Questioning capitalism?

Proteus the shape-shifter 

Business Insider reported some interesting survey findings last week, courtesy of the Harris Poll and Just Capital. Using a sample size of 1,000, it found that only 25 percent of Americans think that capitalism in its current iteration is good for society as a whole. The survey, of course took place in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which lifted the veil on a host of social and economic inequities.

As reported by Just Capital, the responses are pretty radical. Among them:

*89 percent wanted corporations to hit "reset" and do right by workers, consumers, communities and the environment;

*Only 29 percent viewed the prevailing form of capitalism as offering "the kind of society I want for the next generation" or as one that "works for the average American."

*Over 50 percent wanted a reformed version of the economic system, while around 20 percent believed that no form of capitalism was good for the public. Put another way, that means over 70 percent are in the reform or replace columns.

The epidemic has exposed gross economic inequality as well as racial and gender inequities. Those surveyed wanted protective equipment and safe conditions for front line workers, paid sick leave, wage increases and greater flexibility to work remotely.

While it would be a bit much to interpret the data as a call for the collectivization of agriculture or government ownership of hot dog stands, it does seem to point out that we really could be at a turning point.

Capitalism over the last 500 years as been as shape-shifting as the mythological creature Proteus in the Odyssey, taking numerous forms. Many of these have been nasty, as in slavery, imperialism, neo-colonialism, and an unrestrained global economy. But in some places and times, when tempered by good public policies, a strong labor movement and a healthy civil society, it has shown a more humane face.

It could be that there is a growing demand for the US economy to move in that direction....which is a good thing.

A zombie lie that needs to be put to rest

“Zombie lie” is a term that has come into use in recent years. It means a false statement that keeps getting repeated no matter what the facts are.

It seems to me that the number of zombie lies walking around these days roughly approximates the number of undead flesh-eaters you might find on a good episode of “The Walking Dead.”

Some of the most prominent zombie lies these days have to do with the markets and the role of government.

Economist Dean Baker laid into one of the biggest zombie lies in his book, “The Conservative Nanny State.” It consists of the idea that conservatives support market outcomes while progressives rely on government.

Baker made the case that “both conservatives and liberals want government intervention. The difference between them is the goal of government intervention, and the fact that conservatives are smart enough to conceal their dependence on the government.”

The other big difference is that conservatives want to use the power of government to distribute more money to those who already have at the expense of everyone else.

There are plenty of ways this can happen. If you want a current example, you need look no farther than the vastly unpopular tax “reform” bill. It gives huge breaks to corporations and the wealthy that are likely to be paid for by cuts in programs for working Americans, seniors and kids — and favors those who inherit wealth without lifting a finger over those who work hard every day.

Then there are trade deals that expand the rights of multinational corporations at the expense of workers, communities, land, water and other natural resources.

Then there are numerous varieties of government subsidies for businesses ranging from the energy to financial to the agricultural sectors — not to mention the role that governments play in cleaning up the messes of the private sector, a term economists refer to as “negative externalities.”

Patents and intellectual property rights are in effect government sanctioned legal monopolies that protect their owners from free market forces. For example, this is the main reason the inexpensively produced prescription drugs cost so much to consumers. Any tiny modification of the drug in question extends the period of legal monopoly and freedom from competition. In a real free market situation, this would never happen.

Baker argues that bankruptcy laws allow the government to “act as a strong-arm debt collector for businesses that did not accurately assess the risks associated with their loans.” On the flip side, many West Virginia coal miners have found that bankruptcy laws also favor corporations that want to dodge long-standing promises to retirees, widows, and children.

“Tort reform” is a way for corporations to influence the government to avoid paying for the costs of the damages they may inflict on people, intentionally or otherwise.

Powerful interests are often able to use their influence to curb the government entities created to regulate them, a practice known as “regulatory capture.” (I could list examples from the current administration in Washington but it would take too much space.)

For that matter, corporations are government-sanctioned legal entities that are authorized to act as “persons.”

If all that wasn’t enough, it would be impossible to list all the times that the powers of the state — police, military, courts, prison, surveillance — have been used to break strikes, repress freedom movements, and defend big business interests at home and abroad, often at a high cost in human lives. You could fill a few bookshelves just with examples of that in West Virginia history, not that we teach our kids much about it.

