(Hope I'm not repeating, but my comment didn't appear.)
I think Alex McKeon’s recommendation to drop Prof. Bessner is misguided. A heterodox outlook requires consideration of competing views, and engaging with Prof. Bessner’s arguments helps reveal their deficiencies.
It’s no great concession to acknowledge that capitalism has many flaws, and Prof. Bessner is good at cherry-picking them. As he says, however, he is led to that by the conditions and goals of what he considers a desirable polity: one that gives primacy to goals of economic equality and a more modest role in world affairs, turning away from the competitive sorting through markets that gives capitalism its dynamism, but that is also somewhat responsible for certain flaws.
The question in political economy, however, is always “Compared to what?” Bessner’s apparent advantage is due to his evasion of two issues. First, he does not answer questions about historical circumstances—he replied to Glenn’s point about the USSR’s malignant designs by claiming that it never had the ability to carry them out. As Mr. McKeon observes, however, those designs were obvious and they were frustrated largely due to the US’s primacy in outcompeting the USSR in the cold war. But that evasion allows Prof. Bessner to glide through statements that call into question the value of “development,” without facing e.g., the incredible accomplishment of a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty worldwide between 1980 and 2015.
Second, he rationalizes away the historic failures of Marxist political economy, including the relative conditions in western Europe and the Soviet bloc as of 1989. His response to Glenn’s query about where in the world his proposed polity is succeeding is an embarrassed laugh.
Prof. Bessner is an amiable foil, and not everyone is familiar with the Marxist perspective Prof. Bessner provides. I don’t doubt, however, that Glenn’s listeners are more than able to pick it apart for themselves. As was said by John Stuart Mill, “If you know only your own side of an argument, you don’t even know that.”
BTW, Glenn, I’ve been wanting to compliment your choice of theme music for the Glenn Show—bluesy, mid-century jazz piano with a notable “Playboy After Dark” mood. Very hip!
I found Bessner shallow, he offered a lot of hand waving and little meat. I agree that he is not the best fit for the heady conversations happening in the Glenn show
After reading Bessner's response it seems he is simply incapable of providing direct answers...which certainly puts him in the rank of "American intellectual", as he so proudly mentions.
Just look what he wrote here: "I also don't believe I ever addressed the feasibility, or lack thereof, of communism. Suffice to say, I don't think it's on the horizon."
Huh? What does communism being "on the horizon" have to do with it being feasible?
I agree with him that other people could consider other "freedoms", like housing or healthcare more important than freedoms of speech, religion, etc (note - I don't believe anything that requires the labor/funds of another person can be considered a "freedom", but I digress)...however, he could easily separate the Soviet Union from people who hold those beliefs, however he does not choose to do so.
Further, he claims he couldn't be pro-soviet because it only existed for the first seven years of his life...what a cop-out. Certainly, you couldn't possibly be in favor of bringing something back that used to exist, but doesn't any longer right? /sarcasm
This whole thing seems like a sick joke...but such is the state of American intellectualism I suppose.
Bessner's comments re free speech vs right to not be homeless reminds me of a conversation I had with a Sudanese student when I was in college forty years ago. He spoke of people who lived in Communist governments who didn't care about free speech or religion as long as their needs were taken care of. They may not have lived as well as others, but they lived without the stress of wondering where their next meal was coming from or how long they could stay under that roof. That's not enough for everyone, but for some it works, and if the government does its part they do their part by not agitating.
I believe I got Bessner's point about how one can define 'freedom' in different ways. How 'free' are you when your entire worldview is encompassed by daily survival on the streets? How 'free' are you when your leader turns your country into a pariah and crushing sanctions render you poor after the world turns against you in response to your country's unjust war?
The homeless American and the agitating Russian risking prison may have much in common.
Teacher - Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
R. G. Collingwood - "History is for human self-knowledge ... the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."
Prof Daniel Besser - To paraphrase, pretty big leap to know what human nature is.
Provost at Washington - Where have all the history majors gone?
