Some Maxims

Some Maxims

1. Meditation can make you a better and healthier person, but you're not going to become "enlightened", whatever that means. (Substituting "prayer" for meditation and "go to heaven" for attaining enlightenment yields an equally valid maxim.)
   1A Corollary: Claims that enlightenment is a reasonable goal should be fair game.
2. "Government can't do anything right" is a self-fulfilling prophecy when government is bought and paid for by those who don't want the government to do much.
3. Capitalism's main strength is also its greatest weakness.  Our world has been totally transformed by capitalism, and this shows no sign of stopping short of the destruction of human civilization.
4. "Racism" is often used to describe things that have little to do with race, therefore needlessly provoking backlash.  (Or are those people who voted for Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal absolved of bigotry?)

MIndful Resistance

Mindful Resistance

10/27/2018

Introduction

I have noticed, among my friends and former political allies, a descent into tribalism as a reaction to Trump. Too often in my opinion, generalizations are made about groups such as Trump voters, differing factions of the Democratic party, white men, etc. I understand this, but it feels counterproductive. The purpose of this post is to work through these emotions and arrive at a logical and constructive political stance.

Identity Politics and Tribalism

My belief is that argumentation or prejudice based upon identity (race, gender, ethnicity, etc.) is wrong. A large part of the Democratic now disparages Trump voters out of hand. 63 million people voted for Trump. As one of 1.5 million people who voted for Jill Stein, I have myself encountered extreme antipathy from some Democrats. My concerns:

• This is not a way to win elections, in my opinion. We need to convert voters on the margins, not declare them to be enemies. 
• Morally and intellectually, this is short-sighted. People had various reasons for voting for Trump. Opposition to the status quo was a major reason, as opposed to support for Trump. It’s rather narrow minded to write off 70 million people as immoral idiots, as if one knows the circumstances and reasoning of all of these people. 
• On a personal level, cynicism can be harmful, as people lose faith in society and express bitterness. 

The Undeniable Idiocy of Trump and the Republican Party

In my opinion, Trump is a narcissistic liar -- a classic demagogue. The Republican Party has been cynically and corruptly dividing the country for all of my adult life (except Jerry Ford), and so I empathize with those who disdain Republican voters, and refuse to take them seriously except as a cancer. My guiding philosophy, when hope for Getting to Yes is unrealistic, is that outlined in The Art of War:

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles.  If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.  If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself. 

Assuming the Republicans are the enemy, it is important that we understand the Republicans and Republican voters. In my opinion, the mass of Republican voters are poorly understood. They are concerned about family and community, as opposed to being impressed by Trump’s bombast and Republican dirty tricks. The path to victory goes through these wobbly Republican voters.

Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture

1. Separate the Republican leadership from the mass of voters. 
2. Focus on issues, not identities. 
3. Be constructive -- What are the policies that can improve life for the majority and protect minorities?

Will Technology Save Us?

Maybe the socialists are on to something after all? I just finished reading a couple of takedowns on the prospects for technology to free us from carbon-based fuels --  100 Percent Wishful Thinking: the Green-Energy Cornucopia -- and for technology to deliver food without using much land -- An Engineer, an Economist, and an Ecomodernist Walk Into a Bar and Order a Free Lunch. Perhaps our environmental problems won't be solved as a side-effect of making money? Perhaps capitalism, while having been very successful for the last several hundred years, has a limited shelf-life?

Both the above referenced articles are by Stan Cox:

Background and Personal History: Stan was a wheat geneticist in the US Department of Agriculture for 13 years before joining The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas as a senior scientist in 2000. When not working as a plant breeder in the field and greenhouse, he has written three books: Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine (Pluto Press, 2008); Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (And Finding News Ways to Get Through the Summer) (The New Press, 2010); and Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing (The New Press, 2013). Since 2003, he has regularly written investigative pieces, op-eds, and other articles for a wide range of Internet and print publications. His articles have appeared in wide range of newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the Guardian, in 43 states and several countries.

We may be approaching times where more forceful government intervention is required to manage crises. This is what happened, successfully, during the Great Depression and World War II. Since then technology has developed enormously and is putting unprecedented pressure on the environment. We need new laws to deal with this situation, and I believe they must go beyond the capitalist incentives that we've been using unsuccessfully.

It's clear with health care financing, for example, that the U.S. model of capitalism doesn't work. It has resulted in too much complexity and financialization as can be seen by comparison to comparable nations. The same might be said for the media business, which seems to dysfunctional and greatly in need of a more social model with checks and balances other than what are currently employed in our capitalist system.

Energy seems to be another area where our current model of capitalism is failing, as I referenced a couple posts back. Some form of greater government regulation of the legal and financial system is necessary. Whether or not we should call this socialism seems to be the question of the day, but perhaps not the right question.

We want to protect the earth before its life-sustaining resources are depleted or damaged beyond repair.  To do this, capitalism needs to be restrained somehow. We can do this democratically if we put our minds to it.

ADDENDUM #1:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter :

In the history of artificial intelligence, an AI winter is a period of reduced funding and interest in artificial intelligence research. The field has experienced several hype cycles, followed by disappointment and criticism, followed by funding cuts, followed by renewed interest years or decades later.

The term first appeared in 1984 as the topic of a public debate at the annual meeting of AAAI (then called the "American Association of Artificial Intelligence"). It is a chain reaction that begins with pessimism in the AI community, followed by pessimism in the press, followed by a severe cutback in funding, followed by the end of serious research.[2] At the meeting, Roger Schank and Marvin Minsky—two leading AI researchers who had survived the "winter" of the 1970s—warned the business community that enthusiasm for AI had spiraled out of control in the 1980s and that disappointment would certainly follow. Three years later, the billion-dollar AI industry began to collapse.

Hypes are common in many emerging technologies, such as the railway mania or the dot-com bubble. The AI winter is primarily a collapse in the perception of AI by government bureaucrats and venture capitalists...

There were two major winters in 1974–1980 and 1987–1993 and several smaller episodes, including the following:

• 1966: failure of machine translation

• 1970: abandonment of connectionism

• 1971–75: DARPA's frustration with the Speech Understanding Research program at Carnegie Mellon University

• 1973: large decrease in AI research in the United Kingdom in response to the Lighthill report

• 1973–74: DARPA's cutbacks to academic AI research in general

• 1987: collapse of the Lisp machine market

• 1988: cancellation of new spending on AI by the Strategic Computing Initiative

• 1993: expert systems slowly reaching the bottom

• 1990s: quiet disappearance of the fifth-generation computer project's original goals

The fizzle of the fifth generation
In 1981, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry set aside $850 million for the Fifth generation computer project. Their objectives were to write programs and build machines that could carry on conversations, translate languages, interpret pictures, and reason like human beings. By 1991, the impressive list of goals penned in 1981 had not been met. Indeed, some of them had not been met in 2001, or 2011. As with other AI projects, expectations had run much higher than what was actually possible.

