You may have noticed that I added a Bibliography section to this blog. Part of this is admittedly hubris - of course the world cares what I am reading while doing time! snicker
Really, it is to help me remember, forever, the details of the experience. A list of what I chose to read, turns into a list of materials for the collage of my state-of-mind during this whole debacle.
I am trying to balance the page turning thrillers, by far the most popular books with prisoners, with classics, and non-fiction works to supplement some of my current interests. The most recent addition - and the one I am currently reading, is Hyman Minsky's John Maynard Keynes. The timely reprint is quite apropos in the middle of the current credit crisis.
It seems like every decade or two we have to go through one of these crises for people to start caring about the economy. The '87 Crash, Savings and Loan Scandal, Long Term Capital Management, Asian Crisis, Tech Bubble, and now a Subprime meltdown precipitating a worldwide credit crunch.
Those are just in my lifetime and memory, but the message is clear. People will exploit any power which they feel they can wield without accountability. In prison, the administrators and guards ruthlessly enforce rules which serve no purpose other than to dehumanize.
Similarly, the ruling class privatizes their profits and socializes their losses, the ultimate act of financial power without accountability. Hence, we have a gigantic gift to JP Morgan Chase (Bear Stearns at below-market prices, courtesy of the US taxpayers).
Which brings me back to Minsky, whose enhancements to Keynes's General Theory is a crystal clear insight into why we continue to have these crises. I am smitten with his analysis - but now even his solution is starting to sound better and better - socialized investment.
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2 comments:
This is spooky... first David Harvey, now Minsky... I've been reading this as an interesting prison blog but the political economy creeps in. I guess now that I think about it I think the original link I came here by was on LBO-talk so it's not all that surprising.
I think Minsky is awesome and I'm excited to find out his Keynes book has been republished. I think he's misinterpreted as just a theorist of crisis though - I read him as a more general theorist of monetary policy and inflation too. I have other Minsky books in pdf form if you can't get them from a library - they're out of print as far as I know (but maybe not for long if this Keynes book has been re-released).
I've traveled the gamut of the liberal political spectrum but this experience has been quite radicalizing.
Indeed, Minksy has been republished. In addition to the Keynes book, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy is available, too.
I was going to get that book shipped into the prison as well, but it is hardcover. For some reason when books arrive from the publisher or bookstore addressed to a prisoner, the guards confiscate all dust jackets. It is quite strange as our makeshift library has plenty of books with dust jackets.
I had a family member call to find out WHY dust jackets were forbidden. The woman in charge of the mail room explained the reason was because it was against the rules to have dust jackets. So helpful!
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