Anarcho-Capitalism and the Limits of the Market

While teaching a course on Biomedical Ethics I came upon what I take to be a rather clear example of the limits of the market's power to justly regulate the distribution of goods in contrast to the anarcho-capitalist claim that the market, free of government interference, distributes goods in a just manner based upon consumer choices and individual merit.

In general I believe that the market forces lose all power of regulation in those situations in which the consumer is deprived of the power to refuse a given product. These situations might be termed the "limit situations" for market distribution. Generally limit situations arise when two or more of the following three situations are in effect:

1. the good in question is a life necessity, which we might term primary goods (food, shelter, security, life or death medical care, etc.)

2. business forces have achieved monopoly over the production or distribution of a given good  

3. business forces have achieved the social power to enforce consumption

London, 2010 - Paris, 1968

Riots on the part of students in London yesterday were the worst political violence seen in years. Today, in Paris, a general assembly attempting to involve students from all across Europe is meeting in preparation for December 14th's "European day of mobilization and conflict". Details are available here. Check out as well the Campaign for the Public University.

Cyber Wars

Interesting things afoot. First, a "Cyber War" is being waged over WikiLeaks and its founder. See the article here.

Corporate versus Democratic Virtues

Over at A Collection of Selves we find the inspiration for a discussion of what kind of a nation corporations would be if they were thought about in terms of state politics. As noted there, some corporations exceed nations in GDP as well as in population if we take employees for citizens. So, what kind of nations are corporations?

The answer is obvious to anyone with any familiarity with the corporate business world. Most corporations limit voting rights to the landed class, i.e. the owners, as perhaps unsurprisingly Tea Party members have recently been proposing America should do. Corporations are also highly authoritarian, with centralized top down power structures. There is no division of powers, no courts, no assumption of innocence and so on. The original post lists more, fairly predictable, observations. Well, anyone who has worked for a large business or corporation is not surprised by the claim that it would be a terrible state in which to live permanently.

Yet, and this is where I depart from the original discussion in order to make what I find to be an interesting observation, we often take success in the corporate world to qualify one for public office in America. Why, one might ask, should success in an authoritarian radically anti-democratic environment suit one for public service in a representative democracy? Indeed, the tendency to translate business credentials into political ones seems, from this perspective, somewhat perverse. (Of course a similar point can be made about the penchant for wanting to turn military leaders into political leaders. Again you have success in a radically anti-democratic environment being mistaken for the demonstration of democratic virtues. Now, there is certainly something to be said for military service potentially providing a testament to one's office-worthy character. But there is a world of difference between military service and military leadership.)

It seems worth asking, what are the virtues necessary to be a good servant of the people in a representative democracy? At the risk of naivete I would suggest these are decidedly not ruthlessness, charisma, a willingness to be obeyed and to give orders, a competitive spirit and an ability to excel in highly hierarchical centralized authoritarian regimes.

So what would democratic virtues be? Perhaps a desire, more than even a willingness, to work with others. A valuing of agreement and harmony over victory. A loathing for obedience and command. A greater interest in collective goods rather than individual gain. A stubborn inability to respect or recognize traditional authorities such as wealth or station.

These might be right, they may barely scratch the surface or may miss the mark, but if they are at all accurate one notes that they are characteristics that would make one distinctly ill-equipped to excel within a corporate (or perhaps military) setting. I do not take this to be accidental.   

Too Little Too Late

Congressional Democrats are apparently outraged at this tax cut deal the President has struck with GOP leaders. I would have a little more sympathy for them if- oh I don't know- maybe they would have pushed this tax issue before the election! They had the public support, they still do! Maybe if they had forced the Republicans to reveal their hand on this issue before November 2nd, the election wouldn't have been such a bloodbath.

Granted, I agree with them. But where the hell were they when they had a perfect opportunity to do something about it before this deal was struck? Oh that's right, they were cowering in fear. No wonder Dems have the reputation for being wimps. It's because they are... until it's too late to make a difference.

Joan Walsh on Hardball tonight made a great point (her comment on this begins at around the 4:30 mark). She explained how over the last 30 years the entire political debate has moved to the right. We've had wealth get more and more top heavy, and so much deregulation that Wall Street has become so powerful, that we now have essentially two parties that do everything on their behalf.

Elizabeth Edwards

The argument can be made, that if it wasn't for her activism, and for her insistence that her husband make the issue a priority in his presidential campaign, that we might not have gotten a health care reform bill passed at all.

She was a strong, brave woman, who had to endure some truly humiliating moments in the press, but she always managed to come through with grace and dignity.

Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday after a 6 year battle with cancer. Rest in peace.

Just Out of Curiosity

Regarding the tax cuts for the rich, the argument is made by those on the right that by letting the tax cuts expire, it  will stifle hiring by small business owners, because it is those small business owners whose income will be taxed more. My question is this: How many "small business owners" that have a business that is successful enough to give them a personal income of over $250,000 a year, are actually paying their employees out of their personal income? Isn't payroll classified under business expenses?

Furthermore, how does the right explain that job growth during the time of the Bush Tax Cuts has been the worst since WWII? In fact, with the lone exception of Nixon, who came in 5th, the periods of greatest job growth since WWII have all been under Democratic administrations. The 5 worst periods were all under Republicans, including Reagan, who is practically worshiped by the GOP.

Three Quarks Daily

Three Quarks Daily has announced its first round of voting for its yearly best political blog post competition. Check them out here and vote.

Julian Assange's Motives

Here is a fabulous discussion of Assange's political philosophy, motives and goals as presented in two essays he wrote in 2006. The analysis itself is a more extended discussion based of a previous one found here. Sorry but yes, I am still fascinated by Wikileaks. I think it is likely to be more a political revolution than anything that happened with Twitter during the Iranian riots.

Previously I speculated that there was something libertarian-anarchist about Wikileak's motives. It seemed that we have a pretty common case of two views. 1. availability of information is good in itself and 2. the chaos caused by such availability only causes justified harm.

However, the thoughtful investigations I have just posted suggest that Assange's views and motives are more subtle (though arguably still naive) than I had suspected. As the first article, at a point quoting the second, puts Assange's idea:

Assange’s strategy starts from the premise that authoritarian governments--among which he includes the U.S. and other major and semimajor world powers--are, at root, conspiracies. Diagnosing authoritarian governments as conspiracies allows Assange, ever the hacker, to put secrecy at the heart of his political philosophy. He sees the secret (or “conspiratorial interaction”) not only as the sine qua non of the conspiracy but as the actual source of the conspiracy's power:

Where details are known as to the inner workings of authoritarian regimes, we see conspiratorial interactions among the political elite not merely for preferment or favor within the regime but as the primary planning methodology behind maintaining or strengthening authoritarian power.

From here it is not hard to see how the leak--the anti-secret--fits in. Bady’s summary is better than the texts they paraphrase:

[Assange] decides…that the most effective way to attack this kind of organization would be to make “leaks” a fundamental part of the conspiracy’s information environment…. The idea is that increasing the porousness of the conspiracy’s information system will impede its functioning, that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self-defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire.

This is actually a fairly clever position especially insofar as its desired effect corresponds nicely with the feared effect that Assange's critics claim the leaks may have. Specifically, the leaks will make it so that foreign governments will be unwilling to work with America in secret for fear of this cooperation getting out to their people who may resist such cooperation. I have in mind here, for example, the willingness of many Middle Eastern nations to express support in secret to America in resisting Iran's nuclear ambitions. If countries don't trust American secrecy diplomacy in general becomes much harder and an entire level of cooperation, specifically secret cooperation, has been effectively removed from the international playing field. A very good friend of mine suggested precisely this as the danger of Assange's actions.

This fits, however, nicely into Assange's stated goals. The only difference is the changing of one basic assumption, and it does make all the difference. Assange assumes that American diplomacy is in the service of an authoritarian government with the fundamental structure of a conspiracy. The predicted breakdown in diplomacy translates, then, into a weakened international influence (precisely as my friend feared) but on the part of an authoritarian force which is seen to be dominating the world partially through military and capitalistic might and partly through diplomatic conspiracy. This breakdown is therefor a good thing and leaves more space for others, a country's actually citizens for example, to influence their own country's actions (I have in mind here the rage of many Spanish citizens when they found out that Spain was working with America to keep American military officers responsible for the shelling and killing of Spanish reporters in Iraq from being prosecuted).

However, change Assange's assumption to another one and the same precise situation looks radically different. Assume that American diplomacy is the in service of the American citizens and aims, ultimately, to keep America safe by ensuring international stability and peace. Suddenly the breakdown in diplomacy is a breakdown in global stability not global domination.

Of course the likely reality is a bit of each. One can certainly not assume that American diplomacy is fully a force for stability. It also seeks to empower cues for the sake of violent regime change and sometimes ferment wars. Certainly this may be in the ultimate goal of greater stability due to something like a world of democratic nations but even this philosophy, founded on Kant's claim that democratic societies do not go to war with one another, is called into question by our government's willingness to seek to topple democratically elected leaders they dislike and even entire democracies. It is very possible to have consolidation of power in view and to paste over it the vague promise of world stability and peace.

