FABLE: Two Ducks and the Fox

Once there were two ducks that always walked along the same road each day to go to the pond. As they went along, one of the ducks quacked to the other, " Why don't we go on a different path today. There are lots of other roads that lead to the pond?"

      "No, no, no. I have always gone this way and I am not about to change my ways," said the biggest duck.

      As the ducks walked along they came upon a very sly fox. "Hello ladies, how are you doing?"

      "Oh we are just on our way to the pond." The ducks continued to waddled quickly to the pond.

      The next day the duck that had wanted to go to the pond another way said, "Please, lets go the other way. If we go the same way that fox will surely eat us."

      "Oh don't be such a worry wart," snapped the biggest duck.

      So they both had gone the same way that they always had, and there was the fox waiting for them with a sack in his paw. As soon as the ducks walked by the fox pounced on them. The ducks ran screaming back to their house.

      The next day the ducks took another road to the pond because they were both still in shock over what the fox did to them the day before.

Moral: Sometimes it is best to change your ways

THE MILKMAID AND HER PAIL

 A MILKMAID had been out to milk the cows and was returning from the field with the shining milk pail balanced nicely on her head. As she walked along, her pretty head was busy with plans for the days to come.

"This good, rich milk," she reused, "will give me plenty of cream to churn. The butter I make I will take to market, and with the money I get for it I will buy a lot of eggs for hatching. How nice it will be when they are all hatched and the yard is full of fine young chicks. Then when May day comes I will sell them, and with the money I'll buy a lovely new dress to wear to the fair. All the young men will look at me. They will come and try to make love to me,—but I shall very quickly send them about their business!"

As she thought of how she would settle that matter, she tossed her head scornfully, and down fell the pail of milk to the ground. And all the milk flowed out, and with it vanished butter and eggs and chicks and new dress and all the milkmaid's pride.

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.

Deplorables Worldwide

FABLE: THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

[20] A FOX one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox's mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.



The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it, The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."

And off he walked very, very scornfully.

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

Freedom to Chains

DREAMING OF AN AMERICA WHERE SOLUTIONS TRUMP IDEOLOGY

by Joel Kotkin 10/13/2019

In the ever-intensifying battle between red and blue, the consultants, fixers and self-serving media thrive, but America suffers.

Now we seem destined to face a graphic battle of extremes between Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren, two self-styled populists best suited to exacerbating polarization while both sides toss around charges of “treason” and embrace the idea of an inevitable civil war.

I dream of a purple America where politics is civil and focuses on solving problems. The good news is that the country is actually far purpler than either red or blue. The most recent survey data shows that a majority of Democrats still consider themselves moderate or conservative while barely one in four see themselves as “very liberal”; among Republicans, despite Trump’s vaunted popularity, roughly 40 percent want their party to move closer to the center.

A wide base for purple politics

Political moderation is far more widespread than many suggest. Sarah Lawrence political scientist Sam Abrams, found, for example, that voters in the South are only slightly more conservative than those in the Northeast. Roughly as many consider themselves moderate as conservative, while a quarter describe themselves as liberal. Similarly, among residents of New England, long a bastion of progressives, barely 31 percent call themselves liberal while over a quarter identify as conservative and 43 percent moderate.

“Self-described moderates control the balance of power in all regions,” Abrams suggests. This is also the case, he notes, if you break down areas by rural, suburban and urban designations. Again, moderates dominate in virtually every category over both liberals and conservative.

So why extreme polarized politics?

Given these realities, how do we end up with choices, such as in 2016 and likely next year, that as Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse put it, are about as “popular as dumpster fires” among voters?

Some of the problem stems from record high alienation from the higher levels of government.

Barely 18 percent of Americans, for example, believe the federal government will do the right thing, a pattern common across all regions. The more powerful and least accountable the institutions — the media, academia and big corporations — the higher the level of distrust.

This has left our national politics largely in the hands of zealots, both right and left, and those for whom politics is often a profitable business. These are the forces driving the committed to ever more ideological hysteria.

Zealots, and those who make their livings from serving them, do not favor political collaboration across party lines. Groups that rally to the far right and left don’t want peaceful dialogue with dissenters. Indeed, the most intolerant of all our political “tribes,” notes one recent Atlantic study, are white social justice warriors, precisely the people who dominate the loud leftish Twitter fringe that drives the party base.

