Republican Support For Political Violence And Domestic Terrorism

Welcome friends!

I feel I’ve talked quite a bit about the increasingly evident rise of right wing, anti-democracy, authoritarian, market based conservatism and Republicanism here in the USA, and I’m in danger of turning my once varied, entertaining, and far ranging blog into a sort of never ending statement of outrage and disgust at what conservatives have been doing to my beloved USA, but let’s face it, there’s something undeniably fascinating about watching the previously gradual but now ever more rapid rise of political fascism here in the USA. Horrifying, yes. Depressing, yes. Alarming, yes. But also fascinating. Some years ago I seem to recall there was a flurry of academic interest in what happened in Europe in the early and mid-twentieth century, with all sorts of fanciful theories put forward for the rise of the fascist state. However, it seems we here in the USA can now entertain that issue without delving into the funny ways of our foreign friends. We now can consider the issue in the context of the all too familiar good old boys, rednecks, racists, and religious nuts of our own country. So maybe I’ll just do one more on this theme and then try to give it a rest for a little while and talk about some other things.

What happened recently to prompt this post was that nearly every Republican in the US Senate voted to acquit former president Trump of any wrongdoing with respect to the deadly attack on the US Capitol he and his minions helped plan and promote for months, and which he did everything he could on the day to instigate and nothing to end once started. Reportedly, he found it all quite amusing and was outraged when he suspected others in his entourage failed to appreciate the spectacle and suggested he call it off. This recent vote was a very strong signal that the conservative Republican Party supports the future use of political violence and domestic terrorism here in the USA planned, organized, orchestrated, and encouraged by future US presidents, a position which is entirely consistent with their now often declared disdain for democratic government. Well, I suppose one must address political issues one way or another, right? And if one opposes addressing those issues using political democracy and voting, then I suppose supporting clubbing people over the head with fire extinguishers, bashing their heads in doorways, gouging out their eyes and with one’s bare hands, and trying to hang them from hastily constructed gallows on the front lawn are other options.

It is interesting to note that our homegrown American version of fascism is notably more dishonest and pusillanimous than the old European version, which appears from historical accounts to have taken itself very seriously indeed. The conservative Republicans in the US Senate who supported Mr. Trump’s recent activity publicly pretended to base their decision on the constitutionality of the proceedings rather than the evidence, which they famously ignored during the actual trial, preferring instead to doodle on bits of paper, look at their mobile phones, converse with one another, laugh at the absurdity of it all, or in some cases simply not show up to hear at all. It was a comically disingenuous position because, of course, the very first order of business was to decide the constitutionality of the trial, so continuing to pretend that was still an issue in the next phase showed the typical fascist scorn for democratic government and law. A few unusually dishonest characters, such as the slippery fascist Senator “Moscow Mitch” McConnell of Kentucky, even delivered post election speeches trying to muddy the water by saying that although they voted to acquit the man of all wrong doing they certainly didn’t mean to suggest the man did no wrong. This sort of Orwellian doublespeak was perfectly predictable because fascists here in the USA have long felt public pressure to dissemble, which they call by various names such as “political correctness” and “cancel culture,” and which they portray as requiring them to say things they don’t really mean and no one is meant to take literally. One day one hopes they will attain the level of courage of their erstwhile European fellows in the German Nazi Party, for example, and declare their allegiance to the fascist cause, but for now it’s apparently meant to be some sort of open secret. Something to be winked at, and winked at hard, by those in the fold, but officially still denied in public. According to contemporary American conservative / fascist political strategy, this is apparently known as “flooding the zone with shit.”

Of course, the mere fact that American conservative and Republican fascists in the US Senate are now supporting future political violence and domestic terrorism instigated by American politicians up to and including future presidents of the USA does not necessarily spell the impending demise of American democracy. We still have a large group of people and one political party, the Democratic Party, who remain big believers in American democracy, and one hopes and assumes they will do everything they can, on their own, and over the determined and likely fanatical opposition of the fascists, to shore up our political democracy and prevent political violence in the future. However, it’s very much a touch and go situation right now. The very large contingent of American voters who now clearly support anti-democratic fascism and political violence as superior alternatives to peaceful democracy is not going anywhere soon. The titanic battle in the USA between the forces of democracy and fascism, decades in the making, will likely continue for decades to come. At least no reasonable person can still deny the situation at hand, so in that sense at least we may have finally made some progress. But it’s important right now that all patriotic and democracy loving Americans fight the intellectual and moral cancer of conservative and Republican fascism at the ballot box. Long live American democracy!

Conservatism, Stupidity, and Killing the Problem Out

Welcome friends!

I suppose you saw the recent news story about one Mark Chambers, the mayor of some small town named Carbon Hill in the quintessentially conservative and Republican deep, deep south US state of Alabama, who was in the news recently suggesting the only way to deal with arguments presented by gay people, transgender people, “Socialists,” and abortion rights advocates was to “kill them out.”  The people; not the arguments.  Yes, seems it all started when Mr. Chambers shared a Facebook post, all capital letters a la our current president and every other right-wing nut job on the internet, that lamented, “We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights, and socialists lecture us on economics.”  The shared comment went on to opine the only way to deal with that dire state of affairs is violent revolution, which prompted Mayor Chamber to contribute this bit of wisdom: “… the only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but with out (sic) killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”  When confronted with his thesis Mr. Chambers first said in true spineless conservative form: “I think that’s somebody else’s post.”  A short while later he admitted writing it but said it had been taken out of context and anyway wasn’t really meant for public consumption.  Later still he explained he never actually said he supported killing gay people or anyone else; he was simply saying in the hypothetical case of violent revolution “the only way to get your way is to kill the other side out.”  (Yes, apparently rural Alabamans say the word “out” a lot or at least some do.  Never really noticed that before.  Odd.)  Later he added more modestly “it was just something dumb and stupid that I said … I don’t believe anyone should be killed for anything that they believe in.”  Well, that at least sounds OK in my book.  I guess he came clean in the end.  Walked it back.  Disavowed it.  Acknowledged it was both dumb and stupid.  Admitted he should never have said it.  So I guess all’s well that ends well.  Seems churlish to carry on about it.  But really I’m not so much interested in what this particular fellow had to say than in a more general point about the conservative and Republican mindset here in the USA and in particular the peculiar anti-intellectualism that appears to have become an integral part of that mindset.

