Capitalism in a Nutshell

"Just so we're clear, the way that capitalism works is that a powerful minority owns substantial capital and everybody else has to work to further enrich them in exchange for a wage which they use to purchase the basics of survival."

 Meagan Day, Twitter, February 28, 2020

In response to an oped in the New York Times by Michele Goldberg claiming that Elizabeth Warren "wants to purify capitalism so it work as it should."

Minsky!

I have long admired Steve Keen, the contrarian Australian economist who wrote Debunking Economics.

Every leftist and contrarian knows intuitively that capitalist Economics is propaganda dressed up with mathematics.

But what about, actually deconstructing and debunking capitalist Economics in its own terms?  That's what Steve Keen does in Debunking Economics.

In some sense, that's also what Karl Marx did with the essentially "intuitive" Economics of the mid 1800's, along with creating a whole new edifice of "Marxist Economics" in his three volume magnum opus Capital.

Capital has many profound insights, ignored by capitalist "economists" and other propagandists, and fellow Communists want me to learn more about it (now that I'm retired and have more free time).

I think Capital is worth reading, and many of the better contemporary economists (including Keen and Piketty) are not apologetic for having done so.

But it's also very tough reading, and somewhat dated.  Marx is now more valued generally for his essentially political insights, not his economic machinery.  There aren't many Marxist Economists and one can imagine it would be hard to get an endowed Economics Chair with such a specialty in the west.  The closest and best I know of is Richard Wolff who considers himself a Marxian economist.  And I should follow Wolff more indeed, he has many fine videos in a category of political economics.

Personally, however, I have long been interested in Keynes who was a radical of his time, who was mainly concerned with human issues like unemployment, as well as all economists whose primary interest is inequality and sustainability.  These are the good Economists in my opinion, and it's a notable slice of the profession, including Brad Delong and indeed Paul Krugman.  Paul Krugman may use garbage ISLM models, but he knows how to use them so well, he actually gets a few things right from time to time.

Actually, ISLM, being sort of quasi-Keynesian in my view, has some intrinsic validity, even though it compounds it with market-equilibrium-crap.  The problem with basic world models on Smith's market intuition is that every market is only a 1 dimensional fragment of a 4 dimensional world.  Generally speaking, in any market transaction, the universe outside the transaction is far larger than the world within.  The market intuition therefore suffers from hyperselectivity in the extreme.  Markets are social constructs which define an inside and an outside by essentially social rules...rules that tend to reinforce pre-existing power, making the rich richer at the expense of everyone else and so on.  It is market-modeling that is fundamentally incompatible with world modeling, not world modeling that somehow needs microfoundations based on market-modeling, unless your primary goal is to make the rich richer at everyone else's expense ad infinitum.  Market-modeling starts by assuming what it proports to prove...that markets find the optimal solution.  What markets actually do, is provide the best deal (in limited short term sense) the rich can get.  Thankfully, market processes are actually a tiny sliver of what actually goes on in the world of which human biosphere is itself a tiny part and human economy  a still tinier part, or they tyranny and idiocy would be even greater.


 Keynes's own economics was not based on Equilibrium it was based on Circular Flows  and Uncertainty.  However, John Hicks applied Keynes-like ideas to equilibrium modeling, and that's what American "Keynesian" (properly called Hicksian) ISLM economics is.  Now, the radicals of our time include the Marxians, Post-Keynesian, and some others.  Keynes' view of circular flows in the economy was an early form of System Dynamics thinking.  Now we can realize such visions more completely...though it's still a work in progress.

Capitalist economics itself is very different from what was performed in the mid 1800's.  It's all mathematical now, based on physics statistical-gas-law equations rejiggered for use in economic modeling by Walras, Jevons, and others around 1900.  Strangely I never heard about Walras and Jevons when I took Econ 101 in College (in which, I might add, I got an A).   They are now further dressed up into the modern packages of ISLM (praised by Hicksian-Keynesians like Paul Krugman who intuits ISLM better than anyone), DSGE (used by modern bankers like Ben Bernanke), and RBC (used by Chicago-school economists).   These are all built on the concept of Equilibrium, and when Economists use that word they actually mean optimality, as in the notion that markets automagically deliver us to the best of all possible worlds, except for certain minor issues that can either be calculated or hand-waved away .  This is ultimately based on a few intuitive ideas (and ignoring others) from Adam Smith about how an individual marketplace could reach such an optimum point for buyers and sellers, but aggregated and extrapolated and stretched to entire economies and how they change over time.

Like Marx (who Keen mentions in Debunking Economics as having figured out the essence of capitalism better than capitalist Economists) Keen has his own alternative Economics, this time countering the nonsensical mathematical models of mainstream economics with models based on the modern intuitively valid concepts of system dynamics.

Keen's modeling program is called Minsky, named after one of his favorite predecessors.  Minsky eschewed equilibrium modeling and followed more in the footsteps of Keynes himself than Hicks did.

I am proud to have now downloaded Minsky and run one of Keen's latest models.  It's cool!  Over time, in this model economy, we see business cycles and we see rising private debt and slowing growth, just like real capitalist economies.

