Plutocrats Need to Decide the Future they Want for Themselves and the World in the 21st century

The lead article in this month's Atlantic by Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times "The Rise of the New Ruling Class: How the Global Elite is Leaving You Behind" does not offer much in the way of new information about our increasingly isolated and entitled plutocratic class. We have known for a while that the economic meltdown was in part caused by a group of very well educated would be masters of the universe who newly equipped with turbo charged technology tools with money and access to the world's most powerful politicians, journalists and academics. That is why the global meltdown took everyone so much by surprise --I mean everyone! You knew that right? And why the deal that was arranged between the White House, the Congress, the Fed and Wall Street that bailed out the wrong doers was so quickly worked out away from the media spotlight.

What is new and interesting are the details--the quotes from the entitled that reconfirm that they feel victimized by having to pay a few percentage points more for their already grandiose lifestyles and their belief that it was the greed and ignorance of those who got locked into sub-prime mortgages and credit card debt that caused the meltdown. What is disturbing is that some of those most out of touch have working class origins--for example Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is the son of a Brooklyn post office worker and Tony Hayward the disgraced Shell CEO has also blue collar roots. They all share along with their Russian plutocratic cousins a barely concealed sense of entitlement to not just modest rewards for a job well done but gargantuan ones. One of Freeland's informants comments about the change since the 1980s and 90s when “where there were men in their 30s and 40s making $2 and $3 million a year, and that was disgusting. But then you had the Internet age, and then globalization, and you had people in their 30s, through hedge funds and Goldman Sachs partner jobs, who were making $20, $30, $40 million a year. And there were a lot of them doing it. I think people making $5 million to $10 million definitely don’t think they are making enough money.” The executives featured in the article know the streets of Davos and Aspen where the rich and the famous gather with the rest of the global elite for their annual conferences better than their own neighborhoods. Many of them are as one CEO describes himself-"global nomads open to many perspectives." One of the perspectives is that the US is overpriced and that US businesses if they are going to be successful must "internationalize aggressively"--meaning they have to locate their businesses closer to their customers and that relatively high priced US workers must either take a pay cut
or demonstrate their superior value. One of the CEOs believe that if the price of three or four people in India or China to be lifted out of poverty is for a member of the US middle class to drop their living standards (read unemployed) then the price can be justified. It would be nice to believe they were saying these things because they genuinely wanted to help relieve poverty in Asia but it is doubtful. The real intention seems to be to want to bring the price of labor down everywhere so that profits can be more easily extracted. This maybe what Lloyd Blankfein was referring in his arrogant way to "doing God's work" when he tried to placate public outrage about his role and the role of brokerages like Goldman Sachs during the recent financial meltdown. If they truly believe that the world is better off with their version of global capitalism it would be great to subject these ideas to public debate, but as is so often the case these issues are never properly discussed except among their elite politician friends for whom they raise tremendous amounts of money for. Could we at least expect the media to ask the hard questions of our policymakers now that the public is beginning to discover the unfairness issue. Perhaps they could begin with the simple proposition that if we are to become in the US ten times more productive to successfully compete overseas and justify our more than subsistence level compensation--can the plutocrats give a little more back in taxes to create the kind educational and training opportunities for those most vulnerable to unemployment?

