Imagined Property - thoughts from out there

'my blog'... thoughts from out here...

I like writing.  I write a lot.  Nearly every day I write something.  And for the last year I have written 'my blog'.   My aim is to write something, hopefully something worth reading, once a week.

My blog will be simply my thoughts - in a way it will be like a diary. Although there is a difference between blog and a diary.  A blog is 'on line'.  This means that what is written is recorded and the words remain on record for as long as the internet remains 'on line'.   And anyone can read it... but likely given few if anyone will read it...

So why?  Why write a blog that no one reads?  Writing with an audience, even a pretend audience, is good practice.  There are certain standards:  the writing (spelling / grammar) should be good enough to allow anyone who reads English to read easily; the comments should be political in the sense of 'not gossip' - about ideas rather than people; the thoughts should be comfortably public (allowing the reader to task issue with the idea). 

Here I could launch myself into a discussion of standards - what makes a good standard etc.  I could then discuss how standards are best revised etc.  But for me, blogging is a discipline - the structured practice of writing.

Disciplined writing has long been the reserve of the well born - Michel de Montaigne and in a more contemporary form, Alain de Botton come to mind as keen examples of what I have in mind... Still blogging allows the petty bourgeois (members of the great mass of the middle class) to pretend an audience and thus write with intention.  Write well and write often - what more should be expected of an author?  

So ok - readers?  What would readers add to the writing?  Would what was written be better or worse for having been read?   And so I intend to write.  My subjects will be varied - bicycles, feminism, travel, socialism - punditry - but at the heart of all this is creative activity.  To use Hannah Arendts' word, my blog will be about 'action'.

Feminism - remembering

Quebec license plates read "Je m'souviens".   Yes, je me souviens but je n'ai rien appris...

Listening to Judy Erola and Monique Begin on "The House" last Saturday was an act of remembering.  They remember.  But those who remember are often themselves forgotten.  Remembering is so selective.  I remember Begin as MInister of Health.  But I don't remember Erola.  And then I remember the energy and anger of the Charter discussions.  History was on our side.  Women long denied would no longer be ignored... so on and so forth.  

Women today enjoy the 'liberation' we fought to hard for but they also have the burden made worse because they don't remember - if they were ever told.  Young women don't remember that the world is not welcoming.  They don't know that their worldly success is like  - to use that worn expression, like lipstick on a pig - remarkable and not long from bacon.  

Women today have opportunities for work outside the home which did not exist thirty years earlier.  BUT... as Erola (or Begin) pointed out, women today believe, oh yes they know!, that any career success is personal - a testimony to their individual talents, energy and hard work .. and thus they accept any failure as personal.  Sadly, few young women understand that success, like failure, is social.  I doubt many have bothered trying to understand what is meant by the slogan "The Personal is the Political".  

A friend said that we feminists of the 1970's and '80's do not remember the Suffragettes ...  while that may or may not be true, two wrongs would not make it right - or easy.  Women today might by remembering find their successes and failures easier to understand and to accept...

Travels with myself

It has been almost a month since I last posted anything.  In that month I travelled from Auckland through Vancouver to Copenhagen (Helsingor) and back.  It is strange to travel with such ease...  I admit that I found the trip exhausting.  The long flights despite the in-flight entertainment and sleeping pills were tedious (to say the least).  But it was so easy to get from one end of the world to the other.  I just paid my money and put my mind into neutral.

And I arrived at a place where my ancestors surely began their travels - but thousands of years ago.  I had not been in Scandinavia for 30 years.  When I was last there, I felt that I 'looked local' and assumed that it was because I was young and the young dressed the same no matter where they were in the western world. This time I am not so young and again I blended in ...  

My ancestors left - likely first for England or maybe Scotland and then, as the story is told, for Ireland before leaving for Canada eventually after hundreds of years ending up in the West.  I suspect their travels were much harder both physically and mentally - the journeys were long and one way.  How many hours or days were spent in regret for the land and people left behind?  How many days were spent in anticipation of the New World which awaited them?

I wonder if I would understand these my ancestors if I was ever to meet them - understand why they left and what they found...  and would they understand me, how I too feel when it takes hours rather than years to travel away and back again.  

Feminism - the metaphor?

