Welcome to rieblog!

an opportunity to reflect on my sunny day captialism...

[More:]

Riga Riots...

...an opportunity to reflect on my sunny day capitalism.

Concerned friends and well-wishers have been contacting me asking about the riots in downtown Riga a couple of weeks ago. Let me assure the faithful: everything is OK. I actually hadn't realized they had occurred until the next day, because I live across the river in a quiet neighborhood. The riots were pretty staid by French or Greek standards. It started out as a large but peaceful demonstration against the government by lots of out of work people who are suffering the effects of inflation while watching the rich ship their tax money to Switzerland. In the words of one opposition party leader: “they came, they sang, and they went home.” A few hundred stayed behind, however, and started throwing snowballs at parliament (cool!), followed by rocks and Molotov cocktails (uncool, in my opinion). Then these hardworking youths got thirsty and started looting liquor stores (predictable!). The rioters consisted of self-proclaimed anarchists, punk kids, Russians demonstrating for a second state language, and a few people who genuinely believed that nothing less would prod the government into action. The government, which appears to consist of mostly hired hands of a few wealthy businessmen, has at least taken notice. After all, this isn't the way Latvians, as good northern Europeans, are supposed to act. The global economic situation has been altering behavior, however, as the situation in Iceland recently demonstrated.

The riots in Riga, however minor, have given me an opportunity to reflect on my views concerning capitalism, free trade, globalization, and the haves and the have-nots. It gives me little pleasure, for example, to read Thomas Friedman reporting from Davos that the demons of international capitalism have ruined the world economy, after putting up with his screeds lauding globalization and free trade over the past ten years or so. Everyone seems to be reconsidering the impact of the free-wheeling 1990's, and I'm doing the same. At the beginning of the the '90's I was a starving graduate student and a good socialist. My work was undervalued and I was living in poverty, why not try a centralized solution? My attitude changed considerably in the late '90's while I was working for Amazon. I was working hard, but I was making good money, and I was promised much more. I felt I deserved that money, I had earned it. I felt other things also. When my colleagues and I ate lunch in the park I felt scorn for the homeless men resting their enormous red bellies in the sun. Why couldn't they just get jobs? I felt jealousy also. They had free time, their lives were simple, and it least their most basic needs were being met.

Now I'm living in Latvia and I'm back in poverty. The pendulum has swung back the other direction in my thinking also. Now I rage against the super-rich class here that is bleeding the country white so they can support their voracious appetite for houses, cars, and Swiss bank accounts. Am I a hypocrite? I think so, certainly! Where was all this high-minded thinking about taking care of the poor while I was on the stock option express? Back then my thinking was “The cream will rise to the top!” Now I want to take to the streets with the underclass (it was the farmers yesterday, and the Minister of Agriculture resigned). Is there any way to excuse, let alone explain, the wild fluctuations in my economic views?

While we haven't had these types of stone throwing imbroglios in the U.S., I believe many Americans have started to recalibrate their own thinking toward success and unregulated capitalism. Let's face it, when times are good, we get greedy. When you are working hard, it's easy to look at someone who is out of work and see failure and shiftlessness. Now that unemployment is a real threat for most of us, it's time for a re-think. Success is not just a matter of hard work, there's a lot of luck involved. Will your boss lay you off or the guy in the next cubicle? Will you, or a member of your family get sick, or will it happen to the neighbors? When times are good, it's easy to put these problems and their solutions down to better or worse planning and how hard you are willing to work. Now that the party is over, it's a lot easier to sympathize with those who have fallen on hard times, because our own friends and neighbors are falling all over the place.

The ultra-rich can also learn a big lesson from today's economic crisis: learn to share. Now I'm not (necessarily) advocating a socialist solution. After all, socialists states produce bad art and ugly architecture. Instead, the rich might be willing to ask themselves: “Could I get rid of three houses to save the other six?” In Latvia, that would mean allowing the government to create a tax structure that is actually designed to collect revenue from rich people, rather than shielding the top 1% of earners at the expense of the bottom 99%. I'm sure Edmond Burke has been translated into Latvian. Perhaps I should start sending copies of "Reflections on the Revolution in France" to the 50 or so guys who are actually running the country over here. Burke's message is clear: the authority of the aristocracy rests on the willingness of the underclasses to accept that authority. Do not be reckless, or you will end up like France. Interestingly, many local commentators accused the January rioters of trying “the French solution.”

In America, the project will be more complicated. An entire world view must be changed. According to this world view, everything I have, I've earned, and everything you lack, you lack for lack of trying. There has been no room for luck in America, but that is changing. Up ahead of us is a giant black wave of bad luck. In my estimation, it has yet to crest. Most everyone will be affected. It matters little that a group of bankers, lax regulators, and opportunists created this tsunami. We are all in its path now. The lazy and the hardworking, the sick and the soon-to-be-sick, Republicans, Democrats, and Nader-Dudes will all feel the effects of this recession. Will it change our thinking? I believe that will depend largely on the severity of the crisis. The worse it gets, the easier it will be to see similarities between us and our fellow citizens. I don't want to be a cheerleader for economic disaster, but I can't help but think one salubrious effect of a total meltdown might be a change in the way we view our fellow Americans. We need to get to a point where we can look at the bum in the park and honestly think: “I'm lucky that isn't me.”