By Mark Frazier, May 22nd, 2013 
When I’m in China, conversations with friends and colleagues often begin with their asking about the name of my university: Why is it called “The New School?” Most are not familiar with the university, but when I mention the name of John Dewey and the intellectual spirit associated with the university’s founding in 1919, there’s an immediate connection. Dewey traveled and lectured in China beginning in 1919, just as The New School was being established, and just as Chinese intellectuals were engaging in unprecedented forms of public engagement and education.
For Chinese intellectuals and students today, 1919 invokes the stirrings of the “New Culture Movement” and the foundations of the Chinese revolution more broadly. The New Culture Movement is closely associated with what became known as the “May Fourth Movement,” so named for the student protests in Beijing on that day in 1919 to reject the humiliating outcome of the Paris Peace Conference. The protest was over the terms that allowed Japan to retain territorial concessions that had been negotiated before the war by a discredited president of the fledgling Republic of China. (The Qing dynasty had fallen in 1911-12.) But the May Fourth Movement was less about geopolitics and much more about the vibrant intellectual pursuit and experimentation with new ideas–anarchism, Marxism, socialism, and much else.
John Dewey arrived in China just a few days after May 4, 1919, and would spend the next two years teaching and lecturing at Chinese universities. Dewey had been invited by his former student at Columbia, Hu Shih, by then a prominent leader in the New Culture Movement. Hu, like others in the movement, advocated the wholesale rejection of Confucian culture and practice–first and foremost the educational precepts that stressed the close engagement with Confucian and other classical texts. In its place, Hu and those who would become the presidents and chancellors of China’s leading universities adopted many of Dewey’s ideas about education and its roles in constituting citizenship, democratic practice, among much else.
Several scholars have examined closely Dewey’s China lectures and his writings from . . .
Read more: John Dewey in China
By David Janes, December 5th, 2012 
Recent struggles in Northeast Asia between Japan and its neighbors South Korea and China illustrate well Robin Wagner-Pacifici’s notion of the “restlessness of events.” Current territorial disputes over the Senkaku/Daiyoutai and Takeshima/Dokdo islands, as well as the uproar over the collective memory of World War II tragedies, such as the recent flare up of debate regarding Korean sex slaves, suggest that the notion that the end date of the Pacific War was 1945 may not be accurate. In some ways, the event, the world war, is continuing, and, in recent months, it’s escalating.
Governments in Northeast Asia are engaged in the escalation, but also in attempting to diplomatically calm the ongoing conflicts. Non-governmental groups also are involved, with some egging on confrontation and others trying to settle it, and still more attempting to highlight larger long-term interests over present-day concerns. My specific interest is with those non-governmental efforts that are attempting to foster peaceful coexistence, to put a final end to the great event, WWII. Through this posting, I hope to initiate a dialogue here on Deliberately Considered about the role that civil society can play in reconciliation, or at least in de-escalating tensions.
At the “end” of the Pacific War, non-governmental groups played a significant role in transforming the people of the United States and Japan from enemies to friends through carefully crafted and well-funded educational and cultural exchange programs, funded by private philanthropies such as The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Henry Luce Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The JDR III Fund, The Asia Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Religious organizations played a role as well. All Souls Church in Washington, DC, for example, developed a program to send art supplies to elementary school children in Hiroshima as a method for achieving reconciliation. A film titled Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard has just been completed that focuses on this story. In addition, Christians in both the US and Japan raised funds to develop what today is Japan’s leading . . .
Read more: Putting World War II to “Rest?” Opening a Dialogue about Northeast Asia
By Lukasz Pawlowski, November 27th, 2012 
He was meant not to come and he didn’t. Barack Obama decided to make Burma, Cambodia and Thailand his first foreign destinations after his re-election, revealing U.S. foreign policy priorities in the next four years. The American president plainly doesn’t have time for Europe now. It’s not a surprise, but it does require serious European deliberation and critical self reflections.
