Hurricane Thoughts: One Week Before the Election

Hunkering down in the hours before Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, I've been making calls to Florida as part of MoveOn's get out the vote effort for President Obama. The wind is really picking up. the lights have been flickering off occasionally and I've lost my internet connection three times in the past couple of hours.  Being 40 or so miles inland, though, I don't expect too much trouble from the “megastorm”.

Along with their expressions of concern for us in the Northeast, Floridians have given some practical advice (“We always stocked up on peanut butter and bread to get us through the outages.”) and, with a few exceptions, have expressed their appreciation for MoveOn's efforts. Several of the voters were optimistic about the outcome in Florida. Most thought it was too close to say or thought their state might, unbelievably as it seems, go for Romney. No doubt about it - the first debate took what had been a comfortable lead for the President in the Sunshine State and turned into horse race to the finish. Early voter turnout is high – but that's even in the Tea Party counties so who knows what the early voting portends.

With eight days until the election, the race remains pretty much undecided nationally. The most recent poll in Ohio, one of the Republican voter suppression states, has Obama and Romeny tied among likely voters for the first time this election – i.e., Obama's lead has been wiped out in this critical state. The 2012 election will be as close as 2000. We need to hope and pray that there won't be a similar result as in 2000 because a Romney-Ryan victory will bring us back to the Bush era. We'd see a return to both the domestic and foreign policies of those years. There is too much at stake – health care, war and peace, the entire social safety net, the Supreme Court composition, the economy...one could go on and on. As Kevin Baker wrote in the October Harper's, “To vote for a Mitt Romney—to vote for the modern right anywhere in the West today—is an act of national suicide.”

The odds of Democrats regaining control of the House appear negligible as evidenced by the surge in Romney's share of the popular vote and the fact that nearly all Republican House seats are in “safe” districts such as my own in western New Jersey. Even if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, Republicans will use the filibuster to the great, detrimental effect to the nation unless wiser heads than may be available in their party prevail. 

Meanwhile, newspapers have been declaring for one candidate or the other – some predictably, some not so. Perhaps the most surprising and disappointing endorsement was the Des Moines Register's support for Romney. This is an important endorsement in a swing state and is a turnabout for the paper which normally supports Democratic candidates. The reason for the endorsement, which came “after great internal debate”, was because the majority of the editorial board thought Romney would work better “across the aisle” with Congress. This has no basis in fact if you look to Romney's record as Massachusetts' governor. In addition and more importantly, it lets Congressional Republicans off the hook for their obstructionist tactics that have seriously delayed the recovery of the economy. Even with Republican cooperation, recovery would have been difficult With their determination to actively obstruct and to make Obama a one-term President, it became impossible.

Perhaps the most predictable endorsement was that of the New York Times. Just a couple of excerpts from the NYT endorsement that I wish every voter would read (or better, commit to memory) before casting his or her ballot...

“Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent. Poverty would have been much worse without the billions spent on Medicaid, food stamps and jobless benefits.”

 

“[Mr. Obama] has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect.”

So what else is affecting the outcome of this election? The unlimited money pouring into GOP coffers from the Citizens United ruling will certainly make a difference. And there is another, less understood impact of this infamous decision: it overturned laws banning employers from discussing political opinions with their employees. Employers have come out in force advising their employees on the alleged consequences of a vote for Barack Obama. Although companies cannot fire their workers for voting a particular way, how would you like to receive political advertising in your payroll envelope, as the US Chamber of Commerce has been encouraging businesses to do?

Then there is the intimidation and suppression effort mounted by Republican operatives. When they have lost in the courts, they have resorted to tactics such as reported earlier this month in Ohio urban areas where billboards sprang up promising 3 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for “voter fraud”. Next door, in Republican-held Pennsylvania, there has been little official dissemination of the information that due to the recent court injunction, one does not need voter id to vote in this election.

Finally, of course, there is the race issue. Four years after the United State commendably elected its first African-American President, we have definitely not entered a post-racial era as some had hoped. Racism is even more widespread now than in 2008. Reporting on recent Associated Press surveys conducted by university researchers, Daniel Politi writes in Slate: “A full 51 percent of Americans explicitly express anti-black prejudice, up from 48 percent in 2008... When an implicit racial attitudes test is used the number increases to 56 percent, compared to 49 percent four years ago. The AP surveys... ultimately found that President Obama could lose a net 2 percentage points of the popular vote due to anti-black attitudes.” I can believe that - several voters that I've spoken to in the swing states said that they know people whose sole reason for not voting for the President is that he is black.

