Rand Paul, the GOP candidate for Kentucky's U.S. senate seat and son of Libertarian leader Ron Paul, recently stated that he believed the Civil Rights law of 1964 should have applied to public venues only, not private establishments. He argues that the Federal Government has no right to tell private business, organizations, etc. whom they can serve or admit as members with respect to race or sexual orientation. For him, when it comes to freedom of the individual versus other rights, there is no higher value than freedom. Many people view this argument as fundamental to the "American way." Others simply declare he is a racist and would be done with it. I think there is a more fundamental issue here and it is one that infects a good deal of American politics.
The argument from democracy as individual freedom goes back to the nation's founders. Jefferson believed freedom was fundamental to a democracy, however, he recognized that freedom had to have an economic base configured to democracy's needs. For this reason he argued for a nation of small farmers, each having the land and associated resources to maintain his economic independence of other citizens. In contrast Hamilton, among others, saw no threat to democracy when employees were dependent upon a factory owner for their jobs.
However, freedom and society can be in conflict because in addition to freedom all societies generate power. Under conditions of absolute freedom that power will gravitate to the strongest individuals or groups who, in their own interests will destroy the freedom of others. This is the law of the jungle. A democracy is intended to distribute the power a society generates to all its members thus assuring that freedom is not lost to those who agglomerate power. This simple lesson, I believe is at the root of much of what is wrong, dysfunctional, and potentially destructive of our society.
In Rand Paul's case if people and institutions, except those of government, were free to discriminate the power available to discriminate would be at least equal to that of government. The majority of employees work in the private sector. Think about the implications of that one fact. Michael Lind has an excellent article on this matter at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/05/25/rand_paul_black_like_him. Lind recalls the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin that relates how Griffin, who had had his white skin darkened by a dermatologist, experienced the hostile racism that permeated the southern states. Griffin's experiences alone are enough to indicate the consequences of Paul's distinction between public and private sector racism.
This advocacy of radical individualism by Libertarians plays out in our own area also. The Murrieta Public Library as well as some others, offers as reading rewards at their summer reading programs for children, coupons from In 'N Out Burger for a free burger. The coupons are emblazoned with a burger, fries and a soda. I have repeatedly expressed my concern, in view of our rampant and increasingly dangerous childhood obesity epidemic. Every major political office from the President, to the Surgeon General, to the California Governor, and the Riverside County Health Officer has expressed their profound concern over what we are doing to children. In most of these cases they have launched programs to fight this trend. This generation of children is projected to be the first in 200 years to have a shorter average life span than the preceding generation. Adult onset diabetes usually first seen at age 45 to 55 is now being seen in children 14 to 16. Over the last 20 years childhood diabetes has increased 10 fold. I have presented this information to the city's Library Commission, to the Library Director and to the City Council. I have been told that it is not the Library's role to determine what the child eats; it is the child's parent. Put another way, the Library can offer coupons for food that is bad for the children, thereby becoming a shill for corporate marketing to the young, and it is up to the parent to stop them. That this is the environment in which this epidemic has occurred and has demonstrably failed escapes them. When children are threatened by commercial products, as in cases from defective cribs to cigarettes, we do not trust parents to protect their children; we pass laws enforced by government. This is exactly the same argument the Libertarians have used repeatedly and is, at root, the same as Rand Paul's racism, i.e. government has no right to tell free individuals in a democratic society what to do. Of course government does, of necessity, tell citizens what to do and often penalizes them if they don’t, e.g. our traffic laws. That an argument this transparently ludicrous should have power in this democracy bespeaks the low level of citizen education, awareness, concern, and, I believe, the power of the media. Why is it that people cannot see that a democratic society requires a strong government to keep the strong (think corporations), from preying on the rest of the citizenry. Is there a risk in a strong government? Of course there is if it is not held accountable by the people. But the people have to be adequately informed, willing to make government part of their lives and pass on a culture of responsible citizenship to their offspring. Without this they shall never be free. Without this they will be deceived pawns of the wealthy and the corporations they control. The pernicious practice of divorcing freedom from power so that power can prevail will inevitably destroy our democracy.
