Recently my expressed view on the inheritance tax controversy was characterized as “Marxist”. Such a characterization was par for the course at the self-identified conservative site where such a claim is emblematic of the settled and superficial thought of many the site’s participants whom I in turn characterize as “Cliff Note conservatives” – they know the broad outline and key phrases of the ideology, but are mostly proficient in parroting a party line they imprudently assume is so substantial, explicatory, and inclusive of the totality of the human, political, and economic conditions, their own intellectual exercises are superfluous. They are content that their views are congruent with those of the societal elites, consequently elevating themselves by association, and making any critical examination of the propositions intellectually irrelevant. Charles S. Taber and Milton Lodge in their paper, “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs” articulated the phenomena thusly, “Many form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. Elites form their political belief dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses’ strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elite’s strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts or arguments to emphasize or ignore”. Their and my opinions may be supported by an assessment of the “facts” and “preconceived prejudices” used by the lay conservative poseurs in their inheritance tax misapprehension.
The initial confusion lay in the belief that our nation was founded as a capitalistic society. The United States of America was founded as a republic, not as a capitalistic society. Capitalism, a system and “imaginary machine” derives its freedom of operating characteristics in this society from the American ethos, rather than freedom deriving from the ethos of capitalism. That is not a subtle, but a significant distinction. The American ethos and capitalism are not one and the same. They are co-existing political and economic philosophies, sometimes, but not always, complementary. But only one was ratified and legally memorialized by the body politic in the Constitution. And the thoughts of various important players in the creation and development of the American and modern western ethos concerning wealth and inheritance, which can be discovered in a cursory search of the internet, offer if nothing else, an opportunity to contrast alternative opinions with the facts and arguments that our present day elite choose to emphasize or ignore for their own particular benefit.
I am often confronted by those aforementioned “Cliff Note conservatives” with the most ubiquitous and popular quotations of Adam Smith. The use of a few selected sentences to contextualize Smith’s work in a way to make him an ally of capitalism as practiced in the twentieth century, which in many respects he wouldn’t recognize, and in many areas would abhor, is similar to memorizing only the opening lines of Act Three, Scene One, to claim expertise of Hamlet. When they appeal to Smith to justify the transfer of vast fortunes from the dead to the living by some man-made machination, uninterrupted by death, allowing continued right of ownership, control, or disposition of vast wealth or real property across generations, they will be disappointed. Smith concurred with the opinion that “the earth belongs usufruct to the living”. He said it was “the most absurd of all suppositions that every successive generation not have an equal right to the earth”. Apparently to Smith, often the good is, and most times the wealth of men should be, interred with their bones.
Another notable figure, Thomas Jefferson in 1777, considering the same subject posited, “A power to dispose of estates forever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fullness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural”.
A few years later in 1784, North Carolina, that bastion of liberalism, enacted a statute addressing the keeping of large estates together for multiple generations. They felt this system, “only served to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic”.
More contemporary figures, Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, also had views on the subject. Theodore Roosevelt opined that the transmission of vast wealth to the young, “does not do them any real service and is a great and genuine detriment to the community at large”. FDR felt, “The transmission from generation to generation of vast fortunes by will, inheritance, or gift is not consistent with the ideals and sentiments of the American people. Inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government”.
Others giving thought to this matter, taking into consideration the emotional attachment parents have for their children’s welfare, have suggested that wealth and advantage possessed by parents would best be used to provide their children with the best educational and social preparation, so they may obtain by their own effort, rewarding and satisfying lives and employment, which further allows and encourages a virtuous society where social privilege is earned rather than inherited. This process, to some, is most compatible with, and best serves to reify the republican archetype.
The casuistry leading to the opinions conveyed above, in my estimation don’t portray any Marxist evil, but serves as a litmus of the contrived zeitgeist of contemporary American society where the tautology of conservative rhetoric has consecrated economic capitalism as ‘sacred’ and demoted republican ideals to subservient secularism. This is reinforced by the observation that the accepted sociology of the inheritance tax has been part of our established financial convention for several generations, and consequently it is bewildering that those contemporary lay conservatives, loudly claiming “old school” values, have suddenly been provoked to scorn this particular component of “tradition”. This position on inheritance tax, as with the extension of the Bush tax cuts, could allow the induction that by way of calculated sophistry large portions of the middle class have been induced to act again, incomprehensively, against their own interest, in favor of the wealthy. What other conclusion can be drawn considering the social cautions already voiced, together with the fact that any individual or any estate within the parameter of the “middle class” will not be subject to any inheritance tax under the current proposal or even reversion to the Clinton era level? What magic pill has been swallowed that makes the middle class so inclined, philosophically and statutorily, to accept an additional sacrifice for the wealthy, in return for a mere insinuation of accidental, unintentional reciprocity?
By declining to embrace the traditional republican ethos regarding wealth naturally alienated by death, and acquiescing in this process allowing the privileged to retain substantial privilege and power after death, the greater part of society are only condemning their own children to social and ultimately political disadvantage. If the 16th Amendment of the Constitution, duly ratified by the people, allows Congress “ to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived”, what is the rationale for un-defining or downgrading inheritance, at a level the society reasonably and mutually designates as “wealth”, as taxable income? Maybe the masses, as Taber and Lodge suggest, are in fact avoiding truth by making a low investment in understanding their own interest, and the aspiration of republican society. They’re being conditioned to think only as capitalists, and less like Americans. The former and latter are not perfectly synonymous, and only one gets advantage from the misunderstanding.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wealth and Health of Society
On some self-identified ‘conservative’ sites I visit, the recent election is touted by many as a referendum on capitalism. Their opinions suggest the dire financial predicaments of the U.S. and the largest Western economies are due to the influx of socialist thinking, the departure from free market capitalism, and most egregiously, “progressive” government policies. It is as if the word or idea of capitalism, by itself, is an Apotropaion or invincible benefactor of human progress. Government, being a hindrance to the free exercise of capitalism, is often cited as a cause of the missed Utopia of capitalism’s promise. The belief in capitalism’s beneficence had become more divinized and less intellectually scrutinized by succeeding generations discouraged from self examination by convenient economic circumstances now in abeyance. The complexity of Adam Smith’s observations have been simplified and reduced to childish, unsophisticated mantras impervious to the changing circumstances of mankind and the un-remediated self-interest of men. In a liberal democracy, government and capitalism are natural rivals for the attention and loyalty of the governed, but since government is established to represent the interests of the whole, and capitalism originates in the interest of the individual, the commanding or subordinate role in the betterment of society must be assigned by pragmatism rather than ideology. I think the latter half of the 20th century and the present economic conundrum represents the reversal of the proper order of that priority.
If government is an implement consciously forged in the blast furnace of civilization, the constructive or destructive use of the implement, whether as a tool or a weapon in socio-economic fortunes becomes the debatable issue, not the existence of the implement itself. In Smith’s treatise, capitalism is among other things, a description of his perception of the role of human nature in the chthonian organic economic requisite. And the useful role of government is to provide “industry the only encouragement it requires -tolerable security”. But “tolerable security” would seem to suggest the role of government, of law, is not only to lull the punishing elements of civil and natural unpredictability, but to also offer propitiation from man’s propensity to selfishness and indifference to the welfare of others in pursuit of self-interest, whether the pursuit is by king or commoner. Capitalism, admittedly possessing certain virtues, still can’t be accorded the distinction of being a perfected philosophical terminus of correct conduct, but is more accurately a succession of discrete human acts and actions in pursuit of the individualized definition of self-interest, which must like other human activities bear scrutiny of its continuity with the pneuma of the positive social order. Capitalism, as a philosophy, is not such a perfected apparatus it can operate on auto-pilot. The machine must be periodically re-calibrated by human intellect to account for the different circumstances, goals, and desires of all those which it serves- not just the portion of society called capitalists.
This is why I resist the conservative reflex to recite the spell of rote capitalism to address all economic ills. In my opinion some of these ills are accountable to the manipulative deceptions and fallacious hopes of rote, socially disinterested capitalism. Smith, brilliantly incisive in his recognition of the value of self-interest in the conduct of economic affairs, still was not oblivious to the seductive vice from the same source. He outlined “three great original constituent orders of every civilized society”. There was one order “whose income costs them neither labor nor care, but comes to them independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence which is the natural effect of ease and security renders them too often not only ignorant but incapable of that application of mind necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of public regulation”. The second order was that of wage earners. Of them he says, “But though the interest of the laborer is strictly connected with that of society, he is incapable of comprehending that interest or of understanding its connection with his own. His education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge”. And the third order is constituted by employers who employ capital for the sake of profit. He says, “The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of society as that of the other two. Their thoughts are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business than about that of society”. He continued, “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution. It comes from an order of men who have generally an interest to deceive and oppress the public and who have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it”.
The recent Wall Street fiasco is probative of Smith’s suspicion of the latter order. The greatest capitalists in the nation used their wealth and its attendant political power and influence to effectively purchase a self-serving dispensation from free-market capitalism, and then compelled the government, whose involvement in their affairs they usually despise, to bail them out from the consequences of their unalloyed greed. Another example of how the lay public’s education and habits render them unfit to judge the validity of proposals put forth by capitalists is in the controversy over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which are presented by some as unassailable and correct job stimulus. But Smith’s view on the creation of jobs is a little different. As to the motivation of an entrepreneur Smith says, “He could have no interest to employ them unless he expected something more than sufficient to replace his capital, and he could have no interest to employ great capital rather than a small one unless his profits were to bear some proportion to the extent of his capital”. This seems to corroborate my assertion in a prior blog that the authentic incentive to create jobs pre-exists the tax code or structure. Yet, the middle class have been deluded to think and vote against their own interest in favor of the supposedly superior option of providing a windfall for the wealthy, under the apparent misapprehension that classical capitalism requires the unemployed, or the government, in the present argument, to incentivize employers.
