HoltesThoughts

Monday, February 23, 2015

Yanis Varoufakis and the Importance of Saving Europe

In the Article by the Greek leader and politician Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist?CMP=share_btn_tw] he explains why some Marxian concepts still have currency, some of why Marx's efforts failed and at the same time mounts a defense of Marxism! As a syncretist I've learned to learn from multiple POVs and not to attach to any particular one. As usual the Marxists are experts at diagnosing societies ills, as long as one isn't talking about their own. Yanis here is making a deep critique and we need to read him carefully -- and critically:

Yanis writes:

"In 2008, capitalism had its second global spasm. The financial crisis set off a chain reaction that pushed Europe into a downward spiral that continues to this day. Europe’s present situation is not merely a threat for workers, for the dispossessed, for the bankers, for social classes or, indeed, nations. No, Europe’s current posture poses a threat to civilisation as we know it." [Erratic Marxist]

The financial crisis set off a downward spiral because the delicate state of most users of money and borrowers, made them a target of the superior power and "ownership" of creditors. Even before 2008 countries, like Greece, Iceland and Spain had been induced to borrow huge amounts of money at interest, which was not spent on actual capital improvements and which was used to fatten the pockets of a few people but could not be repaid by them. Worse international banks were swindled into buying mortgage backed securities that had been sold fraudulently.

Opportunity or End Times?

But the Marxian POV has that Judeo-Christian-Muslim escatology without the God Belief. And so Yanis sees the opportunity in disaster, but doesn't believe in the resiliency of European Civilization. He also doesn't have much faith the ability of radicals to replace it. I believe he is right. Solutions are needed, but whether radical or not hinges on what one means by "radical." He continues:

"If my prognosis is correct, and we are not facing just another cyclical slump soon to be overcome, the question that arises for radicals is this: should we welcome this crisis of European capitalism as an opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we be so worried about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising European capitalism?" [Erratic Marxist]

The issue with disaster is that the activist often sees disaster as an opportunity to let something be destroyed in order to replace it with something better. Marxists even went so far as to wage war on Capitalism, thinking the "end justifies the means" and going to extraordinary, violent and sometimes counter-productive means to do so. It not only failed to transform anything, but it sabotaged the integrity of those who subsumed ethics and compassion for violence, sabotage and betrayal. Writers like Arthur Koestler documented this corruption in Books like "Darkness at Noon". Maybe Marxists have learned from their failures? But the bigger question is; did their enemies learn from theirs or will they use their propaganda, power and influence over ordinary people to hold onto power. Yanis seems to believe the later is the more likely possibility:

"To me, the answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath, while extinguishing the hope for any progressive moves for generations to come." [Erratic Marxist]

Maybe they have learned. But not all of them:

""For this view I have been accused, by well-meaning radical voices, of being “defeatist” and of trying to save an indefensible European socioeconomic system. This criticism, I confess, hurts. And it hurts because it contains more than a kernel of truth." [Erratic Marxist]

The Bolsheviks believed that the crisis caused by WWI and the 1929 crashes was their opportunity to impose communism world-wide. Instead former Socialists like Mussolini bolted the cause and led a counter-reformation known as fascism.

When you are talking about "capitalism" -- it's not the ideology that is dangerous it is the machine; the laws, the structures, the institutions. Individual capitalists can be Bolsheviks in their hearts and will still oppress workers, buy rivals, make deals with nasties, and play the game of monopoly. So essentially "capitalism" whatever the propaganda and professed ideology is "the game of monopoly" played out on the board of international finance and trade. The institutions we've set up are faulty and they are designed to fail because the game is designed so that it can be partially optimized. Partially optimized means that all can fail and the system is designed for them to fail unless they become monopolists.

Sadly the European Union was sold as a Union modeled after the Successful United States Model with improvements. But due to the difficulty of combining historically separate States and the power and influence of Centralized Bankers and Conglomerates on the process and design of the EU, it was created with a massive bureaucracy, concentration of powers in the wrong people, and yes, Yanis is right to say:

"I share the view that this European Union is typified by a large democratic deficit" [Erratic Marxist]

-- meaning that the Union itself, whatever the state of government of it's parts was designed to be dominated by bureaucrats who essentially are working for the central banks, who in turn are working for the Security State, the Giant Conglomerates and the Giant Banks. The Union itself fails to have genuine representation for all it's people and thus is a conservative institution. Worse it has the privateering banking model which created the plantation system that defined Colonialism, and the corporate Factory and predatory banking system that has defined neo-colonialism:

Faulty Monetary Architecture!

"that, in combination with the denial of the faulty architecture of its monetary union, has put Europe’s peoples on a path to permanent recession." [Erratic Marxist]

-- Faulty Architecture!!! For a single currency to work it must have built in central controls and subsidiarity in it's issuance. The European Union reverses that order. The Euro is essentially an alliance of central banks at cross purposes. At the local level. Yanis seems to believe that stepping out of the Euro might be the answer. But He also knows that the elements of the European Union still need each other.

