ARE THEY MISDIRECTED MOVES?

Before getting into this posting’s business, this writer hopes that all the readers of this blog enjoyed the Fourth.  In a time of noted division among the electorate, the nation’s shared holidays take on a more strident quality.  Hopefully, yesterday served to encourage a spirit of unity.

And now to the business of this posting.  Inevitably, civics teachers must deal with economic information.  When this writer taught seniors in high school, the last year being 2000, Florida mandated that these students take one semester course in American government and one semester in economics.  The economics course was one that approached the subject from the macroeconomic perspective.  But even the government course would have to deal with economic factors and developments that affect the nation.

          For example, when dealing with interest groups and lobbyists, there are business and labor groups that sponsor lobbying efforts to influence public policy.  Surely, given the current political array of issues, one that dominates a lot of media attention is how economic development affects civic matters and, therefore, calls upon citizens to pay attention to the state of the economy.  One issue:  there has been a great deal of political action and consequent governmental concern over the state of depressed wages among many Americans. 

          Some attribute Trump’s election to the presidency as being an expression of this concern.  His ability to win states in what is commonly referred to as the rust belt, directly reflects the discontent with the paucity of good paying jobs, jobs that were part of the manufacturing segment of the economy.  This blog has addressed how foreign competitors have allured many manufacturing concerns from this nation to theirs.  And there has also been the advancement in labor saving machines referred to as automation.

          A question one can ask is:  what happened, why are American workers subject to these detrimental conditions?  William K. Tabb addresses this question.[1]  This and later postings will share some quotes from his book that provides an interesting and informative account of what is affecting the economy, why these factors are viable, and how government and Americans in general have conceptualized these changes.

          In terms of the economy’s structural weaknesses, Tabb writes:

Short-term speculative gambits, the maximization of shareholder value, and the pressure of debt on companies and households produced [in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis] a growth dynamic that is not dependent on rising real incomes of American, but is built on asset bubbles, capital gains, and debt-driven consumption.  Technology, globalization, and the ability of firms to reset employment contracts (so they no longer tied worker pay to productivity) caused employment to become less well remunerated and more insecure.[2]

If this writer were to use this quote in the classroom, he would emphasize several issues.

          For one thing, there is the issue of businesses, in the search of cheaper labor costs, having moved their manufacturing activities to such countries like China, Vietnam, and India.  It is difficult to compete against Chinese workers who make on average between $250 and $500 a month.  In America, in “right-to-work” states (were weak to non-existing union representation exists), the average worker makes at minimum three times higher wages then those Chinese workers and, therefore, can’t compete.

          Tabb writes on:  “Serious social control of the economic surplus, channeling it away from speculation and into job creation, is essential; major redistribution of income and reorientation of priorities are required.”[3]  This reference focuses on how capital is being invested and how it should be invested to meet the maldistribution of income the nation is experiencing.  First though a word concerning how this is a “maldistribution.”

          One can argue that if one believes in capitalism, then wages are simply yielding to demand and supply forces.  But that, to many is an abstract notion.  What is real are comparisons.  And in the minds of many, one compares how well he/she is doing with how previous generations of Americans did or with how one did in earlier years.  And the immediate past was a bit unusual.

          Taking the post-World War II years – 1945 to 1965 – as the immediate past, America was the sole manufacturing nation in the world – or just about.  Why?  The war effectively destroyed the manufacturing capacities of just about every industrial nation of the world.  Both in European and Asian (like Japan) countries experienced sustained bombing from above.  Bombing sorties effectively leveled the industrial facilities of the belligerents.  Because of the protection the oceans provided, America was sparred.

          So, for the years following the war, America supplied the world with manufactured goods and there was little or no competition in those related markets, including the market for workers.  This led to higher wages and Americans became easily accustomed to the better lives those wages allowed.  But starting in the 1970s this began to change.  Today, the amount of manufacturing jobs once prevalent is but a small percentage of what it was.

          This has also led to what this second quote highlights.  That is, capital has been directed toward financial opportunities – stock markets, bond markets, lending opportunities – and away from manufacturing.  This can be risky.  Suddenly, over a few years, money can be attracted to artificial opportunities – like mortgage portfolios with high risk mortgages as happened in the years leading to 2008 – and financial bubbles result. 

People become aware of the rising profits such bubbles are generating, furthering the bubble effect.  But bubbles eventually burst, and the resulting loss of money and the accompanying undermining of the viability of financial institutions cause panic and that further intensifies the collapse of those institutions undergirding the global economy.  That is what happened in the 1930s with Great Depression and almost happened in 2008-09.  As it was, many of those institutions are no longer in operation.

