Cathy O'Neil: There are lots of ways to break up the big banks

Cathy O'Neil writes that There are lots of ways to break up the big banks.

Which is why, when I hear people complaining about Sanders not have a specific enough plan for breaking up the big banks, I think it’s hogwash. What Sanders has, which is sorely needed, in fact is the crucial missing ingredient to any discussion around big banks, is the political will to do something. Once the political will is there, the details can be sorted out by people who think about this stuff all the time.

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This is probably the best response to criticism from people like Menzie Chinn who looks at The Financial Regulatory Policies of Senator Sanders…Again:

As I’ve noted before, Senator Sanders has unique views on financial regulation. I’ve never quite understood the specifics of the “break up the banks” proposal, and after his interview with the New York Daily News and subsequent “clarification”, understood even less.

What we have is a deep division within the political Left. There are those who, like O'Neil and Sanders, see the need for a political revolution in order to save the Capitalist system. And there are those, like Chinn, who see that the system is safe with the current establishment which Hilary Clinton represents as the remaining credible presidential candidate.

Out on the far margins, there are people like me who support the nationalisation of the banks. They serve an economic and political function. They are not profit centres.

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Big data and class

Cathy O'Neil writes on Big data and class.

This is a sentiment I’ve noticed a lot, although it’s not usually this obvious. Namely, the elite don’t need to be monitored, but the rabble does. The rich and powerful get to be quirky philosophers but the rest of the population need to be ranked and filed. And, by the way, we are spying on them for their own good.

In other words, never mind how big data creates and expands classism; classism already helps decide who is put into the realm of big data in the first place.

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The Capitalist know they are in a class war. They know that their survival is at stake. Any means to keep us down and under control is justified.

Our privacy is an impediment to their control. Privacy is a privilege of the Capitalist, not the worker.

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Male nerd privilege

Cathy O'Neill writes about Male nerd privilege.

Would it help if we gave it another name? Basic human rights, perhaps? Because that’s what we’re talking about, at the end of the day. The right to be free, to not get shot by the police, the right to hold a good job and care for your family, stuff like that.

Of course, there are plenty of people who are unwilling to move to the next level because they don’t acknowledge the structural racism, sexism, and other stuff at all. They don’t see the current situation as problematic. But on the other hand, there are loads of people who do, and Aaronson is clearly one of them.

As for problems for women in STEM, we’ve already studied this and we all know that both men and women are sexist, so it’s obviously not a blame game here. Instead, it’s a real cultural conundrum which we would like to approach thoughtfully and we’d like to make progress on as a team.

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It is a cultural problem that can only be solved by moving to a classless society for things like sexism and patriarchy serve the interests of the ruling class by dividing people against each other. Once you accept division by gender, you are more likely to accept division by privilege.

In order to overcome such divisions, we have to mature as adults instead of being children squabbling over who's got what toys and whom mummy and daddy loves the most. This is a very painful social development, and many choose to remain as adolescents: privileges of adults with the responsibities of children.

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White Progress

Cathy O'Neill explores White Progress.

In my Occupy group, which meets weekly on Sunday afternoons, we’ve been talking a lot about white privilege, and whether that phrase is appropriate, and whether we can come up with a better one. Because for the most part, “white privilege” really refers to the rights white people have, which everyone should have, but which not everyone has.

For example, it is my white privilege not to worry about my three sons getting shot by the police. But that’s not a privilege, it’s a right. I’m entitled to that security. Everyone is, but not everyone gets to have it. Maybe we should call it “white entitlement.”

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The oppression of Capitalism relies on having racial tension. As Malcolm X said, “You cannot have Capitalism without Racism.” The only way to completely racism is to remove Capitalism.

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The re-emergence of debtors' prison

Cathy O'Neill comments on The re-emergence of debtors' prisons.

This sense that "everyone is screwed" creates solidarity among poor whites and poor blacks, and especially young people. The Ferguson protests have been multi-racial, for example. And if you’ve read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, you'll recognize a historical pattern whereby political change happens when poor whites and poor blacks start working together.

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This is why racism is so vitally important to the Capitalists: it keeps the oppressed fighting among themselves. You have to remember who the real enemy is.

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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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