ReligiousLeftLaw.com

Worried About Trump: Nate Silver to the Rescue

If you are worried about Trump, you will be happy to read a column by Nate Silver. He says, "Trump is not very popular with general election voters. On the contrary, he’s extremely unpopular with independents and would begin the general election race with worse favorability ratings than any candidate to receive a major-party nomination before." See here. Silver has an intriguing analysis of the difficulties influential Republicans face in stopping him and the implications of a Trump nomination for the Republican Party. 

A Blind Eye to Police Overreaching

Injustice permeates our criminal “justice” system. In theory, our system is not supposed to be an inquisitorial system, but the case law gives the lie to that claim on a daily basis. To be sure, some courts know how to “talk the talk.” The Court of Appeals in New York is one such court. As it said in People v. Anderson, 42 N.Y.2d 535 [1977]: “Ours is an adversarial . . . not an inquisitorial system.” Confessions are to be excluded when Miranda rules are violated (the rules are riddled with police-friendly  interpretations that make a mockery of the original decision). Separate and apart from Miranda, a confession must be voluntary. As the Anderson Court explained, a confession is involuntary if it is coerced or otherwise unreliable on the issue of guilt or innocence or obtained or acquired under police methods “so extreme that they violate our notions of fundamental fairness.” The suggestion is that even if a confession is reliable, the police methods used to obtain it may contravene due process of law.

That is the talk. But you will search long and hard to find a case that tells the police they have gone too far independent of the confession’s reliability. Consider a case in New York, People v. May, 263 A.D.2d 215 (3d. Dept. 2000). After an automobile accident, the defendant was hospitalized for surgery on August 14, 1995 for repair of a scalp laceration, a right elbow laceration, a pelvic fracture, and treatment of a skin tear in his groin area. On August 15 he received morphine injections at 12:10 A.M., 1:10 A.M., 5:15 A.M., 9:40 A.M., 11:00 A.M. and 12:30 P.M.

State police investigators interviewed the defendant at 4:40 A.M., 8:45 A.M. and 12:00 noon on that day. One might think that a person recovering from surgery and in such pain that numerous morphine injections might be required should be insulated from police interrogation altogether, let alone at 4:40 A.M.! But the Third Department found that the incriminating admissions elicited by the police were fully voluntarily. After all, the Court determined that morphine might have made the defendant drowsy (you think), but did not make him delusional or cause him to hallucinate. Even assuming this made the defendant’s admissions reliable, I think police intruding upon the patient’s privacy in this way is a police method that goes way too far. The United States criminal “justice” system has a reputation for failing to respect the dignity of prisoners and those who are suspected of wrongdoing. That reputation is well deserved.

Toward A Global Intellectual Response to Pope Francis’ Environmental Thought

 

Guest Post for Religious Left Law by Vincent Ialenti & Meridian 180

In September 2015, Cornell Law School’s virtual think-tank Meridian 180 brought together anthropologists, legal scholars, a literature scholar, a futurist, a geographer, a corporate lawyer, and philosopher for a lively online conversation about Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home.

The goal was to spark more global, intellectual, and frank reflection on how the pope’s environmental thinking could help us re-imagine how ecologies and theologies interrelate in the twenty-first century. Cornell postdocs translated the conversation into Korean, Japanese, English, and Chinese as it took place. We believe Religious Left Law’s readers may be interested in some of the insights, skepticisms, and questions that emerged from our discussions.

1) More careful attention must be paid to the powerful institutions, histories, and thinkers that have served as foundations for Laudato Si’s (progressive) points about Earth’s environment.

 

Richard Irvine (University of Cambridge) pointed out how Laudato Si’s footnotes reference Bishops from outside Europe, philosopher Paul Riceour, an Eastern Orthodox patriarch, and a ninth century Islamic mystic. Vincent Ialenti (Cornell University) discussed the pope’s allusions to liberation theologian Leonardo Boff’s 1996 book Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor and to critical theorist Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 book One-Dimensional Man. While Peter Wynn Kirby (University of Oxford) lauded the pope’s quasi-anthropological respect for multiple different knowledge forms, he noted the Church's "often imperious and hidebound" character. Karen Pinkus (Cornell University) likewise scrutinized the text’s “bedrock” – a powerful Church history of suppressing difference – underlying even its most progressive prose.

