In the Shadow of Imperialism

In 1939 Vladimir Lenin published a small book titled "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism". What is interesting about this little book is that it proposed a solution to a problem in Marxist theory. That problem was the fact that the major Capitalist economies of Europe and North America had not fallen to revolutions of the proletariat as anticipated by Marx's analysis. Critics of Marxism were crowing about this, claiming that history was proving Marx wrong.

Lenin's analysis was actually quite convincing. He observed that the system of imperialism in which all of the Western economies were engaged systematically relieved the tension between a potential proletariat and the capitalists. How? Very simply, imperialism provides a mechanism for exporting the proletariat class to the underdeveloped world and allows the formation of a comfortable middle class in the Western world. Since the needs of the middle class are reasonably satisfied, there is no motivation for revolt against the system. Meanwhile, the impoverished proletariat class lives far away in countries that are invariably controlled by militarist dictatorships maintained in place by Western powers. The revolution of the proletariat is rendered impossible and Capitalism has reached its highest stage.

However, after the Second World War, which was really a war for territory fought by the imperialists, the whole colonial and imperialist division of the world began to fall apart. India, Indochina, to name only a couple cases. What is even more interesting is the present trend in the United States. The movement that we like to call "globalization" is a different way of ending imperialism, but it is destined to have similar affects. In the US today we have large corporations moving their operations off-shore and into faraway places where labor and resources are cheep. As a consequence, the American middle class is losing any hope of maintaining itself. Either employment is simply not there anymore or wages are forced to compete with laborers in the underdeveloped world. If this phenomenon continues in its present direction --- and I have every expectation that it will --- we are moving back into the situation of Capitalism as Marx's analysis originally had it. That is, we are rapidly moving toward an American society in which a tiny percent of people (Capitalists) have enormous wealth and power and the huge majority of people (Proletariat) have nothing but a flimsy hold on day-to-day survival. In other words, without imperialism to save the system, we are headed back directly into the experiment that Marx predicted. Will the American proletariat ultimately revolt and overthrow the Capitalist system?

It is hard to tell. You'd like to think that people don't really like to have their noses rubbed in the dirt for very long. But, on the other hand, a massive number of Americans continue to vote for Republicans who, after all, are the very ones who turn around and rub their noses further into the dirt. Go figure!

The "Living Document" Argument

In the preceding blog, "Reading the Constitution," I left the "original meanings" versus the "living document" arguments as an open question. Clearly, the Constitution itself is silent on this issue and gives us no directions as to how it should be interpreted in future time.

Here I want to argue for the "living document" approach. A few things are clear. The Constitution uses language fitting the time of its creation, makes provision for a government sufficient to the physical and social facts of the time, and imposes restrictions that were often prompted by the more-or-less recent experiences as English colonists and as a confederation of separate states. In order to understand the Constitution in this overall context, we often have to interpret its language and, in order to do that, we have to make use of numerous historical documents, including essays and letters written by the many people involved in these discussions.

It is also clear, however, that the nation has changed in many ways in the more-than 200 years since the Constitution was written. Not only has the nation itself changed but the physical and social context within which it exists has also changed. It was quite impossible for the authors of the Constitution to even imagine what these changes would be or how they might affect the conditions of governing. For instance, how could the authors foresee that citizens living on their own farms, constituting more than 90% of the US population, would eventually become such an insignificant portion of the population that the US Census would drop them as a category (being now less than 1/2 %. And yet, today, it is precisely the overwhelming shift from a rural agrarian population to an urbanized population that presents government with its major issues and problems.

We are faced with the situation in which the Constitution is either respected as a "living document" that copes with the changing context of government by appropriate and imaginative re-interpretation or understood as archaic and irrelevant, which would mean that we have lost our fundamental laws. In my opinion, it is far better to maintain the fundamental character of the Constitution as law by interpreting it as we can in the context of our actual world than it is to pretend that nothing has changed and to chain ourselves to the fears, opinions, and wishes of the original authors.

Reading the Constitution

What does "supporting the Constitution of the United States" actually mean? We know what the Constitution said originally. After all, we have the original document in hand. However, the document itself provides for making changes, or amendments so it is possible to say exactly what the Constitution said at any particular time, depending on when it was last amended. All of that is clear.

What is not so clear is what parts of this document mean, amended or not. We have to ask, "how do you read this section?" Well, when we read anything, we usually start out, at least, reading it in terms of a contemporary understanding of the terms, phrases, idioms, and colloquialisms used in the text. However, with any old document, there is a long history of meanings that may have changed in substantial ways. Hence, reading a section of the Constitution can vary significantly, depending upon what historical period we give emphasis to in our reading.

Today, we are faced with the fact that the Constitution itself is completely silent on the question of how it is to be read. That is, it gives no more credibility to those who would read it in its original meanings (so far as we can determine those from other historical sources) than it does to those who consider it a "living document" that we should read in a contemporary framework. Yet Conservatives want to insist that we read it in its original-meaning context. Unfortunately, they assume this but give no compelling argument for it.

Take the so-called "interstate commerce clause." Some Conservatives want to say that the Constitution does not use the expression "interstate commerce." That, of course, is true. What it actually says is that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." What is at issue, then, is how we read "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States."

So my Conservative friend, Longshot, wants to claim that we read this literally as "States" and not as "people of the States." He goes on to claim that "a good case could be made that the intent of this power was to regulate the trade relations between the states in the Union.  This would prevent the states from erecting trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas."

I have to say that I find this argument pretty shallow. When do states themselves engage in commerce with each other? I suppose that the State of California might sell certain resources to the State of Nevada. While that is certainly possible, it is far more likely that what the framers of the Constitution had in mind was that persons in one state might engage in commerce with persons of another state. This situation might prompt a state to lay a tariff on commercial goods passing across the state line; but isn't that precisely what Congress was empowered to prevent. If we look back at the document itself, there is no impulse to suggest that the only commerce to be regulated was literally that with foreign Nations rather than commerce with the people of foreign nations. It was a question of things crossing over boundaries between foreign nations and our national boundaries, no matter what the agency of commerce.

The reason for the Conservative argument is that Longshot doesn't want Congress to have power over people in a state, only the institutionalized state itself. You can regulate my state but you can't regulate me.

The Constitution and Money

In order to understand why I am writing this particular blog you will need to read the comments section in Longshots' blog, On Political Economy. (http://onpoliticaleconomy.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-thoughts-on-constitutional-money.html#comments)

I have heard many conservatives argue that the Federal Reserve system is unconstitutional and that paper money is illegal. Like so many conservative arguments, it is extremely difficult to imagine what would happen to this country if we tried to retreat to a coin-cash economy. Not only is a major portion of today's money supply in paper currency but the digital age has taken us far beyond a paper-cash economy. "Plastic money" (ATM cards, credit cards, and store-specific cards) backed up by "electronic banking" means that a person may rarely see or use cash of any kind. Exchange in our economy is based on "deposits" at banking institutions. These deposits act as legal tender as they are shifted back-and-forth, often within the same banking institution, between individuals.

Deposits can represent legal tender because they are backed by actual paper or coinage currency, which can be paid out at demand. As we all know, however, banks do not maintain enough currency to pay out on all their deposits; they loan portions of their deposit reserves. This is part of what economists call the "multiplier effect." The actual money supply is alway larger than the credit basis of the country lying in gold in some vault. The expansion of legal tender in this effect is necessary to facilitating commerce and generating our GNP.

If this entire system were taken down and if people were to demand coinage in payment, the economy would collapse. Is that really what conservatives want?

As to the Constitutional argument, Article I, uses the term "money" several lines before it grants Congress the power of making coin-money, and well before it denies that power for the states. Hence, "money" is the more primitive term. Congress was well aware of paper money because so-called "Continentals" already existed as a way of funding the Revolution. The Constitution guarantees that all outstanding obligations will be carried over into the new government (Article VI); hence, the Continentals will be backed by the new government. We have had paper money as long as we have had our Constitution.

It is interesting that the United States Treasury resides within the Executive branch of government and that the Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the President's cabinet. None of this is spelled out in Article II, which deals with the Executive. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary and it was under Hamilton that the first central banking institution (The Bank of the United States) was established (1790), patterned after (of all things) the Bank of England. That began a long and complicated history of central banking institutions.

While people have raised Constitutional arguments about central banking and paper money throughout our history, these arguments have not succeeded except for brief periods of time.

