How Hayek Lost His Debate on Cultural Evolution

Posted on November 20, 2019 by greg

Culture, cultural transmission, and cultural evolution arise from genetically evolved psychological adaptations for acquiring ideas, beliefs, values, practices, mental models, and strategies from other individuals by observation and inference. Cultural evolution, historically also known as sociocultural evolution, was originally developed in the 19th century by anthropologists stemming from Charles Darwin’s research on evolution. Epigenetic inheritance adds another dimension to the modern picture of evolution. The genome changes slowly, through the processes of random mutation and natural selection. It takes many generations for a genetic trait to become common in a population. The epigenome, on the other hand, can change rapidly in response to signals from the environment. And epigenetic changes can happen in many individuals at once. Through epigenetic inheritance, some of the experiences of the parents may pass to future generations. At the same time, the epigenome remains flexible as environmental conditions continue to change.

In 1809 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) described a two-part mechanism by which change was gradually introduced. The first part of Lamarck’s theory claimed species start out simple and consistently move towards complexity and perfection. The second part dealt with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He believed that changes in environment or the conditions of life react upon organism in the direction of their needs or functions. This Lamarckian inheritance (mechanism of evolution) involved the inheritance of acquired traits. He believed that the traits changed or acquired over an individual’s lifetime could be passed down to its offspring. That is, when environments changed organisms had to change their behavior to survive. Fifty years after the publication of the ideas around Lamarckian inheritance, Charles Darwin published his Theory of Natural Selection. The predictive power of Darwin’s theory rests on its specification of systemic selective forces, based on the algorithm of variation, selection and retention.

Multiple theories of evolution were in circulation during the 19th century. During the Victorian period, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), one of the most discussed English thinkers at this time, urged the importance of examining social phenomena in a scientific way. As a young man he was a civil engineer, his curiosity peeked by the many fossils he discovered while excavating new passages for railways. His reading of Lyell’s Principle of Geology moved him to consider seriously the Lamarckian hypothesis. He developed the concept that eventually was identified as social Darwinism. He believed that natural selection applies to human societies, social classes and individual as well as to biological species developing over geological time. This supported the doctrine of social Darwinism promoted to justify laissez-faire economics, thought best to promote unfettered competition between individuals, and the gradual improvement of society through the survival of the fittest.

Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) developed a theory of cultural evolution intended to account for the development of free-market capitalism, and explained why it works so well. He believed that it had allowed him to achieve what no earlier economist had – to paint “what now seems to me a tolerably clear picture of the nature of the spontaneous order.” Hayek was closely exposed to ideas of colleagues that had allowed him to achieve understanding with respect to evolutionary theories, during his 12 years at the London School of Economics. One of these colleagues, Alexander Carr-Saunders (1886-1966), was an adherent of neo-Malthusian ideas and Galton’s eugenics. He was concerned about all kinds of social ills and problems – he saw a solution in eugenics for the engineering of society into a better condition. Another colleague with influence was Julian Huxley (1887-1975), an Oxford zoologist who wrote books, including The Vital Importance of Eugenics in 1933 which basically advocated a long-term goal that degenerate individuals were stopped from reproduction as quickly as possible.

Cultural evolution, unlike Darwinian evolution, is of acquired characteristics. The application of evolutionary ideas to socioeconomic systems became an increasingly prominent theme in the work of Friedrich Hayek. Hayek claims social evolution rests upon the transmission of acquired characteristics is fully supported by Lamarckism, that is, his theory of cultural evolution simulates Lamarckism. Unlike true conservatives, who see in both the present and the past, traditions to be recaptured and preserved at almost any cost, Hayek recognizes that society is the product of continuing evolutionary processes that are unintended consequences of the choices and values of the humans who constitute them. Hayek maintains that with social evolution “the decisive factor is not the selection of physical and inheritable properties of individuals but the selection by imitation of successful institutions and habits…the whole cultural inheritance which is passed by learning and imitation.”1 Because acquired characteristics may be passed on, cultural evolution resembles Lamarckian rather than Darwinian evolution, and indeed this sort of evolutionary thinking is older than Darwin’s.

John Cairns, Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1963-1968), reported on an experiment in 1968 that suggested gene mutations were not solely the result of random chemical events as is currently perceived. In the experiment bacteria were slowly killed and then were given a chance to respond to the stress. The organism his team used was a strain of Escherichia coli that lacked the enzyme to use lactose as a metabolite. Into the organism they inserted scrambled code for the enzyme necessary to grow. Initially there was no growth, then two days later colonies appeared on the agar. Cairns called this process adaptive mutation – proposing they were mutations, or genetic changes that were much less random and more purposeful than traditional evolution. He claimed the results are consistent with Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. Some social scientists who were applying evolutionary theory began analyzing problems from the Lamarckian inheritance perspective.

Just over a decade after Cairn’s announcement of adaptive mutation, further work in molecular genetics of bacteria imploded the Lamarckian theory that had been proposed. In order to respond to the stress of a nutrient poor environment, bacteria down-regulate their gene repair enzymes allowing a higher rate of mutation and a higher chance of a population that can overcome the challenge. In stress-enhanced bacteria, mutation is a regulated phenomenon in which the rate of mutation transiently increases several orders higher than normal, triggered by stress. Similarly, sub-inhibitory levels of antibiotics stress bacteria and increase the rate of mutation, which, in turn, selects for resistance. This is the result of selective advantage of induction of an error prone DNA polymerase, and illustrates the power of natural selection. The discovery of selective mutations made natural selection not just attractive as an explanation, but unavoidable, while highlighting the role of epigenetics.

Epigenetics is a mechanism of gene control that can promote or repress the expression of genes without altering the genetic coding of an organism (Feinberg, 2008). In other words, epigenetics represents a system by which the gene expression of an individual can be altered without altering their genome’s sequence. The key to this success has always been the uniquely human ability to adapt quickly and epigenetics has played a role in this capacity to adapt. While cultural adaptations to environments, such as changes in clothing or ritualistic behavior, are the most visual signs of this adaptability, no less important are the more subtle genetic and epigenetic changes that a population undergoes as they live in an area for generations. For example, a population that has lived in an arid environment will carry many genetic mutations that make them more suitable to a dry climate. This population will however still carry many of the genetic mutations that made them suited to their old environment until selection pressure allows new mutations to compensate for these genetic relics.

In the past, the main criticism of Darwin’s natural selection was the requirement of multiple generations before change occurred, which did not fit with the business model. With the discovery of epigenetics, this thinking has changed. It is now known that genetic change can occur much more quickly than previously thought, responding from messages coming from other genes, hormones, and from nutritional cues and learning. The reactive oxygen radicals can modify, or turn off and on, genes that effect events further downstream. This can cause chronic diseases within a few decades. The great recession has created a perfect storm for poor health. The realization that the epigenome is highly sensitive and responsive to environmental influences, including toxic exposures, dietary factors, and behavioral impacts, serves to focus future state priorities. How we develop mentally and physically have a tremendous impact upon our inherent capabilities and our set of life options.

The Enlightenment writers were concerned about a system based on birth privileges, inequality and exploitation. A cultural process gave rise to the inequalities, Rousseau noted, it will take a change in cultural process to reverse the harmful inequalities. Epigenetics explains how environmental factors can switch genes on and off, based on choices we make. Early studies show an association between epigenetic marks (in the human genome) and socio-economic status. For example, it is known that maternal nutrition could have a dramatic impact on childhood physical and neural development.  Epigenetic risk is not merely a medical risk, but implicates the fundamental principles of fairness and justice underlying the present social contract. For Hayek (circa 1988), the term “cultural evolution” refers to the evolution of a tradition of learnt rules, norms, ethical precepts, and practices, “especially those dealing with inherited property, honesty, contract, exchange, trade, competition, gain, and privacy”. Hayek’s theory of cultural evolution can now be relegated to the dustbin of history.

1 The Current Evidence for Hayek’s Cultural Group Selection Theory (30 Dec 2010) https://mises.org/library/current-evidence-hayek%E2%80%99s-cultural-group-selection-theory

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How Ecology and Skepticism Define Sustainable Development

Posted on November 10, 2019 by greg

Social ecologists hold that the problems of environmentalism are due to an authoritarian hierarchy that is also responsible for such ills as racism, sexism, and classism. They argue that problems such as global warming or species extinction are caused in the same way as social problems such as poverty and crime and can all be attributed to a social structure in which only some enjoy real power, while the majority remain powerless. They claim that environmental degradation will continue until such social conditions are addressed.1 On the other hand, agents of neoliberalism have reworked, and are now championing the discourse on sustainability. This discourse has resulted in the development of market-based options, and politicians around the world have settled on two solutions: (i) carbon trading, (ii) carbon tax, as actions to adopt to ‘regulate’ greenhouse gas emissions. Skepticism that we can maintain sustainability without integrating economic decisions with ecology continues to grow .