Meridian 180 members made it clear that Laudato Si must not be interpreted simply as a single standalone text written by a one-man Author. The intellectual challenge, for them, was to instead ask: what other contexts, debates, and figures dwell behind, beneath, and around Laudato Si's multi-authored prose? How do these backdrops compromise or bolster the text’s ethical basis or rhetorical force?

2) The pope’s call for us to rethink how we live our lives must be taken seriously and must be scrutinized.

 

Stephen Humphreys (LSE) explored similarities between Pope Francis’ and philosopher Martin Heidegger’s critiques of technocentrism and between how they both sought the "saving power" of the "‘here and now and in little things’, in natural beauty, and in art." Tetsuya Kaida (KAZE Creative) advocated "holistically recreating" societies by embracing others, opening to change, and appreciating sensory experiences (of wind, color, taste, nourishments, and so on). Jee Hyung Lee (Ewha Womans University) questioned why so many people, with basic needs more than fulfilled, are overworked in an economy known to bring desperation to the poor without increasing the happiness of the rich. Huaihong He (Peking University) described how “dark green” ecological progress is prevented not just by rich elites and powerful institutions, but also by vast public populations valuing wealth maximization. Yu Xingzhong (Cornell Law School) likewise emphasized how the prevalence of modern "Scientific-Rational-Economic-Legal" people has left humanity undeveloped in emotion, aesthetic ability, sentiment, and spirituality. Finally, Tim McLellan (Cornell University) explained how certain Chinese agroecologists he knows take time to enjoy – in ways open to meaning, inspiration, and wonder – the landscapes they scientifically studied.

Meridian 180 members responded to papal critiques of contemporary obsessions with money, private property, numbers, and technology by envisioning what alternative lifeways, values, ambitions, and forms of enjoyment might look like. Can meaning, aesthetic appreciation, and fulfillment emerge alongside, within, or in reaction to the seemingly lifeless logics of technology, economy, and quantification? Or are they mutually exclusive? How can we imagine fresh ways of living life?

3) Further thought must be given to whether twenty-first century calls for economic progress, poverty alleviation, and environmental care can realistically be reconciled.

 

Douglas Kysar (Yale Law School) lamented how the UNFCCC's 1992 plan for progress did not come to fruition and how a meaningful price on carbon was blocked for years with US politics held captive by an unaccountable elite’s power. Amy Levine (Pusan National University) – discussing climate-pragmatist, eco-modernist, pro-nuclear critiques – too asked whether Laudato Si's vision of progress is idealistic. This opened the question of whether it is unrealistic for the pope to advocate poverty alleviation and limits on economic growth simultaneously. Does the former goal require more consumption while the latter goal requires less consumption? Are the (contradictory) aims that Laudato Si suggests we pursue really possible to achieve in tandem?

4) A more holistic discussion about religion and the rejection of selfish excess is needed.

Laudato Si links contemporary environmentalist and anti-consumerist thought to longstanding Christian thought traditions. But such urgings to reject materialistic excess, Meridian 180 members noted, are not unique to Christianity. Huaihong He explained how Confucianism – and today, popular Daoism and Buddhism – in China have sought to restrict people's materialistic desires. Ji added how religions "generally respect nature" and how, for example, Buddhism opposes waste and luxury. Can world religions' millennia-old teachings help us achieve a long-view perspective enabling us to revisit today's technocracy/capitalism as a historically new – perhaps reversible – trend that is out-of-sync with most of human history's ethico-religious frameworks? How might other faith traditions inspire anti-consumerist or environmentalist worldviews?

—

Vincent Ialenti is a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow and a PhD candidate in Cornell University's Department of Anthropology. Meridian 180 is a nonpartisan multidisciplinary community of academics, practitioners and policy makers from the Pacific Rim region and beyond who seek to enliven the Asia-Pacific dialogue in fresh ways.

