What Is To Be Done?

by James Miller on June 24, 2015

Danielle Allen has written a beautiful brief for equality, and the proper place of egalitarian ideals, not only in the Declaration of Independence, but in America’s political culture more generally. Pierre Rosanvallon has made a similar case, with France as its focus, in his important book, The Society of Equals, first published in French in 2011.

Yet both Allen and Rosanvallon acknowledge a curious paradox: that a stress on liberty as the essence of liberal democracy has in our own day apparently triumphed over – even trumped – the egalitarian convictions of the activists and intellectuals who forged the first democratic republics.

The empirical evidence on this matter seems unambiguous. A variety of economists, from Joseph Stiglitz to Thomas Piketty, have shown that America, like France, and most European countries, has become ever more unequal in recent decades.

Both men have also proposed a number of policies that might help reverse these current economic trends. “Simple changes,” writes Stiglitz, “including higher capital-gains and inheritance taxes, greater spending to broaden access to education, rigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate governance reforms that circumscribe executive pay, and financial regulations that rein in banks’ ability to exploit the rest of society – would reduce inequality and increase equality of opportunity markedly.”

Still, it’s a striking feature of our present moment that policies like these at first glance seem politically out of reach. As Stiglitz puts it, “The main question confronting us today is not really about capital in the twenty-first century. It is about democracy in the twenty-first century.”

I think Stiglitz is right – but herein lies a further problem. Few American politicians dare advocate the kinds of policies Stiglitz proposes – and this, remarkably, in a nation explicitly “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” in the words of Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address, quoting the key phrase from the Declaration of Independence that Danielle Allen makes a centerpiece of her analysis.

In other words, our democracies today seem paralyzed in the face of rising inequality.

As a hopeful sign, one might point to the attacks on financial elites launched by various populist parties and movements of both the left and the right, in both Europe and the United States – Occupy Wall Street in 2011 did manage to bring inequality back into America’s political conversation. Yet in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, individuals and families in the advanced industrial societies still seem wary of any policies that might jeopardize whatever wealth they currently possess. Many seem skeptical that we should even aspire to becoming “a society of equals.”

Hence my question to Danielle Allen: What is to be Done?

How can we renew and revivify our founding egalitarian ideals? How should we approach the problems of both capital and democracy in the twenty-first century?

{ 45 comments }

1

geo 06.24.15 at 4:37 pm

a stress on liberty as the essence of liberal democracy has in our own day apparently triumphed over – even trumped – the egalitarian convictions of the activists and intellectuals who forged the first democratic republics

Coincidentally, in today’s Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/opinion/why-dont-the-poor-rise-up.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=Blogs

From which:

“In addition to opening the door to self-fulfillment, “the rise of individual rights and freedoms has its price,” writes Nikolai Genov, a sociologist at the Berlin Free University in “Challenges of Individualization,” published earlier this year.

“Placing an exclusive stress on the expansion of rights and freedoms of individuals by disregarding or underrating the concomitant rise of individual responsibilities brings about social pathologies. They undermine solidarity as the glue of social life.

“As a result, individualization can come “at the expense of various forms of common good in general, and of various forms of solidarity in particular,” Genov observes.”

2

Rich Puchalsky 06.24.15 at 4:37 pm

I’ll just re-quote myself from the discussion here, on how neoliberalism has colonized left-liberalism:

“Consider how, traditionally, the representative bargain was supposed to work in the U.S. People who you elected weren’t supposed to simply “represent”. They were supposed to be political entrepreneurs of sorts — prominent legislators and executives were supposed to actively work out solutions in their party’s interest, not merely vote Yes or No or mechanically carry out policy that someone else set. When you only voted for someone rather than taking action on your own behalf, you were supposed to be passing on the ability for action, your negligible individual power multiplied by all of those votes. The prominent politician’s responsibility was to do something, or if they couldn’t, to admit that to the people and step aside.”

“Now consider that active, involved members of the public with a wide interest in the public good are reduced to retailing explanations of why no action is possible. There should immediately be a similarity detectable here between this and economics, shouldn’t there? No action is possible. The market has settled on some kind of solution, and there are *structural* limits that explain why we can’t really do anything else. It would be a bad idea to even try, because the market solution is at least a solution — it is the Lesser Evil — and who knows what we’d get if we demanded something more and tried to interfere.”

So if “our democracies today seem paralyzed in the face of rising inequality”, it’s as an extension of how economic thought has taken over politics. Everyone has become Economic Man: the idealized person that can have no political force as such either as part of a mass or as a charismatic or skilled individual. I can only suggest that liberalism has run its course and needs to be dropped and replaced.

3

bob mcmanus 06.24.15 at 5:48 pm

One important thing to remember, and a major causal factor for some of us, is that Western elites have been competing since the 70s in a considerably globalized marketplace for equities, assets, land and real estate, capital in all forms, luxuries, services, and the economic, political, and social power deriving from ownership and control of wealth.

Any analysis of equality should accept that as a community becomes more open, it becomes much harder to have “equality (or more equality, or social democracy) in one country.”