I'm quite fond of the ideas behind and often generated by systems dynamics modeling, such as the Limits to Growth school and tendency.  I've always wanted to run Limits to Growth models on my very own.  And now it may not be far (in time) away.  It looks like the same or similar World models can be run on several low cost modeling programs.

One popular system dynamics modeler available now is Numerous, which has a $0 starter package I'm downloading today.  Numeris is an update, they say, to Nova, an early free software system dynamics modeler.  (I'm still looking for Nova.)

Ah, but for really really free, you can't beat Insight Maker.  It's fully open source Javascript ECMA Script (though relying on some other packages, as they all do).  Because it's ECMA Script, it runs in browsers.  It does System Dynamics, Agent Based Modeling, and other things.

Insight Maker users are posting new models daily!  There's a whole page devoted to Limits to Growth inspired modeling.

WOW!!!

If I were anything but the lazy bum I am...  Here I am, and the edge of The Collapse of Modern Human Society and I can run system dynamics models like, even far better than, many of my favorite well known sages.  What am I waiting for???

Zerohedge Banned from Twitter

Zerohedge, a cranky, contrarian, conspiracy-theorizing site with a right wing tilt, has been banned from Twitter.

Zerohedge was far more intellectual than the likes of Breitbart et al.  Not like Trump at all, and often criticizing him.

The owner, Tyler Durden, is some kind of professional financial analyst (a very bearish one, hence the name Zerohedge, with the meme "everything ultimately goes to Zero").

Hugh, you sent me a link to an article by a blogger named "Washington" (a center-right political/economic commentator) published at Zerohedge about how the CIA invented the term "conspiracy theorist" to smear US critics.

That was Zerohedge at its (somewhat rare) finest.

Yesterday on Twitter, Bloomberg corporation tweeted to great satisfaction that Zerohedge had been "permanently suspended."  (I don't follow Bloomberg.com, but this was a paid-for "promotion" that automagically showed in my twitter feed.)  

One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if there was some connection.  Did Mike Bloomberg call the owner of Twitter and complain???  Both Democratic billionaires, they probably already know each other.

After all, in some sense bearish Zerohedge is a kind of competitor to bullish Bloomberg.

The twitter comments were mostly negative, with a few centrist-Democratic-Party-types saying they had it coming.

One commenter saying that as a private publisher, Twitter was well within its rights to refuse to publish ANYONE.

"Not a matter of free speech" he said.

I see that claim a lot.  I disagree.  I see Twitter as a monopoly social media PLATFORM, not a PUBLISHER.

Twitter is made possible by the public internet, and the public internet also means there's practically only one choice.

Therefore, it ought to be considered Common Carrier, and REQUIRED to transmit anything not in violation of law.

Or be turned into a public utility.

IIRC, social media platforms tend to plead non-responsibilty for content when the legal tables are turning against them.  But along with that, still having the choice to shut anyone down.

Nowadays, centrists want everyone to be "protected" from narratives that differ from the Official Line.

I don't agree.  I agree with Justice Brandeis that we need a "marketplace of ideas" where we can see everything and judge for ourselves.  This became the law for speech and print with the Brandenberg (1969) decision by Earl Warren.  Prior to that, our "1st ammendment" was violated with impunity, and the likes of John Stanford were arrested in 1964 simply for selling communist books in Texas.

But the urge for censorship never dies.

Another commenter suggested that banning Zerohedge was just like what Communists would do.

This Communist disagrees.  American Communists have long been persecuted through censorship laws, and litigated against censorship in the USA more than anyone.  CPUSA founder Charles Ruthenberg spent many years in prison.

Now free speech online implies a Free Platform, but it does not necessarily imply a Free Amplifier.

Social media do not necessarily need to promote speech that some find offensive.

Promotion is when, like the Bloomberg-promoted notice that Zerohedge had been banned, a message from someone previously unknown is stuck into your stream.  That sort of thing can be restricted in my view, even on a Platform.

Bashing Corbyn

How the false claims of Anti-Semitism were waged to defeat Corbyn in Britain.

(Medialens, where this was published, is excellent.)

Human Population Not a Problem ???

According to this article republished at ConsortiumNews (with disclaimer) "We Should Be Wary about blaming overpopulation for the climate crisis."

Many commenters disagree that overpopulation is not a key issue among others (including capitalism and overconsumption).

The global population has already tripled in my lifetime, with comparable increase in every US town and city.

Meanwhile, we should not merely be concerned about CO2 production, we should be aware of the vast land, water, and other resource footprints of human societies.  Even large primitive human societies can have large land and water footprints.  We are causing the holocene extinction of other species.  This is beyond irresponsible and unethical.

And everywhere that doesn't already have the affluent western lifestyle is trying to get it as quickly as possible, with rare exception.  Elites already have it everywhere.

It is that elite lifestyle, which capitalism both enables and requires, which is the most destructive, indeed.  But the meaning is not that humans should strive (or would strive) to have 11 billion (or more...the "science" on future population is little more than extrapolation) living like the earth's poorest today...they don't want to live like they do today.

The bottom line is simply common sense, as one commenter points out.  We must manage population reduction and resource use reduction everywhere, until at least the holocene is stopped.

Where the population will need to go will indeed depend on what lower levels of per-capita resource abuse we are able to sustain, and what additional-holocene-catastrophe is considered acceptible.