He continues:

"I also bow to the criticism that I have campaigned on an agenda founded on the assumption that the left was, and remains, squarely defeated. I confess I would much rather be promoting a radical agenda, the raison d’être of which is to replace European capitalism with a different system."[Erratic Marxist]

The problem with Marxists is that they don't have the resilience to accept that a defeat for faulty marxist ideas is a victory for human progress. If the concept of "dialectic" has any merit it's in the realization that history never ends, that life is a constant dialogue of change and challenges. And that

"Yet my aim here is to offer a window into my view of a repugnant European capitalism whose implosion, despite its many ills, should be avoided at all costs. It is a confession intended to convince radicals that we have a contradictory mission: to arrest the freefall of European capitalism in order to buy the time we need to formulate its alternative."[Erratic Marxist]

What are the Alternatives

Our current Capitalist system is repugnant, but people are used to it and loyal to it. So when someone criticizes it they see that as treachery. When it fails they try to save it. When folks want to replace it they hire armies to kill them.

"A radical social theorist can challenge the economic mainstream in two different ways, I always thought. One way is by means of immanent criticism. To accept the mainstream’s axioms and then expose its internal contradictions. To say: “I shall not contest your assumptions but here is why your own conclusions do not logically flow on from them.” This was, indeed, Marx’s method of undermining British political economics. He accepted every axiom by Adam Smith and David Ricardo in order to demonstrate that, in the context of their assumptions, capitalism was a contradictory system. "[Erratic Marxist]

The system we currently operate under has it's own internal contradictions; faulty assumptions leading to dysfunctional policy suggestions. But the ones identified by Marx and his followers were only part of the equation.

But to criticize a system one has to have alternatives:

"The second avenue that a radical theorist can pursue is, of course, the construction of alternative theories to those of the establishment, hoping that they will be taken seriously."[Erratic Marxist]

Because of the fact that people will try to protect their own power, wealth and survive even the most destructive system:

"the powers that be are never perturbed by theories that embark from assumptions different to their own."[Erratic Marxist]

-- nobody is going to make changes until they have to...

"The only thing that can destabilise and genuinely challenge mainstream, neoclassical economists is the demonstration of the internal inconsistency of their own models."[Erratic Marxist]

But the trouble is that when internal inconsistencies come up, cognitive dissonance pops up. E. Kubler Ross's "stages of mourning" never get past the denial and anger stage as long as there is any hope that the patient (the economy) can survive. Folks whose place in hierarchy depend on being subservient to their masters would rather folks further down the hierarchy die or starve than challenge that hierarchy. Revolution is more difficult than it seems, especially if folks bolt from that hierarchy and form one of their own. Two hierarchies is a recipe for war not peaceful change.

Actually, destabilizing and challenging a mainstream is usually counterproductive. When a system is badly constituted that bad constitutions manifests as dysfunction, oppression, and collapse. That is what happened to the Bolsheviks, to Fascists and is happening now. When that happens to a system, the cons are usually waiting with an offered solution. If the rest of us have a better solution waiting on the bench we can offer that instead. Yanis goes on in the article to explain what he consider's Marxisms failures. But I'm more interested in what we can do to save our world, save capitalists from themselves, and make this world better.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Mazikim Poisoned Archetypes, Ideological Conflict, Israel and Social Domination

Myths Dominate our Lives -- to the Detriment of Rational Behavior

I can't be too tough on those defending Israel. I understand where they are coming from. Latent anti-jewish anti-semitism infects Christians, Muslims, even some secular Jews. When the Rabbis warned the Zionist movement of the dangers of re-creating a Jewish State in the historic Boundaries of Israel and they warned of them "waking up sleeping demons" [“mazikin,” literally -- “damagers.”] the expression was a metaphor but it expresses a reality. In their view secular Jews who were also non-believers would stir up trouble by breaking the law of Torah.

But some of them also understood this in it's metaphorical figurative sense. Social conflict is built on poisonous images and their related feelings and imperatives. And Jews defending their secular rights in a highly religious Muslim context would be awakening Christian and Muslim prejudices against those who are "heretical" and that would stir up these archetypical and religious demons. And of course for some of the Hasidim Zionism represented a resurrection of the Somewhat secular Zionism of Shabbetai Tzvi who was willing to nominally convert to Islam in order to get the Turks to let his people move back to Israel in the 1600s. Tzionism woke up Haredi Mazakim too. And with the rise of religious ultranationalism this has shown itself to be as damaging as that of the Christians and Muslims. The dueling and mutually fueling Archetypes of the three religions burn like poisons in the middle east now. And the heat from them is ignoring fires across the world. The Rabbis were afraid of something inevitable. Jews were in Palestine since long before Shabbetai Tsvi and this dream was bound to have people make it true. And with the dreams come the nightmares. Mazakim are the damaging images we carry around in our hearts. They manifest in irrational behavior and in dreams. {http://vbm-torah.org/archive/taggada/14taggada.htm}

