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Super User

US puts pressure on Israel with Gaza ceasefire resolution as Qatar talks continue

Israel's spy chief was due to travel to Qatar on Friday for ceasefire negotiations while the U.S. planned to put a resolution calling for an immediate truce in Gaza to a vote of the U.N. Security Council, intensifying pressure on its ally.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday in Cairo he believed talks mediated by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt could still reach a ceasefire deal between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel.

Negotiations in Qatar centred on a truce of around six weeks that would allow the release of 40 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, paving the way for more aid to enter an enclave where famine looms due to extreme food shortages.

"Negotiators continue to work. The gaps are narrowing, and we're continuing to push for an agreement in Doha. There’s still difficult work to get there. But I continue to believe it's possible," Blinken said.

The main sticking point has been that Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of a deal that would end the war, while Israel says it will discuss only a temporary pause.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediation efforts, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that Hamas had demonstrated flexibility. Israel "continues to stall because it doesn’t want to commit to ending the war on Gaza,” the official said.

A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel's spy chief David Barnea would travel to Qatar on Friday to meet mediators.

Meanwhile, Israel said it expected to continue attacks on Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City for a few more days. The facility, where residents reported tanks, gunfire and flames on Thursday, is the only partially working medical facility in the north of the enclave and has already been under attack for four days.

Israel says Hamas gunmen are holding out at the medical complex, something Hamas denies. Israel claims it has killed 150 fighters and captured 358 militants in and around the hospital in recent days.

U.S. EXERTS MORE PRESSURE ON ISRAEL

Washington, which traditionally has shielded Israel at the U.N., has incrementally applied more pressure to its longtime ally, and the draft U.N. Security Council resolution marked a further toughening.

The shift has coincided with rising global condemnation of the five-month-old war, Palestinian civilian deaths, domestic political opposition to U.S. President Joe Biden's stance and the prospect of a manmade famine in Gaza.

The U.N. text, seen by Reuters, says an "immediate and sustained ceasefire" lasting roughly six weeks would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Earlier in the war, the U.S. was averse to the word ceasefire and vetoed measures that included calls for an immediate ceasefire.

The new resolution expresses support for the talks in Qatar, freeing of Israeli hostages and release of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails. The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To pass in the Security Council, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no veto by the U.S., France, Britain, Russia or China. European Union leaders also issued a call for an immediate ceasefire on Thursday.

The U.S. has wanted any Security Council support for a ceasefire to be linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's offensive has killed almost 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

 

Reuters

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian army announces new Donbass gains

Moscow’s forces have liberated the village of Tonenkoye in Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Thursday. Tonenkoye has seen intense combat over the past few weeks, following the taking of the key Donbass town of Avdeevka in mid-February.

The village forms part of the Orlovka-Tonenkoye-Berdychi line, located to the northwest of the town. Over the past 24-hour period, Ukrainian forces have lost over 320 soldiers, a tank, four other armored and up to seven unarmored vehicles, according to Moscow’s estimates.

Earlier this week, the Russian military announced the liberation of Orlovka, effectively cutting the line in half and disrupting Ukrainian communications between Tonenkoye and Berdychi, with the latter continuing to see active combat.

The Ukrainian military has claimed it established stable defensive positions along the Orlovka-Tonenkoye-Berdychi line following the fall of Avdeevka. The defenses are primarily based on a system of ponds and canals stretching along the three villages.

Nevertheless, the combat situation along the line has promptly escalated, with the Ukrainians actively pouring reserves into the area, seeking to stabilize the front line. According to the Russian side, Kiev’s forces have been losing some 400 soldiers in the area daily, after repeatedly staging unsuccessful counterattacks.

The Orlovka-Tonenkoye-Berdychi line has seen the combat debut of US-supplied M1 Abrams tanks, which had long remained in reserve. A batch of 31 tanks was pledged to Kiev by the Pentagon early last year for a long-hyped yet ultimately disastrous summer counteroffensive. The tanks fully arrived in Ukraine only in mid-autumn, by which time the push was largely over. Prior to the fall of Avdeevka, the tanks had stayed away from the front line, starring in Ukrainian propaganda videos rather than participating in actual combat. At least four tanks of the type have been destroyed since late February, according to the Russian military.

 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missile strikes damage power supply in Ukraine's Kharkiv

About 15 blasts were heard in Ukraine's Kharkiv on Friday morning, mayor Ihor Terekhov said, and Russian missile strikes appeared to be targeting the city's power supply, causing partial blackouts.

Terekhov did not report any casualties. He said some of the city's water pumps had stopped because of the attacks.

In central Ukraine, Kryvyi Rih mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said blasts were heard in the city, but provided no details. The administration of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia also reported eight missile strikes.

According to Ukrainian officials, several Russian missiles were still moving towards targets in Ukraine.

 

RT/Reuters

The press has been unkind to Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales. I find it hard to understand why, of all the problems at this time, from the cost-of-living crisis to the war in Ukraine, and from the war in Gaza to the near total loss of trust in politicians, it is Kate’s unguarded photoshop moment on Mother’s Day, of all days, that is the obsession.

And there’s no better time to catch the British pressswooning with testosterone than when a member of the royal family trips. They go all out. Nothing smells like the scent of royal blood and the hounds spare no stone.

And so, it was last week that a number of newswire services recalled or stripped photoshopped images ofPrincess Kate and her three children from their dispatches. The kinder ones among the newspapers nailed every single offending spot on the photo with a red flag, labelling and listing the photographic infractions one by one. 

Daily Mail circled 10 spots, with lengthy captions on what it described as Kate’s “pic scandal.” My heart bled for the Princess of Wales, but something deep inside kept saying, if this had been Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex and famous Witch of Windsor, it would have been worse. I can imagine that the most generous description from the Daily Mail stable, for example, would have beensomething like, “Meghan in epic scandal!”

But what’s the point of it, really? Since the outbreak of the so-called Kate pic scandal, I have been brooding overimages that I see very often as DPs and also on someWhatsApp Status. I’m keeping myself to thatmicroblogging site and the mainstream press. There’s no need to bother with Insta, probably the worst photographic crime scene since Joseph Niepce invented the camera.

Who is this?

I have seen DP posts not remotely resembling folks that I know in real life. In a number of these meticulously airbrushed DPs, these same less than averagely endowedfolks look so fine, faces nicely chiseled, neckties in place,or necklines plunging, and every strand of hair in placewith poses like something out of Vanity Fair. You cannotsometimes help but zoom in and look again.

My anecdotal experience suggests that normal people, especially normal young girls and women, have fabricatedmore Kate Middleton moments than they can count. I have seen folks who are fat – that word has been banned by the language police – looking incredibly slim on their profiles or those who are black or brown looking all fair and incredibly white.

I have also seen folks with ageing-borne wrinkles, birth marks or even a few blemishes or dimples in real life look breathtakingly flawless on their DPs. I have never stopped wondering what this digital filter is really all about.

If the Daily Mails of this world have to spotlight every single photoshopped celebrity image – never mind the millions of celebrity wannabes – God knows how many would be out of circulation or perhaps be standing trial in the court of public opinion along with the Princess of Wales.  

I have shied away from digital makeover, not out of self-righteousness, but because I have accepted my flaws and physiological shortcomings as part of the gifts of an imperfect earth life. Why do people go to extra lengths to make over and then portray themselves in images that are not remotely who they are?

Of course, photo airbrushing didn’t start with the Princess of Wales or the folk in that DP who’s probably the aspirational version of the image you’re looking at right now.

Fakery industry

Joseph Stalin erased enemies like Nikolai Yezhov, who played a significant role in the Great Purge out of photographs because he thought doing so would wipe away the man’s memory from history. He didn’t quite succeed.

In the 2004 presidential campaign, opponents of John Kerry spliced his photograph and that of actress and anti-war activist Jane Fonda to discredit his war record. And, come to think of it, this same Daily and Sunday Mail that have been unforgiving of the Princess of Wales fell flatfor the epic Kerry photo forgery!

Seven years later, an ultra-Jewish newspaper suspected of religious influence erased Hilary Clinton and Audrey Tomason from a Situation Room picture taken moments before President Barack Obama authorised the strike on Osama bin Laden. Here again, as in the Kerry pic scandal, the press was duped.

Of course, it’s not every time that something bad comes out of an awkward photo moment. In 2016, for example, King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia caused a minor sensationwhen he and his brother, Crown Prince Sultan, were photographed with women without their faces covered.

They would have been pleased to pay a million riyal to plug a leak or scrub it if they had known beforehand. The ticking photo-bomb was released only for a government official to defuse it the next day by simply saying the photo showed that, “It was OK to work with women!”

Does it matter?

Back to the question: why do people manipulate photos?Studies have suggested a number of reasons. A study by BMC Psychology last Aprilsuggested that reasons for image-manipulation or photoshopping are rooted in self-objectification where individuals involved are keenly aware of, even sometimes obsessed by, their physical looks, which tends to affect everything, including their sense of self-esteem.

The higher the investment in social media, the higher the tendency to use tools, including photoshop and other image-filtering apps, to look incredibly, yet quite often,deceptively, good. But that’s the modern playground, the place where billions work and move and define their being.

The domain is not limited to royalty. Obsession to twist, scrub and bend things from their essence as sacrifice onthe altar of the post-modern self is just as widespread in royalty as it is in fashion, journalism, marketing and politics. And the realm is getting larger and larger because increasingly the only thing that matters, that is rewarded and celebrated, is success. Everything else is judged harshly.

The art of it

There is of course also the ethical question of boundaries. While there are those who argue that image-alteration is a form of art which has produced such geniuses as Erik Johansson or Rosie Hardy, for example, there are others who take the view – and I agree – that unethical retouching can contribute to body image issues, especially among young people, fostering feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.

To encourage authenticity and hopefully slowly create a society where people are not ashamed – or afraid – to be who they are, perhaps we need to be less severe and more forgiving and transparent when we scrub those images. And yes, we must also learn to take ourselves a lot less seriously.

We may not yet look like the Madonna we wanted to be, but at least we can go to bed satisfied that we have paid our two cents to create a healthier, more responsible visual landscape.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

"We do such great work, and no one knows or cares!" This was the fundamental complaint of the large complex organizations that came to my firm for help with their brand image. They felt underknown and undervalued, and it hurt. 

The solution was not jumping into advertising or PR campaigns. Instead, it begins with them getting super-clear on their core identity-and determining if they were being who they wanted to be. As part of the process, we ask these challenging questions:

  • In a few words, what is the core of your organization's identity?
  • How do you want the world to perceive your organization?
  • What truth do you need to tell?

Then, and only then, would we look into the image of their organization-how the marketplace perceived them-to assess how well their identity and image aligned and what to do about any gaps.  

7 Steps to Build Your Brand from the Inside-Out

This is where disciplined leadership comes in, always starting from the inside-out. It involves fostering authenticity, belonging and collaboration – the ABC pillars of the Amare Way of love-powerd leadership.

  1. Be honest: Tell the truth about being underknown and undervalued, or lacking a clear focus, or having lost your competitive edge.
  2. Require clarity: Insist on clarity and commitment about who you are as an organization and why.
  3. Know your V/U: Do the ideation and research to understand what makes your organization valuable (V) and unique (U). Make the intersection of the two your sweet spot.
  4. Empower your team: Audit your resources and priorities and build internal capacity to make sure your team is equipped to successfully and consistently deliver.
  5. Evaluate your image: Do your stakeholder research and competitive mapping to assess your image. Require total honesty and no judgment.
  6. Get in alignment: Prioritize and clean up any identity-image gaps based on ease of fixing and likely impact.
  7. Deliver on your promise: Invest in communicating and providing your unique value to your customers and other stakeholders. Track the impact on your brand reputation and image.

In this way, you will inspire your team to embody and live your organization's identity, creating a cohesive, distinctive and impactful image in the marketplace that fully delivers on your promise. That is how to build a brand the Amare Way.

 

Inc

A bill proposing a new structure of salaries and allowances for judicial officers in the country has passed the third reading at the House of Representatives.

President Bola Tinubu had forwarded a letter along with the executive bill to the house of representatives on Tuesday, urging swift passage of the proposed legislation.

In the letter, the president said the bill seeks to end the “prolonged stagnation” of the remuneration of judicial officers.

“The judicial office holders salaries and allowances bill seeks to prescribe salaries and allowances and fringe benefits for judicial officials to end the prolonged stagnation in their remuneration and to reflect contemporary socio-economic realities,” Tinubu said in the letter.

On Wednesday, the lower legislative chamber passed the bill after the third reading.

In the breakdown of the bill, the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN) will receive a monthly salary of N5.4 million, amounting to N64.8 million per annum.

The breakdown of the remuneration shows that the CJN will receive a monthly basic salary of N1.1 million, and N4.3 million in regular allowances.

The annual pay includes various components such as personal assistant allowance of N3.6 million, hardship allowance of N6.7 million, entertainment allowance of N6 million, utility allowance of N4 million, outfit allowance of N3.3 million, journal subscription allowance of N2 million, medical allowance of N5.3 million, long service allowance of N1.3 million, restricted or forced lifestyle allowance of N6.7 million, dual responsibility allowance of N2.9 million, and legal researchers’ allowance of N6.9 million.

The bill also proposes N61.4 million annually for justices of the supreme court.

Also, justices of the Supreme Court are to earn N61.4 million annually and N9.9 million annual basic salary.

The breakdown includes: motor vehicle allowance, N7.4 million; personal assistant N2.4 million; hardship N4.9 million; domestic staff N7.4 million; entertainment N4.4 million; utilities N2.9 million; outfit N2.4 million; journal subscription N1.4 million; medical N3.9 million; long service allowance N991,339; restricted or forced lifestyle N4.9 and legal researchers N6.9 million.

Each justice is also entitled to N39.7 million motor vehicle loan and a severance package of N29.7 million.

Meanwhile, the President of the Court of Appeal is to earn N62.4 million allowance, comprising N9.9 million annually and N52.5 million regular allowances.

The President of the Court of Appeal is also entitled to N39.7 million motor vehicle loan and a severance package of N29.7 million.

Other justices of the Court of Appeal are to get a total of N52.6 million as total allowances. The breakdown shows that N7.9 million is the annual basic salary and N44.1 million as regular allowances.

Others

Also, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, President of the National Industrial Court, Chief Judge of FCT High Court, Grand Kadi FCT Shariah Court of Appeal, President of FCT Customary Court, Chief Judge of State High Court, Grand Kadi State Shariah Court of Appeal and President State Customary Court of Appeal are to earn the same salaries and allowances.

For this category, the annual basic salary is N7.9 million and N42.3 million as annual regular allowances.

Also, the severance gratuity and motor vehicle loan are N23.9 million and N31.9 million respectively.

 

The Cable/PT

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it has successfully settled all outstanding foreign exchange (FX) obligations.

Hakama Sidi Ali, acting director of corporate communications at CBN, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.

Ali said the financial regulator recently concluded payment of $1.5 billion to settle obligations to bank customers, effectively settling the residual balance of the FX backlog.

On February 5, Olayemi Cardoso, CBN governor, said he inherited a $7 billion FX backlog when he became the head of the apex bank in September 2023.

Commenting further on the backlog settlement, Ali disclosed that “independent auditors from Deloitte Consulting meticulously assessed these transactions, ensuring that only legitimate claims were honoured”.

She said any invalid transactions were promptly referred to the relevant authorities for further scrutiny.

“Clearance of the foreign exchange transactions backlog is part of the overall strategy detailed in last month’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting to stabilise the exchange rate and thereby curb imported inflation, spurring confidence in the banking system and the economy,” Ali said.

“Cardoso used the MPC meeting and a subsequent conference call with foreign portfolio investors to set expectations for sustained increases in Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves and improved liquidity in the foreign exchange market.”

According to the spokesperson, at a recent meeting, Cardoso said CBN made clearing the FX backlog a priority to restore credibility and confidence in the Nigerian economy.

“It was important that we go through an independent and credible process that would determine the authenticity of those obligations, and, at this point, I can tell you that we have now cleared all genuine, verifiable transactions,” he said.

“This encumbrance to market confidence in the country’s ability to meet its obligations is now totally behind us.”

On January 29, CBN said $500 million had been released to various sectors to address the backlog of verified FX transactions.

Prior to this, the apex bank said $61.64 million was disbursed to foreign airlines through various banks.

EXTERNAL RESERVES UP BY $993 MILLION

Ali said CBN recorded a significant increase in external reserves.

“The CBN followed this month by reporting a significant increase in external reserves, rising by $993 million to $34.11 billion as of March 7, 2024, the highest level in eight months,” she said.

“The month-on-month increase was driven by a marked advance in remittance payments by Nigerians overseas, as well as higher purchases of local assets, including government debt securities, by foreign investors.”

 

The Cable

The supremacy fight between the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and Labour Party, LP, continued yesterday, with the union picketing the headquarters and secretariats of the party nationwide, insisting the national chairman, Julius Abure, quit office.

But the party in a swift reaction, described the forcible entry of NLC members into its headquarters and secretariat as illegal and criminal.

Speaking when workers occupied the Labour Party headquarters in Abuja, the Deputy President of NLC Political Commission, Theophilus Ndubuaku, said the picketing was to express workers’ grievances towards Abure’s administration of the party.

He said: “Nigeria is not the only country that has a Labour Party backed by Organised Labour. There are so many others.

“Why would our own be different, the essence of registering a Labour Party in this country is not only to become a president or hold an office but also to create a viable opposition and any country where there is no viable opposition, then there would be dictatorship. The reason we set up this party is to make us have good governance in this country.”

While faulting the alleged unilateral convocation of national convention without consulting the relevant stakeholders, the NLC stated further: “There has been court judgements declaring labour party as being owned by the NLC and there has been intervention by INEC telling Abure to appoint BOT members and organize all-inclusive convention.

“But what we now saw is a convention that we do not know who and who are going to be at that convention and the elected officers in the National Assembly thought he insulted them.

“You will not believe that a day before Abure issued the notice of the convention, he was with the NLC president and the political commission in the NLC office without telling them.

“All we are saying is that we do not want Abure, he should resign and go. He cannot be the sole administrator of Labour Party.”

Also speaking, the acting General Secretary of NLC, Bello Ismail, said the commission had been engaging Abure, thinking he was following due process,

“We were also thinking he was going to organise a convention, in line with the understanding with Labour to have an all-inclusive convention but Abure, knowing that he can never survive an all-inclusive convention wanted to do a convention in the night.

“Those in the NLC Political Commission have done a lot of efforts to reach this state of taking over our party by ourselves. We would insist that all democratic norms are fulfilled. We will insist that workers take back their party.

“We want a convention where we are all the stakeholders and we are very active and all will participate.
“We do not want a convention where one man will hand pick the officers of the party. We want a convention where in the 37 states of the federation, all stakeholders, including workers, youths, young people, informal workers can have a say in the party.

“We are not money people, but we have a voice and we want a party where, without money, we can participate, and that is what Labour Party offers.

”Now, it is in the hands of this usurper, he is looking for N30 million, N40 million, and so on to buy forms, excluding the people who founded the party. Enough is enough, Abure must go,” he said.

On his part, Chris Uyot, Secretary of the NLC Political Commission, said the national chairman of the party has decided to hold a convention without consulting, without discussion with the stakeholders in the party.

Comrade Uyot said: “He did not discuss with the NLC or with Labour or even with the House of Representatives who are stakeholders in the Labour Party, he did not discuss with anybody, he did not discuss with the Obidients, all the people that belong to this party or even have a stake in this party.

“So, he wants to have a convention where he will pick people as delegates, no it is not done. A convention starts from the local government areas, before it goes to states and then national.

“We are not going to have a dictator in our party, it is not going to be possible. Nigerian workers are democratic, and they support democracy.

“Nigerian workers own this party and would ensure they take hold of their party and chase out the looters.”
Responding, the Julius Abure-led National Working Committee, NWC, of the party decried what it described as unlawful break and entry into its national headquarters by “the militant arm of the Nigeria Labour Congress.”
The party, which noted that the NLC raid led to the collosal destruction of party property, described the act as a criminal misplacement of priority and an action done in bad faith.

National Publicity Secretary of Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, said the party was appalled by the desperation exhibited by the NLC President, Joe Ajaero.

Ifoh said: “The party notes that the President of the NLC, Ajaero’s greed and inordinate ambition have pushed him into losing every sense of discretion and decency in his recent conducts, be it in his affairs with the workers or even the government.

“As a party, we wonder how Ajaero would lead a band of lawless persons who are known to have partisan interests in other major political parties such as the PDP and APC against a recognized independent political party.
“Ajaero’s continuous claim that NLC owns the Labour Party is not in any way supported by either the Electoral Act or the Constitution.

“ For his information, a political party is owned by those who are card-carrying or financial members of the party.

“We are aware that more than 90 percent of the members of the NLC have not met this condition and therefore cannot claim to be the owners of the party.

“The constitution also provides that no organisation can own any other organisation. The NLC as an organisation can therefore not claim the ownership of the Labour Party.”

 

Vanguard

Why Israel is so determined to launch an offensive in Rafah

Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to the hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering there.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel can’t achieve its goal of “total victory” against Hamas without tackling Rafah.

Israel has approved military plans for its offensive. But with 1.4 million Palestinians jammed into the town, Israel’s allies, including the U.S., have demanded greater care for civilians in its anticipated incursion.

Most of those Palestinians have been displaced by fighting in other parts of Gaza and are living in densely packed tent camps or crammed into apartments.

Netanyahu is sending a delegation to Washington to present the administration with its plans.

WHY RAFAH IS SO CRITICAL

Since Israel declared war in response to Hamas’deadly cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Netanyahu has said a central goal is to destroy the Islamic group’s military capabilities.

Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip, after operations elsewhere dismantled 18 out of the militant group’s 24 battalions, according to the military.

Israel says Hamas has four battalions in Rafah and that it must send ground forces to topple them. Some senior militants could also be hiding in the town.

WHY THERE IS SO MUCH OPPOSITION TO ISRAEL’S PLAN

The U.S. has urged Israel not to carry out the operation without a “credible” plan to evacuate civilians. Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel’s, has said that any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.

In a phone call with Netanyahu this week, President Joe Biden told the Israeli leader not to carry out a Rafah operation, said the White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. He said the U.S. was seeking “an alternative approach” that did not involve a ground invasion.

ISRAEL DOESN’T APPEAR CLOSE TO SENDING IN TROOPS

Netanyahu said he was sending a delegation to Washington “out of respect” for Biden. But in a statement Wednesday, he said he had told Biden that Israel “cannot complete the victory” without entering Rafah.

Despite the tough talk, Israel doesn’t appear close to sending troops into Rafah. This may be connected to ongoing attempts to broker a temporary cease-fire. Qatari mediators say those talks would be set back by a Rafah invasion.

There are also logistical concerns.

Israel’s military says it plans to direct the civilians to “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza ahead of the planned offensive. Netanyahu said Wednesday evacuation plans had not yet been approved.

 

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is under Russian missile attack, mayor says

Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, early Thursday, injuring eight people and damaging residential buildings and industrial facilities, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

It was the first large missile attack on Kyiv in recent weeks.

Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app that air defence units were repelling the attack. He said missile debris fell in different parts of the city.

"There are already eight injured as the result of the enemy's attack," Klitschko said.

He said that debris from a downed Russian missile hit several residential buildings, industrial sites, and a kindergarten.

Emergency workers rushed to sites in different parts of the capital and were extinguishing several fires, he said.

** Russian missile attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv kills five, causes fire

A Russian missile hit an industrial area in Ukraine's northern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, killing at least five people and injuring eight while causing a major fire in a printing house, local authorities said.

The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said five others were missing after the strike. In a later posting on Telegram at about 11 p.m. local time, he said Kharkiv had come under fresh shelling, with explosions in the city.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the strike underscored the lack of proper air defences in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, and elsewhere, particularly in northern regions near the Russian border.

"Kharkiv needs an adequate number of air defence systems, Sumy region needs it, Chernihiv region and all our regions suffering from Russian terror need it," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"Our partners have these defence systems. And our partners need to understand that air defences must protect lives."

The Kharkiv region, which borders Russia to the north and lies close to the frontline, has suffered regular drone and missile attacks during Russia's two-year-old invasion.

The X-59 missile struck the multistorey industrial building in the afternoon.

"The building houses production facilities and offices. This is an act of terrorism because it was conducted at a time when the vast majority of the people are at work," Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the regional police, was quoted as saying on a police account on Telegram.

"In addition to the five dead, there are another five who are missing," Terekhov, the mayor, said on Telegram.

"We have identified them, but they are not among either the injured or the dead."

Terekhov said the fire, which had spread quickly, had been almost brought under control at the site.

One of the reasons for the severe fire was that a printing house was located in the building, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

A furniture and paint products factory also came under attack, Serhiy Bolvinov, the head of the investigative department of the regional police, said.

Moscow denies deliberately attacking civilians in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine which it launched in February 2022, although many have been killed in frequent Russian air strikes across the country.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Western troops in Ukraine ‘an open secret’ – Poland

The fact that Western forces are present in Ukraine is now an ‘open secret’, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has told German press agency dpa.

The statement comes less than two weeks after the minister said the deployment of NATO troops to the country was “not unthinkable,”and that he appreciates French President Emmanuel Macron for not ruling out the idea.

In an interview with dpa on Wednesday, Sikorski stated, “As your chancellor [Olaf Scholz] said, there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” 

Last month during a press meeting, Scholz justified his rejection of the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying that Berlin would not participate using soldiers in targeting control, either from Germany or on the ground.

“What the British and the French are doing in terms of target control and accompanying target control cannot be done in Germany,” the chancellor told journalists at the time. His words have been widely interpreted as confirming the presence of Western soldiers in Ukraine.

Asked by dpa whether Scholz’ revelation was a problem, Sikorski responded, “In Polish, we have the expression ‘tajemnica poliszynela,’ which describes a secret that everyone knows.” 

Sikorski reiterated that Warsaw would not send ground troops to Ukraine, citing historical reasons. “Ukraine and Poland have been one country for 400 years. This would provide fodder for Russian propaganda. Therefore, we should be the last ones to do so,” he concluded.

The Polish diplomat, however, welcomed the French president not taking the option of sending ground troops off the table.

Macron said in late February that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev. The statement sparked a wave of denials from the leaders of NATO member states, who insisted they harbor no plans to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. He doubled down this month, saying that Paris recognizes no limits or Russian “red lines” when it comes to backing Kiev. Europeans “will have to live up to history and the courage that it requires,” the French leader insisted.

In his recent address to Russia’s Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the talk of “deploying NATO military contingents to Ukraine,” by saying that all previous attempts to conquer Russia have ended in failure, and that “now the consequences for potential invaders would be far more tragic.”

** Potential deployment of French troops to Ukraine may be of benefit to Russia — Medvedev

Eliminating French military personnel that may appear in Ukraine would be a critical but not particularly difficult mission for the Russian Armed Forces, but for Paris such a humiliating defeat of its legions would be tantamount to being guillotined, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

"Actually, for the success of our cause, it would be nice if the restless French dispatched a couple of regiments to ‘Banderaland.’ It would be very problematic to hide such a number of servicemen, so systematically eliminating them would not be the most difficult task, but surely the most important one. But, just think of the beneficial knock-on effect!" he wrote on his Telegram channel.

As Medvedev noted, with so many coffins to be delivered to France from a foreign country it would be impossible to hide the mass deaths of professional soldiers.

"There will be no chance of getting away with various lame excuses and speculations that mercenaries choose their own fate and that they are risking their lives at their own discretion," he warned.

The deputy head of the Russian Security Council pointed out that such military personnel would become full-fledged combatants as part of an interventionist contingent, and so their destruction would be "a priority and a matter of honor" for the Russian Armed Forces.

"As for the Gallic roosters in the French leadership, it would be tantamount to being guillotined. They would be torn to pieces both by the enraged relatives and angry members of the opposition, who have been assured all along that France is not at war with Russia. Also, it would be a good lesson for other rambunctious fools in Europe," Medvedev predicted.

He suggested that the immortal lines of 19th century classic Russian writer Alexander Pushkin will prove their timeless relevance once again:

"Then send your numbers without number,

Your maddened sons, your goaded slaves,

In Russia's plains there's room to slumber,

And well they'll know their brethren's graves!"

On French military in Ukraine

On March 19, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin said that France was already preparing a military contingent to be sent to Ukraine, which would initially amount to about 2,000 soldiers. At the same time, he remarked that French military personnel have been unofficially present in Ukraine for quite a while already. Some have already been killed or wounded.

Naryshkin pointed out that France unofficially recognized the deaths of its own servicemen. The French army has not experienced such a level of losses since the Algerian War of 1954-1962. The Elysee Palace, as Naryshkin noted, also believes that the number of dead Frenchmen has exceeded a psychologically significant threshold, and now there is a question of how to bury the dead and treat the wounded in stealth so as not to spark popular protests.

 

Reuters/RT/Tass

Does free-market capitalism buttress democracy, or does it unleash anti-democratic forces? This question first emerged in the Age of Enlightenment, when capitalism was viewed optimistically and welcomed as a vehicle of liberation from the rigid feudal order. Many envisioned an equal-opportunity society of small producers and consumers, where no one would have undue market power, and where prices would be determined by the “invisible hand.” Under such conditions, democracy and capitalism are two sides of the same coin.

Domestic propaganda in the United States has pushed the same optimistic vision over the past century, aiming to convince voters that free-market capitalism is essential to the “American Way,” and that their liberty depends on supporting unfettered free enterprise and distrusting government. But economic developments in recent decades suggest that we should re-examine such beliefs.

To see why, allow me first to clarify some background ideas about what I call technological competition among innovating companies seeking to amass market power. Such competition differs from conventional price competition by producing only one or a few winners, rather than permitting all firms to survive with lower profits.

The winners of technology races are uniquely positioned to consolidate their market power through diverse strategies – including issuing periodic technology updates, acquiring competitors, or erecting barriers to entry with patents (often attaining far greater market power than intended by patent legislation). Technological domination thus is the basis for achieving market power over products sold to consumers, which in turn allows a company to extract monopoly profits.

In such situations market power becomes so entrenched that potential rivals prefer to cooperate with the top firm rather than compete with it. Laissez-faire policies that permit the growth of monopolies only enhance such power. As a result, market power becomes a permanent feature of a capitalist economy. Technological competition is ineffective, and creative destruction does not restore economic efficiency.

Permanent market power alters capitalism by ushering in a winner-takes-all economy in which one or a few technologically dominant firms monopolize each sector. Such an economy not only deploys resources inefficiently; it also produces a concentration of economic and political power that threatens democracy, whose survival then becomes dependent on the creation of new policy tools to protect it.

The Second Gilded Age

The First Gilded Age (1870-1914) is an essential reference point for comprehending the current moment, because its anti-democratic worship of business power undermined the optimistic Enlightenment view of markets. True, it was a period of extraordinary technological and economic progress, delivering most of the major twentieth-century innovations. Between 1895 and 1904, however, more than 2,000 firms were merged into 157 large conglomerates, leaving virtually every sector of the US economy dominated by a powerful monopolist.

Those who created these trusts believed they were doing God’s work of strengthening the economy by saving it from “ruinous” competition. Supported by the ideas of the eugenicist Francis Galton and Herbert Spencer’s theory of social Darwinism, business leaders saw themselves as the superior, intelligent men who had prevailed in the process of natural selection.

This selection process also applied to their firms, through which they were building a new society in which a few strong men would lead. It followed that small and weak firms must be eliminated or swallowed up within strong monopolies. The latter were seen as superior to all the unfit firms that were going bankrupt in frequent depressions. The big monopolies were also considered progressive organizations. As John D. Rockefeller put it, monopolization was unstoppable because it was “the law of God.”

These ideas were rejected by Progressive reformers and those pursuing antitrust enforcement under President Theodore Roosevelt after 1901, and under President Franklin Roosevelt in the New Deal era. Americans in these periods chose democracy and rejected the power-worshiping oligarchy, resulting in a long era of economic growth with shared prosperity.

But that story ended in 1981, when renewed laissez-faire economic policy led to the contemporary techno-winner-takes-all economy. In this Second Gilded Age, the worship of power and wealth has returned with a vengeance. Capitalism’s strong incentives for innovation and growth remain, but the survival of democracy hinges on whether the system’s most destructive effects can be contained.

In a techno-winner-takes-all economy, the market power conferred by innovation leads to one or a few firms monopolizing each industry. One firm might offer costly products of high quality, while a second may offer low-cost products of adequate quality. All these products are trademarked, and all monopoly profits are considered “innocent” by law, because they result from “spontaneous” innovations and are not subject to antitrust enforcement.

In this environment, small firms on the margin are vulnerable to either hostile acts or acquisition by larger firms. Dominant firms find it easy to snatch up competing innovative technologies, because small firms are reluctant to risk losing an economic war against powerful incumbents.

When a firm increases its price and earns monopoly profits, that leads to inefficient use of its economic resources, ultimately resulting in significantly lower output and lower demand for labor and capital inputs. As an approximation, a monopoly firm’s output and inputs might be reduced by as much as half. When market power is widespread, this results in lower investment, lower wages, and a lower rate of wage growth. The aggregate outcome is lower levels of income, consumption, and capital stock.

Moreover, when prices are too high, too few consumers will benefit from new innovations – as one often sees with costly drugs. There is substantial evidence that market power leads to extensive abuses of power more broadly. These might include the erection of high entry barriers to would-be competitors, suppression of competing innovations, efforts to compel acquisition of competitors, and so forth. The result is a gross national product that grows more slowly than is technologically feasible.

Capital Income and Monopoly Profits

The existence of monopoly profits changes business accounting. Under competitive conditions, the income created by a firm is divided into a labor share and a capital share. But with permanent market power, a firm’s income is divided into three shares: labor, capital, and monopoly profits.

This distinction between capital income and monopoly profits is central to techno-winner-takes-all capitalism. Net income paid to capital consists of interest payments at the prevailing market rates, whereas monopoly profits extracted by pricing higher than incremental costs are paid to the source of market power: mostly privately owned technology and other intellectual-property rights.

The fact that firms led by technologists “exploit” both labor and capital is the heart of the story, setting techno-winner-takes-all capitalism apart from the socialist view, in which capital always exploits labor.

Rising market power has caused most Americans to experience declining or, at best, slowly rising real (inflation-adjusted) incomes. Most monopoly profits originate in innovations, but the proportion of people who invest in risky startups or in companies engaged in risky innovations is small. Those profiting most from an innovation are the innovator and a small circle of financial advisers and early investors who buy the firm’s initial shares at low prices.

When an innovation succeeds, the firm’s stock becomes publicly traded, and its value rises sharply, making the owners wealthy within a short time. This explains why most monopoly profits and executive incomes earned today – and the wealth created by those profits since the 1980s – have benefited only a small minority of Americans. Income and wealth inequality have duly risen ever since.

The rapid rate of wealth accumulation caused by innovations contrasts sharply with the slow pace of growth attained by the accumulation of capital through savings. An extremely high rate of monopoly profits is the only way one can accumulate unimaginable wealth within one’s lifetime, and it explains why the US has 756 billionaires.

In a techno-winner-takes-all economy, conventionally measured profits are divided between capital and market power. Economic theory explains that interest payments compensate owners of capital for their past savings, whereas a patent pays royalties for a monopoly over a technology. These are two different economic functions. Equally, capital income and monopoly profits are different: a retiree with saved wealth is a capitalist who earns capital income, whereas an entrepreneur-inventor who owns a successful Silicon Valley startup makes mostly monopoly profits.

The same distinction between capital income and monopoly profits requires markets to differentiate between a firm’s associated assets, capital, and monopoly wealth. While a firm’s capital is the value of the tangible assets it owns (such as equipment, structures, and inventories), monopoly wealth is the current market valuation of future monopoly profits it is expected to earn.

In 2019, most capital owned by US corporations was financed by bonds, implying that the value of companies’ capital was expressed mainly in the bond market, leaving the stock market to reflect mostly monopoly wealth. In the same year, monopoly wealth accounted for 75% of the total value of stocks on US exchanges. The stock market has become primarily an arena for trading monopoly wealth, and the main risk of owning a firm’s common stock is the risk to its future earnings of monopoly profits.

Political Fallout

These economic and market dynamics have far-reaching political implications. One is high inequality, which is a direct result of a high degree of market power. It is well known that economic inequality creates political inequality, by giving the wealthy a stronger voice.

In thinking about this issue, I measure market power by the share of monopoly profits in income, and consider data about the domestic corporate sector where market power can be exercised. As the chart below shows, the degree of market power fluctuates with high long-run persistence. In the First Gilded Age, monopoly profits reached 31% of corporate income; in the Second Gilded Age, which began in 1981, their share has reached about 25%. These figures are compatible with other researchresults, showing a sharp corresponding rise in personal inequality.

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Rising market power will always cause rising inequality, benefiting some and harming others. But a passive free-market policy aggravates such outcomes, because individuals are left to fend for themselves, and public policy neither compensates those harmed nor mitigates what causes it. Innocent citizens’ livelihoods then become society’s price for the collective gains from economic growth – an injustice that has severe political consequences.

The main winners from free-market policy and rising market power since the 1980s have been the few in the top income stratum and the technically skilled with a college education, while unskilled workers without a college education have been the most harmed. The result is social polarization, with the poor pitted against the rich, and the less educated against the college educated.

The critical point to remember is that this deeply divisive inequality results from technology and a specific free-market public policy. Those who lost their livelihoods recognize that they are the victims of a policy choice. They paid the price for others to benefit, and for some to grow immensely wealthy, and American democracy has been weakened as a result. The evidence shows that most of the participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were former thriving workers who had been left behind.

A Dangerous Trifecta

These outcomes reflect the impact of three factors: rising market power, automation, and globalization. Rising market power, as we have seen, has caused the decline or slow growth of all labor compensation. Meanwhile, automation has contributed to rising inequality among labor skills, by replacing some workers while benefiting others (an effect known as “skill-biased technological change”).

Consider the assembly line, which was introduced in 1913 to lower the cost of labor. Production was reduced to simple steps that made most of the skilled workers who produced automobiles at that time redundant. To work on the assembly line, one needed only the discipline and mental ability to perform a repetitive task, meaning no long apprenticeship, much less a college degree, was required.

The assembly line thus increased the productivity of unskilled workers and raised their wages. It created a class of highly productive, low-educated blue-collar workers whose work experience was their most valuable asset, one that allowed them to enjoy middle-class living standards.

Automation and robotics have had the opposite effect, replacing the unskilled workers who perform repetitive tasks, and causing them to lose their valuable work experience. Some found alternate well-paying jobs, but most workers without a college degree were forced to take dead-end, low-paying service jobs. This eviscerated the US middle class, previously populated by well-paid blue-collar workers.

Equally important, computers have complemented the work of college-educated skilled workers performing complex tasks that can now be executed more efficiently, increasing these workers’ own productivity and wages. Artificial intelligence, however, is likely to cause another upheaval in the skill composition of the US labor force.

The third factor is the wave of globalization that originated with the post-World War II US policy to help Japanese and German manufacturing recover. The same process then enabled China’s growth, much to the detriment of US manufacturing jobs. After the 1980s, information technology permitted more-educated workers to find satisfactory alternative employment, but this was not so for less-educated former blue-collar workers.

These three forces created large classes of winners and losers. Although those directly harmed were mainly low-skilled and less-educated workers in manufacturing and mining, the degradation of their lives also eroded the incomes of their immediate and extended families. Because most lived in specific geographic areas, such as the Midwest and Southeast, these regional economies experienced a slow economic death. Depression drove many to alcohol, substance abuse, and suicide, causing life expectancy to decline, while policymakers mostly ignored the problem.

Though we lack precise statistics, it is safe to say that these developments degraded the lives of tens of millions of Americans. Those harmed viewed their plight as profoundly unjust. They are angry and have lost faith in the system that betrayed them.

This is not surprising. It is essential for the viability of democracy that the public considers the distributive effects of public policy to be just. Without a just policy to tax the winners and help the losers recover their income and dignity, democracy will be weakened. Those harmed have turned against the educated elites who designed the policy, and against immigrants they perceive as taking their jobs and competing for scarce public goods and services. They have found a home in new anti-democratic movements such as Donald Trump’s MAGA, which has now taken control of the Republican Party.

Elephants in the Room

Over time, the techno-winner-takes-all economy has enabled the rise of a collection of interdependent economic and political power centers identified by the large firms, their top managers, and leading shareholders. Large firms – and a few ultra-wealthy individuals – exercise vast power through lobbying and campaign donations, but their power does not stop there. They also acquire vast amounts of information with which to manipulate our purchases and dominate our channels of communication. Armed with AI, their control over much of the information we receive will probably increase further.

All the ill effects noted up to now are exacerbated by social media. Firms like X (formerly Twitter) and Meta – each wholly controlled by a single billionaire – can have decisive effects on any election, which is hardly compatible with a healthy democracy. Much has been written about the destructive impact of social media on the functioning of democracy and civic engagement, so the point I would stress concerns their legal status.

Experience has shown that social-media platforms are conducive to mob behavior and the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, hate speech, and much else. This content proliferates because the platforms are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (which was enacted not to improve public welfare but to aid President Bill Clinton’s re-election).

Making matters worse, the US Supreme Court has contributed to the formation of monopoly power and become a major obstacle to reform. In its 2010 Citizens United decision, it removed all restraints on using corporate wealth to influence elections, ignoring extensive literature showing that wealth substantially affects policy and carries extra weight in the political process.