ADDENDUM #2:  https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/:

Deep learning has been at the forefront of the so called AI revolution for quite a few years now, and many people had believed that it is the silver bullet that will take us to the world of wonders of technological singularity (general AI). Many bets were made in 2014, 2015 and 2016 when still new boundaries were pushed, such as the Alpha Go etc. Companies such as Tesla were announcing through the mouths of their CEO's that fully self driving car was very close, to the point that Tesla even started selling that option to customers [to be enabled by future software update].
We have now mid 2018 and things have changed. Not on the surface yet, NIPS conference is still oversold, the corporate PR still has AI all over its press releases, Elon Musk still keeps promising self driving cars and Google CEO keeps repeating Andrew Ng's slogan that AI is bigger than electricity. But this narrative begins to crack. And as I predicted in my older post, the place where the cracks are most visible is autonomous driving - an actual application of the technology in the real world.

The older post referenced above is from 2016. Excerpt:

My bet is that the self driving car will demolish the current AI hype. And I'm not talking about the assisted driving but full (level 5) autonomy, as only this makes the case for the gigantic investments made by numerous companies. Now don't get me wrong: I'd love to have one, my entire work is devoted to solving the fundamental problems that would allow for one. But at the same time, I'm astonished to see so many other people working in the field of AI, enclosed in their model domains not seeing the problem! 

The key observation is this: a self driving car is a robotic device operating in an unrestricted environment. We cannot possibly assume that roadways are restricted domains since in reality, literally anything can happen in the middle of the road. There are several other problems which I have previously discussed, but the fundamental one is that we keep building AI as statistical pattern matchers. AI can fundamentally only deal with the stuff it has seen before, cannot anticipate, identify outliers (new unknown things) and react appropriately.

Now that being said, I think the time is right to actually solve the appropriate problems and I've put forward a broad proposal on how to approach AI differently - in summary learn the stuff that is constant - physics - rather then try to memorise all the corner cases.. The problem is, once there is an AI winter, everyone doing it will get equally busted, even the whistleblowers like me.

ADDENDUM #3:   I'm spending all day on Piekniewski's blog😀.  From https://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/08/09/intelligence-is-real/ :

The inherent property of the AI booms is the enormous enthusiasm they create, particularly among the people who have no idea how these systems work and what their limitations are (like venture capitalists or government officials for example). The visions are typically very romantic: automatic translation of millions of phone calls, visual perception, cheap and capable robots, natural language communication with computers and more recently self driving cars (which are a form of autonomous robots). Who would not like to have these wonders? Notably there is a clear incentive to create hype: researchers need to get the research money. The best way to do it is to scare somebody in the government that SkyNet is about to be born (in some other country) therefore AI research needs the dime. Entrepreneurs need to convince VC's so they use a similar strategy. All that is quickly picked up by journalist, since the public loves the stories about killer AI and terminator. Eventually everybody starts jumping on the AI bandwagon.
So here is what we've got: a field with a sexy name that no one really understands which promises wonders beyond imagination. What could possibly go wrong?

ADDENDUM #4:    Good comment here (Clyde Schechter at Kevin Drum)

Well, yes, as Norbert Weiner proposed many decades back, anything that the meat machine can do can be simulated in a non meat machine. But I think this misses a few subtle points.
1. Except perhaps for the challenge of doing it, I don't think anybody actually wants to build a full AI simulation of a human brain. It wouldn't be any more useful than a human brain, and we already have plenty of those lying around underutilized.
2. Perhaps we can succeed in building an AI that does a really good simulation of empathy (or, if you prefer, actually feels empathy--it doesn't matter for present purposes.). In fact, I'm sure we can. But what else will it do. The only model we have of empathy-capable intelligence is the human brain (OK, maybe some other animal brains, too--it doesn't matter for this point.) And that human brain also exhibits anger, churlishness, boredom, fatigue, spitefulness and a whole host of other things that we probably don't want our AI companion to emulate. But nobody has yet proved that it is possible, even in principle, to build an AI that exhibits empathy without exhibiting those other things. Maybe no such algorithm is, in principle, possible. Just as no algorithm can solve the halting problem. None of nature's versions of intelligence have empathy without also having the negative emotions. So until somebody actually constructs one, or until we have a detailed enough algorithmic understanding of empathy that we can prove theorems about it, we don't know if these things can ever be separated. If they cannot, then perhaps we will not want our AI companions after all.
3. A perfect simulation of the human brain would be very problematic in another way. Part of what is clearly part of our neurologic wiring is that we recognize that we have a body and that it provides us with sensory input. We know that sensory deprivation can lead to psychosis. Would a disembodied AI perfect simulation of the human brain just quickly go psychotic? I think there's a good chance of that.
In short, nobody really wants an AI that actually simulates the human brain. We want AI that selective emulates certain aspects of human brain function and omits others. Whether that is even possible in principle remains unknown today.

My follow on thought is that we should do cost-benefit analyses, from the societal perspective, of investments in artificial intelligence such as autonomous vehicles.  Is the ability to take a nap worth ceding autonomy?

Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy

I've drifted a bit with the tides of fashion, I must admit. In the 1970s and 1980s it was more common to see environmental issues in combination with nuclear weapons as requiring a drastically changed model of governance. Then Reagan became president and the world did not end, but rather the Soviet Union collapsed and embraced the western (American) model. The Internet proved anew the power of technology to change the world. Since the year 2000, however, the flaws in the American model have become more obvious once again.

While recognizing the seriousness of the flaws, people like Kevin Drum are not convinced that there is a viable alternative other than social democracy / mixed capitalism. Democratic Socialism is becoming popular, but Kevin's reaction is:

plenty of other rich countries have tried socialism before, and eventually they’ve all given up because it doesn’t work as well as social democracy or some other form of mixed capitalism.

[ I Still Have One Question About Democratic Socialism ]

He makes a decent point as far as he goes, but doesn't really address the direction of our current mixed economies. I find it helpful to look at socialism as a direction, as opposed to a single economic model. Yes, various implementations of socialism have failed (e.g. Communism), but in general we've been successful in moving to greater government involvement in the economy via services such as Medicare, Social Security, public education and infrastructure, and government regulation of private businesses. 

In the long run, we may or not need to put the brakes on government management of society. But that is not the issue that most of us see as pressing in the near future. Rather, it is excessive financialization and the impacts of technology on society and the environment that are more urgent. These point to the need for more government management of the economy, whatever you want to call it.  Social democracy sounds like more of the same.  Democratic socialism conjures visions of Venezuela.  Nevertheless, both are valid descriptions of the direction we want to move in.

