Climate Change as Crime against Humanity

originally published on CounterPunch

Have you ever found yourself thinking about the fact that climate change is both caused by and benefits a certain class of people, and generally does not benefit – and actually harms – another, far larger, class of people? Have you? And have you ever thought that, just maybe, this is not just a moral or ethical problem but a criminal matter? Something like a reckless or negligent crime against humanity? Have you? Well, maybe you have.

Maybe you’ve even thought, as I do now and then, that there’s no reason to hatch up yet another crime, another law  - since that’s just what reckless or negligent crimes against humanity would be. To be sure, there are already plenty of laws – prohibiting all sorts of horrible, exploitative, harmful things. They’re just not enforced. So what’s the use? What would it accomplish to frame climate change as a crime against humanity? I mean, you’re not going to drag anyone off to the International Criminal Court, are you? Or maybe you’ll set up your own tribunal, right here in the street. Why the hell not? It might feel good. And you can still boycott the fossil fuel industry – you and Desmond Tutu and so many others. Why not? It’s not as though – for all practical purposes – you’re forced to drive a car – forced to drive a car to get to work to pay the rent and pay for food and pick up groceries…

But let me tell you, as long as we’re discussing food, the meat industry, according to that UN report, is an even bigger climate change causer – or, if you prefer, bigger perpetrator of negligent and reckless crimes against humanity – than even the fossil fuel industry. I mean, that’s just a fact – just as the very air we breathe is the world’s leading carcinogen. And it’s only getting worse. I mean, I know that facts are somewhat unfashionable. Remember that old Mr. Gradgrind? Wasn’t that his name?

The point, however, is that if we’re going to meaningfully boycott the fossil fuel industry (which I’m all for, by the way) we shouldn’t stop there. I mean, it makes little sense to boycott one ecocidal industry while perpetuating others. For instance, did you know that the information technology industry is as big a polluter as the airline industry is? Look it up if you don’t believe me. And you’ll see, too, that search engines generate no small degree of CO2. That’s another one of those facts. At any rate, what was my point? Oh yeah, even though climate change is a horrible problem – a crime against humanity, not to mention a crime against so many animals, and forests, and rivers – it’s only an offshoot of a far larger problem. But you knew that, right?

I mean, just imagine what would happen if nuclear fusion were perfected – if an unlimited source of “clean,” “green” energy were available, and climate change were no longer a problem. What do you think all that energy – all that power – would be used to pursue? You’d still have to pay the rent. That wouldn’t change. Not with these laws. It’s not going to wipe out poverty, or malnutrition, or starvation either. That’s all, as a matter of fact, already technically feasible. I mean, you know that tons of food are willfully destroyed every day to keep up prices – exchange value, not use value, makes this world go round, right? Exchange value – a type of religious thought – backed up with guns, and all sorts of crimes against humanity – negligent, reckless, intentional, and otherwise.

In other words, there’s a whole hell of a lot to boycott beyond the fossil fuel industry – this entire coercive, unthinking society. If we can boycott that – I don’t know. Perhaps a non-coercive, thinking society can emerge from the former. One sees little hints of this here and there, from time to time.

Preconditions for an Actually Democratic Society

originally published on CounterPunch

As what very well may be the warmest summer on record continues, and record-breaking drought persists, unprecedented economic polarization, a ballooning prison population, and a barrage of dire climatological studies, among other pieces of evidence, are leading ever more people to consider whether our collective way of life is in need of a fundamental transformation. And because our collective way of life is rooted in and hinges on the ambiguous notion of democracy, an examination of this concept seems in order.

Democracy, it should be remarked, has been invested with multiple meanings over the millennia. And since it can refer to egalitarian, emancipatory politics, as well as to the political-economic systems of the slavery-based societies of the southern United States or ancient Athens, an initial distinction should be drawn between egalitarian forms of democracy (which tend to be organized more or less horizontally, with social resources distributed more or less evenly) and what, in practical terms, are really plutocratic societies – or what, perhaps, can be termed market-based democracies (which tend to be more or less hierarchical and representational). It is this latter market-based or plutocratic society that, with only minor egalitarian democratic interruptions and adjustments, exists today and characterizes what democracy has meant since the bourgeois democratic revolutions of the late 18th century.

Pointing out the actually plutocratic quality of contemporary society should not be controversial. Beyond the fact that democracy was limited in the US, France, and other places by design to property owning men, it is well known that, as a class, or as various power blocs, the wealthy today control the major media, among other resources, and act as gatekeepers to the public realm – limiting and determining which issues are legitimate or acceptable enough to be affirmed or legitimized by a vote. So it’s a kratein of the ploutos – a plutocracy. Or, at best, it’s a very narrowly circumscribed type of democracy – an arrangement which is a far cry from an actually democratic society.

Beyond describing what democracy is not, however, we should elaborate just what it is that we mean when we speak of democracy. Democracy, of course, means the rule of the people – the Kratein, the rule or power, of the Demos, the people.

