Here's More on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

From Steven Erlanger, at the New York Times, "Taking On Adam Smith (and Karl Marx)."

And ICYMI, "The Misguided Resurgence of Marxist Collectivism."

The Misguided Resurgence of Marxist Collectivism

Last October, far-left columnist Michelle Goldberg published a paean to the current Marxist renaissance at the Tablet: "A Generation of Intellectuals Shaped by 2008 Crash Rescues Marx From History’s Dustbin."

I don't think it was the crash of '08 so much as eight years of George W. Bush that gave rise to a new generation of Marxist intellectuals and their shock-troop communist wannabes on the hardline left. And more than anything, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 --- the most radical president in American history --- provided the left with an American leader so steeped in hard-left ideology as to lift the spirits of even the most crestfallen Trotskyite revolutionary.

But that was over five years ago, and the promise of a new emancipatory progressivism --- if not the full realization of a renascent Marxian socio-economic state apparatus ---  appears to be fading amid the self-inflicting overreach of the Democrat Party, not to mention the return to earth of the "lightworker" and the attendant hopes for the Utopian collectivist transformation.

But leftists are nothing if not persistent.

Enter Ross Douthat and his extremely perceptive piece, at the New York Times, "Marx Rises Again" (via Memeorandum). Read it all at the link. Douthat's largely commenting on the lengthy essay at the Nation, from historian Timothy Shenk, "Thomas Piketty and Millennial Marxists on the Scourge of Inequality." (It's probably over 6,000 words long, although I waded through to the end in any case. Shenk's an overly sympathetic correspondent, for he's clearly excited at the prospect of decisive machinations against the evils of inequality, particularly against the reviled capitalists of the ostensibly rapacious and unjust top 1 percent.)

All the hubbub here is over the new book from the French scholar Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It turns out Piketty's currently on a book tour stateside, and the New York Times has a gushing report, "Economist Receives Rock Star Treatment." And here's what's raising the hopes of the next generation of revolutionaries:

At the book’s center is Mr. Piketty’s contention — contrary to the influential theory developed by Simon Kuznets in the 1950s and ’60s — that mature capitalist economies do not inevitably evolve toward greater economic equality. Instead, Mr. Piketty contends, the data reveals a deeper historical tendency for the rate of return on capital to outstrip the overall rate of economic growth, leading to greater and greater concentrations of wealth at the very top.

Despite this inevitable-seeming drift toward “patrimonial capitalism” that his charts seemed to show, Mr. Piketty rejected any economic determinism. “It all depends on what the political system decides,” he said.

Such statements, along with Mr. Piketty’s proposal for a progressive wealth tax and income tax rates up to 80 percent, have aroused strong interest among those eager to recapture the momentum of the Occupy movement. The Nation ran a nearly 10,000-word cover article placing his book within a rising tide of neo-Marxist thought, while National Review Online dismissed it as confirmation of the left’s “dearest ‘Das Kapital’ fantasies.”

Here's the National Review piece, from James Pethokoukis, "The New Marxism, Part Two." (Also, "The New Marxism.")

Needless to say, Piketty's rising star rests on the obvious fact that he's given the badly ailing intellectual left new legs to stand on, so to speak. If the inequality of capitalism is not in fact a temporal phenomenon, but is instead a condition inherent and ineradicable to the long-term development of the capitalist order, then enemies of free markets can rekindle their centuries-long leveling campaign against the despised capitalist ruling classes. It's no surprise that prominent collectivists such as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman have taken to harumphing Piketty's far-left bona fides (see Krugman's review at the New York Review, "Why We’re in a New Gilded Age"). Indeed, the academic radicals at Crooked Timber are positively giddy at the publication of Piketty's tome:

We’re hoping to have a proper book event on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century in due course. That’s hard for those of us who have read it, because the book is so stimulating, so bursting with surprising facts and ideas [!!!], that there’s a lot to talk about.

The obvious problem, of which Douthat only partly addresses, is that as much as Piketty distances himself from orthodox Marxism and the practical program of state collectivism of the Soviet Union under Marxism-Leninism (apparently Piketty rejects the Marxist label, in favor of the more sober sounding title of "political economist"), the left's statist model has been tried many times before. No matter how you slice it, the various iterations of collectivist command economies do not outperform economies organized more toward the free movement of goods, capital, and people. The heavier the state's hand on the economy, the less economic dynamism of the state over time. Indeed, Sweden --- the classic example of the Scandinavian model of heavy taxation in furtherance of a robust, cradle-to-grave social safety net --- has relinquished much state power in favor of free market mechanisms and private-sector solutions. And don't even get me going about France, where Socialist President François Hollande's proposal for a 75 percent tax on the wealthy has Frenchmen "fleeing the country in despair."