I'm not sure how much good the calls I've been making will do. The people I've been speaking to are good people – some with stories that would break your heart. Their lives will be greatly affected by a Romney-Ryan victory - much more so than my own. So I'll keep making the calls for them and to them. Win or lose on November 6, I'd like to feel that I've done all that I could to help prevent a Republican takeover of the Executive Branch and the disaster, or in Kevin Baker's words, “the national suicide”, that would entail.

Oh yeah, just so there is no doubt, I endorse Barack Obama for the President.

 

Links

 

New York Times Endorsement

 

Slate Article on Employers Advising Employees How to Vote

 

Slate Article on Racism Survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering George McGovern

I met George McGovern when he gave a talk at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I cannot recall now whether it was during his 1972 run for the Presidency or, more likely, after it. I went up to him after his talk and we spoke briefly. He was one of the heroes of my idealistic youth, a thoroughly decent man with a populist, compassionate approach to his politics. With his passing this Sunday October 21 at the age of 90, the country lost one of its strongest advocates for peace and social justice. The world lost one of its finest citizens.

The former Senator from South Dakota is most remembered for his opposition to the Vietnam War - the defining issue for those coming of age in the mid to late 1960's, such as myself. He had an understanding of the evils of war rooted in his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. McGovern was one of the earliest opponents of our misguided Vietnam policy – his opposition dates to the Kennedy years. If only the rest of the country had the same vision, we would have been spared this great American tragedy. When the war escalated again and again and ground on interminably during the Johnson and Nixon years, he continued to oppose the war, culminating in his capture of the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1972.

The son of a Methodist minister, George McGovern was a man of great moral clarity with the courage to speak out even when what he had to say was unpopular with his listeners. In a speech at Wheaton College in October 1972 as the Democratic candidate for President, he was greeted with catcalls and jeers from the conservative audience as students with Nixon banners paraded on the periphery of the chapel where he was speaking. He nonetheless delivered a remarkable speech. Bruce Miroff in a NYTimes OpeEd piece relates it this way: “Mr. McGovern called upon his audience to grieve not only for American casualties in Vietnam but also for the Vietnamese lives lost from American military actions. Indifference to Vietnamese deaths troubled him, so he insisted that Americans confront their own responsibility for the consequences of war and 'change those things in our character which turned us astray, away from the truth that the people of Vietnam are, like us, children of God.'...”

Even after his landslide defeat to Richard Nixon in 1972 and the loss of his Sneate seat in 1980, McGovern remained active in public life – continually advocating for a less aggressive American foreign policy and devoting his time and energy to the fight against world hunger.

He was a midwestern liberal in the mold of the prairie populists and New Deal Democrats that came from that region. That he was two-term Democratic Representative and a three-term Democratic Senator in the very red state of South Dakota speaks volumes to his ability to appeal to the best in voters of all inclinations – he was as Robert Kennedy said “the most decent man in the U.S. Senate.”

 

 

Times have changed. The odds of a return to a progressive tradition in the country's midsection are non-existent. Our political conversation drifts ever to the right and even centrists such as President Obama are painted as socialists.

In some ways, though, times have not changed at all. America has not lost its touch for engaging in senseless and unjustifiable wars. The defenders and benefactors of the miltary-industrial complex remain in control of the national defense discussion and we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican Presidential candidate offering a budget that will add two trillion dollars in unneeded and unrequested military expenditures over the next decade. Forty years ago, we at least had morally courageous leaders such as George McGovern to give us hope that someday things might be different. He will be missed.

 

Links

 

Bruce Miroff''s New York Times Op Ed "The Moral Clarity of Geroge McGovern"

 

Randall Balmer's Des Moines Register Article on George McGovern.  Randall Balmer was at Wheaton College to hear Senator McGovern's speech.  

