Hard Times in the Capitalist Kingdom

In a lazy summer moment of stasis between ending work at the New York State Attorney General’s office and starting toward my PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University, it seems like a good time to put some thoughts about the current state of capitalism (the organizing principle/axiomatic of our society) down on paper. The hand-wringing panic and plummeting stock market of the summer of 2008 have passed us by, along with the government bailout of large financial institutions and the collective sigh of relief as markets stabilized and started gaining ground. However, a sinister and sickening malaise has set in across the developed world; all is not well in the kingdom.

            Notably in the United States, high unemployment continues to be the stick in the eye of the Obama administration, and of course the enormous number of Americans who still find themselves out of work. While many companies, including many of the bailed out banks, have returned to profitability, none of this wealth has trickled down to the average worker. Even G.M. and Chrysler, which were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, have returned to profitability after slashing their workforces, cutting pensions and benefits, and installing new management. Companies are sitting on record piles of cash, using it to insulate them from potential risks, pad their stock prices, and pay large bonuses to their executives, many of whom had a hand in the corporate behavior that led our economy to the brink of collapse.

            What these companies are not doing is hiring new employees, investing in new ventures that could lead to sustainable growth, or moving out-sourced jobs back to America in order to take advantage of the surplus labor. The private sector, left to its own “free-market” devices, is proving that what is good for big business is resoundingly not good for society at large, at least the vast majority of it.

            The other major engine of the economy, indeed, its integral component, the State, is sitting in neutral. After enacting a rescue of investment banks and insurance companies (and their stock and bond holders), and a half-hearted stimulus plan, which consisted mainly of tax cuts, those in the U.S. government seems to have lost the will and the urgency to improve the economy. Over the past three years, the government has been long on rhetoric, excuses, political infighting, and half-measures, and short on effective policies that actually produce results. Keynesians like Paul Krugman have continued to argue that the proposed stimulus was always too small, and that the Obama administration must confront Republican opposition, in spite of the potential for filibuster or gridlock. This did not happen. Instead, Democrats, with Obama taking the lead as conciliator in chief, have capitulated to Republican blackmail on a host of issues, from the healthcare bill to Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy to new financial regulation of derivatives to cutting the deficit and now raising the debt ceiling.

China Land Snatch!

 This story today in the Times is a good reminder of what unchecked capitalism abetted by local and state government (free market / police state) looks like in China. If anyone holds the illusion that the economic boom in China benefits all of its citizens, take a look at what's happening in the Laogucheng neighborhood of Beijing where all of its residents are being forcibly and often violently evicted from their homes before they are razed to make way for development. One woman, Tang Fuzhen, actually resorted to self-immolation as armed thugs broke into her home to expel her and her family. What's more, this is merely one headline catching example out of hundreds of such occurrences all over China. It highlights the gritty, leading edge of the real estate boom in China that seems likely to lead to massive inflation in addition to massive human rights violations. The silver-lining is that protests from average citizens, law professor, and others have finally made some headway with the legislative affairs office of the State Council, with cabinet members calling for local governments to hold developers responsible for "vicious incidents" and to "publicize 'reasonable' standards of compensation." While a start, this most likely won't help the residents of Laogucheng. The developers have already stated that they have been "informing [residents] that the relocation plan won’t change at all . . . Because this project has already begun." This makes issues of eminent domain like the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn look like child's play. It's really a shame that the U.S. won't publicly hold China accountable for it's host of human rights abuses, which, far from being checked by their adopted economic system, are actually propelled by it. Of course, if China is the monster, then we're Dr. Frankenstein. So the next time someone sings the praises of the free market and deregulation, just remember what this meant for Tang Fuzhen from Laogucheng.

Read the article here: Trampled in a Land Rush, Chinese Resist

 Video of forced eviction:

Solution to the Economic Crisis: Build New Ghost Towns!

