Former president Trump appears to have slid further since last night’s news about a new grand jury’s superseding indictment of him on charges of trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.
I suspect we will see Trump continue to implode. He's now a cornered animal who has never been held criminally accountable for his actions. While this corrupt SCOTUS insulated him with immunity from "official acts" he is still vulnerable to conviction and prison time for a multitude of serious crimes against the United States. He recognizes that if he is not sworn in as President it is likely he will either be fleeing the country or will be spending 2025 in criminal court.
The Reagan/Milton Friedman so-called economic concept of a "free-market" is nothing more than a massive fraud perpetrated by the wealthy through their GOP shills like Reagan and Trump. The concept of a "free-market" quickly dies when TARP banks are bailed out by taxpayers. It dies when industries are allowed to collude through backchannel agreements or simply consolidate in violation of anti-trust law. The concept of "free-markets" die when, without government inspection, diseased meat is packaged and sold to unsuspecting consumers. The concept of "free-markets" die, when, for example a fertilizer and chemical plant explodes next to an elementary school in Texas because regulations hurt "bidness". And the concept of "trickle-down" dies when it is truly explained to every voter. That simply giving more money to the already wealthy will make everyone better off is so completely moronic it could only be sold to a society where public education has been deemed a nuisance by people like Betsy DeVos (who thrives on student loan debt interest payments) , religious fundamentalists, and right-wing extremists.
Thank you Phil -I had more to say -HCR always provokes a chain of thought! -but am working (frantically) to publish the next in my Fear & Loathing series (hat tip to Hunter Thompson) -this on public education later today.
Coming soon to a monitor or mobile device near you ...
The Heritage Foundation/Trump/MAGA/GOP assault on democracy called “Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” expresses the GOP intent to eliminate the Department of Education. This is clear evidence that they also know the pillars of a free and democratic society are education, information, and engagement. Such a society is much harder to control, and is more likely to understand that concepts such as “trickle-down” and “free-market” are not real economic concepts, they are mass fraud geared toward the concentration of wealth to the privileged few. Their vision is an indoctrination into a system where people blindly accept what they are told by Fox “News”, or elected “leadership” like Trump, Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Matt Gaetz, and Greg Abbott.
They simply nod and accept judicial decisions from bias, incompetent, and corrupt judges and justices. They are told climate change is a liberal hoax. They are told slavery was just a job apprenticeship program. That the civil war was not to free slaves and attempt to end a horrific part of U.S. History, but over States rights versus Federal overreach. They will accept that there’s no remedy for guns and assault rifles and that bulletproof backpacks are not an outrage but a “free-market” opportunity for a parent to show they care about their child or children. They are taught that Columbus “discovered” America (although by the same logic I “discovered” Spain when I visited Barcelona in 2023 -of course I didn’t plant the US flag and then slaughter all of the Spanish in so doing). On one hand these extremists talk about liberty and freedom -however they seek to imprison the minds of their rabid followers.
The reality is that a well-educated society will not blindly and obediently follow.
“Trickle down” economics is perhaps more accurately if less daintily described as “piss on the poor” economics, while “free market” economics is simply an early stage on the way to monopolies.
'well educated' is definitely an issue in the U.S. And the public has no idea of the deeply embedded bribery for legislation that occurs in the US Congress. If elected, I believe Kamala and Waltz could foment change on that issue. Congress has literally become a piggy bank for some members who come out as multi millionaires, thanks to lobbyists and public lack of awareness of the amount of money changes hands.
I am a retired Ag Economist (MS-University of Illinois/Urbana) who was an Independent until Reagan introduced his version of trickle-down economics. I watched the consolidation in the food industry happen in real time as the government of both R and D presidents ignored anti-trust laws and the Packers and Stockyards act. It has been devastating for farmers, and yet the vast majority of them vote Republican. They have been repeatedly told that Democrats are "Marxists/socialist" who are coming for their guns.
Last week, someone I know, with zero economic knowledge, accidentally posted a picture on their business FB page instead of their personal page of Kamala Harris next to a picture of her father's monograph "Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution". This post called her and her father "Marxists". I did some googling and quickly found a pdf of the monograph, which was full of pretty heavy-duty mathematical modeling. I skipped to the conclusion since I didn't have the time or energy to wade through it. The Wikipedia page on Dr. Donald Harris summarizes it nicely: "Harris employs mathematical modeling to explore the relationship between the accumulation of capital and income inequality, economic growth, economic instability, and other phenomena, arguing that typical theories fail to adequately consider power, class, and historical context." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris It was NOT a Marxist manifesto by any stretch, but with "Capital Accumulation" in the title it was meat for the right wing propaganda machine.
Thank you for sharing Robin. I've always found it educational to drive on Interstate 5 in California through the central valley and see all of the signs blaming Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party for water scarcity. The signs would often be interspersed with oil rigs.
I've written before that the anger and frustration among "moral majority", "tea party" and now "MAGA" are all real -however, as most every reader of HCR's LFAA's know, the anger is intentionally misdirected through Fox "News" and a media so concerned with "balanced" reporting they have forgotten that the only "sides" to facts and evidence are truth and falsehoods.
There are two areas that drove me nuts when I researched them years ago with the idea of doing a feature film. One was big pharma and the other would have been set in Congress revealing the long time tradition of lobbying which is why so many Congress members retire rich..
Thank you Jen! Now I’m smiling and thinking of a group that grew in the days of “Dubya” called “Drinking Liberally”.
Stiglitz’s “The Road to Freedom” should definitely be on a list along with “Manufacturing Consent”, “The Corporation”, “Don’t Think of an Elephant”, “Miseducation in America”, and “The Economics of Innocent Fraud”. All important and all readily accessible.
Also, “Democracy Awakening” by @Heather Cox Richardson (It’s important, and also, I want to stay on her good side) :)
For a moment I was confused, since I thought Stieglitz was a pioneering photographer around the beginning of the 20th century. So I looked it up and the Stiglitz the economist you mention was born a couple of years before Stieglitz the photographer died.
That mention, plus the list of books provided by Mr. Polisher below, is going to take up some of my time.
The wealthy spin propaganda in order to pit the working class against each other. Then they sit back and laugh and watch as working class people fight each other. (They laugh all the way to the bank as well.)
The real threat to Democracy is the top 1%, the wealthiest of our country.
“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Along with your good essay, I would like to add that we're not looking for socialism in which the government controls businesses, but rather we're looking for a regulated market in which businesses are free to seek and maximize profits and operate as they see fit, but within limits that avoid harm and exploitation.
I see no problem with someone having a pile of gold, per se. I do have a huge problem with someone amassing his pile of gold on a stack of body bags.
In other words, I personally believe, we should strive for a regulated capitalist economic system, and say so. We shouldn't let anti-humans define what we stand for. We must define ourselves in a way that inspires and attracts the average person wothout scaring the shit out of would-be oligarchs. The smart ones will sign on.