Bernie Sanders and the New American Social Contract

The United States once enjoyed a governing policy focused and framed by a strong conception of the common good. From the 1930's to the close of the 1960's, there existed a bipartisan consensus that supported the proposition that American prosperity depended crucially on a government that ensured the prerequisites for human flourishing. A robust safety net protected the needy from destitution. A strong system of public education shepherded several generations of Americans through the schools and into responsible adulthood. Social Security alleviated at least some of the fear of penury that accompanies old age, while Medicare strove to meet the needs of senior citizens for health care.

This was a social contract that was largely drafted and implemented by Democrats, but even Republican administrations respected it. Dwight Eisenhower made peace with the "liberal consensus," and Richard Nixon even expanded its reach, especially in the area of environmental legislation. Only a few dissident right-wingers, men like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, objected.

Beginning in 1980, however, with the election of Ronald Reagan as President, this social contract was attacked in the name of radical individualism. The government itself was declared by Reagan to be "not the solution" but the "problem."

We are now the heirs of Reagan's sorry legacy. Our public education system has been starved for decades. The profit motive has been introduced into places where it doesn't belong, such as the operation of privately-run prisons. The new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is on record as seeking the privatization of Medicare. Many Americans plainly feel the need to reverse these ominous trends.

Indeed, it is the intuitive sense that our social contract must be renewed and that the common good must again become the focus of our political system that explains the polling success Bernie Sanders is presently enjoying. When he announced his candidacy for the White House, few expected a rumpled seventy-something from Vermont to run a credible campaign. Yet his poll numbers continue to improve in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Let's consider some of the ways in which Senator Sanders proposes to restore the social contract. Probably the best place to start is education. Nothing is more vital to the future of America than a well-educated public. And it is fair to say that none of the presidential candidates, in either party, knows the needs of primary and secondary education more directly than Bernie Sanders, who actually taught pre-schoolers in the middle 1960's as part of the Head Start program.

Importantly, Senator Sanders knows that primary and secondary education is not only about acquiring knowledge and skills but is also about establishing the context for success. He would tackle the disparities in funding that are the cause of unequal educational outcomes by moving away from local property taxes as a principal means of funding the schools. Teachers, he insists, must be adequately compensated for the vital role they play. And the "teach to the test" mentality created by the No Child Left Behind program should be replaced with educational methods that arouse curiosity and engage children in the learning process.

Higher education, Sanders insists, must be treated as a basic right. Indeed, it is regarded as a basic right in most other developed nations and is generously subsidized for that reason. To ask "who pays for free college"? is not the best question to pose. Much better to ask, "who benefits from low-cost college?" And there the clear answer is that nearly everybody does. Students benefit, of course, but so also do taxpayers and homeowners. After all, a well-educated workforce is a well-paid workforce, better able to pay taxes. And a generation of graduates not saddled with mortgage-level student-loan debt can buy homes and establish independent lives of their own.

Bernie Sanders also knows that we cannot restore the social contract without renewing our commitment to civil rights. African-Americans suffer disproportionately at the hands of the state. They are more likely than others to be the victims of police violence. And they have also been made the target of de-humanizing attacks by extremist elements, such as the neo-Confederate terrorist Dylann Roof who committed an act of mass murder in a Charleston, South Carolina, house of worship.

We need better police training. We must stop racially-motivated terrorist attacks like Dylann Roof's. And once again we must ensure that African-Americans enjoy the political franchise. An activist Supreme Court should not tamper with the Voting Rights Act. Early voting needs to be restored where it has been limited or eliminated. And discriminatory voter ID laws ought to be repealed. Bernie Sanders has made these central issues in his campaign. And if we are to have a social contract good for all Americans, these are steps we must take as a nation.

Economic and social justice are the final parts of the social contract Bernie Sanders is offering the nation. That is a broad rubric so one might do well to highlight a few signature proposals.

First, Senator Sanders is proposing to increase the minimum wage to restore it to what it was once intended to be -- a living wage. The minimum wage, he insists, should be raised gradually, over a period of years, to fifteen dollars an hour. Such a move is advisable for several reasons. Most importantly, of course, is that it will reward people who perform some of the most thankless jobs in American society for the indispensable work they do and will ensure that they no longer labor for starvation wages. But it will also increase their spending power.

Economies benefit when consumers have sufficient resources to spend. Right-wing economists perennially complain that increases in minimum wages kill jobs. We have had the minimum wage for eighty years and if their logic worked our unemployment rate would now be astronomical. Higher wages do not kill jobs, but they do lead to greater spending, and in a world where deflation seems a bigger threat than inflation, we should all want that form of stimulus. If I have one quarrel with this proposal it is that allowing the minimum wage to be raised gradually may blunt some of its beneficial effects.

Second, Sanders promises to reform Wall Street. He would break up any bank deemed too big to fail. No business must ever be allowed to expand to such a gargantuan size that its failure threatens the health of the economy. He would also tax high-frequency electronic trading, which serves no real social utility and only introduces needless risk into the economic order. I would suggest to Senator Sanders that he might also consider revitalizing the antitrust laws to serve the purpose for which they were intended -- the creation and preservation of competitive market environments for the benefit of the public at large.

Third, Sanders asserts that health care is a human right and must be so regarded at law. He advocates for the adoption of a single-payer system which he has also described as "Medicare for all." We know that single-payer works. It has worked well for Medicare and it works well in other nations. I can personally attest to that. I have done much international travel and have twice had to receive medical treatment abroad. I found the care that I was given under single-payer systems to be prompt, high quality, professional, and inexpensive, even for a foreigner.

In an ideal world, progressives and family-values conservatives alike should be able to support single-payer health care. There is no greater threat to family integrity and well-being than inadequate health coverage. In 2013, medical costs were the reason 1.7 million households filed for bankruptcy. The Affordable Health Care Act has mitigated this problem, but many families still find health care costs an impossible financial burden.

News Flash: Medical costs do not force families into bankruptcy in other nations. Medical costs remain a pressing social problem that we must address here at home, and Senator Sanders' plan is certainly worth considering.

Will Bernie Sanders win the nomination while running on this platform? Can he win a general election? There was a time when Democrats succeeded with just such ambitious programs. Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson come to mind. Certainly, in this election cycle the American public appears readier than it has been in two generations to return to its progressive heritage.

Cross-posted: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-j-reid-jr/bernie-sanders-and-the-ne_b_8982040.html

Compulsory Financial Payments: First Amendment Claims by Workers and Employers

Should the First Amendment be interpreted to protect workers who ideologically object to paying fees to unions who represent them in the collective bargaining process? The question was explored before the Supreme Court in oral argument on Monday in the case of Friederichs v. California Teachers Association, and it appears the Court is about to overrule Abood v. Detroit Board of Education which ruled that the First Amendment provided no protection in these circumstances. As my colleague Michael Dorf observes in his excellent column yesterday, a key moment in the argument occurred when Justice Sotomayor asked the plaintiff’s attorney whether the state could simply fund unions from tax revenues to assure adequate representation for workers in the collective bargaining process. For Dorf, the point of the question is if government can tax to support unions (or, more precisely, tax employees to support unions without violating the First Amendment), why can’t it eliminate the middle man by requiring the employees to give the money directly to unions rather than sending the money to government and then back to the unions?

In 1980, I wrote an article (“Government Speech”) in which I argued that the issue posed by Sotomayor’s question was key to the inquiry.  It seems to me that that if government can tax to support collective bargaining by unions, it can structure the financial arrangements to avoid the middle man without violating the First Amendment. On the other hand, I do not think government can use tax money to fund the election activities of unions. Since unions uniformly (or almost uniformly) support Democrats, this would be tantamount to using tax money to support the Democratic Party. Accordingly, Abood rightly held (though the opinion did not follow this analysis) that the First Amendment prevented government from forcing objecting members of a bargaining unit to fund the political election expenses of their unions.

