What an oversight! Last month I posted a piece in which I argued that if, as the religious right insists, we are a Christian nation it would be nice if we started acting like one by feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick and (Gasp!) loving our enemies.
I just realized that I left out the most important characteristic of a Christian nation, and that is to follow Christ’s example by driving the moneychangers out of the temple of democracy.
Then I remembered—we worship Calvin, not Christ. And to Calvin wealth is a sign of God’s favor and grace. Maybe Golden Sachs’ Lloyd Blankenfeld is right when he says he’s doing God’s work.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Deconstructing "Reality"
Superstition still lives. We like to think we’re “enlightened” because we no longer believe in ghosts, goblins or things that go bump in the night. But, the truth is we’re just as superstitious as our ancestors. The only difference is that instead of sporting fangs, our monsters wear wingtips.
Alexia Eastwood does a wonderful job of deconstructing one of our more prevalent superstitions, our belief in Economic Man, or Homo Economicus. Economic man was an outgrowth of Adam Smith’s contention that “the self-interested actions of individual agents guided by the ‘invisible hand of the market’ would lead to the greater good of all society.” This, of course, assumed that people were “hyper-rational.” Right away, that concept runs into trouble when you consider the millions who have plunked down over a hundred dollars to buy a pair of Nike sneakers that might have cost five bucks to manufacture.
Eastwood contends that studies in behavioral psychology and anthropology show “that our inclination to share and cooperate is hardwired into our genetic code and may have acted as an evolutionary advantage in human societies throughout the ages.”
Of course, the myth of Homo Economicus fits capitalism like a tee. It provides a rationale for the Social Darwinism that made the late nineteenth century such a hell -hole for the working class and which has made comeback in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Under this doctrine, the poor are poor because they aren’t fit. It’s all a matter of personal choice. A person is poor just because a sperm chose to fertilize an impoverished egg. It should have known better.
Another fallout from our economic friend is that belief that numbers represent reality, that if the numbers say it’s so, it is. Eastwood quotes Karl Polanyi who stated that, “[N]o other society outside of our own has ever raised the pursuit of economic gain to the guiding principle of society or understood it as definitive of the human condition.”
In other words, Economic Man is a socially construct that has no basis in reality. It’s pure make believe, a fantasy encouraged by our oligarchs to justify their manifold predations. We are now living with the dreadful consequences of this superstition
As for the invisible hand of the market, as I’ve explained in previous posts, there is an easy way to make it visible. Place you elbow on a table with your forearm perpendicular to the table’s surface. Make a fist. Now extend you middle finger heavenward and there you have it: the invisible hand of the market.
Alexia Eastwood does a wonderful job of deconstructing one of our more prevalent superstitions, our belief in Economic Man, or Homo Economicus. Economic man was an outgrowth of Adam Smith’s contention that “the self-interested actions of individual agents guided by the ‘invisible hand of the market’ would lead to the greater good of all society.” This, of course, assumed that people were “hyper-rational.” Right away, that concept runs into trouble when you consider the millions who have plunked down over a hundred dollars to buy a pair of Nike sneakers that might have cost five bucks to manufacture.
Eastwood contends that studies in behavioral psychology and anthropology show “that our inclination to share and cooperate is hardwired into our genetic code and may have acted as an evolutionary advantage in human societies throughout the ages.”
Of course, the myth of Homo Economicus fits capitalism like a tee. It provides a rationale for the Social Darwinism that made the late nineteenth century such a hell -hole for the working class and which has made comeback in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Under this doctrine, the poor are poor because they aren’t fit. It’s all a matter of personal choice. A person is poor just because a sperm chose to fertilize an impoverished egg. It should have known better.
Another fallout from our economic friend is that belief that numbers represent reality, that if the numbers say it’s so, it is. Eastwood quotes Karl Polanyi who stated that, “[N]o other society outside of our own has ever raised the pursuit of economic gain to the guiding principle of society or understood it as definitive of the human condition.”
