I do agree that where finance capital is aimed at long term investments that involve the creation of productive power they create real value.
But consider the difference between what our dear leader does (setting up deals that allow wind turbines to be built. And these turbines in turn produce electricity that has real value. Capital in this case is used to create something that creates an item of value that grants a return to the investor.
On the other hand, consider the case of Enron, where "electricity" was made into a commodity, and the point of the investment of capital wasn't to increase the capacity to produce electricity, but to hold it and sell it for a higher price while adding to value to it.
And when you only have construction of peaking plants and you have growth in demand, and you have reduced regular supply as plants are decommissioned. Then what was previously a regular commodity manufactured to be put on the market , i.e. electricity, is turned into a store of wealth that increases in cost without adding value. Basically the same amount of power hits the market, but its cost is dramatically increased so that the reason the amount of money this brings in is higher is not because there is more of the thing, but because the market has been manipulated.
I hope that made sense. I wanted to make this distinction in my earlier comment, but I was rambling on and couldn't figure out how to convey my point.
I don't agree with those that say that the growth paradigm is unsustainable, but I am convinced we need to change the nature of economic growth.
In a US government sponsored publication during the late 1950s, the English economist Roy Harrod asked whether there was a point of economic satiation.
That is whether there was a point at which a society had enough material positions so that further economic output was pointless. He concluded that if this were the case that new outlets for economic growth would have to occur by created a demand for non-material items and leisure.
As a purely domestic matter, I think that there's a strong argument that there is a point of economic satiation, and that much of what passes for economic activity in the modern world is really a form of conspicous consumption that benefits no one and is incredibly wasteful.
If I can be satisfied with a little house amongst the many others in my neighborhood, my need for shelter is met.
But what happens when a great mansion rises up next to mine, is that my little house becomes but a shack. And I, no longer satisfied that I live decently, most build a larger home. The more unequal the distribution of income in a society, the higher the prevalance of consumption is not aimed at satisfying material needs, but exists as a form of conspicous consumption that aims to convey status to others.
It's horribly wasteful, and responsible tremendous environmental damage. It's much the point of ecological economics, and it's the reason that environmentalist love the thesis itself. I've always thought that Fred Hirsch was the earliest statement of this idea. But as I read Veblen, I realize that it's been around for at least a century.
This is all speaking domestically. In international relations, one of the great sources of wasteful consumption is an arms race. And while the type of status competition that occurs in domestic society is dreadful, rarely does it allow one player to eliminate the existence of another because there is law and order.
Not so in international relations. The only law is that that the gun makes, and thus the capacity of a society to ramp up production far beyond any need for domestic consumption matters. Greatly. The nation that can make the most guns, and place them in the hands of citizens is the one that makes the law. And the strong prevail upon the week.
As hegemons go, the United States has been remarkably benign. Professing a liberal ideology that limited the naked exercise of power even more than it did in the case of Britain. This isn't to say that bad shit didn't happen, merely that as hegemons go the US was pretty harmless.
If the mantle of hegemony passes to China, will the order they impose be as benign?
It's the regime in power in Beijing that worries me. And the absence of a tradition of power being limited by the rule of law. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Professing a liberal ideology that limited the naked exercise of power even more than it did in the case of Britain. This isn't to say that bad shit didn't happen, merely that as hegemons go the US was pretty harmless.
There are many countries which might not agree with that.
It's true that the US hegemony was relatively benign to its own population. True, you were expected to work three jobs, to consume to order, and to buy into the bullshit. But you didn't, except on rare occasions, have people shooting at you. Unless you were black. Or a native.
Elsewhere in the world - not quite so benign. The US has a long history of invasion and genocide from the Native American apocalypse onwards.
Iraq is not a miraculous and unexpected exception - it's entirely consistent with the outline of US foreign policy for more than a century.
With Europe happy, the "interntional community" was thhus approving. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Ever heard of Ludlow, Homestead, Matewan, or the Battle of the Overpass?
There was considerable violence by the same business class that was responsible for American expansion overseas at home against largely working class whites. It didn't have a thing to do with race, but it did have everything to do with keeping people in the position that they were born into. I have a hard time thinking of many instances in 20th century British history in which the military was called upon to put down striking workers. I can think of many times when governors called out the National Guard to put down strikes in US states.
