On Ward Churchill and Collectivism

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

Prior to September 2011, Ward Churchill was unremarkable and not well known outside of the typical tiresome Marxist academic circles. A University of Colorado professor at the time, Churchill’s claim to fame was a dubious claim to American Indian heritage which he could not prove. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Churchill wrote an infamous essay entitled “‘Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” which set off a firestorm of controversy by calling the victims who died in the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns.” Understandably, comparing innocent murder victims to Nazi war criminals did not sit well with Americans. While many are content to merely dismiss Churchill as a loon, it is important to understand his dubious reasoning and to see his errors in thinking.

Ward Churchill is a hardcore collectivist. He believes that human beings do not have individual metaphysical significance or value. They are only significant as part of a larger group. Given his Marxist leanings, this is not surprising. Given how prevalent collectivism is today in the guise of the two dominant mainstream American political movements of neoconservatism and neo-progressivism, it is instructive to consider some implications of collectivism. Given that the collectivist views collective society and not the individual human being as the basic unit of metaphysical analysis, collective guilt is a sensible concept. Under the individualist worldview, collective guilt is nonsensical. Nearly all of Churchill’s intellectual mistakes in his argument are based upon incoherent collectivist assertions.

Churchill begins by claiming that the United States was guilty of war crimes verging on attempted genocide against Iraqis in the Gulf War and beyond. Rather than debate this claim, assume that it is true. He then asserts: “[I]t was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had allowed—nay, empowered—their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name.” This is entirely untrue. Only those Germans who individually committed crimes against humanity were prosecuted at Nuremberg. The Allies made a concerted effort not to repeat the mistakes of World War I. West Germany was quickly brought back into the family of civilized nations, and the Allied occupation ended by 1952. All things considered, the United States allowed the Germans a quick and thorough redemption.

Churchill continues:

As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations [of an alleged American program of attempted genocide against the Iraqi people] with yawns. There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned with. Getting “Jeremy” and “Ellington” to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little “Tiffany” and “Ashley” had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And, to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays – for “our kids,” no less – as an all-absorbing point of political focus.

Let us again allow Churchill to have the strongest possible argument. Assume that the American people were aware that Iraqi civilians were dying in large numbers due to the military operations of the Gulf War and the crippling economic sanctions which followed. Ignore the obvious fact that for consistency, one would have to assign collective guilt to the Iraqi people for the war that their government started by invading Kuwait. There is every difference in the world between inappropriately cheering something on and actually doing it. Those in foreign nations who cheered on the 9/11 attacks were not responsible for carrying them out. This is also true of the American people if they did actually cheer on the violence and brutal sanctions against Iraq. Despite the fact that the United States is a democratic republic, its citizens still cannot be held morally responsible for the actions of their President and Congress. The United States does not have a direct democracy, and elections are not held often. Even if every American had voted for and approved the Gulf War and the sanctions against Iraq, this still would not make them morally culpable. If such a notion of collective political guilt were to be held, it would mean that when a politician commits a criminal offense involving corruption, each and every constituent would have to be sent to prison. In addition, crony capitalism, disrespect for the Constitution among elected federal officials, and a broken electoral process all make the American people more and more attenuated from the harm caused to the Iraqi people. Also, the fact that the government lied to the American people about Iraqi soldiers killing Kuwaiti babies in incubators and about Iraq preparing to invade Saudi Arabia indicates that the American people were not fully informed. The government and the corporatist mainstream media used propaganda that would have made Goebbels jealous in selling the war.

Churchill also suggests that capitalism is to blame for the crimes against humanity committed against Iraqis:

Property before people, it seems—or at least the equation of property to people—is a value by no means restricted to America's boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort zone “pacifists” queuing up to condemn the black block after it ever so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in Seattle.

While history has shown ad nauseum that free markets produce exponentially better economic outcomes for nations than the disastrous Marxist policies that Churchill favors, this is the one place where Churchill is not entirely off base. Corporatism involving the Military-Industrial Complex and war profiteers such as Halliburton does lead to the ginning up of unnecessary wars. The corporatist banking cartel of the Federal Reserve likewise encourages wars for its own ends.

Churchill’s next mistake is in his characterization of the 9/11 hijackers. He lionizes these murderers as brave warriors. He views them as “combatants” instead of terrorists. Given that the hijackers were predominantly Saudi, there is simply no way to characterize them as “combatants” connected with the Gulf War. The United States waged war against Iraq partly in defense of Saudi Arabia. Churchill’s claim is as ridiculous as Belgians claiming that they are waging war against the United States in response to Americans warring against Germany in WWII. To avoid this absurdity, he takes an even wider approach:

A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the “Christian West”—now proudly emblematized by the United States—against the “Islamic East” since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel’s dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered “Desert Shield” in 1990, or at any of several points in between.

