularly here in the west, where he is a staple of the western -- the gunfighter, for example, called out of "retirement" to deal with a particularly onerous situation.

We normally empathize with the "lone wolf," in part because "their heart is in the right place."  They direct their "methods" only at the bad guys, those who are themselves morally reprehensible, and they don't do it for selfish reasons in the narrow pecuniary or bureaucratic sense.  They're not looking for reward or promotion -- indeed, their "methods" prevent either (too many "brutality" complaints have been lodged).  They are, rather, concerned with "justice," typically conceived as "revenge" against someone who has wrongs someone they "care about," or someone that they come to "care about."  The line goes something like "we'll get the ones who did this," and of course when they do, the "ones who did this" normally give sufficient cause to settle the matter immediately, bang bang, without the slogging process of a court procedure.

OK, we've seen the movie a hundred times.  There are several questions we need to ask, the first of which is this: if their methods are so successful, why aren't they officially sanctioned?  At one level, a purely pragmatic or utilitarian level, we should.  If they do indeed work, the good achieved for the many innocents outweighs the bad perpetrated against the less than innocent bad guys.  Carlin sees it as "personality types," and this type he labels the "ends justify the means" sorts.  He assigned Dick Cheney to this category, and apparently the donald belongs there as well.  His repeated insistence on "success" gives moral sanction only to those who are "successful," to the point where people like John McCain, the "loser" who allowed himself to be captured and as a consequence who endured torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese, are not to be considered "war heroes."  By definition, he was not "successful."  If he didn't want to be tortured, he shouldn't have allowed himself to be captured.  If the donald were to elevate his stature to "war hero," if he were to object to his torture and the torture of others on purely moral grounds, he would put constraints on his own actions and  for the donald such constraints would impede his pursuit of "success."  At least the donald is consistent in recognizing that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.  If we torture, we cannot object their torture, and the question Carlin asks is simply this:  do we want to live in a world where torture is "unobjectionable?"

Probably not, but what would insure that we do not?  In the movie, however, the lone wolf doesn't bump up against a morally outraged bureaucracy.  He bumps up against a bureaucracy that is at best cynical, at worst corrupt.  Typically, if the bureaucracy is simply cynical, it doesn't call upon the lone wolf until the pressure to solve the crime is so great that he doesn't have a choice.  The mayor is getting too much bad press, and continued failure to solve the crime jeopardizes his chances of re-election, or the lieutenants chances of promotion, or the like, and the lone wolf becomes the "necessary evil."  If the bureaucracy is corrupt, well, typically, they make the fatal assumption that they can deal with the lone wolf once he has served his purpose.  I say "fatal mistake" because, in the movie, of course, their corruption is always brought to light coincident with the fall of the bad guys.   They all get their comeuppance.  

In the movie, that is, bureaucracy is never portrayed as a force for "justice," or even "ethical consistency," but as an impediment to the success of the "lone wolf," and his success is the only driving imperative.  He must achieve justice for the wronged, or rescue the child, or ...  and time is running out, the bomb is ticking ...  We have seen the movie.  It shouldn't surprise us that the donald taps into these archetypes, or that his media soaked followers cheer him on when he does so.  Indeed, as several have noted, the conservatives themselves have created the likelihood of a trump when they rail against "big government," which is assumed to be at best a cynical, at worst a corrupt impediment to "success."   The donald is simply the gunslinger who is answering the call to run for sheriff, and he is the successful one to save the good citizens of Deadwood.  So, back to the question:  do we want to live in a world where, for example, torture is "unobjectionable?"

Probably not, and unfortunately it is bureaucracy, government, that insures we do not.  It is the bureaucracy that insists, ultimately, that these means, -- violations of the geneva convention and torture, violations of 4th amendment, and so on -- will never be used, and if used, the perpetrator will themselves be subject to sanction.  If our bureaucracies turn out to be too cynical, or too corrupt, or just an impediment to "success," the answer is not necessarily LESS bureaucracy, but a BETTER more consistent, more efficient bureaucracy.  In my world, that means one more responsive to the people, but not so responsive that it bends to the will of the lynch mob.   It must be a force for ethical consistency, and if we do elect a Donald Trump, it is the bureaucracy that will save us from the putative savior.    