American hegemony is far more benign that that which Britain imposed on the world. And will likely be more so than that which any future hegemon imposes.
The Chinese have been able to stir up the type of ill-will and resentment that it took the United States several decades to accrue in Africa less than a decade.
I'm sorry to say this, but what the US has done in the past 50 years pales in comparison to what Europeans did when they were in charge. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
I'm sure you find it comforting to think that the US has been uniquely benign but the evidence for that seems scant.
People get upset about American hegemony.
Is the problem American hegemony?
Or American hegemony?
And honestly, yes I think that the US has done better than if Europe had been in charge, because any situation in which Europe had been in charge would have involved the perpetuation of colonialism.
Does the British record in Kenya or the French record in Algeria really give any reason to believe that European hegemony would have been any better than American hegemony? And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
My point is that you're excusing the horrors of US hegemony by comparing it to an imaginary continuation of European hegemony - though you could argue that, apart from the geographical centre being in Washington rather than London, Paris or Berlin, that the US hegemony was simply a continuation of the European one - it's been pretty much the same people in charge, after all.
The thing that I'm disagreeing with is the idea that if any other nation where in the position that the US is now that they would behave any differently.
Which means that the best way to deal with this isn't to make the specific case against the US, but the general case against the behavior in question.
You shut down the conversation with a lot of the people who can have an impact on that behavior by making this about American hegemony instead of American hegemony. It's counterproductive.
It's cliche but true. Hate the sin, not the sinner. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Does the British record in Kenya or the French record in Algeria really give any reason to believe that European hegemony would have been any better than American hegemony?
Equally bad I would say. If a CIA backed army is willing to overthrow a democratically elected government, if it votes the wrong way. Then go round shooting and torturing people who might exercise their freedoms in the future, how is that better than colonialism? its really just colonialism with added misdirection. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
(Ironically, but expectedly, that nastier group was another group of my ancestors, so I'd wind up needing to sue myself in order to collect.) Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Heck, well into the 20th cent. the Brits were doing things in India that would have landed a lot of their PMs in the Hague until they were old and grey and then some if they had been brown people. And let's not even start talking about Belgian Congo or French North Africa (and since I'm Danish, let me also mention the Danish slave trade, that continued well into the latter half of the 19th cent.).
Traditional great powers have never been nice, and I find it hard to believe they ever will be. Our challenge for the 21st cent. is to figure out how to make a non-traditional great power.
As an aside, am I the only one who finds it absurd to attempt to rank the scale of crimes where the dead are counted in millions? Doesn't one reach a point where attempts to figure out who was "the worst bad guy" becomes a meaningless exercise in finger-pointing?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Agree, which is why I think that bitching about hegemony is really pointless.
Hegemony brings order to an otherwise anarchic system. Which means you get rules.
I like living in a society with law and order, because it means that I don't have to worry about someone stabbing me when I go for a walk. (... as much, I did get hauled out of bed by the police on my last birthday because there was a hostage situation at the neighbors and I had to evacuate)
It's much preferable to live in a world in which there are rules, and in order for there to be rules there has to be the power to enforce them. It's important in this case that the rules apply to all, so that you have rule of law, not of men. (I'm certain that given the chance women are equally capable of genocide, etc...)
Now of course you can have order without freedom, like the security that you et in an authoritarian state.
Or you can have order in which everyone has input into how the rules are made, but there's a basic agreement about what the basis rules are.
That's why I think that in the end there has to be an effort to coallesce around that set of values that can form the constitutional basis of a new world order. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Is it worse to live in a world in which a few hundred people are tortured, to death or otherwise?
Or one in which the lack of order means that there are major power wars which lead to the death of tens of millions?
What's tragic about the renditions isn't so much that they are evil, as that they are utterly fucking pointless. They serve no purpose. They don't make the world safer, but they do erode the idea that there are rules that apply to everybody and which are not to be broken.
