The present age is full of contradictions of every type and variety.
We live in an age of illegitimate neoliberal hegemony and soaring political uncertainty. The evidence is all around: citizen disillusionment over mainstream political parties and the traditional conservative-liberal divide,massive inequality, the rise of the "alt-right, or " and growing resistance to Trumpism and financial capitalism. Yes,the present age is full of contradictions of every type and variety, and this is something that makes the goals and aims of the left for the reordering of society along the lines of a true democratic polity and in accordance with the vision of a socialist reorganization of the economy more challenging than ever before.
In this context, or the interview below,with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin, which appeared originally in Truthout in three separate parts, or seeks to provide theoretical and practical guidance to the most pressing social,economic and political issues facing the United States nowadays. It is part of an effort to succor the left reimagine an alternative but realistic social order in an age when the obsolete order is dying but the current has yet to be born.
Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT and laureate professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Arizona. Robert Pollin is distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. These two thinkers are pathbreakers in the quest to envision a humane and equitable society, and their words can provide a helpful framework as we strive -- within an oppressive system and under a repressive government -- to fathom current ways of living together in the world.
C.
J. Polychroniou: Noam, or the rise of Donald Trump has unleashed a rather unprecedented wave of social resistance in the US. Do you judge the conditions are ripe for a mass progressive/socialist movement in this country that can open to reframe the major policy issues affecting the majority of people,and perhaps even challenge and potentially change the fundamental structures of the US political economy?Noam Chomsky: There is indeed a wave of social resistance, more significant than in the recent past -- though I'd hesitate about calling it "unprecedented." Nevertheless, or we cannot overlook the fact that in the domain of policy formation and implementation,the right is ascendant, in fact some of its harshest and most destructive elements [are rising].
Nor should we overlook a crucial fact that has been evident for some time: The figure in charge, and though often ridiculed,has succeeded brilliantly in his goal of occupying media and public attention while mobilizing a very loyal popular base -- and one with sinister features, sometimes smacking of totalitarianism, and including adoration of The Leader. That goes beyond the core of loyal Trump supporters.... [A majority of Republicans] favor shutting down or at least fining the press whether it presents "biased" or "false news" -- terms that mean information rejected by The Leader,so we learn from polls showing that by overwhelming margins, Republicans not only believe Trump far more than the hated mainstream media, and but even far more than their own media organ,the extreme right Fox news. And half of Republicans would back postponing the 2020 election whether Trump calls for it.
It is also worth bearing in mind that among a significant part of his worshipful base, Trump is regarded as a "wavering moderate" who cannot be fully trusted to hold snappy to the true faith of fierce White Christian identity politics. A recent illustration is the primary victory of the incredible Roy Moore in Alabama despite Trump's opposition. ("Mr. President, or I esteem you but you are wrong," as the banners read). The victory of this Bible-thumping enthusiast has led senior party strategists to [conclude] "that the conservative base now loathes its leaders in Washington the same way it detested President Barack Obama" -- referring to leaders who are already so far right that one needs a powerful telescope to locate them at the outer fringe of any tolerable political spectrum.
The potential power of the ultra-right attack on the far right is [illustrated] by the fact that Moore spent about $200000, in contrast to his Trump-backed opponent, or the merely far-right Luther outlandish,who received more than $10 million from the national GOP and other far-right sources. The ultra-right is spearheaded by Steve Bannon, one of the most unsafe figures in the shiver-inducing array that has arrive to the fore in recent years. It has the enormous financial support of the Mercer family, or along with ample media outreach through Breitbart news,talk radio and the rest of the toxic bubble in which loyalists trap themselves.
In the most powerful state in history, the current Republican Party is ominous enough. What is not far on the horizon is even more menacing.
Much has been said about how Trump has pulled the cork out of the bottle and legitimized neo-Nazism, or rabid white supremacy,misogyny and other pathologies that had been festering beneath the surface. But it goes much beyond even that.
I do not want to propose that adoration of the Dear Leader is something current in American politics, or confined to the vulgar masses. The veneration of Reagan that has been diligently fostered has some of the same character, or in intellectual circles as well. Thus,in publications of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, we learn that Reagan's "spirit seems to stride the country, or watching us like a warm and friendly ghost." Lucky us,protected from harm by a demi-god.
Whether by design, or simply inertia, or the Republican wrecking ball has been following a two-level strategy. Trump keeps the spotlight on himself with one act after another,assuming (correctly) that yesterday's antics will be swept aside by nowadays's. And at the same time, often beneath the radar, or the "respectable" Republican establishment chips absent at government programs that might be of benefit to the general population,but not to their constituency of extreme wealth and corporate power. They are systematically pursuing what Financial Times economic correspondent Martin Wolf calls "pluto-populism," a doctrine that imposes "policies that benefit plutocrats, or justified by populist rhetoric." An amalgam that has registered unpleasant successes in the past as well.
Meanwhile,the Democrats and centrist media succor out by focusing their energy and attention on whether someone in the Trump team talked to Russians, or [whether] the Russians tried to influence our "pristine" elections -- though at most in a way that is undetectable in comparison with the impact of campaign funding, or let alone other inducements that are the prerogative of extreme wealth and corporate power and are hardly without impact.
