Parecon

Explaining Communal Income and Why it is Essential to Socialism

By Ferdia O’Driscoll

July 28, 2024

Source: Participatory Economy Project

Introduction

A Participatory Economy¹ is usually summarised by a list of five canonical features, namely:

1. Social ownership;
2. Democratic councils and confederations (worker and consumer);
3. Participatory planning (annual planning and long-term development planning);
4. Equitable remuneration for work (according to effort/sacrifice);
5. Balanced division of labour (balanced jobs).

However, hidden within item 4 (“equitable remuneration for work”) is another feature of the Participatory Economy (PE) system which is so important that it should appear explicitly on that core list. I believe it is one of the most powerful aspects of the PE. This feature is almost never discussed by the Left, and seldom even by the tiny minority which attends seriously to the details of postcapitalism. Indeed, this feature is scarcely perceived as a choice at all. That is unfortunate because, in this author’s view, it is not only a defining feature of PE but of socialism itself. That feature is what I call “Communal Income”.

Communal Income refers to the governance and accounting of income received by individuals for formal work. Namely, Communal Income means that (1) income to work is decided politically through democratic processes wider than the individual enterprise, and that (2) worker income is not allocated from the Income Statement of the enterprise but from the accounts of the Commune². This article will introduce Communal Income in the context of a PE and explain why it matters so crucially to a postcapitalist society. We will focus on contrasting Communal Income and Private Income, explaining how the former is a basic requirement of postcapitalism and the latter is constitutive of capitalism itself. Specifically, we will see how Private Income acts to assimilate workers into the cycle of capital, with intra-enterprise competition for jobs and higher pay, inter-enterprise competition for market power, society-wide income disparities, and disruption of autonomous motivation for work.

The “Market Socialist” Status Quo

When the Left discusses income for work, it is usually about its quantity. For example, should taxes and wages be higher? That discussion is important but superficial because we are not examining who should make those decisions. Unfortunately, it is typical for the Left to advocate for a desirable end result without attending to the appropriate dynamic to achieve and sustain it. Thus, we habitually take for granted existing institutions and power relations. However, the most important question in all of political economy is “who decides?”. This is the primary structuring factor which will determine the evolution of society.

The failure of the centrally-planned command economies under Communist Party dictatorship, and especially the collapse of the USSR in 1991, has led to the victory of market ideology planet-wide since at least the 1980s. Even the Communist Party of China lauds “the market” as the epitomé of dynamism, innovation, and efficiency, dedicating itself to the management of an industrial capitalist economy with a large state sector via a police state. In the West and elsewhere, the Left tends to reject oppressive one-party states but is nonetheless convinced that market society is the only viable and desirable future for humanity because “the market” is equated with both efficiency and autonomy. Hence, the Left has settled on a market economy in which, to different degrees, a state provides support and compensates for market failures.

On the rare occasion that alternatives to capitalism are seriously considered, the commonest proposed arrangements for income-to-work are: (1) state-determined wages in “nationalized” enterprises, and (2) profit-sharing in worker co-operative enterprises. Here the decision-making actors are made clear: the state in the first case, and some particular worker-owners in the second. In this article, we will focus on the latter, which I will call “the half-capitalism of labour-managed firms”. But it should be noted in passing that Communal Income centres on the commune which – drawing on Murray Bookchin’s distinction between politics and statecraft³ – constitutes a non-state polity or formal community of citizens. It implies a democratic and confederal organisation of society according to the principle of subsidiarity – that decisions are made at the most decentral/local level which is still compatible with the viability of the whole system. Worker income is decided and allocated through these democratic organs rather than through the over-centralised and class-stratified state apparatus. Communal Income is a way between the pitfalls of statisation of enterprises and private-worker-ownership of capitalist enterprises.

The Cycle of Capital

Postcapitalism is a society beyond capital. By capital, I mean a process whereby societal evolution is driven by the competition for profit and growth between enterprises operating within a “grow or die” environment. Capital is an automatic cycle blind to human and ecological needs, in which the structure of human activity is determined by narrow economic performance, price competition, the commodification of labour power, and a positive feedback loop of profit-investment-profit.

For a diagram illustrating the cycle of capital in a single capitalist enterprise, see Figure 1⁴. The enterprise is described schematically and dynamically in accounting terms, going counter-clockwise. In Figure 1, we see that Retained Earnings and Credit are Invested into the Production Process in order to generate Sales and make Revenue. This requires Purchases, recorded as Cost. Costs include Non-Labour Costs (such as raw materials and fixed inputs) and Labour Costs, where the Worker Income for an individual is equal to their recorded Labour Cost. The difference between Revenue and Cost makes Profit, which is split between (i) Dividends as Capitalist Income (e.g. shareholders) and (ii) Re-Investment into the Production Process, aiming to increase Sales while reducing Purchases and hence make greater Profit and take greater Market Share. This cycle continues inexorably.

Figure 1 – The cycle of capital in a single enterprise.

To achieve postcapitalism, we must transcend capital. That means ending the cycle of capital and organising society on a different basis. We can disrupt the cycle of capital by “cutting the loop”, so that the cycle cannot complete itself. Since, as we can see in Figure 1, capital is a process with many branches, we can cut the loop in several places. To fully overcome capital, it has to be cut in three places, as indicated in Figure 2. The first cut relates to investment, the second cut relates to capitalist income, and the third cut relates to worker income.

Figure 2 – Cutting the loop: how to disrupt the cycle of capital within an enterprise.

However, as shown in Figure 3, in the half-capitalism of labour-managed firms, the cycle is really only cut in one place, namely in the Dividends to the Capitalist. Profits are still retained by the enterprise, Investment is still made on the basis of narrow economic performance (profitability and growth), the Production Process still aims to make the greatest Revenue for the least Cost. But instead of Dividends going to a traditional capitalist such as a board of directors, senior executives, or non-working shareholders, they go to all the workers in the enterprise. Effectively, the traditional capitalist has been replaced by a worker-collective capitalist.

This is indeed one important step away from capitalism and towards postcapitalism. But it is only one step and, therefore, the half-capitalism of labour-managed firms is riddled with most of the same innate problems of full-capitalism which will lead it either to press forward to postcapitalism or to relapse into full-capitalism.

Figure 3 – The half-capitalism of the labour-managed firm, single-enterprise view.

Exploring Figure 1 fully is beyond the scope of this article, but it will help us gain insight into the issue of worker income. The problem is that worker income is paid by the individual enterprise, either as a cost of production or as a residual in the form of dividends. For our purposes, these are functionally equivalent. Firstly, the worker’s income is dependent on the success or failure of that particular enterprise. If the enterprise is more (less) profitable, their income will be higher (lower). This means that the very livelihood of the worker is tied to the economic performance of the enterprise they happen to work in. As such, the cycle of capital is internalized psychologically by the worker, so that the distinctive interests of the enterprise become their interests. In the context of market society, that means beating the competition and gaining market power by expanding revenues while driving down costs. It also means that substantial income inequalities are entrenched in the social operating system. Since worker income is tied to the income statement of the enterprise, workers at enterprises with big profits will have big salaries and workers at enterprises with small profits will have small salaries. Think about a law firm versus a cleaning cooperative. It also means that inequality within the enterprise will be structurally incentivized, since the long-term dominant strategy to maintain intra-enterprise incomes overall will be to prioritise inter-enterprise competition by implementing a profit-focused hierarchical division of labour and attracting talent and skills through monetary incentives. While there is no minority non-working capital-owning class, the half-capitalism of labour-managed firms functions very similarly to capitalism because it shares so many key characteristics.

