This is capitalism as originally envisaged. High taxes, large scale infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, dams and schools, etc., and contented citizens. Rather like modern Denmark.
What Reagan gave us was not vigorous capitalism, but socialism for the wealthy.
Unfortunately many administrations were actually anti - union. However many of the people who make their living from largesse of government were former employees or appointees from Republican administrations. During my tenure we privatized components that cost the taxpayers more in the long run, as the government had to pay more for contract services to do the same work.
I don't think this is actually "capitalism." Socialism for the rich and well positioned.
Of course you did (privatized that is). Done throughout much of the agencies. Remember Andy Card "Tell us how much of your work can be outsourced, and hint the answer out of my derrier is 50%" We thought Reagan's people were the worse. But then came Bush jr's people. And then Trump's people. A descent into hell. Wonder who teaches courses on the government in journalism classes? Maybe some guy out of the Heritage "Foundation". I say that because journalists have no idea what screwups these peope were/are so the American people certainly don't hear about it. .
Steve, I am not sure the journalists and others didn't and don't know what was/is going on, at least some of them. However, these days and for some time now, it has been profitable to just go along and keep promoting those who are making such bad decisions while whining that everyone else had it wrong. Throughout so much of the Reagan Administration, I kept hearing how "trickle-down" was such a good system and that corporations would definitely want to take care of their workers. That was nonsense, but Reagan was popular because of his grandfatherly manner. People rarely listened to his words, just like now with Trump, but thought of Reagan as soothing. They didn't understand that the economic world they knew was being eroded to a point they would hardly be able to survive. Business has had nearly free rein for the past 4+ decades; it's time for the pendulum to swing back somewhat so workers will have more rights, power, and better working conditions. It's time!
Gorbachev said that Reagan had a 'Nice Smile', but was a Cruel Man... 'Trickle-Down'.?.. I believe that there is an old Texas Saying, 'Don't Piss Down My Back, And Tell Me It Is Raining...' ...
Apache, I hadn't heard that Texas phrase in a while. Reagan was not a good person, just a decent political actor. He, like so many other Republican leaders had only one person in mind, himself, and everyone else was just a background for him getting whatever he wanted. He wrecked the Traffic Controllers Union and put the lives of so many people at risk by ditching all of those workers. Who does that but someone who is cruel and thinks as little as possible about consequences. Just like Trump's entourage, Reagan's team protected him from scrutiny and Grandpa kept on doing whatever he wanted no matter who was harmed. And, his guys benefited handsomely because of it. His VP and later successor, Daddy Bush, was just as bad, a racist misogynist who with his "thousand points of light" let people think he cared about the American people; it was just a lot of useless words because no one's situation improved, except maybe the defense contractors who made a lot off the war with Iraq and a few generals and journalists who became well-known. Republicans do nominate a lot of really despicable people for office. It's amazing that a few decent ones ever got through.
Scientific studies show that it's not deprivation that precedes progress, but a bit of progress -- that is, when things get a bit better, it gives people hope and they go for more. So, maybe the progress we got from Biden will spur us all to go for more with a Harris administration.
Well put Daniel and Michael. And this election we are not only fighting for our freedom from the formation of a controlling, dictatorial government, we are also fighting to take the "socialism for the wealthy" away and asking them to pay like the rest of us. It's like trying to wean the baby off the pacifier and potty train them at the same time... while convincing the "R" grandparents that you're not abusing the child, it's time AND necessary for the kid's social development and the family's well being.
Jeannie Strausburg: How about telling them to pay like the rest of us? I am tired of explaining. I am tired of begging. I am tired of asking. It is time to tell them.
Jeannie Strausberg ; Great analogy! Hahaha! My daughter weaned her daughter first, waited a couple months or so, and then potty trained her : it worked well, with only a few glitches in phase 2. I wonder how the obscenely wealthy could be weaned off socialism incrementally?
I doubt they can; however they can pay what "socialism" costs to use like the rest of us rather than a cheap version of their income while relying on the rest of us to cover what they don't pay.
Jeannie, the government could cut off the corporate subsidies first, then put in place some price controls. Unions could have a better chance of going into a company and getting workers on board, and our media could do a better job of educating the American people about what is really going on, what big corporations are doing to the people and how unions can help the workers fight back. It may have to be in chunks, but it needs to be started or we will just continue doing what we have been doing the past 40 years and just hope corporate greed and addiction to money and power will drift away as those owners and guys in charge see what they are doing and fix it. That will never happen, of course, so it will have to be up to "we the people" to make the necessary moves toware sanity.
We will do better by leaving out the “isms” in our discussion. The sculpture is so smart to be titled “reign in trade” rather than “capitalism”.
The isms are labels that are easily manipulated. Most Americans are for “capitalism” and against “socialism”, “communism” (and “fascism”). We put ourselves at a big disadvantage when we use words that we next have to explain that what we mean is not the feared (or loved) meaning.
IMO Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea. He should have called it “fair economy“ and no one would have been immediately turned off. We are not going to do well if we first need to re-educate the public on the meaning of the words. Let’s start where people are. It shouldn’t be hard.
DK Brooklyn ; What a good idea. But it would not be long before the obscenely wealthy scream "Socialism"! Is it possible to educate Them? They currently own the Court where most important cases end up, and don't forget the media, which is owned by them, too.
I’m for progressives taking back pride in both capitalism AND socialism as the US has best demonstrated them. Like Thom Hartmann says: “Socialism SAVED Capitalism”!
My point is let’s not start off having to redefine a word that has a negative appeal.
When I googled what words (something like that) Americans hate the most it was fascism, communism, socialism.
So if Americans hate the word socialism it isn’t strategic to use that word to describe your ideas.
In my mind Democratic Capitalism means the same thing as Democratic Socialism, but one starts me off on the right foot and the other is tied to a negative one.
This is why I like the title “economic democracy” in an economic democracy, the localized economic decisions and policy come first and then out of that the politics come. It differs from socialism in that it stresses keeping decision-making, local and empowering local populations rather than central economic planning as in socialism.socialism may work better in small countries like Finland and Denmark, because they are in a sense one economic unit. But when you have a large country such as the United States and there are many communities with differing economic bases, the smaller geographical areas need more power to make decisions for themselves .
That may be why the Campaign for Economic Democracy was chosen as the name for their political action group by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in the late 1970s. I went to some meetings back in the day. It was a good group. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Economic_Democracy
DK, Yes, words matter; they have denotations and connotations; they may carry emotional contents, and they may mask or disguise realities. "Capitalism" usually means private ownership of the means of production."Socialism" usually means social, communal ownership of capital. Is a corporation private or social? How about a cooperative? Is a state-run enterprise "social"? If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, the the "who" makes the judgment is key .
Keep it simple. So simple the average poorly educated citizen understands it and more importantly, intuitively agrees. If you have to explain your terminology you already lost most people.
You say it shouldn't be hard, but I went to a workshop once on trying to come up with those magical two-word phrases that evoke a whole frame, and it's much harder than it looks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but we need to appreciate the people who are good at it. George Lakoff knows all about this, and we should be listening to him more. I think Kamala does.
