I find it discouraging to see the degree to which democratic politics often does not focus on real issues. As an anthropologist, I understand that symbolism is at the heart of politics, and have no trouble with that. But when symbolism distracts people from their interests, or causes polarization rather than consensus, or confuses the issues, then democracy does not seem to be well served (or democracy does not seem to work that well).
I recently read an article (which I can no longer find) describing the Elizabeth Warren's campaigning in small venues in Massachusetts. The point of the article was that the "undecided voter" would make up his or her mind based on how likable she appeared at such events. To the extent that this "likeability" has to do with how much they feel she understands them and their problems, it is a good fit. But it was clear from the article that she is considered a good candidate because of her social skills in dealing with voters, skills that are probably only partially useful for getting things done in the senate. I've always wondered about the intelligence of "undecided voters" in
recent contests: the lines are so clearly drawn between Republicans and
Democrats, conservatives and liberals, red and blue, that one wonders if
the "undecided" voter has really been paying attention. To reach them, politicians cannot just hold press conferences and issue position papers. They need to recruit them emotionally, not through rational thought.
Today I see that the Obama campaign has created a website called Romney Economics that seeks to tell the story of Romney's private sector record. This is a clever idea, because Romney portrays himself as "experienced" and "skilled" in business, and people need to understand what kind of business he ran and how he hollowed out companies, and often made huge profits at the expense of workers and taxpayers who were left holding the bag when the excessively leveraged companies went bankrupt. So far so good.
The problem is that when one reads the examples, it is impossible to understand why what Romney did was even legal. The three cases describe plundering so egregious that they seem impossible or very biased. The website really needs a 4th example, one where Bain Capital (Romney's firm) and the company it bought and the workers all benefited, so that we can understand how the system should work in theory, helping the reader better understand the three cases of failure. In fact, only if you understand how venture capital is supposed to work can you really understand how Bain Capital's record is one of greed and excess, even if it is legal. I wonder if the website, and the stories, will really stick if people do not understand how the system is supposed to work. Can people see how Bain (and Romney) used the rules to their private advantage? The website merely demonizes Romney, but will those "undecided voters" be swayed, or will they dismiss this as partisan posturing? On the other hand, if they are still "undecided" in this election which offers such clear choices, do they have the time and interest to really understand how venture capital is supposed to work?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Human Rights in New York
There is a disturbing report by the anthropologist David Graeber on the New York Police apparently using sexual assault against Occupy Wall Street protesters. He ties this to the city elite's ties to banking, especially to Mayor Bloomberg's statement that the police is his personal army. Bloomberg is, of course, number 20 on the Forbes Billionaires List (11th in the US), so has a vested interest in protecting the current financial system. Graeber also notes that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is the former director of global security of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, so has also revolved between banking and policing. Is there any difference in Kelly's mind between protecting Bear Stearns and protecting "the people of New York," or does protecting the banks loom large in his image of his duty to "New York"?
Americans are uncomfortable about this type of story on two levels: first, sexual assaults are easily believed when they happen in Egypt, but people have trouble believing they would happen in the US. Second, the idea that the rich use force (including police violence and "the law" as a form of terror) to protect their interests is something we learned in history books about the Gilded Era (see Haymarket "Riot"), not something we imagine happening today. I note that despite Graeber's links and fairly good sources, my search of the NY Times showed not a single story mentioning groping or sexual assault of protesters. What I find interesting about this case is how it is not visible to most Americans. Many Chinese wish their country were more democratic, and complain about the government, but they basically think things are going in the right direction, and they take some level of authoritarianism for granted (especially if they are among the privileged). Stories like this make the US look uncomfortably like the Chinese case, with Americans making excuses (it must be rogue officers, it must be exaggerations, it cannot be policy) and not seeing how their own democracy is constrained by the rich and powerful. Graeber's story, plus the recent revelations of NYPD spying on ordinary citizens simply because they are Muslim (see Fresh Air story here)--and the fact that many New Yorkers think there is no problem with this--make one worry about the future of American democracy and freedom.