Churchill’s collectivist worldview is even more inappropriate here. There are no individuals in this collectivist vision. Those who live in the “West” or “Islamic East” are not individual humans beings. Neither Christians nor Muslims are individuals. They simply exist in virtue of class membership. Apparently, based on this reasoning, all collectivized humans are engaged in countless wars based upon their race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Greeks and Iranians should still be killing each other as part of the ancient Greco-Persian Wars. And Parthonons and Fomorians should still be warring in Ireland.

Churchill’s most incendiary claim—the aforementioned “little Eichmanns” comment—is that there were no innocent victims on 9/11:

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved—and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance”—a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore”—counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in—and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.

In Churchill’s fevered brain, nobody is innocent. This collectivist belief provides a sickening justification for total war. It is also a double-edged sword. It means that innocent civilians—including children—in the Middle East are fair game in this war. A bloodthirsty neoconservative could use Churchill’s argument and claim that because the brave Islamic “combatants” attacked the United States on 9/11, this means that the United States has the right to strike back. Since young Muslim children will grow up to become militants who will hate the United States and may attempt to attack Americans, they are all fair game.

Ultimately, Ward Churchill’s hateful collectivism promotes endless cycles of bloody killing. One wonders with his cultural hyperopia if he is actually even able to physically see individual human beings.

(For a much more detailed critique of collectivism, read my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong available now on Amazon in both print and Kindle.)

Are Libertarians the New Communists?

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

Orange is the new black. Tropes are the new memes. And libertarianism is the new communism. What? Statists Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu have recently published a Bloomberg piece entitled “Libertarians Are the New Communists.” Hanauer is a venture capitalist and Liu is a former speechwriter in the Clinton White House. Given that both these individuals depend upon big government and corporatism to make their bones, it is no surprise that they would decry freedom.

Hanauer and Liu rightly claim that wherever communism was adopted, it has led to “misery, poverty and tyranny.” They then argue that if “extremist libertarians” ever came to power, the results would be the same. They refer to these “extremist libertarians” as “nihilist anti-state libertarians” who are allegedly aiming to shut down the state. They identify the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist, Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul as such libertarian nihilists.

Creating a straw man by relying upon a tortured interpretation of Ayn Rand’s objectivism and applying it to all libertarians, they claim that radical libertarianism “assumes that humans are wired only to be selfish.” They also argue that radical libertarianism “assumes that societies are efficient mechanisms requiring no rules or enforcers, when, in fact, they are fragile ecosystems prone to collapse and easily overwhelmed by free-riders.”

They further contend that not only would radical libertarianism be a disaster if it ever became the philosophy of the leaders of the federal government, but that radical libertarianism would in fact be impossible to apply to a functioning society. In their fevered imaginations, they see: “A President Paul [who] would rule by tantrum, shutting down the government in order to repeal laws already passed by Congress.” Of course, these unoriginal thinkers could not possibly write a hit piece on libertarianism without playing the Somalia card: “It is in failed states such as Somalia that libertarianism finds its fullest actual expression.”

Hanauer and Liu’s solution is uninspiring and unoriginally communitarian:

The alternative to this extremism is an evolving blend of freedom and cooperation. The relationship between social happiness and economic success can be plotted on a bell curve, and the sweet spot is away from the extremes of either pure liberty or pure communitarianism. That is where true citizenship and healthy capitalism are found.

True citizenship enables a society to thrive for precisely the reasons that communism and radical libertarianism cannot. It is based on a realistic conception of human nature that recognizes we must cooperate to be able compete at higher levels. True citizenship means changing policy to adapt to changes in circumstance. Sometimes government isn’t the answer. Other times it is.

Hanauer and Liu do say something correct about libertarianism. It is “the ideology that holds that individual liberty trumps all other values.” This is undeniably true because all other values are dependent on freedom. Unless one is an autonomous and has the ability to exercise natural rights to life, liberty, and property, then no other values can take root, let alone be enjoyed. Natural rights are possessed by human beings in virtue of their humanity. The government does not grant natural rights and may not take them away. To deny the existence and paramount nature of natural rights is to deny humanity itself.

Is it impossible for “extreme libertarianism” to be the governing philosophy of the nation? It certainly was not impossible for the first century of the existence of the Republic when by and large the federal government was a minarchist state—particularly when compared with the bloated warfare/welfare “communitarian” state so loved by corporatist statists like Hanauer and Liu. With minimal federal regulations, no welfare state, and no income tax, the United States grew from a weak agrarian former British colony into the world’s greatest economic power. How had libertarians such as Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe managed not to turn the United States into a failed state? There was hardly “misery, poverty, and tyranny.”

