November 4th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Classical scholars from Münster are excavating one of the few sites of ancient Roman Syria in Turkey that are currently accessible as a result of the political situation in the Middle East
Münster classical scholars discovered invaluable ancient Syrian mosaics and buildings and are excavating one of the few sites that are currently accessible for studies on ancient Roman Syria despite the tense political situation in the Middle East. “The ancient city of Doliche, which was part of the province of Syria in Roman times, lies at the fringes of the Turkish metropolis of Gaziantep today”, explains Prof. Dr. Engelbert Winter from University of Münster’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”. “
Part of the excavated mosaic floor of a late antique building
Foto: Peter Jülich
The city is one of the few places where Syrian urban culture from the Hellenistic-Roman era can currently still be studied.” Urban centres of this kind have thus far barely been explored. Famous sites in today’s Syria that would qualify for such research, such as Apamea or Cyrrhus, have either been destroyed or are inaccessible because of the war.
Prof. Winter spoke towards the end of the first excavation season of the new excavation project on urban development in ancient Syria, which the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) is funding with a total of 600,000 euros starting this year. At the same time, the researchers are continuing their excavations in the sanctuary of Iuppiter Dolichenus, in which the Cluster of Excellence is involved.
View of the newly excavated parts of the abbey of St. Solomon at Dülük Baba Tepesi
Foto: Peter Jülich
“The situation today at the site of Apamea, one of the most important ancient cities of Syria, is particularly bad”, according to Prof. Winter. “Illicit excavations, clearly visible in satellite imagery, have destroyed the entire urban area. It remains doubtful if research there will ever be possible again. The excavations in Cyrrhus, which had recently been resumed, also had to be stopped due to the current situation.” On the other hand, the ancient city of Antioch on the Orontes, formerly the capital of the Roman province of Syria and today the Turkish metropolis of Antakya, is largely inaccessible as a result of modern construction.
“For the time being, therefore, our excavations in the city of Doliche, which is situated on Turkish territory and which can, in addition, well developed through extensive preliminary work and accessible to archaeological research, can provide new information about the urban culture in the ancient Northern Syrian midland”, says excavation director Prof. Winter of the University of Münster’s Asia Minor Research Centre.
Outstanding mosaic with filigree pattern
“The most outstanding discovery of our excavations is a high-quality mosaic floor in a splendid complex of buildings with a court enclosed by columns that originally covered more than 100 square metres”, explains archaeologist Dr. Michael Blömer. “Because of its size and the strict, well-composed sequence of filigree geometric patterns, the mosaic is one of the most beautiful examples of late antique mosaic art in the region.” Even if the building’s function is as yet unclear, it has to be a wealthy urban villa. “These first findings already reveal the potential that the site has for further research into the environment of the urban elites and for questions as to the luxurious furnishing in urban area.”
View from Dülük Baba Tepesi of the urban area of Doliche, situated on the mound at the centre of the picture
Foto: Forschungsstelle Asia Minor
The team of researchers is also excavating simple houses, alleys and water pipelines, which promise to give major insights into the everyday life of the people and the city’s organisation, according to Dr. Blömer. In 2016, the excavations are planned to be extended to the public areas of the ancient city. New information as to key questions can be expected from the project: “By means of different methods, we hope to obtain a reliable picture of a Northern Syrian city from the Hellenistic era to the age of the crusaders as well as a clearer picture of the material everyday culture and of local identities in this region, the research of which is still in its early stages as regards ancient Syria.”Excavations at a near-by overhanging rock shelter revealed a significantly older epoch: it housed a Palaeolithic settlement site dating back to 600,000 to 300,000 BC. “People settled here because there was flint from which tools were crafted”, according to Prof. Winter. “Some of our new finds can already be dated back to around 300,000 BC. Therefore, we plan to expand research on this site, which is central to the early history of humankind, into an individual project.”
Bronze figurine of a stag
Simultaneously with the restart of the DFG funded excavation in the urban area of Doliche, a second group continued with the excavations on the neighbouring mount, Dülük Baba Tepesi, in the sanctuary of Iuppiter Dolichenus, one of the most important gods of the Roman Iron Age.
Bronze figurine of a stag from the early 1st millennium BC
Foto: Peter Jülich
Excavations there have been going on for 15 years. In addition to well-preserved sections of the wall enclosing the Roman sanctuary, further parts of a Christian abbey, founded on the mountaintop after the end of the heathen cult, were excavated. Researchers have been able to retrieve many valuable finds in recent years, showing that the site had already been used as a sanctuary in the 9th and 8th centuries BC, thus making it much older than initially assumed. This was confirmed this year by the find of a high-quality bronze figurine of a stag which also dates back to the early 1st millennium BC.
The project B2-20 at the Cluster of Excellence, “Media representation and religious ‘market’: Syrian cults in the Western Imperium Romanum” is closely linked to the excavation project. The focus is on local cults developing into state religions.
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November 1st, 2015
Flying cars, hoverboards and video chat – a very futuristic vision for the year 2015 was presented in the movie “Back to the Future Part II”, released in 1989. Now, shortly before “Back to the Future Day” on October 21st, 2015, it is time to check whether reality has indeed kept up with the daring predictions of the 80s.
This is the billboard of the future: A large-scale glasses-free 3-D display.
Credit: TriLite
One of the technological innovations presented in this film was a huge 3D display. As far as this invention is concerned, Hollywood was almost right. Such displays will soon be possible. TU Wien and TriLite Technologies are presenting a display element which uses special micro optics and moving micro mirrors to project different pictures into different directions. This technology can be used to create 3D displays without the need for 3D glasses.
3D Pictures on Huge Outdoor Displays
Marty McFly, the protagonist of the movie “Back to the Future Part II”, uses a time machine to travel from the year 1985 to October 21st, 2015. In the technological utopia of 2015 he is in for quite a few surprises. One of them is a colossal display on top of a cinema, from which a terrifying 3D shark seems to jump out to get him. Back in the 80s, no viable concepts for such a 3D display technology existed. But today, this technology is within reach.
This is the second prototype of the 3-D display module, which sends different images to different directions, enabling glasses-free 3-D.
Credit: TriLite
A first prototype has been developed by TriLite Technologies and TU Wien a few months ago. Each 3D pixel (called “TrixelTM”) consists of a laser and a moveable mirror. The mirror directs the laser beams across the field of vision, from left to right. During that movement the image information is changed. With this basic idea, different pictures can be sent to the viewer´s left and right eye, so that a 3D effect is created without the need for 3D glasses.New Prototype, Just in Time for Back to the Future Day
Now, a much more advanced second prototype has been presented. It is now a full color display, a significant advancement over the first monochromatic version. Each Trixel has been equipped with three different lasers (red, green and blue). The module consists of 12×9 Trixels, so any number of modules can be assembled to create a large outdoor display. “The software for controlling the modules and displaying movies has already been developed”, says Jörg Reitterer (from TriLite Technologies, and PhD student in Professor Ulrich Schmid’s team at TU Wien). “We can use any off-the-shelf 3D movie and play it on our display.”
“The basic technology was invented by TriLite Technologies in 2011. At TU Wien, three research institutes worked on different tasks such as steering the Trixels and optimizing the connection between them. The technology is now ready for the market, and we are looking for partners for mass production all over the world”, says Franz Fidler, CTO of TriLite Technologies.
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October 28th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Barack Obama, the man who promised in June 2008 to “responsibly end the war in Iraq” and “end the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban”, will leave his successor fighting in those two conflicts, plus two Cold Wars underway: one with China and another with Russia.
On one side, the Chinese deputy Zhang Yesui Exteriors Affairs summoned the US ambassador in Beijing, former Sen. Max Baucus, to deliver a protest note from the arrival of the missile destroyer Lassen accompanied by several electronic warfare aircraft, the Near Subi Reef in the Spratly archipelago of islands where Beijing has built an artificial island whose sovereignty it claims. The arrival of Lassen within 12 nautical miles -22 miles-island means, according to Beijing is a violation of its territorial integrity.
Washington’s response is that it will cross the sea as many times as desired; something that would repeat an action that Beijing has described as “extremely irresponsible”. But it also has the support of all countries in the area, starting with Brunei and the Philippines, which are closest to the Spratlys, and continuing in Vietnam, which also has interests and is building bases in the cascade of 850 reefs, shoals , atolls and coral islands that until recently were an ecological paradise and now it is being pulverized by the actions of the navies of these countries illegal fishing.
The dispute in the Spratly islands is in a sense predictable, given first, the trade ‘turn on the Pacific’ that the United States has taken with Obama seeks to disengage from the Middle East and Europe to focus on what Washington considers the area in which they will decide the power in the twenty-first century in Asia. The US is now a pacific strategic rival to Chinese imperialism in the region, which has led him to dispute the sovereignty of Japan over the Senkaku Islands and Vietnam snatch control of Paracels, another tropical paradise that almost lead to war in both countries the 70s, just as paradoxically, Beijing and Ho Chi Minh were allies against the United States. Now, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines want the Americans to stay or to return to the Pacific.
But the paradox is that Obama’s legacy will be greater involvement in the Pacific … and also in Europe and the Middle East. In other words, everywhere. This is what appears from the statement made yesterday by the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Ashton Carter to the Senate, which summarized the new US strategy in a battlefront located 7,900 kilometers from the Spratlys, Syria and Iraq, as “the three Rs: Raqqa, Ramadi and raids”.
This strategy, which was promptly leaked to The Washington Post ‘yesterday ‘ comes down to one sentence: an escalating intervention in Syria and Iraq. On one side is Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic state in Syria (IS, by its acronym in English), to the US and its allies since bombing from a year and half ago. Washington wants to step up attacks for the forces of the Syrian opposition, which in turn are bombing Russia trying conquer the city of 220,000 inhabitants, the sixth largest in Syria.
Carter simply noted that to achieve this, the United States conducted an escalation of the bombing of the IS in collaboration with the Jordanian Armed Forces. But according to the Washington Post, Secretary of Defense Barack Obama has proposed sending Special Forces units into Syrian territory to lead the offensive and seek targets for bombing.
That represents a quantum leap in the war, which until now, the United States had simply send Special to perform specific missions against IS Forces. Washington had always opposed outright to what in America is called “boots on the ground” a permanent military presence of soldiers in Syria, a country that also is fighting in support of dictator Bashar Assad , Russian and Iranian soldiers.
The second ‘R’ is Ramadi, an Iraqi city of nearly half a million people 100 kilometers from Baghdad that was taken by the Islamic State on May 15. Again, Carter merely stated the importance for Iraq to resume that goal. Again options according to US media as Barack Obama goes further and includes making some 3,400 soldiers to travel to Iraq Ramadi to run the offense. Again, it is an option which is an escalation of the war. A war in which, paradoxically, the US and Iran work together — just the opposite in Syria.
The ‘raids’, is the actions of the Special Forces command type. Some actions have already climbed, as showed the death of the first American soldier in combat in Iraq in four years last week. This is the first offensive action with ground troops that the US carried out in Iraq since retired from that country in 2011. And not the last. As Carter said yesterday “we will not hold back when it comes to take direct action, by air or by land.” The new chief of staff of US General Joseph Dumford, also said yesterday that the US will be “more aggressive” in its war on IS.
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October 10th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Seven Palestinians, including a teenager, in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israeli fire this afternoon and over 80 were injured in the incidents caused during a popular march organized after the Muslim Friday prayers to the Green Line as confirmed spokesman of the Ministry of Health Ashraf al Qidra.
It is the first Palestinians killed in Gaza during the escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israelis began on October 1. Mohammed al Regeb, 15, and Adnan Abu Alayan, 22, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers from the other side of the fence separating Gaza from Israel territory, in response to the throwing of stones Gazans gathered east of the town of Khan Younes (south).
Ahmad to Hirbawi, Shadi Dula and Abed al Waheidi, all 20, were killed in similar fashion on the east of Gaza City near an Israeli military post. Nahal Oz on the green line. The number of injured in the Gaza Strip, according to medical sources, amounts to more than 60.
The clashes started when demonstrators have come to the green line throwing stones at Israeli soldiers who responded with tear gas and firing weapons of fire. Four of the injured were in critical condition, one with a gunshot wound to the head, explained Al Qidra Efe.
“About 200 Palestinians have come close to the security fence, throwing stones and burning tires to the positions of the Israeli security forces “, said France Presse a spokeswoman for the Israeli army.
“Security forces have replicated firing on the main instigators to prevent their advance and to disperse the mob,” he added, pointing out that the incidents are ongoing. At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City more injured arrive of the Palestinians injured in the clashes and has declared a state of alarm.
All this comes in a new “Friday of Rage” in which the Palestinians were called to participate in protests against Israel, which keeps Gaza under a tight blockade since Hamas took power in 2006. While in the West Bank and East Jerusalem clashes continue in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, former prime minister of Hamas in Gaza, said in his Friday sermon that are prepared to fight this “Jerusalem Intifada”.
For its part, the second Palestinian Islamist movement with greater number of followers, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, celebrated Friday the 34th anniversary of its establishment with a march in Gaza City where representatives from all Palestinian factions were, including Fatah movement of Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas).
The Fatah official presence alongside other Palestinian Islamists and leftist parties in Gaza is almost unprecedented that only happened earlier in the protest organized by the assassination of Palestinian Dawabsha family, burned in an attack by settlers on the West Bank home.
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October 8th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Fusion reactors could become an economically viable means of generating electricity within a few decades, and policy makers should start planning to build them as a replacement for conventional nuclear power stations, according to new research.
Researchers at Durham University and Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, have re-examined the economics of fusion, taking account of recent advances in superconductor technology for the first time. Their analysis of building, running and decommissioning a fusion power station shows the financial feasibility of fusion energy in comparison to traditional fission nuclear power.
The research, published in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design, builds on earlier findings that a fusion power plant could generate electricity at a similar price to a fission plant and identifies new advantages in using the new superconductor technology.
This is an illustration of a tokamak with plasma.
Credit: ITER Organization
Professor Damian Hampshire, of the Centre for Material Physics at Durham University, who led the study, said: “Obviously we have had to make assumptions, but what we can say is that our predictions suggest that fusion won’t be vastly more expensive than fission.”
Such findings support the possibility that, within a generation or two, fusion reactors could offer an almost unlimited supply of energy without contributing to global warming or producing hazardous products on a significant scale.
Fusion reactors generate electricity by heating plasma to around 100 million degrees centigrade so that hydrogen atoms fuse together, releasing energy. This differs from fission reactors which work by splitting atoms at much lower temperatures.
The advantage of fusion reactors over current fission reactors is that they create almost no radioactive waste. Fusion reactors are safer as there is no high level radioactive material to potentially leak into the environment which means disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima are impossible because plasma simply fizzles out if it escapes.
Fusion energy is also politically safer because a reactor would not produce weapons-grade products that proliferate nuclear arms. It is fuelled by deuterium, or heavy water, which is extracted from seawater, and tritium, which is created within the reactor, so there is no problem with security of supply either.
A test fusion reactor, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is about 10 years away from operation in the South of France. Its aim is to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy.
Professor Hampshire said he hoped that the analysis would help persuade policy-makers and the private sector to invest more heavily in fusion energy.
“Fission, fusion or fossil fuels are the only practical options for reliable large-scale base-load energy sources. Calculating the cost of a fusion reactor is complex, given the variations in the cost of raw materials and exchange rates. However, this work is a big step in the right direction” he said.
“We have known about the possibility of fusion reactors for many years but many people did not believe that they would ever be built because of the technological challenges that have had to be overcome and the uncertain costs.”
“While there are still some technological challenges to overcome we have produced a strong argument, supported by the best available data, that fusion power stations could soon be economically viable. We hope this kick-starts investment to overcome the remaining technological challenges and speeds up the planning process for the possibility of a fusion-powered world.”
The report, which was commissioned by Research Council UK’s Energy Programme focuses on recent advances in high temperature superconductors. These materials could be used to construct the powerful magnets that keep the hot plasma in position inside the containing vessel, known as a tokamak, at the heart of a fusion reactor.
This advancing technology means that the superconducting magnets could be built in sections rather than in one piece. This would mean that maintenance, which is expensive in a radioactive environment, would be much cheaper because individual sections of the magnet could be withdrawn for repair or replacement, rather than the whole device.
While the analysis considers the cost of building, running and decommissioning a fusion power plant, it does not take into account the costs of disposing of radioactive waste that is associated with a fission plant. For a fusion plant, the only radioactive waste would be the tokamak, when decommissioned, which would have become mildly radioactive during its lifetime.
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October 5th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
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Liaoning-CV-16
According to Pravda news website, Russian Senator Igor Morozov stated, “It is known, that China has joined our military operation in Syria, the Chinese cruiser has already entered the Mediterranean, an aircraft carrier follows it.”
The Israeli military website, DEBKAfile, has also cited intelligence sources saying that a Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning-CV-16, is already operating at the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast.
The website claims the carrier has logistical weapons accompanied by a guided missile cruiser.
According to a recent report lead by Lebanon-based website Al-Masda Al-‘Arabi, an Syrian official said that “the Chinese will be arriving in the coming weeks to help protect Syria”
China will be helping the Syrian government with military advisers to help protect and train Assad’s Syrian Army alongside with Russia.
The Daily Journalist can confirm through a confidential Chinese military official that “a naval vessel is indeed on its way to Syria carrying ‘military advisers’ with logistical support including new generation tanks.” and added that”Chinese troops are expected to follow soon after.”
Airpower will also be supplied to help air-raids targeting ISIS in Syria, as China is sending j-15 fighters to join Russian air campaigns.
China has declared in the past its goal to stabilize the Middle East to control oil supplies in Iraq. After the ascension of ISIL in Iraq , China is expected to protect its interest in the region by joining forces with Assad’s regime, Russia and Iran; Iran has sent Revolutionary guards to help the Mahdi Army fight against Jabat-Al Nusra and ISIL accompanied by Russian air support.
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October 3rd, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
In addition to a fleet of transport aircraft for logistical tasks, Russia has deployed a panoply of planes and helicopters capable of carrying out bombing missions at the base of Latakia, located in Syrian territory. It has resorted to veteran and other more modern models.
Among the planes, a classic, the Sukhoi (Sukhoi) Su-24 (Fencer, according to the NATO designation) and a much younger brand, the Su-34 (Fullback for NATO). The first, though much improved with updates throughout years of service, dates to the second half of the 60 scheduled to the withdraw in 2010, but it was extended life because of their still remarkable capacity.
Russian fighter Sukhoi Su-24
Russian fighter Su-25
It is practically a copy of the US F-111, a retired USAF contemporary in (famous to the general public for their attack on Libya in April 1986), which took the look and concept with its stylish fuselage and wings of variable geometry.
Used in Afghanistan, although more used was the Su-25 (also deployed in Latakia), and Chechnya, was sold in different versions for export to friendly countries. Including Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria itself.
It is doomed to be completely replaced by some other younger and “sophisticated” members of the large and versatile family Sukhoi: the Su-30 (present and equally active in Latakia) and, above all, the Su-34, derived both from impressive Su-27 and, designed primarily as an air superiority fighter. However, the potential of its design and technological possibilities led base to expand their tasks.
The Su-34, actually the last jewel of Russian aviation intended to remain in the Russian inventory until well into this century, is a 24 meters long two-seater with a maximum take off weight of 45,000 kilos. It can fly at a speed, high altitude of 2,200 kilometers per hour and as low at 1,900.
Its range without external tanks, is 1,100 kilometers and a service ceiling of 15,000 meters . It can set out, in 12 anchor points, 8,000 kilos of weapons of various kinds, starting with missiles and conventional dumb bombs.
But its qualities and technology make it particularly suitable for laser-guided and satellite (GPS). And, respectively, the KAB-500L (also present in the improved Su-24) and KAB-500S. Also the air-ground anti-radiation missiles K-31 and K-Russian 35.
These heavy used crafts carry smart bombs ‘KAB’ that stands for “Korrektiruyemaya Aviabomba” or Trajectory Corrected Air Pump. The Su-34 could be using some of the variants of the KAB-1500, soaring long-range electro-optical guidance (TV) or able to change their career by radio run to operator bombs.
The helicopter deployed in Latakia is the Mi-24 (Hind to NATO) carries a monster attack, big and heavy rotary-wing of the Soviet Union and now Russia, which operates about 400 copies to date (have manufactured 2,500 in fifteen versions for the domestic market and exports).
Mi-24 Russian helicopter “Devils Car”
Their pilots call this helicopter the “flying tank” because of their camouflage colors and lizard like appearance. Others call it, “the crocodile”. During the Afghan-Russian war The ‘mujaheddin’ in Afghanistan, nicknamed the helicopter “the devil’s car”.
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September 30th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, is the city that time and time again has been captured in the hands of the Taliban. It was their most resisted stronghold in 2001, but 14 years later, once again it has been seized by the Taliban.
The objective of the Afghan army is to overthrow the Taliban white flag waving in the central square for two days. Afghan troops have waged assaults again today after living unsuccessfully the first chapter of this terrestrial counteroffensive that had more than 5,000 US troops.
Con air support, military forces far exceed the thousand insurgents entrenched in the city. In the first attempt, supported by reinforcements brought from Kabul, they have advanced from the airport of Kunduz which had fallen last night after the Taliban conquest. A US air attack on the outskirts of the city has left twenty dead insurgents, as reported by local television Tolo.
In the streets they have experienced shootings and Afghan authorities have claimed to have regained control of several public buildings including the prison and police headquarters. “The enemy is weak and the security forces are progressing well,” said the media Defence Minister, Mohammed Massom Stanekzai.
However, late at night there have been heavy fighting near the airport. With the city under their control, insurgents have burned government buildings while throwing messages of peace and tranquility to the people of Kunduz, assuring that there would be reprisals against civilians who join the enemy.
A video posted on social networks shows Taliban official vehicles boasting and loudly promising that Sharia will be implanted soon. The mood among the Taliban is high, as shown by the jubilant Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, was quoted by Reuters: “This is just the beginning, our goal is Kabul.”
The neighbors, afraid to leave their homes, have said to local media that the city lacks water and electricity and have begun the first lootings. Hospitals are overwhelmed with hundreds of injured, according to Doctors Without Borders.
In fact, President Ashraf Ghani said that the Taliban are using civilians as “human shields”. On the day of their anniversary at the head of the Afghan government, Ghani has appeared on television to calm the population before the Taliban conquered the city after past 14 years. “I want to assure my fellow citizens that the situation is under control,” said the president, who has an unanimus vote of confidence in the armed forces.
Analysts agree that Kunduz, has been a key victory for the Taliban and moral blow that has been dealt with the strategy of the president, who came to power under the promise to improve the country’s security. His last attempt at dialogue failed last summer. “It is to consider whether this government of national unity is still useful because it shows weakness,” pointed Ambrish Dhaka, an expert on international relations at the University JNU Delhi.
With a battered Ghani has emerged Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the new leader of the insurgents, presented to the world with the greatest success since dropping the Taliban regime. Although few believe that he achieves to long maintain control of the city, Kunduz has been an unparalleled boost to the internal disputes that caused his election as successor to his late counterpart Mullah Omar.
Mansoor knew the importance of winning Kunduz, on the road to Tajikistan, making it a key transport point between the two countries, as well as hub of drug trafficking and weapons in northern Afghan provinces.
Two previous attempts to capture the city failed. How they have succeeded the third time? The Stanekzai minister has indicated that the Taliban benefited from local support to take over the city of 300,000, not to mention the ubiquitous accusing foreign involvement.
He also acknowledged that the Afghan intelligence service had advance information about a possible attack, so wanted not ruled out Taliban infiltrates. The Defense Ministry also blamed the fall of Kunduz to a lack of coordination among security forces, which has rekindled the debate on whether the Afghan army can afford only the complex situation in which a country is heading, with the growing sprouts that involve the rise of the Islamic State in the country.
“The army might not cope with the problem and the price will be very high for the population,” the analyst pointed Dhaka. NATO ended its combat mission nine months ago; on the ground are about 4,000 troops, in addition to the nearly 10,000 US maintains with the main objective to train and assist the Afghan armed forces.
In front, an insurgency that is not afraid of anything.
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September 26th, 2015
The US president Barack Obama, received on Friday at the White House his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
In a joint appearance, the two leaders have confirmed their commitments last November in relation to climate change and have shown a common vision on the environment.
China, the largest carbon emitter in the world will launch a national system of cap and trade carbon in 2017 to help curb the country’s emissions, which will be based on seven pilot regional markets that are already underway in its territory.
The statement aimed to show “the determination of both countries to act decisively to achieve the objectives set last year.” this was a highlight of the state visit of Xi to the US, where the two leaders tackled difficult issues such as cyber espionage, trade tensions between the two countries and China’s own economic policies.
Human rights
Obama was welcomed Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at a ceremony in the garden of the White House before holding a bilateral meeting.
“We must speak frankly about our differences. America will always speak in defense of fundamental truths,” Obama said in the welcome ceremony.
The US president has denounced in very direct terms the “messy” situation of human rights in China during the joint appearance.“We have expressed very frankly our deep conviction that prevent journalists, lawyers, NGOs and members of civil society […] to freely work and its a problem,” Obama has publicly stated.
Disputes in the Pacific
Another issue that has been discussed at the meeting between the two presidents have been territorial disputes in the South China Sea. “We discussed candidly about this and have insisted the president Xi on the right of all countries allows freedom of navigation and overflight and trade without hindrance,” said Obama.
“I conveyed to President Xi our significant concerns about territorial claims, construction and militarization of the disputed areas, making it more difficult for countries in the region to resolve disagreements peacefully. And I have encouraged to find a resolution to this conflict. ”
Cyber-espionage
One of the underlying reasons for the recent clashes between the two countries were the US accusations against China over cyber espionage. Both leaders have said they have “made great strides” about committing to States not participating of industrial espionage in any way.
Although Xi said that “I can not guarantee the behavior” worldwide about Chinese soil, Obama has been blunt in demanding a press conference to enforce the laws if they are non-governmental entities that are participating in this cyber delinquency. In this sense, the occupant of the White House has insisted that expects Xi to demonstrate that China does not endorse these crimes.
Thus, the United States intends to work with other countries, the UN and the private sector to develop international rules governing the conduct in cyberspace.
Meanwhile, Washington “will apply all the tools in his hand” to prosecute companies who spy on Americans “from anywhere in the world,” said President Obama.
Business Relations
“We believe that nations are more successful and the world moves more when our companies compete on a level playing field, where disputes are resolved peacefully and when universal human rights of all are respected,” he added.
Obama stressed that the United States welcomes China’s rise in the world, and that both countries make great progress in mutual understanding.
“I think our two great nations, working together, have an unparalleled ability to shape the course of this century,” said the US president.
Meanwhile, Xi said that “working together, China and the United States can produce a greater effect than individual efforts” and should for that, “adapt to changing times.”
“I come to America this time to promote peace and enhance cooperation,” said Xi.
“We must pursue cooperation in which both win […], promote strategic trust and mutual understanding, respect the interests and concerns of the other, be open-minded about our differences and disagreements,” said the Chinese president.
Xi is planning a lunch at the State Department with US Vice President Joe Biden; before attending a state dinner tonight at the White House with his wife.
Obama and Xi already gathered Thursday night in a first private dinner, where they discussed their ideas for the future of the bilateral relationship.
Xi’s visit aims to strengthen confidence in the United States in its country, and convinced that China is far from the economic debacle, following recent declines recorded by financial markets.
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September 23rd, 2015
The Daily Journalist community opinion.
Intro to the question.
First I would like to mention, that I am not against capitalism.
I had a brief discussion with one of our contributors about the difference between socialism and capitalism. He mentioned that the US was no longer categorized a capitalist economy; he believed the US turned into a socialist system. His idea was that “pure capitalism” would ease all financial and social problems in the US. He also disputed that socialism only leads to corruption stalling economic growth.
Socialism comes in all forms and colors. I agree socialism under the wrong guidance can turn into corruption, especially in Mediterranean countries; nevertheless, if lobbying in the US is not considered a legal term for bribery then I must be confused with the connotations describing the word ‘corruption’.
Since I was a teenager, I lived in a western socialist country. After living in the US, I can determinately concur that the current financial and social reforms experienced here are not what I would label socialism. I think most free market thinkers purposely confuse the the word ‘regulation’ with ‘socialism’ to challenge the status-quo.
Socialism notoriously gives the working class more benefits and securities. The US welfare system is not linked with western socialism; it’s a product of US capitalism. In fact, the working class in the US unlike the 40’s-70’s no longer exists; it’s being replaced by illegal and legal immigrants. Socialism mainly benefits social workers, but only if they are actually employed.
I would argue that social programs in most western socialist countries are well spent and benefit everyone: Community parks, free recreation centers, plazas, free community gyms, public squares, local clocks, drinking water fountains, free healthcare (nothing to do with Obama care), job security, no consumption taxes…none of these socialist programs exist in the US; everything is privatized. What US pro-capitalist call Obama reforms has little to do with socialism.
The stigma of Leninist-communism prevalently remains strongly attached to most pro-capitalist baby boomers. But communism and socialism are two different monsters, and I personally feel that pro-capitalist and anti-soviet propagandist feared one day US capitalism would fall prey to socialism.
As I see it, the current crisis of the US financial system and global slowdown was a direct result of “pure capitalism.” The idea of trusting private business and banks to run the free market devoid of government regulators is a tedious idea. Entrusting the Federal Reserve to clean up private fraudulent behavior didn’t work well in 2008, specially bailing out banks with taxpayer money thanks to congressional approval.
The crash of 1929, was another result of ‘pure capitalism’, fraudulent behavior from Wall Street caused the Great Depression slowing economic trade worldwide helping stir ww2. Former US president Franklyn Roosevelt adopted fiscal policy which gave rise to the great 50’s. Roosevelt’s adoption of Keynesian regulations were considered an essential key to revive the US economy , but after the Glass Steagall Act was repealed under Clintons Administration with lobbying, its seems to me that anything adjunct to regulation is now labeled socialism.
The Questions:
Is the United States really becoming what some believe to be a socialist country, or is this anti-socialist propaganda? Democrats and republicans might differ with social spending, but do both parties support a free market without regulations?
Do Americans really understand socialism?
Socialism and capitalism reside under the wing of democracy. Which out the two systems works best for you, and why?
What has caused more financial turmoil in the past century, corrupt forms of socialism or unrestrained capitalism?
Why do free market economist fear socialism?
Do you agree free market economist confuse the term ‘regulation with socialism’? Is regulation and socialism the same thing?
What countries show great forms of capitalism and great forms of socialism? Which out the countries you selected; seem more socially stable, the capitalist run economies or the socialist run economies?
Optional: What is your view?
Allen Schmertzler.
(He is an award winning and published political artist specializing in figurative, narrative and caricatured interpretations of current events)
“Labels, labels, and that is all we have in this discussion. The United States has never had, nor likely ever will have, a “free market economy.” There is nothing free from conspiracy here. There is nothing free from regulation, of any alleged economic system. The past century’s economic labels are so outdated and mostly irrelevant to our world now that it is best to refrain from using them, because everyone except economic purist geeks, and or academics that are either Socialists or Capitalists, but both capture their living by perpetuating these labels, are the only ones that understand them. It is time to accept that we all, the entire world, live in the “Hybrid-Economy Age.” Every piece of the interdependent military-economical-industrial-energy-Wall street-to no street-to Union Street” pieces have a cost, a price, a vested interest, a profit margin, cost-benefit, and every academic label that has tried to put the monster known as our economy into some nice neat box is wrong, and mostly, a product of slick marketing propaganda. What America has, is a “marketing-driven economy.”
Whatever can generate market share and wealth, eventually earns a seat at the table of respectability at our economic feast. The proof is easy to provide, for example, same-sex marriage, legalized marijuana, prisons for profit, gambling. casinos, Mormonism, the Reverend Moon and Moonies, Waco, Whaco, Caityn Jenner, and the list goes forever.
I am not condemning these issues, but use them to identify that all depend on cronyism, corruption, conspiracies, special interests, premeditation with lawyers and accountants to maximize tax-evasion to maximize profit. These are identical qualities of every man-made system of economics. All spin their mission, output, input, and purpose to find an economic advantage to power by making more clever dollars than the rest.
There will always be “thumbs on the scale” in any system, and regulations about the scales and the thumbs, whether we call it Capitalism or Socialism, and neither can claim a higher morality or a greater consequence. It matters more in the morphing of how such a system is implemented, than in what label it takes. No real morality exists, except to “use the system” to see how far boundaries can stretch before there is a reaction and push-back legal entanglement from a perceived competing interest. All are part of, and equally not part of Capitalism, Socialism, or whatever. Payoffs, pay-ins, and the whole of the United States is about producing more money.
Forget every pontificating pompous sivler-tongued pitchman, they are all the same. We are all the same. America works best when there is economic growth with minimal economic disenfranchisement. When harsh times dominate, our social contract gets shaky from scary demographic segments that feel as though their center of gravity imploded. The crush of the crash of 2008 was just this seismic riptide, and Americans are still shaking and rattling. We do not do well under economic uncertainties that linger for too long. Our “give me your tired” bull becomes xenophobic, nationalistic, with folks turning to guns, religion and simplistic diatribes, and wanting to lynch someone.
Yes, it is true that Americans do not understand Socialism, but equally true, is that Americans do not understand the concept of a Capitalist ” lassez-faire ” free market economy. Government and business interests have always been in bed together. Corporate welfare is an inherent quality of the American experience. Is that Socialism or Capitalism? Government regulations to tone down corporate interests are as well an inherent quality. What is that, Socialism or Capitalism?
