Re: Republican Military Keynesianism Redux

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John and James,

While I am generally in sympathy with the views you indvidually expressed,
I nevetheless hold distinctly spearate views on specific issues.   Not
surprisingly, since my views are framed by my Asian backgound (albeit the
product of an American education for which I am grateful for preparing me
to think independently), and yours are by American and Australian
backgrounds.  What unites us together I hope is our respect for reason and
our common identity as world citizens.

I wish also to point out that my criticism is not towards American values
as much as the fact the the US generally does not practice them while she
preaches them to the rest of the world and often acts under the cover of
these values in a manner that actually contradicts them.

Also I wish to clarify that I only propose "justice for all" and that I
described American values as "peace and justice."  I never mentioned
democracy, a confused term that has been much abused in recent American
foreign policy.  Most Americans may not be aware of this: that the word
democracy never appeared in either the Declaration of Indpendence nor the
Constitution.  The concept of the universal application of US style
democracy was put forth as a war slogan for the two world wars - making the
world safe for domcracy.  The propaganda was so suscessful that it has
become imbedded in the American general consciouness.

Philosophically, the term democracy in Greek means "power to the people."
That meaning has since been labelled "radical" by the US establishment and
its propaganda machinery.  Large number of people acting under that concept
have been killed, bombed, suppressed and put in jail by US authorities in
the name of democracy.

Political democracy is inseparable from economic democracy and social
democracy.  In a larger sense, democracy is essentially a philosophy which
promotes the right and capacity of a people to control their institutions
for their own purposes.  The fallacy of democracy is that it requires
complete individual freedom and places sacred value on the individual by
freeing him/her from all restraints not self imposed.  Thus democracy in
its extreme form leads to anarchism and is incompatible with law, order and
security for the individual in society. Many cultures find this insistance
on individualism anti-social, that an individual is but a symbiotic
sub-unit of the community and that no individual can truly benefit at the
expense of the community. Athenian democracy works only in small city
states and in a closed uni-cultural context, without diversity in race,
religion, ethnicity, cultural conditioning, etc.  Even then Plato rejected
it in favor of the philospher king.  Democracy historically has fallen
repeatedly before the imperial idea, both in secular and ecclesiastical
politics.  Imperialism gave birth to representative government relacing the
Greek notion of direct particpation.  Medieval feudalism gave rise to the
notion of social contract which became imbedded in modern democracy through
the interpretation of Locke and Rousseau.  That notion rationalized British
parliamentary democracy and justified the American cessationist movement
and the French Revolution.  American democracy was compromised at its birth
by the tolerance of slavery, a faulty foundation on which much of the
shortcomings of the modern US political structure can still be traced.   It
was in the American experiment that the idea of democracy without equality
has been given sophiscated rationalization.  The fundamental flaw allowed
the US to first support European imperialism under the guise of spreading
democractic values to the non-European world and later fill the vacumm left
by its demise it with US neo-imperialism under the same pretense.  The idea
that equality of opportunity can be maintaied through political democracy
alone has been challenged by true democrats, and not just socialists who
maintain that economic democracy is the only foundation upon which a true
political democracy can be erected. In practice, two-party or multi-party
political systems merely distorts and frustrates the popular will with
election politics more often than respresenting it. It has reduced politics
to partisanship rather than the original meaning of the people's business.
Yet in the name of this flaw political idea, millions around the world have
been killed, starved and condamned for political heresy by the American
crusade for democracy.

Its time let every people decide for themselves their own political
desitny.

As for Military Keynesianism, I do not under estimate its contribution to
civilization.  Most hard and soft technological progress has come from war
efforts, the latest being the Internet and satellite surveillance and
communications, not to mention bio-technological reseach.  The term
miliatry itself is obsolete with the general militarization of the peace.
The economy is so thoroughly militarized that miltarism has become a
redundant term.  Remeber the National Defense Education Act, the National
Defense Highway Program that built the intersate highway system that made
the toll turnpikes obsolete? As many of this list knows, much comparative
economic research has been finance by the Defense Department and the CIA.