ADDENDUM:  Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not "Human Nature".  This excellent piece by Naomi Klein contrasts the conventional wisdom -- We're doomed -- must as well enjoy ourselves while we can. -- with an alternative such as Democratic Socialism where we stop partying and try to create a sustainable society.  Klein's article is a review of Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, by Nathaniel Rich (son of Frank Rich, prominent columnist in NY Magazine and for many years in NY Times).

the piece is spectacularly wrong in its central thesis... “All the facts were known, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves.”
Yep, you and me. Not, according to Rich, the fossil fuel companies who sat in on every major policy meeting described in the piece. (Imagine tobacco executives being repeatedly invited by the U.S. government to come up with policies to ban smoking. When those meetings failed to yield anything substantive, would we conclude that the reason is that humans just want to die? Might we perhaps determine instead that the political system is corrupt and busted?)...

All of these flaws have been well covered, so I won’t rehash them here. My focus is the central premise of the piece: that the end of the 1980s presented conditions that “could not have been more favorable” to bold climate action. On the contrary, one could scarcely imagine a more inopportune moment in human evolution for our species to come face to face with the hard truth that the conveniences of modern consumer capitalism were steadily eroding the habitability of the planet. Why? Because the late ’80s was the absolute zenith of the neoliberal crusade, a moment of peak ideological ascendency for the economic and social project that deliberately set out to vilify collective action in the name of liberating “free markets” in every aspect of life. Yet Rich makes no mention of this parallel upheaval in economic and political thought...

It was this convergence of historical trends — the emergence of a global architecture that was supposed to tackle climate change and the emergence of a much more powerful global architecture to liberate capital from all constraints — that derailed the momentum Rich rightly identifies. Because, as he notes repeatedly, meeting the challenge of climate change would have required imposing stiff regulations on polluters while investing in the public sphere to transform how we power our lives, live in cities, and move ourselves around.
All of this was possible in the ’80s and ’90s (it still is today) — but it would have demanded a head-on battle with the project of neoliberalism, which at that very time was waging war on the very idea of the public sphere (“There is no such thing as society,” Thatcher told us). Meanwhile, the free trade deals being signed in this period were busily making many sensible climate initiatives — like subsidizing and offering preferential treatment to local green industry and refusing many polluting projects like fracking and oil pipelines — illegal under international trade law.

I wrote a 500-page book about this collision between capitalism and the planet, and I won’t rehash the details here...

And the good news — and, yes, there is some — is that today, unlike in 1989, a young and growing movement of green democratic socialists is advancing in the United States with precisely that vision. And that represents more than just an electoral alternative — it’s our one and only planetary lifeline...

But simply blaming capitalism isn’t enough. It is absolutely true that the drive for endless growth and profits stands squarely opposed to the imperative for a rapid transition off fossil fuels. It is absolutely true that the global unleashing of the unbound form of capitalism known as neoliberalism in the ’80s and ’90s has been the single greatest contributor to a disastrous global emission spike in recent decades, as well as the single greatest obstacle to science-based climate action ever since governments began meeting to talk (and talk and talk) about lowering emissions. And it remains the biggest obstacle today, even in countries that market themselves as climate leaders, like Canada and France.
But we have to be honest that autocratic industrial socialism has also been a disaster for the environment, as evidenced most dramatically by the fact that carbon emissions briefly plummeted when the economies of the former Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. And as I wrote in “This Changes Everything,” Venezuela’s petro-populism has continued this toxic tradition into the present day, with disastrous results.
Let’s acknowledge this fact, while also pointing out that countries with a strong democratic socialist tradition — like Denmark, Sweden, and Uruguay — have some of the most visionary environmental policies in the world. From this we can conclude that socialism isn’t necessarily ecological, but that a new form of democratic eco-socialism, with the humility to learn from Indigenous teachings about the duties to future generations and the interconnection of all of life, appears to be humanity’s best shot at collective survival...

These candidates, whether or not they identify as democratic socialist, are rejecting the neoliberal centrism of the establishment Democratic Party, with its tepid “market-based solutions” to the ecological crisis, as well as Donald Trump’s all-out war on nature. And they are also presenting a concrete alternative to the undemocratic extractivist socialists of both the past and present. Perhaps most importantly, this new generation of leaders isn’t interested in scapegoating “humanity” for the greed and corruption of a tiny elite. It seeks instead to help humanity — particularly its most systematically unheard and uncounted members — to find their collective voice and power so they can stand up to that elite.
We aren’t losing earth — but the earth is getting so hot so fast that it is on a trajectory to lose a great many of us. In the nick of time, a new political path to safety is presenting itself. This is no moment to bemoan our lost decades. It’s the moment to get the hell on that path.

Good comments on Klein article at https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/08/links-8-4-18.html:

Saying “human nature is to blame for problem X not being solved” is to say that no one should be held accountable for their actions.
If Exxon and other companies knew two generations ago that the use of their products would result in global warming, and then covered up this knowledge, it wasn’t “human nature” that was to blame, it was their greed.
To say that this greed is the whole of human nature is a deliberate falsehood. It is human nature to want to protect one’s children. It is human nature to not want the place where you live to be ruined by climate change, or oil well leaks, or pipeline explosions. Naomi Campbell  Klein is correct to point this out. 

ANOTHER ADDENDUM:  My post at https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/trickle-down-economics-is-working-about-as-well-as-usual/#comment-4024228493 :

I've had some good discussions already on this thread. My conclusion is as follows:

There is broad agreement from the 2 wings of the left that we need more and better democracy, and more and better government management of the economy. The 2 wings see these options as social democracy and democratic socialism.

However the difference between the 2 wings is not as trivial as it might first appear. One group sees a need to get back on track -- i.e. to return to the USA policies of the 40s and 50s, and / or the policies of other democratic nations such as Japan, France, Germany, etc. The other wing sees the need to go beyond that, as we got to where we are now from where we were before, while problems such as climate change have only gotten worse in the meantime. I'm in the 2nd camp these days, but that is just an opinion and could be wrong, There is not much hard evidence to prove either wing correct, as I see it.

So we've got 2 wings, and both are for the most part legitimate and fact based. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. What labels should we attach to these 2 wings? To pretend that there is no difference is not helpful. Neither wing should be given a pejorative label, as both viewpoints are reasonable. Here are a couple of options:

1. Liberal -- believe in emphasizing tolerance and freedom, while helping those in need.
2. Progressive -- believe in fundamental changes to deal with environmental, equality, and related issues.

OR

1. Neo-liberal: Believe in enhancing the liberal model which abolished slavery, provided New Deal programs, and reduced discrimination based upon race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
2. Democratic socialist: Believe in abolishing the stranglehold that the rich capitalists have on society, by getting the government to take over many functions previously reserved for rich capitalists.

