Mark Thoma: Striving for Balance in Economics: Towards a Theory of the Social Determination of Behavior, by Karla Hoff, Joseph E. Stiglitz

Mark Thoma posts the abstract of Striving for Balance in Economics: Towards a Theory of the Social Determination of Behavior, by Karla Hoff, Joseph E. Stiglitz, NBER Working Paper No. 21823,Issued in December 2015.

This paper is an attempt to broaden the standard economic discourse by importing insights into human behavior not just from psychology, but also from sociology and anthropology. Whereas the concept of the decision-maker is the rational actor in standard economics and, in early work in behavioral economics, the quasi-rational actor influenced by the context of the moment of decision-making, in some recent work in behavioral economics the decision-maker could be called the enculturated actor. This actor's preferences and cognition are subject to two deep social influences: (a) the social contexts to which he has become exposed and, especially accustomed; and (b) the cultural mental models—including categories, identities, narratives, and worldviews—that he uses to process information. We trace how these factors shape individual behavior through the endogenous determination of both preferences and the lenses through which individuals see the world—their perception, categorization, and interpretation of situations. We offer a tentative taxonomy of the social determinants of behavior and describe results of controlled and natural experiments that only a broader view of the social determinants of behavior can plausibly explain. The perspective suggests new tools to promote well-being and economic development

Emphasis Mine

In vulgar Marxist terms, the subjective view of the world determines what objective actions are available, and these objective actions reproduces the subjective view of the world.

In a Capitalist world, the objective actions are:

• Own the means of production
• Sell one's labour-power
• Control access to money
• Seek rents

These actions construct a world-view in which the Capitalist generates wealth through procuring money to either build a productive entity, or to get rents on a scarce resource (like land, patents, licences, money, etc.).

This means that those who are not Capitalists are left with only one (1) choice: selling their labour-power. They become the proletariat.

This combination of subjective world-view and objective actions are scantified through the reproduction of the dominant Capitalist ideology in movies, TV, news reports, opinion pieces, schools, universities, and academic papers.

Maybe Hoff and Stiglitz are stepping outside of the big Capitalist ideological tent and into the murky Marxist world beyond.

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ABC: Peak oil losing credibility as renewables shift accelerates

Peter Ryan writes that Peak oil losing credibility as renewables shift accelerates.

The peak oil argument has confronted a new global reality — or a new normal — driven by major geopolitical and economic factors rocking both the developed and developing world:

• US shale producers are pumping like never before and adding to stockpiles.
• With US sanctions lifted, oil-rich Iran is about to rejoin the global market.
• The OPEC oil cartel is refusing to tighten supplies to keep prices high betting that US producers will produce themselves out of business.

AMP's Shane Oliver believes that, rather than facing a peak oil shock, consumers and industries will continue to move away from fossil fuels in an orderly manner as a wider range of renewable technologies get closer to affordable reality.

Emphasis Mine

What Ryan does not mention is the world-wide economic slump since the GFC of 2008, and the economic warfare against two of USA's official enemies: Russia and Venezuela.

The GFC introduced a period of austerity in which economic activity is curtailed. This austerity has driven down the demand for oil as consumers have less money to spend.

Because both Russia and Venezuela rely on oil exports to fund their economies, a sharp drop in oil prices contracts their economies, and makes them more susceptible to US pressure. This has certainly been the case of Venezuela where the opposition has made huge gains in the recent national assembly elections as the result of national hardships.

Ryan also discounts the enormous externalities that shale oil production incurs: contamination of the ground water; and earthquakes. At current prices, all shale oil producers are losing money.

Have we dodged the bullet on peak oil? I would say "Yes". My earlier post in The Death of Peak Oil concluded that:

We face a critical juncture in world history. Our industrial civilization is heavily dependent on oil for farming, transportation, and manufacturing. Yet, to continue economic growth, we must contaiminate our water supply and imperil the climate. The question is no longer about standards of living but of human survival.

And in A glut of oil?, I wrote:

On the negative side, the lower prices are affecting the Bolivaran Revolution in Venezuela. Lower national income is beginning to affect the social programs of the government. So, it is not all bad from the Capitalist's point of view. Temporary economic pain in order to destroy an alternative to Capitalism.

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Juan Cole: Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?

Nadir Firat asks Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?.

In the instance of the shooting down of the Russian plane, this multi-layered government propaganda apparatus started fabricating a reality that appeals to the nationalistic sensitivities of the majority in Turkey. In this particular case the job was not necessarily hard as the Turkish state, partly as a component of its nation-building project following the establishment of Turkey; partly, like any other colonialist power, to differentiate and subjugate its colonized population (Kurds in this case) and finally partly to strengthen the position of Kemalist elites in power, applied a comprehensive program of indoctrination of nationalism on its citizens. This was further strengthened in the 80’s and beyond when the Generals of 1980 military coup decided to fight against the threat of communism by using nationalism and religion. No means were spared. The education system, compulsory military service, government controlled mosques and media are all used as tools to indoctrinate people with the nationalistic fervor. In short, Sunni-Turk identity attached to a glorious past (a past rewritten to fulfill the contemporary needs) became a common belief and words like “Turk” or “Ottoman” started to carry a semi-sacred aura. The clearest indicator to the success of this indoctrination is the research done on the voting preferences of Turkish citizens. Although the majority vote for different parties for a variety of reasons, 65% of the voters say that they have the ultra nationalist MHP as their second choice.

Emphasis Mine

This places Turkey as a settler-colonialist society with an imperial past. The trajectory is reflected in other settler-colonialist societies:

• England focussing on English language and culture along with Anglican Christainity
• France focussing on French language and culture along with atheism
• Australia focussing on English language and culture along with Anglican Christainity
• USA focussing on English language and culture along with fundamentalist Christainity
• Israel focussing on Hebraic language and culture along Judaism

Other nations are following this pattern of enforcing a single language, culture, and religion: Sri Lanka with Buddhism; India with Hinduism; Japan with Shintoism; Kenya with Christainity; etc. Uniformity makes control easier, and uniformity become self-policing as detractors are easily identified and shamed.

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GLW: Turkish government undertaking massacre in Kurdistan

Australian Kurdish Association writes that Turkish government undertaking massacre in Kurdistan.

As a result of the attacks of the Turkish state forces, a comprehensive war is ongoing in Kurdistan since July of this year. The people of Kurdistan, just like all the peoples of the world, want to live freely and govern themselves in their own country. The Turkish state is rejecting all demands for rights by the Kurdish people and is deploying violent suppression. This is the essence and cause of the problem.

In accordance with its own interests, the AKP government put the ongoing dialogue and negotiation process with the Kurdistan Freedom Movement on hold and initialised the war against the Kurds.

As a result, the Kurdistan Freedom Forces took up a position of self-defence. In many towns and cities, the people of Kurdistan have attempted to establish autonomous local administrations in order to govern themselves without rejecting the state. This action in the towns and cities was a completely civil and democratic affair.

However, in an atmosphere in which even the slightest opposition is not tolerated, the AKP government disregarded the rightful demands of the Kurdish people and opted to violently repress this democratic advance. They declared indefinite curfews, targeted civilians and residential areas, killed hundreds of civilians and [destroyed] towns and cities.

Emphasis Mine

As I wrote in Rojava fights off new Islamic State attack:

Once again, the Capitalists want the world to know that “There is No Alternative”. They are prepared to use their enemy, IS, in attempt to destroy what they see as a far-greater threat: that of an alternative, functioning society based on grass-roots democracy and socialist ideals.

And there is the historic problem of Turkish nationalism: what to do about the minorities like Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks? The collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War meant that the Turkish population faced an identity crisis much like the English on the collapse of the British Empire, and the French on the loss of theirs.

