tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24428802230460736512024-03-05T02:51:01.487-05:00Matters Socio-EconomicOccasional postings on matters pertaining to economic sociology or socio-economics or political economy at the local (Jacksonville FL.), state, national, and global level.David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-4270204479088534742020-08-26T10:44:00.000-04:002020-08-26T10:44:25.897-04:00On Voting for Biden (or not).<p>Many of my friends and colleagues are trying to decide how they will vote come November. While they have no intention of voting for Trump, they are not sure they can support Biden. This I can fully understand. </p>But let me start by saying this -- I do not engage in, nor do I tolerate, vote shaming. <br /><br />If people decide, based on their political principles and value commitments, to vote for a third party that best represents their political interests, or not to vote at all because they reject the two party duopoly, that is their prerogative and I respect their decision. <br /><br />There needs to be a recognition and acknowledgement, by the vote shamers, that the two-party system in the US radically narrows the range of political choice and is profoundly undemocratic. Among the 32 OECD electoral democracies, the US has the fewest number of “effective parties”. The number of parties is positively correlated with voter turnout. <br /><br />Let us also appreciate the need for political parties and candidates to actually mobilize voters rather than taking their votes for granted, simply because they are not the “other” party/candidate; or assuming voters “have nowhere else to go”. Many of those who decide not to vote, or vote for a third party, may very well have been “de-mobilized” by the two parties. <br /><br />There are many ways to think about and frame the voting decision in this election. I present here just one way in the context of viewing the vote as a political strategy, rather than the vote as a singular expression of one’s political ideological preference. <br /><br />As a democratic socialist, I certainly have a vision for what kind of society I would like the US to become and this would involve, as a start, building social democratic institutions that both provide expanded opportunities for political and economic democratic participation and expression and, accordingly, a decommodification of the basic necessities of life as has been proposed through an economic bill of rights involving health care, education, housing, and employment. <br /><br />Right now, we are nowhere close to this vision. But how do we get from here to there? <br /><br />One way to think of this question is to consider the obstacles that must be removed in order to advance in the direction of a progressive social democratic agenda. <br /><br />In that context I would consider the Trump administration to be the first and most significant obstacle, not only based on their reactionary right-wing extreme neoliberal socio-economic policies, but also because the administration is veering toward authoritarianism that could translate into a further extension of state sponsored repression directed at left wing activists specifically. Under these conditions, we are in an entirely defensive position. <br /><br />Therefore, the first obstacle that must be removed is the Trump administration or, to put it more broadly and accurately, removing Trump is a vitally necessary, but grossly insufficient, condition for realizing a more democratic and humane society. If one follows this logic they might decide to “vote against Trump”. I put it that way because many people will have a hard time saying that they support, or are voting for, Biden. This is because they do not, in fact, endorse Biden or his politics. But in the two-party dynamic, to “vote against Trump” is essentially to cast a “vote for Biden”. <br /><br />But that alone is insufficient because that is only the first of many obstacles to the realization of a social democratic agenda. The second obstacle that must be taken on is the deep-seated neoliberal ideology and policy agenda, that has been embraced by both parties, and which remains firmly established within the centrist corporate wing of the Democratic party. So far, there is no indication that the Biden/Harris ticket will depart significantly from this so-called “return to normalcy” which means a return to the neoliberal status quo that gave us Trump. <br /><br />This means that, assuming Biden/Harris emerge victorious in November, it should not be considered a “win” because it just represents the removal of the first obstacle in a long-term political struggle. This is critically important because there is a long history of people on the progressive left declaring victory after a Democratic win followed by complacency and political deactivation (see 2008 and the victory of Obama). There is a reason that people say: “the Democratic Party is where social movements go to die”. This cannot happen. Once Trump is removed, the social democratic left can shift its energy, from a defensive to offensive strategy, against the corporate dominated Democratic Party establishment. <br /><br />So, I offer this as just one way to think about the voting decision in November. <br /><br />There are obviously many more factors to consider, in particular whether one resides in a “swing state”, and the importance of down-ballot races. <br /><br />I welcome comments and feedback. <br /> David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-47070171479440613432020-08-14T07:50:00.000-04:002020-08-14T07:50:30.834-04:00Thoughts on the Kamala Harris Selection<p> </p>The choice of Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate was not at all a surprise and was largely expected for several reasons. It was decided that it had to be a woman of color and, among those woman considered, Harris had the greatest name recognition, had run as a candidate in the Democratic primary, had participated in the debates, and is a Senator from a major US state. In terms of conventional political calculation, this was clearly the obvious and safest choice. <br /><br />In terms of electoral value, I am not sure it will make much difference. If the assumption is that women of color will more likely support a ticket that includes a fellow woman of color, the Democrats pretty much had that demographic wrapped up anyway. Geographically, California is a solid blue state, so there is no gain there either. <br /><br />While the Harris announcement does provide some level of enthusiasm and resuscitation to Biden’s moribund campaign, which has benefited over the past few months less from Biden’s actions than Trump’s abject failure on every level, there is a distinction between enthusiasm and mobilization. People already planning to vote for Biden may now be more enthusiastic about the ticket. Whether the addition of a woman of color, alone, will now mobilize new voters and expand Democratic support is another matter. <br /><br />Take, for example, those largely younger voters who actively supported the Sanders campaign. For that population, partisan attachment and/or the identity representation of the candidates are far less important than substantive policy positions and proposals. After all, Bernie Sanders is a 78-year old white male – not the age/race/gender identity characteristics one would expect to galvanize a multi-racial political youth movement – and yet he was able to mobilize and energize this segment of the electorate. What mattered was not identity or partisanship, but an unswerving commitment to social democratic policies from Medicare For All to the Green New Deal to the cancellation of student debt to an economic bill of rights. <br /><br />But sadly, with the Biden/Harris ticket, the party is squarely in the hands of the centrist establishment and the corporate donors. For this wing of the party, “progressivism” is largely a matter of identity representation and recognition rather than substantive policy positions, with the former serving as a substitute for the latter; what Nancy Fraser has aptly described as <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-neoliberalism-reactionary-populism-nancy-fraser">“progressive neoliberalism”.</a> <br /><br />This was clearly the case with Barack Obama in 2008 who, as the first black president, was assumed automatically to be a progressive Democrat. It did not quite work out that way. <br /><br />Likewise, Harris, as the first black female member of a presidential ticket, is simply assumed to be, by virtue of ascribed characteristics, also possessing a progressive worldview. But in the many media accounts of this historic VP candidate that I have reviewed, there is virtually no mention of what Harris brings to the ticket in terms of a political ideology, value convictions, or coherent public policy preferences. None of that seems to matter. <br /><br />This does not mean Biden/Harris do not possess, or can’t develop, a policy program, even one that includes some of the progressive policy positions that emerged from the unity task force process, but right now this seems the least significant factor in how the Democratic ticket is currently being promoted. <br /><br />This void is particularly conspicuous given the fact that the country is facing an unprecedented and monumental depression-level socio-economic crisis begging for a bold progressive and transformative policy agenda. In fact, it requires it. But instead, this is what we are hearing: “fighting for the best we are as a nation”; "rebuild this country"; “fix the mess created in the U.S. and abroad by Trump and Pence”; “Joe has empathy”; “Kamala Harris is smart, tough and a proven fighter for the country’s middle class”; “a president who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be”. But nothing about the means or the ends. <br /><br />Maybe simply rejecting, and not being, Trump, will be enough to win the election. <br /><br />But for those who desire something more, in the sage words of Naomi Klein: “No is not enough!” <br /><br /> <br /><br /> David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-26294738357983527202020-08-13T08:48:00.000-04:002020-08-13T08:48:26.717-04:00On Principled Non-PartisanshipThe intense desire to remove the neo-fascist sociopath from the White House has resulted in an unwritten and unspoken, but very apparent, moratorium on critical commentary of Joe Biden or the Democratic Party (and I am sure now Kamala Harris). I and others have been the victims of this policy in the responses we receive from some of our FB colleagues who are now the informal enforcers of this creed. <br /><br />Because all my classes, maybe with the exception of Data Analysis, are political and politicized, for which I make no apology, I introduce students to the concept and practice of “principled non-partisanship”. This simply means that if you have a set of value commitments or political/philosophical principles – like equality, democracy, transparency, right to privacy, etc – you evaluate political figures or political parties on the basis of those principles independent of the party or party affiliation. So, if as a Democrat you criticized the George W. Bush administration for violating the constitutional right to privacy in revelations on wiretapping Americans during the so-called “war on terror”, you also do the same when you discover that the Obama administration, as revealed by Edward Snowden, also violated the constitution. Selective application of one’s principles based on partisan attachment is “unprincipled partisanship”, something that has reached epic levels within the Republican Party under Trump. <br /><br />Therefore, if the Democrats and Republicans both violate a principle I hold dear, but I only criticize the Republicans for that violation, it would be hypocritical generally, and specifically with regard to a principle I am asking my students to adhere to (do as your told, not as I do). <br /><br />The fear and reluctance to criticize Biden if you want Trump defeated has a structural source in the American electoral system, or more specifically the two-party duopoly (on this I strongly recommend Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman). It produces a binary/zero-sum logic that has enormous implications for current political dynamics and discourse but as it applies here it means that any gain or advantage given to one party is automatically at the expense of the other party. Hence, to criticize Biden is to indirectly help Trump, almost by default. If we had a multiparty system, this would not be the case. <br /><br />So, here is the alternative aphorism promoted by the moratorium enforcers: “if you don’t have anything nice to say about Biden or the Democrats, don’t say anything at all.” Just censor yourself.<br />David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-90590491265158791692020-08-12T11:04:00.003-04:002020-08-12T11:06:11.669-04:00Thoughts on Cancel Culture: ‘Faming’, ‘Shaming’, and Wokeness <p></p><br /><br />The mass uprising over racist police violence, and the rise of the BLM movement, is one of the most significant political developments of the past thirty years. The extent to which it translates into an organized and effective social movement producing substantive, systemic, and structural change remains to be seen. In the interim, there is no doubt that we now have a vigorous anti-racist movement with widespread support among the US population. <br /><br />While I do not want to downplay the importance of this level of social acknowledgement of the deep-seated racism that permeates American society, it has taken one form that I believe is ultimately counterproductive. This has been described most recently as “cancel culture”. This term has many meanings and is applied to many different politically motivated actions. Here is one <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#">definition</a>: “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.” <br /><br />As a strident left-wing democratic socialist who takes pleasure in exposing the dysfunctions, irrationality, and hypocrisies of both the operation of the capitalist system and the actions of its functionaries, I can certainly sympathize with the intrinsic motives fueling the desire to call people out and cut them down to size. But my own need to destroy the ideological position and arguments of my adversaries is tempered by a larger commitment to the principle of freedom of thought, speech, and expression. <br /><br />It is along these lines, in the midst of the recently heightened level of cancel culture activity, that the practice of cancel culture received widespread critical attention in the form of a Harper’s magazine <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#">letter</a> signed by a large number of writers, political commentators, and public figures – including the unlikely bedfellows of David Brooks and Noam Chomsky – admonishing those who engage in this behavior. The objection to the practice was based largely on the broad principles of free speech, expression, and tolerance for open debate which they view as the “lifeblood of a liberal society.” <br /><br />As one who shares with my students the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#">University of Chicago statement</a> that takes a strong position on the need for free expression on the college campus, I would be a hypocrite to object to the Harper’s letter. Generally, I agree with the spirit of that