Sunday, September 29, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 29 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 29 2024

by Tony Wikrent


Strategic Political Economy

The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America — EXCERPTS

Mehrsa Baradaran (New York, W.W. Norton, 2024)

Introduction

Ideologies that have developed memelike qualities, like race and religion, have been some of the most potent forces shaping human history, especially when they have fused with the law. Racial hierarchy began as ideology to justify plunder and slaughter—those who murdered unjustly, like the Spanish conquistadors or British slave traders, blamed their crimes on their victims' "inherent" inferiority and a meme was born in the world. Before the wholesale theft of indigenous land, the law justified it. In the early nineteenth century, Chief Justice John Marshall deemed that the indigenous tribes in America could not own or sell their land on account of their inherent "savagery." The law thereafter demarcated property rights as the exclusive domain of white men, paving the way for manifest destiny, the seizure of 1.5 billion acres of land for private ownership, and the genocide of millions of indigenous people. Marshall built his legal opinion on precedent and theory provided by the British philosopher John Locke, whose theory of property law was popular in Great Britain in the late 1600s at the height of the British slave trade. It was "natural" and just, noted Locke, that "the creator” had endowed only "the industrious and rational" white men with the right to own land and people. It was also expedient. Ideologies persist through replication exactly because they evade detection, and through the process of replication, they evolve. For example, the ideology of patriarchy once reinforced itself through property laws like coverture and primogeniture that prohibited women from owning property. Once an ideology is embedded in legal code, its silent perpetuation is guaranteed.

Patently immoral practices like colonial subjugation, slavery, land theft, Jim Crow, segregation, and forced labor lasted so long that the theories that once justified them—like divine decree—no longer did the job. Instead of addressing the injustices that racist ideologies had created, often, those with the most to lose went looking for new ideologies Ito justify their unfair position at the top: first, Christianity; then Darwinian science; then the pseudo-scientific babble of "human IQ" testing; then, as was the case at the end of the 1960s, economics.

xxx
As John Adams once wrote to Thomas Jefferson (20 June 1815), 'Power always sincerely, conscientiously... believes itself Right. Power always thinks it has a great Soul, and vast Views, beyond the Comprehension of the Weak; and that it is doing God's Service, when it is violating all his laws." 19 Such was the object of the neoliberal revolution in legal theory: to infuse raw power with a soul—and snuff out the discretion that is law's dynamic living heart.

The law is the most powerful engine through which ideologies can become self-replicating engines. John Locke's theory of property as the endowed right of white men to use and to produce worked like witchcraft—the natural world, which had sustained societies for thousands of years, could suddenly be taken by force, enclosed, and tilled for the sole profit of one man, with trespassers punished. The conversion of land into one person's permanent property was not permissible under the indigenous populations who had long occupied it, nor was such a thing permissible anywhere in the world except Europe—and even there, only after the enclosure movements of the 1600s. The brilliant and prolific philosopher Locke happened to be under the patronage of Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the richest men in England (who later became the First Earl of Shaftesbury); he was first hired as Cooper's personal doctor, but as the earl entered politics to advocate for more property rights, Locke's star rose alongside his. And property laws were passed in legislatures and handed down over time, carrying memes from men long dead with ideas long denounced.

Law codified land into assets and has been extending the market into new frontiers ever since—from corporate shares and derivatives to NFTs—transforming abstract ideas into tradable assets. A similar alchemy transformed gold into money by smelting an image onto a coin, then transformed gold coins into bank notes emblazoned with the image of a king, queen, or president. Initially, it was gold's malleability that made it ideal for coinage. But with the rise of empire and Great Britain's dominance of the global trade in gold, the gold standard became yet another ideology to preserve power. Locke's theories about gold being the highest source of value on account of its scarcity have been as impossible to dislodge from monetary theories as his ideas about race have been from property laws. But Locke was wrong—gold was not valuable. Then, as now, money's value derived from the image on the coin. Money is a symbol of people's trust in the government that issued it. Gold's scarcity was not the source of its value, but it was one of the causes of hundreds of years of wars in Europe over the scarce metal. While empire based on the gold standard and justified by white supremacy fell to the global horror of World War II, the underlying logic of both lingered. Unaddressed and unexamined, these bad ideas continue to breed distrust in our societies and scarcity in our economies. The greatest villains of our modern times are rarely human beings but the zombie ideas of dead men that continue to shape our societies.