Very true Jerry, although I do worry about a system that demands continuous growth against finite resources. And I’ve also written some essays about wealth, I’m supportive of wealth creation through innovation, risk, and effort, however I’m not a fan of wealth transfers through externalities, lobbying to shift taxes and debt to workers, unlimited inheritances, and privatization.
Growth is a huge problem in our economic system, because it squanders ever more natural resources and because it depends on population growth in a primary way. The challenge is to come up with a different economic system and mechanisms that will make it work that is not totalitarian.
A well regulated economy benefits everyone, building trust in the products and services generated by business. In short, a scaling up of the basic carrot and stick approach to human behavior. Any costs involved simply become part of the overall pricing and profit structure. Who says you shouldn't have cops covering the highways and byways, "law and order", that's Republican jargon, right?
MARXISM. Finally someone is calling out the wanton hurling about of the term by people who just like the way it rolls off the tongue! Ditto for communism and socialism. I’d like to see someone— anyone!— in an interview with one of these bozos who label Democrats as Marxists, demand that they define the term. SPOILER ALERT: they can’t.
We weren't allowed to peek at much anything about Marxism, socialism, or communism back when I was in high school from anything but what the one sided approved descriptions (not worth reading to me). The closest we got was the senior year much appreciated teacher in the Problems of Democracy course when different students or groups were assigned to do reports on things like the American Nazi Party, American Communist Party, the then current Russia Life magazine that was part of an inter-governmental agreement to allow 30,000 subscriptions to be distributed (we got to send an equal number of what may have been "Amerika" magazines to the Soviet Union, though I thought at one time it was copies of our Life Magazine).
I got to cover all of South America (most memorable to me as the laughed at my mentioning what I seem to recall as legislators in the new capitol, Brazilia, shooting at each other in the halls of their congress.
The students who wanted literature from the American Communist Party had their letter returned to them the next morning marked as "no such address." My dad worked in the post office at the time and noted that there was no way the letter could get to (I believe New York City), and back in the short time available.
The student who requested literature from the American Nazi Party got a lot more, including a monthly magazine that featured the Nazi of the month on the cover, a biker that road back and forth through the main street in a New Jersey town, through attempted road blocks, with a large cape or something like it printed with something like we don't allow no N****** around here. Seemed outrageous fascist wannabes were more tolerated than an form of "communism" sympathies (which there were legal prohibitions against due to their support of violence to achieve their ends).
A starting point for my late in life curiosity about the real story on Marxism could be considered the 2011 (soon after Citizens United), video, Communism | The 20th Century | World History | Khan Academy at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmRgMAZyYN0&t=7s
It interested me because it included the early history (1848) when Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto, a time when Europe was much more interested in the end of fuedalism, and manor systems in England where the industrial revolution really accelerated the disparities in income and property accumulation.
It was also of interest as a new concept to Horace Greeley and Father Nathan Meeker, who led the formation of the Union, utopian communal, Colony in Greeley Colorado. You won't find much, if any, mention of the Marxist concepts they thought they were using when they "...paid a $155 fee and signed a covenant promising to abstain from alcohol and gambling to receive a house site in town and a farm on the higher benchlands..." according to The Man Who Thought He Owned Water: On the Brink with American Farms, Cities, and Food, (one of my very favorite books since it was written by an ancestor of Benjamin Harrison Eaton who brought irrigation techniques he learned from Spanish settlers further south, that made the colony succeed).
The book is fascinating with the story telling that rivals writing style of James Michener's "Centennial" in the first half (except with the real names of the people vs the historical fiction types). The last half is the greatest example of detailed yet understandable explanation of the source of all western water law impact and processes.
It didn't hurt that my Florida in-laws sparked other interests from meeting water law lawyer Kelly J. Custer (related to the more famous Custer), during their annual ski trips to Colorado. She lives/lived not far from Greeley and Eaton. They had no discussions on water law with her and didn't know from my interests to initiate any, not having met her since, but I'd be interested in what she thinks of the last half of Tershia d’Elgin’s book.
Why the hell 7 ballots per democrat in California? It’s for damn sure Trump can’t count by 7’s. Why not 10? I realize he’s batshit, but I would expect his derangement to follow thinking patterns he’s familiar with, so fingers and toes perhaps…
Well, as much as a pinball machine does. It’s just that his has hit tilt. (This makes me think I’m dating myself and I don’t think that term tilt applies in a digital age. Calling it a blue screen is old too…)
The orange felon understands human decency no better than he does the law.
That Heather well sums up his despicable (and illegal) posturing for cameras at Arlington National Cemetery is corroborated by Anthony Scaramucci today, too, who reminded us his former boss has no respect for norms, none for the law, none for morality.
Trump belongs to a world of similar depraved.
Putin enriched himself by securing Russia for thieving oligarchs like him. Kim locks down power and state murder in North Korea. Orban has fake love of Hungarian culture which his humanities illiteracy forbids him ever reference. Ditto with Modi and his Hindi nationalism in India, Xi allied to his Chinese state crime cadre syndicates, Erdogan to Turkey’s murderously reckless real estate developers, Mohammed bin Salman to fellow Saudi murderers (and their allied U.S. nihilists for fossil fuel), and Netanyahu to his far-right settlers (and their allied U.S. evangelicals) to up terror on West Bank Palestinians.
Yet beyond this, Kamala and Tim – plus many more – turn out Americans across the land rooted in decency, in respect for fairness. Will these resonate among people of the world?
I didn't think CFDT could ever go lower than the Lafayette Square Fascist where he sent in brown shirts with their name tags removed to tear gas and rubber bullet a peaceful crowd who were literally just hanging out. Many people saw it unfold live, and got to see Garrett Haake get shot in the leg with a rubber bullet as he reported. And all of this for a photo-op.
But to illegally take over a section of Arlington National Cemetery for a photo-op is a new and disgusting low. Many of us have relatives and friends that died serving in the armed forces and Arlington is a memorial to their service to keep us free. My father was a WWII disabled vet. I am beyond insulted that convicted felon Donald Trump would desecrate hallowed ground because he thought it would buy him a few votes.
It certainly does here in my part of the world, Northern Ireland. We have been enduring many years of increasingly vile, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, openly corrupt behavior by the MAGA endorsing British extremist Democratic Unionists and local racketeering and intimidation by their out of control armed Loyalist thugs. For Peace sake. Hoping that finally the British state might one day judicially intervene rather than continue to fund their civil war legacy ‘assets’ in Loyalist run estates to ‘transition’. Only the recent riots hitting England has at last shone a public light on this heinous neglect by successive UK governments and its socially destructive consequences for the majority decent law abiding individuals living here.
So many suffer tribalism of the worst kinds around the world.
I used to keep a list of the worst, with some pair-offs grossly disproportionate in weaponry and historical grievance.