What should be added is that this notion of people refers beyond the universal notion of people to the particular notion of people as an underclass, an excluded class, the poor. As Giorgio Agamben put it: “Every interpretation of the political meaning of the term ‘people’ must begin with the singular fact that in modern European languages, ‘people’ also always indicates the poor, disinherited, and the excluded. One term thus names both the constitutive political subject and the class that is, de facto if not de jure, excluded from politics.” So, the people were not, and are not, the masters or the owners of a given society. And perhaps this is why Aristotle in Book III of his Politics defines democracy as that political system in which the poor have power.

And because the poor (historically at least) comprise the majority of a population, the idea of majority rule arises alongside this. This majoritarian power, majority rule, however, is really indistinct from the rule of force (or might makes right). As John Stuart Mill’s conservative rival James Fitzjames Stephen put it, “we agree to try strength by counting heads, not breaking heads.” And because this rule of force is thought to be incongruent with the demands of fairness and justice – which democracy, according to its adherents, is supposed to realize – certain modifications and protections are put into place.

Beyond what can be called democracy’s form (e.g., majority rule, voting – which is always ever only really acclamation – and other formalistic, procedural qualities) democracy may be said to possess or require a content as well. And this content – what we just referred to as justice and fairness – takes, among other things, its legal form as rights. The right to due process of law, or free speech, for instance.

A majority, even a supermajority, the 99%, for example, cannot deprive a minority of their rights without due process of law. In practice, of course, this doesn’t play out. But, in theory, it’s supposed to be there. People are supposed to enjoy – to possess – rights. And, crucially, beyond their particular contents (free speech, right to a jury trial, etc.) these rights are said to be inalienable. What does this mean? Well, those who know anything about property law know that something that is said to be alienable is able to be sold. If something is inalienable, then, it cannot be sold. It’s a legal impossibility. And this distinction operates vis-a-vis rights as well. Of course, people have been sold into slavery, and today people are still enslaved throughout the world. But all of this is considered contrary to justice. And it’s against the law as well – or, it’s against some laws.

The point, however, is that, in general, rights (whether they actually exist or not) are said to be inalienable and this ultimately sets up a fundamental conflict between the regime of rights (democracy) and, among other things, capitalism. Because, just as democracy can be said to be the regime of the inalienable, capitalism may be said to be the regime of the alienable. Within capitalism, nearly everything’s alienable: land, water, labor. Even time is said to be money. And, of course, people are alienable under capitalism, too (in whole, as is the case with slavery, and in part, by the hour, in the wage system).

So, capitalism can be said to be the regime of the alienable; and democracy, to some degree, can be said to be the regime of the inalienable – the form of society in which some things should not be alienable, for sale, at all. The ability to own property, for instance, should be subordinated to the demands of the actually democratic society. And if a conflict between alienability and inalienability should arise (between, say, the right to own a slave and the right to not be a slave), the democratic society really ought to prioritize the inalienable (while the capitalistic society prioritizes the alienable). While it may be surprising to some, an important example of this can be found in the thought of someone who is recognized as being one of the seminal thinkers of the modern democratic tradition – Thomas Jefferson.

Now, Jefferson may have been a slaveholder, among other things, but his thought is worth consideration – not because he was a great person, but because his thought is so central to both the idea of democracy and rights, and to the relationship between alienability and inalienability. For Jefferson, we should recall, the inalienable extended beyond what we might call enumerated rights. A democratic society had certain preconditions. In order, for instance, to participate in a democratic society – in order for people to govern themselves – people needed to be somewhat autonomous. People couldn’t be dependent on another who might usurp a person’s political decision-making ability in some way. As such, people needed to have some degree of independence physically for there to be a democratic society, or democratic social relations, according to Thomas Jefferson.

As Michael Hardt points out in his essay Jefferson and Democracy, Jefferson felt that people could not govern themselves without having some degree of material self-sufficiency. This is why, in his version of the Virginia state constitution, 50 acres of land were to be given to all (white men) who did not already own 50 acres (an amount deemed sufficient to enable the one who possessed it to be free from the coercion of others). Of course, this land wasn’t to be divided in an egalitarian manner at all; it was to be appropriated from Native Americans. So, quite a few racist and sexist, anti-egalitarian ideas reside in Jefferson’s thought beside this other deeply egalitarian notion that all people should have some basic degree of autonomy, and must enjoy a basic, prerequisite material basis, for a democratic society to function.

Despite its anti-egalitarian shortcomings, and its promulgation of the myopic ideology of the individual, Jefferson’s thought points to the notion that democracy requires a certain infrastructure – that beyond its form, and beyond the abstract content of certain rights, an actual democracy requires a concrete content. That is, in addition to the rule of law, courts, a free press, etc., political rights cannot be actualized – cannot manifest – absent a material basis of some sort.

Certain basic conditions need to be present for a democratic society to arise: security from hunger, security from lack of shelter, conditions that precede and support political rights must exist. And these conditions, or preconditions, this infrastructure of democracy – like the rights they are actually inseparable from – must also be inalienable – as inalienable as those prerequisite 50 acres, unconditionally.

