The Seminole Indian leaders, Osceola and Abraham, formed an alliance for multiracial freedom that remains the goal of all rational human beings. They failed and only became free in death.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Free and the Dead
Author: Jamie Holmes (The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America’s Forgotten War.)
Narration by: David Sadzin & 1 more
Jamie Holmes (Author, writer for the NYT, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate. Served in the Peace Corps after receiving a degree from New York University and went on to Columbia to receive a Master of International Affairs.)
“The Free and the Dead” is a book that shows how little this reader/listener knows about slavery and Black history. “The Free and the Dead” is a history of Black slaves in Florida who were descendants of Spanish Florida that became a refuge for enslaved Africans fleeing the English colonies between the 1600s and 1700s. Spain offers asylum and freedom to runaways who could reach Florida in the early days of America.
Some former slaves joined the Seminole Indian confederation to become leaders and translators of Indian languages for early settlers of what became American territory. Holmes reveals some of the cultural blending between Seminole and African descendants who had escaped colonial slavery. Separate villages of these culturally blended descendants gained relative freedom in the U.S. South by becoming fierce fighters for Seminole Indian freedom in the Seminole Wars between 1817 and 1858.
Today’s Indian Reservations.
As most Americans know, the Indian wars were lost and the Seminoles like all Indian tribes were moved around the country to reservations that changed with subsequent Presidents’ and American military’ orders. Holmes reveals some of this early history in “The Free and the Dead”. The most famous Black Seminole leader was Abraham who became a co-leader with Osceola, an indigenous Seminole Indian who resisted U.S. policies.
Abraham (A prominent Black Seminole leader in the 19th century.)
Abraham became a Black Seminole chief. He was a former slave who became an influential military leader of the Seminoles. He spoke English, Spanish, and the Creek Indian languages which made him an important intermediary in negotiating with white settlers. Abraham worked with major Seminole war leaders in negotiating agreements between white settlers and Seminole tribes. This twist in the history of American slavery and Osceola’s and Abraham’s alliance make Holmes’ story insightful.
Osceola, leader of the Seminole Indians in Florida in the Second Seminole War.
Slavery today seems as prevalent as it was years ago. America’s Declaration of Independence says, “all men are created equal”. Ironically, it seems neither men nor women seem to qualify.
The Seminole Indian leaders, Osceola and Abraham, formed an alliance for multiracial freedom that remains the goal of all rational human beings. They failed and only became free in death. Abraham seems to have died in old age while Osceola is captured and dies in prison.
Until equality of opportunity is somehow politically assured, human nature will always victimize those who are different.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Fire Inside (The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde)
Author: Rima Vesely-Flad Ph.D.
Narration by: Heni Zoutomou
Rima Vesely-Flad (Author, Buddhist and Black History scholar with a Ph.D. in Social Ethics.)
The premise of Vesely-Flad’s book is somewhat misleading because its cover highlights James Baldwin and Audre Lorde while much of the text is a biography of Rima Vesely-Flad. “The Fire Inside” does address beliefs of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde but it is the dimension of black life in America that is the book’s subject. A large part of the story is the author’s life as a woman born to a white mother and black father. Vesely-Flad explains her grandparents were offended by their granddaughter’s birth because of her having a Black father.
The beliefs and fame of James Baldwin are reported in many books written about him and by him. Audre Lorde and Vesely-Flad, on the other hand, are not well known to the general public. Lorde’ and Vesely-Flad’ stories are gender versions of Baldwin’s story.
Audre Lorde (American writer, professor, philosopher, feminist, poet, and civil rights activist.)
Ms. Lorde was born in 1934 to Caribbean immigrant parents from Grenada. She became a poet who wrote about racism, structural oppression, sexism, and sexual orientation. A book of her poems was first published in 1968, and she became a National Book Award winner in 1988. She was an active participant in the women’s movement, civil rights, and LGBTQ liberation. A famous line which became a rallying cry Lorde created is “Your silence will not protect you”. Her beliefs are about the majority of people in America and their power. She argues–the American white majority should confront the truth of who they are, and how society represses those who are non-white. This is the theme that fits the reputations of Baldwin and Vesely-Flad in “The Fire Inside”.
“Go Tell It on the Mountain” is an autobiographical view of life and growth to manhood as a Black child raised in Harlem. It took ten years to write but became Baldwin’s most famous book. It released Baldwin from the ghost of his stepfather’s cruelty and set the stage for his exploration of race, religion, sexuality, and personal identity.
