Better Red Than Dead

Some cyanobacteria strain for photosynthetic efficiency at the red end of the light spectrum.

The plant world is green around us- why green, and not some other color, like, say, black? That plants are green means that they are letting green light through (or out by reflection), giving up some energy. Chlorophyll absorbs both red light and blue light, but not green, though all are near the peak of solar output. Some accessory pigments within the light-gathering antenna complexes can extend the range of wavelenghts absorbed, but clearly a fair amount of green light gets through. A recent theory suggests that this use of two separated bands of light is an optimal solution to stabilize power output. At any rate, it is not just the green light- the extra energy of the blue light is also thrown away as heat- its excitation is allowed to decay to the red level of excitation, within the antenna complex of chlorophyll molecules, since the only excited state used in photosynthesis is that at ~690 nm. This forms a uniform common denominator for all incoming light energy that then induces charge separation at the oxygen reaction center, (stripping water of electrons and protons), and sends newly energized electrons out to quinone molecules and on into the biosynthetic apparatus.

The solar output, which plants have to work with.

Fine. But what if you live deeper in the water, or in the veins of a rock, or in a mossy, shady nook? What if all you have access to is deeper red light, like at 720 nm, with lower energy than the standard input? In that case, you might want to re-engineer your version of photosynthesis to get by with slightly lower-energy light, while getting the same end results of oxygen splitting and carbon fixation. A few cyanobacteria (the same bacterial lineage that pioneered chlorophyll and the standard photosynthesis we know so well) have done just that, and a recent paper discusses the tradeoffs involved, which are of two different types.

The chlorophylls with respective absorption spectra and partial structures. Redder light is toward the right. Chlorophyll a is one used most widely in plants and cyanobacteria. Chlorophyll b is also widely used in these organisms as an additional antenna pigment that extends the range of absorbed light. Chlorophylls d and f are red-shifted and used in specialized species discussed here. 

One of the species, Chroococcidiopsis thermalis, is able to switch states, from bright/white light absorbtion with normal array of pigments, to a second state where it expresses chlorophylls d and f, which absorb light at the lower energy 720 nm, in the far red. This "facultative" ability means that it can optimize the low-light state without much regard to efficiency or photo-damage protection, which it can address by switching back to the high energy wavelength pigment system. The other species is Acaryochloris marina, which has no bright light system, but only chlorophyll d. This bacterium lives inside the cells of bigger red algae, so has a relatively stable, if shaded, environment to deal with.

What these and prior researchers found was that the ultimate quantum energy used to split water to O2, and to send energized electrons off the photosystem I and carbon compound synthesis, is the same as in any other chlorophyll a-using system. The energetics of those parts of the system apparently can not be changed. The shortfall needs to be made up in the front end, where there is a sharp drop in energy from that absorbed- 1.82 electron volts (eV) from photons at 680 nm (but only 1.72 eV from far-red photons)- and that needed at the next points in the electron transport chains (about 1.0 eV). This difference plays a large role in directing those electrons to where the plant wants them to go- down the gradient to the oxygen-evolving center, and to the quinones that ferry energized electrons to other synthetic centers. While it seems like more waste, a smaller difference allows the energized electrons to go astray, forming chemical radicals and other products dangerous to the cell. 

Summary diagram, described in text. Energy levels are described for photon excitation of chlorophyll (Chl, left axis, and energy transitions through the reaction center (Phe- pheophytin), and quinones (Q) that conduct energized electrons out to the other photosynthetic center and biosynthesis. On top are shown the respective system types- normal chlorophyll a from white-light adapted C. thermalis, chlorophyll d in A. marina, and chlorophyll f in red-adapted C. thermalis. 

