NYTimes OP-ED:
Mr. Paul’s Discredited Campaign
Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Now, making things worse, he has failed to convincingly repudiate racist remarks that were published under his name for years — or the enthusiastic support he is getting from racist groups.
Mr. Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who is doing particularly well in Iowa’s precaucus polls, published several newsletters in the ’80s and ’90s with names like the Ron Paul Survival Report and the Ron Paul Political Report. The newsletters interspersed libertarian political and investment commentary with racial bigotry, anti-Semitism and far-right paranoia.
Among other offensive statements, the newsletters said that 95 percent of Washington’s black males were criminals, and they described the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as “Hate Whitey Day.” One 1993 article appeared under a headline lamenting the country’s “disappearing white majority.” Other articles suggested that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, praised the Louisiana racist David Duke and accused some gay men with AIDS of deliberately spreading the disease, “perhaps out of a pathological hatred.”
A direct-mail ad for the newsletters from around 1993 warned of a “coming race war in our big cities” and said there was a “federal-homosexual cover-up” to suppress the impact of AIDS.
Mr. Paul, who, beginning in 2008, has disavowed the articles and their ideas, now says that most of them were written by others and that he was unaware of their content. Even if that were the case, it suggests a stupendous level of negligence that should force a reconsideration by anyone considering entrusting him with the White House.
When the newsletters first became an issue during his Congressional campaigns in the 1990s, however, he did not deny writing some of them or knowing about them.
Mr. Paul has never given a full and detailed accounting of who wrote the newsletters and what his role was in overseeing their publication. It’s especially important that he do so immediately. Those writings have certainly not been forgotten by white supremacist and militia groups that are promoting his candidacy in Iowa and in New Hampshire.
The Times reported on Sunday that dozens of members of the white nationalist Web site Stormfront are volunteering for the Paul campaign, along with far-right militias, survivalists and anti-Zionist groups. Don Black, the Stormfront director, said his members were drawn to Mr. Paul by the newsletters and his positions against immigration and the Fed (run by Jews, Mr. Black said), even if Mr. Paul were not himself a white nationalist.
Mr. Paul, saying he still hopes to “convert” these supporters to his views, has refused to disavow them or to chase them out of his campaign. If he does not do so, he will leave a lasting stain on his candidacy, on the libertarian movement and, very possibly, on the Iowa caucuses.
10.12.11
business talk vs. busiiness sense
What Is Business Waiting For?
By JOE NOCERA
Our current government isn’t going to create jobs, so it’s up to business to do it.
_____________________________
Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida
There's a reason your scenario won't happen, and it has nothing to do with fear of going first. It centers on greed, but it's a little more complicated. And not surprisingly, Congressional Republicans figure into the reason business won't be "altruistic" enough to increase the American labor force.
Warren Buffett made a compelling case in yesterday's Times for raising taxes on the rich. That, of course, includes the corporate rich. He pointed out that when taxes on investments were much higher, investors still invested and corporations were big jobs producers.
So why not now? Yves Smith, writing in Salon, notes that what corporate management really wants is "a high degree of certainty in their own profits and pay. Rather than earn their returns the old fashioned way, by serving customers well, by innovating, by expanding into new markets, their 'certainty' amounts to being paid handsomely for doing things that carry no risk."
So -- in the World According to Marie -- where does corporate management get that "certainty" that profits -- and their own pay -- will increase? From Republicans in Congress. A corporation's small investment in lobbyists will yield some fabulous tax breaks. Tax cuts mean higher profits -- profits gained with very little outlay, and comparatively little risk.
Thus, not only do lower corporate taxes not create jobs, as you say, the probability of Republicans bestowing tax breaks on corporations is actually a disincentive to jobs creation. Developing, making & marketing new products is a big risk -- an unknown unknown. Lobbying Congress is a cheap corporate investment that will yield the same profits with very little effort & very little risk. Congressional Republicans are clamoring to comply.
As long as Republicans and ConservaDems rule, don't expect corporate management to put Americans to work. Congress keeps telling them there's an easier way to make a buck.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
John Farrish
Lafayette, LA
It is to laugh. Surely you jest.
The quest for immediate gratification in the form of short term profits has been institutionalized. If some company were to announce it will be foregoing short term profits for the purpose of putting people back to work, the stock value would tank, stockholders would revolt, and company officers would wave their seven figure salaries goodbye.
Anyway, this plan wouldn't work unless a large number of businesses bought into it, because one company hiring a few hundred employees isn't going to help sell stuff to people who don't have any money. And if other people aren't hiring along with the one, there won't be anybody to purchase the excess inventory that was just created.
The mistake you're making here, Mr. Nocera, is the same one supply siders have been making for a very long time: The economy is not supply driven; it's demand driven, and until people have money to spend, not one single "job creator" is ever going to spend a penny making anything. The way to put people to work is to put them to work. Jan Schakowsky, at least, gets this.
When I was working on my bachelor's degree in business administration they taught us about stakeholders. The stakeholders in a business, we were taught, used to be the company's stockholders alone, but that was no longer the case. My professors told me we lived in a much more enlightened society in which not just stockholders, but employees, customers, and the communities in which companies were located were all seen to have a legitimate stake in a company's performance, and managers were ethically bound to serve them all.
My professors lied to me. No such sense of obligation exists, not to employees, not to customers, and not to communities. Certainly not among corporate boards sitting on record piles of cash; their only sense of responsibility is to their own bank accounts. And if what has happened over the last 30 years isn't enough to convince you, then nothing ever will.
Morton Kurzweil
Margate, Florida
Germany has a safety net if universal health care, education, and unemployment income. The investment in workers in a country that has a favorable trade balance, that doesn't use cheap foreign labor to undercut consumer income or permit cash flow to safe havens and relies on the United States to spend an unsustainable level of its budget on international defense, is a great example of where we should be economically - except that our profligacy and uncontrolled "free trade" has been the cause of worldwide recession.
We do not need a smaller government. Our problem is small minds fixated upon the myth of American Christian Dominion, a belief in the manifest destiny of America to lead the world to a new social and moral
order.
That is the Tea Party agenda, a cheap knock off of nineteenth century Western empire building,
We are confused by those who insist that corporations are people with the people who are the We in "We the People". We are confused by those who suggest that morality requires a religious basis. We are confused by those who speak of human rights as they are defined by some religious extremist group.
We need to regain our secular balance if we are to have a government responsible to all the people all of the time.
Economic theories benefit those who would control an economy. Political theories in a secular democracy should respond to the needs of all.
DonB
Reno, NV
Why should we expect business to hire people they don't need?
As a businessman who is not hiring, I can only ask the above. The problem is simply lack of demand for goods and services. Period. It has been clearly documented that the American people have lost something on the order of $7.38 trillion in wealth since 2008. This is the position of the middle class, which heretofore represented 70% of the GDP:
(1) Their houses (their principal asset) are still losing value,
(2) they're not too sure they'll have the same job paying the same wages next year, and
(3) their level of debt is still very high, particularly given (1) and (2).