What the world needs is a teaspoon of wisdom, a cup of love and an ocean of patience …

The historical image of feminism is that of waves crashing on a beach.  The first wave splashed against the shores of western society in the early part of the 19^th century.  Then the prize was legal equality – the right to own property independently of brothers, fathers and husbands, the right to vote and the recognition of a role for women in public, especially in what is now defined as civil society.  The battle was hard fought but by the middle of the century women had achieved some form of legal equality in Western nations (the last province to grant women the vote was Quebec in 1949).  Women were recognized as persons with status at law equal to men and corporations.  The gains for women were significant, but as the tide went out during the Great Depression and the Second World War, women still did not have social or economic equality with men. 

The second wave began gathering strength after the Second World War.  When the boys came home, women were driven back to the home.  With few exceptions, women were excluded from most trades and professions.  Women were allowed to work, but only until they married.  Women had few occupational choices and little economic freedom.  Throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s increasing numbers of women challenged the explicit and implicit rules which kept them dependent on men.  The Second Wave of Feminism gave momentum.  By the late 1960’s Women’s Liberation Movement was born.  In the 1970’s the movement was on a roll.  In 1975 the UN observed the International Women's Year and held the first world conference on women in Mexico City.  A Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women was negotiated and adopted in 1979.  Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s more and more women took on traditionally male roles.  Women read the news and were elected to office.  Women became doctors, lawyers and even engineers.  There were women judges and even women bankers.  By the mid 1980’s the second wave of feminism was on a roll and it seemed to some, that nothing could stop it.  However, at some point a backlash began.  Part of the problem was that it was hard to define what was meant by women’s liberation.  Legal equality could be achieved by changing words in a statute, but how does one achieve social and economic equality.  But worse, the problem was that no one could agree on what equality would look like.  New concepts such as employment equity helped, but left the many questions unanswered. 

In the 1990’s the Women’s Liberation Movement faded away.  Women’s lib became old fashioned and, for some, slightly embarrassing.  The UN held more conferences on the status of women, Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995).  But the movement was essentially dead.  The focus was no longer on equality or equal rights, but on gender roles.  Feminism itself seemed a spent force.  Many of the earlier demands made by women were now variously addressed as part of women’s issues.  The struggle for women’s rights became part of the struggle to end to all forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of gender.  Women’s rights were grouped with the rights of the aged and physically and mentally disabled.  This rights campaign was also plagued by the back lash against “political correctness”.  In some circles the word ‘feminism’ became increasingly pejorative.  Only a woman over 50 would describe herself as a feminist.  Women’s demands became muted.  Of course, many people believed that women had achieved ‘equality’.  Women born during the 1970’s and later were as likely as not to believe that the struggle for their liberation was over and won.  Any remaining discrepancies in the treatment of men and women or even any discrimination on the basis of gender was accepted as part of the economic and cultural landscape – simply the way things were.

Standing on a beach, it is easy to understand why the metaphor is so compelling.  The waves roll constantly on, charging at the beach with enormous and relentless power only to break and then fade away.  The desire for change can be seen as welling deep in the ocean only to explode in each wave as it breaks upon the shore.  Throughout the Twentieth Century thousands of women demanded not simply equality with men, but respect as women.  And they accomplished a lot.  Today Western society is remarkable for the status of its women.  Women of the first and second waves of feminism achieved much of what they thought they wanted.  Things are different these days.  But the revolution many hoped to see never quite happened.  Maybe somewhere out there in the deep ocean forces are again gathering to make another assault on the beach.  There is as yet no third wave and there may never be one – it is after all simply a metaphor. 

Feminism defined - thinking through the label...

If we return to basics, we return to language.  When we do and if we are careful, we can see the magic in words.  I say or write 'something' - it is but noise or marks on a page but when you hear or see these words, you know what I am thinking?   One word may not suffice - you may need to hear the story or see my face, lived in my house to understand, or know me in order to understand what I mean - and even then you might not know what I am thinking.

The idea that 'words', especially important words reflect more than a thing, that they represent an idea, underlies my sense that some words are concepts. When we attempt to define the word as 'only' a word, ignoring that the concept hidden in the word will not lie still, it is as if we are gardening with cut flowers or farming with stuffed animals.  Once the words is captured by a definition, the concept is dead.  The only life left in the word is that hidden in the words used to define... like feminism as the "advocacy of woman's rights".  Ok - we have killed 'feminism' - lets move on to the next word which needs to be domesticated,  "what is advocacy?"

