totalitarianism today

Phillipe Legrain, immigration, and globalization: Seeing the bright side.

Phillipe Legrain doesn't believe that immigration is the cause of Europe's social and economic ills. In fact, Legrain makes the case that immigration, as experienced through globalization, might actually be a good thing. Currently working on a new book about the effects of globalization, Legrain will be examining the "risks to globalisation from the ongoing crisis (such as protectionism, nationalism and political extremism)" and try to find what needs to change in the global economy, as well as what doesn't need to change. 

Using a combination of first-hand reporting, economic and political analysis, and reasoned argument, Legrain is in the process of gathering the materials, examples, stories, and real-life data which will give life to his book. On his blog, Legrain makes a request which I think might be well-taken by some individuals reading this sentence: 

I'd be really grateful if you could suggest papers I should read, people I should talk to, and places I should visit. I'm particularly interested in hearing about people that the mainstream media often neglects. You may be able to point me to a small business in China whose exports have evaporated and whose migrant workers are going home, or to one that is prospering by taking on a new line of work. You may know Icelandic people who can relate how their lives have been turned upside down by the financial collapse. You may have connections to communities in Australia that until recently were booming by exporting to China, and drawing in lots of foreign workers as a result; how are they coping? You may know Mexicans who have gone home from the US, or Poles who have left the UK or Ireland, because of the recession. And amid all the gloom and despair, what new opportunities are emerging that could help build a better and fairer global economy? Or something else entirely. Please email me on mail AT philippelegrain DOT com I'll get back to you if I think there could be a fit. Thank you very much.

Take F.A. Hayek to heart on this one, and provide Legrain with a little local knowledge that he might not otherwise discover. In the meantime, I'll be scratching my own head for ideas. [Cross-posted at Romania Revealed.]

A new blog chronicling the images of totalitarianism.

In my web wanderings, I discovered a wonderful blog which conveys the history of totalitarianism through images. The blog's author, who will heretofore be known as "El Companero" agreed to answer a few questions for me. The image to the right, which I discovered at his blog, reads "Fidel truly carries forward Christ's principles. Save us Fidel from the false priests..." The extent to which propaganda in Cuba made use of religious imagery is explored on El Companero's blog.

Alina: Why did you decide to create your blog, Totalitarian Images? Was there any particular inspiration? A reason why it went from idea to actuality? 

El Companero: I strongly believe in the preservation of historical memory across generations, particularly from events and ideologies that were destructive, exclusionists and divisive. To this end I thought of a blog as a powerful tool to articulate ideas, particularly when they are accompanied by images. Since we live in a media based society I thought of focusing on the ‘image’ as an essential communication device to send information and hopefully communicate with others. 

My blog is opened to any one interested in the meaning and implications of totalitarianism, particularly the uninformed ones. I refer to those born after the fall of the Berlin Wall totalitarianism could seem like a distant thing extracted from cold war propaganda. Some of them, immersed in different political causes might be confused with images about Che Guevara and certain ideologies without really understanding the implications of supporting political systems that step over individual freedoms and in the name of particular ideals and an alleged “equality”.

Alina: Yes, the young American hipsters are terribly fond of Che Guevara. I've always wondered how he would feel about their iPhones and paraphenalia. Strange the form self-loathing takes these days... But back to your inspiration...

El Companero: My inspiration was nurtured on my personal experience living in a totalitarian society. As a native of Cuba I was born and raised witnessing first hand the damaging effects of power, tyranny, polarization and extremism. I witnessed the so called ‘Repudiation Acts’ in Cuba and saw how neighbors, friends and even family rejected, humiliated and discriminated each other only for thinking differently and being on different sides of the political spectrum. 

Alina: I should note that you maintain another blog as well-- a blog about Cuba. Given the extent to which information we receive about Cuba constitutes propaganda for either side of the political spectrum, I was excited to discover this highly personal contribution to the public conversation about Cuba. Did you start blogging about Cuba from some sense of personal interest or duty?

El Companero: My personal interest comes from being a Cuban native, a feeling an internal desire more powerful than myself to inform the world about what is happening inside my country. As you probably know in Cuba the newspapers, radio and TV stations are a property of the government and an instrument for apology and triumphalism, not a mechanism to criticize and inform about the real social, economic and political conflicts of society. My blog is only a grain of sand in a bigger ocean of bloggers, part of a virtual community of Cuban forums and websites that convey information reported from democrats and independent journalists inside the island. My objective is not to consider my blog or my information an absolute truth, but only a part of it with the aim that people around the world informed themselves from different sources (mine, the official reports from Cuba, and many other newspapers and sites) and then reached their own conclusions. 

Alina: How would you describe your political perspective (i..e. anti-communist, socialist, independent, Arendtian, post-post-modern, you name it:) Tell me how you got there. 

