In the Long Run We Are All Dead, In the Short Run We Are All Screwed
Hate to say it, but it's all your fault. America is ungovernable because we are a nation of pinheads. It's not just the Loons of the Right. It's the Obamaniacs and the NutRoots too.
The sad reality is that to achieve political power in America, you have to master the delusions of the public. If people think the moon is made of green cheese, you have to explicate this better than the other guy. Barack Obama did it better, now he must govern on the basis of a catalog of canards. "WE HAVE NEVER BEEN A NATION OF RED STATES AND BLUE STATES . . . WE ARE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!" Sheesh.
He is aided in this bankrupt enterprise by a squadron of brilliant people. It is not enough to be brilliant to exert influence in the corridors of power. One must also embrace the conventional wisdom, articulate it better than anyone else, invent brilliant extensions of the conventional wisdom that provide new reasons why we all have to eat shit.
Do I exaggerate? I think not. I give you the example of Phillip Mirowski. Who the devil is he, you will ask. You have not seen him on the teevee because he uses big words. He is a professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. He has written about the deep flaws of conventional economic theory, the theory that tells you that markets are efficient and bountiful. You know . . . bullshit.
Mirowski and his like-minded colleagues were segregated into a separate ghetto economics department so the university could create a second, new and improved economics department, which Nobel Leaureate Robert Solow predicted would end up a "third rate MIT." Now Mirowski's department of the economically incorrect is to be phased out, its eminent professors scattered to the four corners of the university, sparing budding economics majors of Notre Dame the burden of incorrect thoughts. The genius behind this idea is John T. McGreevy, dean of Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters and Bullshit.
The new department has been coached to avow, "Guided by the University's long-standing commitment to the Catholic social tradition, we stress policy-relevant research that contributes to important debates on economic, social, and political problems facing humanity." How is this vital work going? An example from Associate Professor Kali Rath that should put a spring in the step of every starving African pastoralist:
"The Dvoretzky-Wald-Wolfowitz Theorem and Purification in Atomless Finite-action Games," International Journal of Game Theory, 34, 91-104, 2006. (Coauthors: M. Ali Khan and Yeneng Sun).
Oh the humanity.
Somebody like Mirowski could never work in the White House because somewhere in his published writings there is a sentence that would make Larry Summers cry. Consequently, public policy in the new age of liberalism will be dominated by double-digit unemployment rates which, don't forget, would have been even worse under other circumstances.
Stop and think for a moment of what five years of very high unemployment -- a very real possibility -- would mean, economically, politically and otherwise.
One popular shibboleth behind this burgeoning policy failure is superstition about public debt, upheld to no small extent by the best and the brightest of the Clinton Administration. The Obamanians carried on this tradition by suggesting that the deficit rampage of the Bush Administration "got us into this mess," which is rubbish. If anything got us into this, it was a deregulatory movement that began under Jimmy Carter (hello, trucking deregulation) and was embraced by the Clintonoids (hello, Larry). But what really "got us into this" is what we have always been in -- capitalism, which doesn't work so good. Of course, you can't get the White House by talking about that.
Congress is evidently spooked by the prospect of further borrowing, notwithstanding the completely inadequate level of its response thus far. Little concern is evident from the White House. To protest is to admit that what you signed off on in February was inadequate, just like your economic forecast.
Funny thing is, the most vulnerable Members of Congress -- the ones who will get massacred at the polls if the labor market remains in a rut -- will be those "centrists" (you know, idiots) in the most marginal districts who babble the most about the impending burden on future generations. In actuality, the burden follows from failure to borrow and lift employment.
Somewhat fewer dumb Democrats in Congress would not be the worst thing in the world. In particular, any Democrat who fails to adhere to a modicum of party discipline in matters such as breaking filibusters is dispensable. From this standpoint, there is no benefit to 60 Democratic senators as opposed to 51. You can control the Senate with either, if you call what Harry Reid does "control."
