Financial apocalypse seems to be in the air. NBC Nightly News has a new nightly segment called Hard Times, which provides economic “survival strategies” to the viewers.
We have entered The Interregnum.
As I said before, the notion of an interregnum has classically been tied to those periods when one king has died and there is no clear successor. But for our purposes, the notion of interregnum refers to those hinges in time when the old order is dead, but the new direction has not been determined. Quite often, the general populace and many of its leaders do not understand that the transition is taking place and so a great deal of tumult arises as the birth pangs of a new social and political order.
Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 the American political ruling ideology has been based on the twin poles of the Neoconservative philosophy first elucidated by Irving Kristol in The Public Interest in 1965: in domestic affairs the national government should shrink (by cutting taxes and business regulations) and in foreign affairs the government should grow (by becoming the world’s sole military superpower). Four kinds of business firms have done very well by this strategy: finance,oil, drugs and military. And while their shareholders and executives like our Vice President and former Secretary of Defense get very rich, the middle class is losing ground. The election of 2006 brought the neoconservative era to a close, but did not define “the new order” and so we are in an Interregnum.
Some things are clear; that the digital revolution in communications and finance has ushered in an era of globalization that cannot be contained and that the devolutionary forces of the Internet are pushing power to the edges of almost every organization. Neither top down, hierarchical business organizations or centralized government organizations are going to succeed in the networked world. But what we have also learned is that total “hands off” deregulatory schemes propounded by the neo-conservatives do not work either. For the simple reason that there are too many venal characters trying to game the system. So despite Mr. Paulson’s fake regulation, the next President will have to bring the Shadow Banking System and the drug, oil and military companies to heel. This will not be easy.
The next four months will tell the tale of whether we are in a recession or a depression. We should concentrate on what kind of society we want to live in if the crisis stresses our democracy. Never underestimate the ability of an unemployed populace to look for scapegoats. In simple terms, democracy is at risk everywhere. Robert Kaplan
I submit that the democracy we are encouraging in many poor parts of the world is an integral part of a transformation of new forms of authoritarianism; that democracy in the United States is at greater risk than ever before, and from obscure sources; and that many future regimes, ours especially, could resemble the oligarchies of ancient Athens and Sparta, more than they do the current government in Washington.
29 responses so far ↓
Morgan Warstler // April 1, 2008 at 12:06 am
There is no Interregnum, we are experiencing a duplicate of 1992. From 1980-1992, for the first real time since 1913, conservatives finally said, “deficits be damned,” if we don’t spend the money the liberals will just buy votes.”
“By cutting taxes and business regulations and growing to be becoming the world’s sole military superpower,” conservatives assured that the “buy the votes of the poor” strategy of the liberals, would fail on the second part of the deal - they’d get the votes, but the poor get nothing. They short circuited the scam called democracy.
This is not an end zone dance, I am simply the referee.
“Democracy, not a republic” was a vote getting strategy employed by liberal leaders, all of whom because fat and rich and wealthy and powerful preaching it to the least educated - the true benefits to the poor are less obvious, you have to look pretty damn hard to find anything a free market would not have brought MUCH SOONER, unencumbered by travesty of 1913-1980. The microwave, air conditioning, alt.energy, hookers, self-serve prescriptions, 500 channels, and the Internet - it would have come soooooo much sooner, if Al Gore wasn’t in the damn way.
This is our second time to the rodeo.
In 1992, after 12 years of near-exponential budget deficits, Bill Clinton sold out on all his campaign promises to “invest in social x,y,z,” so he could ride another 4 years on the big bird and the die was cast. That was the proof, then and there, that a deficit-stricken in-coming Democrat president, would always sacrifice all his followers for more power crack . He was your savior, just like Obama, and look at him now. Disgusting. Even you now despise him, because he won’t get out of the way for the next great white hope.
This newest cycle took only 8 years (a tribute to conservative efficiency) from 200-2008, to so run up the deficit that we certainly face another “sorry no new benefits for you” January inauguration speech.
