Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • A recent article on stratfor.com focused on the trend toward automation in agriculture, which this writer presents as a positive development.((How Future Farmers Will Use Technology to Improve Agriculture, stratfor.com analysis. May 13, 2015. Available: https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/us-how-future-farmers-will-use-technology-improve-agriculture)) By contrast, John Lanchester’s review of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies ((Lanchester, John, The Robots Are Coming. London Review of Books, March 5, 2015))discusses some of the not-so-positive effects of global technological advancement. The conclusion I draw after reading both articles is this: planners haven’t begun to seriously consider what might happen when the world’s population passes the 9 billion mark, which it is set do by 2050. This situation leaves us vulnerable to disaster and it has to change.

    It can’t be denied that feeding 9 to 10 billion people will be a challenge in itself, especially when you consider that the planet’s arable land is already in use. Stratfor predicts yields must increase by as much as 25 percent during the next 35 years and this at a time when resources are limited. However, this article makes it clear that the industry is not motivated by the need to feed additional people. It’s motivated by the desire to remain profitable in the face of rising labor costs.

    It’s already obvious at this point that the planning discussion that we really need to have, the one based on the problems of accommodating a growing population, has been diverted by the false necessity of corporate profitability.

    If it seems counter-intuitive to speak of a population explosion in one breath and a labor shortage in the next, it’s because we’re not talking about a shortage of labor per se. We are talking about a shortage of cheap labor. Adding to the sense of urgency is the fact that this shortage can no longer be controlled by U.S. immigration reform. Immigration policy is in Mexico’s ballpark now and the United States will have to take this into account.

    According to Stratfor, the number of undocumented workers in the United States has been decreasing since the turn of the century. Since 2014, the U.S. has been apprehending fewer Mexican migrants and more Central American migrants. The reason: Mexico is following a long-term trend previously experienced by the United States. As the nation’s per capita income rises, the percentage of Mexican agricultural workers will decline. Therefore, it won’t be long before Mexico is competing with the United States for Central American workers.

    A reasonable person might assume that this would lead to increased wages for American farm workers. However, it seems this is precisely what the agricultural industry is trying to avoid through technological innovation. As stingy as this may be, it makes perfect sense as long as GDP is the focus.

    “Labor costs make up 17 percent of total production costs but can reach as high as 50 percent for specific labor-intensive crops such as fruits and vegetables. Similar to what happened in other developed nations, the percentage of farmworkers in the total U.S. work force decreased throughout the 20th century, as per capita income increased.”

    If you’re still not convinced, according to the accompanying chart Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita with the lowest percentage of population employed by agriculture, while Bhutan has the highest number of population employed by agriculture and the lowest GDP per capita.

    But between the lines lie nagging concerns:

    “It was only the influx of cheap labor from Mexico that allowed the United States to avoid a labor crisis in the agricultural sector in the middle of the 20th century. Labor costs have consistently increased since the 1990s, rising 1 percent between October 2013 and October 2014.

    “With labor costs likely to remain high, the agricultural industry in the United States is looking for ways to decrease the costs.

    “Because of slim profit margins, the agricultural sector cannot afford to shoulder the whole burden of developing new robotics technologies to replace workers. However, research in the robotics sector is supported by other industries looking to offset demographic pressures and to lower manufacturing costs. The agricultural sector in the United States (and in other developed nations) will be able to exploit modified technologies to remain competitive and to meet growing demand in the coming years and decades.”

    In my opinion, the main nagging concern in this quote would be the term, ‘demand’, which implies the existence of people who can pay for the products being produced. Hopefully you’ve noticed by now that although population growth was mentioned in the beginning as a justification for automation, it has effectively been taken out of the equation.

