Vox: Is capitalism worth saving?

A decade ago, 80 percent of Americans believed that a free market economy was the best economic system. Today, that number is 60 percent. Another recent poll shows that only 42 percent of millennials support capitalism. [...]

Pearlstein’s new book, Can American Capitalism Survive?, chronicles the excesses of capitalism and shows how its ethical foundations have been shattered by a radical free market ideology — often referred to as “neoliberalism.” Capitalism isn’t dead, Pearlstein argues, but it has to be saved from itself before it’s too late. [...]

So I don’t think capitalism is an inherently moral system or an inherently self-defeating system, but we have to ensure that it adapts when it veers too far into corruption and inequality. And that’s basically what I’m calling for in this book. [...]

I want to quote something interesting from your book: “Liberal critics never miss an opportunity to complain about the level of inequality, but they’ve rarely been willing to say what level, or what kinds, of inequality would be morally acceptable.” I have my own answer to this, but I’m curious what you think the acceptable level of inequality is.

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The New Yorker: Is Revolutionary Fervor Afire—Again—in Tunisia?

On Christmas Eve, Abderrazak Zorgui, a thirty-two-year-old television reporter, posted a chilling cell-phone video shot in Kasserine, a city in western Tunisia that dates back to ancient Roman times. “I have decided today to put a revolution in motion,” he said, looking intently into the camera. “In Kasserine, there are people dying of hunger. Why? Are we not humans? We’re people just like you. The unemployed people of Kasserine, the jobless, the ones who have no means of subsistence, the ones who have nothing to eat.” Zorgui, who had short brown hair and wispy hair on his chin, then held up a clear bottle of gasoline. “Here’s the petrol,” he said. “I’m going to set myself on fire in twenty minutes.” His video was live-streamed onto YouTube. In his poignant farewell, Zorgui added, “Whoever wishes to support me will be welcom­e. I am going to protest alone. I am going to set myself on fire, and, if at least one person gets a job thanks to me, I will be satisfied.” [...]

Tunisia emerged from the Arab uprisings as the most credible democracy among the twenty-two Arab countries. It now has the most enlightened constitution. It has held the fairest Presidential, legislative, and municipal elections, judged by monitors from around the world (including me). In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian Quartet—four groups of human-rights activists, lawyers, a national union, and a trade confederation—for their work negotiating among parties and sustaining the fragile democracy. The Quartet “established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war,” the Nobel Committee said. “It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction, or religious belief.”

But, over the past eight years, successive Tunisian governments have failed to create enough jobs for the educated, to address pressing needs ranging from housing to health services, and to provide for society’s rising expectations. More than a third of young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are unemployed. Zorgui’s death has resonated. It sparked days of protests and clashes with police in several cities, including Tunis, the capital, in the east. A tentative calm settled in over the weekend, but activists have called for further demonstrations to mark the Arab Spring anniversary. More worrisome, the existential challenges that threaten Tunisia’s government show no sign of improving anytime soon.

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Haaretz: Israel Displays Archaeological Finds Looted From West Bank

The problem with looted antiquities, beyond the affront to civilization, is that we cannot know for sure where they came from. They cannot be dated with any kind of credibility, and not knowing an artifact's provenance means that it's much harder to prove it is genuine. [...]

Despite the lurid video clips of ISIS fighters destroying pre-Islamic archaeological sites, their conquests spurred a tidal wave of smuggling, and precious archeological artifacts from ISIS-occupied sites flooded the Middle East. Some were smuggled through Jordan to the West Bank and thence to antiquities dealers in Jerusalem and around the world. En route, many were caught by the Israeli authorities.

The issue of provenance, and hence dubiety about the authenticity of items, explains why museums do not normally exhibit looted ancient artifacts. But Hizmi and the curators of the exhibition are convinced that all the findings are authentic, based on similarity to items that were excavated properly. [...]

“Archaeology reveals how much this country is our home,” Ben Dahan said, and added that Palestinian antiquities thieves “rob and destroy in order to disconnect us from our land.” Even though most of the artifacts on display are from non-Jewish cultures, including the lamps decorated with crosses, pagan idols and a figurine of a naked woman.

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Vox: How the Parkland shooting changed America’s gun debate

According to the Giffords Law Center (which supports stricter gun laws), 26 states and Washington, DC, enacted a total of 67 new gun control laws this year — more than triple the number of stricter gun laws enacted in 2017. The 2018 measures include a higher minimum age to buy guns, restrictions for domestic abusers, “red flag” laws that let law enforcement take away guns from people deemed a risk, and new urban gun violence reduction programs.

Some of these passed in states with Republican leaders. In Florida, the GOP-controlled legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Scott approved legislation that raised the minimum age to buy guns and added a waiting period for firearm purchases, among other changes. In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed gun control laws that included expanded background checks and a “red flag” law.

At the same time, there was a decrease in the number of new laws loosening access to guns. So Parkland didn’t just apparently inspire more support for gun control; it also led to less support for new, less-restrictive gun laws. [...]

When it comes to overall support for stronger gun laws, there was a significant spike shortly after Parkland: Based on Gallup’s surveys, support for stricter gun laws in March 2018 hit 67 percent, up from 55 percent in October 2016 and 60 percent in October 2017 (after the Las Vegas mass shooting). But that support dropped by October this year to 61 percent — still higher than it was previously, but not that far off historical levels. [...]

The problem, then, has never been whether a majority of Americans support gun control. The problem, instead, is what’s known as the intensity gap: Essentially, even though more Americans support gun control laws, those on the side opposing stricter measures have long been more passionate about the issue — more likely to make guns the one issue they vote on, more likely to call their representatives in Congress, and so on.

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UnHerd: Why liberal-Left paternalism led to Brexit

For many on the liberal Left, this was incomprehensible – support for Brexit ran counter to the economic interests of the Welsh towns. It was recently reported, for example, that the Leave-supporting town of Llanelli was set to lose one of its manufacturing plants due to the level of economic uncertainty generated by Brexit. Schaeffler, a German manufacturer of automotive, aerospace and industrial parts, announced last month that it would close its Llanelli plant with the loss of up to 220 jobs. [...]

“When I was knocking doors during the referendum campaign in Llanelli people would often say that they didn’t see how leaving Europe would make things any worse, and they liked the idea of shaking things up,” Waters says. “Orthodox economic policies have done too little to give hope to those that are struggling.”[...]

In this sense the EU has often been a lightning rod for a more widespread sense of economic malaise. Conversations about Europe very often bleed into more long-standing narratives of industrial decline. “My own personal view,” said Brian, a former miner at Bryn Colliery who now volunteers in the South Wales Miners’ Museum in Port Talbot, “is that it all started [to go downhill] as soon as we joined the EU”. Brian told me doleful stories about the closure of local pits, the disappearance of industry, and the general sense of malaise that loomed over the Valleys.

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