Maybe Obama will also offer, “gays in the military” as his first formal policy position (which I support) - because it it the only free damn thing he can do to pay of his voters.
Bill Clinton didn’t invent triangulation because he wanted too - he had to because he couldn’t afford to buy anybody anything - remember a hundred small gestures? Dick Morris does.
Hell, he turned welfare into workfare in 1996 - that is his single biggest contribution to the socio-economic fabric - and libertarians everywhere salute him.
So what if, we are seeing in this current fiscal dilemma:
1) China/India more free market like the US.
2) Europe more free market like the US.
Why delude ourselves we can be more like them and win? Why not admit that we will only survive in the face of their rabid competition, if we become even more free market?
Deficits trump democracy, every single time. Here’s proof: the balanced budget amendment.
Imagine, to protect liberals politicians, so they could have some money to spend on their voters when they win one, we passed the balance budget amendment.
Now finally in comes the next Obama, with a balance budget, BUT, in order for him to do anything for his voters, he has to raise taxes, because of the BBA, new spending requires new taxes. In that America liberals are just as stuck - cutting the military, pisses off the military, cutting th postal service, pisses mailmen off, raising taxes, pisses everyone off - and the whole time, the FED actually kinda works, because they don’t have to worry about the government deficit spending (thank you BBA) - so money supply/inflation is pretty much based on interest rates (assuming normal population growth etc).
Keynesian economics is all but impossible with a BBA, and all but impossible with a massive deficit.
That is game, set and match. Please let’s respect the ruling of the chair.
zestypete // April 1, 2008 at 5:48 am
Thankfully, while the US is entering a Re/Depression/Interregnum/Rodeo (?), the readers of The Independent in the UK can sit back and take comfort in their new MacBook Air laptops and iPod Touches.
(I’m now off on holiday for two weeks without internet access . And unlike Jon, I do not plan to comment sporadically or otherwise. Please keep the home fires burning in my absence and someone make sure to let Morgan out to do his business in the back yard at least twice a day, otherwise he’ll mess the rug.)
Zhirem // April 1, 2008 at 5:53 am
Nice piece Morgan. I don’t agree with all of it, but it was a good read nonetheless. Now, a minor observation would be that you border on the meglomaniacal with your insistence upon being both an adjudicator and a counselor. One cannot, in good conscience, play both roles for any given argument.
Also, I would like for you to expound upon your posit that we need to be an even more open market. I don’t buy your claptrap about the travesty of the roughly 6+ decades between 1913 and 1980. Some very important things were done in between those two years. Some very stupid things were done as well, I concur, but on the whole, they were chock-full of important milestones in our nations history. Civil rights for one thing. The GI Bill for another. The list is long, and those are only two elements.
- Zhirem
Rick Turner // April 1, 2008 at 7:03 am
Ah…civil rights. If it were not for the feds stepping in, you’d still have “colored only” drinking fountains, bathrooms, and theater sections, and Rosa Parks would have done hard time and Lester Maddox would have founded a dynasty. States’ rights be damned. I would hope that a libertarian new federalist society would not support the evils sought by old line states’ rights advocates… But then I guess all the people of color would have the right to move to a friendly state…and friendly states would have the right to refuse them entry as California did during dust bowl days. “If you ain’t got the do-re-mi, boys, if you ain’t got the do-re-me, you’d better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennesee…”
So where does federalism end and universal justice begin?
STS // April 1, 2008 at 7:21 am
Rick,
You raise an example of an important point. When discussing a “grand bargain” for New Federalism, remember that such grand bargains are generally defaulted upon. After the first flurry of implementation steps, a few extras somehow get conveniently “forgotten”. It matters a very great deal in what order the implementation steps are taken.
Case in point: conservative Leninism. First you cut taxes, then you cut spending. Only the second part never quite happens.
