Monthly Archives: May 2024

Capitalism

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M. Hodgson, Conceptualizing Capitalism: Institutions, Evolution, Future, the University of Chicago Press. Kindle edition, 2015

What capitalism is everyone knows, or thinks that he/she/they know(s). It is an economic and social system under which ownership of the means of production on one hand and labor on the other are largely separate (commenting on this, Marx once said that the reason why bourgeois dislike prostitutes is because the latter cannot be separated from the tools of their trade). One under which the main means of production such as factories, machines, roads, communications etc. are in large part privately owned and may, operating through a somewhat chaotic system known as “markets,” be more or less freely transferred from one owner to another. One under which the factor that ties those resources together, enabling them to function, is money rather than, say, barter or faith or charisma. One in which economic initiative is given free rein and consequently takes the form of competition among owners, actual or would-be, that in time is almost certain to lead to gross inequalities between rich and poor.

One that operates, and to a large extent can only operate, within a framework of rights and duties, freedoms and prohibitions, known as law, the task of creating and administrating which is the province of an overarching organization known as the state. One whose origins have deep roots in history—especially ancient Rome where private ownership, in the form of so-called cattle slavery, reached heights (or lows) to which subsequent generations had little to add. One that, originating in the Netherlands and England between about 1600 and 1800 and having resoundingly defeated communism as its most important opponent, has spread all over the world. To the point where, at present, it faces only limited competition even in countries, such as China, whose official ideology points in a different direction.

As the common saying has it, whatever goes up must go down. Rome, which as I just said in some way represented the acme of capitalism, ended by biting the dust. As it did so, it was replaced first by the various Germanic tribes and then by feudalism; based on entirely different principles, between them they lasted for almost a millennium. Panta rhei: to anyone with the least historical consciousness, the collapse at some future time of capitalism appears inevitable. Some may even see it as desirable. Do we really want to perpetuate a system that allows a handful of temperamental tycoons to control much of a country’s wealth, as it does both in the US and (more surprisingly) in Switzerland? But what will its successor look like? Science fiction apart, to-date the only really serious attempt to answer this question was provided by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. From them it passed to their successors or imitators. But that attempt, too, has hit the dust. If not in theory—a small number of die-hard Marxists still persists—then at any rate in practice. So the question is, what comes next; and it was the hope of obtaining at least some answers to that question that first made me turn to Hodgson’s book.

As I read along, I found that the relevant material is distributed between two separate chapters. They are number 14, “The Future of Global Capitalism;” and 16 “After Capitalism.” Chapter 14 is an attempt to guess what forms capitalism may yet take in various countries and the relative success of those forms: e.g Taiwan (supposing it does not fall to China, a possibility Hodgson does not even mention) and South Korea versus India; the United States versus China; the European Union versus Russia; and so on. All this while taking into account, or trying to take into account, a vast number of relevant factors such as birthrates, labor force participation, per capita GDPs, social and cultural attitudes, government interference (including R&D and subsidies on one hand and taxes and corruption on the other) and so on. Briefly, the kind of socio-economic analysis that, coming complete with countless tables and figures, may be found in a thousand other works.

Taking up the lead, chapter 16 deals with three questions. They are, 1.”Will the Great Global Diffusion Lead to a New Economic Hegemonism?” 2. “The Role of Law and Economic Development.” And 3. “The Persistence of Varieties of Capitalism.” Needless to say, the answers to each of these issues will play an important role in shaping the future. As with chapter 14, the author’s discussion of each of these issues is backed up by reams of facts and figures. One can imagine the author chewing his way through them, leaving no bone untouched. His main interest, though, comes through in the second issue; from beginning to end, he is determined to show that law and good government, far from merely forming a Marx-type “superstructure” that covers the economic “base” and justifies it, forms an essential part of capitalism’s nature or, at the very least, a prerequisite without which it could not exist. Presenting his case in some detail, he is probably more often right than wrong; what I found almost totally missing, though, was a more global –meaning, not country by country—oriented discussion of any fundamental changes capitalism may undergo.

