노동문제와 경제체제

어떠한 종류의 자본주의를 바탕으로 정치경제가 돌아가느냐와
노동자가 임금, 노동, 및 노사관리에 있어서 처하게 되는 부당함, 부정의와 고통은
물론 연관은 있겠지만 근본적으로 별개의 문제가 아닐까?

예를 들어 사람들이 적당한 수준의 복지국가/사민주의적 정책을 주장한다고 하면
일부(?) 좌파 이론가/활동가/운동가들은 그것을 열심히 비판하는데,
(김규항, 박노자 류)

결국 그 사람들이 주장하는 '노동자 해방'이라는게
1) '적정한/정당한 수준의 봉급을 받고 좀 사람답게 사는 것'을 의미하는 것이라면
복지국가/사민주의 국가를 추구하고 정관경 유착으로 인해 노동자들의 권리가
정치경제적으로 짓밟혀지는걸 제도적으로 막도록 노력하는 방식이 과연 정말로
옳지 않은 방향인건지 묻고 싶어지며
2) 좀 더 래디컬한 사회주의/공산주의 사회체제를 의미하는 것이라면
별로 동감해주고 싶지 않다.

요약해서 말하자면
a. 노동문제의 제반 문제들을
b. 자본주의 자체의 문제인 것으로 혼동하는데서 나오는 래디컬한 사상이 있는데,
b는 a의 필요조건이긴 하지만 충분조건은 아니다. 그러므로 b를 개선/개량시켜 a를
해결하자는 주장은 틀리지 않다.

물론 b를 충분조건으로 생각할 수 밖에 없는 좌절감은 이해한다.
다만 그것 때문에 현실 정치의 투쟁 영역에서 이상주의적으로 나가다보면 문제를
해결하기 더 힘들어진다고 본다.

(나도 이상주의는 동경하나, Barney Frank의 말처럼, 이상주의는 구체적인
현실적 문제 - 집짓고, 복지 프로그램을 통과시키고 (타협과 절충을 통해서라도), 등등-
의 해결방안을 현실화시키지 못하면서 도덕적 우월감으로 스스로를 지탱할 뿐이다.
시베리아 횡단을 해야하는데, 비행기가 없으면 마을버스라도 타고 가야한다. 시간맞춰
버스타러 가야한다. 이상주의는 버스를 놓친다.)

그들이 그들의 사상에 대한 이상주의를 가지고 있다면
나는 실용적 점진주의에 대한 이상주의를 가지고 있는 것일 뿐이다.

재미

"단식이니 길거리농성이니 투신이니 삼보일배니 하는 식의 자학적인 운동은 죄송하지만 그만하고 시위 자체가 축제가 돼야 한다고 생각하는데, 그 점에서 나꼼수와 내 생각이 맞아떨어졌다."
- 공지영 트윗


요즘 재미가 대세인데 (정봉주 등), 너무 비판적이거나 삐딱하게 볼 필요는 없다. 이런게 대두가 되는 건 기존 한국 사회의 분위기 상 어느 정도 그럴 필요가 있기 때문이라 생각된다. 흔한 오디션 프로그램에서도 매일 같이 재미와 즐기는 것을 강조하는 것 등도 보다 mature한 사회로 가는 중간 과정이라 생각됨. 그럼에도 공지영의 저런 말은 아주 불쾌함.

How the Universe Works - Big Bang

Netflix로 Discovery channel에서 간만에 아주 잘만든 다큐를 보았다.
거의 3D 수준으로 보이는 우주 영상들이 대단했음.
빅뱅은 아무리 봐도 언제나 경이롭고 신비롭다. 바로 그 에너지 '점'은 어디에서 왔을까.
나중에 우주가 '망'한다고 하더라도 또 다른 빅뱅의 여지가 있다.
지금의 우리는 몇번째 우리인지 모른다.
무한의 반복이 연속된다.
죽음은 끝이 아니다.