Patrick Freeman // April 1, 2008 at 8:27 am
Morgan,
Nice one. And a happy April Fool’s day to you, too.
Morgan Warstler // April 1, 2008 at 9:15 am
Rick,
You are right, the federal government must be able to ensure with force universal negative rights, so what you are free from in one state you are free from in all. That said, which current universal “negative rights” are not yet guaranteed?
I get slavery, it was a birth defect. I get women voting. I don’t think the state should be marrying people (that’s a church thing), but if you do, I’ll force all the states to have gay marriage. Though I think we should let Utah have multi-wives if they want too.
Are there other negative rights missing?
Jon Taplin // April 1, 2008 at 10:50 am
Morgan-”They short circuited the scam called democracy.”-I know you are trying to be an agent provacateur on these pages, but I really think you are living in a dream world. The United States had no problem being the engine of innovation from 1900-1980. Name me a major invention that wasn’t conceived during what you call “the travesty of 1913-1980″. Historians will record the travesty as having started in 1980 when your and Grover Norquist’s “starve the beast” strategy was put in place.
As far as I can tell from your Facebook profile, you were not one of the fat cats in Military, Drug, Finance, or oil that made a killing in the last 30 years. The rest of us barely keep up with inflation.
As for your vaunted innovation engine, it stalled out. Go to Tokyo or Seoul and see if you don’t have faster cheaper broadband (wired and wireless). In fact the reason that both Asia and Europe will probably avoid our slump is because they didn’t drink all of your Milton Friedman Kool-aid.
I agree that Bill Clinton was a fraud, who quickly got intimidated by Robert Rubin’s need to keep the Bond traders at his old firm happy. God willing, the next Democratic President will not be fooled so easily.
If we extract ourselves from this pointless war, we can begin to use some of the $2 trillion we would spend on it to pay down the debt so Dorsey doesn’t end up in Bladerunner. But don’t make any bets on your BBA–it ain’t going to happen. We will still hold the world’s reserve currency and the market for T-bills will hold up just fine.
Morgan Warstler // April 1, 2008 at 12:52 pm
“The United States had no problem being the engine of innovation from 1900-1980.”
During those years we had a serious pendulum swings to find out how much you could take from the top income earners, before it hurt receipts. I think you and I agree that number is about 40%.
If we can agree on that, it is easy to guesstimate generally what the optimum tax receipts will be, right?
Now the question is, why not support a balanced budget amendment? From a purely liberal, I want butter not guns mindset, I honestly believe the best chance we have of that is efficiently taking in those taxes (simplified tax code and technology like Goolsbee’s automatic tax return), and then making Congress duke it out over only those proceeds.
Deficits drive inflation, and they compound. We are spending more on paying down the debt, than we are on Iraq.
But as I am trying to make clear above, deficits whether we like it or not, trump “democracy.”
Can we please agree that the key distinction between a republic and a democracy is pretty much, you can’t “vote yourself benefits to be paid for by someone else.” Bear with me here, the leaders of the poor, are always rich themselves, and it makes obvious the question of why they are really helping. Viewing democracy through a paradigm of people voting to get stuff they cant personally afford, isn’t rocket science.
So the question is, as policy, does “democracy, not a republic” work? Can it survive and thrive, and the answer is yes IF the conservatives are “conservative” if they abhor deficits and if when they get in power, they race to cut spending, sure it works because liberals can run for office, promise a new benefit, and deliver on it - because Keynes make it ok!
But Keynes doesn’t work in a democracy, once conservatives learned to let go, they “won”:
“I didn’t come here to balance the budget. I was elected to reduce Government intrusion in the economy.”
-Ronnie Reagan
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953168,00.html
Look I’m not a rabid anti-tax guy, I’m ok with 40%, and as such, I’ll support almost any petri model you can think of for how states spend their chunk, what services they provide - want to pay women to have children? ok.
What’s nuts is that liberals would do so much better fighting within the box of a BBA because voters would have to actually think in those terms.