The interesting bit of the whole event to me involves the segue from the complaint involving people lecturing people to the call for violent revolution and thence to killing people out.  Sorry, I’m starting to talk a little funny myself.  One can interact with the locals a bit too much sometimes.  I meant to say killing people.  Being a liberal and leftist and basically just an educated, mature person I would have thought a more sensible response to people lecturing people would be to simply resolve to investigate and refute whatever nonsense these ostensibly shady characters are trying to foist on everyone.  Or if one can’t refute what they’re saying maybe acknowledge they make some good points never mind their personal qualifications and characteristics or lack thereof and investigate the consequences of one’s discovery.  Isn’t that some sort of principle of logic?  Don’t judge an argument according to your views about the person making the argument but on the merits of the argument itself?  But apparently that just isn’t in the mindset of your average conservative or Republican American.  Apparently, for those people the only appropriate response to hearing arguments they can’t refute from people they don’t like is killing the people involved.  Wouldn’t make the arguments go away of course.  Unfortunately for conservatives one can’t actually kill ideas.  Even if one manages to kill the messengers the ideas just sit there, as valid or invalid as ever, waiting for someone else to give them expression.  But anyway it would mean they wouldn’t have to hear them just then and from those particular people, which I suppose must count for something.

It’s not unexpected at all to hear this sort of thing from conservative Republicans.  It’s been quite obvious for some time now the wily and wealthy conservative elite of the nation who use the Republican Party to look after their interests have been relying increasingly on stupid people for their political power.  I’ve previously mentioned a few notable instances of Republicans endorsing stupidity including that time the Republican Party of Texas wrote into its political platform it opposed “critical thinking skills and similar programs,” which it claimed “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority,” and the time the then governor of Louisiana, a bona fide conservative and Republican of course, famously pleaded with the Republican National Committee to “stop being the stupid party.”  The culmination of this great surge in support for stupidity has been of course our current president, and I use the word lightly, Dishonest Don, a man renowned around the world for lying, never seeming to have any idea what he’s talking about, and extolling the virtues of the uneducated; a man who represents the apotheosis of stupidity if you will.  And this conservative cult of stupidity has certainly paid off for them in very practical terms, by which I mean financially.  Yes, the Trump Train has finally delivered to the wealthy elite of the nation their long desired tax cuts and greatly furthered other conservative priorities such as weakening and likely eliminating Obamacare and just in general sinking the national finances thus drastically reducing the government’s ability to address distributional and other concerns in the future.  One can well understand why American conservatives are now convinced Stupidity is King.

But one can’t help but wonder if the conservative elite truly understand the potential cost of their enthusiastic endorsement and support of stupidity.  Typical when one considers the question, “What would a stupid person do?” the answer is not very pleasant and sometimes downright alarming.  For example, let’s say a conservative Republican in some southern swamp or other hears an argument he doesn’t like?  What does he do?  Well, just consider: what would a stupid person do?  Take out his or her gun and shoot the person making the argument of course.  Duh.  But what happens when everyone starts doing it and people are shooting people all over the place?  Will they make distinctions and continue to faithfully support the wealthy conservative elite as they do now?  Well, let’s think about it.  What would a stupid person do?  I don’t know.  I suspect he or she might just take out a gun and shoot pretty much anyone in an orgy of random and senseless violence.  Because that’s the nature of stupidity isn’t it?   It doesn’t really make sense.  It can’t be reasoned with.  It doesn’t cohere.  It’s incompatible with logic, reason, civilized discussion, and political democracy.  It belongs more to the realm of violence, dysfunction, anarchy, and eventually social failure.  Consider the last major regime that relied nearly exclusively on stupidity: Nazi Germany.  I suppose it did OK for a little while but then the inevitable happened and it ended its stunted life in the horrible train wreck of WWII.  It wasn’t an accident or a coincidence.  It had to happen that way.  How do I know?  Well, think about it.  What would a loyal Nazi driving a train do?  Well, what would a stupid person do?  That’s right.  He would drive the train directly into the mountainside or at least dutifully follow orders to drive the train directly into the mountainside.  It’s the nature of the beast.  It’s how he came to be driving the train in the first place.  It seems the wealthy conservative elite of the USA are now intent on playing pretty much the same game.  They’re convinced they’ll come out ahead if they encourage and nurture stupidity here in the USA.  But will they in the long run?  Are they really smarter than their mid-century brethren or merely equally deluded?  Should we sit around and see what happens?  Well, what would a stupid person do?  Not give a damn?  Look the other way?  Sit down and have a beer?  In that case let’s do the opposite, shall we?  Let’s decide to not be stupid.  Let’s fight conservatism and Republicanism intellectually and at the ballot box every chance we get.

References

‘Kill the problem’: Alabama mayor sorry for Facebook post accused of ‘inciting violence’ against gays.  Allyson Chiu.  June 5, 2019.  Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/05/kill-problem-out-alabama-mayor-sorry-facebook-post-accused-inciting-violence-against-gays/?utm_term=.7ddcb4417f65.

Texas GOP rejects ‘critical thinking’ skills.  Really.  Valerie Strauss.  July 9, 2012. The Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html?utm_term=.49a53a564fe4.

Bobby Jindal: GOP Should ‘Stop Being The Stupid Party.’  Paige Lavender.  November 13, 2012.  Huffpost.  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bobby-jindal-gop_n_2121511

American Conservatives and Republicans Not Big Believers In Democracy

Welcome friends!