As recitation of the formula E=MC² is the limit of comprehension of The Theory of Relativity of most laymen, the simplest classical definition of capitalism, “the private ownership of the means of production”, plasters over the depth of superficiality of the understanding of the concepts of Adam Smith, and is the fertile ground for the subterfuge and perverted intellectual conditioning that causes today’s lay conservatives to think they are defending the integrity of capitalism by supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts, when it can be easily observed that only a statistically insignificant percentage of the so-called “wealthy” are either entrepreneurs or capitalists, but are merely wealthy, and in actuality might be considered a prosperous strata of labor, possessing neither the means, desire, knowledge, or inclination to create jobs. I believe Smith recognized a distinction between the potential energy of accumulated wealth and the kinetic energy of wealth converted to “capital”, and he never argued that the existence of any tax on anyone or anything was inherently evil, or that the elimination of all taxes is possible or practical in any society requiring and adopting governance. In fact, there are many instances in Smith’s “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, “The Wealth of Nations”, and even his employment life, where he acknowledges, infers, or participates in a fair contest between civil necessities and his “invisible hand”. And neither contestant is undefeated. Admittedly - "IN SPITE OF THEIR NATURAL SELFISHNESS AND RAPACITY, THOUGH THEY MEAN ONLY THEIR OWN CONVENIENCY, THOUGH THE SOLE END WHICH THEY PROPOSE... BE THE GRATIFICATION OF THEIR OWN VAIN AND INSATIABLE DESIRES, THEY DIVIDE WITH THE POOR THE PRODUCE OF ALL THEIR IMPROVEMENTS. THEY ARE LED BY AN INVISIBLE HAND TO MAKE NEARLY THE SAME DISTRIBUTION OF THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN MADE, HAD THE EARTH BEEN DIVIDED INTO EQUAL PORTIONS AMOND ALL ITS INHABITANTS, AND THUS WITHOUT INTENDING IT, WITHOUT KNOWING IT, ADVANCE THE INTEREST OF SOCIETY" - is a compelling clause, and it’s beautiful clarity and sweep intimidates opposition, but in essence, in the end, it is the philosophical and economic equivalent of the plebeian, “It’s all good”, a phrase that doesn’t overawe or stunt necessary deliberation of the complex requisites of the social contract. Still, certainly for Smith, and many Americans, the “invisible hand” is an article of faith, and is an indefeasible extension of religious belief. As an economic notion the “invisible hand” could, with some aptness, be called “the opium of the masses”. This long conditioned cultural aptitude to compartmentalize religion and rationality explains why in times of crisis and complicatedness, political spinmeisters contracted by the economic elite typically construct political avatars possessing the virtuous lack of erudition or gravitas in favor of the simple comfort of the “old time religion”. They know the divided mind can be led first one way, then the other. Egregious practices and obscene profits of capitalists can be justified by the belief that the religious beneficence of “the invisible hand” will ultimately “make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life”, and then rationality must be embraced when the capitalists become hard scientific Darwinists and charge the misfortunes of the jobless and homeless to their own lack of “fitness” for the modern economic world and encourage them to re-educate themselves and their children, concentrating on such spiritual subjects as math and science. Thus, by this clever process, the members of the middle class can be induced to vote and act against their own interests “for their own good”.
I am not proposing the abolition of capitalism, but at the same time I believe progressive government as the principal to capitalism’s agency provides the best secular assist to the ethereal “invisible hand”. Unless it is projected that the “invisible hand” not only ensures to advance the interests of society ad infinitum, and will always ameliorate evil or grossly selfish acts with timely equity, it cannot be advisable for any mature society to abdicate responsibility for its destiny to theotechnic predestination over considered human measures. We would be allowing anti-consciousness to make cowards of us all.
If government is an implement consciously forged in the blast furnace of civilization, the constructive or destructive use of the implement, whether as a tool or a weapon in socio-economic fortunes becomes the debatable issue, not the existence of the implement itself. In Smith’s treatise, capitalism is among other things, a description of his perception of the role of human nature in the chthonian organic economic requisite. And the useful role of government is to provide “industry the only encouragement it requires -tolerable security”. But “tolerable security” would seem to suggest the role of government, of law, is not only to lull the punishing elements of civil and natural unpredictability, but to also offer propitiation from man’s propensity to selfishness and indifference to the welfare of others in pursuit of self-interest, whether the pursuit is by king or commoner. Capitalism, admittedly possessing certain virtues, still can’t be accorded the distinction of being a perfected philosophical terminus of correct conduct, but is more accurately a succession of discrete human acts and actions in pursuit of the individualized definition of self-interest, which must like other human activities bear scrutiny of its continuity with the pneuma of the positive social order. Capitalism, as a philosophy, is not such a perfected apparatus it can operate on auto-pilot. The machine must be periodically re-calibrated by human intellect to account for the different circumstances, goals, and desires of all those which it serves- not just the portion of society called capitalists.
This is why I resist the conservative reflex to recite the spell of rote capitalism to address all economic ills. In my opinion some of these ills are accountable to the manipulative deceptions and fallacious hopes of rote, socially disinterested capitalism. Smith, brilliantly incisive in his recognition of the value of self-interest in the conduct of economic affairs, still was not oblivious to the seductive vice from the same source. He outlined “three great original constituent orders of every civilized society”. There was one order “whose income costs them neither labor nor care, but comes to them independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence which is the natural effect of ease and security renders them too often not only ignorant but incapable of that application of mind necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of public regulation”. The second order was that of wage earners. Of them he says, “But though the interest of the laborer is strictly connected with that of society, he is incapable of comprehending that interest or of understanding its connection with his own. His education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge”. And the third order is constituted by employers who employ capital for the sake of profit. He says, “The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of society as that of the other two. Their thoughts are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business than about that of society”. He continued, “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution. It comes from an order of men who have generally an interest to deceive and oppress the public and who have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it”.
The recent Wall Street fiasco is probative of Smith’s suspicion of the latter order. The greatest capitalists in the nation used their wealth and its attendant political power and influence to effectively purchase a self-serving dispensation from free-market capitalism, and then compelled the government, whose involvement in their affairs they usually despise, to bail them out from the consequences of their unalloyed greed. Another example of how the lay public’s education and habits render them unfit to judge the validity of proposals put forth by capitalists is in the controversy over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which are presented by some as unassailable and correct job stimulus. But Smith’s view on the creation of jobs is a little different. As to the motivation of an entrepreneur Smith says, “He could have no interest to employ them unless he expected something more than sufficient to replace his capital, and he could have no interest to employ great capital rather than a small one unless his profits were to bear some proportion to the extent of his capital”. This seems to corroborate my assertion in a prior blog that the authentic incentive to create jobs pre-exists the tax code or structure. Yet, the middle class have been deluded to think and vote against their own interest in favor of the supposedly superior option of providing a windfall for the wealthy, under the apparent misapprehension that classical capitalism requires the unemployed, or the government, in the present argument, to incentivize employers.
As recitation of the formula E=MC² is the limit of comprehension of The Theory of Relativity of most laymen, the simplest classical definition of capitalism, “the private ownership of the means of production”, plasters over the depth of superficiality of the understanding of the concepts of Adam Smith, and is the fertile ground for the subterfuge and perverted intellectual conditioning that causes today’s lay conservatives to think they are defending the integrity of capitalism by supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts, when it can be easily observed that only a statistically insignificant percentage of the so-called “wealthy” are either entrepreneurs or capitalists, but are merely wealthy, and in actuality might be considered a prosperous strata of labor, possessing neither the means, desire, knowledge, or inclination to create jobs. I believe Smith recognized a distinction between the potential energy of accumulated wealth and the kinetic energy of wealth converted to “capital”, and he never argued that the existence of any tax on anyone or anything was inherently evil, or that the elimination of all taxes is possible or practical in any society requiring and adopting governance. In fact, there are many instances in Smith’s “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, “The Wealth of Nations”, and even his employment life, where he acknowledges, infers, or participates in a fair contest between civil necessities and his “invisible hand”. And neither contestant is undefeated. Admittedly - "IN SPITE OF THEIR NATURAL SELFISHNESS AND RAPACITY, THOUGH THEY MEAN ONLY THEIR OWN CONVENIENCY, THOUGH THE SOLE END WHICH THEY PROPOSE... BE THE GRATIFICATION OF THEIR OWN VAIN AND INSATIABLE DESIRES, THEY DIVIDE WITH THE POOR THE PRODUCE OF ALL THEIR IMPROVEMENTS. THEY ARE LED BY AN INVISIBLE HAND TO MAKE NEARLY THE SAME DISTRIBUTION OF THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN MADE, HAD THE EARTH BEEN DIVIDED INTO EQUAL PORTIONS AMOND ALL ITS INHABITANTS, AND THUS WITHOUT INTENDING IT, WITHOUT KNOWING IT, ADVANCE THE INTEREST OF SOCIETY" - is a compelling clause, and it’s beautiful clarity and sweep intimidates opposition, but in essence, in the end, it is the philosophical and economic equivalent of the plebeian, “It’s all good”, a phrase that doesn’t overawe or stunt necessary deliberation of the complex requisites of the social contract. Still, certainly for Smith, and many Americans, the “invisible hand” is an article of faith, and is an indefeasible extension of religious belief. As an economic notion the “invisible hand” could, with some aptness, be called “the opium of the masses”. This long conditioned cultural aptitude to compartmentalize religion and rationality explains why in times of crisis and complicatedness, political spinmeisters contracted by the economic elite typically construct political avatars possessing the virtuous lack of erudition or gravitas in favor of the simple comfort of the “old time religion”. They know the divided mind can be led first one way, then the other. Egregious practices and obscene profits of capitalists can be justified by the belief that the religious beneficence of “the invisible hand” will ultimately “make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life”, and then rationality must be embraced when the capitalists become hard scientific Darwinists and charge the misfortunes of the jobless and homeless to their own lack of “fitness” for the modern economic world and encourage them to re-educate themselves and their children, concentrating on such spiritual subjects as math and science. Thus, by this clever process, the members of the middle class can be induced to vote and act against their own interests “for their own good”.