    The economists’ view of the world provides encouragement for this sleight of hand. Economists insist that when old jobs disappear, new jobs are created. But the problem with this according to Lanchester, is that economists are very bad at predicting the future. This is due to the fact that they think the lessons of history are already incorporated in the mathematical models. As an example of an historically informed view, Lanchester cites the work of various scholars who have tried to determine whether there are parallels between the delayed effects of the second industrial revolution of 1875 to 1900 and the technological revolution of the 70s. It’s been argued that although in the initial stage computers contributed to productivity, most of the real productivity benefits of the computing revolution took place a few decades ago. In other words, perhaps the negative delayed effects are yet to come.

    But the economic view comes to the rescue again with the argument that since human wants are infinite, the process of supplying them is also infinite. As a matter of fact, this claim can be validated by changes in the U.S. agricultural industry since 1810. The percentage of Americans working in agriculture has steadily declined from 90 percent to less than 2 percent, and we’ve somehow adapted. However this particular transition was helped along by new technologies. I take this to mean that we can’t assume that we will be able to adapt in this case simply because we were able to adapt in the previous one.

    Lanchester cites Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne who have calculated the effects of computerization on 702 jobs and concluded that in the next two decades 47 percent of employment will fall in the ‘high-risk’ category. It’s not the middle class that’s most threatened this time—it’s the lowest paid workers. As for the top earners, they will do as well as ever.

    At the same time, productivity is slated to go up sharply, meaning the U.S. will become richer. How can this be? The good news is, profitability is actually a better indicator of national wealth than GDP. The bad news is that productivity has been disconnected from wages. This means that the proceeds of profitability are going to capital rather than labor. In the U.S. the typical worker’s productivity has gone up since 1979, but her pay has not. Since 1999 her pay has actually fallen.

    As an example, Apple recently had the most profitable quarter of any company in history: $74.6 billion in turnover, and $18 billion in profit. By contrast, in 1960 the most profitable company in the U.S. was General Motors. “In today’s money, GM made $7.6 billion that year. It also employed 600,000 people.” Apple employs 92,600. In other words, this is an improvement in profitability per worker by 76.65 times.

    And this trend seems destined to continue. Consider the driverless car being developed by Google. Lanchester points out that whatever convenience it might represent, all the money from it will be going to Google, even as an entire economy of drivers is disappearing.

    There is no shortage of people who blithely accept this bleak future. They are people who don’t deny that if this is allowed to continue we might see a new kind a deflation—the kind of deflation caused by people having less money to spend. And they admit that this is bound to have some very bad effects, such as falling prices and even another collapse of home prices. Larry Page, founder and CEO of Google, is one of these people. He admits this process will be highly unpleasant for the majority, but he thinks it will have a good effect eventually, making it easier for everyone to live a comfortable life:

    “…in a capitalist system…the elimination of inefficiency through technology has to be pursued to its logical conclusion.”

    According to Lanchester, Page’s views are not unusual in Silicon Valley and the ‘upper reaches of the overlord class.’ I guess this is one way of dispensing with that troublesome population factor.

    So what are we to do? In Lancaster’s view we must choose between this hyper-capitalist dystopia and a socialist paradise. If we choose the second alternative we would have to begin by changing the form of ownership so that capital doesn’t own and control the robots. Then:

    “We don’t have to work in factories or go down mines or clean toilets or drive long-distance lorries, but we can choreograph and weave and garden and tell stories and invent things and set about creating a new universe of wants.”

    It’s not exactly surprising that few people are talking about the second alternative. I would argue instead that we should start smaller by insisting that the conversation remain centered in reality. We might begin by listing the crucial factors in order of priority and eliminating the false factors.

    Population should be the central factor in planning for the future, not as an excuse for more technological inequality but as an unavoidable reality. And a responsibility. Next, we need to make it clear that population can’t be used on one side of the ledger book as an excuse for automation, and penciled in on the other side as demand. This is funny accounting no matter how you look at it. That is unless the plan is to sell the goods at a profit to those who can afford them and let everyone else starve.

    I do believe this approach has provided clarity already. In the face of looming mass starvation, corporate profitability is a luxury we can’t afford.