The problem in all this is even in a supercharged competitive global environment the oligarchs who bebenefited so richly from globalization seem blissfully unaware of the need to engage around these political and moral issues. Instead they seem to want more and more rewards for their efforts. It would not be so bad if the Wall Street world they inhabit bore any real relationship to the rest of the economy but like the Tulip crazes of a time ago the derivative markets in particular more closely resemble the casino hall as numerous other commentators have pointed out than they do a stock market. As Freeland remarks, "This plutocratic fantasy is, of course, just that: no matter how smart and innovative and industrious the super-elite may be, they can’t exist without the wider community. Even setting aside the financial bailouts recently supplied by the governments of the world, the rich need the rest of us as workers, clients, and consumers." Politicians and the media have sometimes indulged these fantasies and pretended otherwise glamorizing their outsized life styles and party-going in return for favors large and small. Freeland well the consequences of a world where the media and political elite mingle with plutocrats in meetings like Davos and a score of prestigious think tank events. How these gatherings tend to reinforce each others sense of huge privilege and entitlement. No wonder so many of them are prone to foot in the mouth "let them eat cake" type statements that will eventually in this new age of austerity force a political backlash that will begin a new round of protectionism. As Freeland points out that while "plutocrats’ opposition to increases in their taxes and tighter regulation of their economic activities is understandable, it is also a mistake. The real threat facing the super-elite, at home and abroad, isn’t modestly higher taxes, but rather the possibility that inchoate public rage could cohere into a more concrete populist agenda—that, for instance, middle-class Americans could conclude that the world economy isn’t working for them and decide that protectionism or truly punitive taxation is preferable to incremental measures such as the eventual repeal of the upper-bracket Bush tax cuts." It will be interesting to watch as the next decade unfolds how far this new global class are prepared to push the extremes. Do they really want to live lives ensconced within high security skyscrapers with their own helipads overlooking the slums where their fellow men and women eke out their daily living--is this what they regard as success in the 21st century? In case you don't believe this type of behavior is possible --take a closer look at the photograph at the top of this blog--it is the 27 storey "home" that Indian Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, that according to one report is "believed to be the most expensive home in the world" ….Located in Mumbai it overlooks the sprawling slums, and as well as a Cinema, Swimming Pools it has you guessed it a helicopter pad...maybe for a quick escape?

Uncomfortable Truths--The Price of Our Electronic Gadgets Just Got Higher

Increasingly, it is apparent in our ecologically sensitive age that there are two prices for everything we buy--the price we pay in the store and the price we pay for the damage to the planet that is caused in the production of the product. There is a teachable opportunity here that could reinforce some hard to take lessons about the cruelty that sometimes provides the bedrock for the comfort and convenience our products provide us. Take the humble cell phone--most of us have no idea how they work and much less about what the materials are needed to manufacture them. Did you know the product includes the mineral, tantalum, which allows the phone to preserve its memory even when the battery dies. So here is what you need to know about tantalum--it is mined in the Congo under cruel conditions that finance rebel groups. According to Elizabeth Flock in the Washington Post"Over the past decade, more than 5 million people have died, and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the struggle for power, according to the Raise Hope for Congo campaign. While the Congolese government has expressed interest in tackling the multimillion-dollar trade in minerals, the involvement of its own troops has led critics to question their efforts."

The Enough Campaign in the US has successfully lobbied for some actions--now the US has required in the recent Wall Street Reform bill for companies to disclose the origins of the minerals used in their products. 'The plan is that just naming and shaming will ratchet up the pressure, and in turn these companies will lean on the smelting operations that supply the minerals they use.' The state is too weak to control the outright criminality but we as consumers have a duty to find out what companies are doing about the problem. Only consumer awareness and threats of boycotts of those companies that are not moving fast enough to seek alternatives will be effective. The Raise Hope for Congo Campaign is a good start to get started. Consumers have the power to make the changes here as Margaret Bunting points out in her excellent column on the topic in The Guardian, the Congo situation is an instance "of how globalisation generates ungovernable spaces. Where there is a collision of desperate poverty, plentiful guns and a world greedy for natural resources, a brutal chaos results. To combat that, it takes a very tenacious sort of global campaigning – bringing to attention each element of the system and the part it can play in leveraging change – and mercifully, that is what is now finally starting to happen."

Lets hope but it all begins by becoming more globally aware of our lifestyle and its costs.

More Effort Needed to Understand the Struggle of Young People for Cultural and National Identity and Acceptance

with WINGS and ROOTS - Trailer from Christina Antonakos-Wallace on Vimeo.

Reviewing this trailer soon to be documentary( with WINGS and ROOTS by Christina Antonakos-Wallace)--reminded me of the way we still remain largely ignorant of the issues confronting young people who are faced with the confusing messages societies in Europe and the US provide on issue of cultural and national identity. In the US through the mechanism of the "Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act" DREAM Act we seemed to have come near to recognizing our ethical responsibility to at least grant the children of illegal immigrants who graduate from US high schools, a pathway to citizenship. The legislation would allow such a pathway if such students served either two years in the military or two years at a four year institution of higher learning." That limited pathway to citizenship was rejected by the US Senate on December 18 2009.