Who cares, the fact is that it is corrupt and dishonestly used to amass influence and power and increase wealth. The American Revolution was driven by economic self-interest. Any one who currently says that America is now a Socialist country has been listening to Fox News too much, and has an insane axe to grind over a black guy residing in the White House. President Obama has been obnoxiously loyal to Wall Street, energy focused industries, and a host of other economic competing forces. America, the beautiful, defies easy labels. We have a mixed economy. We dance around complex social issues of justice and equality, fairness and independence, move left, move right, in a continued struggle to keep most folks off balance, just enough so they will comply mostly, accept fate, conditions, and warrior on, fly the flag, spout diatribes of nationalism, but deny fundamental and systemic issues of structural racism, sexism, classism, and support military adventurism, which is by the way, a wonderful money-making product of our mixed economic system.
There is no real fear of one so-called economic system against another. Power, translated into convincing enough of the populace to “go-along” and continue to comply so money can be made, drives all. There are times when the people flex in force to a point that the governing, and the money folks, must include it in their formula, but the bottom line is just that, money, money equals power. Socialism has a modern tradition of having been more successfully vilified, as having been equated with “others” as some unAmerican devil. Politicians have used phases such as “old Europe” “too French,” etc. to drive home ideas that America must fight outside agitators. Remove the label, and folks do like the concept of Socialism.
They love the military, the police, neighborhood schools, parks, good roads, bridges, social security, and medicare. The American dream of Capitalism as superior to create the road to travel on so one can go from rags to riches is alive, momentarily fading, and this must have Sheldon Adelson drunk on Koch shopping with Sam Walton eating Buffet on Soros, freaking out by even sounding as though they want to raise the Socialist minimum wage, when for sure, they would rather have government as their partner to turn the regulatory cheek so they can milk workers from paying them over time, benefits, and housing day care nurseries in their box warehouse. And, so it goes.”
Halyna Mokrushyna.
(Holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. She publishes in Counterpunch, Truthout, and New Cold War on Ukrainian politics, history, and culture. She is also a contributing editor to the New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond and a founder of the Civic group for democracy in Ukraine)
“We should start this discussion by determining what socialism is – a political and economic system, in which the means of production are owned collectively by people or publicly by the state, and the state plays a determining role in economy through bureaucratic centralized planning. The goal and fundamental principle of socialism is the equality and social security for all. Citizens are dependent on the state for providing this security.
Socialism as a theory appeared in the early 19th century as a reaction to the dramatic changes brought in by industrialization – sharp pauperization of population, exploitation of masses of workers and of child labour, accumulation of wealth in the hands of few. British and French social critics laid down the foundations of the theory of socialism – Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, and Saint-Simon. They advocated the egalitarian distribution of wealth and reorganization of society in small communities, in which the property would belong to all members. Robert Owen, for instance, was a strong proponent of 8-hours working day, which later became a generally accepted labor standard. Saint-Simon advocated the central role of the state in production and distribution of goods and an equal opportunity for everybody to develop their talents. Such thinking was labeled “utopian”, which reveals skepticism and doubt as to the possibility of realizing such idealistic projects. And yet humankind has been dreaming about this “Utopia” since its early days – suffices to cite the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic ideas of the Garden of Eden and of Heaven/Paradise.
Like this utopia dream, socialism is based on the ideas of equality and justice for all, therefore on collectivistic and non-materialistic principles. Capitalism is based on individual right of private property and materialistic principles of profit and loss and price system. Under socialism the state seeks to satisfy to a certain degree all members of a community by not allowing the accumulation of wealth in one hands, while in capitalism satisfaction of your needs is your own business and you can accumulate as much as you can. In socialism the rights of collectivity preside over personal freedoms, while in capitalism individual freedoms prevail. Under socialism the state strives to satisfy basic needs for all members of the society, while under capitalism it is your duty as a free individual to provide for yourselves.
Capitalism ideologists have criticized socialists for their utopian vision of the human nature. In capitalist vision of the world, private property is part and parcel of human nature and a permanent feature of social life. Capitalist economy is based on this principle. If you attempt to destroy private property – you will inevitably destroy the economy, which happened in the Soviet Union. Humans are acquisitive beings. Soviet socialists believed they can transform human nature by forming a new type of a “Soviet person”, a worker, a teacher, a peasant who would value collective welfare over their own profit, a “Homo Sovieticus”, as Western Sovietologists termed it. Soviet socialists failed in their grandiose plan. Human nature is not malleable ad infinite. The idealistic approach of socialists was the ultimate cause of their defeat, as Richard Pipes, a Poland-born American historian wrote in his book Communism. A history. The whole world witnessed this spectacular failure as a fall of the Soviet Union.
I experienced this fall, as millions of my fellow citizens, from within. I was part of that community, called Soviet people. We were proud to be living in the biggest country of the world, to have a free education, a free health care system, public parks, sports, music schools. Most of us did not think of our socialist system in terms of “totalitarianism”. It came later, with the spread of Western ideology of free market and democracy. We learned then that our past was nothing to be proud of, that we have to dismantle what we built and start constructing from the scratch, according to Western plans, not ours.
Democratization in “wild capitalism” style turned out to be disastrous. Pauperization of masses, dismantlement of social security net, hundreds of thousands of labour migrants from Ukraine working in low-wage jobs in Western Europe, jobs that Western Europeans themselves despised; rapacious privatization, or rather plundering of state assets by apparatchiki and criminals, decay of science and industry. 25 years after the fall of Soviet Union Ukraine is still not able to recover– in 2013 Ukraine’s GDP was at 70% of the GDP it had in 1990.
I am not a revisionist. Soviet Union is in the past and there is no point, nor a way to bring it back. It was a rotten system, based on official lies. But it had many things which ordinary citizens enjoyed. It was actually a socialism. If it was not for the competition with the USA, it might have lived longer. It was a social experiment of an immense scale which had a profound impact on the evolution of humanity. If it was not for the Soviet Union, the welfare state in Europe would not be so developed and wide-spread.
Americans cannot know what socialism is and do not understand it, because the American ideology of free market and of individual freedoms is based on the sanctity of private property and obsession with achieving material success in life. Freedom means that you cannot force a rich to share his wealth with poor by force, as Bolsheviks did in the 1920s. The best way to do so is to impose higher taxes. The countries which score high on the level of life and prosperity are those where such a system exists – such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden. These countries are much closer to socialism now than self-proclaimed socialist countries, such as China or Vietnam.
I think that American expansionist capitalism caused more financial turmoil in the past century than any form of socialism. The USA’s pathological fear of Communists led to the US-backed junta regimes in Latin America. The USA’s export of “democracy” destroyed Libya and Iraq and is destroying Syria.
It seems pointless to me to theorize which economy is more stable – capitalist or socialist, because there are no purely socialist economies in the world left. However, those who lean to socialism basis are more stable (I have already given the example of Scandinavian countries). Moreover, one needs to include the social dimension to this analysis. These countries are small and homogenous, meaning that it is easier to reach a consensus among various groups. Canada ranks high in the prosperity index because it found a way to accommodate interests of diverse populations within its borders.
Freedom has its limits. You need to take into account interests of others if you share a common space with them. If you pursue only your own interests, as the theory of humans as rational beings suggests, you will end up waging a war against everybody. What restrains the wealthiest people to increase their wealth by financial speculations? Nothing. Only the size of their wallets. They do not keep money in bank accounts, like the majority of ordinary citizens. And their lives are not affected by the fluctuations of markets, as the lives of billions of people. They decide what a market would be.
“The invisible hand” of free market is a myth covering up the real power of financial and political world elites. There is no such thing as “free market”. Market is regulated, not by the states, but by streams of money that belong to the richest. That is why the free market ideologists are afraid of socialism. Socialism, in their view, is all about regulations, which would restrict individual wealth. It certainly is in the sense that does not allow a person to accumulate a lot without sharing with others. But in turn it provides for so many thousands of people that to me it is worth an effort to build it.
For me capitalism is essentially about profit and personal enrichment, while socialism is about equality and collective well being. How to reconcile these two different perspectives in economy? By allowing private property in small and medium enterprises, but nationalize important industries and natural resources; by securing the right of every person to have a house, an education and a free health care. In other words, a system that combines the best elements of capitalism and socialism: a private initiative and a collective well-being.”
Dale Yeager.
(President of SERAPH. He has extensive training in criminal psychology, forensic psychology, sex crimes investigation, and crime scene forensics / procedures and domestic terrorism analysis.)
“1. Is the United States really becoming what some believe to be a socialist country, or is this anti-socialist propaganda?
We have an element within the government since the 1930s who have slowly influenced society with their view of a ‘Social Democracy”. The evidence for this is clearly seen in unionization and national controls on healthcare.
Democrats and republicans might differ with social spending, but do both parties support a free market without regulations? No. Democrats generally support a controlled economy.
2. Do Americans really understand socialism?
NO they do not. They can’t balance a checkbook and their understanding of economics is sad to say the least.
3. Socialism and capitalism reside under the wing of democracy. Which out the two systems works best for you, and why?
It’s not what works best for me it’s what has worked for this country for most of its existence. The empirical data proves that free markets have made the U.S. economy the largest in the world and has taken millions out of poverty.
4. What has caused more financial turmoil in the past century, corrupt forms of socialism or unrestrained capitalism?
Central planning of government services and regulations that slow economic growth [socialism] have caused financial turmoil. In fact the 2008 recession was the result of banks and financial institutions violated the basic tenants of free market capitalism.
5. Why do free market economist fear socialism?
“Behind every socialist is a dictator.” Ludwig Von Mises
6. Do you agree free market economist confuse the term ‘regulation with socialism’? Is regulation and socialism the same thing?
No they are not. But recently regulation has become part of an agenda by activist within state and federal government.”
Mike Guillaume.
(Mike wears two hats: financial analyst and reporting specialist -with an extensive consulting track record- and international economist (with a background in political science). The blend gives him good vantage points for watching societies, companies, economies and economics work (or not). Co-founder and managing director of e.com-ReportWatch, a European-rooted, U.S.-headquartered and London-based firm that specializes in report analysis, evaluation and benchmarking (www.reportwatch.net).)
“For all its failings, flaws and sins, market capitalism still probably represents economically “the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others,” to paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about political democracy. “Highly imperfect. Yet so are we. But it is still among humanity’s most brilliant inventions. It is still a uniquely flexible, responsive and innovative economic system,” writes Martin Wolf.
Those who have met me or read my writings can hardly define me as anti-capitalist. I am a liberal by temperament, by instinct and by upbringing. Therefore, I consider the individual, and not the family, the state, a community, or a nation, as the core of a modern society. Consequently, for any liberal, liberty lies -or should lie- at the heart of the political system -what LIBERALISM is all about- and be the modus operandi of the economy –what free-market CAPITALISM is about. Being a liberal naturally also means being open to other people’s ideas, new or old, from left, center or right; as well as looking for pragmatic approaches rather than for ideological solutions.
“When the facts change, I change my mind,” said Keynes. This contradicts not only with traditional leftist ideologues’ views, but also with the quasi-religious assertion of free-market zealots, such as e.g. George Stigler: “When the facts contradict theory, they are wrong and theory is right.” Reality checks are required as often as the situation demands. Some of them can validate your views, others can make you revise your opinions or judgments, sometimes radically. Contrary to hard-line opponents of capitalism (except in North Korea, is there still anyone left?) and its most outspoken critics (there are growing numbers here), I have no problem to make a decent living (up to a point, as life cannot be reduced to economy) within the system and acknowledge its merits.
Still, it is important to check the flaws and see the limitations. Nothing is perfect in this brave new world. I also have to admit that being a sharp critic of capitalism as it is now would have been for more difficult for me as it was then. The system was then more entrepreneurial (or Smithian, if you want), more about the real economy and less about finance. It looked less disputable then, especially as representing the most credible, if not sole, alternative to communist and so-called “socialist” regimes (not to mention other populist-leaning models which may return to fashion in the wake of capitalism’s troubles). It was mainly viewed as a set of mechanisms and not as an ideology, except in the eyes of hard-line opponents inside and enemies outside (how many divisions these days?). As far as I am concerned, I have never considered capitalism as a religion and behaved like one of its apostles.
Liberalism is not capitalism –and vice versa
Though significantly forged by three movements -British moral philosophy and economics, French enlightenment, America’s Founding Fathers-, liberalism and the word “liberal” itself has evolved into various meanings and practices. The Oxford Dictionary gives a very good definition of liberal: “wanting or allowing a lot of political and economic freedom and supporting gradual social, political or religious change.” A very British definition indeed, which seems natural in the country where it was invented before being exported, adapted, and sometimes much distorted in other places. Ironically, France and the U.S. stand among the countries where “liberal” is frequently used as an insult, yet for opposite reasons. In the country of Alexis de Tocqueville, left-wingers use the word to indicate dislike for capitalism, liberalism, and the right in general. In Tocqueville’s country (once visited by Jefferson), there has never been a real liberal party, and a real modern progressive left has never really emerged.
You may chalk this up to the role of the state in French society, whose political pendulum swings from more or less statist right to left. In Benjamin Franklin’s country (also visited by Tocqueville), liberal can be in a conservative’s eyes a nasty word to talk about “left-wing” state interventionists, who are of course labeled “un-American.” To foreigners, the equation between a country, an economic system and, for many, a religious belief, may look weird, especially in the 21st century. Listening to most of the right-wing media, politicians, business people, (neo)conservatives, think tanks, Tea Party goers, and other evangelists, it is clear that economic freedom is more valued than political liberty and social justice. These are sometimes, if not often, regarded as a threat to the sacred market system and other (un)related values. (Public) principles seem to matter less than (private) interests. The U.S. is probably one of the only countries where a minimum tax proposed on millionaires is deemed as a “war on capital” by a Republican Party candidate. No wonder even Warren Buffett himself states that his country is leaning towards plutocracy!
There are liberals and… liberals. The progressive liberal camp to which I belong puts the same emphasis on political liberty, social justice and environmental protection as on free markets, and therefore believes in and works with “liberal means towards progressive ends,” as Giles Wilkes finely sums it up. Coupling the two words would be a tautology in many U.S. eyes (yet a few conservative or centrist liberals can be met here too), but let us forget American exceptionalism. In the Commonwealth and in most parts of the world there are different kinds of liberalisms –and capitalisms. As opposed to America’s mainstream, European liberalism has always been as much about political and social democracy as about free markets. “Free as we wish unless we harm others,” said John Stuart Mill. At the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century liberal parties were including a significant number of progressive leaders and members whose ideals of social justice made way for new left parties and much needed social reforms.
David Lloyd George was among their most prominent figures and may be regarded as a founder of a social-liberal welfare system as opposed to Bismarck-style paternalistic welfare. These last decades (and sometimes further back in time), bar a few rare exceptions, “liberal” parties in Europe have increasingly drifted towards various forms of economic conservatism, in spite of dashes of Thatcherism here and there. Supporting the economic interests (of the middle and upper classes) now prevails over defending liberal principles, though never to the same extent as in America where it is blatant. In some countries, e.g. in Eastern and Northern Europe, ultra-right or populist parties even label as liberal content that has little to do with Locke, Montesquieu or Jefferson.
Although they often work together, capitalism is not per se synonymous with liberal democracy. Was it not Milton Friedman himself who wrote: “History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.” Economic and political liberalism can clash: more power of capital often results in less free markets, usually means increased injustice and inequality, and sometimes seriously harms individual liberties. History teaches us that big business thrived under Hitler’s rule (remember Dr. Porsche, the Krupp family, and… Henry Ford!).
All-to-market “neoliberalism” championed by Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and their many disciples -some of them not exactly the most democratic champions (remember a certain General Pinochet)- has brought discredit on the liberal-capitalist mix. The term “liberal” is now at least ambiguous and at worst ideological or negative. If liberal still sounds positive to some ears, neoliberal very often expresses disapproval or discontent. Because of -and thanks to- its quadruple meaning -cultural, political, social and economic- liberalism has been multifaceted since its originswhich are diverse.
Capitalism is not monolithic either; yet the recent globalization trend tends to result in a one-size-fits-all model. In Europe and Latin America, social-democratic and other progressive parties were needed to make capitalism less wild, implement bold reforms refused or delayed by economic, political and social conservatives (often including religious forces and right-wing liberals), and create new economic and social models allowing redistribution that free markets would NEVER have achieved with their “invisible” hand. Today, we see competing models of capitalism flourish, from American -or, more broadly, Anglo-Saxon- to Rhenish, from Asian to Nordic, from feudal to post-communist (both in oligarchic style), from state-led to development-driven.
Capitalism is no longer what it used to be
The system has always proved able to change, that is one of its great strengths. As Zygmunt Bauman, a very critical observer, writes, “capitalism has an in-built wondrous capacity of resurrection and regeneration.” It Somewhat ironically, it is more flexible than many of its rigid and doctrinaire defenders in the books or in the field.. With all due respect to Adam Smith, and every economist (liberal or not) owes him a lot, one of the major flaws in a work that remains essential is the metaphor of the invisible hand. This has proved to be an illusion more than once in the history of capitalism, , as illusory as the somewhat related principles of perfectly informed and rational economic agents (as defined or analyzed by the French Léon Walras and the English William Jevons, among others.) As Joseph Stiglitz puts it: “the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.” The invisible hand is very often the heavy hand of dominating firms or the hand taken by financiers in markets. Besides, one thing is certain: for all its VIRTUES -and there are still some real and a few unmatched ones- the market no longer has the answers to all the problems. Saying that capitalism is capable of changing and regulating only by itself is like asking the tobacco industry to tell people not to smoke.
The NATURE of capitalism has changed. Financial markets’ side effects far outweigh their benefits to real economies. Corpocrats rule over small entrepreneurs. Risk-betting traders make a much quicker buck than risk-taking businesspeople (except for a few rags-to-riches stories for TV shows). Bankers have switched to short trading at the same time they have lost credit (all meanings, bar the cards).. Greed fuels large parts of the system. Individual shareholders have no say. Daily share price targets have replaced medium-term strategies. Unrelated derivatives travel buck naked. Speculative bubbles burst regularly. Too many economists are just conformists. Casino finance pays off (much) more than the provision of a good service. Many policymakers are subservient to markets and their latest ratings. Those flaws come on top of other weaknesses –some of them qualifying as original sins: booms and busts, inequities and inequalities, selfishness, the cult of growth, supposed rationality, unfettered globalization, overconsumption, indebtedness, environmental damage… What were once virtues -making profit is not sinful as such- turn into vices -making money with money proves purposeless and value-destructive and can be terribly harmful for those without deep pockets.
Markets are unstable by nature. That has its charms –who needs the stability of the Middle Ages and communism, after all? That comes at a price too, named crisis and recession, and a few other “on”-ending words. The latest crises will not be the last, whatever the short- or long-term economic or business cycle school (Juglar, Schumpeter, Kuznets “swings” and Kondratiev “waves”). “Once we were satisfied that the cycle was ten years in length and since that was smashed,” said Irving Fisher… in 1946. However, even if upward cycles may occasionally last longer -some even argue that recessions last shorter than in the past- bubbles burst and crises tend to repeat more often and spread much faster than in the past. There were at least six major crises in the last fifty years compared with two in the previous half-century. Now, “thanks to” globalization, each significant crisis has repercussions almost everywhere, at least to some extent, which was not the case even in a relatively recent past. The logical question that arises from this book’s title and content is: if it suffers from “deadly” sins, will capitalism die from this crisis? Well, the system has gone through many crises and has proved extraordinarily resilient: sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, sometimes stepping backward, sometimes moving forward. One of the great questions of our times is which forms of economic models will dominate -and are desirable- in the coming years and decades.
The latest crises are more serious because, in addition to their usual ingredients, they are the result of a conjunction of worrying trends and factors. Those are: too large, too powerful and uncontrolled financial institutions; a tyranny of short-termism; pure irrationality (often disguised as “rational markets”); irresponsible public policies (not everywhere, though); and, last but not least, unprecedented greed. “We have just witnessed a… phenomenon in the financial markets. A crime has been committed. There is a victim (the helpless retirees, taxpayers funding losses, perhaps even capitalism and free society). There were plenty of bystanders. And there was a robbery (overcompensated bankers who got bonuses for hiding risks, overpaid quantitative risk managers selling patently bogus methods)… Most poignantly, the police may have participated in the murder.” These lines were written in the middle of the first great financial crisis of the 21st century. They do not come from a bunch of leftists but from a professor of risk engineering and a derivatives consultant! The Madoff gang, the Lehman brothers, the Greenberg solo, Freddie and Fannie, Merrill marauders, Barclays’ Libor manipulators, and other champions of greed were and are no exceptions, they were and are still part of a system now extremely dependent on it. To make things worse, regulators are often “captured” by the institutions they are charged with regulating. The net result of the explosive mix of malpractice and a financial system that had run out of control(mostly, yet not only, in Anglo-Saxon economies), was the late-2000s financial turmoil. Although based on credit, it was paid in cash. Year 2008 losses on major stock markets ranged from 34% to 65%. And the costs and losses, first estimated at $1,000 billion by the IMF in April 2008 (i.e. in the early stages of the crisis), were recalculated by the same IMF at $4,100 billion one year later (with estimated total write-downs on U.S. assets only at $2,700 billion). Over a longer period, an IMF database, which reviews systemic banking crises since 1970, shows that the average fiscal cost of such crises at about 15% of GDP. A hell of a lot of money!
Capitalism’s strengths and virtues may still deserve words of praise, yet to a much lesser extent than in the past. Actually and to be fair, one could also write a lot more about the sins of the alternatives to capitalism, such as authoritarianism, communism, fascism, feudalism, nationalism, populism, state socialism, totalitarianism… These are other stories. And stating that all tried alternatives have proved worse is not sufficient to plead not guilty and rest the case. Capitalism is perfectible and reformable.”
Peter D. Rosenstein.
(He is a non-profit executive, journalist and Democratic and community activist. His background includes teaching; serving as Coordinator of Local Government for the City of New York; working in the Carter Administration; and Vice-chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia)
1. Is the United States really becoming what some believe to be a socialist country, or is this anti-socialist propaganda? Democrats and republicans might differ with social spending, but do both parties support a free market without regulations?
The United States is not a socialist country however both parties agree that government should have some control on the economy thereby not having a totally free market. There is regulation on how business in the United States can operate and there is a structure through which they operate. There are requirements on things like fuel economy and emissions for cars, control over chemical use in crops, control over what banks can do. But none of these have turned the US into a socialist country. It is a form of controlled capitalism.
2. Do Americans really understand socialism?
Americans definitely don’t understand socialism or even the gradations of what are considered socialist countries. To most Americans socialism means the government collects high taxes and then controls the services people receive from healthcare to childcare to pensions.
3. Socialism and capitalism reside under the wing of democracy. Which out the two systems works best for you, and why?
I believe that a controlled capitalism works best in the United States. To me there are trade-offs and I think that an appropriate mix of capitalism and socialism works.
4. What has caused more financial turmoil in the past century, corrupt forms of socialism or unrestrained capitalism?
I think in recent history we have seen that unrestrained capitalism has caused more financial turmoil. Yet let us not forget it is not the socialist countries in which people want to invest their money. That investment still comes to the United States. Economic investment and job creation are still what we want from capitalism and in turn to build a middle class. Controlling capitalism to the point that we achieve that is what Hillary Clinton is proposing. It is regulating big banks not destroying them, it is regulating big business not destroying it.
5. Why do free market economist fear socialism?
Free market economists believe the free market is the best way to build an economy. Socialism in various forms hinders the free market.
6. Do you agree free market economist confuse the term ‘regulation with socialism’? Is regulation and socialism the same thing?
Yes – but the issue is how much regulation to have while still promoting capitalism.
7. What countries show great forms of capitalism and great forms of socialism? Which out the countries you selected; seem more socially stable, the capitalist run economies or the socialist run economies?
In today’s world that is difficult to judge in some cases. The United States, with capitalism, even with all its problems regarding race and gender issues still remains one of the most stable nations in the world. I am not expert enough to comment further.
8. Optional: What is your view?
The Democratic Party in the United States is dealing with a self-described democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, running in their primary. On proposal he has Is free college for everyone. One of the other people running is Hillary Clinton a self-described democrat. She has often supported certain government run and partially paid for programs like national healthcare. But her college proposal is for free college for those who can’t afford it and reduced interest on student loans. She is not for taxing everyone and using that money to pay for free college for the wealthy. That is one area in which we are seeing Sanders’ socialism is being called into question. There are others. We are a nation based on capitalism so it will be important for the next President to be able to work with the banking sector (Wall Street) even if they want to regulate them. Sanders is more of a let’s bring them down and control everything they do. It will be interesting to see what kind of support he gets even within the Democratic Party for his ideas. Thus far it seems that the Party is siding with Clinton’s views.
Jose Luis Chalhoub Naffah.
(He is a political scientist with a masters in international oil trading and an independent politics consultant on politics and geopolitical risk based in Venezuela focusing on Russia AMD Middle East issues)
1.) Not quite. The United States is far from being a real socialist country, and all this thing about Barack Obama being dubbed and called a socialist is part of a broad ultraconservative mass media propaganda, and neither Democrats nor Republicans have socialist traits and elements in their respective doctrines and the way they behave and relate to their constituencies. At the same time, and not frequently talked about and shown, the United States has in its political landscape other leftist parties and organizations, even communists and greens, which absolutely have more socialist traits and could perform a real socialism, if they ever in their lifetime reach power and the presidency of the United States. But overall, all the political system in the U.S needs to be reorganized in order to really see some of these things happening. But no, socialism is not part of the current political system and the current administration of Barack Obama.
2.) I consider that due to an extremely well done work by mass media in the U.S which aimed to eliminate all things related to socialism, the average U.S citizen don’t have a broad understanding of what socialism really means, and also because they have not experimented it yet, only from a view portrayed as an evil represented by the former U.S.S.R. Sure there could be small and clandestine publications, magazines, books trying to explain socialism and leftist ideologies, but like Noam Chomsky or James Petras works and publications, they have all but been widely let to explain what is socialism and leftism. This is why i consider that the average U.S at least does not have a correct understanding of socialism as an ideology or doctrine.
3.) Neither way works best alone or on its own, and that has been proved and tested through history. And also, neither socialism nor capitalism want to do everything and work everything on their own, only that their representatives when in trying to reach power as part of their propaganda, each political way wants to stand and show to their electoral target as the best way and the only one and the absolute one to deal with economics, finances, which is absolutely not true. (i.e, socialism or extreme socialism loathes private corporations and companies, but truth is the state needs private investments to fulfill their objectives and policies, because by itself it can’t do it alone).
5.) Free marketers fear socialism, because based on the most known lemma or motto “laissez faire-laissez passer” these gurus believe and love the fact and way that markets work and perform alone, with no intervention of the state, left to their own devices, the invisible hand of market, and just hate when the State starts to intervene and regulate the markets, which is precisely one of the points socialism professes, and part of Keynesian theory of economics. This is the main reason why free marketers hate socialism.
Nake M. Kamrany.
(Professor at USC. He is an eminent Afghan-American development economist with superior experience in economic development who is held in high esteem by the international development community, Afghan leaders, scholars, the private sector and intellectuals. He has more than 20 publications on the political economy of Afghanistan)
“The issue of capitalism and socialism as competing systems of political economy is no longer relevant. The entire nation states in the world have adopted market system including provision of social measures to satisfy the basic needs of the citizenry. It follows that the political economy in the world is now characterized by socio-capitalistic system. This movement is evident in the United States by the emergence of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the Republican and Democratic parties which echoes the desire of electorates for a major departure from the old established political order and/or political dynasty. The disdain of the American public with the existing political and economic order in foreign policy and domestic conditions is indicated by their support of presidential candidates who are outside of the old political order shifting away from wars in foreign policy and social equity for domestic policy.
U.S. Must Substitute war with Peace
U.S. Foreign Policy is not promoting U.S. security Interest despite enormous damages sustained by the United States in blood and wealth. The disastrous consequences of the Vietnam War in duration, blood, wealth and defeat must not be forgotten. Domestic discord and economic stagflation should have been instructive not to get engaged in third world intrigue as we have in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and a few African countries. President Obama recently admitted that the U.S. has been involved in wars with seven third world countries. The current strife with ISIS in Syria and Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan could get the U.S. involved in these wars in perpetuity with no specific objective, possibility of victory or an exit strategy. Why are we engaged in these intrigues that are characterized of indigenous population of warlords, drug lords, ethnic groups, sectarian discord and local fiefdoms? Do they pose a security concern for the United States? Absolutely not.
During the Vietnam War the political pundits argued that if we do not defeat the communist in Vietnam they will be on the shores of California. The Vietnamese took over the U.S. embassy in Sagan but none showed up on the shores of California. Likewise, with respect to Iraq the government argued that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq. None were found. We pulled out of Iraq and eventually turned over the domination of Iraq to Iran. And in Afghanistan there was a regime change – the Taliban was replaced by a puppet government who could not defeat the Taliban nor create a democratic government and ripped off billions of dollars of the American taxpayer’s equity. The current involvement in Syria, Iraq , Libya and few places in Africa have gotten us involved in sectarian wars, tribal wars, and ethnic discourse in which we should not be involved but let the natives resolve their own dispute. Under President Obama watch, the U.S. has been involved in seven local wars in third world countries which have been inconclusive. It is now very obvious to the U.S. public that our involvement in third world countries have proven futile. In many ways we have lost thousands of American soldiers, caused thousands of American disabilities, killed thousands of innocent villagers, traditional natives, and have engaged in conflicts and have taken sides without having a clear objective or any defined aim. The approach has been illegal, immoral and repugnant facing a superpower. Then what has been our rationale?
Unfortunately our security policy is still occupied and dominated by our reaction to the tragedy of 9/11. We are still preparing for recurrence of 9/11/. Our policy represents a security phobia emanating from Bin Laden’s cult which was nothing but an improbable fluke and an extraordinary failure of the entire free world’s intelligence system. It is doubtful that 9/11 will ever be repeated. The only security risk could emanate from “lone wolves.” Given the free flow of people and communication internationally plus encouragement by leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS and/or in response or retaliation to incessant U.S. drone and air attacks may cause far or in between attacks. Our military offensives could contribute to radicalization, anger and revenge by individuals who turn “lone wolves.” However, such probability could be checked –minimized or eliminated – by a shift in U.S. policy of rapprochement with these groups. As a superpower the U.S. should endeavor to guide rather than fight these third world nations toward economic development and education.
Regarding defense issue of the campaign, in the final analysis, U.S. strategic consideration in the 2016 election should focus on the Russian Republic which is an atomic power without instigating the “cold war” and China. China is becoming an economic super power and it is allocating 2.1% of its GNP for defense in contrast to 3.5% by the United States. However, China’s figures are based on fixed exchange rate not market exchange rate. . In reality China’s GDP is now higher than the U.S. and the figure 2.1% by fixed exchange rate underestimate its real expenditures on defense. Nevertheless, in the election of 2016, the U.S. defense expenditures should focus on Russia and China and rely upon its superior military technology without instigating “cold war” or “hot war” and promoting world peace and tranquility, the same strategy that was followed by President Eisenhower during 1952 – 1960.
The U.S. faces major Domestic Policy Issues
On the domestic front, the U.S. faces several major issues as priority of the 2016 election and a shift towards social equity..
The rate of U.S. incarceration is a national disgrace. For every one person that is incarcerated in western European countries we incarcerate 70 people. This is largely due to our ineffective criminal justice system as the police, the prosecutors and judges incentives are served by incarceration although a majority of those who are incarcerated are drug addicts and individuals who suffer mental health. They should be treated in clinics as they are in Europe instead of being incarcerated. Resources in many states are being re-allocated for building prisons instead of schools.
By the same token our distribution system is lopsided. The percent of poor and underprivileged now exceed those of Europeans which means that we must revise our distributional system. It is diabolic that 1.5 million families in the U.S… Live on $2 per day per person. Thus is the World Bank designation of $2/day/person in less developed countries.
Although Obamacare is a good first step but it has failed to control and reduce the cost spiral of charges imposed by hospitals, physicians, pharmaceuticals, and laboratories. We must adopt the Canadian or the French system and enroll everyone into Medicare and control the cost of Medicare to coincide to and In line with the CPI.
Another white elephant that has emerged in the U.S. Is the cost of college education? Once again as compared to the European countries where there is no tuition or very modest amount, we have our students take a heavy mortgage type loans for their education which put them into long term debt ranging from 10 to 30 year of loans. The average annual student loan in 2015 for private college education has reached $31,231 while the total student borrowing bill has reached $1.19 billion. The worst aspect of student loan is the annual interest rate that students are charged. In 2015, The average annual interest charges for student loan is the highest in the country 11.455% as compared to 8.39% for credit card, 3.36%% for mortgage loans and 2.51% for auto loans. Student college cost will defy the distributional objectives of the nation and will contribute to keeping the poor out of college. Ostensibly these figures are contrary to President Obama’s push to lower student loan costs.
It follows that the U.S. shall seek a new U.S. order to rectify the above inequities and dissonances. Specifically we should withdraw our military expansion and bases to reduce our military budget and national debt, disengage our military from the third world nations, and check the security threat that may arise from Russian and China. President Dwight Eisenhower who relied on U.S. atomic power superiority kept the U.S. out of foreign intrigue doing 8 years of his presidency. Currently the U.S. military budget is a multiple of the Russian and Chinese budget and as long as we maintain the superior military technology as we are capable to do then we should be able to cut the military budget appropriately to reduce our deficit and national debt. By the same token, we should be able to reduce our medical cost and expand converge to everyone by as much as 30% of the current expenditure. Student loans should have an upper limit of no more than $10,000 for four years of college at zero percent interest rate subsidized by the government. We should –re-allocate THE BUDGET FROM BUILDING PRISONS TO BUILDING SCHOOL AND TRANSFER ALL NON-VIOLENT PRISONERS TO SCHOOLS, CLINICS AND REHABILATION PROGRAMS.
