Someone asked me a question about globalization and the ecosystem of globalization -- I argue that globalization as a new stage of capitalism (or an "epochal shift" in the terms of William Robinson et. al.) leads to a new ecosystem, in contrast to the ecological narrative of the "end of nature". How does such a viewpoint fit with the Malthusian idea of carrying capacity and crisis point? (For a bit more on population and environment, see this little paper: Human population and ecology)
Here was my response:
Re: Malthus and carrying capacity and crisis -- I think that Malthus is a political story and not a scientific one. Or hypothetical but simplistic, because the factors that contribute to carrying capacity are complex and political in the sense that carrying capacity has to do w/ historical/cultural factors and technology (which is political in the sense of what gets researched and deployed). So "crisis point" is not fixed but "depends."
One might argue that we are already at an ecological crisis point, having already exceeded carrying capacity as indicated by mortality from poverty-related causes (curable diseases, starvation, exposure, etc.) But this would be the carrying capacity of globalization-as-a-stage given the current advance of technology. Some other form of social organization might (I would hope) raise the carrying capacity, assuming some more rationale understanding of affluence, and accompanied by an intense research and development program of renewable energy sources.
I think the tendency in globalization is towards more artificial or managed environments that will continue to provide the conditions for the economy to stumble along. It won't be a particularly "wild" or "natural" environment (except maybe for areas reserved as private parks or ecotourist havens). There may be localized ecological crises, that even spill over their local boundaries, but they will be absorbed in the same way that localized economic crises are absorbed at the global level.
However, I don't think that globalization is the only choice available, in big historical terms, so hope springs eternal. Environmental questions quickly slip from the realm of science into the realm of politics.
Climate change is something else, and if the worst case scenarios, or close-to-worst case scenarios happen, all bets are off.
jd
Friday, May 26, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
More on emissions markets
Here are some links to more info on the carbon emissions markets (I lifted news and commentary ones from the Gristmill post and comments).
News:
Emissions-Trading Profits in Europe Plunge as Data Questioned (Bloomberg report)
EU gives green light to pollution hike (Times of London)
Data Leaks Shake Up Carbon Trade (New York Times)
Commentary:
EU carbon-trading market hullabaloo from Gristmill, the Grist online magazine blog
Emissions impossible from the Guardian
Question marks over EU CO2 trading scheme from EurActiv, includes a number of links for additional background info.
Background: These articles came out within the past two years, but include good analysis
Marketing and making carbon dumps: Commodification, calculation and counterfactuals in climate change mitigation A very good analysis by Larry Lohmann of The Corner House, appeared in Science as culture, September, 2005.
Climate fraud and carbon colonialism: The new trade in greenhouse gases by Heidi Bachram, appeared in Capitalism nature socialism December, 2004.
jd
News:
Emissions-Trading Profits in Europe Plunge as Data Questioned (Bloomberg report)
EU gives green light to pollution hike (Times of London)
Data Leaks Shake Up Carbon Trade (New York Times)
Commentary:
EU carbon-trading market hullabaloo from Gristmill, the Grist online magazine blog
Emissions impossible from the Guardian
Question marks over EU CO2 trading scheme from EurActiv, includes a number of links for additional background info.
Background: These articles came out within the past two years, but include good analysis
Marketing and making carbon dumps: Commodification, calculation and counterfactuals in climate change mitigation A very good analysis by Larry Lohmann of The Corner House, appeared in Science as culture, September, 2005.
Climate fraud and carbon colonialism: The new trade in greenhouse gases by Heidi Bachram, appeared in Capitalism nature socialism December, 2004.
jd
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Speculative capital and the environment, plus carbon markets
Here is a link to a draft of a paper I presented at the 2006 Global Studies Association here in Chicago. The paper is titled "Speculative capital and the ecosystem of globalization". It will undergo a significant re-write before I am done with it.
Related to this, the New York Times carried an article in Tuesday's paper (5/16/06) called "Data leaks shake up carbon trade" by Heather Timmons (I'm not sure how long that link will be good). It has been one year since the Kyoto protocol went into effect for the 163 signatory countries, and several European countries started leaking out their emissions numbers ahead of the May 15 release date. The initial numbers from France, Sweden and a few other countries were significantly below their allotted permits, meaning that those permits would be available for sale on the carbon market. This drove down the price of carbon permits from about 30 euros per metric ton of CO2 to a low of 9.40 Euros in a matter of days. But on May 15, prices doubled from the day's low to the day's high. (If you are curious about the carbon markets, check out the European Climate Exchange website, which has historical prices, and a good news section.)
It looks like European countries exaggerated their current emissions levels, used to create and allocate the permits. By exaggerating the baseline of pollution used to measure Kyoto reductions, national government's were cutting their local industries some slack. With a high baseline, industry has had to do little or nothing to meet reduction guidelines. Or maybe industries provided faulty numbers: "Governments have been cheated by the big industries, which gave them the wrong assumptions for their emissions," charged Stephen Singer of the World Wildlife Fund. Or possibly industry was on their way to reducing emissions anyway, through cleaner technology, and the Kyoto targets weren't set low enough.
The extreme volatility in the market has upset some traders as well, who taken by surprise by early release of data and data leaks.
The charge that baselines were faulty reinforces the idea that the Kyoto Protocol terms are a joke: open to fraud and deceit, and shooting for targets that will do little to reduce emissions or global warming. "So far, the permit market appears to have done more for the balance sheets of power companies than for pollution control," per the NYT article, since companies were granted the inflated number of permits, which they can turn around and sell on the open market. And the markets themselves, including the brokers, which make money as long as trading is taking place.
jd
Related to this, the New York Times carried an article in Tuesday's paper (5/16/06) called "Data leaks shake up carbon trade" by Heather Timmons (I'm not sure how long that link will be good). It has been one year since the Kyoto protocol went into effect for the 163 signatory countries, and several European countries started leaking out their emissions numbers ahead of the May 15 release date. The initial numbers from France, Sweden and a few other countries were significantly below their allotted permits, meaning that those permits would be available for sale on the carbon market. This drove down the price of carbon permits from about 30 euros per metric ton of CO2 to a low of 9.40 Euros in a matter of days. But on May 15, prices doubled from the day's low to the day's high. (If you are curious about the carbon markets, check out the European Climate Exchange website, which has historical prices, and a good news section.)
It looks like European countries exaggerated their current emissions levels, used to create and allocate the permits. By exaggerating the baseline of pollution used to measure Kyoto reductions, national government's were cutting their local industries some slack. With a high baseline, industry has had to do little or nothing to meet reduction guidelines. Or maybe industries provided faulty numbers: "Governments have been cheated by the big industries, which gave them the wrong assumptions for their emissions," charged Stephen Singer of the World Wildlife Fund. Or possibly industry was on their way to reducing emissions anyway, through cleaner technology, and the Kyoto targets weren't set low enough.
The extreme volatility in the market has upset some traders as well, who taken by surprise by early release of data and data leaks.
The charge that baselines were faulty reinforces the idea that the Kyoto Protocol terms are a joke: open to fraud and deceit, and shooting for targets that will do little to reduce emissions or global warming. "So far, the permit market appears to have done more for the balance sheets of power companies than for pollution control," per the NYT article, since companies were granted the inflated number of permits, which they can turn around and sell on the open market. And the markets themselves, including the brokers, which make money as long as trading is taking place.
jd
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Wired / environment
The cover story in the new Wired is titled "The Next Green Revolution". Author Alex Nikolai Steffen acknowledges that "green-minded activists" were right about the problem, but wrong because the solutions they offered people were "unappealing" since they called for sacrifice: turn down the heat, give up the car, eat less meat, etc. Now,
The inane naïveté of it all. "The industrial system we've devised" is the problem the article says. First, I'm not sure who "we" is in this case. The industrial system grew out of fossil fuel-powered technology operating within the law system of capitalism. Capitalism was, and is, driven by the maximization of profit, which has included the externalization of environmental costs. The result is an economic system that has plundered the planet and shat where it lives.
But now, capitalism as a system is faced with a dilemma. It cannot continue the process of accumulation -- that is, the making and selling of stuff to amass more profit -- without natural resources and healthy consumers. The environment is becoming an internal cost. As with every social crisis, the challenge for capitalism as a system, and its agents, like the "resurrected Al Gore" featured on the cover, is how to resolve the problem within the constraints of capitalism -- to turn lemons into lemonade.