I am not proposing the abolition of capitalism, but at the same time I believe progressive government as the principal to capitalism’s agency provides the best secular assist to the ethereal “invisible hand”. Unless it is projected that the “invisible hand” not only ensures to advance the interests of society ad infinitum, and will always ameliorate evil or grossly selfish acts with timely equity, it cannot be advisable for any mature society to abdicate responsibility for its destiny to theotechnic predestination over considered human measures. We would be allowing anti-consciousness to make cowards of us all.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Truth or Dare
In the midst of reading “The Wealth of Nations” the whole field of economic thought has become so appealing I have briefly and cursorily detoured to Locke, Veblen, Marx, Mises, Hayek, and Friedman among others. As a result I have gathered an un-scholarly general impression of the scope of the subject. Consequently, the stochastic processes of the economic universe, together with living experience, have impacted my layman’s mind and have caused me to question the pontifications of politicians no more qualified than I, and with motivations more dubious.
I am often confronted with capitalist truisms and sanctified conservative maxims bearing little relevance to the multitude of factors at the foundation of the economic edifice. There is such a dedicated belief in ideology that pragmatism itself is suspect. And Adam Smith, in my reading thus far, was a pragmatic observer of his world, willing to expose both the virtues and evils of capital. If I have gained any edification or confirmation of my intellectual prejudices, I must confess my opinion that capitalism is not such a perfected machine that it can run on auto-pilot. If the betterment of human society is desired human hands, perceiving human realities, and the consequences of action and inaction, must be at the controls. It is against the impulse of human evolution and rise from barbarism to abandon the great magnitude of the human condition to the intellectual or material auspices of the temporarily advantaged. The God of self-interest is the natural enemy of the interests of all others, and un-remediated by the non-savagery of community interests only ultimately causes reversion to barbarism with statutory cover.
The reasons for the current predicament of this nation, formerly the bastion and exemplar of laissez-faire capitalism, will not be discovered in esoteric mathematical formulae, or the graphing of non-deterministic exogenous or endogenous business cycles, or prosecutions for blasphemous ideological heterodoxy. It will be found in the intellectual non-exertions of a culture formerly comfortable in the hubris of fortunate circumstances, worshiping a petrified God with clay feet in a muddy world.
I am often confronted with capitalist truisms and sanctified conservative maxims bearing little relevance to the multitude of factors at the foundation of the economic edifice. There is such a dedicated belief in ideology that pragmatism itself is suspect. And Adam Smith, in my reading thus far, was a pragmatic observer of his world, willing to expose both the virtues and evils of capital. If I have gained any edification or confirmation of my intellectual prejudices, I must confess my opinion that capitalism is not such a perfected machine that it can run on auto-pilot. If the betterment of human society is desired human hands, perceiving human realities, and the consequences of action and inaction, must be at the controls. It is against the impulse of human evolution and rise from barbarism to abandon the great magnitude of the human condition to the intellectual or material auspices of the temporarily advantaged. The God of self-interest is the natural enemy of the interests of all others, and un-remediated by the non-savagery of community interests only ultimately causes reversion to barbarism with statutory cover.
The reasons for the current predicament of this nation, formerly the bastion and exemplar of laissez-faire capitalism, will not be discovered in esoteric mathematical formulae, or the graphing of non-deterministic exogenous or endogenous business cycles, or prosecutions for blasphemous ideological heterodoxy. It will be found in the intellectual non-exertions of a culture formerly comfortable in the hubris of fortunate circumstances, worshiping a petrified God with clay feet in a muddy world.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Morality on the Ballot
This upcoming election is sometimes characterized as a battle for America’s soul, but the disposition of our soul is lost in ludicrous partisan bickering and stupid ideological loyalties which are little more than childish stamping of the feet and saying “because I said so”. We consciously avert our eyes from the real cause of our moral and financial poverty –war!
In a prior blog I returned to a familiar theme – 9/11. I recounted the scientific impossibility of the Twin Towers crashing to the ground at free fall speed due to collision of aircraft or fire. The seventy lower floors, undamaged by either, must have, in the fire and collision scenario, offered some resistance to the damaged mass above it, making it impossible for the buildings to collapse at free fall speed as if the remaining undamaged greater mass was molecularly undifferentiated from air. But the Towers did in fact collapse at free fall speed in direct contravention to the Laws of Gravity, Conservation of Energy and other established and accepted scientific principles. The government’s official conclusion and report to the people confirmed that in fact, the laws of physics were in abeyance on Sept. 11. Since this is impossible, the government report, “The 9/11 Commission Report” is obviously untrue.
Then I turn to Iraq. It has been confirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Sadaam Hussein was not in league with Al Qaeda , nor did he play a role in the 9/11 attack. Yet those allegations were the raison d’être for our invasion.
So, if there are no Socratic truths, and no scientific truths, in what serve as initiators for war, a case can be made that the wars themselves are ethically and constitutionally illegal and immoral.
Are we going to take America’s soul or ideology into the voting booth?
In a prior blog I returned to a familiar theme – 9/11. I recounted the scientific impossibility of the Twin Towers crashing to the ground at free fall speed due to collision of aircraft or fire. The seventy lower floors, undamaged by either, must have, in the fire and collision scenario, offered some resistance to the damaged mass above it, making it impossible for the buildings to collapse at free fall speed as if the remaining undamaged greater mass was molecularly undifferentiated from air. But the Towers did in fact collapse at free fall speed in direct contravention to the Laws of Gravity, Conservation of Energy and other established and accepted scientific principles. The government’s official conclusion and report to the people confirmed that in fact, the laws of physics were in abeyance on Sept. 11. Since this is impossible, the government report, “The 9/11 Commission Report” is obviously untrue.
Then I turn to Iraq. It has been confirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Sadaam Hussein was not in league with Al Qaeda , nor did he play a role in the 9/11 attack. Yet those allegations were the raison d’être for our invasion.
So, if there are no Socratic truths, and no scientific truths, in what serve as initiators for war, a case can be made that the wars themselves are ethically and constitutionally illegal and immoral.
Are we going to take America’s soul or ideology into the voting booth?
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Cents and Sensibility
In a prior blog I suggested that job creation is a function of market conditions rather than taxation. If there is a market demand for a businessman’s product or service, he will add jobs when needed to meet that demand and capture the available profits. He will not wait untill January 2011 to see if the Bush tax cuts are extended. This is little more than common sense. But isn’t the supposition that extending the (heretofore statistically ineffective?) Bush tax cuts will inspire a marked improvement in the market conditions for job creation a different level of sophistication in understanding and applying macro-economics and the esoterica of taxation theory? I and I suspect most regular folks don’t possess this level of prescient economic sophistication. So how did this belief become so prevalent that many in the Tea Party consider it a truism? How can you explain an inconsistency of reasoning that allows people to know there was a surplus after the eight years of the Clinton Administration and a trebled deficit after eight years of the Bush Administration; that there was lower unemployment under the Clinton tax rates and higher unemployment under the Bush tax rates, and yet still propose to extend the Bush rates rather than revert to the Clinton rates? Again, only a very sophisticated and credible but easily comprehensible economic line of reasoning could overcome the clarity of hindsight and the natural inclination of common sense. Has any such argument been advanced? If not, why are the middle class, the promised beneficiaries of a tax cut, out in the street protesting? Are we to believe that all on their own, without advanced economic erudition, they chose to spontaneously rise up and sublimate their own interests, and organize and mobilize a grass roots political movement to sustain the Bush tax rates because of a compelling fiscal need to assuage the financial interests and feelings of the wealthy? Really? And then ask yourself, what ingenious and multifarious effort was required to induce the middle class to even conjecture that universal health care is adverse to their interests? It is not my intent at this time to pass judgment whether it is or not, but doesn’t it seem likely that on its face such a program focused on the cost of health care would appeal to the middle class? How then did so many, so quickly, become so vociferously convinced that it is not a benefit, but a threat? This, simply, is not an expected middle class attitude. To foster such a counter-intuitive middle class position requires sophisticated knowledge, analysis, and maieutic persuasion not typified by any Tea Party member, leader, or argument with which I am familiar. Still, somehow that view has taken hold.
Often, incorrectly, my opinions are construed as mean-spirited attacks on cherished ideologies. My actual thesis is that in the ordinary course of our pedestrian political lives, ideology is a can of Spam, marketed and promoted using the same techniques used to sell other processed meat. But in the interest of space and to allow for personal reflection, I will open my thesis for further inspection with this simple question, “Are the sudden advent of the Tea Party and the Citizens United decision coincidental”? It takes a lot of money to convince a populace eighty years into the mutualism of Social Security, forty years into the mutualism of Medicare, and five years into the Prescription Drug Benefit, that these programs are bad, and that the whole attitude of mutualism is offensive and so detrimental to the interests of the Middle Class as to require rejection of Universal Health Care. Again, I am willing to be economically enlightened, but at this point I’m not. I personally have not heard anything from the Tea Party other than superficial talking points. And I just can’t help but wonder what has happened to cause this semester of the Middle Class to reject what their predecessors embraced as Middle Class interests. Is it just coincidental that a movement funded by Supreme Court approved billionaires has so radically changed the political landscape? My enquiring mind wants to know!
Often, incorrectly, my opinions are construed as mean-spirited attacks on cherished ideologies. My actual thesis is that in the ordinary course of our pedestrian political lives, ideology is a can of Spam, marketed and promoted using the same techniques used to sell other processed meat. But in the interest of space and to allow for personal reflection, I will open my thesis for further inspection with this simple question, “Are the sudden advent of the Tea Party and the Citizens United decision coincidental”? It takes a lot of money to convince a populace eighty years into the mutualism of Social Security, forty years into the mutualism of Medicare, and five years into the Prescription Drug Benefit, that these programs are bad, and that the whole attitude of mutualism is offensive and so detrimental to the interests of the Middle Class as to require rejection of Universal Health Care. Again, I am willing to be economically enlightened, but at this point I’m not. I personally have not heard anything from the Tea Party other than superficial talking points. And I just can’t help but wonder what has happened to cause this semester of the Middle Class to reject what their predecessors embraced as Middle Class interests. Is it just coincidental that a movement funded by Supreme Court approved billionaires has so radically changed the political landscape? My enquiring mind wants to know!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Coup d'etat
In the past I have argued that we, as a body politic, have become obsessed with ideology and defending our chosen side(s), parroting talking points as cleverly as possible in lieu of the exertions of thought, and actively avoiding the provocations of knowledge. Several weeks ago reasonably observant folks may have noticed there was a release of information by the National Security Archive (George Washington University) pertinent to our Iraq invasion. I had expected some comment on its existence, or mere recognition of its availability. Considering the myriad subjects discussed on blog sites, from TV shows, celebrity sex, sports, electoral politics, to creationism, it is significant in this age of empire and debt that the attention of the supposedly politically attuned somehow by-passed official documentation of aggressive war. I can only surmise heads are buried in sand as ideological defense and psychological avoidance of the verities of American militarism. It is much easier to be a member of the Tea Party than an actual conscientious patriot. It is much easier to let Madison Avenue contracted by billionaires sell what is in comparison a zero calorie politico/economic narrative than to look a trillion dollars of death and destruction in the face. There has been a coup d’état over the original American mind, and it has been perpetrated by the military/industrial complex and the empire-ists.
