Some of you may recall the very large Chinese economic initiative launched some years ago by Xi called One Belt One Road. The project, due to be completed in 2049 for the centenary of the People's Republic of China, is a vast complex of land and sea routes designed to link the Chinese economy to the economies of the nations of the entire Eurasian landmass. Several of the important components of the land branch of this project run through Russia. It would seriously hinder the project for Russia to be ostracized from the world economy. That is probably something worth keeping in mind as we watch from afar how China responds to the Ukraine disaster.
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I imagine that the junior partner in the relationship will soon be called to Peking for a struggle session.
Here's Scott Ritter again, with Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, from the last few days, I gather, although there's no date on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSkpIq3T-Zc
As to China, from what I can see in the Chilean media, there's a lot of speculation on China meditating in this crisis. If the Chinese are successful in stopping the war and brokering an agreement between the Russians and the Ukrainians, that would increase their international prestige and be another step in their quest to be the number one super-power.
Have a look at the list of GDP by countries on the basis of PPP, which is the best measure of country's economy. On that basis, the Chinese economy is already larger than the US economy. Bearing in mind that China and India are still developing economies with room to grow, imagine a trading bloc that encompasses China, Russia, India, Iran, etc.
List of countries by GDP (PPP)
A nice visual here:
Visualizing the Composition of the World Economy by GDP (PPP)
As a counter to the BRI, we now have this:
Europe unveils its $340 billion answer to China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative
The European Union has unveiled its €300 billion ($340 billion) alternative to China's Belt and Road initiative — an investment program the bloc claims will create "links, not dependencies."
On that subject, I encourage you to watch this short video by Yanis Varoufakis, which is both funny and informative:
China vs EU on debt conditions
I think you are dead-on professor. I cannot see how China could let its own interests decline if Putin escalates (even just chemical weapons). Yes, I agree they'd want to let them become more economically burdened so they can invest, but that can't be at the cost of losing Western support / gaining sanction. Xi and Biden's call seemed to be evidence of this too, with China admitting conflict is of no interest (though their later actions are to be seen). They're not alienating alienating either side, and that may be in the best interest of peace. This is China's chance to become a Capital-T True World Power. This is their chance to be the 'good guys' (and yes, I know that no Nation Sate is good, my point just being good in terms of mediating/influencing peace rather than inciting war). in the It seems odd that part of me is hoping China (or Israel or Turkey) can mediate or impact the course of peace, praying that the angels of their better nature come into form...
This is very troubling. Using his authority under martial law, Putin has unilaterally banned 11 opposition political parties and nationalized all private media companies in the country, combining them into a single outlet called "United News", which he says is necessary to combat misinformation and tell the truth about the war.
Anonymous,
You are of course talking about Zelensky. Maybe I'm missing the irony in your comment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspends-11-political-parties-with-links-to-russia
I link to the news story because there isn't much coverage of these facts in the mainstream "liberal" media which contradict the hegemonic narrative where Zelensky represents Freedom
and liberal enlightenment values.
A more complete explanation of Zelensky's suspension of 11 opposition political parties.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties
For context, folks might want to examine Lincoln's use of martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil war. Part of Russia's strategy in moving on Kiev was to install one of its Quislings as head of a puppet government. If banning those parties was justified or not, wise or not, consequential or not, has yet to be determined.
One of the useful things about opinion pieces is that publications usually reference earlier pieces by the author at the blurb at the bottom. The author also has an earlier opinion piece from a few days before Russia's invasion. It hasn't aged well.
Going macro, one of the under reported yet consequential events of the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union is the influx of Russian Oligarch money into European and American political parties and organizations on the Right (recall Kevin McCarthy's quip to other Republican leaders in 2016: "There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump”)
"Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html
BTW, I missed a name below. Google "Alexander Dugin" and despair.
Just noticed this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/world/europe/putin-cancel-culture-rowling.html
Note how Putin makes use of the ground that Russian support of populist causes prepared.
When Zelensky bans political parties and censors media, he's Lincoln. When Putin does it,
he's Hitler.
s. wallerstein,
There's another interview of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter discussing the Ukraine conflict. Whatever else you might think of him, he is a most engaging raconteur.
He repeatedly disparages the CIA and he tells several "war stories" of his time in the Situation Room and dealing with top US policymakers in this interview. See, for example, what he has to say about Madeleine Albright (@ 59:12).
