R.J. Eskow describes the views of one Tyler Cowen, seeing him as the aspirant to Thomas Friedman’s role as the chronicler of the new age to come, an age when globalization and technology will produce a “hyper-meritocracy,” leaving the rest of us far, far behind. I was not familiar with the thinking of Cowen, but apparently he is big as a futurologist.
Eskow summarizes Cowen’s philosophy thus: “Markets are merit. Wealth is worth. Call it ‘Tom Swift and His Amazing Digital Darwinism.'”
You see where this is going. The richest are the best and brightest, because they are the richest. And they deserve to rule because they are the best. Like it or not, he implies, their global dominance is inevitable.
Eskow writes:
Cowen is infatuated with technology, as are many of us. But he seems comfortable with the future in which we are “uploaded beings” with a “largely mental existence.” I imagine an eternity being perpetually bombarded with spam.
Cowen concludes “Infovore” by saying, “When I look up at the sky and gaze at the stars, I am joyful. I see a happy ending. I see infovores.”
Good for him. But closer to home, other people see a hell of a lot of misery. I wish Tyler Cowen did too. His future isn’t inevitable, but people like him and Thomas Friedman are working to make their vision of hyper-misery for the many a reality.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You ever notice how no one ever says “Hey, sometimes the person with the most money in the room is also the person with the least ethical standards, the person with the most willingness to do whatever he/she has to do to make as much money as possible?”
What is that Balzac quotation that opens The Godfather – “Behind every great fortune is a crime”?
That sums up this “meritocracy” we have here in America.
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Before the Glass Steagall Act was repealed in 1999, all of the credit default swaps, derivatives based on nothing, and other revered “creative financial instruments” were illegal. Until we put Glass Steagall back in place, the immoral among us will continue to flourish at everyone’s expense.
“Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Actually there is a long history of derivitive financial contracts, especially for agricultural products.
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Technically you are right. However, the real shenanigans begin under Clinton, who signed the repeal of Glass Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. See below for history of the CFTC from their own website:
December 21, 2000—President Clinton signs into law the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which, among other things, reauthorizes the Commission for five years, overhauls the Commodity Exchange Act to create a flexible structure for the regulation of futures and options trading, clarifies Commission jurisdiction over certain retail foreign currency transactions, and repeals the 18-year-old ban on the trading of single stock futures. On the same day, the CFTC withdraws most of the New Regulatory Framework; however, the amendments to Regulation 1.25 concerning investment of customer funds by futures commission merchants and derivatives clearing organizations are made effective immediately with some technical corrections. The amendments permit investment of customer funds in new types of instruments, such as money market mutual funds. (CFTC Press Release 4479-00, December 15, 2000; CFTC Press Release 4481-00, December 21, 2000)
February 5, 2001 and February 8, 2001—In light of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act’s clarification of the CFTC’s jurisdiction over retail foreign currency trading, the CFTC issues an advisory and a revised consumer alert addressing the offering of foreign currency trading opportunities to the retail public. The advisory explains how firms may lawfully offer foreign currency trading opportunities and the consumer alert warns the public of the risks of foreign currency trading and of foreign currency scams. (Advisory on Foreign Currency; CFTC Press Release 4489-01, February 8, 2001)
If Glass Steagall were still in place Jon Corzine would not have been able to capture about $1 billion worth of customer deposits to invest in very risky deals. And without FDR and Pecora, he won’t go to jail either.
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Shenanigans are never a good idea, but derivative contracts can be very useful to those involved.
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Agricultural futures and the CDOs spawned by the end of Glass-Stegal are the same thing, Teaching. You should know better than to split hairs like that.
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I was putting put and call contracts under the heading of “derivatives based on nothing” in poster Hoagland’s post. Most people are not aware that these sort of contracts have a long history.
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Dawn Hoagland is distorting what happened with the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the signing of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Both pieces of legislation had conservative Republican origins.
