ECONOMICS – LAS VEGAS REVIEWS AND VIEWS

V.A.T.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom Through the Ages

By: Michael Keen, Joel Slemrod

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

**Michael Keen (Co-Author, Michael Keen. former deputy director of the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund.)**

“Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue” is a painful and laborious book to listen to, in part, because of its length but mostly because of its subject. Few citizens appreciate having their hard-earned wealth and income reduced by government taxation. However, the co-authors are well qualified and informative in explaining how important taxes are to every form of government to insure citizen’s peace, welfare, and protection. More importantly, they show how countries of the world have both aided and diminished prosperity of nation-state’ economies with good and bad tax policies.

Kevin McCarthy (Speaker of the House.)

As noted by McCarthy, the deficit exceeds the annual gross national product of the United States.

Keen’s and Slemrod’s book is timely. The wide gap between America’s two major political parties is partly because of America’s deficit, which has not been higher since WWII. The solution lies in the political will to increase taxes and reduce government expenditure. The difficulty is finding an equitable balance between tax revenues and the health, education, and welfare of America’s citizens.

**However, America’s homelessness is evidence of a gap between rich and poor that belies America’s great wealth.**

Keen’s and Slemrod’s book illustrate the folly of many nations that have inexpertly balanced tax policy with the health, education, and welfare of their citizens. From before the French revolution to modern times, the authors recount errors made by governments that bumble their way from forcing tax collection to passing confiscatory laws that support bureaucracies that beggar rather than serve the public. Along the way, the authors show how tax collection is conducted, how some improvements were made, and how citizens were both benefited and harmed by tax policies.

After wading through the author’s history of nation-state’ tax hijinks, Keen and Slemrod conclude America’s tax system should be overhauled. Their solution is a value added tax. This is an interesting conclusion that is reinforced by T. R. Reid’s book, “A Fine Mess” which suggests the same thing. However, Reid is a reporter for the “Washington Post”, not an economist with experience like Keen’s and Slemrod’s.

A value-added tax (VAT) is a consumption tax on goods and services that is levied at each stage of the supply chain where value is added, from initial production to the point of sale. The amount of VAT the user pays is based on the cost of the product minus any costs of materials in the product that have already been taxed at a previous stage ¹.

Keen and Slemrod do not clearly explain why they think a VAT is the solution to a better tax system than America’s current policy. Reid explains a VAT is a broad-based low-rate tax that will reduce the need for a tax collection bureaucracy because it eliminates corporate loopholes, broadens, and reduces tax rates, and equalizes citizens’ tax burden. Reid believes more revenue would be produced to reduce America’s debt. It would also reduce the expense of America’s tax collection bureaucracy. In theory both government expense and the deficit would be aided by a VAT tax policy.

A FARMER’S LIFE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Dirt to Soil (One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agricultural

By: Gabe Brown

Narrated by: Gabe Brown

Gabe Brown (Author, farmer.)

“Dirt to Soil” offers a glimpse of a farmer’s life. Gabe Brown’s family manages a 5000-acre farm in North Dakota. Brown and his son’s farming experience offer insight to a branch of biology that addresses the relationship of a farm environment’s organisms. Brown is not a scientist or academic. He is a farmer.

Gabe Brown became an expert in soil conservation based on experience and insatiable curiosity. Though he went to college, it is four years of hardship that gave Brown an understanding of farming. From that experience, Brown reordered his practice of farming based on five principles.

No soil disturbance (no-till, no-synthetics).
Reinforce Soil’s Natural Defenses (the outer layer of soil protects all life)
Promote biodiversity (marry species nature’s way to keep soil healthy)
Keep living roots in the ground as long as possible and use cover crops with seasonal diversity.
Animal & Insect integration (both predator and protector) to promote natural diversity.

Brown’s journey to understand and practice these farming principles increased the profitability and durability of farmland. “Dirt to Soil” is a record of Gabe Brown’s personal farming and educational journey. Though Brown admits to being a city boy, his experience in 4H, some academic classes, and visits to his future wife’s farm sparked a lifelong interest in farming. When his wife’s parents retired from their 1700-acre farm, Gabe Brown and his wife took over management.

