Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 16, 2019

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On February 16, 2020

33 Comments

by Tony Wikrent
Economics Action Group, North Carolina Democratic Party Progressive Caucus

Strategic Political Economy

“The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for a Constitutional Crisis” 

[The Atlantic, via Naked Capitalism 2-13-20]

I spent nine years on active duty in the U.S. Navy. I served as an aircraft commander, led combat reconnaissance crews, and taught naval history. But the first thing I did upon joining the military, the act that solemnized my obligation, was swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution. How strange, then, that despite all of my training, the millions of taxpayer dollars devoted to teaching me how to fly, lead, and teach, not once did I receive meaningful instruction on the document to which I had pledged my life….

I had left the Navy and was in law school when news of the torture memo broke. This was the George W. Bush administration’s attempt to offer a legal justification for “enhanced interrogation.” I had been through Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school, the military’s interrogation training program, from which these techniques had been adopted. I understood the “enhanced” methods described by the Bush-administration lawyers for what they were: torture.

At the time, I found it unconscionable that legal scholars would be complicit in underwriting our government’s disregard for the Geneva Conventions. But with the benefit of hindsight, though I still find the torture memo appalling, I can at least acknowledge that the Bush administration cared enough about the law to offer the pretense of legality.

The current administration is not even trying. President Donald Trump openly flouts laws at home, while threatening to destroy cultural sites abroad (a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions).

How State Capacity Drives Industrialization
[Palladium, 2-12-20, via reader of RealEconomics]

These “tools that make the tools” are a crucial piece of modern supply chains, and most advanced manufacturing would be impossible without them. The ability to produce machine tools domestically is one of the foundations of a deep industrial base. Recognizing this, the South Korean state encouraged Hyundai, a chaebol which built the first all-Korean automobile in 1975, to begin making machine tools for the growing domestic market. Since then, the South Korean machine tool industry has grown steadily alongside the Korean economy as a whole. Production today is slightly larger than the machine tool industry of the United States, a country more than six times as populous….

Korea’s story may be more extreme than most, but this type of state-led economic development is how every wealthy country on Earth has industrialized. The sole exception is Britain during the original Industrial Revolution…. Only the state can coordinate many different industries to produce a transformation at the scale of industrialization.

Interesting: even some leading libertarians are beginning to admit society needs government to actively promote the general welfare, though of course, they won’t use such terms. Probably, the spectre of China building a 1,000 bed hospital in ten days has scared the living crap out of them. The USA, by contrast, and thanks in no small part to the popularization of libertarian ideology, can’t even maintain the infrastructure it already has. 

Thy Neighbor’s Solar Panels: When our peers take actions to preserve the planet, we’re more likely to follow suit. How the human instinct to conform could help us address the climate crisis.
[The Atlantic, via The Big Picture 2-12-20]

Predatory Finance

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Open Thread

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On February 15, 2020

57 Comments

Use the comments to this post to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

How Capitalism Makes Evil Rational

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On February 14, 2020

27 Comments

It’s always worth understanding an important ideology’s ethical calculus.

Capitalism’s is brilliant.

If someone is willing and able to give you money to do something, you are improving their life.

The corollary is:

If you have money, you have it because you have improved someone else’s life. The more you have, the more lives you have improved.

There are assumptions embedded in this logic: That people know what improves their lives, for example, and that everyone involved is buying and selling voluntarily.

Demand isn’t desire, mind you. If you want something that would improve your life a lot, it doesn’t matter if you can’t command enough money to get it. Adam Smith pointed out that bums may want coaches complete with horses, but this does not translate to “demand.”

Still, basically, the theory is that you get money by helping other people.

Roy Dalio, the fund manager famous for his book on principles, believes this one hundred percent.

Now, it’s important to understand that capitalism is an ideology and organizational principle sitting on top of a series of technologies. We can call those technologies “industrialization.” Industrialization is not capitalism; we can imagine there might be other moral and organizational principles which could work with industrialization. We tried, as a species. We called it communism, which was centralized industrial control, and it didn’t work out in the end. Some say that’s because it couldn’t work, others say it’s because the USSR had less people and resources than capitalism, along with a weak strategic position.