Another commentator to follow for views from outside the US/Five Eyes mainstream is the Brazilian globe-trotting journalist Pepe Escobar, whose commentary over the past few weeks frequently touches on the kinds of questions Prof Wolff raises. There are several interviews of him on Youtube.
I'm also looking forward to a discussion on the economic fallout from the Ukraine conflict featuring economists Michael Hudson and Richard D. Wolff that's scheduled for 29 March:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RunVU7rFQdE
Hudson has been talking and writing a lot in the past few years about the increasing threats to dollar hegemony, especially from China, where he has faculty appointments and apparently does a lot of consulting. I'm sure he will have a lot to say about Russia's demand that payments from unfriendly countries for its oil & gas be made in rubles, and about the deals China and India have been making with Russia as a result of the hostilities that have developed with the West over Ukraine.
The Newsweek article that is mentioned in the Ritter interview is here:
https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494
s. wallerstein
During the Civil War, Lincoln suppressed the writ of Habeas Corpus despite the fact that he head no Constitutional power to do so.
Eric,
Thanks. Yes, Ritter is an engaging raconteur, as you say, and has a talent for malicious gossip, all of which is welcome in a world where one discovers that there is no one media outlet or expert that one can put one's faith in and that after more than a month of a horrible war, one is still as confused as on day 1. At least Ritter would be a great guy to have a beer with.
David Palmeter,
I'm a bit rusty on my U.S. history and so what on what pretext did Lincoln suspend habeus corpus without any constitutional justification?
As we all know, habeus corpus is a very basic human right. I say that after living through most of the Pinochet dictatorship where habeus corpus was not suspended, but rather not enforced by the courts.
s. wallerstein,
I confess that I don't remember the details, but it had to do with people who were known to support in some way the Confederacy and weaken the Union's war effort.
He justified his action by saying, "Are all the laws but one to to unexecuted and the government itself to go to pieces lest that one be violated?"
s. wallerstein,
Here's a link to a short explanation of why Lincoln suspended the writ:'
https://www.nps.gov/fomc/learn/historyculture/the-writ-of-habeus-corpus.htm
s.w., I would suggest considering context when replying instead of throwing a cheap shot. Every major nation in Europe, the UK, the US, and Israel has had its politics corrupted to some extent by Russian money via the oligarchs. Banning political parties isn't trivial and needs to be considered seriously which may involve information not yet available. An op-ed here and a gadfly there doesn't cut it.
Russia was counting on a quick march to Kiev and installing a Quisling like regime that may well have involved at least some of those parties. Prior to the invasion Russia had been inserting cadres around various areas for wet and other work. There's all sorts of really nasty stuff that didn't exist in 1861 so perhaps extra caution isn't out of order.
In Ex parte Merryman, CJ Taney told Lincoln he couldn't do that. Lincoln pulled a Jackson and ignored him. Congress authorized martial law a while later at Lincoln's request. Lincoln's take was:
“Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.”
Merryman was eventually allowed bail and the treason charges were dropped after the war. There will be plenty of time to evaluate Zelensky's actions after the war.
These may be of interest: Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866); Ex parte Benedict, 3 F. Cas. 159 (N.D.N.Y. 1862); Ex parte Field, 9 F. Cas. 1 (C.C.D. Vt. 1862); Ex parte Vallandingham, 28 F. Cas. 874 (C.C.S.D. Ohio 1863).
As for who to trust the answer is simple - no one. We live in a fallen world, after all.
I wouldn’t dispute that “Every major nation in Europe, the UK, the US, and Israel has had its politics corrupted to some extent by Russian money via the oligarchs.” But why stop with the Russian oligarchs. Why don’t we also acknowledge that those oligarchs from elsewhere, whom we usually refer to using the more anodyne term “billionaires,” are equally detrimental to democratic politics everywhere? It’s also not at all clear to me that the reference to Russian oligarchs differentiates between the Russian government and the obscenely rich Russians. Are the obscenely rich Americans, British, French, Indians, etc. under the control of their governments? Even the obscenely rich Chinese seem to be somewhat independent of their supposed political masters, though the Chinese government seems to be doing better than others in striking the fear of death into some of them. (How’s that for a subtle, indirect return to the opening remarks on the “One Belt, One Road”?)