A future posting will look at an important question.  Are such developments the result of what government does or are they the result of what markets do?  This basic question or how one leans in one direction or another, goes a long way in determining if one is a left of center, liberal or a right of center, conservative; if one is a Democrat or a Republican.

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[1] William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2012).

[2] Ibid., 5 (Kindle edition).

[3] Ibid.

THE LAND OF DREAMS AND OATHS

One thing every citizen of the US should do, at least once, is attend a naturalization ceremony for new citizens.  As part of that event, those seeking citizenship need to take an oath of allegiance.  By taking the oath, the person makes a set of promises and those promises have been part of the ceremony since the 1700s.  The promises are duties that include:

·        Support and defend the constitution of the United States and its laws; particularly those laws formulated to protect the nation from its enemies;

·        Forego any allegiance to other nations or sovereigns;

·        Renounce any hereditary – such as those of nobility – titles;

·        And submit to military and civilian service when the government calls for such service.

This oath is taken from a person’s volition – he/she chooses to take it; no coercion involved.

          This step in becoming a citizen reflects a federal bias.  To remind the reader, previous postings have outlined the central concept of that construct; a federal union is one in which a group of people come together and inviolably promise to do something.  At times, this might have called for a promise to be witnessed by God and, if so, the promise is a covenant.  Or it might not have, in which case the promise is a compact.  The word federal is derived from the Latin word, foedus, which means covenant.[1]

          Some might argue that this oath should not be limited to immigrants who are seeking citizenship but one in which natural born citizen be called upon to take.  As it is, just being born within the borders of the nation ascribes to a person the status of citizen.  Of course, such a person, if he/she does not want to be part of the union compact, can renounce his/her citizenry.  That person can seek citizenship in another country.  The assumption here – both culturally and legally – is that if a citizen resides here, he/she voluntarily agrees to that promise or oath.

          But beyond the legality, one can, this writer believes, endow that oath with a spirit.  The promise is a minimum.  One can reasonably read into that promise a commitment for a citizen to express allegiance in a pro-active fashion, not because he/she is forced, but because he/she loves that union. 

To describe this spirit, in an earlier posting, this blog shared an extended quote by the political writer, Alexi de Tocqueville.  To remind the reader, here is a short excerpt of that more extensive quote describing America in the 1830s:

… [T]he political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood  … Everything is in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little further, the delegates of a district are traveling in a hurry to the town in order to consult upon some local improvements; or in another place the labourers of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school … Societies are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils under which the State labours, and which solemnly bind themselves to give a constant example of temperance … [2]

This, according to Tocqueville, represented common scenes of those years.

          America has changed.  One would be hard pressed to describe this nation in this fashion today.  This blog has offered ample evidence of the general reluctance Americans have in becoming politically engaged.  Yet structurally, Americans are still a federalist union.  This blog is dedicated toward informing and encouraging a more general understanding and commitment to a federal disposition among students and citizens, in general.  Is there any evidence indicating a move toward a more involved citizenry?

          This blog has also provided a general description – as a topic for students to investigate – of the opioid crisis.  To use a more concrete issue to describe what is happening in terms of citizen involvement, this crisis is helpful.  In that light, this posting will now describe a more current instance of how this issue of non-involvement has played a role in this crisis.

One aspect of this crisis is the role Mexican heroin dealers have played.  This blog has been reluctant to report on this aspect due to a generally perceived prejudice some Americans have voiced against Mexican immigrants.  But to be complete, this blog should report on the role a small percentage of Mexicans have filled.

          As it turns out, this drug trade originates from a small town, Xalisco, Nayarit, in Mexico.  The town’s name is pronounced as another Mexican city, Jalisco, but is spelled with an “X.”  Near that town, the opium poppy plant grew extensively.  The plant was harvested, and its milky fluid was extracted and cooked into a substance resembling a black tar.  This, in turn, was molded into small round shapes – marble type balls – and were smuggled into the US.  In the US, Xalisco dealers set up, across the nation, effective and extensive distribution systems using non-descript cars and an army of drivers with cell phones.

          One aspect of the distribution was its actual delivery service.  All a user or addict had to do was make a call and a driver showed up with the requested drug.  These deliveries were cheap and convenient.  They were particularly attractive to people – many of them young – who were hooked on pain pills, such as OxyContin, that were usually more expensive and harder to get.  This blog, in a previous posting, described this “medical” aspect of the opioid crisis.[3]  The point here is the victims were hooked on pills and shifted to heroin via these Xalisco distributors.