Looks like I’ve focused on the religious head of the multi-headed monster of contemporary conservatism the last couple of times out so maybe this time I’ll take another swipe at the economic head.  You may recall one of the themes I’ve returned to time and time again is the inherent conflict between the increasingly concentrated economic power structure generated by our current formulation of a market system and our at least theoretically broader based democratic political power structure and how economic conservatives are basically big on the former but not the latter, that is to say, they tend to be all for rich folk being able to exercise their economic power but generally suspicious or downright aghast at the prospect of poor folk being able to exercise their democratic political power.  (See my post Democracy and Leftism, March 21, 2019, for a recent discussion of that issue.)  Shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone given that Americans, predominantly conservatives, have recently elected corrupt billionaire Donald Trump to the White House with the mandate he shrink the power of democratic government and expand the power of wealthy folk such as CEOs, stock brokers, bankers, and of course the hereditarily wealthy class.  I’ve expressed this a number of times in rather blunt terms by suggesting American conservatives have become ever more forthright in their disdain for or sometimes intense hatred of political democracy.  The conservatives’ great champion, President Trump, is famous for attacking our democratic political institutions, attempting to obstruct justice, attacking the free press, making “jokes” about becoming president for life, and openly admiring or as he says “falling in love” with anti-democratic despots all across the globe.  However, my vote for the most conclusive example of contemporary American conservatism’s antipathy toward political democracy would have to be President Trump’s recent nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, a conservative gasbag named Stephen Moore who formerly worked for the Wall Street Journal (of course) and CNN (rather surprisingly) and currently works at a so-called conservative “think tank” called the Heritage Foundation (of course).

According to the CNN story on his nomination Mr. Moore has said repeatedly he believes “capitalism” rather more important than political democracy.  (I’m putting the quotes around the word “capitalism” because as I’ve explained a number of times in the past I view the word sufficiently ill-defined that it has no place in serious economic thinking or writing and belongs only to the field of political rhetoric.  All modern democracies including the USA in particular have had primarily market based economies with government regulation and intervention for some time and all reasonable debate for years has been about the level and type of government involvement, an issue which the notion of “capitalism” leaves entirely unaddressed and hence open to subjective interpretation.  Indeed, according to conservative pundits we’ve ended “capitalism” in favor of “socialism” any number of times in this country in the past through such unmitigated horrors as the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, minimum wage laws, etc., and yet miraculously it seems always available to be destroyed anew by whatever social policy may be on the table.)  He clarified his views on the relative importance and validity of the economic power structure and political power structure in an interview for Michael Moore’s 2009 file “Capitalism: A Love Story” by saying, “I’m not even a big believer in democracy.”  Of course, it must be noted he later presented his views rather differently by basically punting on the issue and saying, “I believe in free market capitalism and representative government.”  Assuming he wasn’t playing games with the phrase “representative government” and accepts it equates to political democracy one suspects he may have submitted to that much feared social force conservatives call “political correctness,” which ostensibly requires them to lie about their true values to avoid censure by other people.  Or maybe he just doesn’t really have any strong views on the subject and flip flops this way and that like the proverbial silk hanky of legend.  Conservatives do have a reputation in this country for simple mindedness.  

If you review the rest of Mr. Moore’s sophomoric economic stylings you’ll understand the basis of his love for “capitalism” and his possibly on again off again hatred of political democracy.  Basically, he’s an advocate of the hoary notion that an ill-defined unregulated “free market” or, yes, “capitalism,” is a panacea for all of society’s ills and in particular does away with any distributional concerns one might have.  As such he appears to have spent a good deal of time and effort on the standard litany of complaints economic conservatives have with “activist” government “interfering” with the “free market” by addressing market failures and distributional concerns.  So for example, he has questioned the existence of the Department of Labor, Energy, and Commerce; the IRS; the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the Department of Education.  He has suggested eliminating Social Security, Medicaid, minimum wage laws, and personal as well as corporate taxes.  Of course, along with this standard conservative claptrap he’s also had a few ideas that must be classified as a bit odd even for conservatives.  In 2015 for example he advocated abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard although since that time he’s apparently thought it through again and now reports he doesn’t support that.  So let’s give the man the benefit of the doubt and set that one aside.  The point is that in general Mr. Moore can be taken as a fairly standard representative of the common economic conservative themes of free markets as miraculous and ethically infallible panaceas and the importance of shrinking the role of democratic government.  As such his views relating to not being a big believer in democracy, despite being half-heartedly and rather unconvincingly walked back later, is a very good example of the way in which mainstream conservatives tend to favor the concentrated economic power derived from the market however construed over the theoretically at least much broader based and more egalitarian political power derived from voting power in a political democracy.

Some articles have suggested Mr. Moore might not end up on the Fed after all although interestingly not because of his clear animus toward political democracy, which supports my contention that that view is now accepted as perfectly representative of the conservative viewpoint, but because of some combination of the typical social conservative mix of racism and sexism in some of his previous commentary.  Well, that plus plain old economic incompetence. As an example of what some people probably fear in that area Paul Waldman, opinion writer for the Washington Post, suggested Mr. Moore has the curious tendency whenever a Republican is in office to view the economy at risk of deflation and needing the Fed to give it a little boost and whenever a Democrat is in office to view the economy at risk of hyperinflation and needing the Fed to slow things down a bit.  That pressure to use the Fed for short term political gain is of course why we have an independent Fed in the first place, although given Mr. Moore’s apparent inability to grasp the rationale for a great many other government programs and institutions, and given his waffling on the legitimacy and necessity of the Fed itself, one would hardly expect him to appreciate the point.  On the other hand Mr. Moore’s views are perfectly consistent with Mr. Trump’s own views on the Fed, which led one former chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen, to suggest Mr. Trump doesn’t really understand national economics and the role of the Fed.  Ironic of course because in the minds of economic conservatives and the relatively educated part of the conservative Republican base the laughably simplistic claptrap expressed by Mr. Moore is evidence of their ostensibly superior grasp of economics.  The relatively less educated part of the conservative base of course doesn’t even understand the simplistic claptrap instead attributing to Mr. Trump a superior knowledge of economics because he’s rich and at least poses as a successful businessman.

Lest there be any confusion on this issue in the future let me explain that for many decades now conservative thinkers have been espousing a simplistic and really just flat out incorrect interpretation of economic theory that implies something called “the free market” necessarily runs to or approximates a perfectly competitive market structure, that fails to acknowledge other market structures or market failures, and that fails to acknowledge the distributional issues that must be addressed and are addressed but lie entirely outside the scope of economic theory.  That rhetorical nonsense has led them to excoriate democratic government as a dire threat that unscrupulous people in the form of the voting public can use to “interfere” with the black box panacea of “the free market.” As a result we now have a president, very popular with conservatives indeed, who clearly questions the fundamental basis of political democracy, openly admires foreign anti-democratic despots, and nominates to top government posts people like Mr. Moore who state flatly they’re not big believers in political democracy.  After many years fretting about the threat of anti-democratic authoritarian communism and other foreign enemies it seems the true threat to American democracy is the intellectually vacuous and amoral rot of conservative ideology.