Maybe what seems well to be a resurgence of decency among many in the U.S. will translate into a program -- for the U.S., for the world -- in schools leading essay writing programs for all to learn to jettison stereotypes and embrace the arts of seeing others as individuals (even admitting the complications all inhabit).
Right now, though, the schools play no role, except in turning themselves into fodder for our nihilist standardized testing billionaires.
Thank you. I agree about schooling. The fact that N.I. has a school system still segregated along religious sectarian lines effectively embedding social apartheid does not help.
Not surprisingly, Trump continues to be a disgusting human being as he tweets and retweets Who could possibly support him to be the President of the United States? For the next 67 days, I'm referring to Trump as "The Pervert". I encourage everyone to do the same. What an abomination.
I had an acquaintance, he was a vet, he had some form of cancer. He was self employed and did not have health insurance. He had very negative feelings about Obama Care. He would tell anyone who he could corner how horrible Obamacare was. That Obamacare was socialized care and therefore a communist construct. When he was diagnosed he sought and was given care at the VAHospital. After a course of treatment put him in remission, he was back in the club and button holing any one he could about sociaist/communjist health care, When I asked him to describe what meant, he described his impression of socialized which, as I pointed out to him, sounded an awful lot like the care he had availed himself to at the VA. Hmmm
A lot of people are self-programed to knee jerk responses... They're easy to remember and you don't have to think even a bit. Maga is not an institution of higher or lower education. It's just plain dumb.
In other words, another reminder I never met so many white male morons in one place at one time as I did in the Navy. Lots of good people, way too many morons.
My mother was the same about Medicare. To be fair, she did get it when I had that conversation with her. But her conclusion was “I earned it.” As if people working three jobs to scrape by didn’t. And why does such a fundamental thing have to be earned?
I truly don’t get it. Society as a whole, and business too, benefits from a more healthy populace with access to preventive medicine. I do not understand the attachment to the for profit model of healthcare that we have, by people with no association with those profits.
Must remind everyone that the orange coward has done nothing without the approval (silence) of the elected Republicans. They chose to keep him when the democrats provided an exit ramp. They are all in on the destruction of America.
“Reindicted and it feels so good” — Lincoln Project and/or Randy Rainbow ought to jump on that with a parody of the original song. It’d be brilliant, as is your capture of it to apply to the “donvict.” Well done!
Not surprised to hear of more rantings from an unhinged demented convicted felon, "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” (to borrow from Macbeth/Shakespeare)
The Arlington cemetery lawbreaking incident including assaulting a cemetery staff person who was then accused by the tffg staff of having mental issues seems the perfect illustration of more projection on their part. It hardly bears repeating how the msm consistently ignores the UNFITNESS of tffg to serve as POTUS and normalizes his deranged behavior. I look forward to the day when his whining and bleating is no longer endlessly making the rounds of all news media, both msm and alternative platforms including Substack and independent journalism.
It is incredibly sad that millions of our fellow Americans support this charlatan. As a lifelong educator, I cannot help feeling at least a modicum of guilt that, over the years, we have failed to instill any critical thinking skills in so many of our former students.
Betsy, it has less to do with critical thinking skills and more to do with belief (and the indoctrination that occurs in some Christian religions). For me, I see that the belief that white Christian men are better than everyone, and should have unfettered power over anyone not a white, Christian man is what dominates any sort of critical thinking skills said believer may have.
Looking at a photo of Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, I am reminded of what asociology professor once said in class long ago, that for every ethnic slur, there is an example in reality.
Cheung is Fu Manchu. Either that or "Odd Job" from the Bond movies.
Ooh!...I'll second that! I thought our last election was a wear on my nerves...this one is out of the ballpark. The last thing I want to hear about Trump is that he's currently incarcerated for "X" number of yrs
Lately, I've been wondering if Republicans won't find a way to slide Vance into the top spot and push Trump aside. He's raving mad and desperately so. Vance, of course, is no moral exemplar; he seems to delight in slandering women, but he is younger and fit. The only way this ticket wins is by cheating big time. Choosing a former prosecutor (especially a woman) for the top Democratic spot is inspired. We've never needed one more. Go Harris-Walz!
I am certain that is their plan. They need his base to elect the RepubliKan ticket, and one of the first orders of business on January 20 will be to set in motion the VP takeover of the presidency, should they win the election.
Well, there's nothing to stop God doing that him/her self.
See the story of Job.
Difficult to campaign if all your hair has fallen out, you're covered in boils and your camels have succumbed to the pox. ( For "camels" read Miller et al)
The irony is huge. The location of the National Cemetery at Arlington House was a "screw you" to Bobby Lee from the US Army...and now the x-Prez who sided with those who wanted to keep Lees statue as a place for Nazi's and the KKK to rally around with their torches has gone into that sacred space...of "losers" and "dopes" to get a photo op...and then his people berate the caretaker for doing his job. Trump is so twisted and confused...he insults, then embraces the same people, because he feels whatever he does in the moment makes HIM look good. What a total and complete clueless jerk.
Thank you Dr. Richardson, for defining so clearly the confusing and distorted terminology the Trump camp is using to attempt to define the status of the economy today. Helpful in conversations with people who call me a Marxist when they don’t agree with something I have said.
Yes, the whole antifa thing didn’t work too well. Their real goal was to try to popularize the idea that being against fascism was a bad thing, so that eventually claiming fascist stances would be ok, but too many people still remember WW2 pretty clearly, and Nazi is still a worse epithet to call someone than Communist. When someone calls me a communist, they tend to look like a uniformed idiot. “You think I approve of North Korea’s policies toward their own people?” generally sidetracks the conversation from where it started, me approving of school lunches or whatnot.
I think that what happened with antifa was that the anarchists usurped the original "founders", if you will. The anarchists that I speak of had their start at the 1999 WTO protest events in Seattle, WA. I had quite a few professional contacts with them in the early aughts, and all they wanted to do was destroy property, if corporate all the better, and sow hate and discontent. BLM and the antifa movement in response to events from Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown's death to Minneapolis, MN following George Floyd's murder were negatively impacted by the anarchists invading those rightful protest spaces and simply engaging in hateful destruction rather than peaceful protest.
Yes, since my sister’s daughter and her kids live in the house that my father grew up in, and my family still owns the ranch started by my grandfather homesteading land in Wyoming in 1906, and I grew up hearing all the stories about how hard that start-up was, and I have contributed all my life to keeping the place going, I have no patience with anarchists. So much easier to wreck things, than to build and maintain things. Steve Bannon is the epitome of evil, as far as I am concerned. Trump is just an unusually lucky, petty criminal who gets away with far too much with his “whiny boy it’s not fair”schtick. Ugh. All opinions are my own, of course. :-)
I think Marxist has less common usage, therefore it is not well understood by most people and stands in as a flag for “ideas I don’t know about, and therefore probably don’t like, thought up by a guy who looks like a wild hippie compared to Hitler, and his curly hair suggestions he might have “Black” blood which is a good reason to not learn anything about him.”
