Steve Harris
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Role Model

1/15/2021

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There was a time when the Soviet Union was a leading beacon of progress for the world. In 1919, Lincoln Steffens, an American journalist visited the new revolutionary state and proclaimed “I have seen the future and it works!” By the 1930s, with the “liberal” West in the convulsions and dreariness of the Great Depression, the Soviet Union was again held out as a model for the world. Since it had been economically isolated in retaliation for the Bolshevik revolution, the USSR had little choice but to go it alone. It was also a pioneer in state-directed economic management driving the most rapid modern industrialization program in history. As a result its relative economic success in the 1930s (the foundation for its strength against the Nazis in the 1940s), made it a formidable role model across the world in the 1950s and ‘60s.

We know now that this leap forward was to collapse a few decades later. We have known for some time (although not then) the brutal costs paid by the peoples of the USSR for this over-centralization of power.

My topic today, however, is not the Soviet system’s successes or failures. Rather, I want to highlight the precariousness of the current American image in the world.

While the US was eventually dominant in the global cultural cold war of the 20C, the competition between the US and China in the 21C could well come out differently. The smugness of the ‘90s about the triumphalism of the modern/liberal/Western/capitalist approach to the world was severely punctured on 9/11. Still, the absence, until recently, of any viable competitor has made it easy for Americans to pretend that our exceptionalism was unique/inevitable/eternal and to dismiss the Chinese as parvenus, whose dictatorial tendencies and inscrutable language made them—at most—problematic.

The expectation that China will overtake the US in terms of GDP in the next decade and the emergence of China as an active wielder of the world’s second most powerful military will affect our broad understanding of the two countries’ relationship. But these phenomena will not be tangible to most folks whether Chinese, American, or otherwise.

Instead, the two biggest developments of the last 12 months have the potential to shift the global perceptions of these two giants. China has successfully managed the outbreak of the Coronavirus and the US has been incompetent. Both in terms of culture and governmental power, China has got the pandemic under control and those who challenge its success on the ground of the surrender or suppression of individual liberty must get past a tall list of deaths, disabilities, disease, and economic pain at both the macro and micro levels as an “acceptable” cost for political “freedom” and cultural individualism.

The insurrectionist spasm at the Capitol on January 6 could profoundly undercut the US as a role model for the rest of the world. As one Columbian newspaper asked: “Who’s the banana republic now?” There are many reasons (economic inequality, racial treatment, hyper-active military) why the US’ global image has plausibly suffered of late, but Confederate flags in the halls of Congress make it difficult for us to claim to be the “shining city on a hill” of our national mythology. Even if Trump is an aberration as a person, the endorsement of over a quarter of Congress undermines our desperate claims that “this is not who we are.” To the extent we have been successful in promoting democracy on a global basis, there are many countries who manage better-run (and more-widely accepted) electoral systems than we operate. [What would it mean for Rudy Giuliani to be as passionate about real voter suppression as he has been about his fantasies?]

China recognizes and is taking advantage of this, as they have generally, as Trumpian withdrawal of American presence and influence across the world has created opportunities for the opportunistic and ambitious Chinese. They are often clumsy and prone to repeat the arrogance of American power in countries around the world, but they are also sufficiently savvy to repress freedoms in Hong Kong and across China itself just when the US is hobbled from its usual finger-pointing about the global preservation of democracy.

Beyond the fact that the “leader of the free world” is MIA when it comes to freedom, our sorry performance in pandemic management undermines our claim to technocratic and moral leadership. While our science has performed miracles, our social fabric has unraveled. At a global level, this is evident in our refusal to join the world-wide vaccine alliance.

Global public opinion is no longer limited to gentlemen who can decipher the discreet implications of the Times (of London). The social and traditional media of the 21C ensure that ordinary people around the world will see these pictures and words and have some sense of our fumbling pandemic management. What happens in the US is still far more likely to show up on the news everywhere just because we are the center of the media universe. The pictures and numbers of the impact of the pandemic are all the more startling to those who expected that, if we were going to hoard our resources in order to take care of our own, we would at least do a better job of it.

PR matters. Soft power matters. Geopolitics is not just about the range and sophistication of drones  and the number of “feet-on-the-ground.” Regardless of bragging rights, there is something in the argument that it is in the American national interest to have friends overseas (lots of them!). There is something in the argument that we have something important to offer to others to see our example (positive and negative).

Our self-inflicted wounds will require considerable attention if we are to heal for our own benefit. They will require more and attention if we are to resume the effort to show other countries “how its done.”

It might be that China’s pandemic-management success is an echo of the Soviet’s industrialization and growth of the 1920s and ‘30s and that the underlying hollowness of an unconstrained bureaucratic system will, in due time, become clear. Or, it might be that we will look back on the US of 2020 and say: “I have seen the past, and it didn’t work.”

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Judgments

1/8/2021

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Judgments

Back when I was in law school (shortly after Moses came down with two tablets), we were instructed in the process of judicial appeals: trial courts, intermediate courts of appeal, and the Supreme Court. One wag (NOT me) asked whether there was any appeal from the judgments of the Supreme Court.  The professor looked over the rims of his glasses and said sardonically: “Only to the Law Reviews.” It was the legal equivalent of the old truism that “History is written by the winners” and akin to the fears expressed by Trumpians that their efforts to MAGA would be stymied by the “Deep State.”

In thinking about this in the context of the soon-to-be-former President and the recent hubbub about self-pardons, family pardons, Stone/Flynn/Giuliani pardons. He may have the legal power to pardon others (self-pardoning seems to me to be a non-starter). But their only effects will be as narrow and short-term as most of the thinking which has characterized this Administration. Legal exoneration doesn’t protect against social shunning or professional disregard. Who (outside the coterie) would hire Giuliani? How many new “Trump Towers” are likely to attract premium tenants paying for The Donald’s brand cachet? Will Ivanka really be welcomed on society/philanthropic boards?

On top of this, without risk of prosecution, those pardoned will no longer have 5th Amendment protections and are likely to trip themselves up into (unpardoned) perjury charges if they try to wrangle themselves out of difficulties. Not to mention the charges coming from NY State.