We should revise minimum wage law to “living wage” in such a way that the living wage would support the wage earners for his living cost including room board, health, education, entertainment, adequate facilities and clothing.
All of the above indicators are currently being provided in many European countries. The United States is the richest and most powerful country in the world and it must lead the rest of the world in all of these indicators. The proposal contained herein has nothing to do of the issue of ISM – SUCH AS CAPITALISM OR SOCIALISM. It has to do with HUMANISM – the right of each individuals to receive these basic needs as a matter of right from the cradle to the grave. We must demonstrate AND ASCERTAIN the right of the individuals upon the resources of the earth and bring the distribution in line with the basic rights.”
AndreVltchek.
(Novelist, filmmaker, investigative journalist, poet, playwright, and photographer, Andre has covered dozens of war zones and conflicts from Bosnia and Peru to Sri Lanka, DR Congo and Timor Leste. He is the author of a novel Nalezeny, published in Czech.)
1) Of course it is anti-socialist propaganda. The United States is a fascist imperialist power. Its foreign policy has been geared, for decades, to destroy each and every socialist country on earth. From Sukarno’s Indonesia in 1965 to Chile in 1973, to Syria, Venezuela and Ecuador now.
2) Most of them have no clue what socialism is. They only know what their regime tells them about socialism.
3) Democracy only means “rule of the people”, translated from Greek. Therefore, how could the system that serve business interests of tiny minority be considered “democratic”? Of course socialism is superior to capitalism, and of course capitalism is readily murdering its opponents all over the world.
4) Of course it is unrestrained capitalism. If socialism would be allowed to flourish, there would be no “corruption”. Corruption, as John Perkins brilliantly explained in his “economic hit man” comes mainly with attempts to divert local governments from their main duty: to serve their own people and not the Western Empire. Capitalist regimes in Europe and US are actually corrupting socialist countries, for many decades.
5) Because if real socialist democracy would be allowed to flourish, there would be no “financial markets”. Who needs them? Only few neo-cons and pro-business fundamentalists.
6) Regulations are needed so the majority of people is protected against corporate extremists. Naturally, socialism and regulations go hand in hand. However, corporate media in the West often portrays “regulations” as something negative. Of course, it would not go against the interests of its owners.
7) Sociallist countries are by definition much more socially stable. Great form of capitalism? That would be a contradiction in terms. The problem is that until now, the West has horrible tendency to destabilise, even destroy, each and every socialist country on earth. Once a country begins to feed, house, educate and heal its citizens (instead of sacrificing them for the benefits of the West), its leaders get assassinated, sanctions are impost, and coups performed. The West uses terror tactics against socialism.
8) Socialist countries should unite against capitalist neo-colonialism. It is already happening as we speak. Capitalism is something that should have died more than a century ago. It is direct opposite to “humanism”. Humanism and socialism are one.
Jon Kofas.
(Retired Indiana University university professor. Academic Writing. International Political Economy – Fiction)
“Contemporary civilization and its progress under capitalism are measured largely, though not exclusively, by stock market indicators and the wealth index of corporations and millionaires that mainstream media celebrates. All other issues are only significant if they enhance or diminish corporate wealth. This includes the political, social, environmental issues that may either entail greater profit opportunities or instability and lower profits. “Accordingly, the extent to which corporate democracy represents general, social interests or narrow, profit-oriented interests is largely a function of political contestation and state policy.” Carl Gershenson, “Protecting Markets from Society: Non-Pecuniary Claims in American Corporate Democracy” Politics and Society (March, 2015, vol. 43, no. 1)
This “corporate measure” of the social contract in modern society is to the exclusion of the misery index in what Frantz Fanon once called “The Wretched of the Earth”, referring to the manner that imperialism determines social class in Africa and the masses’ reaction to create a more socially just society. The conditions Fanon described pertaining to Algerian struggle against French colonialism pertains today to conditions that capitalism universally creates and perpetuates as it always has since its nascent phase in the 15th century when European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade began. An African-American youth shot by the police in the ghetto in 2015 is just as much a victim of the same class formation that capitalism creates as an Algerian youth fighting against French colonial rule in the 1950s.
The corporate measure of the social contract and a successful civilization based on linear econometric progress of corporations is a sharp deviation from the humanist values of the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment in Western Civilization rooted in creativity, intellectual achievements in everything from the arts to natural sciences, and to the welfare of humanity as a whole. The corporate measure of the social contract is an assertion of elitism and inequality and a rejection of humanist values and social justice.
Apologist of capitalism would of course give credit to capitalism as a system for unlocking human creative potential of such scientific and technological innovation. Since the transition in the 15th century from the Feudal/Manorial social order/mode of production to capitalism there have been phenomenal technological and scientific inventions intended to improve everything from human health and comfort to unlocking the secrets of the universe. The same apologists, however, do not fault capitalism for structural poverty that persists on a world scale; for the countless wars in the name of capturing markets and increasing profits that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions in the last five centuries; for societal violence emanating from socioeconomic inequality; and for human rights abuses and absence of social justice that are invariably at the core of capitalism.
In the post-Communist era, the specter haunting the entire world is neo-liberalism, driving many people to seek alternatives in some form of Socialism. The fall of Communist regimes had their experiments with one-party states and “command economies” in the name of the proletariat in the 20th century. Those regimes failed for a variety of reasons including constant assault from capitalist countries at every level from the costly arms race to counterinsurgency operations and ideological propaganda campaigns. In the early 21st century many people are wondering if the “End of History” celebrating the US Cold War victory over Communism (Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man) that marked capitalism’s triumph means anything more than hegemony of the wealthy over the rest of the world’s population in every domain from economy and politics to the arts for profit.
Capitalism under neoliberal policies is indeed without rivals throughout the planet in the post-Communist era where the US remains the world’s sole superpower despite China’s economic challenge. Communism as it operated during the Maoist era no longer exists even in contemporary China that practices capitalism and abides by the same rules of the international market economy and its institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization. The “end of history” is indeed the end of Communist regimes but merely another step in society’s evolution and the continued struggle between the hegemonic capitalist class and the masses seeking social justice.
Do people around the world look to established Socialist parties for salvation (about 60 countries have socialist parties), or must citizens continue looking and creating grassroots socialist movements to find the best possible “social contract”? Socialist Party politicians know that there is absolutely no resemblance between a European Socialist Party today and the First International (International Workingmen’s Association, 1864-1876), or even the Second International (1889-1916) that dissolved because some European Socialists were more nationalistic than they were Marxist internationalists. Throughout Europe, political parties calling themselves Socialist are no different in representing finance capital to the detriment of the rest of society than conservative parties pursuing neoliberal policies.
Using the argument that Socialist parties are committed to social justice, defending trade unions, defending the poor, defending minorities, defending collective bargaining, and guarding against the abuses of capitalism, Socialist parties were able to keep their popular base in the post-WWII era, while securing the support of capitalists who understood the significance of social harmony under a social contract where labor and the lower middle class enjoyed some benefits and believed the system served them as well as the capitalists. However, the triumph of the US over the Communist bloc emboldened the neoliberals eager to crush even the remnants of Keynesian policies left over from the early Cold War. During the Reagan and Thatcher decade, the US and UK followed by other governments began to dismantle the social welfare state in order to strengthen defense and the corporate welfare state.
Socialist parties changed their agendas and went along with neoliberals by the 1990s. No matter the Socialist rhetoric while they are in the opposition or even when they are in government their policies are hardly any different than those of the conservatives representing a tiny minority of the population. The only resistance, a rather modest one at that, to neo-liberalism does not come from Socialist parties or Socialist governments whether in France, Spain, Portugal or Greece, but from nationalist regimes such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and a few others, and this largely for geopolitical considerations as well as domestic sociopolitical dynamics.
Socioeconomic equality, social justice and the welfare of the entire society are the themes in the debate between Socialism and capitalism. Socialist theory contends that capitalism creates and perpetuates socioeconomic inequality, social injustice and elitism against society’s collective interests. Advocates of capitalism insist equality of opportunity for the individual is of paramount importance in the social contract that guarantees safety and security from domestic and foreign enemies. Socialist theory advocates a strong central government to safeguard social justice and the interests of all people in society, while capitalism advocates a weak central government and a hegemonic capitalist class whose interests the state safeguards by maintaining inequality through fiscal and labor policy among other mechanisms. Just as Socialism entails a social order based on a value system and a code of ethics centered on human welfare, similarly, capitalism is rooted in a social order based on a value system of amassing private profit in an unfettered marketplace where the very few benefit to the detriment of the many.
From schools and churches to sports and entertainment, from market relationships to human relationships, all institutions operating under capitalism embrace its rules in order to survive. Unless it adopts the corporate model of governance and orientation that includes links with the business world, the university seeking large endowments from wealthy people and corporations, it is not likely to survive in a competitive field. It is simply not practical to have an enclave of a prototype antithetical to capitalism in just about any domain in society because the superstructure operating under capitalist rules, values, and code of ethics would ultimately crush or make irrelevant the antithetical prototype. This is something many have discovered in the last two centuries from Robert Owen and his followers that popularized the term Socialism in the 1820s to the present.
Socialists of varying types in the 19th century amid industrialization of society understood that capitalism is a new system of servitude that dehumanizes workers for the sake of amassing wealth for capitalists. There is a gap between the promise of capitalism to provide riches for all while society becomes more industrialized, scientifically, and technologically advanced, and the reality of a system creating wealth for a small percentage of people. The majority of the world’s population is left behind to dream of becoming wealthy while subsisting in daily misery, while a middle class as a buffer between the masses and capitalists helps to maintain the social order. What happens however when the middle class begins to decline as it has in the US and across much of Western Europe in the last three decades? According to the Economic Policy Institute, the bottom 90% of Americans experienced 5% income growth between 1979 and 2007, while the top 1% of Americans enjoyed 390%, illustrating how capitalism slowly destroys itself by undermining the buffer middle class.
Werner Sombart, Krieg und Kapitalismus, (1913), and Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) analyzed the dynamics of capitalism’s contradictions, using the Marxian concept of “creative destruction” to explain the evolutionary process of the mode of production and contradictions inherent in the system. While they were both reacting to 19th century Industrial capitalism and the destruction of wars of imperialism that the capitalist system created ultimately leading to WWI, elements of the theoretical foundations of their works are applicable in our time.
In the early 21st century when capitalism prevails triumphantly under a neoliberal ideological and policy orientation, the fundamental question is what does the majority of the population want from a social contract? Because people are born into a capitalist system with the state as its guardian and promoter throughout the world, it is extremely difficult to bring the system down and replace it with any degree of ease as some believe. Those who enjoy power, wealth and privilege throughout the history of all civilizations rarely surrender what they enjoy for the sake of the good of society as some believe simply because it is the right thing to do for the welfare of society.
Human Nature and Capitalism
Is capitalism consistent with human nature and does it reflect it as apologists argue, or do institutions under capitalism simply reinforce human nature’s atomistic and irrational aspects as detractors insist? In short, is capitalism in existence for five centuries because it closely reflects human aspirations, greed, irrational proclivities, the desire to amass material possessions and to live in a hierarchical society where there are few rich people and many are poor? Is humanity indeed carrying the seeds of evil from Adam and Eve as some in Western Christian tradition believe, or do human beings create structures that mold human behavior?
During the ancient times, whether 5th century B.C. Athens or 1st century A.D. Rome, prevailing ideas and culture that we know about today are those of the elites and have nothing to do with peasants, workers, or slaves. Culture makers were the elites, not the peasants, workers and slaves who carried out manual labor so that the leisure classes could devote time for their endeavors. The same holds true of the Middle Ages when the temporal and spiritual Lords prevailed in society in every respect controlling all institutions from church to the military and economy and determining everything from values to how people married and often whom they married. In short, the elites pass on to the rest of society values and code of ethics as a means of maintaining a given social order.
It is not much different with capitalism; in fact, it is much clearer under the capitalist system because the evidence is ubiquitous in all segments of society’s dominant culture. People have ingrained in their minds that institutions and the existing social order is “natural”. Just as the serfs in the Middle Ages believed God meant for them to be in servitude because this is what priest and Lord reinforced, similarly Plato argued that some human beings are meant to be slaves, dismissing the idea that slavery is a manmade institution resulting from private property and war. Under capitalism, the idea has been inculcated into the minds of the masses that if they are poor it is not because there is an economic system based on socioeconomic inequality and social injustice but it is simply their fault for any number of reasons, all of them having to do with personality traits and individual responsibility.
Going beyond the arguments of Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan and John Locke, Two Treatises of Government about whether human beings are inherently evil and prone to disharmony in the state of nature (Hobbes), or inherently good and prone to rational behavior, there is the larger issue of how the dominant culture molds the minds and behavior of people in general and how the institutional structure rewards conformity and punishes dissidence. In other words, people merely wishing to survive will conform. Palmiro Togliatti pointed out (Lectures on Fascism) that a worker will accept Fascist Party membership, brushing aside ideology that may be rooted in humanist values and code of ethics.
This is a theoretical domain to which Antonio Gramsci (Os Intelectuais e a Organização da Cultura) also made significant contributions, analyzing how the dominant culture helps to perpetuate the social order. The dominant culture of our time shaped by five centuries of capitalism has the distinct advantage just as the Feudal/Manorial Christian culture of the Middle Ages prevailed to keep the vast majority believing it was God’s will for them to be oppressed and subsist in misery finding relief only in the afterlife. Despite systemic obstacles to change in society, capitalism exists in fixed time of civilizations in different parts of the world.
Like previous systems it has developed contradictions and it will begin to decline and ultimately give way to a new order. The enemy of capitalism and the culprit of its downfall is the system itself, not Communists, Socialists, jihadists, nationalists, ultra-left guerrillas, or any external force attacking and undermining it. However, this is hardly visible not only to capitalists but to workers as well who may be fatalistic, nihilistic, apathetic, or have turned to inward spiritual endeavors as a substitute for what is lacking in the social contract.
Just as the French serf in the 10th century once believed God meant for the social order to exist as it did and there was no alternative to it. Similarly, the insurance office manager in New York City and the farm worker in southern France may be convinced by the media that capitalism is above history and will exist until the sun becomes extinct. This is what the dominant culture has ingrained into the minds of the masses so this is what they hold to be dogmatic truth in the early 21st century. This is not to say that there are not those in our time, just as there were in the Middle Ages that opposed tyranny and the absence of social justice. The dominant culture silences or minimizes the impact of dissident voices about the need for social justice and an alternative social order. Not just the Holy Inquisition, but the Lords and Bishops dealt effectively with heretics of the Medieval Era, just as the modern state under capitalism has always dealt effectively with dissidents.
The masses are much more willing than many among the elites realize to bring about change in society that would end oppression, discrimination and inequality. Although academic studies show that it takes many years, in some cases decades as in China from the First Opium War (1839-1842) to the warlords (1916-1928) to Mao’s rebel movement (Jiangxi Soviet Republic of China, 1929–1934), popular uprisings ultimately do take place as history has demonstrated. In defying elites and the dominant culture, invariably they will follow an authority figure (s) challenging the status quo, as did theologian Thomas Müntzer (1489 –1525) who took a leading role in the German Peasants’ War. The same holds true from the French Revolution to the Cuban Revolution when the masses proved more willing to support social change than the elites assumed or wanted to believe. Social change is very slow while social discontinuity as Western Europe experienced from the 14th to the 16th century comes so slowly that it is hardly noticeable when a new social order and mode of production evolves.
Historical Synoptic Perspective of Capitalism vs. Socialism
Why should people vote for Socialist parties after they have proved again and again since the 1980s that they are as neoliberal as the conservative parties rooted in the Reagan-Thatcher ideology? By what right do people vote for Communist candidates after the fall of Communist regimes in the late1980s-early 1990s, and the Chinese Communist Party promoting millionaires and billionaires as the new saviors of society? How dare leftists cling to a discredited ideology associated with disruption, if not destruction of the bourgeois social order in Russia, Eastern Europe, parts of Asia, and Cuba in the 20th century?
The answer for those advocating some version of Marxism rests in the reality that the various political regimes under which capitalism has operated in the past 500 years have always left people aspiring for social justice and the goal of serving the welfare of all people instead of the privileged few, a view that the French bourgeois intellectuals promoted in the 18th century in their struggle against the privileged nobility and upper clergy. The quest for equality and social justice that the social contract must embody is as true and timeless today as when Thomas More wrote Utopia during the transition from the Feudal/Manorial social order/institutional structure to capitalism. Certainly the question of capitalism vs. socialism manifested itself in the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, German Peasants’ War in the 1520s, both long before the bourgeois French Revolution, manifested aspects of Socialism as an alternative.
From the French Revolution of 1789 to the environmental movement of the 21st century, people who believed in some form of Socialism have contributed to worker and child safety, slavery abolition, eight-hour work day, social security, rights of women and minorities, and much more. Above all, socialists of varying types have always struggled to keep bourgeois political parties a bit less hostile to labor, women, and minorities, fighting against tyrannical regimes that used brutal force to repress dissidents demanding human rights, and social justice as was the case with the European Revolutions of 1848 and the nascent American labor movement in the 1880s and 1890s. Socialists envisioning a society rooted in humanist values and not capital accumulation for the tiny minority endeavored to tame the capitalist system from within with reforms and from the outside with protests so that it does not leave as many children and their parents destitute in soup kitchens and in back alleys sleeping in cardboard boxes, especially during hard times of deep recessions.
Despite the fact that wars of imperialism from 1870 to 1914 led to the First World War and Second World War, which was in many respects a continuation of the first; despite the fact that capitalism is predicated on inequality and the state in many countries throughout the world, from 19th century Russia and Mexico to 20th century US has led campaigns against workers through violent means; despite that capitalism keeps promising “the promise land” only to deliver wretchedness for the masses whether in sub-Sahara Africa or rural Mississippi, its apologists continue to eulogize this as the best and only system fit for a decent society. The marketing and selling of capitalism under the neo-liberal panacea was helped enormously by the downfall of Communism, by the US campaign on terrorism that fed the defense industry, and by the idea that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism anywhere in the world, considering that China as part of the global marketplace goes along with international market rules, with the World Bank and the IMF.
Capitalism has prove resilient because it has demonstrated that it can operate under varieties of regimes, from Absolutism in early modern Europe, to parliamentary bourgeois democracy in the 19th century, to Fascism, Nazism, and varieties of authoritarian governments in the 20th century. What all of these regimes have in common is that the role of the state is not to fulfill the social contract as conceived by liberal and democratically-minded political philosophers of the Enlightenment era, but to serve, protect, and strength capitalism and its institutions in their evolving state. Since the late 19th century, finance capital with the backing of the state as an instrument of absorbing capital through the fiscal structure has as its first priority to maintain the hegemony of the markets by allowing them to operate freely during the expansionary cycle of the economy, and providing capital to sustain them amid contracting cycles.
Under such role of the state, socialism is an arch-enemy that capitalism is constantly at war against. In practical terms this means that the enemy of capitalists are the masses aspiring to a social contract that includes them – again, a bourgeois concept that the Enlightenment introduced (Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, What is the Third Estate? 1789), but one that opened the Pandora’s box for mass politics after the European Revolutions of 1848. Does the social contract include only the privileged elites the state represents – before 1789 in France the secular and spiritual nobility, now the capitalists – and are they the nation and embodiment of the national interest, or are all people included in the social contract?
- Is the United States really becoming a socialist country, or is this propaganda? Democrats and Republicans might differ with social spending, but do both parties support a free market without regulations?
There is absolutely no evidence that Democrats and Republicans differ on their adamant opposition to Socialism not only as regime, but even as a third political party with any legitimacy, or a social movement that has popular support. Differences in the two parties are limited to the degree that there must be regulatory mechanisms the state must impose in order to rationalize the capitalist system as far as Democrats are concerned while protecting the weaker classes and maintaining a middle class. As far as Republicans are concerned the less government the better in every domain except defense, domestic security, intelligence operations, and criminal justice system. There are Libertarian Republicans who would have no problem simply handing over government agencies, and to a degree this is a reality with outsourcing government tasks, to the private sector although this means a much higher cost to the taxpayer and much less efficient public service.
The ideological convergence of neoliberals with right wing elements that include the Christian fundamentalists and those supporting the militarist Jewish lobby is a reflection of a strategy to co-opt as much popular backing as possible to forge a popular base from which to oppose any inklings of Socialism. For a functioning representative democracy to continue serving capitalism, while projecting the image of democracy, a popular political base that includes segments from the Christian right to the petit bourgeois professionals is essential. At the same time, there is complete convergence of the elite political class and elite socioeconomic class – people in both coming from the same bourgeois class and representing the same interests.
Even the self-proclaimed progressive politicians from the FDR Democratic wing in the 1940s until Bernie Sanders in our time represent the same capitalist interests and their continued hegemony. However, they differ on cultural/lifestyle issues and the degree to which the fiscal system must be structured to sustain a sound safety net for the poor while maintaining middle class incomes. Because of the Cold War that was effectively used by both Republicans and Democrats to forge popular consensus and maintain the status quo against any movement advocating social justice and equality, and because of the “war on terror” campaign since the end of the Cold War, the American political pendulum has been swinging to the right.
Blatant racism, xenophobia, sexism, ethnocentrism, and anti-labor sentiment once camouflaged behind political correctness rhetoric are now part of the Republican public dialogue. This is not an accident or simply “politics as entertainment” as many inthe “liberal media” like to dismiss it instead of analyzing the issues in depth. On the contrary, the mainstream media, including the so-called “impartial” New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, PBS and NPR, to mention only a few, all with a long history of helping to forge popular consensus in support of capitalism and support for militarist foreign policies in the name of liberal democracy, have helped to bring the public toward a more rightist orientation. While the media as integral part of the capitalist system can only eulogize it so it can survive, it actually presents itself to the public as “objective”, as though its coverage and news analysis represents all people and not exclusively the socioeconomic and political elites.
It is not so much the fanatic rightwing ideologues that make no secret that they approve of the Confederate flag in public buildings, but the “liberal” media presenting itself as the “progressive voice of the people” that has really been responsible for guiding the public toward an increasingly rightist orientation in domestic and foreign policy. The journalistic and moral bankruptcy of media outlets can be seen as much when they never raise social justice as a core campaign issue by questioning presidential candidates on it, any more than they question the bombing of children and women killed en masse by drone warfare across the Middle East and Africa. While many may not see a correlation between foreign policy and domestic, the reality is that the former is a reflection of the latter and neoliberal policies drive both. The US as a status quo imperial power aspiring to maintain Pax Americana status does not want structural change at home any more than it does abroad where it wishes to preserve its role as the world’s policeman.
There are many well-paid “opinion makers” that insist the US is “Socialist” because Franklin Roosevelt established a social safety net during the New Deal that many people then and today regard as a Socialist. The Democrat candidate for president in 1972 Sen. George McGovern among other Democrats including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are also “Socialist”, although both of these individuals were well within their party’s mainstream as their voting records indicate when it came to supporting capitalism and its institutions. The US has moved so far to the right in the last four decades that it is slowly slipping toward a quasi-police state largely to push through very unpopular neoliberal policies and military solutions to international political conflicts that any voice opposing militarism and neo-liberalism is baptized “Socialism”.
Anti-Socialism rhetoric has persisted from the Gilded Age and the famous labor strike by the American Railway Union against the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894 until the 1980s when Reagan adopted a series of anti-labor and anti-union policies the political and business establishment has fought to crush any traces labor rights that compromise capital accumulation. While the labor movement had a number of labor leaders, including Socialist Eugene Debs in the 1890s, today America has very weak trade unions and thoroughly co-opted by the Democrat Party serving big capital and adamantly opposed to any aspect of Socialism Debs advocated more than a century ago. Just in the era of Debs the entire political and justice system, including the Supreme Court always side with big business against labor.
- Do Americans really understand socialism?
The vast majority of the American people have not studied in depth the theory and history of capitalism and socialism, nor do they really need to do so in order to understand that the current social contract does not represent them no matter what the Constitution promises about equality. The prevailing view in society is that capitalism is “natural” to human nature while Socialism is antithetical and destructive to society. This view comes not just from the vast majority of the teachers from elementary school all the way to graduate school, but from the community, church, politicians and above all the media.
Let us assume that the American people understood in varying degrees both capitalism and socialism. Does this mean that the majority would opt against capitalism? There are very well educated people, including progressive economists and social scientists in general that realize the destructive nature of capitalism and its anti-human pro-capital orientation. Yet, they cannot wait to line up behind any institution that sings the praises of established policy in any domain and represents the promotion of the existing institutional structure because only in this manner is the professional social scientist, journalist, etc. able to achieve the dream of a successful career. No matter how rational, how brilliant, how sound and humane the ideas are of an individual, they are worthless if not dangerous unless they promote or at least do not hinder the status quo. In short, capitalist institutions promote opportunism and co-optation of everyone from the politician to the musician who must commercialize her art to survive.
Raising class consciousness is paramount for political action, but this too comes from the realities of daily life just as it did for the millions who followed 20th century revolutionaries rather than reading the works of any socialist theoretician. The oppressed Chinese peasant did not need to have a copy of the Communist Manifesto next to her to know exploitation any more than a Maquiladora factory worker today in Mexico, or the American farm worker in Alabama. Working three part time jobs just to feed the family while the owners of the companies are making millions constitutes sufficient proof that the system is stacked against labor and in favor of capital. An ideological framework helps to place everything into a coherent perspective in order to mobilize popular support for a grassroots movement. This was the position of the Enlightenment thinkers before the French Revolution and it was just as true in 20th century revolutions. Marginalizing, discrediting, ridiculing, or silencing dissenting voices that demand social justice and stigmatizing them as “Socialists” because they pose a threat to the capitalist status quo allows the mass media to exert influence over public opinion in favor of capital and against labor.
The same strategy the media and politicians adopt to impose conformity on domestic issues also holds true when it comes to foreign affairs. For example, the media and mainstream political and academic establishment present the pacifist dissenter advocating a political solution to US-engendered instability in the Middle East as irrational, unrealistic, unpatriotic and dangerous to national security. Meanwhile, those advocating unilateral or multilateral military intervention are pragmatic voices of reason simply because defense companies make money when government adopts military solutions rather than diplomacy. The reward for the militarist is a high-paying consulting job, chair at one of the various think tanks funded by corporate money, advertisements in the newspaper or TV supporting military solutions, etc. People, especially young college graduates, see who is rewarded and who is left behind in society. Naturally, they follow the pursuit of self interest over what the media describes as idealism that will never make the American Dream a reality. After all, American millionaire dreams are not made by doing or saying, or writing what is in the best interests of all people in society, but only what will retain the privileges of capitalists.
– Socialism and capitalism reside under the wing of democracy. Which out the two systems works best and why?
Democracy is a word the ancient Greeks invented to refer to popular sovereignty. However, when the Athenians implemented it into practice (Cleisthenes father of Athenian democracy, 508 B.C.), popular sovereignty was limited to adult males only, to the exclusion of women, foreigners and slaves. When it came to decision-makers, Athenian “radical democracy” (direct vote and participation rather electing representatives) entailed that the individual had to be somewhat well off to have an education so he could actually rise to speak in the assembly to influence the opinion of the rest. In reality, democracy was limited to the properties classes and it was always a struggle between the landowners and the merchants and shipping interests.
In 1689, England took a major step toward representative government with a strong Parliament and weak executive, but the legislative branch was the domain of the landowners, merchants, bankers and shipping interests, to the exclusion of the vast majority. While the American Revolution had a Constitution guaranteeing freedoms and liberties for all, it excluded Native Americans, women, and of course slaves, while the poor farmers and workers were hardly in position to participate and have their voice heard. The French Revolution was the first attempt in Western civilization to introduce popular sovereignty, but it quickly collapsed.
The age of mass politics of the 19th and 20th century in the Western World entailed extending voting rights to people previously marginalized, but the reigns of political power remained with the propertied classes. In short, empirical evidence throughout history does not indicate that democracy was ever a system of government that truly meant popular sovereignty to be all-inclusive and to guarantee social justice. On the contrary, history shows that democracy has been a form of government intended to serve capitalist interests, although there are immense variations between the Norwegian model that takes the working class into account and the American model that is strictly a system limited to the very wealthy with only lifestyle/cultural freedoms extended to the rest of the population.
Socialism is a very broad concept because there varieties of Socialist theories from Christian Socialism rooted in Western tradition that dates back to the Black Death, to Scientific Socialism that Marx and Engels introduced in the Communist Manifesto, coinciding with the Revolutions of 1848. In the age of mass politics, aspects of Socialism have become part of the bourgeois mainstream because the capitalist system could not survive otherwise as John Maynard Keynes realized during the Great Depression. The social fabric could not possibly hold together in the absence of the state intervening much more heavily than it ever had in the economy to absorb surplus capital in private hands, combined with deficit financing and use such resources to stimulate the capitalist economy.
This policy mix that some call “Socialist” emerged from the realization that capitalism left to its own devices would collapse without the state to buttress it. If the state withdraws its support, whether through central bank interest policy making liquidity available for businesses to borrow cheap capital, subsidies of all sorts from export to building infrastructure or facilities, as well as direct bailouts amid recessionary times, then the capitalist system would decline and ultimately fall. The only pillar maintaining it is the state that has been an instrument of redistributing income from the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid up toward the capitalists.
The question is how long can the state remain the pillar of capitalism before collapsing? It could be argued that this could continue another two or three centuries. However, the mounting public debt not just of the US at more than 100% of GDP or of Japan at more than 200% debt to GDP ratio, but also other countries around the world will at some point entail a global crisis of such magnitude that the system will cave in. The combination of public and private debt will reach unsustainable levels to the degree that monetary inflation will reach levels not so different than what people witnessed in the Western Roman Empire during the “Third Century Crisis” that represents the start of a transition toward the Feudal/Manorial social order.
Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire correctly asked the question how did the Roman Empire with the combination of financial, economic, political and military collapse actually survive as long as it did. Nevertheless, the Fall of Rome in the long 5th century did mark social discontinuity. I am convinced that similar patterns with some variations are applicable in the 21st century. The capitalist system will reach a point when it will be unable to operate under a pluralistic bourgeois model that accounts for a thriving middle class and it will only be able to sustain itself under a form of authoritarianism. This is already a reality in a number of countries including the US in 2015 where downward socioeconomic mobility is accompanied by an increasingly corporatist state relying on the military and police-state methods to preserve the dream of an unsustainable and waning Pax Americana.
- What has caused more financial turmoil in the past century, corrupt forms of socialism or unrestrained capitalism?
Corruption among political parties with the label “Socialist” in France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, among other countries including the most egregious cases in developing nations, has been an undeniable reality. Corruption in the former Soviet Republics, especially Romania but also in the USSR were indeed egregious to the degree that they undermined the moral fiber of the entire system and betrayed the ideology that indentifies corruption with bourgeois regimes. There is no doubt about systemic corruption in bureaucratic Socialist countries any more than there is in countries operating under Socialist parties but well within the capitalist economic system. For 25 years before he fled Romania, President Nicolae Ceausescu (1965-1989) had pillaged the country to the detriment of the vast majority of the people in the name of Communism.\
The cult of personality cultivated by 20th century Communist leaders and the corruption that accompanied it dealt a blow to the system as much in Romania as in North Korea and China. China’s pro-capitalist Communist party is one of the most corrupt in the world and it admits the problem is real and not anti-government propaganda. In Power and Prosperity, Mancur Olson argues that communist regimes are even more prone to corruption than capitalist dictatorships. However, corruption has been an endemic part of capitalism in both private and public sectors for centuries, but the system remains in place and has not collapsed like Communism. Corruption by itself was not a catalyst to the downfall of Communism any more that it played a prominent role in Socialist parties opportunistically embracing neo-liberalism so they would be able to govern by serving capitalism even better than conservatives that do not have an ideological claim to the masses’ interests.
Unrestrained capitalism, which includes endemic corruption in both public and private sectors, has actually caused far greater damage to financial turmoil from 1637 during the “Dutch tulip market bubble” until the sub-prime disaster of the first decade in this century that caused the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Despite such shocks in the market that drive unemployment high and living standards low for the majority, apologists of capitalism insist this is the best possible of all systems to serve mankind. One reason for this is that under neo-liberalism we are re-living the Gilded Age.
During the Gild Age (1870-1900), which coincided with the American industrial revolution and the Westward Movement and Reconstruction, there was indeed enormous corruption, partly owing to lobbying. Everything from the infamous Tammany Hall (corrupt machine politics), to the manner that trusts and cartels were free to do as they pleased at the expense of society. Politics became increasingly a business of catering to business of those politically connected at the expense of the rest of society from consumers to labor organizers demanding safe working conditions and fair wages so they could live above the poverty level.
The response by Republican and Democrat Progressive Era politicians was to expand government through more and larger bureaucracies and make it more merit-based so it could better serve capitalism as a whole, including balancing the interests of disparate sectors. A major goal of the Progressives was the overall growth of the capitalist economy with the state as the pillar of support while at the same time protecting the consumer to a small degree and addressing some needs of the middle class that viewed big business as predatory. Progressivism projected as a “reform” movement managed to co-opt a segment of the population in support of capitalism.
