Seeing that scientism is unsustainable, we must embrace a return to philosophy. Here is the second article in a two-part series on scientism I wrote for Public Discourse.
]]>If you're at all interested in the whole sordid story, please click on my previous link.
But you're not at all interested - are you?
So let me give it to you straight:
(2) In the wake of this decision, whites with children who didn't want them to go to school alongside large numbers of blacks began to flee inner-city Kansas City.
(3) In 1969, black students became a majority.
(4) After 1969, Kansas City taxpayers never again approved a tax increase to support the public schools.
(5) By 1984, the district was in crisis. Few white students remained, and money had run out.
(6) Federal judge Russell Clark, a Jimmy Carter appointee, in collusion with the district itself, declared it in violation of anti-segregation laws, and required the State of Missouri to give it pretty much whatever it wanted to attract, once more, some middle-class white students, whose presence, it was thought, would exercise an improving effect on their inner-city black school-mates.
(7) Lavish new facilities were built, and the best teachers money could buy were hired. An olympic-sized swimming pool with underwater observation deck, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capacity, a planetarium, a zoo, a nature-preserve, French-teachers from Belgium and Cameroon, physicists from Russia, Olympic fencing coaches - you name it. Per-pupil spending rose to the highest level in any major school district in America - about twice the average for Missouri's public schools and about four times the average for the local parochial schools. And this great gravy-train chugged away for more than a decade.
(8) End result? Very few white students got lured in, and hardly any of those who did stuck around for more than a year. Standardized test scores declined. Drop-out rates increased.
(9) In 1997, Judge Clark gave up in despair, and recused himself from the case.
(10) In 2010: please see above.
It was all, in short, a monumental bloody buggery cock-up of global proportions, darling!
And, just in case you're inclined to blame all this on those horrid white racist parents who fled the KCMO public schools in such droves, here's the sort of thing that was on their minds, according to a certain "Sharon," who's been there and done that:
"...used to sub in the KC School District, back in the day, so I was in a lot of the schools. When I say the disorder is indescribable, I mean you can't even describe it. And no one would believe you if you could.
"Once, many years ago, a friend who was a writer for the KC Star asked my friend who was then teaching at Paseo High, 'Is it true the kids have sex at school?'
"With a perfectly straight face, my friend replied, 'Not in my room. I don't allow it.'
"When I say some of the schools were in a state of riot, I mean the kids spent their days throwing books and furniture out the windows, setting fires, fighting, vandalizing the computers, walking on the piano keys, and shooting craps in the back of the room..."
* * * * *
Well, what can I add - except that, based on my own (mercifully brief) experience teaching in the public schools, Sharon's report has the unmistakable ring of truth.
* * * * *
It doesn't necessarily have to be like this. But when, oh when, Lord, will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped?
]]>"I was talking with some of my good friends in England, where I'm originally from, and in 2005 we all started to question what a country really was," Hemmings said of his decision to form a new nation. "We decided, okay, let's start an experiment. Let's try to found a nation in England."
On June 4, 2005, Hemmings issued a declaration of independence. He founded Kemetia, a secessionist state operating on the terms of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government with the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
170 voting citizens, 32 of whom attend the University of Chicago, populate Hemmings' state. Kemetia comprises various parts of the South of England, including Winchester. Its government is a constitutional monarchy that transformed Hemmings into King Adam. It's not just a figment of Hemmings' imagination: Jordan, Syria, Taiwan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all recognize Kemetia, according to Hemmings.
Whom shall we nominate as Lord Protector of the Chesterbelloc Republic? My vote is for Zippy.
]]>Strictly speaking, I suppose, we would all be alarmed if, let us say, the learned justices of the Supreme Court, taking in hand a duly-enacted piece of legislation, and scrutinizing its content, adjudged it unconstitutional on the grounds that it failed to “promote the general Welfare” or “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” That would be an open door to extraordinary mischief, which the Philadelphia Convention surely did not intend. In that sense I agree with my lawyerly interlocutors: the Preamble cannot be thought to formally bind statutory enactment as the rest of the document does.