 

Sample NYTimes OpEds by George McGovern

Katrina vanden Heuvel's article in The Nation (includes links to Nation articles by George McGovern)

Tom Daschle's article in The American Prospect

It's the Economy, Stupid(s)

As we lurch to our Citizens United-fueled 2012 election, President Obama has lost his lead among registered voters and trails Romney handily among likely voters by 6 points, according to the latest Gallup Poll.   Obama dug himself into a huge hole in the first debate and apparently is not climbing out of it.  Amazingly, even after this Tuesday's debate, Romney is considered to be the person most capable of handling the economy.  As the occasionally sage Bill Clinton once said, "It's the economy, stupid."  No other issue resonates more with the American voter.

The prevailing attitude among those favoring Romney appears to be "Well, Obama has had long enough to fix the mess."  They totally fail to understand the causes of the Great Recession, rooted as it is in Republican deregulation ideology and in the supply-side economics to which Romney will return us  (aka, "trickle down").  They totally fail to grasp the obstructionist role of the Republicans in Congress in preventing a more rapid recovery - in the neighborhood of 2 million jobs not created due to their inaction.  The Administration has not hammered on (or even articulated) these misconceptions for the past several years and it is likely a case of "too little, too late" in the closing weeks of this campaign. 

What other factors will be affecting the outcome? 

Voter suppression laws will have less than their desired effect due to a couple of recent court victories.  Pennsylvania voter ID won't take effect before this election and Ohio was ordered to allow early voting the weekend before Election Day.  On the other hand, I spoke to a Florida voter who was concerned that he had not received his absentee ballot yet.  In Ohio, anonymous groups have launched a voter-intimidation billboard campaign to scare people across Columbus and Cleveland—two Democratic strongholds—out of voting. It's a "saturation-level" advertising campaign that goes both deep and wide, promising prison time and a $10,000 fine for "voter fraud." Let's not forget Ohio 2004 election night when what appeared to be a victory for Kerry was turned around in the wee hours of the morning.  Or Florida 2000 when the Republican-controlled Supreme Court prevented a recount and crowned George Bush President.  (Now, there's something to think about - 4 SCOTUS justices will be in their late 70's or early 80's by the end of the next President's term.)

Democrats are mounting strong get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts in swing states.   But here we have to be cautious.   The formidable grassroots GOTV effort in the Wisconsin recall election could not overcome the huge money advantage of the Republican incumbent Scott Walker.  In a money neutral race with an informed citizenry, Democratic Congrssional candidates should win in a landslide - Republican Congressional approval rating was down to as low as 7% earlier this year.  But Democrats will be lucky if they can hold onto the Senate and make modest gains in the House thanks to the money pouring into Republican coffers.  For just one example, Republicans have so far spent more than $20 million in an attempt to defeat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

As the French philosopher, writer and diplomat Joseph De Maistre wrote in 1811, "Every nation has the government it deserves."  (The more common "Every country gets the government it deserves" is often wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville or Abraham Lincoln.)  So to the willfully ignorant and to the artfully misinformed, if you elect Romney-Ryan and a Republican congress, you will have the government you deserve.  Unfortunately, for the rest of us, we will also have the same government and the social safety net that has protected the vulnerable will be shredded.

Existence (a novel)

It’s been a decade since writer David Brin’s last science fiction novel appeared. This June, he came back to the genre.   Existence is an epic, near-future novel that speculates about what contact would look like in the "cosmos that we see" - that is, the relativistic universe limited by the speed of light. No warp drives, no wormholes - just old fashioned slower than light travel. As in most near-future sci-fi works, there is plenty of artificial intelligence, bionic modifications, advanced medical techniques, virtual reality, nanotechnology, class strife, factions trying to stop the advance of technology, and, of course, enhanced global electronic networking (the "infomesh" where you are literally plugged in 24/7).

Except when written by world class authors such as Margaret Atwood, these near-future scenarios and the apocalyptic scenarios that usually accompany them bore me. Attempts to create a futuristic atmosphere by peppering the work with obscure neologisms usually fail. Give me a space opera millions or at least tens of thousands of years in the future with imaginative ways to cheat the speed of light any day.

But Brin being Brin, the author puts together a captivating story that debates some of the "big questions" science fiction likes to ponder.