The radical libertarianism of the individuals named by the authors is a form of Constitutional minarchism. Those such as Ron Paul seek to shut down only the parts of government that are unconstitutional. This is akin to an oncologist treating a patient with cancer. Such a physician is anti-cancer cells, not anti-healthy cells. Not all libertarians are objectivists and most do not hold that psychological egoism is true. Statists such as Hanauer and Liu believe that the only kind of cooperation that is possible is collectivist “cooperation” at the barrel of a gun. Coerced cooperation is not cooperation at all. Coerced altruism is not altruism at all. The idea that libertarians do not believe in cooperation is the most disingenuous variety of straw man argument. Libertarians believe in the freedom to cooperate with those whom one chooses to associate. This is the very backbone of civil society. Libertarians accomplish things by forming businesses, PACs, nonprofit organizations, and all manner of informal cooperative and voluntary associations. Libertarians are anything but solitary dog-eat-dog Hobbesians or Social Darwinists. The kind of cooperation that Hanauer and Liu have in mind is no doubt phony forced cooperation—draconian taxation and regulation, corporatist wealth redistribution, Nanny State “nudging,” etc.

The notion of President Paul (whether Ron or Rand) ruling by tantrum is ridiculous. Unless, of course, “ruling by tantrum” is what the cool kids are calling ruling by the Constitution these days. President Paul would likely veto many unconstitutional or wasteful bills. It is also likely that President Paul would refuse to enforce some legislation passed by Congress. However, the President takes an oath to defend the Constitution. This oath is violated if he or she enforces unconstitutional legislation. Would Hanauer and Liu wish the President to enforce laws that brought back slavery or segregation? Laws that made homosexuality into a capital federal offense? Hopefully not, but perhaps if these racist and homophobic laws were for “the greater good.”

The old Somalia canard hardly deserves addressing. However, here goes. Somalia is anything but a libertarian state. The organization Freedom House ranks the Somali government as among the most repressive in the world. While perhaps it is a weak despotic government, it is despotic nevertheless. A minarchist libertarian government would be a limited government that safeguarded the natural rights to life, liberty, and property. It would be far closer to the early American government minus the racist scourge of statist slavery than it would to the government of Somalia.

What Hanauer and Liu fail to understand is that the communitarian “sweet spot” of which they fantasize is a pipe dream. If government is given an inch, it takes a million miles. The government they worship is the one which supported slavery, herded Japanese-Americans into concentration camps, experimented on African American men without their consent, and spies on each and every American citizen as if they are traitors and criminals. Ultimately, freedom wanes unless centralized government is chained down by the people using the Constitution. But the truth is that such statists do not fear the government. What they fear are the people. This is indicated by their disdain for the concept that “societies are efficient mechanisms requiring no rules or enforcers, when, in fact, they are fragile ecosystems prone to collapse and easily overwhelmed by free-riders.” They clearly must believe that human beings are evil and require a police state to rule them when in fact all evidence is to the contrary. They view others as “free riders” when it is the progressive corporatists and courtiers who are the true “free riders.” What they are suggesting is an Americanized version of fascism. 

NASA, the Collapse of Western Civilization, and the Free Market

by Gerard Emershaw

NASA may no longer be in the space shuttle business, but apparently it is in the dire prediction business. According to a recent NASA-funded study based upon a mathematical model, global industrial civilization may soon face a collapse “due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.” The study points out that many advanced civilizations in history have collapsed:

The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.

The study explains that five interrelated factors can be used to determine the risk of a civilization collapse today: population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy. These factors can lead to a collapse when two social factors are present: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or ‘Commoners’) [poor].” According to the study, it is these social factors which have played the central role in previous civilization collapses.

The study contends that wide gaps between socio-economic classes today in industrialized nations leads to over-consumption of resources:

... accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.

 According to the study, technological advancements are unlikely to solve this problem:

Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.

The study predicts that one of two possible scenarios—both bleak—is likely. According to the first scenario, civilization

... appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.

In the second scenario, “with a larger [resource] depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.” In both scenarios, the Elites do not feel the effects of the collapse until much later than the Commoners. The authors of the study theorize that this is why Elites in the past have been oblivious to such collapses. This has significant importance for the current situation:

While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing.

While pessimistic, a collapse is not considered inevitable:

Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.

Right-wingers immediately reacted to the study in a predictable fashion. The Daily Caller claimed that the study concludes that the only way to save the planet from collapse is communism. The Daily Caller paraphrases what it believes the report is saying:

The only way to avoid calamity is to adopt egalitarian methods of resource distribution if resource consumption is limited and distributed equally—eerily reminiscent of those who champion population control or communism.