I will take freedom of speech and freedom of life in general over communist “free housing” — their free housing makes inner city project housing look luxurious
How does an American intellectual, as Bessner describes himself, build a straw man like "a choice between freedom speech and freedom from homelessness"? Those two things are not on the same plane and they have nothing to do with one's ideological beliefs. Homelessness is not about a lack of housing, nor does it have anything to do with individual rights or govt responsibilities. As we've seen multiple times, when govts take an active role in "battling" homelessness, they tend to make the problem worse, not better. I'm all for taking different looks at things and making valid comparisons between systems of thought or governance. Valid comparisons. That was not one.
I’m an Ezra Pound fan. Nazi Italy no longer exists so I guess it’s ok to say fascism had some pretty good ideas if we are rejecting simple definitions of good and evil. That’s Daniel.
Bessner's "freedom from" homelessness analogy fails when one acknowledges that functionally ending homelessness requires a coercive state willing to permanently institutionalize persons with severe mental illness and chronic substance use disorder who engage in unlawful or anti-social behavior in public spaces. Reducing the number of persons experiencing homelessness requires restricting their "freedom to" live on the streets in places with excellent, year-round weather. The only people who get to experience negative liberty in this scenario are housed people who get to enjoy freedom from tripping over homeless persons and their excrement when they leave their homes to shop, work, or recreate. Bessner misunderstands the causes of chronic homelessness and wasted an opportunity to defend his argument. There are plenty of advanced capitalist democracies where homelessness is not a problem, like Singapore and Japan. Or, are these not democracies because they enforce the rule of law?
One element of those societies that should be considered is the concept of “loose” vs. “tight” social order. The US is quite loose as is Italy. Countries like Japan, Singapore and Germany are categorized as tight. Those in tight societies tend to follow rules and social mores far more whereas citizens in looser societies pay far less mind to such things. This also contributes to differences seen in homelessness between capitalist societies.
I really appreciated your conversation with Daniel Bessner and I am very surprised by the level of hostility shown towards him by Alex McKeon and many people on your YouTube channel. I see that unfortunately many take it for granted that Soviet Union was "evil" and that the United States are "good", which is a perfect example of simplistic, biased and Manichean thinking.
I see, too, that some of the commentators actually believe that mentally ill people, intellectually disabled people and addicted people deserve to live in the streets, that homelessness is an adequate punishment for "not being rational enough".
Black people make up about 40% of the homeless in the US. Even if all these homeless Black people were indeed mentally ill, intellectually disabled or addicted to various substances (which is certainly not the case), doesn't the racial disparity speak volumes about the nature of capitalism and the nature of the US society?
I always appreciate your comments on all kinds of issues and your openness to others' views. However, I find it very sad that your "Conservatism" (what a reductive label...) and your attitude towards the excesses of "wokeism" attract lots of people who seem to reject the very idea of social justice.
I am firmly convinced that one can be committed both to the idea of personal responsibility and to the idea of social justice. I believe that people, including very poor people, can make good or bad choices which deeply affect their lives. At the same time, however, we have to remember that the opportunities available to the poor are not the same as the opportunities available to middle- and upper-middle class people.
And every human being has basic human rights, which include "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control" (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, 1).
The majority of homeless people are there due to 1) substance abuse and 2) mental illness. To the former, there is no shortage of programs that will help someone kick an addiction, but none work without the individual willingly participating. The latter is part of the national disgrace that is mental health, extending beyond the homeless, but we're not going to round up the unstable and forcibly institutionalize them.
There is also a third group, which slightly overlaps the first - people who choose life on the streets. Yes, choose. I've seen them. Many police departments have homeless units that know people in this population by name and will do periodic welfare checks on them. But again, we're not going to round them up, either, and force them to live by societal norms of getting job and paying bills and all the rest.
This has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them. Places like LA., San Francisco, and Seattle don't have a homeless problem because of capitalism; they have a homeless program because govt action has this way of making things worse by doing nothing to change people lifestyles and a great deal to encourage more of the same. When police stop reacting to the property crimes that are rampant, you don't just get more property crime; you also wind up with an increase in violent crime as bad behavior escalates.
