The Hyena and the Word

I had the privilege this past weekend of watching a Discovery Channel documentary on the pack hunting mentality of sub-Saharan hyenas. At least, that’s what I thought it was.

It turns out it was some such nonsense on the Fox News Channel. Some show about “financial investment.” The opening segment was on a recently reported Rasmussen phone survey conducted that found only 53% of Americans openly preferred capitalism to socialism.

A panel of ardent Friedmanites—chomping on the bit to indirectly scold the American population for their faithlessness in the Market—chose to ambush the former presidential candidate of the Socialist Party USA, Brian Moore. Clearly, Mr. Moore was not there to “make a case for socialism.” The format of network news programs all but ensure that nothing meaningful can be said in a thirty-second sound bite. Instead, Mr. Moore was the proverbial lamb tied to the stake, a symbol of the immature apostasy of the American public. He had to be slaughtered, in true predatory fashion.

Let it be said that the phone survey in question is all but irrelevant nonsense. The source article claims that the “question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism,” therefore leaving it to the respective imaginations of its participants how exactly these terms were to be used. At best, the poll seems to indicate a growing sense of anxiety amongst the American population concerning the capitalist model, which is surely to be expected in a period of dramatic economic decline. How such sentiments will clear the path to Petrograd is beyond me.

Mind you, this is not an indictment of American intelligence. Corporate Media (if I may invoke so ominous a specter) have been notoriously careful to marginalize socialist points of view and to preempt much discussion on the topic by an onslaught of misinformation. The term almost has no value in American discourse, and is in fact appropriated (by some deliberately and by others out of pure ignorance) to mean either some version of Keynesian capitalism or outright Stalinism.

The American public is then left with an exceptionally narrow definition of “pure capitalism,” being largely that which was developed out of Milton Freidman’s work with foreign exchange rates. Friedman and his followers chucked aside the Enlightenment’s understanding of “free markets” (predicated, as Smith wrote in his Wealth of Nations, on the immobility of capital and the mobility of labor) and decided that markets actually regulated themselves. The notorious Chicago School told us that because, the fundamentals of the economy are a constant, personal speculation cannot deviate too far from them, and hence the system contains its own regulatory apparatus. Were that it were true…

Althusser, taking his cue from Lenin, once wrote that theory was politics in concentrated form, and it was obvious from the get-go that such ideas would be used as the basis to “unleash the beast” of post-industrial capitalism. It should be expected that centers of private capital will use all their available resources (including much of the media) to dissuade the public from accepting any modicum of temperance in their ideological outlook.

In regards to what is now the colloquial usage of “socialism” as indicating anything to the left of the Austrian School (which is nearly everything), I find such thinking at best to be sloppy and at worst to be of an unusually malicious intent. Keynes was not a socialist, and took exception to Marxist thinking in general, declaring Communism to be a greater threat than atheism. However, Keynes, having both predicted and later witnessed the instability of the Weimar Republic following the 1919 Treaty of Paris, was exceptionally aware of the dangers to capitalism caused by socio-political instability, and it was ultimately his intention to save capitalism from its more destabilizing tendencies. One may recall a 1965 Time magazine article which claimed that “Washington's economic managers scaled these heights by their adherence to Keynes's central theme: the modern capitalist economy does not automatically work at top efficiency, but can be raised to that level by the intervention and influence of the government.”

Marx claimed that capitalism led irrevocably to monopoly. That monopoly, it appears, governs even words themselves. As long as Americans continue to glean their vocabulary from the self-interested polemics of private capital, we will be hard pressed to even have a sensible conversation in this country.

The American socialist today is much like a gazelle on the plains. It can no longer assume its body to be its own. A claim has been made to it—by predators in the long grass.

Caroline Kennedy's Crest...You Know?

