Global Networks and State Power

In previous posts, I’ve considered the economic and political decentering of the nation-state, the unraveling of free-market orthodoxy in the face of the economic crisis of 2008, and my opinion that our political disarray of recent years emerged from these two factors.

You might fairly ask how I can talk about the decentering of the nation-state after a massive financial bailout and stimulus package, and in the face of major health care legislation. Not to mention the assertive international policy of the Bush years.

I’ll begin my answer by considering a characteristic that all of these phenomena share: That is, they all involve responses to the increasing ability of networked groups of non-state actors to cause disruption on a global scale.

We well understand how 9/11 depended on the ability of a non-state actor to take advantage of networking opportunities provided by new communications and transportation technologies. The neoconservative response, rightly or wrongly (and I still hold, rightly) constituted a serious response to this new reality: the reorganization of hostile societies, they argued, served as a means of policing wayward elements that the US could not control from a distance. Iraqi social patterns would benefit us if they enhanced the relative authority of the moderate, and hopefully growing, middle class: The neoconservative project ultimately depended on a very socially-oriented view of national defense. (Some, obviously, will disagree with the premise that we can alter foreign societies socially. Nonetheless, one would have difficulty disagreeing with the idea that the social constitution of foreign societies bears increasing relevance in an age of weapons of mass destruction, improved communications and transportation, etc.)

The financial crisis of 2008 bears strikingly similar traits to the “terrorism crisis of 2001” in that the networking of housing-purchase decisions across the country created a heretofore unknown interconnection between national housing values. Here again, enhanced communications technologies played a central role: Namely, they allowed financiers to organize nation-wide housing derivatives into unified products and allowed massive pools of capital, from international sources, to overwhelm traditional patterns of home financing. In finance, as in the case of international terrorism, the state confronts a vast web of transactions that it cannot successfully monitor or police. In the case of TARP, as in that of Iraq, middle class wealth and habits reveal themselves as the ballast of a volatile political economy: Specifically in the US case, the middle-class funded bailout of high-stakes financiers, after a crisis created by those same financiers as well as by uneducated homebuyers, suggests that ultimate financial stability does not derive from New York but from the well-being, and education, of the mass of American society.

The US government acted aggressively in Iraq and with regard to the financial crisis. In each case, however, the logic of the events precipitating these actions indicates that state power faces a lasting, and growing, challenge from the power of networks unattended until the moment of crisis. The nature of such networks should fascinate us even more than the loud words and deeds of a superpower.

Google vs. China, and America vs. Itself

Google’s confrontation with China over the freedom of access to information may evoke feelings of both moral and commercial satisfaction for residents of the free market West: Google simultaneously stands in for our disdain for Chinese political repression and for that country’s shortsighted understanding of the economic value of free information flows.

Tom Friedman suggests that a Chinese internal struggle, between “Network China” and “Command China” defines this dispute and may indicate something about the future of that country.

However we may frame it, the conflict should evoke for us as much introspection as satisfaction: We, too, currently struggle themselves to come to terms with the concept of “economy as network”: “a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows, which are constantly being renewed.”

Those who stand at the margins of this transformation call forth libertarian slogans in order to evoke a feeling of defiant individualism. They do not understand the dynamic of an economic system that demands the nurturing of relationships and the renewal of knowledge and that suggests that individualism does not flourish in a social vacuum. The more pragmatic brand of economic individualism favored by Wall Street lost all credibility in late 2008, of course, when financiers acknowledged their own dependence on the broader American social network.

Misunderstandings about the changing nature of our economy clearly extend beyond the right-wing: Democrats evince characteristic eagerness to conflate moral and economic arguments as they address needed health and energy reform. They thereby demonstrate a lack of seriousness with regard to the limited role the American state can play in correcting an economy newly susceptible to international capital flows and increasing foreign competition: America must enhance its ability to compete internationally if it is to address its social challenges sustainably.