Communal Income

So, what is the socialist alternative? In Figure 4, we see a sketch of a cycle of production beyond capital. Looking at worker income in particular, we see that worker income is not paid out of profits as dividends nor does it appear on the income statement as a cost (namely, labour cost). Rather, the income workers receive is determined by an independent process. In terms of governance, incomes are decided politically by the commune (giving the name “Communal Income”); in accounting terms, worker income appears on the books of the commune rather than the enterprise. This reflects the fact that each enterprise is communal property and that citizen-workers are stewarding them as agents of the commune and “society as a whole”. Therefore, the livelihood of each worker is decoupled from the economic performance of their particular enterprise. Rather, for those able to work it is guaranteed as acknowledgement of their participation in the social labour process⁵. In socialism, nobody receives income for owning property. Instead, people only receive income according to need or for working.

Figure 4 – The communal cycle of reproduction within a single enterprise in socialism.

The enterprise will record labour costs along with non-labour costs, but these labour costs will be distinct from worker income. So strong is our assumption that labour cost is the same as worker income that we struggle to understand that they are different things. This assumption is due to our indoctrination into capitalism. The confusion arises because labour is the only factor of production which is alive and self-conscious, in contrast to raw materials and machines. Thus, in capitalism, the payment by the capitalist of the cost of this factor of production also happens to be payment to a conscious, living, creature in the form of income⁶. But there is no law of nature which stipulates that the income a worker receives must equal the cost of their labour recorded by the enterprise. Rather, it is a historically specific arrangement which is definitive of capitalism and which we can change by design. In a market system, workers must market themselves as factors of production. In a socialist system, workers need only act as citizens.

So, labour cost and worker income might end up being the same number (e.g. €50,000) but the point is that in principle they can differ and that worker income is decided and paid by the commune. Therefore, in principle, labour costs can vary significantly while worker incomes are equal. For example, the worker could receive the standard income of €30/hour while society charges the enterprise €60/hour for their labour⁷. Equality of incomes is vastly easier to achieve when workers are paid by the commune rather than a variety of individual enterprises. That is, replacing Private Income with Communal Income is a necessary precondition to replace Inequitable Income with Equitable Income. Institutional support for Equitable Income is crucial because highly – if not perfectly – equal incomes are crucial to the stability of socialism as a classless, fair, and autonomously motivated society.

Communal Income is what is proposed in the classical formulation of PE, namely that worker income is allocated per head by democratic organs outside the enterprise, and then allocated internally to each enterprise worker, while the labour costs recorded by that enterprise are determined by the Annual Planning process according to the supply and demand of different categories of labour. Returning to the list of PE’s canonical features, I would include Communal Income within item 4 as follows:

1. Social ownership;
2. Democratic councils and confederations;
3. Participatory planning;
4. Communal Income & Equitable Remuneration
5. Balanced division of labour.

This acknowledges that PE includes more than a norm of pay equity but the deep institutional structure which enables it.

Because a worker’s livelihood is not tied to a single enterprise competing with others, workers do not need to internalize capitalist motives of competition and profit-seeking and can instead bring their authentic selves and a holistic assessment of social and ecological wellbeing. Indeed, this provides environmental conditions to support optimal motivation, contrary to conventional belief that people will only work diligently and be responsive to customers if their livelihood is tied to the economic fortune of their particular enterprise. Self-Determination Theory⁸, the leading psychological theory of human motivation and wellbeing, shows us that optimal motivation is “autonomous motivation” (a combination of intrinsic motivation and well-internalized extrinsic motivation) which is supported when our three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied⁹. By making people instruments of capital, so that the salient motive for action is the competitive pressure of profitability and market share, we will most likely gravely undermine the autonomous motivation which socialism requires and entrench a regime of controlled motivation by which people act mainly for narrow egoistic reasons and demonstrate less initiative, persistence, and creativity.

This criticism also applies to proposals in PE to link worker income to the “SB/SC ratio”¹⁰, or the ratio of sales revenues to money costs (effectively the “profit” margin). The viewpoint of this author is that the linkage between worker income and the narrow economic performance of the enterprise is a mistake for motivational reasons and that socialists should be wary of incorporating market logic into democratically planned economies.

The contraction, maintenance, or growth of the enterprise will be determined by the social regulation of investment, which is beyond the scope of this article. However, I note that this process should be organised through the commune, involving the appropriate stakeholders and using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)¹¹. That MCDA process can include economic metrics such as sales revenues, monetary costs, and “profits”, along with many other social and ecological indicators. In this way, if an enterprise consistently underperforms without sufficient extenuating circumstances, it can be shrunk and even closed down so that social resources can be better used elsewhere. However, that will be a conscious choice made by citizens of the commune according to the specific circumstances of the enterprise assessed using holistic criteria. In this way, workers do not need to be psycho-socially locked to the cycle of capital to ensure a healthy reproduction and evolution of the economy. The performance of the enterprise and the livelihood of the worker can be decoupled.

Conclusion

Contrary to the Market Socialist status quo, Communal Income is fundamental to achieving a genuinely socialist society. By decoupling worker income from the economic performance of individual enterprises and ensuring it is determined through democratic, communal processes, we can disrupt the cycle of capital and overcome problems endemic to market society. Unlike Private Income, which ties worker livelihood directly to the economic success of individual enterprises, Communal Income ensures that remuneration is determined through democratic processes at the communal level. This approach not only enables a more equitable distribution of income but also fosters a psychological sense of collective responsibility and ownership among workers, positioning them as stewards of communal property rather than competitors in a market-driven environment. This shift can lead to a more cooperative and less hierarchical workplace, where the focus is on fulfilling social needs and ecological regeneration rather than maximising profits. By decoupling income from enterprise performance, we can stop the psychological internalisation of capitalistic motives, such as competition and profit maximisation.

Whether one endorses the Participatory Economy as the correct vision for postcapitalism, the Left should give greater attention to the issues highlighted in this article. We should closely examine the governance and accounting of income received for formal work and recognise that Communal Income is an option and indeed an alternative to both Private Income and State Income.