    Works reviewed by Lanchester:

    The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

    Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen

     

     

  • Thinking about the biography of Albert Gleizes has led me in a thousand directions, all of them relevant to current events. Where I get into trouble is in deciding what to talk about first. Sometimes I think the French art conversation is the place to start since it’s part of the larger political picture and since some of the factions that struggled with each other a hundred years ago are still with us. However it is not my intention to promote any one faction. My goals include gaining a better understanding of what was being said, and illustrating its relevance to the United States. That is, to people in the United States that aren’t already part of an artistic elite.  I’m not aiming for a paternalistic art conversation, but a conversation that is capable of preparing everyone to participate, even if it takes several generations.  I’ve finally decided that maybe the best way to begin is to make a list of related topics. If any of you have expertise in any part of this list, please don’t wait for me—go ahead and write about it.

    1. The politics behind the rivalry of Pablo Picasso and Albert Gleizes

    2. The crucial difference between Gleizes and Picasso as explained by the
    theories of Jacques Maritain

    3. The place of the occult in art

    4. The doctrine of Personalism as it applies to The Self, to art and to the
    occult

    5. The relationship between theology and art in the West and the Orient

    6. French influence in Germany and Russia before the world wars

    7. The occult revival in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall

    8. The devil and the problem of evil in Western culture

    9. Differing views of reality as represented by Albert Gleizes and the
    Catholic Church

    10. Picasso as mage

  • Middle Eastern Christians; death, exodus, betrayal and silence – Al Arabiya News.

  • Two Italian designers made a statement about gay marriage that turned out to be very controversial. However, I believe this is how we should talk to each other.

    Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana said in a recent interview that they oppose gay adoptions. They also oppose gay marriage. They believe ‘the only family is the traditional one’.

    Gabbana said, ”A child needs a mother and a father. I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother.”

    I wanted to share this story for two reasons: first because it demonstrates kindness and consideration for mothers; and second because it’s surprising that men are questioning whether gay men should be raising children together. I agree with this point of view.

  • There is an old conversation about art that took place in early twentieth century France. The important question that I derived from that conversation is What does theology have to do with life? In contrast to such questions, I find our current conversation rather depressing. 

    Theology and Art

    French cubist Albert Gleizes ventured into Christian theology to the dismay of his Catholic friends. Gleizes, a convert to the Catholic Church, unwittingly brought up an old debate pitting St. Augustine against Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Gleizes argued that the ascendence of Aristotle and Aquinas in the 12th century had been detrimental to Christian art. In this he was influenced by René Guénon. 1 We will see that it may not have been entirely unwitting on Gleizes’s part. 

    I don’t have a position on this debate but I’m more sympathetic to Gleize’s Catholic friends. I have my doubts about the influence of Rene Guénon, as they did. But how did the Catholic Church get involved in this debate?

    The Worker Priest Movement

    After the Second World War, many in the Catholic Church wanted to change the way the Church was presented to the world. They also desired greater openness and relevance to the conditions of modern life. The ‘worker priest’ movement in France was the most radical expression of this desire. The priests in this movement often engaged in the political struggles of the class led by the Communist Party.

    In art, they were willing to use well-known sometimes controversial artists, and these artists were given considerable freedom, regardless of their religious beliefs. Fathers Marie-Alain Courtier and Pie Raymond Régamey were the two most prominent names associated with this movement. They were both Dominicans. 

    Jacques Maritain

    Jacques Maritain had already worked out a theory of modern art based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. In his Art et Scolastique, he argued that in the Middle Ages the artist and the theologian worked together. The artist had represented beauty and the theologian had represented truth. However, the Renaissance set the artist free from the theologian. This sent him out on his own to search after beauty in its own right, independent of theological truth. 

    According to Maritain, there is a clear distinction between beauty and truth. Beauty is still a ‘transcendental’ and belongs to the divine order. However, under the utilitarian mindset, the artist longs for beauty as an absolute end in itself. In this way, he has become as superfluous and ridiculous as the theologian or saint.

