US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on a whirlwind press junket scold Russia. Here is a clip of her rhetorical spanking at the German Marshall Fund:
Unfortunately, the clip cuts off right when she was going to enlighten us on how Russia of the 1990s became Russia of today. Too bad. Surprisingly what she said was somewhat sound. Rice explained,
After all, the 1990s were, in many ways, a period of real hope and promise for Russia. The totalitarian state was dismantled. The scope of liberty for most Russians expanded significantly in what they could read, in what they could say, in what they could buy and sell, and what associations they could form.
New leaders emerged who sought to steer Russia toward political and economic reform at home, toward integration into the global economy, and toward a responsible international role. All of this is true.But many Russians remember things differently about the 1990s. They remember that decade as a time of license and lawlessness, economic uncertainty and social chaos, a time when criminals and gangsters and robber barons plundered the Russian state and preyed on the weakest in Russian society, a time when many Russians, not just elites and former apparatchiks, but ordinary men and women experienced a sense of dishonor and dislocation that we in the West did not fully appreciate.
I remember that Russia, because I saw it firsthand. I remember old women selling their life’s belongings along the Old Arbat, plates and broken teacups, anything to get by.I remember that Russian soldiers returned home from Eastern Europe and lived in tents because the Russian state was just too weak and too poor to house them properly.
I remember talking to my Russian friends, tolerant, open, progressive people, who felt an acute sense of shame during that decade, not at the loss of the Soviet Union, but at the feeling of not recognizing their own country anymore, the Bolshoi Theater falling apart, pensioners unable to pay their bills, the Russian Olympic team in 1992 parading into the games under a flag that no one had ever seen and receiving gold medals to an anthem that no one had ever heard.
There was a humiliating sense that nothing Russian was good enough anymore.
This does not excuse Russian behavior, but it helps to set a context for it. It helps to explain why many ordinary Russians felt relieved and proud when new leaders emerged at the end of the last decade who sought to reconstitute the Russian state and re-assert its power abroad. An imperfect authority was seen as better than no authority at all.
However, this sober telling was somewhat muted by one of her most key scoldings. Namely, “And our strategic goal now is to make it clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices are putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.” Isolated? Okay I don’t agree but I can see an argument for it. But irrelevant? If Russia was really irrelevant then all the bad things she lists certainly wouldn’t matter. Clearly, the fact that Madame Secretary is getting her panties in a bunch suggests the opposite. No?
I also can’t help but note that according to her narrative of the 1990s, irrelevancy at home and abroad was part of the reason why Russians embraced the idea that an imperfect authority was better than no authority at all. After all what is more symbolic of irrelevancy than the feeling that “nothing Russian was good enough anymore”?
Condi was not done there. She rushed off for an emergency NATO meeting in Brussels, where she sat down with CBS News for an interview where she harped more on Russia’s “isolation.” You can read a full transcript or watch what CBS has made available on their site:
My only question is if anyone will take her and the Bush Administration’s rhetorical blustering seriously. The US leadership has very little right to wag fingers. Its economy is dragging down the rest of the world, (so much so that the IMF might review the US financial system and one former IMF chief is saying the US needs a $1000 billion to $2000 billion bailout), it has a lame duck President who ducks questions about the economic meltdown for three days, and when he finally speaks up, he provides no specific plan of action, and then scurries back into the Oval Office without answering a single question. The American government might better be served by putting its own house in order first.
Man, January 20, 2009 just can’t come fast enough.
Why invent a wheel? Marx came up with I think the most basic criteria: type of ownership of means of production. Socialism/communism is communal ownership of means of production. Now, is it even theoretically possible? Certain conditions must be met – the most important being efficiency of production should not be a factor.
Either we can satisfy demand with unlimited a la Star Trek conversion of energy into matter, or we can restrict demand by either controlling and regulating distribution by fiat or letting the market deal with it. The latter seems to be more efficient so far.
This whole socialism/capitalism argument is silly since there isn’t a single case of pure one or another. Hardly possible or at least sustainable.
