The 1980s neo-liberal reforms as an attempt to eliminate the military-industrial complex: part 1
Now that should be a provocative title!
Over the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, there were pro-market reforms across much of the world. These reforms were and are highly controversial. My purpose in this post is to give a high-level description of the reforms and of the economic theory and practical experiences that motivated them, followed by what I think are the strongest criticisms of them.
A bit of background, I’m a New Zealander, and thus this description will be somewhat biased towards New Zealand as an example. My interests are in economic history and the history of economic thought. Combined, this means that I don’t know much about the politics behind the reforms in most countries, including the USA, so I will probably struggle to answer follow-up questions that focus on the politics.
What we can agree on
They say that when writing a persuasive essay on a provocative topic, you should start with outlining areas of agreement. (I will be a bit lazy and use terms like 'no one' 'everyone' and 'all' in a loose sense, I’m sure you can find someone on reddit who disagrees on something!)
We all agree that markets fail from time to time. We all agree that governments fail from time to time. No one has blind faith in markets, no one has blind faith in governments. And, while we're at it, we all agree that non-government, non-profit institutions have their uses. Different people do tend to be more inclined to view particular institutions as useful in more situations than other people do, but even Communists agree that people should be able to hold personal possessions as their own property, and only the most thorough-going libertarian would deny a role for government in services like military defence, or, to pick a NZ example, biosecurity (keeping out foreign pests). The relevant question is, for a given economic problem, which type of institution is best at solving it, or, for a more pessimistic view, least-bad. I presume a thorough pessimist would declare that it doesn't matter, whatever the problem, the worst possible institution will be picked for it.
We all agree that people do not always behave rationally, and people always have limited information to base their decisions on, and that this is true both of people acting in markets and people acting in government.
We also, I think, mainly agree, that within the things that fall in the scope of government, different types of structures might be useful for different problems. Most democracies insulate judges of criminal and civil matters from direct democratic pressures (the USA is unusual in that many states elect at least some judges). Public healthcare systems like the UK’s NHS mainly leave medical treatment to be decided by the relevant doctors and their patients. Etc.
Everyone agrees? Onto the history.
The Later Life and Works of Ding Ling: Controversy in the Field of Feminism
Ding Ling (Born Jiang Bingzhi, 1904-1986) was a Chinese writer and socialist revolutionary, but above all, an avowed feminist. She rose to international fame among the socialist states in the East first, and then her works became famous during the counter-culture movement in the West during the 1970s. Yet in 1942 fellow feminists decried her beliefs and unwavering support for the male-dominated CCP as traitorous, and in 1957 she was labelled as a "righist" by the CCP. Then, in the later 1960s to her death, she was labelled as a traitor to feminism as a movement. What led to Ding Ling's fall from grace as one of the greatest feminists of the 20th century? This post will explain the early life of Ding Ling, with the second part discussing how her life took a turn towards controversy.
Ding Ling the Feminist
Ding Ling was born like many other May Fourthers; into a declining gentry class in the middle of an identity crisis for the Chinese people. When she was three her father died, leaving large sums of money to her mother. This would change Ding Ling's life forever. Her mother proved to be unusually rebellious and after the father's death she used the money to educate herself in teaching, and began a career shortly after in one of China's newly reformed schools. Nothing of note happens in Ding Ling's life next until 1922 when Ding Ling comes of age. In order to escape a pre-arranged marriage to her cousin, Ding Ling's mother helps her escape Hunan to Shanghai, giving her enough money to survive on her own and enroll in a newly established women's school founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao (the founders of the CCP).
While in Shanghai, Ding Ling fell in love with Western literature. By the 1850s a new genre of literature became somewhat popular in the West, and that was the feminism found in works such as Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, and most importantly for many Chinese literati, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House. By the 1890s artists and writers such as Aubrey Beardsley began popularizing more erotic works. All these would come to influence Ding Ling tremendously.
