Friday, February 22, 2013

capitalism versus socialism, capitalism versus freedom

Anyone who thinks Capitalism differs from Socialism in being "free", without repression, encouraging democracy, etc., is just not listening....

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9737



Sunday, February 17, 2013

compare and contrast: capitalism and communism

Once upon a time, when a country called "Czechoslovakia" existed, my teacher
told me about a man, a surrealist.  She told me that he performed the necessary
work which he had to do----and I assumed then it was some kind of menial labor assigned to him as a punishment for his intellectual independence---and, then, after that, he went on to do his own work---which I took to mean his creative accomplishments. 

Compare that story of repression and gray life with the following;

Just today, I've gotten another job notice about a job at a university in California,
and, once again, there are words to the effect:  We are looking for candidates who will continue to think about the job outside of the classroom......

So, if (contrary to fact and totally impossibly) our Czech surrealist had gotten such a job at a California university, he might not have had the time to produce the books and poetry which he did produce........ (And while he was not writing poetry, he would have been expected to smile and say "I love what I am doing.")

Is this progress?

NOTE/CORRECTION  (added 1 June 2013)
I neglected to mention that the jobs in question (and there have been many) are part-time and/or temporary!  So, you are expected to work part-time, presumably without health insurance---and when you are not officially working, you are still working!  Now, that's a new form of slavery.

memory-mix

Warning Label:
Memories mix. They blend.  People mix.  They blend. 
 I cannot always be sure who said what. 
--- But, usually, I think I know what I think.
 

I seem to recall,
that a student told me,
when I asked,
that "No", he really didn't like,
a certain economist,
because she liked or supported or was somehow positive toward
Labor Unions,
which an economist was not supposed to do.

And around about the same time,
I seem to recall,
the same student launched a defense of Capitalism,
on the grounds that during the 1960's or thereabouts,
it was doing quite well.

And, later I recalled,
that during the 1960's or thereabouts,
workers had enjoyed relatively full-employment and other benefits,
which mostly came about through the efforts of Labor Unions,
or what you might call a struggle between Labor and Capital......

irreverence toward markets

The market of the economystifiers' imagination doesn't exist.

The market is a mythological creature, a unicorn, like God and His angels,

---or The Devil.


People exist,

and people want Goodness (not merely goods) and justice,

Which Mere Markets will never bring us.

Czech politics

My colleagues (so far as I can tell) largely found the current President of the Czech Republic too repulsive to vote for him.

I, on the other hand, found the notion that someone is a wealthy aristocrat an equally enormous turn-off.  I think of George Bush, the younger, as a child, going to school in a chauffeur-driven limousine.
And I think of the VAT tax I pay----for food, books, and coffee.  That's a regressive tax that hurts working people more than the wealthy.  And I imagine a man who has, all of his life, been surrounded by helpers, servants.......A person like that is no democrat......and could never identify with or represent working people. (And, what's more, I don't want someone to merely represent me.)

Anyway, my colleagues find Zeman repulsive in somewhat the same way educated people used to react in horror to George Bush, the younger (or, indeed, Ronald Reagan).

So, now, the President of the USA is less obnoxious than Bush.  However, very little has been accomplished.  Wars still rage, and the war against working people (called "austerity" or "fiscal responsiblity") continues.

(For a more sympathetic view of Obama, see Robert Paul Wolff's Blog.)

Saturday, February 16, 2013

austerity in 1996

This blog is very personal.  And, in that it continues a trend which began long ago, a trend which allows all of us to speak.  No longer must we listen to the tales of kings and queens and mythological creatures.  Nor must we hear the propagandistic re-telling of the trite and imaginary tale of the "creative enterpreneur" who worked day-and-night to bestow upon the world some new product, some new trifle, some much-desired and clamoured-for technological innovation, while slaves laboured underground to put the pieces together, and he gloried above in the unending praise of the slavish media.....No such uglinesss here!

Austerity today is a cruel weapon.  But, in one sense, austerity began in my life on a day back in 1996, when something like the conversation indirectly indicated in the following lines occurred:

You can have a job,
until the boss comes,
and tells you that you've got no job,
unless,
and here he scrapes his foot and gets uncomfortable,
suggesting you really wouldn't want this,
but he's got to mention it,
although if you really wouldn't want it,
unless you'd like to throw an old dog a bone,
But,
why is he mentioning it then,
if he knows you really wouldn't want it?
--Well, go ahead,
and say it,
you think,

And he mentions it anyway---
Unless, perhaps, he says,
you'd like to work at one-third or one-fourth
the salary you had before,
while doing the same work.
 
