totalitarianism today

Songs for this September.

In no particular order....

• rebellion (lies)-- the arcade fire
• southern gul-- erykah badu
• i burn today-- frank black
• twin cinema-- the new pornographers
• symphonique no. 6-- moondog
• blue in green-- miles davis
• i wish i was the moon-- neko case
• mr. kennedy-- the soft boys
• master of disaster-- john hiatt
• i turn my camera on-- spoon
• 14th street-- laura cantrell
• chinese handcuffs-- the new year
• song of the shrimp-- frank black
• cause cheap is how i feel-- the cowboy junkies
• i feel alright-- steve earle
• button my lip-- elvis costello and the impostors
• 29 cent head-- peter mulvey
• fumblin' with the blues-- tom waits
• what i'm trying to say-- stars
• whiskey and wimmen'-- canned heat with john lee hooker
• i bow down and pray to every woman i see-- chuck prophet
• hwy 5-- john doe with neko case
• come pick me up-- ryan adams
• avalon--roxy music
• runnin-- heartless bastards
• your blues-- destroyer
• the tigers have spoken-- neko case
• take it easy (love nothing)-- bright eyes

Nabokov's conspiracies.

Those of sound mind and body seduced by Lolita will find their favorite butterfly lover treated fairly by Leland de la Durantaye. His incredible store of relevant trivia is unmatched except perhaps by Pete Boettke, who now comes to you via blog. Co-blogger Peter T. Leeson is author of a paper I only recently discovered,  "Is Government Inevitable?". I love the web. And I'll be back.

Russian "national character" and tales of fancy.

Many Russians believe that the most positive qualities of their national character are "kindness and honesty" and "nobleness and decency," according to a poll conducted by the All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) with 1,600 respondents in 46 regions, polit.ru reported on 22 August. These qualities were selected by 41 percent and 26 percent, respectively, of those polled. Some 43 percent said that the most negative Russian trait is an "inclination to alcohol," and 23 percent responded with "laziness" and "inertness."

While this lines up with international stereotypes about Russians, descriptions of "national character" are notoriously self-fulfilling in post-totalitarian states, where the line between reality and projection is thin at best. Jamey Gambrell's review of Catriona Kelly's Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero reveals the darkness involved in national mythologies and character-building exercises.  Pavlik Morozov was supposed to represent the ideal Soviet youth-- the boy who would renounce all that humans hold sacred in the name of a national interest defined by communist authorities. As a myth in the making, Pavlik offered Soviet officials a means of pressing peasants to accept forced collectivization in the wake of the first Five Year Plan. Gambrell writes:

He was, the story went, an exemplary Young Pioneer in the 1930s, whose devotion to the Soviet cause was so great and so righteous that he denounced his own father, chairman of the village soviet, to the authorities for hoarding grain. The vicious denouement of this generational conflict secured the boy a place in Soviet history: He was murdered by a group of "kulak" relatives, allegedly in revenge for his denunciation.

Generations of Soviet citizens grew up with the Morozov story, in one version or another. Illustrated biographies of Pavlik were written for children, poems and songs were composed, movies were made and Socialist Realist paintings contributed iconic images of the boy to the national subconscious. After World War II, statues of Pavlik were erected all over the country, and playgrounds, streets and schools were named for him. Almost anyone born before 1980 has heard of Pavlik and his heroic deeds. Few, however, may recall much more than the general outline of the Morozov affair. This is because, as Kelly's book amply shows, the "factual" details changed over time, becoming essentially irrelevant. Fact was a relative concept in the Soviet Union; it was subject to constant adjustment, even complete metamorphosis, to suit the ideological requirements of the moment.

According to Propaganda Reference, Pavlik was supposed to represent the powerful image of a young Pioneer martyr.

According to the legend that every Soviet child was taught, Pavlik was a good Communist boy, a Pioneer, who always did what the Party told. When his father, a "kulak" peasant, did not want to join a collective farm, Pavlik patriotically denounced him to the Cheka, who promptly arrested and shot him. Other kulaks later killed Pavlik in revenge. This story taught Soviet children that it was their patriotic duty to squeal on their parents to the secret police. Recent evidence has cast doubt on the several aspects of the Pavlik Morozov legend.

How might reflection on a Russian national character be affected by the tenuous boundary between truth and propoganda? Is there a self-fulfilling element to such reflections? More to chase on the topic of Pavlik and propaganda:

• The Economist's book review
• Viv Groskop's review for The New Statesman
• Roger Sandall's look at the post-Soviet genre
• A collection of Russian chastushki, traditional folk limericks with a serrated edge
• Photo of Pavlik statue and more information about his life from Hugo Cunningham

Iran is the backdrop.

Chris Floyd is incredibly perceptive about the Bush administration's particular brand of mucking around with Iran and Iraq.

Mbeki and African development.

Matthew Parriss can hardly hide his contempt for current development policy as applied to Africa. Though his sarcasm is slightly distracting, Parriss' pass of the baton to Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of South African President Thabo Mbeki, sets the stage for provoking discussions about development aid.

In "Perpetuating Poverty in South Africa", Mbeki argues that corruption and poverty in Africa result from the invasive control over African economies by Africa's predatory political elite. This is surely one part of the puzzle. Mbeki is right to assert that "Aid must help people, not governments". He continues:

The more the African political elites consolidate their power and the more aid they get, the poorer Africans will become and the more African economies will regress or, at best, stagnate. The Swedish economist Fredrik Erixon has noted the inverse ratio between aid and growth and shown how aid diverts money from productive activity to inefficient statist projects. Aid has actually held development back. Politically, one of the unintended consequences of foreign aid is to make African governments even less accountable to their people because they do not need their taxes and therefore their consent: instead, their budgets come from aid donors who demand little accountability in return.

