China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

David Leonhardt’s reporting on his trip to China and his numerous insightful interviews give important insights into development questions of great interest to progressives and socialists everywhere. While its not as long as a book – though I expect Leonhardt will turn it into one – I felt compelled to re-organize the material from the parts that reflect upon some important theoretical and practical questions of market socialism and Marxism. Consider this a review of his "new book," which opens:

When the Wuqi International Hotel was completed this spring, it immediately dominated the modest skyline of Wuqi, a small city in north central China. The hotel is part of an effort by local officials to reshape a city far from the fast-growing export oriented towns and cities on the coast.

But changes here are the kinds that a new breed of Reformers including many industrial workers, service providers and small business/enterprise producers have been recommending for China as a whole. In Leonhardt’s report, the government of Wuqi offers more generous health insurance to its citizens than many places. Its schools are free all the way through high school, rather than through only ninth grade, as is usual in China. Over the last decade, the city has embarked on ambitious tree-planting programs that have brought green to the yellow-brown hills of the Loess Plateau, where Wuqi is located, and where the famed Long March ended in those hills in 1935.

Read more: China’s Consumerism and the Implications for Market Socialism » pa

Marxists and Marmots

Thomas Riggins

How often do we hear that socialism sounds like a good idea but it doesn't work in practice because of human nature. This is an old refrain. People are by nature selfish and so competition is the natural outcome with the most talented and aggressive people reaching the top and the mediocre masses down on the bottom. But suppose it is really the opposite. Suppose those who engage in friendly cooperation really are closer to what nature intends. In a cooperative society maybe even the victims of aggressive actions still have a better chance to thrive than they would in a completely competitive environment. Maybe the Ayn Rand world is not the world for us and socialism is more natural after all.

A recent article in Science Daily (12-8-2010) may provide a clue to the answer to these speculations ("Social Relationships in Animals Have a Genetic Basis, New Research Reveals"). Scientists at UCLA have been studying marmots living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Marmots are rodents who are a genus (Marmota) of the squirrel family (Sciuridae). Some marmots have a propensity, so we are told, to chuck wood and are known as woodchucks. Others can predict the weather (groundhogs) according to some.

The marmots I am linking to possible socialist ideas are the yellow-bellied marmots (M. flaviventris) studied by the scientists. The name refers to fur and not to their lack of valor.
The scientists found "that having many friendly interactions gave marmots fitness benefits--these marmots reproduced more," said Amanda Lea, one of the researchers and lead author of the paper. "Over a lifetime [about 15 yrs], a marmot that is very social will have more offspring than a less social one." Hmmmm. I wonder how much this applies to humans. This is one way of putting the "social" into socialism.

But the scientists also found out that some marmots are the victims of aggression from their fellow marmots. Those who do not respond in kind, that is those inclined to turn the other cheek pouch, also have a better survival rate. So it seems that "a marmot that is getting picked on frequently" also will have more offspring. It is the family unit as such that is really important. Tolerating aggression as well as strengthening friendly cooperation keeps marmot society functioning. "Those relationships are important for social stability and reproductive success. I believe these ideas are generalizable well beyond marmots," said the study's co-author Daniel T. Blumstein.

What is important is that these behaviors have a genetic basis and are passed on through the generations. If such behavior is common to mammals as such then humans also have these inborn tendencies for cooperation and tolerance. These genetic traits are, I think, much more in accord with the ideals of socialism than the ruthless free market world of Ayn Rand and other capitalist apologists.

Arizona's Two Death Penalties

Thomas Riggins

First, I am not picking on Arizona, just using it as one example; it is standing in for any state that uses similar methods to try and balance its budget. Arizona currently has 126 felons on its death row awaiting execution. The national average cost for each prisoner from sentencing to execution is $2 million-- about 10 times the cost for life imprisonment.