Michael, capitalism is actually a centuries-old system that was a significant improvement over the existing systems at the end of the Middle Ages. What you describe above is one direction that capitalism evolved in small wealthy progressive countries like Denmark and Finland. The evolution of capitalism in the United States took off in a negative direction resulting in the Great Depression, and economic catastrophes since then. Reagan did not start this de-evolution of capitalism, but he assisted it to once again jump any “guardrails” put in place to share the great wealth of the United States.
Now an economic/political system that can allow an unhinged Donald Trump to gain so much political power by his pandering to the ulta-wealthy needs to take another evolutionary leap to a system that is not dependent on greed for power and money to function. We need to create and implement a better system rather than to be constantly fighting a war against those who now hold the power behind the scenes.
I'm willing to bet that the industrialization of many nations took off in ways that Smith would not have wanted. Denmark and Norway were less industrial, more agrarian, much like France. The early industrial giants were the UK, Germany and the US, interestingly the main belligerents in both world wars. The early economic systems in these countries were remarkably similar to what we see in the modern US, characterized by an enormous disparity in wealth. Hence Karl Marx.
However, by the latter part of the 19th Century, especially in Germany and the UK, unions were beginning to form, and the wealth gap was steadily eroding, as Piketty points out. Marx never appears to have understood this, but simply assumed that what he saw as a young man in Germany, robber barons & all, would persist, and therefore that workers had no power other than revolution.
In the US, meanwhile, the robber barons lasted until they crashed the world economy in 1929. They were held at bay by FDR, at which time America embarked on a remarkable path to becoming an economic colossus, with wealth now much more evenly divided. Reagan's handlers brought the robber barons back, in large part through exploiting the racism of poor whites in the south.
Because of the socioeconomic peculiarities of the US, with its large and diverse population, it is conceivable that Adam Smith's vision can never be permanently realized. Smith recognized greed but thought it could be harnessed. I like your system of cooperatives, but it too could be pushed off the rails by the powerful.
In the meantime let's hope for a resounding Harris win, and hope that she doesn't sell out to her donors. We are in desperate need of a resurrection of FDR.
Billionaire FDR’s 1932 “New Deal” was provided to him by the 1930-35 Billionaire Canadian Prime Minister RB Bennett, who had used make-work, EI & other schemes to help the Cdn workers ‘riding the rails’, to begin recovery.
Now remember Harris’ British Commonwealth connections :
- mother from India
- father from Jamaica
- high school in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the daily tension of a francophone-anglophone city.
While the British ran an Empire with all its faults, they still left a legacy in their former-colony countries of strong belief in the Rule of Law.
Hmm.....I never thought about it that way. Didn't know about Bennett, but do know that FDR was heavily influenced by Keynes (was that through Bennett?).
Made me think. You know, it's worth the trip to New Delhi to see the astonishingly vast and beautiful parliamentary and civil service buildings designed by Lutyens in 1909. The British would never have organized all this if they knew they would be gone in 40 years. They thought of themselves as modern Romans, quite distinct from all the petty, vicious and brutal empires of most other European nations.
It makes me wonder, given that the eighteenth century American elites were basically British, and quite open to the idea of representation in London, that, if George III hadn't been such a dick, the entirety of North America could have been incorporated into a very powerful empire that would have made WW1 and WW2 impossible, and might have resulted in, dare I say it? - a world government based in some neutral country like India. No Hitler, no nukes, no Nixon, no Clinton, no W, no Putin, no Xi. no Kim Jong Un, and NO TRUMP. Just World Government, without all the silly people.
Of course, you might argue, maybe people would still have found other things to hit one another over the head with.
@Mark Nevas Is it really Trump’s “pandering to the ultra-wealthy “ or is it more like Trump is the useful-idiot or puppet of the ultra-wealthy. Or is he reincarnation of Hitler
Back in 1976 on the trans Alaska pipeline, it was all union. It was a huge federal job. Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared in 1975. My union agent carried a gun. It was the wild, Wild West in Alaska. I don't think there's ever been anything like it since. Many people got on their feet financially from just that one big job. There were Drs. and Lawyers who were laborers up there. I worked with a fella who was a professor of statistics and knew another guy who was a philosophy professor out of Oxford. They made their jackpot and returned to the mainstream.
It was a cost-plus project so it was very expensive...and everyone made money.
“Cost-plus” means good for the corporations, corporate executives, and corporate shareholders holding the contract to do the work. The owner (government or private) pays the companies doing the work the contract cost of materials, labor, equipment and management overhead (the categories used in pricing a construction project) plus a guaranteed profit margin. Cost-plus frequently gets used on big projects with the potential for lots of unknowns, but also for those where few bidders exist, such as huge DOD contracts for planes and ships.
In the case of the pipeline, the history and construction of which I’m familiar from knowing the aerial surveyor that mapped out the original route to spending time in Alaska along numerous locations of the pipeline, there were plenty of physical restraint unknowns ranging from remote locations, permafrost, and the technical challenges of keeping the oil heated enough to keep flowing in winter, but insulated enough to keep that heat from transferring down the supports and melting the permafrost. (The pipeline would have sagged where above ground and portions of length are also buried below ground.) So for the time period, it was technically a major accomplishment. It was also built almost entirely out of foreign manufactured and fabricated steel and was one of the largest steel structures ever built up to that time.
Cost-plus contracts will cost the project owner and end user more money. We Californians live with that every time we flip a wall switch, because the California Public Utilities Commission guarantees the three investor owned big utilities a guaranteed profit margin.
YUP, that all sounds familiar. I can tell you stories about the time up there, some good ones. I oiled on a squirt boom, tire crane and we set vertical support members (VSM's) onto the upright pilings that came out of the ground.
They were in the permafrost. It was quite something the way they figured that one out. It was a major accomplishment for sure. I was chased by a bear once and once by a caribou in rut. The pipeliners from Oklahoma were feeding the bears and this one wanted food. There were Teamsters, Pipeliners, Pipefitters, Culinary, IUOE, IBEW, Laborers and more...all union. There were strange disappearances of equipment and materials that were never accounted for and increased the cost of the overall project. It got done tho. We were out in the middle of Alaska and it was hard to watch everything that went on out there. I really do need to write a book about that. It would be full of adventure stories.
I think as long as a major project has adequate public oversight, cost-plus is probably a good thing. You explain it well. Sad to think that we needed to use foreign steel. The rust belt was already much diminished by then, I suppose.
In Niagara Region ~10yrs ago, they condemned, because of aging, a ‘high level’ bridge from ~1900, for a major road well above mast height of ships passing through the WellandCanal.
Regional engineers designed the new bridge. Then council asked contractors to bid and took the lowest from a reputable bidder @ $66M.
Over the ~2yr construction period, the price soared to $96M. The public was never transparently told whose fault it was /what happenned :
- engineers’ error ?
- unexpected quicksand or other subsurface problems ?
- contractor collusion to bid lowest ?
- contractor corruption ?
- …?
Maybe Co$t-Plus would have been better, more honest, under dicey conditions.
