My favorite books for the past year all have something very important to say (in my opinion) about the tragic state of our country and the world today. I consider these books crucially important because these problems will be solved only when a critical number of people understand them and are motivated to do something about them. The issues covered by these books include:
How increasing corporate power and wealth is driving our nation towards fascism
Our imperial ambitions causing us to become a great menace to planetary survival
The potential of climate change to destroy human civilization as we know it
How the Reagan presidency led to our current economic crisis
The psychological roots of disastrous national policies
The terrible consequences of our “War on Drugs”
The contribution of the Obama presidency our bleak economic outlook
The terrible consequences of income and wealth inequality
An exploration of 20th and 21st Century genocide
Because in my effort to do justice to these crucial topics this turned out to be an extremely long post, I’m dividing this up into two posts, each to include discussions of 5 of the 10 books. This is the first one (still quite long). I’ll post the second one later today.
Cornered – The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction – by Barry Lynn
“
Cornered” is primarily about how the monopolization of so much industry in the United States, which
began under Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, has led us towards a corporatist state that has vastly limited the freedom of a great many Americans. The core principle of this corporatist state is the collusion of government with corporate interests to enable them to establish vast monopolies:
The dangers of monopolizationMonopoly is, after all, merely a form of government that one group of human beings imposes on another group of human beings. Its purpose is simple – to enable the first group to transfer wealth and power to themselves. Monopolists use such private governments to organize and disorganize, to grab and smash, to rule and ruin, in ways that serve their interests only…
The structural monopolization of so many systems has resulted in a set of political arrangements similar to what we used to call corporatism. This means that our political economy is run by a compact elite that is able to fuse the power of our public government with the power of private corporate governments in ways that enable members of the elite not merely to offload their risk onto us but also to determine with almost complete freedom who wins, who loses, and who pays…
The Bush and Obama administrations and… Congress all responded to the collapse of our financial system in most instances by accelerating consolidation… The effects are clear… the derangement not merely of our financial systems but also of our industrial systems and political systems. Most terrifying of all is that this consolidation of power – and the political actions taken to achieve it…
How did it happen?In Chapter one of the book, Lynn asks and answers the question, “How did such a well-educated and vigilant people allow the few among us to re-impose so many monopolies upon the rest of us?” His answer:
The simplest and most obvious reason that we the American people did not notice the political revolution that is monopolization – which resulted in such a vast shift of power away from us and into the hands of a few – is that for a full generation there has been no public debate on the issue. And there has been no public debate because both of our major parties are now under the control of the same monopolist powers…
A generation ago a highly sophisticated political movement appeared in the United States. This movement was dedicated to taking apart the entire institutional structure that we had put into place, beginning in the mid-1930s, to govern our political economy by distributing power and responsibility among all the people (i.e. the anti-monopoly forces of FDR’s New Deal). The goal of this movement was to enable the few, once again, to consolidate power entirely in their own hands…
“Free market fundamentalism”Lynn discusses how the doctrine of “free-market fundamentalism” is used to disguise the plans of the monopolists, to enable them “to seize our properties and our liberties”. He has no objection to capitalism per se, but rather the uses to which it has been put:
A people can devise and enforce their laws in ways that enable them to harness the power in concentrated capital to the task of enabling free citizens to build great things. Or a people can allow some group in their midst to devise and enforce laws that enable that group to use the power in concentrated capital to harness free citizens…
Our grave crisisLynn explains that our economic system has become so perverted that in the process of creating great wealth for the few, the interests of our financial elite are served more by
destroying real property rather than by
creating it. He ends his book by warning:
Today we face one of the gravest crises in our history, and I do not mean the recession… I speak instead of the political and economic effects of monopolization. And I speak of the fragility, due to monopolization, of all the systems on which we rely… We must recover our understanding of our institutions and the real intent of our laws. Then we must listen very closely to the words the patricians (i.e. the oligarchy) speak and beware.
They will preach their free-market fundamentalism and insist that we dare not interfere in the workings of this magical mechanism. Then they will use their corporations to enclose our open markets… to derange and sack our carefully engineered industrial systems…
When we finally rise to put an end to their predations, our regulation must be simple and sure… Our regulation must follow the broad-ax tradition, which means that we must use our powers to split and split again the institutions they use to magnify their power.