All that looks like a (heavily armed) conservative nanny state for the well off to me. And it's way more generous than the one that supposedly exists to protect poor and working people.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose holiday is celebrated this month, came much closer to describing the real situation: “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in last week's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

The young and the (really) restless

Lots of young people have Bernie Sander's back. Photo taken at his Huntington WV visit.

Vermont senator and US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders visited Huntington WV yesterday. The Spousal Unit and I went to check out the scene (at which a certain unnamed person repeatedly boasted of her Vermont origins). The thing that struck me was what I've heard about all over the country: his appeal to young people.

The line to get into the Huntington civic center went on and on--some might even say it was YUGE-- and it was full of young people in one of the oldest states. I was amazed that I recognized so few people, although I guess you'll have that when 6,400 or so show up. We talked to some of them and were amazed by their enthusiasm and awareness.

On reflection, it's probably no wonder. This demographic group has been treated as a throwaway generation with throwaway jobs and many of those lucky enough to get a higher education are saddled with debt which they won't be able to throw away. Still, it was a surprise to see this article, which says that a majority of Americans between 18 and 29 are not fans of capitalism.

Of course, capitalism, which has been around for a few hundred years, has taken many forms in different times and places and still does today. But it probably is safe to say the the latest version of it around here hasn't done them a lot of favors.

They definitely have a dream. I wonder whether and to what extent it will be deferred. In any case, there is a YUGE amount of energy for change out there if a way can be figured out how to channel it.

Annals of arrogance

This is rich. Paul Ryan, an Ayn Rand Kool-Aid imbiber who claims to be a Catholic and pretends to care about the poor, decides to lecture Pope Francis about the folly of the pontiff's economic views. I guess maybe next he should also try to teach Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and possibly God Almighty about the folly of their ways...

One thing I'm thankful for this year...

...is Pope Francis I! Here's a good look at his latest statement on the "new tyranny" of unfettered capitalism.

Sample quotes:

"Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills."

and

 "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?"

and

 "I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."

and

 "As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems."

TWO FOR THE ROAD ON THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. Here's Dean Baker stating the obvious, an important thing to do in these times! And here's a reminder that some states show it can work.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

What he said

 From a recent address by Pope Francis to newly appointed ambassadors to the Vatican:

The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

...human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away. We have started a throw-away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it is being promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules. Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power. Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless.

Read the rest here.

WHAT A SURPRISE. Locking kids up in juvenile prisons doesn't do a whole lot of good.

BE THERE IF YOU CAN. Here are op-eds by the Rev. Ron English and the Rev. David Fryson about the upcoming celebrations of the African American contribution to WV's first 150 years that will take place June 16-19. Details are in the links. If you know WV's history it's hard to deny this basic statement: no black folks, no West Virginia.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This n that

I try to make it a policy to take whacks at deserving targets whenever possible. One such target is austerity economics. Here's a good whack from Dissent and another from the NY Review of Books.

ROCK ON, FRANCIS! How about that new pope?

MORE ON MEDICAID. Finally, here's a good op-ed by an ally on why expanding Medicaid in WV is a good idea.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Herps R Us

While doing a little weekend gardening, we came across several guests of the reptile/amphibian variety. It's not every day you see a baby turtle.

These guys are a bit more common.

And I seem to remember a story about one of these in another garden...

Those are the ones we saw. I wonder what we missed.

SNAKES IN SUITS? Here's an interesting discussion of capitalism, morality  and the whole "the rich are different" debate.

THE WHOLE "OBAMA'S-WAR-ON-COAL THING" discussed here.

IN CASE YOU EVER WONDERED how manta rays spend their time, click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Keenest to win fame

Goat Rope is all about Beowulf these days, although you will also find links and comments about current events. For more, click on earlier posts.

The Beowulf poet and the society he or she (or they) came from knew nothing about Greek tragedy, but it doesn't take much looking to find some tragic themes there. For many people, especially those influenced by Aristotle, tragic art involves a noble character brought low by some flaw or mistake of lack of insight. That kind of works for Beowulf, although the flaw in question is as much a part of the society it came from as it was of the hero.