For any of the current initiatives to have a meaningful impact on Africa, they need to focus on support for the development and protection of the private sector and civil institutions. All modern schools of political thought, from Marx and Lenin to Hayek and Friedman, agree on at least one thing: the private sector is the driver of modern economic development. Like people everywhere, Africans want security and comfort, but the great majority of Africans face daily hunger, homelessness, threats of violence, actual violence, and starvation. Yet these suffering people are entrepreneurial and full of creative energy. They would be perfectly able to build their own security and comfort if only allowed to do it within a stable framework. In most African countries, however, it is illegal to start a business without a licence, and getting a licence usually involves bribery or good connections.

For more on Mbeki's views for African development and the political corruption that hits so close to home:

• Mbeki interview at AllAfrica.com
• Mbeki's controversial claim that "Africa was better off in colonial times"
• Telegraph article on Mbeki's criticism of his brother's policies
• Mbeki on Mugabe

Communists, games, and public choice.

Fabio Rojas' post about Class Struggle, the board game, should excite communists and game theorists alike. It seems odd, however, that the "winner" of the game is the player/class with the most assets when the Revolution arrives. My understanding of communist revolution involved an equalizing effect-- when that special day arrives, economic wealth will no longer matter and all that money hoarded by thrifty capitalists will be useless.

Does this suggest that smart commies should start accumulating assets now? Is the Class Struggle version of communism one in which the premises of public choice economics might be effectively applied? In other words, does the richest man win the revolution even in a post-capitalist world? Thump me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem that at least the end goal (i.e. the winning strategy) of Class Struggle is a capitalist one that could only be considered winning in a capitalist world (as opposed to a post-revolutionary one)?

World Bank blogging.

Looks like the World Bank has finally done it-- another blog is born. Coming from the IFC corner of the World Bank, the Private Sector Development Blog takes "a market approach to development thinking". So far, the posts are interesting and surprsingly exotic.

For example, you can learn about the Blue Donkey cabs of Addis Ababa and the market niches emerging in Ethiopia as a result. You can also see data which suggests that young workers and women suffer the most from worker "protection" regulations. I trust Tim Harford will keep the information vital and the revelations distracting.

Tariffs as the most regressive tax?

According to the report, "Consumer Expenitures in 2003", by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, average annual expenditures per consumer unit stayed the same in 2003, though it rose in 2001 and 2002.

The major components of spending—food, housing, apparel and services, transportation, healthcare, entertainment, and personal insurance and pensions—account for about 90 percent of total expenditures, and of these, only the change in apparel and services was statistically significant in 2003, decreasing by 6.2 percent.

Finally, progressives get serious about regressive taxes, like tariffs. The ladies and gentlemen at the Progressive Policy Insitute note that tariffs are 1% of annual tax revenue. According to their estimates, in 2004, U.S. Government Tax Receipts were as follows:

Income tax: $765 billion
Payroll tax: $732 billion
Corporate tax: $169 billion
Excise taxes: $71 billion
Tariffs: $21 billion

Why does this matter? Don't tariffs help protect American workers by saving jobs? Well, comparatively speaking, tariff revenues are low, but it bears remembering that many products purchased by low-income families might be included in this measure. In fact, according to this week's "PPI Trade Fact of the Week" bulletin:

The $21 billion includes $9.3 billion on shoes and clothes (which make up 6 percent of imports); rates are especially high on cheap shoes and mass-market clothes. Another billion came from food, and another billion from miscellaneous small manufactures like luggage, bicycles, and silverware. The cost of the system for families is much more than this, though, since tariff costs are magnified by retail markups and sales taxes. The total is not easy to calculate, but (1) the border cost of shoe and clothing imports was about $85 billion; (2) tariffs added $9.3 billion; (3) the total store cost was about $320 billion; (4) including about $40 billion in locally made shoes and clothes; meaning that (5) the price of shoes and clothes triples from border to store. Thus clothing and shoe tariffs alone seem likely to cost families about $30 billion.

Far from kindness. For more on this topic,  the PPI's Edward Gresser argues that tariffs are regressive, hitting poor, single mothers hardest.

Ouija boards and poet laureates.

After finishing Elaine Feinstein's biography on poet Ted Hughes, the identical suicides of his wife (Sylvia Plath) and mistress seem only moderately interesting compared to Hughes' odd obsession with the Ouija board. On one account, Hughes and Plath would conduct seances regularly and consult their Ouija board, which "provided poetic inspiration as well as the more mundane results of weekly football matches".

To the question, "Shall we be famous?" the Ouija answered for Sylvia: "Fame will come. Fame especially for you. Fame cannot be avoided, and when it comes, you will have paid for it with your happiness, your husband and your life."The Ouija was eerily correct on all counts. After the couple separated, Sylvia committed suicide.

For the romantic, get your online Ouija fix here.

The gentleman with whom I would most enjoy a seance.

The rain summons Tom Waits, the man who has probably read more by Giordano Bruno than yours barely.  Tonight, it's Blue Valentine that soaks my time, But last week, it was The Heart of Saturday Night, and "Fumblin' with the Blues", my anthem.

On Blue Valentine, the 1930's intrigue of "Red Shoes by the Drugstore" meets the street-pounding blues of "Romeo is Bleeding", and Frankie is always right around the corner. Your nostrils get slightly tickled by the scent of wet cement and tipped trashcans, but it doesn't matter because every person out tonight has a story they want to share. And you're the best listener. Waits is a genius. An honest woman can only wonder what version of Waits the next stormy night will bring....