When empire defines a nation, the loss of empires means loss of identity. In these cases, national identity became focussed on racial identity. And the loss of identity was explained by the weakening of the national character through the influx of the inferior races. Thus, xenophobia joined racism as the replacement for empire as the national identity.

Just like England and France, Turkey engages in military interventions in former imperial territories in order to defend its interests. Just like England in Northen Ireland, and France in the Basque country, Turkey suppresses minorities who agitate for legitimate rights under international law.

All of this is the natural consequence of a post-imperial Capitalist society. In Capitalism, a country is built around a nation—however that is defined. Threatened the purity of the nation, and the country is threatened. And a threatened country lashes out. A post-imperial country is still willing and able to use military might to lash out.

As long as Capitalism persists, this suppression of minority rights will continue. Capitalism has no other choice.

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TomGram: Frida Berrigan: "Are They Going to Kill Me?"

Frida Berrigan tries to console her young son when he asks about the police: "Are They Going to Kill Me?".

After the police killings of Lashano Gilbert (tased to death in our town of New London, Connecticut), Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray, we took the kids to candlelight vigils and demonstrations, doing our best to answer all Seamus's questions. "Why do the police kill people?" followed, of course, by "Are they going to kill me?" Then we somehow had to explain white privilege to a three year old and how the very things that we encouraged in him — curiosity, openness, questioning authority — were the things black parents were forced to discourage in their sons to keep them from getting killed by police.

And then, of course, came the next inevitable "Why?" (the same one I’m sure we’ll hear for years to come).  And soon enough, we were trying desperately to untangle ourselves from the essentially unintelligible — for such a young child certainly, but possibly the rest of us as well — when it came to the legacy of slavery and racism and state violence in explaining to our little white boy why he doesn't need to cry every time he sees a police officer.

And then came the next "Why?" and who wouldn’t think sooner or later that the real answer to all of his whys (and our own) is simply, “Because it’s nuts!  And we’re nuts!” I mean, really, where have we ended up when our answer to him is, in essence: "Don't worry, you're white!"

And then, of course, there’s the anxiety I have about how he’ll take in any of this and how he might talk about it in his racially diverse classroom — the ridiculous game of "telephone" that he could play with all the new words and fragments of concepts rattling around in his brain.

Emphasis Mine

So how do you explain white privilege to a toddler? How do you explain that you are able to get better health-care, better schooling, better jobs, better wages, not go to gaol, not get shot by the police, and just live longer because of the colour of your skin?

And this has to be explained in an ideology that is based on equality of opportunity and merit-based outcomes.

How does one tell the truth while living a lie?

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Juan Cole: Shin Bet: Jewish Terrorists Out to 'Violently Overthrow' Israeli Government

Juan Cole reposts Shin Bet: Jewish Terrorists Out to ‘Violently Overthrow’ Israeli Government.

Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet, on Thursday, cautioned that a Jewish terror organization is seeking to “violently overthrow” the Israeli government, Israeli media reported.

…

Israeli media across the board described the public statement issued by the security agency as a rare response to actors who have slandered the Shin Bet in a campaign to defend Jewish extremists responsible for a fatal arson attack on a Palestinian home last summer.

Suspects belonging to a Jewish terror organization, on July 31, set the home of the Dawabsha family ablaze, killing an 18-month-old baby immediately.

The infant’s parents later died from severe burns.

“A Jewish terror organization has been under investigation recently, whose activity is suspected to include serious terror attacks that endangered life and harmed religious sanctity and property,” the Shin Bet statement said, according to Israeli media.

Shin Bet claims that the group adheres to an extreme, “anti-Zionist” ideology and has set itself the goal of violently overthrowing the Israeli government.

“The terror attacks that are suspected to have been carried out by the organization led to, among other things, the murder of three innocent Palestinians. This contributed to instability in the region and worsened the security situation,” the agency added.

Emphasis Mine

In Israeli squatter-terrorists kill Palestinian toddler, injure 4 after setting their Home Ablaze, I wrote then that:

ISIS burn a Jordanian pilot alive and are justly condemned throughout the world.

Israelis burn a Palestinian child alive and there is silence.

As John Pilger says, Palestinians are unworthy victims. Indeed, they are even blamed for all the violence done to them.

Now, we have the Israeli secret police recognizing the existential threat to the Israeli state does not come from the Palestinians, but from the extremist Zionist organizations that dominate Israeli politics. The Israeli governments have been playing the same dangerous game as the Saudi royal family has been playing with Al Qaeda, the US governments with various white power and anti-Abortion groups, and the various Pakistani governments with the Taliban. All of these governments are using religious extremism to shore up support against domestic instability.

Shin Bet may want to think of them as “anti-Zionist”, but the agency refuses to see that these terrorists are the natural consequence of the Zionist ideology applied to the Palestinians. The core of the Zionist ideology is that of a Jewish homeland. Implicit in that idea is the exclusion and explusion of non-Jewish elements. This have the Israeli government project since independence.

The problem with extremism is the exclusion of moderation and compromise. Now, the Israeli elite is being viewed as not being real Jews, and need to be replace by the “true Jews”.

The ideology that nourishes and sustains the Israli state threatens to subsume the state into the Jewish equivalent of ISIS (Daesh) and the Taliban. These Israeli terror groups cannot be fought ideologically because the groups and the state share the same ideology.

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Mark Thoma: Paul Krugman and 'Challenging the Oligarchy'

Mark Thoma excerpts from Paul Krugman 'Challenging the Oligarchy'.

The Work of Nations was in some ways a groundbreaking work, because it focused squarely on the issue of rising inequality—an issue some economists, myself included, were already taking seriously, but that was not yet central to political discourse. Reich’s book saw inequality largely as a technical problem, with a technocratic, win-win solution. That was then. These days, Reich offers a much darker vision, and what is in effect a call for class war—or if you like, for an uprising of workers against the quiet class war that America’s oligarchy has been waging for decades. …

Emphasis Mine

Fuck off! Why should workers defend Capitalism? Krugman and Reich are wankers. Workers should smash Capitalism into the ground and grind it under their feet!

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Juan Cole: Abortion Clinics, White Christian Terrorism and GOP Candidates

Juan Cole writes about Abortion Clinics, White Christian Terrorism and GOP Candidates.

Americans are more at risk from violence by armed white Christian fanatics than they ever were from Muslims.

…

Deploying violence against people to halt abortions is the textbook definition of terrorism, which in the 1990s the Federal Code sensibly defined as non-state actors using violence against civilians to achieve a political aim. Much violence and coercion at Planned Parenthood (only 3% of its activity has to do with abortion) is inspired by Christian fundamentalism.

On this point, Christian ultra-conservativism agrees with the point of view of the Malik school of law among Muslims. In essence, Christian terrorists are attempting to move the United States on the below map away from a modern European norm, where abortion is elective up to a certain point in pregnancy, to an Afro-Asian and Maliki Muslim norm where it is often forbidden except to save the mother’s life (or not even then).

…

The same Christian fundamentalists who fulminate most loudly against “sharia law” (medieval Muslim canon law) are perfectly happy to impose their own, Christian sharia on secular American society. Some of them are willing to deploy violence to that end, making them religious terrorists. But on this issue, there increasingly isn’t much difference between the American Republican Party and the Wahhabi clerics in their Riyadh madrasas. In both cases, religious, theological doctrines are being made the basis of public law, which is un-American and actually unconstitutional (the First Amendment refers to that as Establishment of religion, which it forbids).

Emphasis Mine

The Capitalists desire control and are willing to align themselves with those who are willing and able to exercise control on their behalf. Class warfare is brutal, and the Capitalists want brutal people to keep Capitalism going.