Beowulf as a young man was all about winning fame. Hence, the trip to the land of the Danes to kill the monster Grendel. Before all that,

...He had been poorly regarded
for a long time, was taken by the Geats
for less than he was worth: and their lord too
had never much esteemed him in the mead-hall.
They firmly believed that he lacked force,
that the prince was a weakling; but presently
every affront to his deserving was reversed.

He got fame alright, but never quite lost the thirst for it. He eventually became king and ruled well over the Geats for fifty years until someone stirred up the wrath of a dragon, which he vowed to kill single handedly. As the last lines of the poem go,

They said that of all the kings upon the earth
he was the most gracious and fair-minded,
kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.

You could say that the tragic flaw of Beowulf was the conflict between the first part of the sentence and the last four words. Had he been less keen to win fame, he would have delegated the dragon slaying to younger men and continued to rule justly over the Geats and kept them in safety. Instead, he died in the effort, leaving his people to the nasty fate anticipated by a grieving woman, who

...sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement.

As Dylan pointed out in a song, sometimes it's either fortune or fame, though neither are what they claim. Beowulf chose fame. I think I prefer fortune.

HOLY JUDICIAL ACTIVISM, BATMAN! A federal judge in Florida may have been overly caffinated (or something) when he ruled on the constitutionality of health care reform.

THINGS THEY DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT CAPITALISM. Here's an excerpt from a new book about that topic.

OF WRITERS, RELIGION, EXILE, POLITICS AND SUCH. Here's the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree.

BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW. If memory serves, a labor dispute in Egypt a few thousand years ago led by an agitator named Moses kicked up some dust. Here's an item from the AFLCIO blog on the role of Egyptian unions in the struggle for reform.

CORPORATIONS AND THE COMMONS. This entrepreneur calls for a balance between the two.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A law of nature

Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution by means of natural selection were first taken up (with many misunderstandings) by those on the political right. Part of the reason for this was that early expositions of Darwinism emphasized competition. It would take a while for evolutionary biologists to look at the other side of the equation by investigating cooperation and altruism.

More to the point, in the Gilded Age, robber barons and financial aristocrats found in them a great rationalization for their own wealth and power.

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie wrote that while capitalist competition may harm some individuals, "it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department."

(That phrase "survival of the fittest," by the way, has its origin in the writings of British philosopher Herbert Spencer rather than Darwin himself.)

In a similar vein, John D. Rockefeller Jr. wrote that

The growth of large business is merely a survival of the fittest...This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working our of a law of nature and a law of God.

As the Church Lady would say on the old Saturday Night Live, "Isn't that convenient?"

SPEAKING OF EVOLUTION, this article suggests that our relationships with animals helped make us human.

FORECLOSURES. Here's Dean Baker and what the government could do about the foreclosure crisis but isn't (so far).

FUN LIST. From The Nation, here's a list of the 50 most influential progressive leaders of the 20th century.

CHARLOTTE'S WEB ON STEROIDS. A spider in Madagascar weaves the world's biggest webs with the toughest natural material yet discovered.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A powerful mix

1898 political cartoon.

People have long observed how powerfully nationalism can motivate people, even those who have low status and little apparent stake in the nation in question. When World War I broke out in Europe, for example, there was widespread joy and euphoria on all sides. Even many political radicals who had previously vowed to oppose international conflict joined it.

Nationalistic enthusiasms (which nation is involved is immaterial) can override rational and religious considerations. Reinhold Niebuhr in his 1932 classic Moral Man and Immoral Society, has a succinct explanation:

"The man in the street, with his lust for power and prestige thwarted by his own limitations and the necessities of social life, projects his ego upon his nation and indulges his anarchic lusts vicariously. So a nation is at one and the same time a check upon, and a final vent for, the expression of individual egoism."

In his view, it is precisely that mixture of selflessness and vicarious selfishness that give nationalism its power.

A LIVELY CREW greeted shareholders at Massey Energy's annual meeting in Richmond, Va.

