Public Policy 1
1) West's idea of freedom is radically different from conservatives who define as freedom as not having to pay taxes or regulations for business, or as consumerism. This is a shallow idea of freedom. It also completely overlooks how wealth is created which, according to Karl Marx and Adam Smith, is through the collective efforts of the workforce who create value (wealth) through their labor. This wealth is then appropriated by the capitalist owner who shares a portion of his profits with landlords (paying rent) and bankers (paying interest on debt and paying off debts). Eventually, the banking or finance sector of the economy becomes so rich that it dominates over all the sectors, including manufacturing, but this wealth still ultimately originates in the labor of workers now matter how far removed it gets from its original source. Conservatives are completely blind to how this process works, and thus completely ignorant of how the economy works and always caught off guard when there is a major economic crash, even though Smith is the founder of free-market economics. If you read Smith (and most people do not) Smith is quite clear it is the "division of labor" among workers that is the single most important source of the creation of wealth. Marx would later call the division of labor the "socialization of labor," or how the labor process is divided throughout society each part contributing to the whole which is the creation of wealth on a large scale.
Conservatives like the Koch brothers who fund the Republican Party, claim they are against things like the war on drugs and foreign interventions, yet they support (and pretty much own) the Republican Party who support these things. So it is clear, when given the choice between low taxes and keeping the war on drugs, or higher taxes and ending the war on drugs, they choose low taxes (and the drug war) every time. The Koch brothers are however, not a part of the "religious right" in this country. The religious right are even more repressive in their social and political views. West sees freedom in a much deeper sense. For West, freedom means freedom from fear, from inhibitions, from the fear of death, etc. West mentions that most people are afraid of freedom. What does he mean by this? Here, West is drawing from the Russian novelist Dostoevsky, specifically his novel The Brothers Karamazov." West also makes several references to the Russian playwright Chekov.
Freedom also means what he calls "self-determining", meaning people who determine their own course of action, they think for themselves, cut against the grain, and do not follow the crowd. This is different from conservative ideas of freedom which means again not paying taxes, or from ideas that America represents freedom in the world, shared by liberals and conservatives alike. The reality is the US has a horrible track record of supporting brutal dictatorships in the world and its own record of imperialist interventions which have claimed the lives of tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. In other words, freedom is an often used term but most of the time it is empty, hypocritical, and disingenuous, that is why it is important to hold on to a meaning of the term that is authentic. Ultimately, freedom is always defined in historical terms, but West's meaning of the term comes out of a specific historical context of struggle against oppression.
2) West's idea of freedom comes from his background in the arts and humanities, whether it be comedy, music, literature, history, religion, philosophy, all of which are on display in this interview. West embodies this kind of education, and shows the value of it. West himself says that artists are the "vanguard of the species," and that musicians, like John Coltrane, are the vanguard of artists. The vanguard (or advanced guard) means the most advanced members of the species, those who lead the way so that others may follow. In his view, artists are more than just entertainers but illustrate important truths, connect us to our humanity and provide a voice for the oppressed. At the same time, West is not a super-hero, but like everyone a product of their upbringing and education. Most people go to college trying to get a degree so they can get a decent job, and tend to dismiss this kind of education, often known as the "liberal arts," like the arts, literature, history, philosophy, and other subjects in favor of more technical and specialized disciplines. Obviously, the hard sciences like biology, chemistry, physics, and applied disciplines like engineering are critically important in a modern society. However, studies have shown that many employers are not that concerned with what a a person's degree is, as long as they have a degree. All things being equal, people might want to consider a liberal arts education, as you might actually enjoy some of your college classes if you do not enjoy math and science, in other words if you are not a "numbers person." That depends on a lot of things, obviously who you are, what your interests are, etc. In this public policy class, we will make use of technical knowledge: statistics, graphs and charts, and things like that, but as I have said we will also try to put things in historical context, since the past dictates the present in many ways.
