`I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place.’
Churchill

– Attacks on chiefs of state in Saudi Arabi, Egypt and Pakistan
– Saudi oil burning and oil prices at $69/barrel
– Bird flu killing some 10,000
– 180,000 US military in Iraq by end 2005
– Time Warner aquiring blogs
– 1,45 US$/Euro
– Jérôme falls ill on compulsive blogging disorder
– Bush impeachment starts

Posted by: b | Dec 31 2004 11:47 utc | 4

Military coup in the U.S. sends euro goes to $3.00. Cease fire and American withdrawal from Iraq and Middle East as isolationists assume power in the provisional junta and Israel breaks diplomatic relations with the United States. (I’ve decided to stop
being “reasonable”).

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 31 2004 12:05 utc | 6

No prediction, but I have to
point to

Justin Raimondo’s year-end diatribe as another example of why I respect the
traditional anarchist-libertarian right. If the
left secretly agrees with Proudhon’s “All property is theft”, the rightist notion that “all government is criminal” is a symmetric image for rightists.
The trick for the rest of us is to move into at least two dimensions so that we can choose our
point of maximal ideological comfort in a commodious plane, rather than being pushed and attracted in a cramped unidiminensional interval
limited on both the left and right.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 31 2004 12:35 utc | 8

slightly off topic but this is an open thread,
for b and our other German friends,
according to a survey done in the Lower Saxony town of Leer, the worst thing to happen in 2004 was the (re-)election of George W Bush.
I couldn’t agree more.
I wish you a most excellent rutsch

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 31 2004 13:19 utc | 10

Never mind cement in China Jérôme, I’m worried about tin foil depletion 😉

Posted by: Guillaume | Dec 31 2004 14:10 utc | 12

You folks are too modest. If you take the long view, the most important development in 2004 was the coming to maturity of blogs, the first truly interactive real-time mass media. Just look at the tsunami coverage.
(BTW, Jérôme, since your list only contains items starting with “A”, I keep expecting – half in anticipation, half in fear – the remaining letters of the alphabet.)

Posted by: pedro | Dec 31 2004 15:31 utc | 14

HKOL
cramped unidiminensional interval
limited on both the left and right
A thousand times, no. There are tenuous points of affable contact between right and leftwing libertarians besides cultural libertarianism. For example, Schumpeterian entrepreneurship can mix with small scale capitalism. That’s about it.
Right libertarians fail to acknowledge how the social relations of capitalism are structurally incompatible with either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ liberties. Left libertarians understand at all times how especially monopoly capital constrains agency.
This is all to say, HKOL, even though right/left libertarians share opposition to the war, we cannot be allies because the diagnoses of conflict are radically oppositional. Right libertarians don’t fully know the world that exists which horrifies them is the same world reproduced by capitalism.

Posted by: slothrop | Dec 31 2004 15:54 utc | 16

I will beat that dead horse of rightwing libertarianism. always, anytime.
Rightwing libertarian readings: Milton (& Jacobsen & Rose) Friedman Monetary History of the United States, Free to Choose; Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, F.A. von Hayek, Road to Serfdom. “von.” hehe.
Leftwing Libertarian readings: Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy; Kevin Robins And Frank Webster, Times Of The Technoculture : From The Information Society To The Virtual Life

Posted by: slothrop | Dec 31 2004 16:11 utc | 18

First, I would like to wish everyone a happy new year. I know I will have one. We have nice night planned at some relatives with some food and refreshments.
CP above referenced the Pentagon offering $60 billion in cuts. I would like to see $100 billion per year cut. $10 billion per year is chicken feed. Our defence butget is the most bloated in the world.
See you’s on the flip side.

Posted by: jdp | Dec 31 2004 16:48 utc | 20

slothrop – I’d be interested in a discussion on Illitch in the near future – but we definitely need Deanander to be back for this one.
He was quite widely debated in France in the late 70s thanks to people like Jean-Pierre Dupuy, one of the most interesting thinkers around these days.
(I had him as a tracher for a course back in 1991 and I keep an amazing memory of it)

Posted by: Jérôme | Dec 31 2004 17:23 utc | 22

I’ll give my predictions later, when I’m not so overwhelmed by the malevolent idiocy (or idiotic malevolence) of the Bush Administration. Instead, I would like to thank Jerome and Bernhard for creating this extraordinary community. Thanks, too, to rememberinggiap, dan of steele, slothrop, hkol, alabama, denanander, four legs good, swedish kind of death, and everyone else for enriching my life. I wish you all a Happy New Year, because soon we’re going to have to put on our ghost shirts for sure.