Gabe Brown’s farming education came from 4 years of weather-related catastrophes that nearly ended his career as a farmer. He notes his wife appeared ready to give up farming life, but he refused to give up. His experience in those years re-focused his attention on the intimate relationship between nature and farming.

Brown explains, in “non-wilding” words, how it is necessary to rewild his farm. By watching how nature preserves itself, he changes his farming practices. Without plowing, furrowing, and fertilizing with chemicals designed by farming industry, Brown rejects practices that artificially enhance dry soil that exposes it to natural diseases and the exigencies of weather. He turns to observing nature to find how it replenishes soil’s natural nutritional condition. His objective is to turn “Dirt to Soil”.

Brown reasons that raising cattle on the farm would fertilize its soil. (A caveat to Brown’s observation is that fertilization by cow manure requires frequent grazing rotation, not industrial manure concentration.)

(There is a concern about carbon dioxide increase and ground water contamination from livestock. In a 2019 overnight stay with a farm family in New Zealand, there was objection to the former Prime Minister’s attempt to burden farmers with the cost of better livestock control.)

With natural fertilizer and cultivation of different plant species, Brown finds soil nutrient value improves. That soil improvement is absorbed by newly planted crops that benefit both livestock and consumers. The planting is done without tilling the ground but planting seedlings in unplowed ground. After experimentation, Brown begins rotating crops based on soil enrichment objectives.

Brown experiments with different species of plants to find which types replenish the soil in his area of North Dakota. With these discoveries and changes in practice, Brown’s farm prospers.

Brown notes change in farming practices is a slow process because of a false belief that high productivity is more important than nutritive value. When a film crew interviews Brown, one of the film’s producers is asked to buy a dozen eggs at the market and bring them to the farm to show the difference between eggs from “free range” chickens vs. caged chickens.

**This is a comparison of a cracked egg from a free-range farm and an egg from a caged chicken farm. Brown notes his rewilded farm shows a brighter yellow yoke.**

“Dirt to Soil” goes on to become a teaching facility for future farmers. Brown’s son works on the farm and will inherit it when his mother and father pass. In the meantime, an internship program is started to pass on the educational experience of Gabe Brown’s farming life. Rewilding farms means paying attention to the diversity and value of nature. Brown explains the nutritive value of food has fallen in America because artificial fertilizers have replaced the natural processes of nature.

Brown’s story about eggs reminds one of a trip to a Norwegian fish farm last year. One of our fellow travelers asked the employee of the farm if there is any difference between fish-farm’ salmon and a wild salmon. His answer is there are very few wild salmon left in the sea. However, he notes wild salmon have more Omega-3 per serving than farmed salmon which have less protein.

Gabe Brown explains his goal has always been to make a good living at farming and pass that skill on to his family and every American interested in that life. He concludes the success of farmers should not be based on crop yield but on profitability. His experience shows there are many ways to make a profit in farming.

Brown explains that high crop yield is not a measure of success. With the creation of alternative income practices, he believes a small farm is as capable of making a profit as a large farm. Observing nature and farm diversity (both human and ecological) is Brown’s guide for farming success and profitability.

Rewilding farming appears to be as important as rewilding the planet.

DEMOCRACY’S STORM

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Lies That Bind (Rethinking Identity)

By: Kwame Anthony Appiah

Narrated by: Kwame Anthony Appiah

Kwame Anthony Appiah (Author, philosopher of history, politics and social sciences.)

Kwame Appiah implies western democracy is the best form of government.

The democracy of which Appiah writes is one in which rule-of-law, freedom within the limits of rule-of-law, and equal opportunity are evident.

However, contrary to Langston Hughes’ poem, the sea is not calm. Democracies’ sea is stormy because its principles are inconsistently practiced.

**Kwame Anthony Appiah casts a lifebuoy to those swimming in the stormy sea of democracy.**

Appiah’s chapters on religion may be a slog for some but they offer understanding of the inconsistency of religious belief. Religious contradictions are legion. Sermonizers pick and choose paths they like rather than any truth biblical writings may impart.

“The Lies That Bind” examines the role of religion, culture, and government in society.

Agnosticism, and atheism grows with revelations of science, stultified freedom of thought, and (though not mentioned by Appiah) ecumenical abuse.

