As for his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a force for evil and the destruction of the status quo,” Dixon said. “He’s far more akin to an Occupy Wall Street type if you’re looking to cast him politically. And if there ever was a Bruce Wayne running for the White House it would have to be Romney.”
–Bane creator, Chuck Dixon
Echoes of the Arab Spring, European and Asian strike waves, the Occupy phenomenon and a host of new popular upsurges haunt the psyches of a global ruling class attempting to navigate the ever unfolding crises which continue to spiral outward. It is in this light that the newly released Dark Knight Rises, third in the Dark Knight series, is a stunning, if terrifying reflection of the deepest anxieties of a ruling class with few options, fewer ideas, and no shortage of increasingly threatening social contradictions menacing its psyche.
The plot itself is predictable-but with notable twists. The film’s villain Bane, long incarcerated in a prison pit he describes as,”hell,” has nurtured a revenge desire against Gotham City. His rage, however, is not only driven by personal experience-he has adopted an ideological conception of Gotham as representative of the causes of a myriad of injustices embodied by his life of incarceration and brutality. The mission of Bane’s large insurgent force? Destroy Gotham with a nuclear weapon.
Early on in the film, a small crew of armed men, led by the anti-hero Bane, bursts onto the Nasdaq trading floor, randomly firing weapons, and taking the entirety of the trading floor hostage. While they attempt to tap into the trading circuits on the floor itself, Bane stands over a trembling trader. The trader, in a vain attempt to dissuade Bane and his crew, tells him,”There’s no money to steal here!” to which Bane hisses,”Then what are you people doing here?”
Noteworthy also is the recurrence of Bane’s populist themes during the pursuit of his goal. Recruiting from orphaned and homeless youth, Bane has trained a small army in the sewers of Gotham City. Midway through the film, Bane lures thousands of police officers into the sewers, detonating explosives and trapping them underneath, unleashing his insurgency on the city.
Soon after, we see Bane at the steps of a prison in the heart of the city, the site where, we are told, the forces of organized crime have been held on lengthy sentences under the,”Dent Act.” To establish the Dent Act, Gotham’s incorruptible Police Commissioner Gordon knowingly allowed Batman to be framed and publicly scapegoated. In a nod towards former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s,”tough on crime,” policies, the Dent Act is heralded as bringing an era of unprecedented social peace and stability in Gotham City, and thus justifying the dishonesty behind Batman’s downfall. The foundational myth of Gotham’s “peace” is not just a lie, we come to see, but a total inversion of the truth.
Standing on the steps of the prison, Bane appeals to the citizens of the city. Encouraging them to rise up against those who have robbed them, oppressed them, and imprisoned them, his men blow open the doors of the prison and he urges Gotham’s citizens to set the prisoners free. We next see hundreds of armed prisoners, still in their orange jumpsuits, surging through the open doors of the prison into the streets of the city.
As official order is derailed, and at Bane’s urging, we see the poor and impoverished ransacking luxury hotels, pulling the wealthy from their homes and cars. We see police officers and the wealthy dragged before barbaric people’s tribunals where guilt is already determined-the only ruling to be made is whether the sentenced to death by execution or sentenced to exile (a trial by ordeal) across a partially frozen bay surrounding the now isolated island of a city.
Bane and his actions represent the deep seated anxieties of a ruling class in crisis. Unable to resolve the global economic crisis themselves, they nonetheless reject popular movements -the attacks on Wall Street, the striving from the excluded, imprisoned, and forgotten for power. All of these are seen not as possible forces for freedom and the resolution of the crisis, but instead as demagogic, Machiavellian, and terroristic threats only capable of producing destruction and barbarism. Bane is not a product of the actions of masses-by the film’s authors, the initiatives of the masses are a manipulated, controllable product of the actions of Bane’s armed vanguard.
Although Bane espouses notions of democratic urges against wealth, decadence, and the oppression this crumbling system doles out, he is clearly painted as sadistic, brutal, and opportunistic. He has no genuine interest in human freedom. In the end, he himself is only a pawn of an entirely misanthropic leadership whose sole goal-even if it means their own destruction-is the destruction of everything Gotham is-including the very masses Bane pretends to appeal to and whose power he momentarily unleashes. In the trembling subconscious narratives of official society, the possibilities of the unleashing of that social force are reduced solely to acts of barbarism against their former oppressors, but are incapable of offering a vision towards freedom.
The police, by and large, play a contradictory role throughout the film. We are introduced to Police Commissioner Gordon as he prepares to acknowledge his prior role in allowing the film’s hero, Batman, to have wrongly been defamed in order that he may pass his”Dent Act.” Throughout the film, the police as a force are easily led into traps and rendered useless. They attack civillian populations they are charged to assist, and are utterly unable to resolve the social contradictions which Bane manipulates to tear Gotham apart. Even in their redemption — leading a,”return to order,” rebellion against Bane and his mobilization of the marginalized, — they are only useful as auxilliaries. Even then, they are so inept that as the film closes and order is returned. the city’s one honest officer, Batman’s unacknowledged,”Robin,” throws his badge into the river in disgust.
Who is Batman in this context? The dream of a technocratic solution to a problem of social contradictions. Bruce Wayne, though orphaned, is a child of privilege. A billionare, who in his forties is still waited on hand and foot by his caretaker butler, Bruce Wayne’s finances are bouyed by his ownership and investment in military technologies developments. Alongside his superhero role, Bruce Wayne funds philanthropic and,”sustainable energy,” projects in vain attempts to mitigate his own unresolved anger (and his rage shines as a stand-in for the repressed social conflicts his very wealth is rooted in.) Bane, his nemesis, draws his recruits from the same orphanages that the failing Wayne Foundation ceases to fund as its finances become imperiled. Throughout the film we find Bruce Wayne, a man whose body has been so traumatized from his vigilante acts of years past that he must walk with a cane, is redeemed physically, returned to superhuman prowess by technological adaptions to his human form. When he is incarcerated and almost killed by Bane, he escapes and makes his way back to Gotham just in time to participate in the,”law and order,” rebellion led by Gotham’s resurgent police force. In the midst of it, he seeks out the head of his technological development firm-knowing Batman alone is useless without his expensive military toys.