Poisoned Archetypes

Our feelings represent archetypes derived from myths and legends and sometimes our own actual personal history. These feelings are manipulated by Social Dominators, but they are like the Mazikin the Rabbis mention. They damage our ability to deal with each other humanely and rationally. In Social Dominance theory the myths are called "Hierarchy Enhancing" myths, but the psychology of them is more Jungian than anything else. Archetypes dominate our thinking consciously or unconsciously even if we don't go along with the Dominators who use them destructively to freeboot their way into fame and fortune.

And it's all over the place. Not just in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or the anti-semitism aroused by it. It's even in conflicts seemingly totally unrelated. For some Russophiles the conflict in Ukraine is seen as a war of modern day "conquistadors" -- the same myths recycled for a new purpose. And it's not just old myths; the "Capitalist"/"Worker" conflicts are seen through mythic lenses. Our earlier Socialists/Bolsheviks especially and Fascists alike, invented new myths. Instead of dealing with our myths we keep adding new layers. So Darwinism becomes "Social Darwinism" and when Christians recoil against Social Darwinism, the clever Social Darwinians deflect their repulsion to the theory of Evolution.

Thus all these are dueling myths. And the avatars of these dueling myths are figuratively "Mazikim" -- who haunt people's sleep. I'm calling them Poisoned Archtypes. They pop out of our unconscious in visceral reactions to seemingly innocent phenomena. That evoke archetypes.

Like the Story in the French Novel "Trilby" that resurrected the "Eternal Jew", "Judas" and the Christian demonic archetype about Jews as the character "Zvengali" who has haunted literature, often in hidden forms such as, ironically, the Nazi Scientists in movies such as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark of the Covenant. [See Wikipedia article: [http://www.hypnotism.org/Svengali.htm]] The image has been manipulated and resurrected in countless forms by social dominators and folks seeking to use prejudice to oppress others.

This archetype gets resurrected again and again. Sometimes when someone is doing business with Jewish businessmen, sometimes in personal relationships. It is, figuratively, a "Mazikim" and it is a very real personal prejudice in a "recognition pattern" that even the most enlightened carry around in them as a cultural heritage. Sometimes it transfers to other ethnicities, such as Scots. If it were the only archetype poisoning world relations it might not be so bad. But it's not.

Zionism and Social Dominance

I started an article on this subject before seeing Tucker Carlson's Gaffe. I was raised a Christian and was Born Again for a while. I learned and ingested all the myths from the New Testament to preachings of charlatans including Martin Luther and Calvin. I know that the existence of Israel incites the minds of Christians in ways that are haunted with echoes of Roman atrocities, the destruction of the Second Temple, the Byzantines and their long war with the Arabs and then the Turks. All that haunts the three great religions with myths and legends, prejudices and visceral hates. It distorts the psyche and destroys generations of lives with conflict and war.

And the Poison is just beneath the surface

TPM reports an incident with Tucker Carlson and his daily caller:

The article, written by Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry, a retired US Army veteran and former assistant to the Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations, argued that Muslim terrorists targeting Jews will soon turn to other groups such as Christians, “just as the Nazis did” during World War II.

So the Nazis have become a mythic group with mythic leaders, mythic powers and a set of lessons that justify Blitzkreig against nasty dictators or they will kill millions.

“If today the civilized world, led by the United States, doesn’t stand up and speak out for Israel and the world’s Jews, when Islam comes for the Christians, and it will come, there will be no one left to speak for them,” Curry wrote.

Islam is about a Trillion people. But Catholics alone are another Trillion. So this is more the expression of Curry's personal demons than any rational fear. Mazakim.

But what made the article crazy was the original headline:

"A glaring headline which read, “Kill All The Jews And When That Is Done Kill Those That Refused To Defend Them,” was published on Tuesday.

If a man commits murder being drunk doesn't excuse him. Why? Because a drunk man does what he is thinking of doing but wouldn't do sober. Which means that whatever the excuses the intentionality is revealed! Whether they meant it consciously or unconsciously the images of Auschwitz, the Inquisition and the Jews killed in the crusades by our "Christian" European Ancestors haunt Curry and the rest of us.

"Curry’s article has since been given a different headline and a note was added beneath it: “Correction: The original headline on this op-ed was wildly inarticulate and perverted the meaning of the piece. We apologize.”