The Purple Tide could be just beginning

In contrast, purple politics would not exploit paranoia and hysteria but seek out practical answers to problems from transportation and housing to energy use and homelessness; it would follow essentially moderate policies that fit the largely suburban middle class.

This requires a new generation of leaders willing to break the ideological paralysis. Critically this includes the great GOP stronghold of Texas. In 2018 many longstanding Republican congressmen and other officials were defeated, as was nearly the polarizing Sen. Ted Cruz. To stem the bleeding, Republican strategist are seeking out more moderate, sensible politicians to deal with an increasingly purple electorate.

Fortunately for the Republicans in Texas, the Democrats seem to be accommodating this strategy by pushing the Texas party further to left, embracing such things as bans on fossil fuels, a mortal threat to their state’s boom. Some, notably in Austin, have adopted policies on homelessness modeled on San Francisco’s, with predictable results on the street that will make for fine GOP propaganda.

This hopefully temporary insanity manifests itself in onetime moderate Beto O’Rourke, who now favors such things as reparations for those arrested for marijuana possession, open borders, as well as essentially nationalizing zoning, a position first embraced by his fellow Texas Democrat, Julian Castro. Between them, these once touted young political stars barely muster 15 percent of the Texas Democratic primary vote, according to a recent poll.

Generally, in gaining public approval, moderate GOP governors do best, and dominate the ranks of the most popular figures in American politics. In contrast, those at the bottom tend to be outspoken progressives, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and similarly left-leaning politicians such as last place finisher Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, although some particularly harsh conservatives, like Kentucky’s Matt Bevin also do poorly.

Political self-interest lies in the center

Purple politics, sadly, is not doing well in the Democratic Party’s presidential race. Elizabeth Warren, with her calls for a vast increase in federal power, as well higher taxes on the middle class, could drive a large number of middle-of-the-road and even working-class voters, including many minorities, to the GOP.

As the liberal columnist Jonathan Chait has observed, many new progressive stances now being adopted by Democrats — reparations, decriminalizing border crossings, health-care coverage to undocumented immigrants, eliminating energy production — are not likely to appeal to even moderate party members, much less independents.

For example, Medicare for all, embraced by Warren, is favored by barely 40 percent of the electorate. Proposals from Democratic candidates to eliminate private cars, end air travel and phase out red meat may not play well outside Manhattan, San Francisco and West Los Angeles. Already, notes The New York Times, the left shift is driving independents away from the party. Some 54 percent of all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents prefer a more moderate than more liberal party.

The failures of more mainstream candidates, such as Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar and John Hickenlooper, illustrate that the party’s left is far better organized than the center. They appeal, according to a recent YouGov poll, to bread-and-butter issues built around the safety net, jobs and prosperity that moderate Democrats care about.

But the more motivated, and well-organized activists embrace a less saleable agenda of draconian climate-change policies, virtually unregulated abortion and removal of barriers to undocumented immigration. Only the embrace of such extreme and unpopular positions can save the presidency of the clearly unbalanced and deeply unpopular Donald Trump.

Yet purple politics may regain its appeal particularly if Trump is reelected. At some point, the political class will have to recognize that most people don’t care much about “conservative principles,” “saving the planet” or massive schemes to assure “social justice” on the backs of middle-class taxpayers. They want competent government, not politicians who only represent money interests and the organized yammerers within their parties.

Despite the awful choice we are about to have at the top of the ticket, the good news that America is already essentially a purple country, dominated far more by moderation and common sense than the punditry suggests. What we need are political leaders capable of tapping into that reality, both for the own benefit and that of the country.

FABLE: THE OLD LION AND THE FOX

THE OLD LION AND THE FOX

AN OLD Lion, whose teeth and claws were so worn that it was not so easy for him to get food as in his younger days, pretended that he was sick. He took care to let all his neighbors know about it, and then lay down in his cave to wait for visitors. And when they came to offer him their sympathy, he ate them up one by one.

The Fox came too, but he was very cautious about it. Standing at a safe distance from the cave, he inquired politely after the Lion's health. The Lion replied that he was very ill indeed, and asked the Fox to step in for a moment. But Master Fox very wisely stayed outside, thanking the Lion very kindly for the invitation.

"I should be glad to do as you ask," he added, "but I have noticed that there are many foot prints leading into your cave and none coming out. Pray tell me, how do your visitors find their way out again?"