4

David 06.24.15 at 6:23 pm

In essence, the explanation is not difficult to find. Most of the measures you propose, and which I suspect most of us would support, constrain the liberty of others in some way. Liberty does not, in practice, necessarily produce equality, and equality itself (however we define it) is to some extent dependent on constraining liberty.
The Left used to understand this, but has more recently fallen into the blind worship of anything that can be described as liberty or “freedom”, forgetting that, as the great socialist RH Tawney said “freedom for the pike is death to the minnow.”

5

joanblondelle 06.24.15 at 7:08 pm

Number One- Demand campaign reform- but what is the best way to do this?

I think too many people have bought into the doctrine that the Invisible Hand, Godlike, can eventually make everything okay. The conservative view would seem to favor equal OPPORTUNITY over egalitarianism- hence, the need for drastic campaign reform…

6

joanblondelle 06.24.15 at 7:21 pm

@Rich Pulchalsky- you word it better than I could:
“So if “our democracies today seem paralyzed in the face of rising inequality”, it’s as an extension of how economic thought has taken over politics. Everyone has become Economic Man: the idealized person that can have no political force as such either as part of a mass or as a charismatic or skilled individual.”

7

anon 06.24.15 at 7:33 pm

Number One – Demand that all Academic Campuses hire tenured Professors who represent all political points of view. Access to students should be EQUAL.

Of course few, if any, of the denizens of this place mean THAT sort of EQUALITY.

And since James Miller’s total financial worth is many times great than that of those supporting their families on a few dollars a day in the third world, if he actually believed what he posted he would be donating large sums of capital to them. He won’t of course. That would be much too great a sacrifice on HIS part for equality.

8

mdc 06.24.15 at 9:04 pm

“all political points of view”

*All*? Since there are infinitely many distinct political points of view, that might be difficult.

9

john c. halasz 06.24.15 at 9:22 pm

I thought your book on Foucault was excellent.

10

F. Foundling 06.24.15 at 10:59 pm

@David 06.24.15 at 6:23 pm
>Most of the measures you propose, and which I suspect most of us would support, constrain the liberty of others in some way. Liberty does not, in practice, necessarily produce equality, and equality itself (however we define it) is to some extent dependent on constraining liberty.

I think this frequently asserted contradiction or trade-off between liberty and equality means, to a great extent, buying the rhetoric of the Right. Equality is *necessary* for liberty. Inequality leads to a decrease of liberty for the underprivileged. Liberty (freedom) isn’t limited to the absence of direct physical coercion, or to the absence of state control. If you are facing a threat like starvation, you will obey an employer in order to save your life just as surely as if a gun was pointed at you, and you have just as little freedom to choose. The current right-wing policies increase not liberty in general, but the “liberty” of the privileged to hurt the underprivileged and deprive them of *their* liberty. A privileged person deprived of his “liberty” to dominate is clearly less unfree than an underprivileged person being dominated, so right-wing policies are against liberty as well as against equality; the Right’s use of the slogan of liberty is just theft and imposture.

By the way, the converse is also true: you can’t establish a meaningful equality by decreasing true liberty (not the “liberty” of depriving others of liberty), because those who limit liberty are then given a position of domination over those whose liberty is being limited. For example, under Communism, it is sometimes claimed that people were equal, but at the cost of being unfree; yet in fact, in spite of various economic and social improvements for the masses, there was a very obvious political inequality between the dictators or the Party oligarchies and the populace whose political freedom and freedom of expression they limited. Naturally, this political inequality resulted in a different degree of control over the economy, as well as in some economic privileges, which were relatively moderate during the regimes themselves; finally, the political inequality was “converted” into massive economic inequality again after the fall of Communism (and – who knew – it turned out that economic inequality can neutralise formal political equality very successfully).

11

Jerry Vinokurov 06.24.15 at 11:10 pm

liberalism has run its course and needs to be dropped and replaced

With?

12

Plume 06.25.15 at 12:03 am

One key first step is for “the left” to stop aiding and abetting political cowardice. Every time a liberal makes excuses for the Dems or an individual politician, saying, “They didn’t have the votes,” or “It’s just not practical to do X right now,” they guarantee victory for the forces of Reaction.

Ironically, it’s not at all “pragmatic” in effect to be forever pragmatic in practice.

To get anything done, especially in such a polarized climate, takes years and years of relentless banging on the table for equality, human rights, ending poverty, etc. etc. along with pushing the relevant legislation, institutions and the like. That relentlessness is the only effectively “pragmatic” course possible, because the overall political apathy of America seems only to awaken when firebrands simply refuse to give up. Ever.

This is especially the case, it seems, with left of center voters, who would rather just stay home and tune out in the face of the stranglehold on both parties by reactionary forces. They need to be inspired. Those of us on the left have the most reason to be pissed off and apathetic, and that means we need more inspiration than the folks who largely get their way.

Our vision of a better, fairer world is a lot further away than the much louder and far more aggressive American right’s. As in, they have far less reason to be upset, but they’re always upset, and they make that known in no uncertain terms, which only guarantees more victories for their side. Our silence, our “it will never work” mantra, our ready-to-excuse-failure at every point along the way, is perpetual music to the ears of the right, if they aren’t tone deaf, etc.