The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain. Some of us see freedom from meddling and harassment by busybody groups who want to reach into our pockets as a basic human right, too. I'm all for helping people but they have to be invested in helping themselves.
I do support freedom from meddling and harassment. I absolutely don't think that mentally ill people should be rounded up and forcibly institutionalized.
At the same time, when you say "this has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them", you forget that 1. no one chooses to be mentally ill or addicted to substances (not to even speak of intellectual or physical disabilities); 2. people don't make choices in a vacuum and don't bear the consequences of these choices in a vacuum.
As an example, a person who has affluent parents and can rely on their support is not in the same situation as the child of a low-income single mother. Various bad choices have much more painful consequences for people who are poor. E.g. an affluent woman who uses hard drugs is extremely unlikely to become a street prostitute in order to finance her habit.
You say: "The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain." This is your opinion, not an objective rule. And it is not true that individuals simply "obtain" all these things thanks to hard work - people can e.g. inherit houses or apartments. You also forget about the so-called "working poor" and about people who are unable to work.
As to things obtained "at the expense of third parties", you forget that many people are actually exploiting others - and not merely in order to satisfy their most basic needs, but in order to be rich or to become even richer.
You also missed the fact that cities like LA, San Francisco etc have a shortage of affordable housing because of state and city zoning and other regulations making it very expensive to build as well as a profound NIMBY-ist hypocrisy of the populace who regularly vote down proposals to build multi-family/multi-unit dwellings in those areas. They decry the lack of affordable housing but then block construction of said housing in their own neighborhoods.
Alex McKeon makes the erroneous assumption that Soviet Union did not change, that it was just as oppressive in Stalin's times as e.g. in the 1970s. Anyone who knows more than a little bit about Soviet Union knows that it is not true. I don't feel "extreme, unguided hatred" towards the US, but I feel that many are idealizing the US and the capitalist world and demonizing the Soviet Union because of their own biases and insufficient knowledge.
If anyone mentions Stalin's crimes - what about Pinochet's crimes? What about the mass killings of Communists and supposed Communists in Indonesia? And wasn't the system of racist segregation maintained in the US a criminal system?
"Second, I find it difficult to imagine how one could be “pro-Soviet” given that the Soviet Union no longer exists (and only existed for the first seven years of my own life)." Talk about sophistry.
I agree that in a good and just society there would be no one involuntarily homeless. Let us say for a moment that Soviet style government gives everyone a home. Wonderful. It also drags people from those homes in the middle of the night and subjects them to torture, prison, and death.
If mr. Bessemer has a reason to come back, have him answer the question of how to achieve freedom from homelessness. It's a concept fit for a faculty lounge circle jerk. Freedom of speech is real, as a natural right that has long been protected by equal treatment before the law. Everyone is born and invested with freedom of speech, and government can serve the purpose of protecting it. How would it bestow a new right to house everyone, but by taking resources from those who produce a surplus, and rationing them so equitable resources are received by the broader, needy public. That's sounds a little like the golden goose problem of every totalitarian dictatorship in history. There is no clever way, yet discovered, to squeeze the life out of the goose and still get the golden eggs. Take away, nice try, but you'll have to explain how that's a better deal for me, before I'll ever part with a single red cent.
The Soviet Union doesn’t exist, so you can’t be pro Soviet eh? I guess you can’t be “team cap” or “team Ironman” either. I don’t know how this guy gets to talk with Glenn and I don’t.
(Hope I'm not repeating, but my comment didn't appear.)
I think Alex McKeon’s recommendation to drop Prof. Bessner is misguided. A heterodox outlook requires consideration of competing views, and engaging with Prof. Bessner’s arguments helps reveal their deficiencies.