Tucker Carlson’s conservative website then draws parallels between the NASA study’s recommendation that population must reach “a steady state at the maximum carrying capacity” and Communist China’s population control programs. It also suggests that the study’s conclusion is akin to recommendations made by White House science czar John Holdren who suggested that “government should limit the size of the population in order to keep the Earth from becoming unlivable.”

It is disappointing that The Daily Caller would jump to such an unjustified conclusion. Communism has been a monumental failure in every possible way, and both its political and economic models are doomed to failure any time that they are tried. However, is the NASA study really concluding what The Daily Caller believes it is?

First, the study mentions population reaching “equilibrium” but does not state that this must be accomplished through government intervention. Creepy environmentalist totalitarians such as John Holdren are never shy about coming right out and stating the nefarious and despotic unconstitutional plans that they wish government to undertake. In Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, a 1977 book that Holdren co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich of “Population Bomb” fame, Holdren insists that all illegitimate children should be put up for adoption and that those who do not exercise responsible reproduction should be sterilized.

The NASA report does not mention such totalitarian eugenics programs as part of a viable solution to population growth. Nor should it. The best way for population to reach equilibrium is not through totalitarian brutality but through economic prosperity which results from robust free market economies. Economically affluent nations have low fertility rates compared with poor nations. Thus, the best way to stabilize population is through economic freedom.

Secondly, the NASA study does not mention “egalitarian” methods of resource distribution. The language that the study’s authors use is that resources should be distributed—not redistributed—“ in a reasonably equitable fashion.” This does not imply egalitarian redistribution. Like Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, The Daily Caller seeks communism where it does not exist. Tucker Carlson, how dare you sir?

So many who consider themselves to be capitalists are actually nothing more than corporatists. These individuals confuse free market capitalism with crony capitalism. Such corporatists in denial assume not only that economic inequality is an intrinsic feature of capitalism but that it is desirable. These individuals savor the idea that there are so many “have nots” in society. For example, such economic royalists not only rightly oppose minimum wage increases, but they also cherish the idea that there are many people who earn low wages. Perhaps such people have low self-esteem and require someone to look down upon the way that many white Southerners looked down upon slaves prior to the Thirteenth Amendment. However, the truth of the matter is that free market capitalism does not entail widespread economic inequality. In fact, where there is massive economic inequality, it is a hint that a free market is not functioning properly.

One method of measuring economic inequality is to measure the income share of the wealthiest 10% to that of the poorest 10% (R/P). Examining this ratio reveals that wealthy nations tend to have less income inequality than poor nations and that economically free nations tend to have less income inequality than economically oppressed nations. The ten wealthiest nations for which this ratio has been calculated have an R/P average of 11.4 whereas the ten poorest nations for which this ration has been calculated have an R/P average of 23.82. Similarly, the ten economically freest nations for which this ratio has been calculated have an R/P average of 13.33 whereas the ten economically least free nations for which this ratio has been calculated have an R/P average of 34.91. Therefore, it is a myth that free market capitalism creates inequality. Those who savor such inequality are best advised to move to a poor nation with a Marxist economy.

Therefore, nations which are at or near population “equilibrium” are wealthy nations, and nations with a more equitable distribution of wealth are economically free nations. This strongly suggests that if the NASA study is accurate, then the solution to the problem of civilization collapse is a free market which will invariably produce wealth in a more equitable fashion which will in turn lead to population stability.

The United States has a P/R ratio of 15.9. Among the wealthiest and economically freest nations, this is lower than that of Singapore (17.7) and Hong Kong (17.8). However, it must be noted that neither Singapore nor Hong Kong is a politically free nation. Among politically free nations which are wealthy and economically free, the United States only compares favorably with Chile (26.2). Other such nations such as Switzerland (9.0), Canada (9.4), Australia (12.5), Austria (6.9), the Netherlands (9.2), Ireland (9.4), Sweden (6.2), Denmark (8.1), and Estonia (10.8) have far less economic inequality than the United States.

If the United States has more of a free market economy and less of a corporatist economy, then there would be far less economic inequality. Crony capitalism inevitably leads to a powerful and corrupt central government which “picks” the winners and losers and redistributes wealthy from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy and well connected. The Federal Reserve accomplishes this with its “inflation tax.” By “printing” money and allowing large banks to loan money while only keeping 10% on reserve, the Federal Reserve allows these banks to give money to the wealthy and politically well connected who benefit from this “new” money by spending it before prices rise. An influx of new “funny money” fiat currency inevitably causes prices to rise. Thus, by the time that this “new” money trickles down to the lower economic classes, prices have already risen and there is no benefit.