In the mouths of Libertarians "freedom" means power for the few. As recently made evident by the Tea Party rallies saturated with Libertarians, the Party has been a cover for racists, white militia, etc., all of whom prefer power to democracy. Unless capitalism is controlled by a responsible democratic government, it is nothing but a method for transferring power to the wealthy few. These people will trade this delusory notion of freedom for power any time for they know that power allows them great latitude to manipulate the ill defined , easily manipulated, and generally emotion-driven concept of freedom. Until the American public gets this through their heads we shall never have an effective democratic government. Until Progressives make this use of "freedom" clear to the public, they have failed in their presumed purpose.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Drowning in Denial
"Denial" is often offered as an account of why someone refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This has become a cultural phenomenon in the United States. But what are we really saying when we say a person or collection of persons denies that something obvious or exceedingly well founded either does not exist or is not true?
Two psychologists, Michael A. Milburn and Sheree D. Conrad, in their book Politics of Denial offer an explanation of the denial phenomenon. They say that this kind of adamant denial has its origin in the denier's childhood. Children unable to face a situation restore their sense of equilibrium by denying whatever they cannot face. We have often seen children put their hands over their eyes or pull the covers over their head when faced with an unplessantness. Supposedly, if it is not seen it does not exist. The human psyche requires this kind of protection. Having found the techniques useful in childhood, many people continue to use it throughout their lives. Indeed as they become adults they become belligerent in its defense. And when a large number of people find their society facing a catastrophe this kind of denial can become national policy. Denial in this sense thus becomes a very dangerous "madness of crowds" reaction to reality. Milburn and Conrad argue that this delusive mentality now dominates the Republican Party.
Bill Moyers in a talk titled Penguins and the Politics of Denial suggested that the way to deal with this phenomenon in the radical religious right is to translate an issue, in this case global warming, into the language and thought patterns of the religious right. He suggests, for instance, using the story of Noah, whom God had warned of an imminent flood, to build an ark. Noah's fellow citizens jeered him and denied the reality he declared. This, according to Moyers, rather then the language of science used by global warming environmentalists, could convince these deniers of the reality of global warming. This is seen by one writer as an advance in the effort to convince a large segment of the American population that something needs to be done. But is it the right thing? I think not. It is, in effect, to sacrifice science and the exactitude and discipline of its language to the vagaries of religious usage in which it enters into a welter of irresolvable "interpretations". There is nothing for it but that those who think in terms of stories need to realize that language matters. In my university days I had an Ethiopian friend working on his degree in pharmacology who assured me that one could not "do" science in Amharic, the major language of Ethiopia.
Making denial the threat to our society that it is is the work of those who manipulate this human failing. A prime example is the oil companies. Exxon Mobil, for example has given millions to the American Enterprise Institute to produce reports denying global warming or at least questioning its validity, which for political purposes amounts to the same thing. As a result the Institute advertised grants of $10,000 to any scientist who would produce a paper at least questioning the validity of global warming. Then there are those who use the ignorance of the deniers for political purposes. You may remember the scene from the 2008 Republican Convention when Sara Palin supporters, old and young, energetically chanted "Drill, baby drill." These people in their enthusiastic ignorance were pursuing continuing and increasing harm, both global warming and oil-spill, to the only planet they or their children have. Talk about immaturity!
There is another aspect to this gross denial which is that it is another instance of what I have called the downside of abstraction. Humans, when they were still living close to the real world as hunter-gathers and even as farmers had to take account of reality moment by moment, and could not indulge denial without great peril to themselves. They could indulge myth because it was generally used to emphasize reality. Thus the various rain and corn dances were performed to insure that the real world would remain true to them. Similarly, humans in their hubris prayed for the sun to return at the winter solstice. They were not creating a different world as today's deniers do. Once again it is the remoteness of people's mental state from the demands of the real world that allows this type of insanity to not only flourish, but to influence policies of the world's largest military power. That is frightening in its implications. I think this kind of mass craziness, undisciplined by reality is, to a considerable extent, the product of societal affluence. We need to be vigorous in our pursuit of understanding the downside of affluence before we do consummate damage to this planet and thus to ourselves and our posterity.