Seriously, why don’t you think normal rational mid-Americans would conclude to support the kind of world you want, if they had to X (optimum tax receipts) amount to spend - It be much clearer to them that a war meant either less services or a tax hike - they’d be much more involved parties in the process.
If we knew a specific amount, and all federal candidates for office could log into a web site and lay out their approach to expenditures just like you did.
Conservatives won by letting go and embracing spending. Liberals can trump that by letting go, and embracing a balance budget amendment.
And you know for sure, both Europe and Asia are listening to this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mundell
Rick Turner // April 1, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I’m fine with a balanced budget amendment…or if it’s not to be that, then let me print C notes for myself.
Ever spend any time at an “inside the beltway” cocktail party? I have, and it was horrifying. The career bureaucrats really do think we work for them… So yes, I think it would be great to reduce the population of Washington DC by a few hundred thousand and have public servants who have to attend town meetings and the like. I’m not happy either with the bureaucrats in Sacramento here…they’re just DC wannabes. But how ya gonna keep the public servants from doing private favors that game the system and move money OUT of true free market flow and into the fat cats’ accounts.
Morgan, I sympathize with the desire for a true free market. I’ve just never seen one. Corporate America certainly isn’t a good example of it, and it’s not government interference keeping from being “free”. It’s a totally gamed system whereby defense contractors become the vice president and Texas oil men chastise us for being addicted to the oil their falcon flying pals sell us.
In the absence of greater ethical standards, we are left needing more regulation…and we don’t have it yet. Libertarianism has a major fatal flaw…just as does Communism…and that’s a blind spot for unabashed greed as a driving force in human nature.
STS // April 1, 2008 at 4:22 pm
To Athens and Sparta let me add a contemporary model for America’s current direction: China. Happy, successful capitalism with smart engineers in charge. What’s not to like? Well, a lot of things, but our political class would love to dispense with annoying little people intruding on their lucrative private business. Whose view of China will ultimately matter in US politics?
Let me turn to Charlie Munger (ht: Steve Hsu) to expand upon this point. He calls himself an admirer of Krugman’s writing despite strong disagreement with his politics. So Charlie is no liberal democrat. The whole talk is fascinating, but here’s the segment I’d like to draw your attention to:
Jon Taplin // April 1, 2008 at 6:44 pm
STS- Munger and Buffett are the two smartest guys on the planet. They’ve been warning us about the danger of derivatives , the stupidity of revoking the estate tax and our general direction towards a “sharecropper society.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/blowback-iv-the-new-federalism/
Rick- The greedheads will get you everytime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/business/01drug.html
Thats why we need regulators.
Dan // April 1, 2008 at 7:33 pm
What I found valuable about Jon’s post was the sense that there is something more significant at play than a squabble over tax policy and regulatory environments. The people who have profited from the Old World Order are genuinely flummoxed: They keep pushing the same old buttons, but nothing happens.
The first commenter called Jon’s concept of an Interregnum “melodramatic” and went on to pooh-pooh the idea by citing an “easier” reality. Well, good luck, guy.
It isn’t just that networked communication is “flattening” economies via globalization, or that the migrations of cultural creatives are making geography “spikier.” Yes, the upheaval in the financial markets is part of the change, but it certainly isn’t driving the change.
My meta-meta observation? Mass-mediated culture is still in force for average people, but it died out years ago for the people who are actively shaping the new culture, the new economies, the new rules. By numbers these people are insignificant. By influence they are hugely significant, and many of them have been operating beyond the easy control of the old elites since the late 1990s.
Is it a democracy or a republic? I dunno. How many angels can dance on the skull of Alan Greenspan?
It’s not that a few things are changing. It’s that everything is changing at a pace faster than the old order is capable of incorporating. Your interregnum isn’t just a political-economic phase, but a basic shift in human consciousness.
