Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 11, 2015

Feb 8

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quip stating that the Crusades have no influence on today's Muslim attitudes toward the West. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Perhaps, when looking at the Crusades, one must at least look at the behavior of the Crusaders toward the indigenous population as well as the racist pronouncements and spiritual incentives given by Pope Urban II. It is simply out of tribalism that one does not condemn the crusades.

Yes, there were political reasons for the crusades back then, not just religious ones. But modern Western imperialism was motivated by access to and control of Middle East natural resources. And so, regardless of the name or motivation, you still have the results of Western invasions in the Middle East today by countries with a Christian heritage into countries that have more of an Islamic heritage. And with Islam being a political religion as well as a spiritual one, we can start to see what prompted attacks on the West.  

Finally, the article from which the above quote was take discusses 9-11 in reference to the crusades. And it is correct to say that the crusades had no bearing on that attack. It is what the West did during the 20 century that provoked the kind of anger we saw in the terrorist attacks of 9-11. Their attacks were unjustified but their anger is at least understandable.

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Feb 10

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote describing the infidelity in same-sex marriage. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

The lack of precision in the statements made as well as data collection methods as well as the amount of data collected leaves the quote used in this post unsubstantiated. And conclusions drawn from this snapshot are rather dubious since there is no discussion of history or trends. 

We should note from an article with inadequate data collection is that about 70% of married (that is heterosexual marriage) men cheat on their wives (note the source: http://magazine.foxnews.com/love/cheating-statistics-do-men-cheat-more-women  ). Meanwhile, another article gives different info both in terms of percentages and direction ( http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/marriage/story/2011-09-05/Gay-straight-couples-more-monogamous-than-in-the-past/50267258/1 ). It is what Andrew Sullivan said that the data is 'all over the map' (see http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/07/02/monogamy-gay-men-lesbians-and-straights/  ).

BTW, my own collection consisting of personal friends show no instances of cheating in either heterosexual or same-sex marriages.

So it seems that only those who are eager to jump to conclusions will do so.

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To Joseph Sunde and the list of 5 reasons why Christians should be understand and be concerned about economics. This appeared in the Acton blog.

What's missing in these reasons for caring about economics is any serious reflection on our current economic system and how fair and unfair it is to the stakeholders of our economy. So what seems to be endorsed here is a synthesis between a prosperity gospel based on individual responsibility with a stewardship of the world. 

By appearances, that sounds good. But what is missing is how some of the greatest wealth being garnered is accomplished by exploiting the work of others whether that exploitation involves abusing workers, underpaying them--which sometimes occurs because of supply and demand--and/or making workers, and thus their communities, disposable. See, the greatest wealth being garnered is gained through investments. And those investments often give the investors a greater voice in a company than years of service provided by workers. And in many cases, if the current labor that provides the wealth for a company can be procured at a lower pay scale, then those who are providing that labor can be sacrificed in order to maximize profits. 

Funny how the exploitation of workers was not mentioned but hard work was. Perhaps that was done purposely so that we don't fully explore the theological implications of politics. And perhaps it was also purposely done so that only workers become aware of their responsibilities in the public square.

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To Elise Hilton and her blogpost reviews an article by Jonathan Witt that associates the quality of water with the degree of economic freedom in a nation. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Besides the fact that Witt's data sample is not only small, but contains mixed results based on the size of the sample, the title is misleading--though he makes one or two good points off this title. For many people, the fewer regulations that exist, the more economic freedom there is for the individual. But Witt writes favorably about those nations where there is a moderate or reasonable approach to regulations. BTW, his use of the word 'anarchy,' to represent a system with no regulations and what some would call the situation with the greatest economic freedom, shows an inadequate understanding of the word. For anarchy refers more to the number of dominant leaders than to the number of laws and regulations. And the number of dominant leaders sought by anarchists is 0.

In addition, his reduction of the reasons why clean water exists or not down to freest economies seems to miss the correlation between population density and clean water. For some of the dirtiest bodies of water he listed occurs in countries that have areas of highly dense populations such as in Indonesia, India, and China. Besides, calling England one of the freest nations, singled out because of the quality of the Thames River running through London, when it is one of the nations that is under such great surveillance makes one wonder about the criteria for determining the freest nations.

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To Marc Vander Maas and his blogpost containing an audio of an Acton Institute colleague Jordan Ballor has Ballor talks about current efforts to access more fossil fuels. This appeared on the Acton Blog.

Besides the strawman Ballor creates about those who oppose projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline, Ballor seems to avoid mentioning the specifics about man-spurred climate change. And in so doing, he doesn't do justice to the urgency needed for us to switch from our reliance on fossil fuels to non-fossil fuel sources. In addition, though he advocates our responsibility in terms of how we extract fossil fuel resources, he also seems to ignore how some sources of fossil fuels could make it impossible for us to extract from responsibly in terms of not significantly damaging the surrounding ecosystems. 

Finally, there is a way of helping those who are poor besides increasing the amount of fossil fuels we extract and make available on the market. That way is to find better ways to share what we already have and are using.

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 12 Of 12.

We have now reached the final episode of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism. In this article, Witt acknowledges that Capitalism is challenged by Marxism but he rejects the challenge. His rejection is partially based on his view of Marxism and the question is, does Witt demonstrate a significant understanding of Marxism? It doesn't seem so.

Witt's understanding of Marxism is confined to its main example, the old Soviet Union, and brief references to atheism and materialism. Other than that, there is no discussion of Marxism which, in turn, fails to support the 'Beyond Marxism' part of the title. We should note that the only other reference Witt makes of Marxism here is the categories used by some to critique Capitalism. But there is no description of Marxism either substantial or cursory. One can only conclude then that mentioning the Soviet Union was a significant enough description of Marxism for Witt to make.

So there is either a problem with Witt's title or his content. So let's take a look at the Soviet Union and see how it represents not just Marxism but Socialism in general. The criticism Noam Chomsky levels against Lenin and the beginning of the Soviet Union describes the two directions in which Socialism went with the Russian Revolution and identifies which direction was truly socialistic based on facilitating workers' control of the means of production (click here). In the one corner was an ideological approach in need of a vanguard. That approach was taken by Lenin. His leadership told the people that only certain elites could lead the country in socialism. And thus, those with opposing opinions were silenced as heretics. However, in taking that approach, control was taken out of the workers' hands and given to Lenin's vanguard. This vanguard would be the judges of what was true socialism and what wasn't. Chomsky noted that since the vanguard overthrew and replaced the workers councils (a.k.a., soviets), the term 'Socialism' was only used as a marketing tool.