In my view, however, Abood wrongly held that the First Amendment prevented government from forcing objecting members of a bargaining unit to fund the lobbying expenses of their unions. The difference is that government could decide that it wants the input of particular parties including unions, and it could use tax dollars to get that input. Since it could tax, it should be able to structure the arrangements so that the money goes directly to the unions rather than to the government and back to the unions.

Not much reflection (though I have missed the point in the past) should lead one to the conclusion that Hobby Lobby was wrongly decided. Nothing in the Constitution prevents government from taxing employers to support insurance. So too, government should be able to structure the financial arrangements so that the money goes directly to the insurance companies. Of course the employer’s religious freedom is still burdened. But taxpayers are frequently taxed to support activities to which they are religiously opposed without a constitutional violation. The financial scheme in Hobby Lobby was the functional equivalent of a tax, and like the compulsory extraction of funds in Abood for collective bargaining, it should have been upheld.

Predicting the GOP Presidential Primary

Ten weeks -- ten weeks from today puts us in mid-March. And by the time we reach mid-March, we shall have a good sense of the outcome of the GOP presidential primary. Predictions are always a hazardous undertaking yet their allure may be irresistible. So, here is my best judgment as to the way in which this strangest of all nominating contests is likely to play out.

Let's begin with the contenders. They are six in number, neatly divisible into two groups, the insurgents and the establishment candidates. Let's start with the insurgents.

Donald Trump has been at the top of most preference polls since the end of summer, 2015. The source of his appeal seems to the connection he has forged with Republican base voters. To be sure, a great part of his campaign is centered on racist and xenophobic themes and he rightly stands condemned for this toxic behavior. But there seems to be something more to his appeal also, and it suggests that his campaign might have staying power.

That "something more" is alienation. The Republican base feels itself alienated from larger American society. Much of this alienation is ideological. The base simply rejects many elements of contemporary society, from gay marriage to the Affordable Health Care Act. But the base's alienation is more profound than political disagreement with the ideals of mainstream society. Many base voters perceive, rightly or wrongly, that their economic status has grown less secure since the Great Recession of 2008. They see themselves as left behind, facing a stagnant present and a bleak future.

The rise of an alternative conservative media has only heightened this sense of estrangement. Take a look at Breitbart sometime, or at Newsmax. Yes, their writing is sophomoric, and their "news coverage" distorted. But their goal is not an unbiased presentation of events but the capture of market share. They want to be the news providers to the Republican base.

Long before there was a Donald Trump, the coverage of public affairs in this alternative media created an environment in which Trump's message could find an enduring home. Trump's new advertising campaign seems designed especially to appeal to the alienated consumers of alternative news. He is reinforcing his message in a way designed to keep his campaign strong going forward.

But will Trump's campaign be strong enough to prevail as the standard-bearer of the insurgent right? To answer that question, we must consider Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. Senator Cruz is the insider who most closely captures the alienation of the Republican base. He is a fine lawyer, who has argued before the United States Supreme Court. He is a sitting United States Senator. But he has built his career not on legislative accomplishment, nor on social problems solved, or on deadlocks averted.

No, he has risen to his standing in the polls on the basis of obstructionism and manufactured crisis. He has condemned his own Party's leadership and has, at the slightest provocation, called for the de-funding of the government. To someone outside the right-wing fever swamps, this conduct appears to be folly, but again, to an alienated base he comes across as authentic.

But Cruz' support extends beyond a disaffected hard core right wing. He also appeals to conservative evangelicals. An important key to whatever success he enjoys in the next two months is David Barton, who heads one of his superpacs. Barton is a self-styled historian whose book "The Jefferson Lies" was withdrawn from publication for its many misstatements. Still, Barton is an influential figure in conservative circles, and through Barton, Cruz can appeal to voting groups that Donald Trump would find unreachable.

The final candidate of note is Ben Carson. His star has faded nationally, but he has two important assets that can serve him well still: money in his campaign coffers and the support of many home-schoolers, nationwide but especially in Iowa.

