Is mathbabe a terrorist or a lazy hippy? (#OWS)

Cathy O'Neil asks if Is mathbabe a terrorist or a lazy hippy? (#OWS).

O'Neil contends that the Occupy Movement is “scary” because;

It’s our ideas that threaten, not our violence. We ignore the rules, when they oppress and when they make no sense and when they serve to entrench an already entrenched elite. And ignoring rules is sometimes more threatening than breaking them.

This setting aside of rules was part the ethos of the Occupy Movement which O'Neil says were:

• that we must overcome or even ignore structured and rigid rules to help one another at a human level,
• that we must connect directly with suffering and organically respond to it as we each know how to, depending on circumstances, and
• that moral and ethical responsibilities are just plain more important than rules.

It is interesting that the State had to respond with violence against the Occupy Movement. The system had run out of ideas to counter the movement. And, yet, this is not the first time the State has done this:

• The Civil Rights Movement (see Deacons for Defense).
• The Anti-War Movement of the 1960's and 1970's
• Rachel Corrie

In 2005, I had posted a table about four (4) non-violent protests with their outcomes in Trucker Blockades - One Day On. The interesting one for me has always been the Rosenstrasse protests which succeeded against the Nazi regime. But that protest was not a clash of ideas. The regime could live with the outcome.

The ideas raised by the Occupy Movement threaten the Capitalist system. Other ideas in the past did the same when the social conservatives sought to maintain the status quo. The Unhappy Marriage of Capitalism and Conservatism reflected on the tension between the political and economic forces within the Capitalist elite. In many times in the past, Capitalism has successfully absorbed these new progressive forces after trying to violently supress them.

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Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit

Barry Ritholtz points via his 10 Friday AM Reads to the case “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit” by David Graeber in The Baffler.

Graeber wonders:

Where, in short, are the flying cars? Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now? Even those inventions that seemed ready to emerge—like cloning or cryogenics—ended up betraying their lofty promises. What happened to them?

In contrast to The Unhappy Marriage of Capitalism and Conservatism, Graeber argues that the social conservative nature of Capitalism is holding back break=through innovations such as listed above. Instead, the Capitalists are providing incremental improvements as an illusion that Capitalism is a progressive force.

Defenders of capitalism make three broad historical claims: first, that it has fostered rapid scientific and technological growth; second, that however much it may throw enormous wealth to a small minority, it does so in such a way as to increase overall prosperity; third, that in doing so, it creates a more secure and democratic world for everyone. It is clear that capitalism is not doing any of these things any longer. In fact, many of its defenders are retreating from claiming that it is a good system and instead falling back on the claim that it is the only possible system—or, at least, the only possible system for a complex, technologically sophisticated society such as our own.

In other words, Capitalism is running out of ideas that keep the current social order while maintaining the impetus of historical changes that Capitalism has unleashed. The concentration of wealth means that the spread of ideas among the elite is restricted by the small numbers involved and their defensive attitude towards wealth retention. They do not want to rock the boat, yet they must fight off anyone who tries to climb aboard.

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Government & Big Banks Join Forces to Violently Crush Peaceful Protests

Barry Ritholz reposts an argument that Government & Big Banks Join Forces to Violently Crush Peaceful Protests is the manifestation of Fascism in the USA:

The definition of fascism used by Mussolini is the “merger of state and corporate power“. Government and the big banks are in a malignant, symbiotic relationship. And our economy now exhibits a merger of state and bank power.

This is a different definition from that given by Trotsky (see Fascism: What it is and how to fight it):

At the moment that the "normal" police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium -- the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat -- all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.

The article reposted by Ritholtz indicates that the instruments of State oppression are still functioning to hold dissent in place by successfully crushing the Occupy movement.

Yet, as I argued in Proto-Fascism in the USA, Fascism could still arise if the Capitalist system fails the petite-bourgeoisie.

What is being described in this post is not Fascism, but merely the naked expression of state power in support of the Capitalist system. Fascism could still develop out of the Tea Party.

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The Unhappy Marriage of Capitalism and Conservatism

Barry Ritholtz's 10 New Year’s Eve Reads points to The Unhappy Marriage of Capitalism and Conservatism by Nancy Folbre who writes that:

The economic interests of capitalists (defined as those who earn most of their income from capital) are beginning to diverge significantly from the interests of social conservatives (defined as those who prefer traditional gender relations and oppose government efforts to promote racial and ethnic equality).

As recounted by Folbre, this has always been the case during the history of Capitalism. The social conservatives have always sought to defend their existing privileges gained through an earlier stage of Capitalism against those who have gained from economic changes. The political struggle has always been about the alignment of political power with economic reality.

Folbre lists three (3) areas where the conflict between conservatism and Capitalism has occurred:

1. One of the most beneficial consequences of a pattern of capitalist development shaped by political democracy was a growing demand for human capital that helped members of previously disempowered groups compete effectively for economic success and political leadership.
2. …the polarization of income itself reflects the evolution of a partly denationalized form of capitalism in which our largest companies create more jobs in other countries than at home and minimize their tax payments in overseas tax shelters.
3. …the role that the powerful banking sector played in the recession highlighted growing divisions within the business community.