Seven Mountains

Let's admit some truthiness up front.  There's nothing new in either Hillary Clinton's or Bernie Sanders' ideologies.  Bernie, of course, feels a bit more radical, but many of his ideas hearken back to the Keynsianism of Roosevelt.  Neither suggests anything approaching an idea that would set aside the constitution, with the possible exception of the Citizen's United supreme court decision.  One hundred years from now, scholars will look back on that, I suspect (or hope) in much the same way that they look back on Plessey v. Ferguson.  I won't go off on Citizen's United, but it is so clearly a decision giving an outsize voice to outsize money.  One shouldn't be surprised then by headlines reading "the new gilded age: close to half of all super PAC money comes from 50 donors."  Nor should one be surprised to learn, given the political attitudes of wealth, that 36 of the 50 support conservative candidates.  Right now, a lot of money is being spent to stop Trump,.  Trump's ego demands that he play to the crowd, and in doing so, he's a loose cannon, a loaded loose cannon,
in part because his rhetoric taps into the protectionist, America first attitudes among the displaced white males that attend his rallies.  This, among others things, is disturbing to those who want MORE, not less latitude in choosing the labor they exploit and where they can park the spoils of that exploitation.  The world is their dominion, not just Mississippi.


Better to go with Cruz, who at the moment, at least, embodies the unholy alliance between big money and evangelical conservatism.  One suspects, however, that this alliance is headed toward a divorce, or at least one can hope that it's headed toward a divorce.  The disputations throughout the south around LGBT rights shows the fault line of what may become "irreconcilable differences."  A multi-national corporate entity, to one degree or another, must ultimately be secular.  They must avoid offense across a broader mix of constituencies than most politicians, and so again one shouldn't be surprised to hear that they do not share, for the most part, the overt attitudes of evangelical conservatism.   It helps, of course, that the willful ignorance that helps sustain anti-Darwinism in the schools, also helps sustain those who would have us willfully ignore all the evidence supporting human-induced climate change, but even that has its fault line. Still, one needs well-educated scientists and engineers to find and develop the fossil fuels that are in turn inducing the climate change, and even if they are cynical or greedy enough to press ahead with the development of fossil fuels, it's still unlikely that those same well-educated scientists share the fundamentalist religious attitudes of their evangelical brethren in the conservative party.

Here's the 50K question.  Which parent will someone like Cruz choose if it does come to divorce?  A recent Huffington post blogger, Yasmina Blackburn, asked "where was Ted Cruz radicalized?"  According to Blackburn, in the home.  Cruz' father, Rafael Cruz, can be seen preaching Seven Mountain Dominionism, "whereby Christians are meant to take dominion over seven cultural elements: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government."  In the minds of the seven mountain folks, "take dominion" means just that, "take dominion."  In one such video that can be easily found by searching "Rafael Cruz Preaches Seven Mountain Dominionism," he tells us "the church should have an influence on arts and entertainment, on media, on sports, on education, on business, upon government."  He also tells us that, hearkening to the great conservative hero Reagan, that "morning is coming to America, and if we, as the people of god, stand firm and push back against this onslaught against christianity, against righteousness, we will take this country back."    

To "take back" is not a simple matter of influencing opinion, but something quite different.  He is advocating, in the words of Lance Wallnau, that they fulfill the "apostolic assignment."  That is, "they are to take over spheres and administer them for the glory of god."  You don't need to listen long to Lance Wallnau, or for that matter Rafael Cruz, to get a sense of the imminent danger.   You have Wallnau, for example, saying, to an appreciative audience, that "everywhere we fail to go, a vacuum is created and witchcraft fills it."  Really, he said "witchcraft."  As he is fond of saying, think about it -- witchcraft.  He goes on to say, the "anointing is upon you to command, and the command is on you for the assignment, and the assignment god has is for you to deal with the darkness, and it was for this reason the son of god was made manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil."

