I was idly Googling myself this morning [all right, all right. Let he who is without sin snark the first snark!], and I came upon the blog of GTChristie, who has often commented on this blog. His url is http://hypermoxie.blogspot.com. He has a long discussion of, and disagreement with, some things I said about Marx. I advise you to visit the blog site to get the full detail of what he said, but the heart of it is his assertion that it is technology, not capitalism, that has been [and continues to be] the driving force in producing dramatic socio-economic change. Readers of this blog will recall that I expressed my agreement with Marx that capitalism was the most revolutionary force the world has ever seen.
He is of course right about the importance of technological innovation in the transformations of the last several centuries, and I am not sure how much is to be gained by debating the relative importance of capitalist social relations as opposed to technology in those transformations, but I do actually believe that I am right [or rather that Marx is right], so let me take a moment to explain why. If this seems a bit too much like inside baseball, just view it as a private conversation between GTChristie and myself, carried on in cyberspace rather than in a livingroom.
By technology, I mean, and I assume GT means, scientific discoveries and engineering innovations that change the way in which goods are produced and distributed. The steam engine, the railroad, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the telephone, the assembly line, the computer, and so forth. There is no question that the introduction of these innovations has revolutionized the world's economies, and with that, the lives of virtually all of the people on earth. Why then do I disagree with GT that this technology has been the driving revolutionizing force.
Well, to answer the question as simply as I can [and taking into account my very limited historical and technological knowledge], because there have been a number of societies in which major technological discoveries were made, but in which these discoveries did not trigger the sort of revolutionary change we are talking about. The principle of the steam engine was known to the ancient Romans, but was viewed by them as a curiosity, a toy. In an economy powered by slave labor, there was no driving impetus leading entrepreneurs to invest capital for profit and to seize upon technological innovations as a way to get a competitive edge in a free market. The same is true for Chinese society, in which a great many astonishing scientific and technological discoveries were made [paper, gunpowder, etc] without producing the transformative change characteristic of eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century Europe and then America.
the great nineteenth century sociologists puzzled over this a good deal, trying to figure out what it was about European society that brought capitalism into being. Max Weber, the greatest of them all, famously identified the secularization of the Protestant Ethic as the key differentia.
Furthermore, in the early stages of capitalist development, the explosion in production was facilitated less by technological innovation than by changes in the social organization of production. Technology played a role, to be sure, but even when there were no special technological changes, the introduction of capitalist social relations had an explosive effect.
Well, there is a vast amount more to say, and I welcome a response from GT, if he is so moved. But that in an nutshell is why I stand by my celebration of capitalism as the driving force in the transformation of the modern world.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS
Two weeks from now, Susie and I will go to Cambridge, MA for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of an undergraduate interdisciplinary program at Harvard called Social Studies. I was the first Head Tutor of the program in 1960-61, as readers of my Memoir will recall. There is a day-long program of symposia and speeches on Saturday, September 25th, and I have been penciled in to make a few remarks at the lunch, which will be held in the Adams House dining room. On the program with me, I am very sorry to say, will be Martin Peretz, who was involved with Social Studies a little later than was I.
Back in 1960, Marty was an egregious little wannabe hanger-on to the group of young proto-lefties who called ourselves "The New Left Club of Cambridge," but subsequently, he married money, bought The New Republic, and turned that fine old progressive magazine into a flack for the State of Israel. Marty has done well for himself, if you ignore the sort of person he is. It seems there is a Martin Peretz Professorship of Yiddish Literature at Harvard, no less. A scholarship fund will now be set up in his name at Harvard, and he will be honored at the lunch.
When I heard that I was going to be sharing the podium with Marty, I thought seriously about canceling. I don't know how much time I have left on this earth, and somehow spending even a lunch of it in the presence of Marty Peretz doesn't strike me as a good use of my time. But I am genuinely proud of my small role in the establishment of Social Studies, and besides, Susie and I have arranged to have dinner Friday evening with our old friends, Milton Cantor and Margaret Taylor. So we will go.
Now I read that Marty has shot his mouth off about the controversy surrounding the proposed Muslim community center near the former World Trade Center in New York. Here is what he is quoted as having said: "But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."
Apparently a doctorate from Harvard isn't what it is cracked up to be. Marty is under the impression that the First Amendment protections are a "privilege" -- which, I am sure, he imagines he has earned. I wonder whether he has remembered to register as an agent of a foreign power.
I told Anya Bernstein, the current Head of Social Studies, that I was well brought up and will behave myself at the lunch, but I begged her not to seat me next to Marty at the head table. She agreed.
Back in 1960, Marty was an egregious little wannabe hanger-on to the group of young proto-lefties who called ourselves "The New Left Club of Cambridge," but subsequently, he married money, bought The New Republic, and turned that fine old progressive magazine into a flack for the State of Israel. Marty has done well for himself, if you ignore the sort of person he is. It seems there is a Martin Peretz Professorship of Yiddish Literature at Harvard, no less. A scholarship fund will now be set up in his name at Harvard, and he will be honored at the lunch.
When I heard that I was going to be sharing the podium with Marty, I thought seriously about canceling. I don't know how much time I have left on this earth, and somehow spending even a lunch of it in the presence of Marty Peretz doesn't strike me as a good use of my time. But I am genuinely proud of my small role in the establishment of Social Studies, and besides, Susie and I have arranged to have dinner Friday evening with our old friends, Milton Cantor and Margaret Taylor. So we will go.
Now I read that Marty has shot his mouth off about the controversy surrounding the proposed Muslim community center near the former World Trade Center in New York. Here is what he is quoted as having said: "But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."
Apparently a doctorate from Harvard isn't what it is cracked up to be. Marty is under the impression that the First Amendment protections are a "privilege" -- which, I am sure, he imagines he has earned. I wonder whether he has remembered to register as an agent of a foreign power.
I told Anya Bernstein, the current Head of Social Studies, that I was well brought up and will behave myself at the lunch, but I begged her not to seat me next to Marty at the head table. She agreed.