We all need to understand not just the plight of the children of illegal immigrants but also the mixed messages that various nations sends to immigrants. Viewing documentaries such as With Roots and Wings can help to see that most countries have struggled with the need to separate a country's identity from an ethnic one and to assist more people to view their allegiance to country in non racial terms.

What Next for Russia as Thousands of Right Wing Nationalists Come out in Strength?

I am not sure what to make of this but only with a few notable exceptions, the mainstream US media continues to ignore some disturbing signs that Russia is hurtling rightward.  Maybe it was all about not upsetting support for the new START treaty which the US Senate was about to ratify with Russia before they headed out for their Xmas vacation. Who knows.   I could find some reporting on the issue in the Washington Post and but for more in depth coverage I had to turn to the excellent reporting from the UK's  Financial Times(FT)  In brief, if you have not been following the story, --Russia has seen this fall the largest ethnic riots since the fall of the Soviet Union and they seemed to have reached a crescendo this last two weeks. According to the FT, " On December 11, about 6,000 protesters showed they were capable of "bringing their

fight to the government’s doorstep – rioting on Manezh Square, underneath the Kremlin’s spires, and openly defying the Russian leadership" The reason for the discontent? The perception that Russia is being overrun by a tide of illegal immigration. While the Russian leadership has sought to play down the rioting by attempting to link it to European wide discontent regarding immigration policies at a time of high unemployment, there are some differences between what is happening in Russia and the rest of the world that bear investigation. In particular the FT points out that "Russian

ultra-nationalism..is a phenomenon created not without the Kremlin’s help..Mr Putin’s Kremlin has used nationalism as a force for political consolidation during his decade in power. His speeches and state news broadcasts have sewn distrust of foreigners and a belligerent form of patriotism, and he has cloaked himself in some of the symbols of imperial Russia. But Mr Putin’s 2000-08 presidency also saw the creation of pro-Kremlin youth movements such as Nashi, which have, in turn, recruited football hooligans to their ranks as part of what is known as “managed nationalism” in political circles."

       The violence seems vaguely reminiscent of the Russian pograms from which members of my family sought to escape two generations ago. This time instead of Jews being killed and maimed it is people of darker skin. As the Washington Post reports, "hundreds and sometimes thousands of furious young men have been gathering around Moscow and other cities, shouting nationalist slogans, making fascist salutes and beating up darker-skinned people who appear to be from the Caucasus or Central Asia. A man from Central Asia was stabbed to death in the southern part of Moscow by a group of about 15 young people Sunday night or Monday morning, police reported. "  Now having nurtured the tide of right wing thuggery the Putin government is faced with having to deal with the monster they created, leading one Russian expert to suggest that Russia is heading in the same direction politically as many of the Arab states where right wing protest like Islamic extremism is the only vent for frustration within a regime that tamps down every other kind of political expression. Who knows where this is leading but probably not some place good. Are we in for a repetition of the tragic turn European history took in the 20th century. We cannot rule out Russia taking some unexpected turns as economic uncertainty, fear and and irresponsible political leaders without a progressive vision for governing have few scruples about scapegoating ethnic minorities for political gain.  Meanwhile we also hear from Washington Post's  David Ignatius that Putin seeks to escape some of the pressures of events by building himself a billion dollar play house on the Black Sea. Ignatius tells us that while still under construction it has the amenities of a small city and built from "a combination of corruption, bribery and theft." Plutarch and Shakespeare would have a field day making clear how brutality and decadence can live together inside  one deeply flawed leader and allow the audience to understand how this can lead to tragic results. We all need to start paying more attention to all of this--because we have all seen this movie before and we cannot allow it to happen again.

To Be Believable You Need to Provide Solutions, Not Just Deliver More Bad News

I am concerned with a connection between too much bad news and our willingness to take that news on board and be able to process it intelligently.

According to Scientific American,'s excellent "60 Second Mind" podcast, a recent Gallup poll “found that 48 percent of Americans believe that global warming concerns are exaggerated. Back in 1997 31 percent of Americans thought the concerns were overrated.” The Scientific American asked the question--why the increase?