To my mind, some of the most important early twenty-first century questions concerning capitalism are as follows. Given how powerful, how omnipresent ad by now, how persistent capitalism is at the present historical moment, what factors could push it off course and make humanity move into a different direction?  Suppose an alternative to capitalism is found, what will it look like?  Will inequality among rich and poor, individuals or countries, decrease or increase? Will the future resemble Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World? Or George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? Or Anthony Burgess’ 1985? Or some combination of the three? Who loses? Who gains? Unfortunately Hodgson does not provide even the beginning of answers to any of these and similar questions.

Leaving his work, however well researched and rich and nuanced it may be, hanging in the air.

Guest Article: Sitzkrieg?

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Sitzkrieg?

By

William S. Lind*

Several people have inquired why I have not written a column for TR in some time. Let me assure them I am in good health and face no lack of material as our world speeds towards destruction. The reason I have not written is that the TR website is being wholly revised and much improved. That work should be done soon, and once it is I will fire more barrages at my usual target, folly. I think readers will find the revisions to the website worth the wait.

Meanwhile, the two wars the United States is involved in, those in Ukraine and in the Gaza strip, seem caught in strategic Sitzkrieg. In the former, Russia grinds slowly forward in a war of attrition Ukraine is doomed to lose. In Gaza, Israel digs itself ever-deeper into the Fourth Generation war trap in which a state defeats itself. But this seeming strategic stability is deceptive. Below the surface lurk factors that portend upheavals.

In Ukraine, NATO must soon face the fact that Kiev is losing and will continue to lose unless it can create a war of maneuver. It had its chance to do that in the summer of 2023 and blew it at the operational level by duplicating Operation Barbarossa; it launched three divergent thrusts, which is to say there was no Schwerpunkt. No Schwerpunkt means no decisive result, which is what Ukraine got.

Kiev’s defeat need not shatter world peace. But NATO’s response to defeat in Ukraine may do so. Panic is already showing its head in Paris, where French President Macron is suggesting NATO might send in troops to fight Russia directly. Berlin says no, but the traffic-light coalition government is weak and can be pushed around. London is in a belligerent mood and Warsaw is always eager to launch a cavalry charge against Russian tanks. The decisive voice will be Washington’s. That is not good news, because the Dead Inca has no idea what he’s doing and his advisors will be terrified of the charge of “losing Ukraine” in an election year. Can NATO just swallow hard and say, “We lost?”  If not, the alternative is escalation in a war against nuclear power.

In Gaza, Israel has destroyed itself at the moral level of war, which is what states usually do against non-state opponents. Martin van Creveld’s “power of weakness” is triumphing again. Hamas will emerge from the war physically diminished but not destroyed, while most of the world sees it as “the good guys” because the massacres on October 7 have been overshadowed by Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Hamas will rebuild quickly, and not only in Gaza. Recruits and money will flow to it in a veritable Niagara.

The threat of a wider war lies to Israel’s north, not its south. While Hezbollah’s operations have been restrained, they have nonetheless driven 80,000 Israelis from their homes, along with tens of thousands of Lebanese who have fled Israeli airstrikes. The latter don’t matter strategically, but the former do because Netanyahu needs their votes. As always, he will put himself above his country’s interests. That suggests he is likely to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon, which Hezbollah apparently is anticipating and ready for. Hezbollah is much stronger than Hamas, and recent events suggest Iran will also be forced to get involved directly. 

If Israel is able to degrade Hamas but not destroy it while an Israeli invasion of Lebanon does not go well (it didn’t last time) and Iran is sending presents to Tel Aviv, what does a panicky Netanyahu do?  Don’t rule out his pushing the nuclear button. That might destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and maybe southern Lebanon as well. But it would leave Israel a pariah in a world where all bets are off.

The current strategic stability is an illusion. Wars move in fits and starts, and Sitzkrieg tends to be followed by wild swings and dramatic breakthroughs. The fact that gold has risen about $500 an ounce in a few months says I am not the only one seeing danger ahead.

*William S. (“Bill”) Lind is a well-known American author and commentator on political and military affairs. This essay was posted for the first time on Traditional Right, May 13 2024.

Good Luck

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S. Feynman, ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,’ Kindle ed, 2018.