Appiah’s life story reinforces the importance of culture. Both his parents were highly accomplished people. His mother was a British artist, historian, and writer. His father, from Ghana, was a lawyer, diplomat, and politician. Both parents come from accomplished families. Their son chooses to marry a man when same sex marriage only slowly becomes culturally accepted.

Appiah’s history addresses the ascendence of the Mongol empire to illustrate the breadth of Mongol conquest while noting its style of government control. His point is that control is exercised with a level of tolerance for independence, cultural understanding, and religious belief among Khan’s descendants.

Genghis Khan (1162-1227 Leader of the Mongol Empire)

In summary, Appiah argues democratic societies need to rethink identity in terms of human equality. Whether a man or woman is a successful entrepreneur, CEO, server in a restaurant, or laborer in construction, all are equally human. Appiah notes Trump’s political success in America relates to his intuitive understanding of what many political aspirants ignored—the importance of American labor, whether highly educated, unschooled, rich, or poor.

A leader of an enterprise can be right, even damn right, but fail without the help of labor. Disrespecting labor ensures failure. This is a lesson Henry Ford understood when he raised the wages of his work force. This is a lesson Elon Musk will undoubtedly find in his acquisition of Twitter.

HENRY FORD (1863- 1947, AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST, FOUNDER OF FORD MOTOR CO.)

Appiah’s lifebuoy is meritocracy, a government holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability. The idea of meritocracy came about in the 1960s. However, there are academicians, like Daniel Markovits who believe the concept of meritocracy increases inequality and causes decline in the middle class. Markovits argues middle-class families lose equal educational opportunity because of high cost. Without equal opportunity for education, too many Americans are left without Appiah’s lifebuoy.

Appiah does not directly address issues of equality of opportunity in a democratic-meritocratic society. Though Appiah may be a minority in white western culture, one doubts his educational opportunity was ever a question of cost.

On balance, Appiah offers insight to how democracy can be improved. The key is equality of opportunity which implies democracy needs to focus on safety-net’ issues which entail more help for lower- and middle-class income earners. The safety-net is one which provides equal access to education, health care, and employment, i.e., without regard to sex, race, religion, or ethnic qualification. In democracy, that means election of leaders who are willing to ensure equality of opportunity for all.

SLAVERY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Other Slavery (The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America)

By: Andrés Reséndez

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Andrés Reséndez (Author, Historian, Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago.)

One suspects “The Other Slavery” is unknown or misremembered by most Americans. “The Other Slavery” is not about America’s civil war, the Emancipation Proclamation, or Abraham Lincoln. It is about indigenous peoples and their adaptation to a world turned upside down by newcomers from foreign lands.

Andrés Reséndez mostly focuses on the North American continent, particularly west and southwestern American territories and Mexico, but he also touches on slavery in Chile.

As is well known, slavery has been a societal constant since the beginning of recorded history. Today, it appears in pornography, low wage peonage, so-called re-education camps, and political/social incarcerations. What Reséndez explains is that Indian tribes of the west are increasingly incentivized by slavery with the arrival of foreigners. Though slavery may have been used by Indians earlier in history, it became a significant source of revenue for warring tribes.

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano (aka Cortez), 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca.

Reséndez reminds listeners of internecine wars of early America when conquistadores and Indians ruled the American southwest.

One Indian tribe captures a different tribes’ sons, and daughters to trade for money, horses, guns, and butter from the Spanish or later settlers who need cheap labor or who seek domestic help and/or carnal pleasure. Reséndez notes young women’s slavery prices are higher than young men’s because of their dual service as domestic laborers and sex objects. Over time, as Spanish land holders are replaced by American land holders, Indians remain a source and victim of the slave industry.

Men, women, and children are used by land holders and competing Indian tribes as barter for trade.

Though slavery is the primary story, Reséndez notes wars between Spanish land barons and Pueblo Indians occur over rights to the land.

Santa Fe, New Mexico becomes a focal point of conflict between Pueblo Indians and the Spanish. The victimization of Pueblo Indian slaves leads to a rebellion that removes Spain from the New Mexico territory, at least for several years. However, the lure of silver brings Spain back with a slave trade resurgence in southwestern territories of America. Reséndez explains the slave trade becomes endemic as silver is discovered in Mexico and the southwest territories.

