Time's Fool

The Occupy movement receded because the crisis receded. The Occupy movement is a reactive social movement ; such movements gather in participants when the public space becomes sufficiently chaotic, when distress increases enough to knock people off their normal apathy-balance point and makes them willing to join together in ways which the apathy of normality does not allow. Furthermore, the organizational kernel of Occupy is not the classic rational-hierarchical model typical in the West. This makes it difficult for the bureaucratic-rational mind to understand. Rather, it is the emergent co-operative/distributive model that has only recently been evolving from the Western counter-cultural reaction against the dominative individualism pervasive in Western culture. Occupy is not dead. It has not failed "to grasp the moment." It is in an "in-breathing phase" of creating connections between activists, establishing a workable culture of consensus/participat...

A Monetary Policy for the 99%: Twelve-Year-Old Reformer Goes Viral

Here's a core of my critique of Libertarianism. At least of some flavors of it, since, had that label not already been appropriated by the free-market crazies, I could accept it as descriptive of my own political theory/stance. At least of part of my stance. Cooperative Libertarianism, perhaps. To speak of “the peninsular individual” is to offer a contrast with “the insular individual.” The latter is separated from others; the former is connected with them via the common substrate of the group. The latter is conceived as independent of others, the former as interdependent, connected, receiving-&-providing from/to others. Human beings are a social animal, unlike bears, for example. More like wolves, we run in packs. Unlike a foal, which can stand on its own four feet as soon as it is born, an infant human is totally dependent upon its mother for years after birth. And the mother can hardly care for the child, can hardly survive herself, without the aid and comfort of...

Try out this idea for size: "Leadership" is a reified concept. That is to say, the idea of leadership is constructed from a variety of behaviors (by presumed leaders) and from a variety of experiences by "followers". However, while the concept as a culturally transmitted idea serves useful purposes, there is in reality no such "thing" as leadership. Think about "leadership functions" or "leader behaviors" instead of about "leadership". Then consider for any particular situation or group or organization what might be the optimal distribution/organization of those functions and behaviors. Do they need to be collected together in a single role/status? Or can they most effectively be distributed among the members of the group/organization?? Our culture leads us (!) to assume that a "leader" is needed, when in fact what is needed is that certain functions be satisfied, certain behaviors performed. Maybe they can be sprea...

While individual memory builds up to collective memory, collective memory frames/limits/facilitates individual memory. The "big picture" is sometimes hard to see, but it can be seen. This is a pretty clear look at the present in the frame of the recent past.

How Wall Street Occupied America | The Nation : "This article is adapted from a speech Bill Moyers gave in October at Public Citizen’s fortieth-anniversary gala.   During the prairie revolt that swept the Great Plains in 1890, populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed, “Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”" 'via Blog this'

(from a "Foundations of The Free Market Economy" course.) It's an economy even if there is no trade! The arrangement of social relations toward the satisfactory provisioning of all the people involved is an economy. In one extreme, if every individual alone were to provide for the satisfaction of all hir (his/her) needs, that would be the "negative" endpoint of the scale. (Negative in the sense that no economy would exist.) At the other extreme, if everything went into a common pool and everyone simply drew out what they needed, that would the other endpoint. (Still, an utterly simple economy.) In fact, most hunting-gathering cultures arranged for some division of labor and some redistribution of the results of that labor, but a redistribution that involved traditional/customary status-based assignment/choice of labor and distribution patterns. E.g., both the male hunters and the female gatherers would, by customary expectation, give some of the fruits of thei...