But high taxes and wealth confiscation are the exact policy proposals offered in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. No matter. Leftists are persistent, if anything. Who cares if confiscatory policies have been tried even of late and failed? Forward to full communism!

So to summarize, Piketty's book, for all it's purported pathbreaking research and data-aggregation, just recycles tired old tropes of Marxist and socialist collectivism dating back hundreds of years. Frankly, scholars like this, and their eager-beaver acolytes and hangers-on, are the cross the rest of us have to bear. Leftists can invent new names and repackage old ideological paradigms, but the dead hand of Old Man Marx offers little for the real problems of inequality facing the advanced countries today. Real reform, indeed, must begin not at the level of the nation state but at the level of communities. The American welfare state today is shackling generations of the poor and putting out of reach the very economic mobility that has been the central promise of the American dream. Leftists only want to continue to destroy that dream. Piketty's work is just the latest weapon to be raised by the proletarian mobs against the reviled owners and producers of wealth and (inevitably) broadly shared prosperity.

Obama Autocomplete

Seen just now on Facebook, heh.



I think he's an "asshole" too, although maybe that's farther down in the search results.

Blake Lively #Rule5

She's fabulous.

I clicked on one of those link-bait ads with Blake Lively, and come to find no photos of her, and tweeted it. DANEgerus tweets back her Google image cache and I found this one, showing off her lovely legs.



Also, she's been the subject of divorce rumors, although only at really lowbrow gossip sites.

In any case, a sweetie (can click here for the full-size version).

Joan Jett at Harrah's Resort Southern California

Last night my wife and I caught Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, with opening band Night Ranger, at Harrah's Resort Southern California.

I tweeted a shot of our concert tickets.

I don't see a concert review yet, but she's as hot as ever, tight band, lots of energy and looking fabulous.

She was in the news earlier this week for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where she sang "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for Nirvana's introduction. See Hollywood Reporter, "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Nirvana Joined by Joan Jett, Lorde; Dave Grohl and Courtney Love Hug It Out." Also at Rolling Stone, "Nirvana Reunite With Lorde, Joan Jett on Vocals for Rock Hall of Fame," and "The Inside Story of Nirvana's One-Night-Only Reunion."



PHOTO CREDIT: Harrah's Resort on Facebook.

Kate Moss for Harper's Bazaar

Feels like I've been torturing readers overnight with retro homosexuals, so here's some lovely feminine hotness.

At the main page, "Kate Moss on Top."

Also, "SPRING FLING: No one does evening glamour like Kate Moss. Just bead it," and "COVER GIRL: KATE MOSS'S BAZAAR COVERS."

Obama Has No Plan in #Afghanistan and the War Against Al Qaeda

From Sebastian Gorka, at Big Peace.

Well, with no plan I think the rest of us can plan on the Taliban returning to power.

And, you know, that could be harsh.

L.A.'s P-22 Mountain Lion Exposed to Rat Poison

This story is such a downer.

I blogged this beautiful beast last October, "Mountain Lion P-22."

But now at LAT, "Household rat poison linked to death and disease in wildlife":

The mountain lion known as P-22 looked majestic just a few months ago, in a trail-camera photo shot against the backdrop of the Hollywood sign.

But when a remote camera in Griffith Park captured an image of the puma more recently, it showed a thinner and mangy animal. Scientists sedated him and drew blood samples. They found evidence of exposure to rat poisons.

Now, researchers say they suspect a link between the poisons and the mange, a parasitic skin disease that causes crusting and skin lesions and has contributed to the deaths of scores of bobcats and coyotes. A National Park Service biologist applied a topical treatment for mange and injected Vitamin K to offset the effects of poisoning.

The condition of California's famous cougar is likely to intensify the debate over the use of rat poisons in areas of the state where urban living collides with nature.

Keep reading.

And see the graphic on how large predators are poisoned.

Mange leads to death. The animal was captured and treated so he might survive, but it just seems like a bummer for such a majestic cat. But it's gonna happen when wildlife are so close to humans, and we have to control for pests.

More at the National Wildlife Federation, "Los Angeles Mountain Lion Survives Freeways, Now Threatened by Poison Exposure."

Twin Hipster Homosexuals

Kinda rockabilly, heh.

Via Ann Althouse, "How to be as unheterosexual as possible." (And don't miss the comments.)