The history of the Trump years will be written by the winners, of course. And, as I have noted before, we historians should avoid predicting the future; especially as to who the “winners” will be. All we can do is interpret and extend trends and patterns. Still, it seems pretty likely that those histories will be written by historians: actual professional historians (once we get past the “tell-alls” and “rough-draft-of-history” journalists).

Trump’s problem is that these are people who have an (unnatural) affinity for facts—and evidence. Hmmm. Also, most are likely “liberal,” “lame-stream,” “pointy-headed intellectuals” (George Wallace, 1972), or otherwise members of the “effete corps of impudent snobs” (Spiro Agnew, 1970). Finally, market-driven publishers are more likely to appeal to those who buy/read books who (I suspect) are skewed left, too.

Now, some historians are already rejiggering their lists of Presidents ranked best-to-worst. Despite his aspirations to Mt. Rushmore status, and even if historians of the late 21C find secret merit in Trump’s approach to taxes, China, Iran, or border management, I suspect that his handling of the pandemic and attempted demolition of the democratic body politic seem likely to leave him languishing in the Buchanan-Pierce zone.

The “Deep State” is already reasserting itself more openly, after four years underground (“Deep” underground). EPA staffers are slow-rolling deregulatory changes. The DOJ is investigating potential bribery for pardon schemes. Even ex-AG Barr (no idiot) had disavowed allegations of widespread election fraud (there goes his pardon!). Anthony Fauci is still there (Amen.) and his brilliance (which extends far beyond epidemiology) should earn him a Medal of Freedom (i.e. another one, (since he was already recognized by Bush 43). Republican election officials in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan have stood up for the “process” and the “system.” That’s the thing about institutions; they’re resilient. Not that they can’t be taken down; another Trump term would have done irreversible damage. But, for now, it looks like we have big rebuilding job.

Bigger than we might have thought a week or so ago, given the rampage in the Capitol. Trump’s fostering of that attack mob will be the hallmark of his legacy; appropriate for one who’s view of the world has been sharply narrowed by ego and instant gratification. A Presidential Library…? More likely, NYC will name a sewer after him.

They would never acknowledge being part of the “deep state,” but during the charade in Congress on January 6, the debate on accepting the Electoral College votes featured a statesman-like (!!) Mitch McConnell and a Vice-President who proclaimed his love for the Constitution despite the entreaties of his boss. Yes, while there are those who yearn to pick up the post-Trumpian flag (Cruz, Hawley), even Tom Cotton didn’t ‘cotton to’ this ploy. Loyal lieutenants Chao and DeVos have—suddenly (with 13 days left in their terms!) found conscience, as has Mulvaney. We had to go pretty far to find their limits. Hopefully, the image of Trump-inspired mobs storming the Capitol will scare off even more soon-to-be-former MAGA-ites. The “center” as T.S. Eliot warned, may or may not be able to “hold,” but the right is about to come crashing into itself.

Law journals, historians, the “Deep State”: each has a litany of flaws and failings. Yet, they share a commitment to at least trying to act with intellectual integrity and public service. They take a long view of proposals, policies, and actions. In doing so, they are—in the best sense—anti-democratic. They are a necessary complement to democracy as a core social value.

Plato thought it would be great if the Republic were ruled by a council of educated wise guardians. It’s a nice thought exercise. It’s never worked since the small group designing the education of the wise and selecting the council have always been corrupted (eventually). In the meantime, as Churchill (and others) have said: “democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.” But pure democracy, as Plato and Aristotle (and Madison and Hamilton) feared leads to its own corruption: the chaos of the French Revolution, the plebiscites of Louis Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, the current authoritarian slides of Erdogan, Duterte, Bolsonaro, and Orban, and the constitutional debacle of Brexit.

So, some limits or balance seem to be best. The Deep State and the academy are parts of that. They are hardly infallible, and they can be petty and frustrating; but they provide a stabilizing force. Law journals’ critiques of Supreme Court decisions sometimes work long-term reversals. Historians—while they never resolve anything—give us a long-term perspective. Trump and his pardons will fade—pretty quickly given the large and real issues facing our country/world. Whoever the “winners” are in twenty (or two hundred) years can make up their own minds what kind of history to write.



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The Word for Our World is Forests

12/25/2020

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I’m not sure what the “holiday season” means in this weirdest of years. A chance to reflect, refresh, and recharge. 2021 will—eventually—be better, even if the first half will be bleak. One of the essential parts of the psychological stresses induced by the pandemic has been the uncertainty over its depth and duration. At least we now have a sense of an ending.

Speaking of which…hopefully, the worst thing that will happen in the last month of Trump is a gaggle of perverse pardons. The Biden Presidency will staunch the bleeding and make incremental steps on many necessary fronts. But the Dem’s ability to really move things forward is severely limited, even if things turn out well in Georgia.

So, both in terms of newsnoise and substance, I’d like to change the subject and talk about something that
* can be done
* have a real effect on a major human challenge, and
* doesn’t depend on who is running our government (or, indeed, most governments)

***

The Earth’s forests once comprised 6 trillion trees. Half of those are gone.

When the Bible was written, the issue of human domination of nature (embedded in Genesis) seemed like a theoretical problem. Even when Francis Bacon sparked what we call the “Scientific Revolution” in the 17C, human ability to leverage new knowledge was a dream. But the knowledge that resulted, compounded with Bacon’s assertion that humans were separate from and superior to nature, launched us to our present place.

The harnessing of knowledge and energy over the past 400 years has brought many wonders, but immense damage has been done along the way. Profound climate changes will, in the absence of wholesale changes in human behavior, cause massive destruction of natural systems, rising oceans, dramatically increased weather, and the deaths of millions of people through storms, droughts, famine, forced migration and flooding. Incremental changes, even if widespread, will only mitigate the likely losses.

