I recently re-read Vasily Grossman's masterpiece, Life and Fate, which is about the Great Patriotic war and the respective horrors of Nazism and Stalinism, and about the effect that those authoritarian regimes had on all they touchedt. It is a great novel, a self-conscious 20th century answer to War and Peace that can stand the comparison and not seem merely pretentious. I published a brief review earlier this year
Reading it confirmed in my mind something I've thought before -- that whatever it's virtues, dystopian fiction is not the best tool to help us understand what life is like under authoritarianism. If you want to find out about life under Stalin, read something by an actual Soviet, not by an English idealist who'd never set foot in the USSR.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Corporate Social Responsibility Doesn't Exist, Which is Why Government Regulation Should
This is a good summary of the problems of worker pay, wage stagnation and corporate versus societal responsibility. It pretty much sums up my feelings on corporate America, which I'd like to expand.
Beginning in with Henry Ford and continuing through the New Deal and the 50's and 60's America has had a deal with its corporations. We'd let them do what they wanted and they'd take care of their workers -- Unions would become domesticated, and even non-union workers would get nearly union-like benefits and tenure. We built healthcare around employment, we built retirement around employment, all assuming that a) people would continue working at the Ford plant for their entire lives and b) a private equity firm would not buy the Ford plant for pennies and sell it for scrap.
This grand bargain between corporate America and the public was always a bum deal -- it gave us Love Canal, among other things. But we were happy with it as long as companies held up their end of the bargain -- fairly stable employment, good benefits, high wages.
Then in the 80's the suits reneged on their half of the deal -- 'you don't really need that low deductible insurance plan, or that fixed-benefit retirment plan, do you?' And then, of course, came the real kicker 'well you know our real responsibility is to our shareholders, not to you, our employees' and then the layoffs start.
But you know what? The Corporations are right. Their job is to make money. We were the fools for ever thinking differently. It's not so simple, of course. Wall Street types will lay people off til the cows come home and then scream 'job creators' whenever you request that, since they've been making out like bandits, they give back more to the common pot. So when that happens we just need to take what they say about profits and shareholder value and run with it. They won't take care of people and they won't take care of the planet, so it's our job to do it for them (on their dime). They will take as much as they can. Our job is to stop them. This is the way it is. We are free of illusions, at least.
Beginning in with Henry Ford and continuing through the New Deal and the 50's and 60's America has had a deal with its corporations. We'd let them do what they wanted and they'd take care of their workers -- Unions would become domesticated, and even non-union workers would get nearly union-like benefits and tenure. We built healthcare around employment, we built retirement around employment, all assuming that a) people would continue working at the Ford plant for their entire lives and b) a private equity firm would not buy the Ford plant for pennies and sell it for scrap.
This grand bargain between corporate America and the public was always a bum deal -- it gave us Love Canal, among other things. But we were happy with it as long as companies held up their end of the bargain -- fairly stable employment, good benefits, high wages.
Then in the 80's the suits reneged on their half of the deal -- 'you don't really need that low deductible insurance plan, or that fixed-benefit retirment plan, do you?' And then, of course, came the real kicker 'well you know our real responsibility is to our shareholders, not to you, our employees' and then the layoffs start.
But you know what? The Corporations are right. Their job is to make money. We were the fools for ever thinking differently. It's not so simple, of course. Wall Street types will lay people off til the cows come home and then scream 'job creators' whenever you request that, since they've been making out like bandits, they give back more to the common pot. So when that happens we just need to take what they say about profits and shareholder value and run with it. They won't take care of people and they won't take care of the planet, so it's our job to do it for them (on their dime). They will take as much as they can. Our job is to stop them. This is the way it is. We are free of illusions, at least.
A note on ethics, why-do-I-bother edition
I should not comment on anything that Ross Douthat ever writes. It's not a good practice to grant page views to misogynists with delusions of Thomistic philosophical chops. But sometimes I can't help myself, because Douthat is typical of a sort of intellectual* conservative that dresses up religious dogma and prejudice in the clothing of concern about social cohesian and mores.