Monday, 6 September 2010
PEDAGOGUE-IN-CHIEF
Good teaching requires, First, that one understand the subject being taught so thoroughly and well that one can see a simple, direct, clear story line leading from the problem to its solution, or from the topic to its elucidation; and Second, that one be able to put oneself in the place of the student and grasp what the student needs to know at each stage of the explanation in order to follow it successfully and with steadily growing comprehension. The first desideratum is difficult enough, to be sure, but it is the second that defeats even quite intelligent and knowledgeable would-be teachers.
All of us who have guided doctoral dissertations are familiar with the student who is so deeply into the details of his or her research as to be utterly incapable of explaining it to someone less familiar with the topic, or perhaps completely unfamiliar with it. In preparing doctoral students for job interviews, where they will be expected to say something about their research, I tell them that they should be able to give four distinct answers to the question, "What are you working on?" The first answer is a phrase ["Kant's Ethics"], the second is a sentence. ["I am tracing the sources of Kant's ethical theory to twelfth century cabbalistic teachings." Just a joke, folks.] The third is a five minute overview of the entire project, suitable for the interview, and the fourth is a one hour job talk, in effect a short publishable journal article. Even students who can do a quite creditable job of the fourth find the first and second difficult and the third nigh on impossible. They are so far inside their work that they simply cannot imagine the state of mind of an interviewer who is intelligent but relatively clueless about the student's field of specialization.
Precisely the same skills required for good teaching make for effective explanations in a political setting. All of us, I am sure, have listened to politicians talking about some piece of legislation whose discourse is filled with acronyms, shorthand phrases, and other bits of inside-dopester jargon that are simply incomprehensible to the general public. The sense they communicate, roughly, is that they are experts on the subject who cannot be bothered to explain things to people who have not, in W. S. Gilbert's immortal phrase, "got up all the germs of the transcendental terms." The result is off-putting, condescending, and utterly unpersuasive.
As an example of good teaching [and I say this without n shred of false modesty, a vice of which I have never been accused!], take a look at www.robert-wolff.blogspot.com, the blog on which I expounded Game Theory and Collective Choice Theory over many days. This is very difficult material, but I dare say at every step along the way, I have introduced things in such a manner that even someone completely unfamiliar with the subject can follow along and understand how one gets from one step to the next. The same thing is true of my exposition of Classical and Marxian economic theory in my book UNDERSTANDING MARX, and of the central argument of the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON in KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY.
Now, Barack Obama is obviously an extremely intelligent and extraordinarily knowledgeable person. My guess is that when it comes to something like the health care reform legislation, he has a level of detailed knowledge and understanding that rivals that of people for whom the ins and outs of such legislation is their bread and butter. But smart and knowledgeable though he may be, Obama is a simply terrible teacher. He has not the slightest idea how to explain things so that they are, at one and the same time, clear, simple, precisely correct, and attuned to the state of knowledge and comprehension of those to whom he is speaking. Like many intelligent people who are bad teachers, he manages to communicate the sense that he understands these things and thinks that people who hold wrong-headed views about them are just dumb. He is an inspirational speaker, a speaker capable of gravitas, of humor, of elevation. But he just is not a good teacher.
Consider, for example, the grotesque charge leveled by Sarah Palin and then taken up by supposedly serious [and certainly very dull] Republicans like Charles Grassley, that the health care reform bill had in it a provision for Death Panels. Obama knew that that was nonsense, and I suspect he had contempt for anyone who was stupid enough to think it was true [as do I, by the way], but instead of explaining simply and clearly what was in the bill, and why it was silly to call that "Death Panels," he just denied the claim, which left him looking like someone who was trying to conceal a terrible and inhuman provision that he and similar Seniors-hating Liberals had sneaked into the bill.
It is interesting to contrast Obama with Bill Clinton, another extremely intelligent presidential policy wonk, who, whatever his other faults, is vastly better than Obama at the business of teaching.
I suspect that Obama actually thinks that he is a good teacher [he did, after all, teach Con Law at Chicago for a while], and therefore has no sense at all that there is a skill he needs to develop. If I ever get to speak to him [sure sure], I will tell him.
All of us who have guided doctoral dissertations are familiar with the student who is so deeply into the details of his or her research as to be utterly incapable of explaining it to someone less familiar with the topic, or perhaps completely unfamiliar with it. In preparing doctoral students for job interviews, where they will be expected to say something about their research, I tell them that they should be able to give four distinct answers to the question, "What are you working on?" The first answer is a phrase ["Kant's Ethics"], the second is a sentence. ["I am tracing the sources of Kant's ethical theory to twelfth century cabbalistic teachings." Just a joke, folks.] The third is a five minute overview of the entire project, suitable for the interview, and the fourth is a one hour job talk, in effect a short publishable journal article. Even students who can do a quite creditable job of the fourth find the first and second difficult and the third nigh on impossible. They are so far inside their work that they simply cannot imagine the state of mind of an interviewer who is intelligent but relatively clueless about the student's field of specialization.
Precisely the same skills required for good teaching make for effective explanations in a political setting. All of us, I am sure, have listened to politicians talking about some piece of legislation whose discourse is filled with acronyms, shorthand phrases, and other bits of inside-dopester jargon that are simply incomprehensible to the general public. The sense they communicate, roughly, is that they are experts on the subject who cannot be bothered to explain things to people who have not, in W. S. Gilbert's immortal phrase, "got up all the germs of the transcendental terms." The result is off-putting, condescending, and utterly unpersuasive.
As an example of good teaching [and I say this without n shred of false modesty, a vice of which I have never been accused!], take a look at www.robert-wolff.blogspot.com, the blog on which I expounded Game Theory and Collective Choice Theory over many days. This is very difficult material, but I dare say at every step along the way, I have introduced things in such a manner that even someone completely unfamiliar with the subject can follow along and understand how one gets from one step to the next. The same thing is true of my exposition of Classical and Marxian economic theory in my book UNDERSTANDING MARX, and of the central argument of the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON in KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY.
