Last time I wrote here we were all still back in 2008... I wrote a bit about the financial crisis, and gave my "cultural" take, since that's what this blog is all about: cultural insights. In particular, though, it's about cross-cultural ideas and insights, and I think that it's time for one more brief comment on the subject of the current financial crisis from this perspective.
We are in 2009 now, and the news is still bad. But one gets very different opinions depending on what one reads or whom one talks to. I've heard everything from "complete collapse of the current economic system" to "another Great Depression" to "just another 1970's-style recession". I am not an economist, and I couldn't tell you. Even the economists are telling us different things; it depends simply on which one you want to listen to.
What's this got to do with culture? Well, the different opinions on the nature of the current financial situation depend, it seems, on what I call "personal culture". Each person has their own unique culture depending on their upbringing, ethnicity, gender, and so on. But more importantly, their "personal culture" is shaped largely by what each person wants to see, or, if you want to get philosophical about it, what kind of reality they are projecting.
But economics, no matter how subject to interpretation, is going to have a hard, tangible manifestation. And I'd like to know what that manifestation is going to look like...
22 February 2009
21 November 2008
Back Just in Time... For the Decline
It’s been a while since my last posting here at HinterNet... frankly, the pace of domestic (that is, U.S.) and world events have outpaced one’s ability to write intelligently about them. Of course, there has been intelligent writing about everything from the recent elections in the United States to the mess that has come to define the Democratic Republic of Congo. But things are happening too fast to make a lot of cogent predictions or analysis as a whole, perhaps.
But I hope that I’ve come back to this blog just in time... to witness the decline of the world as we know it.
The media tends to embrace if not promote the unsettled, the uncertain, the tragic. This shades one’s analysis and predictions towards the pessimistic. But it is also hard not to be have a very negative view these days, particularly if that view is from the U.S., where this blogger is currently based. Obama’s victory in the U.S. elections may not mean that much in the long perspective — he’s got a lot of problems to deal with right off the bat, and as he himself noted in his victory speech:
“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term...”
In other words, don’t expect a miracle. Problems such as the current economic crisis are not “solvable” through the policies of one president, perhaps not even one government. The complexity of the economic crisis, in fact, may elude any “policy-driven” solutions at all.
Which brings us to our topic for today: the economic situation. There’s a lot of talk about “fixing” the economy. There’s also been talk about declines in “growth”. But a detached observer might note (as others have in the past) that constant growth in any system — economic or otherwise — is unrealistic.
But wait, you say — this blog is supposed to be about business and culture! Well, yes, and the current crisis is actually one of culture, not economics. Despite what you may have read in your economics textbook, the “dismal science” is not necessarily based on some kind of eternal “natural law”. Sure, the desire for profit may seem like a basic part of our human makeup. But as the social critic and commentator Alex Schein has noted, no other animal beside the human would amass more than it could sanely consume. That is, tigers eat deer and will hunt deer down for their next meal — but they won’t make a pile of deer carcasses that’s the bigger than their neighbors. Only humans seem to feel the need to have the biggest house on the block, the most cars, the largest collection of shoes. The economics of unbridled acquisitiveness is unnatural.
Again, we have been living in an age of unnatural accumulation of wealth — and there is virtually nothing like that kind of extreme accumulative activity in the natural world. The current economic crisis stems partly from this unnatural behavior we’ve been engaged in.
Again, this blog is about business and culture, and it’s important to understand that what we’re talking about is that the roots of economic decision-making in culture.
To continue with our discussion... Schein also notes that the kind of accumulative activity our culture has been based on is grounded in the artificial construct or assumption that “2 is somehow greater than 1, and 3 is even better, and so on”. This, too, is unnatural, since it leads to a kind of infinite regress, a world where even too much is still not enough. It’s the same culture construct that’s led to such peculiar ideas as “constant growth”.
Then there’s the problem of money. There’s nothing like money in the natural world; that is, in the real world, everything is tangible, readily usable, of clear utility. For animals, there is no money — there are things: things to eat, things for building nests, and so on.
Indeed, no living entity would spend time engaged in pursuing something that essentially, intrinsically has no real value. Of course, money was designed to facilitate exchange and has allowed humans to create a whole world of commerce, at a scale that could never have happened with a barter system.