The Crimes of Empire – Rogue Superpower and World Domination – by Carl Boggs
Just as the Roman Empire replaced the Roman Republic about two millennia ago, the United States of America is now undergoing the same process. Carl Boggs states the basic problem in the introduction to his book, “
The Crimes of Empire”:
A central problem has been the ceaseless American pursuit of global hegemony on a foundation of expanding military power. While U.S. leaders dutifully uphold the rhetoric of democracy, human rights, and rule of law, their actual conduct has been more congruent with imperial agendas that run counter to the requirements of a peaceful international order… Not only has Washington been the leading violator of international legality, its nearly trillion dollar war machine
deploys bases in some 130 nations, has ambitious plans for space weaponization, possesses a most lucrative arms sales program, and continues a pattern of military ventures that makes it the most fearsome agency of violence in the world today… No other state devotes even a significant fraction of what the U.S. spends on its armed forces, no other state deploys large-scale military units across dozens of countries, and no other state claims to be defending its own “national security” and “global interests” hundreds and thousands of miles from its home shores…
These efforts, while producing enormous profits for some politically well-connected elites, have proven to be an economic disaster for our country and for most Americans. Worse, our myriad
unjustified, aggressive, and violent interventions into the affairs of numerous sovereign countries throughout our history has produced untold tragic consequences and is morally repugnant. It is extremely hypocritical too. Boggs notes:
At odds with its well-crafted political image, the U.S. has long stood opposed to a system of global norms that would limit arbitrary and unrestrained use of military force. Such outlawry not only contravenes all pretense of democratic values… Few in government, the media, or academia have chosen to endorse the perfectly rational notion that the U.S., like every sovereign nation, should be willing to accept legal and moral constraints on its international behavior and should follow the same rules as everyone else.
The doctrine of “American Exceptionalism”Boggs speaks quite a bit about the doctrine of “American Exceptionalism”, which has been so inculcated in the minds of the American people by American elites that few have the intellectual or moral capacity to resist it:
Whatever occurs under the aegis of Washington decision-making is, by definition, noble, beyond the reach of ethical or legal condemnation. Mistakes are made, but the ends themselves simply cannot be questioned. Some opinion-makers insist that the U.S. represents an entirely new kind of empire, more benign and less exploitative than previous empires. It follows that the actions of a benevolent empire demand more flexible criteria for judgment… Those standing in the way of U.S. power often find themselves depicted as impediments to human progress, as enemies of democracy and Western civilization, perhaps even as the reincarnation of Hitler and the Nazis.
It is this doctrine of American exceptionalism that justifies so many of our wars:
Immense financial and military resources, often secretly allocated, have been poured into such operations. Targeted groups are systematically demonized through efforts of government, the mass media, think tanks, and public relations campaigns, so that popular consent is manufactured for any U.S. military operation that the elites decide to pursue.
The “foremost menace to planetary survival”The consequences of U.S. militarism, outlawry, arrogance and refusal to acknowledge reality when it stares them in the face have not yet been fully manifested. Boggs concludes that for all our moral and religious pretenses and our hypocritical “War on Terror”, it is our own nation that poses the greatest threat of any nation to the survival of world civilization as we know it:
By the early 21st Century, it would not be too far-fetched to depict the U.S. as the foremost menace to planetary survival. Washington has waged illegal warfare in flagrant contempt of the U.N., international law, and world public opinion; carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilians and life-supporting infrastructures; broken or disregarded many international treaties; perpetrated massacres and other atrocities; practiced torture; carried out crimes by proxy; planned the militarization of outer space; possesses by far the largest nuclear arsenal still encased in first-use doctrine; and imposed ruinous sanctions on nations designated as “enemies.” This horrific legacy remains very much alive within a still-expanding imperial edifice tied to a permanent war economy, security state, hundreds of military bases scattered across the globe, and a growing presence in outer space.
Eaarth – Making a Life on a Tough New Planet – by Bill McKibben
The misspelling of “Earth” in this
book is meant to convey the fact that we currently live on a planet that has been irreversibly changed (for the worse) in the past several decades, due to human economic activity. From the preface:
The first point of this book is simple: global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a
future threat… It’s our reality. We’ve changed the planet, changed it in large and fundamental ways. And these changes are far, far more evident in the toughest parts of the globe, where climate change is already wrecking thousands of lives daily….