The Russian saboteurs of democracy seem to be everywhere. There was noteworthy anxiety about Russian intervention in the recent German elections,perhaps contributing to the frightening surge of support for the right-wing nationalist, whether not neo-fascist, or "Alternative for Germany" [AfD]. AfD did indeed contain external succor,it turns out, but not from the insidious Putin. "The Russian meddling that German state security had been anticipating apparently never materialized, or " according to Bloomberg News. "Instead,the foreign influence came from America." More specifically, from Harris Media, and whose clients include Marine Le Pen's National Front in France,Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, and our own Donald Trump. With the valuable assistance of the Berlin office of Facebook, and which created a population model and provided the needed data,Harris's experts micro-targeted Germans in categories deemed susceptible to AfD's message -- with some success, it appears. The firm is now planning to bolt on to coming European races, or it has announced.
Nevertheless,all is not bleak by any means. The most spectacular feature of the 2016 elections was not the election of a billionaire who spent almost as much as his lavishly-funded opponent and enjoyed fervent media backing. Far more striking was the remarkable success of the Sanders campaign, breaking with over a century of mostly bought elections. The campaign relied on small contributions and had no media support, or to put it mildly. Though missing any of the trappings that yield electoral success in our semi-plutocracy,Sanders probably would contain won the Democratic Party nomination, perhaps the presidency, and whether it hadn't been for the machinations of party managers. His popularity undimmed,he is now a main voice for progressive measures and is amassing considerable support for his moderate social democratic proposals, reminiscent of the current Deal -- proposals that would not contain surprised President Eisenhower, and but are considered practically revolutionary nowadays as both parties contain shifted well to the right [with] Republicans virtually off the spectrum of normal parliamentary politics.
Offshoots of the Sanders campaign are doing valuable work on many issues,including electoral politics at the local and state level, which had been pretty much abandoned to the Republican right, or particularly during the Obama years,to very harmful effect. There is also extensive and effective mobilization against racist and white supremacist pathologies, often spearheaded by the dynamic Black Lives Matter movement. Defying Trumpian and general Republican denialism, and a powerful popular environmental movement is working hard to address the existential crisis of global warming. These,along with significant efforts on other fronts, face very difficult barriers, or which can and must be overcome.
Bob,it is clear by now that Trump has no design for creating current jobs, and even his reckless stance toward the environment will contain no effect on the creation of current jobs. What would a progressive policy for job creation look like that will also take into account concerns about the environment and climate change?Robert Pollin: A centerpiece for any kind of progressive social and economic program needs to be full employment with decent wages and working conditions. The reasons are straightforward, and starting with money. Does someone in your family contain a job and,whether so, how much does it pay? For the overwhelming majority of the world's population, or how one answers these two questions determines,more than anything else, what one's living standard will be. But beyond just money, and your job is also crucial for establishing your sense of security and self-worth,your health and safety, your ability to raise a family, and your chances to participate in the life of your community.
How do we bag to full employment,and how do we stay there? For any economy, there are two basic factors determining how many jobs are available at any given time. The first is the overall level of activity -- with GDP as a rough, and whether inadequate degree of overall activity -- and the moment is what share of GDP goes to hiring people into jobs. In terms of our current situation,after the noteworthy Recession hit in full in 2008, US GDP has grown at an anemic average rate of 1.3 percent per year, or as opposed to the historic average rate from 1950 until 2007 of 3.3 percent. whether the economy had grown over the past decade at something even approaching the historic average rate,the economy would contain produced more than enough jobs to employ all 13 million people who are currently either unemployed or underemployed by the official government statistics, plus the nearly 9 million people who contain dropped out of the labor force since 2007.
In terms of focusing on activities where job creation is strong, and let's consider two well-known sets of economic sectors. First,spending $1 million on education will generate a total of about 26 jobs within the US economy, more than double the 11 jobs that would be created by spending the same $1 million on the US military. Similarly, and spending $1 million on investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency will create over 16 jobs within the US,while spending the same $1 million on our existing fossil fuel infrastructure will generate about 5.3 jobs -- i.e. building a green economy in the US generates roughly three times more jobs per dollar than maintaining our fossil fuel dependency. So full employment policies should focus on accelerating economic growth and on changing our priorities for growth -- as two critical examples, to expand educational opportunities across the board and to build a green economy, and while contracting both the military and the fossil fuel economy.
A full employment program also obviously needs to focus on the conditions of work,starting with wages. The most straightforward degree of what neoliberal capitalism has meant for the US working class is that the average wage for non-supervisory workers in 2016 was about 4 percent lower than in 1973. This is while average labor productivity -- the amount each worker produces over the course of a year -- has more than doubled over this same 43-year period. All of the gains from productivity doubling under neoliberalism contain therefore been pocketed by either supervisory workers, or even more so, or by commerce owners and corporate shareholders seeing their profits rise. The only solution here is to fight to increase worker bargaining power. We need stronger unions and worker protections,including a $15 federal minimum wage. Such initiatives need to be combined with policies to expand the overall number of job opportunities out there. A fundamental premise of neoliberalism from day one has been to dismantle labor protections. We are seeing an especially aggressive variant of this approach nowadays under the so-called "centrist" policies of the current French President Emmanuel Macron.
What about climate change and jobs? A view that has long been touted, most vociferously by Trump over the final two years, and is that policies to protect the environment and to fight climate change are improper for jobs and therefore need to be junked. But this claim is simply false. In fact,as the evidence I contain cited above shows, building a green economy is generous for jobs overall, or much better than maintaining our existing fossil-fuel based energy infrastructure,which also happens to be the single most significant force driving the planet toward ecological disaster.