I nearly found myself agreeing with Douthat on the subject of almost as odious Stephen Pinker. I agree that 'science' does not dictate any moral values (is versus ought, etc). But then I thought about what Douthat had written, and I realized he was wrong (even if Pinker was as well) and that all was right with the world once again.
I nearly found myself agreeing with Douthat on the subject of almost as odious Stephen Pinker. I agree that 'science' does not dictate any moral values (is versus ought, etc). But then I thought about what Douthat had written, and I realized he was wrong (even if Pinker was as well) and that all was right with the world once again.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Segregation in My American City
There's been a bunch of maps showing the ethnic geography of America America and it's cities lately. This one is the latest. And this makes me think about my own city, and its own history of segregation.
3 weeks ago my wife and I and I bought a mattress from a lovely local place. I got to talking with the owner about living in the historic district. Back in the 90's, like 20(!) years ago, she had lived on our old street, College Avenue, on the same block I did from 2008 to 2011. I had known that at one time the many of the houses on the street had been owned by African-Americas. I learned from her that when she lived there there were still some older people (they all sounded like retirees), mostly black, living on the block. By the time I moved in the street was nothing but white folks and vacant houses (like 3 vacant properties on my block, which isn't terrible but still kind of jarring).
3 weeks ago my wife and I and I bought a mattress from a lovely local place. I got to talking with the owner about living in the historic district. Back in the 90's, like 20(!) years ago, she had lived on our old street, College Avenue, on the same block I did from 2008 to 2011. I had known that at one time the many of the houses on the street had been owned by African-Americas. I learned from her that when she lived there there were still some older people (they all sounded like retirees), mostly black, living on the block. By the time I moved in the street was nothing but white folks and vacant houses (like 3 vacant properties on my block, which isn't terrible but still kind of jarring).
Friday, August 16, 2013
A Waistcoat Manifesto Pt 1
Waistcoats* have been in and out of fashion a number of times since they were first discarded in the 1940's (much like hats). They have been brought back as a novelty, and then discarded again when the tides of fashion turn. Me, however, I am a waistcoat-wearing man. If I'm waring a tie I feel naked without one. I'll wear them whether or not they're in fashion, partly because I think following your personal sense of style is always fashionable, partly because I can't imagine doing anything else.
Being the sort of person who overthinks things, I have given a lot of thought about waistcoats. Why they are an important part of a fully dressed man's wardrobe, and how they can best be incorporated into an ensemble.
Being the sort of person who overthinks things, I have given a lot of thought about waistcoats. Why they are an important part of a fully dressed man's wardrobe, and how they can best be incorporated into an ensemble.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
What it means that doubts about Zimmerman's guilt are 'reasonable'
Like a lot of people I'm sad, angry and not entirely surprised about the verdict in the slaying of Trayvon Martin. It strikes me as a basic injustice, not on the legal level, but the human one, because George Zimmerman is the reason that Trayvon Martin is dead. George Zimmerman followed him. George Zimmerman confronted him. George Zimmerman brought deadly force with him. And it was George Zimmerman who, when it came to blows, pulled the trigger.
Beyond that I'm disgusted by the tactics of the defense, which resemble nothing so much as a defense attorney in a rape case convincing a male jury that the victim was a lying slut who asked for it.
But on a legal level I'm disturbed by what a jury* found 'reasonable.' I'm disturbed that they thought it was 'reasonable' to assume, even as a possibility, the best of George Zimmerman and the worst of Trayvon Martin. Because that says a lot about who we trust (and this is what a lot of these verdicts come down to, whether or not juries trust someone even a little bit). That jury, and thus our nation as a legal entity, has decided to simply trust George Zimmerman, and to think it 'reasonable' that Trayvon Martin died because of his own suicidal bravado and aggression. That we would think such a thing reasonable is disgusting.
*Who seem to have been of Zimmerman's peers, not Martin's.