Take warning from the misfortunes of others.

FABLE: THE BELLY AND THE MEMBERS

ALL the Members of the body conspired against the Belly, as against the swallowing gulf of all their labors; for whereas the eyes beheld, the ears heart, the hands labored, the feet traveled, the tongue spake, and all parts performed their functions; only the Belly lay idle, and consumed all. 

 Hereupon, they jointly agreed, all to forbear their labors, and to leave their lazy and public enemy to take care of himself. One day passed over, the second followed very slowly, but the third day was so grievous to them all that they called a common council. The eyes waxed dim, the feet could not support the body, the arms waxed lazy, the tongue faltered, and could not lay open the matter; therefore they all , with one accord, desired the advice of the Heart.  
Then the Heart told them: "It is true that the Belly receives all the meats, but it sends them out again for the nourishment of all parts of the body, and all must work together for the common good. 

The Belly cannot do without the Members, nor the Members without the Belly."

Fluent in Bullsh!t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP07oyFTRXc&t=15s

Remy: Democratic Debate

Presidential Candidate Blowout

Who Rules America?

Joel Kotkin's new book fingers Silicon Valley as the new elite. Is he right?

In The New Class Conflict, Joel Kotkin argues that the socially and politically ascendant groups in contemporary America are the oligarchs of Silicon Valley and a complex of elite journalists, think-tank pundits, and academics that he dubs the clerisy. The nouveaux riches of the tech world are increasingly intent on remaking society in accordance with their own passions, reports Kotkin, an urban studies scholar at Chapman University. The clerisy, meanwhile, promotes and provides ideological legitimation for elite goals. The effect of the two groups' efforts, he concludes, is to concentrate wealth and power in a shrinking number of hands, leaving the middle class stranded and subject to ever more evident economic decline.

Kotkin does not claim that either group is a monolith. Different factions within each class compete for access to wealth and political influence, and they also exhibit some differences in cultural commitment. But overall, Kotkin suggests, there is a persistent pattern: Contemporary elites are socially liberal but relatively blasé about the bread-and-butter impact of a broad range of policies that drive a growing wedge between those at the top and everyone else.

Thus, for example, tech leaders press a green agenda whose elements include support for mass transit and opposition to suburban living. Such policies implement the oligarchs' moral and æsthetic preferences, and sometimes they create business opportunities for the oligarchs' class (as when they invest in and promote putatively green technologies). But the same policies pose risks for the well-being of many ordinary people, by constricting their options and limiting their access to resources.

Similarly, while Bill Gates may call for higher taxes on the rich, many tech firms (Kotkin points to Twitter and Apple) seem quite happy to ensure that tax burdens fall not on them but on the middle class. (Gates's own Microsoft, for instance, has "shaved nearly $7 billion off its U.S. tax bill since 2009 by using loopholes to shift profits offshore.")

Despite its social liberalism, Kotkin suggests, the tech industry is visibly focused on business models in which disregard for privacy is central. Some commercial intrusions (sometimes compatible with contractual and property rights, sometimes not) may be annoying but relatively benign. But the industry has also generally appeared quite willing to facilitate surreptitious state monitoring of multiple facets of interpersonal communication as well.

Kotkin also criticizes the tech industry for business models that disregard people's privacy. These range from annoying but relatively benign commercial intrusions, such as the collection of browsing data to enhance the targeting of on-line advertisements, to cooperation with the National Security Agency's monitoring of our communications. Kotkin also highlights the tech industries' expansion into the broader media world, where their money is being used both to reinvigorate existing media outlets (such The New Republic and the Washington Post) and to create new ones (such Pierre Omidyar's First Look media, home to Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept). In this way, he argues, they create new platforms that allow their allies in the clerisy to enforce environmental and social orthodoxy.

What might a libertarian make of Kotkin's analysis?

Class used to be a significant theme in libertarian political commentary. Though Karl Marx's account of class conflict is better known, Marx acknowledged his indebtedness to earlier French classical liberal theorists of class, such as Augustin Thierry, Charles Comte, and Charles Dunoyer. Class analysis also figured powerfully in the rhetoric of many later libertarians, notably Karl Hess and Murray Rothbard during their alliance with the New Left (and, with a more right-wing populist flavor, in Rothbard's later work as well).