Those arrows were loosed because of the "mazakim" that reside in anti-semitic and Western Hero myths. The image of the victims of Auschwitz have become their own "Mazakim" in the consciousnesses of those of us who live with them. We can either heal from events or let them damage us. But they play into other, newer (more or less) myths. Such as this from Curry's article:

"Now in the Middle East Muslim nations like Iran are publicly saying they want to kill every Jew on the face of the earth. So why shouldn’t the Jews want to sit down and negotiate they ask. Hitler and the Nazis, with the quiescence of the League of Nations, were leading a word wide assault not just on the Jews but also on the world’s Christians, like cleric Niemoeller. Today Muslims, with the quiescence of the United Nations, are leading an assault on the world’s liberty and freedom just as the Nazis did, and again no one is protesting."

Of course is that what they are really saying, or are they expressing their own poisoned Archetypes. Israel has Atomic Bombs. It treats the rebellious among it's own Muslim minorities like dirt sometimes. The fear of even negotiating with Iran represents the fear that the Iranians will just see negotiation as weakness. It's also could be an expression of irrational fears that exaggerate the danger from the Iranians and the risk of the Iranians getting the bomb. Would they really destroy Israel? Do the Shia really plan homicide? I don't think so. They want Israel to end as a country because it stirs up their own Mazakim.

And the images of the Holocaust and a great weight of past conflict and history weigh on Europeans who take up the Palestinian cause and on Muslims and Palestinians. It gets in the way of rational thinking. Because of dealing with real people we are like Don Quixote on ergot and seeing our "Mazakim" stereotypes/archetypes instead of the people we are talking to. This will only get worse unless people start educating themselves again and THINKING. The Mazakim are our internal demons. They aren't Gods.

Daily Caller Article: [http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/17/kill-all-the-jews-and-when-that-is-done-kill-those-that-refused-to-defend-them/]

Ode to Plutonium: Oh Fukushima!

Plutonium, named after the Ruler of hell; Invented in a science lab; Created in artificial Uranium hells; They call them reactor wells.; Uranium, Thorium, names that ought to strike fear.; Radioactive things that decay slowly, over thousands of years.; Til, tiny particles no one can ever see,; Fly out of atoms and strike them.; Then the fun begins.; Uranium, Thorium, can radioactively decay.; There are certain of their children who are dangerous and fey; And plutonium is a member of that game.; Plutonium can do more than decay.; It can break in two; Plutonium! made by the pennyweight, made by the ton; Turned into bombs, dropped on Nagasaki,; Built into armories, that can destroy cities by the thousands.; Monstrous Giant Spears of Death. Armaggedon's key.
Oh Fukushima! and we put them into water.: We put them into water to heat it to a boil; We sold it to the world, as a means to save men from toil; Plutonium would save the world; from toil and pain.; Plutonium would provide boundless energy; So cold northerners would never freeze again; But with barbaric idiocy,; they put it in bottles that break; And when they broke, they broke with mighty energy.
Oh Fukushima!: No water! It gets hot; Fuel Rods melt. Zirconium burns!; The storage pools are on top of the reactors; They melt and burn too.
: Fires burn, hot and unstoppable; As plutonium and U235 do what they do; They melt together and each atom breaks!; That is what they did!
Oh Fukushima!: Scatter and burn! Each fission reaction releases a stew of children!; Plutonium becomes barium and strontium!; It "bursts" when a neutron hits it; becoming a smoking, melting metallic stew.; They call this stew corium.

Oh Furkushima Corium!: It is a blob, a monster, an ever burning fiery magma.; So hot it burns water!; So unstoppable it burns through the places man thought he; A Creature of nightmares and holocausts.; A Child of Hope and hate.; A man-made Demon.; Smoking into the air, dissolving into the water.
Monster Corium! Oh Fukushima!: This demon released;; That only the hubris of men thinks can be contained.; that erupted, erupts into the world as a spirit of death.; ... and maybe end our lives.; Forming Hot particles that burn humans to death.; spreading around the world in plumes, radioactive wreaths.; Poisoning the North Atlantic, North America with fallout in dust and rain.; A statistical nightmare of Cancers, leukemias, weakness and pain.; It burns til it is all smoke. And it kills all manner of folk; Far from where it is released.
Oh Fukushima!: Will you kill us all?

Raymond Alcide Joseph: Earthquakes, Oppression and Haiti

Introduction

Raymond Alcide Joseph (born August 31, 1931) is a Haitian diplomat, political activist and journalist. He was the Haitian ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2010, when he resigned to present himself as a candidate in the 2010 Presidential Election in Haiti. He is the uncle of singer and rapper Wyclef Jean.