Embracing the Constitution

I checked out Longshot, the other day, and was pleased to see that he is writing in his blog again. However, I was a little surprised to find an ultra conservative tract on money. The Constitution speaks of coin only and was written at a time when Spanish coin was accepted as standard value. Ergo we should be true to the Constitution and eliminate those pesky things like paper money, the Federal Reserve, etc. What really is the problem that Conservatives have with money? I don't think I've ever heard a real explanation.

If we must go back to the literal Constitution in everything, then I guess I need to buy a three-corner hat and some knickers. I guess my wife can't work in the polls anymore since women shouldn't be voting; and I should buy a few slaves to take care of my lawn instead of paying Hispanics to do it. Oh, boy, that reminds me that, if we're really going to be Constitutionalists, it's the Hispanics who actually own this place.

Seriously, the magnificent thing about great documents like our Constitution is that they are "living" and can adjust to their historical context. Inflexible documents become useless and crash as history changes underneath them.

Our Real Economic Problem

I watched "60 Minutes" the other night and there was a very sad visit to a town in Iowa. They talked with numerous people who had lost their jobs and to many small-business people who were forced to fire workers and who may have to shut down their businesses.

The sad thing about this whole mess is that it really has little to do with the bad economy as such and a lot to do with the fact that the Maytag factory, which employed 2500 people, shut down and moved their operation to Mexico. Of course small businesses cannot make it! You cannot lose 2500 local incomes in a small town and stay in business.

What this made me realize is that all of the harping about more jobs during the election campaigns will have no results whatsoever unless the government is willing, in some way, to stop large manufacturing enterprises from leaving the country. The government cannot create jobs no matter what politicians we throw into office. And small businesses are not dying because of the failure of banks to loan money. The basic dire fact in this country today is that the large corporations that can escape high-priced American labor are doing just that. And what that means is that the American labor force is slowly being reduced to the level of a Third-World labor force. And the Middle Class is sliding down that slope with them.

Essentially, this has nothing to do with the recession but it does have a lot to do with the fact that we will not soon emerge from the recession. The jobs just aren't there and they are not going to be there.

Guess what. The Republicans are not going to do anything about this because they are "in bed" with the entrepreneurs who have invented this globalization scheme. And the Democrats are not going to do anything about it because they are completely gutless. But if nothing is done, the middle- and working-classes of America will soon find themselves at mere-survival wages as opposed to the golden age of America's "high standard of living." That means they will not be able to buy cars or purchase houses or go to fancy restaurants. So that also means that all those "service industries" we've been so proud of will also vanish. It's not going to be a pretty picture.

Separation of Church and State

So this is becoming a big topic of discussion ever since Christine O'Donnell failed to realize that the Constitution addresses this issue in the First Amendment. [Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.]

Conservatives, of course, love to scream, that this text fails to use the exact expression "separation of church and state" and love to tell us that this precise expression comes only from a letter written later on by Thomas Jefferson. But the issue, of course, is what the "establishment clause" means in practical terms. And if that can be accurately characterized as the separation of church and state, shouldn't we be allowed to talk about it thus.

What the Constitution states, as fundamental law of the land, is that no citizen shall be prevented from the free exercise of his/her religious beliefs. That applies to any religious belief, including the refusal to have any religious belief. That includes Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, etc. as well as Christians. That's in our cherished melting-pot country! Where is that anti-Muslim sentiment now?

So Congress may not make a law establishing a national religion. That means that wherever Congress has authority no religion can be singularly preferred. Education is an interesting example. The concept of public schools and required elementary education originated in the Federal government. Today, the Federal government continues to provide a large portion of funding for public schools. This means that the Federal government has jurisdiction in public education. Hence, classes in Christian religion, support of Christian positions against instruction in biological evolution, and other situations in which Christian views are supported in opposition to others cannot be tolerated. To do so is to place the Federal government in the position of establishing Christianity as a state religion.

What Are We Doing?!!

The United States maintains military bases in MMM countries in the world outside of our homeland, including a total of XXX military personnel. [Don't have the exact figures at my finger tips.] Generally speaking this is rationalized as necessary for our homeland security, though we also explain it as part of a program of pacifying the world, an obligation that we seem to have assumed after the Second World War. In the 65 years after the War, this "program" has been primarily aimed at suppressing Communism around the world, even where Communism was obviously the local popular choice. One could say that the whole thing has been motivated by "making the world safe for Capitalism" but it has obviously been mostly aimed at supporting Capitalist Imperialism around the world, with American Capitalists fully involved. The story behind this has always been that Communism was expanding to threaten us. But, of course, the truth of the matter has always been that we ourselves were taking an increasingly aggressive anti-Communist position around the entire world. How have we gotten away with this behavior?

How many other governments in the world have military bases outside of their own countries? How many foreign governments have military bases inside of the United states? When the world looks at this picture and answers these questions, how can they avoid believing that the United States is an aggressive militarist nation with world domination at the heart of their foreign policy?

Not only is this policy inappropriate for the democracy that we are supposed to be, but it is also the major reason for our economic shutdown. Yet I have heard no one in this midterm election cycle actually bring up the fact that our economic woes at home are due to our extravagant missions abroad. It seems so much easier for us, as a nation, to kill and maim foreign citizens than to educate our own children or feed our own poor or offer better health care to Americans who couldn't afford it. Why is it that the American character has arrived at this strange state in its historical evolution?

The "Washington Rules"

I have just finished reading Andrew Bacevich's book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," published this August. This is a book that every American should read, regardless of political party. The fact is that every political party has thoroughly subscribed to the militarist foreign policies that Bacevich carefully describes and documents, since the late 1940s. Even the Obama administration has carefully advanced this policy point of view in spite of Obama's claims of ending wars and being at peace with the world. The book is thoroughly researched and very well written.

Americans today, as we face up to the November mid-term elections, are fundamentally disturbed by economic issues at home. However, if Bacevich is correct, and I am sure he is, our economic woes are a direct result of Washington's disposition to believe and to act according to the principle that everyone in the world must conform to American values and that it is our obligation to police the world for offenders. If we were to back off of our militarist and aggressive policies abroad, we could easily deal with the many problems we have at home.

Fundamentally, the way to influence the world regarding the virtues of democracy is to exhibit the virtues of democracy at home rather than attempting to stuff it down everyone's throat abroad.

Democracy vs. Oligarchy

One of the standard mantras of the Tea Party is that they are Constitutionalists and believe in the Founding Fathers. The irony of that is that the Founding Fathers argued out the issues of Federalism and ultimately passed on the Federal Constitution; yet Federalism seems to be exactly what the Tea Party cannot stand. They are actually "anti-Federalist" and if they had their choice we would still be governed by the Articles of Confederation.

Perhaps some Tea Partyers do accept the Federal Constitution but they wish that it had never changed or that we were still interpreting it as we did when 90% or more Americans were farmers living on small rural farms and a largish number of Americans still owned slaves, who were not counted as whole people for population totals. Of course, only land-owning men could vote in those days. Gee, it's sure sad that had to change! As is so often the case with issues raised by the Tea Party, there are certainly some changes from the 1790s that they would admire; it's those other changes that get them riled up. But they don't seem to realize that, if that's the case, they owe us some explanation of why certain changes are evil and others are fine.

I have been an idealist about American government as long as I can remember, and I have rather blindly believed that the Founding Fathers really did mean to create a government that was not only "of" the people but was also to be a government "by" the people and "for" the people (meaning in the interest of the people as a whole). However, as I have aged, I have begun to distrust the sincerity of some of our "fathers" and, in particular, I have grown to suspect that "for" really meant "in the interest of wealth and power." Certainly, when we examine the actual history of America, we have to admit that government has very often worked in favor of the rich and powerful against the interests of the lower and middle classes. In its most uncomfortable extremes this has been when we found it in "our interest" to go to war and young people were slaughtered on the battlefields in the name of something that looks an awful lot like the protection of big business interests.

Of course, we are great at maintaining that we are still a government "by" the people, meaning that we vote for those who represent us. America remains a democracy. But I find that unconvincing as well. Many of our Founding Fathers articulated the grounds on which democracy could truly work and very little of their vision remains today. Voting means making a choice of who will represent me. But "choice" means that I am informed about national issues and about the ideas that a person will represent. Today, the media seem to think they are for anything but real information, and candidates shower us with falsehoods about their opponents rather than telling us what they really think. Worse yet, there are candidate-choices that we will never see because they have neither the wealth nor the power to make it into competition. There is no real democracy in America today when voting fails to involve real informed choices.

