I had just began to recover from my illness and was very excited about reading again. But I was worried that I wouldn't remember stuff, so I made these reports, some of which is just lifted from the books in question.
Wardell’s book reports
Page 1: Righteous Victims by Benny Morris;
Page 10: Democracy: A History by John Dunn;
Page 12: The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria;
Page 13: The War for Muslim Minds by Gilles Kepel;
Page 14: Churchill’s Folly by Christopher Catherwood;
Page 14: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment by Geri Larkin;
Page 15: Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky;
Page 18: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto.
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-2001 by Benny Morris (8/4/06). A comprehensive and detailed account of the conflict between Zionism and Arabs in the Middle East from 1881. Islam and the Ottoman Empire generally treated Jews as second class citizens, inspired by the anti-semitism in the Koran, which came from Muhammed’s relationships with the Jews of Arabia, and they were routinely persecuted (as elsewhere). Zionism is the term for an ideology of return to the holy land. The first Zionist conference was held in 1897. The first movement of Jews into Palestine was in 1881, instigated by Russian pogroms. A second was initiated in 1903 by similar pogroms. The rise of Arab Nationalism came later. Correspondingly, Jews in Palestine saw Arabs in almost equally perjorative terms: primitive, dishonest, lazy, etc. There were many conflicts between the Jewish settlements and local Arabs in the early days. Typically, settlers came and bought large tracts of land.
After WWI, the Balfour Declaration promised a Jewish state in Israel as a goal of the British. They backed off this assertion many times in order to placate the Arabs, but after WWII the UN decreed the separate state of Israel, in large part due to sympathy for the Jews after the holocaust. In these boundaries were 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Arabs. For years, the British limited immigration of Jews to Israel at the behest of Arabs. But most Jews chose to emigrate to the US anyway. When settlements arose, they typically resulted in the eviction of local peasants who were working the land. During these years there were several uprisings and riots. In 1929, there were riots against the Jews following a dispute over the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Zionists became persuaded of the need of a powerful militia to protect themselves and the British issued a declaration backtracking on Balfour. Both sides became more radicalized. In 1936, another “revolt” (rioting, random killing) against Jewish occupation occurred. Defense of settlements turned from pure defense to aggressive patrolling and ambushing outside the settlements with the rise of the Haganah. The British Peel Commission issued a report that saw the dispute as irresolveable within the framework of one state and a transfer of Jews and Arabs into separate territories was considered. The Jews approved of the idea of the transfer (for many years) and it was suggested they buy lands for Palestinian Arabs in other countries. In 1937, the AHC (the most powerful Arab leadership party, which was always contested with another party, each composed mainly of relatives of two families, the al-Husseini and the Nashashibis) rejected the Peel report. But its leaders were forced to flee after the British declared the organization illegal and the uprising continued undirected. In 1937 also began Jewish terrorism conducted by the Irgun. In 1939 the revolt collapsed, with various Arab groups fighting amongst themselves. During this time, much of the Palestinian elite fled the country because of the violence. The British rejected partition and offered to limit immigration, but the AHC rejected the offers of concessions, even though the revolt had failed.
The largest Pogrom, the Holocaust, precipitated much more immigration, much of it illegal. The British worked to prevent immigration, and often the world witnessed the specter of ships carrying Jews being returned to Europe, even Germany. Zionists were permitted to contribute a battalion to the war effort in 1944. After the war, Zionist groups began attacking the British lead by the IZL and the LHI. Jewish terrorism increased dramatically. In 1947, the British decided to dump the problem on the UN. In November 1947, the UN voted to partition Palestine into two states on the recommendation of the US and Russia, in light of the tragedy of the Holocaust, which was now known. Zionists rejoiced and Arabs walked out. They could not understand why 37% of the population had been given 55% of the land. Ironically, their proposal was to have a one-state democracy, in which the Arabs would rule because they were the more numerous. A civil war erupted immediately, largely Palestinian guerillas against the Israelis. The former held the upper hand until May 1948, when the Haganah went on the offensive. On May 14, 1948, the Jews issued their Declaration of Independence, and then Arab states surrounding Israel declared war and invaded. These countries did not have a unified command or efficient armies and fought separately. The war against each was strikingly different. The Lebanese did not even cross the border. But the leaders of these states felt that had to do something because their populace demanded it. Leaving out a lot of details, the Israelis won and used the opportunity to expand their territory and drive most of the Palestinians from their land into other Arab states by destroying villages, etc.
1949-1956 saw many missed opportunities for peace, which failed because Israel was unwilling to make concessions and Arab leaders felt too weak and threatened by their own people to negotiate without Israeli concessions. It was the plight of the 700,000 Palestinian refugees that fueled Arab animosity toward Israel, not to mention the humiliation at losing the war to the (weak, inferior) Jews. The era was marked by many low key skirmishes with border fights and Arab infiltrators coming in to cause trouble by killing cattle and attacking settlements. Israel often toyed with the idea of provoking a second round and many right-wing Jews thought (and still do, hence much of the settlement movement) Israel should take all of Palestine. Ben-Gurion repeatedly lied to his people through the state-controlled media that all Arabs were war-mongers bent on Israel’s destruction, when most were actually more concerned to get a piece of Palestine for themselves, especially Jordan. During this time, many more immigrants poured into Israel as they sought to increase their populace. And the response to Palestinians attempting to return to their homes was to shoot them when they crossed the border. The IDF, in response to attacks, would conduct retaliatory attacks against civilians across the border (Sharon was the officer who came to embody this strategy). Many atrocities were committed by the army. In 1956, Britain agreed to withdraw from Egypt under pressure from Nasser. Israel conducted sabotage campaigns against British and Americans in Egypt in an attempt to create bad blood. Israel wished to promote a preemptive war with Egypt, which was receiving Russian arms. The US stalled, trying to appeal to both sides. The Israelis began importing arms from France. With the proposed nationalization of the Suez Canal, the British and French collaborated with Israel to start a war with Egypt. Israel would attack first on a provocation and then France and Britain would come in to “protect their interests.” Israel devastatingly defeated Egypt, driving them from the Sinai peninsula. But the Egyptian response was too weak to warrant the French and British from entering. The US made it clear it would not support the French or British and the UN called for Israel to withdraw their invading armies from Egypt. They reluctantly did so, over a period of time, leaving a scorched earth in their wake. Both Britain and France suffered irreparable harm in the Middle East, as incompetent co-imperialists. Nasser was able to persuade his people that he had won and became a very powerful presence in the region. Everywhere, the Egyptians bred subversion of governments, and Nasser began to talking openly of a third round. If the destruction of Israel was not the Arab policy before, now it was.
In the six-day war of 1967, things changed drastically. It began with Egypt amassing 100,000 troops, eight to nine hundred tanks, and seven hundred pieces of artillery in the Sinai Peninsula across the border from Israel in mid-May. Jordan signed a cooperation agreement with Egypt on May 30. Syria was already a part of the United Arab Republic and coordinated their actions with Egypt. Tension had been heightening for some time with various attacks and retaliations, mostly between Israel and Syria. The Kremlin reported large build-ups of Israeli troops on the Syrian border (which was not true). On May 16-18, Egypt demanded the removal of the 3400 UN troops, and on May 20-21 U Thant capitulated. On May 22, Nasser announced that the Gulf of Tiran (between Israel and Saudi Arabia) was off limits for Israel. On June 3rd, two Egyptian commando batallions flew into Jordan, as well as an Iraqi mechanized brigade (Iraq and Egypt had been enemies). The Arab masses were whipped into a state of war hysteria and exultation by the politicians and media. Over Memorial Day weekend, President Johnson, affected by the Nasser/Hussein alliance, gave Israel the go-ahead for war.
