A Curious Explanation as to Why Europe's Population Fell During the Dark Ages

Learned something curious from Berkowitz's Sex and Punishment, a book I picked up from the Harvard Bookstore a week ago.

Medieval priests used penitentials to define rules and punishment. A lot of prohibitions involved sex and some were odd. (To be fair, in an age before cars, guns, and corporations there wasn't much other behavior to regulate.) In a few regions, the penalty for performing fellatio on one's husband was greater than the penalty for killing him.

The penitentials offered a labyrinth of penalties and prohibitions. Among other things, it left only about 4 days a month during which it was "legal" to have sex. Even those limits weren't enough: married couples could be prosecuted if they were known to enjoy sex too much. Pope Gregory (~540 to 604) declared that marital sex was blameless only when there was no pleasure involved.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, during the period of the Dark Ages when these penitentials had the most influence - from about 500 to 1050 - Europe's population actually shrank.

So that's kind of interesting.

The Switch That Triggered the Rise of the West (Can Also Be Switched Off)

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."- Thomas Jefferson

From the time of Homer (roughly 1,000 BC)  until Marco Polo (about 1300 AD), incomes were stagnant.

Starting about 1300, productivity began to rise and with it came a remarkable transformation in life. In the 18th century, life expectancy in England was about 35 to 40 years and now it's about 80.  Incomes are up about 30X from when Shakespeare was buying ink. What happened in England was fairly representative of what happened in the US, Canada, Germany, France and the rest of what we now call the West.

Change in income from century earlier

Since the 1700s the median income for each century has steadily gone up. From 1700 to 1900, per capita GDP tended to be about 62% higher than it was a century earlier. That was the reward for creating more capital and making it more productive. From 1900 to 2000, per capita GDP tended to be about 158% higher than it was a century earlier. That was the reward for creating more knowledge workers and making them more productive. So far this century, per capita GDP tends to be about 250% higher than it was a century earlier. This is the result of continued gains in capital, knowledge workers and their IT, and - most importantly for this century - the increasing power of entrepreneurship.

The West started this parade but it no longer leads it. Singapore has higher per capita GDP than the US, England, or Germany. There is nothing uniquely British about industrial economies or uniquely American about entrepreneurial economies. Anyone can lead this parade but why did the West start it? I think it's because of a unique approach the West took to its defining institutions.

Social invention is an overlooked component of progress. Banks, corporations, and nation-states matter as much in this story of progress since 1300 as trans-Atlantic ships, steam engines, and computers. The very notion, though, that these institutions are merely tools - no different than engines or electronics - is what has made the West different.

People within the the West have taken three distinct approaches to institutions.

Social Conservatives and Social Inventions as Sacred
The first approach is the most obvious. You come to awareness as a small child, growing up with the wonder of a church, the splendor of a king, the wealth of a bank and when you become an adult you accept that this is the way things are. Realizing how instrumental are these institutions to your world, you fight to defend them as they are.

Social conservatives treat social inventions as sacred. These are the loyal Catholics who see in the Protestant Revolution a route to hell and social chaos. These are the royalists who see in challenges to the crown a tumult of conflicting claims for authority, a challenge to all that is sacred. These are the capitalists who see conspiracies in the Central Bank that "runs" things, feeling instead that the banker should be left inviolate and unregulated.

They are quite right that these institutions keep us from chaos. I personally feel like institutions - social inventions - are the simplest reason that we have more control over our lives than do the great apes.

Radicals and Social Inventions as Disposable
Radicals go to the other extreme. They are well aware of how awful the church or state or bank has been. The French Revolutionaries outlawed religion at one point. The Enlightenment was about science and rationality and religion was all about superstition and dogma; it had to go. Radicals knew the church was merely an obstacle to progress and had to go.

Whether it is atheists who want to eradicate the churches, communists who want to shut down financial markets, or anarchists who want to outlaw laws, the radicals quite accurately see all that is awful about these social inventions and want them gone.

They also don't have a clue about how important are these flawed institutions to civilization, to modern life.

The radicals and social conservatives are an important part of the conversation and should always be heard; left in charge, though, they'll only ruin things. They're important voices who should never actually be given power to change anything but instead should only have power to point out problems and make suggestions.

Power over these social inventions should instead be given to people who are not naive enough to believe we can live without them or naive enough to believe that they should be defended in some current or (more often) idealized past form.

Social Inventions as Tools
Progress has been made by the folks who see social inventions as tools. Not sacred things that need protection. Certainly not as disposable. Progress has followed from people who realize how important the church is to how people construct meaning and gain empathy and compassion, become more loving and happy even when life hits one with the inevitable tragedies of illness, death, financial setbacks or even wars and pandemics.

The ones who see church, state and bank as mere tools realize that - just as with cars or can openers - these tools are more valuable as more people are able to use and define them. "We are all priests," as Martin Luther claimed, or "All men are created equal," as Jefferson wrote express the sentiment of those who don't think that popes or kings should have a unique right to define the institutions that so define us.

And the social inventions as tools people are the ones who are unafraid to change these institutions to make them work better for who we really are and aspire to be than who we imagine our ancestors once were. A church is not sacred but it is precious. What does this mean? Everything about it should be challenged except for what it does for people; a church is more important than a juicer only because of what it makes. Fresh orange juice is lovely but meaning and compassion can make the difference between whether or not you even feel like it's worth it to get out of bed to make that orange juice.

The West has led the great parade of progress in no small part because it has treated its vital institutions as mere tools and subject them to challenge and redesign as if they were products no different than cars or radios. They're not sacred. They're not disposable. We've made progress by changing our relationship to church, state, and bank, making them tools for anyone rather than just popes, kings, and bankers. We will make progress again in this generation by making a similar shift in how we treat corporations, turning them into tools for employees to create wealth and jobs and not just tools reserved for CEOs (who, by the way, are also employees).  Freedom of religion, the spread of democracy, the American Dream and the popularization of entrepreneurship have treated - and will treat - our big institutions as mere tools. That orientation is essential to progress.

So why mention all this? Because in the wake of the Great Depression, extremists seized governments everywhere; fascists and communists took control and progress halted or reversed everywhere they did. Now, in the wake of the Great Recession, extremists are again gaining power.

On the left we have activists who see banks as evil. And on the right we have activists who see banks as sacred. The first group doesn't understand the importance of banks, the second group doesn't understand the importance of regulating them and subjecting them to a central bank. Those on the left aren't numerous enough in the states to spoil capital markets but those on the right actually are in Trump's government. Trump is moving to deregulate banks so that banks are tools for bankers and not the community, not for everyone. The social conservatives don't believe in Keynesian economics (most recent evidence of that is the fact that they protested deficits when unemployment was high and now want larger deficits now that unemployment is low) or monetary policy.

Social conservatives are also working to reverse democracy. In 1789, only white, property-owning Protestant men could vote. About every 50 years, another group gained voting rights until, by the end of the 20th century even minority women who rented could vote. Courts have repeatedly ruled that Republican efforts to reverse voting rights are actually targeted at reversing that, taking power from minorities and the poor to vote.

Finally the continued effort to impose a religious definition of when life starts (at the instant of conception) and dismissing any other reasonable definition is an attempt to encroach on freedom of religion, the freedom of women to follow their own conscience and belief about when sperm and egg become a baby.

Social conservatives are wonderful to have in a community. They remind us that family as an institution really does matter, that churches make lives better for so many, that banks and the state create order we would not have without them. We should listen to them. But social conservatives are better reminders than managers; put in power, they treat as sacred what any forward moving community treat merely as as tools that are best used by many rather than a few.

Prosperous and happy communities will continue to construct institutions that are tools that help people to create meaning and be compassionate. They may not even call these institutions churches - and that is part of the genius of lumping freedom of religion under the first amendment along with freedom of assembly, speech, and press, the realization that it is the freedom to form thoughts and express them that is at the heart of religious freedom.