Just a brief study of American politics in the last three decades makes it clear that what we are really engaged in is a war to the death of democracy and the Republican winner is going to be oligarchy, plane and simple --- the rule of wealth. Every time Republicans make a pledge to Americans this is what they are talking about. What I fail to understand is why so many Americans go along with this when it is absolutely contrary to their own self-interest and when they are the ones who will pay even their lives to the will of wealth.

What Is Government For?

Americans typically have four levels of government --- Federal, state, county/township, and local/city. I believe that the foundation of government in a democratic society is that government is the way in which the people "meet" in order to discuss and act upon issues of mutual concern and interest. Hence, local government is where people of the locality meet in order to discuss and act upon issues of concern in their locality. For example, when people in my city wanted to locate a sports complex for youth activities somewhere in city limits, we met through our local city council and other local government planning commissions to discuss options and hear arguments.

Since most of our communities are way too large to have purely democratic meetings of the whole, we "meet" through our various elected representatives. These representatives are elected periodically so that they must stand before us on their records of responsible action. If they do not act intelligently and responsibly on our community interests, we can and should remove them from their offices. While this mode of "meeting" is not always adequate and, in particular, may not represent my own point of view, it is the only practical way of proceeding. Since there are issues that require discussion and action, meeting is essential to our well being.

Now, government requires money in at least two ways. The operation of government requires money for facilities, salaries, etc. Secondly, government spends money on projects for the well being of the people --- sewage and trash removal, development and maintenance of infrastructure, enforcement of laws, fire protection, public education, community centers, etc. While fees may be charged for some things, most revenues come through taxation. Here lies the great irony of our age. People hate to be taxed yet they want trash taken away, want to drive on nice roads, and don't want home invasions. If you want the benefits of government --- which is to say the benefits of activities that we need and sanction --- you have to pay for it.

So now-a-days anyone will be welcomed onto a platform by screaming for lower taxes and less government. However, none of these people --- at least none that I have heard --- are willing to take the time to spell out what "less government" means to them or just how much taxation they are willing to bear in order to allow government to act.

Since most of this screaming is aimed at the Federal government, and since reducing Federal government means meeting and acting less on Federal issues, and since radically reducing Federal taxes means tying the hands of Federal government to act or even consider issues, the single question at stake today is whether or not there really is a need for people to "meet" on national issues or to act on national issues. That is the question: Are there national issues that require collective (Federal) attention? Another side of this question is whether or not there is, or should be, a national character.

In the present round of ultra-conservative and Tea Party activism, the implicit answer seems to be that there is no national character and there are very few legitimate national, or Federal, concerns. The practical result of this movement would be to hold up in our individual states and do pretty much whatever our fellow state-citizens want. Even if the Federal government has legitimate jurisdiction over a number of inter-state activities, its hands would be tied up completely by lack of funding. Perhaps the Southern states could even return to a culture of slavery.

Personally, none of this sounds very good to me. I believe in a national character and, hence, I believe there are quite legitimate national issues for which there are appropriate Federal activities. I do not want to see my Federal government crippled for lack of funds.

The Tea Party --- a chance to summarize

We often listen to the Diane Rehm show on Reno NPR while driving from Mammoth to Bishop and back. Yesterday, she interviewed three different people about the Tea Party "movement." [I put this in quotes because everyone denied that it is a movement but no one was quite sure what to call it.] Anyway, the interviews were quite good and made me realize that I should give some thought to organizing the scattered arguments that I've placed on my blog during the last few months. So here is an attempt at summary.

According to those interviewed, the Tea Party people are "fiscal and Constitutional conservatives" That is, they care most about having a small government that operates with a balanced budget [just like mom and pop] and they see this connected to a return to the "original Constitution." Supposedly they are not interested in social issues such as abortion, Gay rights, etc, but it seems clear that their position speaks to many social issues implicitly. They fly the flag of liberty and cry for reduction in taxes and restoration of personal choice. If there must be government, it should be at the state and local level where they feel that they have more say in matters. By all odds, the Federal government is seen as the big evil.

It is ironic that most of the Tea Partyers are probably the same 30% of the population who still approved of George Bush when he left office even though Bush was the one who busted the US budget, expanded Federal government, and appropriated tremendous presidential powers out of the hands of Congress and, yes, the democratic voice. Somehow, when Republicans do these things, it's OK. It was also Bush himself who was forced into bailing out the banks and the auto industry, yet another thing the Tea Partyers are angry about.

The tragedy in today's politics is that we have incredibly superficial dialogues. [Actually, I'm being overly generous to suggest that we have any dialogue at all. What we have is slogans shouted back and forth.] Politicians become favorites of the Tea Partyers by spitting their slogans back to them. So it's easy to write speeches. Just listen to the few words in the Tea Party vocabulary and throw them back at them. Watch Sarah Palin to see how this works. [Palin's single talent is knowing what the people like to hear and, I must say, she spits it back to them extremely well.]

What politics requires is a consideration of facts and a serious discussion of what we do about the facts. For instance, one of the undeniable facts of the present is the oil spill in the Gulf. It's amazing how many people want big, powerful Federal government when it comes to the oil spill. But when serious discussion indicates that this type of speculative and untested drilling should be postponed until we can get a better picture of what went wrong, the government is condemned for limiting the activities of corporations and threatening jobs. Is rational political discourse even possible in this country?

I want to summarize my political position in the following way. First, I am happy enough to return to our Constitution. It is a marvelous document and a sound foundation for our Federal government. One marvelous aspect of this document, evidently not subscribed to by the Tea Partyers, is its flexibility --- its ability to change with the times in a peaceful way without the need of revolutions in the streets. Contrary to the Constitution, the Tea Partyers are the ones in the streets.

One of the great expressions in the Constitution is its desire to promote the general welfare of the people. This is a wonderfully vague idea which can only be interpreted as time and conditions change. The strength of our Constitution lies in its ability to cope with new interpretations and, through its Supreme Court, to correct itself when things go wrong.

I believe, consistent with the philosophical basis of our founding political thinkers, that government is formed by the people. Indeed, government is the way in which the people gather to discuss and to solve their problems. In an ideal small democracy this would be literally the way things happen. We, on the other hand, are a very large nation of people and so we have to "gather" through an intricately constructed representative government. One of the huge fallacies in Tea Party thinking is that government is some dominating entity other than themselves. On the contrary, if we don't like government --- namely us --- we need to reform ourselves, which means doing a far better job of informing ourselves and then electing representatives who truly speak for us on the issues that are important. Only a well informed and educated public can make a democracy work. Our current problem is a general lack of truthful and clear information; instead, we have ridiculously simplistic propaganda and generally irrelevant "news". Meanwhile, education is eroded at every opportunity, fiscal, political, and spiritual.

It seems to me that the issue of distributing power between local, state, and Federal government is most reasonably decided by the scale of an issue before us. We should ask whether an issue is something that other people will care about and, hence, whether they will have reasonable opinions about it. If the issue is cross walks in town, it is unlikely that people outside the locality will care or have legitimate opinions. On the other hand, I do care and think that I have legitimate opinions about the treatment of African American people in this country no matter where they may live. That makes Civil Rights a Federal issue. Frankly, the more "global" we become, the more issues there are that we share on a national level and which therefore require us to meet through our Federal government.

The continual cry for small Federal government and reduction of taxes is completely vacuous unless the Tea Partyers are willing to take the whole thing apart issue by issue and demonstrate better ways of handling things. Let's take inspection and control of processed foods for example. Most processed foods are produced in specific regions of the country and then marketed all over. Can the Tea Partyers show that it would really be more cost effective and efficient to have these food products tested locally? I can't imagine the arguments. And I doubt very much that my local government would be at all interested in taking on this task. But if Federal government just gives up regulation of food production and distribution, how long will it take before we are eating rats in our sausage again?

This is just one issue. There are hundreds more. I'd be more impressed by the Tea Partyers if they would start addressing these and showing us how smaller government would really work. Unfortunately, in my opinion, they really just want their taxes lowered and they don't bother to think about the consequences, except when oil starts rolling onto their beaches and their shrimp smell like gasoline.