     Baudelaire

    In the nineteenth century Baudelaire tried to reassert the transcendental nature of his art. In Maritain’s telling, Baudelaire shared common ground with a wide range of artists, especially those interested in religious art. A painted figure should look like a painted figure and not like a real figure. It is deceitful for a painting to give the illusion of nature. 

    This view was shared by many schools of art in Europe and Britain in Baudelaire’s time. It could even have been written by Albert Gleizes, especially before 1920. However, Maritain continued with what was probably a criticism of Gleizes’s and Metzinger’s du ‘Cubisme’. 

    Does Cubism in our day, despite its tremendous deficiencies, represent the still stumbling, screaming childhood of an art once more pure? The barbarous dogmatism of its theorists compels the strongest doubts and an apprehension that the new school may be endeavouring to set itself absolutely free from naturalist imitation only to become immoveably fixed in stultae quaestiones…(as quoted by Brooke p, 246)

    Thomas took ‘Stultae quaestiones’ from Paul’s Epistle to Titus 3:9. They are questions that ‘if raised in any science or discipline, would run contrary to the first conditions implied by that very same discipline.’ 

    The Dominicans would raise the same objection against Gleizes in the late 1940s. They would say he was bothering his head with questions that did not concern him and should be left to professional philosophers and theologians. 

    For Gleizes’s part the mistrust was mutual. In his view, the Dominicans would take the easy road of the urban university, ‘where Aristotle’s philosophy rules supreme’. The ‘real door’ will open on the order of St Benedict, exclusively theological. 

    Gleizes believed that Thomas was of the thirteenth century, the period when the theological view of the world associated with the Benedictines was giving way to a more intellectual and philosophical view of the world, associated with the Dominicans. 

    What Does Theology Have to do With Life?

    How are we to understand the relationship between theology and the physical world? Traditionalists such as Guenon believe the physical world should be organized according to the theology of a past historical era. Guenon, his disciple Albert Gleizes, and their followers, believed the modern age had caused a deviation that can be seen in art and architecture, and that the world must return to that past way of thinking. However, there were disagreements even among the Traditionalists.

    Rene Guenon dated the modern deviation from the beginning of the fourteenth century while Albert Gleizes traced it back a century earlier. According to Peter Brooke this indicates a ‘profound difference in approach’. 

    Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a play of lines and colours that put the eye in movement had given way to a play of lines and colours that evoke the appearances of the natural world. The folds of the garments in the paintings and sculptures which had been organised in such a way as to contribute to the unifying rythm of the whole painted or sculpted area became an imitation of the folds of the garments agitated by the wind or evoking the shape of the body underneath. For Geizes this change was much more fundamental than any change in intellectual ideas. (But) For Guenon, the intellectual idea, the metaphysical structure, was the foundation stone of all the rest. Thus it is sufficient that a correct understanding of his traditional doctrine is conveyed in the symbols and numerical proportions used by the artists. For Gleizes by contrast, it is the ‘cast of mind’ that counts, and this is expressed at a much more fundamental level in the act of the artist than in anything – symbolism, metaphysical argument or whatever – that can be expressed in words. (Brooke p. 254)

    There had previously been a rupture between Gleize and his friends Dom Angelico Surchamp and Robert Pouyaud over the question of the similarities or lack thereof between Gleizes and Guenon. There had also been a post-war disagreement between Gleizes and Père Raymond Régamey. These arguments are quite complex, but a brief mention is necessary in order to have some idea of the schools of thought.

    The Art Journal, Art Sacré

    Régamey and Couturier ran the art journal, Art Sacré. (It had been founded in 1935 as Cahiers de l’ art sacré.) In June 1945, Gleizes submitted an article to the journal, L’arc en ciel,cle de l’art Chretien Medieval.

    Régamey answered politely but declined to publish it. He specifically objected to one of Gleizes’s ideas. He said he agreed with Gleizes’s statement that experience is an intimate participation with the living object, and observation is a distant, subjective appreciation. However, he disagreed that everything produced with the combination proposed by observation is damned.

    In a lecture in Brussels in 1947, Régamey was more critical, and he included Gleizes, Bazaine, and Manessier in his critique.