Throughout history skepticism developed with regard to various disciplines in which people claimed to have knowledge. It was questioned, for example, whether one could gain any certain knowledge in metaphysics (the philosophical study of the basic nature, structure, or elements of reality) or in the sciences. In ancient times a chief form of skepticism was medical skepticism, which questioned whether one could know with certainty either the causes or cures of diseases. In the area of ethics, doubts were raised about accepting various mores and customs and about claiming any objective basis for making judgments of value. A dominant form of skepticism concerns knowledge in general, questioning whether anything actually can be known with complete or adequate certainty. According to skeptics, the limits of what you know are narrower than you would like to think. There are many things that you think you know, but actually fail to know.2 

Anti-skeptical thinkers, such as A.J. Ayer and John Austin, contended that skepticism is simply unnecessary. If knowledge is defined in terms of criteria that are truly meaningful, reflecting how knowledge claims are actually advanced, challenged, and justified, then knowledge is open to all. The skeptics raise false problems, since there are, as a matter of fact, criteria for distinguishing illusory experiences from veridical ones. Doubts are resolved and knowledge attained through these procedures, after which further doubt is simply meaningless. However, Arne Naess (1912-2009), in his book Scepticism (1969), sought to show that, on the standards offered by Ayer and Austin, it is still possible to ask whether a given knowledge claim may turn out to be false; hence skepticism has yet to be overcome. Næss averred that while western environmental groups of the early post-war period had raised public awareness of the environmental issues of the time, they had largely failed to have insight into and address what he argued were the underlying cultural and philosophical background to these problems.

Rumi observes, “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” During the early 1970s, Arne Naess suggested that the environmentalist movement needed to do much more than conserve and protect the environment. He held that a radical reevaluation of the understanding of human nature was needed. In particular, he claimed that environmental degradation was likely due to a conception of the human self that had been ill defined in the past. Naess argued that the individual is cut off from others and their surrounding world when the self is seen as a solitary and independent ego among other solitary and independent egos. That separation leads to the pitfalls of anthropocentrism and environmental degradation. He believed that a new understanding of the self (called “self-realization”) was needed.” After self-realization you reach a new vision and understanding – you will experience you are doing something different with your life than you did before self-realization.

Deep ecology is an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, plus a restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas. Deep ecologists often contrast their own position with what they refer to as the “shallow ecology” of other environmentalists. They contend that the mainstream ecological movement is concerned with various environmental issues (such as pollution, overpopulation, and conservation) only to the extent that those issues have a negative effect on an area’s ecology and disrupt human interests. They argue that anthropocentrism, a worldview that contains an instrumentalist view of nature and a view of humanity as the conqueror of nature, has led to environmental degradation throughout the world, and thus it should be replaced with ecocentric (ecology-centered) or biocentric (life-centered) worldviews, where the biosphere becomes the main focus of concern.

According to deep ecology, the self should be understood as deeply connected with and as part of nature, not disassociated from it. Deep ecologists often call that conception of human nature the “ecological self,” and it represents humans acting and being in harmony with nature, not in opposition to it. According to Naess, when the ecological self is realized, it will recognize and abide by the norms of an environmental ethic that will end the abuses of nature that typify the traditional self, which is trapped in anthropocentric attitudes. Moreover, the ecological self will practice a “biocentric egalitarianism,” in which each natural entity is held as being inherently equal to every other entity. Deep ecology requires us to ask deep questions about our personal lifestyle society and experience. By probing deeper, we can discover our true place in nature. Naess wants each individual to think through their beliefs and construct their own philosophy.

In 1984 Naess and Sessions devised an eight-point statement, or platform, for deep ecology. The statement was offered not as a rigid or dogmatic manifesto but rather as a set of fairly general principles that could help people articulate their own deep ecological positions. It was also meant to serve as a guide toward the establishment of a deep ecology movement. Two points that today’s decision makers must focus on are: (i) “Significant change of life conditions for the better requires change in policies. These affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.” and (ii) “The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of intrinsic value) rather than adhering to a high standard of living…” For Naess, deep ecology involves the fight against pollution and resource depletion, along with the health and affluence of people in developed countries.3

Neoliberal globalization is a system of smoke and mirrors where the basic instability and unsustainability of the whole system leaves a financial elite who hold governments to ransom. In public discourse, neoliberal think tanks hijacked environmental politics, reworking and the championing the discourse of ‘sustainability’. This includes reconfiguring and depoliticizing the relation (central to all discourses of sustainability) between ecology and economy. Rather than the discourse being capitalism as seen as a threat to threaten ecology and sustainability, it becomes the universal pre-condition of all economic activities. This shift in terms of the relationship ensures that economy and ecology become equally important, and thus mutually constraining components of sustainability. This new important messaging concept allows neoliberalism to ‘defend itself against critique” and bolsters its moral legitimacy. This allows neoliberals to marginalize the social ecologists, the so-called radical ecological movement, who support deep ecology.4

Social ecologists trace the causes of environmental degradation to the existence of unjust, hierarchical relationships in human society, which they see as endemic to the large-scale social structures of modern capitalist states. Accordingly, they argue, the most environmentally sympathetic form of political and social organization is one based on decentralized small-scale communities and systems of production. Sustainable development provides a powerful and realistic basis to be hopeful about the future. It is not primarily about economic growth, social well-being, environmental protection, or security; it is not about one objective at the expense of others; it is about achieving all of them. It is the possibility of sustainable development, not blind faith in the virtues of economic growth or underestimation of our environmental problems, that provides humanity’s real hope in the years ahead. This isn’t about whether we should be hopeful; this is about the basis for our hope.

Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better. What neoliberalism misses or ignores is that a world of apparently neutral rules is still a world of power inequalities. The antipathy of neoliberal hegemony towards environmental regulation has set it in opposition to environmental movements. The process of corporate expansion across borders creates rapid change in many communities with subsequent negative consequences for workers. The fact that there is little international regulation has dire consequences for the safety of the people and the environment. Slow economic growth, rising inequality, financial instability, and environmental degradation are problems born of the market, and thus cannot and will not be overcome by the market on its own. Governments have a duty to limit and shape markets through environmental, health, occupational-safety, and other types of regulation. Deep ecology requires a comprehensive agenda to protect the environment and fight climate change.

1 Social Ecology https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-ecology

2 Terry L. Anderson and Lea-Rachel Kosnik. (2002) Sustainable Skepticism and Sustainable Development https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2667&context=caselrev

3 Deep Ecology https://www.thegreenfuse.org/deepecology.htm

4 Lynley Tullock and David Neilson (2014) The Neoliberalisation of Sustainability https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/csee.2014.13.1.26

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Understanding the History of Lies: Outside the Trump Bubble

Posted on November 1, 2019 by greg

Trump won the nomination as the candidate who lied the most, won the presidency as someone known to lie; has an unshakable base despite ongoing lies. Underlying social issues made this possible. His base is concerned about their place in the world, not about economic hardship. Rather it is about dominant groups that felt threatened by change, and a candidate who took advantage of that trend. Faced with the fact that non-white groups would soon outnumber them revved up their support for Trump, their desire for anti-immigrant policies, and opposition to political correctness. Trump’s America First policy supposedly supports key initiatives that works for all citizens in the country and put America first. Trump is a narcissist, and narcissists are liars. Narcissism is a disorder of the self – a self based on opportunism instead of values. For them life is a game and they play to win, and the lie becomes necessary for their own survival.

Historical perspective is always a useful thing and if history tells us anything about lying it tells us that people have always thought there was too much of it and however much of it there was, there was always more of it now than there had ever been before. The 12th century English courtier and future Bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, feared no time had ever been so dangerous for men of honest virtue. According to John, the royal and ecclesiastical courts of Europe teemed with every sort of deceiver and falsifier, with timeservers and wheedlers, gift-givers, actors, mimics, procurers and gossipmongers. The only thing that surpassed their variety was their number “for the foul inundation of their cancerous disease seeps into all so that there is rarely anyone left uncontaminated”. But this is not exactly the case. John of Salisbury thought there was nothing for it but for the virtuous man to lie to accomplish the good and to protect himself from the evil schemers that everywhere surround him.

Pierre Charron (1541-1603), the French skeptic, claimed humanity’s essential qualities were vanity, weakness, inconstancy, and presumption. Writing late in the 16th century, Pierre Charron asked his readers to “observe how all mankind are made up of falsehood and deceit, of tricks and lies, how unfaithful and dangerous, how full of disguise and design all conversation is at present become, but especially, how much more it abounds near [the prince], and how manifestly hypocrisy and dissimulation are the reigning qualities of princes’ courts.” Until the French Revolution, the problem of lying and hypocrisy often seemed to be experienced most keenly in the courts of the European elite, those hybrid spaces, both public and private, political and domestic, in which eager courtiers and all manner of hangers-on sought their fortunes. A zero-sum game, fortune hunting required the self-serving courtier to deceive and slander his competitors, to fawn over and flatter his superiors.1

But first, we need to identify why current mechanisms of preventing political deception don’t work well. The traditional mechanisms for identifying the truth about politics come from mainstream media and its fact checking. At the same time increasing numbers of people are using social media to get news – 62 percent, according to studies. Unfortunately, a study by Stanford University shows that most social media news consumers cannot differentiate real from fake news stories. The situation is so bad that, according to research, in the three months before the 2016 presidential election the top 20 false news stories had more Facebook shares, reactions and comments than did the top 20 true news articles. To add insult to injury, the Fox News group has become Donald Trump’s state news agency. In the long run, this tendency leads to high political polarization and the deterioration of trust in the political system.2

The concept of marketing has historically always been about convincing the public to be attracted to a product or service. Google took advantage of their power of information to distill the very essence of their search engines into individual filter bubbles. There is a dollar value associated with the data that they could sell so that a company could send that same marketing message to the exact individuals that had already expressed interest. The manipulation problem of filter bubbles is obvious. While many people don’t want to be told that they are not only being molded and managed, but they are doing so willingly. We live in a fast-paced, short-attention-span society that encourages the path of least resistance, and filter bubbles allow us to cut to the chase more quickly. The fact that we don’t see alternative concepts, viewpoints, or even services and products is of lesser value; and this is where the fine line arises between being controlled and controlling.

