100 years ago today, Franz Ferdinand, Habsburg heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his wife, were assassinated in Sarajevo.. His Austrian family, allied with Germany, made unreasonable demands for compensation from the Serbian government, which was allied with Russia and France and after a month of posturing and threats, Germany invaded France, neither of which were involved with the assassination in any way, but had fought a war 40 years earlier that Germany was still sore about, even though they'd more or less won. The assassin himself was a Serbian nationalist and frequently expressed horror at the orgy of killing he had triggered, before he was executed 4 years later, but he had no connection with the government being forced to make reparations.
There was no good reason for the war. A bunch of stupid, inbred people with too much ego and not enough sense had a bunch of petty disputes. Mainly, Kaiser Wilhelm had had a disagreement with his Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who had multiplied the size and power of Prussia and the Kaiser himself enormously. France was understandably concerned about the growing power on its border and that's what 1870-71 had been about. But Wilhelm had had a minor dispute with Bismarck and fired him. Bismarck was long dead by the time Franz Ferdinand was shot but his heirs, not nearly as wise, had made a series of plans to invade France. On June 28, 1914, something happened...nothing to do with France or Germany, but enough to pull the trigger.
At one level, WWI did a lot of good for the world. All the hereditary monarchies were gone, or turned into constitutional, parliamentary systems with a monarch as figurehead with no real power. All the new governments understood that ordinary people had bourn the brunt of their government's foolishness and the union movement and worker protection laws, and women's suffrage became unstoppable. It cemented the United States as a great power and showed that the rule of law is more effective than the rule of authority. One of the best ideas was the League of Nations, which was made toothless by Republicans in the US Senate and their belligerent counterparts in Europe. These same Republicans were not entirely happy with law and fair treatment of the masses of people and wanted a more authoritarian system, and the policies they advocated went hand in hand with the craving by the authoritarian leaders of Britain and France for onerous reparation from Germany. This created what may have been the worst possible outcome. Germany was ruined by these reparations, and only recovered when enough time had passed and a German leader came to power who didn't care a whit about law and fair treatment and was happy to ignore the reparations. The authoritarians who demanded them are ideologically almost identical with the leaders of today's Tea Party movement and share a great deal with Hitler and Stalin. They prefer government by thuggery and don't like systems where their views aren't automatically adopted. Suppression of voters they don't agree with is the first step.
Recognizing the error of the French and British leaders after WWI, the Allies, led by the incomparable George Marshall, used the assets of the winners of WWII to rebuild both the winners and losers. His success, and the catastrophe that the authoritarians brought on, should give the authoritarians pause, but it doesn't. Germany is now a power again, but they are part of a united Europe and while they are abusing their neighbors economically, at least they aren't shooting them. An economist who is as good a teacher as Marshall was a statesman may be needed.
The consequences of Franz Ferdinand's assassination are still playing out. The trigger Gavrilo Princip pulled killed at least 100M people and put almost a billion under repressive rule. It gave numerous petty, incompetent and often sadistic, but ruthless politicians the opportunity to rule. It removed constraints from a lot of rivalries, which continue to fester, and will probably continue to fester for a lot longer. For example, the borders that were drawn by the Sykes-Picot agreement around Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, having nothing to do with the factions within those countries, have created a century of internal frictions and civil wars.
28 June 2014
22 June 2014
The Monopoly Party
One of our great parties has been taken over by pro-monopoly radicals. Most of the supporters of that party don't know that, but the monopolists have figured out that if they can sell their story of laissez-faire economics, support for religious wedge issues and by sowing disruption and conflict in their party and their opponents, they can gain power and keep their monopolies despite it being against the law.
The most obvious monopolies are the big banks, the big oil companies, the big insurers, and a few others, most notably Walmart, the biggest company in the world. Many of these are not literally monopolies: e.g. 4 banks control $8T of the $10.5T total assets managed by all US banks. But they collude on policy--you really don't have much choice, and none of the hundreds of smaller banks can compete with any of the big 4 even if they have a better product.
The pro-monopolists want monopoly in other things than their own narrow business: they strenuously object if anybody criticizes them. They teach their naïve supporters that any arm of government that doesn't do exactly what they want them to is dangerous and can't be tolerated. They work very hard to discredit opposing opinion, a lot of it through name calling. (they talk about taxation without representation: in fact they have a lot of representation---the Tea Party are about 10% of the electorate but they control one house of congress and successfully block all action in the other). They look for opportunities to suppress voters likely to object to them. They suggest that some offenses are so bad that such people should not receive due process. They tell us--against all evidence--that the current Democratic president is the most outrageously radical leftist in our history...in fact he is one of the two most conservative Democrats since the 19th century and about even on the left-right spectrum with Nixon and Eisenhower and not far left of their plaster hero, Reagan.
