Elias Isquith

You are currently browsing articles tagged Elias Isquith.

“Maybe It’s A Better Way To Describe It As A Revolutionary Process”

June 4, 2015 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Predicting things will fall apart is easy, but predicting when is hard. Chris Hedges, author of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt, thinks we’ve already entered the collapse phase.

In the U.S., we have myriad problems that increasingly seem unfixable from the inside: gerrymandering, Citizens United, corporatocracy, institutionalized racism, income inequality. You know, gerrymandering might be the most frustrating of them all, since you can’t remedy the rest with entrenched leadership.

Elias Isquith of Salon just interviewed Hedges, who asserts that a revolutionary movement in America would have global stakes. “When we go down, the whole planet is going to go with us,” the author says, making clear what he believes would happen if our society runs aground.

The Q&A’s opening exchange:

Question:

Do you think we are in a revolutionary era now? Or is it more something on the horizon?

Chris Hedges:

It’s with us already, but with this caveat: it is what Gramsci calls interregnum, this period where the ideas that buttress the old ruling elite no longer hold sway, but we haven’t articulated something to take its place.

That’s what that essay I quote by Alexander Berkman, “The Invisible Revolution,” talks about. He likens it to a pot that’s beginning to boil. So it’s already taking place, although it’s subterranean. And the facade of power — both the physical facade of power and the ideological facade of power — appears to remain intact. But it has less and less credibility.

There are all sorts of neutral indicators that show that. Low voter turnout, the fact that Congress has an approval rating of 7 percent, that polls continually reflect a kind of pessimism about where we are going, that many of the major systems that have been set in place — especially in terms of internal security — have no popularity at all.

All of these are indicators that something is seriously wrong, that the government is no longer responding to the most basic concerns, needs, and rights of the citizenry. That is [true for the] left and right. But what’s going to take it’s place, that has not been articulated. Yes, we are in a revolutionary moment; but maybe it’s a better way to describe it as a revolutionary process.•

Tags: ,

“You Need A Huge Institutional Structure To Make People Behave The Way That Economists Say They Are ‘Supposed’ To Behave”

March 6, 2015 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

David Graeber, who’s just published The Utopia of Rules, explaining to Elias Isquith of Salon why free markets don’t actually supplant bureaucracy but actually beget more of it:

Salon:

The idea that free-market policies create bureaucracies is pretty counterintuitive, at least for most Americans. So why is it the case that laissez-faire policy creates bureaucracy?

David Graeber:

Part of the reason is because in fact what we call the market is not really the market.

First of all, we have this idea that the market is a thing that just happens. This is the debate in the 19th century: market relations creeped up within feudalism and then it overthrew [feudalism]. So gradually the market is just the natural expression of human freedom; and since it regulates itself, it will gradually displace everything else and bring about a free society. Libertarians still think this.

In fact, if you look at what actually happens historically, this is just not true. Self-regulating markets were basically created with government intervention. It was a political project. Certain assumptions of how these things work just aren’t true. People don’t do wage labor if they have any choice, historically, for example. So in order to get a docile labor force, you have to create police and [a] large apparatus to ensure that the people you kick off the land actually will get the kinds of jobs you want them to … this is the very beginning of creating a market.

Basically, we assume that market relations are natural, but you need a huge institutional structure to make people behave the way that economists say they are “supposed” to behave. So, for example, think about the way the consumer market works. The market is supposed to work on grounds of pure competition. Nobody has moral ties to each other other than to obey the rules. But, on the other hand, people are supposed to do anything they can to get as much as possible off the other guy — but won’t simply steal the stuff or shoot the person.

Historically, that’s just silly; if you don’t care at all about a guy, you might as well steal his stuff. In fact, they’re encouraging people to act essentially how most human societies, historically, treated their enemies — but to still never resort to violence, trickery or theft. Obviously that’s not going to happen. You can only do that if you set up a very strictly enforced police force. That’s just one example.•

Tags: ,