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS. A new survey about American attitudes towards things like capitalism and socialism finds some surprising numbers.

CHRISTIANITY AND CONSERVATISM. This article wonders how, given the Bible's powerful statements on social justice (yeah, I said those dreaded words), the two can go together.

OK, SO I'M SMIRKING. The state of WV is discontinuing it's redesigned version of Medicaid, which is something quite a few people I know will celebrate.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Modern Times

It seems like one of the lessons of history is that capitalism is an enormously powerful, adaptive, productive and often destructive system. It can accomplish amazing things--even Karl Marx sang its praises in The Communist Manifesto--but it has the habit of melting down every so often.

One reason why the system hasn't seen a meltdown as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s (even though it's come close) is because of various reforms and regulations that have been enacted since that time.

Yet for 30 years or so, right wing ideologues who claim to be defenders of capitalism have been busy trying to undo the regulations and safeguards that help to stabilize the system--and they had a lot of success.

Yet when you consider that the wealthy and powerful have a much greater stake in it than anyone else, it seems odd to me that many of them have pushed for measures that would place it at risk.

It's like watching people trying to saw off the branch they're sitting on. The whole Goldman Sachs thing is a case in point. As E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote in a recent column,

Marx's predictions about the inevitable collapse of capitalism have been wrong so far because the system has worked reasonably well, thanks to the rules and redistributive programs established after the Great Depression.

The lesson is that the surest way to save capitalism is to regulate it in the public interest.

WHEN SORROWS COME, they come not single spies, but in battalions. The BP oil rig disaster that killed eleven workers threatens to eclipse the Exxon Valdez as an ecological disaster. Two more miners were killed in a Kentucky accident. The AP reports that Massey Energy will offer $3 million to the families of each of the 29 miners who died earlier this month.

THE ALTERNATIVE TO HEALTH CARE REFORM? Bartering with chickens. Why didn't I think of that?

SPEAKING OF WHICH, here's something on the reform we got. And even Arnold likes it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: NOT GOOD

TGIF

Random picture. Was it once warm enough to grown these things?

Hectic week. In lieu of a regular post, here are some random items that caught my eye:

ONE YEAR LATER. The Recovery Act had its first birthday this week. While it may have been too small, it did a lot of good.

REASON #3949 why we need comprehensive health care reform.

FREE MARKETS. Who pays?

VAMPIRES are considered here as cultural barometers.

URGENT ANCIENT FISH UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Red light, green light

Victor Hugo in days before Disney and Broadway.

Victor Hugo once said, "Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come."

John Kingdon, author of Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, wrote that Hugo's phrase "captures a fundamental reality about an irresistible movement that sweeps over our politics and our society, pushing aside everything that might stand in its path." His 1984 book examines just how this happens in the context of American politics and it seems to me to hold up pretty well today. And while he focused on changes at the federal level, his theories hold up pretty well at the state level as well.

Anyone who has ever tried to influence policy at either level knows that sometimes you get a green light and sometimes (usually more often in my case) the light is red and can stay that way for a long time. In his analysis, which I'm going to be looking at over the next few days, there are three streams that flow their merry way but sometimes can link up. When that happens, major changes can occur.

The big three are the political, policy and problem streams. The political is the most visible and is mostly influenced by elections, the perceived national mood, and the ambitions of major elected officials. The policy stream is less visible and is inhabited by staffers, advocacy and interest groups, and policy wonks such as myself. The problem stream consists of events and opportunities that rise to national attention and seem to demand action.

In his view, when the major political players become aware of a a major problem or opportunity for which an already worked out policy solution might apply, things can happen. The first stream sets the agenda while the second works out possible alternatives that might address the problem.

More on this to come.

SPEAKING OF PROBLEMS AND ALTERNATIVES, President Obama's jobs summit starts today. One solution used with success in Minnesota might be worth a look.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, the Economic Policy Institute has proposed its solution to unemployment crisis here.

ETHICAL CAPITALISM. Here's how one economist's vision of policy alternatives found an audience.

HEALTH CARE. Versions of health care reform in both the US House and Senate contain major expansions of Medicaid eligibility, which would extend coverage to millions of Americans. Here's a look at how this would benefit West Virginia.