Now, Barack Obama is obviously an extremely intelligent and extraordinarily knowledgeable person. My guess is that when it comes to something like the health care reform legislation, he has a level of detailed knowledge and understanding that rivals that of people for whom the ins and outs of such legislation is their bread and butter. But smart and knowledgeable though he may be, Obama is a simply terrible teacher. He has not the slightest idea how to explain things so that they are, at one and the same time, clear, simple, precisely correct, and attuned to the state of knowledge and comprehension of those to whom he is speaking. Like many intelligent people who are bad teachers, he manages to communicate the sense that he understands these things and thinks that people who hold wrong-headed views about them are just dumb. He is an inspirational speaker, a speaker capable of gravitas, of humor, of elevation. But he just is not a good teacher.
Consider, for example, the grotesque charge leveled by Sarah Palin and then taken up by supposedly serious [and certainly very dull] Republicans like Charles Grassley, that the health care reform bill had in it a provision for Death Panels. Obama knew that that was nonsense, and I suspect he had contempt for anyone who was stupid enough to think it was true [as do I, by the way], but instead of explaining simply and clearly what was in the bill, and why it was silly to call that "Death Panels," he just denied the claim, which left him looking like someone who was trying to conceal a terrible and inhuman provision that he and similar Seniors-hating Liberals had sneaked into the bill.
It is interesting to contrast Obama with Bill Clinton, another extremely intelligent presidential policy wonk, who, whatever his other faults, is vastly better than Obama at the business of teaching.
I suspect that Obama actually thinks that he is a good teacher [he did, after all, teach Con Law at Chicago for a while], and therefore has no sense at all that there is a skill he needs to develop. If I ever get to speak to him [sure sure], I will tell him.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
ONE LAST TURN OF THE SCREW
I am not sure how interesting this debate is to anyone save Chris and myself, so I am going to have one more go at responding to some of the things he and others have said and then move on to other topics. First things first. Chris is obviously intelligent and knowledgeable, so, that being the case, he is, as far as I am concerned, the best judge of the world from his perspective [by which I mean, the world in which he actually lives, not the world "in his opinion."] I am not in a position to tell him how he ought to weigh the realities and demands of his life, nor would he, I am sure, try to tell me how I ought to see my life. I am in the twilight of my years, and he is at the beginning of what will, I trust, be a long and deeply committed life. In a country of more than three hundred million people, there will be a vast array of such different and sometimes conflicting points of view. Anyone who is serious about social change, as Chris and I are, must recognize and acknowledge that fact, and work with it.
As I have often observed, major social change is not like brain surgery -- a delicate, exquisitely precise activity in which the slightest wrong move can be catastrophic. Rather it is like an avalanche, with pebbles, boulders, tree trunks, and great gobbets of dirt rolling down a hill. The important thing is to be on the right side of the hill. I watched, and was the tiniest of pebbles on the fringes of, the great social change called the Civil Rights Movement. Down the hill thundered Ella Baker, John Lewis, Malcolm, Martin, great boulders and tree trunks all. Along with them came smaller rocks and branches -- among them my colleagues in the UMass Afro-American Studies department, Mike Thelwell, Esther Terry, Bill Strickland. I also was a tiny pebble in the other great social change of my lifetime, the movement for Women's Liberation.
Now, neither of these movements was revolutionary, if by that you mean, as I do, a challenge to the hegemony of Capital. Indeed, both the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement can best be understood as perfections of, not threats to, Capitalism. Both of them removed irrational and counter-productive constraints on the labor market. Capitalism, as I suggested in an earlier post, is a thoroughly secular socio-economic formation that treats all persons alike -- as exploitable labor.
Contrary to Chris, I do not view the so-called Tea Party movement as in the slightest revolutionary. It neither seeks to undermine capitalism nor could have the slightest effect on capitalism if it tried to. It is at its most serious [and this is very serious indeed, in my opinion], a mobilization of right-wing sentiment capable of swaying elections, especially in an off year. In this way, it is similar too, though a good deal less impressive than, the mobilization of sentiment by the 2008 Obama campaign, which also was not in the slightest revolutionary.
As I have argued at length in my paper, "The Future of Socialism," Marx was correct in asserting that revolutionary socio-economic change arises out of transformations of the social relations of production internal to the established order. In the past century, the greatest transformation of capitalism has been the substitution of joint stock limited liability corporations for privately owned enterprises. This change, which is now complete, has totally altered the structure of the ownership and control of capital, in ways that make Capitalism less vulnerable to a socialist transformation, not more. [Or at least, so it appears to me].
So talk of Revolution, though thrilling, is analytically without a material basis in the present structure of the economy.
One word about the structure of American politics in comparison to the politics of most Europeans nations. The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they designed our political system. It was explicitly intended to protect and preserve the institution of slavery, and so it did for three-quarters of a century. I think it is quite possible that a parliamentary system, coupled with a voting system other than our winner-take-all method of choosing representatives, might produce a more progressive politics, but I also am quite sure that a wide array of entrenched interests protected by the present system would have little difficulty in defeating any effort to make a fundamental constitutional revision.
Where does all of that leave Chris and me? It is for Chris to say where it leaves him, but I have already indicated where it leaves me -- disappointed and dismayed, but not dissuaded from doing what I can to improve the lives of my fellow Americans [as well as others elsewhere in the world, but there are limits to what one old guy can attempt!] As regards Afghanistan, I have several times written on this blog that Obama's decisions are wrong -- wrong strategically, wrong morally, even wrong politically. The larger issue, which I addressed not too long ago on this blog, is the imperial American world policy that all politicians, left, right, and center have pursued for the last sixty years and more. I protested against the abortive invasion of Cuba by Kennedy, and I have been protesting every other American imperial move since. I never expected Obama to alter that imperial stance, and, quite frankly, I think that if, mirabile dictu, a socialist revolution took place in American tomorrow, the new Maximum Leader would pursue the same unjustifiable imperial policy. Nothing in the world politics of the last three quarters of a century suggests otherwise.
As I have often observed, major social change is not like brain surgery -- a delicate, exquisitely precise activity in which the slightest wrong move can be catastrophic. Rather it is like an avalanche, with pebbles, boulders, tree trunks, and great gobbets of dirt rolling down a hill. The important thing is to be on the right side of the hill. I watched, and was the tiniest of pebbles on the fringes of, the great social change called the Civil Rights Movement. Down the hill thundered Ella Baker, John Lewis, Malcolm, Martin, great boulders and tree trunks all. Along with them came smaller rocks and branches -- among them my colleagues in the UMass Afro-American Studies department, Mike Thelwell, Esther Terry, Bill Strickland. I also was a tiny pebble in the other great social change of my lifetime, the movement for Women's Liberation.