Posted by: Aigin | Dec 31 2004 18:53 utc | 24

RGiap – you are irreplaceable. I don’t agree with you on much you say, but I do treasure your distinctive voice and perspective. Bonne année et à bientôt. (godspeed?)

Posted by: Jérôme | Dec 31 2004 20:04 utc | 26

RGiap, it’s nice to know that you are reading the Himalayan Times now.
How is the nightlife in Nepal?
Well, now being serious.
The next big hurdle, trap, kamikaze move for Bush is the Iraqi elections on January 30th.
Will they happen?
Yes, but not in Sunni land, and the US will pick chosen Sunni lackeys to fill the blanks.
But, correct me if I am wrong anyone, those people elected on January 30 will have no Governmental power for 12 months minimum.
The job of these people will be to sit down and draft an Iraqi constitution, whilst Allawi (Bush) will run the show for the next year.
Hey, why should Iran go nuclear?
30 year old RPG’s are the most effective tool against the mighty USA.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 31 2004 20:52 utc | 28

Just came across this on my travels.
It make my blood boil that journalists can write this bullshit

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 31 2004 22:20 utc | 30

I’m with B and Churchill on predictions, way, way upthread.
@Anna Missed:
“pissing in Peggy Guggenheims fireplace”.”
I’m not much on art, but that’s a very good description of the Big Picture.
I wish everyone a very happy, healthful New Year.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 31 2004 23:35 utc | 32

ok, my predictions…
there will be an assassination that will be rejoiced around the world
the second in command will have a heart attack
desertions and death will plague the US military in Iraq
impeachment precidings will begin because of the abu ghraib and guantanamo
gonzalez gets busted in a pedophile sex ring
rummy dies of prostate cancer
a wolf get caught in a trap
rice carries a love child, guess who the dead dad ?
more later

Posted by: annie | Jan 1 2005 1:37 utc | 34

maria will walk in on ann coulter giving arnold a blow job

Posted by: annie | Jan 1 2005 1:50 utc | 36

rush ODs on pain medication
anne heche will leave her husband for mary cheney, they marry in canada and honeymoon at niagra falls.lynn cheney turns it into a bestseller, she will also come out as a lesbian
ben affleck will announce his candidacy for the calif 06 gov
race. barbra sings about it.
jenna bush falls in love w/ a saudi prince. bin laden shows up in disguise at her engagement party. doug feith recognizes him but no one believes him because bl’s sporting a kojak. feith confronts him in the parking lot and BL blast him away, the security guards follow him in a high speed chase(BL drives a ferrari,the guards are all driving fords)the papparazzi is in hot pursuit , when they enter a tunnel there is a pile up w/ all the guards(bl leaves them in the dust) and the agents diana’s fate.
i better cut w/ the whiskey or i’ll never make it to the nye party
ciao

Posted by: annie | Jan 1 2005 2:59 utc | 38

In one of my favorite William Gibson novels “Count Zero” the remnants of the federal government have been relocated to McLean and Georgetown has a dome over.
I think the no-brainer predition is that the Iraqi “election” will see very low turn out, less than 20%, with preemptive violence on polling stations followed by more random violence on the day. Feburary will be non-stop spin from all sides with the administration trying to tout the success within the massive failure of the elections while tsunami victims will be forgotten. The Iraqi constitution election process will muddle along for a couple weeks before political violence popping up between acts of insurgent violence. There will probably be an assassination of a top Iraqi politician and or cleric. Our ground forces will sustain even higher rates of casualties as more cities fall apart and in some of those cities our troops will be pulled out to fortify Baghdad and “insurgent cities” will be subject to intense aerial and artillery bombardment. Also look for large refugee camps being established in March. The administration will of course continue to fuck up and do whatever is most counter productive in preventing a civil war meanwhile once again threatening and accusing Syria and especially Iran of interfence.
Rumsfeld will be forced to resign in July. Wolfowitz will be nominated to replace him but his confirmation will be withdrawn after it becomes plain that not enough Republican senators will back him.
The Pope will die in late September after a couple of days in a coma.
(Annie, an email to you is in progress. My day job keeps interrupting.)
Glad to see you back, Pedro.
The best part of this year and next has been and will continue to be spending time with all of you at the Moon and LeSpeakeasy.