I remember reading one time that words were invented as spaces between sounds in order to make reading easier.  The first 'books' were just lines of letters until someone had the idea to put a space between words to reflect the pause people make from time to time as they talk.  Then someone else had the idea of punctuation and paragraphing.  And then, of course, some people studied language and tried to make up 'rules' - for the words (as in spelling and pronunciation) and then for sentences (as in syntax and grammar).  All this took hundreds of years - the result today is a sense that language is the result of words (the building blocks) put together according to grammatical rules (as the structure or system)... I don't know if this is true but it seems too neat.  Words are rarely solid enough to be good building blocks and, as far as grammar goes, does anyone who speaks a language well, know the rules?  I am sure that linguists and other (Chomsky anyone?) know a lot more about this than I do, but my point here is to challenge the sense that words, in particular words like 'feminism' can be defined.  

Some words can only be described as concepts.  Concepts are capable of being definition but the definition may only made sense as part of an ongoing conversation.  The definition may only satisfy for one moment - a given context.  Like Heraclitus' river, the concept has meaning but this meaning is not fixed.  This makes concepts, at least as I am trying to define them, very tricky things.  Of course, most people can understand that the world is in constant flux.   It makes sense to think that things are constantly changing etc but it is not easy to accept that nothing endures... not even the 'self'.   People are constantly seeking refuge, they / we want the solidity of certainty.  We want to know what we know and know that what we know today is what will be known tomorrow.  How then can we accept that the building blocks, the words, with which we build our thoughts are ephemeral?

Well.   Words like 'feminism' can only be defined as concepts and as concepts, they need to be imagined as but as explained.  And here, I introduce my triangle...  my semiotic trilogy, triptych - things (the object), process (the series of events) and the self - which linger around concepts like feminism.  As a thing feminism is very hard to describe.  This difficulty I would suggest relate to the idea of feminism as the property or attribute which immediately turns attention to a search for substance which, in effect, shifts attention to feminism as the process (or method as in the case of feminism) and the self (or the feminist as again in the case of feminism).  Imagining feminism as this triptych reveals the challenge presented by feminism lies as much in the absence of any 'object' as much as in the tendency to conflate the idea of feminism with the person or self who is identified as a feminist.  This tendency might also explain why feminists might want to describe feminism as an approach or strategy or as method - they do not want the definition to be simply about themselves...  

So...  what is needed is strategy.  In order to talk about feminism, there is a need that the word is capable of shared meaning.  But this meaning depends so much on context.  What I am suggesting is that anyone seeking to discuss feminism be aware that the discussion is always going to be a personal discussion - the self cannot leave the concept.  As feminist's have long suggested, he personal is the political.  Secondly, a focus on feminism as a process or methodology needs to be part of but cannot be all of the discussion.  This does not suggest that feminism as process is not key to the debate - the idea of feminism as consensus, as a gentle and  respectful conversation - informs the idea of a feminist as a wise and kind humanist.  The process excludes the possibility of a negative definition of feminists - such as women who hate men.  The concept allows feminism to mean the advocacy of women's rights to be understood as feminists as advocates of human possibilities.  

Feminism defined?

feminism |ˈfeməˌnizəm| noun  "the advocacy of women's rights

on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."

The art of definition is the art of understanding the movement of words - through time and social context.   To define a word is to capture it - to fix the word to a point in time or place in order to study the word.  The trick is to contain the word without destroying its meaning.

The definition of feminism offered by my Mac dictionary seems straight forward but like many definitions moves the question from the one word, 'feminism', to others...  first, what does advocacy mean?   

Advocacy is, for many people, very similar to proselytizing - the attempt to convert someone's beliefs or opinions.  To define feminism as advocacy is to attribute certain qualities - beliefs even faith, to those who call themselves feminists.  While it sounds easy to say that feminists are simply advocating for women's rights, the problem is that women's rights are not themselves simple and the concept of "equality to men" is a similarly problematic.  The second problem with defining feminism as the advocacy of women's rights lies with the concept of rights.  Everyone talks about 'rights' but very very few have any idea what they are.  Jeremy Bentham was right...

