The Dilemmas of the Modern Reader

It is almost cliché to dub our modern times as the age of information where advances in communications continually shrink the world around us, bringing news and events from around the world to our homes almost as soon as they occur. When combined with the fruits of the industrial framework which developed over the first half of the 20th century, we have reached a state of affairs where the amount of information available to us in all its forms is essentially limitless. Our ability to take in this stimuli has been outstripped by society’s ability to simply produce it, making it nearly impossible to absorb it all in a practical manner.

Newspapers feed us a daily stream of news and events from across the globe, while magazines provide a more in-depth analysis of these issues on a weekly to monthly basis. Academic journals analyze many of these issues from a more rigorous and scholarly perspective, providing unique insights into the matters at hand. Meanwhile, the internet as served as both a conduit of all these old information sources while providing even more inventive means of conveying new forms of content; indeed, you are reading this blog right now…probably one of the more unique forms of communications to be seen in quite a while!

And then we have our cherished books, the most complete and all-encompassing form of human communication. It is through this medium where the ideas of societies (and its discontents!) come to be most intelligently described, elaborated, analyzed, and critiqued. Quite simply, it is our best source to understand and unlock the knowledge that has been developed throughout human history.

Throughout most of this history, the biggest problem facing those who wished to drink from the wells of its wisdom was that the well was nearly always dry. Literacy was far from being a universal skill, limiting both the pool of potential writers and readers of books. Economies were stuck in a dreadful Malthusian world, where the vast majority of the populace had to devote every waking moment to simply surviving; both free time and money were scarce, an environment, it is safe to say, which is not conducive to the life of the mind or for any serious contemplation for that matter. The lack of industrial capitalism and technological knowledge, meanwhile, greatly hampered the supply of books until the development of the printing press quickly revolutionized the world around us.

But in the past 500 years, all of these factors are drastically reversed themselves. Our problem today is not the scarcity of knowledge through books but rather its seeming overabundance. Browse your local bookstore, not for anything in particular, but to simply take in and consider the massive amounts of writing contained within the tens of thousands of books on the shelves. Or for an even more humbling experience, walk through a university library, a massive conservatory for books both profound and revolutionary as well as arcane and seemingly irrelevant. One shelf of such books in this library could in itself require the lifetime devotion of a reader to complete. And this is simply one shelf among hundreds on a single floor…and this is simply one floor among a half-dozen or dozen floors in this library…and this is simply one library among several on a typical university campus! The message by this point should be clear: there is far more books containing far more knowledge then we can every possibly hope to understand and appreciate.

This is a circumstance which can leave us simultaneously awed and disconcerted. Never before can a person be both so knowledgeable and so ignorant at the same time! Needless to say, this has placed quite a bit of stress upon the modern reader who must trek his way through the extremely dense jungle that is the accumulated stock of knowledge of mankind. And this is a jungle that is growing at an ever quickening rate, much faster than our ability to traverse it.

The problem would be difficult enough if we just had to concern ourselves with the fruits of the modern publishing industry, but we must further balance our desire among contemporary readings with the great books of the past which always call our attention in any age. Even granting the assumption that the vast majority of modern books are not worthy of any serious attention or contemplation, this leaves a considerable supply of great books throughout the ages which a reader will need to rank in order of preferences, relevance, and importance. That is to say, even among the subset of books which should be the required reading of any serious, knowledge-seeking reader, there are more books on that list than you can ever hope to complete within your lifetime.

The question remains as to how the modern reader should respond to such a sobering state of affairs. For many, it seems, the solution is simply resignation and dejection. Browse through the list of the current bestsellers and one can be almost assured that the majority of those books are not in the upper echelons of great writing. Partisan political tracts interspersed with current mystery thrillers containing plots and prose written to a level of sophistication comparable to your typical Clifford the Big Red Dog story, most people pursue reading as an alternative to television or movies as a form of quick and easy entertainment.

And that is if they are reading at all. Apparently, more than half of all Americans will never again read a book after high school, a statistic even I find somewhat incredulous but which probably has more basis in fact than not. And even among those described above who do pick up the occasional book off of the rack of the bestseller list, they probably do not even appreciate the nature of the problem in the first place. Many are, in all likelihood, simply oblivious to the huge opportunity costs involved in reading books that can be described as less than stellar.

