J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 20

3.1. Imperialism & Colonized || Required Readings || Econ 115 || complete by We 2020-09-23

Prefatory note: In addition to chapter 6���Imperialism & Colonized���of the DeLong draft, the assigned reading this week contains two short pieces, selections from books.

 

The first reading is 19 pages from W. Arthur Lewis's 1977 book The Evolution of the International Economic Order. The 19 pages assigned cover Lewis's story of:

the division of the world as a result of 1870 to 1914 globalization into middle class farmers in the global north and poor farmers in the global south,
how cumulative processes amplified this difference by concentrating manufacturing with its powerful positive externalities for growth in the global north,
how global market fluctuations and depressions further hindered the prospects for growth of countries that were not lucky enough to find themselves in or elbow themselves into the charmed circle,
and Lewis���s one-page postscript that provides���from his late 1970s perspective���his list of practical and politically feasible action items to boost global south development.

Focus on Lewis���s major point: that it did not take bad will or large-scale theft and violence (although large-theft and violence there was) for the globalization that brought world trade and colonial rule to serve as a global inequality amplifier: the simple competitive workings of the market did that all on its own, and that outcome of the division of the world into the global north and global south was ���efficient���, as economists use that word.

 

The second reading is 15 pages from Chinua Achebe���s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, about the coming of colonialism to the Igbo people of what is now Nigeria. You should all, sometime, read this novel entire���indeed, I suspect that about half of you already have. The portion assigned is the end of the book: from protagonist Okonkwo���s return to his patriarchal-line community from exile to his death by suicide, as accident and conquest by the British colonial masters deprive him of the life he wanted to live, and he cannot find a way through. This is so even as others adjust to the New Dispensation:

The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia���

Achebe firmly keeps the camera in the book on Okonkwo, but if you look at the margins of the scenes you can see how others react very differently to the inversion of authority and the creation of various kinds of opportunity that global trade, communication, ideas diffusion, and colonial rule bring. How would a novel about one of the other characters be different?

 

Required Readings Links:

W. Arthur Lewis (1977): The Evolution of the International Economic Order https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-lewis-evolution-selections.pdf, selections (19 pp.)

Chinua Achebe (1958): Things Fall Apart https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-things-selections.pdf, selections (15 pp.)

DeLong: chapter 6: Imperialism & Colonized https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/slouching-6-empires-%23tceh.pdf

.#berkeley #books #economichistory #readings #slouchingtowardsutopia #tceh #teachinghistory #2020-09-17

Steindel: Wage Rigidity���Comment of the Day

Charles Steindel: Comment on Modigliani (1944): Liquidity Preference https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/08/modigliani-1944-liquidity-preferencenoted.html?cid=6a00e551f0800388340263e9612965200b#comment-6a00e551f0800388340263e9612965200b: ���Modigliani '44--a grand vintage! (connoisseurs also should try the '63). Seriously, after 2008 I started musing on the concept of "rigid wages." We vaguely thought of that as essentially an ordinal variable. If wages were less rigid, the economy is more responsive to the real factors, less so to the monetary factors. Now a think it's a lot less linear. Flexible wages and prices (of goods and services) would, it seems, need to be a lot more like asset market prices to be in that blissful non-Keynesian world. But one could hardly live in it; it is convenient to know what a quart of milk will cost in dollars when setting out to the grocery store...

.#commentoftheday #2020-09-17

Briefly Noted for 2020-09-17

George Orwell was very insightful. He focused on the fact that at the core of fascism, in both its right-wing and its left-wing versions and in whatever future versions may emerge, is the ability to tell public lies with impunity���and for supporters to then glory in the facts of the leaders were clever enough to tell them: Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism https://twitter.com/WindsorMann/statu... ���Instead of deserting the leaders... they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness������ Media Matters: : ���Rush Limbaugh praises the president for being "clever" in sharing conspiracy theories: ���Trump is just throwing gasoline on a fire here, and he���s having fun watching the flames...

I think the very sharp Angus Deaton is wrong here. America���s federalism has not been an insuperable obstacle to united national action in the past. Of course, that required presidential leadership and an opposition party willing to buy in and except a share of credit for national action, rather than regarding its primary mission as making the president of the other party appear to be a failure. Perhaps that America that could have reacted properly to coronavirus even with its federalism is long gone: Angus Deaton: America���s Compromised State https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-connecticut-compromise-1987-and-failed-covid-response-by-angus-deaton-2020-07: ���A malevolent, incompetent Trump administration bears much of the blame for America���s failure to control COVID-19. But there is an additional, less noticed cause: the Connecticut Compromise of 1787.... Each state follows its own instincts and perceived interests, usually myopically...

Looking greatly forward to this: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Barry Eichengreen: New Thinking in a Pandemic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcHBD-D5CRQ&feature=youtu.be: ���What will be the political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? Will COVID-19 renew or diminish public trust in science? How will the crisis shape ���Gen Z������those who are coming of age during the pandemic?...

I remember that after 2003 I waited for years for the New York Times deep dive: ���how Judy Miller fooled herself and us on Saddam Hussein���s nuclear weapons���. It never came. Instead, they went all in on the access journalism of which Judy Miller had been a master. And the problem with access journalism is that, in order to preserve your access, you have to work hard to mislead and misinform your readers. Duncan Black looks at yet another piece of the resulting flaming wreckage: Duncan Black: Scoop of a Lifetime https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/scoop-of-lifetime.html: ���Maggie Haberman.... ���Treating the coronavirus as a blue state problem was a fairly widespread approach in the West Wing...���. Wow! If only you���d been a reporter at a prominent American news outlet so you could have informed the public!... Maggie isn't even saying she missed it, just that it wasn't worth being in the paper of record.... Not infrequently reporters... say, "oh, yes, we knew all that." Cool. Why didn't you tell us?...

And I found this greatly troubling as well: Here we have David Brooks saying: ���American democracy is in trouble. Why? Because my journamalistic colleagues and I do not expect to do our jobs competently and truthfully to contextualize and interpret the world to our readers and viewers on the forthcoming November 3���: Steve M.: Just Do Your Damn Jobs https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/09/just-do-your-damn-jobs.html: ���David Brooks writes: "On the evening of Nov. 3... Donald Trump seems to be having an excellent night..." Why? Why should what's happening be a gut punch? Why should it be perceived that Donald Trump is having an excellent night?...