Posted by: stoy | Jan 1 2005 3:16 utc | 40

The second US civil war begins, resembling (as John Titor predicted) a Waco/ Ruby Ridge type of event once every month or so, escalating gradually for several years. It is sparked by a Constitutional Crisis on January 6th, 2005 with the two camps (roughly- Dems and Reps) breaking into allegiances along the familiar “red state/ blue state” division- with the exceptions of Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida. The state run media uses every trick in it’s psy-ops arsenal to keep it in the “tin-foil helmet” arena.
President Musharreff is finally successfully assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which installs a Clerical Dictatorship to govern the new Muslim Nuclear State. Iran’s nuclear poject is accelerated and Israel’s sabre rattling is quickly halted.
The quagmire in Iraq is finally declared the Iraqi Civil War. Turkish Kurds align themselves with Iraqi and Iranian Kurds and declare Kurdistan a sovereign nation. Turkey, Iran, and the Sunni Iraqis form a loose alliance against Kurdistan and the Iraqi Shiites. Israel and the U.S. openly declare an alliance with Kurdistan. The UN Security Council becomes so ineffective the EU withdraws in protest and informally aligns itself with Turkey and against the US. China remains neutral, and makes serious cash by not taking sides. Boston gets a nuke in a shipping container, but it’s captured by DHS before detonation. Full funding for port security still gets the “Appropriations Treatment.”
Bush successfully passes his “Social Security Preservation Act,” paying for it with 2 trillion borrowed US dollars. Germany, England, Japan, and China loose confidence in the Dollar and begin selling them off, sparking a massive depreciation in the US housing/ real estate market. The market bubble is officially declared “bust” in June.
Arnold gets “his” Amendment passed in the House and onto the floor of the Senate, but it gets killed by a coalition of Dems and moderate republicans.
Bush chokes on a pretzel, again. This time the Department of Homeland Security declares all pretzels enemy combatants; many Muslims in Guantanemo decide they really, really like pretzels.
Hybrid autos become alt-country chic and pop up all over the red states. “New Country” and “Old Country” types have hybrid/ Hummer wars, with Chevrolet the ultimate winner (sorry, Prius).
Final proof that Courtney did not kill Kurt comes to light. Nirvana survivors refuse to comment.

Posted by: Forrest | Jan 1 2005 3:28 utc | 42

after attending a funeral this morning i was sitting at a table w/ an assortment of people i felt i had little in common w/ (a priest, a biz-owner who spoke proudly of his $125k auto, and so on) when a spontaneous bush-bashing anti-war consensus broke out. emotionally purging, yes, but also inspiring. whatever predictions one may elicit for the calendar change, my wish is that more of these oases of sanity spontaneously erupt and multiply & that this catalyst leads to more feet on the street. may 2005 entail the largest mass demonstrations/mobilizations the planet has ever witnessed. peace ya’ll.

Posted by: b real | Jan 1 2005 4:43 utc | 44

It is almost midnight in my corner of the world and while I am not wildly optimistic for the world’s future , (courtesy of our r own very own neocons and sheeples) I do want to wish all here the most peaceful, healthy and happy new year possible. And a final thank you to everyone for all of the brilliant words of wisdom and outrage I consistently find in this amazing community. I am grateful to be facing 2005 in such good company.

Posted by: conchita | Jan 1 2005 5:00 utc | 46

Happy New Year! May it be a happy, peaceful and prosperous one for all people. (I believe it is possible).
Peace.

