Putin Administration and State Building Patrimonialism

Getting reform, stability, and economic growth in in 2000-2008 period was only possible with Putin's methods

Vladimir Putin has come on the Russian political scene when the country was in a weakened state and not yet fully consolidated. Legalistic reforms to improve state effectiveness and economic grounding have proven difficult until Putin began to build and use client patron networks with Russia's power elites. This allowed him to finally stabilize the new country through centralization and at the same time reinforced the need to continue using and expanding the informal networks of power. The byproduct of this was Russian state's return as key player in domestic industry and emergence of new class of self enriching bureaucrats who rely on interpersonal connections for advancement rather than well defined regulation. Russia began to be seen in the West as a less free country due to increased role of the state but it did not impede business opportunities and its attempts at bringing traditional patrimonial relations into the global scene. The tensions between modernity and ancient ways of getting things done might bring a new wave of destabilization in the near future.

The Russian Federation has just completed its second transfer of power this year, as President Vladimir Putin has stepped down in accordance with the constitutional limit of two terms. At the end of his second term the legislative branch and the judiciary have been subordinated to the Kremlin and amount of elected offices has been dramatically reduced. This concentration of political power in the executive, along with selective assertiveness of the state over private businesses such as television stations, has nudged Russia's assessment from partly-free to not free, as reviewed by Freedom House International in 2005. The change under the Putin administration is illustration of government's inability to work outside of Russia's traditional patrimonial way of conducting effective politics.

Existing literature on the resurgence of the state throughout the 2000-2008 period largely clusters on four broad challenges that the administration faced. One is the complicated center-periphery power struggles between the Kremlin and the numerous localities within the Russian Federation. This is framed within the context of Russia being a new federal country trying to function under strenuous conditions of poverty and war, while trying to balance the needs of Kremlin with regional desires for autonomy. The second challenge consists of an evolving struggle over property, primarily resource-rich national assets such as gas and oil infrastructure. This struggle involves newly empowered private entities and the historically dominant state. The third is one of self-interested bureaucratic factional competition, ending with the security services winning and rapidly expanding their influence over society under the Putin administration. Finally, there is the challenge of Russia being an energy-rich country trying to develop, while trying to avoid the danger of over reliance on energy exports. This is complicated by threat of political stagnation and elite enrichment, much like in other energy exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

A pattern that I saw emerge, from these four problems facing Putin, is the significant role of informal networks of interpersonal relations in accomplishing objectives. Like numerous Russian leaders that preceded him, Putin has built his authority using a system of patronage that leads back to him. This type of system, patrimonialism, is one where the political center is organized around the division of spoils such as jobs, economic aid, access to resources, and legal privileges, and where factions are played against each other with these spoils to prevent real opposition from crystallizing. I will divide this paper into four sections, each dealing with a problem that faced the administration, and see how Putin tried to mitigate each problem using patron client relations. The President has restructured the already existing relations to fit his purposes better. Patrimonialism is the chosen concept because it is the preferred way of doing business in Russia due to the long despotic tradition of the ruler being the supreme land owner. For hundreds of years there were no autonomous groups below the Tsar but classes of people serving as instruments of implementing the Tsar's will. These people had to be dealt with on a personal level in absence of rule of law or feudal contractual obligations.

Structural Framework of Center-Periphery Relations: 2000-2008

Conditions at the Start of Putin's First Term

Upon assumption of office, Vladimir Putin found himself at the head of a rather impotent federal government that followed years of Yeltsin-era policies which devolved substantial amounts of power to all eighty-nine of Russia's regions. This was due primarily to the inability of the Kremlin to properly finance regional projects and services, which prompted the regions to look after themselves any way they could and become more autonomous. The federal government was very weak from a lack of internal cohesiveness, influence from particular external interests, poor delivery of basic goods and services, and a declining ability to coerce compliance. One solid example of a region defying the Kremlin was the resource rich Muslim republic of Tatarstan, which issued its own passports, was able to pardon prisoners, and refused to send its young men to fight in Chechnya. Like many regions, it was run like a fiefdom with the local president, Mintimer Shaimiev blatantly appointing family members to political posts and refusing to privatize local economy in contradiction to Kremlin's wishes.

The Kremlin's paralysis in power projection over the localities had its roots in early Soviet efforts to rapidly consolidate the new Communist state. Soviets created their own local patron client networks of personalities that rewarded each other for ideological loyalty. The Center's capacities have suffered ever since from increased costs of monitoring and enforcing in such a corruption-stimulating environment. The country's fragments were stronger than the receding links holding them. Following the Soviet collapse, the structure of the local governments was not scrapped or reorganized like in Poland, former GDR, and Hungary, and many regional leaders were Brezhnev-era holdovers intent on consolidating devolved power. Yeltsin era federalism did not result in power sharing between Moscow and the regions as intended, but instead led to constant local obstructionism, economic hindrance, and the prevention of the formation of mass national parties focused on issues and not individual personalities. The informal self created norms by which sub-national political units had operated in the 1990's (out of necessity and self-interest) became entrenched and were now impediments to legal national integration. Some regions even erected trade barriers to protect ruling alliances of local politicians and business. It was estimated that up to 75% of federal laws were successfully prevented from being implemented throughout Russia's remote areas.

Putin's Reforms

Immediately after his inauguration, Putin created seven federal districts with seven Kremlin representatives to overlook and reign in the outlaw peripheries. The concept of a strict vertical chain of power began to be used as Putin's appointed district leaders could now, in theory, overrule and punish democratically elected governors and presidents of regions for incompetence and criminal intent. The ongoing Chechen conflict at that time provided an additional justification - and sense of urgency - for Putin's efforts at reasserting central authority in the name of stability, territorial integrity, and suppressing anti-war activists, the media, and NGO's in the overall effort. In August 2001, Putin also set up a commission to reform the civil service with the primary goals of ensuring predictability and order in professional advancement and linking financial incentives to improved system of qualifications. This was a fight against regional units of patrimonial relations that weren't operating in Kremlin's best interest.

The Kremlin had suffered setbacks on nearly all fronts. Fears that Moscow wanted to go beyond normalizing federal power sharing by striving towards a more unitary state proved premature. Almost none of the allegedly corrupt regional leaders were removed from power, even those who were very obstructionist in the past. An example of a punitive measure that was taken was the transference of undeniably corrupt Yevgenny Nazdratenko from the Russian Far East to a relatively comfortable post as head of the Federal Ministry of Fisheries. The Kremlin seemed unable to muster the energy beyond sending a message of recentralization. The commission's work to modernize the civil service also ran into staunch resistance that, as early as 2002, Putin complained of foot dragging, infighting, and creative reinterpretations of the commission's suggestions. Another setback was two constitutional court rulings against regional term limits and powers of federal prosecutors. The Kremlin did not choose to challenge the court's decisions in a sign of retreat from initially ambitious plans. One success was the expulsion of regional leaders from the Federation Council (the upper house of Parliament) on the grounds that, as local executives, these politicians should not have a say in the legislature. They were replaced with nominated representatives. Even in this case, the governors were compensated with membership in a newly created advisory body called the State Council. For the most part, the project of overlaying tighter federal laws over the vast country had failed.

Putin's Patrimonial Solution to Reasserting Control over the Regions

The problem of pulling many heterogeneous cultural and political units into a national framework is one that many new underdeveloped states face around the world. For that reason, bureaucracy guided by patrimonial allocation of rewards at the national level may be very effective as an integrative state-building exercise. Russian history saw fifteenth century Muscovite rulers pursuing this approach to subdue territorial princes through land allocation.

The public outrage over the Beslan school hostage crisis, in which over a hundred school children perished in part due to poor coordination and communication between authorities, allowed the Kremlin to exercise control in a new way, and served as a pretext to completely abolish eighty nine elected regional offices by 2005. They were replaced with Kremlin-appointed posts. Interestingly enough, rather than removing many of the corrupt local politicians and replacing them with his own loyal cadres, Putin chose to re-enlist 22 out of 26 incumbents in 2006. This showed his switch in emphasis from reform to manipulation through control of job appointments.

The post-Beslan opportunism was more about sending a message and seemed to have stemmed from the frustration of the President in having to deal with headstrong and nationally irresponsible local elites. Just like Yeltsin before him, Putin realized that if he wanted to make political progress, his personalized power had to be balanced and shared with the power of the bureaucracy. The post-Beslan change of regional leaders' job security depending on Putin rather than local electorates had the effect of creating a more nationally integrated network of codependence. The results were remarkable with only 3-6% of the federal laws blocked from taking effecting at the regional level.

Evolution of Struggle over National Assets: 2000-2008

Putin's Use of the State for Property Acquisition: The Yukos Affair

The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed an intense competition by a number of powerful actors over vast natural resources and Soviet-built infrastructure which was made more intense by very weak and constantly changing property rights. Although this competition has gone through a number of stages since the 1980's, my focus is on the later stages under the Putin administration that were made possible by the new bankruptcy law passed in 1998. It was hailed as a step to normalize property rights, but allowed debt to be used as an instrument for asset acquisition.

In 2003, Yukos, a large oil company headed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, stood as an example of a large, independent private corporation that used increasingly Western norms and practices. Khodorkovsky himself had begun to get involved in politics and private promotion of democracy and political pluralism to create better conditions for his very successful business empire. This set him on collision course with Putin, as the President just finished subordinating unruly business-connected politicians and was not about to allow interference with his vision of stability from powerful private individuals. In October 25, 2003, Khodorovsky's plane was blocked by trucks of armed police and he was arrested in a manner of a dangerous criminal as well as sentenced to a nine year prison term. This development signaled an end to the confident flow of influence from the private to the public sector, or at least influence incongruent with regime's designs. Most of the powerful tycoons in the Russian Federation, the oligarchs, had acquired their empires under dubious means and thus were vulnerable to arbitrary punitive measures by the Kremlin if they fell out of line.

What stood out in the Yukos affair were the extra predatory steps that the Kremlin employed against the company, not just arbitrarily and retroactively enforcing the law but making unreasonable demands concerning debt, preventing Yukos from meeting them, and using courts to approve a major asset grab. This was exemplified by an announcement by the Justice Ministry that Yukos' main productive asset, the oil production complex of Yuganskneftegaz, was be sold off to pay outstanding debts even before the debt repayment deadline arrived. Other less forceful oligarchs with political ambitions got the message and threw their support towards the center much like their 18th century aristocratic predecessors. In return, they were allowed to intertwine and expand their wealth in parallel with government projects. The oligarchs became patrons rather than independent private actors and control over them was through Kremlin's decision on who gets to keep, lose, or expand their business ventures.

Fallout and Implications of Renewed State Assertiveness over Property

What is telling is that Yuganskneftegaz was forcefully sold off not to a private competitor and ally of the Kremlin, but directly to a state company, Rosneft, that paid under the market price for the shares. Re-nationalization was afoot in a rather crude way, and even Putin's economic advisor at the time, Andrei Illarionov, called it the scam of the year. The wedding of political power and financial wealth set Russia on a path to state capitalism and rapid accumulation of wealth by bureaucrats overseeing massive financial transfers. The use of incentives, such as opportunities for participation in state-guided business projects when dealing with powerful actors in society is a classic patrimonial method of breaking and co-opting potential opposition in the absence of the ability to deter all of them physically.

Acquiring a major energy asset was not completely smooth for the Kremlin and constraints on its freedom of action were exposed. Observers expected the number one state energy giant, Gazprom, to acquire Yuganskneftegaz and then merge with fellow state-dominated company Rosneft during the process of renewed nationalization. However, Yukos filed a lawsuit in Houston, Texas, complicating and delaying the Kremlin's acquisition plans. The Kremlin had to rely on murky financing and a different company, the completely state-controlled Rosneft, to make their buy so as to not unnerve Gazprom's shareholders and to prevent an international legal crisis. This demonstrated a key weakness within a patrimonial regime operating in a globalizing world. Unlike the relatively enclosed Soviet Union, the new elites living off the perks of working with the Kremlin have a lot of their fortunes invested abroad in banks, joint ownership in foreign companies, stock markets, and various real estate. They thus can be affected by foreign pressure and aftershocks from actions taken domestically.

The Kremlin exploited mass public resentment of oligarchs' influence and rapid enrichment in the 1990's as cover to eliminate one of the few large companies that was trying to become more transparent and presented an alternative way of doing business. A more open, Western way of running a large, influential enterprise in line with international standards became an unacceptable domestic challenge. The bureaucratic desire to remain in control of the direction of the private sector was successfully covered up by labeling the process as a fight against corruption. One independent patrimonial pyramid of behind-the-scenes influence was consumed by the national one that followed its own logic of expansion under Putin. This is not a new historical development in Russia as in 1900 up to 45% of all large modern enterprises of industrial production were either owned directly by the Tsar or indirectly through licensing.

The Rise to Dominance of Security Services in State Bureaucracy: 2000-2008

Early Reliance on Security Personnel for Reasons of Functionality

The beginning of what came to be a heavy presence of former security officials in the highest level of government began with Yeltsin appointing a former director of F.S.B. (Russian equivalent of F.B.I. that grew out of K.G.B.), Vladimir Putin, to the position of prime minister and hand-picked successor. Putin acquired the post through blind loyalty and dogged defense of Yeltsin when the former president was accused of corruption in 1999 by Parliament and the public prosecutor's office. Putin was a career bureaucrat and his relation to Yeltsin was that of a client to a patron and the rent he received for good work happened to be the highest position in the land. Yeltsin and his clan of supporters were disturbed by rising centrifugal forces of populism, a weakened state, and oligarchic influence and wanted somebody with a security background to safeguard their personal gains after the transition of power. Immediately after becoming the second ever elected leader of Russia, Putin granted Yeltsin and his family total immunity from prosecution.

Max Weber defined non-patrimonial bureaucracy as one with clearly defined spheres of competence subject to impersonal rules and regular system of appointments. The appointments that occurred in the first presidential transition period were complete opposite and that trend continued into the Putin administration. Friendship, trust, loyalty, and assurances of protection mark the reshuffling within Russian ruling networks.

It took a while for Putin to start getting used to his new role as the top power patron. This was demonstrated in his slowness to fully cut interpersonal ties to Yeltsin's former circle. By the end of 2000 however, Putin began to bring his former KGB colleagues from St. Petersburg into his cabinet. Some of them had persecuted political dissidents in the past. These individuals were from secret service and intelligence ministries and were dubbed siloviki (Russian for forceful people). The siloviki faction enjoyed the most trust and access to Putin in his cabinet compared to the other two factions, the technocrats and liberal economists. This was in part because siloviki were tasked with the most important function of the new administration - the consolidation of the president's power and the strategic analysis and resolution of impediments to it. The siloviki organizational hierarchy was a series of concentric circles with core, secondary, and tertiary layers based on control over resources and departments, seniority, and overall influence. The core has the closest contact with the President and thus exercises the most direct influence over national affairs. The enormous amount of spoils available to the core members, in terms of control over major enterprises, bribes, and political power, often lead to bitter friction among them needing the President as interpersonal mediator. In this fluid, precarious dynamic that is primarily dependent on one leader, the state as a concept disappears and is completely replaced by informal network right below the top ruler.

