Nationalism. That is a word that gets thrown around all the time, usually with a rather negative connotation. It seems to have many definitions these days in fact.
Recently, author E.D. Hirsch, Jr. penned an excellent article in Democracy Journal, aptly titled "A Sense of Belonging". In it, he discusses how misunderstood, underrated, and often unfairly maligned the concept of nationalism in the USA has been for the past several decades, and how our lack of the sense of belonging that nationalism provides has left Americans alienated and discontented. He discusses how our educational system (particularly elementary school) has been recently failing to impart the essentials of a shared national culture, history, and citizenship, and how the left's overzealous avoidance of the (very real) dark side of nationalism ultimately ends up throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. The trends of the past several decades towards both hyper-individualism as well as an explicit anti-nationalism end up inhibiting our overall social cohesion and sense of community, with negative consequences resulting. And this is coming from an author who one can safely say is on the political left himself.
He basically argues, in a more eloquent and detailed fashion, something not very different from when Bernie Sanders famously cautioned fellow progressives against overreliance on "identity politics". While this was not very well received and he came across as tone-deaf and failing to check his white straight male (etc.) privilege, he was not in fact against such intersectionality at all. Rather, he was concerned that focusing too much on the pluribus at the expense of the unum would be detrimental to the overall progressive movement. Which in turn would make it harder to maintain a united front against our real enemy, the oligarchy. And while he did not use the word "nationalism" by name, it was certainly implied that the left needs to reclaim nationalism, lest it fall into the hands of the right--which did in fact happen. Consider the following chillingly prophetic words by Richard Rorty in 1994:
"The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone to assure them that once he is elected the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodern professors will no longer be calling the shots. . . . All the sadism which the academic left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back."
Which basically describes the whole Trump phenomenon in a nutshell. That is what happens when the left neglects the need for nationalism: disaffected voters will seek it out from other sources, namely the right. And the right's version is virtually always going to be toxic and jingoistic, if not altogether racist, fascist, and authoritarian. There is a reason why so many Trump supporters openly call themselves "white nationalists", after all.
Nationalism can indeed be a very good thing if it is of the proper sort and in the right hands, while the wrong sort and/or in the wrong hands can indeed be horrific. All the more reason to reclaim it from the right. To quote Hirsch:
"The right kind of modern nationalism is communal, intent on including everyone. The wrong, exclusivist kind, exemplified by the racism of the Nazis, gave all nationalism a bad name and helped turn the post-Vietnam left away from nationalism of any sort. The sentiment was that most countries are pretty bad, especially big ones that prey on little ones."
As we like to say, nationalism is like nitroglycerine: it can either be used to blow up bridges or heal hearts. And the TSAP represents the good kind of nationalism that is so desperately needed to heal the wounded and heavy heart of America.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Friday, May 5, 2017
The "Spiritual Ruin" of a Universal Basic Income? No, Not Really.
Recently, there was an article in The Week by Damon Linker titled, "The Spiritual Ruin of a Universal Basic Income". He basically argues that it is a bad idea for the left to pursue the idea of a UBI because 1) it fails to address (and perhaps even intensify) the psychological and spiritual consequences of joblessness, which are (in his view) distinct from and worse than the economic consequences, 2) most people couldn't handle joblessness even with a basic income and would thus become depressed and purposeless and give themselves over to video games, porn, and/or drug addiction, and 3) the left should not concede that automation (and the resulting job losses) is in any way inevitable.
And all of these things are in fact false.
First, only a person of relative privilege could possibly see the economic consequences of joblessness as entirely separate from, and less significant that, the (admittedly real) psychological and spiritual consequences of same. The former can indeed cause or contribute to the latter in a big way, and it is very difficult to disentangle them. Poverty and desperation are well-known to be harmful to the mind, body, and spirit, and only meaningful work (as opposed to work for the sake of work) can be said to be beneficial to same. When the economic consequences are resolved via a UBI, the remaining noneconomic consequences of unemployment would in fact become that much easier to tackle.
Second, there is no logical reason why a UBI and the sort of New Deal 2.0 jobs program that Linker advocates would be mutually exclusive. The TSAP, in fact, advocates exactly that combination, with both a UBI and a Job Guarantee program for everyone who wants one. We also advocate shortening the workweek as well, which would spread the remaining work among more workers, thus more jobs. Thus the noneconomic consequences of joblessness can also be adequately dealt with as well. So that is not a valid reason for the left to abandon the idea, anymore than it would be a reason to abandon the idea of a social safety net in general.