Criticisms of Lenin revealed another side of Socialism, it was Socialism as a practice. Rosa Luxemburg called Lenin's take over of the Revolution and his subsequent rule a 'bourgeoisie dictatorship.' Karl Kautsky strongly criticized Lenin for his silencing of fellow Socialists. Kautsky favored democracy. We should note that Luxemburg criticized Kautsky as favoring a 'bourgeoisie democracy.'  But by favoring democracy, both Kautsky and Luxemburg supported Socialism as a practice where decisions are made democratically by representatives who belonged to the proletariate and who were elected by peers.

Witt's conflating of the Soviet Union with Marxism thus misses two points. The first point is that Marxism and Socialism are not monoliths. Though one can hardly fault Witt for not knowing all of the different flavors of Marxism, this does not excuse his conflation of the different forms of socialism under the heading of the old Soviet Union. And lest Marxists feel singled out, we should note that, throughout this series, Witt seems unaware of the different kinds of Capitalism as well.  

Second, what is most important in Marxism is who has control. While conservatives like to call big government Socialism, Socialism is really about the distribution of power among the proletariate and thus, not all examples of big government are socialistic. For example, in writing about the Jewish Question, Marx stated that in America, private property had been abolished in the America of his time because non-landowners could write laws governing the actions of landowners. Note that though landowners still owned private property, but since their hold over society and politics, according to what Marx perceived, had been broken, control of those who held private property had been abolished. 

So with Witt equating Marxism with the Soviet Union, he shows a gross ignorance of Marxism and Socialism. Thus the part of the title, 'Beyond Marxism,' is a misnomer because Marxism is not first adequately defined.

Now Witt goes on to talk about the materialism that serves as a foundational part of Marxism. Here, Witt should have consulted Martin Luther King Jr. because Marxism, according to King, did not have a monopoly on materialism. Capitalism could also be materialistic (see page 95 of this link). And even without the King's charges, we should note the materialism that is a foundational part of Capitalism. After all, what is American Capitalism's claim to fame? Is it not that it has produced the greatest material wealth in the history of mankind? In addition, how is it that we can so focus on competition for business and profits and not be materialistic?

And yes, Marx was an atheist. But that does not make atheism a requirement for at least partially agreeing with Marx.

In opposition to the Marxism Witt fails to adequately define or describe, stands Capitalism that, according to Witt, based on a Judeo-Christian view of people. Central to that is the belief that ideas have consequences. Such seems sound until one happens upon some of the consequences that occur but are not mentioned. What if my ideas cause my investments or business to bust, should the consequence include poverty, homelessness, and death? If so, then the basic foundation of Witt's Capitalism is Social Darwinism, not Christianity. And the chief apostle of such Capitalism is Ayn Rand. And the idea that voluntary organizations can pick up enough of the pieces of people's failure is deliberately delusional and designed to free private sector elites from their social responsibilities. 

And just perhaps, Witt's association of Christianity with today's Capitalism is to lure unsuspecting Christians into the trap of supporting the status quo rather than acting as today's prophets. For while Witt acknowledges that today's Capitalism needs some corrections, the corrections he is thinking of involve implementation rather than structural change. For little does Witt suspect that Free Market Values of self-interest and competition sabotage the Free Market itself. And thus, just perhaps, the Free Market is not based on Judeo-Christian values as much as he claims. These points have been made in the reviews of the other parts of his A Cultural Case For Capitalism. 

Reviewing The Cultural Case Of Capitalism Part 11 Of 12

In this week's episode, Jonathan Witt revealss what he regards as the greatest freedom of all. It seems that he believes that economic freedom is the most important one. Why say this?

Note his first paragraph:

Economic freedom does generate certain challenges. The wealth that free economies are so effective at creating brings with it temptation. Wealth can tempt us to depend on our riches rather than on God. The temptation can be resisted, as we see with wealthy biblical characters like Abraham and Job. But it’s a challenge the church should be mindful of, helping its members cultivate a balanced view of money and of our responsibility and opportunities as stewards of the things God has given us.

We should then read the next paragraph about the challenges economic freedom presents to the community:

The free society also can be hard on communities, since the free enterprise system makes for such a mobile society. Michael Miller talks about this: the opportunities and demands generated by a complex market economy mean that people often end up moving far away from their childhood homes and the network of relationships that surrounded that home. In seeking to meet this challenge, we need to ask ourselves what strategies would effectively address the problem, and are there well-intended policies that are likely to make the problem worse. In essence, we need to exercise the virtue of prudence.

Note the interchangeability of terms between 'free society' and 'free enterprise system.' They are used synonymously.  In addition, note whose responsibility it is to adapt. We are to respond to the challenges that economic freedom presents to our lives but never the other way around. It is as if we live to serve the economy rather than the economy being there to serve all of the people. Martin Luther King Jr. would call this emphasis on the economy a part of a thing-oriented society.

And we should note what economic freedom actually means. Though not defined here, what economic freedom means is that, outside of avoiding corruption and the abuse of others, businesses have no social responsibilities. Economic freedom places business above democracy. Thus, people cannot use the democratic process to tell business how it should live in their communities and what social obligations it should have. And this is despite the fact that valid business activities have significant effects on the communities in which they reside. In addition, in many instances, business is given the privilege to define what is abuse. This is especially true when it comes to the Global Warming and the Climate Science debate. The most oft used objection to following the advice of vast majority of Climate Scientists is that it would lead to economic hardship. And what follows, though it shouldn't, is a denial of Global Warming because of the economic implications of an appropriate response.

So the brunt of the article is that we should adapt to economic freedom rather than making adaptation a two-way street. But there is something else we should note about economic freedom. The more wealth and property one has, the more freedom one has. We should note that the financial world has a one dollar-one vote relationship. There is no equality in this economic freedom. There is the ability to consolidate wealth and since power follows wealth, to consolidate power as well. So one wonders if we should be talking about economic privilege instead of economic freedom.

This brings us back to the first review in this series (click here). This blog stated that a primary indicator we have for measuring tyranny can be found in the presence or absence of democracy. The less democracy there is, the more elite centered rule we have  whether it is from the private or public sectors. A secondary indicator for tyranny can be found in how much individual ownership rights exist in the economy over and against collective ownership. Witt's view of economic freedom both consolidates power by consolidating wealth and denies collective ownership. And that denial is regardless of the interdependencies that exist in the system and society. So can we expect a growth in tyranny here?

