Studebakers and Capitalists

When I last visited South Bend, Indiana, I assumed it was for the first and final time. But karma doesn’t work that way. It puts one in situations one never expect for reasons one rarely understand. Karma brought me here once more. Last time I was here there wasn’t time to visit the Studebaker Museum across the street from our accommodations at the Avanti House. But this time we ventured inside.

Within the museum’s walls are some very shiny and cool old cars, mostly Studebakers. But there are also old horse carriages. Studebaker began as a blacksmith shop. Later it built carriages. Ultimately, the company decided to hedge its bets by manufacturing automobiles in addition to carriages in case “horseless carriages” were more than a passing fad. Studebaker’s first car was electric, a quiet vehicle that didn’t foul the air. But the public demanded gasoline powered cars. In time Studebaker made those exclusively.

Among the museum’s carriage collection are several that transported American president’s. Of these carriages, two provided the last rides taken before their riders were assassinated. A somber coincidence perhaps. Karma can do that.

If the museum can be said to tell a story, the story is this. Companies have natural life cycles. Studebaker began as a simple blacksmith shop. It took risks, but also gave the public the products it desired. It grew from a one-person business to become a major automobile manufacturer. However, when its fortunes changed in the 1960s, it went out of business. This is capitalism in its pure and natural form. It takes risks, pleases consumers, competes and innovates.

There is a myth that circulates among us. It’s that markets should be self-regulating and free. Economist Robert Reich points out that markets have always had their rules, such as those governing bankruptcy and loan terms. Karl Popper noted that without regulations, seemingly free markets would develop consumer strangling monopolies. Markets should serve consumers, not profiteers. I believe the free market myth is a disguise for class-entitlement thinking. Too much winning convinces some of the wealthy that they are deserving of what falls to them. Because they deserve what they ultimately get, class-entitled people are willing to bend rules by seeking favorable treatment from the government and others. When they talk about a free marketplace, they mean one free from environmental rules that force their industrialists to pick-up after themselves. It’s like they say, “We make chemical products. The remaining hazardous waste is an unintended byproduct that’s not our problem.” Staying focused on the product and not on the damage it causes, leads oil company executives to bury reports on climate change while misinforming the public.

There are some who say capitalism works best when it’s unregulated. I don’t believe it. We live in a complex world. Regulations are sometimes needed. Studebaker began small, gave the public what it wanted, took risks, changed with the times, grew large, then died a natural death. This is how it should be.

Unfortunately the same wealthy men who advocate unregulated marketplaces also advocate tax breaks and handouts for themselves. These wealthy men feel entitled to special advantages. They’ve forgotten that capitalism is entwined with risk. In order to convert more oil into money, some of these men misinformed the public about climate change. The lies have worked to some degree, but the tide of opinion has changed — most people are now convinced that climate change is real and imminent. Sustainable, green technologies are being birthed and implemented. Ultimately businesses based on obsolete petroleum technology will decline and die. That’s how capitalism is supposed to work. Competition drives innovation and innovation drives economic growth. Dinosaurs that prefer lying to competing and innovating deserve to disappear.

All art is propaganda

Propaganda refers to the use of persuasive information to influence public opinion. Such information is often distorted, based on rumors and allegations, or simply untruthful. But that isn’t always the case. Governments often release persuasive public service announcements based on factual information. And that, too, can be called propaganda insofar as it promotes and spreads information persuasively. Generally people think of propaganda in its negative sense, as a tool of corrupt governments and institutions. However I think W.E.B. Du Bois, Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, and George Orwell intended the word in its broader sense when they considered art as propaganda.

It raises serious questions, but pared down to the bone their meaning is clear: art attempts to persuade others of an artist’s viewpoint using factual, fictional, or even biased information. Its function is to propagate a viewpoint. It is therefore propaganda.

I began to take a fresh interest in George Orwell when I saw “Down and Out in Paris and London” on a must-read list. While reading his, “Burmese Days” I wondered what else he’d written. I found a compilation of Orwell’s essays titled, “All Art is Propaganda”. Intrigued, I requested it from the library. Once I got it home I looked for the essay with that title. There wasn’t one. So I went online to look for the quote.

