Basic Problems of Philosophy: October 2019

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

11/4 White Supremacy, Racism and Reparations

Text for this class
1. Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations"
2. P. R. Lockhart, "The 2020 Democratic primary debate over reparations, explained"

Monday, October 28, 2019

10/28 DIY class tonight

Dear Philosophers,

Class is cancelled tonight. We will resume our discussion on Wednesday 10/30 by looking at mass incarceration, prison abolition and restorative justice. If you haven't reviewed all of the documents I posted last week, please do so. I've also added two more pieces for you time check out for Wednesday. Please spend class time tonight listening to these pieces and giving them some deep mindfulness. Best to you, Justin

1. An interview with prison abolitionist Miriame Kaba by Chris Hayes

2. An interview with Danielle Sered, Director of Common Justice, a Brooklyn-based restorative justice project, on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

10/28 Mass Incarceration, New Jim Crow, Prison Abolition

Dear Philosophers,

Next week we will delve into three related issues having to do with contemporary social justice: mass incarceration, racism and the legacy of slavery, and the prison abolition and restorative justice movement. I cannot make it to class on Monday, Oct. 28th and I'm looking to find someone to screen Ava Duverney's Netflix documentary "The 13th" in class for you. Check in with this blog for more information about next week's schedule. In the meanwhile, read and watch the documents below. :)

Texts for this class

1. 1. Read: John Washington, "What is Prison Abolition?"

2. Watch: Angela Davis on Prison Abolition vs prison Reform

2. Listen: Michelle Alexander on mass incarceration and war of drugs

Other texts

1. Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?

2. To hear about my own experiences teaching in a women's prison you can check out my paper "Teaching in Angela's Cave"

Questions

How does the U.S. criminal justice system create and maintain racial hierarchy through mass incarceration?

How does the current system of mass incarceration in the United States mirror earlier systems of racialized social control?

What is needed to end mass incarceration and permanently eliminate racial caste in the United States?

What would a society without the need for prisons look like?

A. Some Facts about Race and Mass Incarceration

1. We imprison more people than any other country.

2. The U.S. has over 2.4 million behind bars, an increase of over 500% in the past thirty years

3. We have 5% of the world’s population; 25% of its prisoners

4. People of color represents 60% of people in cages

5. One in eight black men in their twenties are locked up on any given day

6. Lifetime likelihood of a white man being incarcerated: 1 in 17

7. Lifetime likelihood of a black man being incarcerated: 1 in 3

8. Black men are 6.5% of US population and 40.2% of incarcerated population

9. 75% of people in state prison for drug conviction are people of color although blacks and whites see and use drugs at roughly the same rate. In NYS, 94% of those imprisoned for a drug offense are people of color.

10. The number of drug offenders in state prison has increased thirteen-fold since 1980

11. 5.3 million Americans are denied their right to vote

12. Over the past two decades, state spending on prisons grew six times the spending of higher education.

Second Paper Topics

Due: Monday, November 11th

Length: 5 pages (min.)

Format: Argumentative, posing a thesis or question and offering sustained argument.

References: Use at least two sources from class and two outside sources.

Submit: Via email to justin@oursanctuary.org

1. Is there scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis of the reincarnation of human selves? Using documents from class, explain and evaluate the evidence and discuss the ramifications of this possible reality.

2. Do the activities of the CIA and the American Deep State contradict the belief that the US government is the leading edge of freedom and democracy? If not, in what sense are they consistent with that description?

3. The ethical principles of indigenous cultures, for example as described by Mohawk philosopher Clare Brant, reflect the different social and economic structures of traditional societies. How do these ethical principles rest on, and support these more traditional social and economic structures?

4. In her study of Ladakh, Helena Norberg Hodge argues that the root of all our key social and environmental problems is the global economy. Is she correct? If so, why? If not, why not? Explain and analyze her arguments.

5. What is Progress? In her study of Ladakh in Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that modern ideas about process and human happiness are actually making people less happy, and undermining the conditions which lead to living a peaceful and meaningful life. What is her argument and is she correct? If so, why? If not, why not? In your response, make use of Norberg-Hodge’s analysis.