El Companero: I am a strong believer in Human Rights as the basis of modernity. I do not have anything against socialist systems as long as are the result of democratic elections, part of a government based on the rule of law, divisions of power, and utmost respect for individual liberties and divisions of power. In Cuba I hated socialism as I equated it with oppression, but later on as I lived in a democratic system I realized that despotism has many disguises, it could be in the form of socialism, revolution, nationalism and militarism. Thus, now I am a critic of any form of dictatorial government regardless of its ideology. 

Alina: Excellent point. Militarism and nationalism seem a particularly dangerous pair in the current environment. But let's talk about abstractions and other things we find in books. Latin American books are sorely missing on my Top 100 Books About Totalitarianism Project. What books would you add? 

El Companero: It is not possible to comprehend totalitarianism in its entirety without an analysis of Latin American and Caribbean history. This hemisphere provided an interesting manifestation of totalitarianism in the form of ‘caudillism’. Since its independence from Spain in 1824 Spanish America has lived more time in dictatorship than in democracy. This certainly makes Latin America a case study to understand more about the different manifestations of totalitarianism. The totalitarian influences in Latin America come from strong Spanish patriarchal traditions and African heritage as well as from other ideologies imported from abroad. 

• John Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas, 1829-1852 
• John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America, 1800-1850 
• Steve Stein, Populism in Perú: The Emergence of the Masses and the Politics of Social Control 
• Carlos Alberto Montaner, Journey to the Heat of Cuba: Life as Fidel Castro 
• Lauren R. Derby, "In the Shadow of the State: The Politics of Denunciation and Panegyric during the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1940-1958" Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol 83, No 2 (May, 2003), 295-344
• Lauren R. Derby, "The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle During the Trujillo Regime" Callaloo, Vol 23, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), 1112-1146.
• Robert H. Dix, "Populism: Authoritarian and Democratic" Latin American Reserach Review, Vol 20, No. 2 (May, 1998), 29-52
• Paul H. Lewis, Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America: Dictators, despots and Tyrants
• Herando Muñoz, The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet

Alina: Beautiful. I'm going to add the books to my "extras" section on the top 100 totalitarian books page. Obviously, the internet provides a critical tool for you in your blogging about Cuba and totalitarian images. What websites do you find particularly useful and why? 

El Companero  The blog of Yoanis Sanchez who lives in Cuba where Internet is inaccessible for Cubans and writes a blog that chronicles daily life in the island. Her perspective as a young Cuban is essential to understand what happens in the island from the point of view of someone from the 1980s generation which has been called the Y Generation given that most of them have names that being with ‘Y’.

Latin American Studies  In my view this is the best historical web site for documents and history of Cuba and Latin America. 

Penultimos Dias  This website is from Cuban exiles but its attraction is that it updates very fast on events happening in Cuba. 

Cubanalisis  Excellent site with books, political comments and resources on Cuba. 

The Real Cuba  Presents visual evidence and denunciation of human rights violations in Cuba.

CineCuba  Unique place that has a collection of most Cuban films/documentaries of all times. One can actually view most of these films, some are subtitled in English.

Cuba Humor The latest caricatures on Cuban politics. 

Alina: Okay, finish me off with a favorite quote-- one that reflects where you come from and where you want to go.

El Companero: “Freedom is the right of every man to be honest, and to think and speak without hypocrisy.” José Martí

Anna Louise Strong: An unrepetant American communist.

Anna Louise Strong-- such a nice, Anglo-Saxon name for such a complicated and ultimately deluded human being. Strong was born in Nebraska on November 24, 1885 to Sydney Dix Strong, a Social Gospel minister in the Congregational Church. She was born with the wind beneath her wings, the glory of God never far from her home.

After getting her education, Strong ran for school board and won. But the school board was not a comfortable fit for a pacifist. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Strong spoke out against the draft. The PTA and women's clubs joined her in opposing military training in the schools, but the men's clubs, including the Seattle Minute Men, many of whom were veterans of the Spanish-American War, castigated her lack of patriotism. Strong was an American leftist when Left meant support for labor unions, economic equality, socialism, communes, communism, pacificism, and violent protest.

When Louise Olivereau, a typist who mailed circulars to draftees urging them to be conscientious objectors, was arrested, Strong was horrified. She stood by Olivereau's side in the 1918 courtroom, as the typist was tried for sedition, found guilty, and sent to prison. When school board elections rolled around again, Strong was replaced by a more patriotic, country-club lassie.

In 1921, Strong travelled to Poland and Russia as a correspondent for the American Friends Service Committee, ostensibly to provide the first foreign relief to the Volga famine victims. She spent a year there before being named Moscow correspondent for the International News Service. Strong was inspired by what she saw in the USSR, so she started writing. Among her many works are included The First Time in History (preface by Leon Trotsky), Children of Revolution, .Inside North Korea: First Eyewitness Report, When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet, Letters From China: 1-10, and Peoples of the USSR (which I discovered in hard copy at an estate sale a few years ago).

