What if higher taxes, free healthcare, and longer vacations made you happier?

This next week we are going to talk about Norway and Sweden -- two examples of socialist democracies in world politics. We will compare these two countries with the United States.

An important way that socialist democracies provide benefits to their citizens is through higher taxation. Look at this article, it compares taxation rates in the US with those in Norway between three examples. The Norwegian citizen pays 43.9% of their income in taxes, the two Americans paid considerably less: one paying 33% and the other paying 28%.

What do you get for all those taxes?

This short CNN video briefly compares the US and Norwegian healthcare systems.  Here is what a transfer student who goes to Norway to study at a Norwegian university would receive -- full national medical care, which is the same for all citizens.

Similarly, as the final Sakai Discussion Forum's assignment indicates, work life in Sweden is of higher quality compared to the vast majority of countries around the world, including the US. Workers have several weeks of paid vacation yearly, a shorter work week, extended maternity leave, a better work-home life balance, and less stress because people have more time to enjoy their lives and less worry about their economic future.

In general, citizens of Norway seem to be happier (and here is a video too) than citizens in other countries -- and citizens in Europe and especially northern Europe with the more socialistic democracies are the happiest places on earth right now.  

What do you think?

Would you agree to pay higher taxes if you had the guaranteed benefits that citizens of Norway and Sweden receive? Why do you support such a system or why do you oppose such a social welfare system? Do you think such a healthcare and system is even possible or desirable in America?
 

Wealth, Poverty, and the US Government

Most of you agreed that there are economic classes in America. Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) has a total of 535 members who are directly elected by you to represent your interests in Washington, DC. While 47% of Congress are millionaires, only 1% of the American population are millionaires. The average Senator is worth $2.5 million and the average house member is worth $746 thousand. And while the economic recession has hurt many Americans over the past few years, the wealthiest members of Congress have continued to get wealthier.

Watch this video and note how the people on the street imagine America to be more equal than it actually is. It turns out that America has an extraordinarily high level of economic inequality -- much greater than any other advanced industrialized country in the world and far more unequal compared to countries like Sweden or Norway.

Here is my point: Wealthy and upper middle class elites are disproportionately represented in Congress. And, a very small number of very wealthy people own the vast majority of income and property in America. Wealthy American citizens exercise greater influence over Congress and own most of the stuff around the country -- poor and working class Americans exercise way less influence over Congress and own way less stuff in America.    

What do you think?

Can a millionaire properly represent your economic interests? Does a millionaire know what it is like to be poor or middle class? Why do you suppose that poor and middle class people continue to elect millionaires to Congress? Could electing millionaires actually hurt poor and middle class Americans? Would America be more economically equal if more poor and working class citizens were elected to political office?

Holding Democratically Elected Officials Accountable: The Classified Leak

We've been talking about democratic politics over the past couple of weeks. One important component of a properly functioning democracy is that the elected rulers should be held accountable to the ruled

Two ways that leaders are held accountable is by 1. voting = citizens select who they want as leaders or representatives 2. adversarial justification = representatives face the criticisms and questions of citizens and justify why they are making certain policy decisions.

I want to talk a bit more about adversarial justification. Adversarial justification occurs in a number of ways. One example of formally accepted type of adversarial justification is the press pool, which is where the US President speaks to and takes questions from news reporters. Another type of adversarial justification that is potentially illegal is the classified leak, which is where a person slips secret information out to the public. Leaking classified information to the public is one way of trying to make leaders talk about and justify secret policies that impact citizens' lives -- it is a form of adversarial justification.

Edward Snowden recently leaked a series of documents to the news media. These documents show how secret government security policies are potentially impacting your life. This leak is pushing political elites, like President Obama, to talk about and justify these policies to American citizens and the international public.

Leaking is controversial. Some political elites say that leaking harms US national interests. Other political organizations say that leaking has helped build their case against government overreach and infringement on individual civil liberties.

What do you think?

Do you agree or disagree that leaks of secret information are an important component of a democracy? Should there be more leaks of classified information? Is this better for democracy or can a leak hurt a democracy? Are there limits on what should be leaked? When is leaking more of a problem for democracy?