As a bibliophile, one is drawn to “The Fire Inside” because of the picture of Baldwin on its cover. Many who have read Baldwin’s work are drawn to this book because of his fame and writing about American racism. The stories of the author’ and Lorde’s lives reinforce much of what one has read in Baldwin’s books.
The author of “The Fire Inside” follows and considers herself a Buddhist. Neither Baldwin nor Lorde were Buddhists, but Vesely-Flad argues they followed many Buddhist beliefs by confronting and clarifying suffering in America. They exposed the illusions of ego, fear, and domination which are goals of Buddhism. Like Buddhists, the author argues Baldwin and Lorde insisted on liberation of the personal, political, and spiritual beliefs of the individual.
Vesely-Flad explains both Baldwin and Lorde are gay. Black Americans who believe in their right to be as they are should not be challenged by the political, spiritual, and religious beliefs of society. The point they make is that one’s inner life is their own. As long as one is not using anger, discrimination, or power to oppress others, they have an equal right to their personal life, liberty, and opportunity.
Vesely-Flad’s idealization of life and liberty exists nowhere in the world because of human nature. One is drawn to religions like Christianity, Protestantism, Islam, and some would argue Buddhism, but in practice we all remain trapped by human nature and become discriminatory. Vesely-Flad’s story of her life and experience have the same social ugliness that is known of Baldwin’s and Lorde’s lives. Until equality of opportunity is somehow politically assured, human nature will always victimize those who are different.
The obvious irony of McWilliam’s history of money is that it began in Africa and its newest successful iteration comes from the same continent.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The History of Money (A Story of Humanity)
Author: David McWilliams & 1 More
Narration by: David McWilliams
David McWilliams (Author, Irish economist, former Central Bank of Ireland and UBS economist.)
McWilliams has created an interesting history of the origin of money. It began with agricultural production of grain somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BCE and evolved into an abstract representation of physical properties. Somewhere around 2500 BCE, Sumerians introduce the idea of interest on money over time. They create a lending system for farmers and traders so they can borrow against an unknown future. This became the engine for investment and economic growth.
Around 600 BCE, coins are minted to provide portability of money.
McWilliams believes portability of money originated in western Turkey among people who lived on the Aegean Sea. McWilliams’ source of information is Herodotus. Herodotus was a Greek historian and geographer in Turkey who became identified as the “Father of History” by the Roman orator, Cicero. Because money became portable, trades and markets around the known world could be expanded. The key to the success of “money” is trust in its value by society. Once the value of coin was accepted, coin became abstracted to paper as a representation of coins’ value. McWilliams explains this began in medieval times and continues through today.
The power of information technology.
However, in the 20th and 21st century McWilliams notes money becomes digital currency which turns paper currency into information. This fascinating history explains how money evolved from physical assets to coin to paper and now to digital currency with societal trust and imagination. McWilliams explains money power became less physical and more conceptual with the emergence of collective trust. Conceptual transition came gradually but accelerated with Guttenberg’s printing press and religious beliefs in indulgences that could be sold to the public to assure entry into heaven. Even with the protestant reformation and the end of indulgences, trust in money continued to grow.
McWilliams explains expansion of money power came from trust in issuers and the authenticity of tokens backed up by societal support.
Societies’ trust is reinforced by the rise of record-keeping, writing, and enforceability of promises. Society accepted belief that money would remain valuable in the future. With societal acceptance lending, savings, and investments expanded. Societal trust in money made the world go round. What is interesting about McWilliams’ concept of money is that without trust, money’s transition to information is challenged by the invention of crypto currency. He argues crypto currency is a gambling phenomenon because it does not rely on societal support. Support relies on its singular cryptographic information. Furthermore, McWilliams notes it requires a level of technological understanding on the part of its users which discourages social trust.
The Ishango bone shows notches carved into it that purportedly show the value of accounting or numerical thinking.
McWilliams traces the origin of money to the Ishango bone (discovered in the 1950s) that dates to 18,000 BCE on the Congo River in Africa.
In contrast to the complicated creation and use of Crypto currency, McWilliams notes the success of M-Pesa which has achieved societal trust in Kenya. M-Pesa is a digital wallet that lives on a mobile phone’s SIM card. This digital wallet can store money, send and receive payments, withdraw and deposit cash–all on a mobile phone, without internet access. This idea offers a model of financial services without ever opening a bank account. It avoids reliance on a creator of crypto currency or the banking industry with an app-based wallet like Apple Pay or PayPal.
