As I wait, impatiently, for someone, anyone, to indict Trump for something, anything, I find myself depressed by the state of the world. A massive earthquake in Turkey kills more than 40,000 people; the poisonous right wing Israeli government destroys what little faith I ever had in the experiment called Israel; all over the world people, mostly but not entirely men, find that more than anything else they want to kill one another. I try to make a difference by giving money to political campaigns –it is really all I can do – but I am well aware that it is no more than a gesture.
While I sit at my desk in a funk, let me recall for a moment
for myself and for you the origin of the notion “middle-class.” Not much of
importance turns on the matter, but it is interesting and diverts me.
The modern notion of class, as opposed to status or estate,
comes from the work of the early political economists – Smith and Ricardo, most
notably. Smith divided the people of England into three groups defined by their
relationship to the processes of production of commodities. The first group
consisted of those who controled the land on which food was grown. The second
group consisted of those who did the labor either in the fields or in the new
factories beginning to appear in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries. The third group consisted of those who used their private funds to
rent the land, hire the labor, and buy the raw materials and machinery needed
for production. Land, Labor, Capital, the landed aristocracy, the laboring
class, the entrepreneurial class.
This functional analysis was an extremely powerful tool and
gave rise to the new discipline of Political Economy. One of the important
implications of this mode of analysis was that it made transparently clear that
the interests of the three classes were in opposition to one another, since in
any year what went to one class as rents or wages or profits necessarily came
out of what was available to the other classes. So class conflict was built
into the structure of the analysis of the classical political economists and
whatever their limitations in mathematical sophistication might have been, this
fact gave what they wrote enormous analytical and political power.
At about the end of the 19th century and the
beginning of the 20th century, a number of brilliant social
theorists, Max Weber most notable among them, looked at the now significantly
developed capitalist world and concluded that something more than this functional
analysis was required in order to capture the complexity of what they observed,
and so in place of the old categories of Land, Labor, and Capital they put
forward a more complicated multidimensional analysis of capitalist society in
terms of what they called socioeconomic status. It was from this work that
there came the classification of the modern capitalist society into Lower
Class, Middle Class and Upper Class segments, and then into Lower Middle Class,
Upper Middle-Class, and other fragments of the society.
(I am reminded of the delightful old book, whose title and
author I cannot now recall, which detailed in amusing fashion the differences
in England between the lower, the middle, and the upper classes. For example,
when two couples went out for the evening in a car, if they were working-class
couples, the two husbands sat in the front seats while the two wives sat in the
back seats; if they were middle-class couples, one couple sat in front and the
other couple sat in the rear; while if they were upper-class couples, the owner
of the car sat with the other man’s wife in front and his wife sat in back with the
other man.)
This new sociological reanalysis had the great virtue of
capturing differences in attitudes, life chances, and social and regional
groupings that were missed by the older classification of classical political
economy into Land, Labor, and Capital. But
it forfeited the powerful insight of the older mode of analysis that there were
structural unavoidable conflicts of interest that lay at the foundation of the
society.
I think of this when I hear Biden claim that a proposal for
tax reform designed to increase taxes only on those households with annual
income of more than $400,000 a year is a proposal that defends the interests of
“the middle class.”
All of which confirms my earlier stated thesis that, in human affairs, evil, like entropy prevailing over order, ultimately prevails over “good.” Tolstoy, and, for that matter, Dr. King, were mistaken.
ReplyDeleteA necessary post-script:
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean that one should not fight for “the good,” and decide on which side one is willing to fight on? No, it just means one should not get one’s hope up, and appreciate that, in the expanse of time, evil is going to prevail. It is still better to try to rule in heaven, even if the effort is ultimately futile, then to rule in hell.
My apologies to LFC:
ReplyDelete"than to rule in hell."
The big question: what classes will exist in the new world order that is shaping up?
ReplyDeleteI'd bet that Weber's formulation applies less now than twenty years ago
My amateur musings on Israel
ReplyDelete1) Israel represents a rebellion against the Rabbis as much as against the Diaspora
2) The Rabbis, both the traditional Haredi and the Religious Zionists, coopted this Revolution, for reactionary ends
3) The traditional Haredi care only about Torah study and raising big families
4) The National Religious interpret Zionism as the work of God and feel justified to takeover Israel and oppress the Palestinians
5) Both groups represent a normalizing of Israel, achieved through demographics and zealotry
6) Israel has no raison d etre except protecting Jewish life which translates into Jewish power
7) In the early years Israel could ally herself with progressive forces in the wide world, that do not exist anymore
8) Israel is no different than Ancient Judea or Israel- it is an ethonationalist entity based on force
9) Israel is not Israel anymore
10) It must change into something better or cease to exist
Being of British working-class origin, I find the way the terms “lower class” and “working class” are intermingled in the original post something of a call to arms. I have long recognised that “lower class” is a fairly common American usage—perhaps because, where so many refer to themselves as “middle class” no matter where they fall in the socio-eonomic scheme of things, the “lower class” are always other people. But where and when I grew up, it would never have occurred to anyone I knew to refer to themselves or their friends and neighbours as “lower class” or as “middle class.”