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1. While this article centres on a core feature of the Participatory Economy, it will also offer views on capitalism and postcapitalism more broadly which are those of Ferdia O’Driscoll and not necessarily that of the Participatory Economy Project. See https://brightagebeyond.com/ for more of Ferdia’s work. ↩︎
2. In accounting, the income statement is the record of flows of money as revenues and costs and the net profit or loss. The balance sheet is the record of stocks (real and financial) as assets and liabilities and the net equity (a.k.a. net worth). In a capitalist firm, worker income (e.g. a customer-support agent’s wages) are recorded as identical to the cost of labour on the income statement. In a Participatory Economy, the labour cost is recorded on the income statement. However, the worker’s income is paid by an institution outside the enterprise – e.g. worker confederation or community council – as a cost in the Society Account. See more information on accounting in a Participatory Economy from Anders Sandström here: https://participatoryeconomy.org/project/an-accounting-system-for-a-participatory-economy ↩︎
3. From Urbanisation to Cities (1995), Murray Bookchin. ↩︎
4. For brevity I have excluded a key diagram which depicts multiple enterprises competing within a shared market environment. There the key features constitutive of capital are Private Price-Setting and Commercial Secrecy. Private Price-Setting means that the individual enterprise has full discretion in setting the prices of goods/services. In the postcapitalist version, Private Price-Setting is replaced by Communal Price-Setting (e.g. in Participatory Economy’s Annual Planning Procedure) and Enterprise Transparency. ↩︎
5. I thank Thomas O’Brien and Donal O’Coisdealbha for this wording. See https://theclasslesssocietyinmotion.com/ for their upcoming book. ↩︎
6. Of course, speciesism reigns and non-human animals are routinely put to work in conditions of slavery (e.g. donkeys), not to mention outright slaughter. ↩︎
7. However, Communal Income does not necessitate that the worker income and labour cost differ. They could be the same, either in some instances or in general. An example of the latter would be a labour time accounting system where the labour cost of each worker is recorded as 1 hour per hour worked and the income each worker receives is 1 hour per hour worked. The crucial point here is that the determination and distribution of income would occur through a communal process, and not through the private operations of individual enterprises. ↩︎
8. Self-Determination Theory (2018), Deci & Ryan. See the Center for Self-Determination Theory website: https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/ ↩︎
9. I will write an introduction to Self-Determination Theory another time. For now the following will suffice. Intrinsic motivation means the person finds the task inherently interesting and enjoyable. Extrinsic motivation means the person is motivated due to consequences separable from the task itself. The quality of extrinsic motivation varies substantially according to how well the person internalises it (external, introjected, identified, integrated), that is how much they truly take it within themselves and enact it autonomously. SDT defines two antagonistic modes of motivation: autonomous motivation and controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation is associated with diverse psychological health outcomes, including life satisfaction and performance. Controlled motivation is associated with psychological ill-health. Satisfaction of all three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, is required for healthy development and functioning. Autonomy is willing and authentic endorsement and a sense of self-ownership (not isolation or independence); competence is efficacy and the use and development of abilities; relatedness is giving and receiving volitional care. ↩︎
10. This is proposed as an option by Robin Hahnel in Democratic Economic Planning (2022), the most comprehensive text written on a Participatory Economy to date. The idea is that workers in each enterprise would receive a base rate of pay (e.g. €50 / hour) which would be modified upwards according to the Revenue/Cost ratio of their particular enterprise. So if the Revenue/Cost ratio were 1.2, workers in that enterprise would receive 20% more than base pay. This is proposed as a putative solution to some motivational problems in the workplace, for example a critic who asked why workers would produce satisfactory goods/services for customers in this system. However, I believe it is unnecessary and counterproductive because it is a salient, task-contigent reward which encourages workers to optimise sales growth and profitability to enhance their own income. At the very least it rests on problematic motivational assumptions which require further examination, assumptions which advocates of market society tend not to question. ↩︎
11. For an introduction to Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), see the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-criteria_decision_analysis. “Multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) or multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a sub-discipline of operations research that explicitly evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making (both in daily life and in settings such as business, government and medicine).” For a detailed exposition of various MCDA methods, see Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (2013) by Alessio Ishizaka and Philippe Nemery. ↩︎

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Ferdia O’Driscoll

Ferdia H. O’Driscoll is a futurist and host of After The Oligarchy, a political economy podcast and YouTube channel dedicated to exploring deep solutions to humanity’s problems. Ferdia is a founding member of the Democracy in Europe Movement’s (DiEM25) Post-Capitalism Collective and INDEP(International Network for Democratic Economic Planning). He trained as an electrical engineer and lives in Ireland.

 

‘Vance Profits, We Pay The Price’: Sunrise Movement Protests J.D. Vance Over Billionaire Influence and Calls on Kamala Harris to Take Climate Action

The youth-led group highlights Vance’s Big Oil ties and argues that Harris has an opportunity to win the youth vote through climate policy.

By Keerti Gopal

July 31, 2024

Source: Inside Climate News

Sunrise Movement activists rally to protest J.D. Vance’s ties to Big Oil outside his office in Washington on Monday. (Photo: Adah Crandall)

Activists from the youth-led Sunrise Movement descended on Sen. J.D. Vance’s Washington office on Monday, occupying the hallway and chanting “Vance is a liar, our planet is on fire,” while holding signs that read “Billionaires Own Vance.”

The group wants to bring public attention to the Republican vice presidential candidate’s wealthy donors and close financial ties to the oil and gas industry, and argues that Vance’s inconsistent policy positions are evidence that he answers to money, not voters.

“Trump is just another billionaire that he’s listening to,” said Denae Avila-Dickson, who helped organize Monday’s actions. “Our futures are not for sale.”

According to the group, the protest drew more than 100 Sunrise activists and lasted less than five minutes: Almost immediately, they were told to leave, and eight activists were arrested. The group then marched to the Democratic National Committee’s office, where they held a second rally urging Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, to prioritize a platform of climate and economic justice. 

The group’s climate demands for Harris include investment in clean energy infrastructure for public schools and affordable housing; ending fossil fuel subsidies and investigating oil and gas companies; expanding wind, solar and retrofit programs; and expanding green jobs through the American Climate Corps.

Vance and Harris’ offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Monday’s two actions highlight Sunrise’s current strategy for the presidential election. 

“We need to make it really clear that Trump is dangerous, and if he’s elected president, he’s going to do catastrophic and irreversible damage on our planet,” Avila-Dickson said. “But we also need Democrats to make it clear that they’re willing to invest in our futures and will take the action that we need to confront the climate crisis.”

‘A Record to Stand On’

For months, the Sunrise Movement—which helped mobilize a near-record turnout of youth voters to get President Joe Biden elected in 2020—has criticized the administration. The group pressed Biden to declare a climate emergency and negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, and joined calls for him to drop out of the race. 

After Biden dropped out, Sunrise wrote a letter to Harris, co-signed by Gen Z for Change, March for Our Lives and United We Dream Action, arguing that she has an opportunity to win the youth vote by differentiating herself from Biden policies the left has criticized, including approval of new oil and gas projects, limitations on asylum and continued funding for Israel. 

“This is your chance to energize young people and our communities to vote, mount one of the greatest political comebacks in decades, and deliver a resounding defeat to the far-right agenda of Trump and Vance,” the letter read.

According to an Axios poll from last week, Harris has a 20-point lead over Trump with young voters ages 18 to 34, compared with Biden’s previous six-point lead.

Among those arrested on Monday was Sunrise Movement’s executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay. (Photo: Artivista Karlin)

Sunrise’s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, said she’s seen an uptick of enthusiasm among young people who see Harris as more capable of defeating Trump, which Shiney-Ajay called a “prerequisite” for meaningful climate action. She added that she believes Harris might be more moveable than Biden.

