FOR WHOM THE CLOSING BELL TOLLS.

Here is an excerpt from the Contradiction section of my book Nunc Dimittis. 

(101) A Well-Deserved Panegyric To Capitalism.
My first preamble to the present section.
"…It is just that any man who does a service to society and increases the general wealth should himself have a due share of the increased public riches, provided always that he respects the laws of God and the rights of his neighbor, and uses his property in accordance with the dictates of faith and right reason." (Pope Pius XI: Quadragesimo Anno, 15th May 1931.)
In order to avert any potential misunderstanding or misconstruction on my reader’s part of the overall thrust of this section’s message, let me start with my sincere praise of every honest representative of hard-working productive capitalism, from its cradle to our time and into the future, for as long as this breed endures, along exactly the same lines as the good Pope, quoted above, has laid out as the sine qua non criteria of capitalism which is not anathema to religious belief and universal morality.

(102) Capitalism And Communism, Theologically Speaking.
My second preamble to the present section.
Making this my second preambular entry to the opening section of this book, I am essentially presenting the gist of everything that I want to say here, namely, that--- theologically speaking--- Christianity is organically linked to the concept of communism, and is just as much averse to the concept of capitalism. This ostensible paradox (in the eyes of an American Christian, who is born, raised, and indoctrinated into the unpolemical acceptance of an unbreakable organic bond between Capitalism and Christianity, as if there actually existed such a close intimate connection between the two) is in fact nothing more than a statement of fact, yet facts, as we sadly know, are always in the eyes of their beholders, and any naive attempt at a reasonable argument must suffer a bad defeat here, should we try to go for it. Let us, therefore, abstain from any such foolishness, and merely pontificate from our shaky “cathedra” that this is the truth, take it or leave it. Even though, in all probability, such an effort will be mainly “preaching to the choir,” as those who hold the opposite opinion must be extremely unlikely to change it…
Well, I may be slightly disingenuous, pretending to right this off as a matter of opinion. In the course of this section, as it unfolds, I shall try to substantiate my point by invoking the power of the Holy Scripture, and in doing so I intend to pull no punches. To be fair however, as I am using the much abused term communism, I am referring mainly to the general objectively benign concept, rather than to its sometimes frail, sometimes deceitful applications, which have, regrettably, saddled the word “communism” with some pretty unsavory associations. Yet, there is a much handier word to use, socialism, which is not as mired in controversy as the word communism (with the exception of the phrase national socialism, of course), and inasmuch as it stands as a legitimate alternative to capitalism, we may be better served to use the better word socialism, instead of communism, in our discussion.
Yet, I repeat, theologically speaking, there is nothing wrong with the word communism, which characterizes the Christian way of living, both in the earlier times and today.
As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ and the Twelve lived communally, and they can be called communists with far greater justification than a modern capitalist, especially in the area of financial speculation, can be called a Christian.