ReplyDeleteOn Israel, so many of my friends voice the same sadness and disconnection. But I don’t hear many of them referring to the fact that many Palestinians, whether citizens of Israel or in the occupied territories, are a bit bemused to discover that Israel’s democratic status is only now becoming problematical.
Just saying.
Howard,
ReplyDeleteIf Israel ceases to exist, what do you propose to do with the Jews who live there?
I can't see them integrating into a Palestinian state; there's too much hatred on both sides and rather complex cultural differences.
So should we exacuate all the Jews from what is now Israel, seeing it as a failed colonial experiment, much as the French exacuated all the French colonists from Algeria when it became independent?
I guess we could bring them to the U.S. or Canada or Australia. With the exception of the ultra Orthodox, they are a highly educated, technically advanced human group, who
would be an asset in any society.
Just curious...
I mean as a political entity- not the people themselves
ReplyDeleteI think the Haredi should have their citizenship revoked- the curse of Cain should be upon them. They punish compassion.
ReplyDeleteThe settlers ought to have Judea and Samaria as an independent fiefdom. Withdraw Tsahal and the Magav from the territories.
Let them bring ruination on their own asses, rather than on ours.
Bibi is Haman, during Purim and Pharaoh, during Passover and Antiochus, during Hannukah- he ought to beg for forgiveness during Yom Kippur on his knees trembling on the hot Jerusalem Stone.
He is a criminal and the Religious are hijacking something noble.
If they blow Israel, they blow their future to the four corners of the earth
Maybe not so off your topic, Howard.
ReplyDeleteLast weekend I listened to a lecture about Eva Illouz, an Israeli sociologist who studies the impact of capitalism on the emotions and sexuality. I was fascinated and ordered one of her books online, which will arrive in a few weeks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Illouz
I mention Illouz just to show those who have doubts about the positive side of Israel that there are tendencies within Israeli societies which lead in the world in progressive thought.
I think the book you remember is Paul Fussell, Class.
ReplyDeleteI do not have much time to devote to the Israel issue right now. I am in the process of writing a major brief which is due in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, I did not want the comments regarding Israel to go without a response. Those who have read my comments on this matter in the past know that my position, which has evolved over several decades, are generally in support of Israel, which was not always the case. I was raised in a Conservative Jewish home, where my mother kept kosher. My parents were supporters of Israel, but not zealots, but it was easier to support Israel during the 1950s and 1960s than it is today. Like many rebellious college students, I became far less observant as a college undergraduate, and by the time I became an attorney I was highly critical of Israel, to the point that my older sister and I had screaming arguments over the telephone and she threatened never to speak to me again (a threat she has not been able to keep). On Yom Kippur in 1981, my mother, suspecting I had become an atheistic reprobate, called my law office and was extremely distressed when I answered the phone. My views regarding both Judaism and Israel have evolved over time and become more moderate – getting married (my wife is not Jewish, and actually is the daughter of German immigrants who survived WWII) and having a child can have such an effect on one.
ReplyDeleteI was recently discussing Israeli politics with a Jewish friend of mine who is both very knowledgeable generally and a very good attorney. He suggested that I read a recently published book about Israel by an Israeli actress/activist, Noa Tishby, titled “Israel – A Simple Guide To The Most Misunderstood Country On Earth.” On his recommendation, I ordered two copies of the book (one for my daughter) from Amazon. They just arrived this afternoon. Scanning through the book, I came across this passage (pp. 173-174):
“Here is a story of an Israeli named George Karra. He received hi law degree from Tel Aviv University and, upon graduation, opened his own firm and later became a judge. In 2011, he was the presiding judge who sentenced a former Israeli president to jail. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that in his opinion this conviction was one of the things that sparked the Arab Spring. Neighboring Arab citizens saw how in Israel even the highest members of society pay a price when the rule of law is properly practiced. Friedman wrote that ‘an Israeli court recently convicted Israel’s former President.’ What he didn’t mention was that George Karra is an Arab Israeli citizen. The honorable Karra now serves as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel.
. . .
(Continued)
“Protestors like to yell into their bullhorns that Israel is an apartheid state, just like South Africa. This idea is complete bunk.