I have to look back at the world situation in 1848 to imagine early thinkers trying to figure out how the industrial revolution enabled some people to end up with more critical assets in new types of machinery that could use many more disposable workers.
Previous wealth concentration could come with huge land holdings that other would have to work if they couldn't get enough land of their own (40 acres and a mule) let some have a lot more hope of making it free of having to work for someone else. It seemed the Union Colony at Greeley Colorado let them pool their resources and labor to create a more durable and independent community under what they imagined to be a more agrarian version of Marxism. To me, many utopian groups did well when everybody had to work together to have a great stepping stone to a more prosperous life, but most devolved into more individual or small enterprises once successful enough.
Mild socialists kept loose communities more inclined to help each other in hard times, but hard core communists took it to rather extreme corrupt levels. Social Democracies seem to do much better with a balance of social support at the base level but more opportunity for all to grow from a solid base.
The depredations and graft by the hyper-wealthy in the "Gilded Age" were curbed by social movements and progressive elected officials, such as the Roosevelt, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, as well as many other creative and civic minded officials, writers, etc. Lincoln, who carried the promises of the nations founding documents closer to realization said of government:
" The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves---in their separate, and individual capacities.
In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."
And why the hell not? Could a society was large and complex as ours exist without the stewardship of a government? Could liberty exist in a land ruled by the rich at the expense of the poor? Lincoln embraces a liberal conservatism that seeks dynamic balance. Not extremes, nor stalled in mediocrity, but embracing as much as it takes to seek and establish optimized freedom and justice for everyone.
Lucky me to live in Socialist Switzerland where we have a robust social safety net, amazing public transportation, health services for all, balanced news reporting due to public radio and televsion AND respected, effective trade unions! Teachers are also well paid! Funny thing, our economy is thriving! Unemployment is consistently low. For years Switzerland has been rated number one on innovation by the UN World Intellectual Property Organization and it is home to more Fortune 500 companies per capita than other country! I grew up in Alabama and have always been infuriated at how right wing politicians have pedaled the lie that a strong state and a strong economy cancel each other out. If that State is efficient and honest, the opposite is true. America needs more not less Bidenomics!
This is timely for me and much appreciated Professor Richardson - Thanks!
I constantly get called a communist or socialist for being against Trump by family members, so this is an excellent run-down of how this has become a smear for any who want to promote the common good. My reply?
Well, full disclosure, I'm retired in France at the moment - my living costs are lower than in the US because I don't need a car and my medical expenses, even for over the counter meds, are cheaper. Yeah, as I point out to family and friends, it's a socialist hellscape!
As for what Trump will do to the US while he introduces more socialism for billionaires, I highly recommend Tom Edsall's column in the NYT's from yesterday on the potential economic impact of Trump's economic and immigration policies. Hint: they will be nothing less than catastrophic - now there is a bread and butter issue for Americans - at least one would think. Here is the link:
Here’s what my family is like, from the bulwark I think. “
“Imagine if someone in your place of work was posting this type of stuff about your other coworkers. Would that person be considered “leadership material”? Or would you be a little worried about the upcoming lunch break?
And are we truly so desensitized to it all that this no longer provokes our indignation? Have we decided it’s simply easier to look away?
Trump’s superfans aren’t looking away. They eat this stuff up with a big ole spoon, their hearts beating faster as they fantasize about the carnage to come.
Meanwhile, those Republican voters who remain outside the MAGA cult just aren’t paying attention to it at all. For the third consecutive election, they’re asleep at the switch, paying attention to nothing but their vague belief that another Trump presidency still represents their preferred “policies.”
To those voters, I’d just say this: Take a hard look at the guy on stage at one of these “policy” events—barely even trying to appear interested as he clanks tonelessly through the content his speechwriters have loaded on the teleprompter. Then flip on one of his freeform rallies, where his eyes light up as he leads a roaring crowd through serial denunciations of all his demonic Democratic foes. Glance once more through the truly deranged, unnerving gobbledegook he sees fit to endorse when the algorithm he controls serves it up to him on the social media site he owns.
And ask yourself: Do I really think Donald Trump shares my enthusiasm for “policy?”
France has a strong Social Safety Net… A few Groups within the U.S. do as well… With A.I., and Robotics beginning to displace more & more People should we start thinking about building up the Safety Net is the U.S.? The Dark Siths already have theirs… A recent Clip in the MSM showed the Factory Floor of LEGO... There were no People, just Robots... That is the Future of Mass Manufacturing....
Thank you Professor Richardson.
I suspect we will see Trump continue to implode. He's now a cornered animal who has never been held criminally accountable for his actions. While this corrupt SCOTUS insulated him with immunity from "official acts" he is still vulnerable to conviction and prison time for a multitude of serious crimes against the United States. He recognizes that if he is not sworn in as President it is likely he will either be fleeing the country or will be spending 2025 in criminal court.
The Reagan/Milton Friedman so-called economic concept of a "free-market" is nothing more than a massive fraud perpetrated by the wealthy through their GOP shills like Reagan and Trump. The concept of a "free-market" quickly dies when TARP banks are bailed out by taxpayers. It dies when industries are allowed to collude through backchannel agreements or simply consolidate in violation of anti-trust law. The concept of "free-markets" die when, without government inspection, diseased meat is packaged and sold to unsuspecting consumers. The concept of "free-markets" die, when, for example a fertilizer and chemical plant explodes next to an elementary school in Texas because regulations hurt "bidness". And the concept of "trickle-down" dies when it is truly explained to every voter. That simply giving more money to the already wealthy will make everyone better off is so completely moronic it could only be sold to a society where public education has been deemed a nuisance by people like Betsy DeVos (who thrives on student loan debt interest payments) , religious fundamentalists, and right-wing extremists.
Love, George, the wealth and pithy aptness of your many great parallels here.
Thank you Phil -I had more to say -HCR always provokes a chain of thought! -but am working (frantically) to publish the next in my Fear & Loathing series (hat tip to Hunter Thompson) -this on public education later today.
Please, George, quote liberally from this text you're working on.
I'm sure much will well apply to what Heather observes (and other commenters here observe) in current events as well as from history.
Coming soon to a monitor or mobile device near you ...
The Heritage Foundation/Trump/MAGA/GOP assault on democracy called “Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” expresses the GOP intent to eliminate the Department of Education. This is clear evidence that they also know the pillars of a free and democratic society are education, information, and engagement. Such a society is much harder to control, and is more likely to understand that concepts such as “trickle-down” and “free-market” are not real economic concepts, they are mass fraud geared toward the concentration of wealth to the privileged few. Their vision is an indoctrination into a system where people blindly accept what they are told by Fox “News”, or elected “leadership” like Trump, Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Matt Gaetz, and Greg Abbott.