In short, “what is to be done?” must start with an end to the self-defeating belief that we can’t do anything unless it’s a sure bet. This puts the proverbial cart before the poor dead horse. The only way to make it happen is radically inspire change, and silence isn’t inspirational at all in that context.

13

Rich Puchalsky 06.25.15 at 2:50 am

“With?”

You probably know that I’m an anarchist, but anarchism is still largely a 19th century tradition so really we need something new. I can’t think of any existing left tradition that really does it. Our economics need to be based on some combination of environmental economics and taking high productivity and the lack of necessity for most people to work seriously, something out of _Social Limits To Growth_. Our politics has to be based around figuring out ways to prevent people from operating at the scale they do now. The whole opposition of “liberty” vs “equality” is poorly phrased: it’s the wrong setup. What really causes the important aspects of inequality is that we have social systems that allow some people to operate with essentially superhuman force.

But limiting the ability of people to use the power of other people and thereby increasing equality isn’t limiting their liberty. I’m increasingly convinced that the whole concept of representative democracy should be limited to small groups. Most of the things that the left has worked for: “workers”, “the state”, “democracy” — all of them are fundamentally misguided concepts.

14

Plume 06.25.15 at 3:48 am

Movements form because of inspiration, often out of an original affliction. Movements are sustained through that inspiration. They grow when they can inspire others. They die when they can’t.

Liberalism, at least since 1968, has been one giant wet blanket on the face of inspiration, and a key demographic for any social justice movement, the young, are decidedly unimpressed with its current practices and its legacy.

Part of this is the change in generations. But there’s something deeper than that going on. New generations often pick up the torch for aging ones, and that hasn’t happen to liberalism. Young people today, if they aren’t turned off to all politics, are more likely to be turned on to the phony, narcissistic message of propertarian “freedom and liberty.”

So, what to do? Offer something that has never been offered before. Beginning with a strident anticapitalism, inspire the young by directly addressing the obvious challenges of our day . . . . the two major challenges being inequality and ecological ruin. The system of capitalism is the chief reason for both, so it’s all too obvious that to inspire a new generation of social justice seekers, we need to talk openly, vigorously, stridently about the need to dump capitalism, every last vestige of it . . . and replace it will actual democracy, including the economy — especially the economy.

We need to talk about a true decentralization and breakup of all power centers — public and private — which can never, ever be as long as we have capitalism. Capitalism lives to centralize power, to use centralized power to centralize power more. There is no decentralization or breakup of corporate hegemony as long as we hold onto a bankrupt ideology . . . . one that has never, not in its entire history, come close to fairly, efficiently allocating resources to all, much less fair pay, fair trade, income, access or wealth.

Start with the kids. Inspire them with the idea that every single American should, by right, have the highest quality of education, health care, cultural venues and public transport guaranteed for free . . . and that safe food, safe water and a healthy environment — something that capitalism also makes impossible — is our birthright as citizens.

No one left behind. No one. No throwing the majority under the bus so we can have our billionaires. That was always an insane “bargain.”

15

casmilus 06.25.15 at 7:51 am

#7:

“Number One – Demand that all Academic Campuses hire tenured Professors who represent all political points of view. Access to students should be EQUAL.”

I fear there aren’t enough Nazis and Stalinists to go around.

16

cassander 06.26.15 at 12:51 am

@plume

> Capitalism lives to centralize power, to use centralized power to centralize power more.

Only you, plume, could call millions of competing companies centralized power. If you believe in decentralization, then you have to embrace capitalism. It’s the only force in the world that actively and reliably tears down established powers.

>Start with the kids. Inspire them with the idea that every single American should, by right, have the highest quality of education, health care, cultural venues and public transport guaranteed for free .

also, everyone gets a unicorn!

17

Plume 06.26.15 at 1:22 am

Cassander @16,

It’s the only force in the world that actively and reliably tears down established powers.

Speaking of unicorns. It is the establishment. It is the established power. And it fights to the death to preserve its hegemony, worldwide. And, sorry, but in this universe, there aren’t “millions of competing companies. Industry after industry is dominated by a handful of companies, and the natural path, if capitalism is left to its own devices, is toward monopoly or cartels.

As for a society that guarantees the highest quality education for all, the highest quality health care for all, along with the best, safest, speediest transportation and unlimited access to cultural venues for all? Why not? We’ve now earmarked well over four trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan. We found the money for that. Did you say that expenditure was/is “unicorns”?

That’s trillions spent on death and destruction. We could afford to do all the things I mentioned for less than that, and it would actually benefit the entire nation, as opposed to killing hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million. And that’s given our current economic system. I was talking about doing this under a totally different economic form, not under capitalism, which would make it infinitely easier.

No unicorns. It’s doable.

18

cassander 06.26.15 at 2:20 am

>s. It is the establishment. It is the established power.

capitalism is not one thing no matter how persistently you insist that it is.

>Industry after industry is dominated by a handful of companies, and the natural path, if capitalism is left to its own devices, is toward monopoly or cartels.

another laughably implausible assertion. I defy you to come up with a single good for which you don’t have access to a half dozen alternative providers where the reason cannot be directly traced to some governmental restriction. Or will you cop out and say they’re all capitalist providers so that isn’t real diversity?