6. Where does money come from, and why does it matter? Public banking, nationalizing America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as community currencies are all ways people are developing to restore the “Money Power” to democratic control. Make use of any of the documents posted on our blog to develop your paper. Other questions related to money that you can write on: Are we ethically-obligated to pay back our debts? Is there an essential systemic connection between monetary systems and violence? What is usury, and is it a sin?Is global debt peonage a justifiable result of monetary systems or an ethical abomination? Should commercial banks have the power to issue new money? Should the FED be nationalized? Should there be a global debt jubilee?

7. Are human societies becoming less violent or more violent? Explore and analyze the relevant arguments for and against, including Four Arrow’s article from our class discussion.

8. In her study of dominator systems and partnership societies, Riane Eisler draws a distinction between two kinds of hierarchy: hierarchies of power, and hierarchies of actualization. What is the relevant difference between these two structures and how does the distinction help us understand the solution to equality between genders and/or classes?

9. Does civilization inevitably bring with it social inequality, violence and domination?

10. Have men always dominated western culture? If not, what evidence suggests the contrary?

Are Neolithic figurines evidence of a fertility cult or do they have a deeper meaning for how we understand the possibilities for human culture?

11. What problems might be solved by adopting a new social guidance system based on partnership rather than domination?

12. Make up your own question but be sure to check it with me first.

Notes on the Philosophy of Evil, the Deep State and Political Assassinations

A. Evil as a Theological Problem

a. If Universe is a Spiritual Context (If God is Supreme - all good, all knowing, all powerful), why is there needless suffering?

Either 1: God is not supreme, or

2: Universe doesn’t care / no spiritual-moral reality, or

3: Suffering is purposive (related to reincarnation/Holographic Universe Theory)

B. Ponerology, the Study of Evil

a. Psychopathology - 1% of Americans who feel no empathy (banal)

b. Etheric Energy-Vampires, “demons” - neuro-psychic parasites (deep)

c. Concentration of Power - Self-reinforcing Dopamine loop based on fear/control

Andrew Lobaczewski's political ponerology which studies the influence of psychopathology on governments to create "pathocracies"

C. President Eisenhauer’s farewell warning about the “military-industrial complex”

§1. “We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

D. The Deep State

§2. “…another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”[Bill Moyers] Or, A loose (non-monolithic) network of financial(banking) organizations, intelligence agencies, powerful law firms, military leaders and political power-brokers who come together from time to time when their interests coalesce: the “military-intelligence-banking-energy complex” [my definition]

E. The CIA as a case study in the Evils of Centralized Power

§3. Creation of the CIA - President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through the NSC — there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties… as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." This loophole opens the door to covert action and dirty tricks;

§4. 1948 expansion of the mission to ‘covert actions’ - The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.”

F. CIA overthrowing governments since 1953

§5. The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism, conflating communism with nationalism or “resource nationalism;” i.e. nations having control over their own resources. Most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War. The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust.”

§6. 1953 Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

§7. 1954 Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

§8. 1973 Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.

§9. 2019 Venezuela - The plot to overthrow Nicolás Maduro is being publicly promoted as an opportunity to steal Venezuelan oil for the benefit of U.S. corporations. They’re not even pretending.

G. Was the assassination of JFK a Deep State Coup organized by the CIA?

§10. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th POTUS, assassinated on Nov. 22nd, 1963 in Dallas Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested 70 minutes after the event. At 11:21 a.m. November 24, 1963, as live television cameras were covering his transfer from the city jail to the county jail, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by Dallas nightclub operator by Jack Ruby, a known police informant. the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, that Oswald had acted entirely alone, and that Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald. A later investigation, the US House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that the injuries that Kennedy and Connally sustained were caused by Oswald's three rifle shots, but they also concluded that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.

§11. Evidence of CIA involvement with the assassination: CIA hatred of JFK connected to Bay of Pigs (1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962); Military Leadership hatred of JFK connected to Vietnam and Cuba policy of reconciliation; Lee Oswald’s suppressed background in US intelligence agencies; cover-up orchestrated at the highest levels of US government: autopsy tampering, the “Magic Bullet Theory,” ignoring of key witnesses, mysterious deaths of many key witnesses, over 100); Jim Garrison’s lawsuit against the CIA, successful lawsuit against E. Howard Hunt (legendary CIA assassin) incl. death bed confession remarks.

H. A false flag is a covert operation designed to deceive, an effective tool for persuading war-averse democratic nations to go to war. The deception creates the appearance of a particular party, group, or nation being responsible for some activity, disguising the actual source of responsibility. Other likely false flag operations: MLK assassination (April 1968), RFK assassination (June 1968), Malcolm X assassination (Feb 1965); Gulf of Tonkin Incident (Aug 1964); 9/11 Attacks (2001).

§12. Operation Northwoods (proposed 1962). The operation proposed creating public support for a war against Cuba by blaming it for terrorist acts that would actually be perpetrated by the CIA. To this end, Operation Northwoods proposals recommended hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. These documents, released due to pressure from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, debunk the idea that US intelligence agencies would never murder/bomb terrorize Americans or carry out false flag operations for political purposes.

I. 9/11 Grand Jury in the works, endorsed by Franklin Square and Munson Fire Department (Queens, NY)

§13. In spring 2018, the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry — together with more than a dozen 9/11 family members and with help from AE911Truth — filed a petition with the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan demanding that he present evidence of unprosecuted federal crimes at the World Trade Center to a special grand jury. Then, in November, came the big news: the US attorney responded in writing that he would comply with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3332 requiring him to relay their report to a special grand jury.

J. Truth and Reconciliation Committee calling for new investigation of 1960s political assassinations

Sixty prominent citizens (including Oliver Stone, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, David Crosby, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and MLK's nephew Isaac Newton Farris Jr. believe believes the assassinations of Malcolm X, JFK, RFK and MLK were the result of conspiracies [“extra-judicial” actions] that were directed, funded and covered up by the US intelligence agencies, not “the government.”

K. Notorious CIA programs

Operation PAPERCLIP – While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union.

Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.

Operation MK-ULTRA — Inspired by North Korea’s brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide. However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis, and other forms of suggestion.

Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 "Viet Cong.”

Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

The CIA and Drugs - Nicaragua and Afghanistan

“The CIA has a long history of being involved in global drug trade in all parts of the world under the control of the US or where it has considerable influence. While a few cases have been investigated and exposed by journalists, the issue continues to remain in the shadows… The CIA’s history began in the 1980s. Drugs were seen as the quickest and easiest way to earn money to fund CIA proxies and paramilitary forces that served them, in different countries. Gary Webb, the brave journalist who exposed the Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking scandal and was eventually driven to suicide by an extensive smear campaign by the mainstream media, described the process like this:

“We (CIA) need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t want to know anything about it.”

Monday, October 21, 2019

10/23 Introduction to Political Ponerology (Philosophy of Evil): The CIA, the Deep State & Political Assassinations

We are going to examine the concept of evil as the concentration of power by exploring aspects of the history of the CIA as a window into the American "Deep State." Please read the first two pieces below and, if you have time, listen to David Talbot explaining his book "The Devil's Chessboard." Of course if you have more time and interest, I've included more material below.

Texts for this class

1. Steve Kangas, "A Timeline of CIA Atrocities"
2. Nicholas Davies, "America's Coup Machine: Destroying Democracy Since 1953"
3. Interview with David Talbot discussing his book The Devil's Chessboard: Allan Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government.

Other recommended materials

4. Steve Kangas, "Origins of the Overclass"
5. Veterans Today: "The CIA continues trafficking drugs from Afganistan"
6. "Secret World of US Election": John Pilger Interview with Julian Assange
7. Corbett Report: "How the CIA Plants News Stories in the Media"
8. Famed JFK researcher Mark Lane discussing his book"Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK"
9. Edward Curtin, "The Government that Honors Dr. MLK with a National Holiday Killed Jim.

Evil as the Concentration of Power

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Great men are almost always bad men.”

