The other day my wife Eleanor was reading a book on the psychology of decision making. The author rather gratuitously threw in the remark that Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. World War 2 did. We all hear this remark, usually from those who prefer governance by corporations rather than governments of, by, and for the people. This remark is both true and deceptively false.
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place..The other day my wife Eleanor was reading a book on the psychology of decision making. The author rather gratuitously threw in the remark that Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. World War 2 did. We all hear this remark, usually from those who prefer governance by corporations rather than governments of, by, and for the people. This remark is both true and deceptively false.
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place. However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
What Have We Learned from This
The political debacle of our recent election is and will be the subject of many explanations. That the American people could, after two short years of indecisive efforts to mitigate the damage, return to considerable power the very people responsible for the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, will elicit many explanations. I want to try to put some pieces together that may offer some insight into what happened.
Politically, I found the fact that Harry Reid, a powerful and rewarding Senate Majority Leader from the small state of Nevada, was nonetheless in great jeopardy from a political unknown and a new small party. What populace would trade the benefits flowing from a powerful politician for a political unknown? The salient fact in this anomaly is that Reid never the less won, but only because of the Black and Latino vote. He got a minority of the white vote.
Another relevant observation can be found in a report by MIT economist David Autor in which he looked at the shifting employment landscape in America. He found that automation has had a far deeper impact on employment than is commonly understood, especially on the middle class. He argues that it is a prime factor in the shrinking middle class in America because the jobs it primarily eliminates are those that have traditionally been held by the middle class, e.g. manufacturing, which he notes is about as productive as it has always been except it uses robots rather than humans. Service jobs, another major category of middle class employment also are shrinking, e.g. grocery clerks replaced by automatic check-out machines. The middle class has been subject to increasing economic stress since the beginning of automation in the 1950s according to Autor.
Putting the political phenomena we have recently been experiencing together with this economic impact on the middle class suggests that white people increasingly sense a diminution of economic and political power and are in a crazy kind of rebellion. The Tea Party, predominantly middle class whites, attacks Wall Street on the one hand and big federal government, which is the only power that could possibly control Wall Street, on the other hand. The fact that the populism that usually accompanies a major economic downturn is conservative this time instead of its usual liberal expression further validates this connection between job loss and the nature of the current political chaos. In this connection Autor argues that outsourcing is a precursor to automation and will be increasingly vulnerable to automation.
The middle class has been generally regarded as the social prerequisite for democracy. In this country the middle class has, since its emergence, been predominantly white. Autor describes a hollowing out process in which professional, e.g. lawyer and managerial jobs are at the high end and low wage jobs such as gardening at the low end and the declining middle class between these two.
These two factors, Reid's political survival courtesy of two minority groups, hence the increasing importance of minorities, and an automation-driven shrinking of the middle class, may be salient factors in the political craziness we are witnessing. A socio-political craziness of this kind, rooted in the fear caused by a relentless economic process can be a very dangerous phenomenon. Think of Germany in the depths of the depression following World War I and paying its former adversaries reparations at the same time. As you see the Far Right, including the Religious Right, emphasize "tradition," i.e. family values, at the expense of the Bill of Rights, think of white retention of power.
But, unfortunately, that is not all. Autor makes it clear that we have not yet seen the full impact of automation. He describes a manufacturing plant in Japan. The plant uses robots to make robots. The plant runs in the dark 24 hours a day. Obviously "the job" is going to have to be vastly reinterpreted or a substitute found. The job has been more than a source of income for most Americans. It is and has been an easily available source of human significance. The psychological trauma of being unemployed, especially long term, will be a source of deep discontent. I read recently of a man's utter despair as he packed up the company tools he had used for 15 years, to be shipped to his company's replacement plant in China.
It is, in my judgment, incumbent on progressives to develop and vigorously promote antidotes to this impending disaster. We must not be dissuaded by accusations of socialism or social planning, generally from those who have no idea of what they are talking about. I was struck by FDR's inclusion of the word "planning" in his 1932 nomination acceptance speech. We have been so heavily indoctrinated by the Right, especially since Ronald Reagan, that many view the term as subversive.
The impact of technology on humanity, of which automation is an instance, needs to be a major focus in the development of a progressive perspective.
As I finished this article I stumbled upon an excellent article by Chris Hedges on his analysis of the fundamental message of the recent election, which sees fascism at work in the political craziness. I strongly recommend reading Chris' article titled "A Recipe for Fascism", which can be found at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_recipe_for_fascism_20101108/
Bob Newhard
Politically, I found the fact that Harry Reid, a powerful and rewarding Senate Majority Leader from the small state of Nevada, was nonetheless in great jeopardy from a political unknown and a new small party. What populace would trade the benefits flowing from a powerful politician for a political unknown? The salient fact in this anomaly is that Reid never the less won, but only because of the Black and Latino vote. He got a minority of the white vote.
Another relevant observation can be found in a report by MIT economist David Autor in which he looked at the shifting employment landscape in America. He found that automation has had a far deeper impact on employment than is commonly understood, especially on the middle class. He argues that it is a prime factor in the shrinking middle class in America because the jobs it primarily eliminates are those that have traditionally been held by the middle class, e.g. manufacturing, which he notes is about as productive as it has always been except it uses robots rather than humans. Service jobs, another major category of middle class employment also are shrinking, e.g. grocery clerks replaced by automatic check-out machines. The middle class has been subject to increasing economic stress since the beginning of automation in the 1950s according to Autor.
Putting the political phenomena we have recently been experiencing together with this economic impact on the middle class suggests that white people increasingly sense a diminution of economic and political power and are in a crazy kind of rebellion. The Tea Party, predominantly middle class whites, attacks Wall Street on the one hand and big federal government, which is the only power that could possibly control Wall Street, on the other hand. The fact that the populism that usually accompanies a major economic downturn is conservative this time instead of its usual liberal expression further validates this connection between job loss and the nature of the current political chaos. In this connection Autor argues that outsourcing is a precursor to automation and will be increasingly vulnerable to automation.