Most dangerously, they have been buying up and monopolizing media, so that only their narrow, pro-monopoly message gets out. There are a few centrist news operations remaining: New York Times, MSNBC, Huffington Post, etc., but most of the mainstream has moved very far right. An important way to do this is by buying lots of advertising and hinting that the funding source will dry up if they don't give "equal time" to their pet right wing pundits. Many of the bastions of good reporting: the Wall Street Journal, the PBS News Hour, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post, and more, have fallen prey to this. The once carefully neutral PBS New Hour will give equal time to a knowledgeable expert and a crackpot, and sometimes they skip the expert altogether. There are NO left wing news sites with a significant following in America and precious few elsewhere.
The bottom line is this: Laissez-Faire is anything but fair, free enterprise. It can be, for a little while. But very quickly, it almost always degenerates into monopoly or race to the bottom, and without regulation, once you have monopoly or race to the bottom, it's practically impossible to break out. There are very few supporters of Laissez-Faire who have an informed understanding of it and its history. But there are tens of millions who hear that there's freedom involved and stop thinking at that point. Ayn Rand's childish wish-fulfilment fantasy novels are very popular among these people.
Nobody argues that we should do away with referees in sports. We can sometimes get away with it in sandlots and schoolyards, but very often it degenerates into disputes and cheating--where nothing is on the line but bragging rights for a few kids. But that's what the monopoly party wants us to do in politics and business and media. Millions of lives are on the line.
The most obvious monopolies are the big banks, the big oil companies, the big insurers, and a few others, most notably Walmart, the biggest company in the world. Many of these are not literally monopolies: e.g. 4 banks control $8T of the $10.5T total assets managed by all US banks. But they collude on policy--you really don't have much choice, and none of the hundreds of smaller banks can compete with any of the big 4 even if they have a better product.
The pro-monopolists want monopoly in other things than their own narrow business: they strenuously object if anybody criticizes them. They teach their naïve supporters that any arm of government that doesn't do exactly what they want them to is dangerous and can't be tolerated. They work very hard to discredit opposing opinion, a lot of it through name calling. (they talk about taxation without representation: in fact they have a lot of representation---the Tea Party are about 10% of the electorate but they control one house of congress and successfully block all action in the other). They look for opportunities to suppress voters likely to object to them. They suggest that some offenses are so bad that such people should not receive due process. They tell us--against all evidence--that the current Democratic president is the most outrageously radical leftist in our history...in fact he is one of the two most conservative Democrats since the 19th century and about even on the left-right spectrum with Nixon and Eisenhower and not far left of their plaster hero, Reagan.
Most dangerously, they have been buying up and monopolizing media, so that only their narrow, pro-monopoly message gets out. There are a few centrist news operations remaining: New York Times, MSNBC, Huffington Post, etc., but most of the mainstream has moved very far right. An important way to do this is by buying lots of advertising and hinting that the funding source will dry up if they don't give "equal time" to their pet right wing pundits. Many of the bastions of good reporting: the Wall Street Journal, the PBS News Hour, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post, and more, have fallen prey to this. The once carefully neutral PBS New Hour will give equal time to a knowledgeable expert and a crackpot, and sometimes they skip the expert altogether. There are NO left wing news sites with a significant following in America and precious few elsewhere.
The bottom line is this: Laissez-Faire is anything but fair, free enterprise. It can be, for a little while. But very quickly, it almost always degenerates into monopoly or race to the bottom, and without regulation, once you have monopoly or race to the bottom, it's practically impossible to break out. There are very few supporters of Laissez-Faire who have an informed understanding of it and its history. But there are tens of millions who hear that there's freedom involved and stop thinking at that point. Ayn Rand's childish wish-fulfilment fantasy novels are very popular among these people.
Nobody argues that we should do away with referees in sports. We can sometimes get away with it in sandlots and schoolyards, but very often it degenerates into disputes and cheating--where nothing is on the line but bragging rights for a few kids. But that's what the monopoly party wants us to do in politics and business and media. Millions of lives are on the line.
