So, on my way out of town yesterday, I parked my car in Armory Square and walked down to the Occupy Syracuse site.
They’ve been there for about three weeks now, a bunch of protestors camping out, standing in the rain, handing out flyers, organizing meetings. They’re set up next to the downtown bus station.
They’ve been there three weeks and I’ve been meaning to go down and see what’s going on, get out of the car, not just drive by. See if this is something that I might want to be a part of.
But excuses come up.
Time, mostly. I’ve been busy. Always busy. It’s hard to find the time. Hard to find the time to fit anything more in at all, whatever it might be.
And not just time.
Sort of, the hope. The hope that this could be exactly the sort of thing I’ve been waiting for. The flip side of that hope. The fear that it could be something else entirely, and that I’d walk away disappointed, maybe bitter. My experiences with the Syracuse activist community have been mixed. There are some awesome people out there doing some very good things. And then there are people who greatest desire seems not to be to create change, but to sigh and be misunderstood and complain about the mainstream media and feel somehow above it all. I’ve gone to things with a lot of hope in me, and have watched that second group sort of take over, and it has been disappointing.
So, time, mostly. Because that’s really the biggest factor, always.
But that hope part too, that fear of disappointment part.
But on my way out of town, I parked the car, I walked a couple of blocks in the rain, and I talked to some of the people helping to lead events.
And I was impressed with it. Very much so.
And now I want to be a part of it.
In some way. Because time is still tight. I can’t pitch my tent and camp there for the next few weeks. And I can’t be there every single night passing out flyers and talking to people. I’ve got a four year old that I already feel like I don’t spend enough time with. I’ve got a job that expects me to be there; a good job, doing good things that I believe in. And a wife that I like to see now and then. And dishes to be done. Lots of dishes. And a mom living in my rec room while she recovers from surgery. And an eleven year old kid that I hang out with on the weekends. And and and.
But I want to be a part of it.
I want to be a part of it for the very reason some people are blowing it off.
“How can you take these people seriously,” some people mutter, in office conversations or in letters to the editor or on right wing radio, “when they don’t even know what they want? No agenda, no list of demands, no idea why they’re even standing there.”
No agenda? No demands?
That’s kind of perfect.
I’m a couple of hours from home. I didn’t bring my pile of Daniel Quinn books with me, so I can’t give you quotes, I can’t put it as well as he has put it from time to time.
Vision, Not Programs.
That’s one of the things I most love about Quinn’s ideas for change, one of the most important things I’ve taken from his books. It’s also what had me heavily involved with the New Environment Association for a few years (they called it “process thinking,” but it’s the same thing really).
Vision, Not Programs.
The idea is, when Everything Is Wrong, when the whole damn thing is just a big tightly wound ball of All Screwed Up, there’s no “program” that’s going to fix it. There are no “demands,” there is no “agenda” that can undo the big mess.
What is needed isn’t a specific plan. Not now, not yet. Maybe not even later, but that’ll come or it won’t.
What’s needed is a new way of thinking.
What’s needed is to abandon the current way of thinking.
And so when I hear about Occupy Wall Street, when I hear about the smaller offshoot movements around the country, when I hear that there’s no 12 point agenda, I think “fantastic.” Because what I do hear is a dissatisfaction. A “no more of this.” A desire for a new way. A desire to simply change. Not this policy or that policy, not this tax rate or that regulation. A desire to approach the whole damn thing from a whole new angle.
And that excites me.
When I stopped in the other day, that sense that I’d had of it was confirmed. There wasn’t a program. There was the desire to get this “it’s not working” idea out there. There was the desire to get the “we’re operating under the wrong values system” idea out there.
That’s stuff I’m on board with. What we need isn’t a new law, a new tax, a new policy, a new advisory committee. What we need are changed values, a new vision, a better way of relating to each other and our world. We need to dump the things that have not been working. We need to go way deeper than than tweaking the system.
Exciting stuff. Very, very cool.
During that brief visit, I took heart in some other things.
Always, with any movement, you hear the whole “whiny liberals” thing. The whole “spoiled rich kids who don’t know about real suffering” crap. You get the “environmentalism is a movement for the privileged white kids” or “must be nice to be so wealthy you can choose to be vegan” and the like. The offhand dismissals. That irks me.