Why vote for the US President?

Why should you vote for the President of the United States of America?

Most of you will never set foot into a city or county council meeting. In these forums, you generally have face to face access to policymakers that you directly elect. These men and women have a significant impact on essential aspects of your everyday life, particularly in areas like school funding, access to fire and rescue service, water and sewage policies, zoning, annexation, local tax rates, and so on. Yet, we hardly ever never rock the county or town council vote – indeed, in most cases, I bet county council debates hardly make it onto the radar compared to the hoopla surrounding the quadrennial presidential elections in the US.

The important point about these local elections cannot be stressed enough: i). You can go meet these policymakers and talk with them about issues of concern to you and your community and possibly persuade them on some matter; ii). They are directly elected by your vote and are therefore accountable to you and the coalition of voters of which you are a part.

In terms of the US president, however, the story is very different. The chances that you will ever meet the next US president (or any US president ever, for that matter) are slim to none – especially now with the intensified security practices surrounding the President following the events on 11 September 2001. Even when the fear of communist sabotage and the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons (which still exist, by the way) stalked Americans’ imagination during the Cold War, citizens were able to arrive early in the morning, wait in line outside the White House gate, and get an escorted tour of the public areas on most any day of the week. That type of open and symbolically more accessible attitude has evaporated over the past decade in regards to the President and the White House. In its place is an increasingly complicated, surveillance-intensive, and selective bureaucratic process that distances the office and the office holder from those that vote.

Even less likely are we, as average citizens living in Shepherdstown, WV, or any particular town across America, able to meet and meaningfully discuss, much less influence, the president on any issue of concern to you or your community.

On top of that, your vote, which millions of American citizens will cast in November, does not elect the president of the United States. To the surprise of many, no doubt, the US Constitution establishes an Electoral College [read here and here] with this authority. Who is the Electoral College? Robert Dahl, the distinguished professor of comparative democracy at Yale University, says that members of the Electoral College usually consist of a relatively unknown and partisan group of party loyalists.

The Electoral College, a fundamentally non-democratic and elitist feature of the US Constitution that insulates the president from the popular will, has created a dilemma for American politics that has played out on four different occasions in our history. Most recently, we saw the consequences of this Constitutional dilemma in the 2000 US election. In that instance, George W. Bush was elected to the highest office in the land because he won a majority of Electoral College votes; Al Gore won the majority of votes from American citizens, but lost the election. All in all, Dahl says that one out of every three US presidents has won with only a minority of voters’ support.

I want to bring the dilemma of our democracy home to you by asking you to reflect on your behavior.

Why should you vote for the American president? Or, if you think that you shouldn't vote for the US President, why shouldn't you vote? And, perhaps more importantly, why don’t you vote for the city and county council members? Do you know your council members?

Totalitarianism and America Politics

One point we've talked about this week is the role of fear in creating and sustaining totalitarian political systems. Fear can paralyze political dissidence by active, critical citizens. Fear can lead citizens to forgo their freedoms and accept a level of security that would otherwise be unacceptable.

After the events of 9/11, the US government began engaging in a number of procedures that were contradictory to a functioning democracy. Sheldon Wolin, a Professor of Politics at Princeton University, has argued that the US has started to become a managed democracy, or what he calls an inverted totalitarian regime. You can read about inverted totalitarianism here. More recently, Eben Moglen at Columbia University's Law School, began a series of public lectures on the changing nature of the American political system. In his words, "We are being told that spying on entire societies is normal." To carry out that spying, the US government is using "procedures of totalitarianism."

Click on these links. Read a bit. Formulate an opinion and tell me:

What do you think?

Are these men off their rockers? Or, do you think they might be onto something here? What do you find convincing or not convincing about their arguments? If you agree with their arguments, what does that mean for the US? What does it mean for you?

Totalitarian Politics and the Individual

This week we are shifting gears and talking about totalitarian politics.

We've been talking about Libertarianism. Libertarianism is about the celebration of the individual and their rights against the control of the government. The government is an expression of the collective. One of the issues we discussed in class has to do with the tension between the individual and the collective. Libertarian leaning Republicans, for instance, argued against disaster relief for New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy. (Here is another link).