Posted by: stoy | Jan 1 2005 5:05 utc | 48

This is the foundation, the deepest roots of his art, of his power.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 1 2005 10:34 utc | 50

As for predictions? Bush’s little war will continue to gnaw away at the innards of his administration, leaving him as a lame duck at the mercy of his party even sooner than he expected. I’m not optimistic about impeachments though. Ten of thousands more innocents will die of course. And I am including soldiers in that number.
The right will continue to slowly devour themselves, destroying the economic security for the masses that is required to support a technological society. They will be very suprised in a few years time when they discover this.
The “left” in the US will continue to be split between a group who can’t say they’d like to be on the left because they don’t believe they can get power that way and a group who are so strident and unrealistic that they are too scary to give power to: they sound like the ancestral enemy, “Red Commies”.
Europe will continue to move towards a proper federal state, with increased democracy and deeper integration. This will be slow and painful, and everyone will continue to whine that it’s not proceeding exactly at the pace and in exactly the way that they would like.
People who believe absolutely in religions and economic systems will continue to be the most dangerous people in the world.

Posted by: Colman | Jan 1 2005 11:20 utc | 52

happy new year everybody !
i went to the city with the GF and was a bit surprised at how few people were celebrating new year. also lots of booz/food stands missing. i dont know if its my impression, or poor memory, or the tsunami, or spreading poverty, or a combination of above.
last year i was in chile for new year; the year before i went with my GF to the mountains outside vienna to see the fireworks from above, it was almost impossible to find a place to enjoy the spectacle; the year before that i was also in chile; and before that i had also been on the hills, but at that time we were just a few weirdos at that particular location smoking our joints discreetly or drinking to the beautiful spectacle below (this is the place where freud used to sit while thinking out his works, BTW).
i dont want to predict anything, but given the dangerous people who are in charge everywhere, here in europe too, any positive development of world affairs would be more than surprising.
salud, dinero y amor !

Posted by: name | Jan 1 2005 15:46 utc | 54

Cloned Poster said:
Massive cuts in US Defence Budget
not really, they are cutting the Navy, or to be precise, the carriers. U Sank My Carrier!: A US submarine commander said, “There are two kinds of ship in the US Navy: subs and targets.”
As it stands, carriers are now merely a floating artillery base for the ground troops in the particular theatre of war. They assume, that they will have to be present in 11, not in 12 theaters at the same time.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Jan 1 2005 18:16 utc | 56

Frank Rich in NYT: Washington’s New Year War Cry: Party On!

…
So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, “support our troops” became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet “only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice.” Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor.
…
Washington’s next celebration will be the inauguration. Roosevelt decreed that the usual gaiety be set aside at his wartime inaugural in January 1945. There will be no such restraint in the $40 million, four-day extravaganza planned this time, with its top ticket package priced at $250,000. The official theme of the show is “Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service.” That’s no guarantee that the troops in Iraq will get armor, but Washington will, at least, give home-front military personnel free admission to one of the nine inaugural balls and let them eat cake.

Posted by: b | Jan 1 2005 21:20 utc | 58

Jérôme wrote:
make someone else’s laziness, selfishness or cowardice force people to behave – and vice-versa.
TRUST is fed by institutions that do NOT expect people to be trustworthy: institutions that check your promises, punish your breaches, and allow others to do the same and enforce the results.
This is a very interesting interpretation. I would just add, that it is all about changing the payoff matrix in the “prisoner’s dillemma”. You correctly observe, that societies have created institutions, which I would call ‘social roles’ to arbitrage social conduct by punishing non-cooperation. A third player (judge, prosecutor, a mafia assassin) is being put in the game, who’s role is to reduce the payoff for the defecting player (and he gets rewarded for that).
The third guy is being selfish, too (but again, the defector can bribe him).

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Jan 2 2005 16:17 utc | 60

I have no predictions for the new year. Last year it turned out I was just not creative and crazy enough and to naive to imagine what 2004 might bring. Still I wish you all a good year, hopefully with laughter and joy despite what will go on in the world around you.
Riverbend has posted again.
New Year and Elections…

We sat watching celebrations from different parts of the world. Seeing the fireworks, lights, droves of laughing and singing people really emphasizes our current situation. It feels like we are kind of standing still while the world is passing us by. It really is difficult to believe that come April, two years will have passed on the war and occupation. On most days, an hour feels like ten and yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly difficult to get a good sense of passing time. I guess that is because we measure time with development and since things seem to be deteriorating in many ways, it feels almost as if we’re going backwards, not forwards.
On the other hand, the whole tsunami/earthquake crisis also had a dampening affect on celebrations this year. It is a tragedy that will haunt the area for decades. To lose so many people so swiftly and violently is horrific. Watching all that chaos and death kind of makes you feel that maybe Baghdad isn’t the absolute worse place to be.
…

And this voting business (literally) seems to be running just fine and the feminist must be having a field day. Things are really improving for women in Iraq.