The traditional solution proposed by the environmentalist movement has been the regulation of capital, going back to the early 1970s: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, etc. This inside the beltway strategy is failing now in the neoliberal political climate of zero government and market-based solutions. It was this three-step strategy (isolate an issue; design a technical fix; sell the technical fix to legislators) that Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus challenged in their "Death of Environmentalism" article, the failing strategy of working within existing economic and political structures. According to Shellenberger and Nordhaus, "modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis [climate change - jd]"; and "[w]hat the environmental movement needs more than anything else right now is to take a collective step back to rethink everything." The political climate has changed, in terms of how people get information, who they trust, how they act. The "left" and "progressives" must connect with people where they are, not where one wishes they were. The masterminds of the New Right capitalize on the general anxiety churned up by globalization, and package that into an anti-choice, anti-science, anti-human agenda. No effective vision has been articulated to counter it. Part of the problem for many "progressives" is that the solution to this problem cannot be found within the framework of capitalism, and rather than sink capitalism, they blunder on with blind and un-inspiring solutions.
As a result, the emerging solution for "neo-greens" is to see capitalism itself as the solution. Maybe private property and profit maximization and the market really can solve the environmental mess that it ... umm ... created.
Capitalism is a remarkably flexible and adaptable system. Some corporations are realizing that they must address things like climate change, because they also are on lifeboat Earth, and climate change is an objective, happening thing. They must confront environmental catastrophe if they are to continue as enterprises. Their solution is to make "green" an investment opportunity, to turn it into a site of accumulation, a place to make profits. British Petroleum looks for alternative energy sources because because "peak oil" may be a real thing, and ultimately, it doesn't matter what the source of the energy they package and sell is, as long as they package and sell it. If General Motors can make and sell cars that run on ethanol, why not? The manufacturers that make smokestack scrubbers for coal plants are a site of profitability, as will be some of the alternative energy companies that venture capital firms are now pumping money into. The Wilderhill Clean Energy Index, which tracks the stock prices of companies involved in the alternative energy business, has almost doubled in price in the past year. Speculative capital finds profit opportunities in carbon emissions trading and weather derivatives.
Looming behind "green capitalism" as the way out of the environmental crisis is the long-standing question of "is capitalism sustainable?" As James O'Connor pointed out in an essay that appears in his collection Natural causes: Essays in ecological Marxism, Guilford Press, 1998), "sustainable for whom?" Capitalism conceivably (maybe) could manufacture a franken-world ecosystem that sustains profit-maximization. It could create the conditions to sustain capitalism, and never address the polarization of wealth and the total immiseration of 3/5ths of the world's population.
Another concept of "sustainable" implies a system that sustains the non-human environment as well as the health and well-being of the human part of it, too. This can't be done within the context of capitalism. The polarization of wealth is an emergent property of capitalism. General Motors, no matter what color it is, green or otherwise, cannot help but destroy the lives of its workers and retirees -- that's what it (GM) does -- it maximizes profit for shareholders. Capitalism means alienation -- from production, from people, from nature. Everything (if not now, soon) is routed through the commodity relationship, the price tag and the toll.
An environmental movement that figures out a way to accommodate itself with globalization and capitalism may succeed in some narrow way, along some narrow issues. But it will ultimately fail in achieving a world that sustains the people on it in any meaningful way. And the environment also will be the poorer, in the same way that the "Rainforest Cafe" is not a rainforest (or Lincoln Park zoo an African savannah or a tree plantation a jungle, etc. etc.).
jd
With climate change hard upon us, a new green movement is taking shape, one that embraces environmentalism's concerns but rejects its worn-out answers. Technology can be a font of endlessly creative solutions. Business can be a vehicle for change. Prosperity can help us build the kind of world we want. Scientific exploration, innovative design, and cultural evolution are the most powerful tools we have. Entrepreneurial zeal and market forces, guided by sustainable policies, can propel the world into a bright green future.
The inane naïveté of it all. "The industrial system we've devised" is the problem the article says. First, I'm not sure who "we" is in this case. The industrial system grew out of fossil fuel-powered technology operating within the law system of capitalism. Capitalism was, and is, driven by the maximization of profit, which has included the externalization of environmental costs. The result is an economic system that has plundered the planet and shat where it lives.
But now, capitalism as a system is faced with a dilemma. It cannot continue the process of accumulation -- that is, the making and selling of stuff to amass more profit -- without natural resources and healthy consumers. The environment is becoming an internal cost. As with every social crisis, the challenge for capitalism as a system, and its agents, like the "resurrected Al Gore" featured on the cover, is how to resolve the problem within the constraints of capitalism -- to turn lemons into lemonade.
The traditional solution proposed by the environmentalist movement has been the regulation of capital, going back to the early 1970s: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, etc. This inside the beltway strategy is failing now in the neoliberal political climate of zero government and market-based solutions. It was this three-step strategy (isolate an issue; design a technical fix; sell the technical fix to legislators) that Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus challenged in their "Death of Environmentalism" article, the failing strategy of working within existing economic and political structures. According to Shellenberger and Nordhaus, "modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis [climate change - jd]"; and "[w]hat the environmental movement needs more than anything else right now is to take a collective step back to rethink everything." The political climate has changed, in terms of how people get information, who they trust, how they act. The "left" and "progressives" must connect with people where they are, not where one wishes they were. The masterminds of the New Right capitalize on the general anxiety churned up by globalization, and package that into an anti-choice, anti-science, anti-human agenda. No effective vision has been articulated to counter it. Part of the problem for many "progressives" is that the solution to this problem cannot be found within the framework of capitalism, and rather than sink capitalism, they blunder on with blind and un-inspiring solutions.
As a result, the emerging solution for "neo-greens" is to see capitalism itself as the solution. Maybe private property and profit maximization and the market really can solve the environmental mess that it ... umm ... created.
Capitalism is a remarkably flexible and adaptable system. Some corporations are realizing that they must address things like climate change, because they also are on lifeboat Earth, and climate change is an objective, happening thing. They must confront environmental catastrophe if they are to continue as enterprises. Their solution is to make "green" an investment opportunity, to turn it into a site of accumulation, a place to make profits. British Petroleum looks for alternative energy sources because because "peak oil" may be a real thing, and ultimately, it doesn't matter what the source of the energy they package and sell is, as long as they package and sell it. If General Motors can make and sell cars that run on ethanol, why not? The manufacturers that make smokestack scrubbers for coal plants are a site of profitability, as will be some of the alternative energy companies that venture capital firms are now pumping money into. The Wilderhill Clean Energy Index, which tracks the stock prices of companies involved in the alternative energy business, has almost doubled in price in the past year. Speculative capital finds profit opportunities in carbon emissions trading and weather derivatives.
Looming behind "green capitalism" as the way out of the environmental crisis is the long-standing question of "is capitalism sustainable?" As James O'Connor pointed out in an essay that appears in his collection Natural causes: Essays in ecological Marxism, Guilford Press, 1998), "sustainable for whom?" Capitalism conceivably (maybe) could manufacture a franken-world ecosystem that sustains profit-maximization. It could create the conditions to sustain capitalism, and never address the polarization of wealth and the total immiseration of 3/5ths of the world's population.
Another concept of "sustainable" implies a system that sustains the non-human environment as well as the health and well-being of the human part of it, too. This can't be done within the context of capitalism. The polarization of wealth is an emergent property of capitalism. General Motors, no matter what color it is, green or otherwise, cannot help but destroy the lives of its workers and retirees -- that's what it (GM) does -- it maximizes profit for shareholders. Capitalism means alienation -- from production, from people, from nature. Everything (if not now, soon) is routed through the commodity relationship, the price tag and the toll.