letter. On the other hand, I think it is an error to equate in any way the shaming/canceling actions by groups and organizations on social media with the institutionalized forms of state/corporate sponsored censorship, silencing and prosecution of whistle-blowers and journalists, and criminalizing protests and boycotts. Canceling from below is not the same as canceling from the top. <br /><br />But my critical comments on cancel culture, pertain primarily to the practice as a political strategy. I think that politically it is not terribly productive and in some ways is counter to what we would like to emphasize and achieve as a progressive movement. <br /><br />When we constantly make reference to racism in the anti-racist movement as systemic and structural, but we have people spending their time canceling individuals for verbal transgressions or insufficient acknowledgement of oppression, we are engaged in the “bad apples” logic -- reducing the problem to certain individuals and their attitudes and behavior. Changing or canceling these bad actors, or bad apples, will not address the source or the most pernicious aspects of a system generating racial oppression. <br /><br />Further, it seems that many of the cancelled victims are often trivial figures that are not really in any position to translate their personal dispositions into any substantive negative consequence. At the same time we have lots of powerful individuals who have promoted racist, regressive, reactionary, neoliberal, neoconservative domestic and foreign policy that continue to play a role in government agencies and administrations, both Democratic and Republican, who deserve to be exposed for not what they say, but what they have done. <br /><br />But lately, all that seems to be required to avoid getting canceled is merely are representative gestures and expressions of “wokeness”, or what is more generally described as “virtue signaling”. <br /><br />On this count, I have noticed two reactions. There is what I call “woke faming” in which performative expressions of wokeness award people, organizations, or corporations with accolades for what are purely symbolic gestures independent of actions or policies (e.g. Wells-Fargo, AT&T Nike etc). This is come to be known as “woke-washing” – just another corporate Potemkin Village. <br /><br />Then there is “woke shaming” for those who fail to express the desired or expected endorsement or acknowledgement. They are the victims of cancel culture. <br /><br />All this reminds me of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#">commentary</a> by the political scientist Adolph Reed on Democratic Party liberals who, he argued, are always willing to “bear witness to the suffering” of various marginalized and oppressed groups, but never seem to be willing to put in place the policies that would meaningfully alleviate or eliminate that suffering. (Ironically, Reed himself was recently “deplatformed” when a NY chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America cancelled his appearance on a panel for his <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/#">published piece</a> on race and “disparitarianism”). <br /><br />Finally, there is a reason that this form of woke anti-racism is so easily embraced and accommodated by corporations and the elite – it does not in any way threaten the institutions and structures on which their class privilege and domination rest. Expanding wokeness does not deduct from their wealth or property. They are more than happy to bring in the consultants such as Robin DiAngelo to train their employees on white fragility. But raising wages, sharing profits, or allowing workers to organize a labor union? That is a bridge too far. <br /><br />I would hate to see cancel culture substitute for a more radical political movement and agenda that includes demands for defunding and demilitarizing the police, putting an end to policing, decriminalization of poverty, and public investment in community services. That will just play into culture war politics and do little to benefit marginalized and working class populations. <br /><br /> <p></p>David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-32710542020438819322019-12-26T08:09:00.004-05:002020-08-11T06:56:51.026-04:00The National Disgrace of Student Debt Peonage <br />
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><b>The National Disgrace of Student Debt Peonage </b></span><span class="eop"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">Student loan debt has now reached $1.6 trillion and
continues to grow. The average student loan debt obligation is now around
$35,000, a record high. While there seems to be no end in sight to this
madness, it is finally getting the attention of the political class. There have
been some proposals by Democratic candidates to reduce or cancel entirely this
monumental debt load. That is a positive development.</span><span class="eop"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">But how did we get here in the first place? </span><span class="eop"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">It is important to consider the factors that have
contributed to this situation because they have broader socio-economic
implications and are not confined to simply borrowing money to pay
for a college education. Like most of the socio-economic horrors in the
US, this one can be traced back to the 1980’s, when the neoliberal economic
policy regime was being imposed and instituted under Reagan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">There were two simultaneous developments that would
inevitably fuel a student loan debt crisis. </span><span class="eop"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">First, you had a growing gap between the college and
non-college educated population in terms of average earnings. This itself was a
product of the neoliberal policies that accelerated outsourcing and
offshoring of manufacturing (aka deindustrialization) while also launching an
attack on labor and the ability of workers to form unions. As well-paying
union jobs in manufacturing disappeared, replaced by non-union service
sector jobs, so too did a critical avenue to a middle-class, economically
secure, life among those with a high school degree. Between 1979 and 2005
average hourly wage for those with a college degree went up 22%; for those with
just a high school degree it declined by 2%.</span><span class="eop"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">At the very same time, the ideology underpinning
neoliberalism emphasized market rather than government solutions, private
rather than public investments, and a rollback of social welfare programs.
Students receiving public support for higher education through Pell grants and
similar sources were lumped in with the so-called welfare freeloaders, leeches,
and “tax eaters”. Rather than viewing higher education as a public
good that warranted public investment, it was instead regarded as a private
individual investment in one’s human capital
and, therefore, the responsibility of the individual to
finance on their own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">For parents interested in their children’s future economic
well-being, the human capital ideology informed a central feature of
the parent-to-child socialization process. Every child was told
at the earliest age that they must get a college education, without a
college degree they would be losers in the game of life and would
suffer from perpetual economic insecurity. </span><span class="eop"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">And, thus, the higher education bubble was
formed. Like the housing bubble where everyone was encouraged into home
ownership, everyone should own at least a college degree. Just as the home
is paid for with a home mortgage loan, one can pay for this indispensable
college degree with a financial loan; just as home buyers were told that the
home would increase in value and be a great investment, so too were students
told that a college degree was the best investment for which there would be
a healthy labor market return; just as home prices continued to rise, so
too has tuition increased steadily over this period. When the value of homes
collapsed, homeowners were under water and millions foreclosed; when
college-graduate labor market opportunities collapsed, student borrowers were
financially pinched, and are now defaulting on their loans in large
numbers. And the two financial crises are related. A recent study found
that that families assuming the financial burden and borrowing to pay for</span><span class="eop"> college, are also more prone to face home foreclosure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">There are also a broader range of negative consequences as
a result of the combination of student loan debt alongside a labor market that
provides far too few well-paying jobs. In the past, a student graduating with a
college degree would find a job that allowed for independent economic security,
the ability to rent or buy a home, and purchase all the amenities associated
with a new residence. This provided an enormous stimulus to the macroeconomy
through the demand for a wide range of goods and services. But under the
current situation, we see far less positive macroeconomic benefit from college
graduates. This is because today, among the population 18 to 34, 43% are living
with parents or relatives, the highest percent since 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun">As a logical consequence, the millennial generation is also
the least geographically mobile compared to prior generations. Geographic
immobility among members of younger generations was usually the result of three
factors -- marriage, home ownership, and having children. What is significant
today is that millennials are less likely than prior generations to meet any of
these criteria. Again, we can attribute this demographic anomaly to the accumulation
of student loan debt coupled with poor employment prospects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><br /></span></div>
<div class="paragraph">
<span class="normaltextrun">More generally, every dollar used
to pay off a student loan is a dollar that is not used to purchase goods and
services in our larger consumer capitalist economy. So, what would happen if we
cancelled all student loan debt? If we had a good old-fashioned debt jubilee? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="paragraph">
<span class="normaltextrun"><br /></span></div>
<div class="paragraph">
<span class="normaltextrun">A group of economists at the Levy
Economics Institute conducted an econometric analysis to answer this question
in their report titled “The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt
Cancellation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is their conclusion:
</span>“the current policy of encouraging the expansion of debt-financed higher
education has been a failure, and therefore a radical departure is in
order….Student debt cancellation results in positive macroeconomic feedback
effects as average households’ net worth and disposable income increase,
driving new consumption and investment spending.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
Of
course, cancellation of student debt would only make sense alongside free
tuition to prevent the next generation from ending up in the same debt-ridden
hole. If everyone today requires a college degree, it is no different than a
high school degree 50 years ago. Just as primary and secondary education has
been viewed as a public good for which we all benefit as a society, and should
therefore be provided cost-free to all citizens, so too today for a college
degree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="paragraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; vertical-align: baseline;">
At the same time, we should ask:
why should a college degree be the singular avenue to an economically secure,
middle-class, life? It was not always this way. There are many high school
graduates who might prefer a different path, and who have no interest in going
to university. There should be economically viable options through
apprenticeships and vocational training that provide students with an
alternative career path, if they so desire. The key is to ensure that such
careers are economically rewarding, and this will require, for these and all
workers, the right to organize, and negotiate the terms and conditions of
employment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="paragraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The current student debt crisis should
stimulate some creative thinking about debt relief, universal free-tuition, and
alternative career paths for young adults.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When the most highly educated
generation in history is also the most economically insecure, there is
obviously a serious structural problem with our socio-economic system. It can
no longer be ignored.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">David Jaffee is Professor of
Sociology at University of North Florida.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br />David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-51031977360574880582017-11-04T08:23:00.000-04:002017-11-04T08:23:13.629-04:00Exit-Voice-Loyalty and Kneeling<div class="MsoNormal">
Back in 1970, the political economist Albert O. Hirschman
published a widely influential treatise titled “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty”. He introduced
this conceptual triad to analyze the three options available to those who are
dissatisfied with a particular organization, institution, or situation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under the “exit” option, one simply leaves or “takes their
business elsewhere”. This is regarded as
the market-based solution. Alternatively,
one can exercise “voice” individually, or through the organization of
like-minded others, and demand change, so that the unsatisfactory situation can
be acknowledged and addressed. Hirschman considered “voice” most consistent
with the principles of democratic citizenship. Finally, there is the default
option of “loyalty”, where one faithfully or silently supports the existing
state of affairs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How does the exit-voice-loyalty scheme apply to the current
debate over professional athletes kneeling during the national anthem?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite the effort by detractors to interpret these protests
as unpatriotic or disrespecting the military, the original act by Colin Kaepernick
was explicitly designed to protest the widely reported police violence against
black American citizens. The national anthem served as an occasion to express
dissent and expose the hypocrisy of espoused American values alongside the
brutal reality of racial injustice. As Kaepernick stated: “I am not going to
stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and
people of color”. Thus, Kaepernick and others were responding to what they
considered to be an unsatisfactory state of affairs and chose, among the exit-voice-loyalty
options, the constitutionally protected and non-violent act of voice, in the
hope of raising awareness and improving conditions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those opposed to these actions often demand, instead, unconditional
loyalty to the nation and its symbols, despite the well-documented record of