I have to admit, I find such language more than a little frightening, and I'm sure that others might find it equally frightening, but it is the belief system behind "take back America."  It is the belief system that drives much of the Cruz family religious thinking, and it is clear enough that, if sincere, Cruz has little desire to be president of a secular nation.  He wants to be anointed president of a christian nation where one can set about "destroying the works of the devil."  I'll leave it to you to imagine what those "works" might be, but if you give him the sorts of power that a Rafael Cruz or a Lance Wallnau would give him, they would command, in the name of god, in ways that mirror the sorts of muslim domination desired by an islamic state, or al-quaeda.  Although it is held up as a bogey man, and it may differ in slight particulars, there is no FUNDAMENTAL difference between biblical law, and sharia law -- and don't kid yourself, it's extraordinarily unlikely that you -- you personally -- would be anywhere near the command center.

In short, if elected, we can only hope the donald is right, that he's "lying Ted," that he's just another cynical politician in the pockets of big business, because if his religious convictions are half as sincere as his father's, then imagine a reset button that takes us back to the 17th century and "witch trials."  We'll all be living in an episode of Salem ....

The rich are different

than you or me.  This statement, attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald, has been bandied about quite a bit lately.  I've seen it at least a half dozen times in the last couple of weeks, mostly to affirm its truth.  At one point in my life, I have associated with the rich (and those who wanted others to believe they were rich) and I can attest to its truth, at least from a limited, anecdotal perspective.  There are also studies that tend to confirm what I would report anecdotally, perhaps the most comprehensive that I know of (and my knowledge is limited) comes from Page, Bartels, and Seawright.  You can find it here: http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf.

Not surprisingly, they find that the wealthy, those in the top fifth of the income distribute, are "socially more liberal, but economically more conservative."   One shouldn't, then, be surprised at the corporate outcry about the so-called "religious freedom" laws that are popping up throughout the bible belt.  Those in control of corporate America tend to fit the profile of the more liberal -- that is to say, they are better educated, technically sophisticated, and urban.   What has been called the "southern strategy" and what I have called the "unholy alliance" between big money and evangelical religious attitudes was, one suspects, merely a matter of "politics."  Do you suppose, as someone has suggested, that the daughter of a very wealthy man, who simply wanted an abortion, would have difficulty procuring one?  Do you suppose, as I might suggest, that the very wealthy would have a break bread with the likes of a David Duke?  They're much more likely to break bread with Ibn Saud.

There is probably one way in which the wealthy are less than socially liberal, and it's probably a human failing.  They tend to see their "success," particularly their financial success, coming as a result of their own hard work, intelligence or insight, persistence, et cetera -- you know, all those things that lead to the so-called "american dream."  Luck and the head start (not the child care program, but the 200 million inheritance) played no role.  I knew a business man, let's call him Hector.  I was encouraged to help him write a memoir.  The encouragement is a matter for another day, but he was a potential donor to the college where I worked, and I was the proverbial "English major" who had a reputation for stringing together words.  Hector was hispanic, and indeed, for the most part, a self-made man, who exhibited all the "right" attributes and an over-weening enthusiasm for the money he was making.  He wanted to tell others that the "secret" to his success was -- you guessed it -- hard work, using his native intelligence, persistence against the right goals, et cetera.  Never mind that he married into money, and into the business he continued to build, it was all a matter of good character brimming over with optimism, all a matter of eschewing what he called "stinkin' thinkin.'"

Conversely though, one shouldn't be surprised when they are not sympathetic to the "unlucky" and the social welfare programs that subsidize them.  One makes one's own luck, and their crappy circumstances stem from -- you guessed it, laziness, stupidity, giving up, et cetera.  These sentiments are not necessarily racist, or for that matter, ethnocentric.  With the possible exception of Trump, who seems to depend upon them for their political support, I suspect they would be equally denigrative of the poor whites.   It's not a matter of race or ethnicity, either here or abroad, but a matter of wealth and attitude, and of course, wealth shapes attitudes.  Unfortunately, though, such thinking nevertheless has a racial component, insofar as blacks and hispanics, the latter also tarred with the unfortunate implications of "illegals," are disproportionate users of those social welfare programs -- disproportionately mired in "stinkin' thinking.'"  Hector was fond of the Kennedy quotation, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," and his contribution was to be in the "reform" of education.  He had a sneaking suspicion that the "faculty," even at our community college, was excessively liberal, and altogether too sympathetic to the "poor me" narrative, the displacement of responsibility for one's own condition,  that was at the core of most "stinkin' thinking.'"  He petitioned the governor of the state, who was altogether too eager to appoint an hispanic, who shared conservative economic attitudes, to our board.

