Erratic WSJ Screed Against Socialism Merely Indicts The Author (Roger Kimball) And His Irrelevant Arguments

There's no avoiding the fact the debased Neoliberal media goes to extreme lengths to try to deform public perceptions of both socialism and capitalism.  Hence, for the latter they try to tie in "freedom" and "wealth" for all whereas the truth is more how Chris Hedges has described it.  I myself  had little conception of  corporatist capitalism  until writing  'The Elements of the Corporatocracy' - later converted into a book.  My motivation was to expose the many lies that attempted to instill in citizens a false consciousness that twisted socialism into a terrifying caricature while extolling capitalism.

One of the hallmarks of a religion is that its dogmas and tenets are accepted without question, or challenge. These arrive from 'on high' so are presumed beyond experimental test, or testing via personal experience in the real world.  On account of the absence of reality testing even its myths are thereby integrated into a person's belief matrix and become unquestioned tropes.  In this sense, Bill Maher's  June 2, 2016 comparison of capitalism to religion in the final segment of his Real Time was spot on.  

For those seeking an in depth exposure of capitalism's multitude of defects there is Chris Hedges' book, 'The Empire of Illusion'.  Hedges pulls no punches in showing how  - when it comes to being "incurious"  - the corporate media gets medals, i.e. in demeaning democratic socialism while blindly elevating capitalism to preposterous heights. 

 Enter now a recent(Sept. 3rd) WSJ essay by Roger Kimball, entitled 'Socialism is for the Incurious' (p. A17).  The piece trots out assorted quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joseph Stalin, and Sir Roger Scruton - to end up with this nonsense:

"Human reality is drained of dignity and becomes material to be shaped and formed according to the scheme of utopian power."

But socialism is hardly utopian!  It is the practical means by which capitalism is inhibited from becoming a metastatic malignancy to the detriment of public welfare.   A sober essay  perspective is offered by Robert Freeman:

"Anybody here ever used the Internet? That was created by a government agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The technology itself was invented during the Nixon administration. Nixon was a Republican president. It was turned on by the same agency in 1983, under Ronald Reagan, another Republican president. That is socialism.

Anybody here ever been made safer by the military, or felt safer knowing that police or fire or first-responder services were there? That’s people coming together to solve problems that none of us could solve on our own. Socialism.

Anybody here ever fly on an airplane? Guess what, your safety was guaranteed by thousands of standards set by the FAA, and by air traffic control, run by the same agency. Socialism. Anybody here ever used prescription drugs, or drunk water or breathed air or eaten food that was made cleaner or safer by government rules and standards? Guess what? That’s socialism.

You get the idea. The truth is that without some elements of socialism, capitalism doesn’t work. It literally collapses of its own predatory greed. Don’t take my word for it.

That’s what happened in the 1930s. Capitalism, left to its own devices, destroyed itself. That’s what we call the Great Depression. It was the greatest economic event of the past century. And you know how it was solved? It was solved by socialism.  Roosevelt created Social Security (notice the word “social” in the name), unemployment insurance, regulations so that bank deposits would be safe, public service employment programs, and more. All socialist to the core."

For the take of a Danish woman, which echoes the above points, in answer to a fearful question on socialism by Oprah,  see e.g.

• Danish woman's perfect response to Oprah on their social ...

https://egbertowillies.com › oprah-danish-woman-democratic-socialism

By contrast, with so many citations of different actors from different epochs, it's no wonder that Kimball - at the end of his erratic screed- ends up with a miasma of disjointed,  incoherent rants.  For example:

"The cruel and suffocating intrusiveness of those dystopian experiments against reality are not so seamlessly or thoroughly implemented in American society as elsewhere."

What "cruel experiments"?  Kimball doesn't specify but because he earlier refers to "revolutionaries trading only in masses not individuals" we can infer he means any 'experiment' that attempted to right inequality - economic or other. So include Jacobo Arbenz'  nationalization of  Guatemala's resources in 1954 - which caused the CIA to overthrow him.  Or Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's efforts to nationalize Iran's oil fields in 1953 - which got him assassinated and paved the way for theocracy.   "Dystopian" experiments?  That's hardly the way Arbenz or Mossadegh saw it. They rather saw their mission as providing a more equitable distribution of resources for their own people - as opposed to fodder for capitalist profits.

But by mounting this warped jeremiad against "socialism" - or indeed any national effort ("experiment") to strive for civil betterment- it's no surprise Kimball also can write at the end of his previous remark:

"But anyone who looks around at the vast, unaccountable, self-engorging bureaucracy of the so-called administrative  state ... cannot help but mark the parallels with the remorseless incuriosity that stood behind the totalitarian juggernaut as it systematically discounted truth for the sake of the accumulation of power."

Seriously?   After reading this fulsome codswallop one wonders if Kimball was on an MJ  high maybe mixed with Oxy.  Maybe he vaped both, who knows?  Let's clarify by first asking what he's railing against when he cites the "so-called administrative state".

Far from being "so-called" this is the system of taxes, regulations and agency oversight the current structure of government supports. In other words, all those elements of the federal "bureaucracy" that ensure your milk is free of fecal matter, your burgers not infected with  E Coli., your drinking water not fouled by cow manure, perchlorates or lead.  Oh and your canned tuna free of botulism. Also that medical devices are properly manufactured and sterilized to acceptable standards (FDA regs), i.e. so when you get your colonoscopy the colonoscope didn't just come directly from insertion into another patient.

Taken literally, Kimball is conflating this protective bureaucracy-  recall that as economist George Lakoff has pointed out, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Regulations are protections.

With some kind of ersatz Stalinism or some skewed, warped view of socialism  Worse, he's renouncing the Preamble of the Constitution wherein the central clause (general welfare) is an effective working government that has the general welfare as a primary role.  

So one can rightly say on this basis that any "remorseless incuriosity" - and even palpable ignorance-   is wholly on Kimball's side.  In effect, what started as a scattershot attack on statism and socialism ends up a hollow screed that is self-indicting and I'd add, self -refuting. 

Charles Reich poignantly notes in his book, Opposing the System, Crown Books, p. 103:

"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else. "

This is the de facto model Kmiball would have us embrace, assuming we took his gibberish seriously..

See also:

• Corporate Media Pushes Socialism Bogey To Scare Vo...

Don't Blame Immigrants For Slow - Or No- Wage Growth!