I was glad, when I went down, to see that this wasn’t just a bunch of college kids standing around. There were young people and old people, seasoned activists and people newer to the ideas.
They were all white. But there was a self-awareness there.
“I’ve been frustrated by the lack of diversity,” I was told. “I mean, look around, it’s all a bunch of white people. But then an African American guy was talking to me the other day and he said something that made me think. ‘Now you’re pissed?’ he said. ‘Now you want to protest and talk about equality? Where have you been all this time? Other communities have been putting up with this shit for years.’ Maybe people from other communities aren’t coming out because we’re so late in the game and they’ve been doing it all along.”
And there was a bit of a solidarity thing going on with the poor.
Downtown, Armory Square, the bus station. That’s an area I don’t generally walk through without loading my pockets with ones and change. Because you can’t go a block without someone asking for money. And I can’t walk by a homeless guy without at least giving a quarter, a dollar, something. There’s some real poverty down there, some people who have it hard.
I was glad to hear that the Occupy crew is welcoming the truly, truly down and out crew into their midst. Homeless guys sleeping in Occupy tents. Food being shared. That sort of thing.
I felt good stopping in there, and now I want to be a bigger part of it.
That might mean showing up for a General Assembly now and then. It might mean taking activists’ laundry to my house and running a few loads for them.
I think, maybe, it will mean cooking.
I love to feed people. I love it. I love potlucks. I have a fantasy of opening up my own little vegan catering business, going to shows and selling sandwiches, maybe opening up a little downtown food cart. And I’ve wanted for a while to get involved with something like Food Not Bombs, but haven’t known quite where to start, haven’t had the sustained focus to figure it out.
I can see myself cooking up big batches of vegan stew. Rustic Tomato Lentil Soup. Black beans and rice. Tofu enchiladas. Going downtown and serving it up. Enjoying that.
So we’ll see. We’ll see exactly how it works out. But I want to be a part of this. I think that this has the potential to be something very good.
I’ll leave you with a couple of things here.
First, Charles Eisenstein’s comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement. The guy has a way with words.
And then, a few of my favorite words of all time, spoken by Eugene Debs at his sentencing a long time ago. Beautiful words.
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
*****
Go here to read Charles Eisenstein's comments on the Occupy Wall Street movement. The man has an incredible way with words.
And here a couple of clips. Make of them what you will. The first is of 22 people being arrested for trying to close their CitiBank accounts. Of course, yes, they were protestors, and they meant to make a point by going in and closing their accounts together. And got arrested. Having a hard time finding anything in the news about this, which disturbs me a little. CitiBank has their "response" online, and then there are clips like this, but that's about all I can find.
Here are bits and pieces from Oakland, where things have gotten bad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
27 comments:
See I'm exactly the opposite I can't get behind this whole lack of specifics. Much of it comes off as jealousy of those who have achieved.I realize that not all transactions are fair but realizing that life isn't fair and dealing with it is the way to thrive.
The whole "jealousy" and "punishing success" thing is a smokescreen, it's a dismissal so that people don't have to look at the real concerns.
For instance, you know that really wealthy drug lord who lives in the big mansion with the fancy cars and five beautiful women and their furs and whatnot? When we crack down on him, take his stuff, and throw him in jail, it's not because of "jealousy" and we're not "punishing success." Sure, he was creative and good at what he did. Sure, we'd like to have some of what he has. But that's all irrelevant. When he goes to jail, it's because we're saying that some means to success are wrong. Selling drugs to kids and shooting your rivals is not a legitimate way to get success.
Likewise, this stuff isn't about jealousy or punishing success. Sure, I'd like to have some of that wealth, I'll admit that, it's pretty much just human nature. But that's not the motivation. The issue isn't the success, it's that some means to achieving success, and some of the actions taken by successful people, are wrong. Even if the law may allow them, they're wrong. The values that the rule makers are operating under are wrong values, and they will change, willingly or otherwise.
Pointing at drug dealers is an easy way to lump the rich in with evil. When the vast majority of rich got that way or stayed that way through working hard.
I would have to look for statistics but I would think that much of the income disparity has been caused by the growth of the poor. Johnson's great society program's to end poverty have done much the opposite. Leading to a dependent group of people that have never learned to move beyond poverty.