For Marxists, class position is determined by economic actors' relationship with the means of production. The ruling class rules, on this view, because it controls capital, while other classes are subordinate to it because they depend on access to the assets the rulers control. In libertarian class theory, by contrast, class position is a function not of the resources you own but your relationship with the state. Dominant classes are constituted by their relationship with political power. The source of their resources is their ties to the state, and the use to which they frequently put those resources is the manipulation of the state to achieve their goals.

Libertarians and Marxists will frequently identify the same groups as making up the dominant social classes: top elected or appointed officials, for instance, or dominant figures in the military-industrial complex. But while the Marxist might treat a Pentagon contractor as a member of the ruling class simply because of the resources she or he owns, the libertarian would explain the contractor's wealth and class position by stressing the role of the state's war machine and its incestuous ties with the "defense" industry.
Today, unfortunately, you're more likely to encounter class analysis in the discourse of the Marxist left, and perhaps the Tea Party right, than in that of classical liberals and libertarians. Perhaps this is a function of a desire to avoid unsavory associations. Often, I fear, it reflects an instinctive valorization of the successes of those who have made it in today's marketplace, no matter how unfree those markets may be. The worry seems to be that using the rhetoric of class to criticize influential groups in our society will somehow give aid and comfort to those who promote a politics of envy and resentment. But I think this worry is unwarranted. It is possible to acknowledge the creativity and determination of people who actually succeed by contributing to the welfare of others through creativity and peaceful, voluntary exchange while also criticizing social stratification and the abuse of power.

Kotkin is not a libertarian, but his account overlaps helpfully with a libertarian critique of contemporary class relationships. He tends to focus on members of the Silicon Valley elite's attempts to gain political power—for themselves personally and for their class. But it's worth emphasizing that the tech world's ties with the state are much more pervasive than those created by intermittent political campaigns, or even by their campaign donations.

The concentration of wealth in Silicon Valley would be unimaginable without a patent and copyright regime, created by political fiat, that confers monopoly power on a limited number of actors who can use this power to extract wealth at exorbitant rates from businesses and consumers dependent on their products and services. "Intellectual property" rights shore up Silicon Valley firms' control over software and other elements of their businesses, offering the premiums monopolies always make available to those who hold them. The creativity and drive of Valley entrepreneurs is real, but so is the mark-up that intellectual property laws allow them to charge.

The Valley's links with the NSA, and other profitable government contracts, also concentrate wealth in hands of the oligarchs, who are actively involved in vigorous D.C. lobbying. So do Bay Area land use regulations that dramatically raise the cost of living, limit access to housing and commercial space to the wealthiest people and firms, and route wealth to those who have already managed to gain access to land in the region.
The clerisy obviously depends on the state for influence, too. Elite journalists succeed by maintaining access to key political players, generally secured using fawning coverage and stenographic reporting of official positions. Pundits link the media with political elites and work for think tanks that frequently contract with state entities to provide rationales for the policies the establishment favors. Academics frequently rely on state-proffered grants to conduct research. State-mandated licensing requirements channel people into higher education when they might otherwise be inclined to seek alternate means of training. Tax money funds many academic institutions, and tax-secured student loans feed the wealth of universities.

Thus, the class groupings on which Kotkin focuses are (as I have no reason to think he would deny) creatures of the state. The cultural, political, legal, social, and economic environment misshaped by the oligarchs and the clerisy is a product of government intervention.

Kotkin understandably and rightly challenges the results of this intervention. In stark contrast to many contemporary commentators, he emphasizes that economic growth is crucial if the decline in middle-class and working-class living standards is to be reversed. High-minded talk about "sustainability" often serves as an excuse to leave the wealth of elites undisturbed while refusing to pursue policies with the potential to boost the incomes of everyone else. Kotkin stresses that those who care about reversing class polarization must support growth-oriented policies. He also emphasizes the snobbery and disregard for middle-class preferences and aspirations evident in elite groups' disaffection for the suburbs—though he does not address the ways, such as highway subsidies and the use of eminent domain, in which suburban development has been a function not only of consumer demand but also of policy outcomes designed to benefit developers. Silicon Valley isn't alone in its ability to play the lobbying game.

 

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FABLE: The Wolf, the Nanny-Goat, and The Kid

A Nanny-goat went out to fill her empty milk bag

And graze newly sprung grass, 

She fastened the latch tight,

Warned her Kid saying: 

"Do not, upon your life,

Open the door unless  you are  shown

This sign and told this password: 

'Plague on the wolf and his breed!' "

As she was saying these words,

The Wolf by chance  prowling around,

  Overheard the spoken words

And kept them in his memory.