(103) The Ethics Of Rich And Poor.
It may be said that this entry belongs to the Philosophy section, and I agree that it will occupy there a place of honor, should I decide to place it there. But, on the other hand, looking closely at the title of this section: A Contradiction In Terms (between Capitalism and Christianity), we see that it is far larger than economics; and finding that very contradiction right at the heart of the ethics of rich and poor, I feel justified in making this particular choice of section placement.
They say that ethics is a part of philosophy. I do not argue with this premise, as long as it is not turned into a general truth, but knows its place in limited applications. What I am saying here, however, is the opposite of the opening premise. I say that philosophy is a part of ethics, and once again, I do not claim this as a general truth but only as a limited proposition. I say that ethics consists of two parts: theoretical and practical, where philosophy covers theoretical ethics and social sciences cover practical ethics.
The central question of theoretical ethics is that of good and bad. The central question of practical ethics is that of rich and poor. At the main intersection of theory and practice lies the question: is the practice of rich and poor good or bad?
Just about 5% of the general population in capitalist countries live comfortably, while between 15 and 30% admittedly live under the conditions of poverty, with the rest struggling to make a living. This disproportion is not just a side effect of capitalism, but one of its basic principles. Structural unemployment, too, is one of the mainstays of capitalism and the struggle to make it financially in capitalist society breeds selfishness and greed at the expense of collective social values. Thus capitalist practice is bound to generate immorality as a virtue and a mechanism of attaining success.
Having said that, I am not an egalitarian, and I do not envisage the Christian commune, where everything is community property, as a way of the future. Excellence and superior productivity must be rewarded better than mediocrity and inferior productivity. Those who contribute more to society must receive more from it. Thus, some people, the more deserving citizens, should be living better than others, which is, of course, a principle fully recognized under socialism anyway.
It is, however, the economic practice which encourages the appearance of the class of the superrich and the parallel existence of the class of the destitute, which must be found the most objectionable. It is one thing to live comfortably as your reward for extraordinary social productivity but quite another thing to be indulging in luxury, making the pursuit of exorbitant self-enrichment the purpose of life and its modus vivendi. On the other hand, it is the worst social disgrace to allow extreme poverty, even if this condition is being explained by the factor of individual freedom, as if all people are free to chose poverty, and it is their fault if they do. I find the practice of tolerating poverty on these grounds reprehensible and utterly immoral.
To sum it up, I find the very existence and positive valuation of the social condition of being rich, implying the necessary dichotomy of rich and poor, and thus legitimizing poverty, completely objectionable, and also anti-social. I may be ridiculed as a naïve wishful thinker, of course, as there is no society in existence today which does not include the class of the rich and consequently the class of the poor.
I am particularly troubled by the situation in Russia today, where a whole decade has passed since President Putin had taken power, yet despite the emergence of numerous social programs for the poor, the class of the poor still struggles in abject neediness, while the class of the superrich still prospers, enjoying the spoils of the criminal 1990’s. As long as the dichotomy of rich and poor continues to exist in Russia no matter what, I shall be forced to see myself as what I must be perceived by others to be, namely a naïve wishful thinker.
…But then, who knows, maybe my naïveté will one day be rewarded by some powerful people seeing this thing my way, and doing something about it?

(104) The Capitalist Sandwich.
In the course of the still ongoing financial crisis, it is becoming ever more clear that, both in good times and in bad times in America, the very poor and the very rich fare the best. The poorest keep getting their welfare benefits, rain or shine, while the richest, obscenely thriving in the times of prosperity, get their bailouts and other such remedies in times of crisis, mind you, at the taxpayers’ expense. It is just the middleclass from its lowest to its highest income bracket, the principal taxpayers of the nation, who have to bear the brunt of the storm, getting hurt in the process, while, to add insult to injury, they are also the ones whose taxes bail out their richest brethren.
Some people are saying today, with undisguised bitterness, that in the United States of America, capitalism and socialism coexist: socialism is the system for the very rich and very poor, while capitalism is the system for everybody else, caught in between these two. This is what I have called the capitalist sandwich.
But I would never go so far as to agree with the statement about the coexistence of capitalism and socialism in the United States. The ethical principles of genuine socialism are nowhere to be seen in America. I would rather suggest that what we are looking at here, the capitalist sandwich, is precisely what modern capitalism as such is all about. Let us never confuse the capitalist welfare for the rich and for the poor, with socialism!