To some extent, the contemporary notion of a basic income law is comparable to this prerequisite. Championed by a growing number of people throughout the world, a basic income – or guaranteed livable income, as it is sometimes called – simply provides that all people receive an income (of varying amounts) – whether they work or not. Yet, while a basic income could ameliorate many of the problems that result from an increasingly automated, advanced capitalist economy, one that simply – structurally – cannot extend decent-paying jobs (or any at all for that matter) to all who need one, and despite its semblance to Jefferson’s idea, the idea of a basic income law falls short. Among other reasons, it falls short because just as people do not need jobs for their own sake (but need a job to further some particular end), people do not in reality need money either; rather, people need those things that one exchanges for money. And while the extension of a basic income would no doubt mitigate some of this society’s harms, and could ameliorate certain problems in the short-term, a basic income would do little to ensure that people would be able to enjoy what we have been referring to as the infrastructure of actual democracy.

Indeed, rather than advancing actual, meaningful political-economic independence, or autonomy, a basic income is restricted – primarily – to enabling consumption. In spite of the fact that a basic income law would afford people with more time to participate politically, a basic income law does not address, among others, the political-economic issue of what should be produced, or not produced – or how whatever should be produced should be produced – in the first place. While a basic income could change conditions superficially, the present ecocidal, vastly unequal, militaristic, anti-democratic political-economy would not necessarily be altered at all by this. It could just keep plugging and fracking along, launching wars and other projects that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Moreover, in addition to a quasi-democratic politics, a basic income law is just as easily reconcilable with an aristocratic politics. As Aristotle – who did not really like democracy at all – put it, an aristocratic system was a just system because what was in the interest of the best (who were by definition the few) was, because they were the best, in the overall interest of the city (the polis) and everyone else as well. But what was in the interest of the many (who by definition could not be the best) was not in the interest of the city. And this undemocratic, aristocratic idea is not only prevalent today (the entire “trickle down” argument, for instance, is associated with this notion), it is prevalent among a considerable number of people who champion a basic income law. Among those who harbor genuinely egalitarian political goals – who have a genuine concern for social justice – there are people who to some degree claim to be working toward democracy but wind up conflating the rule and needs of the people with the needs and rule of the market.

Followers of the right-wing economist Milton Friedman, of the Chicago School of economics, for example, subscribe to this notion. As most are probably familiar, this school of thought champions austerity, among other hardly egalitarian economic policies and programs. And in their own way they also claim to champion democracy, or they at least appeal to the idea of democracy, and freedom, while pursuing policies that are more often than not nakedly plutocratic (favoring the wealthy, privatizing the public, etc.) as opposed to democratic in the sense of championing the interests of the people, the masses, the multitude, the little people, etc. – for austerity means restricting the public realm, whereas democratization calls for its extension and expansion.

While Milton Friedman and his followers (who are well-represented in government, mass media, the business community, and other positions of power) claim to have the interests of democracy – or freedom – at heart they in fact spend their time and money and energy concretely undermining what we might refer to as genuinely egalitarian democratic tendencies in the US, and other places, as unambiguously as they did in Chile under Pinochet. In spite of this flagrantly anti-democratic, pro-aristocratic tendency, however, Milton Friedman championed a basic income law, and many of his supporters continue to support a basic income law today.

Though this may at first seem odd, it is entirely consistent with the libertarian political-economic goal of total privatization – total de-socialization – in which everything is for sale, or alienable, and hardly anything is inalienable.

Rather than creating and expanding public spaces, which are the democratic spaces par excellence, in which public speech, and political debate, etc., take place, the “free market” answer is to privatize everything. Schools, public utilities, public lands, streets, water (things that, to some degree, approximate what we have been referring to as the material preconditions for an actually democratic society) are privatized. And then people can purchase, as commodities, what the community had previously already for the most part enjoyed. The free market argument, of course, is that privatizing these is more efficient, and convenient. As we see again and again, with housing, food production, and health care, among other resources, however, this is not the case at all. A commodity economy actually gives rise to all sorts of avoidable problems. Tons of food are intentionally destroyed each year to maintain the commodity’s exchange-value, for instance, while people starve throughout the world. Or necessary housing for the elderly is torn down, and vulnerable populations are rendered homeless, in order to build more profitable luxury housing (which, by definition, is not necessary). At any event, many maintain that these resources should all be privatized, and then people – with the aid of a basic income – could purchase that which in an actually democratic society would not be alienated from the public (and managed by a small group of profiteers) in the first place. In an actually democratic society use-value would trump exchange-value.

As one of the more extreme brands of market fundamentalism, the Milton Friedman/libertarian position may be said to subsume the more moderate versions of pro market-regulated economics. And this should be a concern. In championing the total privatization of the public realm, replacing community with a multiplicity of individuals bound solely by market relations, as opposed to human relations, this type of politics aims to replace community – and the inalienable – with commerce – the totally alienable – and the rule of the people with the rule of the market (which is always the rule of those who have market power over those who do not). And this is not inconsistent with a basic income law. If it were, the aristocratic – as opposed to socialistic – libertarians would not argue for the implementation of one, too.

Still, though, we need to elaborate the idea of an actually democratic society. What constitutes this? How much, for instance, should be inalienable? What conditions need to be created, and which need to be eliminated? Would an actually democratic society, for example, allow poverty to persist? Or, rather, would an actually democratic society work to eliminate poverty altogether? Martin Luther King, Jr., for his part, in his 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here, argued that a basic income law should be instituted in order to eradicate poverty. We should pause for a moment to ask, however: just what do we even mean by poverty? For poverty is not merely the lack of resources; poverty is characterized by the lack of socio-political power as well – which is always relative. 

This raises a significant question: If, as Aristotle says, democracy is the form of politics in which the poor have power, what happens if the poor obtain power and employ that power to eliminate poverty? Because they would no longer be poor and, according to Aristotle at least, democracy is the rule of the poor, one must wonder: would the elimination of poverty be the elimination of democracy? And, if so, what type of political-economy would this engender?

Another important issue is brought to the surface by this. Though most in this post-9/11 world reject Francis Fukuyama’s Kojevian, quasi-Hegelian notion of the end of history, in many respects many people have accepted and internalized an aspect of this notion of our having arrived at the end of history. One manifestation of this is that we don’t really discuss any politics beyond democracy. Is democracy the end of our political imaginary?

In some respects, of course, the idea of going beyond democracy (not to mention the state) – going beyond limited, market-based democracies, eliminating poverty, for instance – can really be regarded as a type of perfection of the idea of democracy (or, as mentioned earlier, the realization of an actually democratic society – since, arguably, no actual democracy has ever existed).

But this actual democracy, as previously discussed, requires what we’ve been referring to as a genuinely democratic infrastructure (the concrete preconditions for actual democratic social relations) in order to manifest. Democracy, or actual democracy, does not merely require institutions that protect what is alienable (like fire departments, and courts of law); it requires that which supports and allows for the actualization of that which is inalienable as well. To state it somewhat problematically, “political animals” cannot meaningfully realize political rights without also possessing what in many respects amount to “animal rights” – political rights’ precondition. The coupling of these, perhaps, is what the notion of human rights refers to after all.

Insofar as this relates to the question of a basic income law, a basic income law could be a step toward an actually democratic society, but by itself a basic income law is insufficient – especially when one considers its libertarian and free-market associations, and the fact that mere economic power is a poor substitute for actual political-economic power. Indeed, rather than a basic income law, actual democratization may be said to require something like a basic infrastructure of an actually democratic society law, one in which the infrastructure of actual democracy, not just political rights as such but that which precede and support political rights (conditions such as housing, nutrition, a healthy environment, transportation, communications, education, leisure, the nullification of coercive power and its attendant institutions, not to mention what some, like Henri Lefebvre, have referred to as the right to the city, among other conditions necessary for human flourishing – those conditions that are an actually democratic society’s preconditions) should not only be decommodified and inalienable, but should be recognized as that which an actually just, actually democratic society has an actual obligation to produce for itself; not in exchange for anything, or for profit, but for its own sake.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict at the XXVII Guadalajara International Book Fair

published on Tikkun

Considered the most important Book Fair in the Spanish-speaking world, and second in the world only to the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Mexico, concluded this Sunday, December 8th, under heavy security. The unusually high level of security resulted from the guest of honor of this year’s book fair, the State of Israel. For the past 20 years, the book fair has honored a city, country, or region as its guest. No earlier guests, however, have been as controversial, or have aroused as much protest and dissent, as has the State of Israel. Hence, the unprecedented levels of security.

Along with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the Israeli President Shimon Peres was in attendance. And although several protests against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, and demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people, took place outside the fair, there was little press coverage on the issue. Likewise, there was no acknowledgment within the fair of the political controversy – until the final day of the book fair.

As a guest I was invited to introduce my most recent collection of short stories, “El suicidio y otros cuentos” (“Suicide and Other Tales”), as well as a collection of essays on the catastrophic effects of NAFTA in the Mexican culture. To the great disappointment of my publisher, who attempted but failed to interrupt me, I surprised the assembled guests by raising the issue of international justice as it relates to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Marco Vinicio Gonzalez of Radiobilingue wrote, “the sophisticated security measures around the Israeli president Shimon Peres could not prevent the entrance of a Trojan horse.” As this “Trojan horse”, I brought with me and read a letter of solidarity written by the contemporary Jewish writer, attorney, and theorist, Elliot Sperber. While my Spanish translation of Sperber’s letter has been printed in Spanish language media, and has generated a very grateful, engaged response from my readers, it has not been published in its original English version. It appears below.

In Solidarity,

Malou H.D.T. (Malú Huacuja del Toro).

***

Dear Neighbors,

I hope you won’t find it presumptuous that, though we’ve never met, I should address you as neighbors. Though we don’t know one another, however, the fact of the matter is (especially in light of instant telecommunications, and the ease of travel that has shrunk the world over the past few decades) that we are all neighbors on this planet. So, I would like to not only address you all as neighbors, and to think of you as neighbors, but to live with you as neighbors as well.