The need for cheap labor in silver mines multiplies the value of Indian slaves in the southwest.

The slave trade never dies. Greed drives Indian tribes to steal people from different Indian’ tribes to profit from human sales to landowners looking for cheap labor. Reséndez notes it is not just Indians victimizing Indians but American and Spanish landowners buying young men and women Indians and other human victims to serve as low-cost labor for silver mining, farming, and domestic service.

Reséndez notes male slaves were more difficult to manage than women slaves but for strength males were coveted for their labor in silver mining. Some of the mines were deep in the earth, all were dangerous. Underground mines were flooded with carcinogenic mercury tailings that shortened the lives of those who worked there.

Slavery goes by many names. As is known by historians, the Dawes act further victimizes native Americans.

Reséndez reveals how slavery has always been a part of society. Self-interest is a motive force of human nature. Slavery is found in penal colonies of authoritarian governments to provide cheap labor. Slavery is also found in democratic governments that legislatively reduce the cost of labor based on corporate influence on public policy. A free market, not lobbyist influence, should determine public policy.

The hope for elimination of slavery lies in government policy that reinforces belief in human equality and a balance between corporate profit and cost of labor as determined by a free market.

FREEDOM’S LIMITS

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality

By: Jacob S. Hacker, Paul Pierson

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Jacob Hacker (Author, Harvard and Yale educated political science and health care policy wonk.)

One doubts this book will be read or listened to by most Americans based on its clear allusion to the 18^th century phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“let them eat bread”–allegedly said by Marie Antoinette during the French revolution).

Marie Antoinette (1755-1793, Louis XVI’s Queen Consort of France.)

Just as Marie Antoinette is unlikely to have said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, it is an allusion unworthy of Hacker’s and Pierson’s ivory-tower educations.

The co-authors detail a current crisis in America that is well detailed by others in this century.

There is an appalling and growing gap between rich and poor in America. However, though the gap is real, most rational Americans have no interest in beggaring their neighbor.

In the 17^th century, Hobbes clearly recognized the pitfall of democracy when not constrained by rule of law. Freedom is a harsh master and has been recognized as such from American Democracy’s beginnings.

Human beings are driven by the desire for money, power, and prestige. Hacker and Pierson note many actions taken by American politicians, appointees, government bureaucrats, and corporate moguls have had the unintended consequence of beggaring their neighbors.

Rule of law has simply not kept up with the fundamental tenant of American freedom.

Four relevant issues raised by Hacker and Pierson are

Taxation,

Congressional leaders focus on re-election as a part of their right to freely choose a profession. To be re-elected requires a campaign funding. That funding largely comes from wealthy Americans and corporations interested in reducing their taxes. Corporate taxes have been legislatively reduced with the rationalization that reinvestment by private industry and the wealthy will create more income for wage-dependent Americans. This is “trickle down” economics that is a fiction. History shows the effect has been to reduce American wages and increase income for the wealthy.

2. Rule-of-Law,

Corporations in the Supreme Court’s decision in “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” expanded rights of Corporations as individuals to finance candidates of their choice that compounds elected official bias for reduced corporate taxes.

3. Extremism,

Frustration by the rising gap between rich and poor in America increases extremism because wage-earners see cost-of-living exceeding their ability to accumulate wealth.

4. Institutionalization of Tyranny

Elective office is not serving the public because congressional self-interest is based on a cycle of re-election dependent on wealthy donors who are equally self-interested.

Unless or until a more equitable relationship between the rich and poor is achieved, extremism will continue to roil American Democracy. Freedom is an essential ingredient in America’s economic history, but freedom has always been limited. Only with rebalance between the rich and poor will extremism and institutional tyranny be ameliorated.

CHINA’S FUTURE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

China’s Great Wall of Debt (Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle.)

By: Dinny McMahon

Narrated by: Jaimie Jackson

Dinny McMahon (Author, former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, and former fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.)

Dinny McMahon lived in China for ten years before writing “China’s Great Wall of Debt”. He is neither the first nor undoubtedly the last chronicler of modern China’s future.

Taking his observation of China’s remarkable advance in the last 27 years, McMahon joins others who argue China is at the precipice of a cyclical economic trough.

