Nonmarket Economy

Not the least surprising feature of this economic system was that if functioned without money. True, the lack of currency did not surprise the Spanish invaders -- much of Europe did without money until the eighteenth century. But, the Inka did not even have markets. Economists would predict that this nonmarket economy -- vertical socialism it has been called--would produce gross inefficiencies. These surely occurred, but the errors were of surplus, not want. The Spanish invaders were stunned to find warehouses overflowing with untouched cloth and supplies. But to the Inka the brimming coffers signified prestige and plenty; It was all part of the plan. Most important, Tawantinsuyu "managed to irradicate hunger," the Peruvian novelist Mario Varsa Llosa noted. - From 1491 by Charles Mann (p. 81)

Does Weather Influence Elections?

On election eve, I will pause in my "Broke is Beautiful" musings and revisit a topic from one of my previous books Blame it on the Rain (Harper Collins).

Does weather impact voting?


It is one of the most famous photographs from American political history.  The new president elect Harry Truman grins triumphantly as he holds up a copy of the Chicago Tribune with the blazing headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”  Collectors of historic newspapers pay as much as $900 for this gem of failed forecasting.

Thomas Dewey, of course, did not defeat Harry Truman for the presidency.  The Chicago Tribune made the mistake of believing polling data.  If the polls were correct, there was little chance Truman could win.  The day before the election, Gallup predicted Dewey would get 49.5 percent of the vote and Truman 44.5 percent.  The Crossley poll came up with almost the same result.  The Elmo Roper poll showed an even more impressive 52.2 percent for Dewey and 37.1 percent for Truman.

How did the pollsters get it so wrong?  There were, of course, many factors which historians have discussed and debated for decades.  One of these was the weather in Illinois.

Weather and politics have a long history going back to the days when political office was won on the tip of a sword rather than at the ballot box.  The word “campaign” itself derives from a military term that can be traced back to the days when armies stood down during the freezing cold and ventured out into “the field” only when weather permitted.  The word for an open field in Latin is “campania” and this passed into 14th century English as champaign.  (The French wine, champagne was named for a region of open fields that derives its name from the same Latin root.)  Champaign evolved into campaign.  The word for the field was metaphorically used for the military taking of the field.  Eventually the military sense was expanded to include any attempt to mobilize a large number of people.

When people began to select their leaders through elections, the effect of the weather became less direct.  Yet inclement weather continued to play its role by keeping the less motivated people from the polls and by hindering campaign efforts.  When the race is very close, as it was in the case of Dewey vs. Truman  in 1948, a few people deciding not to venture into the elements, is enough to swing the election.

In 1948, splits within the Democratic party made a victory by Truman at the polls seem like a long shot.   Two spin-off parties were created, one on the left, and one on the right.  On the left was the Progressive Party, led by Henry Wallace.  Wallace and his followers were unhappy with Turman’s foreign policy.  They held him responsible for the Cold War with Russia.  Wallace favored negotiations to lessen those tensions.  The Progressive slogan was “one, two, three, four, we don’t want another war.”

On the right was South Carolina governor J. Strom Thurmond and the States’ Rights Democratic Party.  This party was created after Truman proposed a series of measures that would guarantee equal rights to African-Americans.  These proposals were controversial among the so-called “Dixiecrats,” the Democrats of the South.  When Truman announced his plan, thirty-five delegates walked out of the Democratic convention to form their own party.  The states rights delegation did not expect to win, but they hoped to get enough votes to throw the election to the House of Representatives where they could swing the ballot to a candidate who opposed civil rights legislation.

All this Democratic infighting was a boon to Republican Thomas Dewey.  The New York Post wrote:  “The party might as well immediately concede the election to Dewey and save the wear and tear of campaigning.”  Dewey was so confident in his assured win that he mounted a very subdued campaign.  Harry Truman, on the other hand, embarked on a 31,000-mile train trip across the nation and delivered hundreds of speeches.

Democrats have often said that the rain favors them because it presents more of a challenge to rural voters than to the urban voters who are most likely to pick a Democratic candidate.  On election day 1948 this was borne out.  A storm system in the lower Mississippi Valley spread rain across Illinois with especially heavy downpours in the South.   Not only was the rain more likely to muck up dirt roads than urban transport, the rain itself was concentrated over the rural section of the state, and it mostly spared Chicago and the industrial north.  Meanwhile, a Pacific storm brought heavy rain to California.  It fell in the predominantly Republican northern part of the state, while the Democratic southern part had sunshine.

A difference of 29,294 votes, or .28 of one percent of the electorate, in Illinois, California and Ohio could have changed the outcome.  The rain in Illinois and California may well have tipped the scales.  In the end Harry Truman captured 303 electoral votes, Thomas Dewey, 189 and Strom Thurmond, 39.

What is Thrift? The View from 1919

"...it should be perfectly clear that thrift does not mean the hoarding of money. To hoard money is one of the most thriftless things one can do with it. The miser of romance who kept his money in a secret hoard where he might gloat over it and enjoy the sensations of feeling, hearing and seeing it was, in the strictest possible sense, a thriftless consumer of wealth. Instead of using money as a tool of production or instrument of business, he was using it as a means of direct physical enjoyment. To have used it for the adornment of his body would scarcely have been more frivolous, thriftless or selfish."-Thomas Nixon Carver, War Thrift, 1919.

If you'd like to read the whole book, here it is:

He Once Was Making Money...

-Health Magazine, 1904

Civility Crisis

James Leach, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, believes that America is facing a "civility crisis." The former Republican congressman from Iowa supports greater funding of the humanities as a way to move the nation beyond bitter partisan rancor. Perhaps if people knew their history better, the Omaha World Herald reports, they would not be so quick to compare modern legislators to Stalin or Hitler. Humanities education, Leach says, is an "investment in democracy."

Some participants in last summer's health care town meetings talked of “secession,” and used words like “fascist” to describe their opponents.

“We fought a Civil War that cost 600,000 lives over the issue of secession, and fought a world war to defeat fascism,” Leach said. “History teaches us that those issues are settled.”

Leach also cited history in his call for increased financial support for the NEH.

He noted that during the country's darkest strategic hour during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln invested in education, signing the land-grant colleges act.

And during the nation's darkest economic crisis of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt spent money on the arts and humanities through various public works projects.

“That was all an investment in democracy,” Leach said.

The NEH's current budget, appropriated by Congress, is $155 million, up from $110 million a decade ago. Still, Leach noted that when adjusted for inflation, NEH funding is down a third from 1979.

Leach would like to see more support for the humanities to promote, among other things, more study of comparative religions, cultures and histories.

“We live in perilous times,” Leach said. “But nothing can be more costly than shortchanging the humanities.”

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.-John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

Household Hints from 1904

Poo Poos of Patriotism

Have you ever tried to use the "next blog" link at the top of a Blogger page? I maintain two blogs. This one, dedicated to Schadenfreude and my various writing projects, and Valery Lantratov's Ballet Blog. (Sing along: One of these things is not like the others...) I clicked on the "next blog" link thinking it would take me to my other blog, but it took me instead to a post on "Kate's First Hard Poo-Poo".

Speaking of poo-poo... (I'm a professional writer, don't try these transitions at home.) I have been slowly building up a library of books from the "What They Said In" reference series by editors Alan and Jason Prater. From 1969-1996 they published annual editions compiling spoken quotes by politicians and people of note in the news. They're great records of the issues of the day. As I go through them I become alternately comforted and discouraged to see that we've been having essentially the same cultural and political conversations for years. What is a patriot? Is it patriotic or unpatriotic to question a war? Should we embrace change or preserve our sense of community and continuity? These were some of the big questions of 1970.

One of the quotes from the 1970 edition-- and I am getting back to poo-poo-- seemed to have special resonance in light of the current discussion of community organizing we've been seeing on the news. It comes from Saul Alinsky, a pioneer of community organizing, who said, "Civil rights is a movement, and a movement without organization is nothing more than a bowel movement."

Power to the people, right on!