ReplyDelete“In many circles, apartheid is understood to mean a minority ruling over a majority for the benefits of the minority population, with legal segregation and discriminatory laws. Let’s start with the numbers. At the end of 2020, Israel, as Jewish democratic state, had a total of 9,246,000 people. This broke down into 74 percent Jews, 21 percent Arabs, and 5 percent self-defining as Other – all having equal rights. In comparison, in 1990, South Africa, run by a white government, had around 76 percent blacks and 13 percent whites – with barely any rights for blacks at all. Only one of these cases shows a minority controlling a majority.
“… Now that we can agree that Israel isn’t a minority subjugating a majority, let’s ask how that majority uses its power. Pretty well, actually. The simple fact is this: true to the country’s Declaration of Independence, all Arab Israelis vote and get elected to the Israeli parliament. In fact, the participation of Arab Israelis in the Israeli government started on day one. In the first Israeli elections, which took place in January 1949, three Arab Israelis – Amin-Salim Jarjor, Seif el-Din el Zoubi, and Tawfik Toubi – were elected as members of the first Israeli legislative body, the parliament known as the Knesset. They have been a part of the political fabric in Israel ever since, even when feathers get ruffled.
“In 2014, Knesset member Ms. Haneen Zoabi defended the kidnapping of there Israeli teenage boys and claimed that the Israeli military were a murderous group worse than ISIS (all before it was discovered that these three boys were brutally murdered by members of Hamas). In 2015 Knesset member Ms. Heba Yazbak posted her support online for Samir Kuntar (a terrorist who killed, among others, a father and his four-year-old daughter, Einat) and Dalal Mughrabi (a terrorist responsible for killing thirty-eight Israelis, among them thirteen children). Some of her Knesset colleagues tried to prevent Ms. Yazbak from running in the 2020 Israeli elections; however, their petition was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. The court concluded that while her posts were an abomination, she was protected by her right to freedom of speech. {Even though Israel does not have a Constitution, and does not have a First Amendment protecting freedom of speech.] Just imagine a [U.S.] House or Senate member expressing support for terrorist attacks against American citizens or calling all US military soldiers murderers. Ms. Yazbak did get elected and is currently serving as a Knesset member. As resentful as on may feel about this (and I do), This is what democracy looks like.” (footnotes omitted)
Some may take issue with the author’s assertion that Arab Israelis enjoy equal rights in all specifics with Jewish Israelis, but even such qualifications would not convert Israel from a democracy to an apartheid state. The same can be said regarding minority rights here in the United States, but this would not invalidate the U.S. as qualifying as a representative democracy, with flaws.
I am looking forward to reading the rest of Ms. Tishby’s book after I complete writing this brief.
I think that when people refer to Israel as "an apartheid state" they mainly have in mind the government's horrible treatment of the Palestinian non-citizens who are under Israeli dominance and under instant violent harassment by the illegal Orthodox settlers.
ReplyDeleteIt simply does not seem to be the case that "apartheid" has anything to do with the proportions of those who do the dominating and those who are dominated. That's just a self-serving way of tryint to evade the issue, as would be focussing on the color of those being dominated.
ReplyDeleteapartheid
ə-pärt′hīt″, -hāt″
noun
An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
The condition of being separated from others; segregation.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
Joe often gives the example of a married teacher and firefighter who will together earn ~$150 - 175K (if two CHP cadets meet in class and decide to marry, that's over $200K out of the gate). Making the cutoff ~$200K would be too close to current earnings and would push not a few into that higher bracket. ~2X for those and other well paid blue collar/union jobs makes for a safe buffer.
ReplyDelete"... who would be an asset in any society."
Just as making Guatemala safe for United Fruit and Iran safe for BP continues to pay dividends, so does turning back the St. Louis.
Noa Tishby can hardly be taken to be an uncommitted, neutral commentator on this matter. To quote from her wikipedia entry:
ReplyDelete"Tishby has been an activist advocating for Israel since at least 2011.[2] That year she founded Act for Israel, an online pro-Israel advocacy organization. Tishby created the group to help correct misinformation about Israel's history, culture, and governmental policies.[3][18] Specifically, Tishby has harshly criticized the BDS movement, referring to the principles behind its cause as "misinformation, disinformation, manipulation, elimination of history and flat-out lies."[2] She has also called Amnesty International's characterization of Israel as an apartheid state to be "disgraceful".[19]"
https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid
ReplyDeletehttps://jewishcurrents.org/the-meaning-of-apartheid
Anonymous,
ReplyDeletePlease, who qualifies as an "uncommitted neutral commentator" on any political iseue, particularly Israel You??
Marc,
ReplyDeleteNo one is an uncommitted neutral commentator but the woman in question appears to be a committed full-time pro-Israel activist.
There are organizations like Amnesty International which make great efforts to be neutral and/or impartial. They may not succeed 100%, but they try.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should read the book before you condemn her.
Maybe I will some day. I see that it's been translated into Spanish and is readily available online.