This is where Fascism keeps coming up. It is the iron fist ready to smash any in-roads into the profitability of big business. Although Fascism starts out as a protest against the ravages of Capitalism on the petite bourgeoise, it morphs into a rabid defender of Capitalism because it cannot conceive of an alternative economic system. It just wants to get the wrong people out of running Capitalism.

Thus, the media supports White Terrorism by treating it differently. This is because the White Terrorists are aligned to the political agenda of the Capitalists. As such they are not fighting the system, they are preventing the system from falling into the wrong hands.

Cole also lists Top Ten differences between White Terrorists and Others

5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.

6. White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.

7. White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.

8. Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.

Emphasis Mine

And this is how the media continues to construct racism, and to convince people that the victims of terrorism are actually terrorists. This then reinforces the racism of the proto-Fascists and eventually turns abstract racism into concrete racism.

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Ted Rall: Corporate News Media: Don't Vote for Trump's Racist Lies, Vote for Someone Else's Racist Lies

Ted Rall writes that Corporate News Media: Don’t Vote for Trump’s Racist Lies, Vote for Someone Else’s Racist Lies.

The third problem with the “Trump bad” narrative is that, getting rid of a toxic strain in politics requires pumping up its alternative. This, the Times and other corporate media outlets never do.

There are hundreds of American newspapers. Not a single one ever runs an opinion essay by a communist, much less hires one as a columnist. Given that 11% of Americans are communist, 11% of published opinions should be pro-communist — and would be, if we had a free press.

There are hundreds of major broadcast and online news and politics outlets. None employ a self-identified socialist. 36% of Americans are socialist.

Communists, socialists and anarchists are the only major ideologies unequivocally opposed to the racist and Latinophobic and Islamophobic garbage Trump (and most other Republican candidates, and some Democrats) are spewing. Anyone who is serious about taking on this crap must support the real left.

Emphasis Mine

Rall is mistaking a positive view of something as being an active supporter of it. Having a favourable view of Socialism does not make one a Socialist.

The reason that Communists, socialists and anarchists are…unequivocally opposed to the racist and Latinophobic and Islamophobic garbage is that we want to build an inclusive society that is richer and fairer for all of us. We do this because of where we want to end up.

Rall forgets Malcolm X's dictum:

You cannot have Capitalism without Racism.

If yoy want to get rid of racism, you have to get rid of Capitalism.

This causes real agnst for liberals as they want to keep Capitalism, but do not want the rancidness of Racism permeating their nice, clean lives.

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Noah Smith: A big sweeping theory of modern history

Noah Smith describes his version of A big sweeping theory of modern history.

Here's a Big Sweeping Theory that I've been toying with. There are lots of theories of the cycle of rise and decline of empires in the agricultural, premodern world. I'd like to create a parallel theory of low-frequency cycles (or, more accurately, long-term impulse responses to stochastic technology shocks) in the modern, industrialized world.

It's possible to see the convulsions of the World Wars and the Great Depression as a one-time event — part of the growing pains of the industrial revolution, not to be repeated. But what if some of the core features of those events are actually part of a cycle? Here's a sketch of how that cycle might work:

Smith's model consists of seven (7) main phases:

1. Technological Change.
2. Globalization.
3. ?
1. Inequality.
2. Cultural Change.
3. Financialization.
4. Geopolitical Shifts.
4. Rise of Extremism.
5. Economic Slowdown.
6. War.
7. New Order.

The interesting thing is that Smith does not have an explanation for Phase 5: Economic Slowdown. Marxists do: the rate of profit declines below the necessary rate required for reproduction of Capital. In other words, Capitalists will not invest if the rate of return does not allow to get their money back within the foreseeable future. In normal times, this future is about five (5) years. In times of stress, this can drop to little as a year.

The alternative view of history is provided by Marx in which the driver of human history is class conflict. The economic organization of society creates classes which come into conflict over the distribution of the economic output. A political and ideological superstructure is created to contain this conflict. Breakdown of the system occurs when this superstructure cannot adapt fast enough to the changes in the economic organization of society.

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Mark Thoma: 'What Is Holding Back the Economy?'

Mark Thoma asks 'What Is Holding Back the Economy?'.

Not the first to say this, but the problem is that Republicans have misrepresented the causes of the distress so many households feel, in particular scapegoating those who have it even worse as somehow responsible for their problems (and the decline of America more generally). And then they sell the solutions as benefiting the middle class (trickle down anyone?) when they are really directed at reducing taxes for those at the top, and reducing the government services that people rely upon to survive in this economy to support the tax cuts.

But there is something else I'd like to note. The problem is blamed on government at all levels, and fiscal policy. We hear, when Republicans are named at all, that it is "especially" Republicans as though the balance only tilts in one direction. No, it's not especially Republicans, or even mostly Republicans that are standing in the way of doing more to help those who are struggling to make ends meet. It is Republicans. It's not congressional gridlock based upon reasonable differences over policy that cannot be resolved through compromise, it's an active attempt by one party to block anything the other party tries to do, even if it might help people economically. So long as the political benefits of this behavior — benefits based upon selling snake oil for the most part — exceed the economic costs of inaction, Republicans will stand in the way (all the while trying to convince those who are hurt the most by their actions that they will actually be helped). It's time to stop blaming "government" as though that is what is dysfunctional. The dysfunction, as evidenced by the slate of, and preferences over Republican presidential candidates, is in the Republican party. Their actions since the onset of the Great Recession have, in my view, hurt people who should have been helped, slowed the recovery, and diverted our attention from the true problems we face making it impossible to solve them (not that Republicans would have gone along with the solutions anyway). If this election tears Republicans apart and strips them of this ability to stand in the way of helping the working class, a dream I know, I will not be shedding tears. Quite the opposite.

Emphasis Mine

This is class warfare. The Capitalists are ruthlessly exploiting the Workers far more than necessary for the basic operation. This is exploitation for exploitation's sake.

With the destruction of the union movement and associated political movements, the Capitalists are rampaging unchecked taking a significant section of the working class along with them.

I do not share Thoma's tact belief that the Democratic Party is any better. They are also a Capitalist party, although less prone to rampaging.

The solution lies outside of Capitalism. This is something that nearly all workers will not consider. For them, Communism and Socialism are still evil as they think these systems prevent them from becoming rich.

The workers think they achieve a better outcome by becoming richer individuals instead of being part of a society that is richer and distributes its benefits more fairly.

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Juan Cole: Why did Turkey dare shoot down a Russian Plane? The Proxy War in Syria

Juan Cole asks Why did Turkey dare shoot down a Russian Plane? The Proxy War in Syria.

We may conclude that Russia’s targeting of Turkmen, an ethnic group that speaks a language similar to that spoken in Turkey, raised nationalist hackles in Ankara. But in addition, these Syrian Turkmen are religious, just as is the leadership of the ruling AKP in Turkey. And, further, they are a linchpin for Turkish, American and Saudi intervention in Syria, since they appear to be among the arms smugglers getting munitions to the rebels against the al-Assad government. Although the CIA maintains that these weapons only go to some 45 “vetted” groups that are not extremists, they in fact get into the hands of al-Qaeda and its allies, grouped as the Army of Conquest, as well. Russia must defeat the Army of Conquest and protect the Alawites of Latakia if it is to achieve its war aims in Syria, and appears to have decided to begin by blocking Turkmen smuggling. The Turkmen had their revenge, claiming to have killed one or both of the pilots who ejected from the downed fighter jet and also taking down a Russian helicopter that attempted to rescue them. [Update: Russia later rescued both pilots, who are actually unharmed.]

Russia and Turkey are now fighting a proxy war in Syria, and have been all this fall. As of yesterday, they are not just using proxies, but are directly in conflict with one another.