But where I part ways with them — and part ways with the ingrained scholarly habit of what we might call, with a touch of burlesque, “latent anti-Preamblism” — is when they undertake to set aside the Preamble more comprehensively, when they commence a reading of American constitutionalism abstracted from the purposes laid out there: in fine, when they embark on an effort to understand our political tradition without including in that attempt an understanding of that complex, winding sentence which serves to put the world on notice as to what ends “We the People” have set ourselves by constituting ourselves a unified people here in these United States of America.
]]> To nail down the position of latent anti-Preamblism more precisely: The Preamble (according to this doctrine) amounts to a lot of throat-clearing, and should not be taken to overawe the more meaningful work that follows. As a friend gamely put it, “A Preamble in such a document was not intended to be used as an interpretative guide to the document any more than your first yawn of the morning should be used to interpret the manner in which you order coffee in the evening.”I call this position “latent” precisely because it is so rarely articulated — or articulated at all, much less with the verve of my friend’s analogy above. Indeed, the Preamble tends to get short-thrift in the conventional treatment of American political theory. Schoolchildren, it is true, still memorize it; and certainly that single ringing phrase — “We the People” — is ubiquitous in our national symbolism and self-understanding. Less ubiquitous, but still quite common in literature and conversation, is the “more perfect Union” clause; most commonly in connection with the Civil War, which by righting a calamitous wrong vouchsafed a more perfect Union. So it is not that the Preamble is simply ignored; it is rather that it has endured a curious neglect of careful study and exegesis, even among scholars inclined to think very highly of the Constitution.
It is rarely noticed, for instance, how much the Preamble shares, in terms of both form and content, with earlier documents in American political history — documents, even (awkwardly for our anti-Preamblists), which go no further than doing what the Preamble does. That is to say: casting an eye across the centuries of political arrangement in North America, it is something of a puzzle to discover several documents of high importance, which appear to anticipate in framework and substance, the political work done later in the Preamble — at least, it is something of a puzzle if we accept the “throat-clearing” doctrine of the anti-Preamblists. It seems that at certain crucial moments, when our ancestors were bent over the problems of constituting political structures for themselves, they produced documents that accomplished little more than a good clearing of the throat.
Consider what is the first political document, duly ordained and established by Christian men, to be promulgated in the New World: the Mayflower Compact. (In addition to its other virtues, the Compact is very compact indeed, and thus susceptible, I think, to full quotation without disrupting the flow of this essay.)
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini, 1620.
First, there is the statement of who “we” are — we who are undertaking to constitute ourselves in political society. In the Preamble this matter is simpler, more concise, and partakes of none of the explicitly religious and monarchical imagery noticeable here (although it is worth pointing out that both the Compact and the Constitution are signed according to the “Year of our Lord” formulation): there it is We the People of the United States; here it is We the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord. But the earnestness of the self-identification is plain enough in both cases.
Next, there is the predicate — the proclaimed act of a formation of political society. The similarities oblige attention: “Do ordain and establish this Constitution” and “Do … covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick.” In the Compact this proclamation is recapitulated, with some very interesting variations: “do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices.”
Finally, neither document neglects what is the meat of the matter: a statement of purpose. To what ends do we, who have thus constituted ourselves a people, now dedicate ourselves? The signers of the Mayflower Compact declare their purposes to be (1) “our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid” — those aforesaid ends being religious and patriotic in nature — and (2) the framing of just and equal laws for “the general Good of the Colony.” The Preamble, meanwhile, delivers the famed six purposes: union, justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty. And again the reader is struck by a manifest degree of similitude. The concept of justice appears in both; general good is right next door, as it were, to general welfare; better ordering is not far from a more perfect union; preservation may be said, with no great leap of imagination or logic, to compass both domestic tranquility and common defense.
Where the two documents do diverge, to repeat, is in this: that the Compact makes abundantly clear that its signers are religious people, whose enactment of political society is done “solemnly and mutually” before God and for the advance of His Kingdom, under the particular earthly kingship of the English “dread Sovereign.”