Now, neither of these movements was revolutionary, if by that you mean, as I do, a challenge to the hegemony of Capital. Indeed, both the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement can best be understood as perfections of, not threats to, Capitalism. Both of them removed irrational and counter-productive constraints on the labor market. Capitalism, as I suggested in an earlier post, is a thoroughly secular socio-economic formation that treats all persons alike -- as exploitable labor.
Contrary to Chris, I do not view the so-called Tea Party movement as in the slightest revolutionary. It neither seeks to undermine capitalism nor could have the slightest effect on capitalism if it tried to. It is at its most serious [and this is very serious indeed, in my opinion], a mobilization of right-wing sentiment capable of swaying elections, especially in an off year. In this way, it is similar too, though a good deal less impressive than, the mobilization of sentiment by the 2008 Obama campaign, which also was not in the slightest revolutionary.
As I have argued at length in my paper, "The Future of Socialism," Marx was correct in asserting that revolutionary socio-economic change arises out of transformations of the social relations of production internal to the established order. In the past century, the greatest transformation of capitalism has been the substitution of joint stock limited liability corporations for privately owned enterprises. This change, which is now complete, has totally altered the structure of the ownership and control of capital, in ways that make Capitalism less vulnerable to a socialist transformation, not more. [Or at least, so it appears to me].
So talk of Revolution, though thrilling, is analytically without a material basis in the present structure of the economy.
One word about the structure of American politics in comparison to the politics of most Europeans nations. The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they designed our political system. It was explicitly intended to protect and preserve the institution of slavery, and so it did for three-quarters of a century. I think it is quite possible that a parliamentary system, coupled with a voting system other than our winner-take-all method of choosing representatives, might produce a more progressive politics, but I also am quite sure that a wide array of entrenched interests protected by the present system would have little difficulty in defeating any effort to make a fundamental constitutional revision.
Where does all of that leave Chris and me? It is for Chris to say where it leaves him, but I have already indicated where it leaves me -- disappointed and dismayed, but not dissuaded from doing what I can to improve the lives of my fellow Americans [as well as others elsewhere in the world, but there are limits to what one old guy can attempt!] As regards Afghanistan, I have several times written on this blog that Obama's decisions are wrong -- wrong strategically, wrong morally, even wrong politically. The larger issue, which I addressed not too long ago on this blog, is the imperial American world policy that all politicians, left, right, and center have pursued for the last sixty years and more. I protested against the abortive invasion of Cuba by Kennedy, and I have been protesting every other American imperial move since. I never expected Obama to alter that imperial stance, and, quite frankly, I think that if, mirabile dictu, a socialist revolution took place in American tomorrow, the new Maximum Leader would pursue the same unjustifiable imperial policy. Nothing in the world politics of the last three quarters of a century suggests otherwise.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
LA LUCHA CONTINUA
Chris, who has been posting strong and extended comments about my remarks, has run into some sort of weird html problem in posting a comment, so he emailed me, and I suggested that if he sent me his comment as an email, I could post it as a guest post, in effect.
Here it is:
Professor Wolff,
First of all, I really do want to thank you for taking the time to hold this discussion. As a soon to graduate with a baccalaureate degree in political science, I'm glad to have: 1. A radical professor discussing his views in my presence, albeit online, and 2. a professor even willing to go to the degree of conversation I tend to aim towards regarding all things political.
I have to say, my life is the polar opposite of yours. Since high-school, my family and I have become poorer and poorer, as has my long-term (7 years this month) girlfriends. She works full-time and I am a full-time student on loans. We live in a 1 room studio apartment, in a 'okay' side of town - could be better - and are about as low class - fiscally - as is possible without seeking government aid. Yet I find myself, still taking a radical position, that according to you will not benefit me in the slightest, or my girlfriend, or those of my position. Well, I have to disagree.
I would like to start with your health care claims, which I found to be fundamentally, and factually false. Mind you, I've spent two semesters heavily researching the topic, so if you doubt what I say, I don't mind providing sources. For now, I shall just lay out my essential disagreements. You state, erroneously:
"You want a single-payer health care insurance system? In the absence of the Republican Party, it would have been part of the bill recently passed. "
No offense professor, but this is dead wrong. Only two members in the entire congress actually fought tooth and nail for such a thing, and only a very small handful - maybe fifteen - actually supported it openly initially. Barack Obama never once met with a single advocate of a single-payer or socialist system. As a matter of fact, the few public citizens who showed up at congress advocating the system were arrested. They were never given a voice with ANYONE in congress except Dennis Kucinich. And the man Obama put in charge of health-care overhaul in the senate, senator max baucus- had extensive ties to numerous private health companies, as did his aids. When he allowed 15 separate lobby groups to voice their opinion on the matter not one was a single payer advocate, and maybe one was a public option supported. This was Obama's pick. Moreover, Obama quailed on single payer right away, and never once even advocated for a single payer system. By doing so, he started the initial reform in the left-center, and it moved, unsurprisingly to the right. All the while he was negotiating back-room deals with pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance companies (check the white house record logs) that benefited them, not me and my girlfriend. Furthermore, the idea that we just needed no republicans is fatuous, as max baucus was a democrat! And even Rahm Emanuel was an active participant in squashing a single-payer system. Furthermore, congress was primarily democrats, and the handful of serious progressives were told single-payer was off the table for discussion, and even a public option was fuzzy at best. These were not republicans that killed a quality health-care bill, these were Democrats, working in tandem with big health industry groups, that helped to kill it; since they held the majority. And, since we all know single-payer would save the government hundreds of billions of dollars, they could passed a single payer bill with the democrat majority using reconciliation. So all excuses that the democrats had to negotiate with Republicans, is more Washington Orwellian showmanship, duping the public. Which, is understandable, most of them didn't spend the time I did researching the affair.