The failure of the so called rights discourse is most evident when it comes to women's rights.  For some, the advocacy of women's rights is seen as the denigration of men's rights.  And it is a short step from seeing promotion of women's rights as as anti-male.... in some benighted quarters feminism has even become equated with 'lesbianism'.  In her book Backlash Susan Faludin offers some insights into what feminists have faced in trying to put a positive spin on the word.  Young women trying to enjoy the fruits of feminism - such as working outside the home for a living wage - refuse to call themselves 'feminist'.  And when they marry, they continue to work as doctors or lawyers, something denied to their grandmothers, but take their husband's family name as their own...  

While there is a need for advocacy, 'feminism' is more than advocacy.  And to define feminism as advocacy for women's right is like socialism as advocacy for workers' rights - the definition sets up the other, the opposition (which in the case of feminism is men and in the case of socialism is the employer etc).   Feminism, arguably, begins with the acknowledgement of the distinction between physiological sex and gender and an understanding of gender as a socially constructed concept. The study of feminism thus begins with the assumption that women (the gender) are different from men (again the gender).  This assumption of difference allows for the study and comparison of the relative social status, wealth, health and so on of women with that of men and then further inquiry into the reasons for this difference and speculation as to whether such differences should exist. Feminism could be the dispassionate study of the status of women...

More soon...

Beyond the F word?

Kim Sawchuk's article "Beyond the F-word: A Constellation of Feminist Concepts for Media Researchers" (which I will try to find on line for reference) prompted me to think once more about feminism.

I don't think that I ever stopped thinking about feminism but somewhere around 1990 or maybe 1993 I stopped thinking that feminism as an academic subject matter.  Throughout the 1980's I tried to read everything that I could find on the subject - or at least I bought every book that I could find.  And I did try to read most of them.  And then I moved on.   Susan Faludin was right about the backlash but that was not the reason I stopped reading about feminism - perhaps because I felt I knew enough.

Sawchuk's article was a good way back.  Clearly over the last twenty years a lot of thinking and writing has gone on.  Still I recognized many of the names she mentioned and felt a certain familiarity with the style. The article was well written, easy to read and well argued.  But... and the but is about the conclusion, "Feminist Futures".   Her conclusion:

Doing feminism is, as I have  been suggesting, a recognition and analysis of existing power differences and a dynamic galvanizing force of productive and creative action that promotes individual and collective empowerment, rather than power as domination over others...  Feminism is not simply an extraneous add-on to the media agenda, but is intrinsic to the study of communication...  It allows us to see and identify with a critical eye, gender injustices.  However, even more, it allows us to imagine other possibilities for engaging in social relations with each other and the possibility to do research that is both different and makes a difference. 

(references omitted)

Ok.  But what does this mean?  Is feminism a methodology which puts gender (and thus 'women') at the top of a list of concerns?   And if so, how is this priority justified?   I mean why should there be any greater concern for gender injustices as opposed to ethnic injustice or even economic injustice?  And what is injustice anyway?  

And what does this mean "in practice"?  What does feminism mean when I or someone else says that they are a feminist?  When someone says that they are a Christian or a liberal, they are usually claiming a certain collection (or even constellation) of beliefs.  Of course, there are many different types of Christians and, for that matter, liberals but for both I would argue that there are one or two beliefs that define them.  For a Christian arguably the core requirement is a belief in the existence of a supernatural being, God, and his 'son' Jesus Christ.   For a liberal, this might be a belief in the existence of the individual and legal rights as defining of that individuality.  

Are there any beliefs which define feminism?  How about the oppression of women?   And here a simple definition of oppression is simply treated poorly or unfairly. Can anyone who believes that women are oppressed in our society be a feminist?

1) Images of the imagined.

I write a lot about beginning again, in part because I am always stopping for some reason or another.  I began blogging with the intention of setting out my theory of intellectual property.  Or perhaps I should say I wanted to offer to the world at large a concept which was both intellectual and mine.  

There are many quaint sayings about 'starting' - a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step etc.  I believe that journey may begin with the first step but after that it helps to have a map...  So my map takes the form of an outline of a series of connected conversations. My hope is to talk someone through the concept and share image of what I imagine intellectual property might be.

