Martin Luther King v. Mitt Romney
A revealing juxtaposition, and a belated MLK Day item:
Read more...Category Archives: Social policy
Ron Paul Debate Flushes Out Gender-Baiting Right Wing Opportunists Masquerading as Progressives
The intense debate precipitated by a post on this site, “How Ron Paul Challenges Liberals,” and follow up posts by Glenn Greenwald and here serve to prove their simple yet frequently misrepresented thesis: that Ron Paul’s anti-war, anti-Fed positions expose fault lines among those traveling under the “liberal” banner.
Anyone who read comments on NC prior to this debate would have noticed some sympathy for Paul, ranging from the more common “he’s batshit and I’d never vote for him, but his opposition to our Middle East adventurism and the lack of accountability at the Fed is refreshing” to some making a stronger case for him. That shouldn’t be surprising given the point often made here and in the few lonely “progressive” outposts on the blogosphere (“progressive” is in the process of being co-opted in the same way “liberal” has been): that the Democratic party has been so deeply penetrated by the neoliberal/Robert Rubin/Hamilton Project types that it isn’t that different from the right on economic issues.
It should not be controversial to point out that the Democratic party uses identity politics as a cover for its policy of selling out the middle class to banks and big corporate interests, just on a slower and stealthier basis than the right. And we’ve seen the identity card used in a remarkably dishonest manner in this Ron Paul contretemps.
Read more...Why Banks Back SOPA, the “Bring the Chinese Internet to America” Bill
Although lots of technology-related sites are correctly up in arms about the Stop Online Piracy Act, the MSM has given it short shrift, and the financial blogosphere has not paid much attention (cross posts of some of George Washington articles being a welcome exception).
Read more...Naked Capitalism, “A Home for All Sorts of Bircher Nonsense”
By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller.
A post I wrote two weeks ago, How Ron Paul Challenges Liberals, created something of a stir. It was the most commented article on Naked Capitalism, ever. And it kicked up a series of arguments among Democrats and civil libertarians. Glenn Greenwald, who has been talking about these problems in prominent forums, followed up with this remarkable post (and then this one), and has taken many insults as a result. This in and of itself is worth noting – the slurring of those who critique the structure of modern liberalism is an essential tool in the preservation of the status quo. I’m going to highlight a few of the reactions here without much of a rebuttal, because I think the reactions themselves illustrate the struggle that boxes in traditional partisan Democrats.
Read more...What if We Focus on Boosting Employment Rather Than Growth?
Although it is remarkably difficult to come up with decent data, from what I can tell, the Japanese bubble was considerably bigger relative to the size of its economy than the US debt binge was. Yet even though the Japanese aftermath has been remarkably protracted, and arguably worsened by a slow and cautious initial response, visitors to Japan find the country wearing its malaise remarkably well.
One of the reasons may be the Japanese preoccupation with employment. Entrepreneurs are revered not for making money but for creating jobs. Japanese companies went to great lengths to keep workers, cutting senior pay to preserve manning. That was done largely for cultural reasons, since companies are seen as being like families.
But was this preoccupation also good economic policy, and might it have played a more direct role in buffering the worse effects of the bubble aftermath?
Read more...You Cannot Make This Up: New Criterion Tells Us We Should Ditch Social Security Because All Minimum Wage Earners Can Become Millionaires
People who write for right wing outlets live in an alternative reality. The piece that Michael Thomas pointed out to me from the New Criterion, “Future tense, V: Everybody gets rich,” by Kevin D. Williamson, belongs in a special category of its own in terms of the degree of disconnect it exhibits.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Of Idiocy and Anomie – Ron Paul vs. the Nanny State Liberals
By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland
Matt Stoller recently ran a thoughtful piece on this site about Ron Paul. Stoller’s thesis is that Ron Paul confronts Big Government liberals (my term, not Stoller’s) with the dark underbelly of their policy prescriptions. Stoller points out that Paul’s ideology touches at least three very sensitive areas for the modern liberal: their ties between Big War and government spending; their ties to the Federal system and its related monetary apparatus; and their ties to Big Finance.
To deal exhaustively with any of these complex topics is a daunting task and one which I will not pursue here. But Stoller dropped a name when he invoked the contradictions of liberalism; one well worth bringing up: Christopher Lasch.
Read more...Public Money for Public Purpose: Toward the End of Plutocracy and the Triumph of Democracy – Part VI
By Dan Kervick, a PhD in Philosophy and an active independent scholar specializing in the philosophy of David Hume who also does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economics Perspectives.
I will conclude by proposing six social tasks for the rising generation – six challenging tasks whose successful pursuit will help us achieve a more just, equal and democratic society. It is my view that the resulting society will not only be fairer and more decent. It will also be more economically productive, and will better promote human happiness and flourishing by more effectively distributing the goods and services we produce. Most of us will be happier in such a society as well, because the practices of democratic equality do a better job satisfying the human desires for cooperation, solidarity, trust, stability and fellowship that are the foundation of the social life for which human beings are naturally framed.