19th Century Political Economy

The History Channel was showing a documentary on American presidents the other day and I got to watch from about 1880 to 1910. I wonder how many people realize what life was like back in those days when the big industrialists owned the government, the police, and just about everything else. Yes, it was a wonderful world of "small government" and scarcely no regulations. Children were still working in factories; manufacturers supplied anything they could get away with; and only the rich few could attend a university and potentially become someone important.

If you haven't noticed, this is the world that we are returning to very fast.

Thought for the Day

Now that the second great depression has even threatened the European Union and has put millions of American out of work, I hope that the dirty bastards whose greed caused this epic in our economic history are proud of themselves. Unfortunately, they probably haven't time to even think about it because they are so enjoying their incredible wealth, earned as it was by f__king over the rest of the world. Ah, Capitalism. You've got to love it, don't you.

Oil

Since my discussion with LongShot seems to have ended, I think that I will step aside from political debates and comment, instead, on the current media frenzy associated with the oil catastrophe in the Gulf.

First the media spectacle. As usual, the media is all over this --- this side, that side, and the under-side. Poor dears, they love situations like this because they can just go at it 24/7 and it's really easy pickings.

Second the resentful environmentalists. Now, I don't mean to come down too hard on environmentalists (because I am one) but I can't stand environmental activists who just want to throw torches without really knowing what they are doing. So BP has another deep-water well (Atlantis) and I heard one hysterical environmental activist suggesting that BP should be forced to shut down that well. Of course, this person knows nothing about the possibilities inherent in shutting the well down. For instance, would BP be able to do that without causing the exit-pressure of gas and oil from blowing the top of the well? Just because we're peeved, doesn't mean we are well advised to call for action.

Third is the host of people who want Obama to personally take charge and let the army take over the operation. If the President and the army had been drilling for oil for the last decade and had successfully capped off numerous wells, that might be a reasonable suggestion; BUT that is not the case. While BP may be at fault in the present situation, there is little doubt that they have more expertise, more resources, and more motivation to get this under control. What our government needs to do is make sure that BP is totally responsible for the cleanup of this mess.

And finally the regulatory issue. Can you imagine what the Gulf would be like if oil companies were drilling all over the place without any form of national regulatory authority? Would local groups do much good in controlling things like this? The problem is not the principle of regulation but rather the fact that eight years of oil-owning presidency and vice-presidency created a situation in which there was no effective regulatory authority. Republican administrations do not typically remove regulations; they just make the regulatory agencies impotent either by taking away their funding or by staffing them with the same people they are trying to regulate.

The System

I have read and re-read the last two posts on my blog and there is little there that I would want to retract. What is needed is clarity --- definition.

What is interesting about the present political scene in the US is the remarkable tendency toward extremes. And what are these extremes? They are, as I've suggested, idealistic visions. And, as such, they are mostly so far away from the realities of our situation that they are largely meaningless. What I have been asking myself is who profits from this; hence, what is it that stabilizes this situation.

The answer, it seems to me, is very clear. It is "the system" that profits from this bizarre fighting among extreme positions. The more heat the better! That's because, the more heat is vented between the opposing extremes, the less anyone will seriously notice what really is at work in this country and, for that matter, the world. In point of fact, it is close to irrelevant who is president or what party is in office. Indeed, the more extreme the differences between parties and candidates, the better off the system is --- because the less we will take cognizance of who it actually is that wields power.

Liberals and conservatives, libertarians and anarchists, democrats and republicans, greens and independents would all be a lot better off if they would stop arguing among themselves and would start focusing on the larger system that controls the realities of their world. In my opinion, one does not need to look far. Just look at the very small number of people in the world who own the enormous majority of the world's wealth. Then, try to figure out how they are all tied together. That is "the system." In my opinion, politics is irrelevant; it is simply a way in which the system keeps us all tied into its own stability. So long as we think that we exercise some kind of control, the system is safe. It can continue to function underneath it all.

Libertarian and Conservative Talk

I think that I am finally getting a handle of sorts on the political debate with Conservatives and Libertarians. That handle is this. Conservatives and Libertarians are actually idealists of a kind and they are talking about something that is so far outside of the realities of our situation that meaning is hopelessly lost. The closest theoretical political ally in the last two centuries would be the Marxists. Marx himself was a blatant humanist idealist who could weave a fine tale about the uprising of the Proletariat and the resulting Communist society in which the state would literally wither away. But even when the revolution was finally carried into a real experiment, as we all know, the reality was far different from the idealistic fantasy.

The fact is that societies change over a very long time scale and rarely, if ever, change dramatically because of an ideal destiny. Marx was probably correct in suggesting that society changes because of the "material conditions" and so long as the material conditions remain more-or-less the same our society will continue on its course. That is not a particularly happy course. I am probably no more happy with the present station of government than are Conservatives or Libertarians.

The material conditions of our society have been, for some time, something that might fairly be called "corporate feudalism." In classic feudalism, government was in the hands of the church and monarchy. Beneath them were arrayed a small host of land-owning nobles and a very tiny merchant class. By far the great horde of people were serfs who lived and worked on land owned by the nobles and paid most of their productivity to the nobles in rent. Today, the plight of most people is no different except that corporations have replaced the nobles. A representative government has replaced the monarchy while church and state have supposedly been separated (though it's hard to convince yourself of that at times). As in classic feudal times, very few individual people actually own very much; the great majority of wealth lies in the hands of corporations to whom we all pay rent (though we may like to call these "mortgages" etc.).

Over the last several decades there have been some interesting changes in the material conditions of our society and I believe that these foretell more about our future than any of the idealistic scrabbling. Corporations have become international in a massive movement we endearingly call "globalization." What is cloaked behind the scenes of globalization is the fact that corporations are no longer responsible (or responsive) to any particular society. Hence, what will the so-called nation state hold in its future? Corporations are already arranging for their own military security and they can hide their wealth in any out-of-the-way place in the world.

In reality, it seems to me, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, and Anarchists are caught up in a self-destructive fight against each other over something that is quietly fading from view --- civil society in its ideal form. When global corporations rule the roost, none of us will have much to say about the future.

The Problem with Language

The basic problem with language is reference. Nouns, in particular, are supposed to have reference to definite things --- real entities, relations among entities, sensations, ideas, etc. But when we use language do we always know that a reference point exists? Unfortunately, something that philosophers have demonstrated well, we can use nouns as though they have reference, when they don't, and hence make entirely vacuous statements.

I went to Sheldon Richman's article on the BP spill (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/bp-spill/). I found myself in agreement with much of what he said. It is more than clear that corporations and other business interests are thoroughly involved in government --- everything from heavy duty lobbying to staffing crucial government agencies with their own. The US has a long (and sad) history of foreign policy (especially in the Americas) based on supporting corporate interests abroad. It is fairly clear that government spends more time protecting the property interests of corporations than of private individuals. To me, however, that is a fact of the corruption of government and not a reason for abandoning government as such. Unfortunately, with its recent decision, the Supreme Court has managed to make corporations even more powerful in their influence over government.

What interested me, in Richman's article, is the argument for an ideal "free market." Clearly, with all of this government protection (regulation and oversight, when it exists), there is no free market economy in the United States. But that makes it very difficult to argue (as Richman apparently wants to do) that free markets would be the salvation for all these problems. "Free market" has no reference; there isn't such a thing, nor has there been such a thing in centuries. It is not enough to merely call it by name as if it has reference or meaning. One needs a thorough description that would tell us actually how such a thing would work.

Short of that, we are stuck with government protection and regulation. The problem, really, is when government doesn't tend to its proper role --- appoints oil-industry people to serve on oil-industry regulatory boards and agencies, encourages agents to (literally) sleep with oil industry people, cuts off funding for regulatory and oversight activities, and turns to look in the opposite direction. (Remember back in the first year of the Bush/Cheney administration when Cheney met with his "energy team"!!!)

I do not think the problem is government oversight. I think the problem is bad, corrupt government that throws oversight out the window.

It seems clear that LongShot and I will never agree on basic issues facing our government, especially on the role of government in present society. However, the conversation has carried us into greater understanding, I think, and that's probably all to the good.

In my view, civil society is formed through the institution of government and that government is the way in which people try to achieve their common interests. The origin of government is by unanimous consent but all other government acts after that are ruled by majority. One of the good things about our Constitution is that we have built in safe guards to protect minorities from certain abuses by majority rule. However, if the majority seeks action on a common interest and the action does not violate the protected rights of minority individuals, majority rules. As we've discussed, the moment of "unanimous consent" is long past and, instead, we grow up in this civil society, making our own commitment to it when we come of age.