2) West's idea of freedom comes from his background in the arts and humanities, whether it be comedy, music, literature, history, religion, philosophy, all of which are on display in this interview. West embodies this kind of education, and shows the value of it. West himself says that artists are the "vanguard of the species," and that musicians, like John Coltrane, are the vanguard of artists. The vanguard (or advanced guard) means the most advanced members of the species, those who lead the way so that others may follow. In his view, artists are more than just entertainers but illustrate important truths, connect us to our humanity and provide a voice for the oppressed. At the same time, West is not a super-hero, but like everyone a product of their upbringing and education. Most people go to college trying to get a degree so they can get a decent job, and tend to dismiss this kind of education, often known as the "liberal arts," like the arts, literature, history, philosophy, and other subjects in favor of more technical and specialized disciplines. Obviously, the hard sciences like biology, chemistry, physics, and applied disciplines like engineering are critically important in a modern society. However, studies have shown that many employers are not that concerned with what a a person's degree is, as long as they have a degree. All things being equal, people might want to consider a liberal arts education, as you might actually enjoy some of your college classes if you do not enjoy math and science, in other words if you are not a "numbers person." That depends on a lot of things, obviously who you are, what your interests are, etc. In this public policy class, we will make use of technical knowledge: statistics, graphs and charts, and things like that, but as I have said we will also try to put things in historical context, since the past dictates the present in many ways.
Another important point West makes in this regard is that African Americans' artistic achievements played a big role in shattering the myth of white supremacy, along with professional sports as well. West considers the comedian Richard Pryor, and the athlete Muhammad Ali, to be "the freest black men of the 20th century." He also spends a lot of time talking about W.E.B. Dubois who West considers the most thinker of the 20th century.
3) Also relevant for public policy is the question of democratic socialism. West often says "socialism is as American as apple pie." West argues against the idea that socialism is some foreign thing from the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, but is actually something deeply embedded, or a deep part of the foundation of American culture and politics. Democratic socialism can be understood simply as democratic control over the economy, like what gets produced, and how you divide up the wealth. Over the last 40 years, income inequality has grown significantly worse, in fact the worst in the industrialized world, and the lowest life expectancy as well, and many more problems. The economists Thomas Piketty and Immanuel Saez have shown how inequality has grown since the 1980s by looking at the concentration of income among the top 10 percent. Inequality today resembles the massive inequalities that existed in the early 20th century, but was actually much lower in the middle part of the century. Simply put, democracy is not compatible with such high levels of economic inequality and the current fragility of American democracy attests to this:
West gives many examples of American socialists, but probably none better than Martin Luther King Jr. who learned how to organize from socialists like A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, both members of the Socialist Party. King, especially, in his last years, became much more radical, speaking out against the capitalist system, which exploits people of all backgrounds, and spoke out against the Vietnam War. In fact, King was killed exactly one year to the day he gave his most well known anti-war speech. In King's writings, like "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he makes as many references to Socrates, the famed Greek philosopher and teacher of Plato, as he does to Christian theologians like Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, showing a similar educational background to West.
4) West argues you cannot talk about racism without talking about capitalism. You cannot talk about racism without talking about colonialism, colonial conquest of indigenous peoples, slavery, the slave trade, all of which played a foundational role in the development of capitalism. Going back to the previous point about communism, people often point to the millions of people who died during the Soviet Union and China. That is true, but what about the body count for democratic capitalism? How many people do you think died for the British empire's colonial and imperial expansion in the 19th century? The British used to claim "the sun never sets on the British empire" (a similar line is used in the Black Panther movie by Killmonger that fits with the character's ideology, basically "fight fire with fire"). For the British, the empire had expanded across the globe, most notably India, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, Canada, Australia, Burma, Singapore, and many other places. Again, that is true, but do you think the people they colonized welcomed them in? What about the Spanish empire's genocide of Native Americans (led by among others Columbus), a project continued by the US afterwards. All of these colonial empires introduced slavery as well, something also continued by the US. Or how many people do you think the US military has killed just since the end of World War II? 3 million in the Korean War, another 3 million in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, another 2-3 million as a result of our (ongoing) 20 year war in the Middle East. Of course, you could look back to WWII as well (arguably the last justifiable war the US has fought) and consider we are the only country to ever use nuclear weapons on another country. The point is that there has never been a country that has made the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society without massive human sacrifice, so much that it is hard to even contemplate. That's not to say either that under the modern capitalist system there is not continuous human sacrifice still being made, there is.