V. Ramakrishman, Why We Die; The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality, Kindle ed., 2024.

Both of the above-listed books have this in common that they were written by natural scientists and are aimed at non-specialists. They also have this in common that their authors were awarded a Nobel Prize: Feynman in physics (2008), Venki Ramakrishnan in chemistry (2009). Not having taken more than a cursory look at either discipline since I graduated from high school—not college, but high school—exactly sixty years ago, I cannot say I understood everything I read. Not the quantum physics which, I am told, is something very few people have really mastered. And not the unfathomably intricate chemistry of life. Far from it, in fact.

What I did, or thought I did, understand was what the two highly respected professors have to say about the kind of atmosphere they did their best to create around themselves as well as the way they approached their respective disciplines and made the discoveries they did. “Way,” in fact, may be too strong a term. Neither book contains a systematic exploration of the scientific method and how to use it to make new discoveries; let alone has a separate chapter on those topics. Nevertheless, the more I read the more I felt there is a lot that, reaching across our very different fields, they and I have in common. So here are a few of the things that, joining the books and taking some leaves out of both, seem to me essential for any kind of career involving discovery, however humble.

– Mixing with people coming from different backgrounds, disciplines, directions, and approaches. To be sure, solitude may have its uses at times. However, no man is or should try to be an island unto himself for very long. Much the same applies to societies. As Feynman in particular explains in some detail, it is the mixing, not the formal talks and Q&A, that is the most important part of many of the scientific/academic conferences taking place all over the world today. Much of the time, all the talks do is provide a framework that endows the entire thing with a timetable that holds it in place. Without them, all the participants would get is chatter—kaffeeklatsch, as the Germans call it.

– As you go along in your work, leave some room for the unforeseen and the accidental. One of the scientists mentioned by Ramakrishman is a Russian molecular biologist by the name of Alexey Olovnikov. Going back to the 1970s, he got his most important idea concerning the way DNA duplicated itself while standing on a platform of a station in Moscow and watching a train go by. Likewise the best ideas often occur as a result, not of focused, systematic study—trying to drill holes in a cushion—but of sudden flashes of insight: the kind some people compare to a stroke of lightning and others call the “aha” moment. Yet this moment itself would not be possible without the problem at hand having been given deep, if often nebulous and even confused, reflection.   

– Don’t hesitate to challenge established views, including those of your superiors. Telling truth to power demands tact and is seldom easy. Still, very often for any kind of progress to be made it must be done. Politely, of course, and, whenever possible, with the aid of humor. But also firmly. A superior, or supervisor, or mentor, who always sticks to his guns and does not allow himself to be persuaded is not worth having.

– Prepare to change your mind when new evidence arrives. As has been said, too often it is not old opinions that die; it is those who hold them, still clinging to their antiquated views, who do. This is not a fate you want for yourself and for your work.

– Of all the various ways of learning, none is better than teaching. During my forty-something years of doing so I sometimes felt as if the University, or Israeli society, or God Himself, had created students less because He wanted them to study but in order that my colleagues (those who care about such things) and I might use them as whetting stones to sharpen our ideas on. Feynman in particular provides some good examples of ideas that were first proposed to him by his students. Blessed is the teacher who has students who, rather than just sit there and maybe take notes, will argue with him. Never mind that they seldom form more than a small proportion of the total. Conversely, a student who merely repeats his teacher’s ideas simply repays good with evil.

– When you are stuck, as you are almost certain to be at one point or another in your research, take a break and strike out in a different direction. During the Middle Ages the opportunity to do so was sometimes provided by going on a pilgrimage. Nowadays a visit to some unfamiliar country or culture can often do a lot of good; especially if you take the time not just to ogle a few important “tourist attractions” but to immerse yourself in the culture in question. Operating on a more modest scale a walk or a game, provided it takes your mind off the problem at hand, can do a lot of good.

– Have fun while you are doing it. If you don’t, then you are almost certain not going to get results. So go and seek the company of graves, worms, and epitaphs.

– None of the above is to suggest that the books in question are perfect. As the title indicates, ‘Surely You Are Joking’ in particular bristles with jokes, practical and not so practical, the author has played on his fellow scientists at one point or another. Not only were some of the jokes childish, but at times I could not help but feel that he was trying to boost himself at the expense of others. Hardly a very attractive thing for anyone, let alone a famous professor, to do.

Good luck.