They simply nod and accept judicial decisions from bias, incompetent, and corrupt judges and justices. They are told climate change is a liberal hoax. They are told slavery was just a job apprenticeship program. That the civil war was not to free slaves and attempt to end a horrific part of U.S. History, but over States rights versus Federal overreach. They will accept that there’s no remedy for guns and assault rifles and that bulletproof backpacks are not an outrage but a “free-market” opportunity for a parent to show they care about their child or children. They are taught that Columbus “discovered” America (although by the same logic I “discovered” Spain when I visited Barcelona in 2023 -of course I didn’t plant the US flag and then slaughter all of the Spanish in so doing). On one hand these extremists talk about liberty and freedom -however they seek to imprison the minds of their rabid followers.
The reality is that a well-educated society will not blindly and obediently follow.
“Trickle down” economics is perhaps more accurately if less daintily described as “piss on the poor” economics, while “free market” economics is simply an early stage on the way to monopolies.
It's why I always refer to it as "tinkle on" economics.
So well said.
Now we need a bumper sticker that doesn't say "continued on next bumper sticker"
Mine on another subject is "birth begins at erection"..
Working on this one.... "trickle down creates a nation of pee-ons" ( courtesy Thom Hartmann)
'well educated' is definitely an issue in the U.S. And the public has no idea of the deeply embedded bribery for legislation that occurs in the US Congress. If elected, I believe Kamala and Waltz could foment change on that issue. Congress has literally become a piggy bank for some members who come out as multi millionaires, thanks to lobbyists and public lack of awareness of the amount of money changes hands.
Technically you "discovered" Catalunya when you visited Barcelona for the first time.
Very true Rhea. :)
And why these letters and commentary need greatly distribution. Thought provoking/critical thought process….👏👏
Trickle down was once called "voo-doo economics" by the last Republican who won the popular vote for the presidency, George H.W. Bush.
No question that it casts an evil spell on any aspiration of democracy.
HW's undergrad degree was in economics.
Hence his understanding of the need to raise taxes, which lost him reelection. But then he had other problems *cough* Iran-Contra-Bill-Barr.
I enjoyed reading that George. Thanks 🙂
I am a retired Ag Economist (MS-University of Illinois/Urbana) who was an Independent until Reagan introduced his version of trickle-down economics. I watched the consolidation in the food industry happen in real time as the government of both R and D presidents ignored anti-trust laws and the Packers and Stockyards act. It has been devastating for farmers, and yet the vast majority of them vote Republican. They have been repeatedly told that Democrats are "Marxists/socialist" who are coming for their guns.
Last week, someone I know, with zero economic knowledge, accidentally posted a picture on their business FB page instead of their personal page of Kamala Harris next to a picture of her father's monograph "Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution". This post called her and her father "Marxists". I did some googling and quickly found a pdf of the monograph, which was full of pretty heavy-duty mathematical modeling. I skipped to the conclusion since I didn't have the time or energy to wade through it. The Wikipedia page on Dr. Donald Harris summarizes it nicely: "Harris employs mathematical modeling to explore the relationship between the accumulation of capital and income inequality, economic growth, economic instability, and other phenomena, arguing that typical theories fail to adequately consider power, class, and historical context." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris It was NOT a Marxist manifesto by any stretch, but with "Capital Accumulation" in the title it was meat for the right wing propaganda machine.
Thank you for sharing Robin. I've always found it educational to drive on Interstate 5 in California through the central valley and see all of the signs blaming Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party for water scarcity. The signs would often be interspersed with oil rigs.
I've written before that the anger and frustration among "moral majority", "tea party" and now "MAGA" are all real -however, as most every reader of HCR's LFAA's know, the anger is intentionally misdirected through Fox "News" and a media so concerned with "balanced" reporting they have forgotten that the only "sides" to facts and evidence are truth and falsehoods.
I refuse to read Fox!
There are two areas that drove me nuts when I researched them years ago with the idea of doing a feature film. One was big pharma and the other would have been set in Congress revealing the long time tradition of lobbying which is why so many Congress members retire rich..
Thank you Sam.
Betsy DeVos of the Amway Ponzi scheme.
She and her entire family (notably Erik Prince of Blackwater “fame”) are disgusting.
Let's go have a beer and we can discuss Stieglitz's most recent book "The Road To Freedom".
Taught in high school, it's very easily understandable and would result in a profound change in popular understanding of how a society should work.
Thank you Jen! Now I’m smiling and thinking of a group that grew in the days of “Dubya” called “Drinking Liberally”.
Stiglitz’s “The Road to Freedom” should definitely be on a list along with “Manufacturing Consent”, “The Corporation”, “Don’t Think of an Elephant”, “Miseducation in America”, and “The Economics of Innocent Fraud”. All important and all readily accessible.
Also, “Democracy Awakening” by @Heather Cox Richardson (It’s important, and also, I want to stay on her good side) :)
Love Stieglitz! Amazing talent and investigator..
For a moment I was confused, since I thought Stieglitz was a pioneering photographer around the beginning of the 20th century. So I looked it up and the Stiglitz the economist you mention was born a couple of years before Stieglitz the photographer died.
That mention, plus the list of books provided by Mr. Polisher below, is going to take up some of my time.
Thank you.
The wealthy spin propaganda in order to pit the working class against each other. Then they sit back and laugh and watch as working class people fight each other. (They laugh all the way to the bank as well.)
The real threat to Democracy is the top 1%, the wealthiest of our country.
“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
-SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis
So very true George …
https://bomdia.substack.com/p/fear-loathing-and-wealth-inequality?r=1p3r9
Along with your good essay, I would like to add that we're not looking for socialism in which the government controls businesses, but rather we're looking for a regulated market in which businesses are free to seek and maximize profits and operate as they see fit, but within limits that avoid harm and exploitation.
I see no problem with someone having a pile of gold, per se. I do have a huge problem with someone amassing his pile of gold on a stack of body bags.
In other words, I personally believe, we should strive for a regulated capitalist economic system, and say so. We shouldn't let anti-humans define what we stand for. We must define ourselves in a way that inspires and attracts the average person wothout scaring the shit out of would-be oligarchs. The smart ones will sign on.
Very true Jerry, although I do worry about a system that demands continuous growth against finite resources. And I’ve also written some essays about wealth, I’m supportive of wealth creation through innovation, risk, and effort, however I’m not a fan of wealth transfers through externalities, lobbying to shift taxes and debt to workers, unlimited inheritances, and privatization.
Growth is a huge problem in our economic system, because it squanders ever more natural resources and because it depends on population growth in a primary way. The challenge is to come up with a different economic system and mechanisms that will make it work that is not totalitarian.
A well regulated economy benefits everyone, building trust in the products and services generated by business. In short, a scaling up of the basic carrot and stick approach to human behavior. Any costs involved simply become part of the overall pricing and profit structure. Who says you shouldn't have cops covering the highways and byways, "law and order", that's Republican jargon, right?