    A Doctrine of Two Kingdoms

    Subsequently Gleizes wrote what seemed to be a challenge to Régamey’s program. He spoke of a ‘doctrine of two kingdoms–the kingdom of this world and the kingdom that is not of this world.

    Brooke interprets this to mean that Gleizes has abandoned all hope in the establishment of a spiritual authority on earth.

    For Gleizes, the kingdom of this world is the kingdom of space and time. The kingdom that is not of this world is the kingdom of eternity. The ambition of the Christian is supposedly to bring the two into harmony. But Gleizes believes the disharmony between them is total. Harmony can only be achieved with the reestablishment of a religious state of mind.

    Furthermore, Gleizes’s piece in Art Sacré implied that the Church is implicated in the general deviation. The Church’s own idea of itself is wrong according to Gleizes, and it must die to be reborn.

    This comment reminded Brooke of the annoyance of Père Jérôme when Gleizes told him ‘the whole of theology has to be taken up again’.

    Régamey Started to Question Whether Gleizes Was a Christian

    One reason for Régamey’s hostility to Gleizes was his suspicion that Gleizes was not a Christian (Brooke p. 253). He had begun to think the ‘tradition’ which Gleizes hoped to renew was the ‘tradition’ of Rene Guenon.

    Guenon’s tradition was a metaphysical system of thought which was the real foundation behind all the major religions. In this view, the system is transmitted from one generation to the next through a secret process of initiation. The question of Gleizes’s allegiance to Guenon led to a ‘serious rupture’ among Gleizes’s followers.

    Gleizes’s Ideas of Society and Culture Were Typically Right-Wing

    Gleizes appreciated Guenon’s critique of modern civilization in his Crise du monde moderne, and Orient et occident. They both believed society was at the end of a short period of religious chaos and heading for destruction. The task of those who were aware of the situation was to rediscover and reaffirm the principles on which a new religious culture could evolve.

    Gleizes Knew What He Was Doing

    Gleizes knew he was renewing the old case made by the Augustinians against Aquinas. Over time, his friends and Church allies were shut out. Some of the themes that came up repeatedly in the debates with Père Jérôme and others were Gleizes’s distrust of Thomism, his insistence on a cyclical view of history, his sympathy for Guenon, and a tendency to emphasize the universal reality of Christ rather than the historical individual (p. 223).

  • My criticism of Christianity has nothing to do with the beliefs or the theology. It has to do with its economic effects on communities. Of course these effects didn’t originate with Christianity. They originated with the Greek philosophers who remain influential in Christianity. Recently the Pope has made it clear that the Greeks are staying. I assume this is due to their importance in the Church’s theological structure. Greek philosophy has influenced the way Christians think about God and so it’s possible that their contribution can’t be removed without dire consequences. In any case theology is a touchy business and I’m happy to leave it to the theologians.

    But the Pope has also called for a new theology of the woman. If you were an optimist, you could interpret this as a willingness to reject Greek misogyny. Since Greek misogyny has been the justification for the West’s political and economic organization, rejecting it would be consistent with the Pope’s call for a new economy. My objection is to the premise that the place of women in society can be defined through theology.

    The definition of theology is:

    1 the study of the nature of God and religious belief.
    1.1 religious beliefs and theory when systematically developed. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/theology

    With the Church’s focus on Mary the mother of Jesus the ‘woman’ is being presented as synonymous with women. This is a problem because women are merely human. ‘The woman’ on the other hand is the archetypal mother. The archetypal mother is not the same thing as the personal mother. Economically, the archetypal mother is the rival of the personal mother.

     

  • I have argued that Catholic women should be free to make a plan for community reform without asking for permission. However, I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know if there would be resistance from the Church on this. But instead, the strategy of women’s groups is to demand female ordination.

    The Church Speaks With a Masculine Voice

    The Church speaks with a masculine voice. A masculine voice is a good thing. It’s needed in the world. But it’s not a feminine voice. It never was a feminine voice and it never will be a feminine voice. I don’t know why women in the Church insist on fighting for position in a male hierarchy. It seems to me their happiness might just be a matter of achieving a little distance. And it’s not as if they are not needed elsewhere.

