Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2015
On the home front...
Opting Out
Opposition is growing to Arne Duncan's "data based" approach to "saving" American education by obsessively testing schoolchildren and using their scores to "evaluate" teachers and schools. Hooray for all those parents choosing to "opt out" of the testcapades for their kids. The children of poverty who are supposed to be the chief beneficiaries of the testing regimen will continue to score poorly, no matter how many "failing" schools are closed and no matter how many "incompetent" teachers are fired. The most important key to educational achievement is the security and predictability of a middle-class lifestyle, a lifestyle denied to more and more children as more and more Americans are pushed out of what used to be the American middle class.
Minimum Wage
More Americans can enjoy "middle-class" lives when more Americans are able to live comfortably on their earnings. Right now, our low-wage workers — even those lucky enough to have steady, full-time jobs — have to depend on food stamps and Medicaid just to scrape by. Too many are only one or two unpaid sick days away from financial catastrophe, and they know it. They and their children need and deserve real security. Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr is not enough to restore the American middle class, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
As I've said before, raising the minimum wage will not lead to lay-offs, because employers know they maximize profits by employing the smallest work force needed to get the job done. If forced to pay their workers more, employers must either accept lower profits or raise the prices of their products. The affluent will scarcely notice any price increases, and better paid workers will have more money to spend. Only the most poorly conceived and managed businesses will fail.
Democracy
To the extent it exists in the USofA, democracy doesn't work very well. People struggling to earn a living, or to claw their way to the next level of economic success, don't have a lot of time to peruse the "important issues" that are supposed to determine the outcomes of elections. Candidates win elections when they have the financing and skills to promulgate sufficiently convincing lies, or to distract our attention from political decisions that actually might have an impact on our lives.
The classic Clinton approach, "polling over principle," is endemic in our current system. We expect political candidates to say the things we want to hear. What they actually do once in office is unlikely to have more than cosmetic resemblance to what they say in order to win.
Monday, February 6, 2012
"Democracy" marches on
Democracy, as we've all been taught (whether we learned it or not), depends on an educated demos. As one of the people who tried to teach you that, watched your drooping eyelids, and read the essays you wrote for your state mandated tests, I understand that that Jeffersonian ideal is kind of a pipe dream (which is an appropriate metaphor for a bunch of you who sat in the back row.)
Nevertheless, given the impossibility of finding Plato's philosopher king and forcing him to rule against his will, democracy will have to do. It has the advantage of forcing the evil overlords to work hard at persuading the mob that they are well ruled. That makes it much harder for the rulers to be blatantly repressive — democracy tends to make essential civil and human rights better respected, and the exercise of those rights by the demos helps to hold the rulers in check. Sometimes.
It wasn't that long ago that we were supposed to be entering a New Age of Democracy — the Soviet Union had fallen, making it possible for American administrations to allow increasing democratization of Latin America. It looked like there might be real progress in Africa. Granted that China, a major portion of Earth's land area, was not even remotely democratic, but it was moving quickly towards capitalism! Could democracy be far behind?
It was around then we got into nation building. Damn, did that turn out to be a bad idea.
So, let's review. Yeltsin corruption led directly to Putin autocracy, and Putin is not especially distressed by bourgeois protests. Bye bye, bourgeoisie. The outside-of-Moscow handlers have everything under control. Corruption continues apace. Yeltsin, you see, has successfully kept the demos terrified of change. Life is hard, and it might get harder. Why take the risk?
China, recently, seems to have been softening — but don't bet on it continuing. That little rebel village was allowed to elect a new Communist Party leader and labor unions are getting a smidgen more assertive, but critics of the system still have a way of remaining behind bars for many years at a time, and corruption among regional and local party leaders is rampant.
Freely elected left-wing governments in Latin America are starting to slide toward the same kinds of authoritarianism as the old right-wing governments — slowly enough so that there still is hope of reversal, but troubling nevertheless. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, elections have a way of turning into civil wars, and the Union of South Africa's one-party system is increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional.