After remaining in the area for several years, Strong grew to become an enthusiastic supporter of socialism in the Soviet Union. In 1925, during the era of the New Economic Policy in the USSR, she returned to the United States to arouse interest among businessmen in industrial investment and development in the Soviet Union. In 1932, Strong married married Soviet official and fellow socialist Joel Shubin. The two were often separated due to work commitments, and spent little together before Shubin's death in 1942.

Given her political socialism and her constant travels to communist countries, Strong was suspected of being a spy for the Soviets. In the Venona files, Strong might have been designated under the Soviet codename "Lira." While Strong probably discussed what she had seen in the US with the Soviets, neither her papers nor her FBI files provide evidence that she was an Soviet "agent". If she was an "agent", then the fact of her 1949 arrest in the USSR for being an American spy requires explanation. Most scholars agree that her openly pro-Chinese Communist sympathies led to her arrest in the Soviet Union, as the Soviet-Sino split reared its ideological head.

Strong settled in China until her death in 1970, partly from fear of losing her passport should she return to the USA. She built a close relationship with Zhou Enlai and was on familiar terms with Mao Zedong. According to the communist-sympathizer who penned the wikipedia entry:

Because of her writings on life and society in places like the Soviet Union and China, it has given many communists a clearer idea of what societies based on their views should look like. Strong herself, and others after her, have claimed that she succeeded in disproving many of the lies regarding the Soviet Union and China spread by capitalists and other anti-communists.

Reading Anna Louise Strong's writings offers a wonderful glimpse into the horrible human carnival which often results from the legislation of "good intentions". Strong does not succeed in "disproving" any lies about Soviet or Chinese communsim-- she succeeds in demonstrating the twisted, all-consuming power of ideological conviction in distorting reality and individual moral conscience.

In this friendly August 1946 chat with Mao Zedong, Strong is starstruck. When Mao calls nuclear weapons "paper tigers" that do not pose a threat to the Chinese, Strong, who comes from a country in which the nuclear threat hit the papers almost daily, doesn't even think to challenge this assertion. For one who excelled at critical thinking when it came to the US government, Strong proved completely inept at locating the truth behind the propaganda of communist governments.

In Peoples of the USSR, her paean to Stalin's internationalism and ethnic tolerance is emblematic of this blindness. In a simple, uncritical manner, Strong merely reports the propaganda without bothering to verify its truth:

Some people were saying that a nation depends upon a common blood or race. This was the theory that was later taken by the Nazis; they declared that there were "superior races" and that the "superior race" had the right to conquer and enslave all the rest. This man in exile [Stalin] was fighting that idea in his writings...A nation, he claimed, depends on a common culture.

What rights has a nation? Some people claimed that nations are not subject to moral law but may expand at others' expense. Stalin wrote that a nation "has the right to arrange its life as it sees fit without stamping on the rights of other nations." It has the right to join with other nations to secure the benefits of a joint military strength and economic wealth. It has also the right to secede from such a union.... Stalin wrote that no union made by force is permanent. A union is stable only if the nations join voluntarily and are free to leave, and if all, whether large or small nations, are equal in rights".

For Strong, Stalin was a hero who promised to usher in a future untainted by racism, nationalism, and Nazism. The ethnic minorities and "kulaks" murdered under Stalin magically disappear. Nor does Strong bother to look below the surface of Stalin's remarks to the clear anti-Semitism exhibited by his regime. Strong was still living when Stalin began to implement his anti-Semitic policies immediately following the end of World War II. Tyler Cowen's excellent paper, "The Socialist Roots of Modern Anti-Semitism", explains:

Soviet anti-Semitism flourished after the Second World War, as the Communist leaders were unable to resist the target that had proven so successful for Hitler. In 1953 Stalin alleged the existence of a Doctors’ Plot, masterminded by Jews, to poison the top Soviet leadership. Stalin died before a trial was called, but he had been planning to forcibly deport two million Jews to Siberia. The economic crimes executions of the early 1960s were directed largely against Jews.

Textbooks were rewritten either to remove the Jewish role in history, or to provide negative stereotypes of Jews. Government texts dealing with Germany and World War II mentioned neither the Jews nor the Holocaust. The Russian pogroms were reinterpreted as justified retribution for the capitalistic excesses of the Jews. The Soviet government attacked all forms of religion, but Judaism most of all.

Like our former President Bush when addressing the "liberation of Iraq", Strong can't be bothered with pesky details that stray from the legendary glories of the revolution. As democratic statesman extraordinaire, Stalin had no use fo silver spoons when the Spirit of Communism chose him among men to lead. Strong naively asserts:

Stalin first appeared as leader of the whole Soviet people when in 1936, as chairman of the Constitutional Commission, he presented the present Constitution of the USSR. It was drawn up by thirty-one of the country's ablest historians and political scientists, who were instructed to devise the most accurate machinery for obtaining the "will of the people" through governmental forms.