Totalitarianism is basically the opposite of libertarianism. Totalitarianism is about celebrating the collective (and the government that is an expression of the collective), not the individual. For totalitarianism, the emphasis is on One Nation lead by a strong leader, not a bunch of individuals doing as they please.

What do you think?

Is the individual more important than the collective? Or, is the collective more important than the individual? What is the proper balance between the individual and the collective? Where do the rights of the individual end and the responsibility of the collective begin?

Libertarianism, Surveillance, and America

Where is the line?

Look at this statement by the Libertarian Party on privacy. 

Think about the libertarian position on domestic surveillance. Here are some videos and articles related to the recent NSA revelations about domestic surveillance in the US. See this video, this PBS news report and this report. 

What do you think a libertarian would say about this domestic surveillance of American citizens? What about foreigners living in the US? What about foreigners living outside the US? What do you think that libertarians would say about these issues?

How does your view about this surveillance compare to the libertarian perspective?

Libertarian Policies in America

While there are currently some libertarian leaning politicians (Ron Paul, Rand Paul and a few others) in the Republican Party, Libertarians are neither Democrats nor Republicans.

Here are some of the Libertarian Party's positions on various social and political issues of our time. Read through them and respond to the questions I've asked at the end of the blog post.

1.0 Personal Liberty

Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make. No individual, group, or government may initiate force against any other individual, group, or government. Our support of an individual's right to make choices in life does not mean that we necessarily approve or disapprove of those choices.

1.1 Expression and Communication

We support full freedom of expression and oppose government censorship, regulation or control of communications media and technology. We favor the freedom to engage in or abstain from any religious activities that do not violate the rights of others. We oppose government actions which either aid or attack any religion.

1.2 Personal Privacy

Libertarians support the rights recognized by the Fourth Amendment to be secure in our persons, homes, and property. Protection from unreasonable search and seizure should include records held by third parties, such as email, medical, and library records. Only actions that infringe on the rights of others can properly be termed crimes. We favor the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes.

1.3 Personal Relationships

Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government's treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption,immigration or military service laws. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships.

1.4 Abortion

Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

1.5 Crime and Justice

Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property. Criminal laws should be limited to violation of the rights of others through force or fraud, or deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm. Individuals retain the right to voluntarily assume risk of harm to themselves. We support restitution of the victim to the fullest degree possible at the expense of the criminal or the negligent wrongdoer. We oppose reduction of constitutional safeguards of the rights of the criminally accused. The rights of due process, a speedy trial, legal counsel, trial by jury, and the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty, must not be denied. We assert the common-law right of juries to judge not only the facts but also the justice of the law.

1.6 Self-Defense

The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense.
We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.

2.0 Economic Liberty

Libertarians want all members of society to have abundant opportunities to achieve economic success. A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute
wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.


2.1 Property and Contract

Property rights are entitled to the same protection as all other human rights. The owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference, until and unless the exercise of their control infringes the valid rights of others. We oppose all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates. We advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. We oppose all violations of the right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade. The right to trade includes the right not to trade — for any reasons whatsoever. Where property, including land, has been taken from its rightful owners by the government or private action in violation of individual rights, we favor restitution to the rightful owners.


2.2 Environment

We support a clean and healthy environment and sensible use of our natural resources. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. Pollution and misuse of resources cause damage to our ecosystem. Governments, unlike private businesses, are unaccountable for such damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection. Protecting the environment requires a clear definition and enforcement of individual rights in resources like land, water, air, and wildlife. Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. We realize that our planet's climate is constantly changing, but environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.

2.3 Energy and Resources

While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.

2.4 Government Finance and Spending

All persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor. We call for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution. We oppose any legal requirements forcing employers to serve as tax collectors. Government should not incur debt, which burdens future generations without their consent. We support the passage of a "Balanced Budget Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution, provided that the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes.

2.5 Money and Financial Markets

We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types. Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item. We support a halt to inflationary monetary policies and unconstitutional legal tender laws.