A way to answer that question is to look at the facts on the ground. We still have quite a few freedoms. But these freedoms are mostly individual freedoms. What about the freedom of people to determine what kind of society we will live in. This freedom is a group freedom, not an individual freedom, and is commonly referred to as democracy. There we find that though we vote in our elected officials, these same officials obey the mandates of those who make the biggest contributions. As a result, banks and financial institutions can commit fraud and other felonies with criminal impunity while the rest of us cannot. We find that energy companies can also escape criminal prosecution when they harm the environment and they can sometimes even avoid impunity from civil suits too  regardless of the impact of their actions. We find that those with the most wealth have the most pull in writing the laws of this country. We find that many corporations can supplement their payroll with government assistance programs while not paying their fair share in taxes. And what about the foreign military aid where public funds are paid directly to our weapons manufacturers who in turn send equipment and weapons to foreign countries.

In the meantime, most of us comply because our remaining freedoms are found either in meaningless consumption or by vicariously living through the rich and famous. Many of us have given up on being able to experience group freedom (a.k.a., democracy). That last point is indicated by our passion for sports according to Noam Chomsky (click here). 

The facts on the ground show that we are called to make room for the economic freedom while economic freedom is not called recognize us. Perhaps this is why Witt calls on communities to do more of the patching up of problems. For he paraphrases Robert Nisbet saying:

greater centralized political authority and social safety net spending beyond a certain minimal level actually begin to undermine civil institutions and community, since people depend less and less on their family and community bonds and more and more on state-sponsored humanitarian assistance.

He adds that the solution is not found in big government, democratic or not. He cites Tocqueville in associating 'soft despotism' with too much government care resulting in the people becoming sheep with the government as their shepherd. 

But what Witt doesn't cover here is that community wounds can be deep enough so as to make any group of locals impotent in responding to the challenges of economic freedom. And it is in those unhealed wounds where we see real tyranny. In addition, by calling the people sheep and the government a shepherd, Witt divorces the government from the people regardless of how representative of the people the government is. This is a common approach of American Conservatives who are very individualistic. The problem with overemphasizing individualism, as Martin Luther King Jr. noted in his writings, is that it denies that life is social.

With Witt's divorcing of government from the people, not that government has not often tried to do that itself, we see that if there is to be a consolidation of power, it will be found in the private sector of wealthy elites where we go from a one person-one vote system to a one-dollar-one vote system. 

Finally, when Witt says that the answer is not found in government, since democracy can be a form of government, he is also saying that the answer is not found in democracy. Rather, according to Witt, the answer is to be found in individuals, civic groups, and communities, in other words volunteers, regardless of how they have been affected by economic freedom. Perhaps a reason why Witt thinks this way is because only democracy can have a chance at rivaling the power of economic freedom. Why? Because democracy includes the collection of communities working together rather than isolated communities working separately. What is the old saying? "United we stand, ...

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 10 of 12

In this week's episode, Jonathan Witt tries to defend Capitalism and the Free Market from charges stemming from its association with the Housing Bubble and subsequent recession of 2008. In essence, Witt defends Capitalism and the Free Market there by saying that the economic woes of 2008 and the build up to it was due to regulations and government interference rather than having a functioning free market.

Witt makes this claim by by citing a few examples of federal interference:

1. The government gave tax breaks to home owners but not renters.
2. The government backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suggesting that if they go in trouble, the government would bail them out.
3. The government passed regulation that required mortgage companies to provide mortgages to people with bad credit--these were called subprime loans.
4. The government held down interest rates to 'artificially' low levels in order to spark the economy.

Now according to Witt, all of the above created the housing bubble by temporarily increasing the demand and it seemed to work for a while but was doomed to failure. However, we should note that not only did Witt leave out a lot of details about the kinds of loans being granted, he takes for granted how the loans themselves became parts of financial products in a market that either lacked regulations or the enforcement of regulations. Thus when people began to default on loans, not all of their own doing, these financial products failed and since they were created and sold without regulatory oversight, the free market in which these financial products were sold caused a collapse and not just in the American economy, but in the world's economy as well. And what we find out is that most of the leverage problems occurred in this free market. So if we grant Witt his assertion that the market in which loans were made was not free, we still have free market failure. 

In all of this, what we see in Witt is not just a superficial handling of the Housing Bubble led recession of 2008, but an extreme selectivity in citing factors involved with the recession. How is it that Witt forgot to mention that many of the financial institutions that were hit the hardest by the bursting of the Housing Bubble were institutions not touched by the federal regulations requiring that a certain percentage of loans be given to those with questionable credit who were in need of housing? These regulations came from the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which was updated in 1992, and were in response to the failure of the Free Market to help certain urban communities.

In addition, doesn't Witt see that when someone who provides mortgages to people can sell those same mortgages to investors, that such mortgage providers, who are also driven by the profit motive, have less incentive to qualify those requesting loans because it would be the investors who would be on the hook for outstanding loans? And why didn't Witt question another financial product called a Credit Default Swap (CDS) that acted as  insurance policy protecting the investors who bought financial products that included the subprime loans? After all, the CDSs allowed many investors to hold an insurance policy for the same mortgage. Some have likened CDSs to many people being able to buy a home insurance policy on your house while you are the only policy owner who has a vested interest in your house's upkeep.

When the house of cards collapsed, past deregulation that erased the barrier between commercial and investment banking and allowed banks to merge so that the failure of some banks and financial institutions would be catastrophic to the economy, the government had to step in and bailout some of them out. That, according to people like Witt, is not the Free Market. But what Witt doesn't either realize or admit to is that the ingredients he associates with the Free Market including the loosening of government regulations, the reliance on competition, and the ethic of maximizing profits, which makes self-interest the only interest, in the end destroy his idyllic notion of a Free Market. The reason for this is simply that one must be concerned with others in order to maintain such an institution. The ingredients he's identified with the Free Market turns one inward and what one can gain for oneself. 

There are other criticism we can place on Witt's defense of Capitalism here. But it is more important for people to read about the Housing Bubble and subsequent recession of 2008. To gain a more balanced and informed view of all of that, one can check this UNC website (click here) or, for a less balanced but still informative source, one can check the movie Inside Job.

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 9 Of 12

In this week's episode of this blog's review of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism, we actually hit an agreement. But one has to wade through some stuff before getting there. So following the work before pleasure ethic, we will hit the disagreements first.

Witt starts this episode with an error by saying:

Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, details how the growth of government-corporate cronyism during the past 120 or so years has been largely a phenomenon of the socialist left.

The error is the association being made between corporations aided by government and socialism. Of course he is citing Goldberg here, but repeating an error is still an error. The error here is the conservative insistence that big government = socialism. Thus, regardless of the driving force behind any form of big government, conservatives, such as Goldberg and Witt, conflate all big government under the label of socialism. 