The obvious irony of McWilliam’s history of money is that it began in Africa and its newest successful iteration comes from the same continent.
What one finds in “Funny Story” is that human relationships are always works in progress. Nothing in a long-term relationship is without conflict.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Funny Story
Author: Emily Henry
Narration by: Julia Whelan
Emily Henry (Author, American writer of NYT’s bestselling romance novels.)
This is a “Funny Story”, written with the same skill that is noted in a previous review of this author’s writing in, “Great Big Beautiful Life“. “Funny Story” reminds one of human relationships when one is young and unattached. Of course, it is written from a woman’s point of view, but it reveals some truths about love, partnering, and marriage.
For some people, living life alone is liberating but emotionally unfulfilling. Living with or marrying someone is like placing a bet on a roulette table. It can reward or deprive you of some level of joy. Henry’s story begins with a single woman, with modest ambition and little money, who falls in love with a wealthy, handsome man whom she marries. The woman’s name is Daphne. Her new husband, Peter, buys a house but soon chooses to leave and divorce Daphne to marry another woman. The other woman, named Petra, is a childhood friend raised in a family of similar wealth. Petra had been living with a male lover named Miles, a working man of modest means who is employed at a winery. Miles is a friend of Peter and sexual partner of Petra but is yet to meet Daphne.
Love and marriage.
Once one knows of the relationships between the main characters, the story moves along with the jilted wife, Daphne, and Miles’s becoming housemates after the abrupt departure and divorce by Peter who believes he is in love with Petra. The author creates a “Funny Story” with an odd arrangement with Daphne becoming a house mate with Miles because she is broken hearted and too broke to be able to live on her own. One can quit listening to the book because the table seems set to show the jilted wife will fall in love with Miles and live happily ever after.
One who believes “birds of a feather flock together” presumes two wealthy families are more likely to have offspring who marry each other because of their similarities of experience and wealth in their families’ backgrounds. One may either quit the book or keep listening to the story in expectation of a “happy ever after” ending.
What “Funny Story” says about life is that marriage between people of similar backgrounds is more likely to be happy than marriage of people with different backgrounds. Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule. Good relationships or marriages can be based on complimentary ways of dealing with life where two people make each other more complete human beings. The accoutrements of similar wealth and education aid compatibility but are not sole determinants of intimate relationship success. A listener/reader stays with “Funny Story” to find out which social relationship the main characters achieve, i.e., complimentary partners, partners in misery, or single unattached loners.
What one finds in “Funny Story” is that human relationships are always works in progress.
Nothing in a long-term relationship is without conflict. Those who recognize their complimentary compatibility are more likely to remain attached through marriage, partnership, or long friendship. Those who have too much in common and too little that complements their differences seem more likely to part company.
As a reviewer of “The Great Deformation”, I am personally repelled by Stockman’s analysis but choose to rely on professional economists’ opinion, more than a politician/businessman who had a role in tanking the American economy.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Great Deformation (The Corruption of Capitalism in America)
Author: David Stockman
Narration by: Willaim Hughes
David Stockman (Author, American politician, businessman, and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Reagan Administration.)
David Stockman has written a troubling book about the American economy. Despite his having been an elected representative of Congress and a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Reagan administration, he argues the fiscal responsibility of America’s government has corrupted “…Capitalism in America”. This is a surprising comment from a former Republican congressman with Republican ties who is a graduate of theological studies, not economics, from Harvard.
Stockton is not educated as an economist. He derides Reagan for profligate spending while having been Reagan’s OMB Director. He feels qualified to argue the crises of 2008 was badly managed because it did not allow the market to allow bankruptcy of major corporations in America. Stockton suggests AIG (American International Group) and the major banking conglomerates of America that have bad debt on their books should file for bankruptcy if they cannot meet their financial obligations without a government bailout. Of course, this is the road not taken so no one can know whether Stockton is right or wrong.
GEORGE W. BUSH (43RD PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.)BARACK OBAMA (44TH PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.)
Though the harm done to many Americans by the solution of the Bush’ and Obama’ administrations is fresh in most American’s minds, one cannot help but be skeptical of Stockton’s opinion. If bankruptcy had been allowed by those companies that could not meet their debt obligations, would American capitalism and its economy have been any better? How many Americans would have been harmed by those bankruptcies? The loss of jobs from bankruptcy would have been immense. Consider the number of people with no income who would be unable to pay their bills. What would happen to their ways of life? Would America’s government stand by and allow them to become homeless and hungry? Today’s homelessness suggests America’s government might stand by and do nothing.