If one is interested in providing real alternatives, it is necessary to
resist the actualities, not the illusions.

Henry C.K. Liu

John Gelles wrote:

>        o  This thread was inspired by the gang of 8 (now 21)'s
>             musing on a Bush regime faced with an economy
>             burdened by -- (1) debt, (2) a high trade deficit,
>             (3) a vulnerable dollar, (4) a diminishing wealth effect
>             and still vulnerable share prices, (4) a trend to corporate
>             dominated global capitalist fundamentalism, (5) a weak
>             environmental commitment, and (6) strong opposition
>             to organized labor and egalitarian values, -- was ever
>             going to avoid a 1930 scenario, was ever going to
>             come to the aid of society to (1) "leave no child behind",
>             (2) "refuse to balance the budget on the backs of the
>             poor", (3) replace Clintonian drift and desire, (to do
>             too much with too little to remake the world in an
>             unwanted American image), with a Bush-team
>             retrenchment aimed at a perfect balance between
>             means and ends to hold on to American wealth and
>             power while the world improved -- relying on its
>             own good impulses and our own humility.
>
>         o  Gelles imagined redux to the time (1) Reagan gave
>             deficits a chance (hindered, as it was, by Volker),
>             (2) Nixon took the US off the gold standard (in
>             dealing with foreign central banks) and attempted
>             price control, and, (3) Republicans, with Gorbachev's
>             help, turned Soviet communism into a less imperial
>             force and a reaching for a more open and free form
>             of political economy, and turned Chinese communism
>             into a struggle to become rich first and a secure
>             international player afterward.
>
>             Such imaginings implied that Bush might do well --
>             and that what was learned in defeating Germany and
>             Japan might supercede what was not understood in
>             the 1930's.
>
>         o  James Cumes, a member of the gang, suggested
>             clean water Keynesianism as a project to do
>             enormous economic and political good. He is
>             certainly right about it. He is also right that the
>             arms merchant problem associated with
>             military Keynesianins is formidable. I would
>             amend my enthusiasm for American capability
>             in force projection and police protection to
>             include all of James Cumes' concerns that we
>             stop the murder of innocents as a byproduct
>             of false practice of financing military power.
>
>         o  Henry Liu recommends fundamental change to
>             bring justice and democracy to the fore in
>             the contest with terror and hate. I agree whole-
>             heartedly with this. Keynesian fiance may help.
>             Especially if it relies more on saving and less on
>             taxes.  Taxation puts enough anger in the hearts
>             of the "haves" to stir them to make war on change
>             that appears to want to turn them into "have-nots".
>
>             In my view, Keynesian finance will allow the
>             "haves" to have "more" and all the "have-nots" to
>             have enough:  not at the expense of raping the
>             planet -- the "more" can be green and pure art,
>             "enough" can be really enough and benign.
>
>         o  The critique of American policy and institutions
>             that is made by Chomsky and others (who see
>             doom ahead for global capitalism) ordinarily
>             condemns Stalinism in passing.  That's fine.
>             But what the critique lacks is a replacement
>             of money-power with something better on the
>             horizon.
>
>         o  The technophiles, like myself, do see
>             information systems on the horizon. These can team
>             up with money, and the spoken language, to advance
>             the justice and democracy Cumes, Liu and I dream
>             of.  Standing in the way of such progress is not
>             Bush and American smugness. It is the extreme
>             difficulty involved in organizing (1) production for
>             earth's population and (2) cooperation between its
>             producers.
>
>         o  It is the gang's task, and that of the rest of PKT, to
>             help society meet this difficulty. The French post-
>             autistic economics idea that algebraic models are
>             not the beginning and end of the study of political
>             economy offers hope for guidance.
>
>         o  A recognition by all of us, here, that historical
>             research and theory construction must contribute
>             to practical political ideas that can gain currency
>             would also offer hope that useful understanding
>             of "what we face and what to do" is possible.
>
>             John Gelles   www.1944.org