So as long as they don't advocate taking other people's stuff or using the levers of government power against those who do not wish to participate, the Occupiers are welcome to create a new society according to their own values.
Bob, not trying to lump all the rich together as being evil. The drug dealer reference isn't a comparison of that sort... being rich doesn't make you the equivalent of a murdering dealer. The point is that there are immoral and moral ways to get rich. Being rich isn't some sort of absolution. It's like there are people who can't bear to hear a criticism of the rich... any rich. As soon as you lodge a legitimate criticism, it's "class warfare" or "punishing success," without the criticism itself being rejected, rebutted, or even heard. There's nothing wrong with saying that there are some wrong ways to get rich.
John, there are many things I don't get about libertarians. One is this: why the absolute hostility toward control by the government (which I get), without a similar sense of outrage or whatever over control and manipulation by people wielding other kinds of power? I think I've worded that clumsily, but I hope the meaning is there. I completely get that people want the government to not meddle in their lives. But I don't want people screwing with my life and making decisions that do me harm, whether they were elected into that power or whether they accumulated that power by some other means. Too often, it seems that libertarians (and Tea Partiers, and others) are rejecting government meddling while at the same time pimping themselves heart and soul to another kind of power. When I want the govt to use their "levers of power" on those who don't want to participate, basically I want them to do it to keep unsavory people from messing with my life in some way... whether it be a law that keeps a common thug from shooting me for my wallet, or a law that keeps a profits-above-all-else company from polluting my lake, fracking my water table, brainwashing my kid with commercial propaganda (turning off the tv isn't enough, they've got access to a captive audience in the schools), and so on. Too often, elements of the libertarian right seem willfully blind to the bad things the private sector can do. There's this scary Market Fundamentalism out there that says all things will turn out best if the people/govt just lets dollars decide everything. That's a pretty sick philosophy.
Perhaps the key distinction is how people define "rights". Rights are what you have when you're left alone, AKA natural rights. You have a right to be left alone. You have a duty to leave other people alone.
(I get ambiguous about this when it comes to the mentally ill, mentally disabled, and children, but that's my basic view. Oh, and animal rights. That gets tricky.)
The state exists for one purpose: to secure these rights. Here's a good line that's been going around the Web lately:
The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.
Just so. Now the materials of the Earth, lacking any sentience, may be claimed, bought, or sold as property. Property is sacrosanct.
If you've bought land, but someone else's pollutants are leaking into the groundwater or the air above it that you breathe, that person is violating your property rights. The state should protect you.
Commercial television? Just turn it off. Yes, kids get it in schools, but only because they are government-mandated schools. Again, the problem is socialism, not the lack thereof.
There are some libertarians (anarchists, really), who reject the need for a state entirely. They would privatize law enforcement and the courts. I have no idea how that could possibly work, so I won't defend that lunacy.
Or by "control and manipulation by people wielding other kinds of power" do you mean something else? Please elaborate.
"The state exists for one reason: to secure these rights." Yeah, I hear people say that sort of thing, but really... who says so? Why is that the "one" reason the state exists? Not the main argument I want to get into exactly, but who made that call? I didn't. I would think that in anything resembling a democracy, the state exists in large part in order to do collectively what cannot be reasonably done by individuals-- like building roads, taking care of the disabled, efficiently producing food, and so on.
"Commercial television? Just turn it off. Yes, kids get it in schools, but only because they are government-mandated schools. Again, the problem is socialism, not the lack thereof."
Again, you're doing that thing that so frustrates me. Oh, I agree... turn it off. Absolutely. You're saying that to a guy who abhors television. It doesn't make it into my home-- I don't need to pay hard-earned money for someone to make me stupid and dissatisfied. But, regarding the school part, you go straight to the "govt's fault, because they make kids go to school" deal. First off, I kind of think govt involvement in education is a good thing, and moreso since I became very involved in local schools and with parents who wouldn't bother giving their kids a chance in the world if they didn't "have to," but we don't need to get way into that. What really bugs me is the part where you totally skip over any responsibility/demand for ethical behavior on the part of the businesses. So, govts make kids go to school. And govts allow corporate advertisers to brainwash kids in homeroom, and to develop curricula that subtly put their products in front of kids during lessons. Automatically, you go to the "they wouldn't do it if govt didn't make it possible" line. Well, fine. Fuck the govt for allowing all that. But where's the equal indignation over the abominable behavior of the corporations here? The "but no one told me to stop" line shouldn't work. There's more than one bad guy in that picture.
