I am not in favor of the universal basic income as advocated by Philippe van Parijs in Basic Income And Social Democracy. Within a couple of years, a universal basic income will just be sucked up in land rent and profit, and, since it will be offset by taxes on middle-income workers, it will result in a net upwards redistribution of real spending power, as rents and profits will come from the middle deciles to the top 10 percent of landlords, stockholders, and CEOs. (Much is true also of the $15 minimum wage.)
To have any lasting effect, a universal basic income must be complemented by public ownership of most housing (with some owner-occupied housing) as well as public ownership of basic necessities: electricity generation, water distribution, food, and education.
More importantly, as charity (and charity it will be) from the bourgeoisie, a universal basic income should be morally repugnant to the working class: it is the working class, those who make what money buys, who should be in a position to be charitable (or uncharitable) to the parasitic bourgeoisie.
The only way we're going to have a reasonable standard of living for the working class is to take political and economic power. The bourgeoisie will not, and indeed because of the structure of capitalism, cannot do otherwise than to exploit the working class to the maximum extent politically possible, and to always try to make as politically possible as much exploitation as is materially possible. There is no middle ground.
I'm pleased, however, that bourgeois intellectuals are starting to talk about things like universal basic income and a higher minimum wage. This means they're scared, and the bourgeoisie is nothing if not cowardly. If the bourgeoisie offers a universal basic income, a $15 minimum wage, the working people should take it and demand more. And when the bourgeoisie offers more, take it and demand yet more. And more again, until the working class has it all.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Monday, March 21, 2016
A rant on socialism, authoritarianism, and welfare
We socialists have to tell a story. That the story is true is helpful, but truthfulness is not the key; the key is to make the story itself compelling.
Trump's popularity (and likelihood of winning the Republican nomination) is probably not entirely due to authoritarianism, but authoritarians seem to strongly support him. A lot of (neo)liberals look at authoritarianism as some sort of aberration or ideological disease. But it's not. Authoritarianism is the displacement and reaction formation of an ordinarily healthy and respectable impulse: the idea that there should be rules and that people should follow them. Authoritarianism and fascism result from the displacement of anger from the ruling class, who are not following the rules (since condemning the ruling class is usually unthinkable) to some ethnic or other social group. Since half of our rules (if not more) are just shibboleths, we can always find "rules" that the black people are breaking (wearing their pants in that ridiculous fashion) or gay people are breaking (makeup? on men!?), etc. ad nauseam.
The most obvious and pernicious of this displacement is anger towards poor people: people are poor because they are breaking the rules — people should work hard, earn a paycheck, and pay their bills — and, instead of punishing them for breaking the rules, we are supporting them, enabling their bad behavior. Outrageous!
Socialism should appeal to the healthy feelings underlying authoritarianism. First, is directing the anger and anxiety where it belongs: the people, poor and not-quite-poor, are following the rules (as best they can; many rules are impossible to follow by design): it is the capitalist ruling class who are breaking the important rules, and we are not punishing but supporting them. It is the capitalist ruling class who are working us harder and for less, who are exporting our jobs, who are allowing our homes to decay, poisoning our water and air. It is the ruling class who are throwing people into abject poverty, and giving them no realistic choice but drugs and welfare. People have to live, and they have to work and be productive to be healthy, and without jobs, people go quietly (or noisily) crazy.
Most notably, we must tell the story that socialism is ninety-nine percent against welfare. Welfare is fine for the completely disabled, and of course people who work have to support our retired elders, our parents and grandparents, but beyond that, no welfare. No food stamps. No TANF. Yes, universal health care, but universal health care is not welfare, it is paid for* by our labor and our taxes.
*In a sense, MMT notwithstanding.
Under socialism, everyone who can do something, anything, productive (or reproductive) works. Nobody gets to laze around on the public dime. And nobody gets to pretend to work. Hedge fund managers and lawyers may spend 14 hours a day at the office, but they're not working; they're just planning their next heist, their next con. Fuck those guys. Everyone works a real job, and everyone gets paid a real paycheck. A socialist government is not going to beat around the bush: if you can work and you don't, fuck you: here's a job, whatever it takes, you will do it.
Socialism is about reestablishing "law and order"; not the pretend capitalist "law and order" which is just straight-up predators' demonization of their prey, but real law and order: people being civilized human beings. Socialism is not about putting everyone on the dole, but putting everyone to work, doing work with dignity, respect, honor, satisfaction, and human fulfillment. Not everyone wants to work. Not everyone wants to be a civilized human being. Those who don't want to work, those who want to be predators, they will feel the hammer of the state, hard enough to satisfy any authoritarian.
But the socialist hammer is different from the capitalist hammer. First, the capitalist hammer is in the hands of the bourgeoisie; the socialist hammer is in the hands of the proletariat. (And fuck the Soviet Union and China for taking the hammer out of the hands of the proletariat and giving it to the faux-bourgeois Communist Party.)
Second, the socialist hammer is that you will have a job, you will do your job, and you will get paid, whatever it takes.
Anyone, anywhere, can walk into the employment office and walk into a job the next day. Not a shit job — the shit jobs pay enough to encourage people to take them voluntarily — not a dream job, but a good, decent job that won't kill you or make you sick, and that will pay you enough to live like a civilized human being and raise a family.