Well, it wasn't perfect that's for sure. The cost of the project was higher due to the cost-plus and yes taxpayers suffered some. It would be interesting to know what the full effect of the overages as posed to the basic cost, would be. We'll never know that tho. So many unexpected variables showed up that couldn't have been planned for so the cost-plus covered those unknowns.
Sally ; You are on to something : There is something unnerving when I see "non profit" describing an entity. I can't pinpoint why it sets my teeth on edge, but it does. Have I been victimized by subliminal messages in the media? It is spooky. "win -win" Yikes! Not always.
Ha-ha! I thought you said, "Sally, you are on something!" Well, that may not be too far from the truth :)
The media has gotten extremely sophisticated in its use of psychology. Advertisements are extremely well-designed by some very bright people with dollar signs in their eyes! Wasn't it Coca-Cola that tried flashing a picture of the product with a pulse duration just below what most people can perceive?
Haha! maybe both ; You are onto something and it's like being "on something"! I don't doubt that Coca (Cocaine Originally) cola would do subliminal tricks. At some point in the past, they had to stop making their product addictive for real. so they loaded it up with sugar, which is addictive. Anything to make a buck.
❤️Reich❤️:"No goal is more important than making sure Donald Trump never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
Me:"No goal is more important than making sure GULLIBILITY never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
MAGA and Fascism and Nazism and Racism need to be put in the blender so we can see what they are all made out of: GULLIBILITY. Millions of dollars and decades of placebo science tell us that up to 60% of anxious people (aka America) are cured by placebo, up to 50% of depressed people are cured by placebo. Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos and vice versa: Moms replace baby's filthy thumb with a pacifier.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️
Replace GULLIBILITY with (❤️FDR's and ❤️UN.org's)❤️FREEDOM FROM FEAR ❤️("Do one thing every day that scares you"--Eleanor Roosevelt❤️ and the science of anxiety)
❤️First Do No Harm ❤️...Stop the Lying😱🤕🤯⚖️... "Don't Sweat It" is a lie: Exercise and Exposure are mandatory and both cause sweat 😁 The US Senate's Dr Haidt's "The 3 Great Untruths"(google it) that Gen Z believes that are dooming Gen Z and democracy include "Exposure Therapy", demonization* and "State Dependent Learning"(google them).
Things have really gone south for labor since the Ron Raygun years that brought us 1. Strong anti-union rhetoric from the corrupt former President, 2. That same President ignoring the anti-monopoly law known as the Sherman anti-trust act, 3. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine which allowed for biased media monsters like fox to monoplize and flood the airwaves with lies and right-wing, pro-corporate and anti-worker propaganda while simultaneously drastically reducing the number of "voices in the marketplace" a necessary element in media and society to ensure a healthy democratic debate and awareness on key issues. Reagan was a horror show for labor and democracy, probably the worst President in my 70 years, with GW Bush and LBJ not too far behind, while trump waits in the wings with the potential to be an even more devastating trainwreck of an administration. How is this country still a going concern?
Keith, as pro-union as I am, the graph actually shows correlation, not proof. It’s the rest of the story that Prof. Reich offers that provides the proof. But I hope you’ll forgive me for being the stickler on scientific terminology that was drilled into me over 50 years ago in graduate school.
Having just finished Joseph Stiglitz's Path to Freedom I am still non-plussed as to what MAGA fans expect from Trump when he intends to continue the policies that put them in their current situation.
Amongst Stiglitz's recommendations was a liberal education for all.
I agree that education is part of the answer.
Even Project 2025 knows the power of education and intends to suppress it.
Private organizations and institutions whose motive and agenda is selfish, self centered, narcissistic and thus inimical to the common good. Our tax dollars are financing, among other things, right wing Christian academies and schooling, madrassas. yeshivas and profit oriented corporations, like charter schools.
IOW we are financing the instruments which will in the end enslave us. We are instruments of our own destructin.
Has our Constitution been changed? Reinterpreted? The First Amendment states that taxes cannot be used to finance schools that have a religious focus. I believe it's called the 'Establishment Clause'. Taxes may be used for secular instruction in a church setting but not for promotion of a religion.
Correct Chris. But if we think any church leader who takes our tax money will use it for "secular" education in their church.... we're nuts. Shame on us. I say not one dime for ANY church. Churches pay no property taxes but get all of the benefits provided by those taxes. Police, fire, EMT, water, sewer, parks and good local governments. Churches have been chipping away at this for decades. In the 1950's they were trying things like "let our kids ride the public school busses since they are going right by our schools anyway". If I remember correctly, they even thought they should get tax money to pay for their "non-religious" text books. These people will never give up their quest to steal our tax money from public schools to promote their religious agenda. My answer to them is if they want government to pay for religion then they should move to Iran or Afghanistan. One conservative political party and one religion paid for by tax money. Good luck. Also, remember religious schools are generally very selective about their students. If a student becomes a discipline problem they are out, if they don't keep their grades high enough, they are out, if their parents can't afford the tuition or don't participate, they are out. Most don't offer special education services either. These services are paid and provided for by public school tax dollars. So, when the "not-perfect" kids are thrown out of private or religious schools, where do they go? To public schools. They, and rightly so, have to accept "every" child!
The problem is Chris,that our constitution does not say that Taxes can not be use to finance religious schools.
My gripe is that from Joe shit the ragman to SCOTUS, left and right, the constitution is interpreted, like a Rohrschact test.
Here is what it says
CONGRESS shall make NO LAW RESPECTING an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It does not prohibit the several states from doing just that.
The Constitution is compact made between sovereign states, that agreed to delegate SOME authority to the Federal Government., while retaining rights for other things. That is why each state has it's own laws about voting, abortion, gun control.
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the Constitution's enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage other rights that are retained by the people. It was ratified on December 15, 1791 and is part of the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment's meaning and legal effect have been debated by judges and constitutional scholars. The courts have rarely relied on the Ninth Amendment.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights such as:
The right to vote
The right to travel
The right to privacy
The right to one's own body, including a woman's right to have an abortion
Here is the kicker, this is why we are so contentious
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that any powers not given to the federal government are reserved for the states or the people
Bear in mind, that it was the elite, property owning wealthy and thus influential males that constructed these United States, and the drew up a document that protected their own interests, position and status.
Why would they do otherwise.? It is always the powerful that make the rules, be it the Mayflower Compact or a Constitution.
Our bicameral government, enables the house of commoners to make rules and fund the government, but it has to be approved by the house of lords (Senate) and finally signed by the Chief Executive.
William, thank you for this important clarification. It is worth to keep in mind that power comes with organization. Labor unions, and the right to strike are essential to a democracy.
William -- Right! Schools are supposed to teach children to think, not to take any damned fool bullshit on "faith". Religion and public education are incompatible.
I wonder if these private schools make a profit. The tuitions are usually high. Since Betsy DeVoss was pushing privatization of education, you know there must be money in it for someone. So while our public schools suffer from underfunding, where do our tax dollars go when given to private schools?
I'm nearly finished reading Stiglitz's "Road to Freedom" and recommend it. His use of Trump's behaviors in the chapter on "norms" was interesting in that we need to put in writing what we expect of the President since Trump surprised us by not following norms and traditions that we took for granted.