Mary Jo Kopechne Was Unavailable for Comment

At Twitchy, "Today in the War on Women: OFA slaughters self-awareness in a single email [pic]."

'Don't come here with guns and expect the American people not to fire back...' — #BundyRanch

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore bitch slaps leftist propaganda pimp Chris Hayes. Seriously. Why does this loser still even have a show? No, why is MSNBC still even an ongoing cable network? They're just a bunch of dirtball losers with low ratings. Pretty pathetic.

I saw Assemblywoman Fiore on Twitter last week.

The truth about the Bundy’s vs. BLM #BundyRanch http://t.co/QE8HRHyNwR

— Michele Fiore (@VoteFiore) April 14, 2014

And check this at Hot Air, "MSNBC host debates Michele Fiore on Bundy ranch. Does not fare well."

The lulz.

Captain Lee Jun-seok Fled Ship While Passengers Died

The South Korean ferry captain rushed to safety ahead of sinking passengers.

At NYT, "In Sad Twist on Proud Tradition, Captains Let Others Go Down With Ship":

Ever since the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, carrying its captain and many of the passengers with it, the notion that the captain goes down with his ship has been ingrained in popular culture.

But now, for the second time in just over two years, a sea captain — first in Italy and now in South Korea — has been among the first to flee a sinking vessel, placing his own life ahead of those of his terrified passengers.

A much-publicized photo from the latest accident shows the Korean captain being helped off his own ship, the Sewol, stepping off the deck to safety even as scores of his ferry passengers remained below where survivors believe they became trapped by rushing water and debris.

The behavior has earned the captain, Lee Jun-seok, 69, the nickname the “evil of the Sewol” among bloggers in South Korea. It also landed him in jail.

Maritime experts called the abandonment shocking — violating a proud international (and South Korean) tradition of stewardship based at least as much on accepted codes of behavior as by law.

“That guy’s an embarrassment to anybody who’s ever had command at sea,” said John B. Padgett III, a retired United States Navy rear admiral and former submarine captain.

His sentiments were echoed by Capt. William H. Doherty, who has commanded Navy and merchant ships and managed safety operations at a major cruise line. He called Mr. Lee’s decision to leave his 447 passengers “a disgrace,” and likened it to the desertion of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Italian coast in 2012. “You can’t take responsibility, or say you do, for nearly 500 souls, and then be the first in the lifeboat,” he said.

Civil courts in the United States have long viewed captains as having an obligation to protect their passengers and ships, but the cases in South Korea and Italy seem likely to test the notion of criminal liability in disasters.

The captain of the Italian ship, Francesco Schettino, is on trial on manslaughter charges after the sinking of his ship left more than 30 people dead.

The death toll in the South Korean accident stood at 36 as of late Saturday, with 266 missing...

More.

'Elizabeth Warren is a liar and a Democrat, but I repeat myself...'

See Robert Stacy McCain, on Elizabeth Warren, "Cherokee Princess Fauxcohantas."

Also at Daley Gator, "REMEMBER KIDS, LIBERALS ARE FREE TO LIE. BUT IF YOU EXPOSE THEIR LIES, THEN YOU ARE A HATER!"

I hella blogged this story at the time. I particularly love how real Native Americans pissed all over the lying Elizabeth Warren. Here's Twila Barnes, for example, "No Pity for Warren."

So, yep. Democrats are epic liars. Racists too, but you already knew that.

Putin's Westward March

At WSJ, "Revisionist powers are rising as Obama and Europe fail to respond":

Diplomacy is useful when it prevents bad outcomes. The problem with diplomacy as practiced by President Obama is that it too often is a mask to disguise bad outcomes. The latest example is this week's agreement among Ukraine, Russia, the EU and the U.S. that claims to prevent war but largely advances Vladimir Putin's strategic objectives.

The government in Kiev is supposed to make political concessions to allow more autonomy in its eastern provinces in return for a military "de-escalation." But on the very day of the accord, Mr. Putin publicly reserved the right to invade Ukraine and refused to withdraw his troops massed at the border. On Friday the militants holding police stations and public offices in eastern Ukraine refused to stand down.

Even President Obama curbed his enthusiasm for the deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, saying at a Thursday press conference that Russia still had to follow through on its commitments. But what did Mr. Putin really commit to?

The Russian President denies that the militants have anything to do with Russia and says he's helpless to stop them. The accord says nothing about Ukraine's May 25 election, which Russia opposes and wants to subvert. His troops are still ready to invade if he pleases, and Mr. Putin made promises to the republic of Georgia before he invaded that country in 2008. For the first time on Thursday, Mr. Putin referred to Ukraine as part of "New Russia," a revanchist echo of the czarist era.