Bob Newhard
Two psychologists, Michael A. Milburn and Sheree D. Conrad, in their book Politics of Denial offer an explanation of the denial phenomenon. They say that this kind of adamant denial has its origin in the denier's childhood. Children unable to face a situation restore their sense of equilibrium by denying whatever they cannot face. We have often seen children put their hands over their eyes or pull the covers over their head when faced with an unplessantness. Supposedly, if it is not seen it does not exist. The human psyche requires this kind of protection. Having found the techniques useful in childhood, many people continue to use it throughout their lives. Indeed as they become adults they become belligerent in its defense. And when a large number of people find their society facing a catastrophe this kind of denial can become national policy. Denial in this sense thus becomes a very dangerous "madness of crowds" reaction to reality. Milburn and Conrad argue that this delusive mentality now dominates the Republican Party.
Bill Moyers in a talk titled Penguins and the Politics of Denial suggested that the way to deal with this phenomenon in the radical religious right is to translate an issue, in this case global warming, into the language and thought patterns of the religious right. He suggests, for instance, using the story of Noah, whom God had warned of an imminent flood, to build an ark. Noah's fellow citizens jeered him and denied the reality he declared. This, according to Moyers, rather then the language of science used by global warming environmentalists, could convince these deniers of the reality of global warming. This is seen by one writer as an advance in the effort to convince a large segment of the American population that something needs to be done. But is it the right thing? I think not. It is, in effect, to sacrifice science and the exactitude and discipline of its language to the vagaries of religious usage in which it enters into a welter of irresolvable "interpretations". There is nothing for it but that those who think in terms of stories need to realize that language matters. In my university days I had an Ethiopian friend working on his degree in pharmacology who assured me that one could not "do" science in Amharic, the major language of Ethiopia.
Making denial the threat to our society that it is is the work of those who manipulate this human failing. A prime example is the oil companies. Exxon Mobil, for example has given millions to the American Enterprise Institute to produce reports denying global warming or at least questioning its validity, which for political purposes amounts to the same thing. As a result the Institute advertised grants of $10,000 to any scientist who would produce a paper at least questioning the validity of global warming. Then there are those who use the ignorance of the deniers for political purposes. You may remember the scene from the 2008 Republican Convention when Sara Palin supporters, old and young, energetically chanted "Drill, baby drill." These people in their enthusiastic ignorance were pursuing continuing and increasing harm, both global warming and oil-spill, to the only planet they or their children have. Talk about immaturity!
There is another aspect to this gross denial which is that it is another instance of what I have called the downside of abstraction. Humans, when they were still living close to the real world as hunter-gathers and even as farmers had to take account of reality moment by moment, and could not indulge denial without great peril to themselves. They could indulge myth because it was generally used to emphasize reality. Thus the various rain and corn dances were performed to insure that the real world would remain true to them. Similarly, humans in their hubris prayed for the sun to return at the winter solstice. They were not creating a different world as today's deniers do. Once again it is the remoteness of people's mental state from the demands of the real world that allows this type of insanity to not only flourish, but to influence policies of the world's largest military power. That is frightening in its implications. I think this kind of mass craziness, undisciplined by reality is, to a considerable extent, the product of societal affluence. We need to be vigorous in our pursuit of understanding the downside of affluence before we do consummate damage to this planet and thus to ourselves and our posterity.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Future of Property
Given the imminent convergence of major impacts on humanity, e.g. global warming, global food shortage, global water shortage and all that these imply for human society, one of the more useful forms of inquiry is to ask what our situation implies for fundamental societal institutions, e.g. governance, marriage and family, social structure itself. In this column I will take a look at the future of property in an era of increasingly reduced resources and increasing population.
Property has had a varying history. Hunter gatherer societies had little property except their weapons and tools. To what extent these may have been held in common for everybody's use I am uncertain. While land was not owned, tribes might by force or tradition lay claim to hunting grounds. In the 21st century the "hunting ground right" is still an issue as the fish population declines. More on this later.
As humans moved to agriculture after the last ice age specific land allocation became more important for survival. Not only did the rise of agriculture result in more stable societies providing the basis for the rise of civilization, it also placed land ownership at the center of the human economy.