The magazine writers believe that it could have something to do with the framing of the issue. “ Researchers surveyed students, measuring their skepticism about global warming and their belief in the justness of the world. Participants were asked how much they agree with the following statements: “I believe that…people get what they deserve,” and “I am confident that justice always prevails...Then half the participants read news articles that ended with dire warnings about the consequences of global warming; the other half read more positive pieces focused on possible solutions to the problem. Those who received more positive messaging trusted the science. On the other hand those subjects who read the “doomsday” messaging were skeptical of global warming, and for those who think the world is generally a fair place had even stronger doubts about global warming after reading the negative messaging.”

The study (to be published in the January issue of Psychological Science) is intriguing in that it points to something I believe that occurs in US elections—it is not just that the more optimistic candidate wins, it is that the politician who talks about unpleasant issues such as the deficit, shared sacrifice, need for more taxes etc also loses. Our present inability to balance our budget—to go on believing in some kind of magical solution (nursed by the drill baby drill wing of the Republican/Tea party), has lead us to more pain down the road. How do we apply this educationally? I believe that when we have conversations about large issues that seem full of doom,  the media, teachers and for that matter politicians all need to be able to point to positive solutions and frame long term solutions as being within reach and worth short term sacrifice. Otherwise we breed what we clearly have too much of today, skepticism, cynicism and learned helplessness.

Taking a Global Perspective on Closing Down the School to Jail Expressway

Here is a staggering set of global statistics that the US media is not willing to discuss much. According to a 2008 Pew Report, "The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, including the far more populous nation of China. At the start of the new year, the American penal system held more than 2.3 million adults. China was second, with 1.5 million people behind bars, and Russia was a distant third with 890,000 inmates, according to the latest available figures. Beyond the sheer number of inmates, America also is the global leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing nations like South Africa and Iran. In Germany, 93 people are in prison for every 100,000 adults and children. In the U.S, the rate is roughly eight times that, or 750per 100,000. Between 1987 and 2007, the national prison population has nearly tripled!

The International comparisons that the media seem to prefer are comparisons of math and science achievement; these educational statistics are meant to goad politicians to keep the pressure on teachers, their unions on testing and accountability. It would seem that our media editors may believe is no point informing the public about such dreary items as the tragic costs involved for the individuals and  families who are imprisoned.  Perhaps they consider that we are simply addicted to building more and more prisons (costing in the famed words of Jesse Jackson, more to send a young person to State Penn than Penn State) that there is no sense in starting a public debate. Perhaps they also take the view that there does not seem to be a workable alternative to simply locking them up, so why even bother raising the issue? Or they cynically may believe nothing will change as long as "locking them up" polls so well so that our poll driven politicians dare never to bring up the subject, so why should we?

But perhaps if the media  started to examine some of the root causes of criminality that leads to offending and how other societies handle those root causes we could make progress in beginning to get a handle on the escalating problem.  A recent report  traces the problem of juvenile offending back to low levels of literacy.  There is a strong correlation between failure to read by the 3rd grade and the kind of behavioral patterns that lead to prison sentencing.  Lack of literacy seems to lead to acting out and anti-social behavior,  because as the report suggests these children "realize that they are falling behind their peers, but are unable (or unwilling to) verbalize it. ..The low levels of literacy contributes to even lower levels of academic achievement; 48 percent of juvenile prisoners function academically below grade level, according to the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention."

It is no accident that the countries that do a better job in incarcerating fewer people and achieving better literacy outcomes are the Scandinavian nations. This is largely because these countries have better family policies when it comes to pre and post natal care and home support for disadvantaged families. They also support a more child centered curriculum for much longer in the child's development, starting formal education at a later date than the US, and emphasizing the importance of play. While it is doubtful that states will do much any time soon to change a cruel system where the only people who win are the growing private prison construction and services. It is about time though that leaders stepped up and told the  US taxpayer, stuck with high recidivism rates and equally high bills, that there might be another way. All of this can begin  if the media can start educating the public as to how we need to take a more global perspective with regard to this age old issue.

