As my regular readers know, I like Chris Hayes. He’s smart. He’s knowledgeable. And he’s cute as a button. If I had a son, I’d want him to be just like Chris Hayes, even though I know he would be much more like Ezra Klein. I was really looking forward to his new book, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy. Alas, it was a disappointment.

I think that Hayes is fundamentally misreading the history of our country. There haven’t been more failures over the last 30 years because the elites are worse than they used to be. Rather, in the past, we had elites on the left and the right. As long as that was the case, they kept each other in check. But since Carter (and especially since Clinton) the left has largely joined with the right.

Hayes is part of this problem. In the final (and best) chapter, he talks about how the anger on both the right and the left can be harnessed to fix our political problems. But I think this passage is very telling:

Hayes, and I dare say most of the staff at The Nation and MSNBC, has a skewed sense of what “upper middle class” means. I think in terms of quintiles—and so does Hayes. The bottom 20% are the upper class; the next are the lower middle class; the next are the middle class; the next are the upper middle class; and the last are the upper class. It doesn’t matter to me how you want to subdivide that last category, if you are in it, you are upper class. It makes no difference that even Bill Gates has problems admitting that he is rich, if you are in the top 20%, you are upper class. This means if your household income is over roughly $90,000 per years you are upper class. I’m sorry if this puts editors at large at The Nation into that category. Yes, Chris, you are upper class, and until you admit to this, you won’t be able to remove the very real blinders of your class.

The other thing that has happened recently is that people like Hayes have accepted the idea that we are a meritocracy. We are not. We never have been. The idea that we can create a society in which there is equality of opportunity is as absurd as the idea that we can create a society in which there is equality of outcomes. The dumb child of a rich man will almost always do better than the smart child of a poor man—at least as long as we have an economic system that looks anything like the one we now have.

This always reminds of Tevye in Fidler on the Roof singing “If I Were a Rich Man.”[1] He notes that all the men of the villiage would come to him for advice. Why? “‘Cause when you’re rich they think you really know!” And even though Hayes admits that many of the elite should be traded in for new models, he still holds onto this idea that the elites were and could be again the “best and brightest.” It is a shockingly naive, and self-indulgent, belief—very much like the rich and famous who discover libertarianism because it tells them just what they want to believe about themselves: that handsome devil in the mirror is the best!

Despite all of this, Twilight of the Elites is a well written and thoughtful book. If you can get past its basic assumptions, there is much to like. The biggest of these is Hayes’ solution that we must strive for both equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. I don’t tend to favor middle-way solutions, but this one strikes me as rather good. Unfortunately, it is about as likely to be implemented in the United States as is socialism. I won’t be holding my breath, nor will I be expecting an intellectual awaking from the Tea Party.[2]

Update (24 June 2012)

I really like this quote from the first chapter of the book:

Indeed.

[1] The song by the master, Zero Mostel :

[2] Hayes has a strange believe that the Tea Party folk are starting to wake up to the dangers big business pose to personal liberty. I think this too is extremely naive. We really need to look at the psychology that drives people. There is a reason that people would watch passively while hundreds of billions of dollars were given to the banks, but who organized the moment a black president tried to give healthcare to poor people. That shows this is not that they are unhappy about elite failure.

Last week I read Ha-Joon Chang’s exceptional 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. Frankly, I’m smitten with Chang. Andrea claims I have some kind of man-crush on Paul Krugman. There is no doubt that I am very impressed by this ability to make economics[1] understandable, his insightful explanations of what is going on now, and his breezy writing style. But he is distinctly more conservative than I am. What’s more, he is more in the mainstream of economics and more committed to a lot of its questionable paradigms. Chang is different.

As the title of this book indicates, he discusses 23 myths of economics—free market economics, to be specific. Everyone should read this book, especially conservatives. I have a feeling that most conservatives would find the book compelling, because it shows that a lot of the “free market” rhetoric that is taken for granted on both the right and left in this country is nothing more than mythology. It will provoke that great conservative question, “You mean they’ve been lying to me all these years?!”

In the first chapter Chang takes on the very idea of a free market. He also discusses a repugnant attitude that we see among free market economists that they are just following the facts:

Later as an example showing that people in rich countries are overpaid relative to people in poor countries, he presents bus drivers in Sweden and India. The Swedish bus driver makes 50 times as much as the Indian, but most likely the Indian is actually a better driver given the poor roads and unexpected obstacles like cows. Regardless, who could believe the Swedish bus driver is really 50 times as productive as the Indian?