The middle class has been generally regarded as the social prerequisite for democracy. In this country the middle class has, since its emergence, been predominantly white. Autor describes a hollowing out process in which professional, e.g. lawyer and managerial jobs are at the high end and low wage jobs such as gardening at the low end and the declining middle class between these two.
These two factors, Reid's political survival courtesy of two minority groups, hence the increasing importance of minorities, and an automation-driven shrinking of the middle class, may be salient factors in the political craziness we are witnessing. A socio-political craziness of this kind, rooted in the fear caused by a relentless economic process can be a very dangerous phenomenon. Think of Germany in the depths of the depression following World War I and paying its former adversaries reparations at the same time. As you see the Far Right, including the Religious Right, emphasize "tradition," i.e. family values, at the expense of the Bill of Rights, think of white retention of power.
But, unfortunately, that is not all. Autor makes it clear that we have not yet seen the full impact of automation. He describes a manufacturing plant in Japan. The plant uses robots to make robots. The plant runs in the dark 24 hours a day. Obviously "the job" is going to have to be vastly reinterpreted or a substitute found. The job has been more than a source of income for most Americans. It is and has been an easily available source of human significance. The psychological trauma of being unemployed, especially long term, will be a source of deep discontent. I read recently of a man's utter despair as he packed up the company tools he had used for 15 years, to be shipped to his company's replacement plant in China.
It is, in my judgment, incumbent on progressives to develop and vigorously promote antidotes to this impending disaster. We must not be dissuaded by accusations of socialism or social planning, generally from those who have no idea of what they are talking about. I was struck by FDR's inclusion of the word "planning" in his 1932 nomination acceptance speech. We have been so heavily indoctrinated by the Right, especially since Ronald Reagan, that many view the term as subversive.
The impact of technology on humanity, of which automation is an instance, needs to be a major focus in the development of a progressive perspective.
As I finished this article I stumbled upon an excellent article by Chris Hedges on his analysis of the fundamental message of the recent election, which sees fascism at work in the political craziness. I strongly recommend reading Chris' article titled "A Recipe for Fascism", which can be found at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_recipe_for_fascism_20101108/
Bob Newhard
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Ecology of Capitalism
An ecologist studies the relationships between living organisms. But first he must understand the organism itself. To do this he studies its behavior patterns so that, among other things, he can determine whether those behaviors are good, bad or indifferent for his own species. Capitalism, I suggest, is in and of itself just one more of those wild beasts whose behavior patterns need to be identified and made widely known so that a democratic society can develop appropriate responses to its natural behaviors.
An initial observation will reveal that capitalism has no inherent restraints. It is a cannibal devouring its own kind as readily as other prey. It will consume resources with no regard for anything but its own appetite. Another initial observation will be that said appetite is insatiable. It will, left to its own devices, literally eat itself out of house and home. It is especially aggressive when civilization seeks to defend itself by fencing this wild beast in. It will, as Grover Norquist infamously said, drown an infant government in its bathtub.
Our ecologist of capitalism will discover additional behaviors of this wild thing. Number one perhaps is that it will seek to turn everything it captures into a profit making market and it is tenacious in this pursuit. It never stops from satiation. The occasion for this column was a recent report on how banks, having exhausted much of their traditional sources of profit are now turning to Baby Boomers and other senior citizens for the money they have squirreled away for the exigencies of old age. They are looking for ways to pry this money, which they regard as a disposable resource, loose for investment in more risky instruments than a savings account or a certificate of deposit.
It is important to understand the dimensions of this insatiability. It is the major source of the increasing triviality and shallowness of this society. In its search for markets capitalism will turn the most pressing needs of society, e.g. crime prevention, into a reality show so media corporations and advertisers can make money. It will make a video game out of the mass killing of warfare for the same purpose. In this process it will create distorting images of everything from people to history in order to more easily turn the individual's emotions into a key to unlock his purse. A Disney version of history comes to mind or Hollywood's battle of the Alamo. By this process it creates an empire of illusion, to use Chris Hedges' words, in which the emotional content of illusion trumps truth. It will change everything from clothing fashions to automobile fashions as frequently as consumers will part with their money and deliberately weaken both by planned obsolescence in order to preserve a market. It will stimulate envy and greed in order to create or enhance a market. Finally, it views government as its prime competitor and will do whatever it can to either control or destroy it, much as it would any other capitalist competitor. All these things, and vastly more, this wild beast will do if left to its own natural behaviors. It is so very obvious that this beast must be assiduously controlled lest it destroy our planet and us.
Capitalism, like any wild carnivore, has one virtue. It has energy. Human beings have a natural predilection for entropy. As a species that learned to grow things, we found the sowing of crops preferable to the risks of the hunt. We preferred to stay in one place rather than roam the unknown in search of prey. The vibrant self interest released by capitalism provides energy not unlike that which war generates and perhaps for the same basic reason. Energy, like fire, can be destructive or, if suitably controlled, can produce very useful products and services. We cannot allow ourselves to be dazzled by its occasional displays. We must be continuously cognizant of the danger it poses. We must not, as we advise small children, play with fire.
Until we as a nation begin to treat capitalism as science treats a natural organism, we will forever be its victims. Put conversely, as long as we regard capitalism ideologically, we will be its victims. A number of so-called "mixed economies" such as those of Scandinavia and much of Western Europe have, since World War II, understood this necessity. They have taken large steps to insure that capitalism serves society.
In the long run we know this planet cannot tolerate a human economy of compound growth. In the shorter term we know that capitalism's insatiable appetite will greatly, probably violently, exacerbate the competition for decreasing resources. In the immediate world we see it grossly corrupting democracies, fomenting wars and destroying the democratic process. We know we will have to develop a much better economic process if humanity is to survive.
It is high time this nation realized that the ideological approach to politics, social thinking, and most especially our economy is massively counter productive. These social functions must be based on the study of and well-being of humanity. To get people to understand this should be a major focus of the progressive agenda.
