The War on Terror has proven to be a self-defeating metaphor. The 9/11 atrocities could have been framed in two main ways -- as the crime of the century or an act of war. President Bush insisted he knew America was at war from the moment the high-jacked planes hit the towers. However, Bush’s claim was not an objective fact subject to verification, but rather a rhetorical invention suited to a political agenda.
The death and destruction unleashed on that terrible day by a band of mass murderers was real enough, but were the hijackers criminals or soldiers? The jihadists, of course, fancy themselves as warriors in Allah’s army, not petty criminals and barbarous thugs. The former view, however, is both self-serving and patently delusional. The later view, on the other hand, is congruent with depraved and lawless mind-set and character of al-Qaeda and its membership.
There will always be nutcases who dress up in combat fatigues and organize their own paramilitary exercises. Unfortunately, some of these characters will include genuine sociopaths who think they are going to war by targeting unarmed civilians. To label these misfits “soldiers” does a disservice to the brave men and women who serve in legitimate standing armies that are pledged to protect civilians.
President Bush inadvertently played into the hands of anarchic terrorists by legitimizing their delusions. Historically, terrorists groups (such as the Irish Republican Army) have taken great pains to gain recognition as real military organizations. One can argue that lawless groups, such as pirates and terrorists, deserve no such distinction or recognition. They are, in fact, common criminals who cloak their antisocial activities in the garb of liberation movements, but their violent and criminal means invariably discredit and corrupt the causes they purport to champion.
The Obama administration is right to downplay the war on terror metaphor and reframe terrorism as a law enforcement issue. In truth, terrorism represents something of a hybrid challenge. The confluence and terrorists and WMD in the 21st century, raises the prospect of civilian casualty levels one normally associates with war, not crime. One positive consequence of the war on terror metaphor is that it raised civilization’s sense of urgency. However, the war on terror metaphor undoubtedly backfired in many respects, particularly in so far as the Bush administration’s might makes right approach to national security supplanted the demands of justice.
The perpetrators of 9/11 committed one of the worst acts of mass murder in human history. Insisting that their actions were an act of war perversely legitimized their delusion that they were soldiers engaged in holy cause against an infidel power. Put simply, by ratifying the delusion that the highjackers were soldiers we inadvertently reduced their moral culpability. Further, we delegitimized ourselves by torturing them.
The Obama administration has made the decision that the alleged mastermind of 9/11 should stand trial for the crimes of which he is accused. There are risks with this approach, but there is also the opportunity that a fair and impartial trial can deliver the kind of justice that the world will respect and look up to. Ironically, justice delivered in the courtroom may be a more effective blow against terrorism than the Bush administration’s overreliance on military methods, which tended to lose us allies while creating a new cadre of enemies.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Massacre at Fort Hood and the Lessons of "The Searchers."
The massacre at Ft. Hood is an incomprehensible tragedy. As human beings, we naturally seek rational explanations for things, even for madness. Was Major Nidal Makik Hasan, the lone gunman who killed thirteen of his fellow servicemen and wounded forty two others, mentally unstable? Was he pushed over the edge by the emotional burnout from counseling those who have been psychically and psychically maimed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or was Hasan consumed and motivated by the hateful ideology of Islamic extremism?
When it comes to mass murders like Hasan, we may never have satisfactory answers that will explain the carnage these individuals unleash. Perhaps these men’s neural processes (and thus their though processes) have gone haywire in ways we cannot understand. Perhaps these men, like Captain Ahab, have identified the source of their mental anguish as a group or entity, which they then scapegoat as the origin of the world’s suffering.
If the terrible white whale, Moby Dick, was killed, then the world could be cleansed of the malignant energies that consumed Ahab like a cancer. But Ahab became the personification of the evil he sought to annihilate.
Like Ahab, mass killers seem to have lost the capacity to empathize and love because they are consumed by righteous anger. Killing others becomes, sadly, the final act in a mental disintegration where hatred and anger devour the last morsels of their humanity.
Human beings are frail and flawed creatures. The battle between reason and irrationality, love and hate, takes place in every soul. Some individuals succumb to the dark and violent impulses that have best all of us at one time or another. The inability to channel suffering into constructive outlets compounds the world’s infirmities.
Art offers a guide for how pain can be transformed into higher states of consciousness. In John Ford’s masterpiece, The Searchers, the character played by John Wayne has most of his family wiped out in an Indian raid. He is driven on a mad quest to inflict revenge and rescue his young niece, the sole survivor who was kidnapped rather killed in the raid. However, when Wayne learns that his niece become a squaw his hatred and bigotry erupt into the desire to kill her too. In one of the most powerful and yet tender moments in all of cinema, Wayne’s character steps back from the brink of madness and embraces the woman who had become the symbol for all he hated, but the last link to all he loved.
We, too, are like the main character in The Searchers. Our psyches are split, our longing for love clouded by the rage we feel at those who have wronged us. We must either dissolve our hate or our hate will dissolve us. But if we can dissipate our hate, then we often find it has resolved itself into love. That is the lesson of The Searchers.
When it comes to mass murders like Hasan, we may never have satisfactory answers that will explain the carnage these individuals unleash. Perhaps these men’s neural processes (and thus their though processes) have gone haywire in ways we cannot understand. Perhaps these men, like Captain Ahab, have identified the source of their mental anguish as a group or entity, which they then scapegoat as the origin of the world’s suffering.
If the terrible white whale, Moby Dick, was killed, then the world could be cleansed of the malignant energies that consumed Ahab like a cancer. But Ahab became the personification of the evil he sought to annihilate.
Like Ahab, mass killers seem to have lost the capacity to empathize and love because they are consumed by righteous anger. Killing others becomes, sadly, the final act in a mental disintegration where hatred and anger devour the last morsels of their humanity.
Human beings are frail and flawed creatures. The battle between reason and irrationality, love and hate, takes place in every soul. Some individuals succumb to the dark and violent impulses that have best all of us at one time or another. The inability to channel suffering into constructive outlets compounds the world’s infirmities.
Art offers a guide for how pain can be transformed into higher states of consciousness. In John Ford’s masterpiece, The Searchers, the character played by John Wayne has most of his family wiped out in an Indian raid. He is driven on a mad quest to inflict revenge and rescue his young niece, the sole survivor who was kidnapped rather killed in the raid. However, when Wayne learns that his niece become a squaw his hatred and bigotry erupt into the desire to kill her too. In one of the most powerful and yet tender moments in all of cinema, Wayne’s character steps back from the brink of madness and embraces the woman who had become the symbol for all he hated, but the last link to all he loved.
We, too, are like the main character in The Searchers. Our psyches are split, our longing for love clouded by the rage we feel at those who have wronged us. We must either dissolve our hate or our hate will dissolve us. But if we can dissipate our hate, then we often find it has resolved itself into love. That is the lesson of The Searchers.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Escalating the War in Afghanistan?
The historian Arnold Toynbee observed that civilizations that attempted to reform far flung outposts on the periphery of their empires tended to fail and decline. Societies that renewed themselves, on the other hand, stood a better chance of succeeding and being ascendant powers.
Toynbee’s observation is extremely pertinent as the Obama administration contemplates a possible expansion of troops in Afghanistan. Proponents of increasing American forces to counter a resurgent Taliban contend that the so-called surge option turned the tide of the Iraq War in America’s favor, so why shouldn’t a similar counterinsurgency strategy work in Afghanistan?
To begin with, Afghanistan is a country five times the size of Iraq with some of the most inhospitable territory in the world. To compound matters, Afghanistan has never had an effective central government and the administration of Hamid Karzai, the partner in any nation building efforts in Afghanistan, is notoriously corrupt and therefore despised by much of the population.
Given enough time, say a decade, a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan might succeed. But defeating the Taliban and those resisting America’s presence in Afghanistan will likely have a limited strategic impact on the broader campaign against terrorism. Put simply, terrorism is an ideology that defies borders. Waging a battle for territory in Afghanistan is futile or beside the point if America’s enemies can simply flee to ungovernable regions in neighboring Pakistan.
The Bush administration’s strategy against terrorism boiled down to reducing the pool of ‘bad guys’ who are ideologically disposed towards attacking the United States. One limitation of this approach, of course, is that inevitable collateral damage tends to breed new jihadists. As even Don Rumsfeld noted, we can’t be sure we’re killing them faster than they are being created.
The “War on Terror” concept is proving self-defeating in other ways. It costs approximately $250,000 to field a single soldier in Afghanistan per year. Escalating the war in Afghanistan is going to cost the United States Treasury some $173 billion a year going forward. The Obama administration has an ambitious agenda to reform healthcare, repair America’s ailing infrastructure, and invest in the alternative energy sources of the future. However, at some point America’s creditors, particularly China, will have to ask the question: will the United States ever be able to repay the vast sums it is borrowing?
Experts agree that China is a rising power. Increasingly, America’s economic fate is tethered to China’s willingness to lend us money. The more the United States borrows the more leverage China will have over America’s economic and political future. For instance, if the United States does not curb its appetite for debt, then one day Chinese bankers might decide that they require a higher level of interest to compensate for their risk. A failure of America’s elected officials to raise taxes and cut services in order to pay for the servicing of our national debt could precipitate a run on the dollar.
Military success in Afghanistan may be less central to our national security than has been generally assumed. America cannot quit Afghanistan entirely. But our adventure in Iraq should have taught us something about the limits of military force. After all, the “success” of the so-called surge was something of a pyrrhic victory; the surge merely succeeded in mitigating the disastrous consequences of the Bush administration’s ill-advised invasion. Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Unfortunately, the United States no longer has the resources to do nation building abroad and at home. America must make a choice.
Toynbee’s observation is extremely pertinent as the Obama administration contemplates a possible expansion of troops in Afghanistan. Proponents of increasing American forces to counter a resurgent Taliban contend that the so-called surge option turned the tide of the Iraq War in America’s favor, so why shouldn’t a similar counterinsurgency strategy work in Afghanistan?
To begin with, Afghanistan is a country five times the size of Iraq with some of the most inhospitable territory in the world. To compound matters, Afghanistan has never had an effective central government and the administration of Hamid Karzai, the partner in any nation building efforts in Afghanistan, is notoriously corrupt and therefore despised by much of the population.
Given enough time, say a decade, a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan might succeed. But defeating the Taliban and those resisting America’s presence in Afghanistan will likely have a limited strategic impact on the broader campaign against terrorism. Put simply, terrorism is an ideology that defies borders. Waging a battle for territory in Afghanistan is futile or beside the point if America’s enemies can simply flee to ungovernable regions in neighboring Pakistan.
The Bush administration’s strategy against terrorism boiled down to reducing the pool of ‘bad guys’ who are ideologically disposed towards attacking the United States. One limitation of this approach, of course, is that inevitable collateral damage tends to breed new jihadists. As even Don Rumsfeld noted, we can’t be sure we’re killing them faster than they are being created.
The “War on Terror” concept is proving self-defeating in other ways. It costs approximately $250,000 to field a single soldier in Afghanistan per year. Escalating the war in Afghanistan is going to cost the United States Treasury some $173 billion a year going forward. The Obama administration has an ambitious agenda to reform healthcare, repair America’s ailing infrastructure, and invest in the alternative energy sources of the future. However, at some point America’s creditors, particularly China, will have to ask the question: will the United States ever be able to repay the vast sums it is borrowing?
Experts agree that China is a rising power. Increasingly, America’s economic fate is tethered to China’s willingness to lend us money. The more the United States borrows the more leverage China will have over America’s economic and political future. For instance, if the United States does not curb its appetite for debt, then one day Chinese bankers might decide that they require a higher level of interest to compensate for their risk. A failure of America’s elected officials to raise taxes and cut services in order to pay for the servicing of our national debt could precipitate a run on the dollar.
Military success in Afghanistan may be less central to our national security than has been generally assumed. America cannot quit Afghanistan entirely. But our adventure in Iraq should have taught us something about the limits of military force. After all, the “success” of the so-called surge was something of a pyrrhic victory; the surge merely succeeded in mitigating the disastrous consequences of the Bush administration’s ill-advised invasion. Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Unfortunately, the United States no longer has the resources to do nation building abroad and at home. America must make a choice.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Healthcare: Universal Coverage vs. Insurance Mandates
Universal health coverage is an admirable goal. The aim of reforming America’s ailing healthcare system should be threefold: 1) delivering better coverage, 2) expanding access to all of America’s citizens, 3) reducing costs. Sound contradictory? It need not be, assuming a healthier society will require less healthcare.
Obama’s proposal to reform healthcare has been characterized as “socialized medicine.” Ironically, if anything the current insurance-based fee for service model represents socialized medicine at its worst. After all, in the current system opacity regarding the costs of medical services makes true comparison shopping and competition impossible. Further, when third-party middlemen are responsible for paying the bulk of medical claims, then there is little incentive for medical providers or consumers to worry about costs. Hence, medical costs are skyrocketing while devouring and ever greater share of the nation’s GDP.
Today, America’s healthcare system, at least as in so far as it is financed through employer funded insurance programs, embodies Marx’s dictum: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Obama is right to insist that the current system is unsustainable. Simply put, the current system does not contain checks and balances that incentivize cost containment. Further, our healthcare system is perversely incentivized to treat disease rather than promote wellness. No wonder, then, that America spends twice as much per person on healthcare as many industrialized countries, but achieves far lower levels of public health as a result.
The so-called “public option” plan would create genuine competition for insurance companies, which should drive prices down. Not surprisingly, the insurance companies claim a public option would constitute an unfair government advantage. However, this is a tacit admission that their corporate dogma, that private enterprise is always more effective and more efficient than government, is largely self-serving hooey.
However, conservative opposition to Obama’s reform efforts have zeroed in on a deeply troubling facet of the Democratic legislation making its way through Congress. Put simply, any mandate that requires citizens to purchase health insurance from private companies is blatantly unconstitutional.
The United States was founded as a government of limited powers. Powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution are retained by the people. Penalizing otherwise law abiding citizens for failing to engage in certain economic activities or livelihood choices would represent a dangerous extension of government power. Universal healthcare is an admirable goal, but the way we pay for that end must be consistent with the ideals embodied in the Constitution. A national sales tax would be one potential method of funding universal coverage.
As a candidate, President Obama rightly expressed skepticism about insurance mandates. No doubt, the president’s background as a Constitutional scholar kindled his reservations. America needs universal coverage, but subverting wise Constitutional principles would be too high a price to pay for achieving that aim.
Obama’s proposal to reform healthcare has been characterized as “socialized medicine.” Ironically, if anything the current insurance-based fee for service model represents socialized medicine at its worst. After all, in the current system opacity regarding the costs of medical services makes true comparison shopping and competition impossible. Further, when third-party middlemen are responsible for paying the bulk of medical claims, then there is little incentive for medical providers or consumers to worry about costs. Hence, medical costs are skyrocketing while devouring and ever greater share of the nation’s GDP.
Today, America’s healthcare system, at least as in so far as it is financed through employer funded insurance programs, embodies Marx’s dictum: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Obama is right to insist that the current system is unsustainable. Simply put, the current system does not contain checks and balances that incentivize cost containment. Further, our healthcare system is perversely incentivized to treat disease rather than promote wellness. No wonder, then, that America spends twice as much per person on healthcare as many industrialized countries, but achieves far lower levels of public health as a result.
The so-called “public option” plan would create genuine competition for insurance companies, which should drive prices down. Not surprisingly, the insurance companies claim a public option would constitute an unfair government advantage. However, this is a tacit admission that their corporate dogma, that private enterprise is always more effective and more efficient than government, is largely self-serving hooey.
However, conservative opposition to Obama’s reform efforts have zeroed in on a deeply troubling facet of the Democratic legislation making its way through Congress. Put simply, any mandate that requires citizens to purchase health insurance from private companies is blatantly unconstitutional.
The United States was founded as a government of limited powers. Powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution are retained by the people. Penalizing otherwise law abiding citizens for failing to engage in certain economic activities or livelihood choices would represent a dangerous extension of government power. Universal healthcare is an admirable goal, but the way we pay for that end must be consistent with the ideals embodied in the Constitution. A national sales tax would be one potential method of funding universal coverage.
As a candidate, President Obama rightly expressed skepticism about insurance mandates. No doubt, the president’s background as a Constitutional scholar kindled his reservations. America needs universal coverage, but subverting wise Constitutional principles would be too high a price to pay for achieving that aim.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Obama vs. The Axis of Ignorance
One day, historians may recognize that George W. Bush achieved something for America after all: namely, he helped elect Barack Obama. That day is still a long way away. Thus far, President Obama has restored competency and rational decision-making to the executive branch, he has stabilized the financial disaster he inherited, and he has renewed a sense of hope and optimism regarding America’s leadership role on the world at large.
In addition, Barack Obama is poised to deliver on his promise to reform America’s healthcare system; his administration has made a key decision that tacitly acknowledges the efficacy of medical marijuana, which amounts to the first step towards dismantling the failed war on drugs; and the Obama administration has laid the legislative groundwork for a new national energy policy, one that acknowledges the reality of global warming and necessity of moving beyond hydrocarbons.
Obama recognizes he has the potential to be a transformational leader, a pivotal figure who has the skills, vision, and character to set his country on a new and productive course. There is an Axis-of-Ignorance (Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin), that is hell-bent on discrediting the reforms Obama has set out to implement.
In fact, Cheney, Limbaugh, and Palin represent a corrupt ideological movement that virtually bankrupted the country morally, financially, and spiritually during the eight years of the colossally failed Bush administration. Under Bush and Cheney, free market fundamentalism, imperial hubris, and anti-intellectualism nearly undid the Republic.
Free markets are not inherently wise, self-regulating, nor do they plan ahead. Imperial hegemonic ambitions bred universal resistance to a Pax Americana and social decay at home. And President Bush is exhibit A for why intellectual vacuity is not exactly a desirable quality to have in a leader responsible for managing wars and disaster relief efforts.
The mess the Conservative movement created was largely the result of blindly and rigidly clinging to an ideological system riddled with false ideas. The notion that deficits don’t matter, that global warming is a hoax, and that tax cuts for the wealthiest would spread prosperity belong in the annals of bad ideas.
Now, the architects and spinmeisters behind our current national decline have the audacity to misrepresent the policies and governing philosophy of the Obama administration. Simply put, Barack Obama is not a radical socialist bent on undermining America as we know it. Rather, Obama and his administration are confronting powerful interests in the financial, energy, and healthcare sectors, which if left unchecked would slowly but surely siphon off the country’s wealth. For example, in the next ten years it is estimated that healthcare spending will consume 20% of our nation’s GDP, an intolerably high ratio that diverts resources from other important areas such as education, infrastructure repair, and alternative energy development.
In an age of global warming and dwindling energy supplies, the United States desperately needs to move beyond fossil fuels. Solar-powered smart grids and hybrid vehicles have the potential to revolutionize our economy. However, interests invested in carbon-based energy sources are resisting the future in the same way slaveholders resisted the supplanting of a plantation economy by a more efficient industrial economy.
Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh are the mouthpieces of healthcare and energy interests that are fighting to maintain a profitable but unsustainable status quo. Rush Limbaugh collects more that $30 million a year in corporate compensation for delivering his venomous diatribes against Obama’s supposed socialistic schemes. In fact, insurance companies, the financial industry, and the energy sector have long been the beneficiaries of generous government subsidies and taxpayer largess that has fattened a system of crony capitalism and socialism for the rich.
Conservatives, I expect, are having an identity crisis. After all, their man – George W. Bush – presided over an administration that is universally regarded as an abject failure. In fact, under Bush’s “leadership” the Conservative movement virtually imploded because of gross corruption and incompetence. However, rather than acknowledge the movement’s ideological bankruptcy, Cheney, Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin are lashing out and stoking the anger and resentments of their disaffected base. The embers of the conservative movement are still smoldering hot and they will consume all who get too close before they entirely burn themselves out.
In addition, Barack Obama is poised to deliver on his promise to reform America’s healthcare system; his administration has made a key decision that tacitly acknowledges the efficacy of medical marijuana, which amounts to the first step towards dismantling the failed war on drugs; and the Obama administration has laid the legislative groundwork for a new national energy policy, one that acknowledges the reality of global warming and necessity of moving beyond hydrocarbons.
Obama recognizes he has the potential to be a transformational leader, a pivotal figure who has the skills, vision, and character to set his country on a new and productive course. There is an Axis-of-Ignorance (Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin), that is hell-bent on discrediting the reforms Obama has set out to implement.
In fact, Cheney, Limbaugh, and Palin represent a corrupt ideological movement that virtually bankrupted the country morally, financially, and spiritually during the eight years of the colossally failed Bush administration. Under Bush and Cheney, free market fundamentalism, imperial hubris, and anti-intellectualism nearly undid the Republic.
Free markets are not inherently wise, self-regulating, nor do they plan ahead. Imperial hegemonic ambitions bred universal resistance to a Pax Americana and social decay at home. And President Bush is exhibit A for why intellectual vacuity is not exactly a desirable quality to have in a leader responsible for managing wars and disaster relief efforts.
The mess the Conservative movement created was largely the result of blindly and rigidly clinging to an ideological system riddled with false ideas. The notion that deficits don’t matter, that global warming is a hoax, and that tax cuts for the wealthiest would spread prosperity belong in the annals of bad ideas.
Now, the architects and spinmeisters behind our current national decline have the audacity to misrepresent the policies and governing philosophy of the Obama administration. Simply put, Barack Obama is not a radical socialist bent on undermining America as we know it. Rather, Obama and his administration are confronting powerful interests in the financial, energy, and healthcare sectors, which if left unchecked would slowly but surely siphon off the country’s wealth. For example, in the next ten years it is estimated that healthcare spending will consume 20% of our nation’s GDP, an intolerably high ratio that diverts resources from other important areas such as education, infrastructure repair, and alternative energy development.
In an age of global warming and dwindling energy supplies, the United States desperately needs to move beyond fossil fuels. Solar-powered smart grids and hybrid vehicles have the potential to revolutionize our economy. However, interests invested in carbon-based energy sources are resisting the future in the same way slaveholders resisted the supplanting of a plantation economy by a more efficient industrial economy.
Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh are the mouthpieces of healthcare and energy interests that are fighting to maintain a profitable but unsustainable status quo. Rush Limbaugh collects more that $30 million a year in corporate compensation for delivering his venomous diatribes against Obama’s supposed socialistic schemes. In fact, insurance companies, the financial industry, and the energy sector have long been the beneficiaries of generous government subsidies and taxpayer largess that has fattened a system of crony capitalism and socialism for the rich.
Conservatives, I expect, are having an identity crisis. After all, their man – George W. Bush – presided over an administration that is universally regarded as an abject failure. In fact, under Bush’s “leadership” the Conservative movement virtually imploded because of gross corruption and incompetence. However, rather than acknowledge the movement’s ideological bankruptcy, Cheney, Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin are lashing out and stoking the anger and resentments of their disaffected base. The embers of the conservative movement are still smoldering hot and they will consume all who get too close before they entirely burn themselves out.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Case for Keynes
Obama’s election has left the Conservative movement more deflated than a leaky air mattress. In truth, many of the ideas associated with conservatism have grown stale. For instance, the recent financial meltdown discredits the idea that free markets are self-regulating. Simply, put Keynesian economics is making a comeback, while the ideas of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek are in retreat.
There’s a certain irony in all this; the Chicago school was once viewed as a corrective to the excesses of Keynesianism, but now policy-makers recognize that Keynes’s thought explains how we got into the current crisis, and how we might get out of it.
In a nutshell, Keynes believed that a culture centered on the ‘love of money’ sowed the seeds of its own dissatisfaction and dissolution. Keynes viewed wealth as a means, not an end. The purpose of prosperity, Keynes insisted, was that it allowed individuals to embark on projects of ethical improvement.
Keynes viewed economics as a moral science, not a natural science. He continually questioned the assumptions economists made. He thought it inappropriate, for instance, for financial wizards to use the same risk-management tools that life insurers do. After all, insurers utilize actuarial data where the future invariably resembles the past. Insurance markets have seen failures, but they are rare. Business and politics, are different matters altogether; the future rarely mirrors the past and a single unforeseeable event, a Black Swan, can alter the economic landscape in unpredictable ways.
Uncertainty was a key idea for Keynes. He believed the future was unpredictable. Consequently, money was not a neutral store of value, but “a subtle device for linking the present with the future.” In times of crisis, individuals tend to hoard cash, which prolongs downturns. Money is an emotional repository; when optimism reigns, then economies thrive, but when fear dominates, they wither.
Keynes insisted that governments had an obligation to reduce uncertainty. ‘Cheap money, wise spending’ was his motto. He would approve of universal healthcare because a healthy workforce would be a more optimistic and productive workforce. Von Hayek viewed government programs as a prelude to serfdom, buy Keynes believed totalitarian movements were nurtured in the soil of uncertainty. Therefore, reducing uncertainty had a double virtue; less uncertainty allowed more scope for moral improvement and it reduced the appeal of political extremism. The case for Keynes is comparatively airtight.
There’s a certain irony in all this; the Chicago school was once viewed as a corrective to the excesses of Keynesianism, but now policy-makers recognize that Keynes’s thought explains how we got into the current crisis, and how we might get out of it.
In a nutshell, Keynes believed that a culture centered on the ‘love of money’ sowed the seeds of its own dissatisfaction and dissolution. Keynes viewed wealth as a means, not an end. The purpose of prosperity, Keynes insisted, was that it allowed individuals to embark on projects of ethical improvement.
Keynes viewed economics as a moral science, not a natural science. He continually questioned the assumptions economists made. He thought it inappropriate, for instance, for financial wizards to use the same risk-management tools that life insurers do. After all, insurers utilize actuarial data where the future invariably resembles the past. Insurance markets have seen failures, but they are rare. Business and politics, are different matters altogether; the future rarely mirrors the past and a single unforeseeable event, a Black Swan, can alter the economic landscape in unpredictable ways.
Uncertainty was a key idea for Keynes. He believed the future was unpredictable. Consequently, money was not a neutral store of value, but “a subtle device for linking the present with the future.” In times of crisis, individuals tend to hoard cash, which prolongs downturns. Money is an emotional repository; when optimism reigns, then economies thrive, but when fear dominates, they wither.
Keynes insisted that governments had an obligation to reduce uncertainty. ‘Cheap money, wise spending’ was his motto. He would approve of universal healthcare because a healthy workforce would be a more optimistic and productive workforce. Von Hayek viewed government programs as a prelude to serfdom, buy Keynes believed totalitarian movements were nurtured in the soil of uncertainty. Therefore, reducing uncertainty had a double virtue; less uncertainty allowed more scope for moral improvement and it reduced the appeal of political extremism. The case for Keynes is comparatively airtight.
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