Yes indeed Frank. They revere "law and order" provided it applies to everyone else.
Excellent George, one ‘best synapse’ and clearly needs to be taught.
So true Ryan. He was our worst modern President and led us to the “Prison Apprentice”.
MARXISM. Finally someone is calling out the wanton hurling about of the term by people who just like the way it rolls off the tongue! Ditto for communism and socialism. I’d like to see someone— anyone!— in an interview with one of these bozos who label Democrats as Marxists, demand that they define the term. SPOILER ALERT: they can’t.
Me too. Ditto ‘Woke’ and Feminism.
We weren't allowed to peek at much anything about Marxism, socialism, or communism back when I was in high school from anything but what the one sided approved descriptions (not worth reading to me). The closest we got was the senior year much appreciated teacher in the Problems of Democracy course when different students or groups were assigned to do reports on things like the American Nazi Party, American Communist Party, the then current Russia Life magazine that was part of an inter-governmental agreement to allow 30,000 subscriptions to be distributed (we got to send an equal number of what may have been "Amerika" magazines to the Soviet Union, though I thought at one time it was copies of our Life Magazine).
I got to cover all of South America (most memorable to me as the laughed at my mentioning what I seem to recall as legislators in the new capitol, Brazilia, shooting at each other in the halls of their congress.
The students who wanted literature from the American Communist Party had their letter returned to them the next morning marked as "no such address." My dad worked in the post office at the time and noted that there was no way the letter could get to (I believe New York City), and back in the short time available.
The student who requested literature from the American Nazi Party got a lot more, including a monthly magazine that featured the Nazi of the month on the cover, a biker that road back and forth through the main street in a New Jersey town, through attempted road blocks, with a large cape or something like it printed with something like we don't allow no N****** around here. Seemed outrageous fascist wannabes were more tolerated than an form of "communism" sympathies (which there were legal prohibitions against due to their support of violence to achieve their ends).
A starting point for my late in life curiosity about the real story on Marxism could be considered the 2011 (soon after Citizens United), video, Communism | The 20th Century | World History | Khan Academy at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmRgMAZyYN0&t=7s
It interested me because it included the early history (1848) when Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto, a time when Europe was much more interested in the end of fuedalism, and manor systems in England where the industrial revolution really accelerated the disparities in income and property accumulation.
It was also of interest as a new concept to Horace Greeley and Father Nathan Meeker, who led the formation of the Union, utopian communal, Colony in Greeley Colorado. You won't find much, if any, mention of the Marxist concepts they thought they were using when they "...paid a $155 fee and signed a covenant promising to abstain from alcohol and gambling to receive a house site in town and a farm on the higher benchlands..." according to The Man Who Thought He Owned Water: On the Brink with American Farms, Cities, and Food, (one of my very favorite books since it was written by an ancestor of Benjamin Harrison Eaton who brought irrigation techniques he learned from Spanish settlers further south, that made the colony succeed).
The book is fascinating with the story telling that rivals writing style of James Michener's "Centennial" in the first half (except with the real names of the people vs the historical fiction types). The last half is the greatest example of detailed yet understandable explanation of the source of all western water law impact and processes.
It didn't hurt that my Florida in-laws sparked other interests from meeting water law lawyer Kelly J. Custer (related to the more famous Custer), during their annual ski trips to Colorado. She lives/lived not far from Greeley and Eaton. They had no discussions on water law with her and didn't know from my interests to initiate any, not having met her since, but I'd be interested in what she thinks of the last half of Tershia d’Elgin’s book.
Exactly, Maria!
Why the hell 7 ballots per democrat in California? It’s for damn sure Trump can’t count by 7’s. Why not 10? I realize he’s batshit, but I would expect his derangement to follow thinking patterns he’s familiar with, so fingers and toes perhaps…
His outrageous claims are becoming more and more untethered from realty.
Hence the forensic psychiatrist conference "The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" set for 9/27/24 at he National Press Club.
His base believes his lies!
They carry "you're fired " signs. They're bereft of reality also. And didn't notice in reality he couldn't manage to fire anyone
Sioux, does the orange felon's "bing-bing-boing-bong" evidence "thinking patterns"?
Well, as much as a pinball machine does. It’s just that his has hit tilt. (This makes me think I’m dating myself and I don’t think that term tilt applies in a digital age. Calling it a blue screen is old too…)
He was born tilted.
Both terms work for me
I would love a vintage pinball machine ....
Sins. Virtues. It's more numerology. The Satanic 7 / 11.
🤣🤣🤣so true
Maybe someone explained the number of deadly sins he committed and he's got them confused.
7 mail in ballots in California? I only received 5. Robbed of 2 votes! I cry foul!
Living in CA, I can say one for each day of the week 😈
7 plays well with the more dopey bible-thumpers, as would 40.
And California no less?! It’s the most underrepresented state in the electoral college and it’ll go blue if people only got a half a ballot
The orange felon understands human decency no better than he does the law.
That Heather well sums up his despicable (and illegal) posturing for cameras at Arlington National Cemetery is corroborated by Anthony Scaramucci today, too, who reminded us his former boss has no respect for norms, none for the law, none for morality.
Trump belongs to a world of similar depraved.
Putin enriched himself by securing Russia for thieving oligarchs like him. Kim locks down power and state murder in North Korea. Orban has fake love of Hungarian culture which his humanities illiteracy forbids him ever reference. Ditto with Modi and his Hindi nationalism in India, Xi allied to his Chinese state crime cadre syndicates, Erdogan to Turkey’s murderously reckless real estate developers, Mohammed bin Salman to fellow Saudi murderers (and their allied U.S. nihilists for fossil fuel), and Netanyahu to his far-right settlers (and their allied U.S. evangelicals) to up terror on West Bank Palestinians.
Yet beyond this, Kamala and Tim – plus many more – turn out Americans across the land rooted in decency, in respect for fairness. Will these resonate among people of the world?
I didn't think CFDT could ever go lower than the Lafayette Square Fascist where he sent in brown shirts with their name tags removed to tear gas and rubber bullet a peaceful crowd who were literally just hanging out. Many people saw it unfold live, and got to see Garrett Haake get shot in the leg with a rubber bullet as he reported. And all of this for a photo-op.
But to illegally take over a section of Arlington National Cemetery for a photo-op is a new and disgusting low. Many of us have relatives and friends that died serving in the armed forces and Arlington is a memorial to their service to keep us free. My father was a WWII disabled vet. I am beyond insulted that convicted felon Donald Trump would desecrate hallowed ground because he thought it would buy him a few votes.