Bob Newhard
An initial observation will reveal that capitalism has no inherent restraints. It is a cannibal devouring its own kind as readily as other prey. It will consume resources with no regard for anything but its own appetite. Another initial observation will be that said appetite is insatiable. It will, left to its own devices, literally eat itself out of house and home. It is especially aggressive when civilization seeks to defend itself by fencing this wild beast in. It will, as Grover Norquist infamously said, drown an infant government in its bathtub.
Our ecologist of capitalism will discover additional behaviors of this wild thing. Number one perhaps is that it will seek to turn everything it captures into a profit making market and it is tenacious in this pursuit. It never stops from satiation. The occasion for this column was a recent report on how banks, having exhausted much of their traditional sources of profit are now turning to Baby Boomers and other senior citizens for the money they have squirreled away for the exigencies of old age. They are looking for ways to pry this money, which they regard as a disposable resource, loose for investment in more risky instruments than a savings account or a certificate of deposit.
It is important to understand the dimensions of this insatiability. It is the major source of the increasing triviality and shallowness of this society. In its search for markets capitalism will turn the most pressing needs of society, e.g. crime prevention, into a reality show so media corporations and advertisers can make money. It will make a video game out of the mass killing of warfare for the same purpose. In this process it will create distorting images of everything from people to history in order to more easily turn the individual's emotions into a key to unlock his purse. A Disney version of history comes to mind or Hollywood's battle of the Alamo. By this process it creates an empire of illusion, to use Chris Hedges' words, in which the emotional content of illusion trumps truth. It will change everything from clothing fashions to automobile fashions as frequently as consumers will part with their money and deliberately weaken both by planned obsolescence in order to preserve a market. It will stimulate envy and greed in order to create or enhance a market. Finally, it views government as its prime competitor and will do whatever it can to either control or destroy it, much as it would any other capitalist competitor. All these things, and vastly more, this wild beast will do if left to its own natural behaviors. It is so very obvious that this beast must be assiduously controlled lest it destroy our planet and us.
Capitalism, like any wild carnivore, has one virtue. It has energy. Human beings have a natural predilection for entropy. As a species that learned to grow things, we found the sowing of crops preferable to the risks of the hunt. We preferred to stay in one place rather than roam the unknown in search of prey. The vibrant self interest released by capitalism provides energy not unlike that which war generates and perhaps for the same basic reason. Energy, like fire, can be destructive or, if suitably controlled, can produce very useful products and services. We cannot allow ourselves to be dazzled by its occasional displays. We must be continuously cognizant of the danger it poses. We must not, as we advise small children, play with fire.
Until we as a nation begin to treat capitalism as science treats a natural organism, we will forever be its victims. Put conversely, as long as we regard capitalism ideologically, we will be its victims. A number of so-called "mixed economies" such as those of Scandinavia and much of Western Europe have, since World War II, understood this necessity. They have taken large steps to insure that capitalism serves society.
In the long run we know this planet cannot tolerate a human economy of compound growth. In the shorter term we know that capitalism's insatiable appetite will greatly, probably violently, exacerbate the competition for decreasing resources. In the immediate world we see it grossly corrupting democracies, fomenting wars and destroying the democratic process. We know we will have to develop a much better economic process if humanity is to survive.
It is high time this nation realized that the ideological approach to politics, social thinking, and most especially our economy is massively counter productive. These social functions must be based on the study of and well-being of humanity. To get people to understand this should be a major focus of the progressive agenda.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Greed is more than a personal fault.
Your mother, no doubt, impressed upon you that greed was bad and, not always to your liking, that sharing was good. What happened on the way to becoming an adult where, obviously, greed is rewarded and sharing is at best, propaganda as in President H. W. Bush's "thousand points of light" surrogate for tax supported public assistance? I suggest the difference is between the small world of the family and neighbors and a world of money cut loose from the ties of the world in which humans matter most.
Greed, as a social phenomenon, has become increasingly acceptable. We have had, for example, the clichés "Greed is good" and "He who dies with the most toys wins" bandied about. Why this metamorphosis? I suspect it is a consequence of maintaining a "free market" capitalist economy. When you have saturated a market based on need, as technology has with increasing efficiency done, it is imperative that some substitute for need be found lest an economy begin to collapse for want of markets. Rapidly moving from a market of need to a market of greed is a feature of a modern affluent society.
It is not hard to see this process in action in our society. Manufacturing used to be the major segment of this country's economy. It is now finance, otherwise known as debt. In my youth the bellwether of economic activity was the price of steel. It is now consumer confidence. This is due substantially to the uncontrolled, indeed encouraged, migration of jobs to places with cheap labor, a process Karl Marx delineated over a hundred years ago. As a result, we now have a consumer economy not a production economy. Either consume or go bust!
A consumer based market offers several advantages to business. A need-based market is relatively narrow, limited by what is required to maintain basic human requirements, which do not change that much. The only way to substantially expand this market is to breed more humans. A consumer based economy driven by human desire rather than need, is, obviously, as large and variable as the human imagination and greed can make it. This being the case those profiting from markets greatly value greed and will do what they can to make it culturally acceptable. Hence the need to create a constant greed stimulus using, for example, the feeling of inferiority if one does not keep up with the Joneses. Thus greed has become an economic imperative, modifying our culture in ways destructive of society and the environment. These ways may often be subtle but none the less effective. For example, it would be interesting to know how massively the values of this society have been trivialized by the culture of constant novelty this process has created.
Greed is thus a major factor in the economy that has been developed in this country. As such, greed has become destructive of our society by focusing more resources on the frivolous at the expense of the necessary; on the desires of the few in preference to the needs of the many. This syndrome, I might point out, was the immediate cause of the French Revolution.
The need to constantly develop and promote markets is, in my judgment, a root cause of our massive over consumption. It is relatively easy to see how rampant consumerism eventuates in a cultural acceptance of greed. This market-driven, hyper-consumerism has led to the enculturation of greed. We have an economic system whose masters would make greedheads of us all. In my judgment, the problem of acculturated greed indicates that we do not yet understand the perils of affluence. "Shop 'till you drop" is more ominous than one might think.