Anonymous
I think the reason is that the very rich in the West (excluding those who inherited money) have done something to earn it honestly--Bezos developed a superior marketing scheme; Jobs invented all sorts of technological gadgets; Warren Buffett and George Soros are brilliant investors; Michael Jordan was a great athlete. The Russian oligarchs, in contrast, basically stole valuable assets--like steel mills--that previously had been publicly owned.
David Palmeter,
I think I agree with you, but the range of "deserving" very rich is way tinier than you make it appear. Those that you mention happen to be famous. The vast majority are beneficiaries of inheritance, who in some cases expanded on their initial advantage.
By the way, Anonymous's comment above (march 26, 10:20PM) does not address the question of whether U.S. billionaires are more "deserving" than Russian billionaires (why call them "oligarchs"?), but whether the influence of non-Russian billionaires is equally corrupting to democratic politics?
Bezos, Jobs, Buffett, Soros, and Jordan have done something to earn billions "honestly"? Is that a joke?
Another idle thought.
The Cinderella basketball team from my home town of Jersey City, New Jersey, the St. Peter’s University Peacocks, are going up against the North Carolina Tar Heels, from Prof. Wolff’s residence of Chapel Hill, at 5 P.M. today. Go Peacocks!
David,
There is constitutional authority for suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the case of rebellion. Article I, Sec. 9 of the Constitution states: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Pres. Lincoln’s suspension of the writ was affirmed by Congress on March 3, 1863.
Anon, s.w. - In America plutocrats own government, in Russia government owns oligarchs. I really don't get the need to always having to establish some sort of parity. There are analogues to the oligarchs going back to Ivan, one can see it in how the NEP shook out.
There is a simple rule in life: We commit the crimes of which we are able. A high school drop out with a drug problem has certain options. If your last name is Sackler, you have other, better options. Criming is still criming.
The command structure of the Soviet economy guaranteed certain inefficiencies. Those inefficiencies were also opportunities for corruption and that is what happened. Andropov still had the whip hand and that continued after the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin, like Yeltsin was willing to deal. It didn't help that the world was still in thrall to Neo-liberalism. Chile had to suffer the Chicago Boys and Hayek; Russia got the benefit of the Harvard clown show.
If Putin orders Roman Abramovich to Siberia or Pavel Fuks to hire thugs to paint Nazi graffiti in Ukraine, they obey because that's the way the relationship is structured. If one wishes to remain wealthy (or alive for that matter) one follows the rules. That is a Mafia-like structure.
Anon, the problem isn't that Bezos didn't come up with something useful, it's that our ridiculous tax and labor laws allow him to keep more of the profits then is socially useful. A 70% marginal tax rate and repealing Taft-Hartley would still leave him wealthy and his employees better off.
aaall,
I'm not trying to establish some kind of parity. The situations obviously are very different.
What irritates me is when people try to depict the Russians as the eternal villains and "us" as the eternal heroes.
That's coded into the discourse, so to speak: the Russian billionaires are "oligarchs" while "our" billionaires are just super rich, etc.
However, as you say, we commit the crimes we can commit. And the crimes Russian super rich commit are different than those "our" super rich commit.
Come on, David, you must be joking. What’s evident is that the Western and many non-Western billionaires got rich by exploiting the legal frameworks in their own countries (and often enough in other countries too, especially where the rules of the global economic order allowed them to manipulate the location of their corporate enterprises, etc.—as in when ireland made itself a tax haven for the Apples of the world.)
The Russian billionaires, too, exploited their domestic legal system—a post-Soviet system inspired and encouraged by the likes of the Harvard gang—to get obscenely rich. And by the way, while that process was going forward I condemned it as a robbing of the Russian people and what they had very painfully constructed for themselves over the long term. But what the Russian billionaires did to enrich themselves was just as legal as what the Jobs’s, the Gates’s, the Bezos’s etc. etc. did.
In other words, one has to look to the systems put in place to allow the transfer of wealth—and power—from the poor to the rich. And since the Russian system was modelled on the Western one, . . . They’re all organised in such a fashion as to encourage the perception that property is theft. And the whole lot of them deserve a terrible fate.