Third, the idea that UBI will cause most people or even a particularly large chunk of the population to become lazy and/or self-destructive is not borne out by the facts. Numerous experiments with UBI and related schemes have been conducted in diverse cultures and locations in the past half-century, and the overwhelming weight of the evidence strongly suggests that this will not occur. If anything, one notable effect is an increase in entrepreneurship due to a decreased fear of failure and more time and money to invest in their goals. Students and new mothers will likely work fewer hours than before since they are no longer forced by dint of economic necessity (the effect on hours worked is likely negligible for everyone else), but is that really such a bad thing? Of course not.
Nor is there any credible evidence that substance abuse would significantly increase either as a result of UBI, and it may even decrease. But just to drive the point home even further, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman argues that even if 90% of the population sat around smoked weed and played video games instead of working, a UBI would still better on balance than not having one, as everyone would be free to pursue their passions and the remaining 10% would innovatively create new wealth. Not that he thinks that 90% would actually do that, of course, but the point was well-made nonetheless. One can also point to the Rat Park studies as well. It is amazing how addiction diminishes or even disappears when rats (or people) are not treated like caged animals in the "rat race"!
And finally, a real pragmatist would realize than automation really is inevitable in the long run. Contrary to what the neo-Luddites like to argue, fighting against it will not stop it, only delay it a bit. The best that we progressives can do is admit that fact and do whatever we can to ensure that the fruits of this automation will benefit all of humanity and not just the oligarchs at the top. To do so, we must take the power back from the oligarchs. And a crucial step to that goal is a Universal Basic Income, so We the People can actually have some bargaining power, no longer dependent on our employers for survivial. Whether we get this one right will basically be the difference between a futuristic pragmatic utopia (as Buckminster Fuller envisioned) or a horrifying technocratic dystopia straight out of 1984, Brave New World, or [insert other dystopian novel here]. So let's choose the right side of history!
After all, as the late, great Buckminster Fuller--the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century, famously said in 1970:
Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless. A win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs. And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society. So what are we waiting for?
And all of these things are in fact false.
First, only a person of relative privilege could possibly see the economic consequences of joblessness as entirely separate from, and less significant that, the (admittedly real) psychological and spiritual consequences of same. The former can indeed cause or contribute to the latter in a big way, and it is very difficult to disentangle them. Poverty and desperation are well-known to be harmful to the mind, body, and spirit, and only meaningful work (as opposed to work for the sake of work) can be said to be beneficial to same. When the economic consequences are resolved via a UBI, the remaining noneconomic consequences of unemployment would in fact become that much easier to tackle.
Second, there is no logical reason why a UBI and the sort of New Deal 2.0 jobs program that Linker advocates would be mutually exclusive. The TSAP, in fact, advocates exactly that combination, with both a UBI and a Job Guarantee program for everyone who wants one. We also advocate shortening the workweek as well, which would spread the remaining work among more workers, thus more jobs. Thus the noneconomic consequences of joblessness can also be adequately dealt with as well. So that is not a valid reason for the left to abandon the idea, anymore than it would be a reason to abandon the idea of a social safety net in general.
Third, the idea that UBI will cause most people or even a particularly large chunk of the population to become lazy and/or self-destructive is not borne out by the facts. Numerous experiments with UBI and related schemes have been conducted in diverse cultures and locations in the past half-century, and the overwhelming weight of the evidence strongly suggests that this will not occur. If anything, one notable effect is an increase in entrepreneurship due to a decreased fear of failure and more time and money to invest in their goals. Students and new mothers will likely work fewer hours than before since they are no longer forced by dint of economic necessity (the effect on hours worked is likely negligible for everyone else), but is that really such a bad thing? Of course not.
Nor is there any credible evidence that substance abuse would significantly increase either as a result of UBI, and it may even decrease. But just to drive the point home even further, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman argues that even if 90% of the population sat around smoked weed and played video games instead of working, a UBI would still better on balance than not having one, as everyone would be free to pursue their passions and the remaining 10% would innovatively create new wealth. Not that he thinks that 90% would actually do that, of course, but the point was well-made nonetheless. One can also point to the Rat Park studies as well. It is amazing how addiction diminishes or even disappears when rats (or people) are not treated like caged animals in the "rat race"!
And finally, a real pragmatist would realize than automation really is inevitable in the long run. Contrary to what the neo-Luddites like to argue, fighting against it will not stop it, only delay it a bit. The best that we progressives can do is admit that fact and do whatever we can to ensure that the fruits of this automation will benefit all of humanity and not just the oligarchs at the top. To do so, we must take the power back from the oligarchs. And a crucial step to that goal is a Universal Basic Income, so We the People can actually have some bargaining power, no longer dependent on our employers for survivial. Whether we get this one right will basically be the difference between a futuristic pragmatic utopia (as Buckminster Fuller envisioned) or a horrifying technocratic dystopia straight out of 1984, Brave New World, or [insert other dystopian novel here]. So let's choose the right side of history!