Visiting China for the first time, one is amazed at the modern look of Beijing. Its bullet trains, wide boulevards, and streetscapes remind one of model cities like other storied capitols of the world.

On the other hand, outlying suburbs, and cities fit the description of McMahon’s “Ghost Cities” with block-to-block, mid-rise apartment buildings, no tenants, and slap-dash HVAC wall-units.

Wealth is a function of the have and have-nots in China. This is a familiar refrain to many who believe it equally describes America’s economy.

McMahon explains how the last twenty years of economic growth in China is a function of real-estate monetization that has reached a mortgage nadir, teetering on the edge of collapse. McMahon notes the difference between America’s real estate booms and busts and China’s is that it has taken America two hundred years to reach its present prosperity while China has done it in less than 3o years. He implies that time difference has benefited America by giving it more tools than China for dealing with economic inequality.

Adding to McMahon’s note about the time difference is the political difference between America and China. America’s political system is tested by checks and balances, both by party and governmental organization.

China has a singular party with one leader who has few checks and balances, with a singularly authoritarian governmental organization.

When leadership changes in America, political and economic policies are only incrementally adjusted. In leadership change in China, political and economic policies may be dramatically altered or even abandoned. That truth is evident in China’s transition from Chiang Kai-shek to Mao to Deng Xiaoping, to Xi Jinping.

McMahon’s fundamental point is China’s rapid economic growth is founded on a financial structure dependent on real estate financed by the state and a poorly governed semi-private banking system that artificially inflates China’s assets.

McMahon notes there was pent-up demand for private real estate ownership when all land was owned by the government. That pent-up demand is the source of China’s rapid economic growth. However, in the current market, McMahon suggests real value in that real estate is diminished by a public that is not wealthy enough to afford it. A kind of Ponzi scheme is growing with consumers that are buying land without real collateral but with a ghost banking system that is condoned, if not supported, by the state.

McMahon leaves some doubt about China’s near future collapse because of adjustments President Xi is making in reducing bureaucratic corruption that allows ghost banks to prosper. McMahon also notes that President Xi is addressing the domestic needs of China’s citizens by emphasizing economic growth within China to make them less dependent on international trade. However, McMahon notes Xi Jinping is a singular leader. The question is—what happens when Xi Jinping is no longer China’s leader?

McMahon is not alone in suggesting China may be headed for trouble. Whether shadow banks, ghost cities, and massive loans will be the end of the Chinese Miracle seems less important than what a Chinese economic collapse would mean to the rest of the world.

ECONOMIC EVOLUTION

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Karl Marx (Philosophy and Revolution)

By Shlomo Avineri

Narrated by: Roger Clark

Shlomo Avineri (Author, Professor of political science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.)

Is economic evolution about mind or matter?

Shlomo Avineri offers a more studied view of one of the three most influential economist in history, Karl Marx. Marx’s influence extends to philosophy, history, sociology, and politics.

Avieneri illustrates how categorization of Marx as an influential economist minimizes his historical significance. Marx is born in Trier, Germany.

His father, Hirschel HaLevi (aka Heinrich Marx), is a practicing lawyer, the son of Marx HaLevi Mordechai and Eva Lwow.

In Trier, after Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo, Germany returns to a highly discriminatory Prussian attitude toward Judaism. Karl Marx’s father, and eventually his mother, are compelled to convert to a Christian religion to advance Marx’s father’s career as a lawyer. Karl Marx’s grandfather is the rabbi of Trier who passes on that title to Karl Marx’s brother.

Avineri gives this brief family history to explain Marx’s Jewish heritage. It offers some insight to why Marx outwardly discounts his religious heritage while putting him on an intellectual journey toward political and economic reform.

Marx’s father might be considered a classical liberal because he promoted constitutional reform of the Prussian government’s denial of equal rights. Avineri implies the experience of his father leads Karl to pursue the study of history and philosophy because of discriminatory treatment of his family. The act of discrimination naturally makes one class conscious. Karl Marx’s political and economic ideas grow from that familial background.