Such a mix is often used to link Nazism and Fascism with the Socialism of the Soviet Union. But just as we should note that many Socialists never saw the old Soviet Union as being socialist because its workers lost control to Lenin's vanguard, we should realize that there was another key distinction between Nazism and Fascism on one hand, and Socialism and Communism on the other. The former has business and industrial leaders as a driving force if not its primary support while the latter did not. Like Nazism and Fascism, the Socialism and Communism of the Soviet Union had elite centered rule. The difference was that, despite not representing the workers, it was not supported by business. And if you go to Marx, you will see that he emphasized what he called the proletariate dictatorship. Such a dictatorship, which is actually a partial democracy, was not in control over the Soviet Union. These details are omitted by many conservatives in order to associate both Nazism and Fascism with Socialism and Communism.

So if we brush aside the misnomer,  we get an idea of what Witt has been saying for the past few episodes: using government to gain a competitive advantage is bad while, from his praise for the American Tobacco Company and his neglecting to mention its violation of antitrust laws and the its use of a secret deal with another business to dominate the market (click here to see the previous review), businesses using other businesses to gain a competitive advantage is kosher.

Certainly, the use of government by a business to gain a competitive advantage over other businesses that are under the jurisdiction of the same government is unfair. But governments enabling domestic businesses to grow through protectionism is a long established practice that has served well the economies of many countries. Its abuses in Mercantilism were objected to by Adam Smith. But government does have the right to protect the businesses of its citizens from outside threats. Such protection allows varied domestic economic sectors to grow enabling economic diversification and eventual self-sufficiency. And this is being mentioned because this is what Witt proceeds to criticize part of big government socialism. We might also add that the legitimate use of protectionism is counted as heresy by those advocating the new "comparative advantage" in which what a country can produce is determined solely by how its products best serve the outside world, that is the Global Free Market. Such makes the smaller economies more dependent on the larger economies and it primarily benefits the elite investor class.

Witt goes on to say how our government has, through "regulations and market manipulations," helped corporate agriculture at the expense of family farms. He rightly calls this relationship between government and corporate agriculture, "Crony Capitalism," and rightly protests it--thus our agreement. But we should note the following:

1. With the competitive nature of an unadulterated Free Market, the survival of any family farm was never guaranteed
2. That his blaming of the government and its actions for the failure of the family farm oversimplifies the situation
3. He never considers that crony Crony Capitalism could be a natural outgrowth of the Free Market.

We should note regarding the last point, that what's important to the Free Market as an institution may not be what's important to the Free Market's participants. For example, competition is important to a functioning Free Market so that it can serve the needs and wants of both businesses and consumers. Thus, when any business becomes too big so that competition is significantly reduced, regardless of whether the business relied on government help in growing, that business is a threat to the Free Market as an institution. 

But note what is important to the participants of the Free Market. Surely competition is their source of energy, but the sole concern of any business in the Free Market is self-interest and its sole ethic is maximizing profits. So how does the combination of self-interest and maximizing profit not try to eliminate competition? And as we mentioned before, this doing away with competition can be accomplished with or without the help of government. So while Jonathan Witt somewhat indicates that the family farm, domestic and foreign, is a rival of corporate agriculture, he fails to see that businesses can eradicate their competition even without without the help of government as seen in the history of the American Tobacco Company (again, click here to see the review of part 8 of this series).

Rather than saying that Jonathan Witt's Free Market is not being shot by a gun it didn't see, we should say that the Free Market is shooting itself with its own gun as Witt fails to see that the gun has no safety. Witt's scapegoating of big government's intrusion into the Free Market is not only stated so that we will object to all government interventions into the economy, it is described in a way so that we become unaware of the dangers posed by the Free Market itself. So while Witt claims that government's interference with private property was the problem, the real culprit was a natural part of the Free Market: self-interest and the maximization of profits.

In the end, Witt unconsciously supports that which creates what he fears and abhors: Crony Capitalism. By declaring that big government is the problem, he conflates functioning democracies with elite centered rule. Here, he implies that both should have the same limitations because it is only the size of government that matters. But by fleeing democracy, he runs into the waiting arms of elite centered rule private sector style. And it is this rule that looks to eliminate competition in the Free Market regardless of what government does. 

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 8 Of 12

In this week's episode of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism, Witt wants to draw a sharp distinction between the Free Market and Crony Capitalism. In addition, he wants to tout the achievements of the global market that, is in large part, a result of Crony Capitalism. It's as if he wants it both ways.

Again, Witt's target is Wendell Berry because of Berry's criticisms of Capitalism. We should note that Witt does appreciate some of what Berry says. However, Witt believes that Berry's writings approaches "land idolatry," something we should keep in mind for later, and it is, as written above, that Witt believes Berry can no longer distinguish between "free economies" and Crony Capitalism. Crony Capitalism is where competitive advantages in business comes from a collusion between those in the private and public sectors. This is why Witt presents as an alternative "the American Experiment of broad economic freedoms and limited government." 

One problem with Witt's solution is that this American Experiment contained neither. We should note that many American based corporations were able to establish themselves because of government provided protectionism and maintain themselves or grow because of State Capitalism--which is where a significant part of the business comes from the state. Another problem with Witt's solution is that his support for "limited government" practically conflates democratic governments with elite centered governments by aiming to limit all of them without distinction. This not only limits the power democracy can have in society, it fails to eliminate elite centered rule because such rule stems from power and power is not limited to those who have authority. Power is equated with having the ability to make changes whether one has the governmental authority or not.

And in fact, Witt seems to be targeting democracy when speaking about limiting government. For when Witt rightly criticizes Crony Capitalism, he neglects to tell us that unfair advantages in the Free Market can be gained through secret deals between businesses and elites in the private sector. His example of the American Tobacco Company, having morphed into the Tobacco Trust, provides such a example of that happening. In Part 7 of A Cultural Case For Capitalism, Witt tells the story of the founder of the American Tobacco Company, James Buchanan Duke, and how he "aggressively expanded" the new technology of a cigarette rolling machine invented by James Bonsack. Hidden behind the phrase "aggressively expanded" is the fact that a secret deal between the two, which included diminishing royalties, gave Duke a price advantage over other companies which made it necessary for other companies to eventually join Duke's group to survive.  ¹ Eventually, his Tobacco Trust was found to be in violation of antitrust laws and was ordered to break up. ²

If anyone wants to claim that the government's use of antitrust laws in principle is an example of government overreach, he/she will have to argue with one of the economic heros of the modern Free Market and of those, like Witt, who write at the Acton blog, Milton Friedman. For it was Friedman who said that there are two threats to the Free Market: government and businesses. And he added that it is government's responsibility to the Free Market to prevent any business from gaining unfair advantages that would reduce competition.