Franklin Roosevelt shows America’s government can finance a solution for crisis through public works that would bring America back to prosperity. Is that different than bailing out employers of the American public to sustain family incomes from a potential financial melt-down. Are the ideals of capitalist greed worth continued impoverishment of the poor?
Stockton’s solution is to cut the defense budget, reduce Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and let the public fend for itself. Stockton argues to have corporate subsidies and tax expenditures reduced with deep cuts in domestic discretionary spending. He goes on to support binding spending caps, no new tax cuts without an equal offset in expenditures, no bail outs with a belief that nothing is too big to fail, a reversal of Trumps 2017 tax cuts, a balanced budget, no long-term deficit financing, no permanent emergency spending, and a smaller federal footprint on the economy. These seem easy solutions for one who is financially secure but draconian for those who have been unable to grasp the economic opportunities of American capitalism.
More people will die from inability to receive medical care, more will go hungry and suffer from malnutrition, and homelessness. Stockman believes the current system is unsustainable. Let’s accept that point but victimizing and creating more homeless and poorer Americans only cheapens democratic capitalism.
Stockman is right in explaining the U.S. debt increase is unsustainable.
Interest costs are creating extraordinary pressure as a line-item cost for America’s budget. Reform is immensely difficult because of political differences of opinion. According to most economists with education as economists, Stockman’s observations are true, but most economists do not believe that truth will lead to a sudden market collapse. The majority of economist suggest Stockman’s explanation of long-term fiscal challenges can be ameliorated to avoid a wide market collapse. Though Kenneth Rogoff, Carmen Reinhart, and Olivier Blanchard agree with Stockman’s diagnosis, they do not think his doom scenario is likely. Jason Furman, Douglas Elmendorf, and Ben Bernanke do not believe a bond-market revolt will crater government financing. Though all agree government debt is unsustainable, interest costs are rising too fast, and political discord is a problem. These “educated economists” believe entitlements can be gradually reformed, and a sudden collapse of the economy will be abated.
Carmen ReinhartBen BernankeDoug ElmendorfKenneth Rogoff
In general, most economists recognize America cannot continue to increase its debt but most economist believe the U.S. will adjust its economic policy to avoid collapse. As a reviewer of “The Great Deformation”, I am personally repelled by Stockman’s analysis but choose to rely on professional economists’ opinion, more than a politician/businessman who had a role in tanking the American economy.
Fugelsang preaches to the choir in writing about Trump’s ignorant Immigration policy. It is not a matter of being or not being Christian but a matter of having a pragmatic and compassionate immigration policy that serves the needs of America’s future.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Separation Church and Hate (A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds)
Author: John Fugelsang
Narration by: John Fugelsang
John Fugelsang (Author, American actor, comedian, television host, political commentator.)
John Fugelsang argues President Trump’s immigration policies are unjust, hypocritic, and unchristian. Fugelsang, as the son of a mother and father who have deep religious backgrounds, appears to have carefully read the Bible. In his Christian’ beliefs about humanity, Fugelsang argues Trump distorts Christian teaching, has no compassion for immigrants, and pursues an immoral immigration policy that exemplifies a false relationship between “…Church and Hate”.
Good government, not religion, is what is needed to solve America’s immigration problem.
As one who is not raised with any particular religious beliefs, much of what Fugelsang argues makes sense. The gestapo tactics of the Trump administration are appalling. Whether one is a Christian or not, the terrorism created by Trump’s policy of home, school, and street attacks on people who may or may not be immigrants is un-American and, according to Fuigelsang, contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Where Fugelsang is off the mark in his criticism is in attacking presumed motives of the President as opposed to the substantive reasons for managing illegal immigration. Trump’s methodology is cruel and unjust. The point of being Christian is superfluous. Fugelsang’s knowledge of the Bible is exemplary but who cares? It is not whether one is following Christian beliefs but whether one with power is acting with compassion and good judgement in addressing what is wrong with America’s immigration policy.
America needs immigration reform.
It is easy to agree with much of what Fugelsang has to say but it is not addressing the complexity of the problem of immigrants’ desire to have a better life. Trump is making the same mistakes past Presidents have made with native Americans. Rather than addressing the reasonable needs of human beings, past American Presidents made deals for Indian land, broke promises, murdered native populations and rejected inherent human rights. Trump is doing the same with today’s immigrants.
