The answer, of course, is only in a free market capitalist economy, where many practices that would be considered unfair in any other ethical system are rationalized and excused as necessary “business decisions.”
Here’s one personal example, no doubt a familiar one. We live on San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest where the only available TV service provider for many years was DirecTV. Predictably, our subscription rate increased every year by about 20 percent, reaching $53 per month at the beginning of this year. A few months ago, our island finally got Dish TV, and Dish came in with an offer of $24 for the first year (for comparable service) and $39 thereafter. When we called to cancel DirecTV, the customer service representative told us she could “work” with us to try to match the deal from Dish. In other words, DirecTV was willing to exploit anyone who didn’t have an alternative, or didn’t know it existed, and was even willing to have their established customers subsidize the “teaser rates” that are offered to new customers or to potential “defectors.” This obviously has nothing to do with fair dealing; it’s about responding aggressively to competitive pressures.
However, trust and mutual respect in human relationships depend on fair dealing. No wonder consumers these days are cynical, suspicious of corporate motives and behavior, and have no qualms about paying back predatory business behavior in kind when they can. It’s called tit-for-tat.
Friday, September 24, 2010
“Tough S—t!”
“Tough S—t!” That’s what one prominent Republican Congressman said awhile back about the delaying tactics that were thwarting the effort to extend unemployment benefits to over a million workers whose benefits were expiring. The same sentiment is implicit in the GOP’s “new” (read re-cycled) campaign “Pledge to America.” They want to extend the Bush era tax cuts for the rich (T.S. when it comes to worsening the deficit they were mostly responsible for creating and now self-righteously campaign against). They want to repeal the new health reform law (T.S. when it comes to the 50 million Americans without health insurance, or people with preexisting conditions or expensive illnesses). And they want to cut $100 billion ASAP from non-security (mostly non-defense) “discretionary spending.” They artfully avoid saying what they will cut, but Medicaid, education, and welfare spending are the obvious targets (T.S. about the effects on the poor, the unemployed, or our children in public schools). However, their real ambition is to privatize Social Security (and invest it in the stock market) and Medicare. That would sure take care of the deficit.
In short, the long-term Republican agenda hasn’t changed, and if we give them back the levers of power, we will have ourselves partly to blame for what the GOP House minority leader, John Boehner, in a classic example of over-the-top rhetoric about the health reform legislation, called “Armageddon” – AKA total gridlock. The angry right and a newly aroused angry left could find themselves on a dangerous collision course.
In short, the long-term Republican agenda hasn’t changed, and if we give them back the levers of power, we will have ourselves partly to blame for what the GOP House minority leader, John Boehner, in a classic example of over-the-top rhetoric about the health reform legislation, called “Armageddon” – AKA total gridlock. The angry right and a newly aroused angry left could find themselves on a dangerous collision course.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A War of Words, II
What Winston Churchill might have said about the Republicans:
* Abraham Lincoln famously said you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. What the Republicans have shown is that you only need to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
* The reason the Republicans talk nonsense is that they say what’s on their minds.
* Whoever would be fool enough to think that preserving tax cuts for the rich would benefit the poor? But then, most Republicans have not read, or do not understand, “Alice in Wonderland.”
* The Republicans didn’t invent lying, but they seem to have acquired the habit.
* You can lead a Republican to water, but you can’t make him think.
* The Republicans have a remarkable ability to talk nonsense and not know the difference. It could be called a double blind.
* Abraham Lincoln famously said you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. What the Republicans have shown is that you only need to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
* The reason the Republicans talk nonsense is that they say what’s on their minds.
* Whoever would be fool enough to think that preserving tax cuts for the rich would benefit the poor? But then, most Republicans have not read, or do not understand, “Alice in Wonderland.”
* The Republicans didn’t invent lying, but they seem to have acquired the habit.
* You can lead a Republican to water, but you can’t make him think.
* The Republicans have a remarkable ability to talk nonsense and not know the difference. It could be called a double blind.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Class Warfare
More than two thousand years ago the philosopher Plato, in his great dialogue The Republic, observed that every state is in fact divided into two states, one composed of the rich and the other of the poor, and that these two states are forever at war with one another.