If that's not enough, a police officer will, in essence, pick you up from your home in the morning, take you to your job, and stand behind you while you work.
If that's not enough, well, what should we do? I guess we have to lock you in a building and put you to work there. You won't be tortured. All you have to do to get out is get a regular job (which everyone can get) and keep it.
(We have to keep people who enjoy killing or harming people away from others, but such people have a medical condition, and we have to lock them up, not to punish them but to keep them from perpetrating further harm and to try to treat them, to try to make them productive citizens who can restore their harm as best they can and contribute to everyone's well-being.)
But but but!!! That's so totalitarian! People forced to work! Slavery!
First of all, what the hell do you want? You want to demonize people who "won't" work (even though the capitalist system intentionally creates fewer jobs than there are people), but you don't want to make people work? How does that make sense? Either it is morally right (on whatever basis you like) that people should work, and morally wrong that a person who can work does not, or it's not. If it's morally right, then we get to coerce people to do it; if we shouldn't coerce people, then in what sense is it morally wrong? What, you want to coerce other people to work, but you don't want to be coerced?
Second, who do you think you're fooling? We're already forced to work. However, under capitalism, that force is exercised by the plutocracy, the capitalist ruling class, who are entirely unaccountable to the people. You say you want democracy, right? Why, then, do you shrink from making democratic what is fundamental to civilized society.
I appreciate that you're voting for Trump against the neoliberals, but Trump is a capitalist, and he's not going to give you what you want. The "unproductive" will be off the dole, but they'll be in prison or criminals, and that'll cost you, a lot. The illegal immigrants will be sent home, cheap foreign imports will cease flooding into WalMart, and then Americans (even some white people, oh my!) will be $1 per hour wage slaves. We might get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Syria, and Libya, and wherever else, but do you think Trump is going to just disband the army? (Well, he might, a little, flooding the nation with even more cheap labor). If the Army is not overseas, it'll be here; an army presupposes an enemy, and you, my gentle white lower-middle-class reader — along with all the women, black people, Hispanic people, Muslims, gays, etc. — will be its enemy.
No one will give us liberty and prosperity, not the neoliberals, not the professional-managerial class, not the bourgeoisie, not the strongman. If we want liberty and prosperity, we have to seize power ourselves, and hold it, not give it up ever, to anyone, however well-meaning and sincere.
You can stand for more of the same shit, and vote for Clinton. You can stand for a "change", and live in poverty enforced by a police state, and vote for Trump. Or you can work for justice, for law and order, for a civilized society, a society that is moral, decent, productive and wealthy: you can work for socialism.
It's your world. How do you want it to be?
Trump's popularity (and likelihood of winning the Republican nomination) is probably not entirely due to authoritarianism, but authoritarians seem to strongly support him. A lot of (neo)liberals look at authoritarianism as some sort of aberration or ideological disease. But it's not. Authoritarianism is the displacement and reaction formation of an ordinarily healthy and respectable impulse: the idea that there should be rules and that people should follow them. Authoritarianism and fascism result from the displacement of anger from the ruling class, who are not following the rules (since condemning the ruling class is usually unthinkable) to some ethnic or other social group. Since half of our rules (if not more) are just shibboleths, we can always find "rules" that the black people are breaking (wearing their pants in that ridiculous fashion) or gay people are breaking (makeup? on men!?), etc. ad nauseam.
The most obvious and pernicious of this displacement is anger towards poor people: people are poor because they are breaking the rules — people should work hard, earn a paycheck, and pay their bills — and, instead of punishing them for breaking the rules, we are supporting them, enabling their bad behavior. Outrageous!
Socialism should appeal to the healthy feelings underlying authoritarianism. First, is directing the anger and anxiety where it belongs: the people, poor and not-quite-poor, are following the rules (as best they can; many rules are impossible to follow by design): it is the capitalist ruling class who are breaking the important rules, and we are not punishing but supporting them. It is the capitalist ruling class who are working us harder and for less, who are exporting our jobs, who are allowing our homes to decay, poisoning our water and air. It is the ruling class who are throwing people into abject poverty, and giving them no realistic choice but drugs and welfare. People have to live, and they have to work and be productive to be healthy, and without jobs, people go quietly (or noisily) crazy.
Most notably, we must tell the story that socialism is ninety-nine percent against welfare. Welfare is fine for the completely disabled, and of course people who work have to support our retired elders, our parents and grandparents, but beyond that, no welfare. No food stamps. No TANF. Yes, universal health care, but universal health care is not welfare, it is paid for* by our labor and our taxes.
*In a sense, MMT notwithstanding.
Under socialism, everyone who can do something, anything, productive (or reproductive) works. Nobody gets to laze around on the public dime. And nobody gets to pretend to work. Hedge fund managers and lawyers may spend 14 hours a day at the office, but they're not working; they're just planning their next heist, their next con. Fuck those guys. Everyone works a real job, and everyone gets paid a real paycheck. A socialist government is not going to beat around the bush: if you can work and you don't, fuck you: here's a job, whatever it takes, you will do it.