What these researchers summarize in the end is that both of the red light-using cyanobacteria squeeze this middle zone of the power gradient in different ways. There is an intermediate event in the trail from photon-induced electron excitation to the outgoing quinone (+ electron) and O2 that is the target of all the antenna chlorophylls- the photosynthetic reaction center. This typically has chlorophyll a (called P680) and pheophytin, a chlorophyll-like molecule. It is at this chlorophyll a molecule that the key step takes place- the excitation energy (an electron bumped to a higher energy level) conducted in from the antenna of ~30 other chlorophylls pops out its excited electron, which flits over to the pheophytin, then thence to the carrier quinone molecules and photosystem I. Simultaneously, an electron comes in to replace it from the oxygen-evolving center, which receives alternate units of photon energy, also from the chlorophyll/pheophytin reaction center. The figure above describes these steps in energetic terms, from the original excited state, to the pheophytin (Phe-, loss of 0.16 eV) to the exiting quinone state (Qa-, loss of 0.385 eV). In the organisms discussed here, chlorophyll d replaces a at this center, and since its structure is different and absorbance is different, its energized electron is about 0.1 eV less energetic. 

In A. marina, (center in the diagram above), the energy gap between the pheophytin and the quinone is squeezed, losing about 0.06 eV. This has the effect of losing some of the downward "slope" on the energy landscape that prevents side reactions. Since A. marina has no choice but to use this lower energy system, it needs all the efficiency it can get, in terms of the transfer from chlorophyll to pheopytin. But it then sacrifices some driving force from the next step to the quinone. This has the ultimate effect of raising damage levels and side reactions when faced with more intense light. However, given its typically stable and symbiotic life style, that is a reasonable tradeoff.

On the other hand, C. thermalis (right-most in the diagram above) uses its chlorophyll d/f system on an optional basis when the light is bad. So it can give up some efficiency (in driving pheophytin electron acceptance) for better damage control. It has dramatically squeezed the gap between chlorophyll and pheophytin, from 0.16 eV to 0.08 eV, while keeping the main pheophytin-to-quinone gap unchanged. This has the effect of keeping the pumping of electrons out to the quinones in good condition, with low side-effect damage, but restricts overall efficiency, slowing the rate of excitation transfer to pheophytin, which affects not only the quinone-mediated path of energy to photosystem I, but also the path to the oxygen evolving center. The authors mention that this cyanobacterium recovers some efficiency by making extra light-harvesting pigments that provide more inputs, under these low / far-red light conditions.

The methods used to study all this were mostly based on fluorescence, which emerges from the photosynthetic system when electrons fall back from their excited states. A variety of inhibitors have been developed to prevent electron transfer, such as to the quinones, which bottles up the system and causes increased fluorescence and thermoluminescence, whose wavelengths reveal the energy gaps causing them. Thus it is natural, though also impressive, that light provides such an incisive and precise tool to study this light-driven system. There has been much talk that these far red-adapted photosynthetic organisms validate the possibility of life around dim stars, including red dwarves. But obviously these particular systems developed evolutionarily out of the dominant chlorophyll a-based system, so wouldn't provide a direct path. There are other chlorophyll systems in bacteria, however, and systems that predate the use of oxygen as the electron source, so there are doubtless many ways to skin this cat.

• Maybe humiliating Russia would not be such a bad thing.
• Republicans might benefit from reading the Federalist Papers.
• Fanny Willis schools Meadows on the Hatch act.
• "The top 1% of households are responsible for more emissions (15-17%) than the lower earning half of American households put together (14% of national emissions)."

Gone Fishing

Due to the press of other business, links only for this week.

• The power of reading.
• It is amazing that there are any redwoods left.
• Props to Orwell.
• And the indictment.. spells it all out. A play in 161 acts.
• Corruption is just a matter of course in this family.
• Cartoon of the week:

Euthansia of the Rentier

It is bad enough when business models make people rich for destroying the planet. Do we have to enrich those who do nothing at all?

John Maynard Keynes had a famous quip in his central work, The General Theory.... which goes, slightly re-arranged:

"Interest today rewards no genuine sacrifice, any more than does the rent of land. The owner of capital can obtain interest because capital is scarce, just as the owner of land con obtain rent because land is scarce. But whilst there may be intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of land, there are not intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of capital. ... It would be possible for communal saving through the agency of the state to be maintained at a level which will allow the growth of capital up to the point where it ceases to be scarce. Now, while this state of affairs would be quite compatible with some measure of individualism, it would mean the euthanasia of the rentier, and consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity value of capital."

