Monthly Archives: May 2018

Where Progressives Get Their Name

From Wikipedia: Progress and Poverty

Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy is an 1879 book by social theorist and economist Henry George. It is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust. George uses history and deductive logic to argue for a radical solution focusing on the capture of economic rent from natural resource and land titles.

Progress and Poverty is George’s first book, which sold several million copies, exceeding all other books except the Bible during the 1890s. It helped spark the Progressive Era and a worldwide social reform movement around an ideology now known as ‘Georgism‘. Jacob Riis, for example, explicitly marks the beginning of the Progressive Era awakening as 1879 because of the date of this publication.[1]

The following excerpt represents the crux of George’s argument and view of political economy.[8]

“Take now… some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: “Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?” He will tell you, “No!” “Will the wages of the common labor be any higher…?” He will tell you, “No the wages of common labor will not be any higher…” “What, then, will be higher?” “Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession.” And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse.”

Albert Einstein wrote this about his impression of Progress and Poverty: “Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice. Every line is written as if for our generation.”[30]

In the Classics Club edition forward, John F. Kieran wrote that “no student in that field [economics] should be allowed to speak above a whisper or write above three lines on the general subject until he has read and digested Progress and Poverty.”[31] Kieran also later listed Progress and Poverty as one of his favorite books.[32] Michael Kinsley wrote that it is “the greatest economic treatise ever written.”[33]

After reading selections of Progress and Poverty, Helen Keller wrote of finding “in Henry George’s philosophy a rare beauty and power of inspiration, and a splendid faith in the essential nobility of human nature.”[34] Father Edward McGlynn, one of the most prominent and controversial Catholic priests of the time, was quoted as saying, “That book is the work of a sage, of a seer, of a philosopher, of a poet. It is not merely political philosophy. It is a poem; it is a prophecy; it is a prayer.”[35]

Among many famous people who asserted that it was impossible to refute George on the land question were Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, and Bertrand Russell. Tolstoy and Dewey, especially, dedicated much of their lives to spreading George’s ideas. Tolstoy was preaching about the ideas in Progress and Poverty on his death bed.[36]

San Geronimo Ridge Serpentine Bioblitz- Saturday, June 9, 9am

San Geronimo Ridge Serpentine Bioblitz– Saturday, June 9, 9am
Hosted by Marin County Parks and One Tam
Join Marin County Parks and One Tam at Gary Giacomini Preserve as we try to identify and document every living species we see! Hone your naturalist skills, learn to use the iNaturalist smartphone app, and contribute valuable data about the region’s biodiversity. San Geronimo Ridge has some beautiful serpentine habitats, and you will get an opportunity to learn from local experts about the unique plants and their pollinators!

We will be taking observations in the field from 9 AM to 12:30 PM, and then return to the San Geronimo Valley Community Center to have lunch, upload observations, discuss identifications, and win prizes at a free raffle! This optional afternoon session goes until 3 PM.

Ages, Skills, and What to Bring:
– This bioblitz is recommended for ages 10 and up; anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a supervising adult.
– Closed-toe shoes are required. Bring layers in case of weather changes, and be sure to bring a hat and sunscreen.
– Bring a lunch and water. Snacks will be provided.
– It is recommended that you bring a smartphone with the free iNaturalist app downloaded. Pairing up is also an option, and we will have some tablets for teams to use as well.
– No experience necessary! Training and guidance will be provided.

Meeting location: San Geronimo Valley Community Center, 6350 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.  Park in the Lagunitas School Lot directly behind the Community Center.  We will carpool in park vehicles from the Community Center up to the survey sites.
Contact information: Rosa Schneider, 415-484-3164 or [email protected]
iNaturalist link:  https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/san-geronimo-ridge-bioblitz

Bullshit Jobs

Wow.  Robert didn’t see this when it came out in 2014.  Now he has a book.

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant, David Graeber

To Robert, it seems not quite right, but there is something here which hits a nerve and is correct.  There are what we used to call lower-case J obs.  Which don’t really make their holders feel very good and don’t result in creation of much of anything.  There is also lots of time captured by employers in which employees don’t really do anything at all.  This is all exacerbated by the fact that every worker in the world now has what is essentially a television set on their desk. But Graeber lumps too much together.  Most jobs are not “unnecessary,” regardless of whether they are good jobs.  They would be missed. But not much. For Robert, there seems to be something especially pernicious about jobs in which the primary function of the employee is to organize and move information.  Not create it or anything physical.  This is the 21st century problem. This is the soul-sucking problem that is lurking here.

Excerpt:

“But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning of not even so much of the ‘service’ sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza delivery) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

These are what I propose to call ‘bullshit jobs’.

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.”

https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Miracle Technologies

Top Three Ways that Working Remotely Through the Internet Allows Middle-Aged Men of Leisure to Continue Participating in the Work Force

#3  –  Spares clients the sight of poor dental work and smell of horrendous coffee breath.

#2 – Obscures the existence of deep sun tan resulting from countless hours on the [choose one or more: golf course / tennis court / sail boat]  “Does this guy ever work?”

Drum Roll Please . . .

#1 – No need for expensive hearing aids.  Just turn up the phone volume!

 

 

 

Current Events

You might ask, “Where does Robert find information and analysis about current events of the day?”

The answer is that he is not a news junkie, but he tries to keep up through email subscriptions to various news and opinion sites. He also takes a look at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times every day (although he usually gives up in disgust after reading few few celebrity white male outrage and wardrobe malfunction stories each day).

He tends to like outlets that publish essays by people who are scientists and experts in a field, and people who have actually held jobs with real responsibility. Journalists, not so much.

Here’s some of what shows up in his in-box.

FiveThirtyEight
Vox
Project Syndicate
National Affairs
Foreign Affairs
The Atlantic
Marginal Revolution