“Harris’ willingness to take on the corruption of the fossil fuel industry is exciting for me,” Shiney-Ajay said, referencing Harris’ prosecution of some polluters in California. “I also think that there’s been some willingness to distinguish herself from the administration’s position on Gaza.”Sunrise has not officially endorsed Harris—Shiney-Ajay said it’s not off the table but would require a comprehensive voting process that includes the organization’s more than 100 hubs across the country. Still, the group is committed to turning out young voters against Trump. Notably, Sunrise did not endorse Biden in 2020 and is still credited as a major player in turning out the youth vote, which leaped to 50 percent from 39 percent in 2016.

Sunrise has praised some Biden administration actions, like the Inflation Reduction Act, the creation of the American Climate Corps and the pause on liquified natural gas terminal approvals. It’s criticized other decisions, including approval of the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska and expanded oil and gas drilling permits elsewhere.

Shiney-Ajay said that Harris “has a record to stand on” when it comes to climate, citing her prosecution of oil companies and moves against fracking in California. Sunrise also praised Harris’ critiques of Trump’s ties to the oil industry last week, calling for her to build on that narrative and expand Biden’s climate legacy.

But it’s not clear yet how much Harris would push the envelope on climate action. Despite her commitment to banning fracking in the 2019 primary, her campaign reportedly said this week that she would not support a fracking ban as president.

‘Bought out by Big Oil’

Vance’s inconsistency on climate change has been widely reported: In 2020, he spoke about the “climate problem” and said that gas would not lead to a clean energy future. But according to OpenSecrets, his 2022 Senate campaign received $283,000 from the oil and gas industry, placing him in the top 20 in Congress for oil and gas contributions. Vance subsequently questioned human involvement in climate change and has advocated for fossil fuel industry-friendly initiatives like tax credits for gas- and diesel-powered vehicles.

“He is someone that has been bought out by Big Oil,” said 18-year-old Sunrise campaign organizer Ariela Lara, who participated in Monday’s actions. “He has really flip-flopped on climate and doesn’t believe really in anything that he is saying, and just wants power, and we want to make that visible to the public.”

An ABC News poll from Sunday found that Vance has an unfavorability rating of 39 percent, up 8 points since last week.

Avila-Dickson also pointed out that Vance, prior to joining his ticket, reportedly likened Trump to Hitler and publicly said he would never support him.

Vance, a former venture capitalist, is known for having many wealthy supporters. His 2020 Senate run was backed by billionaires, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who reportedly contributed to Vance’s change of tune about Trump.

Eighteen-year-old Sunrise activist Simon Aron, who was arrested Monday morning at Vance’s office, said he was motivated by fear and anger after years of watching his community in California threatened by wildfires.

“I have dealt with wildfires my entire life,” Aron said. “As my people are suffering, J.D. Vance is ignoring us and taking so much money from Big Oil billionaires, and it makes me angry.”

Banning Sadako Won’t Keep Kids Safe From Nuclear War

By Rivera Sun

July 31, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Statue of Sadako Sasaki



Every child has that book. The one that breaks your heart wide open. Bridge To Terabithia. The Velveteen Rabbit. Charlotte’s Web. The Hate U Give.

For me, it was Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, it tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima as a toddler, but later died of leukemia, or as it was called at the time ‘atom bomb disease’. Drawing from a traditional belief in Japan, she starts to fold 1,000 origami cranes in hopes that her wish for survival will be granted. When she does not succeed, her friends and family finish making the paper cranes after her death.

As a young reader, this was the story that broke my heart and taught me that not all stories have a happy ending. The good guys (or girls) don’t always win. It presented a view of WWII that no other movie or book offered. It didn’t glorify the mushroom cloud or show the shocking horror of an obliterated city. No, Sadako’s story simply showed the reality of war from the eyes of a child.

It turned me into a lifelong peace activist. Perhaps that’s why Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is banned in Florida.

More than 100 books have been banned or put under review by school and public libraries in Florida. The titles include classics like The Bluest Eye and Beloved by Toni Morrison, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr., and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The list has a decidedly anti-diversity slant, overwhelmingly trying to eliminate stories about racial justice, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Rights, women’s rights, transgender health, queer love, migrants, horrors of war, and refugees, and so forth.

Each one removes another piece of history, reality, and humanity from the shelf. But children need these stories. And we need the next generation of adults to know them.

These books aren’t just introducing children to tough topics. In many cases, they’re also affirming the realities these children already live. Migrant and refugee children deserve to have their experiences acknowledged just as much as Anne of Green Gables. Queer, trans, gay, and lesbian children deserve to have their sexualities affirmed just as much as Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Black and Brown readers deserve to see heroes of color as powerful and compelling as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

Young people are surviving gun violence, school shootings, poverty, migration, war, climate disaster, and other dangerous realities. These children aren’t sheltered by the exclusion of their stories. They are abandoned twice over as we render them unseen and unacknowledged.

When we ban books, we do not protect any of our children, no matter their life experiences. Ignorance won’t keep anyone safe, not in the short or long term. Many of the groups and individuals behind the Florida book bans seem to be suppressing history in order to control the future. But when you remove the narratives of resistance and diversity, what is left is the same violent, militarized, racist, sexist, discriminatory, and exploitative world that got us into this mess in the first place.

What remains in the gutted wreckage of literature left behind by these book bans is the same worldview that killed Sadako Sasaki and thousands more like her; the world that murdered Black children like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice; the world that has gunned down hundreds of schoolchildren in mass shootings; the world that separates thousands of children from their parents as they cross borders hoping for safety; the world that beat and bullied transgender teen Nex Benedict until they committed suicide; the world that has threatened the existence of all future generations through ecological collapse.

The banned books list isn’t about protecting children. It’s about protecting this empire of abuse.

And worse, the book bans target stories of resistance that could help young people change the injustices they face. Here are a few other books on the banned list: The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country, by Amanda Gorman; The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas; Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, by Robbie Robertson; Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, by Ari Folman; Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi.

Books like these give young readers courage to rise up for a better world. I know this personally … 30 years after reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes as a schoolchild, I folded thousands of paper cranes to protest nuclear weapons at the birthplace of the bomb: Los Alamos.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was asked to help organize a protest at Los Alamos. Hundreds of people gathered at this remote spot in the high desert of New Mexico.

The rally took place at Ashley Pond – the eerily bucolic city park where the original laboratory stood – and 70,000 paper cranes fluttered from the rafters of the bandstand. They had been folded by people around the world as a message of peace and disarmament from Japan, Bolivia, Mexico, Greece, France, Iran, and beyond.

Since the publication of Sadako’s story, the paper cranes have become an international symbol of humanity’s desire for a world without nuclear weapons. It was a profound sight to see these cranes hung at the exact location where Sadako’s death was engineered.

If Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is removed from library shelves, there will be more atomic bombings and more children like Sadako. Put the book back on the shelf. Let it break our children’s hearts, our hearts. Then let us work across the generations to make sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and all the other injustices of our world – never happen again.