It’s no great concession to acknowledge that capitalism has many flaws, and Prof. Bessner is good at cherry-picking them. As he says, however, he is led to that by the conditions and goals of what he considers a desirable polity: one that gives primacy to goals of economic equality and a more modest role in world affairs, turning away from the competitive sorting through markets that gives capitalism its dynamism, but that is also somewhat responsible for certain flaws.
The question in political economy, however, is always “Compared to what?” Bessner’s apparent advantage is due to his evasion of two issues. First, he does not answer questions about historical circumstances—he replied to Glenn’s point about the USSR’s malignant designs by claiming that it never had the ability to carry them out. As Mr. McKeon observes, however, those designs were obvious and they were frustrated largely due to the US’s primacy in outcompeting the USSR in the cold war. But that evasion allows Prof. Bessner to glide through statements that call into question the value of “development,” without facing e.g., the incredible accomplishment of a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty worldwide between 1980 and 2015.
Second, he rationalizes away the historic failures of Marxist political economy, including the relative conditions in western Europe and the Soviet bloc as of 1989. His response to Glenn’s query about where in the world his proposed polity is succeeding is an embarrassed laugh.
Prof. Bessner is an amiable foil, and not everyone is familiar with the Marxist perspective Prof. Bessner provides. I don’t doubt, however, that Glenn’s listeners are more than able to pick it apart for themselves. As was said by John Stuart Mill, “If you know only your own side of an argument, you don’t even know that.”
BTW, Glenn, I’ve been wanting to compliment your choice of theme music for the Glenn Show—bluesy, mid-century jazz piano with a notable “Playboy After Dark” mood. Very hip!
I found Bessner shallow, he offered a lot of hand waving and little meat. I agree that he is not the best fit for the heady conversations happening in the Glenn show
After reading Bessner's response it seems he is simply incapable of providing direct answers...which certainly puts him in the rank of "American intellectual", as he so proudly mentions.
Just look what he wrote here: "I also don't believe I ever addressed the feasibility, or lack thereof, of communism. Suffice to say, I don't think it's on the horizon."
Huh? What does communism being "on the horizon" have to do with it being feasible?
I agree with him that other people could consider other "freedoms", like housing or healthcare more important than freedoms of speech, religion, etc (note - I don't believe anything that requires the labor/funds of another person can be considered a "freedom", but I digress)...however, he could easily separate the Soviet Union from people who hold those beliefs, however he does not choose to do so.
Further, he claims he couldn't be pro-soviet because it only existed for the first seven years of his life...what a cop-out. Certainly, you couldn't possibly be in favor of bringing something back that used to exist, but doesn't any longer right? /sarcasm
This whole thing seems like a sick joke...but such is the state of American intellectualism I suppose.
Bessner's comments re free speech vs right to not be homeless reminds me of a conversation I had with a Sudanese student when I was in college forty years ago. He spoke of people who lived in Communist governments who didn't care about free speech or religion as long as their needs were taken care of. They may not have lived as well as others, but they lived without the stress of wondering where their next meal was coming from or how long they could stay under that roof. That's not enough for everyone, but for some it works, and if the government does its part they do their part by not agitating.
I believe I got Bessner's point about how one can define 'freedom' in different ways. How 'free' are you when your entire worldview is encompassed by daily survival on the streets? How 'free' are you when your leader turns your country into a pariah and crushing sanctions render you poor after the world turns against you in response to your country's unjust war?
The homeless American and the agitating Russian risking prison may have much in common.
Student - Why do we have to study history.
Teacher - Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
R. G. Collingwood - "History is for human self-knowledge ... the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."
Prof Daniel Besser - To paraphrase, pretty big leap to know what human nature is.
Provost at Washington - Where have all the history majors gone?
If you REALLY want to know the horrors of living under Stalin & Communist Russia, read:
• “The Forsaken” https://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/the-forsaken-an-american-tragedy-in-stalins-russia
• “Dancing under the Red Star”
https://books.apple.com/us/book/dancing-under-the-red-star/id420551336
• “Coming out of the Ice”
https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/coming-out-of-the-ice-an-unexpected-life/id1422304867
• “Journey into the Whirlwind”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_into_the_Whirlwind
I will take freedom of speech and freedom of life in general over communist “free housing” — their free housing makes inner city project housing look luxurious
Even his written response is strange and even incoherent. It’s fine to engage with people who hold different world views though.