I think that existence of different combinations of proportioinally more or less communal(state in reality)/private ownership of means of production is a good thing provided people are allowed freely to choose one which they prefer. Some would want a more socially supportive and conscious Germany, others would go for a more individualistic US and some might even opt for a USSR type if it could just exist without trying to poop everybody else’s party.
“Marx came up with I think the most basic criteria: type of ownership of means of production. ”
I think the problem with this is that there are systems generally recognized as noncapitalist that feature private ownership of the MoP.
“Since when did either the amount of the workers wages or their ability to move or live freely become a requirement for capitalism?”
AMOUNT of wages is not important. What is important is the extension of the market to them, i.e. the existence of a labor market. Otherwise you have some variant of feudalism, using the term broadly.
I think the problem with this is that there are systems generally recognized as noncapitalist that feature private ownership of the MoP.
I hate to quote myself, but that\’s exactly what I said:
This whole socialism/capitalism argument is silly since there isn’t a single case of pure one or another. Hardly possible or at least sustainable.
There is nothing that\’s black and white. Everything is a shade of gray.
I think the logic Sean is talking about is not regarding how people in a (capitalist, in this case) system operate, but the direction in which the system tends to move due to the sum total of those operations.
I can understand this, but if we are going to look at the direction in which the system moves due to the sum total of these operations, we’re going to have to consider the formidable number of government operations taking place within this “capitalist” system and look at what effects they have on the direction the whole system moves at. I suspect that such a study would find as much fault in the government operations as those of private individuals, meaning the problem is as political as it is economic. It is for this reason I don’t see economists questioning what they have long taken to be a proven truth.
It’s just that I thought I noticed a creeping tendency to somehow wrongly equate capitalism with any sort of trading or market.
I’ve been quite careful, at least in this discussion, to avoid equating free trade with capitalism, for the main reason that I don’t really know what is meant by the latter. I don’t know of too many economists who write in praise of capitalism as being the end in itself, but plenty write in terms of free trade being the desired result which capitalism facilitates more than any other system.
I find the confusion between capitalism and free trade to be more common on the left, where examples of capitalism’s shortfalls are held up as justification for government intervention into a market.
“I can understand this, but if we are going to look at the direction in which the system moves due to the sum total of these operations, we’re going to have to consider the formidable number of government operations taking place within this “capitalist” system and look at what effects they have on the direction the whole system moves at”
Sean is a Marxist.
The state is a product of the economic system, not something intervening from outside (for Marxists, I mean).
My petty problem with “economics” — with the caveat that my exposure to it has been limited — is that it seems far too historically/culturally limited to be a “science.” It seems mostly to be a description of how modern trade-based industrial societies function, as opposed to a study of the principles (if any such there are) underlying human productive activity as a whole.
)It suddenly occurs to be that it’s a tad like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which though it was intended to be a description and analysis of human behavior and the good life is pretty clearly really a description of the good life as understood by a fourth-century-BC Athenian and the ways in which fourth-century-BC Athenians acted.)
It seems mostly to be a description of how modern trade-based industrial societies function, as opposed to a study of the principles (if any such there are) underlying human productive activity as a whole.
This would be the reason why I said on another thread that reporting on the Economy doesn’t involve people, only numbers, percentages etc. From my understanding, political economy is dead in Economics departments. Political economists have been pushed into other fields: geography, history, sociology. Now economics is all about math forgetting or erasing the fact that economics begins with a relation between people.
This is my big problem with economics as it is perceived today. It’s an abstract numbers game to passes itself off as a science because it uses math.
Defining what capitalism is IS the problem in my opinion. It is clearly at the heart of this discussion. We all seem to have different definitions, from the biological and transhistorical to understandings that it means free trade, the domination of wages etc. Unfortunately, I don’t think something as complex as capitalism can be reduced to a one sentence definition. But for the sake of discussion, here are some elements of my definition. A capitalist system is characterized when the following phenomena are qualitatively dominant (in no particular order of importance):
1. The notion of inviolable private property codified in law and is universal to the extent that it is considered a right. While there were forms of property before capitalism, many of these, particularly land, was really the property of a king, which was in trun really the property of God.
2. The domination of wage labor and therefore the transformation of labor into a commodity that is subject to market forces as opposed to tradition and custom.