Avineri suggests Hermann Hesse and Hegel are significant influences in Karl Marx’s life. Hesse is a contemporary of Marx. Hesse is influenced by Rousseau who believed in natural equality. Hesse’s literature addresses the inequality of workers and the capitalist class. He sensed the growing political danger of that inequality and, in writing about it, became an influence on Karl Marx’s view of capitalism.

Avineri’s explanation of Hegel’s influence on Karl Marx is a little more complicated. Fundamentally Hegel believes social development is an evolution of one’s mind to recognize that all humans are created equal. In contrast Marx believes social development is an evolutionary process of society’s actions in regard to material things. Marx believes the haves of the society recognize the inequity of the have-nots and will evolve to establish common good in the distribution of material things. Both Hegel and Marx agree that there is a dialectic process, but Hegel thinks it is a state of mind that changes while Marx suggests it’s a state of equal distribution of concrete goods.

It is impossible to deny Marx’s notes about inequality. One can argue that this was truer in Marx’s lifetime than it is today. The advent of social security and national health care, and welfare programs have reduced human inequality. However, human inequality remains a serious social problem in every society and all government systems of the present day.

Whether Marx or Hegel’s evolutionary dialectic is true remains unknown. Neither capitalism, socialism, or communism have evolved to solve the problem of inequality, whether it is the dialectic of mind or matter.

Avineri’s biography of Marx is better than the previous biography reviewed in this blog. He offers a more intimate understanding of Karl Marx’s life and how he came to believe what he believed. The answer to the question of whether economic evolution is one of mind or matter is, of course—both. Human brains must evolve, and matter must be equally available.

AMERICAN MALAISE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Retreat of Western Liberalism

By: Edward Luce

Narrated by: Julian Eifer

Edward Luce (Author, English journalist, Financial Times columnist and US commentator.)

Edward Luce offers a troubling picture of 21s century America. His argument depends on one’s definition of “…Western Liberalism”. If the definition is belief in human individuality and a relaxation of public custom, law, and authority, there is evidence to support Luce’s argument.

Luce notes the election of Donald Trump is not an American aberration but a symptom of “The Retreat of Western Liberalism”.

The advent of the internet has reinforced a group think driven by belief in alternative facts that create conspiracy theories. It is a discontent coming from many Americans ignored by rising wealth of a nation controlled by special interests. Trump taps into that discontent.

The irony of Trump’s rise is his personal wealth when the American gap between rich and poor is skyrocketing. Putting that irony aside, Trump suggests America can be “Great Again” by returning to a past.

Trump creates a false hope of re-industrializing America with new jobs. The falseness of Trump’s pitch is that new jobs in America are not being created by industrialization but by technology and human services. Trump’s appeal is loaded with false representations, amplified by media trolls. Public custom, law, and authority are undermined by conspiracy theories that convince Americans they have been cheated out of their fair share of America’s wealth. In truth, they have, and that is why Trump’s false pitch about “Making America Great Again” got him elected.

Trump taps into the angst of many Americans that have lost their jobs in a changing world.

Trump’s anti-immigrant falsehoods feed conspiracy theories about jobs being taken from poor Americans. Equal opportunity is a function of rising wealth in the hands of the few. Public education and health care are unequally distributed in America. The wealthy can afford higher education and the best health care, the poor cannot.

Americans are poor because they are being denied equal opportunity, not because of immigration.

Education and health care are critical for American labor’s adjustment to a changing world. Private industry and the government have equal responsibility for assisting all Americans, not just those who have benefited from the technological revolution.

Job transition requires re-education and on-job training by employers that offer decent wages and health care.

Luce’s point is a “rising tide has not lifted all boats”. The technological revolution offers the same potential for western liberalism as the industrial revolution. The election of Donald Trump was America’s “wake up” call.

A large part of America’s population has been left out of the American Dream of western liberalism that came from opportunities provided by the industrial revolution.

Western liberalism needs to be reinvented by investment in a technological revolution for all Americans, not just those who have benefited from the industrial revolution. The question is whether private industry and the government are up to the task. Will western liberalism be reinvented and promoted by ossified industrial leaders and elected representatives? Most industry leaders and elected representatives are satisfied with the status quo while too many Americans struggle to make mortgage or rent payments. Luce defines the problem but offers no solution.