So what we have here with Witt's parts 7 and 8 of A Cultural Case For Capitalism is a double standard where if businesses gain a competition destroying advantage through government favors, it is called Crony Capitalism. But if there is collusion between businesses to gain the same kind of advantage, it is used as a positive example of building a company. Again with the emphasis on limited government regardless of whether it is democratic, this points to Witt favoring elite centered rule with the real power resting with non-elected elites from the private sector. 

Now we must deal with Witt's endorsement of the global economy and large corporations. Here, Witt points to a one factor analysis--that the current economy has reduced abject poverty in the world. Witt does acknowledge corporate abuses in this but praises the result in a way that suggests that the ends justify the means. His one factor analysis also suggests that, like what he accuses Berry of, he has submitted to an idolatry--it is the love of money.

So here, we really need to ask critical questions about this victory which Witt so praises. We need to ask how much misery has actually been reduced by this global economy when some countries are seeing a reduction in the number of people in the middle class because more are approaching poverty and how much misery is being alleviated by the reduction Witt brags about. We might also ask about other costs such as damage to the environment, exploitive working conditions, and a loss of freedom along with a reduction in reliance on democratic procedures.

We might also want to look at the specifics of the numbers themselves. When I have seen these kind of claims, most of the reduction of those living in such poverty are from Asia. And while a substantial number of them come from India where free trade measures have moved tens of thousands of Indian farmers to commit suicide due to debt, another significant number of people being raised out of "extreme poverty" come from China. And the problems with using numbers from China are multiple. 

The first problem with using China is that, because of the global economy, China has suffered severe environment damage such as dramatic increases in air pollution. Second, because of this global economy, some workers are pressured into accepting sweatshop labor conditions for the privilege of working and being raised out of extreme poverty while others lose their jobs. And finally, one cannot attribute China's improved numbers to the Free Market since their market is significantly controlled by the State. So to include China's numbers in with the statistics being used to make claims about the Free Market reducing world poverty is deceptive at best.

What we see with Witt's new global, free economy are inconsistencies along with partial information used to obscure its complete impact on the world. But most of all, this economy is reducing the control people have over their lives by shrinking democracy and shifting that control to elites in the private sector. And I write this as someone who views Wendell Berry's alternatives to Capitalism as being impractical. 

References
1.  Brandt, Alan M.: The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America, p. 29. Basic Books, 2007 cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tobacco_Company

and 

https://www.tracy.k12.ca.us/sites/rlee/Shared Documents/History of the Americas II/Industrial America Unit/Industrialist Biographies/Duke Bio 2007.pdf

 

2.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tobacco_Company  

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 7 Of 12

In this week's episode of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism, Witt wants to answer the question of what Capitalism has done for us. And though he doesn't fully accomplish that task, he uses a sour grapes story to introduce the subject and makes at least one disturbing revelation about why he so favors Capitalism.

The sour grapes story Witt uses comes from Wendell Berry who is a neo-agrarian supporter. Berry is down on capitalism because of how his grandfather with his tobacco farm faired in a time when the American Tobacco Company dominated the scene by eliminating all competitors. Berry blames Capitalism via American Tobacco Company's monopoly for his grandfather's financial hardships because once establishing a monopoly, this company set the prices so low that Berry's grandfather could not make decent money from his tobacco crops. 

Witt wants to set the record straight that it was not Capitalism's fault. And though Witt makes a couple of valid points to contest Berry's claims, the direction Witt takes us is still unsettling. We won't go through his whole argument here, but we should note that Witt faults Berry for not protesting the product, which were cigarettes, being made. Rather Berry focussed on Capitalism. Witt faults Berry's grandfather's choices and the government for the grandfather's economic woes. This is because his grandfather's choice of crop to farm caught up to demand and the government instituted policies that hurt the market price of cigarettes.  

But Witt goes beyond that. Witt defends the monopoly and the profit policies pursued by the tobacco company. Witt wants to answer the question asked at the beginning: What has Capitalism ever done for us. He answers the question by describing how this particular tobacco company contributed to the economy. It contributed by producing an affordable product and by expanding tobacco farming in the region. So with results like that Witt asks, how could one fault either the tobacco company or the kind of capitalism it practiced?

We should note here that Witt has his own Wendell Berry moment of faulting the wrong thing. For while Witt finds fault with how Berry blamed capitalism and not cigarettes, he celebrates the establishment of a monopoly. This wrong, or at least inconsistent, for Witt to do. Why? It is because he believes in the free market and a free market relies on competition. But competition does not exist when a monopoly is in place--even Milton Friedman would acknowledge this. Thus, though a market for making cigarettes existed during Berry's grandfather's farming days, it wasn't a free market for the farmers. 

So it seems that having a free market isn't as important to Witt as he claims (he mentions "free market" in at least parts 1, 2, and 8 of this series). What is important is that business is in control of the market. This takes us back to our opening diagram (pictured below).

American Capitalism Today

By rejecting government, provided that Witt does not believe businesses should be run democratically, his acceptance of a business dominated market means that he is in favor of a business Elite Centered rule--and that rule is not just an economic one. And it appears that Witt recognizes the founder of the American Tobacco Company as having sole ownership rights of the company, since he found it, with no ownership considerations being granted to the farmers though they supplied the raw material for his business. Rather, according to Witt, these farmers are either to be grateful for the tobacco company doing business with them and expanding the number of farms, including the farmers who did not do well, or produce another crop. This, of course, provides further confirmation that Witt's views are in quadrant #3. And we should note that the further down in quadrant #3 one goes, the more tyranny will be practiced. In addition, the further to the left one goes in quadrant #3, the more wealth disparity will be seen (click here for the original explanation). This point about wealth disparity is what Berry is protesting in the first place.

But there is a more important observation to be made here. That observation revolves around the measurements Witt uses to justify a business or even economic system. To Witt, it is all about numbers. If a business or system is lowering the price of a product and expanding the number of employees, as the tobacco company referenced in this blogpost by Witt did, then no further questions are to be asked. We don't consider Berry's concerns about inadequate compensation for his grandfather's crops because Witt has already addressed them by blaming the farmers for their choices and the government for intervening. We simply look at the lower prices the consumers pay as well as the expansion in the number of tobacco farms. And to Witt, this is how Capitalism is to be judged. Capitalism is to be judged by the "prosperity" it brings to a select group of stakeholders.

Is it any wonder then that Martin Luther King made the following assessment about Capitalism while he was comparing it to Marxism and socialism? King said the following (click here for the source):

thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism 

When numbers, especially those related to consumption and wealth for some, are the only measurement used to determine the value of Capitalism, then King's analysis becomes inescapable. This is especially true because negative outcomes for non-select stakeholders are so easily swept away by the favorable numbers. This is when we are told no further questions are to be asked. The "no further questions" would concern themselves with fairness and morality for all stakeholders as well as show concern for the environment. But using just numbers, and carefully selected ones at that, is the standard operating method for many who justify and promote Capitalism. It isn't that numbers themselves which is the problem; it is that they don't tell the whole story.