My wife, got to work with him and meet him when she was trying to organize student activities for her students at Howard University and showcase Ethiopian and Haitian multiculturalism. Matilde Raquel Holte was a teacher first, but in her own way she was also an activist. As a "Adjunct Professor", "visiting scholar", "Researcher" and Scholar she was able to go places other activists couldn't go and bridge political gaps that otherwise would never get bridged. We met Ambassador Joseph at an event held by the Ethiopian Embassy. I believe it was before the Earthquake. We also saw him again when the Ethiopians sponsored an event to try to help Haiti after it's big earthquake in 2010. My wife was interested in civil rights, multiculturalism, religious diaspora, Jews in the diaspora, and other diaspora's such as the one of African peoples. As such we got invited and I was there as "husband of", sometimes with my Camera, sometimes just trying to absorb all the information. I think I snapped this picture using our electronic Camera. But I'm not sure, I can't find it in my archives, so this may have been snapped by someone at the embassy because the only copy I can find is a grainy print on ordinary paper. I found it while looking up something else. Haiti and Ethiopia happened to be on my mind. This reminded me how I think he's one of the heros of his country. Ambassador Joseph was therefore already on my mind, so I immediately scanned by copy. His Facebook Home page is here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raymond-Joseph-for-Haiti/104072289649198

In 2010 Haiti had a disaster, remember? Probably not. I do. It was horrendous. People died, not only from the Quake, but from neglect. Haiti was already a disaster before the Earthquake, and so the people were very fragile. A lot of folks died from that quake. And the country has been neglected since the beginning.

Modern History is grounded in Ancient History. And both Haiti and Ethiopia have a proud history as independent nations. And were independent, and to the consternation of White Folks, were "black" countries, where white skin was the anomaly. My wife, with her interest in multiculturalism and syncretism found both countries remarkable. I do too. I was privileged to visit the Embassy as "husband of" something I could never do as a Federal Contractor employee supporting IT operations and new development. I got to take the pictures. Including I think this one. We heard testimony from one Ethiopian Jew who was surprised when he left Ethiopia to find out there was such a thing as white Jews. Thanks to her I also met a member of the Lemba tribe who had had the same experience from his community near the border between South Africa and Mozambique.

At the conference on Ethiopian Jews, we heard testimony from "Beta Israel" (House Israel) Jews who, on leaving Ethiopia, were shocked that any Jews could ever be white. When they got to Israel they ran into discrimination from Ashkenazi Jews who were surprised Jews could be anything but what they were used to. And Ethiopians have paid a price for their independence in other ways.

For more on the Ethiopians see this article:: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/ethiopia-economic-isolation-versus-neo.html
For more on Haitian History (detail) read:: Bonapartism and Haiti
Further Reading:: http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/23944/a-haitian-tale; Bonapartism and Haiti [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/bonapartism-and-haiti.html]
Declaration of Independence: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Online Sources & Further reading for Haiti:: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266962/Hispaniola; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8a.html; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8b.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti; http://www.historywiz.com/toussaint.htm; http://www.blackpast.org/gah/loverture-toussaint-1742-1803; http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture; http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/7.html; Actual book: Robert Heinl (1996). Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492-1995. Lantham, Maryland: University Press of America.; The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below By Carolyn E. Fick

Ethiopia; economic isolation versus neo-colonialism

Ethiopia

This is a piece of a larger article I'm still working on.

It turns out that Ethiopia has two communities that claim a tie with Jewish people. I knew about the explicitly Ethiopian Jews. They once had had their own country which endured for centuries in the Ethiopian Highlands. It was their experience my wife wrote about and encouraged some of her students to do papers on, and so was involved in these embassy events to highlight. It also turns out that Ethiopian Christians also claim a relationship with Israel. Their ruling dynasty, the Kings of Aksum, claimed descent through the Queen of Sheba. Many Ethiopians claim that Ethiopians were Jewish even before they converted to Christianity. Due to lifestyle and proximity to "Beta Israel" communities over millennia this relationship goes back to when Israel and Judah were independent Kingdoms and lasted through the centuries. Ethiopia represents a syncretism between Egyptian, Arabian/Middle Eastern and African cultures. It's language is an ancient language that has evolved over centuries under influences from that syncretism. It's people's center of culture was once on the Red Sea and they once dominated trade in the region.

The Ethiopians who controlled trade along the red sea were related to the Nubians and to tribes across the Red Sea in Arabia. And their Kings seem to have ruled multi-Ethnic kingdoms as Feudal "Kings of Kings" more on the Babylonian/Persian ancient model than a centralizing hegemonic empire in the Greek or Roman Style. And as such the Christian Kingdom sheltered the followers of Mohammed when he first began preaching, which protected them, for a time, from the depredations of fanatical freebooting Arabs. Eventually that relationship failed and tribes along the coast were either converted or forced to flee into the Mountains. And that is how the Modern Kingdom of Ethiopia gradually moved it's center of power to where it is now. It's also how the historical Center of Ethiopia, Eritrea, came to be a Muslim country. There was no "reconquista" because after centuries of depredations by the Arabs and Persians (now Muslim) the Christians came back from Europe, but this time they came a privateers and colonial powers, not as friends. The Christians wanted those coastal cities as stations for their fleets. Later they wanted them as coaling stations for their fleets. Fleets of "tall" merchant and war ships with heavy cannon loaded on multiple decks could blow away most smaller lighter merchants. And European Countries preyed on each other but ganged up on Muslim sailors. Ethiopia was cutoff from the Ocean and survived in isolation in the mountains too until it broke out of its isolation in the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia
For more on Ethiopia:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75GQ3rwxtZI