Which means that when the US (or for that matter any of the European states wrapped up in the whole rendition affair) goes to condemn Sudan for Dafur, the whole issue of renditions gets thrown back at them. Same thing with China. That the scale of the Guatanamo is a mere fraction of what you have in Darfur or China doesn't matter, because it's taken as an absolute principal, a law. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
that's one or two orders of magnitude less than WWI, but a million here and a million there...
but if you take into account the size of the populations involved, I'm sure its probably significant. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
If a US military strike against the government of the countries that intervened could have stopped the escalation of the killing, would it have been justified because it would have saved lives?
Or condemned as American aggression against poor African states? And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Claims that any military intervention is supposed to promote democracy and human rights are going to ring hollow - extremely hollow - if there's still so much lower-hanging fruit around in the democracy promotion department. It'd look much like shooting a burglar and claiming that you did it because you're "concerned about your safety" - when you haven't even bothered to install a lock on your door in the first place. Not credible.
And I don't agree with the counterfactual either. A few air strikes here and there are not going to stop a few million people ready to kill each other with machetes and most foreign combatants in Congo came from neighbouring countries, on foot (so to speak). When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
As bad as the renditions and Guantanamo are. Is it worse to live in a world in which a few hundred people are tortured, to death or otherwise? Or one in which the lack of order means that there are major power wars which lead to the death of tens of millions?
The tragedy of the renditions is that they are evil and they are pointless and that they are being committed for years by a country founded on principles that explicitly don't allow such actions - not cooincidentally because some ancient monarchy was doing such things and 250 years ago we thought that it was time for the world to grow up...that the world is able to grow up.
I don't buy the mere fraction part either. Sure, what is going on in the camp of one island is perhaps 500 people, but there are a lot of places that the Red Cross has been kept out of, and my money is on the bet that says there is still a lot more that we don't know about. Not that this mitigates whatever specifics you are talking about in China or Darfur. Just that the whole 50, or even last 20 year, US involvement Iraq and Iran is millions of people dead. And like VietNam, which was also millions of people dead, you can't really put your finger on a real reason why. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
No excuse for torture, not ever, no matter the situation, no matter the number of lives it will supposedly save, its flat out wrong, 100% wrong in any and all circumstances.
Obamas first action should be the arrest of his predecessor and his henchmen, and if it turns out that they have presidential pardons that stop any legal action, then get the ICC charter ratified and hand the mob over to the Hague Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Is it worse to live in a world in which a few hundred people are tortured, to death or otherwise? Or one in which the lack of order means that there are major power wars which lead to the death of tens of millions?
Are you saying that the actual rendering and torturing that took place was to prevent the death of tens of millions and not alongside the unleashing of a war that has killed millions and risks escalating to tens of millions if we're not careful, and in addition to the gutting of the international system which is now weakened to the point that if a war to kill tens of millions were imminent it could do nothing to prevent it?
The problem with "realists" is that they live in a Platonic universe of ticking bomb scenarios and world wars averted by targeted torture and assassination. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
The problem with "realists" is that they live in a Platonic universe of ticking bomb scenarios and world wars averted by targeted torture and assassination.
Some background reading How anyone can say they are a realist and yet support the ticking bomb scenario makes my mind boggle. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
It's not as if we don't bitch about the European contributions to the body count as well, but everyone always only complains about the insults to their own nation.
Obama isn't going to take US forces out of Iraq, and to be honest the likely result of a US withdrawal in Iraq is an Iraqi genocide in which the Sunnis and Kurds are knocked off. I don't think that we're talking about something on the order of the Holocaust, but matching Rwanda or Bosnia? Sure.
So if it's the body count that matters, which one is better?
If another 100,000 die because of the occupation, but 2 million will die in the event of a genocide in the event of American withdrawal, which is morally superior?
We can't change the past, we can change the future.
And in the future, I think that it's important that the world community be listened to when there's a push for war. So that if the thing goes to shit it's everybody's fault, and not just placed on America's shoulders. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Then leave. And let the chips fall where they may. And promise not to do it again.
The only issue will be hammering out the details of what to do with Iraqis who want to get out, too.
MfM's assumptions are a little silly here. The idea that the Sunnis outside of Iraq are going to sit around while the Shi'ia slaughter the Iraqi Sunnis is ridiculous.