3) Also relevant for public policy is the question of democratic socialism. West often says "socialism is as American as apple pie." West argues against the idea that socialism is some foreign thing from the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, but is actually something deeply embedded, or a deep part of the foundation of American culture and politics. Democratic socialism can be understood simply as democratic control over the economy, like what gets produced, and how you divide up the wealth. Over the last 40 years, income inequality has grown significantly worse, in fact the worst in the industrialized world, and the lowest life expectancy as well, and many more problems. The economists Thomas Piketty and Immanuel Saez have shown how inequality has grown since the 1980s by looking at the concentration of income among the top 10 percent. Inequality today resembles the massive inequalities that existed in the early 20th century, but was actually much lower in the middle part of the century. Simply put, democracy is not compatible with such high levels of economic inequality and the current fragility of American democracy attests to this:
West gives many examples of American socialists, but probably none better than Martin Luther King Jr. who learned how to organize from socialists like A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, both members of the Socialist Party. King, especially, in his last years, became much more radical, speaking out against the capitalist system, which exploits people of all backgrounds, and spoke out against the Vietnam War. In fact, King was killed exactly one year to the day he gave his most well known anti-war speech. In King's writings, like "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he makes as many references to Socrates, the famed Greek philosopher and teacher of Plato, as he does to Christian theologians like Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, showing a similar educational background to West.
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| Notice the sign that says Poor People's Campaign 1968 on top |
As the capitalist system develops it replaces economies based on the exploitation of slave labor with exploitation of wage labor, or paying a wage in exchange for labor. Besides creating a volatile economic system that leads to frequent crashes and recessions and increasing inequality overall, the capitalist system based on wage labor turns everything into a commodity, including people. A commodity is simply an object exchanged on a market in order to make a profit. We can see this clearly with the slave trade, which reduced people to objects sold in a market, and used unpaid slave labor to create immense wealth. Racist ideologies, or beliefs, help rationalize slavery and colonial conquest, which also used religion as a justification early on. Again, capitalism turns everything into a commodity: education, healthcare, housing, food, art, news, etc. All these things are reduced to objects produced and exchanged in order to make a profit. Even today, this goes on with immigration. What value does the capitalist see in an immigrant? As a source of cheap labor, nothing more.
According to Marx, the profits generated by the capitalist system are created by the workers, who through their labor create value that is then appropriated, or taken by the capitalist. In exchange for their labor, workers are paid a wage, but crucially the amount they receive in wages will always be less than the value of what they produce. This is what Marx called "the secret of capitalism." The difference between the value of what they produce and the wages they receive is called "surplus value," and this is where profits come from. To use just one example, imagine you own a hamburger stand, you spend $1000 on ingredients and you hire someone to make hamburgers. At the end of the month you made $3000. Minus the cost of ingredients you profited $2000, but how is that $2000 divided up? The owner gets to decide how much he keeps and how much he pays the worker, but according to Marx the $2000 was created by the labor of the worker so they should keep all of it. This is explained probably much better by the economist Richard Wolff who I took this example from.
In today's world we can see this very obviously in the outsourcing of production to poorer countries where workers are paid less, but still produce valuable commodities. Outsourcing has allowed multi-national corporations to make vastly larger profits than has ever been seen in previous eras. Of course, one can argue the capitalist invests their money into production so they have a right to it. They use money to purchase raw materials and hire workers. But, where does the money come from in the first place? If, as Marx says, it comes from the (past) surplus appropriated from workers, then they really do not have a right to it since it was created by the labor of the workers. The capitalist then uses the surplus to finance future production, but it does not change the fact that this surplus originated in the labor of workers. If you want to go back even further to the origins of capitalism then it gets even uglier, and you have to talk about slavery, colonialism and imperialism, and other more direct and brutal forms of exploitation.