While there may be rays of hope for the Middle East arising from the "Arab Spring," it may be because the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates winning elections there probably will do more to help the masses of poor than the old monarchs and dictators did. On the other hand, I still don't see the Egyptian army giving up political power and thereby losing its tight grip on the Egyptian economy — and anywhere the Salafists gain power may as well be Saudi Arabia as far as human rights go.
European democracies — especially those in the Eurozone – are giving up more and more sovereignty to the European Union. Nobody elected the technocrats now installed in Italy and Greece.
Then there's the United States. Yes, it looks like a democracy, but the plutocrats are stronger than ever before; the only viable political parties are center-right and far-right; and civil liberties have taken a nosedive since 9/11. Can Americans "vote" to change this? Ideally, we can, but this is not an ideal world. The politicians, the media, and even the leading charitable foundations are firmly controlled by corporate interests, and Citizens United was just another straw on the camel's back. The plutocrats will not be satisfied until they have all the wealth.
Sadly, the only thing I can think of powerful enough to bring about major change is a worldwide economic disaster which will flush away the old and bring on the new — but then the new might turn out to be significantly worse than what it replaces.
Nevertheless, given the impossibility of finding Plato's philosopher king and forcing him to rule against his will, democracy will have to do. It has the advantage of forcing the evil overlords to work hard at persuading the mob that they are well ruled. That makes it much harder for the rulers to be blatantly repressive — democracy tends to make essential civil and human rights better respected, and the exercise of those rights by the demos helps to hold the rulers in check. Sometimes.
It wasn't that long ago that we were supposed to be entering a New Age of Democracy — the Soviet Union had fallen, making it possible for American administrations to allow increasing democratization of Latin America. It looked like there might be real progress in Africa. Granted that China, a major portion of Earth's land area, was not even remotely democratic, but it was moving quickly towards capitalism! Could democracy be far behind?
It was around then we got into nation building. Damn, did that turn out to be a bad idea.
So, let's review. Yeltsin corruption led directly to Putin autocracy, and Putin is not especially distressed by bourgeois protests. Bye bye, bourgeoisie. The outside-of-Moscow handlers have everything under control. Corruption continues apace. Yeltsin, you see, has successfully kept the demos terrified of change. Life is hard, and it might get harder. Why take the risk?
China, recently, seems to have been softening — but don't bet on it continuing. That little rebel village was allowed to elect a new Communist Party leader and labor unions are getting a smidgen more assertive, but critics of the system still have a way of remaining behind bars for many years at a time, and corruption among regional and local party leaders is rampant.
Freely elected left-wing governments in Latin America are starting to slide toward the same kinds of authoritarianism as the old right-wing governments — slowly enough so that there still is hope of reversal, but troubling nevertheless. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, elections have a way of turning into civil wars, and the Union of South Africa's one-party system is increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional.
While there may be rays of hope for the Middle East arising from the "Arab Spring," it may be because the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates winning elections there probably will do more to help the masses of poor than the old monarchs and dictators did. On the other hand, I still don't see the Egyptian army giving up political power and thereby losing its tight grip on the Egyptian economy — and anywhere the Salafists gain power may as well be Saudi Arabia as far as human rights go.
European democracies — especially those in the Eurozone – are giving up more and more sovereignty to the European Union. Nobody elected the technocrats now installed in Italy and Greece.
Then there's the United States. Yes, it looks like a democracy, but the plutocrats are stronger than ever before; the only viable political parties are center-right and far-right; and civil liberties have taken a nosedive since 9/11. Can Americans "vote" to change this? Ideally, we can, but this is not an ideal world. The politicians, the media, and even the leading charitable foundations are firmly controlled by corporate interests, and Citizens United was just another straw on the camel's back. The plutocrats will not be satisfied until they have all the wealth.