Americans are uncomfortable about this type of story on two levels: first, sexual assaults are easily believed when they happen in Egypt, but people have trouble believing they would happen in the US. Second, the idea that the rich use force (including police violence and "the law" as a form of terror) to protect their interests is something we learned in history books about the Gilded Era (see Haymarket "Riot"), not something we imagine happening today. I note that despite Graeber's links and fairly good sources, my search of the NY Times showed not a single story mentioning groping or sexual assault of protesters. What I find interesting about this case is how it is not visible to most Americans. Many Chinese wish their country were more democratic, and complain about the government, but they basically think things are going in the right direction, and they take some level of authoritarianism for granted (especially if they are among the privileged). Stories like this make the US look uncomfortably like the Chinese case, with Americans making excuses (it must be rogue officers, it must be exaggerations, it cannot be policy) and not seeing how their own democracy is constrained by the rich and powerful. Graeber's story, plus the recent revelations of NYPD spying on ordinary citizens simply because they are Muslim (see Fresh Air story here)--and the fact that many New Yorkers think there is no problem with this--make one worry about the future of American democracy and freedom.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Market fundamentalism
The free market has helped Hong Kong prosper, but it is also the cause of many of its problems today, including market dominance by a few firms in some industries (real estate, telephone, and autos come to mind) and polarization between rich and poor. Hong Kong has a number of very vocal economists who nevertheless continuously spout the Economics Party Line that government is bad and the free market is good. A recent column in the SCMP is a good example; Tom Holland writes (17 April 2012) "Government is the cause of market failure, not its solution." In fairness, he was responding to a strikingly interventionist statement by the Chief Executive-elect C.Y. Leung. The new CE in waiting is reported to have said, "the government should intervene to prevent market failure and keep property prices at a level affordable to the public." Holland argues that if we look at the recent housing crisis in the US, we see the opposite: "more often than not it's government interference that causes markets to fail." Note the word "interference," which creates the illusion that the market is a natural thing, something that should not be tampered with.
He argues:
He thus blames the "explosion of 'sub-prime' lending to borrowers who had no equity stakes in their homes and who were always likely to struggle to meet their debt service obligations."
So he blames the "sub-prime" crisis on political manipulation of the market to allow poor people to buy more house than they could afford, not on the bankers that gave people these loans. He blames the crisis on government policies that promote home ownership, not on the securitization of real estate debt and the invention of CDOs and credit default swaps that became prominent in the 1990s.
Certainly, the problem is complex, and the factors he notes distorted the market. Most important, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent huge amounts (and earned a lot of patronage money for their politically connected executives) to assure that they could do business.
But surely the big change in the 1990s was securitization; loans generated by one bank were sold on to other investors, so that the issuing bank no longer cared if the loan failed. It is astonishing that economists like Holland refuse to see securitization without regulation as a problem. They define anything new and novel invented by the capitalist sector as "progress."
I think an anthropological approach that sees these as cultural institutions that evolve and need to be maintained is more productive.
It is hard, sometimes, not to see economists as just the cheerleaders for the capitalist elite. They cling to their fundamentalist orthodoxy regardless of the facts. Though initially Alan Greenspan said the housing crisis challenged his beliefs, even he has gotten back on message. The belief that free markets are natural and should be "left alone" is deep in economics. It is amazing that even the current crisis does not shake that belief. That is a sign of it being like a fundamentalist religion.
He argues:
The popular narrative insists the crisis was caused by the excessive greed of investment bankers, abetted by hands-off politicians in thrall to Wall Street's financial donations.
He then argues that in fact the cause is too much government interference, which he traces back to the Franklin administration's programs to encourage home ownership. And he explains the timing of the "take-off" in home values in 1995 to government programs intended to help minorities.
It's a simple story, with easily identifiable villains. And it has an obvious solution: more government involvement in markets.
In 1995, Washington tweaked the Community Reinvestment Act to press banks into giving mortgages to borrowers from low income areas, threatening to penalise them if they failed to lend equally to ethnic minorities.
At the same time, government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were instructed to increase the proportion of their portfolios devoted to mortgage loans in poor neighbourhoods.He recognizes that government programs were important to help minorities buy homes in poor neighborhoods, because banks thought they were less likely to repay loans. (He does not address the research that shows that this was not true, especially when class is factored out, meaning that these government programs were not taking on more risk but fixing a market malfunction due to racism.) And then he says, "The intention was worthy enough: to make home ownership more affordable. But affordability was achieved only by abandoning credit standards as banks reduced the downpayments required on home purchases to zero."