Turkey and the Turkmen are carving out a sphere of influence in northern Syria and are insisting that Russia recognize it. How severe the conflict becomes depends in part on how Russia responds to this setback for its war aims. It also depends on whether Turkish goals are more ambitious, to help the al-Qaeda-led Army of Conquest take Latakia. If Jabal Turkmen is a red line for Turkey, Latakia port is a red line for Russia. Red lines have a way of turning into hot wars.

Emphasis Mine

Turkey was able to do this because it has the backing of the USA. Any retaliation by Russia means direct conflict with the USA. An indirect way would be for Russia to overtly support Kurdish rights in Turkey. And covertly support the Kurdish militias.

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SMH: Face of Reclaim Australia rally Nathan Paterson insists: I'm not racist

Face of Reclaim Australia rally Nathan Paterson insists: I'm not racist

He insisted he was not racist, referring to his friendship with the Bangladeshi owner of the kebab shop that he frequents.

In a way, Paterson is correct. He does not hate or hurt people because of their race. He is not a racist in the concrete sense.

There is a scale of concrete racism:

1. Someone who kills a person because they are of a different race
2. Someone who assaults a person because they are of a different race
3. Someone who insults a person because they are of a different race
4. Someone who is rude to a person because they are of a different race
5. Someone who avoids a person because they are of a different race
6. Someone who hates a person because they are of a different race
7. Someone who dislikes a person because they are of a different race
8. Someone who discriminates against a person because they are of a different race
9. Someone who encourages concrete racism
10. Someone who condones concrete racism
11. Someone who protects concrete racism

Concrete racism occurs someone takes action to harm another based on their race. There is no evidence that Paterson has done any of these things, nor condone anyone doing such things.

Yet. he has a partial glimpse of the truth:

He has been trying to find Housing NSW accommodation for several months and has been told it could take more than 10 years to find the permanent two-bedroom home he would like to have so that the younger of his two sons can stay with him on weekends.

It's that struggle that has led him to believe governments - whether local, state or federal - aren't doing enough to help "everyday Australians".

"The government needs to start looking after its own people," he said.

"Newcastle council want to let some of those 12,000 Syrian refugees come to settle here, but there isn't even any housing for Australian people."

He points to the discrimination by Australian governments in the area of housing. He has the keen sense to recognize that there should be suitable housing for everyone.

Because of the government's war on the poor, he is unable to secure suitable housing. It is this scarity of housing that bringing up the abstract racism in him. The government is indirectly creating racism through housing scarity.

Yes, he is a racist in the abstract sense:

"They're all over in their countries blowing each other up, and they want to bring all that here. I say just leave them there."

Yet, how can he not feel this way when the media and government continually say the same thing? Why is he labelled a racist when he just repeats what people of importance say the same thing?

Paterson is being manipulated into becoming a racist of a deeper hue through the policies and actions of the government, and the blanket propaganda of the media.

The only hope for him to grasp the unpopular idea that everyone is a human being deserving of the same dignity and rights.

Even this simple act will be corroded by the simple fact of trying to survive in an economic and political system that is built on and needs racism.

You cannot get rid of racism by hounding people like Paterson, but through the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism.

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Seth Godin: A reason persuasion is surprisingly difficult

Seth Godin gives A reason persuasion is surprisingly difficult.

To many people, it feels manipulative or insincere or even morally wrong to momentarily take the other person's point of view when trying to advance an argument that we already believe in.

And that's one reason why so many people claim to not like engaging in marketing. Marketing is the empathetic act of telling a story that works, that's true for the person hearing it, that stands up to scrutiny. But marketing is not about merely sharing what you, the marketer believes. It's about what we, the listener, believe.

Emphasis Mine

This is sound advice for revolutionaries. We must thoroughly understand the world that a worker inhabits.

The best way is for us to be workers ourselves and engage other workers in political discussions based on our shared experiences.

Although we tend to inflate ourselves with our supposed superior political education, we would be wasting everyone's time if we approached every political discussion as it were an internal party debate.

As Ted Rall points out in Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and So Are You:

As far as I know, Bernie hasn’t emphasized the quality of public education in his campaign. But something is, no pun intended, radically wrong when so few Americans understand basic political and economic terms — especially when they apply to the political and economic system under which they themselves live.

By global standards, Sanders’ campaign is calling for weak socialist tea. In most European countries, all colleges are free or charge nominal fees. Socialized medicine, in which your doctor is a government employee and there’s no such thing as a big for-profit hospital corporation, is the international norm. Paid leave? Obviously. And most governments recognize the importance of public infrastructure, and not relying on the private sector to provide every job.

There can only be one reason Americans don’t know this stuff: they’re idiots. Their schools made them that way as kids. Media propaganda keeps them stupid as adults.

Emphasis Mine

So, we face a populace that is intentionally crippled in political thinking. Yes, we can decry their political idiocracy. But these people are the foundations that a Socialist revolution must be built upon.

To mis-quote Donald Rumsfeld:

As you known, you go into a revolution with the people as they are, not the people you might want or wish to have at a later time.

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From Beirut to Paris - your wars are our dead: Socialist Alliance statement on terror attacks

From Beirut to Paris - your wars are our dead: Socialist Alliance statement on terror attacks.

These latest acts of terror must not be allowed to justify ongoing and new imperial wars, tougher anti-refugee and anti-immigrant laws and anti-democratic “security” laws and repression of democratic rights.

In response to the attacks in Paris, people opened their homes to the traumatised and wounded. Taxi drivers ferried people home for free. People queued to donate blood. There has been international condemnation, statements from Western leaders, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and a global outpouring of sympathy and symbolic acts of solidarity across the globe.

The same level of response from the West did not follow the immediate aftermath of the bombings in Beirut (often called the 'Paris of the middle east'). But people's lives matter as much in Paris as they do in Beirut or Syria or Iraq. Perhaps this latest attack in the heart of Europe has, at least, made the horror inflicted on the people of Beirut and the Middle East more difficult to ignore.

Terrorist forces such as ISIS and Al Qaeda are the products of decades of Western imperialist intervention and occupation in the Middle East. These same Western governments have been responsible for more bloodshed across the region than ISIS. In Iraq, for example, where more than half a million have been killed since the 2003 invasion and the society largely destroyed, the kind of extreme fundamentalist terror represented by ISIS was unknown prior to the invasion and occupation by the US and its allies.

At the time of the invasion of Iraq, both Western intelligence agencies and the millions of people who marched against war warned that this military intervention would only create more terror. They have been proven correct and it is the people of Paris, Beirut, Syria and Iraq who are paying the price.

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Elie Fares makes the same point in From Beirut, this is Paris: in a world that doesn’t care about Arab lives:

When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of our flag. Even Facebook didn’t bother with making sure my people were “marked safe”, trivial as it may be. So here’s your Facebook safety check: we’ve, as of now, survived all of Beirut’s terrorist attacks.

When my people died, the world was not in mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck on the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.

And you know what, I’m fine with all of it. Over the past year or so, I’ve come to terms with being one of those whose lives don’t matter. I’ve come to accept it and live with it.

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The world forgets that its is the Arabs, Kurds, and Iranians who are fighting the ISIS, and who are being killed by them.

No wonder people in the Middle East have such a cynical attitude to the values espoused by the West. They think, as Gandhi did, that Western Civilization is a good idea — not a reality.

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Paul Krugman: The Heartland of Darkness

Paul Krugman looks into The Heartland of Darkness.

This new paper by Angus Deaton and Anne Case on mortality among middle-aged whites has been getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. As a number of people have pointed out, the closest parallel to America’s rising death rates — driven by poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases — is the collapse in Russian life expectancy after the fall of Communism. (No, we’re not doing as badly as that, but still.) What the data look like is a society gripped by despair, with a surge of unhealthy behaviors and an epidemic of drugs, very much including alcohol.