Checkmate

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Dvora and I have a grandson. Only child of Efrat and Jonathan, he is called Avishai, a Biblical name meaning “my father’s [or God’s] gift.” Like all grandchildren he is the cutest little boy in the world. With unruly blond curlers and mischievous eyes that are almost always laughing. He loves playgrounds, running about, and ice cream. And chocolate balls too! He is a chatterbox who even as he adds new words to his already quite extensive vocabulary sometimes finds his thoughts outrunning his ability to express them, causing a slight but touching stammer. In a few weeks he will be four years old.

For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of this country, the answer to your question—is his life in any great danger owing to the war—is no. The distance from Gaza to Rehovot where Avishai and his parents live is about 54 kilometers. Their flat is located on the 12th floor of a high rise building. Not only is there no way they can reach the ground floor on time, but there is no point in trying to do so; the building does not have an underground shelter. Instead the flat is provided with a reinforced room that will hopefully protect its inhabitants against anything but a close hit.

But that does not mean that, both in Rehovot and elsewhere, the ongoing hostilities do not make their impact felt. Our oldest grandson, Orr (“Light”) is a junior IDF officer. Though not of the kind where his life is in any greater danger than that of most people here. But three of his cousins, two boys and a girl, are rapidly approaching the age where they will have to reflect about what they are going to do when the call comes as, it surely will. Rehovot itself, located as it is near a major air base, has been attacked many times, luckily resulting in very limited casualties and damage. There and elsewhere other reminders of the war include the rather frequent roar of IsraeIi fighter bombers flying overhead; the somewhat muted atmosphere in what is normally quite a boisterous country; and the growing number of wounded men—hardly any women, fortunately—one comes across in the streets.

When the guns fire, the kids cry. On both sides of the front, mind you. That is why I am posting the following poem, originally written in Hebrew by the late Israeli poet, publicist and playwright Hanoch Levin. But dedicated, on this occasion, to the children of both Israel and Gaza.

 

Checkmate

O where has my boy gone

My good boy where has he gone?

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My daddy won’t return. My daddy won’t be back

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

My boy won’t rise again. He sleeps, he won’t grow

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My daddy is in darkness, no more will he see light

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

My boy once at my breast is now a cloud of snow

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My father’s kindly heart is now a frozen sack

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

O where has my boy gone

My good boy where has he gone?

All soldiers black all soldiers white fall low.

My daddy won’t return. My daddy won’t be back

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There are no white pawns left nor any black ones

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

And still the king keeps playing with the queen.

 

You can find the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70p5EpwKC0. I have listened to it many times, and each time it makes me want to tear out the few hairs I have left on my head. What have we humans done, what are we doing, to each other! Skip the accords and start at 1.47 minutes.

The above translation is based on the one at the website with some changes of my own.

I Stand Amazed

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C. R. Hallpike, How We Got Here: from bows and arrows to the space age (2008).

Until about 10,000 years ago our ancestors lived in small exogamous groups consisting of 25-50 persons each: men, women and children. Inside each group all members were tied to each other by blood or marriage. All were in daily contact with each other, and all were almost indistinguishable in terms of wealth of which, in case, case, there was only as much as peo0le could carry or preserve. Having long mastered fire and learnt to cook food, and armed with stone tools as well as wooden spears and bows and arrows, they roamed over what, to them, must have looked like almost limitless space. As a result, except under exceptional circumstances such as droughts and the like, most of the time they had enough, not seldom even more than enough, to eat. The same factor, i.e the abundance of available space, prevented warfare from doing serious, long-time harm to those who engaged in it. The more so because the normal objective was prestige and revenge, not extermination or permanent subjugation. The last of which, given the way these societies were structured, was impossible to establish in any case.

Fast forward to the early years of the twenty-first century. Our numbers, which 7,000 years ago are said to have reached perhaps 5 million people, have increased to the point where the earth’s population is around 8 billion and growing still. Practically all of them live in millions-strong states where only a very small percentage are related by bloodlines and/or have personal knowledge of each other except, perhaps, in the form of sounds and images emitted by some piece of electronic wizardry. Far from our wealth being equally—let alone, equitably—distributed, we range from penniless beggars always on the verge of starvation to the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. In terms of the technology at our disposal we have reached the point where we are now actively drawing up plans for colonizing not just the moon but Mars as well. All this within what in evolutionary terms, let alone geological ones, amounts to a mere blink of an eye.