Graph showing average hourly earnings growth and  effect of one 'basket' of companies increase in labor costs since 2016, relative to a basket with high labor costs. (From The Wall Street Journal, yesterday, p. A1)

It is odd that the WSJ op-ed 'The Elites Feed Anti-Immigrant Bias' (July 10, p. A15) stands in stark contrast to the same day front page story ('Workers Welcome Wage Gains, But Companies Feel Squeeze').  In the op-ed we are asked to believe that it is hordes of Mexican immigrants getting hired and degrading white Americans' hourly wages.  In the second, we learn the real reason is that companies are simply reluctant to have shrinking profit margins via higher labor costs. (See graph)

The first piece gives an anecdote from a guy  whose fiancee earns $31 an hour and has worked at the same company for "21 years" while "Mexicans have been hired at $8 an hour".  The guy adds:

"I don't want to be racial but that's all they're hiring".

On which I call bollocks.  The fact is, no company or virtually none, is hiring Mexican immigrants at that quoted low wage rate to do quality work at a quality company. Where Mexican immigrants are working  now is where they're most needed, i.e. at landscaping jobs, construction, and agriculture - and even then not enough can be hired because of Dotard's immigration policies. Employers are having to partake in "lottos" to get the workers they need.

The anecdote above was preceded by this remark from the author (Prof. Joan C. Williams):

"Yet real wage growth for the working class has been abysmal for a generation, and for many native born blue collar workers the culprit seems obvious - immigration"   Adding:

"Today less than half of Americans born in the 1980s earn more than their parents did, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty'>

Yes, but WHY is this the case?  More to the point, why are the blue collars blaming immigrants instead of corporate America and the economic ideology that fuels its excesses?

As I first noted in my book, The Elements of the Corporatocracy, ordinary workers have suffered a 'death of thousand cuts' since Neoliberalism came into vogue during the Reagan years. Robert McChesney in his excellent book, The Problem of the Media, Monthly Review Press, 2004, p. 49, writes:

"With the election of Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal movement had commenced. Neoliberal ideology became hegemonic not only among Republicans but also in the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Joseph Liebermann. Differences remained on timing and specifics, but on core issues both parties agreed that business was the rightful ruler over society"

The problem with the Neoliberal, pro -free market idiom is that it denies the most basic security for the majority of citizens. In this way it feeds economic inequality while it rewards the speculator and banker class. It also helps to corrupt the political class via unregulated campaign contributions.

Jay Bookman aptly noted('The New World Disorder Evident Here, Abroad', in The Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1997):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative.  In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences.""

In other words, the global Neoliberal dynamic inevitably paves the way for authoritarian populists like Trump and others to come to power.  Among the "thousand cut" insults sustained by U.S. workers compliments of corporations and the entrenched Neolib state:

(1) Cutting employee benefits, i.e. health plans - even after employees have retired with them.

(2) Eliminating defined benefits plans, such as provided standard corporate pensions - in favor or defined contribution plans (such as 401ks) in which workers are in it for themselves to accumulate adequate savings for retirement.

(3) Cutting wages - either de facto, or through eliminating the unions which protected them (much exacerbated after Reagan ascended to power)

(4) Firing/downsizing workers just before their retirement dates, so the company is free not to have to pay retirement plan benefits, or provide stock options, as per contract clauses.

(5) Re-engineering the workplace to increase its automation factor in order to dump workers, so increase profit margins by not having to pay benefits, etc.

(6) Shipping as many jobs as possible overseas, to places like Bangalore or Beijing, with labor costs barely 20% of what they are in the U.S. and no benefits to factor in.

(7) Firing - downsizing workers after mergers dictated by Wall Street interests, in order to enhance a company' profits through higher Wall Street share prices.

(8) Identifying older (over 50) workers as 'surplus' so that they can be replaced with younger workers for whom half the wages (or less) can be paid, with fewer benefits. (A recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling a few years ago exacerbated this by asserting anyone claiming "age discrimination" could not file a suit in standing if that was the only charge)

(9) Eliminating nearly all permanent jobs which carry health and pension benefits, in favor of using 'temping', 'outsourcing' or some other device not requiring benefits. On the academic (university) front, using 'adjunct' professors, hired on a per hour, per course basis, without benefits., and with no possibility of 'tenure'.

(10) Tying health insurance to employment, so that when let go or fired, workers are waylaid again by having to do without critical protection

All of these in concert, have forced a massive marginalization of the workforce. It was so odious and extensive  - even by 1996-  that it prompted these powerful words of Charles Reich in his book, Opposing the System,p. 22:

"We have built a machine for dehumanization of such force and destructive power, thorough its accumulated assaults on human dignity, that we are creating kinds and degrees of damage to human beings beyond anything ever known, with totally unforeseeable consequences "


And as  Barbara Ehrenreich observed in her book, 'This Land is THEIR Land', p. 61:

"Market forces ensure that a volunteer army will necessarily be an army of the poor. The trouble is that enlistment doesn't do a lot to brighten one's economic future"

Probably no truer supporting statement ever appeared than barely 20 years ago, in an issue of Psychology Today  (July/August 1998, p. 10. Includes graph):

"Starting in the mid-1970s, the nation's quality of life parted company with its wealth, and the gap between social health, and GDP is now bigger than it's ever been."

A graph of 'quality life indices' vs. GDP (ibid.) shows the measured divergence. It also suggests that we devolved to a much sicker society than anyone imagined. The marginalization of the workforce, is surely one major barometer of that. The GINI coefficient, and research disclosing how it portends social and economic disintegration, is another. (The U.S. Gini coefficient is now at nearly 42.  Readers can track the Gini index increase at this St. Louis Federal Reserve site:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA


So how and when did the pre-eminence of market forces over human needs and welfare come about? It was actually brewing for dozens of years, perhaps since the collapse of LBJ's  "Great Society" in the mid to late 60s. From then on the real "elites" (which Prof. Douglas mentions) set out to render labor as cheap as feasible and hostage to Wall Street dictates and decisions.  Part of this was also based on twisted economic reasoning, e.g. as embodied in the Pareto distribution, e.g.


whereby the dollars from the affluent and the poor - or labor class - are treated differently.  This built in economic prejudice drives the Neoliberal machine and causes it to value affluent populations over ordinary workers, even as it tries to discourage the latter from enhancing their own welfare, say to do with health care.

Example:. Economist Marty Feldstein once suggested it makes more sense to give the ordinary worker with health insurance $1,499 NOT to get the colonoscopy, than to let her get the test and consume valuable specialist time and resources via a $2,000 "subsidy".  See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html


In other words, capital is opted for over labor, and  profit margins trump higher wages, this was the topic of The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital and the Betrayal of Work, by William Wolman and Anne Colamosca.