Socialism is about reestablishing "law and order"; not the pretend capitalist "law and order" which is just straight-up predators' demonization of their prey, but real law and order: people being civilized human beings. Socialism is not about putting everyone on the dole, but putting everyone to work, doing work with dignity, respect, honor, satisfaction, and human fulfillment. Not everyone wants to work. Not everyone wants to be a civilized human being. Those who don't want to work, those who want to be predators, they will feel the hammer of the state, hard enough to satisfy any authoritarian.
But the socialist hammer is different from the capitalist hammer. First, the capitalist hammer is in the hands of the bourgeoisie; the socialist hammer is in the hands of the proletariat. (And fuck the Soviet Union and China for taking the hammer out of the hands of the proletariat and giving it to the faux-bourgeois Communist Party.)
Second, the socialist hammer is that you will have a job, you will do your job, and you will get paid, whatever it takes.
Anyone, anywhere, can walk into the employment office and walk into a job the next day. Not a shit job — the shit jobs pay enough to encourage people to take them voluntarily — not a dream job, but a good, decent job that won't kill you or make you sick, and that will pay you enough to live like a civilized human being and raise a family.
If that's not enough, a police officer will, in essence, pick you up from your home in the morning, take you to your job, and stand behind you while you work.
If that's not enough, well, what should we do? I guess we have to lock you in a building and put you to work there. You won't be tortured. All you have to do to get out is get a regular job (which everyone can get) and keep it.
(We have to keep people who enjoy killing or harming people away from others, but such people have a medical condition, and we have to lock them up, not to punish them but to keep them from perpetrating further harm and to try to treat them, to try to make them productive citizens who can restore their harm as best they can and contribute to everyone's well-being.)
But but but!!! That's so totalitarian! People forced to work! Slavery!
First of all, what the hell do you want? You want to demonize people who "won't" work (even though the capitalist system intentionally creates fewer jobs than there are people), but you don't want to make people work? How does that make sense? Either it is morally right (on whatever basis you like) that people should work, and morally wrong that a person who can work does not, or it's not. If it's morally right, then we get to coerce people to do it; if we shouldn't coerce people, then in what sense is it morally wrong? What, you want to coerce other people to work, but you don't want to be coerced?
Second, who do you think you're fooling? We're already forced to work. However, under capitalism, that force is exercised by the plutocracy, the capitalist ruling class, who are entirely unaccountable to the people. You say you want democracy, right? Why, then, do you shrink from making democratic what is fundamental to civilized society.
I appreciate that you're voting for Trump against the neoliberals, but Trump is a capitalist, and he's not going to give you what you want. The "unproductive" will be off the dole, but they'll be in prison or criminals, and that'll cost you, a lot. The illegal immigrants will be sent home, cheap foreign imports will cease flooding into WalMart, and then Americans (even some white people, oh my!) will be $1 per hour wage slaves. We might get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Syria, and Libya, and wherever else, but do you think Trump is going to just disband the army? (Well, he might, a little, flooding the nation with even more cheap labor). If the Army is not overseas, it'll be here; an army presupposes an enemy, and you, my gentle white lower-middle-class reader — along with all the women, black people, Hispanic people, Muslims, gays, etc. — will be its enemy.
No one will give us liberty and prosperity, not the neoliberals, not the professional-managerial class, not the bourgeoisie, not the strongman. If we want liberty and prosperity, we have to seize power ourselves, and hold it, not give it up ever, to anyone, however well-meaning and sincere.
You can stand for more of the same shit, and vote for Clinton. You can stand for a "change", and live in poverty enforced by a police state, and vote for Trump. Or you can work for justice, for law and order, for a civilized society, a society that is moral, decent, productive and wealthy: you can work for socialism.
It's your world. How do you want it to be?
Sunday, March 20, 2016
A socialist analysis of the 2016 presidential election
According to Marx, only the proletariat is capable of a revolutionary transformation of society, not because people in the proletariat are somehow better, but because the contradictions of bourgeois society create the proletariat — and only the proletariat — in ways that will eventually make them capable of revolutionary transformation. Only when the proletariat has lost everything under capitalism will they find the will and the power to overthrow capitalism.
The bourgeoisie has been far more clever than Marx expected in clinging to power, but the contradictions remain, and for a variety of reasons, the bourgeoisie is running out of tricks.
The proletariat must, however, learn to seize power, and learn to exercise it. What makes them a revolutionary class does not make them a good ruling class: there is nothing about the proletariat that makes them especially wise, clever, or efficient. And thus with any ruling class: the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie had to learn to rule as well. There is no way to learn how to actually take power but by trying and failing to take it; there is no way to learn to actually rule without trying and failing to rule.
The 2016 Presidential election raises some interesting issues.
First, neoliberalism is facing real problems. Although he's a racist (or playing one on TV), his racism is not why Donald Trump is popular. He's popular because he's anti-neoliberalism. And if he does beat Clinton, Trump will beat her precisely because he's anti-neoliberalism, at least on paper. (Trump doesn't have the will to actually fight neoliberalism as President.)
Sanders should be beating Clinton like Trump is beating Cruz, right?. He should be beating her even more soundly: the bourgeois left is supposedly more against neoliberalism than the right, n'est ce pas? Hardly. Neoliberalism is a creature of the bourgeois left, not the right. The bourgeois right is much more mercantilist/realist than neoliberal. Socialists should never count the bourgeois left as allies; the bourgeois left would rather risk fascism than socialism.
