Gottwald, Clementis, TigerHawk and the Hat

TigerHawk has a fine post up about famous doctored photographs(link), but he might have added this, from the first page of Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:

In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was a great turning point in the history of Bohemia. A fateful moment of the kind that occurs only once or twice in a millennium.

Gottwald was flanked by his comrades, with Clemntis standing close to him. It was snowing and cold, and Gottwald was bareheaded. Bursting with solicitude, Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald’s head.

The propaganda section made hundreds of thousands of copies of the photograph taken on the balcony where Gottwald, in a fur hat and surrounded by his comrades, spoke to the people. On that balcony the history of Communist Bohemia began. Every child knew that photography from seeing it on posters and in schoolbooks and museums.

Four years later, Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immediately made him vanish from history and, fo course, from all photographs. Eve r since, Gottwald has been alone on the balcony. Where Clementis stood, there is only the bare palace wall. Nothing remains of Clementis but the fur hat on Gottwald’s head.

Wiki has links to the original photo and the revised (link).

Filthy Rich II: Meditation on Wealth

TigerHawk is proud of making money; Andrew Sullivan ( but see update below) suggests he should be ashamed.

But it’s more complicated than that. It’s too simple to treat money as a source of praise or blame, because there are too many reasons for making money, or keeping it. Here’s a catalog, incomplete, of categories, overlapping and nonexclusive, of motivations for wealth:

Vainglory: think Rameses II, or Donald Trump. Some people just like to call attention to themselves. The Greeks were big on vainglory; they even used it as a means of taxation—get rich people to sponsor a festival or a trireme to show just how rich they were.

Vainglory may look like, but is not quite the same as

Competition: getting money is a visibile sign you’ve won a race. The trouble with competition as a reason for making money is that it never ends. There are some people who will never be satisfied with a $60,000 Mercedes if their neighbor’s Mercedes cost $100,000. So also a competitive CEO who makes $5 million a year, will go to sleep weepy if his neighbor makes $5 million and one.

At any rate, competition and vainglory both should be distinguished from

The desire to consume. “Lawyers,” they used to say, “live well, and die poor.” Point taken: I have known a fair number of lawyers who will never drink $20 Scotch if $40 Scotch is on offer. They earn a lot, they spend a lot, and they’d better hope their bookkeeper tucked away something in their retirement account. Sometimes, this desire to consume may reflect sheer brio: maybe these guys really like $40 Scotch. But often enough, I suspect it is a kind of manic insatiability that makes you just want to gobble up everything in your way. Not limited to the purely wealthy, I suppose: they say that Thomas Aquinas was fat.

Oddly, the desire to consume is remarkably close to another, seemingly rather different, motive, and that is

The desire to to good. One thing you've got to give to Aristotle: he never saw the point of poverty and innocence. Of course you want to accumulate wealth and power, Aristotle would have said--how else can you do any good in the world? So also the guy who is happy to skip his $40 Scotch and his $100,000 Mercedes so he can buy 10 million mosquito nets for the third world.

We can turn now to another motive which seems rather different from all of the above, and that is

Sadism: think “who’s your daddy?” Some people enjoy the humiliation and suffering of others. Here as elsewhere, I would concede that the quality is not solely a province of the wealthy—there are probably more poor sadists than rich ones--but wealth does allow some people to indulge a particular taste. But sadism is undoubtedly one taste that money can satisfy.

I think none of these is quite the same as a perhaps more familiar asserted motive for making money and that is

Greed: Silas Marner and Scrooge McDuck didn’t want to spend money, or even to show off. They liked to have money so they could run their fingers through it. It’s hard to guess how many wealthy people are motivated by greed because they tend not to call attention to themselves. I should add that I suspect there are more greedy people who are not wealthy and want to be, then who are wealthy per se. Greed tends to make the best the enemy of the good, and the seriously greedy often outwit themselves.

Perhaps paradoxically, I think "greed" as a motive for great wealth is close to another, superficially different, motive for making money and that is

It's fun: Warren Buffet lives in a modest house and drives to a modest office in a modest car. It isn't quite that he is a skinflint (although I guess you'd have to say "careful"), but rather that in an important sense, he is unconscious of money. He's a classic illustration of the proposition that you need to find something you love to do, and the money will follow. Best way I can tell, he has worked incredibly hard most of his life, but at something he loves. The $50 billion is just frosting on the cake.