The flipside? Although Bruce Wayne has developed a revolutionary source of, “sustainable,” nuclear energy, he has hidden it from the outside world for distrust of the existing social structure’s ability to manage it. It is this very technology which Bane steals and transforms into the nuclear device which threatens Gotham’s annilhation. The ruling class’ implicit understanding of the limits and failures of their dreams of a technocratic solution to the crises of ecology, economy, and culture, are vivid, however, in the moments when Bane’s insurgency takes control of Batman’s arsenal of weapons and toys, employing them against the former ruling order in Gotham City.
The ruling classes’ terror is vividly painted; the possibilities of liberation are more confused. For example, though the filmmaker appears unable to understand her potential as representing a liberating social force, Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman takes the stage as a working class hero. As a gifted street fighter and cat burglar, she finds herself unknowingly in a bargain with Bane’s agents. Her goal is a piece of software which can erase the electronic history of a person permanently — their credit, their debts, their arrests, all electronic record of their ever existing — giving them a blank slate.
In exchange for the promise of this program (and she assumes, a new freedom), she pulls a heist on Bruce Wayne himself. Obtaining employment in the Wayne property as a servant, she breaks into Bruce Wayne’s private grounds. Beyond her assigned recognizance role on Wayne himself, she takes a valuable pearl necklace for her own keeping. When caught, she justifies herself to Wayne by saying she only takes from those who have more than they could ever use for themselves. She then leaves Wayne with a warning that his class will soon face their own reckoning.
Throughout the film, we see two mutually existing conflicting conceptions of the world. At times, Catwoman engages in acts of solidarity with poor and oppressed people; at other times, she acts solely in her own self interest. She even sells out Bruce Wayne despite her developing sympathies for him. It’s only at the moment of total social upheaval that she casts off all self interest, using her considerable talents and skills, risking her own life when she could easily guarantee her own safety, to assist the civilian population of Gotham City in escaping the nuclear threat about to engulf them.
Between the lines of Dark Knight Returns grim, dystopian reflection of a bankrupt official society we also see nods towards its own failures and brutalities. Hints of Katrina can be seen as police open fire on civilians attempting to cross bridges to flee Bane’s bomb, we hear Commisioner Gordon refer to Gotham as a,”failed state,” and see agents of the U.S. Security apparatus acknowledging Bane as a less than ideal but negotiable,”warlord,” over Gotham.
In The Dark Knight Rises, philanthropy, technology, and institutions all fail to mitigate intolerable social crises. In this context, Batman represents the sad clamoring of the ruling class for a hero that even they don’t truly believe in.
Peter, you might be interested in this Glenn Greenwald piece where he argues that elites aren’t nearly as scared as they should be, given the way they trashed the economy. Maybe he’d see DKR as a positive sign….
Why should they be afraid exactly? They own the money and they own a powerful army. Do you see any rebel army forming in America to overthrow the dictator Obama while shouting “god is the almighty”? In America god in on the other side.
Well, that’s sort of the thing, isn’t it? Financiers destroy the economy, and Tea Party activists stream into the street with pitchforks demanding that we lower taxes on the oligarchs. “If you do not shit on us more egregiously, we will cut your heads off!”
It’s a strange country.
Domingos-
My sense of why the ARE afraid, and why they should be afraid, is rooted in a specific understanding of history.
It seems to me that there is a “common sense” notion in the world-that working class people are in reality,”sheeple,” who are herded via fear, manipulation, and, as you point out, at times at gunpoint, through their lives. Meanwhile, the rulers rule over them.
Even if the working class is described as subservient-and even though at times its membership will assume this belief about themselves, it is still the working class which produces all which this society benefits from.
I think that working class people live a multitude of experiences AND ideas-and that somewhere in the conflict between differing conceptions of self and in different ways of acting in the world, we find something more akin to the “nature” of the working class. Working class people vote for reactionary politicians, they beat their spouses, many espouse the idea of,”If I work hard, I can get ahead.” These same people slack off on the clock at work, steal from their bosses, and even, at rare times, engage in massive, large scale acts of rebellion.
Yes, the ruling class has the tanks and the army….I don’t see an active insurgency brewing now…but there is a reason why every major police agency in the United States has tanks and a fully militarized police force-and its not to stop pedophiles and indoor dope grows, contrary to what they may have us believe.
We make the tanks, we staff their armies, we produce the wealth…there are moments of rupture when this becomes clear on a mass scale…Occupy offered hints of this. As cited in the opening of the piece, the European and Asian strike waves, Occupy, and the Arab Spring are hints of this…
all i could think about when I was watching this ish is the part of Living in the End Times where Zizek talks about TDK and how maybe Capt. Nolan read it and composed the DK/Fight Club crossover as a sort of whiny response
Who is Batman in this context? The dream of a technocratic solution to a problem of social contradictions.
That’s interesting!
I watch with amusement when contemporary intellectuals speak of downtrodden masses and ruling classes as if this was 1905 all over again.
The fact is, if one objectively looks at the past 100 years or so, it’s pretty clear that communism, fascism, socialism and collectivism are miserable failures. And while capitalism is not perfect, it’s proven to be the most viable “ism” to date.
Even in places where socialism and communism are stubbornly attempting to hang on, all but one country — North Korea — have incorporated various levels of capitalism into their economies because if they did not, they’d either have a revolution on their hands, or their economies would totally collapse.
The fact is any system that does not reward those who work harder than their peers, or reward those who come up with new ideas or better solutions to problems, is doomed to sink to the lowest effort level acceptable to its masses — something I’ll dub “worker entropy.”
People need incentive and motivation. It can come from within, or it can come from without, but if there is no reward, or everyone gets the same reward regardless of their actions, incentive and motivation withers and dies. Human nature requires such “stimulation,” and when it’s missing, the long-term results are worker entropy.
THAT’S where the true danger of “sheeple” exists. The utopia intellectuals keep pining for is unachievable because if no one is rewarded for work, no one will work. Pavlov’s theory showed that quite convincingly, I think.
Personally, I hate working. I’d love to just sit backs and read books, or draw, or watch TV until I wither away and die. But I know that if I don’t work, I lose much of my freedom, and my options become severely limited. And I also know that if everyone stopped working (and paying taxes), there’d be no food, power, medical care, security, or basic services.
That’s not a recipe for a civilized utopia, that’s a recipe for a return to the survival of the fittest. And that, my friends, is the type of environment where intellectuals are among the very first casualties.
Communism hasn’t worked very well…but socialism has done okay. Certainly, the more socialist countries of Europe have better health care, and seem in general better places to live than the US. As for capitalism…well, it’s kind of collapsing around our ears at the moment,you know?
It’s fine if you want to set up straw people and torch them; go right ahead. But the fact remains that we’re in the middle of a massive crisis of capitalism, and decrying socialism’s failures seems unlikely to be especially helpful at this particular moment in history.
Noah — It’s not a straw argument. Every country where socialism was tried had to be propped up with capitalism. Every single one.
Socialism does not work. It CAN’T work. Human nature won’t allow it. Worker entropy won’t allow it.
The only way to prevent such entropy is some sort of stimulation.
Think about it from a wealthy person’s point of view. If a person is wealthy and set for life, why bother running a business at all? Wouldn’t it be a helluva lot easier to simply cash out, buy an island, and take it easy?
What motivates a wealthy person? Power? They already have that. Wealth? They already have that too.
No, I think it’s the thrill of the game, having the ability to build something that matters, and/or creating a legacy that will hopefully endure after one’s gone.
All of the above are motivators that would not exist in a purely socialistic environment. In a purely socialistic environment, everyone would have the same pay, stature and say as everyone else, and no one would be afforded the opportunity to achieve, accumulate stuff, stand out, be recognized in some way, or leave a legacy. No one would own any personal belongings or property, and money would be unnecessary — as such things would be anti-socialistic. You would dress in communal attire, eat communal food, and live in communal housing. In short, you’d be little more than a faceless, nameless drone.
The military has socialistic tendencies in that it provides an individual’s food, shelter, medical care and clothing; but those tendencies are offset by a capitalistic-type rank structure that not only increases an individual’s responsibility over time, but their pay as well. It also allows for medals and other special awards for academic and performance excellence. In addition, the military does not allow worker entropy to set in because it forces those who do not make rank in a timely fashion out of the service. In short, it does what most unions are loathe to allow, and what would not be allowed all in a truly socialistic society: Those who do not progress and perform at a reasonable rate are kicked out.
Noah: “we’re in the middle of a massive crisis of capitalism”
There may be a medium-sized crisis but capitalism is in no danger of collapsing. It’s merely entering its most elevated form.
And can we at least agree that Nolan is totally hopeless at filming hand to hand fighting scenes? There were very many in the current Bat film, almost all of which were average at best.
R.Maheras-
Its difficult to argue your points, because contrary to your assertion, they are full of straw men.
I will be generous, though, and assume that your straw men definitions of,”communism,” or,”socialism,” are based on an ignorance of the basis of those philosophies. If the definition of,”communism,” is what happened in the former USSR, or North Korea, as capitalist media would have one believe, then, yes, I hope that those projects are doomed to failure. Communism, however, is the creative self-emancipation of the working class. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and in numerous moments (starting with the Paris Commune) throughout the history of Capitalism. One of the foundational tenets of the early theorists of the possiblity of the egalitarian society communism poses was that it would have to be an international process or it would be doomed to failure. So-if we are to discuss this, we need a clarity of definitions. If you want to discuss whether or not Stalinist models of State Capitalism and party-directed societies are doomed to failure, I agree with you, and hope that they are. If you are willing to accept my definitions of the communist possibility-that they must be internationalist, and that they are based in the,”creative self-emanciaption of the working class,” then I think we have to admit we have yet to see that moment yet emerge. Based on that standard, I’d say that both the moves away from working class self emancipation embodied in the party-led model of society and the introduction of Capitalism to those societies were significant markers in the decline of the communist possibilty and in their destruction.
I DO believe that Capitalism is in a crisis-and that the coming years will continue to demonstrate this. The questions of the collapse of the Euro, the cooling of the Chinese economy, and the international implications of these questions are only the momentary faces of a broader crisis of a system which has reached its intrinsic limits. Faced with a finite planet and finite markets, a system which is based in a need for ever expanding growth tried to pave over this contradiction with the growth and expansion of the financial sector…a sector of capital not based in real goods services and products, but in speculative value. The collapse of AIG and other large financial companies in the US in ’08 and its global implications are the first tremors in what could be a series of shocks. There are no shortage of commentators warning how a Greek debt default or EU collapse could lead to the next wave of collapse of financial institutions and credit crises. Combine this with a longer-term acknowledgement of the scale of the likely ecological crises the planet is poised on and I think the arguement that Capitalism is not stable, nor the best system for life on this planet, has resonance with masses of people.
Maheras entire arguement on the ,”facts,” that Capitalism as a system is reflective of some sort of human ,”nature,” is at the least unprovable, but even more so does not reflect the numerous recent avenues in the evolutionary sciences and anthropology. Their is a wealth of evidence in evolutionary science demonstrating that altruism and group selection played large roles in the eveolution of humanity-that viewing humans as individual competing genetic units as opposed to collective pools of genetics whose evolution and survival was based in collective risk and altruism. These discoveries in evolutioanry biology are paralleled by numerous veins in biology, psychology, and human prehistory which argue that human social structures for the majority of human history had significant elements of collective, cooperative structures in which the individual unit was dependent on the collective for survival-this points to the possibilties that humans have the capacity(and might even thrive) not only in the types of social structures perpetuated by the,”every man for himself, dog-eat-dog,” ideology of Capitalist competition, but also in forms of social organization rooted in collective self-interest over individual. Basing arguements on a,”human nature,” which is in reality the ideological reflection of the moment we live in is ahistorical.
Further-the question of whether individuals really need reward and punishment to work or create? If this is true, why does art exist? Yes-some artists get paid, but I have to say the majority of the world’s artists are not the professional, paid ones. The majority of the world’s artists are people who play guitar at home, paint in their houses, or who host small, non paying shows of their work in coffeehouses or as gifts for friends. Why would all of these artists work shitty day jobs and still be producing works of art if human impulse and creativity are reducible simply to material reward or punishment? Again-an arguement about,”human nature,” which is contradicted by multiple examples throughout human history and contemporary society which are inadequate starting points for a real debate.
Another world is possible. Something beyond the stale conceptions of party-led,”communism,” beyond state managed,”socialism,” and certainly beyond the deprivation, the anti-democratic tendencies, and the violence of capitalism. Its emergence is no inevitability, but its possibiltiy is manifested in daily collective acts of solidarity, mutual aid, and resistance which can be seen daily in the lives of working class people.
Ah, yes, the old argument, “the (insert your country here) communism experiment was a failure because they did not adhere to it the true tenets of communism.”
Note that I could have used the same lame argument to defend capitalism, but did not.
Why? Simple. Because it’s fundamentally a bullshit argument.
Totally unregulated capitalism has flaws (the potential for monopolies, price-fixing, speculation, etc.), but fundamentally, it works. And while it works for a variety of reasons, I personally think the most important reason is that it empowers individuals in ways socialism or communism cannot.
Apparently you believe that the “creative self-emancipation of the working class” was somehow subverted by Lenin, Stalin, et al into party-directed societies (“contaminated” by capitalism, no less!), but I would argue that under both systems that will ALWAYS happen. There will always be hybrids like “state capitalism” and “market socialism” because communism and socialism simply cannot survive in their pure form. Why? Because even in the most well-intentioned communal society, there will always be those who will subvert power and impose THEIR idea of how the new system should or will be run. We saw it happen recently in the 99-percenter camps. A “one percent” grew out of the masses and tried to dictate to the rest of the group what they should and should not do.
Small communal societies have historically had some successes, provided there were no competing societies around, or the societies were under the protective umbrella of a neighbor or surrounding state/country. But that success seems inversely proportional to size, and I can think of no example where a large city-state or country has flourished without some degree of commerce or capitalism.
The fact is, capitalism and its variants have endured countless crises in the thousands of years it has been around, but the system always makes a comeback. Why do you suppose that is? Sure it may change – it always has – but I’ll wager it will always be around in one form or another.
And your assertion that my view of capitalism as an extension of human nature is flawed is, itself, flawed. Capitalism has much more in common with scientific theories of evolution and group selection than does your altruism nonsense. Companies do, in fact, behave like living organisms. They compete for resources (workers, raw materials, stockholders), including “mates” (other companies seeking to merge), they gobble up the weak and sickly companies, and if they do not adapt to the ever-changing environment (marketplace), they become extinct.
In fact, your litany of criticisms against capitalism is actually a litany of criticism against real-life phenomenon such as evolution, natural selection, the food chain, etc.
Artists create art for the same reason an engineer engineers or a worker works: The reward. The reward may be monetary, but it may not, and if it is not, than the artist either works elsewhere to survive, or freeloads off of someone who IS working.
I speak of this with great authority because I have been an artist for more than 45 years, and I have opted – opted, mind you – to NOT do it for a living. The pay and benefits generally suck compared even to the crappy union job I had for four years back in the 1970s, and not being on someone’s payroll, or not being forced to please a group of wealthy artistic patrons, gives me much more artistic freedom. As a matter of fact, there have been periods of a year or more where I drew virtually nothing because I simply did not feel like drawing.
And please don’t even try to tell me what “working class” people are all about. I’ve been one my entire life.
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R. Maheras says:
Think about it from a wealthy person’s point of view. If a person is wealthy and set for life, why bother running a business at all? Wouldn’t it be a helluva lot easier to simply cash out, buy an island, and take it easy?
What motivates a wealthy person? Power? They already have that. Wealth? They already have that too.
No, I think it’s the thrill of the game, having the ability to build something that matters, and/or creating a legacy that will hopefully endure after one’s gone.
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What charming motivations! So, when those early 20th-century millionaire industrialists had workers striking for a living wage and safe working conditions beaten or shot, it was the “thrill of the game”! When, as the richest man in the world (before his wife got him to get involved in charity work), Bill Gates continually connived to undercut, buy out, destroy the competition, it was for “build[ing] something that matters”?
When the mega-wealthy Koch brothers fight against pollution regulations…
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The Koch brothers, their family members, and their employees direct a web of financing that supports conservative special interest groups and think-tanks, with a strong focus on fighting environmental regulation, opposing clean energy legislation, and easing limits on industrial pollution. This money is typically funneled through one of three “charitable” foundations the Kochs have set up…
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Much more well-documented stuff at http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/ , confirmed by countless other news reports. (Not that it will prevent a certain “centrist independent” from dismissing all it says because it’s a “liberal organization” website, and liberals are every bit as much liars as right-wingers.)
…it’s because they’ve in mind “creating a legacy that will hopefully endure after [they’re] gone”? In this case, the legacy being a toxin-laden, environmentally-ravaged Earth…
Rather than idealized figures into “the thrill of the game,” building a legacy, what’s more at work from this incessant grabbing after ever more money is pathology. From an old HU thread:
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Also…people who make $250,000 a year are quite wealthy by any sane determination.
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What does sanity have to do with it?
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Four in 10 Millionaires Don’t Think They’re Rich
Many say they’d need $7.5 million to feel really wealthy
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Read it and weep: http://www.newser.com/story/114114/four-in-10-millionaires-dont-think-theyre-rich.html
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The Fidelity survey found that 42 percent of millionaires still do not feel wealthy, compared to 46 percent, who said they didn’t feel wealthy in 2009….
Even the self-aware 58% claimed that they needed $1.75 million to feel wealthy. For context, the median net worth of an American household in 2007 was around $120,000. And that included real estate.
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http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/14/survey-wealthy-americans-bury-their-heads-in-piles-of-money/
…Which explains why you have not only millionaires, but billionaires screaming for constant tax cuts: they’re “hungry ghosts”:
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In Buddhism, Hungry Ghosts are ghosts only in the sense of not being fully alive; not fully capable of living and appreciating what the moment has to offer….
Phantomlike creatures with withered limbs, grossly bloated bellies, and long thin necks, the Hungry Ghosts in many ways represent a fusion of rage and desire. Tormented by unfulfilled cravings and insatiably demanding of impossible satisfactions, the Hungry Ghosts…are beings who have uncovered a terrible emptiness within themselves…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
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R. Maheras says:
…In a purely socialistic environment, everyone would have the same pay, stature and say as everyone else, and no one would be afforded the opportunity to achieve, accumulate stuff, stand out, be recognized in some way, or leave a legacy. No one would own any personal belongings or property, and money would be unnecessary — as such things would be anti-socialistic. You would dress in communal attire, eat communal food, and live in communal housing. In short, you’d be little more than a faceless, nameless drone.
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Your description of a “purely socialistic environment” is as ludicrously absurd as the image of Capitalism put forth by its propagandists as a fair-minded meritocracy. Even when Russia was under full-fledged Communism, there were tons of perks and rewards — dachas (country villas), nice apartments, chauffeured limos, cushy jobs in pleasant offices, the opportunity to shop in stores with high-quality foreign gods, denied to most Russians — available to scientists, writers who toed the line, star artists and performers, etc.
Why, there was an old Russian joke which had Khrushchev proudly taking his peasant mother on a chauffeured Zil to show off his dacha, the luxury within, the lavish meal they were served. “This is all very fine, Nikita,” his Mom told him. “But, what if the Bolsheviks take over?”
The sorry history of “The American socialist experiment” by the first colony in America: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527788/posts .
In line with my hatred of “isms,” I reject wholehearted, “pure” Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism. Each system has some benefits and weaknesses. Capitalism is overall the best, but it needs to be modified, controlled by regulations, lest “loose cannon” tactics and corruption wreak havoc (as we have seen many times), or when the economic ecosystem is thrown off-balance by any one side (and yes, I’m including workers) becomes too powerful and cares only about itself, and not the balance and health of the whole.
The crisis of Capitalism is not because it’s fatally flawed, but because psychopathic, amoral types have been uncontrolled; the old idea that the megawealthy were part of society and had a moral obligation to give back to it (and not just for getting tax breaks) been lost.
See, also:
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Americans would like things to be better. According to public opinion surveys in recent years, everyone would like their child to have improved life chances at birth. They would prefer it if their wife or daughter had the same odds of surviving maternity as women in other advanced countries. They would appreciate full medical coverage at lower cost, longer life expectancy, better public services, and less crime.
When told that these things are available in Austria, Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, but that they come with higher taxes and an “interventionary” state, many of those same Americans respond: “But that is socialism! We do not want the state interfering in our affairs. And above all, we do not wish to pay more taxes.”
This curious cognitive dissonance is an old story…
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Much more, at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/dec/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/
Russ…every country where capitalism has been tried has had to be propped up with socialism.
So what?
“Totally unregulated capitalism has flaws (the potential for monopolies, price-fixing, speculation, etc.), but fundamentally, it works.
How would you know? It’s never been tried. Recent evidence suggests that unregulated capitalism results in enormous bubbles, mass unemployment, and a general mess.
Artists are often (though not always) interested in prestige rather than money — cultural capital, in other words. I think to take account of that you probably need a more complicated account of capitalism than Russ has going, but I don’t know that it undermines the whole enterprise.
And I kind of have to agree with Russ that dismissing Stalin/Mao etc. as examples of Communism is problematic. Those were really apocalyptically horrible regimes, and I think they did pretty thoroughly undermine the idea that violent revolution to put in place worker rule is a good idea. I certainly wouldn’t want to try it, anyway. Peaceful moves towards social safety nets and more socialist social mechanisms have a decent track record, though (unless you’re planning to refuse your medicaid/social security, Russ?)
“And can we at least agree that Nolan is totally hopeless at filming hand to hand fighting scenes? There were very many in the current Bat film, almost all of which were average at best.”
I actually found the scene where Bane “breaks” Batman very gripping. Mostly due the villainous speech and how it’s enhanced by 1: Darth Vader-esque vocal distortion, 2: no music, 3: Catwoman as the onscreen voyeur/surrogate. The choreography itself was nothing special (can’t even hold a candle to the likes of the Sammo Hung/Lau Kar-leung fight in Pedicab Driver), but all that other stuff had a tremendous effect on me. I’m still a sucker for The Empire Strikes Back, too.
“And I kind of have to agree with Russ that dismissing Stalin/Mao etc. as examples of Communism is problematic.”
Yeah, but separating communist ideas from capitalist ones isn’t particularly obvious. Russ characterizes communism as an individual being “little more than a faceless, nameless drone,” but Lenin and Stalin were both admirers of the scientific management theories of Taylor and Ford, neither of which promoted what Russ might value as the creative idiosyncrasies of the individual worker.
I’d recommend the great dystopian novel We to anyone who hasn’t read it. It’s as good as 1984 or Brave New World.
Right…people often forget that Marx was a huge admirer of capitalism. Communism is less an opposite to capitalism than a variation in a lot of ways.
And Nolan is mostly terrible at action. Most of his action aesthetic can be witnessed in your average A-Team episode, only bigger.
Hmm, Noah, maybe “in awe of” rather than “huge admirer”?
Well…but how much of a difference is that? I don’t know that his awe can entirely be separated from admiration…especially when the goals of capitalism (growth, progress) are his goals as well.
Obviously he’s got problems with capitalism. I just think people tend to emphasize the discontinuities rather than the continuities…not least because both communists and capitalists have a fairly large ideological stake in denying that the two have anything to do with each other.
Noah wrote: “unless you’re planning to refuse your medicaid/social security, Russ”
I said it before and I’ll say it again, If the government returns all of the money they forceably took from me since 1973 for Social Security/Medicaid — compounded with interest — you bet your ass I’d opt out of both programs. I plan on working until I drop dead anyway.
I guess just hope you don’t get sick then, right?
Sometimes life doesn’t go the way you plan it. Society has voted to attempt to take care of old people rather than letting them die in the street. Unconscionable breach of freedom, or minimal decency? I guess if someone wants to argue the first they can…. I’m unlikely to be convinced, though.
Noah — You’re assuming I don’t already have healthcare coverage. I do, and I pay for it.
Noah wrote: “Russ…every country where capitalism has been tried has had to be propped up with socialism. So what?”
Socialism is not a revenue-generating system; capitalism is. The latter always supports the former, but never the other way around.
The reason every “socialist” country incorporates heavy doses of capitalism is because without it, there would be no way to pay for all of the “free” services.
There are no free rides in this world. Someone always has to foot the bill.
“Socialism is not a revenue-generating system; capitalism is. The latter always supports the former, but never the other way around.”
I don’t think that makes any sense at all. We have a hybrid system. Some things that contribute to gdp are done by private individuals, some things (like, say, roads) are created by government. Do the trucks on the road support the road, or does the road support the trucks?
There aren’t any free rides, maybe…but socialism doesn’t say there are. It just says that collective action can produce collective goods. Which it sometimes can (see roads, above.)
“Noah — You’re assuming I don’t already have healthcare coverage. I do, and I pay for it.”
I’m assuming that no matter how much of a romantic individualist you are, shit sometimes happens that you can’t control. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a social safety net.
Mike wrote: “Your description of a “purely socialistic environment” is as ludicrously absurd as the image of Capitalism put forth by its propagandists as a fair-minded meritocracy. Even when Russia was under full-fledged Communism, there were tons of perks and rewards — dachas (country villas), nice apartments, chauffeured limos, cushy jobs in pleasant offices, the opportunity to shop in stores with high-quality foreign gods, denied to most Russians — available to scientists, writers who toed the line, star artists and performers, etc.”
My point was that a pure communist or socialist society is impossible for several reasons: First, there will always be those who will attempt to force their will upon others to do what them deem is “best” for all. Second, there will always be those who will manipulate the system for personal gain. Finally, while socialism may work for very small groups under certain ideal conditions (The pre-1932 Amana Colonies spring to mind), on a large scale it simply collapses under its own weight.
Noah wrote: “I’m assuming that no matter how much of a romantic individualist you are, shit sometimes happens that you can’t control. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a social safety net.”
I have nothing against safety nets. I just think the idea of a self-sustaining socialistic society is the socio-political equivalent of a perpetual motion machine at best, and a massive ponzi scheme, at worst.
It will all end up in an ecological and social disaster, anyway…
Ave: “I actually found the scene where Bane “breaks” Batman very gripping.”
I’d probably agree that the Nolan incarnation of Bane is better than the comic book incarnation of that Bat-villain (“Knightfall” was excreable though). The portentous Vader-esque speech does help. But Nolan or his stunt director don’t seem to understand the golden rule that if your actors can’t fight for real, don’t show them in full body static shots. The number of stunt extras with guns waiting for their cue to jump in and fight the Batman was pretty ridiculous.
Too bad Goyer and the Nolans decided to steal from 2 lousy Batman comics and only one good one. I should stop thinking about the film and treat it like a good Michael Bay movie.(Spoiler!!)…… The death of Talia was almost laughably bad. Maybe I should have watched it on an even bigger IMAX screen to give it more gravitas.
Charles: A few of the action scenes in Inception were alright I suppose.
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Finally saw this. I was pleasantly surprised; it’s a solidly mediocre action picture with a fun fascist fever dream in the middle and a quite sexy and effective performance by Anne Hathaway. Perfectly decent value for money, even if the plot is even more moronic than usual for these things (an atomic bomb going off in your water supply is a victory?) and you have to watch everyone and their brother as well as random people off the street bemoan the fact that Christian Bale is not adequately self-actualizing.
Probably my favorite of the series. Which is a very low bar, admittedly.
Oh, I even kind of appreciated the crappy hand-to-hand scenes, Suat. I enjoyed the fact that Bane and Batman both seemed semi-incompetent; more like a couple of half-drunk guys slugging it out in a bar than like superhuman masters of kung-fu. Not that it fit the theme, or that I think Nolan was trying for that or anything; I just enjoyed the change from standard action hero fare, I guess.
Good god. You really really hated the second one, didn’t you? Anne Hathaway was fine. Don’t know why people were concerned about her Catwoman. She’s a decent actress. Big question is whether she can sing.
Don’t forget about the sea breeze blowing radioactive stuff into Gotham. As I said, better not to think too hard.
The kung-fu scenes were better in this one than in Batman Begins. So Nolan is learning but on a very shallow curve. You’d think they would have the money to hire a good fight choreographer.
Russ, don’t you see a contradiction between your position and the fact that you’ve spent the greatest part of your career working for the government?
And in the closest thing to a socialist institution in America: the United States Armed Forces.
This is not meant as a criticism of the latter, but it does undermine your position.
Hathaway looks like a genius compared to everyone else in the film; Christian Bale has the proportional emotional range of a post, and that’s when he’s not wearing the mask. And Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman’s schtick is awful. The Robin guy was pretty boring too.
I really, really hated Batman Begins, and mildly disliked the second one. This one was probably just neutral; overall idiotic, but a couple of things I enjoyed enough to make the experience not unpleasant.
Oh, and people were worried about Anne Hathaway because they thought she’d be too girl-next-door and not sufficiently sexy, I presume. But, as it turns out, being able to act is more important. Who knew?
Folks who run around claiming she’s the greatest catwoman ever aren’t thinking of the tv show, though, I’m pretty sure. She was great, but not necessarily better than Julie Newmar or Lee Meriweather.
I’ve been told that an extra on the Batman Begins blu-ray shows the particular fighting style that is used in the trilogy. Maybe so, but it still looks like barroom brawling in DKR. I actually liked the first fight with Bane, even though it doesn’t feel like a Batman fight. It reminded me of They Live a bit. What I didn’t like was how the big long chase scene was nothing more than a lot of police cars driving through the city, which is divided into 2 parts: the first ends with Batman rolling his cycle out to make a crook fall off his bike and the second with the Batcopter simply flying out of an alley. Big deal, but it’s in IMAX. A similarly bathetic resolution happens in Inception where the deepest level of dreamland is a bunch of extras firing at the heroes with machine guns. I’ve never found The Alamo oneiric.
I figured it was Get Smart that got her the job. Her Agent 99 wasn’t all that far off from her Catwoman. I really hated her hair, though, it was just so bland.
I agree, Suat, about the rest of SPR, but nothing could ruin that first 30 minutes.
And Jackie Chan is unwatchable.
Huh…is Get Smart worth seeing?
Not really. It’s mildly entertaining junk … which, I guess isn’t much more than you’d grant DKR, so, why not? It’s not nearly as long. [this was from another thread, if anyone’s baffled.]
Sorry; fixed the confusing threads; i posted in the wrong place cause I’m dumb.
It wasn’t Julie Newmar who played Agent 99. It was Barbara Feldon.
Honestly, you non-boomer guys…make an effort.
Oh, and ‘Get Smart’ is DEFINITELY worth seeing. It showcases some of the best of Mel Brooks long before he became MEL BROOKS.
AB wrote: “Russ, don’t you see a contradiction between your position and the fact that you’ve spent the greatest part of your career working for the government? And in the closest thing to a socialist institution in America: the United States Armed Forces. This is not meant as a criticism of the latter, but it does undermine your position.”