He thus blames the "explosion of 'sub-prime' lending to borrowers who had no equity stakes in their homes and who were always likely to struggle to meet their debt service obligations."
So he blames the "sub-prime" crisis on political manipulation of the market to allow poor people to buy more house than they could afford, not on the bankers that gave people these loans. He blames the crisis on government policies that promote home ownership, not on the securitization of real estate debt and the invention of CDOs and credit default swaps that became prominent in the 1990s.
Certainly, the problem is complex, and the factors he notes distorted the market. Most important, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent huge amounts (and earned a lot of patronage money for their politically connected executives) to assure that they could do business.
But surely the big change in the 1990s was securitization; loans generated by one bank were sold on to other investors, so that the issuing bank no longer cared if the loan failed. It is astonishing that economists like Holland refuse to see securitization without regulation as a problem. They define anything new and novel invented by the capitalist sector as "progress."
I think an anthropological approach that sees these as cultural institutions that evolve and need to be maintained is more productive.
It is hard, sometimes, not to see economists as just the cheerleaders for the capitalist elite. They cling to their fundamentalist orthodoxy regardless of the facts. Though initially Alan Greenspan said the housing crisis challenged his beliefs, even he has gotten back on message. The belief that free markets are natural and should be "left alone" is deep in economics. It is amazing that even the current crisis does not shake that belief. That is a sign of it being like a fundamentalist religion.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Admissions Exercise
Spring is time for admissions exercises for our PhD, MPhil, and MA programs. I have long known that there are interesting discussions on the web where mainland students exchange information on our teachers and our interviews. Some kind souls post a detailed description of their interview to help others prepare. What is astonishing is how much of the information is simply wrong. Also fascinating is how many students misunderstand what is going on. I did a search on one of the main bulletin boards for these kinds of discussions in China and found a candidate that we interviewed in the past few years who posted her side of the interview. I have my notes of the interview and they are quite different from her view. I will go through her description to identify the ways our perceptions (and positions, of course) were very different.
The interview was conducted on skype, with video. She begins, as many posts do, by commenting that we started late. It is true that we sometimes run as much as 20 minutes late, but I'm surprised that students expect such precision in the interviews. Then the student admits that she did not catch the name of my "assistant"--actually my colleague! (Note to me for future interviews: speak more slowly in the introduction and repeat the name in Chinese to be sure students are clear who is there). The student then comments, as others do, that we did not allow her to introduce herself. This is interesting because, given that we have read the file (including personal statement, transcripts, letters of recommendation, writing sample), a self-introduction seems rather superfluous. (A student has explained that they are told, in training for interviews with foreign enterprises in China, that normally an interview begins with a self-introduction.) In fact, we always try to start with a relatively easy question to calm the student down. But she did not view it like that, saying that when we "directly asked her why she wanted to study anthropology," she panicked, and gave a foolish answer about theory and practice. Then she says we asked her about her long-term plans. She says she choked: "I started to talk nonsense, the most horribly, I did not know what to think, ... "a classic case of brain freeze."
"Then they started on some academic questions." She describes how we picked The Interpretation of Cultures, one of the books mentioned in her statement of purpose, and asked her what the book was about and why it was important. (Wow, we did that? That's a pretty good question!) She says that she had prepared an answer to this question beforehand, "but I don't know why but after my answer, he turned with an inscrutable face to his assistant. Is it possible I got the wrong book??? It made me suddenly lose all confidence." Actually, my turning to my colleague was my nonverbal way of saying, "Your turn."
She continues, "Then it was the woman's turn to ask questions" (thereby proving my point). The student was put out because we asked her questions about her term paper, which was about moral tales and sayings, so she did not know how to talk about that in English, she said. She comments, "..continue falling apart." At this point in reading her description, I feel bad that the student is under so much pressure, and find it hard to believe. She has viewed everything we do to minimize pressure as causing more stress. She tries to deflect the question by commenting on how difficult it is to get English books in Chinese libraries. Interestingly, despite the fact that we are on skype, she detects that my colleague and I give an understanding smile, but she does not know why, and says she is speechless. In fact, we are probably smirking because we know (and surely she also knows), that many books are available in China for free online in high quality PDF copies. These are not scanned versions, but the real original PDFs. Applicants regularly complain that they can't get English books in China, and we may have smiled because we can't very well tell them to download books illegally, but we know that interested students can obtain all the books they need or want. But we did not press her on this because she was doing well overall.