My personal favorite at the moment is:

1. Social democrats: Want to strengthen the government role in society, while preserving and enhancing democratic laws and institutions.
2. Democratic socialists: Want to replace capitalism with a more communitarian society, while preserving and enhancing democratic laws and institutions.

It seems that these two views are similar enough that the 2 wings should be able to agree for the purpose of most general elections, while divergent enough to allow constructive debate regarding existential issues for humanity.

Post Script to Addendum:  Bernie actually took a social democratic line (advocating policies closer to social democratic nations such as the Nordic countries) in 2016 and was opposed by the more conservative wing of the Democratic party. I take this as a practical reaction as opposed to a more fundamental political philosophy.  Clinton tried to move to the left of Bernie in several areas (guns, race relations) and did not vigorously defend the capitalist status quo.

YET ANOTHER ADDENDUM:  Scott Alexander's review of Albion's Seed summarizes Puritan New England as follows:

In some ways the Puritans seem to have taken the classic dystopian bargain – give up all freedom and individuality and art, and you can have a perfect society without crime or violence or inequality. Fischer ends each of his chapters with a discussion of how the society thought of liberty, and the Puritans unsurprisingly thought of liberty as “ordered liberty” – the freedom of everything to tend to its correct place and stay there. They thought of it as a freedom from disruption – apparently FDR stole some of his “freedom from fear” stuff from early Puritan documents.

Puritan New England was a communitarian experiment. 

Philippines, Japan, Java

The Fates of Human Societies

I just got back from visiting the Philippines and Japan.  I've spent years in the Philippines, and the better part of a lifetime being in touch with Filipino people.  This was my first time in Japan, and only for 4 days.  Why did Japan create and maintain a strong national identity and independence and quickly adopt advanced technology, while countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia were subject to colonial domination and were slower to adopt advanced technology?  Here are some thoughts on this question.

Size and Population Density

Japan developed more quickly due to the fact that its few islands are large and close together.  The Philippines, by contrast, consists of dozens of large, inhabited islands that evolved independently (with separate languages, for example) before the Spanish arrived and proclaimed them to be a single country named after Philip II of Spain. 

Fringe vs Crossroads

Japan, like Great Britain on the other side of Eurasia, is close enough to major Eurasian centers of civilization to acquire advanced technologies as they became available, yet on the fringe and somewhat protected from conquest by the ocean.

Though, like Japan, Java supports a dense population on an island off the coast of Asia, Java was invaded by Hindus, Arabs, and then Europeans, never consolidating a single national identity until modern times (~ 1945).

North vs South

As discussed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, certain fundamental agricultural developments more easily spread within temperate as opposed to tropical climates.  Human societal evolution has probably been affected by other factors, with details beyond my knowledge, related to geographical area that may have led to the formation of stronger military and technology development in Japan.

Development

In this age of globalized economies (especially among English speaking countries like the Philippines) combined with advanced shipping and wireless communications (TV, Internet, etc), the Philippine islands are quickly attaining a cohesive national identity.  

Categorizing Things

A couple of new (?) categorization schemes have occurred to me recently.  I'll jot them down here to remember them.

Political Quadrants

A key to good government, in my opinion, is checks and balances.

Political Groupings

Conservative

Neo-Conservative

New-Liberal

Progressive

Workin the Refs

I note some unintentional irony in a recent post by Kevin Drum --
Republicans Prove They’re the World Champs of Working the Refs

In a political context, “working the refs” usually refers to the press. It’s an effort by one side or the other to complain so loudly about unfair coverage that reporters start bending over backward to provide positive coverage instead. 

But it doesn’t apply only to the press. The same tactics can be used to muffle, say, the FBI. The New York Times reports today that this is exactly what happened during the 2016 campaign, when James Comey went out of his way to publicly berate Hillary Clinton over her emails while deliberately staying mum about the agency’s investigation of Donald Trump...  

The press played along eagerly with both Benghazi and Hillary’s emails, while the FBI cowered in a defensive crouch over fear of Republican attacks on them. 

The irony is that Drum and the mainstream Dems he supports have been similarly played for years, cowering defensively as the Republicans smear ACORN, for example, or dismissing single payer health care for fear of Republican attacks on socialized medicine, or supporting war in the Middle East because of the latest "Hitler" in power in one of the Arab/Muslim countries.  Nobody's perfect and most of us have been played by such P.R. campaigns of frightening intensity.  Even the estimable Jon Stewart got taken in by the Republican attacks on ACORN and the IRS. 

Nevertheless, enough is enough and that is why many of support the Sanders wing of the Dem party.  Sanders was notable in supporting ACORN in the face of the Republican slander, standing up to the war hysteria and opposing the war in Iraq, and advocating for better health insurance in the face of certain vicious opposition from Republicans.  Similarly, Sanders was able to resist jumping on the Republican inspired bandwagon by not making an issue of Hillary's emails, for example.

Again, there's no need to re-fight the 2016 election, except to learn from history and do better going forward.  With most Dems now supporting Bernie's policy proposals (higher minimum wage, Medicare for All, etc), it's time to recognize that Bernie has successfully worked the refs in the best way possible.  He stood up to the Republican noise machine when other Dems wouldn't. 

Lesson from ACORN -- The Facts Matter

My hopes for the future of our country and world have been buoyed by the unpopularity of Republicans and Trump.  But recent polling seems to suggest that I may have been overly optimistic in expecting a return to the majority for the Democrats in 2018.  The polls have stabilized for the Republicans and the 2018 elections seem to be wide open.

As a Bernie Sanders supporter, I've been hoping that the Democrats will unify around his vision and policy proposals.  This has happened to some extent with most Dem leaders now in favor of some version of Medicare for All and also a federal job guarantee, programs which are massively popular with the general public.  Nevertheless, there is a still hesitancy to adopt the socialist label that Sanders so proudly wears.  There is an understandable hesitancy for Dems to give the Republicans such a fat target.

Republicans have a strong track record of tearing socialist Dems to shreds, going back to George McGovern's disastrous 1972 presidential campaign.  Only Carter, Clinton, and Obama have been able to win the presidency since then, and this has been accomplished by moving away from the radical left.  The limits to this strategy were confronted in 2009 when Republicans, led by James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbat, successfully destroyed one of the most effective grass roots organizations supporting ostensibly Democratic goals.  They did this through lies and racist allusions, but the Democrats acquiesced to the slander and voted with Republicans to defund ACORN, in effect conceding that the untrue accusations were valid.