Those bothering to read this archived information may be tempted to argue it represents typical convolutions and messiness inherent in any policy formation. Standing alone it could be seen that way, but read for what it is, the trail of the implementation of a strategy developed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book “The Grand Chessboard”, which underpins a spectacularly more frightening manifesto entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, alternately referred to as the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) paper, it exposes the Iraq war progression as edited script more so than improvisation or response to the chaos of the political universe. Orchestrated moves to “fix the facts” in facilitation of the agenda to establish American military dominance of the region, an objective that “transcended” Saddam’s rule, attest to the premeditated and inexorable march to war, independent of subsequent sham justifications. The calculated manipulation of the stimuli of fear and patriotism is on full display in the text of the archival material, and is simply the culmination of a similar exercise selling our Afghan adventure.
If a bowling ball is suspended five feet over a table and is released, scientists can calculate how much time it will take to impact the table top. They can also calculate the difference in the elapsed time if a 12oz. plastic cup is positioned between the ball and table. Yet, on that fateful day the Twin Towers crashed to the ground at free-fall speed, as if the seventy lower floors of each tower, undamaged by collision or fire, were molecularly undifferentiated from air. Afterward, the distinguished 9/11 Commissioners in league with the government/corporate media continued the nullification of the sciences of physics and engineering,and then became active proselytizers of the new, compulsory religion of 9/11. Those habituated to take solace in conventional ideology and the legend of American Exceptionalism will be indifferent to the difficulties of benign reconciliation of “official” scientific improbabilities of the events of 9/11 and their expedient perfect congruence with the optimal geo/military desires of the acolytes of Brzezinski - the authors of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. While others contemplating the irrationalities of the 9/11 myth and the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, might view the American public as a Pavlovian dog, kenneled in a Skinner Box, being force-fed an imperial hierarchy of needs by the Pharisees of PNAC.
After reading the seventy-six pages of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, and considering the debate over the propriety of use of public funds to address the domestic hardships of the neediest Americans, and the simultaneous obscene and immoral expense of the Napoleonic quest for world domination recast in the new American vernacular, I can’t help but wonder which side of the controversy resurrected Founding Fathers would find most adverse to the spirit of their Constitution and vision of America. Which would take priority, "We the People" or "We the Empire"?
Post Script Oct 25, 2010 - On Oct. 24, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, said to Christiane Amanpour on the news program "This Week" that there was a push for war in Iraq by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials, "that almost bordered on insubordination", unsupported by any credible intelligence linking Sadaam to 9/11. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are among the authors of "Rebuilding America's Defenses". The Grand Chessboard - Rebuilding America's Defenses - Empire.
Those bothering to read this archived information may be tempted to argue it represents typical convolutions and messiness inherent in any policy formation. Standing alone it could be seen that way, but read for what it is, the trail of the implementation of a strategy developed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book “The Grand Chessboard”, which underpins a spectacularly more frightening manifesto entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, alternately referred to as the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) paper, it exposes the Iraq war progression as edited script more so than improvisation or response to the chaos of the political universe. Orchestrated moves to “fix the facts” in facilitation of the agenda to establish American military dominance of the region, an objective that “transcended” Saddam’s rule, attest to the premeditated and inexorable march to war, independent of subsequent sham justifications. The calculated manipulation of the stimuli of fear and patriotism is on full display in the text of the archival material, and is simply the culmination of a similar exercise selling our Afghan adventure.
If a bowling ball is suspended five feet over a table and is released, scientists can calculate how much time it will take to impact the table top. They can also calculate the difference in the elapsed time if a 12oz. plastic cup is positioned between the ball and table. Yet, on that fateful day the Twin Towers crashed to the ground at free-fall speed, as if the seventy lower floors of each tower, undamaged by collision or fire, were molecularly undifferentiated from air. Afterward, the distinguished 9/11 Commissioners in league with the government/corporate media continued the nullification of the sciences of physics and engineering,and then became active proselytizers of the new, compulsory religion of 9/11. Those habituated to take solace in conventional ideology and the legend of American Exceptionalism will be indifferent to the difficulties of benign reconciliation of “official” scientific improbabilities of the events of 9/11 and their expedient perfect congruence with the optimal geo/military desires of the acolytes of Brzezinski - the authors of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”. While others contemplating the irrationalities of the 9/11 myth and the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, might view the American public as a Pavlovian dog, kenneled in a Skinner Box, being force-fed an imperial hierarchy of needs by the Pharisees of PNAC.
After reading the seventy-six pages of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, and considering the debate over the propriety of use of public funds to address the domestic hardships of the neediest Americans, and the simultaneous obscene and immoral expense of the Napoleonic quest for world domination recast in the new American vernacular, I can’t help but wonder which side of the controversy resurrected Founding Fathers would find most adverse to the spirit of their Constitution and vision of America. Which would take priority, "We the People" or "We the Empire"?
Post Script Oct 25, 2010 - On Oct. 24, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, said to Christiane Amanpour on the news program "This Week" that there was a push for war in Iraq by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials, "that almost bordered on insubordination", unsupported by any credible intelligence linking Sadaam to 9/11. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are among the authors of "Rebuilding America's Defenses". The Grand Chessboard - Rebuilding America's Defenses - Empire.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Man behind the Curtain
Recently I have begun to use the word “capitalist” in my discussions of political and economic issues. Usually I am trying to highlight the hate/fear response to Marxism juxtaposed with the blind, unquestioned acceptance of capitalism. I have sensed a cultural myopia. Take the health care debate. The upcoming election is framed as a referendum on “big government” and the “socialist” healthcare reform. As Americans have been carefully conditioned to be ideologically one-wayed, appearances may be deceiving. With no public option, what some characterize as “socialist” may actually be advanced, sophisticated capitalism.
Think of the origins of health reform and you’ll recall the initial and loudest voices asking for relief were not the ‘grass roots’, but were in actuality corporations and businesses. The steady refrain was our corporations were at a competitive disadvantage with foreign concerns because of the costs of health coverage to employees. The private for- profit corporations couldn’t afford to pay the premiums of the private for-profit insurance companies, who in turn couldn’t afford the pay-outs to the private for-profit medical and pharmaceutical industries. And the private for- profit medical and pharmaceutical industries said their realities made it impossible to provide products and services their customers could afford to buy as individuals.
Now, without retracing the convoluted trail, we can agree the concerns of politicians and lobbyists were obviously amalgamated to capture the necessary votes. So what is Obamacare? It is a tax with a title. This tax will directly subsidize the costs of premiums of private for-profit insurance companies. Remember, this tax will be in addition to your personal payment or payroll contribution to your insurance costs, Yet, the government will not control the premiums; the companies will say they reflect legitimate business needs. It won’t and can’t regulate or limit their profits because that would be interference with the business incentive. It can’t dictate executive compensation because that is a private concern. And it would be anti-capitalistic to dictate the level of return to shareholders. So, in essence the government will just be the employee of the capitalists, collecting via the tax a portion of their premiums for them, which the insurers will direct to their own bottom lines. Do you really think the capitalists want to repeal Obamacare? As it stands, Obamacare is not socialism; it is capitalist Nirvana.
With respect to the sincerity of those challenging what they feel is a government transgression, the Tea Party, conceived and funded by billionaires, is a sophisticated Madison Avenue campaign to manufacture illusions of “grass roots” libertarianism so the anger of the duped electorate will help compel the government to give up the few concessions it received in the reform package, such as the prohibition against not covering pre-existing conditions and various other afflictions insurance companies had heretofore arbitrarily declined to cover. If this is achieved the government, via the tax, will still pay but have very little say. Capitalists would have even less incentive to repeal Obamacare - right?
I submit, contrary to what we are encouraged to believe or think, this is not Karl Marx pulling the strings. It seems more reminiscent of Nathan Rothschild.
Think of the origins of health reform and you’ll recall the initial and loudest voices asking for relief were not the ‘grass roots’, but were in actuality corporations and businesses. The steady refrain was our corporations were at a competitive disadvantage with foreign concerns because of the costs of health coverage to employees. The private for- profit corporations couldn’t afford to pay the premiums of the private for-profit insurance companies, who in turn couldn’t afford the pay-outs to the private for-profit medical and pharmaceutical industries. And the private for- profit medical and pharmaceutical industries said their realities made it impossible to provide products and services their customers could afford to buy as individuals.
Now, without retracing the convoluted trail, we can agree the concerns of politicians and lobbyists were obviously amalgamated to capture the necessary votes. So what is Obamacare? It is a tax with a title. This tax will directly subsidize the costs of premiums of private for-profit insurance companies. Remember, this tax will be in addition to your personal payment or payroll contribution to your insurance costs, Yet, the government will not control the premiums; the companies will say they reflect legitimate business needs. It won’t and can’t regulate or limit their profits because that would be interference with the business incentive. It can’t dictate executive compensation because that is a private concern. And it would be anti-capitalistic to dictate the level of return to shareholders. So, in essence the government will just be the employee of the capitalists, collecting via the tax a portion of their premiums for them, which the insurers will direct to their own bottom lines. Do you really think the capitalists want to repeal Obamacare? As it stands, Obamacare is not socialism; it is capitalist Nirvana.
