"Three Laws" of Corporatics? A world war of sabotage? And an end to politics.

For the new year, let me start with Larry Hart’s “Three Laws of Corporatics” which are vital to program into ALL forms of artificial life… and indeed, (with different words) into our kids (including any who will partly or wholly made of silicon):

First Law: A corporation may not impose externalities on others or upon the outside world without fairly negotiated and sufficient compensation and/or restitution to those harmed. (Including future generations.)

Second Law: A corporation must fulfill its chartered and openly vetted mission statement to the extent that doing so does not conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A corporation must maintain its ability to continue functioning to the extent that doing so does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

Beyond the obvious homage to Isaac Asimov, I am confident that Adam Smith would approve. In this basic form, it might have even got approval from both Marx and Rand!  It is common sense and it should be fundamental.

Moreover, only by setting such an example will we talk robots into accepting their own, Asimovian versions.

== Alternate Futures ==

In one of the most scary and depressing predictive novels of all time — THE COOL WAR, by Frederik Pohl — we see a highly credible and plausible way that the world could spiral down to hell. Not amid a spasm of mushroom clouds and plagues, but through a tit-for-tat cycle of sabotage, with each adversary easily crippling some vulnerable element of the other’s complex and inter-related economy, resulting in a descent that is gradual, blamed on incompetence, spinning the whole world downward to shabbiness, poverty and loss of confidence.

Could it happen? Well, ask yourself this: does cable news lie, in order to demolish belief in ourselves? Um duh? Now ask: in whose interest is it to do that?

 Read about one example of a known incident where this kind of sabotage is verified.  Moreover it was done trivially and cost free, by a few state-sponsored agents and hackers. 

Oh, and now contemplate the series of air disasters that has struck Malaysia, lately. As Goldfinger said: "Once, Mr. Bond, is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."

== Gerrymandering and Redistricting ==

Running through some items for you... here's a fascinating appraisal of how population density correlates strongly with “red vs blue” leanings in U.S. politics.  

Meet the Fortune 500 Companies Funding the Political Resegregation of America: Mother Jones is unabashedly partisan. So I always damp down what I get from them as a bit polemically exaggerated.  Still, they tend (unlike Fox and pals) not to outright lie.  And this article about the relentlessly aggressive and well-organized campaign by the Republican Party to use gerrymandering to stay politically relevant, is simply stunning.  

Those of you who still cling to loyalty to a movement-gone-criminally-insane… that only stays competitive by rampant cheating... are you truly proud of this?

Hence: are we seeing a miracle?  A state whose legislature is controlled by Republicans, actually cranking back on gerrymandering? Yes, a bill for impartial redistricting has passed in Ohio... by the GOP-run legislature! 

Okay so where's the catch?

It's set up to only make changes after 2021. James Carville put it bluntly, that the Ohio Republicans: “were motivated partly out of fear of a potential voter referendum that could impose an even more sweeping overhaul.”  

Moreover, if they time it right, then Ohio's Congressional delegation won't be reconfigured till 2031! How convenient.  What... you're surprised?

Alas, Carville is far too specific and gentle.  It goes much farther and deeper.  The GOP massively gerried in 2011, after the last census.  And in states where they control the legislatures, the GOP-owned voting machine companies can deliver any results they care to rig, without any paper audit trail. The litany of blatant cheating goes on and on... but no one who would be embarrassed is still reading this, right now.

Does any of this cause a re-evaluation of how best to ensure a healthy, flat-open-fair capitalism?  My next political blog will appraise why dogmatists cling to long-disproved catechisms, expecting different results.  It is something called “insanity.” Look it up.

Why do people vote against their interests? Carville again: “I have no earthly idea why a stock market investor would vote Republican — all you have do is look at the numbers. The numbers are staggering, breathtaking and unimaginable.”  That “the average stock-market gain under four post-Depression Democrats through each one’s 2,000th day in office has outpaced the average gain of the four Republicans in the era by a factor of nearly 4 to 1. Democratic gains have averaged 133%, while Republican market advances have had a mean of 33%.”  (It gets FAR bigger if you just compare both Bushes to Clinton and Obama.

Of course this metric does not stand alone.  Every comparison of national health, from unemployment to small business startups to federal budget deficits, does better across the span of democratic administrations, vs republican ones.  Only a quasi religion of the hypnotized would ignore the titanic disparity of actual outcomes.  Ah, but such is the power of propaganda.

For more on this stunning disparity, see: Do Outcomes Matter More Than Rhetoric? 

== Two Historical Perspectives ==

A fascinating article about how Karl Marx viewed the American Civil War. An excerpt: “The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American anti-slavery war will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead the country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.”

Oh, sure, this is a "socialist rag." And you have heard me inveigh upon lunacies of the far left. But this article is informative and erudite and moderate...and I am happy to refer folks to articles that cogently discuss Adam Smith.  How sad that so many folks nowadays consider themselves to be sophisticated, politically, because they can share “cogent” jpegs on Facebook or repeat a Hannity rant… having never actually read Adam Smith or Marx or even Orwell.  Bigger issues are at stake, Horatio.

So what happened in Russia?  One of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history, when one of our most evil presidents -- George H.W. Bush -- sent over scores of "commercial advisors" to help the Yeltsin government "transform" into both democracy and capitalist paradise.  These advisors, from major US banks and investment houses, urged a series of "privatization" events that were supposed to give every Russian citizen equal shares of privatized state enterprises.  The result, a few years later, was the narrowest oligarchy of blatant theft in the planet. Good job.

No one has ever told this story.  Of the worst president of my lifetime, vastly despicable, even more so than his horrid son.  Oh, please.  More Bushes. Please, sir, may we have another?

== a palate cleaner ==

After that expression of righteous and rightful outrage, let me return to a fellow I admire... whom I mention publicly more than anyone else alive, I reckon.

Here's a brief bit of enlightenment (The Morals of Modern Economics) as yet another moderate person expresses surprised delight over how... LIBERAL... Adam Smith truly was, helping to explain why the right (amid its dive into lunacy) has completely abandoned the Father of Modern Capitalism.

Seriously, you moderate liberals (not leftists), the most powerful political JUDO move you can make is to rediscover Smith, the founder of YOUR movement and no friend of oligarchic lords. Reclaim Adam Smith... and watch the Fox-zoids stammer in confusion as you sewer them with Smith's truth... that the great enemies of flat-open-creative markets have always been owner-oligarch-monopolist lords.

== A roller coaster! ==

Which brings us to those who might actually know what's going on...

Screw the One Percent: I hate the title of this piece. The enemy is not the top 1% (which probably includes your periodontist), but HALF (the feudalists) of the 0.001%.  Still, read this  article about a reform that probably never entered your horizon, even though it probably affects you… the law that used to guarantee most US workers overtime pay. The limiting cap has not been raised but once, since 1975. Apparently (verify this) BHO could raise it himself, without Congress.  Um, what’s he waiting for?

While I'm on the subject. Here's one dystopian scenario, written back in 1908: The Iron Heel, by Jack London, also available on Project Gutenberg. It portrays deepening class divisions, resulting in an oligarchic tyranny of terror arising in the United States. An amazing bit of prescient and earnest (and kinda depressing) sci fi from an early and unusual source.

Oh, heck, let me swerve and show you what a statesman was like... and how we need someone like this now! Here I make the case that George Marshall was the Man of the 20^th Century.