He goes on to quote Warren Buffet:

Chang especially hates this idea that we live in an information or post-industrial world. Here he provides the example of Switzerland:

One issue close to my heart is this idea that the United States is the richest country in the world. We’re number one! We’re number one! These are the cries of a dying empire. But Chang notes that a big part of this perception outside the United States has to do with our inequality:

What is most impressive about 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism is that Chang goes after all of the counter arguments. Many times while I read it I thought, “Yeah, but…” And the next thing in the book would be an argument that destroyed that counter argument. The book is also highly readable. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Here are the 23 Things:

1. There is no such thing as a free market
2. Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners
3. Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be
4. The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has
5. Assume the worst about people and you get the worst
6. Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable
7. Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich
8. Capital has a nationality
9. We do not live in a post-industrial age
10. The US does not have the highest living standard in the world
11. Africa is not destined for underdevelopment
12. Governments can pick winners
13. Making rich people richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer
14. US managers are over-priced
15. People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries
16. We are not smart enough to leave things to the market
17. More education in itself is not going to make a country richer
18. What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the United States
19. Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies
20. Equality of opportunity may not be fair
21. Big government makes people more open to change
22. Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient
23. Good economic policy does not require good economists

[1] Economics makes my brain hurt:

[2] This short speech from The Third Man apparently was written by Welles himself instead of Graham Greene. Similarly, in Jaws, the best speech was written by Robert Shaw. You can watch it on YouTube.

Brad Plumer over at WonkBlog is writing about activists calling for an end to the $775 billion per year spent to subsidize the oil, gas, and coal industries. In the United States alone, it is over $11 billion per year. It really is shocking, because these industries are hugely profitable.

Contrast this with the conservative freak out over a half billion dollars lost on the investment in Solyndra. Leaving aside the fact that the government is supposed to invest in risky industries that aren’t well supported by the private sector, the amount of money is tiny compared to what we give to rich fossil-fuel companies. Subsidies for nuclear power are similarly huge.

As Corey Robin has written about, conservatives are really only interested in maintaining power structures. So it isn’t that they are against subsidies; they are against subsidies to companies that might upset the interests of those currently in power. Once solar is a hugely profitable, hegemonic industry, conservatives won’t mind showering them with many billions of dollars every year.

There were several things that I was going to write today, but it is too darn hot.[1] So I’m going to just quickly note that Colin Powell is on a book tour hocking what looks to be a real POS, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership.

On The Daily Show he said the book can be summed up by the first and last of his “13 rules” of leadership. (Like all that leadership he showed at the UN.) Rather than quote these rules (which would be tiresome), I will just boil them down to their essence: have a positive attitude! So now you don’t have to buy this $27.99 waste of paper. First, now you know what’s in the book. Second, now you know that what’s in the book is not true.

To take this in a different direction, people are often told that having a positive attitude will help them beat cancer. This is not only untrue, it is cruel. Similarly, if you keep losing 10% of your troops in every battle, no amount of cheer leading is going to bring morale up.

Why is it that people with nothing to say continue to get million dollar advances to say it? And Powell didn’t even write it. The book was written by hired gun Tony Koltz who is well known for the other books he wrote that were “written” by famous people.

Colin Powell shows that you don’t have to be good to have a good reputation. All you have to do is surround yourself with people who are worse than you. Using this simple rule, which I’m sure is not in It Worked for Me, you will always be loved. Colin Powell: the other evil politician!

[1] Kiss Me Kate:

I was talking to Will this morning and he asked how I was going to vote Prop. 29, the California cigarette tax. I told him that I thought it was a good idea. He countered that he didn’t like the idea of making smokers, who are generally poor in more than one way, pay this tax. If he could tax the cigarette companies, he would feel much better about it.

The fact is that the cigarette tax is going to be approved overwhelmingly. But Will was still struggling with the right way to vote on it. He isn’t alone. Most people I talk to take voting very seriously. They don’t consider what the polls say. For most people—and this includes most devoutly religious people—voting is the most sacred act they perform.

We should at least have a system where people are compelled to register to vote, like they have in New Zealand. Or a system where people are automatically registered to vote, like they have in Finland.[1] In fact, I am for compulsory voting, like they have long had in Australia. And just in case there are any libertarians out there, this is not a question of freedom. Citizenship implies certain responsibilities and if voting is not one, the concept has no meaning.

Not to mention that we cannot win if we do not play.[2]

So to all those people who take their citizenship seriously today, I salute you. Vive la république!

Update

I was wrong. The cigarette tax went down. Vive la corporation! So neither of the ballot measures went the way I wanted. Typical.

[1] Finland, Finland, Finland! The country where I want to be!

[2] Here is Little Stevie Orbit:

This morning, Will sent me two stories from the Press Democrat that are revealing. Sunday, we have A flurry of flipping. It tells a glowing story of Blue Mountain Realty:

And then on Monday, we have Funding for affordable housing dries up:

You would think that the loss of $1 billion dollars in yearly funding would be a bigger story than some vulture capitalist spending $15 million total to flip properties. And maybe it is. But the house flipping story was twice as long as the affordable housing story. But you know how it is: poor people are so depressing. And rich people are fun.