Every time you do a search on Google, it tailors your results based on your previous search history. Your search results will look different if you use Google on Campus as opposed to using in a café across town. Google is making certain assumptions about you based on your IP address. This creates the situation or danger of being so trapped inside your filter bubble that you never see the other side of the story. In order to be informed we need to know what each side is saying about an issue, and not fall for confirmation bias (reading only sources that already fall in line with our current views). There are attempts to address this challenge with online resources. One resource is Allsides which provides multiple sides on the same story so that you can get the full picture. Another source is ProCon.org presenting controversial issues in a straight forward non-partisan way.

Valery Legasov, the chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster, observes: “What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.” Basically, the more you lie, the easier it is to do it, and the bigger the lies get. Donald Trump merely replaced one swamp with another. He and his henchmen sabotage democracy by creating their own swamp where one cannot tell truth from fiction, where rational debate evaporates as he diverts, distracts, and deflects accountability. Trump has attacked some branches of law enforcement, especially those pursuing white-collar malfeasance, as his allies and former campaign officials are ensnared in various investigations. Trump surrogates were publicly advancing unsubstantiated allegations about the former vice president and Ukraine around the same time as Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president.

Evangelicals in America are not simply a religious group; they are a political group inexorably linked to the Republican Party. Evangelicals made a deal with the devil when they supported Trump. They promised to support Trump for president, even though they knew he is not a good person, in exchange for being dealt back into the political power game of determining the moral direction the country is headed The Christian right remains focused on the Supreme Court, which many evangelicals see as the chief impediment to their agenda on issues ranging from school prayer to LGBTQ rights to abortion. Their political playbook requires evangelicals to elect an attentive president who, in turn, will appoint socially conservative federal judges. Once these judges are in place, evangelicals believe they will be better positioned to win the battles over these key issues. Impeachment entrenches evangelical support for Trump.

“Liars have a dilemma,” says Ray Bull, PhD, a professor of criminal investigation at the University of Derby, in the United Kingdom. “They have to make up a story to account for the time of wrongdoing, but they can’t be sure what evidence the interviewer has against them.” So, the president’s problem isn’t just that the Ukraine affair has potentially provided the House with the substance of an impeachable offense. It’s the fact that the very same alleged activity – Trump was using the power of the presidency for his personal political benefit – cuts against his core political message of always placing “America first.” As more facts come out, as predicted, Trump’s Ukraine narrative changes – he lies to protect himself. Trump’s fears of consequences, as the whistle blower’s accusations create a concrete legal process, as well as a rising threat of impeachment, drives his decision to withhold cooperation.

Medieval writers like John and Christine de Pizan argued that we must sometimes lie to protect ourselves, to protect the state. Rather than worry about the fact that everyone lies, we should concern ourselves with the reasons why we lie. A narcissist like Trump is operating from a place of defense all the time. The lie is more of a PR stunt, a marketing ploy rather than a cohesive integrated set of values. The narcissistic personality is more of a store front designed to hide that there isn’t any there, there.3 When Trump is facing a potentially very bad news cycle his move is to: distract, divert, repeat – to move the problem out of the public eye. Testimony from a series of career bureaucrats continue to expose the secrets and lies about the Ukraine scandal, and Trump’s account will easily cave in on itself under the weight of truth.

1 Dallas G Denery II (28 Jan 2015) The true history of lying https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-true-history-of-lying-1.2081531

2 Gleb Tsipursky. (15 June 2017) How to Address the Epidemic of Lies in Politics https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-address-the-epidemic-of-lies-in-politics/

3 Katherine Fabrizio. (18 Aug 2019) Why a Narcissist Lies and What it Says About Them https://blogs.psychcentral.com

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The Goal of the Progressive Revolution: To Transform Political and Social Structures

Posted on October 20, 2019 by greg

Following the French revolution, many writers in the 19th century noted that revolution was self-perpetuating. There is no way to stop it because liberty and equality can be endlessly claimed by group after group that feels deprived and degraded. And the idea that these principles are universally applicable removes any breaking power that national circumstances might afford. In the 19th century the greatest pressure came from the liberals – enlisting many across society in this cause. They wanted written constitutions, extension of the suffrage, civil rights, free market economy, and from time to time wars of national liberation or aggrandizement in the name of cultural and linguistic unity. In parallel, the first disturbances resulting from industrial mechanization – sabotage, strikes, and conspiracies (for trade unions were generally held illegal) reinforced the revolutionary momentum, not only in fact, but also in theory. As early as 1810 the business cycle, the doctrine of exploitation of the worker and the degradation of life in industrial societies, had been noted and discussed.

By 1825 the writings of Count de Saint-Simon, which proposed a reorganized society to cure these evils, had many adherents. The Saint-Simonian doctrine proposed a benevolent dictatorship of industrialists and scientists to remove the inequities of the free-for-all liberal system. Other reformers, such as the practical Robert Owen, who organized successful communities in Scotland and the United States, depended on a strong leader using ad hoc methods. Still others, such as Leroux and Cabet, were communists of divergent kinds seeking to carry out elaborate blueprints of the perfect state. Proudhon denounced the state, as such, and all private property. As a philosophical anarchist, he wished to substitute free association and contract for all legal compulsions. In England, the school of Bentham and Mill – utilitarian or philosophical radicals – attacked existing institutions in the name of the greatest good of the greatest number, and succeeded in reforming the top-heavy legal system.

What kept mid-19th century civilization whole was a subdued faith in the reality of all the things Realism and materialistic science denied: religious belief, civic and social habits, the dogma of moral responsibility, and the hope that consciousness and free will did exist. The sum of these invisible forces is conveniently known as the Victorian morality, a formula whose meaning antedates not only the mid-century revolutions but also the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Like Romanticism, this powerful moralism had its roots in the late 18th century – in Wesleyan Methodism and the Evangelical movement, in Rousseau, Schiller, and Kant. Its earnestness was of popular origin; it was anti-aristocratic in manners, and it sought the good and the true in a simple, direct, unhesitating way. Perceiving with warm feeling that all men are brothers under God, the moral man saw that slavery was wrong; and having so concluded, he proceeded to have it abolished by act of Parliament (Britain, 1833).

The sense of rightness generated a sense of power, which the Victorians applied to the monumental task of keeping order in a post-revolutionary society. Partly by taking thought and partly by instinct, they perceived that the drive to revolution and the sexual urge were somehow linked. Therefore, they repressed sexuality; that is, repressed it in themselves and their literature, while containing it within specified limits in society. Further, they knew that the successful working of the vast industrial machine required a strict, inhuman discipline. The idolatry of respectability was the answer to natural waywardness. To pay one’s bills, wear dark clothes, stifle individual fancy, go to church regularly, and turn aggression upon oneself in the form of worry about salvation became the approved common modes of pursuing the pilgrimage of life. Victorian age dissenters and critics scorned the conformity, called such religion a sham, and viewed respectability as mere hypocrisy – yet the front held.

Developments in technology and organization reshaped social structure. A recognizable peasantry continued to exist in western Europe, but it increasingly had to adapt to new methods. In many areas (most notably, the Netherlands and Denmark) a cooperative movement spread to allow peasants to market dairy goods and other specialties to the growing urban areas without abandoning individual landownership. Many peasants began to achieve new levels of education and to adopt innovations such as new crops, better seeds, and fertilizers; they also began to innovate politically, learning to press governments to protect their agricultural interests. At the top of European society, a new upper class formed as big business took shape, representing a partial amalgam of aristocratic landowners and corporate magnates. This upper class wielded immense political influence, for example, in supporting government armaments buildups that provided markets for heavy industrial goods and jobs for aristocratic military officers.

In the cities the working classes continued to expand, and distinctions between artisans and factory workers, though real, began to fade. A new urban class emerged as sales outlets proliferated and growing managerial bureaucracies (both private and public) created the need for secretaries, bank tellers, and other clerical workers. A lower middle class, composed of salaried personnel who could boast a certain level of education – indeed, whose jobs depended on literacy – and who worked in conditions different from manufacturing laborers, added an important ingredient to European society and politics. Though their material conditions differed little from those of some factory workers, though they too were subject to bosses and to challenging new technologies such as typewriters and cash registers, most white-collar workers shunned association with blue-collar ranks. Big business employers encouraged this separation by setting up separate payment systems and benefit programs, for they were eager to avoid a union of interests that might augment labor unrest.