15 June 2014
The Indigent and the Insane
60 Minutes just re-ran their piece on 100,000 Homes, a project that helps the homeless by giving them free housing. Counterintuitively, this turns out to be a significant cost saver: the worst of the homeless cost the taxpayers a lot. For example, a night in the hospital costs as much as several months rent. But homeless folks don't have insurance: The hospital has to cover this somehow--ultimately taxpayers and other patients and their insurance companies. 100,000 Homes focuses on the most threatened homeless, the ones who are most at risk of hospitalization, or committing a desperate act. Remarkably, a majority of the recently homeless, when given safe, clean housing, get themselves cleaned up very quickly, and with a little help, are able to get a job and before long are able to pay their rent. All they needed was a leg up.
Not all the homeless are have mental health issues, but around 30% do. A surprising number of them have minor, easily treatable problems that become debilitating or worse if left to fester. Desperate for food, they steal, or confused, they commit violence. A few hours of counseling a month, or a few dollars of medicine, are all it takes to prevent this in a great many cases.
The homeless and the mentally ill are among the most defenseless sectors of our society. The war on the mentally ill was led by Reagan and similarly inclined people, but the mentally ill themselves and their families contributed to it, by fighting what had been relatively sensible involuntary commitment laws. It's understandable why the patients would object to involuntary commitment, and many mental health facilities were horrible, but it was a system that had a chance of being fixed.
So instead, we wait for the mentally ill to commit a crime and use our remaining involuntary commitment system: the prison system. This isn't actually much cheaper than the old asylums, and it treats the "patients" just as badly as the asylums did, but a great many people with minor problems become hardened criminals in prison.
Most people who are powerless to deal with their circumstances feel anger or depression, whether they have mental health problems or not. Mental health problems only make these feelings worse, and a tiny fraction of them lash out, however they can...using a gun if it's available.
We must restore and repair the asylum system. It did many evil things as it was, but we have "thrown out the baby with the bathwater" as it were. Like prisons, we need many levels of asylum and both voluntary and involuntary commitment. They need to be decent places that keep the worst of the worst away from the vast majority, who have only minor problems. Almost half of the people now in our prisons have committed non-violent, victimless crimes like drug possession and should simply be released (upon review, of course), and a sizable fraction of those remaining (including a lot of addicts) should be moved to asylums or other places that have a better chance of dealing effectively with their problems.
I am convinced that this will save a lot of money: getting the indigent into a circumstance that helps them find work should have positive cash flow if the costs of hospitalization is factored in. Getting the mentally ill into a circumstance that doesn't make them worse has to be cheaper than the present system--the mentally ill commit a sizable fraction of crimes, and they will need a lot less security (although more medical assistance) than criminals if we house them properly. Like the non-crazy indigent, in many cases, simply treating them decently will turn them from problems to useful, or at least not harmful, members of society.
Not all the homeless are have mental health issues, but around 30% do. A surprising number of them have minor, easily treatable problems that become debilitating or worse if left to fester. Desperate for food, they steal, or confused, they commit violence. A few hours of counseling a month, or a few dollars of medicine, are all it takes to prevent this in a great many cases.
The homeless and the mentally ill are among the most defenseless sectors of our society. The war on the mentally ill was led by Reagan and similarly inclined people, but the mentally ill themselves and their families contributed to it, by fighting what had been relatively sensible involuntary commitment laws. It's understandable why the patients would object to involuntary commitment, and many mental health facilities were horrible, but it was a system that had a chance of being fixed.
So instead, we wait for the mentally ill to commit a crime and use our remaining involuntary commitment system: the prison system. This isn't actually much cheaper than the old asylums, and it treats the "patients" just as badly as the asylums did, but a great many people with minor problems become hardened criminals in prison.
Most people who are powerless to deal with their circumstances feel anger or depression, whether they have mental health problems or not. Mental health problems only make these feelings worse, and a tiny fraction of them lash out, however they can...using a gun if it's available.
We must restore and repair the asylum system. It did many evil things as it was, but we have "thrown out the baby with the bathwater" as it were. Like prisons, we need many levels of asylum and both voluntary and involuntary commitment. They need to be decent places that keep the worst of the worst away from the vast majority, who have only minor problems. Almost half of the people now in our prisons have committed non-violent, victimless crimes like drug possession and should simply be released (upon review, of course), and a sizable fraction of those remaining (including a lot of addicts) should be moved to asylums or other places that have a better chance of dealing effectively with their problems.
I am convinced that this will save a lot of money: getting the indigent into a circumstance that helps them find work should have positive cash flow if the costs of hospitalization is factored in. Getting the mentally ill into a circumstance that doesn't make them worse has to be cheaper than the present system--the mentally ill commit a sizable fraction of crimes, and they will need a lot less security (although more medical assistance) than criminals if we house them properly. Like the non-crazy indigent, in many cases, simply treating them decently will turn them from problems to useful, or at least not harmful, members of society.
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