So again, one shouldn't be surprised when the wealthy have what the surveyors called "distinctive priorities." It turns out that "fully 87 percent of [the] wealthy respondents said deficits are a 'very important' problems facing the country.  Only 10 percent said 'somewhat important' and a bare 4 percent said 'not very important at all." The biggest problem is not abortion, not the preservation of gun rights, and certainly not the implementation of biblical law, but rather "government overspending."  The surveyors goes on to point out that "nearly as many of our respondents (84 and 79 percent, respectively, called unemployment and education 'very important' problems.  However, each of these problems was mentioned as the most important problem by only 11 percent, indicated that they ranked a distant second and third to budget deficits among the concerns of the wealthy Americans."  Anything that contributes to the budget deficit, with the possible exceptions of military and police spending, are consequently deeply suspect.  The military, of course, is necessary to "world order" and the protection of interests abroad.  Likewise, the police are necessary to "social order" and the protection of interests at home.

It probably wouldn't surprise anyone to hear that budget deficits were not a particular concern among the less than wealthy Americans.  The vast majority of Americans live with debt, and I suspect that most Americans have debt in excess of their assets -- that is to say, negative wealth.  For the wealthy, debt is strategic, for the vast majority of Americans debt is more complicated.  On the one hand, it clearly scratches the consumer itch, and it is this debt that gets people in "financial trouble," but it also helps fuel the economy with demand.  On the other, it is also a matter of survival -- the lease or the mortgage, for example, provide the necessity of shelter.  I could go on, but the vast majority of Americans live, day in and day out, with debt.  Both those who extend credit, and those who use credit, are fine with the arrangement, so long as the debt is "serviced" -- that is to say, so long as one can make the monthly payments.   Of course, one's ability to "service" one's debt is dependent upon income, and hence "unemployment" is perceived as a problem by the wealthy.  The interest on debt contributes directly to the wealth of the wealthy, and so they DO want people to be productively employed -- the key word being "productively" -- in a way that ALSO contributes to their wealth.  Consequently, when faced with unemployment, the wealthy tend NOT to favor public works projects -- the Rooseveltian/Kensyian investment in infrastructure proposed by Sanders -- but policy that improves private employment that contributes directly to their wealth.

And there's the rub.  I have yet to see a policy that directly improves private employment.  I have seems public works projects that indirectly improve private employment.  It's an oversimplification, but we emerged from the great depression, not because we reduced taxes on the rich to create more "investment," but because we incurred a massive "public works" project -- WWII.  The fifties subsequent to WWII were golden because the overwhelming destruction created enormous demand associated with rebuilding Europe and Asia, and at the same time we took on yet another massive "public works" project -- the cold war.  We have tried to recreate the cold war with the so-called war on terrorism, but let's be honest.  The war on terror is significant, but it doesn't create the demand for bombers and missile silos that the cold war created.  Again, an over-simplification, but I think the general outline is correct.  

Demand creates private employment.  Anyone who has ever been in business can tell you -- I can tell you, a lesson learned from failure -- that having a great supply, shelves brimming over with bright and sparkling goods, means absolutely nothing if there is no customer demand for the products on those shelves.   The supply will gather dust, and essentially that is what is currently happening with the economy, though perhaps at one remove.  Cutting taxes to the wealthy has, in fact, increased their wealth, which DOES give them greater ability to invest in the sorts of things that might potentially create private jobs.  Cutting taxes even more will increase their wealth even more, but having an even greater ABILITY to invest does NOT necessarily mean that they will ACTUALLY invest that money, which right now, for the most part, seems to be gathering dust in off-shore bank accounts.  Cutting taxes could create demand, but you must cut the taxes of those who will actually spend the money, meaning middle and low income people, but even so the effects are marginal.  The characterization might not be entirely fair, but again I think the general outline is correct.