Actually, there have been some notable exceptions. Ancient Athens itself during its golden age (the Periclean era) provided the model for a productive and harmonious society, where the wealth was spread relatively equitably and where the rich were strong supporters of community needs, from public works to hospitals and food for the poor.
A similar period of internal peace occurred in this country after World War II, when the gap between the rich and the poor was smaller (in those days, corporate CEOs averaged 20 times the income of their workers compared with more than 260 times as much today), when there was also a large, affluent middle class, and when we had the most generous social welfare system in the world.
All that has changed. Over the past 30 years the income gap in our society has progressively widened while our social safety net has become ever more stingy and the tax burden ever more regressive, with the middle class and the poor paying an ever greater share of our taxes. Nowadays, many of the European countries provide models for more equitable societies, while this once great nation has fallen further and further behind. We now rank near the bottom of the 30-nation OECD in terms of various measures of health and well being.
The Republicans may reject the notion of class warfare in their political rhetoric, but the fact is that they have practiced it with their political agenda – most recently in their threat to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage to preserving the Bush-era tax cuts for the very rich (the top 1 percent) -- including those taxpayer-subsidized investment bankers. Meanwhile, some of our wealthiest citizens, like the oil and gas billionaires Charles and David Koch, have been major financial backers for the retrograde Tea Party movement. Shame on them.
The Republicans’ ignorance of history is appalling, for class warfare ultimately leads to social turmoil, civil violence, and even rebellion. The history of the twentieth century was littered with bloody revolutions against repressive oligarchies. We are already well along on this road to ruin. If we don’t make a u-turn soon, things are likely to become even more ugly in this country.
As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes long ago warned: “Seeing every man, not only by Right, but also by necessity of Nature, is supposed to endeavor all he can to obtain all that is necessary for his conservation, he that shall oppose himself against it, for things superfluous, is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow.”
Actually, there have been some notable exceptions. Ancient Athens itself during its golden age (the Periclean era) provided the model for a productive and harmonious society, where the wealth was spread relatively equitably and where the rich were strong supporters of community needs, from public works to hospitals and food for the poor.
A similar period of internal peace occurred in this country after World War II, when the gap between the rich and the poor was smaller (in those days, corporate CEOs averaged 20 times the income of their workers compared with more than 260 times as much today), when there was also a large, affluent middle class, and when we had the most generous social welfare system in the world.
All that has changed. Over the past 30 years the income gap in our society has progressively widened while our social safety net has become ever more stingy and the tax burden ever more regressive, with the middle class and the poor paying an ever greater share of our taxes. Nowadays, many of the European countries provide models for more equitable societies, while this once great nation has fallen further and further behind. We now rank near the bottom of the 30-nation OECD in terms of various measures of health and well being.
The Republicans may reject the notion of class warfare in their political rhetoric, but the fact is that they have practiced it with their political agenda – most recently in their threat to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage to preserving the Bush-era tax cuts for the very rich (the top 1 percent) -- including those taxpayer-subsidized investment bankers. Meanwhile, some of our wealthiest citizens, like the oil and gas billionaires Charles and David Koch, have been major financial backers for the retrograde Tea Party movement. Shame on them.
The Republicans’ ignorance of history is appalling, for class warfare ultimately leads to social turmoil, civil violence, and even rebellion. The history of the twentieth century was littered with bloody revolutions against repressive oligarchies. We are already well along on this road to ruin. If we don’t make a u-turn soon, things are likely to become even more ugly in this country.
As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes long ago warned: “Seeing every man, not only by Right, but also by necessity of Nature, is supposed to endeavor all he can to obtain all that is necessary for his conservation, he that shall oppose himself against it, for things superfluous, is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow.”
Monday, September 20, 2010
Black Magic
Christine O’Donnell, the surprise Tea Party candidate for the Senate seat in Delaware, once “dabbled in witchcraft,” as she put it, including attendance at witchcraft events. Actually, so has the Republican party.