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The US Capitalist system is so brutal that it is killing its main supporters: middle-aged, white males. This is the group that is supposed to benefit from the sexism, racism, homophobia, islamophobia, and xenophobia.

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GLW: Who's to blame for Australia's domestic violence crisis?

Liah Lazarou asks Who's to blame for Australia's domestic violence crisis?.

The money exists to fund the kinds of services and programs necessary to enact the changes we desperately need. Imagine if the tens of millions of dollars allocated each day for military expenditure was redirected to vital services such as health centres, rape crisis centres, women's refuges and counselling, education, training and employment services for all women and their dependents.

Or if Australia's biggest corporations were taxed in such a way that a portion of the billions of dollars of profits they make each year had to be spent on public and community education.

Domestic violence is not incidental: it is built into a class system that profits and maintains itself through women's oppression and exploitation. Addressing the underlying cause of violence against women requires ending sexism and gender inequality.

We need a feminism that fights for programs and services to help women survive right now, at the same time as it fights the structures which perpetuate sexism and gender inequality.

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Capitalism is a violent system as any system that is based upon exploitation, has to be. Slavery was violent: Feudalism was violent.

The Capitalist's excuse is that humans are naturally violent and greedy, and the system has to accommodate these traits.

But as human beings, we have the ability to transcend our base selves and create a better society. Do we dare to do so, or just accept the current situation?

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Chris Dillow: Markets need Marxism

Chris Dillow explains why Markets need Marxism.

All this poses the question. Why, then, haven't we seen state help to create what Robert Shiller has called financial democracy?

It's certainly not because of a commitment to laissez-faire: the massive implicit subsidy to banks tells us that the state is very happy to intervene in the financial system.

Instead, the answer was pointed out by Marx: the state serves the interests of capitalists, not the people. And financial capital would rather financial markets consisted of rent-seeking than of enhancing aggregate welfare. Crony capitalism has encouraged  financialization (pdf), not financial democracy.

In this sense, a well-functioning market economy requires that the state be freed from the grip of capitalists. In some respects it is capitalism that is the enemy of a market economy, and Marxism that is its friend.

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The question of whether markets should be retained under Socialism is a vexed one. Some Marxists think markets are a panacea for the distribution problem for the industrialized world. Others think that centralized planning does away with markets altogether.

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Chris Dillow: Tax credits: the Bubble's failures

Chris Dillows examines Tax credits: the Bubble's failures.

[George Osborne] failed to see that big political change requires more than bums on seats in Whitehall. It rests upon broader social conditions. The Bubble, with its focus upon Westminster, under-estimates this fact. In this sense, some Corbynistas—who see that there's much more to politics than Westminster—know something the Bubble is keen to deny.

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The Capitalists are very keen for everyone to focus their political energies upon the bourgeoisie parliamentary system as the only true democratic institution. The Reformists fervently believe this.

However, political power is derived from the realisation of economic power, and is enforced and defended by the state.

Capitalists and Reformers are both very afraid of street and work-place mobilisations because the ensuring political discourse cannot be controlled to the benefit of the Capitalists. These mobilisations are either disarmed through appeal to reform, or suppressed by the state.

Yet, from these mobilisations, the revolutionary movement is built. It is when ordinary people understand politics as existing outside of parliament that revolutionary consciousness begins to grow.

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Noah Smith: Racial bias in police killings

Noah Smith has a hypothesis about Racial bias in police killings.

Let me offer an explanation I see as more likely: Cops often tend to shoot (or otherwise brutalize) people not out of fear, but out of wrath.

My hypothesis goes like this. Cops pull out their guns and their nightsticks when they see suspects as having challenged their authority. They are determined to maintain power and control at all costs (i.e., South Park nailed it). Black people are more commonly seen as challenging cops' authority, probably because a lot of black people grew up in a state of relative anarchy and therefore lack other people's conditioned response of instant meek submission to police.

This seems to be exactly what happened with Eric Garner. He wasn't threatening at all; he's obviously a big teddy bear, he doesn't have any weapon, and he wasn't making any move to attack anyone. But he's an insubordinate teddy bear, who thinks he can reason his way out of an unfair arrest. So the cops grab him and choke him to death.

It also explains why so many suspects get shot in the back. For example, Walter Scott. A man who's running away is not a threat. He is not a source of fear. He is, however, flouting authority. Same with Samuel Dubose. Type "police shoot black man" in Google, and "police shoot black man in the back" is one of the first results that come up.

Here the police shoot a black guy in a wheelchair.

This psychologically plausible hypothesis is also parsimonious, because it allows police racism to explain both racial profiling and excess unjustified brutalization of black people. It also implies that in areas with entrenched racial conflict—say, the South—white police will be more likely to kill black people, because they view blacks as socially subordinate (hence any backtalk or resistance will be seen as more unacceptable if it comes from a black person than if it comes from a white person). So that would be an interesting test.

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In Australia, the legacy of the frontier wars is an element in the resistance by Aborigines and the brutal oppression they suffer.

As is happening in Israel now, racial oppression engenders resistance, both non-violent and violent. Both forms are treated the same way because they challenge the authority of the state.

Remember that the state exists to oppress the non-ruling classes—whether they are slaves, serfs, or workers. This is why the Capitalist state can never be captured; it can only be destroyed.

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Chris Dillow: Technical change as collective action problem

Chris Dillow sees Technical change as collective action problem.

In these ways, capitalism is a form of collective action problem. We can imagine a society in which super-machines do indeed allow us all to live in luxurious leisure. But the decentralized decisions of capitalists might not get us there.

Granted, sensible aggregate demand policies might suffice to overcome realization crises — though the believe that such policies will be enacted is a form of what I've called centrist utopianism. But the other obstacle to investment and growth — the fear of future technical change — might not be so easily soluble within the confines of capitalism.

These issues are, of course, unresolved. What is clear, though, is that Marxism presents a useful perspective upon them.

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This is a very difficult problem for workers in general. They see their jobs as means of getting sustenance. We need to see our jobs as contributing to the well-being and advancement of society.

This change of focus must be part of the growing consciousness of workers. Without it, we will be forever enslaved to the Capitalists who oppress us into ever-meaningless and demeaning forms of employment.

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Branko Milanovic: Those Who are Left Out in the Cold

Branko Milanovic writes about Those Who are Left Out in the Cold.

But I think that it is insufficient to leave this argument at a very abstract level where one group of Americans would have a more cosmopolitan welfare function and better perception of global benefits of trade and another would be more nativist and ignorant of economics. I do not think that the real difference between the two groups has to do with welfare concerns and economic literacy but with their interests. Many rich Americans who like to point out to the benefits of globalization worldwide significantly benefited and continue to benefit from the type of globalization that has been unfolding during the past three decades. The numbers, showing their real income gains, are so well known that they need no repeating. They are large beneficiaries from this type of globalization because of their ability to play off less well-paid and more docile labor from poorer countries against the often too expensive domestic labor. They also benefit through inflows of unskilled foreign labor that keep the costs of the services they consume low. Thus rich Americans are made better off by the key forces of globalization: migration, outsourcing, cheap imports, which have also been responsible for the major reduction of worldwide poverty. Perhaps in a somewhat crude materialist fashion I think that their sudden interest in reducing worldwide poverty is just an ethical sugar-coating over their economic interests which are perfectly well served by globalization. Like every dominant class, or every beneficiary of an economic or political regime, they feel the need to situate their success within some larger whole and to explain that it is a by-product of a much grander betterment of human condition.

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Let's not forget that Capitalism has been a positive force in world economic history. The world today with its technological marvels and gigantic industrial infrastructure would not have been possible without Capitalism.