Prosperous and happy communities will continue to construct institutions that are tools to allocate and create capital that helps to fuel progress in productivity and profits. Again, they may not even call these banks but they will be tools that make people richer and able to afford now what they cannot pay for until later.

Prosperous and happy communities will continue to construct institutions that are tools for governing, for creating policies that make their world safer, easier to navigate, and more likely to offer them lucrative options and freedom to live a life as they please - whether in the form of neighborhood planning boards or the UN or any level of government between.

Prosperous and happy communities will continue to construct and revise institutions that are tools for creating wealth and jobs, new technologies and new products and services and in the process of creating value for customers, suppliers, stockholders and the community.

And the communities that prosper the most will never pretend that these tools should be reserved for the elite. They will never pretend that they are not necessary. They will never pretend that they are anything but tools.

What has fueled progress for the West is treating these great institutions as tools. Every time we've instead treated them as disposable or sacred, progress stalls or even reverses.

Renaissance Popes (Helping the Protestant Cause)

Bad popes and CEOs, while possibly not a sign of the apocalypse, are a sign that an institution has gone rogue. When the church is about the glorification of the pope, or the corporation is about enriching the CEO, it is an institution in bad need of reform or reinvention. It is hard to imagine three popes who could do more to dissuade Europeans of respect for medieval authority than the 3 Renaissance popes.

Think of the fun Fox and MSNBC would have reporting on these popes. A pope with sword on hip, swearing at his soldiers to urge them on in military campaigns? Another pope who, when a cardinal, was rebuked for hosting orgies?

Alexander rather fittingly took his name from the conqueror Alexander the Great rather than some milquetoast saint. Pope Alexander purchased the papacy in 1492. As Columbus was discovering a new world, Alexander was bribing fellow cardinals for their vote, an investment that he and his children would recoup.

Where a modern CEO might think it fun to throw multi-million dollar parties for a child, Alexander’s gifts were more creative. He bought his children lavish wedding parties, private bull fights, political positions and even armies with which to conquer new territory. Alexander had at least 7 known illegitimate children, a natural enough product from a man who seemed so at ease with sex. As pope, he once hosted a party that included a contest matching his guests with prostitutes and then dispensing gifts to the guests who demonstrated the most impressive feats of virility.

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Modern Corporation: modeled on the medieval church

In two earlier posts, I concluded that the medieval church became evil. This matters because the medieval church is still a model for institutions who could follow it down the same path. It is difficult to overcome a blueprint at the foundation of Western Civilization, a blueprint referenced in the design of the modern corporation. The medieval church had popes and priests who discerned the will of God and directed the congregants; the modern corporation has CEOs and mangers who discern the will of the market and direct the employees.

The US represents for many the apex of progress yet 84% of people here are unhappy in their jobs.

Job dissatisfaction hardly compares with burning at the stake. In the grand scheme of history, it is a fairly petty and pathetic complaint to be unhappy at work. Yet if one can’t enjoy what one does all day – what defines one’s life – it makes one question the progress up to this point. Is this really the culmination of thousands of generations of genetic and social evolution? Or could it be that the transformation of work and what it means to create value and to be valued is the next personal frontier, the domain for the next revolution?

About a decade ago, I went into GM to do some training and consulting work. I left appalled. The managers were conscientious and the employees seemingly sincere and yet they seemed more like parents and children than consenting adults. The distribution of power constrains employees from acting like adults.

The corporation – GM and nearly every business – could learn something about needed change by looking at the huge transformation of the church over the last half millennia.

Two big changes to come out of the Protestant Revolution were the entrepreneurial approach to religion and the shift in authority to the individual. These two are inextricably linked.

Post- Protestant Revolution religion is wildly entrepreneurial. Luther claimed that we are all priests and the germ of this idea – the notion that individual revelation and conviction ought to be the root of religious belief – continues to spark new denominations. The World Christian Database tracks 9,000 denominations.

In terms of freedoms granted, the church may be the most evolved and modern of our institutions. Churches either meet the need of their congregants or the congregants go elsewhere – or nowhere. It is not just freedom across religions but within. Even people who call themselves Catholic can profess and practice very different things from each other.

If the medieval church is the model for the current corporation, we can hope that the post-Protestant Revolution church is the model for the future corporation.

There is a great deal that will be different in the next version of the corporation, but most of these changes will begin with a shift in the notion about where authority ought to lie: in central authorities or in the individual. It means trusting the individual with true freedom. All the needed design changes for the corporation can follow from this profound shift.

Heaven or Hell - Musings, part 3 in a series

Eternity is not something that starts after you die. That is the afterlife. Eternity is something that’s already going on. It was going on before you were born and will be going on after you die. If you think about heaven or hell, you are talking about what you’re already experiencing, a place you are already in. It’s easy to wait for purgatory, to simply wait for heaven or hell to come to us. But that’s the problem with these eternal things. We can’t out-wait them. That just isn’t going to happen. You’ll be stuck in purgatory forever waiting for heaven or hell to come to you. They’re not moving. Ever.

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It’s not just that the system is against individualism. It’s just that individuals are so difficult to accommodate, so difficult to fit into mass production and standard processes.

It’s easy to pick on the Catholic Church, so I will. Mass is aptly named because we’re talking about an intensely personal spiritual experience that we’re trying to extend from a few mystics to the masses. This is both futile and necessary. It is how civilization proceeds: the work or creation of a genius becomes the tool of a common person. Newton and Leibniz invent calculus in one century and a few centuries later, it is a required subject for children in the early throes of relational passions, young adults distracted by libidinous impulse. Mass is an attempt to broaden an intensely personal experience.

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I suppose everyone has some measure of discomfort with any religion in which they find fellowship. Where we find community isn’t necessarily where we find all our answers or even answers we like or that make sense to us. The people who accept us aren’t always the people who provide answers we can accept.

Time for a Populist Movement

The Rothschild brothers didn’t seem like elites when they began their career. Mayer Rothschild began his life living in a Frankfurt ghetto, forced to leave the sidewalk when even a young child ordered him to “Step aside, Jew!” But he was a successful merchant who had the vision to send four of his five sons to the most important cities in Europe.

Mayer's son Nathan Rothschild was in London when the English began their war against Napoleon. This war was incredibly expensive. Coordinating efforts with his brothers, Nathan was able to raise huge sums of money for the British government by selling war bonds throughout Europe – primarily through his brothers in Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, and Naples. While helping to finance the British government, Nathan made the Rothschild brothers rich and famous. By the time of his death in 1836, he might have had more liquid wealth than anyone in the world. Because they helped to invent modern financial markets, the Rothschild brothers rose from the German ghetto to become elites with power enough to dictate terms to kings.

The Rothschild brothers and others like JP Morgan helped to pioneer modern financial markets. Then, in the next century, philosophers like Keynes, policy-makers like FDR, and business visionaries like Charlie Merrill and Dee Hock “democratized” financial markets, creating access to credit and investment markets for the people. Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke is supposed to manage interest rates and reserve rates so as to do what is best for the general economy and the average person – not just a few powerful bankers. Access to financial markets once reserved for the elites is now considered a right.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Knox were among the revolutionaries who wrested control of the church away from the elites and helped to put it into the hands of the people in the domain of religion.

Later, Louis XIV and Henry VIII help to pioneer the nation-state and then, centuries later, revolutionaries like Jefferson and Franklin wrested control away from the elites and into the hands of the people.

The swings between power held by the elites and the people seem to me inevitable. The elites pioneer and prosper. They are the social inventors who create the great institutions like church, state, and corporation. These individuals deserve fame and fortune. But once those inventions have become an integral part of the social fabric, along come revolutionaries who turn control of these inventions over from the elites to the people.

Next up for Western Civilization? Wresting control away from the CEOs, the last of the monarchs, and putting power into the hands of the investors, employees, and communities whose fate is so inexorably tied up in the actions of the corporation.

Am I a populist or an elitist? A Republican who wants the people’s interest represented by a trusted group of elites or a Democrat who wants the people to directly represent their own interests? At this point in history, I’m a populist, a Democrat ready to see the power of the powerful corporation dispersed.

The Post-Capitalist Corporation

The corporation will soon undergo a transformation akin to the change of the nation-state during the age of Enlightenment.

Once the medieval church lost its grip on Europe, the modern nation-state grabbed power. For centuries, religious wars defined European politics. Huge swaths of the population were murdered by competing religions that used monarchs and rebels to compete for ascendancy. It was not until religion was made a personal matter and nation-states focused on issues of politics that warfare became less frequent. Governments could focus on quality of life instead of imposing religion through force.

Today, power has shifted from capitalism, from "the bank," to the corporation. JP Morgan sat on corporate boards and formed corporations like General Electric and International Harvester. The purpose of these newly formed corporations was financial gain. The aims of the bank, financial returns, still define the aims of the corporation just as the aims of the church to impose a homogeneity of religious belief first defined the modern nation-state.

Talking about the aims of the corporation today without talking about profit is about as odd as it would be to talk about the aims of the nation-state in 1650 without talking about which religion it ought to enforce on its subjects.

The idea of financial gain within the corporation being a matter left to individuals may seem foreign to us, but our grandchildren will accept it as easily as we accept transcontinental flights or leaving the matter of religion to individuals. It is yet another dimension of turning employees into entrepreneurs, of giving the individual more autonomy.

Political Primer: Institutions and Reactionaries, Conservatives, Liberals & Radicals

It helps me to understand politics from the perspective of institutions. I would argue that all political struggle has to do with what we institutionalize or not. From that perspective, here's a way to look at four groups: reactionaries, conservatives, liberals, and radicals. I'll use the church in the 16 to 18th century to illustrate each group.

Reactionaries felt that things had gone badly because society had strayed from the true church. For them, the Inquisition and the return to theocratic rule over wayward kings and princes would help to restore social order. Burn a few witches and philosophers to appease God and all would again be well.

Conservatives wanted to preserve the church but not necessarily return to its early state of complete illiteracy and crackdown on science and witches. They were quite happy with the church as the dominant institution but still saw a role for stronger states, and a modicum of commerce and science - just not any commerce (e.g., charging usury) or science (e.g., notions like the earth circling around the sun) that contradicted church teachings. Further, they didn't particularly trust the masses, preferring to see the power of the church retained in the hands of the elite (e.g., the pope).

Liberals wanted to transform the church, make it subordinate to the state. Put it in its place and it would no longer be a catalyst for killings or archaic practices in regards to business and commerce. And they wanted to disperse the power of the church, not trusting the elites and preferring the misjudgment of the masses to the abuse of power by the elites, best represented by Luther's cry: "we are all priests."

Radicals, finally, wanted to do away with the church, seeing it as a source of evil with a history of oppression, forcing Europeans to live in ignorance and squalor.

Four groups, each defined by their relationship to the dominant institution. Reactionaries wanting to return to a time when the institution in transition returned to its previously clear domination and clear rule by elites; conservatives wanting to stop change and maintain order by maintaining power among the elites; liberals wanting to encourage a dispersion of power outwards and to subordinate the institution to the community; and, finally, radicals who simply wanted to be rid of this anchor to the past, feeling that along with its domination, its reason for being had passed.

This perspective has helped me, a liberal, to understand American politics of today. The conservative movement is really a coalition, all wanting to preserve the power of the dominant institution; where they break down is in their agreement about which institution is (or should be) dominant. One sector, the social conservatives, seems to believe that the church is the institution that should be protected in its earlier (or at least current) form, decrying attacks to its authority and pronouncements on social standards. Another sector, the patriots, seems to believe that the state is the institution that should be protected in its earlier form of powerful military and high-waving flag. Finally, the business conservatives seem to believe that what needs defending is the American way of life as exercised through its corporations. All share in common a notion that the institutions need defending from the individual.

By contrast, the liberal seems to believe that the individual needs protecting from the institution. Perhaps the simplest way to see this contrast is in the issue of crime or welfare. The conservative is afraid that the individual will abuse the institution, cheating the state of money that he or she doesn't deserve, or abusing rights. The liberal is afraid that the institution will abuse the individual, ignoring his or her needs and rights.

It seems as though the real question is whether we're prepared to adopt fluent and changing institutions in order to accommodate individuals or whether we're planning to force individuals to conform to institutions. It's always a dance and any society needs to do both. The question is, Who is leading?

Some reading this would say that American conservatives actually want to shift more power to the individual and less to the institution. That, of course, depends on what one accepts as the dominant institution. Many conservatives want less state intervention, less state power, but the reason for that is because they trust markets and corporations more than they trust elections and governments. For them, the underdog is the corporation and the dominant institution is the state. But if the corporation has become the dominant institution, then the definition of conservative applies as it does in the example of the church: conservatives want to maintain the power of the corporation, allowing it to work with fewer encumbrances, regulations, and taxes. And, to complete the picture, they are perfectly content with the status quo of powerful elites running those corporations, a privileged few who get disproportionate benefits.

The alignment that would be very powerful is the alignment between liberals of every sector. By the definition given, many “conservatives” are actually liberals in terms of church, state, and even bank but are truly conservatives only in the matter of the corporation. If they were to see the parallels between these institutions, see how one constant through the history and progress of Western Civilization is the diffusion of power from elites to the many, they could likely be persuaded to consider a more liberal view of the corporation, working for reforms that would match the power over corporations with the composition of owners (via both equity capital as represented by stock and intellectual capital as represented by employee involvement).

Liberals who have reversed themselves in terms of state power, seeing a strong state as the one viable option for countering a strong corporation, might also find a common ground with conservatives within this perspective. The point is not to tradeoff power between corporations and governments; the one leads to abuses that lines the pockets of politicians and the other to abuses that lines the pockets of senior executives. Better to diffuse power to the grassroots in every forum, subordinating these institutions to the community rather than vice versa.

We have before us a possibility for a period of enormous social innovation – a period of history when society becomes as pliable as our technology. Accomplishing this will require a myriad of changes. One change that is essential is that we all become liberals, forcing our institutions to emerge, disappear and change as best suits individual and community goals.

Be Rupert Murdoch for only $5,000

The Gutenberg Press, arguably the first tool of mass communication, was invented in about 1440. The Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1452, becoming the first volume produced book. (It's worth remembering that in Medieval Times it was a capital offense to have a Bible written in one's native language.) In 1517 - about 77 years after the Gutenberg Press was invented, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, effectively igniting the first flames of the Protestant Revolution. In 1531, Henry VIII broke with Rome and made himself the head of the Church of England and by 1540, he had seized church land.

100 years from the time this tool of mass communication was invented to the time that it had effectively transformed the church and state - helping to transition power from the dominant institution of the church to newly dominant institution of the state and in the process forever changing the nature of the church in the West. By making the Bible available in private homes, it effectively helped to make real Martin Luther's declaration "We are all priests!" Power of the church was diffused and every part of life was impacted.

In 1989, Vincent Cerf made public his work that he'd been doing for the government that allowed computers to exchange email and for a person on one computer to remotely access anothe computer. (People tend to say that they "surf" the Internet as if they were riding waves. They really ought to be saying that they "cerf" the Internet in honor of the man who developed the technology they are using.) It has been only 18 years since the inception of the Internet, a technology that is arguably to our time what the Gutenberg Press was to its time. The Gutenberg Press transformed the church - that period's dominant institution. I predict that the Internet will transform the corporation - our dominant institution. And along the way, it will transform media.