Let us notice, also, the spirit of moderation or humility that suffuses the Compact. It is most striking in phrase “as shall be thought most meet and convenient” for both “better ordering” and “the general Good of the Colony.” There is little by way of enthusiastic confidence, much less world-historic grandiosity, surrounding the Pilgrims’ estimation of their chances for success or renown. All they promise is that their laws, ordinances, acts, etc. shall be thought meet and convenient to the general welfare. We observe nothing of the sort of thing later (much later) generations of Americans got wrapped up in: namely the notion that form of government is sufficient to insure its success. There is no detectible sense of certainty that any form of government will guarantee better ordering. There is little confidence at all in any form government abstracted from the character of the people. The people must “solemnly and mutually” embark on this venture of self-government, under God, drawing on their own resources and their own virtue.
That is all well and good for a bunch of Calvinists at the edge of a howling wilderness, the critic might reply. Surely all this unbecoming diffidence was left behind as time wore on. Well, perhaps. But even the modern enthusiastic exponent of the gospel of Democracy may be caught up short to discover a phrase unmistakably reminiscent of the Compact’s humility in no less a document of grandiose claims than the Declaration of Independence: “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish [a Government destructive of rights], and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” (Emphasis added.)
Nor is that all: Under careful examination we find this spirit of moderation and humility positively pervading the documents of the Founding era. We find, for instance, similar echoes in the language of the Virginians, whose own Declaration of Rights was promulgated in the same year. The Virginians, for their part, announce that “government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community”; and when it goes bad, they say, “a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”
A year later, in New York, the people’s representatives declared themselves resolved to “institute and establish such a government as they shall deem best calculated to secure the rights, liberties, and happiness of the good people of this State.” In Pennsylvania it is much the same. That State’s representatives announce that, “whenever [the] great ends of government are not obtained, the people have a right, by common consent to change it, and take such measures as to them may appear necessary to promote their safety and happiness.” In New Hampshire the phrase is, “such measures as we should judge best for the public good”; the North Carolinians speak of their purpose of “framing a Constitution, under the authority of the people, most conducive to their happiness and prosperity”; and the Georgians, meanwhile, undertake to “adopt such government as may, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general.” (Emphasis added in all of the above.)
I present none of this as some definitive answer to the standard reading of American political history. I present it only as a suggestion of the lineaments of an alternative reading which, far from being a transplant from other, alien sources onto the texts, in fact emerges from the texts themselves, especially to the extent that they follow in patterns that have largely eluded the transmitters of that standard reading. The Preamble to the United States Constitution fits in pretty neatly with this alternative reading; at the very least it introduces some difficulties for the conventional view, with its touchstones of “natural rights” and equality, neither of which is so much as mentioned in the Preamble. The Federalist, too, abounds with passages not easy to assimilate into the Lockean framework; above all, perhaps, its famous softening of the source of political right from sheer will, as many moderns proposed, into deliberation and consensus.
(The book to read for those interested in these matters is The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition, coauthored by Willmoore Kendall and George Carey, to whom I am indebted for much of the above.)
]]>The best known advocates of distributism were probably Hillaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, whose book What's Wrong with the World gave this website it's name.
Note that Distributism is, fundamentally, a consequentialist doctrine - i.e., it seeks to maximize a certain ideal end-state-of-affairs viz., the widest possible distribution of ownership of the means of production - while leaving the means by which this is accomplished pretty much up for grabs.
And that, in the end, is what's wrong with distributism.
Given the vast disparities in productive potential found in nature between individuals, between ethnicities, between races, and so on and so forth, the only means of avoiding the concentration of ownership of the means of production in the hands of relatively few individuals, ethnicities, races, &c is to build a gigantically powerful centralized state which doesn't mind resorting to main force, whenever necessary, to bring about that goal.
Trouble is, once that gigantically powerful centralized state gets built - who do you think stands the best chance of taking charge of it?
Distributist philosophers? or, say, for example...Wall Street Banksters?
The question answers itself.
]]>
Seeing that scientism is unsustainable, we must embrace a return to philosophy. Here is the second article in a two-part series on scientism I wrote for Public Discourse.
]]>
As an admittedly lazy follow-up to the recent discussion of empire and secession, I thought it might be helpful to introduce the papal "bulls of donation", in which the popes go well beyond mere toleration by taking an active and supportive role in the conquest of the New World. In theory, yes, there is a possibility that the involvement of the pontiffs could have been a moral or prudential error, such acts falling outside the charism of indefectibility, and good Catholics may disagree without censure. However, in the absence of any proof of wrongdoing, the faithful clearly owe Christ's Vicars the benefit of the doubt in this matter.
