the politics of envy

         Twenty-five years ago last month the Iraqi army pushed past  the Kuwaiti border and in lightning speed took control of Kuwait City and the oilfields nearby. Both nations had oil in abundance, both were cashing in in a big way from this lucky windfall under the sand. Iraq could buy all the weapons they could get their hands on, and recruit and equip one of the largest armies of the time. It could afford to create a vast Stalinist police State, with all that entails. Very little of its wealth reached its people. That just wasn't a top priority. They could fend for themselves . They'd been doing just that since biblical times. The riches , which were in a real sense the patrimony of all, could flow in only one direction and that was toward the center of power, and from there only to the most favored sycophants and highest placed functionaries, in short, the well connected. Kuwait s approach was far different. Wealth was invested in creating more wealth, and creating a social and physical infrastructure that would benefit all its citizens. They became the richest people on Earth.
          The conquest of Kuwait by its neighbor was not unique in the annals of warfare for its underlying motivation. It is striking among wars of recent centuries for being so obviously a war impelled by envy and little else. Two nations had great wealth. One had squandered theirs and it's people lived miserably. The other made the most of theirs and subsequently had everything the other population desired but could never obtain except by plunder.
         In my sort of perfect world there wouldn't be a lot of perfection really. All of us would not be equal. Not all of us would be rich, not all of us would even be comfortable. There would be poor because there will always be people who make poor decisions. There would be rich because some people are smarter, more talented, work harder, take greater risks, or conversely, are more prudent than others. Given all that, it's imperative that the better off help out those with less, especially their children , who are not responsible for their poverty. My Utopia isn't too far off from the world I grew up in, except that opportunities for all would multiply and impediments would diminish. There would be more autonomy. With autonomy would come a greater sense of pride and responsibility.  How great would that be?
          This isn't everyone's cup of tea. When Bernie Sanders wows an audience he does it with sentiments opposite my own. Instead of speaking for a program that increases opportunity and economic liberty he speaks for a collectivist vision, and rearranging wealth's distribution for the sake of fairness and equity .
             You won't be surprised to learn that I never got the whole argument alleging that the ninetynine percenters are somehow disadvantaged because of the great wealth of the one percenters. That doesn't jive with either logic or experience. Are we supposed to believe that one person's wealth comes only at the expense of another?  What kind of economic model is that? It speaks volumes about the abysmal condition of economic and civic education in our public schools that when Bernie goes into Eugene Debs mode he isn't met with laughter and snickers from the crowds but cheers instead. Appreciating the sometimes subtle relationship between cause and effect may not be their strong suit. Take for example the preternatural incapacity of some to credit  a persons poor life choices for leading directly to their crappy life.
           So what about Iraq's one percenters previous to the Kuwait invasion, wasn't their wealth at the expense of the general population?  As a matter of fact it was. In situations where you don't have economic freedom ,wealth flows to those who are well connected to the most powerful political leaders, but that sort of system is not Capitalist. It's a corrupted hybrid. The incentives are all wrong. Instead of getting rich by providing a product or service superior to the competition at a better price, a businessman is more likely to try cornering the market by providing money and favors to a lawmaker, a governor, or president, to influence them to put the squeeze on the competition . Obviously, that's no way to grow an economy.
           Curiously, that's the same form of capitalism that we are heading for. It's already here and growing steadily. So in the end the bunch that can't stand Capitalism will ensure we get precisely the kind of capitalism that brings with it all the baggage they suspect from free markets anyway. There's a self fulfilling prophesy in there somewhere.
           How do we get there ? How do we avoid getting there, ever deeper into this crony-capitalist Crapilvania? For one thing we call out the demagogues that so easily and naturally resort to waging class warfare and the politics of envy. The kind of politics you find in this campaign is far from the sort of envy that lead to the wanton looting of Kuwait twenty-five years ago. Different only in degree, just the same in kind. Envy is a destructive force more powerful than a hurricane or an earthquake. It's powerful enough to rule by or rearrange a civilisation, but in the end it always destroys what it touches.