I think you're barking up the wrong tree. Obama needs to buckle down, do a little studying, then come back with his silver tongue, explain clearly what has befallen the middle class over the past 35 years (as Robert Reich has done) and sell infrastructure projects to kick this place into gear. If the repubs don't go along, nail them to the wall with facts, over and over and over again until the history has sunk in.
cbi
Pennsylvania
Joe - I ran a company for 25 years. We had good years and years not so good. We weathered 3 recessions and in all those years I only had to let one person go (out of a staff of 40) because of the economy or product demand. How did we survive? First, in bad years, none of us got raises. As the CEO, I had the very same benefits that my employees had. I received no special perks, got no golden parachute from our board and traveled in coach (150,000 miles per year on average). I set up a pension program for employees that they did not have to put a penny in, but they knew was in lieu of a slightly larger salary. In my 25 years only two employees left the company even though they had better offers. They liked what we did, how we did, and were committed to making it work.
We did put people first. Our employees and our customers. In good years we put the money back into the business, not into bonuses or hiring unneeded staff. We expanded as we saw opportunity and found that recessions created opportunities as our competitors fell by the wayside because of their extensive over-borrowing and greed during their good times.
Yes, we were a small business, but all the Fortune 500 companies in our region learned lessons from us. In fact, at a local meeting of business executives back in 2001, I sat next to the CEOs of three Fortune 500 companies. They were asking me how we kept profitable during those tough times. I said just look out the door. My 8 year old car was parked in a spot next to the three limos with drivers waiting to take these "titans of industry" back the three or four miles to their isolated headquarters. The looked at me with glazed eyes. They didn't get it. And most of the leaders of our biggest companies still don't get it.
Satisfied customers create more business. Respecting employees and creating a level playing field spawns creativity. And ultimately that creates jobs and growth, no matter how small or big the company.
G. Morris
NY and NJ
US corporations are still tied to the Jack Welch dictums:
Keep Full Time Employees to a absolute minimum,
Create a two-tier employee structure with management paid mostly in stock options,
Even our universities have embraced this short-sighted mandate with over 70% of college students now being taught by temps (adjuncts) and the dream of tenure thrown over-board. The average age of a tenured professor is now 55; they shoud be put on the endangered list. They only get to work if their courses are filled by cash-carrying students.
Productivity is high, wages are low and corporate profits are massive. And the income paradigm of our country looks like a template for a Banana Republic.
My children and their spouses work 80 hours a week while some of their friends are either unemployed or waiting tables. They are all well-educated, highly skilled and under utilized by a management class that is addicted to short-term movements in stock prices. Jack Welch's management philosophy only works in the short -term which is now behind us.
Jerry Kriss
Baltimore, MD
Many of the writers above have noted the fallacy in Mr. Nocera's suggestion---that U.S. businesses would voluntarily create jobs in the absence of any increased demand. It's the same fallacy promulgated by the supply-side economists. Our economy is demand driven, and employers won't hire until there is increased demand. That's why they'r sitting on hoards of cash.
In situations like this, the only entity that increase demand is the government. Increased government spending puts more money in people's pockets that they can spend, and demand goes up. How do we pay for that? Increasing taxes! If businesses won't spend the hoarded cash (much of it accumulated from the Bush tax cuts), then the government should. Increased capital gains taxes and taxes on corporate dividends will actually *increase* job creation by business. The higher tax gives them an incentive to put their money back into the business. While hiring workers immediately is not a good idea, plowing that money into refurbished equipment, new equipment, and improved facilities is an investment in the future that will pay off when demand returns. Companies avoid taxes then because that moneyt has turned into a business expense. This purchasing in upgrades also increases demand and stimulates the economy. With higher tax rates, hiring more employees actually will cost a business *less* in net income. The taxed profit has been turned into a business expense.
The evidence for all this is quite clear in the economic record. The economy always boomed when marginal tax rates and taxes on dividends and capital gains were higher, during the Eisenhower era and the Clinton presidency. We should be pushing for higher taxes in these areas now to boost the economy.
John F. McBride
Seattle, WA
Growing up through the Korean War and Cold War years, then Vietnam, I assumed the truth of the constant assertion of living in America: that America is superior and because it is superior everyone wants to live here.
But the decades have gone by and I was disillusioned with time. America has some superior qualities, but isn't carte blanche superior. There are other methods in the world that work as well, and in many cases that work better.
Germany's societal understanding about jobs and employment is one. The much lower cost of health care in other nations and yet equal and even superior care is another.
A truth about America is that we in some large minority, even at times a majority, prefer belief, believing what America is, to the truth.
Sadly our Republican Party in general, and the Tea Party specifically, our extreme right conservatism, refuses to accept that it can learn from others and to insist that even if an idea has been tried time and again, during the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II years, and failed, it will work. It has to work.
Maybe you're right Mr. Nocera, and corporations will voluntarily take on solving our employment problem. But I don't believe it. That's not happened in this nation before because our business model prefers strict capitalism and I know it. I'd have be as insane, in trusting after all this time that corporations can be trusted this first time to take this one as Republicans are in asserting that this time supply side and cutting spending in a severe contraction will work even though it never has before in the history of economics.
I'm not that crazy. Once burned, in my case, twice shy.
dickginnold
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Great article, Joe. I trained as an economist in the l950s when 'enlightened self interest' was the key word and stocks traded in the 5/10 PE range. Corporate CEOs didn't get rich. There might have been a few $1 to 2M CEOS, but most made a couple hundred thousand. To get through school for a couple years I piled pigs and poured metal for Kaiser Aluminum. I could earn $7,000 with overtime. Henry Kaiser, the CEO got about $200K, 30 times my wage. Our union was respected. Now US CEOs make 10s of millions, maybe up to 100M,, or 100s of times worker salaries,while their corporations are breaking unions, cutting benefits, laying off people, paying off Congressional represenatives and frequently losing money.
In 2008 I visited my relatives in Germany and travelled the country from Berlin to Hamburg. Amazing. Corporate boards have union reps and there is a social compact to share sacrifice, the origin of the hours reduction policy to reduce unemployment.
The country and its flourishing economy puts us to shame, full of windpower and several kinds of fast, modern transit, in its infrastructure, in the mixture of nationalities, social benefits and dignity of workers. I saw huge numbers of export containers in Hamburg, which exports 10M containers a year, mostly filled with industrial goods. During my visit, a Berlin paper had a spread on the top CEO salaries in Germany, major companies like Lufthansa, BMW. I don't believe there was a one above 1 to 3 M Euros,around 40 times the worker earnings, like we had it 60 years ago. They learned democratic capitalism, while the US was taken over by Wall Street and corporate rapists.