Contra those whose religion is Americanism rather than Christianity, no Christian can say "Americans are my only neighbors" and to hell with everyone else. Although empire building is seldom an obligation and often ill-advised, it cannot be true that the only just reason for conquest is self-defense. The example of Christian charity in the excerpt below is instructive:
From Inter Caetera by Pope Alexander VI, addressed to the kings of Castile and their successors:
Therefore all things diligently considered (especially the amplifying and enlarging of the Catholic faith, as it behooveth Catholic Princes following the examples of your noble progenitors of famous memory), whereas you are determined by the favor of Almighty God, to subdue and bring to the Catholic faith the inhabitants of the aforesaid lands and islands, we greatly commending this, your godly and laudable purpose in our Lord, and desirous to have the same brought to a due end, and the name of our Saviour to be known in those parts, do exhort you in our Lord and by the receiving of your holy baptism whereby you are bound to the Apostolic obedience, and earnestly require you by the bowels of mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, when you intend for the zeal of the Catholic faith to prosecute the said expedition to reduce the people of the aforesaid lands and islands to the Christian religion, you shall spare no labors at any time, or be deterred with any perils conceiving from hope and confidence that the omnipotent God will give good success to your godly attempts.]]> And that being authorized by the privilege of the Apostolic grace, you may the more freely and boldly take upon you the enterprise of so great a matter, we of our own motion, and not either at your request nor at the instant petition of any other person, but of our own mere liberality and certain science, and by the fulness of Apostolic power, do give, grant, and assign to you, your heirs and successors, all the firm lands and islands found or to be found, discovered or to be discovered toward the west and south, drawing a line from the pole Arctic to the pole Antarctic (that is) from the north to the south: containing in this donation, whatsoever firm lands or islands are found or to be found toward India or toward any other part whatsoever it be, being distant from, or without the aforesaid line drawn a hundred leagues toward the west and south from any of the islands which are commonly called De Los Azores and Cabo Verde. All the islands, therefore, and firm lands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, from the said line toward the west and south, such as have not actually been heretofore possest by any other Christian king or prince until the day of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ last passed, from the which beginneth this present year.]]>We, by the authority of almighty God granted unto us in Saint Peter, and by the office which we bear on the earth in the stead of Jesus Christ, do forever, by the tenure of these presents, give, grant, assign, unto you, your heirs, and successors (the kings of Castile and Leon), all those lands and islands, with their dominions, territories, cities, castles, towers, places, and villages, with all the right and jurisdictions thereunto pertaining: constituting, assigning, and deputing, you, your heirs, and successors the lords thereof, with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction. Decreeing nevertheless by this, our donation, grant, and assignation, that from no Christian Prince which actually hath possest the aforesaid islands and firm lands unto the day of the nativity of our Lord beforesaid, their right obtained to be understood hereby to be taken away, or that it ought to be taken away.
One side issue that I would probably discuss briefly in a content note, if content notes were allowed, is the issue of the ascension as it relates to what has come to be known as the objective vision theory of the resurrection of Jesus. I'm a couple of months liturgically early in discussing the ascension, but hopefully my readers won't mind too much.
]]> The objective vision theory, associated with the Jesuit scholar Gerald O'Collins (and I gather held by many others) is the theory that Jesus wasn't literally, physically present with his disciples after his resurrection. Therefore, a camera couldn't have taken a picture of him; he couldn't be seen by normal, physical processes. He couldn't, in fact, be seen by anybody at all without special help from God, which has come to be known as "graced seeing" or "grace-assisted seeing."O'Collins discusses this idea as if it were simply obvious in his seminal 1967 article "Is the Resurrection an 'Historical' Event?" One thing he keeps saying over and over again in that article is that when Jesus rose from the dead he passed out of the realm of space and time and into the "other" world of God.