“It won’t look good.
There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don’t know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don’t know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren’t making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.
Another problem is the selling of ballots. We’re getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don’t intend to vote, just so that they won’t be sold.
Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled “male”. Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won’t want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women’s ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this ‘mistake’ will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

Posted by: Fran | Jan 2 2005 16:59 utc | 62

@ stoy
Do you have reports saying that Diego Garcia was spared, or just lack reports saying that Diego Garcia was hit?
If it is the last case, I would guess it is due to the lack of civilian population on Diego Garcia. As I remember it, all the civilians were deported by the brits before handing it over to the US. Keeping silent about damages to a military installation, well isn´t that just what we expect of the US military?

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 2 2005 17:33 utc | 64

Jérôme
per your old post on ‘trust’…summary: you believe trust, unlike selfishness/cowardliness/laziness, is a quality that must be imposed on persons in order to create the solidarity needed for a well ordered society. You believe democracy does this by imposing rules.
I disagree w/ your basic assumptions. Trust is not exoteric to life, but rather, following Marx, Mead, Peirce, Rawls, Dewey, Habermas, morality is inherent in the use of language. Money and administrative rules distort the consensus orientation of language. Such distortion leads to the problem of the ideology in the domination of persons, whose effects/epiphenomena are laziness, etc.
As I read your theory, solidarity must be imposed by the state, because the compulsion to solidarity is not inherent in human interaction. This is a catastrophic assumption because even in the clothing of democracy, tyrrany receives its justification. In my own view, these epiphenomena (laziness…) are the image of a life so pulverized by commodification that freedom can only be imagined by you as a form of duty to others coerced by threat of state violence.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 2 2005 18:03 utc | 66

Jérôme
Thus, we a very very far from repudiating the worldview of my mentor rememberinggiap.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 2 2005 18:15 utc | 68

slothrop –
well, your theories work better in theory but not in practice…
I must admit to a general lack of familiarity with all the philosophers you mention, so this is based more on my personal experience (including visits to various “socialist paradises”) and some economic theory.
My main point is that you cannot assume that you can trust man. Any system that does will – and does – fail. That does not mean either that there cannot be trust, or than some (many) man are not naturally trusting, simply that you should not count on it alone. Trust needs to be nurtured and enforced.
I believe that Hobbes was quite right in his basic premise (man is a wolf to man), which puts me at odds with RGiap – he had one of his killer adjectives to dismiss Hobbes recently.
To get back into the prisoner’s dilemna (PD) discussions above, I believe that man meets PD situations all the time in his life, and without some outside force, he will mostly choose the most effective solution in the short run (i.e. selfishness). That’s the modern description of Hobbes’ premise. What man needs, and what society brings, is to have the future put into the picture “Don’t behave selfishly now, or else” or “If you don’t behave selfishly, then you will get…”. The first solution is small tribal groups; they stick together, they know they will, and they behave in the interest of the group rather than the individual. The same solution, for larger groups, is despotism, warlordism, the Leviathan: pledge allegiance to me (i.e. accept to “lose” the PD to me, and I will enforce the more efficient solution for everybody else). It’s the first step of civilisation, absolute order to replace chaos (and it’s still very relevant today, as Putin’s popularity shows – dictature IS preferable to chaos).
The next step to push the horizon further and to allow man to project in the long term without fear is to get the efficient version of PD against the dictator/state as well – get recourse against the Leviathan, if you will… That’s democracy, when no one is above the law anymore – including the State, which is something that I think most of your theories tend to forget. Society should not have more rights over the individual than other individuals do. The greater good of society cannot come from the selective oppression of a few (or more) because they are selfish or some other more or less grave offense.
Fair rules, fairly enforced ARE compatible with selfishness and constrains it – and they open up time for man, allowing him/her to make projects, invest, without fear that it will be all wasted, stolen or destroyed. All other systems either let it run wild or oppress it – and with it, oppress individuals and do not let them reach their potential.
So put me firmly in Pat’s camp, and I am sorry I was not available before Christmas to pitch in in the fascinating discussion you had then on that topic.
My whole schooling in economics is that of the “theory of institutions” (if that’s the correct translation in English) which clearly identifies the weaknesses and failings of capitalism, and proposes institutional analysis of why and how to limit them (public goods being only one of the topics). Count me also as a fan of behavioral economics which show time and again that people do not behave as rationally as most economic theory states – and in particular is much more generous/ less selfish than theory would suggest (but which also indicate clearly than this represents internalised trust in the fairness of the “system”)
So my ideal world is capitalist democracy, with individuals free to build, trade and speak up, and a strong State to take care (i) in priority of the rule of law, applying to all with the same force and consistency, including in dealing with the State and (ii) of improving solidarity and limiting some of the consequences of the capitalist free-for-all, including taking care of public goods, ensuring education and health for all as much as possible, and some basic standard of living. In a democracy, people can have some leeway to set the various levels of solidarity and support and this is how it should be.
I don’t know if that is clear to you, but I’ll be happy to expand on this as this discussion unfolds.