In July, 2009, Oxfam released an epic report, “
Suffering the Science”, which concluded that even if we now adapted “the smartest possible curbs” on carbon emission, “the prospects are very bleak for hundreds of millions of people, most of them among the world’s poorest” …
The book is not devoid of hope. However, McKibben does tell us that we have some very tough challenges ahead, and that we’d better face reality if we want to meet those challenges:
We need now to understand the world we’ve created, and consider – urgently – how to live in it… We’ll need to figure out what parts of our lives and our ideologies we must abandon so that we can protect the core of our societies and civilizations… which doesn’t mean that the change we must make will be without its comforts or beauties… The end of this book will suggest where those beauties lie. But hope has to be real. It can’t be a hope that the scientists will turn out to be wrong…
Radical and recent changes in the physical characteristics of our planetChapter 1 of Eaarth, titled “A New World”, describes many of the most striking and important recent changes in the physical nature of our planet. McKibben begins the chapter by noting that for the past 10,000 years – which includes the whole time period of human civilization – the average temperature of our planet
&w=307">has been quite constant, varying only between about 58 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet, in a little more than a century, due to human industrial activity, the average temperature of Earth
has risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Centigrade).
This rise in temperature has driven numerous substantial changes in the physical characteristics of our planet in recent years, including:
22% less Arctic sea ice than ever previously observed, so that the
North Pole could be circumnavigated for the first time in human history;
rapidly melting glaciers that constitute reservoirs of water for billions of people; a 17 cm
rise in sea level during the 20th century resulting in the disappearance beneath the sea of
an uninhabited island (Kiribati) in 1998,
an inhabited island (Lohachara) in 2006, and the
submerging of several more islands since that time;
acidification of our oceans;
four times the number of weather disasters in the last thirty years as in the first 75 years of the 20th Century;
drying up of large rivers, and; major droughts in
Australia,
the American Southwest,
China,
India, Brazil and Argentina.
Why is our planet changing so much sooner than expected?McKibben explains why these changes are happening so much sooner than expected:
So how did it happen that the threat to our fairly far-off descendants, which required that we heed an alarm and adopt precautionary principles and begin to take measured action lest we have a crisis for future generations, et cetera – how did that suddenly turn into the Arctic melting away, the tropics expanding…. ?
McKibben explains the answer in terms of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations: Historic levels since the dawn of human civilization have been
275 parts per million (ppm). As of the first years of the 21st Century,
550 ppm was considered to be safe. But based on new research, the safe level was
concluded to be 350 ppm as of 2007. But current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already
390 ppm, and the last time we had levels that high was
twenty million years ago, when temperatures rose as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit and sea levels rose one hundred feet. Furthermore,
725 ppm is the level we’re predicted to end up at by 2100 even if every government pledge made during the
Copenhagen summit of December 2009 is fulfilled – which is why climate scientists consider that conference to have been
an utter failure.
Climate change in perspectiveIf we continue on our present course we are facing the high likelihood of world-wide catastrophe. Because of deteriorating vital resources such as water, McKibben notes that,
according to some recent models as many as 700 million of the world’s 9 billion people will be climate change refugees by 2050. And a
Pentagon-sponsored report forecasts:
possible scenarios a decade or two away, when the pressures of climate change have become “irresistible – history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between starving or raiding, they raid… As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life.”
Yet the situation is not hopeless – if we as a society somehow manage to muster the political will to address the problem. McKibben notes:
We can, if we’re very lucky and very committed, eventually get the number back down below 350. This book will explore some of the reasons this task will be extremely hard, and some of the ways we can try. The planet can, slowly, soak up excess carbon dioxide if we stop pouring more in. That fight is what I spend my life on now, because it’s still possible we can avert the very worst catastrophes. But even so, great damage will have been done along the way, on land and in the sea. In September 2009 the
lead article in the journal
Nature said that above 350 we “threaten the ecological life-support systems… and severely challenge the viability of contemporary human societies”.
– by Derrick Jensen
This book is one of the most radical, important and thought provoking
books I’ve ever read. Not that I agree with all of Jensen’s ideas. But even those I don’t agree with are well worth thinking about.
The main premise of his book is that “civilization” is destroying our planet and will soon destroy humanity if something very radical isn’t done soon to reverse the process. I would rather phrase the problem as
our current civilization, rather than simply “civilization”, because I believe that civilizations can be much less destructive than our current one.
The first section of Jensen’s book is four pages of twenty “premises”, on which he says our civilization is based. For the most part I very much agree that our civilization is based on those premises, and I believe that our world would be in much better shape if most people took them very seriously. Some of the most interesting and important ones are:
Premise 2 – Those who want others’ resources Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.
I’m not sure exactly what Jensen means by “traditional” communities. It probably would have been just as well to use the term less
dominant communities. Or,
any communities would have been just as well. Nobody voluntarily gives up what they have for no reason.
Premise 4 – The culture’s hierarchyCivilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror…
One of the best examples of this is our Iraq War and occupation. The
deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are not mentioned (and are therefore
invisible) by our corporate media, while the deaths of American soldiers are frequently discussed. And when American soldiers are killed by Iraqis in their efforts to defend their homeland, the Iraqis are routinely referred to as “terrorists”.