Cutting regulations did create demand, or rather tapped into an existing demand.  The whole story is inordinately complex.  Like quantum physics, it is beyond the comprehension of even those engaged in the story, but "deregulating" the financial sector allowed for the extension of mortgages to people who could not, realistically, afford them. I say "allowed for" insofar as those mortgages were, apparently, though only apparently, protected against default by derivatives and other suspect financial instruments, but the "deregulated" mortgages did tap into the existing demand for housing helped fuel a housing bubble.  When it turned out that people really couldn't afford the mortgages -- that is to say, when they could no longer service their debt -- the whole house of cards collapsed.   Who paid for the collapse?  You and I did.  

Likewise, I warn, beware of those who would "deregulate" the energy sector.   Because I doubt that the second coming is anytime imminent, we must live on Earth, and anyone who has had to breath during an "inversion" in Salt Lake or LA, anyone who has had their homes flooded by "record" rainfalls, anyone who has experienced an earthquake in places where earthquakes were previously rare, might ought maybe be a little dubious of claims that green house gasses and the fracking that will help contribute to those green house gasses, are benign.   In the words of Captain Starbuck, deregulation of the energy sector might well turn out to be the biggest "frack you" yet.

So, I am still waiting for policy that will directly create private jobs ...

 

  

Yesterday I Wrote

a response mostly inspirited, or "ired," by someone with whom I would normally agree.  It is not surprising, of course, that he would be a Clinton supporter, but I would not have expected him to become a Bernie Basher in the process.  Here I'm thinking of his April 8th editorial in the Times, titled "Sanders Over the Edge."  The fundamental critique he levels at Sanders is the charge of over-simplification.  He writes, "on many major issues -- including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform -- he seemed to go for easy slogs over hard thinking.  And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic."  There is some truth in this, and, as I said, I would agree that "a commitment to facing hard choices as opposed to taking the easy way out an important value in itself."

There is a difference, however, between "hard choices" and "incomprehensible choices."  I would agree too, as Clinton pointed out, that Sanders had "not done his homework" when talking with the Daily News, but it also seems disingenuous to suggest that he have a fully developed game plan for "breaking up the big banks."  How would such a game plan be communicated to the American people?  It would take a massive effort at education, and everything else aside, Sanders is a politician, not an educator.  And besides, if we have learned anything over the Obama administration, any such detailed game plan would lend itself to precisely the sort of decontextualized picking of nits by nitwits that engages so much air time on Fox News.  He is asking Sanders to become a policy wonk, along the lines of Clinton, which misses entirely the point of populist ire.

Yesterday, I wrote:

If one wants to understand the populist "rage," the push for "outsiders" to the political process, it's not just one's sense of being bamboozled, but a desire for simple and comprehensible solutions.

Simple and comprehensible, of course, lends itself to demagoguery, and Krugman is absolutely right, 100% right, in pointing out that danger with Sanders, but recently the NYT balanced out Krugman's warning with an editorial by Jeff Merkely, the democratic senator from Oregon.   He writes:

It has been noted the Bernie has an uphill battle ahead of him to win the Democratic nomination.  But his leadership on these issues and his willingness to fearless stand up to the powers that be have galvanized a grass-roots movement.  People know that we don't just need better policies, we need a wholesale rethinking of how our economy and our politics work, and for whom they work."   Although one can favor the policies of Clinton over Cruz, they remain just that, a wonkish nibbling at the edges of the status quo.  One might fault Sanders for pointing out Clinton's undeniable connections to the big banks, and it may not follow that she is "in their pocket," but it DOES follow, however, that she would not be inclined to deconstruct and simplify them in any significant way.  The big bank complexity is not only the pundit's friend -- who else to explain it? -- but it would appear to be Clinton's friend as well.

The anomalies in our current systems are altogether too apparent.  As the good Senator points out,"it is not that America is less wealthy than 40 years ago -- quite the contrary.  The problem is that our economy, both by accident and design, has become rigged to make a fortunate few very well off while leaving most Americans struggling to keep up." We are trapped within systems that have pretty much destroyed any hope of social mobility.  We are trapped within systems that have pretty much destroyed the leave it to Beaver family, not because we have neglected biblical principles and fallen into moral laxity, but because it take 2.5 incomes to make ends meet, which means, of course, that the ends never meet.  