“Voodoo economics” is the term George Bush (the elder), one of the last of the moderate Republicans, gave to the theory that income tax cuts will magically stimulate an increase in tax revenues to compensate, and that the benefits for the wealthy would “trickle down” to the rest of us. Formally known as “supply-side economics,” the idea was actually tested by the Reagan administration during the early 1980s and was thoroughly discredited. President Reagan was forced to reverse course and raise taxes when the Federal deficit ballooned. Yet the idea lives on in Republican rhetoric as if tax cuts for the rich today, to the tune of an estimated $700 billion over the next decade, will not worsen our current deficit. It’s voodoo economics all over again.
“Voodoo economics” is the term George Bush (the elder), one of the last of the moderate Republicans, gave to the theory that income tax cuts will magically stimulate an increase in tax revenues to compensate, and that the benefits for the wealthy would “trickle down” to the rest of us. Formally known as “supply-side economics,” the idea was actually tested by the Reagan administration during the early 1980s and was thoroughly discredited. President Reagan was forced to reverse course and raise taxes when the Federal deficit ballooned. Yet the idea lives on in Republican rhetoric as if tax cuts for the rich today, to the tune of an estimated $700 billion over the next decade, will not worsen our current deficit. It’s voodoo economics all over again.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
A War of Words
Winston Churchill, England’s greatest prime minister, had a way with words. In the darkest days of World War II, he “mobilized the English language and sent it off to war” (as President Kennedy later remarked) with his stirring speeches to his nation. But he was also legendary for his ability to skewer his political opponents and leave them deflated and defensive.
We could certainly use some of that rapier wit in this minor dark age. So, in the Churchillian spirit, here are a few barbs. If you can add more, please pass them along:
* Most people talk nonsense when they are drunk, or high. Republicans have mastered the ability to do so when they are sober.
* John Boehner is a man who never speaks the truth if he can help it.
* Rush Limbaugh is intoxicated with the exuberance of his own income.
* When Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska’s governor, the state narrowly avoided a catastrophe. Unfortunately, the rest of the country may not be so lucky.
* Mitt Romney looked into the mirror when he was young and was blinded by what he saw. He’s been in the dark ever since.
* Mitch McConnell is not really as cynical as he looks when he is talking. He only smiles because he knows what he is saying is a joke.
* Glenn Beck is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.
* Nobody can exceed Mike Huckabee’s remarkable ability to boil down so many words into so little thought.
* When he was in high school, Grover Norquist got to play Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” and it went to his head. He’s been playing the part ever since.
* The Republicans seem to have confused their partisan political interests with the public interest. It’s a mistake most other five-year-olds make.
We could certainly use some of that rapier wit in this minor dark age. So, in the Churchillian spirit, here are a few barbs. If you can add more, please pass them along:
* Most people talk nonsense when they are drunk, or high. Republicans have mastered the ability to do so when they are sober.
* John Boehner is a man who never speaks the truth if he can help it.
* Rush Limbaugh is intoxicated with the exuberance of his own income.
* When Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska’s governor, the state narrowly avoided a catastrophe. Unfortunately, the rest of the country may not be so lucky.
* Mitt Romney looked into the mirror when he was young and was blinded by what he saw. He’s been in the dark ever since.
* Mitch McConnell is not really as cynical as he looks when he is talking. He only smiles because he knows what he is saying is a joke.
* Glenn Beck is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.
* Nobody can exceed Mike Huckabee’s remarkable ability to boil down so many words into so little thought.
* When he was in high school, Grover Norquist got to play Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” and it went to his head. He’s been playing the part ever since.
* The Republicans seem to have confused their partisan political interests with the public interest. It’s a mistake most other five-year-olds make.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Fear Strikes Out?
Back in the 1950s there was a Hollywood movie about a major league baseball player, Jimmy Piersall, who had debilitating mental/emotional problems. The movie had a happy ending, of course. But if there were a sequel today about our national politics, the ending might not be so happy. Indeed, it might need to be re-titled “Fear Hits a Home Run.”