"If you've bought land, but someone else's pollutants are leaking into the groundwater or the air above it that you breathe, that person is violating your property rights. The state should protect you."
Right. Exactly. And the fact that I can't swim in (or even walk close to, without gagging) the formerly beautiful/now polluted lake in my city means that the govt didn't do that. Often doesn't live up to that responsibility. I'm mad about that. But I'm ALSO mad at the people who dumped toxic shit in the water. Again, just because they govt didn't say "hey, stop poisoning people" doesn't absolve the people doing the poisoning of their guilt. Know what I mean?
Beyond that, you have other issues. I don't want to try to make a list. But here's a big one for me, an obvious one. Food commodities. Trading on food. It wasn't something that was done in the past, but a while back, Wall Street ran out of ways to fuck with markets and said "hey, let's trade on commodities, let's trade on food prices." And they did. And some people on Wall Street made a whole lot of money doing that. And the effect was a significant increase in food prices all around the world, and serious shortages in some poorer parts of the world. Wall Street people got rich-- very legally-- by restricting poor people's access to food, and making people like you and me pay more for food. They produced nothing. They improved nothing. And they made money doing it. Immoral. Wrong. Wielding power in a way that we shouldn't have to tolerate.
And the thing is, I'm all for rules and regs that would restrict that sort of behavior. But there will always be people who find ways to get around rules and regs, or who come up with new creative crap that we haven't outlawed yet and find ways to hurt people through those avenues. So more than regs, what we need is a change of mindset. What is the values system operating that makes it somehow legal and okay to mess with markets in a way that causes people to die? Let's get away from that distorted value system-- the Market Fundamentalism, the Ruthless Pursuit of Advantage, whatever you want to call it-- and create a new mindset. That's what I want to see. And while you can't "force" anyone to go along with a mindset, on a moral level, I'd say no, it's not okay for people to say "no thanks, we like it the way it is."
"The state exists for one reason: to secure these rights." Yeah, I hear people say that sort of thing, but really... who says so?
The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men....
This is an early, in fact founding affirmation of the concept of natural rights. People have the right to live their lives as they wish, pursuing their happiness without the interference of others. Government exists to ensure that they are permitted to do so free from the violence of others. Examples of such violence would include simple muggings to poisoning the water of another man's land.
(In case it's not clear, I'll say explicitly that I think there is a place for government regulation of the environment as far as elements of the environment can cross property boundaries. If I dump sulfur dioxide into the air above my land and it flows into yours, then I've violated your property rights.)
Why is that the "one" reason the state exists? Not the main argument I want to get into exactly, but who made that call? I didn't.
Yeah, I get that. There's a difference in first principles, and it'd be hard for me to argue why mine are better than yours without doing quite a bit of thought. And I'd be arguing in reverse; I've already come to the conclusion of natural rights, and I'd have to reverse engineer arguments for them.
Now I'd like to address one item that you've mentioned:
like building roads, taking care of the disabled, efficiently producing food,
Although the finished product unfortunately lies behind a Wall Street Journal paywall, Don Boudreaux played a fascinating thought exercise here and here. What if food distribution was handled the same way that education is?
Food is more important than education. If you lack education, you can survive. If you lack food, you die quickly. So shouldn't government run food distribution to ensure that it is efficient and fair?
Each person will be assigned to a grocery store in his/her grocery district. You will receive a certain allotment of groceries. You will not be allowed to shop at another grocery store. If you have problems there, you may file a complaint. You can also lobby the local government to make changes at the grocery store. But you can't simply take your money and leave immediately because this is the one grocery store at which you are allowed to shop. Boudreaux:
When the quality of supermarkets is recognized by nearly everyone to be dismal, the resulting calls for “supermarket choice” would be rejected by a coalition of greedy government-supermarket workers and ideologically benighted collectivists as attempts to cheat supermarket customers out of good supermarket service – indeed, as attempts to deny ordinary families the food that they need for their very survival. Such ‘choice,’ it would be alleged, will drain precious resources from the public supermarkets whose (admittedly) poor performance testifies to the fact that these supermarkets are underfunded.