What I kept thinking as I read the article was, "Wasn't that the ascension?" After all, passing out of this space-time continuum and into the other world of God sounds an awful lot like what we ordinary folk call "going to heaven." And anybody who has been taught the Christian story knows that Jesus didn't go to heaven immediately when he rose from the dead. He stayed around for forty days showing himself to his disciples by many infallible proofs (says Luke) and then ascended into heaven. The ascension is even, you know, in the Apostles' Creed. It's supposed to be important. But the objective vision theory, based on the premise that Jesus left the space-time continuum at the moment of his resurrection, and even as part of the essence of his resurrection, makes the ascension extremely hard to fit in. The ascension becomes, in fact, an embarrassment, because it duplicates something that supposedly happened at the resurrection.
I vote we keep the resurrection and the ascension both. As did the early Church, of course. But to do that, we're going to have to admit that Jesus walked around on the earth in a visible, tangible, physical body after his resurrection. And a good thing, too.
]]>The children’s home that rests on the hills outside of the town of Ain Leuh, Morocco has been a haven for the marginalized orphans of Morocco for nearly a half century. Founded in 1957 by two American women dedicated to caring for the abandoned children of Morocco, the Village of Hope, has been a beacon of hope and healing to the orphans for over half a century — until two days ago, when the hand of the Moroccan government turned against it.
In recent years the campus has provided homes and families for more that 30 orphaned children, placing them in the care of dedicated expatriate couples who have committed to raising each child to adulthood. Most couples and staff have come as Christians, looking to ease the pains of the broken social structure in Moroccan rural life. The couples act, in all senses of the word, as parents to these children, calling them sons and daughters and imparting to each their own last name. They have taken the children into their homes and raised them as their own — a true blessing as they would otherwise be placed in massive state-run orphanages. In addition to taking up these particular burdens as foster parents, the Village also provides numerous services to the local community. They provide free quality education to each child. They provide employment to many of Ain Leuh’s residents — teachers, tutors, cooks, nannies, construction workers, and workers in the apple orchards. They host annual events including a summer camp that brings in hundreds of local youth to learn basic skills, give exposure to English language basics, and play games.
I was lucky to be a part of the Village of Hope in the summer of 2005. The charming hillside community rises up from the vast valley that separates the Middle Atlas Mountains from the Low Atlas Mountains in the central part of the country. I recall my first weeks being surrounded by happy children, who would play in the newly built playground after their lessons, only to be called off to supper by their parents. The Village was a home to three core families then, each composed of about 10 kids and their parents. Throughout the summer I watched as these kids interacted with the only parents they had ever known. I recall now how the distinction between natural and real parents was nonexistent to those kids. I also recall the joy of being a part of their summer camp, shuttling local kids in a broken down Chevy Astro van, up and down windy roads with the overcrowded occupants singing loud songs in their native Arabic.
In recent days the news has come down that this charitable community, at the whim of Moroccan authorities, has been in effect shut down. The parents and all foreign-born workers have been expelled from the country, leaving children in the care of state authorities. Families have literally been rent asunder by the coercion of the state. It is an outrage to see this community, which has so faithfully filled gaps of the broken social structure, torn apart by bureaucratic caprice and the unjust fears from Islamic social pressures.
Contact the White House.
Contact the State Department.
Contact your Congressman and Senators.
]]>What more could suicide advocates want?
But there's always more. The new law would allow legal assisted suicide to those over the age of seventy who "consider their lives complete." Charming, isn't it? When you consider your life complete, you can just check out.
People love the idea of control. The idea that they should not be able to control their deaths is increasingly unpalatable to people. It does not help that just being old is more and more treated as a disease. I did not really enjoy P.D. James's dystopian novel The Children of Men, but I must admit that this latest legal proposal made me think of the "quietus" in that book, which is exactly this--death for the elderly, just because they are elderly.
]]>"...my mood about Iraq could variously be described as depressed, despairing, despondent, dejected, pessimistic, melancholic, and gloomy.
"That's because the Iraqi regime (along with those of Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority) is a kept institution that cannot survive without constant American support. As long as Washington pumps money and sacrifices lives to maintain the Baghdad government, the latter can hobble along. Remove those props and Iranian-backed Islamists soon take over...
"As the American era closes, the Iranian one opens. In a year or two, the current elections will be looked back on as a cosmetic episode..."