The point is then, that labor is devalued precisely because we live in a "Judas Economy" where capital is revered over it. One of the most disgusting aspects is that productivity in relation to GDP has increased more than 40% yet isn't registered because of the skewed way GDP is computed.

All of this is eminently proven by the front page WSJ story cited above,  with the graph) in which we learn:

"Rising wages are beginning to eat into the profits of some U.S. companies. Businesses from dollar stores to hotel operators to fast food chains have warned that higher labor costs have been a drag on their profits - a potential headwind for the nine year stock rally as it struggles for momentum ahead of the second quarter earnings season."

Adding:

"This is good news for U.S. workers ...but the higher costs pose a threat to some U.S. companies"

And we should also dispel the myth that this higher labor cost factor just impinges "some" companies. That's plain blarney and understatement because in fact all corporations have higher labor costs on their radar. I already noted (Jan. 10 post),

According to Paula Harvey, VP of Human Resources at Schulte Building Systems in Houston:

"Companies are really hesitant to give raises. When you give a raise, it's stuck in the pay system. It is something you're guaranteeing: it's becoming a fixed cost. "

She insisted it's much better for companies to preserve "flexibility" so instead companies enact "variable pay". This can come in the form of one off bonuses - say on a per year basis- or if you are a stellar performer you can get a "bigger bump". Say equal to a half year's wage increase of 3 percent. (If you are a super star performer you have the optimal chance of getting a permanent good raise.)

Of particular relevance was the question asked her: Why, if the labor market is so tight (such low unemployment), do wages remain stagnant?   She responded that  "You can blame a combination of factors including the globalization of the work force, job automation and the decline of unions.".

Meanwhile. managing director of Aspen Advisors, Andrew Gadomski (from a WSJ piece), admitted that when companies lament they can't find workers to fill key openings, that is code for: "I can find talent, I just don't want to pay them as much as they cost."

Nowhere are immigrants mentioned, nor should they have been, since they aren't grabbing good paying jobs nor are they the source of wage deterioration. Vastly bigger threats  include corporations too cheap to pay decent wages and AI robots.

In the realm of manual labor, columnist Jim  Hightower cites the example of "SAM" a robotic bricklayer that "lays three times as many bricks in a day as a human can". Hence, it has the potential to displace three times the number of human workers. Immigrants? Not a factor at all compared to 'SAM'.

What about higher level jobs? They're also at risk from bots, not immigrants.  Hightower points out the jobs of "accountants, bank loan officers, and insurance claims adjustors are "falling to the bots".   Why? Because they can calculate more rapidly and more accurately than humans- oh, and they don't require 401ks or health care plans!

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist or astrophysicist to figure out the ultimate goal of the Neoliberals and all economic "efficiency" (i.e. Pareto distribution)  fetishists is to eliminate human labor and its costs as far as possible. That includes immigrants, as well as homegrown American workers - of whatever class.

See also: 'Oil's Technology Spells End Of Roughneck Boom' - Artificial Intelligence and Automation Replace Oil Industry's Blue Collar Jobs'

https://www.wsj.com/articles/oils-new-technology-spells-end-of-boom-for-roughnecks-1531233085


Excerpt:

"Technology has already upended labor needs in most of the world's manufacturing. It's now upending the energy business  foretelling the end for one of the last sectors in America where blue collar workers could hold jobs paying six figure salaries. ....The energy sector has found it can use new technologies, to do the work better and cheaper and with few people. They have invested billions of dollars on what the industry calls 'digital oil fields', embracing artificial intelligence, automation and other technologies"

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tim-koechlin/80098/imagining-an-economy-that-serves-the-99

Why James Damore's Google "Memo" Is a Load Of Right Wing Anti-Female Balderdash

The Culture Wars are back on again, this time fired up by a 23 year old conservative twerp  and former Google Software engineer named James Damore.  Like most young conservatives he has zero clue about the deep politics issues of our time, and is more concerned with hurling his verbal vomit into so-called "manifestoes". In this case, a 3,000 word effort blasting Google's "left bias" for "creating a politically correct monoculture" that ignores differences between the sexes.

Do we all kowtow to this wet behind the ears techie and part time sociologist, biologist who isn't shy about filling us in on those difference? Hell no! His manifesto waxes long about the supposed traits of females which makes them less able to cope in a software programming environment, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  One wonders where this twerp even got the time to write a 10  page manuscript given he's supposed to be programming code.  

Some of the screwball tropes exposed in his ten page "memo" and my responses:

1) Political orientation is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices:


He adds as an aside, in a footnote:

Of course, I may be biased and only see evidence that supports my viewpoint. In terms of political
biases, I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason.

-------------------------

This is mostly the usual classic, conservative codswallop supported by neither neurobiology or sociology. It is more a product of the political stereotypes spewed out over decades by right wing talk radio and more recently FOX news and others (Sinclair Broadcasting). Nor is there a basis in ethics or morality, so "deep moral preferences" doesn't wash in the way Damore has spun it.  As the Jesuits at Loyola taught me, and with which I can agree even as an atheist, "deep moral preferences" must include seeing the human family as one's own.  You act therefore to reduce unfair disparity via social justice initiatives.  You do not act like a knuckle dragger to advance social Darwinism.

There is indeed no basis in standard evolution theory for the latter.  For example, ‘survival of the fittest’ was never uttered or stated by Charles Darwin himself, in any of his treatises. It was, rather, promoted by the English sociologist Herbert Spencer, in a misguided attempt to extrapolate Darwinian principles to the social sphere. (E.g. The Study of Sociology, 1873, serialized for an American audience in Popular Science Monthly)

In his serialized tracts, Spencer absolutely repudiated all state assistance to the poor, needy, physically feeble, or infirm – based on a bastardized “survival of the fittest”  or "preference for the strong" concept. He believed, erroneously, that people are like beasts that had to be forced to compete for precious resources. If they didn’t do this, they’d produce degenerate, weakened humans- unfit in the evolutionary scheme. Hence, the name “Social Darwinism”.

This Social Darwinism remains embedded in the current incarnation of rabid individualism disseminated by conservative ideologues, who salivate non-stop at the prospect of using it to dismember social safety nets.  Damore's manifesto reeks with the false scholarship of Herbert Spencer in his references to disparities being "natural and just" and  "humans being naturally competitive".

Also his blanket assertion that "the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left" can also be challenged on multiple grounds. Indeed, he seems to need to be reminded (assuming he read it at all),  of the words of the original capitalist, Adam Smith. In his 'Inquiry into the Wealth Of Nations' Smith evoked a more rational attitude when he noted there are:

"needs in a civilized society that a barbaric one refuses to address."