In terms of human history it wasn’t that long ago that medieval societies regarded all property as ultimately the monarch's, but in practice much of it belonged to the monarch's aristocracy. In the typical feudal arrangement the lord owned all significant property especially land. Even the so-called commons were owned by the lord and his serfs paid him a portion of the benefit they accrued from its use. At this time the economy was land based and wealth measured primarily in land holdings.
Gradually, with increased commerce, including the discovery of the new world, the European economy began to expand and land was no longer the only measure of wealth. The Industrial Revolution greatly enlarged the European economy, but also provided a new basis for wealth, i.e. manufacturing. Interestingly, at about the same time as the Industrial Revolution the land-based economy was facing a dilemma of its own creation. As families grew larger land holdings were being fragmented by multi-child inheritance, Thus came the practice of primogeniture in which the eldest son inherited all the land. A significant portion of the initial Industrial Revolution entrepreneurs and workers were the children of land holders ineligible to inherit the land.
Writing in the earlier phase of this economic transformation, Thomas Hobbes based freedom itself on property ownership. We find this notion in Jefferson when he envisioned a nation of small farmers as the economic foundation of democracy because their property and the living it provided would make them independent of overlords. I think that one reason for this close association of property ownership and freedom lay in the fact that the property of the monarch and aristocracy had given them power over the populace and that therefore property was necessary to assure freedom of the ordinary citizen. There is, to this day, a strong feeling among some citizens that property is the root of freedom.
However, as the impact of diminishing resources and increasing population make property increasingly scarce, ownership of property will become more problematical. One can easily see this as a source of ongoing violence.
With this brief history in mind what are the prospects for property or for that matter ownership in general? To assess the distance this society has to travel in this matter we need only recall G. W. Bush's 2004 campaign that flaunted the banner of the "Ownership Society." Such a society thoroughly based on ownership would require little government (except for military) and society's major domestic transactions, e.g. health care, education, retirement, employee benefits would be negotiated between "independent" entities. This would promote values such as personal responsibility, economic liberty and owning of property. Interestingly this view, but not Bush's reasons for it, is not too far removed from Jefferson's belief. Jefferson feared that Hamilton's economic view, focused on a manufacturing-based economy, would make employees vulnerable to political manipulation.
But back to Bush and the Republicans. The Ownership Society was little more than an attempt to preserve the wealth of the rich. It was offered as a defense for his wealth-favoring tax cut. It uncritically assumed that property would remain the basis of the U.S. economy, even if the rest of the world moved on.
This conservative effort to impose the wealthy on the rest of us by way of a 400 year old view of property and with mankind's survival in mind, indicates how massive a cultural shift will be required to allow our species to survive. In short, is there a surrogate for property?
One answer to that question is that we should substitute access for ownership.
There is some modest potential in some current arrangements. The fishing industry provides some perspective. While nations have long laid claim to areas of the ocean for fishing purposes they could, of course, not lay claim to the fish themselves, which may or may not enter a given national boundary. It is useful to keep in mind that fishing is the one holdover from the hunter gatherer societies.
Another step in this direction is car sharing instead of car ownership. Two companies, Zipcar and Flexcar, using a combination of wireless, GPS and other computer technologies allow customers to reserve cars online, walk a few blocks to where it is parked in their neighborhood, use it and return it to the parking spot. This form of car use not only avoids the ownership costs of maintenance, insurance, etc., it means fewer cars can provide the transportation needs of metropolitan areas.
Bicycle sharing, especially in Europe, is a going and growing public/private enterprise. Mexico City is trying to clean up its immense smog problem using bicycle sharing in the city's core areas.
Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired magazine, has a long and interesting article on access versus ownership in which he sees technology driving a passage from ownership to access. He notes the digitized book as an example. It is interesting to note that Kelley, an avowed libertarian, sees tax-based public enterprise as a vehicle for this change as well as private enterprise. The article may be found at http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all.