There is nothing about the proletariat that automatically disposes them to socialism. When they are being oppressed, they will pick whoever offers them the best story about escaping their oppression. The bourgeois right and the fascists are telling a better story than the neoliberals and the socialists. What is encouraging about Trump's popularity is that the proletariat is starting to fight back, on its own terms and not on the terms dictated by the neoliberals. They are fighting back poorly, unwisely, ineffectively, but they are fighting.
It really doesn't matter whether Trump or Clinton wins the election. Both will kill a bunch of brown foreigners and black Americans. The economy will continue to stagnate and decline under both. Neither will do shit about global warming. People in Flint will still drink filthy water. We will continue to imprison people, especially black people, in numbers that would make Stalin blush. Middle class white women will probably do marginally better under Clinton; middle class white men will probably do marginally better under Trump, but everyone not in the top 0.1%, the actual ruling class, or the top 10%, their servants, will be worse off four years after the election.
Indeed, it is possibly better if Trump wins the election. First, Trump is a buffoon, without the will to actually be a real fascist. If he's elected, he will quickly expose the emptiness of the nationalist/realist agenda. If Clinton wins (or if Trump is denied the Republican nomination), then the forces of reaction will just get stronger, and whoever follows Trump could well have the will to real fascism.
Socialists have an historic opportunity, one not seen since the aftermath of the First Global Imperialist War (a.k.a. WW I). Neoliberalism is collapsing, and the forces of reaction have only (for now) a clown to represent them. We have the perfect opportunity to tell a better story (better in no small part because it's true). Neoliberalism is weak, and, losing hegemony, the American neoliberals can no longer buy off even the labor aristocracy, much less the proletariat as a class.
Trump's weak-tea fascism-lite, if quickly exposed, will not have the force to satisfy the proletariat. However, if current conditions are a great opportunity for socialism, they are a great opportunity for real fascism, which holds a lot of appeal for the still-maturing proletariat.
The bourgeoisie has been far more clever than Marx expected in clinging to power, but the contradictions remain, and for a variety of reasons, the bourgeoisie is running out of tricks.
The proletariat must, however, learn to seize power, and learn to exercise it. What makes them a revolutionary class does not make them a good ruling class: there is nothing about the proletariat that makes them especially wise, clever, or efficient. And thus with any ruling class: the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie had to learn to rule as well. There is no way to learn how to actually take power but by trying and failing to take it; there is no way to learn to actually rule without trying and failing to rule.
The 2016 Presidential election raises some interesting issues.
First, neoliberalism is facing real problems. Although he's a racist (or playing one on TV), his racism is not why Donald Trump is popular. He's popular because he's anti-neoliberalism. And if he does beat Clinton, Trump will beat her precisely because he's anti-neoliberalism, at least on paper. (Trump doesn't have the will to actually fight neoliberalism as President.)
Sanders should be beating Clinton like Trump is beating Cruz, right?. He should be beating her even more soundly: the bourgeois left is supposedly more against neoliberalism than the right, n'est ce pas? Hardly. Neoliberalism is a creature of the bourgeois left, not the right. The bourgeois right is much more mercantilist/realist than neoliberal. Socialists should never count the bourgeois left as allies; the bourgeois left would rather risk fascism than socialism.
There is nothing about the proletariat that automatically disposes them to socialism. When they are being oppressed, they will pick whoever offers them the best story about escaping their oppression. The bourgeois right and the fascists are telling a better story than the neoliberals and the socialists. What is encouraging about Trump's popularity is that the proletariat is starting to fight back, on its own terms and not on the terms dictated by the neoliberals. They are fighting back poorly, unwisely, ineffectively, but they are fighting.
It really doesn't matter whether Trump or Clinton wins the election. Both will kill a bunch of brown foreigners and black Americans. The economy will continue to stagnate and decline under both. Neither will do shit about global warming. People in Flint will still drink filthy water. We will continue to imprison people, especially black people, in numbers that would make Stalin blush. Middle class white women will probably do marginally better under Clinton; middle class white men will probably do marginally better under Trump, but everyone not in the top 0.1%, the actual ruling class, or the top 10%, their servants, will be worse off four years after the election.
Indeed, it is possibly better if Trump wins the election. First, Trump is a buffoon, without the will to actually be a real fascist. If he's elected, he will quickly expose the emptiness of the nationalist/realist agenda. If Clinton wins (or if Trump is denied the Republican nomination), then the forces of reaction will just get stronger, and whoever follows Trump could well have the will to real fascism.
Socialists have an historic opportunity, one not seen since the aftermath of the First Global Imperialist War (a.k.a. WW I). Neoliberalism is collapsing, and the forces of reaction have only (for now) a clown to represent them. We have the perfect opportunity to tell a better story (better in no small part because it's true). Neoliberalism is weak, and, losing hegemony, the American neoliberals can no longer buy off even the labor aristocracy, much less the proletariat as a class.
Trump's weak-tea fascism-lite, if quickly exposed, will not have the force to satisfy the proletariat. However, if current conditions are a great opportunity for socialism, they are a great opportunity for real fascism, which holds a lot of appeal for the still-maturing proletariat.