But in our culture, money — the abstract value of a piece of paper — has taken on a grotesque life of its own. We have absurd ideas such as “net worth”; what does that really mean? Today, it’s not even about what all that accumulated money could purchase or do. In the old days, even in the worse days of the “Gilded Age” of excessive wealth, at least those rich folks did something with their money — they’ve left a legacy of magnificent buildings, for example, that grace the streets of cities like New York and Chicago. But today, being rich is often simply about having the lofty numerical statistics after one’s name. If “net worth” is the key element to modern identity, what happens if you lose your net worth? Do you become “worthless”?
The current crisis in part stems from the problems related to the purchase of houses. When the housing bubble was in its expansion phase, houses quickly and dramatically rose in price and monetary value. But what happened was the commodification of houses: as they rose in monetary value, they became commodities we kept our stuff in, not our homes. Indeed, we knew that this was happening because of the perverted emphasis in the real estate business on the phrase “buying a home” the overuse of that word “home” indicated, in fact, just how much the actual concept of a home had been lost.
Culture, commodification, crisis. Stay tuned...
But I hope that I’ve come back to this blog just in time... to witness the decline of the world as we know it.
The media tends to embrace if not promote the unsettled, the uncertain, the tragic. This shades one’s analysis and predictions towards the pessimistic. But it is also hard not to be have a very negative view these days, particularly if that view is from the U.S., where this blogger is currently based. Obama’s victory in the U.S. elections may not mean that much in the long perspective — he’s got a lot of problems to deal with right off the bat, and as he himself noted in his victory speech:
“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term...”
In other words, don’t expect a miracle. Problems such as the current economic crisis are not “solvable” through the policies of one president, perhaps not even one government. The complexity of the economic crisis, in fact, may elude any “policy-driven” solutions at all.
Which brings us to our topic for today: the economic situation. There’s a lot of talk about “fixing” the economy. There’s also been talk about declines in “growth”. But a detached observer might note (as others have in the past) that constant growth in any system — economic or otherwise — is unrealistic.
But wait, you say — this blog is supposed to be about business and culture! Well, yes, and the current crisis is actually one of culture, not economics. Despite what you may have read in your economics textbook, the “dismal science” is not necessarily based on some kind of eternal “natural law”. Sure, the desire for profit may seem like a basic part of our human makeup. But as the social critic and commentator Alex Schein has noted, no other animal beside the human would amass more than it could sanely consume. That is, tigers eat deer and will hunt deer down for their next meal — but they won’t make a pile of deer carcasses that’s the bigger than their neighbors. Only humans seem to feel the need to have the biggest house on the block, the most cars, the largest collection of shoes. The economics of unbridled acquisitiveness is unnatural.
Again, we have been living in an age of unnatural accumulation of wealth — and there is virtually nothing like that kind of extreme accumulative activity in the natural world. The current economic crisis stems partly from this unnatural behavior we’ve been engaged in.
Again, this blog is about business and culture, and it’s important to understand that what we’re talking about is that the roots of economic decision-making in culture.
To continue with our discussion... Schein also notes that the kind of accumulative activity our culture has been based on is grounded in the artificial construct or assumption that “2 is somehow greater than 1, and 3 is even better, and so on”. This, too, is unnatural, since it leads to a kind of infinite regress, a world where even too much is still not enough. It’s the same culture construct that’s led to such peculiar ideas as “constant growth”.
Then there’s the problem of money. There’s nothing like money in the natural world; that is, in the real world, everything is tangible, readily usable, of clear utility. For animals, there is no money — there are things: things to eat, things for building nests, and so on.
Indeed, no living entity would spend time engaged in pursuing something that essentially, intrinsically has no real value. Of course, money was designed to facilitate exchange and has allowed humans to create a whole world of commerce, at a scale that could never have happened with a barter system.
But in our culture, money — the abstract value of a piece of paper — has taken on a grotesque life of its own. We have absurd ideas such as “net worth”; what does that really mean? Today, it’s not even about what all that accumulated money could purchase or do. In the old days, even in the worse days of the “Gilded Age” of excessive wealth, at least those rich folks did something with their money — they’ve left a legacy of magnificent buildings, for example, that grace the streets of cities like New York and Chicago. But today, being rich is often simply about having the lofty numerical statistics after one’s name. If “net worth” is the key element to modern identity, what happens if you lose your net worth? Do you become “worthless”?
The current crisis in part stems from the problems related to the purchase of houses. When the housing bubble was in its expansion phase, houses quickly and dramatically rose in price and monetary value. But what happened was the commodification of houses: as they rose in monetary value, they became commodities we kept our stuff in, not our homes. Indeed, we knew that this was happening because of the perverted emphasis in the real estate business on the phrase “buying a home” the overuse of that word “home” indicated, in fact, just how much the actual concept of a home had been lost.
Culture, commodification, crisis. Stay tuned...
17 December 2007
Peace in the Middle East, Annapolis, and All That
It struck me the other day that "the troubles" (to borrow the old term for the English entanglement in Ireland) between Israel and her neighbors has now spanned three generations. When my father was born, no state of Israel existed; he then went on to live through a time that saw Israel fight her neighbors in several wars. I was born in 1963, and so lived through several more of those wars (e.g., the 1967 war), right up to the incursion into Lebanon. Now I have a child, and it is likely that she, too, will grow up in a world where Israel is still engaged in conflict.
What's my point? A better question is what's THE point -- this continued conflict has transcended any kind of sense, even geopolitical sense. These wars and police actions, everything from Israeli tanks rolling into urban area to Palestinian suicide bombers, have only set the stage for more conflict. Little has actually been resolved. Moreover, this perpetual strife, and the agitation it creates among the citizenry, is corrosive to the societies in the Middle East.
But more profoundly, it makes no sense on a personal level. What I mean is that if one were to talk to individuals (not take polls or listen to politicians), one would find that the average Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Israeli, and so on, was interested in just a few basic things: family, work, friends, a proper meal, and some measure of happiness. That is, the average person in the Middle East would be interested in the things that the average citizen in most of the world is interested in (one might add soccer, too). War and conflict, simply gets in the way of the average citizen's just getting on in life.
One wonders why citizens don't just rise up -- not against the Palestinians, or Israelis, or any other such "grouping", but against these conflicts themselves, and just demand peace.
It is interesting indeed that citizens sometimes, when left to their own devices, are quite capable of living in peace. I had a friend in graduate school who had been in the Israeli military. He was never quite clear on what he did in the Israeli forces -- something murky, I suppose, perhaps even the Special Forces -- but he himself was a very mellow guy, and a good musician (we played in a band together).
I asked him once about the continuous conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He looked at me and smiled, answering, "You know, the battles between the Israelis and the Palestinians is really between the politicians in many ways. When they want to, the Israelis and the Palestinians get along fine..." I asked him exactly what he meant. He replied, "You know, in the underworld there, all the 'mafia' stuff -- stolen cars and so on -- the Israelis and Palestinians work together all the time, no problem!"
And he was serious. If there is truly such honor among thieves in the Middle East, perhaps there is hope for the rest of us.
What's my point? A better question is what's THE point -- this continued conflict has transcended any kind of sense, even geopolitical sense. These wars and police actions, everything from Israeli tanks rolling into urban area to Palestinian suicide bombers, have only set the stage for more conflict. Little has actually been resolved. Moreover, this perpetual strife, and the agitation it creates among the citizenry, is corrosive to the societies in the Middle East.
But more profoundly, it makes no sense on a personal level. What I mean is that if one were to talk to individuals (not take polls or listen to politicians), one would find that the average Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Israeli, and so on, was interested in just a few basic things: family, work, friends, a proper meal, and some measure of happiness. That is, the average person in the Middle East would be interested in the things that the average citizen in most of the world is interested in (one might add soccer, too). War and conflict, simply gets in the way of the average citizen's just getting on in life.
One wonders why citizens don't just rise up -- not against the Palestinians, or Israelis, or any other such "grouping", but against these conflicts themselves, and just demand peace.
It is interesting indeed that citizens sometimes, when left to their own devices, are quite capable of living in peace. I had a friend in graduate school who had been in the Israeli military. He was never quite clear on what he did in the Israeli forces -- something murky, I suppose, perhaps even the Special Forces -- but he himself was a very mellow guy, and a good musician (we played in a band together).
I asked him once about the continuous conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He looked at me and smiled, answering, "You know, the battles between the Israelis and the Palestinians is really between the politicians in many ways. When they want to, the Israelis and the Palestinians get along fine..." I asked him exactly what he meant. He replied, "You know, in the underworld there, all the 'mafia' stuff -- stolen cars and so on -- the Israelis and Palestinians work together all the time, no problem!"