FREEDOM’S HERO

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Gorbachev (His Life and Times)

By: William Taubman

Narrated by Henry Strozier

William Taubman (Author, Political Science professor at Amherst College, received 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography of Krushchev.)

The length of William Taubman’s audiobook requires a Gorbachev II review. The first review addresses Gorbachev’s personal life. The second reflects on Gorbachev’s political life. Gorbachev’s life is suffused with great accomplishment and tragic failure.

Georgy Malenkov replaces Joseph Stalin after his death in 1953. Malenkov is believed to be a reformist who plans to reduce military spending and Stalinist suppression.

However, within weeks, Malenkov is pushed aside by Nikita Khrushchev who takes supreme power within two years of Stalin’s death. Surprisingly, Khrushchev becomes something of a reformist himself.

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971, First Secy. of the Communist Party 1953-1964)

Stalin’s autocratic, paranoid leadership is semi-privately exposed by Khrushchev in a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Khruschev’s vilification of Stalinist suppression, imprisonment, and murder eventually become known to the world.

The overriding concern of Russian leaders is to maintain suzerainty over Baltic nations and satellite territories in the face of ethnic and economic diversity. Taubman notes older Russian leaders tend toward autocratic dictate to maintain political control. The younger and more politically astute lean toward confederation of adjacent soviet republics and East Berlin with the U.S.S.R. as an umbrella organization. Gorbachev is in the “politically astute” group.

Mikhail Gorbachev rises to chairman of the Communist Party and eventual President of the U.S.S.R., with the expressed intent of democratizing the Baltics, Russia, and East Berlin into a democratic socialist block. However, ethnic, and cultural differences, accompanied by general economic failure, defeat Gorbachev’s unionist objective.

There is no question of Gorbachev’s success in democratizing U.S.S.R.’ citizens.

However, in that democratization, the drive for independence becomes paramount to the satellite countries. German reunification, and the breakaway of Baltic nations from the U.S.S.R. is inevitable. Freedom, based on ethnic and cultural identity, surmount all efforts by Gorbachev to reinstate U.S.S.R. suzerainty. Only by force could the U.S.S.R. prevail over state and territorial independence. Taubman notes force is not within Gorbachev’s nature as a leader.

Once socialist democracy is dangled before the electorate, the die is cast. Gorbachev’s governance could not provide enough economic stability to justify confederation. That is his tragic failure.

Gorbachev’s immense success is liberating millions of former U.S.S.R. citizens. With liberation, former citizens of the U.S.S.R. return to govern as citizens of their own countries. This at a time of Reagan’s conservative government in the United States, and European distrust of U.S.S.R. militarization. Taubman shows Gorbachev becomes an international hero based on his personality and persuasive power. He is greeted as the great liberator of the twentieth century even though his primary objective is to retain those countries seeking freedom within the U.S.S.R.

Gorbachev raised the bar for nuclear disarmament by cultivating American and European participation in the reduction of nuclear weapons.

Taubman explains Gorbachev is a tragic hero because momentum-of-change is halted by a cult of personality, compounded by economic insecurity. Gorbachev is replaced by acting President, Alexander Rutskoy, after the 1993 constitutional crises. Rutskoy is replaced by a second acting President, Viktor Chernomyrdin. Boris Yeltsin succeeds Chernomyrdin as President in an overlapping term.

The Russian economy falters in its transition from communism to democratic socialism. Russian history of “rule-of-one” reasserts itself with the rise of an incompetent President (Boris Yeltsin) and an autocratic but effective leader, Vladimir Putin. However, Putin’s autocratic effectiveness is in question with the invasion of Ukraine.

Taubman suggests and infers Gorbachev’s success, and world history in general, are two steps forward with one step backward. Based on historical precedent of “one-man-rule” (dating back to czarist Russia) Taubman’s inference seems spot-on.

Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007, President of Russia 1990-1999.)

Gorbachev flipped a switch that released the power of democracy but failed to provide adequate economic infrastructure to assure U.S.S.R. survival. Taubman optimistically infers economic infrastructure of eastern bloc countries will improve overtime, even with autocratic leadership by people like Vladimir Putin.