2.6 Monopolies and Corporations

We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of companies based on voluntary association. We seek to divest government of all functions that can be provided by non-governmental organizations or private individuals. We oppose government subsidies to business, labor, or any other special interest. Industries should be governed by free markets.

2.7 Labor Markets

We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment. We oppose government-fostered forced retirement. We support the right of free persons to associate or not associate in labor unions, and an employer should have the right to recognize or refuse to recognize a union. We oppose government interference in bargaining, such as compulsory arbitration or imposing an obligation to bargain.

2.8 Education

Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability and parental involvement. Recognizing that the education of children is inextricably linked to moral values, we would return authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. In particular, parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children's education.


2.9 Health Care

We favor restoring and reviving a free market health care system. We recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions. People should be free to purchase health
insurance across state lines.


2.10 Retirement and Income Security

Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals. We believe members of society will become more charitable and civil society will be strengthened as government reduces its activity in this realm.

3.0 Securing Liberty

The protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of government. Government is constitutionally limited so as to prevent the infringement of individual rights by the government itself. The principle of non-initiation of force should guide the relationships between governments.

3.1 National Defense

We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world. We oppose any form of compulsory national service.

3.2 Internal Security and Individual Rights

The defense of the country requires that we have adequate intelligence to detect and to counter threats to domestic security. This requirement must not take priority over maintaining the civil liberties of our citizens. The Constitution and Bill of Rights shall not be suspended even during time of war. Intelligence agencies that legitimately seek to preserve the security of the nation must be subject to oversight and transparency. We oppose the government's use of secret classifications to keep from the public information that it should have, especially that which shows that the government has violated the law.

3.3 International Affairs

American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by
political or revolutionary groups.

3.4 Free Trade and Migration

We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders. However, we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.


3.5 Rights and Discrimination

We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. Government should not deny or abridge any individual's rights based on sex, wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation. Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their own standards and beliefs.

3.6 Representative Government

We support electoral systems that are more representative of the electorate at the federal, state and local levels. As private voluntary groups, political parties should be allowed to establish their own rules for nomination procedures, primaries and conventions. We call for an end to any tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws which restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns. We oppose laws that effectively exclude alternative candidates and parties, deny ballot access, gerrymander districts, or deny the voters their right to consider all legitimate alternatives.


3.7 Self-Determination

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty.

Take a moment, reflect on, and respond to the questions below:

Which one (or more than one) of these Libertarian positions do you find unacceptable? Why do you find it unacceptable? Or, do you agree with all of them? What about these Libertarian positions do you find agreeable? Why do you like them?

How would a libertarian respond to the assassination of an American citizen by the US President?

Libertariansim and Limited Government

Anarchists advocate no government. Libertarians want a government, but very limited.

A nice rule of thumb way of remembering what libertarianism advocates is this: maximum individual freedom and minimum government intervention.

Some libertarians say that the government only has two basic roles to play in our lives. The first role of government is to enforce contractual agreements between people. If we sign a contract and one of us breaks the contract, then the government should step in and determine who is at fault and what compensation needs to be paid and by whom. The second role of government is to provide national defense -- the stress is on defensive capabilities, not offensive war-making capabilities in other countries. Outside of these two basic roles, people should be able to live their lives however they choose to live them and the government should stay out of their business.

What do you think? Should the government have more of a role in our lives? Or is the libertarian notion better -- that the government should only have two basic roles? If the government was limited to enforcing contracts and providing for national defense, how would that change peoples' daily lives? Would those changes be for the better or worse? Do you see any potential problems with giving people this much freedom?

Everyday Anarchy

Anarchy is about organizing human life without being coerced or forced. I've pointed to a number of examples where in our everyday lives we organize ourselves without being forced. One example we talked about in class is the Pan Tram bus -- people generally gather at the bus stops and orderly board the bus without being told or forced to do it by an official. There are many other possible examples.

Think about your own life. Describe an example of anarchism in everyday life. When do you organize yourself without being coerced or forced?