    Women Need Help From Other Women in Matters of Child Custody

    For example, the influence of fatherhood initiatives on family courts in the United States has to be addressed by women. I don’t know if this influence is from the Knights of Columbus or Roland Warren’s National Fatherhood Initiative, but I do know it’s a serious matter. Custody is being awarded to abusers, resulting in the deaths of children. (The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic organization. Warren’s Initiative is not.)

    When I suggested some time ago that people should be organized into smaller political units and that they should own property in common I was trying to answer questions about community cohesiveness and reliable representation. I assumed that real solutions would have to start in communities that solve their own problems. That’s my reasoning on the importance of women’s organizations as well. And for all I know, the Church would not object.

    The Joy of the Gospel

    When I discovered in The Joy of the Gospel  that the Church has developed a whole theology around the discovery and encouragement of new cultural manifestations I knew right away that the Church depends on lay people to create culture. However, I believe the issue of female ordination is a dead end.

    I’d appreciate a discussion from Catholics about what they hope to accomplish by this strategy.

  • I know there are Christian Churches that ordain women. At this time, the most I can say about them is that they represent a fundamental change in thinking. However, I believe female ordination as strategy is based on a dangerous misunderstanding of the reality behind male hierarchies. 

    Female Ordination is a Vanity Project

    Unfortunately, gender inequality is pervasive all over the world. It is merely echoed in the Christian creation story. Therefore, as  a church-by-church strategy it will never be anything more than a vanity project. 

    I know women who are devoted to their church. Many of them would say they consider their church to be their own, that the church belongs to them as much as it does to the male hierarchy. Although many of them recognize the injustices, they don’t support female ordination.

    Because the world’s gender inequality is merely echoed in the Christian creation story, as  a strategy female ordination can only be superficial. 

    A Misguided Confrontation

    Nevertheless, we suddenly have this agenda, which is not even held by all women, threatening to turn the conversation into a confrontation. In my opinion, it would make more sense to talk about why the problem exists in the Church in the first place. For example, no one asks why gender inequality contradicts the general thrust of the new Testament. 

    The Real Question is Whether Women are Capable of Participating in This Conversation

    At this time we’re talking to a specific person—Pope Francis. We don’t know yet what his vision is and so we’re exploring the possibilities—given reality as we know it. But we do know that he has come down on the side of progressives. This is a gift. What will we do with it?

    I’m not saying that we have to accept everything that the Church tells us, but there is reason to hope that the Church can address our political and economic problems. Francis’s entry into the conversation requires a decision on our part. 

    Complicating Factors

    Women rarely agree with one another. In my experience, their loyalties are to their families, religion, children, political party, their immediate social circle, and perhaps their sports team. Notice that allegiance to women outside of their social circle is not included in this list. Still, the loyalties of women are a priceless tendency when it comes to community building. 

    Unfortunately, female relationships in the wider community, while they have good points, represent a shaky foundation for community building. There is always potential for rivalry and disagreement. If you also consider the influence of Washington’s elite feminists, you will see that the disharmony is complete.

    The Feminist Agenda Ignores the Importance of the Maternal Family

    There is one specific kind of loyalty that has the potential to correct the world’s social ills, and that is loyalty to the maternal family. But Washington feminism knows nothing about this. That’s because it belongs to Washington. Furthermore, notwithstanding a few female stars, Washington belongs to the masculine hierarchy. I believe we can build on this principle.

    I Propose That There is Only One Non-Negotiable Principle

    If we find that our attempts to remedy these factors meet resistance from the Church, we would be justified in reconsidering our participation in the conversation. But assuming we are able to agree on this principle, discovering the factors that work against strong maternal bonds would be the next step. 

