Building the Middle Class

Why are poor people in the US enslaved to tyrannical, immiserating institutions?

Santa Claus brought an interesting gift this Christmas, Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickle and Dimed". This is a memoir of her experiment as a low wage worker. Ehrenreich is a well-educated scientist, feminist, journalist, and successful writer, so this was a dive from very comfortable upper middle class circumstances into the depths both of the low-end housing market and the minimum wage economy. While she brings a great deal of humor to the story, it is fundamentally appalling, an affront to basic decency. Our treatment of the poor should be a civil rights issue.

The first question is why we have a minimum wage at all. What is the lowest wage that natural economic conditions would bear, and what economic and social principles bear on this bottom economic rung? In ancient times, slavery was common, which meant a wage of zero. This was replicated in the ante-bellum American South- minimum wage of zero. So as far as natural capitalism is concerned, there is no minimum wage needed and people can rather easily be coerced by various social and violent means to work for the barest subsistence. The minimum wage is entirely a political and social concept, designed to express a society's ideas of minimal economic, civic, and social decency. Maybe that is why, as with so many other things, the US reached a high point in its real minimum wage in the late 1960's, 66% higher than what it is now.

Real minimum wage in the US, vs nominal.

The whole economy of low wage work is very unusual. One would think that supply and demand would operate here, and that difficult work would be rewarded by higher pay. But it is precisely the most difficult work- the most grinding, alienating, dispiriting work that is paid least. There is certainly an education effect on pay, but the social structure of low end work is mostly one of power relations, where desperate people are faced with endlessly greedy employers, who know that the less they pay, the more desperate their workers will be to get even that little amount. It is remarkable what we have allowed this sector to do in the name of "free" capitalism- the drug tests, the uniforms, the life-destroying scheduling chaos, the wage theft, the self-serving corporate propaganda, the surveillance.

Is it a population issue, that there is always an excess of low-wage workers? I think it is really the other way around, that there is a highly flexible supply of low-wage work, thanks to the petty-tyrannical spirit of "entrepreneurs". No one needs the eighth fast food restaurant, the fifteenth nail salon, or the third maid cleaning service. We use and abuse low wage labor because it is there, not because these are essential jobs. If a shortage of low-wage workers really starts to crimp an important industry, it has recourse to far more effective avenues of redress, such as importing workers from abroad, outsourcing the work, or if all else fails, automating it. What people are paid is largely a social construct in the minds of us, the society of employers who couldn't imagine paying decently for the work / servitude of others. To show an exception that illustrates the rule, nurses during the pandemic did in some cases, if they were willing to travel and negotiate, make out like bandits. But nurses who stayed put, played by the rules, and truly cared for those around them, were routinely abused, forced into extra work and bad conditions by employers who did not care about them and had .. no choices. In exceptional cases where true need exists, supply and demand can move the needle. But social power plays a very large role.

Some states have raised their minimum wage, such as California, to $15. This is a more realistic wage, though the state has astronomic housing and other costs as well. Has our economy collapsed here? No. It has had zero discernable effect on the provision of local services, and the low wage economy sails on at a new, and presumably more humane, level. When I first envisioned this essay, I thought that a much more substantial increase in the minimum wage would be the proper answer. But then I found that $15 per hour provides an annual income that is almost at the US level of median income, 34k annually for an individual. The average income in the US is only 53k. So there is not a lot of wiggle room there. We are a nation of the poorly paid, on average living practically hand-to-mouth. On the household level, things may look better if one has the luck to have two or more solid incomes.

My own individual incomes analysis, drawn from reported Social Security data.

Any any rate, a livable wage is not much different from the median wage, and even that is too low in many economically hot areas where real estate is unbearably expensive. This is, incidentally, another large dimension of US poverty, that the stand-pat, NIMBY, no-growth zoning practices of what is now a majority of the country have sentenced the poor and the young to an even lower standard of living than what the income statistics would indicate, as they fork over their precious earnings to the older, richer, and socially settled landlords among us.

So what is the answer? I would advocate for a mix of deep policy change. First is a minimum wage that is livable, which means $15 nationwide, indexed for inflation, and higher as needed in more high-cost states. It should be a basic contract with the citizenry and workers of all types that working should pay decently, and not send you to a food pantry. All those jobs and businesses that can not survive without poorly paid workers... we don't need them. Second would be a government employer of last resort system that would offer a job to anyone who wants one. This would be paid at the minimum wage, and put people to work doing projects of public significance- cleaning up roadways, building schools, offering medical care, checkups, crossing guards, etc. We can, as a society and as civil governments, do a better job employing the poor in a useful way than can the much-vaunted entrepreneurs. Instead of endless strip malls of bottom-feeding commerce, let local governments sweep up available labor for cleaning the environment, instead of fouling it. Welfare should be, instead of a demeaning odyssey through DMV- like bureaucracies, a straight payment to anyone not employed, at half the minimum wage.

Third, we need more public services. Transit should be totally free. Medical care should be completely free. Education should be free. And incidentally, secondary education should be all public, with private schools up to 12th grade banned. When we wonder why our country and politics have become so polarized, a big reason is the physical and spiritual separation between the rich and poor. While the speaker in the video linked below advocates for free housing as well, that would be perhaps a bridge too far, though housing needs to be addressed urgently by forcing governments to zone for their actual population and taking homelessness as a policy-directing index of the need to zone and build more housing.

Fourth, the rich need to be taxed more. The corrosion of  our social system is not only evident at the bottom where misery and quasi-slavery is the rule, but at the top, where the rich contribute less and less to positive social values. The recent Twitter drama showed in an almost mythical way the incredible narcisism and callous ethics that pervade the upper echelons (... if the last administration hadn't shown this already). The profusion of philanthropies are mere performative narcissism and white-washing, while the real damage is being done by the flood of money that flows from the rich into anti-democratic and anti-government projects across the land.

And what is all this social division accomplishing? It is not having any positive eugenic effect, if one takes that view of things. Reproduction is not noticeably affected, despite the richness at the top or the abject poverty at the bottom. It is not having positive social effects, as the rich wall themselves off with increasingly hermetic locations and technologies. They thought, apparently, that cryptocurrencies would be the next step of unshackling the Galtian entrepreneurs of the world from the oppression of national governments. Sadly, that did not work out very well. The rich can not be rich without a society to sponge off. The very idea of saving money presupposes an ongoing social and economic system from which that money can be redeemed by a future self. Making that future society (not to mention the future environment) healthy and cohesive should be our most fervent goal.

• How about universal basic services, like housing and transit?
• But not in this congress.
• Bernie is still on the case.
• Meanwhile, how does a soak-the-poor tax system sound?
• Mint that coin!
• Economic regression.

For the Love of Money

The social magic of wealth ... and Trump's travel down the wealth / status escalator.

I have been reading the archly sarcastic "The Theory of the Leisure Class", by Thorstein Veblen. It introduced the concept of "conspicuous consumption" by way of arguing that social class is marked by work, specifically by the total lack of work that occupies the upper, or leisure class, and more and more mundane forms of work as one sinks down the social scale. This is a natural consequence of what he calls our predatory lifestyle, which, at least in times of yore, reserved to men, especially those of the upper class, the heroic roles of hunter and warrior, contrasted with the roles of women, who were assigned all non-heroic forms of work, i.e. drudgery. This developed over time into a pervasive horror of menial work and a scramble to evince whatever evidence one can of being above it, such as wearing clean, uncomfortable and fashionable clothes, doing useless things like charity drives, golf, and bridge. And having one's wife do the same, to show how financially successful one is.

Veblen changed our culture even as he satarized and skewered it, launching a million disgruntled teenage rebellions, cynical movies, songs, and other analyses. But his rules can not be broken. Hollywood still showcases the rich, and silicon valley, for all its putative nerdiness, is just another venue for social signaling by way of useless toys, displays of leisure (at work, no less, with the omnipresent foosball and other games), and ever more subtle fashion statements.

Conversely, the poor are disparaged, if not hated. We step over homeless people, holding our noses. The Dalit of India are perhaps the clearest expression of this instinct. But our whole economic system is structured in this way, paying the hardest and most menial jobs the worst, while paying some of the most social destructive professions, like corporate law, the best, and placing them by attire, titles, and other means, high on the social hierarchy.

As Reagan said, nothing succeeds like success. We are fascinated, indeed mesmerized, by wealth. It seems perfectly reasonable to give wealthy areas of town better public services. It seems perfectly reasonable to have wealthy people own all our sports teams, run all our companies, and run for most political offices. We are after all Darwinian through and through. But what if a person's wealth comes from their parents? Does the status still rub off? Should it? Or what if it came from criminal activities? Russia is run by a cabal of oligarchs, more or less- is their status high or low?

All this used to make more sense, in small groups where reputations were built over a lifetime of toil in support of the family, group, and tribe. Worth was assessed by personal interaction, not by the proxy of money. And this status was difficult to bequeath to others. The fairy tale generally has the prince proving himself through arduous tasks, to validate the genetic and social inheritance that the rest of the world may or may not be aware of. 

But with the advent of money, and even more so with the advent of inherited nobility and kingship, status became transferable, inheritable, and generally untethered from the values it supposedly exemplifies. Indeed, in our society it is well-known that wealth correlates with a decline in ethical and social values. Who exemplifies this most clearly? Obviously our former president, whose entire public persona is based on wealth. It was evidently inherited, and he parlayed it into publicity, notariety, scandal, and then the presidency. He was adulated, first by tabloids and TV, which loved brashness (and wealth), then by Republican voters, who appear to love cruelty, mean-ness, low taste and intellect, ... and wealth. 

But now the tide is slowly turning, as Trump's many perfidies and illegal practices catch up with him. It is leaking out, despite every effort of half the media, that he may not be as wealthy as he fraudulently portrayed. And with that, the artificial status conferred by being "a successful businessman" is deflating, and his national profile is withering. One might say that he is taking an downward ride on the escalator of social status that is in our society conferred largely by wealth.

All that is shiny ... mines coal.

Being aware of this social instinct is naturally the first step to addressing it. A century ago and more, the communists and socialists provided a thoroughgoing critique of the plutocratic class as being not worthy of social adulation, as the Carnegies and Horatio Algers of the world would have it. But once in power, the ensuing communist governments covered themselves in the ignominy of personality cults that facilitated (and still do in some cases) even worse political tyrannies and economic disasters. 

The succeeding model of "managed capitalism" is not quite as catastrophic and has rehabilitated the rich in their societies, but one wouldn't want to live there either. So we have to make do with the liberal state and its frustratingly modest regulatory powers, aiming to make the wealthy do virtuous things instead of destructive things. Bitcoin is but one example of a waste of societal (and ecological) resources, which engenders social adulation of the riches to be mined, but should instead be regulated out of existence. Taking back the media is a critical step. We need to reel back the legal equation of money with speech and political power that has spread corruption, and tirelessly tooted its own ideology of status and celebrity through wealth.

• California police could use some supervision too.
• Marin- a cruel gerontocracy?

A Crisis in Public Management

What is the common thread between the US SARS-Cov2 crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement? Dysfunctional public management.

It is curious how the George Floyd crisis came up during the Covid 19 pandemic. Were people a little stir-crazy? Perhaps. Were people fed up with the callous culture war being waged from the White House? Definitely. But I think there is more to connect these crises- deep problems in American public management. Our problem with the pandemic speaks for itself. While many other countries, large and small, have eradicated this virus and proceeded to re-open their economies, (Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Taiwan, to name a few), we obviously have not, and continue to lead the world in new cases, day in and day out. What is wrong?

I think the main thing that is wrong is that our public health officials do not know what they are doing, and do not even conceive of the problem correctly. Their ambition has been to flatten the curve to reduce hospital congestion. This sentences us to, at best, a continous slow burn of viral cases, spiraling up when people get too careless, and quieting down after lockdown rules are re-instituted. It is clear that public officials completely lacked the ambition to fully contain and eradicate the virus. Doing that would require mobilizing an army of contact tracing and containment deputies, and enforcing quarantines on traced contacts, possibly with phone-based apps. We in Northern California had an ideal opportunity during the April-May time frame to fully control the virus. But did we? Not at all. The public officials contented themselves with testing and publicizing the daily trickle of cases, and having the police close public parks and other venues of congregation. Never was eradication even in the conversation, nor the appropriate powers and staff contemplated, as far as I can tell. Then, when the economic cost of even these half-hearted lockdown and distancing measures became too much, we re-opened, with the natural result of a rising tide of cases.

By not even conceiving that they should and could mount a total eradication campaign, our officials, from the local to the national levels, gave up before the game even began. And why was there this complete lack of ambition? First, we have not been used to this kind of disciplined, society-wide activity. Our social, not to mention political, system, is so atomized and uncohesive, dedicated to individualism, that an actually effective Chinese-style lockdown seems to have been inconceivable. But still, Canada has managed it at least partially- our closest neighbors, geographically and culturally.

Another obvious issue is the lack of a coherent health care system. The public health portion of it is an atrophied vestige, devoted more to bureaucratic stasis and policy quibbling than to actual intervention, uncertain whether it is a safety net for the poor, or a guardian for everyone. Higher officials should have realized that the given infrastructure would be and remains completely unable to mount the effort needed- which is thorough testing, contact tracing, and enforced isolation of contacts. A new organizational infrastructure needed to be built immediately, which was done in other countries, but not here. This is an obvious failure of public management, both in imagination and in execution.

In China, green means go.

Just as the pandemic shines a ghastly light on our public health organizations, the death of George Floyd, and the many prior cases of brutality and murder shines a similar light on another sector of public management- the police. Most police do great work in difficult conditions. Problems arise from a (large) sub-culture of callous disregard, inherited from Jim Crow and other authoritarian elements, combined with weak public management. One issue is unionization. Public employee unions have been toying with the electoral system for decades, running influential campaign ads and altering local elections and public policy to suit their interests. No wonder that we now have a public pensions crisis, absurdly early retirements, double dipping, secrecy for key records, and a litany of other abuses of the public purse and trust. Policies that make it virtually impossible to fire public employees are only one part of the problem, but one that is most central to the George Floyd case. Unlike the situation in public health, the rogue policemen are overzealous, rather than under-zealous. But the management issue is similar- who runs these organizations, do they have the full public interest in mind, whom do they serve, and do they have effective control over their employees? Answers to these questions are not pretty.

We are faced with two brands of corruption when it comes to public management. One is the Republican brand, which hardly cares about the public interest at all, only private interests. Anything they can do to drown the govm'nt in the bathtub, and allow natural feudalism to reign, giving social and economic power to the powerful, is OK with them. This means supporting white power and a traditional racial hierarchy, attracts sympathetic authoritarian types to police forces, and then winks at their indiscretions in enforcing the "natural" order.

The other is the Democratic brand, which cares so much about public service that it gladly ties itself up in knots of bureaucracy and procedure (and pensions, and consultants, and politically correct meetings, due process, and translators, and environmental review, and...) ending up incapable of accomplishing anything, or holding anyone to account. The Democratic brand is also pro-union, adding a whole other level of dysfunction and mismanagement to an already difficult situation. To bring in yet another example, the California high speed rail project is an object lesson in this style. Tens of billions of dollars have been poured down a bureaucracy dedicated to good pensions, due process, poor land acquisition practices, and continual underestimation of the fiasco they are participating in. The expected path of this train now looks more like an amusement park ride than a bullet train, and will only go from Los Angeles to somewhere in the central valley. As a citizen, it is incredibly frustrating to watch this waste and ineffectiveness.

The countries that have been most successful against Covid-19 have been the most cohesive societies, either by nature or by authoritarian force. Cohesiveness correlates with good public management, since it represents shared objectives and understandings about values and ways of doing things. Cohesiveness helps smooth the way between ideals and implementation. The US stands, clearly, as one of the least cohesive societies in the world, particularly after the trauma of the current administration. Is there strength in diversity? Up to a point. But there is more strength in unity.

• We are not good at collective action, at least these days.
• Public health.. what is that? Is it safety net care for the poor, or is it health for everyone?
• Thoughts on building better public institutions.
• Happy thoughts on the current administration.

Addiction, Exorcism, and the American Dream

Review of Beautiful Boy.

Why is drug addiction such a widespread and dangerous scourge? A lot has been made of the despair of the working class especially in declining rural areas- a crisis of meaning and survival at the short end of the capitalist system. But there is higher anxiety everywhere in our unequal, precarious, and atomized system. Even in wealthy Marin, where the story of this movie originates, parents are in what seems like fight to the death to get their offspring into colleges to fulfil an overwhelming set of competitive expectations. No wonder young adults, even when well-to-do, already feel themselves in a rat race which it would be pleasant to check out of, momentarily. Then add in the viciousness of modern drugs like crystal meth and fentanyl, and you have a lethal witches' brew.

Still from the movie. Timothee Chalamet playing Nic Sheff, and Steve Carrel playing David Sheff.

We used to regard Russia as a demographic basket case, with declining population riven with alcoholism in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Now we are facing a similar downward dynamic- a social rot punctuated by self-destruction through drugs and suicide. The ultimate source seems to be broad insecurity, which was precisely the point of the economic and cultural reforms of the recent Republican epoch, starting with Ronald Reagan. The benefits of competition and division were trumpeted, and the rich were feted as job creators and entrepreneurs, and given absurd benefits like a tax rate on investment profits half as high as the rate on labor income. Companies developed an ideology of serving profits to the exclusion of all other goals, which meant the destruction of stable life schedules, stable jobs, and stable communities. The Reagan era gave rise to wide-spread homelessness, the ultimate warning to labor to keep its head down. And a broad reduction of safety nets of all sorts, from corporate pensions to onerous rules for welfare, which was divided into a puzzle of ungenerous programs.

How ironic, then, that Donald Trump offered to fix all this for workers, restoring the greatness and jobs of America. Who suspected that he came from a Republican tradition whose first order of business, when given power, has been to hand money to the rich? Who suspected that his policy ideas came more from the tabloid headlines of the 80's and 90's (not to say his fascist forebears in the 30's) than from the issues the working class face today? Who suspected that the greatest epoch in American history, after World War 2, was actually our period of highest taxation, culminating in, not coincidentally, the Apollo space program, which was hardly a capitalist venture?

Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump each cloaked themselves as shamans for an anxious society, ready to exorcise the demons of economic malaise and insecurity, as well as those of Vietnam. While Democrats offered laundry lists of melioration, Republicans could do no such thing, their object being to strengthen hierarchy and help the better-off. They have instead lighted on a more tribally / religiously tinged approach, offering a broad ideology of conservatism (however radical the implementation, and departure from the existing system) and order, which would by some mystery of compassionate conservatism redound to the benefit of all after generous payouts to the few.

On the military front, they authored a series of military misadventures that climaxed with the criminal debacle in Iraq. On the economic front, they pushed hard-line capitalism as the cure-all to bring economic growth, starving the state with deregulation, outsourcing, and bitter budget / deficit battles as a purgatorial nostrum that would rejuvenate an ailing system. Curiously, however, the treatment never worked for the middle class and poor, keeping them economically static and ever more insecure, while the rich and super-rich pocketed all the proceeds.

Economic vitality needs some dynamism and destruction. But people and communities need stability and a basic level of egalitarianism to feel human and have basic freedoms. The founders foresaw that rising wealth and inequality might make of America the same class-ridden culture they had fled in Europe. Their hopes were tied not just to the new republican structure they were building, but also, in economic terms, to the frontier- the jobs-for-all program of its day- which would continue to offer all Americans (and immigrants from all over the world) the option of a decent and hard-working living, preventing excessive inequality.

Now the frontier is gone, the population continues to rise, and the only solution from the "conservative" right is to squeeze the middle class and poor relentlessly in a spiral of anxiety that drives everyone to work and live under ever less humane conditions. We need a better balance that builds more unifying social structures and public goods, reels back the excesses of extreme capitalism, and gives people breathing space and freedom to dream of being more than cogs in a machine.

Mass Transit is Pleasant Travel

Let me count the ways.. I love mass transit.

Love to drive? Some people do. But do you love to drive in LA? The pleasure of driving goes down dramatically in congested conditions, where what was once a carefree sail down the freeway turns into a white-knuckled fight for free space, slowing to a frustrating crawl through a baking, exhaust-filled parking lot. Then there is the fear of accident and injury. Every day, the radio traffic report provides bland "injuryaccident" reports from the metro area. Driving has turned into a nightmare.

The US has not built significant infrastructure, particularly roads, for decades, and it shows in worsening traffic conditions. In parallel, housing prices go up, thanks to an unwillingness to zone for growth in housing as well as in traffic. Yet our population still goes up, despite the sclerosis in public policy. What can be done?

Entering BART trains is easy...

Some urban areas have an answer to the car, and it is mass transit, either by train or bus. The New York subway system ridership has gone up steadily, and is now at 5.7 million per day. The Bay area subway system, BART, has also experienced strong gains, to half a million riders per day. All this despite the growth of ride-share services which, while they may relieve the user of the task of driving, do nothing to resolve the uncertainty and unpleasantness of congestion on the roads.

I have recently switched to transit for a long cross-Bay Area trip, and it has been a revelation. Gone is the road rage and isolation, replaced by abundant people-watching and the ability to just look out the window, or rest (or work). The occasional stress of making a properly-timed bus or train is significantly less than the constant stress of preventing death or collision in a car. Granted, the seats are rarely very comfortable, and not everyone is friendly, or even sane. But on the whole, it is an easy call, especially since the direct costs are almost precisely the same, even before amortizing the cost of the car itself, not to mention those to the planet.

• Is Afghanistan a satrapy?
• Afghanistan: rural areas are important, Pakistan is still bad.
• Pakistan: "Who, us?"
• Science- broken, or not so bad? And do different fields have different standards and forms of corruption?
• Our media maelstrom.
• This just in: insecticides kill insects.
• Bullies and jerks.. why?
• Workers will still get the shaft.
• Russia is still there.
• How far will denialism go?
• Environmental graph of the week: California electricity grid during the eclipse. Overall peak demand is about 40,000 Megawatts, so solar generation provides roughly one quarter of peak demand in the state.

The California Electric grid, 08/212017, 5 PM (top), compared to the day before (bottom).

The Housing Gouging Distortion

We've got a problem in the US with housing. Overpricing, homelessness, financialization, inequality, all are affected by the shortage of real estate.

We don't usually take kindly to price gouging, defined as prices raised far beyond the cost of provision to what the market will bear, typically due to unusual circumstances like famine, natural disaster, etc. Taking undue advantage of the misfortune of others is unethical, as is forcing others into destitution by virtue of their basic necessities. Charging far more than the cost of providing a service or product is one of the primary justifications of markets and capitalist competition, and its failure raises serious questions.

However such gouging, in essence, looms large in the housing market. Land is inherently limited, and its shortage creates prices far above the cost of provision, which is, frankly, zero. Whoever has title gains value that they have no role at all in creating, that value being the network effect of everyone else wanting to live wherever there are other people, services, amenities, schools, etc. It is a classic case of incumbants reaping rewards they have little individual right to, keeping equally deserving outsiders at bay.

Inflated housing prices force everyone into an arms race of spending every available penny on real estate, housing being a necessity, after all. Those who lose out become homeless- an appalling sign of societal failure. The various incentives offered by the Federal government, such as the mortgage interest deduction, do little more than put more resources into this arms race, bidding up prices and leaving homeowners with no more money to spare than they would have had otherwise.

And the ever more dizzying high-wire financial engineering required to take on the debt involved plays right into the hands of one of our most destructive industries- the financial industry, a haven of small text, opacity, slight of hand, and offers that are way, way too good to be true. The recent financial crisis illustrates the point. Not only is typical housing debt too high, but gyrations in the housing market built on scarcity, and the mountain of credit that serves it, yield periodic crises that shake the whole economy.

The general economy is severely hobbled by this vortex of excess money going to the literal rentiers of society, and our cultural and civic institutions are particularly harmed by the lack of extra resources in the pockets of ordinary people. High housing costs are an engine of inequality and of societal decay.

What to do? It seems clear that were housing to be kept to what it actually costs to build, rather than the inflated cost of scarce land and restricted zoning, the average family would be much better off, and more housing could be built for the poor and homeless. Yet there is no way to get around the limitation of land, really, and the tendency of desirable locations to create bidding wars and price increases. Living in a very high-priced real estate market, I can appreciate that the despite all the harms, there is a natural evolution that gets us there, swathed in very politically correct talk of "preserving open space", "preserving communities", and limits of infrastructure, not to mention the interest of every single incumbant property owner in seeing the value of their land go up.

A classic proposal is a land tax that taxes away the "rent" or scarcity aspect of property values, leaving only the value of the built infrastructure to be captured by owners. It sounds very elegant, but I do not know enough about its feasibility to comment, really.

My proposal would be to force every county in the US to provision & zone sufficient land such that in those areas at least, developers can build and sell for the cost of construction, more or less. Counties would also be on the hook for infrastructure planning, making sure that the overall road and other systems are built that can support the requisite growth. In this way they can avoid rezoning and disturbing existing desirable areas. But there would be a mechanism to allow housing growth and keep a lid on area-wide real estate inflation.

In truly dense areas, such as Manhattan or San Francisco, this mandate could be fulfilled by building up instead of out, and in extremis, condeming older areas for redevelopment. But there is no reason not to have at-cost housing available all over the country, in ways that are reasonably local to every community, which would address workforce housing needs, homelessness (to some degree), and the overall rise in real estate prices.

This plan is reminiscent of the housing "project" boom in the 60's and 70's. But one difference is that it is all oriented to market-rate housing, not explicitly to free or subsidized housing, which has such problems with uncaring owners and tenants (not to mention architects). The idea is just to make sure that the market keeps up with population needs at all times, so it doesn't run away in a price spiral.

The current housing non-policy seems to function as a fundamental barrier to growth. Governments are not willing to build infrastructure, and tolerate traffic gridlock. Citizens in turn regard any mention of housing growth in this kind of restricted environment as crazy. Governments in turn get higher property tax revenues from real estate inflation rather than development growth, and so it goes in a spiral of stasis, and ultimately, sclerosis. It would take far-sighted leadership and some top-down policy to reverse the problem.

This is not to say that population, migration, and other forms of growth are automatically a good thing. Far from. But artificial housing price inflation is not a rational way to restrict what should better be restricted by other means, such as immigration control and educational development.

• Housing gyrations whipsaw the rest of the economy.
• Reich on FIRE.
• As long as there’s fear, we aren’t ready for atheism: "I think the main passion of the conservative mind is fear and there’s no greater fear than that the universe is without meaning."
• Stiglitz on the idiocy of austerity.
• The Republican version of "middle class economics": "Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina proposed a gas-tax hike on Jan. 21 to offset reducing the top state income-tax rate to 5% from 7%."

Alta California, filibusters, and the exceptional nation

A little California history. Mentioning General Vallejo, by Allan Rosenus, and 75 Years in California, by William Heath Davis.

Is the US exceptional, and exceptionally good? Are we the exceptional nation just because we have the biggest navy, or for some more positive attribute? Are we generous, or greedy? Do we confer democracy and good government on other nations and stand as a beacon of hope to the downtrodden, or do we confer kleptocracies and rob the downtroden of the little mite they have through pernicious trade deals and relentless consumerism?

We have shown many faces to the world over the years, and the recent JFK assassination anniversary was a chance to reflect on some of them. Oswald was apparently incited to some degree by the (true) stories he had heard in Mexico of the plots carried out by the US to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba, over and above the Bay of Pigs invasion. Our history in Latin America generally is a rather uninspiring one of rampant meddling and empowerment of the worst elements available. If one looks up the term "filibuster" on Wikipedia, one is met with a cavalcade of such instances of "manifest destiny", where Americans tried, with more or less success, to take over various Latin states, which must have seemed ripe for the picking, in an imperialist kind of way. For filibustering is unlawful predation, hostage taking, free-booting, meddling, etc. in another country, only later becoming that parliamentary gridlocking device.

The history of California is a fine example of this tradition. I have been reading two books: "General Vallejo", an excellent biography by Alan Rosenus, and "Seventy Five years in California", a beautifully written and very detailed memoir by William Heath Davis, an early merchant.

Spain set up a trail of missions up the California coast starting in 1769, enslaving the native indians with the Catholic church's one-way ticket to heaven, forming ranchos where the padres were in charge, each had a small military detachment to maintain control, and a vast flock of "conversos" to do the work. Who incidentally a died like flies from the treatment, the novel diseases, diet, etc. Mexico revolted from Spain in 1821, and the departments of Baja California and Alta California came under Mexican control, the missions were divided up and granted to, typically, former military officers. Such grants gradually encroached inland, past the coastal areas where the missions were originally confined. General Mariano Vallejo, who commanded the Presidio at San Francisco in 1833, among other posts, was granted large ranchos in the Sonoma area, north of the bay.

The rancheros slaughtered a portion of their stock each fall for hides and fat alone, leaving the rest of the carcasses, which attracted bears, which gave rise in turn to the excitement of roping and killing bears. California now has no grizzly bears, and maybe 30,000 black bears.

Mexico's hold over California was remarkably tenuous. Its own post-revolutionary government was tumultuous and unstable in the extreme, so its capacity to pay for or pay attention to the far-away province of Alta California was meagre. Mexicans looked down at their Northern rustic brethren, who used their enormous ranchos to run thousands of cattle and horses, their hides and tallow being pretty much the sole export of the province for the pre-US period, along with the furs of wild animals such as otters. The racheros carried on the Padre's practice of enslaving the native Americans, paying them solely in clothes and food, which was sometimes served from common troughs.

Indeed, it was a close-run thing whether California was going to side with the South or the North in the brewing Civil war. However, the predominant cultural influence from the US came from Boston, whose merchants (including William Davis) had traded up the coast since the Mexican accession,  (Richard Dana's Two Years Before the Mast is another great book in this historical literature), and married into the Californio social system.

"The native Californians [Californios, not Indians] were about the happiest and most contented people I ever saw, as also were the early foreigners who settled among them and intermarried with them, adopted their habits and customs, adn became, as it were, a part of themselves." - William Heath Davis, 75 years in California.

The exception was Sutter's fort. John Sutter was a Swiss/German adventurer and neer-do-well who after various failures around the world arrived in California (1839) with a small German entourage and enough charm to buy up Fort Ross, the Russian outpost North of San Francisco which was shutting down for lack of otters, which they had hunted to extinction. Sutter promised payment in goods (to be sent to Sitka, the remaining Russian outpost) to be raised around his land-grant near what is now Sacramento, also obtained with a good bit of charm from the Mexican authorities. While far from the coast, Sutter's fort (equipped with the materiel from Fort Ross) was still on navigable waters (the American and Sacramento rivers, and strategically placed at the foothills of the Sierras to intercept immigrants coming overland from the East. It soon became a hotbed of Americans and pro-American sentiment.

"Having accomplished my purpose of landing Captain Sutter at the junction of the American and Sacramento rivers with his men and his freight, the following morning we left him there, and headed the two vessels for Yerba Buena [now San Francisco]. As we moved away Captain Sutter gave us a parting salute of nine guns- the first ever fired at that place- which produced a most remarkable effect. As the heavy report of the guns and the echoes dies away, the camp fo the little party was surrounded by hundreds of the Indians, who were excited and astonished at the unusual sound. A large number of deer, elk, and other animals on the plains were startled, running to and fro, stoping to listen, their heads raised, full of curiosity and wonder, seeming attracted and fascinated to the spot, while from the interior of the adjacent wood the howls of wolves and coyotes filled the air, and immense flocks of water fowl flew wildly about over the camp. 

Standing on the deck of the 'Isabel' I witnessed this remarkable sight, which filled me with astonishment and admiration, and made an indelible impression on my mind. This salute was the first echo of civilization in the primitive wilderness so soon to become populated, and developed into a great agricultural and commercial center."

Enter John C Fremont, Major in the US army, whose assignment was to find the source of the Arkansas river. While the US was heading to war with Mexico over Texas, government policy at the time was to be a nice as possible to the Californians and not give any cause for grievance. But greed and glory were overwhelming temptations, and Fremont, who was evidently a persuasive and charismatic figure, led his troop of some 50 soldiers through surveys through the West, into Oregon, and down into California. There he began agitating for a takeover of California, under what seems to be a general sense of imperialism, manifest destiny, ambition, greed, etc. And perhaps competition with the other imperial powers of England and France. At first he kept the US out of it by not using his own soldiers, rather inciting a rabble of malcontents around Sutter's fort to start the proceedings.

Led by William Ide and the stuttering Ezekiel Merritt, this posse descended on General Vallejo's ranch in Sonoma in June, 1846 and took him prisoner, back to Sutter's fort. As Vallejo was the leading figure of Northern California at the time, this esentially decapitated local resistance, in case any was contemplated, which it was not. The Californios had had several revolutions against their governors from Mexico, and other political disagreements, but never were blood shed or manners forgotten. In contrast, Vallejo and several other prisoners were treated poorly, losing a great deal of weight, and the Anglo rabble stole countless horses and other livestock throughout the area. Along the way, they proclaimed a somewhat comical "California Republic", complete with flag, whose mascot was mocked as looking more like a pig than a bear. Fremont took increasing control, and on a foray out to Marin county, ordered three Californios captured in San Rafael to be shot in cold blood.

The original "bear" flag of the bear flag revolt.

It all created a great deal of bad blood between the Anglos and the Californios, and was completely unnecessary, as the direction of the political winds had long been clear. Leading Californios, especially Vallejo, were pro-American, favored development and competent government for the state, and preferred the nearby Republican power to a European imperial monarchy such as England or France. Indeed, U.S. Commodore Thomas Jones had captured the capital of Alta California, Monterrey, in 1842, holding it for a day before, amid a flurry of apologies, lowering the US flag once again when it was made clear that his belief that war had been declared between the two countries was in error. Not a shot had been fired, let alone a drop of blood spilled.

As it happened, while the Bear flag revolt was developing, war had indeed broken out between the US and Mexico over the Texas territory. US Commodore John Sloat pulled into Monterrey on July 7, 1846 and this time proclaimed California a US posession for good, and without any trouble. Upon meeting Fremont, he chewed him out for his filibustering, against orders. Eventually Fremont was court-martialed for his various departures from orders and policy, but let off the hook through his political connections and returned to service in the Civil war, only to be dimissed again by President Lincoln for corruption and insubordination. Vallejo for his part was eventually impoverished through a combination of bad business decisions, excess generosity, chicanery by Anglo partners, and finally a callous decision by the Supreme Court against some of his land claims.

The adventures and meddling of the sort that Fremont engaged in are by no means isolated in US history, under either official or unoffical auspices. The exceptional nation, with manifest destiny, muscular Christianity, a white man's burden, family values, and occupying a shining city on a hill, can do whatever it takes to remake the world in our image, which is naturally the best image imaginable.

Surely we have very beneficial things to offer others. But looking back, we have also run brutally roughshod over so much in the drive to conquer- natural, native, and foreign- that some grief and humility is also called for.

• The banal country.
• Candor vs exceptionalism. Or would candor be exceptional?
• Capitalism and Climate heating: total fail.
• Heracleion, found.
• The Taliban says they don't mind being killed by drones.
• Terror management theory.
• Annals of predatory, slimy finance- payday lending.
• Let's end the $6 billion freebie for the banks.
• Over in congress, austerity is forever. Democrats totally gave up this time around.
• Upstairs, downsourced.
• Money, not surveillance, is killing democracy.
• Bizarre moment on air force one ... but were they naked?
• Economics graph of the week... real wage trends.

American Taliban

A long-standing campaign of intimidation, terror, and killing ... forgive my anger about it.

Much was made of the "American Taliban"- Silver Spring and Marin county-raised John Walker (now Hamza) Lindh, who in a fit of teenage spiritual seeking wound up in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban. He joined a fundamentalist movement clothed in religious garb dealing death and oppression to all who came in contact with it. Lindh was a part of the Taliban, but not part of an American Taliban. For that, we need to look at the anti-abortion movement.

Of all the fixations of the right, this is surely the most fixed and relentless. Just as the Taliban sought a re-norming of society in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan, including the definitive oppression of women, adherence to a fantastical interpretation of Islam, all covering a lust for absolute power, fundamentalist Christians seek a renorming of American society, extensive regression in women's rights, schooling in accordance with a fantastical interpretation of the Bible, all covering a lust for absolute power, signaled by their formula that ours is a "Christian nation".

For all its talk of love and life, the right is tellingly served by its media, which massages its erogenous hate-zones with talk radio and FOX news, including numerous incitements to attack abortion providers such as George Tiller. How different is this from the mosques in Europe and elsewhere that stream denunciations of the kaffir, hatred of the societies that host them, and all those opposed to the triumph of Islam? Where democracy demands reasoned debate premised on pragmatic grounds of mutual understanding and forbearance, the right cleaves to authoritarianism and absolutism, yearning for an emotionally secure hierarchy of God in his heaven, (Republican) president in his White House, pastor in his church, and father in his family. Patriarchy is central to the emotional needs of traditionalists, leading to their various fixations- on executive power, on the imagined absolute morals of religion, and on the "proper role" of women.

The quiverfull movement is a fascinating example of this mind-set, going far beyond home-schooling and stocking the basement for the apocalypse, to a complete subjugation of the women to be barefoot and pregnant, to spend their lives raising children, satisfying their men, submitting to his every decision, and "opening" their wombs to the lord's desires, be He celestial or domestic.

But it is with abortion that the right has found its most potent issue- a club with which to bludgeon the larger secular culture. If framed solely around the fetus, it is a heinous act, expecially if one posits that conception conjures an everlasting soul which will meet and reprove its mother in the hereafter (fathers, well, they get off scot free, I believe). But what of the mother's frame- a mother who may not want, or can not have, another child, who had accidental sex, who may want to plan for children farther in the future, who in any case is far more sentient and morally valuable than the fetus she carries? (Or is she? The right might say otherwise.) The extremists insist on seeing the dilemma through one frame only when it suits their political agitation, though when their own daughters get into difficulties, it suddenly becomes a personal choice.

The moral calculus is not black and white. Life is increasingly valuable as it is developed, raised, educated, and conscious. Making a fetish of fetuses that have meager or no consciousness or ability to suffer is to create a peculiar imbalance in the moral order. And the point of this imbalance is as clear here as it is in Afghanistan- to disempower women. Rightists want to treat women as vessels, as fields planted with the male seed, as wombs whose most serious purpose is to carry children.

If the principle were truly to preserve and multiply all human life, it would in the first place be abhorrent, since there is already an excess of human life on the planet, from which we need to find some way to climb down as humanely as possible. Generating 12 billion, 24 billion, and more people as we are on a natural path to do will be catastrophic for humanity and for the biosphere- an unsustainable path that ends in monumental suffering. In the second place, rightists tend to be wildly inconsistent, cheering on killing in the form of death penalties and wars, (and apocalypses targeting the unrighteous), even while imagining themselves adherents of an iron-clad, absolute commandment to not kill.

As with the subtle workings of the muslim hijab, the anti-abortion movement has even enlisted women in their own disempowerment, playing on their compassion and love as a front for asking the state to tell all women that once they are successfully impregnated, they must lose control of their bodies and destinies. Why the boundary must be at the point of conception, and not the production of eggs, or sperm, is somewhat mysterious- they are all potential life, all vulnerable to heartless disregard. Now it turns out that all the cells of our bodies are potential new life, by the miracle of cloning technology. Is it immoral to discard skin cells?

The status of women evokes deep-seated feelings. Indeed if any feelings can be said to be "deeply held", it would be these. The Catholic church makes a fetish of Mary as inert immaculate mother, while denegrating women's capacities for spiritual experience and leadership, indeed banning them from office, and not only opposing abortion, but also opposing condom use, as if breeding like rabbits (or sheep) were the highest lay aspiration.

In the US as elsewhere, opposition to abortion is a stalking horse for misogyny and patriarchy- the devaluation and oppression of women in the guise of saving innocent life, tradition, and nature itself. That is why the killing of George Tiller is not an isolated incident. It is part of an extremist effort to turn back the clock of the modern world using religiously cloaked campaign of intimidation, terror, and killing to send the women of America back into the shadows of hearth and home. The movement may tepidly distance itself from this particular killing and killer, but it has spent decades inciting his actions as it has terrorized and intimidated women, doctors, and politicians who disagree.

The status of women is one of the most important global issues of our day and of the future. It is women who scare the heck out of the Afghan Taliban (and the Saudi monarchy, and the Iranian mullahs, etc.) and will break its back politically if given the chance. It is empowered women who care for their children enough to have few rather than many, advancing both human development and environmental protection, and it is empowered women who bring peace to world politics, putting compassion and sustainability over competitiveness and conflict.

• Tom Tomorrow considers this modern world
• Ellen Goodman on the larger picture of intimidation
• Frank Rich gets it too
• Gosh- perhaps we do have a problem, after all
• But let's not overreact or anything
• What did Tiller do?
• Douthat on compromise
• Phenomenal lecture on religion and the human condition, by Robert Sapolsky
• Fascinating meditation on work and meaning
• And remember to ditch that cable TV

Chief Marin

Marin County is named after a Coast Miwok whose story is movingly told by Betty Goerke.

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not very far away, the concrete and asphalt of Marin County did not exist. Animals roamed at will, the air was pure, and the seasons passed in regular succession without the threat of expiring into the maw of global industrialization. The county was dotted with people who wove baskets of grass, gathered mussels from the bay, wove feathers into their headbands, and told abundant stories from their past, and from their imaginations.

Local anthopologist and archeologist Betty Goerke recently gathered what evidence there is about these native Americans into her book "Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, Legend". There isn't very much, since they spoke their stories rather than blogging them, but Goerke is judicious in setting the scene and reading as much as possible from what there is. I highly recommend it.

The principle horror she describes is the California mission system. Now curiosities and museums, the missions were outposts run by Catholic priests, first from Spain (1775 to 1821), then from Mexico (1821 to 1846). The priests had final say over all matters at the mission, including command over small military detachments assigned to them. They regarded baptism as a one-way street, cajoling natives into baptisms that they hardly understood, then sending military parties out to recover any "neophytes" who dared to go home again.

Once inducted into the mission system, neophytes were treated like slaves, worked under military guard in the fields, housed in segregated "dormatories" from which there was no escape, and paid only food and clothing enough to subsist. A fascinating contrast is presented by Fort Ross, a Russian outpost slightly to the north, whose clergy made no project of enslaving the natives, nor did the military harrass them most of the time, but let them trade with and work for the fort on relatively equitable terms. "Runaways" from the Spanish to the Russian establishment were thus a constant problem. Goerke writes "Father Amorós (of the San Rafael mission) sent out a force of a few soldiers and neophytes to retrieve and harass those who had fled to Colony Ross.", and quotes the Russian Achille Schabelski, who "saw several tents of unhappy fugitives from Mission San Rafael, who, taking me for a Spaniard, fled to the mountains.". One native chief said that the Spaniards "were bad men who took his kinsmen captive and make them work like cattle in the fields".

Eventually, the Spaniards (dragged down by their theocratic tendencies) were replaced by Mexicans, who, enacting the enlightenment ideals of the time and of their own liberation, decided to release the natives with shares of the land, abundant livestock and produce from the missions. Yet corruption carried the day, and the local authorities managed to leave the native Americans with virtually nothing at all. The land they fled to was not generally recorded and deeded, with dire future consequences as Mexico gave land grants to sundry soldiers and other well-connected non-natives. While settlement was sparse this problem was not immediately apparent, but as white settlers arrived and after the Bear flag revolt revisited all the deeds in California, the die was cast for total displacement and disenfranchisement (Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924).

In many ways the native conditions were even worse during this time of "freedom", since the native Americans were hunted for sport and impromtu slavery by both Mexican (by General Vallejo and his relations, among many others) and white settlers. Goerke writes "In the North Bay, according to most accounts by the settlers and the military, the Indians were pursued for capture rather than murder, because the rancho owners needed men to work as laborers. ... the outcome was the same: murder, rape, and enslavement."

The role of Chief Marin in all this is rather murky. He flits in and out of the scene as a sometime pillar of the San Franscisco and San Rafael missions, sometime rebel leader harrassing the missionaries and hiding out on islands in the Bay, sometime prisoner (escaping several times), and sometime ferryman and trusted pilot about the bay. At one point in prison, he fends off a priest as follows: ".. told him with the greatest sang-froid that if the priest would not bother him while he was alive he would give his permission to make a Christian of his dead body. With this statement he dismissed this tormentor." He was respected by his adversaries, which led General Vallejo to suggest his name for the County across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. But all Goerke has to work with are baptismal, wedding, and burial records in the mission archives, and the much later histories and recollections of Vallejo and other Californios (Mexicans), after they were themselves expropriated by the inrushing horde from the east. In the end, her book is most moving in evoking the life of the Coast Miwok before, during, and after the traumas of colonization.

I'll close with one last quote from the book, from the early mission period, referring to the Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue:

Twice a year, some of the Indians received passes that allowed them to return to their native villages for a brief period. Kotzebue observed: 'This short time is the happiest period of their existence; and I myself have seen them going home in crowds, with loud rejoicings. The sick, who can not undertake the journey, at least accompany their happy countrymen to the shore where they embark, and there sit for days together, mournfully gazing on the distant summits of the mountains which surround their homes; they often sit in this situation for several days, without taking any food, so much does the sight of their lost home affect these new Christians.'