Politics & Government, Fall 2013

Hello Classes

This semester this blog is a way to get you participating and thinking about politics and government. Two Politics and Government classes will all be using this blog and commenting on posts. With nearly 60 students participating, there should be ample opportunity for everyone to have something worthwhile to say in response to my original post or another students' post.

Please be THOUGHTFUL and RESPECTFUL with those posts that you disagree with. There should be no personal attacks or name calling. This is the space to make reasoned arguments about political struggle and governmental order.

Enjoy the semester!

What about citizenship?

Citizenship in America is acquired in one of these ways: 1) born in America, 2) born outside America but taken appropriate tests to become a naturalized citizen, 3) or born outside America but then married an American citizen. In this blog post, I want to focus on number 1, which is called birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship has not always been the law of the land. It was established by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which was ratified by Congress in 1868. The first section of the 14th Amendment reads:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Recently, birthright citizenship has been questioned. For instance, Congressional Republican Steve King has called for an end to birthright citizenship because of illegal immigration. King is concerned about illegal immigration. In particular, King is concerned about illegal immigrants secretly coming across the US-Mexico border and having a child -- the child, because they were born in America, are now American citizens. King wants to do away with birthright citizenship because the children born in America make it easier for the parents who are illegal aliens to stay in the US. 

What do you think?

Should citizenship be determined by birth? Or should being born in America count for nothing? Should we determine citizenship by another standard? -- for example, citizenship could be purchased, or citizenship could be acquired by serving in the military, citizenship could be acquired by passing a test, citizenship could be acquired by doing public service, or citizenship could be acquired by measuring your net contribution to the society. These are just a few examples of the different ways that citizenship can be gained.

Why vote for the US President?

Why should you vote for the President of the United States of America?

Most of you will never set foot into a city or county council meeting. In these forums, you generally have face to face access to policymakers that you directly elect. These men and women have a significant impact on essential aspects of your everyday life, particularly in areas like school funding, access to fire and rescue service, water and sewage policies, zoning, annexation, local tax rates, and so on. Yet, we hardly ever never rock the county or town council vote – indeed, in most cases, I bet county council debates hardly make it onto the radar compared to the hoopla surrounding the quadrennial presidential elections in the US.

The important point about these local elections cannot be stressed enough: i). You can go meet these policymakers and talk with them about issues of concern to you and your community and possibly persuade them on some matter; ii). They are directly elected by your vote and are therefore accountable to you and the coalition of voters of which you are a part.

In terms of the US president, however, the story is very different. The chances that you will ever meet the next US president (or any US president ever, for that matter) are slim to none – especially now with the intensified security practices surrounding the President following the events on 11 September 2001. Even when the fear of communist sabotage and the threat of Soviet nuclear weapons (which still exist, by the way) stalked Americans’ imagination during the Cold War, citizens were able to arrive early in the morning, wait in line outside the White House gate, and get an escorted tour of the public areas on most any day of the week. That type of open and symbolically more accessible attitude has evaporated over the past decade in regards to the President and the White House. In its place is an increasingly complicated, surveillance-intensive, and selective bureaucratic process that distances the office and the office holder from those that vote.

Even less likely are we, as average citizens living in Shepherdstown, WV, or any particular town across America, able to meet and meaningfully discuss, much less influence, the president on any issue of concern to you or your community.

On top of that, your vote, which millions of American citizens will cast in November, does not elect the president of the United States. To the surprise of many, no doubt, the US Constitution establishes an Electoral College [read here and here] with this authority. Who is the Electoral College? Robert Dahl, the distinguished professor of comparative democracy at Yale University, says that members of the Electoral College usually consist of a relatively unknown and partisan group of party loyalists.

The Electoral College, a fundamentally non-democratic and elitist feature of the US Constitution that insulates the president from the popular will, has created a dilemma for American politics that has played out on four different occasions in our history. Most recently, we saw the consequences of this Constitutional dilemma in the 2000 US election. In that instance, George W. Bush was elected to the highest office in the land because he won a majority of Electoral College votes; Al Gore won the majority of votes from American citizens, but lost the election. All in all, Dahl says that one out of every three US presidents has won with only a minority of voters’ support.

I want to bring the dilemma of our democracy home to you by asking you to reflect on your behavior.

