Is Neoliberalism Dying? A Structuralist Approach To Predatory Global Capitalism And The Challenge of Reform*

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou

Forty years of neoliberal rule have produced devastating effects on lower and working-class people and on the social fabric throughout the world: wages have stagnated, labor rights have been trampled, and economic inequalities have exploded. Neoliberalism has also proven detrimental to democracy as many forms of collective decision-making and even faith and trust in the ability of government to solve problems have been severely eroded by the marketization project. Citizens have been encouraged to think and act like consumers and powerful private interests have made a mockery of the idea of a common good. Moreover, trends of ongoing income and wealth inequality combined with job insecurity and the hijacking of the state by the economic elites has led to the eruption of popular anger, leading to the rise of a new generation of authoritarian rulers and to a concomitant attack on the traditional democratic order, along with an explosion of xenophobic rage and racism.

Nonetheless, neoliberalism has remained the hegemonic paradigm in the workings of contemporary capitalism and the operating framework of the global economy, even though this particular form of economic governance is prone to systemic crises and in spite of challenges and sporadic forms of resistance from below.
At least until now, that is. For the eruption of the pandemic appears to have discredited market fundamentalism and state interventionism has returned with vengeance throughout the West. We have seen massive monetary and fiscal packages introduced both in Europe and the United States in order to provide relief for unemployed workers and struggling businesses in ways that have not been seen in many decades. During the global financial crisis of 2008, the state bailed out the financial sector and turned a blind eye towards homeowners and the millions of people suffering from the consequences of “predatory capitalism” that neoliberalism gave rise to from the mid-1970s and continued to fuel throughout the next four decades. However, during the era of the pandemic, the state has come to some degree to the rescue of the entire economy, although still not as aggressively as economic thinking associated with the name and work of John Maynard Keynes would surely recommend for a crisis as severe as the one thrusted upon the world by the eruption of the Covid pandemic, which has created a classic capitalist crisis of accumulation.

Be that as it may, the question popping up suddenly (once again, we might add, since the same question popped up after the financial crisis of 2008) is whether the return of “Big Government” during the pandemic is signaling the end of neoliberalism.

My view on this matter is that it is too early to tell, and, more importantly, that neoliberalism is not going to wither away without an increased role of participatory democracy and the emergence of political vehicles (political parties and social movements) envisioning and fighting for an alternative social order. Neoliberalism is not merely an ideology or even a specific policy at this point, but an institutional component, a substructure, of the very capitalist system that has been built in the age of globalization, and thus the measures taken today to address the economic effects of the pandemic may be quite temporary and the world could easily return to “business as usual” once the pandemic has been brought under control.

Let me elaborate
Any effort to fully understand the nature of contemporary capitalism should begin with the recognition that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. It is also pertinent that we recognize the importance of structural causality in making sense of contemporary capitalist developments while avoiding methodological reductionism. As such, we need to look at the overall structure of the system; that is, we need to comprehend the different constitutive parts of the system that keep it together and running in ways which are harmful to the interests of the great majority of the population, dangerous to democracy and public values, and detrimental to the environment and earth’s ecosystem. Focusing on one element of the system while ignoring other things (perhaps because we think that they constitute incidental outcomes or processes of secondary nature) may limit our understanding by creating a flawed perspective about the dynamics and the contradictions of contemporary capitalism and thereby undermine our ability to propose sound and realistic solutions.

Now, we know what capitalism is, and how it basically works. It is a specific, historically determined mode of production, a ruthless economic system representing the most advanced form of commodity production. It is not an economic system designed to serve the needs of society as such, because the extraction of profit is the “logic” that drives capitalist commodity production. Not only that, but when left to operate without regulations, capitalism can wreak havoc on societies. Exploitation and inequality represent structural necessities of the system itself, and capital itself is nothing other than value that generates surplus value.

Moreover, capital accumulation is an anarchic and contradictory process, and with a constant need to expand, all of which result all too frequently in systemic crises that threaten to destroy capitalism itself and which, subsequently, mandate the intervention of the state in order to save the system from collapse. In the age of the financialization of capital, systemic crises have become far more frequent, and with greater severity, and government bailouts have emerged as the essential tool through which the system avoids a catastrophic collapse.

Capitalist expansion has taken place over the course of the past five centuries via different venues, ranging from plunder and exploitation, through trade, to investment in industry and the financialization of assets. However, the state has been the driving agency behind the spread and consolidation of capitalism from the very start. And it is no less the case than with the architecture of contemporary capitalism.