This problem is not a surprise. People have been talking and writing about it for a long time.
* It would have been nice if people had figured this out and started to remedy it 160 years ago (George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature (1864)).
* It would have been nice if people had figured this out and started to remedy it 60 years ago (Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)).
* We have it figured out. Do we want to wait—like corona deniers last spring? How much will we pay to repair and prevent sea-level rise over the next 40 years?

There are two major (interrelated) impediments: inertia and nescience. [FN 1]

In modern times, large-scale intentional human endeavors have only occurred under the aegis of political communities. However, both domestic and international political systems appear to be unable to mobilize action at a scale and pace necessary to significantly mitigate, much less prevent ecological disaster. For example, efforts to construct a global carbon market or otherwise integrate what economists call “externalities” (i.e. things markets can’t account for) run afoul of bureaucratic inertia and incumbent opposition. All efforts—by individuals, cities, companies, and some countries—to attack this problem are to be applauded. But they are not enough.

Indeed, from this perspective, there is little reason to be optimistic. The consistent record of human history is to defer painful solutions to obvious, even life-threatening, problems until the problems become too large to ignore; at which point remediation is implemented at a much higher cost (and intervening damage) than if the problem had been addressed at an early stage.

Winston Churchill famously warned the British government for much of the 1930s about the dangers of a resurgent Germany. Facts were disbelieved or downplayed. Proposals for response were drowned by estimates of the costs involved which would burden an already weakened British economy. The psychological shadow of World War I prevented otherwise intelligent and well-meaning leaders from contemplating what would be necessary in the future. The result was cataclysm.

Once the War began, Britons adopted a new perspective and the question shifted from ‘How could we possibly do a little more?’ to ‘How can we do what needs to be accomplished?’ The same was true in the US after Pearl Harbor. Amazing things happened. Once the US entered WWII, Henry Kaiser figured out a way to produce “Liberty” cargo ships in 4 days rather than 45 days. Once the US entered the War, it was over in 44 months.

Our own experience with the coronavirus over the past year has demonstrated that many—most—people will not take threats seriously if the remedies are painful and the harm seems distant. The apparent multi-vaccine miracle may reverse this crisis. It may also help many people think: “Someone [else!] will figure it out and save us.”

If people cannot be troubled to wear a mask or avoid indoor parties, how much effort can we expect to drive less, consume less, or pay more for the carbon we use? If political leaders (not just our own, but those in most countries) are pusillanimous in the face of dire daily death counts, how much heat will they take for requiring the wide and deep social changes necessary?

Yet, pessimism is no reason not to “take up arms against a sea of troubles.” Feeling resigned or ‘tuning out’ will kill (more, and increasing) people.

Unlike German rearmament or pandemic prevention, those who perceive the problem can still act effectively in the absence of tops-down direction or leadership. What is required is a “coalition of the willing.” Not a league of countries, but a collection of those people, organizations, and governments who “get it.”

What is to be done?

Planting trees can do it.

Taking, for discussion’s sake, a target of 200 gigatons of carbon to be sequestered and an average carbon storage capacity per tree of ? ton, all it would take is 400 billion trees. That would make a big dent in the climate change problem. Now, since we (as a planet) are down 3 trillion trees, there is plenty of space to plant 400 billion, even given the huge expansion of the human footprint. One recent study of climate change shows that by 2100, climactic effects could well reduce the global economy by 5-7% (or about $5T/year). So, investing $10B a year would seem like a good investment. [FN 2]

Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House back in the ‘80s used to say that “All politics is local.” Trees are, too. Environmental conditions vary, county to county and country to country. And with global warming, what might have made sense to plant twenty years ago, may not make sense twenty years from now. Beyond the botany, forests need to be supported by local people; it’s better for the trees and better for the people: communities connected with the earth. This means adding a tree to a backyard, adding a dozen to a park, finding an open space (highway rights of way, for example) and plant a few hundred.

Many people and groups around the world are starting to do this, but most projects are necessarily small. And, given embedded climactic and cultural differences, there is good reason for a multitude of projects around the world. There is no reason to force their integration or control all these efforts, but there is plenty of opportunity to coordinate, share information and best practices, and foster the flow of funds from both public and private donors to well-designed, well-organized, well-supported, and sustainable projects. Until this year, there were two projects which have spoken of the size of effort referred to here, but they have no plan behind their catchy slogan of a “trillion trees.” The Nature Conservancy has a “billion tree” program. The Arbor Day Foundation in the US has a 100 million tree program. The National Forest Foundation in the US has a plan and infrastructure to put in 50 million trees by 2023.

In pre-pandemic 2020, Marc Benioff and the World Economic Forum announced a coordination effort for a trillion trees. Awesome. Perhaps they will be the information infrastructure to help local efforts around the country, but they’re not planting anything directly.

Most actual planting groups talk about their ‘stretch’ goals; that they are doing more than they’ve ever done before. It’s true and is admirable; but incremental improvement isn’t enough. After all, planting 400 billion trees would mean 8,000 projects of the size of the NFF program.

400 billion trees. It’s a lot. But, it’s feasible. The land (2 billion acres) is there, the science is there, the money (USD 100B) is can be found. How can it be knit together?

Local science, local land, local people, local planting; global funding, global network, global results.

Besides the moral benefits of personal/community action, the practicalities of the size of the project and the diversity of environments means that many localized projects have to be organized. After all, we’re actually talking about more than just planting, we talking sustainable long-term carbon sequestration that fits in with local people, local cultures, and local environments. How can we provide them with the knowledge, tools, ‘best practices,’ and a meta-community network to make this more feasible?

Recently, I connected with a group called Eden Projects that has been planting trees for fifteen years. They were pretty small for the first ten years, but now have been ramping up, building on a network of local projects that they manage on three continents. They combine science and an investment in local communities who they pay to plant and maintain trees and forests. This year, they are planting over 100 million trees and are committed to a radical expansion of their capabilities into the billions every year.

They’re getting my attention and support. But even if they plant 20 billion trees in the next forty years, we still need another 20 projects like them. So, there’s lots of work to be done. Planting trees is not the only approach, it’s certainly not a simple solution. But it can be done by those who are willing.