ReplyDeletere: the monetary offset
ReplyDeleteFor the 247th time, the fiscal multiplier is roughly zero
Keynesian economists have never been able to accept my assertion that the fiscal multiplier is roughly zero because the Fed steers the (nominal) economy. There’s a mental block on their part (or on my part from their perspective) that prevents us from seeing eye to eye on the issue...
—Scott Sumner
Because the rich have a low marginal propensity to consume, Biden's taxes on those making over $400,000 will have little effect on reducing their consumption. The extra spending will be inflationary, and the Fed will respond with interest rates going higher still. These higher interest payments are regressive and a stealth tax on the poor. The extra interest payments mean the rich get back in investment income what is taken away from them in taxes. As such, it is the poor who bear the burden of Biden's spending.
No, Marc, I do not qualify as an uncommitted neutral commentator on any political topic. And I would never claim such a thing for myself. My point actually was to try to emphasise that very same point with respect to the person you quoted. And, of course, the same point applies to you as well as to me and to countless others.
ReplyDeleteI welcome s.w.'s comment, however, that we should try to draw some distinction between outright propagandists and those who struggle--and are all too often doomed to fail--to be as disinterested and objective as possible. Since you evidently attend closely to this particular topic, you are surely aware that such distinctions exist. So the question might then be, why quote someone whose allegiances are worn on her sleeve (as her institutional creations and political affiliations make clear, even without reading her book)? Why not at least also attend to Amnesty International, or to the other Jewish voices in Jewish Currents (a publication, it seems, of a younger generation of American Jews), or many another place?
s. wallerstein and Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI have read comments by both of you in the past (or at least someone else using the “Anonymous” pseudonym) expressing the unreliability of the media and other journalistic sources on such topics as the Ukrainian-Russian conflict and others. On what basis do you give Amnesty International 100% of your imprimatur? On what basis does it pass your litmus test, because it has the word “amnesty” in its title. On what basis do you conclude that AI is so above the fray that it would not slant facts in favor of a particular political bias? It all depends on whose ox is getting gore, and everyone has an ox they want gored. My recent litigation experiences have taught me to trust no one – not even federal judges who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law – as they proceed to cherry pick facts and twist case law rulings to insure the outcome that they decided – either consciously or unconsciously - at the very beginning lawsuit. Why should I, or you, give a higher degree of credibility to Amnesty International than to Noa Tishby?
I follow what Amnesty has to say about Chile and they lean over backwards to be balanced.
ReplyDeleteI just listened to the Chilean director of Amnesty, Rodrigo Bustos, an attorney, being interviewed the other day.
I know his mother: she was my dentist for many years and is a very committed and very leftwing activist. His father, recently deceased, was too.
So I was interested in observing what Bustos had to say about recent human rights violations in Chile and those in Peru, the subject of the interview and I could see that, in spite of his leftwing upbringing, Bustos was capable of seeing both sides or many sides of often complex situations. That speaks well of him and of Amnesty.
I've always been impressed by how hard Amnesty strives to for "objectivity", admittedly an ideal and impossible goal.
Marc, oh, Marc, You seem inclined to read combatively rather than in a spirit of mutual striving towards enlightenment and understanding. You even try to link me, any substantive evidence aside (and there is none) to other arguments. What's the point? Take another look at what I wrote at 5:16 PM.
ReplyDeleteWho on earth said Amnesty International was above the fray, as you put it? 'Twasn't me. In fact, my words were intended to convey that, known propagandists aside, we even have to read the analyses and claims of those seeking to be objective with some attention to the possibility that they have lapsed. That's giving AI "100% of [my] imprimatur"??????? Come on, be reasonable.
As to preferring AI as possibly--POSSIBLY !!!--deserving more benefit of the doubt than Tishby, just consider from whence each of them comes intellectually and politically.
s. wallerstein @ March 1, 2023 at 12:59 PM:
ReplyDeleteAli Abunimah tweeted on this today. (Some of these tweets are in response to others' comments. See his feed for the full context, if you like):
Obviously I have not said it often enough, so I will make sure to do so more often: "Israel" has no "right to exist." It's an illegal and illegitimate apartheid settler-colony and it is headed to join its once great friend apartheid South Africa in the garbage can of history.
Jews lived in Palestine before the Zionist invasion and they can remain there after the racist settler-colony is gone, just like whites in South Africa. But they cannot be colonial rulers and masters as they are now.
_____
Jews have "national homelands." For Canadian Jews it's Canada. For American Jews it's America. For Belgian Jews it's Belgium. Jews can even create a new one if they like. Doesn't bother me. But not in someone else's land on the ruins of their homes.
_____
If Jews deserve a homeland because of the Holocaust, as Zionists always argue, then the appropriate place for it would be a large part of Germany. What does it have to do with us?