Let us also remember that Capitalism is unsustainable. It requires unlimited growth to survive. Yet we live in a finite world. Capitalism is heading for catastrophe unless we change the system.

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Chris Dillow: Conning the working-class

Chris Dillow writes about how Capitalists are Conning the working-class.

Some laboratory experiments (pdf) by Philip J. Grossman and Mana Komai have shown how strong such within-class envy can be. They show that some of the poor are willing to attack other poor people even at their own expense. They conclude:

We find strong evidence of within class envy: the rich targeting the rich and the poor targeting the poor…Within the poor community, the target of envy is usually a poorer subject whose wealth is close to the attacker; the attacker may possibly be trying to preserve his/her relative ranking.

I say all this for a reason. It's tempting for lefties to believe that people vote Tory because of "neoliberal" ideology and the right-wing media. But there might be more to it than this. Even without such propaganda, there are cognitive biases at work which undermine class solidarity. I fear some on the left underestimate this fact because of the same cognitive bias which contributed to that woman voting Tory - wishful thinking.

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Yes, the divisions within the working class are based on cognitive biases. But these biases are fostered and engendered through Capitalism.

There is no natural way these biases can be overcome except through conscious action and though on the part of the working class.

Only we can liberate ourselves. There is no magic cure to Capitalism except the revolutionary change that originates in ourselves.

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Dan Little: ABM approaches to social conflict

Dan Little discusses ABM approaches to social conflict.

Second, it is important to notice the range of factors the simulation does not consider, which theorists like Tilly would think to be crucial: quality of leadership, quality and intensity of organization, content of appeals, differential pathways of appeals, and variety of political psychologies across agents. This simulation captures several important aspects of this particular kind of collective action. But it omits a great deal of substantial factors that theorists of collective action would take to be critical elements of the dynamics of the situation.

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In other words, the discipline and cohesion of a Leninist party is vitally important in bringing about revolutionary change.

Key variables in their simulation are religious identity, demographic change, population density, the history of recent inter-group conflict, and geographical location. The action space for individuals is: move location, mobilize for violence. And their model is calibrated to real data drawn from four states in Northwest India. Their basic finding is this: "Conflict is predicted in this model where islands or peninsulas of one ethnicity are surrounded by a sea of another (Figure 2.1)."

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It is interesting to note that the two (2) major incubators of the Bolshevik Revolution were island:

• Industrial district of Vyborg near St. Petersburg
• Kronstadt Naval fortress at St. Petersburg

Their isolation was meant to contain unrest, but the isolation allowed and fostered revolutionary temperments.

All these models warrant study. They attempt to codify the behavior of individuals within geographic and social space and to work out the dynamics of interaction that result. But it is very important to recognize the limitations of these models as predictors of outcomes in specific periods and locations of unrest. These simulation models probably don't shed much light on particular episodes of contention in Egypt or Tunisia during the Arab Spring. The "qualitative" theories of contention that have been developed probably shed more light on the dynamics of contention than the simulations do at this point in their development.

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Revolutionaries should continue to study previous revolutions, and see what is applicable to the current and evolving political situation.

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Robert J. Schwendinger: "Migration, "Free" Trade and China in History"

Robert J. Schwendinger writes that "Migration, "Free" Trade and China in History".

The seeds of failure for a prosperous China Trade were being planted during the years in which western nations treated China as a semi-colony, taking as much as they could get and giving little or nothing in return. The failure was also precipitated by the nations in which Chinese nationals were exploited for their labor, but denied universal rights and protections.

The story of Commissioner Lin Tse Hsu and his destruction of the great quantity of opium in 1839 is as important to Chinese history as the Boston Tea Party is to the United States; and although Lin’s actions precipitated defeat by the Western powers, the national humiliation China and Chinese suffered for almost a century is partly responsible for the two revolutions in modern times. With an emphasis on its own needs, China will assuredly measure each petitioner for respect. That nation’s history also suggests the need to be especially aware of challenges to its sovereignty.

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So far, the successful Communist revolutions have all been based on national uprisings against colonialism:

• Russian revolution against French Imperialism
• Chinese revolution against European, American and Japanese Imperialism
• Vietnamese revolution against French and American Imperialism
• Laotian revolution against French Imperialism
• Cuban revolution against American Imperialism
• Venezuelan revolution against American Imperialism

For the nest series of Revolutions, these will have to be in Imperialist countries like Australia. Here nationalism is the natural enemy of social revolution.

This is why it is important to build anti-racism movements around land rights and refugee rights. We have to emphasis the international character of the working class.

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Edward Lambert: Is it Debt Deleveraging or the Fall in Labor Share?

Edward Lambert argues against Adair Turner: Is it Debt Deleveraging or the Fall in Labor Share?.

I look at another cause for economic sluggishness… the fall in labor share. It is not a concept so easy to accept. If you pay labor less, business should be able to grow faster right? You have lowered business costs. You have made it easier for firms to project higher profits, right?

Yet, I see the fall in labor share as a fall in effective demand, which has lowered economic potential and the social benefits in the economy. The drying up so to speak of labor share of income has caused firms to seek out profits in other channels where money is circulating. Firms are able to survive, but labor continues to suffer.

We can say that deleveraging debt and the fall in labor share both contribute to the economic sluggishness. But since Adair Turner did not talk about the fall in labor share, I will.

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This is classic Marxism: Capitalist crises are caused by over-production and under-consumption. The proletariat can only purchase with what they earn (current and/or future earnings).

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Samah Sabaw: Read their lips: Israeli leaders’ plans for the Palestinians

Samah Sabaw writes that we should Read their lips: Israeli leaders’ plans for the Palestinians.

Palestinian leaders have not intervened. Israel has made it clear they expect the Palestinian security forces to work with the Israeli military to crush the protests, and so far Mahmoud Abbas’ PA has mostly complied.

The de-facto Hamas government in Gaza has also made it clear that it prefers not to be drawn into the rebellion. Its political bureau deputy chief, Musa Abu Marzouk, spoke firmly against firing rockets into Israel as this would “transfer the campaign to a different front, and will snuff out the popular intifada.” Other militia groups in Gaza nevertheless fired a few rockets into Israel, causing no injuries. Israel’s response: an airstrike that killed a pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter. Footage of the father weeping over his dead daughter, begging her to wake up, has gone viral, prompting more calls for rebellion against Israel’s oppression and brutality.

Desperate Palestinian youth who have lived under occupation and siege their entire lives, with no hope of a future, risk their lives in their fight for freedom. But what are the Israelis fighting for? Having destroyed all chances of Palestinian statehood, Israel is fighting to maintain its occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people, creating an apartheid state throughout the lands where its rule holds sway.

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The brutality of genocide engenders a brutal response. Do not condemn the Palestinian response without understanding the brutality that created it. Israel has rejected peace, and embraced war.

Support of Israel is support of genocide.

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Tom Engelhardt: Creating an Un-Intelligence Machine

Tom Engelhardt writes that the USA is Creating an Un-Intelligence Machine.

You get the point.  Whatever the efforts of that expansive corps of intelligence analysts (and the vast intelligence edifice behind it), when anything happens in the Greater Middle East, you can essentially assume that the official American reaction, military and political, will be “surprise” and that policymakers will be left “scrambling” in a quagmire of ignorance to rescue American policy from the unexpected.  In other words, somehow, with what passes for the best, or at least most extensive and expensive intelligence operation on the planet, with all those satellites and drones and surveillance sweeps and sources, with crowds of analysts, hordes of private contractors, and tens of billions of dollars, with, in short, “intelligence” galore, American officials in the area of their wars are evidently going to continue to find themselves eternally caught “off guard.”