          While the epidemic has affected most regions of the country, one state has been particularly hit; that was/is Ohio.  One town in Ohio, Portsmouth, is highlighted by the journalist, Sam Quinones, in his book, Dreamland.[4]  He begins the book by describing a recreational area in Portsmouth that apparently was the center of the town back in the sixties.  It had a large pool and adjacent recreation area, called Dreamland, where the town “hung out” during the warmer days of the year. 

In those years, the town was relatively doing well with a strong manufacturing base.  But as with many manufacturing towns since those earlier days, Portsmouth lost those factories to mostly foreign competitors.  The results of such a development was obviously devastating.  But that is only the backdrop to the tragedy.  Then, as this blog has described, the selling of opioid in the form of pain pills took hold.  As the earlier cited posting describes, many otherwise average Americans became victims to the opioid epidemic:

They – the Mexicans – devised effective, on-demand distribution arrangements in numerous communities around the US.  Their customers are not inner-city junkies, as the heroin trade of old was and found in major urban centers, but among, in many cases, middle class whites who have gotten themselves hooked on opioids.

Oftentimes, these middle-class customers became addicted after they were exposed to some chronic pain management protocol under the supervision of legitimate doctors.  A lot of this, in turn, was based on an underestimation of the addictive quality of the drugs prescribed and aggressive drug company strategies in marketing opiates.  Once hooked, these people became desperate to find cheaper and unlimited supplies of a substitute drug – heroin, a type of opioid – to satisfy their cravings.[5] 

But times move on and many aspects of the story have changed since the early years of this century.

          One, the cartels of Mexico, earlier not interested in cheap drug sells, eventually moved in and has disrupted the Xalisco system.  Also, the general reaction to opioids in the US is taking a toll on the trade and there seems to be some improvement on meeting the crisis.  In this, Portsmouth has gone through some positive changes.  These changes remind this writer of the above cited Tocqueville quote describing an involved citizenry.

          Here is another quote offered by Quinones:

          Angie Thuma, the veteran Walmart shoplifter [to pay for her addiction] … told me the last time we spoke, “when I think about all the things I went through and I’m still alive, it gives you courage to keep bettering yourself.”

          That seemed to be Portsmouth’s attitude.  The town still looked as scarred and beaten as an addict’s arm.  Wild-eyed hookers strolled the East End railroad tracks, and too many jobs paid minimum wage and led nowhere.  Portsmouth still had hundreds of drug addicts and dealers.  But it also now had a confident, muscular culture of recovery that competed with the culture of getting high – a community slowly pitching itself.

          Proof to that was that addicts from all over Ohio were now migrating south to get clean in Portsmouth.  No place in Ohio had the town’s recovery infrastructure.

          On my last trip to Portsmouth, I met a young woman from Johnstown, a rural town northeast of Columbus that from her description sounded a lot like the 740 that RWR rapped about.  She had been buying heroin from the Xalisco Boys in Columbus for a couple years.  When she tried to quit, a driver who spoke English called her for a week straight.

          “But, senorita, we have really good stuff.  It just came in.”

          Finally, she threw away her phone.  There wasn’t much on it but dope contacts anyway.  She was twenty-three, alone with a ten-month-old son, and – seeking to get clean with nowhere else to turn – she found refuge in Portsmouth.

          “I love it here.  I’m really afraid to go back,” she told me in the lilting drawl of rural Ohio, when we met at a party for a woman celebrating her first year clean.

          So the battered old town had hung on.  It was, somehow, a beacon embracing shivering and hollow-eyed junkies, letting them know that all was not lost.  That at the bottom of the rubble was a place just like them, kicked and buried but surviving.  A place that had, like them, shredded and lost so much that was precious but was nurturing it again.  Though they were adrift, they, too, could begin to find their way back.

          Back to that place called Dreamland.[6]

Is there a silver-lining?  Perhaps.  Maybe the bottom of a nightmare offers enough motivation to rekindle the communal base of a spirited federal union.  Sadly, if so, what a price to pay.  Perhaps a more proactive civics program can help avoid such a price.  Of course, neither the nightmare nor a proactive educational program can make the total difference, but they can be exploited toward helping.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State, 33, (Spring, 1991):  231-254.

[2] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, eds. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835), 78-101, 78-79.

[3] See Robert Gutierrez, “And Then There Is Law-Abiding Behavior, Part II,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, May 21, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2019/05/and-then-there-is-law-abiding-behavior_21.html .