But we can’t let ourselves become defeated through the enormity of the task in front of us. Confronted with the innumerable difficulties facing a reader desiring to make a serious effort to educate himself through reading, many just fail to start at all as they understanding the fact that no matter how hard one tries he will ultimately fail in his task, in at least one sense of the word. But our inability to read every great book ever written (however one wants to define “a great book”) shouldn’t prevent us from attempting to approximate that goal as best we can.

In this case, the marathon runner who was asked how he can prepare himself for the grueling 26 mile affair serves as a useful analogy. In response to the inquiry, he simply replied that he would never get out of bed in the morning if he actually thought about running 26 miles all at once. Instead, he takes the race in stride, one mile at a time. Breaking down the one gigantic task into smaller, more manageable chunks allows the runner to get over the mental block of completing a marathon. Similarly, the modern reader should really not even consider the end in view but rather pace ourselves one book at a time.

The realization that we will depart this world having left unread a multitude of great literature by the greatest minds which ever lived should only immediately encourage us to strive all the more in our task, not leave us bewildered and dismayed. But this simply leaves us with the demanding task of determining which path we should be taking. That is, we need to develop the further subset of books which we will actually read in our finite lifetime.

Now, for me to actually develop a list here that encompasses every book that should be read by everyone would be both pointless and futile. There is certainly a fair degree of specificity particular to each individual inherent in such a lifetime reading list. There are a number of factors which must be weighed and considered, decisions which will have considerable importance in the final manifestation of that list.

A reader’s personal interests is certainly one factor which must be included. The number of interests humans have developed is almost as many as the books that have been written to satiate those interests. These varied interests will naturally lead the modern reader down somewhat differing paths to better understand those topics. But even a simple understanding of one’s own interests can considerably aid the reader in his pursuit of appropriate books…and those which you should probably avoid! Enjoy political science? Perhaps you should put down the latest Clinton biography and check out Locke or Hobbes! Or maybe you’re a mystery aficionado? Maybe Poe or Doyle can better serve your needs than the latest Patricia Cornwell thriller!

The idea is that even if one is not absolutely precise as to the distinction between greater and lesser books, we usually have a good intuitive sense as to where that divide may lie. Like pornography, as former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once quipped, one may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it! They are the books that, for one reason or another, have stood the test of time and are still known to this day, often by authors who still influence the current world of ideas many years after their passing.

This is one of the most important reasons why the modern reader must concern himself with the best writings of the past. As has been noted by many great intellectuals, the debates of any discipline are part of a great conversation which have taken place since the times of ancient Greece and beyond. To immerse oneself fully in your preferred interest though the reading of the great books of that field, one must have at a minimum a cursory understanding of those who were conversing on those topics before hand. It is a great foundation which builds upon itself from generation to generation. Aristotle knew Plato, Aquinas knew Aristotle, Descartes knew Aquinas, and so on and so forth to modern times. In failing to understand those predecessors, you simply cut the foundation right out from under you.

Of course, one can not simply ignore current literature; the greatness of books certainly is not dependent solely upon its timeliness. We could certainly find contemporary writings worthy of being read, providing the newest and latest understandings of your topic of interest. Just as it would be silly to avoid Plato due to his age, it would be equally silly to stop at Plato precisely because of his age. Philosophy has come a long way in 2,000 years, a history which you will be entirely unfamiliar with if you fail to also find the great books of a contemporary nature. It’s just that the passage of time gives us the ability to better judge a work’s quality and place it within its historical context in the evolution of ideas. Or to put it more simply, time allows us to determine whether a work will transcend its time and place to influence those who come after it. Thus, finding the newest books worthy of your time can be an even more demanding task of the modern reader.

Unfortunately, the dimension of time is not the only one which the modern reader must balance in his quest for knowledge. He must also determine the depth in which he wishes to go in his subjects of interest. In our modern age of specialization, disciplines are become increasingly fragmented as more people come to study narrower and narrower areas of particular subjects. Thus, no one studies economics anymore, but rather they work in labor economics, or health economics, or econometrics, etc. For some one with a general interest in the field in question, it can be a difficult balancing act in determining the degree to which the modern reader will pursue these differing areas. This is a task that is becoming all the more difficult as such specialization continues to intensify and makes it more difficult for different sub disciplines to communicate with one another.