I’ve argued parts of both. The truth is we don’t actually know.

Both systems are ideologies which determine who gets to control a certain amount of other people’s time, and who got to tell people what to do. That’s what money does, and anyone who has spent their entire life working for money by doing what other people tell them to do should understand this (though remarkably, many people don’t).

Capitalism is also an argument based on scarcity. It says: “There isn’t enough, so we need to make sure the people who get what we have use it to help others.”

That’s the actual moral argument: Capitalism is the best way to use people and resources to help the most people. It’s why whenever someone suggests there might be another way, someone else will say “Venezuela, Venezuela, neener, neener.”

Here’s a strange thing, though. Every time I look into homelessness I find that there are more empty homes than homeless people. There’s probably an exception, but I’ve never found one in the Western world.

We also throw out far more more food than is needed to feed everyone.

So at the very least, we know that capitalism isn’t distributing goods to everyone who needs them. The capitalist argument to this contradiction isn’t, “That’s false!” It’s that, “Communism failed, so you’re stuck with this.”

Then there’s another issue: Capitalism has turned out to be terrible at managing scarce resources. We could make a lot of things we use more durable so they’d last longer. Instead we make them so they won’t, deliberately. We make them so they’ll break or wear out, and people will have to buy another set, because companies need to make a profit. It’s not that cell phones couldn’t be created to last much longer, it’s that the people who make them don’t want to. The same is true of light bulbs, clothes, almost all electronics, cars, and so on.

We’re wasting vast amounts of resources, and that waste also shows up as vast amounts of pollution and huge destruction of the environment.

Pollution, including pollution involving carbon, methane and other climate change gases is an important example of not managing limited resources. There’s actually a limited amount of room to pollute, and beyond that, the environment starts changing in ways which are dangerous to us and the rest of life. This is a genuine scarcity “pollution sink,” and capitalism isn’t managing it.

It turns out that capitalism (and state communism before it) isn’t very good at managing scarcity. Perhaps it’s better than an opposition which doesn’t exist any more, but it’s not good enough to avoid wiping out island nations and changing the climate catastrophically.

So what we have is a technology which is theoretically capable of managing scarcity (industrialization/science) and an ideology and organizing principle (capitalism) which can not.

We produce way more than we need, vast amounts are wasted, we still have people without homes or going without food, and we’re destroying the environment and changing climate in disastrous ways.

That’s an ideology which is, well, evil. To produce more than we need, and then say, for ideological reasons, “But some people have to sleep on the street, and others need clean out sewers by hand, and still others have to go hungry” is a simple failure. To destroy the ecosphere is another failure.

Capitalism doesn’t do what it is supposed to do: It doesn’t use resources efficiently or distribute them in a humane way. In fact, it uses resources inefficiently, vastly so.

It turns out that “if it makes money” isn’t a good proxy for “does good while using resources efficiently.”

By capitalism’s rules, destroying the world is rational. Not feeding people is rational. Having homes sitting empty while people freeze on the streets is rational. Making way more goods than people need, through planned obsolesence, is rational.

And these aren’t corner cases. This is what the logic leads to. This is the system running on its core logic loops. Someone is paying for all of these things, so it must be making them better off, so therefore doing these things is good. More, the people doing those things are given MORE resources (money) so they can perpetuate same behaviours, because the system assumes the behaviour must be good, or someone wouldn’t be paying for it.

This isn’t just, well, evil. It’s insane.

When your ideology says: “Destroying the world’s climate and environment, starving people, and making people homeless is rational”? There’s a problem with the ideology.

Money helps me write more. If you want to support my writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Bernie Wins New Hampshire Primary

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On February 12, 2020

99 Comments

He’s only 1.6 percent ahead as of this article, but a win is a win. Buttigieg came in second.

We’ll see if Buttigieg gets any more bounce from this. His national numbers aren’t that great, but his New Hampshire numbers weren’t good until his showing in Iowa.

Bernie and Buttigieg got nine delegates each, Klobucharg received six, no one else got any. This means in delegates, Buttigieg is still one delegate ahead.

Feel free to discuss in comments, etc…

Update: Oh no, the media isn’t biased at all.

Update 2: Interesting exit poll demographic numbers.