So I guess even the most neo-conservative of neo-conservatives are finally saying goodbye to the thought that democratizing the Arab world - even assuming that we could bring it about - would be a good idea.
Good on Daniel Pipes.
]]>Verily, the contemporary applications fain would make themselves, and indeed, one Etay Zwick has served as their facilitator:
]]>
The myth of the financial sector goes something like this: only men and women equipped with the highest intelligence, the will to work death-defying hours and the most advanced technology can be entrusted with the sacred and mysterious task of ensuring the growth of the economy. Using complicated financial instruments, these elites (a) spread the risks involved in different ventures and (b) discipline firms to minimize costs—thus guaranteeing the best investments are extended sufficient credit. According to this myth, Wall Street is the economy’s private nutritionist, advising and assisting only the most motivated firms—and these fitter firms will provide jobs and pave the path to national prosperity. If the rest of us do not understand exactly why trading credit derivatives and commodity futures would achieve all this, this is because we are not as smart as the people working on Wall Street. Even Wall Street elites are happy to admit that they do not really know how the system works; such admissions only testify to the immensity of their noble task.Many economists have tried to disabuse us of this myth. Twenty-five years before the recent financial crisis, Nobel Laureate James Tobin demonstrated that a very limited percent of the capital flow originating on Wall Street goes toward financing “real investments”—that is, investments in improving a firm’s production process. When large American corporations invest in new technology, they rely primarily on internal funds, not outside credit. The torrents of capital we see on Wall Street are devoted to a different purpose—speculation, gambling for capital gains. Finance’s second founding myth, that the stock market in particular is an “efficient” source for funding business ventures, simply doesn’t cohere with the history of American industrial development. When firms have needed to raise outside capital, they have generally issued debt—not stock. The stock market’s chief virtue has always been that it allows business elites to cash out of any enterprise by transferring ownership to other elites. Old owners then enjoy their new wealth, while new owners manage the same old corporation. The reality is that business elites promote the stock market far more than the stock market promotes economic growth. (snip)
Proceeding further, Zwick illumines the sociological meaning of financial innovation:
Early on, capitalism encouraged entrepreneurs to invest in new technology, thus unleashing incredible productive potential. Yet as the hunger for profits outpaced technological innovation, the modern barbarian developed new instruments for increasing the value of his assets—without having to produce anything new. Rather than focus his energies on developing more productive ventures, he started to sell the promise of increased future revenue—which he called an “immaterial asset.” The first immaterial assets were patents and trademarks; what were formerly strategies for being more productive, the barbarian now learned to package and sell by themselves. The next step was to sell claims to these immaterial assets in the form of yet another immaterial asset: capital stock. This stock represented a promise of revenue based on other promises of revenue. Over time, more and more immaterial assets were created and sold, then listed on balance sheets as corporate bonds, credit derivatives and hybrid securities. Eventually, a corporation started to look less like a producing firm and more like a bunch of immaterial assets and liabilities. Today a corporation’s success often depends on how much credit it can raise—that is, on how successfully it can sell the promise of future success.Salesmanship and future earnings projections have replaced productivity and innovation as the engines of our economy. The barbarian’s pursuit of financial profit now determines how a corporation employs its labor and technology—that is, whether it is valuable to be productive. Capitalism, once propelled by technological investment (classical capital), is now driven by immaterial technology that increases the value of immaterial assets (financial instruments moving modern capital). Today Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan don’t invest in the promise of producing things of use or real value. They invest in the promise of rising asset prices (or in the case of shorting stocks, the promise of falling asset prices). In their world, value is defined by gain. It used to be the other way around.
Because of the dynamic of constant financial innovation, patterns of economic boom and bust no longer follow the traditional business cycle model in which: (1) a low interest rate (meaning cheaper credit) leads to (2) increased investments and economic growth; followed by (3) a period of overheating and excess capacity; which is then balanced by (4) a re-stabilizing period and a cooling of inflationary tendencies. The “new business cycle” is determined by financial innovation, not national productivity and consumer demand. Booms are born when a new financial instrument is dreamed up, and busts occur when the conjurer’s secret is uncovered and collapses.