He also pointedly stated (Vol. II, p. 648):

"What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole "

THIS is the basis for the true classical liberalism (governing markets) that Damore purports to embrace yet seems to have vacated his brain when he set out his left-right  "bias" markers. Smith recognized, unlike such modern high priests of conservative economic thought as Martin Feldstein and Milton Friedmann, that any economics devised to create more inequity can't be sustained. Eventually, as Lenin predicted in his essay on Imperialism, it must consume its seed corn and also its raison d'etre.

Echoing Smith, Charles Reich poignantly noted in his book, Opposing the System, Crown Books, p. 103:

"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else. "

In such a capitalist-driven, consumerist organizational economic model, wherein the resource “pie” for the non-wealthy elite grows ever smaller, the young are threats to us oldsters, as we are threats to them, as neighbor is to neighbor. It can't be otherwise. This capitalist model has seen fit, in other words, to destroy our areas of commonality and common cause, replacing neutral civic space with demeaning commercial space and commercialist, market values. Reich's appeal, as well as Smith's is to a traditional capitalism as opposed to the "cowboy" mutation that most conservos today embrace.

----------

  2) On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just
socially constructed because:
● They’re universal across human cultures
● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
● The underlying traits are highly heritable
● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
-------------------------------

That males and females "differ biologically in many ways" is not up for debate. What is up for debate is Damore's contention that these biological differences translate into radically different psychological  and job aptitude differences (e.g. women "have more neuroticism, higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance" so are less capable in high stress jobs). Also there is Damore's contention that biological traits define personality differences. For example, Damore blabs:

"Women, on average, have more openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also
interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."

None of these assumptions, claims is substantiated by any research published in respected, peer-reviewed  journals of sociology or psychology. If in fact they were, Damore doesn't cite them which indicates he's merely regurgitating stereotypes imbibed from non-academic sources. Or he's confected his own biased conjectures based on limited experience and maybe frequenting right wing sites.

My own experience has been that if a female physics student is given the opportunity to be systematic and excel in a serious challenge she will do it. Often she will easily surpass even talented male counterparts. One of the more challenging physics projects I've assigned was completed by two female students. It entailed the careful computer modeling of a standard Newtonian orbit - including the code and the base equations used. It was of such a high standard it became one of the few student projects published in The Journal of the Barbados Astronomical Society.

The project entailed using a set of initial conditions (for position) to then construct a Newtonian orbit  by using appropriate differential equations for acceleration and velocity.  Thereby the girls  obtained successive iterations in position, a and v,  and a complete orbit. Their result is shown below:


Nor was this a "one off" or exceptional. In other words, whenever female physics students were given the same opportunities they generally surpassed the male students, in attention to detail and the overall quality of their work.

The upshot is that nearly all Damore's assertions may be merely based on his own limited  expectations of how females perform in a working environment as opposed to how they actually perform. So he expects they will be "agreeable" or "have a stronger interest in people rather than things" so sees that in female peers.  In other words, he is hostage to his own innate confirmation bias.

3) We always ask why we don't see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we
see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not
be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life.

Status is the primary metric that men are judged on, pushing many men into these higher
paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. Note, the same forces that lead men
into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and
dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of
work-related deaths.
-------

This again is merely more social Darwinist bunkum,  recycled to attempt to justify gender stereotypes to fit the standard conservative milieu i.e. "women are to be kept barefoot and pregnant".  Damore would obviously deny this but his prose fairly reeks of the underlying template that screams: "women are inferior workers to men".  Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted that "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK."

The WSJ in its editorial Aug. 9 ('Google's  Diversity Problems', p. A14) tried to attack that rationale for letting Damore go,  averring:

"In other words its OK to express views as long as they are not antithetical to Google's political culture."

Which misses the point entirely, As author Charles Reich noted in his 'The Greening of America' it actually endorses throwback views antithetical to human decency and inclusion. These are every bit as objectionable as a racist tract used to justify the exclusion of black workers.

The WSJ may whine and moan, but Damore's firing is going to stand. Strangely, the organ of high finance seems to have forgotten that workers in corporations have absolutely no free speech rights, or First Amendment ones. This was pointed out over a quarter century ago by Charles Reich in his book 'Opposing the System.'  Citing the case of 'Waters v. Churchill' (p. 146). He noted "the Supreme court made clear that an employee's speech is not protected if the employer  believes the speech might interfere with the efficiency of the employer's operations."

Since it is clear that allowing Damore's presence (after his memo went viral) would definitely undermine Google's efficiency of operations, it was clear Google had to give this right wing troll the heave ho, all the Right's whining aside.  Indeed, Damore's timely firing may have well kept Google on the right side of the law, especially if the company or its employees felt the memo had created an adverse work environment.

Especially pathetic is Damore's assertion:

"the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths."

What exact "forces' are these? Damore doesn't elaborate so I presume we're just expected to guess. But without specifying them his words end up as merely an empty rumination, devoid of any substance. Indeed, Damore tries to make his point later referring to  "the Left tends to deny science
concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)." But the "Left" does no such thing.

We do acknowledge differences in IQ and sex (biological) differences, but we absolutely reject the notion that these differences translate into  psychological manifestations that would disqualify a person of particular gender - or race- from doing a specific job.  That includes an African -American from being an investment banker and a young female Ph.D. from being a rocket scientist or astrophysicist. Let me also add that for anyone to drag IQ into worker profiling and job qualification smacks totally of Charles Murray's "Bell Curve" nonsense which I already skewered, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/07/was-splc-wrong-to-educate-middlebury.html


4)   Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social sciences lean left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social constructionism and the gender wage gap. Google’s left leaning makes us blind to this bias and  uncritical of its results, which we’re using to justify highly politicized programs.

--------

Again, we have an assertion unsupported by actual statistics. Where - from what journal of sociology - did Damore obtain the "95 percent" figure?  Where is the fully cited reference and humanities' job by job tally of percentages disclosing a leftward tilt?  Since Damore has offered only his own bloviations without citation then this is mere blowing smoke.  He's attempted to garner specious support for his trope by tossing out generalities and pseudo stats with no backing.

5) Stop alienating conservatives.
○ Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political
orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people
view things differently.
○ In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like
they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those
with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.
--------------

More  victimization and whining as is now typical of the poor little Righties.  They scream their own incessant invective over talk radio, and in "memos" and online forums but crawl into little holes when challenged in other public forums, or work environments. Pardon me while  I play the world's smallest violin for them.  Did Damore even ask himself why "conservatives" are a minority in many of these high caliber environments, especially academia?  Maybe it's because their lot - embracing a "dog eat dog" culture and world - simply doesn't fit into those work environments.