NATO Supreme Commander Philip Breedlove cut through the diplomatic haze with a public memo on Friday stating that, "What is happening in eastern Ukraine is a military operation that is well planned and organized" and "is being carried out at the direction of Russia."

The pro-Russian activists show all the earmarks of having had military training, the general wrote. Their weapons and equipment are mainly Russian army issue, which they carry with military discipline. Their use of tear gas and stun grenades in taking buildings showed training inconsistent with a spontaneously generated local militia.

Too bad Mr. Obama showed none of the same candor about these military facts. In his press conference the President never blamed Russia for the unrest in Ukraine or said Russian troops were on the ground. He never mentioned Crimea, which seems to have been banished from U.S. talking points now that Mr. Putin has annexed the peninsula. Instead Mr. Obama sounded like a pundit analyzing the possibilities of diplomacy, with more threats of further sanctions if Mr. Putin escalates.

All of this continues the pattern of Mr. Obama and Europe underestimating the Russian strongman. They pretend he is amenable to diplomacy or afraid of threats, but neither has deterred Mr. Putin from marching west. Even when Mr. Putin openly declares his goal by declaring eastern Ukraine to be part of historic Russia, Mr. Obama prefers to ignore it.

Continue reading.

More here, "Eastern Ukraine's Pro-Russian Activists Stand Fast: Rebels Say They Have No Intention of Leaving, Despite Geneva Agreement."

And at Instapundit, "WELL, WELL, WELL: U.S. ground troops going to Poland, defense minister says." Might be too little too late, but we'll see.

'The next time Democrats take to the national airwaves to dishonestly accuse Republicans of racial hatred, remember who the historical record up until this very day points to as the real bigots: The Democrat Party...'

Someone linked my post on the Democrat/KKK/Party history in the comments at the Los Angeles Times (or something, according to my SiteMeter).

Anyway, also at the comments there, an hilariously accurate but politically incorrect website on Democrat Party racism and bigotry right up to the current era:

The simple truth is that the Democrat Party's history during this century is one closely aligned to bigotry in a record stemming largely out of the liberal New Deal era up until the modern day. Bigots are at the center of the Democrat party's current leadership and role models. And in a striking display of hypocrisy, many of the same Democrats who dishonestly shout accusations of "bigotry" at conservatives are practicing bigots of the most disgusting and disreputable kind themselves.

PREVIOUSLY: "Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., Kansas Jewish Murder Suspect, Made Democrat Congressional Bid in 2006," and "The Democrat Party's Racial Regression."

Majority Leader Harry Reid Attacks #BundyRanch Patriots as 'Domestic Terrorists'

Really?

Really Harry Reid you sick Democrat Party coward?

At CNN, "Harry Reid defends ‘domestic terrorists’ comments." (Via Memeorandum.)

'I love being female, and I’m actually quite confident about being a woman, but the only time I even come close to feeling bad about myself is when major media outlets and elite feminists use their power to tell me there’s some major flaw with me being female...'

It's Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist, "Why Are Feminists So Insecure?"

She's writing about Katty Kay and Claire Shipman's "The Confidence Gap," which I blogged here.

And see the Other McCain, "How @ClaireShipman Ironically Proves Phyllis Schlafly Right About the ‘Pay Gap’."

The Ku Klux Klan Party: #Democrats Hate Without End

Peter Gottschalk, at the Los Angeles Times, elaborates the point I've stressed since the Kansas Jewish Community Center murders: the Democrat/KKK/Party has been the home of eliminationist racist hatred from the Reconstruction era to present times.

See, "Kansas, the KKK and hate without end":

The news that a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan is suspected of shooting and killing three people near Jewish community centers in Kansas seems at first glance like a disparaged past flaring briefly into the present. Americans like to imagine that the KKK belongs to a long-gone South and anti-Semitism to a distant 20th century. Sadly, this better reflects a naive faith in the nation's history of religious tolerance than the realities experienced by many religious minorities. Although the KKK has evolved and its membership has dwindled, it remains part of an American [Democrat Party] legacy of religious intolerance.

A central tenet of U.S. nationalism rests on a notion of welcoming huddled masses, but the idea of American exceptionalism also runs deep. When Americans have imagined their country's uniqueness as defined racially, religiously or culturally, those outside those parameters are immediately suspect. Sadly, religion has often served as the catalyst for prejudice....