FAR FROM BEING a battle between capitalism and communism, as so many historians have painted the era's conflict, the global revolutions of the 1960s were the only world wars that involved the entire world. Truly, the world had turned upside down as a globe dominated by a handful of empires became a world with over a hundred independent nations—each demanding equal sovereignty on the world stage. The possibilities were breathtaking and the 1960s saw the first worldwide conversation between and among peoples speaking to one another. Neoliberalism was the successor ideology of empire. Gone were the gunboats, colonial governments, and talk of civilizing savages. Instead, development loans, sovereign debt markets, and transnational corporations became the face of power in the Global South. The guns did not disappear of course, but were traded on global markets from distributors to trade-friendly governments.

After decades of relentless activism by Black Americans across every legal domain, the American South's chokehold on the law finally broke and the Constitution's promise of equality was secured for all Americans. The last stages of the civil rights movement forced the quiet oppression of southern law to show its teeth and claws

[TW: I am greatly encouraged that Baradaran identifies John Locke as one of the major causes of bad political economy. As I have noted a number of times, it was Locke’s ideas of private property that made liberalism so insidiously destructive of the founding philosophy of civic republicanism, leading us to our present megacrises. 

[Baradaran’s book is an excellent accompaniment to The Lever's epic and important series on The Master Plan (see below). She discusses some people who The Lever series has not mentioned yet, such as Ayn Rand acolyte and neoliberal enforcer Alan Greenspan, who played a central role in Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, and the development of conservative economics as a cloak for outright racism.]

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 22 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 22 2024

by Tony Wikrent


Strategic Political Economy


What is the deep state? (YouTube video) 

(Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer, YouTube, via Thomas Neuburger, God's Spies, 06-20-2024]

This video segment is taken from a symposium at which Sach and Mearsheimer offered their views on U.S. foreign policy. The whole thing is worth a listen, but I’ve cued this to start at the point where the question, “What is the deep state?” is asked and answered.

Note: The answer relates to foreign policy only, not the broader question of “Does the Establishment State try to influence domestic politics?”

“Sachs: My experience ... is that there's a deeply entrained foreign policy. It has been in place in my interpretation for many decades. But arguably a variant of it has been in place since 1992. I got to watch some of it early on because I was an adviser to Gorbachev and I was an adviser to Yeltsin, and so I saw early makings of this though I didn't fully understand it except in retrospect.

“But that policy has been mostly in place pretty consistently for 30 years, and it didn't really matter whether it was Bush Senior, whether it was Clinton, whether it was Bush Jr., whether it was Obama, whether it was Trump.

“After all, who did Trump hire? He hired John Bolton. Well, duh, pretty deep state. That was the end of ... they told, you know, he [Bolton] explained this is the way it is. And by the way, Bolton explained also in his memoirs, when Trump didn't agree we figured out ways to trick him basically.”

….

“MEARSHEIMER: When we talk about the ‘Deep State,’ we’re really talking about the Administrative State. It is very important to understand that starting in the late 19th and early 20th century, given developments in the American economy, it was imperative that we develop — and this is true of all Western countries — a very powerful central state that could ‘run the country.’ And over time, that state has grown in power.

“Since World War Two, the United States has been involved in every nook and cranny of the world, fighting wars here, there, and everywhere. And to do that, you need a very powerful administrative state that can help manage that foreign policy. But in the process, what happens is you get all of these high-level, middle-level, and low-level bureaucrats who become established in positions in the Pentagon, the State Department, and the intelligence community — you name it. And they end up having a vested interest in pursuing a particular foreign policy.

“That particular foreign policy that they like to pursue is the one the Democrats and the Republicans are pushing. That’s why we talk about tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum with regard to the two parties. You could throw in the deep state as being on the same page as those other two institutions….”

[TW: This is an important glimpse into the thinking of USA ruling elites. But just as important was what was said, is what was not said. There was no discussion of cooperation between nations on solving global problems, in line with what I have identified as a core principle of civic republicanism: one major role of government is to encourage people to do good by increasing humanity’s power over nature. There was no mention whatsoever of climate change, which absolutely will require global cooperation, probably on an unprecedented level. How about an international effort to help Mexico build a second Panama Canal? Or a crossing of the straits of Gibraltar, now considered an insurmountable engineering challenge. Wouldn’t it be much better to focus energies and resources on such projects?

[Increasing humanity’s power over nature: that’s what sewer systems and water distribution systems did — projects which are probably the single largest factor in tripling the average human life expectancy in the past three centuries. Sewer systems and water distribution systems are primary examples of increasing humanity’s power over nature. Not just power over flows of water, but power over the spread of bacteria and viruses. 