In 1927 Ding Ling published two successful short stories, the first was Mengke, and the second was Miss Sophie's Diary. Both works focused on the psyche of young educated and urban women, and Miss Sophie's Diary especially focuses on the issues of women's erotic thoughts and perverted behavior of men towards women in public. In a revolutionary act, Ding Ling wrote about such controversial things like bisexuality, free-willed sex, and other erotic topics that could lead towards the psychological liberation of women.
Ding Ling the Socialist Revolutionary
Throughout the 1930s, Ding Ling becomes heavily involved in several left-wing writing circles. As early as 1931 her husband, Hu Yepin, was captured and then executed by the KMT. In 1933, she herself was captured and put under house arrest in Nanjing. She escaped in 1936 and fled to Ya'nan, smack dab in the middle of the Communist movement lead under Mao. She began teaching Chinese literature at the Red Army Academy. Yet despite her allure towards the legendary aura surrounding the CCP at this time, she quickly became critical of the treatment of women in the CCP. It was quite clear that despite all the theory and speeches given by prominent Party members, there were really no high ranking women. Women were still treated with contempt by men. It was all wrong, and not what Ding Ling envisioned true socialist feminism to be. She set herself to work, writing two of her most famous leftist works in 1941, "When I was in Xia Village," and "In the Hospital," both critiques of the treatment of women in the CCP. In 1942 she suffered her first serious censorship from the party after writing "Thoughts on March Eighth," a critique that even in areas where class oppression has been lifted, gender inequality still existed. The essay did however have one lasting influence: along with other critical works, Mao responded by convening the "Yan'an Talks," in 1942, a forum where all cultural critiques of the party would be solved once and for all. There a lot of stuff in this, but whats important for us is that Mao urged writers to "overcome their petit-bourgeoisiness" and place literature and art subordinate to politics.
Ding Ling the Controversial Figure
OK, SO, here's where the 1947+ dates become relevant (sorry about that long intro).
In 1948, Ding Ling wrote her first major socialist-realist novel: The Sun Shines over Sanggan River (the novel would take second place in the 1951 Stalin Prize for Literature). Her novels stopped focusing on one main, disenfranchised female character. Rather, they focused more heavily on how individuals could help the state. After the founding of the PRC, she held a high place in many literary cliques in Beijing and enjoyed a career writing propaganda and literature for the CCP. She expressed a love of China's new socialist policies and life under the CCP.
It is under these circumstances that Ding Ling becomes a controversial figure. Many fellow feminists were perplexed as to how one of the greatest feminist figures of the 20th century could have made such a deep 180 in writing and opinions. Everyone knew that the ill treatment of women didn't stop overnight with the Yan'an forum, so what led to her deciding to act as a female mouthpiece for Mao and the CCP afterwards? We don't exactly know, as she never came out and told anyone. During the Great Leap Forward she was labelled as an anti-Party leader and sent to Northeastern China to partake in hard labor on a farm due to her earlier anti-Party writings in the 1930s.
Upon returning, she was once again imprisoned in Beijing for five years as she landed right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. Through it all, however, she survived, and after her release and "rehabilitation" in 1976, she began to write essays and voice opinions again. She publishes her only work since Yan'an focusing on an individual woman, the novella Du Wanxiang. The story focuses on a model socialist woman, influenced by Ding Ling's years on the Northeastern farm, who selflessly works hard and is both considerate and accommodating. Again, a total 180 from the independent and rebellious women of her pre-1942 works. Instead of the main character focusing on destroying traditional values, this one works to reinforce them.
The work was also heavily criticized by Western feminists as well. Feminism in the West at its very core was individualist. And here was a once prominent feminist writer telling the tale of a conformist woman who sacrificed herself for the betterment of the commune/the state. It was totally against the basic principles of feminism. It was, to them, a total joke.
In the later years of her life, Ding Ling fought against what she saw as the encroachment of Westernism on Chinese society. In 1983 she supported the CCP's campaign against "spiritual pollution" in China. It puzzled many people as she remained a consistent vocal opponent to her death in 1986.