I've not read Road to Freedom yet so I can't say about it.
But I would put this near the top People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (2019) Stiglitz.
Yes ,about hope Cyrano. It took a depression and war to beat back capitalistic excesses. The only thing I see on the horizon to stop or beat back runamuck capitalism is the climate crisis. Otherwise, I don't see a change in the material conditions that now exist which would cause progressive forces to make great headway. Maybe there are but I don't see them.
If the masses were reasonably educated, the GOP would not exist as it does now. Educated voters would vote for policies that benefited the common good. The unions gave us the greatest middle class in the world. The demise of unions gave us the greatest wealth disparity in the world. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
Professor Reich: i was one of those people who grew up in the shadow of labor unions -- never a member of a union myself, but a grateful beneficiary of their waning power. nevertheless, i was always paid minimum wage for my work as i struggled and worked and saved every penny i could get my hands on to go to university, a decision that i saw as my path to freedom and prosperity.
well, it didn't quite turn out that way, sadly for me and millions of others who were similarly betrayed by our dreams of plenty that turned into dust in our mouths. i'm still a wage slave, barely scraping by, although a better educated one than i was when i started out.
I remember, back when I was in high school during the LBJ administration, that literature regarding college stressed how a liberal arts education enriches a person. It was acknowledged even then that this enrichment had little to do with monetary wealth. One of the first encumbrances I shed after college was car ownership, deciding to move to a place where a car wasn't necessary. I still rely on a weekly paycheck, but the family's debt-free: somewhat shabby, but content. Meanwhile, back in my hometown, my K-8 school and my high school have been torn down without any replacement I can discern expect a "Christian academy" at the heart of its hollowed-out downtown. I wonder how long I will continue to dodge the bullets.
your mention of a christian academy reminded me of ... my own experience.
as a scientist, most people think i never received a liberal arts education, but they'd be wrong. despite being an atheist, i did attend an out-of-state lutheran seminary college for my first 2 years (it was totally paid for!!) and there, i got a wonderful liberal arts education. interestingly, that college is where i discovered once and for all that i really am an atheist, thanks to the philosophical insights from a catholic priest at a nearby church.
sometimes, i think i've traveled a strange path in just about every way you can think of.
Victor -- "... by the thousands." That is encouraging to me! Pretty sure Religious schools also turn out a lot of abused children -- if not physically then certainly mentally abused -- they fill young minds with fear and superstition.
There was some bullying of children by teachers in my public school but nothing too awful. But would you deny that telling young children that they must take "on faith" a particularly irrational belief system or else (Heaven or Hell). I maintain that "putting the "fear of God" into young minds is abuse.
i think the main reason why religious schools "churn out atheists by the thousands" (REALLY??) is because the professors that teach at them are usually unafraid to critically confront the philosophical questions that many of us grapple with. most of my liberal arts professors were ordained and they had an exceptional knowledge of literature and history -- two of my favourite subjects. (along with science, of course.) the nearby catholic priest that i spent hours chatting with and verbally sparring with was also exceptionally well educated and very thoughtful and willing to invest the intellectual effort in asking me questions (as i asked him questions) that helped guide me to a more stable personal ethics.
Cyrano -- I can relate. A liberal arts education is invaluable. Too many techies and business majors lack any real understanding of how we got here. I live a sort of minimalist life, comfortable, debt-free, but without all the crap our material world is pushing. Also, I have put "Pig" on my movie wishlist.
A man and his truffle-hunting pig. An unusual story, dark and foreboding, set in a grungy west coast subculture called the restaurant business. A character study, at one point Robin Feld (Nicholas Cage) unemotionally explains that the next earthquake, expected roughly every 200 years, will flatten the city (Portland), level the bridges, and sweep it all away in a 10 foot high tsunami. But he’s just making conversation. Also starring Adam Arkin (son of actor Alan Arkin) as a restauranteur/gangster. [No pigs were harmed in the making of this movie!]
Sally, sounds like a good movie. Thank you for explaining it to me. I have, for some reason, never been a Nicholas Cage fan. I am YEARS behind in movie watching. I gave up TV back in the 'teens sometime. (Long story.) I think the last movie I watched was a Robin Williams movie before he committed suicide. I am telling you about it because it was a STUNNINGLY beautiful movie, and I can't even recall the name of it! (I guess I need to look up a list of his movies!) It was about reincarnation, death, potential suicide, and he was a doctor, I believe, and his wife was a well-established artist.
Now I am curious! I will try to look it up and send you another note.
My point about his suicide is that I watched this movie shortly before his suicide, so that made it even more poignant.
with Cuba Gooding Jr. and a lovely actress with an Italian name (Scorianno or something like that). Gooding has a small role. In my opinion, NOBODY should miss seeing this movie, it is so beautifully done.
GrrlScientist -- I don't mean to pry, but how is a PhD a "wage slave". I mean, there is probably only limited application for a parrot specialist -- you can't turn a parrot into an astronaut or a rocket scientist -- but still I would think academia and science journalism would pay better. Oh, well! Your Bio is an interesting one. Best of luck to you!
Isn’t it frustrating when Kroger brags about the discounts they give you, even as they nearly double the prices on groceries? It’s just a slick way of gaslighting their customers.
That graph that you provided proves that unions are the strongest force behind the middle class. When the unions do well the middle class thrives.
This is capitalism as originally envisaged. High taxes, large scale infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, dams and schools, etc., and contented citizens. Rather like modern Denmark.
What Reagan gave us was not vigorous capitalism, but socialism for the wealthy.
@Michael Hutchinson. I worked for the Department of Labor. https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/dolhistoxford
Unfortunately many administrations were actually anti - union. However many of the people who make their living from largesse of government were former employees or appointees from Republican administrations. During my tenure we privatized components that cost the taxpayers more in the long run, as the government had to pay more for contract services to do the same work.
I don't think this is actually "capitalism." Socialism for the rich and well positioned.
Of course you did (privatized that is). Done throughout much of the agencies. Remember Andy Card "Tell us how much of your work can be outsourced, and hint the answer out of my derrier is 50%" We thought Reagan's people were the worse. But then came Bush jr's people. And then Trump's people. A descent into hell. Wonder who teaches courses on the government in journalism classes? Maybe some guy out of the Heritage "Foundation". I say that because journalists have no idea what screwups these peope were/are so the American people certainly don't hear about it. .
Steve, I am not sure the journalists and others didn't and don't know what was/is going on, at least some of them. However, these days and for some time now, it has been profitable to just go along and keep promoting those who are making such bad decisions while whining that everyone else had it wrong. Throughout so much of the Reagan Administration, I kept hearing how "trickle-down" was such a good system and that corporations would definitely want to take care of their workers. That was nonsense, but Reagan was popular because of his grandfatherly manner. People rarely listened to his words, just like now with Trump, but thought of Reagan as soothing. They didn't understand that the economic world they knew was being eroded to a point they would hardly be able to survive. Business has had nearly free rein for the past 4+ decades; it's time for the pendulum to swing back somewhat so workers will have more rights, power, and better working conditions. It's time!