    Some Factors that Work Against Strong Maternal Bonds

    I’ll list two factors the work against strong maternal bonds. One is the tendency of family courts to take children from their mothers in the case of divorce. Another is the policy of turning single girls who become pregnant into pariahs. This leads directly to the loss of social support and often to the loss of their children.

    Throughout history, the legal system gave these policies teeth. This led to the incarceration of so many young women in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. However, this isn’t unique to the Catholic Church. The Poor Laws were in effect in England during the reign of Queen Victoria, resulting in the phenomenon of ‘baby farming’.

    Baby Farming

    For more than a hundred years, single women in England who became pregnant were systematically deprived of the support of their families. Because a girl’s family members would share in her punishment unless they disowned her, she and her baby were alone.

    Employment opportunities for single mothers were limited, pay was low, and there was no one to care for a new baby while its mother worked. Enter the diabolical institution of the baby farm. Single mothers would pay other people to house and feed their babies, not realizing that the children would be systematically starved. Meanwhile, the mother provided the baby farmer with a tidy sum.

    John Wesley

    It’s damning that Victoria and her consort Albert, the real power behind the throne, failed to address this travesty for so long. However, the poor laws actually went into effect before Victoria became queen. It’s been argued that the responsible party was the Methodist, John Wesley.

    If there is any validity behind my theory of the central importance to society of the maternal bond, we would have to conclude that these kinds of policies destroy the very thing they claim to protect—the community.

    The Maternal Bond is Square One

    That said, we seem to be back where we started, trying to convince our all-powerful leaders to change their policies. The important place to begin is our ability to interpret policies in terms of the danger they pose to our community. This would depend on our ability to agree among ourselves. This implies that we have to be able to define what defines the good of the community. I’ve argued here that the maternal bond should take precedence over legalistic or ideological priorities. In other words, the maternal bond must take precedence over appearances.

  • The birth control debate has focused on single women. However married couples depend on birth control more consistently than single people. I’d like to invite the legislators to include married women in the discussion.

    There is a disconnect in our understanding of sexual relations in marriage. We laugh about old television shows that depict married couples sleeping in twin beds because we think we know better. The implications of twin beds are lost to us because the control of fertility no longer depends on the control of sex.

    Many people are not aware that married couples once slept in separate bedrooms. They also may not be aware that there used to be biological and seasonal prohibitions on marital sex. Apparently, ancient people understood the importance of population control. Or was it that they still saw women as people?

    A decrease in marital sex is not what our legislators have in mind when they limit access to birth control. Their goal is a higher birthrate. These men may pose as defenders of tradition, but there is nothing traditional about what they are doing.

  • Neoclassical ideology is capitalist mind control. It was created to support the aims of dominant capital.  Capitalist mind control is a smokescreen for the abuses of capitalist economics.

    Dominant Capital and Tax Money Financed Neoclassical Economics

    This development was financed by two sources, dominant capital and tax money. It is shored up by countless apologists and repairmen and implemented by state organs. And finally, the media sells it to the public.

    Most outsiders have trouble understanding it. This is because it’s deliberately made to look difficult. This is only one of the reasons the public doesn’t discuss it.  There is also the problem of treating the economy like a natural phenomenon subject to scientific study. It’s either above our heads, or it’s an inevitable phenomenon unaffected by humans, and therefore discussion is not necessary.  Laws of nature can be discovered but they can’t be changed. Capitalist mind control is one of its greatest powers.

    Denial of the Problem

    The most troubling thing about the current crisis of capitalism is the large number of people who deny that a problem exists. One example is Catholics who object to Pope Francis’s condemnation of the economy. We should question who they represent. This kind of objection is standard practice for those whose job it is to head off criticism about the economy.

    The phenomenon of murky, inexplicable economic manipulation is explained by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler in The Global Political Economy of Israel, published in 2002 . 2

    What the Ruling class must hide

    The book deals mainly with Israel, but the critique of economic theory isn’t specific to Israel. The United States has a similar economic story. 3

    Between 1865 and 1920, in order for the U.S. to become the world’s leading industrial capitalist nation, dominant capitalists had to find a way to overcome two major factors: the demands of the working class; and competition among existing firms. They accomplished this through monopoly in manufacturing, and this produced a system of corporate capitalism.