Shawn Fain for VP!

By Stephen R. Shalom, Michael Albert 

July 26, 2024

Source: New Politics





In the short term, we are often caught between our dreams and realism. But there is a chance right now to offer a suggestion for the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential pick that would be both inspiring and eminently practical, namely, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers.

Everyone understands that the Democrat’s presidential hopes depend on winning back the white working class. Sanders and others are certainly right that this requires an emphasis on the parts of the Democratic platform that work to reduce the huge inequalities that plague our country. It also requires, however, a vice-presidential candidate that can convince voters that Democratic promises will not be ignored after the election. Political insiders understand this and that’s why they are looking for a candidate who might appeal to these voters. But each of the names being bandied about as part of the “short list” in fact has serious handicaps.

Josh Shapiro is the governor of Pennsylvania. In the words of the New York Times “The Morning Briefing,” “perhaps Shapiro’s biggest downside is that he could inflame divisions between moderate and liberal Democrats over the war in Gaza.” Senator Mark Kelly would, if he won, “trigger a special election in Arizona in 2026, potentially costing Democrats a Senate seat.” Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer says she doesn’t want the job. Andy Beshear from Kentucky doesn’t offer the Democrats an extra state in the win column. And Gov. Cooper of North Carolina has the problem that every time he leaves the state to campaign, his lieutenant governor, a very conservative Republican who is running for governor, becomes the acting governor.

Shawn Fain would electrify working class voters. He would thrill volunteers. He would be able to draw a sharp contrast between the fascistic faux populism of Trump and Vance and real pro-labor policies. As the leader of the historic UAW strike victories last year, there is no mistaking which side he is on. He has called for a general strike in 2028. And in May, he declared:

“The UAW will never support the mass arrest or intimidation of those exercising their right to protest, strike, or speak out against injustice. Our union has been calling for a ceasefire for six months. This war is wrong, and this response against students and academic workers, many of them UAW members, is wrong. We call on the powers that be to release the students and employees who have been arrested, and if you can’t take the outcry, stop supporting this war.”

But yet, Fain and the UAW endorsed Biden. Biden walked on their picket line. (In 2019, so did Harris.) So he is not so far beyond the pale that his selection would be inappropriate on a Democratic Party ticket. And when Donald Trump at the Republican convention called for Fain’s firing, he placed the union head in the national spotlight. Think of how Fain’s comments on Trump would resonate on the campaign trail:

“Donald Trump is a scab. Donald Trump is a billionaire and that is who he represents. If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member, he would be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker.”

Executive experience? He has run an organization of more than 400,000 members. Foreign policy experience? He doesn’t have much – but only Kelly on the list above does – and he’s been involved in trade issues, recently named to Biden’s Export Policy Council. Speaking ability? As Axios commented, “Fain speaks with the cadence and tone of an old-school preacher, calling on the world to embrace the UAW’s ‘righteous’ cause, referencing biblical heroes like Moses, and telling people to ‘stand up’ for justice.”

Shawn Fain is an outside-the-box choice. A few other commentators have mentioned him as a possibility. He ought to be on everyone’s short list.

And he ought to be the next vice president of the United States.

Stephen R. Shalom

Stephen R. Shalom (born September 8, 1948) is professor emeritus of political science at William Paterson University in NJ. Among other topics, he writes about U.S. foreign policy and political vision. He is on the editorial board of New Politics and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Real Utopia network.

In US, Netanyahu Spoke of “Democracy” But Offers Indefinite Apartheid

Palestinian activist Issa Amro says that without American support, Israel couldn’t sustain its occupation.

By Mike Ludwig

July 28, 2024
Source: TruthOut



Part of the Series: Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

Speaking before a joint session of Congress this week in an attempt to justify the mass destruction and death wrought by Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preached about his country’s “powerful and vibrant democracy” to applause from an audience dominated by Republicans as protests raged outside the Capitol.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist living under Israeli occupation in Hebron in the West Bank, said Americans should not be fooled. Military occupation and democracy are contradictory, Amro argued, and alleged war criminals such as Netanyahu have no right to talk about “democracy” when Palestinians living under illegal occupation face state-backed violence and displacement.

“For sure I live under Israeli apartheid and Israeli occupation and Israeli supremacy,” Amro told Truthout after the speech. “Netanyahu can’t talk about democracy when his government is occupying the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem and not allowing us to practice our own freedoms.”

Netanyahu’s words likely also rang hollow for thousands of Israelis who spent months before the war filling the streets in protest of anti-democratic judicial reforms by the prime minister’s far right governing coalition. The same extremist politicians are working with violent settlers to displace Palestinians on the West Bank and pushing to illegally annex the entire territory as they leverage the war on Gaza to reinforce occupation and apartheid across Palestine.

In his speech, Netanyahu slammed the International Criminal Court prosecutor seeking to arrest both him and his defense minister for war crimes and denied the allegations, which include intentionally targeting civilians in Gaza and using starvation as a weapon of war. (Three Hamas officials, including leader Yahya Sinwar, are also charged with war crimes for their role in the October 7 attacks.)

However, Netanyahu said little about the recent landmark opinion from the International Court of Justice in a separate case that declared Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestine to be illegal under international law.

In its historic ruling, the World Court found Israel responsible for enforcing illegal apartheid conditions in occupied Palestine that human rights groups and activists such as Amro have documented for decades. Palestinian journalist and Truthout contributor Michel Moushabeck recently summarized the situation:


Over the past 57 years, successive Israeli governments have brutally terrorized Palestinians, demolished homes, confiscated large tracts of Palestinian lands, expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank — considered illegal under international law — and added many new ones that effectively rendered the “two-state solution” impossible. Now West Bank settlers number more than 700,000; they are heavily armed and are constantly terrorizing Palestinian residents in neighboring villages in an effort to force them to leave, as described in a report by Amnesty International.

In a statement, Israel’s foreign ministry wrote that the court was “fundamentally wrong” and that the opinion “is completely detached from the reality of the Middle East.” It also noted that the opinion was an advisory one, and thus not legally binding. Israel has long denied that its system of occupation and segregation amounts to apartheid.

But Amro said he lives under apartheid every day. As a Palestinian, Amro does not have the same rights as Israeli citizens, including those living in the Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian territory that are considered illegal under international law.

To move about the West Bank, he must pass through security checkpoints and suffer invasive searches by military police while Israeli citizens drive along segregated roads on their way to gated communities. Settler violence and military raids routinely displace Palestinians from their homes and neighborhoods, which are often demolished so residents cannot return. Peace Now, a group that monitors displacement on the West Bank, reports that Israel has confiscated more Palestinian land in 2024 than any year in the past two decades.

Amro says Israel’s strategy is to make life so miserable that Palestinians leave their homeland and join the international diaspora, making way for more Jewish-only settlements.

Even as U.S. weapons sustain the occupation of Palestine, the West Bank remains a source of tensions between Israel and the Biden administration, which has placed financial sanctions on violent settler leaders and restored a policy that declares Jewish-only settlements to be “illegitimate” under international law. It’s no surprise that Netanyahu kept the focus on Gaza during his speech before Congress and meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this week.