From How The ACORN Scandal Seeded Today’s Nightmare Politics:

But Washington didn’t wait around for the facts to come out. On Sept. 14, 2009, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 83 to 7 to block some federal grants to ACORN... On Sept. 17, the House followed suit, with 172 Democrats joining 173 Republicans in voting to defund ACORN... (this) exposed a Democratic Party establishment unprepared for dirty tricks in the Digital Age and unwilling to defend many of the black voters and activists it claimed to represent... The illegal voting accusations never panned out. But within 18 months, Lewis would be forced to close ACORN’s doors ― exhausted, short-staffed, out of money and, most important, out of allies... ACORN registered more than 865,000 voters for the 2008 election. While other groups have tried to pick up the slack, there’s a reason Republicans haven’t selected a new organization to serve as the voter fraud boogeyman: nobody is doing the same caliber work on the same scale that ACORN did.

In retrospect, it is clear that Democrats were timid in 2009, and not without reason.  Although the Dems controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, they had achieved these gains largely due to the failures of Republicans with both Iraq and the economy.  While Obama was an inspirational representative of the need for change, Dems were also aware that Republicans would be merciless in using his blackness to their advantage.  Thus, they felt they had to pick their battles, and they chose not to defend ACORN (Bernie Sanders being a notable exception).

Other battles the Dems chose not to fight included:

• Prosecution of Republicans for malfeasance (including torture) in Iraq, and in the run-up to the war.
• Letting the big banks fail.  Even the The Economist magazine thought they should be nationalized. 
• Prosecution of various financial sector firms and/or individuals for breaking the law (accounting control fraud).

My opinion is that the Dems should be less timid going forward and try to do what is right, without being cowed by Republican slander.  In other words, the treatment of ACORN by Democrats was morally and politically disastrous and should not be repeated going forward.  Judge each person and organization on their own merits and stand up for one another in that spirit. Do the same for policy proposals, whether they be from the democratic socialist (fundamental change) or from the social democracy (reform) camp.  Instead of identity politics (label-based as in ACORN being black and poor, Iraq being Arab and Muslim, Sanders being socialist, white, and male), practice value-based politics (what's best for people overall regardless of identity).

We don't need to re-fight the last election.  We do need to learn from the last 18 years and beyond.

• Lessons from McGovern 1972 -- Ditching VP candidate was a mistake.  Dem reason was "OMG -- He had been to a psychiatrist.  Republicans will have a field day."  McGovern would have lost anyway, but perhaps Dems could have come back as did Republicans after Goldwater loss if they had stood their ground.  Also, perhaps a job guarantee would have been a more popular economic platform than a negative income tax.  (The negative income tax was McGovern's version of a universal basic income.)
• Lessons from Carter -- Fiscal austerity is a losing proposition.  "Deep state" (military, intelligence agencies) will sabotage foreign policy "doves".  Be prepared for that and call it out when it happens.
• Lessons from 1980s -- Fiscal deficits win (Reagan success).  Fiscal conservatism loses (Mondale calling for tax hikes).  Staying true to values wins (Reagan success).  Pragmatism wins (Reagan success in eventually raising some taxes and negotiating with USSR). Reaganomics started decline of middle class (labor), while providing boost to capital (stock market).  Many of us in middle class were co-opted by 401k plans and greater stake in capitalism.  Short term success of Republicans in Reagan era undeniable, Dems occasionally have to hang in as minority until tide changes.
•  Lessons from 1990s -- Sometimes it is advantageous to concede ground in order to overextend enemy.  Pragmatism wins.  Good to have friends with money (Dem alliance with Goldman Sachs and others on Wall St paid dividends.)  Voters like those receiving benefits from govt to work for them (Clinton's welfare reform popular).  Voters like politicians who are tough on crime (increased incarceration during 1990s).  Dems were lucky (as Republicans were in 1980s with short term success of reduced taxes and regulations), with end of Cold War paying dividends for U.S. as sole surviving superpower.
• Dubya era (2001-2008) -- Dems start out millennium on wrong foot by joining Republicans in Patriot Act and Iraq War.  Iraq War in particular was massive failure.  Economy crashes, yet Dems late to realize the collapse of "ownership society" dating from Reagan era.
• Obama era (2009-2016) -- Dem fecklessness exemplified by ACORN betrayal, weak use of bully pulpit to advocate programs which would genuinely help working class.  Fiscal responsibility again fails politically and economically.  Many Dems are bad losers in 2016, blaming others as opposed to their own mistakes.  

Democrats have a chance to accomplish great things in the coming years if we can learn from the past.  Identity politics has failed.  MLK succeeded with value politics.

The Four Factions of American Politics

I was able to take advantage of my 13 hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo without Internet access (I decided to go off the grid -- WiFi was available for $30) to contemplate the current state of the nation. Below are the feuits of this contemplation. Please note that I could be and probably am wrong about numerous things, and probably am being unfair if not bigoted. Opinions are like that, and these are my opinions. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions, and I am sure that people who I refer to below with derogatory terms have good reasons for having different perspectives. It's okay, and quite natural, to disagree. My purpose in this name calling is to encourage us, as a nation, to act constructively and I hope that any responses are made in that spirit.

At the risk of excessive verbosity and losing my audience before I get around to expressing my opinions, I would like to expand upon why I feel the need to write yet another provocative political screed that risks generating more heat than light. I feel that 3 of the 4 political factions are misguided and hope by this writing to persuade those who may not currently be in any faction to consider my perspective. Of course, most of us probably don't fall neatly in any of my 4 categories, so I'm hoping than most of us will be able to relate to my categorization without necessarily agreeing with my opinions. I don't really expect to convert people who are firmly in the camp of another faction. In other words I'm not trying to pick a fight, but rather am addressing this to people who already see certain controversial assumptions I make as plausible. Without further ado, then...

There are four active and influential factions in American politics today:

1. Airheads -- Trump and his supporters -- generally opportunists without political convictions. Trump is a demagogue, defined by the ancient Greeks as a politician with no core principles other than self-aggrandizement. 
2. Warmongers -- The anti-Trump neocons who are successfully pushing the U.S. into a new cold war and hot wars in the Middle East. 
3. Bad Losers -- The Clinton Democrats who are mad at the progressives and the airheads, and so are making common cause with the warmongers. 
4. Progressives -- The Sanders faction of the left wing which is making progress in moving public opinion in the direction of democratic socialism.

(Libertarians and social conservatives are additional groups that I will ignore here. These groups are unfocused and demoralized at the present time since Republicans have been taken over by the airheads and warmongers. This situation predates the Trump presidency by a considerable time.  Witness the warmongering presidency of George W. Bush, and the succession of oddball candidates that populated the Republican presidential primaries in 2008, 2012, and 2016.)

The airheads and bad losers are going nowhere, almost by definition. Thus, the crucial confrontation is between the warmongers and progressives. Ultimately, the warmongers will lose as:

1. They are corrupt.
   and/or
2. They are deluded.

(Note that I'm not a pacifist. There may indeed be a time for war as well as a time for peace. I just don't think our current militant faction is on solid ground.)