In addition, special interests such as large corporations and wealthy individuals can “buy” the government by giving money to politicians for their election campaigns. Given that the federal government has grown large and powerful, well beyond the scope of what the Constitution allows, these corporatists can use the government as their own tool. They often use the government to give themselves an unfair advantage. Such an unfair advantage is provided by creating business regulations which stifle small businesses. The large corporations can afford the costs of such regulations but smaller businesses simply cannot. These corporatists also use the government to provide them bailouts or cheap loans that small businesses and ordinary individuals cannot receive.

Crony capitalism inevitably leads to a smaller economic pie shared among a smaller group of corporatist elites. In an actual free market, monopolies are nearly impossible whereas in a corporatist system, monopolies can thrive. One also need look no further than the collapse of the Soviet Union for empirical evidence that communism will only quicken a collapse.

If the NASA study is valid, then what the United States should do to avoid a collapse is not to read Marx and start carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. The answer is to end the Federal Reserve, cut the size and power of the federal government, and allow the engine of economic freedom to create wealth. This newly created wealth will inevitably and naturally be distributed in a reasonably equitable manner. It is confusing why The Daily Caller would scoff at a study that essentially prescribes free market capitalism as the preventative medicine to stave off civilization collapse. Maybe Tucker Carlson is secretly carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.

Hipster Communism

by Gerard Emershaw

George Santayana famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In a similar vein, Peter Allen sang: “Everything old is new again.” Trends have proven to be cyclical. Tight jeans are in fashion for a while, then baggy jeans, and then tight jeans again. Skinny ties are hip for a while, then wide ties, and then skinny ties again. Even bell bottoms came back in fashion for a time in the 1990s. Perhaps one day leisure suits will be the “it” look again. There are certain things which each generation discovers anew—Catcher in the Rye, Atlas Shrugged, Star Wars, The Godfather, etc. In a sense each generation must discover and learn certain things for itself. This seemingly includes the lesson that communism does not work. The fact that communism has been a failure in each and every place where it was tried is not hidden. Communism’s death toll of roughly 100 million is not an obscure fact tucked away in a footnote in a dusty old tome in some far off foreign library. It is well documented. So why do college students still sport Che t-shirts? More importantly, why is Rolling Stone publishing the inane and insane ramblings of a young communist?

On January 3, 2014, Rolling Stone published “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For” by Jesse A. Myerson. In a sense, the article can be seen as The Communist Manifesto if it were written for Pajama Boy and his pals. It is Marx for the ADHD-addled and hipper than thou. Myerson acts as if his ideas are new and as if communism had not died a miserable death and dragged down 100 million people with it.

The five economic reforms that Myerson cajoles millennials to embrace and support are nothing but Marxist ideas repackaged and given a Starbucks hipster coating. Each proposed reform is wrongheaded and what is even more worrisome is the implied powers that the state must be allowed to possess in order to enact such reforms. Young radical idealists rarely notice such dangers.

1. Guaranteed Work for Everybody

Myerson claims: “The easiest and most direct solution is for the government to guarantee that everyone who wants to contribute productively to society is able to earn a decent living in the public sector.” These guaranteed jobs would pay a “living wage.” According to Myerson, “would anchor prices, drive up conditions for workers at megacorporations like Walmart and McDonald's, and target employment for the poor and long-term unemployed.” He considers the possibility of running such a job guarantee program through the non-profit sector. Presumably such a program would resemble the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) on steroids. These New Deal programs were largely ineffective and filled with corruption. They did not help bring about the end of the Great Depression, but only made it worse. The Great Depression dragged on longer in the United States than in other countries.

The United States federal government currently has a debt of $17 trillion. How would the government find the money to pay for this massive jobs program? The first thing to consider is just how expensive this program might be. How many American workers are in need of jobs? Using government statistics to determine this would be wrongheaded. The federal government has a bad habit of claiming that workers have “left the workforce” when in fact these workers have simply become discouraged and given up looking. Unless an unemployed worker is actually collecting unemployment benefits, the government assumes that this person is either employed or that he or she does not exist. While the government claims that the unemployment rate is 6.7%, the true percentage of workers who are unemployed or underemployed is probably closer to 23%. The number of working age Americans who are not in the labor force has grown to 91.8 million. To be conservative, let us assume that a bit under half of these individuals will require work under Myerson’s job guarantee program—45 million. What is a living wage? This would, of course, depend on where one was living. A living wage—one that would allow a worker to provide those things necessary to sustain his or her existence along with those of dependents—is context dependent. It would be much higher in Manhattan than it would be in West Monroe, Louisiana. Let us again be conservative and set it at an average of $12 an hour. At 40 hours a week and 52 weeks, this would be a cost of $24,960 per worker. And this does not include the costs of health care and other benefits. Obamacare and Medicaid are disasters whose discussion are far beyond the scope of this post. The cost for one year of this program would be $1.123 trillion. Oddly, this figure is roughly the size of the 2014 federal budget in its entirety. Where will the government find the money to pay for this? It cannot balance a budget as it is.

