Sarah "Frodo" Palin and The Cancer School of Economics
Both Democrats and Republicans want America atop the world's economic food chain. After all, it's better to be the Great White Shark than the seal. They differ on what to do to keep us there, of course. Generally, Republicans want businesses operating free of taxes and government intervention, while Democrats believe certain limits on businesses and our financial markets are necessary to keep Americans safe and prosperous.
Republican economic policy is based on the Theory of Natural Law first advanced by Aristotle. Since nature doesn't make intellectual decisions intellectualism is considered artificial, or unnatural. Regulation is an intellectual act, so it's not natural and therefore doomed to fail. Therefore our economy, Conservatives believe, if free of any regulation, will naturally fall into a stable balance of permanent prosperity. Regulations and intervention, they claim, are wholly unnatural and illegitimate.
Conservatives have been working for decades to deregulate markets and businesses. In 1999 they succeeded in removing important regulations set up after the Great Depression to ensure market safety. So why did the markets crash?
Because Natural Law economic theory never existed.
Nature, in fact, places the most severe limits on animals and their behavior to make sure they stay balanced. Sharks don't have a "stop eating" mechanism in their biological blueprint. Under normal conditions sharks can't catch food fast enough to do themselves damage from over-eating. Nature has limited their ability to catch food. A shark in a feeding frenzy, however, given enough food, will eat until it quite literally bursts open like an overstuffed sausage. Its guts just explode out into the water. In some cases crazed, gut-busted sharks eat their own entrails, unable to distinguish between their innards and their kill.
A shark is just a dumb beast driven by a killer instinct. If nature's limits break down, so does the shark. The only thing keeping sharks from eating themselves to death are the physical limits nature places on all apex predators. Because nature has perfected the art of limitation, a shark eating itself to death is extremely rare, and usually occurs only when humans get involved and temporarily throw food supplies out of balance. Nature is nothing if not a series of carefully orchestrated restrictions. True Natural Law economics is not laissez faire it is structured guidance, like the rules in a football game. It's a bad idea to give 22 men pads, helmets and a football and say laissez faire, unless you want every one to get killed.
Animals have a complex system of internal and external limits to make sure they don't outgrow their eco-system either in body or population. In Aristotle's day nature had total control over human beings. His people could only move so quickly, gather and grow only so much food, and had only rudimentary tools. These and other physical limits contained human population growth for millennia. Human economic activity required minimal governmental oversight if any at all, so laissez faire seemed natural.
Today huge groups of human beings are largely free of nature's constraints. We, as a race, can, and will, apparently, out grow our eco-system- something Aristotle did not consider in his extensive writings on natural law. Given the political freedom 21st century human beings could and would extract every fish in the ocean in a few years time. But for nature's limits sharks would, too. Soon genetic engineering breakthroughs will clear away whatever constraints nature has left over humanity. Conservative economic theory, which depends entirely on constraints provided by nature, is fantasy.
Out growing nature's restraints means nature can no longer stop us from destroying ourselves if we get off track. With nothing to contain us we have to assume nature's former corrective role in all our endeavors and provide necessary limits ourselves.
We should not be afraid of limits. Everything growing thing in nature is limited in some way except cancer. Limitless, unregulated growth is disease, not freedom. If we strip our markets of all restrictions and let the sharks go into frenzy we will create cancer not growth.
In 1999, what I call the Cancer School of Economics succeeded in removing entrenched banking regulations created after the 1929 belly burst that triggered the Great Depression. Stripped of structure, predictably, America's powerful economic killer instinct has run amok ever since. America's economic sharks have gorged on fossil fuels, unfettered financial predation, incomprehensible budget deficits and Keating/Enron style corruption. They ate more than their eco-system allows and busted open yet again. Today America is no longer an apex predator in a sustainable food chain but a cancerous tumor on the world's economy.
A few months ago as the world's economic waters began running cloudy with America's guts, Bush, McCain and Fed Chairman Bernanke said the fundamentals of our economy were sound and strong. What else would a dumb beast say with a mouth full of its own entrails? A dumb beast only knows one thing: if it is eating its happy.
