Political Collapse: Lessons From Fallen Empires

• by: Richard E. Blanton, Gary M. Feinman, Stephen A. Kowalewski, and Lane F. Fargher-Navarro

09-04-2024 ~ Our investigation of the disastrous society-wide collapses of four premodern polities, China’s Ming Dynasty, the South Asian Mughal Empire, the High Roman Empire, and Renaissance Venice led to the discovery of an unexpected historical pattern. This revelation was not evident before these sudden collapses as all four polities had demonstrated forms of governance that persisted for centuries, had been among the wealthiest and best-governed polities of their eras, and had embraced policies fostering inclusiveness and egalitarianism that engendered strong support from the majority of their citizens.

We could not identify any exogenous causal factors for the collapses—such as drought, epidemic, or conquest by a more powerful foe (three of the four eventually were conquered, but only after their governments were considerably weakened)—adding to our confusion about what led to these major political transformations.

To understand the reasons for the political breakdowns, we decided to revisit an earlier article in which we had posited an answer to this question when it became increasingly clear to us that the conflictive political culture of the contemporary U.S. presents striking parallels with what we had discovered. We aim to reexamine our article to bring a comparative perspective on historically well-known episodes of collapse, their causes, and negative outcomes, and to alert U.S. citizens of the potential dangers we face, so we can highlight the need to take urgent corrective actions. We begin by referring to recent works by political scientists and anthropologists that provided theoretical context for our arguments.

Collective Action Theory Expands Our Understanding of Governance
In all four instances, collapse followed quickly after the leaders of these polities inexplicably and suddenly abandoned principles and practices that had successfully underpinned state-building and social stability. Their actions initiated a cascading series of events that brought a rapid decline in many aspects of society, which extended beyond the government. But why would the actions of just a few people have such severe consequences for otherwise endurable and well-organized polities? Read more

Neoliberal Policies Associated With Reaganomics Actually Started With Carter

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Historian David N. Gibbs ~ University of Arizona

09-03-2024 ~ Historian David N. Gibbs, author of “The Revolt of the Rich,” says we mustn’t whitewash President Carter’s record.

Research has long established strong links between neoliberal policies and increasing rates of inequality. Susan George, for instance, argued quite convincingly that increasing inequality stems from the neoliberal practices of placing public wealth into private hands, enforcing huge tax cuts for the rich and suppressing wages for average workers. And a recent study by psychology researchers shows that neoliberalism has resulted in both preferences and support for greater income inequality. Moreover, the study in question argues that the culprit for the impact on attitudes is “Thatcherism.” Indeed, most researchers place the origins of the neoliberal counterrevolution in the postwar era with the policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the U.K. and the U.S., respectively.

However, a new book by the historian David N. Gibbs, titled, The Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide, contends that we should look to the administrations of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter in particular for setting up the foundations for the launching of the neoliberal counterrevolution in the United States. As such, as its author points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout, too much credit has been assigned to the Thatcher-Reagan duo for the end of the Keynesian social democratic approach to government and economics. As Gibbs says, “We should not whitewash Carter’s record” as he was “certainly no friend to the working class.” Gibbs is professor of history at the University of Arizona. Read more

PVV Blog 11 ~ The Ideology Of The PVV In Practice: Conclusion

• by: Jan Jaap de Ruiter

09-02-2024 ~ In this final episode of the series, I conclude my reflections and venture a prediction on how the new government, with its PVV contingent, will fare. The reason for ending the series is twofold. Firstly, I have based this series on my earlier work on the PVV, as expressed in my books De ideologie van de PVV. Het kwade goed en het goede kwaad (2012) and The Dutch Party for Freedom. An Analysis of Geert Wilders’ Thinking on Islam (2012). I noticed that everything I had noted and analyzed in the books regarding the PVV’s ideology had become almost exhausted. In this series, I have extensively discussed the positions and considerations that party leader Wilders and party ideologue Bosma once committed to paper, which I analyzed in both books. Secondly, I notice that all the points I have discussed now also frequently appear in the national and international press. It seems that what I wrote about in 2012 has now become common knowledge in the reporting of the PVV-critical press. And that, of course, gives me much satisfaction. The press is aware of the very poor democratic structure of the PVV; they know of the now more than ever unhidden agenda of the PVV to make the Netherlands, and preferably all of Europe, Islam-free and thus Muslim-free. Of the close relationships the PVV maintains with like-minded individuals in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen of the French Rassemblement National and Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán of the Fidesz party. This series will remain online for the time being, but it will also be published in full on my website and on my  Academia page, both in Dutch and English, and perhaps later in French and Arabic as well.