A very special millstone is one Max Baucus of Montana, the land of big sky and very few people. As head of the Senate Finance Committee, he played a major role in the Bush tax cuts and presently in the crappy-is-the-enemy-of-the-good health care reform. Senator Glenn Beck (R-MT) would be a marked advance. Maybe somebody can start a draft committee.
The problem with playing the game better than the other guy is that you end up invested in the rules, the rules in this context being commitments to principles and policies that are untenable, that render America ungovernable. We have already touched upon two: a) you employ the most brilliant avatars of the conventional wisdom -- a process rule; and b) you commit to reducing the public debt.
The other one much on my mind these days is the premise that Iran must not acquire nuclear capability. On top of shifting from the wrong war -- Iraq -- to the right war (sic) -- Afghanistan, this embodies goals that can only give rise to unsuccessful and disastrous measures. The usual liberal suspects have been notably soft on these moves towards the deeper end of the Big Muddy.
Perhaps the president could not be expected to cope because the mess we are in is just too genuinely overwhelming. Perhaps he isn't that great, not transformative, just a good man confronted with an impossible array of dilemmas. Deliverance will have to come some other way.
Rather than looking up, awaiting redemption, the answer if there is one is to look in the other direction, to mobilization. This can begin to happen if the constituents of the big progressive institutions -- Moveon.org, DailyKos, ActBlue, etc. -- demand greater focus on progressive objectives and less on pragmatic compromises. In this vein, I think Rachel Maddow is right that the attack on ACORN is a prelude to further shots at the progressive grass roots. ACORN should be defended and allowed to clean up its act. Moves to dump a few errant office-holders should go forward, starting with Mr. Baucus.
Somebody think of a way to twitter this.
I think you could explain a bit more what you are driving at. Don't think it would harm the process.
October 3, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what the hell you expect.
I am not an Obama bandwagoneer. And, dammit, I really liked this post at first. You hit on the crux of the problem: orthodox and reform capitalism preached by the media ministry.
The United States has a core national mythology that nearly everyone either believes, ignores, accepts, or endures. Any ideas that can be affixed to the Good Ship Americana becomes sacred. Politics has become the art of preaching the myth and practicing the con.
But the idea that Obama isn't "transformative" enough is absurd. He can only transform as much as its citizens allow. This is our country... We are the ones that practice the faith. We are the ones that accept and communicate the sacred dialectic.
The reason people like Mimowski are displaced is because their ideas do not fit into the narrative. We allow ourselves to be intellectually and emotionally subdued by our media.
The best thing Americans could do is turn off their television.
October 3, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zip, how do we get a more correct narrative into the public consciousness?
October 3, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mebbe stop letting the Disney movie script writers write the speeches? Because, ya know, we don't live in Disney Land.
October 4, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zip, I agree that people must be educated and the controlled messages drowned out with an honest assessment of ourselves and what we’re doing as a country. But I also think that a harsh critique of the government is part of that education and conversation. It's the status quo system that is straitjacketing Obama, not the people or the propaganda that a minority buys into.
The bail-outs and unemployment, health care, etc. are just part of the agenda. Look at what they're doing or not doing with the Patriot Act sunsets right now. After hundreds of abuses of national security letters under the PA with only one case involved terror suspects and thousands of sneak and peak or other civil liberties encroachments (library, business records) under section 215 with only three cases terrorism related, the WH lapdogs in Congress are going to continue these powers (some already ruled unconstitutional).
I don’t think that after eight years of Bush and Cheney we can dismiss the intense centralized power installed in the WH. Congress did Bush’s dirty work and now they’re doing Obama’s. The president is not only leader of the free world as they say but leader of the Democratic Party and cannot hide behind congress on these issues: When Bush was in the White House, the Dems postured against his runaway spending, his military quagmires, and his constitutional violations. With Obama in the White House, Bush’s most misguided policies either continue or worsen..