Addendum:

Mr. Moore announced today he has withdrawn his name from consideration to sit on the Fed.  Apparently and rather surprisingly some Senate Republicans took issue with some of Mr. Moore’s more sexist and racist statements, although I see no indication his views on political democracy or the role of the Fed played any role.  I guess one might say we dodged a bullet that time, but of course one presumes conservative Republicans have a great stockpile of bullets beyond just this one man.  We’re not out of the woods yet.  Not by a long shot.

References

Trump’s Fed pick Stephen Moore is a self-described ‘radical’ who said he’s not a ‘big believe in democracy.’  Andrew Kaczynski and Paul LeBlanc.  April 13, 2019.  CNN.  https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/politics/stephen-moore-kfile/index.html

The Stephen Moor farce reveals the depths of GOP cynicism.  Paul Waldman.  May 1, 2019.  The Washington Post.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/01/stephen-moore-farce-reveals-depths-gop-cynicism/?utm_term=.f1387e55c33a.

Trump doesn’t understand economics, says former Fed chair Janet Yellen.   February 26, 2019.  BBC.  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47369123

Stephen Moore, Trump’s Federal Reserve choice, bows out amid scrutiny of past remarks about women, other topics.  Felicia Sonmez and Damian Paletta.  May 2, 2019.  The Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/stephen-moore-trumps-choice-for-federal-reserve-seat-bows-out-amid-scrutiny-of-past-remarks-about-women-other-topics/2019/05/02/0eb33cba-6c45-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.013d98865a47

Libertarianism: The Crazytown Where Far Right And Far Left Meet

Welcome friends!

I know I’ve commented upon the hopelessly confused and unhelpful doctrine of “libertarianism” a number of times now but I recently saw another article in the paper touching on that unfortunate ideology so I thought that might be a good excuse to spend a few more minutes on the issue.  Not the sort of thing I want to do very often mind you.  Once in a blue moon seems more than sufficient.  But good to cover all the bases every once in a while.

The article in question involved a young American man going by the name John Galton, which is apparently also the name of a character in some old Ayn Rand novel.  You remember Ayn Rand don’t you?  The anti-social novelist, folk philosopher, and enabler and cheerleader of the egocentric and self obsessed?  Darling of conservative Republican politicians such as Rand Paul from the great state of Kentucky?  Yes, Mr. Paul once said he was so enthralled by Ms. Rand’s writings as a young man they were the main reason he got into politics in the first place.  More recently he was in the papers walking that back as they say.  Of course, Republican politicians are famously dishonest so who knows what his story may be next week.  Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.  He’s not the only one by any means.  But to return to our story, it seems Mr. Galton (the real one; not the fictitious one) had recently fled drug charges here in the USA along with his girlfriend to set up house in Acapulco, Mexico and was shortly thereafter shot and killed by what one can only presume were members of some rival Mexican drug operation.  According to the article, Mr. Galton envisioned himself as a sort of prophet of entrepreneurship freed from the constraints of the nation-state.  He opined in an interview taxation was theft and bristled at the notion of obeying the law.  As far as the nature of his entrepreneurial business activities, he apparently ran what the papers described as a “marijuana laboratory.”  However, he also taught classes on “cryptocurrencies,” which I read somewhere is the preferred means of exchange among such people.  He noted in an interview “he had always had libertarian leanings” but got excited about anarchism per se while in prison, which suggests he at least had some sort of distinction in his mind between the two philosophies although what it may have been is anyone’s guess as I’ll discuss a little later.  His girlfriend on the other hand was described in the article as having been raised by anti-government “hippie” parents ironically dependent on food stamps.  She became interested in politics while in college but realized politics “weren’t changing anything,” so she dropped out and took up with Mr. Galton.  Young people are funny that way, aren’t they?  I wonder what her timeline for politics to change things was anyway?  Sometime between the summer and fall semesters? After the beach weekend but before the big campus beer bash?  Some of us have been trying to change things for decades and still haven’t given up.  Anyway, that was the whole story really.  Not all that unique if you think about it.  Basically some people wanted to live outside the law and got their wish but ended up being what law-abiding citizens would call murdered by criminals.  Happens all the time.  But I suppose these people talked it up a bit more than usual, so maybe that’s why it’s a little more interesting than when a local teen from the wrong side of the tracks joins a drug gang and ends up getting shot behind the old liquor store or something like that.

So let me just deliver my customary commentary on this so-called “libertarianism.”  It seems to me there are two forms of libertarianism or maybe three if one wants to count the indistinct region between the two separately.  First, we have the libertarianism that is really just plain old economic conservatism just not explained very well.  Economic conservatism of course is the notion that government should only do certain things, address certain functions, and if it does those things and those things only then everyone and everything will be just fine.  These functions turn out to be the things that benefit people who make out well under our current version of a market system, so things like property rights, law enforcement, national defense, and maybe a few other things.  The idea comes from either the conviction our existing distributional system is ideal and any potential departure immoral or the notion that all manner of unfortunate unintended consequences will occur if anyone tampers with our existing system so even though it may have a few flaws we need to maintain it as though our lives depended upon it.  It’s fine as far as it goes.  I consider it hopelessly simplistic and indeed ignorant in the sense that it is sometimes presented as following from or implied by economic theory, which if one looks into it is not the case at all.  (Check out my tab on Economics with Hansel if you’re interested in how that happens.)  But that’s not my issue here today.  If you’re an out and proud conservative you’re ahead of the game as far as my thesis in this post goes.  No, what I’m interested in here is what happens when people who don’t really understand the basis of economic conservatism take the extra step of proclaiming themselves “libertarians.”