Jumper
South Carolina
Twenty-five years ago a young associate professor of business I knew relentlessly repeated to everyone who'd listen a key difference between Japanese managers and U.S. managers. Japanese managers could recite their market share but seldom knew their return on investment (ROI.) U.S. managers could recite their ROI but seldom knew their market share.
This same associate professor condemned the U.S. quarterly-report fixation. It was one of many indicators but it led U.S. investors to want every quarter to be better than the last. Simple algebra with exponents shows that folly.
Today, that former associate professor is Chair of the Department with no shortage of students.
An important question will be how the companies will judge the success of their efforts. Are they willing to be patient? Are workers willing to start at a lower salary? Are corporations willing to raise the pay as profits increase? Some may bring up unions. Only 6.9% of the U.S. private sector workforce is in unions.
You mention the Germans, but the Japanese also have a practice of setting aside money to keep workers on the job. The work may involve a lot of equipment and building maintenance but they are kept employed.
What's also going on in Japan and Germany is that fear is minimized in the workplace. When workplace fear is minimized, productivity increases. People pay attention to productivity and creativity rather than worrying about how to word their resume, or worrying about what they need to ask HR. They discuss coordinating efficiency or product improvement rather than discussing the latest company rumors.
In early 1914, at the height of a two year recession, Henry Ford doubled the daily wage to $5.00. He also cut the work day to eight hours. He was able to keep workers on the job and he was able to run three shifts. Car prices dropped.
Those were benefits to his corporation but those changes also had positive impact on American prosperity and standard of living in general.
By JOE NOCERA
Our current government isn’t going to create jobs, so it’s up to business to do it.
_____________________________
Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida
There's a reason your scenario won't happen, and it has nothing to do with fear of going first. It centers on greed, but it's a little more complicated. And not surprisingly, Congressional Republicans figure into the reason business won't be "altruistic" enough to increase the American labor force.
Warren Buffett made a compelling case in yesterday's Times for raising taxes on the rich. That, of course, includes the corporate rich. He pointed out that when taxes on investments were much higher, investors still invested and corporations were big jobs producers.
So why not now? Yves Smith, writing in Salon, notes that what corporate management really wants is "a high degree of certainty in their own profits and pay. Rather than earn their returns the old fashioned way, by serving customers well, by innovating, by expanding into new markets, their 'certainty' amounts to being paid handsomely for doing things that carry no risk."
So -- in the World According to Marie -- where does corporate management get that "certainty" that profits -- and their own pay -- will increase? From Republicans in Congress. A corporation's small investment in lobbyists will yield some fabulous tax breaks. Tax cuts mean higher profits -- profits gained with very little outlay, and comparatively little risk.
Thus, not only do lower corporate taxes not create jobs, as you say, the probability of Republicans bestowing tax breaks on corporations is actually a disincentive to jobs creation. Developing, making & marketing new products is a big risk -- an unknown unknown. Lobbying Congress is a cheap corporate investment that will yield the same profits with very little effort & very little risk. Congressional Republicans are clamoring to comply.
As long as Republicans and ConservaDems rule, don't expect corporate management to put Americans to work. Congress keeps telling them there's an easier way to make a buck.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
John Farrish
Lafayette, LA
It is to laugh. Surely you jest.
The quest for immediate gratification in the form of short term profits has been institutionalized. If some company were to announce it will be foregoing short term profits for the purpose of putting people back to work, the stock value would tank, stockholders would revolt, and company officers would wave their seven figure salaries goodbye.
Anyway, this plan wouldn't work unless a large number of businesses bought into it, because one company hiring a few hundred employees isn't going to help sell stuff to people who don't have any money. And if other people aren't hiring along with the one, there won't be anybody to purchase the excess inventory that was just created.
The mistake you're making here, Mr. Nocera, is the same one supply siders have been making for a very long time: The economy is not supply driven; it's demand driven, and until people have money to spend, not one single "job creator" is ever going to spend a penny making anything. The way to put people to work is to put them to work. Jan Schakowsky, at least, gets this.
When I was working on my bachelor's degree in business administration they taught us about stakeholders. The stakeholders in a business, we were taught, used to be the company's stockholders alone, but that was no longer the case. My professors told me we lived in a much more enlightened society in which not just stockholders, but employees, customers, and the communities in which companies were located were all seen to have a legitimate stake in a company's performance, and managers were ethically bound to serve them all.
My professors lied to me. No such sense of obligation exists, not to employees, not to customers, and not to communities. Certainly not among corporate boards sitting on record piles of cash; their only sense of responsibility is to their own bank accounts. And if what has happened over the last 30 years isn't enough to convince you, then nothing ever will.
Morton Kurzweil
Margate, Florida
Germany has a safety net if universal health care, education, and unemployment income. The investment in workers in a country that has a favorable trade balance, that doesn't use cheap foreign labor to undercut consumer income or permit cash flow to safe havens and relies on the United States to spend an unsustainable level of its budget on international defense, is a great example of where we should be economically - except that our profligacy and uncontrolled "free trade" has been the cause of worldwide recession.
We do not need a smaller government. Our problem is small minds fixated upon the myth of American Christian Dominion, a belief in the manifest destiny of America to lead the world to a new social and moral
order.
That is the Tea Party agenda, a cheap knock off of nineteenth century Western empire building,
We are confused by those who insist that corporations are people with the people who are the We in "We the People". We are confused by those who suggest that morality requires a religious basis. We are confused by those who speak of human rights as they are defined by some religious extremist group.
We need to regain our secular balance if we are to have a government responsible to all the people all of the time.
Economic theories benefit those who would control an economy. Political theories in a secular democracy should respond to the needs of all.
DonB
Reno, NV
Why should we expect business to hire people they don't need?
As a businessman who is not hiring, I can only ask the above. The problem is simply lack of demand for goods and services. Period. It has been clearly documented that the American people have lost something on the order of $7.38 trillion in wealth since 2008. This is the position of the middle class, which heretofore represented 70% of the GDP:
(1) Their houses (their principal asset) are still losing value,
(2) they're not too sure they'll have the same job paying the same wages next year, and
(3) their level of debt is still very high, particularly given (1) and (2).
I think you're barking up the wrong tree. Obama needs to buckle down, do a little studying, then come back with his silver tongue, explain clearly what has befallen the middle class over the past 35 years (as Robert Reich has done) and sell infrastructure projects to kick this place into gear. If the repubs don't go along, nail them to the wall with facts, over and over and over again until the history has sunk in.
cbi
Pennsylvania
Joe - I ran a company for 25 years. We had good years and years not so good. We weathered 3 recessions and in all those years I only had to let one person go (out of a staff of 40) because of the economy or product demand. How did we survive? First, in bad years, none of us got raises. As the CEO, I had the very same benefits that my employees had. I received no special perks, got no golden parachute from our board and traveled in coach (150,000 miles per year on average). I set up a pension program for employees that they did not have to put a penny in, but they knew was in lieu of a slightly larger salary. In my 25 years only two employees left the company even though they had better offers. They liked what we did, how we did, and were committed to making it work.