I’m still waiting to see if the Employee Free Choice Act with card check will be enacted (not holding my breath). Worker’s choice would normally be an uncontroversial no-brainer issue and it is at the heart of what the Democratic Party purports to be. Unionization has been fought and paid for with the blood of many. If a Democratic president and Dem-controlled congress elected to effect change cannot ensure passage of something as basic and right as this (wresting away at least some teeny tiny part of the corporate control from within), then “transformative” isn’t even in the ballpark.
October 3, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the idea that Obama isn't "transformative" enough is absurd. He can only transform as much as its citizens allow.
I disagree with this idea. Real leaders are transformative. They have the new, fresh ideas and they communicate those ideas to the public at large with passion and conviction. Unless they aren't the real leaders they claim to be, with a vision and message of change we believe in, only working to keep the status quo in place with the same cast of characters who helped put that status quo in place.
I am waiting for someone to explain to me why this is a "What we got here is a failure to communicate" moment and is not actually someone who is not looking to change things.
October 3, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. The whole idea that somehow Obama is constrained if the people don't lead is a pathetic pass for Obama. What we need is leadership. Obama is not providing it on the most important questions. In fact, he is demonstrating time and again that he is cut from the very same cloth as Harry Reid and will be perfectly happy to settle for anything that can pass instead of leading Democrats and the people in securing the policies we need for a more secure and prosperous future. You cannot be for fundamental, substantive change if you are unwilling to challenge the status quo. Obama has proved he has not intention of ever doing that.
October 4, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
"But the idea that Obama isn't "transformative" enough is absurd. He can only transform as much as its citizens allow."
'Zackly.
October 4, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe Zip overlooked . . .
. . . . your last paragraph in his zeal to get writing before others chimed in . . .
Act together and get things to move or scream individually and sink like a stone.
~OGD~
October 4, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's soo much easier to listen and watch t.v. and our countries obesity problem doesn't help. Less and less people pay attention to the constent deplenishment of our human rights.Look at all these politicians using our constitution as a doormat by micromanaging it untell one day it's gone.
October 14, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I like what Accountability Now is doing. Max Baucusilius is a nasty infection that may require amputation. This would be my twitter if I twittered (not exactly an inspirational call to action): May run outta gas b4 I make it 2 crappy job; depressed but don’t have copay -credit cards tapped out so I’m workin for B of A, too. R fibbies buggin’ me? Then there’s this cough…
October 3, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forgot link: Accountability Now.
October 3, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
This has long been the problem, Rotwang -- our public discussion of ecnomics in this country is dominated by the notion of "supply and demand" as if nothing else matters. From top to bottom it's like every economic discussion in America starts with people hearing something about Econ 101 (not taking the course and to be fair, I'm so in this boat) and it ends at... that same misunderstanding of Econ 101. This is why it's always such a joy to see Duncan Black, who got the doctorate, write on these topics. Of course, he's not a working economist and if he was, people wouldn't get to see him getting yelled at by Larry Kudlow because nothing new, nothing different, is part of the debate.
As I say every time you post, more please.
October 3, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 5, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do believe that you are totally on track with this....as far as it goes. I believe that this country in it current form is ungovernable, if for not other reason than it's size and diverse population and cultures and sub-cultures.
The soviet union collapsed not primarily do to the economic realities of communism. But for it's vast size and diversity. Far too much money, time and energy had to be spent - not on keeping the government from being overthrown, but on keeping the various peoples from killing each other. This has been shown to be true. Witness the Balkans and Georgia to name just two.
And to expect some idealistic free market system to function through out this country to the benefit of all is just delusional at best.
The biggest problem with Washington is that those who try to govern there think that everyone else see things the way they do. This goes for the left as well as the right.
By having a government that tries to be all things to all people, they end up being nothing to anyone.
C
October 3, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I generally like your writing, but to pick on people doing research on applications of the Dvoretzky-Wald-Wolfowitz Theorem to Game Theory and economics applications is simply ignorant.
While I share your liberal sentiments, if you don't understand the importance of such mathematics, please send an e-mail to Hal Varian.
