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The Nature of the State

4/26/2024

A modern state is the crystallization of its society. Therefore, it acts to represent its society both to the outer world (countries and individuals) and back to that society itself and to the individuals who constitute it. As a result, from the perspective of the outside world, the state is the target/recipient of blame and praise for actions coming from the society as well as state actions themselves. Similarly, it is the target/recipient of blame and praise for actions coming from the outside world.

In the US especially, our political culture has minimized the state by limiting its reach (e.g., carving out protected spheres for church, the press, and individuals); but the decline of the church (long-term) and the disintermediation of the media (more recently) has brought the world and US society closer (a trend exacerbated by the many facets of globalization); thus increasing tensions and blame of the state, especially as constituted in the US as the federal government and the executive branch in particular. This has contributed to ungovernability and MAGA-like rejection of the state, when, in fact, the issue is not the ability of the state to cope with the world (however problematic that might be) but as an expression of incomprehension of the world and frustration with the limited power of individuals to control it.

This is compounded by a standard mythology which sees the US as the distinctive champion of limited government. In fact, since the progressive era of the late 19/early 20C, we have moved a long way from the idyllic view of a minimal state which leaves the bold explorer to carve his way through the wilderness and hold himself as a free man providing for his family. Likely as not, that man established himself on a government grant of land. Railroads were certainly built with government subsidies. Regulatory structures—zoning, antitrust, income tax, consumer protection—all date from this era. General management of the national economy dates from the Great Depression (95 years ago). Recent protests against “big government” (“Keep your hands off my Medicare”) show the distance from popular perception to reality.

This is an example of what the historian Tony Judt called the “discursive battle;” i.e., the need to point out that our language/mythology/epistemology is out of touch with the real world.

The expansion of state responsibility has taken place over centuries; usually in grudging response to the increased complexity of society, the growth of populations which has made bureaucracies the necessary means of coping with basic organizational functionality, and the increased knowledge (science/rationality) of the way in which nature and markets work. From that perspective, it’s hard to see an alternative to a larger state. At the same time, the increased expectations/responsibilities of the state has enabled individuals to pretend that they have no social responsibility. When paired with alienation engendered by capitalism, we have yet to come up with a psychologically sound means of coping with a much larger, more complex world than we were used to on the East African savannah 100,000 years ago.

Looking across the world it’s clear that the state model isn’t working so well. Some activities (e.g. trade, climate, global finance) can only be dealt with at a global level. Localist/nationalist opposition is our 21C version of the battles between states and cities/provinces/principalities in the 19C. The disparities between local “sovereignty” and global effects means we all suffer.

Many states don’t work because there is no coherent community which the state can represent. A couple of years ago (040822), I wrote about failed states in a variety of places around the world and suggested that one remedy might be to create an updated version of the “trusteeship” model which the UN began in 1947 crossed with the model used by the UN in a few cases to administer territories that were in need of short-term stabilization. The world has changed considerably since then and some major changes are needed, but we need a model of governance and “nation building” beyond what is currently bringing misery and fear to so many people in these areas.

The people of the affected territory would in effect be required to surrender their “sovereignty” for a period in order to gain some stability in their lives and undergo a process leading to the restoration of independence and the potential of improved living conditions. Such a move would radically upset many of the accepted myths of the modern global political system, including a sense of continuous forward political and social progress and self-determination.

Here are some candidates for the first round of this process: Haiti, Sudan, Palestine, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, northwestern Myanmar, Kurdistan, Iraq, and many minute island countries in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific.

The UN trusteeship program was designed to oversee certain territories which had been imperial holdings of the defeated Axis powers, mostly in Africa, with a range of islands in the Western Pacific which Japan had ruled. The UN model itself was adapted from the “mandate” system under the League of Nations which oversaw similar populations/territories of Germany and the Ottoman Empire after their loss in WWI. The African countries became independent in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the broader global decolonization process which drastically reduced the formal footprint of European empires.

Now, I’m no big fan of the way the UN operates generally. Indeed, its structural dysfunction cries out for a wholly-rewritten charter, along the lines of what I have argued for the US and its outdated Constitution. However, it remains the only expression of global political coherence we have and its sanction would be an important factor in securing both external and internal support for an interim regime.

More important is a direct voice in the governing structure for the peoples affected. Supervised elections could choose 40% of the interim council, a ratio gradually to be increased over the transitional term. The balance of the council would comprise designated representatives of the UN (20%) and of the supporting countries (40%). The operating administration, comprised of local civil servants and assigned consultants, would be backed by a UN-organized domestic military, including troops from other countries.

So, is it “back to the drawing board” for this fundamental building block of the modern political world? At least it’s time to move beyond the critiques to actually thrashing around new concepts and frameworks.

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Mission for America

4/19/2024

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A friend of mine recently connected me with a think tank called New Consensus and, in particular, their rather stunning set of proposals for national renewal called “Mission for America.” It’s led by the folks who originated the “Green New Deal” concept, some notable portions of which ended up being enacted by the Biden Administration. It makes for heady reading. You can check it out here.

Those who are familiar with my thoughts on climate and the US Constitution know that I have an affinity for radical proposals. Incremental change is a nice norm, but doesn’t work in a crisis, especially when the normal political processes have become sclerotic. Blankets and hand-rubbing might be fine for a touch of hypothermia, but electro-cardial shocks are necessary to deal with a stopped heart.

Still, radical remedies are difficult to envision. As some have said about my constitutional rewrite project: “I like the result, I just don’t see how we can get from here to there.” Implementing the vision requires not a little faith, and—not surprisingly—such proposals often contain some “deus ex machina” (“act of God”) component. As a result, even if pitched as a specific actionable proposal, there is also a clear sense of intellectual provocation so that someone in the world of actual political engagement will at least pay attention and absorb some of the points and principles.

The gist of the Mission concept is an integrated approach to addressing the climate crisis by restructuring the US economy—across the manufacturing, financial, services, and labor sectors or, from the other end, to reset our approach to our economy by pivoting towards climate solutions. Many of the specifics have been bruited about for years (some for decades), but they are fleshed out here and—as importantly—integrated. Changes in the political mechanisms are included (even if not as radical as my constitutional proposal).

Thus, there is much to like about the Mission for America. It’s nothing if not bold. It’s comprehensive; it’s grounded on sound policy and plausible economics. Whether your priority is an economic perspective or an environmental one, you can’t solve the myriad issues without some fundamental changes and, as importantly, a set of specific plans. Hand-wringing won’t get us far and table-pounding is necessary, but only gets the ball rolling. Nay-sayers and nit-pickers need to be thanked (politely) for their concerns and then excused from the room.

I have some doubts about several of the substantive approaches. Boldness easily tips into hubris, so I’m sure that there are mistakes and overreaches; but the illusion of perfection is a sure prescription for inaction, so I’m willing to have some mis-fires. It’s essential to compare the Mission’s vision with our current trajectory, not some rah-rah “let’s all do 20% better,” incrementalism on the one hand or a simplistic utopia on the other. From that perspective the package looks pretty attractive.

For all its breadth, the Mission doesn’t directly take on the seemingly insurmountable problem of our dysfunctional political culture. The problems cut across the traditional left/right framework. Most Dems are too meek or fixated on rejecting whatever passes for Trumpism. In terms of substantive policy, MAGA-ites can’t decide whether to stick their heads into the sand or up an unsavory orifice; so you can’t even begin to have a discussion with them. On the other hand, most have no remaining hard ties to any political philosophy, so they might be flexible. It remains to be seen whether any of the “younger” Dem wannabe’s (Pete? Gretchen? Gavin?) would have the chutzpah/cojones to embrace something like this. Kamala needs something to rev up her candidacy, but she has little record of éclat. On the other hand, as I have called for a fundamental reset of our political structures (the Dems are only a bit better off than the GOP), perhaps the Mission can be the trigger for reshuffling our current configurations. Its breadth and boldness could certainly provide an opening for re-engaging the younger voters who are pretty much “over it” with regard to our current political parties/personalities.

While the proposal studiously avoids the term, there is definitely a flavor of 21C socialism underlying its approach. It’s a taboo word in US political discourse (an aversion to centralized state power (King George III) compounded by Jeffersonian yeomanry and, the highly negative example of the Soviet Union), which has distorted the entire set of words we use to talk about politics. Regardless of the language used, however, an increasingly global perspective and a more sophisticated understanding of environmental and economic interdependency means we have to think in fundamentally different ways about how we operate as a society and the allocation of functions between the “public” and “private” sectors.

That being said, the Mission proposal is not a comprehensive guide to rebooting all our major policy issues, much less society as a whole. Perhaps there are plans for a broadened perspective in upcoming revisions. Tax, regulatory, and infrastructure issues all loom large as adjacent policy areas.

I have noted previously that history does not give us many examples of human societies pro-actively addressing their accumulating ills and looming threats. It usually seems to take a crisis to produce significant change, nostrums about “an ounce of prevention/pound of cure” notwithstanding. Assuming that there will be a window for effective/mitigatory action once the crisis gets even more dire (not at all clear!), it would be really helpful to have a bunch of plans in hand to re-orient our global culture. It would be helpful to have gone through at least some of the tire-kicking and sanity-checks beforehand, even if they’re likely to be a bit-outdated by the time we’re falling off the cliff.

So, there’s a lot of value in being bold and being specific, even if only to get real discussions moving so that we’re not starting from scratch when most folks are actually scared enough to break out of their incrementalistic shell and turn the unpleasant realities into opportunities.

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Drugs in History

4/12/2024

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For all the modern moralizing and disparagement, mind-altering substances have been immensely popular across human history. Indeed, taken together, commercializing and promoting their use has been a significant driver of geopolitics, globalization, empire, and (often) the economic foundation of the shape of our world—and far more so than the efforts to attack their supply or deter their use.

Indeed, the moral righteousness around drugs has often been highly selective. I would bet that the lawyers going after the Sacklers for the latter’s role in the 21C opiate crisis consume a fair amount of alcohol and caffeine (ditto for the many “soldiers” (and “generals!) in the US “War on Drugs” from the 1970s onward). The temperance movement which flourished in the 19C and culminated in the US (short-lived) Prohibition Era (1920-33) at least condoned tobacco, sugar, and caffeine. So, this is (yet another) area where we have to be careful of hypocrisy and anachronistic judgementalism.

Speaking broadly, such drugs (my list includes opiates, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and cannabis) have been used not only as sources of profit, but also tools of control, both in terms of imperial relationships and domestically. Regulation/prohibition, taxation, import monopolies, export monopolies, coercive labor regimes, and a continuum of violence from petty criminality to full-scale warfare are the commonplace of a history of drugs. Indeed, I suspect that one could rather robustly populate a multi-dimensional matrix, using drugs, power structures (states), and time across three axes.

Probably the most famous such situation in (relatively) recent history is the British cultivation and export of opium from India to China in the 19C. Famously wrapping themselves in the flag of “free trade,” the British insisted that China allow opium imports and unleashed two wars in the 1830s/50s to enforce their power to push drugs. Sugar was a key component in the British/American three-legged trade pattern of the 18/19C, famously captured in the phrase: “rum, molasses, and slaves.” Tea from China, and later India, was similarly critical to Euro-Asian trade patterns (not to mention its centrality to British culture). Coffee was a later and (until the 20C) lesser trade factor. Tobacco from the British colonies in North America was important from the days of Sir Walter Raleigh (16C) onward.

From another perspective, we can see that the efforts of the US to prevent a variety of drugs from entering our country, manifested in all sorts of quasi-military actions in the vast majority of countries in the Western Hemisphere over the past 50 years. There’s some evidence that the “War on Drugs,” initially promulgated during the Nixon Administration, was more focused on criminalizing the behavior of minority and other political adversaries than it was aimed at directly improving the social fabric of the country.

Apart from the impacts of use/abuse, the production of such commodities has been the site of many forms of oppression. Much of the sugar produced in the Caribbean in the 17C-19C came from slave labor, as was significant portion of the tobacco produced in the southern US. Even without formal slavery, exploitative labor structures, can be found in coca farming in South America as well as opium farming in 18C India and 20C Afghanistan. Notably, differing roles of states, formal state-sponsored commercial enterprises (e.g., the British and Dutch East India Companies), and less formal organizations (e.g. drug cartels that take over regional/local governmental administration) ensures that we can’t just look for whose flag is being flown to understand “cui bono” (i.e., “who benefits”). This is not just a historical concern. The NYT ran a piece last month on the exploitation of sugar workers in India.

I have noted before that “history” is not just a matter of kings, battles, technology, or philosophy. As my friend, Jim Grossman of the American Historical Association, says: “Everything has a history.” As importantly, all the pieces, angles, events, and descriptive language are interconnected. You can’t write about the naval arms race between Britain and Germany in the early years of the 20C and how it contributed to WWI, without understanding how the Brits accumulated the cash to build the boats. Slaves in Jamaica, peasants in India, opium buyers in China, tea drinkers on every continent, and millions of others could tell you how that capital was accumulated.

The distinctive thing about drugs in history is not that they were vehicles for profit and exploitation (within or between empires); nor that they were items of human consumption (as the many great histories of food, clothes, and other “things” amply demonstrate); rather, it is that these mind-altering substances are tangled up with the nature of human consciousness, all manner of social convention, and, therefore, morality. Producers, traders, and users have all been subject to condemnation or condonation in ways not usually associated with corn, cotton, or transistor radios (remember those!). When governments get involved, whether as regulators or facilitators, the social/political and moral landscapes get even more complex.

These entanglements make it more difficult than usual for historians to “unpack” their own (personal or societal) judgmentalism and package/frame/interpret the practices of the past. The evolving characterizations of human consciousness (torporous or energetic, mystic or hallucinogenic) add another layer of complexity. How are we to see those who used (or opposed or produced or traded) opiates, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and cannabis? Tee-totalers? Churchill with his cigars and champagne? Shamans? MADD? Plantation owners? Rum-runners? Cocaine mules? Rastas? Betel-chewers? “Lotus-eaters” of 18C opium or 21C opiates? It’s a bewildering set of exercises that forces any seeker after coherence and consistency to pause (which is, after all, History’s job).

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Non Poll Tax

4/5/2024

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The 24th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1964 as part of the push for civil rights legislation of the 1950s/60s. It prohibits states from imposing a tax on voting, widely used in the former Confederacy (Unsurprisingly, 36 of the 38 states who initially ratified the amendment were from outside the South).

The Poll Tax was introduced after the Civil War and became widespread throughout the region by the early 20C. Basically, it was intended to keep poor people from voting and since almost all Black residents of the southern states were poor, it was an effective device to keep Blacks from political power. Supporters of this approach to politics have since moved on to other modes of voter suppression, but this particular technique is consigned to history.

Beyond the racist and classist aspects of this approach to democracy, there is a more fundamental point: we should want everyone to vote. As I have suggested in my new draft Constitution (portions of which have been posted here over the past few years), such a policy should be affirmatively stated in our basic document. However, there’s a way to make that happen even without a constitutional amendment/convention.

Voting in Presidential elections has averaged about 58% of the eligible population over the past 40 years. As we all know from anecdotal evidence and our own practice, voting in state/local and off-cycle elections can be considerably less. Although the vote in the 2020 Presidential election was the highest on record at 66%, there is a broader concern about what we might call “voter ennui.” There is widespread disenchantment with the political process, particularly among younger citizens. They need a bit of a boost to get them to the polls.

A few other countries mandate voting, notably Belgium, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and much of Latin America. Such requirements are often nominal, with little enforcement mechanism. Several places, such as Venezuela, Italy, and Austria, have repealed requirements in the past 30 years.

A mere aspiration or admonition doesn’t seem practically effective. Criminalization of non-voting seems a step too far. Most countries that require voting impose only a small fine for failure to vote. A nominal penalty, however, implies that the duty is merely pro forma and not to be taken too seriously. Instead, the cost of non-voting should be significant, reflecting a broader belief in our shared responsibilities of citizenship and our need to act as a single political community.

Fortunately, we already have a mechanism in place to incent citizens to vote and a precedent that can be adapted to encourage voting: the tax code. We could increase current taxation rates by, say, 1% across the board (e.g., if you were in a 10% bracket, you would now be in an 11% bracket). Then, we would apply an offsetting citizenship credit to be supported by an official electronic certificate from your local registrar; the equivalent of an “I voted” sticker. Those who didn’t vote would thereby pay a meaningful additional tax.

By using the existing tax collection mechanism, we would minimize bureaucratic processes of enforcement. We would also ensure that the “fine” for not voting was graduated by income.

One additional twist would be to impose such a “citizenship” charge on non-citizens: a surtax, as it were, for the privilege of being a guest in this country.

As a matter of principle, taking steps to ensure that all citizens had an easy method of voting would have to be a prerequisite to such a proposal, so that this “non-poll tax” would be part of a broader set of policies and standards around registration, access, and methods for voting. Given the history of voter suppression, this would argue for a more extensive federalization of the voting process; a step I take more fully in my new draft constitution.

Indeed, we could think about this voting incentive as part of a larger package of principles and actions on the nature of democracy and citizenship in our society. Instead of being seen as an aggravation or obligation, voting should be characterized as an integral part of a package of participating in the direction of our society. You can ask those who have become US citizens how important the right to vote is to them. You could (theoretically) ask those who live in places where voting is a sham. One of my favorite slides in my lectures on the history of democracy shows the people of South Africa lined up by the hundreds for their first chance to vote for their own representatives after decades of struggling against apartheid.

Individually, many of us take it for granted. Some say voting doesn’t matter; that the two parties are pretty much the same (a rather more plausible argument a decade ago); that the system is broken so that democratic choices are stifled by a dysfunctional political process; that the world is going to hell anyway, so what does it matter. I will spare you the usual recital of democratic virtues in rebuttal. My response would be: “Too bad. Sorry that it’s a bit of inconvenience; but it’s part of the admission price for being here.” Indeed, it’s logical nonsense to have rights without responsibilities and such a pollitical system will sooner-or-later break down.

Societally, we don’t take the responsibility of voting seriously. Public discourse is full of mumbles. Those who promote voting are dismissed/ignored as lovely “do-gooders.” Voting needs to be brought back from the fringes of our political discourse. It should be fostered, facilitated, and celebrated.

Debating my proposal would certainly contribute to that. Implementing it would ensure that voting wasn’t merely a side-show to our culture as a country.

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The Nature of the State

Mission for America

Drugs in History

Non Poll Tax

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

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The Nature of the State

Mission for America

Drugs in History

Non Poll Tax

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

Archives

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