On the next page, she extols the virtues of the Soviet constitution:

Equal rights for women and for all citizens irrespective of race and nationality were declared. Six articles guaranteed freedom of conscience; of worship; of speech, press, assembly, and organization. However the Constitution may work in practice, its adoption was intended as a direct challenge to the theories and practice of Nazi fascism... Nazi Germany denounced democracy as outworn, decadent. All Soviet speakers hailed democracy; far from being decadent they said it had never been fully tried.

The Soviet democracy was an experiment in absurdity, a magnificent attempt to render language meaningless and deprive conventional meaning of actual context. Listing the ways in which the rights accorded by the Stalin Constitution were revealed as language games would take more space and time than I have to spare. What fascinates me about die-hards like Strong is her conviction against all sense, reason, and evidence, her messianic fervor, if you will. Like Ezra Pound's adulation of Mussolini's Italian fascism, Strong's reverence for the communist states could not be moved by rational argument. For Pound and Strong, this respect claimed the status of faith.

Whether Strong's fervent religious belief made the transition to faith in political theology later in her life is ripe for speculation. In 1915, Strong was still publishing religious tracts. When she began writing about communism, however, the Christian publications cease entirely. Strong could have replaced one God for another. She could have concocted an early version of prosperity gospel theology to soothe her injustice-wary conscience (socialism and prosperity theology share an ideological plane).

As a young officer in the Crimean War, Leo Tolstoy memorably wrote:

A conversation about Divinity and Faith has suggested to me a great, stupendous idea, to the realization of which I feel capable of devoting my life. That idea is the founding of a new religion corresponding to the present stage of mankind: the religion of Christ but purged of dogmas and absolutism-- a practical religion, not promising future bliss but giving bliss on earth.

Tolstoy's feel-good ethic is predominant in the American Christian community. How Christians like Tolstoy and Strong fell under the spell of political religions is easy to understand once the goal becomes happiness and fulfillment on earth.

To read more by apologists for Stalinism and their critics: "Witness to Revolution", a documentary film about Anna Louise Strong + A letter about an unpleasant experience with Strong + Strong's memories of popular enthusiasm for socialist industrialization + "Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union", a propaganda piece by Mario Sousa + "In Search of a Soviet Holocaust" by Jeff Coplon + "The NYT Missed the Wrong Missed Story" by William Anderson + "Stalin: Slander and Truth" by C. Allen + "The Stalin Era" by Anna Louise Strong +  "Women in the Stalin Era" by Anna Louise Strong + "The Cult of the Individual" by Bill Bland + "To You Beloved Comrade" by Paul Robeson + WEB Du Bois on Stalin + Google timeline results for Anna Louise Strong.

History might also prove Fouad Ajami & Samuel Huntington dead wrong.

Fouad Ajami might get his wish yet. For there is no more effective way to ensure that the US embraces a war between Islam and Christianity than to continue to discuss it as a foregone conclusion. Fox News relishes each and every opportunity to broadcast such simplistic provocations.

The latest issue of the Hoover Digest republishes an article penned by Ajami in 2008. In this article, former Huntington critic Ajami hones in on Huntington's last book, the disappointing Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, which Ajami considers "his most passionate work". Indeed, Who Are We? is the passionate plea of an aging gentleman frightened by a changing world in which identity moves as rapidly as money in a globalized economy. Like a conversation with a grandfather grumbling about "kids these days", Huntington's book promulgates the idealistic vision of a world in black and white, good and bad, Christian and Islam. Where Huntington reveals himself as a curmudgeon, Ajami sees the shimmer of greatness:

"This book is shaped by my own identities as a patriot and a scholar," he wrote. "As a patriot, I am deeply concerned about the unity and strength of my country as a society based on liberty, equality, law, and individual rights." Huntington lived the life of his choice, neither seeking controversies nor ducking them. Who Are We? had the signature of this great scholar—the bold, sweeping assertions sustained by exacting details and the engagement with the issues of the time.

Huntington's "engagement with the issues of time" provided toxic theoretical ammunition in the immediate post-9-11 period, where Washington hawks seized upon Huntington's clash of civilizations as justification for a broader 'war on terror' which just so happened to find terror only in Islamic countries. Needless to say, terrorism continues to be a weapon of the politically dissatisfied, including the Catholic terrorists in Ireland and the Christian terrorists in the former Yugoslavia. There is no religious monopoly on despicable behavior.

Yet Ajami intends to resuscitate Huntington in a form easily digested by the Obama administration-- the form of historical prophet. Huntington's description of the "American creed", which includes the English language, Christianity, religious commitment, English concepts of the rule of law, the "responsibility of rulers", and individual rights, makes it easier to understand why this "creed" is in decline among the political elite. The "American creed", like other flag-baited accounts of history, provides only one, Anglophilic side of the story in America's greatness.

Ajami accepts Huntington's thesis that "the success of this great republic had hitherto depended on the willingness of generations of Americans to honor the creed of the founding settlers and to shed their old affinities". Ajami qua Huntington worries that this "willingness" is "being battered by globalization and multiculturalism and by new waves of immigrants with no deep attachments to America’s national identity".