Rick Turner // April 1, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Jon, I know that and that’s why I turned away from Libertarianism…it’s just too ivory tower and assumes that ambitious people are ethical. Some are, many are not, and so we need intrusive rules and regulators to keep honest people honest and catch those who are not honest. Too many Libertarians are like dry-drunk 12 steppers who get to the eighth or ninth step and decide the rest of the steps don’t apply to them. They talk a great game in theory, but they’re mean-hearted bastards who drink from a deep well of schadenfreude, take perverse delight in the misfortune or lesser status of others, and don’t give a whit about others in society. It’s the “I got mine and screw you, if you don’t have yours you deserve your miserable fate” mentality I cannot abide.
Rick Turner // April 1, 2008 at 9:01 pm
And Morgan, just what is the whole point in being the world’s only military superpower? Why be that? How does that further live and let live? Or is the idea to be able to intimidate and subjugate all the little brown and yellow people when they won’t be just like us…or when they get tired of loaning us money to buy their goods…
Zhirem // April 2, 2008 at 6:28 am
Dan, that was a very sage post. One must consider the status of the human condition in the more ubiquitous systems that were discussed in this thread and elsewhere. One must also consider the collective rising of consciousness amongst the Earth’s populace.
The promise of a global society, connected with free-flow of information, and the establishment of eco-friendly industry in those economically challenged areas is an ideal. But an ideal that I think might just be attainable.
The Interregnum seems to be to be a herald of the irresistible force of change. This will not be the koombaya alteration that many thought possible during the dot.bloom, but that rather, I think the change means conflict. There are many forces at play in the geo-politik we find ourselves confronted with every day. Many of these forces and interests are financial in nature, capitalistic, manipulative. Others are purely political and border on, if not include, religious interests.
My thought here is that the Interregnum may very well herald a conflict where the conflicting and conflating ideas will see a resolution to their endless struggle, with either oppressive forces will win out, or liberating forces will final achieve victory.
This conflict will not likely include the clash of armies, or exchange of nuclear weapons. At least it will not unless we allow our global society devolve into religious warfare. Rather, I think the battlefield will be in the Media as described earlier. Media in the broadest context possible, with the most important component being the Internet.
Information wants to be free. Information is liberating to those who acquire it. Information is not something that can be long throttled or controlled. I am not a religious man. I am somewhat a spiritual man. I am at peace with myself, and try to be at peace with the world. At the same time, I really try to be a realist, and to not expect the frog and the scorpion to change their natures. Neither one can. To expect otherwise is to set oneself up for disappointment. (if you are not familiar with the parable, I think it is South African in origin, and has to do with the frog and the scorpion, a study in the nature of things, google it and I am sure you will find it.)
I do believe, if I am not mistaken, that Buddha once said: “Three things cannot long be hidden: the Sun, the Moon, and the Truth.”
- Zhirem
Morgan Warstler // April 2, 2008 at 7:26 am
“Or is the idea to be able to intimidate and subjugate all the little brown and yellow people when they won’t be just like us”
Rick, dude what is your problem? It is weird how that nosie that comes out of your head, like some kind of reflex - you are not the great protector of a misfortunate class. They don’t need you. This I know. Whether out walking in China or India you run into guys selling books laid out on a blanket, and without fail, there is a copy of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Saying libertarianism is ruined by the greedheads, is like saying Islam is ruined by violent radicals.
Libertarians understand a truth that manifests itself in simple facts like this: Conservatives give more to charity than liberals.
The noise from liberals isn’t about what they can give, it is about what they are owed. Libertarians are against this. They are against each receiving based on how hard they complain. It leads to a nation of complainers.
Rick, I keep saying, ok lets take exactly 40% of the income from the wealthiest class. I base this mostly as a good guess as to what is the highest rate, before there is deadweight loss in tax reciepts. Meaning there is an absolute limit to how much money the government can take in without hurting the economy. I’m a realistic libertarian, I’m just after a clean easy tax policy and transparency.
The fact that you don’t know the answer to why we need the strongest military is disturbing. It is like you hate the history of the best nation in history. But if you really want to see the military budget reduced, a balanced budget amendment is your best choice.
John Hurt // April 2, 2008 at 7:47 am
I don’t know if I strictly mean to say this, but remind me not to be a libertarian objectivist, or an objectivist libertarian. Either one.
Zhirem // April 2, 2008 at 8:22 am
Morgan, one might just as easily question you about the ‘noises’ that come out of your head with your fawning deference to Ayn Rand. Let it go. She had some ideas. Many of us do from time to time. It is my opinion that most of hers are played out, and have been shown to not be as valid or prescient as she would have us believe. But we could also plead to Jon to give us an Ayn Rand - Pro / Con discussion thread. (I don’t really want one, because I could really care less about her ideas, but would be happy to jump in the mud and be your con foil to your extolling of her virtue.)
If I am not mistaken, Rick is employing a bit of sarcasm with his post. The level of sarcasm might be difficult to determine. But let’s look at what he said: subjugation of those of different skin tones, who do not act enough like us. Would you deny a historical precedent of our country subjugating the peoples of other countries? I think such a stance would be hard to justify either historically or morally. In Rick’s defense, it does not take much stretching of my imagination to think that this might indeed be how some (perhaps many) of other peoples view our country and our actions as far as foreign policy. We are not the only ones who have engaged in such behavior. All of the colonial powers throughout history have done so. Often rampantly, blatantly.
We get the idea that you think all liberals have to contribute to the conversation is noise, and so much hot air. We get the idea that you think that concerns over the proper level of taxation can and should be tied to nearly every discussion and subject matter to be found on this blog.
But a conversation requires at minimum a few key elements: at least two individuals, and that both, in turn, listen and speak. It appears to me that sometimes, you posit that the conversation should adhere to your dictum or opinion. All well and good for a staunch and spirited defense of your position, but it leaves much to be desired in the way of a conversation. Lao Tzu (I think) : To hear, one only has to listen. To which I might add: To retain ignorance, one only has to ignore.
Lastly, is there answer to why we need the strongest military. To suggest that one is disturbed by another’s ignorance of the answer, and yet still not provide said answer, lends one to think that ignorance is fine, and something to be allowed to flourish. Would you also agree that there is far too much ignorance to be found in this world, wherever one might seek to find it?
Okay, really lastly this time: the best nation in history. Come on. If one were a citizen of the best nation in history, one would not need to expound upon that. One would not need to advertise it. One would not need to constantly reinforce that notion to it’s own populous. Please see any speech by the current President, or a great stand-up video of Lewis Black on what he learns when he leaves the country and then returns to it.
You have my respect, Morgan. Please allow for the same courtesy for Rick as well.
Thank you,
- Zhirem
Morgan Warstler // April 2, 2008 at 9:27 am
Thats all well and good Zhirem, but we are beyond discussion and expression of feelings - we all get how everyone feels.
I say this with respect, I’m just past verbal parry and thrust.
If you want to craft find common ground, a policy, the devils in the details. The details of the policy we can all abide by. I am not a slavish Ayn Rand fanboy, I think she simply warns of the dangers of government and the motives of its adherents, nicely.
I think we all actually want the same thing at least in finding a workable American policy. That policy has a price tag, and I can’t say this enough, because it isn’t like buying a new house, it is like buying an education. There is a max you can spend on an education, found in the exact point where it doesn’t earn you more money in your lifetime.
So I’ll say again, there is actually a knowable (by you and me and everyone) a maximum amount of money the government can take in receipts before the economy shrinks. We can call it $MAX.
Rather than scream that those that want a military are racist, simply say I want to spend 10% of $MAX on military, and I want to give 10% of $MAX to foreign peoples.
Very quickly, the effect of each person’s plan actually laying out their use of $MAX, begins to show an average expression.