Bob Newhard
Greed, as a social phenomenon, has become increasingly acceptable. We have had, for example, the clichés "Greed is good" and "He who dies with the most toys wins" bandied about. Why this metamorphosis? I suspect it is a consequence of maintaining a "free market" capitalist economy. When you have saturated a market based on need, as technology has with increasing efficiency done, it is imperative that some substitute for need be found lest an economy begin to collapse for want of markets. Rapidly moving from a market of need to a market of greed is a feature of a modern affluent society.
It is not hard to see this process in action in our society. Manufacturing used to be the major segment of this country's economy. It is now finance, otherwise known as debt. In my youth the bellwether of economic activity was the price of steel. It is now consumer confidence. This is due substantially to the uncontrolled, indeed encouraged, migration of jobs to places with cheap labor, a process Karl Marx delineated over a hundred years ago. As a result, we now have a consumer economy not a production economy. Either consume or go bust!
A consumer based market offers several advantages to business. A need-based market is relatively narrow, limited by what is required to maintain basic human requirements, which do not change that much. The only way to substantially expand this market is to breed more humans. A consumer based economy driven by human desire rather than need, is, obviously, as large and variable as the human imagination and greed can make it. This being the case those profiting from markets greatly value greed and will do what they can to make it culturally acceptable. Hence the need to create a constant greed stimulus using, for example, the feeling of inferiority if one does not keep up with the Joneses. Thus greed has become an economic imperative, modifying our culture in ways destructive of society and the environment. These ways may often be subtle but none the less effective. For example, it would be interesting to know how massively the values of this society have been trivialized by the culture of constant novelty this process has created.
Greed is thus a major factor in the economy that has been developed in this country. As such, greed has become destructive of our society by focusing more resources on the frivolous at the expense of the necessary; on the desires of the few in preference to the needs of the many. This syndrome, I might point out, was the immediate cause of the French Revolution.
The need to constantly develop and promote markets is, in my judgment, a root cause of our massive over consumption. It is relatively easy to see how rampant consumerism eventuates in a cultural acceptance of greed. This market-driven, hyper-consumerism has led to the enculturation of greed. We have an economic system whose masters would make greedheads of us all. In my judgment, the problem of acculturated greed indicates that we do not yet understand the perils of affluence. "Shop 'till you drop" is more ominous than one might think.
Bob Newhard
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Why We Have Had and Why We are Doomed to Endless War
For those who may think that the military does not set national policy I submit as evidence to the contrary the endless war we have had and can expect to have.
It all began with the military's determination to eliminate the kind of citizen opposition to war that the Vietnam escapade produced. The solution was to convert a citizen draft army to a volunteer-based army. The military believed, rightly it seems, that the only substantial reason for the mass objection to the Vietnam War lay in all young men being eligible for military service. (Why the resistance to the draft was so vigorous in this war but not World War II apparently was not asked.)This, obviously, included the children of the middle and wealthy classes. The concern for the casualties, both American and Vietnamese, was distinctly secondary to that of keeping one's child out of harms way. The military believes that people will never permit a return to the draft and the endangerment of their children as long as we have a paid military to do the job.
With the removal of the only major restraint on the military, it follows from the above observation that there will be no end of war until there is a return to the draft or our economy collapses entirely from the economic burden of endless war. The likelihood of people voting to restore the draft is next to nil. Therefore endless war. We have got to the place where war is no longer an instrument of policy, but policy is an instrument for the pursuit of successful war. Military domination of the government budget, and, hence, military priorities will continue to be the national priorities. In short, the United States military has finessed the country into endless war and the populace is continually diverted from understanding this by a barrage of ingenuous sentiment about troop heroism and sacrifice by our corporate media. It is doubtful that even President Eisenhower in his farewell warning about the military-industrial complex could have seen how far this duopoly of destruction would go.
Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in his article The Founders’Wisdom, published in the Armed Forces Journal gives a quite detailed account of what we have lost and what we can expect by abandoning the draft. The article, which I highly recommend, can be found at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/02/4384885/. Colonel Yingling, for example, points out that the decision to go to war is much easier to reach with our volunteer army. There is greatly diminished opposition because people, especially the middle and upper classes, no longer need fear that their children might have to go. Congress was freed from the intense citizen pressure of concerned parents and their children and has surrendered its Constitutionally mandated responsibility to declare war. Thus, immediately after 9/11 G. W. Bush could declare "This is war." The media did not point out that only Congress, not the President, can declare war. Bush may not have even known this. However, the voluntary military has obviously cut the executive branch of government loose from the oversight of Congress, which our Constitution-based separation of powers was intended to prevent. Without the draft, citizen opposition is not felt by Congress and Congress is free to regard the interests of the defense contractors who contributed to their campaigns. Thus the absence of a draft leads to a corruption of government and a fundamental abrogation of the Constitution.
It has been argued that the Founders did not envision the need for an immediate response to a threat to the nation. Yingling points out that the Founders drew a distinction between the Amy and the Navy. They viewed the Army as a small corps of regulars to be complemented by male civilians in time of need. This way their great fear of the threat a standing army posed to citizen freedom and well being could be avoided. The navy, on the other hand, was viewed as a continuously full-complemented armed service because of the continuing need to protect commerce and, not so incidentally, because it was stationed at sea and hence not among the citizens and their civilian affairs. The distinction between the two services was so significant that they are treated in separate articles of the Constitution. Today we see one manifestation of their concern, in the ease with which military practice and technology flow to Homeland Security and thence to local police. SWAT teams are versions of military assault teams turned loose in a civilian, often neighborhood, context.
Col. Yingling asserts that there probably is no more fundamental constraint on executive power in the Constitution's scheme of checks and balances, than the restriction of habeas corpus. The Constitution declares “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Yet, under the sway of the military we have cooked up devices such as imprisoning American citizens without trial on so-called foreign soil, as if the Founders had to spell out for children that habeus corpus applied to the treatment of American citizens by the American government no matter where that treatment is applied. In brief, we have gimmicked our way around our own constitution.