Why People Don’t Learn: You Can’t Look It Up and You Can’t Give It Away

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On February 11, 2020

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I have a friend who is a serious meditator. For many years, when someone asked him to help them become enlightened, he would teach them a simple meditation, then instruct: “Do that for six months, every day, for one hour. Then return.” He called it “the very minimum required.”

Over the years, people have come to me wanting some of what I have, intellectually. Not a lot of people, more than five, less than ten.

In every case, I have given them a list of books to read, and said: “As you read each book, get back to me, and we’ll discuss them.”

Only one person ever did, he is the only person I ever charged money for teaching.

You can’t give the good stuff, the actually valuable stuff, away.

He read five books or so, we talked about them, and I gave him assignments and we discussed the assignments. He then stopped, because he had what he wanted, which was to learn how to learn more effectively, and he had proved this to himself by using the skills he was taught, and I was charging him enough money that it mattered to him (not a lot, but he wasn’t rich).

Back when I did some consulting, in the 2000s, I noticed something similar: When I didn’t charge people enough, or said, “Oh, I’ll help you for free,” they never took my advice. If I made them bleed, they did what I said and benefited.

You can’t give it away. I really wish you could.

Anyway, this is a winding intro to my point, which is that if you want to actually understand certain topics, you have to read. A lot.

Let’s run some numbers. From the time I was eight through to age 12, I read at least two books a day. I know this because I went to the library once a week and took out the limit, and I also checked books out of the school library, and I read my father’s books. Actually, I read more than two books a day. Call it 700 a year, so 3,500 books.

From age thirteen to thirty-five, we’ll count it at a book a day. 7,700 books.

From 35 to the end of 45 (11 years), I read two books a week, because I was blogging and reading online articles (they are not a substitute, online content is mostly trash). So 1,100 books, though the proportion of non-fiction books was higher than before.

And for the last four years, I’ve been back to one or more a day, but we’ll count it as one a day. Add another 1,400.

Total? Thirteen thousand, seven hundred books. Put it at 90 percent fiction, and 10 percent non fiction, so about 1,370 non-fiction books.

This is an understatement, at every point I have gone with the lowest estimate. It is not unusual, even today, for me to read three books in a day. Sometimes I read four. The real number is probably close to twenty thousand.

This is not meant as a brag and should not be taken as such. By most people’s standards, my life is trash and I didn’t read so much because “discipline,” I did it because I like reading books and thinking about ideas. If I enjoyed making money, working out, meditating, and eating healthy as much as I liked books and games, well, I’d have a rather different life.

But I have read a lot of books. I have thought about what I read. I have discussed what I read with other people.

Because I have read those books, I can think using the knowledge they contained. You cannot think with knowledge you do not know, and you cannot even look up most Knowledge, because you have to know what you don’t know. The more you know, the more you know what you don’t know.

If you want to engage in the life of ideas, you have to read. You have to read a lot.

Yes, someone like me can make it easier. I’ve read a lot of not very useful books. I can say: “These are the most useful ones!” But you still have to go read them, think about them, and integrate them into your worldview. You need to be able to restate their arguments, and you need to understand the model they are using, and you need to know the assumptions upon which they are based, and you need to know the problems with all of those things, and why it matters and doesn’t matter.

There are shorter roads, but there are no shortcuts, if you really want to know. You just have to read, and then you have to work with what you read. (If this means math, you’ve got to do the math until it integrates. If it’s about human body movements, you’ve got to do the movements. If it’s about “spirituality” you have to actually meditate enough to get the basic insights.)

Discipline is shit. Discipline is only the main tool at the start. If you don’t start enjoying what you’re doing, why the hell are you doing it? The biggest mistake I made intellectually was spending years trying to figure out how economies work because I thought, “Shit, these people (economists, policy makers) are making things worse. I’d better figure it out!”

I did, but it was a lot less fun than the topics I really cared about. (Though it all came around in the end, because it turned out that the technical details were secondary to things like identity, ideology, organization, and all the stuff I write about in “Construction of Reality.”)

Most people have the curiosity and joy of reading and learning beaten out of them by our school system, which seems designed to be one of the most anti-intellectual, anti-wonder ways of “learning” one can imagine. It makes people into machines; spewing out the answer teach wants, talking only when allowed, sitting, and hating.