But some historians argue Ding Ling never fundamentally changed. Once introduced to communism, Ding Ling disregarded the individualism of feminism, and believed that true female liberation could only be achieved through national liberation. Feminist literature was a conduit for her to fulfill important political and social goals for women. In this sense, Ding Ling's various imprisonments and mistreatment by the CCP did not outweigh their contribution to the nation and to females all across China. In the words of Jingyuan Zhang, "Ding Ling remained committed to the cause of revolution and feminism, a path on which she traveled and suffered, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, for more than sixty years, insisting to the end that in comparison with her cause, her personal sufferings were insignificant."
So I thought I'd contribute a fascinating piece of history which highlights the relationship between academia and the "real world". It also gives me a way to discuss palimpsests of history.
On the 17th of May 1980 members of the Maoist group Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) burned ballot boxes in their first major public appearance. This date was the 199th anniversary of the death of Tupac Amaru, leader of the largest indigenous revolt against Spanish colonial rule in the Andes. The importance of this date is paramount as it shapes the ideology of many in the region even today; for example during the reign of Evo Morales in Bolivia he would reference myths surrounding Tupac Katari (one of Amaru's generals).
Sendero Luminoso operated from 1980 to 1999 until internal divisions caused by the arrest of their leadership in 1992 split the group. At their peak in 1991 they controlled almost all of south and central Peru, and almost all of the highlands; effectively more of the country was in Shining Path's hand than the Government's.
The issue here is that the region before it became a hotbed for revolutionaries is that it was a hotbed for anthropologists. Key figures like Zuidema and Isbell had been working the region in the years before the revolt yet their works mention nothing of hostility towards the government or any Marxist influence. So why then did they fail to predict this? After living for years in these villages why did they fail to report on what was happening?
I think its' worth approaching these questions from several angles. Firstly, to what extent was Shining Path actually present?, Secondly, was there methodological restrictions that failed to produce the information?
The Agony and Exidy
Very few people know the name of Harold Ray "Pete" Kauffman. He ran what was a relatively obscure video arcade company who's heyday was in the 1970s, failing to make a major impact even as it persisted into 1999. However, the very fact that it persisted so long is one of the most fascinating stories in the history of the coin-op industry. Amidst rapid rises and falls all around them, the story of Exidy is an exemplary story of doing a lot out of passion in the face of horrid market conditions.
Exidy was always a technologist-driven company. Kaufmann himself was an engineer, and he first got his taste of video games from their very beginning. When Atari placed it's first unit of Pong on location in California in 1972, one of the owners of that bar was a man named Tom Adams, financial officer of a monitor company called Ramtek. Kaufmann was among the people who saw that very first unit there and he was behind the idea of Ramtek entering the business, which they did shortly thereafter. However, for reasons of ambition, Kaufmann decided that he could go it alone. With a few co-founders he started Exidy in October 1973, possibly the very first company post-Atari founded largely (though not exclusively) to create video games.
Something which isn't well remarked on by some scholars of the early video game period is just how much of a shakeup the video game was in personell terms. While many companies were able to create video games, a sustained output depended largely on having a solid state engineering staff. California had become one of the centers of the military industrial complex in the United States - largely due to it's advantageous location for aircraft operations against the Japanese during WWII. Out of that came not only Silicon Valley but hundreds of second generation engineers stifled by the purpose of that work which they saw as directly immoral. Many of them would not move from California either, meaning that much of the new opportunity for this coin-op business was rooted in California.
Being a new company wasn't all great however. One thing which Exidy never did was seek outside investment which would diminish Pete Kauffman's personal majority ownership in the company. This in part is why the company lasted for so long, and also why it never was able to achieve major success, lacking capitalization. In the very beginning, Exidy decided to supplement it's own light manufacturing by selling some game designs to the venerable Chicago Coin, who had far greater capacity and connections than they. The relationship was quite fruitful, and so it was proposed by top CC salesman Ken Anderson that the larger company could purchase Exidy and make the video game arm of the company. However, Chicago Coin could only see video games as a fad. They didn't want to invest in anymore than they had to in order to ride the wave. Solid state was not seen as the future.
The last positive benefit of this relationship was a co-design between the two companies on a driving game called Destruction/Demolition Derby (the game was named differently by both of them for release). Chicago Coin's machine shop helped create a cabinet with two sets of driving controls where players would mow down other vehicles for score. The agreement allowed both companies to sell their own version, but Chicago Coin started not paying Exidy as their mounting bankruptcy began to build. It's not quite clear as to why they needed to change the game - something to do with the contract - but they made a slight alteration and created a new game: The infamous Death Race.
https://gamehistory.org/media-vs-death-race/
Death Race probably didn't sell more than 3,000 units - in a time when Atari's Breakout sold 11,000 - yet this boost created a ten fold increase to the company's sales. Even without robust capitalization, Exidy started exploring new areas for expansion. They began creating non-video arcade games like Old Time Basketball and even took on the idea of releasing a home computer: The Exidy Sorceror. They weren't the only arcade company to do this as Gremlin Industries had released the Noval desk computer, but the Sorceror was an actual personal computer and one they intended to support as a separate business. Programmers were hired in for both creating arcade games and stocking the Sorceror library, with ports and original games. This was further supplemented with contract development in the form of the hit Star Fire and even purchasing the flagging Vectorbeam company.
With great success though came a necessary weight to carry. Pete Kauffman was renowned through the industry as a gregarious personality, a true stand-out figure comparable to a Nolan Bushnell in terms of his likeability and drive. Unfortunately, he also had a love for the bottle. In the later hours of the day he was an absentee CEO hooked to the bar in his office. These stupors were impossible for anyone to penetrate through and so the company simply had to support itself during his absences. While a man who made many brilliant decisions and connections, Kauffman didn't know when to stop with anything.
Forward through the 80s, Exidy never had any monumental hits, but they always had interesting games. Chief among these were their light gun series of video games starting with Crossbow. They created the technology necessary for a non-cheatable light gun which established the way to do it through the entire CRT era as well as the gameplay one could get out of that.
Despite surviving the massive downturn in the arcades suffered in the mid-80s, after the flagging period was over Exidy found itself on it's last ropes. While there was company investment from outside sources, Kauffman maintained his majority and did not bow to outside forces looking to acquire him. Sega was looking at making Exidy it's American arm at one point, but that deal did not happen (though people from Exidy would migrate to Sega over time). The competitive arm of video games had shifted to the Japanese and they simply could not compete anymore.
Kaufmann - who by this point had brought in his daughter Virginia - moved to the newly emerging field of redemption games. They mainly severed their ties with the fast excitement to fill the increasing needs of ski-ball, basketball, and novelty amusements which had less intense play value but more utility for the new arcade model. Exidy always remained small though, and the frequent offset of high-level work due to Pete's personal problems were always an impediment to staying ahead of the larger competition.
About 26 years on from the company's founding, before the dawning of the new millennium, Exidy finally wrapped up it's operations. Kaufmann went to a quiet retirement before passing away in 2015. Exidy never had a name brand or solid franchise potential to keep itself relevant or memorable through the ages. It was a company built on new experiences and technology, sometimes decently successful and other times just behind the curve. It showcased the true relevance of the arcade at a critical juncture for the industry and what California truly meant for the emerging video game scene.
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I hope this was a decent post. I hope I brought in greater relevant points rather than just point to point. The variety in these Features is very broad so I can only hope I made something with useful questions to further explore. Best of to all!
Welcome to Volume XIII of 'The Story of Humankind', our current series of Floating Features and Flair drive!
#Volume XIII brings history to an end, as of course nothing more happened after year 2000, and we welcome everyone to share history that related up to that point, whatever else it might be about. Share stories, whether happy, sad, funny, moving; Share something interesting or profound that you just read; Share what you are currently working on in your research. It is all welcome!
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