Looking back I realize that there were many 'first' steps.  The ones I feel important enough to describe are ideas about methodology - and epistemology.  My entry point into the discussion of intellectual property was dictated by theory which accorded a big place to an understanding of theory as a process of describing, analyzing and then imagining what next... with this basic structure of how I wanted to think, I began ... I describe this strategy (as theory) in one of the articles attached to this blog.  

My strategy required that I work with concepts.  Again a short description of what I mean by  'concept' is attached to this blog...  and then there were the concepts which shaped intellectual property.  The obvious starting point was filled with the concept of  'property'.  Define property and then modify with intellectual and I would have my concept of intellectual property done.  The problem was not just with property which seemed to defy definition, but with intellectual.  The challenge seemed to me to be to define Intellectual without simply referring to the mind and body duality - intellectual as not physical or intellectual as not tangible.  This, however, lead me to the concepts of work, labour, action, and play - the ideas of Arendt an Huizinga...  

And this is where I will begin my next blog...  

Ignatieff, Liberals and the Great Middle...

Listening to Michael Ignatieff last Sunday (April 19) on CBC radio I began thinking - which was itself an interesting reaction.  Despite my obsessive interest in politics, I find myself turning off the radio when local politicians are speaking - those I support embarrass or worry me while those I oppose irritate me more...  but I listened to Ignatieff.  And although I have not supported (well ok have generally opposed the Liberals) I found myself wishing he was Prime Minister.  The thought came to me that we could have a world renowned intellectual as Prime Minister!

After that thought came the pre-programmed Liberal Party of Canada advert - that Michael Ignatieff, despite the difficulty in saying his name, was the next Pierre Elliot Trudeau...  this made me think of my first political campaign.  Oh I was a LONG way from the action - Christina Lake 1968 listening to the speeches from the Liberal leadership convention.  Trudeau beat Winter - that is what I remember.  And then Trudeau mania and the Trudeau poster in my bedroom.  Trudeau beat Stansfield and the country moved on to 1970 and the October Crisis.  I was almost old enough to vote when I heard Tommy Douglas speaking against the War Measures Act.  So I never did vote for Trudeau.  I threw my lot in with the New Democrats and began my life as a "bourgeois intellectual".  But for the October Crisis I might have been a Liberal and who knows where I might have gone, but as it all turned out, I ended up working for unions...

Ok, I was thinking but still listening to Michael, as I am sure some of his friends might dare to call him, and I heard him talk about George Grant (Lament for a Nation  - great book) and the question about the difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives.  He said a number of things but the two things I remember were (1) that Liberals were not ideological and (2) that they were centrists.

Ok.  Ok. I tell myself.  Ignatieff is an intellectual.  Surely he was simply pandering to the anti intellectual ill informed masses whose votes he needs to do smart things...  Still it was disappointing to hear him say that the party was no ideological because how else can it be 'centrist'.  I mean the whole idea of the party is an ideological construct as part of a further construct of what makes a nation or for that matter politics.  The French Revolutionary Assembly may have had a geographical or physical presence but the whole notion of 'left' and 'right' and thus 'center' have been 'ideas' ever since.  If the party is not ideological, then how sensibly can it be 'centrist'?  

And so, I sighed and tried to forgive Mr. Ignatieff.  Admittedly my brief thought of him as a fellow traveller was fanciful.  

So I began thinking of how Liberals were centrists.  Well in the context of Canadian Federal politics over the last 40 years they are 'centrists' as they claim policies which seem to sit in between the Conservatives (as they now are) and the NDP.  In this they are well served by the NDP as this party survived, unlike the Progressive Movement in the US, and provided the socialist threat which made the Liberals appear 'centrist'.  Of course, the NDP also provided most of the policies which defined the Liberal agenda - the national health program, old age pensions, unemployment insurance and so on.  The demise of the Liberals as a political force was, I suspect, in some part due to the shifting of the whole political agenda to the right in the 1980 - 2000 period which resulted in the demise of the NDP as a serious national force. The Liberals became a centrist party without anything to the left and got sucked to the right...  but here I wander...