I'm also not a big believer that the Shi'ia are going to set about trying to kill all the Sunnis and Kurds the moment we turn our backs. I don't follow how our soldiers would prevent this either.
I'm skeptical, too, as these excuses for staying are the excuses provided by the Very Serious People who supported the war and want to stay in order to prop up their imaginary honor. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Which is basically what's going to happen.
Except of course the part about letting iraqis emigrate to coalition countries. I do not have the numbers but recently it was reported that the swedish town of Södertälje has accepted more refugees from Iraq then the entire US. And I bet there are towns in Syria that is housing more refugees then Sweden in total. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
And in the future, I think that it's important that the world community be listened to when there's a push for war. So that if the thing goes to shit it's everybody's fault, and not just placed on America's shoulders.
No, excuse me, what's important is for America and its leaders to understand that we go to war in self-defense should it become absolutely necessary (and as the last resort), not to go looking for these God-damned ponies just because these neocon pieces of shit decides that our troops should be used to promote their magical thinking.
It's on America's shoulders, because those of us who opposed this stupid fucking war weren't fucking listened to. The global community wasn't listened to, because the global community wasn't going to go in regardless of what fairy tale the psychos told it. Whose shoulders should it be on? The French? The Germans? They had the brains to stay out, so why the fuck would it be on their shoulders?
You're right, we can only change the future, but I, for one, am not done talking about the past, because I and others were right all along, and it's time the people who got it right were listened to in this country instead of the people all-too-willing to send other people's kids to die for nothing. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
It's a militaristic society through and through, anyone who lives here and observes the absolute reverence of all things military by the vast majority of americans can see this. And that reverence permeates everything. We gaze in wide wonder at how the so-called 4th estate toed the line so easily in the run-up to the Iraq war, but really, it's this way with every war. Americans absolutely love their wars.
As long as they win them, they don't cost too much money and someone else's kids get killed. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
You can't just compare collections of people by size - people are people, not beans to be counted.
Example: is it better to kill a hostage taker and a hostage to free another hostage, or to let the hostage taker kill the hostages and then kill the hostage taker?
Will you take responsibility for the choice to kill a hostage? Will you pull the trigger? How will you face the family of the hostage you killed in order to reduce the hostage death count by half?
If you're going to get the rap either way from the family of the dead hostages, better to not have blood on your hands on top of that, to be honest.
You're welcome to scale the problem from 1:2 to any ratio of dead hostages you like. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
I just get a little irked whenever I see people claiming that Europe has special moral high ground and that if just Europe would have been in charge of the world we wouldn't have acted like assholes. Chances are that, given the opportunity, Europeans would be just as likely to throw a small third-world country against the wall and beat the snot out of it as Americans. Which is why a lot of our work in building a better EU will have to go towards making sure the EU never gets the opportunity to throw small third world countries up against the wall...
Soft power instead of hard power. It's not the only foreign policy question that matters, but it comes pretty close.
As you point out its the ideas that matter, not the people who hold them. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Shouldn't the focus be on taking down the ideas that lead to the Iraq war, instead of assigning blame for how it happened?
And how does one do that without holding the perpetrators accountable? The people who hold these idiotic ideas do matter, and they need to be discredited every time the opportunity presents itself. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The drive to place responsibility for the way Iraq blew up in our faces on the US is just as much about incriminating our domestic Quislings and making it harder for them to say "the international community" when in reality they mean "our sugar-daddy in Washington." That's more than a little rough on the Americans who are exposed to it. And it's going to feel mightily unfair to those Americans who explicitly voted against King George the Lesser. But if we don't drive the point home that the US is not, at the moment, a source of freedom and democracy, our Quislings can keep pissing European lives and political capital away. And that's simply not acceptable.
In a Panglossian way though, in context, that's not so surprising. What's made Euro-civilisation different is an explicit ideal of abstract equality and dignity. The ideal has been trampled on so many times it's ridiculous, but it's still there as a kind of final appeal to civilisation which at least some people believe in at least some of the time, and which progressives - bless their keyboards - would like to see more of.