The growth of democracy has always been messy, but it moves forward in the face of temporary setbacks. Spheres of influence will always be in play. It seems a matter of time for another Gorbachev to make two more steps forward with a repeat of the next leader’s “one-step-backward”. It appears in 2022, Putin makes that “one-step-backward” with the invasion of Ukraine. Taubman reminds readers of America’s trial in the civil war. Slavery is abolished but institutional racism remains a work in progress. The risk is that the world destroys itself before freedom and economic security become real for all.

MIDDLE EAST AGENDAS

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Black Wave (Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry)

By: Kim Ghattas

Narrated by: Kim Ghattas, Nan McNamara

Kim Ghattas (Author, Dutch Lebanese Journalist for the BBC)

Kim Ghattas capsulizes the causes of cultural and religious conflict in the Middle East. Her complex explanation of politics in the Middle East shows the importance of religious freedom and the negative consequence of mixing religion in nation-state governance. Ghattas’s intimate understanding and experience in the Middle East illustrates how ignorant America has been in confronting Middle Eastern leaders in their struggle for peace in their own countries.

“Black Wave” is a difficult book to summarize. Some reader/listeners will conclude from Gattis’s book that the heart of Middle Eastern conflict is religious intolerance. However, it is not religion itself but political leaders who distort religious belief for personal power that roils the world. America has its own religious zealotry, but it is tempered by a political culture that demands freedom of religion, independent of political governance. It does not keep American political leaders from distorting religion for their own agendas, but it tempers its potential for state acceptance of orchestrated violence.

Osama bin Laden used religion to justify his directed murder of innocents. He sought political power at the expense of religion.

Ghattas dances around America’s bungled effort to democratize the Middle East. Some would argue Iran democratically elected an Imam to lead their country. Ghattas notes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia clearly fears popularly elected leaders.

In ancient times, the middle east is known as Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Empire, and Babylonia (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and today’s Saudi Arabia).

America’s self-interest has made many enemies in the Middle East. America is a cultural and political baby in respect to the ancient cultures of the Middle East. The birth of the Islamic religion dates to 7^th century in Saudi Arabia.

As is true of all religions that have stood the test of time, the Islamic religion has broken into different factions that consider themselves Islamic but with different interpretations of their faith.

The added dimension of poverty, cultural identity, and economic inequality encourage belief in religion. A religious believer’s purpose in the world is to gain some peace in this world, with hope for eternal life in the next. Therein lies the source of much violence within and among all countries of the world. There can be little peace in a world where people are being indiscriminately murdered, starving and treated unequally.

An example of how violent and unfair nations can be is Syrian leaders’ murder of its own people.

Ghattas explains there are two major versions of the Islamic religion in the Middle East. One is Sunni, the other is Shite.

The hegemon for the Sunni Islamic religion lies in several countries but its center of power is Saudi Arabia. The center of power for Shite belief is Iran. “Black Wave” recounts a history of both power centers and how they use religious belief to increase their influence and power in the Middle East.

Ghattas argues religious interpretation is a tool used by Saudi Arabian’ and Iranian’ leadership to gain power and influence in the Middle East. Ghattas infers the leaders of Iran and Saudi Arabia do not believe in peaceful coexistence but in hegemonic power. They use the Islamic religion to maintain control of their power. When state power is threatened, their leaders’ resort to interpretations of Islam that preserve their control.

Citizens of any country may be murdered by zealots, domestic terrorists, or foreign invaders. Leaders seeking power care little for those who believe in an afterlife or the luxury of their current life as long as they are obedient servants of the state.

Ghattas recounts many examples of Middle Eastern leadership that show little concern for their citizens, e.g., Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi, Syria‘s gassing of Syrian citizens, and Iran’s imprisonment and torture of citizens who choose not to follow political leaders’ interpretations of the Koran.

Ghattas’s book implies the consequence of American ignorance of Islamic beliefs victimizes the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised. A western country that does not understand the subtlety of religious beliefs in the Middle East has little influence on the course of events. With a better understanding of Islamic faith and how it is being used by Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is some hope for peace.

Understanding and acceptance of those who fervently believe in a religion, along with economic opportunity for those who are victimized by hardship and/or violence, offers some hope for peace. Without understanding of foreign cultures and economic assistance for those victimized, world conflagration is an ever-present danger. One must ask oneself–how wise is it to use political policy or trade to victimize the poor and disenfranchised?