Israel attacked on June 5. Leaving out many details, its victory was beyond anything they had conceived. Their air force quickly destroyed the opposing air forces and established control over the skies. Their armored divisions routed the Egyptians, who fled in retreat. Although they had contemplated mostly defensive action against Syria and Egypt, Jordan quicky entered the fray. Because of its quick annihilation of Egypt, Israel turned its forces against Jordan and took Jerusalem and the West Bank. The last couple days they decided to take the Golan Heights in Syria. Then the UN called for a cease-fire.
The success caused an expantionist, messianic mood to spread over Israel. Religious movements immediately began to set up settlements in the conquered areas in accordance with their belief that Israel was to reclaim the whole of Palestine. Israel had soon after victory communicated to Jordan and Egypt that they would withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza strip, but the offers were refused. The settlement movement increased dramatically, not as a plan of the government, but the government helped them and would not intervene. The IDF also took the occasion to drive many more Palestinians across the river into Jordan. Even so, Israel now had the largest number of Palestinians inside its borders; 1.1 million in the now occupied territories (Gaza and the West Bank) along with another 400,000 in pre-1967 borders. Jews liked to think of themselves as benign occupiers, but the reality was that the occupation was founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation and manipulation. The military justice system which administered complaints approved of almost everything. With the crushing of dissent, Palestinians began to turn to armed resistance.
Nasser was the chief loser in the war. The Suez Canal was blocked indefinitely (a major source of revenue), he lost the Sinai oil fields and he suffered a severe loss of face in the eyes of Arabs. The weakness of the Arab states translated into increased Soviet influence. Nasser’s own people still regarded him as a savior and would not let him resign. Since they could not face the fact of their armies being defeated by little Israel, the took to blaming the US. Arab leaders became inflexible and obdurant in defeat and the Israeli position quickly became a refusal to withdraw from the new borders.
The war left Nasser, his army, and his people with a deep sense of shame and a driving urge for revenge. Within months, the Soviets had replaced all the lost equipment with more modern weaponry. Negotiations began. Israel wanted full peace in exchange for lands; Egypt wanted Gaza and the West Bank returned but only for some form of non-belligerency pact. Cairo opted for a form of limited warfare; small skirmishes and infiltrations in which both sides would suffer losses, but Israel had fewer manpower reserves. Israel constructed a line of fortifications on the east bank of the Suez called the Bar-Lev Line. Egyptians escalated by massive bombing on the east of the canal. Egypt continued to try to locate SAM missiles on the west side and the Israeli air force continued to destroy them. Nasser bluffed Breshnev that he might resign and the Russians agreed to a full defense umbrella, staffed by Russians. In 1970, the two sides agreed to a cease-fire.
In the middle 1960's, the PLO was formed, along with other such groups. After 1967, recruits streamed into PLO camps in Jordan. Many were trained elsewhere, and sent in to Israel. But Israel instigated a round of attacks on the enemy in the West Bank, and diminished the number of attacks. Expansion of guerilla movements in Jordan were fueled by large donations from rich Arab states, including Kuwait. Israel began a series of military operations in Jordan. The PLO switched its bases to southern Lebanon. The raids on Israel renewed and Israel responded with massive attacks on southern Lebanon. During this time, other Palestinian groups began terrorist activities on an international scale, hijacking many airplanes, which were initially opposed by the PLO. Emboldened guerillas in Jordan began to clash with Jordanians. After protracted battles, Jordan drove them into Lebanon.
The international terrorist activities increased, including the killing of Israelis at the Olympics in Munich in 1972. There were 60 such operations in 1973, compared to two in 1968. Jordan’s prime minister was gunned down and terrorists symbolically drank his blood on the sidewalk. The “Palestinian problem” had rearisen, and Israel employed more repressive measures in the West Bank, giving rise to a powerful fundamentalist movement there.
Events slowly escalated after 1970 between Egypt and Israel. In October 1973, Egypt managed to spring a surprise attack on Israel, who had become complacent, by building bridges across the Suez and bringing in large numbers of troops and armor. Syria also attacked, attempting to win back the Golan Heights. The Arabs were far more successful than ever before, though they still ended up losing. There is a lengthy history of this war, but in the end Israel managed to send a number of tanks across the Suez into Egypt, threatening the SAM sites and even Cairo. Egypt sought the USSR to intervene with a cease-fire and with the US, one was drawn up, after the Soviets had implied that they might intervene. The superpowers had armed the combatants and now arranged for a peace.
In 1977, Sadat dramatically instigated a peace process by initially flying to Jerusalem to meet with Begin, the new right-wing Israeli leader, and the Knesset. He was spurred by the continuing drain on the Egyptian economy. He was also running out of time, having had two heart attacks. The negotiations went on and on and often looked like it would fail but eventually at Camp David, President Carter managed to get the two countries to agree to a framework for peace. Everyone agreed that without Carter’s mastery of detail, grasp of the issues, empathy, persuasive charm and occasionally firmness, no agreement would have been possible. And the USSR had been frozen out of the process. Begin was often very difficult to get along with, and probably would not have agreed had not a powerful Peace Now movement sprung up in Israel, 100,000 at the airport when he left urging him to make concessions for peace. Israel was to withdraw from the Sinai and destroy its few settlements there. The transition would be gradual, and then much of the Sinai would be demilitarized. Full diplomatic relations between the two countries would begin and prevention of Israeli use of the Suez Canal would be lifted. A process was agreed to for “autonomy” for Palestinians, though this was left vague. The agreements were greeted by enthusiasm in the west, strong criticism in the USSR and rejectionist Arab states such as Syria, while the moderate kings sat on the fence. Israelis and Egyptians were primarily in favor of the agreements (the hardliners still opposed them, including Begin’s party (Egypt was a dictatorship)), but almost every Palestinian saw them as a selling out of their interests by Sadat.
After many setbacks, a peace treaty was finally signed in 1979. Egypt was expelled from the Arab Summit (years later they were let back in). But Begin had never seriously contemplated giving the West Bank or Gaza any substantial self-rule and the autonomy talks were destined to fail. In 1981 Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists, but the treaty held, although there were also many disputes over its implementation.
Southern Lebanon had become an armed PLO state within a state. In Zionist history, southern Lebanon was coveted because it would extend the Jewish state to a border with Maronite Christians at the Litani River. Southern Lebanon was inhabited mainly by Shi’ites. In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War erupted, with battles between many groups, but the basic cause was long-simmering Christian-Muslim antagonism. In 1976, with largely the support of interested parties, Syria invaded Lebanon, partly a historic goal of bringing Lebanon under its own rule, but partly in fear that the civil war would spill over into Syria and to prevent an outright PLO-Muslim victory. Israel was afraid that if Syria did not to do so, the war could spiral out of control and lead to another war with the Arab world. The US primarily wanted pacification of the region. The Syrians took over much of Lebanon but did not oust the PLO from the south.
During 1977-1981, the PLO continued to raid northern Israel and the IDF retaliated with strikes into Lebanon. During this time, Israel forged an alliance with the Christian Phalange. There was a gradual PLO-Syrian rapprochement and the Christians grew weary of Syrian domination. They instituted a number of attacks against Syria but did poorly. Part of the goal was to provoke such brutal attacks that Israel could no longer stand aside. In June 1981, Israel pledged assistance to the Christians if attacked by the Syrian air force. Syria moved four SAM batteries in and Israel shot down a couple Syrian helicopters. Syria moved in more SAMS and Scuds, signaling to Israel that it could not dominate the skies. Israel hit two softer targets, PLO bases in southern Lebanon and a nuclear facility in Iraq, in run-up to elections. After more attacks, the PLO threw caution to the wind and began shelling Israel. The US brokered a cease-fire agreement with the PLO, but the Israel government simmered and in the ensuing months sought a pretext to invade, with the goals of Sharon (defense minister) and Begin being the destruction and ejection of the PLO and the ejection of the Syrian army (although other ministers did not want the latter to be part of the battle plan).