It is a profound honor to be, however marginally, a part of the 27th Guadalajara International Book Fair. When Malú asked me if I would write something (to address, in particular, the controversy surrounding this year’s guest, the State of Israel), my initial reaction was: No, absolutely not. Although I have lived in Israel, and attended school in Israel, and briefly worked in Israel on a kibbutz – a collective farm – and though I have strong feelings about the injustice of the ongoing occupation of Palestine, among other aspects of the State of Israel’s general aggressiveness, my initial reaction was that it would be best to remain silent. Why entangle myself in such a heated, complex controversy? Besides, there are certainly people more qualified than I am to speak on the subject. Israelis, perhaps. No thank you. Moreover, it’s a book fair – a cultural event. Why drag politics into it?

Upon further reflection, however, it occurred to me that (though international book fairs hold out the promise of eradicating national differences, obliterating borders, and comprise an important dimension of the developing world community) insofar as International Book Fairs distinguish groups of people based on national affiliation – as opposed to merely cultural or linguistic associations – and because nations are thoroughly political institutions, an international book fair is a manifestly political event. And, as a political event, it is an entirely appropriate forum to raise important international political issues. It is in this context that I was reminded of the legendary Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno’s observation that “at times to be silent is to lie.”

In addition to its other dimensions, Unamuno’s insight shares an analogue with the jurisprudential concept of the criminal omission – which holds that crimes are not only committed by positive acts. In addition to positive acts, crimes can also be committed by omissions – when people fail to act. And it seems difficult to deny that it would be a singular crime of conscience to honor the State of Israel as a guest without raising attention to the fact (and this should not at all disparage the deservedly celebrated writers who hail from Israel) that the State of Israel – as a political entity – does not ever travel alone; wherever Israel travels, she is accompanied by her prisoner – the Palestinian people. For the two are not only physically, territorially, shackled together, they are morally shackled together as well. And while this enchainment is a tragedy for both parties, as the more powerful – as the jailer, rather than the jailed – it is Israel who holds the key to the lock. As the exponentially more powerful, it is Israel that holds the key to peace.

Since they arrive together, shackled together, in addition to honoring Israel as a guest, we must also honor the Palestinians, for they are here too. And their struggle cannot be ignored.

While it may sound peculiar to state so – in light of what was just said – it would be difficult to find a more appropriate choice for guest of honor at an international book festival than the State of Israel. This is not because of the fact that the Jewish people are known as Am Hasefer – the people of the book.

While the Jewish people are indeed known by this honorific, we must be careful not to conflate the rich cultural heritage of Judaism with the political entity that is the State of Israel. Though decidedly related, the two are distinct – as distinct as any political construct is from a cultural and social one. A Jew is not an Israeli. And an Israeli is not necessarily a Jew. Indeed, as the celebrated Israeli activist and writer Uri Avnery recently wrote, “Jewish Israelis are already a minority in the country ruled by Israel.”

And although plenty of Jewish people may be ardent supporters of the State of Israel’s policies, within Israel and throughout the world, just as many are fierce critics.

Though the Israeli flag is emblazoned with the mogen David – the star of David – or Jewish star – this should not lead people to infer that the State of Israel’s policies represent those of the Jewish people – any more than all of the nations of the world that bear a cross on their flag represent the political opinions of Christians – or the policies of any state with a flag bearing a crescent represents the political thoughts of the Muslim people of the world. As with every group of people, the Jewish people are tremendously heterogeneous. And though we all already know this, it bears repeating that all of us must be careful to resist the prevalent racist gravitational pull that leads us to think of people, any people, according to stereotypes.

Notwithstanding this distinction regarding the people of the book and the State of Israel, however, one could still maintain that Israel is a uniquely apt guest of honor for an international book fair. For insofar as the book par excellence – not just any book, mind you, but The Book – the Bible – originated in the ancient land of Israel, it is more than appropriate to celebrate Israel at a festival that honors books. Moreover, because, in addition to books, an international book fair necessitates nations, it is also appropriate to honor Israel. This is so, because, in addition to being the birthplace of the quintessential book, the State of Israel, in many respects, exemplifies what the nation-state is. For a nation-state is an instrument of war.

Not just the State of Israel, but all states are instruments of war.

The State of Israel is only unique to the degree that its aggression is not only well-recognized, but is nearly universally reviled. Though it is often regarded as exceptional, Israel’s violence should instead be recognized – not as any sort of exception – but as that which characterizes the rule of the state in general – the general rule of the state.

The state is an instrument of war – and not just against its rival states. Each state is also an instrument of war against its own people. Those who witnessed the Mexican state’s recent crackdown of the teachers’ protest in Mexico City, or witnessed the crackdown of the Occupy movement in the US, or witnessed the violence that any other popular protest movement received from its respective state cannot deny this simple truth. This is what constitutes a state; the state is an instrument of war.

And insofar as this is the case, the Palestinians are only the most visible of the State of Israel’s victims. In addition to the Palestinian people, who have bravely resisted Israeli aggression for decades, the poor people of Israel, the working classes of Israel, the immigrants of Israel, among others, such as the hundreds of thousands of Israelis involved in ongoing demands for social justice, are also victims of war.