[The “realism” discussed by Sachs and Mearsheimer emphasizes competition — just like neoliberal “free market” economics. The real way to avoid nuclear war is to emphasize the cooperation of the human family in solving the problems we call face. The old paradigms of thought must be banished and replaced. For example, the idea that economics is about how “society allocates scarce resources” (taught in all “classical economics” texts and courses in the West), must be replaced by the understanding of civic republican political economy that the foremost economic task of any society is to overcome scarcity and provide abundance by increasing the power of humanity to understand and prudently control natural resources, then to distribute that abundance equitably to all of humanity. One major international cooperative project that cries out for attention and support is to build sewer systems and water distribution systems throughout the entire world, most especially areas in Africa and South American which do not now have them. There should not be any people anywhere on the globe who are forced to spend large parts of their day filling the basic need of securing enough clean water to drink, bathe, and cook.

[Eight years ago, China proposed an international $50 trillion project to build an electric power grid to bring solar and wind generated electricity from the polar and equatorial regions of the world, to the more populated regions that use the electricity. It is a great strategic mistake to ignore such proposals. ]

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 15 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 15 2024

by Tony Wikrent


Russia / Ukraine

Russia will be ‘at war’ with NATO if Ukraine long-range missile restrictions lifted, Putin warns

Avery Schmitz and Michael Conte, September 13, 2024 [CNN]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned NATO alliance leaders that a move to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Western missiles to strike deep inside his country would be considered an act of war.

“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us,” Putin told reporters on Thursday.


Putin says NATO will be "in the war" if U.S. or allies let Ukraine fire long-range missiles at Russia 

Haley Ott,  September 13, 2024 [CBS News]

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that a decision by the U.S. or its NATO allies to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia would be viewed as NATO's direct participation in the war, which he said would significantly change "the very nature of the conflict."

"Flight assignments for these missile systems can, in fact, only be entered by military personnel from NATO countries. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. And therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is a question of making a decision whether NATO countries directly participate in the military conflict or not," Putin said in response to a question on Thursday.

"If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries, in the war in Ukraine," the Russian leader added.


Strategic Political Economy

Master Plan, Ep 5: How Corporations Became People

David Sirota and The Lever staff, September 10, 2024 [The Lever]

In Master Plan’s fifth episode, we explore how an unlikely catalyst — Robert Kennedy’s 1968 assassination — created an opportunity for his Senate replacement to manufacture the first and perhaps most important blow against America’s new campaign finance laws: Buckley v. Valeo. With a supporting cast including James Buckley, John Bolton, Charles Koch, and Robert Bork, this U.S. Supreme Court case was the first to frame the fight against campaign finance regulations as a crusade for free speech and third-party rights.

The master planners were just getting started. While Buckley v. Valeo blew the lid off limits to certain kinds of campaign expenditures, Big Business also wanted to ensure that corporations could spend as freely as their human counterparts. This is where the master planners’ sleeper agent on the Court, Justice Lewis Powell, would work behind the scenes to deliver an expansive ruling that created the foundation for Citizens United.

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 8 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 8 2024

by Tony Wikrent


Strategic Political Economy

Justice Alito reports German princess gave him $900 concert tickets

Associated Press, September 06, 2024 [via DailyKos]

Justice Samuel Alito reported Friday that he accepted $900 worth of concert tickets from a German princess, but disclosed no trips paid for by other people, according to a new financial disclosure form.

The required annual filing, for which Alito has often sought an extension, doesn't include details of the event tickets gifted by socialite Gloria von Thurn und Taxis of Germany….

[TW: I begin with seemingly innocuous news item because it bears directly on today’s condition of  political culture in USA. The rest of the Associated Press story lists a number of other gifts and courtesies Justice Alito has accepted, and sees nothing else peculiar in the gift by Gloria von Thurn und Taxis.

[Now, Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution: 

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

[I am not going to write anything more on this Section other than to note its obvious importance as part of the Constitution of a republic in a world dominated and mostly ruled by monarchies and oligarchies. What I want to draw attention to are some of the comments in the DailyKos story:

Sep 06, 2024 at 06:36:03 PM  — WTF is a German Princess?

Sep 06, 2024 at 06:40:10 PM —Germany hasn’t been a monarchy for more than 100 years….

Sep 06, 2024 at 06:46:09 PM — Germany still has princesses?

[Ganesh Sitaraman makes the very astute observation in his 2017 book, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic that Americans’ historic dislike of monarchies began to disappear after World War Two, when nazism, fascism, and communism came to be perceived as greater threats than oligarchy, and USA elites embraced a “special relationship” with the United Kingdom. To this day, the largest embassy by far in Washington DC is the British. 