LongShot refers to many of today's government activities as "extracurricular." However, in our founding documents we create government not only to protect life and liberty but also to pursue happiness or seek the general welfare. Hence, the majority has a perfect right to act collectively through government to promote these things. Going back to the issue of education, if the majority believes that good citizenship is promoted by educating the young, then it has the right to act collectively to promote education. Are rights of the minority violated in this? Not that I can see. Civil society provides for education but does not prohibit privately organized forms of education.

Now, LongShot claims that "the true business of government is force" or violence. And it is true that civil society acts with force. If the majority of citizens believe that government should be supported by collecting taxes, then taxes are collected by force if necessary. If government did not have the power of force, it would simply dissolve. Again, however, government does not have the power to force individuals where their rights are protected. We have rights of assembly, speech, association, worship (or not), etc. without forceful interference by government.

I think that where we definitely disagree is over LongShot's assertion that government's power is only for defense or for our protection. In my reading, government has power to act so long as it is duly enacted as a common interest, even if by a bare majority, and so long as its act does not violate any protected rights. It is fully within its rights to create an Interstate highway but, at the same time, prohibit people from driving faster than 70 mile per hour.

What is really behind the Conservative's need to limit government?

As LongShot suggests in his recent post on this topic, drawing the line on what government should and should not do is tough so he thinks the best idea is to limit government to a defense institution and forget the rest. That seems to be a common Conservative position. And those Conservatives who acknowledge the benefits of some government programs cover this by asserting, as LongShot does, that the rest can be accomplished by the underlying society without government's help.

This is an easy stand to take, I think, but it seems completely naive if we are really serious about doing these things on our own. My bet, in fact, is that most Conservatives never intend to actually do these other things through the underlying society and think they'd be happy enough without them. (But I'll leave that aside for the moment.) What strikes me as naive in this position is that there seems to be no realistic consideration of how much time and money it would take to organize all of these programs on a local level. In contrast, the national government offers an economy-of-scale because millions of people pay for it through their taxes and many people devote full time to thinking through what kinds of programs are needed. Have Conservatives considered what the cost to them would be if they ventured to create similar institutions locally on their own?

As we speak, FEMA is bringing aid to people who are victims of flooding in Nashville. All of us are helping to pay for this and it has been organized well in advance. Is the Conservative solution to just say, "Tough luck, Tennessee; you'll have to raise the money yourselves with bake sales"? I think that there's something fundamentally dishonest in the Conservative argument.

One of the interesting things about LongShot's most recent comment is (in his last two paragraphs) that he asks whether it is always right to obey the laws of the land.

First, I think (if I understand the reference to Kleinman and Frank) that Kleinman was living in the Netherlands which was occupied by Germany. Hence, he disobeyed laws imposed by a conquering power, not by his own government. But I may be wrong about that.

Second, (and more to the point) Locke makes it clear that a government can overstep its authority and, in effect, become a rebel against the contract itself. As Locke saw it, this automatically dissolved the contract and freed citizens to do as they must. There was good reason for Locke to argue this because at that very time England was preparing to depose James II and to invite William of Orange to assume leadership of England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution.

What is unique in our own Constitution is that it recognizes the possibility that government will overstep its authority but, at the same time, institutionalizes rebellion. That is, it gives the Supreme Court authority to judge that a law is unconstitutional and, hence, to check the power of the legislature or of the administration. The whole system of checks-and-balances is devised to prevent a situation in which the government becomes so far off course that citizens are compelled to disobey.

When we feel that government has overstepped its authority in some significant way, we can disobey (civil disobedience) and hope that our case passes through the various stages of the justice system up to the Supreme Court, where government itself is on trial as much as the disobedient person. That's rather idealistic and it makes one regret that appointments to the Supreme Court have become so political because, unfortunately, the Court (depending on its current makeup) is now likely to support a particular party rather than the Constitution itself.

At any rate, no matter how our Constitution suggests that "systematic rebellion" is possible, it always remains possible that the system could become so corrupt and abusive of our rights and interests that actual rebellion (in terms of disobedience, etc.) was necessary.

I want to return here to the issue of our government's proper scope, conceived of as securing our rights. It is way too easy to imagine this obligation as merely protecting us from foreign powers or direct assaults by our neighbors. Having departed long ago from a thoroughly agrarian economy, we have become extremely diverse in our interests and actions. As a consequence, the ways in which one of our own can affect us negatively have multiplied in subtle ways. The current situation in the Gulf is a good example. The pursuit of wealth by certain individuals has resulted in pollution of Gulf Coastal waters and may destroy both commercial and recreational opportunities in several states. Do people "have a right" to clean coastal waters in which they can fish for shrimp etc? To what degree should government be involved in arbitrating the rights and privileges in a situation like this? And, more importantly, to what degree should government have foresight regarding situations like this and produce laws that may help to prevent situations where rights are violated?

I guess that what I am saying is that, the more complex life becomes in the underlying society, the more complex acts of government have to become in order to foresee and prevent disastrous situations where individuals intrude upon others.

Some time back, earlier in April, I wrote a piece asking exactly what it is that Conservatives want. What we have in our country is neither pure Capitalism nor pure Socialism but a mix of some kind. Maybe we should call it a socially tempered Capitalism. LongShot, of Pennsylvania, responded with some comments and a discussion ensued.

I've had some time to reflect on that discussion and I have to confess that I am surprised by where it went. My original question assumed that Conservatives want to work within the system of government to achieve their ends, even if I do not know what those ends are. On the other hand, LongShot seems to object to government and wants to argue for some legitimate way to opt out. While I know that Conservatives are a diverse group, LongShot's position seems awfully similar to what I seem to be hearing from people in the Tea Party Movement and, for that matter, from Sarah Palin. I will try to address the issue of opting out, but I have a feeling that it will not satisfy anyone.

Much of the discussion revolved around Social Contract Theory and that was probably a mistake. This classic political theory is fine for treating the origins of government as we know it in the Modern Era, but we are all born into nation states, today, involving quite different problems and issues. The real question being discussed here is "political obligation," that is, why any citizen should feel obligated to continue obedience or participation in the nation of his/her birth. There are many interesting philosophical approaches to this issue in contemporary thinking --- John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" being one of the most important. I want to examine a more pragmatic approach.

The contemporary situation is that almost all of us are born into a nation state --- unlike, say, Afganistan where the country is really divided up into tribal regions dominated by coercive war lords. The pragmatic issue is that, while no one asks to be born in any particular place, no newly born individual has the intelligence or power to do anything about it. Therefore, it is a pragmatic truth that each person is raised by the society in which he/she was born up to some point where the obligation/obedience issue can surface. We formalize that coming-of-age at roughly 18 or 21 years but it doesn't really matter when we say it occurs. The issue is that, when one has come-of-age, a political choice must be made; that becomes one's personal experience of the Social Contract. In a pragmatic sense, one's personal contract is either to accept the resources within which you have grown up and been nurtured or to reject them and seek political company elsewhere. (During the Vietnam fiasco many young men decided that Canada was a better place to live and they backed up their decision with their feet.) The pragmatic issue of "political choice" rests on a simple truth, it seems to me; you cannot take advantage of the benefits of a political society unless you are willing to perform the responsibilities attached to that society. What I seem to hear today is a largish number of people who don't want to pay taxes and who don't want to be controlled by government regulations but, at the same time, don't mind living in the country and enjoying its many advantages. But there are only three paths open to people of this persuasion (in my opinion).

1) Leave the country and find one that suits you better.

2) Work within the political system of the country to make it more to your liking.

3) Engage in revolution to overthrow the government, hoping to form a new sovereign nation state. [I seem to hear more and more of this sentiment, these days, and the irony attached to this is that it's closest relative seems to be the Communist revolution predicted by Marx in which "the state will wither away." But this seems precisely what these people would not like to be associated with!]

So, I guess that what I would like in the way of an explanation is why people of this sympathy feel that they can take advantage of the benefits and resources of our country and still not be responsible to obey it. In my opinion, the argument that the government is violating their rights will not work. If indeed their rights are being violated, this can be pursued through the system's legal channels where rights are protected. Meanwhile, they owe obedience to the country that has nurtured them.

The Discussion Continues (again)

As a preliminary to this post, I have to confess that I am going to disappear from the Blogosphere for several days while I transplant myself from 8000 feet in the Sierras to 1200 feet in Claremont (my home town) --- from winter back to spring. I'll be back some time early next week.