Nanny-Goat, as one can well believe,

Had not seen the glutton beast.

As soon as she departs, he changes his voice

And in a counterfeit tone 

He asks to be let in, saying: "Plague on the Wolf,"

Believing he'd go right in.

The  canny Kid looks through the crack,

"Show me your white paw, else I'll not open."

He shouted at once. (White paw is a thing

Seldom  seen in wolfdom, as everyone knows.)

This Wolf, aghast  upon hearing these words,

Went  slinking home the same way he had come.

Where would the Kid be now, had he believed

The password, which by chance

Our Wolf had overheard?

Two guarantees are  better than one,

Even a third one would not be extreme.

Better be sure than sorry

What are Joint Powers Authorities?

Joint Powers Authorities(JPAs) have been called the "Shadow Government". They are "governments of governments",  which are made up of appointed officials of member governments.  They have no direct voter accountability.  Although individual politicians can be recalled, citizens cannot recall the entire JPA.   It therefore becomes an effective "Administrative State" with massive powers to tax and create government policy and no citizens can thwart it's power.   Essentially, it is "extra-constitutional" in many critic's eyes.

Here is the Citizen's Guide to Joint Powers Authority to help you understand.

Children sit under the American flag and watch the puppets on stage in amazement,
 never seeing the puppet master behind the curtain.

Fable: The Fox and the Stork

One day, Mister Fox invited Miss Stork for dinner.
Miss Stork was very pleased with the invitation and accepted.
However, Mister Fox only pretended to be a gentleman and had a very sly personality.
He thought about how he could deceive Miss Stork.
Mister Fox prepared a delicious soup. He arranged the food on flat plates.


It was impossible for Miss Stork to eat from the plate with her long beak.
Any effort from the stork to try to grip some food was useless. Miss Stork was so very sad.
Mister Fox could easily finish his plate with his lapping muzzle.

A few days later, Miss Stork returned the invitation from Mister Fox.
Without a moment of hesitation, he replied that he would go to Miss Stork’s dinner party.
He hurried to be right on time.
Mister Fox praised the politeness of Miss Stork for the re-invitation.
Miss Stork was preparing wonderful meat. She cut the meat in bitesize pieces.
The appetizing smell made his desire for the food irresistable. Mister Fox was very hungry.
But Miss Stork had made her plan how to serve dinner.
She had thought about how she could torture the fox.
She arranged the food into tall and slim vases.

For the stork, it was a convenient way of eating.
Her long beak could go in and out the vase easily.
By all means, the snout of the fox wouldn’t enter the vase.
Mister Fox left the dinner party with drooping head and tail,
The hungry guest had to leave without having any food.
Miss Stork had her revenge on Mister Fox.

 

Moral of Aesops Fable: "One bad turn deserves another."

 

The Legend of the Gordian Knot

Alexander Cuts the Gordian Knot

The god Zeus had declared that when it came time for the people of ancient Phrygia to select a king, they must choose the first person to ride up to the temple of Zeus in a wagon. 

The peasant Gordius innocently fulfilled the oracle, was made king, and ruled very successfully.  In his gratitude Gordius dedicated his wagon to Zeus by tying it to a pole near the temple with an intricate knot of bark.

Another oracle declared that anyone who succeeded in untying the knot would be the ruler of all Asia. The knot stayed firmly tied, confounding all attempts to loosen it, until the arrival of Alexander the Great. 

Even Alexander’s conventional attempts to untie the knot were unsuccessful, until he cut the knot open with his sword. Zeus honored Alexander’s initiative by making the prophecy come true, and Alexander conquered all of Asia and more.

The “Gordian knot” has come to represent a difficult and intractable problem, while Alexander’s simple solution focused on the outcome rather than the problem.

for more on the gordian knot

Green New Deal or Bizarre Wish list?

Some progressives grow disillusioned with democracy

Some progressives grow disillusioned with democracy

BY JOEL KOTKIN

Left-leaning authors often maintain that conservatives “hate democracy,” and, historically, this is somewhat true. “The political Right,” maintains the progressive economist and columnist Paul Krugman, “has always been uncomfortable with democracy.”