The consequences of such a program must also be considered. A “living wage” of $12 will mean that those workers earning less than that will either demand a raise or will quit their jobs in order to get guaranteed government jobs at the $12 rate. Many small businesses will simply not be able to find workers and will have to increase wages. Many of these businesses will not be able to afford this. Even well moneyed big corporations like Walmart will likely lay off workers or at least hire fewer if they are forced to pay significantly higher wages. Therefore, the number of workers in this guaranteed jobs program will likely grow significantly at least over the first few years.

What will these workers be doing? If they are put to work doing tasks which compete with private sector employers or even existing public sector workers, then more workers will be put out of work and this program will have to increase even more in scope and cost. It is likely that most of these jobs will be unproductive and dehumanizing. Perhaps they will be digging holes and then filling them in again. Somewhere in Hell, Keynes is grinning.

In order to pay for this program, the federal government will need to raise taxes. This will likely increase the size and cost of the program even more. Ultimately, it will try to pay for the program by having the Federal Reserve “print” even more money. This will cause inflation to skyrocket. The cost of living will rise. The “living wage” will have to be increased. More workers will be forced into the program. The cost will increase even more. The Federal Reserve will “print” even more money. Inflation will skyrocket. Hello, Weimar Republic. Buy your wheelbarrows for your useless dollars before the cost rises to $100,000 in the brave new world of hyperinflation American style. One hopes that Obamacare will pay to treat cases of cipheritis.

2. Social Security for All

Myerson appears to recognize at least one problem with his first proposal. No, not the fact that the federal government cannot afford it. No, also not that attempting such a program would turn the United States into the Weimar Republic. Myerson recognizes that most of the jobs that are produced by his ridiculous jobs program will be dehumanizing. Marx and Engels put it thusly:

Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc.

The ever-eloquent Myerson puts it thusly: “Because as much as unemployment blows, so do jobs.” So, instead of paying the unemployed to work, he would have the government pay the unemployed not to work— “the government would just add a sum sufficient for subsistence to everyone's bank account every month.”

For many individuals, the rational thing to do will be to quit their jobs and just collect this “universal basic income.” Some will be able to collect it while supplementing their income under the table. Others will realize that they are unlikely to acquire the skills necessary to earn significantly more than this basic amount through work. Others may simply conclude that leisure is a greater good for them than any additional money that they may earn through working a job. Assuming that Myerson’s “universal basic income” is the same amount as a “living wage,” we can assume that an individual can earn nearly $25,000 for doing nothing. How much more would one have to earn in order to make it rational to spend an average of 40 hours a week toiling away? Many will realize this and quit their jobs. The size and cost of this program would be even greater than that of the guaranteed jobs program. Hello, economic collapse!

3. Take Back The Land

Like Marx and Engels before him, Myerson has no use for private landowners. Myerson, who appears to have an unnatural obsession with fellatio, asks:

Ever noticed how much landlords blow? They don't really do anything to earn their money. They just claim ownership of buildings and charge people who actually work for a living the majority of our incomes for the privilege of staying in boxes that these owners often didn't build and rarely if ever improve.

Rather than suggesting that the bourgeois landowners be rounded up and have their property seized, Myerson suggests a “simple land-value tax.” While such a tax—as part of an alternative to and not an addition to the federal income tax—is actually a good idea, the reasoning that Myerson uses is flawed. Landlords do not simply “claim ownership of buildings.” They either buy them or legally inherit them. Landlords often improve the buildings that they own. If they do not, their tenants may choose to live elsewhere. Certainly there are many “slum lords.” However, the only reason that they can attract tenants at all is because the economy is in such awful condition thanks to the Federal Reserve, regulations, and high taxes. Under the Tenth Amendment, states, cities, and other local governments are free to impose laws mandating habitability. Therefore, it is not the responsibility of the federal government to deal with this issue.

