Hopeless Arguments

Kate Arnoff interviewed Ann Pettifor, for an article entitled “Want to Stop Fascism? Start By Taming the Finance Sector.”  The article demonstrates the hopeless centrism of Pettifor’s solutions, and the limited and self-defeating theory she applies to get there.

The crux of her argument is to apply Karl Polanyi‘s theory from his book The Great Transformation.  Pettifor calls Polanyi’s thesis unique.  It wasn’t.  Rather, it was a milquetoast version of the likes of Veblen, Lenin, Luxembourg, and Marx (Marx’s posthumous publications especially).  Her analysis is also selective and hypocritical.

First, the good.  Pettifor belongs to a school of thought that is sort of the UK counterpart to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  This means she has a good grasp of how taxes, money creation, and related things really work (as opposed to how the are usually explained by neoclassical economists).  Those points do not come from Karl Polanyi.  Anyway, she rightly focuses on the perceived/self-imposed impotence of government, though in the interview she offers nothing constructive to say about how to create political will to counter that self-imposed feeling of impotence (other than vague reference to China not being impotent when it comes to imposing capital controls, which are not discussed in any meaningful detail in the interview).

As to the bad, well, like most center-left bourgeois liberals these days, her entire program is basically to re-create the “golden age” of the post-WWII “fordist” prosperity.  She refers to “full employment” in that period.  Really?  She must mean full employment for white males.  Because that era depended, in large but unacknowledged measure, on racial segregation and patriarchy.  Include non-whites and women in the statistics and even during the “golden age” there was no full employment or equal access to social welfare programs — as noted by the likes of Alan Nasser, Howard Zinn, Selma James, Jennifer Mittelstadt, and others.  Also, American prosperity during that period was in large part dependent upon the destruction of European manufacturing bases, hence temporarily eliminating that source of competition.  So, there are very real questions about whether those were beggar-thy-neighbor policies, or simply dependent upon the misery of (global) others that are conveniently externalized in the analysis.

Following Polanyi (and Nancy Fraser), she offers essentially a historically-based argument that falls within the realm of sociology.  Much like Polanyi’s, her argument suffers from being anecdotal and selective.  For instance, the interview (and perhaps this is the fault of the interviewer and her editors more than Pettifor) suggests that adopting Polanyi’s political program will defeat the rise of a new fascism.  Historically, this is quite inaccurate.  The sort of New Deal welfare state of the Roosevelt administration did not defeat fascism — recall the term “premature anti-fascist”.  Rather, history showed that Axis powers fascism was defeated largely by communist entry into WWII, at great sacrifice.  Does that not suggest that the way to defeat fascism is communism?  Pettifor is trying to avoid that conclusion, and she does so poorly in this interview.

Polanyi mostly wrote in reaction to the right-wing theorists (Mises, Hayek, Rand, etc.) who wrote in opposition to the political left.  Rather than champion Polanyi, who really offers very little, it seems wiser to simply disregard the idiotic right-wing nutcases that Polanyi argued against and instead simply return to the earlier leftist thinking of Lenin and the like.  Commenting on Polanyi, The Nation cited “Polanyi’s refreshing reminder that a failure to stop an entire system isn’t necessarily a failure: Reform does not preclude something more radical in the future.”  Of course, Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? made precisely the opposite argument, that pursuit of minor reforms and amelioration of symptoms does preclude radical solutions to root causes.  As François Mitterrand said upon the failure of his political program in the 1980s: “In economics, there are two solutions. Either you are a Leninist. Or you won’t change anything.”