Back to Eden

     Are you surprised that a septuagenarian Socialist firebrand and Senate backbencher is drawing huge and enthusiastic crowds to his presidential campaign rallies? The supporters of Bernie Sanders who show up to these rallies, and increasingly in the polls, must make for a very unpleasant surprise to Hillary Clinton. She's seen this all before. She begins her race for the presidency with all her ducks in a row. She's lined up the support of all the most important power brokers in all the key States, she's got all the money behind her campaign any candidate could wish for, and all the biggest donors on her side, but then the wheels somehow fall off the Hillary train. In 2008 it wasn't policy differences that swung the race. The same goes for this race. Bernie Sanders  may call himself a Socialist, but Socialism is pretty mainstream these days in the Democratic party even if it so rarely claims the name. The real difference between Hillary Clinton and Senator Sanders comes down to communication. When Hillary speaks she appears to be pandering and equivocating even on those rare occasions when she's not. Bernie ,on the other hand, appears to mean everything he has to say. He may be a fire breathing , class batting, populist warrior, but at least he does it with winning sincerity.
      The parts of his campaign that best resonate with the left of the party decry the ildistribution of wealth; too much at the very top, too little everywhere else. College ought to be tuition free just as primary and secondary education are. There is too much money in politics, too many wealthy folks buying influence with too many politicians.
        There is not much in the Bernie Sanders program for a conservative or libertarian to love except that last point about the corrupting influence of vast sums of money in politics. The further to the right you are the more maddening and unacceptable you consider this situation, the very same goes for the left, and no, that isn't paradoxical. Anyone can see that the never ending campaigns, the hours spent each day by politicians begging for money, pressuring lobbyists for contributions, then making laws tailored to benefit the financial interests of the few at the expense of the many, this whole ugly spectacle in all its glory, is unworthy of a great republic and detracts from all of our lives in significant ways. Naturally this deplorable situation is going to look most deplorable to the people who are paying closest attention. The more politics and world affairs matter to you, the more likely you are to gravitate to the edges, leaving the broad squishy middle to occupy the broad squishy middle.
       Consensus on the seriousness of the problem unfortunately does not always lead to consensus toward a solution. On this issue left and right ,as you'd expect, call for diametrically different prescriptions. I may not be the best person to present Sanders proposals to limit money flowing into politics . I think he offers greater government intervention in our lives rather than less. He would have us reduce our first amendment rights, passing a new amendment to get there. I may be in a better position to make the right wing case since I agree with it.
       For the libertarian right the fundamental problem is always going to be too damn much government. The too much money in politics problem exists because there is too much government in everything. In our perfect Eden you have the private sector and the public sector. The last is very small and exists to serve the other. Why is it so small? Because it doesn't have all that much to do, and we don't give it all that much to spend. In the real world it's enormous, spending enormous amounts of money, employing enormous numbers of people, and able to make or break industries and businesses through taxation and regulation without hardly trying. Naturally,  business interests that have already succeeded seek to turn those powers against  upstart competition. The term for that is crony-capitalism. Companies , unions, and non -profits buy the support of politicians through campaign donations in order to gain contracts and favors or create a more favorable regulatory environment for themselves alone. More often the politician is not so much bought off as chosen and funded based on their leanings. Either way, the deepest pockets get to do the choosing.
        Reduce government in size and you reduce its ability to do harm. Madison designed a government structure accommodating the clash of competing selfish interests then channeling that energy to the best results for the most people. That design became the constitution. We've wrecked that system without putting anything in its place, but it can be restored. Reduce, recycle, repurpose (in this case the institutions of government), and you've solved the too much money in politics problem by slashing at its roots and not ineffectively pruning the tips of a few branches.
        You may see the problem with this approach. It has limited appeal. We are accustomed to solving the problems that government creates by adding a little more government to them. That sort of problem solving has gotten us into the mess we're in today . With 47% of us either on the government payroll, or receiving government benefits, we're not likely to reach enlightenment soon. It's a pity that so many of us would love to reduce the endemic corruption of Washington, and many a State House and municipality too ,but can't agree on how to get there. The future looks cloudy with a chance of campaign inflation, and the long-term forecast is calling for much more of the same.

     Started painting in gauche again. Have a dozen 10x7 grey panels to play with. This one is of the corner entrance to Nugget building at Colorado and Fir, Telluride.

            Bernie Trump
 
       How long will the glorious spectacle that is the Trump campaign be around for our entertainment and edification? Part of the fun is that it forever seems on the edge of blowing up. The nearer Trump comes to self destruction the higher his rise in the poles, already beating the nearest Republican by a factor of two.
        His candidacy ,and the campaign of Democrat Bernie Sanders don't necessarily appeal to the same sort of voter but do have a lot in common. Both are insurgent campaigns. The narrative goes something like this ; Things are so messed up in this country that we can no longer settle for the same old same old. Voting for the usual suspects only brings the usual results. It's time for an outsider , someone who can actually accomplish what other politicians only talk about but so often fail to accomplish because they only now how to play it safe. We need to risk it all on a natural risk taker.
         A sizeable portion of one party would gladly vote for someone who calls himself a Socialist, is older than any other candidate for President that I can recall, and comes from a State that might actually be a Canadian province. A sizeable portion of the other party backs a man who appears to be a major league narcissist ,bordering on megalomania, has never held office, is fairly fluid in his political views, and who's chief characteristic is the complete lack of any filter between what he says and whatever pops into his mind. Like I said, two peas in a pod.

   
       The sound of one hand clapping

  If you're old enough to remember the Vietnam war then you may remember the anti-war slogan "What if they had a war and nobody came". Obviously, if war is declared but no one shows up to fight it you'd have no war. What happens if you have a war and one side doesn't show up, just pretends it isn't happening?
   Over the past 35 years Iran has been at war with the United States, and the U.S. has yet to show up. Taking over our embassy in Tehran and holding its staff hostage for over a year in 1979, and 1980 was an act of war in itself. Spilling the blood of our soldiers in Lebenon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as Iran has done or caused to be done, drives home the point, but no one on this side of the conflict is listening. There are lots of reasons to just let Iran do all the fighting, it's not necessarily cowardice alone that keeps us from joining in, but eventually we will be forced to the to face the plain facts. History teaches that conflict forestalled is not made any easier. Delaying the inevitable just ensures the inevitable will have a bigger bite. The treaty just signed between Iran and the United States and others to lift economic sanctions in return for an inspection regime of their nuclear arms program will not postpone either the Iranian nuclear bomb or full scale war between us. It only takes sanctions off the table ; the most effective tool available to limit their influence in the region and the grip of the ruling Islamist party at home. In other words it brings us closer to bilateral warfare, and further from any hope of avoiding that.

           Welcome to my new blog. In the coming days, or weeks if I'm slow, I'll be adding photos and images of paintings I've created to this site along with observations and comments much like those I write for the Daily Planet opinion page. The combination may look incongruous, political rants with bucolic landscapes. I can't imagine that reading my opinions on issues of the day will do much to stimulate sales of my paintings. It will probably have the opposite effect, but I've got these two driving needs to express myself; visually, and through words, and that's what blogs are for. A blog is a place to let it rip, the ultimate soapbox. That's how I'll use it, while sharing a little art along the way. Hope I can provide something interesting for you on both counts.