Historic Visit
Of special significance is above all Obama’s trip to Myanmar – a country under military rule since 1960’s, which until recently invariably occupied the very far end of every possible civil liberties ranking. Myanmar’s position began to change rapidly in 2010 when the new president, Thein Sein, for reasons not entirely clear, initiated democratic reforms and freed thousands of political prisoners, including the most famous regime victim, Aung San Suu Kyi, put under house arrest in 1989 and kept in custody virtually ever since. Suu Kyi was not only allowed to go on a triumphant international tour – in Oslo she finally received the Nobel Peace Prize awarded in… 1991 – but also to run in parliamentary by-elections. In April 2012 her National Democratic League won 43 of 45 seats under contention, thus becoming the largest opposition party. Only a few months after the reforms started, non-governmental organizations and independent media began to operate in a country not so long ago deemed as an “outpost of tyranny”.
And though democratic transformation in Myanmar proceeds quickly, there are still significant problems. Millions of its citizens live in extreme poverty. Hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail. The northern part of the country is being devastated by a civil war against one of many separatist groups. A military coup is an ever-present possibility, and the authenticity of president’s commitment to democracy is still difficult to assess. For these and many other reasons democratic changes in this former British colony may collapse at any time.
That despite all these uncertainties Barack Obama decided to visit Myanmar – becoming the . . .
Read more: President Obama Goes to Asia: The View of a Pole in Oxford
By William Milberg, May 4th, 2012 
Reflections on Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery, by Michael Cohen
My New School colleague Michael Cohen’s new book Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery: The Economy in a Time of Default provides the first detailed account in English of one of the remarkable episodes in recent economic history. Cohen’s rendering of 21st century Argentine political economy is detailed, nuanced, filled with summaries of political debates and standoffs and with a rich appreciation of the unequal ways in which the economic benefits are shared as the Argentine economy recovered from its macroeconomic collapse in 2001.
The book is a fast-paced (at times blow-by-blow) account, of macroeconomic extremes in terms of debt, exchange rates, government budget and trade balances and fiscal and monetary policy in Argentina. But when I finished reading the book (and took a big exhale) what struck me — not an expert on Argentina by any stretch — were the many ways that the Argentine experience contradicts the conventional economic wisdom. Without much explicit attention to issue of conventional economic wisdom (other than the attack on World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies imposed on Argentina in the 1990s), Cohen’s account nonetheless forces us to think critically about some widely-held views in economics and especially development economics. Let me describe seven different ways in which Argentina’s experience in the 21st century should make us revisit some of the accepted aspects of economic wisdom.
To continue reading Will Milberg’s review of Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery by Michael Cohen, click here.
By William Milberg, May 4th, 2012
Reflections on Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery, by Michael Cohen
My New School colleague Michael Cohen’s new book Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery: The Economy in a Time of Default provides the first detailed account in English of one of the remarkable episodes in recent economic history. Cohen’s rendering of 21st century Argentine political economy is detailed, nuanced, filled with summaries of political debates and standoffs and with a rich appreciation of the unequal ways in which the economic benefits are shared as the Argentine economy recovered from its macroeconomic collapse in 2001.
The book is a fast-paced (at times blow-by-blow) account, of macroeconomic extremes in terms of debt, exchange rates, government budget and trade balances and fiscal and monetary policy in Argentina. But when I finished reading the book (and took a big exhale) what struck me — not an expert on Argentina by any stretch — were the many ways that the Argentine experience contradicts the conventional economic wisdom. Without much explicit attention to issue of conventional economic wisdom (other than the attack on World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies imposed on Argentina in the 19990s), Cohen’s account nonetheless forces us to think critically about some widely-held views in economics and especially development economics. Let me describe seven different ways in which Argentina’s experience in the 21st century should make us revisit some of the accepted aspects of economic wisdom.
Conventional wisdom #1. Conventional wisdom is that default on foreign debt will have disastrous consequences for economic growth, economic suicide. The country that defaults, the thinking goes, immediately shuts itself out of international capital markets for an unpredictably long period of time, brings on a long-term collapse of the exchange rate, requires a long-term recession as the country is forced to “live within its means.”
Argentina defaulted in early 2002 and then:
*one year later was borrowing considerable from the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
*between 2002 and 2006 inward FDI rose at a rate of 26% per year (much from Brazil)
*by . . .
Read more: 7 Ways Argentina Defies the Conventional Economic Wisdom
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, June 3rd, 2011 
The weather has been absolutely spectacular this week in Paris. Clear, sunny skies, low humidity, moderate temperatures. Yesterday, Naomi and I enjoyed having lunch at the Palais-Royal and walking through the city with our friend Daniel Dayan. Each day, we have been spending time in a park with our grandson, Ludovic. Especially nice was a family excursion to the Arab Institute, where we had wonderful pastries and panoramic views of of the city from its rooftop café. Being in Paris, thinking with a European perspective about the Arab world has been my theme of the week, as I, with the help of the editorial team at Deliberately Considered, have been keeping the magazine going.
I observed in my first letter from Paris that the common action of Coptic Christians and Muslims at Tahrir Square created a new pluralistic reality in Egypt. These days, this new reality is challenged, to say the least. There are great fears that sectarian conflict will rule the day in Egypt and in the region, as was reported in Tuesday’s New York Times. According to this report, a clause in the constitution formally identifying Egypt as a Muslim country deriving its laws from Islam, passed during the era of Anwar Sadat, and laws dating back to the late colonial era that stipulate specific restrictions on and privileges for the Coptic church have inflamed tensions. There is a marked increase in sectarian violence, with wild stories about abduction of Muslims, even reported in a historically liberal newspaper. These are very serious matters.
Formal political measures to address these issues are urgently needed. An idea floating that a Bill of Rights ought to be established as a precondition of electoral politics, as advocated by Mohamed El Barade, makes considerable sense. But just as important are indications that the power of definition, what I call the politics of small things, is being marshaled to combat dangerous anti-democratic developments.
![]( "A Copt (left) and a Salafi Muslim (right) debate politics and the revolution in Tahrir Square during a break </i></strong></em></b>. . .
<p>Read more: <a href=") DC Week in Review: Letter from Paris II, Thinking about Egypt, Poland and China with “Skin in the Game”
By Chris Eberhardt, May 31st, 2011 
A friend of mine was asking for help in downloading The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers for free. In December, I thought about downloading the book for ten dollars to my iPod, but didn’t think it was worth it. I think I was afraid it would burst me from my bubble.
This morning while watching the movie “The Truman Show” with my students, I realized that like Jim Carrey’s character, Truman Burbank, I am living in a similar scenario, “The China Show.” When someone wants to know about the history of the Communist Party, or tries to tell the difference between President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, (even the NY Times can’t), it feels like they want to know about the executive producers behind the scenes who are responsible for making sure that the show doesn’t stop.
Here on the set of “The China Show” we worry about the incredibly expensive price of apartments, and students play the Three Kingdoms game. As my Chinese teacher pointed out, the movies and the television shows in China are harmonious, befitting a harmonious society, a path set by President Hu Jintao. I tell people that the Chinese movies I watch in the United States, outside the television studio, are what might be called “art house films,” often intentionally banned within China to get more viewers in the U.S. and Europe. These movies are about people stealing police uniforms and using them to extort pedestrians on the street, or the woman who is sent to the fields and becomes a one-person brothel in an attempt to regain her old city life. Back within “The China Show,” the movies are about people from an ancient period, quite often with the ability to fly.
Last week, I had a brief moment where I felt like I was teaching, using clips of movies like “Forrest Gump” to talk about school integration and the Vietnam War draft. I asked one of my students what she would do if her friend was drafted and sent . . .
Read more: The China Show
By Gary Alan Fine, February 16th, 2011 
Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of ecstatic Egyptians have been seen celebrating in the streets and squares of Cairo. They are delighted that they are to be ruled by the Egyptian military who have dissolved the parliament and abrogated the constitution. This once was the well-worn tradition of banana republics. Surely the idea of the military as an institution of popular rule has changed dramatically. The duly, if not fairly, elected government has been overturned through the continuing demonstrations of the people. Hosni Mubarak is no longer President Mubarak. What is next?
In the coming days and months and years citizens and power brokers in Egypt will shape the answer to this question. And Americans will be watching nervously. There is a joke among Jews, all social change is to be evaluated through the prism of a simple question, “But is it good for the Jews?” Jews are not the only ones who ask the question. All peoples worry how massive change will affect their own lives. American policy makers and pundits are asking the equivalent question. If we determine that change has distressing consequences, a search begins for explanations and for those responsible. Typical of the narcissism of nations, the question of blame will arise. “Who is the scapegoat?” “Who is the traitor?” We read history backwards to discover culprits. Should the outcome in Cairo not be to our liking it will be hard for Americans to avoid asking: “Who Lost Egypt?”
Sixty years ago a powerful version of that question was being asked by journalists and in the halls of Congress: Who Lost China? The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-Shek had recently fallen to the communist troops of Mao. Americans believed that China was within our sphere of influence. We had been propping up the corrupt Nationalist regime, but suddenly these leaders fled to Taiwan. We found Chinese troops fighting against American soldiers on the Korean peninsula. Perhaps most of the blame could be given to Chiang’s corrupt . . .
Read more: Who Lost Egypt?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 23rd, 2011 
I’ve been on the road this week, giving a public talk in Santa Barbara at Fielding Graduate University, and taking a break from a very hectic writing and teaching schedule. Returning to frigid New York, I feel cut off from my usual news sources and news gathering customs. As it happens I couldn’t read the paper version of The New York Times first thing, as is my morning custom, didn’t listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR, and didn’t go from there to search the web for interesting under reported news and commentary. Instead I took a look at cable news, and found, to my dismay, that I really didn’t understand what had happened this week. This underscored Laura Pacifici’s point. Audiences consume “news products” that confirm their beliefs; news reporting and commentary are not informing. It struck me that this is the way that many people keep up with public affairs. I felt like I was in a fog. No wonder fictoids work! I was warmed by the Santa Barbara sun, chilled by “the lame stream media.”
Although I was on vacation, I managed to keep DC going, thanks to interesting posts by DC contributors. Will Milberg presented a very different account of the China – America relationship. I am convinced. The issue is less about currency valuations, more about economic practices of them and us. As Milberg succinctly put it:
“The key to the problem of global imbalances is to resolve them in an expansionary way rather than a contractionary way. In the wake of the crisis and a deep and widespread recession, we should be thinking about a reform of the international payments system that shifts the burden of adjustment from deficit countries (who are forced to contract their economies in order to reduce imports) to surplus countries (whose extra spending raises their imports).”
Gary Alan Fine, following up on his brilliant Jared Lee Loughner post, considered a fundamental problem in representative democracy, should we vote for representatives because of their personal qualities or principled positions. He makes . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Obama, no Lincoln, and a few other observations
By William Milberg, January 21st, 2011 
As Hu Jintao and President Obama gather in Washington for their summit meeting, it is a good time to take another look at U.S.-Chinese economic relations. China has become the lightning rod for Americans on the left and right who find an obstacle to the U.S. recovery from its economic woes. From Niall Ferguson on the right to Bernie Sanders on the left and to many the politicians and economists in the middle, the problem with China is that its high rate of saving and its undervalued exchange rate have resulted in high unemployment in the US and brought about an unsustainable American trade deficit. Some economists have even argued that this deficit was a major cause of the economic crisis in the first place.
There are at least three problems with the prevailing view.
The first problem is that renminbi revaluation is not likely to help much in reducing the U.S. trade deficit. For one thing, U.S. importers in the major deficit industries (apparel, electronics, toys) will simply shift to other low-cost countries, and Chinese imports from the U.S. are not particularly price sensitive. Second, appreciation of the Chinese currency will lead U.S. corporate profits to suffer due to higher costs for imported inputs.
These limits of the policy effectiveness of renminbi revaluation are well known but largely ignored in the popular debate. Presidents Bush and Obama both spoke out loudly on the need for currency adjustment, but neither of them ever pushed hard in negotiations with the Chinese. It should be no surprise that the Obama administration revealed that this week it is going to back off on the currency question and focus instead on intellectual property rights infringement. There is simply too much disagreement within the U.S. business community on the issue.
The second problem is that excessive Chinese saving is not the entire story behind the U.S.- China imbalance. Low levels of U.S. household saving, and U.S. business strategies have also contributed. Household borrowing is clearly going through an adjustment, as home foreclosures continue at record levels and . . .
Read more: America’s China Problem: Another View
|
Blogroll
On the Left
On the Right
|
DC Week in Review: Letter from Paris II, Thinking about Egypt, Poland and China with “Skin in the Game”