If the irrational fears, based on outright lies, that have been aroused by the Tea Party movement predominate in the upcoming election, moderates and liberals will have only themselves to blame for the furies that will be unleashed. Fear, armed with an AK-47, is knocking at the door. So what are you going to do?
If the irrational fears, based on outright lies, that have been aroused by the Tea Party movement predominate in the upcoming election, moderates and liberals will have only themselves to blame for the furies that will be unleashed. Fear, armed with an AK-47, is knocking at the door. So what are you going to do?
Friday, September 17, 2010
The Fair Society Game
We dusted off our seldom-used Monopoly game recently for some visiting friends, and it struck me that its basic values are actually offensive (at least to me). It’s a model for winner-take-all capitalism at its worst – rewarding people just for having good luck (no need to thank God) and for being ruthless competitors.
What lessons does this game teach us? And what does it say about human nature and our culture that we actually enjoy playing the game (it’s one of the all-time favorites)? It says you should be greedy and do all you can to create monopolies, so that you can charge exorbitant rents to people who have the bad luck to land on your properties, and that you should drive them into bankruptcy without any qualms.
Yes, I know, it’s only a game, but, unfortunately, some of us play at life like they’re playing Monopoly. What matters in the end is what social behaviors we approve of, or at least tolerate, and how we reward them. So the Monopoly game is only a symptom, not a cause of the capitalist disease.
Maybe it’s time for someone to develop a Fair Society game, modeled on the precepts in my forthcoming book The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice (University of Chicago Press, February 2011). Or maybe the game should model unfairness -- what actually goes on in our society. It would have such features as: “Go to jail” for 20 years for a crime you did not commit; whenever you pass “Go”, pay $200 in interest charges on the bank loan for your token; pay whatever rent suits the monopolist (forget what’s written on the card); “take a chance” on a college education and find yourself so burdened with debt that you can’t afford to buy any properties; and so on. In fact, very few of us would want to play this game – if we had any choice!
What lessons does this game teach us? And what does it say about human nature and our culture that we actually enjoy playing the game (it’s one of the all-time favorites)? It says you should be greedy and do all you can to create monopolies, so that you can charge exorbitant rents to people who have the bad luck to land on your properties, and that you should drive them into bankruptcy without any qualms.
Yes, I know, it’s only a game, but, unfortunately, some of us play at life like they’re playing Monopoly. What matters in the end is what social behaviors we approve of, or at least tolerate, and how we reward them. So the Monopoly game is only a symptom, not a cause of the capitalist disease.
Maybe it’s time for someone to develop a Fair Society game, modeled on the precepts in my forthcoming book The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice (University of Chicago Press, February 2011). Or maybe the game should model unfairness -- what actually goes on in our society. It would have such features as: “Go to jail” for 20 years for a crime you did not commit; whenever you pass “Go”, pay $200 in interest charges on the bank loan for your token; pay whatever rent suits the monopolist (forget what’s written on the card); “take a chance” on a college education and find yourself so burdened with debt that you can’t afford to buy any properties; and so on. In fact, very few of us would want to play this game – if we had any choice!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Science Versus Religion
Maybe it’s a sign of advancing age, but I am ever less inclined as a scientist to be self righteous about the debate over science versus religion and the quest for “truth.” I kind of lean to Frank Sinatra’s mantra, “I’m in favor of anything that will get you through the night.” Or, in this case, anything that will get you through this life. Personally, I prefer only to push those “truths” that will do some good, though if somebody else tries to bully me with their “truths,” I’ll fight back.
To me, the dark side of the science/religion debate is about something more than the truth. There is also a “political” power and influence struggle going on between two entrenched enemy camps, and some of the antagonists view it as being a zero-sum game. Since, in the end, we are still stuck with the problem of how to co-exist in a fragile, interdependent world, maybe “diplomacy” and a live-and-let-live attitude is the most “adaptive” approach. I won’t force my science on the Christian right if they don’t force their religion on me. As for dealing with our common problems, democratic processes seem to be the fairest way to resolve our differences.