What we must do is all of the above and as much as possible.

Little progress is likely under the capitalist, imperialist, and generally growth-ist policies everywhere.

Capitalism clearly promotes unsustainable growth, but so do many religions, through policies that limit female choices.  People may believe or worship as they will, but regardless of belief, religious groups must find some way to manage population reduction within their belief system, and in practice not just theory.

Little progress is likely without a major social revolution.  But we must meanwhile seek every kind of reform possible that does not increase climate injustice or inequality.

Indeed, focussing on population growth in poor countries only is unfair, but most population concerned people I know, and including myself, seek universal standards and approaches to population management that rich countries will have to abide by even more.

However, I also believe, in principle, it is not mine to say who should not enjoy a US lifestyle when I still do.  The most affluent should be the first to give it up, not the last.  Therefore I do not consider population growth considerations relevant to immigration and especially admission of refugees.  IMO, we should find room somehow for all legitimate refugees and generally admit as many immigrants who want admission, possibly with restriction on location of resettlement, away from the most overpopulated or threatened areas.

De-growth societies will need to be socialist to be tolerable.  But that was true anyway.

Brussiagate 2.0

It matters not what Putin, Trump, Hillary, Obama, Bush, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, or Chris Matthews thinks.

Because they are all the old aristocracy, clinging to the past, which everyone else hates.

Bernie IS going to win, and for a change, with People Power, not the CIA rigging which the likes of Bush (in particular) relied upon.

People are fed up with the old neoliberal order.  They want to see more Democratic Socialism, of the kind that one of the best US Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pioneered.

FDR called for Four Freedoms.

Bernie calls for Healthcare-as-a-right, free College Tuition, debt forgiveness in those categories, Green New Deal (which includes a national Jobs Guarantee) and many other highly advantageous and popular reforms which have been held back by the business-as-usual politics of people like Chris Matthews, and the greed of billionaires like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg.  Other countries managed to do these things from far less wealth than the USA has.  And the USA presently wastes most of it's resources on stupid things, rather than what the people need.

Even Communists, like myself, see much value in this and heartily endorse Bernie as the best candidate we've seen in a way too long time.

Noting, however, a Communist like myself might go further.  It's easy for me to say this typing at a keyboard, and not actually bringing it about, like Bernie.

Anyway, in addition to what Bernie proposes, I would

1) Denounce all the Russiagate conspiracy stories spun by the mainstream media and US intelligence agencies, and call for full investigation of potential partisan actions of government officials such as John Brennan in the development of Russiagate claims and investigations.  Investigate the murder of Seth Rich, and obtain the DNC server for official investigation.  Investigate the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein and his associations.

2) Call for cancellation of all US sanctions against all countries including Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela.  Recognize the validity of the Referendum in Crimea, and support a peaceful resolution of concerns in the Russian ethnic areas of Ukraine, without prejudice against Russian alignment or annexation.

3) Withdraw all US forces from foreign conflicts and bases.  Close Guantanamo.

4) End military aid to Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia and other foreign groups.

5) End the use of vetoes in the UN security council, and especially vetoes that serve the purpose of permitting Israel to continue illegal violence against Palestinians.

6) Terminate NATO, OAS, and similar cold war imperial coordinating organizations.

7) Terminate the CIA (replaced with a non-operative open intelligence gathering coordinating organization), NED, and similar empire-promoting organizations.

8) Cut the US military budget to less $200B, with emphasis on personal training and achievement, passive security, non-aggression, diplomacy, joint UN forces in foreign theaters, and eliminating weapons of mass destruction and corresponding "delivery systems."

9) Nationalize the US oil, coal, energy, and transportation industries.  All future development of fossil fuels to be cancelled, and all funds from existing extraction flow into substitution projects based on renewable energies.

10) Nationalize finance in the interests of investment in America for Americans, and the development of use of Americans to their greatest abilities, not scams.

11) Grant Clemency to Julian Assange, and respect what he says regarding the origin of emails published in Wikileaks.

12) End all felony immigration crimes and limitations, except for the business of producing false documentation, and knowingly hiring foreign nationals without authorization.

13) Buyback and destroy assault weapons and the like.

14) End the adult prohibition of all psychoactive drugs including LSD, meth, heroin and the like, instead restricting advertising, taxing all psychoactive drugs, and providing free anonymous treatment.  Develop safer packaging and alternatives that are equally satisfying to users.

15) Nationalize the Drug Industry, and prioritize the development of safe anti-infection agents, and less toxic pain relief methodologies, as well as elimination and cleanup of toxics.

16) End the adult prohibition of sex work.

17) All American workers automatically represented by applicable union, with representation in upper management or ownership boards.


That's about where I'd like to start, as a Communist President, as I'm hoping to be in about 2036.

But I can see that's not going to happen in 2020.  Bernie is already pushing the envelope more than many of the old aristocrats and the deep state can tolerate.

So I cut him some slack.  Also noting that Bernie has been quite consistent in focussing only on winnable concessions in foreign policy, such as ending US participation in the Yemenese slaughter, rather than the full big picture in foreign policy I am trying to describe, along with other things, above.

Meanwhile, he has been fully consistent in supporting domestic Democratic Socialist programs like Medicare for All, all his national career, and not weaseling around to find the proper crowd and investor appealing phrases, like Public Option.