We did put people first. Our employees and our customers. In good years we put the money back into the business, not into bonuses or hiring unneeded staff. We expanded as we saw opportunity and found that recessions created opportunities as our competitors fell by the wayside because of their extensive over-borrowing and greed during their good times.
Yes, we were a small business, but all the Fortune 500 companies in our region learned lessons from us. In fact, at a local meeting of business executives back in 2001, I sat next to the CEOs of three Fortune 500 companies. They were asking me how we kept profitable during those tough times. I said just look out the door. My 8 year old car was parked in a spot next to the three limos with drivers waiting to take these "titans of industry" back the three or four miles to their isolated headquarters. The looked at me with glazed eyes. They didn't get it. And most of the leaders of our biggest companies still don't get it.
Satisfied customers create more business. Respecting employees and creating a level playing field spawns creativity. And ultimately that creates jobs and growth, no matter how small or big the company.
G. Morris
NY and NJ
US corporations are still tied to the Jack Welch dictums:
Keep Full Time Employees to a absolute minimum,
Create a two-tier employee structure with management paid mostly in stock options,
Even our universities have embraced this short-sighted mandate with over 70% of college students now being taught by temps (adjuncts) and the dream of tenure thrown over-board. The average age of a tenured professor is now 55; they shoud be put on the endangered list. They only get to work if their courses are filled by cash-carrying students.
Productivity is high, wages are low and corporate profits are massive. And the income paradigm of our country looks like a template for a Banana Republic.
My children and their spouses work 80 hours a week while some of their friends are either unemployed or waiting tables. They are all well-educated, highly skilled and under utilized by a management class that is addicted to short-term movements in stock prices. Jack Welch's management philosophy only works in the short -term which is now behind us.
Jerry Kriss
Baltimore, MD
Many of the writers above have noted the fallacy in Mr. Nocera's suggestion---that U.S. businesses would voluntarily create jobs in the absence of any increased demand. It's the same fallacy promulgated by the supply-side economists. Our economy is demand driven, and employers won't hire until there is increased demand. That's why they'r sitting on hoards of cash.
In situations like this, the only entity that increase demand is the government. Increased government spending puts more money in people's pockets that they can spend, and demand goes up. How do we pay for that? Increasing taxes! If businesses won't spend the hoarded cash (much of it accumulated from the Bush tax cuts), then the government should. Increased capital gains taxes and taxes on corporate dividends will actually *increase* job creation by business. The higher tax gives them an incentive to put their money back into the business. While hiring workers immediately is not a good idea, plowing that money into refurbished equipment, new equipment, and improved facilities is an investment in the future that will pay off when demand returns. Companies avoid taxes then because that moneyt has turned into a business expense. This purchasing in upgrades also increases demand and stimulates the economy. With higher tax rates, hiring more employees actually will cost a business *less* in net income. The taxed profit has been turned into a business expense.
The evidence for all this is quite clear in the economic record. The economy always boomed when marginal tax rates and taxes on dividends and capital gains were higher, during the Eisenhower era and the Clinton presidency. We should be pushing for higher taxes in these areas now to boost the economy.
John F. McBride
Seattle, WA
Growing up through the Korean War and Cold War years, then Vietnam, I assumed the truth of the constant assertion of living in America: that America is superior and because it is superior everyone wants to live here.
But the decades have gone by and I was disillusioned with time. America has some superior qualities, but isn't carte blanche superior. There are other methods in the world that work as well, and in many cases that work better.
Germany's societal understanding about jobs and employment is one. The much lower cost of health care in other nations and yet equal and even superior care is another.
A truth about America is that we in some large minority, even at times a majority, prefer belief, believing what America is, to the truth.
Sadly our Republican Party in general, and the Tea Party specifically, our extreme right conservatism, refuses to accept that it can learn from others and to insist that even if an idea has been tried time and again, during the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II years, and failed, it will work. It has to work.
Maybe you're right Mr. Nocera, and corporations will voluntarily take on solving our employment problem. But I don't believe it. That's not happened in this nation before because our business model prefers strict capitalism and I know it. I'd have be as insane, in trusting after all this time that corporations can be trusted this first time to take this one as Republicans are in asserting that this time supply side and cutting spending in a severe contraction will work even though it never has before in the history of economics.
I'm not that crazy. Once burned, in my case, twice shy.
dickginnold
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Great article, Joe. I trained as an economist in the l950s when 'enlightened self interest' was the key word and stocks traded in the 5/10 PE range. Corporate CEOs didn't get rich. There might have been a few $1 to 2M CEOS, but most made a couple hundred thousand. To get through school for a couple years I piled pigs and poured metal for Kaiser Aluminum. I could earn $7,000 with overtime. Henry Kaiser, the CEO got about $200K, 30 times my wage. Our union was respected. Now US CEOs make 10s of millions, maybe up to 100M,, or 100s of times worker salaries,while their corporations are breaking unions, cutting benefits, laying off people, paying off Congressional represenatives and frequently losing money.
In 2008 I visited my relatives in Germany and travelled the country from Berlin to Hamburg. Amazing. Corporate boards have union reps and there is a social compact to share sacrifice, the origin of the hours reduction policy to reduce unemployment.
The country and its flourishing economy puts us to shame, full of windpower and several kinds of fast, modern transit, in its infrastructure, in the mixture of nationalities, social benefits and dignity of workers. I saw huge numbers of export containers in Hamburg, which exports 10M containers a year, mostly filled with industrial goods. During my visit, a Berlin paper had a spread on the top CEO salaries in Germany, major companies like Lufthansa, BMW. I don't believe there was a one above 1 to 3 M Euros,around 40 times the worker earnings, like we had it 60 years ago. They learned democratic capitalism, while the US was taken over by Wall Street and corporate rapists.
Jumper
South Carolina
Twenty-five years ago a young associate professor of business I knew relentlessly repeated to everyone who'd listen a key difference between Japanese managers and U.S. managers. Japanese managers could recite their market share but seldom knew their return on investment (ROI.) U.S. managers could recite their ROI but seldom knew their market share.
This same associate professor condemned the U.S. quarterly-report fixation. It was one of many indicators but it led U.S. investors to want every quarter to be better than the last. Simple algebra with exponents shows that folly.
Today, that former associate professor is Chair of the Department with no shortage of students.
An important question will be how the companies will judge the success of their efforts. Are they willing to be patient? Are workers willing to start at a lower salary? Are corporations willing to raise the pay as profits increase? Some may bring up unions. Only 6.9% of the U.S. private sector workforce is in unions.
You mention the Germans, but the Japanese also have a practice of setting aside money to keep workers on the job. The work may involve a lot of equipment and building maintenance but they are kept employed.