China--A Fragile SuperPower

One of the many wikileaks refers to China as a "fragile superpower"--and no where was this nation's vulnerability better demonstrated than in regard to their heavy handed refusal to let Liu Xiabo to receive his well deserved Nobel Peace prize and their threatening behavior towards countries to prevent them from attending the ceremony. (According to the LA Times, 19 countries boycotted the Nobel ceremony bowing to Chinese pressure). PEN America Center ( a group I recently joined for its bold stands in favor of intellectual freedom around the globe) provides the background,

"Liu Xiaobo was arrested on December 8, 2008, on the eve of the release of Charter 08, a groundbreaking declaration he co-authored calling for political reform, greater human rights, and an end to one-party rule in China. The document has gained over 10,000 signatures from citizens across China. Liu was held nearly incommunicado at an undisclosed location outside Beijing for over six months before he was formally charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” He was tried in a closed court on December 23, 2009, and on December 25, was convicted of the charge, based on Charter 08 and six essays he authored, and sentenced to 11 years in prison—the longest sentence ever given on this particular charge. Liu’s appeal was rejected in February, and on May 24, 2010, was transferred to Jinzhou Prison in Liaoning Province, hundreds of miles from his home in Beijing. His wife, Liu Xia, is only permitted to visit him once a month."

Liu came to public attention after he staged a hunger strike in 1989 in Tiananmen Square (again according to PEN) "in support of the student demonstrators and led calls for a truly broad-based, sustainable democratic movement. He was instrumental in preventing even further bloodshed in the Square by supporting and advancing a call for non-violence on the part of the students. He spent nearly two years in prison for his role, and another three years of “reeducation through labor” in 1996 for publicly questioning the role of the single-party system and calling for dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. In 2004, his phone lines and Internet connection were cut after the release of his essay criticizing the use of “subversion” charges used to silence journalists and activists, and he has been the target of regular police surveillance and harassment in the years since."


His words on the meaning of going to prison in China today resonate ‘For an intellectual thirsty for freedom in a dictatorial country, prison is the very first threshold. Now I have stepped over the threshold, and freedom is near,’”  China has made Liu into even more famous by its heavy handed displays of force which as the Guardian reports has lead to "Scores – perhaps hundreds – of people have been placed under house arrest or surveillance, had communications cut off and been forced to leave the capital or prevented from travelling abroad. While such tactics are common before important events such as political meetings, it is rare for pressure to last so long and be applied so extensively. Amnesty International said it believed more than 250 people are affected" As Salil Shetty, secretary general of rights group Amnesty International stated China's behavior is quite odd, "The Chinese government should be celebrating this global recognition of a Chinese writer and activist," said . "Instead, the government's very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China -- and, ironically, emphasized the significance of Liu Xiaobo's message of respect for human rights,"

Those who rule China must realize this but seem determined to take actions designed to intimidate as if they  can't help themselves from following the Soviet Union's futile efforts to hold the lid on its own bankrupt system of totalitarian politics. The New York Times published a great extract from Liu's work, "Experiencing Death" to show the depth of the man's humanity that no society can ever completely crush and because of that, because their leaders know (like those in North Korea, Burma, Iran)  that they are on the losing side of the battle between freedom and oppression, they will always be the fragile whether they are superpowers or not;

I had imagined being there beneath sunlight

with the procession of martyrs

using just the one thin bone

to uphold a true conviction

And yet, the heavenly void

will not plate the sacrificed in gold

A pack of wolves well-fed full of corpses

celebrate in the warm noon air

aflood with joy


Faraway place

I’ve exiled my life to

this place without sun

to flee the era of Christ’s birth

I cannot face the blinding vision on the cross

From a wisp of smoke to a little heap of ash

I’ve drained the drink of the martyrs, sense spring’s

about to break into the brocade-brilliance of myriad flowers



Deep in the night, empty road

I’m biking home

I stop at a cigarette stand

A car follows me, crashes over my bicycle

some enormous brutes seize me

I’m handcuffed eyes covered mouth gagged

thrown into a prison van heading nowhere



A blink, a trembling instant passes

to a flash of awareness: I’m still alive

On Central Television News

my name’s changed to “arrested black hand”

though those nameless white bones of the dead

still stand in the forgetting

I lift up high up the self-invented lie

tell everyone how I’ve experienced death

so that “black hand” becomes a hero’s medal of honor



Even if I know

death’s a mysterious unknown

being alive, there’s no way to experience death

and once dead

cannot experience death again

yet I’m still

hovering within death

a hovering in drowning

Countless nights behind iron-barred windows

and the graves beneath starlight

have exposed my nightmares



Besides a lie

I own nothing


 This poem was translated by Jeffrey Yang from the Chinese.