Extreme wealth inequality also has significant anti-democratic culturaleffects that stem from wealthy individuals’ belief that they deserve to be rich by dint of their superiority. While the lifestyles and attitudes of the rich and famous are not central to my own work, I do think they can tell us something about the impact of wealth inequality on the vitality of democracy.

Consider two examples. The first is Andrew Carnegie, who came from humble beginnings but became one of the world’s wealthiest men by building a vast, vertically integrated American steel empire. Intending to promote the idea that rich people should devote their wealth to helping others, he wrote an article in 1889 that was turned into a book entitled The Gospel of Wealth.

In reflecting on what had made him wealthy, Carnegie seized on the prevailing ideas of his era. He saw himself as among the strong, superior human specimens naturally selected to be rich. Though he set out to encourage the wealthy to contribute to worthy causes, his conclusions were deduced from an obviously anti-democratic worldview.

The false theory of eugenics was popular during the First Gilded Age because it offered the rich an explanation of why they felt superior to those less well-off, thus providing a justification for their opulent lifestyles. Nowadays, with our modern knowledge of genetics, the wealthy cannot openly claim to be more intelligent than others. Nevertheless, many still feel superior, and they have found other ways to express it.

In “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” published last fall, Netscape co-founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen envisages a future in which the march of technology will be led by technologists innovating at an ever-increasing rate, culminating in the creation of a “techno-capital machine” that produces all necessities at vanishing marginal costs. In this telling, technologists are not just wealthy businessmen but messiahs who will guide humanity with their innovations and maintain social order by fighting their “enemies.” The obstacles to be knocked away include social responsibility, risk management, trust and safety, and regulations.

Andreessen’s vision combines technologists’ role as civilizational leaders with that of free markets in allocating all resources. The implication is that government should serve no function in the future.

This is a decidedly anti-democratic vision – a Silicon Valley oligarchy superimposed on a libertarian society. According to Andreessen, everyone else’s roles and rewards will be determined by how unfettered markets value their skills and economic contributions. Never mind that, in his scheme, the world appears to be converging to an economic system where most people will have virtually no market value.

Although Carnegie and Andreessen offer different views, they espouse the same gospel of wealth and power, and thus represent the same kind of threat to democracy. Moreover, their attitude is shared by many in the business community and academia. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s contention that “Competition Is for Losers,” and that monopoly drives progress, amounts to the same old worship of power. So, too, did Joseph Schumpeter’s argument that a strong monopoly firm is superior to a competitive firm.

Similar ideas have been invoked since the 1930s to support lower taxes for wealthy Americans, who are said to deserve their hard-earned income and wealth. This sense of entitlement enabled the rich to justify their tax noncompliance and use of foreign tax sheltersto hide their wealth, in turn fueling the growth of a sprawling tax-avoidance industry.

The Chicago Fallacy

But it is the Chicago School’s ideas about monopoly that have had the most impact in recent decades. In the late 1970s, the economist Aaron Director and the legal scholar Robert Bork argued successfully that the Sherman Antitrust Act was designed to protect consumers only by ensuring they pay the best current price, an interpretation that ignores the strategies noted earlier, used to build up monopolies over time, and the other adverse effects of market power.

An entire generation of jurists and lawyers then bought in to the fallacy that technological competition can create progressive monopolies that benefit consumers. This idea was laid bare in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s statement in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP (2004):

“The mere possession of monopoly power, and the concomitant charging of monopoly prices, is not only not unlawful; it is an important element of the free-market system. … the possession of monopoly power will not be found unlawful unless it is accompanied by an element of anticompetitive conduct.”

How could a distinguished jurist accept such flawed, simplistic reasoning? The theories of eugenics and social Darwinism had been discredited, but they were replaced by market efficiency as the new anti-democratic “law of God.” The market is held up as a natural-selection mechanism that enables the strong and efficient to survive. If a monopolist triumphs in the market, that means it is the best organization to offer consumers low current prices. With this flawed reasoning, we have come full circle: Thanks to their superior power, monopolists are the best promoters of consumer welfare!

Back to Democracy

The ill effects of techno-winner-takes-all capitalism call for numerous policy changes. I outline many in my book, The Market Power of Technology, but I can mention only a few here. They fall into three categories, starting with data: We need accurate national and sectoral data on monopoly profits and wealth in order to develop robust public policies.

The second category concerns restraints on the market power of technology. Among other things, we should place strict limits on firms’ ability to acquire technologies to expand their technological reach; require higher standards for patent issues; reduce interrelated patent pyramids (which are used as entry barriers) by shortening the duration of secondary patents (those whose description depends on another patent); revise labor laws to improve the balance of power in the marketplace by making it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively; and impose corporate income tax on monopoly profits. 

Finally, we need economic policies that will strengthen democracy. These include reforms that make restraining technological market power an explicit goal of antitrust law; increase marginal income tax rates (closer to 50%) on higher earners; repeal Section 230 and consider proposals to turn social media into regulated utilities; and invest extensively in low-income families’ children’s early education and health (which research indicates is the most promising path to stabilizing the American middle class and democracy over the long run).

Last but not least, we should establish “recovery rights” for those harmed by policy-supported adverse events. Workers displaced by forces such as the market power of technology, automation, globalization, or even the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy would have legal rights to assistance for rehabilitation, the acquisition of new skills, or direct compensation. This would eliminate the neglect that pervades existing policy. A similar approach is already used in Scandinavia with positive effects on democratic stability. Such policies can be designed to be universal and with minimal bureaucratic discretion.

Some on the radical left believe that capitalism, as Marxists describe it, is dead and has been replaced by surveillance capitalism, technofeudalism, digitally controlled systems, or something else. And yet, the profound impact of technology and the existence of a third claimant on national income both show that capitalism is as creative and strong as ever.

What has happened is that capitalism has been changed drastically by technology. Milton Friedman’s vision of Capitalism and Freedomnow seems out of touch with economic reality. Yet because many still cling to it, the policy reforms we need are being blocked. Without greater public mobilization to support them, the threat to democracy will continue to grow, in America and around the globe.

 

Project Syndicate

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