What's also going on in Japan and Germany is that fear is minimized in the workplace. When workplace fear is minimized, productivity increases. People pay attention to productivity and creativity rather than worrying about how to word their resume, or worrying about what they need to ask HR. They discuss coordinating efficiency or product improvement rather than discussing the latest company rumors.
In early 1914, at the height of a two year recession, Henry Ford doubled the daily wage to $5.00. He also cut the work day to eight hours. He was able to keep workers on the job and he was able to run three shifts. Car prices dropped.
Those were benefits to his corporation but those changes also had positive impact on American prosperity and standard of living in general.
9.12.11
The UK: 'Isolated' vs. 'Insulated'
LONDON — When he rejected a new European accord on Friday that would bind the continent ever closer, Prime Minister David Cameron seemingly sacrificed Britain’s place in Europe to preserve the pre-eminence of the City, London’s financial district. The question now is whether his stance will someday seem justified, even prescient.
MFF Frankfurt, Germany
I'm an American, living in Germany for the past 3 years, and with close family in the UK. I travel constantly throughout the EU as well as to England--and all I can say is: the problem is Britain, not Europe. England has had post WWII the most bizarre attachment to the US and all things American, a sort of hero worship that is at times even embarrassing to witness.
As the last UK elections have shown, the Brits are much more aligned to Wall Street and Big Money than to core European values like a solid welfare state and strict regulation of markets. They don't feel European and I've met few Europeans who feel England is part of Europe, either. Traveling in the EU is simple and easy--entering Germany is the easiest, most stress-free country entry I ever experience, but the same cannot be said for the UK.
Part of it is, of course, a result of being an island.
All I can say is: I feel sorry for the regular British folk, duped by their unscrupulous politicians so that they never get to understand how much more important is their link to their own continent rather than the one across the pond.
Al Minneapolis
This just lays bare the fact that the UK government, like its US counterpart, is a creature of the big banks. It also exposes the folly of letting your industrial and manufacturing sector shrivel up in the hope that the financial sector shall takeover as the bedrock of your economy.
The financial sector does not create capital, it only funnels them from those who have spare capital to those who need more of it. New York and London became the dominant financial centers when the UK and the US had the largest, and wealthiest industrial and manufacturing sectors in the world and thus generated the most wealth and capital. In fact London's dominance is now but a vestige of their long dissipated industrial might.
I can very well imagine Merkel thinking "our country's industry and manufacturing is much larger than the UK's, why should we grant special privileges to the UK's financial sector to the detriment of my own country's financial sector when our economy is a much bigger generator of capital than the UK and it's shrunken industrial base? It's not our fault that the UK pursued policies that were harmful to their industry."
campbell spain
As a British citizen living in Spain I am saddened by David Cameron.Britain had the chance to reform the City after the scandals of 2008 but a Tory Government has too many "ties" to the City to act. The City cost UK taxpayers a fortune but wave a few Union Jacks around and everything is forgotten. A mistake of historical proportions has been made.
N P Johnson Sheffield, England
I feel rather disappointed by this country's negative attitude. Look at a map. It's part of Europe. Ok there's 21 miles of water. So what? Hawaii's part of the USA, as is Manhattan. Being an island's nothing to do with it. Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus are all islands and happy to be in the EU. We had an Empire? So did France, Spain, Portugal, Holland? We won the war? Yes but that finished 66 years ago. Not everybody in England is Eurosceptic. It tends to be more the case in the prosperous Home Counties in the south of England around London, where the Conservatives have their power base. Further north the Tories are much less popular, especially in the cities. Labour/LibDems are generally more pro-European. The problem in England is the press. Rabidly Europhobic tabloid papers print whatever suits their point of view, and which is not necessarily accurate. How can the public make a decision in a referendum without being given both sides of the argument and all of the true facts?
robert iacobacci annapolis, md
Since their tentative entry into the EU, Briton has shown their half hearted faith in the institution and its goals. Content to reap the benefits but unwilling to share the burdens that are part of a full fledged commitment. Perhaps this is a good time for the E.U to ask for a decision. The loss of England at this point would do little harm and the British can discover if they perhaps need Europe more then it needs them.
ance Lee Pacific Palisades, California
England's decision - the Conservative party hardly exists in Scotland - is self-destructive. Cameron has played to his party's right wing, a minority of his party, no doubt hoping this will defuse them and let him get on with managing the economic crisis. But it is a defining vote, and he has made himself one of those rightwingers by doing so. If he is comfortable there, he should feel pleased.
The price is high. England now will not participate In whatever measures the other 17 - 26 EU countries take to secure the euro. It will not be able to protect The City, its Wall Street, from whatever body arises by treaty among these states. It will be an outsider. It cannot participate in the shape new European institutions take, who runs them, and how they are run. It will have no membership on its bodies, and no special understandings to protect its interests. It has marginalized itself.
And if, an 'if' of some controversy, a new euro-centered 'national' state arises successfully, the road to further European integration will have been opened, without England. In such a situation, faced by an entity with a far larger population and economy, it can hardly think its financial prominence can continue or be defended.
This decision plays only to a fraction of its internal politics, on whose members the sun never sets in their eyes, even amid their darkness. And it bares a disingenuous political class unwilling to face or speak the truth.
joe new york
The really important and, so far, un-asked question is why Britain insisted its financial institutions be exempt from any jointly agreed upon financial regulations. I'll tell you why. Because the problem is not Greece, or Italy, or Spain, or Ireland, or Portugal or Germany. The problem is in England and the United States. Those two countries are the origin of the speculation that caused a global financial contagion and remain the center of a cancerous derivatives market that has, WITHOUT MEDIA ATTENTION, exploded again this year to over $707 trillion dollars, breaking the record it set in mid-2008, just before the crash.
You think the United States would cede control over its financial institution regulatory framework to an international organization? Uh-huh. Not in a million years. The belly of that beast is too ugly. Britain has extraordinarily lax regulations with respect to leveraged re-hypothication of borrowed capital. That's why it became very attractive to companies like A.I.G. and M.F. Global. You think they want to let someone else lift the curtain on that?
When the mother of all margin calls occurs and the global debt titanic goes down, and the global derivative pyramid scheme the U.S. and Britain built collapses, it will be every man for himself.
Dean Vantari Atlanta, GA
The City vs the People, that is the crux of the matter here. There is a disconnect between the financial sector and the real economy of Europe. All the hand wringing about defaults are the premise of investment bankers, not the People of Europe. It may actually be healthy to maintain a fire wall to isolate the financial speculators in the City, and the Street, from further poisoning the real economy, where real goods and services are exchanged, not digital representations swapped for intangibles. Wealth is not created in any speculative "market", it is created by the work and innovation of real human beings.