“Without American support, Israel would not be able to sustain the occupation and apartheid for that long,” Amro said.

For months, Netanyahu has been under fire abroad and at home for failing to outline a plan for Gaza after the war and for allegedly prolonging the conflict in order to appease the far right parties keeping him in power — and potentially out of jail.

In his speech before Congress, Netanyahu laid out a vision for “total victory” over Hamas, one in which Israel effectively maintains a military occupation with no end in sight, a goal that critics say is both impossible and antithetical to the “two-state solution” favored by the Biden administration.

Netanyahu has said that Israel would not attempt to “settle” Gaza after the war. In other words, his plan would not see Jewish settlers attempting to colonize Gaza as they have in the past. But members of the settler movement supported by Netanyahu’s extremist allies have declared their intention to do just that. Netanyahu said the Israeli military must maintain “overriding security control” of Gaza until the remaining population “deradicalized” and “demilitarized,” an extremely vague goal that he suggested could take generations to achieve.

“Those twin words, demilitarization and deradicalization, those two concepts were applied to Germany and Japan after World War II, and that led to decades of peace, prosperity and security,” Netanyahu said.

It’s not the first time Netanyahu has compared Israel’s destruction of Gaza to World War II, even though it was Israel that originally forced Palestinians from their ancestral lands and into the Gaza refugee camps where resistance has brewed for decades. Experts say the comparison is simply an ahistorical excuse for brutality and genocide. Even Germany, a stalwart ally of Israel, has criticized Netanyahu’s postwar plans for Gaza as incompatible with international agreements and a path toward peace.

Netanyahu suggested Palestinians who agree not to attack Israel could set up a civilian administration to govern the Gaza after the war. However, much of infrastructure for life — homes, hospitals, schools, mosques and hospitals — has been destroyed by bombs made in the U.S., and the prime minister has refused to give the job to the Palestinian Authority, which partners with Israeli security forces to govern parts of the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority is controlled by Fatah, which is the main Palestinian political party along with Hamas.

Fatah recently put aside its bitter rivalry with Hamas and agreed to form a governing coalition for Palestine. The two parties have a fraught history but share the same goal of ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.

A senior Hamas official told Reuters Netanyahu’s speech makes clear that he is not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal in Gaza, despite his repeated assurances to the Biden administration that Israel is negotiating in good faith. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority leader President Mahmoud Abbas, said the “Palestinian people … are the only ones who decide who rule them.”

“Our permanent stance is that the only solution to achieve security and stability is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Rudeineh said.

Netanyahu’s coalition is broadly opposed to a Palestinian state and is instead using the war on Gaza to put as much territory under control of the Israeli military and outposts run by violent settlers as possible. For this reason and many others, some liberal Israelis urged congressional Democrats to boycott Netanyahu’s speech. About half of all Democrats skipped the speech, and progressives condemned Netanyahu’s leadership outright.

“In my view, his right-wing, extremist government should not receive another nickel of U.S. taxpayer support to continue the inhumane destruction of Gaza,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) in a statement ahead of Netanyahu’s speech.

Last week, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against Palestinian statehood, further frustrating Democrats who support Israel but also back a “two-state solution.” Yet the Democrats in the Biden administration have not threatened to withhold weapons and aid to Israel in order to pressure Netanyahu toward a ceasefire, at least publicly. In early July, White House officials told reporters that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was within reach. But three weeks later, on July 25, White House spokesman Admiral John Kirby said ceasefire negotiations were ongoing as Netanyahu met with Biden and Harris at the White House.

“There’s still more work to be done, we believe that we are closer now than we have been before, and we think it’s absolutely achievable for getting things over the finish line,” Kirby told skeptical reporters.

Biden and Harris want a ceasefire and hostage swap long before U.S. voters head to the polls in November, when Harris hopes to be the Democratic presidential nominee now that Biden has stepped aside. Despite months of frenzied negotiations and multiple overseas tours by U.S. diplomats, Kirby said both Israel and Hamas still need to soften their positions and compromise.

“It’s time to end the war,” Kirby said.

This came just a day after Netanyahu stood in front of the U.S. Congress and repeated his maximalist demands for “total victory” and an indefinite military occupation of Gaza, terms which Hamas has said for months it cannot accept. Whether a ceasefire can be achieved under Netanyahu’s leadership remains to be seen, but history shows that his coalition has only pushed Israel further to the right.

The High Cost of Protectionism: AI Edition

By Dean Baker

July 28, 2024

Source: CEPR



Economists go on endless diatribes against tariffs and quotas as costly policies that raise prices to consumers and slow economic growth. There is considerable truth to this story, even if economists and politicians often exaggerate their case to push favored policies. While virtually all economists will go to their graves touting the evils of protectionism they almost all ignore the most costly forms of protectionism: government-granted patent and copyright monopolies.

Most tariffs raise the price of the protected items by somewhere in the range of 10-25 percent. By contrast, patent and copyright monopolies often raise the price of protected items by 1000 percent, or even 10,000 percent. Many high-priced drugs that enjoy patent monopolies or related protections can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Their generic versions might sell for $30 or $40 a prescription.

There is a similar story for copyrights. Items that could be transferred at near zero cost over the Internet can instead sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. This is most evidence with costly software, but also true for recorded music and video material, video games, and a variety of other material subject to copyright protections.

There is a clear rationale for patent and copyright monopolies, these monopolies provide an incentive for innovation and creative work. But every type of protectionism has a rationale, having a rationale doesn’t prevent a trade tariff or quota from being a protectionist policy.

The point here is that these government-granted monopolies are huge interventions in the market. They arguably are justified, but it is close to nuts to just assert they are the free market. (Alternative mechanisms are discussed here and in chapter 5 of Rigged [it’s free]).

It is understandable that people on the right, who generally support policies that redistribute income upward, would try to hide patent and copyright monopolies as just the natural working of the market. It is absolutely mindboggling that many on the left also perpetuate this blatant misrepresentation of reality.

Anyhow, let’s get the playing field set. Granting these monopolies is a choice by governments, they can set different policies. In the case of AI, the New York Times reports that it seems as though China is rapidly catching up, and possibly even taking the lead, by pursuing open-source policies rather than relying on patents, copyrights, and related protection.

The idea of open-source with reference to AI is that all the coding is freely available to anyone to review and build upon. It is understandable that this could be a more effective way to advance the technology since breakthroughs could quickly be built upon by others working in the same area. Also, researchers could learn from failures as well and avoid pursuing similar dead-ends. (This would be a great approach to drug or vaccine development.)

The other obvious development is that the finished product is very cheap. The developer may look to recover costs by charging servicing fees and/or relying on direct government support. Either way, end users will not be prevented from being able to take advantage of a useful product by its high price.

Anyhow, given all the hype in the business world around AI it would certainly be ironic if Chinese firms surged past their leading U.S. competitors because they relied on an open-source process whereas our firms relied on old-fashioned protectionism. Who knows, maybe even the “free trader” economists would notice one day.


Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. Dean previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, and the OECD's Trade Union Advisory Council.