These three contenders face off against three establishment candidates. Superficially, Marco Rubio might be the strongest candidate, but Rubio has problems that his opponents are beginning to exploit. He comes across as insincere. Furthermore, serious questions about his ethics are now being asked. There are, in other words, obstacles to a potential Rubio nomination that may or may not be successfully surmounted.

That leaves Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. Christie has stage presence. He speaks forcefully and articulately, and he seems able simultaneously to appeal to an old-fashioned "law-and-order" conservatism and to more moderate voices in his Party. Jeb, on the other hand, seems to have little going for him, aside from privileged birth, name recognition, and a large supply of cash he raised thanks to his family and party connections.

So, let's get down to predictions. The Iowa caucus occurs on February 1. The current consensus is that the top two finishers will be Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, in that order. If Trump wins, look for him to generate substantial momentum, since no one is expecting a first-place finish. A Cruz win is expected and so will not generate nearly the same excitement.

The race will then be for third place in Iowa. Can one of the establishment figures finish ahead of Ben Carson? If someone does, he will pick up momentum going into New Hampshire. If it is Marco Rubio, that momentum may be particularly strong since many in the media seem ready to anoint Rubio as the natural alternative to Trump/Cruz.

The New Hampshire primary occurs eight days later, on February 9. The polling, which is mostly stale, suggests that Trump is the comfortable front-runner with a group of three or four closely-bunched contenders vying for second place. New Hampshire will either magnify or blunt momentum. If Trump manages a victory in Iowa, he will sweep New Hampshire. Still, the establishment candidates might show unexpected strength. Chris Christie, in particular, might be poised for an upset win.

The race then moves to the South. The South Carolina primary occurs on February 20. Again, the polls have Trump and Cruz running first and second. Cruz is counting on a strong showing by evangelicals and Trump is relying on a surging turnout by non-traditional primary voters. I'll predict a narrow Cruz victory. Cruz has been organizing the state for months and his voters are nearly certain to appear at the polls. The same cannot be said for Trump's potential pool of support.

The Nevada caucus occurs on February 23 and has the potential to create a surprise. A hard-right candidate like Cruz or Trump could fare well in the Silver State, but so might someone like Rubio. But whatever happens in Nevada, it will soon be engulfed by Super Tuesday on March 1, which promises to be equal parts circus, Super Bowl, and Mardi Gras.

On that day, there will be primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Vermont; caucuses will occur in Alaska, Minnesota, Kansas, and Kentucky. Too many states, too many different demographics for one candidate to run the table. Still, given its southern center of gravity, Super Tuesday's outcome will likely leave Cruz and Trump as the two most viable contenders. And after Super Tuesday, it will be a slow, steady, grinding war of attrition for the nomination.

The establishment will be too fractured to challenge Cruz/Trump seriously. Even now, it consistently trails in the polls. I foresee Cruz winning the war of attrition. He will be the nominee because he is the more disciplined candidate, with a superior organization.

Still, there are wild cards that could influence the outcome. Events in January will have a disproportionate impact on the race. Let the stock market sell off by five or seven percent (a perfectly normal, mild correction) and the doom-sayers in the popular business press will be pronouncing the end of days. This can only assist Trump. Similarly, if tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, Trump's candidacy is benefited.

A second key wild card are the January debates. Trump and Cruz's positions are probably set, but the debates will likely play a significant role in determining who emerges as the establishment's standard bearer. As the number of debaters get winnowed to six, I expect Christie to make the most favorable impression.

The race will nevertheless likely come to the following questions: Will Donald Trump's popularity with the base and with occasional voters translate into sustained support at the polls? Will Ted Cruz' organizational strength, his self-discipline, and his reliance on religious right voters propel to him a first-place finish? I have been clear in my opposition to both of these candidates. I am loathe to concede it, but this seems like the most probable scenario with Cruz prevailing for the nomination. And so I fear for the health of the Republic.