So, what you see is what you get, and always has been.

Take that for the better and/or the worse, as you see it.

I am not fooled that this is the apotheosis of a great struggle.  It is only the far too long delayed beginning of a great struggle, for the first time not being sold out from before the get go.  Even Truman was a sell-out, because the corrupt Democratic Party of that time rejected Roosevelt's favorite, the anti-Imperialist Henry A. Wallace.  Truman and no Democrat until Bernie has attempted to challenge the Rule of Finance we now live in more perfectly under neoliberalism.

We clearly we do need more than just Bernie Sanders.  We need a never ending push from all of us, in the direction Bernie is showing us, and in all the others as well.  I am not denying that we need more, I am only saying this path of following Bernie and Democratic Socialism looks best now, possible now, and that is as important as anything.  We should take the ball and run with this as fast as we can, precisely so that people can see the benefit of government based on Democratic Socialism, and not just Corporate Socialism as clearly the Military Industrial State is.*

(*Chomsky often pointed out that goverment planners under Truman were quite explicit about this.  They looked back and the vast national expenditures of WWII and how that had finally made the economy hum again.  They considered directing future expenditures of that scale on either domestic or military programs, but decided the military spending would be more politically expedient.  And thus the endless warring and war mongering of the Cold War and War on Terror was begun.  The money HAS to be spent, or the economy would collapse from lack of spending.  But if we continue to spend it on just blowing things up, the final crater will likely be at home.)

We have a much longer way to go in anti-Imperialism it seems to me.  It does not, yet, generate the same level of popular interest, sadly, and one can only hope it won't take a war to change that.

I think one thing may be to constantly discuss military-industrial costs, and how they are keeping us from better democratic socialism.  However, I think ultimately the ethical dimension of this has to be part of our social discourse, rather than left to military planners.  The impact of US foreign policy in the past 75 years has approximated pure evil in thwarting external democracy and worker power internationally with great violence.  Americans need to come to understand the lies they have been told about themselves and the rest of the world.  And put an end to Empire once and for all, on the basis of ethical principles foremost, and costs secondly.

Anti-Imperialism has always been a central feature of the Communist movement.  Socialists have straddled both sides more often in various times and places, such as favoring the Korean War, though the grass roots socialists of today are as anti-imperialist as the communists.

So, we do have to constantly point out the disinformation, misinformation, uninformation, and plain hypocrisy that constantly surrounds us.

Even if the best political leaders imaginable are unable to, for political and extra-political reasons.

(I appreciate the anti-imperial candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard.  Her envelope of anti-imperial rollback is far bigger than Bernie, though still not perfect as she still believes US must defend Israels-right-to-exist above human rights concerns just as all the other candidates do.  She has not enunciated Democratic Socialist programs as well as Bernie.  And not that it is her fault, but she has not been a winning candidate.  But I think she'd make a great VP, and President after 8 years of Bernie.)

More Evidence showing Leak Not Hack

https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/18/nsa-whistleblower-mueller-report-based-on-fabricated-evidence/?fbclid=IwAR3hpIRktfHQSmnkgMInuAZLlbRoowcXy37wTFHzrY7hoowy71onVStuGuA

The Real 9/11/01 Conspiracies

I've always said, the claims that the twin towers could not be brought down by planes (" 9/11 Truthism") has always been, a CIA steered movement.

The real story, immediately obvious to me at the time and ever since, reinforced by more and more evidence, is conspiracies of a slightly different kind we are generally not supposed to think about (so no slick "movement"):

That the hijackers were themselves part of a conspiracy involving actors in the US government.  US actors permitted the hijacking to take place, rather than stopping it.

And that, as usual, there was a huge coverup conspiracy.

This view, reinforced by the official report (as well as its many redactions) is now confirmed more as more records have been released, never mentioned in the war wurlitzer media.

I love these guys

Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Dovid Weiss calls for the "speedy dismantlement of the State of Israel" as it is contrary to God's Law and certain to end in a great catastrophe.

The Rabbi says that "believing" Jews (Orthodox) are overwhelmingly anti-Zionist.  Take the bridge across the river in New York to the Orthodox communities, and they are anti-Zionist.  Find the Orthodox in Australia, or even Iran, and they are anti-Zionist.  Only in the western mind  are Zionists the majority of believing Jews.

But you may well ask, since I am an athiest leftist, why do I not simply dismiss all this "believing" as lunacy?

Because the Rabbi's beliefs translate directly to my concepts of goodness, justice, and sustainability.  I believe the Rabbi is correct, and his understanding of Judaism translates into something universal for me.  Wise religious leaders can sometimes reach the universal, and I believe he is doing so here.

Just as the Rabbi says, the State of Israel is unjust, and will likely end in a great catastrophe.

It behooves all people concerned with justice and sustainability to call for the speedy dismantlement of the ethno-supremacist State of Israel and it's replacement with a non-secular "Palestinian" state recognizing all Palestinians including descendants of Palestinians displaced in the 20th century as full citizens.

I'm fine with Jews presently living in Israel being full citizens of the renewed Palestinian state also, if they choose to be, with the same rights as others, though this is an allowance rather than a requirement of justice.  By the same sort of allowance I live in USA.

