Harper’s has been reporting on monopoly capitalism almost since the magazine’s founding in 1850, criticizing the system whenever it appeared to be concentrating too much power in the hands of a greedy few, and sometimes spurring change. Our first significant piece on the subject was a two-part essay by Richard T. Ely on railway trusts, which ran in 1886. (Subscribers can read part one here, and part two here.) “I propose to show in these articles,” Ely wrote, “that our abominable no-system of railways has brought the American people to a condition of one-sided dependence upon corporations, which too often renders our nominal freedom illusory.” The following year, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission and placed it in charge of railway regulation, in turn paving the way for the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. [MORE . . .]

The equation is simple. In sector after sector of our political economy, there are still many sellers: many of us. But every day, there are fewer buyers: fewer of them. Hence, they enjoy more and more liberty to dictate terms—or simply to dictate. [MORE . . .]

An American cattleman.

Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner whose capsizing off the Italian island of Giglio killed at least 15 people, was revealed to have deviated from the ship’s authorized route in order to salute a former captain who lived on the island. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera released an audio recording in which Schettino, speaking to the Coast Guard from a lifeboat, defied commands to return to the ship and direct the evacuation of passengers. “Listen Schettino, you saved yourself from the sea,” says the Coast Guard captain, “but I am going to... I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, dick!” Schettino later claimed he had not intended to abandon ship but had tripped and fallen into a lifeboat and was unable to climb back aboard. Press reports noted that after coming ashore, he took a taxi to a hotel, where he asked the manager for an espresso and a pair of dry socks. A group of Swiss survivors recalled that Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from the movie Titanic, was playing in the dining room when the Costa Concordia hit the rocks.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7} The Iowa G.O.P. admitted that it had misplaced the January 3rd caucus results from eight precincts, and that a new tally showed Rick Santorum had won, not Mitt Romney, as was previously reported.⁸ Newt Gingrich defeated Romney in Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, despite allegations from Gingrich’s ex-wife that he had asked her for an open marriage in order to continue seeing his mistress, who is now his wife.⁹ Rick Perry dropped out of the race and endorsed Gingrich, joining him in attacking Romney for inconsistencies in his stance on abortion. “You’re pro-abortion and then you change over to pro-life in your 50s?” asked Perry.^{10 11} Rick Santorum’s wife, a pro-life activist, was discovered to have had a six-year relationship with an abortion doctor and obstetrician 41 years her senior, who also delivered her, before marrying Santorum.¹² A Ron Paul hot-air balloon was deflated after causing a four-mile traffic jam on a South Carolina highway.¹³ [MORE . . .]

In 2001, I went to live in a section of Lima called San Juan de Lurigancho. In the imaginary map all Limeños have of their city, this district is indistinguishable from the two notorious prisons that lie within its borders. One of these is Castro Castro, a maximum-security facility holding most of those convicted of terrorism; the other is the district’s namesake, known simply as Lurigancho, a hellish complex originally built for 2,000 inmates, but now home to nearly four times that number. It is, by some estimates, the most overcrowded penitentiary in South America. [MORE . . .]

Michael Hastings’s Polk Award–winning Rolling Stone article, “The Runaway General,” brought the career of General Stanley McChrystal, America’s commander in Afghanistan, to an abrupt end. Now Hastings has developed the material from that article, and the storm that broke in its wake, into an equally explosive book, The Operators, which includes a merciless examination of relations between major media and the American military establishment. I put six questions to Hastings about his book and his experiences as a war correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan:

1. Your book presents a Barack Obama who behaves uncomfortably and perhaps too deferentially around his generals, but who is also the first president since Harry S. Truman to have sacked a theater commander during wartime—and moreover, who did it twice (first, General David McKiernan, then McChrystal). How do you reconcile these observations? [MORE . . .]

In the outpouring of accolades that followed the death of Christopher Hitchens, I confess I joined in, trying my best to claim some of his journalistic legacy. Because the obituaries failed to mention his service as the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine, of which I am the publisher, or that his landmark book The Trial of Henry Kissinger originated as two long pieces in the magazine, I boasted of his relationship with Harper’s on our website. [MORE . . .]

On Friday, a judge from Spain’s national security court, the Audiencia Nacional, issued a decision directing the resumption of criminal proceedings relating to the torture and mistreatment of three prisoners held in the American detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. El País reports (my translation):

Judge Pablo Ruz of the Audiencia Nacional has reactivated a case initiated by [Judge Baltasar] Garzón relating to the torture of four Islamists, one of them the so-called “Spanish Taliban,” during their captivity at the U.S. base at Guantánamo; according to the judge the case involves crimes of torture, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

The judge concluded that there is sufficient basis to support a finding of jurisdiction for the Spanish courts to investigate the facts, as the case has a “connection relevant to Spain.” Even though the plenary chamber of the court’s criminal division has established a preference for U.S. jurisdiction in such cases, the exercise of Spanish jurisdiction would be appropriate because there is no evidence that either the U.S. or the U.K. had opened an investigation or commenced a prosecution of the crimes in question.