The WSJ editorial stated at the end:

"Many on the left are dismissing Mr. Damore as an alt-Right nut"  and "the monolithic progressive culture incubated on college campuses has spread to corporate America"

The first part is essentially correct, meaning the arguments of Damore could have emanated from Alt Right sites or groups. The second part is a dramatic oversimplification.  It is not that there exists a "monolithic progressive culture" either on college campuses or in some corporations (like Google). Rather,  that as one enters environments where the life of the mind trumps the almighty buck one simply finds fewer conservatives in general - given the preponderance are about making money, not investigating new quasars, or quantum entanglement.  Damore and the WSJ basically just whine because conservative thought and ideas are not dominant everywhere. But why the hell would it be if there exist different priorities for progressive minds and conservative ones?   This is not so much biological in origin as  based on political outlook, and that outlook often hinges on intellectual markers.

Damore's stereotypical rot almost reminds me  of Todd Akins' comments in an interview that  went public back in August, 2012. To quote, after being asked why he supported banning abortion:

“It seems to me from what I understand from doctors, if it’s a legitimate rape female bodies have ways to shut that down.”

Damore's speculations on female biology and how it relates to female job performance being limited  in assorted areas, bears many similarities.   Maybe Damore needs to go back to university and take a few modern sociology courses. At the very least he needs to learn how to cite appropriate research sources when he purports to write future company "memos" or personal manifestos. 

Did You Know The Poor Have Gained The Most Wealth In The Past 200 Years?

"You might think the rich have become richer and the poor even poorer. But by the standard of basic comfort in essentials the poorest people on the planet have gained the most....Inequality of financial wealth goes up and down but over the long term it has been reduced...by the more important standard of basic comfort in consumption, inequality within and between countries has fallen nearly continuously."

- Deirdre N. McCloskey, 'Equality, Liberty, Justice and Wealth', The NY Times,, BU-6, Sept. 4

McCloskey puts forward an interesting premise, but once one reads two thirds through her piece it becomes clear it is yet more Neoliberal propaganda based on precious little evidence.  Start with the nonsense of a "basic comfort" gauge - i.e. comparing the downtrodden masses today with those in the early 1800s living in "tents and mud huts". Are you kidding me? Is THAT really the standard for economic elevation we're going to adopt? For a professor of economics it is incredible McCloskey wouldn't appreciate fully that one must use the living standards of the time - not how the lowest were 200 years ago. Else, one ends up comparing apples and oranges, chalk with cheese.

Indeed, if the poor masses have it so great today why are they flooding Europe en masse trying every which way to escape from their lousy economic environs - whether in South Sudan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Cuba, Honduras or wherever, e.g.

African migrants congregate near Calais to try to make a break through the "Chunnel" to get to Great Britain

Make no mistake that most of these people are economic migrants, which they will admit  to if pressed. They want to get to nations where they perceive increased opportunity, never mind that may well turn out to be a mirage.  Though most attention has focused on fleeing Syrians, in fact the biggest wave is from Africa and this is no surprise because it is experiencing the biggest population explosion.

As noted in the 2015 WSJ piece, 'Humans, Lions Struggle to Co-Exist', Aug. 8-9, p. A7:

"Africa's human population is the fastest growing in the world. In roughly the same period as the lion decline (42 percent over 21 years), the number of Africans has doubled to nearly 1.2 billion people. The population will double again to 2.5 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations."

In fact, short of a global catastrophe (Avian flu, new Ebola outbreak?) , it is projected to reach 5.8 billion by 2100. That means nearly 1 of every 2 people on Earth will be African. Where will the resources be to support them? The jobs? The water? The life quality? Fact is, that population growth is unsustainable and means either vast numbers will perish, likely of disease, war or famine - or they will do everything they can to go to places with greater opportunity and resources- like Europe and the U.S.

Thomas Malthus grasped that an increasing population was unsupportable unless it had access to resources: food, minerals, materials for building, etc., beyond subsistence. He also observed this must be the case given that population grows geometrically (2, 4, 8, 16 etc.) and food production only arithmetically (2, 4, 6, 8). In effect, at some point the population growth becomes so great that the available foodstuffs can no longer support it and one has a crash or dieout.  This is a primary reason for the mass migration movement today, which is also a symptom of endemic poverty.. People understand that they have only one of two choices: starve over the long run or try to get to a place where they might have work, economic security...enough food to eat.

Already, as the preceding image shows, European locations are being swarmed by desperate Africans, from Eritrea, Uganda, Somalia, Nigeria and other countries - as well as by Syrians seeking to escape their civil war. And this doesn't include the tens of thousands also headed for the southern U.S. border, often crossing the Atlantic to Brazil then  going through to Central America. (See the recent TIME on the new migrant influx).

At the core of these human floods is one condition: overpopulation. The population of African nations, for example, is vastly outpacing the ability of those nations to provide jobs or even basic resources. And because these populations consume the scarce resources there are, it means that for their subsistence they are creating ecologic havoc.

That Niger person may not have a Chevy Grand Cherokee belching out 6 tons of CO2 a year but he or she is raiding forests (e.g. for wood to render charcoal for fuel) and thereby decimating the primary carbon "sink". All totaled, between 1990 and 2005 Niger lost 34.9% of its forest cover or around 679,000 hectares. Meanwhile, the total rate of animal habitat conversion for the same interval amounted to 25. 7 percent.

I bring population up because McCloskey as part of her Neolib PR tract  writes:

"Look at the astonishing improvements in China since 1978 and in India since 1991"

But does she seriously believe these economic improvements would have materialized without severe policies to cut back on population?  Take the case of China, for example. It rejected  the world's opprobrium  to implement  a "one child only"  policy.  It opted to do this to contain its numbers so as to strive for higher life quality for all its people. The proof 'is in the pudding' as they say, and if anyone doubts it they merely have to look at the size of China's middle class which now is vastly greater than the U.S. And when you travel to Europe, If you do, you will see Chinese tourists all over- from Jungfraujoch in Switzerland, to Bratislava, Slovakia, to Vienna, Austria and Prague.  There is NO way that many well off Chinese would be turned into globe trotters had the population policy not been changed to provide a more favorable resources to population ratio.

And let's get it straight that lower fertility rates in correlation with greater material abundance and financial status is not peculiar to China.  India by virtue of its mass sterilization policy (attributed to reducing its population by at least a half billion over 30 years)  is also such a success story. It made possible  at least a significant Indian middle class roughly on a par with China's.