But the 126 people on death row are not the only people the state of Arizona has sentenced to death. Arizona has cut its medicaid budget due to the on going collapse of the world capitalist system. To reduce its budget deficit low income people in Arizona will no longer receive organ transplants that had been paid for by the state.

The New York Times (12-3-10) refers to this as "Death by budget cut." The deaths of poor people due to the cut in medicaid is every bit as premeditated as those of prisoners given lethal injections by the state. The NYT reports that Francisco Felix, 32, will not get the liver transplant that would have saved his life. He is in the process of dying. The cost of the transplant was $200,000. It was his turn on the list but he was refused after the state ended this part of medicaid for the poor. If the governor commuted just one of the 126 people condemned to death he could have sentenced Francisco Felix to Life with his family and had $1,600,000 left over to save 9 more people as well; that what's left after the cost of transplant plus the $200,000 that the prisoner's life sentence will cost the state.

There are many other cases like that of Francisco Felix. These new rules took effect in October and no one has died yet. But the poor sick and needy are sitting on their own death row just as real as the 126 people legally under the sentence of death. They two have been legally given a death sentence. Sentenced to death not for murder but for being poor. A capital offense in Arizona.

If Arizona really wanted to save money the state would commute all 126 death sentences to life imprisonment. With the savings they could help save the lives of all their sick and poor citizens and residents who are in need of life saving medical procedures such as organ transplants. It is the only thing a civilized state can do.

Obama on the Fence?

Thomas Riggins

Matt Bai has an article in the Wednesday New York Times "Debt-Busting Issue May Force Obama Off Fence." Bai says that Obama's fiscal commission has given him the choice of ruling for the next two years either from the center left [allied with "traditional liberals" who want the rich to pay their fair share of the taxes and cuts in the military budget] or from the center right [both Democratic and Republican centrists who want to reform "entitlement" programs and taxes].

Bai indicates he has to choose between a "liberal renaissance" or continue his attempts to work with the Republicans in a "postpartisan" alliance. The choice he makes will shape the political landscape for years to come-- for better or worse.

Although many think that Obama is the opium of the Left we can still work with him for progressive causes on whichever side of the fence he falls. Who would have wanted a McCain-Palin administration-- we wouldn't even have a fence, just a ditch.

Bai doesn't know which side Obama will choose. His recent two year pay freeze for federal workers (who did not cause the economic collapse) while bankers and CEOs (who did) are raking the money in is not a good sign of things to come.

Bai gives us some hints which side Obama will choose. I will give three major ones he points out. 1. Obama's books and writings indicate he is a "whatever works" pragmatist with no particular ideological commitment-- a political chameleon perhaps. 2. Bai reports that in private Obama has sometimes called himself "essentially a Blue Dog Democrat." He didn't mention this during the primaries! 3. Although he voted against confirming John Roberts as Chief Justice he "castigated" Democratic activists who criticized those Democratic senators who did saying they threatened "thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas." Well, the "thoughtfulness and new ideas" of John Roberts are not leading us down the road to a more democratic country.

In any event Bai says Obama is "loath to publicly disown his base on any specific issue." I'm not sure I like the adverbial phrase. The proof will be in the pudding. Obama must decide, according to Bai, either for the left or the right once the Bowles-Simpson committee gives him its report. Social Security is the acid test. Bai says that if he accepts the commission's recommendations on Social Security the outrage from his base will be so great he could face a primary challenge in 2012.

The Republicans would love that: something like a Feingold-Obama fight (suggested in The Nation by Cockburn) to cover themselves while they self destruct over a Palin-Romney brouhaha. Obama has come to the Rubicon-- how will the die be cast?

RED PLENTY- Book Review

[This looks like an interesting book-- can anyone point out the economic flaws in the story?--tr]
RED PLENTY by Francis Spufford (2010) reviewed by Phil Ebersole [Phil Ebersole's Blog]
This quirky, fascinating book is a docu-drama about the efforts of idealistic reformers in the Soviet Union in the 1960s to overcome the inherent flaws of central planning and make the promises of Communism come true. I can remember than era, and can see why it would not have seemed impossible. The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik in 1957, its economy was reported to be growing faster than ours, and many Americans had much the same feeling as they had toward Japan in the 1980s or China and India today.