Siloviki Expansion During Putin's Second Term

Putin's reliance on security services to instill hard-fought stability had come at the price of security personnel increasingly marginalizing the liberals within the cabinet and becoming increasingly difficult manage. In classic patrimonial fashion this allowed siloviki to get ever closer to Putin and therefore to greater access in determining policy and control over resources and institutions. The current or former members of the force structures such as FSB, the narcotics agency, and other security networks control more than ten government agencies and have partially exerted influence over a few more. The president's only means of control over his own top officials became implied threat that access to his attention can be cut off for disobedience.

Tight informational control by the Kremlin makes it difficult to gauge the exact size of rents granted for proper behavior. Jobs with the government rather than the private sector are now seen as the quickest way towards personal enrichment. Traditionally this has been the case as one foreign observer in imperial times remarked how Russian nobility stand apart from their Western counterparts in that they had no interest in agriculture and were eager to live in urban areas to enter public service.

The Dynamic of Current Top Government Structure

The combination of the above-mentioned factors creates a unique situation where one of the world's biggest security apparatuses is checked only by itself while it rules over a vast energy rich country in the process of finding itself. The collective body of officials in charge of the Russian state presently do not have their actions constrained by a well-defined ideology and are very pragmatic when defending their interests. In sharp contrast to the recent past, the post-Soviet Russian regime stands as one of the least ideological ones on the planet.

Max Weber failed to appreciate the degree to which bureaucracies struggle for influence, not just internally, but in the roles of political actors when possible as well.

The Russian Federation is a more modern patrimonial system where weak rational-legal tendencies co-exist within the shadow of large informal networks. Rules and regulations are followed as a form of default mode. The Kremlin does not obligate itself to follow the rules it lays for society at large. This leads to a constant flux of informal rules and behind-the-scenes deals that give the regime an arbitrary threatening feel as well as opportunities for massive internal infighting without regulation to channel power struggles. Russia, being a developing and technologically expanding society, exists in a state of tension as friction between modernity and patrimonial arrangement is irreconcilable. The practical need is too great for a system that tries to approximate Weberian bureaucracy of clearly defined spheres of competence subject to impersonal rules, rational ordering of relations of superiority/inferiority, regular system of appointments and promotion on basis of free contract, and fixed salaries paid in money. Putin has been able to contain his own people but not stop their enrichment. This remains a developing problem to be dealt with by the next president.

Energy Resources and their Use to Preserve the Patrimonial State: 2000-2008

The state has made the most consistent attacks on the private sphere when it came to the petroleum industry. In January 2004, the government decided to re-auction ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco's rights to develop vast oil fields in the Far East and then moved on to prevent majority foreign-owned companies from developing major fields completely. Such moves may have been surprising to some due to continued presence of liberal reformers in Putin's cabinet at this time, but seizure of strategic assets did not go against Putin's character. His vision of a strong Russian state included part of the Soviet period and trappings, but without the collectivist economic system, which he rejected only in that it did not lead to prosperity.

Putin believes that private economic activity is the key to growth but that the state also has a major role to play to help Russia catch up with leading technological countries. Since Russian economic growth and ability to pay back international debts ahead of time was mostly due to high prices of gas and oil, taking direct control of these powerful assets conformed to Putin's idea of long term development and national revival. Perhaps more importantly, the state's control over energy infrastructure allowed Putin to get favorable treatment in international negotiations and use veiled threats of supply disruptions or investment denial to achieve national aims that would not be possible otherwise.

The state as the sole negotiator over key energy treaties, has allowed Putin to develop warm interpersonal relations with key heads of state such as Gerhard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac, and Silvio Berlusconi. That in turn allowed numerous bilateral agreements to be made promoting the interests of major Russian energy companies on a case by case basis. An interesting case study was when Chancellor Schroeder agreed to build a Northern European Gas Pipeline from Russia to Germany that bypassed all the countries in between. Gazprom, which was to provide the gas, then created a subsidiary company where minority German ownership was chaired by Schroeder after he stepped down from office. The subsidiary created an environment in which German interests had a direct financial stake and thus got persuaded to go through with the project. Geopolitically this makes Europe even more dependent on Russian gas exports, and highlights potential conflict of interest on the part of the chancellor. Although Europe is not political opposition to be played against each other, the high demand for energy supplies allows Russian leaders to use old patrimonial techniques on an international level to develop relations of favor exchange with the client states mingling their energies with Kremlin's. Since the Russian state maintains majority share ownership in strategic industries, the rent generation is geographically anchored in Russia forcing the more fluid western companies to deal with Kremlin on its home turf.

Russian investment abroad has followed similar patrimonial patterns and does not conform to liberal norms of integration as practiced by Western non-state affiliated companies. Moscow uses political connections for leverage and makes efforts to prevent international oversight of transactions and to stifle public transparency. This has a logic of its own since the domestic situation is a system of murky corporate statism in which power holders act as if they are the real legal owners and where the real owners are hidden and partaking with the power holders in joint decision making. An environment like that is difficult for western investors and businessmen to understand, operate in, and trust and thus it's best kept hidden. More importantly shining light onto the true functioning of the domestic structures undermines them and risks unraveling the very stability Putin fought so hard to establish. Attempting reform of entrenched client patron relations in Russia to integrate it into the world economy like a free market western state risks stability. Closing the country off poses same risk since further development and national/elite enrichment demands increased contacts with the world economy. That is an inherent contradiction that is also a major national threat.

This quest for political stability may explain the dynamic expansionist nature of the regime. The regime recognizes the risk of over reliance on energy exports and the vulnerability that comes with drops in energy prices, and it created a stabilization fund to mitigate potential shocks. As of today, the Russian state, like a man running downhill is strategically compelled towards finding trading partners that are also unhindered by preconceived values on how to organize society and do business. If it is successful in integrating the interests of its elite networks with those of other countries while maintaining lack of transparency and international accountabilty, then for the first time in history we will see international patrimonialism emerging which will co-exist with the free trading globalizing world. It may replace communism as a new Russian national export as well as preserve the regime indefinitely. Putin has been successful at the close of his term at expanding traditional way of doing business without facing too much international or domestic pressure to reform.

Conclusion

It appears that the ancient way of doing business through power relations within the Russian Federation is very difficult if not impossible to reform in a few short years. It is very possible that Vladimir Putin's energetic legalistic efforts in his first term were genuine attempts at ending the patrimonial inefficiencies and lawless self interested arbitrariness of Russian politics. If that is the case, Putin was up against insurmountable national force of habit and millions of intertwined resisting self interests from every sector of society. To be able to accomplish anything with any degree of success during his term in office, Putin subsumed himself to the very patron client way of doing things he was fighting against. The lasting achievement of the 2000-2008 efforts was to pull together scattered patrimonial regional segments of society into one personalistic pyramid of power which allowed Putin to embark on grand national projects. More research is needed on the types of local regime types that exist within Russia and their level of tolerance for liberalism compared to Kremlin's to see whether things have really become less free.

Serious extralegal abuses of power have occurred once Putin consolidated support and started acquiring strategic real estate for developmental reasons. It is unclear but unlikely that the value of these acquisitions became apparent after massive flow of oil revenue into the country boosted economy year after year during Putin's first term. Considering that the Yukos dismantling occurred right at the cusp of Putin's consolidation of power over the regions, it is more probable that as the administration was growing in confidence it became more likely to engage in statist measures. The lack of coherent long term plan or ideology in Putin's first term, emphasizes the improvisational approach that was adopted. Increasing wealth within the country gave the Kremlin more carrots to offer to political clients and thus get more support for various national projects.

A major and most likely unintended consequence of focus on stabilizing the country and the economy has been the take over of most of the key government ministries by former security personnel. The self enriching siloviki within Putin's administration are a wild card and are operating their own informal patrimonial networks that are better hidden than most. Putin has been able to play his cabinet members against each other but risk of instability exists whenever Russia acquires a weak ruler.

The role of the state in negotiating business deals abroad follows a long tradition of it being a main actor in ownership of national property and this demonstrates reluctance of letting go. Comparison of Russian way of doing businesses abroad to China's would provide a contrast in how traditionally mass land owning governments operate in a globalizing world.

Patrimonial ways of achieving political goals in Russia appear to be very effective and the more the clients are integrated into the patron's plans the quicker things get done. Whether the tension between the personalistic system and an open society in the western mold will slowly resolve itself or create bursts of instability remains to be seen.

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Northeast United States is the "Real America"

An exploration of irrational Republican claims on what constitutes "real America" as well as a brief hypothetical thought experiment on how Northeast would be as an independent federal union




A curious thing happened during and after the US election of 2008.

We've heard a native of Alaska (which became the 49th state over 170 years after USA was created) and certifiable moron proclaim that she comes from the "real America" and is running on McCain's ticket to fight for "real Americans". Her speeches to elderly sexually frustrated rural gawkers made it seem as if the urban Northeastern citizenry of United States was somehow an alien patch within the national fabric. Considering that Northeast was not a puppet state under any foreign occupation at the time, it was the equivalent of a minor Scottish politician proclaiming Scotland to be a more real UK than UK itself.

Of course it was strategically necessary for the poorly educated charlatan from country's far periphery, the wide eyed gold digger like Sarah Palin, to use terminology like this. After all, many people in the nation's interior and periphery got left behind economically by the country's slow decline of the past few decades. Politics of resentment do have an underlining psychological basis that is very real, based on real grievances, and uncomfortable if one is to dig into it from a class based perspective.

Now of course we hear rural Midwesterners and Southerners cry about wanting "their country back". Considering that the original heartland and tree trunk of United States (New England) voted out the remnants of the congressional GOP, the real historic authoritative soul of the country has spoken. Who can doubt that (in the hypothetical case of US splitting up) that the bulk of the original 13 states would have the best claim to be the successor state to United States? To use the example of United Kingdom again in this scenario, a politician from Utah, Texas, or Alaska claiming his or her region as the most genuine successor would be like Thomas Jefferson claiming US to be the true successor to UK. We can go all day with analogies but the undeniable point is that Northeastern states is what kept and still keeps the whole 200 year long political project functioning and possible.

In all fairness, a claim could be made that Northeast has become too "Old World" for the periphery's "frontier" sensibilities and it is thus a less "real" America. However this claim easily collapses after a minute of thought about the information in the paragraph above. Since more than half of the population is now urban, even the "frontier" as a factor of national definition has been moved out of the discussion.

So the much newer peripheral settlements and tree branches of USA want political control over the trunk/roots back instead of being ruled by them? The potentially fatal and seemingly insurmountable and permanent gridlock going on in Congress all the time allows us an opportunity to examine such thoughts. Neither the regional theocratic/oligarchic faction (that is the GOP) nor the regional England leaning oligarchic faction (that is New England democrats) appears to be able to defeat each other.

Such counterproductive gridlock (in the face of the worst economic depression since the 1930s) is exactly what happens when the fine points about union size in the federalist papers become obsolete due to the growth in scale of the federal union itself. The country loses ability to eventually reach a meaningful compromise acceptable to both sides (by acceptable I don't mean people resorting to calling politicians Nazis over the hyperdiluted nature of compromises we get currently).

A congress of a smaller federal union (say 10-15 states in regional economic and cultural proximity) would create compromises that do not bring the same level of psychological hate and disappointment in the factions that didn't get the details they wanted. Since people would subjectively get more of what they want in a smaller union, their psychological sense of personal power and control is increased. They are thus "freer" by most ways that freedom is measured and defined.

Let's think for a moment of a hypothetical scenario where the Northeast is its own country (thus keeping closer in political scale and dynamic to what James Madison had in mind). Since Virginia is demographically changing (as the Obama election has shown) yet still has a number of southern leaning theocrats, it may or may not be included. I have already written how Texas as an economic hub is vital for United States to function in its current form and how Texas can potentially get wealthier if it was its own country. But how would Northeast (a region less dependent than Texas on feeding and supplying the rest of the country through commodity and food exports as well as crude ethnic exploitation) fare on its own two legs?

Not surprisingly, rather well with strong potential to be better off than it is now. The oldest, most respected, and best funded Ivy League schools are in the region and so is the concentration of intellectual, financial, and political power elites along with their family clans. That is key to successful nation building since elites decide national direction instead of the average citizenry (especially if the new country preserves the current political system without moving more towards proportional representation). A lot of old money and bloodlines create an entrenched and relatively integrated ruling class that would be able to work well together on national projects. The sheer wealth of Northeastern oligarchs is shown by the fact that as of today, most of Northeast states have higher GDP per capita than the national average. Their hands would not be politically tied on the federal level by fellow oligarchs thousands of miles away in places like Texas, California, Florida. The region would be easier to remold into a shape that resembles the fashionable role model society at the time (for Northeastern rich, that appears to be England as it has been for a long time).

The modern day serfs that the rulers of the new country (which as mentioned above has the most right to continue calling itself United States of America if it chooses) will be working with, are also a lot more secular and educated than their Southern and Western brethren. It follows that the oligarchs' right hand men (president, congress, and supreme court of Northeast United States) can now reduce elites' control by splitting them with increasingly democratic means into a balance between the government and the oligarchy.

NUSA is also smaller in size than potential nearby competitors which allows quicker personal communication between all demographics and further economic integration. Northeast is beginning to resemble Germany in terms of population density and will be the first major region on the continent to put quality control on how the land is organized and developed. Proximity to Europe itself would allow NUSA to enjoy greater investment and cooperation with EU. The president of NUSA would not need to stand on pick up trucks or kiss bibles to get elected. The new smaller legislative branch would be made up of people who work better together due to greater closeness of culture. The federal government overall would be closer to the serfs since it would oversee 50 million people instead of 300 million. It would be in charge of a population the size of Spain not one of 3 Germanies.

As for states outside NUSA, one can only speculate. We can just imagine the absurdity and even potential Iran/Yugoslavia type horror show that the deep south would be if it was to form a federal union (not including Texas that is) of its own. Such a situation would show the real meaning of "wanting my country back".

Problem of Defining Self-Interest for Libertarian Society

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block that libertarian ideology faces is that human self-interest may be based more on power rather than happiness


The notion of self interest is altered if we think that the biggest human motivation is gathering more personal power rather than struggling towards constant repetition of joyful moments. Current popular understanding of self-interest goes hand in hand with the classically liberal notion of the right to "pursue happiness". That's the idea libertarians use to justify their maximum allowance of freedom of action for individuals. The pursuit towards something psychically warm and cuddly such as happiness seems so right and wholesome for a human being to undertake that denying it seems cruel and out of the question.

Let's look deeper into the supposed utopia proposed with increasing frequency by ideologues like Ron Paul and youthful college educated people around the world who view themselves as having what it takes to become successful capitalists themselves (regardless of the fact that social mobility is constrained in United States as well as in most countries by a small number of oligarch families gaming the system). I don't have any country in mind in this discussion and will use clean abstract concepts ( haha "clean abstract") for simplicity.

For a moment let's forget all the various assumptions and constructs that are needed for libertarian theoretical defense to work at all such as:

1) Free will or what's left of it after a century of Freud, Nietzsche, Marx and now brain scanning experiments

2) Rationality or some common thought process pretending to be rationality in a diverse population with individuals of vastly differing educational backgrounds and consciousness levels

3) Equality before the law as well as rule of law itself for a contractual society to function (laughable fictions in most societies on the planet right now since the most powerful individuals constantly evolve and change the concept of the rule of law through force and brilliant law technologists)

4) Reality. This is a big one in that applying a "perfect" libertarian construct to say, United States is like applying "perfect" proportional representation democratic construct to Afghanistan. Of course the ideologues insist it can work if the whole world united in this purpose and gradually moved towards this workers paradise

Any one of these by themselves are enough to discredit an ideology that relies on everybody being a utility calculating rational computer. Any one of them is enough to cause people in 20 years to say familiar statements such as, "well libertarianism sounds good on paper but you know, human nature and the inherent contradictions of the system make rapid application of the concept disastrous" (in terms of creating inefficiencies, inequalities, exploitation, suffering, and stagnation).

My focus however is on self-interest as the driving mechanism in a libertarian society. There is still lack of consensus on what is true human motivation but it increasingly looks that it is a mixture of power seeking as well as pleasure seeking with power being a better explanatory human goal. Many of us have seen the famous quote by Adam Smith,


"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"

At this point many automatically think that being self interested is just wanting to be more happy and that the most important thing to aid our self interest is money. Since desire to make more money is accepted, pursuit of self interest is thus seen as harmless and even sturdy enough to build a radically different socioeconomic system. As mentioned above, there are other takes on what life is all about besides just seeking money fueled happiness. Let's take Nietzsche for example,

"Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one's own forms . . "

The mere fact that growing and living may involve more than just joy seeking poses a critical and fundamental problem for free market ideologues. Let's follow them on the road towards a more capitalist society while keeping in mind that it may be more important for people to keep getting stronger as well as trying to be "happy"...

Since happiness can undertake many forms, the individual thus has a strong case to argue for the right to personally negotiate governance with others and reduce as many regulations on modes/fruits of pursuit as possible. Libertarian ideology then seems the most attractive as individuals become their own utility calculating contractual lawmakers. The result is that the legislative branch in a libertarian society finds itself with little to do. By definition, making laws is creation of uniform regulation on human behavior. This type of government sponsored uniformity becomes redundant (since each citizen is now consenting to enter into contractual regulation of his or her own choice) at best and "coercive oppression" (or any number of silly names given at the GOP protests in recent months) at worst. The libertarian society would then rightfully prevent uniformity from arising and applying to all (unless perhaps dealing with matters that cause grievous harm to others and corporate externalities).

However, if we think of real human motivation as pursuit of influence over their environment (and other human beings within it), allowing humans the maximum playing room begins to take on a more sinister dimension.

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The familiar actor of legislative branch and the area covered by it is mostly displaced by a great multitude of smaller actors making contractual agreements with one another and creating a great patchwork of powers and networks throughout society. Without the counterbalancing small actors of local government (assuming libertarian society is libertarian top to bottom), an endless multitude of free market actors would be responsible with creation of regulation for all (for example: road company figures out with local land owner how many tolls to have, dimensions of certain infrastructure, fine limits for jaywalkers on private roads, etc).

This thriving overlapping regulatory complexity with greatly decentralized nodules of influence (assuming the invisible hand goes against all history and human nature so far and prevents monopoly formation) is a double edged sword. Free market is relatively efficient at distribution of capital (at least on sub-national local level when legal conditions are favorable) and the regulatory contractual patchwork is often better able to adapt to pressures of time and social flux. One thing the invisible hand is less good at is redistribution of justice (giving people what they think they deserve).

At the end of the day in the modern world, justice (in all its current forms) is mostly in the monopolistic hands of the legislative branch. The legislative branch makes it uniform and standard for a time. In this branch, all individual free market actors ( the people) have a say about what uniform sort of justice is right for a particular society. There is of course, indirect influence from larger clusters of power and bigger free market actors (ranging from small businesses to billionaires to churches to transnational corporations) that cannot totally be avoided.Their influence is generally somewhat counterbalanced through sheer numbers of lesser powered individuals and their allies in the powerful agent of the legislative.

Since free market libertarian justice is inseparable from wealth (arising from selling one's labor via the most cold blooded meritocracy that doesn't recognize inequality of origin), only the individuals with sufficient wealth form nodules of power necessary to create various relatively wide ranging regulatory norms in society. With wealth comes increased bargaining power and better contractual positioning. Considering the goal of human motivation is personal expansion of influence, the sheer size of some of the power nodules in society is cause for concern as their contractual arrangements affect the lives of millions of less powerful individuals. An ideologically libertarian oriented society would reduce the influence of the biggest guardian of less powerful individuals (legislative branch) by transfering regulation of society to a multitude of powerful players with their own spheres of influence.

A new form of feudalism arises. Whatever people "deserve" in this society is whatever they can wrestle from others through raw financial power (acquired by individuals with personal physiologies that thrive in free market conditions or those who were born into wealth or both). The new creators of standards and norms are thus illegitimate (nobody voted for them unless it is stock owners voting for new company leadership) and they are constrained by nobody but market conditions. Even market conditions can be shaped with strong enough players and enough money. In a legal legislative vacuum, even informed consumers and workers have little bargaining power against the abuses of various cartels, guilds, and land barons (whatever new name they would go under informally or formally). Less powerful individuals would strategically be forced to dedicate substantial amounts of time to collective bargaining. Emergence of powerful unions for service industry is difficult to speculate on but without government protection new forms of protection will have to be devised and vigilantly implemented ( 1> this in turn creates inefficiencies/other abuses as union leaders are as interested in power as CEOs and use up substantial amounts of productive resources on court battles and organization 2> union power receded in part due to rise in service industry and in part because the legislative addressed their concerns through legal regulation)

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In an interconnected world where wealth and influence from powerful players is transferred without regard to borders and the needs of localities, complete deregulation is dangerous.We need rigorous functioning legislative branch not just out of fear about re-emergence of old abuses (ex. blacklisting workers) and rise of new ones. We need a strong legislative branch because the powerful there counterbalance the powerful in the private sector. In libertarian world the powerful (masters of wealth acquisition with wide ranging powers derived from it), would be free to collude or battle each other with stifling consequences for the weak. Denying them some freedom of movement is not a cruel practice of denying somebody their shot at happiness but tempering raw power and reduction of private tyranny at home. Powerful entities providing services to us at our own choosing does not eliminate our reliance on them. Hand that helps for money is hand that controls. We can't imagine the police or the courts being privately owned due to fear of corruption and abuse and it is no less horrifying to think that private individuals will take over from the legislative in a libertarian world.

Sidenote:

This discussion had a medium sized country in mind. If a libertarian country is smaller, one can easily see the whole of society dominated by one or two international corporate actors with the wealth flowing out of the country. A dystopian cyberpunk future in the mold of William Gibson is essentially a libertarian one. The unhealthy corporate influence in America and its corrosive effect on government is due precisely because the strong in the legislative are splintered against each other while the strong in the private sector are gaining through attrition. Having a poorly functioning legislative battling the executive does not stop excesses of power. It just creates dysfunctional weak government. The excesses continue in the private world that permeates the public. Parliamentary government with proportional representation (with constitutional protection) is thus a much better guarantor of decentralization of power within society.

The 21st century cannot afford a disjointed slow self cannibalizing government concocted by 18th century aristocrat intellectuals. Something so out of date is in no position to face a fast paced world or promote freer development of vast majority of individuals against the designs of domestic and foreign elites. It does us disservice to think of power as just residing in government that we should be free from. Better separation of powers would be the strong in private and public spheres balancing each other in a healthy dialogue with the weak being the middlemen between the two.

So emerges perhaps the biggest argument against libertarian designs, that:

1) in a free market world there is insufficient separation of powers and mechanisms to keep them separated

2) this is dangerous in that human motivation is not just about getting happy through making more money (and making trickle down economics work in deranged minds of some propagandists)

3) only democracy through some sort of proportional representation creates enough of a split and balance between power elites by creating a strong legislative branch that can check the feudalistic desires of many oligarchs

The biggest dangers affecting many "civilized" and "developed" nations are thus not too much government but a government that is too weak to stand up against private financial interests. Proportional representation democracy is not perfect of course but it seems like a step forward than backward at the moment for most of the population of any given country.

Protectionism Works

Protectionism is what made every historically major country wealthy and powerful in the last 300 years (including the current free trade pushers like UK and USA). Protectionism should stop being a bad word as Japan and China can testify


The title may make the reader shake head immediately because a kind word is not often found with "protectionism" in the same sentence these days. Although United States industry was essentially built on protectionist tariffs (until 16th amendment of 1913 allowed federal government to start functioning via income tax instead of high tariffs on imports) the last 30 years involved continuous top down push of free trade propaganda. It is thus understandable that protectionism brings a negative psychological reaction even if there aren't ready made arguments to explain why.

If one looks at how world's key societies rapidly became wealthy and powerful (in the last 300 years), protectionism was always the dominating factor to help out native industry. France and England in 18th-19th century, United States, Japan, and Germany in 19th-20th century, and China in 20th are just some of the success stories.

In fairness, we can't overlook a number of small (population and physical size) states that are positioned to thrive in free trade by their geography (ocean reliant ports of Singapore, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Switzerland with its base in ancient Alps trading routes) which often also function as financial hubs. As far as large historically active players on the world stage, all became what they are due to basics like tariffs.

One may begin to argue that protectionism of old was different in that it was an ideological pillar of now "discredited" mercantilism. However, mercantilism never went away and still works wonderfully in more advanced forms in China and Japan (and even in Western Europe to a certain degree). Certainly we can understand the desire of a state to lower protectionist measures once its industries have sufficiently grown and benefited from them. We have seen England begin to push free trade propaganda in 19th century after its factories became the best in the world. Same pattern continued with United States (which had some of the most advanced and some of the only factories left standing) after World War 2.

One would think that United States would learn a lesson from slow decline of British Empire (late 19th century to 1960s) due to transition from mercantile protectionism to free trade and reserve currency imperialism. Surely it would have affirmed that lesson from the rapid rebirth (after the initial breathtaking success of their mercantile industrial expansion in late 19th century) of Japanese and German societies in the 1950s ad 1960s. It was crystal clear what works for national enrichment, job creation, national self respect, technological progress, and higher quality of life for the average citizen.

It can be summarized as follows:

1) Tariffs work, keeping out foreign competition and their advanced imports such as cars works, trade barriers work, high import duties work, allowing foreign companies to set up shop only in partnership with native companies/unions works

2) Free trade doesn't work as well as trade barriers historically when it comes to rapid national development and can even fatally drain a nation

For a number of years before the current economic depression hit, many old time free trade warriors like Nobel prize winning neoclassical economist Paul Samuelson began to realize that the global reallocation of industry can produce a domestic win-loss scenario for United States (especially in its trade contact with protectionist China) where the loss is so great as to be socially catastrophic. Samuelson used to have absolute faith in comparative advantage but his most recent major paper argues that free trade theory needs to be reformed for the modern world if it is to survive. Samuelson is too old (94) to meaningfully contribute at this point but major reallocation of his thought at this age shows the seriousness of free trade problems. One translated Der Spiegel interview has him mouth the thoughts familiar to anti-WTO protesters: that rising economic inequality within "globalizing" nation is a type of win-loss scenario that is unacceptable and stupid to be allowed to happen.

Another crusty dinosaur, Alan Greenspan, has mentioned a few years ago how rising inequality can threaten democratic functioning of United States. When free marketeers and capitalist internationalists utter words like these, it's the equivalent of John McCain saying that perhaps United States naval forces should be cut down in size. It's the equivalent of the Pope saying that perhaps some birth control should be introduced into church doctrine to save lives. Some of American elites (mostly in the nationalist democratic wing of the American oligarchy) have taken notice of this.

At this point, rapid and badly needed protectionist measures may shock United States into falling further into the economic abyss. Chinese retaliation and corresponding rise in cost of imports will not help United States get further away from risk of a hyperinflationary scenario. It would thus make sense for Barack Obama to sneak in defensive nationalist measures gradually. His recent decision to to impose a tariff on Chinese tires may be beginning of such an attempt. Tariffs on foreign made car batteries and materials/parts connected to industries decided to be"strategic" ( like green energy ) may follow. The way protectionism is introduced by the current administration will be vital for any chances of American rebirth within a generation.

When pound sterling began declining as reserve currency in the 50s and 60s along with British industry, London decided to cut off its foreign colonies for purposes of national regeneration and survival. United States needs to begin a similar process of disengagement from the world to match decline of the dollar as reserve. Since British Empire and United States were both in strong imperial position at the time of their full commitment to pushing free trade on the world, they found it easy to combine lack of protectionism with parasitic existence of unproductive consumption through the use of reserve currencies. In that sense, free trade "worked" for them for a while even as it impoverished small countries that were pushed to engage in it. This period is now coming to an end and a new model has to be formulated.

Some Europeans, like Emmanuel Todd, propose "protectionism on a continental scale" (the article is in French but is very readable with google translate). It may be argued that China already practices that to a degree in that it has the population and economy large enough for import restrictions without being crushed and impoverished. European Union definitely has what it takes for such an action especially if it coordinates with some nearby states like Russia. North American Union and South American Union may one day be such entities to effectively fight off Asian and European imports. Trade cannot be decoupled from production and effective production needs to be able to compete between itself rather than just exist in one part of the world where it's cheapest.

Let's hope some common sense prevails and more people question official orthodoxy of global unification by only one narrow "inevitable" route (the optimism of Thomas Friedman is now laughable in hindsight). Real globalization seems a lot more within reach when self enriching, wealth producing, continent wide economic unions do business with one another in a more equal way.

Lets remember what the 25th president of the United States William McKinley said about free trade at the end of 19th century when he affirmed a commonly held belief among American elites and citizens,

"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefitting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest'…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.' And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards."

Afghanistan Election: Does Obama Want a New Puppet?

Hamid Karzai finds himself under the same scrutiny usually reserved for allies of China and Russia. Afghanistan as an American protectorate may soon see change in management as has historically occurred when puppets didn't perform



In the eyes of the new reform minded regime in the White House, the Indian educated CIA man Hamid Karzai may have outlived his usefulness. Even as Karzai's vote total is inching closer to 50%+ needed to avoid a runoff, he finds himself in the same situation as Babrak Karmal in 1986. That means that just like the Soviet backed mayor of Kabul in the 80s, the new American backed mayor of Kabul has grown too comfortable in his expectation that a foreign force will prop his rule indefinitely. Sure, he tries to be a political middleman between various factions by not sticking his head out too much in siding with any one of them. That tactic of survival through doing nothing has historically worked only for a time. Eventually, somebody gets frustrated.

In this case it appears to be the American generals who saw soldier casualties rise every year since 2001 invasion. NATO's very existence is at stake in a mission that was supposed to give the obsolete alliance some relevancy. The rising casualties and disgruntled protests from alliance countries make the issue more urgent for the preservation of American power in Western Europe. Their recent insistence that the Afghan army get expanded and start pulling its weight is analogous to Soviet command's desire to expand Afghan army in mid 1980s after 6 years of escalating casualties among occupying troops.

What does it mean for a puppet army to do more work? It means creating conditions where the occupying power can delegate killing to others. In Soviet Union's case, it was pressured replacement of Babrak Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah. Najibullah has shown himself to be energetic, efficient, and very willing to crack skulls and use Afghans against other Afghans. Besides being a more aggressive and more capable puppet, he also had potential to gain more legitimacy among Afghanistan's population by also being very supportive of extended modernization efforts to raise quality of life.

Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's snappy "Western leaning" (usual catchphrase to refer to actual and potential American puppets as shown by the colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia) reformer challenger fits the role of a replacement puppet perfectly. For an occupied country (where corruption and election censorship is a lot worse than Iran), Abdullah has been getting unusually large amounts of American media coverage before and during election process. United States media does not usually focus on challengers taking on corrupt incumbents trying to influence election results in their favor unless these incumbents have become obstacles for American geopolitical strategy. US and its intelligence organs and NATO allies have been creating public relations victories and force multiplier effects for pro-Washington friendlies for decades. They recently had great success by dislodging Yanukovich, Shevardnadze, and Milosevich (with a possible attempt against Ahmadinejad in Iran this summer) by promoting "pro-Western" opposition to power through rapid creation of negative international media perception (character assassinating incumbents as corrupt and needing to go for the good of all). Even the Northern Alliance side in the 1996-2001 civil war was elevated to be a knight in shining armor with relatively great success.

Karzai has recently found himself under the same public relations attack that is usually reserved for allies of Russia or China. He has:

1) been warned by a US envoy to prepare for a recount. Although he is supposedly 2% away from reaching 50% to clinch the nomination, this week saw nullification of entire ballot districts, a process that can be modified to create whatever result is needed.

2) been object of major negative attention from key national propaganda papers like New York Times and Washington Post (that have some influence on wealthy American citizens).

3) has not been supplied with enough weaponry for more independent functioning in last 2 years even after personal requests. He subsequently threatened to acquire weaponry from "the other place" (presumably a non-NATO regional power)

Karzai and his family also have relatively strong ties to the previous regime in DC as their connections to Bush family and CIA go back 20 years. As India and Pakistan intelligence services begin to position themselves to end their conflict over who will have influence in Afghanistan, United States may very well decide to back Abdullah Abdullah as new puppet (his base of political support is in northern non-Pashtun Afghanistan). As we saw in the second phase of the Afghan civil war in the late 1990s, non-Pashtun northeners will have no problem slaughtering Pashtun Taliban even without an international Western force in the country. The spectacle of the Afghan election and the low turn out has shown that even the illusion of a democratic mask on a puppet regime is unworkable. Insurgency continues regardless of whether the leader is Pashtun and whether the leader is willing to not exert himself too much.

It is thus logical for an occupying force to leave a smaller ethnic group (or in Afghan case, an alliance of ethnic groups) that resorts to a lot more forceful and independent pacification methods to remain in power after the imperial withdrawal. It has been done like that throughout history. Getting members of a new leadership from the former Northern Alliance region is also more acceptable to European Union (whose members have more responsibility, connections, and personal hearts and minds contact there) and Russia (which wants a friendly Tajik/Uzbek buffer between Central Asia and fundamentalist Islam in southern Afghanistan. They already had spillover from Afghanistan once during the civil war in Tajikistan).

This week brought the additional criticism of the current occupational arrangement from Western European NATO members after the fuel tanker bombardment. Although the German command ordered the bombing, the Anglo-American tactics of long distant bombardment is what's criticized here. Clearly Europeans want to accelerate the process of passing their duties to their connections in northern half of the country (who will then have a more intimate violent contact in pacifying the south while aided by generous donations of cash and weapons). Even Russia jumped on the bandwagon this week by asking to help NATO plan the process that it has so much experience with.

Dealing with Karzai will not be a matter of creating another orange revolution since he has managed to make a lot of connections in central and southern parts of the country (even if he has no control over them). He can't be simply assassinated either was the South Vietnamese puppet in the old days. It remains to be seen whether Obama administration can be creatively proactive in restructuring the regime of this American protectorate by itself (and thus show leadership and get respect to preserve its status as first among equals in NATO) or if it will defer to designs of other NATO members.

Review of Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Brzezinski explores in 1970 how Internet will reshape human psychology/social climate and how United States will decline if it doesn't meaningfully direct technology that it spawned.





Zbigniew Brzezinski has long been a controversial figure and target of conspiracy theories within the United States and around the world. As one of key organizers of the Trilateral Commission (David Rockefeller's globalist platform towards greater world integration), Brzezinski combined his analytic genius with the financial and social backing of the world's most energetic internationalist activist oligarch. Reading even a bit about David Rockefeller's life is enough to catch a glimpse concerning the real power structure of the world.

It was never a secret that policy formulation about global development occurs when a few hundred powerful individuals meet to eat and drink while talking and sharing stories. Among these billionaire businessmen, heads of state, and Ivy League scientists/researchers, there are always a few who become the theoretical strategists that help the rest of the elite see more of the big picture.

Brzezinski was one of these strategically minded people in whom the will to power was overflowing. He got to position of formulating international policy for Jimmy Carter by writing a brilliant book on the state of the world in 1970 and where it may possibly be headed. A very kind conspiracy website has offered the whole text of this book in PDF format: Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era to be read by anybody who is interested in one of the best, clearest, and far reaching sophisticated political science dissections of the 20th century. Used copies can always be bought for 300 dollars and libraries don't seem to readily have it at all (all adding to the conspiratorial mystique of a text by a man who perhaps did the most to collapse Soviet Union through alienating it with American international emphasis on human rights and setting a trap for Soviets in Afghanistan).

Since the book was published in 1970, Brzezinski was writing during the peak of American civilization (1968-1973). The country's raw physical power and culture were at their furthest global extent during this time. People to this day write silly articles complaining of supposed great "self indulgence" of the generation that matured during that time period. It is understandable since people who reached their productive age of mid to late 20s in years after 1973 were working with increasingly weaker and economically stagnating society and thus couldn't do as much even if they had the will. A declining society will not empower individuals and vice-versa.

Brzezinski seems to have fallen victim to a conceptual trap that happens when observing the world by standing at the peak of a great hegemony. It is like a geostrategist writing about the future of the world right after Germany conquered France early in WW2. Brzezinski himself was 42 years old just having polished, extended, and turned his greatest research paper into a book after self sharpening criticism of other brilliant minds like Samuel Huntington.

Nevertheless, even with this understandable handicap he produced a brilliant pragmatic analysis of most of the world and even United States to a degree (even his bleak scenarios for near future American domestic developments could not envision the deterioration during 1980s and 1990s). Nietzsche, in his Will to Power notes, commented that,

"It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world because one organizes a small portion of it oneself."

Brzezinski captures the essence of the quote in that he observed the international dynamic by looking at changes in power arrangement that will occur from technological and conceptual trends (which in turn change social/psychological development of world's people) without applying any ideological construct. He then went on to give this personal organization direction by suggesting what to do in the decades ahead and then went ahead and did everything possible to back his suggestions with physical violence.

The book can be simply summarized as follows:

3 great constructs 1) monotheistic religion, 2) nationalism, and 3) Marxism have pushed humanity the most towards understanding more about the world and igniting human desire for greater equality and freedom (each in its own gradually increasing way that responded to particular social conditions at the time). However all 3 are beginning to lose their power over the minds of men at the time the book is written in 1970. They are all rapidly losing their universal appeal and utility since they cant be meaningfully and productively applied to a globalizing pluralistic world of many interests, factions, supranational problems, and technologies that radically and quickly reshape social forces and psychological consciousness of men. The said technologies (they are primarily mass communication technology and post-industrial managerial systems techniques. Brzezinski comfortably speaks of implications from internet's revolutionary effect on social psyche in 1970) are being the most widely implemented in the United States. As such, United States will be the hardest hit and the most reshaped by being the first post-industrial great power. Mass communications technology is creating global consciousness among those exposed to it but may also contribute to great upheavals in the third world by bringing insufferable psychological appraisal of all too real inequality. United States should thus use its position as the most scientifically advanced post-industrial state to enter into increasingly closer collaboration with Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union for its own domestic security and security of the world. Since there is death of ideology (by stagnation, growing irrelevance, and conceptual inapplicability of religion/nationalism/Marxism to solve world's problems), United States as the backbone of a new world order is the most logical and humane way to go into the unknown future for which prepackaged constructs no longer apply.

That's the shortest summary that could be done and it doesn't even touch on his dissection of the severe American and Soviet problems (as well as remarkably accurate predictions on which scenarios likely await Soviet Union in 1980s).