An environmental movement that figures out a way to accommodate itself with globalization and capitalism may succeed in some narrow way, along some narrow issues. But it will ultimately fail in achieving a world that sustains the people on it in any meaningful way. And the environment also will be the poorer, in the same way that the "Rainforest Cafe" is not a rainforest (or Lincoln Park zoo an African savannah or a tree plantation a jungle, etc. etc.).
jd
Friday, April 14, 2006
Faster computers and speculative capital
Today's (4/14/06) Wall Street Journal reports more evidence of the connection between speculative capital and electronics. An article titled "Supercomputers Speed Up Game" by Edward Taylor, Aaron Lucchetti and Alistair Macdonald reports on how faster computers are contributing the swelling of automated stock trades and consolidation among the world's stock exchanges.
The use of computers in trading of course is nothing new. In fact, modern speculative capital (post-Bretton Woods, started with the advent of money markets) only exists because of networked computers. But the march of technology -- faster, smaller, cheaper -- continually changes the game. The trend allows smaller players into the game:
Nasser Saber, in his excellent and unique book Speculative Capital described how speculative capital tends to more and faster trades to take advantage of increasingly smaller price differences in different markets or (what amounts to the same thing) different derivative configurations, the practice called arbitrage. Proteom, mentioned above, exploits differences in the S&P 500 Index and the individual stocks that make up the index (if I am reading the article correctly):
Testifying as the importance in electronics in this practice:
The technology has also reduced trading transaction costs, make more trades financially feasible. The article cites the growth in transaction volume at many exchanges, as well as the growth in the share prices of the exchanges themselves.
Of course, one good turn deserves another, driving the process forward: "'There is an arms race [among exchanges] to be the fastest,' says Steve Swanson, president of brokerage firm Automated Trading Desk LLC."
Here's a link to a paper I did on speculative capital.
jd
The use of computers in trading of course is nothing new. In fact, modern speculative capital (post-Bretton Woods, started with the advent of money markets) only exists because of networked computers. But the march of technology -- faster, smaller, cheaper -- continually changes the game. The trend allows smaller players into the game:
Buyers and sellers have been matching up electronically since the 1980s. But an increase in computer capacity readily available to even small hedge funds -- investment pools for institutional investors and wealthy individuals -- has changed the game. "With four people and 50 computers that have the power roughly equivalent to a Cray supercomputer, we can achieve what someone else would need one trader and 100 analysts to accomplish," says Jonathan Kinlay, chief executive of Proteom Capital Management Ltd., a Bermuda-based hedge fund with about $100 million under management.
Nasser Saber, in his excellent and unique book Speculative Capital described how speculative capital tends to more and faster trades to take advantage of increasingly smaller price differences in different markets or (what amounts to the same thing) different derivative configurations, the practice called arbitrage. Proteom, mentioned above, exploits differences in the S&P 500 Index and the individual stocks that make up the index (if I am reading the article correctly):
Proteom uses computers to execute complex trading strategies based mainly on stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and their tendency to rise or fall sharply and quickly, a measure known as volatility.
Testifying as the importance in electronics in this practice:
"This business could not have existed 10 years ago [because] the computational power was not available," Mr. Kinlay adds. "The execution of a trade, the analysis of the live data, the updating of databases and the construction of portfolios of stocks are all automated."
The technology has also reduced trading transaction costs, make more trades financially feasible. The article cites the growth in transaction volume at many exchanges, as well as the growth in the share prices of the exchanges themselves.
Of course, one good turn deserves another, driving the process forward: "'There is an arms race [among exchanges] to be the fastest,' says Steve Swanson, president of brokerage firm Automated Trading Desk LLC."
Here's a link to a paper I did on speculative capital.
jd
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Global Studies Association conference 2006
The Global Studies Association will be having its North American conference on May 12-14, 2006 at DePaul University in Chicago. The theme of this year's conference is "Alternative globalizations". The International Studies Program at DePaul is co-sponsoring the conference.
For more information see the conference web site.
jd
For more information see the conference web site.
jd
Monday, April 10, 2006
Draft of a project idea
The world is in a bad [okay, need to clarify] state. An effective effort to change this state requires an accurate assessment of the problem. While current responses have been very creative organizationally [network form], the response has suffered from a theoretical poverty [in terms of fundamental processes at work, nature of process, where we are in the process]. The absence of a clear, coherent understanding of historical roots and current state has resulted in a scattered and generally ineffective response.
"Globalization" as a total umbrella of current period.
Confusion over what "globalization" is. Is it something different? If not, old strategies and tactics should work. Is it something new? Then new strategies and tactics are required.
If it is something new, what is it?
The answer to this last question should determine the political response.
-- globalization as something distinct is in dispute
-- idea of stages seems to be in some dispute
-- [proceed on assumption that there are stages] determining an appropriate political response requires an accurate assessment of current stage. If globalization is a distinct stage, it requires a distinct political response.
Research will explore concept of globalization as a stage, by exploring one aspect of globalization -- speculative capital -- and its relationship to the environment.
-- capital is a social relation -- describes a particular kind of relationship between people in act of production/reproduction.
-- through production and reproduction, this relationship extends to the environment as foundation of economy; also source of well-being (reproduction)
Look at three contemporary financial structures.
First, examine these structures
(a) in terms of infrastructure necessary to make them possible
(b) in terms of demands, needs, opportunities that make them possible
Are these structures possible under other conditions? Or, if there are historical precedents, how are they the same, and how different, if at all? So could they arise in their current form under other conditions, or are they specific to current conditions? If they cannot arise under other conditions, then they are evidence of something distinctive about Capital today [part of a general category I call speculative capital] and therefore globalization [which is capitalism today].
[Use Carolyn Merchant's "ecological revolutions" as a framework, although will need to fill out areas where I think that it is lacking. use other environmental historians, e.g. William Cronon. Basic concept is that changes in mode of production (although will need to break this into smalled chunks, to look at at level of stages of capitalism) result in different ecologies]
Second, examine the financial structures
(a) in terms of property ownership
(b) connection between immediate participants [investors mainly] and the environment; agents of the participants and the environment.
What are the features of these relationships to the environment? [These relationships are mediated throug property relations.] Are these relations to Nature the same as in the past? If they are similar, in what ways? If not, how are they different? If the relationships are different, that is, they describe a different ecology, how do we characterize it based on the cases? [Or, to use "ecology" in a more traditional or narrow way, how are the ecosystems different?]
If the relationships are different, they are evidence again of something distinctive about capital today.
jd
"Globalization" as a total umbrella of current period.
Confusion over what "globalization" is. Is it something different? If not, old strategies and tactics should work. Is it something new? Then new strategies and tactics are required.
If it is something new, what is it?
The answer to this last question should determine the political response.
-- globalization as something distinct is in dispute
-- idea of stages seems to be in some dispute
-- [proceed on assumption that there are stages] determining an appropriate political response requires an accurate assessment of current stage. If globalization is a distinct stage, it requires a distinct political response.
Research will explore concept of globalization as a stage, by exploring one aspect of globalization -- speculative capital -- and its relationship to the environment.
-- capital is a social relation -- describes a particular kind of relationship between people in act of production/reproduction.
-- through production and reproduction, this relationship extends to the environment as foundation of economy; also source of well-being (reproduction)
Look at three contemporary financial structures.
First, examine these structures
(a) in terms of infrastructure necessary to make them possible
(b) in terms of demands, needs, opportunities that make them possible
Are these structures possible under other conditions? Or, if there are historical precedents, how are they the same, and how different, if at all? So could they arise in their current form under other conditions, or are they specific to current conditions? If they cannot arise under other conditions, then they are evidence of something distinctive about Capital today [part of a general category I call speculative capital] and therefore globalization [which is capitalism today].
[Use Carolyn Merchant's "ecological revolutions" as a framework, although will need to fill out areas where I think that it is lacking. use other environmental historians, e.g. William Cronon. Basic concept is that changes in mode of production (although will need to break this into smalled chunks, to look at at level of stages of capitalism) result in different ecologies]
Second, examine the financial structures
(a) in terms of property ownership
(b) connection between immediate participants [investors mainly] and the environment; agents of the participants and the environment.
What are the features of these relationships to the environment? [These relationships are mediated throug property relations.] Are these relations to Nature the same as in the past? If they are similar, in what ways? If not, how are they different? If the relationships are different, that is, they describe a different ecology, how do we characterize it based on the cases? [Or, to use "ecology" in a more traditional or narrow way, how are the ecosystems different?]
If the relationships are different, they are evidence again of something distinctive about capital today.
jd
Friday, March 24, 2006
P2P Foundation
Here are some links to The Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives resources:
The P2P Wiki includes sections of the foundation itself (background, statement of purpose, links); topics and projects; and various P2P resources.
The P2P Foundation blog.
The P2P Foundation newsletter.
jd
The P2P Wiki includes sections of the foundation itself (background, statement of purpose, links); topics and projects; and various P2P resources.
The P2P Foundation blog.
The P2P Foundation newsletter.
jd
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Claypool-Stroger race follow-up
A brief follow-up on yesterday's post -- Forrest Claypool conceded the Cook County Board of Commissioners president race to John Stroger yesterday afternoon when it became clear that, even with many ballots still uncounted, there was no way that Claypool could win.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Claypool acknowledged the strength of the south and westside black vote in re-electing Stroger, even though it is unlikely that Stroger, bedridden with a stroke and with possible paralysis and brain damage, will be able to actually continue to serve as board president. Per the Sun-Times, "If Stroger can't make it, the county's 80 Democratic committeemen will pick the new nominee. And it is those ward bosses, Claypool said, who led Stroger to victory."
In another wrinkle on Chicago machine politics, according to the Sun-Times:
jd
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Claypool acknowledged the strength of the south and westside black vote in re-electing Stroger, even though it is unlikely that Stroger, bedridden with a stroke and with possible paralysis and brain damage, will be able to actually continue to serve as board president. Per the Sun-Times, "If Stroger can't make it, the county's 80 Democratic committeemen will pick the new nominee. And it is those ward bosses, Claypool said, who led Stroger to victory."
In another wrinkle on Chicago machine politics, according to the Sun-Times:
Should Stroger be unable to run the $3 billion county government through 2010, it is expected that a candidate from Chicago's African-American community would be selected to fill his spot... Mayor Daley and other elected officials are expected to press for a black candidate so as not to antagonize black voters before next year's mayoral primary.
jd
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Claypool-Stroger race
I did a little bit of work on the Forrest Claypool campaign for Cook County (Illinois) board president. Chicago is in Cook County; Cook County is the second largest county by population in the U.S. (after Los Angeles). The board president is the chief executive of a $3 billion county government. The county commission board president also automatically chairs the Cook County Forest Preserve District board, which controls over 10% of county land set aside as natural and recreational space.
Cook County voters went to the polls yesterday (3/21) to vote in the Democratic Party primary, of which the most controversial contest was for the county board president seat. John Stroger, the incumbent was challenged by a county commissioner, Forrest Claypool, seen as a reformer. The race has indeed been close -- as of this writing, the Cook County Board of Elections suspended vote counting last night, with about 15 percent of the precincts uncounted. Stroger has a few percentage point lead.
I have been trying to what the race means. My initial interest in the race was because of the Forest Preserve. The preserve covers some 68,000 acres of woods, rivers, prairie, lakes, trails, soccer and football fields and picnic areas. The preserve forms a green belt around Chicago. The preserve is a wonderful resource, endangered by neglect and mismanagement, and in need of defense and protection. The forest preserve was the reason I got involved in the Sierra Club's work on the Claypool campaign.
Historically, the preserve has been a Democratic Party patronage job dumping ground, one of the resources that the machine could use to sustain its army of ward bosses, committeemen and precinct captains. In a writeup I did on the Forest Preserve, I commented that the old machine system worked, more or less, in an era of expanding U.S. economic power. In spite of the waste and corruption, the machine was able to deliver services. But in the environment of globalization and its program of neoliberalism, the foundation of the machine system has been undermined. While the machine tries to operate as normal, the revenues are not there to both grease the machine and deliver services, and services suffer as a result. The Forest Preserve is a case in point, as a damning study by the public interest group Friends of the Forest Preserve describes in dismal detail. The Cook County hospital system and juvenile justice system also stand out as failures. Claypool made these failures regular themes of his campaign to unseat Stroger.
The Claypool-Stroger race expresses a deep political fracture. John Stroger, 76 years old, represents the old Chicago Democratic Party machine. Stroger started working with the southside Democratic Party in 1953 -- before the first Mayor Daley was elected. Claypool represents a different kind of Democrat, a kind of professional manager Democrat who has promised to "reform" county government. As reported in the New York Times, "'What's at stake here is shifting the balance of power from the regular Democrats,' said John P. Pelissero, a political science professor at Loyola University Chicago. 'Cook County sort of represents the last bastion of the old guard of Chicago politics and where they've hunkered down.'" ("A Stroke Adds to Uncertainty in Illinois Race", 3/18/06). It is unlikely that Stroger, a diabetic and cancer-survivor who suffered a stroke last week and has been bedridden since, will be able to run in the November election. In Cook County it is a forgone conclusion that the Democratic candidate will win, so the real battle is who the Democratic Party will run for any seat. If Stroger wins the primary, and as expected, drops out of the race, 80 Democratic Party committeemen -- the control mechanism of the political machine -- will decide who will be on the party ticket in November. The race is really one between Claypool and the machine.
While the function of the party machine is to keep itself in power, it does this by delivering votes for the Democratic Party. Stroger's power comes from the fact that he can deliver southside votes for Democrats. Elected party positions city-wide, county-wide, state-level and up are beholden to his power. (One irony is that the machine at the same time has a chokehold on the black voters of Chicago, not really representing their interests, but at the same time preventing any significant political response.) The Chicago vote is a vital resource for the Democratic Party in Illinois and nationally, so the party leadership by and large came out to support Stroger. Former president Bill Clinton recorded a radio spot for Stroger. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin endorsed Stroger in the final days of the campaign. Mayor Daley endorsed Stroger. From private conversations though, the support is not as solid as it appears. With no love lost between them and Stroger, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Senator Barack Obama had their apparatuses help Claypool behind the scenes. Mayor Daley may face a significant challenge in his 2007 re-election bid; he will need Stroger's support. So he lukewarmly endorsed Stroger, although refused to attack his former chief-of-staff Claypool. Other important Daley supporters like Rep. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod supported Claypool.
This struggle within the Party represents a deeper shift though. As the Chicago Tribune pointed out in its editorial endorsing Claypool, "correcting all that is wrong demands new and aggressive stewardship in an era when Washington and Springfield cannot bankroll Cook County's slipshod ways... It's been easier for Stroger to complain that Washington and Springfield don't send him enough dollars. The time of easy money from Somewhere Else is over." (Chicago Tribune, 2/19/06). The old school solution is more tax money; Claypool acknowledges and accepts the new neoliberal climate of starved public sector.
Claypool has promised no tax increases to pay for cleaning up the current county mess. As head of the Chicago Park District under the second Mayor Daley, Claypool undertook a program of privatizing Park District functions, as well as professionalizing staff and re-organizing the district to try and break it out of the patronage system and push more decision-making to the individual park managers. He achieved some success and recognition in cleaning up the parks and revitalizing them. Claypool's work was part of a broader challenge to save Chicago from industrial, Detroitesque oblivion and transform it into "Global Chicago":
In this light, Claypool is the candidate of globalization writ in the fine print of local politics. He represents the kind of candidate that Democrats need, as a party of globalized Capital, to take up the flag of a kinder and gentler neoliberalism. The "no help from Washington or Springfield" is part of the broader fallout of globalization: polarization of wealth, privatization ("contracting out") of public services, the contingentization of work, unleashing the market etc. etc. Claypool is a candidate to make government work -- to make globalization work -- within these accepted new parameters. The Democratic Party's dilemma is that it wants the kind of guarantees that the Stroger machine can deliver, but at the same time needs to re-cast itself in the mold of candidates like Claypool.
Unions supported Stroger because of the jobs Claypool eliminated while at the park district. For the most part, Chicago city unions seem to be hopelessly wandering into the future gazing longingly in their rear-view mirror. Here is a problem of half-measures and false choices. Assuming that the Chicago Park District was better off for Claypool's changes, one has to ask, how is this possible? Why didn't the unions ensure that the parks were clean, beautiful and served the people of Chicago? How is it that fewer and better-trained staff, privatized services, and distribution of management responsibility can deliver better services? One possible answer is that there is nothing holy about unions -- trade unions historically have been an apparatus of worker control, not worker liberation. This is not to say that organizing is hopeless, or not desirable. We have been at this crossroads for some time. How do we have a revolution in the trade union movement so they become organizations of liberation, where members desire to serve not "the public" but their community? And likewise, a revolution in every organization that presents a false choice of old programs and tactics versus worse choices? In the Claypool-Stroger campaign, the false choice is between the old machine where the incentive is the patronage job, versus neo-liberalism, where the incentive is a shrinking paycheck and the terror of unemeployment. A real choice would be where the incentive is joy -- the joy of service without fear no food, no house, no heat, no health care, no education.