The starting point for correcting the problem of illegal immigration is in the creation of a fair, compassionate, and workable immigration policy.
Money is being wasted on gestapo-like actions by our government that terrorizes the public with armed ICE officers who continue to send the wrong message to the world about American democracy. We are not a police state. We are the nation that said, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.
Trying to turn back time is a waste of American revenue and manpower.
Trump, Congress, and the Judiciary need to back-off from a show of power. Our government needs to get to work on practical solutions that help American gain control of immigration. A show of power will not solve illegal immigration. It is only Trump’s theatrical way of making it look like he is doing something about illegal immigration. What he is doing is making America look like Hitler’s Germany. This is not America or what it stands for.
Fugelsang may be right from a Christian’s perspective about Trump’s lack of Christian belief but that is the easy part. The hard part is creating a compassionate solution by the American government for immigrants that have entered the country illegally. America needs an immigration policy that works for the future. Immigrants made America. American power and prosperity will decline without the help of immigrants. Modernization and a falling birth rate in America will reduce available labor for its future.
Fugelsang preaches to the choir in writing about Trump’s ignorant Immigration policy. It is not a matter of being or not being Christian but a matter of having a pragmatic and compassionate immigration policy that serves the needs of America’s future.
Democratic socialism is a great ideal but offers no solution for the flaws of human nature. The slim hope for Orwell’s democratic socialism is “The Ministry of Truth” which ironically is its greatest danger.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Ministry of Truth (The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984)
Author: Dorian Lynskey
Narration by: Andrew Wincott
Dorian Lynskey (Author, journalist, based in London)
Dorian Lynskey has written an informative biography of George Orwell’s most well-known book, “1984″. Orwell, a 6’ 3” political activist and theorist, shakes the foundations of communism and democracy. He argues both systems of government fail their citizens. Orwell argues the power of the few in communism and rising authoritarianism in capitalist democracy create an environment of inequality that victimizes the powerless and poor of society.
Orwell believes government run by the few is seduced by personal interests. Lynskey argues that Edward Bellamy influenced Orwell by showing how the utopian visions of all governments, however well‑intentioned, become authoritarian when they demand total social conformity. From that insight, Orwell writes “1984”
Edward Bellamy (American author, journalist and political activist, died at the age of 48 in 1898.)
Orwell’s “1984” becomes more relevant and threatening today because of artificial intelligence. The potential of A.I. for thought manipulation by purveyors of misinformation, and its surveillance capabilities threaten societal norms.
Lynskey argues that 1984 is relevant today because the forces of communism and democracy manipulate truth, are authoritarian, and define language in ways that harm society. Lynskey’s view isn’t that we live in Orwell’s world, but that we live in a world where Orwell’s insights may help us understand what is happening around us.
George Orwell (1903-1950, died at age 46.)
Orwell pillories the Soviet Union and communism in his satirical book “Animal Farm” which he wrote between 1943 and 1944. He had experienced Stalinist-like repression in the Spanish Civil War. Those who have travelled to the Baltics and listened to families that lived under Stalin’s reign over their countries will understand Orwell’s view of communism. Pigs in Animal Farm are Stalin’s apparatchiks that become the ruling class in Animal Farm, just as they did in the Baltics. They claim leadership, privileges and exempt themselves from labor. As “…Farm” leaders they squeal propaganda, censor activists that resist their piggish control and manipulate language to exploit the working class of the farm. The pigs lie among themselves by believing sacrifice of everyone is necessary for the “greater good” while the pigs feed on farming production and others grow hungry.
“1984” does not directly attack democracy but it reveals its weaknesses, illusions, and vulnerabilities.
“1984” is written near the end of Orwell’s life and becomes his most successful publication. He shows how democracies can sleepwalk into authoritarianism. Some would argue that is happening today in the guise of immigration policies that deny basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Agencies designed to serve America are being dismantled by today’s government. The idea of “it can’t happen here” is happening here. Propaganda and misinformation distort what is actually happening across America. Many Americans are becoming complicit with the rhetoric of a punitive federal government.
The rhetoric of misdeeds.
Lynskey explains “1984” is relevant today because the struggle over truth, language, surveillance, and authoritarian thinking has intensified, making Orwell’s warnings seem like a toolkit for understanding the present.