I know Catholic doctrine is not held in very high esteem after all the recent scandals, but I recall the conciliatory tone in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio, where he sought to portray faith and reason as two “wings” of a bird that is seeking the truth. Each wing represents a complementary way of understanding what is known and what is not known about the universe and the human condition. Or consider Pope Benedict XVI’s statements acknowledging the scientific evidence of evolution and rejecting the Creationist view that evolution represents an implacable threat to the belief in a Creator. So there is a middle ground view among some influential Christians. It is the ayatollahs of Christianity (and Islam) (and science, for that matter) that we have to fear.
To me, the dark side of the science/religion debate is about something more than the truth. There is also a “political” power and influence struggle going on between two entrenched enemy camps, and some of the antagonists view it as being a zero-sum game. Since, in the end, we are still stuck with the problem of how to co-exist in a fragile, interdependent world, maybe “diplomacy” and a live-and-let-live attitude is the most “adaptive” approach. I won’t force my science on the Christian right if they don’t force their religion on me. As for dealing with our common problems, democratic processes seem to be the fairest way to resolve our differences.
I know Catholic doctrine is not held in very high esteem after all the recent scandals, but I recall the conciliatory tone in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio, where he sought to portray faith and reason as two “wings” of a bird that is seeking the truth. Each wing represents a complementary way of understanding what is known and what is not known about the universe and the human condition. Or consider Pope Benedict XVI’s statements acknowledging the scientific evidence of evolution and rejecting the Creationist view that evolution represents an implacable threat to the belief in a Creator. So there is a middle ground view among some influential Christians. It is the ayatollahs of Christianity (and Islam) (and science, for that matter) that we have to fear.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Disconnected Dots
On the same day that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that the number of homeless families (with one or more children) in this country leaped to 170,000 in 2009, while the New York Times columnist Frank Rich reminded us that the top 1 percent of American earners now take home nearly a quarter of Americans’ total income, it was reported that John Boehner, the perpetually tanned golfer and (in his day job) House Republican Minority leader, has raised $36 million from corporate lobbyists so far in this election cycle in order to, among other things, save the expiring Bush era tax cuts for the very same 1percent, if he becomes the next House Speaker.
It should not be so hard to connect these dots, but it seems we’ve lost our pencil. If we can’t find it before election day, things are likely to get much worse.
It should not be so hard to connect these dots, but it seems we’ve lost our pencil. If we can’t find it before election day, things are likely to get much worse.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Corrupting Our Judicial System
Our legal system is based on the bedrock norm of fairness. The ideal of providing an impartial and equitable framework of “law and order” has served as the very foundation for western, democratic societies. Indeed, the principle of legal “justice” can be traced back to the ancient Greek law-giver, Solon, more than two thousand years ago, and it was elaborated in ancient times by, among others, the Greek Stoics, Plato, Aristotle and the Roman lawyers, especially in the writings of Cicero. Though still very far from being fully realized in practice, it is the ideal of justice – symbolized by the famous statue of the Roman goddess Justitia, who is blindfolded but holds a sword in one hand and a balance scale in the other -- that inspires the elaborate and often cumbersome system that we take for granted, until it breaks down.
Now it is being threatened in this country. The New York Times notes that big money has been pouring into state judicial elections in recent years, with results that have deeply compromised the principles of fairness and impartiality. During the 1990s, state Supreme Court candidates in the 39 states that hold elections for these positions totaled $83.3 million. That’s a lot, but the figure for 2000-2009 was $206 million, and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows free (and unreported) corporate and union campaign giving has opened the floodgates to much more. We should be alarmed about this.
What can be done about it? Change the existing system so that judgeships cannot be so directly "bought".
Now it is being threatened in this country. The New York Times notes that big money has been pouring into state judicial elections in recent years, with results that have deeply compromised the principles of fairness and impartiality. During the 1990s, state Supreme Court candidates in the 39 states that hold elections for these positions totaled $83.3 million. That’s a lot, but the figure for 2000-2009 was $206 million, and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows free (and unreported) corporate and union campaign giving has opened the floodgates to much more. We should be alarmed about this.