W. van Tuinen The Netherlands
Why does every American news article I read talk about 'huge rifts' and 'deep divides'? There are no rifts. There is Britain on one side and everybody else on the other. And Britain matters much less to Europe than they would like and American analysts seem to believe.
Relax.
My government agrees with the changes now on the table and so do I.
I see no looming totalitarianism but an organisation that:
- has resulted in a peace so fundamental that the idea of war between countries in the EU is now basically unimaginable.
- introduced a common currency and open borders, which have allowed all EU citizens to travel all over the continent and become more open-minded and multi-cultural. Even with the financial troubles of the last several years, I myself have found a job in Ireland and work there now without any political hassle.
- provided an economic growth and integration that allows me to live in the luxury I do today.
- has introduced rules and regulations binding all over Europe that safeguard the quality of the food we eat and the appliances we use, where single governments were too slow or corrupt to do this.
- is now slowly but surely working to change a financial system that launched the whole world into a depression. And as far as I can see, the EU is the only government even attempting this.
I am pro-EU and have full confidence in the ability of the EU.
friedmann Paris
The policy of the UK towards Europe is suicidal. Imperial England ruling the open seas is no more. Its special relationship with the US is mostly a servile relationship. Moreover, it is in the US national interest to chose the stronger side (a UE led by Germany) over a country in decline, however important its past tole in world history. Surely, the other EU counties are also declining. But, they seem to have understood that the only way to leverage their weak individual power is through a united, and strong Europe. This involves pooling together some of their sovereign rights of the past to build a novel political entity, the foundation of which is what Jürgen Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism” . Even, Cameron’s belief that he is protecting the City by refusing to sign is probably wrong. I would not be surprised that in the not too distant future, Frankfurt will take business away from London. Of course, this implies the Euro rescue plan works.
Mick Boston
Let’s talk about the democracy deficit. Its a little rich of London to complain about the EU as composed of bunch of undemocratic, unaccountable, and top down faceless bureaucrats and cozy political appointees.
When one considers that the majority of the Britain’s conservative government is elected under a first past the post system and is almost entirely composed of members from southern England. This from a party that is consistently opposed to devolution of powers to the constituent nations of the UK and is adamantly opposed to any type of proportional representation voting system as such suspiciously foreign even though it is in use in parts of the UK. They can fly their St. George’s flag all they want but it is abundantly clear that the UK is run for and by the benefit of the "City". Just ask any Glaswegian, Cardiffian, Manchurian, or Liverpudlian what they think of "London" and where their once prized industries have gone.
-neal02- Germany
I am writing from Germany and the first thing I did after get up from bed was looking for my socks. I do not want to dominate the British nor march into Czechoslovakia.
so far I have heard no constructive proposal of the british but who wants a say, must contribute. That talks about the failure of the euro countrie sucks. The EU has established a single market across the territory of all its members. A monetary union, the eurozone, using a single currency comprises In 2010 the EU generated an estimated 26% (16.242 billion international dollars share of the global gross domestic product making it the largest economy in the world. It is the largest exporter,the largest importer of goods and services, and the biggest trading partner to several large countries such as China, India,and the United States. The euro is designed to help build a single market by, for example: easing travel of citizens and goods, eliminating exchange rate problems, providing price transparency, creating a single financial market, price stability and low interest rates, and providing a currency used internationally and protected against shocks by the large amount of internal trade within the eurozone.
If the Britons withdrawal from the EU they will not participate in this market.
Surely the Euro will not collapse even if many would like.
Patrick Frankfurt, Germany
To all Brits and Americans hailing Mr. Cameron as a fighter for democracy and liberty.
You are kidding yourselves if you tell me the "NO" from Mr. Cameron is in first place the voice of the British people but the will of the so much elected City of London.
British people you are just a supporting side-kick.
Emmanuel New York, NY, USA
The Brits. Masters of deception...but this time they went too far. On this one I'd rather bet my future with no nonsense Germany than follow the foggy treacherous corrupt ways of Wall Street and Old England banksters. Mr Cameron, you are dead wrong!
MFF Frankfurt, Germany
I'm an American, living in Germany for the past 3 years, and with close family in the UK. I travel constantly throughout the EU as well as to England--and all I can say is: the problem is Britain, not Europe. England has had post WWII the most bizarre attachment to the US and all things American, a sort of hero worship that is at times even embarrassing to witness.
As the last UK elections have shown, the Brits are much more aligned to Wall Street and Big Money than to core European values like a solid welfare state and strict regulation of markets. They don't feel European and I've met few Europeans who feel England is part of Europe, either. Traveling in the EU is simple and easy--entering Germany is the easiest, most stress-free country entry I ever experience, but the same cannot be said for the UK.
Part of it is, of course, a result of being an island.
All I can say is: I feel sorry for the regular British folk, duped by their unscrupulous politicians so that they never get to understand how much more important is their link to their own continent rather than the one across the pond.
Al Minneapolis
This just lays bare the fact that the UK government, like its US counterpart, is a creature of the big banks. It also exposes the folly of letting your industrial and manufacturing sector shrivel up in the hope that the financial sector shall takeover as the bedrock of your economy.
The financial sector does not create capital, it only funnels them from those who have spare capital to those who need more of it. New York and London became the dominant financial centers when the UK and the US had the largest, and wealthiest industrial and manufacturing sectors in the world and thus generated the most wealth and capital. In fact London's dominance is now but a vestige of their long dissipated industrial might.
I can very well imagine Merkel thinking "our country's industry and manufacturing is much larger than the UK's, why should we grant special privileges to the UK's financial sector to the detriment of my own country's financial sector when our economy is a much bigger generator of capital than the UK and it's shrunken industrial base? It's not our fault that the UK pursued policies that were harmful to their industry."
campbell spain
As a British citizen living in Spain I am saddened by David Cameron.Britain had the chance to reform the City after the scandals of 2008 but a Tory Government has too many "ties" to the City to act. The City cost UK taxpayers a fortune but wave a few Union Jacks around and everything is forgotten. A mistake of historical proportions has been made.
N P Johnson Sheffield, England
I feel rather disappointed by this country's negative attitude. Look at a map. It's part of Europe. Ok there's 21 miles of water. So what? Hawaii's part of the USA, as is Manhattan. Being an island's nothing to do with it. Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus are all islands and happy to be in the EU. We had an Empire? So did France, Spain, Portugal, Holland? We won the war? Yes but that finished 66 years ago. Not everybody in England is Eurosceptic. It tends to be more the case in the prosperous Home Counties in the south of England around London, where the Conservatives have their power base. Further north the Tories are much less popular, especially in the cities. Labour/LibDems are generally more pro-European. The problem in England is the press. Rabidly Europhobic tabloid papers print whatever suits their point of view, and which is not necessarily accurate. How can the public make a decision in a referendum without being given both sides of the argument and all of the true facts?
robert iacobacci annapolis, md
Since their tentative entry into the EU, Briton has shown their half hearted faith in the institution and its goals. Content to reap the benefits but unwilling to share the burdens that are part of a full fledged commitment. Perhaps this is a good time for the E.U to ask for a decision. The loss of England at this point would do little harm and the British can discover if they perhaps need Europe more then it needs them.
ance Lee Pacific Palisades, California
England's decision - the Conservative party hardly exists in Scotland - is self-destructive. Cameron has played to his party's right wing, a minority of his party, no doubt hoping this will defuse them and let him get on with managing the economic crisis. But it is a defining vote, and he has made himself one of those rightwingers by doing so. If he is comfortable there, he should feel pleased.