[4] Sam Quinones, Dreamland:  The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (New York, NY:  Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 344-345.

HIDING THE MULA

There is an important element of any modern society that by its nature holds a federalist character and, at the same time, does not.  The modern corporation, by its very structure, has the very federal element of being owned by the voluntary affiliation of stock owners – ostensibly forming a federation through that ownership. 

Yet, it does not have, among those stock owners, any sense – except perhaps for a select few who own large number of shares – any sense of ownership of that entity.  They, in terms of their consciousness, own stock shares, not a corporation with all its human attributes and qualities.  As such, their “pride” in ownership does not stem from ownership, but from any transactional profit they might derive from said ownership – the first step of detachment.

          Its worth mentioning, the typical stock purchaser does not care about the company he/she is buying ownership into which in a vast number of cases amount to a miniscule portion of the total ownership.  All that person cares about is the price for which he/she is purchasing the shares and how much the anticipated price he/she can sell it at some future date.  In most cases, the person anticipates a higher price and, therefore, a profit from the transactions.  Just another way to make a buck.

          This posting needs the reader to understand these basic elements of stocks, corporations, and stock ownership to make its points.  But the main point being made here is not directly associated with these elements, but with how the notion of corporation is used to establish the processes that lead to unsavory results.  This is aided by, to various jurisdictions being fast and loose with attaining identifiable information with those establishing corporations. 

And those results, as is cursorily explained below, come about from a detachment system – detachment between ownership and business – that allows certain practices to take place.  But before this established process came into being, it was an idea, but an idea with important consequences. 

Its manifestation has probably done more to advance what Jonah Goldberg[1] calls “the Miracle” than just about any other development.  As the reader is probably aware, the formation of corporations provides the vehicle for the accumulation of financial capital to fund the purchases of physical capital allowing the expansion of smaller businesses.[2]  In turn, that allows the businesses, if successful, to go national or even global.

          With those physical assets, as well as human capital, a business company can buy machinery, set up distribution facilities, set up sell operations, rent the necessary office spaces, acquire the use of buildings, on and on.  In the process, by the willful, chosen course of action, investors – who supply the money – in a formal way, form a type of “partnership.”  On paper, they become federated one to the other.  So much so, that the scholar, Daniel Elazar, cites this process as one that helps demonstrate that America is a “thoroughly” federated system.[3]

          But hold on.  Oliver Bullough points out a missing federal quality in these arrangements.  In his description, he explains how corporations have attained the ability to hide money and other assets and this has led to very un-federated realities.  He writes:

… there is more going on here than just [corporate] lawyers being dishonest – turning a blind eye, or otherwise.  It was not a crooked London solicitor or a dishonest New York attorney that made it so easy to create companies [instrumental in hiding money]; that was the work of government.  The crucial attribute of corporate vehicles is that they are legally separate from their owners and their owners’ liability for their debts is limited.  What that means in practice is that, if you operate through a company, society as a whole is taking responsibility for your debts.  It’s a kind of insurance.  If your business fails, only the assets of the limited liability company will be at risk, not those of its owners.[4]

Of course, it is this “insurance” that helps persuade investors to invest in “start-up” companies despite all their inherent possibilities for failure.  So far, so good; but this process, by avoiding direct attachment to the business in question, through this “insurance” scheme, accomplishes an important – second – step toward non-identification of ownership.

          Naturally, corporate structuring has a history and it is relevant to what is currently going on.  The first corporations of note popped up in the early 1800s.  England and the Netherlands were the first two nations to employ them.  But they were initially highly restricted.  For example, in England, Parliament had to give permission for the creation of one and that, in turn, limited the number that were created under that supervisory regime. 

But leave it to the good ole USA – even in its more federalist years – to give it its current form.  New York first legislated the limited liability form in 1811 and by the 1850s, that structural form was in full use.  By the early twentieth century, modern incorporated entities accounted for 95% of the market.  Citing the Economist, Bullough reminds his readers, “Limited liability is … ‘the key to industrial capitalism’.  Companies are good, without them, our modern prosperity would have been impossible.”[5]

So, there is an upside, but there is also a downside.  It turns out, that not only people can buy stocks or form corporations, but for a variety of reasons – some reasonable and honest, some not so much – corporations (legal persons) can also form them – sometimes many times over.  And this layering of ownership provides the third, and perhaps most important, structural basis for hiding ownership and with it, the ability to hide money.