Keynes assumed that this day would naturally come as capitalism developed and piled up endless riches in the form of money. But recently Thomas Piketty came along and stated that this day will never come, because for some curious/mysterious reason, returns on capital are persistently higher than they have a right to be, and higher than the economic growth rate. That means that the rich keep getting richer, on a magic escalator, forever, and the only way to change this, historically, has been the horsemen of the apocalypse- war, pestilence and famine. Economic depressions can be pretty effective as well. Sadly, we have rendered all these mechanisms less effective than they have been in the past, so need to come up with something else for this modern age.

It is quite clear that advanced economies have plenty of capital. Companies routinely give money back to shareholders or buy back stock, for lack of anything better to do with their mountains of money. Interest rates tend to be low. The Federal Reserve has campaigned mightily over the last three decades to raise interest rates, to what they deem "normal" rates, which are roughly 5%. The Fed is heavily influenced by the private banking industry, which benefits (perhaps) from higher rates, as do rentiers. Each time, however, some catastrophe has intervened and sent rates back to zero. Whether the latest push turns out be the charm is not clear, but Paul Krugman expects rates to eventually return to very low levels. Japan has had near-zero rates for a couple of decades, with little harm to its domestic economy. So it seems as though the natural interest rate in this era, among stable, peaceful economies, seems actually to be very low, approximately equal to the inflation rate, and thus approximately zero.

History of US interest rates and Japanese interest rates. We keep flirting with zero rates.

This abundance of capital has sent investors to the stock market as a better bet for growth. This has sent stock valuations higher, with price/earning ratios coasting at much higher than historical levels. There is a metric called the "Buffet index", which relates stock valuations to total GDP, and this is also unusually high, twice what it has been historically. Whether all this reflects overall wealth, or the greater profitability of current corporations (due to monopolies, lack of regulation, repeated stock buy-backs, shortchanging workers, etc.), or the push of too many investors into this market, it is a worrisome situation over the long term, as returns may fail to justify expectations.

At any rate, the question is.. how to address inequality and particularly the basically unjust income of rentiers, and bring Keynes' prophecy to fruition? The recent tax changes by the Democratic congress, to impose a cost on stock buy-backs, is a tiny step in the right direction. The the fact that federal taxes on income from work (except when that work is done for hedge funds!) is twice that on investment is a clear bias, inherited from the Reagan era, that needs to be eliminated. Outright wealth taxes are also needed, as are programs against off-shore wealth hiding and abuse of trusts. There is a very long list of ways to reduce the ratchet of wealth, and especially inherited wealth, that fundamentally corrodes the basic equality on which our social and political system is (or should be) based.

The modern monetary theory community has long advocated for another policy that would address this problem, which is to end the issue of federal government bonds. They see these bonds as a relic of past times when we were on the gold standard, and really had to borrow money from the public to make ends meet. With a fiat currency, closely managed by the Federal Reserve, the federal government has no need to borrow at all. It can and does print as much money as needed ("print" being a metaphor for creating mostly electronic forms of money). State and local governments, on the other hand, are financially constrained, and need to put out bonds if they want money for large projects, beyond what taxes bring in. In 2022, the federal government spent 476 billion dollars on interest payments on the debt, which may increase drastically if inflation rises on a durable basis. 

Who holds US federal bond debt?

Whom do these interest payments go to? Well, the Fed itself and the Social Security Administration hold huge amounts- no real loss there. Foreign countries hold huge amounts- China, for example, has a trillion dollar's worth; so does Japan. But then come banks, pension funds, and mutual funds- rich investors who like these low but extremely reliable returns. The mainstream argument for bond issuance, in the absence of a gold standard, is that bonds drain demand from an economy, preventing inflation that would result were the government to not "balance" its spending with borrowing that brings that money back into its coffers. What MMT proponents point out is that those who invest in government bonds are already rich and don't need the money they are parting with. Bonds are not displacing effective demand in the economy, just productive (or unproductive) investment. Secondly, federal bonds are a fully liquid market- the money is not actually tied up in a way that prevents it from turning into economic demand.