3. The disciplining of labor in terms of time and space (i.e. the clock and the workplace), as opposed to the traditional rhythms of a calendar or home (there are some great historical essays on efforts to discipline labor to clocks), the concentration of labor in one place, usually outside home where labor is under surveillance, whether that surveillance be by managers, statisticians of productivity, laws, etc.
4. The division of the labor process where laborers are mediated from the commodities they produce. No one laborer produces the whole commoditity.
5. The intertwining of the state with the economy, where the state is fundamental to the functioning of the system. This includes laws, infrastructure, protection of economic interests with force, regulating labor, etc. I think it is important to remember that every industrialized country did so with the intimate involvement of the state. That is to say the business of the state is business. The buisness of government is to create the social-political-cultural conditions for capital.
6. Whether the exchange value of a commodity dominates over its use vaule. That is to say three things. First, a commodity’s price is in relation to other commodities, including money. A commodity’s production and value is determined by its exchangability in the market rather than its use. Second, a commodity’s value has virtually nothing to do with its use. An SUV is vauled not because of its ability to navigate rough roads but because the it has a cultural and emotional effect on the consumer. Third, the strive to reduce all things, even life itself into a commodity that has exchange value. Even one’s body and emotions are subject to commoditfication.
7. The means of production are concentrated in both ownership and in space, though the latter is becoming challenged though not qualitatively.
8. Money is the universal mediator between commodities.
9. Where production for exchange is the end in itself of economic activity. People don’t produce for their own consumption (use value) but for a market (exchange value) where they can get money to buy commodities, sometimes even the commodities they themselves produced.
10. Finally, where all of the elements of capitalism above are considered natural truths that are even “scientifically” proven. Capitalism becomes dominant when it feels natural and we cannot imagine a viable world outside its dominance. Capitalism therfore produces a particular culture that strives for universial homogeniety, but nonetheless subsumes and disciplines national cultures into its logic of exchange. Capitalism is not just an economic system, it is a historical condition.
There are certainly more. These are just what came to my mind.
“The notion of inviolable private property codified in law and is universal to the extent that it is considered a right. While there were forms of property before capitalism, many of these, particularly land, was really the property of a king, which was in trun really the property of God.”
Well that’s true de jure and ideologically in much of the Middle Ages, but it wasn’t really true in fact, since the power — both coercive and moral — of the king was usually very circumscribed. If you think it’s hard for the Kremlin to control the provinces today, imagine what it was like with no telephones and railways.
It’s also untrue of many other premodern societies, such as ancient Athens, even on the ideological level.
In general, I really suspect too much is made of the disctinction. Sure, in theory the king could confiscate your property. In theory, so can modern capitalist governments. They do it regularly.
Well that’s true de jure and ideologically in much of the Middle Ages, but it wasn’t really true in fact.
No doubt. But I think the distinction, even if it is ideological, is rather important particularly in regard to the position of the law. The important part of my statement was “codified in law”. So even if a capitalist government confiscates your property they have to present legal justification for it (even if that legal justification is manufactured). Plus, if your property is confiscated, you can appeal, not to the sovereign, politician or bureaucrat, but to the law. This denotes a fundamental shift in the exercising of power in my view. Of course, as we know in practice things can be and are different. Ultimately, if the state wants your stuff it will take it. As Carl Schmitt says, it is the sovereign (i.e. in this case the state) that determines the state of exception.
Tim, for what is worth, when I wrote:
“It’s just that I thought I noticed a creeping tendency to somehow wrongly equate capitalism with any sort of trading or market.”
I was not referring to you in particular–otherwise I would have mentioned your name or quoted your words. It was, just as I wrote, that I thought I was noticing such a creeping tendency and, not being well-versed in the issue, I wanted more clarity on this.