I mostly ignored school and would even read books in class when I could. My grades were middling, but I was learning.

You want to learn? Find the wonder in it. Find what’s cool and interesting. Yeah, you’ll have to power through some shit, but it’s worth it if you care.

But don’t think you can skip the actual work. Reading for intellectual work is like drills for athletic work, or whatever.

Just figure out why it’s worth doing.

Again, you can’t think with information you don’t know. You cannot look information up you don’t know you don’t know. Any system for which you do not understand the underlying axioms and assumptions, which you try to use, is actually using you. You are just a machine, doing what the creator(s) wanted.

So read and think.

And find it fun!

Money helps me write more. If you want to support my writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

 

“Construction of Reality” First Draft Sent to Editor

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On February 10, 2020

20 Comments

The stretch goal in 2016 was a booklet, “Construction of Reality” (CoR) about how, as individuals, groups, and societies, we create reality.

The first draft is done, 58,887 words and has been sent to an editor. This is more than I expected and more than planned.

I apologize to 2016 donors and subscribers, this took way longer than I intended. Part of that is that I’d never written a book before, part of it is that the topic was more difficult than I expected (especially to write CoR without it feeling like a textbook), and part of it is that my health was trash, but the fact remains you’ve waited a long time and will wait a bit more. I’m sorry about that.

(As an aside, my health has radically improved in the last three months. What finally did the trick was a 100 day “juice cleanse.” I did it because someone suggested it, and I’d tried everything else. Didn’t expect it to work, but it did. I’m not 100 percent, but the improvement is huge.)

Back on topic, when the book comes out will depend on whether the editor thinks it’s the sort of book that the publishers would be interested in. This has little do with quality, it’s a judgement about how they perceive it will sell. If so, it’ll be at least another year, if not, you should see it sooner.

“How To Think,” which I promised in last year’s fundraiser will not take nearly so long. Though not an easy topic, it’s a lot easier than how we construct reality. I’m a lot healthier, and I’ve written a book now, and know better what I’m doing. (Blogging, article, and essay skills translate poorly.)

I do think you’ll find “Construction of Reality” (CoR) to be worth the wait. One advantage of the long writing time is that I’m able to be fairly objective about it. Contrary to what non-writers think, writers usually aren’t happy with their books when they’ve just finished them (and at various stages I wasn’t), but I am with CoR. Almost no one, myself included, can claim unique ideas, but the synthesis of ideas in CoR is unlike any book I’ve read.

One reason writing CoR took so long is that I stopped, threw out most of what I had and restarted because I wanted you to receive a book which was actually useful, not a dry tome, however accurate. I think and hope this book will be something which will actually make some readers’ lives better. (Not all, no one can write that book!)

I’m looking forward to sharing CoR with you.

Money helps me write more. If you want to support my writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 9, 2019

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On February 9, 2020

31 Comments

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

Altruistic food sharing behavior by human infants after a hunger manipulation
[Science, via Naked Capitalism 2-5-20]

From the abstract: “In a nonverbal test, 19-month-old human infants repeatedly and spontaneously transferred high-value, nutritious natural food to a stranger (Experiment 1) and more critically, did so after an experimental manipulation that imposed a feeding delay (Experiment 2), which increased their own motivation to eat the food. Social experience variables moderated the expression of this infant altruistic behavior, suggesting malleability.” dk asks: “But were the test subjects the babies of elites? At 19 months, some patterns may have already been acquired…”

The Carnage of Establishment Neoliberal Economics

WEALTH INEQUALITY: The richest 1% controls more wealth now than at any time in more than 50 years
[Twitter and Yourtube below, via Naked Capitalism 2-2-20]

WEALTH INEQUALITY: The richest 1% controls more wealth now than at any time in more than 50 years. But what does wealth inequality really look like?

@TonyDokoupil  turned America’s economic pie into a real one and asked people a simple question: Who gets what? Link here if pic missing below

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

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Open Thread

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On February 8, 2020

36 Comments

As usual, feel free to use the comments to this post to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. This week, that means almost anything unrelated to the Democratic primaries.

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