And here is evidence on the strong positive effect of the 10% opportunity program in Texas: Sandra E. Black, Jeffrey T. Denning, & Jesse Rothstein: Winners and Losers?: The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/rothstein_-_winners_and_loosers_abstract_10_2019.pdf: ���Students who gain access to the University of Texas at Austin see increases in college enrollment and graduation with some evidence of positive earnings gains 7-9 years after college. In contrast, students who lose access do not see declines in overall college enrollment, graduation, or earnings���

I would put this point considerably differently. The stock market is relevant only to how the upper class is doing, yes. But there is more. A high stock market can mean that the present and the future are bright for the upper class. But it can also mean that the future is crap���hence it is worth paying a fortune for anything, anything, that promises to give you even some income in the future. Yes, current stock market values are high. But expected cash flows as a proportion of capital invested���are those high? Really?: Heather Boushey: The Stock Market Is Detached From Economic Reality https://t.co/57ZOJhRJOt?amp=1: ���Wealthy investors and the Fed have been propping up large companies. It can���t last.��� If the stock market doesn���t reflect the health of our economy, what does it reflect? Most directly, it reflects the financial health of the richest among us...

Andr��s Velasco: Are We All Keynesians Again? https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/states-must-be-insurer-of-last-resort-against-aggregate-risks-by-andres-velasco-2020-08: ���Rich-country governments can comfortably borrow far more than fiscal prudes once thought possible... and markets have yet to bat an eyelash.... When the nominal interest rate is at or near zero... savers are happy to hold the dollars, pounds, and euros central banks are printing with abandon. Inflation is nowhere on the horizon...

Steven J. Davis & Till von Wachter: Recessions and the Costs of Job Loss http://www.econ.ucla.edu/tvwachter/papers/BPEA_JobDisplacement_Davis_vonWachter.pdf: ���Men lose an average of 1.4 years of predisplacement earnings if displaced in mass-layoff events that occur when the national unemployment rate is below 6 percent. They lose a staggering 2.8 years of predisplacement earnings if displaced when the unemployment rate exceeds 8 percent. These results reflect discounting at a 5 percent annual rate over 20 years after displacement

Steve Randy Waldmann: Social democracy & Freedom https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7557.html: ���We should return to the wisdom of Milton Friedman, that political freedom is a structural matter, inextricable from economic arrangements.... What is required is some system in which the economic stakes of unpopular speech are unlikely to be so horrible, because the distance between lives of the conformist elite and unwashed others is not so great...

Duncan Black: Medicaid Expansion https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/08/medicaid-expansion.html: ���The way the press covers this stuff is that Dems can't support crazy lefty economic policies in swing states because those old white guys in diners can't handle the communism.... That isn't actually how it works. As a now former senator explained... "the Chamber would go after me." He didn't mean "the Chamber" would run a bunch of ads about his support for increasing the minimum wage. That would have been a favor! It was popular! It passed overwhelmingly! He meant they would have dumped a bunch of money in the race nuking him on other issues. Any issue at all. Staying out of it was one way to just keep their money out of the race...

Sean Gallagher: Ars Readers on the Present & Future of Work https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/08/ars-readers-take-on-the-present-and-future-of-work/: ������It will suck, until it suddenly stops sucking.���... I���ve curated some of the thoughts of the Ars community on the topics of working better from home and what our shared experiences have taught us about the future of collaboration technology and the future nature of the corporate office...

Ben Smith: I���m Still Reading Andrew Sullivan. But I Can���t Defend Him https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/business/media/im-still-reading-andrew-sullivan-but-i-cant-defend-him.html: ���Sullivan... finds himself now on the outside, most of all, because he cannot be talked out of views on race that most of his peers find abhorrent. I know, because I tried...

Anne Booth and Kent Deng: Japanese Colonialism in Comparative Perspective https://delong.typepad.com/japanese-colonialism-2017.pdf...

Atul Kohli: "Where Do High Growth Political Economies Come From? The Japanese Lineage of Korea's 'Developmental State'" https://delong.typepad.com/highgrowth09_1994.pdf...

Chez Panisse Restaurant: Caf�� Menu https://www.chezpanisse.com/menus/cafe-menu...

 

Plus

Paul Romer (2016): The Trouble with Macroeconomics https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-romer-2016-trouble-macro.pdf: 'For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gone backwards. The treatment of identification now is no more credible than in the early 1970s but escapes challenge because it is so much more opaque. Macroeconomic theorists dismiss mere facts by feigning an obtuse ignorance about such simple assertions as "tight monetary policy can cause a recession." Their models attribute fluctuations in aggregate variables to imaginary causal forces that are not influenced by the action that any person takes. A parallel with string theory from physics hints at a general failure mode of science that is triggered when respect for highly regarded leaders evolves into a deference to authority that displaces objective fact from its position as the ultimate determinant of scientific truth...

Financial Times: Keeping ��e Torch of Global Democracy Alight https://www.ft.com/content/4f10a2d7-d380-4b53-a864-35f40aaef298: ���In Belarus this week, protests over rigged elections have been met by mass arrests and a hail of rubber bullets.... In Hong Kong, China has stepped up its crackdown on democracy and press freedom.... Yet it is not necessarily authoritarians who should be taking heart.... The autocrats may force the democratic impulse underground, but it will not die.... Black Lives Matter rallies in the US and elsewhere demonstrate the urge even in richer countries to oppose injustice.... This year���s US election will be a test. If, as some Americans fear, Mr Trump adopts tactics verging on the authoritarian, the damage to the global democratic��cause will be hard to repair���

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-09-17

Briefly Noted for 2020-09-16

Robert Bates: Markets & States Duology: Markets & States in Tropical Africa: The Political Economy of Agricultural Policies https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-bates-markets.pdf || When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-bates-state-failure.pdf...

Chinua Achebe: Pentalogy: Things Fall Apart https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-things.pdf || _No Longer at Ease https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-ease.pdf || The Arrow of God https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-arrow.pdf || A Man of the People https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-people.pdf || Anthills of the Savannah https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-achebe-anthills.pdf...