Now the actual bill is strongly going to hurt me. Keep in mind professor, you think your side, the well-to-do, well-off, retired, and socially conscience side, is struggling for the dirt-poor, abject student loan debt, one room living quarters, side. This simply is not the case. Now, somehow, I am forced, literally, into a health-care system I want absolutely nothing to do with since it's merely a handout to private industry and only delays the inevitable crash of our overall health-care system (I could elaborate on that more, using diabetes statistics, obesity, raising of drug prices, premiums, and bankruptcy, etc, but not now). In my present condition I have not a penny in my budget to garner health-care with. I will literally have to stop putting gas in may car, or eating quality healthy foods(which defeats the purpose). The fact of the matter is, this bill is an expenditure that is seriously going to hurt me, and I never wanted to imposed on me in the first place! And the Democrats bear more responsibility than the Republicans. Frankly, I wish the bill had been defeated by Republicans.
Your next major claim is that the Republicans are threatening social security. Well so are the Democrats. You seem to think the line between both parties is thicker than I. This is because I know the parties are no different, it's other institutions of power that do the serious motivation. The Republicans and Democrats merely serve as yes-men to whoever will back the party the most. And the people backing the destruction of Social Security will win-out, regardless of who is in power. Even Obama's former budget director Peter Orzag had serious intentions of scaling back social security. As do numerous other members in his cabinet, and advisory panels. Might I remind you of his State of the Union speech where he indicated he was going to cut social spending, not defense, to reign in the budget? This mad is a finance-capitalist wet dream come true. He rallies the left into going against their own politics!
Finally, outside of finance-capitalist institutional power threat, the next serious threat to social wealth fare is defense spending. Everyone, regardless of party, or politics, agrees the US budget is a disaster, and probably moribund. And there's no doubt a major problem of this is our outrageous defense spending, which equals the rest of the world combined. Not to mention our 860 military bases, occupying over 65 countries. And what does Obama do, with this, the mother of all budget hurdles? He expands bases in Europe, Latin America, the Middle-East, Pacific Islands, and Africa. He expands wars in the Middle-East, and clandestine drone operations in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle-East. Not surprisingly, he also expands the overall defense budget. And the only emergency expenditure him and congress ever pass, is defense – offense - related. Democrats too of course. This is unsurprising given his far-to-the-right defense team and personal analyst. If we want proper social spending, and we do, defense needs to be addressed asap, and the Democrats are AS BAD AS the Republicans in this regard.
Anyway professor, I'm glad your conscience is in the right place, I just disagree over the fundamental facts. I know you're an ally, not an enemy, of the people, so I appreciate the discussion. However, given the present political climate, I'm in favor of one thing only – revolution, because our system is set to destruct anyway. And sad to say, the left isn't offering it. And the tea party - the only viable revolutionary party - has solid grievances, but dreadful solutions.
Here it is:
Professor Wolff,
First of all, I really do want to thank you for taking the time to hold this discussion. As a soon to graduate with a baccalaureate degree in political science, I'm glad to have: 1. A radical professor discussing his views in my presence, albeit online, and 2. a professor even willing to go to the degree of conversation I tend to aim towards regarding all things political.
I have to say, my life is the polar opposite of yours. Since high-school, my family and I have become poorer and poorer, as has my long-term (7 years this month) girlfriends. She works full-time and I am a full-time student on loans. We live in a 1 room studio apartment, in a 'okay' side of town - could be better - and are about as low class - fiscally - as is possible without seeking government aid. Yet I find myself, still taking a radical position, that according to you will not benefit me in the slightest, or my girlfriend, or those of my position. Well, I have to disagree.
I would like to start with your health care claims, which I found to be fundamentally, and factually false. Mind you, I've spent two semesters heavily researching the topic, so if you doubt what I say, I don't mind providing sources. For now, I shall just lay out my essential disagreements. You state, erroneously:
"You want a single-payer health care insurance system? In the absence of the Republican Party, it would have been part of the bill recently passed. "
No offense professor, but this is dead wrong. Only two members in the entire congress actually fought tooth and nail for such a thing, and only a very small handful - maybe fifteen - actually supported it openly initially. Barack Obama never once met with a single advocate of a single-payer or socialist system. As a matter of fact, the few public citizens who showed up at congress advocating the system were arrested. They were never given a voice with ANYONE in congress except Dennis Kucinich. And the man Obama put in charge of health-care overhaul in the senate, senator max baucus- had extensive ties to numerous private health companies, as did his aids. When he allowed 15 separate lobby groups to voice their opinion on the matter not one was a single payer advocate, and maybe one was a public option supported. This was Obama's pick. Moreover, Obama quailed on single payer right away, and never once even advocated for a single payer system. By doing so, he started the initial reform in the left-center, and it moved, unsurprisingly to the right. All the while he was negotiating back-room deals with pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance companies (check the white house record logs) that benefited them, not me and my girlfriend. Furthermore, the idea that we just needed no republicans is fatuous, as max baucus was a democrat! And even Rahm Emanuel was an active participant in squashing a single-payer system. Furthermore, congress was primarily democrats, and the handful of serious progressives were told single-payer was off the table for discussion, and even a public option was fuzzy at best. These were not republicans that killed a quality health-care bill, these were Democrats, working in tandem with big health industry groups, that helped to kill it; since they held the majority. And, since we all know single-payer would save the government hundreds of billions of dollars, they could passed a single payer bill with the democrat majority using reconciliation. So all excuses that the democrats had to negotiate with Republicans, is more Washington Orwellian showmanship, duping the public. Which, is understandable, most of them didn't spend the time I did researching the affair.
Now the actual bill is strongly going to hurt me. Keep in mind professor, you think your side, the well-to-do, well-off, retired, and socially conscience side, is struggling for the dirt-poor, abject student loan debt, one room living quarters, side. This simply is not the case. Now, somehow, I am forced, literally, into a health-care system I want absolutely nothing to do with since it's merely a handout to private industry and only delays the inevitable crash of our overall health-care system (I could elaborate on that more, using diabetes statistics, obesity, raising of drug prices, premiums, and bankruptcy, etc, but not now). In my present condition I have not a penny in my budget to garner health-care with. I will literally have to stop putting gas in may car, or eating quality healthy foods(which defeats the purpose). The fact of the matter is, this bill is an expenditure that is seriously going to hurt me, and I never wanted to imposed on me in the first place! And the Democrats bear more responsibility than the Republicans. Frankly, I wish the bill had been defeated by Republicans.