Or, "Google" it.
October 3, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've read Sam Bowles' Microeconomics -- parts of it -- so I would not dismiss out of hand the possible value of game theory and whatever the devil the Dvoretzky-Wald-Wolfowitz Theorem may be.
But by all means, enlighten us.
In any case, you seem to have missed the forest for the trees. A unique department has been extinguished so that UND can pump out more of the same poop we're getting from the rest of the country. Alongside this mathy stuff this bankrupt, corrupt profession upholds toxic doctrines and elevates certifiable fools to positions of honor.
A few quotes in this vein:
Milton Friedman: "economics has become increasingly an arcane branch of mathematics rather than dealing with real economic problems."
Ronald Coase: "Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world."
Wassily Leontief: "Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas … Year after year economic theorists continue to produce scores of mathematical models and to explore in great detail their formal properties; and the econometricians fit algebraic functions of all possible shapes to essentially the same sets of data."
October 3, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boy..he's got that right.
C
October 4, 2009 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am also struck by the split in the ND Economics department, and the phasing out of the Mirowski people.
Portraying the inconvenient as irrelevant is an old trick. I'm surprised that the ND brass seems to have forgotten that when the Pharisees tried it, it didn't work as well as they thought it would.
Next, we will undoubtedly be treated to a separation of the Department of Human Decency from the Department of Theology. Which will free up the Theologians to continue their fine work in the catholic tradition.
October 6, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much more money will the Capitalists steal from the treasury, before there is no more?
Capitalism in America is in its death throes and as long as it can keep the suckers, I mean the citizens to believe in the myth; if Capitalism goes down so does everything else.
Yet the only ones going down, is the working class.
The “I’ve got mine, now get yours: attitude being so pronounced. In a dog eat dog World; the bigger dogs win.
To the torpid worker; 53 million dollars for B of A Top dog, and yet you don’t see them raiding the Treasury?
The rich Capitalist will be selling off they’re Dollars for a more stable currency.
Getting every dollar they can from the treasury before there’s a run on the bank.
The Capitalist have not acted in Good faith, they have enslaved the working class to provide the basis for they’re continued reign. We have become a debtor Nation, based upon the good faith and Credit of the United States.
Now go figure, the only thing the United States can offer to its creditors is the ability to tax its working class. The Rich class is fleeing and transferring its wealth overseas.
Guess who is going to get the bill, who’s going to wash the dishes?
So while the slaves are buying into the YES WE CAN and HOPE IN AMERICA; hope in America’s better angels. The working class naïve, eyes focused on the blinding LIGHT OF TOMMORROWS FUTURE, BETTER DAYS AHEAD; all the while the crooks in the darkness rob us blind, the crooks are raiding the treasury, transferring the Wealth of the entire Nation out of the Country.
How would you define the wealth of a Nation? Can people steal this wealth?
Pension Plans are under funded, where’s the wealth ?
Alexander Hamilton, Report on Public Credit
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_2s5.html
The Capitalist Mega Corporations entities; no longer made of flesh and blood, no longer feeling pain or moral apprehension; don’t need the United States, having found plenty of slaves elsewhere.
The Rich banker class seeing it clearly; thinking to themselves; “Get it while you can, before the peasants shut the door”.
We're Screwed, only waiting to die.
October 3, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I always enjoy your commentary and this one no less so.
This is a true story from 30 years ago. A large insurance company determined to automate the management of one of its key product activities. They committed no less than $30 million dollars for the project with a 2 to 3 year development cycle. One of the many senior executives with responsibilities to oversee the project began to dutifully compose his strategy to complete it. As one would expect he tasked his secretary to type his plans and otherwise prepare his reports. As it happened this secretary had worked for many years in that product area and as she read and typed and proofread the executive’s manuscripts she realized that the project completely misunderstood the subject product activity. She confronted her boss with her observations and convinced him that the project was doomed to failure. Nevertheless since neither could stop the endeavor they spent the next two and a half years working on the development. The time came when the new system was rolled out. It immediately proved to be useless and was scraped.