The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. And anyone who notes this fact is engaged in class warfare.

[1] Note how the amount of money Blue Mountain Realty has spent is just a fact. You can trust a company! But money for affordable housing may or may not be drying up. Proponents say it is. But you can’t trust these do-gooders. What’s more, they don’t deserve the time it takes to research the claim.

I don’t know where exactly I saw it, but there was a headline that read, “KISS Wants to Hire Vet.”[1] My reaction was immediate. I thought, “Interesting. The most clownish band has decided to become even more ridiculous by having animals in their stage show.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong. KISS just wanted to hire a roadie who they wanted to be a military veteran. Well, that’s not quite right. They wanted to get publicity by claiming to be good Americans by giving what is effectively lip services to the “support our troops” meme.

In the end, KISS didn’t hire a veteran. They hired a military retiree. There are a lot of veterans who are truly unemployed. KISS chose not to hire one.

[1] There are lots with this headline. Here is CBS affiliate WHP-TV.

This is great.

In this country, I’ve noticed that people who disagree with Paul Krugman tend to simply ignore his arguments and call him crazy. Last night, he was on the BBC’s Newnight, debating vulture capitalist Jon Moulton and conservative MP Andrea Leadsom. The two came out swinging and got bloodied. Leadsom claimed that Krugman’s view was “reckless.”

The daring duo presented the same old discredited arguments we’ve heard before. Leadsom: we have to cut our way to prosperity! Krugman: we aren’t a household; your spending is my income. Moulton: our government is too big! Krugman: larger governments are doing better; you just want to use the crisis to enact policy you’ve always be in favor of.

Watch it, it’s great:

I like the tired conservative line that everyone will start their own businesses. And the idea that people aren’t starting businesses because of all the regulations? If people want to start a business they will do it the time honored way: illegally.

It is nice to see these fucktards put in their places. Of course, they’ve learned nothing. If all the evidence from Europe hasn’t convinced them then nothing will. Besides, there is the Upton Sinclair Dictum: it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

The Austerity Agenda

In Krugman’s column tomorrow, he writes:

Yep.

Jim Lo Scalzo spent last summer in Southwestern Virginia taking pictures of the resurgent Klu Klux Klan. Before we get to the great article he wrote for Bag News, I feel I must tell you that I had no idea the Klan outfits were so beautiful. They are really gorgeous. If they would embrace their inner gayness, I think they might get over all that hate.

Scalzo noticed something in his discussions with Klan members: they often surprised him.

For example, one wrote to him about visiting the Rosa Parks museum in Alabama. According to this guy who hates blacks, it was great and shouldn’t be missed. (Remember this: the Rosa Parks Museum is a “must see” if you are in Alabama. If a bigot doesn’t know, who does?)

When it comes to economic justice, the Klan members tend toward the liberal. This isn’t exactly surprising. I think the vast majority of Republicans would sound very liberal if you got them off the subject of “all my tax dollars going to undeserving minorities.”

Scalzo write:

Klu Klux Klan for Obama, 2012. When you start seeing the bumper stickers, remember you read it here first.

I always look forward to Fridays, for many reasons, but especially because Eric Alterman releases his blog post that day where he also has at least one of his own articles and one by Reed Richardson. Last week, I clicked over to The Nation where Alterman keeps his blog, Altercation, and… Nothing! I knew he wasn’t gone for good; he’s an institution: a liberal curmudgeon—and so precocious! He just published The Cuase: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama,[1] which I have, but haven’t gotten to because I am too busy devouring Michelle Alexander’s important The New Jim Crow and I got sidetracked reading some policy candy that I promised myself I wouldn’t read: Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now!

So I figured that maybe Alterman took the week off. This did not stop me, however, from clicking to The Nation on Saturday morning, only to find his new page was up. I was so giddy that I sent off the following missive that he published this week:

Alterman appears to like my sense of humor, because this is the second cheeky letter of mine he’s published this year. Or it could be that I’m the only one who writes to him. I like this approach to commenting on written works. The standard method in the blogosphere of everyone with an opinion piling on strikes me as largely a waste of time. The few good comments are overwhelmed in a sea of trash. I would rather go back to the old magazine model where only the few letters deemed worth while are published so that a reasonable number of people would actually take the time to read them. I understand that there is a strong narcissistic aspect to commenting (or writing) in any way. But in the new model, it seems worse because it is so much more useless.

[1] The book is co-written with Kevin Mattson. According to Eric Alterman, Mattson wrote the first draft and Alterman greatly expanded it and wrote every word in this version. My question: why when Alterman does this, he’s the first author in a larger font and when I do it, I’m handed a bit of cash and told to disappear?