We, just like the Chinese, require a new relationship to government for 21st century success. The old metaphor of government as a command center, whether encouraged by old guard communist leaders or well-meaning American reformers, or whether opposed by libertarians, no longer suffices. Government at its best will act as a node that has the potential either to complement or to hinder the flourishing of both domestic and international relationships. Understanding this reality, rather than adhering to old nostrums, will give us the greater measure of moral and commercial clarity.

Markets and Saints

Markets and Saints

November 11, 2009 by Barak Epstein

Free marketeers receive a cool reception nowadays but neither is socialism making much of a comeback, unless you count its mention on signs at Tea Parties. It’s never easy to develop a coherent economic response to a crisis when old ideologies lose relevance. Pragmatism therefore demands that we employ the best tools of our current system to address its greatest ills; a young real estate advisory and consulting nonprofit I know is a case in point.

Real Estate Advisory and Development Services (READS) raises funds through arranging real estate deals for budding charter schools as well as through writing grants, the more traditional work of a nonprofit. The president, Brian Keenan, told me, “Folks ask for reduced rates for our services, which actually are about half the rate of a for-profit. I tell them, ‘Our time is valuable. We can discuss when payment is made but we are unwilling to reduce our fee.’”

Keenan is a former banker and doesn’t fear sounding too commercial for the more delicate sentiments of the world of do-gooders. At the same time, he readily admits that he began his company because his old boss told him that he was “spending too much time helping floundering nonprofits with their real estate problems.”

Keenan’s work is emblematic of a generation of nonprofits not imbued with the anticapitalism of the 1960’s, nor evincing the noblesse oblige of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century reformers. The triumph of capitalism is implicit.

Firms such as Keenan’s aim to harness a bit of the tremendous accumulated capital in our country in order to catalyze the full economic participation of underutilized and undertrained social sectors.

The need and the opportunity are identical: Investing in socially marginalized children creates obvious value for the country entire but less obviously does so for particular, for-profit corporations. By leveraging the goodwill of socially-concerned citizens and, simultaneously, uncovering new profit streams, entrepreneurial-minded nonprofits demonstrate the latent productivity of large segments of the population and, eventually, attract further interest and investment.

Capitalism is excellent at providing opportunities to well-equipped and motivated entrepreneurs. It is less good at developing the talents, outlook, and networks of those who remained removed from its dynamics.

The wealth of our age gives us the luxury of seeking synergies between these two goals. Those who uncover such synergies have the potential to do good and to prosper.

The True Story of the GOP's Dissipation

Rapid global development and economic/financial change undermine the relevance of strict rightists and leftists: The need to adapt quickly to new technologies and new economic realities will reward adaptable, rather than orthodox, parties and regimes.

Edward Golberg of Baruch College, in today's Friedman column diagnoses the malaise of the Republican Party accordingly:

Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears . . . The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer.

Health care is one example of an area where government can play a productive role in supporting economic growth and human capital development.

Government intervention is only justified in the Right's worldview when the capitalist system is under threat (e.g. during ideological struggles with the Soviets, radical Islamists, etc.). They have no ideological context for coming to terms with the pressing national-economic needs of globalization.

Some on the left have a similar problem coming to terms with globalization but the left's solutions happen to be more pertinent at the moment. And, the anti-WTO, anti-trade wing of the Democratic party has receded, for the time being.

Why Business is The New Communism

Which companies have changed our lives most in recent years?

Could you argue that Google and Facebook have been at the lead?

Perhaps you've thought about how these companies don't just represent new computer tools but new philosophies of doing business: they organize information to make it accessible and trust that that will draw you into their grasp, that they will find out how to make money off of you accordingly.

What's communist about that?

The fact that these companies have an interest in engaging your creativity. That commitment, to the extent that other businesses adopt it, represents a revolution in the relationship of commercial interests to social development: people are inherently valued as knowledge producers and consumers, and the increasing intellectual efficacy of an individual is seen as an economic opportunity for business.

So what?

