On the role of government

"Of course, free marketeers will argue that whenever government sets prices, markets become inefficient. Indeed, it will be a long time before the world forgets the demise of the Soviet system and its conceit that trading and prices could be mediated by government. But what a government can and must do is set the conditions of the market in order to enforce the payment of costs. We no longer sell human beings in the free market, and yet all were "legitimate" market-based commodities in the previous century. Government did not wait to abolish the injustice of slavery until the market "regulated" itself for the simple reason that it could not wait. Where harm and suffering exist because of market dealings--when the real costs of that market are not factored into the price of goods and services--we require the government as representative of citizenry to step in to prevent those abuses, one way or another."

Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce. A Declaration of Sustainability. (Chapter "Pigou's solution").

I like the parallel with the problem of slavery, but I should add that the government itself waited much too long before dealing with the problem. President Lincoln is praised for having put an end to slavery, but in 1858 he said: "I will say, then, that I am not, nor even have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." (quoted by Howard Zinn in Passionate Declarations--Essays on war and justice, chapter "Representative government"). As Howard Zinn goes on: "In January 1865 the House of Representatives, following the lead of the Senate, passed the Thirteenth Amendment, declaring slavery unconstitutional. The representative system of government, the constitutional structure of the modern democratic state, unresponsive for eighty years to the moral issue of mass enslavement, had now finally responded. It had taken thirty years of antislavery agitation and four years of bloody war. It had required a long struggle--in the streets, in the countryside, and on the battlefield."

The problem is that government itself is often controlled by the power of money from big businesses with interests that nothing changes. Therefore it takes time and large public involvement before something actually changes. The same is happening now regarding the ecological threats...

On democracy

"To depend on great thinkers, authorities, and experts is, it seems to me, a violation of the spirit of democracy. Democracy rests on the idea that, except for technical details for which experts may be useful, the important decisions of society are within the capability of ordinary citizens. Not only can ordinary people make decisions about these issues, but they ought to, because citizens understand their own interests more clearly than any experts."

Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Introduction: American ideology".

Mass murder for a good cause

"My bias is this: I want my readers to think twice about our traditional heroes, to reexamine what we cherish (technical competence) and what we ignore (human consequences). I want them to think about how easily we accept conquest and murder because it furthers "progress". Mass murder for "a good cause" is one of the sicknesses of our time. There were those who defended Stalin's murders by saying, "Well, he made Russia a major power." As we have seen, there were those who justified the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by saying "We had to win the war."

(Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "The use and abuse of History").

Can there be such a thing as "just" wars ?

Against the claim that there can be just wars, that "it is not sweet to die for one's country. It is bitter. But it can be noble." (Noel Annan, New York Review of Books, Sept. 28, 1989), Howard Zinn asks (Passionate Declarations, footnote 82 of Chapter "Just and unjust war"):
"What makes you so sure that to die in war is to die for one's country, rather than for national aggrandizement, political power, economic greed, and fanaticism ?"
Then he ends this chapter with what he thinks is the only acceptable solution, nonviolent action:
"It is the great challenge of our time: how to achieve justice, with struggle, but without war."

On patriotism and civil disobedience

"If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles."

(Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Law and justice").

Solidarity

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

(Karl Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Program", cited by Howard Zinn in "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Economic justice: the American class system").

This is one of the three rules of Emmaüs, recalled by Abbé Pierre in "Mémoire d'un croyant" (chapter "Emmaüs"):
"Nous partageons: le plus costaud, qui apporte beaucoup à la communauté, n'a pas plus que le petit vieux improductif."

For me this is the fundamental concept underlying the left policies, and why I am a leftist.

Of merit and talent

I love this one:

"Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. Instead of all the workers being levelled down to low wage standards and all the rich levelled up to fashionable income standards, everybody under a system of equal incomes would find her and his own natural level. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality."

(George Bernard Shaw, "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism", cited by Howard Zinn in "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Economic justice: the American class system")

Socialism vs capitalism

"The great worldwide interest in socialism - which continues, despite the way the original dream has been distorted in a number of countries around the world - is due, I believe, to what people have seen happen in capitalism - that the profit motive has had some terrible human consequences. People turned to socialism because of the belief that human beings - once their essential needs are taken care of - can be motivated to work and create by considerations other than monetary profit: self-respect, the respect of others, compassion for others, and community spirit."
(Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Economic justice: the American class system")

I feel driven by these motives, not at all by the profit motive of capitalism, like many people around the world I believe. That's why I think that capitalism is a very reductionist view of how humans interact with each other, how a society should work...

Education of the people

This one really amazed me when I read it (Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "Communism and anti-communism"):

Congressman Harold Velde of Illinois, a former FBI man and later chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee, spoke in the House in March 1950 opposing mobile library service in rural areas because, he said: "Educating Americans through the means of the library service could bring about a change of their political attitude quicker than any other method. The basis of Communism and socialistic influence is education of the people."

The ideal of communism

I know that Communism has done a lot of harm in the past and still does, and for that it is hated and feared by capitalists, especially in America. I believe this is because its original ideas have been betrayed by communists leaders, who as human beings have been corrupted by power. But I still believe like Howard Zinn ("Passionate Declarations", chapter "Communism and anti-communism") in this ideal:

"The ideal of communism - a classless society of equal abundance for all, based on highly developed technology, a very short workday, and, therefore, the possibility of real freedom for individuals to develop their aesthetic and personal interests as they like; a society free of the coercive apparatus of the state, organized by associated collectives, based on workplaces and neighborhoods, repudiating racial or sexual supremacy; a genuine participatory democracy, with full opportunity for free expression of all ideas, devoid of national hatreds, national boundaries, and war - this remains a wonderful goal.
Karl Max, I believe, envisioned such a society. Millions of people in the world have been inspired by that ideal and have been willing to sacrifice and risk all for it."

Private property

Ah ! I was wondering what was the position of Christian religion on private property. Here is a quote from Pope Jean-Paul II, reported by Howard Zinn in "Passionate Declarations" (in Chapter "Communism and anti-communism"):

For instance, in 1981, Pope John Paul II issued a papal encyclical On Human Work, in which he said the Church believed in ownership and private property, but that "Christian tradition has never upheld this right as absolute and untouchable... The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone."

An alternative to right and left

"Anarchists, I discovered, did not believe in anarchy as it is usually defined - disorder, disorganization, chaos, confusion, and everyone doing as they like. On the contrary, they believed that society should be organized in a thousand different ways, that people had to cooperate in work and in play, to create a good society. But, anarchists insisted, any organization must avoid hierarchy and command from the top; it must be democratic, consensual, reaching decisions through constant discussion and argument. What attracted me to anarchism was its rejection of any bullying authority - the authority of the state, of the church, or of the employer. Anarchism believes that if we can create an egalitarian society without extremes of poverty and wealth and join hands across all national boundaries, we will not need police forces, prisons, armies, or war, because the underlying causes of these will be gone."
(Howard Zinn, Passionate declarations).

Highly utopic, but I like utopies, without them life would be flavourless...

Non-violent direct action !

OK, let's start getting back in my citations note-book.
This one is from Howard Zinn (Passionate Declarations):

"It is sad to see how, in so many countries, citizens have been led to war by the argument that it is necessary because there are tyrannies abroad, evil rulers, murderous juntas. But to make war is not to destroy the tyrants; it is to kill their subjects, their pawns, their conscripted soldiers, their subjugated civilians [...]
Freedom and justice, which so often have been the excuses for violence, are still our goals. But the means for achieving them must change, because violence, however tempting in the quickness of its action, undermines those goals immediately, and also in the long run. The means for achieving social change must match, morally, the ends."

So, what can we do ? The answer is: non-violent direct action !

"A determined population can not only force a domestic ruler to flee the country, but can make a would-be occupier retreat, by the use of a formidable arsenal of tactics: boycotts and demonstrations, occupations and sit-ins, sit-down strikes and general strikes, obstruction and sabotage, refusal to pay taxes, rent strikes, refusal to cooperate, refusal to obey curfew orders or gag orders, refusal to pay fines, fasts and pray-ins, draft resistance, and civil disobedience of various kinds [...]
Non-violent direct action is inextricably related to democracy. Violence to the point of terrorism is the desperate tactic of tiny groups who are incapable of building a mass base of popular support."