Friday, February 20, 2015

Postal Banking, Stamp Scripts and fixing our economic system

Follows http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/satans-usury-john-turmel-and-some-basic.html

Three Articles came out recently that show that John Turmel's

and other ideas previously considered "moonbat" are becoming mainstream. I guess that is why one of the articles ["A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy" ] is by George Monbiot (;-)) All of them involve the growing realization that our cycle of booms and busts, bubbles and swindles, is a design flaw, a worldwide constitutional flaw. This has to be fixed. And even the wealthy are starting to see that.

After describing the mess created by Austerity and an upside down European Confederation constitution. Monbiot notes a number of "radical" seeming ideas:

"One of these radical ideas was proposed a few months ago by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. He suggests stripping private banks of their remarkable power to create money out of thin air. Simply by issuing credit, they spawn between 95% and 97% of the money supply. If the state were to assert a monopoly on money creation, governments could increase their supply without increasing debt. Seigniorage (the difference between the cost of producing money and its value) would accrue to the state, adding billions of pounds to national coffers. The banks would be reduced to the servants, not the masters, of the economy." [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/17/currency-scheme-1930s-save-greek-economy-eurozone-crisis]

Of course this only makes sense due to the fact that our banks are constituted as privateers. They have a letter of marquee to make money and no restrictions on who they levy broadsides at in the process. And they do it with printed money ostensibly based on deposits from customers. However, on the other hand, Monbiot also notes that as Ann Pettifor notes:

"governments have failed to understand what money is. It should not be seen as a commodity, she says, but as a social relationship based on trust."

And of course because Banks create money taking away that power simply threatens to collapse the system even faster than banks do when the input of the "money multiplier" becomes negative. The problem is that money also is a token of wealth and a measure of wealth. If there isn't enough money in circulation for everyone to pay employees and buy stuff, the economy collapses. So while she's right that banks have been an improvement over the old usurous money lenders and over loan sharks. They do engage in usury by the mere fact of charging interest on money that really should be the property of the Governments. Martin Wolf is right and Ann Pettifor is only partly right. She should read John Turmel he nailed what is wrong with the system. Still Monbiot quotes her and notes:

"The supply of money is, in effect, unlimited: as long as there is sufficient productive activity to absorb it there is no obvious restraint on the amount of money that can be issued. So when governments and central bankers tell you that the money has run out, Pettifor argues, they are either deceiving us or deceiving themselves. What holds back economic activity is an unnecessary and artificial restriction of the medium of exchange." [Monbiot continued]

Silvio Gesell and Stamp Scripts

This is practically John Turmel verbatum. But Ann Pettifor claims "Banking’s great civilisational advance has been all but destroyed through deregulation" which is like blaming the cops for a bank robbery. But while Monbiot references both these writers. The heart of this subject is in a book, The Future of Money and in some real life applications of the ideas of Silvio Gesell. People driven by a shortage of valid money started creating their own money locally. Monbiot explains:

"In its original form, stamp scrip was a piece of paper on which a number of boxes were printed. The note would lose its validity unless a stamp costing 1% of its value was stuck in one of the boxes every month. In other words, the currency lost value over time, so there was no incentive to hoard it. Stamp scrip projects took off across Germany and Austria after national currencies collapsed in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Austrian town of Wörgl was almost broke, unable to finance public works or to support its destitute population, until the mayor heard of Gesell’s proposal." [Monbiot continued]

This little pot of money kept circulating, enabling Wörgl to repave the streets, rebuild the water system He put up the town’s tiny remaining fund as collateral against the same value of stamp scrip, and used it to pay for a building project. The workers then passed on the currency as quickly as they could. Like the magic pudding, this little pot of money kept circulating, enabling Wörgl to repave the streets, rebuild the water system, construct houses, a bridge and even a ski jump. In the 13 months of the experiment, the 5,500 scrip schillings in circulation were spent 416 times, creating between 12 and 14 times as much employment as the standard currency would have done. Unemployment vanished, and the stamp fees paid for a soup kitchen feeding 220 families. [Monbiot continued]

So local money worked so well that where it was allowed it put people back to work and "cured" depression. Very encouraging. Sadly the Banksters were more important than the people and owned the government enough to nix this idea. Monbiot continues:

The governments of Germany and Austria, profoundly threatened by the success of these projects, shut them down and employment collapsed once more. When the US economist Irving Fisher examined these experiments he concluded that “the correct application of stamp scrip would solve the depression crisis in the US in three weeks!”. Roosevelt’s government, aware that such currencies could invoke a massive loss of federal power, promptly banned it.