It seems to me that I hear a common thread of complaint among Conservatives and also in the posts authored by my friend in Pennsylvania, LongShot. Federal government has grown oppressively large and threatens (if not violates) our individual rights. Personally, I dislike many things that the government does but I do not experience them as violations of my rights. One of the geniuses of our Constitution is that it creates a government that is correctable without revolution, that is, it institutionalizes ways in which our government (including the Constitution itself) can be changed. My preference, then, is to continue to work within the system rather than destroying the system, which seems to be the advertised goal of many extreme factions today.

This brings me to the last two paragraphs in LongShot's most recent post. He reminds us that entering into the Social Contract is voluntary and asserts that individuals can opt out of the Contract if they choose to do so. This is an issue that takes up hours of discussion in the typical college classroom. The people who voluntarily created our Social Contract are long dead --- long, long dead. What's more, when I was born, no one ever asked me if I would agree to give up my sovereignty over my own body. So classical political theory must take up issues like Paternal Power to deal with the whole period of when a child is growing into maturity and then must take up various concepts of "coming of age" when a child-turned-man (or woman) accepts the burden of our Social Contract. For me, the most visible signs of this were getting a driver's license and then registering for the draft (at age 18). The latter made evident Hobbes' assertion that there is no political power without the power of death. That is, when I registered for the draft, it was true that the government could take my life if it wished. And every year, I had to inform my draft board of my current activities in school or in my profession. The truth of that political power was visited on an entire generation during the Vietnam War and we all know what came of that.

Classical Social Contract theory asserts that we all give our consent even though we may do it in subtle ways. As for withdrawing our consent, that is tough to do if you try to remain in the same place. It's easy to do if you are willing to leave and settle your lot someplace else. Of course, in the present state of the world, there are few places that do not involve government of some kind. Social Contract theory simply doesn't allow for an individual to withdraw his/her consent and remain in place among the vast majority who consent. At this point, one might recall Socrates who consents to his imprisonment and execution via hemlock because he has profited, all his life, from the benefits of the polis in which he has lived. You cannot accept the benefits unless you are willing to play the whole game.

I think it is important to recognize that we do not live in a "natural world." We live in a "social world" among the creations of our civil society as well as those of individuals in the underlying society. We owe some obligations to all of this. In order to be completely sovereign individuals, we would have to withdraw from this world and our obligations to it. Obviously, there are some small groups that try to do this, but not many can. And why would they?

Discussion Continued

We may have some disagreement over the composition of our natural, unalienable rights. LongShot tends to limit the role of government to "protect[ing] us from the criminals and foreign attack." However, in the Declaration of Independence, our unalienable rights are described as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." By the time the Constitution was framed, the goals of government were described as " to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." The expansion of government interests and activities beyond mere defense and protection from criminals rests on the concepts of "pursuit of happiness" and "promot[ing] the general welfare."

Since these expressions are deployed in our fundamental documents of "social contract," no one can argue that the government is not authorized to pursue these goals. It can be argued, of course, that not everyone will profit from any particular act attempting to promote the general welfare. But as early as John Locke, there is a strong argument for majority will in government acts, and our own procedures obviously lean toward the majority or some "super majority."

Before moving on, it is also important to remember that our Bill of Rights explicates specific rights of individuals so that we can make sure that acts of the majority cannot infringe upon rights of individuals. We also have a justice system that can carry us all the way to the Supreme Court where acts of the government can be declared unconstitutional. The government in the mode of acting for the general welfare must be careful not to trod on the rights of a minority or an individual.

Finally, then, I want to return to the issue of public education. Only a decade or so after the creation of our government, it was argued that public education should be provided so that every individual citizen can really pursue his/her happiness in life and contribute to the general welfare by achieving a level of intelligence worthy of a democratic society. This does not strip the underlying society of its right to create educational opportunities, including "home schooling." But it is taken seriously enough that it sees the creation of minimal standards to which students have a right as justified. In my mind, there is nothing in this that infinges on other people's rights, as LongShot asserts. In particular, no one is obligated to become a teacher. Indeed, if no one were willing to be a teacher, the system of offering public education would simply fail. [One of the interesting aspects of this issue is that government has taken the issue as one of protecting the child's right to an education so that it has held, on occasion, that parents do not have the right to prevent a child from being educated. If a parent does not want a child to attend public school, he/she must provide an acceptable alternative.]

Here is another response to LongShot who commented on my previous post. Glad that we're having this discussion, but is anyone else listening? Maybe it doesn't matter.

We use the expression "civil society" differently and that may have caused some confusion in our discussion. In classical political theory (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) we enter into a "civil society" by creating a "social contract" in which we create institutionalized government. And in that creation, we agree to give up certain rights (like the right to defend ourselves by bringing individuals to justice ourselves) in exchange for certain protections and real freedoms. In this theory, citizens act through their government in order to solve their common problems and achieve their common good. That leaves a large area of problems and actions that lack commonality and that individuals are free to pursue as they wish. They may do this by acting as individuals or by creating small institutions through which they hope to achieve their goals. This is the realm that LongShot calls "civil society." I am going to call it the "underlying society" which is how we get together to act without working through our government.

If we begin by dropping out of consideration the complex of civil societies in which we actually participate and only consider one national society/government, then we have to ask what problems belong rightfully to civil society and what problems are left to what I call the underlying society. We tend to think of ourselves entering into civil society in order to protect our "natural rights" --- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If other governments or other people act in ways that threaten my rights, I can expect my government to protect me. Here, then, is the first big question. How does government prepare itself to protect my rights?

In order to act at all, government has to become institutionalized --- manned and funded. Modern states have separated the powers of legislation, administration, and justice. This requires people who represent our interests in all three spheres as well as staff who help to carry out government activity --- lots of money to pay these people to do what we need them to do. National government is way too expensive to manage via bake sales or car washes; taxation is inevitable (I believe).

LongShot identifies with Locke's political theory and yet he asserts that "the bigger the government, the smaller the individual." Locke himself argued in The Second Treatise that freedom to do whatever one lists is not true freedom and that, indeed, real freedom is only achieved within civil society. We give up some of our illusory freedom in order to obtain freedom of more tangible kinds. Certainly, government can try to go too far in determining our lives but wherever the line is drawn requires a thorough discussion of our natural rights and how they are best protected. It is not, I would argue, a simple matter of reducing government to a minimum.

Is government a desirable way to create what we now love to call "infrastructure"? LongShot seems to agree that it is. But how is that justified in terms of natural rights? I would argue it comes from the "pursuit of happiness" principle? We have a common interest in infrastructure because it helps us to pursue happy lives. One of the bigger issues here is public education, which arose already in Jefferson's administration --- the idea that every citizen must have the right to be educated and therein to become an intelligent citizen of our society. The underlying society can still arrange to create educational institutions (Catholic schools, for instance) to advance their own ends, but the government still protects the fundamental right of each child to receive an education. Hence, public schools are provided for.

There are a lot of issues left for debate --- civil rights, unions and collective bargaining, etc. --- but I need to end here. I would say that I have never regretted paying taxes, though I have often regretted the ways in which my government has spent our collective money. There are two major reasons why the US is close to bankruptcy today --- pursuit of an unjustifiable war in Iraq and failure to secure oversight and regulation in the nation's financial institutions. When we object to how our government behaves, we need to correct its behavior as effectively as we can, not destroy it. I voted for Obama because I subscribe to most of his ideas and because I believe that Republicans are terrible governors. [Why are Republicans such poor governors? Precisely, I believe, because they don't really believe in government.]

This post is a response to "LongShot" who has the honor of being the first person to ever comment on one of my blogs. (See comments section on my previous posting.) I also want to thank LongShot for taking the time to articulate his political position.

I would, of course, agree that people who enter into a "civil society" do so in order "to manage their own [collective] affairs." Political theory normally sees this happening with the creation of a constitution or government of some kind. That is the principal "institution" formed "to solve the problems we face." The value of a well-constituted government is that it becomes an institution through which the people continually "meet" to discuss and solve their problems. You don't have to continually create new institutions.

As we all know, our society has created a manifold of supposedly cooperative governments --- city, county, state, and federal. The purpose (theoretically) is to distribute problems and actions according to their scope --- local to national. If a pot-hole needs the be fixed, I call on my city government. If interstate commerce needs regulation, I call on the federal government.