(105) Closing Bell.
Rest assured that this entry is not addressed to the hopeless breed of money speculators whose life pursuit of happiness consists first and foremost in making money off money, without creating any value. These will be just as dismissive of what I am going to quote here, as they are dismissive of the legal contents of the Torah, which, as they justly point out, have lost their relevance in the modern world. (This attitude, however, ought not to be transferred from outdated social specifics to universal moral generalities, which, unfortunately, has consistently been the case.)
My addressee here is that part of the Christian fundamentalist community, which is, rather surprisingly, the most ardent of all supporters of the money-worshiping morality of capitalism. It is to these thumpers of the Holy Scriptures that I wish to expose their own indubitably schizophrenic split personality, which somehow accepts the contradiction in terms between capitalism and Christianity, as though the two are perfectly okay together, to anyone who has the pathological talent to combine multiple mental states within one body.
Incidentally, this entry is not restricted to the schizophrenic kind. All sensible readers are welcome too.
Love of money is the root of all evil? Tell it to the capitalist!
My choice of putting this entry among the openers in the Contradiction section need not be interpreted as a particular desire on my part to use a powerful argument from authority to promote an anti-capitalist agenda, nor, by the same token, to join the genuine Biblical invective against the capitalistic attitudes and activities; my sole purpose here is to point most forcefully to the conspicuous existence of a fundamental contradiction in principle between Capitalism and Christianity.
That such a contradiction does exist can be, and will be, disputed by a vast majority of American Christians, who may be deaf to any argument from reason coming from me, and so the only argument they can possibly accept as valid should come from the only authority that they are compelled to recognize as supreme. In this case, the authority of the Bible ought to present itself as an acceptable expert witness on my behalf, so, here it is:
“For the love of money is the root of all evil... But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.” (I Timothy 6:10-11).
This famous condemnation of the love of money is habitually quoted in its shortest one-sentence form. As such, it can be easily interpreted as a condemnation of mammonism, that is, of an inordinate love of money, and being a question of degree, rather than of principle, set the Christian mind at ease, as in this quotation from Matthew 6:24: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” where money as such is not explicitly damned, but only inasmuch as it becomes an object of worship and greedy pursuit.
The larger context of this quotation concerns the money principle itself, rather than just the degree. It calls for the active action of fleeing from “these things,” understood as anything in excess of basic necessities:
“And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.” (I Timothy 6:8).
I am not going to reduce basic necessities to food and clothing, of course. They also ought to include decent shelter, best education commensurate to the student’s talent, rather than to the size of his/her parents’ wallet, and, incidentally, sufficient access to medical care without the need to beg for it, or, otherwise, to be forced to montrer nos plaies to an unpleasant host of suspicious government officials. Perhaps, after another hour of thinking about it, I could scrape up a few more necessities, stopping short however of adding the need for circuses to the need for bread…
Considering that stocks and investments, regardless of what Wall Street has to say about this, are not among our basic necessities of life, the Scriptures certainly draw a clear line between panus quotidianus, provided to us by Our Heavenly Father (I am directly alluding here to the Lord’s Prayer, commanded by Jesus to all Christians), and the decadently sinful pleasures of the financial market, offered to us by someone else,-- and leave no doubt whatsoever as to for whom the closing bell tolls…

(106) Your Money.
Capitalism and Christianity--- a contradiction in terms?
While the earlier entries in this section were designed to highlight the intrinsic conflict between Capitalism and Christianity, the main purpose of the present entry is to make clear that, although I am not going so far as to suggest that the said contradiction is philosophically irreconcilable, it most surely cannot be reconciled on ethical grounds.
Once again, I am inclined to fight my case on Scriptural grounds, and for the same reason, as stated before.
“May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the Gift of God with money.” (Acts 8:20).
The point of greatest interest to me here is what exactly is to be understood as a “Gift of God.” It may well be argued that the definite article “the” makes it obvious that Peter is talking specifically about the power to impart the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands. But surely we aren’t expected to believe that all other gifts of God, such as, for instance, life eternal, also described as “the gift of God” in Romans 6:23, are any different, in the sense that any one of them could be purchased with money, like those corrupt Popes of yore used to sell Indulgencies, in remission of sinners’ Purgatorial punishments.
Once we have come to realize that, according to the Bible and common religious sense, none of such gifts of God can be bought with money, what are these gifts, anyway? For instance, are God’s Blessings, as we call them, in the same category? The only answer which is not offensive to our Christian sensibilities ought to be yes.
And now, here is my understanding of the notion of God’s gifts. It is the imparting of goodness. Therefore, it is the ethical dimension of life that cannot be accessed with the golden key. In other words, capitalism has to be removed from any kind of ethical valuation, for, it is here, in the ethical sphere, that our contradiction between capitalism and Christianity becomes irreconcilable. Anybody who says that capitalism is “good” is inviting a legitimate forceful refutal. On the other hand, calling capitalism “bad,” is an unnecessary effort to attack a legitimate money-based economic system on moral grounds, whereas its existence is justified in the amoral realm of everyday practicality. Jesus makes a clear distinction between what is God’s, and therefore ethically valuated, and what is Caesar’s, which should not automatically invite the judgment of being evil. The throwing of vendors and money-changers out the Temple, by Jesus, does not constitute an act of moral condemnation of their activity per se, but of literally denying the ‘capitalist’ an existence on sacred, that is, moral, ground.
Therefore, the phenomenon of capitalism ought to be viewed just like everything else in Caesar’s world, not as either good or evil, but as a mixed basket of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Bearing this in mind, let us now proceed in the course of the next two entries with the basic distinction between the good capitalist and the bad capitalist. (As we shall see, both these species are possible, and mutually non-exclusive.)

(107) The Good Capitalist.
This entry takes us back to our first preamble, where Pope Pius XI elucidates what the good capitalist looks like.
One of the main reasons why the issue of capitalist morality has been shrouded in confusion is the confusion over what exactly ought to be understood as capitalism. The defenders of capitalism love to call Max Weber as their star witness, but, according to the formidable authority of Noam Chomsky, Max Weber’s capitalism is no longer in existence, at least in the citadel of capitalism (which is the United States of America), having been overwhelmed by its evil brother financial capitalism who lives off the loopholes in the capitalist credit system without himself producing any of that much prized value, which has given capitalism a good name.
For the sake of maximum clarity, I shall avoid the kind of pointless controversy that inevitably arises from bickering over the exact definition of capitalism, acknowledging only that different people using the word “capitalism” may have different things in mind, the dividing line clearly separating the apologists from the critics. Insofar as I am concerned, I will be satisfied that both sides of the argument have a reasonable right to this word’s use. I am therefore stipulating that both of them are actually talking about capitalism (forgive me, Chomsky), but for my part, I will allow the distinction between good capitalism and bad capitalism and further on between the good capitalist and the bad capitalist.
The bottom line here is that the good capitalist creates tangible value. He works very hard, both for himself (herself) and for his (her) country, accumulating real, as opposed to paper, wealth. There is nothing wrong, even in the eyes of the socialist, in rewarding his labor according to the value of his labor, which used to be explicitly stated in the socialist formula promoted during the existence of the Soviet Union. (Constitution of the USSR, 1936, borrowing the phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work” from Karl Marx’s “socialist” elaboration of the French Utopian communists of the eighteenth century [Saint Simon and others], and, indirectly, of the Bible’s New Testament.)
In Charles Fourier’s Phalanstères (his utopian socialist apartment complexes), there were four levels, where the richer folks occupied better premises than the poorer folks and the difference between the two kinds was determined by the comparative value of their labor. Thus, a standard socialist, whether of the classic utopian breed or of the more pragmatic Soviet type, should find nothing wrong with the principle of good capitalism per se. For this reason, certain features of authentic socialism in today’s Europe are happily coexisting with distinctive capitalist practices, deemed positive, even though “bad capitalism” inevitably creeps in there too, under the umbrella cover of “capitalism as such.”
On the other hand, mainstream socialist tolerance of “good capitalism” is hardly ever reciprocated, at least in theory and in capitalist rhetoric. Rest assured that the good capitalist will find everything wrong with the socialist principle. Weber, who had a chance to witness the first (and I should say uncharacteristic) steps of the Soviet economy, protested against the nationalization of the means of production and the destruction of the capitalist market, where the real prices are presumably to be set, and essentially saw all types of socialist economy as bogus. We shall discuss this and several other related issues later on in this section, but, for the purposes of this entry, it should suffice to admit that Weber’s capitalism is at the least a decent alternative to socialism, and that, indeed, an ideal economic system ought to combine the best elements of both.
It is time, however, to talk about the bad capitalist, and to appreciate why the socialist idea in its pure form has shown a far higher degree of viability and persuasive power than it might ever have enjoyed under more palatable circumstances than those that have been ushered in by history.

(108) The Bad Capitalist.
For the edification of my reader, I am reporting for the record that the famous phrase “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” (which I am quoting without attribution in this entry), commonly attributed to Winston Churchill and in fact used by him in his 1940 speech, traces its origin to Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1849--- “Non offro nè paga, nè quartiere, nè provvigioni. Offro fame, sete, marce forzate, battaglie e morte,” later restated in English by Theodore Roosevelt (1897). Having said that, this fact takes nothing away from the solemnity of Churchill’s use of this phrase at that particular time during World War II; and, besides, Churchill himself never claimed its authorship.
It is well understandable that the practical foundation of capitalism is not so much the creative ingenuity and daring of the brilliant entrepreneur, as the financial credit system, which provides the entrepreneur with the necessary funds to convert his or her entrepreneurial dreams into actual reality. It is the abuse of the credit and tax systems, however, which creates bad capitalism by swelling the numbers of bad capitalists, who are discovering the advantages of cynical money manipulation over the authentic “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” investment of the productive capitalist. As they capsulate this well in the movie Trading Places, the money manipulator will make money whether the market gains or loses its value, as there is always the collateral to fall back on, in the worst-case scenario.
An even more explicitly abhorrent practice of many modern-day capitalists is finding tax shelters in foreign evader-friendly places, thus denying rightful revenue to their respective nations of origin, plus the shameful practice of outsourcing to cheap-labor countries exclusively for the sake of maximizing profit. All greed, no loyalty, is the greatest condemnation of capitalism, symptomatic of its congenitally predicated degeneration. I challenge any patriotic American, unhappy with my anti-bad-capitalism invective, either to offer a sensible vindication of such practices, or to suggest a workable remedy to their destructive excesses.
Returning to my argument against the reign of financial capitalism predominantly in the United States at the expense of the productive power of this nation and to the detriment of the much needed emancipation of this country’s labor force, I have nothing but contempt for the greedy creditors who are living off usury, and get incredibly rich, when the rest of the nation is filing for bankruptcy, without creating any value on their own. I blame them for encouraging the spirit of the Madoff-type criminal selfishness, that has undoubtedly been the driving force behind the current economic crisis, and has by now infected the capitalist system virtually to the point of no return. This does not mean that I am vehemently opposed to the credit system as such, but in my judgment the whole much troubled credit system ought to be put under the direct control of the State, thus killing two birds with one stone: the profit from these financial operations will go into the state coffers, rather than into the pockets of the parasitic money lenders; and, most palpably, the excesses of the Madoffs of this world will hopefully become less arrogant and frighteningly systemic.
It may be argued that State bureaucracy in the credit sector may easily stifle private enterprise by treating all risk-taking with intense suspicion, and by ultimately denying funds to most daring undertakings. I disagree with such fears. Even state bureaucracy will provide the funds as long as a reasonable collateral is available, and, in our case, the entrepreneur who cannot produce a collateral should find himself a partner or partners who can, sharing the risks and the profits of the venture accordingly. There is very little difference of a case like this from what actually happens when the creditor is not the state, but a private person, while the risk of fraud, abuse, and of other such irregularities, is far less under state control than in an unregulated economic environment.
We can also see that, as I mentioned in the previous entry, good capitalism is eminently compatible with the socialist practices, whereas bad capitalism, as described here, is inimical to them. Considering that modern economies tend to combine both principles (capitalistic and socialistic), privatization of the financial sector creates a swarm of debilitating contradictions to their functioning, a precarious and habitually inadequate balance between state regulation and deregulation, and many other headaches.
But, as we are increasingly seeing this in the United States, the bad capitalist is not only refusing to give up, even though he is mainly responsible for the current global economic crisis, but he is determined to squeeze out the good capitalist, turning the world’s largest economy into an overwhelmingly financial empire which, as we already know, but are afraid to publicly admit, exists mostly on paper, and is becoming increasingly dependent on the “kindness of strangers.”