This is the direction we are heading for with Capitalism. It is first Elite Centered where democracy is shunned in favor of control by the wealthy from the private sector. Then collective ownership rights are also spurned regardless of the inter-dependencies involved in a business or the economic system as a whole. Such a combination promotes both a wide wealth disparity and tyranny. And we will note that tyranny can come from the private sector as well as the public one. This is all done in the name of increased prosperity but for select groups. And as increased prosperity either trumps fairness and morals or makes them moot, materialism, rather than human values, become dominant in assessing systems. With all of that being where Witt is taking us, it is ironic that Witt, and others like him, claim to have the moral high ground over others who disagree. Then again, maybe it isn't ironic, perhaps it is just part of the necessary marketing Capitalism uses to retain customers despite the sounds of suffering and discontent.

 

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 6 of 12

In this episode of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism, Witt tries to rebut a proposed alternative to Capitalism called Distributism. This alternative is proposed to counter the 'hyper-utilitarianism, materialistic, and banal' qualities that mark today's age of Capitalism along with the consolidation of wealth and power that resides with elites from the business class.

What is Distributism? It includes a more equitable distribution of land and means of production in order to avoid the problematic consolidation of wealth,  a more agrarian based lifestyle, and an emphasis on buying local and thus promotion of a 'society market.' 

Witt has a couple of objections, everybody should have at least one, to this economic system, but we will focus on his main objection. His objection is the broken-record conservative objection to who initiates what. For one of the founders of Distributism, Hiliare Belloc, called on government to facilitate the beginning and maintenance of Distributism. So of course Witt will complain that Belloc is leaping from the frying pan of consolidated wealth and power of the private sector into the fire of even more power of the public sector--the government. 

And the apparent reason why Witt does this is because his model of thought lacks nuance and the ability to make distinctions with regard to the government and power. For in stating that government is already too powerful and, quite frankly, is the problem, he doesn't distinguish between governments that are truly democratic and those that are run by elites. This is why we don't see democracy being part of the recipe in developing a sound economy.

In addition, Witt's analysis that government has more power than the elites in the private sector shows a failure to understand the meaning of power and how it is distinguished from authority. Simply put, power is the ability to get things done. And one doesn't have to have authority to have power. So there is a very real and important debate we need to have today in determining how we can fix our broken system. Who has the most power in today's society? Is the elites in the private sector who make both major political parties addicted to the Crack of both campaign contributions and perks from lobbyists or is it those they have put into government positions? Sheldon Wolin, who is the author of Democracy Incorporated, seems to argue that elites from the business class have the most power. This possibility goes unexamined by Witt and thus, as Witt criticizes another system for depending too much on government, he sets us up to be shot with a gun he never sees.

And just as Witt is blind to the power of private sector elites as he weighs the merits of another economic system, he seems very naive about how to solve the morass our current economic system. He seems to think that in addition to political and religious liberties, all we need is more economic liberty, which means more individual liberty for entrepreneurs, with that liberty to be curbed only by the passing of necessary laws based on natural laws and the belief that each person is made in the image of God. The necessary laws, according to Witt, are assumed to be obvious which is why no mention of democracy is not being made-- the absence of democracy in his series makes his extolling of political liberty seen in this article seem empty. 

Here, we should remember from the very first blogpost in this series that the less we emphasize democracy, the more we support elite centered rule (click here). And Witt's support of elite centered rule implies that we need the right elites in government to pass the obvious laws necessary to ensure economic liberty. But if these laws are being passed by a government run by elites, then, even if Witt approves of these elites, he is guilty of having the same fault he cited Belloc with: empowering government. 

But more than that, having the right elites in government to pass the right laws according to ideology is the path Lenin took when he hijacked the Russian Revolution and turned it toward the Right. It is simply a belief in a vanguard of elites who judge what is consistent with the ideology du jour.

Finally, as a side note, the absence of any emphasis put on the role of democracy in determining the economic system is consistent with my discussions with people from the Acton blog. In our discussions, they were adamant in declaring that there is only one kind of liberty: individual liberty. This means that the liberty a group exercises in determining how we will live with each other, which we can call group or societal liberty, which is facilitated by democracy, does not exist. 

But again, as this blog has pointed out, the less democracy, the more elite centered rule. And such rule will put a higher priority on protecting, if not expanding, its position and possessions to the extent that they might market the laws that best serve them as laws which are obviously based on natural law and the idea that man is made in the image of God. After all, isn't that what we are seeing today?

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 4 of 12

Today's post is late due to computer problems.

In part 4 of 12 of his A Cultural Case For Capitalism (click here), Witt wants to distinguish Capitalism from 2 unfavorable human traits, consumerism (the negative form as seen in the never ending growth in the accumulation of unnecessary goods and services) and greed by the business owner or producer. In essence, Witt is trying to separate Capitalism from greed regardless of the source of that greed. The question becomes whether he succeeded. 

In distinguishing Capitalism from Consumerism, Witt wants to assert that consumerism doesn't drive the economy, capital does. And, according to Witt, Capital cannot be accumulated by "running up credit card debt" on the retail level. Rather, the combining of capital with "creative labor" creates what people are willing to buy. But in trying prove his case, Witt oversimplifies what consumerism is and thus tries to separate Capitalism from consumerism using deductive reasoning--Conservatives often overuse deductive reasoning to prove their case. 

For a producer/business owner to get a satisfactory return on their use of capital, there must be an adequate market for their goods and services. So a producer/business owner will either be offering goods and services for which there is an adequate market demand or they will produce goods and services for which they believe they can create a market demand. Thus, we could say that an indication of a business' reliance on consumerism can be seen in the resources invested to create, maintain, or expand the perceived need for a business' goods and services. 

Note the perceived need is what is key. That is because there is a difference between an actual need and perceived need. And when there is a significant difference between the two, some kind of deceit is often employed to create the perception. 

In addition, we might want to note that to say that an economic system depends on consumerism, we might want to distinguish two kinds of consumers in whom market need is created: retail customers and government. The more that an economic system's resources are invested into motivating those from either group to buy more than what is necessary, the more that that economic system depends on consumerism. We should note how our government has overspent on military and medicine in order to maintain the financial health of some major businesses.  And personal experience along with marketing budgets from businesses tell us how many resources are invested in the advertising. For it is advertising that is used to shape our perceptions about what to buy. We should note that one parallel to advertising in driving the perceived need for government to consume goods and services is money spent on lobbying.