On June 3, 1982, the Israel ambassador to Britain was assassinated by Abu Nidal, a radical Palestinian group, the pretext. Begin saw the PLO as the reincarnation of Nazism. Sharon sold the war to the cabinet by asserting not to attack Syria, but no one considered how long they were to remain in Lebanon. Begin said that they would go only 40 kilometers. Thanks to the Peace treaty with Egypt, Israel was able to commit its entire force. The attack on June 6 caught the PLO by surprise and Israel rapidly moved through the country to Beirut. After the first day, the UN passed a resolution to end the fighting, but the US didn’t really believe in it, although they signed it. Israel had developed a new anti-SAM system and quickly destroyed Syria’s SAM bases, to the surprise of Syria and the USSR (many Israelis saw this as a mistake, to use this secret weapon too soon, in a war that was not crucial). In the attack, Syria threw in a number of MIGS, many of which were shot down. Reagan, who worried about a war with the USSR, disapproved. The green light that had been given disappeared and to Israel it seemed that the powers were bent on snatching victory from Israel’s grasp. A cease-fire forced by the US was agreed to on June 11, to the chagrin of generals who hoped to destroy Syria’s army. Near Beirut, Sharon ignored the cease-fire and moved to connect with the Christians, who did nothing. The IDF-Phalange link-up took several days. There were daily skirmishes with Syria, and on June 23 Israel unleashed a two-division attack on Syrian forces to secure their positions around Beirut. Although a cease-fire ensued, Israel initiated a siege of Beirut, plummeting Israel’s approval in the West. The PLO in Beirut were seen as courageous victims by world media. Attacks and bombings by Israel continued and in the end, Sharon’s brutal measures forced the PLO to evacuate Beirut, over 14,000 persons. Israel’s man, Gemayel, was elected president of Lebanon. Israel bought many of the votes. But he refused an alliance with Israel and Reagan proposed a plan that ruled out both Israel annexation and Palestinian statehood.
The results were a clear political defeat for Israel. Syria’s army was intact and they vowed to control Lebanon. The next three years involved a pull-back of Israeli troops, during the process of which Israel managed to alienate almost every faction in Lebanon. Gemayel was assassinated in September 1982, before which occurred a massacre of 700-800 refugees and civilians by the Phalange, many of them in refugee camps policed by Israel. The massacre received world-wide tv coverage and as many as 400,000 demonstrators rallied in Israel to protest and call for a commission of inquiry. The commission’s report primarily blamed Sharon, who Begin finally had to remove from the defense ministry after he refused to resign. Chief of General Staff Eitan was also reprimanded but his tour was almost over. Under intense US pressure, Israel withdrew from Beirut. The Christians saw this as a betrayal by Israel and the Druze (a proxy of Syria) massacred many Christians. During the withdrawal, Syria also used proxies to drive the rest of the PLO out of northern Lebanon.
A series of bombings against American troops in Beirut, there as part of a UN peace-keeping force, resulted in destruction of the embassy and a suicide bomber destroying Marine barracks, killing 241. The bombers belonged to a radical group that had split from the main Shi’ite militia, the Hezbollah (the “party of God”). The resolve of the US dissipated and the UN force withdrew. The Lebanese government crumbled and its president was forced to go to Damascus to pay homage to its new overlord, Assad.
The battles between Hezbollah and Israel during the slow withdrawal were brutal. The usual Israeli reactions of curfews, searches, mass arrests, torture of suspects, vandalism, looting and occasional on-the-spot executions only fueled support for the guerillas. The main weapon of Hezbollah was the suicide bomber. Israel tried other means such as infiltration and continued with massive retaliations after each attack. In the end, although Israel did drive the PLO out, a new more fanatical foe had been installed. Israel had antagonized most Lebanese. And Syria was able to keep a second Arab country from signing a peace treaty and were able to exert almost total control over northern and central Lebanon. During the 1990's, Syria succeeded in almost completely stifling internecine fighting, for which many Lebanese probably remained reluctantly, ambivalently grateful.
In November 1987 began the Intifada in the West Bank, which was initially a massive, persistent campaign of civil resistance, largely in protest of unbearable economic conditions. In Arabic, intifada means “shaking off,” as a dog shaking off a flea. It became Palestinians’ war for independence. The energizing force were 650,000 in Gaza, 900,000 in the West Bank and 130,000 in East Jerusalem, who wanted to live in a Palestinian state and not as stateless inhabitants under a brutal, foreign military occupation. The Arab Summit meeting in 1987 virtually ignored Palestine, focusing on the Iran-Iraq war.
In Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood appeared to be innocuous, supplying schools, libraries and many other social services. These fundamentalists also imposed new norms of behavior, closing movie theatres, vandalizing shops that showed exposed women and cafes selling alcoholic beverages. Their numbers increased dramatically and women took to wearing the veil and young men began sporting beards. The Gaza had one of the highest population densities in the world, 1,600 persons per square kilometer. They were dirt poor. The Israeli settlers in the stip accounted for .4% of the population but controlled 28% of the land. Israel prevented manufacturing plants and made them grow necessary crops for Israel, and Israel farmers could concentrate on more profitable crops. Forty per cent of the workforce was employed in Israel performing menial labor. Even the educated were forced to take menial jobs. Many Palestinians had worked in other Arab countries, but the Iran-Iraq war foreclosed much of this. Israeli secuity forces over the decades detained people without trial, engaged in abuse, etc. Ironically, the prison camps provided effective areas for ideological indoctrination and group consolidation.
The PLO’s demise had left many Palestinians bereft of hope of national salvation. The Islam of firebrand clerics seemed to provide an answer. I leave many of the details of the struggle out, but Islamic activists sought to expand the Intifada into rural areas. The Muslim Brotherhood became more political and resulted in the formation of Hamas, eventually making destruction of Israel its goal. There is a lot of information about the different activist groups, which I will omit. But they closed down shops, killed collaborators and engaged in numerous stone-throwing incidents (much of it done by adolescents; schools were closed). The groups forbade the use of guns. Commercial strikes were often called and Israeli goods boycotted. Despite a PLO prohibition, there were occasional terrorist incidents. The Israeli response was typical: shootings, beatings, administrative detention, curfews, collectively punishing communities, economic sanctions, closing printing shops, etc.
The Intifada officially ended in September 1993 when Israel signed a peace accord in Oslo with the PLO. But it slowed down in 1991 after a Middle East peace conference was convened in Madrid to attempt to resolve the problems. In July 1992, Israeli elections brought Labor back into power (vs. the right-wing Likud). Hamas and the Islamic Jihad redoubled their efforts to provoke Isrealis into a cycle of repression that might subvert the process. They discovered Israel’s psychological weak spot, abducting or killing young soldiers.
The Intifada, which ended in a stalemate, raised the Palestinian problem to the top of the international agenda. It replaced the traditional “nobility leadership” of the opposition with a new class of local activists. It raised the status of women, who participated in many of the demonstrations. The Palestinian people went from a downtrodden passive people into a defiant, successfully rebellious one. And a sense of community and nationhood was created in a community that had been traditionally divided by religious, class, regional and political differences. The radicalization of the Israeli right was dramatic, caused by the feelings of the settlers of being besieged and ostracized (left-of-center politicians like Rabin were accused of being traitors and murderers). But only about a quarter of the settlers were hard-core ideologically committed expansionists. Most just sought better housing and quality of life. Many Israelis learned for the first time that their country was running a brutal military occupation. World opinion and tv images convinced them that the must get out of heavily-populated Arab areas and reach an accommodation with the Arab world. The Intifada damaged the image and morale of the IDF. Many who might have contemplated a military career were disillusioned at having to take action against civilians. The notion that additional territory provided additional security was mortally undermined. And world opinion turned against Israel, wondering why its troops were battling civilians and why Palestinians should not be given their freedom. But the US-Israeli special relationship appeared largely unaffected.