How could it, how did it, happen? This is the question that Christopher Hallpike, a long retired Canadian professor anthropology who at one point moved to Oxford, took it upon himself to answer. Not that he is the first to do so. One is reminded of the Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man (TV series, 1973), Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), and Yuval Harari’s Sapiens (2011), among many others. Equating cultural development with biological evolution, almost all of them drew on Darwin as their source of inspiration. With him in mind, almost all started with two basic ideas. First, that cultural change—mutation, to use the language of evolutionists—is more or less accidental, taking place spontaneously now here, now there. Second, that whether or not any innovation persists and spreads depends on how useful it is—the extent to which it makes those who are in charge of it, more comfortable, more powerful and, last not least, wealthier.

By contrast, Professor Hallpike takes it as his starting point that human development, aka culture is not blind. True, some minor changes may have come about more or less by accident. However, he says, for them to persist and to spread there is a need for a conscious effort on the part of both originators and beneficiaries. First, it requires the kind of mind needed to contemplate a new and different reality—precisely the one that, as far as we can see, animals ranging from mosquitos to chimpanzees do not possess. Second, it requires an open society in which different people, coming from different directions and possessing different skills, can meet, exchange ideas, cooperate and, where necessary criticize each other. Third, it requires an investment. If not of money, which only appeared around 600-700 BCE, long after some of the most important discoveries and inventions were made, then at any rate of time and effort. Very often, and this is a point that Hallpike does not emphasize as much as he could and perhaps should have, it also involves taking a risk. The story of the monk Berthold Schwarz inventing gunpowder and being blown up for his pains may not be rooted in fact. Nevertheless, it does present people with a “lesson learnt.”

Another basic point with which Hallpike takes issue is the common belief, famously caricatured by Charles Dickens and his infamous creation Mr. Gradgrind, that it is only material “facts” that either cause change or are affected by it. Standing in front of the blackboard—after all, Gradgrind is a teacher—swish, and away goes religion. Swish, and away goes our senses of beauty, of order, of awe in face of the mysterious and the unknown. Swish, and away go curiosity and inspiration. Swish… Never, so Hallpike, has there been a human society which did not have all those things. Judging by the expression on the face of my cat when he first discovered a new opening we had made in a kitchen wall, even many animals experience some of them.

Finally, judging by his books, including some of his (very funny) fiction I have read, I trust that Hallpike would not have been the man he evidently is, i.e one who loves to play devil’s advocate, if he had overlooked the greatest provocation of all: namely the idea of distinguishing “primitive” from “modern” man. Had he not been long retired, no doubt that alone would have brought on his head severe sanctions on the part of the politically correct thought-control mob. In fact, though, his use of the term is perfectly reasonable. Lacking as they did modern, observation-experimental-mathematically based science, our pre-literate ancestors perforce had no choice but to base much of their understanding of the world on folk wisdom much of which in turn rested on symbolism, religion, magic and intuition as well as every kind of contrast or affinity, real or imagined. It is in this sense, and in this sense alone, that Hallpike calls people and the societies they formed “primitive.” But not once in some 650 pages does he suggest that they were mentally retarded.

I cannot end this essay without noting two other points. First, as an anthropologist who has spent some years living with some of the “primitive” societies he mentions—first in East Africa, then in Papua-New Guinea—Hallpike, discussing such societies, has the immense advantage of knowing exactly what he is talking about. This alone is a good reason for taking what he has to say about them seriously. Second, I find his knowledge of societies, material objects and processes truly incredible; starting with metallurgy—and ending with the history of the alphabet, mathematical notation, alchemy, government, warfare, philosophy, monotheism, astrology and the scientific method there is hardly any field about which he does not have something interesting to say.

The book’s title notwithstanding, its journey through history ends about 1914. As a result, subsequent developments such as relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos theory are mentioned barely if at all. That is a pity; could anyone come up with better examples of sheer curiosity, rather than material gain, driving history into new and unexpected directions? Still I stand amazed. And also, I confess, a little jealous in front of so much knowledge so engagingly presented.