And he was serious. If there is truly such honor among thieves in the Middle East, perhaps there is hope for the rest of us.
01 October 2007
Burma: Lesson Learned?
In my last posting, I noted how international "outrage" wasn't going to change anything in Burma. I also complained about lack of media coverage of why Burma's government can't so easily be tossed aside: it's got billions in revenue from the export of its natural resources.
So, I was pleasantly surprised today that the media, in some quarters, does seem to understand how politics really works. A report from Paul Reynolds on the BBC today noted: "The military crackdown in Burma is a reminder that street demonstrations do not necessarily lead to success for popular uprisings." Although the report did not mention the important economic factors, it at least adds this: "External pressure, in the form of international condemnation and talk of sanctions, has not been strong enough to be decisive."
So, I was pleasantly surprised today that the media, in some quarters, does seem to understand how politics really works. A report from Paul Reynolds on the BBC today noted: "The military crackdown in Burma is a reminder that street demonstrations do not necessarily lead to success for popular uprisings." Although the report did not mention the important economic factors, it at least adds this: "External pressure, in the form of international condemnation and talk of sanctions, has not been strong enough to be decisive."
28 September 2007
Off the Road to Mandalay
How the news changes… China and the product recalls have faded from the news, and now it’s all about Myanmar (Burma). Protests in the streets! Angry Buddhist monks! But as usual, the key components of this event are left out or obscured. The media loves putting things into polarized frameworks: it’s the evil Myanmar government versus the common people and their Buddhist muses. The U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is off to the country in the next day or so; he plans to meet with the ruling generals there to discuss the protests and the government’s response. Bush called for sanctions in a speech at the U.N.
Therein the story ends… as far as much of the media is concerned. Despite the “outrage” of the international community, this important question is rarely asked: Where does the government of Myanmar get its money — that is, the money that it uses to keep them in power? The real kernel of this whole Myanmar story can be found buried inside a BBC report posted yesterday (Thursday, 27 September 2007): “The scramble for Burma's energy resources make it almost impossible to isolate the regime.” Yes, as usual, it’s all about resources, and Burma has lots of offshore oil and natural gas. In fact, natural gas is the most important export for Myanmar (Burma), worth some 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2005; natural gas exports make up over a third of the country’s total export revenue. It is unlikely that international “outrage” is going to limit those exports, nor the income they provide the military government. This fact should be in the headlines, not the sidelines. The media needs to start talking about hard economic realities, not bleeding-heart fantasies.
Therein the story ends… as far as much of the media is concerned. Despite the “outrage” of the international community, this important question is rarely asked: Where does the government of Myanmar get its money — that is, the money that it uses to keep them in power? The real kernel of this whole Myanmar story can be found buried inside a BBC report posted yesterday (Thursday, 27 September 2007): “The scramble for Burma's energy resources make it almost impossible to isolate the regime.” Yes, as usual, it’s all about resources, and Burma has lots of offshore oil and natural gas. In fact, natural gas is the most important export for Myanmar (Burma), worth some 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2005; natural gas exports make up over a third of the country’s total export revenue. It is unlikely that international “outrage” is going to limit those exports, nor the income they provide the military government. This fact should be in the headlines, not the sidelines. The media needs to start talking about hard economic realities, not bleeding-heart fantasies.
11 September 2007
Canada, Culture, and September 11 Good Deeds
I just came back from a wonderful talk by Mr. Claude Elliott, the mayor of Gander, Newfoundland. Gander is a small but important town in the farthest eastern portion of Canada. It is an important nexus for flights both military and domestic. But on September 11, 2001, it took on even greater importance, when dozens of flights were diverted there after U.S. airspace was shut down. Over 6000 passengers ended up spending several days in Gander, all hosted by a town of only about 9500 residents. The stranded passengers were housed, fed, and given free medical treatment by the town, with assistance from the provincial and federal government in Canada. There were stories in the Canadian and U.S. media about these good deeds; the event even generated a book.
Mayor Elliott spoke today about the decency of the townspeople, but noting — with, perhaps, typical Canadian humility — that it's "just what a person does". In fact, it was a remarkable feat, not just in terms of the good deeds done, but the efficiency with which such a small community handled such a big crisis. He talked about how each flight was assigned a specific residence, so that an American Airlines flight, for example, was housed in a local church. That way, when it was time some days later to re-board, it would be easy to relocate all the passengers.