>As for a society that guarantees the highest quality education for all, the highest quality health care for all, along with the best, safest, speediest transportation and unlimited access to cultural venues for all? Why not?

Well, for one, the things you call for would cost considerably more than 4 trillion dollars. But let’s put that aside. Let’s look at public transportation. I assume you will want to build it in cities, correct? Great, whose houses are you going to tear down to build it? How will your decentralized society make that decision? Of course, it can’t and won’t. The only way to make that decision is with some sort of centralized power. which goes to the real heart of my disagreement with you. You don’t actually hate concentrated power. Everything you want requires it. What you hate is when other people get in the way of you molding the world in your image, and to justify your desire to destroy their ability to resist, you wrap yourself in this absurd anarchist cloak.

Unlike you, I actually dislike arbitrary power. I want to be left alone to live my life, and I want you left alone to live yours. That is why I like capitalism, because it gives no one sticks to hold over my head, only carrots.

> I was talking about doing this under a totally different economic form, not under capitalism, which would make it infinitely easier.

Yes, much easier. People will become the new soviet man and all problems will be solved! I can understand why grown men believe in magic, what I can’t understand is how they manage to keep falling for the exact same trick.

19

Plume 06.26.15 at 3:18 am

Cassander,

I despise the Soviet system. It was state capitalism and I despise capitalism. We need a system that has never, ever been tried before, by any society. That is, full democracy, radical democracy, including the economy. No classes. No ruling class. No linkage between price, sales, taxation, funding. A complete break with the past. No more profit. Full ownership of the means of production by all of us, together, equally. Equal say, equal voice, equal rights and equal access.

And, yes, I despise centralized power, which is why I despise capitalism. It can’t function without it, and no previous economic system has required anything close to as much hand-holding from government. No previous economic system has ever required so much pampering, coddling, propping up, defending, forced expansion, etc. We could slash government by 95% if we did away with capitalism and replaced it will local, communal economies, linked to one another.

It is capitalism, ironically, that prevents the “limited government” conservatives love to quack about. Their beloved capitalism is totally and absolutely dependent upon Big Gubmints working in conjunction to preserve, protect and bailout.

Read the The Making of Global Capitalism, by Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, for an eye-opening history of this.

20

cassander 06.26.15 at 4:04 am

>I despise the Soviet system

then why do you willfully repeat its lies? The USSR was not capitalism. It was most definitely an attempt to build the sort of society that you claim to want. that it failed, like every other attempt, is not proof that your ideas have not been tried, it’s proof that they don’t work.

>. It can’t function without it, and no previous economic system has required anything close to as much hand-holding from government.

markets function without governments all the time. they function even in the face of massive opposition from governments. governments can facilitate markets, but the myth that they require them is belied by the fact that you can buy drugs in maximum security prisons.

> We could slash government by 95% if we did away with capitalism and replaced it will local, communal economies, linked to one another.

Ah, yes, after the glorious revolution, the state will wither away. As I said, falling for the same old trick. Would you perhaps be interested in a bridge I have to sell?

>And, yes, I despise centralized power

No, you despise power you don’t get to wield. Just like lenin, writ small.

21

Plume 06.26.15 at 4:25 am

Cassander,

Don’t tell me what I think. Don’t even try. Your total ignorance on this subject just screams out from the page. Actually, your total ignorance about every topic hear screams out off the page.

No, it’s not a lie that the Soviet’s imposed state capitalism. They in fact did do that. And they didn’t allow democracy, or the people to own the means of production, which are two of the most important pillars of the kind of change I advocate for, and the kind advocated by leftists for at least two centuries. It wasn’t “socialism,” much less “communism.” The first requires actual democracy and the people must own the means of production. The second means the state has withered away, after socialism has become second nature and we no longer need any state apparatus to keep full democracy going on its own.

Sorry, capitalist markets can’t function without government. They were created by government, and they’re sustained by government, and they’re endlessly bailed out by government. How would your transactions and contractual agreements be protected or considered valid or final without them? Where is your currency without government? How do you keep your property once you’ve purchased it? How do you settle on your currency, your prices, who protects your shipping lanes? Who bails you out when the inevitable occurs? Governments have bailed out capitalism more than 100 times just since 1970. See David Harvey’s The Enigma of Capital for the full run down.

You believe in fairy tales, Cassander. Stop drinking the koolaid.

22

cassander 06.26.15 at 4:52 am

>They in fact did do that. And they didn’t allow democracy, or the people to own the means of production, which are two of the most important pillars of the kind of change I advocate for, and the kind advocated by leftists for at least two centuries.

They did, actually. The problem was every time they did, they were quickly horrified by how the workers and peasants started acting like little capitalists. Like you, they were far too invested in tearing down capitalism to allow that, and quickly betrayed their own principles to ensure the plebs stayed beneath their boot. For their own good, of course!

>? It wasn’t “socialism,” much less “communism.”

of course not, because neither of those things can ever exist. but again, the failure to implement them doesn’t mean implementation wasn’t attempted anymore than failing to find a unicorn is not proof that unicorns were not sought.