So what does one do in the “real” world when confronted with such a circumstance? Should the executive resign in protest? Should the secretary? I think the politics and the practicalities of this situation are obvious. To jump from this incident to a more general observation I will repeat myself from another comment on another’s post:
"It seems a bit depraved to wait upon the time when some hapless souls throw themselves against the police sonic cannons and heat guns and gas dispensers in the hopes that some latent sense of decency will be pricked in the general public. Yet you briefly make the case here that such is the nature of our condition and I sadly agree. In such circumstances no one can be criticized for merely hoping to survive, but to survive as what? It may be time to construct a practical definition of personal dignity and then let that inform our choices. There is a lot of talk about sustainable agriculture and permaculture. What would constitute sustainable culture itself?"
Your accompanying photograph is from 1932. Who knows how much time is left before the final rollout? In the meantime there is a lot of typing and proofreading to be done. It's a job which is more than some can say.
Was it ever thus?
October 3, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
What always surprises me is that most people don't seem to realize that "supply and demand" and no regulations are all built on magical thinking. What in the world could be more magical the having an "invisible" hand that, if only we would leave everything alone, would make everything OK? I find it stunning.
And on top of the "invisible" hand we have the Laffer curve. Obviously I think it should be spelled Laugher. How in the world did he ever con so many people into believing it really meant something? I always think that when people bring it up we should just ask, "if we can raise money by cutting taxes, why don't we just cut 100% of the taxes and the money should just flow right in?" Right?
Also we need to add the Randians, those folks that think that Ayn Rand was not only a great philosopher but a good economist. Whole books that celebrate being selfish and greedy and they actually have an institute. It just astounds me that so many grown-ups haven't grown out of thinking that they are one the "exceptional people" who populate her books. Sheesh!
This is the kind of BS we are up against when we advocate for common sense regulation and taxation, and try and control the greed. It's true I don't understand any of the math that economists use, but I can't help having the feeling that the equations follow their economic philosophy and not the other way around.
I guess I have to end this by saying, I just with they would all go Galt.
October 3, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Çapitalism is a great system for transferring wealth to the wealthy. It always must be that way too, because the wealthy control the government which controls the regulations under which capitalism operates. Of course those regulations are designed to benefit the wealthy.
Socialism isn't any better, but it also isn't any worse. A combination of the two isms combined with the reality that corporations are not citizens, not people, and not entitled to a single right under the Constitution, would be very nice.
I'm not holding my breath on that. But, I don't need to. At best I will only be around another ten years or so.
October 3, 2009 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd also like to add "when the holier-than-thou" folks decide to stop sniping at them when they sponsor vigils or "honk for health care" activities and the like.
I'd like to also suggest adding Democracy for America to your list--there are others too, and I belong to most of them--but it is time for me to get ready to catch a plane back to home territory. Put them on the list, join them, and support them.
October 4, 2009 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"This can begin to happen if the constituents of the big progressive institutions -- Moveon.org, DailyKos, ActBlue, etc. -- demand greater focus on progressive objectives and less on pragmatic compromises."
I agree, but this would---of necessity--require a public break with the corporate centrist bullshit of the Obama adminsistration and the Democratic Party. They are all loathe to do this as is quite evident, but they are at least beginning to experiment with things like ads against some specific bad actors in Congress. The critique and movement, however, must be focused on a broader fundamental change and that is to eliminate the Republicans from the Democratic Party. That means that unless they fundamentally change their stripes progressives can no longer support DLC/corporate Democrats like Obama, Baucus, Nelson, McCaskill, Conrad, Lincoln, Landrieu, Reid, etc... People argue that if we do so we will lose the majority, but what good is it to have a theoretical majority when you still can't pass any of the important bills that need to get passed without watering them down to the point where they are meaningless? It's time for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to get in the fight not only against the Republicans but also their allies in the Democratic Party.
October 4, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink