Saving the Nation with Poetry

Looking through my mail-in ballot and sad to see that there is still no proposition to tax pop songs to fund actual poets.

You think I'm being whimsical. If so you don't understand what nations are built on. The Grimm Brothers were nationalists and they wandered the country that was not yet Germany to find the stories Germans could tell themselves about who they were and were not. Focus too much on technology and not enough on the stories people use to inform them about what it means to be a particular kind of person and the technology will turn on you.

Imagine regularly hearing songs like this poem from Walt Whitman.

COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over
the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's
necks;

By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!
For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,
In the love of comrades,
In the high-towering love of comrades.

"We will loan you our trillion dollar tax cut," investors tell government

Here is an interesting pair of numbers.

In the first quarter of 2018, US companies announced $242 billion in stock buybacks. At that pace it will hit nearly one trillion dollars for the year. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-results-buybacks/apple-plows-u-s-tax-cuts-into-record-share-buybacks-idUSKBN1I300U

In the first half of the year, the federal government will run a deficit of $600 billion. At that pace it will borrow roughly 1.2 trillion dollars for the year.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/382033-deficit-nears-600-billion-in-first-half-of-2018

Put differently, corporations have a trillion more than they can spend this year and the federal government needs a trillion more than it has. 

It sounds like an onion headline: "We will loan you our tax cut," investors tell government.

Corporate Immaturity

The 1990s were a good time for economics and business in America. 

During Clinton's administration, median incomes rose $6,000, more jobs - 22.5 million - were created than under any other administration, unemployment and inflation were at the lowest in 30 years, and the number of people living in poverty dropped by 15 million. 

About the same time, Jack Welch was CEO of General Electric. He, too, presided over record performance. During his 20 years, GE's revenues rose from $27 billion to $130 billion, and its market value rose from $14 billion to $410 billion. 

Two popular leaders who presided over great business / economic performances. 

In Jack Welch's best year, he made $125 million. 

In Clinton's best year, he made the same amount as he did in his worst year: $200,000. 

Jack's salary could have paid Bill's for 625 years. 

Such disparity was not an anomaly of the 90s. Last week, oil company CEOs appeared before the Senate. All three of the American CEOs made more than the entire US Senate. (Well, nearly all. Chevron's CEO made only $16.3 million, about a million less than the 100 senators 's combined salary of $17.4 million. Conoco and Exxon's CEOs made $17.9 and $29 million.)

This seems like a serious clue that the corporation is still immature, about where the nation-state was at the dawn of the Enlightenment.

There is a great story about Louis XIV early in his reign failing to realize just how much wealth the state commanded. He had a Finance Minister who was taking a portion of the taxes for personal gain and had commissioned the construction of a chateau that, at its peak, employed 18,000 men and covered the area of three villages. King Louis XIV thought that the man was “stealing beyond his station,” and, invited to a dinner at this minister’s chateau that served 6,000 guests dinner on plates of silver or gold, would have arrested the man that very evening “but his mother convinced him that it would spoil an enchanting evening.”[1]

After he’d removed the Finance Minister from his position, Louis took the man’s wealth and added it to his own. Suffice to say, Louis lived well. And in this we see the final problem with absolute monarchies: they make the state a tool for the few.

Unemployment is persistently high. Median wages have been largely stagnant for decades. Yet CEO pay continues to steadily - and spectacularly - rise. Is anyone out there talking about reform? 

---

[1] Will & Ariel Durant, The Age of Louis XIV: a History of European Civilization in the Period of Pacal, Moliere, Cromwell, Milton, Peter the Great, Newton and Spinoza: 1648 – 1715 [New York, NY, Simon & Schuster, 1963]  19

And the Nation-State Gradually Grows More Obsolete

Political crises in the Middle East are spilling across borders in the same way that the financial crises did in the West in '08.

This latest burst of panic and protests seems to support the notion that whether it is pandemics, ecological issues, economic issues, or, yes, political and financial issues, national borders seem less and less relevant.

In places like the Middle East and Africa where colonial powers imposed national borders where no clear nations existed, borders have long seemed confusing and of little use in protecting one country from issues in the next. But now, even in the West where national identities date back centuries, national borders are becoming less meaningful.

The big question in '08 was whether the financial crisis could be averted before we had another Great Depression. The big question in 2011 is whether the political crises will create democracies, theocracies, or even more severe autocracies in the Middle East.

To me, the even bigger question is how the idea and even very fact of the nation-state is going to survive in this new stage of globalization.

Bigger than a Mushroom Cloud

I fret about Obama's economic plan ... his enthusiastic spending ... the way he's taking on everything at once ... and then he does something like this ...

Obama outlines sweeping goal of nuclear-free world
PRAGUE – Declaring the future of mankind at stake, President Barack Obama on Sunday said all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms and that the U.S. had a "moral responsibility" to lead because no other country has used one.

There is, to me, no clearer sign of madness than the inclusion of nuclear bombs in any nation's arsenal. They prove that for a couple of generations the nation-state was more important than humanity. And Obama has had courage enough to say that we need to get rid of them.

Suddenly, I love this guy again.

Iraq & the Clash of Myths

It is possible that the seeds for the insurgency in Iraq lay, not just the poor execution of the Bush administration's strategy, but, instead, in overlooking the importance of myth in nation building. Creating nation-states has always heavily relied on myth and still does, even in this age of science and technology.

The myth of Iraq as seen by Bush was that America would liberate the Iraqis from an evil dictator and they would celebrate their freedom by embracing capitalism and democracy.

But when it comes to nation building, myth has to make you the hero, not the rescued victim.

I went to Vietnam in 1994. I was working with a group founded by a trio of Vietnamese-Americans putting on a trade show featuring American companies. The group I was with was largely made up of people who fled their homes when Saigon fell to the communists. All of us felt trepidation as we stepped off the plane in Hanoi.

There were so many remarkable things about this trip, but one that stands out was the reaction of these Vietnamese-Americans when we visited Ho Chi Minh's tomb. It was obvious that mingled with their fear was real pride in "Bac [Uncle] Ho." Here was a Vietnamese who defeated two of the most powerful nations in history - sending French and American troops back home in the struggle for independence. Before that – hundreds of years before - they had gained their independence from the Chinese. This contributed to the myth that defined the Vietnamese: a people who resisted foreign occupation even in the face of incredible odds.

One vital contribution to the emergence of nation-states like England, France, and Germany was the cultivation of myth. Stories of national identity gave the individual a sense of national pride and distinction from other peoples. The discovery, in 1455, of Tacitus's Germania from Roman times helped to provide a sense of unity and superiority to a people governed by 300-some different governments. Stories of King Arthur and Charlemagne (one fabricated and one revived) helped to create a sense of national destiny that predated the recent history of division in what became England and France.

Iraqis were never particularly likely to gain a sense of national identity from George Bush's rescue myth. It's hard to found a country on a shared sense of rescued victim. Founding myths have to provide a sense of distinction and pride.

The insurgents are now creating a myth that could feed a strong sense of national identity. How intoxicating to be part of a force that "defeated" the most powerful military in world history? Rather than lead to the embrace of Western culture and institutions, this kind of myth is likely to frame this Iraqi war as proof of the corruption of Western institutions and people who, in spite of their obvious advantages and technological superiority, were unable to overcome the Iraqi people who kept themselves pure of Western influence.

In this time of science, technology, and economic theory, it is easy to dismiss myth as inconsequential and misguided. Yet we need shared stories, we need myths that provide a sense of identity. If a people can't share stories, it's hard to share much else - especially something as ethereal as a nation-state.

Globalization - tipping the hat to reality

Since about the 16th century, a form of globalization has been in full swing. Trade, conquest, and information exchange has simply increased since then, as Portuguese and Dutch trader's exotic 16th century travels has now become the stuff of today’s spring break vacations.

But it is difficult to talk about globalization when the term is so fuzzy. I’d like to suggest two dimensions to globalization. One is the increased trade of goods, services, and information that spills across national boundaries like trade winds. The other is the construction of agreements and institutions to give a structure to this reality. Call the first globalization flows and the next globalization structures.

At this point, it is hard to imagine anything short of a catastrophe limiting globalization flows. It takes far less imagination to envision hiccups, disruptions, and derailing of the process of globalization structures.

