Housing Affordability … and a bit more

A recent chart on housing affordability in major cities compared with incomes –

Source: https://twitter.com/PlanMaestro/status/1472616369745281026

Hangzhou, where we have an apartment, comes out looking better than Shanghai but a lot worse than New York or London. Great – I guess.

One-data point comparisons are always suspect. On “city housing affordability” one has to ask, “affordability for whom?” I am always suspicious – affordable to an expat on a two-year assignment, coming with family and – most important – a nice-sized business housing allowance who wants to live in the most-like-home part of town? Ok. One can have many more issues – what incomes? median? average? what part of the city center? On the chart, “gross rental yield” is presumably an annualized per cent of purchase price, but the units are unstated. The horizontal axis is itself a ratio, price divided by income.

Still, there is some value in such a comparison, of the 50,000-foot view variety. We know prices for apartments in New York and London and Tokyo are high. If the chart above is using reasonably comparable methods for all cities, Chinese housing affordability does look outrageous. And there are plenty of news stories with data on real prices and incomes to support a chart that look something like the one above.

More than anything else, such a chart suggests that real estate prices in big cities in China are headed for a fall – as measured by the same methods used to produce the chart. Reasons – a lot fewer expats in China on expense accounts; end of the demographic dividend – the working age population is now falling by about 5 to 7 million a year, and those are people who would buy apartments; a push by owners of multiple apartments to decorate them and rent them out or sell them, now they realize that prices cannot always go up; falling birth rate (from already far-below-replacement numbers; insufficient middle class jobs for college graduates; and crackdowns on purchases of multiple apartments, convenient divorces to permit purchases, and the crackdown on corruption generally.

By most accounts there are around 65,000,000 empty (newly built in the last decade or two) apartments in China. As is typical in China, these apartments remain concrete shells with windows, utility stubs in the wall, but no “decoration” – finished floors or walls or appliances or interior doors. The concept has been to buy as a store of value. The value of that means of investment is now highly suspect. GDP growth in the next decade in China will regularly be below 5%, perhaps in the range of 2% or 3% (my opinion). Right now and for the next couple of years the economy will have to adjust to millions of people who have lost or will lose jobs in real estate sales and after-school tutoring. With relatively slower growth in exports, decline in construction investment, and general international political antipathy, China doesn’t have – or need – more people clamoring to buy apartments.

My guess is that another round of fiscal reform is coming in a few years. The last major reform in 1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-Sharing_Reform_of_China_in_1994 adjusted taxes paid to central and local governments and revenues distributed. The central government got a bigger share of tax revenues; cities got the burden of most social welfare expenditures and the right to most revenues from selling land. The result, along with evaluating local and provincial officials by how much GDP they “created” during their five year term, was the extreme overemphasis on physical development we have seen in the last twenty years. These policies also created severe imbalances in the shares of investment and consumption in the economy. Subsequent reforms have not addressed the excessive use of land sales by local governments to fund daily operations.

The GDP problem that could be ignored for twenty years is now salient. As China grew dramatically, all parts of the economy grew. There are now plenty of investment firms and stock exchanges and futures markets and marketing firms and media companies. But the big story was in investment. There were plenty of jobs in construction and for architects and designers and engineers and project managers. Some of those architects and designers and engineers will find work elsewhere in China or on OBOR projects. Some of the construction workers will be able to do that as well. The point is still the old story about imbalance between investment and consumption. With investment share of GDP falling, the consumption share must rise, and the economy just doesn’t need so many construction workers and at the same time it doesn’t really need more workers in retail or personal services.

Michael Pettis has been talking about this dilemma for a decade. His point, and mine, is that the income share of GDP needs to go up. That means less money for SOE investments and salaries and profits and less money for governments – fewer expressways and ports and fancy government buildings – and more for ordinary working Chinese. Incomes and interest rates have long been repressed in China to focus on investment. If emphasis on the physical environment is lessening, money should be available for social environment purposes – education, health care, pensions, personal services. When general incomes go up, consumption can go up, along with jobs in those sectors.

Unfortunately, the trend is in the other direction. With the decline in real estate land and apartment sales, local governments are now in a severe fiscal crunch. For many big cities revenues from land sales have been 50% or more of total revenues and that is no longer going to be the case. Beijing has said it will increase transfers to local governments to help alleviate the fiscal crisis, but my suspicion is that a good portion of that money will go to pay interest and principal on bonds for infrastructure projects that cannot cover their payments now. In other words, the transfer funds will go the banks and investors, not ordinary Chinese. Bankers and investors have jobs, too, but they are not the ordinary Chinese we are talking about.

We just saw that civil servant salaries have been trimmed in Eastern China by 15% or so. Quarterly bonuses that were always a significant part of salaries have been cancelled. That is an astounding change. The story is here.

Civil servants have been reasonably well compensated, as have some university teachers – but by no means all. This is the middle class that has been able to go on vacations and buy some luxury products – not a lot, but some – and those bonuses will not be coming back soon.