This story is told as a series of vignettes about characters both historical and fictional involved in the workings or the attempted reform of the Soviet economy, told in a style that is sardonic, poignant and highly readable. The second chapter is told from the viewpoint of an exuberant Nikita Khrushchev, visiting the United States in 1959 and challenging the capitalist world to peaceful economic competition. The last chapter returns to Khrushchev in forced retirement in 1968, sitting in his garden and brooding on what went wrong. Spufford conveys a sense of Soviet life during that period that is so convincing I would have thought he experienced it; in fact, he is a Briton who doesn't speak Russian.

Along the way he does an excellent job of explaining Soviet and Western economics in both theory and practice. The flaw of Soviet economics is that no system of central planning has been found that can substitute for supply and demand as a means of coordinating an economy. In a market economy, the price of a product reflects everything that is known about its value and scarcity, without the need for omniscient masterminds at the top.
The book's hero, to the extent that there is one, is Leonid Vitalevich Kantorovich, the only Soviet winner of the Nobel Memorial Price for Economics. Kantorovich hoped that sufficiently sophisticated mathematics and computer processing would allow the Soviet planners to optimize their system, and accomplish what a market system would do without creating a wealthy capitalist class. His theories inspired Khrushchev to create the city of Academgorodok, where the best minds of the Soviet Union were allowed to work in relative freedom to create a better future. Some of the scenes are set in Academgorodok; others depict the nitty-gritty of making the Soviet system work in practice.

Kantorovich's reforms were introduced in a partial and self-defeating way. In one chapter, the managers of a textile mill realize that with, with their obsolete machinery, they won't achieve their production quota, and their careers will thereby be ruined. Risking being shot as saboteurs, they fake an accident that destroys their machine, expecting they will get a newer, more advanced model as a replacement that will enable them to meet their target. Instead, they get a copy of the old obsolete machine. The new machine is both better and cheaper to make, but the machine tool manufacturers keep on with the old machines. Under the new plan, the manufacturer is expected to make a profit, and the profit is higher on the old machines. Why? The price was based on the machine's weight.

Spufford's account makes the resistance and sabotage of the reforms seem inevitable. Managers were asked to give up control to an impersonal system, but they still had responsibility for results. The temptation to do what W. Edwards Deming called "tinkering" was irresistible. In fact, the whole story reminds me, in many ways, of American industry's partial adoption and then abandonment of Deming's total quality management system.

Spufford identifies the moment when capitalist defeated Communism. It was when Soviet economic planners decided to forego development of a new generation of computers, and instead reverse-engineer the IBM 360. (The Soviet military had their own advanced computers, but these were never shared with the civilian economy.) By so doing, the economic planners in effect admitted that the Soviet Union would always be a second-rate industrial power and the dream of a socialist paradise was an illusion.

The Soviet Union later made an economic comeback not as an industrial power, but as an oil and gas exporter. Some of the discoveries in western Siberia were guided by Academgorodok geologists. The reforms later attempted by Mikhail Gorbachev were not a revival of Kantorovich's ideas. Kantorvich sought to optimize the Soviet economy while leaving the structure of Soviet power intact; Gorbachev sought to democratize Soviet government while leaving central economic planning intact.

The book's end notes explain what in the book is fiction, what is the result of research and the sources for the research. It is almost as interesting as the main body of the book. There is no U.S. edition of Red Plenty; I ordered my copy from a distributor of British books.

Health Care Heresies

Thomas Riggins

Now that the Republicans and their neofascist fellow travelers have taken control of the House they have set them themselves the goal of repealing the recent health care reform the Democrats enacted. Flawed as that reform is it at least will enable 35 or so million people to get some sort of health insurance in the coming years. There are around 50 million without insurance at present. Hopefully these extra 15 million will also be covered.