Finally,we might want to note that Witt's argument, which is designed to separate Capitalism from consumerism, is rather disingenuous. For just as Witt says that the capital necessary to drive the economy cannot coexist with huge credit card debt, we should note that those who use capital to create products are not necessarily from the same set of people who are overextended on their credit cards. For in these two groups, you have business owners who depend on accumulated capital to make new products for economy on the one hand, and retail customers who have overspent on their credit cards on the other hand. In addition, we might point out that credit cards themselves are a service that is provided by those in the financial sector of our economy. And, of course, examining credit card debt is another indicator of whether our economic system relies on consumerism.

In other words, when we look at the facts on the ground, we see that the unnecessary consumption of goods and services is a significant factor on which the current status of our economic system depends. These facts contradict Witt's contention that Capitalism and consumerism are not sleeping together.

Equally disingenuous to Witt's attempt to show that Capitalism and consumerism do not play well together can be seen in how Witt tries to show that Ayn Rand-style greed and Capitalism do not have to be playmates. Witt cites two examples of people who are business successes but who have proven themselves to be not greedy. He claims that lifestyles of Ikea's Ingrav Kamprad and Microsoft's Bill Gates by how they travel and both live and give to charity respectively speaking. 

But how do those parts of their lives show that their companies did not grow as large as they did because of greed? One only needs to look up the business practices of these two companies to see if greed was a necessary ingredient to their growth and success. In examining the business practices of these two companies, one should look at how these companies treated all of their employees and customers and how they competed with peer businesses. In particular, one should examine the available court transcripts of these businesses' dealings in court.

But whether greed is an integral part of the system cannot be proved or disproved by the examples from such a small sample. Rather, one needs to either look at the majority of businesses involved or obtain an overview of the system. From what this blog sees, greed is an essential part of Capitalism, at least our current form of Capitalism is. This can be shown by how self-interest is portrayed as being the driving force not only in one's own success, but in the success of others. Thus, self-interest is seen as a necessary ingredient to the success of our system. However, altruism and collective ownership are portrayed at best as luxuries in that the former is not mandated by law while the other is denied by how workers are treated and compensated. As a teacher, I have run across students who were former employees from a number of large businesses because their jobs were outsourced to those from other countries who would work for less pay.

From what we see in part 4 of his series, it seems that Witt is describing an ideal form, or logical definition, of Capitalism which does not match what we are witnessing in today's economic system. And his description seems to support an economic freedom that would deny interference from government regardless of how democratic that government was and regardless of the claims to the ownership of business that other stakeholders should rightfully have. The end result is that Witt is defending a system where the economic elite are proudly flying the flag that says, "Don't Tread On Me," while using their defended freedoms to tread on the rest of society. Perhaps, this is why we see less and less democracy being exercised in our political-economic system while wealth disparity is climbing. Remember that increased tyranny and wealth disparity are the results of a diminishing democracy and a shrinking collective ownership (click here).

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Part 3 of 12

I was going to originally combine parts 2 and 3 together, this is why the title for the last post in this series has a grammatical error, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Part 3 of Jonathan Witt's A Cultural Case For Capitalism (click here) wants to make the case that individual liberty is king while trying to disconnect it from our current cultural decay. But Witt wants to so honor individual liberty as long as we understand what individual liberty is. Individual liberty, according to Witt, does not include the freedom to steal, cheat, pollute, or practice violence. Nor is individual liberty seen when big government gets involved in aiding select business as they compete in the market. Such invites corruption. But Witt does acknowledge the legitimate role of government to enforce the 'rule of law.' So individual liberty, according to Witt, does not give one permission to be unjust to others. Rather, individual liberty occurs when government becomes minimally involved in the economy to enforce laws the occurrence of which should be an exception rather than the rule. 

So Witt acknowledges that we must have laws with his "lawless road" analogy so as to control theft, cheating, and pollution; however, there is a problem. For how does government determine what is stealing, cheating, polluting, and alike? For example, is paying poverty wages a form of stealing either from employees or from public funds used in government assistance programs? Were some of the practices of or products sold by the Financial Sector during the housing bubble a form of cheating? And how much CO2 emissions can we allow before calling it pollution? Who is suppose to answer these questions?

In addition, doesn't the community in which a business is located have legitimate concerns besides basic moral issues? After all, such a business does have an impact on its surrounding community as well as consumes public services and demands a certain quality of society that helps the business succeed.

There is another problem here. The problem is that Witt seems to say that big, intrusive government almost seems to be the sole source of corruption. That without government's ability to interfere in the free market, businesses would be much less likely be involved in corruption. In fact, Witt uses the examples of Venezuela and Russia as places where a planned economies have ruined things. We should note here that the US and a few other countries from the then G7 insisted on a Neoliberal form of Capitalism for Russia after the Communist empire collapsed--we should note that Neoliberal Capitalism drastically reduces government's control of the economy. To implement this, these countries pushed for a replacement of Russia's then leader Michael Gorbachev with Boris Yeltsin all of which led to an increased amount of corruption (see Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine). We should also note that a significant amount of the fraud that occurred during our economic collapse in 2008 was due to unregulated financial products (see Inside Job). 

Here, not only does Witt seem to suggest that without big government, most of business's temptation to practice corruption would be eliminated, Witt gives no recognition to another limiting factor to individual liberty besides basic moral principles; that is democracy. According to the model presented in part 1 of this series (click here), the less one favors democracy as a way to distribute power, the more one favors elite rule. So with no mention of democracy here, what we need to look for in the following parts of Witt's series is who he thinks will have power.

According to our model, the less democracy is employed, the more power is consolidated (see the illustration below). And the more that power is consolidated, the more we have elite rule. And we should note here that power is not the same as authority. Authority is based on the official position one has in the government. Power is the ability to get things done. 

American Capitalism Today

So far, we are too early in the series to verify if Witt is advocating the consolidation of power by minimizing the role of government and possibly the role of democracy. Witt's denouncement of big government should not fool us into thinking that he is against the consolidation of power. For we should note that power follows wealth so that those with wealth can either exercise control over others or practice injustice with impunity. So if Witt's model allows for the consolidation of wealth, it will also enable the consolidation of power.

Likewise, there seems to be no mention of stakeholder claims to the rights and ownership of a business. In fact, we could easily say that with Witt's emphasis on economic liberty, he recognizes little to no claim of a Collective Consciousness. For this to occur, Witt must either deny the significance of or the existence of the interdependency that exists in our economy and society. For the degree to which a Collective Consciousness should exist depends on the degree of interdependency that exists in our economy and society.