But what of land itself, which remains the most basic measure of wealth for much of the planet's population? In this regard it is instructive to note that China, Saudi Arabia, etc. are buying up large tracts of land in Africa to grow food for their own populations. The only large effort at abandoning land ownership was the Soviet Union in which society, through the state, owned the land and farmers were in essence state employees. To many people in the West this was an instance of dictatorship. Farmers, like employees of a corporation, were told what and how much to grow based on the needs of their society. The farm was made to emulate the factory. This feature is currently duplicated, in spades, by American corporate farms, in which animals are raised in very confined space, fed large amounts of medication to avoid easily transmitted disease and hormones to increase the rate of growth and hence saleability. It is not clear whether this form of agriculture is necessary to support the population that the human species has produced and continues to produce.
Finally, ownership may be finding its comeuppance in the developing politics of Latin America, especially Bolivia. Evo Morales has been returning major extraction industries such as oil and minerals to the people by way of nationalization of corporations. Morales, of indigenous extraction himself, is basing this process on what the dominant economies owe Bolivia's indigenous people in recompense for all that has been taken from them. It will not do for a corporation to declare they have a contract with a preceding government that ruled by the power of elitism, not by the consent of the people. Morales in a recent conference in Cochabamba seemed to be calling upon all indigenous people to rise up and demand compensation from those who have plundered their lands and resources. In this connection more than one African government that agreed to sell millions of acres for growing food to China and others has been forced by outraged citizens to withdraw these agreements. China and others are now calling for such countries to supply troops to protect "their interest." If Morales and others focused on the welfare of the population find a significant and determined constituency among the economic victims of this planet, we may have found something of an answer to the future of property. At least in certain areas it will be possessed by society not by individuals. It will, however, place a greater burden on the citizen to insure that government itself is not co-opted by the wealthy and thereby become tyrannical. It may be that humans are condemned by their very nature to repeat Plato's cycle of aristocracy, timocracy (government by those possessed of great honor, usually military), oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny endlessly until the technology of violence overwhelms our species.
Bob Newhard
Property has had a varying history. Hunter gatherer societies had little property except their weapons and tools. To what extent these may have been held in common for everybody's use I am uncertain. While land was not owned, tribes might by force or tradition lay claim to hunting grounds. In the 21st century the "hunting ground right" is still an issue as the fish population declines. More on this later.
As humans moved to agriculture after the last ice age specific land allocation became more important for survival. Not only did the rise of agriculture result in more stable societies providing the basis for the rise of civilization, it also placed land ownership at the center of the human economy.
In terms of human history it wasn’t that long ago that medieval societies regarded all property as ultimately the monarch's, but in practice much of it belonged to the monarch's aristocracy. In the typical feudal arrangement the lord owned all significant property especially land. Even the so-called commons were owned by the lord and his serfs paid him a portion of the benefit they accrued from its use. At this time the economy was land based and wealth measured primarily in land holdings.
Gradually, with increased commerce, including the discovery of the new world, the European economy began to expand and land was no longer the only measure of wealth. The Industrial Revolution greatly enlarged the European economy, but also provided a new basis for wealth, i.e. manufacturing. Interestingly, at about the same time as the Industrial Revolution the land-based economy was facing a dilemma of its own creation. As families grew larger land holdings were being fragmented by multi-child inheritance, Thus came the practice of primogeniture in which the eldest son inherited all the land. A significant portion of the initial Industrial Revolution entrepreneurs and workers were the children of land holders ineligible to inherit the land.
Writing in the earlier phase of this economic transformation, Thomas Hobbes based freedom itself on property ownership. We find this notion in Jefferson when he envisioned a nation of small farmers as the economic foundation of democracy because their property and the living it provided would make them independent of overlords. I think that one reason for this close association of property ownership and freedom lay in the fact that the property of the monarch and aristocracy had given them power over the populace and that therefore property was necessary to assure freedom of the ordinary citizen. There is, to this day, a strong feeling among some citizens that property is the root of freedom.
However, as the impact of diminishing resources and increasing population make property increasingly scarce, ownership of property will become more problematical. One can easily see this as a source of ongoing violence.