Gorbachev said that Reagan had a 'Nice Smile', but was a Cruel Man... 'Trickle-Down'.?.. I believe that there is an old Texas Saying, 'Don't Piss Down My Back, And Tell Me It Is Raining...' ...
Apache, I hadn't heard that Texas phrase in a while. Reagan was not a good person, just a decent political actor. He, like so many other Republican leaders had only one person in mind, himself, and everyone else was just a background for him getting whatever he wanted. He wrecked the Traffic Controllers Union and put the lives of so many people at risk by ditching all of those workers. Who does that but someone who is cruel and thinks as little as possible about consequences. Just like Trump's entourage, Reagan's team protected him from scrutiny and Grandpa kept on doing whatever he wanted no matter who was harmed. And, his guys benefited handsomely because of it. His VP and later successor, Daddy Bush, was just as bad, a racist misogynist who with his "thousand points of light" let people think he cared about the American people; it was just a lot of useless words because no one's situation improved, except maybe the defense contractors who made a lot off the war with Iraq and a few generals and journalists who became well-known. Republicans do nominate a lot of really despicable people for office. It's amazing that a few decent ones ever got through.
It's time. But not sure what will cause the swing back. In the past the material conditions changed-got worse- allowing change to happen.
Scientific studies show that it's not deprivation that precedes progress, but a bit of progress -- that is, when things get a bit better, it gives people hope and they go for more. So, maybe the progress we got from Biden will spur us all to go for more with a Harris administration.
Well put Daniel and Michael. And this election we are not only fighting for our freedom from the formation of a controlling, dictatorial government, we are also fighting to take the "socialism for the wealthy" away and asking them to pay like the rest of us. It's like trying to wean the baby off the pacifier and potty train them at the same time... while convincing the "R" grandparents that you're not abusing the child, it's time AND necessary for the kid's social development and the family's well being.
Jeannie Strausburg: How about telling them to pay like the rest of us? I am tired of explaining. I am tired of begging. I am tired of asking. It is time to tell them.
Jeannie Strausberg ; Great analogy! Hahaha! My daughter weaned her daughter first, waited a couple months or so, and then potty trained her : it worked well, with only a few glitches in phase 2. I wonder how the obscenely wealthy could be weaned off socialism incrementally?
I doubt they can; however they can pay what "socialism" costs to use like the rest of us rather than a cheap version of their income while relying on the rest of us to cover what they don't pay.
Jeannie, the government could cut off the corporate subsidies first, then put in place some price controls. Unions could have a better chance of going into a company and getting workers on board, and our media could do a better job of educating the American people about what is really going on, what big corporations are doing to the people and how unions can help the workers fight back. It may have to be in chunks, but it needs to be started or we will just continue doing what we have been doing the past 40 years and just hope corporate greed and addiction to money and power will drift away as those owners and guys in charge see what they are doing and fix it. That will never happen, of course, so it will have to be up to "we the people" to make the necessary moves toware sanity.
Good analogy!
Thank you
We will do better by leaving out the “isms” in our discussion. The sculpture is so smart to be titled “reign in trade” rather than “capitalism”.
The isms are labels that are easily manipulated. Most Americans are for “capitalism” and against “socialism”, “communism” (and “fascism”). We put ourselves at a big disadvantage when we use words that we next have to explain that what we mean is not the feared (or loved) meaning.
IMO Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea. He should have called it “fair economy“ and no one would have been immediately turned off. We are not going to do well if we first need to re-educate the public on the meaning of the words. Let’s start where people are. It shouldn’t be hard.
DK Brooklyn ; What a good idea. But it would not be long before the obscenely wealthy scream "Socialism"! Is it possible to educate Them? They currently own the Court where most important cases end up, and don't forget the media, which is owned by them, too.
I’m for progressives taking back pride in both capitalism AND socialism as the US has best demonstrated them. Like Thom Hartmann says: “Socialism SAVED Capitalism”!
My point is let’s not start off having to redefine a word that has a negative appeal.
When I googled what words (something like that) Americans hate the most it was fascism, communism, socialism.
So if Americans hate the word socialism it isn’t strategic to use that word to describe your ideas.
In my mind Democratic Capitalism means the same thing as Democratic Socialism, but one starts me off on the right foot and the other is tied to a negative one.
This is why I like the title “economic democracy” in an economic democracy, the localized economic decisions and policy come first and then out of that the politics come. It differs from socialism in that it stresses keeping decision-making, local and empowering local populations rather than central economic planning as in socialism.socialism may work better in small countries like Finland and Denmark, because they are in a sense one economic unit. But when you have a large country such as the United States and there are many communities with differing economic bases, the smaller geographical areas need more power to make decisions for themselves .
That may be why the Campaign for Economic Democracy was chosen as the name for their political action group by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in the late 1970s. I went to some meetings back in the day. It was a good group. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Economic_Democracy
DK, Yes, words matter; they have denotations and connotations; they may carry emotional contents, and they may mask or disguise realities. "Capitalism" usually means private ownership of the means of production."Socialism" usually means social, communal ownership of capital. Is a corporation private or social? How about a cooperative? Is a state-run enterprise "social"? If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, the the "who" makes the judgment is key .
Keep it simple. So simple the average poorly educated citizen understands it and more importantly, intuitively agrees. If you have to explain your terminology you already lost most people.
You say it shouldn't be hard, but I went to a workshop once on trying to come up with those magical two-word phrases that evoke a whole frame, and it's much harder than it looks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but we need to appreciate the people who are good at it. George Lakoff knows all about this, and we should be listening to him more. I think Kamala does.
"Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea."
Agreed, the Sanders platform is basically Adam Smith's. Who would argue with that?
Michael, capitalism is actually a centuries-old system that was a significant improvement over the existing systems at the end of the Middle Ages. What you describe above is one direction that capitalism evolved in small wealthy progressive countries like Denmark and Finland. The evolution of capitalism in the United States took off in a negative direction resulting in the Great Depression, and economic catastrophes since then. Reagan did not start this de-evolution of capitalism, but he assisted it to once again jump any “guardrails” put in place to share the great wealth of the United States.
Now an economic/political system that can allow an unhinged Donald Trump to gain so much political power by his pandering to the ulta-wealthy needs to take another evolutionary leap to a system that is not dependent on greed for power and money to function. We need to create and implement a better system rather than to be constantly fighting a war against those who now hold the power behind the scenes.
I'm willing to bet that the industrialization of many nations took off in ways that Smith would not have wanted. Denmark and Norway were less industrial, more agrarian, much like France. The early industrial giants were the UK, Germany and the US, interestingly the main belligerents in both world wars. The early economic systems in these countries were remarkably similar to what we see in the modern US, characterized by an enormous disparity in wealth. Hence Karl Marx.
However, by the latter part of the 19th Century, especially in Germany and the UK, unions were beginning to form, and the wealth gap was steadily eroding, as Piketty points out. Marx never appears to have understood this, but simply assumed that what he saw as a young man in Germany, robber barons & all, would persist, and therefore that workers had no power other than revolution.
In the US, meanwhile, the robber barons lasted until they crashed the world economy in 1929. They were held at bay by FDR, at which time America embarked on a remarkable path to becoming an economic colossus, with wealth now much more evenly divided. Reagan's handlers brought the robber barons back, in large part through exploiting the racism of poor whites in the south.