For let us not forget what it is that we speak of when we speak of the state. The state is not only an institution comprised of a military, and defined by well-guarded borders. It is also comprised of a government, of laws and courts and administrators. And these laws and courts and administrative bodies do not function to create the conditions of justice and peace. If they do, this is incidental to their main purpose, which is to maintain Order. That is, they maintain a particular type of Order – the Order that is, as we speak, cannibalizing the world. The people, the public, we – we are regarded as a population – a natural resource to be managed according to the interests of the state. When justice arises – if it arises – it arises always as an exception to, and as a rupturing of, this Order.

One might note, at this point, that my remarks may not constitute an entirely respectful way to treat or otherwise honor a guest. But let’s not forget, I am not addressing the State of Israel – or anyone here for that matter – as a guest. As I mentioned earlier, I am addressing everyone as a neighbor – as neighbors on the planet we all share. Or, rather, as neighbors on the planet that we all do not share – neighbors on the planet that some of us own, and make decisions about, and govern, and mine, and bomb, via various states – all the states represented here, under all of these flags, contrary to whatever democratic proclamations they may from time to time espouse.

And here we are. Here we are, simultaneously determined by these states and, at the same time, holding the keys to our own liberation. For just as we make the abstractions and laws of the state incarnate through our cooperation, and participation, we also possess the potential to disappear the state by non-participation – to disappear the state, as so many states have done to so many of us.

Blended in with this world of states – this world of force – of course – let us not forget that we are surrounded by this other world – this world of ideas, this world of books. This is why we are really all here. This is what really brings us together – to honor books – and language, and stories, and ideas. We mustn’t, of course, make the simplistic mistake of proclaiming that all books are good. Books can be put to many uses. Like bricks, books can build walls, and fortresses, and can be used as weapons. Among other things, books can justify monstrosities. Tragically, history is replete with such books.

Likewise, the ideas in books can lead us beyond our particular, national barbarities. Among other places, books can lead us to the recognition of, and respect for, the truth of our actual human interdependence – to the universal enigma we all share.

Beyond our national, cultural, religious, and class differences, books can lead us to the recognition of the fact that though we may be strangers, we are all also neighbors. And, as such, as neighbors, we are all subject to the duty of the neighbor – to help one another – the duty to care for one another as neighbors. This is the duty of the neighbor. And because we are all neighbors, this duty, in turn, leads inexorably to the duty to dismantle our states, all of our states – and to dismantle our armies, all of our armies – to not only dismantle our borders, but to share and respect the great wealth of this planet, as neighbors, in peace.

Thank you,

Elliot Sperber

This Is Not a New Year

published originally on CounterPunch


While in some respects the end of the month of December marks the conclusion of a year and the beginning of a new year (the 2014th year anno domini - the "year of our lord"), in a far more important sense what is being celebrated is not a new year at all. It is, in fact, an actually ancient year - or, if you prefer, an ancient type of year (a calendar comprised of Sumerian - or biblical - seven-day weeks, and twelve ancient Roman months, among other cultural distinctions).

At this point one might remark that I am conflating the year with the calendar; but, in this context, is there really any meaningful distinction between the two? To be sure, whenever one celebrates the beginning of a year, one is celebrating a specific (formal or informal) calendar. Otherwise, every day (every hour!) would be the beginning of a new year. This leads us to another question: what kind of calendar - what kind of distribution of time, and organization of life - are we, in fact, celebrating?

The word calendar itself, it should be remarked, supplies us with a clue to the solution to this question; for the word "calendar" derives from the Latin word "Calendarium," which means a banker's account book. And there is little doubt that in this society money, as the trope has it, indeed "makes the world go round." This is so, irrespective of the concrete fact that it isn't money that makes the world go round so much as people who (through force, among other manipulations) determine that money should be our society's "bottom line," the final word. For instance, regardless of whether or not a particular project - military, social, economic, or otherwise - makes any sense, money, above any other consideration, will be the factor that determines what will be pursued.

In spite of the above, and in spite of the fact that the present calendar helps to naturalize an unjust social system, there are many among us who (though they may be metaphorically sick of, and literally sick from, this particular Gregorian calendar - with its manifold workdays, and workhours, not to mention its idiotic, patriotic holidays and religious vacations) unquestioningly submit to this distribution of time.

And since many among us will be celebrating the New Year in some fashion (whether because of some sort of inertia, or from genuine pleasure at having, ironically, a bit of a vacation from the everyday calendar), it would do us well to reflect a bit on what the designation "new year" actually means. What does this truly entail? Will there ever be a genuinely new year? And, if so, how would - or, what may be a better way to phrase the question: how should a new year look?

Though such a question, arguably, ought to be decided democratically at the community level, there is at least one point that should be beyond dispute: in order to improve our lives - to ameliorate the harms that our political-economy has caused, and continues to cause, ourselves as well as the world at large - a new year should have, at the very least, half as many workdays as the present year has. And since we not only have the technological capacity to maintain (and even improve) our quality of life while, at the same time, halving the number of  hours we work each year, simple good sense demands that we work toward creating a calendar in which at least half of all of the days are vacations. That this may sound fanciful simply reflects the degree to which pathology has become the norm; for, aside from the fact that it makes a few people obscenely rich, there is no reason for people to work as many hours as people are forced to work - and the obscene wealth of a minority should not be terribly persuasive in a nominally democratic society. Some will no doubt remark - correctly - that such a "new year," or new calendar, will not be compatible with, among other harmful institutions, the capitalistic political-economy. This is indubitably the case. That the present calendar is incompatible with democracy, however, is equally so. Which deserves priority?

Kill the Landlord, Save the Man

originally published on CounterPunch

Some expressions are so familiar, so deeply entwined in our history that, although they are thoroughly racist, even homicidal, they fail to elicit much surprise or shock. Familiar with their presence, we become inured to their depravity. And, because they fail to surprise us, they oftentimes fail to offend us as well. While the degree to which they influence us is subject to dispute, few will doubt that our culture is stitched together by just such threads. Maintaining an infamous position among these is the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Derived from statements delivered by the Civil War hero Philip Sheridan, the notion that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" contributed to not only the justification of the conquest of the continent; it also abetted that which is indistinct from the conquest, the dehumanization and genocide of Native Americans. What deserves to be considered alongside this fact is that, intimately related to Sheridan's phrase is the somewhat more subtle, though no less genocidal, civilizational motto of the founder of the Carlise Indian Industrial School: "kill the Indian, save the man." To be sure, as Ward Churchill, among others, apprises us, the Carlisle School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was designed to assimilate (by force, and with the express intent of eradicating the cultures of) the indigenous people of North America. 

  

The association and affinity of these two phrases is not subject to contention. The founder of the Carlisle School, Richard Henry Pratt, himself admitted as much. In 1892, in his Official Report of the Annual Conference of Charities and Correction, after referencing the statement attributed to Sheridan that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," Pratt added: "I agree with the sentiment." However, he went on to explain, this agenda can be pursued in a far more effective and profitable manner than Sheridan's. One can "kill the Indian," Pratt continued, and still "save the man."

In light of this, it may come as a surprise to note that, in his time, Pratt was regarded as something of a progressive. Among certain crowds, his position would even be regarded as progressive today (which, obviously, doesn't speak well of today's general social atmosphere). For, in spite of his racism, mingled in with his white supremacism, lurked the fundamentally universalist (even egalitarian) recognition that, when born, each person is, as he put it, "a blank, like the rest of us." That is, contrary to prevalent conceptualizations, Pratt did not maintain that people from different cultures, ethnic backgrounds, and "races" possessed some distinct essence. Rather, Pratt recognized that, though not exclusively, people are largely products of their environments and cultures. As he put it, "Transfer the infant white to the savage surroundings, he will grow to possess a savage language, superstition, and habit. Transfer the savage-born infant to the surroundings of civilization, and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit. These results have been established over and over again beyond all question."

Needless to say, Pratt's "open-mindedness" is very much restricted. Not only were Pratt's characterizations of indigenous people (as savages), and of mainstream US culture (as civilization, and superior) unambiguously racist. The violent manner by which students were forcibly removed from their families (a process hardly distinct from kidnapping) evinced a deep lack of respect for his students' humanity. This should not come as much of a surprise since, according to Pratt, the humanity of indigenous people was not so much present as merely potential - a potential to be developed by force. For let's not forget, Pratt's intention was to destroy his students' languages and cultures. His students, and all Native Americans in his opinion, were to be transformed - or deformed, rather - into the "blanks" referred to above. Once blanked out (as cells in the cloning process are flushed of their genetic material), new information - imperialistic US culture - was to be inserted, replacing his students with a type of cultural clone. It is from this perspective that we should read Article 2, section (e), of the Genocide Convention. According to this, the crime of genocide is defined as "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group," "with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, or religious group." And, as the legal scholar Kurt Mundorff argues in the Harvard International Law Journal, it is only by ahistorical circumlocution and dissimulation that the actions of Pratt, and others, can not be recognized as genocide.

Along with outright conquest and murder, the forced removal of indigenous people to reservations, and the removal of children to boarding schools like Carlisle (schools designed to delete a culture, to "kill the Indian, save the man") were part of a sustained effort that, among other harms, reduced formerly economically independent peoples to conditions of utter dependence. As such, there is a heinous irony in the fact that, as Pratt put it, the Carlisle School (and all of the boarding schools participating in these policies) strove to teach its students how to live "by the sweat of his brow." For Native American people already knew very well how to live "by the sweat" of their brow. Before their territory was appropriated (by way of deceptive treaties and fraud as much as by outright force), and before the resources they, for the most part, lived in respectful interdependence with were - like the bison - negligently, recklessly, and intentionally destroyed, First Nations people lived "by the sweat" of their brows very well. Pratt must have known this.

  

As a career soldier who served as an officer for eight years on the Great Plains, and fought in several campaigns in the so-called Indian Wars, Pratt may be said to have contributed directly as well as indirectly to the destruction of Native Americans' independence. As such, it seems tremendously unlikely that he was unaware that indigenous societies very much knew how to live, and did live, by "the sweat" of their brows. Beyond this, it takes an astounding degree of hypocrisy for Pratt to state that US culture (which is inextricable from the exploitation of slave and "free" labor alike - the sweat of others' brows) could meaningfully instruct a formerly independent people to live by "the sweat" of their own brow. This hypocrisy is only amplified by the fact that the abject poverty and dependence indigenous people were reduced to by the late 19th century was the direct result of the bloody colonization of the US. Insofar as hypo-critical literally means sub-critical, however, it is very likely that Pratt was not even aware of this twisted irony. 