Premise 5 – Property of the elite vs. the lives of the poorThe property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control – in every day language, to make money – by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Of course, when Jensen uses the word
acceptable he means that to apply from the viewpoint of those in power – He does not mean to imply that it is actually acceptable.
The
Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 is a good example of this principle. Another example is the
climate change denial of those corporations whose profits would be at risk if our world leaders were to devote the attention to this looming catastrophe that it warrants.
Premise 6 – Unless we reverse course, our planet will be progressively degraded If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.
Jared Diamond discussed this particular issue in much more scientific detail in his book,
“
Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”. Diamond’s book describes the environmental causes of past and present failed societies, such as the
collapse of the ancient Easter Island civilization, and compares them with other societies that have succeeded, in order to identify the causes of failed societies. The theme of his book can be summarized as: Environmental crisis + failure of society to address it ==> societal collapse – which of course is quite consistent with Jensen’s premise 6.
Premise 8 – The natural world is more important than any economic systemThe needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system… Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence require the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.
Premise 20 – Our culture is oriented towards serving those in powerWithin this culture, economics – not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself – drives social decisions… Social decisions are founded primarily on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.
Yes, indeed. That is why our corporate media can, with a straight face, talk about “
jobless recoveries” as if they are good thing. Corporate economists have their “economic indicators”, and it is assumed that as long as they point upwards our country is doing fine, regardless of the plight of the majority of its citizens.
In this book, Jensen talks mainly about the problems, and not much about the solutions. He addresses the solutions in
Volume II: Resistance, which I’ve almost finished reading.
The Man Who Sold the World – Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America – by William Kleinknecht
The Man Who Sold the World is about the Reagan Presidency and legacy. The importance of this book is summarized in the book jacket:
The myth of Ronald Reagan’s greatness has reached epic proportions in recent years. The public rates him as one of the most popular presidents, and Republicans everywhere seek to cast themselves in his image. But award winning journalist William Kleinknecht shows in this penetrating analysis of his presidency that the Reagan legacy has been devastating for the country – especially for the ordinary Americans he claimed to represent.
The Reagan philosophy has, over the past three decades, insinuated itself deep into our national consciousness, with great assistance from tons of corporate money and propaganda. And in the process it is on the verge of turning our country into a fascist state and destroying it.
The philosophy is pretty simple. Government is incompetent and bad. Greed – as represented by the corporatocracy – is good, because it helps the American elites amass great wealth, which then “trickles down” to the rest of us. Therefore, government regulation of the wealthy and the powerful must cease so that the elites can pursue their self-interest, thereby accumulating enough wealth to shower down on all of us. Kleinknecht discusses all these issues in depth:
Government is badThe idea that government is bad and incompetent was (and is) meant to replace FDR’s New Deal, which led to the
greatest sustained economic boom in American history. Kleinknecht explains:
Reagan stood against everything that had been achieved in this remarkable age of reform. His constant attacks on the inefficiency of government, a rallying cry taken up by legions of conservative politicians across the country, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more money that was taken away from government programs, the more ineffective they became, and the more ineffective they became, the more ridiculous government bureaucrats came to be seen in the public eye. Gradually government, and the broader realm of public service, has come to seem disreputable…
Greed is goodIn the Reagan years, corporate leaders were crossing lines that a few years before would have been unthinkable. A
1984 article in the
New York Times… captured the moral revulsion aroused by the budding era of greed: “a ‘me-first, grab-what-you-can’ extravagance appears to be cropping up among the nation’s top executives. It shows itself in the disproportionate salaries and bonuses paid to so many corporate chiefs… the multi-million severance payments awarded even to CEOs who fail and drive their companies into the ground”…
The Reagan administration’s zest for financial deregulation was responsible for the boom-and-bust cataclysms of the 1980s and 1990s, the
obscene inflation of executive compensation; the corporate scandals and stock market meltdown of 2000-2001; and innumerable crises in international finance, including the most devastating of them all: the subprime mortgage scandal. Deregulation corrupted financial institutions at the same time that it made them the lords of the world economy and allowed their proxies, people like Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan, to dictate the policies of the federal government. History will marvel that these two standard-bearers of Reaganism – Greenspan and Rubin – were lionized as geniuses and visionaries at the very time they were steering the nation toward disaster….
Reagan’s plan for deregulation of the financial sector would take years to come to full fruition – what was finally left of Glass-Steagall would not finally be repealed until 1999 – but the processes he and his Republican colleagues set in motion in 1981 were the genesis of so much that is wrong with the U.S. economy in the 21st century.
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