In other words, Economic Man is a socially construct that has no basis in reality. It’s pure make believe, a fantasy encouraged by our oligarchs to justify their manifold predations. We are now living with the dreadful consequences of this superstition
As for the invisible hand of the market, as I’ve explained in previous posts, there is an easy way to make it visible. Place you elbow on a table with your forearm perpendicular to the table’s surface. Make a fist. Now extend you middle finger heavenward and there you have it: the invisible hand of the market.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Pushing the Gurney
Every since the fall of the Soviet Union, Capitalism has been taking its victory lap so thrilled with itself that it doesn’t realize that it’s strapped to a gurney being pushed by Beltway and media denizens. It’s like the dying man who believes that the harder he parties the more death will be kept at bay.
Things aren’t much better at the other end of the political spectrum. The left’s gurney ran off the track decades ago and is lying on its side slowly rusting as it is ignored by passer-bys.
One wonders if the dialectic of history isn’t getting ready to make another turn with capitalism as the thesis and socialism as the antithesis. At this point in time, we have no way of knowing what the emerging synthesis will look like. For that matter, most of us are unaware of this dialectic even being in motion. No doubt a thirteenth-century lord of the manor believed feudalism would last forever.
As Tony Judt puts it, “We have entered an age of insecurity—economic insecurity, physical insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity. The fact that we are largely unaware of this is small comfort: few in 1914 predicted the utter collapse of their world and the economic and political catastrophes that followed.”
“Not so!” cry those pushing the gurney. “Capitalism is the end point of history; it will rise from its own ashes like the Phoenix bird of mythology.” It’s a poor analogy. The Phoenix bird was consumed by an external fire; capitalism is dying from the internal rot of its own contradictions. Advanced capitalist countries have reached the limits of economic growth and are now turning inward and devouring themselves in a doomed effort to preserve the appearance of prosperity and health.
Capitalism rode to power on the wings of a geological fluke, abundant fossil fuel. At $2 a barrel, anything is possible. At $85 a barrel our options become limited. Economic growth has reached a tipping point where every increase in our GDP is another step closer to the destruction of the natural world that supports us.
Don’t bother telling that to the man on the gurney. He suffers from a terminal case of dementia in which he believes he is still an energetic young man who will never age or decay.
That’s the way it is with the dying.
Things aren’t much better at the other end of the political spectrum. The left’s gurney ran off the track decades ago and is lying on its side slowly rusting as it is ignored by passer-bys.
One wonders if the dialectic of history isn’t getting ready to make another turn with capitalism as the thesis and socialism as the antithesis. At this point in time, we have no way of knowing what the emerging synthesis will look like. For that matter, most of us are unaware of this dialectic even being in motion. No doubt a thirteenth-century lord of the manor believed feudalism would last forever.
As Tony Judt puts it, “We have entered an age of insecurity—economic insecurity, physical insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity. The fact that we are largely unaware of this is small comfort: few in 1914 predicted the utter collapse of their world and the economic and political catastrophes that followed.”
“Not so!” cry those pushing the gurney. “Capitalism is the end point of history; it will rise from its own ashes like the Phoenix bird of mythology.” It’s a poor analogy. The Phoenix bird was consumed by an external fire; capitalism is dying from the internal rot of its own contradictions. Advanced capitalist countries have reached the limits of economic growth and are now turning inward and devouring themselves in a doomed effort to preserve the appearance of prosperity and health.
Capitalism rode to power on the wings of a geological fluke, abundant fossil fuel. At $2 a barrel, anything is possible. At $85 a barrel our options become limited. Economic growth has reached a tipping point where every increase in our GDP is another step closer to the destruction of the natural world that supports us.
Don’t bother telling that to the man on the gurney. He suffers from a terminal case of dementia in which he believes he is still an energetic young man who will never age or decay.
That’s the way it is with the dying.
Friday, April 16, 2010
A Culture of the Unreal
One of the tenets of America’s Secular Christianism—in addition to our inflated exceptionalism and our belief that we are a City on a Hill sending forth the light of Liberty’s torch to the world-- is a belief in ongoing and eternal progress dictated by the Eternal Providence that has guided our destiny.