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 2 2005 19:57 utc | 70

Jérôme
Your misdiagnosis of human interaction is not a trivial problem, despite what appears to me as views we share about the need to regulate of capital.
By perceiving ‘trust’ as external to human interaction, your argument is no different from wellnigh neoplatonic, neoliberal, antidemocratic, plutocratic, oligarghic, philosophies that reject liberalism because humans do not act “rationally” (market failure!), are selfish and lazy, etc. Therefore, the function of political leadership is to provide citizens with the necessary fictions/ideology to compel them to legitimate the interests of a ruling elite. The Straussian neoconservatives clearly have these antiliberal beliefs. So did the Nazis.
The problem, Jérôme, is this view of human “nature” serves the popular legitimation of elite tyranny, regardless whether your no doubt sensitively hip tyranny would marginally improve the wellbeing of the masses regularly told by you how to behave.
I cannot stress more sincerely how important agreement is about the possibility of freedom. You would like to say that freedom is given to people by a minority of persons who know how and why to give such gifts. It is exactly against such elitism about the “nature” of unperfectable humans that the left-leberal tradition in philosophy wants to thoroughly disabuse.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 3 2005 0:58 utc | 72

So put me firmly in Pat’s camp
All I know is this camp is where philologists gather to debate the definition of words.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 3 2005 1:14 utc | 74

put another way: within the context of capitalism, trust is the readiness of persons to approve of the massive inequalities of access to productive resources.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 3 2005 2:12 utc | 76

to envision the multiple-sum game theory, in terms of economics, vs. the zero-sum, it is necessary to get beyond the myth of the divine right of capital.
the idea that those who work to create goods or services are part of the cost is still a version of feudalism, in other words.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 3 2005 4:17 utc | 78

Since we are talking about end of world stuff, here is something to worry about.
White House Exploring ‘Rapture’ Contingency Plans
apologies if this has been covered before.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 3 2005 9:08 utc | 80

again,
is that what Jerome means by “lazy”?

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 3 2005 10:00 utc | 82

” the divine right of capital” — this link sucks.
The word ‘BANK’ does not appear even once in the context of funding corporations. You see, everyone who is saving money at the bank (no matter how much ) is indirectly a CAPITALIST. The whole purpose of banks is the conversion of short-term, small-scale deposits into long-term big-scale loans. That’s useful and beneficial to everyone, because it makes it possible to invest on a per-project basis, so that no capital is wasted (is idle). If all corporations were 100% shareholder funded, as Marjorie Kelly wants, that would be a major waste.
You people remember that Jerome is in the banking business, right?

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Jan 3 2005 14:10 utc | 84

Some time back Deanander, I believe, wrote about the pernicious normative effects of discussions of human nature
I believe that was me, and I take the mix-up as a compliment.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 3 2005 14:33 utc | 86

fauxreal – I haven’t had to time yet to absorb all of youtr points and links, but I would like to point out quickly that PD is certainly NOT a zero-sume game. PD is actually the game where you get to choose between zero-sume game (one players cooperates, the other betrays), win-win (both cooperate) or lose-lose (both betray).
The unique insight of the PD is that the most efficient short-term choice is to betray, thus leading everybody to lose (but you lose less than if you are betrayed, which makes it rational in the absence of other factors), whereas the best collective choice is for everybody to cooperate, which is not rational in the short term (if the other cooperates, you have incentive to betray him/her).
Good collective choices (i.e. win-win situations) require that other factors come into play (repeated interactions, an outside enforcer, cultural or societal rules) to override the short term instincts.