ACTION ITEM. If you are in the Charleston area this evening and want to publicly oppose military escalation in Afghanistan, WV Patriots for Peace is sponsoring a vigil from 5:15pm - 6:15pm at Brawley Walkway (across from Chili's on Court St).

CHANGING THEIR TUNE. Blue whales are singing differently than they used to.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Short rations again

No time for rants today, other than a wish that the Good Fairy, pictured above, grants everyone a good day. In the meantime, these things struck my eyes:

WHAT'S IN THE HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL for us? Click here.

UNLEASHING CAPITALISM? Unregulated capitalism didn't do too well in a recent global poll.

DOA? Some say climate change legislation isn't likely this year or next. Here's a summary of info from Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo.

IT'S OFFICIAL. Not only are pigs smart, but they like mirrors.

NEED A SPIDER FIX? Click here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Ghosts

I let Halloween come and go without picking up on the theme. Until, that is, I saw this article in the Gazette about ghosts and how people reconcile belief in them with more conventional religion.

I take no position on whether such things exist, but it seems that West Virginia has more than its share of if not ghosts then at least stories about them. I guess our history--what with the Civil War and other armed conflicts, feuds, industrial disasters, and other mayhem--is a good climate for generating them.

I think it's interesting that in most ghost stories that I know about, the apparitions don't tend to be free rangers. Rather, they seem to be tied to particular places where certain things happened.

Sometimes I do think that events can leave a mark on places. Some places I've been to seem to be more loaded than others. I'm thinking about places like Harpers Ferry, the old state mental hospital at Weston, the old state prison at Moundsville, and an old family farm in Tazewell, Virginia.

There are, after all, more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

NOT ENOUGH OF A GOOD THING. It looks like the stimulus helped pull the US economy back from the brink--up to a point. Here's another argument for another one.

SELF DESTRUCTIVE HABITS. Gazette columnist Perry Mann ponders unbridled capitalism here.

SEALING THE DEAL. Here's E.J. Dionne on the future of health care reform legislation.

SPEAKING OF HAUNTED PLACES. Here's an item about a scientist who artificially designed one.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It's easy for this guy to be green

Today is a long day on the road, so in lieu of the usual rant here's a picture of a green heron that showed up at the farm the other day. He was not quite as majestic as his great blue cousin who showed up yesterday when I didn't have a camera handy. In fact, he seemed kind of goofy looking at times, but a heron is a heron and I'll settle for any of them.

And here are some things I found to be interesting...

IT'S FICTION, DUDES. This brief item examines the Ayn Rand cult.

AND HERE'S ONE REASON WHY. This New Yorker piece looks at why unrestrained markets can be so crisis prone--and why real reform is needed.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, let's take another look at trade deals.

A MISSTEP? An insurance industry report aimed at derailing health care reform may have missed the mark.

URGENT VEGETARIAN SPIDER UPDATE here.

YOUR FEET'S TOO BIG. The world's biggest dinosaur footprints (so far) were found in France. They were something like a 1.5 meters in diameter. I'm not even going to guess what shoe size that would be.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ASK THE HERON

"...even more than in the past"

WV workers rally at state capitol for the Employee Free Choice Act. I think this picture is about three years old.

It is one of my rituals after returning from a trip to comb through newspapers and other sources to catch up and see what I might have missed.

One story that I found to be particularly interesting was the release of Pope Benedict's encyclical, CARITAS IN VERITATE.

The encyclical is a very strong statement in support of economic justice and a strong critique of "unleashed" capitalism. Among other things, it contains a strong endorsement of labor unions and strongly supports the rights of workers to organize:

Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.

And that's not all. In the words of Thomas Reese, S.J., writing for the Washington Post,

Although Benedict's emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to "redistribution of wealth" or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of "new life-styles 'in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments'"?

What would Joe the Plumber say?

Some other items that struck my eye included:

*this overview of health care systems in different countries;

*this piece that reminds us that even people with health insurance can go broke in a medical crisis; and

*this news story that reports lower rates of bankruptcies in states that don't seize wages.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: CELESTIAL

A stroke of the wet sponge

Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan, courtesy of wikipedia.