The price is high. England now will not participate In whatever measures the other 17 - 26 EU countries take to secure the euro. It will not be able to protect The City, its Wall Street, from whatever body arises by treaty among these states. It will be an outsider. It cannot participate in the shape new European institutions take, who runs them, and how they are run. It will have no membership on its bodies, and no special understandings to protect its interests. It has marginalized itself.
And if, an 'if' of some controversy, a new euro-centered 'national' state arises successfully, the road to further European integration will have been opened, without England. In such a situation, faced by an entity with a far larger population and economy, it can hardly think its financial prominence can continue or be defended.
This decision plays only to a fraction of its internal politics, on whose members the sun never sets in their eyes, even amid their darkness. And it bares a disingenuous political class unwilling to face or speak the truth.
joe new york
The really important and, so far, un-asked question is why Britain insisted its financial institutions be exempt from any jointly agreed upon financial regulations. I'll tell you why. Because the problem is not Greece, or Italy, or Spain, or Ireland, or Portugal or Germany. The problem is in England and the United States. Those two countries are the origin of the speculation that caused a global financial contagion and remain the center of a cancerous derivatives market that has, WITHOUT MEDIA ATTENTION, exploded again this year to over $707 trillion dollars, breaking the record it set in mid-2008, just before the crash.
You think the United States would cede control over its financial institution regulatory framework to an international organization? Uh-huh. Not in a million years. The belly of that beast is too ugly. Britain has extraordinarily lax regulations with respect to leveraged re-hypothication of borrowed capital. That's why it became very attractive to companies like A.I.G. and M.F. Global. You think they want to let someone else lift the curtain on that?
When the mother of all margin calls occurs and the global debt titanic goes down, and the global derivative pyramid scheme the U.S. and Britain built collapses, it will be every man for himself.
Dean Vantari Atlanta, GA
The City vs the People, that is the crux of the matter here. There is a disconnect between the financial sector and the real economy of Europe. All the hand wringing about defaults are the premise of investment bankers, not the People of Europe. It may actually be healthy to maintain a fire wall to isolate the financial speculators in the City, and the Street, from further poisoning the real economy, where real goods and services are exchanged, not digital representations swapped for intangibles. Wealth is not created in any speculative "market", it is created by the work and innovation of real human beings.
W. van Tuinen The Netherlands
Why does every American news article I read talk about 'huge rifts' and 'deep divides'? There are no rifts. There is Britain on one side and everybody else on the other. And Britain matters much less to Europe than they would like and American analysts seem to believe.
Relax.
My government agrees with the changes now on the table and so do I.
I see no looming totalitarianism but an organisation that:
- has resulted in a peace so fundamental that the idea of war between countries in the EU is now basically unimaginable.
- introduced a common currency and open borders, which have allowed all EU citizens to travel all over the continent and become more open-minded and multi-cultural. Even with the financial troubles of the last several years, I myself have found a job in Ireland and work there now without any political hassle.
- provided an economic growth and integration that allows me to live in the luxury I do today.
- has introduced rules and regulations binding all over Europe that safeguard the quality of the food we eat and the appliances we use, where single governments were too slow or corrupt to do this.
- is now slowly but surely working to change a financial system that launched the whole world into a depression. And as far as I can see, the EU is the only government even attempting this.
I am pro-EU and have full confidence in the ability of the EU.
friedmann Paris
The policy of the UK towards Europe is suicidal. Imperial England ruling the open seas is no more. Its special relationship with the US is mostly a servile relationship. Moreover, it is in the US national interest to chose the stronger side (a UE led by Germany) over a country in decline, however important its past tole in world history. Surely, the other EU counties are also declining. But, they seem to have understood that the only way to leverage their weak individual power is through a united, and strong Europe. This involves pooling together some of their sovereign rights of the past to build a novel political entity, the foundation of which is what Jürgen Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism” . Even, Cameron’s belief that he is protecting the City by refusing to sign is probably wrong. I would not be surprised that in the not too distant future, Frankfurt will take business away from London. Of course, this implies the Euro rescue plan works.
Mick Boston
Let’s talk about the democracy deficit. Its a little rich of London to complain about the EU as composed of bunch of undemocratic, unaccountable, and top down faceless bureaucrats and cozy political appointees.
When one considers that the majority of the Britain’s conservative government is elected under a first past the post system and is almost entirely composed of members from southern England. This from a party that is consistently opposed to devolution of powers to the constituent nations of the UK and is adamantly opposed to any type of proportional representation voting system as such suspiciously foreign even though it is in use in parts of the UK. They can fly their St. George’s flag all they want but it is abundantly clear that the UK is run for and by the benefit of the "City". Just ask any Glaswegian, Cardiffian, Manchurian, or Liverpudlian what they think of "London" and where their once prized industries have gone.
-neal02- Germany
I am writing from Germany and the first thing I did after get up from bed was looking for my socks. I do not want to dominate the British nor march into Czechoslovakia.
so far I have heard no constructive proposal of the british but who wants a say, must contribute. That talks about the failure of the euro countrie sucks. The EU has established a single market across the territory of all its members. A monetary union, the eurozone, using a single currency comprises In 2010 the EU generated an estimated 26% (16.242 billion international dollars share of the global gross domestic product making it the largest economy in the world. It is the largest exporter,the largest importer of goods and services, and the biggest trading partner to several large countries such as China, India,and the United States. The euro is designed to help build a single market by, for example: easing travel of citizens and goods, eliminating exchange rate problems, providing price transparency, creating a single financial market, price stability and low interest rates, and providing a currency used internationally and protected against shocks by the large amount of internal trade within the eurozone.
If the Britons withdrawal from the EU they will not participate in this market.
Surely the Euro will not collapse even if many would like.
Patrick Frankfurt, Germany
To all Brits and Americans hailing Mr. Cameron as a fighter for democracy and liberty.
You are kidding yourselves if you tell me the "NO" from Mr. Cameron is in first place the voice of the British people but the will of the so much elected City of London.
British people you are just a supporting side-kick.
Emmanuel New York, NY, USA
The Brits. Masters of deception...but this time they went too far. On this one I'd rather bet my future with no nonsense Germany than follow the foggy treacherous corrupt ways of Wall Street and Old England banksters. Mr Cameron, you are dead wrong!