Ron Paul

ENEMY OF THE STATE by Nicholas Lemann

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/01/09/120109taco_talk_lemann

"Mitt Romney will probably win in the end, but each of his serially surging competitors enjoys more immediate access to some essential region of the Republican soul. Herman Cain is the tough, no-bullshit businessman, Rick Santorum the devout pro-lifer, Rick Perry the hypermasculine cowboy, Michele Bachmann the evangelical populist, Newt Gingrich the swashbuckling geostrategist. It seems fitting that the final surge should belong to Ron Paul, who speaks most directly to one of his party’s deepest emotions: hostility to government."

"Especially to the self-selected group that comes to the Iowa Republican caucuses, Paul’s positions are pulse quickening. If you are antitax, Paul has that sentiment nailed more than any other candidate. If you are antiwar, Paul is right there with you. If you fear for your personal freedoms, Paul has you covered. And if you want a sweeping philosophy, deeply grounded in fundamental texts (Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard), Paul is your man. Nobody has a better claim to be a protest candidate. He’s the only one who has ever run for office from a third party. He’s not about passing bills; he’s about root-and-branch change. His popularity, even if it’s temporary, demonstrates that all politics isn’t necessarily local—that big ideas can exert a pull on voters, too."

"Paul’s baseline obsession is with currency: President Nixon’s decision, forty years ago, to take the United States off the gold standard is what brought him into politics. His hatred of the Federal Reserve Board is related to a mistrust of currencies managed by governments. Underlying everything is, of course, a larger mistrust—the sense that in some hushed Washington conference room highly consequential arrangements are being made that will help a few privileged insiders and hurt ordinary Americans. Although Paul has spent most of his life directly benefitting from one or another federal payroll or program, starting when he served in the Air Force, he isn’t just striking a pose when he describes government as the enemy of freedom. He means it."

Rick Santorum

역시나 돌+아이들 보는게 정치판 보는 big motivation중 하나...

A Long List of the Most Terrible Things Rick Santorum Has Ever Said
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99240/santorum-surge-2012-vetting-quotes


9 Things You Need to Know About Rick Santorum
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/01/04/9-Things-You-Need-to-Know-about-Rick-Santorum.aspx#page2

Rick Santorum & David Brooks

Rick Santorum과 Davis Brooks의 한계

"The communitarian crush on Rick Santorum" - The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-stump/99294/the-communitarian-crush-rick-santorum

: David Brooks is back at it today, taking a second straight column to praise Rick Santorum for alone among the Republican candidates drawing attention to the woes of the working class and for drawing links between the strengths of their communities and values and our economic future. It is a more nuanced piece than Brooks' previous one, and notes that Santorum falls short when it comes to reckoning with the policy implications of a values-based economic outlook:

Santorum doesn’t yet see that once you start thinking about how to foster an economic system that would nurture our virtues, you wind up with an agenda far more drastic and transformational.

If you believe in the dignity of labor, it makes sense to support an infrastructure program that allows more people to practice the habits of industry. If you believe in personal responsibility, you have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for. If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that both encourages marriage and also supplies wage subsidies to men to make them marriageable.

If you believe social trust is the precondition for a healthy society, you have to have a simplified tax code that inspires trust instead of degrading it. If you believe that firm attachments and stable relationships build human capital, you had better offer early education for children in disorganized neighborhoods. If you want capitalists thinking for the long term and getting the most out of their workers, you have to encourage companies to be more deeply rooted in local communities rather than just free-floating instruments of capital markets.