Nevertheless, the general trend in standards of living for most groups was upward, allowing ordinary people to improve their diets and housing and maintain a small margin for additional purchases. The success of mass newspapers, for example, which reached several million subscribers by the 1890s, depended on the ability to pay as well as on literacy. Mass leisure coexisted interestingly with the final major social development of the later 19th century, the escalating forms of class conflict. Pressed by the rapid pace and often dulling routine of work, antagonized by a faceless corporate management structure seemingly bent on efficiency at all costs, workers in various categories developed more active protest modes in the later 19th century. They were aided by their growing familiarity with basic industrial conditions, which facilitated the formation of relevant demands and made organization more feasible. Legal changes, spreading widely in western Europe after 1870, reduced political barriers to unionization and strikes, though clashes with government forces remained a common part of labor unrest.1

Initially most of the work associated with the unions consisted of testifying before Congress and State Legislatures on labor laws, rallying the troops at labor rallies, and negotiating strike settlements. The growth of trade unions and programs surrounding social insurance grew during the 1930s, specifically in response to Keynes’s call for more government intervention. H. G. Wells (1866-1946) noted, “The Trade Unionist tried to make the best for himself of the existing capitalism and the existing conditions of employment; the socialist proposed to change the system.” Wells observes the trade unions went on to become a real Fourth Estate in the country. The American Legislative Exchange Council supported by Koch money develops model bills supporting the rubric ‘right to work’ touted as giving workers freedom not to join unions. While it is based on individual rights of non-union members to enjoy benefits of union representation, its primary purpose is to weaken unions.

Identity politics is a political ideology with a religious-moral overlay that convinces people to band together in society and agree to a common project. It seeks to unite groups of traditionally-powerless people who share common characteristics – such as race and gender – into aggrieved collectives. The source of grievance is oppression by powerful groups in society, often associated with the white race and male gender. Identity politics highlights the social inequities that reflect this oppression. The right, on the other hand, redefined its core mission as the patriotic protection of traditional national identity, which is often explicitly connected to race, ethnicity, or religion. In past two decades of intense identity politics, the epic struggle between capitalist and proletariat was replaced by a new struggle between oppressed and oppressor. The elites’ readiness to ignore widening class divisions, and to replace it with class-blind identity politics, was the greatest gift to toxic populism.  

John Kenneth Galbraith noted, “People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” Today progressives need to focus less on promoting the interests of a wide variety of marginalized groups, such as ethnic minorities, immigrants and refugees, women, and LGBT people, and more on creating broad economic equality. Bernie Sanders leads a millennial revolt against neoliberal fundamentalism by identifying inequities of the economic order. Many of his followers are young people – particularly poor minorities – who tend to more readily support progressive changes to transform political and social structures than older Americans. In addition, they are more likely to support increases in the minimum wage and free tuition at colleges, and they are more likely to agree with the idea that wealth in America should be more evenly distributed.2 For the revolution to go on the Democratic Party must choose a progressive candidate for the 2020 election.

1 Postrevolutionary Thinking, adapted from Advances in Democracy: From the French Revolution to the Present-day …edited by Heather M. Campbell Senior Editor, Geography and History https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/Postrevolutionary-thinking

2 Jake Johnson, (18 July 2016) The Millennial Revolt Against Neoliberalism https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/07/18/millennial-revolt-against-neoliberalism

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The power of lies to undermine horizontal accountability

Posted on October 10, 2019 by greg

Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), the skeptic, rejected the scope and power of reason in decision-making that Newton’s work had released. Hume thought that our passions and our affections naturally lead us to perform certain actions with reason acting only as a guide, and sought to develop more fully the consequences of cautious empiricism by applying the scientific methods of observation to a study of human nature itself. We cannot rely on the common-sense pronouncements of popular superstition, which illustrate human conduct without offering any illumination, Hume held, nor can we achieve any genuine progress based on speculative or abstract reasoning, which imposes a spurious clarity upon profound issues. The alternative is to reject all easy answers, employing the negative results of philosophical skepticism as a legitimate place to start. Most skeptics believe that by continuously questioning our knowledge, the source thereof, and what is held as “truth,” we can greatly reduce the risk of being deceived by lies.

David Hume dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of causal forces in the external world itself. The first step is to keep in mind what Hume called the ‘strange infirmities’ of human understanding, and the “universal perplexity and confusion, which is inherent in human nature”. Armed with this knowledge – for our ignorance is the one thing of which we can be certain – we should be sure to exercise the “degree of doubt, and caution, and modesty, which, in all kinds of scrutiny and decision, ought for ever to accompany a just reasoner.” Hume observes, “The more instances we examine, and the more care we employ, the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration, which we form from the whole, is complete and entire.”

“Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular,” observes Hume. While cynicism is fear to believe, at the other end of the spectrum is blind faith where one is afraid to question. In between cynicism and blind faith one finds skepticism promotes no fear for either questions or hope.

The authoritarian decides what is true and that there can be no competition. They concoct an alternative reality through the creation of enemies. Their efforts include undermining confidence in the public square and in the institutions that democracies rely upon to mediate competing versions of the truth such as: courts, universities, science, news media. Donald Trump uses Twitter with a deluge of lies, fake news accusations and outrageous claims as his provocative tweets create a chaotic, alternative reality. He sabotages democracy by creating his own swamp where one cannot tell truth from fiction, where rational debate evaporates as he diverts, distracts, and deflects accountability. The purpose of such activities is to turn the country into warring tribes by creating un-yielding one-sidedness and enemies. Such self-interested propagandists will study public opinion to find out what things people are “for” or “against” in order to decide on the labels that he will use to bring about desired reactions.

Adolf Hitler wrote: The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasé young gentlemen, but to convince …the masses. But the masses are slow-moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them… All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. …The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.

The broad mass of a nation does not consist of diplomats, or even professors of political law, or even individuals capable of forming a rational opinion; it consists of plain mortals, wavering and inclined to doubt and uncertainty. As soon as our own propaganda admits so much as a glimmer of right on the other side, the foundation for doubt in our own right has been laid. …The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance. But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over – persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.1

Populists tap into the anger in the room. Turning to emotional campaigning, fear appeals become a key component in populist communication. By definition, turning toward the promotion of the “people” against evil and out-of-touch elites, populists naturally rely on messages that highlight real or symbolic threats, fueling fears for the loss of identity or economic prosperity. Research in cognitive psychology shows indeed that fear appeals – especially when framed on out-group issues – are able to induce feelings of impending threats for the in-group (e.g. related to terrorist attacks or uncontrolled immigration). Populist communication framing the crime issue through fear finds appeal in many countries. Trump’s speech qualifying Mexican illegal immigrants as criminal, drug-addicts, and rapists is a textbook example. As populists are linked to a more negative rhetoric overall, expect populist candidates to make a stronger use of negative campaigns, character attacks, and fear appeals.2

In Weber’s classic treatment, a charismatic leader “derives his authority not from an established order and enactments, as if it were an official competence, and not from custom or feudal fealty, as under patrimonialism. He gains and retains it solely by proving his powers in practice. He must work miracles, if he wants to be a prophet. He must perform heroic deeds, if he wants to be a warlord. Most of all, his divine mission must prove itself by bringing wellbeing to his faithful followers; if they do not fare well, he obviously is not the god-sent master.” Once the majority of voters decipher the lies and realize that Donald Trump has only replaced one swamp with another, that his tax reform was for the benefit the economic elite and that his trade wars and health reform are failures – he will be sent back where he came from.

Populists routinely lie. The core message of populist campaigns is that the established elite is corrupt and exclusionary and that existing regime institutions are therefore not really democratic. Successful populists like Trump essentially earn a mandate from their supporters to bury the existing system. By attacking the press and civil society, he seeks to limit accountability to pursue his agenda. Once in power, populists seek to limit the ability of citizens to demand that elected representatives act responsibly and transparently. An active civil society depends on active, engaged citizens committed to liberal democracy. Citizens who care about norms and values need to be willing to organize, stand up to power and use their voice to express discontent, and hold elected representatives to high moral standards.  Populists do not just criticize elites, they also claim that they and only they, represent the true people.

How does the present system hold President Trump accountable for his lies? The most recent challenge is Trump’s inaccurate claims about his ‘perfect’ call to the President of Ukraine which has triggered an impeachment inquiry. The present provocation and greatest threat in the US stems from deficiency in horizontal accountability – the checks and balances in a constitutional system of separation of powers – an essential feature of the constitutional state that underpins liberal democracy. When horizontal accountability is undermined there is a democratic deficiency – as when the executive is not sufficiently accountable to the legislature through such acts as government secrecy and lack of transparency. Electoral accountability is given life through horizontal accountability – the agencies and processes that monitor and enforce the mandate, obligations, rules and promises of institutions. However, the ultimate mechanism is election to ensure those in power are held accountable.

1 The Art of Propaganda: A Master Reveals His Secrets, from Adolf Hitler, 1924 http://college.cengage.com/history/primary_sources/west/the_art_of_propaganda_hitler.htm

2 Alessandro Nai (28 Sept 2018) Fear and Loathing in Populist Campaigns? Comparing the Communication Style of Populists and Non-populists in Elections Worldwide https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/15377857.2018.1491439?scroll=top

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The Truth on Societal Progress: Addressing a Failing Economic Model

Posted on October 1, 2019 by greg

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), an English philosopher and economist, believed that society was evolving towards increasing freedom of individuals and held that government intervention ought to be minimal in political and social life. Spencer’s survival of the fittest concept was believed to be natural, hence morally correct. Neoliberals extol freedom as trumping all other virtues. Their freedom is divorced from democracy, buttressed by the concept that all coercion is evil. This particular brand of freedom is not the realization of any political, human, or the ultimate aim of cultural success or progress, but rather relying on a system to harness the selfishness of people and direct it to public good, thus freeing itself from the need to depend unrealistically upon the uncertain moral virtues of its participants. Joseph Stiglitz observes, “Neoliberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience.”