Although the expansion of the middle class accounted for the reforms under Progressivism, Gilded Age monopolies and oligopolies continued to prevail in formulating public policy, while government remained their protector. Throughout the 1920s, lobbying became more organized and intensive. Operating in a pro-business climate, lobbyists used more high-pressure tactics to secure passage of legislation by targeting committees and regulatory commissions. With capitalism collapsing in 1929, the New Deal and WWII entailed greater regulatory measures and centralization of government. The New Deal de-radicalized the masses and co-opted them into the Democrat party in support of capitalism.
However, the trend to restore the preeminent role of business in public policy returned with the Truman administration. The Cold War followed by the “war on terror” became the pretext to permit as much laissez-faire latitude as possible so that capitalism becomes stronger. Unrestrained capitalism in the last four decades is responsible for downward social mobility and the fact that even in 2015 with 5% official unemployment rate in the US income levels are below what they were in 2007 when the Lehman Brothers scandal broke and the stock market crash followed in 2008. Unrestrained capitalism is what neoliberals want and what mainstream politicians represent.
In the first week of June 2015, the media celebrated the momentous occasion of Jimmy Diamond, head of J.P. Morgan, who joined the billionaire’s club. This is of course very typical of the media to celebrate such individuals without regard to their record of corruption and destructive actions that negative impacted not just the US economy but the world. As head of J. P. Morgan, this individual has a history of corrupt practices that range from fixing rates and manipulating interest rates to hedge funds manipulation the led to the sub-prime lending crisis of 2008, to the more recent Justice Department allegations that FIFA soccer association used this bank among others Wall Street firms to launder money.
Predatory capitalists of our time – Barbarians at the gate dressed in expensive suits – will do anything from launder drug money in the billions, promote conflict to sell weapons to governments, manipulate interest rates and currency rates and securities, and payoff government officials for favors, as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump candidly admitted. The barbarians in suits that the media and the dominant culture revere and eulogize ad nauseam fear the people, dread popular sovereignty, and detest a social contract and policies that encompasses the interests of all and not just the socioeconomic elites.
-Why do free market economists fear socialism?
Economists are a microcosm of the rest of society and reflect the dominant cultural and political influences and ideology. I do not believe that anyone should be surprised that the majority of them embrace capitalism in some form, whether under a Libertarian system, a dictatorship, a representative democracy or a social democracy with a strong social safety net. Just to survive in society and have a thriving career, economists have little choice but to embrace capitalism, otherwise, they teach and remain content with the idealism derived from their chosen profession influencing young minds.
All economists know that socialism means the means of production rest with the state on behalf of all people, or common ownership. They may not like state control or they may think it is bad for society because it promotes principles of collectivism instead of individualism, but at least they know the gist of socialism. Economists also know that socialist production is not geared to maximize profits in every sector from luxuries to weapons manufacturing, but to meet human needs. They may detest the idea because they may not believe in egalitarianism, or they may believe this is just a deceptive theory never implemented in practice as preached in writing. Economists also know that the role of the state is catalytic in so far as it determines how to meet the needs of all people collectively and not to permit production, distribution and exchange of everything from the high-end luxury market to weapons and handguns, to Hedge Funds that realize parasitic profits for a few individuals.
It is understandable that economists as apologists of capitalism fear socialism because they fear popular sovereignty. The existing system is predicated on capital accumulation and hegemony of a small percentage of the population that owns most of the wealth. As it undergoes periodic expansionary and contracting cycles more people experience downward mobility. Only state intervention through a policy mix that dilutes free market economics can reverse such a trend, something neoliberals detest and equate with Socialism. Market economists dread any policy mix that suggests the only way to save the political economy and social order is to dilute it.
In the US especially, opposition to Socialism is also a function of historical tradition rooted on the Puritan work ethic and the idea of self-reliance and individual pursuit. Government interfering to provide health and welfare for the poor is an anathema to the “Puritan work ethic” advocates who have no problem when government provides hundreds of billions to bail out banks and insurance companies, guaranteed loans, tax breaks, direct subsidies, lucrative government contracts for everything from sanitation to intelligence outsourcing, etc.
- Do free market economists confuse the term ‘regulation with socialism’? Is regulation and socialism the same thing?
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck put into policy a number of the platforms from the German Socialists because he realized this is was the best way to preserve the status quo and pursue German capitalist interests at home and abroad. Health and disability to pension plans were Socialist demands that the chancellor whom his Liberal opponents accused of promoting “state socialism” – social welfare policies that eventually all of the Western nations adopted – put into place during the 1880s when the German Empire was thriving. Of course, I must emphasize that what 19th century German Liberals and other apologists since then call state socialism is in essence state capitalism and indeed the only effective method of preserving capitalism with relative sociopolitical harmony.
The European conservative and liberal political admission that capitalism must co-opt the masses in the age of representative democracy spread to the US during the Progressive Era, although the US did not opt for as much regulatory mechanisms under Theodore Roosevelt as it did under Franklin Roosevelt. Opponents of regulations to protect workers, the environment, consumers, children, the mentally ill and the elderly argue this is socialism. The demand an end to as many government regulations on the market as possible and removal of as many government obstacles to movement of goods, services and capital as possible, allowing the market as much freedom to play by its own rules uninterrupted by the state and acting on the laws of ‘supply and demand’. On the one hand, this sounds great to the businessman because who wants red tape interfering with wealth-creation mechanisms. But is it not businesses that invite the state’s intervention in: a) subsidies, b) tax breaks, c) bailouts, d) barriers on foreign goods that are competitively priced, e) intervention against monetary policies of countries enjoying competitive advantages, f) and a host of other areas from research and development paid for by taxpayers to infrastructural development? Deregulation under neo-liberalism also means de-unionization of the labor market, canceling workers’ rights achieved in the first half of the 20th century, and imposing wages that are as close to subsistence as possible. The rationale is that the US, EU, Japan, etc. must become competitive because China is rapidly out-competing the advanced countries. How do developed countries become competitive? They bring wage levels down so that they can maintain high profits and keep market share. When they speak of ‘competitive’, they mean lowering wages and benefits and securing tax breaks and subsidies.
- What countries show the greatest aspects of capitalism and the greatest aspects of socialism? Of these countries, which ones seem more socially stable, the capitalist run economies or the socialist run economies?
Capitalism is and always has been an international system seeking constant expansion which means that all countries in the world, especially in the post-Communist era of globalization, are operating under its rules within varying degrees. If we exempt the unique regime and political economy of North Korea heavily dependent on China for its existence, there are no countries today that are Socialist. There are self-described Communist states like China, Vietnam, Cuba and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. However, these are totally integrated into the world capitalist system and practice capitalism with a strong presence of the state in the private sector. There are capitalist countries that have policy mix many describe as socialist, including Norway, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.”
Sebastian Sarbu.
(He is a military analyst and vicepresident of National Academy of Security and Defence Planning. Member of American Diplomatic Mission for International Relations)
“It’s not relevant the economic doctrine of socialism or capitalism, no matter the ideology like ideocracy system. Only “real politics” and the democratic form of government becomes most relevant in this case and represents the correctly equation of international order.
Communism, national socialism, neo-liberalism, Christian democracy, libertarianism and other modern politicals currents represent ideological systems. Socialism and capitalism have nothing to do with this.
The political-utopia and ideological system prove the limits of historical errors. The socialist and capitalist represent economical systems.
In other terms, the industrialized countries adapted the globalized process and the economical domination over politics, to promote governmental alternatives to politics of centralization and de-centralization — social protection respectively to the encouragement of free initiatives.
The real solution with anticipation is compromised between socialism and capitalism at global levels. Even China implemented capitalism of state which in academic terms is a sociological neologism.
The types are different types of capitalism. The synthesis between socialism and capitalism is the opportunity for powerfully and reach countries to adapt to global competition. The internal temptations of the global powers are corruption and institutional oligarchy.
The awareness for these foments global problems, terrorism and polarization. For the poor countries their temptations represent development of a consumerist society with an artificially economical growth and also with major social costs.
The awareness for these represents democracy and failure reforms. It’s better to understand that the Keynesian model of Market Economy should not be identified with capitalism, but surely with acycle of real capitalism.
The system of values remains the fundamental stone of any economical and political order. Democracy needs hierarchy and a constitutional democratic socialist system that should replace law enforcement to assure equality of rights.”
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September 18th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Today’s attack which killed mostly civilians, has been atypical because ISIS the jihadist organization held Raqqa since 2013; the city has just been punished by President Bashar Assad. With this offensive the Syrian leader, who massacred civilians since 2011, is trying to demonstrate to the world his status as enemy of “terrorism”.
The group of local activists opponents said ‘Raqqa has being massacred in silence’. The Press Freedom Committee to Protect journalists tweeted this afternoon: “The Syrian regime has launched twelve air strikes on Raqqa. There are dead and wounded, ambulances and noise everywhere.”
Subsequently published pictures of columns of smoke over neighborhoods stressed the death of civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition organization based in London, confirmed the bombing of Raqqa. He added that other offense separates from the official Aleppo aviation, a city that raised a host of organizations. Among them Al Qaeda dispute the government, and killed at least 47 civilians between yesterday and today.
Internet images published yesterday showed a street plunged into chaos among numerous wounded. The last bombing of Assad loyalists on Raqqa dates back to November 2014. On that occasion the Syrian army swept through a popular market and Assad’s troops killed 37 civilians according to the lowest estimates.
This little lavishing attacks against IS, in recent years has been accompanied by a significant loss of ground to the jihadists. In 2014 they lost their last base in Raqqa. Assad’s troops also recently lost Palmira to the jihadist.
The full retreat on the map, with a brand new military support provided by Russia and the international community see it as a lesser evil to Syria compared with the Islamic State. Assad has seen his opportunity to volunteer as a battering ram against IS.
However, when asked by the world’s popular opinion Syrian refugees fleeing the bombings blamed Assad or the Syrian president to start chaos in his country. Since the conflict began in March 2011, Assad’s strategy has been to punish civilians to sow hatred, extremist leaders amnesty in 2011 -as did Hasan Aboud, now leader of the Salafist group Ahrar-al-Sham did with IS.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose only aim was to destabilize the regional enemy, have helped improve the image of Bashar Assad funding his troops among the opposition.
International inaction and time has helped Al-Qaeda restructure. Al-Qaeda is also now fighting a double war with IS and Assad.
The IS is more important and direct threat to the West’s global than the tyrannical Syrian president. Raqqa bombing yesterday, the Syrian leader opened up his rehabilitation in the world arena as a new champion of antiterrorism.
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September 18th, 2015
By University of Granada.
A study by researchers at the University of Granada has demonstrated that mortality among cyclists varies widely depending on the age and sex of the population. Male cyclists, above all those aged between 15 and 24 years, are more likely to die than adults (25-34 years), which could be explained by their greater exposure and risk of having an accident.
Credit: University of Granada
In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of bicycles in Spain both as a sport and as a means of urban transport. Clearly a corollary of this may be the greater number of accidents, or even deaths, among cyclists, especially in a country like Spain, where until a few years ago, cycling was relatively unpopular. In fact, 2013 saw an increase in the number of cyclists killed following accidents in urban areas by comparison with 2012.
Hence, the authors of this study–from the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health of the University of Granada–set out to determine the contribution of certain components to mortality among cyclists (deaths/population). The three components were: exposure (cyclists/population), risk of collision (cyclists involved in accidents/cyclists) and fatality (cyclists killed/cyclists injured).
The scientists analysed the records of 50,042 cyclists involved in traffic accidents in Spain between 1993 and 2009 which included information on age and sex, obtained from the Spanish Register of Road Crashes with Victims provided by the Directorate General for Traffic.
Age- and sex-related
Based on their analysis using statistical software, they were able to quantify the association of age and sex with mortality among cyclists, as well as determining the contribution of each component to the mortality of a cyclist of a given age and sex.
The results showed that the excessive mortality corresponding to older cyclists (35-79 years) is only related to greater fatality, that is, the greater risk of dying if involved in an accident. In all age groups, male sex was associate with greater mortality than female sex, principally in relation with greater exposure and, in second place, with greater fatality.
The lead author of this research, Virginia Martínez-Ruiz, says that knowing what we now know “could be useful in helping develop road traffic policies oriented towards cutting mortality among cyclists, as well as implementing measures, educational or otherwise, aimed at high-risk cyclists like, for example, 15-24 year-old males”.
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September 14th, 2015
By The Daily Journalist.
Foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov; Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin; Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and France, Laurent Fabius, on Saturday gave new steps to appease eastern Ukraine with a commitment to advance the removal of weapons and mines of the separatist regions.
As Steinmeier told the media after the conclusion of the meeting at Villa Borsig, the guest residence owned by the German Foreign Ministry on the outskirts of Berlin, made progress on some points of the agreements signed in February on Minsk.
Today’s meeting, the seventh keeping ministers in the so-called “format of Normandy” was held in a different environment to the above. For the first time since both the Kiev authorities and the pro-Russian rebels had confirmed the ceasefire in the breakaway regions, one of the main commitments of Minsk violated repeatedly.
In fact, according to Steinmeier, the meeting was “the least confrontational of all other previous meetings and most the successful” although the agreements should be closed by the contact group, in which Russia, Ukraine involved the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the pro-Russian separatists.
Steinmeier hoped that the parties in conflict give the green light for the next meeting to concretean agreement for full and “soon” light weapons and tanks removed.
In his view, the agreement between Kiev and Moscow brokered by the OSCE is near attained because the positions of the parties are “not far”.
The four ministers also agreed that can start removing landmines and, in this context, Steinmeier re-emphasized the importance of OSCE observers freely accessible without restriction to the conflict zone.
As noted, there was also progress on the political process to follow Ukraine in compliance with the agreements of Minsk, including the holding of local elections, but must thorny questions must still be negotiated about the electoral process and constitutional reform. “There are proposals on the table and in our opinion are a good basis for decisions,” he said.
From the humanitarian point of view and with the arrival of winter, the ministers advocated that aid organizations have unrestricted access to the population of the separatist regions. The objective is, he said, the boost of planned reconstruction projects, with special attention to water supply.
Today’s meeting served to prepare for the 2 October summit in Paris with the leaders of the four countries: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian Petro Poroshenko, the French François Hollande and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
Despite the commitments made, Steinmeier warned of the difficulty of the ongoing process and the fragility of each advance.
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August 27th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
Despite having only about 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States was the attack site for a disproportionate 31 percent of public mass shooters globally from 1966-2012, according to new research that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
“The United States, Yemen, Switzerland, Finland, and Serbia are ranked as the Top 5 countries in firearms owned per capita, according to the 2007 Small Arms Survey, and my study found that all five are ranked in the Top 15 countries in public mass shooters per capita,” said study author Adam Lankford, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama. “That is not a coincidence.”
Credit: DHS
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Lankford’s study, which examines the period from 1966-2012, relies on data from the New York City Police Department’s 2012 active shooter report, the FBI’s 2014 active shooter report, and multiple international sources. It is the first quantitative analysis of all reported public mass shootings around the world that resulted in the deaths of four or more people. By definition, these shootings do not include incidents that occurred solely in domestic settings or were primarily gang-related, drive-by shootings, hostage taking incidents, or robberies.”My study provides empirical evidence, based on my quantitative assessment of 171 countries, that a nation’s civilian firearm ownership rate is the strongest predictor of its number of public mass shooters,” Lankford said. “Until now, everyone was simply speculating about the relationship between firearms and public mass shootings. My study provides empirical evidence of a positive association between the two.”As part of his study, Lankford explored how public mass shootings in the U.S. differed from those abroad. He found that public mass shooters in other countries were 3.6 times less likely to have used multiple weapons (typically multiple guns, but occasionally a gun plus another weapon or weapons) than those in the U.S., where more than half of shooters used at least two weapons.
“Given the fact that the United States has over 200 million more firearms in circulation than any other country, it’s not surprising that our public mass shooters would be more likely to arm themselves with multiple weapons than foreign offenders,” Lankford said. “I was surprised, however, that the average number of victims killed by each shooter was actually higher in other countries (8.81 victims) than it was in the United States (6.87 victims) because so many horrific attacks have occurred here.”
The side-effect of America having experienced so many mass shootings may be that our police are better trained to respond to these incidents than law enforcement in other countries, which reduces the number of casualties, Lankford suggested.
In addition to killing fewer people and using more weapons, U.S. public mass shooters were also more likely to attack in schools, factories/warehouses, and office buildings than offenders in other countries. But compared to U.S. shooters, attackers abroad were significantly more likely to strike in military settings, such as bases, barracks, and checkpoints.
While Lankford’s study revealed a strong link between the civilian firearm ownership rate and the large number of public mass shooters in the United States, he said there could be other factors that make the U.S. especially prone to public mass shooting incidents.
“In the United States, where many individuals are socialized to assume that they will reach great levels of success and achieve ‘the American Dream,’ there may be particularly high levels of strain among those who encounter blocked goals or have negative social interactions with their peers, coworkers, or bosses,” Lankford explained. “When we add depression, schizophrenia, paranoia, or narcissism into the mix, this could explain why the U.S. has such a disproportionate number of public mass shooters. Other countries certainly have their share of people who struggle with these problems, but they may be less likely to indulge in the delusions of grandeur that are common among these offenders in the U.S., and, of course, less likely to get their hands on the guns necessary for such attacks.”
In terms of the study’s policy implications, Lankford said, “The most obvious implication is that the United States could likely reduce its number of school shootings, workplace shootings, and public mass shootings in other places if it reduced the number of guns in circulation.”
There is evidence that such an approach could be successful, according to Lankford. “From 1987-1996, four public mass shootings occurred in Australia,” Lankford said. “Just 12 days after a mass shooter killed 35 people in the last of these attacks, Australia agreed to pass comprehensive gun control laws. It also launched a major buyback program that reduced Australia’s total number of firearms by 20 percent. My study shows that in the wake of these policies, Australia has yet to experience another public mass shooting.”
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August 23rd, 2015
By The Daily Journalist.
Today North Korea deployed more than 50 military submarines, said a military officer in South Korea, while representatives of both countries try to negotiate solutions to their higher crisis in recent years.
“70% of North Korean submarines, whose total number is estimated at 70- departed from their bases without being able to confirm their location,” said an official of the South Korean armed forces to the local agency Yonhap.
The source also said the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un has doubled the number of artillery troops on the border and they are ready for combat.
The tension began on Thursday
The two Koreas have been involved in a serious episode of military tension since Thursday, the day North and South exchanged artillery fire across the border.
After the event Pyongyang launched several threats of attack on Seoul, and both sides remain prepared with troops and military equipment for possible combat.
In full crisis, high officials of both governments held Saturday afternoon a meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom to try to find a solution to the crisis.
Second round of talks today
After failing to reach an agreement this morning, the meeting was adjourned and representatives of both sides are reunited in a second round of talks at 15:30 local time today.
South Korean representatives from the director of the National Security Office, Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, Vice Marshal and the North Korean People’s Army Hwang Pyong-so and the director of the United Front Department Workers’ Party, Kim Yang-gon all agreed to continue for solutions against an escalation.
Between the first and the second meeting the two sides have been engaged to review the proposals and demands of its partners on the other side to make it easier to reach an agreement on the new round of talks, said the media spokesman of the Blue House .
On the marathon meeting yesterday was not disclosed details and the presidential office was merely informed that both parties sought to “resolve the situation newly created and improve relations between the two Koreas.”
The senior officials of both countries have laid to negotiate reflecting the severity of this new military crisis, which began last Thursday with the exchange of artillery fire between North and South in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of the 38th parallel.
North and South remain technically at odds since the Korean War (1950-53) ended with an armistice never replaced by a definitive peace treaty
Still, the armed forces of both sides remain combat ready in a climate of tension.
North and South remain technically at odds since the Korean War (1950-53) ended with an armistice never replaced by a definitive peace treaty
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August 17th, 2015
The Daily Journalist.
“If there is an agreement between both sides of the conflict in South Sudan before August 17, there will be consequences,” said Barack Obama. His sentence was not trivial and his audience, gathered in the living Nelson Mandela, the epicenter of the headquarters of the African Union (AU) applauded the speech on July 28 in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
The echo of that August 17 has been dormant since then, and the days have been consumed as an advent calendar. Even the threat of sanctions by the Nobel Peace Prize has been a proximity or agreement between the promoters of the crisis: the president, Salva Kiir, and former vice president, Riek Machar Teny. The differences between the rebels are increasingly latent and there are those who do not accept a new union with President Kiir. On the other hand, a few days ago the two sides met for more than two days behind closed doors in Addis Ababa to reach common ground: the only thing they agreed, is too disagree.
On the other hand, an analyst with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) -the regional organisms for suspicious mediation- ha shown discontent if the parties reach an agreement Monday. “This is the easy part, the hard part is that there is loyalty and commitment of the parties once the agreement implemented,” said Mehari Taddele Maru. World pinpoints five key principles that make peace is almost unattainable in the youngest country in the world.
Continuing wars
In early July, South Sudan celebrated with agony four years of independence. A celebration that instead of being a cause for joy keeps its citizens under continuous desolation and suffering. It is a territory haunted by the word conflict, first by the two civil wars that lived as a part of Sudan, and later with the differences between Kiir and Machar. The South Sudanese population is mainly Christian, which caused countless massacres when they were under the rule of Sudan, where reigns a rigid version of Islam.
According to UN estimates, the first two wars resulted in 2,500,000 dead and 5,000,000 displaced, and in the last 19 months more than 50,000 victims and two million people have been forced from their homes. With these figures, the organization estimates that two thirds of the population are dependent on international aid, while a total of 10,500 peacekeepers ensure the safety. The two wars have also left many weapons that are now spread among locals.
Historical enemies
More than fifty tribes live in an area that is roughly the size of France. This population of 10 million people is divided into a majority Dinka (4 million) and a persecuted minority Nuer (2 million), while the rest is divided among the various ethnic groups. This mixture has not been without conflict, and the Dinka and Nuer remain historically faced. When independence, the fact that the outside Dinka Nuer president and vice president was, first, a demonstration of the unity of peoples against the common enemy, and on the other a pressure cooker that could explode signed any moment. And he did in 2013, released two years of independence.
With over 50 tribes, differences and hatred between them they are so ancient that it seems difficult to reach agreement
The crisis began after Kiir dismiss the Nuer government officials, including Vice President. Machar and his followers attempted a coup, and accused the president of being leading the country towards a dictatorship. The differences and hatred between them are so ancient, it seems very complicated if either party is willing to give budge.
Ineffective mediators
While dialogue between Kiir and Machar is unproductive international mediations come to fruition. Moreover, a US spokesman said of the recent visit of Obama in Africa, there are signs that the Sudanese government is sending arms to rebels led by Machar, while Uganda is providing its support to government forces.
So far, mediations have been conducted with five representatives of the African Union (AU) -South Africa, Chad, Nigeria, Algeria and Rwanda and six -Djibouti IGAD, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. However, human rights organizations have requested the assistance of the United Nations (UN) and the AU to mediate for the cessation of violence as well as initiate investigations to determine who is responsible for these atrocities.
America has shown from the beginning the cause of freedom and independence of Southern Sudan, as observed from the ideological conflict lake and supported the Christians, whom they considered victims of Sudanese attacks.
Control crude
The first days of independence were pure optimism. The distribution of land after its split from Sudan gave the young state 75% of oil reserves, which is not satisfied the government of Omar al Bashir too. However, companies intended to refine the crude are settled in Sudan, bringing the black gold to travel through Sudan’s pipelines to get to the Red Sea and its recipients. As punishment, Sudan increased dramatically transport rates, hindering south oil sales abroad.
The country is a major oil states of the continent and is expected to grow after independence was 35% in the early years, thanks to the arrival of foreign companies. The situation is now completely contrary and the state is on the verge of economic collapse, as exports have fallen by 50% and the price of oil, China being the most affected due to their presence and investment in the area. Currently the rebels control the northern areas of Unity and Malakal since late 2013.
I despise people
Human Rights Watch (HRW), conflict and attacks on the population amounted to war crimes and murders and violations may amount to crimes against humanity. Both sides killed with impunity and are baited with local people. The survivors of the attacks directly accuse the government and allied militias of carrying out a campaign against the local population, which has caused looting, destruction, deaths and displaced more than 100,000 people from their homes.
“The devastating offensive is the last thing we’re seeing in a conflict characterized by having an astonishing disregard for civilians,” said HRW’s Africa director, Daniel Bekele. According to the evidence of HRW, victims were hanged, shot or burned alive, also including children and the elderly are among them. Moreover, those who suffer the brunt of this brutal attack women and girls continue to be, since they are raped, abducted, beaten and forced into hard labor by the combatants.
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August 11th, 2015
By The Daily Journalist.
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August 7th, 2015
Interview conducted by Jaime Ortega.
Jon Kofas
He is Retired university professor–Academic Writing — International Political Economy – Fiction
1) American Youth: The youth in the United States has become very anti-government and anti military. The youth in the past presented a lot more nationalist values which helped military enrolment. Is lack of military enrolment and patriotism a downfall of any world power in history?
Jon Kofas: America’s youth is a reflection of the diverse society and its contemporary political trends. It is true that a segment of the youth is anti-government and anti-military but not nearly at levels America had seen during the last years of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal under Richard Nixon. One would need to go back to the Eisenhower administration when McCarthyism “Communist witch hunts” and the institutionalization of the Red Scare had driven the majority in society, including the youth, to nationalist conformity. The result of that intense sense of Cold War nationalism that transcended political affiliation in the 1950s and early 1960s was support for the US military in the early years of the Vietnam War.
As the middle class suffered casualties and the news from the front was that the war was unwinnable, the middle class youth turned against nationalism and militarism. This was evident during the 1968 presidential campaign with the candidacy of anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy that resulted in the loss of the Democrat party to Nixon. American youth was radicalized at the same time that there was a national movement for civil rights under Martin Luther King and a rising women’s rights movement, all involving young people mostly from the middle class. This convergence of protests movements by American youth as reflected also in cultural trends reflected dissatisfaction with the Cold War conformity status quo at home and abroad, but the kind of sweeping reforms the youth demanded never materialized. Although women and minorities achieved concessions within the political economy, this was limited to the upper middle class minority and women rather than cutting across class lines.
The political and financial elites reoriented America’s youth toward a conservative direction after the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua in 1979 and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. These developments accounted for a resurgence in nationalism and revisionist thinking on militarism not just by rural, religious Southerners, but a larger cross-section in American society that saw benefits to conformity during the decade of Glasnost and Perestroika under Gorbachev who laid the groundwork for the Soviet Union’s dissolution. In short, the youth saw tangible results in conformity to hawkish politics and identity with the nation-state because the US had won the East-West confrontation started under Truman.
At the same time, there was the euphoria that capitalism enjoyed a monopoly in the world and the US was its core to enjoy benefits that would filter down so all people could finally enjoy the American Dream. This was the image politicians, the media, businesses, and schools projected and those who wanted a “piece of the American Dream” had to conform. America’s youth was slowly discovering that the endless and unwinnable war on terror institutionalized at home and abroad came at a price of downward socioeconomic mobility, college costs higher and high-paying jobs fewer meant that the American Dream was limited to fewer and fewer people, while the promising middle class as the backbone of American society was fading. This reality accounts for the cynicism even conspiracy theories on the part of a segment in America’s youth in our time.
Some resorted to social media opposition to government and the military establishment as a way to have their voice matter in a world where only the voice of the political class and the elites it served really matters. Another segment of America’s youth tried even harder to conform realizing there is no alternative, other becoming nihilistic, giving up completely as the public opinion polls indicate on the issue of political activism and participation in local and national elections. This was especially the case with America’s minority youth that have a different perspective regardless of social class.
Unlike white youth that has positive social identities in a society with a long history of institutionalized and cultural racism (institutional practices endeavoring to justify inequality based on race and ethnicity), the black and Hispanic youth experience a different “American reality”. Their social status is not only economically determined, but ethnically/racially determined as evidenced by the reality of police arrests, court cases and prison statistics of black and Latino youth. Despite the Civil Right movement of the 1960s, laws and law suits against public and private sector institutional discrimination, and America’s first black president in the age of political correctness, the phenomenon of racism is a constant in American history because it is deeply ingrained in the culture and it manifests itself institutionally.
The dream of black and Hispanic youth transcending race and ethnicity through class – upward social mobility – is to a large extent real within the capitalist system, but young people know as well as the adults that the vast majority in their ethnic group will be left behind and suffer institutional discrimination just beneath the thin layer of political correctness at the workplace, when coming up against the criminal justice system, and other interactions in both the public and private sectors. The nature of capitalism is such that it subordinates such institutional discrimination to the domain of competition and viewing everyone as a valued consumer/investor in the political economy, except that the less one has to consume/invest the less valued that individual is, especially when he is black or Hispanic where societal and institutional stereotypes of cultural racism/ethnocentric apply.
Where does this leave minority youth, except dispirited because they realize equality of opportunity does not obviate social-cultural stereotypes, especially in the domain of the criminal justice system. That there are political groups as appendages of the Republican Party instigating xenophobia aimed at Hispanics, and right-wing media promoting underlying racist messages using code words such as “criminals” to refer to unarmed black youth shot in cold blood by white police officers only perpetuates cynicism about America refusing to abandon its apartheid past. When white police officers shoot black suspects on average twice a week, according to the FBI, and use excessive force against Hispanic and black youth 98.9% of the time, according to a University of Nebraska study, the problem is very serious because the politicians have done nothing to change the culture of racism.
Despite this reality, black and Hispanic youth remain the backbone of the US armed forces along with the poor whites, while the upper middle class white youth talks about patriotism as its domain but defers to minorities and the poor to serve America. Not surprisingly, the Department of Defense target minorities and poor whites for recruitment, According to studies, only 70 percent of new recruits have a high school diploma, whereas DoD goal is to raise it to 90%. This blatant hypocrisy on the part of the wealthy whites was true in the early 21st century as it was in the mid-20th century.
The blatant hypocrisy here is that the political and financial elites have always projected the image of patriotism, when in fact such traits are actually much more prevalent among the poor and minority youth. This is largely because the marginalization from the institutional mainstream brings them even closer to embracing patriotism and service in the armed forces. The same does not hold true for the upper middle dominated by the white majority that has more realistic possibilities for upward social mobility within the mainstream of society.
2) Russian and Chinese Youth: On the flipside China and Russia’s youth have become very patriotic and nationalistic; will that help their countries rise faster to power to invigorate new superpowers? Will the US youth be ready for conflict if problems in the future arise with these emerging powers given the lack of nationalist values that once made the US a military superpower? Is that related to the fall of Rome?
Jon Kofas: It is understandable why the youth in Russia and China would be more nationalistic than in the US for several reasons. First, there is a resurgence of Russian and Chinese nationalism for different reasons in the respective societies. In the case of Russia, nationalism has replaced Communism as an ideology that the state promotes not only in the domain of electoral politics, but economic nationalism and especially cultural nationalism as a catalyst to unity in society now that a class-based system divides people more than it unites them. Although nationalism was a force that Josef Stalin promoted as much as his successors under the banner of “Soviet collectivism” and faced with a hostile outside world, today’s Russia has the state-supported Orthodox Church as a major force promoting nationalism.
In the mid-1990s, Russian nationalism among the youth was very high, partly because of political organizations under Barshakov and Zhirinovski trying to mobilize the masses into movements. Although these 1990s movements faded, there are various ultra-nationalist youth groups, some using violence that are anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic. Russian youth are generally organized from the top down, as is the case with “Nashi” political youth movement claiming to be democratic and anti-oligarchic, but in essence an NGO headed by Vladimir Putin’s supporters trying to create a broad popular political base. The catalyst to the youth in Russia is the “foreign enemy” trying to undermine Russia.
Russophobia that exists in Ukraine, Baltic States, Poland, and in some of the former Soviet republics also accounts for Russian nationalism.
Above all, the new containment policy of the US and Europe and Vladimir Putin’s nationalist politics are the strongest force that convince Russians across social classes, especially the youth, that they must come together behind their nationalist leaders, no matter the level of official corruption and private sector corruption linked to the state. Nevertheless, Russian nationalism among the young people is understandable also because the end of USSR and the realization of social and cultural freedoms that have shaped bourgeois values that did not exist under Communism.
To a large degree this is also true of Chinese youth. Considering the immense structural changes as much in China, as in Russia since 1990, the youth of these countries was born and grew up knowing nothing else but the promise of the new open economy and its cultural values. The realization that upward mobility is an achievable goal for a segment of Chinese youth accounts for greater optimism in comparison with the American youth knowing those same possibilities for upward mobility are becoming increasingly limited.
Mao and the Cultural Revolution generation are a distant memory for museums and the history books never to become policy again. No matter how admirable the idealism of the 1960s generation that tried to create a utopian society, the youth of contemporary China looks to global integration as its future rather the autarchy isolation that Mao had imposed. The value system of Communist collectivism gave way to that of a Western-based individual merit system under the market economy, with all this implies for a new social structure in China.
The youth in China is just a diverse if not more so than the American youth, given that class, gender, ethnicity, and geography plays a huge role in the social structure. The college educated youth in the largest cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Chengdu, and Hong Kong – constitutes the internet generation whose identity is much more influenced by cosmopolitan trends than the rural and less educated population suffering low incomes and low living standards. The urban-rural divide accounts for different perspectives, but the identification with a nation-state that has taken the country from isolation to global economic preeminence is in itself inspirational for Chinese youth that transcends class and ethnicity.
The tradition of dissent in China has been both within the Communist system as well as outside of it with those embracing everything from Western values to freedom of religion. The spring 1989 student uprising in Tiananmen Square that resulted in tragic killings by the security forces represented a nascent youth bourgeois democracy protest movement that inspired pro-democracy protests in early 2011 and ethnic and religious protests that represented diverse groups. In the last ten years or so, an online protest movement, also bourgeois in its modalities and goals, emerged to represent another dimension of where China’s youth may be headed.