But of course these sorts of approaches are utterly at odds with current doctrine in the party whose nomination Santorum is seeking. I agree with Brooks that there is value in Santorum's mere acknowledgment that our society is no longer the land of Horatio Alger that Mitt Romney makes it out to be; indeed, I was one of the first to identify this aspect of Santorum's appeal. But I would caution against overstating Santorum's commitment to this message, as I think that Brooks, even with the above caveat, comes close to doing. The truth is, even someone as conservative as Santorum has let himself be ratcheted rightward to be considered acceptable in the GOP of 2012. He is in favor of slashing the already-low tax rates on capital gains and dividends, and he rails against the threat of European social democracy with as much fervor as any of the other candidates, a rhetorical stance that would make hard indeed to come out for wage subsidies or early education for children in "disorganized neighborhoods" or "encouraging" companies to be more "deeply rooted in local communities." Brooks notes that Santorum has in recent years come around to supporting community-building government programs like Americorps, but he must not have been at the Santorum event I was at on Friday in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Santorum told a young man who got up to advocate for Americorps and Habitat for Humanity that he just didn't see how we could afford to fund such efforts. "Is it the role of the federal government to do this?" he told the young man. "There are going to be programs like Americorps where we just don't have the resources." The young man,who appeared generally inclined to support Santorum, seemed slightly stunned by the answer. "Programs like these, you cut them and you'll be building more prisons. You can't find a more family-friendly organization than Habitat for Humanity," he said. In other words, he was arguing for the programs on Santorum's own terms, almost as if channeling Brooks. But Santorum ignored him and moved on.

Some interesting comments:


- Brooks: "If you believe social trust is the precondition for a healthy society, you have to have a simplified tax code that inspires trust instead of degrading it."

When he thinks of building social trust, the first thing he thinks of is making life slightly easier for tax accountants? How does one hit the 'send' button after typing something like that and not then jump off a bridge out of embarrassment?

- My reaction when I read Brooks's column this morning was that his lofty ideals don't come even remotely close either to Santorum's history in the Senate or to his policy positions in the campaign. This is vintage Brooks: creating an association between lofty ideals and a favored politician by putting both in the same column when in fact they have no association in reality. Since Brooks has become the brain expert, he uses the association technique often. I suppose that if it's okay for Republicans to create their own reality it's okay for columnists to do the same.

Also, Brooks uses vague language. Here's one sentence: "If you want capitalists thinking for the long term and getting the most out of their workers, you have to encourage companies to be more deeply rooted in local communities rather than just free-floating instruments of capital markets." What on earth does that mean? Again, it's vintage Brooks. What would Strunk and White think about the use of such vague language. They would identify it for what it is, which is the language of the deceiver, the language of the propogandist.

- "But Santorum ignored him and moved on." Because Santorum is a holier than thou narcissistic little shit of a man. He longs for an America of the 1950's and pretends we can go back to that age but is utterly clueless as to reasons and conditions that existed then (strong unions, very large manufacturing base)

- A couple of friends say I am being unfair to Brooks by comparing him to a propagandist by selecting one sentence out of an entire column. Fair enough. But I didn't even select the most egregious example but rather a sentence that has no meaning at all. Here's another: "If you believe in personal responsibility, you have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for." "Force"? At the end of a gun? No, not even Brooks. He must be referring to the balanced budget amendment (what else?). Why not say that Brooks and Santorum believe only those who support the balanced budget amendment believe in "personal responsibility". Brooks relies on an uncritical (i.e., not close) reading of his columns, the same as does the propagandist.

- Forget Santorum's bigotry, his misogyny, his attacks on birth control and peoples' private sex lives which apparently he thinks it is the business of the state to regulate. This is "values" apparently.

From Brooks' piece, this is the absolute piece de resistance and I would like an apology from Mr. Brooks for even thinking of it let alone publishing in the NYT:

"If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that both encourages marriage and also supplies wage subsidies to men to make them marriageable."

EXCUSE ME?

- Oh by the way. If Hillary or some other "communist" says "It Takes A Village" we are attacked but now we got the family thing; oh give me a break please. And since when does Catholic doctrine OF ANY KIND have any business in an AMERICAN election?

This is not 15th century Spain thank goodness. It is the job of the supposedly independent press to remind our politicians of this.

a nice website on Japan

http://www.japanreview.net/reviews.htm