And the small handful of people who call for total separation between supermarket and state would be criticized by nearly everyone as being, at best, delusional and – it would be thought more realistically – more likely misanthropic devils who are indifferent to the malnutrition and starvation that would sweep the land if only private market forces governed the provision and patronizing of supermarket.
Now I don't know that that's what you meant by that single phrase in one sentence. But it's worth noting that if one believes that government should directly conduct the activities that are the most important, then surely food distribution should be among those activities.
First off, I kind of think govt involvement in education is a good thing, and moreso since I became very involved in local schools and with parents who wouldn't bother giving their kids a chance in the world if they didn't "have to," but we don't need to get way into that.
I think that it would nonetheless be a useful discussion.
I happen to believe that the protection of children is a legitimate government activity (I'm not a very good libertarian). Children cannot consent or be held fully responsible for their lives. Parents must take care of them, and when they don't, the state should step in.
But the particular needs of children don't necessitate a state institution. Parents have a duty to feed their children, but that doesn't require government grocery stores. Parents have a duty to educate their children, but that doesn't require government schools.
If the parents can't or won't care for their children, then the state should remove the children and place them with people who can and will, or establish taxpayer-supported homes for the children to live in under supervision. Such homes would buy food and education from private businesses.
There are many potential slippery slope dangers from giving government this kind of power, but...well, I don't really have an answer for that.
But where's the equal indignation over the abominable behavior of the corporations here? The "but no one told me to stop" line shouldn't work. There's more than one bad guy in that picture.
A while back, a Gizmodo writer found a prototype iPhone abandoned in a bar and wrote about it. Apple's response was to arrange for a SWAT team to raid his house and seize the phone -- and a lot of other personal possessions.
So when Steve Jobs died, there was all this oohing and aahing about what a gee golly wonderful guy he was. But I remembered: This guy sent a SWAT team into the house of a man who had done him no wrong.
So: corporate wickedness. Let's condemn it when it happens. But let's remember that when the CEO of an enormous, multinational corporation wanted to use force against a person, he had to go through a local government.
Apple cannot maintain its own personal SWAT team. The smallest of municipalities can.
Corporations can do you a lot of harm. Governments can kill you. In fact, it's worth noting that governments have killed more people than any other human institution in the past century.
That's why I'm more concerned about what governments do than corporations. At a practical level, governments are more dangerous.
But here's a big one for me, an obvious one. Food commodities. Trading on food. It wasn't something that was done in the past, but a while back, Wall Street ran out of ways to fuck with markets and said "hey, let's trade on commodities, let's trade on food prices." And they did. And some people on Wall Street made a whole lot of money doing that. And the effect was a significant increase in food prices all around the world, and serious shortages in some poorer parts of the world.
This is news to me. Can you recommend information sources that go into detail about what the traders did?
So more than regs, what we need is a change of mindset.
This is, I think, another one of those essential difference in principles. I believe that the state of humanity is fixed. Power corrupts people, and it will always be so. We will not improve the human race in a way that will alter this state.
That's why I'm at odds with what seems to be a utopian mindset in the Occupy movement. Example: certain skills are valued by our society, and others are not. That will not change because they wish it so.
I'll need time to respond to the comments, but as far as the reference for the commodities trading, see the July 2010 "Harpers." I don't know if the fully story is available online or not. It's "The Food Bubble" by Frederick Kaufman.
And hey, even though you're usually wrong, I enjoy the opportunity for these discussions.
:)
Thank you.
Iron sharpens iron. I have no desire to fall prey to epistemic closure. That's why I come to this bar of yours, even though the music is too loud and the men's room filthy.
The music is never too loud and if there's no blood in the men's room sink, it aint hardcore.
See? Wrong again.
Regarding the Utopian mindset...
I've hung out with people on the far, far left who are very much Utopian. They're awesome people (Quakers, mostly) and I completely respect them, wish that I could be like them in many ways, but I get frustrated with some of the Utopian stuff because to me, that's just not reality. I think were I to question them deeply on this, they'd have satisfying answers that just don't come out on the surface, but still. I feel like some people simply forget about the dark side of human nature. Communism "doesn't work" for the same reason that capitalism "doesn't work"-- people are greedy, self-absorbed, unloving, etc. There will always be people doing crappy things. There will always be sin. Jealousy, greed, suffering.