Gerald Livingstone, an astronaut clearing debris from Earth orbit, and Peng Xiang Bin, a shore-home-salvager working the flooded Chinese coast, both come into possession of alien artifacts - holographic crystals with messages from the stars. Powerful political factions compete for control of the crystals, which only communicate through the persons who found them. In time, humans discover the remnants of thousands of these space farers in the asteroid belt. They also discover evidence of an all-encompassing war fought there a hundred million years ago. The crystals contain uploaded minds in a twisted type of von Neumann probe - sent by their civilizations to virally spread their culture to worlds capable of supporting intelligent life. Are all these civilizations now destroyed? Is there an "intelligence trap" that prevents technological civilizations from surviving? Are we alone? Will heeding the crystals' messages save humanity or doom it?

Sapient dolphins (see Brin's Uplift novels), "auties" (autistic individuals with extra-human capabilities), androids, and a couple of Neanderthals all play a role helping "normal" humans in their efforts to understand the crystals. This gives Brin and the reader a chance to implicitly question what makes one human. What is self-awareness and how does a species achieve it?

Existence unfolds through a multitude of interesting characters and voices. Each chapter is preceded by a blog entry from one of the novel’s characters and each major section is introduced with a quote from a scientist or a writer. Two of my favorites are an imagined conversation between John von Neumann and Enrico Fermi on whether we are alone in the universe and the following quote from Charles Darwin: “We need not marvel at extinction; if we must marvel, let it be at our presumption in imagining that we understand the many complex contingencies, on which the existence of each species depends."

These get to the heart of Brin’s novel.   Are we the only technological civilization to have survived? Do we have the maturity to advance further as a species ? Or will we devolve into nationalistic tribalism in a world racked by ecological disaster? 

　

Miscellany

The Existence website is www.davidbrin.com/existence.html. Besides the usual review blurbs and PR, there are also  comments by readers and bloggers, a study guide, and a link to articles related to Existence and its themes.


Related The Left Bank Café posts

- Anybody Out There? August 9, 2012

- Why Does the World Exist? September 29, 2012


　
Von Neumann Probes

Von Neumann probes and their variants have formed a staple for science fiction works for decades. A von Neumann probe is a self-replicating robotic probe first proposed by mathematician and physicist John von Neumann.   Probes would be sent out in all directions to explore the galaxy for life or worlds capable of sustaining life. Landing on an asteroid, moon, or planet, each probe would be programmed to manufacture additional versions of itself. These probes would in turn be sent further out into the galaxy...and so on until the galaxy was totally explored.

In the 1980’s the von Neumann machine concept generated a debate between physicist/cosmologist Frank Tipler (co-author of The Cosmological Anthropic Principle) on the one hand and Carl Sagan and William Newman on the other. Tipler argued that, given the age of the Universe, a von Neumann probe should have reached the solar system by now; no probe has ever been detected…therefore no other technological intelligent species exists.  Sagan, one of the biggest proponents of the Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence (SETI), and Newman responded that, given the age of the Universe, von Neumann probes would have devoured much of the mass of the galaxy by now. So an intelligent race would not have built them and would destroy them if any came into their star system.

What's with Florida?

It's sort of like when “W” extended the so called “War on Terror” to Iraq. There were absolutely no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until our misguided invasion inspired their recruitment and drew them there. Now Florida, one of the Republican-held voter suppression states, finally has some real cases of voter fraud to talk about. The fraud is the work of Republican operatives.

I heard of the growing scandal on Saturday while I was making get-out-the-vote calls for MoveOn. I was talking to a MoveOn member from Detroit when he asked what we were going to do about the voter fraud in Florida. I looked up the various posts and, sure enough, Republican operatives were engaged in voter registration fraud. The operative's firm has ties deep within the Republican party and has received $3 million from the RNC over the past two months. The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, was finally fired by the RNC Thursday. The widespread nature of the fraud (11 counties so far) became apparent late in the week and that's when the story went (more or less) national. Frankly, it's not getting nearly the exposure that it should in the national news media. The New York Times had a short article on September 28, as did the Washington Post.

By far the best coverage is coming from the Brad Friedman's watchdog BRAD BLOG, which broke the story as it started to unveil on Tuesday. From the September 30 BRAD BLOG post: “The strategy [of registering only Romney supporters] resulted in...fraudulent registration forms collected by the firm and then submitted in Florida by the state GOP with voter addresses, signatures and party affiliations changed.... Election officials in the state have told The BRAD BLOG that they fear the scheme could result in the disenfranchisement of a still-unknown number of otherwise legal voters.”