And hark, the problem comes into focus.  Through this anonymity, a lot of shenanigans take place.  From spouses who want to hide their assets from divorcing mates to Mafia and other illicit, organized groups who use this structural capacity to hide money, how it is earned, and how it is used.  And this includes corrupt politicians on the take.  Some of those activities include fraud, bribes, embezzlement, and tax evasion.  And, of course, these activities have social consequences.

If the way the money is “earned” happens to be illegal (dirty money), the ill effects of that activity is problematic – take drug dealings or a blind eye to shoddy construction by public inspectors.  But people can find such hiding not only associated with “dirty” money, but also with “naughty” money. 

Tax evasion, in the eyes of many (not including this writer), is not dirty, it’s naughty.  People also see spending on extra marital affairs, for example, and other such expenditures as less than dirty but not honorable.  They result in embarrassment, so through the efforts of some skillful lawyers, those funds can become de-embarrassing through certain practices and incorporating, in certain ways, plays an important role.  

There are countless reasons why people want to hide money.  And since the uses of money have social consequences – as just pointed out – society has every right to ferret out where and by whom money is owned and controlled.  But they can only do so if the important information is recorded and accessible – they are too often neither.  In terms of the US, these practices go against the very notion that Americans are, constitutionally, a federated people.

Central to these unfederated consequences, created by hiding money, is the function corporations fulfill in such efforts.  So, an issue civics classes can have students investigate – at the risk of encouraging future practitioners – is the ability of individuals or groups to partake in these practices including those associated with corporations that are set up for these dishonorable and even illicit purposes.

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[1] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).  The “Miracle” refers to the explosion in economic wealth since the seventeenth century.

[2] This is especially the case when investors buy into an IPO, an initial public offering, of a promising, relatively young business.

[3] Elazar, D. J.  (1994).  How federal is the Constitution? Thoroughly.  In a booklet of readings, Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar, (pp. 1-30) prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

[4] Oliver Bullough, Moneyland:  Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back (London, England:  Profile Publishers, 2019), 92.  Emphasis added.

[5] Ibid., 93.

BEING SCHMALTZY?

This blog has just finished a series of posting regarding a foundational construct offered by Jonah Goldberg.  This writer needs a milder topic and the reader deserves a shorter read.  So, at the risk of being schmaltzy, this blog offers the following – from Lao Tzu – that captures, for the writer, a federalist notion:

Watch your Thoughts, they can become Words.

Watch your Words, they can become Actions.

Watch your Actions, they can become Habits.

Watch your Habits, they can become Character.

Watch our Character, it becomes Destiny.

Perhaps the original intent was religious, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.  It can also be secular.

          The federalist turn occurs in the last line.  This writer does not know this philosopher’s meaning, but he feels the line captures an unavoidable truth.  No matter how much a person feels he/she determines his/her own fate, the manifestation of what will occur relies on the “our” element.

          People who hold a purely capitalist notions of the economy, seem to have a hard time accepting that fact.  Yes, business owners work hard.  They put in the hours, the sweat, the anguish, and the risked capital.  But all businesses exist within a social landscape that permits that business to exist.  Like what?  All the publicly owned infrastructure – the streets, water works, police protection, public health services, etc.  Are those services and related goods just a transaction between resident/businessperson and the government – taxes for services?

          Roughly testing that idea, this posting offers the following.  In New York City, from “Googling” the subject, one finds that the median income is from $50-58,000.  The City’s budget comes to $89.2 billion a year.  That comes to a per capita (per 8.6 million population) share of expenses of circa $10,350.  Add to that state expenses and taxes and federal expenses and taxes.  Somehow, these numbers seem to indicate the average New Yorker falls short of covering city expenses given the median income levels just listed. 

The point is:  an individual citizen, on average, does not exchange the amount he/she pays in taxes and the benefits he/she gets from living in a jurisdiction like New York City.  This blog is not passing judgement on the fairness of that city’s taxing policies or of any level of governance.  Do governments do too much question is for another posting.  This one is only claiming that being a citizen transcends being in a transactional relationship.  More is at stake.  In the extreme, how does one place a price on the sacrifice many have made – such as in the armed forces or first responders.

In addition, transactions do not elicit love.  It might engender appreciation, respect, even a sense of marvel at what professionals can accomplish.  But they do not, in any real sense, elicit love.  Yet, for a nation to survive, that is exactly what is needed in order to advance much less survive.  “Watch our Character, it becomes Destiny” refers to what a society is and will become.