The Republican reactionaries keep harping that we have the "best" health care in the world (we actually rate 37th among developed countries). Here are a couple of examples. The US has "the best medical care system in the world"-- Bob McDonnell, Republican Gov. of Virginia. We have the greatest medical care "the world has ever known"-- Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby. So while reactionaries and rightist may consider denying this to be heretical, the following information from Science Daily may call their flights of fancy into question.

On November 29th Science Daily reported the results of an 11 nation study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund: "US Adults Most likely to Forgo Care Due to Cost, Have Trouble Paying Medical Bills, Survey Finds." Of the 11 advanced industrial countries studied the US came in dead last with Americans having the highest numbler having to give up seeking health care due to cost, they also had the most trouble paying their medical bills [some 60 per cent of personal bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills another study showed].

Americans, even with insurance, have higher bills, more disputes with insurers, and more often have insurers refuse to cover procedures they thought were covered. This is, of course, because of the for profit nature of health insurance. This is an industry that should be run out of business by a single payer government run system such as Medicare for all. Here are some facts the study found. 1. 33% of Us adults went without necessary care, couldn't see a doctor, or couldn't afford to get medicine; in the U.K. and the Netherlands it's 5 to 6%. 2. 20% of Americans had problems paying for their care while in France it was 9%, Netherlands 4%, Germany 3% and U.K. 2%. 3. 35% of Americans paid $1000 or more out of pocket for medical care last year-- significantly more "than all of the other countries." It goes without saying that the these figures are correlated along class and income perameters.

The politicians who most oppose health reform for the poor have, of course, fully covered health care at taxpayer expense which, if made available to regular citizens they denounce as socialism. The lead author of the study, Cathy Schoen, wrote, "In fact, the U.S. is the only country in the study where having health insurance doesn't guarantee you access to health care or financial protection when you're sick."

The study also found out that the people on Medicare have less problems with the US medical system than adults under the age of 65. One can hardly imagine, given these grim realities, how Republicans and other reactionaries are able to carry off election victories of the magnitude they did in the 2010 midterms. The vast majority of the American people will continue to suffer not only with respect to medical coverage, but economically, socially, and in education. Yet they have the power of the vote and of wielding it to improve their lives and those of their children. They only need access to the facts, not readily provided by the establishment media. Lets work for and hope that the Left will do a better job of getting the truth out to the American people.

A Very Bad Wizard

This is reposted from Phil Ebersole's Blog.
Phil is a progressive and a member of the Greater Rochester Bertrand Russell Society.
You should google his blog; he has many insightful articles. I thought I would share this one
because it reminds us that President Obama can't make the changes we want unless we fight with him to get them-- tr

A very bad wizard
by philebersole
In L. Frank Baum’s story, the Wizard of Oz promises Dorothy and her friends, the scarecrow, the tin woodman and the cowardly lion that if they succeed in their quest, he will grant the scarecrow’s wish for a brain, the tin woodman’s wish for a heart, the cowardly lion’s wish for a lion’s courage and Dorothy’s wish for a way back to Kansas.


When they succeed, however, the Wizard is unable to grant their wishes. Instead he gives them other things he says are just as good. The scarecrow gets a college diploma, the tin woodman a flowery valentine card and the cowardly lion a military medal. Only Dorothy can’t be helped because the way back to Kansas is something real.

President Obama promised his followers that, if they succeeded in putting him in office, he would make an all-out effort to achieve certain goals – a public option for health care as an alternative to private health insurance, a “cramdown” allowing federal bankruptcy judges to reset mortgages, the preservation of Social Security. But when they achieved their quest, they were given other things that President Obama says are just as good – the Affordable Care Act, the Home Affordable Modification Program, the Deficit Reduction Commission.