In 1988, Hussein of Jordan announced that it was severing its links with the West Bank, stunning Israel (many of the leaders thought that the West Bank would be given to Jordan, eliminating the possibility of a dangerous third state). At this time, 60% of Jordan were Palestinians. Many Palestinian leaders said that the creation of the state was merely a stage to total domination of Palestine. And Israel refused to recognize that no peace was possible without the PLO for five years. The dialogue ended up breaking off.
Around 1990, massive numbers of Soviet Jews migrated to Israel after the fall of the USSR government. The US pressed for moderation, but Labor-Likud differences resulted in the collapse of the government, and new elections produced election of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.
In the Persian Gulf war, the PLO supported Iraq. They lost the crucial financial backing of Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. In 1991, the new Likud government, with Sharon as housing minister, authorized 13,000 new residential units in the territories. But the US began to pressure Israel to halt the establishment of settlements by financial pressure. In 1992, Likud was defeated by Labor, which opened a breakthrough with the PLO. Clandestinely, the Oslo peace talks began. In 1993, there were sorties into Lebanon to quell Hezbollah attacks. Eventually, the Syrians agreed to a cease-fire. An agreement was finally reached, but many Palestinians viewed Arafat as selling out their interests. Although nearly two-thirds of Israelis and Palestinians supported the agreement, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad mounted a vigorous campaign to derail the peace process, hoping to bring right-wing pressure in Israel to oppose it. Israel withdrew from the Jericho area and Gaza in May 1994. The PLO was set up to police the area. But security problems caused Israeli closures of the territories, triggered by terrorist attacks, which added to economic woes. Arafat’s popularity was dwindling. The PLO had received only small slivers of territories, most overcrowded and poor, and had consented to reigning in their “freedom fighters.” Rabin understood that only by giving Palestinians’ territory and quickly, would the terrorism be reduced.
Arafat was trying to play both sides. He would go through the motions of curtailing terrorism, but after the spotlight was off would release them. The 1994-96 period was the heyday of suicide bombers. In general, the Oslo process increased the dimensions and frequency of terrorism, which had shifted to more targets inside Israel. A new peace accord was signed in 1995, and Israel withdrew from the West Bank’s main towns, other than Hebron.
In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty. The two countries had had a tradition of cooperation and wished to do this for decades. From 1977 to 1992, when the Likud was in power, they had opposed any cession to any Arab party of any part of the West Bank. And many Likud politicians such as Sharon had barely veiled their belief that Israel should conquer the East Bank. The document was far warmer in tone than the Israel-Egypt treaty. Israel and Syria also engaged in talks, but Rabin was assassinated in November 1994. Assad declined to be rushed and Peres in January 1996 called for early elections. He lost to Netanyahu, who opposed negotiations. Syria refused to allow Lebanon to reach a treaty as long as the Golan Heights were still in Israel’s control.
The Right in Israel had been demonstrating frequently and raucously against all these peace measures. For instance, Sharon compared Rabin to Eichmann because the government was debating which Jews should be protected and which “thrown to the dogs.” In opposition Peace Now and other liberal elements held a rally that drew 100,000 people. It was at this rally that Rabin was killed by a right-winger determined to stop the peace process. In the 1996 elections, Peres of the Labor Party was comfortably ahead, but Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, probably with the backing of Iran (who probably wanted to see Peres defeated), started a new series of terrorist attacks. The Labor Party also ran an ineffective campaign that failed to highlight Netanyahu’s lack of experience and personal skeletons. The Right used the events to smear Peres, resulting in victory. Hezbollah also commenced new shellings, leading to another Israeli foray into Lebanon, which was curtailed when Israel accidentally hit a large camp of refugees (Hezbollah rockets had been fired a couple hundred yards away). Peres was identified with the peace process which engendered massive terrorism and loss of security, and he lost the election.
Netanyahu’s preconditions for “peace” included no surrender of the Golan Heights, no Palestinian state, Jerusalem would remain in control of Israel forever and settlements would be promoted. He triggered an explosion when he opened an exit in the Muslim quarter to a tunnel of the old city that ran parallel to the western wall of the Temple Mount, at the initiative of Jerusalem’s mayor, Ehud Olmert. Demonstrations resulted, outnumbered Israeli police fired weapons and gunfire ensued in Jerusalem and elsewhere, with Arafat’s police joining in. Clinton summoned the two to Washington, where a cease-fire was signed, although Netanyadu refused to commit to a target date to withdraw from Hebron and refused to close the tunnel. Afterwards, haggling occurred regarding the third stage of the withdrawal, with Hussein eventually intervening for a compromise. Hamas-Islamic Jihad condemned it as a sellout. But the right-wing Israeli government had committed to the process of land for peace. However, they never carried out their promises and concommittantly Hamas increased terrorism. In this process, Netanyahu committed one of the biggest blunders of his premiership (he had clearly staked out his claim by this time as Israel’s most incompetent and mendacious prime minister), a botched assassination attempt of a senior Hamas official in Jordan. Mossad operatives were arrested, which lead to a prisoner exchange involving the Hamas leader Yassim. Arafat was threatening to unilaterally announce Palestinian independence and a deal was hammered out, brokered by the US, in which 13% of the territory was to be released. His return home was greeted by the Right with shocked disbelief. Now, neither the right or the left trusted Netanyahu’s word. In the end, he failed to abide by the agreement claiming Palestinian failure to complete committments. In the election of 1999, he lost to Barak, resulting in a massive spontaneous celebration of Israelis in the streets.
However hopeful the election was, Barak’s term, which included intensive negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians, lasted only 19 months and ended with the overture to Syria dead in the water and Israelis and Palestinians locked in a bloody struggle around the Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel also withdrew from southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah was left in overall control. This withdrawal surprised and angered Syria because they lost their negotiating card regarding Golan. A summit was held at Camp David in 2000 which Israel and Palestinians attacked the major issues. Even though Barak was willing to concede 84-90% of the West Bank, the talks collapsed. The US blamed Arafat because he had failed to offer any important concessions. The Palestinians launched a second Intifada and rioting occurred in Jerusalem, the flames fanned by the PLO, but it was largely the result of pent-up Palestinian anger at their living conditions and the lack of progress. Control remained in Israel’s hands and the poor remained poor. This time Israel’s Arab minority joined in. And the Hezbollah had just pointed out the route to successful liberation given the hasty retreat from Lebanon. Near anarchy ensued on the West Bank. Clinton proposed a comprehensive solution, which Arafat rejected. He had either played Israel along or refused the best deal he would ever be offered. Palestinian terrorism increased. Arafat called for the elimination of Israel. Barak was defeated by Sharon in February 2001.