Orwell went to Morocco primarily for his health—specifically to recover from severe lung problems that are later recognized as tuberculosis. Morocco was a cheap place to live with a warmer climate that eased his respiratory illness. He left Morocco in 1939 and returned to Britain during WWII. After the war, he spent his last years (1946-1949) writing “1984” in Jura, Scottland. He died in London on January 21, 1950.
Lynskey explains Orwell, like Martin Luther King, believed in socialist democracy.
What is missing in “The Ministry of Truth” is an Orwellian solution to capitalist greed in western culture. Human nature interferes with the ideal of socialist democracy. “The Ministry of Truth” shows how prescient Orwell is about the ills of government but discounts the dark side of today’s democracies, i.e., namely capitalism. The underlying weakness of capitalism is the consequence of a permanent underclass because of economic inequality. Lynskey notes Orwell rejects capitalism because of its flaws, but socialist democracy is no answer because of human nature. Orwell seems to acknowledge that material life with capitalism is better, more freedom is inherent, but less perfect. However, socialist democracy offers no solution to that part of human nature that is human greed. He criticizes democracy without offering any alternative.
The ubiquitous internet and iPhone are not foreseen by Orwell.
The internet is a medium for “alternative facts” that can as easily offer lies as truth. When power speaks with “alternative facts” truth is lost and the public is misled. Society is diminished. Democratic socialism is a great ideal but offers no solution for the flaws of human nature.
Inequality in America.
The slim hope for Orwell’s democratic socialism is “The Ministry of Truth” which ironically is its greatest danger. A “…Ministry if Truth”, with the potential of A.I., can aid or destroy democratic socialism by focusing on concrete recommendations to mitigate inequality. On the other hand, A.I. in the hands of an unchecked tyrant can increase inequality.
Like all world changing inventions and discoveries, iPhone came with costs ranging from children’ and adults’ addiction, to rare minerals depletion, to environmental pollution. The long-term effect of iPhones has changed the world with unexpected, often unforeseen, consequences.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The One Device (The Secret History of the iPhone)
Author: Brian Merchant
Narration by: Tristan Morris
Brian Merchant (Author, American technology journalist, writes for The New York Times, Wired, Slate, The Atlantic, and the Guardian.)
Brian Merchant works around the tech world but never quite in it. His understanding of today’s technology has made him a popular writer for national news outlets. Never having been employed by a tech company, his analysis of iPhone history, the role of Jobs, and the history of its development is as an outsider to the process of invention. As a writer about technology, there is a level of objectivity but also reservation about an outsider’s details. Merchant reports what others tell of iPhone’s history rather than as a person being there as a part of its development.
Merchant’s investigation explains the iPhone’s creation is a messy human process entailing the dangers of mining, involvement of other companies and individuals, patent questions, and labor struggles. The impact of the iPhone’s invention is world changing. In a fundamental way, Merchant discounts the mythology of iPhone’s invention by one person or company. There were decades of prior invention before the iPhone became more than an idea, let alone a world changing device.
The mining industry and assembly line development were in place before the raw material and labor that would be needed for iPhone development. Merchant suggests Apple became the central orchestrator rather than singular inventor of the iPhone. Merchant argues the iPhone is a synthesis of decades of technological improvement, unnamed engineers, labor and organizations of miners and factory workers, and innovations needed to produce Apple’s revolutionary product.
Genius and invention go hand in hand. However, Merchant explains in the early 20th century, much of the technology that became a part of the iPhone’s foundation were already invented. He notes touchscreens, voice recognition tools, motion tracking, and early iterations of what became Artificial Intelligence had already been discovered. Merchant’s intent is not to diminish the genius of Apple, Jobs, or its employees but to show the public that every extraordinary human invention has precursors and essential earlier discoveries. It took Apple’s leadership and employees to integrate the many technologies that had been discovered earlier to create what has become a handheld window to the world. Merchant explains no great inventions are created out of thin air. He suggests every invention of the present is dependent on thought, labor, experience, and invention of the past.
Merchant discounts the idea of the “lone genius” because every genius depends on insight and events of the past to correlate what she/he invents in the present. The iPhone unifies decades of technological progress. The iPhones’ invention reorganizes global behavior, creates a new economic and industrial model, and gives the world a pocket supercomputer. The geniuses of Apple earned their reputations, but they relied on discoveries of the past.