6.12.11
Pink-er-ology from the left bank of Charles River
Human Nature’s Pathologist
By CARL ZIMMER
In his latest book, Steven Pinker, a leading advocate of evolutionary psychology, says our brains have produced a far less violent world.
___________________________________________
Frank Stanton
Campbell, Ca.
I can live with the idea of the evolution of the brain, and the amount of physical violence may have gone down statistically with time. However, can't one argue that these violent activities have been replaced by predatory practices one sees in downsizing of jobs, exporting jobs to Third World and, in turn, exploiting the poor to a form of near involuntary servitude or even slavery in those countries? In other words, preying upon the weak has changed from cutting off noses to holding people's welfare in one's hands. To some, having one's life destroyed through economic actions, could equate to a long, slow death. In both cases, the perpetrators hold the exploited as having no real value and so act as though the exploited are not even fellow humans. Yes, the mind of some have evolved, but the old cruelties have been replaced by a different kind of cruelty. Of course, by its definition, that is evolution. Maybe the OWS and 99% movement(s) are about an evolved response to the historical cruelties of our time.
Lee
Moosehead Lake
What about the violence against animals at factory farms and the violence of humans against nature. Both have become more widespread and efficient.
Kathleen Fisher
Amherst, MA
I am curious how Mr. Pinker describes what has gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last ten years. I wonder what he thinks of the covert operations in Iran and Pakistan are about. What does he think of the details of rendition. How about Bagram? How about Guantanamo?
ekeizer4
Oregon
There should be a rule against writing about someone who has already been the subject of 1001 articles -- most of which say the exact same things. Regardless of the merits of Mr. Pinker's theories, I am thoroughly sick of hearing about him. There's hardly a magazine or newspaper that has not spilled a potful of ink over his new book, and judging from this profile, there is simply nothing new left to say. So many scientific ideas and non-fiction books barely get a glance from the media. It would be wonderful if we could end this myopic focus on just a couple of authors and spread the wealth around a little more. At some point, publicity is self-defeating: I have read so much about Mr. Pinker and his theory of violence that I have absolutely no desire to buy his book. Why bother, when the media has essentially read it, digested it, and repeated it ad nausea for me?
GrumpaT
Sequim WA
Hamlet said it best:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Our natures haven't changed. We're as violent and cruel as we ever were. We're just increasingly hemmed in by our civilizing. Now instead of being overtly beastly, we wallow in bestial entertainments and hoard guns. We suffer the miseries of our stifled anger...and just vote no.
Alan
Chicago, IL
"'It’s psychologically astute, given the massive amount of self-serving biases,' he said." And further, "If you want peace, understand psychology."
I wonder if Prof. Pinker would have come to the same conclusions if he had written his book in Kabul or Congo, rather than Cape Cod and Cambridge. Call it the fallacy of "immediacy" or of "near/far" or just "us and them", although as a psychologist Prof. Pinker would be able to provide the proper scientific term for it.
One could equally well argue that the modern state-upon-state violence is far more lethal than older tribe-upon-tribe one, although modern states have mastered the art of lofty justificatory rhetoric to a far greater extent, through great - perhaps evolutionary - refinements in the arts of the technicians of the word such as Prof. Pinker himself. If there is evolution then, it is still in Prof. Pinker's old specialty, language, which can spin its magical web even around most gruesome acts of violence. Prof. Pinker should look further into linguistic bases of civilization. He would then be able to see the primary difference between violence perpetrated by the Congolese and by the Americans, to take just two random examples.
By CARL ZIMMER
In his latest book, Steven Pinker, a leading advocate of evolutionary psychology, says our brains have produced a far less violent world.
___________________________________________
Frank Stanton
Campbell, Ca.
I can live with the idea of the evolution of the brain, and the amount of physical violence may have gone down statistically with time. However, can't one argue that these violent activities have been replaced by predatory practices one sees in downsizing of jobs, exporting jobs to Third World and, in turn, exploiting the poor to a form of near involuntary servitude or even slavery in those countries? In other words, preying upon the weak has changed from cutting off noses to holding people's welfare in one's hands. To some, having one's life destroyed through economic actions, could equate to a long, slow death. In both cases, the perpetrators hold the exploited as having no real value and so act as though the exploited are not even fellow humans. Yes, the mind of some have evolved, but the old cruelties have been replaced by a different kind of cruelty. Of course, by its definition, that is evolution. Maybe the OWS and 99% movement(s) are about an evolved response to the historical cruelties of our time.
Lee
Moosehead Lake
What about the violence against animals at factory farms and the violence of humans against nature. Both have become more widespread and efficient.
Kathleen Fisher
Amherst, MA
I am curious how Mr. Pinker describes what has gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last ten years. I wonder what he thinks of the covert operations in Iran and Pakistan are about. What does he think of the details of rendition. How about Bagram? How about Guantanamo?
ekeizer4
Oregon
There should be a rule against writing about someone who has already been the subject of 1001 articles -- most of which say the exact same things. Regardless of the merits of Mr. Pinker's theories, I am thoroughly sick of hearing about him. There's hardly a magazine or newspaper that has not spilled a potful of ink over his new book, and judging from this profile, there is simply nothing new left to say. So many scientific ideas and non-fiction books barely get a glance from the media. It would be wonderful if we could end this myopic focus on just a couple of authors and spread the wealth around a little more. At some point, publicity is self-defeating: I have read so much about Mr. Pinker and his theory of violence that I have absolutely no desire to buy his book. Why bother, when the media has essentially read it, digested it, and repeated it ad nausea for me?
GrumpaT
Sequim WA
Hamlet said it best:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Our natures haven't changed. We're as violent and cruel as we ever were. We're just increasingly hemmed in by our civilizing. Now instead of being overtly beastly, we wallow in bestial entertainments and hoard guns. We suffer the miseries of our stifled anger...and just vote no.
Alan
Chicago, IL
"'It’s psychologically astute, given the massive amount of self-serving biases,' he said." And further, "If you want peace, understand psychology."
I wonder if Prof. Pinker would have come to the same conclusions if he had written his book in Kabul or Congo, rather than Cape Cod and Cambridge. Call it the fallacy of "immediacy" or of "near/far" or just "us and them", although as a psychologist Prof. Pinker would be able to provide the proper scientific term for it.
One could equally well argue that the modern state-upon-state violence is far more lethal than older tribe-upon-tribe one, although modern states have mastered the art of lofty justificatory rhetoric to a far greater extent, through great - perhaps evolutionary - refinements in the arts of the technicians of the word such as Prof. Pinker himself. If there is evolution then, it is still in Prof. Pinker's old specialty, language, which can spin its magical web even around most gruesome acts of violence. Prof. Pinker should look further into linguistic bases of civilization. He would then be able to see the primary difference between violence perpetrated by the Congolese and by the Americans, to take just two random examples.
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