Alex, I already addressed the military issue. In some ways, the military appears socialistic, but its rank, pay and merits-based awards structure — the very core of its being — is wholly anti-socialistic. This could be why members of the U.S. military tend to vote more conservatively than their civilian counterparts.
And exactly how does my working for the federal government “undermine” my position?
For the record, I did work in the private sector for nine years at six different places (10, if you count part-time and/or summer jobs). I worked as both a laborer and a manager in union and non-union capacities. As a laborer, I was a warehouse worker (both union and non-union), a printer’s apprentice, a fast-food worker, a steward, and an oil-painting framer. As a manager, I managed repair technicians at two different companies, and I was the public affairs manager for what was then the fifth largest appliance manufacturer in the United States.
I grew up blue collar in a union trucker’s household, lived in a blue-collar neighborhood, worked at blue collar jobs, and all of my friends were blue collar. Even the first 13 years I was in the Air Force was in a blue-collar position: I was in aircraft maintenance. This means during the first 38 years of my life, I was “working class” — as Peter put it.
So when I discuss “working class” issues, none of it is theoretical — it’s all from hand-on experience — something that, I hope, made me a good manager when the opportunity arose.
During all of that time, I was also a professional artist on the side. Interestingly enough, aside from the fact that I loved comics, the other main reason I thought about pursuing comic book art as a career is because I wanted to be rich like Jack Kirby — and, based on the 1970s page rates, Kirby WAS a very, very rich man compared to those in my world.
One of the reasons I always thought those who embraced Marx’s fanciful theories were either opportunistic thugs, idealistic intellectuals (as was he), sheep, or fundamentally stupid, is because Marx never worked a blue-collar job in his life. From my perspective, he was nothing more than the atheistic version of a false prophet.
Alex, we were talking about the movie remake with Anne Hathaway as 99.
“n some ways, the military appears socialistic, but its rank, pay and merits-based awards structure — the very core of its being — is wholly anti-socialistic.”
Can you name me one socialist country that hasn’t had ranks, pay or merits-based awards?
“And exactly how does my working for the federal government “undermine” my position?”
Right, working for an organization that’s centrally planned, without private property, and solely a function of the state, all the while singing its virtues, while having nothing positive to say about socialism doesn’t seem the least bit contradictory to you? You must be a conservative.
Right; Alex, Julie Newmar was a radioactively hot Catwoman in the Batman tv show. Lee Meriweather played an also radioactively hot and extremely funny version of the character in the Batman movie with Adam West from (I think) 1966. (Eartha Kitt was also supposed to be very good in the role, but I don’t know if I ever saw the episodes with her.)
I think Anne Hathaway could at least possibly been as good as them if she had a better script…but as it is, and fun as it was, I don’t think her performance holds up to the TV series ones.
Russ, I have no wish to get involved in socialism vs capitalism, but dismissing Marx for never doing a days blue collar labor is nonsensical.
Adam Smith, for instance, was no entrepreneur or practical capitalist, he was a career academic who used theory, rather than his own experience of business to formulate his ideas. By your argument he would also be a false prophet talking about things he had no personal experience of.
Obviously Smith’s ideas were later embraced by many actual businessmen and capitalists, but then, Marx’s ideas were later embraced by many actual blue collar workers.
Capitalism is just as much based in academic theory as socialism. Argue their relative merits all you want, but dismissing one for being ivory tower bullshit without dismissing the other is ridiculous.
Charles wrote: “Can you name me one socialist country that hasn’t had ranks, pay or merits-based awards?”
That was exactly my point to Noah — socialism cannot stand on its own, so in every case, it incorporates elements of capitalism to survive.
Charles also wrote: “Right, working for an organization that’s centrally planned, without private property, and solely a function of the state, all the while singing its virtues, while having nothing positive to say about socialism doesn’t seem the least bit contradictory to you? You must be a conservative.”
Huh? Can you possibly mischaracterize my arguments any greater?
First of all, where did I sing the virtues of “the state?” With the current unsustainable deficit issue looming over the government, if I were president, my budget would slash every federal agency’s budget by five percent before opening a single ledger. Every single one. THEN I’d sit down with my economic experts, crack open the books, and work out a reasonable and responsible budget. I’d also fight to tie congressional salaries to the budget so if a budget was not passed by Congress, THEY would not get paid. Currently, Congress is immune to their budgetary shenanigans.
The current federal budgetary system is insane.
Socialism, as I mentioned, is an unsustainable dream — as is the dream of some for a sustainable “welfare state.” Even when basic economics clearly shows it can’t be don’t, people fight for it anyway. That’s insane as well.
As I mentioned to Noah, I’m not against “safety nets,” what I’m against is safety nets that are abused, unsustainable and mismanaged.
Medicaid and Medicare survive not because they are properly funded, but because the government constantly lowballs payments to doctors — which is why many doctors won’t take new patients in those programs.
Even “free” care in the military has undergone enormous changes in the past two decades. When I joined the U.S. military in 1978, every major installation had a full-service hospital, and most military members went to “the medical hobby shop” for their healthcare needs. Now most bases have a limited service clinic, if they have a medical facility at all, and the majority of military healthcare is administered by Tricare through the civilian hospitals network. Thus, if a servicemember on base has an emergency after hours, they must go off base to receive care. Tricare, which military retirees also use, requires an annual fee, has deductibles and co-pays, and is capped for various afflictions — which is why, when a union employee tells me they still get free healthcare with no co-pays or deductibles, I get pissed off. At this stage of the game, no gainfully employed person should be getting a free ride.
The same cost-cutting trend was bleeding over to the Veterans Administration before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The VA was preparing to close a number of its hospitals nationwide due to budgetary issues. But those two wars brought so many new patients into the system, the government had no choice but to nearly triple the VA budget to $124 billion since the War on Terror began in 2001, or suffer what would have been brutal political fallout. Prior to that, annual VA budgets barely kept up with normal inflation, and they were thus light years behind the skyrocketing hospital costs the rest of the medical community was struggling with during the same time frame.
Medical care in this country is fast reaching a perfect storm of not enough money, not enough doctors, and too many “free” patients, and it will eventually collapse under its own weight. When that happens, the healthcare of everyone will be impacted.
Ben — Marx was an intellectual who attempted to create the blueprint for a “workers’ paradise” that was simply an impossible fantasy that ignored economics, personal motivation, and basic human psychology (which includes what I’ve dubbed “worker entropy”). Socialism in its purist form also strips away individualism and creates dependency. For example, after the borders opened up following the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many of the nearly 500,000 USSR immigrants who came to America — especially the older ones — mentioned how difficult it was adjusting to this country, where they suddenly had to make a myriad of decisions that they did not have to make under the old Soviet system. Most have adapted and thrived, but a few simply could not, and went back to their homelands.
As I mentioned, capitalism isn’t perfect, but of all of the “isms” I think it is the best at empoewering the individual.
Russ, you realize that the post-soviet rush to capitalism was devastating economically, and largely undermined what was initially a strong ideological interest in capitalism and democracy, right? Putin’s very unfortunate rise was enabled in large part because of the corrupt capitalist free-for-all which followed the fall of the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the repeal of Glass-Stiegeal under Clinton and the utter failure to regulate banks has everything to do with the current economic disaster. I agree that socialism has many problems…but our current problems have little to do with too much socialism, and everything to do with our worship of unregulated capitalism, which is resulting in spiraling inequality, lack of elite accountability, and elections purchasable by the very wealthy, which makes the other two problems worse.
“First of all, where did I sing the virtues of “the state?””
Not the state, the military (the latter being part of the former). From what I can remember, you’re pro-military guy.
“Socialism in its purist form also strips away individualism and creates dependency.”
That’s not most socialist utopias, nor is it Marx — just what do you think his criticism of capitalism was, that he hated its freedom? — but as was already covered, capitalism goes hand in hand with a lack of individualism. The conveyor-belt view of workers didn’t originate with the Bolsheviks.
Russ, I’m criticising the form of your argument, not your conclusions (I certainly agree with you more than, say Noah does).
But seeing as you went there…an ‘impossible fantasy’ would be to imagine that your definition of ‘economics’ and ‘personal motivation’ are in any way independent of economic theory itself. Skim through an economics text book and you’d find that the definition of an economic system literally requires a unique interpretation of those terms. The very form of an economic system depends on how you comprehend those simple foundational ideas. Without being critical, that really is the building blocks of economic theory. Even Adam Smith understood that.
I mean, I love a good debate on the merits of capitalism as much as the next guy. But some basic economic theory wouldn’t hurt.
Russ:
“One of the reasons I always thought those who embraced Marx’s fanciful theories were either opportunistic thugs, idealistic intellectuals (as was he), sheep, or fundamentally stupid, is because Marx never worked a blue-collar job in his life. From my perspective, he was nothing more than the atheistic version of a false prophet.”
This is a standard right-winger lie that has metastised throughout the rightie’s memeverse.
Marx was a very hard-working, productive, and grossly underpaid reporter — principally for the New York Herald.
You mention Tricare.
Tricare is one of the most abundantly subsidised government programs there is. For every dollar you spend on it, Russ, the government spends 3 dollars.
You socialist!
“Over the period 2000 to 2010, high-taxing Sweden…grew far faster than the United States—the country’s average growth rates have exceeded those of the United States — 2.31 percent a year versus 1.85 percent.
AS a former finance minister of one of those countries told me, “We have grown so fast and done so well because we had high taxes.” Of course, what he meant…was that the taxes financed public expenditures—investments in education, technology, and infrastructure — and the public expenditures were what had sustained the high growth.”
— Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality, pp. 22-23
This is why Russ’ straw man arguments are really damaging, and have been really damaging to the US public and the US economy. The claim is that socialism is some sort of verboten apogee of evil, and that therefore any move towards more social spending and higher taxes always leads to less growth. The question isn’t whether or not we’re getting a free lunch. The question is how do you spend your money so that you get a whole lunch rather than just a dried fig…or, so that you’re not in a situation where 1% of the people buy 98% of the lunches, and everyone else has to settle for crumbs.
A stronger social safety net can make an economy more dynamic, by, for example, making it possible for people to leave jobs by making sure they have health insurance wherever they go…or by making it easier for people of all incomes to get education and learn valuable skills. That’s not getting something for nothing; it’s investing in human beings so they have the opportunities and skills they need to work and make a better life for themselves and others.
“Marx was an intellectual who attempted to create the blueprint for a “workers’ paradise” that was simply an impossible fantasy”
So… not only have you never read Marx, you’ve never bothered to read his Wikipedia page, which would tell you quite explicitly that Marx’s version of socialism came about quite explicitly as a reaction to the kind of utopian project you’re talking about. Marx and Engels were utterly uninterested in drawing up “blueprints” about anything, but rather in writing political and economic critiques of the emerging capitalist system. They dismissed out of hand any attempt to draw up blueprints for some imagined future utopian society, as old utopians like Robert Owen had, but focused on analyzing the contradictions within the current system and building mass movements to transform it.
If you’re actually interested in knowing more about Marxism, may I suggest that you actually read something by Marx.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Russ, you realize that the post-soviet rush to capitalism was devastating economically, and largely undermined what was initially a strong ideological interest in capitalism and democracy, right? Putin’s very unfortunate rise was enabled in large part because of the corrupt capitalist free-for-all which followed the fall of the Soviet Union.
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Indeed, the horrendous capitalist “shock therapy” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_therapy_%28economics%29 , http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-12-27/news/1993361145_1_russian-economy-market-economy-currency-reform ) in Russia, which ended up with a few politically-conneceted oligarchs grabbing up the country’s wealth and resources for a pittance and becoming massively wealthy, a gigantic drop in the standard of living for the common folk, was such a disaster that the majority voters there were ready to vote Communism back into power.
But, as one publisher there reported in an interview (sorry, can’t find it online), their fellows in newspaper publishing determined they weren’t about to let that happen, and gave massive support and positive publicity to the opponents of the Communists.
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…A stronger social safety net can make an economy more dynamic, by, for example, making it possible for people to leave jobs by making sure they have health insurance wherever they go…or by making it easier for people of all incomes to get education and learn valuable skills.
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Not to mention, it encourages people to feel secure enough to spend money on buying nonessential stuff; which is, needless to say, good for the economy. The reason why most Chinese spend relatively little, and save so much? The shredding of the “social safety net” they had under all-out Communism.
Ah, but — looking for links to corroborate the above assertion — I see there’s more to it than that: “There are too many men–and hoarding cash is one way to triumph in a competitive marriage market.” (Story at http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/02/china-saving-marriage-markets-economy-trade.html )