I don't think we are in disagreement here, though the big question remaining is whether this organization works well. I'm glad that LongShot is satisfied with his local government. I can't say the same for mine. Of course, my federal congressman is David Dreier and I can't say that I have ever been satisfied with him either, nor does he represent my interests.

As we get into LongShot's proposals, something becomes more clear and I'm wondering if this isn't the crux of much of the current argument. LongShot suggests an extreme vision of currency and financial "reform" as well as termination of a wide variety of federal programs --- education, agriculture regulation, social security, medicare, you name it. BUT he immediately implies that these same functions can be dealt with in other ways. HENCE, it is not that the causes are unworthy, apparently; it is just that he does not want the federal government involved.

So here is what I conclude. LongShot does not object to civil society, i.e. government of some kind and at some level, dealing with our problems. He simply does not want a federal government. Perhaps that's too extreme. I guess that he wants a federal government that concerns itself ONLY with whatever passes across our national borders --- tariffs, defense, etc.

If all of our other personal problems and needs are handled by state and local governments, there is very little left, I would say, to calling myself an "American." In fact, LongShot would be a Pennsylvanian and I would be a Californian, meaning that most things that shape my life are involved in how the civil society of California decides to come up with solutions. I suppose that one of the advantages in this political solution would be that we would have massive migrations of people into Massachusetts where there is state-run health care or into Wisconsin where the dairy industry has long been protected to the degree of prohibiting importation of colored margarine. Pick your state!

Let me know if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that what we are debating is exactly what the Federalist Papers were written for. The issue, ultimately, is whether we shape a national character or whether we simply plow ahead as individual states. In certain ways, that is what the Civil War was fought over.

I am really tired of hearing people rant and rave that Obama is a "socialist." Socialism is a form of economy in which the means of production are owned by the public or the government. Capitalism is a form of economy in which the means of production are owned by private individuals. It is obvious that the United States subscribes to the latter form of economy far more closely than the former. Recent bailouts because of dire economic conditions do not come close to government ownership of the means of production.

It would seem, then, that the ranting and raving is all precipitated by the very marginal tendency in our country toward public control of Capitalism. Here, it seems to me, there is nothing new going on in the Obama administration --- not even in the last half century. It has long been clear that public intervention is necessary in order to maintain a reasonable balance between Capitalism and the public welfare. Too bad! Wouldn't it be nice if private owners of the means of production would protect their workers with safe operations, adequate reimbursement for their labor, and old-age security for those who have served well. But they don't. The instinct of Capitalism is to make money and, unfortunately, has little to do with serving the wider community.

Consider coal mining in West Virginia. Pure Capitalism? No. Fortunately, The public has asserted that certain safety standards must be upheld and government agencies inspect mines to assure that safety standards are in place. Even then, we have a situation where some private owners refuse to comply and disasters occur. How much worse would it be if private owners were simply allowed to be "self-governing?" In its pure form, Capitalism does not provide any incentive for protection of the worker or for the public welfare. Since the 19th Century, the United States has worked toward a modified version of Capitalism designed to promote social justice. Is this Socialism? No. It is a necessary attempt to make our Constitution work by promoting the General Welfare and still allowing private entrepreneurship.

Do Conservatives today really want to live in a world of pure Capitalism? Do they really want to eliminate governments and promote anarchy? What really do they want? I would very much like to hear some of our Conservative authors tell us exactly what it is that they really want --- not the vague familiar "less government" or "lower taxes" but actual programs or laissez faire "freedoms."

Personally, I like eating food that I know with some confidence is healthy. I like driving on efficient Interstate highways. I like feeling that children can go to public schools and be educated rather than being forced into factories to support starving families. Do Conservatives really believe that these things are possible without government?

Bankrupting Government

It seems that one of the chief aims of hard-line conservatives, these days, is to completely bankrupt government. What used to be "no more taxes" seems to have become "no taxes at all." Yet what would actually happen if government stopped collecting taxes? Where do these people think that money goes?!

It seems to me that the time has come for Tea Baggers and other conservatives to tell us what they are willing to let governments spend their money on and what they object to. Shall we have interstate highways that are safe to drive on? Shall we have inspection of food processing plants in order to maintain the health of our foods? Shall we have Federal agents to patrol our borders? These are all supported by our tax dollars so what are we going to give up and how do we draw the lines? It's easy to scream about taxes but it's a whole lot more difficult to take the time to think it over and decide what you want.

Come on gang!

Why is health care a problem that needs repair?

Health care is a business. It includes giant pharmaceutical companies that develop and market drugs, large hospitals that employ thousands of professional staff and house costly equipment, long-term care facilities, and physicians working as individuals or in group practices. Costs of investment and development have to be covered, payrolls have to be met, and profits have to be made. All of this is understandable. The problem, however, is that the cost of health care has escalated to the point that normal people cannot pay for it. For example, several years ago, my wife had to go to an emergency room and spent about twelve hours in the hospital. The cost was $13,000. How many people in America can afford to pay out $13,000 for something other than food, clothing, transportation, and shelter?

The solution to health care is insurance. An insurance agency collects a certain amount from an individual within a year and gambles that it will be able to pay all the medical bills for which it is liable. After all, not all people will need expensive health care in a given period of time. Unfortunately, the health insurance business is yet another ring in the total business complex that dominates health care and, in this case, it seems purely motivated as a profit-taking activity with no real interest in health or general welfare. The health insurance business is, in effect, an enormous gambling casino.

Insurance companies have several strategies for maximizing profits and minimizing costs. First, they can charge increasing amounts for their coverage. Second, they can restrict their coverage liability. Third, they can deny claims. Virtually all of them exercise all three options.

The American public faces three options in health care. First, the system can be allowed to continue freely, and it looks like the end result of that would be health care for the fortunate few who are able to pay. The rest must suffer and, ultimately, die. Second, the health care industry could regulate itself so as to offer care to everyone who needs it. It would be absolutely astonishing if that were to happen. Hence, third, under the general concept of controlling utilities, the health care industry could be regulated. Between the three options, this is the only option that could offer Americans real welfare. When we look around the world, we find every other First World country in possession of a well regulated health care system. What prevents that from realization in America is the greed of those who dominate our system today, the very corporations and individuals who own Congress and have bought enough votes to prevent any real change.

Most Americans consider Capitalism to be the core of their society. They frequently confuse Capitalism with democracy because they also consider themselves a democratic society. They are not the same, of course.

Capitalism is an organization of economy in a society; that is, it is a way in which the people meet all of the needs for survival, indeed, more hopefully for their general welfare. Capitalism assumes private ownership of real property, which can be used for production of goods. This could be land, which can be used to grow crops; but it can also be machinery, which can be used to manufacture consumer goods. Typically, in a modern Capitalist society, only a small percent of the people are fortunate enough to own real property of this kind. Other people, indeed the majority of people, must exchange their labor with the Capitalists for the benefit of wages.

Jeffersonian democracy was considered to be harmonious with Capitalism because agricultural land was the principal form of real property and the great majority of citizens were land owners. [Saying this somewhat ignores the fact that citizenship belonged to land holders and that even early American economy was already becoming industrialized, especially in the North.] The concept was that the majority of citizens would share common interests and be able to function effectively as a democracy. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee the social revolution that would unfold in the 19th Century. Putting it very simplistically, population rapidly out-stripped the availability of agricultural land so that the majority of Americans became wage-laborers living in cities rather than becoming landed democrats. From 1900 to 2000, farm population fell from about 80% of Americans to less than 1% (so insignificant that the Bureau of Census ceased keeping records). This means that a great majority of Americans have no stake in real property or the Capitalist system except for being wage laborers.

The classic analysis of Capitalism is Marx's, and the classic proposition is that Capitalists will always strive to make as much money as possible by selling their products at as high a price as possible and paying for the resources of production as little as possible. Since one of the chief resources of production is labor, this implies that Capitalists will always pay as little as possible for labor. Marx added to his analysis the fact that Capitalists use their productive capacity to create new real property which can expand their ability to produce, and he called this "alienated labor" because it is something produced by the labor force but not owned by them. Hence, in Marx's view, the Capitalist class becomes always increasingly powerful while the laboring class becomes increasingly poor, indeed, becoming what he called the Proletariat. Since wealth can quickly acquire political power, democracy has faded into oligarchy, the rule of wealth.