- 19th century British politician Lord Acton

O, yes, I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath --

America will be!

- Langston Hughes

“The United States is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Deep State

…another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.

[http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ ]

A loose (non-monolithic) network of financial(banking) organizations, intelligence agencies, powerful law firms, military leaders and political powerbrokers who come together from time to time when their interests coalesce.

[my definition]

The CIA as a case study in the Evils of Centralized Power

Part I: The CIA Anti-democratic Playbook: How to murder a democracy

“CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow. This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.” [from http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html ]

Several infamous examples of CIA-orchestrated coups against democratically-elected governments.

(1953) Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

(1954) Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

(1961) Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.

(1973) Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.

Part II: Some notorious and well-documented CIA programs

Part IV: The CIA and Drugs - Nicaragua and Afghanistan

[From http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/06/04/the-cia-continues-trafficking-drugs-from-afghanistan/ ]

The CIA’s history began in the 1980s. Drugs were seen as the quickest and easiest way to earn money to fund CIA proxies and paramilitary forces that served them, in different countries. Gary Webb, the brave journalist who exposed the Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking scandal and was eventually driven to suicide by an extensive smear campaign by the mainstream media, described the process like this:

“We (CIA) need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t want to know anything about it.”

Read the original articles by Gary Webb HERE

[https://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm ] or watch the film Kill the Messenger

This tactic worked very successfully in Afghanistan during the Cold War when the Mujahideen forces serving the US were funded through drugs. Before the US invasion in 2001, the poppy fields were eradicated by the Taliban. Right after the US invasion, drug production began increasing drastically, and today Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opium, and on the verge of becoming a narco-state.

Notes on Public Banking, Debt Peonage and National Dividend Checks

Ellen Brown, "What's the Wizard of Oz got to do money reform?"

Examples of community credit systems
Ithaca Hours
Berkshares
Community Exchange System

Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin
Ripple

Notes on Public Banking, Debt Peonage and National Dividend Checks

A. Summary of argument that private banks create the public money supply from Ellen Brown:

§1. “Private bankers own mankind. You know they create money on a computer screen. Take their power away, but leave them the power to create money, and with the touch of a button they will create enough money to buy the earth back again.

You know that bankers create principal, but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out. This expands the money supply, increases prices, and robs you of the value of your money. Thus, private bankers ultimately rule through inflation, (ever-increasng debt) which makes you run faster and faster on a treadmill owned by the private bankers. Eventually you must drop.

You also know that the government does not create money (except for coins). The Federal Reserve creates money and lends it to us. Every dollar in your hand is a debt note to private bankers. And since we all use money, we all play with debt (negative capital) whether we like it or not. If we ended the private banking cartel, the federal debt could be paid, income taxes could be eliminated, and social programs could be expanded — all without imposing austerity measures or sparking runaway inflation. This is not utopian. It has been done many times in history, starting with ancient Rome.

The International Banker is like the Wizard of Oz, standing behind the curtain of policymakers and “elected” leaders. Behind the curtain is a little old man, playing with lights and loudspeakers.”

§2. In fact:! “Frank Baum wrote his Wizard of Oz books at the turn of the century, when the money question was still a hotly debated issue. His Oz books were an allegory for our tyrannical money system. Example: In the 1890s, the private bankers did not yet own all the media sources. Therefore everyone was concerned with how money should be created. Should the government create it with full accountability to the people — or should private banks create it in secret? After the Jekyl Island meeting in 1910, the latter option won. World War I and the Great Depression sealed the private banks’ power. We have been enslaved ever since.”

B. The Crazy 5,000 year history of debt peonage

“Debts that cannot be paid will not be paid. The only question is how they won’t be paid.” - Michael Hudson.