With respect to the sincerity of those challenging what they feel is a government transgression, the Tea Party, conceived and funded by billionaires, is a sophisticated Madison Avenue campaign to manufacture illusions of “grass roots” libertarianism so the anger of the duped electorate will help compel the government to give up the few concessions it received in the reform package, such as the prohibition against not covering pre-existing conditions and various other afflictions insurance companies had heretofore arbitrarily declined to cover. If this is achieved the government, via the tax, will still pay but have very little say. Capitalists would have even less incentive to repeal Obamacare - right?
I submit, contrary to what we are encouraged to believe or think, this is not Karl Marx pulling the strings. It seems more reminiscent of Nathan Rothschild.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Donkey Con
On the Booker Rising site there was a debate surrounding the impending end of the Bush tax cuts. Being a site catering to those of conservative leanings, as expected many touted the party line that the tax cuts should be reinstated when they expire at the end of this year. The religious fervor with which this position was defended mystified me. I think society is best served by the proper level and distribution of taxation, commensurate with the obligations and ideals of the social compact. Since in our form of representative government the people are essentially taxing themselves, the issue becomes what ideals and obligations the people wish to tax themselves to address. Whatever tax rate the government is instructed to enact, the supposed goal is “to promote the general welfare”. If this is the case then the argument becomes, is the general welfare to be a subordinate consideration to the tax rate, or conversely, is the tax rate to serve the general welfare. If it is at all proper to ask this question it means that taxation is more than just a mathematical formulation in an economic abstraction or theory; it has social and moral implications as well. What those implications are, again, must be searched for and found in the meaning of “the general welfare” as inferred by the social compact.
From my perspective, the avocation for the continued tax cuts by some of the commentators at the above site, as far as I could discern, possessed little economic rationality and seemed cult-like repetition of a fairly frayed portion of the conservative mantra. I will state outright that in the broad experience of mankind, tax cuts are not always bad and are sometimes helpful and appropriate, but each situation must be evaluated in its own economic and historic milieu. There is no elasticity of correctness that fits all situations. In fact in this case, a non-ideologically invested objective observer might conclude that either the economic benefits of the Bush tax cuts were so offset by other factors as to be rendered moot, or they were conceptually ineffective at the least, and maybe even economically harmful. We can only consult the record for enlightenment.
If it is assumed that the tax level is an essential factor in the prosperity of our society, then we must conclude since Bush inherited a surplus from the Clinton administration, it is suggested that the higher (proper?) level of taxation in the prior administration did not retard, but did in fact, stimulate the economy. If we further speculate that President Bush acted according to his conservative lights and construed that the economy was running so efficiently and prosperously that tax revenues were bringing in more money than the government needed to function and operate (hence the surplus), it was warranted to lower the tax rate to match government needs and allow tax payers to retain more of their earnings. Under the tax cut theory an already prosperous economy should have become even more prosperous. Yet, the deficit tripled during his tenure and we were drawn into recession. Where is the evidence of a tax-cut boon?
Many will interpret the above remarks as an ad hominem attack on George Bush, but in actuality I am only reiterating a familiar theme, that being, that sometimes neither macro-economics nor life are amenable to the particular requirements of ideology. A useful analogy is that sometimes to win a race the decisions of the jockey are equally or more important than the horse. A sensible jockey will employ different tactics on a muddy track than those used on a dry one. A “one-way” rider is most often less successful than an adaptable one. And as to our discussion, what is more fluid and changeable than macro-economics? Decisions must be made contemporaneously and not as preordained by ideology. If I have an economic or political philosophy, that’s it. I will cross the bridge when I come to it. If it’s there.
So, in this instance I’m not interested in arguing conservative philosophy. My position is that public policy has only one proper template; the promotion of the general welfare. How can I or anyone make the prediction that in six months time it will be advantageous or propitious to extend the Bush tax cuts? If you think you can, you’re either stubbornly thoughtless or suffering from ideological psychosis.
From my perspective, the avocation for the continued tax cuts by some of the commentators at the above site, as far as I could discern, possessed little economic rationality and seemed cult-like repetition of a fairly frayed portion of the conservative mantra. I will state outright that in the broad experience of mankind, tax cuts are not always bad and are sometimes helpful and appropriate, but each situation must be evaluated in its own economic and historic milieu. There is no elasticity of correctness that fits all situations. In fact in this case, a non-ideologically invested objective observer might conclude that either the economic benefits of the Bush tax cuts were so offset by other factors as to be rendered moot, or they were conceptually ineffective at the least, and maybe even economically harmful. We can only consult the record for enlightenment.
If it is assumed that the tax level is an essential factor in the prosperity of our society, then we must conclude since Bush inherited a surplus from the Clinton administration, it is suggested that the higher (proper?) level of taxation in the prior administration did not retard, but did in fact, stimulate the economy. If we further speculate that President Bush acted according to his conservative lights and construed that the economy was running so efficiently and prosperously that tax revenues were bringing in more money than the government needed to function and operate (hence the surplus), it was warranted to lower the tax rate to match government needs and allow tax payers to retain more of their earnings. Under the tax cut theory an already prosperous economy should have become even more prosperous. Yet, the deficit tripled during his tenure and we were drawn into recession. Where is the evidence of a tax-cut boon?
Many will interpret the above remarks as an ad hominem attack on George Bush, but in actuality I am only reiterating a familiar theme, that being, that sometimes neither macro-economics nor life are amenable to the particular requirements of ideology. A useful analogy is that sometimes to win a race the decisions of the jockey are equally or more important than the horse. A sensible jockey will employ different tactics on a muddy track than those used on a dry one. A “one-way” rider is most often less successful than an adaptable one. And as to our discussion, what is more fluid and changeable than macro-economics? Decisions must be made contemporaneously and not as preordained by ideology. If I have an economic or political philosophy, that’s it. I will cross the bridge when I come to it. If it’s there.
So, in this instance I’m not interested in arguing conservative philosophy. My position is that public policy has only one proper template; the promotion of the general welfare. How can I or anyone make the prediction that in six months time it will be advantageous or propitious to extend the Bush tax cuts? If you think you can, you’re either stubbornly thoughtless or suffering from ideological psychosis.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Fruit of the Vine
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog called, “U.S. and Israel”. It was written in response to the incident involving the Freedom Flotilla which attempted to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. In the blog I suggested that the U.S. could have addressed our own geo-political designs and advanced the interests of peace and the two-state solution in the Middle East by having our U.N. Security Council representative join with the other fourteen members of the Council and make the vote of condemnation against the Israeli action unanimous. Subsequent events have articulated my reasoning better than my words.
Recently Israel has lifted the ban on many non-military and non-lethal items and sundry materials as drywall, food, candy, musical instruments, and shampoo, which had been denied as punishment on the population of Gaza for not accepting and then resisting Israeli hegemony over any and all disputed territory they wish to unilaterally define as Israel. The only weapon arrayed against Israel to force this concession was world opinion. One would have to be a moral contortionist of the first order to twist into objection of this development. My question is what could have been the benefit to the U.S. if it had at least feigned a decent respect for the opinion of mankind and got on the “right” side of this issue? Could our wise, highly educated, and experienced diplomats not have anticipated the righteous anger of the rest of the world when the sordid details of the Israeli blockade were forced onto the brightly lit public stage by the Freedom Flotilla debacle?
I have no objection to friendship, and even alliance with Israel, but when judged by geo-political norms we have more than a “special relationship” with Israel. We treat Israel as if it were “special”. What I mean is that when the U.S. serially takes such pained, uncomfortable, lonely, and illogical positions to stand in support of Israel, contrary to the vast preponderance of world judgment, as after the Goldstone Report and the recent incident for example, the variance with practical global diplomacy and our own broad selfish interests, seems to infer a glaringly atypical and anomalous geo-political stratagem, and a singular compartmentalized Weltansicht reserved for only the “Jewish” state, rather than the political entity of Israel. What other conclusion can be drawn from a side-by-side comparison of the modern, rich, technologically advanced, military powerful, nuclear, first-world nation of Israel, and the weak, impoverished, divided and demilitarized third world indigenous populations of Gaza and the West Bank, whom in the Weltanschauung encouraged in dialectally deprived American minds, somehow threaten the existence of Israel, instead of the other way round? In a particularly Orwellian transposition, this is presented to us by our supposedly “unbiased media” as “moral equivalence”. And after decades of rhythmic repetition this perverted depiction of reality is mostly unquestioned by the American public at large.
So, what if the U.S. had stood with the other members of the Security Council and virtually all of the General Assembly, to oppose a blockade which was acknowledged as immoral, once called under world scrutiny, by it being terminated? I suggest it was an easy call. We would have gained political and moral credibility amongst those who have ceased to hope for fairness and evenhandedness in our Middle East policy. And that could only be a benefit should we seek to find friends instead of simply inheriting Israel’s enemies.
Recently Israel has lifted the ban on many non-military and non-lethal items and sundry materials as drywall, food, candy, musical instruments, and shampoo, which had been denied as punishment on the population of Gaza for not accepting and then resisting Israeli hegemony over any and all disputed territory they wish to unilaterally define as Israel. The only weapon arrayed against Israel to force this concession was world opinion. One would have to be a moral contortionist of the first order to twist into objection of this development. My question is what could have been the benefit to the U.S. if it had at least feigned a decent respect for the opinion of mankind and got on the “right” side of this issue? Could our wise, highly educated, and experienced diplomats not have anticipated the righteous anger of the rest of the world when the sordid details of the Israeli blockade were forced onto the brightly lit public stage by the Freedom Flotilla debacle?