But today it’s progressives themselves who, increasingly, are losing faith in democracy. Indeed, as the Obama era rushes to a less-than-glorious end, important left-of-center voices, like Matt Yglesias, now suggest that “democracy is doomed.”

Yglesias correctly blames “the breakdown of American constitutional democracy” on both Republicans and Democrats; George W. Bush expanded federal power in the field of national defense while Barack Obama has done it mostly on domestic issues. Other prominent progressives such as American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner have made similar points, even quoting Italian wartime fascist leader Benito Mussolini about the inadequacy of democracy.

Like some progressives, Kuttner sees the more authoritarian model of China as ascendant; in comparison, the U.S. and European models – the latter clearly not conservative – seem decadent and unworkable. Other progressives, such as Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir, argue that big money has already drained the life out of American democracy. Like Yglesias, he, too, favors looking at “other political systems.”

This disillusionment reflects growing concern about the durability of the Obama coalition. In 2002, liberal journalist John Judis co-authored the prescient “The Coming Democratic Majority,” which suggested that emerging demographic forces – millennials, minorities and well-educated professionals, particularly women – would assure a long-term ascendency of the Left. This view certainly fit in with the rise of Barack Obama, who galvanized this coalition.

Judis now, however, suggests that this majority coalition, if not dissolving, is certainly cracking. In his well-balanced article, “The Emerging Republican Advantage,” he notes that, even as the white working class shifts ever further to the right, so, too, have a growing number of college-educated (but not graduate level) professionals. In 2014, millennials voted Democratic, but that edge over Republicans was 10 points less than in 2012. White millennials went decisively Republican. The Latino margin favoring Democrats dropped, while Asians, who strongly favored Obama in his runs, seem to have divided their votes close to evenly.

Alternatives to democracy

Ideologues like elections, when the results go their way, but not so much when they lose. This was true for some right-of-center intellectuals who recoiled against the Clinton presidency and among GOP House members who impeached him for his sordid, but basically irrelevant, personal affairs. Even today, some conservatives believe we may be entering “Republican end times” but even then, few would suggest scrapping the Constitution itself.

The meltdown of the Obama legislative agenda has fostered, instead, a Caesarism of the Left. This is evidenced, in part, by broad backing for the White House’s ruling through executive decrees. Some progressives even suggest the president, to preserve Obamacare, should even ignore the Supreme Court, if it rules the wrong way in June.

Progressive authoritarianism has a long history, co-existing uncomfortably with traditional liberal values about free speech, due process and political pluralism. At the turn of the 20th century, the novelist H.G. Wells envisioned “the New Republic,” in which the most talented and enlightened citizens would work to shape a better society. They would function, he suggested, as a kind of “secret society,” reforming the key institutions of society from both within and without.

In our times, Wells’ notions foreshadowed the rise of a new class – what I label the clerisy – that derives its power from domination of key institutions, notably the upper bureaucracy, academia and the mainstream media. These sectors constitute what Daniel Bell more than two decades ago dubbed a “priesthood of power,” whose goal was the rational “ordering of mass society.”

Increasingly, well-placed members of the clerisy have advocated greater power for the central state. Indeed, many of its leading figures, such as former Obama budget adviser Peter Orszag and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, argue that power should shift from naturally contentious elected bodies – subject to pressure from the lower orders – to credentialed “experts” operating in Washington, Brussels or the United Nations. Often, the clerisy and its allies regard popular will as lacking in scientific judgment and societal wisdom.

Unlike their clerical forebears, this “priesthood” worships at the altar not of religion but of what they consider official “science,” which often is characterized by intolerance rather than the skepticism traditionally associated with the best scientific tradition. Indeed, in their unanimity of views and hostility toward even mild dissent, today’s authoritarian progressives unwittingly more resemble their clerical ancestors, enforcing certain ideological notions and requiring suspension of debate. Sadly, this is increasingly true in the university, which should be the bastion of free speech.

The killer “app” for progressive centralism, comes from concern about climate change. A powerful lobby of greens, urban developers, planners and even some on Wall Street now see the opportunity to impose the very centralized planning and regulatory agenda that has been dear to the hearts of progressives since global “cooling” was the big worry a few decades ago. This new clout is epitomized by the growing power of federal agencies, notably the EPA, as well state and local bodies of unelected regulators who have become exemplars of a new post-democratic politics.