In the story, the scarecrow manifested brains, the tin woodman heart and the lion courage in their actions, not as a gift from a wizard. And Dorothy was able to browbeat the wizard into taking her along in his balloon ride back to our world.

The lesson is that we the people should not depend on the gift of a charismatic political figure. If we want a full employment economy, if we want to curb the power of Wall Street over the government, if we want affordable health insurance, if we want to stop the erosion of labor rights and the social safety net, we need to create a political force that has to be reckoned with no matter who is in office, as the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the labor movement and the civil rights movement did in earlier eras.

Because President Obama may well be a very good man, but he certainly is a very bad Wizard.

Senate Rules Block Progress

Senate Rules Block Progress

The U.S. Senate should revise its rules on filibusters and consent for judicial nominations in order to stop a recently growing trend of gridlock and indecisions, argues a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Read more here...

Reflections on "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage" NYT headline 11-12-10

Reflections on "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage" NYT headline
11-12-10

Thomas Riggins

1. Interesting headline: Instead of "US Economic View" etc, the Times has personalized it to seem as if it is the president's personal view.

2. China, Britain, Germany and South Korea are the culprits. China is understandable it is not our "ally" but a revolt in the client states bodes ill for the empire.

3. BO (the US) wants to procure economic growth before reducing deficits. This core strategy is being outright rejected by other world leaders. This is a first for an American president at a G20 meeting.

4. The other leaders are upset over the Federal Reserve's devaluing the dollar and accuse the US of doing so to make the rest of the world pay for the American trade deficit instead solving its problems by decreasing spending at home. Nice try, but no cigar.

5. Here is what China told the US-- since the dollar is the world's reserve currency (for the time being) the US should consider the "global economy" not just its "national circumstances." Right. BO is supposed to come home and put US national interests second to those of China and others. That's a lead balloon if ever there was one.

6. Greenspan agreed that we were weakening the dollar to make the rest of the world pay for our mistakes!

7. Geithner denied this, saying we would never do that just "to gain competitive advantage."

8. Many other "big" powers see it Greenspan's way! The leaders of the UK (PM David
Cameron) and Germany (Chancellor Angela Merkel) dismissed BO's plea for stimulus spending and favored austerity.

9. This whole G20 disagreement is between the capitalists of the US and their allies (plus China) on how to get the world economy out of the doldrums but to the advantage of capitalists. BO's plan would favor American workers-- stimulus = more jobs-- and if the "world" follow's suit a bigger market for US goods so US capitalists also benefit.

10. The other nations reject this and want to help their capitalists through austerity-- balance their budgets by cutting social programs and reducing benefits to the masses of the working population and retired people. This allows for longer working hours and less taxes on the corporations to sustain benefits.

11. The US was more or less getting its way until this current G20 meeting-- the Europeans and others were reluctantly letting the US call the shots-- but the tea party takeover in our mid-term elections has weakened BO in the eyes of other world leaders so they are rejecting his leadership vís a vís the world economy.

12. The free trade accord with South Korea fell through as it was felt by BO's advisors better to return empty handed than to look as if (because he had) given too many concessions to get it signed.

13. Now that the world thinks WE manipulated the value of the dollar (as we did) to help our economy, we can't complain about the Chinese "under valuing" their currency. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

14. The sub-text of this G20 meeting is that plans are afoot for the creation of "rules for a new global financial order" not dominated by US capital-- that will truly be a New World Order-- but not the one the US planned on. First the decline, then the fall.

The "Emissions Power" is a Myth

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Despite China’s total carbon emission, which shows China is a major CO2 emitter, its per-capita emissions in 2007 were only 4.6 tons, less than 25 percent of the United States and only half of the EU.

Additionally, China has done the best job in CO2 emission reduction in the world through its strenuous effort in recent years. From 1990 to 2007, the average global per-unit CO2 reduction rate stood at 15.4 percent, with the United States at 27 percent, the average of developed countries 22 percent and the average of developing countries 10.2 percent, while China’s figure stood at 49.2 percent.