Finally, for those for whom a denunciation of the awful Trump (someone else who made whatever wealth he possesses in the legitimate Western way) makes welcome almost anything, the following quote embedded within the footnote to
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/thinking-about-the-unthinkable/
“the “more spellbound the media and the less attention paid to the environment…the performance of whiteness worked as a smokescreen…The transfer of resources [and federal energy and environmental offices] to private hands came with little presidential flourish. It proceeded quietly, methodically, indicating ‘some level of preplanning – the ground prepared by [the right-wing] American Legislative Exchange Council, the [ecofascist] Heartland Institute et al.””
aaall, when you say that the Russian government owns its oligarchs it seems to me you're turning the notion of oligarchy upside down. Since I tend to go along with Syme's notion that every government is a system of oligarchy, I'm pretty sure there's an oligarchy centred around Putin, but I doubt it's the big moneyed lot that we hear about--that we can find named if one goes to wikipedia. Similarly, I'm pretty sure there's an oligarchy in the US, in Britain, etc., though I doubt we could readily put a name to most of them, though again it would be easy to find out the names of the obscenely rich in the US, Britain, etc.
"What irritates me is when people try to depict the Russians as the eternal villains and "us" as the eternal heroes."
Which I haven't seen here, as there are no eternal heroes. Imperial Russia was as imperialistic as any Western nation and as or more brutal (excluding Belgium, of course). Moving forward, sometimes liberal democracies do get things right. Unfortunately Russia went from an autocratic empire through a failed revolution and a totalitarian state to a failed democracy and on to a personalist autocracy. Presently it's a declining, corrupt petro-state with serious democraphic problems (made worse by the losses in the current war and the resulting brain drain). Russia has made important contributions to the world's culture but governance isn't one of them.
"The Russian billionaires, too, exploited their domestic legal system..."
Anon. much of the de facto thieving and corruption happened before the dissolution of the Soviet Union (critical mass). There never was a well worked out legal system to deal with privatization. The neo-libs certainly didn't help but the inflection point where things could have turned out well was back in Brezhnev's time.
"Finally, for those for whom a denunciation of the awful Trump (someone else who made whatever wealth he possesses in the legitimate Western way) makes welcome almost anything, the following quote..."
What country do you live in? We have no clear idea of the sources of Trump's wealth beyond his Apprentice salary and licensing fees (no actual numbers). Don jr. owned up to them getting a lot of Russian money back in the aughts and real estate is an excellent vehicle for money laundering, so there's that. He blew through his inheritance and daddy's bailouts in the 1990s. The only bank who would do business with him was Deutsche.
When I wrote Russian government, I meant Putin, of course. "Oligarchs" is more slang in that context. Putin is a capo di tutti capo in what is really a mafia state.
Marco Aurelio Denegri
Your point about inheritance is a valid one. That's why I eliminated in parenthetically in my comment. IIRC, Piketty argues that inheritance is a far greater threat to equality than income differential that lasts only for a generation.
Anonynous,
" Bezos, Jobs, Buffett, Soros, and Jordan have done something to earn billions "honestly"? Is that a joke?"
No, it's not a joke. What evidence have you that they acquired their fortunes dishonestly?
So far as I know, they didn't, and that's the problem. Buffet pointed out that his secretary paid a higher proportion of her income in Federal taxes than he did, and that such a system was ridiculous. He was right. So far as I know, Bezos doesn't lose any sleep over his acquisition of immense wealth, but that doesn't mean that he acquired it dishonestly. Soros, to his credit, bankrolls a large number of good causes.
But back to my initial question: What evidence have you that they acquired their fortunes dishonestly? What's the basis of your accusation?
AA,
I'm aware that Article 2 gives Congress the power to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, but Congress had not done so when Lincoln acted. The President has no Constitutional authority--now or then--to suspend the writ. Lincoln did so anyway, thank God, and Congress wisely ratified it when they got around to meeting again.
s. wallerstein,
I don't think that we in the US have "eternal heroes." Far from it. But Russia is a tragedy, I think. It has produced genius after genius--Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pushkin, Pasternak, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov etc etc. The list is endless. They were first in space. Just about every other Russian, it seems, is a grand master in chess. Think how much better the world would be if Russia, with all that talent, had ever had a decent government. All they've had are Tsars, dictators, a drunk (Yeltsin) and Putin. And the whole world is worse off because of that.
