Upside-Down Economy
George Will
Sunday, May 10, 2009
WASHINGTON -- From Oct. 18 to Dec. 3, 1961, 116,000 people visited New York's Museum of Modern Art before anyone noticed that Henri Matisse's painting "Le Bateau" had been hung upside down. Modernity is supposed to "transgress" standards of the traditional, which is why Paul Hindemith, while rehearsing one of his dissonant orchestral compositions, said to the musicians, "No, no gentlemen -- even though it sounds wrong, it's still not right."
Proponents of today's world-turned-upside-down economic policies say the policies might seem wrong but really are boldly modern in their rejection of markets in favor of pervasive government intervention in economic life. Hence New York, which until eight months ago was the financial capital of the world, is no longer even the financial capital of the United States. Washington is.
So says Ian Bremmer in "State Capitalism Comes of Age: The End of the Free Market?" in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. It should be read by Americans who are dismayed by the blurring of the line between public and private sectors.
Most Americans assume -- and are encouraged to do so by those doing the blurring -- that the government is doing this reluctantly and is eager to find an "exit strategy" to "unwind" its interventions. Bremmer, president of the consulting firm Eurasia Group, believes that although the governments of many developing nations have made "a strategic rejection of free-market doctrine," governments of developed countries do not intend to "manage" their economies "indefinitely." About the former, he is correct. About the latter, his wish may be the father of his thought.
Among the myriad signs that many nations are developing systems "in which the state functions as the leading economic actor," Bremmer notes that the 13 largest oil companies are owned and operated by governments and that governments in the developing world control three-quarters of the world's energy reserves. Privately owned multinational companies produce just 10 percent of the world's oil and own just 3 percent of its proven reserves. In many developing nations, large companies that remain in private hands are only nominally private: They are government appendages in that they are dependent on government patronage for credit, contracts and subsidies. "Sovereign wealth funds" -- state-owned investment portfolios -- already account for one-eighth of global investment, double the figure just five years ago. The largest such funds are those of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and China, with Russia's rising. The only democracy operating one of the 10 largest funds is Norway. The combined assets of all such funds exceed the assets of all the world's hedge funds.
Bremmer says, correctly, that state capitalism "has introduced massive inefficiencies into global markets and injected populist politics into economic decision-making," that "deeper state intervention in an economy means that bureaucratic waste, inefficiency and corruption are more likely to hold back growth," and that politicians tend to develop stimulus packages with their constituencies, not economic efficiencies, in mind. Therefore, he says, the state must eventually retreat. He probably is wrong because he underestimates the pleasure politicians derive from using their nation's wealth as a slush fund for purchasing political advantage.
In 1937, columnist Walter Lippmann, deploring the rise of "authoritarian collectivism," lamented that in order to be taken seriously a politician or theorist had to have "proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs." Paul A. Rahe, a historian and political philosopher at Hillsdale College, in his new book "Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift," notes that, long before 1937, we were warned.
In "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville anticipated people being governed by "an immense, tutelary power" determined to take "sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate." It would be a power "absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident and gentle," aiming for our happiness but wanting "to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness." It would, Tocqueville said, provide people security, anticipate their needs, direct their industries and divide their inheritances. It would envelop society in "a network of petty regulations -- complicated, minute and uniform." But softly: "It does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them" until people resemble "a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
So what today seems as modern as Matisse once seemed was actually foreseen 17 decades ago. Like Hindemith's music, what is happening seems wrong. And it is.
take the scales from your eyes potese. I posted the complete dunking of Will's lies about the state of global warming science, I did it day after day.
If you had the wits to see, you would know. Will was shown and proved to be a liar on that. Thus the agenda (avoid responsibility and collect Pr/lobbying firm checks) driven prostitute is not to be trusted with any subsequent positions.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
J2 writes:
take the scales from your eyes potese. I posted the complete dunking of Will's lies about the state of global warming science, I did it day after day.
You posted what you considered lies about global warming. In fact the real liars changed theoir story to Climate change because they were not certain that global warming was taking place. They fooled you because you are really scientific minded.
If you had the wits to see, you would know. Will was shown and proved to be a liar on that. Thus the agenda (avoid responsibility and collect Pr/lobbying firm checks) driven prostitute is not to be trusted with any subsequent positions.
Well, if you had any wits about you, you would knoe that even if Will was wrong about global warming, it does not mean that he is wrong on other subjects. Anyone with an IQ half his sock size would realize that people are more knowledgeble in some subject than in other shubects. Therefore, you call him a liar and do nothing to refute his current statement. You are about as shallow as any person I've ever known.
Now either refute his currentments or quit calling him a liar. It makes you appear shallowminded and begging the point that we should believe you. I don't be;lieve you because you are not an observer of thruth. You just call names and accuse like any good Satanioc worshipper.
You, potese are either evil and calmly repeating what you know are lies or you are the dumbest person on the planet. Lets just start with
Global Warming/Climate Change.
The globe is warming. Extra energy is retained by the atmosphere and absorbed in the oceans.
What effect does this have? The climate changes. That's what happens. That is where the costs to us start coming into play. That is also where your evil either intentional or just as a finger puppet of evil starts.
Climate change is a further explanation of warming, not a change.
Talking to you is like talking to a moron who has it in his head that in ordinary parlance one plus one equals 10. No amount of reason or example with get through. You simply are a dead obstacle to reason and advancement.
If you had any sense of right and wrong, you would shut up about subjects you don't have the brains or the will to learn about.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
You, potese are either evil and calmly repeating what you know are lies or you are the dumbest person on the planet. Lets just start with
Global Warming/Climate Change.
Why start with global warming? You will post the same nonsense I've been reading all the time. If you wereen't so dumb, you would realize that the topic is George Will's lying about global warming. You have evaded my question. What does that make you. Shallow minded. Get with the subject.
The globe is warming. Extra energy is retained by the atmosphere and absorbed in the oceans.
What effect does this have? The climate changes. That's what happens. That is where the costs to us start coming into play. That is also where your evil either intentional or just as a finger puppet of evil starts.
Climate change is a further explanation of warming, not a change.
Talking to you is like talking to a moron who has it in his head that in ordinary parlance one plus one equals 10. No amount of reason or example with get through. You simply are a dead obstacle to reason and advancement.
And we see your preaching the Mother Earth sermon and not answering the question. What does that mak e you. It makes you an expert accuser followed by deceit., Remind you of anyone?
If you had any sense of right and wrong, you would shut up about subjects you don't have the brains or the will to learn about.
I think I understand perfectly the workins of the deceitful. You call people liars and refuse to prove your charges that he is always lying. Now either prove that George Will lied in the current subject or admit that you lied. Watchout your daddy is watching.
The earth has always had fires, California's ecology is a fire based ecology.
The mess burning down Santa Barbra however was started by some jerkass with a power tool. Let it burn, big fucking deal, right wing nuts?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
This message has been edited by j2saret on May 11, 2009 7:53 PM