I have no objection to friendship, and even alliance with Israel, but when judged by geo-political norms we have more than a “special relationship” with Israel. We treat Israel as if it were “special”. What I mean is that when the U.S. serially takes such pained, uncomfortable, lonely, and illogical positions to stand in support of Israel, contrary to the vast preponderance of world judgment, as after the Goldstone Report and the recent incident for example, the variance with practical global diplomacy and our own broad selfish interests, seems to infer a glaringly atypical and anomalous geo-political stratagem, and a singular compartmentalized Weltansicht reserved for only the “Jewish” state, rather than the political entity of Israel. What other conclusion can be drawn from a side-by-side comparison of the modern, rich, technologically advanced, military powerful, nuclear, first-world nation of Israel, and the weak, impoverished, divided and demilitarized third world indigenous populations of Gaza and the West Bank, whom in the Weltanschauung encouraged in dialectally deprived American minds, somehow threaten the existence of Israel, instead of the other way round? In a particularly Orwellian transposition, this is presented to us by our supposedly “unbiased media” as “moral equivalence”. And after decades of rhythmic repetition this perverted depiction of reality is mostly unquestioned by the American public at large.
So, what if the U.S. had stood with the other members of the Security Council and virtually all of the General Assembly, to oppose a blockade which was acknowledged as immoral, once called under world scrutiny, by it being terminated? I suggest it was an easy call. We would have gained political and moral credibility amongst those who have ceased to hope for fairness and evenhandedness in our Middle East policy. And that could only be a benefit should we seek to find friends instead of simply inheriting Israel’s enemies.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
U.S. and Israel
If the President wants to improve the political and material condition of our nation he must do the one essential thing. He must instruct our representative sitting on the U.N. Security Council to take a vote against Israel. I realize some may accuse me of anti-Semitism. I expect it. It is the first refuge of scoundrels whose preferred line of attack is to equiponderate criticism of Israel and racism. But I believe my solution would lift a heavy burden of hypocrisy from the shoulders of U.S. diplomats.
As a case in point, the recent incident of the Israeli assault upon the “Freedom Flotilla” in international waters, which was roundly and immediately condemned by the other fourteen members of the Council, and which could certainly be legally construed as “piracy”, required an embarrassing palter from the American in order to cast the lone dissenting vote. Are we to assume all the other nations received radically different or flawed accounts of the event? Nations with long and storied histories, vast experience in worldly affairs, sophisticated communications, and with no special animosity towards Israel, made a prima facie condemnation of the Israeli action based on the norms of international law. But as usual the U.S. pled non possumus, citing insufficient evidence, and effectively handcuffed the Security Council’s ability to take meaningful corrective action against Israel.
It is not my intention, at this time, to postulate on reforms that could or should be made to the U.N. Charter, but to query, by way of normal and conventional curiosity, why only the U.S. refuses to reproach Israel for anything –ever! We’ve concurred on matters with our announced antagonist, the U.S.S.R., and disagreed on occasion with older, more powerful and particularly indispensable allies, but consistently refuse to indict Israel even for misdemeanors, when all outward appearances seem to suggest it would not only be just and equitable, but more importantly, advantageous to our own aims and diplomatic standing to do so. I am not so Pollyannaish that I would deny that in the world of international politics and business there is flourishing and profitable hypocrisy, but nonetheless it is difficult for me to distinguish any especially beneficial real politik quid quo pro to justify the constant unusualness of American behavior vis-à-vis Israel.
My speculation is that America, still a young nation when accelerated from chosen isolation to primacy by cataclysmic events, views Israel by way of the Disney-ized Jewish myth. Unlike the older European nations with the perspectives of the various Crusades in their histories, many Americans see furry little Moses’ living delightful lives in Yahweh’s briar patch, rather than the modern military state blockading and starving Palestinians in Gaza. If the situation on the ground was reversed, I’m sure Gaza would be under siege as at Masada or the Alamo, in American minds. Our media encourages such conceptualizations, and apparently our government is not immune. But one vote in the Security Council might break the spell, to the benefit of both Jews and Palestinians.
As a case in point, the recent incident of the Israeli assault upon the “Freedom Flotilla” in international waters, which was roundly and immediately condemned by the other fourteen members of the Council, and which could certainly be legally construed as “piracy”, required an embarrassing palter from the American in order to cast the lone dissenting vote. Are we to assume all the other nations received radically different or flawed accounts of the event? Nations with long and storied histories, vast experience in worldly affairs, sophisticated communications, and with no special animosity towards Israel, made a prima facie condemnation of the Israeli action based on the norms of international law. But as usual the U.S. pled non possumus, citing insufficient evidence, and effectively handcuffed the Security Council’s ability to take meaningful corrective action against Israel.
It is not my intention, at this time, to postulate on reforms that could or should be made to the U.N. Charter, but to query, by way of normal and conventional curiosity, why only the U.S. refuses to reproach Israel for anything –ever! We’ve concurred on matters with our announced antagonist, the U.S.S.R., and disagreed on occasion with older, more powerful and particularly indispensable allies, but consistently refuse to indict Israel even for misdemeanors, when all outward appearances seem to suggest it would not only be just and equitable, but more importantly, advantageous to our own aims and diplomatic standing to do so. I am not so Pollyannaish that I would deny that in the world of international politics and business there is flourishing and profitable hypocrisy, but nonetheless it is difficult for me to distinguish any especially beneficial real politik quid quo pro to justify the constant unusualness of American behavior vis-à-vis Israel.
My speculation is that America, still a young nation when accelerated from chosen isolation to primacy by cataclysmic events, views Israel by way of the Disney-ized Jewish myth. Unlike the older European nations with the perspectives of the various Crusades in their histories, many Americans see furry little Moses’ living delightful lives in Yahweh’s briar patch, rather than the modern military state blockading and starving Palestinians in Gaza. If the situation on the ground was reversed, I’m sure Gaza would be under siege as at Masada or the Alamo, in American minds. Our media encourages such conceptualizations, and apparently our government is not immune. But one vote in the Security Council might break the spell, to the benefit of both Jews and Palestinians.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lest We Forget
On Memorial Day we are always presented with a bill. It is usually entered in our national accounting as, “the price of freedom”. But the C.P.A of conscience cannot find one credit of freedom purchased with the last 70,000 American military lives or two trillion dollars of lucre. There is not one new liberty that has been purchased by the sword, or any unalienable right that has been credibly threatened by any foreign state or potentate to justify the debit of death and destruction supposedly necessary to secure our “freedom”. But by now we pay the $800,000,000,000 per annum in a daze of patriotic rote, with the additional tender of our innocent youth, to make the waste “honorable”.
We are conditioned to genuflect to waving flags, polished brass, and precision marching called to a halt at freshly turned graves, and have become habituated to the caravan of the Reaper bringing product traded in distant lands to fill the holes. "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”, is duly compensated with white marble headstones.
When we are encouraged to imbibe in “memorial” at the expense of “memory” it is easy to forget we haven’t yet been advised of our lawful justification for invading Iraq. It is easy to overlook that we are in a bloody decade-long Fabian stalemate with a substitute adversary in Afghanistan. And it is becoming increasingly more difficult to remember to ask, “Why?”
Our celebration of Memorial Day has become the antonym of what it is supposed to be- “Lest we Forget”.
We are conditioned to genuflect to waving flags, polished brass, and precision marching called to a halt at freshly turned graves, and have become habituated to the caravan of the Reaper bringing product traded in distant lands to fill the holes. "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”, is duly compensated with white marble headstones.
When we are encouraged to imbibe in “memorial” at the expense of “memory” it is easy to forget we haven’t yet been advised of our lawful justification for invading Iraq. It is easy to overlook that we are in a bloody decade-long Fabian stalemate with a substitute adversary in Afghanistan. And it is becoming increasingly more difficult to remember to ask, “Why?”
Our celebration of Memorial Day has become the antonym of what it is supposed to be- “Lest we Forget”.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Fool's Goal and Rand Paul
Why must I always be contrarian? How can I not be when in the cyber company of the silent macsnority asleep at the wheel of the vehicle of reason? The comments of Rand Paul drew much less reaction than their provocative nature would have prophesized. It lends weight to my contention that many of the blogger class focus on defending the labels by which they identify, and allow ludicrous renditions of their creed to by-pass rudimentary inspection for reasonableness or validity. Many Libertarians defend Mr. Paul’s revisionist view on the raison d’être and necessity of Civil Rights legislation, because as a Libertarian he is entitled to free speech and his opinions on the uses and role of government. They convert the argument to a debate over his right to his views and deemphasize the thesis that emerged from his befuddled Libertarian mind.
I am as Libertarian as the next person, preferring government to enter my sphere of life when invited and otherwise remaining distant and remote. But I also recognize that government in some form or another is as inseparable from human society as marriage, speech, writing, and economy. Even the most aggressive Libertarian wouldn’t advocate for the total absence of government, over the benefits of mutuality inherent in some level of government; especially government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The very inclusion of diverse opinion should impose necessary restrictions on over-reaching government, if the political process is assiduously embraced by the governed. And I believe Libertarianism is a welcome and legitimate voice. But Mr. Paul’s logic was all wrong.
He opined that in his ideal world private businesses should not have been required, by government mandate, to serve or contract with anyone they chose not to enjoin with. If they chose to make race the demarcation place, then they should have been free to do so. If you want to factor Libertarianism to the last decimal point this may be a valid argument, but taken to that degree you are faced with an extremity that merges with impractical idiocy.
If black people paid taxes that allowed roads to be built so that customers could travel to stores, if they were complicit in sidewalks being laid, if their contribution to the public utilities that allowed businesses to be lighted and heated and caused telephones to ring is considered, and if they paid sales tax on items purchased using universally accepted government- issued legal tender, and if none of these obligations were exempted, reduced, or mediated due to race, then it is hard to understand how, because of race, they could be denied the benefits of the commerce and convenience their dollars helped make available to others. There was nothing Libertarian about Jim Crow. It was wicked, evil, ignorant exploitation that totally avoided concepts of citizenship and fairness, and was based exclusively on racism.