[MORE . . .]

A kinkajou, 1886.

Tunisia commemorated the first anniversary of the Arab Spring—and of the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali—by pardoning 9,000 prisoners and commuting 122 death sentences. ¹ Myanmar released 651 political prisoners, leading the U.S. State Department to move toward restoring full diplomatic relations with the country for the first time in 21 years.² Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei ended his bid for the Egyptian presidency, citing his country’s military autocracy as an insurmountable obstacle to legitimate elections. “The regime did not fall yet,” he said.³ Hundreds of Saudis gathered to protest the killing of a young Shiite man by security forces, and Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced to death Amir Hekmati, an American citizen accused of spying for the CIA, who claims to have been visiting his grandmothers. The following day, an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a magnetic bomb that was attached to his car while he was stuck in traffic in Tehran. Iran blamed the United States, the United Kingdom, and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the assassination. “[Our] response will be a tormenting one,” said General Masoud Jazayeri, “for supporters of state terrorism.”^{4 5 6 7} In Caracas, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joked with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez about firing an atomic bomb on Washington. “The fuel of that bomb,” said Ahmadinejad, “is love.”^{8 9} An Iranian medical journal published a study of a 21-year-old who developed a permanent erection after having the phrase “Good luck with your journeys” tattooed on his penis. “Based on our unique case,” wrote the study’s authors, “we discourage penile tattooing.” ¹⁰ [MORE . . .]

On January 11, 2002, the first prisoners from the Bush Administration’s “War on Terror” were landed at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, a forty-five-square-mile enclave at the eastern end of Cuba that America secured in a 1903 treaty and has held ever since. Today marks the tenth anniversary of U.S. detention operations there. In the intervening years, the prison population swelled, with a total of 779 prisoners having been held there at some point. Some 600 were released (mostly by the Bush Administration), and of the 171 still held there, a majority have actually been cleared for release. These eighty-nine men are something of a political ping-pong ball between Republicans, who continue to do everything in their power to keep Gitmo open and to block the prisoners’ release, and the Obama White House, which seems intent on keeping questions surrounding Gitmo out of the headlines. Obama pledged during his campaign to close Gitmo within his first year as president, but this pledge has gone unfulfilled—in part because he was slow to act, but largely as a result of congressional obstruction.

Most of the discussion about Gitmo continues to focus on prisoner abuse, though it is clear that conditions for prisoners improved somewhat during the Bush Administration’s final two years, and that under the Obama Administration, the physical condition of the facilities and the day-to-day treatment of prisoners have prompted a decrease in questions from human rights advocates. [MORE . . .]

A Small Family.

Mitt Romney won the first stage of the Republican leadership race, beating Rick Santorum by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, in the Iowa caucus. “This has been a great victory for him,” said Romney of Santorum. Michele Bachmann, who had claimed she would stay in the race regardless of the Iowa results, suspended her campaign after receiving 5 percent of the vote.¹ The 2008 Republican nominee, John McCain, endorsed Romney. “I am confident, with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around,” said McCain. “President Romney," he then corrected himself. “President Romney. President Romney.” During a speech to New Hampshire business leaders, Romney said “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need.” ^{2 3 4 5 6 7} The U.S. Labor Department revealed that unemployment had fallen in December to 8.5 percent, the lowest level in almost three years, and President Barack Obama made the first recess appointments during a break of fewer than three days since 1949, nominating three people to the National Labor Relations Board and five-time “Jeopardy!” champion Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “I hope that the Senate has the backbone to say, ‘You will withdraw these nominations or we are doing nothing,’” said Santorum. ^{8 9 10 11 12} Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted of sodomy after a two-year trial. “Thank God justice has prevailed,” said Anwar, who, if found guilty of having sex with a former aide, would have faced 20 years in prison. “To be honest, I am a little surprised.”¹³ [MORE . . .]

Dear Readers,

The January 2012 issue is with subscribers, for whom it is also available online, and will be on newsstands for another few weeks yet. Herewith, our monthly roundup of blog posts and web links related to the stories in the issue: [MORE . . .]

The last decade was clearly something of a Hobbesian moment in American history. Now, political philosopher and Hobbes scholar Ted H. Miller has written a book entitled Mortal Gods: Science, Politics, and the Humanist Ambitions of Thomas Hobbes, in which he examines the English philosopher’s work and its relationship to court politics, absolutist rule, and the seventeenth-century fascination with practical mathematics. I put six questions to Miller about his new book:

1. If the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes can be separated from that of John Locke on a single practical point, it is probably the notion of accountability of senior political figures. Locke teaches us that no man can be above the law. But for Hobbes, as you note, the sovereign is personified as a law-giver who operates outside the limitations of law. Many in America today believe we are witnessing a resurgence of notions of immunity and unaccountability that benefit the powerful and the wealthy. Is this the legacy of Thomas Hobbes? [MORE . . .]

On Thursday, January 5, Harper’s Magazine contributing editor Thomas Frank appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss his latest book, Pity The Billionaire, and the improbable rise of right-wing economic fundamentalism following the financial crisis: