The Nationality Paradigm

Once a year or so, I conduct an exercise in my senior electives called "Win as Much as You Can." It's based on the "prisoner's dilemma," and is designed to confront people with the question of how individual goods and communal goods interact. At the start of the exercise, the class is divided into three or four pairs, given the following score sheets, told to examine them carefully, and then instructed to make choices in consultation only with their partner, not the rest of the group.


Instructions: For 6 consecutive rounds you and your partner will choose either an X or a Y, and each of the other partnerships in your group will make the same choice. The payoff for each round depends on the pattern of choices made by your group.
 Payoff schedule 

Group choices	Payofff
4x’s	Lose 1
3 x	Win 1
1 y	Lose 3
2x	Win 2
2y	Lose 2
1x	Win 3
3y	Lose 1
4 y	Win 1

Before long, people recognize that if every pair will agree to throw "y," then everyone will win points in every round. If anyone throws "x," however, at least one pair will lose points.

In fifteen years of running the exercise, sometimes twice or three times a year, only twice have I seen people come around to a cooperative approach, and in one of those instances one of the kids had already been through the exercise. In every other run-through, at least one pair or one person went ahead and played with a "screw your neighbor" approach in an effort to grab as many points for the one pair as possible. Whenever that happens, resentment and anger blossom. Sometimes the biggest losers simply resign themselves to being pummeled, but the losers are never happy.

This behavior is predicated on the assumption that "win as much as you can" means "for the smallest group possible, compared to everyone else." Even when we review the arithmetic to show that an "all y" approach most likely will garner the most total points not just for the group but for individuals, the "winners" always insist that their methods were preferable because they did better (lost less) than others.

Many of our economic behaviors rest on similar assumptions. In this case I am not referring only to the idea of capitalist competition, which can have beneficial effects for everyone if pursued thoughtfully, but to the very idea of "GDP" or "GNP" as described in an earlier post. As the recent crisis in Greece demonstrates, attempting to separate "this economy" from "that economy" no longer works -- if it ever did. The "global economy" is a zero sum game, whether we intend for it to be so or not.

In the The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1999), Gordon Wood described the mentality of American colonists, which assumed that the internal trade between or within the colonies had no value to the colonists themselves. "The meer handling of goods, one to another, no more increases any wealth in the Province," said one colonist, than Persons at a fire, increase the Water in a Pail by passing it thro' twenty or forty hands." (p. 66) To gain anything, this man believed, we must take it from someone else -- another group if not another individual. Note that these days, protectionists would argue the opposite -- that we should keep all trade local as much as possible, so that our resources never leave our own kind.

If we expanded our sense of who "we" are, in the economic sense, many of the crises of the current world might be different. Oil shortages might still occur, for example, but in a global rather than a national context, and the solutions therefore would be different.

Regarding Trayvon Martin and "Stand Your Ground"

This piece, by Wilson Huhn from the "Akron Law Cafe," which appears on the right sidebar of this blog, is the clearest commentary I have seen on why the Florida statute is wrong.

The key passage goes like this:

This is not really a criminal law. It is rather an attempt to celebrate a particular conception of "honor."  It does not carefully and dispassionately define its terms. Instead, it invokes memories and emotions; it reminds us of the sacrifices of our ancestors; it seeks to glorify violence and, in particular, the use of guns in the defense of justice. The key language contained in the statute – STAND YOUR GROUND – would be a terrific title for a war movie or a western, but it makes lousy law.

Well done.

The Mobility Paradigm

Our assumptions about economic growth do not act alone. Especially since the late 19th century, but reaching back as far as the early capitalism of the 15th century, capitalists of all nationalities have understood that profits often require the identification of  new markets. Columbus did not sail the ocean blue out of pure curiosity; he and his patrons sought access to new markets for European goods, and resources -- sugar and gold, in particular -- to bring home. The desire for gold therefore drove a growing need for physical mobility over ever-expanding geographic frontiers.

Americans enshrined this economic impulse as a cultural value. John Winthrop, Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau, Huck Finn, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Ford, John F. Kennedy, and virtually every other American icon reinforced the idea that to be American was to move, sometimes restlessly, sometimes purposefully, but always beyond current boundaries. When "going west" was no longer possible, we fled the cities and created suburbs. When wagons and then trains and then cars could not take us far enough, fast enough we flew.

Combined with the urge to "grow the economy," this fundamental ethic pushed us away from the parochial concerns of our immediate neighborhoods. Generations no longer remain in the same place, doing similar things with similar people. Local institutions, from town halls to banks and farms, matter less than larger-scale ones. Better transportation and other technology allow us to work and go to school farther and farther from where we live. Our food does not come from our backyards, but from across continents. Our news and even our gossip focuses less on people physically close to us and more on figures of national and international fame.

One profound consequence of this long-distance mobility is an utter dependence on fossil fuel. What we do without internal combustion engines to get our kids to school, our selves to work, our food to the market, ourselves to the food? In other words, the ethic has shifted back to an economic and cultural imperative. We know longer have much choice in the matter; we can hardly imagine how to live a life without the mobility we have come to expect.

For millenia, however, people have lived mostly local lives. Most humans still do live that way. It's not strictly necessary to live as we do. Rather, it's a way of life based on a paradigm that could -- and perhaps will -- change at any time.

The Growth Paradigm

Whenever anyone talks about economic health today, the focus centers on growth. Our assumption is that well-functioning economies grow at certain rates -- usually about 3% per year. Any faster, and the economy "overheats," and causes inflation at least in some sectors; any slower, and unemployment rises.

But what does any of this mean? First, "the economy" usually refers to the Gross Domestic Product, or the total  value of all the goods traded within a national political entity. By such an estimation, the US economy is huge and the economy of Costa Rica is small.

Three elements here deserve some attention. For one thing, the GDP is an aggregate. All economic activity is considered equally, and it is measured by monetary value. Manufacturing, service, agriculture all count exactly the same. Second, any activity not measured by the exchange of cash -- like child rearing, for example -- is not counted, even though it may have serious economic value. Third, the calculation depends on political boundaries without regard for the economic coherence of those lines.

Furthermore, this ideal demands a constant, infinite, obsessive quest for more -- more goods, more services, more items, more expenditures, more innovation. As Marx famously noted, the bourgeois economy (which he saw as exactly equivalent to bourgeois society) must change constantly. No better illustration of this principle is needed than Apple's model of rolling out a new iPad (or whatever) once a year, thereby rendering all of its previous products (and their accessories) utterly obsolete. Buy the new iPad and you need new "apps" and covers and connectors. Fail to buy the new iPad and you miss out on ... the new iPad. Apple's model has made it fabulously profitable, but it has also made it an icon of the bourgeois principle of growth. We all wish we could transform as quickly as Steve Jobs allowed Apple to do.

Under these assumptions, it is perfectly reasonable to seek new resources all the time. We can't make more stuff without more stuff. As things are done at the moment, the crucial resource is petroleum, but even many of those who see themselves as "green" would only change the crucial resource rather than changing the assumption that we need more resources. The debate is not over more or less (less is anathema) but between more of one thing and more of something else.

What's a Paradigm Shift?

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he coined the phrase "paradigm shift." He argued that all major scientific revolutions result from significant changes in perception of the universe. His most prominent example was the "Copernican Revolution," in which astronomers reinterpreted already-accepted information and rebuilt their models of the universe. The major breakthrough, Kuhn said, was not the discovery of new facts, but a radically new understanding of them; prior to the revolution, people tried to shoe-horn information into increasingly complicated and unsatisfactory version of the standard earth-centered concept of the universe. Once Copernicus convinced people to see a heliocentric model -- the new paradigm -- scientists could explain their information more easily and then could even pursue new lines of investigation.

Fifteen years later, William G. McLoughlin wrote Revivals, Awakenings and Reform, which essentially applied Kuhn's concept to social change. McLoughlin argued that religious "awakenings" crop up when old paradigms begin to fail; that is, when the "conventional wisdom" no longer serves to explain the facts of our lives well enough. This failure, he wrote, creates extreme anxiety and often results in irrational -- or, at least, anti-rational -- behavior. Like the scientists in Kuhn's book, ordinary people try to jam new facts into an old model. The result, according to McLoughlin, is a reconfiguration of religious concepts that takes the form of intense spiritual practice -- the awakening.

I have believed for some time now that we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift. Our understanding of the relationship between humans and the rest of the universe faces serious questions with new information about global warming. Our view of what makes good government is strained by the growth of institutions many order of magnitude larger than national governments. Our basic concept of the economy is challenged by globalization. All of these factors result in anxiety and bizarre behavior.

All of my commentary on the Republican Party, for example, stems from this basic assumption. In future posts, I will apply the concept to specific events and trends.