What can be done about it? Change the existing system so that judgeships cannot be so directly "bought".
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Global Food Crisis
Veteran science journalist Julian Cribb’s new book, "The Coming Famine"(University of California Press), confirms in relentless, grim detail the reasons why we will soon confront epic global food shortages and growing social chaos. As Cribb puts it, “the era of cheap, abundant food is over.” One reviewer of the book, Mark Bittman in The New York Times, commented that “the sheer number of terrifying facts makes the book gripping.”
There is much that can be done to mitigate the coming crisis and the projected food scarcities. Encouraging more back yard (and front yard) farms, urban rooftop and sandlot farms, and especially small organic farms that grow food for their local communities, can be part of the solution. But the biggest challenges involve making changes in an industrial food production system that is degrading soil, pasture, water resources and fish species world wide and that is heavily dependent on increasingly scarce and expensive fossil fuels. If there is a way to avoid the coming nightmare, as Cribb notes, it will have to be based on rationality and fairness. When it comes to food, after all, we are indeed all created equal.
There is much that can be done to mitigate the coming crisis and the projected food scarcities. Encouraging more back yard (and front yard) farms, urban rooftop and sandlot farms, and especially small organic farms that grow food for their local communities, can be part of the solution. But the biggest challenges involve making changes in an industrial food production system that is degrading soil, pasture, water resources and fish species world wide and that is heavily dependent on increasingly scarce and expensive fossil fuels. If there is a way to avoid the coming nightmare, as Cribb notes, it will have to be based on rationality and fairness. When it comes to food, after all, we are indeed all created equal.
Ignorance Can Be Fatal
In his op ed column today in the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman writes “it’s slightly sickening to realize that the big winners in the midterm elections are likely to be the very people who first got us into this mess, then did everything in their power to block action to get us out.”
It’s even more sickening, to me, that we have here more evidence that our political ignorance as a nation is ultimately at fault. Starting with our Founding Fathers, we have been warned again and again that a successful democracy depends ultimately on an informed and attentive citizenry. So, in the final analysis, we have only ourselves to blame if we are bamboozled by the well-paid media demagogues on the right or the truly cynical, often smirking Republican leadership in the Congress. We are not doing our homework. Worse yet, we are passive in the face of a dangerous threat from the right.
Remember the cartoon character Pogo’s line: We have met the enemy, and it is us.
It’s even more sickening, to me, that we have here more evidence that our political ignorance as a nation is ultimately at fault. Starting with our Founding Fathers, we have been warned again and again that a successful democracy depends ultimately on an informed and attentive citizenry. So, in the final analysis, we have only ourselves to blame if we are bamboozled by the well-paid media demagogues on the right or the truly cynical, often smirking Republican leadership in the Congress. We are not doing our homework. Worse yet, we are passive in the face of a dangerous threat from the right.
Remember the cartoon character Pogo’s line: We have met the enemy, and it is us.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
What Would You Have Done?
A few days ago, after a very intense day of chicken processing on our farm, we treated our crew of interns to pizzas and beer. When I went to our local grocery store to pick up a couple of six-packs of amber ale, I did a stupid thing (I was really tired). I tipped over one of the six-packs, looking for the geographical location of the brewery, and of course one of the bottles slipped out with a crash and splash.
A clerk nearby heard the bottle break and came over with an offer to clean it up. “No problem,” he said. The dilemma for me was what to do. Should I set aside the deficient six-pack and take another six-pack instead, leaving the store to pay for the “accident”? Or should I accept responsibility (it was my fault) and take the “five-pack” at my own expense?
Comments anyone?
A clerk nearby heard the bottle break and came over with an offer to clean it up. “No problem,” he said. The dilemma for me was what to do. Should I set aside the deficient six-pack and take another six-pack instead, leaving the store to pay for the “accident”? Or should I accept responsibility (it was my fault) and take the “five-pack” at my own expense?
Comments anyone?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