In another light, Claypool is an agent of creative destruction -- the clearing the blockage of sclerotic machine politics that mires any hope of change in the muck of graft and patronage. Claypool is the candidate of network politics, the atomization of politics into temporary intersections of interests, of technocratic meritocracy, a dismantler and clearer-away and fixer-upper. And in this light, Claypool is an agent of a kind of progress. The old system cannot be sustained; it is collapsing under its own top-heavy weight. So how will the collapse be managed, to what final end? If Claypool wins, and pushes forward his program, some political space will be opened up for greater maneuvering and more creative and humane solutions. I think.
Whether the process can be fought to its conclusion is to be determined.
jd
Cook County voters went to the polls yesterday (3/21) to vote in the Democratic Party primary, of which the most controversial contest was for the county board president seat. John Stroger, the incumbent was challenged by a county commissioner, Forrest Claypool, seen as a reformer. The race has indeed been close -- as of this writing, the Cook County Board of Elections suspended vote counting last night, with about 15 percent of the precincts uncounted. Stroger has a few percentage point lead.
I have been trying to what the race means. My initial interest in the race was because of the Forest Preserve. The preserve covers some 68,000 acres of woods, rivers, prairie, lakes, trails, soccer and football fields and picnic areas. The preserve forms a green belt around Chicago. The preserve is a wonderful resource, endangered by neglect and mismanagement, and in need of defense and protection. The forest preserve was the reason I got involved in the Sierra Club's work on the Claypool campaign.
Historically, the preserve has been a Democratic Party patronage job dumping ground, one of the resources that the machine could use to sustain its army of ward bosses, committeemen and precinct captains. In a writeup I did on the Forest Preserve, I commented that the old machine system worked, more or less, in an era of expanding U.S. economic power. In spite of the waste and corruption, the machine was able to deliver services. But in the environment of globalization and its program of neoliberalism, the foundation of the machine system has been undermined. While the machine tries to operate as normal, the revenues are not there to both grease the machine and deliver services, and services suffer as a result. The Forest Preserve is a case in point, as a damning study by the public interest group Friends of the Forest Preserve describes in dismal detail. The Cook County hospital system and juvenile justice system also stand out as failures. Claypool made these failures regular themes of his campaign to unseat Stroger.
The Claypool-Stroger race expresses a deep political fracture. John Stroger, 76 years old, represents the old Chicago Democratic Party machine. Stroger started working with the southside Democratic Party in 1953 -- before the first Mayor Daley was elected. Claypool represents a different kind of Democrat, a kind of professional manager Democrat who has promised to "reform" county government. As reported in the New York Times, "'What's at stake here is shifting the balance of power from the regular Democrats,' said John P. Pelissero, a political science professor at Loyola University Chicago. 'Cook County sort of represents the last bastion of the old guard of Chicago politics and where they've hunkered down.'" ("A Stroke Adds to Uncertainty in Illinois Race", 3/18/06). It is unlikely that Stroger, a diabetic and cancer-survivor who suffered a stroke last week and has been bedridden since, will be able to run in the November election. In Cook County it is a forgone conclusion that the Democratic candidate will win, so the real battle is who the Democratic Party will run for any seat. If Stroger wins the primary, and as expected, drops out of the race, 80 Democratic Party committeemen -- the control mechanism of the political machine -- will decide who will be on the party ticket in November. The race is really one between Claypool and the machine.
While the function of the party machine is to keep itself in power, it does this by delivering votes for the Democratic Party. Stroger's power comes from the fact that he can deliver southside votes for Democrats. Elected party positions city-wide, county-wide, state-level and up are beholden to his power. (One irony is that the machine at the same time has a chokehold on the black voters of Chicago, not really representing their interests, but at the same time preventing any significant political response.) The Chicago vote is a vital resource for the Democratic Party in Illinois and nationally, so the party leadership by and large came out to support Stroger. Former president Bill Clinton recorded a radio spot for Stroger. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin endorsed Stroger in the final days of the campaign. Mayor Daley endorsed Stroger. From private conversations though, the support is not as solid as it appears. With no love lost between them and Stroger, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Senator Barack Obama had their apparatuses help Claypool behind the scenes. Mayor Daley may face a significant challenge in his 2007 re-election bid; he will need Stroger's support. So he lukewarmly endorsed Stroger, although refused to attack his former chief-of-staff Claypool. Other important Daley supporters like Rep. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod supported Claypool.
This struggle within the Party represents a deeper shift though. As the Chicago Tribune pointed out in its editorial endorsing Claypool, "correcting all that is wrong demands new and aggressive stewardship in an era when Washington and Springfield cannot bankroll Cook County's slipshod ways... It's been easier for Stroger to complain that Washington and Springfield don't send him enough dollars. The time of easy money from Somewhere Else is over." (Chicago Tribune, 2/19/06). The old school solution is more tax money; Claypool acknowledges and accepts the new neoliberal climate of starved public sector.
Claypool has promised no tax increases to pay for cleaning up the current county mess. As head of the Chicago Park District under the second Mayor Daley, Claypool undertook a program of privatizing Park District functions, as well as professionalizing staff and re-organizing the district to try and break it out of the patronage system and push more decision-making to the individual park managers. He achieved some success and recognition in cleaning up the parks and revitalizing them. Claypool's work was part of a broader challenge to save Chicago from industrial, Detroitesque oblivion and transform it into "Global Chicago":
Other arms of city government are delivering impressively on the civic campaign to give Chicago the amenities and services it needs to compete in the global arena. The park district, once a patronage pit, has become a professional service that has literally greened the city.
...
Daley persuaded the state legislature to give him control over the park district in 1993 and the school system in 1995. He created a corporate style of management in each, with a board and a chief executive, and appointed two of his best managers, Forrest Claypool at the park district and Paul Vallas at the school system. Neither had experience in their new areas, but both were former city hall officials with good track records and, more important, good relations with the mayor.
...
Both agencies underwent a thorough turnover in top management, with Claypool and Vallas hiring top staff with strong personal loyalties to the two executives. They quickly erased the two systems' budget deficits, partially through downsizing, efficient management, and contracting out. Between 1993 and 1997, Claypool cut the park district's total staff by 27 percent, from 4,938 persons to 3,577... The park district increased its spending on two core functions, recreation and landscaping, from 14 percent to 29 percent of its budget. (Richard Longworth, "The Political City" in Global Chicago edited by Charles Madigan, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, p. 80)
In this light, Claypool is the candidate of globalization writ in the fine print of local politics. He represents the kind of candidate that Democrats need, as a party of globalized Capital, to take up the flag of a kinder and gentler neoliberalism. The "no help from Washington or Springfield" is part of the broader fallout of globalization: polarization of wealth, privatization ("contracting out") of public services, the contingentization of work, unleashing the market etc. etc. Claypool is a candidate to make government work -- to make globalization work -- within these accepted new parameters. The Democratic Party's dilemma is that it wants the kind of guarantees that the Stroger machine can deliver, but at the same time needs to re-cast itself in the mold of candidates like Claypool.
Unions supported Stroger because of the jobs Claypool eliminated while at the park district. For the most part, Chicago city unions seem to be hopelessly wandering into the future gazing longingly in their rear-view mirror. Here is a problem of half-measures and false choices. Assuming that the Chicago Park District was better off for Claypool's changes, one has to ask, how is this possible? Why didn't the unions ensure that the parks were clean, beautiful and served the people of Chicago? How is it that fewer and better-trained staff, privatized services, and distribution of management responsibility can deliver better services? One possible answer is that there is nothing holy about unions -- trade unions historically have been an apparatus of worker control, not worker liberation. This is not to say that organizing is hopeless, or not desirable. We have been at this crossroads for some time. How do we have a revolution in the trade union movement so they become organizations of liberation, where members desire to serve not "the public" but their community? And likewise, a revolution in every organization that presents a false choice of old programs and tactics versus worse choices? In the Claypool-Stroger campaign, the false choice is between the old machine where the incentive is the patronage job, versus neo-liberalism, where the incentive is a shrinking paycheck and the terror of unemeployment. A real choice would be where the incentive is joy -- the joy of service without fear no food, no house, no heat, no health care, no education.