>orry, capitalist markets can’t function without government

again, the black markets that exist in literally every human society on record bely this argument. repeating yourself won’t change that.

Unlike you, I do not pretend to be an anarchist, and I do not deny that governments can make capitalism function better. but to jump from that to the claim that markets require government is to indulge in a truly heroic level of self delusion. I lack the capacity to ignore that much evidence.

>You believe in fairy tales, Cassander. Stop drinking the koolaid.

says the man literally spouting the trotskyist party line…..

23

Plume 06.26.15 at 1:59 pm

Cassander,

Black markets don’t prove your point. They exist along side state supported capitalism. And they can never be more than a tiny fraction of a fraction of overall business activity, and can’t come close to ever offering sustenance and income for the masses. They’re only able to do what they do because they can remain a fraction of a fraction. If they ever became big enough, they’d have to have government supports and protection as well, or no purchase or transaction would ever be final; no property would ever be “legally” your own; no standards in currency, pricing, trade, workplace and product safety would exist, and so on. It would be, in short, chaos.

And a jail? Of all the examples, you couldn’t pick one less relevant. Jails are state run. And most black market activity in those jails is barter. Barter is not capitalism. Capitalism is M-C-M. Barter is basically C for C. And, again, all of that is after the state provides all the necessities — if we put aside for a moment the ongoing abuse issues and so on. Inmates don’t engage in capitalism on the side, typically. They engage in barter on the side. And it’s for a fraction of their overall needs.

As for spouting the party line. Sorry, that’s you, Cassander. You keep waving your pom poms for the establishment and its economic system of choice, playing shill and pravda representative for the powers that be. I’m a passionate critic of both our own system and the Soviets. Only a conservative could be that tone-deaf and that blind to their own slavish devotion to power, and miss the fact that the person they accuse supports none of it.

It’s as if I were a lifelong, very public critic of organization X, having written exposes for 40 years about its malfeasance. In your blindness, you’d probably accuse me of being a sp0kesman for that organization, the one I keep denouncing week after week.

Brilliant!!

24

rote 06.26.15 at 2:48 pm

Cassander, the reason there’s no market without external government is because the ‘market’ as generally used is very different from simply the presence of trade. Floating prices – which aren’t even that common under capitalism – only exist because the nationstate goes around bashing cartels weaker than it; the separation between political direction in the workplace and in civil society only exist because the nationstate has a monopoly on one, and so forth.

Of course there are plenty of ways that commerce can theoretically be controlled, not necessarily involving nationstates or corporations or anything, but the ‘market’ as used in mainstream economics is completely an artificial construction. If you mean something different, say something different.

The reason the USSR is considered state-capitalist is that, while theoretically directed by the central committees, much of the economy was run by relatively independent blocs who competed with each other, sold goods for money, ran themselves off those revenues… in general, acted exactly like American corporations, only with the directorates even more deeply tied to the state.

25

Plume 06.26.15 at 3:30 pm

Cassander,

Quick follow up.

Give these two Noam Chomsky videos a listen. They’re in the three to five minute range. The first is on the misuse of the word “socialism,” among other issues. The second on the misuse of the word “libertarian,” etc..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Tq4VE8eHQ

26

Plume 06.26.15 at 3:31 pm

Looks like one link appears as video right off the bat. It’s the second one. Click on the first for a discussion of socialism.

27

Jerry Vinokurov 06.26.15 at 4:32 pm

Our politics has to be based around figuring out ways to prevent people from operating at the scale they do now. The whole opposition of “liberty” vs “equality” is poorly phrased: it’s the wrong setup. What really causes the important aspects of inequality is that we have social systems that allow some people to operate with essentially superhuman force.

Sure, I agree with this, but I’m not sure how this is a non-liberal critique, given that mainstream liberals make this point all the time. I guess my problem here is that I’m actually quite fond of a lot of things that fall under the umbrella of “liberalism”: stuff like freedom of speech, all kinds of autonomy in general, the freedom to not be subject to arbitrary punishment based on one’s race, and so on. And, hopefully I’m not being too presumptuous here, but based on reading CT for years, lots of commenters here, yourself included, are fond of these things too. So when people talk about jettisoning liberalism, without specifying what it is that they’re trying to get rid of, what I’m worried about is that all these values are going to fall by the wayside. In my view that would be pretty terrible, and I’m guessing that’s not what e.g. either you or, say, Plume intend, but at the same time the expansive language of “liberal failure” doesn’t do a very good job of discriminating between the good and the bad.

But limiting the ability of people to use the power of other people and thereby increasing equality isn’t limiting their liberty. I’m increasingly convinced that the whole concept of representative democracy should be limited to small groups. Most of the things that the left has worked for: “workers”, “the state”, “democracy” — all of them are fundamentally misguided concepts.

At the same time, there’s a practical problem here, which is that we have a country of 320 million people, and they’re not going anywhere. The climate change thread contains some (entirely correct, I think) observations from you about the necessity for collective action to tackle the problem. But I don’t see how you get that kind of collective action to limit CO2 emissions without something like a government enforcing it. And if we’re going to have a government, wouldn’t it be better that this government be democratic in some sense?