Democracy: A History by John Dunn (7/28/06). This is a book about the history of the concept of ‘democracy’ and what people thought of it. It starts with the Greeks, where the word denoted a form of government. In the city-state of Athens, citizens governed themselves to a degree that is impossible in any modern state; they voted on all important matters and day-to-day jobs of running the government were drawn by lot. In deciding an issue, all citizens had the right to speak. It was a concept about the equal distribution of power. The best accounts of it are in the works of Plato and Aristotle, who were both critics. Plato saw it as the rule of the foolish, vicious and always potentially brutal. After all, Athens killed Socrates. This presumption of power means that there can be no lasting shape to the democratic community and nothing reliable about the ways power is exercised in it. Aristotle was less critical, but still saw it as not one of the forms of good government since it amounted to government in the interest of the community by merely of the poor; a regime of naked group interest devoted to serving the many at expense of the wealthier, the better, the more elevated and the virtuous. The Romans never used the term. He gives a rich history of how the Greeks thought and takes the inquiry up to modern philosophers like Hobbes and Spinoza.
The second part of the book is called Democracy’s Second Coming and is about the French Revolution, where the term became a badge of honor, as contrasted with America, where it played no role at all in initiating the crisis of the colonies and no positive role in defining the political structures that resulted. The latter was a response to a widely perceived threat to liberties long enjoyed and a uniquely clear-sighted exercise in thinking through the requirements for political liberty. He particularly is concerned with the thought of Madison in The Federalist papers, where he sought out a remedy for the violence of faction, the key weakness of popular governments and the source of the instability, injustice and confusion which plague their public councils. The key challenge was to secure both public good and private rights against the threats of a factious majority, without at the same time sacrificing the spirit and form of popular government. In a republican government a small group of citizens do the governing and the populace is totally excluded from governing in their collective capacity.
In Europe, the term first figured in the speech of political actors struggling to transform states built on huge inequalities of power, where an equality of power was sought between classes of nobils and peasants. This is an interesting history of ideas leading up to the French revolution, where after years of blood and confusion it had gained nothing in plausibility as a practical model of how France ought to govern itself (remember the Terror). In the eyes of important intellectuals, the fundamental struggle of the Revolution was between the order of egoism and the order of equality. The point of democracy was to attain a comprehensive equality, whereas, Madison’s conception of having a small number of people govern, but insist that they be chosen by most, if not all, their fellows, was a cunning mixture of equality and inequality. What gave the latter formula strength over time is that overall wealth has drastically increased this system, thus opulence and distinctions have struck its citizens as collectively beneficial.
The forms of government can be judged in many ways, including their sustained capacity to persuade rather than coerce. The market economy is the most powerful mechanism for dismantling equality that humans have ever fashioned, but it is not simply equality’s enemy. In its own terms, and by its own standards, the story of democracy’s triumph as a single story is a story that cannot be told. But the concept has assumed ascendency and taken over the conception of equality. The idea of a representative democracy is never wholly convincing since it equates ruler with ruled, which is clearly not true. However, movements that made equality the goal have lately amounted to a rage against the reality of other human beings or the very idea of a society, such as the Bolshevik Revolution, Mao’s Cultural Revolution or the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge.
Democracy, in itself, does not specify any clear and definite structure of rule. And in any actual society, it makes it overwhelmingly probable that many particular outcomes will be flagrantly unjust. The idea has flourished under the banner of victory in two world wars and the American state has become to be seen as a well-established recipe for both nurturing the order of egoism and combining its flourishing with some real protection with the civil rights of most of the population. In the end, the term may be a good name for a system in which a majority can dismiss rulers it has come to loathe. It is very different than an Athenian conception; citizens select from a menu of choices which they can do little to modify. To Schumpeter, democracy was essentially a competition between teams of politicians for the power to govern. Dunn goes on to discuss in recent history in detail the ascendency of the idea, while noting that the failure of the idea as a way of organizing the form of relation between different countries has lead to more inequality between the world’s populations.
The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria (7/06). Individual liberty is more important than democracy. The real question is what will lead to lasting states that honor individuals liberties; if they are democracies that is best, a liberal democracy. The meaning of democracy in this discussion is “one person, one vote.” Universal suffrage is the most complete democracy. A direct democracy would be such as Athens (although they had slaves and many other disenfranchised such as women and those who did not own property). The most important factor in predicting a lasting liberal state is its gross domestic product (GDP), so an effective economic system is essential. The reason is that wealth produces the two elements essential for success of a liberal democracy: private businesses and bourgeoisie to get independent power and in bargaining with these elements the state becomes more rule-oriented. Liberal autocrats can lead to liberal democracy but holding elections immediately where the conditions necessary to individual rights do not exist usually leads to tyranny. He provides lots of historical examples. And there are illiberal democracies, a state that we are tilting toward at the present and to which Russia has careened. After all, Hitler and other fascists were elected and Islamic fundamentalists may decide to create a theocratic state (one person, one vote, one time). And the French revolution was a democracy gone crazy, resulting mostly in a lopping of heads and leading to a return to dictatorship and monarchy.
Our own country was not very democratic for much of its life. At first only property owners could vote. Women could not vote until 1920's and blacks did not have an effective right to vote until the 1960's, after the Voting Rights Act was passed, eliminating Jim Crow laws. Some of our most important institutions are undemocratic, such as the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law. But these sorts of things are more important to establishing a nation that respects individual rights than democratic decision-making. And the rule of law is important in protecting capitalism (via contracts honored), which leads to wealth, which is ultimately the best predictor of a lasting liberal democracy.
The history of liberty begins (somewhat arbitrarily) from the Pope’s abdication of Rome for Constantinople. This set the stgte for a series of power struggles between church and state, protestantism and catholicism, feudal lords and kings, business people (bourgoisie) and lords and the state, etc.
He argues that the biggest problem in the Middle East is that there has been no political avenue for people to express their opinion and create positive change. He sees the oil states as trust-fund states (rich kids who didn’t earn their wealth); they make no demands on their populace because they do not need to tax them. That is why they are the exception to the rule about GDP (money doesn’t necessarily produce liberal democracy, hence Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.). The distribution of wealth is even more unequal. Added to this, a huge rise in population has resulted in a large number of young males with nothing to do. Although the leaders of jihad thinking are not from this group, this is where they recruit. Saudi Arabia made a pact with the Wahhabie to keep legitimacy but ultimately it has lead to the radicalizing of their society.
Ironically, Iran is the best hope for freedom and relative democracy in the region. There radical fundamentalists are in power; they are not some sort of utopian dream but real leaders who are screwing up because their policies are not leading to people having better lives. But the hope of nation-building is a complicated matter. By implication, the goal of neo-cons to establish a democracy by fiat is not very sophisticated. And what it has unleashed is a competition among rival groups for total control, hence the schism between Shiites and Sunnis. One side wins and the other loses and the clearest means of identification is by religion or race. This has occurred over and over again where colonial powers drew borders that included long-time antagonists in the same state (e.g. the breakup of the former Yugoslavia).
He also argues that we have too much democracy in some areas in our country. So, ultimately there needs to be a balance between liberty and democracy. Now all legislators have access to opinion polls which measure the thoughts of the people up to the minute. They have become slaves to public opinion and do not lead; they merely figure out how to be reelected. Since their votes are public they are more amenable to control by special interests, who can by mobilizing voters control what they do. This has lead to wanton spending; everybody gets their piece of the pie. More democracy leads to worse government in this sense, just as the tyranny of the majority leads to abolition of individual liberties. The extreme example is California, where referendums (direct democracy) have lead to terrible government. We have also seen a diminution of professional elites who have for the most part been the representatives in government (this involves a whole chapter that I find the least persuasive, so I’m not going into in detail). All this has resulted in large disapproval of our government by the population; a diminution of perceived legitimacy of government.