But it is also, in my opinion, unlikely that many and perhaps most diplomacy is not done with the avoidance of bloodshed and the well-being of the world's peoples in general in mind. It may be that when push comes to shove what the good diplomats are doing doesn't really measure up to what the C.I.A. is doing behind them, but it is certainly possible to have too cynical a view of world politics.   

What do you think of WikiLeaks?

As you may have heard Wikileaks has been forced to move its site to Switzerland. Today on "Democracy Now" there was a debate concerning the site between Glen Greenwald of the legal blog Salon.com and Steven Aftergood, a transparency activist and the writer of Secrecy News.

While both men are in favor of greater transparency in our government Greenwald argued in favor of Wikileaks while Aftergood argued that Wikileaks is causing too much harm in its unfocused and nonstrategic release of materials better left secret. Amongst his many examples he included the harm the most recent leaks have done to the careers of apparently good diplomats and the danger of having an official blue-print for a nuclear device freely available on the internet. In general Aftergood suggested that Wikileaks has a primitive (what I have sometimes called anarchistic) view of politics which believes that all disclosure of secret information is good disclosure and only the corrupt will ultimately be harmed through such disclosure. He worries that such a view leads to politically counter-productive outcomes. Greenwald, on the other hand, insisted that Wikileaks has done more to strike fear into the hearts of corrupt politicians and government employees than any other transparency activist actions thus far. Here is the full program if you are interested:





Where do you stand? Is Wikileaks a threat to diplomacy? Is it a successful and powerful tool for bringing corruption to light? Does it endanger the nation or just those who have something to hide? Should it be allowed to operate?  

Quote

If Obama and the Democrats were serious about story B they’d at least mention it. They’d tell the nation that income and wealth haven’t been this concentrated at the top since 1928, the year before the Great Crash. They’d be indignant about the secret money funneled into midterm campaigns. They’d demand Congress pass the Disclose Act so the public would know where the money comes from.

-Robert Reich in a post where he explains very eloquently what is going on in this country, and how the narrative that's being put forth by the GOP (and going unchallenged by the Dems) is just a narrative, and if we allow policies to be made based upon this narrative then we are, basically, screwed.

The Result of "Prisons for Profit"

Ever since I learned of the private prison phenomena I have been uncomfortable with it. I have been wanting to write about it for a while now, but with the news released today, I now have a good opportunity to do so.

As far as I'm concerned, private prisons are one of the worst ideas ever. The concepts of 'profit' and 'incarceration' should never intertwine. It is precarious, dangerous, and is just as foolish as the medical industry being a 'for profit' one... or the military industrial complex.

One reason why this is such a horrible idea is that it incentivizes incarceration - corporations that run the prisons have an invested interest in having and retaining prisoners. What is the motivation to rehabilitate the inmates? There isn't any. Lost inmates = lost revenues. These are revenues, I might add, that still come at taxpayer expense. Where a private prison wants to collect as many tax dollars as possible in order to maximize profits, a state run prison is the opposite, it is in the state's interest to rehabilitate inmates so as not to drain more precious tax resources on repeat incarcerations. Now the state run prison system has a long way to go, and I am in no way claiming that it is a perfect mechanism, I am merely pointing out the extreme dangers in the profit motive in this situation.

A good example of this was a news story last year that didn't get too much attention. It's a story of a couple of judges in Pennsylvania who plead guilty to accepting kickbacks from a corporation that ran a juvenile detention facility in exchange for sending inmates their way. Many of these kids were guilty of nothing more than making childish comments on Myspace, or throwing a piece of ham at their step-dad at the dinner table. I believe this also demonstrates why the concept of electing judges in this country is also a bad idea, but that's an argument for another time.

Then there is the story that came out today. An inmate was brutally beaten by another inmate while the guards just watched. Now this can happen in any sort of prison, true. What is disturbing about this story is the allegations of denied medical care to cover up abuses, and in the case of this particular inmate, he was taken out of the hospital (against the advice of his doctor) in order to be treated in the "cheaper" in-prison facility. This particular prison has been referred to as "Gladiator School" because of it's reputation for unnecessary violence. The company, CCA, has had incidents all over the country, including allegations of sexual abuse - in one incident hundreds of female inmates were ordered to be transferred to a state run facility because of abuses that occurred under the watch of CCA.

Private prisons are just a terrible idea.

What's the big deal?