One thing that tends to happen when people start talking in terms of libertarianism rather than conservatism is they begin to have difficulty perceiving the nature of distributional issues, that is, in the issue of how to resolve conflicts of desires between different people.  The way a sensible person looks at such things is to say if two people have conflicting wants or needs or desires then we need some way to resolve that conflict so we make laws that govern distributions: property rights, market institutions, etc.  If someone comes along and points out what he or she feels are ethical issues then of course we’re certainly willing to entertain their ideas and potentially revise the rules.  What happens when so-called libertarians look at these issues is that they are so thoroughly committed or convinced of the rectitude of existing distributional arrangements they see the issue as whether whoever currently has the legal right to do something should have the “liberty” to carry on or whether some scoundrel will interfere with their liberty to do so.  For example if we imagine a little two person world where let’s say we distribute all resources by who is shorter and the taller of the two consequently kicks the bucket from want most of us would sit down and say maybe we need to rethink that particular distributional system.  We wouldn’t think of it in terms of liberty per se.  When a libertarian looks at this issue he or she will think something like look we’ve already decided the shorter person gets all the resources so the only thing left to talk about is whether the shorter person will have the liberty to use those resources as he or she feels fit or whether the taller person or his or her agents will be able to unfairly interfere with the short person’s liberty.  Basically it does something akin to assuming the conclusion of the discussion we’re meant to be having.  In other words, this form of libertarianism is intellectually empty.  It doesn’t actually add anything to the conversation.  It just passes issues along.  The justification for the underlying distribution assumed as a given within the libertarian system isn’t being derived within libertarianism.  The justification has nothing to do with liberty in the abstract.  They don’t present arguments showing we would have more total liberty if one person got the resources than if the other person got those resources.  To discuss the underlying distributional issues sensibly you’d have to ignore the “libertarian” red herring entirely and move on to the conventionally conservative element, that is, what’s so great about the distributional mechanism we have right now anyway?  Why is the claim of one person for whatever it is ethically stronger than the other fellow’s?  How do markets really distribute goods and services and does it really correspond to what we consider ethical?

Where libertarianism as confused conservatism begins to devolve into anarchism is when libertarians sidestep not only the moral issues involved in addressing and resolving distributional issues but also the role of government power in enforcing those arrangements.  In some ways this might again be thought of as a confused or not very well explained form of conservatism.  Conservatives after all are famous for saying things like they want to “minimize government” despite the fact they want government to fulfill certain important functions they find important such as enforcing property rights.  It’s an inherently confusing way of talking.  What they should say is they feel government should be restricted to those functions they support.  Because when one says minimize of course there’s no real reason we can’t minimize government entirely and create anarchy.  Indeed, the essential difference in this context between conventional conservatives and libertarians is that conservatives recognize when they talk about “minimizing” government they’re simply talking rhetorically and what they really mean is minimize to the extent consistent with government fulfilling the functions they want it to fulfill.  And those aren’t small or minor functions by any measure.  Having government power enforcing property rights implies government involvement of a sort in every transaction and of course the entire mechanism of enforcing those relationships: police, judicial systems, prisons, etc.  With libertarianism these important government functions recede so far into the background and become so invisible and taken for granted and unrecognized and so immune to discussion that many libertarians lose sight of them altogether and start talking about really minimizing government to the greatest extent possible, that is, eliminating it.  In other words they become indistinguishable from anarchists.  Why don’t conservatives express the notion of “minimizing government” differently to avoid the sort of confusion that leads to the sort of libertarianism that equates to anarchism?  Probably because everyone thinks government should be “minimized” to those functions they think are important.  Liberals and leftists think that every bit as much as conservatives.  It’s not really a distinctive position.  All the substance, the contentious bit, is a step back from that and involves what those functions are and why one thinks or doesn’t think government has a role.  The whole libertarian canard appears most likely the result of a rhetorical ploy meant to exaggerate the differences between conservatives and liberals, avoid discussing the real issues, and avoid drawing attention to the role of government power in the conservative view of the ideal society.  Libertarianism is basically the unholy offspring of the unfortunate underhanded way some conservatives choose to disguise and defend their values.

And what’s the inevitable and entirely predictable result of some conservatives’ inability to talk straight and possibly even to think straight about distributional issues and the resulting bit of confusion known as libertarianism?  We get people like the recently deceased John Galton: conservatives who become attracted to “libertarian” claptrap and from there are drawn inexorably into the anti-social pie-in-the-sky nonsense of anarchism formerly associated mainly with the most unrealistic and utopian of what in the past anyway was conventionally considered leftist hippiedom.  Sad to think how much harm mainstream conservatives are willing to inflict on other people rather than do what liberals and leftists have always done: argue honestly and transparently for their values.

References

An American ‘crypto-anarchist’ fled the country.  He was just killed in Mexico’s ‘Murder Capital.’  Isaac Stanley-Becker.  The Washington Post.  February 4, 2019.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/02/04/an-american-crypto-anarchist-fled-country-he-was-just-killed-mexicos-murder-capital/?utm_term=.0fa91cdafd3a.

Happy New Year 2019

Welcome friends!

Well, looks we made it through another year and not the best we’ve seen that’s for sure.  I suppose for the sake of tradition I should deliver an optimistic greeting of the new year but honestly with Lord Voldemort still entrenched in the White House, his fanatically loyal death eaters controlling the Senate, and dementors from the frozen wastes of Durmstrang helping the Dark Lord’s oleaginous minions in the Ministry of Misinformation exert their dark influence over the army of witless, greedy, bigoted, drug addled muggles of the worst sort imaginable who make up a rather alarming portion of the American population, I can’t really even muster the strength to give a hearty show of optimism right now.  (Yes, it was yet another Harry Potter Weekend at my house over the holidays.  I suppose the latest installment must be in theaters but really without the cute kids cavorting about what’s the point?)  So let’s keep it real and resolve to just do our best to get through 2019 some old way and do what we can to bring about a happier 2020.  This year I thought I’d use my end of the year post to tackle some interesting issues raised by Larry the Cable Guy in a holiday movie offering from some years ago now: Jingle All the Way 2.  Yes, I watch way too much TV.