The War for Muslim Minds by Gilles Kepel (7/06). This book traces (1) the failure of the Oslo peace accords which has lead to the unstable situation in Palestine (this is a recent history of the Middle East that is not kind to Sharon), (2) the history of the neoconservative revolution in this country, (3) the history and beliefs of the Islamic terrorists who participated in 9/11, (4) the resilience of Al Qaeda (how our attempt to eliminate terrorism has in many ways failed, although the jihadists have so far failed in their political goals), (5) the history behind the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia and the government’s dangerous relationship with these radical fundamentalists, (6) the calamity in Iraq which led to the escalation of terrorist activities and an increase in the number of terrorists, and (7) the battle for Europe (which kind of Islamism will win out). It will be in Europe where the most important battle for Muslim minds will be fought because of the large population of Muslims particularly in France and England. He goes into great detail about the factions in Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood (originating in Egypt, and brutally repressed), Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia, salafists and jihadists, secular Islamists, etc. The book contains valuable information about who the individual “players” are, from intellectuals to Jihadists to clerics to rulers.
According to Kepel, the “war on terror” in which the Bush Adminstration took advantage of the aftermath of 9/11 was to liquidate Al Qaeda and the Taliban, pressure Saudi Arabia into political reform (so that it would cease to function as the incubation for terrorists) and to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The ultimate goals were to stabilize the region in order to guarantee oil and Israel’s safety. The war in Iraq also attempted to make up for the inability to wipe out the source of Islamist terrorism; i.e. bin Laden was not the real problem, it was Saddam.
Churchill’s Folly by Christopher Catherwood (7/06). This book traces in detail the creation of the states of the Middle East following WWI and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. The result was that the British created Iraq out of three separate districts of the Ottoman Empire and installed a foreign prince (son of Hussein in Arabia) as ruler, divided the Palestine territory in half and created Jordan with another Hussein prince as ruler (to the detriment of the Palestinians), the consolidation of power of Ibn Saud in Arabia and the institution of a puppet state in Egypt. This was an attempt by the British to maintain their empire with the least amount of cost, since WWI had greatly reduced their wealth (of note is that Syria was in control of the French). These decisions have had long term tragic effects.
Stumbling Toward Enlightenment by Geri Larkin (8/21/06). A book about the practice of buddhism told in a very accessible conversational way by someone who lives in Ann Arbor, with lots of great stories to illustrate the points. A book of great personal wisdom by someone who is or was a business consultant in the “real world.” It is worth reading whether or not one takes seriously the idea of becoming a buddhist. Central to buddhism is meditation, which allows one to see the mental constructs through which we filter experience and feel the emotions that often rule our lives. I’m too tired to summarize all that is here, but I will list a few of the insights that I found personally enlightening.
Peace is found in the spaces between our thoughts. It is important to create space in our lives, not only through meditation, but walking, turning off noise, limiting our memberships in organizations, cleaning out our house, etc. When we can give up our need to be right, to control, to be angry, a natural kindness becomes available not only to us but all beings. Our ego often blocks the way because of its need to control the uncontrollable. The mind that wants, sets goals, compares, is the deluded mind. There really is no self; the ego-thing “I” which we cling to, is simply an ever-shifting bunch of forms, feelings, perceptions, concepts, and consciousness.
She doesn’t deal with a critique of the modern world, but notes Gary Snyder’s observation that “the ‘free world’ has become economically dependent on a fantastic stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which cannot be satiated, and hate which has no outlet except oneself, the persons one is supposed to love, or the revolutionary aspirations of pitiful, poverty stricken marginal societies like Cuba or Vietnam.” She cites as the basic intuition in deep ecology that we have no right to destroy other living beings without sufficient reason. Building bigger and bigger walls between ourselves and others will not make us safe.
What we want is a life of deep knowledge, joy, and peace (which includes calmness in the face of our many stressors, not wasting energy on superficial tasks and minor discomforts, etc.). What we can achieve is not only personal enlightenment and feeling generally better, but better treatment of others, in the spirit of loving kindness. Those who makes others’ life difficult are deeply unhappy. We don’t have to like them or tolerate bad behavior, but at least we can feel compassion. We also need to get rid of winning and losing and of judgmental comparisons.
We also need to understand pleasure and obsession. If we can’t overcome an obsessive need, we can’t detach enough from ourselves to be able to sit quietly or think straight. Real love is loving kindness and compassion. It shows itself in loving speech. Our love should bring peace and happiness to the ones we love. If it does not, it is not love. Our “monkey minds” are not happy. There is no joy in obsessing, only hunger.
Life isn’t supposed to be easy and we don’t have to pretend it is (this is not a license to complain). Impermanence surrounds us. In the end, my body will be compost, which is another reason not to take myself too seriously. We want to be young forever and we won’t. Change is life. Our efforts to categorize everything and believe that there is not constant change is an effort to control that which makes us afraid. We need to pay attention to everything, to wake up and notice what is going on around us.
Fear, worry and shame are our enemies. We need to feel these emotions and look them in face before they will stop controlling our lives. Intellectual activity is not the way to understanding, but is a manifestation of our ignorance. Planning all the time is about fear of the unknown. We are not responsible for what anyone else thinks or does once our children are past a certain age. We need to learn how to let go in order understand truly. Four attitudes and actions help us get there: delighting in meditation; delighting in solitude, holding our tongues, and embracing whatever happens to us.
There are many practical pieces of advice on how to attain wisdom, which leads to peace. It also gives us lessons on how to behave toward the other: listen, empathize, be compassionate. Speaking for myself, I am far from wisdom and peace. And that goes in spades for the world in which we live.
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky (8/06). This book should probably be required reading of all American citizens. You might disagree with him on many issues, but you would understand why many people around the world think the US is its most dangerous country. There are many facts and issues in this book. I can only point out a couple of his more general points.
Controlling the general population has always been the concern of power and privilege. Wilson and theorists of his day thought that an elite of gentlemen with “elevated ideals” should be empowered partly through a “manufacture of consent,” enabling the elite to manage the common interests that very largely elude public opinion entirely. Control of opinion is the foundation of government, particularly in more free societies, where obedience cannot be maintained by coercion. These pioneers in the history of propaganda were later mimicked by many repressive regimes. Beyond the borders of the US, more direct means of control are available. For instance, when Nicaragua formed a government insufficiently obescient to the US, a state-backed terrorist campaign was initiated which eventually led to its overthrow (this government had overthrown a US-backed dictatorship). Destroying hope of people who fail to recognize the domination of US interests is one of the important projects; when achieved even formal democracy is allowed.
He makes a number of points regarding how the new US doctrine of preventive war is a doctrine that has never been accepted by international law, and which has usually been used to describe a doctrine that usually refers to governments who sponsor terrorism. The goal of imperial strategy is to prevent any challenge to the “power, position and prestige of the US” (these were the words of Dean Acheson). During the Reagan-Bush years, the US reserved the right to act unilaterally to insure access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources, but the posture was not exactly new, although previously it was seen in the terms of policy guidelines. Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, so it is only natural that state policy should seek to construct a world system open to US economic penetration and political control. The difference following 9/11 is that our government is now officially declaring a more extreme policy, one aimed at global hegemony by reliance on force when necessary.
He argues that the administration opposed continued inspections in Iraq because they feared no WMD would be found. Through the nuclear threat and the unsupported alleged link of Saddam with 9/11, voters put aside their immediate concerns and huddled under the umbrella of power in fear of the demonic enemy. After the early success of the invasion, the administration made it clear that Iraq was just the first test, not the last, making it possible to turn to harder cases like Iran, North Korea or Syria (Iraq was attacked because it was weak, like Grenada or Panama).
He points out that the Bush disregard of international law is nothing new. The US has been responsible for more vetoes in the UN than any other country and Israel has the lead in violating resolutions. But the 1990's experienced an exuberant self-adulation at our humanistic purposes. However, during this time, the US financed the Turkish repression of its Kurdish population, allowed the Indonesian extermination in East Timor, and the real reason Kosovo occurred was that Milosevic defied the US, as we had supported terrorist guerilla activities there. We supported atrocities in Columbia supposedly in response to drugs.