Leaving aside party politics, there are a number of major contemporary issues facing the Canadian 'nation' which can be arranged as dualities - a range of ideas between two poles, thus permitting a 'centrists' position.  An enduring BIG one is 'federalism' (which usually translates as the status of Quebec within Canada).  At one end there is the "independence of Quebec" and at the other is "Quebec as just another province".   This is BIG but it is not my issue - I have tried to be 'consistent' in my political positions and if national self determination is something to support for Angola, Timor and so on - so it is for the people of Quebec (which also needs to include the Cree Nations to the north - the geographical nation of Quebec is not necessarily the same 'place' as the Province).   But again, I feel quite distant from this issue.

Another BIG issue which has, however, been closer to my heart is that which for lack of a better word can be called 'economics'.  Here the traditional duality is often described (in effete bourgeois circles) as labour and capital.  In business magazines this duality is discussed in terms of the market versus 'big' government.  On the one side of the debate are those who "believe" that the market (structured by that invisible hand) would determine 'value' and coordinate supply with demand (to allocate resources etc) while at the other end were those who believed in the state (the role of government or the public sector) and the need for 'public planning' etc. The grouping of ideas of each sides was labelled, usually by those on the other side, as an "ideology".  The market side became known as "neo liberals' or "Chicago School" or, for the desperate, right wing nuts while the government side became known simply as the opposition - the success of the market side in selling their message becomes obvious as I try to find a 'nice' label for the 'other' side.  The political labels, social democrats, socialists, or communist all has negative baggage (and I would argue was inaccurate) - often those who opposed the free market guys were simply seen in negative terms as pro big government, nanny staters, pro- union, or simply losers and so on...  the market and its allied notions seemed to be winners.

The important thing, however, is to understand that for twenty maybe thirty years this economic debate has involved concepts of capital and labour but it has not been between capitalism (as an ideology) and socialism (as a competing ideology of social structure).  Concepts of labour and capital seemed to inform the debates between market (neo liberal) and planning (pro-government planning) forces, but on both sides proponents accepted as inevitable (dan dare I say durable) the basic ideology of capitalism.   By the 1990's socialism had become "capitalism lite".  The political spectrum had not so much shifted to the right as disappeared.  There was no 'left' there anymore.  And thus, as I argue above, the center also could not hold...

But then, the financial collapse of 2008 happened.  And as I mentioned in my last post, people started noticing 'labour' again.  My question is whether this reappearance of 'labour' will revive the old debate, that between capitalism and socialism or will the struggle continue between those who favour market forces (the privateers) and those who see a role for government etc.  I suspect that without the revival of socialism or some other ideology which confronts capitalism the result may be disappointing.

So getting back to Ignatieff - the question is that he may be a centrist but what or where does he imagine the debate?   Is it a debate about capitalism itself or about the role of government?  And if it is about the latter, where does he stand with respect to the role of private capital in the provision of public services....  and so on...  But then one must ask if this is the right kind of questions because what if the debate should be about capitalism itself - what if the questions are not about the role of government but the possibility of government?  

To get an idea of someone who keeps asking these questions check out Jim Kunslter's blog...  

[and on this subject - I must thank Karen B.  I not only have trouble pronouncing Mr. Ignatieff's name, I seem unable to spell it!]

The great transformation - debt and the degradation of labour...

This month's Harper's Magazine includes yet another article on the economy - "Infinite Debt" by Thomas Geoghegan.  

No surprises that folks keep writing on the subject. What is surprising is that where the analysis is leading. It is leading back to an appreciation of labour.  Geoghegan argues that the 'cause' of the financial collapse is not simply the result of poor regulation and greedy bankers, although both were part of the mix. No, for Geoghegan, a labour lawyer from Chicago, the cause can be found in the degradation of labour typified by outrageous business practices in the 1980's and 1990's and the glorification of capital exemplified by the abolition of ancient laws prohibiting usury.  He writes:

First, we removed the possibility of creating real, binding contracts by allowing employers to bust the unions that had been entering into these agreements for millions of people. Second, we allowed those same employers to cancel existing contracts, virtually at will, by transferring liability from one corporate shell to another, or letting a subsidiary go into Chapter 11 and then moving to “cancel” the contract rights, including lifetime health benefits and pensions. As one company after another “reorganized” in Chapter 11 to shed contract rights, working people learned that it was not rational to count on those rights and guarantees, or even to think in these future-oriented ways. No wonder people in our country began to live for the moment and take out loans and start running up debts. 