The New Government
The debate on the government declaration on July 3 and 4 already led to a significant clash between the newly minted Prime Minister Dick Schoof and PVV leader Wilders, which I reported on in the previous episode of this blog. The prime minister identified himself in his observations with the later Dutch Olympic champion marathon runner Sifan Hassan, of Ethiopian origin, saying he considered her someone who belongs to society. The prime minister has so far acted inclusively (‘everyone is part of society’), and I have yet to catch him making an ‘exclusive’ statement (‘us versus them’).

Furthermore, the ministers from the PVV are confronted with the daily realities of governance. Minister Agema of Health reported that she could do little or nothing to keep a hospital in Heerlen, in the south of the country, open, even though she repeatedly argued as a Member of Parliament at the time that hospitals should not be closed and that the government should take the necessary measures to prevent this. Read more

Labor Militancy Is The Only Way To Increase Union Membership

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Agitated workers face the factory owner in The Strike, painted by Robert Koehler in 1886

09-01-2024 ~ We need to rebuild the labor movement, and that means not going back to the kind of unions that existed in the postwar era. We need unions with a radical vision, unions that exert power in the workplace and society.

With Labor Day 2024 upon us, it is important to critically reflect on the current state of the U.S. labor movement and the challenges that it faces in an environment where Big Business dominates the economy and mainstream society continues to abide allegiance to the values of a Lockean political culture in which ruthless individualism reigns supreme. To put it mildly, without a strong labor movement and a public spirit guiding our institutions, the country will never succeed in realizing the vision of a just and fair society.

However, the news on the labor front is not very encouraging. The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union has been declining since the early 1980s—an era which coincides with the full swing of the neoliberal counterrevolution and deindustrialization. In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and declined to 11.1 percent in 2015.

In 2021, the union membership rate was 10.3 percent and dropped to 10.1 percent in 2022. In 2023, union membership declined even further to 10.0 percent, which is a historic low.

The irony is that the United States has seen a “union boom” over the last couple of years. Thousands of employees at Starbucks stores across the country have voted to unionize and workers at Amazon warehouses and Trader Joe’s, grad students, and Uber and Lyft drivers also joined the unionization fight. But the data, as cited above, tells a different story. The share of U.S. workers belonging to a union continues to decline and is now at the lowest rate in history. Today, organized labor in the United States is dominated by public-sector employees, which is more than five times higher than the 6 percent rate of private-sector employees. Read more

Why Poverty Reduction Under Capitalism Is A Myth

• by: Richard D. Wolff

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7356013-6-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-7356013-5-9

08-27-2024 ~From its beginnings, the capitalist economic system produced both critics and celebrants, those who felt victimized and those who felt blessed. Where victims and critics developed analyses, demands, and proposals for change, beneficiaries, and celebrants developed alternative discourses defending the system.

Certain kinds of arguments proved widely effective against capitalism’s critics and in obtaining mass support. These became capitalism’s basic supportive myths. One such myth is that capitalism created prosperity and reduced poverty.

Capitalists and their biggest fans have long argued that the system is an engine of wealth creation. Capitalism’s early boosters, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and likewise capitalism’s early critics such as Karl Marx, recognized that fact. Capitalism is a system built to grow.

Because of market competition among capitalist employers, “growing the business” is necessary, most of the time, for it to survive. Capitalism is a system driven to grow wealth, but wealth creation is not unique to capitalism. The idea that only capitalism creates wealth or that it does so more than other systems is a myth. Read more

Harris’s Failed Opportunity?

• by: Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar

08-26-2024 ~ Kamala Harris chose to embrace Republican language on the economy even if she backs progressive politics.

During her nearly 40-minute-long speech on the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her economic plan for the nation as “an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”

I deliberately chose not to watch her speech, preferring instead to read it. The ebullience at this year’s DNC was infectious. The Democratic Party is leaning into some of the language of progressive economic populism and is energized by a younger, more enthusiastic nominee. But reading Harris’s speech rather than watching it, helped bring some distance from the joy and clarified that the party is still not embracing the language of progressive economic populism and continues to use the destructive language of the right. Read more