And just like a simple, natural, not at all pointy-headed or intellectual shark eating its own entrails, the Republicans and hapless Democrats are incapable of stopping their self destruction. They passed a bail out/rescue package with toothless over sight provisions that ignores the causes of the meltdown and is funded by borrowed money and a massive cash infusion from the treasury created out of thin air by printing dollars. Apparently they believe self cannibalization will stop us from eating ourselves to death. How very dumb beast of them. In effect we now have a bubble propped up by a bubble, or The Weimar Republic.
Conservatives see a Democrat in the character Quint from Steven Spielberg's still excellent 1975 blockbuster Jaws. Quint was a shark hunter. He shot little steel harpoons tied to big, buoyant barrels into sharks which severely reduced their ability to swim. Conservatives see every regulation as just another barrel slowly killing American business.
The Cancer School of Economics doesn't get that forcing Detroit to make cars safer back in the 50's and 60's through Government intervention in the market place made the auto industry more profitable. They can't see that safe cars increased the market for cars and increased dependence on cars which helped create a pervasive car culture and increased sales. That kind of thinking is for pointy-headed intellectuals, not simple, natural folk. All they can see is "bigguvment" got on the backs of poor, poor businessmen and tried to choke the auto industry. They still think we'd all be better off without brake lights, seat belts and turn signals waiting for Detroit to make safe cars.
Republicans don't see health and prosperity in regulation. They see Democrats and their regulations as another kind of shark competing for living space and fish- a smaller, less aggressive, toothless kind of shark who deserves to die, who unfairly restricts stronger sharks who should be allowed to run free and rule the seas. They don't see Democrats as noble or compassionate or evolved or helpful in the least. They see them as whiny, traitorous runts who have turned themselves into un-natural parasites who leech off of their larger, stronger brethren and therefore need to be wiped off the face of the earth lest everything die.
Anyone who wants no rules at all is an adolescent. Like a bratty teenager caught up in a rebellious tantrum, Republicans can't see any limit as healthy. Conservatives point to people who truly are parasitic runts and claim they were created by healthy limits which keep our economy from bursting.
All these Cancer School of Economics financial experts swimming around with their guts hanging out argue the finance, credit, loan and banking system is already the most heavily regulated industry in the nation. Governments don't heavily regulate the greeting card industry. Everything depends on financial stability, confidence, fairness and predictability. The financial markets need intelligent, tough, strictly enforced regulation so our nation's super sharks can do what they were born to do without bursting. Obviously it is the quality of regulation not the quantity that is the issue at hand. Funny -- with all the regulations on the financial industry conservatives targeted just the ones that if removed would cause a meltdown. Weren't interested in all the others, were they?
Republicans, like troubled teenagers, are unable to understand their own behavior is the problem. Conservatives look at the deregulation disaster that is the last eight years of Republican rule and have come to the conclusion that they were corrupted by eight years of power. Power doesn't corrupt. Washington is a petri dish for all one's latent dysfunction. Power revealed who Republicans truly are. They came to Washington and did exactly what they wanted to do and they destroyed themselves. Self knowledge is a bitch.
For all the evil Washington has done to Republicans, they sure don't want to leave. They most definitely want to stay despite the horrible things power does to one's conservative credentials.
To convince Americans they have learned their lesson and should be given the reigns of all-corrupting power one more time, conservatives have brought forward Sarah Palin, someone they advertise as too simpleminded to be affected by Washington's irresistible evil, like some kind of Alaskan version of Frodo Baggins. Basically, Republicans are promising Americans they'll be dumb as hell if we give them another chance in 2008.
The biggest problem Conservatives face right now is that no one has faith in unfettered predation anymore. America's corporate sharks are gut busted and floating belly up. Sarah Barracuda is meant to prove conservative economic ideology is still healthy, wholesome, natural and as dumb as a big fish. Conservatives think just by letting Sarah "Frodo" Barracuda swim into the White House our nation will return to prosperity.
Republicans don't understand there is no Quint slowing them down. Market regulations are not the equivalent of a barrel tied to a shark. The life sustaining financial regulations they greedily stripped away in 1999 were a positive structural force that provided stability, scale, security and confidence. Massive exploitation of resources coupled with an unrestricted financial system is not economic freedom. It is unbalanced, unstructured and un-natural. It is cancerism, not natural law. Limits on risking other people's money is not un-Godly interference, or the life sucking evil of parasitic runts, its protecting the human eco-system, which humanity must do for itself, because, after all we're not dumb beasts. Acting like one won't help anybody, Sarah.