disproportionate police violence against unarmed black men. In this context,
loyalty means blind conformity and ritualized obedience. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is interesting that the very conservatives who endlessly
trumpet and celebrate the American virtues of individual freedom and liberty, are
the first to demand that those citizens who dare exercise these freedoms be
sanctioned, disciplined, and fired. Freedom
in theory; authoritarianism in practice.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if the disaffected are unwilling to exhibit loyalty, the
only other option is “exit”. Those who protested the Vietnam war will be
familiar with the phrase “America, love it or leave it”. Such invective is now
directed at those who take a knee during the national anthem. If you have a problem with the way law
enforcement operates, move to another country.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In short, the opponents of dissent want to eliminate the
option of “voice”; the one course of action Hirschman associated with
democratic expression. There are now only two options – loyalty or exit. Take
your pick.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such a sentiment is a dangerous threat to democratic
vitality. As the former General and Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower
warned: “May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ironically, sports fans are now faced with a similar array
of choices. Dissatisfied with the way
athletes are expressing their dissent, fans are weighing their options – “exit”
through boycott, remain loyal to their team, or actively voice their
disagreement with the protest tactics. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would suggest that sports fans and others keep in mind the
original source for the athlete’s actions, and support the athletes in raising
awareness and ultimately addressing the well-documented failings of the law
enforcement and criminal justice systems. Rather than attacking the messenger,
it is time to heed the message.<o:p></o:p></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-29114092306848454342016-12-11T11:30:00.001-05:002016-12-11T11:30:24.815-05:00It's The System, Stupid<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine if we had a self-regulating political system that
responded automatically to efforts to expand political participation and the
freedom of expression, but in a negative fashion. For example, suppose every time
a policy was proposed, or put in place, to allow citizens greater ability to express
their preferences, the system automatically responded by reducing the range of
policy issues that would be accessible to popular input. Thus, expanding political participation and
freedom of expression in the name of democracy would actually result in less
democracy. How would we respond to such a situation? Would we simply give up
trying to expand the opportunities for democratic expression? Or would we
question and seek to change the political system that produced these perverse results? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now consider a comparable situation but in the economic
system. Suppose every time we proposed a policy that would improve the working
and material conditions of the citizens through, for example, a minimum wage or
unionization, the self-regulating market system responded by producing fewer jobs or by disinvesting and capital
flight. Thus, attempts to improve the lives of workers would actually result in
negative consequences for workers, and this would then be used as the basis for
opposing any such labor reforms. How would we respond to this situation? As it turns out we are much less likely than in
the case of the political system to consider the system itself as the problem.
Instead, we assume the system is a natural force that cannot be changed or
modified [aka TINA – “there is no alternative”] and therefore our only choice
is either to abandon all efforts, or work to accommodate the system to minimize
the negative consequences. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When people tell us that any effort to improve material conditions
won’t work because the “market” will respond negatively and the action will be
counterproductive, we need to consider the problem to lie not with the policy
proposal but with our economic system itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The economist Michael Perelman [in <i>The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism</i>] has framed this issue similarly
and more colorfully in the context of the Greek myth of Procrustes and the infamous
Procrustean Bed. In that fable, Procrustes invites travelers to spend the night
but they must conform to the dimensions of his bed which results in his
sadistic practice of amputating limbs that are too long, or stretching the
bodies of those who are too short. The Procrustean bed is the metaphor for a
system that requires absolute conformity to its logic and the negative
consequences for those who deviate. This
is how Perelman describes the operation of the capitalist market.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recognition of the systemic sources of our problems has fueled
a several movements aimed at fundamental political-economic change. One prime example is <a href="http://thenextsystem.org/">“TheNext System” project. </a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-16757313052216053922016-08-08T09:53:00.000-04:002016-08-08T09:53:19.417-04:00Political-Economic Correctness: Neither the ‘N’ or the ‘F’ Word Shall Be Spoken<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Political-Economic
Correctness: Neither the ‘N’ or the ‘F’
Word Shall Be Spoken<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The US economy is in the throes of a death spiral that will
ensure continuing slow growth, stagnant wages, and growing inequality. It is a
sad commentary that that there is virtually no mention by either of the two
major party candidates of the pernicious effects of what is now termed <b>Neoliberalism</b>, nor its pernicious appendage,
<b>Financialization</b>. In fact, the terms have been banished from
political campaign discourse despite the fact they are routinely evoked by those
analyzing the past 30 plus years of US capitalism. The consequences of
neoliberalism, alongside financialization, contribute to an economic death
spiral because they produce a vicious cycle that promises self-perpetuating economic
stagnation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Neoliberalism </b>refers
to the political-economic policy regime that emerged in the 1980s in response
to economic crisis conditions of the 1970s. In an effort to reestablish
corporate profitability, it elevated private corporate interests over all
others through regressive taxation, anti-labor legislation, the evisceration of
the social welfare system, “free trade” policies, and deregulation. The role of government is largely reduced to
creating favorable “free market” business climate conditions and reducing the obstacles
to the free flow of capital investment, domestically and globally. One of the
most significant consequences of the new policy regime was that corporations
responded to this neoliberal environment by structurally downsizing and
geographically relocating their operations to reduce costs and enhance
profits. This contributed to deindustrialization and the declining role of
manufacturing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Financialization</b> refers
to the growing role of the financial sector in determining the priorities, and accounting
for a larger share, of economic activity. This can be seen in the way corporate decision-making
is increasingly based almost exclusively on the anticipated reaction of
financial markets, and how <a href="http://www.ccpds.fudan.edu.cn/_upload/article/b5/5e/e816d9f3439c946642016999bf90/b40e0f40-6867-43e0-83c5-5c1107dbe24e.pdf">an
increasing proportion of corporate profits are based not on production but financial
speculation</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Neoliberal corporate restructuring and financialization have
worked in tandem to undermine what has been described as the virtuous cycle of
capitalism. Historically, self-sustaining and dynamic capitalism has depended
upon a virtuous cycle that involves the following sequential process -- capital
investment in production, employment, labor income, discretionary spending by
labor on produced commodities, the generation of profit, and the net profit directed
toward more productive capital investment, which starts the cycle anew. <b>The
two critical and necessary conditions in sustaining this cycle are corporations
reinvesting profits back into production of goods and services, and workers
directing their income toward consumer spending on those goods and services. </b>Today this virtuous cycle is
short-circuited at just these two points as a result of two structurally symbiotic
features of the US economy stemming from neoliberal policies instituted in the
1980s – the outsourcing/offshoring of production and financialization. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How have we arrived at this unsatisfactory economic
state? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s start on the production side.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->In response to the economic crisis of the 1970s
corporations restructured by <u>outsourcing </u>(aka subcontracting)
manufacturing to make their companies leaner and meaner, and sourced
manufacturing suppliers, or their own facilities, offshore. This contributed to
deindustrialization and the disappearance of well-paying blue-collar factory
jobs in the US, thus resulting in downward mobility and unemployment. This also
put domestic workers in competition with cheaper foreign labor. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->At the same time, one central aspect of financialization
was the transition from a philosophy of “managerial capitalism”, involving corporate
decision-making by professional managers aimed at improving and expanding
business operations, to a “financial capitalism” model that shifted corporate
strategy toward the single-minded goal of <b>maximizing
“shareholder value</b>”. Other stakeholder interests – those of workers,
communities, or the long-term viability of the enterprise – were subordinated
to maximizing the return to shareholders. In order to ensure that managers
would pursue shareholder value, their compensation packages included stock
options which served to align this desired behavior with monetary incentive. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->The “market”, and accordingly share price,
responded favorably when corporations were able to sell off various units and
divisions, downsize their labor force, offshore facilities or suppliers to low
wage/deregulated locations, and cut costs. <b>Thus,
the financial sector both rewarded and reinforced corporate restructuring resulting
in progressive deindustrialization.</b> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->As corporations, under neoliberalism and
corporate restructuring, were able to increase their profit share at the
expense of labor’s share, they had large sums of money in search of profitable
investment outlets. Since many of these corporations had outsourced manufacturing,
the profits would no longer be plowed back into new or upgraded factories or
production (which was now carried out by subcontractors, increasingly offshore)
but rather into something with potentially higher returns. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->At the same time, financial institutions, newly
deregulated under the neoliberal regime, developed and invented an assortment of
exotic financial instruments to attract the growing corporate windfall. This
fueled the further financialization of the economy and the upward concentration
of income and wealth (see <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/graph-how-the-financial-sector-consumed-americas-economic-growth/">below</a>). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppfdZGSLlE7RjfrTNXO1KhFh4p2tsAp21_RU-MLKwNcR_nfC3_flxJq3TqFXVpg09Mr1yK4e7TPbeIADRkSDMgYw4f8UDd4JlBZvVpMJO9cQTAejvfzhyphenhyphenPCf9CAnmNKSrNsnm07O3Lbo/s1600/finance-inequality+graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppfdZGSLlE7RjfrTNXO1KhFh4p2tsAp21_RU-MLKwNcR_nfC3_flxJq3TqFXVpg09Mr1yK4e7TPbeIADRkSDMgYw4f8UDd4JlBZvVpMJO9cQTAejvfzhyphenhyphenPCf9CAnmNKSrNsnm07O3Lbo/s320/finance-inequality+graph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b>6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]-->Theoretically
and historically, a rationale for allowing capitalists to retain the greatest
share of profits was based on the assumption that they would plow them back
into more investment and production in factories and new enterprises, and thus generate
expanding employment and worker income. But today in the US, rather than a
convergence, there is a divergence between profits and capital investment (see
Figure 1 below). The delinking of these represents a fundamental failure of US
capitalism. Profits are no longer retained
and re-invested in production; rather they are <b><u><a href="https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity">diverted
toward financial instruments</a>, or used for <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/05/30/companies-pour-billions-into-buying-back-stock-but-workers-and-economy-may-paying-high-price/8vi1toy4kZBr59ykKYzdNL/story.html">stock
buy-backs</a> to support or enhance share price. <o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOW39KocnB6XXAZ2PdsH5U_XW_CqM7JtXM2YW5gsLhEibqm19bd3Zq6KKBtnLyZYwOXDdGbEQQAh60PgZX-hmXL45qPGsrjqGT7Gz_vVU5kJRtTKaeQ-wgwAHE9FsNlStBHAJukriGTg/s1600/profits-investment+divergence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOW39KocnB6XXAZ2PdsH5U_XW_CqM7JtXM2YW5gsLhEibqm19bd3Zq6KKBtnLyZYwOXDdGbEQQAh60PgZX-hmXL45qPGsrjqGT7Gz_vVU5kJRtTKaeQ-wgwAHE9FsNlStBHAJukriGTg/s320/profits-investment+divergence.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is how the <b>capital
investment process</b> necessary for a virtuous cycle has been short-circuited.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How has the consumption side of the equation been thwarted?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b>7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]-->While
the financial sector both shapes and is the recipient of the flow of investment
dollars, the broader production side of the economy is neglected, employment
opportunities are curtailed, and income and wealth are further concentrated in
the hands of financial engineers and their corporate clients. For the average worker, who has experienced stagnation
in buying power, or worse downward mobility, as the economy is restructured and
globalized, debt becomes the means to sustain and support their standard of
living.<b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b>8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]-->Consumer
demand is not only depressed as a result of neoliberal economic policies that
favor capital over labor producing stagnant wage growth, but an increasing
portion of one’s income stream is diverted to servicing or paying off the
various claims made by financial entities as part of car loans, mortgage,
credit card, and student debt (from which the financial sector benefits).
