"Work Won't Love You Back"

"The wide appeal of entrepreneurialism also demonstrates its malleability. The former New Leftists who embraced entrepreneurship in founding organic grocery stores or alternative bookstores could feel secure that their businesses 'were simply "faithful and uncluttered expressions of yourself,"' Baker writes, even as they, too, became bosses demanding more and more of their workers. On the other end of the political spectrum, the Amway founders Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel preached a New Right language of 'family values' by promising that their direct-sales model would bring families closer together, as in the idealized mom-and-pop shops of yore. Deindustrialization and high levels of unemployment did much to undermine what was left of industriousness as a work ethic in the 1970s and ’80s, but the appeal of entrepreneurialism to both the New Right and the New Left positioned it not just as the heir apparent but as a new logic for organizing society overall.

Nick Juravich at The Nation reviews Erik Baker's Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America.

"What Do You Mean 'Don't Push'? It's All About Pushing!"

"The paper's tagline, 'Democracy Dies in Broad Daylight' is a thinly veiled jab at the Washington Post's self-important motto 'Democracy Dies in Darkness.' Behind the joke, though, is a real criticism: that the most serious obstacle to hard-hitting public-interest reporting isn't a lack of access to sensitive information but rather the reluctance of the mainstream media to publish stories that might ruffle the feathers of their corporate overlords."

Ian Ward at Politico talks with Ralph Nader about Nader's new publication, Capitol Hill Citizen.

"Who Needs a Public Health System When Sickness Is a Personal Failure?"

"In the workplace, the anti-smoking movement had a stronger card to play: the 'social cost' of smoking, which activists learned to quantify. The key moment was a lawsuit brought by a telephone company employee called Donna Shimp, who suffered from headaches and rashes in the smoky office where she worked for New Jersey Bell. In 1975, Shimp sued for a smoke-free workplace on the basis of her rights as a non-smoker, but she also stressed the 'cost factors' of workplace smoking. If New Jersey Bell would not act on behalf of non-smokers, it might act on behalf of its bottom line–as indeed it did. Shimp and the group she founded, Environmental Improvement Associates, gestured towards the health hazards of inhaling second-hand smoke, which researchers were beginning to discern, but her argument boiled down to the claim that 'smoking–and quite often, smokers–cost too much.' This chimed with a new wave of management consultancy that dedicated itself to a leaner, meaner, cleaner workplace."

Jackson Lears at the London Review of Books reviews Sarah Milov's The Cigarette: A Political History.

"'Real Solutions Can't Wait'"

"Despite a mountainous climb ahead, Mr Hawkins is bullish.
"'We will take our case to the voters. We are running out of time on the life-or-death issues of the pandemic, racism, economic inequality, climate, and nuclear arms.'"

Louise Boyle at The Independent discusses presumptive Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins.

And also in The Independent, Hawkins makes his case.

"America's Economic Illness Has a Name"

"This sickness, not so much the product of venal interests as of a complex and long-term web of changes in government and private industry, now manifests itself in myriad ways: a housing market that is bifurcated and dependent on government life support, a retirement system that has left millions insecure in their old age, a tax code that favors debt over equity. Debt is the lifeblood of finance; with the rise of the securities-and-trading portion of the industry came a rise in debt of all kinds, public and private. That's bad news, since a wide range of academic research shows that rising debt and credit levels stoke financial instability. And yet, as finance has captured a greater and greater piece of the national pie, it has, perversely, all but ensured that debt is indispensable to maintaining any growth at all in an advanced economy like the U.S., where 70% of output is consumer spending. Debt-fueled finance has become a saccharine substitute for the real thing, an addiction that just gets worse. (The amount of credit offered to American consumers has doubled in real dollars since the 1980s, as have the fees they pay to their banks.)"

Rana Foroohar at Time in 2016 explains the scourge of "financialization."

And David Dayen at The Nation shows how private equity killed Toys "R" Us.

Realos and Fundis

"Structurally, the American electoral system is heavily weighted against small political parties. But U.S. Greens also harm themselves by taking extreme positions and failing to understand that governing requires compromise–a lesson their German counterparts learned several decades ago."

Per Urlaub at The Conversation asks, "[w]hy is the US Green Party so irrelevant?"