The landscape of contemporary capitalism has been structured around three interrelated elements: financialization, neoliberalism and globalization. All three of these components constitute part of a coherent whole which has given rise to an entity that can be briefly described as “predatory global capitalism.”

As such, contemporary capitalism is characterized by a political economy which revolves around finance capital, is based on a savage form of free market fundamentalism and thrives on a wave of globalizing processes and global financial networks that have produced global economic oligarchies with the capacity to influence the shaping of policymaking across nations.  Indeed, today’s brand of capitalism is particularly anti-democratic and simply incapable of functioning in a way conducive to maintaining sustainable and balanced growth. By waging vicious class warfare, the economic elite and their allies have managed in the contemporary era to roll back progress on the economic and social fronts by resurrecting the predatory, “free-market” capitalism that immiserated millions in the early 20th century while a handful of obscenely wealthy individuals controlled the bulk of the wealth.

The capitalist order we have in place today has its roots in the structural changes that took place in the accumulation process back in the mid-to-late 1970s. The 1970s was a decade of economic slowdown and inflationary pressures in the advanced capitalist world. The crisis, brought about by new technological innovations, declining rates of profit and the dissolution of the social structures of accumulation that had emerged after World War II, led to sluggish growth rates, high inflation and even higher rates of unemployment, bringing about a phenomenon that came to be known as “stagflation.”
From a policy point of view, “stagflation” signaled the end of an era in which there was a trade-off between inflation and unemployment (shown by the Phillips curve) and, by extension, the end of the dominance of the Keynesian school of thought.

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Chomsky: Biden’s Early Agenda Gives Hope, But Activist Pressure Must Not Cease

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Noam Chomsky

Joe Biden’s first months in office have comprised a flurry of actions on the domestic front, including a historic stimulus bill. In this exclusive interview, the celebrated public intellectual Noam Chomsky shares his views on some key policies embraced by the Biden administration. Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. His latest books are Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (co-authored with Robert Pollin and C. J. Polychroniou; Verso, 2020), Chomsky for Activists (Routledge, 2020) and Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance(Haymarket Books, 2020).

C.J. Polychroniou: President Joe Biden has been in office for approximately two months now, in the course of which he has signed scores of executive orders meant to reverse the policies of Donald Trump. But he has also managed to pass a huge and ambitious stimulus bill unlike anything seen during peacetime. What’s your assessment of Biden’s actions so far to deal with the most pressing issues facing U.S. society: namely, the coronavirus pandemic and the pain caused to millions of Americans on account of the pandemic?

Noam Chomsky: Better than I’d anticipated. Considerably so.
The stimulus bill has its flaws, but considering the circumstances, it’s an impressive achievement. The circumstances are a highly disciplined opposition party dedicated to the principle announced years ago by its maximal leader, Mitch McConnell: If we are not in power, we must render the country ungovernable and block government legislative efforts, however beneficial they might be. Then the consequences can be blamed on the party in power, and we can take over. It worked well for Republicans in 2009 — with plenty of help from Obama. By 2010, the Democrats lost Congress, and the way was cleared to the 2016 debacle.

There’s every reason to suppose that the strategy will be renewed — this time under more complex circumstances. The voting base in the hands of Trump, who shares the objective but differs from McConnell on who will pick up the pieces: McConnell and the donor class, or Trump and the voting base he mobilized, almost half of whom worship him as the messenger God sent to save the country from … we can fill in our favorite fantasies, but should not overlook the fact that what may sound [ridiculous] has roots in the lives of the victims of the neoliberal globalization of the past 40 years — extended by Trump, apart from some rhetorical flourishes.

In those circumstances, passing a stimulus bill was a major accomplishment. Republicans who favor it, and know that their constituents do, nevertheless voted against it, in lockstep obedience to what the Central Committee determines. Some Democrats insisted on watering it down. But what finally passed has valuable elements, which could be a basis for moving on.

There are huge gaps. The bill surely should have contained an increase in the miserable minimum wage, an utter scandal. But that would have been very difficult in the face of total Republican opposition, along with a few Democrats. And there are other crucial features that are missing. Nevertheless, if the short-term measures on child poverty, income support, medical insurance and other basic needs can be extended, it would be a substantial step toward fulfilling the promise envisioned by such careful observers as Roosevelt Institute President Felicia Wong, who reflected that, “As I see it, both the scale and the direction of the American Rescue Plan break the neoliberal, deficits-and-inflation-come-first mold that has hollowed out our economy for a generation.” We haven’t seen anything that could elicit such hopes for a long time.

There is also hope in appointments on economic issues. Who would have imagined that a regular contributor to radical economics journals would be appointed to the Council of Economic Advisers (Heather Boushey), joined by the senior economic adviser of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute, (Jared Bernstein)?

Biden’s strong support for Amazon workers, and unions generally, is a welcome shift. Nothing like it has been heard from the chambers of power in many years. In a sharp reversal of Trump legislation, the tax changes raise incomes mostly for the poor, not the rich. Economic Policy Institute President Thea Lee summarizes the package by saying that it “will provide crucial support to millions of working families; dramatically reduce the race, gender, and income inequalities that were exacerbated by the crisis; and create the conditions for a truly robust recovery once the virus is under control and people are able to resume normal economic activity.” Optimistic, but within reach.
House Democrats have passed other important legislation. H.R. 1 protects voting rights, a critical matter now, with Republicans working overtime to try to block the votes of [people of color] and the poor, recognizing that this is the only way a minority party dedicated to wealth and corporate power can remain viable.

On the labor front, the House passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, “a critical step toward restoring workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively,” the Economic Policy Institute reports, a fundamental right that “has been eroded for decades as employers exploited weaknesses in the current law.” It’ll probably be killed by the Senate. Even apart from party loyalty, there is little sympathy for working people in Republican ranks.
But even so, it’s a basis for organizing and education. It can be a step toward revitalizing the labor movement, a prime target of the neoliberal project since Reagan and Thatcher, who understood well that working people must be deprived of means to defend themselves from the assault.
Decline of union membership is by now recognized, even in the mainstream, to be a major factor in rising inequality — a phrase that translates to “robbery of the general public by a tiny fraction of super-rich.” The Economic Policy Institute has reviewed the facts regularly, most recently in a chart that graphically demonstrates the remarkable correlation between rising/falling union membership and falling/rising inequality.

More generally, there is a good opportunity to overcome the baleful legacy of Trump’s bitterly anti-labor Labor Department, headed by corporate lawyer Eugene Scalia, who used his term in office to eviscerate worker rights, notoriously during the pandemic. Scalia was perfectly chosen for the transformation of the Republicans to a “working-class party,” as hailed by Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley in a triumph of propaganda, or maybe sheer chutzpah.
Michael Regan’s appointment as Environmental Protection Agency administrator should replace corporate greed by science and human welfare in this essential agency, a move toward human decency that in this case is a prerequisite for survival.
It’s easy to find serious omissions and deficiencies in Biden’s programs on the domestic front, but there are signs of hope for emerging from the Trump nightmare and moving on to what really should, what really must be done. The hopes are, however, conditional. The temporary measures of the stimulus on child poverty and many other issues must be made permanent, and improved. Crucially, activist pressure must not cease. The masters of the universe pursue their class war relentlessly, and can only be countered by an aroused public opposition that is no less dedicated to the common good.

What do you think of Biden’s refusal to cancel $50,000 in student loans?

A bad decision. What the realistic options were, I don’t frankly know. Higher education at a high level should be recognized to be a basic right, freely available, as it is elsewhere: in our Mexican neighbor, in rich developed countries like Germany, France, the Nordic countries, and a great many others, with at most nominal fees. As it substantially was in the U.S. when it was a much poorer country than it is today. The postwar GI Bill of Rights provided free education for great numbers of white males who would never have gone to college otherwise. There is no reason why young people of any race should be denied the privilege today.

In light of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Biden has vowed to fight domestic terrorism by passing a new law “that respects free speech and civil liberties.” Does the U.S. need a new domestic terrorism agenda?

A prior question is whether we should retain the current domestic terrorism agenda. There are strong reasons to question that. And any expansion should be a matter of serious concern. That aside, white supremacist violence is no laughing matter. Through the Trump years, the FBI and other monitors report steadily increasing white supremacist terror, by now covering almost all recorded terror. Armed militias are rampant — Trump’s “tough guys” as he’s admiringly called them. The problems can’t be overlooked, but have to be handled with great caution and a close eye on the temptations for abuse.

Biden has proposed a plan to strengthen the middle class by encouraging unionization and collective bargaining, and his recent affirmation of the rights of workers to unionize, which was widely interpreted as support for Amazon workers’ rights to organize in Alabama, has spread considerable enthusiasm among progressives. Indeed, Biden’s support for unions is in pace with the highly favorable ratings that unions have been receiving in the last couple of years. What’s behind the support for unions in the present era?