This upcoming November will mark the 10th anniversary of the United Kingdom's passage of the House of Lords Act, which sought effectively to limit the influence of hereditary peers in the affairs of state. The act itself demonstrated a significant compromise on behalf of Blair's then indomitable Labor Party, whose initial manifesto called for the abolition of the house entirely. In the end, only 92 heredity lords were allowed to retain their seats, with the majority of the peers being non-hereditary royal appointments, or "life peers," which had been in practice since 1958.

Perchance the United State's Senate should revisit our junior partner's lengthy historical quarrel with its Upper House before so readily accepting the legitimacy of Caroline Kennedy's potential appointment to the now vacant New York seat. Born the heir to an entrenched New World fortune, Ms. Kennedy seems intent on riding down the aisle of the senate with her hereditary crest before her.

The act of royal--pardon me, gubernatorial--appointment is perhaps an inevitable one given the potentially short time span between our national elections and the commencement of the new Congress. However, it should behoove Governor Paterson to appoint individuals most in-keeping with their predecessor’s political views so as to minimize the potential for democratic usurpation.

To that extent, what little we know of Ms. Kennedy's political predilections is a grab-bag of safe assumptions and non-committals. Her positions on various social issues are safe ones given her potential constituents and actually mark a slight move to the left of Mrs. Clinton.

However, her positions on economic policy are virtually nondescript. She believes, keeping lock-step with the president-elect, that we need to "take a careful look" at the North American Free Trade Agreement (whatever that might mean). She does support the Employee Free Choice Act, for which she is to be commended. However, she "does not have a specific plan to fix New York's financial services industry," which is a daunting omission considering it to be one of the gravest issues facing not only New York, but the country at large. Her refusal to come out against the colossal blunder that was the repeal of Glass-Steagall is no doubt compelled by her unwillingness to alienate Wall Street--surely a mistake for any potential New York Senator, junior or otherwise.

On foreign policy, she is equally blase, declaring her initial opposition to the War in Iraq with one hand yet declaring Israel's right to "defend itself" with the other. She even goes so far as to say that "Israel's security decisions should be left to Israel," which sounds reasonable enough were one not fluent in the Democratic party's particular dialect of Newspeak. To say the least, she is as disciplined in her principles as the rest of her party cohorts.

Of particular note, she refuses to say whether or not she would support a democratic challenge to Mayor Bloomberg's reelection to office in the upcoming year, lest she preclude his now crucial political support. Nor is she unwilling to stoop to conquer, so to speak, as she grovels at the infinite wisdom of Governor Paterson's decision to cut his state's social services while refusing to raise taxes on the well-to-do.

All in all, her positions do not signal any clear reason why one should or should not choose her over her rivals. The argument that she is too presumptuous, while perhaps true, is meaningless coming from the mouths of competitors. The notion that Ms. Kennedy must first make her way through the Boss-Tweed-Machine strikes me as being slightly less than cynical, and is an interpersonal squabble between politicians I think the people of New York should quickly discard as being extraneous chatter.

However, it pales in comparison to the "inexperienced" argument, which is, in truth, the same polemic in a different couture dress. Ms. Kennedy, of course, has all the qualifications of a US Senator. Most culturally literate individuals with a taste for public policy do. When one hears Ms. Kennedy described as "inexperienced," one should effectively understand the term to mean "outsider." Hence, see above.

In short, as the voters of New York cannot expect their needs or interests to be considered at all given the political cluster fuck surrounding their vacant Senate seat, the only option seems to be how profound an antidemocratic message the Governor wishes to give his constituents. In an age which has so clearly reaped the sorrows of hereditary titles in our executive office, is it wise to continually propagate the notion of our government being a system of peerage? How comfortable are we being ruled by these persistent dynasties? As things stand, we will no doubt see Ms. Chelsea Clinton assume the position of president before long, perhaps with the Bush twins in tote, as vital members of her cabinet.

Let us at least take a cue from our recent presidential election and exert a vague symbolic message when no meaningful political action may be taken. Let us remind ourselves effectively that we are a people who govern themselves--not a nation governed by our aristocratic betters. And let us denounce peerage and privilege whenever it attempts to "know better."