Because of the socioeconomic peculiarities of the US, with its large and diverse population, it is conceivable that Adam Smith's vision can never be permanently realized. Smith recognized greed but thought it could be harnessed. I like your system of cooperatives, but it too could be pushed off the rails by the powerful.
In the meantime let's hope for a resounding Harris win, and hope that she doesn't sell out to her donors. We are in desperate need of a resurrection of FDR.
Billionaire FDR’s 1932 “New Deal” was provided to him by the 1930-35 Billionaire Canadian Prime Minister RB Bennett, who had used make-work, EI & other schemes to help the Cdn workers ‘riding the rails’, to begin recovery.
Now remember Harris’ British Commonwealth connections :
- mother from India
- father from Jamaica
- high school in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the daily tension of a francophone-anglophone city.
While the British ran an Empire with all its faults, they still left a legacy in their former-colony countries of strong belief in the Rule of Law.
That’s a key plank in the Harris-Walz campaign.
Hmm.....I never thought about it that way. Didn't know about Bennett, but do know that FDR was heavily influenced by Keynes (was that through Bennett?).
Made me think. You know, it's worth the trip to New Delhi to see the astonishingly vast and beautiful parliamentary and civil service buildings designed by Lutyens in 1909. The British would never have organized all this if they knew they would be gone in 40 years. They thought of themselves as modern Romans, quite distinct from all the petty, vicious and brutal empires of most other European nations.
It makes me wonder, given that the eighteenth century American elites were basically British, and quite open to the idea of representation in London, that, if George III hadn't been such a dick, the entirety of North America could have been incorporated into a very powerful empire that would have made WW1 and WW2 impossible, and might have resulted in, dare I say it? - a world government based in some neutral country like India. No Hitler, no nukes, no Nixon, no Clinton, no W, no Putin, no Xi. no Kim Jong Un, and NO TRUMP. Just World Government, without all the silly people.
Of course, you might argue, maybe people would still have found other things to hit one another over the head with.
@Mark Nevas Is it really Trump’s “pandering to the ultra-wealthy “ or is it more like Trump is the useful-idiot or puppet of the ultra-wealthy. Or is he reincarnation of Hitler
He's the useful idiot puppet of the ultrawealthy, just like Hitler. Of course, that makes him the reincarnation of Hitler......
Another graph, depicting the effect at a personal level:
https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/rampant-socialism-in-the-us
Thank you for the visual.
So it was. But why did he?
Back in 1976 on the trans Alaska pipeline, it was all union. It was a huge federal job. Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared in 1975. My union agent carried a gun. It was the wild, Wild West in Alaska. I don't think there's ever been anything like it since. Many people got on their feet financially from just that one big job. There were Drs. and Lawyers who were laborers up there. I worked with a fella who was a professor of statistics and knew another guy who was a philosophy professor out of Oxford. They made their jackpot and returned to the mainstream.
It was a cost-plus project so it was very expensive...and everyone made money.
My brother and I represented families of workers from our home town killed working there.
Killed by gunmen or brown bears?
Dee, interesting experience. Thank you for sharing.
"Cost-plus" -- good for workers but not for the taxpayers, no?
“Cost-plus” means good for the corporations, corporate executives, and corporate shareholders holding the contract to do the work. The owner (government or private) pays the companies doing the work the contract cost of materials, labor, equipment and management overhead (the categories used in pricing a construction project) plus a guaranteed profit margin. Cost-plus frequently gets used on big projects with the potential for lots of unknowns, but also for those where few bidders exist, such as huge DOD contracts for planes and ships.
In the case of the pipeline, the history and construction of which I’m familiar from knowing the aerial surveyor that mapped out the original route to spending time in Alaska along numerous locations of the pipeline, there were plenty of physical restraint unknowns ranging from remote locations, permafrost, and the technical challenges of keeping the oil heated enough to keep flowing in winter, but insulated enough to keep that heat from transferring down the supports and melting the permafrost. (The pipeline would have sagged where above ground and portions of length are also buried below ground.) So for the time period, it was technically a major accomplishment. It was also built almost entirely out of foreign manufactured and fabricated steel and was one of the largest steel structures ever built up to that time.
Cost-plus contracts will cost the project owner and end user more money. We Californians live with that every time we flip a wall switch, because the California Public Utilities Commission guarantees the three investor owned big utilities a guaranteed profit margin.
YUP, that all sounds familiar. I can tell you stories about the time up there, some good ones. I oiled on a squirt boom, tire crane and we set vertical support members (VSM's) onto the upright pilings that came out of the ground.
They were in the permafrost. It was quite something the way they figured that one out. It was a major accomplishment for sure. I was chased by a bear once and once by a caribou in rut. The pipeliners from Oklahoma were feeding the bears and this one wanted food. There were Teamsters, Pipeliners, Pipefitters, Culinary, IUOE, IBEW, Laborers and more...all union. There were strange disappearances of equipment and materials that were never accounted for and increased the cost of the overall project. It got done tho. We were out in the middle of Alaska and it was hard to watch everything that went on out there. I really do need to write a book about that. It would be full of adventure stories.
Please do that, Dee.
If you’d like to start by telling your story orally, my Rotary Club,
www.RotaryFortErie.org
has a series of Vocational Videos to help students, laid-off workers, and people changing careers.
https://rotaryforterie.org/vocational-video-series/
Please contact us to make a 15min Zoom speech with whatever graphics you can find (PowerPoint?).
I think as long as a major project has adequate public oversight, cost-plus is probably a good thing. You explain it well. Sad to think that we needed to use foreign steel. The rust belt was already much diminished by then, I suppose.
In Niagara Region ~10yrs ago, they condemned, because of aging, a ‘high level’ bridge from ~1900, for a major road well above mast height of ships passing through the WellandCanal.
Regional engineers designed the new bridge. Then council asked contractors to bid and took the lowest from a reputable bidder @ $66M.
Over the ~2yr construction period, the price soared to $96M. The public was never transparently told whose fault it was /what happenned :
- engineers’ error ?
- unexpected quicksand or other subsurface problems ?
- contractor collusion to bid lowest ?
- contractor corruption ?
- …?
Maybe Co$t-Plus would have been better, more honest, under dicey conditions.
Well, it wasn't perfect that's for sure. The cost of the project was higher due to the cost-plus and yes taxpayers suffered some. It would be interesting to know what the full effect of the overages as posed to the basic cost, would be. We'll never know that tho. So many unexpected variables showed up that couldn't have been planned for so the cost-plus covered those unknowns.
Sally ; You are on to something : There is something unnerving when I see "non profit" describing an entity. I can't pinpoint why it sets my teeth on edge, but it does. Have I been victimized by subliminal messages in the media? It is spooky. "win -win" Yikes! Not always.
Ha-ha! I thought you said, "Sally, you are on something!" Well, that may not be too far from the truth :)
The media has gotten extremely sophisticated in its use of psychology. Advertisements are extremely well-designed by some very bright people with dollar signs in their eyes! Wasn't it Coca-Cola that tried flashing a picture of the product with a pulse duration just below what most people can perceive?