In the language of American universities, what is described above is the opportunity to make a transition from a "Visiting Assistant Professor" (a full-time job with benefits) to the postion of "Adjunct" (a part-time job without benefits, and paid at a much lower rate).  When faced with that choice, I left the United States. 




Friday, February 15, 2013

The Irrelevance of Economics

A quote from Robert Paul Wolff, (Cut and pasted from his blog, "The Philosopher's Stone"---NOT :"The Philosopher's stoned"........)

"I am reminded of a famous remark made in 1957 by Paul Samuelson, the first person ever to win   the newly established Nobel prize in Economics, and widely considered the greatest living economist. Samuelson observed that in a General Equilibrium system with perfect competition, it does not matter whether capital hires labor or labor hires capital. He was quite correct about his model, as we would expect him to be, and generally speaking, folks who heard or read this remark took it as evidence of the irrelevance to economic theory of any moral condemnations of exploitation or of the tyranny of capital over labor.

But I read the remark quite differently. That capital hires labor is the simplest, most obvious, most universal, most indubitable fact about capitalism. Any model that purports to reveal the structure of capitalism and yet fails to capture that elementary fact is obviously completely inadequate! One might as well offer a model of American politics that has no place in it for the fact that periodically Americans hold elections."

(color not in original)

http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot



Tuesday, February 12, 2013

pity the pope

Too bad the Pope's not Czech.  He could get a little bit of extra cash working in the Czech Parliament.  (Pensions don't go far these days.) A certain wealthy aristocrat takes regular naps during the meetings of the Parliament.  The Pope could have joined him.  (They both speak German too, so it's a real pity.)

Sunday, February 10, 2013

unspeakable comparison

unspeakable comparison

Dedicated to all the brave, self-sacrificing politicians everywhere
who wield the sharp sword of austerity,
 and thereby slay their own citizens:


I. Prague 1969---or anywhere, anytime....
A young man:
His country invaded,
tanks have broken and crushed living bones,
hope has left the streets.

He decides to act,
a terrible act.

II.  Madrid or Athens 2012, or anywhere, anytime.....

An old woman and an old man:
The end of life approaching,
things are getting worse,
poverty waits outside the door:
He acts and she acts as well,
Each performs a terrible act.


III.

Suicide is a symbolic act because we are symbolic creatures:
insufferably full of meaning,
full of hopes and fears,
and longings,
but nothing is "merely" symbolic;
our suffering not the unwanted and unintended consequence of wise policies,
our longings are not a spoon tapping on an empty bottle.

Hopes and dreams squashed:
The brilliant hope for fresh air and sunshine,
the humble hope to live with dignity,
trampled and crushed by mighty engines of power and economy.

And, so, I draw an equivalence,
between what they call "totalitarianism" or "communist totalitarianism",
and what today is named "austerity":

Call it what you like,
the thing itself is ugly,
and drives feeling creatures,
living, breathing beings, creatures of thought and reason,
to lose hope,
and choose death.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Improvements

A reaction to my noisy environment on a Wednesday morning....... a morning which began with reflections upon a purely literary character and not someone real.............

I do not know the word for the noise that drills make.
I do not like the dentist's drill.
And I do not like the noise of the drill in the apartment above or below me,
I can't tell which,
and I do not consider this a gift,
but rather,
as the assertion of the Sovereign Right of Property,
to destroy and disrupt, to damage and to wound,
all in the name of a higher value,
which includes me not at all.
 
 
We live our days under the illusion of freedom,
as if things were normal,
until one day,
the Owner of the building where you live
Or The Manager who acts in his interests,
decides and declares
that
"Improvements” will begin.
And the workmen come,
and they shout and laugh,
and bang and hammer,
and knock things about,
as if this were a joyful orgy of noise.
 
But why are you surprised?
No one works at home!
What could you possibly be doing there?
How could you possibly need quiet?
Work means noise and following orders!

And Improvements come in a variety of shapes and colors:
You can have a job,
until the boss comes,
and tells you that you've got no job,
unless,
and here he scrapes his foot and gets uncomfortable,
suggesting  you really wouldn't want this,
but he's got to mention it,
although if you really wouldn't want it,
unless you'd like to throw an old dog a bone,
But,
why is he mentioning it then,
if he knows you really wouldn't want it?
--Well, go ahead,
and say it,
you think,
And he mentions it anyway---
Unless, perhaps, he says,
you'd like to work at one-third or one-fourth
the salary you had before,
while doing the same work.