For a couple of decades there has been a meme in development economics that some developing countries “industrialized too fast” using foreign donations and import replacement tactics. The countries developed resource-heavy industries that created very wealthy vested interests and politics, including corruption, skewed to their own interests at the expense of factory and extraction workers. A local service sector economy was insufficiently developed.

Development economist Dani Rodrik makes the argument Growth Without Industrialization.

After some early industrialization, the argument goes, some of these countries “deindustrialized too quickly” meaning that their resource base declined or local labor prices rose or external competition increased. Funding from donors tended to be misspent or go into physical infrastructure that did little to enhance local incomes. The countries attempted to build their service sector, but some of those functions could easily be handled by foreigners outside (law, banking, investment, even marketing and advertising). The economies did not grow in a reasonably balanced way, for both investment and consumption. The local service sectors remained underdeveloped, mostly because incomes were not distributed widely among the population.

I don’t want to push this model to represent China, but one can see the parallels. China did industrialize quickly, and government attention was on investment and not on consumption or services. Now, labor costs in China have risen, factories in China are more efficient (more machines than before), manufacturers are leaving China, and the service sectors have blossomed in the past fifteen years. But those service sectors remain smaller than needed for good consumption growth, because general Chinese incomes, although rising, remain low. Only with substantial transfers of wealth from SOE and governments to ordinary Chinese can this conundrum be remedied. That can be investments in education or health care or pensions, so Chinese don’t need to fund so much of those items from their own pockets. But social service spending is needed to raise incomes and GDP in China.

One can see a lot in a single chart, one you get past the single data point conclusion. The US is not the only big country with fiscal problems at both macro and micro levels. And the US had its own housing affordability crisis about fourteen years ago. The ham-handed and biased government response was partly responsible for the politics of the last decade. Et tu, China?

Politically Correct Biblical Language

Ya know, it gets harder and harder to distinguish right wing America from CCP.

A couple of weeks ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law encouraging students to monitor and report on teachers who might be supporting “socialism factories” in universities. The recording of lectures could be used in lawsuits against schools or teachers for their … ahh … incorrect views.

Where else do students monitor the language and thinking of teachers? In Mr. Xi’s China, of course. I wrote a bit about that here Monkey See Monkey Do.

Again, it seems the right wing in America is drawing inspiration from Mr. Xi in China.

First – from late last year, we have the story from China of rewriting the Bible to conform with CCP teachings about supremacy of law over all, including religion and morality.

You know the story of the woman accused of adultery, the crowd wanting to (legally) stone her, and Jesus saving her from death. John 7:53-8:11 – “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” and then when no one offered to cast the first stone, “Then neither do I condemn you…. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

In the new revised CCP edition of the Bible, the passage now states “When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.” Jesus as implementing the law to the fullest extent. Talk about a mandate of heaven.

This new CCP revised edition comes from the University of Electronic Science and Technology Press, responsible for updating the Standard English Version of the Bible. The textbook aims to teach “professional ethics and law” to the students of secondary vocational schools. Needless to say, Christians in China are upset about the change. Only CCP can publish or approve bibles.

A 2021 story from Salon cites research by Samuel Perry, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, referring to changes make in the English Standard Version of the Bible to make the language more politically correct or at least more palatable – Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the English Standard Version.

“Slavery” and references to “the Jews” are seen as a bit too old school. Best to use more PC terms and ideas. From the Salon piece –

In revisions from 2001 through 2016, Perry shows, the word “slave” first gains a footnote, then moves to the footnote and then disappears entirely — in some contexts, like Colossians 3:22, though not others — to be replaced by the word “bondservant,” which could be described as a politically correct euphemism. A similar strategy is used to handle antisemitic language as well ….

To be fair, every Bible has to address issues of translation and interpretation. But the ESV is marketed mostly to evangelicals. The ESV is supposed to resist inserting politically correct language into the Bible. Word changes and notations take place frequently, often with footnotes and explanations. But Perry shows that the changes to eliminate references to slavery and offenses of “the Jews” against Jesus and the apostles seem to be done with more attention to modern context than to faithfulness to original intent.

Perry describes New English Version changes over a period of time from 2001, so perhaps its not fair to see CCP as doing anything not already done in Bible publishing in the US. But politically correct language is not only in CCP – and not only in the American English Standard Version.

But it may become difficult to figure out whose politically correct language should be believed. CCP? GOP? ESV? Anybody speak Aramaic? Where are the imprimatur and nihil obstat when you need them?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

History professor Heather Cox Richardson reporting a few days ago – “Not to be outdone, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis today signed a law requiring that public colleges and universities survey students, faculty, and staff about their beliefs in order to make sure the institutions support “intellectual diversity” … Without citing any evidence, Republican lawmakers have warned that there are “socialism factories” in the state universities. The law permits students to record lectures without the consent of the professor or other students to be used in legal cases against the school.”

You would think that future presidential candidate DeSantis would be more careful about the Chinese imports he chooses to buy. But there it is in all its fear and trembling – students recording professors and turning them into the authorities. Where else do we find such exhortations to students?

Well, of course, in Mr. Xi’s China. From the New York Times, almost two years ago – With a neon-red backpack and white Adidas shoes, he looks like any other undergraduate on the campus of Sichuan University in southwestern China…But Peng Wei, a 21-year-old chemistry major, has a special mission: He is both student and spy.