So okay.
But.
I read a great line in a book the other day (Thich Nhat Hanh, I believe, but the last few books have sort of blurred together) that basically said "you can use the North Star as your guide without believing that you'll ever get to the North Star."
So, one can have a Utopian ideal and be realistic about human nature. One can envision a perfect society, with people living in love and cooperation, and know that it will never come to pass completely. The idea is to aim for it and to take significant steps in that direction. Will there be perfection? Absolutely not. But can we do better than what we've got now? I can't say "no" to that.
We may not improve the human race in a way that will "improve" our basic nature. This is one of the main lines that Daniel Quinn argues-- that we can't pursue philosophies that will work perfectly as soon as people stop acting like people. Won't happen. I agree.
But mindsets have changed. The zeitgeist, attitudes, the spirit of the times, the values that drive a society-- these things have changed over time. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Corporate power structures and the "ruthless pursuit of advantage" (my friend Bob's term) are not simply "human nature." There have been cultures where things were different. There still are cultures where things are different. We've seen countless changes in the mindset, even in the short life of this country-- what would have been "normal" in regard to race relations is now seen as unspeakable, scandalous. That's not just because of new laws, court decisions. The mindset of the people has changed as regards race. The mindset of the people has changed as regards gender, sexuality, religion, and so on. The 2011 mindset is not the 1947 or 1886 mindset at all. So I don't think it's naive to work for a new way of thinking. It's only naive to work toward (and expect to achieve) human perfection.
I like the Steve Jobs/Gizmodo example.
You won't get an argument from me. I am for limitations on govt. I mean, I like Obama... but 8 years of Bush would have turned me into a "limited govt" person very easily if I hadn't already been one. I am not a "trust the govt" guy.
The difference we probably have here is that while we both will say "limited govt," we disagree (to an extent) over which things a limited govt should or should not do. I'm mortified that many "limited govt" conservatives see no problem with wire taps, round ups of Muslims, throwing pot dealers in cages, bombing people we don't like, legislating sexuality, and so on. I don't want govt having that power. But I'm all for the govt doing things that the people want, that benefits the people, that is basically just an extension of what people would do for themselves but can be more efficiently done when they come together and pool their resources. You know, building roads. Making sure the rich and powerful don't take advantage of their privilege. Building schools. Distributing vaccines. I see that as more appropriate use of limited govt.
In the Jobs example, yeah, SWAT team should not be raiding a guy's house for that. I'm all on board with being pissed at the govt for this. But it's not one or the other. If you're gonna be mad at the puppet, seems like you should be mad at the guy holding the strings too. While the OWS movement and other movements seem to be directed largely at corporate power right now, you'll quickly find that they're not directed solely at corporate power-- there's plenty of aggravation there with govt abuse.
"...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...."
I think it's tough to use this as support for anything specific, one way or the other. Having a right to Life, okay, sort of self-explanatory. Govt is there to make sure nobody kills you. But what the hell is the pursuit of Happiness? Kind of vague. Not trying to be snotty here, but honestly, this can be interpreted different ways. It's a beautiful line, but it's a Declaration, a gauntlet thrown down, a statement of faith. Very different from anything like policy.
As to first principles, mine are basically, as I've said, good govt is merely an extension of the people's will, to do collectively what they cannot do individually. With the nuance thrown in there that it can't trample heedlessly on the wants/needs of any minority-- as in, if an extension of the people's will is that all the Jews go to camps or all the Muslims wear yellow crescents on their coats, well, that's not legit, that's not good govt.
I'm not sure what I meant when I said "efficiently producing food." I think I was thinking something like this: it would be a legitimate use of govt, in my opinion, to ensure that there was food available to the people. For instance, if there was concern that food prices would rise drastically due to weather or war, or if oil costs made shipping food into a region ridiculously expensive, or if a govt was just being proactive "in case" any of those things came up, it seems a legit use of govt to me (and I'm talking here mostly the county or city or state level) to say "we're going to ensure that there are a certain amount of farms, producing food efficiently, to help our people weather this storm." Setting up distribution routes, incentivizing farm development, encouraging the growth of back yard gardens, etc.