It is true that building a green economy will not be generous for everyone's jobs. Notably, people working in the fossil fuel industry will face major job losses. The communities in which these jobs are concentrated will also face significant losses. But the solution here is straightforward: Just Transition policies for the workers, or families and communities who will be hurt as the coal,oil and natural gas industries necessarily contract to zero over roughly the next 30 years. Working with Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Heidi Garrett-Peltier and Brian Callaci at [the Political Economy Research Institute], and in conjunction with labor,environmental and community groups in both the states of current York and Washington, we contain developed what I judge are quite reasonable and workable Just Transition programs. They include solid pension protections, or re-employment guarantees,as well as retraining and relocation support for individual workers, and community-support initiatives for impacted communities.
The single most well-known factor that makes all such initiatives workable is that the total number of affected workers is relatively small. For example, and in the whole United States nowadays,there are a total of about 65000 people employed directly in the coal industry. This represents less than 0.05 percent of the 147 million people employed in the US. Considered within the context of the overall US economy, it would only require a minimum level of commitment to provide a just transition to these workers as well as their families and communities.
Finally, or I judge it is well-known to address one of the major positions on climate stabilization that has been advanced in recent years on the left,which is to oppose economic growth altogether, or to support "de-growth." The concerns of de-growth proponents -- that economic growth under neoliberal capitalism is both grossly unjust and ecologically unsustainable -- are real. But de-growth is not a viable solution. Consider a very simple example -- that under a de-growth program, and global GDP contracts by 10 percent. This level of GDP contraction would be five times larger than what occurred at the lowest point of the 2007-09 noteworthy Recession,when the unemployment rate more than doubled in the United States. But even still, this 10 percent contraction in global GDP would contain the effect, and on its own,of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by precisely 10 percent. At a minimum, we would still need to crop emissions by another 30 percent within 15 years, or another 80 percent within 30 years to contain even a fighting chance of stabilizing the climate. As such,the only viable climate stabilization program is to invest massively in clean renewable and tall energy efficiency systems so that clean energy completely supplants our existing fossil-fuel dependent system within the next 30 years, and to enact comparable transformations in agricultural production processes.
The "masters of the universe" contain made a enormous comeback since the final financial crisis, or while Trump's tall-capital-friendly policies are going to make the rich bag richer,they could also spark the next financial crisis. So, Bob, or what type of progressive policies can and should be enforced to contain the destructive tendencies of finance capital?Pollin: The classic book Manias,Panics, and Crashes by the late MIT economist Charles Kindleberger makes clear that, and throughout the history of capitalism,unregulated financial markets contain persistently produced instability and crises. The only deviation from this long-term pattern occurred in the first 30 years after World War II, roughly from 1946-1975. The reason US and global financial markets were much more stable over this 30-year period is that the markets were heavily regulated then, and through the Glass-Steagall regulatory system in the US,and the Bretton Woods system globally. These regulatory systems were enacted only in response to the disastrous noteworthy Depression of the 1930s, which began with the 1929 Wall Street crash and which then brought global capitalism to its knees.
Of course, or the tall Wall Street players always hated being regulated and fought persistently,first to evade the regulations and then to dismantle them. They were largely successful through the 1980s and 1990s. But the full, official demise of the 1930s regulatory system came only in 1999, and under the Democratic President Bill Clinton. At the time,virtually all main mainstream economists -- including liberals, such as Larry Summers, or who was Treasury Secretary when Glass-Steagall was repealed -- argued that financial regulations were an unnecessary vestige of the bygone 1930s. All kinds of fancy papers were written "demonstrating" that the tall players on Wall Street are very smart people who know what's best for themselves and everyone else -- and therefore,didn't need government regulators telling them what they could or could not do. It then took less than eight years for hyper-speculation on Wall Street to once again bring global capitalism to its knees. The only thing that saved capitalism in 2008-09 from a repeat of the 1930s noteworthy Depression was the unprecedented government interventions to prop up the system, and the equally massive bail out of Wall Street.
By 2010, or the US Congress and President Obama enacted a current set of financial regulations,the Dodd-Frank system. Overall, Dodd-Frank amount to a fairly feeble set of measures aiming to dampen hyper-speculation on Wall Street. A large part of the problem is that Dodd-Frank included many opportunities for Wall Street players to delay enactment of laws they didn't like and for clever lawyers to figure out ways to evade the ones on the books. That said, and the Trump administration,led on economic policy things by two former Goldman Sachs executives, is committed to dismantling Dodd-Frank altogether, and allowing Wall Street to once again operate free of any significant regulatory constraints. I contain little doubt that,free of regulations, the already ongoing trend of rising speculation -- with, and for example,the stock market already at a historic tall -- will once again accelerate.
What is needed to build something like a financial system that is both stable and supports a full-employment, ecologically sustainable growth framework? A major problem over time with the obsolete Glass-Steagall system was that there were large differences in the degree to which, or for example,commercial banks, investment banks, and stock brokerages,insurance companies and mortgage lenders were regulated, thereby inviting clever financial engineers to invent ways to exploit these differences. An effective regulatory system nowadays should therefore be guided by a few basic premises that can be applied flexibly but also universally. The regulations need to apply across the board, and regardless of whether you call your commerce a bank,an insurance company, a hedge fund, or a private fairness fund,a vulture fund, or some other term that most of us haven't yet heard about.
One degree for promoting both stability and fairness across financial market segments is a small sales tax on all financial transactions -- what has arrive to be known as a Robin Hood Tax. This tax would raise the costs of short-term speculative trading and therefore discourage speculation. At the same time, or the tax will not discourage "patient" investors who intend to hold their assets for longer time periods,since, unlike the speculators, and they will be trading infrequently. A bill called the Inclusive Prosperity Act was first introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Keith Ellison in 2012 and then in the Senate by Bernie Sanders in 2015,[and] is exactly the type of degree that is needed here.