Of interest, there has been various version of the above set of suggestions.  A more individualistic version has the last line, “Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”  This is attributed to Frank Outlaw, the deceased president of the Bi-Lo Stores.[1]  Perhaps his version demonstrates the “businessperson” bias alluded to here. 

Another point of interest is the fact that the word “watch” contains the first letter of each of the key words of the quote.  “W” for words, “a” for action, “t” for thoughts, “c” for character, and “h” for habits.  They are not in order, but the coincidence (?) is worth noting.

How’s that for a schmaltzy effort?

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[1] See “Watch Your Thoughts, They Become Words; Watch Your Words, They Become Actions,” Quote Investigator, n.d., accessed June 24, 2019, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/10/watch-your-thoughts/ .

A NUANCED HUMAN NATURE

With the last posting, this writer brings forth evidence – Columbus’ account of his first voyage to the West Indies’ islands and his encounters with their inhabitants – that questions Jonah Goldberg’s view of human nature.  Goldberg’s view is that human nature disposes people to be self-centered – egoistic – and apt to pursue self-interests irrespective of others’ property or other rights. 

According to Goldberg, one must be taught to think and even feel differently.  Such a human nature leads to the establishment of governments for the sheer purpose of robbing a populace in a way that allows bandits to continuously pilfer from a victimized population.  How?  By leaving enough among the targeted people, so they can continue to create wealth, and the robbers to continue to steal.

          That is, by leaving enough, those pre-historic societies become ongoing victims of those who establish and maintain power by establishing government with the power to tax.  Here is another writer’s account of this same process:

The American economist Mancur Olson traced the origin of civilisation back to the moment when pre-historic ‘roving bandits’ realised that, instead of raiding groups of humans and moving on, they could earn more by staying put and stealing from their victims all the time.  Early humans submitted to this, because – although they lost some of their freedom when they submitted to these ‘stationary bandits’ – they gained in return stability and security.  The bandits’ interests, and the community’s interests, became aligned.  Without bandits constantly raiding them, and stealing their property, groups of humans built increasingly complex communities and economies, becoming increasingly prosperous, which led eventually to the birth of the state, to civilisation, and to everything we now take for granted.

          ‘… Roving banditry means anarchy, and [sic] replacing anarchy with government brings about a considerable increase in output,’ Olson wrote in his 2000 book Power and Prosperity.[1]

Olson’s account of the beginnings of civilizations varies significantly from that offered by Arnold J. Toynbee[2] which was described in the last posting. 

All this blog’s writer can state is that Toynbee was a historian looking at the effects natural challenges have in providing the conditions for the beginnings and subsequent health of civilizations and Olson, an economist, seems to have applied rational theory to the economic fate of the former communist bloc nations after the fall of communism.  Toynbee’s review, it is felt here, of over 20 civilizations has more explanatory power, at least, in terms of the overall factors affecting the development of civilizations.

The important point is that human nature has not been shown to be this one-dimensional factor; it is not necessarily an egoistically disposed force within people which calls on selfish, short-sighted behaviors and, therefore motivates the establishment of governments. 

It might be the case that one person has such a nature, but another does not.  It can be the case that another has a nature that is charitable and especially disposed to seek opportunities to be of service to others.  In either case, the individual, with the appropriate socialization can turn to be of one sort or another and every other possibility in between.

In addition, any disposition under the right circumstances can be motivating someone to be involved with the processes involved with building a civilization.  Therefore, in terms of considering human nature and the origins of government, one should see that it is too simple to ascribe such motivations to a desire to steal.  That conclusion has implications as to the veracity of the natural rights’ argument. 

That argument basically states:  in terms of governance, the governing class needs to give in to human nature – in its disposing power to lead one to have tunnel vision in terms of one’s self-interest – so that the trade-off is for a person to abide by the rules of the game and enhance a mutual well-being and the stability to which Olson refers.  Such a regime, that theory holds, helps establish a social landscape in which a mutual welfare can be created and maintained.

Or stated another way, it allows for the Miracle – what Goldberg calls the development of liberal democracy and capitalism – that has led to the economic explosion of the last several hundred years.  This writer acknowledges that this “explosion” occurred.  He agrees there are those who have such anti-social dispositions that leads one to wonder how natural their antagonistic behaviors are.  But he highly questions that there are not enough natural tendencies toward benevolence among a given population that actively initiates and supports public action that leads to a more federated arrangement among a citizenry.