Colin Leys (1982): Samuel Huntington & the End of Classical Modernization Theory https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-leys-1982-huntington.pdf...

Keri Leigh Merritt: Merrittocracy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-jYKFxM03QrkSjvf5MhwA���

Joseph Schumpeter (1947): The History of Economic Analysis https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-schumpeter-history-of-economic-analysis.pdf...

David Glasner: Schumpeterian Enigmas https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-glasner-schumpeterian-enigmas.pdf: ���Schumpeter exhibited a generosity of spirit in his assessments of the work of other economists in... The History of Economic Analysis.... Schumpeter���s own tragic and largely unrealized ambition to achieve the technical analytical breakthroughs to which he accorded highest honors in his assessments of the work of other economists, notably, Quesnay, Cournot and Walras���

Paul Krugman (1989): History vs. Expectations https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1989-history.pdf || (1990) Increasing Returns & Economic Geography) https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1990-increasing.pdf || (1992): _A Dynamic Spatial Model https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-19920dynamic-spatial.pdf || (1995): Globalization & the Inequality of Nations https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-1995-globalization.pdf || (2010): The New Economic Geography: Now Middle-Aged https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-krugman-2010-geography.pdf...

 

Plus

Stefan Gerlach: Crunch Time for Central Banks https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-banks-response-to-public-opinion-on-inequality-environment-by-stefan-gerlach-2020-09: ���In little more than a decade, the global financial crisis, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed the environment in which central banks operate���and public opinion is not on their side.... Central banks��� responses to the financial crisis and the pandemic have triggered a huge increase in wealth inequality.... That is how monetary policy works. But a large part of the public finds it grossly unfair���

Edward Luce: Donald Trump���s Orwellian Jamboree https://www.ft.com/content/593edb26-f117-4fab-942e-c2e704567582: ���This year���s Republican convention proves the party is post-ideas���the plan is simply the man.... The image of the US president���s eldest son may differ in the details from that of Big Brother���s boot stamping on the human face. But the message of this week���s Republican National Convention is Orwellian. There is no perceptible platform or even ghost of a second term agenda for Donald Trump���s party. There is thus no possibility of dissent. His chief surrogates are his own family members. The message is Mr Trump, the whole Mr Trump and nothing but Mr Trump...

This is simply an truly excellent two-pager: Equitable Growth: Reforming Unemployment Insurance across the United States https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/conventions-ui-fs.pdf: ���Longstanding problems with the Unemployment Insurance system in the United States are immediately evident amid the coronavirus recession and echo the problems experienced during the Great Recession���. Administrative failures at state Unemployment Insurance agencies. Lack of a permanent Unemployment Insurance program that includes the self-employed and others traditionally left out of the program. Low benefit levels that require emergency top-offs. The temporary nature of fixes when recessions hit, which, in turn, requires renegotiations just months after political compromises are reached. The current disarray in the Unemployment Insurance system is neither a surprise nor an accident. It is the result of decades of conscious choices made by policymakers���

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-09-16

Briefly Noted for 2020-09-14

Brilliant: Austin City Limits (2014): Celebrating 40 Years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0fXtg4SOY: ���An all-star lineup celebrating four decades of Austin City Limits culminates in Buddy Holly's classic "Not Fade Away"...

Tasty: Imperial Tea Court: Our Berkeley Teahouse https://www.imperialtea.com/category-s/1874.htm���

Something that has been bugging me for a while that I did not know. why is this office different Wikipedia: The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod: 'The office was created in 1350 by royal letters patent.... The title is derived from the staff of office.... Black Rod is principally responsible for controlling access to and maintaining order within the House of Lords and its precincts.... Black Rod's official duties also include responsibility as the usher and doorkeeper at meetings of the Most Noble Order of the Garter...

I confess I have not seen this "certification trust" taking shape. Where is it? Who controls the keys to it? How does it become a social fact: Mihnea Moldoveanu: How Our Response to COVID-19 Will Remake Higher Ed https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/how-our-response-to-covid-19-will-remake-higher-ed: ���A decisive change is afoot: a digital higher education ���certification trust��� has taken shape over the past two years. This digital ledger will allow students to certifiably, verifiably, and securely guarantee their range of educational credentials to their college, a potential employer, financial institutions, loan providers, recruiters, and others...

It is nice to see the Fed recognize reality. It would have been much, much better if Greenspan had been willing to do so in real time: Tim Duy: Fed Lacks Consensus on Implementation, Data Generally Solid https://blogs.uoregon.edu/timduyfedwatch/2020/08/30/fed-lacks-consensus-on-implementation-data-generally-solid/: ���The previous guidance constrained the Fed, or so they believed, to setting policy to return to the 2% target without overshooting that target. The Fed wanted flexibility to overshoot.... From a practical perspective, the Fed simply updated its guidance last week to match how they were already setting policy...

And Adam Posen reminds us he has been calling for this for eight years: Adam Posen: 'What matters from what Federal Reserve Chair Powell did and did not say.... https://twitter.com/adamposen/status/1299031917665439744?s=21 The process of doing the review was as important as the results of the review. The trust bought in from Congress and interested public made room for current policies. The substance of the review was rightly framed as catching Fed strategy up to economic realities.... Some of us had asked Fed to take these realities into account a while ago.... See me and Danny Blanchflower (2014)...

Am I profoundly stupid, or is Uncle Judea's framework of causal confounders���colliders���mediators a huge advance, perhaps not in helping those of you who think carefully do non-stupid statistics, but in helping those of us who do not think carefully do non-stupid statistics, and in providing a royal road to teaching people how to do not-stupid statistics?: Cosma Shalizi: No, it really is that awesome! Of course, I would think that: https://twitter.com/henryfarrell/status/796786137989840896...

This is a sign of a very serious problem in the legitimacy of our police force, and in their ability to understand the people they are supposed to serve: Zack Beauchamp: Why Police Encouraged Shooting Suspect Kyle Rittenhouse to Patrol Kenosha���s Streets https://www.vox.com/2020/8/27/21404117/kenosha-kyle-rittenhouse-police-gun-populism: ���Police in Wisconsin told armed militia members that ���we appreciate you guys.��� Some new research helps us understand the racial roots of their irresponsible behavior...