Despite Witt's denouncement of a government corrupted Capitalism and his advocating the need for the rule of law in our economy, the question will become whether Witt can present an economic model that will be free of the problems he has cited here. Will Witt's model almost all but eliminate corruption in as well as injustices and pollution that currently come from our many of our businesses? If the model presented on this blog significantly represents the real world, then the increased wealth disparity, which is suppose to follow an overemphasis on individual rights at the expense of a Collective Consciousness, and the increased tyranny, which will more like result when Elite Centered rule is favored over Democracy, will make it unlikely that Witt's economic model can escape the corruption and other problems that we see in today's flawed Capitalism. Please stay tuned to see who is right here.

Reviewing The Cultural Case For Capitalism Parts 2 of 12

Last week, we laid a model of thought by which we could partially analyse Jonathan Witt's 12 part series on A Cultural Case For Capitalism (click here for the review of part 1). In that model we constructed a 2-dimensional grid with a horizontal axis that measures the ownership of the means to wealth and a vertical axis that measured the location of the political-economic power that serves as part of the status quo. 

This week, we examine part 2 of Jonathan Witt's, A Cultural Case for Capitalism Part 2. In this blogpost Witt will use the struggles of American Blacks to make his case for his form of Capitalism, limited government and economic liberty. In doing so, Witt shows that he may not have consulted a wide enough variety of sources. 

Witt wants to highlight what he sees as a key difference between the plight of American Blacks during both slavery and Jim Crow and what Blacks must suffer through today. He believes that regardless of the horrible traumas suffered during some of America's most morally darkest hours as evidenced by how we treated people of color, the plight of Blacks today is more affected by permanent government assistance programs. Why? It is because the number of 'intact' Black families has plummeted and the role of the Black male as a provider has been been dismantled. And Witt continues by saying that the dismantling of families is not unique to American Blacks, it is happening in Europe too where families depend on permanent assistance programs. In addition, Witt believes that Black families limited the lingering effects of what they suffered.

Thus the solution is to keep safety nets but do not make them permanent. In addition, we need to make pay subject to the free market rather than determined by a "redistributive justice" system and to ensure economic liberty--code for freeing businesses from the responsibilities of paying for government programs. 

So Witt has identified well-meaning but flawed and thus disastrous permanent government assistance programs as being public enemy #1 for American Blacks today. And though Witt does cite the opinions, not the data, of a number of scholars, he does so in a way so as to stack the evidence in the favor of his hypothesis. 

We should note that Witt downplays the linger effects of one of America's most morally darkest hours of slavery and Jim Crow I--notice the Roman Numeral next to Jim Crow. As horrible as those times were, again, Witt declares that to think they still are the primary cause for the problems suffered by effect on Black families today is to underestimate the "resiliency and strength of Black families" in post Civil War America. Rather, Witt seems to use the number of functioning Black families as a sole measurement of the plight of Blacks. And since the number of such families has plummeted since Johnson's Great Society program, Johnson's programs that have hurt American Blacks and have placed them in a role of being helpless.

But what is missing in Witt's eagerness to finger government is an examination of the context for Witt's culprits along with a possible underestimation of both the effects of past racism and the presence of current racism. We should note that though significant gains were obtained during the Civil Rights movement, racism is still a big problem today. We should also note that some government assistance programs preceded LBJ and they did not seem to have had the effect on Black families as Johnson's Great Society programs had on Blacks from the late 20th century til now.

We also need to realize that as Blacks were being held down, different White ethnic groups were establishing themselves so that, both politically and economically, these White ethnic groups joined establishment Whites so that they established a privileged position for themselves compared with Blacks. Thus, when Blacks compete with Whites for jobs, the winner is all too often partially determined by the respective group's starting line for each person. Those who do not come from a privileged group have a longer race to run than those who are from a privileged group--if I remember correctly, this a point made by Michael Eric Dyson. Plus, hundreds of years of slavery and oppression, especially when immediate family members still wear the scars, along with a budding New Jim Crow era, cannot but have a significant negative effect on the psyche of more than one frustrated Black job hunter.

Certainly, Witt's errors so far include underestimating the lingering effects of past atrocities as well as using as his sole barometer of well-being the number of 'intact' Black families. And though it isn't that some of Witt's statements are without merit, it is that Witt's evidence and criteria is intentionally too narrowly defined.

We should note that Martin Luther King Jr. predicted gloom for Johnson's social policies because he felt that, due to the increased spending on the Vietnam War, not enough would be spent on programs of social uplift. But we should also note that Witt is not clear about why government aid programs became permanent. For example, were the job opportunities plentiful but the will to work was weak because of dependence? Or did jobs in the urban areas leave as Blacks moved into designated areas of the cities? We should note that Martin Luther King Jr. saw an insidious form of racism in the North as exhibited by where Blacks were allowed to live. And if job opportunities were not available in sufficient numbers, then the culture of dependency that many Conservatives like Witt have observed maybe due to actions of the private sector rather than public sector programs. And we should note that the moving of jobs away from concentrated Black population centers is a result of the economic liberty enjoyed by businesses.    

And if the exodus of jobs contributed to dependency by some Blacks back then, how much more does that apply now with a global work force that both reduces certain jobs here and drives down the wages to poverty levels of some of the jobs that remain? Many low skilled workers who work full-time hours live on government assistance which means that government programs are partially subsidizing some corporate payrolls while the same corporations are doing all they can to avoid paying taxes. The result is a shift of the tax burden to those who can least afford to pay it as well as the putting at risk the financial health of municipalities, states, and even the country.

Certainly, what was just mentioned affects everyone. But if it affects everyone, it also affects Blacks.

So it seems that Witt was selective in his citations and facts. Yes, there are problems with dependency. And yes, not all government programs are doing more good than harm. And certainly we could provide more economic liberty by intelligently rewriting some regulations. But at the same time, scapegoating the government is not justified. That doesn't mean that government is without fault. What it does mean is that some of those for whom Witt is really writing his series for are a significant part of the problem as they  do all they can to maximize profits. 

Finally, with regard to the model that was introduced last week. We will note that when Witt attacks government programs, what he is doing is attacking programs that could be the result of a functioning democratic government as well as an elite centered one--that is as he is trying to limit the power exercised by elites, he is doing the same to the power of a democracy. And if power is not distributed as in a democracy, though it may not reside in an elite-centered public sector, it will reside in an elite-centered private sector. Here we find Witt advocating the combination of a significant amount of individual rights when it comes to ownership of wealth as well as elite-centered power stemming from the private sector. This would put Witt in Quadrant 3, a quadrant where we can expect a more and more tyranny and wealth disparity. And it seems that, when we look around us, Quadrant 3 has not disappointed its fans.