    The process was driven by a ruling class with designs on power. Control of the financial system was the basic mechanism and the merger movement was the result. The process was managed by financial experts who commanded either capital itself or the avenues for gathering it.

    The Bankers’ Master Plan

    During the first years of the 20th century, ‘higher financial circles’ decided that the banking system should be the headquarters of an investment system based on cooperation among large firms. According to Thorstein Veblen, the essentials of the system were as follows: ‘The banking community took over the strategic regulation of the key industries, and…also the control of the industrial system at large.’ Key industries were controlled by the investment bankers who made up a sort of General Staff of financial strategy and who commanded the country’s credit resources.

    Their relation with insurance companies is one example.

    “In the years 1885 and 1905, the annual income of life insurance companies in the United States was $525 million and 2.9 billion, respectively. These funds were derived from premiums paid by holders of the insurance policies, and needed to be invested promptly so as to yield in income for the companies to pay for the deaths of their insured persons. Five firms owned two-thirds of the assets of all life insurance companies: Metropolitan, Prudential, Mutual, Equitable, and New York Life. The last three owned fully one-half the assets of all life insurance companies.

    In 1870 less than three percent of these assets were stocks and bonds; by 1900, that figure had risen to nearly 38 percent. Five years later, securities held by New York Life constituted 74 percent of its total assets; of Equitable 57 percent; and of Mutual, 54 percent. Which securities did the insurance companies buy? Primarily, those sold (i.e., underwritten) by six dominant New York investment banks, led by J.P. Morgan and Company. Such securities were issued by industrial corporations and others which had close relations with the dominant investment banks. According to Douglass North, ‘It was clearly a one-sided arrangement in which the great bulk of the advantages accrued to the investment banker rather than to the insurance company.’

    “Crucial to this entire arrangement was the requirement that the insurance companies control their own back yard. This was accomplished by deep company involvement in political and governmental affairs. ‘The three big insurance companies occupied key positions in financing the [New York State] Republican machine (and to some extent the Democratic one also) and guaranteed not only friendly legislators but cooperative [state] insurance departments as well.’ Between 1895 and 1905, a New York Life lobbyist was paid at least $1,312,197.18 to guard against passage of hostile legislation. The New York State Department of Insurance functioned as a subdivision of the industry…”

    The New York Department of Insurance Ruled Their Industry Like US Steel

    The New York Department of Insurance was a creature of the dominant capital machine. Its ‘regulations’ enabled the large companies to evade regulations when necessary, and to insure continuous dominance by the large companies. The Big Three insurance companies ruled their industry very much like US Steel, a Morgan firm.

    Neoclassical Ideology: the Organic Super-Government of Mankind

    Historians refer to the late 19th and early 20th centuries are frequently referred to as the age of Big Business. But according to W.E.B. Du Bois, this is misleading. It wasn’t so much about the size of the firms as it was about an ‘organic super-government of mankind in matters of work and wages. This super-government was directed with science and skill for the private profit of individuals.’

    “When Woodrow Wilson first ran for president in 1912, he declared that ‘the masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.’ At the center of this process lay control of the principal political parties and the political machines, organized under the direction of party bosses. ‘Living to a great extent on the corporations, bossism burst into full bloom in the States where big capitalist interests were concentrated, where [railroad] companies were most numerous, such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania…’”

    The bosses didn’t run everything however. Often company officials sat in on important party committees and pulled the strings for them, equipped and kept up political organization for their own use, and ran them as they pleased.

    The Sherman Anti-Trust Act Was Ignored by Dominant Capital

    When the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was finally passed in 1890, an amendment was offered to assure it would not be applied against the unions. Senator Sherman led a successful fight against the amendment arguing it was not necessary. Within 5 years it was indeed used against the unions. The entire Anti-Trust Act was soon judged to be a charade because so much of it was ignored whenever it suited dominant capital.

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