Those of us who grew up in the fifties grew up with a utopian view of the future, a future where everything would be automated, where labor and drudgery would be a thing of the past and where they was no limit to our economic growth. It was a time when nobody could understand why children “who had everything” were so unhappy and why the youth of the fifties were drawn to the strident discordance of rock ‘n roll.
A side effect of our belief in progress is the mistaken assumption that technical progress is the same as social progress. It isn’t. According to German philosopher Theodor Adorno, social progress is that which insures the “happiness of unborn generations.” There is no correlation between adding apps to our smart phones and world we will leave behind for our children and grandchildren. It is likely that the children of my grandchildren will live into the twenty-second century. I’d like to leave them more that smart phones, video games and a crushing deficit.
One could argue that social progress will begin when our obsession with technological progress ends, which it may well do as it runs head-long into resource depletion. It is becoming increasingly clear that technological progress is a parasite that has been slowly sucking the life out of Mother Earth. Technology does not necessarily make us better human beings, and given technology’s contribution modern warfare it could well be the instrument of our social regression.
Granted, technology has increased our efficiency, but the sad truth is that efficiency and freedom are mutually exclusive, and, no, being freed from the labor machines now perform for us is not freedom, its convenience. And convenience can make slaves of us all as we cling to our labor-saving devices and are quite comfortable with our militarized surveillance society as long as it keeps providing is with newer and cleverer toys.
There is a difference between hard and soft technology. Hard technology deals with needs; soft technology is pure fluff whose absence would be inconvenient but would be no great loss. Just before Christmas, our microwave went belly up. Panic set in and we rushed out a bought a new one. However, in the week between purchase and delivery, we discovered we really didn’t need one. Hell, bacon tastes better fried in a frying pan then it does when it’s nuked. It takes a little longer, but it’s worth the wait.
Without social progress there can be no ethical progress, which is why we have become so inured to torture, the crushing of our civil liberties, wars of aggression and the “collateral damage” that goes with them. And if we start feeling the stirrings of conscience, there’s always a screen nearby to divert our attention, or another happy pill we can pop that will make everything just fine.
Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that ours is a “synthetic culture” that is more media event than an organic product of people living in community together. Rather than being a product of community, synthetic culture can thrive only when the social bonds that hold together a community or a country have been destroyed and its people fragmented and isolated. She goes on to say, “In this sense, what is often seen as American ‘culture’ is not a product of the American people. It is, in fact, an artificial consumer culture being foisted on people through advertising and the media. This consumer culture is fundamentally different from all those cultures which for millennia were shaped by climate and topography—by a dialogue between humans and the natural world.”
Every once in a while I catch “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel. From time to time a voice-over intones, “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Things are going to be different.” It’s a pity how pop culture remains ignorant of its irony.
Those of us who grew up in the fifties grew up with a utopian view of the future, a future where everything would be automated, where labor and drudgery would be a thing of the past and where they was no limit to our economic growth. It was a time when nobody could understand why children “who had everything” were so unhappy and why the youth of the fifties were drawn to the strident discordance of rock ‘n roll.
A side effect of our belief in progress is the mistaken assumption that technical progress is the same as social progress. It isn’t. According to German philosopher Theodor Adorno, social progress is that which insures the “happiness of unborn generations.” There is no correlation between adding apps to our smart phones and world we will leave behind for our children and grandchildren. It is likely that the children of my grandchildren will live into the twenty-second century. I’d like to leave them more that smart phones, video games and a crushing deficit.
One could argue that social progress will begin when our obsession with technological progress ends, which it may well do as it runs head-long into resource depletion. It is becoming increasingly clear that technological progress is a parasite that has been slowly sucking the life out of Mother Earth. Technology does not necessarily make us better human beings, and given technology’s contribution modern warfare it could well be the instrument of our social regression.
Granted, technology has increased our efficiency, but the sad truth is that efficiency and freedom are mutually exclusive, and, no, being freed from the labor machines now perform for us is not freedom, its convenience. And convenience can make slaves of us all as we cling to our labor-saving devices and are quite comfortable with our militarized surveillance society as long as it keeps providing is with newer and cleverer toys.