The example of education and food you use is an interesting one.
"Food is more important than education. If you lack education, you can survive. If you lack food, you die quickly. So shouldn't government run food distribution to ensure that it is efficient and fair?"
I would agree that food is more important than education. Obviously. But there are differences. First, the majority of families have the ability to provide food for themselves and their children. Most people can afford to shop at a store. Most people can cook. Most people, if they choose to, can figure out how to plant a garden.
Most people do NOT have the skills (or time) to educate their children at the level of schools. Moral education? Yes. Reading, writing? Hopefully, yes. At one point, families very much could give their kids an education that would give them the skills they needed for the world. But with industrialization and growth in tech industries, with the needs for abstract math, and with the economy growing in a way that sends both parents to work outside the home for more than 40 hours per week, this just isn't realistic. (For the record, I'm anti industrialization, two working parents, tech, etc, but that's the world we live in, so we have to live in it.) A parent simply cannot prepare their kids for that sort of world completely. So we let kids fail, let our society "fall behind," or we provide that education.
And, in those cases where parents do not have the ability to feed their kids, yeah, the state does chip in. Food Stamps, WIC, public assistance. The state might not run the stores, but they make sure people get the food.
Having said that, I don't think the education system as it stands is a good one. And I don't think just throwing more dollars into it is the way to make it better. I don't get behind school districts that scream about cuts; I think a lot of the money gets wasted, I think we're doing it all entirely wrong, I think the education system is not a good one. I don't have a quick, easy fix, but I think it's high time for those involved in this to start rethinking the whole thing, to come up with something different. Not a tweaking of the system, but a real overhaul. Start with the core values and rebuild from there. Unions and other entrenched interests will of course not allow this. And maybe a move toward more privatization is the scare that they need to wake up. Don't know. BUT... even if they are getting it wrong, I don't think this means that it's not a legit place for govt to be involved. Just like the Steve Jobs deal. Just because SWAT raided a home that it absolutely should not have raided doesn't mean that there is no place in govt for something like a SWAT team. When I'm a hostage in a bank standoff, I'm thinking "glad my taxes pay for SWAT, now please come shoot these bad guys dead."
On utopianism:
I get leery, even fearful when I encounter utopians because it seems like, historically, the fastest road to hell is marked the road to heaven. Some of the most despotic regimes in human history were rooted in utopian ideals, such as Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Your Quaker friends are probably not among them, of course. There’s little reason to fear genuine pacifists. But the lure of an achievable utopia can inspire people to do monstrous things because the reward is worth the cost.
If you’re going to create a perfect society, you’ll need one person or a small group of people in charge (e.g. the dictatorship of the proletariat) to ensure that things are done just right. No one can be allowed to disrupt our plans, now that we are no the verge of achieving true happiness (contra the less ambitious pursuit of happiness) for humanity. The utopian temptation is often intertwined with the totalitarian temptation.
Libertarians, too, can get utopian visions. Some imagine a stateless society. I have always rejected this model. There will always be a government, and simply abolishing government results in a new government consisting of a guy on the street corner with an AK-47. And he’ll ban together with other similarly-minded men for greater profit.
I think that the Founders hit upon the right formula: a constitutional, federal republic with limited powers. That government may not do X, even though it is perceived that X may be of great benefit, or though only one single person objects to X, was a great insight into the danger of government.
That’s why there’s nothing like a totalitarian movement on the right in American politics. The first premise of the order of 1776 (moderated in 1787) is a rejection of unlimited government power. If you run all the way to the end of the spectrum, you end up at the Articles of Confederation, not a gulag. Totalitarianism is antithetical to the American political order. Streams of totalitarianism in American politics come from outside sources.
This order accepts that there will be no heaven on earth. There will not be perfection. People are selfish and can thus manage their own lives, but cannot be trusted with power over others because they will use that power to seek out their own selfish ends. Government may serve certain limited ends to prevent people from violating each other, but even then it must be carefully watched. As Jefferson put it, “In matters of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
The vision of the Founders was idealistic in its own way. The European powers certainly expected it to fail, and it almost did. But it was more realistic than those of the utopians, and therefore more likely to be successful. It’s the best bet for freedom and prosperity for the common man.