To sum up, the military has been empowered to defeat our basic American rights, to ruin our economy, to gain political sway over our legislature, and to insinuate itself into the everyday fabric of our society. As an example, our own local Californian now has a weekly military supplement, as though it was as common as the sports or business section. All this has been accomplished with the willing cooperation of our corporate-controlled all-pervasive media. Until the public realizes the extent to which this nation is controlled by its military and appreciates the immense threat to our democracy that it represents, we will not even see the beginning of a return to the fundamental values of a democratic society. The enormity of such a sea change in our national ethos is elaborated on by John Feffer in his article Gorbachev of the Pentagon?, which can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/gorbachev-of-the-pentagon_b_742180.html. Feffer compares the task of bringing the Americana military under control (he like Chalmers Johnson uses the term "dismantling,") to that of Gorbachev's successful effort to break up the Soviet Union. He describes the unique talents and knowledge that Gorbachev' brought to this monumental task and why it will take someone of his caliber to break the hold of the American military. More than one civilization has collapsed under the burden of its military. May we recover our founding concern for democracy before it is too late.
Bob Newhard
P.S. A rebuttal to Yingling's article by Curtis L. Gilroy, titled Defending the all-volunteer force, may be found at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/04/4537015
Yingling's response to his critics, titled The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate, may be found at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/07/the-allvolunteer-force-the-deb/
It all began with the military's determination to eliminate the kind of citizen opposition to war that the Vietnam escapade produced. The solution was to convert a citizen draft army to a volunteer-based army. The military believed, rightly it seems, that the only substantial reason for the mass objection to the Vietnam War lay in all young men being eligible for military service. (Why the resistance to the draft was so vigorous in this war but not World War II apparently was not asked.)This, obviously, included the children of the middle and wealthy classes. The concern for the casualties, both American and Vietnamese, was distinctly secondary to that of keeping one's child out of harms way. The military believes that people will never permit a return to the draft and the endangerment of their children as long as we have a paid military to do the job.
With the removal of the only major restraint on the military, it follows from the above observation that there will be no end of war until there is a return to the draft or our economy collapses entirely from the economic burden of endless war. The likelihood of people voting to restore the draft is next to nil. Therefore endless war. We have got to the place where war is no longer an instrument of policy, but policy is an instrument for the pursuit of successful war. Military domination of the government budget, and, hence, military priorities will continue to be the national priorities. In short, the United States military has finessed the country into endless war and the populace is continually diverted from understanding this by a barrage of ingenuous sentiment about troop heroism and sacrifice by our corporate media. It is doubtful that even President Eisenhower in his farewell warning about the military-industrial complex could have seen how far this duopoly of destruction would go.
Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in his article The Founders’Wisdom, published in the Armed Forces Journal gives a quite detailed account of what we have lost and what we can expect by abandoning the draft. The article, which I highly recommend, can be found at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/02/4384885/. Colonel Yingling, for example, points out that the decision to go to war is much easier to reach with our volunteer army. There is greatly diminished opposition because people, especially the middle and upper classes, no longer need fear that their children might have to go. Congress was freed from the intense citizen pressure of concerned parents and their children and has surrendered its Constitutionally mandated responsibility to declare war. Thus, immediately after 9/11 G. W. Bush could declare "This is war." The media did not point out that only Congress, not the President, can declare war. Bush may not have even known this. However, the voluntary military has obviously cut the executive branch of government loose from the oversight of Congress, which our Constitution-based separation of powers was intended to prevent. Without the draft, citizen opposition is not felt by Congress and Congress is free to regard the interests of the defense contractors who contributed to their campaigns. Thus the absence of a draft leads to a corruption of government and a fundamental abrogation of the Constitution.
It has been argued that the Founders did not envision the need for an immediate response to a threat to the nation. Yingling points out that the Founders drew a distinction between the Amy and the Navy. They viewed the Army as a small corps of regulars to be complemented by male civilians in time of need. This way their great fear of the threat a standing army posed to citizen freedom and well being could be avoided. The navy, on the other hand, was viewed as a continuously full-complemented armed service because of the continuing need to protect commerce and, not so incidentally, because it was stationed at sea and hence not among the citizens and their civilian affairs. The distinction between the two services was so significant that they are treated in separate articles of the Constitution. Today we see one manifestation of their concern, in the ease with which military practice and technology flow to Homeland Security and thence to local police. SWAT teams are versions of military assault teams turned loose in a civilian, often neighborhood, context.
Col. Yingling asserts that there probably is no more fundamental constraint on executive power in the Constitution's scheme of checks and balances, than the restriction of habeas corpus. The Constitution declares “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Yet, under the sway of the military we have cooked up devices such as imprisoning American citizens without trial on so-called foreign soil, as if the Founders had to spell out for children that habeus corpus applied to the treatment of American citizens by the American government no matter where that treatment is applied. In brief, we have gimmicked our way around our own constitution.
To sum up, the military has been empowered to defeat our basic American rights, to ruin our economy, to gain political sway over our legislature, and to insinuate itself into the everyday fabric of our society. As an example, our own local Californian now has a weekly military supplement, as though it was as common as the sports or business section. All this has been accomplished with the willing cooperation of our corporate-controlled all-pervasive media. Until the public realizes the extent to which this nation is controlled by its military and appreciates the immense threat to our democracy that it represents, we will not even see the beginning of a return to the fundamental values of a democratic society. The enormity of such a sea change in our national ethos is elaborated on by John Feffer in his article Gorbachev of the Pentagon?, which can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/gorbachev-of-the-pentagon_b_742180.html. Feffer compares the task of bringing the Americana military under control (he like Chalmers Johnson uses the term "dismantling,") to that of Gorbachev's successful effort to break up the Soviet Union. He describes the unique talents and knowledge that Gorbachev' brought to this monumental task and why it will take someone of his caliber to break the hold of the American military. More than one civilization has collapsed under the burden of its military. May we recover our founding concern for democracy before it is too late.