The phrase “the fog of war” stands in for the inability of commanders to truly grasp what’s happening in the chaos that is any battlefield.  Perhaps it’s time to introduce a companion phrase: the fog of intelligence.  It hardly matters whether those 1,500 CENTCOM analysts (and all those at other commands or at the 17 major intelligence outfits) produce superlative “intelligence” that then descends into the fog of leadership, or whether any bureaucratic conglomeration of “analysts,” drowning in secret information and the protocols that go with it, is going to add up to a giant fog machine.

It’s difficult enough, of course, to peer into the future, to imagine what’s coming, especially in distant, alien lands.  Cobble that basic problem together with an overwhelming data stream and groupthink, then fit it all inside the constrained mindsets of Washington and the Pentagon, and you have a formula for producing the fog of intelligence and so for seldom being “on guard” when it comes to much of anything.

Emphasis Mine

There are two (2) activities that contradict each othet:

1. Extension and strengthening the Pax Americana
2. Elimination of challenges to the Pax Americana

The first activity requires the complete acceptance of the ideology behind Pax Americana, while the second requires understanding why anyone would want to reject it.

As the system comes under increased stress, the emphasis is placed upon the first at the expense of the second. Thus, the adherents of the system are continually surprised by events.

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Sarah Lazare: Thanks to Sanders, Democratic Party Just Debated Capitalism

Sarah Lazare writes that Thanks to Sanders, Democratic Party Just Debated Capitalism.

Breaking the usual parameters of election season discourse, Democratic presidential hopefuls Tuesday night debated the merits of capitalism on the national stage—a development that many attribute to the candidacy of self-described socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and rising inequality and discontent.

When CNN‘s Anderson Cooper asked Sanders whether he considers himself a capitalist, the Vermont Senator replied: “Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street’s greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don’t.”

“I believe in a society where all people do well,” he continued, “not just a handful of billionaires.”

Cooper then asked the panel: “Is there anybody else on the stage who is not a capitalist?”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded with a vague defense of the capitalist system.

Emphasis Mine

The Capitalists have been weakened by years of not having to defend Capitalism. The Capitalist apologists were more robust back in the 1960's.

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Chris Dillow: More Than Keynesianism

Chris Dillow writes that there is More Than Keynesianism to Socialism.

One reason for this is simply that it does little to address what socialists regard as key defects of capitalism—its tendencies towards inequality and alienation. Danny's right to say that Keynesianism was a way of saving capitalism, not abolishing it.  Sure, full employment can help ameliorate these evils by increasing workers' bargaining power. But as Kalecki famously said, full employment is not sustainable within capitalism.

A second reason—which is more pressing today than for years—is that mere counter-cyclical policy does little to increase long-term trend growth; sure it might do so by reducing the fear of recession and thus improving animal spirits, but it's also possible (pdf) that stabilization policy dampens it. Combating the threat of secular stagnation requires more than counter-cyclical policy. Keynesianism in its alternative sense of socializing investment might be part of the answer here—and in fairness this is what Corbynomics is. But only part. There's also a need for policies to raise productivity—and these might require measures to reduce inequality and increase worker ownership.

But there's a further reason why Keynesianism is not enough. Counter-cyclical fiscal policy is insufficient to fight recessions simply because recessions are unpredictable and so we cannot rely upon even a government of intelligence and goodwill to loosen policy at the right time. Anti-recessionary policy requires other institutions. These might include: nationalizing banks to prevent destabilizing credit cycles; a generous welfare state (citizens income!) to act as an automatic stabilizer; and/or Shiller-style insurance markets.

I say all this partly to answer Danny's accusation that socialism is "hazy". Lenin defined communism as "Soviet power plus electrification": I'd define socialism as citizens income plus worker ownership and control.

But I'm also speaking to the left here. It's not enough to be "anti-austerity", and certainly not enough to simply want to shift austerity onto companies and the rich—not least because pre-tax inequality matters too. Good counter-cyclical policy should of course be part of intelligent leftism. But it can only be part.

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We have a lot of work to get ordinary workers to understand this.

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Andrew J. Bacevich: Vietnamization 2.0

Andrew J. Bacevich examines Vietnamization 2.0.

Concealed within that oft-cited “freedom” — the all-purpose justification for deploying American power — were several shades of meaning. The term, in fact, requires decoding. Yet within the upper reaches of the American national security apparatus, one definition takes precedence over all others. In Washington, freedom has become a euphemism for dominion. Spreading freedom means positioning the United States to call the shots. Seen in this context, Washington’s expected victories in both Afghanistan and Iraq were meant to affirm and broaden its preeminence by incorporating large parts of the Islamic world into the American imperium.They would benefit, of course, but to an even greater extent, so would we.

Alas, liberating Afghans and Iraqis turned out to be a tad more complicated than the architects of Bush’s freedom (or dominion) agenda anticipated. Well before Barack Obama succeeded Bush in January 2009, few observers — apart from a handful of ideologues and militarists — clung to the fairy tale of U.S. military might whipping the Greater Middle East into shape. Brutally but efficiently, war had educated the educable. As for the uneducable, they persisted in taking their cues from Fox News and the Weekly Standard.

Yet if the strategy of transformation via invasion and “nation building” had failed, there was a fallback position that seemed to be dictated by the logic of events. Together, Bush and Obama would lower expectations as to what the United States was going to achieve, even as they imposed new demands on the U.S. military, America’s go-to outfit in foreign policy, to get on with the job.

Rather than midwifing fundamental political and cultural change, the Pentagon was instead ordered to ramp up its already gargantuan efforts to create local militaries (and police forces) capable of maintaining order and national unity. President Bush provided a concise formulation of the new strategy: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Under Obama, after his own stab at a “surge,” the dictum applied to Afghanistan as well. Nation-building had flopped. Building armies and police forces able to keep a lid on things now became the prevailing definition of success.

The United States had, of course, attempted this approach once before, with unhappy results. This was in Vietnam. There, efforts to destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces intent on unifying their divided country had exhausted both the U.S. military and the patience of the American people. Responding to the logic of events, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had a tacitly agreed upon fallback position. As the prospects of American forces successfully eliminating threats to South Vietnamese security faded, the training and equipping of the South Vietnamese to defend themselves became priority number one.

Dubbed “Vietnamization,” this enterprise ended in abject failure with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Yet that failure raised important questions to which members of the national security elite might have attended: Given a weak state with dubious legitimacy, how feasible is it to expect outsiders to invest indigenous forces with genuine fighting power? How do differences in culture or history or religion affect the prospects for doing so? Can skill ever make up for a deficit of will? Can hardware replace cohesion? Above all, if tasked with giving some version of Vietnamization another go, what did U.S. forces need to do differently to ensure a different result?

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The double-speak of the political elites conceals the hegemonic ambitions of USA. The logic of Capitalism requires a public persona of political equality and freedom while needing restricted decision making and control over public opinion.

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Seth Godin: Peak Mac

Seth Godin predicts Peak Mac.

One reason for peaking turns out to be success.

Success means more employees, more meetings and more compromise. Success means more pressure to expand the market base and to broaden the appeal to get there. Success means that stubborn visionaries are pushed aside by profit-maximizing managers.

…

Mostly, a brand's products begin to peak when no one seems to care. Sure, the organization ostensibly cares, but great tools and products and work require a person to care in an apparently unreasonable way.

…

The best strategy for a growing organization is to have insiders be the ones calling it. Insiders speaking up and speaking out on behalf of the users that are already customers, not merely the ones you're hoping to acquire.

Emphasis Mine

What Godin overlooks is that Capitalism alienates the worker from the product of their labour. The worker does not own the product that they laboured to produced. The Capitalist owns it instead.