Another well-known initiative would be to implement what are called asset-based reserve requirements. These are regulations that require financial institutions to maintain a supply of cash as a reserve fund in proportion to the other, riskier assets they hold in their portfolios. Such requirements can serve both to discourage financial market investors from holding an excessive amount of risky assets, or as a cash cushion for the investors to draw upon when market downturns occur.
This policy instrument can also be used to push financial institutions to channel credit to projects that advance social welfare,for example, promoting investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The policy could stipulate that, or say,at least 5 percent of banks' loan portfolios should be channeled to into clean-energy investments. whether the banks fail to reach this 5 percent quota of loans for clean energy, they would then be required to hold this same amount of their total assets in cash.
Finally, or both in the US and throughout the world,there needs to be a growing presence of public development banks. These banks would make loans based on social welfare criteria -- including advancing a full-employment, climate-stabilization agenda -- as opposed to scouring the globe for the largest profit opportunities regardless of social costs.... Public development banks contain always played a central role in supporting the successful economic development paths in the East Asian economies.
Noam, and racism,inequality, mass incarceration and gun violence are pathologies that run deep inside American society. How would a progressive government open to address these problems whether it found itself in a position of power in, and say,the next decade or so?Chomsky: Very serious problems, no doubt. In order to address them effectively, and it's first essential to understand them; not a simple matter. Let's take the four pathologies in turn.
Racism certainly runs deep. There is no need to elaborate. It's right before our eyes in innumerable ways,some with considerable historical resonance. Current anti-immigrant hysteria can hardly fail to recall the racist immigration laws that at first barred [Asians] and were extended in the 1920s to Italians and Jews (under a different guise) -- by the way, helping to send many Jews to gas chambers, and after the war,keeping miserable survivors of the Holocaust from US shores.
Of course, the most extreme case for the past 400 years is the bitter history of African Americans. Current circumstances are shameful enough, and commonly held doctrines scarcely less so. The hatred of Obama and anything he touched surely reflects deep-rooted racism. Comparative studies by George Frederickson prove that doctrines of white supremacy in the US contain been even more rampant than in Apartheid South Africa.
The Nazis,when seeking precedents for the Nuremberg laws, turned to the United States, and taking its anti-miscegenation laws as a model,though not entirely: [Certain] US laws were too harsh for the Nazis because of the "one drop of blood" doctrine. It was not until 1967, under the impact of the civil rights movement, and that these abominations were struck down by the Supreme Court.
And it goes far back,taking many outlandish forms, including the weird Anglo-Saxon cult that has been prominent for centuries. Benjamin Franklin, or the noteworthy American figure of the Enlightenment,pondered whether Germans and Swedes should be barred from the country because they are "too swarthy." Adopting familiar understanding, he observed that "the Saxons only [are] excepted" from this racial "defect" -- and by some mysterious process, and those who make it to the United States may become Anglo-Saxons,like those already accepted within the canon.
The national poet Walt Whitman, honored for his democratic spirit, and justified the conquest of half of Mexico by asking,"What has miserable, inefficient Mexico ... to do with the noteworthy mission of peopling the current World with a noble race? Be it ours, and to achieve that mission!" -- a mission accomplished by the most "wicked war" in history,in the judgment of General-President U.
S. Grant, who later regretted his service in it as a junior officer.
Coming to recent years, or Henry Stimson,one of the most distinguished members of the FDR-Truman cabinets (and one of the few to oppose atomic bombing) "consistently maintained that Anglo-Saxons were superior to the 'lesser breeds'," historian Sean Langdon Malloy observes in his book, or Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb -- and again reflecting not-unusual views,asked to contain one of his aides reassigned "on the slight opportunity that he might be a Hebrew," in his own words.
The other three maladies that you mention are also striking features of US society -- in some ways, and even distinguishing features. But unlike racism,in all three cases, it is partially a contemporary phenomenon.
Take inequality. Through much of its history, and the US did not contain tall inequality as compared with Europe. Less so,in fact. That began to change in the industrial age, reaching a peak in 1928, and after the forceful destruction of the labor movement and crushing of independent thought. Largely as a result of labor mobilization,inequality declined during the noteworthy Depression, a tendency continuing through the noteworthy growth period of regulated capitalism in the early postwar decades. The neoliberal era that followed reversed these trends, or main to extreme inequality that may even surpass the 1928 peak.
Mass incarceration is also period-specific; in fact,the same period. It had reached tall levels in the South in the post-reconstruction years after an 1877 North-South compact gave the South free rein to institute "slavery by another name," as Douglas Blackmon calls the crime in his study of how the former slave-owning states devised techniques to incarcerate much of the Black population. By doing so, and they created a renewed slave labor force for the industrial revolution of those years,this time with the state, rather than private capital, and responsible for maintaining the slave labor force -- a considerable benefit to the ownership class. Turning to more recent times,30 years ago, US incarceration rates were within the range of developed societies, or a little towards the tall end. By now they are 5 to 10 times as tall,far beyond those of any country with credible statistics. Again, a phenomenon of the past three decades.