28

Plume 06.26.15 at 5:03 pm

Jerry @27,

I certainly want to retain aspects of the liberal project, like the things you name. That said, I think it’s a mistake to categorize them as somehow exclusively “liberal” in the first place, not that you do. I grew up in a “liberal” household and took many things for granted regarding its impact. One of those things was that it was just “liberals” who successfully pushed for and passed “progressive” legislation, that they were virtually alone in wanting this and had no help from anyone else and a ton of opposition.

I have since learned how narrow a view this is. Women’s rights, Civil Rights, the environmental movement, etc. etc. . . . all had a very strong push from people, organizations and movements to the left of liberal. A great example is the famous MLK march on Washington, which was largely the work of leftists, including socialists and small “c” communists. America, having such a reactionary ruling class and media culture, seemed unable to handle this, so “liberals” were given full credit for something they were merely a part of and never the whole.

Beyond all of this . . . . my main problem with liberalism has never been its ideals. It’s been its overall follow-through and its accommodationist spirit. Of course I’m generalizing like crazy here . . . . but liberals seen all too willing to make peace with the establishment, to become a part of that establishment, to accept the snail’s pace of change, primarily because so many liberals make up the richest 20% . . . . and they’re really not seeing the urgency of change for the vast majority. I think they’ve grown very used to and comfortable with that snail’s pace. They’ve even convinced themselves that this is a virtuous and necessary course — slow and steady does it, etc. etc.

Thing is, even if we did see slow and steady improvements, it wouldn’t be just or right or moral to go that route. But we’re not. We’re seeing a very aggressive and unusually effective backlash from the right to even the most modest efforts to change. The right is incredibly good at framing those extremely slow and modest attempts as being instead draconian calls to “control every aspect of our lives.” To me, if we’re going to get opposition at every turn, we might as well really give them something to cry about. When all molehills are turned into mountains, why not give them an actual mountain to climb instead?

Make our case for real change. Go big or go home. The right is going to try to frame it as colossal regardless. We might as well give them what they want.

29

cassander 06.26.15 at 6:16 pm

@ plume

>They exist along side state supported capitalism.

and hear you reveal the full emptiness of your position. a state somewhere, anywhere, supporting capitalism puts out corrupting magic rays, eh? And presumably there is capitalism on some other planet somewhere in the universe, we must not forget the effects that has on us! forward to ever greater revolution!

> And they can never be more than a tiny fraction of a fraction of overall business activity,

again, demonstrably untrue. In developing countries, informal economies are often estimated to be nearly as large as the formal. larger, in some places.

>And a jail? Of all the examples, you couldn’t pick one less relevant.

I never mentioned jail.

> I’m a passionate critic of both our own system and the Soviets.

Passionate, and willfully blind. And no matter how much you claim to dislike the soviets, as long as you spout literally the same lines that they did, your protestations ring hollow.

>Give these two Noam Chomsky videos a listen.

I believe what you meant to say was “give these two Mao Apologist videos a listen.” I am familiar with chomsky, he suffers from the same condition you do. He doesn’t hate power, only power in the hands of people he doesn’t like.

@ Rote

>Cassander, the reason there’s no market without external government is because the ‘market’ as generally used is very different from simply the presence of trade.

in other words, “If I redefine what capitalism is, then capitalism can’t exist without government.” true, but not meaningful.

>The reason the USSR is considered state-capitalist is that, while theoretically directed by the central committees, much of the economy was run by relatively independent blocs who competed with each other, sold goods for money, ran themselves off those revenues… in general, acted exactly like American corporations, only with the directorates even more deeply tied to the state.

Again, the fact that communism doesn’t work is not proof that communism hasn’t been tried. communist central planning generated the exact same problems (on a much larger scale) that the US military industrial complex does, and for largely the same reasons. The reason for this was not because the USSR was “state capitalist”, but because the inevitable result of centralized power is people trying to influence it to their advantage. that is why capitalism works, because it lacks a centralized controller. each firm is a little island of centralization, true, but contrary to what people like plum assert, a thousand little islands are not the same thing as a continent.

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rote 06.26.15 at 6:32 pm

>He doesn’t hate power, only power in the hands of people he doesn’t like.

Uh, duh? Pretty sure that’s how everyone is. Or do you have a problem (inherent, not what is done with it) with the huge political power that goes into creating world trade? The fact that militaries exist?

>in other words, “If I redefine what capitalism is, then capitalism can’t exist without government.” true, but not meaningful.

I don’t see how it’s redefining capitalism to say that it is based on things like (relatively) free markets, (relatively) uniform currency, (relative) separation of civil and economic power, (relatively) guranteed property rights…

31

Rich Puchalsky 06.26.15 at 6:33 pm

Jerry Vinokurov: “Sure, I agree with this, but I’m not sure how this is a non-liberal critique, given that mainstream liberals make this point all the time. I guess my problem here is that I’m actually quite fond of a lot of things that fall under the umbrella of “liberalism”: stuff like freedom of speech, all kinds of autonomy in general”

It’s basically an anarchist critique, and (left) anarchism and left-liberalism are both in some sense on the left. Therefore both put a high value on autonomy and things like “freedom of speech”, although with anarchism this obviously has to be phrased a bit differently since freedom of speech is generally defined as a restriction on the state.