Mr. Peng is one of a growing number of “student information officers” who keep tabs on their professors’ ideological views. They are there to help root out teachers who show any sign of disloyalty to President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party.

“It’s our duty to make sure that the learning environment is pure and that professors are following the rules” ….

In a throwback to the Mao Zedong era, Chinese universities are deploying students as watchdogs against their teachers, part of a sweeping campaign by Mr. Xi to eliminate dissent and turn universities into party strongholds.

The students said they were inspired by a call by Mr. Xi in March to strengthen ideological training and to prepare for a “national rejuvenation.” They started an anonymous social media account where they published line-by-line criticisms of Professor Lü’s lectures….

I am personally aware of a couple of Chinese professors being disciplined or demoted in this crackdown on speech and thought. All students need do is report on professors to the tuanpai (Youth League) in the school. The Party organizations will do the rest. No doubt DeSantis will have a similar procedure.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts on similarities between Mr. Xi and DJT, GOP and CCP. Even post election, nothing persuades me that the GOP and CCP are not still aligned in their goals of purification and elimination of dissent. Power corrupts. Ok. But power doesn’t necessarily take down leaders. It first takes the innocent, the curious, and the thoughtful, whether the power is in GOP or CCP.

Nice to know that in this era of restrictions on Chinese imports, the GOP can still be selective about the imports it chooses to freely adopt.

The Great American Cultural Revolution

Further to Xi, DJT, GOP, CCP

About two years ago, I wrote a series of posts pointing out similarities between Mr. Xi and Donald Trump and their respective political parties. Now comes the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution – with American characteristics.

We have a leader who promotes violence but keep his hands sufficiently clean by not leading, like Mao. We have a political party with fortunes tied to the words of this mercurial leader. Dissension has risen within GOP, as it did in CCP, but the political leaders who are rebels will be slapped down. The entire party is in thrall to a crazed minority, who determine policy for years. From a trumpian perspective, Mao’s famous quote is right on target – “there is great disorder under the Heavens and the situation is excellent.”

It would be too delicious if it weren’t so scary. I can’t help but paraphrase the wiki entry on the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Go ahead and read that first. Won’t take but a minute. The parallels are eerie. Below, I changed a few words from the wiki.

The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopathic movement in the US from 2016. Launched by Donald Trump, leader of the Republican Party of the United States (GOP), its stated goal was to preserve racism and evangelical Christianity by purging remnants of truth-seeking and progressive traditional elements from American society, and to re-impose Donald Trump Thought (known outside China as moronism) as the dominant ideology in the GOP.

Beginning in 2016, Trump called on young people to bombard the headquarters and proclaimed that to rebel is justified. He insisted that GOP revisionists be removed through violent class struggle, to which America’s youth, as well as some urban workers, responded by forming boogaloo and “Proud Bois” groups around the country. In late 2020, Trump inserted political loyalists in the Defense Department, possibly as a prelude to use of the military in quelling or fomenting civilian unrest. He indicated his readiness for battle by clearing peaceful protests from Lafayette Park and posing for an iconic picture, not swimming in the Yangtze but in front of a church, holding a bible upside down. Rebels were told to not be afraid and take charge of the movement themselves, independent of GOP loyalists. On January 6, Trump wrote his own ‘big character poster’ – a series of tweets and a speech –‘ rallying people to target the “command center (i.e., Congress) of counterrevolution. From Trump’s speech – And I would love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and the police and law enforcement great you’re doing a great job, but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible?

We see that now the rebel groups, as in China, are splitting into factions – Feeling Betrayed, Far-Right Extremists Have a New Message for Trump: ‘Get Out of Our Way’

We await the American version of the Little Red Book. Maybe it will come in the form of hundreds of twitter posts, and mass rallies at state capitols in support of Trumpism and its offshoot moronism. Intellectuals, teachers, dissident party members and rightists (know in America as Democrats) will be targeted, just like in the old days.

The American version of the Cultural Revolution – as in China – severely damaged the economy, cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the virus pandemic. Rebels damaged cultural sites (more damage expected this coming week).

We await an announcement by the GOP, coming in about a decade, echoing the CCP – the Cultural Revolution was “responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the Republic.”

In the meantime, we should expect the 2021 version of big character posters like this –

https://chineseposters.net/themes/criticize-lin-biao-confucius

Down with Michael Pence! Down with Lindsey Graham! Hold high the great red banner of Donald Trump Thought – Great Meeting to thoroughly criticize the reactionary capitalist line of Pence and Graham!

Rebels – the proles – have nothing to lose but their chains … and in the American case, their democracy. If only Mao had lost that 1968 election, we wouldn’t have such a useful model for trumpians and their ilk ….

Political values and social media in Trumpworld-GOP and CCP

Written back in June. Seems like ages ago, but the virus in all its forms is still with us, even after the election. And the Covid-19 vaccine will have 0% effectiveness on the political virus. Michelle Goldberg back then on the recent NYT Tom Cotton op-ed business –

It’s important to understand what the people around the president are thinking. But if they’re honest about what they’re thinking, it’s usually too disgusting to engage with. This creates a crisis for traditional understandings of how the so-called marketplace of ideas functions. It’s a subsidiary of the crisis that has the country on fire.