Thinking of Curie, Einstein, Newton, and other giants of science, one wonders how Merchant’s belief about genius is valid. He would argue the brilliance of Curie, Einstein, and Newton are built on prior knowledge, their predecessors, and the tools of their time. Their genius is in connecting past knowledge and discovery of others with the present. Their genius is dependent on predecessors. Merchant is not diminishing Jobs’ or Apple’s genius, but their breakthroughs could only come from groundwork established by others.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION ON A BAD DAY IN BEJING,, CHINA
Like all world changing inventions and discoveries, iPhone came with costs ranging from children’ and adults’ addiction, to rare minerals depletion, to environmental pollution. The long-term effect of iPhones has changed the world with unexpected, often unforeseen, consequences.
A surveillance society is a choice that can be made with careful deliberation or by helter-skelter judgement to return manufacturing to America without clearly understanding its impact on American society. That is the underlying importance of Beckert’s history of capitalism.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Capitalism (A Global History)
Author: Sven Beckert
Narration by: Soneela Nankani & 3 more
Sven Beckert (Author, Professor of History at Harvard, graduated from Columbia with a PhD in History.)
Professor Beckert defines capitalism as an economic form of privately owned capital reinvested in an effort to produce more capital. In defining capitalism in that way, Beckert suggests capitalism reaches back to 1000 CE, long before some who argue it came into being in 18th century England. Beckert argues the Italian city-states, like Venice, Genoa, and Florence, are the origin of capitalism. That is when accumulated wealth is invested in long-distance trade networks, early banks, and trade by wealthy Italian families. Beckert’s point is that England simply expanded what had begun hundreds of years earlier with trade investment by wealthy Italian families.
Economic theories.
Becker briefly compares many economic theories like capitalism, Marxism, Keynesianism, and Polanyian theories which he calls institutional economics. All bare the flaws of human nature. His economic history is about the addition of slavery to capitalism in the late 15th through 18th centuries. Beckert notes Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and the Netherlands strengthened their capitalist economies. They were able to secure cheap, controllable labor, expand production, and increase profits with slavery.
Beckert explains the monumental changes and expansion that occurs with England’s adoption of early capitalism. As early as the 17th century, Beckert notes England revolutionizes capitalism in good and morally corrupt ways. Nation-state power combines with private capital to create a massive capitalist influencer around the world. With the dominance of British naval power, colonialism expands, slavery becomes part of international trade, and capitalist monopolies grow to dominate economies. England’s industrial revolution with mechanized production, factory labor, and capital accumulation is able to expand market influence and hugely improve their countries infrastructure and legal protections. Creating patent laws raises potential for monopolization of some market goods.
For several reasons, slavery declines during the later years of industrialization. However, Beckert notes its immorality is not the primary reason.
Free labor became more efficient for capital accumulation. The enslaved became discontented with their role as cheap labor. By the 19th century, slavery became politically and legally incompatible with capitalism. Capitalists began to understand how they could gain more wealth by indenturing rather than enslaving workers, offering sharecropping, or leasing convicts. Capitalists found they could get cheaper labor through contracts with prisons, or sharing of income than slave ownership by being more flexible with the political and physical environment in which labor worked. Slavery faded because capitalists found new ways to reduce costs of labor. At the same time, slave revolts were escalating, the U.S. Civil War is being fought, policing of slavery became too expensive, and investors felt their investments would be at risk in company’s dependent on slave labor. Morality had little to do with abolishing slavery in Beckert’s opinion.
Beckert shows how capitalism systematically expands investment of private capital. Capital is put to work rather than hoarded and consumed by a singular family, political entity, or economic system. Capitalism provides a potential for moving beyond slave-based economies, though racial discrimination remains a work in progress. Beckert notes capitalism is different from other economic systems because it invests private capital that theoretically moderates the need for nation-state’ capital investment in the health, and welfare of a nation’s citizens.
The interesting judgement made by Beckert is that capitalism’s foundation was initially based on slavery, colonialism, and state violence.
The violence of which he writes is based on several factors, i.e., historical slavery, territorial seizure, nation-backed monopolies, worker mistreatment or suppression, and global coercion with military backing. Beckert seems to admit no major historical economic system is free of violence. It seems every economic system is imperfect. Violence appears a fundamental part of human nature in all presently known economic systems.
In the mid to late twentieth century, Beckert notes how manufacturing becomes a global rather than local capitalist activity.