In another light, Claypool is an agent of creative destruction -- the clearing the blockage of sclerotic machine politics that mires any hope of change in the muck of graft and patronage. Claypool is the candidate of network politics, the atomization of politics into temporary intersections of interests, of technocratic meritocracy, a dismantler and clearer-away and fixer-upper. And in this light, Claypool is an agent of a kind of progress. The old system cannot be sustained; it is collapsing under its own top-heavy weight. So how will the collapse be managed, to what final end? If Claypool wins, and pushes forward his program, some political space will be opened up for greater maneuvering and more creative and humane solutions. I think.
Whether the process can be fought to its conclusion is to be determined.
jd
Monday, March 13, 2006
Complexity and Goethean science
From Daniel Wahl's "Zarte Empirie: Goethean Science as a Way of Knowledge" (Janus Head 8(1), 2005):
It is in the process-orientated understanding of the relationship between the whole and the parts that Goethean science and complexity theory meet. Both sciences understand the cyclical rather than linear causality that makes the part and the whole depend on each other in the symbiotic relationships of co-evolution. Both Goethean science and complexity theory are holistic sciences as they conceive wholes as being more than the sum of their parts. Both are paying attention to the interactions and dynamics of the whole and focus more on quality than quantity.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Cook County Forest Preserve + Enviro fantasy
A couple more short papers on my website:
The Cook County Forest Preserve - somewhat timely in that the primary for Cook County board president (who also is president of the Forest Preserve District board) is coming up March 21, 2006.
Green Town - an environmental fantasy about Chicago.
jd
The Cook County Forest Preserve - somewhat timely in that the primary for Cook County board president (who also is president of the Forest Preserve District board) is coming up March 21, 2006.
Green Town - an environmental fantasy about Chicago.
jd
Monday, January 30, 2006
Papers on environmental issues
Here are links to some papers I did for an environmental issues course:
Biodiversity
Capitalism as an environmental issue
Human population and ecology
jd
Biodiversity
Capitalism as an environmental issue
Human population and ecology
jd
Monday, January 23, 2006
Broken promises
"Yet as governments prepare for the 2005 UN summit, the overall report card on progress makes for depressing reading. Most countries are off track for most of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals]. Human development is faltering in some key areas, and already deep inequalities are widening. Various diplomatic formulations and polite terminology can be found to describe the divergence between progress on human development and the ambition set out in the Millennium Declaration. None of them should be allowed to obscure a simple truth: the promise to the world’s poor is being broken."
From the overview to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2005
From the overview to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2005
Friday, January 20, 2006
Things to do in Mazatlan
Three things to do in Mazatlan:
1. Mountain-biking with Fernando Kelly. Fernando sells and rents bikes from Kelly's Bicycle Shop, Av. Camaron Sabalo #214 Local 16. He has built some very nice trails in the hills to the east of Mazatlan, and does a guided tour for 275 pesos. Email kellybikeshop@hotmail.com.
2. Kayak to Isla de Pájaros. Ocean kayaks -- the unsinakable plastic ones -- rent for US$10/hour. There's a rental place on the beach outside of the Pueblo Bonito hotel, towards the north end of Camaron Sabalo. It's maybe a kilometer across the strait.
3. Hike to top of Isla de Venados. There's an operation just south El Cid Castilla Beach Hotel that will take you over to the island for about $10 and pick you up at a pre-arranged time later. Once on the island head south from the beach and find the trailhead towards the top. I'm not sure if you can get to the very top (I couldn't find a path), but you can get pretty close. Don't forget to take water with you on the hike. When I went they sent a jet ski to pick me up. Take a plastic bag with you to collect trash.
jd
1. Mountain-biking with Fernando Kelly. Fernando sells and rents bikes from Kelly's Bicycle Shop, Av. Camaron Sabalo #214 Local 16. He has built some very nice trails in the hills to the east of Mazatlan, and does a guided tour for 275 pesos. Email kellybikeshop@hotmail.com.
2. Kayak to Isla de Pájaros. Ocean kayaks -- the unsinakable plastic ones -- rent for US$10/hour. There's a rental place on the beach outside of the Pueblo Bonito hotel, towards the north end of Camaron Sabalo. It's maybe a kilometer across the strait.
3. Hike to top of Isla de Venados. There's an operation just south El Cid Castilla Beach Hotel that will take you over to the island for about $10 and pick you up at a pre-arranged time later. Once on the island head south from the beach and find the trailhead towards the top. I'm not sure if you can get to the very top (I couldn't find a path), but you can get pretty close. Don't forget to take water with you on the hike. When I went they sent a jet ski to pick me up. Take a plastic bag with you to collect trash.
jd
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Good science
Apropos to yesterday's post on the practice of science, the problems in Dr. Hwang Woo Suk's stem cell research came to light after questions were raised by young Korean scientists online. Per an article by Nicholas Wade in the Dec. 16, 2005 New York Times, "Although the new disclosures are being presented as a blow to Korean science, they can also be seen as a triumph for a cadre of well-trained young Koreans for whom it became almost a pastime to turn up one flaw after another in his work. All or almost all the criticisms that eventually brought him down were first posted on Web sites used by young Korean scientists."
The Korean news website OhMyNews selected the Korean scientists as "Netizens of the Year" to acknowledge "the role played by the online scientific community in South Korea to support honest and collaborative scientific research." The article points out that as a result of South Korea's investment in broadband technology "broad-ranging access to the Internet in South Korea has helped to make possible this scientific discussion and commentary, it is the netizens of the scientific community who have demonstrated a new form of scientific review appropriate for the 21st century."
jd
[See also Rhonda Hauben's post "Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online" on the Telepolis website. I came across the above via her post to nettime-l.]
The Korean news website OhMyNews selected the Korean scientists as "Netizens of the Year" to acknowledge "the role played by the online scientific community in South Korea to support honest and collaborative scientific research." The article points out that as a result of South Korea's investment in broadband technology "broad-ranging access to the Internet in South Korea has helped to make possible this scientific discussion and commentary, it is the netizens of the scientific community who have demonstrated a new form of scientific review appropriate for the 21st century."
jd
[See also Rhonda Hauben's post "Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online" on the Telepolis website. I came across the above via her post to nettime-l.]
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Good science, bad science
In his wonderful essay "The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object," Goethe described science as springing from "a desire to view Nature's objects in their own right and in relation to one another." Botanists, for example, "must find the measure for what they learn, the data for judgment, not in themselves, but in the sphere of what they observe."
He describes his method:
Applying this method to understanding the "hidden relationships in nature" can be especially difficult, requiring an open mind and a devotion to the phenomena under observation. For Goethe, the experiment -- "intentionally reproducing empirical evidence" or "recreating phenomena" -- was the most effective means of systematically discovering the hidden relationships. The single experiment is of limited value; only a carefully studied sequence of experiments can reveal a true nature.
As pattern-recognizing and pattern-organizing beings ("a tendency altogether understandable since it springs by necessity from the organization of our being") we especially run the risk of the false conclusion:
The interconnection of the universe, that "each phenomenon is connected with countless others", requires investigating each piece of empirical evidence. "We can never be careful enough in studying what lies next to it or derives directly from it. To follow every single experiment through its variations is the real task of scientific researchers." Goethe counterposed this kind of thoroughness, akin to constructing an unassailable mathematical proof, to the suspect method of attempting to prove an assertion by "using isolated experiments like arguments", which often "reaches its conclusions furtively or leaves them completely in doubt."
The elevating honesty of Goethe's approach to science contrasts starkly with recent stories of fabricated data (in the case of the Dr. Hwang Woo-suk's stem cell and cloning work). But even more distressing is questionable research paid for by corporations via consulting firms, to affect public policy around toxic chemicals they dump in the environment.