Fingshu Liu argues that the internet has shaped Chinese youth identity in what he calls “online nationalism”. To some degree, these young people are somewhat apathetic about politics as much as their Western counterparts that feel nothing ever changes and there is nothing they can do about it. In post-Mao China, these urban college educated youth, however, represent the new trend in nationalism as they realize their country will become the world unquestioned economic power and this would have derivative benefits for them and future generations. In this respect, Chinese nationalism is driven by the optimistic scenarios of China as the new superpower overtaking the US. The Chinese “online nationalism” that Fingshu Liu refers is of course a universal phenomenon and hardly limited to China.
One could easily argue that the Arab Spring revolts had as their catalyst the internet, as did the protest movements in Spain, and the “Occupy Wall Street” youth protest that started in September 2011 and eventually died out three years later. Unlike the American youth, the Chinese and Russia are first generation middle class nationalists and have a different perspective driven not just by their historical past but optimism about the potential of their respective nations to achieve new heights in the global arena.
By contrast, the American youth, broken down by class race and ethnicity, lacks the sense of optimism because they realize the 21st century at best is going to be of America not losing its status in the world, not suffering further erosion of the declining middle class, and not experiencing a greater gap between the top ten percent of income earners and the rest of the population. “The Fall of Rome” syndrome is already evident in American society and the young people sense it, despite the political rhetoric about the American Dream and the media’s attempts to demonize foreign enemies as a distraction of the domestic structural problems.
Chinese American youth optimism about the future remained steady in the mid-50s but reached a peak in 2001 at 71 percent, before plummeting to 44% during the 2008-2011 recession, levels at which it remains today. Because in the US the mass psychology tends to place all fault with the individual when they become unemployed or do not make sufficient income, people have been indoctrinated to internalize what are otherwise external structural problems such as the political economy. By contrast, under Marxist ideology in Russia and China the emphasis was on the institutional structures that shape the individual’s life. Although Chinese and Russia youth have grown up on consumerist values, they come from traditions of collectivism and layers of tradition remain just below the surface of the currents trends – to borrow an old Chinese proverb.
While 93% of Chinese believe their country has a bright future, 67% believe they will become businesspeople. This level of optimism is the highest in the world, while Russia lags China in optimism but it is well ahead of the US with about 70% of Russian youth indicating they will be about the same or better off in the future. Whether for or against Putin youth organizations have a greater sense of shaping their future from within or outside the system. The Chinese are also optimistic about controlling their destiny within the new system. Similar trends are absent among American youth have yielded to resignation or conformity with only small groups defying the institutional structure at the root of injustice in society. Considering the US has a long tradition of believing it is in charge of its own destiny and that of the world, we see that trend in decline across the board and among America’s youth.
Workers and the Welfare State
3) Many companies nationwide complain to the government that many American workers (not all) do not perform as efficiently as other foreign workers and illegal immigrants who also work for these same companies. For example, Alabama recently passed a law where illegal immigrants needed work permits. Do Americans companies need immigrants? And is the American labor become lazier compared to illegal immigrants? It looks like in most universities all the Bachelors of Science are taken by mostly foreign students and few Americans! Will that have a long effect repercussion on the US?
Are American workers “inefficient” (producing more at a lower cost to their counterparts around the world) or are they the cause for the lack of “competitiveness”? Are US wages too high and productivity too low, and is efficiency measured only in terms of maximum profits to the exclusion of all other factors? Are workers the reason that US companies relocating to Mexico, Vietnam, China, Brazil and other countries as part of the de-industrialization process in the last forty years?
The argument that workers are fault for the ills of the US economy started during the first Industrial Revolution in England more than two centuries ago. During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, the argument of worker inefficiency was used to prevent labor organizers and keep wages low and government away from regulating hours, safety and child labor. Clearly, a child, a woman and a minority male was worked more efficiently because they received considerably less than their white male counterpart during the period when trusts and cartels enjoyed unquestioned influence over all levels of government and the courts.
The New Deal changed labor-management relations, rationalizing the process within the capitalist system. However, as the US became more hawkish during the Cold War, domestic policy reflected a rightwing turn as well. The anti-union political momentum has its origins in the Truman administration that reversed the pro-labor policies of FDR and used the Cold War as a pretext to impose labor conformity to domestic policies. Because the economy was in an expansionary mode during the early Cold War and there were opportunities for the children of workers to secure an education and move into the middle class, conformity was inevitable as the American Dream was the reward.
De-radicalized pro-business trade unions went along with the government on foreign affairs and renounced the class struggle, focused only on “bread and butter” issues as part of the Democrat Party. Anti-trade union policies of the Republican Party that identified unions as appendages of the Democratic Party are part of the reason for the question of inefficiency. Another issue is related to the justification of globalization that transfers high-paying jobs to low-cost labor markets, thus driving wages lower in the US. Finally, there is the issue of preventing unionization where it does not exist, minimizing the influence of the already weak and ineffective unions, and simply busting unions as was the case during the Reagan administration. No matter what the argument, the assumption always revolves around the theme of maintaining capital’s monopoly influence in policy and maximizing corporate profits no matter the cost to society. This is no different than what took place during the Gilded Age.
According to the pro-business Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Germany has the world’s most productive labor force, while the US ranks third. Neither Germany nor the US have low wages compared with China and Vietnam, but they enjoy top world rankings from a pro-business international organization. Why then do politicians, the media, and well-paid pro-business consultants and academics-for-hire to businesses insist the US labor force is the problem to productivity?
On 31 July 2015, the US Federal Reserve released the second quarter labor report costs revealing that these were the lowest in 33 years. Despite massive rises in executive compensation and record corporate profits, politicians and media insist that wages are the problem in the economy. Where exactly is the empirical evidence to suggest that the American labor force on the whole, whether in the public or private sector, whether in the office or in the factory, whether in the commercial farm or the construction site is the cause for productivity inefficiency? If the business model is flawed, if management compensation exorbitant, if the child labor factory in Bangladesh makes the exact same garment five times cheaper under unhealthy and hazardous conditions, why is it the fault of the American worker and not the factory owner trying to squeeze out higher profits by exploiting children in the Third World?
The only reason that the US government, businesses, media and the IMF even raise the issue of worker inefficiency is to demand lower wages throughout the world, to crush labor unions, and to prevent new ones from emerging. If a 12-year girl in Bangladesh is making a few dollars a week, but her adult American counterpart is making $12 dollars an hour, is the conclusion that the American worker is “inefficient” or that the corporate employer is exploiting child labor in countries desperate for capital investment and no laws for children, safety, health and the environment?
It is ironic that politicians, journalist and economists against raising the minimum wage are either millionaires or very wealthy who would never concede giving one dollar more of their parasitically-earned income to reduce the public debt. If they honestly believe workers are not the people creating wealth, but instead they are the obstacles to efficiency, then why not abolish all labor laws, all labor-management regulations, outlaw trade unions and end workers’ rights, and let the employer decide what the worker is “worth”. If these measured are followed to concentrate capital even more than it is today in the hands of the wealthiest one percent, the question arises about what kind of social structure and political system would evolve in America where the middle class is presumably its backbone.
Some sectors of the US economy including construction, agriculture, and manufacturing, employ foreign laborers, some of which are undocumented. This is also the case with domestic workers in the hotel and restaurant business where wages are low. Employers prefer to employ such workers because they are diligent, but also because they earn much lower wages than documented workers. For many decades employers have made the argument that employing Hispanic and other non-US-born workers is more efficient for them and they pass on the savings to the consumer. This is regardless of whether it is a commercial farm or a construction company. The trade unionists then turn against the undocumented workers, arguing the government is not cracking down on these people taking jobs away from American citizens. This is an old story of old immigrant workers making higher wages turning against the new ones earning much less. The media, government and businesses then argue that high paid workers losing their jobs simply do not have the “right skills” for the evolving job market, so it is their fault. If they just secure more education/training, they too could experience upward social mobility.
The downward social mobility in America has been taking place in the last three decades and it is continuing. This has been a subject of many books and articles as well as political debates, with some liberal suggesting adjustments to the fiscal system and wage scales and conservatives arguing in favor of allowing the market to decide and individuals going back for more education to secure a good job. One area where the young have historically looked for upward mobility is the college degree, although studies indicate the political economy and social stratification is such that the average person will change several careers in a lifetime. Moreover, the demands of the market are such that whereas in the 1950s a high school diploma was sufficient to secure a job, in 2015 a Ph.D. is no guarantee the candidate will work in her/his field and make more money than a truck driver.
America’s educational system designed to provide opportunities for self-enlightenment and marketable skills in the workforce achieved its goal from the end of WWII until the end of the Vietnam War. When social welfare began to dwindle as resources shifted to defense and corporate welfare during the 1980s, radio personality Garrison Keillor made famous jokes about the unemployable English major. This was an indication that a college degree in the humanities was hardly sufficient to guarantee a job in the field of academic training. The reality in the 1980s was that any field outside of the hard sciences and business was difficult to secure a job, even with a Ph.D. A decade later, it became difficult to secure a job in fields once thought as safe, including areas in the hard sciences and law. Individuals with college degrees had to secure more and different training for employment. By the time the recession of 2008 hit, it was difficult to find a job in any field even for graduates of prominent universities.
Besides inability to find employment in the field of their educational training, college graduates had a massive debt from loans because costs had skyrocketed as the business model of education meant shifting the burden from the public sector to the student. High college costs excluded children of workers and lower middle class that could only afford local colleges, if at all, or going into the armed forces. Universities responded by introducing distance learning and e-colleges, as well as eliminating standardized exams ACT-SAT, both schemes to secure tuition income as competition increased. In the last three decades, universities have been evolving toward a business model where the administration behaves like corporate management and the faculty like workers, and students are consumers. This is reflected in salaries where there are huge gaps between the millionaire college presidents and professors, with exceptions in business schools.
It is not only that the corporate model of college has become very expensive and leaves out those who cannot afford it, it is also the case that an undergraduate degree is now like a high school diploma in the 1960s in terms of securing employment in a very competitive service-oriented economy geared increasingly to business and high tech positions amid an evolving proletarianization social process that provides people with titles such as “assistant manager” at a fast-food restaurant or an insurance office. College students know that they are no different than consumers because this is how universities treat them, their degree is no guarantee of upward socioeconomic mobility, and society does not value education but wealth that can be acquired by any means necessary, including unscrupulous or illegal methods. In short, the merit-based ideal of the 18th century Age of Reason no longer applies in the new Gilded Age of the 21st century.
The apologists of the corporate model of higher education argue that the problem rests with students who are not interested in math and science but opt for the humanities and social sciences where there is no gainful employment. They point to foreign students who gravitate toward those fields and become successful. This is indeed the case with foreign students, at least looking at this issue on its surface. Beneath this appearance are the following hard facts.
First, High School students in Europe, Russia and Asia have a much better training in math and science than their US counterparts because American secondary education has been deteriorating for decades. Therefore, when foreign students come to the US it is easy for them to take courses in math and science because of their educational training. Second, foreign students do not have language expertise of their American-born counterparts, so they find it easier to focus on math and science. Third, a foreign student could have easily stayed in her/his own country to study humanities and social sciences, as they do, instead of coming here. The reason foreign students come to the US is primarily for the hard sciences. If they wanted to study poetry, they could have done so in their own country.
One would be surprised to discover that not just the US, but the rest of the advanced capitalist countries have a problem with unemployable college graduates, especially Europe and in fields of social sciences and humanities just like the US. Therefore, the problem is not that the US college student is so much different than her/his counterpart in the much of rest of the world, but that capitalism has a crisis of overproduction in college graduates as much as it does in every other commodity. The college student here and world-wide is nothing but a commodity subject to the market laws of supply and demand. Education is a reflection of the crisis of capitalism that cannot absorb the commodities it is producing under the existing system. Because of the “brain drain”, the best and most talented continuing to leave their countries and come to the US, the long-term impact will be surplus graduates. The benefits from a surplus college-educated labor force will mean that employers will demand more for less from their employees. At the macro-economic level, this means downward pressure on all professions and living standards owing to excess capacity of college graduates in every field, including medical sciences. Conclusion: downward socioeconomic mobility as many studies indicate will continue as much in the US as in the European Union.
4) The Welfare State Debate: 1/3 of Americans live on welfare and most of them have no education some even exploiting for years the free benefits to live more comfortably never working. It seems like they don’t want to take on many low income jobs, whereas illegal immigrants and foreigners exploit these opportunities to earn money. Why haven’t Republicans or Democrats faced these realities?
According to a study in 2012, 35% of Americans were receiving some kind of “means-tested program” assistance amid the tail-end of the recession that started in 2008. The US federal budget in 2014 was $3.5 trillion, of which 34% went for national security and home security while Social Security, Veterans benefits, Medicare and health amounted to 52%. It is important to note that if we add research and development, NASA, and other defense-related spending not budgeted as such, the percentage rises. In 2011 for example the total costs for defense and related programs was $1.3 trillion, while “human security” programs that critics dismiss it as wasteful entitlements cost $2 trillion. Investment in human security vs. national security is an ideological debate among politicians, media, academics and others. Republicans and many Democrats believe that in an open society government priorities ought to be with defense not human security.
While very few people would question defense/national security spending, many since the election of Reagan constantly question “human security” as a “waste of tax dollars”. Critics argue that such programs only encourage the poor and minorities to be lazy and parasitic, an argument that was actually floated in England during the era of Adam Smith at the end of the 18th century. Republicans and many Democrats find nothing wrong spending hundreds of billions on the parasitic defense industry because this sector is associated with patriotism, regardless of whether it adds more security along with a rising public debt. However, these same critics vehemently object to school lunches to feed the poor, assistance for the mentally ill, subsidized housing for people that would otherwise be living in parks, and subsidized health care for the lowest income groups unable to afford immense hospital and prescription costs. It is important to note that the entitlement program money goes right back to corporate America – health insurance and corporate-owned hospitals, supermarket and drug store chains, pharmaceutical companies, and other businesses.
The objection is that the taxpayer is stuck with the bill for human security. However, there is silence when it comes to corporate subsidies and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. When was the last time that the media raised the issue of General Electric and Boeing receiving US export subsidies, despite the fact that these are extremely profitable companies? When was the last time that politicians and media objected to local governments subsidizing sports stadium for football, basketball and baseball, using taxpayer dollars, instead of building schools, parks and facilities for the homeless and mentally ill? Why is it acceptable to dish out one billion dollars for sports facilities in any given city but highly objectionable to feed, house and provide health care for the poor?
Considering the price of the ticket for a professional sports event, the government has no problem subsidizing the upper middle class fans and the investors in sports clubs, but it finds it abhorrent to provide a school lunch to the poor and medication for the elderly. Democrats and Republicans alike have no problem providing subsidies, lowering the tax rates and never closing tax loopholes for the corporate sector, any more than they have a problem bailing them out when in crisis as in 2008 to the tune of hundreds of billions in taxpayer money. Who is really parasitic in the fiscal structure that redistributes wealth from the bottom up, corporations and the top ten percent of income earners or the bottom one-third of the population receiving entitlement benefits?
Part of the objection about entitlements is rooted in racism and xenophobia because of sterotypes that politicians and media have inculcated into the public.
The assumption that the media and rightwing politicians reinforce is that recipients are black, illegal Hispanics, and lazy white single mothers in a trailer park. The stereotypes are deeply ingrained in the public mind for decades because the mainstream institutions project such an image to justify transferring resources to defense and corporations. The reality is that the capitalist system is based on structural unemployment because of the process of appropriation and overproduction on a global scale. Politicians, business people, the media and many academics from universities to consulting firms and think tanks agree that “full employment is between 4% and 5%” -this is the official rate not the unofficial that is much higher, and it does not take into account part-time work. There is general agreement that a segment of the “potential workforce” must be outside the “active labor force” on a chronic basis for the “health” – profitability – of the market economy to keep wages low.
Of course, one way to deal with the chronically unemployed is to put them in work house or prison and force them to work for a room and board inside these institutions, something that many rightwing elements would love as they romanticize about treatment of workers during the early Industrial Revolution in Europe. In 1834, the British Parliament passed the New Poor Law that prohibited relief to any person refusing to enter into a workhouse that were essentially for profit operations based on slave labor conditions. This is one way to deal with the issue today amid globalization and neoliberal policies that dominate not just in the US but globally.
Savings can be realized from putting the chronically unemployed in institutions, and proceeds could be put to use for more defense spending so the US could better prepare itself to win wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as score major victories in covert operations such as Syria and Libya where US intervention produced even more jihadist guerrilla movements. Some of the savings could also go to subsidize the largest banks and corporations in a show of gratitude for taking their profits estimated at $2 trillion out of the country so they would avoid paying taxes.
Republican politicians and the media are constantly reminding people that poverty is a cultural problem caused by the individual’s character flaws rather than the capitalist system that assumes structural unemployment at 5% is “full employment”. When we eliminate the people unable to work because they are old, or unable because of disabilities, or they have children to raise this leaves a percentage of able-bodied people who could work at minimum wage of around $15,000 annually or roughly $4,000 lower than the poverty line which varies from New York to rural Mississippi. Ironically, critics of entitlements are also the advocates of not raising or even eliminating the minimum wage so that more people would live below poverty in unhealthy and hazardous conditions.
It is true that some people on welfare object to accepting work that pays lower than entitlement benefits including health care coverage. By contrast, Illegal immigrants have no choice and they take such jobs because they will live in groups and share expenses for everything. The 11 million undocumented workers in America are doing just about anything they can from hard construction work in all kinds of weather conditions to farm field work not because they enjoy it and they can make a decent living at it, but because the alternative is to return home or die here.
There are studies indicating that undocumented workers add about 10% of the GDP over the course of a decade. This is in sharp contrast to the rightwing populist rhetoric that undocumented workers are “taking” instead of making more wealth. The clear beneficiaries of this are businesses whose profits remain high because illegal workers are taking jobs that pay at or below legal minimum wage. Instead of striving to raise their wages to legal levels, rightwing politicians and the media use the example of the undocumented workers to lower wages for the rest of the labor force.
The fact that undocumented workers accept very low pay as a reflection of how employers exploit them can become a model for labor-management relations as many neoliberal advocates of both political parties and the right media would like. However, it is important to remember that when the 2008 recession exploded, many were saying how great it was that the US has a social safety net – unlike the 1930s – and the impact would not be as badly felt by society. The most ironic aspect about the debate on minimum wage is that wealthy politicians voting for tax breaks to businesses and the upper income groups are advocating maintaining the existing low-wages that have one-third of the population qualified for an entitlement program. These same critics would never argue in favor of capping executive salaries and compensation amounting to 400 times higher than the average wage.
In the last analysis this is an issue of what kind of society people want as measured by a social contract based on a modicum of social justice. Looking at the growing income gap in the US in the last four decades, there is no doubt that social justice is virtually eliminated from any political debate. Human security issue that politicians, media, business, and academics rarely raise, while they have no problem emphasizing criminal justice and national security with the “war on terror” at the monumental distraction from issues that matter in peoples’ daily lives.
5) Illegal immigration has been an historic problem in American since the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty. Back in the 1950’s the American economy was booming and in great shape with an unrestrained border and illegal immigration did not seem to be much of an issue as today. What is sinking the economy more into a sinkhole, the US citizens who are exploiting the welfare state or illegal immigrants who don’t pay taxes but do work to help market production rise?
JVK: Undocumented workers are not so much an issue about economics but rightwing populist and often racist politics. Throughout history immigrant labor had very solid benefits to the US economy and society and informed critics know this to be the case. Nevertheless, politicians and the media present the immigrant issue as a problem in the economy, though after 9/11 they link it to terrorism. Some rightwing analysts link undocumented workers who are nothing more than economic refugees to security and by implication terrorism, although there is no empirical evidence of such linkage. The following excerpt is typical of how rightwing analysts are using terrorism to instill fear in politicians and the public when it comes to undocumented workers.
“They (illegal aliens) also take away value by weakening the legal and national security environment. Even though they pose no direct security threat, the presence of millions of undocumented migrants distorts the law, distracts resources, and effectively creates a cover for terrorists and criminals. In other words, the real problem presented by illegal immigration is security, not the supposed threat to the economy.” (Tim Kane and K. A. Johnson, The Heritage Foundation). The linkage between terrorism and undocumented workers is as absurd as the one that undocumented workers are a destructive force in the economy; they sponge off the welfare system, pay no taxes, spread diseases, and commit crimes. Critics of immigration policy are driven by ideology, xenophobia and racism. Above all, they are hypocrites because they would never advance the same arguments in case of illegal immigrants is they came from northwest Europe.
Immigration has political, social, racial/ethnic, and cultural dimensions and it has been around since the founding of the Republic. John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to limit the rights of immigrants because the Federalists in power viewed immigrants as part of the popular base of Thomas Jefferson who supported the French Revolution at the time. Half a century later the “Know Nothing” movement revived the “ethnic purity” argument in a country that was predominantly Anglo-Saxon but clearly one of immigrants, with African slaves and American native population whose lands were colonized. Coinciding with the Spanish-American War (1998), once again the anti-immigration elements organized against Asians resulting in the limitation of Chinese immigrants. This too was a reaction to the depression of the 1890s and the search to find a scapegoat for structural problems in the US economy.
Besides the government, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) vehemently opposed immigration on ethnic, racial and cultural basis. The AFL arguments notwithstanding about immigrants contaminating American “purity”, the status quo labor union wanted to preserve its monopoly in the field and opposed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW founded 1905) that immigrants supported. The anarcho-syndicalist IWW trying to organize low-paid workers posed a threat to the pro-capitalist AFL whose labor base was the high-paid labor force made up of ‘natives’ (second and third generation immigrants) rather than recent immigrants. The opposition to immigrants, therefore, came not only from politically, religiously, ethnically “purist” groups but also from the largest organized labor group seeking to protect its monopoly in society. Opportunistic politicians took advantage of the conflict between the IWW advocating class struggle and AFL advocating class collaboration. Woodrow Wilson co-opted the AFL during WWI and Democrat politicians recognized the importance of having a segment of the labor movement on their side.
Not just in the US, but in Europe and Australia, politicians have been hammering to secure votes from an increasingly skeptical public about the underlying causes of social and economic problems that they attribute to illegal immigrants that organized labor also opposes. Xenophobia and racism are not the exclusive domain of the ultra-right wing elements that make no secret of their views about non-white Protestant Anglo Saxons, but even of moderates who yield to populist rhetoric about undocumented workers as the root of all economic and social problems.
In recent years, Mexicans are the targets of those raising the American flag against illegal immigration polluting the “purity” of American society. The ethno-centric views of those opposed to immigrants from Mexico and Latin America revolve around ethnicity, religion, and culture and have historical roots. The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty (1848) ended the war that the US had declared against Mexico depriving it of all its territory north of the Rio Grande River and California. The Mexican population estimated at 80,000 in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona accepted US citizenship. However, land belonging to Mexican families transferred hands in the course of the war. The citizenship rights of Mexicans did not result in retention of their ancestral lands for the most part, causing friction also because this sent a signal they were second-class citizens as far as US government and courts were concerned, and treated accordingly in a society of high levels of racial/ethnic stratification before the Civil Rights movement.
During the Great Depression, the Mexican community suffered “pogrom-style raids”, while the US government forced more than 500,000 people, 60% of them US citizens, back to Mexico. Stereotypical racist images of Hispanics in American popular culture as lazy, criminal-oriented, trouble-makers that cause chaos in communities reinforced the racist tendencies among xenophobes. This meant that Hispanics were invariably on the fringes of the institutional mainstream, excluded from jury-duty in Texas before 1954 (Supreme Court case: Hernandez vs. Texas) and suffering the indignities such as store signs that read” “No dogs no Mexicans”.
During the expansionary cycle of the US economy in the 1950s and 1960s, the issue of immigration in general did not receive center stage in political debates, except at the cultural level where stereotypical images remained in the dominant culture about non-white minorities. The Civil Rights movement addressed some of these issues, but this affected mostly the middle class minorities as much in the Hispanic as in the black community. Because there was demand for workers to fill positions in the primary and secondary sectors of production, the political class and media did not emphasize immigration to the degree in the 1960s and 1970s as they did after Reagan came to the White House and the ideological and political climate moved sharply to the right. The undocumented workers issue remained at the core of US politics, especially under Reagan who fought against Civil Rights and workers’ rights. An enthusiastic supporter of agri-business in California where Hispanics were trying to earn a living wage with the help of Cesar Chavez, Reagan sent the signal to society that mainstream white Protestant America must be maintained against any encroachments from outsiders at a time that the US was engaged in counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
During the second Clinton administration, the government recognized the legitimate rights of Mexicans, but the legacy of ethnocentrism and the mindset of Manifest Destiny that prevailed in the 1840s have assumed new forms in the early 21st century. This is evident not just by the manner that Republican presidential candidate Trump described Mexicans, but actually the entire society according to public opinion polls. While 50% women claimed they felt discriminated and 52% of blacks, the percentage for Hispanics are at 61% with 81% claiming to have suffered some form of discrimination.
Attitudes of the public changed regarding immigration from the time the US passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 when 1% deemed this the most important issue to 2014 when about one-third of Americans saw immigration as a threat to the American way of life and values; whatever this means, considering the heterogeneous nature of American society and the rightwing propaganda of linking non-white immigration with “domestic security”.
Despite the massive rightwing propaganda the media spews daily and politicians reinforce, the majority of the people believe immigrants strengthen the economy and society. However, from 2000 to 2015, the convergence of three developments changed attitudes toward immigration among an increasingly skeptical public that wants to blame some tangible entity for problems facing the country. a) the war on terror that provided a political impetus to the xenophobes and rightwing elements; b) the deep recession of 2008; and c) the election of a black president that many white conservatives associate with diluting “American purity”.
It is not at all surprising considering that the media and politicians are constantly pointing to undocumented workers as America’s problem, as though if immigrants disappeared America would magically reclaim its glory of the 1950s. Arizona passed legislation forcing out undocumented workers and authorizing police to check the citizenship of people they suspect are illegal aliens. Politicians and other fear-mongers have been talking about erecting a wall to keep out Hispanics and terrorists along the US-Mexico border of roughly 1100 kilometers at the cost of billions to the taxpayers. This association of linking Mexico-US border security with terrorists is unmitigated fear mongering projected on to the public that has difficulty differentiating what is the role of the immigrant because of the way the rightwing media bundles the two completely separate issues.
Republican presidential candidate Trump opportunistically used the xenophobia issue to bring popular support to his campaign. “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” The Trump xenophobic rhetoric actually achieved his political goal because it reflects two-thirds of the sentiment among Republicans and one-third among Independents and Democrats, according to the latest public opinion poll on immigration. A poll taken in 2011when the recession was still a reality revealed that the majority of Americans opposed not just immigrants but their children from attending public school and receiving any type of assistance to attend college.
Considering that the demographics of American society are changing and that Hispanics will be the largest minority group by the middle of the 21st century, there seems to be a divergence between this reality on the one hand, and the anachronistic racist attitudes of politicians and the media on the other. The question is why the political and socioeconomic elites stress this issue when they know very well that the country’s economic and political future is changing very rapidly owing in part to demographics. Whereas in 1960, Hispanics accounted for 3.5% of the US population and whites for 85%,it is estimated that in 2050 whites will account for 47% and Hispanics for 29%. Hispanics will have the potential to determine national elections, assuming the US will remain a representative democracy.
Fear of losing their privileged status and possibly political power has driven a segment of the majority voters toward xenophobia amid the war on terror. Stereotypical images of immigrants persist because the dominant white Protestant Anglo-Saxon culture perpetuates them in order to preserve the political economy and social structure that will be changing more rapidly in the 21st century. This is a classic case of old white northwest European immigrants opposing the new immigrants of color from Latin America, Asia and Africa. This is an issue of legitimacy that whites give themselves but exclude others as though an open pluralistic society is a private country club.
Right wing elements in politics, the media, and think tanks like Heritage Foundation use immigration as a distraction from the real cause of the growing socioeconomic inequality that has to do with neoliberal policies and military-solution-oriented foreign policy both the Democrats and Republicans support. Another dimension is that American culture is immersed in a long history of racism and xenophobia and the white majority fears that society is becoming more multicultural than ever. Instead of seeing cultural diffusion as a positive development enriching society in every respect, there are those who cling on to illusions of Anglo-Saxon Protestant “purity”, once an illusion of the Ku Klux Klan, now prevalent among otherwise” respectable” rightwing elements raising the American flag high against foreigners and terrorists.
This issue is not going away any time soon for two reasons. First, the US will continue drifting down the road of militarism regardless of costs to the economy in order to maintain its global leverage. Militarism will translate into greater xenophobia and right wing domestic attitudes if not hostile policies toward new immigrants. The second reason this will remain an issue in the political arena is because the next recession will revive calls to close the borders. This is what has taken place throughout American history from the 19th century to the present and it will continue as it does in Europe and Australia.
6) A lot Americans complain about the lack of opportunities to succeed, but is this really true? Many immigrants that come from third world countries start in low income areas and eventually climb the pyramid and end up living in better neighborhoods and have better education. Are Americans really taking advantage of the opportunities, or are they really insufficient opportunities to grow in the US free market?
America has always been described as “the Land of Opportunity”, but does it live up to its reputation on a sustained basis? There are certainly opportunities during the expansionary cycles in the economy, but even those appear to have limitations in the last forty years. From the end of the Vietnam War until the present diminished opportunities exist because the US economy has shifted from manufacturing to service-oriented, accelerating with advent of China as the world’s manufacturing center and the relocation of company operations in all fields to India, Brazil, Ireland, and other parts of the world.
Capitalism has always been an international system with capital going it will realize the highest returns rather than maintaining loyalty to a nation-state. The international nature of capital with the opening of China’s economy as well as the downfall of the Soviet bloc simply created more investment markets while driving wages lower for the US middle class and blue collar workers. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that the US economy lost 20 million jobs by the end of 2009 as a result of the recession of 2008, while more than 170,000 small businesses closed in the first two years of the recession.
There is no shortage of part time and low-wage jobs, while the full time and well-paying jobs are few. The creation of “contract workers” is one phenomenon of the new globalized economy operating under neoliberal policies. This is as much a reality in the US as it is in many countries around the world because multinational corporations figured a way around permanent full time work that entails greater profits. The new economy based on “contract workers” (rent-a-worker just like you rent a car) keeps employer production costs low, while the employee lacks jobs security, rights otherwise accorded to full time workers, and often has no benefits such as health care. In essence, this means that companies shift the burden of health care costs to the employee and the state subsidizing the employee. In the 1980s, there were just 05% of contract workers, while in 2014 the number had risen to 2.3%. Even more significant, this is a trend that will grow, considering more employers are using this option along with part-time workers.
Instead of examining the new labor conditions in the marketplace and new labor-management relations, politicians, the media, and rightwing consultants blame workers for failing to retrain and take advantage of the changing market conditions. There are studies indicating that immigrants will accept jobs that “natives” whether in the US, Europe, Australia or Canada will not take. Studies also show that immigrants tend to do better with upward mobility despite structural obstacles than “natives” for a combination of reasons ranging from the psychology of an immigrant to willingness to accept harder jobs and more than one.
The upward mobility of immigrants phenomenon doing better than “natives” pertains more to the second generation immigrants and not so much to first generation that encounter problems integrating fully into society. One explanation for the immigrants tending to grab at any opportunity and crave upward mobility is their fear of finding ahead of them what they left behind in the old country. The spirit of competition is much higher because they are outsiders whose psychology is very different than that of the native population. In fact, the American Dream has a much greater appeal to the immigrant worker than it does to the college student who has doubts about the institutional system delivering what politicians and the media advertise.
While the immigrant aims toward integration into the institutional mainstream, a segment of the native population regards it with suspicion. All immigrants, including black immigrants who know the history of racism in America, are actually driven by the same sense of excelling through conformity whereas the same people would not do as much in their own countries. However, as the chart below indicates, recent and long-term immigrants lag far behind the native population in every respect from housing ownership to income. The same holds true for Hispanics, who actually lag even more than the overall US immigrant population according to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies.
Source: Center for Immigration Studies
In comparison with the socioeconomic conditions of immigrants, the economic and social situation of much of the African-American population is bad, and in many respects deteriorated since 1980, especially with regard to black male youth employment opportunities. Conservative and liberal analysts alike argue that the fault does not necessarily rest with a system in which immigrants seem to be doing fairly well, but with the African-Americans. After all, there is a black middle class and the US elected a black president twice. Therefore, there is no discriminatory institutional structure but individual responsibility for failure to succeed. There are consultants and inspirational gurus trying to tell people that a positive state of mind is all it takes to become successful. These people stress the values of individualism and never raise the issue of structures as catalytic in the life of the individual who must persevere over any obstacle society presents within legal means.
The US government, businesses and educational institutions have moved toward a broader definition of meritocracy since the Civil Rights movements by introducing Affirmative Action in education and hiring practices to even the playing field between the majority and minority populations. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 ordering that government “not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin” and “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” Conservatives, especially during the Reagan presidency, argued that affirmative action was a form of quotas for minorities, disregarding the long history of quotas for white males only in an institutional structure favoring white males to the exclusion of all others.