Friday, March 04, 2016
Trump and the authoritarians
Interesting article by Amanda Taub: The rise of American authoritarianism. However, it's stupid to talk about authoritarianism without mentioning Bob Altemeyer.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
The Democrats: yet another party of neoliberal corporatist shills
Fredrik deBoer is not the Democratic party's biggest fan. He's spot on: the Democratic party is no friend of socialism.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Trump vs. Clinton
Nathan J. Robinson believes that Clinton can't beat Trup in the general election. I don't really follow electoral politics (shameful, I know), but he seems to have some good points. Clinton is a little sleazy, not well-liked, and a terrible campaigner. Robinson thinks Trump will eat her for breakfast.
I do know that if Clinton wins the nomination, I won't vote for her, even against Trump. I think Trump will be a better impetus for revolution than a Clinton or Sanders. I won't vote for Trump, but I'm not strongly motivated to work against him.
It should be an interesting few years.
I do know that if Clinton wins the nomination, I won't vote for her, even against Trump. I think Trump will be a better impetus for revolution than a Clinton or Sanders. I won't vote for Trump, but I'm not strongly motivated to work against him.
It should be an interesting few years.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Race, class, money, and power
Fredrik deBoer is spot on. In economic reductionism, again, deBoer denies the claim that socialists are typically economic reductionists with regard to race, that race is "just" an expression of class and that socialists believe that eliminating class would eliminate racism. deBoer is basically correct: he doesn't believe that, doesn't say say that, and most socialists who know what they're talking about don't say that. I won't say that nobody holds such naive reductionism — the internet is vast and full of stupid — but it's a fringe belief.
deBoer's makes his important points, and I have argued elsewhere that the liberation of black people, women, queer people, etc. within a capitalist system is to liberate only a fraction of those people: it is to ensure that black people, etc. are proportionally represented in the both the 0.1 percent of the actual ruling class, the 10 percent in the professional class (who serve the ruling class with privilege), and the 90 percent who are exploited and oppressed.
I want to make an additional point: the eradication of racism (and sexism, and all other forms of discrimination) requires power, especially regarding the material effects of discrimination. Black people will eradicate anti-black racism when they have the material power to do so. There is, of course, a moral dimension, but that moral dimension is useful only to the extent that it helps black people accumulate power. And in a capitalist economy power is money.
There are two ways for black people to gain money, and thus power. The first is for a few black people to break into the capitalist ruling class by becoming wealthy. No small few exceptional black people have done so, and (with the possible exception of Bill Cosby) good for them. I think they've done important work to fight racism.
However, if someone has power, it's very tempting for them to justify having that power, to believe their power is well-deserved. I don't think black people are angels. I don't think a black person with a million dollars wants to give up that power any more than a white person wants to. So, fundamentally, I think that rich black people are not going to be strongly motivated to address class issues.
Furthermore, the majority of black people will not be able to escape oppression unless they themselves have money. No matter how many black people are million- or billionaires, so long as a black person has to hold on to some shitty job under some racist asshole because they know that the only alternative is at worst starvation and at best some other shitty job under some other racist asshole, they won't escape racism. The only cure is to make sure that black people have good jobs paying good wages, with a good choice of jobs; then they have the material power to resist and overcome racism, not just in the workplace but in civil society.
A strike for black rights is effective only if the strikers have the direct and indirect economic power to survive it and actually use the strike to coerce the owners. A boycott for black rights is effective only if black people have enough purchasing power so that their boycott has a real effect. And it's stupid to argue — and nobody actually does — that only black workers should be privileged: to raise up the 90 percent of black people (and women, etc.) in the working class entails addressing class issues.
deBoer's makes his important points, and I have argued elsewhere that the liberation of black people, women, queer people, etc. within a capitalist system is to liberate only a fraction of those people: it is to ensure that black people, etc. are proportionally represented in the both the 0.1 percent of the actual ruling class, the 10 percent in the professional class (who serve the ruling class with privilege), and the 90 percent who are exploited and oppressed.
I want to make an additional point: the eradication of racism (and sexism, and all other forms of discrimination) requires power, especially regarding the material effects of discrimination. Black people will eradicate anti-black racism when they have the material power to do so. There is, of course, a moral dimension, but that moral dimension is useful only to the extent that it helps black people accumulate power. And in a capitalist economy power is money.
There are two ways for black people to gain money, and thus power. The first is for a few black people to break into the capitalist ruling class by becoming wealthy. No small few exceptional black people have done so, and (with the possible exception of Bill Cosby) good for them. I think they've done important work to fight racism.
However, if someone has power, it's very tempting for them to justify having that power, to believe their power is well-deserved. I don't think black people are angels. I don't think a black person with a million dollars wants to give up that power any more than a white person wants to. So, fundamentally, I think that rich black people are not going to be strongly motivated to address class issues.
Furthermore, the majority of black people will not be able to escape oppression unless they themselves have money. No matter how many black people are million- or billionaires, so long as a black person has to hold on to some shitty job under some racist asshole because they know that the only alternative is at worst starvation and at best some other shitty job under some other racist asshole, they won't escape racism. The only cure is to make sure that black people have good jobs paying good wages, with a good choice of jobs; then they have the material power to resist and overcome racism, not just in the workplace but in civil society.