The most recent boom and bust (i.e. our current financial crisis) was based on this secret: “The market for subprime mortgages is not determined by the number of newly aspiring homeowners, but by the promise of profits from mortgage-based securities.” Irresponsible lending spelled profits for investment banks, so naturally they encouraged irresponsible lending. The story is familiar by now. Banks invented two kinds of risky securities that promised higher yields: collateralized debt obligations (that pay if high-interest mortgages are repaid) and credit-default swaps (that pay if they aren’t). Trading these shadow-financial (i.e. unregulated) securities generated enormous profits—both from constant trading fees and from speculation gains. But selling more subprime mortgage securities required selling more subprime mortgages. So investment banks bought mortgage-lending outfits and themselves offered subprime loans (even to individuals who qualified for better loans). As inevitable loan defaults started to pile up, the value of collateralized debts fell, and heavily invested banks couldn’t cover the swaps they sold. Wall Street’s expert salesmen had sold too many immaterial assets—too many promises of future value. The entire edifice of lending was paralyzed because it had become profitable to lend irresponsibly.
Zwick then continues by describing the manner in which an elite, in this case, the "meritocracy" of haute finance impresses its image upon the entire society, a lifestyle of instability, anxiety, enforced flexibility, and gratuitous, vulgar displays of transient status. And a sense that genuinely productive work is a sucker's game. But, don't you dare question them, because they are not only smarter than you, but are the very instantiations of Americanism.
The entire essay is worth a read.
Nevertheless, for those disinclined, for whatever reason, to read it, there is a Youtube video which nicely encapsulates both The Theory of the Leisure Class and the American instantiation of barbarian economics:
The researchers do note that it is possible the behaviour is essentially selfish, undertaken with a view to future reciprocation; this, however, does not mitigate the contrast, inasmuch as a simulated compassion is still preferable to actual callousness.
H/T: Yves Smith.
]]>
The problem with scientism is that it is either self-defeating or trivially true. F. A. Hayek helps us to see why. Here is the first of a two-part series on the subject I wrote for Public Discourse. The second installment will appear on Friday.
]]>Wrong. I spent the first quarter of my reply pointing out that his reasons for excluding the federal numbers - i.e., that they include "large numbers" of undocumented nannies & drug mules, but "almost no" street criminals, are thoroughly bogus - a point that he makes no serious attempt to rebut.
The remaining three quarters of my reply accepted his ground rules - i.e., the exclusion of the federal numbers. He calls this being "adamant about including the federal numbers."
Weird.
(2) Unz goes on to insist on the reliability of "Table 2005-14," and accuses me of preferring to use "Table 2005-13" for no good reason.
Wrong again. My reply depended entirely on 2008 figures. Unz challenged me to come up with a better way than his of estimating relative Hispanic vs. white criminality, adjusted for age and sex. I duly came up with a better way. Which he ...simply ignores.
(3) Unz writes that "Burton seems to regard blacks as the source of all evil."
Nice.
Unz himself pointed out, in his original article, that "the claims of extremely high relative black incarceration rates...remain correct even after [his absurd attempt at] age adjustments..."
But when I make the same observation, and point out some of the implications, in the course of disagreeing with him, he plays the "racist!" card.
Very nice.
(4) Unz then returns to his favorite cherries: El Paso & Santa Ana, Lexington & Lincoln.
Well, whatever.
If he could come up with some reliable figures for the relative white vs. black vs. Hispanic crime rates in any one of these cities - well, that might be interesting. But trying to use them as proxies for the overall national white or black or Hispanic crime rates is just plain dumb.
Almost as dumb as Unz's supposed "method" for adjusting his favorite Table 2005-14 for age & sex.
Jason Richwine has generously described this "method" as "crude." But, imho, a "method" that arrives at figures that are off by a factor of three or more is not a "crude" method - it is no method at all.
It is pure & simple fraud.
P.S.: here's the one thing that Unz got right: never trust Wikipedia. Their current info on the demography of Seattle is about as reliable as he is - i.e., not at all. They link to all the right sources - but whoever transcribed the data got every single number wrong.
Using the actual ACS demographic data for Seattle & San Jose, I would initially expect crime in Seattle to exceed that in San Jose by only about 15%, instead of 30%.
Again, if anybody's inclined to ask, I'll be happy to provide my math in the combox.
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