If you’re never seen the movie in question, which I can readily understand, I can tell you it’s a bit of generally harmless albeit forgettable family fluff featuring a sanitized and unrealistically benign version of a conservative American redneck in the form of the aforementioned Larry.  Although it’s quite clear the sort of person Larry is meant to represent he certainly isn’t very similar to any real redneck I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet and let me tell you I’ve met a few in my lifetime.  Did I mention I lived for some time in the great American interior?  Well, I did, and Larry is much less unreasonable, rude, bigoted, violent, drunken, and just in general offensive than any real American redneck you’re likely to encounter on let’s say a road trip through the great American Midwest or South.  But on the other hand the character is clearly not cut from whole cloth either.  There is a kernel of authenticity there that allows potential insight into this most confounding and disturbing of American subcultures.

The plot such as it was involved the divorced Larry competing for his young daughter’s affection against her wily, scheming, and incidentally very rich new step father.  Shortly before the big day they both mistakenly come to believe the little girl requires a certain toy for Christmas and the rich jerk promptly tries to buy and hoard all locally available instances of the object in question so he and he alone can present the coveted prize.  Hilarity or at least mild amusement ensues as he and Larry do battle.  Turns out the preternaturally angelic daughter had no such crass materialistic wishes.  Silly adults.  No, it was all a big misunderstanding.  The kid didn’t want a toy: she just wanted everyone to be happy.  The end.  Kind of cute in a weird sort of way.  But the plot wasn’t really the interesting bit for me.  No, the interesting bit was a scene near the end in which Larry and the evil step dad engage in some verbal sparring that touched on the sort of distributional issues I find interesting but so few other people appear to do, although I guess in this case the writers thought enough people might be interested they wrote it into the script, which is weird.  I wonder?  Am I just not bringing it up the right way?  Too serious?  Oh well.  In the words of the old song I’ve got to be me.

To get back to the movie, Larry’s contribution to the discussion in question involved two noteworthy lines of argument.  First, he suggested the reason he was struggling economically compared to his wealthy opponent was that he simply chose to not work very hard and indeed only part time to have more time for fishing and his daughter.  He rejected the insinuation or really I suppose preempted the insinuation this lifestyle choice rendered him in any way inferior to the rich guy, for example in terms of discharging his responsibilities to society, by noting he “pays his taxes” like anyone else and has never taken a “handout” from anyone.  He chooses to be poor and is happy he has the freedom to do so.  Second, he clarified he doesn’t “begrudge” the rich guy his relative wealth and power; indeed, he’s happy for the guy.  They’re just two different people living different sorts of lives.  No class conflict here!  It’s the sort of philosophy or perspective one supposes might appeal not only to rich Americans who likely wish all the poor people of the USA could be as sensible as Larry but also and this is the interesting bit for me the many poor people in the USA and elsewhere who seem never to mind when rich people arguably take advantage of them every way possible.  So let’s break it down a bit and let’s see where the disconnect is coming from.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the very specific basis of Larry’s relative poverty.  He simply chooses to not work very hard.  Tomorrow he could presumably choose to work hard and be rich, or so he appears to believe.  It’s an interesting coincidence this most unlikely and implausible scenario is the one that provides what most people would surely consider the most ethically plausible case for economic inequality.  Larry’s situation has nothing to do with the myriad of factors outside his immediate control that may nonetheless apply in other people’s economic situations that make the issue of wealth inequality so ethically vexing for some people, so for example nothing involving his innate talents or abilities, his intelligence, his physical, mental, or emotional health, his early childhood experiences and environment, the quality of his early education or lack thereof, his family’s emotional and intellectual support and wealth and connections, government policies such as tax policies, macroeconomic trends particularly at various significant moments of his life, unpredictable changes in technology, etc.  The troubling thing of course is that one rather suspects although Larry may believe his relative poverty is entirely a matter of his own choosing he might one day decide to give wealth a try and find out otherwise.  One can’t help but suspect Larry’s psyche may be on rather thin ice.  One hopes for his sake he sticks with fishing.

The second noteworthy element to Larry’s worldview is he appears to accept the distributional system in place so completely and uncritically it never even occurs to him to challenge it.  When he explains his acceptance of the rich guy’s relative economic power he doesn’t say he accepts the ethical argument in favor of that result but that he doesn’t “begrudge” the man his situation.  Although the word “begrudge” can imply simply looking upon something with displeasure the usual connotation is that the displeasure is not rooted in one’s ethical beliefs but envy.  One doesn’t typically say something like one begrudges the wealth of a thief who just made off with one’s money; one might object to it or oppose it or whatever but generally something a little more forthright than begrudge.  So although open to interpretation Larry’s language certainly make it sound as though he thinks the only reason he might conceivably object to the rich guy’s relative economic is the unfortunate emotion of envy.  This is surely a common view of rich people absolutely convinced of the ethical basis of their wealth no matter how they may have come upon it but it is always somewhat noteworthy coming from a poor person.  One can’t help but wonder if Larry is simply aping the rich fellow’s worldview and trying to head off a likely retort or criticism or if he really cannot imagine harboring any more substantive objection to the man’s relative economic power.  The latter possibility seems particularly unlikely in this case because the movie makes clear the rich fellow in question was basically born into his position by inheriting the family business, gives no indication the man engaged in any particularly laudable behavior to keep it going, and makes it quite clear the man used his economic power in what many people would probably consider a rather unethical way, to manipulate the market to harm the father’s relationship with his daughter.  One might reasonably suspect all is not as it should be but not Larry.

It’s the same story with Larry’s other claim to dignity.  He proudly proclaims he dutifully “pays his taxes” but evinces no particular concern at all about what those taxes are, who devised the tax system, or how much he pays relative to other for example wealthier people.  It’s just a part of the distributional background.  Taxes appear.  He pays them.  That’s his claim to dignity.  Just the sort of person rich people devising a tax code would surely most appreciate.  One hopes he can continue to pay his taxes in the future.