There is a difference between hard and soft technology. Hard technology deals with needs; soft technology is pure fluff whose absence would be inconvenient but would be no great loss. Just before Christmas, our microwave went belly up. Panic set in and we rushed out a bought a new one. However, in the week between purchase and delivery, we discovered we really didn’t need one. Hell, bacon tastes better fried in a frying pan then it does when it’s nuked. It takes a little longer, but it’s worth the wait.
Without social progress there can be no ethical progress, which is why we have become so inured to torture, the crushing of our civil liberties, wars of aggression and the “collateral damage” that goes with them. And if we start feeling the stirrings of conscience, there’s always a screen nearby to divert our attention, or another happy pill we can pop that will make everything just fine.
Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that ours is a “synthetic culture” that is more media event than an organic product of people living in community together. Rather than being a product of community, synthetic culture can thrive only when the social bonds that hold together a community or a country have been destroyed and its people fragmented and isolated. She goes on to say, “In this sense, what is often seen as American ‘culture’ is not a product of the American people. It is, in fact, an artificial consumer culture being foisted on people through advertising and the media. This consumer culture is fundamentally different from all those cultures which for millennia were shaped by climate and topography—by a dialogue between humans and the natural world.”
Every once in a while I catch “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel. From time to time a voice-over intones, “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Things are going to be different.” It’s a pity how pop culture remains ignorant of its irony.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Thinking Circular Thoughts
So the Pentagon believes “surplus oil capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.”
This little gem was found in a Joint Operating Environment Report issued by the US Joint Forces Command. And of course, we all know what this is. It is “an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide our future force developments.”
In other words, the Pentagon is prepared to burn more oil so it can use oil up so it will have a justification to invade even more countries to replace the oil they’ve burned up getting the oil they need to invade other countries. Or something like that. Of course, with the fully burdened cost of pumping a gallon of gas in Afghanistan averaging $400 a gallon, this could do wonders for our deficit.
While the Pentagon sends billions pouring out of its military tailpipes, the Chinese have discovered the pen is mightier than the sword, especially if the pen is signing contracts for future oil deliveries and joint ventures to develop future oil fields.
“Future fuel supplies are of acute importance to the US army because it is believed to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world.” Gosh, could it be that if we put down the sword and picked up the pen our army just might burn less fuel? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and burn less fuel if we flew a trade delegation overseas to cut the best deal it could.
Perish the thought! The Pentagon doesn’t want oil, it doesn’t want victory and it sure as hell doesn’t want to spread democracy to the world. All it wants in a justification for its existence. And burning oil to justify fighting for more oil is all the justification it needs.
The report warns of the political upheaval that could accompany the economic a shortage of oil could bring. “One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.”
Gosh! Does that sound like somebody we know?
This little gem was found in a Joint Operating Environment Report issued by the US Joint Forces Command. And of course, we all know what this is. It is “an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide our future force developments.”
In other words, the Pentagon is prepared to burn more oil so it can use oil up so it will have a justification to invade even more countries to replace the oil they’ve burned up getting the oil they need to invade other countries. Or something like that. Of course, with the fully burdened cost of pumping a gallon of gas in Afghanistan averaging $400 a gallon, this could do wonders for our deficit.
While the Pentagon sends billions pouring out of its military tailpipes, the Chinese have discovered the pen is mightier than the sword, especially if the pen is signing contracts for future oil deliveries and joint ventures to develop future oil fields.
“Future fuel supplies are of acute importance to the US army because it is believed to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world.” Gosh, could it be that if we put down the sword and picked up the pen our army just might burn less fuel? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and burn less fuel if we flew a trade delegation overseas to cut the best deal it could.
Perish the thought! The Pentagon doesn’t want oil, it doesn’t want victory and it sure as hell doesn’t want to spread democracy to the world. All it wants in a justification for its existence. And burning oil to justify fighting for more oil is all the justification it needs.
The report warns of the political upheaval that could accompany the economic a shortage of oil could bring. “One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.”
