February 2009

Our Epistemological Depression
By Jerry Z. Muller
Major recessions are characterized by something novel. Opacity and pseudo-objectivity created the crisis today.

The history of socialism is the history of failure—and so is the history of capitalism, but in a different sense. For the history of socialism is one of fundamental failure, a failure to provide incentives and an inability to coordinate information about supply and effective demand. The history of capitalism, by contrast, is the history of dialectical failure: it is a history of the creation of new institutions and practices that may be successful, even transformative for a while, but which eventually prove dysfunctional, either because their intrinsic weaknesses become more evident over time or because of a change in external circumstances. Historically, these institutional failures have led to two reactions. They lead to governmental attempts to reform corporate and financial institutions, through changes in law and regulation (such as limited liability laws, creation of the FDIC, the SEC, etc.). They also lead market institutions to reform themselves, as investors and managers learn what forms of organization and which practices are dysfunctional. The history of capitalism, then, is the history of success through dialectical failure.

History rarely repeats itself. There are some standard patterns in economic recessions, but major recessions are characterized by something novel. If only this were not the case: economists have devoted a great deal of attention to learning the lessons of the Great Depression that began in 1929, not least Ben Bernanke. As a result, we are unlikely to make the errors of monetary policy made by the Fed in that era (of tightening money when it should have been loosened); or the errors of fiscal policy made by the Treasury (such as raising taxes when they should have been lowered); or the errors of ideological tone made during the 1930s, when anticapitalist rhetoric frightened many potential investors from making new investments. In all of these respects, we have learned from the past.

The best way to end the bloody occupation is to target Israel with the
kind of movement that ended apartheid in South Africa
by Naomi Klein
The Guardian (January 10 2009)
It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly
bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of
global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July
2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just
that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose
broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel
similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era”. The
campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause
- even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500
Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter
to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for “the adoption of
immediate restrictive measures and sanctions” and draws a clear parallel
with the anti-apartheid struggle. “The boycott on South Africa was
effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves … This international
backing must stop”.

Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can’t go
there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. But they
simply aren’t good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective
tool in the non-violent arsenal: surrendering them verges on active
complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy,
followed by counter-arguments.

Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis.

The world has tried what used to be called “constructive engagement”. It
has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its
criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against
Lebanon, and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal
blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive
measures – quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid
the US sends Israel are only the beginning. Throughout this key period,
Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural
and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in
2007 Israel became the first country outside Latin America to sign a
free-trade deal with the Mercosur bloc. In the first nine months of
2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45%. A new deal with the EU is
set to double Israel’s exports of processed food. And in December
European ministers “upgraded” the EU-Israel association agreement, a
reward long sought by Jerusalem.

It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war:
confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that
over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s
flagship index actually went up 10.7%. When carrots don’t work, sticks
are needed.

Israel is not South Africa.

Of course it isn’t. The relevance of the South African model is that it
proves BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests,
petitions, backroom lobbying) fail. And there are deeply distressing
echoes of apartheid in the occupied territories: the colour-coded IDs
and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the
settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African
politician, said the architecture of segregation he saw in the West Bank
and Gaza was “infinitely worse than apartheid”. That was in 2007, before
Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.

Why single out Israel when the US, Britain and other western countries
do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the strategy should
be tried is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it
could actually work.

Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less.

This one I’ll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books
have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But
when I published The Shock Doctrine (2007), I wanted to respect the
boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer
John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an
activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the
only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing
into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go
to Andalus’s work, and none to me. I am boycotting the Israeli economy
but not Israelis.

Our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, emails and
instant messages, stretching between Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Paris, Toronto
and Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start a boycott
strategy, dialogue grows dramatically. The argument that boycotts will
cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of
cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in
ways to rant at each other across national boundaries. No boycott can
stop us.

Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major
point-scoring: don’t I know that many of these very hi-tech toys come
from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but
not all of them. Several days into Israel’s Gaza assault, Richard
Ramsey, managing director of a British telecom specialising in
voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm
MobileMax: “As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few
days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with
yourself or any other Israeli company”.

Ramsey says his decision wasn’t political; he just didn’t want to lose
customers. “We can’t afford to lose any of our clients”, he explains,
“so it was purely commercially defensive”.

It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to
pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it’s precisely the kind of
calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long
denied, to Palestine.

A version of this column was published in the Nation: thenation.com

naomiklein.org

guardian.co.uk (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/10/naomi-klein-boycott-israel/print

From Marxmail

http://www.marxmail.org/msg56882.html

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/obama-socialist-connections-0209

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