Irving Fisher pushed this plan in the USA but couldn't get it accepted. But the Austrians? You'd think ole Ludwig Von Mises would have been an enthusiast for the idea. And after all he was:

“Engelbert Dollfuss [sc. was] ... the Austrian Chancellor who tried to prevent the Nazis from taking over Austria. During this period Mises was chief economist for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Before Dollfuss was murdered for his politics, Mises was one of his closest advisers.”

[Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Meaning of the Mises Papers,” Mises.org, April 1997 http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html]

So not to belabor the point. Von Mises wasn't really interested in Local Money and in squashed Wörgl's stamp script idea like a bug. I've quoted Von MIses and his history directly from books before. I'm quoting a blog for convenience. He, like EVERY SINGLE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL ECONOMIST preferred:

"“In tackling the economic crisis the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship pursued harsh deflationary policies designed to balance the budget and stabilize the currency. The government’s program featured severe spending cuts, high interest rates, and frozen wages. …. In a sense the Christian Corporative regime demonstrated the viability of the Austrian state, but it did so at the cost of alienating a majority of the Austrian people. On the eve of Anschluss a third of the population was still out of work, while those fortunate enough to have jobs were bringing home paychecks considerably smaller than before the Great War” http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html

Von Mises later gives Gesell's ideas lip service, but the reality is that their solution to economy is banker rule and all the talk about doing away with Central Banks is aimed at getting them out of the way of privatizing money. Now Austria may have done better than the United States. But Von Mises' alienation of Austrian working people (and pretty much everyone else) is probably what put him so easily in German sapper targets. Von Mises fled Austria to move to Switzerland in the wake of Dolfuss' assassination. And contributing to that was that, instead of looking out for everyone, he imposed austerity. Van Hayek would later give the exact same economic and political policy advice to the Chilean Dictator Pinochet. So much for smaller government - but they will make it part of their propaganda.

"Linked to an exhausted determination of the Austrian government to resist the pressures from Germany, the economic crisis of the 1930s should be seen as an additional reason why the Austrian society was receptive to the annexation by Germany in March 1938” (Gerlich and Campbell 2000: 55)." http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html

As to why the United States failed to apply Fisher's ideas. That is part of the narrative I'm driving at. If we want to fix our economy permanently we have to fix our banking system and money system. Not just in the USA but worldwide. And the reason that Roosevelt and Fisher couldn't implement Gesell's ideas is one reason that we are facing similar problems again. The good news is that Fisher never shut up, and Gesell's ideas are making a come back as folks like Monbiot and others start to listen to Chomsky and those who picked up the standard. Gesell's ideas were tried both during the Great Depression and also in the middle 2004-2008 period when Argentina's economy collapsed after the IMF and World Banking community attacked their currency and forced them off of 1:1 exchange with the dollar. I experienced this first hand while visiting the country, seeing local articles about how ordinary entrepreneurial Argentines homesteaded factories abandoned by the economic elites and failed companies.

Next Article: Irving Fisher and Stamp Script [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/irving-fisher-and-stamp-script.html]; http://www.i-r-e.org/docs/blancaccelerated.pdf; Hard to read/poor translation: http://www.slideshare.net/LocalMoney/silvio-gesell-the-natural-economic-order-11957639?related=1; http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html; http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2008/09/market-economy-without-capitalism.html
More on Stamp Scripts:: http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/; http://www.bullnotbull.com/blog-archive/p49.htm; http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/fisher/stamp4.html
A Biography of Gesell:: https://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cawm/forschen/Download/Diskbeitraege/Gesell_Ilgmann-2011-CAWM-Discussion-Paper.pdf
Related Articles:: Our Officers earn themselves a "black spot" -- piracy in Business Government http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/01/our-officers-earn-themselves-black-spot.html; The Great Deformation -- Introduction to the "Good Money" debate http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-great-deformation-introduction-to.html; The only trickle down I see, are them marking my feet http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-only-trickle-down-i-see-are-them.html; Long Con Swindle of America, legalizing swindles through corrupt politics -- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/wall-streets-long-con-swindle-of-america.html; Money isn’t a Bubble or a Ponzi Scheme (or Shouldn’t be) http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/10/money-isnt-bubble-or-ponzi-schemes.html; "Coddling" the Giant Oligarchic Companies http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/06/coddling-giant-oligarchic-companies.html; Worstall, Krugman and John Henry -- Why we need minimum wages at the minimum [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/worstall-krugman-and-john-henry-why-we.html]; Satan's Usury, John Turmel and some basic observation about our Banking system http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/satans-usury-john-turmel-and-some-basic.html; Postal Banking, Stamp Scripts and fixing our economic system http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/postal-banking-stamp-scripts-and-fixing.html

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Trinity Church and Captain Kidd

Aristocracy, Trinity Church and Commoners

The first thing I noticed was that successful pirates joined the gentry. Unsuccessful ones were hung. This is illustrated by the tale of Captain Kidd who was elevated to Captain "pirate style" and not due to his family relations like most officers during the 9 years war "War of the Grand Alliance" [1688-1697]:

"By 1689 he was a member of a French-English pirate crew that sailed in the Caribbean. Kidd and other members of the crew mutinied, ousted the captain off the ship, and sailed to the British colony of Nevis. There they renamed the ship Blessed William. Kidd became captain, either the result of an election of the ship's crew or because of appointment by Christopher Codrington, governor of the island of Nevis. Captain Kidd and Blessed William became part of a small fleet assembled by Codrington to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war."