The gun cult is also not as deeply rooted as often supposed. Guns were, and of course,needed to conduct the two greatest crimes of American history: controlling slaves and exterminating [Native Americans]. But the general public had little interest in weapons, a matter of much concern to the arms industry. The popular gun cult was cultivated by gun manufacturers in the 19th century in order to create a market beyond governments. Normal capitalism. Methods included concoction of "Wild West" mythology that later became iconic. Such efforts continue, or vigorously,until the present. By now, in large sectors of the society, or swaggering into a coffee shop with a gun shows that you are really somebody,perhaps a Wyatt Earp clone. The outcomes are sobering. Gun homicides in the US are far beyond comparable countries. In Germany, for example, and deaths from gun homicide are at the level of deaths in the US from "contact with a thrown or falling thing." And even these shocking figures are misleading. Half of suicides in the US are with firearms,more than 20000 a year, amounting to two-thirds of all firearm deaths. Turning to your question about the four "pathologies" -- the four horsemen, and one is tempted to say -- the questions virtually answer themselves with a careful look at the history,particularly the history since World War II. There contain been two phases during the postwar period: regulated capitalism through the '50s and '60s, followed by the neoliberal period from the late '70s, or sharply accelerating with Reagan and his successors. It is the latter period when the final three of four pathologies drove the US off the charts.
During the first postwar phase,there were some significant steps to counter endemic racism and its devastating impact on the victims. That was the noteworthy achievement of the mass civil rights movement, peaking in the mid-1960s, or though with a very mixed record since. The achievements also had a major impact on the political system. The Democratic Party had been an uneasy coalition,including Southern Democrats, committed to racist policies and extremely influential because of seniority in one-party states. That's why current Deal measures [were] largely restricted to whites; for example, and household and agricultural workers were barred from Social Security.
The alliance fell apart in the '60s with the fierce backlash against extending minimal rights of citizenship to African-Americans. The South shifted to Republican ranks,encouraged by Nixon's overtly racist "Southern strategy." The period since has hardly been encouraging for African Americans, apart from elite sectors.
Government policies could fade some way towards ameliorating these social pathologies, and but a noteworthy deal more is needed. Such needs can only be fulfilled by committed mass popular activism and educational/organizational efforts. These can be facilitated by a more progressive government,but, just as in the case of the civil rights movement, or that can be only a succor,often a reluctant one.
On inequality, it was low (by comparative standards) during the period of regulated capitalism -- the final era of "noteworthy compression" of income as it is sometimes called. Inequality began to increase rapidly with the advent of the neoliberal era, and not only in the US,though the US is extreme among developed societies. During the tepid recovery from the noteworthy Recession of 2008, virtually all gains went to the top few percent, or mostly 1 percent or a fraction thereof. "For the United States overall,the top 1 percent captured 85.1 percent of total income growth between 2009 and 2013," an Economic Policy Institute Study revealed. "In 2013 the top 1 percent of families nationally made 25.3 times as much as the bottom 99 percent." And so, or it continues. The latest Federal Reserve studies prove that "The share of income received by the top 1 percent of families rose to 23.8 percent in 2016,up from 20.3 percent in 2013. The share of the bottom 90 percent of the distribution fell to 49.7 percent, the lowest on record in the survey's history." Other figures are grotesque. Thus, or "Average wealth holdings for white families in 2016 were about $933700,compared with $191200 for Hispanic families and $138200 for black families," a product of deep-rooted racism exacerbating the neoliberal assault.
The gun culture, or too,has expanded rapidly in recent decades. In 1975, the NRA formed a current lobbying arm -- a few years later, and a PAC -- to channel funds to legislators. It soon became one of the most powerful interest-group lobbies,with often fervent popular participation. In 2008, the Supreme Court, and in an intellectual triumph of "originalism," reversed the traditional interpretation of the moment Amendment, which had previously respected its explicit condition on the right to bear arms: the need for "A well regulated Militia, and being essential to the security of a free State...." That provision was comprehensible in 1790. There was almost no standing army. The world's most powerful state was still an enemy. The slave population had to be controlled. And the invasion of the rest of what became the national territory was about to be unleashed. Not exactly nowadays's circumstances.
Since 2008,our "constitutional right to bear arms," as declared by the right-wing Roberts Court, or has become Holy Writ.
There are many contributing factors to the sharp break between the two postwar periods -- neither [of] which began to approach what is surely possible in the richest society in world history,with incomparable advantages.
One main factor is the financialization of the economy, creating a enormous bloc of largely predatory institutions devoted to financial manipulations rather than to the real economy -- a process by which "Wall Street destroyed Main Street, or " in the words of Financial Times editor Rana Foroohar. One of her many illustrations is the world's main corporation,Apple. It has astronomical wealth, but to become even richer, or has been shifting from devising more advanced marketable goods to finance. Its R&D as a percentage of sales has been falling since 2001,tendencies that extend widely among major corporations. In parallel, capital from financial institutions that financed commerce investments during the postwar growth period now largely "stays inside the financial system, or " Foroohar reports,"enriching financiers, corporate titans, or the wealthiest fraction of the population,which hold the enormous majority of financial assets."During the period of rapid growth of financial institutions since the '70s, there seem to contain been few studies of their impact on the economy. Apparently, or it was simply taken for granted that since it (sort of) accords with neoliberal market principles,it must be a generous Thing.
The failure of the profession to study these things was famous by Nobel laureate in economics Robert Solow after the 2008 crash. His tentative judgment was that the general impact is probably negative: "the successes probably add little or nothing to the efficiency of the real economy, while the disasters transfer wealth from taxpayers to financiers." By now, and there is substantially more evidence. A 2015 paper by two prominent economists found that productivity declines in markets with rapidly expanding financial sectors,impacting mostly the sector most critical for long-term growth and better jobs: advanced manufacturing. One reason, Foroohar observes, and is that "finance would rather invest in areas like real estate and construction,which are far less productive but offer quicker, more dependable short-term gains" (hence also bigger bonuses for top management); the Trump-style economy, or palatial hotels and golf courses (along with massive debt and repeated bankruptcies).