Most people already understand, to some extent, the connections between racism and capitalism. However, there are attempts by certain institutions like the press and academic researchers, like The New York Times, to attempt to talk about racism in a way that obscures the importance of capitalism. This is the charge made by the World Socialist Website, against the recent "1619 Project." They recently interviewed several historians about this, the links to the articles are here. I would recommend especially the interviews by Adolph Reed Jr., Victoria Bynum, Gordon Wood, and James Oakes. Of course, The New York Times is the same institution (with many others) that was pushing the "Russiagate" narrative that Russian interference is what caused Hillary Clinton to lose the 2016 election, and pushing the Weapons of Mass Destruction, or WMDs lie, in 2003 leading up to the invasion of Iraq. In 2018, a podcast hosted by The New York Times called "Caliphate" was exposed as false after the central figure of the podcast, Abu Huzaifa al-Kanadi, was shown to have lied about committing terrorist acts for ISIL. So, the track record of The New York Times is pretty embarrassing for a paper that is supposed to be the most important newspaper in the US. One of West's friends is the journalist Chris Hedges, a former NYT reporter, who was about to be fired by the paper for speaking out against the Iraq war in 2003 but he quit before they had a chance.
Separating racism from capitalism is more than just a mistake, but a deliberate attempt to give people a false historical narrative that conceals the history of economic exploitation that continues in the present. Obviously, race and class are interconnected, especially in this country, but it is still true that class antagonisms are concealed or glossed over in the way most media institutions (and educational institutions as well) talk about race and gender. This fundamentally limits our ability to create effective policies, or even to talk about the underlying issues that policies are meant to serve.
5) West also refers several times to the United States as an empire in decline, or even decay. There are two controversial statements here: one, simply calling the US an empire will offend certain people (even if it is pretty obvious), and not just calling it an empire, but an empire in decline as well. How do we know the US is an empire? An empire controls not only its own territory but controls other countries as well. Does the US control, or at least have great influence over other countries? Of course it does, it is obvious. How do you know it is decline? That is tougher to say for certain, but there are indications. The US had a very dominant economic position after World War II, that although still large has strong competition from countries like China, Japan, Germany, none of which were in a position to compete with the US in 1945. Historically speaking, most empires in decline tend to become very militaristic, and often fight wars, as they come to rely more on military might, then economic or even cultural influence to exercise power over other states. Many aspects in American history stand out like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, propping up dictatorships, endless wars in the Middle East, the lies over WMDs, NSA surveillance, drone strikes, the "war on whistleblowers," and unfortunately many other more recent events that speak to a declining empire, abusing power and authority, with diminishing results every time.
These are important considerations for public policy. Under the conditions depicted by West, it is basically impossible for the policy process to function properly. Here again is the graph I posted last class. This presumes a kind of rational structure to the policymaking process, but in reality this process is highly dysfunctional:
In such an environment, the agenda setting which begins the policy process is corrupted, while all political institutions are controlled by economic elites (legislatures, courts, bureaucracies, and political parties). These elites set the agenda of what issues are important, and how we talk about these issues, while the role of the public is minimized to the point it barely registers among politicians, who of course are dependent on these elites for financing their campaigns, and tend to run in the same social circles. I already mentioned this article combining together many different public opinion polls, showing most Americans tend to be very liberal, even socialist, on most issues. However, this also demonstrates a massive gap between public opinion and public policy.
The media, or public sphere, where private citizens meet to discuss public issues, are also taken over. News becomes another commodity traded on the market, and is shaped more by what gains the most viewers, the most clicks, or the most subscriptions, rather than the critical analysis of power which is supposed to define the purpose of journalism.
Other institutions that are supposed to represent the broader public, like labor unions have also been compromised. Recent events like the General Motors, and various teachers' strikes have seen regular union members, not leadership, taking the lead in these strikes, with the leaders often undermining the strike efforts and settling for hollow concessions. The historian and sociologist Frances Fox Piven noted a similar pattern in the US strikes of the 1930s, and also similar to the French strikes in 1968, or since 2018.