The problem is exacerbated by the seemingly unlimited choices that the modern reader has at their disposal in choosing a reading program. One would be hard pressed to think of a topic which has not been extensively written about, regardless of its specificity. For example, I have been recently reading a book on the economic history of Europe. Now, we must first consider the fact that this topic is in itself a subset of economic history and of economics more broadly. Furthermore, this book, despite its length of nearly 900 pages, is hardly comprehensive in its subject matter given that it only begins its narrative in the Middle Ages following the fall of Rome. And even within its more limited scope, it is really nothing more than an introduction to the topic at hand which only touches in a cursory manner many important people, institutions, and events of European economic history. The colonization of the North American continent is given no more than a few dozen pages, despite the fact that one could probably spend the next year reading into nothing more than this subject alone. The Bank of England, which the author himself states as one of the more important financial institutions of its time, is treated to no more than a handful of pages. And this is despite the fact that the author provides supplementary reading material at the end of the chapter directing the interested reader to a two volume treatise of that very same bank. Simply put, to pursue in depth all the material which is touched upon in this one introductory book alone could occupy the modern reader for years on end. Just imagine that state of a reader who attempted to pursue this course of action for many such books!

There must come a point at which the specificity of some such books become too arcane to be worthy of the reader desiring a balance between scope and depth in a subject matter. Consider Dumas Malone’s six volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, a work which is widely considered the most comprehensive treatment of one of our most famous founding fathers. It is a work that required months of effort on my part (though one can certainly contend that my far-from-industrious nature added a considerable amount of time to that!) to complete. Despite my great admiration and respect for the man, I sometimes certainly question whether such an extensive analysis was required on my part, especially when several quality one-volume biographies also exist of that man. More generally, how much do we really need to know of any one subject matter? I can’t help but amuse myself by the fact that while I spent my free time absorbing 3,000 pages about one man, Jefferson spent his time pursuing an all-encompassing reading program of ancient and modern history, political philosophy, and literature. I’ve read of the great pleasure Jefferson took in reading his favorite work of literature, Don Quixote, and yet I still haven’t bothered to pick up that book myself!

This brings me to yet another difficulty facing the modern reader who seeks not only the knowledge of a particular subject matter, but also to develop an understanding of all facets of knowledge that our society has developed in all of its broad categories. Again, the advance of specialization, despite all of the benefits it bequeaths on us, does make the pursuit of a polymath much more difficult. Not only must the reader determine one’s depth of knowledge within a specific subject matter, but he must also determine it across all subject matters. It seems as if the modern reader’s dilemma has just been magnified a hundred-fold!

Ideally, the modern reader is not so consumed with the specifics of a particular subject matter that he neglects the wonderful insights from other areas of study along with the power and beauty of the world’s great literature and poetry; that is to say, the reader has a desire not only to be a specialist in a particular matter but also to be a more well-rounded individual with the ability to intelligently converse on a wide range of topics. This brings us to the concept of the literary canon, those books of such immense value that is of to the benefit of everyone to put in the effort to read them. It is undoubtedly a generalized compilation, one which will certainly not subsume the entire reading list of an individual but which should probably make up a considerable portion of it.

Of course, there is no absolute agreement on a single literary canon; disputes arise over the inclusion of certain works, both old and new. But these arguments exist more on the margin of such a list than at its core. As such, works like the epics of Homer or the oeuvre of Shakespeare are certainly high on everyone’s list. They are the pinnacle of literary achievement, a tremendous reflection upon its own culture and times as well as that of broader human society, revealing to us its perceived truths of the human condition. Given such worthy high esteem, it is quite likely that it is worth the time to invest yourself in many of these works, even if they concern topics of which you have seemingly no interest.

The entire point of this discussion is to bring to the fore the difficulties facing the modern reading in developing a proper reading program over the course of one’s life. The number of great books in existence, though probably quite small in relation to the number of books ever printed, is still far greater than one person’s capacity to read them all within our finite life spans. We must learn to effectively ration our reading time towards those books most worthy of our attention. It is a difficult task, but one of the utmost importance in terms of personal improvement and development.

We are left to determine by what method exactly one should go about doing this. By what process are we able to weed out the wheat from the chaff and discover the true joys of reading? Probably the most important factor would be to evaluate the relevance or importance of such a work you are pondering whether to read or not. Ultimately, this question boils down to whether anyone will care about this work 100 or 200 years from now. It is a question of whether such a book is simply a product of its own environment and times or whether it possess the qualities to transcend its own historical period to be a work of importance to all mankind in every period of time. This is why it is often much easier to evaluate older works rather than contemporary ones: they have already passed through much of the vetting process through which the above questions are answered. It can be exceedingly difficult to fight through the morass by which one is entangled within their own context and culture, making accurate observations of current literature all the more difficult. We rarely take a step back when evaluating are current reading habits to observe whether we are truly devoting ourselves to those works of the utmost importance rather than those that are simply current or urgent.