However, there will be a lot of bloodshed before they are defeated. The best case scenario is that they make a huge and obvious mistake. Here a couple of examples that come to mind:

1. Evidence emerges that the Syrian gas attacks were staged, and thus the U.S. and western intelligence was wrong again (as in Iraq). 
2. Evidence emerges that the Skripal poisoning was not the work of the Russian government, and thus the kneejerk reaction of the U.K., the U.S., and our allies to punish Russia was misguided. 
3. The Trump-Russia collusion investigation being pursued by the FBI goes nowhere and, in fact, reveals Democratic blunders and corruption, in addition to Republican blunders and corruption. We've already seen some of that with Clinton associate Tony Podesta.

Unfortunately, the best case that something such as one of the above brings down the warmongers is fairly unlikely for the following reasons:

1. The warmongers and the bad losers have a lock on the mainstream media and, with the assistance of and/ or under the direction of the intelligence agencies, could whitewash the mistakes. The bad losers / formerly mainstream Democrats are now willing to give the intelligence agencies the benefit of the doubt in terms of accepting whatever the spies say. This is not so far fetched as that's how we got into both the Vietnam and Iraq II wars.
2. The warmongers may have the truth on their side in some or all of the events listed above (Syrian chemcial attacks, Skripal poisoning, collusion with Trump). I think it likely that there is at lot that we have not been told about these events which would make the case for war less convincing, but who am I to argue with the intelligence agencies? After all, they have the billion dollar budgets to figure out and report what is going on.

So the more likely case in my opinion is that the warmongers lose in longer run, for the following reasons:

1. The wars will go badly.  As the world's #1 superpower, the U.S. has more to lose than to gain:  

1. Regime change in Syria, Iran, or even Russia would mean little to the average American.
2. Expectations may be unrealistic:  Russia may be smarter than they used to be militarily.
3. Wars tend to be unpleasant for all involved.

2. As the wars go badly, the U.S., and the warmongers in particular, will lose standing:

1. The bad losers will eventually get over their temper tantrum and decide that going to war with the neo-cons is stupid. Note that mainstream Democrats were early defectors from the fiasos in Vietnam and Iraq.
2. The international prestige of the United States is currently on a downward trajectory (thanks largely to the airheads) and this could accelerate due to the the warmongering.  On the other hand, China and other east Asian ecconomic and technological powerhouses are eroding the position of the U.S. as the invincible superpower and could eventually stand up to U.S. military expansion.
3. I believe that our economy is in another (or continued) financial bubble which will pop any day now (see Tesla, Bitcoin).  If the U.S. goes into recession, there will be more pressure to focus on domestic issues as opposed to wars in far off lands.  

So, the most likely case as I see it is for the warmongers to cause a bunch of trouble in the near future. They will be opposed by the other ascendent political faction -- the progressives. Ultimately, the airheads and the sore losers will fade away and the progressives will take over from the warmongers. The timing and ultimate fate is uncertain, however, due to the unpredictable effects of war. The worst case scenario is certainly possible, in which case all bets are off.

Demagogy and Populism

A good friend sent me this article:  A Vacuum at the Center -- How a demagogue resembles a typhoon, and why it matters to the future of the republic.  Author W. Robert Connor describes demagogy as a typhoon, based upon Greek mythology and a play 2400 years ago by Aristophanes.  It is wonderfully poetic and seems to fit Trump to a T:

Typhoons and many other extreme weather events suck into themselves whatever they encounter, grind it up, then spew out a trail of destruction. That is how demagogy works and is one major difference between it and populism.

At the core of demagogy is a vacuum. That is not usually the case with populism, since populist leaders typically have firm commitments to specific policies. They stand for something. It can be asked whether what they propose seems wise or otherwise. Of the demagogue, however, a more fundamental question needs to be asked: whether there is any inner coherence at all, for a demagogue can blow hot and cold, this way and that, adopt phrases or policies from one source one day and repudiate them the next. There may be nothing at the core except a vacuum that sucks into itself clichés, slogans, facts, factoids and fabrications, fragments of ideologies, policies developed by others, sometimes those others themselves—whoever and whatever might help him gain power at any given moment. Then, at his whim, he disgorges it all. The political vacuum at the core of demagogy, moreover, may correspond to, and perhaps derives from, a moral vacuum, the absence of concern for anything other than the self.

This calls to mind one of my issues with David Brooks.  As I have noted in the past, Brooks tends to equate Trump supporters with Sanders supporters, considering each as extremist and failing to note the differences between Trump's demagogy and Sanders' populism.

In looking through my past commentary on this subject, I found this blog post I wrote on December 12, 2011 concerning demagogy and populism.  I actually quoted David Brooks in this:

As nearly everyone who has ever worked with Gingrich knows, he would severely damage conservatism and the Republican Party if nominated. [ David Brooks - "The Gingrich Tragedy" - NY Times 12/8/2011 ]

As I see it, Trump is a predictable product of the Republican party in recent decades, with Gingrich playing John the Baptist to Trump's Jesus.  Here's another quote from Brooks in that article:

Gingrich seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s. He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance. He just has those traits in Republican form.

But Gingrich is not really an exceptional Republican in age where contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have included Rick Perry, Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz.  Going back further were Republican leaders Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan, and Dick Nixon.  Perhaps Reagan proved to be more of a populist than a demagogue, thereby gaining credibility for the Republican brand?

John Cole's summary of the Republican landscape heading into the 2012 presidential election provides the proper context for Trump:

The thing to remember about the chaos ensuing in the GOP primaries, where each week a different candidate is the new new savior before publicly shitting the bed, is that this is all the fault of the Republican party itself. They allowed the party to create this alternate reality about, well, everything that happened the last decade. They are the ones who encouraged their party to believe that a center-left Democrat is actually an America hating socialist. They are the ones who made this mess, so when they are all horrified when each week a different candidate looks the fool by pandering to the base, remember, they are the ones who encouraged the base to think all this crazy shit. [ Balloon Juice, 12/9/2011 ]

I don't think Trump is a particularly effective demagogue.  He lacks charisma and intelligence, in my opinion.  So perhaps we're lucky that he was the Republican demagogue to break through to the presidency.  Trump is discrediting the Republican brand and Democrats are favored to regain control of the House of Representatives in the elections later this year.