To the contrary, globalization and the multitude of new cultural influences have arguably served to deepen, consolidate, and export the American values of individual rights and economic freedom. American Cuban, Eastern European, Chinese, Iranian, and Russian emigres continue to be the strongest proponents of American democratic and economic ideals. Ajami, himself blessed with a rather un-English last name, should have no bones about the commitment of many immigrants to the American mission. Students of world history will also note that American rights theory has its ultimate base in natural law theory, which was developed by Catholic clergy as opposed to enlightened Protestants.

Ajami's last words read like an elegy for the dons:

More important, nowadays in the academy and beyond, the patriotism that marked Samuel Huntington’s life and work is derided, and the American creed he upheld is thought to be the ideology of rubes and simpletons, the affliction of people clinging to old ways.

Respect for a man's patriotism, love of country, amor patria, like respect for religious faith, depends more on what such sentiment is used to defend and uphold. Patriotism that defends massacre, xenophobia, the Shoah, or communism is unworthy of respect. Similarly, religious faith that defends massacre, xenophobia, the Shoah, or communism, is also unworthy of respect. Huntington's fate in the academy will be directly correlated with the continuing development or death of classical liberalism in the American republic.

Photo credit goes to the talented Cosmin Bumbut, a Romanian photographer.

Economic depressions don't exist under totalitarian systems.

So contends Lev Nazrozov. He writes:

Out-of-control predatory capitalists have perpetrated a worldwide economic depression. Capitalism’s degenerate character is now extraordinarily visible during this time of multiple crises.  

On each side of the page there is a picture of a miserable emaciated proletarian who carries on his back a huge pack of money, with a bourgeois seated atop of the pack and smoking a cigar.

By simply allowing the government to dominate every sector of the polity, by embracing totalitarianism, we might be able to avoid the woes of economic recession? Historical study makes such a conclusion seem ridiculous. While totalitarian economies did not suffer from "depressions", per se, one could argue that consumers and citizens lived under a system which continuously mimicked the effects of depression.

The Soviet Union did not collapse because Reagan ended the Cold War or because the US was not "soft on communism"-- the Soviet Union collapsed because the totalitarian economy imploded. As all totalitarian, centrally-commanded economies are wont to do. This is why we don't need to destroy our own economy or constitution by making regime-change a standard part of US foreign policy. Eventually, command economies will fail, people will revolt, and freer markets will return.

In The Road From Serfdom, Robert Skidelsky attempts to understand the collapse of totalitarian economies and the (former) demise of economic planning. Noting that the Soviet Empire was "based on coercion", Skidlesky concludes that "it broke up when it lost the will and the means to coerce its subjects". Since the Soviet economy's entire purpose was the fulfillment of the central plan, not to satisfy market demand, central planning drove the system.

The proximate cause of the collapse of the Soviet empire was state bankruptcy. This is the common cause of the breakdown of all rule from the Roman Empire to our own day. The economy declines, while the state's need for revenue expands... As in Roman times, the Soviet economy was based on "extensive" production, and started to decay when it ran out of free, or cheap, resources of land and labor. Like the Roman state, the Soviet state lost to its territorial magnates its ability to appropriate a declining surplus. In both cases the decline in state revenue was matched by growing pressure on the state's social and military budget: the growing cost of "bread and circuses" and of countering the barbarian pressure on the frontiers in Roman times had its counterparts in growing subsidies to loss-making industries and the cost of countering Reagan's arms build-up in the 1980's.

Nazrozov seems to forget the reality of life under command economies, including constant surpluses and shortages, shoddy consumer goods, environmental destruction, forced labor camps, cooked growth rates, ideological arrests, incessant state supervision, lack of incentives for technological innovation, passive prices, forced industrialization, massive relocation, seizure of property, the caste system of the nomenklatura and nomenbratura, and so on. Skidelsky sharply notes that "the Soviet command economy was in fact what Marx imagined capitalism to be-- an institutionalized system for centralizing wealth and power". Is this preferable to economic depression? Such a question does not even need to be entertained, since capitalism does not HAVE to involve economic depressions.

Nazrozov is at his most ignorant when he writes:

Between 1814 and today no adequate study has been made of the “economic depression.” Let us hope that such a study will be made early in the 21st century, and perhaps a method will be found to prevent it once and for all.

Actually, there have been many studies and theories on the reasons for economic depression in pre-industrial and industrial economies. The most compelling come from the Austrian school of economics, which links expansionary money supply with consequent Depressions. Nazrozov should have no trouble finding online versions of The Causes of the Economic Crisis by Ludwig von Mises, Prices and Production by Friedrich Hayek, or The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard. These Austrian economists alternate between global and national views in their analysis of economic depressions.