Clinton did, in fact, sign, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealing Glass-Steagall. He should have either vetoed it it or insisted on significant changes to it.
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act was slipped into an Omnibus budget appropriations bill in December, 2000 during a lame-duck Congress through the efforts of Rep. Thomas Ewing and Sen Phil Gramm, both Republicans. Gramm made sure that derivatives and credit default swaps were exempted from regulation. This move by Ewing and Gramm was intended as a slight-of-hand legislation maneuver, and it worked. It’s hardly fair to pin the blame for this one on Clinton.
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My point in naming names and providing dates was not to lay blame at the feet of Clinton or the Democratic party, but as a reference for veracity. However, I don’t mind pointing out that Clinton, who I voted for, was responsible for many things that looking back have proven quite destructive to this country, NAFTA, CAFTA and Goals 2000.
On Sept. 25, 1998, Rep. Bob Schaffer placed in the Congressional Record an 18-page letter that has become famous as Marc Tucker’s “Dear Hillary” letter. It lays out the master plan of the Clinton Administration to take over the entire U.S. educational system so that it can serve national economic planning of the workforce.
Tucker’s ambitious plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1994: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These laws establish the following mechanisms to restructure the public schools:
Bypass all elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures by making federal funds flow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.
Use a computer database, a.k.a. “a labor market information system,” into which school personnel would scan all information about every schoolchild and his family, identified by the child’s social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, and interrogations by counselors. The computerized data would be available to the school, the government, and future employers.
Use “national standards” and “national testing” to cement national control of tests, assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), which is designed to replace the high school diploma.
Designed on the German system, the Tucker plan is to train children in specific jobs to serve the workforce and the global economy instead of to educate them so they can make their own life choices.
It did not come to fruition at that time, but it is now, under Obama, through RTTT and the Common Core.
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We’re seeing the culmination of the positivist-materialist philosophy that started to dominate Wester culture at the end of the 19th Century: The only things that count are things that can be counted; the only things that matter are material things. In this world, there is no room for morals, since morals are abstract an unquantifiable. It’s the futuristic world of people who think Mr. Spock on Star Trek is the epitome of a scientist.
Given that most economists don’t understand science, and the field uses warped and self-serving ideas of what is “scientific”, it’s not surprising that he’s confused and ignorant. But again, that’s the norm among economists; the only thing more egregious than their arrogance is their ignorance.
In the end, they really worship power since power is the only thing of real value in an amoral world. So, the mental midgets like Cowan get their economics degrees and peddle this anti-intellectual, amoral, fascistic garbage to further their careers by creating specious justifications for the greed of the rich and parroting the specious justifications of others like themselves. So, we get circular reasoning like: I’m rich because I’m the best; and I know I’m the best because I’m rich.
And all we get from this mob are moronic statements like “I’m an inforvore.” Apparently, this man thinks humans devour information as if information is something physical. Notice how there is no intellectual aspect to this statement: “Information” isn’t thought over; it’s not a source of wisdom. Instead, it’s consumed like a hamburger to be digested into its components and the waste products excreted. Well, Cowan’s thinking and writing certainly is execrable.
The upshot of all this is that Cowan, like Ray Kurtzweil whose ideas of merging man and machine Cowan seems to riff from, hates humanity. Not just in the sense of other human beings, although anyone who can espouse ideas that lead to such cruel results must hate his neighbors, but the very idea of humanity, since Cowan wants to destroy his physical self and create some sort of artificial electronic soul. Cowan wants to the God.
This is more than the rantings of an ignoramus. This is the story of Lucifer.
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I appreciated posting. especially re “positivism”, commodification and reification. The last sentence did blind side me. Was it written tongue-in-cheek ? If not, as a non christian, i will stick with the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy For the Devil”.
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No, I wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek. The sort of hubris that people like Cowan exhibit has traditionally been linked to the root of evil. Look what happened the last time a country bought into in the idea of an engineered “super-race”.