My claim, such as it was, David, was that the Russians acquired their obscene wealth in ways which were just as legitimate as the Ameicans and others you mentioned did. I.e., everyone has been playing by the rules relevant to them. But all the rules allow for exploitation and expropriation. And those who become obscenely wealthy are the ones who have done that most successfully.
As to decent governments, let's not just pick (again) on the Russians. I nowadays look particularly at the British government and find it hard to imagine anything worse when it comes to corruption, to squeezing the poorest, to lying to those they govern.
Anon, perhaps this is hopeless but you really need to look at the actual history of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the role corruption played post Khrushchev.
Re: the UK. You might want to investigate the role Russian money played in Brexit in particular and in the Tory Party. Also, While Boris is a rat bastard, I don't believe he has leveled any council housing lately with artillery fire.
Anonymous
Your assumption seems to be that the Russians, like the Americans in my example, "played by the rules relevant to them." I doubt very much if there were any "rules" in Russia with regard to disposing of public assets, e.g., steel mills. My assumption is that their disposal was totally a matter of power, that Yeltsin and Putin gave them to their friends. I doubt very much if today's oligarchs, as yesterday's Soviet citizens, would have had the capital to buy them in, say, an honest auction.
Any thoughts or comments on the State Department’s walking back Pres. Biden’s statement in Warsaw that Putin must not remain in power?
Another,
It shows that the people running the State Department are basically rational and that's very hopeful. A very favorable sign!!
RPW: "According to what seem to be reliable reports, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is stalled. The Russians are said to have suffered the deaths of 10,000 or more troops and two to three times that many wounded. The Russian losses of tanks and other armored vehicles are apparently huge and continuing. In the past few days, there have been more and more discussions in the media about the possibility of Russia resorting to the use of what are referred to as 'tactical nuclear weapons.'"
Who are your reliable sources?
Retired US Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson served as Chief of Staff to Sec of State Colin Powell. He was deputy director of the Marine War College. He has graduate degrees in international relations and national security; and since retiring from the military, he has taught at GWU and the College of William and Mary.
Col. Wilkerson discusses the Ukraine conflict in a recent interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkN7BIYSK7s
AA, I assume they had to do a pro forma clean up but that should have been it. The coverage is as annoying and embarrassing as the blob freakout over Afghanistan. We're worried about the fee-fees of the guy who poisons and imprisons his opponents? He starts a war for no reason but now he might really... Give me a break.
Sheeple are weird. Back in my college days, one of the jobs I had was getting a series of bomb threats. I got one of the calls and engaged the guy telling him what I thought of him and what he could do with his bomb. There were a few people who were angry with me because now I might have really upset him.
Eric, there is such a thing as opportunity cost. Listen for an hour to something I could read in a few minutes? Really? These videos are a lazy way to communicate and an excellent way to dumb down discourse.
aaall,
Some of us with vision problems prefer videos.
Don't tell me to see a doctor. I've seen several.
It would, I suppose, be interesting, David (@ 7:45 AM), to consider why one system of laws (and the ways they were given effect) might be superior to another. But I doubt this is the place to attempt such an investigation even presuming either of us was equipped to carry it out. But for a start I’d certainly want to consider the role of power. In other words, I don’t see what you say about the Russian system—assuming that it’s accurate (which is surely a whole other matter)—renders it significantly different from the American system. In both systems, or so it seems to me, the rich do what thay can, the poor do what they must.
Anon, sorry if I'm wrong but I have to ask and no offense intended: Are you a bot?
Anonymous,
As Groucho Marx said, "I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better."
It depends on how one can become rich in each of the "legal" systems. Groucho Marx became rich vi his comic skills and ability to make funny movies, along with his talented brothers. As was pointed out above, Jobs, Bezos, Gates acquired their wealth by using their talents of innovation and creativity. If you don't want there to be rich people, then ban the acquisition of wealth, and see what kind of technological innovations you wind up with.
The Russian oligarchs got rich by just being friends with those who wielded power. This method yields no improvements in technology. Which would you prefer?