It certainly does here in my part of the world, Northern Ireland. We have been enduring many years of increasingly vile, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, openly corrupt behavior by the MAGA endorsing British extremist Democratic Unionists and local racketeering and intimidation by their out of control armed Loyalist thugs. For Peace sake. Hoping that finally the British state might one day judicially intervene rather than continue to fund their civil war legacy ‘assets’ in Loyalist run estates to ‘transition’. Only the recent riots hitting England has at last shone a public light on this heinous neglect by successive UK governments and its socially destructive consequences for the majority decent law abiding individuals living here.
https://www.irishnews.com/opinion/brian-feeney-sooner-uns-racism-rapporteur-visits-north-the-better-OJPIZ2A3ZFDRNHA6FY2NMQ5ZIA/
Sympathize greatly, Monnina.
So many suffer tribalism of the worst kinds around the world.
I used to keep a list of the worst, with some pair-offs grossly disproportionate in weaponry and historical grievance.
Maybe what seems well to be a resurgence of decency among many in the U.S. will translate into a program -- for the U.S., for the world -- in schools leading essay writing programs for all to learn to jettison stereotypes and embrace the arts of seeing others as individuals (even admitting the complications all inhabit).
Right now, though, the schools play no role, except in turning themselves into fodder for our nihilist standardized testing billionaires.
Thank you. I agree about schooling. The fact that N.I. has a school system still segregated along religious sectarian lines effectively embedding social apartheid does not help.
Not surprisingly, Trump continues to be a disgusting human being as he tweets and retweets Who could possibly support him to be the President of the United States? For the next 67 days, I'm referring to Trump as "The Pervert". I encourage everyone to do the same. What an abomination.
Explains his longing for Elon and Orban
I had an acquaintance, he was a vet, he had some form of cancer. He was self employed and did not have health insurance. He had very negative feelings about Obama Care. He would tell anyone who he could corner how horrible Obamacare was. That Obamacare was socialized care and therefore a communist construct. When he was diagnosed he sought and was given care at the VAHospital. After a course of treatment put him in remission, he was back in the club and button holing any one he could about sociaist/communjist health care, When I asked him to describe what meant, he described his impression of socialized which, as I pointed out to him, sounded an awful lot like the care he had availed himself to at the VA. Hmmm
A lot of people are self-programed to knee jerk responses... They're easy to remember and you don't have to think even a bit. Maga is not an institution of higher or lower education. It's just plain dumb.
Weird.
In other words, another reminder I never met so many white male morons in one place at one time as I did in the Navy. Lots of good people, way too many morons.
My mother was the same about Medicare. To be fair, she did get it when I had that conversation with her. But her conclusion was “I earned it.” As if people working three jobs to scrape by didn’t. And why does such a fundamental thing have to be earned?
I truly don’t get it. Society as a whole, and business too, benefits from a more healthy populace with access to preventive medicine. I do not understand the attachment to the for profit model of healthcare that we have, by people with no association with those profits.
Must remind everyone that the orange coward has done nothing without the approval (silence) of the elected Republicans. They chose to keep him when the democrats provided an exit ramp. They are all in on the destruction of America.
Reindicted and it feels so good.
The donvict is mad because Jack Smith isn't going to go silently into the good night.
We're close to two months out of the election and things aren't looking good for the donvict.
But don't get complacent.
Vote.
Smith is fighting a good fight....what do we have to lose but everything. So it's best to play for all its worth.
“Reindicted and it feels so good” — Lincoln Project and/or Randy Rainbow ought to jump on that with a parody of the original song. It’d be brilliant, as is your capture of it to apply to the “donvict.” Well done!
I love it!! The Donvict. That's a new one for me. Thank you Beth.
Not surprised to hear of more rantings from an unhinged demented convicted felon, "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” (to borrow from Macbeth/Shakespeare)
The Arlington cemetery lawbreaking incident including assaulting a cemetery staff person who was then accused by the tffg staff of having mental issues seems the perfect illustration of more projection on their part. It hardly bears repeating how the msm consistently ignores the UNFITNESS of tffg to serve as POTUS and normalizes his deranged behavior. I look forward to the day when his whining and bleating is no longer endlessly making the rounds of all news media, both msm and alternative platforms including Substack and independent journalism.
It is incredibly sad that millions of our fellow Americans support this charlatan. As a lifelong educator, I cannot help feeling at least a modicum of guilt that, over the years, we have failed to instill any critical thinking skills in so many of our former students.
But you same educators instilled critical thinking skills in the rest of us...
Teachers do their best as public education has been underfunded for so long.
Betsy, it has less to do with critical thinking skills and more to do with belief (and the indoctrination that occurs in some Christian religions). For me, I see that the belief that white Christian men are better than everyone, and should have unfettered power over anyone not a white, Christian man is what dominates any sort of critical thinking skills said believer may have.
Breaking the law at Arlington is a forcast of rumps behavior should he return to power.
Looking at a photo of Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, I am reminded of what asociology professor once said in class long ago, that for every ethnic slur, there is an example in reality.
Cheung is Fu Manchu. Either that or "Odd Job" from the Bond movies.
I vote for Odd Job.
Ooh!...I'll second that! I thought our last election was a wear on my nerves...this one is out of the ballpark. The last thing I want to hear about Trump is that he's currently incarcerated for "X" number of yrs
Lately, I've been wondering if Republicans won't find a way to slide Vance into the top spot and push Trump aside. He's raving mad and desperately so. Vance, of course, is no moral exemplar; he seems to delight in slandering women, but he is younger and fit. The only way this ticket wins is by cheating big time. Choosing a former prosecutor (especially a woman) for the top Democratic spot is inspired. We've never needed one more. Go Harris-Walz!
I am certain that is their plan. They need his base to elect the RepubliKan ticket, and one of the first orders of business on January 20 will be to set in motion the VP takeover of the presidency, should they win the election.
RepubliKlan?
He makes it up as he goes along, throwing out anything he has heard might energize support by stoking fear
What if someone took out a big ad that said, GOD is voting for Harris - Walz...do you think Trump would implode?
Well, there's nothing to stop God doing that him/her self.
See the story of Job.
Difficult to campaign if all your hair has fallen out, you're covered in boils and your camels have succumbed to the pox. ( For "camels" read Miller et al)
And tell us he is bigger than G-d
The irony is huge. The location of the National Cemetery at Arlington House was a "screw you" to Bobby Lee from the US Army...and now the x-Prez who sided with those who wanted to keep Lees statue as a place for Nazi's and the KKK to rally around with their torches has gone into that sacred space...of "losers" and "dopes" to get a photo op...and then his people berate the caretaker for doing his job. Trump is so twisted and confused...he insults, then embraces the same people, because he feels whatever he does in the moment makes HIM look good. What a total and complete clueless jerk.
As are those he lures in and then tosses
Thank you Dr. Richardson, for defining so clearly the confusing and distorted terminology the Trump camp is using to attempt to define the status of the economy today. Helpful in conversations with people who call me a Marxist when they don’t agree with something I have said.
At least they know better than to call you a Fascist. Far too many moronic Magats don't know the difference...