The student then notes that at the end, we asked her if she had any questions, and that she asked about fieldtrips. We told her there is a fieldtrip at the end of the year for MA students but it is self-paying, and she took that to be another sign of the discrimination against MA students. But this is not true. We usually do not take the research program students on field trips, and in any case, all such trips are self-paying (and they just cover the cost--we do not "make money" on these trips). Indeed, we go to a lot of trouble to try to avoid making our MA students second-class citizens, as they often are in major US universities. But it is easy to misunderstand the situation while applying. Our exit surveys show students are generally satisfied.
What is surprising is that despite the agony and angst expressed by this candidate, my notes show that her English was very good, and that her answers were not bad. She was a good candidate. In answer to a question about Geertz, she said "culture is like a net" (well, he said "web," but that is close enough for admission to the MA program, since it is designed for people interested in anthropology who have not studied it previously). She was a good candidate and we certainly did not intend to make her life miserable. One person I discussed this with suggested her tone was perhaps exaggerated since, as a female and in Chinese culture, she could not very well say the interview went well. There is probably nothing that can be done to make interviews less stressful. At least most messages have me as the "good cop."
The use of these websites to share information is interesting because it reflects a Chinese tendency to go through connections rather than public information. I remember in the mid 1980s showing my friends in Taipei how to use the Yellow Pages. They did not know what that was, and once they saw it, they said they would never use such a book; they would ask their friends for a recommendation instead. One of our students from China has mentioned that friends will ask her for information on applying to other departments at CUHK. Even though all the information is posted on the web, they ask her for help, assuming that there might be some secrets or tricks that she can impart. The websites are also interesting because they require altruism; those who post do not get anything in return, except messages of thanks from later applicants. From a strictly competitive point of view, they might even think that helping others to have a better interview might make their interview performance look worse by comparison. It is a good sign of a developing civil society (or at least civility) that students share this kind of information. I just wish it were more accurate. For accuracy, however, they should really go to our department website.
The interview was conducted on skype, with video. She begins, as many posts do, by commenting that we started late. It is true that we sometimes run as much as 20 minutes late, but I'm surprised that students expect such precision in the interviews. Then the student admits that she did not catch the name of my "assistant"--actually my colleague! (Note to me for future interviews: speak more slowly in the introduction and repeat the name in Chinese to be sure students are clear who is there). The student then comments, as others do, that we did not allow her to introduce herself. This is interesting because, given that we have read the file (including personal statement, transcripts, letters of recommendation, writing sample), a self-introduction seems rather superfluous. (A student has explained that they are told, in training for interviews with foreign enterprises in China, that normally an interview begins with a self-introduction.) In fact, we always try to start with a relatively easy question to calm the student down. But she did not view it like that, saying that when we "directly asked her why she wanted to study anthropology," she panicked, and gave a foolish answer about theory and practice. Then she says we asked her about her long-term plans. She says she choked: "I started to talk nonsense, the most horribly, I did not know what to think, ... "a classic case of brain freeze."
"Then they started on some academic questions." She describes how we picked The Interpretation of Cultures, one of the books mentioned in her statement of purpose, and asked her what the book was about and why it was important. (Wow, we did that? That's a pretty good question!) She says that she had prepared an answer to this question beforehand, "but I don't know why but after my answer, he turned with an inscrutable face to his assistant. Is it possible I got the wrong book??? It made me suddenly lose all confidence." Actually, my turning to my colleague was my nonverbal way of saying, "Your turn."