This <b><u>diverts what little income they receive
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/05/from-the-bubble-economy-to-debt-deflation-and-privatization/">back
to the financial sector through debt service</a> rather than into the consumption
and spending that would stimulate business growth and employment. And </u></b>given the offshoring of
production, much of the already limited simulative impact of consumer spending is
restricted domestically to the retail sector as the actual manufacturing of
commodities takes place abroad.<b><u> <o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
9.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Thus we have a toxic symbiotic relationship
between financialization and continuing de-industrializing disinvestment. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is important to note that as a result of the restructuring
of our economy under the neoliberal regime, the financial sector is now in the most
powerful political-economic position as the recipient of the diversion of monetary
resources from both production and consumption. Economically, the dominance of the financial
sector has been identified by such establishment institutions as <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/work490.pdf">the Bank for International
Settlements</a> as a serious drag on “real economic growth”. Politically, mainstream economists such as <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/">Simon
Johnson</a> speak of a “financial oligarchy” determining policy in the United
States. Others describe <a href="http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/">the rise of
debt peonage under a neo-feudal financial regime</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is the very power and influence of this sector that
ensures, under out current political system, that their interests will continue
to be protected by both political parties. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Two Recommended Sources
on Outsourcing/Offshoring and Financialization<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
William Milberg and Deborah Winkler, <b><i>Outsourcing Economics: Global
Value Chains in Capitalist Development</i>.</b> Cambridge Univ Press<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael Hudson, <b><i>Killing The Host: How Financial Parasites
and Debt Destroy the Global Economy</i>.</b> Islet Press.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><o:p><br /></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><o:p><br /></o:p></u></b></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-10724333330297259222016-08-01T08:04:00.000-04:002016-08-01T08:04:30.749-04:00The Myth of Party Polarization<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Myth of Political-Economic Party
Polarization<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“I
actually think the divide is not that wide…. When you go to other countries,
the political divisions are so much more stark and wider. Here in America, the
difference between Democrats and Republicans — we’re fighting inside the
40-yard lines” </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">President
Obama, November, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It is
difficult to read anything about American politics today without coming across
the claim that the political system is more polarized than at any time in
recent history and that this is the source of current intractable gridlock. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">However, as it pertains to the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">political-economic policy dimension,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> I believe </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">the claim is false and
is due to a misconception of what polarization would involve, and the actual
type of division and animosity that actually characterizes party politics
today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Technically,
polarization of the political parties would involve each of the two parties
moving in opposite directions toward the left and right ends of the political
spectrum. A stylized example of a theoretical party polarization is represented
in Figure A. Here you have, over a 30
year period, the Democratic Party moving toward the left end of the political
spectrum and the Republican Party moving toward the right end of the political
spectrum. They are moving in opposite directions and toward opposing ideological
poles <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE45yXv05Yi7xkDqf4kNRmLYotjKOGpcru9OKcx5wBGTz9BM6TlAsw7wkSAPJ9JKDP8n8iHwgY_9CDN9eUYnPZkloxBG_Mmd_ZLUah1cTVl5t5HBrLfMzy8O9qJcgs0gJVHu25KXI068U/s1600/party-pole1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE45yXv05Yi7xkDqf4kNRmLYotjKOGpcru9OKcx5wBGTz9BM6TlAsw7wkSAPJ9JKDP8n8iHwgY_9CDN9eUYnPZkloxBG_Mmd_ZLUah1cTVl5t5HBrLfMzy8O9qJcgs0gJVHu25KXI068U/s320/party-pole1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A more
accurate representation of the political-economic shifts of the two parties is
presented in Figure B. Here we have, since 1970, both parties moving toward the
right end of the political spectrum. But even though both parties have moved to
the right, fueled by their dependence on and cultivation of corporate campaign
contributions, the distance between the two parties can still widen if one
party is moving more radically to the right than the other. This describes the
Republican Party. As political scientists Mann and Ornstein put it in <i>It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, </i> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier —
ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic
regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of
facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political
opposition.” When one of only two
parties takes an extreme ideological position, sharp political division is the
logical outcome. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">This results in a growing
distance between the parties despite the fact that they have been moving in the
same direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRc4chXVRxVVXGhBnMAAZQs9vIX009DAhG-YpKMnTarL266TRg4AyXJw2QO-tVwYVEAWeogOW2IAmwdaqSN7pVbsGoszlc4lOB8si_eWiQnjmcIY1nUh6mkEtYGnC7oBU7rJ-d-wEtAQ/s1600/Party-pole2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRc4chXVRxVVXGhBnMAAZQs9vIX009DAhG-YpKMnTarL266TRg4AyXJw2QO-tVwYVEAWeogOW2IAmwdaqSN7pVbsGoszlc4lOB8si_eWiQnjmcIY1nUh6mkEtYGnC7oBU7rJ-d-wEtAQ/s320/Party-pole2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
alternative perspective presented here on the issue of polarization is based on
what we know about the Democratic Party, beginning with the Carter
administration, but solidified under Clinton, that involved a clear departure
from New Deal social democratic principles and an embrace of more conservative
neoliberal political-economic policies. Among the most notable under Clinton were
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Act, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. All three of these pieces of legislation
moved the Democratic Party to the right as part of the “triangulation” strategy
adopted by the Clinton administration.
The Obama administration has done little if anything to reverse policy
in these three areas and, in terms of trade agreements, has actually pursued a
deepening of the global neoliberal apparatus as evidenced by his promotion of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So,
if the parties have moved in the same direction, what accounts for the real
hostility and antagonism between the parties and party members? I would like to offer two simple concepts,
based on the existence of a two-party versus multiparty system, which might
provide a partial explanation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">First
is what I call <b>zero-sum partisanship.</b>
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This means that (as in a zero-sum game) any gain for one party (electorally
or legislatively) is viewed as a loss for the other; and any loss for one is
viewed as a gain for the other. Under this destructive arrangement, the notion
that there might be a mutually beneficial agreement or a basis for cooperation
or compromise between the two parties becomes increasingly unlikely. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A second closely associated feature of our party system
is <b>binary partisanship.</b> As with a binary numerical system, you are
either a 1 or 0. One’s political
identity, and the tone of political discourse, is shaped by one’s location into
one category or the other. If you criticize a Republican you must be a
Democrat. If you criticize a Democrat, you must be a Republican. If you are not
a 1 you must support a zero. There is no space in a binary system between 0 and
1; nor is there the option for a 0 to choose a 2, as this would automatically
be interpreted as assisting 1, and thus supporting a “spoiler”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National
Committee, was recently asked why the party was now embracing Trump, he
replied, </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"It’s
a <i>binary choice.</i> It’s Donald Trump or
Hillary Clinton."</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <span lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Principled non-partisanship under the zero-sum and binary
conditions becomes nearly impossible.
Antagonism and mutual distain becomes the norm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">All of this has produced <b>partisan co-dependent</b> relationship between the two parties; each
depending on the other to serve as the nemesis against which to generate
antipathy among their base. Instead of
offering a politically principled policy agenda, the parties are content to
mobilize voters on the basis of the claimed horrors that will result if the
opposition is victorious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For
example, in soliciting support and campaign contributions in the current
election, Hillary Clinton has made the following pitch: </span>“Donald Trump is not a normal candidate, and if he beats us, it will be more than a defeat at the ballot box — it will be a once-in-a-generation setback for our values and our shared idea of what America means.”<br /><br />Rather than proposing a progressive left agenda, as one might expect if ideological polarization were occurring, Clinton, and the Democratic Party of recent election campaigns, is content to run on defending the status quo from the reactionary right. This is aptly described by Matt Karp, in a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-dnc-primary-moderates/">recent article in Jacobin</a>, as “fortress liberalism” – “the dominant mentality within the Democratic establishment”. <br /><br />In short, the notion of political party polarization must be examined more carefully and critically as it suggests that not only is there extremism from both parties, but that the Democratic Party has somehow moved sharply to the left. On the central matter of political economic ideology, this characterization is clearly false. The fact that the greatest challenge to the Democratic establishment has come from the progressive social democratic left, and that that ranking officials of the Chamber of Commerce of Commerce and Wall Street moguls such as Michael Bloomberg are now actively supporting Hillary Clinton for President, provides further dis-confirming evidence of the ideological party polarization claim.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-399915706807748912016-07-31T10:09:00.001-04:002016-07-31T10:09:36.618-04:00Property Party?<br /><br />In the words of Gore Vidal: <i>“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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<a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-will-be-good-for-business-predicts-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist/"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTWxkZ_urOIF-BA8PJPPv_IpXAjTQ30D35ZnQtY_qoZ4niRzmbG_IFk19M7dC5bUgcRkov6SnVJOCCmNJdCv0SjjIaqHrUPbm7tlEYLjKDMnp1gKQ8i5AbhTZXZJLLAuc40suUUp9Y1g/s320/chamber-clinton.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-34780321718551353282016-07-26T08:19:00.000-04:002016-07-26T08:19:32.849-04:00Exit, Voice, or Loyalty: Thoughts on the Sanders Movement<div class="MsoNormal">
The 2016 primary election season has seen the greatest
widespread dissatisfaction and defection from the two-party duopoly in modern
times. For both the Democrats and the Republicans, members have challenged the
party establishment and promoted insurgent candidates. How will this all play out through the
general election and beyond? We can
consider the case of the Sanders supporters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One way to approach this question is to take Albert O.