Marx, of course, believed that the Proletariat would eventually revolt and bring about a utopian society. In America, in spite of tremendous oppression of laborers in the late 19th Century, often enforced by police and militias, an ingenious system of Imperialism successfully elevated the working class into a comfortable MIddle Class. The system was based on importation of resources from what became called the Third World. Since resources abroad could be bought at extremely low prices, Capitalists could afford to provide better wages to people back home. In effect, as Lenin pointed out, American and other First World economies were able to guard against rebellion by exporting the proletarian condition to the Third World. All of this was achieved through the international operation of government, applied in the interest of American business. A key tool in this operation was the stabilization of regimes in Third World countries that would sympathetically cooperate with development of resources and provision of cheep labor.

What is the situation today? Colonialism and Imperialism began to collapse after the Second World War. Interestingly enough, Marx's predictions of rebellion against the Capitalists turned true enough in the Third World where there was a genuine proletariat. This, of course, lead to the American panic that Communism was taking over the world. Indeed, many of the factions fighting for the proletariat in Central and South America are Communist. All of this has, needless to say, put a lot of pressure on American business operations around the world.

In certain respects, the solution to the collapse of raw Imperialism is what we now call "globalization." By developing property outside of America in the former Third World, Capitalists can achieve a new system of production. Wage labor in other countries can be increased comfortably above Imperialist levels, hence, satisfying local communities; yet wages are well under those demanded by laborers in America and resource costs remain low. As a consequence of globalization, America's productive capacity is moving off-shore and there are fewer employment opportunities for Americans at home. Worse yet, America is allowing itself to become dependent upon the rest of the world for manufacture of important goods. In America, the Middle Class is disappearing and will continue to disappear. If you want to take Marx literally, you have to ask how long this can continue before there is a well-defined Proletariat in America that can do nothing but rebel in order to salvage a minimal standard of life.

But our future is not my point. My point is the relationship between Capitalism and government, or would-be democracy. That America is now an oligarchy should be obvious. It takes millions of dollars to run a successful campaign for political office. The recent Supreme Court decision to legitimize corporate spending in political campaigns will soon make this situation even worse. Americans naively continue to believe in their democracy because, after all, they continue to have the right of voting. But what is the right to vote when the choices offered voters are thoroughly orchestrated by corporate wealth. In 2008 Americans voted for Obama with the hope that he would effect numerous reforms. But examine just the issue of health care reform. Obama alone has little or no power. Real power is vested in Congress, and Congress is dominated by lobbyists from all the major corporate interests, in this case, insurance carriers and the medical profession. This is no democracy. It is, in fact, the wealthy who determine our future under the plan of protecting and enhancing their own wealth.

Conservatives, today, seem to believe, as they always have, that good business sense is the best (and only) tonic for democracy. Government should promote and protect business. Property-poor people are unfortunate but have basically not worked hard enough to acquire wealth. Their situation, in other words, is their own fault. This situation is a natural product of human nature and government should not be used to change that which is natural. What we have to ask is whether this point of view can be applied to our national politics consistently and whether it will lead to the kind of stable society envisioned by our Constitution. In particular, will this society achieve the "general welfare" of all people?

The answer, it seems to me, is a loud "no" unless Conservatives can tell us what is wrong with the account of Capitalism above and, hence, how a Capitalist society is actually able to promote the general welfare of all. Liberals, I believe, must argue that government (indeed, strong Federal government) is required in order to achieve these ends.

Instead of conservatives and liberals continuing to hack away at each other, it would be interesting to see the dialog move to a more constructive level. Namely, what is it, really, that we would like to see as a vision of our society and what role should government play in realizing that vision.

I think that liberals have a pretty consistent vision of what our society should be like. It begins with an idea of community in which people care about one another. Thus, children should have the benefits of good nutrition, healthy surroundings, and education. They should not have to go to work in factories in order to support their struggling families. Older citizens should not be dropped into a human dustbin just because they are no longer valuable to industry. So there should be ways in which they can live out their lives honorably and in some comfort. People in the middle should have some voice in their destiny, meaning that they should not simply live as victims to a wealthy aristocracy that treats them as a primitive "labor force." While wealth will never be distributed equitably, it should not be distributed so inequitably that the majority of people in our community live in poverty with little or no expectation of being able to better their condition.

Liberals have historically seen the Federal government as an avenue to achieving their visions because State governments are often dominated by conservative factions that do not agree. Hence, the tension between Federal and State concepts of governance revolves around these visions. [Having grown up in a suburb of Chicago, I can attest to this. The majority of people lived in the greater Chicago area, but politics was effectively dominated by the rural population of the state. As a result, the majority of people in Illinois needed the Federal government to produce programs suitable to their social needs.] Hence, liberals take literally the goals expressed in our Constitution --- especially the "general welfare" and the "blessings of liberty" --- and seek to secure these through Federal action. One way or another, government is necessary to achievement of liberal values since history makes it clear that liberal values are ignored by oligarchic and aristocratic societies.

Liberals also believe that business should be regulated so as to protect consumers. The Interstate Commerce clause gives the Federal government the power to do this. Regulation should not be abusive or lead to harassment. But people ought to know what is in the food they eat, ought to know that a car they buy is safe, ought to know that a toy they purchase won't endanger the life of their child, and ought to know that maintenance of the airplane they board is held up to a standard for safe flying.

Now, I will leave it for you to fill me in on the conservative vision of what our society should be like. Because it seems to me that it would not include child-labor laws, would rely on private education for the fortunate few, would care less for how the majority of children are raised, would certainly not allow unions and collective bargaining, indeed would probably prefer to see police forces used to beat up rebellious laborers (like in the 19th Century), and would prefer to see older citizens dying of health issues they couldn't possibly afford to deal with and otherwise put up in "poor houses" with minimal care and nutrition. What boggles my mind is that the people who benefit from this remarkable vision are something like 5% of the population who are well enough disposed with personal fortunes to actually live happily in such a society. Yet, when you look at the breakdown of liberal vs. conservative politics in this country, that 5% is joined by another 45% of the population that has nothing to gain by such an attitude and everything to lose. I'd appreciate it if you can explain that to me as well.

Personally, I paid into Social Security all my life and I am unblushing about receiving my SS check each month. Medicare is a fine benefit for older people and about $2500/year is deducted from my SS benefit for my Medicare coverage. Between my Blue Cross supplemental and prescription insurance and my Medicare I pay about $5000/year for health care. It's not like I'm on the dole!

Seriously, I'd like to know what you think the conservative vision is --- and how effectively that would play out.

What is it that "Conservatives" want to conserve? It is a suspiciously strange name for a political movement. I say that because it seems to me that everyone wants to conserve something. So "Conservativism" really doesn't distinguish any particular group. For example, I assume that liberals want to conserve liberal values. Members of the Green Party want to conserve certain environmental values.

The fact is that only certain people do call themselves "Conservatives." But who are these people and what are they trying to conserve? Sometimes it seems to me that they merely want to dig their feet into the ground and resist change of any kind. Conserve the status quo. If that's true, it's a very negative political movement and quite ill defined since "the status quo" is always something different.

In recent times, conservative Republicans have rather successfully convinced the nation that they are the ones who want to conserve moral values. Evidently, in their minds, Liberals have no moral values and only want to destroy theirs. I don't understand how they have gotten away with this farce, nor do I understand why Liberals are so shy about expressing their positive values, values which they have tried to defend and conserve for the last forty years in the face of constant Republican attack.

I believe that the present status of Homeland Security issues bears a significant lesson for faculty and administrators of Harvey Mudd College. To be exact, Americans tend to rely on technological fixes for everything. The question that looms in our minds is what new technologies can be brought to bear against terrorists who may now be hiding explosives in their underwear. Solution --- subject everyone to virtual-image scans.

The sad thing about this American disposition is that it ignores the obvious needs to “be on the ground among people, to communicate and to understand.” This is something that experts in intelligence continually tell us --- about Iraq, about Afganistan, about Al Quaeda. What we need is less emphasis on sorting through digital information and more people in the field who actually know how to move among people and to communicate.

I am making these observations because I thought that this was what Harvey Mudd College was really all about --- approaching science and engineering with a kind of restraint tempered by an awareness of the human community in which we live. If we can only act out of our scientific and technical expertise, we are really “dead in the water.” We need young professionals educated in the Mudd tradition to be at the center of national policy construction as much as we need our graduates in development labs and other spheres of technological creation.

Note: While these remarks were addressed to HMC faculty, they may have some general interest.