Before going deeper in the role of various political institutions it is important to further stress the importance of ideas, or agenda setting in public policy. Although, the mainstream view is public policy is created by bureaucrats who are impartial experts in their field, the reality, of course, is bureaucrats make up a social class just as much as capitalists and workers do, and in most cases serve the interests of capital. Besides, this the dominant cultural values, or ideas, of a society also shape the way policy is made. Before going deeper into specific areas of public policy we will explore more how ideas affect policy as well as ways we can try to understand this process.
Next class, we will talk more about the importance of ideas in public policy. For the second assignment, choose a quote from the first chapter of the book, "Introduction", by Béland and Cox, Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, on Blackboard.
5) West also refers several times to the United States as an empire in decline, or even decay. There are two controversial statements here: one, simply calling the US an empire will offend certain people (even if it is pretty obvious), and not just calling it an empire, but an empire in decline as well. How do we know the US is an empire? An empire controls not only its own territory but controls other countries as well. Does the US control, or at least have great influence over other countries? Of course it does, it is obvious. How do you know it is decline? That is tougher to say for certain, but there are indications. The US had a very dominant economic position after World War II, that although still large has strong competition from countries like China, Japan, Germany, none of which were in a position to compete with the US in 1945. Historically speaking, most empires in decline tend to become very militaristic, and often fight wars, as they come to rely more on military might, then economic or even cultural influence to exercise power over other states. Many aspects in American history stand out like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, propping up dictatorships, endless wars in the Middle East, the lies over WMDs, NSA surveillance, drone strikes, the "war on whistleblowers," and unfortunately many other more recent events that speak to a declining empire, abusing power and authority, with diminishing results every time.
These are important considerations for public policy. Under the conditions depicted by West, it is basically impossible for the policy process to function properly. Here again is the graph I posted last class. This presumes a kind of rational structure to the policymaking process, but in reality this process is highly dysfunctional:
In such an environment, the agenda setting which begins the policy process is corrupted, while all political institutions are controlled by economic elites (legislatures, courts, bureaucracies, and political parties). These elites set the agenda of what issues are important, and how we talk about these issues, while the role of the public is minimized to the point it barely registers among politicians, who of course are dependent on these elites for financing their campaigns, and tend to run in the same social circles. I already mentioned this article combining together many different public opinion polls, showing most Americans tend to be very liberal, even socialist, on most issues. However, this also demonstrates a massive gap between public opinion and public policy.
The media, or public sphere, where private citizens meet to discuss public issues, are also taken over. News becomes another commodity traded on the market, and is shaped more by what gains the most viewers, the most clicks, or the most subscriptions, rather than the critical analysis of power which is supposed to define the purpose of journalism.
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| A more complex model |
Other institutions that are supposed to represent the broader public, like labor unions have also been compromised. Recent events like the General Motors, and various teachers' strikes have seen regular union members, not leadership, taking the lead in these strikes, with the leaders often undermining the strike efforts and settling for hollow concessions. The historian and sociologist Frances Fox Piven noted a similar pattern in the US strikes of the 1930s, and also similar to the French strikes in 1968, or since 2018.
Before going deeper in the role of various political institutions it is important to further stress the importance of ideas, or agenda setting in public policy. Although, the mainstream view is public policy is created by bureaucrats who are impartial experts in their field, the reality, of course, is bureaucrats make up a social class just as much as capitalists and workers do, and in most cases serve the interests of capital. Besides, this the dominant cultural values, or ideas, of a society also shape the way policy is made. Before going deeper into specific areas of public policy we will explore more how ideas affect policy as well as ways we can try to understand this process.
Next class, we will talk more about the importance of ideas in public policy. For the second assignment, choose a quote from the first chapter of the book, "Introduction", by Béland and Cox, Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, on Blackboard.
My blog from last class focused on problem definition and how competing arguments are reduced down to problem definition. I think West's perspective is interesting because he says " people are well -adjusted to injustice". There is usually little outrage when the voice of corporate elites outweighs the role of the public. This stipulated that the problem definitions will always be corrupted like public policy which you discuss in the 5th major theme of West's interview. This being the case, are outrage and activism the only things that can change problem definition to put public policy in favor of the public?
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