None of these reasons is quite the same, I think, as my next reason, i.e.,

Security: some people just fear growing old and sick and poor. As with competiton or consumption, the trouble with security is that the search never ends. Build yourself a nice little farm and the Barbarians from over the border will trample your fields and set fire to your barn. Tuck away a nice 401k and some lunatic in the White House destroys the value of the dollar.

Security in this sense is close to

Independence. I believe it was Humphrey Bogart said the nice thing about having money is that it allows you to tell other people to go to hell. I remember also the Simenon story, in which the prosperous lawyer gets a wild hair for his secretary. “This is going to cost you,” his ever-so-proper wife tells him. “Never mind,” he says, “I can afford it.” I concede once again that this isn’t entirely a matter of money. Alexander the Great asked the philosopher Diogenes if there was anything he could do for him. “Yeh,” said Diogenes, “get outta my sun.”

There is yet one more motivation for getting money; it is central to our inquiry, which is why I have saved it to the end. And that is

As an index of achievement: money may be proof that you are a good fellow who adds value to society. Her, at last, I suspect we come to what TigerHawk had in mind when he showed his pride in his money. And indeed it is possible that constructive achievement may bring wealth.

But I see two problems with wealth as an index of achievement. One, plenty of achievement does not bring wealth. And two--the point of this entire exercise--it appears that there are so many motives for wealth that we can't begin to focus on just one. So wealth as an index is almost no help at all.

Reviewing, I think it may help to try to restate the terms of debate. TigerHawk seems to be saying that if you have achieved wealth, you probably did something to deserve it. Andrew seems to be saying that if you have achieved wealth, you probably have done something of which you should be ashamed (he may be channeling Balzac, who said that every great fortune is founded on a great crime).

But I like to think that I've got the true handle on the problem, which is to say I think they both miss the point. I argued earlier (link) that the main prerequisite for achieving great wealth is that you've got to want to achieve great wealth. Is the desire for wealth a bad thing? For myself I will concede (scandal of scandals?)I’m un-Christian enough to be an agnostic on the point: as far as I’m concerned the desire for great wealth is a matter of taste, like broccoli versus tomatoes. My point here is that there are a thousand roads to riches, and maybe both TigerHawk and Andrew fall short in imagination as they try to consider how one gets there. And, I might add, an issue far too rich and complicated to be captured in crude categories of "left" and "right."

Update: Okay, so Sullivan didn't say it. But he smiled while somebody else said it.

Don't Throw Away Those Cliffnotes!

Evidently a British department store has had to withdraw a little-girl bedroom suite because they didn’t know they’d named it after the poster girl for child sex abuse.

The value of a liberal education. Remarkably, I see that Tigerhawk, too, supports this porridge of soft leftism.

Haircut

I see that TigerHawk and OxBlog have each saved me the problem of going to Drudge by showcasing the haircut. Must be tough to be an up-market conservative blogger when there is nothing worth defending. Better luck tomorrow guys and thanks for saving me from soiling myself. Oh, wait…

Thatcher and Cincinnatus

I don’t know why I make it my business to try to bring TigerHawk to his senses. I guess deep down I believe, with Father Flanigan, that there is no such thing as a Really Bad Boy.

And I must say I liked those pictures he posted yesterday of the British memorial service for the fallen of the Falkland War (link) (although you have to wonder how much of this is a sincere commitment to their memory and how much a promotion of tourism).

But it seems to me that a little perspective is in order. The Falklands was perhaps a necessary war—a bunch of pissant hoodlums in the Argentine government had set out to tweak the beards (oops) of the British monarchy and someone decided to tweak them back. Fine, so far. Maybe that was a good reason to fight the war,

But—and this is my point—but that isn’t why it was fought. It was fought to save Maggie Thatcher’s bacon. Thatcher had been hugely unpopular during the first two years of her reign Prime Ministership, and when headed for defeat when the stupidity of the Argentines bailed her out. The war also, not incidentally, destroyed the efforts to create a non-loony centrist party in Britain (amazing how often responsible centrism gets derailed by a pointless war).

I’m not saying that Maggie was just as bad as the Argentines. Certainly not; after all, they started it. But nobody is indispensable. One way to for Maggie to preserve her integrity would have been to whack the tar out of the Argentines and then, like Cincinnatus, retire to return to the plow. “Fellow Britons,” she might have said

We can rejoice in a successful campaign, mindful of the sacrifice of the brave men who gave their lives to secure our position. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your Prime Minister, and nothing makes me prouder than to have been ae to preside over such a memorable achievement. But there is a time for everything. If there is any other service I can perform for the British people now, it may be this: to step from this great office and thus to assure that no one need be corrupted or misled by the inducements of military glory to misunderstand the needs and responsibilities of government.

Okay, so she didn’t. But along with all the fooferaw over the anniversary, it might be useful to take a moment to remark on the tragedy that young people die in the service of old people’s intrigues.

For a National Day of Mourning

TigerHawk is delighted with the Queen for giving as knighthood to Salman Rushdie (link) (link). He sees it as tweaking the Mullah’s beard, tee hee. The lunch table Chez Buce is not so impressed.

“Why did she have to do it?” said Mrs. Buce, nibbling at her poached chicken breast in the Al Fresco room. “Why now?”

“Well, you recognize art and culture.”

“Oh, I suppose. But you know, it wasn’t that good a book. Midnight’s Children, I mean. I never read Satanic Verses, but I don’t know anyone who thinks it is better. But why now?”

“Well, a lot of worse books have got greater recognition. Anyway, do you want your cultural tastes dictated by a bunch of screamers in the street?”

“No, but I’ll tell you what. How about a day of public mourning for the mess we made at Abu Ghraib? How about a public apology, reinstatement, and promotion for General Taguba for trying to make us live by our own pretensions? How about immediate closure of Guantanamo, and an abolition of extraordinary rendition, with rehabilitation and restitution for the victims? Then maybe we will be in a position to give Salman Rushdie a prize.”

You know, the lady’s got a point.

Afterthought: I wonder if TH has ever read Midnight’s Children? Satanic Verses? Or does he just like it because it pisses somebody else off?

The Ponzi Caper Again

TigerHawk is orchestrating a cute discussion re entitlement finance (link). TH asks:

Is it the case that our entitlements programs (such as Social Security and Medicare) require (or barring an extraordinary surge in economic growth probably will require) a constantly growing population so that each generation is in a position to pay for the generation that precedes it? If so, then is there a moral duty to choose to have children?

You could think of this as a pendant to Christopher Buckley’s new novel where it is suggested that we oldies, for the fiscal health of the community, ought all to just go die (link). I won’t bite on his second question just now, but here is a response to the first: no, it is not the case. There's a durable error in the shadows here. Republicans have been arguing for years that Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme since it is funded out of current contributions and not out of return on capital stock. They seem to believe (or at any rate, to hope) that once they sell the Ponzi scheme part, then Social Security will all blow away like the wicked witch of the west. But this is a non seq. It is true that we should fund out of capital stock. It does not follow that we should disband Social Security.

This error survives because both Republicans and Democrats have a stake in the underlying confusion. Republicans like to talk about Social Security as an investment program so they can howl about “your money” and how the Washington pinheads abuse it. Democrats let them get away with it because they believe that once you let anything be branded as a wealth-distribution program, it loses. This means that neither side is talking about what it is really talking about and any kind of mischief can follow.

Well, I am just a simple, barefoot, country bankruptcy lawyer [with blogging issues]. I’m not running for office and so I don’t need to buy into that kind of pretense. So far as I can tell, TH has the same incentives that I do, and he is welcome to share the same candor.

Hoisted from the Comments: TigerHawk on the 50s

TigerHawk, offering a comment on my Bill Bradley post, recalls a rule of political thumb:

"Republicans want to go home in the 1950s, and Democrats want to work there."

Within the limits of the genre, that strikes me as fair comment. The 50s were the one decade in human history when someone as dumb as Homer Simpson could support three kids in a detached home with garage. And it worked through a grand conspiracy in restraint of trade: closed markets allowed managers and labor to capture and divvy out economic rents, while we all drove crap cars.