 

So here we go again. In the key swing state of Florida, the poster child for the Republican voter suppression effort and the scene for the infamous “no recount” SCOTUS decision that handed the 2000 election to Bush, Republicans have registered voters fraudulently. In the process, they have possibly disenfranchised many additional legal voters not already disenfranchised by the voter suppression effort. In this state of affairs, the polls showing an Obama lead in Florida mean nothing.

Other Republican tactics to discourage Democratic-leaning voters include closing or changing polling places (a voter in Ohio told me that in his town the number of polling locations was reduced from 15 to 4) and sending operatives to polling places as vote challengers (voters in both Florida and Michigan mentioned this to me). On the latter, there were some encouraging words from a lawyer in Michigan, who said she was going to go to the polls to ensure in Wayne County (Detroit) that voters were not intimidated by what she called “young men with clipboards”. The MoveOn member from Detroit mentioned earlier had a good response too: “I vote in Detroit and those [poll watchers] are not going to dare to intimidate anyone.”

Even if President Obama wins in November, there is a good possibility that Republicans will still control the House and may pick up the Senate. Thanks to the Citizens United decision, Democrats across the board are being outspent many-times-to-one, in these races. Even Kirsten Gillebrand in heavily Democratic New York State appears to be in a tight race. We should never underestimate what money can do to swing the election. Just look at Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin governor recall election and at the 2010 Congressional midterm elections. Money wins elections and until Citizens United is overturned, Republicans will have an insurmountable money advantage. Voter turnout (and protection) and message framing are key to overcoming the money advantage. Democrats need to make sure their message is heard. They need to respond to falsely accusing attack ads immediately (please, no more swiftboat “responses”) - before the lies take on a patina of truth in the mind of the American public.

 

After going on about the missed opportunities and disappointments of Obama's first term, Kevin Baker in the October Harper's Magazine, concludes his article “Why Vote?” this way: “So yes, go out and vote. Go vote for Barack Obama, and whatever other Democrats or progressives are running for office where you live. To vote for a Mitt Romney—to vote for the modern right anywhere in the West today—is an act of national suicide. The right is hollow to its core; it has no dreams, no vision, no plans to deal with any of the problems that confront us, only infantile fantasies of violence and consumption. But it is, at the moment, well funded, well organized, and feeling especially threatened. It is capable of anything.”

 

Miscellany – Links to Articles of Interest

 

Wisconsin's anti-union law advanced by Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin State Legilature was struck down as unconstitutional on September 14. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas struck down the law, which essentially eliminated collective-bargaining rights for most public employees, as a violation of the state and U.S. Constitution. (Politico)

 

Pennsylvania's strict voter ID law remains in limbo although a Pennsylvania judge (to whom the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “punted”) said on Thursday that he may issue an injunction. As the sage Yogi Berra once sid: “It ain't over 'til it's over.” Opponents argue the law could create "a very large problem" for as many as half a million voters in Pennsylvania. They argue that a disproportionate number of those impacted would be racial minorities, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. (CBS News, Sept. 27)

 

Robert Reich's video on the 7 Biggest Economic Lies (MoveOn clip)

 

 

 

 

Why Does The World Exist?

Jim Holt's recently published Why Does the World Exist? attempts to answer (or at least ponder) what William James called the “darkest question in all philosophy” - to wit, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Holt explores philosophical, theological, and scientific attempts to answer the question. In the process, he interviews several modern day thinkers on the subject.   Reading a review of Holt's book started me thinking. I recalled reading some years ago about the “anthropic principle", a relatively recent development in cosmology.

That this universe exists at all is indeed a particularly awesome and wondrous fact. Consider that, if any one of numerous fundamental physical constants were off by the smallest fraction, the universe as we know it would not exist. For example, if the strong nuclear force were not exactly what it is, elements would not be able to form. Or, if protons were not exactly 1836 times the size of an electron, elements would not be able to combine into molecules. Two other important examples are the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force (this keeps stars from immediately collapsing) and the excited energy level of the carbon atom (without this exact level of 7.65 million electron-volts, insufficient carbon would be formed in stars to form the basis for life). And there are many, many more.