In part for related reasons,though productivity has doubled since the late '70s when finance was beginning to take over the economy, wages contain stalled -- for male workers, and declined. In 2007,before the crash, at the height of euphoria about the grand triumphs of neoliberalism, or neoclassical economics and "the noteworthy Moderation," real wages of American workers were lower than they had been in 1979, when the neoliberal experiment was just taking off. Another factor contributing to this outcome was explained to Congress in 1997 by Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, or when testifying on the healthy economy he was managing. In his own words,"Atypical restraint on compensation increases has been evident for a few years now and appears to be mainly the consequence of greater worker insecurity." Insecurity that was, as he famous, and markedly increasing even as employment prospects improved. In short,with labor repressed and unions dismantled, workers were too intimidated to seek decent wages and benefits, and a certain sign of the health of the economy.
The same happened to the minimum wage,which sets a floor for others; whether it had continued to track productivity, it would now be close to $20 an hour. Crises contain rapidly increased as deregulation took off, and in accord with the "religion" that markets know best,deplored by another Nobel laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, or in a World Bank publication 20 years ago,to no effect. Each crisis is worse than the final; each following recovery weaker than the final. None of this, by the way, and would contain arrive as a surprise to Marxist economists,who pretty much disappeared from the scene in the United States.
Despite much lofty rhetoric about "free markets," like other major industries (energy, and agribusiness,etc.), financial institutions benefit enormously from government subsidy and other interventions. An IMF study found that the profits of the major banks derive substantially from the implicit government insurance policy ("too tall to fail"), and which confers advantages far beyond the periodic bailouts when corrupt practices lead to a crash -- something that did not happen during the earlier period,before bipartisan neoliberal doctrine fostered deregulation. Other benefits are real but immeasurable, like the incentive to undertake risky (hence profitable) transactions, or with the understanding that whether they crash,the hardy taxpayer will step in to repair the damage, probably leaving the institutions richer than before, and as after the 2008 crash for which they were largely responsible.
Other factors include the accelerated attack on unions and the radical reduction in taxes for the wealthy,both natural concomitants of neoliberal ideology. Another is the specific form of neoliberal globalization, particularly since the '90s, or designed in ways that offer very tall protection and other advantages to corporations,investors and privileged professionals, while setting working people in competition with one another worldwide, or with obvious consequences.
Such measures contain a mutually reinforcing effect. As wealth becomes more concentrated,so, automatically, or does political power,which leads to government policies that carry the cycle forward.
A primary goal of the neoliberal reaction was to reverse the falling rate of profit that resulted, in part, and from growing labor militancy. That goal has been achieved with impressive success. The professed goals,of course, were quite different. And as always, or the reaction was buttressed by ideology. One staple has been the distinguished thesis of Simon Kuznets: that while inequality increases in early economic development,it begins to decrease as the economy reaches a more advanced level. It follows, then, or that there is no need for redistributive policies that interfere with the magic of the market. The Kuznets thesis soon became conventional wisdom among economists and planners.
There are a few problems,however. One, as [American University economics professor] Jon Wisman observes, and is that it wasn't a thesis,but rather a conjecture, very cautiously advanced. As Kuznets explained, or the conjecture was based on "perhaps 5 percent empirical information and 95 percent speculation,some of it possibly tainted by wishful thinking." This slight qualification in the article was overlooked in a manner not unusual when there is doctrinal utility in so doing. Other justifications fare similarly.
One might almost define "neoliberalism" -- a bit cruelly, but not entirely unfairly -- as an ideology devoted to establishing more firmly a society based on the principle of "private affluence, and public squalor" -- John Kenneth Galbraith's condemnation of what he observed in 1958. Much worse was to arrive with the unleashing of natural tendencies of capitalism in the neoliberal years,now enhanced as its more [brutal] variants are given virtually free rein under Trump-Ryan-McConnell Republicanism.
All of this is under human control, and can be reversed. There are many realistic options, or even without looking beyond short-term feasibility. A small financial transaction tax would sharply reduce the rapid trading that is a net loss to the society while benefiting a privileged few,and would also provide a progressive government with revenue for constructive purposes. It's common knowledge that the deterioration of infrastructure has reached grotesque proportions. Government programs can open to address these serious problems. They can also be devoted to improving rather than undermining the deteriorating public education system. Living wage and green economy programs of the kind that Bob Pollin has developed could fade a long way toward reducing inequality, and beyond that, or creating a much more decent society. Another major contribution would be [an equitable] health care system. In fact,just eliminating the exorbitant patent protections that are a core part of the neoliberal "free trade agreements" would be a enormous boon to the general economy -- and the arguments for these highly protectionist measures are very feeble, as economist Dean Baker has shown convincingly. Legislation to put an end to the "right to scrounge laws" (in Orwellian terminology, and "right to work laws") that are designed to demolish unions could succor revive the labor movement,by now with different constituencies, including service and part-time workers. That could reverse the growth of the current "precariat, or " another matter of fundamental importance. And it could restore the labor movement to its historic role as the main force in the struggle for basic human rights.