Bob Newhard
P.S. A rebuttal to Yingling's article by Curtis L. Gilroy, titled Defending the all-volunteer force, may be found at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/04/4537015
Yingling's response to his critics, titled The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate, may be found at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/07/the-allvolunteer-force-the-deb/
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Originists
Originist appears to be the in vogue term for Supreme Court justices who believe the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of the members of the Constitutional Convention that created the document. Just how the intentions of a group of men in a meeting kept secret from the public, relying on the notes of members, well over two hundred years ago, using terminology no longer in use, with a vastly different experiential background is to be ascertained is a matter that has been given heightened concern by the Republican appointees to the current Court who have now confirmed that corporations are persons and can spend their vast wealth to support candidates of their choosing.
However, my concern is not to dwell on the dispute between Originists and what are now being called Living Constitutionalists, who argue that the Constitution was created to be modified as time and conditions change. Rather it is to note that the Original Intent interpretation is always preferred by conservatives and to explore one of the reasons I think this is so.
Interpreting the Constitution as closely as possible to the intent of men in circumstances substantially different from our own generates an increasing gap between the Constitution we live under and the circumstances we live in. In a large, technology-driven, multiethnic, society such as ours and in a world of transnational mega-corporations, rapidly moving information, not to mention movement of people and cultures, the Constitution is at risk of becoming an ancient artifact, venerated but of little use in dealing with the real world in the interests of "we the people." What, in other words, does free speech for a Rupert Murdoch mean other than the ability to drown out other speech with his Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks. What does our right to vote mean when the Constitution is subverted by supporting the powerful corporations rather than protecting the electoral environment of the people. The veneration of the past that is a consequence of the Originist doctrine makes the Constitution almost a sacred document as incapable of meaningful change as was the Catholic Church when faced with the doctrine-challenging evidence of science and not inconceivably, with the same results.
Let us focus a little more on the corporation as a case in point. The corporation began as a device by which investors could avoid the full impact of corporate failure. Only the money invested in the corporation would be lost, not the rest of the investor's funds. While this diminution of personal risk freed up the flow of money, it also created a different class of people. An individual, even a partnership risked their total resources in case of failure. This form of business can be expected to breed more caution than the corporate enterprise, e.g. Enron. Initially the corporation also had the legal advantage of having a monopoly, as in the case of the East India Company, generally regarded as the first corporation. It was granted a charter by the English crown in return for a share of the profits. It was this monopolistic form of the corporation that Thomas Jefferson urged killing at its birth.
One question I ask is who benefits by the increasing gap between the Constitution and the circumstances it is used to govern. I think it is the corporations. As the gap increases there is an increasing amount of economic activity that is only marginally controlled at best simply because the Constitution makes no mention of it, at least as interpreted by the Originists. This lack of control means wealth and power gradually shift to the corporations, which become major power centers seeking to either wrest control by the state for their own purposes or to control the state by economic subversion of its electoral, legislative and administrative processes. This has become increasingly the case as corporations, unlike nations, have become global in their structure and access to resources.
The corporate power that has built upon this gap is sufficient not only to challenge the power of government, it is more flexible and devious in controlling the populace than the more rule-bound government and can infiltrate government via many channels, not the least of which are our representatives. In brief the Constitution needs either a major overhaul or replacement if it is to be of continuing use to our citizens. In my judgment the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a bad place to begin. For example, article 24 states " Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality." Wouldn't that be a switch?
Bob Newhard
However, my concern is not to dwell on the dispute between Originists and what are now being called Living Constitutionalists, who argue that the Constitution was created to be modified as time and conditions change. Rather it is to note that the Original Intent interpretation is always preferred by conservatives and to explore one of the reasons I think this is so.
Interpreting the Constitution as closely as possible to the intent of men in circumstances substantially different from our own generates an increasing gap between the Constitution we live under and the circumstances we live in. In a large, technology-driven, multiethnic, society such as ours and in a world of transnational mega-corporations, rapidly moving information, not to mention movement of people and cultures, the Constitution is at risk of becoming an ancient artifact, venerated but of little use in dealing with the real world in the interests of "we the people." What, in other words, does free speech for a Rupert Murdoch mean other than the ability to drown out other speech with his Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks. What does our right to vote mean when the Constitution is subverted by supporting the powerful corporations rather than protecting the electoral environment of the people. The veneration of the past that is a consequence of the Originist doctrine makes the Constitution almost a sacred document as incapable of meaningful change as was the Catholic Church when faced with the doctrine-challenging evidence of science and not inconceivably, with the same results.
Let us focus a little more on the corporation as a case in point. The corporation began as a device by which investors could avoid the full impact of corporate failure. Only the money invested in the corporation would be lost, not the rest of the investor's funds. While this diminution of personal risk freed up the flow of money, it also created a different class of people. An individual, even a partnership risked their total resources in case of failure. This form of business can be expected to breed more caution than the corporate enterprise, e.g. Enron. Initially the corporation also had the legal advantage of having a monopoly, as in the case of the East India Company, generally regarded as the first corporation. It was granted a charter by the English crown in return for a share of the profits. It was this monopolistic form of the corporation that Thomas Jefferson urged killing at its birth.
One question I ask is who benefits by the increasing gap between the Constitution and the circumstances it is used to govern. I think it is the corporations. As the gap increases there is an increasing amount of economic activity that is only marginally controlled at best simply because the Constitution makes no mention of it, at least as interpreted by the Originists. This lack of control means wealth and power gradually shift to the corporations, which become major power centers seeking to either wrest control by the state for their own purposes or to control the state by economic subversion of its electoral, legislative and administrative processes. This has become increasingly the case as corporations, unlike nations, have become global in their structure and access to resources.
The corporate power that has built upon this gap is sufficient not only to challenge the power of government, it is more flexible and devious in controlling the populace than the more rule-bound government and can infiltrate government via many channels, not the least of which are our representatives. In brief the Constitution needs either a major overhaul or replacement if it is to be of continuing use to our citizens. In my judgment the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a bad place to begin. For example, article 24 states " Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality." Wouldn't that be a switch?