Gosh! Does that sound like somebody we know?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Learning to Listen
So, where’s the left? As Obama continues to morph into Bush Lite the left is off somewhere on life support. Sure, there are plenty of words flying round damning, condemning and suggesting. But there is no unified movement, no unified organization and no funding.
Part of this problem is that the bulk of the activity in on the net with the remainder being confined to progressive publications. Both are consumed in isolation, and the simple fact of the matter is that you’ve got to leave the house to start a revolution.
But there are other issues at work as well. The left sits by while the Tea Party rallies the working class that was once the left’s base. The reason is quite simple: the left turned its back on the working class in the sixties and continues to do so. Many on the left see the working class as beer-swilling Neanderthals and homophobes who care more about their guns then they do about the state of the country and who are constantly voting against their economic interests by returning one Republican after another to office. The left easily forgets that these are human beings groaning under the crushing weight of an oligarchy that continues to oppress them.
This split happened in the sixties when the left turned its back on the working class as the “new” left sought liberation in drugs and sex while damning all those who did not support its ideological goals. The Republicans, of course, capitalized on this split. What commentators call their Southern Strategy was really the GOP’s Blue Collar Strategy. The first thing they did after they locked in the working class was to screw them to the wall while distracting them with cultural warfare against gun control, abortion and gay rights.
At the same time, the left fragmented into a series of ideological encampments, each secure behind its own wall and so certain of the rightness of its fragmented cause that it was unwilling to enter into meaningful dialog. Consequently, the left today remains crippled by its own ideological prissiness.
There will be no viable left until it reestablishes solidarity with the working class. However, in doing so it must remember that the most important component of solidarity is listening! At the same time, the left must take a careful look at some of its ideological chestnuts and see if there is sufficient wiggle room to make its reunification with the working class a reality.
The irony is that one of the stickiest disagreements between the working class and the left is the one that could be easily resolved—gun control. This probably stirs a greater degree of working class anger than any of the other “culture” issues. Sure, the anti-abortion forces make a lot of noise, but it is gun control that can really get the working class enflamed.
Were it up to me, I would say to the working class, Keep your guns. But I ask one favor in return: teach your sons how to hunt. Hell! Teach your daughters how to hunt as well. Because hunting is environmentally sound. It takes 16 pounds of grain to raise one pound of beef. That works out to eight tons per steer, eight tons the hungry of the world will never see. The average male deer, when dressed, yields about 72 pounds of edible meat. That is 72 pounds of ecologically sound meat that has had a minimum impact on the environment. This venison displaces 72 pounds of beef raised on factory farms, which are environmental disaster areas.
Nor does any hunter want to see his wood leveled to make room for upscale condos or a coven of McMansions. This puts hunters in bed with the environmentalists.
Many will claim hunting is cruel because a lot of hunters can’t shoot straight. However, in nature animals rarely die peacefully in their sleep. Death comes slowly after weeks or months of suffering. Coyotes have been known to eviscerate a sheep while it still lives. And we must never forget that all of creation is grounded in death. (The most sacred thing we do is die. It’s so goddamn sacred we want nothing to do with it.)
It’s true, guns kill people and there have been some horrific acts of violence, but so do trains, planes and automobiles and there’s been no talk of banning them. They are, however, regulated, something the NRA would have to accept, and something it might be more willing to consider once it is convinced the left doesn’t care a whit about taking its guns away.
Gun control is only one example of an area where compromise could be achieved. And no, I am not talking about Obamaesque pragmatism or centrist triangulation. What I am talking about is the left’s core ideal of building a decent society in which all are cared for and in which our corporate oligarchy is brought under control. It is a decent society that would benefit the working class because it would guarantee that its children would have enough to eat, competent and free medical care and America would begin to rebuild its manufacturing base. It would be a country in which our hubric dream of global conquest would be recognized for the pipe dream it is and the Pentagon would be turned into the world’s largest indoor shopping mall.
Yet, none of this will happen until we win back the working class. Either we get them or the Tea Party does. This means our days of ideological prissiness must end.
Part of this problem is that the bulk of the activity in on the net with the remainder being confined to progressive publications. Both are consumed in isolation, and the simple fact of the matter is that you’ve got to leave the house to start a revolution.