With this brief history in mind what are the prospects for property or for that matter ownership in general? To assess the distance this society has to travel in this matter we need only recall G. W. Bush's 2004 campaign that flaunted the banner of the "Ownership Society." Such a society thoroughly based on ownership would require little government (except for military) and society's major domestic transactions, e.g. health care, education, retirement, employee benefits would be negotiated between "independent" entities. This would promote values such as personal responsibility, economic liberty and owning of property. Interestingly this view, but not Bush's reasons for it, is not too far removed from Jefferson's belief. Jefferson feared that Hamilton's economic view, focused on a manufacturing-based economy, would make employees vulnerable to political manipulation.
But back to Bush and the Republicans. The Ownership Society was little more than an attempt to preserve the wealth of the rich. It was offered as a defense for his wealth-favoring tax cut. It uncritically assumed that property would remain the basis of the U.S. economy, even if the rest of the world moved on.
This conservative effort to impose the wealthy on the rest of us by way of a 400 year old view of property and with mankind's survival in mind, indicates how massive a cultural shift will be required to allow our species to survive. In short, is there a surrogate for property?
One answer to that question is that we should substitute access for ownership.
There is some modest potential in some current arrangements. The fishing industry provides some perspective. While nations have long laid claim to areas of the ocean for fishing purposes they could, of course, not lay claim to the fish themselves, which may or may not enter a given national boundary. It is useful to keep in mind that fishing is the one holdover from the hunter gatherer societies.
Another step in this direction is car sharing instead of car ownership. Two companies, Zipcar and Flexcar, using a combination of wireless, GPS and other computer technologies allow customers to reserve cars online, walk a few blocks to where it is parked in their neighborhood, use it and return it to the parking spot. This form of car use not only avoids the ownership costs of maintenance, insurance, etc., it means fewer cars can provide the transportation needs of metropolitan areas.
Bicycle sharing, especially in Europe, is a going and growing public/private enterprise. Mexico City is trying to clean up its immense smog problem using bicycle sharing in the city's core areas.
Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired magazine, has a long and interesting article on access versus ownership in which he sees technology driving a passage from ownership to access. He notes the digitized book as an example. It is interesting to note that Kelley, an avowed libertarian, sees tax-based public enterprise as a vehicle for this change as well as private enterprise. The article may be found at http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all.
But what of land itself, which remains the most basic measure of wealth for much of the planet's population? In this regard it is instructive to note that China, Saudi Arabia, etc. are buying up large tracts of land in Africa to grow food for their own populations. The only large effort at abandoning land ownership was the Soviet Union in which society, through the state, owned the land and farmers were in essence state employees. To many people in the West this was an instance of dictatorship. Farmers, like employees of a corporation, were told what and how much to grow based on the needs of their society. The farm was made to emulate the factory. This feature is currently duplicated, in spades, by American corporate farms, in which animals are raised in very confined space, fed large amounts of medication to avoid easily transmitted disease and hormones to increase the rate of growth and hence saleability. It is not clear whether this form of agriculture is necessary to support the population that the human species has produced and continues to produce.
Finally, ownership may be finding its comeuppance in the developing politics of Latin America, especially Bolivia. Evo Morales has been returning major extraction industries such as oil and minerals to the people by way of nationalization of corporations. Morales, of indigenous extraction himself, is basing this process on what the dominant economies owe Bolivia's indigenous people in recompense for all that has been taken from them. It will not do for a corporation to declare they have a contract with a preceding government that ruled by the power of elitism, not by the consent of the people. Morales in a recent conference in Cochabamba seemed to be calling upon all indigenous people to rise up and demand compensation from those who have plundered their lands and resources. In this connection more than one African government that agreed to sell millions of acres for growing food to China and others has been forced by outraged citizens to withdraw these agreements. China and others are now calling for such countries to supply troops to protect "their interest." If Morales and others focused on the welfare of the population find a significant and determined constituency among the economic victims of this planet, we may have found something of an answer to the future of property. At least in certain areas it will be possessed by society not by individuals. It will, however, place a greater burden on the citizen to insure that government itself is not co-opted by the wealthy and thereby become tyrannical. It may be that humans are condemned by their very nature to repeat Plato's cycle of aristocracy, timocracy (government by those possessed of great honor, usually military), oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny endlessly until the technology of violence overwhelms our species.
Bob Newhard
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