How does an American intellectual, as Bessner describes himself, build a straw man like "a choice between freedom speech and freedom from homelessness"? Those two things are not on the same plane and they have nothing to do with one's ideological beliefs. Homelessness is not about a lack of housing, nor does it have anything to do with individual rights or govt responsibilities. As we've seen multiple times, when govts take an active role in "battling" homelessness, they tend to make the problem worse, not better. I'm all for taking different looks at things and making valid comparisons between systems of thought or governance. Valid comparisons. That was not one.
I’m an Ezra Pound fan. Nazi Italy no longer exists so I guess it’s ok to say fascism had some pretty good ideas if we are rejecting simple definitions of good and evil. That’s Daniel.
Bessner's "freedom from" homelessness analogy fails when one acknowledges that functionally ending homelessness requires a coercive state willing to permanently institutionalize persons with severe mental illness and chronic substance use disorder who engage in unlawful or anti-social behavior in public spaces. Reducing the number of persons experiencing homelessness requires restricting their "freedom to" live on the streets in places with excellent, year-round weather. The only people who get to experience negative liberty in this scenario are housed people who get to enjoy freedom from tripping over homeless persons and their excrement when they leave their homes to shop, work, or recreate. Bessner misunderstands the causes of chronic homelessness and wasted an opportunity to defend his argument. There are plenty of advanced capitalist democracies where homelessness is not a problem, like Singapore and Japan. Or, are these not democracies because they enforce the rule of law?
One element of those societies that should be considered is the concept of “loose” vs. “tight” social order. The US is quite loose as is Italy. Countries like Japan, Singapore and Germany are categorized as tight. Those in tight societies tend to follow rules and social mores far more whereas citizens in looser societies pay far less mind to such things. This also contributes to differences seen in homelessness between capitalist societies.
I really appreciated your conversation with Daniel Bessner and I am very surprised by the level of hostility shown towards him by Alex McKeon and many people on your YouTube channel. I see that unfortunately many take it for granted that Soviet Union was "evil" and that the United States are "good", which is a perfect example of simplistic, biased and Manichean thinking.
I see, too, that some of the commentators actually believe that mentally ill people, intellectually disabled people and addicted people deserve to live in the streets, that homelessness is an adequate punishment for "not being rational enough".
Black people make up about 40% of the homeless in the US. Even if all these homeless Black people were indeed mentally ill, intellectually disabled or addicted to various substances (which is certainly not the case), doesn't the racial disparity speak volumes about the nature of capitalism and the nature of the US society?
I always appreciate your comments on all kinds of issues and your openness to others' views. However, I find it very sad that your "Conservatism" (what a reductive label...) and your attitude towards the excesses of "wokeism" attract lots of people who seem to reject the very idea of social justice.
I am firmly convinced that one can be committed both to the idea of personal responsibility and to the idea of social justice. I believe that people, including very poor people, can make good or bad choices which deeply affect their lives. At the same time, however, we have to remember that the opportunities available to the poor are not the same as the opportunities available to middle- and upper-middle class people.
And every human being has basic human rights, which include "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control" (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, 1).
The majority of homeless people are there due to 1) substance abuse and 2) mental illness. To the former, there is no shortage of programs that will help someone kick an addiction, but none work without the individual willingly participating. The latter is part of the national disgrace that is mental health, extending beyond the homeless, but we're not going to round up the unstable and forcibly institutionalize them.
There is also a third group, which slightly overlaps the first - people who choose life on the streets. Yes, choose. I've seen them. Many police departments have homeless units that know people in this population by name and will do periodic welfare checks on them. But again, we're not going to round them up, either, and force them to live by societal norms of getting job and paying bills and all the rest.
This has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them. Places like LA., San Francisco, and Seattle don't have a homeless problem because of capitalism; they have a homeless program because govt action has this way of making things worse by doing nothing to change people lifestyles and a great deal to encourage more of the same. When police stop reacting to the property crimes that are rampant, you don't just get more property crime; you also wind up with an increase in violent crime as bad behavior escalates.
The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain. Some of us see freedom from meddling and harassment by busybody groups who want to reach into our pockets as a basic human right, too. I'm all for helping people but they have to be invested in helping themselves.
I do support freedom from meddling and harassment. I absolutely don't think that mentally ill people should be rounded up and forcibly institutionalized.
At the same time, when you say "this has nothing to do with what people deserve or capitalism; it has to do with the choices that people make and the consequences that stem from them", you forget that 1. no one chooses to be mentally ill or addicted to substances (not to even speak of intellectual or physical disabilities); 2. people don't make choices in a vacuum and don't bear the consequences of these choices in a vacuum.
As an example, a person who has affluent parents and can rely on their support is not in the same situation as the child of a low-income single mother. Various bad choices have much more painful consequences for people who are poor. E.g. an affluent woman who uses hard drugs is extremely unlikely to become a street prostitute in order to finance her habit.
You say: "The UN is welcome to its lofty opinions but no one has a right to housing, clothing, and all the rest at the expense of third parties. Those are things that fall to the individual to obtain." This is your opinion, not an objective rule. And it is not true that individuals simply "obtain" all these things thanks to hard work - people can e.g. inherit houses or apartments. You also forget about the so-called "working poor" and about people who are unable to work.
As to things obtained "at the expense of third parties", you forget that many people are actually exploiting others - and not merely in order to satisfy their most basic needs, but in order to be rich or to become even richer.
You also missed the fact that cities like LA, San Francisco etc have a shortage of affordable housing because of state and city zoning and other regulations making it very expensive to build as well as a profound NIMBY-ist hypocrisy of the populace who regularly vote down proposals to build multi-family/multi-unit dwellings in those areas. They decry the lack of affordable housing but then block construction of said housing in their own neighborhoods.
Alex McKeon makes the erroneous assumption that Soviet Union did not change, that it was just as oppressive in Stalin's times as e.g. in the 1970s. Anyone who knows more than a little bit about Soviet Union knows that it is not true. I don't feel "extreme, unguided hatred" towards the US, but I feel that many are idealizing the US and the capitalist world and demonizing the Soviet Union because of their own biases and insufficient knowledge.
If anyone mentions Stalin's crimes - what about Pinochet's crimes? What about the mass killings of Communists and supposed Communists in Indonesia? And wasn't the system of racist segregation maintained in the US a criminal system?
"Second, I find it difficult to imagine how one could be “pro-Soviet” given that the Soviet Union no longer exists (and only existed for the first seven years of my own life)." Talk about sophistry.
I agree that in a good and just society there would be no one involuntarily homeless. Let us say for a moment that Soviet style government gives everyone a home. Wonderful. It also drags people from those homes in the middle of the night and subjects them to torture, prison, and death.
If mr. Bessemer has a reason to come back, have him answer the question of how to achieve freedom from homelessness. It's a concept fit for a faculty lounge circle jerk. Freedom of speech is real, as a natural right that has long been protected by equal treatment before the law. Everyone is born and invested with freedom of speech, and government can serve the purpose of protecting it. How would it bestow a new right to house everyone, but by taking resources from those who produce a surplus, and rationing them so equitable resources are received by the broader, needy public. That's sounds a little like the golden goose problem of every totalitarian dictatorship in history. There is no clever way, yet discovered, to squeeze the life out of the goose and still get the golden eggs. Take away, nice try, but you'll have to explain how that's a better deal for me, before I'll ever part with a single red cent.
The Soviet Union doesn’t exist, so you can’t be pro Soviet eh? I guess you can’t be “team cap” or “team Ironman” either. I don’t know how this guy gets to talk with Glenn and I don’t.