A very nice debate: Nir Kaissar & Barry Ritholtz: Best Route to Wealth: Savings or Earnings, a Debate https://ritholtz.com/2020/05/debate-saving-or-earning/: BR:��'Let���s bring this back to my biggest issue with frugality, and that���s mental bandwidth. Will power is finite.' NK: 'The irony is that you���re a good example of the mindful consumption I���m advocating. You focus your spending on the things and experiences you find meaningful, and you spend much less than you make, all of which allows you to save and pursue the big things. In my experience, you���re the vast exception...'

A nice skewering of the lies from the Trump administration, and all its Republican, neo-fascist, and journalistic enablers: Ezra Kleini: 3 Charts Disprove Donald Trump���s 2020 RNC Speech https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21405053/donald-trump-republican-convention-speech-2020-record-charts-facts-lies: ���Trump wants to take credit for something he didn���t do, and dodge blame for something he did do.... If Trump���s economic policy was so masterful, why is it impossible to pinpoint his takeover on a simple chart of job growth?.... The Trump administration had to defend America against coronavirus. It failed, and horribly so.... The core of Trump���s reelection message: You should give him credit for the economic recovery he inherited from Obama. And you should blame someone else for the disastrous response to the coronavirus...

Not so much technology���organization too is necessary: Reka Juhasz, Mara Squicciarini, Nico Voigtl��nder: Technology adoption and productivity growth https://voxeu.org/article/technology-adoption-and-productivity-growth: ���The adoption of mechanised cotton spinning in France during the Industrial Revolution to study the short-run and long-run effects on firm productivity.... Firm productivity gains from this technology materialised slowly in the 19th century, consistent with the need to establish the complementary organisational practices to efficiently operate the cotton mills���

I have no idea who the "Roman despot" was. Diocletian perhaps? But 1500 years would put us in the reign of Justinian...: Herbert Hoover: Against That Communist Roosevelt, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and ??? https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/herbert-hoover-against-that-communist-roosevelt-karl-marx-john-maynard-keynes-and.html: ���I rejected the schemes of economic planning to regiment and coerce the farmer. That was born of a Roman despot 1400 years ago and grew into the A[gricultural ]A[djustment ]A[ct]. I refused national plans to put government into business in competition with its citizens. That was born of Karl Marx. I vetoed the idea of recovery through stupendous spending to prime the pump. That was born of a British Professor...

The importance of civil rights, the rising significance of class, the productivity slowdown that started in the 1970s, the reaction of local governance to the crime wave that began in the 1960s and to the Great Migration���all of these play a powerful role in the setbacks that Black workers in America have experienced since the end of the 1960s. This is the best thing I have heard on these topics: Soumaya Keynes & Chad P. Bown: Trade Talks: Opportunities & Setbacks for Black Workers in the 20th Century https://www.tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/134-opportunities-and-setbacks-for-black-workers-in-the-20th-century/: ���Economic gains for America���s Black workers stalled in the 1970s. Why things had improved during the Great Migration, why that stopped, and what international trade had to do with it. Ellora Derenoncourt (UC Berkeley), Mary Kate Batistich (Notre Dame) and Timothy Bond (Purdue University) join to explain���

 

Plus

One of the best assessments of the extremely strange James Buchanan I have read: Daniel Kuehn: James M. Buchanan, Political Regionalism, & ��e Southern Agrarians https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-kuehn-buchanan-agrarians.pdf: 'The importance of dispersing population to rural areas was tied to Buchanan���s concerns about the negative externalities associated with cities. In ���A Future for ���Agricultural Economics���?��� Buchanan writes, ���Few among us can look optimistically at the pattern that threatens to emerge with coalescence centered primarily on age, race, innovation in behavioral perversity, and, finally, terror. Perhaps I both exaggerate the seriousness of the portent and grasp at straws of my own prejudice. But radical dispersal of people over space appears almost to be a necessary complement to any policy of hope.���... Buchanan further issued a ���plea��� for scholars to provide intellectual support to ���enlightened leaders��� of rural areas who ���espouse the virtues of smallness, of limited power of man over man, of decentralized authority, of the clean pure air of the countryside, which every man must seek and few men find���.... The thread of Southern distributism running through Jefferson���s Arcadia and the Agrarians��� yeoman farmer class is clearly identifiable in Buchanan.. and not just in his beloved southwest Virginia farm, which taught him the ���valuational content��� of ���the Southern Agrarians of the 1930s���... but in some of his most famous papers and policy proposals...

True words about why Donald Trump is not something that should come as a surprise to anyone who has been watching Republidans over the past, say, 40 years: Ezra Klein: The Continuity Between George W. Bush & Donald Trump https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/27/21403153/bush-iraq-financial-crisis-trump-coronavirus-government-small-draper-book: ���Those who like government least govern worst: From the Iraq War to the coronavirus: why Republicans fail at governance.... When Bush left the White House in 2009, the Iraq War was a recognized debacle, with thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, casualties of its chaos. The global economy was in collapse, driven by a calamitous void of regulatory oversight of Wall Street, and the disastrous decision to let Lehman Brothers fall. Less than 10 years later, the next Republican president is ending his first term with nearly 200,000 Americans dead of the coronavirus���the worst pandemic performance, by far, of any rich nation���and an economy in shambles. Bush and Trump are... personally different.... It feels awkward to compare them.... But in his new book, To Start a War, Robert Draper chronicles the internal deliberations and dynamics that led the Bush administration into Iraq. In doing so, Draper reminds us of the throughline between the two administrations: a toxic contempt for the government itself...

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-09-14

Briefly Noted for 2020-09-13

Nancy LeTourneau: Biden Has a Plan to Reopen Schools. Trump Does Not https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/09/03/biden-has-a-plan-to-reopen-schools-trump-does-not/: ���The safety of this country���s children is on the ballot.... The first step of Biden���s plan,��released over a month ago, includes something the Trump administration has failed to do: get the virus under control via actions such as implementation of nationwide testing-and-tracing. Take a look at how Biden���s message is totally different from Trump���s nonsense���

Doris Goodwin: ��e Way We Won: America's Economic Breakthrough During World War II https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/: 'High growth needn���t require a war.... It is no exaggeration to say that America won the war abroad and the peace at home at the same time. No doubt the historical conditions of America's economic surge during World War II were singular. But we have much to learn...