Justice also demands the full restoration of the properties of displaced Palestinians.

We would agree that the renewed state should be called "Palestine."  I've long debated that, but now it seems for the best.

This is what is necessary to prevent the catastrophe of ethno-supremacist implosion, which is virtually certain otherwise.

The world still has many other looming catastrophes to deal with as well.

But, But, CIA bugged telecom was supposed to connect the world, not Chinese

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/us-warms-up-old-spy-story-to-warn-of-foreign-espionage.html#more

Nazi Blowback from Ukraine

It's very curious that in a long article on how US neo-nazis are being inspired and trained by neo-nazis in Ukraine, no mention is made of the fact that the US supported these Ukranian neo-nazis when they were overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014 (which, not surprisingly, leaned toward Russia which is its immediate neighbor and the country it was part of for hundreds of years).

There is a simple word for this kind of thing, identified long ago by Chalmers Johnson: Blowback.

The relentless US drive to fight Russia through proxies all over the world, occasionally comes back to haunt us.  We saw this previously as the US armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, in order to sink it's (fairly progressive) Russian allied government in the late 1970's.  That was the beginning of Al Qaeda.

But American Centrists turn this around and pretend it's Russia and other foreign actors causing us all the trouble, failing to connect the dots back to us.  Dots which recently happen to connect back to the Obama administration, not Trump's, and the 2014 Maidan Coup orchestrated by the Obama Administration and the usual regime-change agencies and CIA properties.

And Now, Back to discredited Russiagate

Now that the Ukrainegate Impeachment has reached it's highly predictable outcome, and rather than a have full house court over recent Bernie victories which seem to have undone a lot of centrist prognostications propaganda, the mainstream media, including NPR, has chosen to return to obsessing over Russiagate, through the person of Roger Stone.

Already, this morning, my best friend has sent me a petition to sign regarding the pardon of Roger Stone.

I had to go back to ConsortiumNews to remember what this was all about.

Sigh.

The media has pulled another trick to lead my friends far away from me and down the abyss.  I am not appreciating this, and hope that in some future life I can roast all the McCarthyites who have made my life miserable for the past 4 years and who knows how much longer, and though I didn't actually lose any friends, yet, it has been very threatening all along that I'd end up alone because of my insistance on fairly considering all sides.

Roger Stone is a Big Nobody who got caught up in the Russiagate Show Trials.  He did nothing, except refuse to cooperate fully with a McCarthyite Witchhunt.

But that's precisely why all the Russiagate-selling McCarthyites have to double down, rather than admit their whole operation was a hoax.

That includes  CIA owned career prosecutors, and, front and center, the mainstream liberal media.

Meanwhile, the planet, US Foreign Policy, and everything else is going over the abyss, and we can't get a single reporter over here, in the real world to cover the oil-ogarchs, the color revolutionaries, the  new cold war.

High wages reduce unemployment

While some people believe that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, many experts disagree, and demonstrate the contrary view: that higher wages reduce unemployment.  (James Galbraith, for one, devotes a large part of a chapter to this in his book Predator State.)

The more liberal economists--concerned about inequality--claim that increasing the minimum wage as they recommend reduces unemployment because:

1) Highly unequal wages cause people to put more effort into competing to attain the few better jobs, than accepting the poorly paid ones.  High inequality and High Unemployment are two sides of the same coin, argues Galbraith.

2) Galbraith points to differences between northern and southern Europe.  In Northern Europe there is a long history of trade unions and low inequality--and also low unemployment.  In Southern Europe, there is a long history of high inequality, and high unemployment.

3) Raising the minimum wage puts relatively more money in the hands of people who spend all they receive, thereby maximizing the Keynesian multiplier.  The effect is economic expansion which creates more jobs.  The current low wage structure SUPRESSES job growth by retarding economic growth.

4) Along the lines suggested by one person in a recent NPR program, neither the typical supply nor demand curves for labor reflect the true labor "marketplace."  Labor is something very special and doesn't fit commodity models well at all.  In a typical commodity market, consumers can choose to consume A, or in many cases substitute nothing or B instead.  In a "labor market" labor "producers" (who are normaly "consumers") don't have much choice.  (Some do, but not most.)  If the labor-power isn't used, it's lost forever, which is a huge loss to the potential laborer.  Meanwhile, certain kinds of employer can choose not to hire workers, but others have no choice.  Bankers also have considerable influence over whether jobs are created or not.

Ultimately, the uniqueness of labor led John Maynard Keynes to write his great book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.  However, traditionally conservative economists argued that Keynesian theory didn't have microfoundations, so they discarded it and have subsequently created a succession of theories that have all failed miserably to account for real world events (such as Real Business Cycle theory).  See Sweetwater Economics.  Meanwhile, Hiksian economics was re-branded as Keynesian and is widely used, and the underlying principle in Saltwater Economics.  But the real Keynesian economics is even more profound, as now developed further by Minsky and Post Keynesian economics.