“But I don’t see how you get that kind of collective action to limit CO2 emissions without something like a government enforcing it. And if we’re going to have a government, wouldn’t it be better that this government be democratic in some sense?”

You’re talking about things that are outside of my immediate time scale. We need action about CO2 emissions to substantially change things within the next 15 years. If anything really changes our current system within the next 15 years, it’s going to be catastrophic (probably) and not planned. Certainly I’m not an advocate of anarchy-as-Mad-Max rather than anarchy as a transition to a different social system that people widely believe in. How long will it take for people to start widely believing in it? I don’t know, but they can basically start now while they are (of necessity) forced to keep on addressing crises within the existing, failing system.

32

Plume 06.26.15 at 6:36 pm

Cassander,

Again, those “informal economies” aren’t capitalist. We’re talking capitalist economies, not barter, not self-provisioning. Different universes.

And, again, if that “informal economy” ever took center stage as a capitalist system, how do you manage without government? How do you set standards for or print currency, protect property and contracts, pay for, build and manage infrastructure, courts, international trade agreements, the protection of trade routes, etc. etc. ? When your black market exists within a society that does all of that for you already, it’s ludicrous to pretend that you don’t need government for capitalist markets.

Capitalist businesses wouldn’t last a day without Big Gubmint doing all of those things, taking on the burden of ginormous costs for business, externalizing them, allowing businesses to pay a fraction of a fraction of their own expenses. Take away what government currently does, which includes “biggest consumer” in dozens of different fields, along with “biggest lender,” “biggest supplier or R and D,” and the vast majority of capitalist businesses are dead in the water. Few could afford to get off the ground in the first place, of course, if governments didn’t pick up the tab for the vast majority of their costs, their protections, their trade agreements, etc. etc.

No one is more blind than a capitalist cheerleader.

33

Plume 06.26.15 at 6:44 pm

And, one last time, Cassander,

I don’t “literally spout the party line.” I condemn the Soviet system as I do the capitalist system, and always have. You can’t find any coordination in viewpoints and you haven’t even tried to demonstrate them. You just keep repeating your mantras, without one iota of proof to support them, no attempts to back your statements with quotations or recourse to any other sources. And you have a bad habit of never, ever answering direct questions from others.

All you do is repeat right-wing, ignorant nonsense, over and over again, and I’ve heard it all for several decades now. It was old back in the 1960s. It’s beyond absurd in 2015.

At least have the decency to attempt to support your statements. We all know you can’t. But you should at least give it the good old quixotic try.

34

MPAVictoria 06.26.15 at 6:47 pm

I think cassandra needs to be reminded that the economy is actually just a gov’t program.

http://www.demos.org/blog/11/28/13/what-redistribution-really

35

Plume 06.26.15 at 7:04 pm

MPAV @34,

Very true.

As mentioned already, The Making of Global Capitalism details all of that. Capitalist governments have always redistributed for capital. They’ve worked primarily on capital’s behalf. They protect it, defend it — sometimes to the death — expand it, bail it out endlessly, pick up its losses, etc. etc. And capitalism is already a system of redistribution upward. Governments just extend this while throwing crumbs to the masses — at least enough to keep them from revolting.

Ironically, if conservatives and right-libertarians ever got their wish, and government really did step out of the picture, individual businesses would collapse overnight and the system would fall as well. And if the exposure of their absolute dependence upon government support wasn’t enough to do this — and it would be — then the people would revolt en masse and it would be off with the heads of the folks at Versailles. Conservatives and right-libertarians dream of a society without any social safety net at all . . . . but they are blind to the fact that that safety net is really all that stands between them and the pitchforks.

I’d prefer an economic system that doesn’t require social safety nets in the first place, because it actually does what it should up front and no one is left behind, no one is excluded. But as long as we’re stuck with capitalism, we need a social safety net, because capitalism has never been able to allocate resources, access, income, etc. etc. in any remotely effective way . . . . at least not for the majority. It’s always been about concentrating all of that at the very top.

In short, pure insanity.

36

cassander 06.26.15 at 7:15 pm

@plume

>Again, those “informal economies” aren’t capitalist. We’re talking capitalist economies, not barter, not self-provisioning. Different universes.

No, we aren’t and no they aren’t.

>And, again, if that “informal economy” ever took center stage as a capitalist system, how do you manage without government?

what part of “markets aren’t managed” do you not understand? the entire point of markets is that they neither need nor have central organizers. Centralized bodies like governments can improve their functioning, but they aren’t necessary.

>Capitalist businesses wouldn’t last a day without Big Gubmint doing all of those things,

black markets do this every day. But why sully your theories with evidence, right?

>No one is more blind than a capitalist cheerleader.

yes, why support the only system in history that has a centuries long proven track record of improving the human condition. clearly your fantasies trump that.

>I don’t “literally spout the party line.”

You’re repeating trotskyite talking points almost word for word. that’s the definition of the party line.