It’s a similar story when it comes to claiming his share of the output of the government sector.  Larry takes great pride in never having accepted a “handout.”  But one does have some concerns.  Might he consider public services funded by his and other’s taxes handouts?  What if he pays less in real terms than another person, let’s say a rich person?  Would he then be accepting a handout from that person?  Is he therefore a supporter of those non-graduated flat income tax schemes in which rich and poor pay the same tax so that proportionately the opportunity cost of the tax is many multiples higher for the poor than the rich?  Or does he solve the issue some other way say by rejecting or avoiding all public services paid for by taxes?  Does he for example drive only on toll roads?  Does he turn up his nose at public parks and other amenities?  Does he distrust the police and instead pay for protection from local street thugs?  Even then may he have benefited from minimum wage laws or consumer protection or worker health and safety regulations that arguably raise the price of goods for other people?  Is he indirectly receiving what amounts to handouts from his fellow consumers?  Has his dignity been wounded without his ever realizing it?  Or is whatever we’re doing now just fine and not a handout but if we do anything more then the increment would represent a handout?  One can’t help but suspect Larry is again on shaky ground.  One hopes he never inquires too deeply about how real societies work or the pros and cons of real market systems and so on.  But again isn’t Larry’s worldview the sort any rich person concerned to combat incipient socialism might appreciate?  How annoying for them when poor people start going about asking for ethically unjustified handouts in the form of government services.

We’ve been having some fun with Larry thus far but let’s not just do the easy bit shall we?  Let’s flip it around and look at the one plausible aspect of Larry’s worldview: the notion that one very legitimate reason for economic inequality including even extreme economic inequality is that some people may be willing to do certain things society values while other people may not.  That does sound like a legitimate and plausible distributional view.  If someone simply isn’t interested in working on anything society values doesn’t it make sense he or she would receive nothing from society in compensation or if he or she did then only in the form of handouts based on charity rather than any plausible ethical claim?  We’ve already discussed the fallacy involved in assuming there’s something ethically special about the pattern of demand for labor falling out of any random distribution of economic power at least from the perspective of economic theory, but let’s say we address that problem and set up a distributional system we think allocates economic power in a way we think is fair, which may or may not correspond to what we have right now.  What if even under those conditions someone simply doesn’t wish to participate?  Surely he or she should have that choice even if it leads to relative poverty.  In that sense an ethical distributional system that reflects the value we place on freedom would arguably need to leave room for possibly even extreme economic inequality, which suggests that when liberals discuss what they see as the problem of economic inequality they really should be a lot more specific and in particular talk about economic inequality resulting from certain unacceptable sources.  That’s actually a pretty useful insight I think.  One may not suppose Larry’s situation is very common and that few poor people simply choose poverty but one should be aware that for some other people this is the one and only scenario that springs naturally to their minds.  

We could just end it there but maybe we should quickly consider what the argument against economic inequality even from this particular source might look like just for shits and giggles.  We’re talking about the market power of other people under what we consider an equitable and ethically correct distribution setting up a certain pattern of demand for labor and someone rejecting those incentives so to make it most plausible let’s imagine someone whose innate talents and abilities and education and so on suggests he or she can best contribute to society’s collective demand by digging ditches but who decides instead to go write poetry on a windswept hilltop.  Well, I suppose that’s the genteel version of the issue.  At this juncture we could equally imagine someone who insists upon smoking crack and playing video games or writing snarky blog posts all day long.  Doesn’t matter.  The funny thing of course is that some people with such inclinations would in fact be perfectly capable of engaging in their chosen lifestyle without any particular hardship, for example, people who inherited a big old pot of money, while others might experience a bit more difficulty pulling it off.  One’s feelings on this state of affairs must depend in part I suppose on one’s opinion about the fairness of the distributional policies that make such results possible, in this case inheritance, and in that sense perhaps the notion one may have concerns contradicts my assumption of an ethical distributional system.  I suppose if one wanted a system based more on individual merit and less on fate or accident of birth and one wanted everyone to start life with the same range of choices then perhaps one might consider eliminating inheritance or maybe instituting one of those minimum income arrangements as I understand some countries have tried relatively recently.  However, I suspect there may be an argument even beyond distributing freedom fairly.  Let’s say for example one attributes some value to whatever the person is doing that is not currently recognized by the market as particularly valuable, video game playing seems unlikely but maybe writing snarky blog posts or poetry or more generally writing or philosophizing or making art.  In that case one may have some reservations about a system in which only spoiled rich kids engage in such activities.  One may wonder if society may gain some sort of benefit if other people were given similar opportunities to follow their talents and inclinations even when they prove inconsistent with current market incentives.  Again, I suppose we’d be talking about eliminating inheritance or instituting minimum incomes or at least programs for aspiring writers and artists and so on but maybe not based on conventional notions of talent or merit so we don’t lose the sense of going against the grain.

Not trying to resolve anything here of course.  I never am really.  Just talking.  Remarking.  Commenting.  Why?  It’s interesting.  We don’t want to end up sounding like a comical simple-minded cartoon character like Larry do we?  Well, if you agree you’re in luck because I have every intention of returning in the new year with plenty of random thoughts and observations to get the old neurons fired up and working again.  Happy new year my brothers and sisters!

Conservative Economic Ideology and Socialism

Welcome friends!

I know I was supposed to stop talking about economic issues for a little while but I wanted to follow up a bit on a point I mentioned last time (and most likely any number of times previously): the intellectual relationship between “socialism” broadly conceived and neoclassical economic theory on the one hand and the conservative “free market” economic ideology sometimes associated with economic theory or anyway with certain flawed interpretations of economic theory on the other hand.  Hey, what can I say?  It’s my thing or one of my things anyway.  I think it’s interesting.  I might be the only one, but still.  Allow me to indulge myself once again and I’ll be back with some non-economic content next time.  Maybe.  Or maybe the time after that.  Let’s just say soon to be on the safe side.  That’s the thing about the multi-headed monster of contemporary conservative: spend too long staring into the empty unblinking eyes of any one head and next thing you know one of the other heads might just take a bite out of your backside.