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 3 2005 15:04 utc | 88

I would like to ask a question about rules. I believe I understand what slothrop is saying about the elites using the rules to their benefit and consequently other’s detriment. I also believe I understand Jérôme’s point that rules are needed so that we can concentrate on higher goals and not just guard our stash all day long.
If we are to live in a society it seems to me that there must be some way of convincing people to behave in a certain way. Animals have their ways and insects have similiar means of enforcing certain behaviour and discouraging other behaviour. How are we achieve harmony in human society? What would work to make Jérôme, slothrop, and r’giap happy?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 3 2005 17:24 utc | 90

hkol
i am not a constructor of elites – even of the dictatorship of the proletariat kind – i just beg to differ in all the decription of ‘socialist states’ – even by those that have lived in one
i do not think one has existed – even in russia by the end of the civil war & the beginning of the new economic plan – the resources of the state were confined to protecting itself & in protecting itself it became its enemy & allowed for abberations because it rested in a siege mentality & stalin was conceived in that mentality for it was he who sd ” if you are scared of wolves – do not enter the forest”
the socialism of latin america has never ever been able to develop – it has been undermined, sabotaged & in the case of nicaragua & chile – destroyed
do too in africa – where the corruption – as fela & femi kuti sing so clearly about – is the destiny of those entangled in the superpower struggles for ascendency. independance for the most part was the contrary – it was another form of subservience assisted by fmi/world bank/us treasury
vietnam fought & won the right to choose its system – it works & it included multiples – yet it is surrounded by a sea of political bankruptcy in south east asia
hkol – i do not suffer sect – especially those of the marxist – leninist variety – i welcome argument – i welcome battle – i undo my belt & look for trouble but i will not enter into convenient disavowels – hegel/marx/engels are the preeminent influence on my life as a man & as an artist, lenin & mao – were for me visionaries – the world does not create many of them, my heart has always gone to che & as he gets older – fidel yes fidel – i will not demonise him or the cp of cuba
all the thinkers that slothrop introducces here are extremely important for me – especially louis althusser, walter benjamin, georgy lukacks – they are dreamers who dreamed the dream i am inside – still – steel still – still steel
the socialist poets rocewicz, hikmet, neruda, ritsos & darwich remain a force for me
& again i demand where are the visionaries of capital – in any field – where are they – who are they & i will not be satisfied with a strauss, with an arendt, with a rand, with the chicago school, with the livermore laborratory, with the economist of this dying world who spread vagaries that always end up by spilling blood – somewhere sometime
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2005 17:28 utc | 92

& to be more clearer – argument can take place & it is a transforming matière – no matter how it is being disputed
jérôme & i exist on opposite sides of the spectrum but has never been necessary to ‘personalise’ that debate with false pieties or brutish argument. the manners that are used here are not accidental. what has been happening under bush is wounding us all – we do not need to wound one anorther
in relation to pat – we are not only opposites – but – i see the administration as intertangled with armed force – as i think slothrop does – the war in irag & in afghanistan are both illegal & are deeply immoral. & no i will not argue about that – there is the smell of blood in the air & we all know here the catastrophe will continue – i will not enter into a semantic argument about the brutality that is being used againstthe arab people in general & the iraquis in particular
i repeatedly demanded that we accept that iraq is the cradle of our civilisation & that its culture & its connaissance & its people are amongst the higher points of our humanity
all last anceyear – pat repeated in one way or another whatever was coming out of right wing think tanks which are not known for their humanity nor for their critical thinking. pat’s army is not seperate from that problematic. pat continually described the resistance as not the resistance but as ‘dead enders’ ‘baathists’ ‘ ‘foreign fighters’ & al zaqarwi – their leader – this is just a repitition of what can be read in the washington times – it is not clear, independant thinkinf. i am a flawed thinker & i am the first to say it – i worship hegel whom althusser detested – but i use both – their contradictions are useful & are not antagonistic. there is a melange of thinkers in my intellectual construction & some of them are by necessity, contradictory
when i think one or other of us asks each other a question – i think it is necessary to try to reply or at least state clearly – the refusal. it is manners here to not wound one another but from our opposing & multiple minds & communities to try to thread together some sense that would make living in this world, worthy
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2005 18:09 utc | 94