Apparently no one really much cares about keeping the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy but grandstanding politicians. Here is what Nate Silver says over at 538:

When the policy was established, none of the three positions had majority support among Americans. Forty-four percent supported open service, 37 opposed any service, and 19 percent supported allowing gay men and lesbians to serve only if they did not reveal their sexual orientation. Today, one position has emerged as the clear preference of the majority of Americans. Seventy-five percent of Americans support open service, 17 oppose any service, and only 8 percent support the compromise position of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Members of the military are equally uninterested in keeping the policy as demonstrated by the Pentagon's newly released report on the matter:

The report, the result of a nine-month study, said that repealing the law would present a low risk to military effectiveness. It also found that 70 percent of service members believe that the impact of repealing the law would be positive, mixed or of no consequence at all.

So, as I noted, unless you are a politician trying to make a fuss out of nothing this is pretty much a settled matter.  

Tea Party Plutocracy

In case you aren't paying attention, this is rather disturbing.

Judson Philips, president of Tea Party Nation, is in favor of only those who own property having the right to vote. See here. In a nation where owning property is as expensive as it tends to be in much of the United States (how many of those who "own" property do you think do so through credit and debt?), and where one third of the country does not own property, there is a name for that type of government and it is NOT democracy.

Moments from an Interview with Roger D. Hodge

Harper's Magazine recently published an interview with Roger D. Hodge, the author of The Mendacity of Hope. Although I disagree with many of his views on Obama, I thought the interview had some golden moments particularly when discussing the founding fathers. Here are a few of those moments:

Americans are preoccupied with the Founders, and that is not at all a bad thing, yet much of the contemporary discussion of the revolutionary generation and the early years of the republic is appallingly shallow. In my view, too little attention has been paid to James Madison’s political philosophy—which is surprising, since Madison is the principal author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Founders did not speak in one voice, and careful attention to the substance of their debates (which were in many ways far more acrimonious than our own cable TV spectacles) can help clarify contemporary controversies, especially when so many of our present political combatants are merely reenacting old debates in seeming ignorance of the principles that were originally at issue.

WikiLeaks, Terrorism, and AutoImmunity

Hello, my name is Will. My friend Aaron and I decided that we should start a blog, one which is likely to deal mainly with our thoughts about politics. Hopefully we will disagree, and dialogue about our disagreements, as much as we will agree. Hopefully we will also be able to rope several of our insightful friends into also sharing some of their thoughts here. And, of course, hopefully you the reader will join in our dialogue.

I have to start somewhere so I thought perhaps I would begin with the big news of the day, the secret diplomatic documents released by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks which are thought to have been provided to the site by the US soldier Bradley Manning.

I have not yet come to a conclusion about this event, or Manning's purported actions, or the nature of Wikileaks in general. I do, however, think that this event is very interesting for several reasons. I should warn the reader that the same observations which make the case interesting are also likely to make some of my thoughts potentially inflammatory. We do, however, live in a time when simple statements of fact can be controversial.

Manning's purported actions and those of WikiLeaks are being described alternately as a form of civil disobedience in the face of unlawful arrests and torture in Iraq, a suggestion made most notably perhaps by Daniel Ellsberg (who is himself famous for leaking the top secret Pentagon Papers in 1971) during his interview on Democracy Now, and as acts of terrorism amounting to a direct assault upon American security, for example by Republican Representative Peter King.

GOP, You're Up...

With Obama's announcement today of a two-year pay freeze for most civilian federal workers, and all the accompanying rhetoric of "the American people are tightening their belts, so should the government," it made me think of all of those government employees, and who they are. You know who they are? You're neighbors, you're cousins, you're mailman. They're clerks, and janitors, and security guards. They are, for the most part, everyday Americans like you and me.

Who hasn't had to tighten their belts? The top earners in this country. Yet while the GOP applauds the stagnation of wages for people like you and me, they are using every political trick and tool at their disposal to promote extending tax cuts for the rich that not only created the deficit in the first place, but if were let to expire, would go a hell of a lot further to reduce the deficit we have now, than any government pay freeze ever could.

We should let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire. Period. It's not even like it's a controversial concept. The vast majority of Americans are in favor of letting the cuts expire for the rich, including half of Republican voters!

GOP, you're up. Obama gave you the pay freeze. Now stick to your campaign promise to "listen to the American people."

I AM Serious... and DON'T Call Me Shirley...

As much as I hate for this sort of thing to be my first post, I'm sad to find out that Leslie Nielsen has just died. It goes without saying that he was a comic genius. Rest in peace.