Hirschman’s brilliant conceptual triad designed to analyze the options
available to those who are dissatisfied with a particular organization,
institution, or situation. The model
offers three course of action – exit, voice, or loyalty. Under the “exit” option one simply leaves or
takes their business elsewhere. This is
regarded as the market-based solution. Alternatively,
one can exercise “voice” through the organization of like-minded others and
demand change, so that the organization can be transformed into something more satisfactory.
Hirschman associates this option with democratic activism. Finally, there is
the default option of “loyalty” where one can continue to faithfully support, or
remain. in the organization. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Hirschman’s scheme is conceptually elegant, and it can be
applied to a wide variety of situations, but fails to consider fully the
contextual factors that might constrain the seemingly “free choices” or options
facing the social actor. For example, in
the case of a disgruntled employee, “exit” may be highly desirable but not
feasible under poor labor market conditions of high unemployment. Similarly, “voice” may seem an attractive
option but there may be few opportunities or the consequences of exercising
voice may be dismissal from the job.
What then appears, after considering and rejecting these options, as
“loyalty” is in fact really a situation of highly restricted and constrained choice,
or no choice at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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How do the three options of the Hirschman model currently
apply in the short-run to the Sanders supporter? Many may choose to exercise
the “exit” option. This could mean not supporting Clinton and either voting for
another political party or abstaining all together. “Voice” could involve working to change the
Democratic Party from within so that it more closely aligns with the principles
and policies of the Sanders movement. “Loyalty” would entail the strong
partisan commitment of supporting whatever nominee emerges from the Democratic
Party nominating process. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the case of the Sanders supporter, there are also
contextual constraints that limit easy choices.
One of these contextual factors is the political dynamic generated by a
two-party system. As it applies to the exit option, under a two-party system
failure to turn out for the Democratic Party, or casting a ballot for a third
party, may serve to benefit the Republicans. One is then cast, no matter how
unfairly, as somehow responsible for an outcome that may be the least desirable
– in this case a Trump victory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some variant of the “voice” option was incorporated into the
platform drafting procedures with the appointment of Sanders’ representatives
to participate in that process. Voice
can, in the short run, be further exercised through protests and demonstrations
at the national convention. But there
are obvious constraints given the fact that the Democratic Party is a corporate
dominated party institutionally devoted more toward defending the establishment
status quo than promoting radical structural changes that would challenge the
balance of social class power. </div>
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Further, the very foundation of the Sanders campaign – as a “political
revolution” dependent upon a long-term mass social movement – requires a
non-institutionally regulated, sometimes-cacophonous, overture that will
disrupt and agitate for substantive social change. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For this reason, the post-Bernie led movement is best
advised, over the post-election long-run, to combine “exit” -- from the shackles
of the two party system (which has been the graveyard of social movements) -- with
the “voice” of the various movements and existing organizations sharing common
ground in seeking justice, equality, and democracy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, this will require some level of organization to
be most effective. Last night Bernie Sanders communicated the following to those
supporting his campaign and movement:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<strong><i><span style="background: white; color: #364350; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“Our work will continue in the form of a new group called Our
Revolution. </span></i></strong><i><span style="background: white; color: #364350; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The
goal of this organization will be no different from the goal of our campaign:
we must transform American politics to make our political and economic systems
once again responsive to the needs of working families.</span>”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-1166868516043200232016-07-22T09:12:00.000-04:002016-07-22T09:12:59.114-04:00Trump as Personification of 21st Century U.S. Capitalism<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
Many of those supporting
Donald Trump for President base their support on his record as a successful
businessman. But how did Trump amass his financial fortune? A closer look
reveals that Trump is, in fact, the perfect personification of the current
state of American capitalism -- an economic system that is based heavily on
three strands of capitalist practice that today depart radically from the
idealized version of the self-made entrepreneurial form. Trump’s record as a business executive conforms
closely to all three strands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first is <b><u>patrimonial capitalism</u></b>. This term was introduced by Thomas Piketty in
his book <i>Capital in the Twenty-First Century</i>
which charts the long-term trajectory of inequality in capitalist societies.
His analysis concluded, as the term suggests, that those who dominate and
direct our economy base their wealth increasingly on inheritance. It is largely
family income and wealth that determines who will occupy the capitalist class rather
than merit. This does not mean that the
principle of meritocracy is irrelevant as it does provide, if nothing else, a
powerful legitimizing ideology along the lines of “I was born on third base, so
I must have hit a triple”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Trump fits squarely
into the patrimonial model as his father, Fred Trump, amassed a net worth of at
least $200 million and Donald inherited somewhere between $40 and $200 million.
Donald also benefited throughout his business career from a long series of loan
guarantees underwritten by his father. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Second is <b><u>crony capitalism.</u></b> This
refers to the close relationship between capitalists and government officials
in which said officials provide capitalists with various favors (e.g.
abatements, incentives, re-zoning, etc.) that translate into private profit. Donald
learned the lessons of crony capitalism from his father Fred who developed
powerful political connections enabling profitable opportunities in the
building of public housing. Donald has built on those connections and that
strategy throughout his life. This has included relationships with the City of
New York for tax abatements, efforts in Bridgeport CT to have existing
businesses condemned, the use of eminent domain in numerous locations to obtain
property, and obtaining casino licenses in Atlantic City. Trump has been quite open about his ability to
make economically useful connections with any political official, and his “pragmatic”
campaign contributions to both parties reflect this practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Opportunities for crony
capitalism have increased under the neoliberal supply-side economic development
model that privileges the needs of capital over the needs of workers and
communities. As states and localities are charged with building favorable
business climates for capital investment, and the number of so-called “public-private
partnerships” increase, government favors can be rationalized as contributions to
job creation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The third outstanding
feature of the contemporary US economy is <b><u>debt-driven
capitalism.</u></b> Trump proudly has
proclaimed himself “the king of debt” and he claims he “made a fortune out of
debt”. He has used what is now a common business practice that was the subject
of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html">recent
story in the New York Times</a> on Trump’s business record in Atlantic City: “…<span style="background: white; color: #333333;">even as his companies did poorly, Mr.
Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to
the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other
payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet
on his business acumen.</span>” A
variant of this model, sometimes described as “vampire capitalism”, is the standard
operating procedure for the private-equity firms which gained national
attention when Mitt Romney was running for President. As <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-callahan/bad-debts-big-profits-how_b_1539328.html">reported</a>
during that last presidential race: ”<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Borrowing lots of money and incurring bad debts is not
how real businesses make money in a normal world. But we don’t live in such
innocent times. Modern American capitalism is rife with sophisticated financial
intermediaries who exploit flaws and complexity in the system, as well as
insider connections, to make profits off of predatory behavior”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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So when people hold up
Trump as an exemplary example of business acumen, it must be put in the context
of U.S. capitalism more generally and the larger systemic failure of our
political economy that concentrates wealth in an oligarchical fashion, allows
government to be captured by narrow corporate interests, and economically
rewards those who use financial sector debt for short term gain.<o:p></o:p></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-72990184234785907412016-05-06T08:07:00.000-04:002016-05-06T08:07:37.119-04:00How Has The "Model" Free Trade Agreement with Korea Worked Out?Free trade agreements, like neoliberal economic policy, are faith-based policies that are promoted by both the business interests that benefit from them and economic policy-makers captured by the ideology of mainstream economic thought, in spite of the overwhelming evidence for their negative consequences (for the larger economy and the working population).<br /><br />Obama has been working overtime in support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) but as reported by Lori Wallach of <a href="http://www.citizen.org/tradewatch">Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch</a>, there is now more damning evidence for the utter misinformation (lie?) about these trade agreements. <br /><br />“Today’s alarming fourth-year trade data on President Obama’s U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) arrived just as the Obama administration has started its hard sell to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And that is a real problem for the White House.<br /><br />The Korea deal served as the U.S. template for the TPP, with significant TPP text literally cut and pasted from the Korea agreement. And the Obama administration sold the Korea deal with the same <a href="https://ustr.gov/uskoreaFTA">“more exports, more jobs”</a> promises now being employed to sell TPP.<br /><br />And since then, our trade deficit with Korea more than doubled as imports surged and exports declined. The increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Korea equates to the loss of more than 106,000 American jobs in the first four years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs <a href="http://trade.gov/publications/pdfs/exports-support-american-jobs.pdf">ratio</a> that the Obama administration used to promise at least 70,000 job gains from the deal.”
