Amicable Collisions

Spreading the ideas of political freedom and market capitalism

2010-12-20T06:49:00.000-05:00

It is important to continue to recall the nature of the ideological battle that was the Cold War. Millions have come of age with no experience of that time and will only know the Cold War through history books if they know anything about it at all. The struggle to spread the ideas of political freedom and market capitalism continues, but in a very different way. We need new words, concepts, and visions to appeal to people around the world.

The Cold War, for example, was won by the U.S. and its allies not so much by military means as by spreading the ideas of political freedom and market capitalism to other regions that, in the words of strategic thinker Stanley A. Weiss, "helped suck the lifeblood out of communism's global appeal," making it incapable of meeting the widespread yearning for a better and more-open life.

What's often forgotten is that this was mostly done by liberals.

Is "federalism" really the solution?

2010-12-19T20:21:00.001-05:00

"Federalism" is often touted as a solution to our problems. Usually what people mean by "federalism" is a bias towards state and local governance in opposition to federal governance. I've come to think that this is a phony issue. First of all the same citizens who elect federal office holders also elect state and local office holders. So the idea that there is something uniquely pure and republican about local and state politics is ridiculous. There is no value distinction between these levels of government.

Second, state and local governments have been run just as incompetently as the federal government. In my state there are many local governments that are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the state government has been passing its budgets on smoke and mirrors. There is nothing about local and state government that justifies the romance and fantasy that is propagated by advocates of "federalism."

The federalism argument is rooted in a mid-20th century opposition to a big federal government. Opponents were looking for any alternative to big government and they latched on to "federalism" as a tactic to oppose big government by claiming that local and state government should have priority. But in my state, local governments are struggling with roles and responsibilities that were organized in an industrial society that no longer exists.

So just saying "federalism" doesn't solve any problems. This is why I've lost patience with libertarian and conservative rhetoric about federalism. Libertarianism and conservatism as movements have been dominated by intellectuals who have little practical experience with governance. How many have been city managers struggling with the challenges of local governance? Libertarianism and conservatism have been so focused on opposing the industrial-age managerial liberalism, that they never really addressed how to govern an industrialized society. Classical liberalism is a pre-industrial variety of liberalism and it offers little guidance for the challenges we have faced over the past hundred years.

We need to think about how to apply liberal principles to 21st century realities.

"For America to move forward, power is going to have to shift from bureaucrats to entrepreneurs"

2010-12-11T12:52:00.003-05:00

Walter Russell Mead is a great resource. I've come to really enjoy reading his blog at The American Interest. The thing that resonates with me is that he recognizes that we are in a significant transition period, which has been a main theme of my thinking for the past several years. The people who are going to make a difference are those who are creatively thinking about the new world that is coming into being. It won't be the progressives, conservatives and libertarians who are all trapped in outdated, 20th century, industrial age ideologies. It is a very difficult task to convince people that their inherited ideology is not the one true way. It requires a kind of suspension of disbelief to recognize that there are legitimate modes of thinking that have not yet been imagined. And then to begin the adventure of trying to imagine them.

America has everything it needs for success in the twenty-first century with one exception: a critical mass of thinkers, analysts and policy entrepreneurs who can help unleash the creative potential of the American people and build the new government and policy structures that will facilitate a new wave of private-sector led growth. Figuring out why so many of our intellectuals and experts are so poorly equipped to play a constructive role — and figuring out how to develop the leadership we currently lack — may be the most important single thing Americans need to work on right now.

Regular readers of these posts know that I think that the world is headed into a tumultuous period, and that the United States is stuck with a social model that doesn’t work anymore.
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But the biggest roadblock today is that so many of America’s best-educated, best-placed people are too invested in old social models and old visions of history to do their real job and help society transition to the next level. Instead of opportunities they see threats; instead of hope they see danger; instead of the possibility of progress they see the unraveling of everything beautiful and true.

Too many of the very people who should be leading the country into a process of renewal that would allow us to harness the full power of the technological revolution and make the average person incomparably better off and more in control of his or her own destiny than ever before are devoting their considerable talent and energy to fighting the future.
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First, there’s ideology. Since the late nineteenth century most intellectuals have identified progress with the advance of the bureaucratic, redistributionist and administrative state. The government, guided by credentialed intellectuals with scientific training and values, would lead society through the economic and political perils of the day. An ever more powerful state would play an ever larger role in achieving ever greater degrees of affluence and stability for the population at large, redistributing wealth to provide basic sustenance and justice to the poor. The social mission of intellectuals was to build political support for the development of the new order, to provide enlightened guidance based on rational and scientific thought to policymakers, to administer the state through a merit based civil service, and to train new generations of managers and administrators. The modern corporation was supposed to evolve in a similar way, with business becoming more stable, more predictable and more bureaucratic.

Most American intellectuals today are still shaped by this worldview and genuinely cannot imagine an alternative vision of progress. It is extremely difficult for such people to understand the economic forces that are making this model unsustainable and to see why so many Americans are in rebellion against this kind of state and society – but if our society is going to develop we have to move beyond the ideas and the institutions of twentieth century progressivism. The promises of the administrative state can no longer be kept and its premises no longer hold.
The bureaucratic state is too inefficient to provide the needed services at a sustainable cost – and bureaucratic, administrative governments are by nature committed to maintain the status quo at a time when change is needed. For America to move forward, power is going to have to shift from bureaucrats to entrepreneurs, from the state to society and from qualified experts and licensed professionals to the population at large.

This doesn’t mean that government becomes insignificant. The state will survive and as social life becomes more complex it will inevitably acquire new responsibilities – but it will look and act less like the administrative, bureaucratic entity of the past.
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So there you have it. The foundational assumptions of American intellectuals as a group are firmly based on the assumptions of the progressive state and the Blue Social Model. Those who run our government agencies, our universities, our foundations, our mainstream media outlets and other key institutions cannot at this point look the future in the face. The world is moving in ways so opposed to their most hallowed assumptions that they simply cannot make sense of it. They resist blindly and uncreatively and, unable to appreciate the extraordinary prospects for human liberation that this change can bring, they are incapable of creative and innovative response.

The European type of conservatism being alien to the American tradition...

2010-12-05T21:20:00.001-05:00

Hayek on Conservatism:

Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change. It has, since the French Revolution, for a century and a half played an important role in European politics. Until the rise of socialism its opposite was liberalism. There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States, because what in Europe was called "liberalism" was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built: thus the defender of the American tradition was a liberal in the European sense. This already existing confusion was made worse by the recent attempt to transplant to America the European type of conservatism, which, being alien to the American tradition, has acquired a somewhat odd character.

It is significant that Hayek understood what many Americans do not: that conservatism is alien to America. That the Founders were not conservatives. That the republican ideology on which America was founded is not conservative. That the ongoing improvisation that is the American Experiment is not, nor has it ever been, conservative. We are in a significant transition period right now. In order for us to innovate the next iteration of the American Experiment it is necessary that we strip out the conservative and New Left ideologies from our thinking. We need to see clearly with fresh eyes and we can't do that as long we remain attached to these ideologies.

America's international order

2010-10-16T20:58:00.003-04:00

Tom Barnett:

[S]o if India and China continue to rise peacefully, despite all the trappings of power that would suggest the high probability of conflict, then our system is much to be credited, because we're doing what the British colonial order was never able to accomplish--peacefully integrate rising great powers

"Our system" is of course America's liberal international order that we have been building and defending since WW2. This is one of America's great gifts to the world and one of the greatest civilizational achievements. It is common to point out Britain's empire as a precursor and that is true in a limited sense. The empire is a pre-modern organizational form and Britain's empire happened to coincide with a very unique liberal moment stretching from the 17th century to the early 20th century. This era was one of the most important in human history, and not only because the American Experiment was a spin-off from Britain's liberal empire. But the pre-modern empire was incompatible with modern liberalism. It was America's founders who created the the basic format for a modern liberal order: local rule in accordance with liberal principles operating within a larger system of liberal governance. It was only after WW2 with the collapse of the pre-modern imperial order and then in 1989 with the collapse of the competing socialist order that we began to see the extension of this liberal order internationally. There is no global government, but there is governance that is provided and enforced by the US and the institutions we have created. As other countries rise within this order we need to have an overall strategy for getting them to buy into the liberal international order so that their rise is compatible with and contributes to that order. The liberal international order is the realization of the American Experiment on a global scale. But for it to be successful other countries have to accept it as their own, which requires a persuasion campaign. Unfortunately America's anti-liberal left hates this order and the American right is trapped in a narrow national framework. Both ideologies work to delegitimize this uniquely American order and this is not good for the US or the world. The 21st century requires that we think with greater clarity.

Then and now

2010-10-16T19:48:00.000-04:00

If you believed the political rhetoric on the right these days you'd be convinced that our country is teetering on the edge of a totalitarian abyss. It is true that our governments are deeply flawed and need to be reformed but we need to maintain our perspective.

Will Wilkinson

In the age of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, it was profoundly wise to vigilantly stand guard against any possible slide into collectivist totalitarianism. But now, almost 70 years later, it is abundantly clear that the prevailing sort of liberal-democratic welfare state has no general tendency toward tyranny. David Frum is right: we are not on the road to serfdom.

In the name of reason and liberty

2010-10-16T19:18:00.002-04:00

Classical liberalism is not necessarily what a lot of people (including myself at one point) think it is. Many of us have used some variation on "classical liberalism = today's conservatism and/or libertarianism". But is this really true? No. Liberalism in the 19th century was a far more complex political and ideological phenomena than we realize. In the post-WW2 era, the intellectuals who created the modern conservative and libertarian movements selected those 19th century thinkers that they thought would be useful in furthering their 20th century ideological goals. Also many who would recoil in disgust at the idea of "active government" nevertheless support a very active government when it comes to national security.

Daniel Larison:

[M]ost people who call themselves conservatives do not have a “dogmatic aversion to statism,” and when it comes to war and finance they are often defenders of an activist, centralized state. This actually makes a certain amount of sense, as most people who call themselves conservatives are, when you press them, essentially classical liberals, and classical liberals did not have a “dogmatic aversion to statism,” either. By comparison with their traditional conservative and monarchist foes in the 19th century, they were advocates for centralism and the expansion of the role of the state in the name of reason and liberty. Standardization, rationalization and uniformity in law and regulation were what most classical liberals prized, which is one reason why they tended to be strong nationalists hostile to the customs and privileges of regions and local parlements. The separation of modern strands of classical liberalism from nationalism (i.e., some forms of libertarianism) is a curious by-product of 20th century American politics, and I am guessing that this owes a great deal to influence of exiled liberals from central Europe on the evolution of these strands of American classical liberalism.

Entrepreneurship video

2010-09-20T07:00:00.001-04:00

"This Week in Startups"

2010-09-13T21:21:00.001-04:00

Discovered This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis a few days ago and have been really enjoying it. If you're interested in entrepreneurship it's a must watch show.

"Start-ups are where the job-creation action really occurs"

2010-09-12T12:38:00.002-04:00

The way forward is clearly the implementation of startup-centric policies. The Democrats have been helpfully demonstrating the inadequacy of their old, mid-20th century policies centered around Big Business, Big Labor, Big Government. Unfortunately Democrats won't give up their outdated ideology until forced by circumstances to do so which will eventually happen as their current policies continue to fail to revive the economy. But conservatives are no help here as they keep engaging in behavior that appears to everyone except conservatives themselves as anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim xenophobia. Which only serves to discredit some good ideas about markets by association with this ugliness. A key element as we move forward needs to be embracing immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs but instead the right's behavior is creating an environment that many immigrants perceive as hostile. Thus we risk driving away people who could be making important contributions. Despite this I hope we are able to make the right policy changes to enable immigrant entrepreneurs to stay, become Americans, and help build the next iteration of the American Experiment.

For decades, the assumption has been that small business is the economy’s dynamic engine of job generation. Look at the numbers broadly, and that is the irrefutable conclusion: two-thirds of net new jobs are created by companies with fewer than 500 employees, which is the government’s definition of a small business.

But research published last month by three economists, working with more recent and detailed data sets than before, has found that once the age of the businesses is taken into account, there is no difference in the job-producing performance of small companies and big ones.

“Size plays virtually no role,” says John C. Haltiwanger, a co-author of the study and an economist at the University of Maryland. “It’s all age — start-ups are where the job-creation action really occurs.”
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For Mr. Silbert, work-force issues trump taxes as a long-term concern. Like many other entrepreneurs, he advocates granting more residence visas to skilled immigrants, especially those who attend American universities.

“The best and the brightest from other countries come here, and then we’re not letting them stay,” he said. “That will damage innovation and job creation in the United States.”

FOREIGN-BORN entrepreneurs have long played a big role in American start-ups. A study that tracked technology and engineering start-ups from 1995 to 2005 found that one quarter of them had a foreign-born chief executive or head technologist; by 2005, the surviving companies generated $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers.

There are signs that policy makers are looking to accommodate highly skilled workers and entrepreneurs, says Robert Litan, an economist at the Kauffman Foundation. As one example, he points to legislation proposed this year by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana. Called the Start-Up Visa Act, it would grant visas to immigrant entrepreneurs who create jobs in the United States.

NYT

We need to get at it -- "Entrepreneurs Fuel Post-Katrina Business Boom"

2010-08-29T19:12:00.002-04:00

This is how New Orleans will be reinvented. These are the people who make America what it is, the people who make us resilient.

"It was that sense of re-evaluation," he says. "It was a personal re-evaluation. It was an economic re-evaluation. It was a cultural re-evaluation. People here were inflamed with that sense that, 'OK, we're not sure what the way forward is, but we need to do something. We need to put ourselves in motion. We need to get at it.' "
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The boom in entrepreneurs is evident in the numbers collected by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.
Co-director Alison Plyer says that since the storm, 450 of every 100,000 adults in New Orleans have started a business. That's 40 percent higher than the national rate.

NPR

Become an entrepreneur, not an economist

2010-08-29T18:14:00.002-04:00

One of the things that soured me on libertarianism is that it seems to be dominated by intellectuals who talk about the market but aren't willing to put their money where their mouth is and leave the classroom to become actors in the market.

Peter J. Boettke...the 50-year-old professor of economics at George Mason University in Virginia is emerging as the intellectual standard-bearer for the Austrian school of economics...

In the last decade at George Mason, he has helped recruit the Austrian school's leading scholars and drawn students from around the world. Roughly 75% of his students have gone on to teach economics at the college or graduate level.

WSJ

Read that last sentence again: "Roughly 75% of his students have gone on to teach economics at the college or graduate level."

Why aren't they becoming entrepreneurs? We don't need more economists. We need people to start businesses. Entrepreneurs are the creative agents in a market economy, they are the ones who make it all work. If you are really inspired by the idea of the free market then why on earth would you become yet another social science technocrat with tenure at a state university? Why wouldn't you want to roll up your sleeves and take action in the market?