But then it gets more complicated. Seems to me one reason for the Goldwater Revolution of the 60s was southern/western resentment against the Northeastern Establishmen t, and in particular, against unresponsive capital markets and the high costs of imports. Establishment candidates like Nelson Rockefeller and Bill Scranton were happy to play along with the dirigiste consensus. How it must have blown Goldwater’s gasket to see Henry Ford and Walter Reuther on the podium together in opposition against him.

Secrets: Ours, and Victoria's

TigerHawk thinks the leftie bloggers are being hypocritical about the White House email backchannel (link). He says:

May the blogger who has never conducted personal business on his work email or discussed work on his personal email -- possibly or even probably in technical violation of his employer's policy -- throw the first snark.

Well now, suppose his employees were discussing a company trade secret--and using their personal email account in a (doomed, misguided) attempt to keep his eyes off them. Would he pass this by with an avuncular chuckle as a "technical violation?"

On the other hand, if it turns out that Karl Rove was using the White House server to order up from Victoria's Secret, I think I'd be willing to give him a bye.

PS to TH and KR: they've got a sheer mesh flyaway babydoll for only $34.95.

TigerHawk Ought to Know Better

I like TigerHawk, honest I do. Granted, he’s a lot more comfortable with violence than I am, and he seems to have more confidence in the power of government (at least in its incendiary capacity) to do good. But he knows a bunch of stuff I don’t know, and he is capable of being independent-minded, at least when he wants to.

I think the trouble is that he spends too much time with people who agree with him—particularly people who aren’t as quick as he is. That’s what permits him to think he can get away with this from last week on public attitudes to the war. It’s called “Hoping to lose,” on the premise that 34 percent of Democrats [and 11 percent of Republicans, and 19 percent of Independents] are “hoping” President Bush’s new Iraq plan (or “plan”) will “lose.”

This is perverse on so many levels. For starters, it isn’t even a correct statement of the question (which he reprints): “Do you personally want [the plan] to succeed?” “I cannot for the life of me,” harrumphs, “I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want it to fail.”

Let me help you, TigerHawk, rephrasing some stuff I dropped in your comments a couple of days ago. You answered about "failure;" the question asked about "success." In order to know whether I want the plan to “succeed,” I would have to know what it means to “succeed.” Do you know what would count as “success” for the President here? Do you think the President knows? Failing that, do you know what you mean by “success” here? Can you explain, or articulate, for him or for yourself?

The term "success" is not self-defining. Consider the possibilities. We can leave behind “finding WMD”—nobody except possibly Dick Cheney is still counting on that. It can’t mean “catching and killing Saddam,” because that’s over and done with. And I am pretty sure that nobody in the White House (possibly excepting the President?) means “securing as stable, democratic, multi-factional Iraq"--a vain lost hope.

Beyond that, there is an almost infinite range of possibilities here. For example: if success means "an alliance with al Sadr to suppress the Sunnis," I might want it to fail. If it means "a lockdown of oil facilities for the petrolios in the Bush funding base,” I might want it to fail. If it means "scorched earth and resettlement by aliens from the Gamma Quadrant," I'd be disinclined do regard it as a good idea.

FWIW, “failure” is not self-defining, either. I suppose—I certainly hope not—that we could be blindsided and routed, without an adequate means of retreat (didn’t I read that that copter shot down over the weekend was taken by a shoulder-held missile launcher?.). I suppose we could simply pack our bags and go home, like the Mongols packed their bags and went home in 1241. No doubt there are voters who favor that view; maybe Dennis Kucinich favors that view. Can you any name anyone else in office who favors that view?

If the Bush plan "fails," I suppose one thing we could do is to the borders of Iraq (or the region) and doing what we can to keep this war from metastasizing any further. This is, as I understand it, essentially what Congressman Murtha wants to do. Do you count this as “success” or “failure?” Certainly it would be a messy, frustrating, even open-ended result. But isn’t that the tragedy of this war—that we’ve got ourselves into a mess that we may be years, perhaps decades, getting out of? Cut and run, Oh I Wish. Hoping that Bush will succeed—well what, exactly, does he, do you, does any of us, have in mind?