Irrespective of whether or not Pratt was able to recognize this irony, or whether he was aware of the degree of harm he caused, it ought to be remarked that, as the English philosopher Francis Bacon observed in his essay Of Usury, it is the command "in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum; not, in sudore vultus alieni ["in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread—not in the sweat of another’s face]" that is "the first law." 

That is, from the biblical exhortation delivered to Adam that "in the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread" (that one must derive one's bread from one's own labor), Bacon infers a deeper truth: that, beyond this, one should not eat, or profit, from the toil of another. And while living off the sweat or toil of others is a clear violation of this "first law," this is precisely the law that both undergirds the US economy historically, and continues to subtend profit-making in general. 

No person (or social role, rather) exemplifies this eating in the "sweat of another's face" as unambiguously as the institution, or arrangement, of the Landlord - the rentier, in general, who simply sits back and lives off of the rents, "the sweat" of others' labor. Some, no doubt, will contend that because the Landlord provides a much needed service (housing, among other things), the Landlord is rightfully entitled to collect this sweat. It takes little scrutiny, though, to see that this claim is hardly more than an unsupported assertion. For what is the service that the Landlord provides? When it comes to housing, the Landlord merely pays other people, plumbers, for instance, to provide services - a payment, by the way, that is always less than the amount of rent the Landlord obtains. Were this not the case, the Landlord would suffer a loss, and would have no incentive to maintain the relation at all. In other words, if the "duties" of the Landlord outweighed the Landlord's "rights," if the Landlord derived no profit, it would be in his or her interest to simply surrender the property, or to evict everyone. The landlord, however, very rarely does this. And this is so because, supported by the police, the courts, and other apparatuses of the state, the landlord is always deriving a profit from this business relationship. That is, the Landlord is always eating from the "sweat" of his or her tenants - in violation of what Bacon referred to as "the first law."

Another argument that people may raise in favor of the Landlord is that, because the Landlord owns the land, the Landlord has a right to collect rent, or sweat, from his or her tenants. Aside from the circularity of this reasoning, however, one should ask how this landlord came into possession of this property in the first place. One person, no doubt, purchased land from another. But how did a piece of land become a piece of property? No one built land. As George Orwell reminds us, the original owners "simply seized it [the land] by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to supply them with title-deeds." And it hardly takes an expert in the intricacies of US History to see that, in the context of the United States (though not only in the United States), all of the land now owned as property was taken by just such force from the continent's indigenous people. As such, property owners do not provide a service so much as profit from a harm. Or, rather, they profit from two harms: the harm of the seizure of the land, and the harm of the ongoing consumption of their tenants' "sweat." Those who regard the nullification of title to excessive real property as a harm simply confuse a harm for a harm's correction.

This argument, however, should not be construed to mean that people should not have the right to be secure in their homes. As George Orwell phrased it in his As I See It column of August 18, 1944, "It is desirable that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he [sic] can actually farm. But the ground-landlord in a town area has no function and no excuse for existence. He is merely a person who has found out a way of milking the public while giving nothing in return. He causes rents to be higher, he makes town planning more difficult, and he excludes children from green spaces: that is literally all that he does, except to draw his in-come."

As more and more people spend ever larger portions of their incomes on rent, and as more and more homes are being foreclosed upon and acquired by hedge funds and banks (which now comprise society's largest class of landlords), and as society continues to polarize into the extremes of rich and poor, it may be time to consider adopting Bacon's "first law." Insofar as this relates to property ownership, by nationalizing, for instance, and then internationalizing real property, land and the resources derived therefrom can be shared among the people of the world - as opposed to being hoarded by the few, as they are today.

Among its other benefits, the elimination of Landlordism (which is nothing short of the legalization of Warlordism) would alleviate up to half, and often more, of people's financial burdens; in so doing, this would free people from unnecessary work - an unburdening that would allow for not only a resurgence of community, but a democratization of society. Additionally, the elimination of excessive work would result in the lessening of the pollution that such work produces - leading to a far healthier environment. That is, in addition to ameliorating social harms, the elimination of Landlordism could also contribute to the correction of climate change.

In light of people's tendency to resort to violence, it must be stressed that the Landlord, as a human being, is not exclusively responsible for the harms reproduced by contemporary socio-economic relations. Though the Landlord profits from exploitation, insofar as this particular political-economic system reproduces myriad social, ecological, and other harms, it is this system that needs to be changed - and such a change is negated to the extent that it involves harm to any person, including the Landlord. Rather than harming the Landlord, the elimination of Landlordism entails simply the vaporization of the excessive advantages the Landlord enjoys, and the concomitant restitution of the land s/he hoards to the community. In other words, a necessary though not necessarily sufficient pre-condition for advancing toward an actually just, actually democratic, actually egalitarian political-economic system requires, among other steps, that we strip the Landlord of the right to gross excess - that we Kill the Landlord, and Save the Man.