Many have argued, over the past several hundred years, for a social counterweight (often this role is taken by, and presumed by, government) to the narrow interests of business. Others have argued that the narrowness of business interests is a good thing, as it counterbalances overambitious intellectuals and bureaucrats, and is the stuff of gradual economic and social improvement.

The business philosophies of the Information Age undermine the supposition that broad social thinking and the profit motive tend to lead to divergent paths (though, of course, they sometimes will).

The key idea is that increased access to, and ability to contend with, information is (a) increasingly essential to our economy and, simultaneously, (b) increasingly understood by businesses as an essential avenue for growth.

I am not arguing that business will solve all of our social problems, only that the emerging business philosophy of interconnectivity can lead to enormous social good and hold government increasingly accountable to making economically effective investments in human capital.

A substantiated belief in the alignment of business interest and human development is, where it exists, a salutary development that has wide implications. That trend is where we should keep our attention in coming years, and decades.

Why is the Health Care Debate Happening Now?

Because a Democrat is in the White House?

Because health care costs have skyrocketed?

Because free marketed ideologies have been discredited by the financial crisis?

Because Obama is especially charming?

The principal reason these debates are happening now is none of these things. The sea change in public opinion on health care over the past few decades is a result of the international predominance of capitalism and democracy.

Sound crazy?

During the Cold War, for instance, Americans were much more sensitive about socialist reforms. Now, a minority of Americans expresses such concerns.

At the same time, the idea of taking a huge economic risk in the midst of a focus on international political competition with, say, the Soviet Union or Islamic fundamentalists, was extremely frightening.

Finally, of course, the focus on human development has grown with the increase in the value of human capital in the global economy.

So, the global triumph of capitalism and democracy has (1) reduced ideological sensitivity, (2) shifted our focus away from international political competition, and (3) created the conditions for international economic competition, based on human capital investment, to take on increasing importance.

Health Care: A Right or A Privilege?

"I think health care is a privilege. I wouldn't call it a right." So says Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) in a recent interview.

This comment is disturbing some liberal commentators. See here and here.

And, yes, the questions raised are essential.

But liberals should pause and realize that the abundant economic wealth that surrounds them makes much more practicable the very idea of "health care as a right." The individualism/individual responsibility that DeMint advocates is an essential element in the growth of wealth that we have witnessed over the past several hundred years. Wealth matters. Individual responsibility matters.

Conservatives should equally consider how mores can evolve, and redound to society's benefit, with new economic and social circumstances. Protections help to make society more stable and help to make less privileged members more productive. Rights matter. Both socially and economically.

One lens for considering the balance between economic growth and civil rights is the historical one:

Namely, rights and protections extended in economically advantageous fashion at one point in economic development might have undermined general economic growth at an earlier time. Had Roman slaves been protected from forced dislocation, as were feudal serfs, the Roman Empire might have been economically undermined in dramatic fashion. Had feudal serfs been extended universal K-12 education as is the common citizen of our time, agricultural output of the period would likely have declined precipitously. By the same token, a commitment to the universal health in our own times may be compatible with strong (more on this adjective later) economic growth even though the costs of such a commitment would have been overwhelming in an earlier time.

Letter to WSJ: Protectionism, Globalization, and the Recession

To Whom It May Concern:

New economic realities demand new agreements and regulatory regimes and Jeffrey E. Garten (“The Dangers of Turning Inward, 3/1/09) is correct to identify the source of our current economic woes in an unbalanced global financial system that included an Asian savings glut, distorted currency exchange rates and, consequently, as we know well, inflated asset prices in developed countries.

Professor Garten proposes some lucid solutions to these problems but cannot do much to identify the political force that will call for careful international regulation and social investment. This is no fault of his own. Republican nativist and Democratic labor protectionist sentiment are well-entrenched and a sufficient reorganization of international institutions would necessitate compromises in national sovereignty that neither political party could support.

Garten hopes that “short-lived recession” would teach the body politic enough about the new global order to make possible needed reforms. Count me among those who think that the learning curve will be too steep for that.

Sincerely,
Barak Epstein

Dear Dr. Krugman

I may not be a Nobel Laureate but I think that I can explain Obama's speech to Paul Krugman.

Krugman writes:

Thus, in his speech Mr. Obama attributed the economic crisis in part to “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age” — but I have no idea what he meant. This is, first and foremost, a crisis brought on by a runaway financial industry. And if we failed to rein in that industry, it wasn’t because Americans “collectively” refused to make hard choices; the American public had no idea what was going on, and the people who did know what was going on mostly thought deregulation was a great idea.

Obama's perspective entails:
1) holding the purchasers of subprime mortgages to account for their decision-making
2) at the same time, implying that such debacles of overleveraging are bound to happen in an unequal society, i.e. the poor are likely to overspend to try to keep up, at least, with the middle class
3) supporting the poor in their ambitions by developing new opportunities for them make economic contributions
4) recognizing that such 'opportunity development' is especially crucial when economic structures change (viz. globalization, the decline of American industry, the growth of the information economy)

It's a complex view that makes room for both individual responsibility and acknowledgment of social tendencies. Or, like others, I have simply divined in Obama's spacious words the perspective that I, myself, hold.

The Nation-State and Global Integration

A few questions about strains on the power and efficacy of the nation-state:

(a) Does the global financial crisis call for international management of, say, currency exchange rates?

(b) Do globalization and the near-global triumph of capitalism undermine the greatest incentive (namely, international competition, respectively, among capitalist powers and between capitalist and non-capitalist powers) for leading capitalists to attend to the well-being of those who are not succeeding?

(c) Do global warming and other environmental strains demand an internationally-coordinated response that cannot entirely be managed by one nation-state?

My answer to all of these questions is 'yes' and points to the growing importance of international cooperation to solve many of our most pressing problems. I am not arguing that states are not strong. Neither am I am arguing necessarily for inter-governmental cooperation to solve these problems (although, such will sometimes be vital). Rather, I am arguing that a global perspective is becoming of greater importance. In due time, I believe that such a perspective will become the dominant paradigm, superseding the nation-state paradigm.

It is no coincidence that this pattern of integration presents itself as we find ourselves in a world in which everyone can be lifted out of poverty and in which universal education can be imagined. These goals can be achieved because (a) the global economy is sufficiently integrated to distribute basic goods, services, and skills to those in need of them, (b) globalization and the near-triumph of capitalism have led to a global economy in which human capital is of ever-greater economic value, and (c) environmental challenges force us to focus on how we can develop wealth without solely relying on materials. The best answers to this question are the development of technology and of human capital.

Impressed by Obama

Obama's strategy thus far, on three major issues, can be characterized as "focus, continue, and engage." The broad outlines are perfectly elegant.

Specifically:

+focus on the economy: little explanation is needed here. Obama has managed to include many major advisors in his administration: Geithner at Treasury, Summers at the National Economic Council, Goolsbee and Volcker on a special recovery taskforce.

+continue with the late second-term Bush approach to foreign policy: The caution here is reassuring to me and seems that it will be generally endured by those further to the left on such issues.

+engage on health care: Obama has chosen to extend internet democracy first to the discussion about health care. This is wise because (a) he can thus engage activists, and perhaps even temper their expectations as they are forced to wrestle with real world issues, even while he postpones immmediate action and (b) he may actually be able to glean a few good ideas as discussants will be able to sift the 'wheat from the chaff' through a participant-run ratings system.

Very impressed.

GM, New Deal, Etc.

My apologies for my short-term hiatus.

This clip from "This Week with George Stephanpolous" presents interesting discussion about the role of the government vis-a-vis GM and infrastructure projects. The most intriguing idea, though perhaps not presented in the most substantive way possible during this particular interview, is David Brooks discussion of the importance of supporting social networks in the era of an economy dependent on human capital.