There is an old Chinese saying:
      “When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago.
        When is the second-best time to plant a tree? Now.”


1 Nescience (one of my favorite words) means willful ignorance.
2 I have some back-up for all these numbers. Contact me for more details.
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Rising and Falling Powers

12/18/2020

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The ink was barely dry (well, the electronic ink, at least) on Joe Biden’s announcement of his national security team last November when Sen. Marco Rubio, eager to start positioning himself for the 2024 race, announced he would oppose the nominees’ Senate confirmation. Rubio referenced the US-China geopolitical situation and decried the group as “polite and orderly caretakers of America’s decline.”

This was (another) faint echo of the McCarthy Era’s debate about who in the US government “lost China.” The same arrogance of embedded and stale hegemony as 70 years ago; as if China was “ours” to lose then and China’s rise in the past 40 years is ours to stop now.

Countries rise and fall, as I (and Paul Kennedy) have pointed out before. As often, a country rises (i.e. gains global military/economic/cultural power) even while another country rises even more and it appears that Country A is falling. Power (which includes the perception of power) is relative. [There’s probably a good line here about “absolute power is absolutely relative;” but I won’t go there!] That’s certainly the case with the US and China these days, even discounting whatever absolute decline was wrought by Trump’s flailing melodrama of a foreign policy.

Kennedy showed that there is a pattern in which great powers either get “fat-and-happy” or over-extended in their commitments. Leadership is hard, competition is tough at the championship level, in football or geopolitics. So, there is no surprise that the “American Century” might well be over.

The question is what, if anything, to do about it. Too often, historically speaking, the relative decliner is too lazy or frustrated and starts a war. It seems that this was the road (at least in terms of trade and economics) down which Trump was headed and which Rubio is claiming in his proto-Presidential positioning.

Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 were certainly in this position; fearing the growth and potential industrialization of Russia. Similar arguments could be made for Germany and Japan in the late ‘30s, vis-à-vis both the US and Russia. One could even make the case that this was the situation faced by the Southern states as they joined the Confederacy in 1861. The idea is that even though war is a crapshoot, the broader geopolitical and demographic trends are so ominous, that war looks like the less bad alternative. However, since humans are slow on the uptake, the decision in favor of conflict usually comes so far along in the process that the apparently falling power is too late to overcome the long-term trends and, after some initial success, succumbs to the long-term rising power. See, e.g., German vs. British or American war plane production in the 1940s or German (1917) or Japanese (1941) sneak attacks triggering US entry into WWI/WWII.

In our case, the long-term rise of China is neither surprising, nor under-explained. However, having gotten used to being the only dog on the top of the heap after the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, we just don’t like it. That power vacuum has not been filled (and neither Russia, India, or the European Union is capable of filling it). China’s aggressive foreign policy, built on a huge upturn in its economic and technological capabilities is the result. It is driven not only by capabilities, but also by a national mythology of being Chung Kuo (the “Middle Kingdom”), around which all other countries/barbarians would align themselves. It shows up in trade, in intellectual property theft, in territorial claims in India, Bhutan, Vietnam, and the South China Sea, and in its well-funded economic diplomacy across the global south. It shows up in China’s swift and effective (if heavy-handed) handling of the Coronavirus outbreak. Nothing made the Soviet Union look so good in the 1930s (hidden oppression and famines notwithstanding) as the liberal democracies’ struggle with the Great Depression.

And so, America, after the hand-wringing and Trumpian foot-stomping, what is to be done?
I’m certainly not suggesting that we “go quietly,” kow-tow, and brush up on our Mandarin. Nor will a national boycott of Kung-Pao chicken cut it. Perhaps we could rename fortune cookies as “freedom cookies,” since that worked so well against “French fries” in 2003.

Certainly a more assertive stance against the Chinese is called for in terms of trade relations. Certainly a more resolute stance in favor of human rights of the many ethnic minorities (Uighurs, Tibetans, etc.) would be appropriate; hopefully, in coordination with the EU. Certainly mobilizing South and South-east Asian countries in common causes (economic and territorial) is overdue.

Having said that, we’re also certainly not going to war if China invades Taiwan or completes its dissolution/assimilation of Hong Kong. The nihilism shared by Southern slaveowners and Kaiser Wilhelm II was bad enough, but in a nuclear age, it’s nonsense.

Actually, to use a sports metaphor, the best defense against global “decline” is a good offense. We have a lot to say and do with countries around the world where Chinese have been liberally  and often clumsily strewing their cash and ideas. More importantly in terms of democracy and trade, if we want to be competitive, we have to compete!

We also have to be realistic. Just wanting China to act like a 2d tier power isn’t going to make it happen. They’re not. Bringing rocks back from the far side of the Moon shows some serious techno-chops. As much as power determines things in the world, they have more of it than they used to and, in that sense, are entitled to have the world look a bit more like they want it to.

But both the effort implied in a “good offense” and the maturity implied in realism will take some real work and some changes in our outlook: a bit less global entitlement and self-righteousness; a bit more teaming (compromising) to gain alliances. We also need to take care not to let competitiveness overwhelm us as often happened during the “Cold War” where we turned too many blind eyes towards behavior in competed-for countries (e.g., Argentina, Congo, Iran) for anyone’s good.

China is a rising power (absolutely). The US is therefore, in relative decline (however much we may still be the envy of the vast majority of the world). Whining won’t work, Mario, even if it gets you some votes.


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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

12/11/2020

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(“Who will watch the watchmen?”)

The answer we have been living under for 230+ years was famously laid out by Montesquieu and realized in the doctrine of separation of powers in the Constitution. Under this model, each of the “three branches of government”: legislative, executive, and judicial is supposed to be limited in its natural tendency to accumulate power by the countervailing authorities of the other two. Despite the wide range of the ordinary jousting between and carping about each branch from advocates of the other two, the only fundamental shift among the three since the early 19C has been the accumulation of discretion by the executive branch, which has been driven particularly by the increasing breadth of governmental action and responsibility, as well as military technologies which have altered the nature of the nominally limited Presidential war powers.

Another change, however, calls out for remediation: the embedded nature of the political class as a whole which has manifested in members of Congress serving for multiple decades with little competition, hideous gerrymandering, an ossified duopoly of political parties, and election mechanisms corrupted long before Citizens United (2010). We have created a political oligarchy whose differences from the “democratic centralism” practiced by the Chinese Communist Party are far fewer than we would like to think. And, as is the nature of oligarchies, they prefer to “police” themselves, with the result that, once in office, Congressional “Ethics” Committees are a joke (Congress writes its own special health insurance and pension rules and exempts itself from standard rules preventing discrimination and abuse) and impeachment has descended into political theater.

Addressing these concerns will require a set of Constitutional changes that go beyond the simple tinkering of imposing term limits and reserving political speech rights to actual persons (i.e., excluding corporations). Efforts in the post-Watergate era which led to the creation of the Federal Election Commission (another model of bureaucratic toothlessness) were well intended but ran headlong into the power of incumbency and First Amendment sanctimoniousness.  When ordinary political processes have been corrupted, expecting them to produce useful and meaningful controls is naïve.

In The Republic, Plato proposed that a council of Guardians, made up of a small group of the wisest, best educated men, would be the best form of government. Such an approach doesn’t sit well in a democratic age with risks of corruption and difficulties of selection looming large. Nor does the closest current example: the Iranian Republic, bode well for a plenary, omnicompetent group dictatorship.

Perhaps a blending of Socrates and Montesquieu might be an improvement. A council of the wise whose scope of authority was limited to electoral and governmental integrity. They would be charged with administering electoral laws and constitutional provisions, including limitations on expenditures and methods, processes of selecting candidates, demarking electoral districts, and hearing allegations of corruption and other improper behavior on the part of elected officials.

A group of 5-7 members, eligible for a single term of 5-10 years, prohibited from further participation in politics and government (for themselves and their immediate families) could be trusted to act for the public good. Two members would be chosen by each house of Congress (using weighted voting to limit majority domination) plus three members to be chosen by the Supreme Court.

This Democracy Council would combine aspects of a standard administrative agency (including a combination of rule-making and enforcing powers), the recent upsurge in state-created citizen redistricting commissions, and Congressional “Ethics” Committees. Funding would be constitutionally guaranteed at a multiple of the budget of the Supreme Court.

A fourth arm of government might seem too radical, but this Democracy Council might be seen as at least half a branch. Judicial in stature, legislative in powers, but with a limited jurisdiction and enforcement powers, it might be an important step in restoring confidence in the democratic process. There are many examples of election commissions used in other countries, some of which have maintained integrity and independence from incumbent governments, from which we could draw lessons.

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The Laws of History

12/4/2020

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After a recent posting here, my friend Trevor Getz challenged me to respond to a recent article in The Atlantic about the views of entomologist-turned-psychohistorian Peter Turchin. The subtitle reads: “A historian believes he has discovered iron laws that predict the rise and fall of societies. He has bad news.”

Now, whenever a historian offers predictions, check your wallet, and whenever someone talks about the “laws” of history, find another conversation—quick!

I have to say that I share Turchin’s medium-term pessimism about US society and global economic and ecological outlooks. However, having read some of his other work, I don’t share his methodology or certainty.

In fact, when I first looked at this article about Turchin and predictions, I immediately thought of Gavrilo Principe, the Serbian assassin of Archduke Ferdinand, whose pistol provided the spark that set off World War I. It is not too much to say that if the ‘barista’ at the Sarajevo Starbucks (avant le lettre) had taken an extra couple of minutes preparing Principe’s macchiato, then Principe would not have been in a position to shoot the Archduke when the latter’s car stopped to back up after making a wrong turn, right on the corner where Principe was sipping his brew. Then: no July Crisis, no mobilizations, no war (at least not the one we got and any other would have sent the world in quite another direction). It was, in short, a fluke. No “laws” of history, psychohistory, or cliometrics (statistical analysis of history) could have predicted it.

Similarly, if you had asked a hundred political scholars and pundits in late 2014 who would be elected President two years later, a certain orange-coiffed individual would have never been mentioned. Nor, to take our immediate situation, were any of the prognostications about 2020 made just a year ago worth the electrons they are printed on. In fact, (as was much noted at the time) a shift of only 80,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have swung the 2016 election. And, as an echo (though much less covered in the media), a shift of about 42,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin would have re-elected the President. That is not to say that Clinton’s election in 2016 would have disrupted Turchin’s diagnosis, nor that the Biden victor will do so; merely to note that a swing of 3% of 1% of the vote certainly qualifies as a contingency, which sends the universe barreling down a different course.

Is it possible to extrapolate trends and find some patterns as bases of prediction? Sure. But, as I have said in other contexts, “The only thing we know about a strategic plan is that it’s one thing that won’t come to pass.” Can bright people, working at a sufficiently large scale, find some useful insights about the nature of human development? Absolutely. However, to project these into the future is another matter. There’s a big gap between plausibility and likelihood; a few seers are ever audited.

All these predictions depend on the (often unspoken) principle of “ceteris paribus,” a delightful Latin phrase which we know “all else being equal.” Great for economists and other simplifiers; but, history is replete with contingencies, personalities, and other surprises that have laid around every corner. And, if a contingency doesn’t show up, then the predictor is more likely to be right, at least directionally. I can think of a dozen plausible contingencies—some good, some bad—that would toss every prediction of the next twenty years into the garbage. So can you.

Moreover, projecting cycles of history (as Turchin does) is a practice as old as the Mayans and Tibetans. It doesn’t take much to look backward and see a rich list of “the rise and fall of ____.” Paul Kennedy did much the same as Turchin with historical grounding and considerable insight in his Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in 1987. (It’s all just an analogy from Newton: gravity, inertia, and all that.) Rejecting rigid cycles as a historical model is not to embrace the Enlightenment-driven contrary view that we are on an inexorable path to the “sun-lit uplands” of human civilization (to steal Churchill’s phrase). Perhaps, as Steven Pinker has argued in a couple of recent books, things have been getting better (civilizationally) for the past several hundred years. Will it continue? No one knows.

I was glad to see that Turchin acknowledged his intellectual debt to Isaac Asimov, whose sci-fi Foundation series (1950-52) included a character named Hari Selden. Selden, too, claimed to have discovered the laws of human behavior on a universal scale which enabled him to predict the course of developments far into the future. This science of “psychohistory” worked for a while, but then got knocked off course in a big-and-dramatic way by a mutant fluke, until some new heroes came to save the day. Perhaps Asimov was trying to re-establish Enlightenment optimism after European civilization had been knocked off course by Gavrilo Principe and Adolf Hitler.

Turchin may be right about his theory that our society will crash under the weight of too many in the “elite” class, or Piketty may be right that the cause will be that group having too much money. But we don’t need history to teach us the morality of inequality or social distension. We should fix them on our own, even if they won’t drive us over the cliff. Ditto on climate.
History, as I have argued several times in this blog, is great for many purposes (and it’s fun, too). But the future,… it’s a mystery.




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Triage

11/27/2020

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Triage

Determining where various groups of people will stand in the line to get the COVID vaccine (and the processes for making those decisions) will be the most contentious and revealing issues of the next six months. We’re already starting to hear rumblings in the media, but once we get past the Inauguration and initial appointments/policy statements, this set of questions will give us some significant clues as to what kind of country and what kind of world we live in. The answers may not be surprising, but will certainly be instructive.

Of course, much will depend on the progress developing/approving the Pfizer, Moderna, and Oxford vaccines and the others that are coming along. There will be major issues around manufacturing, distribution, and pricing. Some will work better with some populations and distribution chains than others,  but the composition of The List will engender political/moral debate at both the national and global levels.

Not everyone can be first. A two-dose vaccine will require 15 billion doses. The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer has estimated that it could well be 2024 before there is complete global coverage. So The List is important and, in our current world, its construction will be (generally) public and political. Even in the US, the (present) Administration has said that allocation will be done by the states (but how are the doses to be allocated to the states?)

Various groups will be proposed for priority treatment, each with plausible arguments behind them: (not in any order)
  • The elderly (oldest first)
  • Health care workers
  • Teachers
  • Students
  • Political Leaders and those politically connected
  • Sports Teams (why not artists?)
  • People with ‘co-morbidities’
  • "Essential” workers
  • Rich people
  • People from countries that
    • paid for the vaccine in advance
    • are powerful and rich
    • have been hardest hit
    • steal the vaccine formula

I don’t propose to resolve this debate. Polling companies are likely already ramping up to take the figurative pulse of the nation (and the world). I do think it would be interesting to put people who have washed their hands a lot and always worn a mask at the top of The List. And, we can assume that ‘anti-vaxxers’ will not be interested in any event (that’s another problem).

Regardless of the result, I will be curious to see the claims/arguments from those who downplayed the pandemic. Will they manufacture reasons for immediate self-protection? Perhaps voluntarily go to the back of the line, since the pandemic was a liberal/media hoax, so there’s no rush?

Similarly, I wonder about those who are vehemently anti-government. It seems pretty clear that governments will be in charge of this. So, especially if you are a die-hard Ayn Rand fan, arguing for an entirely market-based solution (vaccine auction anyone?), you will have something to complain about. Cost issues will come up here, too. Will those opposed to “excessive” government spending also argue for everyone to pay their own way? One of the big arguments against Obamacare and “socialized medicine” in general, was that governments shouldn’t ration health care (Sarah Palin’s diatribe against “death panels”). But, in an important sense, that’s what we’re going to have. For those people whose closest contact with triage was watching episodes of M*A*S*H, this could be a wake-up call.

There is another layer of issues at the global level. Should World Health Organization make the decisions about country-by-country allocation? What about those who quit the WHO? There is a group of 156 countries called COVAX (under the WHO’s auspices) which is working this out (guess who’s not in). Wow, if you hate government and socialized medicine in the US, the thought of a bunch of furriners putting the US of A at the back of the line is pretty appalling. Maybe we should send in a SEAL team to scoop some up?

Even without military action, the rich countries have gotten used to running things globally (e.g. IMF, WTO), usually with the US in the lead. But lately, we haven’t been at the table and even when we go back, it’s likely the others won’t be as deferential as they have been in the past. A new spin in international organization/governance may be one long-lasting result.

It will take a year to get everyone in the US covered. In the meantime, there will be another interesting situation: the potential for different social status between those with vaccinated/certified immunity and those without. What is the public health rationale to require vaxxers to wear masks?  (New joke line: If a vaxxer  and a non-vaxxer walk into a bar…?) Do they have to go to different rooms? Will they get other preferential treatment? Will vaxxers be allowed to wear a badge as an exemption? When some inevitably lazy/sociopathic guy decides to forge an ID card or badge even though they haven’t been vaccinated, will they be subject to criminal charges?

Generally, though, it will be an interesting exercise to make your own list. Which groups should go first? Why? How do your preferences correlate with your own demographics? Can I persuade you that seniors and teachers (and their friends) should be very high up on The List?



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Stories

11/20/2020

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“History,” as William Cronon has said, “is the stories we choose to tell about the past.”

Or, as I tell my students, there is (upper-case) “History” (the discipline and the practice and the stories) and there is (lower-case) “history” (all the stuff that has happened in the past). One of the things I am glad many of my students pick up on is that what they’re told in textbooks (and the History Channel and Wikipedia) is just one (highly digested and extremely coherent) version—one story told by one author in one time and place—and that there are many other ways to see the events, trends, and people of the past.

That’s an important part of using History as a means of teaching critical thinking: getting students to be aware of and weigh differing interpretations of the past: ‘were the Germans responsible for the start of WWI or was it the Serbs?,’ ‘was the American War of Independence about democracy or a contest between elites for which group should rule the colonies?’ We need to be aware of potential biases (sometimes explicit and plausible, sometimes not) or novel insights in interpretation. Being aware of that historians choose and how historians choose which kind of story to tell about the past is an essential part of Cronon’s point.

There is another layer to the issue of history as stories; and that is the question of the very use of narratives or stories. Humans love stories. Almost all of us love hearing stories (and some of us like telling them, too). Whether they claim to be factual or clearly dispense with any claim to the “truth,” we can get easily wrapped up in the telling of tales. Part of this is driven by emotional satisfaction from heroic epics, romances, and the resolution of tension.

But a bigger part comes from the comfort of coherence, from the psychological security of feeling able to understand a situation and taking that comfort and applying it to my own life.  If the world makes sense (i.e., is coherent) then perhaps I have a better shot at controlling it or at least I will feel less afraid because there are fewer unknowns/surprises. If “History” has “lessons,” then perhaps I can learn them and apply them and have some control over my future. That’s the theory, in any case.

If I have a reliable theory of the origins of anti-Semitism, perhaps I can take steps to prevent its recurrence or deal with its effects. Love stories and hero’s quests (even if fictional) provide more positive role models, but to the same effect. A story that makes sense encourages me to believe that the world is subject to understanding and (to some degree) control; even if, in fact, much/most/all is random and contingent.

This practice may be deeply based in human cognitive evolution and worked well enough when proto-humans were running around East Africa. Now, however, the world is much more complex and driven by the workings of human minds (not just animal behavioral patterns). It’s no wonder that modern historical analysis developed about the time of the industrial revolution as the pace of change and complexity in human societies began to skyrocket. We needed tools to try to make sense of this world and History (the practice) promised to explain change and subject history (the past) to order and usefulness.

History also depends on claims of rational (i.e. legible/understandable) human behavior. But, as we all know from our own lives and trying to understand our own friends, families, colleagues, etc. this is a dicey game. It usually ends up being about me projecting my own idea patterns on others. Why did Truman order the dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan in August, 1945? Did this “cause” Stalin to react in certain ways, leading to the “Cold War?” Many theories/factors have been advanced, most of which are quite plausible. But how to weigh and sort them? Without understanding Truman’s psyche (or Stalin’s), it’s a mug’s game. And, yet, we Historians draw from whichever version we prefer to create all sorts of stories about post-war international relations and geopolitics.

Even without this logical gap in our ability to analyze human behavior, we Historians face two other hurdles: the past-ness of historical behavior (how can we really imagine what people from another culture thought?) and recent neuro-science claims that human consciousness is unknowable. It’s no surprise that some have argued that History (at least the part that tells stories filled with causation and explanation, including pretty much all “popular” history) is, in Henry Ford’s words, “bunk.”

It will come as no surprise to those who have read the initial entries in the blog that I have some sympathy for this view. What I may take as the “lessons” of history are usually projections of my own feelings and ideas. Now, as a card-carrying Historian (AHA member #8429936), I still think there is value and use in studying the past; just not as much as many of my colleagues. How I choose to order the events of the past, how I connect a string of individual’s decisions over time, how I “understand” history—all are great tools for me to see myself.

And, while I’m working on that, I still like getting wrapped up in a good story.


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Party Time

11/13/2020

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Trump’s election in 2016 was an overdetermined quirk. His defeat in 2020 was not, however, a return to “normal.” Among the many aspects of the defunct old order is the Republican Party, whose behavior (both corporately and in terms of the “leaders”) has been even more egregious and surprising than the rise and fall of a certain solipsistic putz.

With a few exceptions (McCain, Kasich, Romney (from time to time), and a smattering of second-tier Bush-ites), the lust for power and fear of a non-white-male-dominated America has led to a smorgasbord of craven kow-towing. The jettisoning of institutional values in Congress and the administration was breath-taking until it became routine. A recitation of the list would be numbing.

Rumblings about Trump continuing in politics are media noise. He may run a fund-raising/celebrity/reality show scam, but between the COVID carnage and his upcoming personal and financial travails, his cult of personality will grow quickly stale. What will be even more interesting than who seeks to assert some mode of post-Trump leadership (Haley, Cruz, Cotton?) is the question of what they will stand for. Even leaving aside the pettiness, crudeness, and idiocy of many policy decisions, there is little left of what used to be Republicanism.

In his typically unintentional irony, Trump regularly referred to any number of traditional Republicans who dared not to fall completely into (his) line as “RINOs”: “Republicans In Name Only.”  (as usual, the best way to read Trumpian critiques is to reverse the pronoun, i.e., he criticizes others for his own character traits).

The problem is that such a critique assumes that there is something substantive to being a Republican. There used to be, of course, but what is left?: tax cuts and deregulation based on trickle-down economics: yes. Balanced budgets and deficit reduction: No. Federalism and deference to local groups: No. Compassionate Conservatism: No. Liberal Internationalism: No. Respect for the Military: No. Fierce devotion to individual freedom: spotty at best.

Even plausible policy positions (regardless of whether I agree with them) on immigration, education, judicial interpretation etc. have been drowned in Trumpian vitriol. Nor is it apparent who has the moral standing to bring any sort of coherent, politically viable collection of “conservative” policies to the public forum.

There may be a Republican Party going forward, but it is likely to be, itself, RINO.

The Democrats are not in much better  shape. Once the target of indignation is gone, they will likely revert to their infighting, wrestling with climate, identity politics, coherent foreign policy etc. AOC has already started down this path. Other “progressives” join her in conflating policy hopes (which I generally share) and political feasibility. In our polarized political discourse, most tugging from the wings generates animosity on the other wing and fear in the center.

My argument is not about which ideology should prevail in either group, a topic that has already engaged the commentariat; rather it goes to the shells/labels/institutions which carry some set of ideas forward.

Change is in the air. The world is different, the country is different. The parties (at least their shells) remain. They are stale, corrupt, and well past their “sell-by” dates. As a political society, we are overdue for a realignment. The Nixon/Johnson switch in the loyalty of the South is fifty years old. The Progressive line up through FDR is pushing 100.

The nineteenth century saw all sorts of party births, deaths, and realignments. It’s doubtful either Adams or Jefferson would have recognized their progeny fifty years after they had passed. The British went through a tortured period of transition from Liberalism to Labour from the late 19C through WWII. Many countries have a lengthy roster of current parties and a bewildering list of historical incarnations. A substantial number have really just been personality vehicles who collapsed after their leader left the scene. Their ideological consistency has been fortuitous in the moment, and then evanescent. Is the GOP next in this line?

What may keep the shells of both Democrats and Republicans alive in the US is that they have insinuated themselves into the legal process of politics. Their sclerotic duopoly controls gerrymandering, access to primaries and election rolls. A robust antitrust model would blow them apart and re-open the political markets to competition. Why is it that taxpayers should pay for a private group to select its leaders? The Methodists don’t line up and the federal trough when they elect a new presiding Bishop, nor is Walmart’s Annual Meeting subsidized (at least directly) by the State of Arkansas. Some states go so far as to provide that in case of a vacancy in their US Senate seat, the incumbent’s state party central committee gives the Governor a short list of acceptable replacements.

The duopolistic nature of the system is most evident in the high art of electoral district line-drawing. Now armed with sophisticated mathematical models parties design districts for incumbency rather than community (with no small degree of racial and class discrimination). Early-19C Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry (and his salamander-shaped legislative district map) would be envious. The recent move in some states to neutral citizen-driven apportionment processes offers some hope on this front, but the entrenched parties and pols (and their judges) will likely make this slow going.

This is not rooted in an aversion to the “two-party” system; although splintering may be the result, at least for a while. Coalition governing is no panacea, even if it is no worse than what we have. A bit of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” is called for. Let’s shuffle the cards and see what shakes out.

Besides the structural benefits, noted above, a re-shuffle would energize the process and allow for new leadership, new alliances, and new ideas to emerge. If we need a new political culture of engagement in this country, tossing out the Ds and the Rs (or, at least, not preventing their implosion) would be a good start.


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A Path Forward

11/6/2020

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Some years back, when I was managing the merger and integration of businesses, I was told “The hard stuff is easy and the soft stuff is hard.” I have found it to be true in many circumstances. Combining payroll systems or marketing logos or divisional structures can be a real pain, but they pale in comparison to corporate culture. Every group of people has language, attitudes, and an ethos by which they relate to each other and operate whatever activities they have as a group. Sociologists call these “institutions” (not to be confused with formal organizations) and they usually take a lot of time to consciously change.

The same points apply to societies in general and to US democracy in particular. As we look to next year, we see our culture has been severely battered over the past few decades and we need to figure out what to do. As noted above, the “hard” stuff is (relatively) easy. Legislative agendas are afloat, including social justice, health, environment, and dozens of other areas. Although the likely blockage of Mitch McConnell will render significant steps (and anything that AOC would prefer) nugatory. Relations with Europe and China will be repaired, capable people will be appointed to senior positions and some progress will be made.

More challenging is the “soft” stuff. Political polarization, exacerbated by mercenary mass media, makes it seem that, as a society, we can’t talk to each other. Norms of courtesy and comity have been discarded (not least in relationships within our governmental bodies). This has been largely the work of the soon-to-be-erstwhile Administration and its craven allies. However, those on the ‘left’ are hardly innocent. Hillary Clinton’s infamous reference to Trump supporters as “deplorables” was insulting, over-generalizing, and destructive. The schadenfreude over anti-maskers getting infected is of the same ilk. Judgmentalism is rife on both sides.

The question is not whether I like everybody in this country (much less agree with them); rather, it is how can I contribute to mending the body politic. This requires sympathy rather than disparagement, an effort to listen to and through what others are saying, and listening to more than MSNBC/Fox News. Pretty much everyone I know (even in that bizarre bubble of culture known as the Bay Area) is complicated and contradictory. Underneath the vast majority of our fellow citizens there are some common values; unfortunately, they (we) have slipped into simplistic, Manichean thinking (both as to ourselves and each other).

More fundamentally, I have to decide that while it would be easier and nicer to imagine a country where everyone (more-or-less) agreed with me, that is not the case. Unless I am prepared to jump ship, I am part of this place and I will be better off with a community that accommodates and compromises than one which embraces some sort of ideological fantasy. There is no history of social revolution in this country (1776-83 replaced one set of white male elites with another); nor, as evidenced by the down-ticket strength of the GOP, (media hype over the “Proud Boys” notwithstanding) is one foreseeable (much less likely).

It means discarding easy (red/blue) labels and categories. It means making some hard choices on tough issues: social justice, abortion rights, and gun rights, among others, that aren’t fully aligned with my views. It means making an effort to find real concerns underneath the rhetoric and respecting them. It does not mean throwing away what I believe, but dealing with the reality of a complex and diverse population.

It also means working to engage others in conversation and encouraging everyone to participate in our shared endeavor. Civics lessons shouldn’t be limited to those under 22. This needs to be a conscious choice—setting a new habit—to value our political community as much as our political policy preferences. After all, what are our choices:?
  • God smites all evil people, leaving just those who are right-thinking (i.e., us).
  • We assume that it’s a generational thing, and that in twenty-or-so years, enough of “them” die off to foster necessary change.
  • A modest-sized progressive majority makes the desired changes and “they” roll over and accept it.
  • We battle it out indefinitely and have a miserable and dysfunctional body politic for a while.

It would be nice to have leaders who would lead us in a constructive direction. The corrupt political class (on both sides) is caught up in power dreams and few have stepped beyond this. On the other hand, it’s not (just) their fault. As Joseph de Maistre said (1811): “Every country has the government it deserves.”

Real leadership is cultural, moral and inclusive; in attitudes, not budgets.

I’m sure there are many who would say I’m being naïve, a Pollyanna, or that I have ‘sold out.’ I am eager to hear alternative ‘real-world’ solutions to our predicament.




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    Condemned to Repeat It --
    Musings on history, society, and the world.

    I don't actually agree with Santayana's famous quote, but this is my contribution to my version of it: "Anyone who hears Santayana's quote is condemned to repeat it."

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