One of the more fascinating steps in that transformation is a recent product by NewTek that effectively enables any person with $5,000 to create his or her own TV studio. You can learn more by clicking here:
http://www.bootcamp.com/report.jsp?reportId=2185

or read the excerpt of the report here: [start of excerpt]

In the new age of the net…anyone can become a TV network. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today’s technology. Time Magazine took note….naming you…the person of the year in 2006. You meaning the millions of people who contributing content to the Web…through YouTube and other sites. Can you really compete with the TV networks?

A company called NewTek has built a ten pound box called the TriCaster…..that is essentially a self contained studio…that plugs into the Internet.

CEO Jim Plant … “It allows you to connect multiple cameras and do everything you do in a live studio…the graphics...the rolling in the tape… multiple cameras…live digital video effects… all those things that are the hallmark of a live production… you can now do that in a ten pound box. And also we can connect this to the Internet. So we can live stream that…that multi camera production… all in real time.” It essentially…is a specialized high end PC. The price…about five thousand dollars. It works so well…some professionals…such as ESPN Radio have been using it.

About the future…Plant says think YouTube…but think live… "And the Internet now has enough bandwidth to make that possible. That’s the distribution side of it. Now we come in on the production side and make sure that what you put out on the air…and I use on the air in quotations…looks like a professional broadcast. Because that does make a difference.” ------- [End of article]

Just think about how this could revolutionize media. Suddenly, you can be Rupert Murdoch. The Gutenberg Press was instrumental in dispersing power to the individual. Now, NewTek's TriCaster has become another revolutionary product. And I do mean revolutionary. Like Gutenberg's Press, the TriCaster disperses power from the elites to you. Even if you choose not to be a mini-Murdoch, you have to agree that this is a fascinating time to be alive.

[Full disclosure: NewTek CEO Jim Plant was a good buddy in junior high and my freshman year of high school. We were on a Little League Team together. So, you are free to dismiss the above as biased ... but if you do, you may well miss out on one of the most amazing developments of the next few years.]

Beyond the Church & State

Oddly, the argument about religion and politics continues. On the one hand are those worried about the drift from religious principles that ensure a certain level of morality. On the other hand are those worried about the intrusion of beliefs that can neither be proven nor disproved into our politics, the imposition of the religion of a few onto many. As long as some voters have religious beliefs, there will be a commingling of church and state. This seems inescapable. So what, really, did our founding fathers and their Enlightenment era peers bring us?

The transformation of religion in the West took place through two waves. The first wave was most simply illustrated when Henry VIII made himself the head of the Church of England and severed ties with Rome. The second wave was best articulated by John Locke about 200 years later, arguing that it made no sense for the state to force a particular kind of worship on its citizens. In the first wave, the church was subordinated to the state; in the second wave, religion was made a personal matter that could not be imposed onto the community.

This is worth mentioning because suddenly, in the last few years, this matter of religion and politics has reared its head again. It's as if a drunk at a dinner party has suddenly gained consciousness and forced the polite guests to repeat the conversation of the last hour. The neocons have revived this ludicrous notion that our laws should be based on religion; the neo-atheists have revived this amusingly unreasonable notion that our values and policy should be based only on reason. Personally, I find the revival of this argument tiresome. I find it tiresome because the church and state are so clearly no longer leading the parade of social development and norms that to spend an inordinate time worrying about which of the two deserves first place is like arguing about whether the Brooklyn Dodgers or Philadelphia Athletics are the better team.

A topic that is far more interesting is the question of why we are so endlessly fascinated by this topic of church and state. I suspect that it is because we have a wealth of arguments to draw from (to support either side) and prefer to parade our intellect in familiar garb rather than retire to the back room to sew new garments. More relevant than the separation of church and state is the separation of state and corporation, the role of the multinational corporation in modern communities, and the transformation of national identity as globalization accelerates.

The church and state argument is to intellectuals what the music of, say, Dylan and the Band is to folks born in the late 1950s and early 1960s: an argument that we can admire, that engages us, even as we are comforted by its predictability. Well, if New Year's resolutions are about nothing else they should be about stretching the comfort zone. Perhaps its time to shift our attention from church and state to question the role of the most powerful institution in our modern world: the corporation.