On Democracy and the Economy

If I am right about the bizarre behavior of the Republican Party and many people who call themselves "conservative," I must also confront the question of why the Democratic Party and "liberals" can not carry the day more easily than they have done. What accounts for this failure to conquer the political landscape when the field seems so easy to take?

In the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs, Francis Fukuyama offers the beginning of a worthy answer. Fukuyama, who is most famous for declaring "the end of history" was upon us as a result of the triumph of liberal democracy, makes a somewhat more muted argument in "The Future of History." His previous position came from the oddly Marxist/ Hegelian center of the neoconservative movement, which adopted the deterministic view of history but chose a certain form of democracy as the history's pinnacle. Fukuyama's more recent stance is perhaps more humble and therefore more helpful. He begins with the observation that the worldwide financial crisis, which might have led to a populist or progressive upswing, has not done so. Instead, the TEA Party and other pseudo-populist groups have risen. "There are several reasons for this lack of left-wing mobilization," he says,

 but chief among them is a failure in the realm of ideas. For the past generation, the ideological high ground on economic issues has been held by a libertarian right. The left has not been able to make a plausible case for an agenda other than a return to an unaffordable form of old-fashioned social democracy. This absence of a plausible progressive counter­narrative is unhealthy, because competition is good for intellectual ­debate just as it is for economic activity. And serious intellectual debate is urgently needed, since the current form of globalized capitalism is eroding the middle-class social base on which liberal democracy rests.

 Barack Obama tapped into the fervent desire for such an ideological alternative, but has failed to provide one while he tries to juggle "nonpartisanship" in the federal government.

Fukuyama then describes what the new view would like like. First, "politically, the new ideology would need to reassert the supremacy of democratic politics over economics and legitimate anew government as an expression of the public interest." In the current climate, this basic idea may be the most difficult to sell. The loudest voices in the political arena shout about the evils of government, and reject the value of even the most fundamental government services.This position is supported by the US Supreme Court, which ought to stand for the rule of law but instead undermines it by striking down reforms to election law as in the Citizens United decision. "Democracy" in the currently vogue meaning, has most to do with leaving the wealthy alone with their riches.


Second, Fukuyama says, "the new ideology would not see markets as an end in themselves; instead, it would value global trade and investment to the extent that they contributed to a flourishing middle class, not just to greater aggregate national wealth." This is a key element to his argument, because he assumes, as many previous philosophers have, that “No bourgeois, no democracy.” Only by enhancing the size and power of the independent middle class, capable of reining in the power of the ultra-rich and providing a target for the poor can we nurture political freedom. Gross income inequality, then, is the most serious threat to democracy. Markets, in this view, allow for the innovation and freedom necessary for larger ends.


I tend to think that Fukuyama is right. He sounds, in this piece, more like Isiah Berlin than Ronald Reagan. But I wonder whether he is living in an old paradigm. Might it be that we have seen the end of the middle class as a viable source of power and prosperity? If so, then we would have to construct a whole new view of the nature of politics, as Marx himself said we must. My worry is that we have come to a place in which only disaster can forge a new, workable construct. I hope not.

The NFL Bounty Hullaballoo

ESPN, in its endless coverage of the NFL, even when nothing really is happening there, has devoted the last few days to the issue of bounties paid by the New Orleans Saints to its players for "cart offs" and "knock outs." According to documents leaked from NFL offices to ESPN, the Saints' defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams offered $1000 to anyone who knocked another player out of the game, and $1500 if the player had to be carted off the field.

The issue here is not the violence of the results. No one can deny that professional football -- or football at any level -- is a violent sport, in which injuries are inevitable. Some of those injuries are immediately catastrophic, and some accrue over a long period of time, like those caused by concussions. Frankly, I think football may be at its apex as a result, because I think thing the league is going to have to change or suffer serious legal consequences for the fact that it encourages such injury.

In the current kerfuffle, however, the problem is about a certain kind of lawlessness. As Greg Easterbrook of ESPN notes, "American law places considerable emphasis on intent. Intending to harm your opponent changes football from something manly and sportsmanlike into something brutish and disgusting." As bloodthirsty as many fans may sound  -- or even be -- the moment when a player lies on the turf waiting to be carried away, when we don't know whether he will stand or walk again is always solemn and sad. The players on the field appear anxious, the one who caused the injury appears regretful. If we led to believe that such moments are actually encouraged by coaches, they become something else again. 


And on a side note, it's one thing, in my view, for players to have side bets on big hits, and quite another for coaches to do it because the coaches sit safely on the sidelines. Would Greg Williams encourae "cartoffs" if he was vulnerable to them?