Though, I liked Jon’s suggested budget, it didn’t work on this % of the pie graph, it doesn’t have some exact cap based on receipts, so it become impossible to know if his plan means next year we cant do as much, because there is a debt, or because we didn’t pay down the debt. Let alone be able to discuss what part of $MAX the feds and the states should have.
And certainly the best nation in history.
Rick Turner // April 2, 2008 at 11:06 am
I’ll keep it really simple. If we are truly the best nation in history, then why do we need to be a military superpower? Why wouldn’t everyone in the world simply want to be like us, if we’re so wonderful? I think we’d sway a lot more of the world’s population over to our way of thinking if we didn’t try to bludgeon them both literally (militarily) and figuratively (Hollywood culture…). We’re not doing a great job of leading by example…
Zhirem // April 2, 2008 at 11:11 am
Morgan, I get it: the details, not the dance. While it might take some of the fun out of the contest, doubtless it will result in greater substance at the end of the day. Still I agree with Benjamin: “You raise your voice rather than reinforcing your argument.” You are not guilty of this frequently (as raised voices are difficult to discern in this medium, absent ALL CAPS), but I ask merely that you keep this in mind. Like Harvey Pinnick (sp?) says in his Little Red Book: take an ounce, not a pound of medicine or advice.
Now to the substance of your post: I really like your equating policy to education expenses rather than home-owning expenses. Very good. In that vein, I think it would be fair to argue that we should never be taking $MAX out of the system to begin with. We should be shy of $MAX, for the good of the economy, and the good of the citizenry. No one *likes* taxes, but many of us really like the things it enables our government to provide for us. No, not welfare, but rather relative freedom and safety our military affords us, the interstate highway system, etc.
No one is screaming that the military is racist, far from it. I have not been in the military, so I cannot claim to speak with any authority whatsoever. My comment was that historically, our foreign policy, domestic policy and the way we entreat with other nations (on some occasions), has moments where we have treated others in a subjugating manner. I think this would be fairly difficult to argue. As it would be with any colonial power.
I was born and raised an American, and I am very proud (for the most part) of my country. However, best nation in history is purely subjective without qualification. Strongest, most powerful military the world has ever known? Yes. Most powerful soft-power ever accumulated in one nation before? I would tend to agree with it. Most morally astute? Questionable at best. Greatest percentage of literacy? Nope. Greatest overall health of the populace? Nuh-uh.
So, you can see, best nation in history, well, again, I would argue that is purely subjective absent qualification or metric.
God bless everyone, not just those under the Stars and Stripes.
Always engaging Morgan, I hope you regard this post with the spirit in which it was entered.
- Zhirem
Morgan Warstler // April 2, 2008 at 11:35 am
” If we are truly the best nation in history, then why do we need to be a military superpower?”
Rick, the absolute definition of nation/state politics (classic international politics) is that each state seeks to maximize its power. Those are the rules. Not to be glib, but it is a dangerous world out there. And regardless of if you think 9/11 was our fault, which even saying makes me sick to my stomach, you certainly understand for our discussion here, that most folks (even Obama) advocate the ability to project force at a moments notice anywhere in the world. This is a hallmark of being the greatest nation, another hallmark is intelligently deciding whether to do so.
Zhirem,
$MAX = the optimal amount of money the state can take from the people before it interferes with the economy. So $MAX = the most the government can spend on the people.
If they take too little, that is less than $MAX, and that means more for the economy and less for services from the government.
If they take too much, that is more than $MAX, and it hurts the economy, so tax receipts actually go down, and again less services from the government.
STS // April 2, 2008 at 11:51 am
Morgan,
As you state your case more consistently and insistently, it comes into greater focus. I think you are on the right track to ask what the maximum sustainable tax burden is and your 40% is probably in the right ball park. Less than 50% certainly.
As for “great power” status, the purpose is simple: the world needs an executive power. I would prefer a more constitutional framework in which the UN (as legislature) is consulted and has some check on the executive. Today the only feasible executive is the United States. I want a “constitutional monarchy” rather than the present “absolute monarchy”. Both because the U.S. can no longer afford to “live of his own” the way an absolute monarch generally must, and because it is inherently more just that power be shared among responsible and reasonably representative national governments.