Your next major claim is that the Republicans are threatening social security. Well so are the Democrats. You seem to think the line between both parties is thicker than I. This is because I know the parties are no different, it's other institutions of power that do the serious motivation. The Republicans and Democrats merely serve as yes-men to whoever will back the party the most. And the people backing the destruction of Social Security will win-out, regardless of who is in power. Even Obama's former budget director Peter Orzag had serious intentions of scaling back social security. As do numerous other members in his cabinet, and advisory panels. Might I remind you of his State of the Union speech where he indicated he was going to cut social spending, not defense, to reign in the budget? This mad is a finance-capitalist wet dream come true. He rallies the left into going against their own politics!
Finally, outside of finance-capitalist institutional power threat, the next serious threat to social wealth fare is defense spending. Everyone, regardless of party, or politics, agrees the US budget is a disaster, and probably moribund. And there's no doubt a major problem of this is our outrageous defense spending, which equals the rest of the world combined. Not to mention our 860 military bases, occupying over 65 countries. And what does Obama do, with this, the mother of all budget hurdles? He expands bases in Europe, Latin America, the Middle-East, Pacific Islands, and Africa. He expands wars in the Middle-East, and clandestine drone operations in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle-East. Not surprisingly, he also expands the overall defense budget. And the only emergency expenditure him and congress ever pass, is defense – offense - related. Democrats too of course. This is unsurprising given his far-to-the-right defense team and personal analyst. If we want proper social spending, and we do, defense needs to be addressed asap, and the Democrats are AS BAD AS the Republicans in this regard.
Anyway professor, I'm glad your conscience is in the right place, I just disagree over the fundamental facts. I know you're an ally, not an enemy, of the people, so I appreciate the discussion. However, given the present political climate, I'm in favor of one thing only – revolution, because our system is set to destruct anyway. And sad to say, the left isn't offering it. And the tea party - the only viable revolutionary party - has solid grievances, but dreadful solutions.
A REPLY TO MY CRITICS
As I see it, the various criticisms posted in response to my recent political comments come down to this: How can a guy who makes a big deal about being an anarchist and a Marxist carry water for tools of the Establishment like Obama and his administration? There is a lot more detail, but that is pretty much what it comes down to. OK, let me respond. This is going to take a little while, so be patient.
I am going to start, not with abstract principles or world-historical ideological analysis but with my own personal life situation, because that really shapes the way in which I view politics. I retired two years ago, after a fifty year career in which I enjoyed ever-rising salaries, life tenure after the first six years, first-rate medical insurance and a secure pension. These facts alone place me in a distinct minority in American society -- a privileged minority. I and my wife are supported now by money from four sources: My University of Massachusetts pension, provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and quite secure, if for no other reason because it is part of the same pension system that provides for politicians and the state police; a small TIAA-CREF pension from my thirteen years in the private higher education sector; my Social Security payments; and Susie's Social Security payments. Our medical needs, which of course grow more urgent with advancing age, are met by a combination of Medicare and a supplementary plan associated with my Massachusetts pension. Our annual income is significantly smaller than it was when I was working full-time at UMass, but it is more than adequate to support a comfortable, secure life style. Despite the fact that Susie has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for twenty years, we have never had to worry that her disease would, as a "pre-existing condition," threaten our medical insurance, and thanks to our supplementary insurance, the sometimes very expensive medications that have been prescribed for her are always available for a nominal co-pay. In short, we are living exactly the life that seventy-five years of progressive state and federal legislation was designed to ensure.
There are scores, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans who do not have the actuality or the promise of this sort of a secure old age, and what security they do have is under constant threat by right-wing ideologues and politicians who seek to limit or privatize social security, terminate Medicare, and convert all pension plans into gambles on the stock market. At this moment, scores of millions of Americans are losing their homes, watching their pension plans evaporate, flocking to homeless shelters and free food pantries, and running out of even extended unemployment benefits.
Unfortunately, we have no convenient social metric for quantifying the human misery that is building up in this country, alongside the obscene enrichment of the self-styled Masters of the Universe whose annual bonuses are larger than the lifetime earnings of most Americans. [Lest this seem a bit of inflated rhetoric, reflect that a fifty year working career at an average salary of $50,000 is, in toto, $2,500,000 in earnings -- well below what countless Wall Street types are taking home each year as bonuses.]
When I look at the current political landscape, at the people who are now serving in the U. S. House and Senate or who seek to do so in the upcoming elections, there are, it seems to me, essentially three points of view I can adopt as someone whose political commitments and beliefs are very far to the left.
First, I can adopt what might be called an exalted version of the old British slogan, "I'm all right, Jack." Comfortable in my secure old age, I can cry "a pox on both your houses," and refuse to dirty myself by consorting with anyone in the public sphere, because none of them embraces my politics and therefore all of them, so far as I am concerned, are unworthy of my respect or my political support. This is a very noble stance, one quite consonant with my reputation as an uncompromising radical. And best of all, it is cost-free! My pensions and my medical insurance will be completely unaffected by this attitude. If the Republicans take over the House and Senate, indeed if Sarah Palin is elected President of the United States, absolutely nothing in my personal life will change one bit. The only problem is that there are scores, perhaps hundreds, of millions of Americans whose daily lives will be dramatically altered by such a rightward lurch. The health reform bill that radicals and progressives scorn will be repealed, and millions of Americans will lose their new won protection from "denial for pre-existing conditions." Medicare will start to evaporate, and millions of Americans will find that in old age, they cannot afford the medications that can so dramatically ameliorate their suffering and prolong, as well as enhance, their lives. Any hope for the re-expansion of labor unions will die, and those unions now in existence will be eviscerated by Federal legislation. Not my problem, of course, UNLESS I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN MY OWN WELL BEING.