Itamar Drechsler & al.: ��e Financial Origins of ��e Rise & Fall of American Inflation https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3538569: ���We argue that its rise was due to the imposition of binding deposit rate ceilings under the law known as Regulation Q, and that its fall was due to the removal of these ceilings.... The degree to which Regulation Q was binding has a large impact on local inflation.... In the presence of financial frictions the Fed may be unable to control inflation regardless of its policy rule���

More "but umbrellas cause rain!" journamalism from the Wall Street Journal: Donald Luskin: ��e Failed Experiment of Covid Lockdowns https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-failed-experiment-of-covid-lockdowns-11599000890: ���New data suggest that social distancing and reopening haven���t determined the spread���

McCormick: Maryland Crab Soup Recipe https://www.mccormick.com/old-bay/recipes/soups-stews/old-bay-maryland-crab-soup���

Collider: Best Movies on Netflix Right Now (September 2020) https://collider.com/best-movies-on-netflix-streaming

Raymond Chandler: ��e Simple Art of Murder https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-chandler-murder.pdf...

Colin Leys (1982): Samuel Huntington & ��e End of Classical Modernization Theory https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-leys-1982-huntington.pdf...

 

Plus

Christopher Tassava: ��e American Economy during World War II https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/: ���The federal government emerged from the war as a potent economic actor, able to regulate economic activity and to partially control the economy through spending and consumption. American industry was revitalized by the war, and many sectors were by 1945 either sharply oriented to defense production (for example, aerospace and electronics) or completely dependent on it (atomic energy). The organized labor movement, strengthened by the war beyond even its depression-era height, became a major counterbalance to both the government and private industry. The war���s rapid scientific and technological changes continued and intensified trends begun during the Great Depression and created a permanent expectation of continued innovation...

.#briefly-noted #noted #2020-09-13

Briefly Noted for 2020-09-12

Ghouls. Ghouls all the way down: Xeni Jardin: Herman Cain, Who Died of Covid-19, Tweets '��e Virus Is Not as Deadly' as Believed https://boingboing.net/2020/08/31/herman-cain-who-died-of-covid.html: ���@THEHermanCain: "It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be. 08:49 8/31/20..." Herman Cain died of COVID-19. That's it. That's the blog post...

The StoryGraph Beta https://beta.thestorygraph.com/

Wikipedia: Henry Bartle Frere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bartle_Frere#Outbreak_of_Zulu_and_Boer_Wars���

Wikipedia: Annette Gordon-Reed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Gordon-Reed���

Wikipedia: History of Grand Central Terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Grand_Central_Terminal#Grand_Central_Depot���

Fire in California: Fire Activity Map https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Safety/Current/���

All Turtles https://medium.all-turtles.com/���

Economic History Association: Conference Program and Papers https://eh.net/eha/conference-program-and-papers-4/���

 

Plus:

Buce: The Luckiest Horse in the Fifth Millennium BCE https://underbelly-buce.blogspot.com/2008/08/luckiest-horse-in-fifth-millennium-bce.html: ���David W. Anthony... The Horse, the Wheel, and Language.... he date is about 4800 BCE; the place is in what he chooses to call ���the Pontic-Caspian steppes,��� just above the Caspian Sea. The ���why��� is interesting: apparently not for riding, but for food���horses were big and meaty and could live over the winter in cold climates (riding came later). AS to ���how,��� the flip answer is ���it wasn���t easy,��� which is not surprising when you stop to think of it: horses���or, more precisely, stallions���are a notoriously tricky lot and they wouldn���t take kindly to being stabled or hobbled or slapped into harness. But as to precisely how, the DNA evidence provides a remarkable clue.... "the male aspect of modern horse DNA, which is passed unchanged on the Y chromosome from sire to colt, shows remarkable homogeneity. It is possible that just a single wild stallion was domesticated���. [A] relatively docile and controllable stallion was an unusual individual���and one that had little hope of reproducing in the wild. Horse domestication might have depended on a lucky coincidence: the appearance of a relatively manageable and docile male in a place where humans could use him as a breeder of a domesticated bloodline. From the horse���s perspective, humans were the only way he could get a girl. From the human perspective, he was the only sire they wanted..." So here���s to you, Mr. Lucky, the granddaddy of them all���

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-09-12

Lightcap: Sokrates vs. Machiavelli on the Educational Process���Comment

Tracy Lightcap: Sokrates vs. Machiavelli on the Educational Process | Lecture https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/08/sokrates-vs-machiavelli-on-the-educational-process-lecture.html?cid=6a00e551f080038834026bde8e351c200c#comment-6a00e551f080038834026bde8e351c200c: ���The great book How Learning Works has a typology that I like to use in explaining what I'm trying to do and what education is about. It has four categories of expertise...

Ignorant and Unconscious: This is a way to describe a good part of the population. They don't know much and they are unconsicious of how little they know. Of course, this can apply to even highly educated people in fields where they don't know anything, if they are unwilling to admit their ignorance. This is important thing to keep in mind as you learn more.

Ignorant and Conscious: This is where. most freshmen and sophomores are in college. They have learned just how little they know and they are being forced to deal with it. Usually, they do. Some drop out instead. Some do only what is necessary to pass in subjects that don't require much development of expertise. It's easy to fail on this.

Expert and Conscious: This is where we want juniors and seniors to be. It is where you have expertise and you can apply it if you are careful and work hard. Good subjects (and courses) give you opportunities to do this.

Expert and Unconscious: Unfortunately for you, this is where most of your professors are. They are expert and they apply their knowledge in ways that have become second nature to them. That means they often have a hard time breaking down all the steps they follow to reach conclusions. "Why didn't they get this? Everybody knows it! Besides, we went over a lot of it before!" You have to be patient and ask us about what you don't understand. We try to get across what we are doing, but sometimes we forget a step or two or forget that what you had in a related course isn't obviously relevant to you in this course. You have to remind us. And tell us when we are going right over your head.
But this is what where we are aiming to get you and where, if you are diligent, you will end up. I might add that this is what people pay you for.

When I give this talk, I invariably have students come up to me afterwards and thank me. They have never been told why they are being educated and what they are expected to get out of the process. It's all been "Get a degree! You'll get paid more." Almost nobody tell what they are being paid for and why a degree is important.