At this point I feel no need to elaborate further or be more in-depth than was Senatorial-candidate Paul, but I do have another question. Why now? Why in this era of fiscal crisis, two budget busting permanent wars, environmental catastrophe, international turmoil and economic threat, and Big Brother masquerading as OnStar, did Mr. Paul choose to re-open forty year old settled law concerning Civil Rights, absent a precipitating racial incident that caused societal attention to wander in that direction? Are there no other areas of discomfort that could be expected to be more in the forefront of a Libertarian’s mind? Or is a sitting black President an affront to Libertarianism? Stealthy racial incitement is a First Amendment entitlement, but doesn’t assuage a cursory consideration of Mr. Paul’s ruminations which seem only to reveal, not positive or well-meaning philosophical or social insight, but cynical political pandering to the sick, reactionary troglodytes who always surface when the rock of change is upended?
I am as Libertarian as the next person, preferring government to enter my sphere of life when invited and otherwise remaining distant and remote. But I also recognize that government in some form or another is as inseparable from human society as marriage, speech, writing, and economy. Even the most aggressive Libertarian wouldn’t advocate for the total absence of government, over the benefits of mutuality inherent in some level of government; especially government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The very inclusion of diverse opinion should impose necessary restrictions on over-reaching government, if the political process is assiduously embraced by the governed. And I believe Libertarianism is a welcome and legitimate voice. But Mr. Paul’s logic was all wrong.
He opined that in his ideal world private businesses should not have been required, by government mandate, to serve or contract with anyone they chose not to enjoin with. If they chose to make race the demarcation place, then they should have been free to do so. If you want to factor Libertarianism to the last decimal point this may be a valid argument, but taken to that degree you are faced with an extremity that merges with impractical idiocy.
If black people paid taxes that allowed roads to be built so that customers could travel to stores, if they were complicit in sidewalks being laid, if their contribution to the public utilities that allowed businesses to be lighted and heated and caused telephones to ring is considered, and if they paid sales tax on items purchased using universally accepted government- issued legal tender, and if none of these obligations were exempted, reduced, or mediated due to race, then it is hard to understand how, because of race, they could be denied the benefits of the commerce and convenience their dollars helped make available to others. There was nothing Libertarian about Jim Crow. It was wicked, evil, ignorant exploitation that totally avoided concepts of citizenship and fairness, and was based exclusively on racism.
At this point I feel no need to elaborate further or be more in-depth than was Senatorial-candidate Paul, but I do have another question. Why now? Why in this era of fiscal crisis, two budget busting permanent wars, environmental catastrophe, international turmoil and economic threat, and Big Brother masquerading as OnStar, did Mr. Paul choose to re-open forty year old settled law concerning Civil Rights, absent a precipitating racial incident that caused societal attention to wander in that direction? Are there no other areas of discomfort that could be expected to be more in the forefront of a Libertarian’s mind? Or is a sitting black President an affront to Libertarianism? Stealthy racial incitement is a First Amendment entitlement, but doesn’t assuage a cursory consideration of Mr. Paul’s ruminations which seem only to reveal, not positive or well-meaning philosophical or social insight, but cynical political pandering to the sick, reactionary troglodytes who always surface when the rock of change is upended?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Et tu. Thomas
Thomas Sowell wrote an article yesterday entitled, “Enough Money”, where he took issue with a statement made by the President to the effect that there is a point where people should feel they have “enough money”. Mr. Sowell chose to interpret this as the President proposing an official cap on income. I think reasonable people realize the President was talking about a psychological state of being rather than an economic circumstance. In my opinion Mr. Obama was drawing on a lesson learned from one of Aesop’s fables more so than Marxism 101. Mr. Sowell strained his considerable abilities trying to lay bricks in this particularly foolish conservative façade. He sought by rhetorical stealth, followed by shock and awe, to assault common sense with unrefined antinomies and inapt associations to the French Revolution; attempting to paint the President’s statement as an ultra vires call to class warfare rather than as the colloquialism it was. Mr. Sowell hadn’t always been prone to such Procrustean artifices. I suppose it is just another harbinger of the miasma of our ultra-partisan political environment.
(Mr. Sowell’s articles can be accessed from The Drudge Report, Town Hall, and other sites.)
(Mr. Sowell’s articles can be accessed from The Drudge Report, Town Hall, and other sites.)
Monday, May 17, 2010
Constitutional Palladium
During the campaign and then from the day of election it has been advanced that this administration, and Democrats in general, have a peculiar animosity towards the Second Amendment. I am not aware of any initiatives launched by the current Federal administration to alter or redefine the Constitutional status quo. What I see are local, usually urban, attempts to stem the proliferation of guns in their environments, which lead to philosophical debates on the appropriateness of elements of 18th century thinking and its universal application in 21st century America. There hasn’t been an administration in my lifetime where this issue hasn’t come up for judicial review at least once. It is a reliably controversial issue for partisan firebrands to hang their hats on and invoke fear of the dastardly intentions of the latest elected tyrants. But are our attentions properly focused?
I understand the various arguments, from questions of original intent posed by differing drafts of the Constitution where the right of the People or people, and a well regulated Militia or militia, were alternately capitalized, or implications drawn from the wording of the Articles of Confederation, to the contention that the right to bear arms pre-exists the Constitution and the amendment does not grant or invent the “ natural” right, but directly prevents infringement of it by the government coming into being. Our demotic contemporary conflict of opinion seldom touches on such legalistic esoterica, but usually center around personal protection from criminals and the perils posed by any and all governments disposed by the opium of power to tyranny.
The latter fear, recently stoked by Mrs. Palin, among others, is to me especially intellectually provocative. The juxtaposition of the fear of repressive government, and a society that blithely accedes to that government military funding that exceeds that of all the other nations on earth combined, is seemingly tempting fate. The increasing erosion of the restraints of posse comitatus under the guise of homeland security, and the unchecked powers afforded government by The Patriot Act, makes me wonder if the Rubicon of the Second Amendment has become an insignificant obstacle, whose breach can’t be stopped by the handguns and rifles of the people.
I understand the various arguments, from questions of original intent posed by differing drafts of the Constitution where the right of the People or people, and a well regulated Militia or militia, were alternately capitalized, or implications drawn from the wording of the Articles of Confederation, to the contention that the right to bear arms pre-exists the Constitution and the amendment does not grant or invent the “ natural” right, but directly prevents infringement of it by the government coming into being. Our demotic contemporary conflict of opinion seldom touches on such legalistic esoterica, but usually center around personal protection from criminals and the perils posed by any and all governments disposed by the opium of power to tyranny.
The latter fear, recently stoked by Mrs. Palin, among others, is to me especially intellectually provocative. The juxtaposition of the fear of repressive government, and a society that blithely accedes to that government military funding that exceeds that of all the other nations on earth combined, is seemingly tempting fate. The increasing erosion of the restraints of posse comitatus under the guise of homeland security, and the unchecked powers afforded government by The Patriot Act, makes me wonder if the Rubicon of the Second Amendment has become an insignificant obstacle, whose breach can’t be stopped by the handguns and rifles of the people.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Scrutinize Wall Street
On one of the Sunday news shows a couple of reporters explained why they felt the civil and legal actions against Goldman Sachs were questionable. Apart from various perceived technical flaws in the charges, they felt the dire and largely misunderstood “financial meltdown” unreasonably sponsored this ill- conceived, knee-jerk finger pointing, and undeserved demonization of Wall Street titans.
The defense of Goldman Sachs commenced in the argument that they (Sachs) were only “making a market”; that is, simply bringing together a seller and a buyer. Under this scenario it was submitted that Goldman Sachs neither offered nor incurred any fiduciary responsibility to either party. And, after the market was “made”, as denoted by the completed sale between seller and buyer, any of the parties to the transaction could subsequently act in their own interests and make any speculations about the future disposition of the transacted financial instrument, by way of insurance or any other method, as they saw fit. This, it was inferred, is archetypal specialized knowledge and procedure that laypersons are unlikely to be familiar with and therefore their visceral reaction to the ugly appearance of the transaction is prejudiced by ignorance of sophisticated business practices. The modus operandi that resulted in the gross enrichment of one party and the bankruptcy of the other, it is asserted, is the normal verity of risk, and are simply one capitalist guessing right and the other guessing wrong, and do not signify any legal or ethical violation that should arouse any governmental or regulatory intervention. There is a circumscribed legitimate sphere for this attitude, but as regards this exemplar, I believe the government has a necessary and activist role to play.
The conventional political antagonism in our society is between those who would like the government to exercise its discretion either more conservatively, or liberally. But what is often forgotten is that government is not constructed as either conservative or liberal; it is just ‘government’, and gets its direction and instruction from the political process. An examination of the Constitution will not find any mention of the words capitalism, socialism, conservative, or liberal. If the contemporaneous culture wants to conduct its economic affairs capitalistically, socialistically, any hybrid of the two, or employ some opportune future system not yet devised, it will find no mandate codified in our founding document restricting the preference to any particular system of economic arrangement. And neither will any special dispensation for practitioners of any particular economic philosophy currently be found. So, even if the transaction(s) of Goldman Sachs are in compliance with the normal rules and shenanigans accepted among and between capitalists themselves, this doesn’t place them beyond review of a government charged to promote (and presumably protect) the general welfare. There is no binding ecumenical conclusion requiring that activities which grossly enrich a few, while simultaneously being the etiology of a wide and growing swath of social destruction, must be tacitly accepted as sacrosanct components of some catholic economic format. If it is accepted that government can regulate particular activities of capitalists based on “environmental impact”, it would seem to suggest that dubious gadgets such as Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps wouldn’t be entitled to immunity from review or regulation simply because they represent creativity and intellectual invention; especially when the invention’s ultimate value and utility to the general welfare becomes empirically debatable. And, I think it is appropriate and warranted for government to scrutinize methodologies and attached implications, where the conceptualization and marketing of failure is incentivized. The raison d’être of our government is not to validate capitalism, but to be the referee in the various affairs and interests of the public.
So, let the investigations in Congress and/ or the courts go on. I am not saying this to provocatively take a side in the petty differences of political parties, or because of some fascination with the fraternal bickering of lawyers. But my concern is for the fate of popular democratic government if it loses the power to underwrite the only real ‘currency’ of social order, namely the predictability of human behavior, if by way of these increasingly fanciful and exotic abstractions, it is revealed that the already fragile illusion of ‘money’ has clearly and harmfully devolved into unintelligible mathematical formulations fabricated primarily to enrich self-interested Plutocrats? Elements of capitalism are incompatible with decent democracy, and consequently, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is obligated to address these issues.