In this country, conservatives and liberals are united in their fear of globalization flows as a force that will erode national autonomy. For liberals, globalization threatens a return to the days before Teddy Roosevelt when labor and the environment lay unprotected from the rapacious advances of robber barons. For conservatives, globalization means that the US will be like Europe, our masculine independence threatened by blue helmeted troops more inclined to act like bureaucrats than cowboys. Some conservatives even see the emergence of global institutions as heralding the coming apocalypse.

American fundamentalists are not the only ones who see globalization flows as a threat. It is no coincidence that Al Qaeda terrorists brought down the World Trade Center Towers. Trade brings with it strange customs and ideas that defy regional cultures. The Renaissance and Enlightenment were led by communities active in trade; along with the taste for foreign products came openness to foreign ideas. Local clerics, just as much as local merchants, could be put out of business by foreign trade. If Al Qaeda could disrupt world trade, they might succeed at protecting their daughters from the bump and grind of hip hop, their sons from the allure of materialism.

For now, globalization structures have been largely left to the institution best suited to the realities of globalization flows – the modern corporation. And the corporation has seemed to do the most to define the globalization structures. The WTO, GATT, IMF, and the World Bank regulate globalization flows in ways that seems to most clearly benefit corporations.

Many people forget that one of the key motivators for the emergence of the modern nation-state was the gain in trade. In 1550, a European trader would literally pay tolls about every six miles. Nation-states created a huge free trade zone that encouraged trade and specialization - two boons to productivity. Globalization structures is similar in that it suggests the creation of institutions that do for world trade what the nation-state did for "national" economies.

But done wrong, globalization structures could be a realization of the fears of liberals and conservatives alike. If these institutions are lackeys to the corporation, they could indeed become an instrument for direct attack on the progress of labor unions and environmental activists, a race to the bottom for wages, benefits, and regulations. Conservatives fears of a loss of autonomy, an inability to stand up against countries with different traditions and values, could also be realized. But done well or done poorly, globalization structures is a deed that must be done. To ignore the importance of these institutions is to ignore the degree to which globalization flows can destroy or build communities.

The reality is that we live on a globe and the use of nation-states is a convenience, a tool to improve quality of life. Ideas like Sweden, South Africa, and Canada are social constructs. Greenhouse gases may emerge from a particular national economy, but they disperse perfectly throughout the atmosphere. Terrorist’s cells may meet in a particular country, but their ideology - like McDonald's - is not constrained by national boundaries.

The nation-state has evolved since the time of Louis XIV. Advances like human rights, environmental protection, and worker rights need to be built on, not crowded out as the work of globalization structures takes places.

The good news is the bad news. We’ve entered a phase of human history when no community can be isolated from this simple truth – we live on a globe and share a fate. Institutions that pretend otherwise are institutions that will become increasingly ineffective.

Will the Nation-State Be Obsolete by 2100?

I wonder if the nation-state hasn't outlived its usefulness.

City-states had largely disappeared by the time of the Enlightenment. By the time that Germany and Italy became nation-states in the late 19th century, most of the West had coagulated into nation-state form. A nation-state had more military power than a city-state and by eradicating trade barriers within the country, nation-states stimulated trade and prosperity. Conditions of the 18th and 19th centuries seemed to make the city-state obsolete; perhaps the conditions of the 21st century will make the nation-state obsolete.

In today's world, the nation-state seems increasingly ineffectual at dealing with real problems. It isn't particularly suited to the major issues of the present. Pandemics, terrorism, financial crisis, immigration, trade, economic prosperity and, of course, global climate change are all issues that thumb their noses at national boundaries. Already in Europe, nation-states are gradually giving more power over to the EU. I suspect that this is a trend (that will, as all such trends, suffer reversals).

It is difficult to think of what nation-states are still uniquely suited to do; they still seem to have a monopoly on starting truly horrific wars. We now have about 200 nations on this little planet. It's not obvious that we can afford for even 10 or 20 percent of them to be strutting around with nuclear-equipped armies. It might make sense to emasculate the nation-state before this creation of ours destroys us.

“If you said, ‘Let’s design a problem that human institutions can’t deal with,’ you couldn’t find one better than global warming.”
- Henry Jacoby, MIT School of Management