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<div style="line-height: 20.25pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/new-data-show-us-trade-de_b_9841764.html">Read more here.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-10928121219123868712016-04-28T07:33:00.000-04:002016-04-28T07:33:45.943-04:00Fallacious Logic Informs St Johns River Dredging Project The most recent development in the ongoing contention over the proposed St Johns River dredging/deepening has the St Johns Riverkeeper filing a legal challenge to block state permitting of the project. While much of the debate over the project has revolved around the environmental impact, and the classic tradeoff between environmental protection and economic growth, there is an even more fundamental question worth asking -- what is the likelihood that the presumed economic gains in jobs and revenue will be realized if the project actually comes to fruition? On that score, one can file a logical challenge against the project and its proponents who repeatedly commit a fundamental logical socio-economic fallacy known as “the fallacy of composition”. <br /><br />This logical fallacy plagues many proposed economic development panaceas. The tendency is to isolate a single case, in this instance Jacksonville’s port, showing how investing in an infrastructural enhancement will make the port more competitive and result in positive economic benefits. But what appears as individually rational -- for a port to seek public funds in order to finance infrastructural expansion and meet the demands of carriers and shippers – may in fact be collectively irrational. This is because Jaxport is not the only port engaging in this activity. Every major port on the East coast is or will be as deep, or deeper, than Jacksonville. Once one considers the larger east coast port population, all pursuing the same strategies and competing for the same limited amount of containerized cargo, it should be obvious that the result will not be equally beneficial for all parties. Some will be more successful than others based on existing and cumulative advantages; and, collectively, scarce public funds will be expended on redundant infrastructure resulting in overcapacity and underutilization. <br /><br />Avoiding the fallacy of composition would have led the Army Corp of Engineers to conduct a multiport analysis in determining the wisdom of recommending the St Johns River dredging/deepening project (but they did not). Understanding the fallacy of composition would make clear that when every port seeks to gain an advantage through costly infrastructure and channel deepening it will inevitably result in “destructive competition” where no net competitive advantage is gained by any port, while the bargaining position of the shippers and global carriers is strengthened. As one study of port competition concludes: “…interport competition results in an unnecessary and unrewarded transfer of wealth from local taxpayers and users to global firms.”<br /><br />There is a second similarly relevant socio-economic fallacy known as Say’s Law -- that supply will create its own demand. This has been translated into the equally fallacious assumption made by advocates of the deepening project that “if we dredge, they will come”. But supplying a container terminal and deep water will not automatically produce a demand for port services, as that is contingent not only on the state of global trade but decisions made by the shippers and carriers, who, it turns out, have expressed a clear preference for Savannah and Charleston over Jacksonville. <br /><br />Finally, one would be remiss if they did not make reference to the more well-known concept of “opportunity cost”. This refers to the lost benefit or value of an activity not undertaken because another course of action is pursued. As it pertains to the river deepening, one might consider whether the estimated $400 million local share of total project cost would be better directed toward an alternative form of public investment that might generate greater benefits for the citizens of Duval county, such as improved public transportation.<br /><br />In short, one does not need to conduct a technical econometric analysis in order to assess or challenge the logical shortcomings of the proposed dredging project. It is remarkable, but not entirely surprising, that paid consultants conducting economic impact studies would overlook these fundamental, but inconvenient, socio-economic principles. What will be more inexcusable is if public officials actually decide to expend scarce taxpayer resources, in a time of severe fiscal strain, on such a highly speculative megaproject. David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-46136509339817164392016-04-22T08:00:00.000-04:002016-04-22T08:00:23.773-04:00Jacksonville Oligarchy The pattern of autocratic candidate selection should now be depressingly familiar to the citizens of Jacksonville. A political office opens up; a narrow wealthy elite segment of the population, or usually just one single member of the elite known as the “local kingmaker”, endorses a candidate; said candidate immediately becomes the odds on favorite to capture the election, and invariably emerges victorious. <br /><br />The wishes and desires of the demos – that is, the participation of the people on whom democracy presumably rests – play absolutely no role in this process. We saw this with the endorsement of Mayor Brown, the anointment of Mayor Curry, and now it is playing out with lightening quick speed in the open 4th Congressional seat recently vacated by Ander Crenshaw. Former Sheriff John Rutherford has been chosen by the local powers that be. Case closed; citizens and democracy be damned.<br /><br />More disturbing still, no one seems to care. Compare this with Hong Kong where recently tens of thousands of people hit the streets to protest the role of the Chinese Communist Party selecting acceptable candidates for their Chief Executive position. What we have in the United States generally, and in Jacksonville in particular, is comparable. Instead of a political elite, it is a corporate elite. But here in Jacksonville, as elsewhere, there is hardly a word of dissent as citizens have become habituated to the faux democracy that is our electoral political system.<br /><br />Regarding the chosen candidate, there has been nothing said about the qualities Rutherford possesses that would recommend him as a member of Congress. Not a word on his policy positions on national issues, his aspirations, or his ideals. Apparently, the local oligarchy is content that he will represent their interests; but what about the interests of the congressional district’s larger constituency? <br /><br />It is time that citizens demand a more democratic process and procedure for determining who will be on the ballot, and the choices they will be faced with when they vote for their Congressional representative.David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-85099940063252679962016-04-22T07:53:00.000-04:002016-04-22T07:53:43.116-04:00Democrats vs DemocratsIn Thomas Frank’s excellent latest book, <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/listenliberal/thomasfrank">Listen Liberal</a>, on the conservative drift of the Democratic Party he highlights the fact that the party has largely devoted itself toward mobilizing and serving the interests of the professional-managerial class rather than the working class. More specifically, he notes the party’s fascination with highly educated professionals, the “creative class”, and the associated concept of innovation (technological and financial, the latter responsible for blowing up the economy). <div>
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The growing rift between average workers and privileged professionals, and the Democratic Party preference for the latter (formerly known as "Atari Democrats"), emerged in full view in Silicon Valley as the Democratic Party was pandering to the venture capitalists, who happen to have the campaign contribution largess the party has come to crave. <div>
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<i>After working in Silicon Valley for years, Morgan Quirk felt good protesting outside the home of a venture capitalist who funded tech startups and fundraisers for Hillary Clinton. He was part of a new splinter group of the liberal party, Democrats marching against Democrats in San Francisco, commuting tech workers against their bosses.</i></div>
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<i><br />“They sell you a dream at startups – the pingpong, the perks – so they can pull 80 hours out of you,” said Quirk, a 26-year-old software engineer. “But in reality the venture capitalists control all the capital, all the labor, and all the decisions, so yeah, it feels great protesting one.</i>”</div>
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-46795021034568663062016-03-20T09:28:00.000-04:002016-03-20T09:28:30.293-04:00Trump and the Double Backlash Boomerang<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The rise of Donald Trump has generated a range of
explanations for his electoral appeal. The most convincing explanations link
his success to the actions and rhetoric that has been coming from the
Republican Party since at least the 1990s.
A more accurate description of this dynamic might be what I refer to as
the “double backlash boomerang”. It is a two-step process, with “Trumpenstein”
as the end product. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first backlash was identified most poignantly by
Thomas Frank who introduced us to “The Great Backlash” with his book <i>What’s The Matter With Kansas. </i>Frank
described how the Republican Party, unable to attract naturally the white
working class on economic issues given their pro-corporate agenda and country
club constituency, resorted to cultural appeals that painted the liberals, and
by association the Democratic Party, as arrogant and condescending elitists who
look down upon the working-class masses with disdain for their attachment to
God, guns, and traditional family values.
Portrayed by Republicans as secular humanists intent on social
engineering through government policies aimed at curtailing basic freedoms and
liberty, liberals are more concerned with undeserving minority groups and
immigrants than hard-working, God-fearing, Christians. This rhetoric served to
both anger and mobilize a significant portion of the working class against the
Democratic Party and in support of the Republicans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What Pat Buchanan termed the “culture wars” has now
become the routine, standard operating, Republican strategy of “stirring up the
base”. Most recently it has involved increasingly outrageous charges against
liberals who, it is claimed, are destroying the country from the inside. This
strategy was ramped up further during the Obama administration, with the
ever-present and not so subtle racist overtones, in the form of questioning Obama’s
citizenship and his sympathies, and charging him with being a foreign agent and
a communist dictator. The Tea Party
movement, cultivated and funded by the Koch brothers, was the most visible
manifestation of this “ginned-up” base. This
described the first backlash, which has been fairly successful in fueling
Republican electoral support among a segment of the white working class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But the ultimate electoral purpose was to advance
the economic agenda of the corporate elite. As Frank argues:<o:p></o:p></span> “Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends. And it is these economic achievements — not the forgettable skirmishes of the never-ending culture wars — that are the movement’s greatest monuments. The backlash is what has made possible the international free-market consensus of recent years, with all the privatization, deregulation, and de-unionization that are its components. Backlash ensures that Republicans will continue to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes don’t deliver…”</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And any chance that the culturally wooed working
class would return to the Democratic Party is undermined by the fact that the Democrats,
for their part, are equally complicit in joining the “free market
consensus”. This neoliberal economic
agenda introduced under Reagan, privileging the needs of capital over labor
through lower taxes, weaker unions, deregulation, and a far less generous
welfare state, was deepened and normalized under Clinton (see NAFTA, welfare
reform, repeal of Glass-Steagall), continued with a vengeance under Bush II,
and largely left in place unabated by Obama despite its direct role in creating
The Great Recession that he inherited. The
neoliberal consensus, driven by the bipartisan addiction to corporate campaign
contributions, has left the working class with no party representing their
interests. Instead of a class-based
appeal through alternative pro-labor economic policies, which would alienate
their corporate backers, the Democratic Party has developed a codependent
relationship with the Republicans using their own cultural and identity
politics to attract the educated white-collar professional-managerial class who
is likewise mobilized in opposition to the crude and intolerant cultural values
advanced by the Republicans. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abandoning
the working class, as Frank puts it, has been the “criminally stupid strategy
that has dominated Democratic thinking” since the 1970’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So as the 2016 primary season kicked off, you have
the mass base of the Republican Party ginned-up and angry, continuing to suffer
economically, unable to turn to the now-despised liberal Democrats, yet wanting
to “Take Back America”. But they do not
see the Republican establishment responding proportionately to the purportedly grave
threat to the American way of life posed by Obama and the Democratic Party. If
everything they have been told by Republican politicians and Fox News is true, how
come the Republican Party has not taken the drastic actions required to stop
and halt the clear and present danger? Instead, the Republican establishment,
despite the incendiary rhetoric, is perceived as too willing to accommodate and
compromise with, rather than aggressively attack, the identified source of
American decline. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, the second backlash is unleashed as the base
turns, en masse, toward a Donald Trump, in hostile opposition to the Republican
Party institution, with Trump promising, through appeals to cultural chauvinism
and economic nationalism, to “Make America Great Again.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Originally fueled by the first Great Backlash, we
are witnessing more broadly the boomeranging blowback from years of cultivating
dog whistle racism, misogyny, xenophobia, bellicose nationalism, anti-intellectualism,
know nothingism, and generalized rage. In
short, the Republican Party has spawned a custom-made constituency for the neo-fascist
demagoguery of Donald Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-84114530182086202032016-01-18T07:23:00.000-05:002016-01-18T07:23:20.626-05:00What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Think Today (annual post)<div class="MsoNormal">
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If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today I believe he
would be deeply disturbed at the socio-economic condition and policy direction
of the United States in both domestic and international affairs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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More specifically, he would be appalled that our global
response to 9/11 was war, invasion, and occupation; that our domestic response
to 9/11 was a so-called Patriot Act curtailing civil liberties; that our
current military strategy employs targeted killing using unmanned drones; that
in spite of record rates of child and family poverty our “leaders” are unable
to utter the p-word; that in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the
great depression there is a greater concern with cutting deficits than creating
jobs; that in spite of record income inequality, raising taxes on the rich is fiercely
resisted while busting labor unions is embraced; that in response to the endless
string of mass shootings many Americans have chosen to stock up on additional
weapons; that in response to a failing
economy that systematically marginalizes racial minorities we have chosen
prisonfare over welfare, the dragnet over the safety net, police violence over
public safety; that the United States is the global arms merchant; and that
rather than deepening democracy we have established a corporate plutocracy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But Martin Luther King would not despair; he would organize.