AA I'm sorry but I think your account of how the Russian filthy rich became filthy rich, as against how the American filthy rich becme filthy rich, just ignores the point I was trying to make, that each of these two systems, the Russian one and the American one, facilitate in their different ways the disproportionate aggregation of wealth in the hands of the few. It's all very well to approve of one system over another, but I'm interested in the ways these systems arose and are sustained--hence, my concern with the role, the biassed role of power in each.
aaall, a bot??? Why on earth would you think that? Since I harbour a great dislike for much of modern electronic technology and even distrust the parts of it I don't dislike, I'd be the last person to even attempy to emulate a bot, much less be one. BUT NO DOUBT YOU'LL BE ABLE TO DISCERN IN MY RESPONSE TO YOUR QUERY, (sorry, I don't know why the Capitals suddenly appeared) something sufficiently robotic to allow you to continue to hold your suspicion.
Anonymous @7:43 p.m.
Nice adaptation of Thucydides in the last line there.
Thanks, LFC. We robots have Thucydides to electrode, and we've even been constructed to throw in the occasional misspelling to help us pass as less sentient humans.
Anonymous,
To avoid such baseless accusations in the future and if you are going to continue commenting regularly (as I hope you will), maybe you could adopt an identifiable pseudonym, even Anonymous X or even Thucydides. We already have someone who comments as Marcel Proust and with time we may even end up with the entire collection of Great Books.
No, Anonymous, you have missed my point. You state, “I'm interested in the ways these systems arose and are sustained--hence, my concern with the role, the biassed role of power in each.” I gave you the answer in the last question of my comment, “Which would you prefer?”
In the movie “Gladiator,” Emperor Commodus tells his sister that he will give the people what they want, and they will love him for it. He gives them gladiatorial combats - and he was right, they love him for it. Until a gladiator emerges who is successful in defeating all his opponents, and they love him for it – he offers them entertainment. As the commander of the gladiatorial school tells Maximus, win the crowd, and you will win your freedom, i.e., win the crowd, and you will have power. There lies your answer. (Who says movies aren’t informative?)
Groucho Marx, Jobs, Bezos, Gates, Musk, Rockefeller, etc., gave the people what they wanted - entertainment; portable phones; great software for their computers; merchandise at an economical price, quickly delivered; fancy, expensive cars; oil to run their cars and machinery. And the people love them for it and continue to love them as long as they give them what they want, and they continue to help them in amassing their wealth, and the power that comes with it.
How did the oligarchs amass their wealth and how do they keep it? They do not offer the people anything they want. Their source of wealth is their friendships with people who exercise autocratic power over the people. If you exercise autocratic power, as Commodus did, you can only stay in power as long as you keep the people who keep you in power happy – not the masses. It is a system based on symbiotic relationships. If those symbiotic relationships break down, then the autocrat loses the favor of his beneficiaries, and they turn on him. That is the purpose of the economic sanctions being imposed on Russia by the U.S. and its allies.
As between the two systems, which has the probability of being more successful over time – the system that consistently gives the people what they want, or the system based on friendships with those in power? I believe the question answers itself.
In keeping with the reference to Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes, a contemporary of Thucydides, in Lysistrata offered a different methodology other than superior military technology (i.e., killer robots) to prevail in war, a concerted decision by the women not to engage in sexual intercourse with the male combatants. (I assume that in Sparta the boycotters were to be men and young boys.) Any chance such a strategy could work today in Russia? Judging from Putin’s rallies, attended by young Russian women smiling broadly and waving the Russian flag, probably not.
Anon, just asking questions. Also, seeming to equate Tories being mean to the poor (there's even a song) with genocide and brutal agression seemed not exactly human.
Also you seem to skim the surface and are hung up on the doomed to fail neo-liberal driven reset after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Things were still needed under Communism but five year plans weren't going to supply them (recall that folks like Suslov lived into the 1980s). The seeds of the petrostate were there.
The oligarchs helped keep the Soviet state working by tap-dancing around the laws. Like the robber barons in the post Civil War United States, they built and supplied and, like those barons, they were totally brutal and corrupt.
As I've noted before it wasn't just Russia that got screwed by neo-liberalism. Note that Biden just proposed a billionaire tax. When most of us were born there was a 90% top marginal rate. That put a limit on accumulation.
As DP pointed out Western nations have things to build on, Russia (and China, for that matter) have little or nothing beyond some flavor of authoritarianism.
Another,
Please don't group the great artist Groucho Marx together with obscenely wealthy billionaries like Jobs, Gates, Bezos and Musk.