But there are other issues at work as well. The left sits by while the Tea Party rallies the working class that was once the left’s base. The reason is quite simple: the left turned its back on the working class in the sixties and continues to do so. Many on the left see the working class as beer-swilling Neanderthals and homophobes who care more about their guns then they do about the state of the country and who are constantly voting against their economic interests by returning one Republican after another to office. The left easily forgets that these are human beings groaning under the crushing weight of an oligarchy that continues to oppress them.
This split happened in the sixties when the left turned its back on the working class as the “new” left sought liberation in drugs and sex while damning all those who did not support its ideological goals. The Republicans, of course, capitalized on this split. What commentators call their Southern Strategy was really the GOP’s Blue Collar Strategy. The first thing they did after they locked in the working class was to screw them to the wall while distracting them with cultural warfare against gun control, abortion and gay rights.
At the same time, the left fragmented into a series of ideological encampments, each secure behind its own wall and so certain of the rightness of its fragmented cause that it was unwilling to enter into meaningful dialog. Consequently, the left today remains crippled by its own ideological prissiness.
There will be no viable left until it reestablishes solidarity with the working class. However, in doing so it must remember that the most important component of solidarity is listening! At the same time, the left must take a careful look at some of its ideological chestnuts and see if there is sufficient wiggle room to make its reunification with the working class a reality.
The irony is that one of the stickiest disagreements between the working class and the left is the one that could be easily resolved—gun control. This probably stirs a greater degree of working class anger than any of the other “culture” issues. Sure, the anti-abortion forces make a lot of noise, but it is gun control that can really get the working class enflamed.
Were it up to me, I would say to the working class, Keep your guns. But I ask one favor in return: teach your sons how to hunt. Hell! Teach your daughters how to hunt as well. Because hunting is environmentally sound. It takes 16 pounds of grain to raise one pound of beef. That works out to eight tons per steer, eight tons the hungry of the world will never see. The average male deer, when dressed, yields about 72 pounds of edible meat. That is 72 pounds of ecologically sound meat that has had a minimum impact on the environment. This venison displaces 72 pounds of beef raised on factory farms, which are environmental disaster areas.
Nor does any hunter want to see his wood leveled to make room for upscale condos or a coven of McMansions. This puts hunters in bed with the environmentalists.
Many will claim hunting is cruel because a lot of hunters can’t shoot straight. However, in nature animals rarely die peacefully in their sleep. Death comes slowly after weeks or months of suffering. Coyotes have been known to eviscerate a sheep while it still lives. And we must never forget that all of creation is grounded in death. (The most sacred thing we do is die. It’s so goddamn sacred we want nothing to do with it.)
It’s true, guns kill people and there have been some horrific acts of violence, but so do trains, planes and automobiles and there’s been no talk of banning them. They are, however, regulated, something the NRA would have to accept, and something it might be more willing to consider once it is convinced the left doesn’t care a whit about taking its guns away.
Gun control is only one example of an area where compromise could be achieved. And no, I am not talking about Obamaesque pragmatism or centrist triangulation. What I am talking about is the left’s core ideal of building a decent society in which all are cared for and in which our corporate oligarchy is brought under control. It is a decent society that would benefit the working class because it would guarantee that its children would have enough to eat, competent and free medical care and America would begin to rebuild its manufacturing base. It would be a country in which our hubric dream of global conquest would be recognized for the pipe dream it is and the Pentagon would be turned into the world’s largest indoor shopping mall.
Yet, none of this will happen until we win back the working class. Either we get them or the Tea Party does. This means our days of ideological prissiness must end.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Even more change we can believe in.
It seems the Army is in a bit of a snit over WikiLeaks.org’s release of the tape showing an Apache helicopter gunning down a group of Iraqi men and the van that came to pick up the wounded.
Huffed an Army spokesperson, WikiLeaks “represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the U.S. Army.”
There was a time this would have been called journalism.
Huffed an Army spokesperson, WikiLeaks “represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the U.S. Army.”
There was a time this would have been called journalism.
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