Cross-posted: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-j-reid-jr/predicting-the-gop-presid_b_8918454.html

C.L.R. James (4 January 1901 – 19 May 1989)

Today is the birthday of C.L.R. James (4 January 1901 – 19 May 1989), the remarkable Marxist humanist and Afro-Trinidadian socialist, historian, journalist, and essayist.

Here are two posts from the archives on James: From “Cricketing in Compton” to the “Cricketing Marxist,” and The Marxist Spirituality of C.L.R. James. And here is a fitting celebratory essay by Christian Høgsbjerg on James’ “magisterial work,” The Black Jacobins (1938, second ed., 1963): “CLR James and the Black Jacobins.”

The following books help illuminate the life and work of C.L.R. James, the “cricketing Marxist” and “urbane revolutionary.”

• Buhle, Paul. C.L.R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary. London: Verso, 1988.
• Buhle, Paul, ed. C.L.R. James: His Life and Work. London: Allison & Busby, 1986.
• Renton, Dave. C.L.R. James: Cricket’s Philosopher King. London: Haus, 2007.
• Robinson, Cedric J. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. London: Zed Books, 1983.
• Rosengarten, Frank. Urbane Revolutionary: C.L.R. James and the Struggle for a New Society. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.
• Worcester, Kent. C.L.R. James: A Political Biography. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.

One might also read two other books that are not about James or Black Marxism as such: first, Tommie Shelby’s We Who are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005) which makes a compelling argument for aiming to “achieve a robust form of black solidarity without a commitment to black identity,” a view I think has much in common with James’ Marxist humanism. And then Michael C. Dawson’s Blacks In and Out of the Left (Harvard University Press, 2013), which is a brief history of black radicalism in the United States toward outlining the elements of a progressive black radicalism for our own time and place. In the words of Shelby, “in the spirit of hope and possibility, it calls for utopian yet pragmatic political thinking that regards independent black political organizing not as a balkanizing force or distraction from the ‘universal’ fight for a democratic society, but as an indispensable element of any viable Left-wing politics.”

Capitalist Inequality: Here, There, and Everywhere

El Lissitzky, 5. Globetrotter (in der Zeit), From Victory Over the Sun (1923)

From the Institute for Policy Studies—

“Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us”

• America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet — now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.
• The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation’s entire African-American population — plus more than a third of the Latino population — combined.
• The wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the United States. Among the Forbes 400, just 2 individuals are African American —Oprah Winfrey and Robert Smith.
• The wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino population. Just five members of the Forbes 400 are Latino including Jorge Perez, Arturo Moreno, and three members of the Santo Domingo family.
• With a combined worth of $2.34 trillion, the Forbes 400 own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people.
• The median American family has a net worth of $81,000. The Forbes 400 own more wealth than 36 million of these typical American families. That’s as many households in the United States that own cats.

We believe that these statistics actually underestimate our current national levels of wealth concentration. The growing use of offshore tax havens and legal trusts has made the concealing of assets much more widespread than ever before. [The rest of this article is here.]

In a post from roughly five years ago I posed the following (now edited) questions and made several observations pertinent to our focus on inequality:

Is it possible to achieve a globally egalitarian neo-Keynesian Golden Age? Poverty remains recalcitrant in several regions of the world while regional and global inequality is dramatically increasing, economic facts we might grant without in any way denying the historic significance of capitalism for material wealth creation (and thus betterment of standards of living if not quality of life indices). Are we, at last, reaching the structural limits of capitalist economic logic? Have we exhausted the economic—and, yes, moral—virtues of the neo-classical economic worldview? Or, are we merely at the lowest ebb of an economic cycle that will be cured by some fortuitous combination of conventional and creative politico-economic policies crafted by prudent democratic leaders of countries North and South? Is this a propitious time for contemplating and renewing the collective struggle for the dissolution of the “aristocracy of capital” and the “economization of social relations?” Is the time ripe for (re)articulation of the authority of the Good by way of abandoning the capitalist criteria for socio-economic success? Are we prepared to break, once and for all, with the structural socio-economic and political constraints of “capitalist democracy?” Must the welfare and well-being of the masses and their generalizable interests remain subordinate to the welfare of capitalists and their particular or special interests? Are the interests of working people fated to be canalized into the exclusive pursuit of economic advantage (which often deleteriously impacts the nature of ‘discretionary time’)? Must labor markets remain plagued by the material uncertainties and insecurities intrinsic to the private control of investment within the terms of globalized capitalism?