One reason is objective reality. The sharp rise in inequality is a growing curse, with extremely harmful effects across the society. As mentioned earlier, it closely tracks decline of unions, for reasons that are well understood. Historically, labor unions have been in the forefront of struggles for justice and rights. They also pioneered the environmental movement, as we’ve discussed before. Workers’ organizations are changing in character with the growth of service and knowledge-based economies. They have shared interests, and foster the values of solidarity and mutual aid on which the hope for a decent future rest. Many unions retain the world “international” in their names. It should not just be a symbol or a dream. The dire challenges we face have no borders. Global heating, pandemics, disarmament will be dealt with internationally, if at all. The same is true of labor rights and human rights more generally. At every level, associations of working people should once again be prominent, if not leading the way, toward a better world.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Copyright: https://truthout.org/

C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. He is the author of Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change, an anthology of interviews with Chomsky originally published at Truthoutand collected by Haymarket Books.

De haardos van Lady Godiva

• door: Robert-Henk Zuidinga

Macbeth, Don Juan, Koningin Guinevere, Graaf Dracula, alle historische figuren hebben in meer of mindere mate – meestal mindere – een kern van waarheid, waarmee de geschiedenis naar eigen inzicht op de loop gegaan is.
Een interessant en pikant voorbeeld biedt Lady Godiva. De oerversie verhaalt hoe de Lady in kwestie gehuwd is met Leofric, graaf van Mercia in Midden-Engeland en de schatrijke maar rechtlijnige eigenaar van de stad Coventry en omstreken. Het is het jaar 1040. Lady Godiva heeft erg te doen met de bewoners, die zuchten onder de zware belastingen die de graaf hen oplegt en probeert haar man keer op keer te vermurwen.
Uiteindelijk toont hij zich bereid op haar smeekbeden in te gaan, op voorwaarde dat de Lady naakt op een paard gezeten door de stad rijdt. Zij accepteert zijn uitdaging en rijdt, slechts gehuld in haar lange haren, door Coventry. Op haar verzoek blijven alle bewoners binnen, met de luiken gesloten.

Die oerversie speelt in de eerste helft van de elfde eeuw, maar kreeg pas zo’n twee eeuwen later bredere bekendheid toen het verscheen in de Flores historiarum, een verzameling verhalen uit de Britse historie – letterlijk vertaald: Bloemen van de geschiedenis -, bijeengebracht door de benedictijner monnik Roger of Wendover. Het boek werd voor het eerst gedrukt in 1236.

De opofferingsbereidheid van Lady Godiva werd sindsdien op tal van manieren vormgegeven, met name in de beeldende kunsten – er zijn talloze schilderijen en beeldhouwwerken van gemaakt – en in literatuur: toneelstukken, gedichten, prozastukken. Echt grote populariteit kreeg het thema pas in 1842, toen het gedicht Godiva van Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) in druk verscheen.
Van ander werk waarin zij een hoofdrol speelt, valt het toneelstuk Monna Vanna (1902) op, van de Franstalige Belg Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), aan wie in 1911 de Nobelprijs voor literatuur werd toegekend. Het thema van ‘Wedden dat’ krijgt hier vorm in het verhaal over de schone Monna Vanna, echtgenote van Guido Colonna. De stad Pisa is omsingeld door het leger van Florence, de bevolking wordt uitgehongerd. Als tegenprestatie voor het beëindigen van de belegering eist Prinzivalle, de leider van de Florentijnen, dat (Gio)vanna één nacht bij hem doorbrengt, slechts gekleed in een mantel. Guido voelt zich door deze eis in zijn mannelijke eer aangetast, maar Vanna aarzelt geen moment. En terecht, want Prinzivalle gedraagt zich als een heer en volstaat met een kus op haar voorhoofd.

Uiteraard leende zo’n prikkelend gegeven zich bij uitstek voor verfilming. Er zijn dan ook ettelijke films gemaakt met een titel als Lady Godiva rides, maar die hebben allemaal niet veel meer om het lijf dan een verhaallijntje rondom die ene gewaagde scene. De Engelse productie Lady Godiva rides again (1951), bijvoorbeeld, werd in Amerika uitgebracht onder de titel Bikini Beach. Dat zegt al genoeg.

De mythe van Lady Godiva heeft overigens nog een begrip in de Engelse taal opgeleverd. Terwijl alle burgers van Coventry zich aan haar verzoek hielden om niet te pogen een glimp van de naakte amazone op te vangen, kon één man de verleiding niet weerstaan. Tom the Taylor kijkt stiekem toch en wordt daarvoor met blindheid gestraft. Sindsdien is Peeping Tom of, voluit, Peeping Tom of Coventry – to peep is gluren – de gangbare Engelse term voor voyeur. Er is overigens weinig grond om aan te nemen dat het nieuwsgierig kleermakertje echt bestaan heeft.
In 1960 werd de Britse film Peeping Tom uitgebracht, over een seriemoordenaar die zijn slachtoffers filmt terwijl hij ze ombrengt. De Duitse hartenbreker Karlheinz Böhm speelt daarin de titelrol.

Ook in de Nederlandse letteren heeft de Lady zich gemanifesteerd, al was het dan ook slechts in het titelgedicht van de bundel Lady Godiva op scooter van Sybren Polet uit 1960. Polet – een pseudoniem van Sybe Minnema (1924-2015) – wordt in vakkringen gerekend tot de Experimentelen en de Vijftigers, maar door literatuurliefhebbers ook wel tot de Onleesbaren. Een willekeurig fragment uit het onderhavige werk moge ter illustratie volstaan:

Rijd, rijd zo dicht langs hen heen
dat de politieagenten gedichten gaan schrijven
die ze des avonds met gemotoriseerde stem
aan hun vrouwen voorlezen
en de direkteur van de Universiteitsbibliotheek, geprikkeld,
zijn hoed afneemt
om zich de literatuur van het voorhoofd te wissen.

Ook de rest van het gedicht heeft niets met Lady Godiva te maken.

Dat interessant en pikant nog steeds een bruikbare combinatie vormen, blijkt uit de pop-artiesten die het thema in een nummer verwerkten. Dat zijn niet de minsten. Neem The Velvet Underground, de groep rond Lou Reed en John Cale. Die hadden zich al voor Venus in furs op hun debuutalbum The Velvet Underground & Nico uit 1967 literair laten inspireren door de novelle Venus im Pelz (1870) van de Oostenrijkse auteur Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, aan wiens naam en werk het begrip masochisme is ontleend.
Op het daarop volgende album, White light/White heat (1968), staat het nummer Lady Godiva’s Operation, met tekst en muziek van Lou Reed. Tot de meer verrassende interpretaties van de operatie in kwestie, hoort die volgens welke het hier een geslachtsverandering zou betreffen. De regels

Doctor arrives with knife and baggage
Sees the growth as just so much cabbage
That now must be cut away

zouden verwijzen naar een woekering – the growth – die verwijderd moet worden. Het vervolg vult daarop aan, dat er niet alleen aan weerszijden geopereerd wordt, maar ook dat de ingreep onomkeerbaar is:

Now come the moment of great great decision
The doctor is making his first incision
One goes here, one goes there

De Britse formatie Simply Red, bekend van de hit Holding back the years, bracht in 1987 het album Men and women uit, met daarop Lady Godivas’s room.
Ook het damestrio Boney M, meestal voorzien van een éénmansballet, stortte zich op Lady Godiva.
Dat werd met enige argwaan tegemoet gezien, aangezien hun historisch besef niet overdreven betrouwbaar was gebleken. In het refrein van hun wereldhit Rasputin gingen zij immers voorbij aan het feit dat Rusland geen koningin had maar een tsarina:

Ra Ra Rasputin
Lover of the Russian queen

Om in het geval van Lady Godiva het zekere voor het onzekere te nemen, kozen ze als tekst ongeveer de korte versie van een hoofdstuk uit een geschiedenisboek:

Her name was Lady Godiva
A lady so brave and so strong
Her husband the Earl of Mercia
He treated her terribly wrong

She’s a lady
She’s a lady
She rode naked on horseback
To stop him from his tax increase
(..)
Then sneaking a glance through the window
Was a guy they called Peeping Tom
He caught a glimpse and was blinded
Curiosity sometimes is wrong    

Het meest blijft de dappere daad van de Lady in ons geheugen hangen door de hit die het Engelse duo Peter & Gordon er mee scoorden, een nummer dat overigens in Coventry niet te horen mocht zijn omdat de burgemeester de tekst obsceen achtte. De volledigheid vereist hier te vermelden dat die tekst niet zozeer over Her Ladyship ging als wel over een lokale stripteaseuse (Seventeen, a beauty queen) die, gezegend met lang haar en niet door gêne geremd, carrière maakt in Hollywood, zij het in films van bedenkelijk allooi.
Voor een vergelijking met de echte Lady Godiva hadden Peter & Gordon niet meer dan een paar regels nodig:

Her long blond hair
falling down across her arms
hiding all the lady’s charms

In november 1966 staat Lady Godiva op de zesde plaats in de Amerikaanse Top-100.