Affirmative Action simply extended the 18th century meritocracy ideal to women and minorities, but within these groups impacting largely the middle class and not the poor. After all, the concept of meritocracy was a bourgeois ideal and created for the middle class trying to insert itself into the political and business mainstream commensurate with its contributions to society, as far as 18th century Enlightenment thinkers were concerned. Kennedy and those favoring affirmative action simply extended the old bourgeois concept pertaining to white males only to the rest of the middle class population to reflect the realities of a diverse society that minority populations enriched with their contributions.
Diversity in an open society seems logical, except when it threatens the white male majority. How does one measure merit except in standardized tests and grades in school? The white meritocracy argument used against blacks and Hispanics has run into contradictions when it comes to Asians scoring much higher than whites in standardized tests and especially in math and science. Although American society is becoming more diverse demographically, the right wing politicians, think tanks, media have used the courts and the Supreme Court to fight against what they label “reverse discrimination”. This is because they see with great clarity the majority white population losing ground largely because of demographic changes and the only way to preserve privileges accorded on racial/.ethnic grounds is to fight in the courts where white male judges are skeptical about affirmative action trying to correct white “sins of the past”.
Even with the progress that women and minorities have made under affirmative action, the reality is that class transcends gender, race and ethnicity. This is the reason for the concessions to the middle class Hispanics, women, blacks, and other minorities. The American economy reached its peak in the second half of the 1940s when the economies of the entire world were in shambles. While there was growth in the 1950s and upward socioeconomic mobility continued until the end of the Vietnam War, opportunities became fewer and the long decline set in as a permanent feature. In 2015, the IMF declared that China is the world’s largest economy if measured in PPP terms, and likely to continue rising to overtake the US at some point later in the century. China’s economic rise is as certain as the decline of the US. This limits opportunities for the majority of Americans. The result will be that politicians will continue to distract the public by blaming the individual and minority groups, terrorism and foreign enemies rather than the domestic political economy as the root cause of the problem.
7) Has the US become such a materialist society that even the people without qualifications think of the American Dream as a quick stage of success without working hard to achieve its goal? Is materialism and laziness in America intertwined, in other words, living the credit life without earning hard cash?
JVK: Some scholars believe that the US is the most materialistic society in history. The Papacy under the current and previous pope has criticized the US for its devotion to material possessions and its general orientation toward wealth accumulation and hedonistic lifestyle. Despite public opinion polls indicating a large percentage of Americans believing God, there is an apparent absence toward spiritual matters in a society where wealth is the measure of all things and where collectivism and collectivist endeavors are absent from the social fabric.
Everything from personal happiness to religious and secular holidays is measured in terms of materialism as much as is the American Dream. There is even an underlying assumption that there is a direct correlation between wealth and intelligence, wealth and character, wealth and success, wealth and power, wealth and patriotism. Regardless of whether wealth was acquired through creative endeavors and diligence, through inheritance or illegal activities, popular culture and the media project the image that the wealth of an individual is somehow a manifestation of positive innate traits.
While many positive attributes can be assigned to the wealthy, a commitment to social justice is not one of them, although some try to include this as well by arguing philanthropy by the rich is indicative they are committed to social justice. Never mind the manner by which wealth was acquired and maintained in the first, place as long as some of it makes its way back to the “riffraff of society” on whom the wealthy take pity.
Given these assumptions about the correlation between wealth and intelligence and all other positive character traits, it is easy to understand why “American Exceptionalism” would take hold in the political culture. After all, America has been the world’s wealthiest nation in absolute terms since the Second World War, thus it must be the country with the most intelligent, judicious, diligent, ethical, and patriotic people. This implication is that traditional collectivist societies in non-Western areas must be less diligent and less ambitious as far removed from the American Protestant work ethic as possible, therefore they pay the price of lower living standards than the US.
The assumption that the Protestant work ethic made America great and it is a reflection of its economic superiority also assumes intellectual and moral superiority and a connection to “happiness”. If the US is losing its global preeminence and the American Dream is elusive for more and more people, there must be something wrong with the generation ignoring the Protest work ethic as the key to success. Is there a crisis in the Protestant work ethic in 21st century and the values on which America laid the foundations for world economic status in the 19th century or is there a structural problem in the political economy and society? Conservatives who believe that the social welfare state has diluted traditional values to the detriment of productivity conclude that the fault does not rest with capitalism developing irresolvable contradictions under globalization and neoliberal policies, but cynical less diligent and less ambitious people refusing to adhere to the Protestant work ethic.
Never mind that the US economy is structurally driven by consumer demand on which corporate quarterly reports depend for stock performance. Whereas the consumer demand as a percent of GDP was just below 62% in the 1960s, it rose to 70% in the first decade of the 21st century; Interestingly, for the corresponding decades in Canada the percentages were 56 and 58 respectively, representing a drop of 2% rather an increase of 10% as in the US. The American marketing machine constantly pushes people toward consumerism while the entire culture is based on it. If shoppers stop worshipping at the mall, the US economy will lapse into recession. On the surface of it and in the short-term this may seem just great for quarterly corporate profits. However, longer term it poses a serious problem for a consumption-oriented society with a large service sector that is parasitic – recycling existing money through Wall Street and main street consulting and others that offer nothing to raise productivity.
In comparison with defense/domestic security allocations, the US has very low levels of investment in infrastructure, especially mass transportation, schools, public parks, and facilities for pre-school, the elderly and mentally ill – human security-based economy that is also labor-intensive instead of just capital intensive. The focus is on consumption, and increasingly on high-tech workforce that makes society less labor-intensive without generating new productivity fields for good-paying fulltime jobs. In other words, the nature of the high-tech capitalist economy is creating its own contradictions and seeds of its self-destruction because the neoliberal ideology encourages individual capitalists to pursue their individual interest that invariably run up against obstacles of the capitalism as a system with inherent distortions owing to inter-sector competition collective overproduction, etc.
America’s dominant culture and value system rest on the “who wants to be a millionaire” mindset that many people associate with American democracy. Does consumer democracy and millionaire hero-worship by the media and popular culture accounts for the attitudes of the “millennial generation”, or is there more to it than this? There are public opinion polls indicating the post-1990s generation is indeed much more materialistic and less interested in hard work than their parents growing up during the Vietnam War. But who exactly influenced the values of the ‘millennial generation’, if not their parents and society as a whole becoming more materialistic during the Vietnam era, despite the civil rights, women’s and anti-war and anti-materialism movements – all of which were eventually set aside for the American Dream.
Is the value system based on worship of material objects and Hollywood-style entertainment lifestyle the root cause of indoctrinating the “millennial generation”, or have their Vietnam War era parents and teachers spoiled the new generation because the previous generation was really not much different below the surface of civil rights and environmentalism as a cause to fill the void that materialism cannot fill? Consumption values are at the core of contemporary American culture because the mass media, businesses and politicians equate such values with freedom and democracy. Citizen identity with the nation-state during the age of romanticism in the era of literary figure Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1840s was replaced with consumption values prevailing during the Age of Materialism in the late 19th century.
The idealism imbedded in American nationalism that can be seen by the time of Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville had been replaced with the age of advertising focused on propagating “wants and needs” of the growing middle class during the era that Mark Twain called Gilded Age (last three decades of the 19th century). The legacy of the Gilded Age remains deeply imbedded in American culture because it serves the privileged interests of the socioeconomic elites. Some scholars argue that the US as a pluralistic heterogeneous society without a common majority religion or a homogeneous ethnic group shares the common goal of work to acquire wealth, which is the reason most immigrants came here.
Historically, in all societies the life of leisure and materialism has always been associated with the upper classes. Certainly the aristocracy of ancient Athens and Rome enjoyed the material fruits of life while their slaves worked. In the 19th century China and Russia, peasants were no more immersed in materialism and leisure any more than American slaves, small farmers and workers. Even the Catholic Church claiming to represent all things spiritual was immersed in the life of materialism and leisure linked with the upper clergy that had much more in common with the European nobility than the devoutly religious serfs and peasants. In other words, materialism and leisure has always been part of the lifestyle of the secular and spiritual elites, while the masses merely aspire to such things but never achieve them.
A product of the Age of Reason and the birth of bourgeois liberal democracy, the US democratized the material lifestyle, promising it was theoretically possible for anyone to have access to it, minus Native Americans and black slaves. The American Dream promises the “potential” of the lifestyle and possessions of the elites provided the masses adhere to the Protestant work ethic of hard work and discipline that the elites presumably follow. The assumption is that everyone wants to acquire this dream of materialism that includes: a) owning a home, b) car, c) college for the kids, d) a private retirement fund and a savings account, e) health care, and f) family vacations. If you do not have these six things, you too are in the shrinking “debtor middle class” according to the definition of the US government and mainstream institutions. But even if you have all six of the above, it is simply not enough because you are not an internet billionaire.
Why not have a bigger and better house and car; why not more money and more luxurious vacations; why not more of everything because more means you are more intelligent, ambitious, superior to the wretched masses dying a slow horrible death while you feel like you will live forever because you possess more than most? If the rich and famous have more of everything, why can’t the millennial generation join in? If liquidity shortage is the problem, just charge the American Dream and worry about paying it off later. These prevailing attitudes existed in American society but were largely among the middle class until the Reagan administration propagated the myth that in the country closely adheres to neoliberal policies than everyone can have what the rich people have. Through the trickle-down economics process of the rich having more and their wealth will trickle down to the cleaning lady and the dishwater at the local restaurant will mean everyone can enjoy the American Dream.
Materialism skyrocketed in the late 1980s early 1990s under the Reagan-Bush conservative presidencies. This continued under Democrat President Clinton during the internet and cell phone revolution in the last decade of the 20th century. According to a recent public opinion polls, about two-thirds of young people 25 years of age and under expressed desire to be very wealthy, but 39% of them admitted they did not want to work hard to achieve wealth. These statistics represent a rise in materialism and desire for leisure in comparison with similar surveys conducted when Jimmy Carter was president. How do people then acquire the American Dream without much effort? They simply charge it with the blessing of the banks and companies offering credit cards to shop. Who bails out these corporate giants when they have a liquidity crisis because of bad loans? The taxpayers of course to the detriment of lower living standards for future generations that must consume less and produce more!
Coming to office amid the deep recession erupting in 2008, the Obama administration expressed concern that the American Dream is fading because the credit middle class is weakening, a point many Democrats and even some Republicans concede. Because the “middle class dream” (synonymous with the American Dream) is fading fast, the Obama administration had a task force operating on the assumption that everyone wants the American Dream, but cannot have it because of the low wage rates and high cost of living.
Effective demand is limited by the earning power of workers and the middle class in the post-credit crisis of 2008 has experienced sharply reduced personal wealth (drop in real estate values, private pensions, and stock portfolios). The illusory middle class “wealth effect” will remain low and accumulated surplus capital high, thus keeping the world economy under limited growth prospects for a long time. Given existing conditions in the advanced capitalist countries, what impact will they have on the social order and specifically the “millennial generation” that expects a lot more than the neoliberal economy is able to deliver? The individual’s “real worth” is “creditworthiness” bundled as part of net worth completely unrelated to the humanity and compassion of that individual, devoid of that person’s creativity. This materialistic definition affords the illusion to a large percentage of people that they are part of capitalism’s success when they are in fact victims of debt beneath the veil of credit.
As proletarization of the middle class becomes more apparent, the current global crisis will evolve into a middle class crisis of alienation, stratification, and erratic class/status identity. A more acceptable solution for US government and mainstream institutions is: a) find another job to supplement existing income, b) work harder to secure higher wages, c) plan and invest better and pray for lcuk, d) return to school for more education or re-training; and e) wait for “lady luck” to ring your doorbell because having conformed to the Calvinist work ethic is just not enough! If indeed the assumptions of the US government (and the entire mainstream institutional structure) that “securing a middle class” is the key the American Dream, how do we explain US public opinion polls indicating that the “happiness” level (granted the obvious difficulty of quantifying it), has been under 50% and steadily declining since 1970, despite enjoying the world’s highest GDP?
Is the current culture of heightened consumerism a reflection of the decline in spiritual orientation as people identify happiness with possessions? It is true that the entire world views the US as the Mecca of capitalism, materialism and hedonism. It is just as true that is the image the US projects of itself by its behavior in daily life, in its popular culture, books and magazines TV and motion pictures, country fairs to trade fairs, schools to sports, all placing materialism and hedonism above all else. Americans living in a modern secular society where science and technology promise to deliver all solutions to problems cannot possibly take religion as seriously as their European ancestors did during the Middle Ages when the Church was the last resort for human happiness. Nor is escaping to religion and spiritualism address fundamental social justice problems any more in America than any other country.
The value system is largely economically-determined in 21st century America as it was in 15th century Europe amid the plague. When German theologian and university professor Martin Luther was a teenager in the late 15th century, society was surrounded by churches and monasteries. Like all others, young Luther worshipped for the salvation of his soul because eternal spiritual life mattered much more than temporary material life. Teenagers in contemporary America spend a good deal of their day worshipping via cell phones, laptops and electronic devices connecting them to a virtual material world. Corporations producing and marketing modern techno-devices promise society that they need nothing else in life to be complete and happy. These techno-devices will do everything from online banking and shopping to online virtual human contact. Whereas spiritual convictions and religious worship are free, worshipping at the mall costs money. Will there be a rebellion against the corporate and political hierarchy in the 21st century as there was in the early 16th century in Germany that Luther inspired against the hypocritical ecclesiastical hierarchy?
8) For the past few years, Liberal mainstream media seems to have aggressively started an ethic campaign to show white on black racism (mostly police enforcement) but gone silent to shown opposite racial bait. But things are not looking good because many social media have started to show increasing black on white and/or Asian crime which has infuriated a lot of people. Is this fomenting great racial tension in the US? Who’s fault is it?
JVK: Crime in America as an academic topic would require volumes to explain because it has to do as much with the political economy, social structure, race and ethnic relations, and culture of violence imbedded in gun ownership that conservatives and the gun lobby support. Crime is the violation of social norms legalized by government that legislates on the basis of established social interests. The broader concept of justice is associated with protection under a legal system that guarantees due process in a modern pluralistic society. Where the US falls into this category as an open society, it is a country with capital punishment that many advanced countries have abolished, and a country with very high crime and prison rates that impact primarily minority communities.
While the US is a leader in political correctness when it comes to dealing with government and business, the same standard does not hold true when it comes to the domain of crime. The media, politicians, and analysts liberally use class, ethnocentric and racist assumptions to stigmatize not just people committing crimes but entire social groups. The same stereotypes and stigmas are not used when wealthy white people commit crimes regardless of their nature. Therefore, the criminal justice system is a reflection of society at large and it reveals a great deal of the level of social justice.
The origins of the modern criminal justice system rooted in a rational, some would argue scientific mode is 18th century Europe. With Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments (1764), Christian-based assumptions about criminal behavior and the criminal justice system began to change largely because of the advent of economic expansion and the First Industrial Revolution in England. Industrialization created large urban centers with working class and poor populations unable to sustain themselves and yielding to petty crimes as a way of survival. This is something that social scientist Henry Mayhew described in London Labour and London Poor in the 1840s amid controversies about the manner that the state dealt with the poor that became criminals.
Before the Enlightenment of which Beccaria was a part, crime was a sin and a reflection that the criminal was on the side of the devil instead of God. The good-evil Christian dichotomy was the basis on which crime was judged, including crimes of witches, Jews, gypsies, and even animals in many cases. Demonizing crime meant harsh punishment for sinners and unbelievers that defied the Christian Church and political establishment. Discounting for the mentally unstable, Beccaria argued that society, not the devil, creates criminals who defy the social contract because it marginalizes them. In other words, Becacaria applied the views of philosopher John Locke that human beings are products of their environment to the domain of crime and punishment. The conclusion was the denial of innate criminal traits and affirmation that society shapes human behavior.
The goal of the criminal justice system is to impose modes of conduct by legislators crafting laws and benefiting from the dominant social class against those that have no stake in the social contract because it is rooted in social injustice. The dominant social class has always used the legal system to maintain and preserve its privileged role against the majority outside the realm of privilege. Whether in the era of Beccaria or today, the lower social classes are associated with crime because the institutional structure marginalizes them and they have no stake in something that precludes them from participating in a social contract equitably. This is the case with minority groups and the poor today as much in the US as any other country around the world. Nevertheless, the media chooses to represent crime on the basis of innate character flaws not only of individuals but of social class, race and ethnicity. This is closer to the pre-Enlightenment dogmatic good-evil dichotomy than to the Beccaria model of crime and punishment. The manner that the media and politicians present crime has political goals because the issue is then used to keep society distracted from the injustices of the social contract designed to maintain a privileged order, namely the top tiered socioeconomic groups that the law and political system protects.
Media “race baiting” is as old as the Civil Right movement on the part of racists who insist they are merely speaking the truth in order to inform. To distract the focus of the public from the underlying causes of poverty and institutional racism that causes crimes in minority communities, the media looks superficially at the symptoms of criminal activities of individuals to discredit the entire minority population. When a white male guns down black people in a South Carolina church, it is the act of a lone gunman, a mentally unstable person who does not represent the majority population despite the nature of the hate crime. Although the crime was committed for blatant racist reasons that a segment of whites share political correctness and legal/societal conformity prevents them from expressing their views directly. Instead of analyzing this issue, the race-baiting rightwing media refuses to address the larger institutional problem that gives rise to such crimes.
When black youths are gunned down in cold blood by white cops, the media and analysts immediately rush to defend the murderers instead of the victim. This is done in the name of law and order implying that blacks are presumed guilty with tendencies toward violence, defiance of police authority and civil disobedience. Moreover, the race-baiting media focuses on black-on-black crime, on black-on-Hispanic and black-on-Asian crime. For example, the San Francisco media focuses on black-on-Asian crime, but rarely covers white collar crime or does so with the same criteria as blue-collar crime, especially when it pertains to minority-on-minority crime. This is also reflected in the black-white conviction disparity that is 10 to 1, although the black population in the city accounts for only 6% of the total.
Race-baiting has also targeted Obama who is black has not done anything about crime in minority communities, while the core issue of cultural and institutional racism with long and deep historical roots is never raised. Race baiting serves the political agenda of the institutional structure in deflecting focus from the racist culture and class struggle of which blacks are an integral part and suffering discrimination at all levels. This is a way of placing race issues at the center so that class issues are subordinated and people do not question the political economy and social structure. Dividing people in this manner is exactly what the European racist colonial masters did in Africa and it continues today in America at more subtle levels.
Crime becomes complex because arrests of blacks and Hispanics is at much higher level as the police have a presumption of guilt for minority groups that is not applicable to whites and especially to people based on higher social status. For specific areas of offences such as minor drug use for example, the statistics for black and white users about equal, but arrests and imprisonment of whites is tiny in comparison to blacks. Many critics, including European governments, have argued that imprisoning minorities in the US is a political decision. Nevertheless, the media projects the image the minority male is the criminal and the white majority the victim in a society where crime has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in every sector from books, newspapers, magazines, TV and motion pictures. In fact, local and national news programs routinely cover petty crime whereas they never cover the absence of social justice driving people to criminal conduct. This is in part because the US is hardly a democratic society but a quasi-authoritarian one ruled by the powerful influence of the wealthy, as Jimmy Carter recently pointed out.
At the very core of the enormous resources that the US and media spend on the crime issue is the goal of perpetuating the quasi-police state that converges with the war on terror. At the same time, it is a distraction from the underlying causes of crime that are socioeconomic, political, and cultural. The media promotes racism not only by what it chooses to cover selectively when it comes to crime, but the manner it presents white collar crime impacting the entire society vs. petty neighborhood crime impacting individuals and households as victims. The images of a cop arresting a black or Latino youth stealing, dealing drugs, running from the police is very dramatic and part of the culture of fear the media tries to inculcate into the public that crime is associated with minorities.
The media always differentiates between the white collar criminal defrauding investors and the government of hundreds of billions of dollar, and the petty thief stealing $100 from a 7-Eleven or breaking into a home to steal jewelry and cash. The white collar criminal banker involved in schemes to launder billions of dollars in drug money is excused as an isolated “bad apple” in the otherwise perfect system to which there is no alternative. The white collar criminal whose impact on the economy is immense may do a few years in a minimum security prison in a worst case scenario, and then come out to write a book about it and go on the lecture tour after becoming a consultant.
People shrug their shoulders when there are reports of money laundering, insider trading, monopolistic practices, manipulation of interest rates, etc. but they go ballistic when a Hispanic or black unemployed youth is caught breaking into a house stealing jewelry. This is not at all to trivialize any kind of crime or to excuse it. However, the media instills shock value and fear in the public mind about crime by minority youth. Meanwhile, the corrupt and illegal practices of the white corporate CEO are covered as part of “business news”. The minority or poor white youth stealing a hundred dollars from the 7-Eleven will do jail time, and if it is a second offense and a gun was used a long prison term awaits. This individual will become hardened inside the prison and then unable to find a place in mainstream society after his release.
The media, government and the justice system send a signal to society that crime pays very well when it is within the institutional framework involving Wall Street, banks and corporations defrauding consumers, investors and the government. According to the FBI, while blue-collar crime costs run about $15 billion annually, white-collar crime costs run at $300-600 billion. The figures are much higher according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. “ Costs (white-collar crime) are estimated for employee theft, cargo theft, health care fraud, consumer and personal fraud, insurance fraud, corporate tax fraud, computer-related and other high-tech crime, check fraud, counterfeiting, telecommunications fraud, credit and debit card fraud, corporate financial crime, money laundering, savings and loan fraud, coupon and rebate fraud, and arson for profit. Annual losses from the preceding white-collar crimes are estimated at $426 billion to $1.7 trillion.” (https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=167026)
Business crime is just an integral part of business and the media never stigmatizes the white majority as thief and mega-criminals damaging society in very significant ways that impact living standards. There has always been a correlation between social class and crime, just as there has been a correlation between race/ethnicity. The political system, the criminal justice system and the media reflect as much in their treatment of different crimes. For example, hate crimes in America, according to the FBI, are committed largely by whites. However, there is no stigma attached to the entire white majority for hate crimes rooted in race/ethnic/religious/gender prejudice. The reason is that the media attributes hate crimes to isolated cases whereas it refuses to do the same with minority petty crime or gun-violence crime involving narcotics.
Whereas the media covers black-on-white crime to prove that whites are the victims of an entire minority population suspect of criminal tendencies, white-on-black racist crime is covered as isolated incidents of disturbed individuals. In other words, the criminal mind of the white person has malfunctioned, while the criminal mind of the black person is a reflection of the entire black community at odds with the white majority and refusal to conform to white majority institutional law and order structure. In the absence of a structural change in the political system, there will never be a change in the criminal; justice system and media attitudes will continue to reflect the views of the political and socioeconomic elites whose crimes are the absence of social justice that gives rise to criminal conduct.
9) More than ever before crime has risen to worrisome levels. Gangs overflow many city districts with lack of good public education, and it’s an emerging threat to the nation’s future. The liberals blame the conservatives for the problems at bay, but who is more responsible in your opinion?
Crime is historically an issue around which conservative try to rally public support because they are interested in promoting a fear of culture that maintains social and political conformity. The real enemy of society is the petty criminal, the drug user, the gang member killing other gang members, but never the political economy and social structure that have created the conditions for these people to operate against the status quo. Not to minimize the “functionalist” theory of crime that sees the issue from the prism of lack of moral regulation (Durkheim), or the “control theory” that places all emphasis on control mechanisms to deter crime, but I stress conflict theory because it takes into account structural causes and conflict between social groups and power elites endeavoring to preserve their privileges. In addition, the case of crimes in America has the racial dimension that may not be as significant in a more homogeneous society.
Racial profiling is a reality of the American justice system all the way from the cop on the beat targeting minorities to the judges passing down prison terms. The so-called “war on drugs” was racially-based and motivated by the Reagan administration’s zeal to punish the poor. The result of this hysteria was the rise of non-violent offenders from a mere 50,000 when Reagan was elected to more than 400,000 by the end of the Clinton presidency. Not surprisingly, the people incarcerated were predominantly minorities, while drug use among middle class white America increased.
The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure in curbing drug use and drug-related crime because the US is a mere 4% of the world’s population but consumes about a quarter of the world’s drugs, and this is not the poor and minorities but the middle class whites. Therefore, the farce of the war on drugs has not made a dent in capturing the white wholesale drug suppliers, the white bankers laundering money, and the white officials accepting bribes to allow the multi-billion dollar drug trade to thrive.
Related to drug violence which has its roots in profits that benefit mainstream institutions we have gang violence that apparently impacts all US cities with a population of quarter of a million or higher and about 10% of rural areas for an estimated 25,000 gangs and three-quarter of a million youths involved in such activities. Because about half of gang members are Hispanic and one-third black, the media projects this as indicative of the breakdown in the morality of minority communities.
Looking the issue of crime from a conservative sociopolitical perspective, it becomes one of family values and the problem of the individual and family, and it has absolutely nothing to do with society as though individuals and families live in isolation of the institutional mainstream that shapes their lives. In other words, the fact that the mom and dad lost their jobs, or they are locked in low-paying jobs, kids go to inner city schools that are chronically underfunded are not variable in crime. The absence of investment in roads, parks recreational facilities in poor neighborhoods, all these are unrelated to gang violence as far as the apologists of the class-race justice system are concerned; the only thing that matters is that they are black or Hispanic with innate propensities toward violence.
Although gang violence costs society an estimated $100 billion annually, local, state and federal Government place all resources on punishment instead of addressing the fundamental causes of poverty that lead people to crime. This in part ideologically and politically motivated based on a conservative mindset that prevails in America about crime, and one associated with the Reagan administration. For social conservatives and a segment of the broader population criminal conduct is a flaw if not a sin of the individual rather than a structural byproduct of socioeconomic inequality and absence of social justice. This is a reflection of Christian fundamentalist influence in politics about the issue of crime.
The victims of crime are mostly the poor and minorities rather than white middle class, although the mass media and politicians present the image that such violence has the white middle class as its targeted victim. The American class-based criminal justice system is based on allowing multi-billion dollar corporations and the wealthy to go free when they commit crimes that cost society at large, while focusing on the neighborhood Hispanic gang member who shot a rival gang member after a drug deal went bad. Meanwhile the authorities are not tracking financial transactions through banks by wholesale drug traffickers, but instead focus on preventing the gang member from distributing in the ghetto where they live and die.
The Liberal-Conservative debate on better education to lessen gang violence is itself a distraction because both liberals and conservatives serve the same socioeconomic and political system and differ only on cultural issues and values pertaining to questions on gender, race, and ethnicity. Can the educational system fix a problem that is much wider in society? For example, no matter how great the school that a child attends, if conditions for his family and neighborhood are wretched because the parents’ socioeconomic status is very low, the ideas inculcated into the young mind of the student can only go so far before the reality of misery at home and the neighborhood kick in. Conservatives ever since the French Revolution believed that ideas shape the human mind to the exclusion of material conditions. History has proved them wrong, because people act out of necessity stemming from material conditions not ideas imbued with moral messages.
10) Recidivism in an “open society” A lot of these criminals after a few felonies windup in prison where they end up becoming worst when reinstated back to society. Does liberal democracy spawn the adequate environment for more criminals to thrive? And will it get worse?
There is something seriously wrong with the criminal justice system and society when three out of four prisoners in 30 states are arrested within five years of release. This suggests a problem with the integration of the ex-prisoner in society for a number of reasons. Prisoners regard the state penitentiary a university where they actually learn how to become better criminals from other inmates instead of reforming as is the presumed goal of the state penitentiary. Why are x-cons arrested so quickly and why so many in comparison with other countries around the world? Statistics indicate that about 40% arrested from drug violations, 38% for property offenses and the rest for violent crimes.
Excluded from many employment opportunities with any kind of good pay and prospects, ex-cons do not qualify for public housing, education loans, food stamps and even voting rights. This leaves crime the only avenue left open to survive, other than begging in the streets or taken in by a charitable relative or organization that is favorably inclined. All of this is well known to politicians, the media and academics criticizing the prisoner for failing to integrate, while excusing the system that preclude integration.
Conservatives blame liberal democracy for the levels of high crime in America compared with other industrialized countries that have a much lower crime rate and low prison population. The conservative argument is there is not sufficient punishment, that government is too lenient toward immigrants prone to crime, that minorities use civil rights laws to circumvent the law. Conservative politicians, the media, and various analysts from think tanks and academia are constantly reinforcing fears among the public about crime as ubiquitous in society to the degree that people fear of opening their door because a criminal will be waiting to steal from them. In fact, crime is confined largely to poor and minority neighborhoods that do not have electronic protection systems, police protection to the degree a wealthy middle class neighborhood does, and private security as well as neighborhood watch groups.
Conservatives and the media blame “liberal democracy” that is in fact non-existent considering that a quasi-police state is now in full swing in the US. In the post 9/11 political culture and legal environment, police state methods are justified in the name of law and order and in the name of national security. The convergence of local law and order and national security actually has its origins in the Cold War, but it has assumed entirely new dimension with Muslims as a target group in the 21st century replacing Communists that had the same honor in the 20th century. The ideology is the same, namely to crush dissent. People of color and Muslims are “natural” suspects not just by the police who profile them, but society that has its prejudices reinforced by the media, politicians and many academics.
How does the US differ from other advanced nations and how is similar to Third World authoritarian countries in the criminal justice domain? The US has more crime than industrialized countries, according to the OECD, and its criminal justice system is about as punitive as in many authoritarian countries. Comparing the US with Saudi Arabia, which has a very different culture and it is an authoritarian society, the US ranks very poorly in crime statistics except in the area of punishment that is about as strict. But what if we are to compare the US with Switzerland that is more democratic and certainly less militaristic than the US? As far as weapons ownership in private hands, in 2007 US just under 5% of the world’s population is estimated to own between 35 and 50% of the world’s guns. Switzerland ranks higher than the US as far as gun ownership.
Switzerland has a population of around 6 million and it seems that one-third is gun owners. If Switzerland has more weapons per capita than the US, how do we explain that it has a very low crime rate not according to US standards, but any standard in the world? Both countries are capitalist and have a bourgeois institutional structure. The only rational explanation for their differences is the deeply-rooted culture of violence in American history, militaristic foreign policy, the glorification of violence in a popular culture of atomism, the treatment of criminals and different criminal justice system, and the low priority for social justice that gives rise to crime.
Canada is right next door to the US with similar economy and social structure. However, whereas the US has a prison population rate of 700 per 100,000, Canada’s is 106, Germany 96 and India at 29. Are Canada, India, and Germany less democratic and less open societies than the US that has more than four times higher than the world average prison population? The policy emphasis in the US is on punishing harshly and not rehabilitation of ex-cons so they could reintegrate in society. These factors make it easier for high rates of recidivism. Whereas in Canada and UK burglary is punished about five to seven months, in the US it is three times higher. Although an estimated 1,600 are released daily (600,000 annually), they come out in the same systemic conditions – lack of jobs, affordable housing and social services – that brought to prison initially.
Crime in America and the criminal justice system will become much worse for a number of political, economic and social reasons. First, the political climate in America has been shifting toward the right ever since the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions of 1979. The Cold War was quickly replaced with the war on terror that created a convergence between national security and domestic security, justifying the quasi-police state methods applied.
To justify militarism and exorbitant defense spending in time of peace, the government – Democrats or Republicans – will use fear mongering and demonizing foreign enemies to keep the population at home in political conformity. As the economy expands but does not result in upward socioeconomic mobility because GDP growth will not be sufficiently high to absorb public debt costs while capital concentration will continue, the weakening of the middle class will continue. The issue of crime will remain at the core of media coverage because it will continue to serve its purpose of mass distraction. The poor and minorities will remain the core of criminal activities. Feeling increasingly marginalized by a system that caters to fewer and fewer people amid the contradictions of an economy that overproduces, the poor whites and poor minorities will remain the focus of the police for petty neighborhood crimes to gun-violence offenses. The prison system will become even more rigid and politicians will continue to demand even harsher sentencing and longer prison terms.
11) Looking at history the most successful methods to contain crime or even eliminate it reside in countries that harbor dictatorships and theocracies. In the end of the day, if things get worst would the US have to pan-out democracy and adopt a far more engaging strategy to contain crime as seen in other countries past or present? Would that ever happen?
Containing crime in America is an issue on which conservative politicians and media have been focused, but their efforts have not worked as crime and prison statistics indicate. On the contrary, the US remains number one in the world in prison population and one of the highest in crime. Unless there is a total overhaul of the criminal justice system and the culture among law enforcement changes, we can expect worse things to come with everyone paying higher taxes to fund security and prisons instead of schools and jobs programs. Crime prevention is difficult because the same failed methods of placing all emphasis on punishment as the sole focus of the state have remained in place due to ideological and political reasons.
The underlying assumptions of what makes a criminal are important in this endeavor. If we adopt the religious assumptions of the Middle Ages that people are inherently evil and must be punished because they cannot be reformed merely because society marginalized them and they are reacting with defiance, then we would have the result we see in US today, focused on the poor and minorities. This reflects a political/ideological decision because the criminal justice system is an extension of state policy intended to protect private property. The policies of the US and their practices in the field of criminal justice indicate that the political and economic elites want a police state society and do not want to lessen this problem, no matter the rhetoric from liberals or conservatives.
If the focus goes from the police-state punitive methods to greater social justice, then the public will realize the culture of fear that the state and media have been promoting is a distraction from the inequities that exist. Policing America domestically is more in line with and an extension of US foreign policy of policing the world. If the policy focus changes to reform society, it would mean undertaking systemic changes in the social structure, economy and political system. The criminal justice system is an appendage of the larger society that is based on racial/ethnic, gender and social inequality. It is simply impossible to bring about greater social justice and “democratize” the criminal justice system in the absence of addressing broader societal changes.