The distorted and artificial needs and the individually and socially harmful desires either directly generated or indirectly encouraged or facilitated by hyper-industrialized turbo- and finance capitalism finds the masses in a state in which they feel an overwhelming desire to be psychologically indemnified by conspicuous consumption of both goods and (status) “signs,” a logic causally implicated in the persistence of absolute and relative poverty. Capitalist democracy remains committed to the aristocracy of Capital, meaning that, in the end, the special interests of capitalists trump generalizable interests tied to the common good, while economic insecurity compels workers to channel their (now myopic) interests in the struggle for higher wages or short-term material gain. The aristocracy of Capital finds workers dehumanized insofar as they’re indemnified by the false promises of conspicuous consumption and irresponsible (in part, because environmentally devastating) affluence, utterly distorting the pursuit of happiness (or eudaimonia, or what might be called ‘existential sophrosyne’) and the potential of individuals for uniquely and jointly realizing and manifesting both values and virtues.

Can we, instead, accord socio-economic primacy to creating the necessary (and thus not necessarily sufficient) conditions for generalizing psychological and moral individuation or self-realization? Assuming the capacity to meet basic material human needs, can we resort to open-ended formulations of moral and psychological if not spiritual criteria associated with the either the recognition or (some measure of) fulfillment of our moral and spiritual aspirations by way of regulating economic life, thereby both integrating and subordinating the economic realm in a manner conductive to generalizing the pursuit of self-actualization or self-realization? In overcoming the freedom-inhibiting effects of inequality can we at the same time enhance and generalize an innate motivation (heretofore often repressed or suppressed) toward worthy living, in other words—and within the constraints of dignity and self-respect—generalize the capacity for the appreciation and realization of what it means to live a worthy and self-fulfilling life?

  Studio Work at Vkhutemas, Moscow (1928)

We conclude with a short list of fundamental works for mapping the sundry (i.e., historical, sociological, descriptive, normative, and evaluative) dimensions of socio-economic and political inequality as it bears upon (1) the constriction of basic capabilities and functionings, (2) the diminution of positive freedom, and (3) the failure to generalize the conditions of and potential for human fulfillment (i.e., the freedom of individuals as incarnate in their capacity to engage in active self-realization*). In short, our beliefs about and concern for in/equality is at one with our concern for freedom, that is, with “human empowerment and the quest for emancipation.”

• Atkinson, Anthony B. Inequality: what can be done? (Harvard University Press 2015).
• Bourguignon, François (Thomas Scott-Railton, tr.) The Globalization of Inequality (Princeton University Press, 2015).
• Bowles, Samuel. The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• Grusky, David and Szonja Szelenyi, eds. The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender (Westview Press, 2nd ed., 2011).
• Milanovic, Branko. The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality (Basic Books, 2011).
• Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).
• Reid-Henry, Simon. The Political Origins of Inequality: Why a More Equal World Is Better for Us All (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
• Sen, Amartya. Inequality Rexamined (Russell Sage Foundation/Harvard University Press, 1992).
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. The Price of Inequality (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012).
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015).
• Therborn, Göran. The Killing Fields of Inequality (Polity Press, 2013).
• Wright, Erik Olin. Interrogating Inequality: Essays on Class Analysis, Socialism and Marxism (Verso, 1994).
• Wright, Erik Olin. Envisioning Real Utopias (Verso, 2010).

* On “active self-realization,” see Jon Elster’s essay, “Self-realisation in work and politics: the Marxist conception of the good life,” in Jon Elster and Karl Ove Moene, eds. Alternatives to Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1989): 127-158.