Why should you vote for the American president? Or, if you think that you shouldn't vote for the US President, why shouldn't you vote? And, perhaps more importantly, why don’t you vote for the city and county council members? Do you know your council members?

Libertarian Freedom

We've been talking about libertarian politics. A nice rule of thumb way of remembering what libertarianism advocates is this: maximum individual freedom and minimum government intervention.

Some libertarians say that the government only has two basic roles to play in our lives. The first role of government is to enforce contractual agreements between people. If we sign a contract and one of us breaks the contract, then the government should step in and determine who is at fault and what compensation needs to be paid and by whom. The second role of government is to provide national defense -- the stress is on defensive capabilities, not offensive war-making capabilities in other countries. Outside of these two basic roles, people should be able to live their lives however they choose to live them and the government should stay out of their business.

What do you think? Should the government have more of a role in our lives? Or is the libertarian notion better -- that the government should only have two basic roles? If the government was limited to enforcing contracts and providing for national defense, how would that change peoples' daily lives? Would those changes be for the better or worse? Do you see any potential problems with giving people this much freedom?

Totalitarian Politics in America

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to talk about totalitarianism. We'll talk about the origins of the word, the conditions out of which totalitarians forms of government emerge, its goals and features, the relationship between the government and the citizen, and a number of other interesting topics related to this type of political arrangement.

In a totalitarians system, like in North Korea or what is emerging in Iran, the state and its charismatic leadership become omnipresent features of peoples' everyday lives. Indeed, in the most extreme cases, the aspects of your life that you usually call "private" (e.g. life in the house, emotional and intimate relationships, business transactions, etc.) practically disappear. The state government becomes a feature of most every aspect of one's life. For instance, in Iran, there is a moral police who enforce a public dress and appearance code. It is illegal for men to wear necklaces and certain kinds of hair cuts are outlawed. Also, at Iranian universities, men and women may be separated.

During the 1930s and 1940s, many Americans started asking publicly: Can America become a totalitarian state? With the rise of Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain under totalitarian governments, some Americans were concerned that in the case of a nuclear threat from a foreign enemy the US Constitution would be streamlined -- civil liberties would be curtailed and Americans' lives would be totally mobilized against the foreign threat.

Since 9/11, some people are asking once again: Can the US become a totalitarian state where American's civil liberties (e.g. freedom of speech, freedom to bare arms, right to a trial by jury, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and protest, etc.) mean very little?

Naomi Wolf argued, for instance, that the Bush administration has started America down the path to a totalitarian system. She notes 10 steps the Bush administration has already taken, such as 1. invoking a terrifying domestic and foreign enemy, 2. creating a secret prison system (Gulag), 3. developing a thuggish groups of citizens, 4. setting up an intensive domestic surveillance system, 5. harassing citizens groups, 6. engaging in arbitrary detainment of citizens, 7. targeting citizens for assassination, 8. controlling the press, 9. equating dissenting voices with treason, 10. suspending the rule of law.

Similarly, Glen Grenwald has argued that the Obama administration has continued down this path. Particularly, the Obama administration has stripped certain US citizens of their civil liberties and assassinated them without their Constitutional rights to due process or freedom of speech.

The fear is that both Democrats and Republicans are ushering America toward an totalitarian state.

What do you think?

Do you think it would be possible for totalitarian politics to emerge in the US? Why or why not? Is it necessary in the fight against terrorism to limit Americans' civil liberties? Or, are civil liberties too important to give up in the fight against terrorism?

Why do poor and lower middle class people keep electing millionaires to Congress?

Most of you agreed that there are economic classes in America. Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) has a total of 535 members who are directly elected by you to represent your interests in Washington, DC. While 47% of Congress are millionaires, only 1% of the American population are millionaires. The average Senator is worth $2.5 million and the average house member is worth $746 thousand. And while the economic recession has hurt many Americans over the past few years, the wealthiest members of Congress have continued to get wealthier.

What do you think?

Can a millionaire properly represent your economic interests? Does a millionaire know what it is like to be poor or middle class? Why do you suppose that poor and middle class people continue to elect millionaires to Congress? Could electing millionaires actually hurt poor and middle class Americans?