Fake American-heritage narratives

2010-08-28T15:06:00.001-04:00

Crafting narratives to manage your perceptions is not just an occupation of the Left. Since the 1950s Conservatives have been manufacturing a "tradition" and narratives for the purpose of providing legitimacy for their 20th century (now 21st) ideological interests. Will Wilkinson offers some clarity:

Foster is mistaken in the claim that there are “two kinds of libertarian,” one deriving libertarian conclusions from evidence-free armchair cogitation, the others simply discovering a ready-made libertarianism in the trunk of their “uniquely American historical inheritance.” There is no form of libertarianism that simply falls out of our cultural endowment, as American moral culture has never been remotely libertarian. The average Tea Partier is, like the average voter, a collection of reflexes, prejudices, resentments, and demands that add up to no coherent philosophy at all. The heritage of the progressive managerial social insurance state is no less an authentically American one than is the heritage of Jim Crow apartheid, the heritage of utopian collectivist frontier communes, or the heritage of founding-era republican liberty for propertied males. It is the business of conservative elites to fabricate a narrative and ideology of authentic Americanism, and to convince the right-leaning public that this is what their particular concatenation of impulses really comes to, in order to give it some strategically useful partisan shape and motivation.
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Foster’s worry about my sort of libertarianism isn’t really that it’s a “rationalist” ivory tower abstraction remote from the lived experience of the allegedly natively libertarianish American tradition. It’s that the application of any rational scrutiny (libertarian or not) to the efforts of conservative elites to construct bullshit American-heritage narratives tends to get in the way of elite conservative political aspirations.

Variations on a theme

2010-08-07T11:34:00.001-04:00

A comment I left at tdaxp in June 2005:

We are in a 4GW war with Islamic fundementalists. This is a state vs. a non-state actor. And this is not only a war that involves violent action, but it's also a war of ideas. The challenge that we face is in providing an alternative vision to what the jihadists are providing. Now there's been a lot of talk on blogs about the inadequacies of American public diplomacy. The reality is that we don't have time to wait for the politicians and bureaucrats in public diplomacy to get with the program. So what if another level were created, another level made up of non-state actors within the US, that were designed to fight the ideological war (no violence that's the state's monopoly). These organizations would not be subject to the political and bureaucratic labyrinths, but would pursue the ideological war independently. They would be entrepreneurial and able to adapt and respond quickly as circumstances changed. Al Qaeda has adapted itself to take advantage of the characteristics of our free society. What if we marshalled the characteristics of the free society to our benefit? The entrepreneurship, decentralization, the "chaos" of civil society.

"The real danger for the U.S. isn’t having too many immigrants—it’s not having enough"

2010-07-31T22:18:00.002-04:00

Immigration is good for America. Too much of the public debate about immigration is driven by the Right's paranoia and nativism. Yes there are legitimate issues with border security that need to be addressed, but the contribution of immigrants as entrepreneurs and innovators and hard workers far outweighs the negatives of illegal immigration. All the Right is achieving is convincing millions of immigrants and their children that their only political home is on the Left and that's not good for America.

The reality is that immigrants add much more to our economy than they take from it. As Vivek Wadhwa wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek last year, though they ”constitute only 12 percent of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52 percent of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25 percent of our global patents. They make up 24 percent of the U.S. science and engineering work force holding bachelor's degrees and 47 percent of science and engineering workers who have Ph.D.s.”

A third of all graduate students in America are immigrants—half of those in engineering, computer and life sciences. And between 1985 and 1999 almost a third (32 percent) of America’s Nobel Prizes in chemistry were awarded to immigrants.

Immigrants also compose a key source of American entrepreneurs, from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie to Intel founder Andy Grove. Over the past two decades, between a third and half of all Silicon Valley startups had a foreign-born person on their founding team—think of Google’s Sergey Brin, Hotmail’s Sabeer Bhatia, Yahoo’s Jerry Yang, and eBay’s Pierre Omidyar. This is what venture capitalist John Doerr was talking about when he said that America should “staple a green card to the diploma” of any immigrant who gets a degree in engineering. Even more than natural resources, American ingenuity or other factors, what stands at the heart and soul of U.S. prosperity was its openness to hard-working, ambitious, and talented immigrants of all stripes.

The WikiLeaks Information War

2010-07-31T22:09:00.003-04:00

Why does it always seem to be the anti-American types who get the strategic citizen idea and have the motivation to implement it?
Some snippets from a post at Rethinking Security on WikiLeaks:

At this point, it seems apparent that WikiLeaks is waging an information war against the US national security establishment.

WikiLeaks is no longer about an abstract desire for transparency--it is about advancing its founder's specific--if somewhat incoherent--policy agenda.

For all of the volumes of writing since 9/11 about public diplomacy, information operations, and such this is a bona fide adversary information operation and a very successful one on the tactical level.

Old comment on waging the war of ideas

2010-07-31T11:26:00.002-04:00

Here's a comment I left at Zenpundit back in May 2005:

The spread of ideas is a fascinating topic worthy of much study. In today's world, with the challeneges we face, getting a grasp on how ideas spread is necessary to not only winning the war on terror but also in opposing anti-Americanism and the continued popularity of leftist views. Hayek in his essay "Intellectuals and Socialism" says that proponents of liberty need to articulate a vision of their ideals that can inspire and motivate people. He said that socialists had been very good at this and thus saw their ideas gain dominance whereas the proponents of liberty concerned themselves with technical policy issues that were not capable of inspiring people.

Today we face the challenge of defending the ideals of liberal democracy from various anti-liberal (classical that is) ideals. As we know the revolution in comunication technology over the past 15 years presents us with a vast new paradigm for the spread of ideas. One of the major characteristics of this revolution has been its decentralization. We are now able to bypass all the previous communications gatekeepers. This offers tremendous opportunities for the spread of ideas that in the past would have been marginally significant. For those of us who support liberal democracy, who are inspired by the vision of a free society that guarantees individual liberty through the rule of law, we need to take advantage of this new communications paradigm to create institutions to compete on the international stage. We cannot rely on the government's public diplomacy, we have to take matters into our own hands, bypass gov't and flood the zone with our ideas and visions to oppose Islamist fundamentalism, anti-Americanism and socialism.
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"I just thought that Phil was pointing to a need not being filled by our elite which has become, over the last couple of decades - somewhat removed from the rest of us in terms of self-identification."

Yes. 9/11 revealed to us the massive failure of our public diplomacy; and now several years down the road it doesn't [seem] that there has been much improvement. We are faced with an entrenched PD bureaucracy that seems to be resistant to the kinds of changes that need to be made. So what to do?

Domestically whenever the liberal/left propose yet another government program to solve some problem what is it that we limited government types (whether conservatives, libertarians whatever) say? We say "Let civil society institutions (churches, charities etc) and the market solve the problem." So I am saying that this should be our solution to the problems of public diplomacy.

We need to be entrepreneurial and
create the kind of enterprises that can effect a change in how people around the world perceive America and our ideals. The left is already very successful at this. Michael Moore is the best example. But where is the pro-liberty, pro-American film director who can inspire people with our ideals?

We recognize that there are all manner of non-state actors operating within and influencing the strategic landscape in the war on terror: Hollywood, MSM, soldiers blogging from the frontlines etc. Our strategy in the war of ideas does not have to be led from above. We can become non-state actors too, operating on our own initiative, independent of gov't, and we can influence the strategic landscape to counter the effects of Moore, Newsweek, and the anti-American Arab and European media.

The Tweeting Admiral

2010-07-30T20:14:00.001-04:00

Purpleslog tweeted a Selil post about Admiral Mullen's tweet response to the Wikileaks release of secret Afghanistan documents. I wrote a comment and then found that to post it in the comments at Selil I would have to register and I am so sick and tired of registering for everything. I have a notebook filled usernames and passwords from past years like graffiti on a subway car and I'm just not going to do it anymore unless it's really important. So I'll just post my comment here:

"Laying a bloody straw-man at the foot of Wikileaks looks tough, but it is the act of a pompous and arrogant man."

Come on now, this is a tweet. This isn't some Oxford Union debate where Mullen is saying "Resolved: Mr. Assange & his source have blood on their hands."

As you point out this massive dump of documents is so large that other than a few academics no one will ever invest the time to read and understand them. So the battle has nothing to do with logic and theories or analysis of the documents, it's about the perceptions that are associated with the documents. Mullen's tweet is a perfectly valid effort to shape the perception of the documents and can only be judged within that context. There is a narrow window of opportunity to shape perceptions on this issue before the next one pops up. Mullen deserves credit for recognizing the game that is being played, and playing it right.

Cafe de L'Enfer

2010-07-25T16:22:00.002-04:00

Cafe de L'Enfer -- Looks like my kind of place:

Is Tom Barnett a "pop strategist"?

2010-07-25T15:28:00.000-04:00

According to Steve Metz he is:

We need to remember that Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, etc., were not writing in a market environment. I doubt they could find a publisher today. Mahan maybe because the Navy mafia and defense industry would have liked it.

Even university presses look for commercial viability these days, making it hard to find a venue for complex, breakthrough works. Instead we end up with pop strategy like Barnett.

"We committed libertarians are a very small group of people with very unpopular views"

2010-07-25T14:43:00.001-04:00

The libertarian movement, created in the years following WW2, has had more than half century to accomplish something. So what does it have to show for itself? Brink Lindsey tells us...

On the one hand, we can point with pride to an impressive blossoming of libertarian scholarship and intellectual activism. Libertarians are now represented in the academy in numbers that would have amazed the original members of the Mont Pelerin Society. The Cato Institute and other libertarian and free-market think tanks have achieved great success in winning a place for libertarian ideas in the political and policy debate. We have made great strides in getting libertarian ideas taken seriously in intellectual and opinion-shaping circles.

But getting taken seriously by tiny intellectual elites is one thing; winning acceptance in mass public opinion is another thing altogether. As an intellectual movement, libertarianism has come a long way. As a political movement, however, we’re still pretty near square one. The Libertarian Party crested in 1980 with a million votes or so in the presidential election; since then it has contented itself with being a fringe group that is generally scoffed at when it isn’t being completely ignored. And whatever success we’ve had in spreading libertarian ideas, we’ve accomplished very little in the core political task of expanding the number of active libertarians. According to a 2000 Rasmussen poll, only 2% of Americans self-identify as libertarian. To put that number in perspective, according to a 1999 Gallup poll, 6% of Americans believe that the moon landings were faked.
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So we have some hard facts to face. We committed libertarians are a very small group of people with very unpopular views. And now that Goldwater-Reagan small-government conservatism has more or less disappeared, we have no effective representation in the political arena.

When I discovered libertarianism I was very excited by the ideas and the commitment to freedom. But after several years I realized that libertarians weren't going to accomplish anything. The movement has very little appeal outside the small coven of true believers. They are too passive; they don't engage in the kind of perpetual organization and activism that is required of any movement that actually wants to be successful.

The long-term goal is to achieve a generally liberal outcome. Libertarianism is a variety of liberalism, but it is not one that can actually achieve that long-term goal. So the challenge then is to fashion a variety of liberalism that can achieve that goal, and that is what I am trying to do. Lindsey agrees:

What needs to be developed is a set of ideas that can serve as the basis for a new political identity. Not a strictly libertarian identity – there simply aren’t enough strictly defined libertarians to base a mass political movement on. Rather, a genuinely liberal identity – one that brings together “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” voters from across the current left-right spectrum. One that recognizes a more expansive role for government than committed libertarians would like, but which nonetheless supports both economic and personal liberty. Here, then, is the way forward as I see it: to articulate an appropriately inclusive political vision that puts freedom at the center of its commitments.

"Energizing the real mainsprings of American power"

2010-07-24T21:37:00.000-04:00

Niall Ferguson at the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival

Unlike Britain in 1945, which was crushed by debt and slow growth, doomed to imperial decline, I think there is a way out for the United States. I don't think it's over. But it all hinges on whether you can re-energize the real mainsprings of American power. And those two things are: innovation, technological innovation, and entrepreneurship. Those are the things that made the United States the greatest economy in the world, and the critical question is: Are we going to get it right? Can we revive those things in such a way that, in the end, we grow our way out of this hole the way the United States grew its way out of the 1970s and, of course, out of the 1930s?

So do we have what it takes? I read what conservatives and progressives are writing and I don't see any real commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. They may try to superficially and opportunistically associate their ideology with innovation and entrepreneurship but neither ideology has a vision for the type of society that we need. America is not Britain in 1945 transitioning from Empire to Socialism. British decline was not about losing the Empire. Why is Japan the 2nd largest economy rather than Britain? It could be Britain, but it's not. It's about policy and culture and drive. What America faces is nothing like what any power has ever faced. We need not just one but several political ideologies that articulate visions that offer us options for the world that we live in. And so Ferguson's critical question: Are we going to get it right? And I ask: do we have the imagination to get it right? The imagination to go beyond the ideologies we have inherited? The point is that the solution to our current problems will not come from what we think we know. It will be a discovery of something that we don't know.

"The Next World Order"

2010-07-24T19:37:00.004-04:00

Liberalization-modernization always challenges the pre-modern social order. However it also creates opportunities for classes, tribes, ethnic groups who have skills, talents, and cultures that in the pre-modern world were despised, but turn out to be a perfect match for liberal modernity. I think this would be an interesting area of study for an economist, political scientist, or anthropologist -- maybe a good documentary film idea. Part of the turmoil that pre-modern social orders will experience is the increasing success and prominence of previously despised elements of their society. But it would be wise for these societies to embrace those elements and find a way to integrate them into their unfolding liberalization.

What really perplexes the Chinese, he said, is that scores of nations have engaged in the same sorts of economic reforms as India, so why is it that it’s the Indian economy that has become the developing world’s second best? The speed with which India is creating world-class companies is also a shock to the Chinese, whose corporate structure is based on state-owned and foreign companies.

I have no satisfactory explanation for all this, but I think it may have something to do with India’s much-reviled caste system. Vaishyas, members of the merchant caste, who have learned over generations how to accumulate capital, give the nation a competitive advantage. Classical liberals may be right in thinking that commerce is a natural trait, but it helps if there is a devoted group of risk-taking entrepreneurs around to take advantage of the opportunity. Not surprisingly, Vaishyas still dominate the Forbes list of Indian billionaires.

In a much-discussed magazine article last year, Lee Kwan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, raised an important question: Why does the rest of the world view China’s rise as a threat but India’s as a wonderful success story? The answer is that India is a vast, unwieldy, open democracy ruled by a coalition of 20 parties. It is evolving through a daily flow of ideas among the conservative forces of caste and religion, the liberals who dominate intellectual life, and the new forces of global capitalism.

So why isn't India perceived as a threat in the way that China is? That's a fascinating question, one that deserves a lot of thought. And it is one that China should take the time to really think about. What China and a lot of countries don't understand is that America wants other countries to be successful. But our view is shaped by our experience of the 20th century, and that experience was shaped by the rise of Germany, Japan, and Russia and we are always on the lookout for any country whose rise has the potential to follow their path. India is doing the right thing, they realize what Germany and Japan now know and the Russians have yet to figure out: you can achieve national greatness through economic and cultural achievement within a generally liberal framework rather than through dictatorship, war, and conquest. If China can realize that basic truth and pursue appropriate policies it will achieve great things for its people. And if it can't then it will face American power committed to defending a liberal international order.

Flashback 2003: Bill Clinton on Iraq

2010-07-24T17:43:00.001-04:00

It's important to remember these things.

Bill Clinton:

Let me tell you what I know. When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions.

How do you defeat the radical left?

2010-07-20T20:11:00.001-04:00

How do you defeat the radical left? What strategy should you use? What ideas, rhetoric, symbols and attitudes should you use? What methods of organization and activism? How do you think about this for the long term, rather than just in the limited framework of the election cycle? How do you win the persuadables over while holding off the true believers?

These are the questions I've been thinking a lot about over the past few years. And it has been my effort to answer these questions that has in large part driven the change in my political views. I don't believe that conservatism and libertarianism are capable of defeating the radical left. In fact I think they do more harm than good. They are deeply unattractive to those who need to be won over and they divert the talents and energies of a lot of good people, like leaves caught in an eddy on a river, into political movements that will never be successful.

In this effort it has been necessary to rediscover and rethink the meaning of the word "liberal." The goal is to craft a variety of liberalism that builds upon everything we have learned since 1776, that is an appropriate response to the challenges and realities we face in the first part of the 21st century, that can appeal broadly to most Americans and to many around the world, and one that can successfully stand on its own and fend off the collectivist, anti-liberal leftism that has plagued us for far too long.

So that is what I am trying to do.

"Political organizing is the basis for political movements, which in turn alters the climate for politics inside Washington"

2010-07-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

We need to apply to the study of political movements the same approach we see in the study of the military and warfare, with its focus on organization and logistics, tactics and strategy. I think this would do a lot to infuse our political system with more strategic and organizational thinking which could mean that people will feel and be more empowered as citizens.

I would also ask why most observers and analysts pay so little attention to the details of political organizing. Politics is not only about what leaders say and do in Washington and on TV. Political organizing is the basis for political movements, which in turn alter the climate for politics inside Washington.

And yet, if I had to tally up all the reporting that I've seen on the actual work of building the Obama campaign organization it would fill, at most, a thimble. Americans have a notably thin understanding of what it takes to change anything, in part I think because our story-tellers and meaning-makers prefer to trade in myth over reality too. (Thus we get Rosa Parks acting on her own, for example.) This cycle of ignorance is self-reinforcing: reporters don't ask power players about political organizing because they don't understand it; power players don't think it matters because reporters don't ask them about it.

"More than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security"

2010-07-18T13:01:00.002-04:00

Sometimes Obama gets it right. Unfortunately, since the 1960s Democrats have conditioned themselves sneer at any effort to point out the good America has done in the world and mindlessly regurgitate the tired leftist litany of American wrongs. So it is good that Obama said this and I hope that there are some Democrats who will actually think about what is being said.

Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, and the service and sacrifice of our grandparents, our country has borne a special burden in global affairs. We have spilled American blood in many countries on multiple continents. We have spent our revenue to help others rebuild from rubble and develop their own economies. We have joined with others to develop an architecture of institutions - from the United Nations to NATO to the World Bank - that provide for the common security and prosperity of human beings.

We have not always been thanked for these efforts, and we have at times made mistakes. But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades - a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.

For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation's resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for - and what we continue to fight for - is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.

Using "liberalism"

2010-07-18T12:16:00.002-04:00

I have taken to using "liberalism" recently in its broader more accurate sense, rather than in the narrow sense that is common in American political discourse. I find it is much more useful and gives more room to think and explore ideas. My goal is to get beyond the classifications that not only artificially limit our range of thought, but actually direct our thinking down pathways to the same conclusions. And I'm just not interested in that. My goal is to arrive at my own conclusions, not memorize a bunch of ideological talking points. Timothy Garton Ash had an interesting essay on "liberalism" --

A plausible minimum list of ingredients for 21st century liberalism would include liberty under law, limited and accountable government, markets, tolerance, some version of individualism and universalism, and some notion of human equality, reason and progress. The mix of ingredients differs from place to place. Whether some distant cousin really belongs to the extended family of liberalisms is a matter of healthy dispute. But somewhere in this contested, evolving combination there is a thing of enduring value.

This has been an American argument, some would say the American argument, for more than 200 years. In fact, the United States is still full of liberals, both progressive or left liberals and, I would insist, conservative or right liberals. Most of them just don’t use the word. Liberalism is the American love that dare not speak its name.

The California Dream: Entrepreneurship and Activist Government

2010-07-17T20:41:00.002-04:00

This was the right formula, but unfortunately this era was followed by one dominated by an intolerant, anti-capitalist, radical leftism that was incapable of comprehending or tolerating these "two seemingly contradictory principles." Part of our task is recovering from the boomer generation's disastrous ideological tendencies and finding a way to build a 21st century American System based on entrepreneurship and activist government.

These places grew before the current malaise infected the state. As Starr points out, California based its ascendancy on two seemingly contradictory principles: entrepreneurship and activist government. Under Gov. Earl Warren, but also Goodwin Knight and finally Pat Brown, the state made a commitment both to basic infrastructure—energy, water, roads, schools, parks—and expanding its economy.

By the early 1960s, this system was hitting on all cylinders. New roads, power plants and water systems opened lands for development for farms, subdivisions, factories. Ever expanding and improving schools produced a work force capable of performing higher-end tasks, and capable of earning higher wages. New parks preserved at least some of the landscape, and gave families a place to recreate.

For Pat Brown, arguably the greatest governor in American history, this was all part of California’s “destiny.” Starr describes Brown’s California as “a modernist commonwealth, a triumph of engineering, a megastate committed to growth as its first premise.” Yet within this great modernist project was also stirring opposition, on both left and right, that would soon place this Golden Age at its end.

Many of the objections were legitimate. The Sierra Club and its many spinoffs rightfully saw the Brown development machine as threatening California’s landscape, wildlife and, in important ways, the appeal of its way of life. More careful controls on growth clearly were needed. The battle over the nature of those controls continues to this day.
Some more angry voices, then as now, targeted the very existence of suburbia, the dominant form of the state’s growth, and eventually sought its eradication.

The Entrepreneurial 10th Mountain Division

2010-07-17T20:30:00.000-04:00

I suspect that the WW2-era 10th Mountain Division was the most entrepreneurial military unit in American history.

After the war, ex-soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division fired-up America's modern ski industry. They published ski magazines, opened ski schools, and established ski areas, including Vail, Aspen, Sugarbush, Whiteface Mountain and others. At least 62 ski resorts have been founded, managed, or employed head ski instructors that were 10th Mountain Division veterans.

The Basics

2010-07-17T20:19:00.000-04:00

The alternatives are not on the one hand some totalitarian, socialist state and on the other some laissez-faire, minarchist state, and that's it. There are other alternatives if we have the imagination to conceive them. If I argue that we should let markets work and solve problems via voluntary associations that doesn't mean I'm advocating a cold, cruel, survival-of-the-fittest state. Likewise if I argue that government can provide many useful services that doesn't mean I'm advocating a totalitarian, anti-liberty state. We need to get beyond these absolutist, all or nothing conceptions of government and society.

One of the chief problems was this: a modernizing, developing country requires a strong and effective government. That does not mean that it needs a tyrannical and socialistic one, but it does need a government that is honest and competent enough to establish and maintain the legal, economic and physical infrastructure which a growing market economy needs. Governments must be able to enforce contracts and the law in reasonably transparent and reasonably timely legal procedures; they must maintain the roads, ports, sewer systems and power generation capacity on which modern and especially urban life depends; they must maintain a sound currency and a reasonable macroeconomic environment; they must either build or sponsor a basic health infrastructure; they must provide a solid educational system.

The US as Superintegrator

2010-07-17T20:09:00.001-04:00

I like this:

I foresee that the US becomes for the world, what the Franco-German axis has become for Europe, a superintegrater instead of a superpower

The Hong Kong Myth

2010-07-17T19:42:00.000-04:00

There are examples out there of the proper balance between an active government and market economy if people could get beyond their rigid, ideological templates and actually see them:

Actually, where Asian government has succeeded is not whether the government led the way, but where the balance between government and the market was delicately calibrated. Economies work well where governments knew how to let the market work where it functioned best and the government concentrated on what it did best.

The idea of Hong Kong being the freest market in the world is a bit of a myth, considering that half of Hong Kong citizens live in government owned low-cost housing and the government provided superb social welfare. Positive non-intervention did not mean no intervention. It meant that the government provided the environment for the private sector to thrive, without competing directly with the private sector.

The American Experiment and Ralph Ellison's Endless Blues

2010-07-17T19:21:00.001-04:00

We tend to focus on hot button issues and ideological battles, but the American Experiment is is an endless improvisation of the unfolding of the realization of what a human being can be. If we can rise to the challenge and craft a vision of America that articulates this in a way that transcends ideology then we will have really achieved something:

In its best sections, this mysterious draft is full of wit, satire, and the chaos that Ellison concluded was so central to the ongoing surprises of American life and for which the United States was uniquely prepared to handle, improvisation by desperate or even surreal improvisation.
That sense of the importance of improvisation beyond measure was written into the founding documents and appeared over and over in the national life and the national response to need or threat. If the chaos is sufficiently epic, so must the improvisations be if anything close to an actual “solution” is to be achieved. That is the fundamental tension at the center of the national life, and Ellison’s fundamental sense of American life.

Other options

2010-07-17T19:04:00.001-04:00

Fareed Zakaria:

But the truth is, since the Cold War ended, most people haven’t voted based on deep ideological divides. The majority gravitate toward the center and search for a party or person who seems to reflect their sensibilities, attitudes, and feelings. They want a modern party that feels as though it understands the world we live in.

Two things come to mind. First is Virginia Postrel's thesis that the real competition following the demise of Cold War ideological divides was between Stasists and Dynamists. And second that neither of the two ideologies that dominate left and right really "understands the world we live in." The metaphor of "the center" is not very useful since it does not describe what people believe or want. It assumes the legitimacy of the existing left and right ideologies and does not recognize that the huge numbers of people in "the center" are in fact rejecting those ideologies and want something else. They are not splitting the difference, they want other options. So let's see this as an opportunity and come up with "other options."

Why pubic employees should not be allowed to unionize

2010-07-17T18:44:00.001-04:00

Why pubic employees should not be allowed to unionize:

Two City Hall sources said last night that municipal employee unions District Councils 33 and 47 would put their full weight behind the drink tax and garbage fee to preserve city services and, thus, their jobs.

Public employees deserve to be treated fairly, but their unionization is an undemocratic manipulation of the political system.

The 1960s and the rise of conservatism

2010-07-17T16:19:00.002-04:00

The United States never had a conservative movement prior to the 1950s. And in the 1950s that newly created conservatism was little more than a fringe intellectual movement with little influence on policy. So when did conservatism move beyond this small group of intellectuals to become a real political movement that could influence policy and elections? The 1960s. The intellectuals who populated the movement in the 1950s were still around in the 60s, but something in society began to change with the coming of age of a generation characterized by intense political passions and an inclination towards zealotry. It was this cohort (most of them boomers but others were a little older, some a little younger) whose sensibilities have dominated our politics and have bequeathed to us a rigid, intolerant partisanship.

When people think of "the sixties," they commonly associate the era with civil rights protest, with the student, antiwar, and feminist movements, and with the rise of the New Left. Yet the untold story of the 1960s is about the New Right. While thousands of youth did join protests on the left, thousands of others mobilized on the right. Many of today's conservative leaders came of age during the 1960s and became politically active during their college years through participation in Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a youth organization founded at the estate of William F. Buckley. Ironically, YAF began in 1960, the same year as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one of the primary organizations of the New Left...

Idealistic youth from one end of the political spectrum to the other formed movements to reshape American politics. Whereas youth on the left came into ascendancy during the 1960s and early 1970s, the other wing of that generation came into prominence during the mid-1970s and 1980s and began to take over the seats of institutional power. The 1960s must be seen, then, within this larger context: not only fostering protests on the left, but also nurturing a new generation of leaders on the right. Much of the conservative backlash of the 1970s and 1980s was led by people of the same age as leftist activists, not the older generation.

I look forward to the time when that generation fades from the scene and we can move forward with a different political sensibility. It will be interesting to see what politics can be like absent the boomer's zealotry.

Quote from A Generation Divided: The New Left, The New Right, and The 1960s by Rebecca Klatch.

In the beginning...

2010-07-17T15:25:00.003-04:00

What contemporary political ideology was created by academic intellectuals, who were elitist and anti-democratic, who looked to Europe rather than to America's founding for ideas and inspiration, and who were opposed to classical liberalism? It would probably come as a surprise to many that the answer is: Conservatism.

Conservatism was created after WW2 by a group of academic intellectuals, it was not a bottom-up, grass-roots movement:

[T]he new conservative movement was overwhelmingly associated with colleges and universities. Virtually every one of its spokesmen held a position in academe.

Conservatism was founded by people who were elitist and anti-democratic:

As conservative intellectuals examined the fruits of liberal ideas, they frequently noted with special distaste the spectacular rise of a mass society and the cult of the common man...

[Bernard Iddings] Bell unsparingly castigated the so-called civilization around him. "The chief threat to America comes from within America" -- from the complacent, vulgar, mindless, homogenized, comfort-seeking, nouveau riche culture of the common man. Was this perspective undemocratic? Of course it was, Bell cheerfully conceded. One of the most dangerous assumptions of our time is that the common man "can be entrusted...without skilled leadership, safely to run himself and society." Instead, the masses require "an elite, a democratic elite," that will exemplify excellence and "a more urbane and humane way of living."

Many people mistakenly think that conservatism was founded to champion the ideals of the American founding. Instead the intellectuals who created American conservatism were European oriented. They were inspired by Old World conservatism not the American founders.

A second noticeable feature of the traditionalist group was its extraordinary orientation toward Europe. We have already noted its relative lack of interest in the specifically American past. One must take care not to exaggerate; nevertheless, the principle early acts of recovery were of European conservatives--Burke and Metternich, for instance--not Americans...
...Instead, they imported European insights and took their stand at home.

Not only was the original, Old World conservatism anti-classical liberal, but it was in fact classical liberalism's first ideological enemy, later to be followed by socialism, fascism, and communism. Many of the founders of the American conservative movement after WW2 were also anti-classical liberal:

...nearly all the leading new conservatives took pains to dissociate themselves from the "nineteenth-century liberalism" that was also enjoying a new vogue on the Right. Most vehement was Viereck; his conservatism, he said, had nothing to do with rootless, "cash nexus," selfish, laissez-faire individualism. Russell Kirk also emphasized that his kind of traditionalism was not a defense of materialistic businessmen or the "dogmas of Manchesterian economic theory." "Conservatism is something more than mere solicitude for tidy incomes." In a lengthy critique of Ludwig von Mises...Kirk warned of the dangers of rationalistic, atomistic capitalism and utilitarianism: "...once supernatural and traditional sanctions are dissolved, economic self-interest is ridiculously inadequate to hold an economic system together, and even less adequate to preserve order." Kirk had worked for a "soulless corporation" and had lived in a dreary industrial city; he had no inclination to idealize free enterprise. Robert Nisbet was also critical of the corrosive, anti-social laissez-faire of the nineteenth century: it had weakened social bonds and "accelerated" the aggrandizement of the "omnicompetent State."

All quotes from The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America by George Nash. This is an excellent book and required reading if you want an understanding of conservatism.

Yes, Hayek supported a comprehensive system of social insurance

2010-07-12T21:51:00.002-04:00

Will Wilkinson points to the interesting phenomena of some folks on the left discovering that Hayek supported a government-provided safety net. It will be even more interesting when people on the right begin realizing that as well. I've been writing about how my views have changed to supporting both a dynamic entrepreneurial market economy and an active government. Hayek was one of the influences on that change. Hayek:

There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.

Wilkinson comments:

What Hayek had in mind was a competitive market in risk-rated insurance and a competitive market in medical services. No price controls. Let the markets rip. Mandate a certain minimum level of insurance coverage. If you’re uninsurable or can’t afford a policy, then the state pitches in.

Our political debates would be better if we were trying to figure out how to get the best out of both markets and the government rather than being trapped in the never-ending food fight between an uncompromising anti-government right and anti-market left. Hayek offers us a good base to work from.

"Civilian officials must promote economic insurgents-entrepreneurs"

2010-07-05T22:13:00.002-04:00

Schramm, Litan, and Stangler argue that entrepreneurship should be a key element of our strategy in Afghanistan. It should come as no surprise that I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps we should establish an "Office of Strategic Entrepreneurship" to oversee its implementation.

For any economy to grow, for living standards to rise, new businesses must be created. Those local businesses must be allowed to experiment with different ways of solving local problems. Each of these firms can be seen as a type of "insurgent"-starting, experimenting, and growing. Not all will succeed; the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has suggested that, in some cases, new business creation should be discouraged because some entrepreneurs might fail. Progress, however, only comes about through trial and error.

Government provided healthcare

2010-07-05T21:35:00.001-04:00

The world's best:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Active Government And Entrepreneurial Market Economy

2010-07-04T19:47:00.003-04:00

Brink Lindsey has an interesting review of Arthur Brooks' new book "The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future." I have not read this book and most likely won't read it, but my interest here is not the book but a comment of Lindsey's that I think is worth pointing out:

The first is free markets; the second, small government. They need not be a package deal. Governments can effectively stifle enterprise and competition without spending a lot of money, while a large public sector and a vibrant private sector can go hand in hand.

Indeed they can. In my words, you can have an active government and a dynamic, creative market economy. These are not mutually exclusive. And I think that this is going to be the ultimate outcome of our political competition. In general the American people are entrepreneurial and support a free enterprise system, but they want government to provide rules for that system. The American people also want a government that can provide a variety of services from a strong military, to infrastructure and social services, to support for science, education and parks, but they want it done in a fiscally and socially responsible manner. And they don't want the burden of these government services to stifle free enterprise. The result will be some practical synthesis of these two positions. This of course will be completely intolerable to both the left and right, driven as they are by a pro-government, anti-market and pro-market, anti-government fundamentalism. The notion that you can be both pro-government and pro-market will not compute. But this combination has been with us since the beginning. America's Founders were not anti-government, they were anti-tyranny, and that's not the same thing. The Founders were creators of governments and their republican ideology gave them the belief that government service was patriotic and positive and that government should take action to improve republican society. Of course industrial age organization and the innovation of the welfare state were beyond their experience so we have no idea how they would have responded. But their republican and liberal ideals were not necessarily incompatible with the required innovations of later generations. After all they invented the modern liberal republic and were at the leading edge of social and political innovation of their era. What are the leading edge ideas of our time? That is where the Founders would be. They were not conservatives, "standing athwart history yelling stop!" Rather they were a rare generation living between the pre-modern and modern worlds, living on the edge of a continent, building a civilization out of nothing, they created the liberal modernity that would prevail 200 years later and prove to be the only sustainable mode of organizing a modern society.

Reflections: Updating Classical Liberalism for the 21st Century

2010-06-20T21:12:00.002-04:00

Another theme that emerged on this blog was "updating classical liberalism for the 21st century." This is the notion that has really resonated with me and that drives much of my reading and thinking. I grew up in a Democratic family and so entered adulthood with a generally liberal worldview. But my parents weren't ideologues or true believers and I was enough of an individualist that I arrived at views that spanned the political spectrum. Eventually as I neared 30 I became more interested in politics and made a conscious decision to develop or discover a philosophy of freedom, of the free society. Right about that time I came across libertarianism and felt an immediate affinity. My introduction was via Virginia Postrel's book The Future and It's Enemies, which is still one of my favorite political books. Regardless of how my views change I am now, have always been and will always be a Dynamist. Shortly thereafter came 9/11 which changed everything. I was surprised to find that many libertarians saw the US government as more of a threat to liberty than radical Islamists. And thus began a process which over time led me away from libertarianism.

For the next several years our response to 9/11 and our effort to defeat radical Islamism was my primary focus. I remember a discussion among libertarians after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 which revealed a rift between those who supported the war and those who did not. And I responded that I was pro-liberty and that meant that domestically I supported rolling back government activity but that internationally I supported an active government. This was an important moment for me because I realized that being pro-liberty sometimes meant being pro-government. The center of gravity of libertarianism is an anti-government attitude. I struggled with this for a few years and eventually stopped describing myself as a libertarian choosing instead "classical liberal."

But what was a classical liberal? It took me a long time to figure this out because there is no intellectual history of liberalism from beginning to the present. There are books about different aspects of liberalism's history but no book that really covers it all and puts everything in the proper perspective.

Liberalism is a vast ideology, it includes libertarians but also New Deal liberals; people who think government is the primary threat to the individual and people who think that government is the primary ally of the individual. Liberalism has many forms and styles. It is different from one culture to the next, different in the agricultural age and in the industrial age and the information age, different for a small country and for a superpower, different when addressing issues within a state and issues between states. People created hybrids, created syntheses of liberalism and conservatism, liberalism and nationalism, liberalism and socialism, and the American Founders created the most successful synthesis: liberalism and classical republicanism. But there is no "pure" form of liberalism, no one true way. It is always a neverending improvisation. Always an attempt to apply abstract principles to specific circumstances. And always imperfect.

The forms of liberalism that were appropriate responses to specific eras and challenges and circumstances are for the most part inappropriate in other eras etc. Therefore we are faced with the responsibility and the opportunity to craft forms of liberalism that are appropriate for our time, for our challenges, for our sensibilities. The classical liberalism of the 19th century was appropriate for its time, but not for the industrial age. That doesn't mean it was wrong, just that industrialization posed challenges and created opportunities that pre-industrial "classical" liberalism could not address. The industrial age liberalism created in the mid-20th century was imperfect but appropriate for its era, but that time has now passed.

And so here we are at the beginning of the 21st century, at the beginning of an era where the old liberalism is no longer appropriate and a new liberalism has not yet been crafted. But we have the good fortune to be in at the beginning. Too many people are wasting their creativity, intelligence, energy and resources either defending the old liberalism or attacking the old liberalism.

And so as I am now at the other end of a long decade I find myself with a different perspective from where I began. My core beliefs remain the same: I recognize the inherent value of each individual and support a social, political, economic order within which individuals may pursue their own ends and attempt to actualize their potential while respecting the rights of others to do the same. This type of society will always require a market economy. It will at times require an active government and at other times require a more restrained government. I am willing to support both depending on the circumstances. But either way that government must be administered in a fiscally responsible manner. I have no interest in either anti-government or anti-market attitudes, I find them both to be distractions. In the end my primary loyalty is to the American Experiment. And my goal is to realize the true potential of the American Experiment in our era. This will be neither "progressive" nor "conservative" but something else entirely.

So I no longer think of myself as a classical liberal, but rather as a 21st century liberal. But the details have yet to be worked out so that will mean nothing to anyone. And the goal is not to "update" an older form of liberalism, but imagine a newer form of liberalism.

Reflections: Strategic Citizen (Updated)

2010-05-31T12:40:00.004-04:00

I started this blog to explore a few ideas. They represent a particular time in my life, that time is over and I have moved on. Some of those ideas are more a product of that time and aren't really relevant to me now, others though were the basis of where I've gone with my thinking since. Many of my views have changed and this blog doesn't really reflect where I am at today, although many things remain the same. One theme of this blog that really captured my imagination during this time was the Strategic Citizen.

I came up with the idea of the Strategic Citizen because I was frustrated with the ongoing failure of the Bush Administration to implement a campaign of ideas against radical Islamists and for America. It was in Feb. 2005 that the idea occurred to me that because of advances in communications technology ordinary citizens could run sophisticated campaigns of ideas that in the past would have been the sole province of government agencies. And it was in 2006 that I came up with the term "strategic citizen" as an effort to capture this idea in a couple of words. During the years leading up to this I had been bitten by the entrepreneurship bug and was saving up money to start a media business and was always looking for an entrepreneurial solution to problems. It was also a time when I had been reading the essays Glenn Reynolds was writing for TechCentralStation that would become the basis of his book Army of Davids, when there were a lot of discussions of decentralized networks, spontaneous social orders, and of course the rise of the blogosphere that empowered ordinary individuals and challenged existing old-style media companies. It was also a time when Al Qaeda itself was demonstrating that it could run media campaigns without the large governmental bureaucracies that too many people in the US felt were necessary. Al Qaeda used off-the-shelf technology and decentralized networks to successfully disseminate their ideas and influence perceptions. Why couldn't ordinary Americans do the same? It was obvious to me that we could. I thought it was a good idea and tried to persuade other people that while not everyone could serve in the military or work in intelligence, law enforcement and diplomacy, they could become participants in the war of ideas and have a positive impact in a way that had never been possible before. But with a few exceptions, no one was interested or they didn't believe that it would work, despite the evidence that it was already working for our adversaries. In retrospect I probably should have done more to champion the idea, maybe set up a website dedicated to it and written longer pieces to flesh out the idea. But at the time I was trying to start up my business and that absorbed most of my energy and attention. I was trying to live up to the idea I was championing and become an entrepreneur and strategic citizen rather than just talk about it. Unfortunately I ran out of money before I was able to make enough money. But I learned a lot from that experience and plan to build on that as I pursue the next iteration of the business. I still think the Strategic Citizen was a good idea but in order for its potential to be realized I had to persuade other people to buy into it and take action and I was never able to do that. In the end though it doesn't really matter. And it doesn't matter that the federal gov't was never able or willing to get its act together in public diplomacy/strategic communication.

Addendum: The first time I wrote about the citizen-directed idea campaigns was in February 2005 in a comment at the now defunct Daily Demarche blog. Unfortunately the comments are no longer accessible, all that remains is his comment on my comment. I was most definitely not referring to "pen pals" when I talked about "citizen diplomacy." Nor was I suggesting that government sponsor anything.

Phil advocates "citizen diplomacy", and says "We Americans should be our own advocates." This is an excellent idea with a long standing tradition- we used to call folks who practiced this pen pals. Is there any reason the government can't sponsor modern day pen pals via the internet? It's a small thing, to be sure, but that is what large successes are built on. Michael adds to this thought: "This is a two way road. We are all on it. But we can not even get this message straight in the US let alone in the world. I like the idea from Phil's idea: "citizen diplomacy". We Americans should be our own advocates. It is not about the dollars but what we do with the dollars." Well said. Engaging any interpersonal problem at the individual level is the quickest way to root out misconceptions.

The first time I used "strategic citizen" was in a comment on a Fourth Rail post in April 2006.

Perhaps we need to develop the concept and skills of the "strategic citizen". The citizentry is not hermetically sealed off from the war. Third parties don't have to be hostile. With our entrepreneurial culture and today's technology there is no reason why "strategic citizens" can't create friendly non-governmental organizations and media that can take an active role in this new kind of warfare.

What is ideology?

2009-09-13T20:45:00.001-04:00

The concept "ideology" has itself been the subject of considerable debate among social scientists. The very term has been confused by a plethora of definitions and made disreputable through its association with fascism and communism, compelling one writer to suggest that it be discarded altogether, in favor of "belief systems." I still prefer the simpler term "ideology," but in this work I shall not use it in the recent sense which implies dogma, a rigid, doctrinaire, black and white understanding of the world, but, rather, as the system of beliefs, values, fears, prejudices, reflexes, and commitments-in sum, the social consciousness- of a social group, be it a class, a party, or a section. Genovese uses the term more or less interchangeably with "world view," which also has a certain value (although it hardly conveys the full meaning of the German Weltanschauung), because an important aspect of ideology involves the way in which a group perceives itself and its values in relation to the society as a whole. when I speak of the Republican ideology, therefore, I am dealing with the party's perception of what American society, both North and South, was like in the 1850s, and its view of what the nation's future ought to be.

Eric Foner in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. (highly recommended)

Photos: Little Round Top

2009-09-07T13:43:00.003-04:00

Was roaming around the battlefield at Gettysburg a few weeks ago and took some pictures. The first is Houck's Ridge and Devils Den from Little Round Top. The second, is Little Round Top from Houck's Ridge.

"I can only hope a change in our thinking will result"

2009-09-02T20:45:00.001-04:00

The competition of ideas, interpretations and perceptions continues and this is how it is done. Driven by self-motivation; people are inspired by their worldview to spread their worldview. This is where the narrative battle is being fought.

Oliver Stone is making his most ambitious stab at American history yet.

The controversial director is creating a 10-part documentary series for Showtime titled "Secret History of America."

Narrated by Stone, the series promises to focus on events that "at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America's unique and complex history of the last 60 years," according to Showtime.

Subjects will include President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, the origins of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to "the fierce struggle between war and peace in America's national security complex."

The project includes "newly discovered facts and accounts" from the Kennedy administration, the Vietnam War and the great changes in America's role in the world since the fall of Communism in the 1980s "through this epic 10-hour series, which I feel is the deepest contribution I could ever make in film to my children and the next generation, I can only hope a change in our thinking will result," Stone said in a statement.

Waller's Political Warfare class and new book

2009-08-30T14:34:00.002-04:00

I would love to take Michael Waller's political warfare class. Maybe next year.

There's still time to sign up for my graduate course, Political Warfare: Past, Present and Future. Taught on Thursday nights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, the course is the only one of its kind. It's designed for intelligence officers, military officers and diplomats, but (almost) anyone is welcome to sign up. My Foreign Propaganda class is over-subscribed.

Students will study the ancients: Kautilya of India, Sun Tzu of China, Aristotle and Thucydides of Athens, Virgil of Rome, as well as the ancient Hebrews and Persians and even Attila the Hun. Then we go over the political warfare of the Crusades, medieval and Renaissance Europe (especially Niccolo Machiavelli, who likewise studied the ancients), and six hours of intensive lectures on the political warfare of the American Revolution.

American warfighters will benefit from mastery of Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin's political warfare strategies and tactics; we've helped incorporate them into operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Finally, we study more modern political warriors, including the culturally subversive Antonio Gramsci and - this year, for the first time - community organizer Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals.

Here's the webpage for this political warfare class.

Waller also has a new book coming out:

My new compilation of American Revolutionary War propaganda and political warfare is now available. Founding Political Warfare Documents of the United States is a 367-page compendium of some of the best examples of American and British propaganda and political warfare: leaflets, pamphlets, declarations, speeches, letters, essays, articles, official documents, cartoons, and satire.

Authors include Samuel Adams (of course), James Otis, John Hancock, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, the Sons of Liberty, the Continental Congress; and the British Parliament, General Thomas Gage, the dreaded Parliament, and King George III.

Don't be a dumb Ash

2009-08-30T11:10:00.001-04:00

I respect Timothy Garton Ash, but this is just pure ignorance, in fact you have to go out of your way to be this ignorant of America:

The integration of immigrants in the United States is easier, because there is no social welfare state there.

Let's see, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, War on Poverty, etc, etc. Yup, "no social welfare state there." Sheesh.

And then there's this:

This is because the middle class in the United States has experienced the brutality and injustice of the unbridled Anglo-Saxon free market economy firsthand -- in the healthcare system, for example.

What on earth is he talking about? First, there is nothing "unbridled" about America's market economy. "Brutality and injustice"? This is pure unbridled propaganda. I expect more from Garton Ash than the mindless regurgitation of slogans that have no basis in fact.