This is really strange���

.#commentoftheday #2020-09-12

Horn: Robert E. Lee & Co.'s Road to Cemetery Ridge���Weekend Reading & Noted

This, from Jonathan Horn, is the best thing I have ever read on the road that led Robert E Lee and George Pickett's division to Pennsylvania���where they grabbed American citizens and shipped them south to be sold as slaves���and then to the disastrous charge up Cemetery Ridge. The Pickett division soldiers dead at Gettysburg could have kept the American Civil War going for one or two months more. At war's end Ulysses S. Grant "felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse":

Jonathan Horn The Man Who Would Not be Washington https://books.google.com/books?id=n_5tAwAAQBAJ: 'Winning a major battle on Northern soil might end the war, and that, as Lee would later say, was his chief purpose. ���I went into Maryland to give battle.���... Lee intended to isolate Washington, DC, from the west. He would not let reinforcements from the mountains and beyond rescue the eastern cities. He would destroy the B&O Railroad and, once more, that pesky Potomac canal.... When Brigadier General John Walker visited Lee���s tent, he learned what else his chief had in mind.... Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and blow up the railroad bridge over the Susquehanna. ���There will [then] remain to the enemy but one route of communication with the West, and that very circuitous, by way of the Lakes,��� Lee explained. ���After that I can turn my attention to Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, as may seem best for our interests.���

The audacity of it all astonished Walker.... The concern showed on Walker���s face. ���Are you acquainted with General McClellan?��� Lee asked rhetorically. ���He is an able general but a very cautious one. His enemies among his own people think him too much so. His army is in a very demoralized and chaotic condition, and will not be prepared for offensive operations���or he will not think it so���for three or four weeks.��� By then, Lee planned to have his columns consolidated and in Pennsylvania, no less...

...���The lives of our soldiers are too precious to be sacri���ced in the attainment of successes that inflict no loss upon the enemy beyond the actual loss in battle,��� Lee warned James Seddon, the new Confederate secretary of war.... A strategy of trading territory for time would yield neither. The South needed to snap the North���s political will before the North shredded the South���s social order....

On May 10 [1863], the only officer whose present stardom rivaled Lee���s died in semidelirium. Losing Jackson made Lee all the more indispensable. ���Our labor [is] rendered more severe, more onerous by his departure,��� Lee wrote. ���I do not know how to replace him.���... No wonder, he said, he felt ���more depressed��� than ever after the battle. Out of victory had come death, and little else. ���Our loss was severe, and again we had gained not an inch of ground and the enemy could not be pursued.��� The next time he had the Army of the Potomac in his sights, he would not let it escape....

How many times did he have to say it? ���The enemy is there���... Cemetery Ridge.... About a mile of open farmland separated the two ridges.... That slender valley was the ground his army must cross, the space between war and peace. Why could no one else see it?

Persuading Confederate Secretary of War Seddon not to send part of the Army of Northern Virginia to the west had cost every coin of political capital Lee had earned.... Only one policy offered the slightest promise of relieving pressure on both [the Mississippi and the Virginia] fronts... into Pennsylvania, where his men could live o��� the land, where every move would threaten the great eastern cities, and where, if a battle occurred, a federal defeat would finally produce political consequences. ���It would very likely cause the fall of Washington City and the flight of the Federal government,��� he had told an aide hunched over a map. That was the message a pale-looking Lee had brought to Richmond in mid-May. Davis had reluctantly consented to the invasion but had refused a few of Lee���s requests for reinforcements. No more than eighty thousand men would participate....

Hill���s and Ewell���s corps had stumbled into a fight west and then north of Gettysburg on July 1. An unknown number of Federals had fallen back below town to Cemetery Ridge. Lee had not wanted to bring on a battle, not yet, anyway. But now that it had begun, not a doubt stirred in his mind about how to proceed. His lieutenants needed to seize Cemetery Ridge.... July 1, he instructed Ewell... seize the hills at the north end of the ridge if ���practicable.��� Many of Ewell���s subordinates thought it plenty practicable, but the new corps commander dragged his feet.... The next day... Longstreet���s... flanking march.... Longstreet protested. Had not Lee promised to fight a defensive battle? Only grudgingly did Longstreet submit.... The flanking march took longer... the Union line stretched longer.... Ferociously as the Confederates fought, they failed to roll up that ridge. As to why, there would be time enough to debate later.

Now it was July 3[, 1863]. Tomorrow would be July 4.... ���If God gives us the victory, the war will be over and we shall achieve the recognition of our independence,��� officers had heard Lee say.... This very day, July 3, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens would... ask permission to proceed... to Washington, DC, for negotiations. How much stronger his position would look���how much more expansive the talks might be���if the Army of the Potomac no longer stood between Lee and the city of Washington.

Longstreet advised maneuvering around... instead of charging.... But the enemy was on that ridge. The senior corps commander might not understand, but the men in the ranks did. ���There never were such men in an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led.��� Cocksure Major General George Pickett would lead part of the charge and was ���sanguine of success.���... Two groves of trees ���ve hundred yards apart would serve as the goalposts, a stone wall running between as the crossbar. That was the center of the federal line. That was where the Union would break in two.... Longstreet registered another protest for posterity. ���It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.���...

Upward, into the canister and rifle fire raining down from Cemetery Ridge, they charged. Toward the stone wall, the boldest still standing swarmed before disappearing into an impenetrable cloud of smoke. Visions of Washington falling vanished with the view. Cheers rose in the distance. For one last moment, so did hope in Lee���s heart. He mounted Traveller. ���See what that cheering means,��� he instructed an officer. Before hearing back, he knew. Those cheers were for the Union.... Told to prepare his division for a counterattack, Pickett said he had ���no division.���... Lee greeted the remnants.... ���All this has been my fault,��� he told an oficer. ���It is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can.���

Although that would be Lee���s most famous explanation for Gettysburg, it would not be his only explanation. He faulted subordinates for failing to inform him that the cannonade... would leave scant ammunition to support the battle line. He faulted his corps commanders.... Ewell had shown indecision; then Longstreet and Hill ���could not be gotten to act in concert.��� He faulted Stuart for leaving his army blind.... Stonewall Jackson['s]... demise at Chancellorsville deprived the Confederacy of victory at Gettysburg.