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a philosopher and social critic, emphasized the importance of subjectivity, which has to do with the way people relate themselves to (objective) truths. What he means by this is that most essentially, truth is not just a matter of discovering objective facts. While objective facts are important, there is a second and more crucial element of truth, which involves how one relates oneself to those matters of fact. Since how one acts is, from the ethical perspective, is more important than any matter of fact, truth is to be found in subjectivity rather than objectivity. Truth, much like knowledge, is bound to power and similarly operates amidst the individuals and institutions that generate and sustain it. The economic elite do not hesitate to present their ideology as interpretation of truth. The “truth” the market reveals is never in actuality some eternal, given fact. The market is never a neutral arbiter of truth, so the “truth” it reveals about government practice has always required interpretation.

With regard to everything that counts in human life, including especially matters of ethical and religious concern, Kierkegaard held that the crowd is always wrong. Any appeal to the opinions of others is inherently false, since it involves an effort to avoid responsibility for the content and justification of my own convictions. Genuine action must always arise from the Individual, without any prospect of support or agreement from others. Thus, on Kierkegaard’s view, both self-denial and the self-realization to which it may lead require absolute and uncompromising independence from the group. Social institutions – embodying “the system” of Hegelian idealism – are invariably bad; only the solitary perception of self can be worthwhile. Kierkegaard observes, “Everyone one wants progress, no one wants change.” Today individuals are faced with an existential challenge in redefining their self-image and the mind-set with which they respond to the world.

Kierkegaard claims, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” In his own oblique way, Kierkegaard maintained that more attention needs to be directed towards the issue of our personal appropriation of ideas – to the question as to whether or not we live in the ideas we espouse. Abiding by your beliefs requires refraining from the impulse to talk yourself out of them when they become highly inconvenient. Kierkegaard offers insights about the process and significance of self-deception that today we are inattentive to, if not totally blinkered. Bertrand Russell observes, “No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and, however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.”

What is the truth of the present economic model? Over 90% of jobs created since 2005 can be deemed non-traditional work. This big tent that includes contractors, call-centre employees, and individuals who work for contract companies that often hire janitors or hotel workers for large corporations. These jobs are taken up by every working age and demographic. The surge in non-traditional work presents enormous barriers for economic mobility and social stability for those already struggling. The typical American family has a lower net worth income than a typical family two decades ago. Median wages have largely flatlined since 1979, while middle-class life has become 30% more expensive in the last twenty years. The instability created by the lack of a stable paycheck means families are unable to plan ahead financially, incur unexpected health costs, unable to afford additional education or job training workdays enabling them to advance their career.1

Robert Reich observes, it used to be that economic expansions improved the incomes of the bottom 90 percent more than the top 10 percent. But starting with the “Reagan” recovery of 1982 to 1990, the benefits of economic growth during expansions have gone mostly to the top 10 percent. Since the current recovery began in 2009, all economic gains have gone to the top 10 percent. The bottom 90 percent has lost ground. We’re in the first economic upturn on record in which 90 percent of Americans have become worse off. One factor here has been a sharp decline in union membership. In the mid-1970s, 25 percent of the private-sector workforce was unionized. Then came the Reagan revolution. By the end of the 1980s, only 17 percent of the private workforce was unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union. This means most workers no longer have the bargaining power to get a share of the gains from growth.

Another structural change is the drop in the minimum wage. In 1979, it was $9.67 an hour (in 2013 dollars). By 1990, it had declined to $6.84. Today it’s $7.25, well below where it was in 1979. Given that workers are far more productive now – computers have even increased the output of retail and fast food workers – the minimum wage should be even higher. By setting a floor on wages, a higher minimum helps push up other wages. It undergirds higher median household incomes. The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage. We should be paying less attention to growth and more to median household income. For Reich if the median household’s income is heading upward, the economy is in good shape – consistent with societal progress.2

GDP growth is the most widely quoted indicator of economic performance, but it may not give an accurate picture of people’s economic well-being. There is a crucial distinction between assessing the health of the economy and the well-being of the average employee – the later set of metrics paint a very different picture. Economic growth always gets a lot of attention but when trying to determine how well people are doing it is also interesting to look at indicators that highlight households’ economic activity. Real household disposable income, net cash transfers to households, real household consumption expenditure, consumer confidence, households’ savings rate, households’ indebtedness, financial net worth, and labor under-utilization rate are just a few of the indicators that can help provide a better picture of societal progress. Aggregate figures like GDP fails to sum up reality – overlooks the well-being and day-to-day lives of its citizens.

Under neoliberal subjectivity of human capital, happiness has become a prior condition to pursue the fulfillment of those social and economic needs that are no longer guaranteed, as well as increasing the odds of achieving valuable outcomes in the labor sphere. With the widening income gap between the wealthy and the rest of society, income matters to happiness as it affects the ability of how to live one’s life. Individuals, as creative beings, must reject the concept of human capital that limits their goals of freedom and happiness. The well-being of the community depends on ensuring that all its members feel that they have a stake in it and do not feel excluded from the mainstream of society. Politicians need to understand we need significant change – the role of the state needs to be transformed from that of enabler of market-based development to that of partner in the growth of the reciprocity and commons-based social economy.

Nietzsche believed, one should be conscious of the illusory nature of what is considered truth, thus opening up the possibility of the creation of new values. It is necessary to create the social environment or milieu to support good governance to control cognitive dissonance and the consequent balancing of perception that leads to misperception. The truth is that capitalism creates enormous wealth, but it concentrates into oligopolies and monopolies, to the extent that it undermines that very wealth production it relied on. Another truth is how neoliberal capitalism creates and normalizes a culture of lying to itself leading to its inherent instability. There needs to be accountability. Processes and institutions must produce results that meet needs while making best use of resources. Equity and inclusiveness require all men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being. Societal progress is about improvements in the well-being of people and households.

1 Shounak Bagchi. The New Work Economy is Failing Everyone.(12 Dec 2018) https://honestwednesdays.com/the-new-work-economy-is-failing-everyone/

2 Why the Economy is Still Failing Most Americans (Sept 28, 2014) https://robertreich.org/post/98668011635

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Seeking an Answer on How to Leave Behind the Decay of Neoliberalism

Posted on September 20, 2019 by greg

The policy-making elite have waved away the notion that they were acting ideologically, rather merely doing what works. But you can only get away with that claim if what you are doing is actually working. Since the crash, central bankers, politicians, TV correspondents have tried to reassure the public that this tweak here or those billions there would do the trick and get the economy right again. Now the technocrats in charge of the system are slowly, reluctantly admitting it is bust. You hear it when the Bank of England, Mark Carney sounds the alarm about, “low growth, low inflation, low interest rate equilibrium.” The “neoliberal agenda” has not delivered economic growth for all – it has only made a few people better off.1 Neoliberalism has outlived the socioeconomic conditions that gave rise to its existence.We need to seek an answer to this challenge with new ways of thinking, and introduce solutions to re-distribute capital.

 As long as profits rose, capitalists had accepted an accord with labor where workers received a share of the rising production in return for labor peace. But when profit margins grew smaller in the 1970s, they sought to reduce the share of value going to the workers. Turning to neoliberal ideology, corporations increasingly moved production offshore in order to utilize low-wage labor in the Global South. Both Democratic and Republican politicians alike embraced neoliberalism that freed capital from democratic social restraints. Neoliberal policies provided a temporary fix for the crisis on profit while accelerating the underlying systemic crisis of over accumulation. So, another ‘fix’ was deployed. Rather than investing money in production, the economic elite speculate with it by buying debt. The stream of interest on that debt is then counted as profit, even though no new value was created. Capital accumulated in this way is ‘fictitious capital’ as money that does not represent any products of social labor.

This speculation drives up the price of debt until the Ponzi scheme collapses, as we saw in 2008. Then the state, acting as insurer of last resort, stepped in to save the financial system with a massive bailout that restored liquidity to the banks so that they could continue to function without worrying about moral hazard. In tandem, neoliberal lobbyists ensured doubling down of the neoliberal agenda of austerity to address the economic slump. And the longer the slump went on, the more the public twigged to the fact that not only has growth been feeble, but ordinary workers have experienced much less of its benefits. Along with the loss of apparent social mobility and fairness, appeared a crisis in established institutions ranging from elected politicians, the media, Wall Street banks and corporations. Donald Trump, the so-called anti-establishment candidate, was not elected to govern, but to shake up the system.

In 2016 the American electorate opened the door for an offensive of capital to dismantle the remnants of social democracy and impose unbridled neoliberal ideology. Voters driven by despair over the effects of neoliberalism ended up with a neoliberal administration. By deconstructing the administrative state with department heads opposed to the mission of their agencies Trump seeks to free capital of social responsibilities. That has been followed by a massive tax reduction for corporations and the wealthy that will further starve the government of revenue needed to carry out essential functions. The problem now is no state able to restrain capital from its fatal excesses. The answer to build an alternative to the neoliberal ideology will not be by petitioning the economic elite to fix things for us, rather it will be by citizens participating in the challenge of the task of creating new institutions that better serve the needs of the community.