The U.S. cannot sustain it’s solo act as world policeman and needs to negotiate for a political settlement that preserves basic human rights and political liberty. On our present course, we are attempting (rather pathetically) to impose a self-important, unjust and unsustainable political arrangement which is frankly destructive of the values of our Republic.
Rick Turner // April 2, 2008 at 7:56 pm
STS, I agree with the idea that we are misusing our power to support a ruling class of oiligarchs here in the US. We are not going where we are most needed from a humanitarian point of view. We are not projecting moral authority. We are just doing what colonial nation-states have always done…protect…or attempt to protect the economic benefits of the ruling class.
As much ethical damage as the founders of our oil industry did, at least they worked hard to create something. Their descendants are a bunch of lazy bastards who only want to work hard enough to get tax payers to protect their status quo.
Morgan, if the system weren’t so gamed, you’d see a group of modern energy industrialists creating the next oil boom. Solar, wind, even clean nuclear are all there for the development, but instead we have a corrupt government using the power of the military to preserve a dinosaur.
Dave // April 2, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Isn’t part of the innovation and expansion we have had due to cheap oil that we’ve gotten through whatever means? The economic expansion resulting from that has probably affected all of us Americans in some way directly or indirectly. It may not feel good, but everybody participates in the dance. China supports Sudan for oil, France and Russia were owed something like 1 billion dollars for deals w/ Sadam Hussein.I don’t think its got anything to do with the rest of the world “wanting to like us.”
I think that the moral authority many Americans like to think we had wasn’t there for a long time. I say this having lived and visited many nations through the 80’s and 90’s. We’re the big guy who people can disparage, if we stepped back it’d be somebody else.
Morgan Warstler // April 2, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Rick, I’m an alt.energy junkie - batteries, plastic pellet engines, solar blimps, even recovering desert lands, inland shrimp farming, and hydroponic greenhouses. Years ago, I tried to figure out how to “live off the grid,” so when I say, if it can/could be done, if I believed it was anywhere near as likely near term as you think, I wouldn’t be in favor of a war to secure a free market to oil.
Transportation is the obvious issue. Food transportation, if you assume we don’t really need to visit grandma. But the real nut of it is the cost of production of everything. All sectors of our economy, they are all premised, historically built on an ever increasing supply of oil, the financial markets have accessed risk on all things invested in, historically based on the cost of energy growing at or below inflation, we have always been able to pull more of it out of the ground. Now suddenly, every sector of the economy looking at fighting for less of and less of it. FedEx is bidding up the price of oil against Intel against fertilizer makers against photo-voltaic silicon against animal feed producers against pesticide manufacturers against your gasoline. Oil is in everything, and moves it everywhere. Imagine running out of air or water and having to replace it.
The reason we don’t have an alternative, is because there isn’t one. Not yet, and if you want to have a real alternative, you need all of the above to pay the least amount for oil possible (maximum production) and not have the bulk of the profits of that going to foreign governments hostile to us. You have to break the back of OPEC, to give alt.energy a chance.
There are modern energy industrialists, they are still very young, and their efforts are very high risk investments.
I’d urge more still, that people actually be able to right off alt.energy investment losses from their taxes, so if you lose money on a green investment, that counts partially for having given at the office.
The Trading Society « Jon Taplin’s Blog // April 27, 2008 at 6:10 pm
[...] have made the point before that we are entering an Interregnum, that pause between eras when the old king of neo-conservatism is dead, but the new king has not [...]
Daily Links // April 28, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] The Interregnum « Jon Taplin’s Blog [The] Interregnum has classically been tied to those periods when one king has died and there is no clear successor. But for our purposes, [the notion hinges in the] when the old order is dead, but the new direction has not been determined. (tags: government economics economy policy interregnum) [...]
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