She continues, "Then it was the woman's turn to ask questions" (thereby proving my point). The student was put out because we asked her questions about her term paper, which was about moral tales and sayings, so she did not know how to talk about that in English, she said. She comments, "..continue falling apart." At this point in reading her description, I feel bad that the student is under so much pressure, and find it hard to believe. She has viewed everything we do to minimize pressure as causing more stress. She tries to deflect the question by commenting on how difficult it is to get English books in Chinese libraries. Interestingly, despite the fact that we are on skype, she detects that my colleague and I give an understanding smile, but she does not know why, and says she is speechless. In fact, we are probably smirking because we know (and surely she also knows), that many books are available in China for free online in high quality PDF copies. These are not scanned versions, but the real original PDFs. Applicants regularly complain that they can't get English books in China, and we may have smiled because we can't very well tell them to download books illegally, but we know that interested students can obtain all the books they need or want. But we did not press her on this because she was doing well overall.
The student then notes that at the end, we asked her if she had any questions, and that she asked about fieldtrips. We told her there is a fieldtrip at the end of the year for MA students but it is self-paying, and she took that to be another sign of the discrimination against MA students. But this is not true. We usually do not take the research program students on field trips, and in any case, all such trips are self-paying (and they just cover the cost--we do not "make money" on these trips). Indeed, we go to a lot of trouble to try to avoid making our MA students second-class citizens, as they often are in major US universities. But it is easy to misunderstand the situation while applying. Our exit surveys show students are generally satisfied.
What is surprising is that despite the agony and angst expressed by this candidate, my notes show that her English was very good, and that her answers were not bad. She was a good candidate. In answer to a question about Geertz, she said "culture is like a net" (well, he said "web," but that is close enough for admission to the MA program, since it is designed for people interested in anthropology who have not studied it previously). She was a good candidate and we certainly did not intend to make her life miserable. One person I discussed this with suggested her tone was perhaps exaggerated since, as a female and in Chinese culture, she could not very well say the interview went well. There is probably nothing that can be done to make interviews less stressful. At least most messages have me as the "good cop."
The use of these websites to share information is interesting because it reflects a Chinese tendency to go through connections rather than public information. I remember in the mid 1980s showing my friends in Taipei how to use the Yellow Pages. They did not know what that was, and once they saw it, they said they would never use such a book; they would ask their friends for a recommendation instead. One of our students from China has mentioned that friends will ask her for information on applying to other departments at CUHK. Even though all the information is posted on the web, they ask her for help, assuming that there might be some secrets or tricks that she can impart. The websites are also interesting because they require altruism; those who post do not get anything in return, except messages of thanks from later applicants. From a strictly competitive point of view, they might even think that helping others to have a better interview might make their interview performance look worse by comparison. It is a good sign of a developing civil society (or at least civility) that students share this kind of information. I just wish it were more accurate. For accuracy, however, they should really go to our department website.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Sports and violence
In honor of the Hong Kong Sevens taking place this week, I provide links to two very negative views on sport. Most famous is George Orwell's essay "The Sporting Spirit" in which he notes,
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
Dominic Hobson on the BBC website talks about "The dark side of sport."
The reason the HK Sevens is different is that there are 24 countries represented, and in no game does the crowd cheer predominantly for one team (except, perhaps, for Hong Kong--everyone cheers for the home team). Visitors from the UK or New Zealand who sit together in clusters of perhaps 12 people are surrounded by fans from other countries. This keeps every group from behaving in an excessively jingoistic manner. It also helps, I suspect, that the players get to know each other. They play in 9 tournaments this season, and there is a banquet after each one. Though winning is important for each team, it is more difficult to demonize and dehumanize the opponent, when you've met him before and socialized with him.
In any case, those who know the Sevens like it precisely because it is NOT like what Orwell and Hobson say. It is worth thinking more about why it is different.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Apple's labor problems
All users of Apple products should be more concerned about how those products are made. In fact, all users of all computer products should be, since Foxconn makes computers and other products for Dell, Samsung, and many other manufacturers. Among the best story tellers on the issue is Mike Daisey, and he takes David Pogue to task for his whitewashing of Apple in a good blog here, noting in passing that since Pogue has several books on Apple products, he has a conflict of interest. The problem is, we all do, since we all use their products. Daisey is great because he is an unabashed Apple fan. I'm a Pogue fan, but I am disappointed by his Times column on this, and Daisey does a great job of tearing Pogue's excuses apart. It is good that this issue is getting more and more exposure, because only when shoppers start thinking about it, and demanding changes, will changes be made by Apple. But are we really willing to pay more for our gadgets? Other good links include this Henry Blodgett conversation on MSNBC, and most dramatically, an episode from January on This American Life featuring the one-man show on Apple by Mike Daisey. The SACOM petition on Apple is here. Most people will feel that they can't make a difference, but then when you hear about labor organizers taking huge risks in China, how can we who believe we live in freedom not do things to support them?