2005 will be a dreadful pause. Nothing much of great importance will happen, the accepted horrors will just drag on..
The defining year was 2004. — After 63, 68, the fall of the Wall in 89, and the supposed ultimate atrocity of 01, amongst others.
2004: A second (say) stolen election in the superpower, with no real protest. A body blow that most pretended not to notice.
2004: A good date for some version of peak oil. Passed by, drowned out by media trivia, Kyoto, and so on..
2004: A public if somewhat covert acceptance of the possibility of WW4….many footnotes.
2004:……
2005 will pass quickly.
Happy New Year everyone.

Posted by: Blackie | Jan 3 2005 20:21 utc | 96

“point to me the visionaries of their world”
Rgiap
I am looking at you.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 3 2005 20:59 utc | 98

slothrop wrote:

Your misdiagnosis of human interaction is not a trivial problem, despite what appears to me as views we share about the need to regulate of capital.
By perceiving ‘trust’ as external to human interaction, your argument is no different from wellnigh neoplatonic, neoliberal, antidemocratic, plutocratic, oligarghic, philosophies that reject liberalism because humans do not act “rationally” (market failure!), are selfish and lazy, etc. Therefore, the function of political leadership is to provide citizens with the necessary fictions/ideology to compel them to legitimate the interests of a ruling elite. The Straussian neoconservatives clearly have these antiliberal beliefs. So did the Nazis.
The problem, Jérôme, is this view of human “nature” serves the popular legitimation of elite tyranny, regardless whether your no doubt sensitively hip tyranny would marginally improve the wellbeing of the masses regularly told by you how to behave.

Slothrop, I don’t know where you found in what I wrote any justification of any aristocracy of any kind. Quite to the contrary, I wrote that democracy is when no one anymore has any privileged power vs others, whether a dictator or a state – or any elite. You need a State, an entity representing the public good, but this must not kill individualism – and individual rights – for anyone. I don’t see how the respect of everybody’s full rights can be compatible with any form of aristocracy.
I certainly don’t agree that it is capitalism that created laziness, selfishness and cowardice to perpetuate itself. To the contrary, capitalism (which we’ll need to define better at some point, but let’s stick with our current notions, whichever they are for each of us) is a slow movement out of laziness, selfishness, made possible by institutions that put checks to these and/or channel them towards useful roles. As far as I can see, it is the only system to have allowed in reality and not just in theory that kind of progress.

i am not a constructor of elites – even of the dictatorship of the proletariat kind – i just beg to differ in all the decription of ‘socialist states’ – even by those that have lived in one
i do not think one has existed – even in russia by the end of the civil war & the beginning of the new economic plan – the resources of the state were confined to protecting itself & in protecting itself it became its enemy & allowed for abberations because it rested in a siege mentality & stalin was conceived in that mentality for it was he who sd ” if you are scared of wolves – do not enter the forest”

RGiap, this is crap, pure and simple. The end result of these “socialist” systems has been the same each single time: misery and devastation on a grand scale. Humanity – and the environment – have never been more savaged than by those supposedly “collective good” regimes. And please stop it with the “siege, blockade, etc” excuse.
There was no blockade on East Germany. There was no blockade on North Korea. Same people, same background, same initial conditions; one capitalist, one communist; not many Germans were killed going from West to East or Koreans from South to North, were they? And please don’t give me the excuse that this is not “real” socialism. These WERE “real” socialism, all too real for too many people. And strangely enough, all these “socialist” systems always end up with a VERY REAL elite with an iron grip on power and who certainly has no qualms about killing, emprisoning, oppressing, all, of course, in the name of the greater good.
(And Lenin was a power hungry thug, pure and simple, a smart one, to be sure, but a thug)
I don’t believe in absolutes. I don’t believe, period. Absolutes, whether religious or ideological, bring exclusion, because they always end up with the end justifies the means argument, which leads to elimination of obstacles by all means. Liberalism, for me, is simply the refusla of absolutes. Nobody is perfect, nobody is better, nobody knows it all, and you should not impose your ideas/beliefs, etc on others.

Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 3 2005 21:21 utc | 100