Phasing Out Fossil Fuels Is Possible. These State-Level Plans Show How

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Robert Pollin

When it comes to climate change, state governments across the United States have been way ahead of the federal government in providing leadership toward reducing carbon pollution and building a clean energy economy. For example, when Trump announced in 2017 his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the governors of California, Washington and New York pledged to support the international agreement, and by 2019, more than 20 other states ended up joining this alliance to combat global warming.

Robert Pollin, distinguished professor of Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been a driving force behind several U.S. states’ efforts to curb carbon emissions and make a transition to a green economy. In this exclusive Truthout interview, Pollin talks about how states can take crucial, proactive steps to build a clean energy future.

C.J. Polychroniou: Bob, you are the lead author of commissioned studies, produced with some of your colleagues at the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to fight climate change for scores of U.S. states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Colorado, Washington, New York and California. The purpose of those studies is to show the way for states to attain critical reductions in carbon emissions while also embarking on a path of economy recovery and a just transition toward an environmentally sustainable environment. In general terms, how is this to be done, and is there a common strategy that all states can follow?

Robert Pollin: The basic framework that we have developed is the same for all states. For all states, we develop a path through which the state can reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by roughly half as of 2030 and to transform into a zero emissions economy by 2050. These are the emissions reduction targets set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) that are meant to apply to the entire global economy. The IPCC — which is a UN agency that serves as a clearinghouse for climate change research — has concluded that these CO2 emissions reduction targets have to be met in order for we, the human race, to have a reasonable chance to stabilize the global average temperature at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level, [the level of] about the year 1800.

The IPCC has concluded that stabilizing the global average temperature at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels provides the only realistic chance for avoiding the most severe destructive impacts of climate change in terms of heat extremes, heavy precipitation, droughts, floods, sea level rise, biodiversity losses, and the corresponding impacts on health, livelihoods, food security, water supply and human security. Given that these emissions reduction targets must be met on a global scale, it follows that they also must be met in every state of the United States, with no exceptions, just like they must be met in every other country or region of the world with no exceptions.

By far the most important source of CO2 emissions entering the atmosphere is fossil fuel consumption — i.e., burning oil, coal and natural gas to produce energy. As such, the program we develop in all of the U.S. states centers on the state’s economy phasing out its entire fossil fuel industry — i.e., anything to do with producing or consuming oil, coal or natural gas — at a rate that will enable the state to hit the two IPCC emissions reduction targets: the 50 percent reduction by 2030 and zero emissions within the state by 2050.

Of course, meeting these emissions reduction targets raises a massive question right away: How can you phase out fossil fuels and still enable people to heat, light and cool their homes and workplaces; for cars, buses, trains and planes to keep running; and for industrial machinery of all types to keep operating?

It turns out that, in its basics, the answer is simple and achievable, in all the states we have studied (and everywhere else for that matter): to build a whole new clean energy infrastructure that will supplant the existing fossil fuel dominant infrastructure in each state. So the next major feature of our approach is to develop investment programs to dramatically raise energy efficiency standards in buildings, transportation systems and industrial equipment, and equally dramatically expand the supply of clean renewable energy sources, i.e. primarily solar and wind energy, but also geothermal, small-scale hydro, as well as low-emissions bioenergy.

For all but one of the states we have studied, we estimate that the amount of clean energy investments that are needed amounts to between 1-3 percent of all state economic activity, i.e. the state’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product). That can be a lot of money — like $6.6 billion in Washington State (1.2 percent of projected average GDP between 2021-2030), $22.6 billion in Pennsylvania (2.5 percent of projected average GDP between 2021-2030) and $76 billion in California (2.1 percent of projected average GDP between 2021-2030). But still, these spending levels, amounting to 1-3 percent of GDP, do still mean that something like 97-99 percent of all the state’s economic activity can be devoted to everything else besidesclean energy investments. West Virginia is the one outlier in the states we have studied so far. But even here, we estimate the investment program will need to be only somewhat higher, at 4.2 percent of the state’s projected average GDP for 2021-2030, equal to $3.6 billion per year.

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The Current Hardships Facing Palestinian Refugees

• by: Pitasanna Shanmugathas

The United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—known as the main international relief and human development organization for Palestinian refugees—defined Palestinian refugees as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” However, most notably, Palestinians displaced because of the 1967 war, and subsequent hostilities, are not referred to or registered as refugees by the Agency, but they are eligible to receive services by UNRWA. Despite this fact, within segments of the international community, Palestinians who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1967 war, and subsequent hostilities, are also regarded as refugees.

In the five areas where UNRWA is in operation, namely, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the hardships faced by the Palestinian refugees has worsened in recent history.

Most recently, with respect to the coronavirus pandemic, the Palestinian refugee population is increasingly in a vulnerable position with little-to-no access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Within the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, COVID-19 cases are surging with more than 2,236 fatalities and 16,000 active cases in these areas (including East Jerusalem). Meanwhile, Israel has been internationally lauded for carrying out the world’s speediest vaccination drive, with over 90 percent of Israelis above the age of 50 having been fully vaccinated as of February 2021. However, Israel has denied Palestinians living within the occupied territories significant access to the vaccines as Israel argues that the Oslo Accords places responsibility on the Palestinian Authority regarding issues of public health. But even under the Oslo Accords, Israel does have a commitment to help Palestinians living in the occupied territories fight the pandemic. Article 17, stipulation 6 of the Accord states: “Israel and the Palestinian side shall exchange information regarding epidemics and contagious diseases, shall cooperate in combating them and shall develop methods for exchange of medical files and documents.”

Moreover, given that Israel is the occupying power—under international law, namely, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Israel has a responsibility to ensure the welfare of the population which it is occupying—namely, the Palestinian people in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The West Bank remains occupied by Israel which “controls entrance and egress, much of the infrastructure, the roads, the currency…in short, all the means of Palestinian independence”—as pointed out by Mitchell Plitnick, the former US director of the Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem. In the case of Gaza, Israel since 2007 has imposed a land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza. Most notably, the effects of Israel’s blockade, coupled with Israel’s routine bombing of Gaza, has crumbled its infrastructure, led to massive poverty, food insecurity, and resulted in less than 4% of the water in that territory, consisting of nearly 2 million people, being fit for human consumption. Israel thus, in addition to the West Bank, also continues to occupy the Palestinians living within the Gaza Strip, and therefore, Israel as their occupier has a responsibility to vaccinate Gazans. In February 2021, Palestinian officials condemned Israel for blocking the entry of 2,000 coronavirus vaccine doses into Gaza to assist its health workers. Despite evidence to the contrary, even if Israeli claims with respect to the Oslo Accords is valid, this is irrelevant, as stated by scholar Yara M.Asi, “the [Geneva] convention specifies that no agreement between the parties supersedes its protections while occupation continues. This would include the Oslo Accords, signed in 1995 as an interim agreement.” Furthermore, Israel, instead of firs seeking to vaccinate Palestinians in the occupied territories, pledged to provide its spare vaccines to foreign allies such as Honduras and the Czech Republic.

In areas outside of the occupied territories, such as Lebanon which is home to an estimated 207,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UN figures, it has been reported that “Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are three times more likely to die with COVID-19 than the population as a whole.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), responsible for providing healthcare and education to millions of Palestinians living both inside and outside the occupied territories, was “recognized as a major contributor to the containment of the COVID-19 virus”—having quickly adapted its provision of services in compliance with the World Health Organization recommendations. UNRWA implemented remote education curriculum practices, adopted door-to-door delivery of food and medicines, as well as innovative health and psychosocial support hotlines which have been regarded as a significant lifeline to the refugee population during the pandemic. Moreover, UNRWA is also responsible for waste disposal and sanitation services to Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East — “this includes disinfectant treatments to roads and installations to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
However, due to the United States’ complete termination of funding to UNRWA under President Trump in 2018, the operations of the Agency were almost brought to a complete halt.
When the pandemic broke out, UNRWA was operating on a shoestring budget with Elizabeth Campbell, UNRWA’s director in Washington, stating in May 2020 that due to America’s termination of funding, “We are basically operating on a month-to-month basis. Right now, we have funding to pay our 30,000 health care workers until the end of this month.”

Even once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, it does not appear that there will be any end in sight to the suffering faced by Palestinian refugees. The hardships faced by Palestinian refugees will continue until the central issues of contention are fully addressed within a final settlement to the conflict. The central issues of contention as it pertains to Palestinian refugees is, firstly, the right of return, secondly, the right of Palestinians for compensation from Israel due to the destruction of Palestinians’ homes, and their livelihoods as a result of the 1948 war, the 1967 war, as well as further hostilities, and the third issue of contention is the assimilation and resettlement of refugees in different countries. Most significantly on the first two points, there is serious doubt as to whether right of return and compensation (both issues which are notably embodied within United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194) is politically feasible and there is doubt as to whether there are legitimate frameworks within international law that firmly allows stateless Palestinians to successfully advocate for the right of return and compensation.