Of course, the other way the US could contain crime is to introduce even harsher sentences, as I am convinced it will do in the future. This means longer prison sentences, more death penalties, more police-state methods, and more police killings of minority youth in the streets in the name of law and order. Ironically, the more rigid the police enforcement mechanisms becomes, the more popular resistance it encounters in an open society that demands conformity to the law and civil rights.
One may ask how more rigid can the US become in the criminal justice system, considering that it ranking among nations stressing punishment rather than rehabilitation is already very high? How many city mayors, governors, congressmen and presidents have run campaigns on the law and order issue? It just does not pay to question a politician who is “tough on crime”, any more than it pays to question unilateral militarist solutions to international conflicts because the journalist, academic or consultant knows rewards come only to conformists. How can a political candidate possibly lose running on law and order, considering that opposing such a position on the surface appears to be supporting crime and chaos and advocating disruption of society? Regardless of racist police-state methods, the mass media has done its part to prepare the public ideologically to accept even harsher criminal justice system that is a never-ending cycle targeting the poor and minorities because the business community is interested in protecting its property and investment, and has no interest in social justice.
If the US is looking for models from other countries with low crime rates, it could look to a number of them including Denmark or Japan. However, this means that the cultures of Denmark and Japan must somehow be transported to the US along with all of their institutions because crime does not take place in isolation of the rest of society but within its broader societal context. In other words, the idea of using isolated technical aspects, or technology such as police officers equipped with cameras to prevent them from abusing their authority, will do absolutely nothing to change conditions as they exist currently. Clearly, there is a multi-billion dollar industry in America profiting from the fear the public has about crime, so these corporations have no problem with the status quo. Everything from home detection and spy cameras to insurance plans and private security officers account for a very profitable industry that could be cut down to size if the country did not have a social, economic and political system based on social injustice.
12) If a third party ascends to power is it doomed to be become an autocratic conundrum since problems cannot be resolved with democracy alone shown by liberals and conservatives? Is the US destined to become a dictatorship if things started to crumble within the pillars of its own society?
JVK: There are those, including former president Jimmy Carter, warning that the US is not a democracy because of “big money” dominance in elections. Others point to the US “surveillance state”, curtailing on human rights and civil rights in the name of national security, increased reliance on military solutions to overseas crises and a militarized state that subordinates democracy to national security. A country can be engaged in all of those things and have a government ranging from Fascist to social-democratic. The American reality is not as simple as many critics dismiss it and it is important to consider the sources of anti-democratic aspects in a society that was founded not on political, social and economic equality for that would socialism, but equality of “opportunity” to become integrated into the bourgeois mainstream for the white male population that dominated institutions at the end of the 18th century.
On the one hand, the US has aspects that include police-state methods used both in Guantanamo prisoners as well as blacks in Homan Square detention facility in Chicago, both violating human rights and civil rights according to US laws and international conventions. On the other hand, the US is a society where there is legalization of gay marriage and marijuana, free speech and freedom of petition and dissent. In other words, the categorical labeling of the US as authoritarian runs into trouble considering that in many domains the US remains committed to certain fundamental freedoms and it cannot possibly compare to Fascist Italy in the 1930s, or South Africa before Nelson Mandela.
Categorizing American society becomes complicated and very complex behind the veneer of existing freedoms and rights of citizens, even as stipulated in the Bill of Rights and Supreme Court decisions handed down through the decades. In the absence of economic freedom all other freedoms are necessarily limited as much in the US as in any other part of the world, more or less democratic than the US. The large question is the degree to which sovereignty rests with the majority of the people rather than with a small rich minority enjoying control of mainstream institutions. If indeed sovereignty rests with the majority and there are empirical indicators pointing to it, then critics of America as undemocratic are wrong. If the US is a “corporatocracy”, then critics may be correct.
Corporatocracy is rule by corporations, or at least preeminent influence of corporations in all aspects of society from government to health and education, thus obviating the role of the people as sovereign under what they understand their role in the social contract. This phenomenon is not limited to the US, but it is prevalent in many countries considering we live in a world of multinational corporate domination that international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and others support to remain dominant. The neo-corporatist phenomenon that has taken hold under contemporary capitalism projects the image of democracy because it maintains certain rights of citizens while dominating the key institutions from government and media to health and education.
The existing American political structure operating within the neo-corporatist model is set up so that it only permits for a two-party system that the entire institutional system supports explicitly or implicitly. The political, economic, and cultural elites are an integral part of the two-party system that starts from local politics all the way to the national level. The Liberal-Conservative duality in American politics is not nearly as heterogeneous as the politicians present it. Both major political parties represent the same institutional neo-corporatist structure and both work within a given framework. As domestic and international conditions may change, the political parties make policy changes toward the right on economic and foreign policy, and adjustments on the left when it comes to social-cultural issues such as gay marriage and marijuana laws. This provides people with the illusion that “democracy works”.
A third party coming along would need a popular base, a constituency that is crying out for structural reforms as was the case in 1932 when Roosevelt ran on a reformist platform amid the Great Depression that would in essence strengthen the central government and absorb surplus capital from the private sector to use for the state to stimulate growth and development. FDR did all of this within the confines of the Democratic Party and as an extension of the Progressive Era Democrat policies that Wilson has started. Instead of creating a third party, he absorbed the leftists into his own party.
In today’s corporatocracy world, the only way that a third political party would receive a wide appeal and not encounter nearly as much opposition from entrenched political and socioeconomic elites and media is if “objective” societal conditions are such that the third party is then able to overcome such obstacles. The scenarios under which a third political party could emerge are as follows: 1. Left-leaning progressive party that tries to restructure society on the model of social democracy not much different than FDR but reflecting contemporary conditions; and 2. Extreme rightwing that could conceivably result in an outright authoritarian government.
Considering the US resorts to police-state methods justified in the name of law and order and counter-terrorism, the rightwing scenario would not be far from today’s realities; and Both a left-wing and a rightwing political parties challenging the mainstream and reflecting the socioeconomic polarization of society as the rich-poor gap widens and the middle class becomes weaker results in one-party neo-corporatist state under “national emergency” conditions. This would be a form of authoritarianism and unlikely to emerge except under extreme conditions of sociopolitical polarization tasking place against the background of foreign crisis or crises.
The scenario of authoritarianism that took place in interwar Europe not just Italy and Germany experiencing a crisis of their mainstream bourgeois political parties amid very deep economic crisis, but all of Europe from Spain and Portugal to Eastern Europe during the 1930s. While the US does not have a tradition of Fascism, it does have a very long history of rightwing politics based on racism, xenophobia, anti-Communism, Islamophobia, religious fanaticism, and above all militarism and police-state methods, all of which are elements that a third political party could combine to mobilize sufficient popular support to take over local and state government positions initially, and eventually national government.
Public opinion polls indicate that the percentage of citizens that have confidence in their government is relative low in the mid-30s vs. the number angry at their government in the low 70s. These public opinion polls do not reveal whether these disgruntled citizens would support and left-leaning or a rightwing government under certain conditions, but they reveal the absence of support for the “middle-of-the-road” politics under neo-corporatism. There are many reasons why people are at best apathetic to angry with their government, but this is fertile territory for a populist rightwing political party trying to mobilize this segment into a coherent political force, backed by a segment of the business community, churches, and other segments in society. The scenario of a third party rooted in rightwing politics is much more likely in America because a segment of the mainstream Republicans are already there ideologically as is a large segment of the media and businesses and a segment of churches and educational institutions dependent on the generosity of conservative benefactors.
One ought not to jump to conclusions that all capital favors rightwing politics, just because it favors perpetuating its role in society. Capitalism is indeed unified in its goals but capitalists are at odds with each other. This makes the argument about what kind of regime would emerge in the future more difficult because there were capitalists who vehemently fought against FDR as there were others who went along with him, just as they had done with previous presidents in the Progressive Era. Capital under the neo-corporatist model has common interests but that does not necessarily mean that it has a common strategy of how to achieve its goals.
While a leftwing orientation is indeed a leap of faith, it would hardly be a leap of faith for America to go from the current status quo to an outright of authoritarian system that would of course continue to claim it is “democratic”. Such a system would be needed to impose social conformity of the masses to an economic system that would benefit fewer and fewer people and an institutional structure that would be largely for the economically-privileged in society. Again, there are those who argue this is where America is today, but this is a stretch at this point despite strong evidence favoring the thesis. However, if neo-corporatism continues under neoliberal policies and the corporate welfare state and militarism, then America will have some form of authoritarian government and this may come from within the ranks of the Republican Party as a third party alternative.
13) Where do you see the US in the next 10 years?
JVK: People judge the future on the basis of the present. Their predictions are really revealing about what they see today. Besides examining the past, there are empirical indicators pointing to changes in the next ten years. As a larger percentage of Americans will be older – 16-18% as compared with 13% today – and as the white population will decline while the Hispanic population will increase, society will be demographically different in ten years and very different in 30 years when the convergence of demographic, economic and political changes will result in a new society trying to assert its identity based on its legacy rather than future prospects. According to public opinion polls, Americans are not optimistic about where the country will be in ten years, with about an equal number indicating it will be worse off as better off. This is not to say that European feel much better about their future, especially considering the uncertainty of integration, the reality that Germany has imposed its hegemony over the rest, and the prospect that China and Russia pose a threat to their historic political, economic, and strategic preeminence in the world.
Most Americans believe that the growing sociopolitical division will continue to grow for a number of reasons. College education will not be affordable for the majority that has been experiencing downward social mobility and will not improve in ten years. The economy will not be as good as it once was to lift the majority toward the middle class as was the case after WWII. Just one-fifth of Americans are confident their children will have good employment opportunities and 80% are pessimistic as they expect the rich-poor gap to increase and the top income earners to dominate politics. As the media and most analysts are constantly reinforcing the idea that China will replace the US as the world’s superpower, this is also reflected among the majority of Americans who do not believe the US will perform as well in ten years because it is a superpower in steady decline.
While Americans see tangible evidence in daily life of the rich-poor gap and political divisions, they are convinced these will become sharper as the nation’s global standing will decline. They are optimistic that new technology will continue to improve as would biotech and pharmaceutical advancements but those would be expensive and affordable only by the rich. There is also a sense that heavy private and public borrowing of the last two decades will continue to put downward pressure on living standards. Thus, the prospects for raising living standards are also hindered by debt.
Not surprisingly, there is more pessimism among whites than minorities because whites know demographic changes are rapid and will change society to their detriment. It is significant to stress that Hispanics are the most optimistic about their future in every respect, followed by blacks, because they too see demographic changes but to their advantage. Whether this actually becomes reality or the white majority mounts a racist/xenophobic political movement of major proportions remains to be seen.
There are aspects of the larger picture that public opinion polls miss. For example, the role of the US in ten years will depend to some extent on the rest of the world. The decline of Europe and Japan as a result of WWII necessarily meant the ascendancy of the US to world power status, although the foundations for such a role were established in the last quarter of the 19th century and during the Progressive Era. It is entirely possible that a political crisis in China and/or other major power sinks them into chaos and that lifts the US status, despite the incredible interdependence of the world economy. More likely, the rapid development of some countries, including Brazil, India, Russia, and Iran all siding in a bloc with China that will have much of Africa and Asia integrated, would entail a considerable weakening of the US in every respect. Capital is international and the US-China interdependence cuts both ways, but current trends indicate more in China’s favor than the US.
It is possible that the world’s population will reach nine billion in fifteen years and it will need an additional 50% more food than it does today to meet those needs. Expected to experience 10 to 15% percent population growth (as high as 350 million), the US, which was the breadbasket of the world from the late 19th to the late 20th century, will lose its preeminent status. All indications are the Russia will capture that position, as it will also become a major producer of minerals and energy.
One reason for the East-West struggle over Ukraine is that it could become well integrated with the West, and it could provide food security the West will need, although this is a prospect that does not look promising so far. Monsanto Corporation has already started working on genetically modified food production in Ukraine as a backdoor to penetrate the European market. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill have also been very prominent in Ukraine’s primary sector of production.
With US government support, the IMF and World Bank are working in the Ukraine to make sure it moves toward greater integration with the West to provide US multinational corporations the opportunity to dominate key markets through which companies will remain dominant in Europe. The Ukraine-type struggle for commodities markets will continue in the next ten years. However, the price the US will pay for this kind of intervention is more reliance on overt and covert military solutions to regional crises it creates and greater drain of the US economy.
It is possible that the combination of the US energy independence and new technologies could provide an impetus for the economy, only if the state acts to absorb the surplus capital from the top 10% of income earners to invest and develop human capital and human security as I have stated above in relation to another topic. New scientific and technological advances will do absolutely nothing except cause more problems than they solve for society at large. America will remain in a mode of expansion that further concentrates capital and expansion that further weakens the middle class and the national economy. In other words, the expansionary cycles will not result in income distribution toward the middle and lower classes because the FED steps in to raise rates and slow down the economy that is overheating (inflationary), thus keeping structural unemployment high.
I hope that America in 2025 will not have a repeat of 1925 when everything seemed just great but the Great Depression was around the corner because serious structural problems in the banking system, Wall Street speculation without any government regulation, and the government’s role in the economy leaving business unchecked as they demanded so they could make greater profits. The social structure in America a decade from now will be about the same with even lower living standards for the bottom two-thirds of society and even greater capital concentration, given current trends. I am also cautious that in the next ten years there will not be a repeat of the deep recession of 2008, which was cyclical but helped along by banking deregulation amid a trillion-dollar war-bill from Iraq and Afghanistan. Having lost its preeminent global economic status, the US will continue to use its military might as political and economic leverage through alliances and bloc trade agreements that could trigger conflict at the regional level. Looking at current international relations, the future looks promising for creation of economic blocs that will both cooperate and compete with each other and may even clash.
Though in a diminished form, the US will maintain its global power status and it will continue to have one of the world’s top 20 living standards for its population. However, the expectation that Pax Americana will once again experience its glory days of the early Cold War is only real in the defense sector where American politicians will be focused as the country will experience what some scholars view as a “Third World effect” within the country. This is to say that conditions similar to those in underdeveloped nations will dominate in pockets of American society as the political class – Democrats and Republicans – will refuse to use the fiscal structure to absorb surplus capital to centralize government in the manner that FDR did so that there are not three America’s – one for the top richest ten percent, the other of about 20-25 percent making up the middle class, and the majority trying to make ends meet or hovering near or below the poverty line. There is no doubt that as housing, education and healthcare become more expensive, and as good paying jobs are limited to an ever shrinking percentage of the labor force, more people will live in substandard housing, excluded from good schools and hospitals, excluded from the American Dream.
Contrary to what many agnostics and atheists believe about religion playing a lesser role in the future, I am convinced it will play an even greater role, although different religions will reflect different views. Pope Francis is the most recent prominent leader to have joined the struggle for social justice, though from within the context of faith. “Men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the ‘culture of waste.’ If a computer breaks it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs and dramas of so many people end up being considered normal.”
The views of religious leaders for social justice may converge with those of political and community leaders demanding not just reform within the system, but systemic change to overthrow the system. While I do not see even a slight chance of revolution in America in the next ten years, I do expect the increased socioeconomic gap and political alienation of the majority to present fertile ground for a grassroots movement that could rely on a variety of voices of authority, including those of the Catholic Church and others that have historically been the pillars of the status quo.
There will also be a sharp rise in convergence of rightwing political elements, business people, and Christian extremists. This is something that has deep roots in American society. The US war on terror combined with Islamophobia that the media, Hollywood, talk-radio, and politicians have been propagating religious rightwing activity is likely to rise as people seek answers for calamities in society from those presenting themselves closer to God, the flag and Wall Street. Religious violence is also a possibility in isolated incidents. More likely is the prospect that Republicans will continue to co-opt the religious right to justify the combination of militarism as a solution to foreign policy problems and neoliberal and corporate welfare as solutions to the economy. The polarization of America will be a major issue and the challenge will be to forge consensus somewhere in the middle, which will be more of the same without any solution to ending downward socioeconomic mobility. The result will be a direction to the right more than it will be to the democratic center and this means toward greater authoritarianism that will serve to protect the privileged status of the wealthy and maintain American military preeminence
Comments Off on Is the United States crumbling as a nation?
August 1st, 2015
The Daily Journalist community opinion.
For more than a decade, George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administration have received public criticism for dubious decision making. Given the public opinion fiasco of both presidents, it has undoubtedly crippled the hope of the parties they represent in new search for positive reforms which never really live up to the political expectations these presidents set to accomplish as leaders.
It looks like 2016 might bring a presidential battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Both candidates despite leading the charts on the electorates, and respected parties seem to concentrate a lot of criticism from the public, specially when dealing with immigration, taxes and welfare.
More than ever before, US citizens have lost faith on the Republican and Democratic Party, and many would rather not cast their votes and stalemate. Uncalled foreign wars, cuts on military spending, rise of violence nationwide, racial prejudice, lack of military enrollment, credit abuse, education, pension funds, welfare spending and horrible economic planning top the list of negative issues still echoing in the minds of people.
But despite the criticism, the economy has seen growth in the southwest, and south.
Possibly the worst present scenario is that the Joints chief of staff (the military command) and congress along with the executive branch are not seeing eye to eye with the executive branch on the strategically menace of Russia flirting with Europe and Alaska, with Russia even patrolling 3 nuclear capable air bomber’s 39 miles off the coast of California to wish America a happy “independence day” confirmed by NORAD a few days ago.
China is also behaving aggressively in the south sea illegally creating new islands to set up new military bases. Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have raised battle alerts. Not to mention ISIS, that keeps extending territory in Lybia, Oman, Yemen and even fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Not looking good!
There is however a giant alternative beating underneath all the rubble democrats and republicans have created with their internal and international policies that should be considered as precursor of progress.
That is the creation of a “Third Party”, which given the circumstances could take by storm both traditional parties if things continue to worsen in the country.
In your opinion!
- Does the US need a Third Party to readjust the supremacy of democrats and republicans? Should a new party represent a leftist or rightist model? Do you see the rise of a Third Party happening soon?
- Are people tired of bipartisanship reign in United States?
- Is the rise of a third party taking seat in the White House even possible in the structure of American politics?
- Can Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton really save America from spiraling down, or are we waiting for another messiah?
- If a third party is created what 5 main issues should it address?
Peter D. Rosenstein.
(He is a non-profit executive, journalist and Democratic and community activist. His background includes teaching; serving as Coordinator of Local Government for the City of New York; working in the Carter Administration; and Vice-chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia)
1. Does the US need a Third Party to readjust the supremacy of democrats and republicans? Should a new party represent a leftist or rightist model? Do you see the rise of a Third Party happening soon?
The US doesn’t need a Third Party. The fights in the current two Party system have been going on for years and they have never spawned a winning Third Party. The only thing a third Party candidate does is shift the debate a little and allow one of the major Parties- Democratic and Republican to win the election without a majority of the vote. I don’t see the rise of a viable Third Party anytime soon.
2. Are people tired of bipartisanship reign in United States?
I think some people in both major parties are tired of the partisanship they see but would actually like to seem more bi-partisanship in the Congress. Our form of government is set up to encourage compromise to get anything done.
3. Is the rise of a third party taking seat in the White House even possible in the structure of American politics?
It has been shown over the years that forming a viable third party in national politics is very difficult.
4. Can Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton really save America from spiraling down, or are we waiting for another messiah?
I am not sure where this question comes from. Is it assuming that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be the nominees of their respective Parties? Whoever is assuming this is making a mistake. Donald Trump will not be the nominee of the Republican Party. Even he seems to understand that and has said he would consider running as a third party candidate. As Ralph Nader did and as Ross Perot did back in 1992. Nader caused Gore to lose to Bush and Perot ensured a win for Clinton. Anyone waiting for a messiah in politics is confusing politics with religion and that is always bad. Hillary Clinton who will be the Democratic nominee can make a difference but she won’t be a messiah. She will be a rational politician as she has proven to be over the years and may have the chance as a brilliant woman to bring some sanity back to Washington D.C. But some of that will depend on how her being on the top of the ticket impacts races for Senate and the House. She can’t do it alone.
5. If a third party is created what 5 main issues should it address?
Not believing in creating a third Party I will pass on this question as it would relate to one. The current two parties and I believe the Democratic Party is focusing on these issues: fighting income-inequality, working on how to combat climate change, focusing on full civil and human rights for all, dealing with the immigration issue and finding a pathway to citizenship for those who are here now illegally, growing the American economy by including everyone in it and using diplomacy and economic sanctions to work on the issues of war and peace rather than using the military as a first option.
Halyna Mokrushyna.
(Holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. She publishes in Counterpunch, Truthout, and New Cold War on Ukrainian politics, history, and culture. She is also a contributing editor to the New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond and a founder of the Civic group for democracy in Ukraine)
“Before answering the question of whether the US needs a third party, one must first look at the electoral system in the US. It is costly and complicated, and most of all, it is undemocratic. A president is not elected by a direct vote with the participation of all voters, as it is the case in France, for instance. Primaries and caucuses do not include all of the Americans. Electoral College is not representative of all of the United States.
Second, one needs big money to be able to run an expensive electoral campaign, which means that only those who are rich themselves or have rich friends, can afford it. And then, if you win and get into the Oval office, who can swear on the Bible that you will forget about your rich friends and their interests? Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do not represent ordinary Americans. They represent American elites who are ruling the country. The current political system in the US cuts off right from the start those who do not have big buck to nominate oneself as a presidential candidate.
The electoral campaign itself is to a significant extent not a campaign about important public issues, but a battle for votes. Presidential candidates do not bother to go to the states which they are not likely to win, because this is a loss of their money. Why fight, if your battle is lost before you even started? This does not encourage an all-American exchange of ideas that would provoke real change in the political dispositions of the American people. A true electoral campaign should be about publicly debating issues which are vital for the country as a whole, such as social policies, foreign policies, military spending etc.
A third party is very much needed in the States, because the choice that the Americans now have is not between a left and a right party, representing conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum. It is a choice between a more right and a less right political party. The States have never had a truly socialist or leftist party that would gain enough popularity to become a serious political player on the national level. If such a party arises, its grass-root support would come from the immigrants, Black Americans, and working white Americans. However, they do not form a territorial or historical community, as Quebec does in Canada.
National political scene in Canada has been for long dominated by two parties, Conservatives and Liberals, exactly as it is now in the United States. If Liberals were the ruling majority, Conservatives were in the official opposition, and vice versa. The Neo-Democratic party has always been a third player, standing by. However, it made a historical break-through in the parliamentary elections of 2011, thanks to the vote of Quebecers. They withdrew their support from the Bloc Quebecois who fell out of love with the Bloc Quebecois, a sovereignist party which represent Quebec on the federal level for over twenty years. Quebecers wanted a change, but the Bloc Quebecois was not able to offer a clear alternative to the Conservatives. The Neo-Democrats did. IN 2011 they got 59 seats in the federal government out of the total of 75 seats that the province of Quebec has in the Canadian Parliament. The total number of the NDP members of the Parliament is 103, so the Quebec was essential for securing the NDP success. The irony of the situation is that the NDP does not have one seat in Quebec’s provincial government.
In the US there is no a socialist-leaning party, like NDP in Canada. And it is not likely that such a party appears in the nearest future under the current structure of politicos in the US, which favor powerful and rich. It seems Americans do not mind having no alternatives to two Grand parties, otherwise it would already exist.
If such a party is created, five main issues on its agenda should be: 1) eradicating racism and stopping police violence; 2) increasing social spending; 3) more equity for immigrants 3) reviewing radically the American foreign policy in order to stop aggressive expansion of American neo-liberal democracy into the “third world” countries; 4) cutting military spending and investing in social welfare 5; reforming the political system so that it represents the interests of all Americans – implementing a direct presidential election.”
Nake M. Kamrany.
(He is an eminent Afghan-American development economist with superior experience in economic development who is held in high esteem by the international development community, Afghan leaders, scholars, the private sector and intellectuals. He has more than 20 publications on the political economy of Afghanistan)
“1. We should concentrate on only on five campaign issues that will be manageable:
A. War and Peace: The U.S. should withdraw from all tribal conflicts in the Middle east and Afghanistan and concentrate its defenses toward Russia and China – hopefully continue with detente and further reduce military budget. Avoid resumption of cold war.
2. Obamacare (healthcare). This is a good beginning but it must do two things: reduce the cost of hospitals, insurance, medicine, doctors and lab tests. The best way to resolve it to nationalize health care and expand converge from cradle o the grave for everyone through Medicare. Otherwise, healthcare will cause higher national debt beyond 20 trillion dollars..
3. Raise minimum wage to living wage at $20/hr. now and improve distribution through taxation.
4. Get Mexico to prohibit their citizens who do not have passports and visa from crossing to the U.S.
5. Reduce incarceration- currently the U.S. incarcerates 70 people for one person in Europe. Non-violent offenses should not be felony nor drug use and distribution of it. Modernize the legal system (judges, prosecutors and police functions consonant to a civil society.”
Allen Schmertzler.
(He is an award winning and published political artist specializing in figurative, narrative and caricatured interpretations of current events)
“The problem with the American political system is not going to be resolved with just a third political party. Currently, many more political parties other than the Democratic and Republican exist. As well, there are legitimate factions within the existing two parties that have the potential to take control over the political platform of each party.
I would love to see at least a 3rd political party reach parity in our system, but a lot has to change before even a third can seriously shake up and challenge the current order. There is a long history of multi-party politics in America. But along the way, embedded in the American psyche, the “unionism” of the two parties monopolized our political system. It is capitalism as its worst. The market has been cornered, all other parties have been marginalized, while the “system” established rules to neutralize the viability of a serious candidate that is not within the two party establishment.
The media, an insider player as the fourth branch of government, has investment as well in playing the two party game. In truth, there are legitimate factions within each of the two parties that do represent a wider spectrum of political ideology. Bernie Sanders, although in reality a Socialist and an independent from the two parties, has caucused with, and is now running as the Democratic Presidential candidate challenging Hillary Clinton. The issue is that most politicians have embraced the reality that to succeed, they need to remain attached to one of the two political parties, but then to also seem as if they are running against the “Washington establishment,” code for the two party monopoly, even if their views do push their party’s ideological boundaries.
Also, let’s not forget that Ralph Nader mounted a serious 3rd party rogue campaign and most likely killed Democratic Al Gore’s presidential aspirations in 2000. We have seen 3rd party candidates periodically, especially when cynicism about our political class in Washington D.C. runs high. Remember the non-politican and squeaky-voiced billionaire, Ross Perot, ran an attention getting third party candidacy for president, and who Republicans prefer to blame for George H. Bush’s loss to Bill Clinton in 1992, when in truth, he pulled essentially the same percentage of voters from each, and Mr. Bush lost because he was outclassed by the upstart Bill Clinton.
Jon Anderson, just to mention another, ran a strong outsider campaign as well, but only to fall victim to the overwhelming belief that no one can win the White House if they are not a Democrat or Republican. There was even Theodore Roosevelt, running as an outsider from the dogmatic two party system as a spoiler seeking a third term, which, as all the other historic attempts met a similar fate and failed.
The real issue to focus on then, is not whether a third party is necessary to resurrect our proud political system to its former height, but what societal, cultural and visionary reforms need to be forced upon the established political power elites, to pry open the system. Willingness amongst those in the privileged ruling class to accept change that will in fact diminish their dominance just will not occur. A tsunami of humongous proportions must cleanse the seats of power and wash away institutional structures that prevent a more equal political playing field. America would benefit tremendously with a more open and serious competitive electoral process.
Many believe there is no difference between Democratic and Republican, which is not exactly accurate. But it speaks to there not being a wider spectrum of political ideology equally represented in the debate. Social media may have created another pathway for third and fourth parties to electoral success as an outlet to organize outside of the established media that is married to the two party system.
For real change to occur that will alter the two party control over American politics, conditions for elections must uniformly change and become universal. First, we must follow the money. Money is the power. All political money must be capped, controlled and equalized, in a sort of “affirmative action” style. Eliminate the bogus argument that money equals “free speech” and change the paradigm to “freedom of speech equals freedom from corrupt influences of money in politics.”
If every candidate received equal funding from government taxpayer monies, and every other monies were established in the criminal code as illegal, and if every candidate was allotted equal limited media time, we would immediately see our political landscape altered, inviting a broader debating of ideas that the public could chose from. We would most likely see a huge spike in voter registration and election participation. Presently, the two parties have such a gerrymandered and poll-driven command of their core constituency, that many people are disenfranchised from the political process. This makes elections more predictable for the parties, especially if voter turn out follows their perceived patterns. If millions more jumped into the process, the two party elites could lose their control.
There are many other reforms that can be discussed, but essentially, we must accept that America has been a multi-party political system forever, but the systemic infrastructure has been corrupted and owned by the unionized two parties, Democratic and Republican. Even if every American stayed home for an election as a form of protest against the lack of real diverse political parties, the rules for our elections are so perverted, that those owners of the politics would be capable to legally declare a “majority winner,” take the keys to the kingdom, command the military to suppress the outrage, and sleep soundly while their servants in the White House kept the household going.”
Nelson Hultberg.
(He is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org. His articles have appeared over the past 20 years in such publications as The Dallas Morning News,American Conservative, Insight, Liberty, The Freeman, and The Social Critic,as well as on numerous Internet sites such as Capitol Hill Outsider, Conservative Action Alerts,Daily Paul, Canada Free Press, and The Daily Bell)
1. Does the US need a Third Party to readjust the supremacy of democrats and republicans?
Yes, it most certainly does. This, in fact, is what our organization in Dallas, Texas (Americans for a Free Republic, www.afr.org) is all about. For the past five years we have been promoting the launching of a Third Party in the U.S. But we call it a Second Party because we no longer have two parties in this country. The Democrats and Republicans are really two wings of the same party, the Demopublican Party. Or as Patrick Buchanan says, “two wings of the same bird of prey.”
No matter which party wins at the polls, we always get more taxes, more inflation, more regulations, more bureaucracies, more wars. Each party relentlessly expands government in Washington. Each party has its own agendas and caters to its specific constituencies, but all policy enactments of Democrats and Republicans are for more and more statism. Never do they try to shrink the power of government in our lives.
So America most definitely needs a “Second Party,” or perhaps we should simply say an “Alternative Political Party” to the Demopublican monopoly on politics.
2. Should a new party represent a leftist or rightist model?
This new party must be based on a freedom model, which means a libertarian / conservative model. Thus I would say that “rightist” more accurately describes it. We already have a huge leftist model with its two collectivist Orwellian wings, the Democrats and the Republicans. So we certainly don’t need another one. We need a small government party that will begin the restoration of freedom in the economy and the society. This means the restoration of the American Republic that the Founding Fathers had in mind.
3. Do you see the rise of a Third Party happening soon?
We at AFR had great hopes of launching this Alternative Party in 2016. We even have it named and trademarked. It is the National Independent Party. We have written a 21-page report on its reason for being and what its strategy will be, along with its fundamental reform vision for the country. This report can be accessed here: http://afr.org/wp-content/uploads/reports/NI-Report.pdf
Unfortunately it hasn’t caught on yet, so we are gearing up for 2020. Victor Hugo wrote in the 19th century that, “there is nothing more powerful in history than an idea whose time has come.” Apparently the American people are not quite ready to abandon the Demopublican monopoly. But they will be.
4. Are people tired of bipartisanship reign in United States?
The people are tired of “big government bipartisanship.” They are tired of collectivism, socialism, welfarism, interventionism, etc. But most Americans don’t believe there is any answer to the massive statism that dominates our lives. They have not been convinced yet that individualism, capitalism, and strictly limited government are the only things that will ever work. We at AFR believe that the present collapsing American economy and the society surrounding it will gradually wake the people up to this reality over the next decade or two. It is then that Americans will join to support a Second Party challenge to the Demopublican monopoly.
5. Is the rise of a third party taking seat in the White House even possible in the structure of American politics?
Yes, it is possible. We are still free to speak, write, and vote. All that is necessary is for a maverick candidate to run a Ross Perot style campaign. But he needs to avoid the mistakes that Perot made. He needs to build his campaign on substantive changes that will reduce government. This Perot did not do. Our National Independent Report details that those changes are to our monetary, tax, immigration, and foreign policy systems. You can access it here: http://afr.org/wp-content/uploads/reports/NI-Report.pdf
6. Can Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton really save America from spiraling down, or are we waiting for another messiah?
We at AFR had a momentary spell of hope when Donald Trump started lobbing bricks into the windows of the Demopublican establishment on the illegal immigration problem. But it is looking more and more like Trump will gradually bend to establishment pressures on the illegal issue and, thus become a standard amnesty supporter. As for Hillary Clinton, she can save nothing but the mega-state that she so dearly loves and has committed her entire life glorifying.
So, yes, we are awaiting a political visionary. We need a candidate who wishes to ride a “White Horse” into history, rather than sit in the “White House” for eight years of gridlock and continued decadence. We need a candidate who wants to do to the Republican Party what the Republicans did to the Whigs in 1860. We need the National Independent Party, which will gather together conservatives, independents, libertarians, and blue-collar democrats into one cohesive movement to dramatically reduce government and restore freedom to the American people.
7. If a third party is created what 5 main issues should it address?
We at AFR believe there are numerous issues that are crucial, of course. But there are four, which we feel must be dealt with if the country is to be saved. We term them the Four Pillars of Reform for America. They are the foundation of the National Independent Party, and are as follows:
Pillar # 1: Enactment of Milton Friedman’s 4% auto-expansion plan for the Federal Reserve. We must stop the Fed from expanding the money supply arbitrarily every year at 9%, 12%, 15%. This is what causes the relentless price inflation that plagues us. Our monetary base must be expanded every year at the same rate as goods and services are growing, which is 4%. This will reduce annual price inflation to zero and end the chaotic “boom-bust economy” from which we suffer. The 4% auto-expansion rate can be phased into so as to avoid crashing the economy. Ending the Fed totally would be a longer-term goal.