And then we dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter’s term, and which had been so taken for granted that no one ever even mentioned it to us in law school. That’s when we found out what happens when an advanced industrial economy tries to function with no cap at all on interest rates.

Here’s what happens: the financial sector bloats up. With no law capping interest, the evil is not only that banks prey on the poor (they have always done so) but that capital gushes out of manufacturing and into banking. When banks get 25 percent to 30 percent on credit cards, and 500 or more percent on payday loans, capital flees from honest pursuits, like auto manufacturing.

Why is this surprising that analysis might lead back to an appreciation of labour?  Afterall classical economists from Ricardo on saw labour as a primary source of value.  Well after 20 to 30 years of being ignored or reviled, it is surprising to see labour make a comeback.  And then the introduction of the status of "labour" into the meltdown mix made be think of Polyani (the author of The Great Transformation). Of the many points he made in that book, one I remember was his explanation for the difference in status (or lack there of ) of manual and factory jobs between England and Germany.  The difference, Polyani wrote, could be explained at least in part by the fact that workers in the UK were forced into the factories and suffered a diminution in status about 50 years before the serfs in Germany were sent off the land and turned into workers.  The timing and the fact that for one group their lives as workers were worse than they had been before and for the other life in factory was an improvement has consequences which shape the world of work today.  

Geoghegan argues that talent flooded into the financial sector in the US because that was where the money was to be made...  I wonder, though, how much of the explanation rests with the relative low status of any manual or factory work in the US - as in the UK.  Why would the ruling class in either country worry about keeping factory jobs in the country when, of course, they were best done by the socially (or dare I say racial) inferiors - at home or somewhere else?   The enduring prejudice against those who sold their labour to the man is evidenced everywhere. Why else would so many people, so ill suited to academic life enroll at universities?   And why would skilled tradespeople and their associations (ie unions) be the object of so much public derision.  Yes, part of the problem in the current financial situation is the degradation of labour ...

Socialism?

Today The Nation kicked off a 'dialogue' on socialism with Barabara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher's essay "Re imagining Socialism".   This will be an interesting discussion.  For while economic determinism is way way out of fashion, I suspect that many of those on the left, including myself, still believe... they believe that somehow the socialist utopia will arrive with the collapse of capitalism.  Ok I may be over stating the faith but many socialists believe that the present financial crisis portends the revolution. I want to point out, paraphrasing Mao, that neither the crisis nor the hoped for revolution will be a tea party.  The future will be interesting and not necessarily nice.

This is why this discussion about socialism is important.  If capitalism is dead or dying and socialism is next up, then it is important imagine and re-imagine socialism.  It is also necessary to remember that socialism was never defined, never described and never tried...  Owens, St Simon, Marx amongst others wrote about socialism and even tried out a few socialist ideas.  But they all left out a lot of the details. Almost any utopic or nice social ordering can be called socialist.   And here it is also important to remember that at the height of the first or second wave of socialist debate, at turn of the 19th century, for every passionate socialist of the left, there was an equally rabid socialists of the right.  Some have argued that the capitalists claimed the center.  So if we are to talk about socialism, we may also have to use be clear that we mean socialism of the left.   And this may require that we mention fascism and think about what went wrong with communism - and explain what socialism is and is not... 

Here I would like to note that I am aware that there are many problems with using 'left' and 'right' to describe political views.  The words, left and right, describe where people sit (or hold themselves) in relation to each other.  The words do not say anything about the substance of belief.  As most people know the idea of using these words to describe politics comes from the revolutionary French Assembly. For me, ideas about left and right needs to be developed if only to better understand what socialism might be.  For the purposes of this and many other essays socialism is on the left and capitalism is on the right.  

The problem with both capitalism and socialism is that they can only be understood as abstractions - theoretical concepts.  In itself, capitalism doesn't exist any more than socialism.  Reality, lived experience, doesn't come with such labels. So as  abstractions capitalism or socialism can take many different forms. Some see capitalism as life with fine choice - plenty of food, nice cars and constant entertainment. The experience of socialism at the same time is often seen by way of contrast with capitalism and as such uncomfortable and, likely, boring.  Of course, some describe capitalism as systems of exploitation and misery ...  regardless, it is difficult to reduce either capitalism or socialism to short descriptives and the labeling of some countries as capitalist and others as socialist has always been misleading as the whole story was likely more complex.