Extreme laissez faire capitalism of the kind extolled off and on over the past two centuries, and increasingly preached by economists, financiers and conservative thinkers over the past four decades, is a perverse distortion of human nature, foisted upon us by cold and demented thinkers captivated by inhuman notions of efficiency and domination. In the end, it is a system that reduces each human being to an object whose value is nothing beyond what it is worth in the market. We need to restore a social balance, in which private property, entrepreneurialism and commercial activity do not dominate our lives and set all the rules for our existence, but function within a democratic social order framed by a politically coherent and effective commitment to the public good. In a democratic social order there exists an activist public sector controlling a substantial store of social goods, and channeling democratic energies and intelligence into the ambitious perfection of such goods.
The six proposed tasks are not intended to be in any way exhaustive. They all pertain to the economic sphere of life alone. But the realization of a genuinely democratic society will require efforts that transcend the economic sphere. We need to rejuvenate the democratic spirit in America, educate ourselves and our fellow citizens on the unfulfilled potentialities of democratic existence, recapture the salvageable institutions of our threatened but still existing democracy, and further expand the institutions and habits of democratic practice. There is much to be done, but the prospect of doing it is exciting.
Read more...The Trouble with Principles: Or, How to Not Lose Friends and Alienate People When Learning Economics (#OccupyWallStreet, #OWS)
By Jake Romero, an economics student at Portland State University. You can reach him at jvc613 (at) gmail.com
Economics has always been something of a battleground, but in November a group of about seventy Harvard students opened a new front in the ongoing hostilities: its introductory pedagogy. In solidarity with the Occupy movement, the students staged a walkout of their principles course to protest what they called its “inherent bias.”
In his rebuttal in the New York Times, Greg Mankiw countered that his teaching is careful to avoid policy conclusions and that its subject matter falls squarely within the current mainstream of the discipline. Narrowly correct, he nonetheless profoundly missed the broader points that his students, to be fair, seemed unable to articulate fully.
Read more...Philip Mirowski: The Seekers, or How Mainstream Economists Have Defended Their Discipline Since 2008 – Part IV
By Philip Mirowski, Carl Koch Professor of Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science University of Notre Dame. Professor Mirowski has written numerous books including More Heat than Light, Machine Dreams and, most recently Science-Mart
Edited and with an introduction by Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland
The debates surrounding the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium [DSGE] models are perhaps some of the most interesting and important to have surfaced in the wake of the crisis. Of course, they, too many debates within the economics profession after the crisis, are deployed in order to insulate the research program from any fundamental criticism. But it is in the nature of the material that the critical observer can see something more interesting going on. And that is the contradiction at the heart of economics: the dichotomy, the abyss that opens up by necessity between macroeconomics and microeconomics.
Read more...Mark Ames: The Massacre Everyone Ignored – Up To 70 Striking Oil Workers Killed In Kazakhstan By US-Supported Dictator
By Mark Ames, the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine. Cross posted from The eXiled
With violence and government crackdowns making headlines from so many familiar parts of the world, there’s hardly been a peep in the media about the biggest and ugliest massacre of all: Last Friday in Kazakhstan, riot police slaughtered up 70 striking oil workers, wounding somewhere between 500 and 800, and arresting scores.
Read more...Philip Mirowski: The Seekers, or How Mainstream Economists Have Defended Their Discipline Since 2008 – Part I
By Philip Mirowski, Carl Koch Professor of Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science University of Notre Dame. Professor Mirowski has written numerous books including More Heat than Light, Machine Dreams and, most recently Science-Mart
Edited and with an introduction by Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland
During a recent interview with the eminent historian of economic thought, Philip Mirowski, I raised a series of questions relating to how mainstream economists had dealt with the crisis on an intellectual level and what this might mean for the discipline in the coming years.
Read more...As Bradley Manning Trial Proceedings Begin, Killers of Iraqi Civilians Go Unpunished
As Bradley Manning’s trial is about to move forward, the Real News Network provides a useful and timely reminder of one of the key incidents that Manning publicized, the shooting of a group of Iraqi citizens that included Reuters reporters by a helicopter gunship.
I have a pretty tough constitution, but I was really sickened by this video. I can see why the authorities would be keen to discourage this sort of release.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: The Austrian Disease – Poor Scholarship, a Priori Bias
By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland
Recently I wrote an essay claiming that Austrian economics provided a metaphysical-theological basis for what is today called ‘libertarianism’ – a popular, dogmatic political cult in the vein of Marxism-Leninism. The essay was abstract and, quite possibly, a bit obtuse – for that I apologise, but such is the nature of the material.
If I am correct and libertarianism is a political cult and its foundations were laid by the Austrian economists, what real world effects does this have?
Read more...We Speak with Dylan Ratigan on Bank Extraction from the Economy
We had a conversation with Dylan Ratigan about how banks take more than their fair share. You can listen below or find an overview and transcript here.
Read more...