By 2019 many thinkers agree that prevailing neoliberal policy framework has failed society, resulting in monumental and growing income gap. The discipline’s focus on markets and incentives, methodological individualism, and mathematical formulism all seem to stand in the way of meaningful, larger-scale economic and social reform. In short, neoliberalism appears to be just another name for economics controlled by an existing economic elite. It appears that many of the dominant policy ideas of the last few decades are supported neither by sound economics nor by good evidence. This leads one to conclude that it is necessary to spend more time on the analysis of market failure and how to fix them rather than defer to the magic of competitive markets. The answer must address the growing concentration of wealth, the costs of climate change, the concentration of important markets, the stagnation of income for the working class, and the changing patterns in social mobility.

While schools of economics do not necessarily have the answer, we need economists to provide the tools needed to lay out the trade-offs, thus contribute to a more informed democratic debate. Sandra Black and Jesse Rothstein identify the best modern economics to provide a contemporary restatement of an old idea: government should provide public goods and social insurance. Social insurance mitigates the wide-spread and well-known failures in insurance markets to provide adequate cover, in the form of unemployment insurance, social security, and health insurance. And education requires government provision because children are generally in school before the peak income of their parents, and because parents cannot borrow against earnings of their children. The benefits of education are also in the far future and are associated with externalities in crime, citizenship, innovation. All this militates in favor of government provision of education and social insurance.

There is too much money chasing the wrong returns, Ian Welsh observes, “Money is a social creation, it is permission to tell people what to do. You do not give permission to those who use it badly …”, basically, “Do not give free money to people who are not spending it in ways beneficial to society as a whole.” The Citizens United decision legalized a system of imbalance of power. The evidence of the matter is that human behavior defies economic and political theory-making. The generalization that people and organizations act in their political interest might be true, but predicting what that might mean in practice is impossible, because there are even more political variables than economic. The consequence is a failed ideology – oligarchs and their apologists have corrupted, twisted and shaped various economic theories to protect and perpetuate their own privileged positions of power.2

What is the face of failed ideology? Income also plays a role in whether workers can participate in a retirement plan. The less money you earn, the less likely you are to have access to any kind of retirement plan. Many seniors now find they are stuck with lives of never-ending work – a fate that could befall millions in the coming decades. A lot of people in their mid-60s find themselves significantly downwardly mobile as they grow older. Many are going from being nearly poor to poor. If today’s seniors are struggling with retirement saving, what will become of people of working age today, many of whom hold unsteady jobs and have patchwork incomes that leave little room for retirement savings. More now rely on social security, that provides about 40 percent of average wage earners income when they retire, while financial advisers say that retirees need at least 70 percent of their pre-retirement earnings to live comfortably.

“We need to remember that the work of our time is bigger than climate change. We need to be setting our sights higher and deeper. What we are really talking about, if we are honest with ourselves, is transforming everything about the way we live on this planet”, observes, Rebecca Tarbotton, Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network 1973-2012. To tackle global climate change requires reorientation of the national economy from growth based on consumption to a paradigm that is both sustainable and psychically enriching, a profound and lasting reversal of the trends towards concentration of economic power and growing wealth and income disparities. Only the development of a new political-economic system and social order will allow us to overcome the institutional power of neoliberal capitalism. We must begin the journey, a third way, on a road less travelled that leads to new ways of thinking.

We need to set aside the neoliberal dogma of the last 40 years. The answer includes a two-prong approach employed simultaneously to (i) balance asymmetries of power and level the field through unions and wage boards, and (ii) re-distribute capital by reuniting capital and labor in co-operative enterprises.  Victor Hugo (1802-1885) promoted the ownership economy (cooperative enterprises) in Les Misérables. The co-operative movement is a social and economic movement which emerged in Europe as a reaction to early 19th century industrialization. Cooperatives have an important role to play in reducing poverty and generating employment. By their nature, cooperatives, owned and run their members, are strongly invested in the communities they serve, making them an important partner in ensuring environmental responsibility. Victor Hugo observes, “The future has several names. For the weak it is impossible; for the faint-hearted it is unknown; but for the valiant it is ideal.”

1 Aditya Chakraborty. (31 May 2016) You’re witnessing the death of neoliberalism – from within. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists

2 Ian Walsh (26 Nov 2013) Too Much Money Chasing the Wrong Returns. https://www.ianwelsh.net/too-much-money-chasing-the-wrong-returns/

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It is Necessary to Push Back on Partisans Who Insist on Binary Thinking

Posted on September 10, 2019 by greg

A general principle is that all cognitive and emotional awareness operates by a binary-processing system. This “base-two” compass is an integral part of the phenomenology of the mind. The mind has a normal, innate predilection for establishing pairs, emerging as dynamic opposites, and then using these to discover meaningful relationships and to establish policies. The “two-ness” proposed here is an emotional polarization between distortions: ideal versus negativity. For example, envy’s polarizations trigger all forms of hatred, fear, inordinate anxiety, suspiciousness, and pessimism. Any possible good experience is devalued. Negativity takes the form of seeing “black spots” on what is perceived. The mind perceptually and conceptually grasps reality as if it comprised polar contrasts – extremely positive or extremely negative. Evaluative discrimination when not extreme alerts us to what is safe versus unsafe, pleasant versus unpleasant, good and bad, and adaptive versus maladaptive.

Envy integrates both emotional and cognitive frames of reference early in development. Envy adds a lasting attitudinal bias to all mental perspectives throughout life. Put differently, envy provides the capacity to notice differences and impute value judgments of superior versus inferior to that recognition of difference. Over time, this sets up strong personal attitudes that reinforce values and preferences – what is important and less important. These then drive behavior and contribute to how choices are made – consciously, unconsciously, and reflexively. ‘Healthy’ groups are not those that avoid conflict and never fall prey to binary thinking and polarization. This is impossible in any case and would arrest progress and development even if it were possible. Rather, healthy groups are those that allow a third element to emerge. With the arrival of a third element, the dynamic shifts from a binary one to – at least potentially – a more balanced and inclusive one.1

Neoliberalism seeks to reduce the role of government through policies that maximize individuals’ responsibility by meeting their own needs through their labor market participation. Such policies reflect an ideological preference for private control over governmental expenditures that developed in response to economic instability and various social and political challenges to governmental authority starting in the 1960s and 70s.  Support for neoliberal policy grew with a period of reduced taxation and tremendous capital growth for many wealthier middle and upper class citizens. Many poorer citizens were not able to benefit from this period of growth but often supported neoliberal policy reform based on rhetoric that espouses citizens can achieve greater independence and economic self-sufficiency by incentivizing paid labor. This support can partly be explained by power differentials between the state and economically marginalized citizens that is exacerbated in this context where discourses of economic stability and individual responsibility are painted as binary to redistribution and welfare expenditures.2

Kierkegaard claims everyone harbors a fear of being alone, forgotten by God, overlooked by his friends and relatives. He concluded that it was in our anxiety that we come to understand feeling that we are free, that the possibilities are endless. Even though anxiety can ignite all kinds of transgressions and maladaptive behavior, we should recognize it as a dual force that can be both destructive and generative, depending upon how we approach it. Kierkegaard argues anxiety is essential for creativity – if there were no possibilities there would be no anxiety. The way we negotiate anxiety plays no small part in shaping our lives and character. The weakness of the mass media remains an inability to transmit tacit knowledge and an inability to deal with complex issues, so they tend to focus on the unusual or sensational, and the promotion of anxiety and fear. Confirmation-bias draws us in to the one-sided outlets, and the cognitive dissonance pushes us away from conflicting ideas.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett discovered that the rise in income inequality in a country, a region, or even a city correlates significantly with most psychosocial health indicators. The rise of income inequality is a typical feature of a neoliberal society. If we consider the consequences of neoliberalism on a more psychological level, it is not too farfetched to say that neoliberalism turns us into competitive individualists. If you combine that with an economic meritocracy, you create a system of winners and losers, on an individual level. The step towards loneliness, anxiety, and depression is very small in such a binary system. Such a system makes us unhappy because we are social animals, we need one another, and we thrive in groups. But also, because self-fulfillment of the individual, the right of everyone to achieve their own unique way of being human, needs social justice, sustainability and security.  The neoliberal system goes against that crucial aspect.

“Binary choice” is the phrase Wisconsin Republican, Paul Ryan, used during the 2016 presidential election to describe his reason for supporting Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Ryan acknowledged throughout the campaign that both candidates were flawed but Trump was the better of two options, the only one who would help Republicans advance their legislative agenda. “It really comes down to a binary choice,” the speaker said during his weekly press conference about moving forward with the GOP’s plan or leaving in place the 2010 health care law. Unfortunately, one doesn’t have the luxury of equivocation. President Donald Trump is forcing everyone to take a position on what kind of America this is going to be — in essence, to define again what American “nationalism” means. Trump has given Americans a binary choice: Either stand with American principles, which in this case means standing in defense of the Squad, or equivocate, which means standing with Trump and white nationalism.