The Taba Summit is widely regarded as perhaps the closest instance that a final settlement to end the longstanding conflict was almost reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians. At the time of the Taba Summit, the Israelis expressed an understanding on the issue of compensation, with Israel advocating that an international commission be created to gather, verify, and pay individual compensation claims. However, at that time, you had a government in Israel that, at least, gave the public impression that it was willing to negotiate on key issues required to reach a permanent settlement to the conflict. Presently, however, the center-left parties in Israel, such as the Labour Party, are a shell of its former self and a significant segment of the population in Israel strongly supports Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Likud Party, which has been expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, further jeopardizing any viable solution to the conflict. There is also disunity among the Palestinians with friction between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Lastly, unless the United States is willing to apply meaningful pressure on Israel to seriously negotiate a final settlement with the Palestinians, an end to the protracted refugee crisis will not be possible.

Hiking The Minimum Wage To $15 Is Key — But It’s Hardly A Living Wage

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Robert Pollin

The federal minimum wage hasn’t increased in over a decade. After a brief but failed attempt by the Biden administration to raise it to $15 an hour, it will most likely remain at the current $7.25 for an indefinite time to come. This is a shame, for the economic benefits of wage hikes are beyond dispute, as many studies have shown, including those authored by Robert Pollin, distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Pollin is co-author of The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (1998) and A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (2008) and has worked with many U.S. non-governmental organizations on creating living wage statutes at both the statewide and municipal levels. In this interview, Pollin discusses why, even though we must continue to push for a $15 minimum wage, we must also consider what a true living wage looks like.

C.J. Polychroniou: The general argument against raising the minimum wage is that it is bad for small business and the economy in general. Is there any truth in this claim?

Robert Pollin: Going through a bit of background will be helpful here. The federal minimum wage was last increased in July 2009, from $6.55 an hour to $7.25. So, no increase in 12 years. But actually, the situation is far worse than even what this suggests. That is because, at the very least, we have to factor in the effects of inflation on people’s ability to buy the things they need to live. Inflation means that the prices of food, housing, transportation, clothing and other necessities have been rising. So the minimum wage today would need to be $8.77 in order to buy what $7.25 could buy in 2009.

But there is still much more to the story once we take account of inflation. That is, after we factor in inflation, the U.S. minimum wage actually peaked in 1968, 52 years ago. In today’s dollars, after factoring in inflation, the federal minimum wage in 1968 was $11.90, 64 percent higher than today’s $7.25 figure. Further still, average labor productivity — i.e., the amount of goods or services an average worker can produce over the course of a day in the U.S. — has risen at an average rate of 1.9 percent per year since 1968. What if, starting in 1968, the federal minimum wage had risen every year in step with the 1.9 percent average increase in productivity as well as inflation? That would mean that minimum wage workers would get raises when they are producing more every day, but their raise would only equal exactly their 1.9 percent improvement in productivity but not a penny more. In that case, the federal minimum wage today would be $31.67 an hour — over four times higher than the actual federal minimum wage today.

Now if we go back to 1968, when the federal minimum wage was approximately $11.90 in today’s dollars, in fact the U.S. economy was booming. The official unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, i.e., less than half of the average 8.1 percent unemployment rate over 2020. So it is obvious that the U.S. economy can function just fine at a much higher federal minimum wage rate than the $7.25 rate that prevails today.

We also get basically the same result by looking at the experiences in recent years with minimum wage laws in U.S. states and living wage statues in some municipalities that are higher than the federal minimum wage. Right now, 29 states along with the District of Columbia operate with minimum wage rates higher than the federal minimum. The citywide minimum in Washington, D.C., is already at $15.00, and the State of Washington is next highest at $13.69. The evidence on the experiences in these states and cities is that businesses function at least as well if not better than those states that still operate at the federal $7.25 minimum. The employment opportunities in these states and cities are also at least as good if not better.

It is fair to ask: If businesses are mandated to pay higher wages than they would choose to pay otherwise, then why is it that we don’t see these businesses lay off employees or close up operations after they are forced to give raises? The answer is that the overwhelming majority of businesses don’t want to be forced to raise wages for their employees, but they learn to adjust. They might raise their prices modestly to cover their increased payroll. The businesses’ level of productivity is also likely to improve. This is because their workers become more committed to their jobs when they are paid at minimally decent levels. These productivity increases will not be enough to compensate for the businesses’ increased payroll, but they will help to partially cover some of their higher costs.

Finally, some businesses may just end up accepting modestly lower profits, even if reluctantly. To the extent this occurs, raising the minimum wage will end up advancing a more equal distribution of income between businesses and workers. This is after 40 years under neoliberalism in which inequality has risen relentlessly. The decline in the value of the minimum wage, after adjusting for inflation, has been a significant factor contributing to the overall rise in inequality under neoliberalism.

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