After all, as the late, great Buckminster Fuller--the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century, famously said in 1970:
We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless. A win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs. And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society. So what are we waiting for?
Trumpcare 2.0 Passes The House
Well, the Rethuglicans finally did it. On May 4, 2017, they passed a new and even crueler version of Trumpcare in the House. Apparently it was cruel enough to win over the arch-conservatives, since it guts Medicaid and throws people with pre-existing conditions and chronic conditions under the bus. It will ultimately result in roughly 24 million people losing their healthcare coverage if it becomes law.
Fortunately, though, it does not seem likely to pass the Senate. Thus the Senate is working on their own milder version of it to appease the moderates, which means that if it passes, they will still have to hammer out the differences between the two bills. It's either alienate the moderates to appease the conservatives, or alienate the conservatives to appease the moderates. And that will likely be the sort of catch-22 that ultimately kills Trumpcare once and for all.
Fortunately, though, it does not seem likely to pass the Senate. Thus the Senate is working on their own milder version of it to appease the moderates, which means that if it passes, they will still have to hammer out the differences between the two bills. It's either alienate the moderates to appease the conservatives, or alienate the conservatives to appease the moderates. And that will likely be the sort of catch-22 that ultimately kills Trumpcare once and for all.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Capitalism Must Die. The Only Question Is How and When.
With all of the latest articles about how climate change is likely worse than we thought, and how our fragile biosphere that we all depend on is in increasingly grave danger, it is becoming increasingly clear just how unsustainable our current system really is. We are bumping up against the limits to growth, and only a fool or an economist (same difference) could believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible. And make no mistake, capitalism cannot exist without growth, so capitalism must die--or the whole planet dies including us. Either the virus kills the host or the host kills the virus, but either way, the virus dies. That's right--there can logically be no such thing as "green capitalism", for the same reason that rain is not dry.
So which choice will we make? The TSAP has already outlined several means of solving the world's vast and interconnected problems in our party platform as well as in our annual State of the Planet Address. Most notably, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible before we irreversibly burn up our precious planet, and we need to end our addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually kills its host. But the prospects are looking increasingly bleak that our recommendations will actually be put into practice given the current leadership in Washington who continue to blithely fiddle while the Earth burns. In fact, with climate-denier Donald Trump as POTUS, and thus the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil effectively ruling the world now, it is even worse than we initially thought.
We know that any serious attempt at sufficiently rapid degrowth measures (read: ecological austerity) is 1) political suicide for anyone who proposes it, and 2) even if implemented is likely to backfire since such measures simply cannot kill the hungry beast of capitalism, which will only rebound after being weakened a bit and the costs will inevitably fall on those least able to bear them. And if the root of the crisis (capitalism) cannot be struck in like fashion, hacking away at the branches in a piecemeal fashion would be inherently fruitless. So what can be done instead?
Enter this seemingly crazy idea. While it may seem like a sop to the fossil fool industry at first glance, it will actually be giving them the rope for them to hang themselves with. And not only will it kill Big Oil and Dirty Coal, but it will also humanely euthanize capitalism in general via the one thing that capitalism simply cannot survive--ABUNDANCE. That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to function, and it has done a marvelous job of creating artificial scarcity for the past 500 years or so. But uncontrolled abundance, whether of resources, energy, or capital, is basically a fatal overdose for the system of capitalism. And thanks to the current exponential growth of renewable energy and related technologies, such abundance is very possible in the near future. And it will be decentralized, so the system can't readily control or stop it once it gets going. All of this dovetails rather nicely with Buckminster Fuller's vision of a pragmatic utopian future.
If we go that route, it actually would be possible to simultaneously implement the carbon tax-and-dividend idea in Steve Stoft's Carbonomics, provided that 100% of the revenue is refunded to We the People, and that the tax rate starts out low so as not to front-load it too quickly. The timing is very important. But any other type of carbon tax scheme would be out of the question, as would most other future restrictions on fossil fuels (especially oil) until the cost of solar and wind energy drops below that of such fossil fuels. Not like the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil would allow that anyway.
Another idea that the TSAP had once laughed at can also be given a chance as well: the Capital Homestead Act. While it may seem like a pro-capitalist sop to Big Business on the surface, it will actually kill capitalism in the long run as well due to an overabundance of capital and the fact that the workers and owners would essentially become one and the same. Combine it with the Universal Exchange Tax and a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, and the overall impact will be maximized and accelerated.