McCloskey asks: "What then caused the Great Enrichment?"

And like a true believer, a true Neoliberal acolyte, she writes:

"Not exploitation of the poor but investment, not existing institutions but a mere idea, which the philosopher and economist Adam Smith called 'the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice.' In a word, it was liberalism, in the free market European sense."

Just give them "equality before the law and equality in social justice and leave them alone", and magical things will happen. 

Which, of course, is codswallop. Because what she is referring to isn't anything other than Neoliberalism and even Adam Smith recognized the need to keep it under control lest resources get out of balance. Smith wrote in his superb book, 'An Inquiry Into The Wealth Of Nations':,

"There are needs in a civilized society that a barbaric one refuses to address" and "What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole". If one reads his 2-volume work carefully, it is clear Smith is not at all exalting or proposing the distorted Neoliberal system at work in the world today. That system disavows economic security provided by the state-  and extols "free" markets ex machina, which are really coercive markets. What Smith advocated was but something more in line with Rhine capitalism.  As the authors of Capitalism vs. Capitalism have noted, the Rhine economies in the 1970s-80s (with large doses of socialist behavior) actually exceeded American cowboy capitalism in productivity for most of the 70s, 80s. Evidently, some ethic of redistributive sharing works, as even Adam Smith acknowledged in his quote above.

Thus the Rhine model of capitalism built in redistribution to benefit those left behind (say the victims of today's trade pacts)  via higher taxation, which U.S. Neoliberals disavowed. Meanwhile, Matt Miller in his book,  The Tyranny of Bad Ideas, has pointed out that all the so-called European "welfare state" economies (e.g. Denmark, Norway, Sweden etc.) fared much better than the neo-liberal, market dominated U.S. during the great recession. They provided the resources for their citizens to be more resilient, and also their higher formal tax structures prevented the sort of macro-scale deficiencies we still see in the U.S. where infrastructure is crumbling, public pensions are under-funded.

In the U.S. capitalist system, it is more rank commercialized competition that prevails - and that engenders a perpetual destruction that ravages precious resources.  These resources include higher quality (i.e. higher EROEI, or energy returned on energy invested) energy sources. Because of population beyond the bio-capacity limit, and especially higher consumption in the Neoliberal economic West, we are headed to a state of degraded energy assets, massive debt and poverty. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html

In  a small nation like Barbados, with few natural resources, each must be maximized. There isn't the quantity to allow duplication or other squandering in wasteful competition. In the U.S., the exact opposite holds. Huge amounts of resources are yearly squandered in competitive games- that have only one or a few 'winners'. In effect, the 400-odd  billionaires counted in this country have emerged at the expense of vast finite resources being destroyed forever.

McCloskey also insists we can "improve the conditions of the working class" by "raising low productivity". She claims "enabling human creativity" is what has mainly worked.  In a sense, this is true, but that enabling hasn't been consistent or equally distributed for a number of reasons. One of them is the variability of productivity owing to the variability in the energy sources to drive it.

Thus, McCloskey ignores the history of productivity advances, and what's really  been behind them. Northwestern University's Robert Gordon has posited that the Industrial  Revolution (at the turn of the 19th century) had a vastly bigger effect on productivity, economic growth than the so-called "PC revolution" in the 20th. Think about it! The former meant transition from the impossibly laughable energy of whale oil to kerosene, coal etc., a mammoth jump in the EROEI of available energy sources. The latter transpired over a period of roughly 20 years over which the EROEI of oil actually decreased from 16:1 to roughly 10:1.

So no wonder even millions of computers were not able to match the sheer change in productive output that accompanied the Industrial Revolution- and within the scope of the latter's purview we include the internal combustion engine, electricity, and indoor plumbing.  How can we attain the corresponding drivers of productivity today? We can't without new sources of energy.

Gordon  argued, and he's correct, that by the time the digital revolution got under way- say in the 80s- the big payoff in productivity began shrinking.  In this context no amount of "creativity" would matter because ultimately creativity also is contingent on energy capacity to make the new creative concepts work. Meanwhile, the PC-computing payoff basically has "come and gone" dissipating by 2004, when EROEI reached below 10:1 and fracking began as a last desperate effort to snare the vestigial ""riches" of oil - along with deep sea drilling.

What might change the equation? Well, nuclear fusion power, but don't look for it anytime soon. See, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/04/fusion-power-within-ten-years-basically.html

 The mistake the Neoliberal species called "homo economicus"  continues to make, then, is confusing advancing technology with adequate, high quality energy supply needed to actually leverage creative processes into widespread use for the benefit of all.

The Neoliberal cornucopians like McCloskey get it wrong because they don't take such factors into account nor do they see population growth for the toxin it is, and can't put 2 plus 2 together to see how it leads to the Malthusian nightmare (not necessarily on Paul Ehrlich's timetable).  All of this comes back to net energy which is that energy humans need to survive. If the oil taken from the ground, say by fracking, only has a ratio of 1:1 (for energy produced to energy consumed) then it is useless to extract it. The same amount of oil-energy you are using up to get it, is basically what it carries. There is no net gain.

It is the periodic net gains made possible by higher grade energy sources  that have allowed humans to reproduce and thrive in many places around the globe.  But there has always been a critical balance between the given energy capital and the rate of human consumption. Too little, productivity languishes, too much and existing energy sources become scarce or degraded and productivity still languishes.

It is currently the erosion of net gain (reflected in ever lower GDP)  that will eliminate a majority of  humans. Right now, with humans consuming nearly the equivalent of 1.6 Earths per year there is no way even a population of 7.3 billion can be sustained - far less squeezed into an area the size of Texas as the dimwit Bret Stephens once claimed. (WSJ, 'The Tyranny of a Big Idea', Nov. 3, 2015).
The Neoliberalism McCloskey worships only succeeds because it basically rigs itself against the citizens with fewer assets. This increases inequality, and worse, consolidates the power of the richest on the political system, especially in the U.S. This is why one can have laws which protect profiteers, such as corporations in Denver who refuse to build affordable housing because it doesn't redound to their profit demands or benefit. This leads to deplorable conditions like that shown below:
 A homeless family crowds into a corner of an Aurora, CO shelter. A food shortage at the shelter meant it had to seek outside assistance. How is Neoliberalism benefiting them?