GOP

Current GOP policies and posturing would have disgusted Republicans prior to the Gingrich era. As Adam Serwer pointed out in the Atlantic two years ago, the cruelty is the point. Lying, fake news, and garbled messages are the tactics. It seems the GOP has learned all too well from watching CCP over the years. These two political parties have similar approaches to truth.

In America, the crisis that Goldberg points to metastasizes mostly in the fever swamps of Trumpworld-GOP. Congressional candidate (now freshman congressperson) Marjorie Taylor-Greene is our best current example. This woman has espoused missile attacks as responsible for 9-11, Qanon conspiracies, and published racist posts about immigrants and Islam. She is welcomed by the national GOP to a prospective seat in the US Congress.

At this late date – November 30, 2020 – few national Republican figures have acknowledged Biden’s victory. Instead, some have pressured local officials to ignore the law or their consciences and fail to certify vote results. A few officeholders have resisted. Courts have tossed wildly fantastic GOP proposals to recount, invalidate, or simply ignore votes that come from heavily Democratic areas.

This is posturing with no evidence. It is, in fact, pretty similar to the performative declamation used by CCP members to indicate subordination to the leader. In this case, the GOP is focused on US domestic affairs, but the practice can be applied anywhere.

CCP

For CCP the posturing applies with no less rigor to foreign affairs, though the marketplace of ideas is not the venue. The venue is the goodwill of authoritarian regimes and international organizations everywhere. The Paracels and Spratleys are only being explored for scientific research. The ancient historical borders of China include Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. United Front organizations must closely monitor words and actions of Chinese students overseas to make sure they remain safe in the west. Such pronouncements are performative, and meant to intimidate the world. They often succeed.

Values east and west – CCP and GOP

Simply, the concept for both the GOP and CCP is the same – “We have our values. You must respect those values, even if they tread on your values. Our values are sovereign, your more pluralistic or open values are weak and negotiable.”

There are well-rehearsed themes. For Trumpworld-GOP, honest reporting on government actions or what supporters think and do is “fake news” and biased against them. For CCP, honest foreign reporting on government actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, the South China Sea, Doklam or Ladakh are interpreted as bias against China, the west trying to destroy China.

A victim mentality is salient in both Trumpworld-GOP and CCP, but only as a ruse. The cry for understanding masks the knife sliding into the ribs of the opposition. For Trumpworld-GOP, the enemy is that portion of the polity committed to fairness in results, concern for environment and the future, and a fairer distribution of resources, public and private. For CCP, the enemy is that portion of the world polity committed to human rights, free speech, and honoring of treaties. Honesty, fairness, and ability to trust are the real victims for both Trumpworld-GOP and CCP. For both, these values just get in the way of libido dominandi, the urge to dominate.

The theory of news reporting says reporting should be “fair and balanced” but this is simply not feasible when one viewpoint is particularly onerous and dangerous, or falls far outside the realm of a normal marketplace of ideas. You can’t debate with someone who thinks the earth is 6000 years old.

Reporting “on the one hand, but on the other hand” fails. And we see the failure of free speech remedies – more speech is not necessarily a remedy to hateful or lying speech. Once speech is out there, social media easily magnifies. It is crying “fire” in a crowded theater.

Failure of a free speech model in social media

In the US, the GOP and its minions take full advantage of laxity in media regulation, all in the name of free speech. Lies, conspiracies, and wild musings flourish – Q-anon, the black helicopters, birtherism, immigrants as criminals. And not all of the postings originate from Russia, China, Iran or Trumpword. The progressive left is at fault as well, although I think the present danger comes more from the right. In these cases, free speech does not make us more free.

Social media is not the same as the lone guy standing on a soapbox in Union Square park in Chicago. The soapbox preacher reached Earl Williams, the jailed mope in the classic movie His Girl Friday. Now, the social media cum soapbox preacher (and much worse) has Hildy Johnson’s readership (and much more).

The threat to democracy

Years ago, some waxed enthusiastic about the potential of social media to democratize public thought. More speech would result in more democracy.

The results, fifteen years later, are complex. Just as the telephone made distant interaction among friends and family possible, it also made such interaction less valuable, because it was so available. The telephone both centralized and decentralized commerce, as writer Bob Yovovich likes to note.

Today, social media is the destruction of democracy, whether social media left or social media right. We fail to control it, and it gives the lone soapbox guy in the park too much power. It might not be so destructive if all posts had a 24 hour quarantine, sort of isolating in place. Or real name registration. In the old days, the soap box guy couldn’t use a megaphone and had to provide his name and address if pressed.

CCP has the more sophisticated understanding of the power of social media, and controls it. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube have all been banned for years. The Chinese versions – weixin, weibo, renren, or youku tudou do allow discussion and some personal expression of anger online. The difference is that the anger and lies are controlled. Real name ID is a big help, as is the ability to shut down posts and comments, not unlike monitored private blog sites in the US.

A modest proposal

Monitoring might be a step in the right direction – all social media posts to have a 24 or 48 hour built-in delay before posting. This might calm some of the more crazed citizens out there, akin to comedian Jim Jefferies’ rant on guns – having to load an 18^th century musket might help some outraged nut calm down a bit – Part 1 and Part 2 here.

As it is, social media minimizes thinking, maximizes emotional reaction, and negates evaluation. All work to eliminate the informed and educated voter that democracy needs. Little wonder that CCP works so hard to control online speech.

The two parties – GOP and CCP – do work toward the same goal. Trumpworld-GOP will bring down democracy if allowed. That would be fine with CCP. One more competitor out of the way. As Chinese say, shuang-yin. Win-win.

Once Upon a Time, America

At the end of 2018, I wrote a series of posts on similarities between Xi and Trump, CCP and GOP. See below.

Now, about six weeks before the election, Barton Gellman at the Atlantic has an analysis of how Trump can disrupt the election and refuse to leave. This is by no means the only story like this, and the idea seems more and more possible. What if Trump Refuses to Concede?

It can’t happen here, is what most of us think. But for Trump and GOP, as for Xi and CCP, all comes down to power. And consider this – Xi Jinping created a lot of enemies in his power grab, starting in 2012 – senior CCP members in jail, some for life, careers ruined.

Xi changed the rules so he could remain in power past 2022.

Question – if you were in power, and had created a lot of enemies (in Trump’s case, lawsuits that will be filed the day he leaves office) would you choose to desperately cling to power or leave? Now suppose you were a narcissistic authoritarian basket case.

The GOP faces the same question, as has CCP.

Some friends remind us of Cato the Elder, updated – GOP delende est.

Some older posts –

Xi, CCP, DJT, GOP – Part 1 – Government and Party

Xi, CCP, DJT, GOP – Part 2 – Stability

Xi, CCP, DJT, GOP – Part 6 of 5 – Public Morality

and a couple of others.

Take a look at the Camelot last scene We hope Camelot remains not a metaphor for America.

A Quick Voting Guide

We get plenty of advice about how to be a good or strong leader – ask others for input, don’t take all the credit, don’t micromanage … but these are modes of practice. When we look around, there is surprisingly little advice on the sort of moral qualities a leader should possess. Here is a quick review.

Plato advises that rulers be a breed apart – possess no wealth, no property, claim no children, to prevent bias and corruption. Aristotle call for the politician and lawgiver to be wholly occupied with the city-state. Both require a sort of asceticism, along with wisdom, practical experience, and isolation from corruption. Philosopher-kings would be good.

Look in the other usual places for advice. The business literature is devoid of advice on moral qualities of leaders. The Bible has some advice, though sparse. In 1 Timothy, a leader is advised to be of pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith; temperate, self-controlled, respectable, able to teach, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome and not a lover of money. That is some sound advice, although it seems sort of hidden away in the letters.

Closer to home, and to our times, we look to Mill, Madison, and the American founders for advice on the character of a leader, and find … little. Without doubt, Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, et.al. were exemplary leaders, but there seems an assumption that men of intelligence, good will, and perspicacity will naturally lead. We do have Federalist Paper No. 68 from Alexander Hamilton. This is with regard to what became the Electoral College –

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. Little did they know. But all claim virtue as a common thread.

Some direct advice

Plato, Leo Strauss, Machiavelli and Nietzsche told us that leaders must project power, and Mao told us that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. All supported use of the noble lie, the lie in service of protection of the state. I have no doubt that leaders make decisions in complex environments with no pure solution. We hope that the lies be told not too often, and at least be noble, and that leaders agonize over their choice. Cheap lies are just so … unvirtuous.

In ancient China, rulers did not obtain their posts by election or merit. Confucius still had a great deal of advice on how to be a just and fair leader. He tells us that the most important way for the people to become virtuous is by example, and in that regard, political leaders should be moral leaders. Analects 13:13 – if the ruler makes himself correct, what difficulty will the ruler have to govern people? If the ruler cannot make himself correct, how can the ruler make others correct?

The example is the legendary emperor Shun, whose virtue and wisdom was so great that he could rule by simply facing south and saying nothing, and his administrators would know the right thing to do, and do it. Analects 12:22 – if we promote the upright people as the examples for the crooked people, the crooked people will become upright.

Leaders should teach virtue. In order to do so, leaders must of course teach by example and be virtuous themselves.

Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu articulated the character of a ruler in Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu Fanlu), essays from the Han dynasty –

Establishing the Primal Spirit

Section 1 – He who rules the people is the basis of the state. Issuing edicts and initiating undertakings, he is the pivot of all living things. The pivot of all living things, he is the source of honor and dishonor….(H)e who acts as the people’s ruler is attentive toward the fundamental, careful of the beginning, respectful of the small, and cautious of the subtle. His will resembles the stillness of dead ember …. He calms his vital essence and nourishes his numen (spirit). He is quiet and nonactive …. He contemplates what lies in the future and observes what has passed. He deliberates with his numerous worthies to seek out the opinions of the majority of the people. He knows their hearts and understands their sentiments…. He separates their factions and clans and observes the men they esteem….

(Section 2) He who rules the people is the foundation of the state. Now in administering the state, nothing is more important for transforming the people than reverence for the foundation. If the foundation is revered, the ruler will transform the people as if a spirit. If the foundation is not revered, the ruler will lack the means to unite the people…. This is called “throwing away the state.” Is there a greater disaster than this? … Therefore, when the ruler relies on virtue to administer the state, it is sweeter than honey or sugar and firmer than glue or lacquer. That is why sages and worthies exert themselves to revere the foundation and do not dare to depart from it.

What advice for us, now?

Plato told us that the smartest, the best and brightest, should rule. They should disdain material rewards. Aristotle told us that leaders should be wholly concerned with the affairs of state. In the Bible, we have Timothy – pure of heart, self-controlled, not a lover of money. Confucius told us that leaders should lead by example, and teach virtue. Dong Zhongshu clarified further. Hamilton in Federalist No. 68 told us that the electoral college would ensure that men of preeminent ability and virtue would rule.

All would agree that loving wisdom is necessary for good rule. All would agree that rulers should be exemplars of virtue. All would agree that rulers should be temperate and sincere.

Why, in the name of Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Paul’s letter to Timothy, Alexander Hamilton … why in the name of God would anyone be thinking of voting for our current dear leader? Why would someone want to throw away the state? The inquiring minds of the sages, all of them, want to know.

Everything old is new again – Inner Mongolia

If you’ve gotten tired of depressing news from Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong, there is a new oppression to watch in Inner Mongolia. As in the other provinces comprising mostly non-Han people, the new policy requires forced language change and erasing of traditional culture.

It’s a new oppression with an old mode of operation, same as used in the other provinces – forced acculturation, sterilizations, threats to school kids and old people and everyone else, threats of loss of job for parents whose kids don’t conform, disappearances and torture and jail sentences for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” the usual charge against dissidents, lawyers, writers, journalists, and activists of any stripe who fail to meet CCP standards of obeisance.

Also included are the standard threats, disappearances, and roughing up for foreign journalists reporting on local events. Alice Su, Beijing Bureau Chief for the LA Times, is the latest victim, presumably while researching her article in the Times China cracks down on Inner Mongolian minority fighting for its mother tongue.

It is remarkable how well CCP follows prescriptions outlined in 1984 and Animal Farm. Double-think is a prerequisite. An example – we know from the Chinese Constitution that all nationalities are equal …

Article 4. All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities. Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in these areas organs of self- government are established for the exercise of the right of autonomy. All the national autonomous areas are inalienable parts of the People’s Republic of China. The people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs.

… but quite clearly, some nationalities are more equal than others.

From Alice Su’s article –

“All ethnic groups must embrace tightly like the seeds of a pomegranate,” read a slogan from Chinese President Xi Jinping printed in Mandarin on the wall.

So we are in the realm of doublethink already, if Mongolians are being forced to abandon their language and culture. But the Constitution always has an out – read article 4 above, again, and note – . The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities. Sort of in the same realm as, “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Alice Su, again –

Bao said her grandson had to come back to class because his parents’ workplaces threatened to fire them otherwise. “We had no choice,” she said. “We want our grandson to go to school, of course, but not to forget his mother tongue.”

“It’s too outrageous,” her husband added. “What century are we living in? They’ve snatched away our rights.”

Now you might think promotion of “rights” in China is a western concept that would make one subject to arrest. But remember these sections from the Constitution –

Article 35. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Article 36. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable.

The people of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have equal rights with other Chinese. Its just that … well, you know. Animal Farm.

Bill Bishop at Sinocism has more. Before we get too high-hat about this, the US has its own terrible history with racial and ethnic minorities. But when Chinese media and foreign representatives go on about conditions in the US, remember that most of the time the American government has worked to protect rights of minorities. The Chinese government works to define their rights away. Too often, we forget that with rights come responsibilities. In China, the responsibilities include those of obeying CCP.

It is to laugh – or not … more on culture wars in elementary math class …

It’s not often that life imitates art so precisely. When it does, the result is frightening. But there it all is, on YouTube and Twitter.

First the art. Watch Alternative Math – A Short Film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3Yz3PiXZw&t=17s from Ideaman. This is a nine minute recounting of a teacher’s existential crisis at trying to teach 2 + 2 = 4 in a modern progressive American school. The 2017 film is meant to be a parody, but then ….

… the real life. On August 16 Cathy Young reported on MathGate, or the Battle of Two Plus Two – the culture wars come to math and reach a new low at https://medium.com/arc-digital/mathgate-or-the-battle-of-two-plus-two-ed4af5f32933

Should 2 + 2 = 22, or some other set of answers? The battle has come to real teachers and administrators in real schools, as progressive math teachers and administrators obsess over the proper answer to 2 + 2 = x.

Among the twitter combatants on whether 2 + 2 = 4 is a real mathematics teacher – an ethnic studies math teacher – who posted –

Apparently, in 2019 the Seattle public schools reconsidered their curriculum with a view toward integrating ethnic studies into math. Part of this effort involved teachers considering these questions in the K-12 math curriculum – How important is it to be Right? What is Right? Says Who?

The Seattle document was at:
https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudies/pubdocs/Math%20SDS%20ES%20Framework.pdf

It has apparently been deleted. Discussion is at
https://mynorthwest.com/1537348/rantz-seattle-schools-document-say-math-is-oppressive-us-government-racist/

Apparently, the short film made in 2017 turns out not to be a parody but illuminates a real crisis for some social justice warriors. We are at this point in American cultural history – Where does Power and Oppression show up in our math experiences?

As to power and oppression, I would make a point about the role of the Electoral College in elections or letting truly ignorant people vote, but I suspect that would not endear me to the progressive side in this brouhaha.

In her post, Cathy Young makes the relevant point –

In George Orwell’s 1984, the protagonist, Winston, writes in his diary that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four” (i.e., not being forced to deny reality), and is later tortured until he agrees that two plus two can be whatever the ruling Party wants. For many anti-SJWs, this is highly relevant to the current moment: they believe that undermining the truth of “2+2=4” is part of an “SJW” push to compel people to accept “politically correct” fictions.

I wrote about a similar development at Wokeness – and despair for democracy – how the forced language of the progressive left reminds me of the speech codes in the Chinese Communist Party.

Social justice warriors spending their own time and resources, and that of real teachers in real schools, arguing over the meaning of 2 + 2 is nothing but a waste. We are talking kindergarten or first grade kids here, not about more abstract ideas that can properly be considered when those kids come upon base 3. In the end, the base 10 answer “4” will prevail. But we will have spent plenty of … stupid … time on the stupid discussion. My Chinese students are incredulous first, and laughing next. The Alternative Math video circulates widely now on the Chinese social medium Wechat, with subtitles. To Americans – “You go right ahead, and argue over the answer. Knock yourselves out ….”

But, you know, it all comes out ok in the end. California governor Gavin Newsom just signed a bill requiring an ethnic studies course for graduation from California State Universities. Maybe STEM majors from Seattle who are in the CalState system will be able to get credit for kindergarten math.

Wokeness – and despair for democracy

Americans seem to have woken up to disparities in our society, particularly for black people. This is a good thing. Wokeness will go a ways toward fulfilling the promises suggested in the Declaration of Independence.

But there is a most disturbing part of wokeness that is not limited to racial matters, and that is the language fascism of the left. It is as dangerous to a free society as any fascism of the right and too close to what we can observe every day in China.

Much of the language of wokeness does not inspire faith in a more equal future. It inspires only despair at the convergence I see between authoritarian rhetoric in China and similar language in the woke left in the US. That model of wokeness is what every authoritarian government wishes for America. It is retreat into tribes and truth in service of politics. Despair is the necessary result, for on the one hand no one can ever be sufficiently woke, and on the other, concurrent damage to civil society is not easily rebuilt.

University speech limitations have been around as long as I can remember, even in the sixties. We saw codes reappear a few years ago with the university speech codes and microaggression issues. Per wokeness, speech is only allowed to be free if it is correct. Ignored in a person’s “right” to be called what pronoun they wish is the “right” to demur. The most lightweight response – “I’m offended” – should not be anything more than a personal statement, but it became a call for apologies and more. The more insistent wokeness resulted in cancellation of speakers, changes in venue, and some faculty members hurt professionally or physically in trying to reply to accusations and restrain the mobs. Jordan Peterson is only cashing in on the difficult experiences of Jonathan Haidt, David Shor, and many others.

American liberals should be as deeply disturbed by such developments in censorship and language policing as they are to lies and conspiracy theories of the alt-right. It is inimical to civil society and to liberalism.

The Chinese model

We know the fascism in CCP in China now – the loyalty tests, the unwritten speech codes, sanitizing of history, the scrutiny of texts and teachers for incorrect thinking, the sense of being under attack, the arrests for mocking Xi or CCP.

There is no truth apart from what CCP says. The politically correct mimic the speech and ideas in pledges and writing. This “performative declamation” is an old fascist – and CCP – practice. Geremie Barme at Australian National University calls it New China Newspeak. The progressive warrior has a lot in common with a CCP cadre on speech codes. Whatever one calls it, it is straight outta 1984 and it is double-plus ungood. And it is spreading on the progressive left. See here, and here and here.

President Obama warned progressives in 2019 to avoid a circular firing squad on correctness. And Jonathan Chait warns about wrongthink and despicable behavior among progressives in a recent New York magazine piece. Purity on wokeness appears essential, but once ensnared by wokeness, there is no escape. James Lindsey has a penetrating analysis of wokeness as cult indoctrination at New Discourses. New China Newspeak appears to be another Chinese import to America.

Factions don’t balance factions

One can be sanguine about the language and behavior of wokeness. At the beginning of any cultural movement, there is a tendency to extreme behavior by some, and that motivates others. The extreme behavior is temporary and eventually the system adjusts to a new norm.