Tariffs and Trade

Two Articles on tariffs and trade, with consideration of Trump’s recent move: 


Why Trump Is So Clumsy About Fighting ‘Free Trade’, 
by Marshall Auerback  

Here's a summary of the points:

• Our trade deficit means that we are buying more from other countries than they are from us.
• Thus, money is leaving the country instead of circulating here.
• The Chinese and other countries enable this by accumulating (hoarding) US dollars (including Treasury bonds) as foreign exchange reserves.  This is a form of mercantilism.
• Foreign central banks use local currencies (e.g. yuan, yen) to purchase U.S. dollars which are then invested in Treasury bonds. 
• By reducing US dollars from circulation and increasing the amounts of other currencies in circulation, the value of the U.S. dollar is propped up, and the value of other currencies such as yuan and yen is kept down.
• U.S. consumers are strapped for cash because money is leaving the country.  (This is only partially offset by our government’s fiscal deficit, which puts additional money into the economy.)
• U.S. consumers are encouraged to accumulate private debt to keep consuming at high levels.
• Uncle Sam and foreign investors financed the housing market, resulting in an historic housing bubble. That housing bubble resulted in a false signal of a wealth gains that were then invested in the stock market leading to a stock market bubble, both of which financed over-consumption, and the buildup of yet more trade imbalances, until the entire system came crashing down in 2008, destroyed the savings of millions of Americans (including among others, Steve Bannon’s father)
• re-emergence of the trends that led to the 2008 crisis: a capitalism characterized by securitization, globalization, the proliferation of complex financial derivatives, deregulation and a corresponding reduction in supervision and legal oversight
• vendor financing (China investing money in U.S. to keep U.S. consumer spending)
• even the modest regulations introduced via Dodd-Frank are steadily being gutted a mere 10 years later

In sum, trade deficits cause leakages of money (and consumer demand) which in turn require private debt to sustain consumption levels.  Eventually, the private debt becomes unsustainable.  One way to deal with this is to discourage imports via measures such as tariffs.  Another way (preferable to the author and to me) is to regulate the financial industry so that consumers are not encouraged to spend beyond their means (by accumulating debt).  This tightening can be offset by government spending where no private debt is incurred.  The public “debt” will lower the value of the dollar, offsetting the mercantilism of our trading partners. 

Of course, they are many possible alternatives for dealing with the problems caused by the trade deficit.  But the status quo perspective, that currently existing trade deficits are not a problem, is wrong according to this perspective.

Trump’s Travesty of Protectionism,

by Michael Hudson

Summary:  Protectionism has historically been used to build developed (industrial) economies.  However, once a country such as the U.K. or U.S. becomes industrialized, then it generally tries to import basic goods such as steel and aluminum as cheaply as possible, while promoting high value added industries.  Trump's tariffs do just the opposite and will accordingly have an overall negative effect on the U.S. economy.

Trump himself has a history of breaking deals, and now the U.S. he leads is getting that reputation.  Ultimately at issue is how much policy asymmetry the rest of the world is willing to tolerate. Can the United States still push other countries around as it has done for so many years? How far can America push its one-sided agreements before other countries break away?

Money, Cryptocurrencies, and the Law

Overview

Money is a form of debt.  If you have lots of money, the issuer of that money is indebted to you in some fashion.  Typically that means that your money can be used to: 

1. Fulfill your tax obligation
2. Pay back your debt to government chartered bank, or 
3. Traded to others in exchange for goods or services  

Use 3 above is backstopped by uses 1 and 2.  This is discussed in detail below.  The key point is that our civilization tracks credits and debts, and that money is a primary way of keeping track of where you stand.  Crucially, use of money is enforced by laws.  

Cryptocurrencies were invented as a way of circumventing laws.  The underlying blockchain technology promises to change the very way economies are organized: to eliminate centralized third parties such as governments, central banks, commercial banks, and other busybodies.  Of course, crypto currenices have their own rules (laws), which are mostly embedded in the software and thus resistant to corruption.

To cut to the chase, money is a social construct for keeping track of who owes whom and how much.  Without laws to enforce these uses of money, it is worthless. This is the case for cryptocurrencies, where the "laws" embedded in the software are insufficient to deal with the types of issues that arise wth money, contracts, and transactions.  Details follow.

Money and Debt

Here are some of my favorite explanations of money and its history:

• Randy Wray: American Colonial Currency (Debt Free Money, Part 4)  Excerpt (in colorful prose):

To be sure, debt is much older than money. No human has ever escaped debt. At birth, you are indebted to your parents, your kin, and your gods. You spend your lifetime incurring new debts and repaying old debts and accumulating credits that are the debts of others. If you earn enough credits, you join the Redeemer and make it to the Promised Land after death; if you don’t you join Satan—the original tax collector–in hell.

Our modern rituals and accounting and terminology evolved from these ancient origins. Debts began to be monetized and recorded at least six millennia ago. The monetization probably grew out of the Tribal practice called Wergild–the assessment and collection of fines paid for transgressions—with the rise of class society and the emergence of authorities. Writing was apparently invented to keep track of debts; in other words, it was an accounting invention.

Over time, the technology used for accounting changed—from scratches on rocks and bones, to chalk tallies on slate, to tokens pushed into clay balls, to clay shubati tablets, to notched tally sticks, to stamped and milled coins, to paper notes, and finally to entries on computer tapes. Part—but not all–of the impetus for technological evolution was to keep up with the counterfeiters.

What we call “money” (coins, tally sticks, paper notes, electronic entries on bank balance sheets) is simply the record of debt, “accounted for” in the money of account. The line between what we want to count as “money” debts or merely as “money denominated” debts is and always has been arbitrary. Most will include a checkable bank deposit in their definition of “money”; most will not include a non-checkable certificate of deposit in that definition…

Let us back up a bit. Our word “to pay” comes from “pacify”, reflecting payment of Wergild fines owed to victims in order to avoid blood feuds…

• Reviews of David Graeber's book: Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years (addresses issue of “not fitting in” as a minority that we discussed at lunch)

Graeber's work a classic in economic anthropology.

Following quotes from comments By Hans G. Despain on January 4, 2012:

What does one find in Graeber's book? The primary thesis can be identified as `the duality of debt' (my term not Graeber's). On the one hand debt has a type of ontological expression, i.e. debt is what binds us as a species, e.g. we are indebted to our parents, family, culture, society for our well-being and personal development, and more theologically an indebtedness to the Cosmos/God. This side of debt is found in its expression (i.e. language) and development. On the other hand debt has an historical existential tendency to be employed to enslave or create circumstances of debt peonage...

If the primary thesis can be expressed as "the duality of debt" there are several other major theses of considerable interest. I identify six major theses...  I attempt to divide the book into six major theses, in so doing it can be seen that the first five theses are historical and scientific, only the last is political. In other words, the politics and science can be logically separated....