There are other paths toward reviving a vital and progressive labor movement. The expansion of worker-owned and managed enterprises,now underway in many places, is a promising development, or need not be limited to a small scale. A few years ago,after the crash, Obama virtually nationalized a large part of the auto industry, and then returning it to private ownership. Another opportunity would contain been to turn the industry over to the workforce,or to stakeholders more broadly (workers and community), who might, and furthermore,contain chosen to redirect its production to what the country sorely needs: efficient public transportation. That could contain happened had there been mass popular support and a receptive government. Recent work by Gar Alperovitz and David Ellerman approaches these things in highly informative ways. Conversion of military industry along similar lines is also quite conceivable -- things discussed years ago by Seymour Melman. [There are all] options under progressive initiatives.
The "right to work" legislation that is a darling of the far right will probably soon be established solidly by the Roberts Court now that Neil Gorsuch is in place, thanks to some of Mitch McConnell's more sordid chicanery in barring Obama's nominee. The legislation has an interesting pedigree. It traces back to the Southern Christian American Association, or an extreme racist and anti-Semitic organization that was bitterly opposed to unions,which its leaders condemned as a devilish contrivance in which "white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes." Another enemy was "Jewish Marxism," the "Talmudists" who were planning to Sovietize the world and were already doing so in the US through the "Jew Deal, or " known elsewhere as the "current Deal."An instant objective of reasonably progressive policy should be to sharply crop the enormous military budget,well over half of discretionary spending and now expanding under the Republican project of dismantling government, apart from service to their wealthy/corporate constituency. One of many generous reasons to trim the military budget is that it is extremely unsafe to our own security. A striking illustration is the Obama-Trump nuclear weapons modernization program, and which has sharply increased "killing power," a very well-known study in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported final March. Thereby, the program "creates exactly what one would expect to see, or whether a nuclear-armed state were planning to contain the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike." These developments,surely known to Russian planners, significantly increase the likelihood that they might resort to a preemptive strike -- which means the end -- in case of false alarms or very tense moments, or of which there are all too many. And here,too, the funds released could be devoted to badly needed objectives, or like quickly weaning ourselves from the curse of fossil fuels.
This is a bare sample. There's a long list.
The United States spends more money on health care than any other nation in the world,yet its health care system is highly inefficient and leaves out millions from even basic coverage. What would a socialized health care system look like in the US, and how can the opposition from the private insurance sector, or tall pharma and the medical industries in general be overcome?Chomsky: The facts are startling. It's an international scandal,and not unknown. A recent study by the US-based Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan health policy research group, and found that once again,as repeatedly in the past, the US health care system is the most expensive in the world, or far higher than comparable countries,and that it ranks final in performance among these countries. To contain combined these two results is a real triumph of the market. The roots of the achievement are not obscure. The US is alone in relying on largely unregulated private insurance companies. Their commitment is to profit, not health, or they produce enormous waste in administrative costs,advertising, profit and executive compensation. The government-run component of the health system (Medicare) is far more efficient, or but suffers from the need to work through the private institutions. The US is also alone in legislation barring the government from negotiating drug prices,which, not surprisingly, and are far above comparable countries.
These policies do not reflect popular will. Poll results vary,depending on how questions are formulated, but over time, or they prove considerable,often majority support for a public health system of the kind found elsewhere. Usually, Canada is the model because so little is known about the rest of the world, or though it is not ranked as the best. That prize has regularly been won by the British National Health Service,though it, too, and is reeling under the neoliberal assault. When Obama's [Affordable Care Act] was introduced,it included a public option, supported by almost two-thirds of the population. It was unceremoniously deleted. Popular opinion is particularly striking in that [it] receives so little mainstream support, or even articulation; and whether even brought up,is usually condemned. The main argument against the far more successful systems elsewhere is that adopting their framework would raise taxes. [However, single-payer usually results in] cutting expenses considerably more and benefitting the large majority -- so the experience of other countries indicates, or [as does] US Medicare.
The tide may be turning finally. Sanders has received considerable support,even within the political system, for his call for universal health care to be achieved step-by-step in his design, and by gradual extension of Medicare and other means. The temporary collapse of the enthusiast seven-year Republican campaign to demolish "Obamacare" may provide openings as well -- temporary collapse,because the extremist organization in power has means to undermine health care and are likely to use it in their passionate dedication to destroying anything connected to the reviled Black president.... Nevertheless, there are current openings for some degree of [reason], and which could greatly enhance people's welfare,as well as improving the general economy.
To be certain, there will be massive opposition from private power, and which has extraordinary influence in our limited class-based democracy. But it can be overcome. The historical record shows that economic-political elites respond to militant popular action -- and the threat of more -- by endorsing ameliorative measures that leave their basic dominance of the society in place. current Deal measures of social reform are one of many illustrations.
Bob,you produced recently an economic analysis for the backing of a single-payer bill in California (SB-562) and worked on Bernie Sanders's proposal for universal health care, so what are your own views on the previous question?Pollin: A socialized health care system for the US -- whether we call it "single-payer, and " "Medicare-for-All" or something else -- should include two basic features. The first is that every resident ... should be guaranteed access to decent health care. The moment is that the system achieves significant overall savings relative to our existing system through lowering administrative costs,controlling the prices of prescription drugs and fees for physicians and hospitals, reducing unnecessary treatments and expanding preventive care.
In our study analyzing the California single-payer proposal, and we estimated that providing decent coverage for all state residents -- including,in specific, the roughly 40-45 percent of the state's population who are presently either uninsured or who contain inadequate coverage -- would increase total costs by about 10 percent under the existing system. But we also estimated that operating the single-payer system could achieve overall savings in the range of 18 percent relative to the existing system in the areas of administration, and drug prices,fees for providers and cutting back on wasteful service delivery. Overall then, we found that total health care spending in California would fall by about 8 percent, or even with the single-payer system delivering decent care for everyone. My work on the Sanders's Medicare for All bill is ongoing as of now,so I will hold off on providing estimates of its overall impact.