The defense of Goldman Sachs commenced in the argument that they (Sachs) were only “making a market”; that is, simply bringing together a seller and a buyer. Under this scenario it was submitted that Goldman Sachs neither offered nor incurred any fiduciary responsibility to either party. And, after the market was “made”, as denoted by the completed sale between seller and buyer, any of the parties to the transaction could subsequently act in their own interests and make any speculations about the future disposition of the transacted financial instrument, by way of insurance or any other method, as they saw fit. This, it was inferred, is archetypal specialized knowledge and procedure that laypersons are unlikely to be familiar with and therefore their visceral reaction to the ugly appearance of the transaction is prejudiced by ignorance of sophisticated business practices. The modus operandi that resulted in the gross enrichment of one party and the bankruptcy of the other, it is asserted, is the normal verity of risk, and are simply one capitalist guessing right and the other guessing wrong, and do not signify any legal or ethical violation that should arouse any governmental or regulatory intervention. There is a circumscribed legitimate sphere for this attitude, but as regards this exemplar, I believe the government has a necessary and activist role to play.
The conventional political antagonism in our society is between those who would like the government to exercise its discretion either more conservatively, or liberally. But what is often forgotten is that government is not constructed as either conservative or liberal; it is just ‘government’, and gets its direction and instruction from the political process. An examination of the Constitution will not find any mention of the words capitalism, socialism, conservative, or liberal. If the contemporaneous culture wants to conduct its economic affairs capitalistically, socialistically, any hybrid of the two, or employ some opportune future system not yet devised, it will find no mandate codified in our founding document restricting the preference to any particular system of economic arrangement. And neither will any special dispensation for practitioners of any particular economic philosophy currently be found. So, even if the transaction(s) of Goldman Sachs are in compliance with the normal rules and shenanigans accepted among and between capitalists themselves, this doesn’t place them beyond review of a government charged to promote (and presumably protect) the general welfare. There is no binding ecumenical conclusion requiring that activities which grossly enrich a few, while simultaneously being the etiology of a wide and growing swath of social destruction, must be tacitly accepted as sacrosanct components of some catholic economic format. If it is accepted that government can regulate particular activities of capitalists based on “environmental impact”, it would seem to suggest that dubious gadgets such as Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps wouldn’t be entitled to immunity from review or regulation simply because they represent creativity and intellectual invention; especially when the invention’s ultimate value and utility to the general welfare becomes empirically debatable. And, I think it is appropriate and warranted for government to scrutinize methodologies and attached implications, where the conceptualization and marketing of failure is incentivized. The raison d’être of our government is not to validate capitalism, but to be the referee in the various affairs and interests of the public.
So, let the investigations in Congress and/ or the courts go on. I am not saying this to provocatively take a side in the petty differences of political parties, or because of some fascination with the fraternal bickering of lawyers. But my concern is for the fate of popular democratic government if it loses the power to underwrite the only real ‘currency’ of social order, namely the predictability of human behavior, if by way of these increasingly fanciful and exotic abstractions, it is revealed that the already fragile illusion of ‘money’ has clearly and harmfully devolved into unintelligible mathematical formulations fabricated primarily to enrich self-interested Plutocrats? Elements of capitalism are incompatible with decent democracy, and consequently, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is obligated to address these issues.
News and Views
On one of the Sunday news shows a couple of reporters explained why they felt the civil and legal actions against Goldman Sachs were questionable. Apart from various perceived technical flaws in the charges, they felt the dire and largely misunderstood “financial meltdown” unreasonably sponsored this ill- conceived, knee-jerk finger pointing, and demonization of Wall Street titans.
The defense of Goldman Sachs commenced in the argument that they (Sachs) were only “making a market”; that is, simply bringing together a seller and a buyer. Under this scenario it was submitted that Goldman Sachs neither offered nor incurred any fiduciary responsibility to either party. And, after the market was “made”, as denoted by the completed sale between seller and buyer, any of the parties to the transaction could subsequently act in their own interests and make any speculations about the future disposition of the transacted financial instrument, by way of insurance or any other method, as they saw fit. This, it was inferred, is archetypal specialized knowledge and procedure that laypersons are unlikely to be familiar with and therefore their visceral reaction to the ugly appearance of the transaction is prejudiced by ignorance of sophisticated business practices. The modus operandi that resulted in the gross enrichment of one party and the bankruptcy of the other, it is asserted, is the normal verity of risk, and are simply one capitalist guessing right and the other guessing wrong, and do not signify any legal or ethical violation that should arouse any governmental or regulatory intervention. There is a circumscribed legitimate sphere for this attitude, but as regards this exemplar, I believe the government has a necessary and activist role to play.
The conventional political antagonism in our society is between those who would like the government to exercise its discretion either more conservatively, or liberally. But what is often forgotten is that government is not constructed as either conservative or liberal; it is just ‘government’, and gets its direction and instruction from the political process. An examination of the Constitution will not find any mention of the words capitalism, socialism, conservative, or liberal. If the contemporaneous culture wants to conduct its economic affairs capitalistically, socialistically, any hybrid of the two, or employ some opportune future system not yet devised, it will find no mandate codified in our founding document restricting the preference to any particular system of economic arrangement. And neither will any special dispensation for practitioners of any particular economic philosophy currently be found. So, even if the transaction(s) of Goldman Sachs are in compliance with the normal rules and shenanigans accepted among and between capitalists themselves, this doesn’t place them beyond review of a government charged to promote (and presumably protect) the general welfare. There is no binding ecumenical conclusion requiring that activities which grossly enrich a few, while simultaneously being the etiology of a wide and growing swath of social destruction, must be tacitly accepted as sacrosanct components of some catholic economic format. If it is accepted that government can regulate particular activities of capitalists based on “environmental impact”, it would seem to suggest that dubious gadgets such as Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps wouldn’t be entitled to immunity from review or regulation simply because they represent creativity and intellectual invention; especially when the invention’s ultimate value and utility to the general welfare becomes empirically debatable. And, I think it is appropriate and warranted for government to scrutinize methodologies and attached implications, where the conceptualization and marketing of failure is incentivized. The raison d’être of our government is not to validate capitalism, but to be the referee in the various affairs and interests of the public.
So, let the investigations in Congress and/ or the courts go on. I am not saying this to provocatively take a side in the petty differences of political parties, or because of some fascination with the fraternal bickering of lawyers. But I fear the fate of popular democratic government if it loses the power to underwrite the only real ‘currency’ of social order, namely the predictability of human behavior, if by way of these increasingly fanciful and exotic abstractions, it is revealed that the already fragile illusion of ‘money’ has clearly and harmfully devolved into unintelligible mathematical formulations fabricated primarily to enrich self-interested Plutocrats? Elements of capitalism are incompatible with decent democracy, and consequently, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is obligated to address these issues.
The defense of Goldman Sachs commenced in the argument that they (Sachs) were only “making a market”; that is, simply bringing together a seller and a buyer. Under this scenario it was submitted that Goldman Sachs neither offered nor incurred any fiduciary responsibility to either party. And, after the market was “made”, as denoted by the completed sale between seller and buyer, any of the parties to the transaction could subsequently act in their own interests and make any speculations about the future disposition of the transacted financial instrument, by way of insurance or any other method, as they saw fit. This, it was inferred, is archetypal specialized knowledge and procedure that laypersons are unlikely to be familiar with and therefore their visceral reaction to the ugly appearance of the transaction is prejudiced by ignorance of sophisticated business practices. The modus operandi that resulted in the gross enrichment of one party and the bankruptcy of the other, it is asserted, is the normal verity of risk, and are simply one capitalist guessing right and the other guessing wrong, and do not signify any legal or ethical violation that should arouse any governmental or regulatory intervention. There is a circumscribed legitimate sphere for this attitude, but as regards this exemplar, I believe the government has a necessary and activist role to play.
The conventional political antagonism in our society is between those who would like the government to exercise its discretion either more conservatively, or liberally. But what is often forgotten is that government is not constructed as either conservative or liberal; it is just ‘government’, and gets its direction and instruction from the political process. An examination of the Constitution will not find any mention of the words capitalism, socialism, conservative, or liberal. If the contemporaneous culture wants to conduct its economic affairs capitalistically, socialistically, any hybrid of the two, or employ some opportune future system not yet devised, it will find no mandate codified in our founding document restricting the preference to any particular system of economic arrangement. And neither will any special dispensation for practitioners of any particular economic philosophy currently be found. So, even if the transaction(s) of Goldman Sachs are in compliance with the normal rules and shenanigans accepted among and between capitalists themselves, this doesn’t place them beyond review of a government charged to promote (and presumably protect) the general welfare. There is no binding ecumenical conclusion requiring that activities which grossly enrich a few, while simultaneously being the etiology of a wide and growing swath of social destruction, must be tacitly accepted as sacrosanct components of some catholic economic format. If it is accepted that government can regulate particular activities of capitalists based on “environmental impact”, it would seem to suggest that dubious gadgets such as Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps wouldn’t be entitled to immunity from review or regulation simply because they represent creativity and intellectual invention; especially when the invention’s ultimate value and utility to the general welfare becomes empirically debatable. And, I think it is appropriate and warranted for government to scrutinize methodologies and attached implications, where the conceptualization and marketing of failure is incentivized. The raison d’être of our government is not to validate capitalism, but to be the referee in the various affairs and interests of the public.
So, let the investigations in Congress and/ or the courts go on. I am not saying this to provocatively take a side in the petty differences of political parties, or because of some fascination with the fraternal bickering of lawyers. But I fear the fate of popular democratic government if it loses the power to underwrite the only real ‘currency’ of social order, namely the predictability of human behavior, if by way of these increasingly fanciful and exotic abstractions, it is revealed that the already fragile illusion of ‘money’ has clearly and harmfully devolved into unintelligible mathematical formulations fabricated primarily to enrich self-interested Plutocrats? Elements of capitalism are incompatible with decent democracy, and consequently, our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is obligated to address these issues.
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