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Well said
We have a government problem.
"True Natural Law economics is not laissez faire it is structured guidance, like the rules in a football game. It's a bad idea to give 22 men pads, helmets and a football and say laissez faire, unless you want every one to get killed."
It's interesting that you use the football analogy. I always tell people that the government should be like the referee -- making sure that everybody plays by the rules, but not actually playing the game.
But you missed real laissez faire "by that much;" you don't give them pads or helmets.
How curious. The Conservative belief is that the Invisible Hand of the Market just "happened". And the are fighting bitterlyl against the concept of Intelligent design.
This is a wonderful analysis. It might also help to regard "greed" for what it truly is -- fear. Fear of not having enough to survive as "the fittest" in this Darwinian Sociaiism that Republicans have created for America. Fear is at the root of all destructive behavior and it's no surprise that the GOP uses fear as its primary motivator. A party based on humanity's basest instincts. Perfect.
"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. " -- Warren Buffett
Bravo for that comment. I really think it is the best in this whole discussion.
As a biologist, I want to say your shark/cancer analogy is spot on. How these people obsess with short term gain while spouting disingenious talking points is beyond me.
But the point you miss is that none of these SOB's give a crap about what happens beyond their lifetimes. The adage of "he who dies with the most toys wins" seems to have been taken to heart by this movement, and be damned the next generations of suckers and chumps who are trying to make the world a better place.
What the Republicans get wrong is that the intellect is humanity's natural restraint mechanism. They seem to be believe that the economy is part of the natural world -- but not human thought. Where do they think the economy comes from, if not originating in our thought processes? Market activity relies on a keen grasp of math. To suppose that you can think something up, put it into motion and then let do its own thing is, to use another analogy, about like starting a car, putting it in drive with a brick on the accelerator and letting it wander around driverless.
This comes from the Aristotelian concept of the duality of Man vs. Nature, that humanity is separate and shouldn't be involved in its working -- ignoring the fact that we, ourselves, are a product of nature and operate according to "mechanisms" developed by evolving "nature".
In the beginning, God put forth many Great Regulations. But, because they were not based on Natural Law and were intellectual, nobody followed them.
The shark analogy is fascinating. The upshot is that we are all about now. We are hungry, so we gorge. We don't have the capability to look ahead and think about what will happen when our guts burst. Drill, baby, Drill. Charge into Iraq against the better judgment of the rest of the world. Our short-term orientation will be the demise of this country while countries like China with long-term orientations will thrive.
Allegories, analogies and parables, Oh My!
The emotional switches from the Wall Street guys are especially entertaining; one minute expounding on the dangers of "regulating the free market to death" followed closely by the same pundits whimpering for the government to save them from their own bad decisions.
Yes, we can have it both ways!! Truly, a land of fantasy.
May (insert supernatural being or metaphor of your choice) save us from ourselves.
Brilliant piece. Thank you.
Sorry, Bill, but no, nature is not a balanced, self-regulating system. "Nature" (whatever exactly that is) doesn't care if species go extinct. Most species that have ever existed have gone extinct, before humans appeared on the scene.
I say this as a professional ecologist, with about three decades of research and teaching experience. And politically I'm on your side, Bill.
The real problem is precisely that nature is not balanced and neatly regulated. Yet we've deluded ourselves into thinking that we've somehow "outside" of nature, that the processes that affect other species don't apply to us. We have been exceptionally successful as a species in converting the energy and materials of the world to our own uses. But occasionally we get reminded, as the people in New Orleans or Galveston know well. And archeologists know that great civilizations have been wiped out, a number of them, in various places on Earth.
It hasn't happened all over the planet at the same time — yet. And when it does, "nature" won't care. So, we really should be more careful, and stop playing as if the rules don't apply to us, because they do.
Your anthropomo
Nature is indifferent to the fate of a species, but it is very definitely a self-regulating system.