FTC Chair Lina Khan Isn’t Scared of Billionaire Bullies

Billionaire donors are pressuring Kamala Harris to fire Lina Khan, whose term as FTC chair has seen aggressive antitrust actions against tech giants. 

David Sirota interviewed Khan about her anti-monopoly agenda and the corporate efforts to shut it down.

By Lina Khan, David Sirota

July 28, 2024

Source: The Lever





Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, billionaire tech tycoon and Democratic donor Reed Hoffman called on Vice President Kamala Harris, if she becomes president, to oust Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, who’s taken an aggressive approach to enforcing antitrust laws — and is currently scrutinizing a merger involving two of Hoffman’s companies. On Friday, another media tycoon called Khan “a dope.” Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Harris herself has remained silent on the issue.

What does Khan think about all this? And what would an administrative shake-up — by way of former President Donald Trump’s reelection or Harris’ potential staffing changes — mean for antitrust enforcement, consumer protection, and monopoly power in the United States? The Lever’s founder and editor-in-chief David Sirota spoke with Khan to learn her thoughts.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

DAVID SIROTA: What are things that you haven’t been able to do yet that you want to do?

LINA KHAN: We have a whole set of work underway that we need to see through. We proposed a rule to ban junk fees that we got 60,000 comments on. We’re reviewing those, and we’ll look to see how we can finalize that.

We proposed a rule that would require that companies make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one. We’ve seen all of these companies do these subscription traps where you can sign up with one click — and then to cancel, you have to phone somebody, but nobody ever picks up so you have to send an mail. And that really adds up for people, right? Hundreds of dollars a month stuck in subscriptions they want to escape.

We have proposed and we have finalized a rule to ban noncompete clauses that’s now being litigated, and we’re gonna see that litigation through because we think it’s critical that American workers have freedom and are not trapped in jobs through these coercive contracts.

So that’s just some of the work on the rulemaking front. We have a whole bunch of cases underway right now against Amazon for illegal monopolization and against this firm for doing an illegal roll-up of anesthesiology practices in Texas.

We’ve shared publicly that we’re scrutinizing pharmacy benefit managers; we worry they may be inflating drug costs for Americans and squeezing independent pharmacies. So that’s all work underway that we’re excited to see through.

Follow us on Apple News and Google News to make sure you see our stories first and to help make sure others see our breaking news as well.

SIROTA: How much of that work can be unwound if the administration changes? We’ve been trying to talk about the stakes of all that.

KHAN: So once the rulemakings are final, you have to go through a process if you actually want to undo it that can be challenged in court as well. Cases, in theory, could be yanked from the courts. But historically, cases have continued across administrations. Of course, if somebody comes in wanting to tear it all down and undo all the protections we’ve gotten for working people, there are ways to do that.

SIROTA: What do you make of the Reid Hoffman comment about how you gotta go in the next administration?

KHAN: I mean, look, the FTC is focused on delivering for working people and standing up for them against corporate abuse. We think that’s good for our country, that’s good for our economy. And it makes sure people feel free rather than bullied in the marketplace. So I think that’s work that everybody should be able to get behind. Unless you’re one of the monopolies or abusive corporations.

SIROTA: JD Vance has said nice things about you — do you think the election is necessarily a pivot point for the FTC? Or in the sense of the old paradigm of if the Republicans get in, they’ll just sort of not want to do anything? Has that changed in your mind?

KHAN: There’s no doubt that there is deep bipartisan agreement that when you allow illegal monopolies to run amok, that hurts working people. And if you want to protect working people from corporate abuse, you need to have an aggressive and assertive FTC.

You know, I’ve had the privilege of testifying before Congress a few times. And each time, I’m just struck by how there is deep bipartisan concern about how unfair methods of competition and these coercive practices can really hurt people. It means that they’re paying more, earning less, entrepreneurs have less of an opportunity to compete on a level playing field, and our economy and democracy are weaker because of that. So we’re just focused on continuing our work.

We’re building a reader-supported investigative news outlet that holds accountable the people and corporations manipulating the levers of power. Can you spare a few dollars to help?

SIROTA: One last quick question. Are you ever surprised or did you always expect to get the pushback?

KHAN: Look, the FTC has embedded within it a mandate to fight illegal monopolies. We’ve long known that monopolies not only have economic power, but use that power to buy political power. That was one of the reasons that the lawmakers passed the antitrust laws and our founders were deeply concerned that unlawful economic power can corrupt not just our economy, but also our democracy.

And so embedded within the FTC’s DNA is when it’s doing its job standing up for consumers, workers, and small businesses against corporate abuse, that’s going to trigger pushback.

SIROTA: Thanks so much.

KHAN: Thank you. Thanks for all your great work. Really appreciate it.

The Plutocrats are Overplaying Their Hand: How About Doing Something About It?

The growing power of the small group of far-right-American oligarchs is slowly grinding our democratic institutions into dust.

By Steven Day

July 28, 2024

Source: Common Dreams


When will big money’s corruption of democracy become so obnoxious people will find it intolerable?

Perhaps a couple of troubling “hypothetical” examples will do the trick. Let’s pretend, as absurd as it sounds, that an American citizen, the wealthiest person in the world, happens to also be a rabid conspiracy theorist and, frankly, a bit of a political nutcase. And let’s further hypothetically pretend this person decides that by throwing enough of his money around he, together with other far-right billionaires, can effectively turn America into a plutocrat’s Shangri-La.

Unfortunately, this Shangri-La will be run by an authoritarian leader who throws his political opponents into jail, reverses environmental regulations while all but embracing climate change, subverts the Constitution, makes the ridiculously wealthy even more ridiculously wealthy, finishes the job of stuffing the federal courts with ultra-right political hacks, and so much more. To accomplish this, he will join with other ultra-right billionaires in opening his checkbook to help propel former U.S. President Donald Trump back into the White House. He is doing this by way of his own pro-Trump PAC. (He now denies making a $45-million-a-month commitment).

The combination of power and money easily grows into greater power and greater money, and both can continue to grow until they become unbreakable.

Or how about when another group of wealthy individuals—admittedly less rich, less nutty, and less evil in a Lex Luthor sense—decide to publicly join together to put pressure on the incumbent Democratic president to get out of the race by withholding campaign contributions? Now, to be hypothetically fair to this hypothetical group, unlike the Lex Luthor wannabe, most of these folks’ hearts are largely in the right place. But, leaving aside whether asking President Joe Biden to withdraw was politically wise, does it bother anyone that they felt so free to try to dictate to the broader electorate who should run for president? Is that a privilege we really want to cede to the wealthy?

But if we don’t want either of these things, where’s the public outrage?

Do we as a nation really believe the fact someone inherits a fortune, or makes a fortune through stock manipulation, creates a hot new internet startup, makes popular movies, or even builds a fortune through wise business practices means that person is wiser and more knowledgeable than everyone else about… well, everything?

Think how much more power Elon Musk (the unnamed billionaire/Lex Luthor imitator mentioned above, of course) has to impact government policy on issues such as climate change, education policy, and economic policy and taxation than the most talented experts in these fields?