I think Folbre misses the point that Capitalism is a dynamic system as opposed to slavery or Feudalism. By its very nature, Capitalism is always seeking new ways to make profits. Any Capitalist who becomes a conservative dooms themself.

It is this dynamic of Capitalism that has confounded Communists who followed the dictum that revolutions tend to occur when the political superstructure does not match the economic reality. The Communists had expected the revolutions to overthrow Capitalism, not sustain it as in the following crises:

• The growth in political power of the union movement through the rise of the Labour Parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries;
• The extension of suffrage, in stages, to:
• All white men
• All white women
• All adults
• The creation of the welfare state as seen in 'A Conservative Case for the Welfare State'
• The Civil Right's Movement
• The Land Right's Movement
• The Women's Movement

All of these covulsions have been absorbed into the Capitalist system. The danger for the Capitalist system is when it is no longer willing to absorb these changes. Such changes that need to be absorbed are:

• Gay Marriage
• Refugee Rights
• Climate Change
• Third World Debt

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Why Next to No Political Reaction to the Second Gilded Age?

Mark Thoma comments on Why Next to No Political Reaction to the Second Gilded Age?, by Brad DeLong.

DeLong asks:

But the political economy of Gilded Ages? Why the first Gilded age produces a Populist and a Progressive reaction and the second, so far, does not? There I throw up my hands and say that my economic historian training betrays me. I have no clue as to what is going on here.

Thoma's response is:

I think it matters a lot whether we think of inequality as arising from a problem in the system as a whole, or as the result of individual failures. When people think it's the system as a whole — the rich and powerful are scheming to hold everyone else down (e.g. robber barons) — mass movements are more likely than when it is viewed as simply the failings of individuals.

I think both DeLong and Thoma miss several important points:

• The populist movements of the early 20th Century arose as a reaction to several trends:
• The great depression of the 1890's
• The rapid industrialisation of the USA from 1890 to 1930 as agriculture gave way to industry as the main employer
• Rise of Socialist thought (among which was Marxism and the various strands of Anarchism)
• The rapid growth and radicalisation of the union movement in response to these trends
• In the past 30 years, the union movement has been defeated again and again. The main defensive weapon of the workers is now in a much weaker state now than a century ago.
• In the 1930's, there was a serious alternative to the Capitalist system in the form of the USSR. Ideologically and economically, Communism was seen as superior to Capitalism especially during the Great Depression.
• The fall of the USSR has removed that alternative from the public consciousness.
• There have been several significant mass movements over the past 15 years:
• The Anti-Globalisation movements starting in Seattle in 1999.
• The Anti-War movements of 2003. (See 15 February 2003)
• The various Occupy movements starting in 2011.
• The Arab Spring starting in 2012

I think the populist movements alluded to be DeLong and Thoma were the last real chance of the Capitalist system to bribe the workers away from Communism. The advent of neo-liberalism has destroyed that project once and for all.

There is a political reaction to the second Gilded Age, but it is muted as the traditional expressions of popular will have been emasculated.

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The 12 Step Program for Recovery From Stupid Capitalism

Ted Rall offers his The 12 Step Program for Recovery From Stupid Capitalism.

Among his steps are:

6. Understand that radical change is usually impossible without revolutionary overthrow of the state and the destruction of the ruling class and the stupid capitalist system that sustains it.

7. Accept that revolutionary movements require a combination of nonviolent and violent tactics in order to have a chance of succeeding.

8. Make common cause with anyone and everyone opposed to the existing order, no matter how repugnant, because nothing else matters until we have emancipated ourselves.

Point #8 is problematic because, during a revolution, the situation is very fluid. Having the wrong ideas can lead one into a dead end which may be impossible to get out of.

Trotsky, in his History of the Russian Revolution re-iterates time and again that the revolutionary party must have the confidence of the revolutionary masses. The party can only gain that confidence by having:

1. Correct assessment of the situation;
2. Correct actions for the situation

The second depends on the first. The second is very difficult to achieve, and mistakes will be made. The important thing, however, is recover quickly from those mistakes.

In the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the Bolshevik Party initially failed in both cases. It had failed to assess the situation of the February Revolution correctly and thereby take the correct actions.

It was not until Lenin returned, and started agitation for a realignment that the Bolshevik Party started to make a correct assessment. This was not enough to gain the confidence of the revolutionary masses because the Party had failed to act correctly during the February Revolution.

This came to a head during the defeat of the July Days. The Party had finally gained the correct assessment, and came with a programme of action which was rejected by the revolutionary masses.

But, it was this defeat that started the long process of building confidence of the revolutionary masses in the Bolshevik Party and in itself. This process made the October Revolution possible.

I would have to reject Rall's point #8 in general, but we can use a weaker version called the United Front in which aims are shared, and general principles are agreed. It is not possible to for a Bolshevik type party to join forces with another party that espouses racist policies and actions. Although the aims may be similar, the versions of society we are trying to build are anathema to each other.

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