4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody

Comrade Myerson really has no use for the bourgeoisie. In his gorgeous prose: “Hoarders blow.” He laments that the top 10 percent “control 80 percent of all financial assets” and suggests an easy way “to collectivize wealth ownership.” Rather than stage an armed Marxist revolution—which would likely “blow” since it would be too much like work—he proposes that the federal government buy up private assets and form a sovereign wealth fund similar to the one run by the state of Alaska. Such a fund would “buy[ ] up assets from the private sector and pays dividends to all permanent U.S. residents in the form of a universal basic income.” At least the lad is considering where the money for the universal basic income would come from. But it would require yet more money be spent by the federal government. Money that it just does not have. So, the government would need to spend enough money to buy up enough assets which would produce a dividend that could pay tens of millions of Americans not to work. This would cost far more than the $1.123 trillion that the jobs guarantee program would cost for a year. The government is so good at making wise investments—Solyndra anyone?—so no doubt this scheme is foolproof. One wonders where Mr. Myerson learned this brand of unicorns and rainbows economics.

5. A Public Bank in Every State

The silver-tongued Myerson claims:

You know what else really blows? Wall Street. The whole point of a finance sector is supposed to be collecting the surplus that the whole economy has worked to produce, and channeling that surplus wealth toward its most socially valuable uses. It is difficult to overstate how completely awful our finance sector has been at accomplishing that basic goal. Let's try to change that by allowing state governments into the banking game.

It is not true that the finance sector has any responsibility to finance “socially valuable uses” of surplus capital. Instead, its fiduciary duty is to maximize economic profitability for shareholders or owners. Nevertheless, Myerson’s idea is surprisingly not terrible. The Constitution neither gives the federal government the power to form a bank—despite what the ridiculous reasoning of the Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland—nor forbids state’s from doing it. Therefore, under the Tenth Amendment, states are free to experiment with banking in ways similar to what North Dakota does.

Strangely, Mr. Myerson does not mention the Federal Reserve. Such a proposal would not be likely to succeed unless the Federal Reserve were abolished. Does he know that the Federal Reserve is a private central bank? Does he know that the Federal Reserve is responsible for a reverse Robin Hood scheme by which money is stolen from everyone and given to the wealthy banks? Does he believe that the Federal Reserve “blows?”

Hipster Communism Blows

Do you know what really blows? Communism. Even if it is sitting in a Starbucks wearing a Che t-shirt. Myerson’s proposal would lead to a total economic collapse which could very well lead to fascism in the United States as it did in Germany following the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic. Fascism really blows. If somehow one could avoid the laws of economics and make Myerson’s proposals work, it would require a mighty federal government. This government would need to be even bigger and mightier than the Soviet Union at its height. In between not ever being elected president and falling down, President Gerald Ford said: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” This is quite true. A government that is strong enough to provide a “universal basic income” would also be strong enough to take away all natural rights. Such a paternalistic monster would be ready, willing, and able to dictate every aspect of everyone’s lives. No more free action. No more free speech. No more free thought. The best that can be expected is that the nation will be turned into a land filled with sedentary slaves who are living out a subsistence existence. If anything blows, that does. Totalitarianism, economic stagnation, oppression, and death. Those are the results of communism. So what if Myerson’s new communism would be drinking a Red Bull and wearing a hoodie? Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, dude! And yes, it blows.

Art and Freedom

by Gerard Emershaw

"Poppies Forever" ©2013 Stephanie Lynne Schmidt

 

On May 10, 1933, university students in Nazi Germany burned over 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books. The Nazis did not just ban and burn books. The totalitarian regime banned countless art forms and sent many artists to concentration camps:

The designation “Entartete Kunst” or “Degenerate Art” was applied to virtually all modern art including abstract art and a-tonal music, to all works produced by Jewish artists (living or dead), to contemporary American popular art, to art that was thought to undermine German or Aryan cultural ideals, to art that did not support the war effort. In addition to a large number of Jewish musicians, painters, writers, and others imprisoned in the camps, some of the most universally-loved and greatest works of art by Jewish artists were banned.

The Soviet Union likewise engaged in pervasive censorship of art. Pornographic images were banned and historical photographs that proved embarrassing to the regime were censored by having individuals “disappeared.” For example, “enemies of the state” such as Trotsky were removed from photographs. The Soviet government also strictly censored printed matter, film, radio, and television. Art forms such as Impressionism and Cubism were censored because they were viewed as “decadent” and “bourgeois” Classical music with themes not approved by the government was banned as was jazz and avant garde music. Rock music was banned. During the height of Beatlemania, not only were Beatles records banned in the Soviet Union, but electric guitars were as well. The Soviet regime mandated and promoted “Socialist realism” across the arts. This was propagandistic art which glorified the working classes and delivered the political doctrine of communism.

Despots have always feared and loathed art. The rise of highly technological totalitarian regimes in the 20th century allowed dictators to widely censor art as never before. Plato can be viewed as the intellectual architect of totalitarianism. His Republic is one of the earliest and most chilling blueprints for a totalitarian collectivist society. Plato viewed what we call reality as nothing but a copy of the true underlying reality of the Forms. For Plato art in all its varieties was nothing but a copy of a copy of true reality. Such a perversion of reality was seen as a dangerous and corrupting force. Because of this metaphysical dogma, Plato advocated censorship of art and the banning of most representational art—whether literary, dramatic, sculptural, painted, or musical.