If alive today he would have supported the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements
and would mobilize citizens in peaceful, non-violent action to agitate against existing
conditions while building a vision for a more humane world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-50862292164493567412015-10-14T20:55:00.000-04:002015-10-14T20:55:19.539-04:00Deficits, the Laffer Curve, and Jeb's 'Deja Voodoo'<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a time when Republicans were known as the frugal
party that obsessed over deficits and balanced budgets. As the sociologist Mark
Mizruchi writes, in his <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072992">outstanding historical study</a> of the corporate
elite during what he believes was the period of corporate moderation and
pragmatism from the post-WWII period into the 1960s, <i>“The interesting feature here is the groups willingness to acknowledge
that spending cuts could not be viewed as the sole solution to the deficit
without at least some level of tax increase…this contrasts with the American
business community of the post-2000 period, which has been unwilling to even
raise the possibility of a tax increase, despite a deficit far greater in
magnitude than that experienced during the 1960s.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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But one can pre-date the shift in ideology back to the 1980s
when Reagan proposed sharp tax cuts for the rich. These proposed tax cuts posed
a serious dilemma for Republicans who, on the one hand, loved low taxes,
particularly in the upper brackets and on corporate profits but, on the other
hand, were concerned with deficits. At
that time there was recognition of the positive relationship between tax rates
and tax revenue (the laft-hand half of the curve below).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Laffer (laugher?) curve, presumably originally drafted on
a cocktail napkin, was designed to show that the Republicans could have their
cake and eat it too. The purely hypothetical curve showed how lower tax rates
could actually increase revenue on the assumption that it would stimulate such
an outburst of new investment that the resulting increase in growth, and the
taxes that this growth would yield, would more than compensate for the lower
tax rates. This was famously described
by GHW Bush as “voodoo economics.” But it today remains the foundation for the
logic of supply-side economics and the trickle-down/rising-tide-lifts-all-boats
fraud. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2I2g7UTR_ZFZz16Qe-h8mVAVMRZvKjeS5SWVoEZP8M5Zp-X8SrRdTdwbgFKI9F-pAdMQ1qVDu2LGQCGwX6S0rXzs8_YH9MOzbh0wTc-dTWlmvTyKXhGlAP3xFAb7M9cNyM6QUxjMl54/s1600/laffer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2I2g7UTR_ZFZz16Qe-h8mVAVMRZvKjeS5SWVoEZP8M5Zp-X8SrRdTdwbgFKI9F-pAdMQ1qVDu2LGQCGwX6S0rXzs8_YH9MOzbh0wTc-dTWlmvTyKXhGlAP3xFAb7M9cNyM6QUxjMl54/s320/laffer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Every time it has been tried, during the Reagan years,
during the GW Bush years, and most recently by Governor Brownback in Kansas, it
has produced exactly what one would logically expect – massive budget deficits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This brings us to Presidential candidate Bush III (aka Jeb!).
He has recently proposed a tax plan that is nothing more than warmed over
supply-side doctrine with lower tax rates for the top bracket and corporations as the presumed solution to slow growth. In an interview, Jeb was told that economists,
who had evaluated his tax plan, predicted a loss of revenue into the trillions.
In response, Jeb simply parroted the bankrupt and empirically unsubstantiated supply
side mantra based on the Laffer Curve :<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“Lower taxes will create a renaissance of investment in
our country…the dynamic effect of growth will create far more revenue than any
of the exotic tax plans that are being proposed by the left…the dynamic effect
of tax policy creates economic growth that narrows the deficit.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes -- in the words of the economist Robert Kuttner -- another case of <i>deja voodoo</i>!<o:p></o:p></div>
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-49055617562297552962015-10-01T08:54:00.001-04:002015-10-01T08:54:47.931-04:00Class Warfare Florida Style
Florida Governor Rick Scott, and the state’s economic development arm, Enterprise Florida, recently teamed up to promote Florida’s business climate to Kentucky businesses. In a radio ad, they asked Kentuckians if they were tired of unions and high taxes, and touted Florida as a place that has neither “as a right-to-work state, with no income tax”. While Scott and his corporate functionaries tout these as state assets, they are actually liabilities for the majority of Floridians.<br /><br /> Starting with the so-called “right-to-work” law; it is a less than transparent, but highly effective, vehicle for weakening the ability of workers to organize, collectively bargain, and negotiate with their employers over conditions of work. It prohibits mandatory union membership and the collection of union dues from workers represented by a union that collectively bargains on their behalf and is responsible for the wages, fringe benefits, and working conditions enjoyed by all employees. Under this law, workers are able to enjoy the benefits that derive from a union workplace without joining the union and paying union dues.<br /><br />In order to appreciate the implications of such a law, consider an equivalent type of organization – the homeowners association. The right-to-work law would be equivalent to allowing residents who move into a neighborhood the freedom to opt out of paying annual homeowner association fees. While all residents would benefit from the amenities and community upkeep that enhances their property values, they would be free to choose not to pay the annual levy. This would obviously undermine the viability of neighborhood associations and their ability to finance the costs of maintaining common community space. <br /><br /> And please don’t be confused by the manipulative name of the law or the rhetoric. It is a piece of anti-worker legislation couched in an Orwellian double-speak misnomer. It is not a “right-to-a-job” law, it is not a “right-to-a-living wage” law, and it is not a “right-to-be-treated-with-dignity-at-the-workplace” law. The supporters of the “right-to-work” law would oppose every one of those pieces of legislation because they would interfere with the right of employers to fire you, pay you a minimum wage, and treat you any way they desire. The right to work law is championed, largely by corporate interests, for the very simple reason that it makes unionization of workers much more difficult. This is confirmed by the lower rates of unionization in right-to-work states and, accordingly, the lower wages and poorer working conditions for all workers.<br /><br />While right-to-work laws may be attractive to businesses looking to pay low wages and avoid negotiating with workers over the conditions of their employment, the law does not translate into a better quality of life for the state’s residents. A recent study by Politico, ranking the states on quality of life measures associated with education, crime, employment, and income, found that the bottom five states all had “right-to-work” laws, while four of the top five had no such law.<br /><br />Attracting non- or anti-union businesses that pay low wages also imposes an additional cost on a state’s taxpayers. To take the most widely reported example, the stridently anti-union employer, Walmart, pays wages that are so low, fulltime workers must rely on government assistance to make ends meet. It is estimated that Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid, and subsidized housing. In Florida the total cost of assisting Walmart’s workers was $429 million. The total budgetary cost for all low wage work in Florida was over $1 billion. In essence, Florida taxpayers are subsidizing the low wage compensation and, in turn, the high profits of many corporations.<br /><br />In spite of “right-to-work” laws, workers have struggled to organize workplaces and, consequently, employers have resorted to other strategies. The class war is fought on many fronts. There was a time when employers would simply hire company goons to rough up workers who were trying to organize a union; today, there is a more sophisticated method involving the use of law firms specializing in tactics and strategies to assist employers in the effort to keep the workplace union-free. This evolution in tactics has been nicely described as “from brass-knuckles to briefcases”. But the intent is the same – to prevent workers from establishing an organization to represent their interests. The most notorious national union-avoidance law firm is Jackson Lewis (with offices in four Florida cities including Jacksonville, and 49 additional other locations nation-wide) who describe their service not as union busting but rather “preventive labor relations”. They offer regular workshops for managers and owners intent on keeping their workplace union-free.<br /><br />Anti-union corporations, like Walmart and Target, engage in a less than subtle indoctrination of their newly hired workers during orientation sessions on the evils of organized labor and, if employees are involved in union discussions, they are often harassed and terminated. <br /><br />In the building and construction sector, a key source of employment in the state of Florida, an organization claiming to represent the industry (though a recent study indicates their membership amounts to only 1% of US construction businesses), the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), was formed for and continues to be dedicated to the defeat of any union organization within their work force. They have consistently lobbied against any legislation that would enhance the ability of workers to organize and collectively bargain with employers in the building and construction industry, and beyond. <br /><br /> It is hard to understand the unrelenting hostility to organized labor. It apparently is not enough that the percent of workers in a union has fallen to its lowest level in 97 years at 11%; it is not enough that income inequality has swelled to records levels; it is not enough that the concentration of wealth has reached Third World proportions; it is not enough that average worker compensation has stagnated since the 1980s; and it is not enough that all of these were contributing factors in the recent and lingering 2007 financial capitalist crisis. The corporate plutocracy wants more. <br /><br />Labor unions, the one remaining organizational vehicle that has historically advanced the cause of worker rights, higher wages and benefits, and progressive political mobilization, must be snuffed out altogether. Or, as one right-wing corporate strategist put it: “We want to take labor out at the knees.”<br /><br />The late great economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, wrote that one of the good things about American capitalism was the fact that there existed “countervailing power” to prevent the corporate elite from political and economic domination of the society. This countervailing power can only exist if workers have the ability to organize and assert their interests. Right-to-work laws are designed to make that less likely.<br /><br />The other factor advertised by Governor Scott and Enterprise Florida as bait to lure businesses to the state is the absence of a state income tax. While this might sound good to most citizens, and certainly to the rich, what it inevitably means is that tax revenue, which must come from other sources, is collected through regressive (versus progressive) forms of taxation (e.g. sales taxes, fees). Thus those least able to pay – low and middle income workers -- carry a larger tax burden as a percentage of their income than the wealthiest. More specifically, in 2015 according to Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Tax Inequality Index, Florida has the second most regressive state and local tax system in the country. In states with regressive tax structures incomes are less equal after state and local taxes than before. <br /><br />Neither a “right-to-work” law, nor the absence of an income tax, has served workers in state. Currently Florida has the seventh highest concentration of low income workers at 22% (Oxfam America) and the ninth highest percentage of low income working families at 38% (The Working Poor Families Project). Rather than spending time poaching jobs from other states on the basis of union-bashing and regressive taxation, Governor Scott might consider proposing policies that would actually improve working conditions and compensation for those workers who currently reside in the state, and are struggling to make ends meet. <br /><br /> David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-67886036346466372015-06-04T15:29:00.000-04:002015-06-04T15:29:51.251-04:00Another Failure of American Capitalism: Profits and Stock Buyback<br />A fundamental rationale and justification for the appropriation of profit by the capitalist class rests on the assumption of productive reinvestment. This is also the basis for the argument that while cutting taxes on corporations and the rich will concentrate wealth in the short-run, it will inevitably “trickle down” in the long run. The experience of the US economy over the last thirty years has exposed this claim as fraudulent. The following table shows the dramatic disconnect between profits and net investment over this period, and particularly after 2000. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">
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<br /><br />There are <a href="http://blogs.lclark.edu/hart-landsberg/2013/07/28/a-bleak-future/">a variety of explanations for the growing gap</a> -- profits secured through outsourcing/offshoring, financialization, intensification of work, wage suppression, government tax breaks/subsidies. An <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/05/30/companies-pour-billions-into-buying-back-stock-but-workers-and-economy-may-paying-high-price/8vi1toy4kZBr59ykKYzdNL/story.html">excellent piece of journalism in the in the Boston Globe </a> provides more precise evidence of a particularly pernicious financialization-related maneuver – company profits plowed into the stock market to buy back shares of their own company. <div>
<br />Reporting on the networking company Cisco, and its Boxborough Massachusetts facility:<br /><i>The Boxborough workers learned that at the same time they were being laid off the company was continuing to spend billions of dollars to buy back its own stock, a move designed to reduce the number of shares on the open market and perhaps boost its relatively stagnant share price. </i><br /></div>
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The Globe further notes:<br /><i>This stock buyback boom, while obscure to much of the public, has become one of the most pervasive and divisive practices in corporate America. It affects jobs, investment, and the health of the economy, all in the search for higher share prices. It is also a major driver of the widening economic divide in this country, which could make it a prominent issue in the 2016 presidential election.</i><br /><br />This buyback practice is a direct cause of the long-term “trickle up” (not down) tendency in the United States, since stock ownership is highly concentrated among the top 10%. It is also closely associated with the socially irresponsible “shareholder value” principle which led managers, parroting a slogan they learned in business school classes, to claim that “my only obligation is to my shareholders”. <br /><br />We should all now be well aware there is no guarantee that the accumulation of private profit will advance the public good. Unfortunately, economic development policies in the United States continue to be based on this assumption.</div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-72197058997432755012015-06-02T06:31:00.001-04:002015-06-02T06:31:36.639-04:00Whats The Matter With America? Doubling Down on Failed Policy -- Domestic and Foreign<div class="MsoNormal">
There are some obvious reasons for the steady decline of
American effectiveness in dealing with domestic economic woes as well as international
affairs. Most notable is the adherence
to ideologies that generate policies with a proven track record of failure.