Steve Keen has an excellent discussion of how neoclassical economic models don't apply to labor in Chapter 6 of Debunking Economics Revised and Expanded version.  The marginalist commodity supply and demand model itself is invalid anyway for technical reasons he discusses in earlier chapters.  But it especially doesn't fit labor for reasons such as these:

a) the labor supply curve can fall backwards, showing more employment with less wages, rather than the less as neoclassical  theory generally assumes.

b) when employers have greater power than workers, which is almost always, they are unable to compete fairly which the neoclassical model assumes.  Jamie Galbraith says flatly in Predator State: there is no labor market.  It's more like the labor slaughterhouse.  Standard economic theory itself says this tendency needs to be reversed with mechanisms like employee unions, so that employees have negotiating power equal to that of employers, in order for "free market" conditions extolled by pretty supply and demand curves to even apply.

c) labor market actors cannot be aggregated as required for neoclassical analysis because demand (employers) is non-independent of demand (workers).  Instead, both are related, as suggested by the simplified Keynesian analysis of item (1) above.  When workers have more money, they will spend more, creating the support and need for more jobs.

d) Most workers can't freely choose between leisure and work, as the model assumes.  Therefore the
supply curve is not only constrained, instead tending toward zero, it tends back up a lower wages, as in
item (a)

e) The model assumes a 2-sided competition between workers and employers.  In reality, there is at least one more actor involved: bankers.  Bankers make the loans that make it possible for employers to even think of creating jobs in most cases, and they represent a third divergent interest.  They may have more or less money, and if they can get away with it, they may try to constrain the employer in what kinds of offerings can be made, tying the hands of the employer, who have have to decline offers he would otherwise accept, even at the expense of having a business at all (and thereby making use of his own labor-power) if the demands of the
banker can't be met.

f) Also in order to work, neoclassical economics assumes a particular kind of benevolent pre-existing
distribution of wealth.  The ultimate claim of neoclassical economics is that markets are welfare-maximizing.  But the irony is, they only work if a benevolent distribution of wealth already exists.  Keen gives an academic reference but it's easy to understand intuitively.  If we're all rich, everything is going to work out fine, otherwise not.

5) Speaking of Denmark, the experience of Denmark shows that, In the long run, it pays to push for high wages.  Capitalists will find some way to make money anyway with higher value products and services, there will be even fuller employement, and everyone wins.  Only bottom feeder type capitalists hope to win by driving up demand by lowering labor costs endlessly.  Those bottom feeder capitalists are the ones that now run the USA, and currently running it into the ground.  Something like Denmark, with high wages, high employment, high statisfaction, and high quality products, is the way to go.  Galbraith speaks with great passion about this.

*****

After a long argument with those who fear increasing the minimum wage might lead to higher prices for them...

I realize, I support a "living wage" minimum wage precisely because I value human dignity.  It might be nice to save 10 cents on a Latte, but knowing the barista has to work 80 hours to support an independent life...would rather ruin it for me.

It's not just an anti-poverty, program It's a matter of equity.

It follows from a deep understanding of how economies actually work that the incomes people receive is primarily a measure of their power within human society.  The only way that wage workers at the bottom of the higerarchy are going to get a fair wage would be through a class-representative union that had corresponding power to negotiate (such as through a closed shop which is impossible in "right-to-work" states).  Barring that, people at the bottom need a government intervention to keep from literally being starved to death (through the extreme version of the Iron Law of Wages in which people don't get enough to survive...not the employer's problem...they say get another job.)

Possible the best government intervention would somehow enable class-representative and worker-governed unions for all people.

Next perhaps would be full scale wage and price controls.

Finally, the minimum thinking measure, which even the slightest sense of human decency requires, is an independent living supporting minimum wage for all people, and one which is normally limited to 32 hours per week with an absolute maximum of 40 hours per week.

Is this more than some people need?  Perhaps.  But working people should not be forced to share expenses to live...that is yet another form of slavery.

*****

The letter below calling for $15 minimum wage is signed by numerous leading economists, from the near left Dean Baker to the centrist right billionaire Clinton staffer Laura Tyson.  Are there more conservative economists?  Yes, and economic institutes are funded by wealthy people.

Economists in support of a federal minimum wage of $15 by 2024

Fascists have it easy

A great comment by Patroklos at MoonOfAlabama:

nazifasicism is a tool the capitalists use to fight socialism/communism in desperate times.

Ain't that the truth. You can always count on the conservative self-loathing of the masses. This is the edge the right always has over the left. For the left to succeed they have to prepare the ground, while the right is able to exploit the existing terrain untreated. Neoliberal capitalism cocoons us in myths about ourselves and the world: the necessity of work, the independence of the economy from politics, value lies only in economic utility, performance evaluations are accurate measures of who you are and what you're worth, etc, etc. We resist all this and so are encouraged to hate ourselves for our dissent. The left says "the suspicion you feel that this is not how humans should live together is correct. We must turn this suspicion into critique". But this requires time, education, respect, and an appeal to science and humanism. It's like pushing shit uphill. In the meantime the Right have simple tools—ignorance, fear, hate, violence. It's a winning formula. Where's Robespierre when we need him?

Opposed by the only Jew in the Cabinet: the Balfour Declaration

A hurried but highly educational comment by Misterioso (who lived in ME for 5 years) on an article comparing Trump and Balfour.