As long as ownership is vested in the Capitalist, the worker has no emotional investment in the product.

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Bill McBride: Defeatists Policies #NothingCanBeDone

Bill McBride writes about the Defeatists Policies #NothingCanBeDone attitude of the US Congress.

Over the last several years, I noted on several occasions that Congress has been a disaster.  They've opposed economic policies normally supported by both parties — and by Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan — and this has hurt the economy.  Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke noted in his book: “I also felt frustrated that fiscal policy makers, far from helping the economy, appeared to be actively working to hinder it.”

I agree with Bernanke.

This seems to part of a defeatists theme of the current Congress — an overwhelming pessimism about several policies —"Nothing can be done" could be their slogan (or worse when they "actively work to hinder" the economy).

Emphasis in original

This is a dangerous attitude for the leading Capitalist state to have. Capitalism is built on a "can-do" stance. If Capitalism admits defeat in the face of problems, then Capitalism has lost the right to be the dominant political and social system.

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GLW: Terror raids fuel Islamophobia

Pip Hinman writes that Terror raids fuel Islamophobia .

This state harassment campaign will not deter those already worked up and thinking about reacting to police harassment: if anything, it will fuel it. The police know that.

Why, then, do they do it? Clearly, the police, with their media accomplices, want to scare young Muslims. But they are wrong if they think this will deter young people from “radicalising”. This “permanent war” on the streets of Sydney — or at least on some streets — finds its echo in Australia’s support for the permanent wars in the Middle East.

The harassment of young people — either of the Muslim faith or from a Middle Eastern background — serves the interests of the ruling class in deflecting attention away from their rotten policies that result in an array of problems young people have to deal with today: increasing isolation, alienation, mental health problems, entry into higher education and trying to find a job.

Emphasis Mine

Islamphobia distorts the public discourse. The role the US occupation of Iraq played in the rise of Daesh is not discussed. Also, ignorance is professed about the role of CIA in the creation of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And the list goes on.

If the people are not frightened, they might start to question the Capitalist system, and that is expressly forbidden.

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Juan Cole: Nigeria's Boko Haram is about Vengeance, not Islam

Gregory Alonso Pirio writes that Nigeria's Boko Haram is about Vengeance, not Islam.

So many people are scratching their heads as they search for an explanation for the extreme acts of violence meted out by such groups as the Nigerian jihadist organization, Boko Haram, and its now allied Middle Eastern Islamic State or ISIS.

Often in normal conversation, people will pull out an explanation, seemingly out of the air, that Islam as a religion lends itself to violence. The facile reasoning does not synch with historic fact certainly for Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs) that I am familiar with in sub-Saharan Africa. My research on Boko Haram, for instance, shows that the driver of jihadist violence is a narrative of vengeance that was adopted in response to state violence. Historically, this may be true of several other VEOs in sub-Saharan Africa whose radicalization followed a massacre committed by government security forces against peaceful reform-oriented Islamist movements. Such has been the case in Somalia, Uganda and Tanzania.

Emphasis Mine

Admitting the state role in creating these VEOs runs counter to the dominant discourse that the state is defending us against the existential threat of Radical Islam.

The existence of a state is for the protection of the interests of the ruling class. The state is the only legal organ of violence. The state will do whatever it takes to survive.

Because of this, there will be no peacefull transfer of power from the Capitalists to the Workers.

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Jon Schwarz: A Short History of U.S. Bombing of Civilian Facilities

Jon Schwarz writes about A Short History of U.S. Bombing of Civilian Facilities.

The U.S. first claimed the hospital had been “collateral damage” in an airstrike aimed at “individuals” elsewhere who were “threatening the force.” Since then, various vague and contradictory explanations have been offered by the U.S. and Afghan governments, both of which promise to investigate the bombing. MSF has called the attack a war crime and demanded an independent investigation by a commission set up under the Geneva Conventions.

While the international outcry has been significant, history suggests this is less because of what happened and more because of whom it happened to. The U.S. has repeatedly attacked civilian facilities in the past but the targets have generally not been affiliated with a European, Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian organization such as MSF.

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Just Another Day, Another War Crime.

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Dan Little: Marx on peasant consciousness

Dan Little writes about Marx on peasant consciousness.

From this description we can draw several positive ideas about the foundations of collective solidarity. Here are the elements that Marx takes to be crucial in the formation of collective consciousness in this passage:

1. The group needs to possess "manifold relations" to each other.
2. There needs to be effective communication and transportation across space, not just local interaction.
3. There needs to be a degree of economic interdependence.
4. There need to be shared material conditions in the system of production.
5. There needs to be an astute appreciation of the social and economic environment.
6. There needs to be organization and leadership to help articulate a shared political consciousness and agenda.

And Marx seems to have something like a necessary and sufficient relation in mind between these conditions and the emergence of collective consciousness: these conditions are jointly sufficient and individually necessary for collective consciousness in an extended group.

There are several crucial ideas here that survive into current thinking about solidarity and mobilization. So Marx's thinking about collective consciousness was prescient. It is interesting to consider where his thoughts about collective solidarity came from. How did he come to have insightful ideas about the social psychology of mobilization and solidarity in the first place? This isn't a topic that had a history of advanced theory and thinking in 1851.

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The problem is why only the Bolshevik Revolution was led by workers while other revolutions were led by peasants. (Little is mistaken in characterising the October Revolution as a peasant one.)

In a way, the Chinese Revolution was led by the remnant of the Shanghai working class that survived the Long March. The Vietnamese and Korean revolutions started in the more industrialised parts of the country.

I would have to disagree with Little's assertion that all of the revolutions in the 20th Century were peasant ones. The peasant were integral parts of those revolutions, but the conditions described by Marx prevented them from developing their revolutionary consciousness by themselves. They needed the political leadership of the revolutionary workers.

So, why don't workers in the advanced industrialised countries develop their own revolutionary consciousness? That is a question that baffles Socialist parties in the West.

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Chris Dillow: Comfortable?

Chris Dillow asks if Corbyn's supporters are Comfortable?.

In this sense, I fear that, like most political journalists in the Westminster Bubble, Janan is underplaying the fact that many people are not at all comfortable. This discomfort is both important and ameliorable. Yes, Janan is right to say that many Corbynistas are well-off middle-class types. But even so, there are real grievances and hardships out there. And Corbyn, despite his many faults, recognises this.

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Revolutions start when those in the middle of the class hierarchy see their interests align with the truly oppressed.

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Ted Rall: Carly Fiorina, Identity Politics and the Death of Feminism

Ted Rall writes about Carly Fiorina, Identity Politics and the Death of Feminism.

In the crucible of the 1970s, identity politics had its place. Where would feminism have been without the identifier of Ms. Magazine? Trans people, the latest to step out of the shadows of historical marginalization and oppression, have gotten where they are today via an identity politics that, first things first, made it OK to be proud of who and what you are.

But that was then and this is now. Now identity politics is all identity, no politics, all image, no substance.

…

But lesser evilism, that bastard cousin of identity politics, is the first express stop on the road to ideological ruin. Bernie Sanders — old and white and male — is 50 times the feminist that Hillary Clinton will ever be. I know because I’ve read his platform, which would do a lot more than Hillary, and a zillion times more than Carly Fiorina, to help women.

And that’s leaving out the world where feminism should inhabit: the perfect ideal of total gender equality. We’re not going to get to equality under this variety of capitalism, or any other kind of capitalism. How can an identity politics that distracts real live feminists with the likes of a corporate monster like Carly Fiorina start to destroy and replace the entire system?

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The real identity politics is based upon our identity as workers. This has to be frontmost in our minds. The politics is then derived from our exploitation by the Capitalists and alienation from the fruits of our labour.

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