Despite this demonstrated failure, the United States continues to pursue the
same policies, believing the results will be different. This is sometimes
described as insanity. However, a closer examination indicates that there are
powerful interests that benefit from this practice. The net result is both a
diminished democracy and a nation falling far short of its potential for global
leadership. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On the domestic front, neoliberal political economic
ideology has prevailed since the 1980s.
This involves a belief in the goodness of the market and the badness of
government; the preference for private sector solutions over public sector responsibility.
It is based on the assumption that any policy that benefits private corporate
interests will inevitably produce public social good. Privatization, deregulation, low taxes on the
wealthy and corporations, no unions, and no increased minimum wage are just
some of the most notable policy preferences. The fact that this has been the
trend for thirty years, and has produced record income and wealth inequality
and a domestic economy that is grossly incapable of meeting the socio-economic
needs of the population, not to mention contributing to the continuing economic
crisis, seems to be an irrelevant indicator of its ineffectiveness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Almost all political and public officials -- Democrat and Republican -- still subscribe
to the basic tenets of neoliberalism. The Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph
Stiglitz describes this phenomenon as “cognitive capture”. In addition to the
direct capture of government by moneyed interests through financial
contributions, there is the more subtle and insidious “cognitive” forms involving
the taken for granted assumption that economic policy – particularly at the
state and local levels – involves reducing the costs and providing tax and
financial incentives to the private sector.
This has become the singular guiding principle of public policy, often
disguised behind the intuitively appealing but highly asymmetrical
“public-private partnership”. Once established, this principle precludes any
need for public participation in economic policy decisions, since it has taken
on the status of a self-evident truth. It is this mindset and worldview that
ensures policies will serve, first and foremost, the economic interests of the
few rather than the socio-economic needs of the many. In the process, democracy
is short-circuited.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the foreign-military policy front (hyphenated because the
two have become indistinguishable) there is an equally impressive record of
failure; most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps, shortly, with ISIS. The failure stems from what Andrew Bacevich,
a former Army colonel, labels the long-standing “Washington rules”. The first rule, what he calls the American
Credo, assumes that the United States is responsible for <span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN;">leading, saving, liberating, and
ultimately transforming the world.
Others have described this as “imperial hubris”. The second rule is that
this mission will be accomplished primarily through military rather than
diplomatic means, and at a scale and scope that far exceeds national security
requirements. It rests, according to Bacevich,
on “the sacred trinity: an abiding conviction that the minimum
essentials of international peace and order require the United States to
maintain a <em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">global military presence</span></em>, to
configure its forces for <em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">global power projection</span></em>,
and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of <em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">global interventionism</span></em>.” This approach has not only exacted a huge
human and financial toll, it has also failed to foster a global sense of
security nor has it improved our global reputation. A Gallop/Win poll conducted in 2014 of 66,000
people in 68 countries found that the United States was regarded as the
“greatest threat to world peace” by a plurality of respondents (with 24%, well
ahead of second place Pakistan with 8%).
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But as with the neoliberal orthodoxy, there is no discussion
about an alternative foreign-policy paradigm in the face of accumulated
failures. While the publicly proclaimed desired goals of shared prosperity and global
peace are never realized, there is little critical scrutiny of the seemingly bankrupt
means employed to achieve these worthy objectives. This is because, in both
arenas, there are powerful interests that benefit from the existing
arrangements independent of their efficacy. The neoliberal model domestically has
produced a systematic transfer of income and wealth from the many to the few.
The Washington rules globally, and the associated permanent “war on terrorism”,
has enriched the military/national-security industrial complex. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If one hopes to achieve some redress through our electoral
system, they are likely to be disappointed. Despite all the talk about political
polarization, on the two cornerstones of American identity – economic growth and
global superiority – the party duopoly is largely united in support of policy
prescriptions that have a consistent record of failure. The familiar mantra of defenders of the
status quo – “there is no alternative” (aka TINA) – has never rang so true.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There was a time when the United States was regarded as a
pragmatic, rather than ideological, society. This would mean that economic and
foreign policies would be based on practical results and demonstrated success. This
has been replaced by blind faith in, and ideological attachment to, neoliberal market-based
and neoconservative military solutions, reinforced by the material interests
that benefit disproportionately from their continuation. Call it calculated insanity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-21911695628666441132015-02-28T09:34:00.000-05:002015-02-28T09:34:44.067-05:00Class War and the "Right-to-Work" Law Comes to Wisconsin<br />Every time I see the word “right-to-work” it brings me back to 1981 and my first academic publication “Capitalists Versus Unions: An Analysis of Anti-Union Political Mobilization” with my mentor Richard Ratcliff at Washington University. <div>
<br />But enough about me.</div>
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<br />Fast forward -- and the class war continues unabated.</div>
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<br />It is remarkable that after the 2008 economic crisis that was fueled by inequality and a war on labor, is a demand-side crisis still painfully lingering as a result of continuing inequality and wage stagnation, the forces of darkness would continue to believe that we are in a supply-side crisis that instead requires more anti-labor legislation and a better "business climate" for capital. </div>
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<br />In 2012, Michigan, home of the United Auto Workers, passed a “right-to-work” law. Now Wisconsin, home to the progressive legacy of Robert LaFollette, is on the verge of passing the law.</div>
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<br />The always reliable <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-is-the-wrong-answer-for-wisconsin/">Economic Policy Institute has a good analysis of the issue</a>. Here is an overview:</div>
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<i><br /> RTW laws have nothing to do with anyone being forced to be a member of a union, or forced to pay even a penny to political causes they do not support; that’s already illegal under federal law. What RTW laws do is to make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires each employee who enjoys the benefit of the contract to pay his or her share of the costs of negotiating and policing it. By making it harder for workers’ organizations to sustain themselves financially, RTW laws aim to restrict the share of employees who are able to represent themselves through collective bargaining, and to limit the effectiveness of unions in negotiating higher wages and benefits for their members.</i><br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>
David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-73194962432262614822015-02-18T11:26:00.000-05:002015-02-18T11:26:20.582-05:00Progressives Should Oppose Loretta Lynch NominationJust a couple pieces that further confirm the inability of the Democratic party to engage in some principled non-partisanship.<br />
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The first <a href="http://where-are-the-progressive-democrats-on-loretta-lynchs-hsbc-money-laundering-wrist-slap/">from the always on-target Yves Smith</a> at Naked Capitalism.<br />
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The second highlighting the ever-present identity politics that clouds the central political-economic priorities <a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14668">by Glen Ford</a>.<br />
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David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442880223046073651.post-49154292431055511432015-02-02T08:51:00.002-05:002015-02-02T08:51:43.787-05:00Links to Good StuffToo much going on to devote attention to any one issue. Here are a few links to some interesting and important stories and developments:<br />
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For further confirmation of the way US foreign policy in the Mideast is fueling the very forces we claim to oppose, <a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/hrw-wests-double-standards-fueled-rise-islamist-groups/201716/">a report on a talk by Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth.</a><br />
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The <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/01/27/3615854/san-rafael-homeless-park-closed/">criminalization of poverty</a>.<br />
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Professor fired for criticizing Israel <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/29/salatia/">files law suit</a>.<br />
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U.S. Senate <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax">refuses to accept human role in climate change</a>....will revisit flat earth debate next week. <br />
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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/30/the-us-presidency-who-does-it-serve/">New book on the U.S. Presidency</a> provides a badly needed perspective on the political-economic structural constraints determining policy independent of party or personality. <br />
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<br />David Jaffeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07995521186993802031noreply@blogger.com0