The progressive cultural movement of the last ten years does feel different because it is matched by extremists on the right (white nationalists, like Trump, and evangelicals who suggest a retreat from the world (Rod Dreher) until Trump, God’s appointee, can deliver us). When silence is violence there can be no middle ground. Democracy demands we be able to talk with one another. When communication fails, civil society fails, and democracy fails.

We have threats of real physical violence enabled by the alt-right. Michigan shut down its legislature rather than confront the armed thugs. Threats are also from the police, as agents of the state and from our ruler. The physical threats were there, in the Trump march to display his ignorance of the Bible and its contents. Ezra Klein – I was watching the speech Trump gave before tear-gassing the protesters in the park in DC. What so chilled me about that speech was how much he clearly wanted this — like this was the presidency as he had always imagined it, directing men with guns and shields to put down protesters so he could walk through a park unafraid and seem tough.

Most of the violence from the left is still verbal, but it tortures language to the point of meaninglessness – there is no racism other than white racism. Silence is assault. Students need safety from language or viewpoints with which they disagree. An “incorrect” pronoun is violence. Jobs and careers are destroyed in senseless witch hunts, all due to someone using incorrect speech or even alluding to ideas with which the speaker actually disagrees. This is Orwellian, to be sure. It is also reminiscent of witch hunts circa 1968 in China – academics, officials, loyal party members suddenly deemed insufficiently loyal.

The factions left and right do not offset or balance each other, for a middle ground to find consensus. The middle ground shrinks. The factions only encourage each other in democratic decay. Democracy does die in the darkness of censorship and mistrust. It is to remember Robert Oppenheimer in a different context – I am become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds.

Media infection

As in China, the major US media now seem controlled by a faction with a particular political agenda.

It is not just speech codes and sanctioning of university faculty for speaking their minds. It is corruption of what we used to consider the free press. If staff at the New York Times cannot restrain themselves in forcing resignation of the editor who okayed publication of an op-ed of which the staff (collectively) disapproved, what hope for journalism anywhere? There are other examples. Matt Taibbi made the point in The American Press Is Destroying Itself – how can any editor operate when the price of airing opinions shared by a majority of the population might be loss of job?

Right wing media – Fox News and other – now seem justified in making a pot and kettle accusation. What we thought was mainstream media attempting to pursue truth and openness seems just a sham. Reporting and truth give way to virtue signaling.

Discourse matters

Our democracy can only survive as our civil society functions. Our ability to disagree in a civil way, our ability to tolerate dissent and tolerate each other, our ability to bring kindness and understanding to social interaction are all disappearing. These traits add up to civility. Civility is not just smiling in public. It is how we use language, in print, in person, online.

Lucian Pye told us what society looks like in China without our norms of civility, without civil society, without generalized trust. The government become the arbiter of social norms, and that is dangerous. Civility, Social Capital and Civil Society: Three Powerful Concepts for Explaining Asia. To define the state as the only legitimate community, and thus deprive citizens of individual rights, comes close to advancing a fascist ideology. Protests are a necessary way for us to communicate with each other. We should use them, by all means. But extremities of language only divide. It is not the Christian way. It is not the King way.

In 1995, novelist Umberto Eco wrote a piece for the New York Review of Books called Ur-Fascism. Based on his youth in fascist Italy during World War II, he listed fourteen elements of fascism, regardless of political origins on the left or the right.

We can see Xi Jinping and today’s CCP in this list. The seven deadly sins in Document No. 9 are a warning to all Chinese. In the list we also see the Cultural Revolution and its destruction of statues, historical buildings, books, and maiming and murder of university teachers who were not sufficiently – well, let us say, woke. And now we can see the American progressive left – and alt-right – at every step.

This is an abbreviated list of Eco’s fourteen points, from Chris Hedges in American Fascists way back in 2006. Blogger Jason Kottke characterized each item. Think about current news stories as you consider each of the fourteen.

The cult of tradition. “As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all ….”
The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
Appeal to social frustration. “…one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
The humiliation by the wealth and force of their enemies. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Eco quotes Franklin Roosevelt during a radio address on the “need for continuous liberal government”:

I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.

One can find every one of the ideas on Eco’s list – save perhaps number 12 – exemplified daily in news about the progressive left.

Chris Hedges used Eco’s list in an introduction to his book about the Christian right. Hedges – who describes himself as a socialist – shows the right wing oligarchic systems at work in Treason of the Ruling Class. To see the applicability of Eco’s list to the distinctly non-Christian left suggests the depth of my fears about democracy. Language extremism is a democratic sickness, and it can metastasize.

Reading forward

Civil discourse requires reading. Previously, we read Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire), and Nickel and Dimed (Ehrenreich). Today we are told to read How to be an Antiracist (Kendi) or White Fragility (Diangelo). We should also be reading How Democracies Die (Levitsky and Ziblatt) and America: The Farewell Tour (Hedges) and the article by Amy Chua, Divided We Fall.

When our civility fails, our civil society fails, our democracy fails. Should that happen, we might as well be taking our marching orders from some other American autocrat in waiting, and it won’t matter if your sentiments are from the left or from the right. Civil discourse is democratic. It is the essence of democracy. Without it, we are headed for a fall, Trump or no Trump.

China Reflections

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