The Balfour Declaration was published on November 2, 1917. In response, on 24 May 1917, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association published a joint manifesto of protest in the London Times which described political Zionism as a threat to Judaism and prophetically predicted that “[it]…would involve them ‘in the bitterest feuds with their neighbours of other races and religions’ and would ‘find deplorable echoes throughout the Orient.’ Similar protests were heard…in France and Italy, but their governments too were now virtually committed to the Zionist cause.” (David Waines, The Unholy Land, op cit., p. 37).
Opposition to the Declaration also came from the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet, Secretary of State for India, Sir Edwin Montagu. He feared that a declaration supporting a Jewish “national home” in Palestine would define Jews as a separate nation and threaten their position in other countries where they were established citizens by raising the question of “divided loyalties.”
While Sir Montagu did not succeed in stopping the Balfour Declaration, he was largely responsible for the section safeguarding “the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews” outside of Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration was also opposed by Gertrude Bell, one of the era’s greatest Arabists, a colleague of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and a member of British intelligence in Cairo. Realizing what the Balfour Declaration could (and did) lead to, she wrote the British cabinet of PM Lloyd George advising it that “an independent Jewish Palestine” was impractical because “[Palestine]…is not Jewish;” the native population would not “accept Jewish authority…. Jerusalem is equally sacred to three faiths and should not be put under the exclusive control of any one….” (Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem, p. 585)
In discussing the legal basis for the creation of Israel, the highly respected American lawyer and diplomat Sol Linowitz wrote: “…the [Balfour] Declaration was legally impotent. For Great Britain had no sovereign rights over Palestine; it had no proprietary interest; it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was merely a statement of British intentions and no more.” (Sol M. Linowitz, “Analysis of a Tinderbox: The Legal Basis for the State of Israel.” American Bar Association Journal XLlll l957, pp. 522-3)
Even Chaim Weizmann knew the Declaration had no legal status: “The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was built on air.” (Mallison, “The Balfour Declaration,” in The transformation of Palestine: essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, ed. by Abu-Lughold; Northwestern University Press, 1971 p. 85)
The Balfour Declaration was the first major achievement of Zionism and the second time in eighteen months the British betrayed the Arabs. Setting aside its abandoned promise in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence to support the independence of Palestine and the fact that the Palestinians had not been consulted, could Britain legally commit itself to support a “home” for Jews in a province of the Ottoman Empire? In fact, it had no such right. “The British government’s promise to use its ‘best endeavours’ to facilitate the Zionist project in Palestine amounted to a promise to give to the Zionists what England did not have, in violation of the established legal maxim Nemo dat quod non habet (nobody can give what he does not possess).” (Adel Safty, From Camp David to the Gulf p. 12)
In discussing the legal basis for the creation of Israel, the highly respected American lawyer and diplomat Sol Linowitz wrote: “…the [Balfour] Declaration was legally impotent. For Great Britain had no sovereign rights over Palestine; it had no proprietary interest; it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was merely a statement of British intentions and no more.” (Sol M. Linowitz, “Analysis of a Tinderbox: The Legal Basis for the State of Israel.” American Bar Association Journal XLlll l957, pp.522-3)
Importantly, although the Allies managed to have the Balfour Declaration mentioned after World War 1 in the aborted Treaty of Sevres, there is no mention of it in the final treaty that was signed with the Turks at Lausanne on July 24, 1923. This is important in international law because Turkey did not agree to the idea of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine when it surrendered sovereignty to Britain.
Britain decided to send a delegation led by Weizmann to meet with the Arabs to allay their concerns regarding the Balfour Declaration and Zionist designs on Palestine. In June 1918, he visited Sherif Hussein’s son, Prince Faisal near Aqaba and deceitfully assured him that Arab suspicions were caused by either a “fundamental misconception of Zionist aims or the malicious activities of our common enemies.” (Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection, p. 19.)
Weizmann lied further when he assured the prince and Palestinian notables whom he met later, that Zionists were not striving to establish a Jewish government in Palestine (ibid) or “to get hold of the supreme power and administration there.” (Ingrams, Palestine Papers, quoted by Smith, PATAIC, p. 59)
This was the Zionist leader’s first trip to Palestine and he was not prepared for what he encountered. Having previously observed that according to the British, “there are a few hundred thousand negroes [in Palestine], but that is a matter of no significance, …” (Norman Finkelstein, “History’s Verdict”, J of PS #96, Vol. XXIV, summer 1995, p. 33) Weizmann was so overwhelmed by the size and stability of the native population that he feared Arab protests might convince Britain to have second thoughts about the Balfour Declaration.
Weizman’s racism overflowed while opining to Arthur Ruppin on the Palestinian “Negro Problem”: “…a comment by [Chaim] Weizmann to Arthur Ruppin, head of the colonisation department of the Jewish Agency, is particularly revealing. When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs and how he (Weizmann) obtained the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Weizmann replied: ‘The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim or schwartzes in Hebrew] and for those there is no value’ ([Yosef] Heller[, Bama’vak Lemedinah, Hamediniyut Hatzionit Bashanim 1936–1948 (The Struggle for the State: The Zionist Policy 1936–1948) (Jerusalem:] 1984:[), p.] 140).” (from page 5 of 60 years after the Nakba by Dr Nur Masalha”
On 16 June 1918, to further assuage the Arabs, Britain issued the British Declaration to the Seven. It confirmed that as previously announced in Baghdad and Jerusalem, “…the future government…should be based upon the principle of the consent of the governed. This policy will always be that of His Majesty’s Government.” (Sami Hadawi, op cit. p. 14.)
Most significant to the Arabs were what proved to be impotent public pledges made by President Wilson. On 18 January 1918, he set forth his famous fourteen points of which number twelve stated that once the war was over, “…[those] nationalities that are [presently] under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development…” (Hadawi, op cit. p.10.)
Needless to say, ultimately the Arabs were betrayed by Britain and with the assistance primarily of the U.S., Jewish Zionists of foreign origin eventually gained control of Palestine and violently dispossessed and expelled about 1,250,000 indigenous Arab inhabitants between late 1947 and 1967.