A chapter traces to the 1960's, when Kennedy almost brought us to war and initiated terrorist acts on Cuba. Later, under Reagan, these activities were extended to Central America. The policies of the US show that potential targets of the US can defend themselves only by deterrence, i.e. nuclear weapons, and the policies promote terrorism, as the societies of the weak states lash out at the US as the agent or symbol of their suffering.
There is a chapter on the US/Israel alliance in the middle east, arguing that it is they who have blocked the formation of a Palestinian state. Israeli settlements now control 42% of the West Bank. They have vetoed the dispatch of international monitors to reduce the violence at Israel’s request and Israel has continually resorted to extreme violence by its powerful military forces. Our combined actions have essentially foreclosed a political solution to the problem.
The last two chapters are the most interesting. Because the history is complicated and long-standing, I can’t summarize this is a few sentences. He argues that the US has often participated in or promoted terrorist activities. But we don’t apply the same standards to others that we do to ourselves. He debunks the idea that Iraq could be supported on a “just war” doctrine. He argues that the consequence of more terrorist activities following invasion of Iraq were foreseen and that the country was already devastated by economic sanctions. Those who want “victory” in the “war against terror” without addressing the grievances from the other side or even attempting to see things from their perspective doom this “war.” The alternative is unending war, which is very close to what we see coming out of the Bush Administration. We have undermined the support of moderate Muslims who support a secular state and capitalism. And much of the revolutionary reaction of people in these regions, such as Egypt, is against their own repressive governments, which they see are supported by the US. Almost 95% of Arabs in the region see the Iraq war as being waged to ensure control of middle east oil rather than to promote democracy (well, duh). Islamic fundamentalism appeals not only to the poor now, but to the more privileged and educated sectors, as everyone distrusts the US intentions and policies. What we must recognize as Americans, the benefactors of unusual wealth and freedom, is that we have an obligation to help the suffering people of the world as best we can.
The last chapter. Almost before the dust had settled on 9/11, the influential republicans in the administration were determined to use terrorism as an excuse to pursue a radical right-wing agenda. They managed to mobilize fear and patriotism to do so. Russia went along to receive authorization for its activities in Chechnya, Israel to repress Palestinians, Chinese to repress its population. We have since 1970 stated that we retain the right of first use of nuclear weapons. There is a huge problem of the residual nuclear weapons in Russia and scientists and other personal who are now unemployed or underemployed. In our country, almost five times as much funding as gone into maintaining our nuclear weapons than initiatives to control these “loose nukes” and fissure materials. Our policies toward nations like Iraq and North Korea only gives countries more incentive to get nuclear weapons. We got to Iraq before they accomplished it but can do nothing to North Korea since they have it. The extension of the arms race has now extended to space, where the US is attempting to achieve unilateral control, and has defeated treaties to limit the militarization of space. We have a history of getting in the way of proliferation of weapons dating back to Eisenhower with the Soviets. As with Kennedy, when controversial initiatives are undertaken, it is called “defense.” Our intention now seems to be to achieve a monopoly of the use of space for offensive military purposes. By 2001, our military expenditures surpassed those of the next fifteen nations combined. If we are successful, we will will be able to harm anyone in the world at our will. The US could strike without warning whenever and wherever a threat was perceived. It will make us masters of the world. In Wilsonian terms, America is the historical vanguard and must therefore maintain its global dominance and military supremacy forever and without challenge, for the benefit of all. The need for full-spectrum dominance will increase as globalization of the world’s economy creates more widening between the have’s and have-not’s. The level of danger has reached the level of threat to human survival. Hegemony is more important that survival. (As an auxiliary, there are no good reasons for us not to work toward limiting global warming; our stand is understood merely in terms of the economic interests that are being protected by our government. The same can be said of our role in the breakdown of efforts to ban chemical and biological weapons.) Hegemony has short-term benefits to elite interests. On the bright side, there has been a gradual increase in human rights in the world. The only “superpower” left to compete with us is “world opinion” and those dedicated to the belief that another world is possible, challenging the reigning ideological system of our country in creating constructive alternatives of thought, action and institutions.
This book (Hegemony or Survival) primarily deals with the relationship of the US with the rest of the world, but in the account Chomsky also talks public opinion in our society being controlled by the elites and says that politics is "the shadow cast on society by big business." In Manufacturing Consent (1988), Chomsky describes the processes whereby media are controlled to support big business and the government, and then goes on to apply the analyses to particular events and their news coverage in the US. I’’m going to skip the application because I have other things to read, but the general mechanisms are (were) as follows. There are a set of "filters" which control what gets reported and how. The essential ingredients are (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by the government, business, and "experts" funded and provided by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media (hence the ludicrous notion of the "liberal media"); and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism (largely replaced now by “terrorists” or "Islamic fascists,” which sometimes means Muslims, as the demonic enemy).
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto (8/30/06).
Is world peace possible? I have to admit, my readings, which reveal interminable conflicts, enormous poverty and disease and seemingly unending violence often make me skeptical about such an outcome. This book gives me some hope. One reason for this is that I think that both thoughtful members of the right and the left can agree on its premises and can see how implementation of his ideas could lead to prosperity for many people in the world, opportunity for more people to live a life where their hard work leads to a better standard of living, and where because we are more interconnected and fewer people feel that they have nothing to lose there will be less violence.
He starts from the premise that capitalism is really the only economic system that can be taken seriously. The problem is that most people in the world are unable to enjoy the benefits of this system because of their deficient system of property rights. Because they cannot prove their ownership of residential or business property, they cannot transfer ownership easily and cannot use that ownership to generate capital. They cannot get loans based on this ownership. By his calculation, the value of held but not legally owned property in the Third World is at least $9.3 trillion. This is nearly twice as much as the total circulating US money supply and nearly as much as the total value of all the companies listed on the main stock exchanges of the world’s twenty most developed countries. This property and most activities in these countries are “extralegal,” the value of property is not expressed in terms of the property laws of the country and economic activities are not conducted in the realm that is covered by the rule of law. This is partly because of the difficulty in obtaining proof of property rights under the systems of most governments. To obtain informal urban property in the Philippines takes 168 steps and 13-25 years; to obtain access to desert land for construction purposes and to register these property rights in Egypt takes 77 steps, with 31 different beauracratic entities and 6-14 years. It is this way almost everywhere. Because people are not able to extract the economic potential from their property, which is what representations of property in the West allow (property is not just physical structures; it is representations that can be traded, bought and sold, borrowed against, etc.), they cannot make domestic capitalism work.
In the West, most formal property can be easily used as collateral for a loan, as equity exchanged for investment, as an address for collecting debts, rates, and taxes, as a location point for the identities of individuals for commercial, judicial, or civic purposes, and as a liability terminal for receiving public utility services. Thus, the first effect of property is in fixing the economic potential of assets and the second is in integrating dispersed information in one system. We all know from history that states cannot function effectively without an efficient means of taxation: witness feudal Europe. The third effect is that it makes individual people accountable. The integration of all property systems in a country or region under one formal property system shifted the legitimacy of rights of owners from the politicized context of local communities to the impersonal context of law. The cost to owners is that they lose their anonymity. If they do not pay for goods or services they have consumed, they can be identified and charged with appropriate penalties, including having their credit ratings downgraded. This encourages not only the security of ownership but the security of transactions (hence also the importance of contract law). Since providing citizens with this stake in the capitalist game also included that it could be forfeited, it made people more accountable. Legal property invites commitment to the society one lives in. This commitment is better understood when it is backed up by a pledge of property, whether mortgage, lien, or any other thing that protects the other contracting party (i.e. secured transactions in the context of bankruptcy law).