In the Jobs example, yeah, SWAT team should not be raiding a guy's house for that. I'm all on board with being pissed at the govt for this. But it's not one or the other. If you're gonna be mad at the puppet, seems like you should be mad at the guy holding the strings too. While the OWS movement and other movements seem to be directed largely at corporate power right now, you'll quickly find that they're not directed solely at corporate power-- there's plenty of aggravation there with govt abuse.
What many on the left do not seem to understand is that corporations will try to control the government so as long as government tries to control corporations.
If government decides that there shall there be government bailouts, loans, subsidies, contracts, or permission to market certain products, then corporations are highly motivated to gain control over the government to ensure who gets those favors. The more control that government have over corporations, the more fervently corporations will pursue control over government.
If government doesn’t pick winners and losers, then corporations will ignore government. This probably isn’t achievable at an absolute level, but you can reduce corporate influence in government by reducing corporations’ motivation to control government.
Thus the OWS calls for legislation to increase government regulation in order to reduce corporate power in government will actually have the opposite effect.
With the nuance thrown in there that it can't trample heedlessly on the wants/needs of any minority-- as in, if an extension of the people's will is that all the Jews go to camps or all the Muslims wear yellow crescents on their coats, well, that's not legit, that's not good govt.
Excellent! I agree.
Having said that, I don't think the education system as it stands is a good one. And I don't think just throwing more dollars into it is the way to make it better. I don't get behind school districts that scream about cuts; I think a lot of the money gets wasted, I think we're doing it all entirely wrong, I think the education system is not a good one. I don't have a quick, easy fix, but I think it's high time for those involved in this to start rethinking the whole thing, to come up with something different. Not a tweaking of the system, but a real overhaul. Start with the core values and rebuild from there.
A couple problems in modern education:
1. Incentives for schools to pass students, regardless of student performance. This snowballs into huge problems that teachers later in the process can't fix.
2. If parents (as individuals or local communities) do not value education, the children will not. There are often cultural forces that stand athwart quality education. No legislation can solve these problems.
A couple thoughts about the Occupiers:
1. I’ve said this for about three weeks, but it should be obvious now that the decision to stage an indefinite occupation instead of a protest with a fixed end-date was a major mistake. The camps are degenerating into filth, violent crime, disease, and political fragmentation. The occupations will not go out with a bang, but a whimper, and a pathetic one at that. The gradual breakdown will look ugly and provide bad PR.
2. The decision that no one speaks for the Occupiers was, in contrast, cunning. Of course, they’re saying stuff all the time, but whenever some loon goes off on anti-Semitic rants, makes death threats, or anything that ends up sounding bad to the public, the Occupation leaders can claim that those are outsiders. This policy permits the movement to take credit for what works and disavow what doesn’t.
I get your points on Utopianism. Dead Kennedys had a great line in a song a long time ago... "anarchy sounds good to me, but who's gonna fix the sewers? or will the rednecks play dictator of the neighborhood?" You AK-47 line brought that back to mind.
Also brought to mind HG Wells. I've recently become a fan of his books. Been then I read an article on his life in The New Yorker, which I found a bit disturbing. He was a perfect, peaceful society Utopian progressive. One step on the way, of course, would be to euthanize the disabled, the unintelligent, the unproductive, etc.
So, yeah, I see what you mean.
Again, though, I go with the north star notion... aim for what you know you can't achieve, you're going in the right direction.
Interesting points on govt and business, the whole notion that if govt didn't have all these regs for business, business wouldn't be trying to interfere. If govt doesn't try to control business, business will not try to control govt.
Okay, possibly true. Interesting point.
BUT...
It's not just interference with governance that bothers me. It's the bad behavior of powerful entities.
So go to the history books and find me a time when these very, very powerful businesses were unregulated and behaved responsibly. Seems those regs came about because these guys were polluting our lakes, destroying our drinking water, destroying our air, chaining kids to machines, beating workers who didn't do as they were told, letting workers die in fire traps, cheating people of their salaries, lying in their advertisements, and so on and so forth. Big business was never this benevolent force creating jobs for the good of the people. Maybe this or that business here or there, but it's right wing fairy tale romanticism that once upon a time there were these altruistic businessmen trying to make the world a good place and things started going wrong when the govt came in and made all these job-killing regulations. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
Post a Comment