Bob Newhard
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Moral Values and Mankind's Survival
As I have noted previously, morality is a two edged sword.
On the one hand it may promote community harmony by way of common consent; on the other it may promote some of the worst violence when the morals of one society are opposed to those of another society. Obviously, the threat posed by radically differing moral systems, especially in a world of increasing lethality of weaponry, must be addressed if our species is to survive. This is the subject of a new book by Sam Harris (Previous books: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason; Letters to a Christian Nation) titled The Moral Landscape Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms. The book is due out in early October this year.
At least since Socrates asked "What is the Good?" humans have been asking what moral values are. Are they derived from other sources, if so what sources? Many societies, having a deity to protect them against adversity derived their moral values from said deity as did the Hebrews when Moses descended from the mountain top with their god's commandments. With the Age of Reason humans began to think about other origins for moral values. Emmanuel Kant supposed they were derived from social necessity, e.g. The injunction against lying was necessary because no society could persist if everybody lied. However, many people continue to believe that morality is derived from their god. As such there is no way to challenge those values without impiety or worse. Hence Christians can require everyone in a society to observe their religious days and Muslims can deny females an education. This feature of moral judgments, namely, their absolute arbitrariness, makes them impervious to any other human needs. This is the basic reason that such values present considerable danger to a world of different moral systems, which is being increasingly forced to live closer to each other and more interdependently.
That this issue has immediate practical and major significance can be illustrated by the following. One of the most influential books of the last few years, especially in conservative circles, is Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order in which it is argued that with the end of the Cold War the origins of conflict shifted from ideological differences to cultural differences. Thus the basic issue in our invasion of Iraq is not oil, but an episode in a fundamental clash between East and West. In this clash Huntington urges America and Europe to stand firm, indeed assertively, in support of Western values, such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism, as though democracy and capitalism are inherently compatible. Can you imagine a planet torn by such conflicts, where every resource conflict becomes a cultural conflict and all this embroilment in the context of increasingly lethal modern weaponry? In all probability it would be the end of civilization, if not our species. An instance of this kind of shift from political to cultural alignments can be found, especially since the "coalition of the willing" has been so gravely depleted, in the media's increasing use of "West" and "Western" when referring to the troops of the United States and its remaining allies. It is now referring to our invasion of Afghanistan as a fight between the insurgents and the West. This change in terminology is insidious, morally reprehensible, and extremely dangerous. The corporate powers that be and their religious cohorts are willing to risk a global conflict between cultures to further their own narrow and pecuniary interests. This is but one episode in the malicious use of global cultural fault lines. A brief, but articulate favorable review of Huntington's book by retired United States diplomat Marc E. Nicholson may be found at http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/product-reviews/0684844419/ref=undefinedhist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar
In his criticism of Huntington's book, William McNeill, the eminent historian emeritus from the University of Chicago, agrees with Huntington on the increasing importance of world cultures in international relations, but argues that this will result in greater tolerance of diversity as it generates increasing amounts of cultural sophistication. His critical essay may be found at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jan/09/decline-of-the-west/?pagination=false. A very powerful argument for the necessity and reality of diversity by Edward Said can be found at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6705627964658699201#.
Another solution to this dilemma, promoted especially by liberal religionists, has been to identify the elements of the world's value systems and therefrom create a value system for mankind. Eclecticism in religion-founded value systems has never gotten very far perhaps because these common values, few though they be, are seldom as important to a religion and its cultural aura as are the specific practices of a religion.
Many people seem to think that Huntington's thesis and those of his critics like McNeill exhaust the possible responses to this critical dilemma for mankind. However, Sam Harris in his above referenced new book seeks a new moral value ethos. It would find its roots in the human condition as science reveals it. Why the human condition?, because it is that which is most common to all humanity. Why science?, because it has the disciplinary universality that a moral system for mankind requires and it is rooted in the only human enterprise based on reality as assessed by scrupulous and testable honesty. Harris is prepared to take on issues long avoided by both scientists and philosophers when he argues that there are moral facts just as there are natural facts. Sam, as a kind of preface to his book, offers answers to 12 major questions he expects to be lodged against his thesis. These may be found on the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-moral-landscape-q-a-w_b_694305.html.
Thinking about how the world may organize (disorganize?) itself in the not too distant future can help articulate a progressive posture. This is much needed if we are to avoid the disaster attendant upon a nation motivated by conservative patriotic hoopla and the militarism which can so easily subvert American democracy. Here are three scenarios for the future, i.e. 1) cultural warfare, 2) increasing cultural diversity and mutual accommodation continually vulnerable to those who would exacerbate and exploit the sublimated differences, to wit Yugoslavia, 3) creation of a new value system based on science and human happiness; an example of which could be the increasing global environmental movement.
The ideological differences of the Cold War, in which there were only two primary protagonists, killed millions, maimed millions more and consumed enormous amounts of the world's resources. The enormity of a conflict between many cultures, (Huntington thinks primary conflicts will be between Western culture and the Confucian culture of China and between Western culture and Islam), makes World War II pale by comparison. Whatever the operating motif is, people will pour every difference into them. Civilizations are much bigger funnels than nations and we can expect every difference people have, e.g. resource competition, population growth, to be poured into these funnels of arbitrary cultural values with absolutely disastrous consequences for mankind. Huntington's thesis is being avidly adopted by the political right and used to galvanize resistance to everything foreign from Muslims to immigrants to the rising economic power of South America led by socialist governments. The opportunity to confuse, mislead and manipulate people in this mix of values, resources and power is enormous. Progressives can provide a nexus for keeping the public eye on the ball, namely the influence of corporations and the wealthy, and also provide the context for organizing citizen resistance to the process. Barbara Tuchman in her book The Guns of August points out that European socialists tried to stop World War I by calling a general strike in the opposing nations. It fell apart as party members followed their nationalist allegiances rather than their political allegiance. Hopefully we can make the tyranny, insidiousness and sheer power of corporate wealth clear so that people will finally see their commonality as a species in time to prevent the disaster which shall surely eventuate from the conservative Huntington scenario.