As Thomas Reid and Francis Hutcheson, two Scottish writers of the 1700s, claimed:  being kind, benevolent to others feels good, it’s a natural high.  This, in the mind of those writers, was part of human nature and unalienable.  If this is true, public policies that address common needs – like, for example, health care – that impinges on liberal values – like mandating taxes to pay for a single-payer health care system – does not necessarily undermine the foundations of the economy or of a viable democracy.

They can, on the other hand, introduce and support the assumptions upon which a federated – as opposed to liberal – democracy is based.  This blog does not argue for a public health program.  That is not the intent here.  What it does argue is that a public health program – like Medicare for All – should be argued on its merits – is it efficient enough; is it politically viable enough; is it effective enough? – not on its threat to the Miracle. 

And by the way, a poor health care system undermines the claim that a system honors equality and that such a program threatens the Miracle as would any examination of the tenets of liberal liberty.  Addressing the extent of any social, economic, political condition that undermines the values of a federated union is legitimate given the values of such a union.  Addressing it legitimately picks up on an aim of the Constitution, to “promote the general welfare.”

With that, this blog completes its critique of Jonah Goldberg’s foundational construct.  Again, this writer highly recommends Goldberg’s book.  To the extent humans are naturally the way he describes them, his arguments are useful.  It also goes a long way in explaining the conservative mind set.  But as this posting and the last one indicate, this writer has fundamental reservations as to that writer’s take is on the origins and functions of government.

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[1] Oliver Bullough, Money Land:  Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back (London, England:  Profile Books, Ltd., 2018), 24.  British spelling.  For reference:  Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity:  Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2000).

[2] Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (New York, NY:  Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1971). 

COLUMBUS’ REPORT

Well, are humans naturally egoistic with little regard for others?  Jonah Goldberg provides a description of human nature as portraying the natural people as very apt to steal, exploit, and otherwise advance their own interests, at the expense of others, except for in limited social arrangements.  Those exceptions refer to seeking mutually reciprocal relationships with fellow tribe members – with those that look like themselves.  Is this true?  And why is the question important?

          It’s important because the answer reflects how readily humans are disposed to engage with others.  People who readily engage in exclusively self-advancing behaviors at the expense of others, will not be apt to cooperate enough or collaborate enough to achieve any but the minimal levels of collective accomplishments – that is forgoing the types that characterize not only modern life, but life that has been the state of Western life in the last few hundred years.

          To test Goldberg’s sense of human nature, one can look at the work of anthropologists and archeologists.  When such work comes to mind, this writer thinks of the classic work, Patterns of Culture, by Ruth Benedict.[1]  That anthropologist studied North American tribal societies – the Zuni, Dobu, and Kwkiutl – and their cultures.  Her aim was to show the range of possible human behavior within a specific culture. 

She categorizes that range in terms of a culture’s attitudes and traits and determines how individuals within each culture are defined; that is, what constitutes success, unacceptable or disparaged behaviors, or intolerable behaviors.  In other words, these are not predetermined or universal traits, but developed within the experiences of each culture.

With that, the findings of a famous historical character – famous not for his anthropological work, but for his exploratory adventures – are used here.  Christopher Columbus, as any school age child can recite, “sailed the ocean blue, in 1492.”  In terms of Europe and sailing under the Spanish flag, he “discovered” America (more accurately, Caribbean islands) at the end of the fifteenth century.  He also encountered those islands’ indigenous peoples.  In terms of this posting’s aim, in a letter to one of his supporters,[2] Columbus described how these islanders behaved.

Given that in 1492 there was no chance that modern life would have had any influence on these people, as perhaps Ruth’s observed people might have had in the 1930s, his observations, it is judged here, has more power in determining how much the observed tribespeople reflected Goldberg’s view of human nature.  So, how did Columbus describe these people?

According to this cited letter, the first people Columbus encountered were on the island he named Espanola.  On that island, he and his men found and described a people with the following characteristics:

·        They lived in sets of dwellings indicating they were not nomadic.

·        They were almost totally naked except for women who covered their “private” parts with leafy material.

·        They had no weapons.

·        They initially and for a good amount of time would run away when they encountered or saw the explorers.

·        In general, they were highly fearful and had a timid demeanor.

·        In their “running away,” they readily left behind their children and their children readily left behind their parents.  They just scattered.

·        Their practice of fleeing was maintained even when the explorers offered them gifts.

·        Eventually, they were convinced that their new guests did not pose them any danger and eventually they interacted with the explorers.

·        They were very simple in their customs and demonstrated honesty in their interactions.

·        They did not exhibit any possessiveness over what they possessed.  That is, they readily gave their things away among themselves and with the explorers.