It turns out that Orwell wasn’t the only writer who’d made such a statement. George Bernard Shaw is credited with, “All great art and literature is propaganda.” Prolific author, Upton Sinclair, said, “All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.”

W.E.B. Du Bois addressed propaganda during a 1926 lecture. He tells us, “The apostle of Beauty thus becomes the apostle of Truth and Right not by choice but by inner and outer compulsion.” He continues, “Thus all Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent.”

In Orwell’s case, the comment about propaganda is made in reference to Charles Dickens, “But every writer, especially every novelist, has a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this. On the other hand, not all propaganda is art.”
Have I been writing propaganda? It’s something to ponder.

More Avanti, please

The plan called for covering a certain number of miles each day—South Bend was in the right place, so we stopped there. I knew nothing about South Bend. Now I know a bit more.

We spent the night at Avanti House and I’m glad we did. It’s a bed-and-breakfast that doubles as a mini museum. If you’re a car buff you’ll know that the Avanti was the last model Studebaker sold. Its ahead-of- its-time design failed to save Studebaker but its memory is preserved in the memorabilia displayed in the guest house.

I enjoyed our stay there. Don is a gracious host and our room was comfortable and well supplied with snacks. The beds are covered with Route 66 themed quilts and items from old Studebaker crates and Don’s doorknob collection are incorporated into some of the fixtures. The Studebaker Museum is just across the street and the Studebaker Mansion is only a block further. This was a business trip so we couldn’t stay until the museum opened at ten. But, now I’m curious about South Bend and I'd like to visit again some time soon.

At one time, Studebaker was South Bend’s largest employer. Now it’s Notre Dame University. The decline of manufacturing in the United States brought unwelcome changes to many American cities. Those interested in post industrial American cities might benefit from this 2015 article in which The Economist describes how South Bend fared once its main employer closed its doors.

Is there an artful approach to artificial intelligence?

During the week concluding 2017’s first half, three New York Times stories addressed the potential social dangers of Artificial Intelligence. Is this a mere coincidence, or is it rather a symptom of growing alarm? Previously economists have noted that just as industrialization eliminated many jobs only to create new ones, automation has done the same. But some economists now suspect that this time it will be different.

Kai-Fu Lee penned the most thoughtful of the week’s three stories. He notes, “Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I. revolution is not taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper and typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs (assembly-line workers, personal assistants conversant with computers). Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs but some higher-paying ones, too.” These will include, “Bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, even paralegals and radiologists,” who will, “gradually be replaced by such software.” In time robots and self driving vehicles will replace a slew of other jobs.

Lee notes that A.I. software is being developed faster than most people realize and that it has the potential to disrupt society in two ways. He asks; “we are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together: enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?”

Some who have pondered this question believe that education is the key to creating jobs in this soon-to-come economy. But Lee believes education is only a partial solution. “Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs involving creativity, planning and “cross-domain” thinking — for example, the work of a trial lawyer. But these skills are typically required by high-paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced workers to do.” Lower paying, people-skill, jobs can’t easily be performed by artificial intelligence but, “How many bartenders does a society really need?”

Lee, among others, suggests that in addition to educating workers, a universal income may also be required. To prevent massive unemployment, Lee believes that service jobs which today are poorly paid, or done by volunteers, will acquire greater status. Wealth held by A.I.’s landlords and other wealthy people and companies will need to be taxed to pay for the new, and newly remodeled, jobs necessitated by A.I.

This means higher taxes, a solution applied during the Great Depression of the thirties, World War II, and the Cold War. However, high taxation went away in the Reagan era and it shows no sign of returning soon. Although high progressive taxes brought about a period during which America had a broader and more prosperous middle class, that approach has been unpopular in recent years. Instead, tax cuts, particularly for the wealthy have been used under the theory that wealth would trickle down and benefit society at large. These tax cuts have given the economy a few short-lived bumps, but they’ve also increased the nation’s deficits. Today, the top 20 percent of Americans hold roughly 90 percent of the country’s wealth. Recently both the Congress and the Senate proposed tax plans that would leave more than 20 million Americans without health insurance. Though universal health care is the norm in most well-developed nations, it’s an idea that remains unpopular in the United States. Lee and others who propose universal income are unrealistic: if universal healthcare is too socialistic for the United States, then a universal income will meet the same resistance.