The fourth effect is that it makes assets fungible. Unlike physical assets, representations are easily combined, divided, mobilized, and used to stimulate business deals. Western formal property systems have significantly reduced the transaction costs of mobilizing and using assets. The fifth positive effect is by converting the citizens into a network of individually identifiable and accountable business agents. Property’s real breakthrough is in improving the flow of communication about assets and their potential. It also enhances the status of the owners. It encourages citizens to form ties with both the government and the private sector, and so to obtain goods and services. Finally, one important reason why the Western formal property system works like a network is that all the property records are continually tracked and protected as they travel through time and space, so transactions are protected. The difference from developing countries is too much reliance on early colonial and Roman law, which is oriented to protecting ownership, often making it custodians of the wishes of the dead (I don’t know how obvious this is, but any lawyer who has taken property law, which you have to take, has a glimpse of this from being required to study English property law, which is the starting point of the common law of this country).
A well-integrated legal property system tremendously reduces the costs of knowing the economic qualities of assets by representing them in a way that our minds can understand easily and second, it facilitates the capacity to agree on how to use assets to create further production and increase the division of labor. Property is not mere paper but the mediating device that captures and stores most of the stuff required to make a market economy run. The connection between capital and modern money runs through property.
The problem in most countries is how to build a property system that is easily accessible to the poor. The insiders in these countries, those who can afford expert lawyers, insider connections, and the patience required to navigate the red tape of their property systems can succeed. But this makes capitalism a private club.
There has been an unmistakable population pattern in the last forty years in underdeveloped countries and in the last ten years in former communist countries. People are moving closer to cities, creating large shanty towns. Three million outside of Beijing. Port-au-Prince (Haiti) fifteen times larger, Cairo four times larger, etc. The underground now accounts for 50% of GDP in Russia and more in other places. Since 1990, 85% of all new jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean have been created in the extralegal sector. In Zambia, only 10% of the workforce is legally employed. Few seem to realize that there is one huge, worldwide industrial revolution going on: a gigantic movement away from life organized on a small scale to life organized on a large one. People outside the West are fleeing self-sufficient and isolated societies in an effort to raise their standards of living by becoming interdependent in larger markets. What is little understood is that these societies are experiencing nearly the same industrial revolution that arrived in the West more than 200 hundred years ago. There the legal order failed to keep up with the astonishing economic and social upheaval that characterized our westward movement and forced the new migrants to invent extralegal substitutes for established law. What our country did over the long run was to synthesize this extralegal legal system with the formal one. People in these Third World and post-communist societies are creating their own systems of law and property. What we have missed is that over the last forty years the surge in the world’s extralegal populations has generated a new class of entrepeneurs with their own legal arrangements. Government authorities only see a massive influx of people and illegal workers and the threat of disease and crime. The real cause of disorder is an outmoded system of legal property.
These countries constitute two-thirds of the world’s population, and people in them have no alternative but to live outside the law. He devoted a chapter to showing how this is similar to the way the US once was; the westward movement lead to disputes between the extralegal (squatters) and the legal system, and similarities in European history. Over time, the law incorporated the extralegal, but did so not by forcing a set of formal laws on people, but by the law making as part of its system the agreements people had already made. I will leave the details out, but I had never thought of US history in quite this way.
Nearly every developing and former communist nation has a formal property system. The problem is that most citizens cannot gain access to it, which used to be true in the West. Their only alternative is to retreat with their assets into the extralegal sector where they can live and do business, but without ever being able to convert their assets into capital. Typically, 50% to 80% of the populations are in this realm. Contrary to popular opinion, it costs more to have extralegal property than it does to pay taxes. Extralegal businesses continually have to hide their operations from the authorities (or pay bribes), cannot lure investors by selling shares, cannot secure low-interest formal credit because they do not even have addresses, and cannot reduce risk by declaring limited liability or obtaining insurance. The only “insurance” available to them is provided by neighbors or the protection of local bullies or mafias.
Modern technology can be very helpful in mapping and recording property, but the real challenge is to integrate the formal legal conventions with the extralegal ones. This must be done by first understanding the extralegal conventions already in operation, by “discovering the law” that is already there. Attempts to impose mandatory formal property law on people fail because these projects lack legitimacy. But the main challenge is political. A tiny minority will intuit that reform will harm their interests. However, proper reform will actually enhance those already on top, just as capitalism creates inequality everywhere. The markets for the businesses of the wealthy will expand and they will be safer because the right to property engenders respect for the law. Governments and businesses will have information and addresses for merchandizing, securing interests, and collecting debts, fees and taxes. The goal of property reform is to award property rights for millions of assets to millions of people in a short time, to put capital in the hands of most of the people.
Capitalism outside the West is in crisis not because international globalization is failing but because developing nations and former communist nations have been unable to “globalize” capital within their own countries. Latin American countries have tried on at least four occasions to become part of global capitalism before and failed. Capitalism is viewed outside the West with increasing hostility, as an apartheid regime most cannot enter. Former Soviet bloc countries are starting to look like mercantilist Latin America with its disarray of extralegal activity, with strong underground economies, glaring inequality, pervasive mafias, political instability, capital flight, and flagrant disregard for the law. Having forgotten that the crucial issue is property, capitalism’s advocates have let themselves become identified as defenders of the status quo, blindly trying to enforce existing laws whether they discriminate or not. The benefits of capitalism will never trickle down to most people unless the firm foundations of formal property are in place.
Marx saw the capitalist system as creating its own demise because it could not avoid concentrating capital in the hands of a few. By not giving the majority access to expanded markets recent economic reforms are leaving a fertile field for class confrontation–a capitalist and free market economy for the privileged few who can concretize their property rights, and relative poverty for a large undercapitalized sector incapable of leveraging its own assets. The Cold War may have ended, but there has been an upsurge of ethnic and cultural conflicts centered around people who constitute themselves into classes based on shared injuries. While Marx grasped that a parallel life can be generated alongside physical assets themselves, he did not grasp that formal property is not simply an instrument for appropriation but also the means to motivate people to create real additional usable value. However, in many parts of the world, it may begin to look like it is merely the former.
Marx also did not see that it is the mechanisms contained in the property system itself that give assets and the labor invested in them the form required to create capital, and that legal property systems would become crucial vehicles for the enhancement of exchange value. The situation now is different from his time because potential capital is no longer the privilege of the few, because the West finally managed to set up a legal framework that gave most people access to property. He would probably be surprised to find how in developing countries much of the teeming mass does not consist of oppressed legal proletarians but of oppressed extralegal small entrepeneurs with a sizable amount of assets.
By representing economic aspects of the things we own and assembling them into categories that our minds can quickly grasp, property documents reduce the costs of knowing them and transacting them, which increases their value of things (shown by the work of economist Ronald Coase).
Many Westerners mistakenly believe that it is their culture, i.e. the work ethic they have inherited, that make them successful, in spite of the fact that people all over the world work hard when they can. When people have access to an orderly mechanism to settle land that reflects their social contract, they will take the legal route, and only a minority, like anywhere else, will insist on extralegal appropriation. Much behavior that is attributed today to culture really reflects person’s rational evaluation of the relative costs and benefits of entering the legal property system.
It makes no sense to call for open economies without facing the fact that the economic reforms underway open doors only for small and globalized elites and leave out most of humanity. Globalization is not enough. Capitalism is not more important than freedom, compassion for the poor, respect for social contracts and equal opportunity. But capitalism is the only game in town; it is the only system we know that provides us with the tools required to create massive surplus value.
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