·        They exhibited high levels of love toward all others including the explorers.

·        They seemed content with little amounts of material things.

·        They expressed the beliefs, once they began interacting with the explorers, that these new arrivals – the Europeans – were from heaven.

·        Most of these tribespeople led monogamous relationships with their “married” partners except for the “king” and “princes” who had polygamous arrangements of 20 wives.

·        There was no sign of private property; the needed or wanted things were meted out by a king’s agent who simply distributed those things.

In the opinion of this writer, this doesn’t seem to support Goldberg’s view of human nature.  In fact, Columbus’ encounters, which also included other groups of the islands, seem to be the complete opposite.  But before one believes this was pure paradise, there was an exception.

          To the east of Espanola there was another island called – presumably named by Columbus – Charis.  There lived a group that did not follow the customs of the others and this divergence gives one a reason to why the other groups vigorously ran away upon seeing the newcomers among their midst.  Here is how Columbus describes this other group:

·        They were ferocious and considered as such by the peoples of the other islands.

·        They fed on human flesh.

·        By using sophisticated canoes (which the other peoples also had), they visited and attacked the other islands, robbing and plundering these more peaceful groups.

·        They shared the same physical appearance as their peaceful counterparts except for the fact the men wore their hair just as long as the female islanders.  This similarity indicated they shared the same genetic ancestors as the other groups.

·        They had weapons, usually bows and javelins with sharpened tips.  They were made of cane.

·        They readily instilled fear in their neighboring islanders.

·        Along with their weapons, they also had brass plates – their island had ample supply of brass – for defensive purposes.

These inhabitants of Charis are more in line with Goldberg’s description of how human nature manifests itself in pre-“civilized” peoples.  But in terms of the Caribbean (or those islands Columbus reported on), these people are the exception, not the rule.

          This writer finds several facts as particularly troubling in accepting Goldberg’s view.  These tribespeople for the most part are fearful of foreigners, but not apt to be antagonistic towards them.  They are not egoistic but concerned for their fellow inhabitants.  Why this arrangement among these different tribes evolved into being what they were is anyone’s guess, but it seems hard to just dismiss this evidence in judging the veracity of Goldberg’s view.

          Now, one can say Columbus was not a trained anthropologist and he might have had hidden motivations to communicate the observations he reported.  After all, he believed for the rest of his life that he had reached the eastern most extension of the Asian continent or, at least, islands off that coast.  Of course, it became evident that that was not the case but not until after Columbus died.  The only motivation he betrays in his written account was his wish to encourage conversions of the islanders to what he believed to be the true religion, Catholicism.

If that is the extent of his aims, his report provides counter information vis-vis Goldberg’s argument.  Yet, even in an environment where basic needs are readily met, those types of places did not have sufficient challenges to encourage the development of civilization – a la Arnold Toynbee’s theory for the beginnings of civilizations.[3]  One should not consider these islanders as being naturally deficient in their natural abilities.  As a matter of fact, Columbus communicates respect for not only their social dispositions, but their cognitive abilities as well.

Where survival is basically secured by the natural environment, as in these islands in the Caribbean, those locations’ populations will not have the motivations or reasons to develop the technologies to meet demanding natural challenges – such as cycles of flooding in Mesopotamia.  Further, they will not have the reason to develop the modes of production and the resulting cooperation and collaboration such large projects, like controlling such flooding, demand.  In turn, where it does happen, such developments lead to forming the other elements of a civilization.

In terms of this blog’s review of Goldberg’s argument, Columbus provides serious counter information.  Yes, there were the Charisians, but they were the exception and that fact leads one to believe that the cultural character of a group develops from past events and other factors. 

What one can say is that natural humans are open to a variety of cultural traits and they can range from peaceful, cooperative, loving behaviors to vicious, destructive, violent, thieving behavior patterns, and the like.  What good public policy should be – what governments should be set up to do – is protect populations against one extreme while encouraging the other. 

That is, protect against the robbers and to promote the charitable.  That is what federation theory aims to do and this blog is set up, in its modest way, to assist.  Next posting will further this critique of Goldberg’s foundational construct.

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[1] Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Boston, MA:  Houghton Mifflin, 1934).

[2] Christopher Columbus, “1493, Christopher Columbus:  Discovery of the New World,” The Annals of America, eds. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 1-5.

[3] Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (New York, NY:  Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1971).  While Toynbee’s theory has been extensively critiqued, his overall relationship between challenges and responses has, in the opinion of this writer, held up.