Genocide, exploitation and empire seem to be the natural human state of things, and while it's easy to be horrified by colonialism, there are plenty of cultures which have had colonialism and slavery without feeling any obligation to be horrified at all.
We're not special because we're unusually civilised - in reality, we really aren't. But we are special because we have occasional, all-too-fleeting moments when we dream that we could be better. And that's almost unique in history.
One of the biggest diseases on the US body politic - right up there with neoliberal economics - is American Exceptionalism. If we want to make a more perfect union for Europe, we'll have to step on European Exceptionalism so hard it dies. Otherwise, give it a couple of decades and we'll be the ones cluelessly wondering why "they" hate us.
And as long as we have people like Tory Bliar saying that he's proud of the British Empire (yes, he has actually said that. Gag me), I don't think we should be shouting our mouths off too badly about how much better than the US we inherently are.
Our political culture is at the moment a lot more civilised than the political culture across the Pond, so we have a much better starting point for creating a non-traditional great power that doesn't behave like a petulant five-year-old with superpowers. But a large part of the reason that we have a better starting point than the US is precisely the fact that we have not been hegemons for the past fifty or so years.
And whether we'll succeed in turning our current advantage into more permanently civilised behaviour remains to be seen. So our bragging rights are somewhat limited at this point.
I know it's fashionable to get the guilt on. And it's not as if there isn't plenty to feel guilty about.
Even so - inherent dignity and inherent human rights are both unique concepts, and key cultural drivers.
Exceptionalism is SOP for empires. It's what empires do. But the idea that something better might be possible isn't quite so common - no matter how unlikely it's looking at the moment.
If there's a way to rehabilitate Euro-culture politically, it's to move that concept back to the centre and make it an anchor of integrity around which everything else revolves.
We've had so much to be cynical about politically for such a long time it's hard to imagine how that might be possible. But the alternative is likely to be worse, so it may not be such a bad thing to aim for.
So, perhaps I am wrong, or perhaps it is time to stop throwing that era into the argument as some mitigation for the US' actions. Sure, it has to be watched out for, and the lessons taught for future generations...just saying. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
If we want to make a more perfect union for Europe, we'll have to step on European Exceptionalism so hard it dies.
Thus even today, many, perhaps most, Americans completely deny that America is engaged in empire building at all - despite the presence of US troops in more than 100 "sovereign" nations. America has practiced a new form of neo-colonialism which involves indirect corporate hegemony and covert rather than overt military actions in many cases. Even Iraq was to help Iraqis enjoy the fruits of democracy!
It is the indirect/covert/ideological model of US neo-colonialism which is particularly corrosive as it can seemingly co-exist side by side with all the laudable claims to virtue contained in the Declaration of Independence. In some ways the old European model of colonialism which involved direct military/poltical rule was more obvious and more honest - and easier to oppose/resist.
"Global corporations" are almost beyond all governance. Military contractors are not subject to the usual military disciplines. And most American's would be genuinely appalled if they knew the full extent of what the CIA et al routinely engages in.
The sadness is not the the US is worse than (say) Nazi Germany or the Stalinist Soviet Union. Of course it is not. The sadness is that such noble ideals have become so debased - which is also why we have to be careful how the EU develops if it ever does become a "harder" world power. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
Maybe, of maybe not.
Wikipedia: Revision and replacement of the Articles of Confederation
Rakove (1988) identifies several factors that explain the collapse of the Confederation. The lack of compulsory direct taxation power was objectionable to those wanting a strong centralized state or expecting to benefit from such power. It could not collect customs after the war because tariffs were vetoed by Rhode Island. Rakove concludes that their failure to implement national measures "stemmed not from a heady sense of independence but rather from the enormous difficulties that all the states encountered in collecting taxes, mustering men, and gathering supplies from a war-weary populace."[13] The second group of factors Rakove identified derived from the substantive nature of the problems the Continental Congress confronted after 1783, especially the inability to create a strong foreign policy. Finally, the Confederation's lack of coercive power reduced the likelihood for profit to be made by political means, thus potential rulers were uninspired to seek power.
you should be writing inspirational speeches for some big cheese...
this whole debate is stellar, btw, raising the ET bar once again. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