Another Sanders Victory

Few are pointing out the one unquestionable fact.  Biden, long portrayed in the big CIA media as the far frontrunner, lost very big.  The media and pollsters kept telling us he was the One.  But when his whole record and schtick was finally fully visible to a small set of voters, and they were given a real choice, they didn't like it.

Secondly, the candidate who seemed to share the spotlight with Bernie (and permitting Bernie to continue to be squeezed out of nyt reports) is a relatively weak candidate (except among Dem uber Zionists), and his association with the malfunctioning app doesn't help.  The specter of Corbyn's loss, at least partly caused by Zionists, should be our teaching moment, and certainly doesn't play to Buttigieg's advantage on the left.  A large number of my liberal/left friends favored or at least liked Buttigieg previously.  He seemed to be a progressive, somewhere just behind Warren, but snappier.  After the first acquaintance, I was no longer fooled.

That yet another DNC screw up impacts Bernie negatively, should be a feather in his cap, showing either how much the establishment wants to defeat him, or at least how little they appreciate his success.

3rd party victory is still a far longer shot than Sanders Nomination.  We shouldn't assume that Bernie could even do a 3rd party Presidential candidacy for various technical if not strategic reasons.  I would certainly vote for him either as Democrat or as 3rd party, but I think it's counterproductive to start denouncing him now for not doing the 3rd party now, as it seems to me far too many leftists are already doing.

Majority of voters still identify as Democratic.  If the "screw ups" continue this year might be the end of that.  But it takes a long long long time for people to learn, especially against 24/7 misinformation.

The Iowa caucus should be seen as a Sanders victory, his leading opponents having been exposed as well as defeated by the actual vote count and possibly the delegate count as well.

Tactic Two: Delay

When you can't Stop, Delay.

So, we've discovered the first two steps of the Deep State (typlified by CIA, but also the DNC, which seems to share similar viewpoints and possibly more) operations manual.

It does indeed make one wonder about more than just incompetence.  And about all those mishaps that occurred in 2016, curiously all favoring Hillary, according to Caitlin Johnstone.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/05/dnc-loses-public-trust-in-primary-process-on-very-first-day/

I have some personal experience with "Blue" software.  In January 2016, I hosted a Sanders call bank.  I got my own call-in credentials and invited a bunch of people.  One person came who, like me, already had credentials.  Subsequently, no person I tried to register on the call-in day got credentials.  I just got no replies when I requested them, and I tried over and over.  So, with 8 people present, only two could make phone calls.

At the time, I was wondering about digital competence.

Right now, I'm wondering about something very different.

Apparently there were many many incidents in which errors worked to the advantage of Hillary, and none are known in the reverse direction.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/04/buttigieg-backer-top-funder-of-group-behind-iowas-disastrous-voting-app/

"Conspiracy Theorists"

Blogger George Washington cleared the air on "Conspiracy Theories" in 2015.  In 1967 the CIA invented and promoted the use of the label "Conspiracy Theorist" to discredit anyone attacking the "Official Narrative."

In fact, as George points out, conspiracies are VERY common, and the essence of many kinds of criminal behavior, such as "Price Fixing" (which is one of endless kinds of conspiracies).

Secrets are in fact well kept in certain situations, where you have people who are ideological, highly professional, and have a lot of money on the line.  Many secrets now known were kept for decades.

Conspiracy is just one kind of causality, and just like any kind of theory needs to be tested by facts, not blanket dismissal.

Hating Hate?

Discovered some article on Twitter titled "I'm Tired of Hate."

That's pointless.  "Tired of" is another way of saying "hate," so what it really means is "hating hate."

That is, in some small measure, being part of the very thing you despise.  Is that good?

Even if not a self-contradiction, it's pointless.  It does nothing.  Though it's often the wind from Blowhards, Assholes, and Purity testers.  You must be the one saying "I hate foobars!" with the greatest bellicosity, and the least respect for the situation and individuality of those who are like those who create foobars.  Anyone can see, this is not going to make the situation better, unless you are organizing The Crusades, which also proves the point, because those are always pointless too.

The key to reducing hate starts with the first step.  The first step to reducing hate is Understanding Hate.

Purity testers will always say this is attempting to justify it.  They wrap their warp around everything.

However, it is indeed true, and should not be denied, that Understanding is a key part of Love.

So, yes, the answer to hate, the solution to hate, and all that, is as with all things Love.

And I'm not merely being New Agey about this.   It's basic philosophy, almost semantics, repeated by many, including early Christian philosophers.