End of an Era: Free Market Orthodoxy Is No Longer Ascendant

Agree or not, the following exchange signals the end of a 28-year era of American politics in which free market orthodoxy defined the terms of domestic debate:

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

Read more.

GEOPOLITICS, FINANCE, AND EDUCATION

In the upcoming weeks, world leaders will meet to begin to consider a new financial architecture for the world.

If they fail to found a cooperative framework, the threat of protectionism, economic decline, and the associated political challenges (which would not be small, and could be frightening) will be our biggest challenges.

If they succeed (as I suspect that they will), we will have taken a noticeable step to a more integrated world in which conflict between large nations becomes somewhat less likely. Challenges would still remain in that regard, to be sure, not least the endurance of petrodictatorships. Still, new issues will, after such a success, begin to come to the fore. I believe that one of the boldest dividing lines in a more stable (I take small group terrorism into account here.), integrated world will be the divide between the information technologically-able and the informational technologically-challenged. The would increase the importance of education, relative to international relations, as a defining issue for geopolitical stability.

What do you think?

"Spread the Wealth Around"

A propos of Obama's comment to a voter that he intends to 'spread the wealth around,' I would suggest that that comment will not prove as incendiary as it may have in an earlier age. For the time being (at least) the federal bailout has broken the US taboo of respect for individual responsibility. In a financial climate that reminds us of our interdependence, the concept that helping those in modest circumstances may be (even financially) beneficial to us all (expressed by Obama, though not as widely reported as his less politic, and less rigorous, statement, above) is not as seditious as it once might have seemed.

Intimations of a New Global Order

David Ignatius:

The new interventionism isn't so much socialist as it is Confucian -- a belief that a public-private partnership of the wise ones will get us out of the mess. And if it's any consolation, the Chinese are becoming more like us, even as we are becoming more like them. . . .

One hopeful sign last week was that the Chinese were moving toward private ownership, even as America and Europe were moving away from it. The Chinese government announced a new rural policy aimed at allowing millions of farmers to own the land they have been working. This would create a huge new reserve of private wealth in China, which could power domestic spending and growth. [Read more.]

A focal point of this new order, which I will explain further later, will be the development of the economic potential of the mass of producers. The innovation will be that such focus will be justified in terms of the promotion of prosperity, not just through appeals to social justice.

A few suggested conversation topics:
What positive effects can you imagine coming out of the crisis?
Can democratic institutions respond to crisis with coherence?
What aspect of the financial crisis would you focus on if you were Paulson?

Iceland and China

. . . the government of Iceland is presiding over a massive default by all the country's major banks. This troubling development points not only to an even more painful recession than anticipated, but also to the urgent need for international coordination to avoid something worse: all-out financial warfare.

. . . Iceland's promise to guarantee domestic depositors while reneging on guarantees to foreigners may be just a first step. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision last week to sue Iceland over this issue may escalate the crisis. The use of counterterrorist legislation to take over Icelandic bank assets and operations in the United Kingdom also has a potentially dramatic symbolic effect. (Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, "The Next World War? It Could Be Financial." The Washington Post, 10/12/08.)

There's a reason that the gestures by the US government have not sufficed to reassure financial markets: the US is no longer the unquestioned command and control center of the global economy. We have to take the imaginative leap that integrates rising developing nations into our paradigm of economic management.

Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, in today's Washington Post, point to the depth of the financial crisis in bracing detail but, unsurprisingly, fall back on nostrums about the power of the "the world's leading financial powers -- at a minimum, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany" to reassure markets. Am I naive, or does US to China (between $1.5 and $2 trillion, I believe) qualify China as an important financier? How can anyone be sure that the Chinese, given their own fragile politics, will support any plan that comes from the West in a time of financial crisis?

"Crisis Marks Out a New Political Order" -- by Phillip Stevens

. . . from the Financial Times.

A Broader Perspective on the Financial Crisis

The response to this financial crisis will be both economic and geopolitical. The Great Depression called into question the stark laissez-faire approach of the industrial revolution and its aftermath. The US stepped into global leadership after World War II by leading the construction of a global financial system that has done a very good job at promoting stability and growth.

The change that we are facing now is not essentially about investment banks, mortgage lenders, or homebuyers. Rather, it reflects the transition of the global economy to an era in which the US cannot be the only hub at the center of the wheel.

C. Fred Bergsten and Arvind Subramanian, in today's Washington Post, help to explain how this process underlies the more obvious signs of crisis.

Beyond the short term, countries will need to develop a cooperative framework to prevent and resolve such crises, most urgently within Europe. There is inherent tension as finance becomes global but its regulation remains national. The current crisis originated in the United States but was importantly affected by massive savings surpluses in some countries and the resulting surfeit of liquidity, which drove down interest rates and encouraged irresponsible lending here. Those international imbalances were in turn partly caused by misaligned exchange rates. Global oversight of both financial regulation and currencies can no longer be neglected.

One way to understand this is that China, most importantly, has artificially increased its capital reserves by preventing its currency from appreciating to its correct market value. China sells more exports than it otherwise would, and buys fewer imports than it otherwise would. Ultimately, the Chinese money does make it back to the US, but in the form of payments for Treasury Bills (This is due to a Chinese concern about inflation as well as a concern that excess capital would lead to social unrest and/or uncontrollable wealth flows that could weaken Communist Party control.).

Simply put, it seems to me that the net consequence is that cash comes to the US Treasury rather than to, among others, US producers. The cash in the Treasury was then ultimately lent out at low interest rates, creating investment opportunities in a society in which wages were not appreciated significantly (because of, among other reasons, the fact that American products were not easily sold to countries that have maintained a high exchange rate of local currency to dollars).

The predicament in which consumers cannot afford appreciating assets in reminiscent of the pre-Depression years in which consumers could not afford proliferating production. The similar increase in consumer credit is an unsurprising result.

Essentially, a change in global financial architecture is needed, not only for the reasons mentioned by the authors, above, but also so that the US can benefit most fully from concentrating on the development of its human capital, the long-term sine qua non for economic growth and political stability.

Concerns about political stability should not be minimized. The inherent tensions between communities constituting a democratic society are generously lubricated by growing wealth. The sense of chaos that can percolate through a society in the absence of such a scenario lends itself to exploitation by authoritarian-minded regimes. I do not think that the US is on the brink of such a scenario but the 20th century taught us well that farflung events can have a dramatic impact on our society.

Irresponsibility in Government

There are many criticisms that can be made about the consequences to the market of a federal bailout (see George Will today, for instance) but I am certainly willing to take the lead of Paulson, Warren Buffett, etc.

Nonetheless, I do not credit most House Republicans with being thoughtful free marketeers. The sequence of events over the last week suggests that many had trouble understanding the crisis and that political calculation was predominant aspect of their thinking, despite the serious crisis. Michael Gerson points out, additionally, the many Democrats made similar calculations and that Pelosi's prevote speech was exceptionally poorly considered.

All in all, I agree with Gerson's estimation that the current political crisis in more frightening than the economic crisis:

America is left with one portion of one branch of government that does not seem to work. House Democrats seem temperamentally incapable of building genuine consensus on issues that matter. Many House Republicans seem so alienated from the mainstream policy consensus that they inhabit a different world. One wonders if any emergency short of an invasion of American territory would unite them. Even then, Pelosi would probably blame the conflict on cowboy diplomacy, House Republicans would talk of the natural fruits of McGovernism, and the vote on declaring war would be close.

Though some compromise may eventually be passed, it is now clear that American political elites have lost the ability to quickly respond to a national challenge by imposing their collective will. What once seemed like politics as usual now seems more like the crisis of the Articles of Confederation -- a weak government populated by small men. And this must be more frightening to a world dependent on American stability than any bank failure.