Many physicists and cosmologists who have considered these facts subscribe to one version or another of the anthropic principle. The phrase “anthropic principle” was coined by astrophysicist Brandon Carter at a 1973 symposium in Krakow that marked the 500^th anniversary of Copernicus' birth. Copernicus, as you recall, was the Renaissance astronomer who first formulated a cosmology wherein the earth was not at the center of the universe but rather revolved around the Sun. Carter created the phrase in reaction to a recent extension and generalization of Copernican Principle - i.e., not only is the Earth not at the center of the universe but humans are not even privileged observers of the universe. Carter, examining the remarkable coincidences similar to those noted above, disagreed. As he stated: “Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent.”

The anthropic principle comes in several flavors. The most basic distinction is between the “Weak” and “Strong” anthropic principles. Beyond these two versions, there are the more scientifically speculative “Participatory” and “Final” Anthropic Principles. Here is a short description of each for your consideration.

Let's start with the Weak Anthropic Principle and work our way up. The Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) basically states that all the possible values for the physical and cosmological constants are not equally probable. Some are more probable than others. Specifically the values of these constants are restricted to what is compatible with the observable facts: namely, that there are sites where carbon-based life can evolve and that the Universe has existed long enough for carbon-based life to have done so. 

Now let's up the ante a bit and consider the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP). Simply stated: the Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop at some stage in its history.

One interpretation of the SAP is that the Universe requires observers and is designed with the goal of generating and sustaining these observers.  Humanity (or some other intelligent, information-gathering life form) is thus necessary to the Universe's existence.  This is sometimes referred to as the Participatory Anthropic Principle.  It is derived from the concepts of quantum mechanics - i.e., it takes an intelligent observer to collapse the Universe's probability waves into relatively concrete reality.

Last and most speculative is the Final Anthropic Principle. In this version, intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.

The Anthropic Principle has its scientific supporters and detractors, as does each of its various interpretations. Theologians favor the Anthropic Principle because it appears to give a glimpse of a Creative God.   I'm not sure what philosophers think of it or if it answers Jim Holt's question to his satisfaction but it sure gives us something to think about. The Universe is wondrous and contingent. The Anthropic Principle is one plausible attempt to explain it.

Miscellany

Today, September 29th, is the 58th anniversary of "The Catch" - Willie Mays' astounding catch and throw in the 1954 World Series, the greatest fielding play in baseball history.  In an application of the Participatory Anthropic Principle, I have no doubt that one of the reasons I exist at this time is to have observed The Catch.  ;-)

Here are links to a great video and some neat still shots.

Readings/references

The basic text on this subject (the Anthropic Principle not The Catch) is The Cosmological Anthropic Principle by John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler, and John A. Wheeler.

Wikipedia

J. Redmane's “The Anthropic Principle” website

http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lwilliam/sota/anth/anthropic_principle_index.html


 

The Price of Inequality

The Price of Inequality by Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz is a book filled with insight into the workings (or non-workings) of the markets and on the roles of government and of central banks in the economy. A major theme of the book is that “inequality is as much the result of political forces as of economic ones.” He explodes prevailing myths about the “free” market place, globalization, the effectiveness of austerity programs, GDP as an indicator of economic performance, and government vs. private efficiency. He also exposes the policies enacted since the 1980’s that brought about the Great Recession and the current state of inequality in this country. This historic inequality has potentially serious consequences as the book’s subtitle states: “How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future”.

Let’s face it. It is not a level playing field. The rules of the game have been shaped by the powerful. One concept that Stiglitz introduces and that is at the heart of inequality is what economists call rent seeking. Broadly defined, rent seeking occurs when those at the top get income “not as a reward [for] creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort.” Some examples of rent-seeking include sale of natural resource leases on public lands at below market value, statutes that allow corporations to pass costs on to the rest of society, government subsidies and noncompetitive procurement practices (e.g., private contracting for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). Basically, it’s the corporate welfare that is so engrained in our tax codes and government policies.

In the section on “history of the deficit“, Stiglitz reviews how the country went from the large surpluses of the Clinton years to the seemingly out-of-control deficits of today. He lays the blame squarely where it belongs: the Bush tax cuts (about 1/5 of the 2012 deficit; $3.3 trillion dollars if extended for 2011-2020), the expenses incurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (long-term this will exceed $2-3 trillion), the provision that the Federal government, the largest buyer of drugs in the world, couldn’t negotiate price with drug companies as part of the Medicare Drug Benefit (worth “by some estimates, a half trillion dollars over ten years”) and, of course, the biggest contributor by far - The Great Recession brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble and the deregulated financial environment so dear to those on the Right. As Stiglitz states, “16 percent of the deficit was for measures to stimulate the economy…but almost half (48 percent) of the entire deficit was a result of underperformance of the economy.” The latter, he explains, “led to lower tax revenues and higher expenditures on unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other social protection programs.”