Before universal income, or something like it, can become a reality, America’s economic attitudes will need to change. The difficulty here is that those with the most money influence our political process in a variety of ways—and they seem set on preserving their wealth. Today many Americans face poverty and economic uncertainty. The growth of A.I. will soon put more money in fewer hands increasing the misery of the 80 percent of Americans currently sharing 10 percent of the wealth.

Lee writes from Beijing. Perhaps his solution will work in China. But unless something major changes here, it won’t work in the United States.

Lee makes a secondary point as well. China and the United States are the two countries most likely to advance advanced A.I. technology. As they do so other nations may be plunged into poverty. Lee concludes, “…we are going to have to start thinking about how to minimize the looming A.I.-fueled gap between the haves and the have-nots, both within and between nations. Or to put the matter more optimistically: A.I. is presenting us with an opportunity to rethink economic inequality on a global scale. These challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate itself from the rest of the world.”

Read more:
The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence
Daily Report: Automation’s Effect on Developing Tech Economies
Robocalypse Now? Central Bankers Argue Whether Automation Will Kill Jobs

Bad Argument

 Some, while admitting that climate change is real, argue that it isn't a big deal, that human causation hasn't been proven, and that doing something about it would cause job losses and hurt the economy. Apparently these people don't read newspapers, or if they do, they read the ones that use very small words. Science has known about climate change and the human activity causing it for over 5o years. The science is entertainingly explained in under an hour in the Cosmos episode, The World Set Free. 

A July 8, 2015 Guardian headline  states, "Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years." Why do you suppose Exxon did that? Let me take a guess. Because it would cause job losses and hurt the economy. That's oil industry jobs and the oil industry economy. 

Keeping a secret for 27 years in order to protect your business model is shortsighted. It would have been more sensible to diversify and develop other energy sources. Had Exxon done that, today it would be an industry leader in renewable energy. But it chose to be dishonest and self-serving instead.

Many of the politicians who argue that climate change interventions will cost jobs and hurt the economy receive major funding from oil industry associates. But that, in itself, doesn't make the argument  a bad one. It's true that climate change interventions will cost jobs and effect the economy. The effects will be primarily in the energy sector, although not all of it. Those portions of the energy sector invested in renewable energy will instead create jobs and thrive.

The argument is deceptive because it doesn't take the entire economy into account. Climate change is already affecting the economy's agricultural sector. Droughts, floods and crop-killing heat waves are happening now and will become worse. Climate change will devastate jobs and economies far beyond what can be gained by protecting the status quo. It's time to cut the crap and act responsibly.

Armageddon, anyone?

Good omens : the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Fiction 384 pages
William Morrow, 1990, 2006

According to the bit in the back of the book, this novel has become a "cult classic" since its publication. The book's sales rank on Amazon supports this claim. I haven't read any of Pratchett's books, but I've read a few by Gaiman. I didn't like this one as well as those.

Gaiman has a talent for taking mythological themes and making them believable. But this book is more of a farce, and as such, it failed to suspend my disbelief. This story, like others by Gaiman, draws from mythology, but unlike American Gods, the mythology isn't Norse, African, or Hindu, but Christian, and that will offend some, or at least cause discomfort. Believers don't like to see their beliefs treated like myths.

 Good Omens is about a friendship between a demon and an angel. Neither sees any sense in a war between Heaven and Hell and prefer to thwart, rather than assist during Armageddon. Crowley, the demon, and Aziraphale, the angel, have lived amidst humanity for so long that they no longer see things in such black and white terms as pure good or evil. They no longer fit in with the bureaucrats of Heaven and Hell. Unfortunately their sophisticated viewpoint isn't universal; satirizing conventional behavior just doesn't work for me.

I find no humor in society's increasing polarization of beliefs and attitudes, in the absence of dialog between left and right, religious and secular, rich and poor. Envisioning Heaven and Hell populated by rigid thinking, bureaucratic zealots simply doesn't amuse me. The world is full of such people already and their numbers are steadily increasing. Maybe Armageddon is coming after all, and that's just not funny.