The affordable  housing situation is so dire in the Denver area (as it is in others, e. g. Miami, San Francisco), that the city must hold a lottery every fall to award 700 to 1000. Section 8 vouchers.  Without such vouchers, a Denver resident would need an income five times the median existing one just to own a home at the median price. He or she would need three times the income to rent - given a median rent in the area of $1700/ month. Do the math for a Walmart clerk or Starbucks barista and see how that works out. And what of the 1.5 million Americans who live on only $2 per day, as reported in Project Censored's No. 5 most concealed story?  (Colorado Springs Independent, Oct. 26- Nov. 1, p. 24)

Here in Colorado Springs the  affordable housing situation isn't much better. The median home price at $262,500 - while less than Denver's ($345,000)  - is still beyond the reach of service sector workers. The mean apartment rent has spiked to $991/ month,  leaving many others in the cold.

What is Neoliberalism doing to rectify this situation? Well, nothing, because as McCloskey writes it's premise is "to leave people alone once laws for social dignity" are in place, oh as well as "equality under the law" (as I've shown, a total farce, given it doesn't exist in practice).  If the laws themselves are predicated on coercive markets instead of genuine free markets, this is a myth. To quote Charles Reich, Opposing the System, Crown Books, 1995, p. 22:

"A free market produces results that favor the health of society as a whole, because an essential balance is maintained. But in a coercive market, the balance is destroyed, the earning power of work and the standard of living of workers declines, and society as a whole is devastated while those with economic power gain an ever more unbalanced share of the nation's economic wealth."

Adam Smith, if he saw McCloskey's paean to the Neoliberal idiom would be turning over in his freaking grave.

The Kaepernick Kerfuffle -Why All The Fuss?

The essay of a former Marine caught my attention, appearing as it did in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times. There Brian Adam Jones wrote:

"I’ve been out of the Marine Corps for a little over three years, and I still get chills when I see an American flag billowing in the wind. More times than I care to remember, as a young corporal in Afghanistan, I stood and saluted at ramp ceremonies as the bodies of the fallen were carried into an aircraft for the journey home, their caskets draped in American flags."

Jones went on to point out that one of the freedoms he fought for was the freedom of speech that Colin Kaepernick demonstrated in refusing to stand for the national anthem.  As he wrote:

"One of those central values is freedom of expression, which Colin Kaepernick has every right to evoke. If the flag symbolizes freedom of expression, Kaepernick was absolutely correct to focus his protest on the flag. If the flag is a sacred symbol for America's values, we should honor it by rigorously debating what those values are, and whether we are doing them justice.

As a veteran, I revere the flag. As a black man, I share in Kaepernick’s anger and concerns over violence toward black men. And as an American, I respect his right to share his voice, and I admire his willingness to subject himself to scrutiny and to risk his career. Standing with his teammates, following along with everyone else, requires no courage. Blind obedience to the flag is not something I, or anyone I know, fought to defend."


And it is indeed freedom of expression Kaepernick exhibited, irrespective of what we may personally think about it. It also harks back to what Charles Reich once ruminated on in his 'The Greening of America': Do national symbols dominate and control US, or do we as free agents have the right to question and control them, say in terms of our own expressions of our first amendment rights?

The issue also came up for consideration some years ago when the Right  tried to get a constitutional amendment passed that outlawed flag burning. In this pursuit they clearly believed that a piece of fabric, cloth ought to dominate the lives of citizens. Thankfully, the Supreme Court  ultimately made it clear that flag burning is protected speech even after a lower court said the same.

As I pointed out in a post from two years ago (July 24):

"in the case Texas v. Johnson (1989) flag burning was upheld as symbolic free speech which could not be curtailed under the 1st amendment. "

And further:

 "In 1990 another conservative congress tried to pass a law to outlaw burning the flag but again it went down.  This was in the case United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).  While the Johnson decision only affected a Texas state law this decision was broader. . In the wake of the earlier decision, the federal government  had enacted a law that also prohibited flag burning. In order to try to get around constitutional challenges, that federal law prohibited all types of flag desecration, with the exception of burning and burying a worn-out flag, regardless of whether the action upset others.

The Supreme Court held that this law did not cure the constitutional defect and the same 7-3 majority from Johnson held that the law still impermissibly discriminated upon viewpoint and struck it down."

Logic and good sense dictate that if flag burning is permitted free speech then not pledging allegiance to the flag at all, period, must likewise be. One is here not burning or destroying a flag but simply passively not pledging any allegiance to proclaimed principles that others insist are behind it. This was Kaepernick''s right and those who are aware of the NFL's own rules also know that they do not demand a player MUST stand and pledge allegiance.

Common sense here also tells us that the SYMBOL of a nation cannot have more import or viability than the principles it is supposed to protect.  Nor have soldiers "fought and died for the flag".  No, you do not fight and die for a piece of fabric, you fight and die for the PRINCIPLES the flag stands for - all listed under the Bill of Rights (including free speech)! That some 'Muricans can't or won't get that through their skulls is beyond belief.

 In the end this issue should not be about Kaepernick being "un-American" or a "secret raghead" but in fact being an American and patriot in the fullest sense of all - by exercising his first amendment principles just as other so daringly declare and self-proclaim in their assorted blogs.

See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/peter-white/68781/colin-kaepernicks-protest-joined-by-two-others

No, Religion Won't Save Working Class Whites

It appears these days as if every manner of political elitist and his pet poodle have sage advice for working class whites. We saw it 4 years ago with the book 'Coming Apart: The State Of White America  1960-2010'  by Charles Murray. Therein he expressed the conviction that an over reliance on government "entitlements" coupled with an inability to get married or stay married caused this demographic to be on a downward spiral into indolence, moral laxity and even moral turpitude.

Not long after there appeared an odious, self-serving 'Lexington' essay in The Economist  channeling Murray's view incorporating the moral opprobrium directed at the same working class. He wrote in part:

"Most in need of instruction is a new lower class, perhaps a fifth of the white population whose plight forms the next part of his book. This class is in the throes of disintegration. Too many of its men will not work, too many of its women raise children out of wedlock, religious worship is in decline... In lower class neighborhoods the togetherness of communities has vanished...."

Okay, let's back up there. This needs an objective examination as opposed to semi-adorational slobbering in the form of a quasi book review. Let's begin with the last, that "lower class neighborhoods have lost togetherness". This very malady in fact, was addressed as long ago as 1995 by Charles Reich in his book, Opposing the System. As Reich noted therein, p. 103:

"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else."

Note especially the highlighted part. We are no longer in this "together". Again, the crime or sin or whatever you wish to call it that Lex and Murray appear to want to hang on the lower classes is in actuality a direct effect of the Pareto-optimality based economic system which destroys equality and cooperation. It enables banks to foreclose homes at will (robo-closings) and thereby fractures neighbors one from the other. It rewards those who are prepared to game the system, but not those are aren't.