Beyond that I'm disgusted by the tactics of the defense, which resemble nothing so much as a defense attorney in a rape case convincing a male jury that the victim was a lying slut who asked for it.
But on a legal level I'm disturbed by what a jury* found 'reasonable.' I'm disturbed that they thought it was 'reasonable' to assume, even as a possibility, the best of George Zimmerman and the worst of Trayvon Martin. Because that says a lot about who we trust (and this is what a lot of these verdicts come down to, whether or not juries trust someone even a little bit). That jury, and thus our nation as a legal entity, has decided to simply trust George Zimmerman, and to think it 'reasonable' that Trayvon Martin died because of his own suicidal bravado and aggression. That we would think such a thing reasonable is disgusting.
*Who seem to have been of Zimmerman's peers, not Martin's.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Industrial Decline as a Red Herring
David Simon had another rant quoted in the Guardian. It was mostly true -- the war on drugs as a war on black people -- but it reminded me of something that rings false in Simon and many others on the contemporary left- their bemoaning of America's industrial decline.
This is not just a left-wing phenomenon. It is found across the political spectrum -- people generally agree that American manufacturing has declined (which is true, in employment terms) and that this is the cause of the problems of the American working class.
I would dispute the last part of this conventional wisdom. To start with, there is no necessary connection between highly paid, lower-skilled jobs and the manufacturing sector. Indeed, the manufacturing jobs that remain in this country mostly either require advanced technical degrees, or pay somewhere in the vicinity of $10 an hour. Working in a factory does not magically transform the working class into the middle class, and shuttering factories does not magically transform them into the working poor.
No, the reason why factory jobs used to be so good was because of the strength of American labor, and because we were a society that had decided that working people should be able to live the American dream, even if they're not anesthesiologists. The problem is not the sort of labor that Americans are doing, but our nation's devaluation of labor in general*. The services industry is, unlike manufacturing, extremely resistant to offshoring (we need people to work in our stores, in America) -- the problem is that we have decided that it's fine that our legions of restaurant and retail employees make $8 an hour. Wringing out hands about the decline of factories does nothing to help the million or so Americans working at Wal Marts across the nation. The factories are not coming back (at least not in their previous, labor-intensive, form) but there is plenty we could do to help the American working class, by getting serious about the workers of the service industry.
*Perhaps our romanticization of blue-collar works only helps to devalue pink-collar work, as we act as though pink-collar jobs are intrinsically not valuable, unlike those begone heroes at the Ford plant.
This is not just a left-wing phenomenon. It is found across the political spectrum -- people generally agree that American manufacturing has declined (which is true, in employment terms) and that this is the cause of the problems of the American working class.
I would dispute the last part of this conventional wisdom. To start with, there is no necessary connection between highly paid, lower-skilled jobs and the manufacturing sector. Indeed, the manufacturing jobs that remain in this country mostly either require advanced technical degrees, or pay somewhere in the vicinity of $10 an hour. Working in a factory does not magically transform the working class into the middle class, and shuttering factories does not magically transform them into the working poor.
No, the reason why factory jobs used to be so good was because of the strength of American labor, and because we were a society that had decided that working people should be able to live the American dream, even if they're not anesthesiologists. The problem is not the sort of labor that Americans are doing, but our nation's devaluation of labor in general*. The services industry is, unlike manufacturing, extremely resistant to offshoring (we need people to work in our stores, in America) -- the problem is that we have decided that it's fine that our legions of restaurant and retail employees make $8 an hour. Wringing out hands about the decline of factories does nothing to help the million or so Americans working at Wal Marts across the nation. The factories are not coming back (at least not in their previous, labor-intensive, form) but there is plenty we could do to help the American working class, by getting serious about the workers of the service industry.
*Perhaps our romanticization of blue-collar works only helps to devalue pink-collar work, as we act as though pink-collar jobs are intrinsically not valuable, unlike those begone heroes at the Ford plant.
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