Haha! maybe both ; You are onto something and it's like being "on something"! I don't doubt that Coca (Cocaine Originally) cola would do subliminal tricks. At some point in the past, they had to stop making their product addictive for real. so they loaded it up with sugar, which is addictive. Anything to make a buck.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️. "Don't Sweat It" is a lie:
❤️Reich❤️:"No goal is more important than making sure Donald Trump never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
Me:"No goal is more important than making sure GULLIBILITY never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
MAGA and Fascism and Nazism and Racism need to be put in the blender so we can see what they are all made out of: GULLIBILITY. Millions of dollars and decades of placebo science tell us that up to 60% of anxious people (aka America) are cured by placebo, up to 50% of depressed people are cured by placebo. Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos and vice versa: Moms replace baby's filthy thumb with a pacifier.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️
Replace GULLIBILITY with (❤️FDR's and ❤️UN.org's)❤️FREEDOM FROM FEAR ❤️("Do one thing every day that scares you"--Eleanor Roosevelt❤️ and the science of anxiety)
❤️First Do No Harm ❤️...Stop the Lying😱🤕🤯⚖️... "Don't Sweat It" is a lie: Exercise and Exposure are mandatory and both cause sweat 😁 The US Senate's Dr Haidt's "The 3 Great Untruths"(google it) that Gen Z believes that are dooming Gen Z and democracy include "Exposure Therapy", demonization* and "State Dependent Learning"(google them).
*google.com/search?q=cbt+"mind+reading"
Power Corrupts. Your use of emojis, and all Caps, makes your comments almost impossible to read. I don't even try.
Just sayin
Over exuberance has it’s pitfalls.
I tried reading the words. Didn’t help
👌👌👌👌👌😊
PowerCorrupts -- Too artsy-fartsy for this crowd, I'm afraid! (Heart, heart, heart, BIG SMILEY FACE)
Things have really gone south for labor since the Ron Raygun years that brought us 1. Strong anti-union rhetoric from the corrupt former President, 2. That same President ignoring the anti-monopoly law known as the Sherman anti-trust act, 3. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine which allowed for biased media monsters like fox to monoplize and flood the airwaves with lies and right-wing, pro-corporate and anti-worker propaganda while simultaneously drastically reducing the number of "voices in the marketplace" a necessary element in media and society to ensure a healthy democratic debate and awareness on key issues. Reagan was a horror show for labor and democracy, probably the worst President in my 70 years, with GW Bush and LBJ not too far behind, while trump waits in the wings with the potential to be an even more devastating trainwreck of an administration. How is this country still a going concern?
And a very helpful link in the article to a table showing income according to gender, race, age, region, etc
100% agree!
Keith, as pro-union as I am, the graph actually shows correlation, not proof. It’s the rest of the story that Prof. Reich offers that provides the proof. But I hope you’ll forgive me for being the stickler on scientific terminology that was drilled into me over 50 years ago in graduate school.
Having just finished Joseph Stiglitz's Path to Freedom I am still non-plussed as to what MAGA fans expect from Trump when he intends to continue the policies that put them in their current situation.
Amongst Stiglitz's recommendations was a liberal education for all.
I agree that education is part of the answer.
Even Project 2025 knows the power of education and intends to suppress it.
Project 2025 suppresses ('destroys' may be more accurate) education for the general public, not the rich.
The right has pushed to privatize education too. Now our tax dollars go to private education organizations.
Private organizations and institutions whose motive and agenda is selfish, self centered, narcissistic and thus inimical to the common good. Our tax dollars are financing, among other things, right wing Christian academies and schooling, madrassas. yeshivas and profit oriented corporations, like charter schools.
IOW we are financing the instruments which will in the end enslave us. We are instruments of our own destructin.
Has our Constitution been changed? Reinterpreted? The First Amendment states that taxes cannot be used to finance schools that have a religious focus. I believe it's called the 'Establishment Clause'. Taxes may be used for secular instruction in a church setting but not for promotion of a religion.
Correct Chris. But if we think any church leader who takes our tax money will use it for "secular" education in their church.... we're nuts. Shame on us. I say not one dime for ANY church. Churches pay no property taxes but get all of the benefits provided by those taxes. Police, fire, EMT, water, sewer, parks and good local governments. Churches have been chipping away at this for decades. In the 1950's they were trying things like "let our kids ride the public school busses since they are going right by our schools anyway". If I remember correctly, they even thought they should get tax money to pay for their "non-religious" text books. These people will never give up their quest to steal our tax money from public schools to promote their religious agenda. My answer to them is if they want government to pay for religion then they should move to Iran or Afghanistan. One conservative political party and one religion paid for by tax money. Good luck. Also, remember religious schools are generally very selective about their students. If a student becomes a discipline problem they are out, if they don't keep their grades high enough, they are out, if their parents can't afford the tuition or don't participate, they are out. Most don't offer special education services either. These services are paid and provided for by public school tax dollars. So, when the "not-perfect" kids are thrown out of private or religious schools, where do they go? To public schools. They, and rightly so, have to accept "every" child!
Vote Blue. Cheers... GH
The Constitution has not changed but the Supreme Court has.
Very true, and fairly simple to do. The problem is not the Constitution but the billionaires who mock it.
The problem is Chris,that our constitution does not say that Taxes can not be use to finance religious schools.
My gripe is that from Joe shit the ragman to SCOTUS, left and right, the constitution is interpreted, like a Rohrschact test.
Here is what it says
CONGRESS shall make NO LAW RESPECTING an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It does not prohibit the several states from doing just that.
The Constitution is compact made between sovereign states, that agreed to delegate SOME authority to the Federal Government., while retaining rights for other things. That is why each state has it's own laws about voting, abortion, gun control.
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the Constitution's enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage other rights that are retained by the people. It was ratified on December 15, 1791 and is part of the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment's meaning and legal effect have been debated by judges and constitutional scholars. The courts have rarely relied on the Ninth Amendment.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights such as:
The right to vote
The right to travel
The right to privacy
The right to one's own body, including a woman's right to have an abortion
Here is the kicker, this is why we are so contentious
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that any powers not given to the federal government are reserved for the states or the people
Bear in mind, that it was the elite, property owning wealthy and thus influential males that constructed these United States, and the drew up a document that protected their own interests, position and status.
Why would they do otherwise.? It is always the powerful that make the rules, be it the Mayflower Compact or a Constitution.
Our bicameral government, enables the house of commoners to make rules and fund the government, but it has to be approved by the house of lords (Senate) and finally signed by the Chief Executive.
William, thank you for this important clarification. It is worth to keep in mind that power comes with organization. Labor unions, and the right to strike are essential to a democracy.
To Chris Hayden: Tell that to the "supreme" court. It is the court that has gone rogue -- not the Constitution!
Chris: It sure has.
See my comments in Notes.