A strike for black rights is effective only if the strikers have the direct and indirect economic power to survive it and actually use the strike to coerce the owners. A boycott for black rights is effective only if black people have enough purchasing power so that their boycott has a real effect. And it's stupid to argue — and nobody actually does — that only black workers should be privileged: to raise up the 90 percent of black people (and women, etc.) in the working class entails addressing class issues.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Freedom of speech
In Twitter is a Business, Not the Government, Tod Kelly defends Twitter for suspending misogynist and general shit-disturber Robert Stacey McCain. According to Kelly, Twitter's decision is justified by the fact that Twitter is a business, McCain is toxic for their business, and while freedom of speech is an important right, just depriving someone of some specific platform does not seriously impair their freedom. It's not a bad argument, and I've used it myself: this blog and its comments, I've argued, are not a common carrier, and I get to decide arbitrarily what I do and do not publish. But I'm beginning to think this argument is very weak. It's probably sufficient for this tiny little blog, with its ones of daily readers, but Twitter is kind of a big deal, and what does or does not get published on Twitter has a real impact on the political landscape.
The general case is thus: to what extent do rights extend to private businesses? The position "not at all" seems to have already been dismissed, at least in the legal system. Private businesses may not, for example, arbitrarily discriminate on race and sex in both hiring and service. Rights of non-discrimination apply very deeply within civil society, and the government enforces those rights. Even more so with property: property rights do not only limit the government, they limit everyone. If you subscribe to natural rights (which I, of course, do not), a universal natural right should restrict not only the government, but everyone; otherwise the right is not universal.
Thus too with freedom of speech. If freedom of speech were a universal natural right, then the right should apply to civil and private society as well as government. Contrawise, that freedom of speech applies only to government means that the right is not universal, and we must socially construct its application. Furthermore, it's dodgy enough to argue for a universal natural right; arguing on the basis of nature for a limit of rights is that much more complicated: you have to argue not only for the right, but the foundations in nature for its limitations... which always (surprise, surprise) pretty much line up with the proponent's contingent interests.
Now, I definitely support (with presently limited information) Twitter's decision to suspend McCain. Not because I think that businesses are exempt from the principles of freedom of speech (as a communist, I will rarely endorse a propertarian justification for anything), but because I think we should actively and coercively prevent McCain and people like him from having such a large platform as Twitter: I believe McCain's actual freedom of speech should be limited. I don't think we should implement limitations on freedom of speech lightly (to say that some right is not absolute or universal is not to say that it is nonexistent), but I do think that after due consideration that some limitations are indeed justifiable.
The general case is thus: to what extent do rights extend to private businesses? The position "not at all" seems to have already been dismissed, at least in the legal system. Private businesses may not, for example, arbitrarily discriminate on race and sex in both hiring and service. Rights of non-discrimination apply very deeply within civil society, and the government enforces those rights. Even more so with property: property rights do not only limit the government, they limit everyone. If you subscribe to natural rights (which I, of course, do not), a universal natural right should restrict not only the government, but everyone; otherwise the right is not universal.
Thus too with freedom of speech. If freedom of speech were a universal natural right, then the right should apply to civil and private society as well as government. Contrawise, that freedom of speech applies only to government means that the right is not universal, and we must socially construct its application. Furthermore, it's dodgy enough to argue for a universal natural right; arguing on the basis of nature for a limit of rights is that much more complicated: you have to argue not only for the right, but the foundations in nature for its limitations... which always (surprise, surprise) pretty much line up with the proponent's contingent interests.
Now, I definitely support (with presently limited information) Twitter's decision to suspend McCain. Not because I think that businesses are exempt from the principles of freedom of speech (as a communist, I will rarely endorse a propertarian justification for anything), but because I think we should actively and coercively prevent McCain and people like him from having such a large platform as Twitter: I believe McCain's actual freedom of speech should be limited. I don't think we should implement limitations on freedom of speech lightly (to say that some right is not absolute or universal is not to say that it is nonexistent), but I do think that after due consideration that some limitations are indeed justifiable.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Terrorism and communism
I don't want fisk CK MacLeod's article, The Libertarian Praxis Problem: Part 1, but it's useful background for my communist perspective on the same issue.
I want to push back against the "spectrum" view of politics. There is not a neat continuum that can capture the "far left", i.e. communists and socialists, the "far right", i.e. authoritarians and fascists, with opposing capitalist viewpoints: the capitalist left is not just quantitatively but qualitatively different from the socialist "left", and similarly for the capitalist right and the fascist "right". There are probably more points of similarity between socialists and capitalists leftists than capitalist rightists, but points of similarity do not make a continuum. Fundamentally, the capitalist left upholds the private ownership of the means of production, and it upholds the right of the elite to rule, and the "true" socialist left opposes those ideas. (The capitalist left and right differ on the composition of the ruling elite, and the modes of interaction between economic production and elite rule.)
"Liberal values" are of the same nature as most religious myths, as a mask and apologia for specific power relations; no one with any actual power regards them as fundamental. Freedom of speech, freedom of property, etc. are always highly selective. As it must be so logically: without qualification, "freedom" is incoherent, because freedom is always in conflict, and the purpose of government in general is, and has always been, to determine and enforce whose freedom's give way when freedoms are in conflict. The purpose of all social systems is to determine which freedoms are legitimate, to what degree and under what con
MacLeod charges,
This quotation delivers several elements of egregious nonsense. First, it is completely stupid to compare "'PC' speech" to terrorism. MacLeod asserts that it is tantamount to terrorism to demand that people speak professionally — i.e. not speaking as utter racist and sexist assholes — in a professional setting, be it academia or the popular press.
