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The Lower 9th Ward was one of the neighborhoods in New Orleans most seriously devastated by Hurricane Katrina. As a largely working class, black neighborhood, it was also one of the slowest to recover. State disinvestment, residents low on resources, and unscrupulous insurance companies made for a tough time finding the funds to re-build. The first photograph is of the Lower 9th five years after Katrina; the second, looking significantly worse, is of the region at the four year anniversary (source):

Dmitriy T.M. sent us a link to an interactive graphic at NPR that allows you to virtually travel along Flood and Forstall streets in 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010 simultaneously.  You’ll see that many destroyed homes weren’t even demolished till years after the storm, and most new homes weren’t built until the last couple years.  Here is one screen shot:

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

In the game of Monopoly, as the title implies, the object is to get as much money as possible, ideally bankrupting all the other players until you are the only player left.  The game, then, socializes children into a particular version of economic interaction, one quite compatible with capitalism as we know it.

The idea that Monopoly is a socializing agent is brought into stark relief by The Landlord’s Game (from which, it is believed, Monopoly was derived).

Patented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904, the object of this game was to illustrate the economic inequality inherent in the renter/owner relationship.  From Wikipedia:

Magie based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.

The game was manufactured beginning in 1910.  In 1935 the patent was ultimately purchased, ironically, by Parker Brothers; they wanted to buy the patents of all competing economy-based board games so as to have a monopoly on the genre.

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Martin Hart-Landsberg, at Reports from the Economic Front, offers a provocative hypothesis.  He observes that job loss in the U.S. has been tremendous. One in 20 jobs has disappeared.  Still, Congress drug its feet approving an extension of unemployment benefits.  The extension has been approved, but benefits are hardly generous (on average, $309 a month week).  Further, millions of unemployed people are not collecting unemployment because they’re not eligible under current policy.

Hart-Landsberg asks why there is a lack of “meaningful national efforts” to address the suffering of workers and their families?

His hypothesis:  Economic policy is not responsive to workers’ needs.  Instead, it is heavily driven by what is best for corporations.  And, it turns, out, corporations are doing swimmingly during the recession.  They took a beating at first, but their profits are up.  Downsizing appears to have benefited them.  Consider this chart from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):

The EPI concurs with Hart-Landsberg.  Looking at this data, Lawrence Mishel concludes:

When employers are able to recover their profits many years before their employees can even hope to attain the income and employment levels they had  prior to recession’s devastation, economic policy is clearly skewed in favor of corporations and not workers.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

There is an interesting article on Climate and Capitalism addressing the use of climate change by the right as a way to foster in illiberal and illogical immigration policies – such as the controversial Conservative immigration cap. However, in much the same way, but also in a very different way, the current Conservative line to defend the immigration cap is that if we don’t decrease immigration, public services will be undermined, not that the environment will suffer. That is interesting in itself, but the central argument – that climate change can be used as a way to actually support capitalism, is very insightful.

Capitalism has a very strong link to the environment, the neo liberal policies are key to why the right are often so against policies to rebalance the economy so that it is more sustainable. It is also a major reason for why the climate change agreements decided at Copenhagen have regressed. There were already concerns that the rich countries’ commitments weren’t good enough anyway, but the fact that these discussions have regressed further illustrates the problems that capitalism can pose for environmental policies.

Whilst Immanuel Wallerstein does have some legitimate critiques, he has an interesting neo marxist theory about the nature of the capitalist system in a world-wide form. He has been incorporated by the anti globalisation movement, which I think rather misses the point – as there needs to be an anti neo liberal globalisation movement, one that focuses on theories that aren’t often backed up with evidence, such as the “race to the bottom”, with a more positive pro globalisation movement.

However, Wallerstein can provide some thought into such a movement, as he talks about there being a world system, where there is only one world – so the “Third World” doesn’t exist, for example. Instead, the world system/economy in existence is the capitalist system – and for it to function, there has to be core, semi peripheral and a peripheral zones. The cores are the rich countries, such as the UK and America, whereas the peripheral is what we commonly call the ‘Third World’. Thus, capitalism needs poorer countries in order to construct the hierarchy and for some countries to emerge as power blocs of the world.

In much the same way that the environmental policies have been downgraded, many rich countries, including the UK, rejected (mainly through abstaining) the UN vote on whether water should be a human right. We may say that we provide them with aid, but it isn’t really providing proper access to water. Instead, much more capital investment should go into building proper infrastructure for the poorer countries, much more thought and action into sorting out the environmental policies of the richer countries should occur – if we really want to improve the living standard of poorer countries.

Capitalism and neo liberal doctrines underpin the environmental and world-wide policies. Richer counties rely on poorer countries, they require them to be weak to promote their own dominance. We have so much potential as a nation and as collective forces, such as in Europe, to really restructure and change the lives of so many through proper investment and proper environmental policies. But we are scared by business and capitalist rhetoric that it will somehow undermine our interests, that aid should be cut, as we supposedly have too little money ourselves. Totally illogical.

We previously posted Annie Leonard’s breakthrough video, The Story of Stuff, and a follow up, The Story of Bottled Water. Kraig H. sent along another by Leonard on how cap and trade will not stop climate change:

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Crossposted at BlogHer.

Thibaut T., Steve D., Alexis M., Tony L., and Dmitriy T.M. all asked us to write about a recent news story regarding skin lightening.  Previously marketed to women, skin lightening, bleaching, and “fairness” creams are being newly marketed to men.  The introduction of a Facebook application has triggered a wave of commentary among American journalists and bloggers.  The application, launched by Vaseline and aimed at men in India, smoothes out blotches and lightens the overall skin color of your profile photo, allowing men to present a more “radiant” face to their friends.

The U.S. commentary involves a great deal of hand-wringing over Indian preference for light skin and the lengths to which even men will go to get a few shades lighter.  Indians, it is claimed, have a preference for light skin because skin color and caste are connected in the Indian imagination.  Dating and career success, they say further, are linked to skin color.  Perhaps, these sources admit, colorism in India is related to British colonialism and the importation of a color-based hierarchy; but that was then and, today, India embraces prejudice against dark-skinned people, thereby creating a market for these unsavory products.

The obsession with light skin, however, cannot be solely blamed on insecure individuals or a now internalized colorism imported from elsewhere a long time ago.  Instead, a preference for white skin is being cultivated, today, by corporations seeking profit.  Sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn documents the global business of skin lightening in her article, Yearning for Lightness.  She argues that interest in the products is rising, especially in places where “…the influence of Western capitalism and culture are most prominent.”  The success of these products, then, “cannot be seen as simply a legacy of colonialism.”  Instead, it is being actively produced by giant multinational companies today.

The Facebook application is one example of this phenomenon.  It does not simply reflect an interest in lighter skin; it very deliberately tells users that they need to “be prepared” to make a first impression and makes it very clear that skin blotches and overall darkness is undesirable and smooth, light-colored skin is ideal.  Marketing for skin lightening products not only suggests that light skin is more attractive, it also links light skin to career success, overall upward mobility, and Westernization.  Some advertising, for example, overtly links dark skin with saris and unemployment for women, while linking light skin with Western clothes and a career.

The desire for light skin, then, is being encouraged by corporations who stand to profit from color-based anxieties that are overtly tied to the supposed superiority of Western culture.  These corporations, it stands to be noted, are not Indian.  They are largely Western: L’Oreal and Unilever are two of the biggest companies.  The supposedly Indian preference for light skin, then, is being stoked and manufactured by companies based in countries populated primarily by light-skinned people.  As Glenn explains, “Such advertisements can be seen as not simply responding to a preexisting need but actually creating a need by depicting having dark skin as a painful and depressing experience.”

Before pitying Indian seekers of light-skin, condemning the nation for colorism, or gently shaking our heads over the legacies of colonialism, we should consider how ongoing Western cultural dominance (that is, racism and colorism in the West today) and capitalist economic penetration (that is, profit through the cultivation of insecurities around the world) contributes to the global market in skin lightening products.

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Source: Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 2008.  Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners.  Gender & Society 22, 3: 281-302.

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We recently introduced the idea of “astroturfing.” Coined to contrast with the idea of a “grassroots” movement (led and supported by “regular” people), an astroturf movement is one that looks like it’s grassroots, but is actually driven and funded by a corporation. But is it always easy to distinguish between astroturf and grass? F.T. Garcia sent in this confounding example.

The Wall Street Journal reports that some labor unions are hiring non-union workers to “staff” picket lines, usually at or near minimum wage.  In this picture, for example, employees-for-the-day protest on behalf of union workers for a union they do not belong to:

It turns out, protesting is costly.  Workers have to take time off of work, travel to the location of the protest, pay for parking, make sure someone is taking care of their kids, etc.  Plus it’s often hot and involves a lot of yelling and stomping. Accordingly, some unions decide that it’s easier and cheaper to hire protesters than it is to mobilize their own workers.

So, you tell me, astroturf or grassroots?

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There was a real chance for the government to radically reform their economic outlook, a chance to make it more focused on environmental sustainability. However, what seems to be happening, is a complete disregard for environmental commitments that should be paramount to the aims of the government, as empty targets seem to be all the government is proposing.

The FT has an interesting report about the businesses anger of having to increase their CO2 emission cuts – even though the newly proposed 30% cut instead of 20% is not radical enough. The arguments against the reduction by the businesses, centre around an economic argument that they can’t afford to do so due to the current economic situation. However, this is precisely the time to change old habits, and have a more ethical outlook.

Nevertheless, to change – there needs to be better assistance and promotion of green sustainability by the actual government. The businesses attitudes are hardly going to be improved if the government themselves have a pretty shabby record on green sustainability.

For example, Left Foot Forward have a good piece on green taxes and how they are likely to reduce in terms of the level of tax revenue they provide. The coalition promised to increase the revenue from green taxes, but to do so, the IFS argue that:

“It would need to raise an extra £6.7bn – nearly 15 per cent more than currently forecast”

There is no real drive for environmental reform, the government can’t even work out whether they want onshore of offshore wind power. And now consider Fox’s conflict with the Treasury over under whose remit it is to pay for Trident – unfortunately, the moral and environmental problems Trident renewal (and in fact nuclear weapons in general) poses didn’t make the Tories doubt Trident renewal, it is the potential cost and cut to more defense equipment that has. This could lead to questions, if the Treasury wins – which it probably will – it is the Treasury after all (as Hacker says in Yes Minister “you can’t beat the treasury”), that defence is not being properly funded that could hark back to the accusations of the Brown and Blair era.

A lot of the environmental problems relate to the capitalist structure. Even as I am writing this I have got an invite for a Facebook group addressing the problems of the climate and capitalism. As I stated in the opening of this blog, the enviroment is affected by the economic structure, so the government and the business have to stop using the cheap line of “well its a recession, so you can’t possibly expect us to restructure” and realise that this is the perfect chance to restructure.

Tom Megginson alerted us to an interesting example of “astroturf” activism.  After complaints from religious groups, the New York City transit authority took down the following ads from buses running through largely Hasidic Jewish communities:

Georgi Vodka saw the move as a marketing opportunity and hired models to wear the bikini pictured in the ad and pretend to protest the censorship.  Playing on their nudity, their signs had slogans such as “MTA should butt out of bikini ads.”

To contrast this with genuine grassroots campaigns in which “regular” people come together to try to change something about their society, sociologists call this type of marketing “astroturf” activism, fake protests arranged and paid for by companies.

So first we have a religious community expressing its displeasure to the city regarding an advertising campaign they find offensive.  They organize, in true grassroots fashion, to have the ads removed from the buses that travel through their neighborhoods.  Then a company hires people to put on a counter-protest, in true astroturf fashion, turning what was a simple case of collective action into (an apparent) social conflict.  But, as is characteristic of astroturf movements, Georgi isn’t doing it in an effort to shape society into a form that it finds good and beneficial (as the Jews are, whether you agree with their opinion or not), they’re simply trying to make money.  And they’re willing to deride the Hasidic community if they need to.  In fact, Georgi spokesperson Todd Shapiro told Fox News that they have:

…no intention of resting until their controversial campaign is blasted across the backside of all buses that travel through Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn… Georgi Vodka now plans to drive the billboard through these forbidden areas…

This is a good example of how even protest has been co-opted by marketers.  Our rights as citizens to mobilize can seem ineffectual and trivial when solid efforts, like that of the Hasidic community, are mocked by more powerful organizations.  Further, “non-profit” organizations funded by companies or industries make it difficult to know if any given protest is grassroots or astroturf, such that all activism is suspect.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

We are retrenching back into the 1980s, especially when considering the current onslaught upon the welfare and benefit systems. The government’s economic policies are in a utter mess, with them focusing upon the demand side whilst ignoring the supply. There are a number of recent announcements that should send fear through any progressive. The belated LibDem amendment/rebellion is progress but can only do little to offset the tide. Consider for example, IDS’s argument for changes to the law so that those in council houses who fail to obtain work could move to another part of the country where there is work and still be guaranteed a council house.

This rather misses the point. The reason for why many people are on benefits without work is because there is a shortage in labour – and with the current attack on jobs, the job market will become even more static. Therefore, the government needs to stop trying to make out that the problem is with the demand and realise that there is a need for investment and restructuring of supply – there is the need for real investment in jobs, but as in the 1980s – this side of economic theory is rather conveniently missed by the Tories (and now the LibDems).

As well as a cut on jobs, the government is intent on cutting the welfare bill – no wonder a recent report has found that when accounting for public spending cuts the budget will result in the poorest being 20.5% worse off, whereas the richest will only be 1.6%! Osborne has now also admitted that incapacity benefits will be cut – arguing that it is a “very large benefit”. Again, there is a failure here to understand the supply side of the economic argument. There are many jobs that are frankly breaking the DDA – as they fail to provide services and accessibility for everyone. It is unacceptable that disabled people could be punished by a cut in their benefit or forced into work due to the government and employers being too weak to radically reform society so that we reduce and remove social barriers that prevent disabled people from accessing all areas of society.

No longer should we focus upon the demand side, arguing that it is disabled people themselves who are unable to work because of their impairment – we should instead recognise that it is often the inability of society to provide services that prevents many disabled people from working. However, frankly, this is one of the many bi products of the ineffective capitalist system we live in.

The current governmental strategy (economic specifically) also misses the chance to really reshape the economy so that there is greater investment and focus upon a green future. A Green Deal would have been economically valuable – it would have created thousands of jobs, helped our failing manufacturing industry and would help addressed some of these supply and demand issues that the government are getting rather confused.