In the aptly-titled "Inflation Must End in A Slump", written in 1951, Ludwig von Mises was prescient:

This country, and with it most of the Western world, is presently going through a period of inflation and credit expansion. As the quantity of money in circulation and deposits subject to check increases, there prevails a general tendency for the prices of commodities and services to rise. Business is booming.

Yet such a boom, artificially engineered by monetary and credit expansion, cannot last forever. It must come to an end sooner or later. For paper money and bank deposits are not a proper substitute for nonexisting capital goods.

Economic theory has demonstrated in an irrefutable way that a prosperity created by an expansionist monetary and credit policy is illusory and must end in a slump, an economic crisis. It has happened again and again in the past, and it will happen in the future, too.

For more on depressions, slumps, Austrian economics, and totalitarian economics:

• "Did Mises and Hayek Predict the Great Depression?" by Victor Aguilar.
• "Anatomy of the Bank Run" by Murray Rothbard.
• Robert Higgs on the "crisis".
• "Why Socialism Must Always Fail" by Emmanuel Forgolou.
• "Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government Stimulus Packages" by George Reisman.
• Interview with Hayek in 1977 foreseeing the fall of communism.
  
• Photo taken by Ionut Cojocaru.
  

Hide and go seek communism.

Communism once had a certain stoicism and suicidal bent than made its diehards appear sexy to over-stimulated American idealists. But times are a changing, liberalism lost its youth, and sardonic kisses between Communist leaders no longer decorate the Berlin wall.

Mark Fisher covers the "On The Idea of Communism" conference at The Birkbeck Institute, where you can watch free videos shots of Zizek, Terry Eagleton, Alain Badoiu,  Judith Balso, Alessandro Russo, Jacques Rancieres, and Antonion Negri chase communism to its most current revelation.

The history of US Middle East policy via travelogue.

Justice William O. Douglas was a Roosevelt appointee to the Supreme Court. Rather than remain content to view the world through his own American lens, he chose to travel and use the filter of experience as a guide to knowledge. After World War II, some Americans began posit that America's role was to protect democracy and fight communism throughout the world. Many in the military establishment supported this worldview, as it created a larger, more consistent, ideologically-motivated postwar trajectory for military funding and actions. Douglas, however, was skeptical.

So he traveled across the Middle East and Asia to learn more about the lives of those peoples courted by communist ideology. His travelogue, Strange Lands and Friendly People, published in 1951, provides an account of this journey. He insists that "the spirit that motivates" the countries of the Middle East "is pretty much the same as the spirit that inspired the French and the American revolutions". Their complaints echo the history of our own. Douglas believes they are only susceptible to communist influence to the extent that it espouses these values of freedom, self-determination, and justice. If the United States espouses the same values while encouraging religious freedom (which the Soviets cannot tolerate), then the US is poised to

American foreign policy has never been addressed to the conditions under which these revolutions flourish. Democracy, peace, aggression  are important words to us; but to those in the hinterland they are apt to be hollow and meaningless. America's voice when heard in this poverty and disease-ridden belt often sounds coarse and cheap-- not because we intend it but because we do not know the world in which we live...

We finance agrarian projects for the benefit of the landlords instead of requiring, as we do in our domestic projects, that the beneficiaries be the men who work the land. We send technical experts abroad to help in seed selection, soil conservation, malaria control and the like. But we never raise our voice for reform of the vicious tenancy system of Asia under which increased production inures to the benefit of a few. We talk about democracy and justice; and at the same time we support regimes merely because they are anti-Communist-- regimes whose object is to keep democracy and justice out of reach of the peasants for all time, so as to protect their own vested interests.

Speaking with a group of tribal leaders from across the Middle East, Douglas listened to their concerns about the power of communism in the war of ideas. He noted that the group believed the US, Great Britain, and France were pursuing policies that would destroy democratic standards and would lead to communists seizing control over large parts of the region. In the words of their spokesman, Musa Bey Alami:

"America talks about individual freedom and preaches it to the Arab people. That is idle talk, for we Arabs know that in the countries of the Middle East the rights of free press, freedom of assembly, and other individual rights exist to no greater extent than they do in the Soviet satellites of Europe. Those rights are denied to all in the Middle East except supporters of the regimes in power. And yet the Western powers support and control these regimes."

Alami insists to Douglas that there are liberal forces in the Asian countries, but to date, the US has thrown its weight behind the opposing forces, partly because liberalism is less "stable" than dictatorship. Douglas concludes that there are several different reasons for our failed policies in Asia and the Middle East:

Our great weakness has been our negative attitude. We have been anti-Communist. We have pledged to root it out and expose it for all its ugliness. We have taken up the hunt inside our own country for every human being who was, is, or may be a Communist. Yet no matter how feverish our efforts, the red tide of communism seems to spread abroad.... So we rush to the support of every group that opposes Soviet communism. That puts us in partnership with the corrupt and reactionary groups whose policies breed the discontent on which Soviet communism feeds and prospers. 