Speaking of far provinces…how about Alaska? What kind of capitalism is this? Sarah Palin in this clip ( at about 2.5) describes how ownership of Means of Production is split between the state of Alaska and the oil companies.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/434/video-webex.html
Alaska owns the oil resources, oil co’s have royalities for pulling it out of the ground. She slapped on a new 2.5% tax which the oil co’s didn’t like – not what her predecessors negotiated (echoes of putin’s rejection and reformulation Yeltsin-signed contracts) . She then distributes proceeds from this tax to all Alaskans ; hence no income or sales tax in that state. Tax payers even get big fat checks. Workers (Todd Palin) are happy! Alaskans are happy! Sarah has huge approval rating. Could she make it 5% if she wanted? State appears to have the upper hand in these whenever-she-feels-like-it negotations. Is this socialism or capitalism or Putinism. Could Arnold do this in California? It sounds great! New tax brought Alaska $2B this year .
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/434/video-webex.html
“Plus, if your property is confiscated, you can appeal, not to the sovereign, politician or bureaucrat, but to the law. ”
I’m no expert on this, but wasn’t this actually the case in Rome?
I find the confusion between capitalism and free trade to be more common on the left, where examples of capitalism’s shortfalls are held up as justification for government intervention into a market.
Was Douglass North a liberal? (Maybe, he does teach in Cambridge, Massachusetts after all.)
I think this is more about you attributing anything that you don’t like to “the left”. Multiple cycles of economic crashes from the 1880s to 1920s, followed by decades of relatively stability (until successive generations of Republicans deregulated the markets) proved the worth of “government’s responsibility to ensure a legal and institutional context that is conducive to well-functioning markets.”
Otherwise you have some variant of feudalism, using the term broadly.
My understanding is that feudal society was the basis for capitalisim as we know it today, and formed the foundations of the industrial revolution.
“My understanding is that feudal society was the basis for capitalisim as we know it today, and formed the foundations of the industrial revolution. ”
Sure. It didn’t come from nowhere.
Tess and others, in addition to the oil revenues, there are other reasons for Sarah Palin’s high ratings in Alaska. To understand what her admirers see in her is one of the best ways of getting a sense of what’s behind her popularity. An important task, considering that she may well become a US president. That’s why I’m excerpting here the beginning of a New Yorker piece written by a person who identifies herself with Palin (link for the full piece below). Mind you, I’m not an admirer of Palin, but now I have a better understanding of the special rapport she has with many true Americans.
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MY GAL
Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.
That is just how I am.
Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?
A dog collar.
Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?
Not a damn thing.
We are essentially wired identical.
So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.
A lose-lose for the pig.
There’s a lesson in that, I think.
Who does that pig represent, and that collar, and that Hockey Mom, and that pit bull?
You figure it out. Then give me a call.
Seriously, give me a call.
Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although …
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http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/09/22/080922sh_shouts_saunders?yrail
Kolya – sounds very much like anger.
I’m shocked that nobody said anything about the 16 tons reference I made last night. When I looked up the lyrics (to get them exactly right) I saw some bit about how the song was popular and adapted in Soviet times, and there is some club in Moscow called 16 tons.
http://www.16tons.ru/rus/home/index.shtml
I really thought one of you would latch onto it, bringing the cultural reference to institutionalized wage slavery and debt bondage into a complete circle that involved both American and Russian culture.
Alas, as usual, my cleverness went unrecognized.
“there is some club in Moscow called 16 tons.”
I’ve been there twice.
He-he. You guys in the States might like this.
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
DEAR AMERICAN:
I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.
I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.
I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAMM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% SAFE.
THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.
PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.
YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON
Yeah, I’ve gotten that spam e-mail like 3 times now.
Would be funnier if it weren’t so true…
Did you all realize that there’s one foreign policy issue with Russia that McCain and Obama agree on? http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/09/a_bipartisan_consensus_on_russ.htm
As much as I’d love to see Misha’s adorable mug not behind bars, I’m pretty sure the fate of Mr. Khodorkovsky is just about the last thing on the American voters’ minds right now. We’re too busy trying to save our own conniving billionaires…
When the middle east becomes a smoking ruined heap, consisting of hardened glass, after the nuclear strikes, Russia will have no one to blame but herself for helping the enemies of the USA. Why do you do it? Can you not see the end game?
Iran will have to be destroyed… Russia too if she doesn\’t wake up.. will y\’all allow China to collect the spoils of the world?
Fools…
http://forum.glavred.info/viewtopic.php?t=4585
photos from Tshinvali and some “stories”…