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This is comparable to the way in which leaders/rulers were established in after Rome left (and before) … the person(s) with the horse(s), armor, a sword/weapons etc. was the ruler in – became the nobility – because they were bigger, stronger, perhaps good strategists and son on. In some places they enhanced their power by claiming the divine right of kings and so on …
Obvious similarities … look at who/what rules here now … it is (the) wealth(y). At some point(s) this becomes inherited and translates into the new nobility. Religion was used to placate and control the masses and still is to some extent. Another way to do the same thing is to control education …
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futurologist = economist = phrenologist = lobotomist = alchemist = preist etc. . . .
Yes, the last one is misspelled on purpose.
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So Cowan is the general director of George Mason’s Mercatus Center. According to Forbes magazine, “In 1978 the [Koch] brothers helped found–and still fund–George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the go-to academy for deregulation.”
This, then, is the state of the study of economics in the 21st century. Too many academic whores paid to further the idealology of psychopaths seeking to justify their avarice.
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“It goes without saying that only responsible people should be allowed to vote. And in our free market society, wealth is a clear and impartial measure of responsibility. Ergo…”
But that will be an argument for another generation.
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Not for another generation, but for all of the current generations. If it is left to the future then it will be a look back at history and the winners will be doing the writing. If this isn’t addressed now then those of us that are not wealthy, or with less power will have no power and our children and their children will be subjects rather than a free people.
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Diane and readers, I need some encouragement here. I just started following the corporate reform movement a few months ago. Next month, I’m meeting with my state representative, and in March I’m traveling with my local union to lobby before the state legislature. Just about the time I feel empowered and hopeful, some well-intentioned will gently point out my idealism. Because I am just an individual teacher and parent, because the vast majority of teachers in my area are afraid to act and the parents are unaware, my efforts are noble, but pointless. I do not want to believe this…..but when I look at the world around me and see that it really is the money that has power, well I just need some encouragement. IS our situation hopeless?
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It isn’t pointless, but be aware of the risks and that the goal isn’t to hear you but to subvert/convert you. That doesn’t that you shouldn’t go and be involved.
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No guarantees. But one step at a time feels fine. Daily ravitch. Reasonable words. Hope. Patience. We’ll see.
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I think that most states in our country value local control and recognize the need to give local boards of education the opportunity to govern local schools. If states impose corporate control of schools on localities they will be undercutting the authority of locally elected officials. The stand against privatization should be one of those rare issues that unions and school boards can agree on. That said, if school boards are willing to cede their democratic rights to a private corporation in the name of saving taxpayers money the battle is lost.
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Thanks for those answers. I do feel it’s important to stay involved. You know, I’d never considered before that the the board and local officials are the ones who could make a lot of difference in this. Thanks for that….I think I may need to be talking to different folks in my area.
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I think you are correct to go to the state legislature. i have been speaking at my local school board meetings and they told me that they have to implement the Common Core because it is mandated by the state. I spoke to my state assemblyman and he tells me in NY it is the Board of Regents that is in charge of these educational decisions. I speak to Commissioner King and Regent Merryl Tisch and they say, they are going to continue implementing the Common Core no matter what the parents say. They are each passing the buck until it came to the Regents, who in the case of Tisch, a millionaire who personally benefits from the privatization of schools. She is in charge of approving charter schools and then her brother in law Andrew, who is on the Board of K12, Inc. the largest online learning company in America, gets a phone call to send some of that K12 over to the new charter school because they will be using that instead of hiring all of those pesky over paid certified teachers.
So in NY it is a dirty business. We need to use the alternative media to get that word out. They are painting pretty pictures of the rigor of the CC to make sure our children are “college and career ready”, while they are actually salivating over getting their private hands on school tax dollars. They need to be publicly shamed so that their grandstanding has no merit. We need to continue to “boo” John King every time he tries to justify his unwillingness to listen to parents. He should be fired. Tisch should be fired. The state legislature appoints these people and then washes their hands of them. Oh no, you appointed them, and you are accountable to the people, you can fire them too.