... We have relied more and more on our military to do out thinking and planning for us. Beginning in 1945 with the fall of Japan and continuing until the removal of  Gen. Douglas MacArthur by Truman on April 10, 1951, we entrusted the management of our policy toward Asia largely to the Army. The military, rather than the diplomats, in fact made policy for us. It is no reflection on the military to deplore that fact. The situation in Asia is delicate and complex. It requires astute handling at the political level-- the best that we can muster in skill and understanding. As a consequence of our negative attiture and military approach to problems, the tide of Soviet communism has pickec up momentum.

[Another] major error has been our belief that we could save the world from communism by dollars. We have wasted billions in that way and have little to show for it. Our vast expenditures in Asia have ended up largely in the hands of corrupt people. We have financed the causes of those who want to hold the people in serfdom. In doing so we have alienated the support of the masses.

It is ideas that will win, not dollars. Dollars are secondary. We have planned things pretty much in reverse. Our reports and projects call for vast industrial undertakings-- the installation of factories and plants in Asia and the development of its natural resources. We seem bent on trying to remake the East in our own image, to transform it from an agricultural to an industrial economy... We must give up the idea that the world can or ought to be standardized to American specifications. Bullets will not kill communism. The world will for a long time have great numbers of Communists in it.

Moreover, the new world that the Asians desire to create and which fits them best is not of the architectural design that we would choose for ourselves. The new world of Asia will be different from ours; it will have a large element of socialism which we would not want for ourselves. We must learn tolerance of new ideas. We must remember that a distinctive characteristic of the universe is diversity. The world will not be remade in the image of the West. All the legions of the empires failed and their failure is today's problem.

We are left with the consequences of this ignorant, though well-meaning, US policy towards the Middle East and Asia. The battle against communism was not won by the United States; in fact, in many countries, communist forces benefited from our interventions. Notably, communist ideas were most quickly defeated or replaced in countries where the US did not pursue military intervention or regime-change (i.e. Eastern Europe, the former USSR, etc.). And communist ideology continues to court and win the hearts and minds of those in countries where the US exercised its military and covert operations in the name of liberty and justice for all (i.e. Cuba, Guatemala, Latin America writ large, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc.).

For more on Douglas and the lessons of Western travelers in the Middle East:

• Interview with Douglas in which he discusses his travels and Supreme Court decisions.
• Transcripts of conversations between Justice Douglas and Professor Walter F. Murphy, 1963.
• The William O. Douglas Trail, a 75-mile route honoring his conservation efforts.
• The Travelers in the Middle East Archive at Rice University offers maps, images, texts, and information gleaned by travelers to the Middle East over the ages.
• Online copies of journals, maps, documents, travelogues, and various books by travelers to the Middle East are available at the Internet Archive.
• The Bartoy Blog heralds Douglas.
• The photo was taken by Wilfred Thesiger of Salim bin Kabima in 1950, who accompanied him on his travels through the Middle East.

Why Islam is not "totalitarian".

The trend of labeling the Islamic religion as "totalitarian" is far too provocative to leave unanswered. Those who argue that Islam, or the Muslim faith, is by its very nature totalitarian turn a semantic gaffe into a pejorative and hostile dogma which, in turn, becomes an article of faith for the avid fans of Fox News. Given the social cost of mobilizing a large segment of the population to fear and abhor Muslims, this error must be addressed.

What do we mean when we use the world "totalitarian"? In her famous book on the topic, Hannah Arendt used the word "totalitarian" to describe the new regimes in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia which had surpassed the expanse of past tyrannies, thus calling for a new term to mark this distinction.

What made these two regimes so mind-boggling and unprecedented was their success in the total domination of a country through a combination of political ideology and constant terror. Arguments attempting to demonstrate how totalitarianism evolves are complicated by the fact that totalitarianism does not appeal to traditional laws or political conventions. Instead, a totalitarian system remains the servant of a higher power-- for Hitler, this was the Law of Nature while for Stalin this was historical materialism.

In his essay, "The Anti-Totalitarian Revolution", Edgar Morin provides a very useful and detailed description of totalitarianism. In his words:

"It is a system based on the monopoly of a party which is unique not only because it is the only party allowed to exist and to have power at its disposal, but because it is a most unusual sort of party. It is a party in which all spiritual and temporal powers are concentrated in the apparatus which governs, controls, and administers. This apparatus can do anything and knows everything. It is a disciplinarian, an activist, a scholar, a soldier, a director, and a policeman, all rolled up into one. At the same time, it is the sacred bearer of an absolute truth which has two grounds for its self-assurance. The first of these is the clear and visible scientific basis which is the knowledge of all truth concerning the world, especially the laws of history. The other is the deep hidden basis of religious conviction with its promise of earthly salvation revealed by these laws of history."

What distinguishes a totalitarian system from a tyranny or a nondemocratic regime is this all-encompassing scientific creed which dictates everything from the number of widgets that must be produced to the greetings and salutations used in the everyday life of its citizens.