[But the threats of oligarchy and monarchy did not actually recede; they merely disappeared in the shadows cast by the Cold War. Very few people wondered what had become of the vast fortunes controlled by the former oligarchs of Europe. Perhaps people did not want to ask such potentially embarrassing questions of our new-found anti-communist allies.

[Thurn und Taxis is one of the oldest and nastiest of the European "black nobility." In the 15th through 18th centuries, the family became one of the richest in the world by operating the postal service used by Europe's royal families to communicate with each other. In 2017, the family's net worth was estimated at around $ 2.5 billion “including the largest privately owned forests in Europe.” Gloria married into the family by wedding Johannes. Their son, Albert, was, at age eight, one of the youngest people ever recorded as a billionaire when Johannes died, leaving Albert sole designated heir of a $3 billion fortune. 

[The nephew of Johannes was Max Thurn. He was a major power in the Mont Pelerin Society, serving as secretary from 1976 to 1988. This is the period in which the Mont Pelerin Society's economic “neoliberalism” became entrenched in power under Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in USA. The past half century of economic “neoliberalism” has pauperized the working class, destroyed the middle class, and enriched only elites, creating the social conditions in which right wing reactionaries thrive.

[It is a tragedy that the USA public and media are largely ignorant of the bloody history of European oligarchs, and fail to make the connection between inherited wealth, the continued existence of oligarchs like Thurn und Taxis, and the collapse of representative democracies around the world. The corruption of US Supreme Court Justice Alito is just a recent case in point.

[The social milieu Justice Alito is apparently comfortable in should certainly be of great public interest, and even, I strongly suggest, of concern to any intelligence agency that seriously understands the importance of maintaining the United States as a republic.  Another comment from the DailyKos story:

Sep 07, 2024 at 01:09:34 PM — Back in the 1980's I spent the afternoon with the "Kiser Apparent" of Germany while working as an archaeologist for the "very rich". The "Prince" owned catfish farm in Texas. The rich kissed his ass.

[Theorists of civic republicanism warned about the corrupting influence of wealth and luxury. That’s one reason why Section 9 was written. Now consider Donald Trump and who is mentor was: 

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 1 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 1 2024

by Tony Wikrent


Strategic Political Economy

John Kiriakou: The Slide Into Authoritarianism

John Kiriakou [Consortium News, via Naked Capitalism 08-28-2024]


The Social Recession Is Accelerating 

Charles Hugh Smith [via Naked Capitalism 08-25-2024]

A reader asked about the term social recession which he'd noted in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. Here is the paragraph:
"Stagnation in opportunities to work and earn (i.e. a financial recession) leads to social recession, a loss of opportunities for adulthood: a rewarding career, family, and a home of one's own. In a social recession, unemployed young people may be mired in adolescent narcissism, eschewing ambitions not just in work but in romance and marriage."….

In the purely financial / economic terms of growth of GDP, household income, corporate profits and the value of assets, the US has only been in an economic recession for a few months in 2008-09 and at the start of the pandemic lockdown. But when measured by the ability of just about anyone willing to work hard and practice basic frugality to buy a house and start a family, the US has been in a social recession since 2009. Demographics / economics analyst Chris H., who tweets as

CH @economica, recently posted charts which reflect this social recession, most strikingly in the collapse of the US birthrate that started in 2009. He asked: "The largest childbearing population in US history has gone on strike...maybe we should know why?"….

The social recession began as a direct result of policy responses to the Global Financial Meltdown in 2008-09, policies that favored capital and those who already owned assets, at the expense of everyone who did not inherit wealth/assets or was too young to buy assets such as houses when they were still affordable to average workers….

As I often note, average wages have stagnated for the past 45 years. This stagnation was tolerable as long as the cost of a house, childcare and healthcare insurance remained somewhat affordable to average workers, but once the engines of financialization transformed the US economy into a Bubble Economy of soaring real estate / stock valuations that then inevitably crash, triggering an even larger bailout / stimulus response that inflates an even greater bubble, the costs of home ownership, childcare and healthcare soared out of reach of all but the top 20%….

GRAPH Wage earners' share of gross domestic income (GDI) declined from 1970's 51% to 43% in 2022. $149 trillion in GDI was shifted from labor to capital.

Did wages rise 10-fold to match the 10-fold rise in the cost of a modest house? No. That is social recession in a nutshell. When this fact is raised in conversation, those in the top 10% protest, but their protest rings hollow, for what they're really saying is: since I'm doing great and all my friends are doing great, everyone's doing great. There's a word for this: denial. Denial cannot solve problems, it can only make them worse.