(109) Physician, Enrich Thyself!
My first idea was to introduce a third entry in this triptych, The Ugly Capitalist, dealing with the immorality of capitalist healthcare. But on second thought that would be pushing my frequent allusion to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly far too far. Let the good capitalist and the bad capitalist stand in their perfect opposition of “Gut und Böse.” Yet, I have no intention of letting the ugly business of healthcare for profit off the hook, and this particular entry, coming perhaps rather too early in this section will reflect my opprobrium by this very fact of its early placement.
Healthcare. I am tackling this loaded subject in different sections of this book from different perspectives: moral, social, political, philosophical, etc. Presumably, here I am viewing it from the economic angle, but in fact, all these angles are so closely intertwined that in each section it is not just the highlighted angle, which comes up, but the whole constellation of angles, again, and again, and again.
I cannot imagine anything more despicable than healthcare for profit. It goes without saying, of course, that the physician must be properly remunerated for his work, but his remuneration ought to be the function of the State, where the latter does not discriminate between the rich and the poor, providing the same quality of service to all, regardless of their situation. (Even though I realize that such services as a heart transplant are in extremely short supply, I am opposed, on strictly moral grounds, to the practice of the rich of buying vital services circumventing the waiting line by the power of their purse. Needless to say, I have no problem with their ability to buy non-vital elective services, such as plastic surgery, etc.) It is thus an institutional disgrace for a critical care physician to be allowed to seek higher fees among the rich clientele in private practice, while shunning the social programs for the poor, which do not pay as much. Mind you, this is a matter of principle, and I do not so much blame the physicians in this case as the State, which allows the corruption of the medical profession as a whole by allowing a financial disparity in the payment for the same services for the rich and for the poor. This ugly practice is ostensibly condemned in the Hippocratic Oath, where the physician swears to “preserve the purity of my life and my arts.” (Incidentally, I have no doubt as to whose side Hippocrates would have been on, in this discussion.)
There is a passionate public debate going on in America today around the healthcare reform proposal of the Obama Administration. The professionally orchestrated chorus of brainwashed nitwits is singing a virtually identical tune: we are America, the bastion of capitalism here; we do not want and shall not allow Russia in our country with its filthy communistic socialism. Conservative ‘generals’ and their super-passionate zealots of rank and file have declared a war on free healthcare, defending their precious freedom of healthcare, but hardly understanding what on earth they are talking about.
For starters, President Obama does not offer free healthcare, far from it! At best, his plan is just a timid half-step in the right direction. In fact, it is so timid that it neither feeds the wolves, nor saves the sheep. A moral half-truth which is worse than simple honesty either way is worse than any conspicuous excess. The latter is bound sooner or later to generate enough controversy to have the issue rise to the forefront of public debate. A “half-truth” scares at least one half of the public without sufficiently energizing the other half to allow the matter move ahead.
The economic solution to the American healthcare dilemma is a sharp heavy sword to cut through the Knot of Gordius. The question is really very simple. Is America’s healthcare an inalienable right of its citizens or a special privilege of the very rich and the very poor? Is the goal of the healthcare system to heal the sick, or to make a profit, like in any other commercial business?
Capitalism is private enterprise with the purpose of making profit. As long as healthcare falls in the category of such enterprise, it will remain immoral, antisocial, anti-religious, and such, no matter how hard you try to fix it, and no matter how many hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars Washington is willing to invest in it. Only by undermining the capitalistic foundation of healthcare and at the same time constructing a socialistic foundation under it can the healthcare system be saved from the profiteers and its moral core saved from the immoral principle of everything for sale. Mind you, I am using the word “socialistic” not in a political, and not even in economic sense, as much as in ethical, religious, Christian, if you like, sense. To me, it is clearly a matter of moral principle, rather than that of “dollars and sense.”
Come to think of it, I am against President Obama's half-hearted healthcare plan. I would rather have an honest lemon than a spoonful of heavily diluted yellow number five.

(110) Capitalism And Cold War.
It’s tough to be a critic of bad capitalist practices in America, because coldwar mentality, with its suspicions and prejudices, is too deeply ingrained in American society.
Some say that the Cold War is over. I believe that it has never ended. In this judgment, ironically, I have the bad capitalist secretly agreeing with me: for him cold war has no end, as otherwise he could quickly lose his political footing.
One of the biggest difficulties in the fight for clarity of the competing concepts of capitalism and socialism is the blurred dividing line between the economic and socio-political significance of these two concepts, as it is often virtually impossible to separate economics from politics in their discussion. For this reason, there was a very common “cold war” tendency in the West, in the last century, to identify capitalism with the free societies of the West, whereas socialism was almost unswervingly identified with Soviet communism, with a number of unfortunate consequences arising from this bigoted and blind stubbornness. The honest critics of capitalism, as a result, were branded as pro-Soviet lefties, and the defense of the capitalist economic system was actually merited as a defense of all Western democracy, in general public perception.
This harmful tendency has unfortunately survived into the twenty-first century, as the promoters of financial capitalism have drafted the political shadows of the past as their conscripts, for the perpetuation of their rule of worldwide greed and unrestrained money manipulation.
One might hope that it would take the current global financial crisis to finally defeat such a formidable army of ghosts and zealots, but I am still having serious concerns with regard to the prospect of a resurgence with a vengeance, not as ambitious, perhaps, as the recent obnoxiously imperialistic doctrine of Globalism (I will be giving a lot of attention to this subject later on!), but durable enough to survive and eventually recover its lost positions under a similar guise, such as the most recent bout of the post-Soviet Putin/Medvedev Russia-bashing.
Don’t get me wrong: I am all for a full restoration of some kind of healthy Tocquevillian American-Russian global competition. (It is far more normal to live in a bipolar Arctic/Antarctic world than in a dysfunctional unipolar sham of one nation’s hegemonic delusion.) But the price of having to live with, and whitewash, the mortal sin of greed-gone-wild, is definitely too much to pay.