Know your adversary; learn from your adversary

2009-08-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

E-book from Project Gutenberg:
The History of the Fabian Society by Edward R. Pease

From google books:
The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance by Rolf Wiggershaus

The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research by Martin Jay

Greenpeace lies about global warming? I'm shocked, shocked...

2009-08-28T09:18:00.000-04:00

"That we as a pressure group have to emotionalize issues and we are not ashamed of emotionalizing issues"

Via Big Hollywood

Dropping the "un-American" card

2009-08-28T09:02:00.001-04:00

Pelosi/Hoyer: Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

Really?

“Do you personally support revival of the ‘Fairness Doctrine?’” I asked.

“Yes,” the speaker [Pelosi] replied, without hesitation.

Expect to see the Fairness Doctrine or some other effort to constrict the 1st Amendment begin to slither around the halls of Congress in the near future, especially if the "progressives" don't get what they want on health care.

We need to learn from our adversaries

2009-08-25T22:53:00.002-04:00

A few years ago I proposed an approach to waging a war of ideas:

In [one strategy] the enemy attempts to use the target country’s media as a vehicle to sap the people’s and political leaders’ will to fight...[or] attack a school or a courthouse in order to show that the government can’t defend itself...In [another strategy] the enemy actually becomes the media and the political leadership...the enemy seeks to become the country's media, university and grade school teachers, writers, artists, etc. They become the purveyors of culture.
...
things become much more complicated if they actually become the judges, intelligence officers, diplomats, policy makers etc. I don’t really think there is a major role for the state in this kind of intellectual war, but rather think that ideas have to be fought with ideas, and that the people who want to defend their country from this kind of attack need to develop their own...tactics independent of the state.

There is no better exemplar of this kind of strategy than the Frankfurt School (Via ChicagoBoyz):

So how do you defeat this kind of an adversary? What kind of strategy, ideas and organization can be successful in this kind of competition?

Bailyn on Booknotes

2009-08-24T19:06:00.003-04:00

From Bernard Bailyn on Booknotes with Brian Lamb:

LAMB: I mean it just rang like today when there was a leak of a document coming out. How much of that went on back in those days?

 BAILYN: Well, there was a lot and that enters into this Franklin story a great deal. That was, he took with him to Europe when he went in 1776 an early draft of the Articles of Confederation. It was not what was finally accepted and there are significant differences.
 But he was so eager to promote the constitutional forms that had been worked out in America that he took it and had it published, as he did many other documents from the states, had it published and translated and it was in that form actually that it reached an English audience through the translation of this draft form that went into French first.
 It was typical. I have a good deal of this in the book. It's typical of the kinds of complexities in the dissemination of American documents during that period.

 LAMB: You also write about the Constitution circulating around Europe being translated back in those days.

 BAILYN: Yes.

 LAMB: How much of that went on and why did it go on?

 BAILYN: A great deal. There was a great interest in this and it enters into the thinking of people working through reform movements all over Europe. The book begins with an argument about American provincialism.
 The first chapter tries to explain something we don't often think about that at the beginning of the revolution these people were provincials. No one knew of their importance. We think of them now as Mount Rushmore, I mean these vast figures.
 They weren't vast figures and their provincialism, their removal from the center of the heart of cultured Western Europe was part of the power that they could develop in thinking through new ideas.
 The last chapter, which kind of wraps this up in a way, the last chapter shows the way in which these provincial ideas become cosmopolitan and circulate through so much, not only of England where it would naturally circulate, but France as well into Switzerland, into Latin America and the way these ideas played out in complex ways all throughout the Atlantic world.
 And, it seems to me that one of the big stories in this is the way in which these provincial efforts then succeed locally and then radiate out into the whole of the Atlantic world.
...
BAILYN: Yes. Well, what Madison is saying is that they paid attention to the great names and the great thoughts of the past. The historical documents they were familiar with and the great names like Montesquieu, but as he explains, and that paragraph is exactly to the point, they did not revere them to the point where they dominated their thinking and that they - the fact that they were able to break free from these dominating ideas was one of the keys to their success and Madison was keenly aware of that.

 LAMB: What's original about the work that they did?

 BAILYN: As I enumerated in there, there are a whole series of basic ideas about public life which were considered at the time to be illogical, for example that you could divide sovereignty. Well, nobody believed you could divide sovereignty but we do between the states and the nation, and no one believed that that was possible at the time and they showed in ways, Madison especially, the way in which this could operate successfully.
 Nobody believed that a free republican state could exist on a large scale. It would just fall to pieces because there were no controls over it if people were simply governing themselves. Again, they showed the way in which this was not so, that you could - it could operate successfully over a large expanse. And so, there are a number of these key issues that they're discussing which are original.

Irregular Warfare in the Civil War

2009-08-22T10:28:00.000-04:00

The always excellent Civil War Books and Authors blog has a long review of a book on irregular warfare during the Civil War:

Over the past few decades, our understanding of Civil War irregular warfare has been greatly enhanced by a number of excellent local and regional studies published in essay and book length format. However, until now, no scholar has attempted a broad scope examination of the subject on a national scale. The difficulties are legion. Definitions are murky, and individual motivations numerous as the stars and often confined to local conditions not easily explained or understood. At the time, neither side could agree on the legal state of a range of behaviors, and, consequently, the proper disposition of captured persons variously labeled as, among other terms, recruiting officers, raiders, bushwhackers, partisan rangers, jayhawkers, and guerrillas. At various times, both sides (with misgivings) actively promoted their use while at the same time seeking to deny the enemy the same privilege. One of the best known scholars attempting to make sense of this complex and messy subject is University of Arkansas professor Daniel E. Sutherland. His new book, A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War is the first modern study that examines irregular warfare spanning the continent, and how it shaped the character and conduct of the Civil War, the unintended consequences of which hastened Confederate defeat.

Another book added to the ever growing wish list.

Read the whole thing.

Reason TV: On the Rise of the Microbrew Movement

2009-08-22T08:15:00.001-04:00

Beer: An American Revolution

Paragliding in Afghanistan

2009-08-19T17:49:00.000-04:00

Big State, Small State

2009-08-09T20:29:00.001-04:00

There is an opinion essay in the Washington Post on the topic of states with small populations and equal representation in the Senate. California has the largest population at 36.7 million people and Wyoming the smallest at 532,668 and yet they both have 2 senators. This is a legitimate issue that comes up now and again, and at some point will have to be addressed. But it's coming up now because apparently senators from small states are proving to be obstacles to Obama's agenda. No solutions are provided of course, but the underlying point is that small states should not have the power they do as a result of the current representational scheme. I agree, but I have three propositions to offer:

First, big states should be broken up into smaller states. People always point out the disproportionate representation of the small states in the Senate without ever acknowledging that the big states are too big. California should be broken up into three states, Texas maybe four, New York two, Florida two and so on. If some states can be too small, other states can be too big. If we are going to start rearranging representation in the Senate then lets go all the way. If we want equality in representation then we have to push the outliers towards the middle, whether small or big.

The piece also drops in a little something that I don't think the author really thought through:

And then there's the Senate's age-old distortion of distributive politics, in which goodies are doled out on anything but a per-capita basis. California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are among the 10 states that get the least back per tax dollar sent to Washington; Alaska, the Dakotas and West Virginia are among those that get the most.

Let's apply that to individuals and private organizations: those who pay more in taxes should get more representation and influence. If it's right for states it's right for everybody, right? This means that rich people and corporations (the evil duo) should have more representation than middle class and poor citizens. Do you really want to go there?

The other thing that is missing here is competence. Yes, California with 36.7 million people is the most populous state, but so what? California is a disaster. Californians have completely misgoverned their state. Why on earth should we give them MORE influence at the federal level? Maybe representation should be based on demonstrated competence at governing regardless of population. That would at least give states an incentive to govern well. Their disastrous incompetence at governing should result in less influence not more.

The Coin Toss

2009-08-02T17:26:00.002-04:00

One of the biggest mistakes people make is not understanding the nature of the game they are playing; thinking they are playing by one set of rules when in fact real game is being played by an entirely different set of rules.

Leftists very commonly assert that that non-leftists have to offer a fully fleshed-out alternative to the status quo before they can offer criticisms of the current faddish idea of the Left. When you try to explain to them that the validity of an idea has nothing to do with the validity of any competing ideas, they stare at you blankly.

This is correct and I agree with it, but it is beside the point. The Left is not playing by the rules of logic. They are not engaged in an academic debate over ideas, they are engaged in political competition, a competition for power and influence and they are willing to use whatever means of persuasion will work regardless of whether they are logically valid. It doesn't matter whether you like this or not, you have to adapt to your adversary's tactics and strategies. You can't defeat the Left with logic, you can only defeat the Left with perpetual activism and organization and by using whatever rhetorical tactics will work. If you don't have the will to do that, then get used to losing.

Yes it is true that you can examine the validity of a statement, assertion, argument etc without being obligated to offer an alternative. But again this isn't a classroom, this is political competition and policymaking and so yes it is necessary to have an alternative when you criticize a policy. Policymakers want solutions to problems. If you want to successfully compete then you will develop policy options along with your criticism.

This reminds me of one of my favorite Bill Cosby bits:

Good Music: Franz Ferdinand and The Last Shadow Puppets

2009-07-28T20:43:00.001-04:00

Franz Ferdinand: No you girls

The Last Shadow Puppets: Meeting Place

Australia's National Security Strategy

2009-07-20T14:33:00.001-04:00

Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030

Australia's most basic strategic interest remains the defence of Australia against direct armed attack. This
includes armed attacks by other states and by non-state actors with the capacity to employ strategic capabilities,
including weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This most basic strategic interest abides irrespective of the
perceived intentions of others, and is a function of our geography and levels of current and future capability in
the region around us. Before we attend to anything else, we must secure this strategic interest.

Our next most important strategic interest is the security,stability and cohesion of our immediate neighbourhood,
which we share with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, New Zealand and the South Pacific island
states. While we have a wide range of diplomatic, economic, cultural and other links with those countries, from
a strategic point of view, what matters most is that they are not a source of threat to Australia, and that no
major military power, that could challenge our control of the air and sea approaches to Australia, has access to
bases in our neighbourhood from which to project force against us.

Beyond our immediate neighbourhood, Australia has an enduring strategic interest in the stability of the wider
Asia-Pacific region, which stretches from North Asia to the Eastern Indian Ocean. In particular, we have a deep
stake in the security of Southeast Asia. Strategically, our neighbours in Southeast Asia sit astride our northern
approaches, through which hostile forces would have to operate in order to sustainably project force against
Australia. A stable and cohesive Southeast Asia will mitigate any such threat and is in our strategic interests.
More broadly, we have a deep stake in the maintenance of an Asia-Pacific regional security environment that
is conducive to the peaceful resolution of problems between regional countries and can absorb the rise in
strategic and military power of emerging major players.

Beyond our region, Australia cannot be secure in an insecure world. We have a strategic interest in preserving
an international order that restrains aggression by states against each other, and can effectively manage other
risks and threats, such as the proliferation of WMD, terrorism, state fragility and failure, intra-state conflict, and
the security impacts of climate change and resource scarcity.

Other recent national security strategies from the Anglosphere:

The National Security Strategy of the UK

Securing an Open Society: Canada's National Security Policy

A couple of links...

2009-07-08T11:08:00.001-04:00

Here is a video of Anne Marie Slaughter (DOS Director of Policy Planning) speaking at the Navy War College's Current Strategy Forum.

And thanks to google books here's an interesting chapter: Alexander Hamilton and the Grand Strategy of the American Social Compact by Karl Walling.

Update

2009-07-06T21:15:00.001-04:00

Well it's been a while since I've been around, but I've been busy trying to start a new career which is finally, after a lot of hard work and what seems like endless waiting, moving in the right direction. My internship has turned into a job doing freelance work at a tv station. The station has treated me very well and has been willing to teach and allow me to try my hand at things even though I'm new. So I've been getting a lot of good experience in a variety of different areas. I've done audio and cameras for studio and field productions among other things. Last week on the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg I worked on a video crew recording tours of the battlefield (I carried the tripod) following the paths of different units as they fought their part of the battle. I have a much greater understanding of the battle than before. One of my ancestors fought in the 27th Indiana and was wounded at Gettysburg and I got to stand where his unit fought and hear their story. That's a very powerful experience.

I've also been going through a transition of ideas. For a few years now I've argued that we need to update classical liberal ideas for the 21st century but it has been in the last 8-9 months that I have started to really work towards that goal. I made a conscious decision last year to change the way I think. The generally libertarian worldview that I had been operating with for several years no longer worked for me and my commitment to "updating classical liberal ideas for the 21st century" eventually led me to a point where I realized that I needed a different way of thinking. And so I began a little at a time to force myself to think differently and eventually I had a kind of breakthrough, a point where some new possibilities opened up. It's still very general and there is historical precedent for it. It's funny how entire genres of thinking just drop out of our awareness even though they were prominent in their time. I'm thinking that I might start a new blog, completely separate from this one to explore some of these ideas. I need a new hobby and that might be a worthwhile thing to do.

Some grand strategy links

2009-04-26T13:41:00.002-04:00

Here are a few interesting grand strategy links via Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog:

What is grand strategy and why do we need it? by Peter Feaver

Ten books that are essential reading for anyone interested in grand strategy by William Inboden

What Is Grand Strategy? by John Lewis Gaddis

Yale University offers a Program in Grand Strategy. Here is the spring 2008 Studies in Grand Strategy syllabus which has a great reading list.

Duke University has also started up a Program in American Grand Strategy

"Born as a commercial republic"

2009-03-20T21:07:00.003-04:00

One of the main arguments of this blog has been that the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship should be the content of a campaign of ideas to champion classical liberal ideals. I have also argued that entrepreneurship should be the means by which the ideas are disseminated. Meaning that entrepreneurial ventures (for-profit and non-profit) should be created to wage a campaign of ideas using the symbolism and narrative of the entrepreneur to transmit the vision and values of America, the liberal commercial republic. This is a campaign of ideas that takes place at the cultural level, that inspires people to act and create in ways that make us more resilient, more able to creatively respond to adversity. Now read the following excerpt from a recent column by David Brooks through the framework of the above.

In short, the United States will never be Europe. It was born as a commercial republic. It’s addicted to the pace of commercial enterprise. After periodic pauses, the country inevitably returns to its elemental nature.

The U.S. is in one of those pauses today. It has been odd, over the past six months, not to have the gospel of success as part of the normal background music of life. You go about your day, taking in the news and the new movies, books and songs, and only gradually do you become aware that there is an absence. There are no aspirational stories of rags-to-riches success floating around. There are no new how-to-get-rich enthusiasms. There are few magazine covers breathlessly telling readers that some new possibility — biotechnology, nanotechnology — is about to change everything. That part of American culture that stokes ambition and encourages risk has gone silent.

We are now in an astonishingly noncommercial moment. Risk is out of favor. The financial world is abashed. Enterprise is suspended. The public culture is dominated by one downbeat story after another as members of the educated class explore and enjoy the humiliation of the capitalist vulgarians.

Washington is temporarily at the center of the nation’s economic gravity and a noncommercial administration holds sway. This is an administration that has many lawyers and academics but almost no businesspeople in it, let alone self-made entrepreneurs. The president speaks passionately about education and health care reform, but he is strangely aloof from the banking crisis and displays no passion when speaking about commercial drive and success.

But if there is one thing we can be sure of, this pause will not last. The cultural DNA of the past 400 years will not be erased. The pendulum will swing hard. The gospel of success will recapture the imagination.

Somewhere right now there’s probably a smart publisher searching for the most unabashed, ambitious, pro-wealth, pro-success manuscript she can find, and in about three months she’ll pile it up in the nation’s bookstores. Somewhere there’s probably a TV producer thinking of hiring Jim Cramer to do a show to tell story after story of unapologetic business success. Somewhere there’s a politician finding a way to ride the commercial renaissance that is bound to come, ready to explain how government can sometimes nurture entrepreneurial greatness and sometimes should get out of the way.

Lincoln as Commander in Chief

2009-03-19T08:14:00.001-04:00

Historian James McPherson has a new book out that looks like it would be a good read for people who are interested in grand strategy and strategic thinking and is now at the top of my wish list: Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. Here's an essay on this topic by McPherson in the Smithsonian Magazine:

When he called state militia into federal service on April 15, 1861—following the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter—Lincoln therefore faced a steep learning curve as commander in chief. He was a quick study, however; his experience as a largely self-taught lawyer with a keen analytical mind who had mastered Euclidean geometry for mental exercise enabled him to learn quickly on the job. He read and absorbed works on military history and strategy; he observed the successes and failures of his own and the enemy's military commanders and drew apt conclusions; he made mistakes and learned from them; he applied his large quotient of common sense to slice through the obfuscations and excuses of military subordinates. By 1862 his grasp of strategy and operations was firm enough almost to justify the overstated but not entirely wrong conclusion of historian T. Harry Williams: "Lincoln stands out as a great war president, probably the greatest in our history, and a great natural strategist, a better one than any of his generals."

No outrage zone

2009-03-09T11:34:00.002-04:00

I'm more than a little burned out on outrage and feeling betrayed right now. I'm just not interested. So when Republicans point out how liberal Obama is, I just kind of shrug my shoulders and think "the Republicans should have governed better":

The stock market has been tanking steadily since his election, but public approval for President Barack Obama remains high. And this despite the fact that his carefully composed centrist stance during the campaign has been replaced by an economic policy that is at least as strongly liberal as FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society, if not more so.
Why don’t Americans feel more betrayed, or at least more wary?

How can you expect me to be outraged at the Democrats when this is how Republicans governed when they recently controlled Congress and the White House:

George W. Bush rode into Washington almost eight years ago astride the horse of smaller government. He will leave it this winter having overseen the biggest federal budget expansion since Franklin Delano Roosevelt seven decades ago.
Not since World War II, when the nation mobilized to fight a global war against fascism and recover from the Great Depression, has government spending played as large a role in the economy as it does today.
...
Mr. Bush already is the first president in history to implement budgets that crossed the $2 trillion a year and $3 trillion a year marks.
...
Federal spending grew from $1.9 trillion in 2000 to what will be at least $3.4 trillion in 2009.
Economists say the best way to measure the size of the federal government is to look at spending as a percentage of the total economy, or gross domestic product. And by that measure, Mr. Bush has increased spending more dramatically than any president since FDR, whose spending on the New Deal and World War II will likely never be matched. During his 12 years, government ballooned from 8 percent of the economy to 41.9 percent.
...
By that measure, federal budget numbers show spending under the Bush administration rose from 18.4 percent of GDP to 22.5 percent - a 4.1-point increase - and could end up even higher.
The only presidents to approach that level of growth were President Carter, who grew spending as a percentage of GDP by 1.5 points, and President Ford, who grew it by 1 point. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton all decreased spending relative to the overall economy.

Given this track record it is hard to take Republican criticism of Obama seriously. Not that there aren't legitimate criticisms to be made, but Republicans have no credibility to make them. As a result...

Large swaths of the electorate have stopped paying attention to Republicans, he [Sen. McConnell] said.

Wash. Post

And rightfully so. Republicans need to rebuild their credibility with the public if they want the public to take them seriously. If we have learned anything over the past 15 years or so it's that it is a very bad idea for either party to control both Congress and the White House. And so I would like to see the Republicans win Congress in 10. But the Republicans are in an awkward situation. The Republicans need to persuade people that they will govern better than the Democrats, but the memory of how they governed last time around is fresh and is not going to be flushed down the memory hole. If Republicans try to say that they learned their lesson and they are getting back to their true principles, this will rightfully be dismissed as the cynical maneuver of a party that is willing to say anything to get back into power.

Whatever opposition strategy they come up with this is probably not the way to go. If you want credit for the successes then you have to also accept responsibility for the failures:

Conservatives and Republicans aren't synonymous, he [David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union] said. Conservatism didn't lose the election; Republicans lost it, he said: "If this were a gathering of Republicans, they would be down and have every right to be down. They were repudiated."

Wash. Post

I've seen variations on this theme since November. Conservatives and Republicans aren't the same thing; it was Republicans who governed badly not Conservatives therefore Conservatives bear no responsibility. If this is true (and there is some truth to this) then what conclusion can we draw? What this means is that Conservatives aren't in charge of the Republican Party. So, if after 50 years Conservatives can't achieve hegemony within the Republican Party, why would anyone believe that they can achieve hegemony within society as a whole? Apparently, the Conservative Movement, rather than being the dominant ideological force, is nothing more than an ideological faction within the Republican Party that has no power to control how that party governs. The Conservative achievements have proven to be superficial and easily overturned. The politics of the next few elections cycles will be interesting to watch. The Conservative moment is over but the Republican party should be able to harness the energy of opposition and ride it to electoral success. What we are seeing from the Democrats though is the last gasp of 20th century industrial age managerial liberalism. When I look at the Democrats I see "New Deal re-enactors". Over time we'll see that approach proven to be inadequate to our circumstances. This is a really good time for the development of ideas. Don't try to salvage the old ideas in their age of decline. Rather develop the new ideas that will govern the next 50 years. And don't dissipate your energy being outraged and feeling betrayed, rather channel your energy into something creative. I don't want to spend the next 4 years in a state of perpetual outrage.

CNBC: Fount of Wisdom

2009-03-05T20:41:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

And so it goes...

2009-03-05T18:20:00.001-05:00

Well the school that I attended last year and where I worked up until last week has shut down and filed for bankruptcy. This doesn't surprise me, I had a hunch months ago that this was a very real possibility. Aside from the personal impact on me (I'm outta of a job, they still owe me for my last 2 weeks, and I'm supposed to get a variety of lifetime benefits including studio and equipment use, continuing ed and others) this is a lesson in business. Here was a successful family-run business that endured for 42 years, surviving economic crises in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s. And then a couple of years ago they were bought by an international financial corporation and in 2 1/2 years was run into the ground and is now bankrupt. Terrible management, bad customer service, didn't treat employees well. A lot of the things you read in articles and books about business seem like cliches and common sense, but then you see a situation like this and you realize that sometimes there is wisdom in the cliches. There really is no substitute for good customer service and being passionate about your product. This business was bought and managed to be a "plantation" investment, as something to be exploited rather than a business to be grown and developed in cooperation with its customers. I learned a lot about audio and video editing, camera operations, master control ops, and audio performance all of which I plan to put to use in a variety of ways, particularly in my own business aspirations. I also made back my entire tuition by working there, and most of the time I was paid to run the equipment, which means that I was getting paid to practice and improve skills. So that's that. And on we go...

Some books I would like to buy, cont'd

2009-02-27T17:06:00.001-05:00

If Mahan Ran the Great Pacific War: An Analysis of World War II Naval Strategy

Adams uses Mahan's ideas to discuss the great Pacific sea battles of World War II and to consider how well they withstood the test of actual combat. Re-examining the conduct of war in the Pacific from a single analytic viewpoint leads to some surprising conclusions about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raid, the Battle of the Coral Sea, the recapture of the Philippines, and the submarine war.

Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer

When he died in 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the Vanderbilt dynasty, was wealthier than the U.S. Treasury. But he had nearly lost his fortune in 1856, when William Walker, a young Nashville genius, set out to conquer Central America and, in the process, take away Vanderbilt’s most profitable shipping business. To win back his empire, Vanderbilt had to win a bloody war involving seven countries.
Tycoon’s War tells the story of an epic imperialist duel—a violent battle of capitalist versus idealist, money versus ambition—and a monumental clash of egos that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans.

The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848

Few historical figures are as inextricably linked as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. But less than two decades before they faced each other as enemies at Appomattox, they had been brothers--both West Point graduates, both wearing blue, and both fighting in the same cadre in the Mexican War. They were not alone: Sherman, Davis, Jackson-nearly all of the Civil War's greatest soldiers had been forged in the heat of Vera Cruz and Monterrey.
The Mexican War has faded from our national memory, but it was a struggle of enormous significance: the first U.S. war waged on foreign soil; and it nearly doubled our nation. At this fascinating juncture of American history, a group of young men came together to fight as friends, only years later to fight as enemies. This is their story.

Lincoln and His Admirals

Written by prize-winning historian Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.
Beginning with a gripping account of the attempt to re-supply Fort Sumter--a comedy of errors that shows all too clearly the fledgling president's inexperience--Symonds traces Lincoln's steady growth as a wartime commander-in-chief. Absent a Secretary of Defense, he would eventually become de facto commander of joint operations along the coast and on the rivers. That involved dealing with the men who ran the Navy: the loyal but often cranky Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, the quiet and reliable David G. Farragut, the flamboyant and unpredictable Charles Wilkes, the ambitious ordnance expert John Dahlgren, the well-connected Samuel Phillips Lee, and the self-promoting and gregarious David Dixon Porter. Lincoln was remarkably patient; he often postponed critical decisions until the momentum of events made the consequences of those decisions evident. But Symonds also shows that Lincoln could act decisively. Disappointed by the lethargy of his senior naval officers on the scene, he stepped in and personally directed an amphibious assault on the Virginia coast, a successful operation that led to the capture of Norfolk. The man who knew "little about ships" had transformed himself into one of the greatest naval strategists of his age

Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940

In a comprehensive study of four decades of military policy, Brian McAllister Linn offers the first detailed history of the U.S. Army in Hawaii and the Philippines between 1902 and 1940. Most accounts focus on the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. By examining the years prior to the outbreak of war, Linn provides a new perspective on the complex evolution of events in the Pacific. Exhaustively researched, Guardians of Empire traces the development of U.S. defense policy in the region, concentrating on strategy, tactics, internal security, relations with local communities, and military technology. Linn challenges earlier studies which argue that army officers either ignored or denigrated the Japanese threat and remained unprepared for war. He demonstrates instead that from 1907 onward military commanders in both Washington and the Pacific were vividly aware of the danger, that they developed a series of plans to avert it, and that they in fact identified—even if they could not solve—many of the problems that would become tragically apparent on 7 December 1941.

Today's Quote: The Great Prize

2009-02-26T10:49:00.004-05:00

From God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

The Anglo-Americans have sought to build a global trading system based increasingly on liberal democratic capitalism; their enemies have resisted and tried to build walls that would protect their societies from the disruptive effects of Anglo-Saxon ideas and practices.
...
The Anglospheric grand strategy has not always been conscious. To some degree it is embedded in the assumptions, habits, and institutions of the English-speaking powers.
...
By doing what came naturally, by following the logic of their geography, culture, and society, the British and then the Americans happened on a way of managing their affairs in the world that provided for a flexible and durable form of global power suited to their circumstances while committing them to a less difficult set of tasks and conflicts than other leading powers have faced.
...
The modern version of sea power was invented by the Dutch. The system of global trade, investment, and military power that the Dutch built in the seventeenth century was the envy and the wonder of the world at the time, and many basic features were adopted by the British and the Americans in subsequent years. That Dutch system was like version 1.0 of the operating software on which much of the world still runs. At the turn of the eighteenth century the British introduced version 2.0; there were several incremental upgrades along the way until the Americans introduced version 3.0 after the Second World War.
...
A new kind of society and a new kind of power had appeared in the world. An open, dynamic, and capitalist society generated innovations in finance, technology, marketing, and communications. Those innovations offered the open society enormous advantages in world trade. The wealth gained in this way provided the basis for military power that could withstand the largest and mightiest rival empires of the day. This basic formula of an open society, world trade, and world power was the power secret of the sea kings and the major driving force in the history of the last four hundred years.
...
For the Anglo-Americans, the great prize has been and remains the construction of a global system that meets their economic and security needs.
...
In Anglo-American strategic thought, there is one world composed of many theaters. The theaters are linked by the sea, and whoever controls the sea can choose the architecture that shapes the world. The primary ambition of Anglo-Saxon power is not dominance in a particular theater; it is to dominate the structure that shapes the conditions within which the actors in each of the world's theaters live...the end is to control the system that binds them all together.

A discussion on the future of the WTO

2009-02-25T12:07:00.000-05:00

There's an interesting discussion about the WTO at the University of Chicago Law School Faculty blog. My interest in the liberal international trade order has been fired by the works of Barnett, Ikenberry and Slaughter, and Meade's God and Gold which have set me thinking about things in ways that are new to me, and that's very exciting. There is also an intertwining of themes here: the competition of ideas, entrepreneurial liberalism, the role of America in the world, ruleset resets, etc. The liberal international order is supported by a set of ideas and attitudes and so maintaining, perpetuating, and improving that order requires an ongoing campaign championing those ideas and attitudes:

That brings us to the role of ideas, including perspectives of WTO legitimacy as a forum for liberalization, which has not been addressed in posts so far. It is no coincidence that the GATT was signed after WWII following the Great Depression, and that the Uruguay Round was concluded and the WTO created following the Berlin Wall's collapse and the discrediting of socialism. Yet we are now seeing shifts in domestic opinion that will be less favorable to trade liberalization. Trade negotiations for further liberalization thus do not bode well in the near term. In other words, the economic crisis is not just about political priorities shifting away from trade; it is also about shifting perceptions regarding the benefit of open markets. This loss of faith in liberal markets will affect the constellation of domestic pressures on government negotiators.

Market power matters in affecting WTO negotiation outcomes, as we have all shown in our work. But so does the mobilization of domestic interests and ideas about trade liberalism. Thus, in my view, while the WTO as a negotiating forum is indeed deadlocked, it is not dead in the sense that it is forever gone. We just need to be realistic about what it can accomplish in these times. Acting as a useful shield against protectionism is not insignificant.

Via Dan Drezner

"Improvisation and initiative"

2009-02-22T20:29:00.002-05:00

It's all about the transitions. What kind of political ideology is optimal for transition periods that require people to create new institutions and cultural practices? Our task is to innovate modes of thinking that will match the challenges of our time; to develop attitudes that will foster an enthusiasm for imaginative institution building.

The shift that is happening right now is that the people who insist on keeping the world as it was are going to get more and more frustrated until they lose their jobs. People who want to invent a whole new set of rules, a new paradigm, can’t believe their good fortune and how lucky they are that the people in the industry aren’t noticing an opportunity...

We not only face the challenge of crafting appropriate policies, but we also have to recognize that the organizational models that we have inherited were designed to develop and implement policies in different circumstances.

They're used to working in "networks of networks" with lots of individual responsibility. This is very encouraging. But State remains an extremely hierarchical, process-oriented organization that still more closely resembles GM in the 1950s than, say, Google today. This is stifling to the kinds of improvisation and initiative that we increasingly need and that, on the military side, COIN demands of even junior officers. So how do we change this?

How do we groom people for the kind of "improvisation and initiative that we increasingly need"?

Finally some good news...

2009-02-22T16:27:00.000-05:00

This past year has really sucked as I've been trying to get my foot in the door in a new career without success, until now. It's not much, but I got an internship for a few months at a cable tv channel that provides public affairs programming. I'll be doing master control operations. I'm very happy and motivated and eager to get in there and just be a sponge: to work my ass off and learn as much as I can. A few years ago I started a business, but the sales were disappointing and I was not happy with the quality of my product. As my savings ran out I had a decision to make and I decided to go back to school to improve my skills so that I could make a better product and also to prepare myself for a parallel career in media. Ideally I'd like to work at someplace like VOA while I continue working on my business. I also want to pursue a master's degree once I get a little bit more stability. So we'll see, hopefully this is the first step...

Foreign Policy Entrepreneurship

2009-02-21T08:59:00.002-05:00

Our era is one in which individuals are being empowered in ways that would not have been possible in the past. This is the whole rationale behind the Strategic Citizen idea and my interest in entrepreneurship. I have argued for "public diplomacy entrepreneurship" and it makes perfect sense that Tom Barnett would argue for "foreign policy entrepreneurship":

And it’s just a wonderful way of connecting, and it fits my sort of super-empowered argument in the book which is you know, in effect, everybody should have a foreign policy in America. You shouldn’t wait on the government to do these things for you. If you have a strong feeling about making some part of the world better, there are way to directly connect to it, feel empowered by it, and put your money against very specific things that you can track.

Quotes: Images, Symbols, Myth

2009-02-16T09:03:00.002-05:00

From Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism by Mircea Eliade

Images by their very nature are multivalent. If the mind makes use of images to grasp the ultimate reality of things, it is just because reality manifests itself in contradictory ways and therefore cannot be expressed in concepts...It is therefore the image as such, as a whole bundle of meanings, that is true, and not any one of its meanings, nor one alone of its many frames of reference. To translate an image into concrete terminology by restricting it to any one of its frames of reference is to do worse than mutilate it--it is to annihilate, to annul it as an instrument of cognition.

From Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer:

Indian philosophy insists that the sphere of logical thought is far exceeded by that of the mind's possible experiences of reality. To express and communicate knowledge gained in moments of grammar-transcending insight metaphors must be used, similes and allegories. These are then not mere embellishments, dispensable accessories, but the very vehicles of the meaning, which could not be rendered, and could never have been attained, through the logical formulae of normal verbal thought. Significant images can comprehend and make manifest with clarity and pictorial consistency the paradoxical character of the reality known to the sage: a translogical reality, which expressed in the abstract language of normal thought, would seem inconsistent, self-contradictory, or even absolutely meaningless. Indian philosophy, therefore, frankly avails itself of the symbols and images of myth, and is not finally at variance with the patterns and sense of mythological belief.

The Greek critical philosophers before Socrates, the pre-Socratic thinkers and the Sophists, practically destroyed their native mythological tradition. Their new approach to the solution of the enigmas of the universe and of man's nature and destiny conformed to the logic of the rising natural sciences--mathematics, physics and, astronomy. Under their powerful influence the older mythological symbols degenerated into mere elegant and amusing themes for novels, little better than society gossip about the complicated love-affairs and quarrels of the celestial upper class. Contrariwise in India, however: there mythology never ceased to support and facilitate the expression of philosophic thought.

From Images of Enlightenment: Tibetan Art in Practice by Jonathan Landaw and Andy Weber:

To understand how these images are used in the Vajrayana to transmit spiritual insights, we must consider the centrally important meditational method known as visualization.

Visualization is the process of becoming intimately acquainted with positive and beneficial states of consciousness as they are envisioned in our mind's eye in the form of enlightened beings and other images. Each visualized image functions as an archetype, evoking responses at a very subtle level of our being and thereby aiding in the delicate work of inner transformation. For example, by generating an image of Avalokiteshvara, the meditational deity symbolizing enlightened compassion, and then focusing creatively upon it with unwavering single-pointed concentration, we stimulate the growth of our own compassion. We automatically create a peaceful inner environment into which the dissatisfied, self-centered thoughts of anger and resentment cannot easily intrude. The more we practice such visualization--and the related disciplines, or yogas, that train our body, speech and mind in the appropriate manner--the more profound their effect. Eventually our mind can take on the aspect of its object to such an extent that we transcend our ordinary limited sense of self-identification and actually become Avalokiteshvara: compassion itself, or whatever enlightened quality we have been concentrating upon.
...
The underlying premise of all Vajrayana thought and practice is that the essential nature of each being's mind is pure and clear and that the main task along the spiritual path is to discover and identify with this essential purity, or buddha-nature. Visualization and other related practices involving the images of meditational deities assist this process of discovery and identification because these images directly communicate the experience of those who have already realized this essential purity to those who have not yet done so.

Some books I would like to buy...

2009-02-08T20:27:00.000-05:00

Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force--The NYPD

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

Sky As Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, And Empire

How Football Explains America

The Comanche Empire

Social Movements, 1768-2004

Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement

Prepare for the worst: Terror and meme war in the 21st century

2009-02-06T08:26:00.007-05:00

As a the war of ideas rages pitting competing visions of civilization each using all means available to achieve primacy; memes clash in a brutal contest for supremacy with the fate of Western civilization hanging in the balance, we finally get a glimpse of the most dangerous combatant of all. A conspiracy dedicated to the propagation of the most terrifying of all memes has emerged into the light with evidence of its infiltration into the corridors of power. Will all that is good and true survive the devious machinations of this persistent threat?:

An ABBA tribute band says the Kremlin whisked it away to perform a private concert for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Rod Stephen, the founder of British-based group Bjorn Again, says the four-member band traveled 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Moscow for the Jan. 22 gig on the shores of Lake Valdai.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov denies Putin attended any such concert.
Stephen says Putin danced to ABBA hits such as "Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo," accompanied by an unidentified woman and six men in tuxedos.
Stephen told The Associated Press Friday that Putin was heard yelling out "bravo, bravo," and particularly enjoyed renditions of "Mamma Mia" and "Super Trouper."

The Fabian Way

2009-02-02T17:49:00.002-05:00

I needed something to read and grabbed The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America off a stack of books and opened it randomly and read the following passage.

The Fabians, a society of intellectuals, founded their organization in 1884. Their ranks included Sidney and Beatrice Webb, H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Their aim was to replace the "scramble for private gain" with "collective welfare," and their chosen technique was "permeation." They did not believe in overthrowing society, like the Marxists. They did not particularly care about winning elections, like the Labor Party they also helped found. Indeed, they tried not to tie themselves to one particular party. They hoped that socialism would come about gradually but relentlessly--by clothing collectivism in the garb of common sense and by extending government controls over one institution after another.

For the Fabians, the important thing was to change the climate of opinion so that whoever got into Parliament was marching to their tune. "Nothing in England is done without consent of a small intellectual yet practical class in London, not 2,00 in number," Sidney Webb once observed. The society's primary aim was to influence that class, but it also made a point of shaping the minds of less important people. The Fabian pamphlet was one of their hallmarks; they established periodicals like the New Statesman, set the agenda on numerous parliamentary committees and founded the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Fabians also helped to establish the idea that socialism was an exciting way of life, not just a political creed. They founded a network of "groups" -- the women's group, the arts group, groups for education, biology and local government. One of the most successful of these was the "nursery," composed of bohemian young men and women who took that notorious roue H.G. Wells as their role model...
...
In some ways, the Fabians were a peculiarly British phenomena. In others, Fabianism was a template for something that was much more universal. Across Europe groups of intellectuals helped to establish the idea that socialism was the wave of the future, and groups of activists helped to define socialism not just as a body of ideas but also as a community. The result of all these efforts was the "socialist movement": an ideology that was also a fraternity; a set of beliefs that could organize people's lives from the cradle to the grave; a faith that could exert a relentless pressure on moderates and extract a terrible revenge on traitors.

"The Fabians also helped to establish the idea that socialism was an exciting way of life, not just a political creed."

This is an idea that I have been trying to find a way to articulate. To paraphrase the above sentence: We need to establish that the American Experiment is an exciting way of life, not just a country. We need to establish that a classical liberalism updated for the 21st century is an exciting way of life, not just a political creed. Our vision of the free society needs to be something that can appeal to people in a way that captures their imagination, makes them feel that are participating in something special, motivates them to seek out ways to creatively express what they are feeling and thinking and experiencing. That is what will successfully disseminate the ideas and the vision; it is what will generate support for community building and institution building. (This opens the door for Seth Godin's idea of Tribes which is an excellent book and will be the subject of another post)

"Yeah dad, this guy’s a hero"

2009-01-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

Here's a great story:

On Aug. 3, 2003, while traveling the dangerous roads of Afghanistan, a cameraman working for Fox News risked his life to save a U.S. Marine from a vehicle engulfed in flames.

While embedded with 2nd Platoon, Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, cameraman Chris Jackson’s vehicle hit 50 pounds of homemade explosives. The Humvee occupants escaped the flaming vehicle, all but the vehicle commander, Sgt. Courtney Rauch.

The blast severely injured Rauch and knocked him unconscious. Jackson, despite having received shrapnel wounds himself, rushed back to the vehicle, pulled Rauch out and carried him to safety. “Without Chris’ quick thinking and heroic act, I would have lost my life that day,” Rauch said. “Chris forgot about being a reporter that day and became one of our bothers and acted as one of us. Chris went above and beyond his duty.”

Jackson, who now works for CNN/Turner Broadcasting, was presented the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award, the second highest award given to civilians by the Navy, for his actions. Jackson received the award during a stop in Iraq en route to India. An audience of appreciative Marines was on hand during the ceremony.

Marine Maj. Gen. Paul Lefebvre, deputy commanding general, Multi-National Corps – Iraq, has a son in the very same company with which Jackson was traveling. Lefebvre, who presented the award on behalf of the Navy, asked his son if all the wonderful things being said about Jackson were true. “I asked him ‘is this the real thing’ and he said ‘yeah dad, this guy’s a hero’,” Lefebvre said. “This was not an everyday action. It came from somewhere deep inside and shows such a level of courage and commitment.”

When told in front of the crowd of digital cameras why he was invited to Al Faw Palace, Jackson blushed. “It goes to show that Marines have a good sense of humor,” he said. “I was told I was coming here for a briefing.”

Jackson, who has been out with service members in combat zones since 2001, said he didn’t think twice about risking his own life to save someone else’s. “I wasn’t thinking. I saw there was trouble and I didn’t even think about grabbing a camera and filming it,” Jackson said. “I just did what anyone else would do if someone was in trouble.”

"The need for liberal international order has never been greater"

2009-01-26T21:09:00.001-05:00

Timothy Garton Ash:

For close to 500 years, modernity has come from the west. The historian Theodore von Laue called this The World Revolution of Westernisation. In 20th-century Europe, liberal democracy faced two powerful versions of modernity that were western but illiberal: fascism and communism. Part of these systems' appeal was precisely that they were modern. ("I have seen the future and it works," said one enthusiast, returning from Moscow.) Liberal democracy finally saw them both off, though not without a world war, a cold war, and a lot of help from the US.
...
It's also not the smartest idea to identify this vision of a concert of democracies too emphatically with the west, as in the former French prime minister Edouard Balladur's proposal for what he calls a Western Union. Historically, both modernity and liberalism have come from the west. But the future of freedom now depends on the possibility of new versions of modernity evolving - whether in India, China or the Muslim world, which are distinctly non-western yet also recognisably liberal, in the core sense of cherishing individual freedom.

Part of waging a campaign of ideas is fostering and embracing the emergence of non-Western versions of liberal modernity and creating an international order that any country can join. We need to be clear about what we are for (liberal modernity) and develop a strategic vision based upon this that can inform our persuasion operations. Anti-liberal adversaries will rise up from time to time and they will need to be dealt with, but we shouldn't allow them to distract us from pursuing the long term strategic vision. Real success in the campaign of ideas will come when the key champions of liberal modernity are countries like India, Brazil, and even Iraq.

"Who writes America's script?"

2009-01-25T13:21:00.001-05:00

It should be easy to wage a campaign to champion the idea of America, after all, American cultural products are voluntarily embraced all over the world and millions of people seek to immigrate to America and become Americans. And yet watching the Republican performance in the war of ideas over the past eight years has been like watching a no-talent American Idol contestant destroy a great song. But that era is now over and it is time to move on. Time to write a new script and put on a new show in the great cultural theatre that is America.

America and American life are the world's most reliable theater: America performs, and the world looks on.

The world, reliably, looks at America, for there is always something eye-catching in progress. The world, equally reliably, looks to America, for this country takes social and political steps that others are too timorous to take. And the world looks up to America, for there is more that is good and just here than in any other society.
...
The American culture of individualism (first tagged as such by Tocqueville) allows for countless private explorations of boundaries that other societies do not conduct in quite the same volume, or even allow at all. These boundaries are not merely physical; they are intellectual, judicial (although not always judicious), philanthropic, educational, spiritual or even comedic. And Americans are as adept at exploring the boundaries of antagonism as they are those of tolerance. Ultimately, as Simon Schama has written, "The big American story is the war of toleration against conformity; the war of a faith that commands obedience against a faith that promises liberty." I think we can tell which side has won those wars in America. The results are reversed in virtually every other society in the world.

The creed of American exceptionalism is distinctive because it is tied closely to the creed of American individualism. There are other societies or people that are adamant believers in their own exceptionalism: The Chinese have their conceit of the Middle Kingdom; the Jews hold that they are Chosen; Hindu Brahmins believe that they alone are born from the head of God; and the Britons have believed that they rule the waves, and that they never, never, never shall be slaves (and what is that if not exceptionalism?). But only the American brand of exceptionalism is not tribal; it allows Outsiders to become Insiders.

Driving through Gettysburg on a winter night

2009-01-19T21:51:00.002-05:00

I had the commute from hell tonight. I left work at 5 and got home at 8:30. There was a huge accident on I-70 between Frederick and Hagerstown (northwest of DC) and they shut down the interstate. Fortunately I heard about it on the radio and so took an alternate route (40) only to find it bumper to bumper from Braddock Mountain to South Mountain. So I had to take the alternate alternate route and drove north up to Gettysburg and then west on 30. It was the first time I had been through Gettysburg at night in the snow and it was very nice: the old buildings, the street lights, the trees, the monuments and cannon covered in snow. Too bad I didn't have time to stop at the Dobbin House for a reuben. It would have been a good night to go for a walk around town or out on the battlefield where you can stand there in the silence of a snowy night listening to flakes of snow fall to the ground.

What the war of ideas is about

2009-01-18T16:29:00.002-05:00

I was browsing through some emails from last year and came across the following which I had originally written to Cannoneer. At the time I used the term "individualism" but could easily have used other terms such as "democratic republican", "liberal modernity", "liberal democratic capitalism", "entrepreneurial liberalism", etc.

We are definitely in need of a big picture vision of
what we are trying to do. Too much of our (by our I
mean both gov't and private) thinking about
communications ops is focused on what we are against,
whereas I believe our main focus should be on what we
are for and we will be stronger for doing so. The
individualism that is at the heart of the American
Experiment is a radical social philosophy that has and
will continue to inspire opposition from collectivists
of every stripe, but in the long run it is the only
philosophy which is compatible with modernity. Which
is why we constantly need to be shoring up our
understanding of individualism. We can never take it
for granted that people will "get" it or that it will
be automatically perpetuated from one generation to
the next. We also have to be wary of falling back on
the words of the past which were fresh and creative in
their era but become cliches as time passes. The
radical Islamists are a very dangerous but ultimately
a passing threat. The only chance they have of
defeating us is by striking repeated blows at our
political will and hoping we collapse from our own
internal weaknesses. Of course after several decades
of the left's delegitimization campaign we are weaker
than we should be, but that is because there has not
been a truly viable campaign to champion
individualism. And that I believe is our task. I've
said in the past that we need to update the
individualist ideology for the 21st century. And what
I mean by that is that each era uses words, slogans,
symbols and imagery that resonate with the spirit of
its time and are designed to inspire people of that
time and so we need to be doing the same for our time.
Basically what I envision is a
social-political-cultural movement that is championing
a 21st century individualism. In my raw, uncensored
opinion, this is what the war of ideas is about and
this is what is required to fight it. This is why I've
become more interested in political movements and
activism: a sustainable, long-term victory in the war
of ideas is about running a campaign championing
individualism domestically and to various
international audiences. As Gap states modernize they
will become more individualistic and they will need
the ideological and institutional means to understand
and adapt to the changes as the older collectivist
social-political environment melts away.

Book: Winning the Peace

2009-01-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've become interested in learning more about the liberal international order that was established after World War 2. I'd like to find a book that studies the institution building of that era but so far I have not been able to find one. If you have some recommendations please drop them in the comments. This week I picked up another book on the Marshall Plan:

Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America's Coming of Age as a Superpower

Understanding that era will help us get the proper perspective on the kind of grand institution building that will be necessary as the global order continues to change in the 21st century.

Video: Meade on God and Gold

2009-01-11T15:37:00.001-05:00

Conversations with History with Walter Russell Meade discussing Meade's book God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. It's about an hour long and definitely worth watching the whole hour. This is a very good introduction to the book.

A Generational Warfare Miscellany

2009-01-11T07:26:00.001-05:00

The New Year has brought forth a variety of interesting posts on generational warfare theory:

Adam Elkus at Rethinking Security:

The Crisis of 4GW

More Thoughts on 4GW

Sam Liles at Selil Blog:

A unified generational warfare theorem: Introduction to basic argument and concepts

Generation warfare a cohesive explanatory model

Gathering dimensions of conflict into a unified model

Younghusband at Coming Anarchy:

Towards a general xGW framework

Dan at tdaxp:

Redefining 5GW, again

Call for chapters: “5GW: The Fifth Generation of War?”

Cannoneer's School of the Counterpropagandist

2009-01-11T06:57:00.003-05:00

Cannoneer has posted in one convenient place his School of the Counterpropagandist series. Check it out and save it for future reference; it will give you a lot to think about.

Book acquisitions

2008-12-31T16:49:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the thoughtful present of a bookstore gift card, I picked up the following books today:

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World by Walter Russell Mead

The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and How America Helped Rebuild Europe by Greg Behrman

The Last Days of the Renaissance and the March to Modernity by Theodore Rabb

IDF Spokesperson's Unit

2008-12-30T15:54:00.001-05:00

Israel has set up a YouTube channel as part of an effort to get their story out and do a better job on the information warfare part of their campaign than they did in 06. So we'll see how it works out. Anti-Israel propaganda activities are so vast that it just may not be possible for Israel's own efforts at shaping perceptions and influencing the narrative to be effective. But at least they are adapting.

Via Silicon Alley Insider

Decentralized Campaigning

2008-12-29T20:28:00.002-05:00

This sounds like a fantastic idea:

You don't need a multi-milion dollar campaign to be able to make and distribute an effective ad to a target audience. You can do it yourself. You don't even need the permission of the campaign or a central seller to do it. You can run your own campaign, becoming a part of what Pete Snyder called an "army of spokespeople".
...
Decentralized campaigning would provide a whip mechanism against this unresponsive Republican political structure. The Right has been sinking millions of dollars into Battleships (e.g., Freedom's Watch), when we ought to be building pirate ships and guerilla fighters to conduct information activism at the grassroots level.

All the FBI's men

2008-12-28T09:22:00.003-05:00

George Friedman's essay on Deep Throat at Stratfor is a must read that looks at the journalism narrative now that we know who Deep Throat was (also read comments by Belmont Club and Cannoneer). This is a perfect example of how a narrative can arise and influence our interpretation of history and inspire people to act. Woodward/Bernstein became the archetype of the modern journalist. The noble investigative journalists pursuing the truth and bringing down a corrupt president. How many people became journalists to live out their "All The President's Men" fantasy? How many times have we heard journalists lecture us on how important they are because they are holding public officials accountable and speaking truth to power? Journalists have used Watergate as a justification for publishing leaks, including classified information while keeping sources secret from the public. Knowing that Mark Felt was Deep Throat reveals the Woodward and Bernstein legend to be a lie. Contrary to what we have believed for several decades, this was a story about how Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee knowingly participated in a black ops mission to bring down a president. Woodward and Bernstein owe their fame and careers to the fact they they were chosen by the secret policeman to play a role in his operation. For decades they protected his identity not as some noble act to protect a vulnerable whistle blower from those with power. Rather it turns out that it was Mark Felt who had and abused power. When is some journalist going to confront Woodward and Bernstein and demand answers about their knowing participation in such an operation? Be sure to read Friedman's essay in full. Here's an excerpt:

And now we come to the major point. For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.
Instead of passing what he knew to professional prosecutors at the Justice Department — or if he did not trust them, to the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing — Felt chose to leak the information to The Washington Post. He bet, or knew, that Post editor Ben Bradlee would allow Woodward and Bernstein to play the role Felt had selected for them. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all knew who Deep Throat was. They worked with the operational head of the FBI to destroy Nixon, and then protected Felt and the FBI until Felt came forward.
...
This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it. The story of Deep Throat was well-known, but what lurked behind the identity of Deep Throat was not. This was not a lone whistle-blower being protected by a courageous news organization; rather, it was a news organization being used by the FBI against the president, and a news organization that knew perfectly well that it was being used against the president. Protecting Deep Throat concealed not only an individual, but also the story of the FBI’s role in destroying Nixon.
...
Until Felt came forward in 2005, not only were these things unknown, but The Washington Post was protecting them. Admittedly, the Post was in a difficult position. Without Felt’s help, it would not have gotten the story. But the terms Felt set required that a huge piece of the story not be told. The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn’t what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat’s identity.
Journalists have celebrated the Post’s role in bringing down the president for a generation. Even after the revelation of Deep Throat’s identity in 2005, there was no serious soul-searching on the omission from the historical record.

The diffusion of Santa Claus

2008-12-27T14:05:00.002-05:00

TigerHawk posts a couple of Santa Claus photos, one a sand sculpture from India and the other an ice sculpture from China, that offer a lot to think about about regarding the spread of ideas, symbols, and narratives. TigerHawk concludes:

that Santa Claus is the most commercially significant and internationally appealing non-religious legend in the history of the world.

This is a good example of the kind of voluntary cultural diffusion that Claudio Veliz describes in The New World of the Gothic Fox, which has several chapters looking at how the Hellenistic, British and American cultures were unique in the prolific generation of cultural products, practices, traits, images and symbols that appealed not only to members of their own culture but proved to be very attractive to people of other cultures and thus were disseminated through voluntary adoption. The legend of Santa Claus is so appealing that it inspires people to produce these sand and ice sculptures which are themselves appealing to the imagination so that they serve as a vehicle for the further diffusion of the image and legend of Santa Claus. We need to apply this to our public diplomacy/strategic communication efforts as well as private-sector narrative-diffusion projects.

"Is this a crisis or an opportunity"

2008-12-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Tim Draper :

The AlwaysOn summary:
Draper's message is that we must never forget that entrepreneurs are great heroes. They create new jobs, they build value from nothing, they make our lives better, and they rebuild the economy.
...
He reminds us that for every financial downturn, from the Vienna stock exchange crash in 1873 through the Great Depression of the 30s, the Cold War of the 50s, and the dotcom collapse of the early 2000, great entrepreneurs have embraced change and driven innovation and the economy to new successes.

This time is no different, he says, and asks a pivotal question: "Is this a crisis or an opportunity." While some people panic and spread fear and worry (and perhaps those are the people who have been writing our headlines recently), others say "let's not waste this crisis."

One thing has not changed, innovation is relentless and continues unabated. It is growing exponentially and globally. The innovations and changes that occur in the next 10 to 15 years will change our lives as much as all the innovation that's happened in the last 50 to 100 years.

"The information war, fought through images and language, is over narrative"

2008-12-26T15:39:00.001-05:00

A three-part series from the World Politics Review:

Sri Lanka's Information War, Part 1

Sri Lanka's Information War, Part 2

Sri Lanka's Information War, Part 3

"Stories are a technology, not a high technology, but a biological technology, for remembering cause-and-effect relationships. Our brains are sponges for stories, and it's very hard to undo a well-told story."

Scrooged

2008-12-26T13:53:00.001-05:00

Well I got scrooged this Christmas. A couple of weeks ago I was only paid half of what I was owed. I was expecting that to be rectified on this week's paycheck only to receive it on Christmas Eve and find that not only was I not paid the balance of what I was owed from the last pay period, but that they again paid me about half of what I had coming from the current period. I don't know whether this is the result of incompetence or design. This is the worst-managed business I've ever worked for.

A couple of scenario planning papers

2008-12-21T18:40:00.004-05:00

Dare to Dream: Visions for Tomorrow (PDF) by Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network
UPDATE: I've fixed the Dare to Dream link above. The old link was no longer active.

As a genre, science fiction has always stepped up to this challenge. from Jules Verne
and Frank Herbert to Star Trek and The Lord of The Rings, science fiction literature,
television and film have informed, influenced and inspired generations with dreams of
bright and exciting futures. today, SCI FI Channel hopes to build upon this legacy of
science fiction with our “Visions for tomorrow” campaign. through “Visions,” our aim
is to champion an optimistic outlook of the future, empowering individuals to meet the
challenges ahead and inspiring unique solutions to global dilemmas and challenges.

To achieve these objectives, SCI FI assembled an advisory board of 19 of the world’s
most relevant visionaries and innovators in business, government, science, technology,
design, journalism, film, television, and future studies.

For this report, SCI FI has called upon each advisory board member to share his or
her unique perspective on the future: hopes, fears, dreams, and uncertainties. this
report, created by advisory board member Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business
Network, draws upon their distinct and visionary reflections and captures the common
themes, beginning with one scenario of how these themes may play out in a positive
future...

Dave Howe
President
SCI FI Channel

Plotting Your Scenarios by Jay Olgivy and Peter Schwartz

This essay offers an approach to developing alternative scenarios with engrossing plots. Part One describes two different methods for answering a fundamental challenge: how to whittle the virtually infinite number of possible futures that could be described down to a finitely manageable three or four plots that will shed the most light on a specific organization’s future. Part Two then addresses the inverse question: Once you have determined the skeletal premises of just three or four scenarios, how do you put flesh on the skeletons? How do you elaborate the basic logics of skeletal scenarios into compelling stories? If Part One is about whittling an infinite number of possible futures down to a finite number of skeletal scenarios, Part Two is then about beefing up those skeletal outlines to discover the insights managers need. Part Three then adds 10 tips based on our 20 years of experience developing and using scenarios.

Borders on the art of persuasion

2008-12-21T10:03:00.003-05:00

Max Borders has an ongoing series of posts on the art of persuasion at Next Right:

No. 1: Emotional Wedges

No. 2: Metaphors & Models

No. 3: Value Typology

No. 4: Image, Symbol, & Icon

No. 5: visual Data are Powerful & Ambiguous

Kauffman to fund pro-innovation legal scholarship

2008-12-14T15:24:00.002-05:00

Updating classical liberalism for the 21st century so that we can develop an entrepreneurial liberalism will have to include practical thinking about how to institutionalize our ideas. It's not enough to have a lot of theory that never gets applied. We need to build a legal and political framework that can support and foster entrepreneurship and innovation. The Kauffman Foundation is taking the initiative to build that kind of legal framework:

Kauffman Foundation Invests $10 Million to Cultivate Innovation-Friendly Law, Policy and Legal Scholarship

Continued economic growth spurred by innovation is essential to improve living standards. Growth, in turn, does not just happen—it must be supported by legal institutions and policies that reward entrepreneurial risk-taking and innovation.

Toward this end, the Kauffman Foundation has launched a $10 million, five-year program to support research by leading legal and economic scholars on how best to shape the U.S. legal system so that it promotes innovation and growth. The program builds on several decades of "law and economics" scholarship.

"We want our nation's top legal scholars to devote their talents, experience and energy to furthering our understanding of how the legal system can best foster innovation and growth, both to aid policymakers and judges, and to help educate the next generation of lawyers," said Robert E. Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation.

Via Marginal Revolution

Entrepreneurial Inclinations

2008-12-13T13:12:00.002-05:00

Modern liberal democracies are complex adaptive systems. As such social, economic, political, cultural change is an ongoing phenomena. From time to time there are "perfect storms" of change in which there is a great deal of disruption as societies go through massive phase transitions. As individual agents how we respond to these changes is important. Our attitudes, interpretations, ideologies, and actions all determine the nature of our response to the transition period and its outcome. There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to these periods. Stephen DeAngelis offers a good example of the right way:

One of the reasons I started Enterra Solutions was because I could see that potentially profitable companies were becoming "hopelessly unadapted" because they were trying to solve information age challenges using industrial age solutions. As the pace of globalization speeds up, such companies find themselves with an increasingly unmanageable complexity gap.

I like this. I like the ability to recognize the transformation that is taking place and then the motivation and imagination to create an entrepreneurial venture to contribute to that transformation. As Anne-Marie Slaughter says "You really have to embrace the complexity."

I really enjoy reading Jeff Jarvis because he is someone who has embraced the complexity and is whole-heartedly engaged in the kind of creative thinking that our time requires (and that drives some people nuts, which I find highly entertaining). He teaches a class in entrepreneurial journalism which fosters in the students the kind of creative and entrepreneurial thinking that is necessary to imagine and build the next generation of journalistic institutions.

I love teaching this class. The students’ ideas change, sometimes radically, as the course goes on and as they learn more about business and challenge themselves (as guests and fellow students do) - they act like good entrepreneurs. They understand the importance of learning the business, not something I learned in J-school. They look at the world in new ways and see new opportunities.
...
In the spring, I’m going to teach a truncated version of the course at the Sorbonne with Eric Scherer of the AFP. Dan Gillmor also teaches journalistic entrepreneurship at Arizona as does Rich Gordon at Northwestern. The more, the better. Journalism is not going to preserve itself into the next era; it must innovate its growth. That’s what this course really teaches - not just business and journalism but invention and change.

You have to have the right attitude: an optimistic attitude that sees in the change opportunities to be creatively explored; the right interpretation: clearly seeing that this is indeed an era of transformation that requires innovative ways of thinking; the right ideology: ideologies are not permanent and unchanging, they are products of their time and need to change when the times change; and the right action: attempting to resist change is the road to failure, becoming entrepreneurial and inventing the new era's institutions and practices is the road to success.
There is no better example of being "hopelessly unadapted" than the US auto industry and the political class's response. Tom Friedman:

...America's bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet.

Of course it will be our politics that will be the last to change with the "there's nothing wrong with our ideology" conservatives and the progressives with their orgasmic enthusiasm for a new New Deal leading the parade of the "hopelessly unadapted". That's why we need to get cracking and start following the path of DeAngelis and Jarvis in politics (and every field of endeavor).