Mostly, Lee fell back on a familiar formulation, one that stripped him of any agency.... ���With the knowledge I then had, and in the circumstances I was then placed, I do not know what better course I could have pursued.��� His reports described the battle as ���unavoidable��� once the armies had collided. ���Victory,��� he later said, ���trembled in the balance for three days.��� The Confederacy had come so close. ���But God willed otherwise.���...

[But] try as he might, Lee could not shake those first feelings of responsibility. A belief in his army���s invincibility had seduced him into ordering his soldiers to perform the impossible:

No blame can be attached to the army for its failure to accomplish what was projected.... It has accomplished all that could have been reasonably expected. It ought not to have been expected to have performed impossibilities or to have fulfilled the anticipations of the thoughtless and unreasonable....

Thoughtless and unreasonable was exactly how Lee���s behavior had seemed to Longstreet.... "General Lee... lost the matchless equipoise that usually characterized him... mistakes were made were... the impulses of a great mind disturbed by unparalleled conditions."...

For secessionists, July 4 brought a succession of setbacks. At Vicksburg, Confederates stacked their weapons before the master of the Mississippi, Ulysses S. Grant. At Fort Monroe, federal officers received orders from Washington to ���hold no communication��� with the Confederate vice president unless told otherwise. At Gettysburg, the Confederate retreat toward the Potomac started under a strong storm.... ���O God! Why can���t I die?��� the wounded cried. Union cavalry striking like lightning pierced the long trains as they moved through the storm....

At last, on July 13 and 14[, 1863].... Lee had escaped. To call it divine deliverance would ignore what he left behind: the dead, the wounded, the missing. ���The death of our gallant officers & men throughout the army causes me to weep tears of blood and to wish that I never would hear the sound of a gun again,��� he said. Of the eighty thousand men Davis had agreed to supply for the invasion, a startling 27,125 became casualties. If arithmetic posed a problem before Gettysburg, it would crest toward crisis after....

[But as Jefferson] Davis put it, ���To ask me to substitute you by some one in my judgment more ���t to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army, or of the refiecting men of the country, is to demand an impossibility.��� So for twenty more months, Robert E. Lee would remain a soldier. He was, in a word, indispensable...

Cf. also: John Bell Hood: Advances & Retreats: Personal Experiences in ��e United States & Confederate Armies https://books.google.com/books?id=irVvCwAAQBAJ: 'I moved on with all possible speed... and arrived about 4.30 p.m. [on June 27, 1862 at Gaines's Mill].... Here I found General Lee, seated upon his horse. He rode forward to meet me, and, extending his usual greeting, announced to me that our troops had been fighting gallantly, but had not succeeded in dislodging the enemy; he added, "This must be done. Can you break his line?" I replied that I would try.

I immediately formed my brigade in line of battle with Hampton's Legion on the left. In front was a dense woods and ugly marsh, which totally concealed the enemy from us; but the terrible roar of artillery and musketry plainly revealed, however, that thousands and thousands of living souls were struggling in most deadly conflict for the mastery of that field, and I might say, almost under the shadow of the Capitol of the infant Confederacy.

My line was established, and moved forward, regiment by regiment, when I discovered, as the disposition of the Eighteenth Georgia was completed, an open field a little to its right. Holding in reserve the Fourth Texas, I ordered the advance, and galloped into the open field or pasture, from which point I could see, at a distance of about eight hundred yards, the position of the Federals. They were heavily entrenched upon the side of an elevated ridge running a little west and south, and extending to the vicinity of the Chickahominy.

At the foot of the slope ran Powhite creek, which stream, together with the abatis in front of their works, constituted a formidable obstruction to our approach, whilst batteries, supported by masses of infantry, crowned the crest of the hill in rear, and long range guns were posted upon the south side of the Chickahominy, in readiness to enfilade our advancing columns. The ground from which I made these observations was, however, open the entire distance to their entrenchments. In a moment I determined to advance from that point, to make a strenuous effort to pierce the enemy's fortifications, and, if possible, put him to flight.

I therefore marched the Fourth Texas by the right flank into this open field, halted and dressed the line whilst under fire of the long-range guns, and gave positive instructions that no man should fire until I gave the order; for I knew full well that if the men were allowed to fire, they would halt to load, break the allignment, and, very likely, never reach the breastworks. I moreover ordered them not only to keep together, but also in line, and announced to them that I would lead them in the charge. Forward march was sounded, and we moved at a rapid, but not at a double-quick pace. Meantime, my regiments on the left had advanced some distance to the front through the wood and swamp.

Onward we marched under a constantly increasing shower of shot and shell, whilst to our right could be seen some of our troops making their way to the rear, and others lying down beneath a galling fire. Our ranks were thinned at almost every step forward, and proportionately to the growing fury of the storm of projectiles. Soon we attained the crest of the bald ridge within about one hundred and fifty yards of the breastworks. Here was concentrated upon us, from batteries in front and flank, a fire of shell and canister, which ploughed through our ranks with deadly effect. Already the gallant Colonel Marshall, together with many other brave men, had fallen victims in this bloody onset.

At a quickened pace we continued to advance, without firing a shot, down the slope, over a body of our soldiers lying on the ground, to and across Powhite creek, when, amid the fearful roar of musketry and artillery, I gave the order to fix bayonets and charge. With a ringing shout we dashed up the steep hill, through the abatis, and over the breastworks, upon the very heads of the enemy. The Federals, panic-stricken, rushed precipitately to the rear upon the infantry in support of the artillery; suddenly the whole joined in the flight toward the valley beyond.

At this juncture some twenty guns, stationed in rear of the Federal line on a hill to my left, opened fire upon the Fourth Texas, which changed front, and charged in their direction. I halted in an orchard beyond the works, and despatched every officer of my staff to the main portion of the brigade in the wood on the left, instructing them to bear the glad tidings that the Fourth Texas had pierced the enemy's line, and were moving in his rear, and to deliver orders to push forward with utmost haste. At the same moment I discovered a Federal brigade marching up the slope from the valley beyond, evidently with the purpose to re-establish the line. I ran back to the entrenchments, appealed to some of our troops, who, by this time, had advanced to the breastworks, to come forward off this small body of Federals, They remained, however, motionless.