The Wall Street Journal has been running a series called "New Questions about Old Chemicals". In the 12/28/05 issue, Peter Waldman writes about a conference to evaluate current research on perchlorate, a chemical used in munitions production that can block the thyroid's ability to absorb iodine.
Another article ("Study Tied Pollutant to Cancer; Then Consultants Got Hold of It", 12/23/05) describes how a consulting firm hired by PG&E re-wrote a key Chinese study on the effects of chromium in ground water, suggesting that it may not have been the cause of higher cancer rates. The revised study then took on a life of its own and has been used to support maintaining high acceptable levels of the pollutant.
Science, as any social practice, exists within a matrix of social relations, and in that sense can be considered a class-partisan activity. As with ideology, a ruling class produces science that supports its class position. It does this through the levers of ideology, property and money. Ideology shapes world view, morals, assumptions, etc., much like what Goethe warned against above. Property sets boundaries and obstacles. Money directs research opportunities. "Working class science" or "new class science" would start from a different ideology, have different notions of property, and a different sense of priorities. One could argue that "working class science" can be as dishonest as "capitalist science", and hence impede the overall expansion of knowledge, but the dishonesty works along different vectors.
Goethe elsewhere categorized scientists into four types, based on the kinds of questions they ask. "Utilizers" seek practical results; "fact-finders" seek knowledge for its own sake; "contemplators" apply imagination to interpret the fact-finder knowledge. "Comprehenders" for Goethe can also be considered "creators"; they are "original in the highest sense of the term. By proceeding from ideas, they simultaneously express the unity of the whole."
In Goethe's writings, the practice of science can be seen as a kind of spiritual pursuit, also reflected in his essay on the experiment. Capitalism, though, keeps science constrained at the level of the "utilizer", with the practical results dictated by Capital. The elevation of humanity, the full-flowering of potential, cannot be realized under such constraints.
jd
[All Goethe quotes are from Jeremy Naydler's little anthology Goethe on Science, Floris Books; the essay can also be found in Goethe: Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp Publishers (1988) or Princeton University Press (1995), edited and translated by Douglas Miller.]
He describes his method:
We may look at an object in its own context and the context of other objects, while refraining from any immediate response of desire or dislike. The calm exercise of our powers of attention will quickly lead us to a rather clear concept of the object, its parts, and its relationships, the more we pursue this study, discovering further relations among things, the more we will exercise our innate gift of observation.
Applying this method to understanding the "hidden relationships in nature" can be especially difficult, requiring an open mind and a devotion to the phenomena under observation. For Goethe, the experiment -- "intentionally reproducing empirical evidence" or "recreating phenomena" -- was the most effective means of systematically discovering the hidden relationships. The single experiment is of limited value; only a carefully studied sequence of experiments can reveal a true nature.
As pattern-recognizing and pattern-organizing beings ("a tendency altogether understandable since it springs by necessity from the organization of our being") we especially run the risk of the false conclusion:
Thus we can never be too careful in our efforts to avoid drawing hasty conclusions from experiments or using them directly as proof to bear out some theory. For here at this pass, this transition from empirical evidence to judgment, cognition to application, all the inner enemies of humanity lie in wait: imagination, which sweeps us away on its wings before we know our feet have left the ground; impatience; haste' self-satisfaction; rigidity; formalistic thought; prejudice; ease; frivolity; fickleness -- this whole throng and its retinue. Here they lie in ambush and surprise not only the active observer but also the contemplative one who appears safe from all passion.
The interconnection of the universe, that "each phenomenon is connected with countless others", requires investigating each piece of empirical evidence. "We can never be careful enough in studying what lies next to it or derives directly from it. To follow every single experiment through its variations is the real task of scientific researchers." Goethe counterposed this kind of thoroughness, akin to constructing an unassailable mathematical proof, to the suspect method of attempting to prove an assertion by "using isolated experiments like arguments", which often "reaches its conclusions furtively or leaves them completely in doubt."
The elevating honesty of Goethe's approach to science contrasts starkly with recent stories of fabricated data (in the case of the Dr. Hwang Woo-suk's stem cell and cloning work). But even more distressing is questionable research paid for by corporations via consulting firms, to affect public policy around toxic chemicals they dump in the environment.
The Wall Street Journal has been running a series called "New Questions about Old Chemicals". In the 12/28/05 issue, Peter Waldman writes about a conference to evaluate current research on perchlorate, a chemical used in munitions production that can block the thyroid's ability to absorb iodine.
The host was the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The aim was "a critical and objective evaluation" of research on the chemical, a university official later said. But while the university lent its imprimatur and thus credibility to the event, the symposium was paid for by defense contractors and the Pentagon and orchestrated by industry consultants, who kept evidence of their own role to a minimum.
Afterward, the Pentagon dispatched six conference participants to present the event's conclusions to a National Research Council panel that was evaluating perchlorate for the U.S. government.
Intertox Inc., a consulting firm that advises defense contractors, billed them about $75,000 for organizing the September 2003 event, an invoice shows. University documents show that Intertox chose the format and agenda and selected the experts who would appear.
Another article ("Study Tied Pollutant to Cancer; Then Consultants Got Hold of It", 12/23/05) describes how a consulting firm hired by PG&E re-wrote a key Chinese study on the effects of chromium in ground water, suggesting that it may not have been the cause of higher cancer rates. The revised study then took on a life of its own and has been used to support maintaining high acceptable levels of the pollutant.
Science, as any social practice, exists within a matrix of social relations, and in that sense can be considered a class-partisan activity. As with ideology, a ruling class produces science that supports its class position. It does this through the levers of ideology, property and money. Ideology shapes world view, morals, assumptions, etc., much like what Goethe warned against above. Property sets boundaries and obstacles. Money directs research opportunities. "Working class science" or "new class science" would start from a different ideology, have different notions of property, and a different sense of priorities. One could argue that "working class science" can be as dishonest as "capitalist science", and hence impede the overall expansion of knowledge, but the dishonesty works along different vectors.
Goethe elsewhere categorized scientists into four types, based on the kinds of questions they ask. "Utilizers" seek practical results; "fact-finders" seek knowledge for its own sake; "contemplators" apply imagination to interpret the fact-finder knowledge. "Comprehenders" for Goethe can also be considered "creators"; they are "original in the highest sense of the term. By proceeding from ideas, they simultaneously express the unity of the whole."
In Goethe's writings, the practice of science can be seen as a kind of spiritual pursuit, also reflected in his essay on the experiment. Capitalism, though, keeps science constrained at the level of the "utilizer", with the practical results dictated by Capital. The elevation of humanity, the full-flowering of potential, cannot be realized under such constraints.
jd
[All Goethe quotes are from Jeremy Naydler's little anthology Goethe on Science, Floris Books; the essay can also be found in Goethe: Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp Publishers (1988) or Princeton University Press (1995), edited and translated by Douglas Miller.]
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Blue Team followup
As a follow-up to yesterday's post on the Millennium Challenge 2002 war games: Gen. William F. Kernan and Maj. Gen. Dean W. Cash discuss Millennium Challenge's Lessons Learned - "A discussion on lessons learned from the joint integrating experiment Millennium Challenge 2002" held a several weeks after the games concluded (9/17/02). Some of Van Riper's criticisms had been made public at that point, and the war game organizers comment on them. The games were both "exercise" and "experiment", and held under unnatural constraints. In an experiment, rolling back the clock and re-running portions is legitimate.
jd
jd
Monday, December 26, 2005
Red Team Blue Team
The 2002 "Millennium Challenge" war games highlight two very different approaches to the network form and its application to warfare. The 2002 games were the ones that were halted after Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper's "Red Team" (the "enemy") surprised and overwhelmed the high tech, information-intensive "Blue Team". Van Riper was assigned to head the armed forces of Red Team, in the game a rogue, anti-American Persian Gulf leader. The Defense Department intended to test how new technologies could lift the "fog of war" and overwhelm a lower-tech enemy.