Debunking Rockhill

Gabriel Rockhill wrote a piece entitled “Free Speech Is Not the Issue”.  This sanctimonious article unfortunately takes a good premise and spoils it through a weak argument that relies upon a false dichotomy.  Much of the (so-called) argument relies upon ad-hominem attacks on a piece run in another publication, with Rockhill labeling the other article as taking a “supposed,” “thoughtless” and “misguided” position, etc.  While no doubt, Rockhill is correct to focus on the question of power, and to say “the right to be a bigot is not the right to have a university promote your bigotry,” his overall argument fails because it presupposes that people can fight for power or free speech, but not both.  They are presumed to be mutually exclusive.  A historical contrast would be Malcolm X, who quite eloquently argued for both.  Even if parity of power were achieved, wouldn’t it collapse if there was no free speech and hence no way to know and understand power?  Rockhill’s argument is short-sighted in this regard.  This is not to say that the other article is comprehensive and beyond criticism, but rather that the two approaches seem rather complementary in a way Rockhill summarily rejects without significant discussion — indeed, the authors of the other article might well agree with much of what he says regarding power and institutions.  The general tenor of his critique seems to be about which side can better lay claim to moral/ethical purity, and better cultivate an image of the “true” defender of liberty, equality, etc.  And that is a very tiresome debate indeed.  It is the essence of left factionalism that is a persistent thorn in the side of left political action (as Malcolm X noted).  It also overlooks the insights of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? approach.

Johnny Cash – Boom Chicka Boom

Boom Chicka Boom

Johnny CashBoom Chicka Boom Mercury 842 155-2 (1990)


Continuing along the path of Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series (a collection of re-recordings of old Cash favorites), Boom Chicka Boom goes back to the way Cash used to sound long ago rather than trying to update him.  “Farmer’s Almanac” is derivative of his last big hit “One Piece at a Time,” though most of the rest tries to sound like Cash of the 1950s and 60s.  But he’s going through the motions, and some real problems with his band become apparent.  Guitarist Luther Perkins was the man responsible for Cash’s iconic boom-chicka-boom sound.  But Perkins died in 1968 after being caught in a fire in his home.  The thing is, no replacement featured here has any of the charisma of Perkins.  In the passing years Cash often did best when Carl Perkins (no relation), Marty Stuart or session guitarists like Norman Blake were involved instead of a Luther Perkins imitator.  This one isn’t terrible but it’s boring, in large part due to the various Perkins imitators on guitar.

Paul Kivel – Social Service or Social Change?

Link to an article by Paul Kivel:

“Social Service or Social Change?”

Bonus links:  “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex” and “Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad” and “Foundations and Cultural Imperialism An Interview with Robert Arnove” and “The Ford Foundation in the Inner City: Forging an Alliance with Neighborhood Activists” and “Science of Science and Reflexivity” and Black Awakening in Capitalist America: An Analytic History and Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism and Under the Mask of Philanthropy (plus review) and No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy (this one is underwhelming) and “The Real Agenda of the Gates Foundation” and Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power and Top Down: The Ford Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism and “The Philanthropy Racket or: How The People Destroying the World Anoint Themselves Its Saviors” and “Medicalizing Society” and  Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts: Studies in Mission and Constraint and “Philanthropic Power and Development: Who Shapes the Agenda?” and “Professional Societies: Corporate Service, or Public Services for You!” and Against Charity (plus review) and Wrong Kind of Green and “Class Struggle and the Parable of an Environmental Victory” and “The Philanthropy Hustle” and “The Problem With Capitalist Philanthropy” and “The Ultrarich Don’t Deserve Our Gratitude for Small Acts of Philanthropy” and “How the Ultrawealthy Use Private Foundations to Bank Millions in Tax Deductions While Giving the Public Little in Return” and “The Price of Civil Rights: Black Lives, White Funding, and Movement Capture” and “An Interview With John Stauber on the Impotence of the Progressive Movement” and “Which Side Are ‘Liberal’ Lawyers On?” and “The Political Economy of Effective Altruism” and “Reputational Laundering” Definition and Stephen Gowans Comment (“Change the institution, or make people behave in a contra-institutional way?“) and The Good Woman of Setzuan and “Socialism and Religion” (“those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven.”)