(1) Debt predates money 
(2) Government construct national markets
(3) Primordial debt theory -- Money is invented to quantify certain types of debt.
(4) Military-coinage-slavery complex -- Historically the emergence of coinage (i.e. money) is linked with military efforts
(5) Historical attitudes toward debt/World cycles -- attitudes toward debt not only change over time (he identifies four the Axial Age 800 BC - 600 AD, Middle Ages 600 - 1450, Capitalistic Age 1450 - 1971, Something Yet to Be Determined Age 1971 - future), but attitudes are also cyclical and global (Europe, China, India, Africa, etc.).
(6) History removes the veil of debt as road to servitude and peonage

The problem is that anthropologists assume, via economic postulates of universal human nature, competitive market activity whenever there seems to be exchange and interaction. The great economist Karl Polanyi demonstrated this is a major mistake in anthropology. For example, if a future anthropologist were to assume monetary exchange relations in contemporary American households, there would be great misunderstanding of family relationships of 2012, between spouse and spouse and between parent and child. Contemporary family relationships have little to do with monetary exchange relations. 

(1) The historical emergence of money is to mark a social debt relationship (e.g. somebody owes someone else something)
(2) This was an historical process that almost always included some public institution (e.g. the State) to keep track of, and enforce, the social debt relationship.
(3) This means money was not invited for market exchange (what economist call a "medium of exchange") but rather money functioned merely as a "unit of account". 
(4) Public officials would quickly understand these social debt tokens (as units of account) functioned as a means of power (what economists call "a store of value"), i.e. the social debt tokens meant that someone could get someone else to do something.
(5) The historical presence of currency in this "Chartalist" view does not mean "market-exchange", but the presence of specific State Power. First, the power to levy taxes on its subjects, and second the power to demand payment in a specific form (e.g. state coin).

 I am interested in any reviews or evaluation you may have on books of the greenbackers, S. Zarlenga, The Lost Science of Money, and E. Brown, The Web of Debt....

I fully endorse both books. We need to begin to understand that the "Big Squeeze" on American households is not merely from the government, indeed Federal and State taxes have gone down in the last four decades, but the interest paid to the banks (which has gone up significantly in the last four decades). Second the symbiotic relationship between banks and government. Third how protecting big banks is a serious "national security" issue. These three issues suggest rather strongly, in concert with the politics of Greenbackers, Zarlenga, and Brown, --- Banks and money are a public good. 

This is primarily because of the power of the institution of money (Randall Wray's work on Modern Money Theory being the most important underscoring a better science ofmoney).

Where I might take issue with Zarlenga and Brown is that the history of money has been in the hands of the state, and the results not always any better, debt-peonage, slavery, etc (Graeber's, Wray's and Polanyi's history of money support this statement). This means that not only must the intitution of money be understood as a public good, but the relationship between citizens and government needs to be changed in rather radical ways. 

This means it is not merely a monetary issue, but understanding the relationship between Individual Citizens - Production (especially Big Business) - Big Finance - Government

The review by Aaron Brown, below Despain's, is also brilliant. It points out that money/debt also have advantages, which may in fact outweigh the disadvantages in the big picture. Also, this:

Finally, one of the author's key points is that debt can have the effect of ripping a person out of social context to be treated as a source of repayment rather than a friend, neighbor, son and so on. This is a brilliant point, well-argued and important. But it has an obverse side the author misrepresents. Some people run away from traditional societies and small towns for the anonymity of a city. They shed what they consider the burdens of social ties to create and join less personal organizations. Debt in its quantified and impersonal form was undoubtedly created by these types of people.

The author treats social refugees as either evil or deluded. If unsuccessful, they are caught in a debt trap that destroyed everything of meaning in their lives. If successful, they are addicted to the pursuit of money, which cannot buy them happiness. In fact, many people have at least some tendencies in these directions at some points in their lives. Some are mainly escaping intolerable or suffocating situations. Others are looking for excitement and adventure. Or they may want to pursue ideas that require wider contacts (and therefore relatively impersonal and rational human relations) than their traditional social ties can provide. Not everyone who flees the family farm is after world domination or mindless stockpiling of gold. You'd think someone who didn't understand this would spend his time arguing with his friends and teaching his children, not writing a book.

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain

Here are a couple of articles that I’ve seen lately that make the case against cryptocurrencies and blockchain being useful in the near future:

• The blockchain paradox: Why distributed ledger technologies may do little to transform the economy.  Excerpt:“The reason that blockchain is making waves is that it promises to change the very way economies are organized: to eliminate centralized third parties…  once you address the problem of governance, you no longer need blockchain; you can just as well use conventional technology that assumes a trusted central party to enforce the rules, because you’re already trusting somebody (or some organization/process) to make the rules…  I’m very happy to be challenged on this, if you can point out a place in my reasoning where I’ve made an error. Understanding grows via debate.”
• Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain  Excerpt:“Each purported use case — from payments to legal documents, from escrow to voting systems—amounts to a set of contortions to add a distributed, encrypted, anonymous ledger where none was needed. What if there isn’t actually any use for a distributed ledger at all? What if, ten years after it was invented, the reason nobody has adopted a distributed ledger at scale is because nobody wants it?”
  
  
• Of Bitcoins and Balance Sheets: The Real Lesson From Bitcoin  Excerpt:

The monetary systems of nations operate on two types of balance sheet expansion:

1.    National, where the government spends into the economy expanding a national balance sheet

2.    (The sum of) banks’ balance sheet expansions, where bank loans create deposits

The liability side of both of the above are traded around as “money”…

Bitcoin is not the result of a balance sheet expansion. There is no inherent obligation for repayment of bitcoin to any government (taxes) or to extinguish private debt (banking system). There is no in-built demand for bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency).

• Crypto Crackdown: Bitcoin is a “Combination of Bubble, Ponzi Scheme, Environmental Disaster”  Excerpt:“We are seeing the type of cracks and cheating that brought down other private currencies starting to appear in the House of Bitcoin.”

Debasement.

“In Bitcoin, these take the form of forks, a type of spin-off in which developers clone Bitcoin’s software, release it with a new name and a new coin, after possibly adding a few new features or tinkering with the algorithms’ parameters. Often, the objective is to capitalize on the public’s familiarity with Bitcoin to make some serious money, at least virtually.”

“Last year alone, 19 Bitcoin forks came out, including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Diamond. Forks can fork again, and many more could happen. After all, it just takes a bunch of smart programmers and a catchy name.”

These multiplying cryptos “dilute the value of existing ones, to the extent such cryptocurrencies have any economic value at all,” he said. There are now over 1,500 cryptocurrencies, up from just a handful several years ago.

“Even if the supply of one type of cryptocurrency is limited, the mushrooming of so many of them means that the total supply of all forms of cryptocurrency is unlimited. Given the experience with currency debasement that has peppered history, the proliferation of such private monies should give everyone pause for thought.” …

“In practice, central bank experiments show that [distributed leger technology] based systems are very expensive to run and slower and much less efficient to operate than conventional payment and settlement systems. The electricity used in the process of mining bitcoins is staggering…”