Yes, the whole antifa thing didn’t work too well. Their real goal was to try to popularize the idea that being against fascism was a bad thing, so that eventually claiming fascist stances would be ok, but too many people still remember WW2 pretty clearly, and Nazi is still a worse epithet to call someone than Communist. When someone calls me a communist, they tend to look like a uniformed idiot. “You think I approve of North Korea’s policies toward their own people?” generally sidetracks the conversation from where it started, me approving of school lunches or whatnot.
I think that what happened with antifa was that the anarchists usurped the original "founders", if you will. The anarchists that I speak of had their start at the 1999 WTO protest events in Seattle, WA. I had quite a few professional contacts with them in the early aughts, and all they wanted to do was destroy property, if corporate all the better, and sow hate and discontent. BLM and the antifa movement in response to events from Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown's death to Minneapolis, MN following George Floyd's murder were negatively impacted by the anarchists invading those rightful protest spaces and simply engaging in hateful destruction rather than peaceful protest.
Yes, since my sister’s daughter and her kids live in the house that my father grew up in, and my family still owns the ranch started by my grandfather homesteading land in Wyoming in 1906, and I grew up hearing all the stories about how hard that start-up was, and I have contributed all my life to keeping the place going, I have no patience with anarchists. So much easier to wreck things, than to build and maintain things. Steve Bannon is the epitome of evil, as far as I am concerned. Trump is just an unusually lucky, petty criminal who gets away with far too much with his “whiny boy it’s not fair”schtick. Ugh. All opinions are my own, of course. :-)
Opinions I gladly share.
I'm considering updating "Egalitarian Capitalists" to "Tolerable Capitalists" otherwise known as "Social Democrats."
I’m surprised even by the replacing of the word Communist with Marxist!
I think Marxist has less common usage, therefore it is not well understood by most people and stands in as a flag for “ideas I don’t know about, and therefore probably don’t like, thought up by a guy who looks like a wild hippie compared to Hitler, and his curly hair suggestions he might have “Black” blood which is a good reason to not learn anything about him.”
I have to look back at the world situation in 1848 to imagine early thinkers trying to figure out how the industrial revolution enabled some people to end up with more critical assets in new types of machinery that could use many more disposable workers.
Previous wealth concentration could come with huge land holdings that other would have to work if they couldn't get enough land of their own (40 acres and a mule) let some have a lot more hope of making it free of having to work for someone else. It seemed the Union Colony at Greeley Colorado let them pool their resources and labor to create a more durable and independent community under what they imagined to be a more agrarian version of Marxism. To me, many utopian groups did well when everybody had to work together to have a great stepping stone to a more prosperous life, but most devolved into more individual or small enterprises once successful enough.
Mild socialists kept loose communities more inclined to help each other in hard times, but hard core communists took it to rather extreme corrupt levels. Social Democracies seem to do much better with a balance of social support at the base level but more opportunity for all to grow from a solid base.
The depredations and graft by the hyper-wealthy in the "Gilded Age" were curbed by social movements and progressive elected officials, such as the Roosevelt, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, as well as many other creative and civic minded officials, writers, etc. Lincoln, who carried the promises of the nations founding documents closer to realization said of government:
" The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves---in their separate, and individual capacities.
In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."
And why the hell not? Could a society was large and complex as ours exist without the stewardship of a government? Could liberty exist in a land ruled by the rich at the expense of the poor? Lincoln embraces a liberal conservatism that seeks dynamic balance. Not extremes, nor stalled in mediocrity, but embracing as much as it takes to seek and establish optimized freedom and justice for everyone.
Very well said.
- Pulled Quote -
''Vance said. “She can go to hell.”''
Misery does love company.
Democracy and decency win in November.
Every time I am reminded of Corporal Six Months In An Air-Conditioned Trailer, I wish the Jihadis had fired one more missile into that base...
Lucky me to live in Socialist Switzerland where we have a robust social safety net, amazing public transportation, health services for all, balanced news reporting due to public radio and televsion AND respected, effective trade unions! Teachers are also well paid! Funny thing, our economy is thriving! Unemployment is consistently low. For years Switzerland has been rated number one on innovation by the UN World Intellectual Property Organization and it is home to more Fortune 500 companies per capita than other country! I grew up in Alabama and have always been infuriated at how right wing politicians have pedaled the lie that a strong state and a strong economy cancel each other out. If that State is efficient and honest, the opposite is true. America needs more not less Bidenomics!
This is timely for me and much appreciated Professor Richardson - Thanks!
I constantly get called a communist or socialist for being against Trump by family members, so this is an excellent run-down of how this has become a smear for any who want to promote the common good. My reply?
Well, full disclosure, I'm retired in France at the moment - my living costs are lower than in the US because I don't need a car and my medical expenses, even for over the counter meds, are cheaper. Yeah, as I point out to family and friends, it's a socialist hellscape!
As for what Trump will do to the US while he introduces more socialism for billionaires, I highly recommend Tom Edsall's column in the NYT's from yesterday on the potential economic impact of Trump's economic and immigration policies. Hint: they will be nothing less than catastrophic - now there is a bread and butter issue for Americans - at least one would think. Here is the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/opinion/trump-tariffs-deportation-economy.html
I refuse to talk to my mom or brothers about politics. I'm the only one against Trump.
I am in a similar queasy situation.
😢
😢
Here’s what my family is like, from the bulwark I think. “
“Imagine if someone in your place of work was posting this type of stuff about your other coworkers. Would that person be considered “leadership material”? Or would you be a little worried about the upcoming lunch break?
And are we truly so desensitized to it all that this no longer provokes our indignation? Have we decided it’s simply easier to look away?
Trump’s superfans aren’t looking away. They eat this stuff up with a big ole spoon, their hearts beating faster as they fantasize about the carnage to come.
Meanwhile, those Republican voters who remain outside the MAGA cult just aren’t paying attention to it at all. For the third consecutive election, they’re asleep at the switch, paying attention to nothing but their vague belief that another Trump presidency still represents their preferred “policies.”
To those voters, I’d just say this: Take a hard look at the guy on stage at one of these “policy” events—barely even trying to appear interested as he clanks tonelessly through the content his speechwriters have loaded on the teleprompter. Then flip on one of his freeform rallies, where his eyes light up as he leads a roaring crowd through serial denunciations of all his demonic Democratic foes. Glance once more through the truly deranged, unnerving gobbledegook he sees fit to endorse when the algorithm he controls serves it up to him on the social media site he owns.
And ask yourself: Do I really think Donald Trump shares my enthusiasm for “policy?”
France has a strong Social Safety Net… A few Groups within the U.S. do as well… With A.I., and Robotics beginning to displace more & more People should we start thinking about building up the Safety Net is the U.S.? The Dark Siths already have theirs… A recent Clip in the MSM showed the Factory Floor of LEGO... There were no People, just Robots... That is the Future of Mass Manufacturing....