The book's solution may sound imperialist from the summary (and in light of Brzezinski's past hawkish geopolitical dealings in breaking Soviet power that were at times more forceful than Kissinger's). However, the analysis and book's suggestions made in 1970 are not extremist at all and I cannot think of any other way that world's elite's can bring more global unity in a more peaceful way than one proposed. Some of Brzezinski's emphasis for America's domestic evolution is on:

1) Putting aside ideological bigotries when solving national problems and using scientific and technocratic governance to best apply emergent technology

2) Increasing role of scientists and engineers in government yet at the same time countering and balancing their role with soft science policy makers (since many scientists are good at their specialized field of study and not good at integrated philosophical policy making). Putting emphasis on systems analysis borrowed from the corporate world and NASA. Thus promoting integration of technological solutions with humanistic psychological/social study into effects of said solutions when applied to the country at large.

3) Relying less on coercive measures abroad and closing down most of military bases overseas. Reducing the size and arrogant presence of foreign missions and embassies by emulating the style of cheaper corporate offices, laboratories and R&D departments

4) Closing the racial inequality between blacks and whites in United States through continuous life education (1-2 years university training every 10 years of one's life) and civil service in psychologically inspiring developmental projects. Utilizing the internet and computing to bring ivy league level educational materials to all Americans into their homes and schools and to create digital voting and legislative participation. German style technical and job training in junior year in college to better close American divides between rural/urban peoples, whites/blacks, young/old.

5) Pushing for a constitutional convention (for historic anniversaries of 1976 and 1989) to remodel American governance more on the West European model of pluralistic democracy. Do away with archaic aristocratic structures to preserve liberal democracy and prevent stagnation and oligarchic corporate encroachment.

6) Break up emerging monopolies of media conglomerates to provide a more decentralized news feed to consumers

Ridiculous, absurd, authoritarian, kinda Marxist? Many semi-educated people on the Internet are saying that about these proposals ever since Brzezinski backed Obama for president. Undoubtedly, he now has communication and thus some influence on the new president the extent of which we will see by the congruence of Obama's near future policies and Brzezinski's recent recommendations (his books in last 20 years that are highly critical of republican approach to global integration). We see a lot of his quotes taken out of context. For example his thoughts that expansion of Communism's popularity was in many ways a positive evolution for humanity. The same can be said about Napoleon's influence on the world and nationalism. We can see how out of context statements can indeed sound disastrous to conspiracy minded individuals.

However, there are currently no "more acceptable" alternatives to solving 21st century problems on international scale without relying on elites like Brzezinski "conspiring" together. Even creation of more democratic methods to solve global problems will involve elites in the formulation of these methods. Noam Chomsky praises Bolivia as the most democratic nation in the world today for their mass participatory democratic efforts. As of today, key states on earth cannot use advanced Bolivian methods satisfy conspiracy theorist's desire for needed transparency and democracy.

The most fascinating aspect of the book (and prime reason on why everybody with some free time should read it) is just how relevant it is to today's world 4 decades after being written. We are now very far in construction of global consciousness with post-industrial communication technologies. A whole generation of people has lived their whole life and has been morphed by the forces discussed in the book.

The second best reason to read it is to see how Brzezinski's analysis of Soviet Union's inability to transform into a more technocratic society now also applies to United States remarkably well. In fact, in light of the great similarities of modern USA and Soviet Union in 1980s (in terms of problems they face/faced), there is uncanny relevance if one substitutes USA for Soviet Union in a lot of the book's summaries. Since I have increasingly written about many such similarities, these parts of the book drew my interest and focus the most. Here are some examples:

"it is striking how much intellectual effort has been invested in asserting and proving the distinctive character of the communist system. It once again reveals the importance attached to the notion that the Soviet past is linked to a future that is absolutely distinctive and not part of a broader stream of man's political evolution"

"Yet, in spite of this, the Soviet conception of the broad framework of contemporary reality, as articulated by top leaders and even as presented in scholarly journals, remains fundamentally dogmatic. The basic premise continues to be the Manichaean notion of the antagonistic dichotomy between the socialist and the capitalist worlds (or between good and evil)"

"The antagonists are capitalism and socialism." 18 Eventually one or the other will have to prevail, ‡ and Soviet analysts are confident that they know which one it will be. This theme runs like a thread through all major speeches, foreign policy analyses, or scholarly commentaries on world affairs."

It is remarkable that Francis Fukuyama got as much coverage as he did due to disintegration of one "socialist" regional power while China remained standing. We can imagine how Soviets had their own Fukuyama equivalents and how Chinese and Europeans have their own today who make proud declarations. Let's continue,

"The consequence, however, is to congeal certain formulas and claims, making intellectual innovation more difficult, even when on the operational level ideological restraints are increasingly evaded. The result is a condition of arrested ideological development, of ideological petrifaction rather than erosion, Marxist thought remaining vital only outside the Soviet Union"

This quote is fascinating in that there is good reason to believe that many societies around the world today do more to evolve and improve capitalism than United States does.

"Protracted internal decay as a result of the leadership's inability to come to grips with current problems, continued failure to catch up with the United States in the scientific competition, and internal threats to national unity could in a context of increasing ideological indifference combine with an international security threat to spark a fundamentalist spasm from a section of the elite. Such spasms are characteristic of political faiths in their decline. "

It is ironic that Brzezinski recently criticized George Bush Sr. for not taking advantage of Soviet collapse by creating new international structures. It now seems obvious that Washington DC's leadership was simply not capable of being creative and flexible enough to shape a new world order in early 1990s. Beginning of the Reagan period was the equivalent of the start of the Brezhnev period of defensive ideological orthodoxy and thus stagnation. Bush administration's heightened use of simplistic symbolism and a violent jihad abroad was the last gasp and manifestation of this period.

It may very well be that old age got to Brzezinski as well (or perhaps being wealthy he became too alienated from general society) and he was not able to articulate of a crash program to reverse these difficulties. He now hopes to preserve United States as a player by a continuing push to weaken Russia and China so there is victory by default. All his advice on how to reform United States in the 70s and 80s was definitely rejected by oligarchic coup against Jimmy Carter (the collaboration between intelligence services and Reagan's campaign to have American hostages in Iran longer for political expediency being one strong dimension of the coup).

Brzezinski's worst scenarios for United States (such as those concerning potentialities of not integrating blacks and whites, consolidation of media corporations to create ideological propaganda, not being a role model for Germany and Japan anymore, not closing the growing perceptual divide between the young and the old in the 70s, not focusing on technological solutions for political and social problems, not continuing integrated efforts to eliminate American poverty, not continually expanding corps of engineers and scientists) have been surpassed by an even darker reality.

"it follows that this society's most imperative task is to define a conceptual framework in which technological change can be given meaningful and humane ends. Unless this is done, there is the real danger that by remaining directionless the third American revolution, so pregnant with possibilities for individual creativity and fulfillment, can become socially destructive."

Unfortunately the book is often known for quotes like these

Barack Obama has arrived too late in the game to create meaningful reform. The recent Japanese election has shown total social rejection of emulating United States in the foreseeable future. The new ruling party is showing their split from their former colonial master as far as not betting on its future. Democratic Party of Japan has articulated desire to not buy any more American debt. The loss of Japan as an ideological colony after the loss of Germany (its condemnation of the Iraq invasion in 2003) is a loss of a very historically key tool for an American president. Obama may try to call for "sacrifice" and try to organize the youth to perform civic duty but that will get laughter at best and radical hatred at worst. Harnessing the "technetronic age" (Brzezinski's hybrid of technology and electronics) by politicians is now impossible on this continent without drastic political reform. Internet is now effectively harnessed from below.

If you're interested in psychology, political science, sociology, technology, futurism, or just like a great enlightening read (only 120 pages) then give Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era a go. It has aged well.