Solution: Return to Federalism

The fly in the ointment here, of course, remains the electorate. Even in one-party California, local constituents are not always eager to follow the edicts of the nascent “new Republic” if it too strongly affects their lives, for example, by forcibly densifying their neighborhoods. Resistance to an imposed progressive agenda is stronger elsewhere, particularly in the deep red states of the Heartland and the South. In these circumstances, a “one size fits all” policy agenda seems a perfect way to exacerbate the already bitter and divisive mood.

Perhaps the best solution lies with the Constitution itself. Rather than run away from it, as Yglesias and others suggest, we should draw inspiration from the founders acceptance of political diversity. Instead of enforcing unanimity from above, the structures of federalism should allow greater leeway at the state level, as well as among the more local branches of government.

Even more than at the time of its founding, America is a vast country with multiple cultures and economies. What appeals to denizens of tech-rich trustifarian San Francisco does not translate so well to materially oriented, working-class Houston, or, for that matter, the heavily Hispanic and agriculture-oriented interior of California. Technology allows smaller units of government greater access to information; within reason, and in line with basic civil liberties, communities should be able to shape policies that make sense in their circumstances.

In a decentralized system, central governments still can play an important role, particularly with infrastructure that crosses local and state lines, monitoring health and environmental issues and investing in research. Right now they do none of these tasks well; perhaps, if the upper bureaucracy worried less about the minutia on how we lived our lives, and concentrated on government’s critical tasks, perhaps they would do a better job.

Millennials driving change?

One possible group that could change this are voters, including millennials. It turns out that this generation is neither the reserve army imagined by progressives or the libertarian base hoped for by some conservatives. Instead, notes Pew, millennials are increasingly nonpartisan. They maintain some liberal leanings, for example, on the importance of social justice and support for gay marriage. But their views on other issues, such as abortion and gun control, track closely with to those of earlier generations. The vast majority of millennials, for example, thinks the trend toward having children out of wedlock is bad for society. Even more surprisingly, they are less likely than earlier generations to consider themselves environmentalists.

They also tend to be skeptical toward overcentralized government. As shown in a recent National Journal poll, they agree with most Americans in preferring local to federal government. People in their 20s who favor federal solutions stood at a mere 31 percent, a bit higher than the national average but a notch less than their baby boomer parents.

If this sentiment, among millennials and others, can be tapped, perhaps there is hope still for our democracy. The Constitution does not need to be scrapped; what has to go is the present leadership of both parties and the whole notion that Washington always knows best. A future shaped by rapid technological change still needs old-school wisdom to maintain our basic democracy and the efficacy of republican government.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in Orange and the executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org). His most recent book is “The New Class Conflict” (Telos Publishing: 2014).

THREE BULLOCKS AND A LION

     A LION had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field. He had tried to attack them several times, but they had kept together, and helped each other to drive him off. The Lion had little hope of eating them, for he was no match for three strong Bullocks with their sharp horns and hoofs. But he could not keep away from that field, for it is hard to resist watching a good meal, even when there is little chance of getting it.



Then one day the Bullocks had a quarrel, and when the hungry Lion came to look at them and lick his chops as he was accustomed to do, he found them in separate corners of the field, as far away from one another as they could get.

It was now an easy matter for the Lion to attack them one at a time, and this he proceeded to do with the greatest satisfaction and relish.

In unity is strength. 

No, Capitalism Will Not “Starve Humanity” by 2050

No, Capitalism Will Not “Starve Humanity” by 2050

By Chelsea German and Marian L. Tupy



Forbes magazine recently published an article titled, “Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity by 2050.” The author, Drew Hansen, a businessman and regular contributor to Forbes, starts out by claiming that capitalism has “failed to improve human well-being at scale.” This assertion is easily refuted by evidence. Over the last few decades, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of extreme poverty. In fact, the share of the world’s population as well as the total number of people living in poverty is at an all-time low, despite a population increase of 143 percent since 1960. The left-leaning Brookings Institution predicts that absolute poverty will have been practically eliminated throughout the world by 2030. If this is not good news for global capitalism, what is? Capitalism, Hansen continues, is also responsible for widespread destruction of animal species, decimation of forests, and a growing risk of starvation. Let’s examine each of Hansen’s claims in turn.

Is capitalism killing off species?