Class War in America

This week and next week we are reading The Iron Heel, which talks a lot about economic classes and class antagonism.

For simplicity's sake, there are usually three economic classes: poor, middle, and upper classes. One definition of middle class is this: 

Based on 2010 census data, the middle class would be the sixty percent of Americans with household incomes from $28,636 to $79,040 a year.

In America, the number of poor are increasing. The middle class is getting smaller as more people fall from middle to working class. And it is increasingly difficult for poor people in America to climb up from poverty to middle and upper classes.  

Workers and the shrinking middle class in America work more with fewer days of leave, less maternity leave, and fewer days of paid vacation compared to others around the world. Click on these images for a better picture of the emerging situation in the US:

At the same time, the wealthy are fewer and getting richer. CEO pay keeps going up while worker pay stays about the same. 

The gap between the wealthy and the working class is getting bigger -- while many citizens keep imagining that it is not, as this video shows:

Some people, however, see an increasing conflict between the classes -- as these graphs from Pew Research show.

What do you think? Are there classes in America? Is the gap between the classes too large -- is there too much inequality? If you think that gap is too large, what should be done to close the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest? Or, is the gap between the wealthy and the poor just about right? Should our policies aim to keep the wealthy wealthy and the poor poor? Are there any potential political problems of high levels of inequality?

Compassion in Anarchy

When we read about the four visions of anarchy, we focused on Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, and Kropotkin.

We didn't read Jean Jaques Rousseau, but he also had a vision of anarchy. One very important difference that he asserted against Hobbes and Locke was that man has pity or compassion for those in pain. Man is not only selfish and power hungry, but he is also compassionate.

What do you think about this? Do you think that man is compassionate? How would compassion shape the book we're reading, The Road? Would the story be different of men were depicted as compassionate? Or, would compassion be overrun by man's effort to acquire his desires, to be the most powerful, to be successful and strong?  

Life in Anarchy

In class, we talked about four visions of anarchy, life without government, and the origins of government -- this included Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, and Kropotkin.

Kropotkin offered one vision of anarchy. For him, life without government would be far less coercive and far more cooperative. For example, we can see examples of this kind of anarchy in the case of Belgium, which has been without a government for around 500 days [read about it here, here, and here]. Also, the wild west during the American frontier days was anarchical and apparently less violent than some American cities today. There are also a number of intentional anarchist communities. Radical Christians live in some US cities today. Similarly, the autonomous neighborhood (Freetown Christiania) in Copenhagen is another example. 

Hobbes offered another vision of anarchy. For him, life without government was nasty brutish, and short. Because of scarce resources (e.g. food, water, shelter, mating partners, etc.) and man's desire to obtain possessions, anarchy would be an all out all out struggle to survive -- and because of this constant struggle, there would be little wealth, little learning, few grand structures, little clothing, and no commerce. For example, we can see this vision of anarchy played out in places like Karachi, Pakistan. Somalia is another example. It has been without a centralized government since 1991 and is consistently ranked as the worst failed state in the world with 20% of its population living as political refugees. Like slum lords building houses in Karachi or the businessmen opening hospitals in Somalia, some people are making money and benefiting from the lack of government, but life is pretty hard for a large number of people.

What do you think?

Which vision of anarchy do you think is most likely to occur? Are people likely to voluntarily cooperate and mutually aid one another? Or, do you think that people are more likely to engage in an all out struggle? Or perhaps people would do both, they cooperate and conflict?  Tell me: What do you think life without government would be like? Does life without government have something to offer that a governed life does not?

Politics and Government Spring 2013

Hello Classes

This semester this blog is a way to get you participating and thinking about politics and government. Two Politics and Government classes (100.04, 100.05) will all be using this blog and commenting on posts. With nearly 60 students participating, there should be ample opportunity for everyone to have something worthwhile to say in response to my original post or another students' post.

Please be THOUGHTFUL and RESPECTFUL with those posts that you disagree with. There should be no personal attacks or name calling. This is the space to make reasoned arguments about political struggle and governmental order.

Enjoy the semester!