Let’s do neoclassical economic theory first.  I know I’ve done a couple of posts about how President Trump and the Republican Party have diverged recently from conservative economic orthodoxy in the direction of national something or other, not national socialism per se but something very much like.  What were they calling it?  Economic nationalism?  Something like that?  Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about this time out.  I’m talking about the supposed basis of conservative economic ideology in it’s purest and most traditional form: neoclassical economic theory.  If you’re familiar with economic theory you’ll know it talks or purports to talk an awful lot about what is best for society at large.  The ostensible endpoints of interest are presented correctly or incorrectly as “socially optimal outcomes” or “social optimums.”  If one considers accepting the objective of attending to the overall welfare of society the hallmark of “socialism” at it’s most fundamental level, which I think is really the only sensible way to interpret the word, then neoclassical economic theory must I think be classified as a form or variant of socialism.  As I (and even more eloquently Mr. Kranekpantzen) have pointed out repeatedly the funny thing of course is that economic theory doesn’t really work as advertised.  It attempts to derive recommendations for socially optimal economic arrangements without considering the distributional aspects of those arrangements; however, it doesn’t and logically never could.  Everyone has beliefs relating to fair or optimal distributions or mechanisms of distribution and hence there’s really no way to talk about social optimality in any meaningful way without getting into those types of issues.  And economic systems inevitably distribute goods one way or another whether we like it or not.  We can’t set up an economic system that is agnostic between all possible distributions.  So really there’s no way to support particular economic arrangements without also supporting particular distributions unless one breaks out those economic arrangements that relate to distributions, which is a bit awkward to say the least since those represent a pretty big chunk of what we consider economic arrangements in the first place (most notably the labor market but also taxes, inheritance laws, etc.)  The notion that economic theory can establish the case for perfectly competitive markets without taking up distributional issues is all a big misunderstanding or if you’re of a more conspiratorial frame of mind a load of purposefully misleading claptrap, which provides a convenient segue to the slow-witted cousin of economic theory: conservative "free market" economic ideology.

As one might suppose based on flawed economic theory or at least certain conventional but flawed interpretations of that theory one can find conservatives (of the economic variety) who seem a little confused by that theory and honestly feel not only that a “free market” equates to a perfectly competitive market but that a perfectly competitive market equates to the best we can do as a society.  From a liberal perspective these conservatives may be considered the “good” or at least better sort of economic conservatives in the sense they agree with liberals on the ends although obviously not the means.  This is the type of economic conservative who tends to have a superficial knowledge of neoclassical economic theory from sources like the ubiquitous Econ 101 and to take it very, very seriously albeit entirely uncritically.  In the vernacular, they accept the theory or anyway the conventional flawed interpretations of that theory hook, line, and sinker.  These particular conservatives tend to have a condescending air toward liberals and leftists because they view them as basically rather silly uneducated or irrational people whose hearts may be in the right place but who just can’t or don’t understand the mathematical and geometric intricacies of economic theory.  It makes them a little annoying particularly for liberals who have studied economics in a rather more serious way but not usually insufferably so.  This type of economic conservative tends to take a relatively narrow view of “socialism” that equates it to particular economic arrangements such as government ownership or shared ownership of businesses and so on.  One assumes they would generally take umbrage at the notion their own ideology is based on what must ultimately be considered a particular formulation of the socialist ethos because it suggests the welfare of society at large in fact matters.  However, it’s not all relative goodness and light even with this lot.  These conservatives like their less wholesome brothers and sisters have a dark side.  In particular, they tend to harbor a profound fear, distrust, and sometimes even abject hatred for democratic government because they believe ignorant people, such as liberals or progressives or leftists of all sorts, may use their democratic voting power to force government to “interfere” with existing market arrangements to make them more stable or equitable thereby unwittingly harming society by shifting it off its supposed optimum.

The bad type of economic conservative from a liberal or leftist perspective rejects the goal of attending to the welfare of society at large in favor of viewing the world as a vicious dog eat dog affair in which the only ethically acceptable objective is to do the best one can for oneself and perhaps one’s loved ones and let everyone else fare as they may.  These are the conservatives of the Ayn Randian, ubermensch, Me Generation, greed is good, unbridled egotism variety.  If they appear to support the findings of economic theory it’s because they understand perfectly well it doesn’t really work as advertised and in particular don’t take the flawed arguments in that theory about “social optimums” seriously even for a moment.  No, they believe there are inevitably winners and losers in human society and they’re doing everything they can to ensure they’re one of the former.  They don’t see the point of worrying about the fate of the “losers.”  They don’t harbor any romantic notions that market economies work out well for everyone or even that one should speak honestly and seriously about political or economic or philosophical matters so we can work together collectively and collaboratively toward common ends like what’s best for society at large but instead view communication as a rhetorical tool to obtain or maintain power of both the economic and political variety.  This is the sort of conservative that has recently taken center stage with all the Trumpian double-talk and fake news and “alternative facts.”  They sometimes espouse a rather mangled or cherry picked version of economic theory not because they believe it has any intellectual merit but because they think it might muddy the water enough to keep the better sort of more civic-minded economic conservative on board while providing them with what they want themselves: an attractive rhetorical defense of their own economic power.  These conservatives tend to view liberals and leftists in general as not just silly uneducated people who may mean well but simply don’t understand economics but rather as wily and quite often overly educated people who understand economic theory rather better than they ought but who are essentially evil people with flawed ethics and in particular adherents of “socialism” defined as the incorrect and dangerous ethical proposition what happens to one’s fellows matters.  Their relatively broad view of socialism means they tend to see the dangers of socialism everywhere because of course socialism broadly defined as a concern for one’s fellows is everywhere in most functioning societies including our own.  These conservatives are intensely and blatantly opposed to democratic government unless they have an effective way to control it and use it to their own personal advantage, as they do currently with the Trump administration.  This group’s shifting positions on practical economic issues like tariffs and deficits and so on can take the well-meaning but relatively slow-witted “good” economic conservatives by surprise and has led to a lot of hand-wringing among the latter tribe about what it means to be a “real” economic conservative.

So what’s my point for today?  Difficult to say.  People who believe in democratic government and have certain beliefs relating to social welfare or economic justice need to fight economic conservatism in both forms but perhaps there’s something to be gained by keeping in mind it’s not always about one’s values; sometimes it’s about ignorance.  Liberals and leftists need to fight the economic head of the multi-headed monster of contemporary conservatism on both fronts.  We need to keep banging on about the shortcomings and illogical bits of neoclassical economic theory as well as pointing out the errors in the flawed interpretations of that theory one finds in popular conservative economic ideology on the one hand, and we need to argue the case for our ethical beliefs regarding one’s responsibilities toward one’s fellows against the stylings of the conservative anti-social disciples of personal greed and all consuming egotism on the other.  So let’s get to it!