Trump’s appointees abolished the most fundamental principle of justice in British-descent countries worldwide
=> No one is above the law, not even the King (President) <=
It was so fundamental that your founders omitted Magna Carta, the Great Charter of King John, from the Constitution because everyone knows
=> No one is above the law, not even the King (President) <=
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/09/03/gop-incumbents-faced-opposition-from-school-choice-pacs-in-missouri-legislative-primaries/
William -- Right! Schools are supposed to teach children to think, not to take any damned fool bullshit on "faith". Religion and public education are incompatible.
That's true, Midwest: and 96% are pro religious organizations. So much for "Separation of Church and State"!
I "like" the truth in what you said, not that our tax $$$ go to [fund] private education.
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/09/03/gop-incumbents-faced-opposition-from-school-choice-pacs-in-missouri-legislative-primaries/
I wonder if these private schools make a profit. The tuitions are usually high. Since Betsy DeVoss was pushing privatization of education, you know there must be money in it for someone. So while our public schools suffer from underfunding, where do our tax dollars go when given to private schools?
I'm nearly finished reading Stiglitz's "Road to Freedom" and recommend it. His use of Trump's behaviors in the chapter on "norms" was interesting in that we need to put in writing what we expect of the President since Trump surprised us by not following norms and traditions that we took for granted.
I'm reading Timothy Snyder's "Road to Unfreedom," (2018) Have put Stiglitz on my list, in hopes of hope.
I've not read Road to Freedom yet so I can't say about it.
But I would put this near the top People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (2019) Stiglitz.
Yes ,about hope Cyrano. It took a depression and war to beat back capitalistic excesses. The only thing I see on the horizon to stop or beat back runamuck capitalism is the climate crisis. Otherwise, I don't see a change in the material conditions that now exist which would cause progressive forces to make great headway. Maybe there are but I don't see them.
"Progressive Cannabalism" -- Eat the rich!
Stiglitz is great !! Did you know he does interviews with all sorts of little orgs in Africa and elsewhere that are trying to advance progressivism?
If the masses were reasonably educated, the GOP would not exist as it does now. Educated voters would vote for policies that benefited the common good. The unions gave us the greatest middle class in the world. The demise of unions gave us the greatest wealth disparity in the world. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
Professor Reich: i was one of those people who grew up in the shadow of labor unions -- never a member of a union myself, but a grateful beneficiary of their waning power. nevertheless, i was always paid minimum wage for my work as i struggled and worked and saved every penny i could get my hands on to go to university, a decision that i saw as my path to freedom and prosperity.
well, it didn't quite turn out that way, sadly for me and millions of others who were similarly betrayed by our dreams of plenty that turned into dust in our mouths. i'm still a wage slave, barely scraping by, although a better educated one than i was when i started out.
I remember, back when I was in high school during the LBJ administration, that literature regarding college stressed how a liberal arts education enriches a person. It was acknowledged even then that this enrichment had little to do with monetary wealth. One of the first encumbrances I shed after college was car ownership, deciding to move to a place where a car wasn't necessary. I still rely on a weekly paycheck, but the family's debt-free: somewhat shabby, but content. Meanwhile, back in my hometown, my K-8 school and my high school have been torn down without any replacement I can discern expect a "Christian academy" at the heart of its hollowed-out downtown. I wonder how long I will continue to dodge the bullets.
your mention of a christian academy reminded me of ... my own experience.
as a scientist, most people think i never received a liberal arts education, but they'd be wrong. despite being an atheist, i did attend an out-of-state lutheran seminary college for my first 2 years (it was totally paid for!!) and there, i got a wonderful liberal arts education. interestingly, that college is where i discovered once and for all that i really am an atheist, thanks to the philosophical insights from a catholic priest at a nearby church.
sometimes, i think i've traveled a strange path in just about every way you can think of.
Religious schools churn out atheists by the thousands. The pro-religion justices in SCOTUS help explain the paradox.
Victor -- "... by the thousands." That is encouraging to me! Pretty sure Religious schools also turn out a lot of abused children -- if not physically then certainly mentally abused -- they fill young minds with fear and superstition.
Sally, not all religious schools are abusive, and plenty of secular schools are.
There was some bullying of children by teachers in my public school but nothing too awful. But would you deny that telling young children that they must take "on faith" a particularly irrational belief system or else (Heaven or Hell). I maintain that "putting the "fear of God" into young minds is abuse.
i think the main reason why religious schools "churn out atheists by the thousands" (REALLY??) is because the professors that teach at them are usually unafraid to critically confront the philosophical questions that many of us grapple with. most of my liberal arts professors were ordained and they had an exceptional knowledge of literature and history -- two of my favourite subjects. (along with science, of course.) the nearby catholic priest that i spent hours chatting with and verbally sparring with was also exceptionally well educated and very thoughtful and willing to invest the intellectual effort in asking me questions (as i asked him questions) that helped guide me to a more stable personal ethics.
Cyrano -- I can relate. A liberal arts education is invaluable. Too many techies and business majors lack any real understanding of how we got here. I live a sort of minimalist life, comfortable, debt-free, but without all the crap our material world is pushing. Also, I have put "Pig" on my movie wishlist.
Sally, what is "Pig" about?
Pig, 2021, Nicholas Cage
A man and his truffle-hunting pig. An unusual story, dark and foreboding, set in a grungy west coast subculture called the restaurant business. A character study, at one point Robin Feld (Nicholas Cage) unemotionally explains that the next earthquake, expected roughly every 200 years, will flatten the city (Portland), level the bridges, and sweep it all away in a 10 foot high tsunami. But he’s just making conversation. Also starring Adam Arkin (son of actor Alan Arkin) as a restauranteur/gangster. [No pigs were harmed in the making of this movie!]
Sally, sounds like a good movie. Thank you for explaining it to me. I have, for some reason, never been a Nicholas Cage fan. I am YEARS behind in movie watching. I gave up TV back in the 'teens sometime. (Long story.) I think the last movie I watched was a Robin Williams movie before he committed suicide. I am telling you about it because it was a STUNNINGLY beautiful movie, and I can't even recall the name of it! (I guess I need to look up a list of his movies!) It was about reincarnation, death, potential suicide, and he was a doctor, I believe, and his wife was a well-established artist.
Now I am curious! I will try to look it up and send you another note.
My point about his suicide is that I watched this movie shortly before his suicide, so that made it even more poignant.
No idea, but it is in Cyrano's Bio and stars Nicholas Cage.
Cyrano -- I read your bio. I always learn something on this website. Today I learned about the movie "Pig". Excellent! Darned good movie!!! Thank you.
SALLY: PROMISED MOVIE INFO:
Robin Williams :
"What Dreams May Come" from 1998,
with Cuba Gooding Jr. and a lovely actress with an Italian name (Scorianno or something like that). Gooding has a small role. In my opinion, NOBODY should miss seeing this movie, it is so beautifully done.
GrrlScientist -- I don't mean to pry, but how is a PhD a "wage slave". I mean, there is probably only limited application for a parrot specialist -- you can't turn a parrot into an astronaut or a rocket scientist -- but still I would think academia and science journalism would pay better. Oh, well! Your Bio is an interesting one. Best of luck to you!
Isn’t it frustrating when Kroger brags about the discounts they give you, even as they nearly double the prices on groceries? It’s just a slick way of gaslighting their customers.