Is there a difference between the two parties with respect to this sort of social safety net? Be serious. Of course there is. You want a single-payer health care insurance system? In the absence of the Republican Party, it would have been part of the bill recently passed. You want Social Security protected? It is not the Democratic party that is threatening it. Do I have to hold my nose when I vote for, work for, give money to, a Party with which I have such deep disagreements? Well, secure in my comfortable old age, that is not a terribly high price to pay for trying to help millions upon millions of Americans to gain some measure of the security I enjoy.
Second, I can take the position that from where I stand, there is no discernible difference between Barach Obama and Sarah Palin. They are all war criminals, all scoundrels, all pimps for Finance Capital, and nothing is to be gained by helping one rather than the other seize power. For reasons that I have already made clear, I do not actually believe that. But if you do, at least have the honesty and courage to stand up and embrace the implications of that position. Find a husband and wife whose child is dying because she had a pre-existing condition that denies her insurance coverage for the expensive operation she needs, and tell them, looking them right in the eye, that although you could of course fight for the preservation of the health care reform bill that the Republicans want to repeal -- a bill that will give their child the insurance for the operation -- you believe as a matter of principle that it would be wrong for you to do so, and you think they ought to be willing to lose their child in order to allow you to preserve your principles. What? you say. You alone cannot make the difference? My word, what a terrible pity for you that you are not, all by yourself, able to control the world. And that excuses you from doing what you can? I don't think so.
Third, I can adopt the position that the only way to dramatically change the lives of all Americans is to fight for a Socialist revolution, even if that means that along the way there will be "collateral damage" in the form of broken lives, miserable old age, higher unemployment, and the attendant unhappiness. Things must get worse before they can get better. That is always the price of revolutionary progress. Now, if I truly believed that such a revolution were possible in some not impossibly distant future, I might just conceivably consider this course, although I think that I would have an obligation to cut myself off from that benefits I now enjoy [although how I could do that without depriving my wife of them as well, I do not know.] And if someone wants to undertake a serious, fact based argument in support of that hypothesis, I would be eager to hear it. But the fact is I do not think we are at the brink of a Socialist revolution, and frankly, I do not know what one would look like in 2010.
So that leaves me, in effect, embracing what might be called a variant form of noblesse oblige. Since I am secure and comfortable, I believe I have an obligation to fight for the needs and welfare of those less fortunate. If someone can show me that withdrawing support from the Democratic Party and waiting for the victory of the Republican Party is the best way to do that, I will be happy to change my modus operandi.
I am going to start, not with abstract principles or world-historical ideological analysis but with my own personal life situation, because that really shapes the way in which I view politics. I retired two years ago, after a fifty year career in which I enjoyed ever-rising salaries, life tenure after the first six years, first-rate medical insurance and a secure pension. These facts alone place me in a distinct minority in American society -- a privileged minority. I and my wife are supported now by money from four sources: My University of Massachusetts pension, provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and quite secure, if for no other reason because it is part of the same pension system that provides for politicians and the state police; a small TIAA-CREF pension from my thirteen years in the private higher education sector; my Social Security payments; and Susie's Social Security payments. Our medical needs, which of course grow more urgent with advancing age, are met by a combination of Medicare and a supplementary plan associated with my Massachusetts pension. Our annual income is significantly smaller than it was when I was working full-time at UMass, but it is more than adequate to support a comfortable, secure life style. Despite the fact that Susie has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for twenty years, we have never had to worry that her disease would, as a "pre-existing condition," threaten our medical insurance, and thanks to our supplementary insurance, the sometimes very expensive medications that have been prescribed for her are always available for a nominal co-pay. In short, we are living exactly the life that seventy-five years of progressive state and federal legislation was designed to ensure.
There are scores, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans who do not have the actuality or the promise of this sort of a secure old age, and what security they do have is under constant threat by right-wing ideologues and politicians who seek to limit or privatize social security, terminate Medicare, and convert all pension plans into gambles on the stock market. At this moment, scores of millions of Americans are losing their homes, watching their pension plans evaporate, flocking to homeless shelters and free food pantries, and running out of even extended unemployment benefits.
Unfortunately, we have no convenient social metric for quantifying the human misery that is building up in this country, alongside the obscene enrichment of the self-styled Masters of the Universe whose annual bonuses are larger than the lifetime earnings of most Americans. [Lest this seem a bit of inflated rhetoric, reflect that a fifty year working career at an average salary of $50,000 is, in toto, $2,500,000 in earnings -- well below what countless Wall Street types are taking home each year as bonuses.]
When I look at the current political landscape, at the people who are now serving in the U. S. House and Senate or who seek to do so in the upcoming elections, there are, it seems to me, essentially three points of view I can adopt as someone whose political commitments and beliefs are very far to the left.
First, I can adopt what might be called an exalted version of the old British slogan, "I'm all right, Jack." Comfortable in my secure old age, I can cry "a pox on both your houses," and refuse to dirty myself by consorting with anyone in the public sphere, because none of them embraces my politics and therefore all of them, so far as I am concerned, are unworthy of my respect or my political support. This is a very noble stance, one quite consonant with my reputation as an uncompromising radical. And best of all, it is cost-free! My pensions and my medical insurance will be completely unaffected by this attitude. If the Republicans take over the House and Senate, indeed if Sarah Palin is elected President of the United States, absolutely nothing in my personal life will change one bit. The only problem is that there are scores, perhaps hundreds, of millions of Americans whose daily lives will be dramatically altered by such a rightward lurch. The health reform bill that radicals and progressives scorn will be repealed, and millions of Americans will lose their new won protection from "denial for pre-existing conditions." Medicare will start to evaporate, and millions of Americans will find that in old age, they cannot afford the medications that can so dramatically ameliorate their suffering and prolong, as well as enhance, their lives. Any hope for the re-expansion of labor unions will die, and those unions now in existence will be eviscerated by Federal legislation. Not my problem, of course, UNLESS I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN MY OWN WELL BEING.
Is there a difference between the two parties with respect to this sort of social safety net? Be serious. Of course there is. You want a single-payer health care insurance system? In the absence of the Republican Party, it would have been part of the bill recently passed. You want Social Security protected? It is not the Democratic party that is threatening it. Do I have to hold my nose when I vote for, work for, give money to, a Party with which I have such deep disagreements? Well, secure in my comfortable old age, that is not a terribly high price to pay for trying to help millions upon millions of Americans to gain some measure of the security I enjoy.