Bob Newhard
On the one hand it may promote community harmony by way of common consent; on the other it may promote some of the worst violence when the morals of one society are opposed to those of another society. Obviously, the threat posed by radically differing moral systems, especially in a world of increasing lethality of weaponry, must be addressed if our species is to survive. This is the subject of a new book by Sam Harris (Previous books: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason; Letters to a Christian Nation) titled The Moral Landscape Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms. The book is due out in early October this year.
At least since Socrates asked "What is the Good?" humans have been asking what moral values are. Are they derived from other sources, if so what sources? Many societies, having a deity to protect them against adversity derived their moral values from said deity as did the Hebrews when Moses descended from the mountain top with their god's commandments. With the Age of Reason humans began to think about other origins for moral values. Emmanuel Kant supposed they were derived from social necessity, e.g. The injunction against lying was necessary because no society could persist if everybody lied. However, many people continue to believe that morality is derived from their god. As such there is no way to challenge those values without impiety or worse. Hence Christians can require everyone in a society to observe their religious days and Muslims can deny females an education. This feature of moral judgments, namely, their absolute arbitrariness, makes them impervious to any other human needs. This is the basic reason that such values present considerable danger to a world of different moral systems, which is being increasingly forced to live closer to each other and more interdependently.
That this issue has immediate practical and major significance can be illustrated by the following. One of the most influential books of the last few years, especially in conservative circles, is Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order in which it is argued that with the end of the Cold War the origins of conflict shifted from ideological differences to cultural differences. Thus the basic issue in our invasion of Iraq is not oil, but an episode in a fundamental clash between East and West. In this clash Huntington urges America and Europe to stand firm, indeed assertively, in support of Western values, such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism, as though democracy and capitalism are inherently compatible. Can you imagine a planet torn by such conflicts, where every resource conflict becomes a cultural conflict and all this embroilment in the context of increasingly lethal modern weaponry? In all probability it would be the end of civilization, if not our species. An instance of this kind of shift from political to cultural alignments can be found, especially since the "coalition of the willing" has been so gravely depleted, in the media's increasing use of "West" and "Western" when referring to the troops of the United States and its remaining allies. It is now referring to our invasion of Afghanistan as a fight between the insurgents and the West. This change in terminology is insidious, morally reprehensible, and extremely dangerous. The corporate powers that be and their religious cohorts are willing to risk a global conflict between cultures to further their own narrow and pecuniary interests. This is but one episode in the malicious use of global cultural fault lines. A brief, but articulate favorable review of Huntington's book by retired United States diplomat Marc E. Nicholson may be found at http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/product-reviews/0684844419/ref=undefinedhist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar
In his criticism of Huntington's book, William McNeill, the eminent historian emeritus from the University of Chicago, agrees with Huntington on the increasing importance of world cultures in international relations, but argues that this will result in greater tolerance of diversity as it generates increasing amounts of cultural sophistication. His critical essay may be found at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jan/09/decline-of-the-west/?pagination=false. A very powerful argument for the necessity and reality of diversity by Edward Said can be found at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6705627964658699201#.
Another solution to this dilemma, promoted especially by liberal religionists, has been to identify the elements of the world's value systems and therefrom create a value system for mankind. Eclecticism in religion-founded value systems has never gotten very far perhaps because these common values, few though they be, are seldom as important to a religion and its cultural aura as are the specific practices of a religion.
Many people seem to think that Huntington's thesis and those of his critics like McNeill exhaust the possible responses to this critical dilemma for mankind. However, Sam Harris in his above referenced new book seeks a new moral value ethos. It would find its roots in the human condition as science reveals it. Why the human condition?, because it is that which is most common to all humanity. Why science?, because it has the disciplinary universality that a moral system for mankind requires and it is rooted in the only human enterprise based on reality as assessed by scrupulous and testable honesty. Harris is prepared to take on issues long avoided by both scientists and philosophers when he argues that there are moral facts just as there are natural facts. Sam, as a kind of preface to his book, offers answers to 12 major questions he expects to be lodged against his thesis. These may be found on the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-moral-landscape-q-a-w_b_694305.html.
Thinking about how the world may organize (disorganize?) itself in the not too distant future can help articulate a progressive posture. This is much needed if we are to avoid the disaster attendant upon a nation motivated by conservative patriotic hoopla and the militarism which can so easily subvert American democracy. Here are three scenarios for the future, i.e. 1) cultural warfare, 2) increasing cultural diversity and mutual accommodation continually vulnerable to those who would exacerbate and exploit the sublimated differences, to wit Yugoslavia, 3) creation of a new value system based on science and human happiness; an example of which could be the increasing global environmental movement.
The ideological differences of the Cold War, in which there were only two primary protagonists, killed millions, maimed millions more and consumed enormous amounts of the world's resources. The enormity of a conflict between many cultures, (Huntington thinks primary conflicts will be between Western culture and the Confucian culture of China and between Western culture and Islam), makes World War II pale by comparison. Whatever the operating motif is, people will pour every difference into them. Civilizations are much bigger funnels than nations and we can expect every difference people have, e.g. resource competition, population growth, to be poured into these funnels of arbitrary cultural values with absolutely disastrous consequences for mankind. Huntington's thesis is being avidly adopted by the political right and used to galvanize resistance to everything foreign from Muslims to immigrants to the rising economic power of South America led by socialist governments. The opportunity to confuse, mislead and manipulate people in this mix of values, resources and power is enormous. Progressives can provide a nexus for keeping the public eye on the ball, namely the influence of corporations and the wealthy, and also provide the context for organizing citizen resistance to the process. Barbara Tuchman in her book The Guns of August points out that European socialists tried to stop World War I by calling a general strike in the opposing nations. It fell apart as party members followed their nationalist allegiances rather than their political allegiance. Hopefully we can make the tyranny, insidiousness and sheer power of corporate wealth clear so that people will finally see their commonality as a species in time to prevent the disaster which shall surely eventuate from the conservative Huntington scenario.
Bob Newhard
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