BRUCE LERRO—In Part I of my article, we began by distinguishing the social self from two forms of identity that are often confused with it: temperament and personality. The focus of part one is to show how very social (or even socialist) was the work of social psychologist George Herbert Mead. We discussed in detail the thirteen building blocks necessary for creating the social self. This self must construct both an objective and subjective identity. From here even by the age of eight the child must learn to navigate routine, mild-problematic and crisis situations. They do that by learning how to role-take and role-make.
CULTURE & HISTORY
-
-
THE BROADER VIEW: Why does the US support Israel? A geopolitical analysis with economist Michael Hudson
90 Mins readBEN NORTON—The United Nations has referred to Gaza as a “graveyard for children”. More than 4,000 children have been killed. About 40% of the casualties are children.
And the United States has continued to support Israel, not only diplomatically and politically, not only by, for instance, vetoing resolutions in the U.N. Security Council that call for a ceasefire, but furthermore, the U.S. has been sending billions of dollars to Israel. Not only the $3.8 billion that the U.S. always gives to Israel every year in military aid, but additionally, tens of billions of dollars more. So I am wondering if you could provide your analysis of why you think the U.S. is investing so many resources in supporting Israel while it is clearly committing war crimes.MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, certainly it is supporting Israel, but it’s not supporting Israel because this is an altruistic act. To the United States, Israel is its landed aircraft carrier in the Near East. Israel is the takeoff point for America to control the Near East.
-
MICHAEL HUDSON—Well, for many years I was at the center of the university that promoted modern monetary theory, the University of Missouri at Kansas City. And that was created with a contribution by Warren Mosler to bring the faculty there. So yes, I’m one of the original modern monetary theory faculty people….And the theory is that it’s not really a theory – it’s the description of how banking really works. And I guess the leaders outside of academia are Dick Cheney and Donald Trump. They said that deficits don’t matter, we can simply do what banks do. Just like when you go into a bank and you take out a loan, the bank doesn’t have to have any money in it. It will write you a loan and it will deposit money in your account. And so, the bank asset goes up by your deposit and your asset goes up by the deposit. The bank has a credit to you, the loan IOU that you signed at interest. And the debt, what it’s had to borrow the money from the Federal Reserve, or something. Banks create their own credit money…Governments can do the same thing. The government can print whatever it wants. In fact, every time there’s a war, like World War I, all the observers thought that World War I was going to end in six months because governments would run out of money. Well, they didn’t run out of money, they printed the money. Just like America printed greenbacks in the Civil War. And the people don’t have to borrow money at all.
-
THE BROADER VIEW: How Finance Capitalism Ruined the World
7 minutes readEDITOR—Dr. Michael Hudson is an American economist, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator and journalist. Dr. Steve Keen is an Australian economist and author. A post-Keynesian, he criticizes neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported. Our conversation examines the false dichotomy of capitalism v. socialism and considers the true dichotomy, which is industrial capitalism v. finance capitalism. Hudson and Keen argue that the transition to finance capitalism, where unearned income is considered economic growth, has truly sown the seeds to ruin the world. Tell us what you think in the comments!
-
The New York Intellectuals and the invention of Neoconservatism
41 minutes readDENIS BONEAU—Since 1945, American and British propaganda services have been recruiting intellectuals, usually from Trotskyite media, to invent and promote an “ideology capable of competing with communism”. The “New York Intellectuals”, headed by Sidney Hook, efficiently and zealously complied with several missions entrusted to them by the CIA, thus becoming first-class agents of the cultural Cold War. Key theoreticians of this movement, like James Burnham and Irving Kristol, devised the neoconservative rhetoric used nowadays by Washington “hawks” as their foundation.