In such a capitalist-driven, consumerist, Pareto-organizational economic model, wherein the resource “pie” for the non-wealthy grows ever smaller, the young are threats to us oldsters, as we are threats to them, as neighbor is to neighbor. It can't be otherwise. For example, as threats to our Social Security are ramped up on account of the odious austerity-debt hawks - led by billionaire pricks such as Peter G. Peterson, we oldsters tend to pull back in self-interest and vote ardently against any increase in property taxes to support schools. While we would dearly love to support local schools via higher taxes, we are wary so long as threats exist to cut our benefits and standards of living to the point we need to turn our furnaces off to save money, or split our meds.

And at the forlorn bottom each manjack believes the "other" - his neighbor, to be his enemy as opposed to the savage debased system that spawned such inequities. How irreligious or anti-religious can one get?  In truth, the working class whites could begin by telling these wine and brie eaters that if they want them to marry then fucking provide a LIVING wage, not a mere minimum wage, to enable that to happen. Also, cease sending the highest paying jobs overseas to low wage bastions, including coding jobs, software development. They'd tell them to also provide - parting with some of their ill gotten millions or billions - some free child care services such as exist in Denmark and Norway.

Now, in his NY Times (Sunday Review, June 26, p. 8) essay ('When Paranoia Replaces Piety') , J.D. Vance would have us believe it is insufficient piety and religion. He writes:

 "Despite benefits (less racial prejudice, more community, fewer divorces) church attendance has fallen off substantially among members of the white working class.in recent years just when they need it the most".

He then goes on to cite stats to support the position that this class, by losing its church-forged piety, has fallen into the pit of paranoia including political, e.g. "evolution is a lie secular science tells to counter the biblical story of revelation, the Federal Reserve achieves satanic ends by manipulating the world's money supply " etc.

Because of this these whites have become "wolves" as opposed to "shepherds" raising their kids. Hence, no surprise the kids come from broken families, use heroin or opoids, and suffer from neglectful or abusive parents".

But is this really true, or might it be the case that even with church attendance these whites would still have come out on the wrong side? Hardly! Because at root, in nations where the working classes are most ground under there is actually the flight to religiosity in order to escape economic hardship and horrors visited every day. Don't take my word, just look at this graphic from  Free Inquiry, Vol. 29, No. 1 Jan. 2009:


It shows successful societies in relation to degree of religious beliefs.. Basically, for  18 out of 19 of the most prosperous democracies,  the share of population reporting absolute belief in a god or gods ranges from between as little as a few percent to at most one-half. In some of these nations, mainly in western Europe, two-thirds proclaim to be either atheists or agnostics. Compare this to the outlier U.S. (U) where 83 percent express solid belief- and this is for the patriarchal, personal version of a hyper-engaged deity.

One of the most circulated canards concerning religious belief is that most of humankind is invested in it. We are asked to believe the vast majority – for some reason- find it essential to link up with a religion to make their life meaningful. Of course, this is tommyrot and poppycock, and now there is ample statistical evidence to back it up – starting with a measure known as the ‘Gini coefficient’ which registers the degree of economic and income inequality in any given nation, referenced as a decimal. Or, more often (in non-technical venues) as a plain number between 0 and 100.

In terms of practical applications, a Gini index of zero would denote perfect equality. In terms of western industrial nations, most developed European nations and Canada tend to have Gini indices between 24 and 36, the United States' and Mexico's Gini indices are both above 40, indicating that the United States and Mexico have greater inequality. In the whole panoply of criteria, and the full spectrum of research, the Gini coefficient (the prime indicator of income inequality) is the key factor. To be specific, across the first world (of developed nations) lower economic and income equality correlates with lower religiosity. This pattern is “statistically progressive” according to a recent article in Free Inquiry (Jan. 2009) and “no exceptions are known”.

The warp and woof of advanced, collated sociological research into religiosity and secularism and sociological health as a function of either- is well documented in the aforementioned issue (Vol. 29, No. 1) ‘The Future of Religion’, p. 24. As noted therein, the thrust of this research is that religion is falling like tenpins in all first world democracies, with the exception of the U.S., and that the least dysfunctional societies are the least theistic.

The primary finding that runs likes a thread through all this research is that religious belief and activity is a superficial coping mechanism that is easily cast aside when the majority in a given society enjoy true (not faux) democratic government, and enjoy a secure, comfortable and middle class lifestyle.Those who claim the universality of religion or that it is integral to human nature commit the basic selection effects error, in that they conveniently overlook the data which show broad secularization of western Europe, Anglo-Australia, Canada and other developed nations.
The core of research (largely statistical) directed at this issue shows the primary reason the U.S. is a statistical outlier in religious belief is income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient).
This index has seen inequality increase ever since Bush Jr. was handed his presidency, compliments of the five Supremes, in 2000.

Meanwhile, with its historically lower taxes, fewer public safety nets, more poor than rich (by more than a 25:1 ratio), the U.S. displays a greater disparity than any other nation. Moreover, it displays a much greater social pathology. Understanding the basis of this pathology doesn’t take a genius, including the inputs from globalization and worker redundancy derived from it.

Thus we read in the latest issue of TIME (July 11-18, pp. 16-17) that even after the rise of open markets, shuttering of factories, easy access to cheap labor plus "mainstream politicians who took their support for granted but served the interests of the wealthy" that "the white working class never went away". No it "stewed in its own resentments feeling variously patronized, ignored and belittled by the elites".

Hence, they have struck back by knocking down the final pillars of faith to which they had clung, mainstream government and religion in the form of the churches.  Hence, it is not surprising at all the working class to which J.D. Vance refers in his essay no longer wants any part of his hollow creed or any other. What, after all, has it delivered? More joblessness, more despair and more hungry mouths of his children while the elites travel to St Kitts for special chocolate spa treatments and 18 holes of golf.

Mr. Vance poignantly yearns the working class whites would have received from their own faiths those marvelous qualities his delivered: "introspection, moral guidance and social support".

But, of course, because they couldn't even deliver warm bread and soup for their kids' at night, they obviously wouldn't believe the mere abstractions could be delivered. And so the only natural recourse was to drop the faith and "point a finger at the faceless elites in Washington".

Sadly, just as Brexit was incepted by the political elites'  total abandonment of working class whites, so might the election of Trump be incepted here. Let's hope not,  but really, are the "paranoid" working class whites enticed to embrace any hope for their future by the Wall Street- friendly, Neoliberal warhawk Hillary?

Probably no more than they're likely to return to the pews and preacher lectures about the need to return to moral probity.