These are the classic rentiers, whom we are collectively paying roughly half a trillion dollars a year that could be much, much better spent on other things. The last time that the federal bond market came into doubt, as the Clinton administration, under pressure from the deficit scolds, went into surplus and started paying back the "debt", who raised a hue and cry? The banks, of course, who could not imagine a world without this manna falling from heaven. Well, the fact of the matter is that the foreign countries, and the banks, and all the other rentiers, could just as well hold the fundamental debt instrument of the US government- the dollar, instead of bonds. We don't have to pay all these entities a premium to take dollars off our hands, if that is what they want.

What keeps us from ending these bond payments? It isn't economics, it is purely legislative fiction, the same kind of fiction that makes congress go through the absurdities of raising the "debt" ceiling. The US federal debt is the obverse of economic growth, for which more currency needs to be issued. The Fed and treasury issue new dollars into the economy, channeled through federal spending, and a notional debt is created. The current law just means that one debt (dollar bills) must be traded for rentier-paying debts (bonds) ... because ... we used to do so. But it is no different than the debt implied by every dollar bill: that the government, and the economy in total, stand behind each dollar bill as a manifestation of faith and credit (and good federal management). The debt does not need to be "paid off", it will not drag down future generations, and most of all, it shouldn't be compounded with interest payments to the least deserving recipients imaginable.

• Maybe some de-oligarchization is in order.
• Loneliness is a political risk.
• A curious conference just happened.
• After holding out the hope of carbon capture for decades, it is now not "deployable".
• Perhaps maturity is better than growth.
• How do you think?
• They should come up with something better than they.

Bukharin's Lesson in Communism

A review of "The ABC of Communism", by Nikokai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky, 1920.

Nikokai Bukharin was one of the 1917 revolutionaries that brought communism to Russia. He was in New York (as was Leon Trotsky) in February 1917, as the news of the budding revolution spread around the world, and joined that revolution in May. He and Trotsky were penning a socialist newspaper at the time, and were particular fans of the New York public library- a great example of a public-private partnership, (not to mention free speech), which houses countless products of private enterprise, in a public facility. Back in Russia, they helped establish the world's first socialist and communist state, destroying the nascent parliamentary system of Karensky, and then the arrayed forces of the old aristocracy in the Russian civil war. They did this by promising something even better than parliamentary democracy- a proletarian state that would forever place workers in power, and end the power of capital and the aristocracy. 

A convenient document of the thinking behind all this is the "The ABC of Communism", by Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky, put out in 1920 and republished long thereafter to provide a popular argument for communism and the soviet system. It encapsulates the economic and political theories that animated, at least at a conscious level, the new rulers. Bukharin was relatively young, regarded as a leading theoretician, and somewhat on the liberal side, not quite as ruthless as Stalin and Lenin. An autobiography and film about his wife tried to paint a positive image of him and of what things would have been like if Bukharin had managed to not get murdered by Stalin. So this work should present a relatively coherent and attractive case for communism.

Bukharin (center) in happier days, in Soviet leadership.

Well, I have to say that it is not very impressive as either economics or politics. While it provides insight into some capitalist dynamics, it fundamentally fails to understand the most basic drivers of economic systems, and obviously has not engaged with Adam Smith, who had written almost 150 years before. 

On the plus side, there is a lengthy treatment of the economies of scale, which rightly describes the advantages that large industrial enterprises have over smaller ones. The point of this, however, is mostly political, to show why anarchism, which was one of the many revolutionary threads still active at the time, made little sense. The Bolsheviks were besotted by industry and large-scale industrialization, which was at least one area where they put a lot of resources and accomplished a great deal, saving their skins in world war 2, later on.

"Consequently, THE LARGER THE UNDERTAKING, THE MORE PERFECT IS THE TECHNIQUE, THE MORE ECONOMICAL IS THE LABOUR, AND THE LOWER IS THE COST OF PRODUCTION."

Secondly, the author's treatment of cyclical crises in capitalism is not too far off the mark. They pin the problem on over-production, which then leads to workers getting laid off, loss of income and buying power, loss of credit, loss of ancillary business, and the downward spiral of depression. Whether lack of demand or over-supply, imbalances of this kind are indeed central to this kind of crisis. The author's solution? Better organization, in the form of state control over every aspect of the economy. They ceaselessly rail against the waste of capitalism- the competition with similar products, the disorganized manner of production by competing and cut-throat capitalists, the lack of overall harmonious coordination for the public good. But what of Adam Smith? It turns out that the chaos of capitalism has its beauties, and its efficiencies, squeezing every drop out of the environment, and out of workers, in its Darwinian competition.

Thirdly, they make a great deal out of the ambient excesses of capitalism, which were truly horrific, and were clear enough all over the world, leading to the communist's program of world-wide revolution by the working class. The monopolies, the strike-breaking, the child labor, the inhuman conditions, and the vast inequality- these were unquestionable evils, some of which remain endemic to capitalism, others of which have been ameliorated through reform in (relatively) democratic countries. As is typical, criticizing is easy, and there were, and remain, plenty of problems with capitalism and with democracy as well. The question is whether Bukharin plumbs the essential depths of economics sufficiently to come up with a better economic system, or of its associated politics to come up with a better form of the state.

And here the answer has to be, as history demonstrated, no. In their discussion of large scale enterprise, they go through a rather particular example to show the power of scale.

"How great is the advantage of this system was made manifest by some American researches instituted in the year 1898. Here are the results. The manufacture of 10 ploughs. By hand labour: 2 workers, performing 11 distinct operations, worked in all 1,180 hours, and received $54. By machine labour: 52 workers, performing 97 operations (the more numerous the workers, the more varied the operations), worked in all 37 hours and 28 minutes, and received $7.90. (We see that the time was enormously less and that the cost of labour was very much lower.) The manufacture of 100 sets of clock wheels. By hand labour: 14 workers, 453 operations, 341,866 hours, $80.82. By machine labour: 10 workers, 1,088 operations, 8343 hours, $1.80. The manufacture of 500 yards of cloth. Hand labour: 3 workers, 19 operations, 7,534 hours, $135.6. Machine labour: 252 workers, 43 operations, 84 hours, $6.81."

... "All these advantages attaching to large-scale enterprise explain why small scale production must invariably succumb in capitalist society. Large scale capital crushes the small producer, takes away his customers, and ruins him, so that he drops into the ranks of the proletariat or becomes a tramp. In many cases, of course, the small master continues to cling to life. He fights desperately, puts his own hand to the work, forces his workers and his family to labour with all their strength; but in the end he is compelled to give up his place to the great capitalist."

If we read this carefully, and do the math in the case of the ploughs:

$54 / 1180 hours = 4.58 cents per hour in wages

$5.40 per plough in cost

$7.90 / 37.5 hours = 21.1 cents per hour in wages

$0.79 per plough in cost

... we can see that not only is the plough almost ten-fold cheaper (some of which is presumably shared with the buyer in the market), but the workers were paid almost five-fold more per hour. How is this a bad reflection on capitalism? This is by way of telling why small scale production dies in a capitalist system ... it doesn't stand a chance. But the authors fail to mention that, in their own example, some of these gains are apparently shared with workers. So the gains in efficiency are shared quite widely- with customers, with workers, and also with the managers and capitalists, since this new form of work requires much greater contributions of management and capital equipment.

Bukharin and Preobrazhensky are "doctrinaire" communists, blind to a gem hidden in their own data that tells us how and why the capitalist system really works. Why did workers flock to the cities when there were agricultural jobs to be had? It was higher pay. Were the new capitalists holding workers as serfs against their will? Not at all. In the US likewise, whatever the horrors of capitalism, it did not hold a candle to the horrors of slavery.