Hansen claims that “species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate.” Journalist and Human Progress advisory board member Matt Ridley, who holds a doctorate degree in zoology from Oxford University, rebutted this often-used claim in his book The Rational Optimist:


[There is a] now routine claim that extinction rates are running at 100 or 1,000 times their normal rates, because of human interference …There is no doubt that humans have caused a pulse of extinction, especially by introducing rats, bugs and weeds to oceanic islands at the expense of endemic species … But now that most of these accidental introductions to islands have happened, the rate of extinctions is dropping, not rising, at least among birds and mammals. Bird and mammal extinctions peaked at 1.6 a year around 1900 and have since dropped to about 0.2 a year. Ridley also notes that the extinction rate has fallen even farther in the most industrialized countries, where people tend to care more about environmental stewardship. He himself has worked on various projects to help protect endangered birds. Capitalism, by creating wealth and enabling humanity to move past worries of basic survival, has helped us to preserve other species.

Is capitalism destroying the forests?

Hansen says that 6 million hectares of forest are being lost every year. While forest area is slowly declining, there are plenty of reasons for optimism. In a recent paper for the Breakthrough Institute, environmental scientist Jesse H. Ausubel describes how as countries grow wealthier and their populations come to care more about the environment, forests rebound:


Foresters refer to a “forest transition” when a nation goes from losing to gaining forested area. In 1830, France recorded the first forest transition. Since then, while the population of France has doubled, French forests have also doubled. In other words, forest loss decoupled from population. Measured by growing stock, the United States enjoyed its forest transition around 1950, and, measured by area, about 1990. The forest transition began around 1900, when states such as Connecticut had almost no forest, and now encompasses dozens of states. To see the effect of rising wealth on forest protection, simply consider the contrasting trends in Europe and Africa:Agricultural advances that let farmers harvest more food from less land are also helping to spare forests. Ausubel notes that smarter agricultural practices in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe freed at least 30 million hectares (an area the size of Poland or Italy) and possibly as many as 60 million hectares from agricultural use and returned it to nature.

Does capitalism make people poorer?

Citing the 2014 U.S. Census, Hansen notes that 15 percent of Americans live in poverty. (The Censusdefines poverty as an income of less than $12,071 a year for a single-person household, or $33 a day). But, what does it mean to be poor in America? As the Mercatus Center economist Steve Horwitz writes, “poor U.S. households are more likely to have basic appliances than the average household of the 1970s, and those appliances are of much higher quality.”

In 1984, for example, 83 percent of all households in the United States owned a refrigerator. By 2005, 99 percent of poor American households owned a refrigerator. The evidence of an improving standard of living for poor Americans is abundant and available – to those who are willing to see. Hansen fails to mention that living on $33 a day is not poverty by historical standards. Throughout most of human history, almost everyone lived in extreme poverty. Only in the last two centuries has wealth dramatically increased. Early adopters of capitalism, such as the United States, have seen their average incomes skyrocket.

Moreover, Hansen does not put American poverty in a global perspective. Thirty-three dollars per person per day would be considered luxurious in the developing world today. (Globally, absolute poverty is measured at $1.90 per person per day.) Our understanding of poverty is undoubtedly skewed by America’s riches. But remember that if you make $32,400 or more per year, then you are in the global top 1 percent of income-earners (adjusted for differences in the cost of living).Does capitalism lead to starvation?

Hansen then repeats the old and discredited idea that humanity won’t be able to feed itself as the population grows. Thomas Malthus first made that argument in 1798. Since Malthus’ time, humanity has found ways to produce more food per unit of land through innovations like synthetic fertilizers and increasingly advanced genetic modification techniques. As production increased,the prices of food fell. Today, food is 22 percent cheaper than it was in 1960, in spite of global population growth of 143 percent. As a result, calorie consumption increased, and the total number of undernourished people fell.

Malthus’ mistake was to ignore human beings’ ability to innovate their way out of problems. But, as Julian Simon found in The Ultimate Resource, people are excellent problem-solvers, and the free market helps to coordinate solutions to most of our everyday challenges. A challenge (feeding a growing population), led to technological innovation (the Green Revolution and GMOs) and that led to a solution (higher agricultural productivity and falling food prices). Far from leading to starvation, capitalism has ensured that the supply of food rose to meet growing demand.

If humanity does face starvation in 2050, it will not be because of capitalism – it will be because anti-capitalist views like Hansen’s have prevailed.