Jenkins's command, if I mistake not, which was further to our right, boldly advanced and put this brigade to rout. Meantime, the long line of blue and steel to the right and left wavered, and, finally, gave way, as the Eighteenth Georgia, the First and Fifth Texas, and Hampton's Legion gallantly moved forward from right to left, thus completing a grand left wheel of the brigade into the very heart of the enemy. Simultaneously with this movement burst forth a tumultuous shout of victory, which was taken up along the whole Confederate line. I mounted my horse, rode forward, and found the Fourth Texas and Eighteenth Georgia had captured fourteen pieces of artillery, whilst the Fifth Texas had charge of a Federal regiment which had surrendered to it.

Many were the deeds of valor upon that memorable field. General Jackson, in reference to this onset, says in his official report:

In this charge in which upwards of a thousand men fell, killed and wounded, before the fire of the enemy, and in which fourteen pieces of artillery and nearly a regiment were captured, the Fourth Texas, under the lead of General Hood, was the first to pierce these strongholds and seize the guns. Although swept from their defences by this rapid and almost matchless display of daring and desperate valor, the well disciplined Federals continued in retreat to fight with stubborn resistance...

On the following day when he surveyed the ground over which my brave men charged, he rendered them a just tribute when he exclaimed: "The men who carried this position! were soldiers indeed!"

Major Warwick, of the Fourth Texas, a brave and efficient officer, fell mortally wounded near the works, whilst urging his men forward to the charge; over one-half of this regiment lay dead or wounded along a distance of one mile...

Yes Samuel P. Huntington & His Disciples Are Loons���Note to Self

This has surfaced again in my feed. Please, people stop ending it to me! It leads me down rabbit-holes���what a loon Samuel P. Huntington was, and how favorably citing him is a powerful sign that you are a loon unmoored from reality yourself���that I don't have time for today!

Anyone who thinks���as Gregory Mitrovich apparently does���that Great Britain in 1920 had intrinsic strengths then that enabled it to thereafter retain its global dominance is truly a total idiot. When did Britain dominate anything after 1920? Gregory Mitrovich: Beware Declinism: America Remains Poised for Greatness https://nationalinterest.org/feature/beware-declinism-america-remains-poised-greatness-163810: ���There can be no doubting that America���s international standing has been undermined by ill-considered wars and the deadly failures of Trump���s pandemic response. However, the intrinsic strength of the United States will, like that of Britain a century ago, enable America to retain its dominance...

Maybe I am just overly annoyed by people who favorably quote Sam Huntington, in this case his "observ[ation] that in the post-World War II era there had been five occasions when U.S. leaders were convinced the end was nigh���each time to be proven wrong..."

Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his claim that Vietnamese Communism was on its last legs in 1968:

Samuel Huntington (1968): The Bases of Accommodation https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/vietnam/1968-07-01/bases-accommodation: ���The principal reason for this massive influx of population into the urban areas is, of course, the intensification of the war following the commitment of American combat troops in 1965... 1,500,000... refugees, half still in refugee camps.... At least an equal number of people have moved into the cities without passing through refugee camps. The social costs of this change have been dramatic and often heartrending.... The immediate economic effects of urbanization are somewhat more mixed. Those who were well-off in the countryside often suffer serious losses in the move to the city. The rural poor, on the other hand, may well find life in the city more attractive and comfortable... the urban slum... for the poor peasant a gateway to a new and better way of life....

More than anything else urbanization has been responsible for the striking increase in the proportion of the population living under Government control between 1964 and 1968. The depopulation of the countryside struck directly at the strength and potential appeal of the Viet Cong.... The Viet Cong had waged a rural revolution.... The "first outstanding feature..." Of which,] Sir Robert Thompson argued... "is its immunity to the direct application of mechanical and conventional power."... [But] if the "direct application of mechanical and conventional power" takes place on such a massive scale as to produce a massive migration from countryside to city, the basic assumptions underlying the Maoist doctrine of revolutionary war no longer operate....

In an absent-minded way the United States in Viet Nam may well have stumbled upon the answer to "wars of national liberation." The effective response lies neither in the quest for conventional military victory nor in the esoteric doctrines and gimmicks of counter-insurgency warfare. It is instead forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power. Time in South Viet Nam is increasingly on the side of the Government���

Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his 2009 truly remarkably anti-Cuban-American racist screed:

Samuel P. Huntington (2009): The Hispanic Challenge https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/28/the-hispanic-challenge/: "Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves���from Los Angeles to Miami���and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.... The Hispanization of Miami is without precedent.... The Cuban takeover had major consequences... a Cuban-led, Hispanic city... in which assimilation and Americanization were unnecessary and in some measure undesired..... By 1999, the heads of Miami���s largest bank, largest real estate development company, and largest law firm were all Cuban-born or of Cuban descent... the mayor of Miami and the mayor, police chief, and state attorney of Miami-Dade County, plus two-thirds of Miami���s U.S. Congressional delegation and nearly one half of its state legislators.... Anglos (as well as blacks)... outside minorities that could often be ignored. Unable to communicate with government bureaucrats and discriminated against by store clerks, the Anglos... could accept their subordinat[ion]... assimilate into the Hispanic community... or... leave... their exodus reflected in a popular bumper sticker: 'Will the last American to leave Miami, please bring the flag'...

Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his

Samuel P. Huntington & al. (1973): The Crisis of Democracy http://www.trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf: 'The vigor of democracy in the United States in the 1960s thus contributed to a democratic distemper... the expansion of governmental activity... and the reduction of governmental authority.... Across the board, the tendency was for massive increases in government expenditures to provide cash and benefits for particular groups within society rather than in expenditures designed to serve national purposes vis-a-vis the external environment.... The beneficiaries of governmental largesse coupled with governmental employees constitute a substantial proportion of the public. Their interests clearly run counter to those groups in the public which receive relatively little in cash benefits from the government but must contribute taxes.... The imposition of 'hard' decisions imposing costs on any major economic group is... particularly difficult in the United States.... Marginal social groups, as in the case of the blacks, are now becoming full participants in the political system.... Less marginality... needs to be replaced by more self-restraint...

.#highlighted #moralresponsibility #notetoself #orangehairedbaboons #2020-09-12