Second, I can take the position that from where I stand, there is no discernible difference between Barach Obama and Sarah Palin. They are all war criminals, all scoundrels, all pimps for Finance Capital, and nothing is to be gained by helping one rather than the other seize power. For reasons that I have already made clear, I do not actually believe that. But if you do, at least have the honesty and courage to stand up and embrace the implications of that position. Find a husband and wife whose child is dying because she had a pre-existing condition that denies her insurance coverage for the expensive operation she needs, and tell them, looking them right in the eye, that although you could of course fight for the preservation of the health care reform bill that the Republicans want to repeal -- a bill that will give their child the insurance for the operation -- you believe as a matter of principle that it would be wrong for you to do so, and you think they ought to be willing to lose their child in order to allow you to preserve your principles. What? you say. You alone cannot make the difference? My word, what a terrible pity for you that you are not, all by yourself, able to control the world. And that excuses you from doing what you can? I don't think so.
Third, I can adopt the position that the only way to dramatically change the lives of all Americans is to fight for a Socialist revolution, even if that means that along the way there will be "collateral damage" in the form of broken lives, miserable old age, higher unemployment, and the attendant unhappiness. Things must get worse before they can get better. That is always the price of revolutionary progress. Now, if I truly believed that such a revolution were possible in some not impossibly distant future, I might just conceivably consider this course, although I think that I would have an obligation to cut myself off from that benefits I now enjoy [although how I could do that without depriving my wife of them as well, I do not know.] And if someone wants to undertake a serious, fact based argument in support of that hypothesis, I would be eager to hear it. But the fact is I do not think we are at the brink of a Socialist revolution, and frankly, I do not know what one would look like in 2010.
So that leaves me, in effect, embracing what might be called a variant form of noblesse oblige. Since I am secure and comfortable, I believe I have an obligation to fight for the needs and welfare of those less fortunate. If someone can show me that withdrawing support from the Democratic Party and waiting for the victory of the Republican Party is the best way to do that, I will be happy to change my modus operandi.
Friday, 3 September 2010
A REPLY TO CHRIS AND OTHER DISPIRITED LEFTIES
I just think that you are plain wrong. I never imagined Obama was a left liberal, and I didn't campaign for him under that illusion. I thought he was a centrist, a left-centrist, in the framework of American politics, with the ability to mobilize the center and the left to defend against the horrors promised by the right. I was right about that. Had the depression not hit, he would in fact be doing quite well now, by his own lights, but quite well means successfully pursuing centrist-left policies. In point of fact, he has been astonishingly successful in that regard. The health reform bill is not a disaster, as you suggest. It is the best that we could get, given the realities of American politics, and he is the first president in ninety years to get it. You are mad at the wrong person. The real villain in this piece is the enormous number of Americans -- not, I think and hope a majority, but enormous none the less -- who are either conservative or hysterically insane with religious fantasies and political paranoia.
Do you want a genuinely leftist president? Fine, so do I. How do we get one? Answer, we change eighty or a hundred million Americans. Let me remind you -- and I was there, so I know -- that Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter were all Left Centrists at best. My grandfather gave his life to the Socialist Party, and its high point was electing him and six others to the NYC Board of Aldermen. This has NEVER been a country that was hospitable to genuinely leftist politics.
What we are now facing is a threat from the right unlike any I have seen in forty years. We are in danger of losing such tattered remains as we still have of a social safety net, and of seeing maniacal religious fanatics running our country. I am hoping that Obama will tap into his considerable political skills to stop that from happening, but even if he does, we will nonetheless be stuck with a politics that is markedly to the right of where it is now. These are godawful times, made all the more perilous by the fact that the very large number of genuine progressives in this country are dispirited.
You want some left wing inspiration? Remember that in 1905, Lenin and Trotsky and the rest saw the revolution come, and fail. They went right on working for twelve more years until the unanticipated First World War gave them an opportunity to seize power. We need some of that same patience and commitment now. We need to shore up Obama, and the Democratic Party, and then work as hard as we can to push it and the rest of the country to the left.
Is that what I would like to be doing? Hardly. At seventy-six, I would like to be relaxing, playing with my grandchildren, and watching the country march steadfastly into a socialist future. Fat chance. My best hope is to see the present religious hysteria die away, as it has before many times in the last four hundred years of American history, and to see good decent progressives score some limited victories that will help the scores of millions of Americans who are in dire straits.
If that is not good enough for you, then you are not serious about politics.
Do you want a genuinely leftist president? Fine, so do I. How do we get one? Answer, we change eighty or a hundred million Americans. Let me remind you -- and I was there, so I know -- that Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter were all Left Centrists at best. My grandfather gave his life to the Socialist Party, and its high point was electing him and six others to the NYC Board of Aldermen. This has NEVER been a country that was hospitable to genuinely leftist politics.
What we are now facing is a threat from the right unlike any I have seen in forty years. We are in danger of losing such tattered remains as we still have of a social safety net, and of seeing maniacal religious fanatics running our country. I am hoping that Obama will tap into his considerable political skills to stop that from happening, but even if he does, we will nonetheless be stuck with a politics that is markedly to the right of where it is now. These are godawful times, made all the more perilous by the fact that the very large number of genuine progressives in this country are dispirited.
You want some left wing inspiration? Remember that in 1905, Lenin and Trotsky and the rest saw the revolution come, and fail. They went right on working for twelve more years until the unanticipated First World War gave them an opportunity to seize power. We need some of that same patience and commitment now. We need to shore up Obama, and the Democratic Party, and then work as hard as we can to push it and the rest of the country to the left.
Is that what I would like to be doing? Hardly. At seventy-six, I would like to be relaxing, playing with my grandchildren, and watching the country march steadfastly into a socialist future. Fat chance. My best hope is to see the present religious hysteria die away, as it has before many times in the last four hundred years of American history, and to see good decent progressives score some limited victories that will help the scores of millions of Americans who are in dire straits.
If that is not good enough for you, then you are not serious about politics.
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