Pillar # 2: Enactment of a simplified 15% flat tax. All special privileges in our present tax code must be eliminated. Everyone above the poverty level of $22,000 for a family of four will pay a simple 15% equal-rate tax of their income that can be figured in ten minutes every April 15th. If we as American citizens are to have equal rights under the law, then we must eventually have equal tax rates for everyone with no special privileges in the form of deductions. However, the country’s not ready just yet for a total “no deductions tax.” The mortgage deduction, for example, will need to be retained (there are 87 million homeowners in America). But a simpler, flatter tax now will stop much of the unjust redistribution of wealth that creates the constant expansion of government in Washington today. Ending the income tax totally would be a longer-term goal
Pillar # 3: A vigorous crackdown on illegal immigration. This will be done through a three-point plan that will bring about “self-deportation” of the great bulk of illegal immigrants in America today. There will be no amnesty granted. In addition America must return to the pre-1965 Immigration Accords, which will restore the sanity of a small stream of “legal” immigrants every year (approximately 200,000) who wish to become Americanized, learn our language, and respect our Constitution. Immigration is not a “natural right.” It is a “privilege” granted by the citizens of the country involved. This was the view of Jefferson, Washington, and the Founders in 1787. It was the view of the Supreme Court in 1892. And it must become America’s view again.
Pillar # 4: A return to a “mind-our-own-business” foreign policy. This means ending our obsession with nation building and the role of policeman for the world. Such policies are bankrupting us both financially and morally. This does not mean isolationism. America needs the strongest military in the world. And there are plenty of crisis areas that need our concern to protect our security and survival. Help defend our strategic allies, yes, but stop the insanity of “nation building” and the neocons’ “militaristic global hegemony.” The dangers to America do not lie in foreign lands; they lie here at home in Washington.
Michael Hintze.
(He is the Wisconsin State Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, a 501(c)4 organization. Its core values are fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets. He been involved in grassroots politics since 2009)
1. Does the US need a Third Party to readjust the supremacy of democrats and republicans?
The US does not need a third party. Or, it might be more accurate to say that it would not need one if the Republican Party would actually pursue the policies while in office that it espouses while campaigning. The problem is that Republican Party leadership in the House and Senate continues to act as though it prefers to govern as a Democrat light party, rather than governing as the Republican Party that was in evidence while campaigning. The Republican Party leadership’s strategy of campaigning on the right and governing on the left-of-center is the major cause of the precipitous decline in the approval of Congressional Republicans evidenced in recent polling data.
However, the problem is not only evidenced by Congressional Republicans. The last two Republican Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and its last two candidates for President, John McCain and Mitt Romney, also governed or campaigned differently than one would have expected from the standard bearers of the Republican Party.
Should a new party represent a leftist or rightist model?
If a new party does come to the fore, it will be because neither of the two existing major parties truly represents a conservative governing philosophy. Therefore, the party that emerges as the new major party should, and most likely would, represent a rightist model.
Do you see the rise of a Third Party happening soon?
No. A more likely scenario is that people involved in the Tea Party Movement will take over the Republican Party over time and elect candidates who will actually govern the way they campaign. The largest national Tea Party organization, Tea Party Patriots, has a strategy that includes telling Republican members of Congress to “Keep Your Promises.” Those members of Congress who continue to fail to live up to that Tea Party demand will, over time, find themselves on the outside looking in.
2. Are people tired of bipartisanship reign in United States?
Yes. In the current political environment, bipartisanship is nothing more than a code word that means “Republicans, give up your position and move toward the Democrats’ position on the issue under discussion.” The Democrats never waiver or give up ground in order to be considered “bipartisan,” they merely mock the Republicans for not seeing the world as the Democrats do, and accuse them of being “partisan ideologues.” The true partisan ideologues are the Democrats. It is the Republicans who seem never to stand on their principles.
3. Is the rise of a third party taking seat in the White House even possible in the structure of American politics?
Yes, it is possible. In fact, it has already happened twice since the adoption of the Constitution and organization of the first Congress under it. The likelihood of that happening, however, is low. It may change to a high likelihood, however, if the Tea Party Movement is unable to force the Republican Party to govern as conservatives.
4. Can Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton really save America from spiraling down, or are we waiting for another messiah?
Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton can save America; though if forced to pick one of the two, the odds on favorite would be Donald Trump. Mr. Trump would, if nothing else, bring a commitment to change to the office of President. If elected, Hillary Clinton’s policies would be largely a simple continuation and expansion of the policies of Barack Obama. However, I do not think either one will be their respective Party’s nominee.
With that said, we do not need, and should not be waiting for, another messiah. What we need are people who will govern from a commitment to the words and plain meaning of the Constitution. People whose every vote will be based on a set of principles at the very core of their being that are derived from the words and plain meaning of the Constitution, and who will never waiver from their commitment to and belief in those principles.
5. If a third party is created what 5 main issues should it address?
a. Term limits for Senators, Representatives, and members of the Federal Judiciary at all levels, including the Supreme Court.
b. Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution that in addition to requiring the Federal Budget to be balanced, limits total federal government expenditures each year to no more than 12% of GDP. An exception to that limit would be allowed only in years during which the United States is at war as declared by Congress, and as such declaration of war is defined in Article I, Section 8.
c. Elimination of all federal departments and agencies the purpose of which is not specifically one of the eighteen powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution in Article I, Section 8; e.g., the EPA, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, etc.
d. A Constitutional Amendment that places under direct control of Congress any agency of the federal government with rule making authority, and denies to each such agency the ability to bring enforcement actions for violations of the rules issued by each. Any enforcement action for violations of the rules of such agencies would be required to originate from the Department of Justice, and all such cases would be required to be heard by the Federal District Court responsible for the jurisdiction in which the alleged violations occurred. Such a structure would return true separation of powers to the structure of the federal government.
e. Repeal of the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution.
Sebastian Sarbu.
(He is a military analyst and vicepresident of National Academy of Security and Defence Planning. Member of American Diplomatic Mission for International Relations)
“We are assisting at the major shift of the poles in American politics in perfect sintonance with global changes.
My axiological and scientific option it is in the favor of a third party, but which way is the question .
We won’t further a political bipolar system. Its a waste of energy and a ‘jumping pumping’ power game without veritable solutions.
The elitization of American politics is a manipulation instrumented with the goal to compromise and block the access of the true elites of society in power with decisional structures to reform the system.
For me all the hopes should be directed to a real alternative of technocracy and meritocracy movements to represent the third way of American politics.
Donald Trump is a trap. Money makes the rules of the game in politics, but then the values are overturned and democracy becomes an oligarchy.
The fight against corruption, principle of technocratic and transparent government, continue to promote human rights, limitation of economic abuses and ferity in external politics to represent the imperatives of new US leadership in 2016.”
Robert A. Slayton.
(Professor of History, Chapman University. Research Specialist in Housing, Chicago Urban League Author of seven books, including Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith)
“There is definitely an insurgent spirit loose among the electorate. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, despite the gulf separating their politics, are riding this emotion.
The idea of a third party, however, in my opinion, is a bad one for America. In many cases it is the reliable plodders who get meaningful, if incremental change. A third party now would be too far from the center. As such, however, it would also speak to a singular minority, one niche only, so is unlikely to win broad based elections (as opposed to some congressional ones). My money is still on a Bush-Clinton race.
Having said that, Donald Trump will probably run as an independent. Beyond all the other terms that describe him (of any nature), he is an advanced-case publicity addict. Right now he is getting the fix of his life, and cannot help but do whatever he needs to, to maintain that high.”
Mark Chapman.
(A ripening cynic opposed to irresponsible corporatism and journalistic toadying. Focused mostly on Eastern Europe and the relationship between Russia and North America. Frequent columnist at Russia Insider)
A third political party in the USA under its current political environment would make absolutely no difference, because the nation is so severely polarized; campaign after campaign of negative advertising has so infuriated Republicans against Democrats – and vice-versa – that there is no constituency left for a third party.
At the same time, there is very little difference between the major policies of Republicans and Democrats once either achieves power, because both are dominated by dynasties of political families and lifetime politicians who are well-connected with the business elite who really run the country. A third-party candidate who did not fit that mold would be a non-starter, while a third-party candidate who was as well-connected as the Republican and Democrat leaders are would govern exactly as they do.
There are several critical issues that need to be addressed, top of the list being the economy and averting a nuclear war the USA is at least pretending it is ready to fight. But the first thing a first-term president starts thinking about is a second term, and his or her agenda is going to gravitate to the issues that make that look favorable. It does not make the slightest difference who wins this election; the USA has overreached too many times, and its tenure as global foreman is drawing to a close.
Jon Kofas.
(Retired Indiana University university professor. Academic Writing. International Political Economy – Fiction)
“THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM Introduction
There is an underlying assumption that the more political parties a country has the more democracy it has, and that the more democracy it has the more social justice and egalitarianism it enjoys. If this were indeed the case, then a number of countries around the world with many political parties, including Italy and Greece, Israel and India, Philippines and Romania, to name a few, must be Paradise on earth.
There is no correlation between a multiparty system and greater “democracy” any more than there is a correlation between greater social justice and bourgeois democracy. This is a 19th century north-Western European concept when the urban middle class and capitalists were mainly Liberal while the aristocracy and rural classes were conservative, thus the two-party system reflected a socioeconomic and cultural divide where religion played a role in the rural areas and education in the urban ones.
A product of the European Enlightenment, the US followed the European political trends of creating bourgeois political parties representing capital. When the working class movement became a force in society owing to the changing division of labor under industrial capitalism, new ideologies emerged from Socialism to Anarchism and varieties of others on the left as well as extreme right wing ones, including Fascism that has its origins in the late 19th century. The evolution of bourgeois society gave birth to social groups that did not find expression in the traditional political parties and wanted to have their own voice at a time that minorities, women and workers were not represented. Despite pressure from the grassroots for representation, in the US the mainstream political parties always managed to co-opt third party movements protesting a particular facet of society.
Whether a country developed a two-party system or a multi-party system, popular rule expressing individual rights remained a core value of bourgeois democracy, rather than government taking into account collective interests. Under the political umbrella of any democratic system that has ever existed, capitalism has been at its core and this means a social order based on hierarchy of capital. During the 20th century, democracy became synonymous with capitalism not just in the US but in most countries around the world. One reason for the success of political parties claiming their allegiance to “democracy” is their embracing of a pluralistic value system under an open society where the consumer is synonymous with the citizen. The US has led the way in the effort to identify democracy with capitalism and the citizen with the consumer.
The phenomenal success of the two-party system rests in convincing the majority of the people that this is “the democratic process”, rather than representative of capitalist class interest factions. This has been achieved in the name of “nationalism” and “national interest” rhetoric, as the two-party system identifies itself with the nation-state and national interest that it equates with the market economy.
At the same time, the two-party system projects the image that a political party representing the working class is outside the constitutional and societal purview of the “national interest”, therefore, it lacks legitimacy. This was as true before the Bolshevik Revolution as it was after when the bourgeois political parties in the US as well as throughout the Western World stigmatized working class political parties as representing labor unions, as though labor unions were an anathema to society and only pro-capitalist political parties enjoyed legitimacy.
The issue of legitimacy in the eyes of the public is of the utmost importance for a political party to succeed as much as is the need for the state claiming to be pluralistic to tolerate all voices to be heard. In the case of the US, this has not been the case throughout its history. Therefore, it is not surprising that a working class political party never developed. The government persecuted grassroots organizing of labor unions and political activists representing the working class, while the corporate media followed the government in doing its best to stigmatize any working class movement.
Having no political party to express their interests, the working class in the US and in many countries around the world turned to the two political parties representing capital. Labeling a political party “Labor” or “Socialist” as many have done in Europe and around the world is of course meaningless because their policies are anti-labor and anti-socialist as much as the policies of the US Democratic Party are hardly “democratic”. The median worth of a US congressman is $1 million and the total cost for the congressional races amounted to $3.7 billion in 2012, campaign contributions mostly from millionaires. Given the profile of the average US representative in Congress, and considering that a congressman has no chance of making a career unless s/he promotes capital through legislation to the detriment of middle class and workers’ interests how can such a representative claim to be anything other than an agent for capitalists?
Synoptic View of Third-Party Movements in America
Both George Washington and John Adams dreaded the idea of a two-party system, arguing that it was tantamount to a form of despotism for two factions to alternate power. John Adams wrote: There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. Is the two-party system the reason that the vast majority of the people never realize the mythical American Dream because the two parties represent the capitalist class, or does the problem rest elsewhere?
Unlike Europe, the US does not have a history of multi-party system primarily because the media and mainstream institutions limit their focus on the two major parties. However, even in Europe, there is a two-party system that essentially entails alternating in government. This is as true of Great Britain as of France and Germany, but also of most countries, including southern Europe, although all of these countries have more than two parties. The common factor between the US two-party system and the Europe is that on both sides of the Atlantic the ruling political parties represent the same socioeconomic elites that make sure there is policy continuity. In short, the political elites alternating power make certain that the interests of the privileged socioeconomic elites are not compromised by a third political force representing the working class.
Within the varied interests of the capitalist class in the last two centuries there have been political parties that tried to break the monopoly of the dominant two-party system. In 1848, the Free Soil Party, the first major third party won 5% of the vote. The Republican Party quickly absorbed it because Abraham Lincoln after all became the champion of the anti-slave movement and the Civil War obviated the need for the Free Soil Party. In 1892, the Populist Party, which derived much of inspiration from Jeffersonian democracy, finally merged with the Democrat Party at the turn of the century. This was during the Gilded Age when the very rich were enjoying institutional hegemony and it was clear that both Republican and Democrat parties represented the wealthy to the neglect of the rest of citizens at a time that the depression of the 1890s caused immense hardship across America.
Throughout the 20th century, from the Progressive Era when the lower middle class demanded representation to the early 21st century when the Green movement became popular, all third-party political movements have been co-opted by one of the two dominant parties that have faithfully represented the institutional structure. Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to co-opt the leftists and de-radicalize the general population while securing Democrat Party dominance from 1932 until 1952. The same pattern of co-optation that has been true of left-wing movements Absorbed by the Democrat party also holds true of right-wing parties that the Republic Party absorbs. In 1948, Strom Thurmond’s State’s Rights Party constituency became part of the Republican Party, as did George Wallace’s American Independent Party in 1968, although there were Democrat voters in both of those as there were in John Anderson’s Independent Party in 1980 and even in Ross Perot’s Reform party that was eventually absorbed by Republicans.
In every election, there are many candidates for president, from serious to the absurd. The media, however, ignores all political parties, unless it is one that poses no threat to the status quo, such as the Libertarian or Green Party. By contrast, the Communist Party has usually run a candidate for national office, but no television, radio or print media would cover its issue. This does not mean that the Communist Party has always been serious about presenting a platform and candidates that would at least carry some political weight. However, about the only way the Communist Party could possibly receive media attention, even heavily biased one would be if it ran the Pope as a candidate.
Are Americans Hoping for a Messiah Politician? Donald Trump as a Self-Proclaimed Messiah
America has always romanticized what it calls its unique brand of “democracy” and the hero-politician that comes along to unify the country. Although there are the revered presidents that include Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, for the most part politics in America has always been fragmented and not just in the post-Cold War era as some have suggested. Using foreign policy and foreign enemies to rally public support behind the flag has its limitations in time of relative peace. For this reason, politicians focus on targeted enemies within the country. The Republicans in the 1850s focused on slave-owners, while two decades later the enemy was the labor organizer. The Democrats in the 1930s focused on strengthening the central government to preserve capitalism while creating a social safety net to prevent revolution, while a decade later they focused on combating Communism at home by bringing dissidents before Congressional committees that blacklisted people who refused to accept bourgeois consensus politics.
The hero-politician in American history was not necessarily a president, governor or senator who was committed to social justice, but one who managed to transcend the individual interest groups and forge popular consensus so that the political economy could continue to thrive. Toward this goal of building consensus in a society that is politically fragmented largely because a substantial segment of voters remains apathetic, the strategy that has worked is populism (popular cause or causes among a segment of the voters), especially on the part of the Republicans from the Barry Goldwater candidacy in the 1960s until the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party today. Populism works not just in the US but in all countries, because it projects an image of “reform” in the interest of the people, but in essence its goal is to secure the election and continue to serve capital as faithfully as ever. Billionaire Donald Trump is such a person today who has chosen xenophobia as the focus of his campaign to excite the Republican Party base
Trump attracts attention for several reasons. First, he is a billionaire and a celebrity, something the mainstream media focuses on whether one is running for office or not because the purpose is to promote capitalism and its values. Second, Trump combined the traditional Rockefeller Republican because he is a New York billionaire with the appeal of a right-wing populist focused on xenophobia. Historically, the xenophobia issue has roots that date back to the 19th century and it also plays well not only with the racist crowd, but also the middle class that is looking for someone to blame given that the economy has recovered but living standards continue to decline amid a growing socioeconomic gap.
In a recent essay I wrote that people not just in the US but around the world are looking for a Messiah politician and the one that presents himself or herself closer to the image will secure votes. On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton is simply not capable of presenting herself and does not even try to do so as a Messiah politician, whereas Trump does and actually appeals to a segment of the social conservatives who do not like “Washington insiders” and they do not like the other Republican candidates because they are not giving the right wing someone to blame for all the problems society suffers. Although it is highly unlikely he will ever be elected president, Trump has chosen the right wing populist issue xenophobia as catalytic for his presidential bid in 2016
Xenophobia is a very clear issue that the average conservative voter understands as much in the US as in Europe where racism also runs very high among conservatives. Xenophobia serves as a cover for political, economic and social problems society faces, but which are difficult to solve under the existing system without harming the interests of capital. Running against Washington insiders as a protest candidate from the right, Trump is appealing to many Republicans especially since he is a billionaire who embraces the values of Wall Street. The idea that Trump is a deviation from the mainstream of the Republic Party is utterly absurd, because this is not the party of Eisenhower, but of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
In an interview, Trump vowed to “get the bad ones out,” meaning the bad illegal immigrants estimated at 11 million. “I’m gonna get rid of the bad ones fast, and I’m gonna send them back. We’re not going to be putting them in prisons here and pay for them for the next 40 years.” Asked about the illegal aliens who are “not bad”, Trump replied: “We’re going to see what we’re going to see. It’s a very hard thing from a moral standpoint, from a physical standpoint, you don’t get them out. …Some are going to have to go and some – Hey, we’re just going to see what happens. It’s a very, very big subject and a very complicated subject….The wall’s going to be built. We’re going to have a great border.
This simplistic racist perspective, if not completely unrealistic and impractical approach to a very complex subject with economic and social ramifications is rather typical of how a right-wing populist proposes to solve what his political party perceives as a problem that must be solved so that all of America’s problems simply melt away and every citizen can finally enjoy the fruits of the American Dream. Although there are those who argue Trump is doing damage to the party, in fact he is energizing the racist, xenophobic, warmongering base that is motivated by fear that there is an enemy out there – the Mexican, the Muslim, the outside world that has intruded into the American way of life and threatening it. It is not the neoliberal policies and the corporate welfare system that is responsible for the decline of the middle class, but the “outsiders” and those intruding in US soil. If only they did not exist, America would have no problems. The GOP cannot discredit Trump because he is the mirror of his party, as the preliminary polls indicate nationally as well as in several states.
If a third party is created what 5 main issues should it address?
If a third party is created, it cannot be a single-issue party, like that of H. Ross Perot who focused on the debt and built all other issues around that theme. A political party must have a popular base, and in my view the growing lower middle class and workers constitute the largest popular base. They are not represented by either political party, no matter the rhetoric from any candidate. Bernie Sanders is closest to this profile, but even his platform is not much different than that of the Republican Party in 1956.
If there were five top issues on which a new political party could form its platform, my list would include the following. Not that the issues I have listed have even the remotest possibility that a third political party would adopt them, but they are at the core of challenges that America faces in the 21st century.
1
Social Justice
This is almost an alien concept in the political dialogue of American politicians from both parties. The rights and general welfare of all people, not just one small social class that finances political campaigns in return for legislation that keeps this social class privileged while the remainder of the population suffers, is an anathema in political discourse. In fact, not even mainstream academics raise this issue publicly, because they know it does not pay to offend the establishment. What is social justice? Is it a utopian fantasy that advocates equality not just of opportunity, but at all levels as judged by outcomes in the social, political, economic and cultural domains? Social justice in a bourgeois society expects that the basic economic needs of human beings are met, and that society is free of poverty and violence, of xenophobia and racism, of sexism and homophobia, of social inequalities that private and/or public institutions promote.
2. Downward socioeconomic mobilization
It is no secret that downward socioeconomic mobility is a reality in American society in the last four decades. This is largely because of the Reagan neoliberal commitment to transfer massive wealth from the lower classes to the elites, and to transfer public resources from social welfare to corporate welfare. Social programs, education and health care, social security, affordable housing, minimum wage and a massive gap between the highest paid corporate executives and the average worker are some of the reasons for the downward mobility in America. Some politicians on both political parties agree there is a problem with the declining middle class but not a single one, except Bernie Sanders, blames the capitalist system for it. Instead, the fault rests with government, as though this is an entity that comes to Washington from Mars rather than the lobbyist peddling influence.
3. Human Rights, Civil Rights and Police State Methods
Rights of political prisoners, civil rights of minorities, crime and justice are inter-related issues and have to do with the correlation between the institutionalization of the “war on terror” that has had an impact on the decline of respect for human rights, civil rights and criminalizing minorities and the poor. Police harassing, arresting, and killings black and Latino youth in cold blood is not an isolated event, but a pattern of behavior across the country. The statistics on the US prison population speaks very clearly about the racist criminal justice system that exists, even under a black president. The US refusal to respect UN human right charter also speaks volumes of the arrogance and duplicity of US policy, because the same government in Washington demands compliance with UN human rights by other countries, including Cuba and Iran. It is amazing that the US media has no sense of self-reflection when it demands that all other countries respect human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and refrain from police state methods, but the US is guilty of the very things it accuses its adversaries. This is the ultimate absurdity of “American Exceptionalism”.
4. Restructuring of the political system.
The existing political system is heavily dependent on financial contributions and lobbyists exerting policy influence. Despite many organizations trying to express their voice, everything from gay rights groups to environmental and labor unions ones, the voice that matters at the local, state and federal levels is that of large businesses. For example, if there is a choice for a city to invest in a new stadium for a football team versus public education, the money will go to subsidize the very wealthy owner of the football team at the expense of public education. Both the football franchise and education have their voices heard in government, but only that of the millionaire football owner matters. This is only a small sample of how government pours resources into the private sector at the expense of the public and calls it democracy.
Ending corporate control of the political process – campaign finance and government reform so that politicians are not accountable to the corporate sector but to the general public would go a long way in building democracy in America. All political candidates agree that the influence of money in politics is corrupting the system, but they have done nothing about it for decades. Beyond eliminating the direct role of private campaign money, the political system itself must be geared to serving ALL people and not merely the capitalist class as it has been and have the media call this democracy.
5. Foreign Policy and Defense
Foreign policy based on defense of the nation’s the territorial integrity ought to be the criteria and not “imperial” policies intended to expand US corporate interests throughout the world by any means necessary from direct military intervention to covert operations. The defense budget is the largest in the world for a country that clearly has very serious public debt problems eating away at the middle class socioeconomic fabric. The massive spending on defense intended to maintain the defense industries healthy and provide the illusion of security as well as leverage for the US to secure market share is unsustainable.
The reality of China as the world’ preeminent economic power in the 21st century is one the US helped create because it spent itself to second place during the Cold War and the manufactured “war on terror”. These are anachronistic policies, of the mid-20th century and have no place in our time. The behavior of the US in foreign affairs is very much reminiscent of the British Empire in its decline when it tried just about everything militarily, but still continued to decline. In the absence of crafting a new alliance system that rethinks the value of OAS, SEATO and NATO, the US will eventually spend itself to oblivion no differently than Great Britain.
Conclusions
The success of the major political parties in the US as well as in most countries around the world is indeed the co-optation strategy that manages to pay lip service to the middle class and workers but subordinates their interests to capital. Democracy allows for open access into the system that projects the image of theoretical equal participation by all citizens and political movements when in reality participation is limited to representatives of capital. Given this reality, a multi-party system or a two-party system amounts to the same thing because ultimately the government will represent capital. If a government emerges in a country where it tries to compromise the interests of capital, the rest of the world, governments and international financial institutions, make it so difficult for such a government to succeed that it capitulates.
New political parties arise out of a need on the part of a segment in society that feels the existing political parties are not representative of all people. Influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Founding Fathers viewed political parties as factions unrepresentative of the general welfare. The reality of class politics meant that political parties were a necessary mechanism around which competing elites of the early American republic revolved to express their interests. Interestingly enough, throughout the republic’s two-hundred year history, many Americans unlike their European counterparts, do not have a strong party affiliation. Even today, between 40 and 50 percent of the citizens polled declare independent of party affiliation. This is in itself inactive that neither party particularly expresses their interests and aspirations, although most people vote their aspirations rather than actual interests.
The third party in the US can either come from the conservative camp or from the left-of-center camp and it is highly unlikely to attract much popular support because the media inculcate into the public the idea that “consensus” politics is and must remain at the heart of American society. In other words, the implication is that a Socialist candidate whose platform could represent the majority of the population is not consensus because such a candidate would not incorporate the interests of the wealthiest Americans.
We have evidence from history that small third parties act as spoilers for one or the other major parties, but they hardly make a dent in the political process or in society. In a country as large as the US, it takes an incredible amount of money under the existing system to finance a political campaign and run against the major parties that enjoy the backing not just of the media, but of the entire institutional structure. The two political parties have been operating on the assumption that the voters have two choices and of course both work within an existing political, economic and social structure intended to preserve the status quo, rather than change it. The entrenched two-party political system also serves capital that is behind the two political parties.
No matter how much these two try to differentiate themselves, their differences are mostly on social and cultural issues, rather than systemic economic and political ones. For example, even the platform of Democrat Bernie Sanders, a person the media sees as a Socialist, is actually about the same as that of the Republican Party in 1956 when Eisenhower was the incumbent president. This is proof of how far to the right the left Democrats have moved and how far to the extreme right the Republicans have moved.
Regardless of whether a third and a fourth party emerge in the US, the system will remain the same until such time as a major economic crisis results in a social crisis and the political system begins to crack while a new one emerges, presumably a system that better serves the majority and not just the top one-third of the population with one-percent owning most of the wealth and determining policy for the rest of the 99 percent because they are able to finance political campaigns.
A political party that is organized “top-down”, instead of emerging from the grassroots is obviously a reflection of the elites that created it to preserve and expand their interests. When a grassroots movement tries to organize because it feels marginalized in society, the result is that the mainstream quickly co-opts it and de-radicalizes its followers. This happened in the depression of the 1890s, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The dominant political parties have the party machine tools at the local, state and national levels to bring any dissident movement into the mainstream. Otherwise, with the help of the media, they destroy it. Therefore, I do not see a viable third-party movement or movements until the next deep recession in America later this century, perhaps in the 2030s or 2040s. Because deep recessions or depressions cause economic polarization, the inevitable result will be social and political polarization, the ingredients which we see present in American society today that is much more polarized just beneath the surface than the “consensus-oriented” political, economic and media elites would have the public believe.”
Jaime Ortega-Simo.
(The Daily Journalist president and founder)
“Curiously the constitution never mentions anything related with political parties. The founding fathers would have been troubled if they foresaw the rise of a bi-party system.
If I had to go against the odds, based on research I am confident Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination and will face Hillary in the final stage of the election. Bernie Sanders will also give Clinton a drive for her money, the new progressives wont hang with Hillary — she going to have a hard time with a democratic socialist. Likewise a new party will eventually emerge because the country has lost grip of its own ideological unity that once made it the greatest country in the world. The nation hangs on massive debt, and unlike the generation of the 50’s who rebuilt America after the Great Depression, this new generation does not have the capacity to restore our economy. I predict a civil war.
In fact I will even go as far as to say, that the new political party in order to save the nation will have to have an autocratic flair to it. After Obama’s rise to the white house, the Republicans abandoned conservatism accused by the Bush era resulting with integration of liberalists ideas to renew their campaign model and gain more acceptances from the newer generations who get their news not from print or television, buy from NWO pragmatist in social media (if they even care). Politicians are not seeing the fact that this newer generation does not care at all about politics, and it’s a growing menace. The GOP has degraded itself with the rise of new forms od liberalism.
I am not against liberalism, but I think that the newer generations are adopting dangerous leftist models thanks to social media that point to political conundrums like anarchism, Marxism and communism. Tons of uneducated people get their ideas from these neo-liberals, which ultimately helps derail their beliefs in government. This might not be seen as a threat now, but we already live in a welfare state where 1/3 Americans are dragging down the economy and tax payers by never wanting to find a job comforted by free social benefits they feel entitled too. The welfare system is a sign of a proxy-anarchist model, just as much as socialism is shown with the Federal Reserve that acquired government stakes in private banking , thus dissipating the hopes of a pure free market system.
The republicans repeatedly blame illegal immigration as part of the national economic aggravation, but fail to acknowledge that many US citizens are too lazy and to materialistic to work low paid jobs, demanding more wages and benefits being far less productive. Alabama has shown this problem rather clearly with their agricultural labor crisis. Democrats have also fail to address this issue to not lose favoritism in the sight of young neo-liberals.
Immigration, illegal or not helps raise the GDP productivity for small business, whereas the latter people, that is the Americans who are becoming lazy are sinking the GDP by not working at all and not paying taxes.
Now the extreme liberals, piggy back on moderate liberals staging a war against veterans and the military, condemning not the policies (which will be normal) but their actions, branding them as ‘traitors, killers and puppets of the NWO’; that has enraged the traditionalist, the federalist, the patriots and American conservatives who despise these extreme liberals and view them as enemies.
Like I said, the youth does not believe in government or politics, they believe the government as a bigger conspiracy for a larger evil agenda. Ideas shape political landscapes, and America is rewiring their ideological believe system in a dangerous manner.
With that said Obama’s administration has exacerbated their relationship with the military with arrogant decision making. The Rise of ISIS, cuts in military budget, cuts in military personnel and not responding to Putin and China have reinitiated their military apparatus. Bluffing aside the warnings of the very own US generals advice, John Kerri is about to sign Nuclear agreements with Iran.
The military and government are not Seeing Eye to eye, and that could become a dangerous cliff to fall into. while the populations ideological shift continues.
But, it gets worst. The liberal media has staged a propaganda war victimizing African-Americans as the results of racial police brutality, excluding with filters all the black on white crimes which are published on a daily basis on social media outlets as a response to mainstream biased reports victimizing African Americans. That gives far less credibility to mainstream liberalist news. The racial tensions nationwide have sky rocketed, and the liberals will lose the battle because US citizens will back law enforcement, over what they consider to be gang bangers and criminal affiliated people.
With the welfare system, and the rise of credit materialist, the downgrade of the economy, the racial media war, immigration, the lashing against the military core, the rise of government distrust, high rate government conspiracies, low education, violent gangs, crime and high drug addiction (the state of Maryland as an example), poor foreign policy, cuts on military budget, grisly lobbying, the threat of China and Russia’s expansion, ISIS menace …And other factors will give rise again to an autocratic look alike party that will have to face reality and act forcefully to save the nation from preventing it to looming into socio economic chaos.
A third party will arrive soon. Historically autocracies rise when democracies go too liberal. And in a few years from now it will be an ultra-nationalist campaign against a neo-liberal party since the conservatives no longer hold an edified ideology. ”
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July 31st, 2015
By The Daily Journalist.
The Taliban have elected their new leader: Akhtar Mohamed Mansur, former ‘number two’ of the late Mullah Omar. The news was announced by Afghan commanders one day after Kabul announced the death of the emir, held in 2013.
“The Shura gathered on the outskirts of Quetta has unanimously elected Mullah Mansur as the new emir of the Taliban,” announced one of the commanders.
Coinciding with this announcement, the second round of peace talks between the Afghan Government and scheduled for Friday Taliban has been “postponed” at the request of the insurgent group after yesterday the Afghan government announced the death of Mullah Omar, as informed the Government of Pakistan.
“In view of the information of the death of Mullah Omar and the resulting uncertainty, and at the request of the Taliban leaders, the second round of Afghan peace talks that were scheduled for July 31 has been postponed,” said a Foreign Ministry statement of Pakistan, which hosts the meetings.
The government and Taliban representatives held on July 7 in Pakistan its first official meeting, after informal meetings in Qatar and Norway in previous months, and this week was due to be held its second meeting.
The president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Gani, announced yesterday the death of Mullah Omar, in April 2013 in Pakistan, a death which according to Afghan intelligence agency was in a hospital in Karachi.
“Pakistan and other friendly countries of Afghanistan hope that the Taliban leaders remain committed to the peace process to promote lasting peace in Afghanistan,” he said in his statement the Pakistani government.
He also expressed his hope that “these forces” which identified no bad faith attempt to undermine the talks to not succeed in their attempts.
The Afghan government said yesterday in a statement about the death that “the way for peace talks is more flattened than before” and therefore called for “all armed opposition groups to take the opportunity to join the process peace. ”
Following the president’s announcement, the Taliban had kept silent about the alleged death of their leader. This afternoon, following the announcement of its new leader, officially acknowledged the death of Mullah Omar.
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