"Amazon Is the Price We’re Paying for That Bipartisan Turn in Thinking"

"Conservatives, it turned out, were only too happy to hear such talk. After years of defending monopoly as perfectly justifiable, they began publishing books and articles conceding that consumer welfare was a legitimate purpose of antitrust, perhaps the only one. Robert Bork denounced all of Brandeis's attempts to protect small producers as a 'jumble of half-digested notions and mythologies.' A cottage industry of like-minded critiques emanated from the University of Chicago's Law School and then traveled straight to Republicans in Washington. In the hands of Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, not to mention the judges he appointed to the federal bench, efficiency and low prices provided the justification for dismantling much of the old antitrust infrastructure. No subsequent administration, either Democratic or Republican, has meaningfully tried to revive it."


Franklin Foer in The New Republic looks at Amazon and monopoly.


Scott Timberg in Salon links Amazon to the decline of alternative newspapers.

"Talking to the Quirky Conservative within Himself"

"Much of the left’s agenda, 'Unstoppable' argues, can be justified by citing revered conservative authors. Adam Smith described the invisible hand but also the 'bad effects of high profits.' Friedrich Hayek condemned certain cartels and monopolies. Russell Kirk, who feared untrammeled government and capitalism, wrote that John D. Rockefeller and Karl Marx 'were merely two agents of the same social force—an appetite cruelly inimical to human individuation.'
"Nader cites these and other examples to argue that left and right should band together against the common enemy of 'corporatism.' It’s really more the Naderite left he’s talking about, and an ever-shrinking pool of principled conservatives. But let’s hear him out."


Timothy Noah in The Washington Post reviews Ralph Nader's Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State (and interviews Nader in Washington Monthly).


Nader ponders possibilities in The Huffington Post.


And Tyler Cowen interviews Nader at The American Interest.

Jerry Brown for President?

"'Every move he’s making is the move of a presidential candidate,' said Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, who has run several times himself and would like to see Brown make another try for the White House in two years. 'It’s almost a blueprint.'"

Mark Z. Barabak in the Los Angeles Times speculates about Jerry Brown running for president in 2016.

"Social Movements that Explicitly Defend the Interests of the Rich and the Almost-Rich Have Been a Recurring Feature of American Politics"

"With meticulous research, Martin shows how the modern Tea Party grew from decades of efforts by American oligarchs to de-tax themselves. They relied on cranks, rogues, and a few scholars to polish the most effective ideological marketing pitches. Their goal was selling the notion that if the rich bear less of the burden of government, all of us will somehow end up better off. These pitches have worked best when some newly proposed government initiative—like President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act—arrives to pose the threat of major policy change. They have depended on diverting attention from obvious questions, such as just how does a smaller tax bill for the Koch brothers benefit us?"

David Cay Johnston in The American Prospect reviews Isaac William Martin's Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent.

"The Resemblance Is Characterological and Ideological"

"President Obama scaled back some of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies—torture, warrantless wiretapping—but kept in place others. One could make the case that he did not change enough, but that is not a Greenwald sort of argument. He insists that Obama is worse than Bush. Obama’s health-care reform was not just a step along the way to Greenwald’s ideal, it was a monstrous sellout that probably did no good at all ('there is a reasonable debate to be had among reform advocates over whether this bill is a net benefit or a net harm.').

"This way of looking at the world naturally places one in conflict with most liberals, who are willing to distinguish between gradations of success or failure."

Jonathan Chait at New York compares Glenn Greenwald to Ralph Nader.

Unsafe at Any Speed

"Part of the problem is the deregulatory mania that has gripped Washington since the Ronald Reagan years. Since the Reagan administration, NHTSA has been severely cut back. Its budget has been nearly halved (when adjusted for inflation), which has left it with a far smaller technical staff.
"Former NHTSA Administrator Joan Claybrook has testified to the need for an immediate budget increase of $100 million just to assure that NHTSA has the technical personnel and capability to meet its obligations in the areas of safety standards, defect recall, enforcement and research.
"At a time when about 40,000 Americans die in cars each year and hundreds of thousands more are injured, NHTSA's motor vehicle safety budget is a mere $140 million. By comparison, taxpayers will pay more than four times as much--about $675 million--to guard the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

Ralph Nader in the Los Angeles Times explains why Toyota's acceleration problems festered for so long.

"No One in America Should Go Broke Because They Get Sick"

"This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor—not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies."

In The New York Times, President Barack Obama explains why America's health-care system must change.

However, Ralph Nader, interviewed on Democracy Now!, calls instead for "full Medicare for everyone," regardless of age.

Rick Perlstein in The Washington Post traces the paranoid style of right-wing politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and Nancy J. Altman in the Los Angeles Times depicts the conservative opposition to Franklin Roosevelt's creation of Social Security in the 1930s.

But Paul Begala in The Washington Post notes the compromises that Roosevelt made to argue that today's health-care reforms may not at first be the ideal overhaul.

Ralph Was Right, Again

Christopher Hayes at The Nation's Capitolism notes that eight years ago Ralph Nader foresaw the current financial collapse.

Pink and Green

Adam Bernstein and Judy Lin in The Washington Post report the deaths of Pink Floyd keybordist Rick Wright and Green Party vice-presidential candidate Peter Camejo.

Off and Running

"The candidate will cite the long list of failures, neglected duties, corruptions, high crimes and misdemeanors that have attached to the lame-duck administrators of a nation that is stuck in a Middle East quagmire, descending into recession and seemingly incapable of addressing even the most pressing human needs--a nation now so badly off course that three-quarters of its citizens tell pollsters 'America is headed in the wrong direction.' And, of course, Nader will suggest that if a Republican president and vice president choose not to resign, then a Democratic House and Senate should impeach and try them--moves that substantial pluralities, and in some cases majorities, of Americans tell pollsters are now appropriate."

John Nichols in The Nation checks in with Ralph Nader.

Eight Is Enough

Liam at sententiae et clamores has tagged The Late Adopter with the "eight meme," so here goes: 

8 Passions in my life: Mrs. Late Adopter and Late Adopter, Jr.; friends; history; music; movies; books; art; ideas. 

8 Things to do before I die: Raise Late Adopter, Jr.; finish my degree; publish a book; get stable employment; pay off debts; learn to play guitar; travel the world; and take Mrs. Late Adopter back to Paris. 

8 Things I often say: "What's the matter, Baby C?" "That's a big yawn for a little girl"; "Should I check her diaper?"; "What do you want to eat?"; ''Do you want to get coffee?"; "Wake me up in half an hour"; "OK, let's pick up where we left off last time"; and "Any questions?" 

8 Books I read (or reread) recently: Alternadad by Neal Pollack; Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979 by Tim Lawrence; Hotel California: The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends by Barney Hoskins; The Who's The Who Sell Out by John Dougan; The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico, by Joe Harvard; Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott; The Ramones' Ramones by Nicholas Rombes; and 300 student bluebooks. 

8 Films that mean something to me: The Limey; The Filth and the Fury; The Royal Tenenbaums; Gangs of New York; Bad Santa; Mayor of the Sunset Strip; The Squid and the Whale; and Art School Confidential. 

8 Songs that mean something to me: "Hideaway" by The Olivia Tremor Control; "Swastika Eyes" by Primal Scream; "Digital Love" by Daft Punk; "(Drawing) Rings Around the World" by Super Furry Animals; "In da Club" by 50 Cent; "Yeah!" by Usher; "Come On/Let's Go" by Paul Weller; and "Country Girl" by Primal Scream. 

8 Living people I'd like to have as dinner guests: Tina Fey; Debbie Harry; Christopher Hitchens; Nick Hornby; Ralph Nader; Simon Reynolds; Chris Rock; and Martin Scorsese. 

8 People I'm passing this on to: The Late Adopter tags Rain seven times plus one.

Raider Nation

"In the aftermath of Nader's abortive presidential runs, it's easy to forget all that he accomplished. It's also easy to forget that Nader was a relative conservative in an era of radicals. He and his raiders were the clean-scrubbed idealists determined to make the system work. Seat belts alone, according to government statistics, saved 195,382 lives over 30 years."

Robert Kuttner in The American Prospect reviews An Unreasonable Man, the new documentary about Ralph Nader.