What MacLeod charges to "The Left" is true of capitalism itself, true not only of the socialism and the capitalist left, but also of the capitalist right and authoritarianism and fascism; indeed it is true of Libertarianism itself.
Part of that truth follows from the incoherent nature of freedom. Freedom always engenders conflict: one person's freedom is another's oppression. The slave-owner is free to oppress the slave, and the slave can gain his own freedom only at considerable cost to his owner; the forced imposition of a cost is, objectively, always oppression. The distinction between the slave-owner and the slave is not a matter of principle but of preference.
Additionally, the tools — "terrorism" broadly defined — that MacLeod attributes to the left are, in fact, ubiquitous in the formation and maintenance of state power. (Even in the utter absence of anything even vaguely resembling state power, individuals use terrorism to dominate and subordinate other individuals.) One cannot deprecate terrorism itself, one can honestly only approve or condemn the ends to which one or another employs terrorism: to maintain or overthrow (in various directions) the status quo.
The terrorism of the status quo is, of course, always hidden, given the blessing of "justice" by the explicitly or implicitly religious nature of the dominant ideology (presently the religion of "liberalism": private property, rule of law, "civilized" behavior). But of course capitalism employs terrorism; without terrorism, the working class would never accede to its subordination and exploitation. Some of capitalism's terrorism is obvious and egregious: centuries of slavery, upon which capitalism built its economic strength, today's literal war by the police and courts on black people, the dominance and subordination of women economically and physically, the McCarthy-era suppression of anti-capitalism, the international imposition of neoliberalism, etc. ad nauseam. But most of capitalism terrorism inheres in the relationship between the capitalist owners and their workers. The majority of people who are not privileged to have jobs with tenure or personal power feel the pointy end of the boss's oppression every day. They submit to this oppression in part because it is blessed by the liberal religious ideals, in part because lacking organization (and attempts to organize are suppressed most violently), resistance is futile. (Even with organization, resistance is dangerous and difficult.)
In Terrorism and Communism, Trotsky is direct and explicit: terrorism is the only way to take power from the capitalist class. The capitalists will never voluntarily submit to the rule of the working class, so they must be made afraid of the working class's power. The only alternative to terrorism of the capitalists by the workers is for the workers to submit to the terrorism of the capitalists.
It is one thing to say that capitalism is better than communism, and the terrorism necessary to suppress communism is justified to preserve the better ideology from the worse. Obviously, I don't agree with that position, but it is at least honest. It is, however, rank hypocrisy to say that communism is worse than capitalism just because it requires terrorism to implement, while ignoring the terrorism capitalism must necessarily embrace to maintain itself.
I want to push back against the "spectrum" view of politics. There is not a neat continuum that can capture the "far left", i.e. communists and socialists, the "far right", i.e. authoritarians and fascists, with opposing capitalist viewpoints: the capitalist left is not just quantitatively but qualitatively different from the socialist "left", and similarly for the capitalist right and the fascist "right". There are probably more points of similarity between socialists and capitalists leftists than capitalist rightists, but points of similarity do not make a continuum. Fundamentally, the capitalist left upholds the private ownership of the means of production, and it upholds the right of the elite to rule, and the "true" socialist left opposes those ideas. (The capitalist left and right differ on the composition of the ruling elite, and the modes of interaction between economic production and elite rule.)
"Liberal values" are of the same nature as most religious myths, as a mask and apologia for specific power relations; no one with any actual power regards them as fundamental. Freedom of speech, freedom of property, etc. are always highly selective. As it must be so logically: without qualification, "freedom" is incoherent, because freedom is always in conflict, and the purpose of government in general is, and has always been, to determine and enforce whose freedom's give way when freedoms are in conflict. The purpose of all social systems is to determine which freedoms are legitimate, to what degree and under what con
MacLeod charges,
The Left, in [pillsy's] depiction, does not favor freedom of speech as an end in itself, but as a practical necessity in relation to the Left’s actual primary interests, including its organizational self-interest or survival interest. . . . Because the Left’s commitments are not to those values and institutions, it can, once in power, or once the organizing objective has been achieved, discover their dispensability, and, cut to the chase (at least as the critics write the movie): the Terror, the Purges, the Gulag, the Cultural Revolution, and the Killing Fields – or, rather less climactic, “PC” speech. [emphasis original]
This quotation delivers several elements of egregious nonsense. First, it is completely stupid to compare "'PC' speech" to terrorism. MacLeod asserts that it is tantamount to terrorism to demand that people speak professionally — i.e. not speaking as utter racist and sexist assholes — in a professional setting, be it academia or the popular press.
What MacLeod charges to "The Left" is true of capitalism itself, true not only of the socialism and the capitalist left, but also of the capitalist right and authoritarianism and fascism; indeed it is true of Libertarianism itself.
Part of that truth follows from the incoherent nature of freedom. Freedom always engenders conflict: one person's freedom is another's oppression. The slave-owner is free to oppress the slave, and the slave can gain his own freedom only at considerable cost to his owner; the forced imposition of a cost is, objectively, always oppression. The distinction between the slave-owner and the slave is not a matter of principle but of preference.