Stiglitz is well aware that the major problem now is not the deficit but the joblessness and lack of demand in the economy. Companies are not investing in capital or labor - not because they are unprofitable or lack confidence in the government but because there is a lack of demand brought about by the Great Recession. This lack of demand could be alleviated by government spending (for example, on infrastructure and education) and by benefits to those that would spend the money and put it back into the economy (e.g., unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc.) There is a multiplicative return to the economy on these expenditures - exactly the expenditures demonized by those on the Right.

In addition to discussions on the history of austerity program failures from the time of Hoover to the current European economic crisis, the deleterious effects of central bank policies on real wages, the evisceration of our democracy and the causes for the loss of American leadership abroad, the author throws out an occasional gem such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Striker Fighter project. This weapon that we don’t need for a type of conflict we will not be fighting, at $382 billion, “costs half of the entire Obama stimulus program.”

The book is not about the politics of envy but, as Stiglitz states in his concluding chapter, it is “instead about the politics of efficiency and fairness.” After reading more than 250 pages on how the system was rigged for inequality, I was beginning to lose hope. Is there any way out of this mess? Is there any way to restore upward mobility to the 99%?

In the last chapter, the author presents a well thought out program of economic reform. Among the reforms that would make a big difference are curbing the financial sector (“Dodd Frank is a start but only a start”), stronger and more effectively enforced competition laws, improved corporate governance, comprehensive bankruptcy law reform, ending government giveaways in the disposition of public assets and in procurement, ending corporate welfare including hidden subsidies, and comprehensive legal reform to democratize access to justice. In addition, he proposes two significant tax reforms - a more progressive income and corporate tax system with fewer loopholes and a more effective estate tax system. Several additional actions “would make a big difference in the plight of the 99 percent”: improving access to education, helping ordinary Americans save (“say, a matching grant or expansion of first-time home owner programs”), universal health care, and strengthening other social protection programs.

There are additional proposals on tempering globalization (“ending the race to the bottom” as Stiglitz phrases it), fiscal and monetary policies to restore and maintain full employment, and a growth agenda based on public investment. He also addresses “immediate issues” - fixing the mortgage problem by restructuring mortgages, more aggressive stimulation of the economy to increase employment and more active labor market policies to train workers for new jobs.

Citizens United has ensured the dominance of the 1% agenda in national politics for the foreseeable future. Without major political reforms, it is doubtful that the political process would allow even the “barest elements of this agenda.” So we are probably looking at a long-term thing. It has taken the Right 30 years of relentless propagandizing of a failed economic theory and policies to bring us to the inequality and economic crisis that we see today. Perhaps it will take as long for the country to regain its senses.

In light of this, “Is There Hope?” - as the concluding section of the book asks. Stiglitz sees two routes by which reform might happen. “Those in the 99 percent could come to realize that they have been duped by the 1 percent: that what is in the interests of the 1 percent is not in their interests…and…the second way that reform could happen [is that] the 1 percent could realize that what’s been happening in the United States is not only inconsistent with our values but not even in the 1 percent’s own interest.”

He then presents two visions for America a half century from now. One is of a society even more divided between the haves in gated communities and have-nots with ever decreasing opportunity for advancement. We would devolve to a plutocracy.

The other is a vision of a society of “shared destiny and a common commitment to opportunity and fairness, where the words ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually mean what they seem to mean…This second vision is the only one consistent with our heritage and our values.”

So is there hope? Stiglitz concludes that yes, there is hope but time is running out. “Four years ago there was a moment where most Americans had the audacity to hope. Trends more than a quarter century in the making might have been reversed…Today, that hope is flickering.”

If Obama does win a second term, this book should be required reading both for him and for his entire economic policy team. They really need to be better informed. Better yet, he should bring in Joseph Stiglitz to head up and reorganize his team. (See #4 on the October 24, 2011 post: Obama Short(falls) List.)  Of course, if the 1% wins in November and Republicans control Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency, we will lose any chance to even begin implementing the slightest of the necessary reforms for at least four years.