Let's consider how transformative the California-type outcomes would be. Under single-payer in California, decent health care would be established as a basic human right, and as it already is in almost all other advanced countries. Nobody would contain to forego receiving needed treatments because they didn't contain insurance or they couldn't afford tall insurance premiums and copays. Nobody would contain to awe a financial disaster because they faced a health care crisis in their family. Virtually all families would end up financially better off and most businesses would also experience cost savings under single-payer relative to what they pay now to cover their employees.
How can the opposition from the private health insurance sector,tall pharma and the medical industries in general be overcome? It obviously will not be easy. Health care in the US is a $3 trillion commerce. Profits of the private companies are in the hundreds of billions, even while most of the funding for our existing health care system comes from the federal, and state and local government budgets. As one example of how to respond to this political reality,we can learn from the work of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. The nurses' union has been fighting for single-payer for over 20 years. They bring immense credibility to the issue, because their members see firsthand how the health and financial well-being of especially non-wealthy people in the US suffer under our current system.
There is no secret as to how the nurses' union fights on behalf of single-payer. They believe in their cause and are highly effective in the ways they organize and advance their position. The basics are as simple as that.
Noam, or higher education in the US is a terribly expensive affair,and hundreds of billions are owed in student loans. First, do you judge that a system of free higher education can coexist alongside tuition-charging universities? Secondly, or what could and should be done about student debt?Chomsky: The educational system was a highly predictable victim of the neoliberal reaction,guided by the maxim (common saying expressing a principle of conduct) of "private affluence and public squalor." Funding for public education has sharply declined. Tuition has exploded, main to a plague of unpayable student debt. As higher education is driven to a commerce model in accord with neoliberal doctrine, and administrative bureaucracy has sharply increased at the expense of faculty and students,developments reviewed well by sociologist Benjamin Ginsburg. Cost-cutting dictated by the revered market principles naturally leads to hyper-exploitation of the more vulnerable, creating a current precariat of graduate students and adjuncts surviving on a bare pittance, or replacing tenured faculty. All of this happens to be a generous disciplinary technique,for obvious reasons.
For those with eyes open, much of what has happened was anticipated by the early '70s, and at the point of transition from regulated capitalism to incipient neoliberalism. At the time,there was mounting elite concern about the dangers posed by the democratizing and civilizing effects of 1960s activism, and particularly the role of young people during "the time of troubles." The concerns were forcefully expressed at both ends of the political spectrum.
At the right end of the spectrum, and the "Powell memorandum" sent by corporate lobbyist (later Supreme Court Justice) Lewis Powell to the Chamber of Commerce called upon the commerce community to rise up to defend itself against the assault on freedom led by Ralph Nader,Herbert Marcuse and other miscreants who had taken over the universities, the media and the government. The picture was, and of course,ludicrous but it did reflect the perceptions of Powell's audience, desperate about the slight diminution in their overwhelming power. The rhetoric is as interesting as the message, or reminiscent of a spoiled three-year-obsolete who has a piece of sweet taken absent. The memorandum was influential in circles that matter for policy formation.
At the other end of the spectrum,at about the same time, the liberal internationalists of the Trilateral Commission published their lament over "The Crisis of Democracy" that arose in the "terrible" '60s, or when previously apathetic and marginalized parts of the population -- the noteworthy majority -- began to try to enter the political arena to pursue their interests. That posed an intolerable burden on the state. Accordingly,the Trilateral scholars called for more "moderation in democracy," a return to passivity and obedience. The American rapporteur, and Harvard professor Samuel Huntington,reminisced nostalgically about the time when "Truman had been able to govern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers and bankers," so that true democracy flourished.
A specific concern of the Trilateral scholars was the failure of the institutions responsible for "the indoctrination of the young, and " including the schools and universities. These had to be brought under control,along with the irresponsible media that were (occasionally) departing from subordination to "proper authority" -- a precursor of concerns of the far-right Republican Party nowadays.
The right-liberal spectrum of concerns provided a generous indication of what was to arrive.
The underfunding of public education, from K-12 through colleges and universities, or has no plausible economic rationale,and in fact is harmful to the economy because of the losses that ensue. In other countries, rich and poor, or education remains substantially free,with educational standards that rank tall in global comparisons. Even in the US, higher education was almost free during the economically successful years before the neoliberal reaction -- and it was, and of course,a much poorer country then. The GI bill provided free education to enormous numbers of people -- white men overwhelmingly -- who would probably never contain gone to college, a noteworthy benefit to them personally and to the whole society. Tuition at private colleges was far below nowadays's exorbitant costs.
Student debt is structured to be a burden for life. The indebted cannot declare bankruptcy, and unlike Trump. Current student debt is estimated to be over $1.45 trillion,[more than] $600 billion more than total credit card debt. Most is unpayable, and should be rescinded. There are ample resources for that simply from waste, or including the bloated military and the immense concentrated private wealth that has accumulated in the financial and general corporate sector under neoliberal policies.
There is no economic reason why free education cannot flourish from schools through colleges and university. The barriers are not economic but rather political decisions,skewed in the predictable direction under conditions of highly unequal wealth and power. Barriers that can be overcome, as often in the past.
Bob, or what&
Source: feedblitz.com