What is it about art in all its forms that is seen as so dangerous to statist collectivist dictators? Overt political writings with messages that threaten the dogmas of the regime are obviously forms of art that totalitarian governments would seek to censor. However, much of what was targeted by the Nazis and Soviets had nothing to do with politics. For example, a recording of a jazz instrumental or a Cubist painting pose no obvious threat to the doctrines of fascism or Marxism. The answer is that the Nazis and Soviets understood that the true threat of art is the freedom of thought that its production and enjoyment encourage and unleash.

Staring at an empty canvas, a blank page, a blinking cursor on an empty computer screen, an unformed lump of clay, a blank sheet of staff paper, a block of wood, or any collection of raw materials, the artist (or artisan or craftsman) enjoys the kind of complete and utter freedom that would typically be reserved to gods. While all forms of art typically involve materials and tools, in an important sense all artistic endeavor is a form of creation ex nihilo. From his or her mind, the artist brings life. In the imagination, anything is possible, and when one realizes that anything is possible in the mind, soon one realizes that anything is possible in the world. When artists and art lovers viscerally feel that anything is possible, they are no longer so willing to accept things the way that they are. A disdain for an oppressive status quo and a desire for change are always the twin enemies of despotism.

Art is deeply connected with what it is to be human. Art is connected with thoughts, emotions, sensations, memories, concepts, morality, and memes in countless ways. Artistic expression and experience connects each of these components of human experience to one other and to the world in infinite ways. When such human horizons are continually broadened through creativity, human beings become more human and less prone to being transformed into collectivized automatons. Even slaves cannot fully be enslaved as long as they can be intellectually and spiritually free through art. The spirituals sung by American slaves prior to emancipation shows how the cruel masters could control the body but could not control the spirit.  

The artistic process is inevitably an expression of deep individualism. It becomes nearly impossible for any true artist to be collectivized. A musician playing even the most familiar tune will ultimately end up breathing new and individualized life into the piece. Consider Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the 1969 Woodstock festival or John Coltrane’s 1961 version of “My Favorite Things.” Put simply, art opens up a Pandora’s Box of individualism. George Orwell understood this when writing his novel Nineteen Eight-Four. In that novel, Oceanian “art” was produced by machines called versificators. These machines produced mindless novels, magazines, tunes, and movies. In order to dehumanize and collectivize the people completely, it would be necessary to take humanity out of art. Even if it were possible for computers to write novels, films, songs, etc. and to produce paintings, sculptures, crafts, etc., the works which these machines would produce—even if they resembled the work of human hacks—would only inspire human beings to create their own art. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression become nearly impossible for even the most despotic governments to completely thwart and artistic expression proves to be the most immortal form of free speech.

Art promotes freedom. This is true even in the economic sphere. Consider all of the industries which have collapses in the United States. Even the once mighty automotive industry had to seek a bailout during the current recession. Despite the economic collapse, industries tied into the arts did not require bailouts. American movies, television shows, music, video games, and books remain among the nation’s most lucrative domestic industries as well as most lucrative exports. While the economic downturn had a negative effect on many art museums and forced some to sell works of art in order to remain open, widespread closures of museums did not occur, and wonderfully creative new works continue to be produced each day.

Some may lament that turning art completely into a commodity has somehow cheapened it. Others may lament that capitalism has led to the popularization of loud, dumb movies, silly reality television shows, violent video games, pulp “beach” novels, mindless pop music, and crass paintings and sculptures. However, the truth is that the cream often rises to the top in the worlds of art and pop culture. The work that is most critically acclaimed often becomes popular. When acclaimed work does not become popular, more often than not, it nevertheless becomes profitable. Even when it does not, the success of the entertainment industry as a whole has caused entertainment corporations to seek to satisfy tastes of all kinds in all sorts of niches. As a result, fans of all forms of art and all genres within each form are more likely to have access to art that inspires them. Modern technologies such as the internet have allowed art to become even more widely accessible to more and more people.  

Some may complain that Americans are far too entertained and that the amount of entertainment that they seek through the arts becomes akin to Roman bread and circuses. While at times Americans ignore important events which are occurring in the world because of entertainment induced myopia, overall the effect of art is positive. Many artists use the arts in order to educate and inform. The entertainment industries produce wealth and create opportunity and jobs. Most importantly, art makes human beings more human, and true human beings are difficult if not impossible to fully dehumanize.