More broadly, Bukharin and the communists generally had little appreciation for the difficulties and role of management. The surplus labor theory of Marxism leaves no room for management contributions of value to the final product- it is all excess labor stolen from the worker, to be restored in the idealized worker state/paradise. The capitalists are parasites:

"In communist society parasitism will likewise disappear. There will be no place for the parasites who do nothing and who live at others' cost."

Rentiers may be parasites, but managers are not. Theirs is the job to locate the resources, drum up the customers, to build the factories, to negotiate the wages, to run the work and fire the lazy. It is not an enviable or simple position to be in, rather is perhaps the most complex in the capitalist system, or any economic system. (And it is noteworthy that failures of management are endemic in government, of even the most enlightened kind, where crucial parts of this constricting set of incentives are often lacking.) It is the competitive forces pressuring on all sides- from customers, from workers, from government, from the financial markets, etc., that are integrated by the petty bourgeoisie / kulak class into a solvent enterprise, and are the soul of the capitalist system, for which they take a premium of profits off the top.

Bukharin and colleagues never pause to consider why capitalism is so dominant:

"Contemporary capitalism is world capitalism. All the countries are interconnected; they buy one from another. We cannot now find any country which is not under the heel of capitalism; we cannot find any country which produces for itself absolutely everything it needs."

Why is this? There was no shortage of experiments in the 1800's in socialistic styles of life, extending from the Shakers and the Owenites to the Tolstoyans. Few of them even survived very long, and none had a broader impact, let alone rising to the organic level of country-wide economic system. Religious monasteries are probably the only example of successful long-term socialistic organizations, though most are run on more or less totalitarian lines, with a whole separate set of emotional and personal committments. This starkly unsuccessful track record should have been a red flag- forgive the pun!- that while socialist utopianism is very popular, it is not practical.

This cavalier disregard of management and the elementary aspects of human economic demand (aka desire, aka greed) naturally came back to bite the communist Soviets, when, in the absence of a well-thought out way to run things in the wake of winning power on the back of their fantasy of a perfectly (and apparently easily, thanks to a mythical "statistical office") ordered and efficient economic system, they fell to the lowest device in the manager's toolbox- terror.

Bukharin on his way to execution, after having helped Stalin hound Trotsky to death.

Why the loose economics, fantastical pronouncements, and embarassing lack of realism? The reason becomes apparent as you read through "The ABC of Communism", which is that its main purpose is to inspire hate. It is a political tract that, as was current among communists then and since, seeks to frame an enemy, inspire hatred of that enemy, and support for the valiant vanguard that will vanquish that enemy. 

"What civil war can compare in its destructive effects with the brutal disorganization and devastation, with the loss of the accumulated wealth of mankind, that resulted from the imperialist war? MANIFESTLY IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT HUMANITY SHALL MAKE AN END OF CAPITALISM ONCE AND FOR ALL. WITH THIS GOAL IN VIEW, WE CAN ENDURE THE PERIOD OF CIVIL WARS, AND CAN PAVE THE WAY FOR COMMUNISM, WHICH WILL HEAL ALL OUR WOUNDS, AND WILL QUICKLY LEAD TO THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF HUMAN SOCIETY."

... "We are thus confronted by two alternatives, and two only. There must either be complete disintegration, hell broth, further brutalization and disorder, absolute chaos, or else communism."

Millions of people all over the world were thoughtless enough to accept this poisoned chalice, and went down the road of economic brutalization, famine, mass terror, and the gulag. Communism turned out to be a power play, not an economic Oz. It was a bright and shiny political lie. We are in the US becoming familiar with the power of such lies- their use of the basest and most powerful instincts- hate, and hope. Their ability to cut straight through any rational and empathetic analysis, and their ability to make seemingly reasonable people believe the flimsiest absurdities.

• China is looking at some serious problems.
• Utopias should be strictly for thinking, not doing.
• Wait, I can't live in an exclusive neighborhood?
• Is it OK for lawyers to engage in insurrection?