And all this time,
his bad news does not quite register with you,
and you've lost any sort of capacity to think,
because you merely register his words,
and cannot really react,
until you decide that it's better to leave this job,
and this country,
if that's the way they treat you.
And all that time,
you may have not even thought,
but merely presupposed,
--somehow believed without ever actually forming the words--
that somehow,
this life,
such as it is,
warts and all,
would continue.

But you were wrong.
 
The workmen will pound and bang until they have satisfied their master,
and you will listen to them because you have no place else to go,
But later you will bang away silently at some problem or other,
or you will bump down the stairs with some other version of what's left of life,
 
And you will pretend that somehow something here is worth continuing,
and you will try to find it before Improvements come with their hammers,
and bang it, and break it, and replace it
with something more pleasing to our masters.
 






Tuesday, February 5, 2013

btw

warning note for readers:  I am not happy with this, but I've not got time to change it now.........

Tomas and Tereza, in Milan Kundera's most popular book, certainly don't have an easy time.  It's no joke wondering if a causal conversation might be reported to the secret police.  It's not pleasant to lose the job one's education and talents prepared one for.

And, yet, they never worry about paying bills.  They never worry that they might run out of money before the end of the month.  They never worry that a doctor or dentist bill might be too high.

There are some other problems which they don't have:  They don't worry about whether they can pay back their student loans or their credit card debt.

Of course, the intricacies of their psychologies are fascinating.  But, at this point, I am reminded of two things a friend in Vienna once said to me:  First, he recognized that, as compared to other parts of the world, Vienna was a prosperous city, with many advantages.....And, secondly, when I commented on the number of young people visiting psychiatrists, he remarked that this was why Freud practiced there. The Viennese needed him. 

My point is that there may be a connection between the first and second things he said....

But, I do like reading about Tomas and Tereza too......

However, under capitalism, when you move from being, say, a lawyer (or having a law degree) to working as a janitor, the consequences (in addition to loss of self-respect and status, there may be a practical problem of paying for student loans)  seem to be much more devastating than the freedom that Tomas experienced when he had a job he could forget about once working hours ended.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/alleged-robber-with-bucky-badger-hat-needed-money-for-debt/article_90e71ea0-61ab-11e2-9390-001a4bcf887a.html

Apparently, some people think the story to which Ive just linked is a joke, or that the desperate man deserves scorn.
There is a deeper point here about our flawed economic system.

Consider the details: that the man was staying in a hotel, or that he had recently visited a museum.
From those facts, one can construct some guesses about the man's situation.  But, one thing I must say right off:  travelling the short distance from Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois to visit a museum is not frivolous.  It is an attempt to maintain a life with a certain level of decency.  But, in the United States, even that is evidently too much to ask for.


Sunday, February 3, 2013

Indifferent


Indifferent


I don't feel good
or satisfied,
or happy,
or optimistic.

I make plans,
But I don't have any confidence,
that I will get there.

No one cares the least bit anyway,
because I've gone out of my way,
not to tell anybody,
so they won't know,
whether I get there or not.

It's better that way.
I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone.
 
"And so you don't know where you're going?"




heroes of the revolution

Thoughts after watching a brief documentary on television.........


The Heroes of 1989


They really haven't got a clue!
I thought to myself,
as I heard the theatre director,
or actor,
or both,
--And he is evidently living a comfortable life--
Speak about the fear
he'd learned under communism,
and how it won't go away.
And I thought to myself,
Fear?!
I'll tell youabout fear:
fear under Capitalism.

Living with fear,
every day,
and every day,
for decades,
for a lifetime:
Knowing you could lose your job,
and your home,
and your health insurance.
Knowing you could end up
sleeping in your car,
or under a bridge.

If you said the wrong thing to your boss,
and pissed her off,
or just annoyed her,
Or even if you did and said absolutely nothing at all,
because
Capitalism is,
in that sense,
completely impersonal in its cruelty.

And, then, I thought,
Of course,
these are relatively privileged individuals,
who attended the most prestigious of schools,
and they are,
of course,
consequently,
blind to their place in the hierarchy.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

comment on USA news

The spectacle of John Kerry crying as he moves from one well-paid job with generous
benefits to another, crying as he recalls so-called great leaders was not moving,
but ridiculous, especially when he dared  to speak of himself as a mere "temporary worker".

The degree of fantasy here is shocking.
People like Kerry don't have to worry about the future as do most working people.
That, in and of itself, is enough to make it inaccurate and misleading to say that
they are "workers". 

More to the point, Kerry in his life has served the interests of precisely those who benefit the most from the exploitation of workers......