Category: politics

Yesterday I read an interesting column by Ben Stein at the New York Times website, entitled “The Hard Rain That’s Falling on Capitalism.” It’s about the miracle of American capitalism through most of the last century, and how it only works when the playing field is level, which it increasingly is not. The “hard rain” of the article’s title is runaway corporate greed and government complicity.

Here’s Stein’s central thesis:

[I]n capitalism, the most fundamental building block is trust.

When yeoman farmers sent their savings to banks in London and Glasgow and Paris, they had to be able to count on it not being stolen. That was what allowed capital to be accumulated and deployed, and for the entire world economy to take off.

(Incidentally, the taking-off of the world economy in just this way during the 17th and 18th centuries is one of the big backdrops for The Baroque Cycle [and it’s about a million times more interesting than that makes it sound].)

I always thought the whole point of everyone being equal under the law is that you don’t need trust. Trust is what they used as the basis of commerce in the Middle Ages, and look how well that turned out.

When the state enforces every proper contract, trust is irrelevant. If you sell your car to some guy across town, it doesn’t matter that he’s a slimeball whose check later bounces and who won’t then return your calls. The state’s got your back, with process servers, sheriffs, judges, jails, guns, and more, all working for you.

You might say this requires people to trust that the government will do its job protecting your rights and your property. But there again, trust is the old model. Serfs could do no better than trust that nobles wouldn’t come and club them over the head and make off with their women. In the new model you don’t need trust, you just vote the bums out of office when government stops doing its job. (This is why capitalism pairs so essentially with democracy.)

That’s the theory, anyway. The reality is, of course, infinitely more subtle. To vote the bums out of office you have to be able to trust the vote. To trust the vote you have to trust the companies providing the voting equipment (until someone comes up with an economical trustless voting system). To trust the companies you have to trust that the government will punish any misdeeds swiftly and decisively. This is where things get circular. What if the ruling party and the voting equipment makers choose to collude? There’s the rub. More broadly, what hope is there for democracy or capitalism when business and government decide to work for each other — which seems to be the sole ambition of the Republican party, in almost as many (few?) words — and cut out the little guy? As Ben Stein writes,

Empires come and go. Economic systems come and go. There is no heavenly guarantee that capitalism will last forever as we know it.

Trust is great for interpersonal relationships. It’s terrible as the basis of governments and economies. Until we can entirely banish trust from those systems, it can be exploited, as it has been so shamelessly these last few years.

We know what we can trust Republicans to do. Ben Stein is a notorious Republican. That’s why it’s ironic that, by his own argument, a vote against Republicans is a vote for capitalism.

Over the years, I have written at length to numerous people (and even persuaded some of them, really!) arguing against the so-called “flag desecration amendment” that keeps rearing its head in Congress. This is a proposed Constitutional amendment that would make it a crime to burn the American flag (e.g., in protest) or mistreat it in various other ways that constitute “desecration.”

Never mind that the very word desecration (deriving from the same root as sacred) implies a religious aspect that the flag does not deserve — there are all kinds of reasons why amending the Constitution for this purpose is a very bad idea, beginning with the fact that there is no flag-desecration emergency in this country, and we don’t amend the Constitution on a whim, without a clear and present need. (The only real need served by this amendment whenever it comes up is the need of some senators to appear patriotic — or to make others look unpatriotic.)

Unfortunately, one of my senators, Dianne Feinstein, supports this amendment whenever it comes up. Last year it came dangerously close to passing the Senate. Here’s an exchange we had on the subject.

I wrote:

Dear Senator Feinstein,

Our poor Constitution can’t take much more abuse.

You must oppose the amendment to permit laws banning flag “desecration.” America has no flag-desecration crisis, and even if it did, the right answer would be to rally the flag-wavers in opposition to the flag-burners.

Here’s the slippery slope we’re creating:

Burning the flag: illegal
Smearing mud on the flag: illegal
Smearing mud on a 49-star flag: illegal?
Smearing mud on a picture of the Statue of Liberty: illegal?
Smearing mud on a picture of the President: illegal?
Speaking ill of the President: illegal?

I won’t quote her entire response, which was quite long. (Of course it was a form letter.) A small excerpt:

Unfortunately, we will have to disagree about this issue. I strongly believe that the American flag holds a unique position in our society as the most important and universally recognized symbol that unites us as a nation.

Here was my reply.

Thank you for your response, Senator. I would like to leave you with two further thoughts on this subject:

• You movingly described the impression made on your 12-year-old self by the famous Iwo Jima photograph of the flag being raised. The lump in your throat came not from the law, and not from the flag, but from American ideals of courage and achievement. Do you expect that a legal obligation to respect the flag will make the same impression on a 12 year old today?
• While the flag may be the only official symbol of the nation, for all practical purposes it is roughly co-equal with a pantheon of other images: the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the White House, John Hancock’s signature, etc. Do we extend to those images the same Constitutional protections? If not, expect to see the Statue of Liberty burned in effigy where once you might have seen a flag burn — is that an improvement? Or if we do, how is this not a slippery slope?

If we were suffering through a rash of flag burnings, and if they were dangerously destabilizing to society somehow, I might feel differently. But we’re not, and as it is, I submit that it’s more likely for the very sight of a burning American flag to move a 12 year old to patriotic fervor than anything the legislature is likely to do.

For every American who burns his or her flag there are thousands who will wave theirs proudly. This country will remain great exactly as long as we are confident in that fact.

Do more than vote

Google-bomb the election

An unpopular ruling party is widely expected to be routed in an upcoming election. As voters go to the polls, election observers note numerous voting irregularities all favoring the ruling party. After the votes are counted, contrary to a substantial body of reputable (but unofficial) polling data, the unpopular party retains its grip on power yet again. But this time the anomalies are too blatant, the public does not accept the result. Protests flare up around the country. So the leader of the unpopular party imposes martial law to suppress dissent.

It’s an old story. It’s happened countless times in troubled countries all over the world. But it couldn’t happen here, right? Right? So I guess it’s only a coincidence that (a) the makers of most of America’s voting machines are in the Republicans’ pockets, (b) those machines are trivially easy to hack, and (c) just a week and a half ago, the Republicans snuck through in the dead of night a new law that specifically makes it easier for Bush to declare martial law, upending yet another inconvenient centuries-old tradition.