I googled Marx's net worth and when he died in 1977, he left an estate of 2.8 million dollars, according to the article approximately 12 million dollars in today's money.
He was wealthy, but not a billionaire.
I recall that the Marxist philosopher Brian Leiter somewhere (I don't recall where) said that after breaking up the great fortunes of the billionaires, he would leave them with 5 million dollars per person, so if Groucho left three heirs, what they inherited would be well within that range.
The problem with the billionaires is not only the way they use their money to influence politics, but also that societies with great degrees of inequality have more social problems. That has been widely studied and books like the Spirit Level have explained that for lay readers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book)
AA
It was classical Athens, not so much Sparta, that institutionalized (at least in the upper classes) the sexual practices to which your parenthetical alludes. A quick search yielded this, arguing that women's status in Sparta was generally higher:
https://www.spartareconsidered.com/sexuality.html
LFC,
Thank you for the interesting reference.
Good god, the responses I get make me wish I was a robot. So I'll bid farewell with a pointer relevnt to a long ago comment i made on contemporary banishment:
https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/28/hedges-on-being-disappeared/
s. wallerstein,
We know from our past comments that we are both great admirers of Groucho Marx and his superbly talented brothers. They made some of the funniest movies ever, incorporating slapstick and social satire.
If we think about this issue as a balance sheet, with the contributions to society on one side, and the adverse effects on society on the other, do the billionaires come out all that much wanting in comparison with Groucho? On the positive side of the balance sheet, Groucho’s entertainment contribution to society is quite high; on the debit side of the balance sheet, he did not exploit the working class or the impoverished, so his overall balance sheet is a net gain.
Compare his balance sheet with that of Steve Jobs. Jobs introduced innovations in mobile phones on which millions of people have become dependent. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that Jobs’ contribution to the right side of the balance sheet ranks higher, perhaps significantly higher, than Groucho’s. On the deficit side, Apple’s factories where the phones are manufactured are accused of exploiting working class people in the Third World. Balancing the deficit side against the social contribution side, does Jobs come out with a lower balance sheet than Groucho? I am not so sure. I do not believe – and I suspect that thousands of the people around the world who use Apple phones – believe that in this comparison Jobs comes out the net loser. The same analysis could be said of Bezos, Gates (who actually is a great philanthropist), and perhaps Musk.
Correction.
The contributions to society should be on the left side of the balance sheet, not the right.
Not to quibble but we may have a category error. Gates, Musk, Jobs, Bezos,etc. are all entrepreneurs who founded and ran their companies. The Marx Brothers were employees at a time when the studios had the contract system and were run by some of the vilest folks who ever were (Harry Cohn, Louis B. Mayer, etc.). What ever they were paid, the Marx Bros. were probably worth more. Also, we should keep in mind that they worked in a different world:
https://www.tax-brackets.org/federaltaxtable/1943
The problem with the super-rich cannot be shown by drawing up a balance sheet of "social value". Neither can one name personal talent, intelligence, commitment or creativity as the cause for the amount of capital generated by these people. The doctor who, in the course of his work, develops a trick with which he can operate on heart patients more safely and publishes this in a specialist journal, perhaps earns nothing except collegial applause. During the same time, Bill Gates may have been sitting in his garage wondering whether or not to buy Excel from a friend. Both throw their ideas, intentionally or not, into the mechanism we call capitalism and hope that the roulette ball will fall on their number. For some, it falls on zero several times.
aaall,
Regardless whether a category mistake, the point you are making is not relevant to my argument. The value of the Marx Brothers movies to society is not measured by what they were paid, for the reasons you identify. Their value to society probably exceeded what they were actually paid, but still probably would not be in the billions of dollars. By contrast, since what Jobs, et al., earned is a reflection of the popularity of the products they marketed (even conceding that many others contributed to bringing those products to market), their monetary worth is a reflection of their worth to society, as perceived by the members of the soicety. The question remains, given that the social value of the Marx Brothers is substantially less than that of the billionaires, but their detrimental effect on society is far less than that of the billionaires, it is still arguably the case that the net social value of each is not as disparate as s. wallerstein has propounded.
A.K.