§3. “A study of the long sweep of history reveals a universal principle to be at work: The burden of debt tends to expand in an agrarian society to the point where it exceeds the ability of debtors to pay. That has been the major cause of economic polarization from antiquity to modern times. The basic principle that should guide economic policy is recognition that debts which can’t be paid, won’t be. The great political question is, how won’t they be paid? There are two ways not to pay debts. Our economic mainstream still believes that all debts must be paid, leaving them on the books to continue accruing interest and fees – and to let creditors foreclose when they do not receive the scheduled interest and amortization payment. This is what the U.S. President Obama did after the 2008 crisis. Homeowners, credit-card customers and other debtors had to start paying down the debts they had run up. About 10 million families lost their homes to foreclosure. Leaving the debt overhead in place meant stifling and polarizing the economy by transferring property from debtors to creditors. Today’s legal system is based on the Roman Empire’s legal philosophy upholding the sanctity of debt, not its cancellation. Instead of protecting debtors from losing their property and status, the main concern is with saving creditors from loss, as if this is a prerequisite for economic stability and growth. Moral blame is placed on debtors, as if their arrears are a personal choice rather than stemming from economic strains that compel them to run into debt simply to survive.”

§4. “Mainstream economic models leave this problem to “the invisible hand of the market,” assuming trends will self-correct over time. But while the market may indeed correct, it does so at the expense of the debtors, who become progressively poorer as the rich become richer. Borrowers go bankrupt and banks foreclose on the collateral, dispossessing the debtors of their homes and their livelihoods. The houses are bought by the rich at distress prices and are rented back at inflated prices to the debtors, who are then forced into wage peonage to survive. When the banks themselves go bankrupt, the government bails them out. Thus the market corrects, but not without government intervention. That intervention just comes at the end of the cycle to rescue the creditors, whose ability to buy politicians gives them the upper hand.”

C. Documented Periodic Debt Jubilees in the ancient Near East

§5. “Sumerian kings solved the problem of “peak debt” by periodically declaring “clean slates,” in which agrarian debts were forgiven and debtors were released from servitude to work as tenants on their own plots of land. The land belonged to the gods under the stewardship of the temple and the palace and could not be sold, but farmers and their families maintained leaseholds to it in perpetuity by providing a share of their crops, service in the military and labor in building communal infrastructure. In this way, their homes and livelihoods were preserved, an arrangement that was mutually beneficial, since the kings needed their service.” (Ibid.)

D. How do create a modern debt jubilee?

§6. “One possibility is to nationalize … banks and sell their bad loans to the central bank, which can buy them with money created on its books. The loans can then be written down or voided out. Precedent for this policy was established with “QE1,” the Fed’s first round of quantitative easing, in which it bought unmarketable mortgage-backed securities from banks with liquidity problems…. “Another possibility would be to use money generated by the central bank to bail out debtors directly. This could be done selectively, by buying up student debt or credit card debt or car loans bundled as “asset-backed securities,” then writing the debts down or off, for example. Alternatively, debts could be relieved collectively with a periodic national dividend or universal basic income paid to everyone, again drawn from the deep pocket of the central bank.” (Ibid.)

E. Won’t creating free money lead to inflation?

§7. “Critics will object that this would dangerously inflate the money supply and consumer prices, but that need not be the case. Today, virtually all money is created as bank debt, and it is extinguished when the debt is repaid. That means dividends used to pay this debt down would be extinguished, along with the debt itself, without adding to the money supply. For the 80% of the U.S. population now carrying debt, loan repayments from their national dividends could be made mandatory and automatic. The remaining 20% would be likely to save or invest the funds, so this money too would contribute little to consumer price inflation; and to the extent that it did go into the consumer market, it could help generate the demand needed to stimulate productivity and employment.” (Ibid.)

F. California Legislature Assembly Bill No. 857

§8. “It is the intent of the Legislature that this act authorize the lending of public credit to public banks and authorize public ownership of public banks for the purpose of achieving cost savings, strengthening local economies, supporting community economic development, and addressing infrastructure and housing needs for localities. It is the intent of the Legislature that public banks shall partner with local financial institutions, such as credit unions and local community banks, and shall not compete with local financial institutions.”This bill establishes “banks that hold the government’s money and include socially responsible charters, anticorruption clauses, transparency, a board that includes community development professionals, and prohibitions on retail locations and on competing with community banks and credit unions.”

Basic Problems of Philosophy