This story from today's New York Times gave me the sick feeling in my stomach that everything that I've been writing and thinking about our nation's economy and culture is sadly correct. Here we are a year or so after our country's biggest financial crisis and near depression, just barely getting on track and with unemployment still in double-digits and we have developers building NEW housing developments on top of all the empty ones! They have literally stuck their heads so far deep in the sand that they've popped out the other side and damned if things don't look rosy. There are 9,517 new houses sitting empty in Las Vegas and two million vacant homes for sale in the US. But the rub is that the economy only works through limitless expansion and consumption. New products must always be created, no matter their utility, in order to fuel GDP growth. This necessity also inheres in the American psyche. As the article makes clear: "many Americans will always believe the latest model of something is their only option, an attitude builders are doing their utmost to reinforce." Capitalist ideology hard at work! Just like we've seen after crises past, Americans are now hard at work forgetting everything and busy setting the stage for a new crisis; inflating a brand new bubble. As Brent Anderson, a marketing executive for Meritage Homes puts it in the article,“Our customers wouldn’t care if there were 50 homes in an established neighborhood of 1980 or 1990 vintage, all foreclosed, empty and for sale at $10,000 less. They want new. And what are we going to do, let someone else build it?”Of course not Brent! But, maybe you can get ghosts to start paying up for their mortgages?

Check out the story here:

Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses

Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce Part IV: On Revolution

   How might Zizek’s Communist hypothesis become more than a hypothesis? How does a real political revolution happen in a post-industrial capitalist state? Zizek is not extremely optimistic about our current state of affairs, but he does offer a few guidelines and examples. Drawing on Kant’s writings about the French revolution, Zizek points out Kant's notion of enthusiasm, which extends throughout the socio-political landscape in a type of wave effect. He informs us that “Kant interpreted the French revolution as [a] sign, which pointed towards the possibility of freedom: the hitherto unthinkable happened, a whole people had fearlessly asserted its freedom and equality . . . even more important than the often bloody reality of the events in the streets of Paris was the enthusiasm those events gave rise to in the eyes of sympathetic observers all around Europe.” Zizek seeks out this enthusiasm in today’s world, looking to the election of Barrack Obama, where he suggests, “[I]n light of the Kantian conception of enthusiasm . . . Obama’s victory should be viewed not simply as another shift in the eternal parliamentary struggle for a majority, with all its pragmatic calculations and manipulations. It is a sign of something more.”

Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce Part III: The Communist Hypothesis!

So where were we? Oh yeah, capitalism bankrupt, injustice rampant, democracy gridlocked. Where to turn? Communism! This would be where you stop reading if you’re anything like a lot of people. But you’re not! And it’s worth hearing Zizek out on this point, because his goal is not to resurrect the old hammer and sickle, but to distill the essence of Communism, and use the tools this perspective offers us to evaluate our present day crises and opportunities. In his own words he “endeavors to locate aspects of our situation which open up the space for new forms of communist praxis.” He argues that the question is not: “are Hegel and Marx still relevant to us? But rather, ‘what our contemporary situation might be in their eyes, how our epoch would appear to their thought.” And refreshingly, Zizek makes absolutely no claims to be “objective” or some sort of neutral observer. Instead, he tells us that this book offers, “not a neutral analysis but an engaged and extremely ‘partial’ one—for truth is partial, accessible only when one takes sides, and is no less universal for this reason.”

Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce Part II: It's Ideology Stupid!

So here's the part where I hash out Zizek's notion of the tragedy that we find ourselves in.  There are a ton of ideas in this chapter that all warrant some thought, but I tried to stick to his thoughts on the economic crisis and modern capitalism.

Zizek argues that the events of 9/11 symbolized the end of the Clintonite period and marked the beginning of a new era of walls, both outside and within the nation-state.  This highly symbolic and violent act, literally ripping down the two most emblematic buildings in the heart of Manhattan, and taking the lives of American civilians on American soil, ripped a hole in the notion of peaceful capitalist globalization cultivated by Clinton.  A politics of vengeance and division followed, both at the populist, blue-collar, “These Colors Don’t Run” bumper-sticker sporting level, but also among the elites at the highest echelons of society, in America and abroad.  9/11 affected almost everyone in the world, regardless of class or nationality.  The common feature that Zizek points out is fear.

ZIZEK: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (Part I)

The photos I had seen of him were confirmed as he took the stage and began speaking and waving his hands frantically: Slavoj Zikek is a sweaty, schlubby, whirling-dervish of a man. Zizek is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He’s considered a sort of maverick philosopher/public intellectual and is sometimes described as the “Elvis of Cultural Theory” or “the most dangerous philosopher in the West.” I would add that he’s definitely a genius and funny as hell.