Additionally, the tools — "terrorism" broadly defined — that MacLeod attributes to the left are, in fact, ubiquitous in the formation and maintenance of state power. (Even in the utter absence of anything even vaguely resembling state power, individuals use terrorism to dominate and subordinate other individuals.) One cannot deprecate terrorism itself, one can honestly only approve or condemn the ends to which one or another employs terrorism: to maintain or overthrow (in various directions) the status quo.
The terrorism of the status quo is, of course, always hidden, given the blessing of "justice" by the explicitly or implicitly religious nature of the dominant ideology (presently the religion of "liberalism": private property, rule of law, "civilized" behavior). But of course capitalism employs terrorism; without terrorism, the working class would never accede to its subordination and exploitation. Some of capitalism's terrorism is obvious and egregious: centuries of slavery, upon which capitalism built its economic strength, today's literal war by the police and courts on black people, the dominance and subordination of women economically and physically, the McCarthy-era suppression of anti-capitalism, the international imposition of neoliberalism, etc. ad nauseam. But most of capitalism terrorism inheres in the relationship between the capitalist owners and their workers. The majority of people who are not privileged to have jobs with tenure or personal power feel the pointy end of the boss's oppression every day. They submit to this oppression in part because it is blessed by the liberal religious ideals, in part because lacking organization (and attempts to organize are suppressed most violently), resistance is futile. (Even with organization, resistance is dangerous and difficult.)
In Terrorism and Communism, Trotsky is direct and explicit: terrorism is the only way to take power from the capitalist class. The capitalists will never voluntarily submit to the rule of the working class, so they must be made afraid of the working class's power. The only alternative to terrorism of the capitalists by the workers is for the workers to submit to the terrorism of the capitalists.
It is one thing to say that capitalism is better than communism, and the terrorism necessary to suppress communism is justified to preserve the better ideology from the worse. Obviously, I don't agree with that position, but it is at least honest. It is, however, rank hypocrisy to say that communism is worse than capitalism just because it requires terrorism to implement, while ignoring the terrorism capitalism must necessarily embrace to maintain itself.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
The prestige economy
Kevin Simler has written at length about the prestige or social status economy: Social Status: Down the Rabbit Hole, Social Status II: Cults and Loyalty, and Minimum Viable Superorganism. Wearing my economist/social scientist hat, Simler's ideas seem interesting; as a communist, I'm not at all impressed: the social status economy is Older Than Dirt. See, for example, Homer: the Iliad is about nothing but the social status economy. Homer begins the epic thus: "Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles"; Agamemnon has diminished Achilles' prestige, and in his wrath, Achilles extracts a heavy price.
Marx himself argues in The Communist Manifesto that a positive historical material effect of capitalism was to break us from the status economy and allow material self-interest to unleash humanity's productive forces:
George Orwell too casts a skeptical eye at the pure prestige economy (absent even domination, the darker side of social status that Simler acknowledges). In Politics vs. Literature — An examination of Gulliver's travels, Orwell claims that the prestige economy is at least as stultifying as any tyranny:
It is readily apparent (as Simler frequently admits) that the capitalist system has quite easily commodified the prestige economy, probably its easiest expropriation. If you admire someone, you buy their merchandise to advertise your admiration.
The prestige economy is certainly part of "human nature" that plays a part in politics, and as such deserves study by social scientists; indeed, I imagine that there is already a considerable body of literature on the topic. But the prestige economy is not at all, either directly or indirectly, a revolutionary tool.
Marx himself argues in The Communist Manifesto that a positive historical material effect of capitalism was to break us from the status economy and allow material self-interest to unleash humanity's productive forces:
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
George Orwell too casts a skeptical eye at the pure prestige economy (absent even domination, the darker side of social status that Simler acknowledges). In Politics vs. Literature — An examination of Gulliver's travels, Orwell claims that the prestige economy is at least as stultifying as any tyranny:
In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by ‘thou shalt not’, the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by ‘love’ or ‘reason’, he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.Having lived in what was close to a pure prestige economy in the Kerista commune, I can personally attest to Orwell's opinion. Another commune member also concurs: in Afterword: What happened to Kerista?, Even Eve writes:
Every ex-Keristan I have talked with remembers numerous instances of going along with the prevailing group sentiment on an issue rather than take a contrary stand, or, worse still, without even bothering to really think the issue through independently. Often the matters were relatively inconsequential, but there were also many which were not that had major effects on the lives and minds of other people. There are memories of this sort about which many of us will probably continue to cringe for years to come . . . times we gave some innocent person a hard time for thinking, saying, or doing something that didn't synch with current Keristan doctrine ... or times we sat by and watched while some of the "heavies" [i.e. those with prestige and social status within the commune] in our tribe verbally abused someone else in the name of honesty, growth, the pursuit of "righteousness" or some other such rationalisation.
It is readily apparent (as Simler frequently admits) that the capitalist system has quite easily commodified the prestige economy, probably its easiest expropriation. If you admire someone, you buy their merchandise to advertise your admiration.
The prestige economy is certainly part of "human nature" that plays a part in politics, and as such deserves study by social scientists; indeed, I imagine that there is already a considerable body of literature on the topic. But the prestige economy is not at all, either directly or indirectly, a revolutionary tool.
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