Mayor Elliot, speaking with the engaging lilt of Newfoundland speech, said that his town of Gander is ready to help the U.S. again any time, praising Americans as "good people". I hope that term is correct — certainly it applies to these Canadian citizens.
Most importantly, it should make us all take more careful note of this northern land, with a culture that is more different from the U.S. than we might think. It's a culture that despite its quiet and self-effacing reputation seems to know how to get things done...
Mayor Elliott spoke today about the decency of the townspeople, but noting — with, perhaps, typical Canadian humility — that it's "just what a person does". In fact, it was a remarkable feat, not just in terms of the good deeds done, but the efficiency with which such a small community handled such a big crisis. He talked about how each flight was assigned a specific residence, so that an American Airlines flight, for example, was housed in a local church. That way, when it was time some days later to re-board, it would be easy to relocate all the passengers.
Mayor Elliot, speaking with the engaging lilt of Newfoundland speech, said that his town of Gander is ready to help the U.S. again any time, praising Americans as "good people". I hope that term is correct — certainly it applies to these Canadian citizens.
Most importantly, it should make us all take more careful note of this northern land, with a culture that is more different from the U.S. than we might think. It's a culture that despite its quiet and self-effacing reputation seems to know how to get things done...
27 August 2007
Ay Caramba! Another Way to Think About Mexican Immigration into the U.S.
Immigration has been a hot political topic for some time now. So what. A lot of topics have become political fodder, and it almost never means that intelligent discussion will result. A media watcher only gets the impression that politicians want to use a given topic as a platform to show their resolve; in some ways, it doesn't even really matter what side of the issue they come down on. It's just important that they express a view.
That being the case, the topic itself never gets examined. Immigration becomes a bifurcated issue, and all subtleties are lost. In the case of cross-border immigration from Mexico, the debate has tended to circle around the issue of undocumented aliens crossing the border. Some say that they should be given amnesty, and allowed to enter the workforce legally. Others say that they should be sent back home and that our laws concerning entry into the U.S. and residency should be more strictly enforced.
In fact, neither of these two positions are relevant. That's right — they have totally missed the point. It astounds me that in all the debate about immigration from Mexico, almost no one has talked about what this is really all about: the poverty of our southern NAFTA partner. The most fundamental question — the one the media should be asking, and the one politicians should be talking about — is this:
Why is a member of NAFTA, and a country that is right at the border of the U.S., so poor and dysfunctional that thousands of its citizens will risk their lives to flee?
Canadians are not pouring over our northern border, and we know why: Canada is a prosperous country, with a reasonably equitable society. That fact makes us not have to worry about illegal Canadian immigration into the U.S. So, it's simple (at least, articulating the problem is simple): If Mexico were a more prosperous country, without a huge underclass, we wouldn't have the current situation of illegal immigration. U.S. citizens should ask their politicians what we're going to do to make life better for Mexicans in Mexico. That's the only way to keep people from fleeing their country. Unless, of course, we have some vested interest in wanting them to flee...
That being the case, the topic itself never gets examined. Immigration becomes a bifurcated issue, and all subtleties are lost. In the case of cross-border immigration from Mexico, the debate has tended to circle around the issue of undocumented aliens crossing the border. Some say that they should be given amnesty, and allowed to enter the workforce legally. Others say that they should be sent back home and that our laws concerning entry into the U.S. and residency should be more strictly enforced.
In fact, neither of these two positions are relevant. That's right — they have totally missed the point. It astounds me that in all the debate about immigration from Mexico, almost no one has talked about what this is really all about: the poverty of our southern NAFTA partner. The most fundamental question — the one the media should be asking, and the one politicians should be talking about — is this:
Why is a member of NAFTA, and a country that is right at the border of the U.S., so poor and dysfunctional that thousands of its citizens will risk their lives to flee?
Canadians are not pouring over our northern border, and we know why: Canada is a prosperous country, with a reasonably equitable society. That fact makes us not have to worry about illegal Canadian immigration into the U.S. So, it's simple (at least, articulating the problem is simple): If Mexico were a more prosperous country, without a huge underclass, we wouldn't have the current situation of illegal immigration. U.S. citizens should ask their politicians what we're going to do to make life better for Mexicans in Mexico. That's the only way to keep people from fleeing their country. Unless, of course, we have some vested interest in wanting them to flee...
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