El Cabrero has any number of superstitions, none of which are rationally justifiable but all of which persist nonetheless. One of these has to do with lucky and unlucky names. There is a part of me that believes that it is bad luck to name someone after a person or character who had extraordinarily bad luck.

One name that I really like but would never name a child is Cassandra, who is a major character in Aeschylus' tragedy Agamemnon, which has been the theme this week. To recap, she was a daughter of King Priam of Troy. Apollo fell in love with her and promised the gift of prophecy in return for intimacy. When she refused consent at the last moment, she was cursed by the god to have a accurate vision of the future but one that no one would believe.

I hate it when that happens.

Anyhow, she returned with King Agamemnon after the fall of Troy as a trophy and a slave. She knew that death awaited both of them at the hands of Clytemnestra but was powerless to avert it.

She gets the last word this week. Her last works speak volumes about a key theme of tragedy and express what Martha Nussbaum called "the fragility of goodness." Here goes (from the translation of Robert Fagles):

Oh men, your destiny.
When all is well a shadow can overturn it.
When trouble comes a stroke of the wet sponge,
and the picture's blotted out. And that,
I think that breaks the heart.

THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM, American style, is the subject of this article by Joseph Stiglitz.

HATE is alive and well. Here is Paul Krugman on the right wing media's role in stoking it

TOUGH TIMES FOR RECENT GRADUATES. The latest snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute shows how tough it is for many to find jobs. I guess "Plastics" isn't quite getting it these days.

GREEN JOBS are here. According to Wired Science, 770,000 Americans already have one.

NOT SO GREEN JOBS. The Obama administration reveal more of its approach to mountaintop removal mining yesterday.

SLEEP ON IT. Research suggests that deep sleep with REM (not the band, although they are pretty cool) enhances creative problem solving.

THIS IS WEIRD, but the economy of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia actually grew by 2.5 percent in 2008, way outpacing the national economy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The Fellowship of the Ring

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and some practical insights it offers about working for social justice. As I've argued here before, one mark of a good story is that it is one you can find as well as lose yourself in.

I remember reading somewhere that at least some leaders and participants in the Civil Rights movement--including the great Robert Moses--drew inspiration from Tolkien's trilogy for their work in the Deep South.

It makes perfect sense to me. Whatever Tolkien's shortcomings might or might not be, The Lord of the Rings makes perfect sense when you're engaged in a struggle against the odds for social justice. Over the next few days, I'm going to talk about some examples of this.

The first on is all too obvious. If you're going up against the latest version of the Dark Lord or Saruman, you need some strong and diverse coalitions.

Getting there isn't easy. In the trilogy, the good guys don't have much use for each other in the beginning. The humans from Gondor and Rohan, once allies, mistrust each other. Elves and dwarves have issues from way back. And nobody important cared about hobbits. It makes getting coal miners and environmentalists to work together on issues seem pretty simple. But it can be done, at least sometimes.

Sometimes things get so bad you have to either form coalitions or just give up. But coalitions, which tend to be at the organizational level, are only held together by relationships at the personal level, as exemplified in the story by the small band that sets out to try to destroy the ring.

In a small place like El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, where nothing is ever forgotten, relationships are everything. One state politician once quipped "In West Virginia, everything's political except politics and that's personal."

If I had to choose between winning a big one and damaging coalitions and relationships versus losing a big one and maintaining them (and I have been there), I'd probably prefer the latter. Struggles come and go, and victory or defeat often depends on conditions you don't completely control. Relationships take a long time to build and are hard to repair when damaged.

Winning and keeping them would be my first choice though.

AFTER THE FALL. This NY Times article discusses Obama's post-recession (assuming we get there) vision for capitalism.

LOCAL FOOD makes sense in lots of ways, but it can be a pretty complex issue.

TAXES. Here's economist Dean Baker's contribution to a debate on the merits of progressive taxation.

WASTED. Bill McKibben discusses our wasteful habits and the possibility of changing them.

DOWN TO THE WIRE. For addicts of the late lamented HBO series The Wire, here's a lengthy interview between Bill Moyers and Wire creator David Simon.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED