The now-infamous “Cloward-Piven Strategy” outlined by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven in 1966 proposed a clear roadmap to socialism: get so many people addicted to government entitlements that the economic system collapses, and in the resulting chaos the populace will demand and vote for a new economic system in which everyone is supported by the state.
Sounds logical (if nefarious), and President Obama seems hell-bent on bringing it to fruition in the United States. The problem for Obama’s inner socialist is that he’s also required for appearance’s sake to attempt a rescue of the American economy using Keynesian principles. This self-cancelling combo-strategy is the underlying cause of our economic stagnation, as outlined in “The Obama-Piven Strategy,” an earlier PJM post I made last year that made some waves. What I noted back then remains true:
I propose that President Obama is simultaneously trying to rescue the economy using the Keynesian/Democratic model while at the same time also trying to destroy the economy through the Cloward-Piven Strategy. His two mutually contradictory plans cancel each other out, rendering all his efforts self-negating, and this explains why the American economy has stalled.
I dub this the Obama-Piven Strategy. And it’s the reason why we remain mired in a deep recession. We are neither recovering, as the Keynesian model predicts, nor is capitalism collapsing, as the revolutionaries hope; the Obama-Piven strategy ensures that we remain in suspended animation between the two extremes.
But something interesting happened on Sunday in Europe: Voters in both France and Greece, two countries ruinously addicted to government entitlements, rejected the “austerity” model of debt-reduction and instead doubled down on unsustainable spending sprees. France elected Socialist Francois Hollande as president, and in his acceptance speech he promised to increase government benefits and amp up “stimulus” spending programs — the exact things that got France into a metaphorical debtors’ prison in the first place. But exactly as Cloward and Piven had surmised, once you get 50+% of the population hooked on “free” government money, there’s no turning back — they will vote for socialists every time. The election of Hollande is the culmination of Cloward-Piven; the strategy worked, but in the wrong country.
(In a similar blunder, it should be noted, Karl Marx predicted that the first socialist revolution would happen in an industrialized country like Germany or Great Britain; instead the exact opposite happened, as two backward pre-industrial nations, Russia and China, were the first to embrace communism.)
Also on Sunday, Greece held local elections and voters rewarded various “anti-austerity” parties and candidates: “Greek voters punish ruling coalition, reward far left,” reads the headline. “Voters angry over austerity delivered a blow to Greece’s ruling parties on Sunday, with neither the conservative New Democracy nor the Pasok socialists winning enough votes to form a government while far-left Syriza took second place.” Even a “neo-Nazi” anti-immigrant party won seats for the first time because they too rejected the “austerity” measures and want to maintain the entitlement state (albeit solely for Greek citizens, in their case).
The message is clear: Once enough voters are on the dole, regardless of your party’s ideology or what label it has, you will win elections if you promise to to keep the free money flowing. This was Cloward-Piven’s point, and they turned out to be frighteningly correct.
What this means for Europe is anyone’s guess. Because both France and Greece are embedded in the EU, they do not have complete sovereignty over their own economies, so it still remains to be seen if the rest of the EU will allow them to spiral further into debt and reneg on previous agreements to tighten the pursestrings. But it seems that if they were left to their own devices, both France and Greece are willing to ignore reality and plunge headfirst into a completely unsustainable socialist model.
Sunday might not be as epochal as Russia’s October Revolution, but it should be remembered as the day of the first Cloward-Piven Revolution. It just happened in the “wrong” countries.
Will the revolution spread to America? Have Obama’s policies over the last four years addicted so many people to food stamps and Social Security disability payments and unemployment benefits and so many other entitlement programs that we as a nation will go the route of France and vote for the guy who promises to keep the drugs flowing, regardless of the consequences? Will the inherent resilience of the American economy keep the illusory prosperity afloat long enough to usher Obama into office for the final assault on capitalism?
Hayek help us.
Reality Bite 1: You cannot borrow if no one will loan.
Reality Bite 2: Your nation has a Specific Value, divide that value by how much money is printed. Even when the quantity of money goes up, the value remains constant (that’s kinda how Runaway Inflation works).
Reality Bite 3: You cannot vote away Natural Law.
The French never learn:
“Great is Bankruptcy: the great bottomless gulf into which all Falsehoods, public and private, do sink, disappearing; whither, from the first origin of them, they were all doomed. For Nature is true and not a lie…
…Such is the law of just Nature; bringing, though at long intervals, and were it only by Bankruptcy, matters round again to the mark.”
Thomas Carlyle, “The French Revolution”
Payback’s a bitch.
Boff
when did France get bankrupted?
after that Louis XVI bet all his deniers into the american war of independance, debt that wasn’t repaid back, or with cotton blaes and tobacco, not clinging money, as the new american republic still had no stable banks, anyways, these trades were stopped as soon as our revolution started, and worst, you reverted to trading with your former masters, the Brits !
so your economy lessons… give them to your illiterates
Why does no one question the motivation of the lender? Not the “to make money” part. The part where they loan to a client they know they will destroy by making endless loans to them. If the obvious is true, then default. What’s their recourse? Stop loaning? The sooner the better, then.
Presumably their motive is to buy time while they profit off of the unwinding. That, or the United States of Europe forms out of this mess and assumes the debt of the member states, on the condition they surrender their sovereignty and agree to a balanced-budget requirement.
yeah, about that balanced budget thingy… we’re supposed to have one, too… sigh…
That is why the Euro is doomed – I doubt it will survive 2012 intact. Once the French and Greeks regain control of their respective currencies, they won’t need loans. They can go back to printing all the Francs and Drachmas they want. Of course this will further impoverish their nations, but they can blame German bankers for that too.
German business has no trade barriers or currency barriers with the other euro countries. German business is smashing them to bits. The Germans will buy just enough French bonds to keep the rape going. Same with Greece. The EU will send some crumbs as German business sucks up all the assets.
Reality Bite 3a: Wars on arithmetic seldom end well.
Quoting in indispensable Walter Russell Mead.
I just posted the following on another PJM blog, but it applies here also.
The following are three paragraphs from Rudyard Kipling’s, The Gods of the Copybook Headings. The Gods are eternal universal truths that always come back and reassert themselves when humanity strays, such as “2+2 = 4″ and “Fire will burn” that the liberals always seem to deny.
“Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
The French and Greeks will find out the consequences of their elections soon enough.
You’re right as far as you go. It seems to me that these cancers must be isolated and allowed to feed upon themselves until they collapse. Then let their stupid freeloaders regress back to a “simpler” time and live like many African nations on hand outs. The Russian experiment was recently concluded with the break-up of their “Empire” and a painful conversion of their centeralized economy to criminalized type of crony capitalism. People are like addicts and will keep using free money, stuff or drugs until they kill themselves or their nation. When the educated and political class become money or drug pushers it is the beginning of the end.
Reality Bite 3: You cannot vote away Natural Law.
Sure ya can. Fail the legal (and moral duty) to operate off of printed budgets, increase spending, print money, and hope for the best. Socialism has never worked, we have plenty of examples to guide us on our pending conversion to socialism. But no reference is made to the failure in Europe, or the relative successes in Canada and Sweden, where moves to shrink taxation and gubmint seems to be working. No, doing comparative analysis of that would be too difficult. Better to cross one’s fingers and hope to… cash gubmint checks.
If I wanted America to fail, the obama regime and its fellow ilk are the perfect statist machine to make it happen.
Obama must go.
It is not just Obama, it is our ignorance about economics and politics. Zombie’s pictures I always enjoy. But the notion that some conspiracy hatched by Cloward and Piven is in play is too much for me. As is the notion of power as having any meaning outside of historical specificity. I wrote about the fear of mob rule here: http://clarespark.com/2010/01/02/jottings-on-the-culture-wars-both-sides-are-wrong/. Note especially what Filmer had to say about the mob. Perhaps some Pajamas Media commenters and authors are in the closet with Filmer. I just can’t tell.
I agree: this is accidental stupidity in the form of political correctness, which coalesced like a star and then – boom! – we’re in flames.
Actually, I don’t think political correctness is an accident at all. It has long been a tool of Progressives, but only recently has come to the forefront. While one man cannot be blamed for everything, he is definitely the one who put progressivism on overdrive. Just look at everyone he brought into his administration, people like Axelrod, Emanuel, Immelt, just to name a few. Yes, the collective bunch have done a great deal to set America back, but look no further than POTUS to see who got it all going. That is why people are so quick to look to him and no one else.
Look at the gradual beginnings of PC: start with “Howl” and Burroughs and Kerouac and Robert Frank and take that into the 60s and racial awareness and environmentalism and green tea and yoga. The entire thing was an accident. Before this time, such people as are often cited as leaders were regarded as completely marginalized fringe lunatics. Frank, for example, a Swiss, was not part of a movement, but the result of anti-American feelings in France in the late ’50s if you care to look into it.
The asylum slovly created itself and these so-called leaders were simply already there. Our mass culture has done more to indoctrinate people, again accidentally, over the last 50 years than any single person or even group of people one can possible name.
There is a difference between learning and being taught. Being taught means there will be tell-tale signs of agreement in semantics, buzz-words. Those buzz-words are from Hollywood and the media and music originally, and that’s what informed our present-day liberal teachers.
Suddenly, discredited notions from long ago, that people had rejected as a losing hand, perfectly fit the bill, like Socialism and Critical Pedagogy. In my day, Paulo Freire would be considered an idiot and now he’s wisdom personified. People politicized and radicalized themselves and not the other way around.
Sure, now, yes – morons are crawling out of the woodwork like Melissa Harris-Perry and Ward Churchill who would’ve been considered nothing more than third rate intellects 50 years ago – now they’re paid to lecture. They’re paid to lecture because the way has been paved by American popular culture, a coalescence of things that only had a loose alliance, a rubble pile that gravitated into an asteroid that will destroy this world through seeing failure where there is success and success where there is failure, particularly by race.
The closest thing the Left has ever had to a Constitution made by founding fathers is an informal agreement that America would be a better place if only there were fewer racist white people. All else stems from this and is the centerpiece of the Dem Party.
The so-called Rainbow Coalition is based on the idea that gays want straights to seem more gay-like, feminists want men more feminine, blacks and Latinos want fewer white people – more of themselves one can say but it amounts to the same Wannsee mentality if what one wants more and less of is gender and race-based.
What I want is more success, smarter people, not more of a race or gender. The Dem Party has unconsciously evolved into a KKK but that talks about wheel chair access and allergies to scented products. There’s no way leaders sat down and said, “Let’s act like Nazis and the KKK but not dress like them.” That could only happen from the accident of being blind-sided. After all, the Left are humans, just as Nazis were. They just went terribly wrong accidentally, insulated intellectually to the point they were effectively insane because their stated goals and the reality of those goals were the complete opposite, unless one thinks justice can be found in gas chambers and cheering 2050, when whites will officially become a minority. People don’t consciously embrace double standards, delusion and hypocrisy. Orwell wrote about this. People are good, but they go astray, accidentally when en masse, racism called ‘justice.’
Whether it’s 1 year or 100, your fallacious views will ultimately come back to bite you in the ass.
Perhaps you may not suffer, but your grandkids will likely be hung from a lamppost.
Or didn’t you ever consider that?
Firstly there will likely be a lot of wrong things in 100 years…because just about verything gets there at some point.
Secondly who are you disagreeing with? The author for looking at these nations like they are household who CANNOT spend more than they take in?
And third say what? Do you really think kids will NOT suffer when they no longer get their dependancy on state supported by the state?
Clarification needed here.
Just like Nixon said in ’68: “This time, vote like your whole world depended on it.”
Will my Grandchildren laud me or curse me? That IS the question.
And isn’t that the real defining moment between Conservative and Liberal?
Conservative: retain that which is good.
Progressive: change everything continually, because you can.
You mean the Richard Nixon who proposed a Guaranteed Minimum Income in 1969? That’s pretty much in a nutshell what Cloward and Piven were aiming for.
That Richard Nixon?
I don’t know, he sounds like a Marxian statist commutarian social facist. Good thing the Democrats rejected that proposal.
Yes – Nixon was a rotten Rino. Your point?
Well, the obvious point is that Anonymous displays an ignorance of American history in choosing his quote.
Under what grounds is Nixon not a member of the Republican Party? He served under Ike, rooted out commies at home with HUAC, later escalated the war in Vietnam.
He believed in capitalism – see the “kitchen debates” with Kruschev, hated the “liberal elites”, the Kennedys, the anti-war movement, the liberal media. He aggressively courted the “law and order” vote.
Seems pretty Republican to me.
Nixon was a Progressive Republican and left Fail in his wake. Zombie has a partial list. The man had no coattails for Congressional Republicans because he didn’t believe in anything except Richard Nixon.
You are obviously making an assumption that to quote a historical figure is to agree with his overall political philosophy. Maybe he quoted Nixon just to express a thought. No true conservatives would defend Nixon for his governance of the nation. An out of context quote is just that, a quote, used to express a thought. If Anon had not mentioned Nixon, would you have responded in such a rabid manner? If I were to quote “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”, would you think I were a Democrat? Somehow, I don’t think Obama or you, both Democrats I’m sure, want anything to do with the first part of that quotation. Obama actually wants people to ask and know what their country can do for them. “Julia” anyone?
You make a good point.
Nowadays, liberals love to paint Richard Nixon as America’s all-time number one villain, but as you point out, his presidency was in reality a leftist’s wet dream come true. Not only did he propose a guaranteed national income, but during his presidency:
- He ended the war in Vietnam
- Abortion become legal
- He opened relations with China, the world’s most populous Communist country
- He started the first federal Affirmative Action plan
- He signed major nuclear arms treaties
- He imposed price controls
- He establish the EPA
- He established OSHA
- He signed the Clean Air Act
…etc. etc. etc.
Richard Nixon: America’s only true progressive??!??
He ended the war in Vietnam by giving it away in Paris and keeping silent as Congressional Democrats betrayed our commitments to South Vietnam. I can’t imagine a Democrat could have governed any worse for 6 years.
@Oldsoldier. Nixon couldn’t do all that much as far as Congress went. He was out of office by the time the South fell. Besides that, what could he have realistically done before he left? Watergate would have taken up whatever time and resources he had available.
If Cloward and Piven really thought that, somehow, the Socialist model would take root after the welfare state collapse then it proves how ignorant of history they truly were. The fall of Rome, preceeded by the overloaded welfare system finally making the empire ungovernable, did not yield a more statist model but fracturing into separate, warring regions and the start of the Dark Ages. When society breaks down and the usual support systems fail only those with “hard” life skills can survive and flourish. E.G. the “artists” are at a disadvantage. No artists, no writing/crafts/artifacts, no communication, no written history. In our case we are looking at societal breakdown and those without usable professional, survival or life skills are going to be at a disadvantage. That pretty much takes out the welfare class but also the entire political and academic stratum as well.
They clearly did not think their strategy through very well.
True, but one of the overarching fallacies of collectivism, communitarianism, socialism, or whatever label it goes by at any given moment, is;
“We can’t possibly fail because we are infinitely smarter than the last lot who tried it. Also, we will succeed because we deserve it so much.”
The “we’ll do it right unlike all our predecessors” conceit is at the core of socialist philosophy. It is also its biggest flaw. Socialism is a system in which if everything does not work perfectly, it won’t work at all. It can’t handle shocks, changes, or especially unexpected developments.
Europe is a case in point. In this iteration, the shock and change have come, not from internal sources, but from outside. Specifically, a combination of increased immigration overstressing the welfare state faster than the Cloward-Piven strategy anticipated, and the sudden lack of support from… the United States.
While overloading the entitlements budget is the foundation of C-P, the sudden influx of immigration, especially from Islamic countries, threatens to blow the boilers before all of Europe is “in the tank”, so to speak. The end result is likely to be not Europe going down en masse and arising reborn as a very splendid and worthwhile socialist paradise (to borrow a phrase from Lady Cynthia Fitz-Milton), but the sort of fracturing that happened after the later Roman Empire’s welfare state collapsed. (Rome went down mainly due to excessive taxation, not Goth invaders.)
The difference is, this fractured Europe will consist of the usual greedy, grasping, and quite possibly borderline insane local rulers- who instead of spears and swords will have access to at least airpower and mechanized forces, if not nuclear weapons. Aggressive looters like Alaric the Goth, or even clueless dingbats like the later Charles the Bold of Burgundy, aren’t nearly as entertaining when they have battlefield nukes to play with.
To see what Europe’s future might look like in this scenario, look at the Arab world since 1945. And add a few mushroom clouds.
As for the other part, the basic assumption of the EU leadership in Brussels was that if they needed more money to keep the pyramid racket going a few years longer, the United States would supply it. They failed to reckon with the possibility of an American President who shares their dreams of socialist hegemony managing to have a big enough majority in Congress to launch his own version of Keynesian C-P first.
The end result being, when they come to the U.S. for more money for their plans… Oops! The cupboard’s bare. Except for an IOU signed “The Old Men In Beijing”. Which means they aren’t getting any help from that quarter, either.
Hollande’s victory in France, and the Greek left’s simultaneous takeover, strongly indicates that the European elite’ has gotten their wish. an electorate which will keep voting themselves benefits (or maybe “bread and circuses”?), and keeping the socialist elite’ in power. As long as they can keep delivering, that is.
However, the sands of time are running out on their ability to spend tomorrow’s monies today. And when it finally does, the smash will be epic.
cheers
eon
“However, the sands of time are running out on their ability to spend tomorrow’s monies today. And when it finally does, the smash will be epic.”
Or even biblical.
A friend of mine, who’s a German police captain, said the same thing about 5 years ago. When the money runs out and the lies of the state laid plain, the public will be killing each other in the street and there will be nothing we (the police) will be able to do about it. It’s just a matter of time.
“A friend of mine, who’s a German police captain, said the same thing about 5 years ago. When the money runs out and the lies of the state laid plain, the public will be killing each other in the street and there will be nothing we (the police) will be able to do about it. It’s just a matter of time.”
Reminds me of Pete Townshend’s lines, and how prophetic they are, 40 years on:
We’ll be fighting in the Street,
With our children at our feet,
And the morals that need worship will be gone.
While not written as a conservative song, National Review called it the premiere song with a conservative message in the history of rock.
So it all boils down to the true definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over with horrible results…they say there is a fine line between brilliance and insanity, liberalism is the on the side of insanity, maybe some one should let them know about it!
“The fall of Rome, preceeded by the overloaded welfare system finally making the empire ungovernable, did not yield a more statist model”
Actually “the overloaded welfare system finally making the empire ungovernable” and the consequent anarchy resulted in the proto-Fascist dictatorship of Diocletian, which was as statist as only a Castro brother could love: state-set wages and prices, sons legally bound to their fathers’ occupations and peasants to the soil (yes, Diocletian was the originator of European serfdom). The collapse came later, when a society as enervated as North Korea could no longer hold off the barbarians.
Sure – Diocletian was a spasm of the dying Empire. Imperial Rome had raised taxes to the point that the middle class ceased to exist – only the rich and the poor remained (like NYC today). Craftsmen and farmers were literally fleeing their property due to crushing taxes and / or selling themselves as slaves because slaves weren’t taxed. By forcing them to remain on their land, Diocletian was preventing them from escaping their taxes.
None of it stopped the decay, it just put off the final collapse for a century. Then the fun started when Europe fractured like dropped glass.
Excuse me but by I hope you are using NYC as a metaphor. New York while having one Borough that consists of rich and poor, Manhattan, where all the Liberals live side by side ignoring the very poor who are invisible to them; the rest of the City consists of lower and very middle class individuals.
Manhattan is the classic location where anyone looking will find the phoniest of the bleeding heart Liberal/Progressives. Cocktail parties, limos, doorman manned buildings along with great over the top lifestyles. All the while being among the poorest and most downtrodden minorities in the country. They don’t even see them as neighbors or people. Want to know where the 1% actually lives go to the East side and Upper West side of the little world called Manhattan. See how these pigs actually live while spewing Liberal/Progressive bile in their echo chamber. Want to see John Edwards two Americas on display tour Manhattan.
The Western Empire lasted another 200 years after Diocletian. Augustus Constantine not only cut the pagan temples off from the dole, but also ordered their gold and silver idols and vessels to be melted down to pay the national debt and finance government spending. What can we learn from Constantine? We can cut off Planned Parenthood, but that doesn’t do enough. I know, let’s require the Universities to invest in student loans as a condition for being eligible for Federal Financial Aid.
A little off topic but has anyone noticed that Universities as a group have the largest pool of unregulated money and property in the country. While they raise tuition and fees through the roof their endowments and property holdings are truly vast pools of wealth. Not used for students or to lower tuition. While they get Federal funds and all sorts of grants they continue to grow their own wealth. Columbia owns so much land and buildings in upper Manhattan that they have pushed out much of the poor and African American community from their homes and rental apts. Their invested endowment and land is in the 100s of millions if not billions. Since most elected individuals are graduates of one of the top 100 richest Universities in the country don’t expect any regulation or investigation of these silent “corporations” or what they do with their money. Liberals scream about Exxon or other businesses making excess profits but not a word about their precious Universities. Maybe a tax on these institutes of higher learning might be included in their war cry of “TAX THE RICH.” Fat chance.
They became those barbarians. My memory says at the height of Roman power, 60% of the army were Roman citizens – at the end, 1%. Power attracts immigration. Constantine ran but he couldn’t hide. Where’s Constantinople today? What’s the demographic of America in 200 years? I’m guessing 80% former Third Worlders.
How long will it be before the US Army becomes 1% American and 99% Mexican/Latin American? The Dream Act will accelerate the process.
Constantinople is under Turkish occupation. Alas, that great city fell a thousand years after the Western Roman Empire. The city itself still stands, though few refer to it as Constantinople anymore.
I think the Continent has been pretty much lost to Socialism for many years and/or decades now, so while the end result of C/P is being shown in stark relief I don’t think we’re seeing a “descent into” as much as a “wallowing in” Socialism.
As far as the US is concerned, all I can say is that I’m hoarding ammo and already have 1+ years supply of hard rations, and I hope I can fend off and outlast enough of the moochers so that their 50%+1 of the population is reduced enough to enable rationality and logic to return to US politics and economics. At this point I really think a statistically significant percentage of the US moocher population has to die (thru starvation, violent crime, etc) in order to lessen their political influence.
If Kipling were writing today, his poem would speak of “Spreadsheet headings”, but otherwise it remains true:
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
[...]As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Every time I hear about what is going on in Europe I think of Kipling’s The Gods of the Copybook Heading. Especially after this past weekend.
Never any love for Mongolia, which went Communist officially in 1924….but the point still stands.
Mongolia, Shmongolia — who’s ever heard of those guys?
.. and left it 1992, but didn’t they also build a huge shrine to maurading pyschopath who murdered his way across Asia and parts of Europe?
“.. and left it 1992, but didn’t they also build a huge shrine to maurading pyschopath who murdered his way across Asia and parts of Europe?”
And how many in the West still idolize Communist mass murderers who exterminated 100 million people?
“And how many in the West still idolize Communist mass murderers who exterminated 100 million people?”
Too many in my opinion, but you’ll occassionally meet an honest pigressive who might acknowledge that fact, as those murdered had it coming, and even say they should have killed more. Power is the goal and that justifies the means.
Though who reads, or understands, history these days.
“honest pigressive”
That is an oxymoron.
Touche.
See my post on the situation in Europe http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2012/03/end-of-economics.html
You are giving Obama too much credit…. He is less devious than clueless…. He truly does not understand the golden goose that he is throttling.
I have no doubt that he intends to increase the percentage of Americans dependent upon government, but highly doubt that it is the result of anything other than his own stupidity.
If he’s not the man writing the laws, what makes you think he’s the man writing the strategy?
Obama is nothing but a mouthpiece for the machine behind him. He’s the smoke and mirrors obscuring the organizations driving his administration.
I dont know if its going to go full tilt here but Im comfortably retired and I for one am enjoying all the unwashed masses squirming over the 1%.99% my ass, They are just parasites.Let em all hang.
The Cloward-Piven strategy worked perfectly in the Weimar Republic.
I think you may be on to something. The Obama- Piven plan is at work here. He is doing “just enough” to make it look like he is trying the recovery path. In reality, his form of recovery is more destructive and more contusive to shackling more people to the dole; being dependent in the government. Heaven help us. We need to vote this guy out of office.
The strategy sort of backfired recently in Spain. Or did it?
Socialism is the fraudulent idea that we can (and indeed must) live at the expense of others. Anyone who is familiar with the Ten Commandments should easily see how this must violate the Commands that forbid coveting and theft. It always must be implemented using government coercion and compulsion that in the last century cost over 100 million lives. It is an idea more powerfully destructive of human lives and prosperity than any arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Good post, Zombie. First one of yours I have read without the benefit of pictures. Reading about France and the “rejection of Sarkozy” for the Socialist is interesting. Does that mean Sarkozy was a free-market capitalist? I believe in Europe, and increasingly in America, the deal is there are lots of political parties from which one can choose. Unfortunately, socialism is the flavor that each must offer. There are subtle variations, but no party any longer promotes the political philosophy of individual freedom and responsibility and a belief in God that made our country great. The ideas of personal responsibility and God have been made taboo. Thus, we are doomed to suffer the folly of what man creates in the absence of God.
“There is iron in your words of truth.”
Ten Bears to Josie Wales
Also, given that Hollande relied heavily on Muslims for support, how long until he is blaming Europe’s problems on Israel/Zionism/Jews, and there are widescale pogroms against Jews in France?
Greece looks just as bad, if not worse, with radical Marxists getting 20% of the vote and neo-Nazis 7%. They just don’t have so many Jews to slaughter when they take to the streets. So, without Jews, they blame it all – on the Germans.
KEEP YOUR OPINION TO YOURSELF AND WASH YOUR MOUTH BEFORE YOU USE THE HOLY NAME OF HELLAS
WE NEVER DID ANY GENOCIDES . GERMANS AND TURKS DID
Oooh, touchy, aren’t we?
Go look up on the internet how much help the Germans got from the local Greek population when they rounded up the Jews of Thessalonika. And Corfu. And Rhodes.
Guess which country was considered the most anti-Israel in Europe until the younger Papandreou brought some sense to your foreign policy?
Go look up the widescale massacres of Jews by Greeks at the time of your independence in the 1820s.
Now, go away.
“Holy name of hellas”…bwahahaha ha !
Seriously, Hellenas: When you’re a moderator, you can post to another poster like that. Till then, kindly be civil.
Eric R : You’re nicer than I am . I would have mentioned the Greek neo nazis most recent showing. They were supposed to get 3% of the vote to be entitles to Greek Parliamentary representation,. and they got 6%
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/05/06/Greek-neo-Nazis-enter-parliament–exit-polls
OOps! That’s what I get for skimming-you DID mention the neo nazis. Ah well, at least my link shows you are telling the truth for anyone who may think you’re casting aspersions of the “holy” (snerk!) name of a nation:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/05/06/Greek-neo-Nazis-enter-parliament–exit-polls
The fall of the EU is now confirmed. We’ll get to watch the death thoes for awhile. Meanwhile, the US will pull back our military stations there as well as our financial support. The individual states will full rearm, and bloody Europe will return. I expect to see Germany, with Poland, the Czechs, and Scandanavian states to some degree form an alliance to dominate the new Europe.
The US will withdraw to fortress America other than for trade, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as we can no longer avoid the burden as world policeman.
As an example, my son’s in-laws are conserned that having my wife and I too involved with their daughter’s children will cause the kids to want more then they ‘need’. The in-laws live mostly on goverment programs and are, generally, satisfied enough. Nothing extra to help new parents, but in their minds, that is for the state to provide. My wife and I are professionals in accounting and IT and have encouraged our kids to set goals, stive for more, ask questions, and seek answers. Therefore, my wife and I are the ‘bad influences’ on the next generation.
HAVC,
Sounds like soft core slavery to me. We confine our activities to those supported by the master and wait for the food and firewood so that we can continue along with our subsistence life style. Any boat rocking is bad for the relationship.
The Greeks in particular seem to have lost the capability to behave independently and act in a self sustaining or entrepreneurial fashion. Their ability to succeed through self reliance has been stripped out by the state. They are no longer able to think creatively about their own needs any more.
It’s pathetically tragic when you think about what the state has done to these people through the lie of socialism. It’s almost like they are partially brain damaged by their life experience under the states control.
I work among the working and non-working poor and the not so poor takers. There are dozens of programs at the federal-state-local levels for food, housing, education, school food programs, food banks, subsidized income, transportation and more if you know your way around the system and there are even government people to help you with the navigation.
I find a lot of abuse in my travels.
I find alot of generationally entrenched families who hand the system down to the next generation.
I find quite a few folks in this group who find out side the system means of subsidizing their government checks including, scraping, drugs, selling food stamps for other stuff, panhandling, lawsuits, theft, etc. etc.
For the most part, probably like your son’s in laws, I find it to be not much of a life, but it is a life nonetheless. Whatever you incentivize you will get more of and that is what we have done probably not as well as the EU, but we are working on it.
Make no mistake, what happened over the weekend in Europe carries the same level of historic importance and consequences as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
Mel,
That is a scary thought but I believe it is true. Standby
So we have Obama trying to look Keynes while doing C-P. Makes sense, his guru Alinsky did the same, trying to look Red while doing Mob.
Alinsky later boasted of his Depression-era involvement with Chicago mobsters. Enforcer “[Frank] Nitti took me under his wing,” he told Playboy shortly before his 1972 death. “I called him the Professor and I became his student. Nitti’s boys took me everywhere, showed me all the mob’s operations, from gin mills and whorehouses and bookie joints to the legitimate businesses they were beginning to take over. Within a few months, I got to know the workings of the Capone mob inside out.” He coolly crowed about detached discussions of mafia hits with Nitti, telling Hugh Hefner’s magazine, “I learned a hell of a lot about the uses and abuses of power from the mob, lessons that stood me in good stead later on, when I was organizing.”
PS, forgot to indicate quote (from the link), on all but the first sentence –
Have Obama’s policies over the last four years addicted so many people to food stamps and Social Security disability payments and unemployment benefits and so many other entitlement programs that we as a nation will go the route of France and vote for the guy who promises to keep the drugs flowing, regardless of the consequences?
Judging by “@Julia’s” parasde of handouts and Free Stuff, that’s certainly what Obama is banking on.
The dopes that put “Julia” together were so brainwashed and uninformed that they actually thought that this was a “good” thing. They have no clue about the danger of dependance on government. For them government is their “friend and comforter.” They might try understanding the Constitution and Federalist Papers about the nature of ALL governments. Government by its very nature seeks to increase its power and reach to control then individuals under its domain. Founding Fathers understood this and sought to write a Constitution that limited the power of ANY government and only allow the established government to rule with the consent of the people governed. These clueless people think government is your parent and we are one big family of children to be taken care of by our wonderful parents (government). They think of themselves as forever children who must be led by and protected by their government. The government is a soulless, faceless organization that must be watched 24/7 and strictly controlled by the governed or like fire it will consume you if you lose control of it.
Great, who is going to produce the lucre that the leeches will leech from? Germany? China? Cloward-Piven-Obama has ONE great, big, fatal flaw: you can’t milk a cow that isn’t there. Government produces nothing, and can’t fill the void. 50% may be the tipping point for socialism, but where is the tipping point for total collapse?
When the government decides that shooting the cow for refusing to be milked will encourage the other cows to cooperate.
Followed by shooting dry cows, and then blaming them for the milk famine.
Basic Stalinism, which is what the ‘enlightened elite’” secretly yearn for. As long as they get to be Uncle Joe.
Always remember that you are dealing with people who want to build Utopia on the ruins of the (evil) old order. But to get the full effect, to feed their egos, they need those ruins to stand limned against by the sunrise at their backs. If they can’t pose dramatically, they feel cheated.
Causing the ruins themselves, and then blaming everyone else for them, is something they regard as their birthright. On the principle of the winner being the one who writes the history books.
cheers
eon
That is why they invented firing squads. It keeps that population under control!!
In the beginning of the Republic, the franchise was given only to those American citizens who had a stake in the country. Only men could vote, and only free men who held property, paid taxes, and were subject to the militia service requirements.
It was a system of enfranchisement that was unfair, especially to womyn, and the indigenous, and to the indentured, but it seemed to work pretty well.
Once we awarded the franchise to anyone, be they wealthy, or be they hostile to the American concept, or be they mouth breathing idiots, then the fall of the Republic began and the rise of the tyranny of the democratic mob was a certainty. The fall was further guaranteed when one of the underlying principles of the Republican form of government, the selection of Senators by the State’s Assemblies, was removed from the process by the accursed 17th Amendment.
If we want our iberty back, and if we wish to provide for a future in which the mob of takers cannot loot the national treasure at the ballot box, then we must once again impose reasonable qualifications for the privilege to vote that are based on having a stake in the future of the United States.
If you, at aged 21 plus, are still a dependent, whether it be upon your parents, your State, or if you are supported by the Federal dole, then you should not be considered a fully functioning adult citizen, and you should not be afforded the privilege of voting for national offices. When you achieve economic independence from your parent or the enabling government program that keeps you, then you could be a candidate for the franchise.
Of course the mob of takers would never stand for this, unless they are presented with options that are much worse for them at a personal level. . Just take a look at Greece, and now France.
You’re right –there’s no doubt about it. And there is a way that enough of the same effect could be had, without the war in the streets: raise the voting age to 26 (an age already used by the left’s new health insurance rule as the end of adolescence).
Whose enfranchisement gets hurt? Only the small segment previously old enough to vote but not yet 26 –and that segment will BE 26 shortly.
Who loses enfranchisement? No one –everybody ages, and at the same rate.
No democratic principle gets harmed –it is only a common-sense practical response to the longer life spans, the consequent extended adolescence, and the information revolution which overwhelms those from 18 to 26 not yet settled into parenthood and lifetime careers. That very unsettled condition is justification aplenty to raise the voting age.
Organizations such as Obama’s will fight it like the devil of course –such Lords of the Flies depend on support from the inexperienced, unmoored, over-emotional, gullible, pack-loyal youngsters.
But maybe it can be done –something MUST be done, and ‘raise the age’ is the fairest option for the largest number.
I would appreciate it if someone on this comment thread could tell me why the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution undercut the rights of the individual citizen so completely. I have never quite gotten the significance of this action in undercutting out Republican form of Government. Of course having lived my entire life in RI,MA,CT and MD, the bluest of blue and totally corrupt states with equally corrupt state legislatures, I was never overly impressed by giving these hacks more control over my life. Someone out there want to enlighten me a little?
Not really sure but I think many believe that a senator appointed by a State Government would be more responsive to that states needs and would better carry out the collective will of the people of that particular state. The popular election of Federal senators for 6 years, some think, allows them to go to Washington get involved in all manor of political deals and Washington politics while totally ignoring their states needs until election time. The national Party controls the senator and his agenda and he/she is unresponsive to what goes on back home. An example would be Sen. Luger who does not even live with in the state he represents. He keeps getting elected with the help of the RNC and has little time for the “small” issues back home. His focus is on Washington and increasing his Parties power and international issues. Maybe one senator could be appointed and the other elected. I am sure there are many arguments for popular election but the change in the Constitution was popular at the time. Good or bad your call.
Exactly right. The federalist system of divided power between national and state government was difficult to design. Althought the United States generally used Greek, Rome and England as guides to create its political system and government institutions, no country had ever created a strong federal government while leaving most power with the individual states. To help create the balance between the states and the federal government, state legislatures were given the power to select the Senators representing their states, making the federal government, or at least a part of it, directly accountable to the states.
The 17th Ammendment undermined the balance of power between the states and federal government and is IMHO the root-cause of most of our problems with an out-of-control federal government.
The original concept of the Senate, particularly with regards to the 6 year term, was to provide the sitting senator insulation or immunity from the popular political issues that periodically sweep the electorate. Modelled on the Roman senate, or perhaps the British upper chamber, the House of Lords, the thought was that a senator, being thus insulated from the re-election grind and the need to please the mob, could instead be expected to act as a brake on the more unrestrained impulses of the House , provide something approaching adult leadership, and provide a firm check on the tendency of the Executive to accumulate unenumerated powers.
Because of their mode of selection, which was election by the state assembly, they were primed to look out for the interests of their home state, because they had to answer to the state legislative body for their actions. It meant the political power of the individual states was preserved at the national level by the two senators and that Federal Government quackery that ran contrary to the best interests of the states could be brought into check.
If you wanted a Senator to act on your bill, you had to go talk to the people who elected him, the State Assembly. If you, the Senator, went outside of that relationship, then you found yourself replaced by a more tractable candidate.
What the 17th Amendment did was to make the senate a body of super representatives, of 6 year terms instead of the two year terms allowed the lower house. Now the senatorial candidate must please the fickle mob to keep his seat, and that, as we have seen, takes a lot of campaigning and money. Enter the lobbyists, asking for favors, cash in hand. It cheapened the office, damaged the balance of power between the several states and the the federal government, and removed any real possibility that the upper chamber will ever act on any basis other than self interest or power seeking.
“But it seems that if they were left to their own devices, both France and Greece are willing to ignore reality and plunge headfirst into a completely unsustainable socialist model.”
And why shouldn’t they? With the European Union (EU) and the European Central Bank (ECB) always willing to come to the rescue and print more Euros, why wouldn’t they want to keep on spending? We all know that the Greeks have absolutely no possibility of paying back any of their loans, even with the massive bailouts they received. But the Greeks have finally discovered that it doesn’t matter anymore. As long as the EU and the ECB continue printing money and coming to their rescue, who really cares? They may as well be comfortable and ignore what the Germans say. Because now the Germans have one simple question to answer: Is it cheaper for them to keep funding countries like Greece that are terribly in debt, of just let Greece fail and have the EU break up? Evidently, the Germans have made the decision that it’s cheaper to keep Greece on the dole rather than let the EU break up. And if that’s the case, then why should the Greeks pay ANY of their debts back? They may as well be comfortable in their socialist paradise until the money really does run out. But they’ll worry about that later. And with the ECB printing even more money, what do they care how much debt they ring up? Also, if the Greek debt gets too high again, the Greeks will just force their bond holders to take another massive “haircut,” like the one they made them take a few months ago. You see, there is no insentive to save money if you know that there will always be someone there to pay your bills.
And the rest of Europe has learned the same lesson from the Greeks. To heck with “austerity,” just print more money! Pity there are no historians in Europe. Printing too much money didn’t work for the Germans in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and we all know what happened after that. The Europeans are determined to jump off of a financial cliff. The only major question now is, because of globalization, will they take us with them? I think they will. And it’s going to happen sooner than you think.
To heck with “austerity,” just print more money!
But what happens when they run out of ink ? ?
There’s enough blood available…
Do you hear that sound? That sound of pounding feet? That’s the sound of the last dozen or so productive French people packing their bags and getting the hell out of France before the financial apocalypse hits. As far as I’m concerned the sole remaining question about France’s irreversible downfall is, “What will be the modern day equivalent of the guillotine and how many people will it destroy?”
Not a joke. France has nukes!
Interesting but I think France HAD nukes. They tested back in the 60s but may have scrapped or not built any more. The up keep and research to keep the them current does not seem to have been on their agenda. Their armed forces seem to be in deep decline and their defense budget as part of GDP very, very low. Maybe they thought Germany and the EU would protect them so they could spend their money on entitlements. From almost any standpoint France is an irrelevant nation and has been since 1920. They are famous for their pride but whats to be proud of in the modern world. Oh I forgot fashion.
They have four Triomphant Class SSBNs each armed with 16 M45/M51 missiles. They might not have as many live warheads per missile as our Ohio Class SSBNs, nor as many missiles, nor as powerful warheads, but they can still pack a punch.
After the collapse comes the Golden Dawn.
Just like Rene Descartes =cogito, ergo sum. I think therefore I am.Voila!
If one ever needed examples of a people getting the government they deserve, France and Greece are it. It appears Europe is limiting the economic choices to a socialist strategy or a Keynesian strategy, so it would be folly to expect a good outcome. Obama is also limiting the menu of choices – recall that he dismissed the GOP economic recovery plan out of hand on ideological grounds. Yet modeling indicated the GOP plan would have created twice the jobs for half the cost.
I don’t see Keynesian theory and Cloward-Piven strategy as mutually exclusive. I know of no instance where a major recession/depression was ended by Keynesian methods. So, Cloward-Piven is willful creation of economic disaster and Keynesian theory is misguided creation of the same. Whether intentional or incompetent, the end is the same. So, Obama could be using Keynesian methods to meet Cloward-Piven goals.
deep down i believe that obama is essentially a crook and like a smart crook knows where the truly big scores are to be had
by holding our economy in “suspended animation” (great description) obama and his very few chicago cronies can pilfer a trillion dollars and get out of town
as the country flounders
inevitably, being a totalitarian dictator is a lot of work and we know the obamas are not into that (although, as hayek points out, there are many others in the mix who would be glad to represent the worst rising to the top but that is for another day)
Even if low information voters are watching MSNBC a lot their personal experience should inform them that O is trying to harm the country. As his reelection prospects started looking dicey he’s eased up on this strategy a little, but not enough. Bitter Clinger O’s Achilles Heel is that his narcissism made him believe he could get away with anything. But it’s been over for him since well before November 2010.
As Dame Thatcher said, “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Cloward and Piven never really explained what the State would do for revenue to support the flock of dependent sheep once ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and all the productive people stopped producing.
I suppose, like the OWS tool Hannity interviewed last week, they simply don’t know what to replace capitalism with. Hayek said that socialism must necessarily be preceded by capitalism, because you have to have some wealth to redistribute. And speaking of “Atlas Shrugged”, some 300,000 French expats now live in England and the Hollande victory has caused a spike in people looking to leave France.
What university does granny franny spunge off of? What happens when the haves revolt and no longer “contribute” for the well being of the “entitled”?
Everytime the IMF pays out, 17% of it comes out of US taxpayers. Also, in Atlas Shrugged, it took an extended period of crony socialism before enough of the productive “went Galt” and brought the whole thing down. That is the phase we are in right now. Obama and his cohorts are doing just fine, thank you. As for the rest of us who are neither moochers or cronies (the REAL middle class), it really is time to decide where to go to ground or to make a stand, as each of us chooses.
Socialist Policies Result In High Unemployment
(5 May 2012) European residents are paying for the long-term deficit spending by Socialist politicians as they redistributed income / wealth.
In March, the unemployment rates in the 17 Eurozone and 27 European Union (EU) countries were 10.9% and 10.2%, respectively. The rate in Spain was 24.1% and it was 21.7% in Greece (January).
In March, the under-25 unemployment rates in the Eurozone and EU were 22.1% and 22.6%, respectively. The rate in Spain was 51.1% and it was 51.2% in Greece (January). (Source: 2 May 2012 Eurostat)
This past weekend, May 6, 2012 was a vote for OPM (other people’s money)in both France and Greece. Default is just over the horizon. Merkel said she’s not party to this folly. So, enter “Obama Money.” Yep, the IMF will step up to the plate (baseball term, you know)and shell out more “Julia” money. More OPM on the horizon from none other than Mr. Bernanke. QE3? TWIST II? What will he call it now? God Bless America. And all the while Pension Worldwide, Inc. is going belly up. Amen.
Political correctness dictates that they will twist and turn and look everywhere for the solutions to their problems but where it emanates from. They actually know it, but their leaders are addicted to PC and won’t say it or do anything about it.
This is the beginning of the end of the 3 frauds that constitute modern europe:The Euro,the EU,and finally their so called Democracies which represent nothing but dirigiste crony capitalists,union aparatchiks,and progressive libtard scum.Economic collapse, followed by eu(ro) exit,followed by national implosions, civil war,the end of multiculturalism and breakup of nations a la Yugoslavia will follow.Let the patient amputate his gangrenous leg and brain ,and perhaps something resembling pre-68 europe will emerge. If not,good riddance!
Who is John Galt?
The bottom line is that there will be, there must be, default. Once we recognize that the lenders and the beneficiaries are the losers and the promises- Social Security, government pensions, debt repayment, FICA, etc will not be kept, then we may be able to start over. It will hurt, but there really is no other alternative.
The problem is that our Constitution provides us no legal means to officially declare such a jubilee. The only way to implement it is through hyperinflation, which means things are going to have to get nasty before they get better.
Truly things will get much worse before they get better. However, thinking that our children will maintain this charade and carry this yoke is delusional. Hyperinflation may be the backdoor solution, but my bet is default. After GM, default has a precedent especially at the state and local level. Stiff those lousy rich lenders. That’s the trick. They had it coming.
Starting over as any semblance of a free society is not going to happen in the current state of demographics. The hole we are sinking into is much deeper and bloodier than that.
I am not predicting a new civil war or a Mad Max world, but wars throughout the world that will drastically reduce the population. Nukes will be used, hopefully without a full launch by one of the major powers, and bioweapons galore.
Then the survivors will start again.
Scroll down to ‘Military Activities’ –and remember, this is Wiki.
Also remember, these countries are running trade surpluses by and large, have foreign currency reserves, little or no sovereign debt, little or no private debt among the citizens, and are absolutely stuffed with undeveloped –but developing –natural resources.
Also, populations not enthralled with “we wuz robbed!”
Just because our media ignores this story, doesn’t mean there’s no story. It just means the media love Obama and want to downplay the deep well of danger and uncertainty into which we the people are descending.
Zombie, re Nixon, I’m surprised you didn’t mention his doing away with conscription.
Nor his taking us off of the gold standard.
Both the incoming gov’t's have stated they will do away with the austerity measures. There is no cure for stupidity. This is a direct slap in the face of Germany which has hitched its wagon to a bunch of losers in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Greece. Good-bye Eurozone. They are trying desperately to hide the fact they are being slowly transformed into Third World countries but with shiny infrastructure – that won’t last much longer. Peanut butter only goes so far on moldy bread.
Socialism always ends in total economic collapse. As mentioned in various posts above the end game for the PIIGS and the United States will be hyperinflationary collapse and perhaps civil war.
It would explain the increase in the price of gold and the sales of guns and ammo…
Print, Spend, Default, Collapse, Zimbabwe, Change your getting…
I’m not a believer of the Cloward-Piven strategy as one that will work for the left – when has any left wing theory panned out? The actual result of it would result in the collapse of a nation’s currency not the private sector economy. Once the government runs out of the ability to borrow money how can they support their welfare state? With the fact of globalization, productive businesses and people can quickly move to more vibrant states rather than stay in collapsed states like Greece and Spain.
In the long run, Cloward-Piviens brave new world will collapse, for all of the reasons cited. In the short run, the strategy could indeed break the systems of economics and governance that we defend.
Look what Lenin and the Bolsheviks did in Russia; it took more than 70 years for that murderous house of cards to collapse.
I agree with you as long as we don’t have a world government which in the end is the goal of all these Cloward/Piven, Marxist types. Then we have a mess and probably lots of push back from a lot of angles when it fails.
Zombie, you left one important aspect out of your analysis.
Greek voters especially, but also the French, voted against ‘austerity’ because this ‘austerity’ has been and still is being imposed on them by the EU, the ECB and especially by the German government, who who is the main monetary contributor to both EU and to all the many ‘plans’ to rescue Greece from becoming officially bankrupt.
They voted for those politicians who said they’d not let the Eurocrats ride roughshod over them.
The financial turmil, which the Greek have been experiencing is already beyond belief. The French will very soon find themselves in similar dire straits.
Also, it may not be well known in the USA, but a former IMF man was literally imposed by the EU on the Italians when Berlusconi was made to go.
Furthermore, the Director of the EU Bank is a former Goldman Sachs Director.
People in France and Greece and everywhere else see that unelected officials and bureaucrats impose austerity on them, while their politicians and the EU bureaucracy are not exactly drinking water, as they preach, but literally bathe in champagne.
The same, on a local scale happened in the UK on Thursday, where the government party lost seats, the left Labour party won some – but the hugest winner, by 68% were NOTA – None Of The Above, because people here have learned that it doesn’t matter if you vote for or against ‘austerity’: the policies remain the same because the EU Directives and laws strangle every national legislature.
And that is the problem – not Cloward-Piven.
CP i think isn’t limited to just transfer-payment seekers taking more resources than the state structure can provide and yet thrive –it’s the general idea of forcing the operation of a system structure beyond its capacity. In your example the laws and regulations are operating the Rule of Law beyond civil society’s capacity to adhere to it and yet thrive. If its a deliberate stratagem, it’s CP, i’d say. Some analysts have worked out USA’s regulatory compliance costs in the neighborhood of 15% of GDP –if this is direct cost, than real cost, direct and opportunity, that is –would be up around the corporate or top individual income tax rate, viewed as a tax on the economy. Taxation provides goodies, of course, but there is a law of diminishing returns, and it’s a natural law, it applies to a Robin building a nest as well as to a national economic system.
To your point, surely among the tasks of the enormous and well-paid staff at EPA there is someone working out the marginal cost of that last unit of clean air or water? Surely the political goal of the agency is not to improve the environment by destroying the economic system that creates the luxury of even caring about such matters, right?
Because when someone gets hungry he will burn down a redwood forest to catch a squirrel. And that may be as good as any example of the fatal “and then what?” flaw of CP –unless of course it’s conceived in total nihilism and there actually is no intended end state.
Grace – EVERY country in the Eurozone IS insolvent, as is the UNITED STATES. The ONLY real world solvent financial institution in either area is Goldman Sachs ALL the rest are insolvent.
The only alternative to “austerity” is total collapse then a reset. During the reset the net worth of 95-99% of the population will drop to ZERO and stay there as the euro and the US dollar hyperinflate away into Zimbucks, taking your net worth with it.
There are no “easy/cost free” solutions only bad and even worse ones.
That is why…
While the U.S. has been on a socialist tract for 40 years or so, it has been slower and not as deeply imbedded as that of the EU. Not sure how we turn a lot of this around and our elected officials don’t seem to have any desire to close down any of the agencies and departments they have created ala EPA, DOI, DOE, etc. or review legislation that has failed Headstart, tax policy, etc.
Obama made a mad dash for the socialist end zone with the intent of spiking the Cloward Piven ball and high fiving, but not unlike an electrical shock this appears to be too much for a country that still is marginally right of center and hopefully is seeing his marxist driven agenda to take over energy, health, certain manufacturing groups, etc and control them outside the bounds of congress. We have a chance to stop him in November and each day I grow more hopeful that this will happen as his true intentions and the goings on in the EU become more apparent.
I am happy that Piven is still alive to see her lie unfolding and pray each day that she will live long enough to see how insane her theory is and she can witness the suffering, which I suspect concerns her little. And no I don’t think there is anything logical about getting everyone on the dole so that the socialists can takeover and put everyone on the dole. Totally illogical if you ask me, considering that under either strategy there is no way to pay for it if no one is working and everyone is taking. Seems like an insane way to travel to the stone age.
Lenin ran into the same problem, no sooner than he outlawed property rights. Within a year or two of the Bolshevik takeover, he had to resort to compulsory labor laws –at the point of Red Guard bayonets when necessary –in an effort to feed the cities.
Even this didn’t work, so about five years into the regime he passed the “NEP Program” –the ‘new economic program’ –which reintroduced property rights and private markets, tho on a limited scale and still subject to Party whim.
A year after NEP he invaded Georgia and began the system of paying bills by simply seizing capital assets and enslaving the neighbors and other non-muscovite unfortunates. After he died, Stalin took over and his hard-line Communists began dismantling NEP, and soon the problem of feeding the cities returned, and this time it resulted in the deliberate Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-34. Around ten million Ukrainians died rather terribly, and after that the survivors cooperated with Uncle Joe’s “collectivization of agriculture” (confiscation of land and labor) and elimination of the ‘Kulaks’ –private farmers.
Surely Cloward and Piven understood all that –as well as Mao’s great famine of 1958 which starved to death so many millions. And they knew how Castro was doing, as well as how the hundred million East Europeans were doing under their Moscow managers.
It’s really hard to imagine what goes through such minds as professors Cloward and Piven.