The National Rifle Association is ‘successful’ at forcing ‘mythic binary choice’ on gun control. One can be pro-second amendment and for common sense gun reform.  One can be a gun-owner and want leaders to do something. However, the NRA has managed to use, what you could describe as the myth of its power, to cower politicians into fear and make the debate a false binary choice: you are either for the Second Amendment or you are against it, you are either against all gun reforms or you want to take away everyone’s guns. More and more feel “strongly” that action on this front has been inadequate. Many see a third option: Universal background checks with integrated databases, limiting gun sales to only adults over twenty-one, banning bump stocks, banning high capacity magazines. Having much stricter requirements for buying semi-automatic assault rifles also seem to have broad support.

Justin Amash from Michigan complains, “With little genuine debate on policy happening in Congress, party leaders distract and divide the public by exploiting wedge issues and waging pointless messaging wars. These strategies fuel mistrust and anger, leading millions of people to take to social media to express contempt for their political opponents, with the media magnifying the most extreme voices.” The binary nature of partisanship in our system echoes every other social conflict we have and rolls them into one sweeping, deafening, zero-sum contest for the soul of the nation, making our political system unworkable. Amash’s identification that the two-party system is in a “partisan death spiral” – cries out for more political parties rather than get rid of partisanship. The DeVos family announcement that they would no longer contribute to the Amash’s campaign coincides with his criticism of the education secretary’s boss. Can Justin Amash break binary politics in Washington?

The effect of seeing politics as a polarized binary field is that any other possibility for organization is not given a strong voice, or even a place at the table, and most candidates must align themselves within the spectrum of that binary. Simple examples as they play out in US politics, include issues such as “pro-Life” vs. “pro-choice”, where there is no real room to accommodate within the system someone who says “Hey, let’s focus on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies”. If the discussion is about taxes, the options are “tax more” and “tax less”. Creative solutions, which do not fit into that system do not fit into the binary and are not heard. In addition, any politician who does not match the binary on all hot button issues is marginalized and voters who do not match are left out. Justin Amash announces that he is leaving the Republican Party, his political home of the last ten years.

Human life is an emotional roller coaster, and when confronting emotionally charged events, individuals, and groups instinctively frame their predicaments in a binary way – as a polarity encompassing a dimension of choice with two mutually exclusive alternatives. Events are thus construed as dilemmas to be resolved in favor of one alternative or the other. However, the inherent tension leading to polarization conceals an important developmental opportunity, if we “hold” the tension long enough to permit exploration, differentiation, and resolution by a third mediating element. However, the two-party system in America means that the political process essentially remains binary and produces ever less cross-partisan coalition building.  Politics is not binary. The gerrymandering of election districts and the importance of campaign finance both protect incumbents in an anti-democratic manner. They diminish, if not eliminate, the relevance or attractiveness of middle-of-the-road candidates standing for election in either party. They only further cement the ossification of the U.S. political process.

1  Frank J. Ninivaggi.  (21 June 2015) “Twoness:” the Mind’s Binary Code.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/envy/201506/two-ness-the-mind-s-binary-code

2 Sarah Parker Harris, Randall Owen, Karen R Fisher, Robert Gould. Human Rights and Neoliberalism in Australian Welfare to Work Policy: Experiences and Perceptions of People with Disabilities and Disability Stakeholders.http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3992/3800

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Postmodernism Explains Today’s Disarray of Political Manipulation and Deception

Posted on September 1, 2019 by greg

Postmodernism challenges all truths and concludes that there is no such thing. If you look closely at atoms and electrons, it is hard to find any mass at all. Similarly, the more closely you challenge scientific and other truths, the less absolute truth may be found. Postmodernist truth is hence that there is no truth. There is convenience and illusion, but nothing that we can declare as complete truth – only as interpretations. Some may say postmodernist philosophers made it respectable to be cynical about truth and facts. However, there is plenty of evidence that fake news and post-truism has been around for quite some time before postmodernism became fashionable theory. In fact, a close look at historical facts illustrates that postmodernism makes something out of already existing reality. Rather than blaming those who predict a post-truth world, we should be thanking postmodernism for giving us frameworks and vocabularies to make sense of the world we live in.

The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels defined the big lie technique as “when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it” and that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. Cognitive dissonance causes the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from the brain’s inability to handle two conflicting realities, so it creates an alternative one that often defies reality. Cognitive biases reflect mental patterns that can lead people to form beliefs or make decisions that do not reflect an objective and thorough assessment of the facts. For instance, people tend to seek out information that confirms preexisting beliefs and reject information that challenges those beliefs. Under neoliberalism, lies become an accepted feature of political leadership. The goal is purely to instrumentalize democratic legitimacy, in order to gain the power to make the necessary decisions that ordinary people can never understand or be persuaded of.

During the 1940s, the tobacco companies promoted the health benefits of cigarettes – preventing colds and relaxing individuals. Lung cancer was rare in the early 1900s but by the mid-20th century it had become an epidemic. A 1950 medical report described a casual association between the smoking of cigarettes and lung cancer. In 1952, a Readers’ Digest article decried the negative health consequences of cigarette smoking. The following year was the first year in two decades that the sale of cigarettes dropped. The tobacco industry responded by setting up the Council for Tobacco Research. This meant denying the health consequences of smoking – deceiving customers about the true nature of cigarettes through marketing and PR, as well as damaging the credibility of industry opponents. The tobacco companies joined many associations who typically oppose taxation and promoted themselves as supporters of freedom of expression, but blocked making available any information linking smoking to death or any negative outcomes.

In the 1980s there were people who were skeptical of market fundamentalism in general and big banks in particular. In order to decrease the cognitive dissonance, bankers linked home ownership to financial instruments and complex securities. They borrowed upbeat language from the IT world, including the positive message that innovation was good. This was part of a targeted message that Wall Street was good for America. In particular, that complex securities could help low and middle-income families own homes was a key message to disarming any suspicion. Over time, this message alleviated any remaining concern many had about mortgage lenders and investment bankers. The image of the large banks evolved from untrustworthy to being part of the American innovation scene, creating innovative new products that would supposedly improve the life of everyone. This illusion quickly disappeared after the crisis of 2008.

During the 1980s lots of other misinformation programs were initiated. Reagan’s massive tax cuts of the 1980s which were promised to spur rapid growth to pay for them, instead created deficits three times larger than Jimmy Carter bequeathed. However, a public reaction set in as the regime proposed to make radical cuts to Social Security and Medicare to make up the shortfall. Neoliberal planners then realized that entrenched programs could only be weakened and dismantled through disinformation programs. Now it became necessary to pretend saving the system that you are trying to unravel. This included having think tanks talk incessantly about a crisis and challenge the credibility of the system. Then public confidence in the system will wane which will create an opportunity for new initiatives on reductions to health care, pollution regulation, climate changes, unemployment insurance, and democratic accountability.

What happens to this stealth program when an honest politician like Obama comes into power? The economic elite still retained control of the Senate, and eventually Congress. The government response to the 2008 economic crisis increased the budget deficit significantly. The neoliberals claimed that there would need to be significant cuts to social programs to counter any further deficit of an infrastructure program – introducing austerity planning. What economists generally mean by austerity is a reduction in the “structural deficit” of the government, that is, ignoring the effects of the economic cycle. The “austerity lovers” that repeat the Great Neoliberal Lie have created a revisionist history in which they switch cause and effect. The deficit is not the cause of the economic crisis, in fact the deficit is only growing so rapidly because the real economy was shrinking in the wake of the financial sector crisis the neoliberals triggered with their deregulation mania.

The consequence of forty years of lies is a powerful wealth / income concentration machine joined to a series of precarious and suffering minorities, including many urban Blacks and poor whites. Labor unions are also caught in the squeeze. Donald Trump could then play on the prejudices and insecurities created, he thus found himself in a position to incite key elements of white labor and middle classes to return to the old ways, while retaining the support of the wealthy donor class. The neoliberal disinformation campaign easily slides into the ‘Big Lie’ campaign of Trumpism – that includes nationalism, the reduction of progressive social movements to the socialist mob, a militant anti-immigration campaign. The stealth program and Trump, the con man, both achieve ends essentially through trickery – deceiving people about the real intention to go to a place, when on their own given complete information, they would not go. An example is “repeal and replace Obamacare”, while planning to only make the first move.1

One of the key innovations of postmodernism is to accept that the concept of truth and even basic factual accuracy can “evolve,” which gets us pretty close to a place where so many Americans find themselves accepting that so many things that Trump says – things that an old-fashioned journalist would call “false” and even “lies” – are accepted as a kind of it-feels-true-to-me truths, or, perhaps, “alternative facts.” Postmodernists scream out that any phenomena are open to infinite alternative accounts and conspiracy theorists seize on the opportunity. By dismissing the “truth” presented by established institutions, conspiracy theorists explicate their own version of “truth”. By rejecting the modern explanation of social and political phenomena, by employing open interpretation that requires no reference to established scientific facts and by creating a discourse which forms “truth” and thus a notion of “reality”, modern conspiratorial phenomena finds its foundations in Postmodernism.

