What happened in Ferguson, Missouri? And is this important to the nation? Continue reading
Blog Posts and Writings Tagged: inequality
Blog 54. Money, McCutcheon, and the Supreme Court
What happened?
On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision on the McCutcheon case, in which Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee claimed that the Federal Election Campaign Act restricted his freedom of speech. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court agreed that limitation of political spending limits personal speech. Continue reading
Blog 44. Big consequences of singular events
As suggested in the previous two blogs, the magnitude of a social calamity (or good fortune) that arises from a single event depends on how we react to the event, more than on the event itself. Now really, do I assert that the outcome of hurricane Sandy depended on our reactions more than the blast of wind and deluge of water? Continue reading
Blog 35. Complex Terrorism
Terrorism doesn’t work, but fear of terrorism works very well.
Scientific American on terrorism.
The August, 2013 Scientific American offered an article, “Five Myths of Terrorism,” by Michael Shermer. Shermer says terrorism doesn’t work because the terrorists have reason to perpetrate violence; they aren’t under central control, they are not unique geniuses, and they are not deadly compared to the annual average of 13,700 homicides. Shermer notes that most terrorist groups failed to attain their strategic goals.
Shermer is wrong because he ignores the effectiveness of the terrorist acts of 9/11. Continue reading
Blog 32. McCutcheon, the Supreme Court, and Feedback
The lawsuit
A year ago, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit brought by an Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee (RNC). McCutcheon, who owns a firm that develops coal mining and electrical generation, appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that the Federal Election Campaign Act (FERC) restricted freedom of speech. That law limits the total contributions to political candidates, PACs, and party committees by individual persons. On October 8, 2013, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments. Continue reading
Blog 30. The Movie Inequality for All
The Movie: Inequality for All
When it comes to your theater, don’t miss it.
Robert Reich is a professor who teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor. Now he’s also the witty star of an entertaining new film released this week to theaters across the country. The film was directed by Jacob Kornbluth.
In earlier blogs of this sequence, I outlined how the society and the economy are complex systems—and how, if you want to change a complex system, you must adjust one or more of the rules by which it operates. Reich expands on this in regard to the increasing disparity of wealth in our economy. Continue reading
Blog 29. The Real, the Ideal, and Stories
Underlying every social tension there is a gap between the real situation and the ideals of the society. For example, American law espouses the ideals of equality, justice, fairness, and popular consensus. However, our politics and our business are based on competition, domination, manipulation, exclusion, and political spin. This gap between the real and the ideal generates both outrage and a malaise of helplessness. Continue reading
Blog 23. Looking Good and Being Right
Complex systems are collections of many actors interacting by nonlinear rules. In this post, we’ll examine Looking Good and Being Right as two of those rules of interaction among the persons and institutions in the complex system that is society.