As well as being abstractions, the words, capitalist and socialist, reflect a value judgments - either good or bad depending on one's political perspective.  Those on the "right" may see capitalism as good and socialism as bad while those on the "left" may see capitalism as bad.  But here even as a simple value statement, the words become complicated because both words were seen for may years as words of the left.  The reason for this may be that capitalism and socialism were words used by intellectuals (and university teachers), many of whom were identified as socialists - of the left.  It was this group who then provided labels (capitalist, socialist, fascist, left, right and so on) for everyone else... and here it needs to be pointed out that many people, politicians included, genuinely believed themselves to be beyond ideology of either the left or the right.  As was the fashion- they did not see capitalism as an economic or social ordering or even consequence of human activity. But those who professed no ideology were more likely to be in favour of capitalism than socialism even if they might not have used the word, 'capitalism'.  Socialism was, however, even less socially acceptable as a word or descriptor. In the US few people even dared to identify as 'socialists'.  For years, the mere mention of capitalism served to identify oneself as of the left...  there was no need and some risk to say the 's' word in public. 

At the same time, a working understanding, even caricature of capitalism and socialism emerged. Capitalism came to refer to the corporations and private sector and rich people while socialism came to be associated with government and public initiatives.  The difference between the two was grounded in a disagreement over whether government could solve social problems through taxing and spending. The image though was of the capitalist as strong and independent while the socialist was weak and dependent on government (hand outs etc).  For some capitalists were winners and socialists were losers...   

After the fall on the wall in 1989 capitalism was triumphant. In the 1990's  the world became flat leveled by capitalist aspirations for more and more and more - capitalism.  By the new millennium highways, schools, hospitals and food banks were being re designed around cost centers with profit as the key to success. Socialism seemed quite dead, but this was an illusion.  Socialist tendencies lived on. Socialism could be seen in public health care and education, in unemployment insurance and old age benefits - and in progressive income tax.  Of course, many of these socialist activities could also be seen as Christian charity and good governance but the idea that those who could, helped others is clearly part of most socialist images.  And if one's view of socialism includes socialism of the right - the dark anti communist (and strangely pro capitalist) kind of socialism - this too never disappeared from the world scene. This socialism of the rich, the 'privatize profits and socialize losses' kind of socialism continued to shape a number of governments.  But this was the kind socialism developed by the fascists - the brutal socialism of Mussolini who got the trains to run on time and the corrupt horrifying socialism of Hitler who got Germany working again - and would not likely be described as socialist.  More likely this kind of socialism would be described as state capitalism, crony capitalism or simply as corrupt ...

This, of course, is not the socialism which the Nation wishes to re imagine.  In their article Ehrenreich and Fletcher describe what they meant by socialism when they explained why socialists did not have a ready prescription to heal current economic woes.  They write:

... we should explain that socialism was an idea about how to rearrange ownership and distribution and, to an extent, governance. It assumed that there was a lot worth owning and distributing; it did not imagine having to come up with an entirely new and environmentally sustainable way of life. Furthermore, the history of socialism has been disfigured by too many cadres who had a perfect plan, if only they could win the next debate, carry out a coup or get enough people to fall into line behind them.

At the same time they argue that there is a "great project of collective salvation" which must be undertaken to replace the anarchic madness of capitalism.  Their inspiration is the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the labour movement. Their call is for organized solidarity in the face of increasing poverty and injustice caused by the economic crisis. It is clear that their socialism is of the left. 

I wonder though if many Americans will accept this socialism unless they realize the dangers of refusing this path.  The problem is that if socialism follows the collapse of capitalism,  then the greatest danger may well lie with a socialism of the right.   The desire to avoid socialism, simply because it is socialist, may feed a willingness to to whatever is necessary to restore capitalism - but if capitalism, like Humpty Dumpty, cannot be put back together again, socialism of the left needs to be seen as the next best thing...  and what this socialism will look like is not simply "not capitalist" but "not fascist" as well.