Van Riper, however, understood the technology of Blue Team, and its weaknesses. Blue Team expected to eavesdrop on Red Team's communications, so Van Riper used motorcycle couriers. Blue Team expected to pick up Red Team air traffic communication, so Van Riper used World War II-era light signals to communicate. Van Riper knew that Blue Team had a preemptive-strike doctrine, so he launched a surprise swarming attack on Blue Team's fleet, sinking half of their ships. The Blue Team disaster prompted the Department of Defense game planners to re-start the games with new rules, and Blue Team subsequently won. (For an interview with Van Riper and more on the "force transformation" debate in the military, see the links in an earlier blog post.
The Millennium Challenge fiasco is one of many anecdotes in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005, Little Brown) that explores "intuitive" thinking. The brain carries out various decision-making processes that lie outside of conscious, analytical thought processes. Gladwell reviews how intuitive thinking takes place, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to cultivate it.
The Blue Team planned for total information awareness of the battlefield, which could be analyzed to determine the best course of action. Van Riper holds that battlefield chaos is an inevitable part of warfare, and on the ground, the fog of war cannot be lifted. For him, it was more important to have commanders who could function within the chaos of the battle, without being tethered to, and slowed down by, the decision-making cycle (information collection, analysis, decision) at headquarters.
Gladwell quotes Van Riper: "The first thing I told our staff is that we would be in command and out of control. By that I mean that the overall guidance and the intent were provided by me and the senior leadership, but the forces in the field wouldn't depend on intricate orders coming from the top. They were to use their own initiative and be innovative as they went forward." (118)
This of course is a classic description of the "network form", after Arquilla and Ronfeldt. The network is bound together by a common vision and doctrine, and the nodes are free to implement the vision as appropriate. But such a form cannot just happen. As Gladwell writes, "How good people's decisions are under the fast moving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal." (114)
But Blue Team's approach is also described as network-centric warfare. The high-bandwidth communication network allows for more effective collection and dispersal of information, better coordination of units, and in theory, a shorter decision-making cycle. Through better information technology, the deployment of resources can be more effective. Can both network forms be right?
Van Riper says that both analytical thinking and the intuitive thinking (or "rapid-fire cognition") have their place. The analysis phase though takes place before the battle. Once the trouble starts, too much information becomes a burden, and slows down decision-making. "I can understand how all the concepts that Blue was using translate into planning for an engagement. But does it make a difference in the moment? I don't believe it does. When we talk about analytic versus intuitive decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance." (141)
Van Riper's decentralized approach still requires the aggregation of information being collected by the nodes. But the aggregation process can be overwhelmed easily by too much information. "Once hostilities began, Van Riper was careful not to overload his team with irrelevant information. Meetings were brief. Communication between headquarters and the commanders on the field was limited. He wanted to create an environment where rapid cognition was possible. Blue Team, meanwhile, was gorging on information." (143)
An analytical approach to aggregation slows down as more information is available to be analyzed. As the tempo of the moment picks up, the intuitive approach -- guided by intent and sharpened by practice, practice, practice -- becomes the more effective approach.
jd
Van Riper, however, understood the technology of Blue Team, and its weaknesses. Blue Team expected to eavesdrop on Red Team's communications, so Van Riper used motorcycle couriers. Blue Team expected to pick up Red Team air traffic communication, so Van Riper used World War II-era light signals to communicate. Van Riper knew that Blue Team had a preemptive-strike doctrine, so he launched a surprise swarming attack on Blue Team's fleet, sinking half of their ships. The Blue Team disaster prompted the Department of Defense game planners to re-start the games with new rules, and Blue Team subsequently won. (For an interview with Van Riper and more on the "force transformation" debate in the military, see the links in an earlier blog post.
The Millennium Challenge fiasco is one of many anecdotes in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005, Little Brown) that explores "intuitive" thinking. The brain carries out various decision-making processes that lie outside of conscious, analytical thought processes. Gladwell reviews how intuitive thinking takes place, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to cultivate it.
The Blue Team planned for total information awareness of the battlefield, which could be analyzed to determine the best course of action. Van Riper holds that battlefield chaos is an inevitable part of warfare, and on the ground, the fog of war cannot be lifted. For him, it was more important to have commanders who could function within the chaos of the battle, without being tethered to, and slowed down by, the decision-making cycle (information collection, analysis, decision) at headquarters.
Gladwell quotes Van Riper: "The first thing I told our staff is that we would be in command and out of control. By that I mean that the overall guidance and the intent were provided by me and the senior leadership, but the forces in the field wouldn't depend on intricate orders coming from the top. They were to use their own initiative and be innovative as they went forward." (118)
This of course is a classic description of the "network form", after Arquilla and Ronfeldt. The network is bound together by a common vision and doctrine, and the nodes are free to implement the vision as appropriate. But such a form cannot just happen. As Gladwell writes, "How good people's decisions are under the fast moving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal." (114)
But Blue Team's approach is also described as network-centric warfare. The high-bandwidth communication network allows for more effective collection and dispersal of information, better coordination of units, and in theory, a shorter decision-making cycle. Through better information technology, the deployment of resources can be more effective. Can both network forms be right?
Van Riper says that both analytical thinking and the intuitive thinking (or "rapid-fire cognition") have their place. The analysis phase though takes place before the battle. Once the trouble starts, too much information becomes a burden, and slows down decision-making. "I can understand how all the concepts that Blue was using translate into planning for an engagement. But does it make a difference in the moment? I don't believe it does. When we talk about analytic versus intuitive decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance." (141)
Van Riper's decentralized approach still requires the aggregation of information being collected by the nodes. But the aggregation process can be overwhelmed easily by too much information. "Once hostilities began, Van Riper was careful not to overload his team with irrelevant information. Meetings were brief. Communication between headquarters and the commanders on the field was limited. He wanted to create an environment where rapid cognition was possible. Blue Team, meanwhile, was gorging on information." (143)
An analytical approach to aggregation slows down as more information is available to be analyzed. As the tempo of the moment picks up, the intuitive approach -- guided by intent and sharpened by practice, practice, practice -- becomes the more effective approach.
jd
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Interpenetrating nets
One of the simplest constructions in projective geometery is to start with a line (the "horizon line"), and mark three arbitrary points on it. Draw a line through each of the points, such that the three lines now mark a triangle (i.e. for this exercise they can't be parallel). All further lines are then drawn from any of the three points through a point intersected by the other two lines. By continuing to draw lines, a network of hexagons emerges on the plane.
The three initial points constrain, or determine, all of the nodes and connections for the network. "Move any or all of the three original points into any of the infinite number of positions on the horizon line," Olive Whicher writes in her introductory text Projective Geometry: Creative Polarities in Space and Time, "and the network will always arise, each time with a different form and measure." One can see other forms in the resulting pattern. As Whicher describes, "The network is like a matrix in which other interpenetrating nets are to be seen."
In this deceptively simple model, nodes (intersection points) and connections (lines) are shared by different networks. Each network grows out of the same initial determinants (the points on the horizon line). Each network though has its own set of rules for adding lines -- its own law system as it were. The steps above create hexagons, but within the pattern quadrangles can be seen; the quadrangles are completed by adding the missing diagonal. Curiously, the missing diagonal for all of the quadrangles drawn from the same three starting points will pass through the horizon line at the same fourth point.
There is some insight in there -- that phenomena as processes of interconnected, interacting nodes ordered by some lawfulness, have multiple dimensions, and these dimensions interpenetrate. Something like that?
jd
The three initial points constrain, or determine, all of the nodes and connections for the network. "Move any or all of the three original points into any of the infinite number of positions on the horizon line," Olive Whicher writes in her introductory text Projective Geometry: Creative Polarities in Space and Time, "and the network will always arise, each time with a different form and measure." One can see other forms in the resulting pattern. As Whicher describes, "The network is like a matrix in which other interpenetrating nets are to be seen."
In this deceptively simple model, nodes (intersection points) and connections (lines) are shared by different networks. Each network grows out of the same initial determinants (the points on the horizon line). Each network though has its own set of rules for adding lines -- its own law system as it were. The steps above create hexagons, but within the pattern quadrangles can be seen; the quadrangles are completed by adding the missing diagonal. Curiously, the missing diagonal for all of the quadrangles drawn from the same three starting points will pass through the horizon line at the same fourth point.
There is some insight in there -- that phenomena as processes of interconnected, interacting nodes ordered by some lawfulness, have multiple dimensions, and these dimensions interpenetrate. Something like that?
jd
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