Just speak from the heart to defend your children from this rotten system that is being pushed into our schools. The Common Core is not for the purpose of improving education for your child, but for the dual purpose of enriching test prep publishers and charter school investors as well as developing a system that would be used to unfairly evaluate teachers so that they can be fired, and their schools closed down to be replaced by charters. Do not let them tell you it is not in their hands because it is. It is the state legislators that can shut down the implementation of the Common Core. If you live in NY, demand that your assemblyman cosponsor A.7994 to stop CC and RTTT. If you live in another state, do some research, and find out if there has been any legislation already introduced in your state to stop CC and demand that your rep. cosponsor it. If nothing exists, then suggest that you represent lots of constituents who would support such legislation.
Do not ever think that your efforts are pointless. As long as our representatives are still answering their phones and agreeing to meetings, it is your responsibility to educate them and lobby for relief, in this case, an end to the Common Core. Thank you for your active citizenship. We need more people to do the same.
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No doubt states and localities are in favor of local control. There was a great deal of opposition to federal interference in education when I was very young.
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Once again: I would urge ALL Americans to read “Why Nations Fail”, one of the most scholarly books to come my way in some time. It seems like almost a chapter at the end of the book devoted to extended footnotes. It is detailed covering humankind history from earliest times to present in all continents. SCARY, considering the above.
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Cowen’s name rung a bell… I wrote this blog post about his perspectives on “makers and takers” a year ago when these terms emerged during the election: http://waynegersen.com/?s=cowen
I’m not crazy about all of Cowen’s thinking, but in this October column he recognized that if we are truly interested in equality we need to change the current system of taxation that effectively rewards people who live in affluence for paying high property taxes.
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This level of competition taken to an extreme has become a premise of “The Hunger Games”, and of course, it involved punishing the masses of people who objected to the plutocracy by threatening their safety and pitting them against one another in what became an institutionalized form of survival of the fittest . . . .
Donald Sutherland was right when he said we Americans should be paying attention to the premise of the series novel . . . . . .
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Tyler Cowen is simply another right-wing conservative economist who masquerades as a “libertarian” and who believes in the infallibility of the “free market” and other such nonsense.
Interestingly, Cowen wrote in favor of the taxpayer bailout of the big banks. And he supported the war in Iraq, believing the Bush administration’s hysterics about weapons of mass destruction. It took this “genius” five YEARS to figure out that he’d been had and to calculate a partial opportunity cost of the war (which, by the way, is HUGE).
Cowen heads up the Koch brother-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a breeding ground for laissez-faire economics. The Mercatus Center specializes in recycling the ideas of discredited economists like Friedrich Hayek. Sitting on the board of the Mercatus Center are prominent Republicans (Charles Koch, Ed Meese, Menlo Smith, Vernon Smith, Richard Fink, Frank Atkinson) who give large amounts to Republican candidates and causes.
Now here’s the interesting thing: the people (Reagan-Bush-Bush) and policies (supply-side economics) these groups and individuals support are the direct cause of over the last thirty years of (1) big budget deficits, (2) the morphing of the U.S. into the biggest debtor nation in the world, (3) the ballooning the the national debt, (4) gross income stratification, making the U.S. the most economically stratified nation in the developed world, (5) an increase in poverty, giving the U.S. the highest poverty rate in the developed world except for Mexico, (6) the mortgage and financial crises, and deregulation that turned Wall Street into a taxpayer-subsidized casino, (7) the loss of millions of jobs even as corporate profits soared (with taxpayer assistance), and (8) the breaking of the economy. This is their legacy…and they want MORE of it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, “President George W. Bush identified 23 regulations he wanted to eliminate, 14 had been initially suggested by Mercatus.”
Tyler Cowen revels in this economic lunacy. He wallows in it.
In all seriousness, Cowen is far more adept at producing dining guides than he is at presenting coherent, credible economic arguments.
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Beautifully said. Thanks for the facts.
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