One, of course, could use the term "totalitarian" flippantly to describe an all-encompassing worldview. If one used the term in this inaccurate, generalized sense, then Islam is certainly totalitarian. In fact, Christianity, Judaism, and even Buddhism would have to be considered totalitarian for the very nature of religion is to provide an all-encompassing worldview that governs every aspect of one's life. Religions are systems of belief which allow access to Truth in its most powerful, important, and divine sense. Being a Christian, much like being a Muslim, is not intended to be little flourish on one's resume, a weekend hobby, or an occasional dabbling. Instead, it is meant to be the sole venue of Truth and self-government.

Islamist governments, like Christian governments, are totalitarian (in this broad sense) to the extent that they enforce religious views. But Islamist and Christian governments, properly construed, are based on the recognition of a god or deity as the state's supreme civil ruler. Since this god is supernatural,  the state is usually governed by officials who are considered to have access to divine guidance (i.e. a mullah, the Pope, the divine right of kings, etc.).

There is actually a very appropriate term for such governments-- they are called "theocracies". Unlike totalitarian systems, theocracies do not base their government on access to a scientific truth. Instead, they base their governments on a relationship to the will of God; this is their source of legitimacy. While history reveals that most theocracies are authoritarian regimes that limit human freedom, to call them "totalitarian" is a nihilistic approach to meaning that falsely elevates equivocation. It helps to recall that equivocation makes for nasty bedfellows; one of it's best practitioners was Stalin, who constantly described the Soviet Union as a bastion of "freedom".

Equivocations and passionate orations aside, we should agree to use words in a manner which dignifies meaning. In her most beautiful book, Between Past and Future, Hannah Arendt warns against the costs of  wishy-washy word-tossing:

"There exists, however, a silent agreement in most discussions among political and social scientists that we can ignore distinctions and proceed on the assumption that everything can eventually be called anything else, and that distinctions are meaningful only to the extent that each of us has the right to 'define his terms'. Yet does not this curious right, which we have come to grant as soon as we deal with matters of importance-- as though it were actually the same as the right to one's own opinion-- already indicate that such terms as 'tyranny', 'authority', 'totalitarianism' have simply lost their common meaning, or that we have ceased to live in a common world where the words we have in common possess an unquestionable meaningfulness, so that, short of being condemned to live verbally in an altogether meaningless world, we grant each other the right to retreat into our own worlds of meaning, and demand only that each of us remain consistent within his own private terminology?"

Rather than abandon a shared world of meaning in which words can be said to function as designators of ideas or reality, we should work harder to use words in a meaningful fashion. Surely that is not such an insurmountable task. The worst that might happen in an attempt to use language with integrity would be to discover that our language lacks a proper term. Then, as David Brooks so aptly demonstrates, you can feel free to coin a new term.

[Credit for the image belongs to the glorious Cosmin Bumbut.]

Exploring the market of perceptions: A notable article by Craig Lambert.

Craig Lambert explores the intellectual history of behavioral economics in his cover article, "The Marketplace of Perceptions", for Harvard Magazine. He also outs Larry Summers as a self-described "behavioral economist":

Although behavioral economists teach at Stanford, Berkeley, Chicago, Princeton, MIT, and elsewhere, the subfield’s greatest concentration of scholars is at Harvard. “Harvard’s approach to economics has traditionally been somewhat more worldly and empirical than that of other universities,” says President Lawrence H. Summers, who earned his own economics doctorate at Harvard and identifies himself as a behavioral economist. “And if you are worldly and empirical, you are drawn to behavioral approaches.”

Lambert reviews the work of Simon, Tversky, Kahneman, and others, including Richard Thaler:

In the 1980s, Richard Thaler (then at Cornell, now of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business) began importing such psychological insights into economics, writing a regular feature called “Anomalies” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (later collected in his 1994 book, The Winner’s Curse). “Dick Thaler lived in an intellectual wilderness in the 1980s,” says professor of economicsDavid Laibson, one of Harvard’s most prominent behavioral economists. “He championed these ideas that economists were deriding. But he stuck to it. Behavioral approaches were anathema in the 1980s, became popular in the 1990s, and now we’re a fad, with lots of grad students coming on board. It’s no longer an isolated band of beleaguered researchers fighting against the mainstream.”

Great article for relating current academic research to economic theory. My suspicion is that Harvard will now try to use its gargantuan endowment to purchase all the behavioral economists outside its Ivy towers.

A crash course on spontaneous order.

Norman Barry's bibiliographic essay, "The Tradition of Spontaneous Order", should be touted as a primer on the topic. He covers Hayek, Hume, Mandeville, Menger, and others in his examination of the academic study and methodology associated with the order that dare not speak its name. A general must-read for fans and amateurs.

Chase this with the Reader's Forum responses to find what Mario Rizzo, Israel Kirzner, Karen Vaughn, Roland Vaubel, Jeremy Shearmur, and David Gordon think about Barry's digest.