Monday, March 05, 2012
Anti-Mainlander Rumors in Hong Kong
The level of anti-mainlander sentiment in Hong Kong has gotten close to the danger level. In the past two weeks, since the government announced a scheme to allow Hong Kong cars to drive in the mainland and mainlander cars to come to Hong Kong, people have been furious about this, more angry than at the number of mainlander women coming to Hong Kong to give birth. Even though the number of cars would be small (50 per day for a maximum of 7 days, so a total maximum of 350 cars in HK at any one time), people are up in arms. People comment on how dangerous it will be with mainlanders driving on the left side, but in cars designed for the right side, and how mainlanders don't follow the rules. There are even photos of the few mainland cars that do now have licenses to enter HK (which are placed below their Guangdong Province license plates) making illegal turns.
A sign of a new dangerous level in tension comes from rumors circulating on the web and a story on Yahoo News that a "gang" of mainlanders tried to kidnap a 3-year old girl. The story is illogical and vague, claiming that a man and a woman and 13-year old boy tried to walk away with a 3-year old girl who was crying loudly, but they somehow got away. A mother then appeared with a stroller saying the girl was hers. The story has all the marks of a moral panic type rumor, including lack of any evidence, or witnesses.
With worries about the world economy, about who is going to be the next Chief Executive (and with the two leading candidates embroiled in scandal accusations, and our current CE embarrassed and humiliated and being found running around with tycoons and Macau gambling moguls), there is plenty to be worried about. Hong Kongers keep waiting to see who Beijing will give the nod to; so far they have not indicated a preference, which is actually good, and allows "HK people to run HK." But the uncertainty is leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories.
Mainlanders used to be looked down upon as "A-Chan" bumpkins; now they come in the thousands to shop in Hong Kong's cheaper, duty-free stores, especially in luxury goods stores, which are so popular with tourists that one must line up to enter. Resentment is rising, and many see mainlanders as driven by money. In their moral condemnation of mainlanders, they are willing to believe a rather illogical rumor of an attempted kidnapping. (As one poster noted in an online forum, if mainlanders wanted to kidnap a child, it would be a lot easier to do it in the mainland rather than in HK). But the rumor does provide evidence that all is not well in HK; there is a lot of anxiety and resentment.
A sign of a new dangerous level in tension comes from rumors circulating on the web and a story on Yahoo News that a "gang" of mainlanders tried to kidnap a 3-year old girl. The story is illogical and vague, claiming that a man and a woman and 13-year old boy tried to walk away with a 3-year old girl who was crying loudly, but they somehow got away. A mother then appeared with a stroller saying the girl was hers. The story has all the marks of a moral panic type rumor, including lack of any evidence, or witnesses.
With worries about the world economy, about who is going to be the next Chief Executive (and with the two leading candidates embroiled in scandal accusations, and our current CE embarrassed and humiliated and being found running around with tycoons and Macau gambling moguls), there is plenty to be worried about. Hong Kongers keep waiting to see who Beijing will give the nod to; so far they have not indicated a preference, which is actually good, and allows "HK people to run HK." But the uncertainty is leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories.
Mainlanders used to be looked down upon as "A-Chan" bumpkins; now they come in the thousands to shop in Hong Kong's cheaper, duty-free stores, especially in luxury goods stores, which are so popular with tourists that one must line up to enter. Resentment is rising, and many see mainlanders as driven by money. In their moral condemnation of mainlanders, they are willing to believe a rather illogical rumor of an attempted kidnapping. (As one poster noted in an online forum, if mainlanders wanted to kidnap a child, it would be a lot easier to do it in the mainland rather than in HK). But the rumor does provide evidence that all is not well in HK; there is a lot of anxiety and resentment.
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