We need a Kuhnian revolution in our politics, a new paradigm or perhaps a reset to the original principle.   Krugman is smarter than I am, no doubt, and he would win, hands down, every economic argument we might have, but I can't help but see him as Ptolomy and the astrologers, equipped with all the facts supporting an earth centric solar that didn't quite add up and never will quite add up.  We need a Copernicus, someone to put the sun at the center of the solar system and shed some light on things. It is not a radical revolution, but a "conservative" revolution, one that "conserves" our natural resources, one that conserves the democratic principle of "we the people."  To give the good Senator Merkley the final word, it is time to  "fully realize our founding principles of hope and opportunity for all.  It is time to recommit ourselves to that vision of a country that measures our nation's success not at the boardroom table, but at kitchen tables across America.  Bernie Sanders stands for that America, and so I stand with Bernie Sanders for President."

Makers and Takers

In a blog post for the Huffington Post, Lynne Parramore  refers to a forthcoming book by Rana Foorohar, Makers and Takers: the Rise of American Finance and the Fall of American Business.  The usual dichotomy goes something like this:  the wealthy top 1% are the makers who invest their capital into innovative products and jobs, the bottom 47% of the population are the takers, particularly of government benefits.  I have to admit, there are "takers" in the sense that Romney, Ryan, and others disparaged.  One need only hang out in the conservative backwaters of rural America to see them taking government benefits and then disparage, without irony, the government giving them the benefits and their inner city "welfare queen" counterparts.  And yes, the "system" itself maintains this sort of "taker," insofar as those "on the dole," in world without viable means of social mobility, seem to form a more or less permanent, generationally-stable "underclass."  These "takers" are "hopeless" in almost every sense of the word, they themselves are without hope, and there is not much hope for them or the coming generation.

Individually, they get very little, barely enough to survive, and if the declining life expectancy figures are any indicator, not enough to survive for long.  The real "takers," however, are those identified by Foorohar.  In Parramore's words, they are:

the denizens of plush Wall Street offices, and they have pretty much absconded with the American dream. Despite the remarkable ability of financiers to hide behind complexity and dodge the spotlight of the media, the regulators and the law, Americans are copping onto the breadth and depth of the swindle. They have just about had it—which is why voters have been flocking in droves to the fiery Bernie Sanders, who wants to jail financial crooks and end too-big-to-fail, and to Wall Street heckler Donald Trump, who describes hedge fund managers as worthless moneymen who “get away with murder“ and gleefully trashes uber-bankers like Jamie Dimon. 

I fully understand the argument that we SHOULD support the more pragmatic approach advocated by those at the center of the political spectrum.   As I have said several times, I am a pragmatist who believes, or WANTS very badly to believe, that immediate problems can be solved if those charged with solving them would approach the problem with some rigor, some attention to verifiable data, some ability to admit that a favored approach didn't work as well as expected.  I cannot bring myself to support a Trump, for all the standard reasons -- his incipient racism, misogyny, xenophobia, messianic ego, et cetera.  I would no more put his finger on the button than I would Sarah Palin's.  On the other side, of course, there is Bernie Sanders.  I fully understand the fears put forward by the Council of Economic Advisors who "have worked to make the Democratic Party the party of evidence-based economic policy" that Sanders himself is engaging in voodoo economics -- that his policy proposals are either unrealistic, or rest on unrealistic expectations.  It's pie in the sky.


Nevertheless, I think Parramore is correct -- at least one American has just about had it.  If one wants to understand the populist "rage," the push for "outsiders" to the political process, it's not just one's sense of being bamboozled, but a desire for simple and comprehensible solutions.   Parramore touches on something important when she mentions "the remarkable ability of financiers to hide behind complexity."  The big banks are not only too big to fail, they are too complex to understand. If you want some modest sense of the complexity, read Gabriel Zucman's article "Taxing across Borders: Tracking Personal Wealth and Corporate Profits."  It was published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, and gives, well, a perspective on the globalization of capital and "tax avoidance" of the sort railed against by Sanders.  If one wants to develop "evidence-based economic policy" Zucman outlines the sort of evidence one should have at hand, but the offshore tax avoidance is too complex for easy understanding, and might well be too complex for any understanding. If he is correct, it represents approximately $124 billion dollars in lost revenue to the US coffers.  As Max Ehrenfreud points out in the Post, one can buy at least one or two slices of pie in the sky with that.