In dynamic systems terms, the market is complex enough to optimally allocate capital eficiently but it it has been capitalizing its own capital. This wild attractor has destabilized the fundamental attractors by drawing capital from them and devaluing the assets theyt represent.
This is great. If you haven't written a book on this, you need to now.
You are right, but you are arguing from analogy, which is only useful in the stage of establishing a paradigm. Parables are what highly evolved sages use to illustrate their wisdom to those on the mental level of children. Granted, that covers Republicans, but for the rest of us, a more rigorous form of argumentation is needed.
"Because nature has perfected the art of limitation . . ." Here you are resorting to anthromorphism. "Nature" has not "perfected" any such "art". The limitations are quite simply features of what is. They are the structure of reality.
Your insights are excellent, but please refine your argument.
Mr. Cusack did an excellent job of reinforcing his argument through repeated use of his analogy. The "gut-busted shark" image perfectly encapsulates his argument both logically and viscerally. Without the visceral element, this article would be entirely forgettable. Instead, Mr. Cusack has ensured that we readers will never again look at traders on the floor of the Stock Exchange without picturing a swarm of vicious sharks in the midst of a blood-soaked feeding frenzy.
Quite true. His analogy is very vivid. But it is serving the purpose of rhetoric, not that of objective description.
What the hell? Arguing from analogy is most certainly NOT only useful in the stage of establishing a paradigm. Where did you get this cockamamie idea?
Perhaps I should have said that arguing from analogy is only useful as a preliminary to establishing the real facts of the situation. While arguing from analogy can be persuasive, and can illuminate the character of the situation being analogized, it cannot reach the level of objective description of that situation BECAUSE it is only an analogy, and does not deal with the actual facts of, for instance, economic activity in the absence of the restraints provided by purely natural human behavior. If the author is truly making assertions about the destructive character of capitalist economics, which I think he is, he must go beyond the level of analogy, not to express his idea, which he has done very well, but to establish the reality of the principle he is enunciating. Right?
Please explain your first sentence. Argumentation is a part of the college course I've been teaching for almost 25 years, and I don't know what you're talking about.
Is the author really saying that uncontrolled capitalism is a shark? Of course not. He is saying it is LIKE a shark in order to make his point, which is that the natural laws of human economics are no longer acting as a brake on what can be viewed as the natural type of economic activity which would not be destructive to the "organic" type of human behavior if that natural braking actiion were still present. It seems to me that he is feeling his way toward a clear statement of that principle, and he has hit on the analogy of the shark, whose behavior he says can take place in a non-natural context when human interference with the natural order allows its natural behavior to become destructive to the shark. He has then taken this situation as a paradigm for his exposition. But arguing from analogy can never be scientific. It is useful only as a means of approximating the real situation in a series of approximations leading to verifiable scientific description. While arguing from analogy can be persuasive, and can illuminate the real character of the situation, whatever the behavior of the shark, it cannot be conclusive to the argument about economic behavior. Does that clarify my meaning?
I disagree - I think the analagy is a good one and I cannot discern a paradigm shift. Also, I don't think he has neccessarily anthropomorphised nature. The expression he uses is just as applicable to an entirely mechanistic process (which is what nature essentially is). For example, "the rocket has made travel to the moon feasible" is not anthropomorphising a rocket.
Perfecting an art is a human activity. Nature in fact does not practice an art. I think it is hard to argue that nature is working toward a pre-envisioned outcome. If it is believed to do that, then it is taking on the behavior of a personality. When nature is assigned the role of a human, that is certainly anthropomorphism. I don't have any interest in the expression about the rocket.
A well crafted post with a perfect, yes perfect use of effective, neatly tied analogies. Mr. Cusack, you really need to take that show on the road, to mainstream television. Yes, I am serious. I think many Americans, unfamiliar with economics and certainly unfamiliar with the realities of regulation versus deregulation, could benefit tremendously from your take. If you don't have a PR agent, get one, and get yourself on Oprah -- so that Jane, and thus Joe, Six-Pack can begin to understand the dangers of Republican economics.
Wonderful allegory for what has happened to this country. This was unfortunately no accident.
What an amazing article! Thank you so much for illustrating in clear and precise language what is at the heart of this meltdown. I don't think I'll ever think of this situation again without seeing the sharks swimming!
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