As I indicated in my response to aaall’s comment, the social value of the physician’s medical innovation is not measured by the physician’s salary. It is measured by its value to society, which is totally different. Granted, the concept of the social value of any person’s life endeavors is subjective and not precisely calculable. And, in fact, it may be incalculable for anyone, as you suggest. But if this is the case, there is no basis whatsoever for saying that the net social value of Jobs, Bezos, etc., given the detrimental social effects of their wealth, puts them in a category which merits derision, vis a’ vis the Marx Brothers or the physician, since it is all subjective and cannot be measured.
dear Another Anonymous
... I agree with you ...
I think that interesting things are said about this whole complex by Martin Gilens (Princeton) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern University):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
It is obvious and almost banal to say that the influence (power) that is possible with wealth is the real problem. What is suggested in the article can be transferred. Brussels, Berlin, London, Paris and Washington are very similar, with few exceptions.
The conclusion in the article is:
..."Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."
First of all, these clowns, Bezos, Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, have many thousand times the fortune of Groucho Marx.
Is popularity necessarily an index of social value? Cigarettes? Junk food? Trump?
The first cell phones were a clear social value: one could make phone calls from anywhere, but smart phones?
Psychologists like Jonathan Haidt have studied the deleterious effects on the younger generation of being connected all day.
I have a smart phone, Huawei, not Apple, but I use it little because in the street it just attracts muggers and anyway, I like to escape from being connected for a while each day: it's saner, I believe.
Woody Allen, a guy we both admire, Another Anonymous, says that he has a smart phone, but he only uses it to make phone calls. That makes sense.
I'm not at all sure that Steve Jobs contributed much to society besides addicting lots of people to his overpriced gadgets.
I think it's important to keep in mind that there are two steps in looking at the Bezos et al wealth. How they acquired it is one thing; how much of it they are allowed to keep or pass on as gifts and legacies to their families is something else. We might not be having this conversation if 1950s tax rates were in force today.
s. wallerstein,
The example which you offer of cigarettes underscores the difference between addictive products which kill people and other products, such as smart phones, which are perhaps addictive, but do not kill people. The ledger sheet of the Duke family, which made its fortune cultivating tobacco and making cigarettes, and used part of its fortune to endow Duke University, a great university with a so-so basketball team, because cigarettes kill people, has a very low social value column, and a very high adverse effect deficit column, so I would agree with you regarding cigarettes, or any other addictive product which medically harms people.
But I disagree with you regarding products which may be psychologically addictive, but are not physically or medically harmful. I have never owned a smart phone – I only own an outdated flip phone - which for an attorney makes me an anachronism. I share your dislike for them. When I worked at a law firm, I used to resent that when we ate lunch together, all the other attorneys immediately pulled out their smart phones and spent our time together leafing through their emails and text messages, and sending same, leaving me to talk to myself. But it is not for me to judge their social value. Did Facebook contribute to the election of Trump? Apparently. But without smart phones the Ukrainian people could not be putting up the resistance to Russian aggression as well as they are. Smart phones in the hands of white supremacists can have an adverse effect on society. But int the hands of freedom fighters, they have an overall positive effect. It is not for me, or you, to judge whether Jobs deserves our respect or derision for their overall net effect on society, and, moreover, it is not possible to determine what that overall net effect is. I believe that comparable arguments can be made for the products marketed by the other billionaires. Amazon’s marketing system has changed the world. And they are now flooding the airwaves with testimonials by their employees about how great their medical benefits are. I have a friend who was trained and made a living as a photographer. He gave up his business, from which he was barely making a living, to work for Amazon and he loves it. The left side of the Amazon ledger is very high, and its right side is not as high as you might expect.
Here's NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt on the damage of addictive smart phone use on teenagers
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/opinion/smartphone-iphone-social-media-isolation.html
s. wallerstein
Many teenagers are addicted to the internet as well, but without it we wouldn't have all of its benefits, including blogs such as this one.
AA
I agree with your observations about smart phones and good manners. Why is it that reading emails or text messages is acceptable at a dinner table but reading a book or the newspaper is not?
AA, I was reacting to actors from two very different dispensations. Folks like Bezos, Gates, and Jobs, being products of our Second Gilded Age, are best compared to First Gilded Age folks like Carnegie and Rockefeller (as well as Fisk and Drew). I believe Rockefeller still wins.
All innovations and technologies will produce externalities when enacted at scale. A healthy polity deals with them.
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