Additionally, in our transition towards a steady-state economy, we would also need to abolish usury and debt-based currency (without growth there can be no interest payments) and have debt jubilees every so often as well. And once capitalism is relegated to the dustbin of history, it will in fact be a piece of cake to do so. Though there is no reason not to pass the NEED Act in the meantime to get the ball rolling.
Of course, capitalism is not the only problem. The 7000 year old War on Women, often known by its euphemistic name "patriarchy", is every bit as much a cause of our world's problems, and the two are basically joined at the hip. While patriarchy can exist without capitalism, capitalism cannot exist without patriarchy. And both evil systems are killing this planet and need to end, yesterday. Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, that's for sure. Fortunately, women have been making huge strides (while men are becoming increasingly redundant), and if current trends continue it seems likely that women will become the new leaders of the free world in the not-too-distant future, as Buckminster Fuller himself once predicted. In fact, that is one of the few things about which the futurists are virtually unanimous.
At least we hope that will be the case. But timing is everything, and we have a very narrow window of opportunity to act. So what are we waiting for?
So which choice will we make? The TSAP has already outlined several means of solving the world's vast and interconnected problems in our party platform as well as in our annual State of the Planet Address. Most notably, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible before we irreversibly burn up our precious planet, and we need to end our addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually kills its host. But the prospects are looking increasingly bleak that our recommendations will actually be put into practice given the current leadership in Washington who continue to blithely fiddle while the Earth burns. In fact, with climate-denier Donald Trump as POTUS, and thus the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil effectively ruling the world now, it is even worse than we initially thought.
We know that any serious attempt at sufficiently rapid degrowth measures (read: ecological austerity) is 1) political suicide for anyone who proposes it, and 2) even if implemented is likely to backfire since such measures simply cannot kill the hungry beast of capitalism, which will only rebound after being weakened a bit and the costs will inevitably fall on those least able to bear them. And if the root of the crisis (capitalism) cannot be struck in like fashion, hacking away at the branches in a piecemeal fashion would be inherently fruitless. So what can be done instead?
Enter this seemingly crazy idea. While it may seem like a sop to the fossil fool industry at first glance, it will actually be giving them the rope for them to hang themselves with. And not only will it kill Big Oil and Dirty Coal, but it will also humanely euthanize capitalism in general via the one thing that capitalism simply cannot survive--ABUNDANCE. That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to function, and it has done a marvelous job of creating artificial scarcity for the past 500 years or so. But uncontrolled abundance, whether of resources, energy, or capital, is basically a fatal overdose for the system of capitalism. And thanks to the current exponential growth of renewable energy and related technologies, such abundance is very possible in the near future. And it will be decentralized, so the system can't readily control or stop it once it gets going. All of this dovetails rather nicely with Buckminster Fuller's vision of a pragmatic utopian future.
If we go that route, it actually would be possible to simultaneously implement the carbon tax-and-dividend idea in Steve Stoft's Carbonomics, provided that 100% of the revenue is refunded to We the People, and that the tax rate starts out low so as not to front-load it too quickly. The timing is very important. But any other type of carbon tax scheme would be out of the question, as would most other future restrictions on fossil fuels (especially oil) until the cost of solar and wind energy drops below that of such fossil fuels. Not like the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil would allow that anyway.
Another idea that the TSAP had once laughed at can also be given a chance as well: the Capital Homestead Act. While it may seem like a pro-capitalist sop to Big Business on the surface, it will actually kill capitalism in the long run as well due to an overabundance of capital and the fact that the workers and owners would essentially become one and the same. Combine it with the Universal Exchange Tax and a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, and the overall impact will be maximized and accelerated.
Additionally, in our transition towards a steady-state economy, we would also need to abolish usury and debt-based currency (without growth there can be no interest payments) and have debt jubilees every so often as well. And once capitalism is relegated to the dustbin of history, it will in fact be a piece of cake to do so. Though there is no reason not to pass the NEED Act in the meantime to get the ball rolling.
Of course, capitalism is not the only problem. The 7000 year old War on Women, often known by its euphemistic name "patriarchy", is every bit as much a cause of our world's problems, and the two are basically joined at the hip. While patriarchy can exist without capitalism, capitalism cannot exist without patriarchy. And both evil systems are killing this planet and need to end, yesterday. Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, that's for sure. Fortunately, women have been making huge strides (while men are becoming increasingly redundant), and if current trends continue it seems likely that women will become the new leaders of the free world in the not-too-distant future, as Buckminster Fuller himself once predicted. In fact, that is one of the few things about which the futurists are virtually unanimous.
At least we hope that will be the case. But timing is everything, and we have a very narrow window of opportunity to act. So what are we waiting for?
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