Sadly, the only thing I can think of powerful enough to bring about major change is a worldwide economic disaster which will flush away the old and bring on the new — but then the new might turn out to be significantly worse than what it replaces.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Problem with Keynesian Economics
The problem with Keynesian economics, sad to say, is that it's incompatible with democracy. Ordinary citizens of a democracy — or of any other political system, for that matter — always like more, and never like less. Hence, only half of the Keynesian formula ever is implemented. (Well, maybe "ever" is a slight overstatement, because Bill Clinton sort of moved in the right direction during the boom years of the nineties.)
Until very recently, Keynesianism was almost an automatic response to recession: cut taxes and increase government spending to stimulate the economy. The problems always arose during the good times — the boom times. That's when, according to Keynes, we're supposed to raise taxes and cut government spending, to keep things from overheating and build up a reserve to see us through the next recession.
Unfortunately, that second part of Keynesianism is the hard part. When incomes and profits are up, and lots of tax money is flowing into government coffers, the suck-up politicians of democratic governments say, "Hey! We've got the money! Let's make the voters happy by cutting their taxes and tossing lots of bucks around! While we're at it, we can toss even more bucks at the special interests who pay for our election!"
Everybody's doing better (except for those "fixed income" suckers and the minimum wage crowd, who can't handle the inflation), so everything goes swimmingly until the next recession. It's been going on for about eighty years now.
Note, however, that during those boom times the big benefits go to the special interests — and the most special of those interests, at least since Reagan was president, have been the very rich.
Yeah, I know — if you read this blog, it's not exactly news to you.
So now we're at a point when Keynes (like most contemporary economists) would recommend stimulus. Thanks to eighty years of getting Keynes wrong, though, our national debt is a bit on the high side. The "democratically elected" pols — Republicans, especially, but plenty of Democrats as well — are righteously demanding austerity. But why, especially when we need stimulus so badly, and interest rates are so low?
The answer, of course, goes back to those extra-special interests — the people and institutions that own that debt. They can never be losers, of course, so the rest of us have to pay.
I'm too old and lazy to start a revolution and, frankly, I wouldn't know even where to begin now that revolutions seem to start on Facebook and Twitter. I have to tell you, I'm not optimistic. Any suggestions?
Until very recently, Keynesianism was almost an automatic response to recession: cut taxes and increase government spending to stimulate the economy. The problems always arose during the good times — the boom times. That's when, according to Keynes, we're supposed to raise taxes and cut government spending, to keep things from overheating and build up a reserve to see us through the next recession.
Unfortunately, that second part of Keynesianism is the hard part. When incomes and profits are up, and lots of tax money is flowing into government coffers, the suck-up politicians of democratic governments say, "Hey! We've got the money! Let's make the voters happy by cutting their taxes and tossing lots of bucks around! While we're at it, we can toss even more bucks at the special interests who pay for our election!"
Everybody's doing better (except for those "fixed income" suckers and the minimum wage crowd, who can't handle the inflation), so everything goes swimmingly until the next recession. It's been going on for about eighty years now.
Note, however, that during those boom times the big benefits go to the special interests — and the most special of those interests, at least since Reagan was president, have been the very rich.
Yeah, I know — if you read this blog, it's not exactly news to you.
So now we're at a point when Keynes (like most contemporary economists) would recommend stimulus. Thanks to eighty years of getting Keynes wrong, though, our national debt is a bit on the high side. The "democratically elected" pols — Republicans, especially, but plenty of Democrats as well — are righteously demanding austerity. But why, especially when we need stimulus so badly, and interest rates are so low?
The answer, of course, goes back to those extra-special interests — the people and institutions that own that debt. They can never be losers, of course, so the rest of us have to pay.
I'm too old and lazy to start a revolution and, frankly, I wouldn't know even where to begin now that revolutions seem to start on Facebook and Twitter. I have to tell you, I'm not optimistic. Any suggestions?
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