The KKK has manifested this dynamic [of Democrat eliminitionist racist hatred] since it emerged in the South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Targeting newly freed blacks in an effort to maintain white supremacy, the KKK terrorized the region. However, passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and, later, the institutionalized segregation of Jim Crow laws led to the Klan's rapid fading popularity.

The 20th century saw the return of a KKK that may have drawn inspiration from its past in the Reconstruction South and now sought prominence as a modern national organization. Further agitating already inflated fears of East European immigration in the 1920s, its leadership around the country seeded branches called "klaverns" (part of an invented vocabulary exalting Klan secrecy and exclusivity). Although blacks suffered again at the hands of the revived Klan, immigrants became new targets.

The Klan of the 1920s [endorsed by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson] successfully channeled such sentiments into a national organization that claimed 4 million members from the Carolinas to California. Societies boasting the KKK name emerged on American university campuses at a time when perhaps 40% of fraternities limited membership to "Aryans" and "Caucasians." Anaheim — future home of Disneyland — boasted such a public and political Klan presence that it was nicknamed "Klanheim." In 1925, the imperial wizard led tens of thousands of members in a parade down Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue.

The KKK's nativism welded racism to religious prejudice to create a powerful cudgel aimed at East European immigrants in general and Jews in particular.

This second generation of the Klan dissipated in a welter of infighting and scandals, even as most Americans rejected its message and ostracized its members. However, the civil rights movement of the 1960s spurred a third emergence. Never reaching the popularity of the previous incarnations, this one nevertheless wrought havoc, especially on black communities...

PREVIOUSLY: "Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., Kansas Jewish Murder Suspect, Made Democrat Congressional Bid in 2006," and "The Democrat Party's Racial Regression."

Rep. Stephen Lynch: #ObamaCare Will Bury the #Democrats

Look, it's gonna be a bloodbath (as I've been saying for months), which explains why at every new data release the president announces the "debate over" on ObamaCare.

At Legal Insurrection, "Dem Rep: Obamacare will bury us":

Obama is spiking the football over sign-up numbers, but Democrats on the ground see things differently when not spinning.

Steve Lynch is a Democratic Rep. from Massachusetts who doesn’t hesitate to buck the party line from a centrist point of view, and to speak openly about problems in the party and with party positions.

Lynch ran for Senate to fill John Kerry’s seat, but lost in the primary to now-Senator Ed Markey.

Lynch recently was interviewed by The Boston Herald about upcoming Obamacare problems and how devastating they will be for Democrats. That runs contrary to cut current news cycle Democratic spin that (allegedly) meeting sign up goals means electoral problems related to Obamacare are over...

Also from Ed Morrissey, "Maybe Democrats should be more worried about their own billionaire allies" (via Memeorandum).

Debbie Vincent, Transgender Animal Rights Extremist, Sentenced to Six Years for Europe-Wide Campaign of Terror

At London's Daily Mail, "Former soldier who became animal rights commander is jailed for six years over campaign of terror against animal testing company."

Here's a particularly grizzly account at the Times of Zambia, "Animal rights activist jailed for blackmail plot":

Debbie Vincent, a 52-year-old former soldier who underwent a sex change, was found guilty last month for her part in a conspiracy to blackmail British-based Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS).

Vincent became the public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) after seven members of the group were jailed for a total of 50 years in 2009 for their role in the campaign.

Members of the group falsely accused HLS staff members of being paedophiles, sent them hoax bombs and sanitary towels claimed to be infected with AIDS, and caused criminal damage to their cars and homes.

In May 2009, activists dug up a grave in Switzerland and removed an urn containing the ashes of the mother of Daniel Vasella, the then-chairman of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, one of HLS' suppliers.

Sentencing Vincent at Winchester Crown Court in southeast England, judge Keith Cutler said: "It is difficult for a judge to calculate the repugnance felt by society to such appalling acts.

"Nothing at all could justify such attacks."

He added: "You express no shred of remorse or condemnation for the incidents of extreme terror and desecration which have been caused."

A group of Vincent's supporters held placards outside the court reading "No Excuse for Animal Abuse" and "Against Animal Testing and State Repression".

Vicious and violently depraved transgender leftists.

Meanwhile back in the states, Washington D.C. is recognizing "gender dysphoria" as a medical condition, so insurance companies (and taxpayers) will be forced to pick up the bill for transgender sexual reassignment surgery. Recall that last year the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that sex reassignment surgeries would be available through ObamaCare, so Americans can rest assured that we'll have an ample supply of Debbie Vincents in the pipeline.