It is tempting to think Elon Musk’s motive in at least claiming to intend to invest substantial funds in politics is purely for the fun of making a splash. What’s a few hundred million dollars to a guy worth around $200 billion? His actual political spending probably works out to a lower percentage of his annual income than many people spend on golf or bowling. This sort of pure joy in projection of power could also explain why he overpaid $40 billion dollars for Twitter only to then destroy much of its value by turning it into a swamp increasingly filled with far-right lunatics. He gets to play the King of Twitter (yeah, I know, X), or if you prefer, mayor of Crazyville, leaving him free, whenever he pleases, to share his political nonsense with millions of readers. But, of course, there is almost certainly more at play in his political investments than fun and games. Follow the money, as they say. Donald Trump’s election would save Elon Musk billions of dollars through tax and regulation changes. It must also never be forgotten that much of Musk’s profits come from the federal government. What’s a few dollars in contributions compared to all that?

If we truly want to preserve democracy for the long-term this has to change. True, the immediate threat is Donald Trump, but even if he loses, American democracy is far from safe. The growing power of the small group of far-right-American oligarchs is slowly grinding our democratic institutions into dust. Money from these economic grandees, and their predecessors going back decades, has financed right-wing organizations, advocacy groups, political campaigns, media sources, think tanks, and more.

Their money built the Federalist Society, and with the help of Republican presidents and senators has also created the right-wing Supreme Court majority. This in turn led to the court’s constitutional sanctification of money in politics with Citizens United. Thanks to these wealthy conservatives’ money, and the court that money helped to buy, it is now constitutionally established that money in politics is speech, subject to protection under the First Amendment. Personal liberties of actual human beings haven’t always done that well before the court, but the power of money, in all its glory, always wins. To the court’s majority nothing smells as sweet as the stench of money in politics.

With only the fewest of exceptions, election to political office requires this money—and in increasingly large piles. And with economic inequality growing like pancreatic cancer, big money is increasingly concentrated in relatively few hands. Ambitious politicians know better than to get on the wrong side of this group of wealthy donors. Small donors are important, but support from those with substantial assets remains critical to most candidates for major office and increasingly for minor offices as well.

This is true for the left as well as the right. It’s hard not to think this has something to do with the fact liberalism in recent decades has been so closely associated with social, rather than economic, issues—abortion rights are very important and a major focus as opposed to union rights, also very important, but less of a focus. Democrats are, of course, much better than Republicans on union rights, and got even better under Biden, but economic inequality has continued to grow during Democratic as well as Republican administrations. And as this inequality grows stronger, democracy grows weaker. The combination of power and money easily grows into greater power and greater money, and both can continue to grow until they become unbreakable.

I wrote a novel a few years ago titled, The Patriot’s Grill. It was anything but a best seller, but its topic, a recounting of a future post-democratic America, is relevant here. One sentence in particular: “The truth is no one took freedom from us. In the end, we just gave it away.”

I guess that is the ultimate question. Are we prepared to work to save our democracy, first, by defeating Donald Trump, then, second, by struggling to build a fairer and with it more democratic nation, or in the end, will we end up just giving it away?

Steven Day practices law in Wichita, Kansas and is the author of The Patriot's Grill, a novel about a future America in which democracy no longer exists, but might still return.

Humanity Has Two Choices: Political Unification or Mass-Suicide

By Sovaida Maani Ewing

July 28, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.





The intensifying cascade of global crises including intractable wars, massive human rights atrocities, nuclear proliferation, climate change and environmental degradation, the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, recurring bouts of global financial instability, and the increasing risks of pandemics to name but a few, call to mind the warning sounded by Arnold Toynbee, one of the most highly-regarded authorities and foremost experts on international affairs and world history in the 20th century, that humanity would be faced with an existential crisis followed by his recommendation as to what we, the family of nations, should do in response.

Toynbee contended that in the atomic age, humanity would have to choose between political unification and mass-suicide. He believed the chief obstacle to political unification was a long-standing destructive habit of the West which he referred to as the habit of “divisive feeling” to which we tended to easily succumb as opposed to reaching for our more recently adopted habit of “world-mindedness.” The good news, he said, was that just as new habits could be adopted, old ones could also be modified or abandoned. He stressed that as a general rule we humans would opt to abandon even our most deeply rooted habits once it became clear that clinging to them would spell disaster.

He recommended that we replace our outworn habit of divisive feeling with a new habit of common action on a world-wide scale through the creation of some form of limited world-state that would be empowered to act in humanity’s collective interest in certain narrow fields of endeavor. Already, as far back as the 1970’s, he believed that the global community needed to engage in common action on a world-wide scale in at least two areas: to control atomic energy through a World Authority and to administer the production and distribution of food through another World Authority. Now, 50 years hence, we can confidently add climate change to this list.

Toynbee predicted that global circumstances we unwittingly created through our technological advancements would eventually force us to submit to a limited world government once we realized it was our only hope for salvation in the face of an existential threat. He believed we would wait until the 11th hour before making a radical shift to establish such a government even though we would do this kicking and screaming all the way.

He was very clear in recognizing our visceral fears about and knee-jerk reaction in opposition to a world government that might become a draconian centralized bureaucracy imposing its will on local governments around the world. He made the following compelling arguments to dispel these fears.

First, that a world government should be minimal and should be limited in its sphere of action. World leaders should therefore confine the authority of a world government they established only to that which was strictly necessary for their self-preservation right now.

Second, he stressed that in the atomic age, world government should come about voluntarily through the mutual consent and cooperation of world powers rather than by force. He warned that any attempt to impose political unity by force would be ineffective as it would only lead to stiff resistance and a resurgent nationalism as soon as an opportunity to revolt presented itself.

Third, the prerequisite for such an endeavor to succeed lay in the universal adoption of an ideology of world-mindedness that we had never achieved before.

Toynbee believed that the structure of a limited world state would likely be a federal one in which previously independent units would voluntarily come together in a global union. He argued that this was the most likely scenario given that states generally prefer to preserve their identity and retain their autonomy to act locally; they would likely be willing to cede some power to a world government only in limited areas in which it served their collective interests to do so.

Finally, he believed that humanity needed to forge some unity of thought as to what constituted right and wrong. In other words, it was necessary to adopt a shared set of moral values that would serve to harmonize the disparate social and cultural heritages that had evolved independently of each other over the course of human history. Without fundamental agreement on moral issues he argued, it would be difficult to achieve political unification.

Given the rapid disintegration of countries and societies around the world and the accelerating fragmentation and polarization that are rending apart the fabric of our global society, is it not time for us to step up and make the choice to collaborate, cooperate and deepen our integration as a global society? To this end is it not time we take a step in the direction of collective maturity by voluntarily consenting to political unification by forming a limited democratic federal world government? Imagine what we could achieve if we engaged in collective and consultative decision-making to meet the pressing needs and the greatest global challenges of our time as opposed to opting for what Toynbee coined the “Great Refusal” that would inevitably result in carnage and devastation on a scale never before seen.

~~~~~~~~~`

Sovaida Maani Ewing, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is an international lawyer, author and the founding director of the Center for Peace and Global Governance.