Postmodernists believe that the westerners’ claims of freedom and affluence continue to be nothing but empty promises and they have not met the needs of humanity. They affirm that truth is relative. It means truth is something that it is up to the individual to determine for themselves. The road to this near dystopia of public apathy and cynicism is not littered with the specialized scholarship and writing of late twentieth century continental thinkers. It is littered with the debris of cynical political manipulation and deception, obscene concentrations of wealth, tax evasion by the wealthy, fictional WMDs, unpunished bankers, intrusive tech companies and a docile or even complicit media class and the steady stagnation of life quality for increasing numbers of citizens. The postmodern interpretation: the neoliberal project is unable to predict the direction of the social world, and after forty years fails to provide a sense of security and freedom for most individuals.

Postmodernism rejects any theoretical approach or ideology that tries to explain everything while asserting and maintaining political and economic power. No one is expected to believe anymore that neoliberalism will deliver diversity, choice, increased control for individuals over their own lives. This raises the old question: we have the material needs to feed, clothe, and keep everyone in culture – why, then, don’t people have these things? We got to stand for doing less work. This becomes about politics of time: recovering the kind of time that can’t be accounted for in terms of traditional business economics. This is the time when almost anything interesting in cultures actually happens. We’ve been told the opposite by neoliberals, that the engine, the dynamo of culture, is business, and being busy.2 We need living wages and more time in order to meet our goals and desires – the interests of the individual must take precedent over the interests of the economic elite.

1 William E. Connolly. (27 Oct 2018) Neoliberalism and Fascism: The Stealth Connection. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/27/neoliberalism-and-fascism-stealth-connection

2 Paavo Järvensivu. An Interview with Mark Fisher: Is Capitalist Realism Moving Aside?  https://mustarinda.fi/magazine/keynes/an-interview-with-mark-fisher

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Address Identity Politics not Morality to Fix Today’s Polarization

Posted on August 20, 2019 by greg

Nietzsche contends that power-relations are at the basis of all social institutions. Ideologies are the principal and most cost-effective means whereby the mass of humanity is, and always has been, manipulated and controlled by its leaders. Ideologies all utilize morality to attain their objectives, because it is most readily through the moral and mystical concept of a morality that is both transcendental and universal that secular as well as religious ideologies are able to offer supposed solutions to humankind’s inherent and most profound psychological need. In our everyday lives, we confront a host of moral issues. Once we have deliberated and formed judgments about what is right or wrong, good or bad, these judgments tend to have a marked hold on us. Identity politics is an ideology that convinces people to band together in society and agree to a common project. There is now concern identity politics is hampering empathy and communication.

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments first published in 1759, Adam Smith distinguishes two kinds of normative guides to action: rules and virtues. Moral rules, formed on the basis of our reactions to specific instances (we say to ourselves, “I’ll never do that”), bar certain especially egregious kinds of behavior – murder, rape, theft – and provide a framework of shared expectations for society. They are essential to justice, especially, without which societies could not survive. They also enable people who are not fully virtuous to behave with a minimum of decorum and decency, and help all of us cut through the “veil of self-delusion” Smith developed social conception of self. Smith’s “impartial spectator” begins as a product and expression of society, but becomes, once internalized, a source of moral evaluation that enables the individual to stand apart from, and criticize, his or her society.

With respect to morality, Mark Twain observes, “Always do what is right. It will gratify one half of mankind, and astonish the other.” For the past 10,000 years or so, human society has been divided into antagonistic classes, and that has meant that morality has developed not as a general theory of human emancipation, but as a set of rules by which each class attempts to further its own interests. The most influential moral theories since the eighteenth century have tended to see morality as a necessary way of holding human impulses in check. A central component of Kant’s theory, for instance, is that morality has to control human desires in order to prevent social conflict. Underlying these views is the assumption that human beings are competitive individuals who seek their own self-interest and who will engage in a war of all against all if left to their own devices. Morality is supposed to moderate the war so that society can hold together.

Identity politics is a political ideology with a religious-moral overlay. It seeks to unite groups of traditionally-powerless people who share common characteristics – such as race and gender – into aggrieved collectives. The source of grievance is oppression by powerful groups in society, often associated with the white race and male gender. Identity politics highlights the social inequities that reflect this oppression. Although the term identity politics originated in the 1970s, it has its origins in socialist theory as expounded by Karl Marx in the mid-nineteenth century. Marx saw injustice and poverty in every modern society. Behind it all, was an epic conflict between a capitalist class (the owners of the means of production) and a working class (the proletariat). The injustice lay in the expropriation by the capitalists of the wealth created by the workers. In today’s identity version, the epic struggle between capitalist and proletariat has been replaced by a new struggle between oppressed and oppressor.

With the 2008 financial collapse and the subsequent Great Recession, Americans stopped believing in the American dream. Still, liberals ignored the undeniable fact that the gigantic losses incurred by the quasi-criminal financial sector were cynically transferred onto the shoulders of a working class they thought no longer mattered. Bernie Sanders understood the challenge of identity politics. In 2016 Sanders argued that while fighting to advance the rights of African-Americans, women, LGBT individuals, immigrants, and other marginalized groups, that those fights cannot be won without advancing the material interests of the working class, because “our rights and economic lives are intertwined.” The Democratic movers and shakers did not hear him warn of the need for economic populism in tandem with identity politics. The elites’ readiness to ignore widening class divisions, and to replace it with class-blind identity politics, was the greatest gift to toxic populism.

Class and class struggle has returned to political controversy in today’s late capitalism, thanks to neoliberalism’s dismantling of the welfare state and the cruel, remorseless exploitation of the underclasses in both the advanced world and abroad. The right-wing populist upsurge of today is clearly all about class and class struggle. Class struggle is central to the right-wing populist upsurge as its leaders attempt to capture the discontent of the underclass and lead it into a right-wing political project (where you find echoes of fascism). Donald Trump is a symptom of a new kind of class warfare raging at home and abroad. Class wars in America are disguised as culture wars. Where the culture wars of the last several decades were fought over sexuality, religion and family, today’s culture wars offer a new set of cultural battles linked with shifting economic circumstances, including globalization, immigration and the changing boundaries of legitimate pluralism.

Francis Fukuyama reports today’s polarization is the result of identity politics. For the most part, economic issues defined twentieth-century politics. On the left, politics is centered on workers, trade unions, social welfare programs, and redistributive policies. The right, by contrast, was primarily interested in reducing the size of government and promoting the private sector. Politics today, however, is defined less by economic or ideological concerns than by questions of identity. Now, in many democracies, the left focuses less on creating broad economic equality and more on promoting the interests of a wide variety of marginalized groups, such as ethnic minorities, immigrants and refugees, women, and LGBT people. The right, meanwhile, has redefined its core mission as the patriotic protection of traditional national identity, which is often explicitly connected to race, ethnicity, or religion. Identity politics has become an ideology that explains much of what is going on in global affairs.1

Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was widely viewed as a kind of populist revolt against the Washington establishment. As a candidate, the billionaire promised voters that he would take on the elite and fight for the “forgotten men and women” of America, and promoted himself as a man of the people. Yet since becoming president Trump has done virtually nothing to improve the lot of ordinary Americans who work for a living. In fact, his administration’s policies have, for the most part, benefited people like President Trump – the super-rich – while hurting working class Americans. According to John Judis the exact designation of the terms: ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ don’t define populism; what defines it is the disagreement or argument between the two – or in the case of right-wing populism the three, as right-wing populists “champion the people against an elite that they accuse of favoring a third group,” which is typically an outsider group such as immigrants, foreigners or minorities.

America is divided on such issues of economic policy, social policy, foreign policy, race, privacy and national security – while clustered into groups that compete against each other in a zero-sum game where negotiation and compromise are perceived as betrayal. Partisan gerrymandering render the House of Representatives so polarized that most lawmakers now fear a primary challenge from the right or left more than they fear losing to the other party in a general election. They have no incentive to compromise. This cries out for non-partisan redistricting commissions to redraw the lines and make House members more accountable to people other than the extremes of each party. The influence of wealthy donors has only gotten more pronounced over the years, and the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case only tilted the scales even more in the direction of corporations and billionaires. It is necessary to overturn Citizens United and fully adopt public financing of elections.2

A study by Kevin Smith and his co-authors provides evidence that moral decisions may be more a product of political beliefs than vice versa. Smith observes, “We went into it thinking that moral foundations are a cause of ideology, and if anything, we found that ideology is a cause of moral foundations.” This would suggest is that your moral intuitions are coming from your social environment and your unique experiences, not evolution. This raised, but did not directly test, the possibility that political beliefs are at least in part justifying judgments of right and wrong. The study supports creating attitude change by shifting the political ideology that supports polarization.3 In addition, addressing issues such as partisan gerrymandering and exclusionary party primaries will be a significant start in undoing a political cultural that is so antagonistic. This will make political campaigns less negative; rather than tear down opponents, focusing candidates on building up support for their ideas.

1 Francis Fukuyama – Against Identity Politics. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/andrea-mitchell-center/francis-fukuyama-against-identity-politics

2 Russell Berman (08 March 2016) What’s the Answer to Political Polarization in the U.S.? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/whats-the-answer-to-political-polarization/470163/

3 Peter K. Hatemi, Charles Crabtree, and Kevin B. Smith. (31 July 2019) Ideology Justifies Morality: Political Beliefs Predict Moral Foundations https://ajps.org/2019/07/31/ideology-justifies-morality/

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