This reorganization creates global inequalities that America is late to understand and adjust to in their capitalist economy. The financial and investment industry of America benefited by becoming world investors, but the local economy fails to remain competitive with the production capabilities of other countries. To become competitive seems an unreasonable expectation for America because of the cost of labor. Trump’s belief appears to be that the solution is to force a return of manufacturing to America. To do that, the rich seem to ignore the fact that to be competitive manufacturing has to have its costs reduced. Where will that reduction come from? Reducing labor costs creates a downward spiral in the families dependent on income from labor. Can America capture a larger part of raw materials for manufacturing to offset higher costs of labor? That is conceivable but it will require a more focused American investment in raw materials that other nations are equally interested in capturing.
AI is a tool of human beings and will be misused by some leaders in the same way atom bombs, starvation, disease, climate, and other maladies have harmed the sentient world.
A capitalist’ economy’s violence has multiple drivers but A.I. has the potential of early detection of conflict hotspots, better predictive policing, more efficient allocation of material resources, and improved mental-health triage and intervention. A.I. is not a perfect answer to human nature’s flaws or the reestablishment of manufacturing in America. There is the downside of the surveillance society pictured by George Orwell.
A surveillance society is a choice that can be made with careful deliberation or by helter-skelter judgement to return manufacturing to America without clearly understanding its impact on American society. That is the underlying importance of Beckert’s history of capitalism.
As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. North Korea is a case that proves the point.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
In Order to Live (A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom)
Author: Yeonmi Park
Narration by: Eji Kim
Yeonmi Park (Author, North Korean defector)
Yeonmi Park has written an interesting story about North Korea’s general conditions before she and her mother defected. In 2007, at the age of 13, Yeonmi and her mother escaped North Korea. They crossed the border from Hyesan, North Korea into China. They ventured into Mongolia and escaped to South Korea in 2009.
North Korea is a dark place in many ways.
The picture Yeonmi paints of North Korean life is one of famine, and chronic hunger that is exacerbated by a state-controlled food assistance policy. She reveals a North Korean environment that is hypervigilant about ideological control of its citizens with a system of informants about any criticism of North Korean rule or government belief. She notes human trafficking exists for North Korean women who cross the Yalu River to China. She suggests her mother is a victim of that abhorrent trade in order to escape North Korea. This illicit form of trade is corroborated by other North Korean women who crossed the border to China.
Border between China and N. Korea.
To survive in North Korea, Yeonmi’s family is involved in black-marketing between North Korea and China. Her father participates in a network of bribed officials in the black market to improve their family’s living conditions while in North Korea. Yeonmi explains her father becomes intimately involved with another woman in his North Korean activities which undoubtedly encourages her mother to defect. Another incentive for her mother’s decision is Yeonmi’s older sister who had crossed the border into China at age 16 and lost communication with her family. Presumably, the older daughter wished also to find a better life.
Naturally, Western’ listener/readers want to believe everything Yeonmi writes. In the context of what others have written about North Korean life, one is inclined to believe much of what she recalls in her book. Many North Korean citizens want a better life while women are coveted on the border because of the sex trade. Yeonmi notes her mother is sexually assaulted by a trafficker during their escape into China. She infers the assault is a combination of coercion and violence, not a transactional choice.
This illicit trade is a reminder of the so-called “comfort women” of WWII but with Japan as the culprit.
Women’s exploitation is a worldwide issue. Yeonmi paints a picture of North Korea’s and China’s border trade, and risks that are entirely believable in the context of other critics who have written about the illicit trade between North Korea and China. Just like the illegal drug trade between Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States, North Korea and China run an illegal trade in human beings. At the heart of this corruption is the money and power it gives those who choose to support or ignore it. Sex, like drugs, victimizes the innocent and lures corrupt citizens in all cultures.
1990s famine in North Korea.
Yeonmi writes about the chronic hunger, famine, and food scarcity in North Korea’s 1990s that is corroborated by UN reports and Non-Government Organizations research and other defector testimonies. The same UN’ and NGO’ reports refer to North Korea’s repression, use of surveillance, and ideological indoctrination. North Koreans that have escaped reinforce reports of indoctrination, the fear of being informed upon and the propaganda about the “Dear Leader” that rules their forsaken country. Many defectors have reported the harsh punishments, forced labor, and border violence (shootings) they have experienced or seen in North Korea.
A picture of Yeonmi Park’s family in North Korea before the mother’s and youngest daughter’s decision to defect.
Yeonmi Park’s story may not be entirely true or objective but enough of her story is corroborated by other organizations and writers that give credence to her story. The inhumanity that has been created by the leader of North Korea turns one’s stomach. As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. North Korea is a case that proves the point.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 