They were granted "Letters of marquee by the Governor, because that is the way that the English paid for Naval Warfare:

"Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Mariegalante, destroyed the only town, and looted the area, gathering for themselves something around 2,000 pounds Sterling." [Wikipedia article makes a great first stop: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd]

Continuing the fight:

"Kidd captured an enemy privateer off the New England coast."

But of course the borders between piracy and privateering were thin:

"One year later [1690], Captain Robert Culliford, a notorious pirate, stole Kidd's ship while he was ashore at Antigua in the West Indies." [Wikipedia article makes a great first stop: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd]

When you read about Robert Culliford. Culliford partisans claim Kidd was a pirate and that Culliford started as Kidd's Shipmate and "repeatedly check[ed] the designs" through his career. According to them Culliford led a mutiny against Kid in 1790 and appointed William Mason as Captain. All the stories of these pirates are full of these sort of inconsistencies, including some of the official records. Having his prize taken from him didn't stop Kidd from migrating to New York and:

"On 16 May 1691, Kidd married Sarah Bradley Cox Oort, an English woman in her early twenties, who had already been twice widowed and was one of the wealthiest women in New York, largely because of her inheritance from her first husband."

Privateering and piracy were means to wealth and respectability. From 1692-1697 the Governor of New York was Benjamin Fletcher, who traded in both privateering and pirate loot. Kidd contributed to Trinity Church, New York which was funded by privateering and pirate activity. Apparently New York City and Philadelphia were rivals in the Pirate trade during that time too. In 1697 Fletcher was deposed from the Governorship by Edward Randolph who is also famous for revoking the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and who the Boston revolt in 1689 was jailed. It appears that one mans "privateer" and hero could easily be tried as another's pirate -- unless he was part of an important family like the Randolphs. Edward Randolph tried to revoke the charters of all the colonies in 1700 and was defeated. [Britannica: Edward Randolph

Culliford was caught after robbing the Great Mohammed in the Red Sea in September 1698 but pardoned and "disappeared" from history (probably settled down and changed his name or into anonymity). William Mason retired a rich man. Web Sites like The Pirate King may_william.htm depict them as pirates, but the reality is that they straddled the line between respectability and piracy as did, apparently, most of the ships and crews of those privateering times, and probably many of the ships of the Royal Navy. If they'd taken the "Great Mohammed" one year earlier the prize probably would have been legal. In 1698 the war was over.

Pirate Yarns and Nomme Du Guerres

So it's not surprising that pinning down these characters, or even their names, was hard. They went to sea to make money. And whether that money came from looting ships, smuggling, delivering slaves to plantations, or catching fish or whales didn't matter so much as the prizes of wealth and respectability. Many of them became adrenaline junkies (like Blackbeard is said to have done) and perished. But many more retired in the end to quiet lives and wealthy family legacies. Next time I go into Trinity Church I'll think of Captain Kidd.

The British weren't going to punish their privateering warriors in time of warfare. But if they didn't stop when the war was ended they were in trouble diplomatically. William Kidd probably didn't know the war was over when he overstepped his bounds:

"in January 1698, Kidd's luck seemingly changed when he caught sight of the Quedagh Merchant rounding the tip of India.

The war was over. English privateers were not supposed to be preying on ships on the open ocean.

"The Quedagh Merchant was no ordinary vessel. A 500-ton Armenian ship, it carried goods—a treasure trove of gold, silk, spices, and other riches—that were owned in part by a minister at the court of the Indian Grand Moghul. The minister had powerful connections, and when news about Kidd's attack reached him he complained to the East India Company, the large and influential English trading firm. Coupled with many governments' shifting perceptions of piracy, Kidd was quickly cast as a wanted criminal."

Kidds mistake was to try to clear his name. What he should have done was what his rivals; Mason and Culliford did; quietly go to ground. If he had his name would probably be on the list of famous and wealthy families in the United States history books. And his descendants captains of industry and finance. But by trying to clear his name he got himself put on the Gimlet. On the other hand, folks wonder where his treasure went. I would suggest they ask descendents of Sarah Bradley Cox Oort who I'm sure he took care of before trying to clear his name. Buried treasure? Yeah, sure.