>At least have the decency to attempt to support your statements. We all know you can’t. But you should at least give it the good old quixotic try.

Coming from you, this is rich.

37

Plume 06.26.15 at 7:34 pm

Cassander,

You didn’t respond to anything I said or asked. Which is your habit. And your answers consisted basically of, “No, you’re wrong because you’re wrong.” No supporting evidence. No attempt to provide it, or demonstrate your position.

You just say, “I’m right because I’m right.”

It’s more than silly and I’m wondering if you’ve managed to graduate from Junior High School yet. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the level of your discourse, that you were 14 or 15, and were playing hooky from school.

I’ll ask one last time:

How do your capitalist markets function without legal standing and legal standards? How do they make purchases legally binding, final and so on, without governments? How do they print and standardize currency enough to go beyond barter? How do they establish trade agreements and defend trade routes? Protect property? Adjudicate disputes? Pay for all of their own business expenses, like roads and bridges, and all virtual and physical infrastructure? How do they pay for all of their R and D? How do they survive without governments being major buyers of their goods and services and so on? Who bails them out when they crash? Who goes to war for them when their markets are attacked, and their attempts at expansion blocked?

Last chance, Cassander. Respond in an honest, intelligent manner, for once.

38

Jerry Vinokurov 06.27.15 at 1:57 am

Nothing that could even charitably be described as an “unmanaged market” has ever existed since about the time money was invented. In fact, “unmanaged market” is virtually a logical impossibility.

39

Plume 06.27.15 at 2:51 am

Jerry @38,

It’s a self-delusion I’ve bumped into many, many times with right-libertarians (propertarians). That their vision is one of pure freedom from all governments, and that, magically, everyone will just agree to the imposition of their hierarchies of choice without even thinking they’re hierarchies — within individual businesses, between them, their supply lines, marketing wings, between the business and the consumer, between the business and overseas companies, and so on. Apparently, all of that just magically appears out of nowhere and sustains itself without the necessity of any governing bodies. The infrastructure for all of that appears magically, too, and it’s free!!!

Ironically, they could get much closer to their ideal if they gave up on capitalism altogether, because it requires massive bureaucracies, working together, globalizing the system, bailing it out when it inevitably crashes and so on. There is no escaping from extended governing bodies once any economic system moves beyond the merely local, is locked into the profit loop and must grow or die. As it grows, so must the government entities that keep it flowing and protect it.

Simplify it, get rid of profit, hierarchy to the extent possible, make products to order, not in hopes of future sales, do away with the endless duplication of junk, the endless proliferation of more and more junk, more and more junk that doesn’t last, and you have a great shot at radically reducing the size of government, on the way to getting rid of most of it. But not with capitalism. No previous economic system has ever been so dependent on governments to match its complexities, division of labor, acceleration of consumer choice and mass production for future sales.

M-C-M and exchange value will always guarantee massive government, working together across borders. People like Cassander, if they actually believe what they’re saying, are in deep denial.

40

c 06.27.15 at 10:10 am

cassander #16:
“Only you, plume, could call millions of competing companies centralized power. If you believe in decentralization, then you have to embrace capitalism. It’s the only force in the world that actively and reliably tears down established powers.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/
“global corporate control has a distinct bow-tie shape, with a dominant core of 147 firms radiating out from the middle. Each of these 147 own interlocking stakes of one another and together they control 40% of the wealth in the network. A total of 737 control 80% of it all.”

Capitalist power is centralized in the sense that it is a pyramidic system of hierarchical relations where power is massively anchored to dominant captalist locations and wielded to reproduce the hierarchy and satisfy the interests of those in the dominant capitalist location. That location is occupied by a limited number of individuals. Over time those individuals come and go (mostly along patrimonial lines), but the location remains.

41

engels 06.27.15 at 10:26 am

If you believe in decentralization, then you have to embrace capitalism

Ha ha ha ha h

42

Plume 06.27.15 at 3:24 pm

Engels,

How could anyone read that article and still think capitalism is even remotely moral, ethical or rational? How could anyone read that article and still believe it “works” for anyone but the richest quintile? And even there, it’s really only working for a fraction of that top quintile.

Cassander, of course, would go many, many steps further and wave pom poms about its supposed greatness and the way it supposedly enhances “freedom” for all. If by “freedom” he means freedom to be exploited, oppressed and generally screwed over, yeah, certainly. There’s definitely that.

43

Plume 06.27.15 at 3:36 pm

I may have missed this, but saw no reference to perhaps Professor Miller’s nod to Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s novel of the same name.

English translations for downloads here:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924096961036

Bumped into the author again, after a long, long time, in Kristin Ross’s Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune.

Had a profound influence on the Russian section of the International, along with Tolstoy and many others. Not very far into the book, but Ms. Ross mentions Elisabeth Dmitrieff,/a>, as being especially taken by its message.

44

Plume 06.27.15 at 3:37 pm

Sorry for the poor coding.

That would be Elisabeth Dimitrieff.

45

engels 06.27.15 at 6:25 pm

How could anyone read that article and still think capitalism is even remotely moral, ethical or rational

Beats me.

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