Ultimately, one must contend with the time constraints we all face in our selection of books. Given the relatively few number of books who will be able to read, is the one currently in your hand worthy to be one of the select few of those which you have privileged with your attention? That is the question which you must ask yourself every time you contemplate the selection of a new book to read. We must bring the number of regrets we have in our lifetime of reading to an absolute minimum, both in terms of the number of great books we haven’t read, but also the number of bad books we have!

This is, in the end, the truly most important factor with respect to your reading program: the quality of the books you read. We can seriously discuss other important matter such as one’s balance between the old and the contemporary, the balance between one’s own interests and more holistic concerns, and the ordering of one’s list for maximum understanding, but this is all essentially irrelevant if one does not read the “right” books. Of course, I have never really rigorously defined the “great” books in this essay, instead leaving it up to each individual’s intuition and judgment on the matter. But I think this to be a rather sound basis on which to evaluate your reading program.

This is not to say that one should never read books simply for fun or for their entertainment value, as if the great books are not enjoyable! It is true that such books usually require higher degrees of attention and patience, as their difficult subject matters and prose can consume all of one’s intellectual energy. And given the current climate of reading in our society, I guess one should be happy to see others reading anything at all, regardless of its specific nature! But ultimately, one should be seeking reading for understanding and enlightenment, things which bring it own form of enjoyment. Reading does not have to be used as just a somewhat more sophisticated form of television!

So find some good books and read them well. For even though it will be inevitable that you let many good books pass you by throughout your lifetime, the true travesty is never searching out those great books in the first place.

Summerslam Predictions

I’ve come to notice that my first few posts on this blog have been rather highbrow in content matter, so I figured that it was about time to get off the beaten path and talk about something that really matters: professional wrestling! And you thought that I was joking when I said that I like wrestling?!

That’s right people, tonight is the biggest party of the summer: Summerslam. I, for one, have been anxiously awaiting this event for a while now and I am really looking forward to it, as it appears to have one of the better cards that I have seen in quite a while for a pay-per-view as well as the fact that this might be the first time in quite a while that multiple belts will change hands in a single night. And though I am not willing to shell over the $40 required to watch the pay-per-view (I am, after all, first and foremost a cheap individual), I will be trying to follow the live updates and will be hitting up YouTube in the coming days to check out most of the matches as they are uploaded. Yes, I’d much rather watch them live, but in this case frugality trumps timeliness.

So, I will proceed to run down tonight’s lineup and convey my thoughts on each match-up, ultimately deciding my opinion on the winner of each.

Batista v. The Great Khali (World Heavyweight Championship)

Smackdown! has gone through a bit of a rough stretch as of late. When the Undertaker injured his arm after just obtaining the belt, they brought in Edge specifically for the purpose of beefing up the injury-laden roster and to provide the charismatic, yet supremely arrogant, superstar with a long title reign. Yet, not long after he cashed in his Money in the Bank title match, Edge himself goes down with an injury thanks to Kane during the Mardi Gras segment on Smackdown!

At this point, the writers really had to have been in pinch as to who they should crown the next champion. Matters were certainly not helped by the fact that the WWE, in an attempt to appease the USA network about sagging ratings on Raw, had just brought over two of Smackdown!’s biggest stars in King Booker and Mr. Kennedy…Kenn-ed-y! Under such a dilemma, the consensus pick became…The Great Khali?!

The Great Khali, the 400 pound Punjabi giant, certainly has great size going for him but unfortunately not much else. His size only leads to his own detriment as he always looks rather clumsy in the ring. Furthermore, his limited repertoire of moves hardly endears him to the wrestling faithful. Add to this his non-existent in-ring persona and microphone skills (and no, speaking gibberish does not qualify as a skill!) and what you get is the epitome of the makeshift champion.





Hence, my pick in this match has to be for Batista to regain the championship. The perennial loser in the past few PPV championship bouts, it is about time to drop the belt on him again if only because Smackdown! lacks anyone else to drop it on. At least, he is an energetic presence in the ring and still draws a huge pop from the crowd. The championship will be much better suited around his waist, at least until Edge returns from his injury to start a program with him.

Pick: Batista

Triple H v. King Booker

Summerslam represents the return of several huge names into wrestling, one of whom is Triple H. After ripping his quadriceps muscle of the bone at the New Year’s Revolution PPV as a member of the new and improved De-Generation X, Triple H is finally back to compete in an already over-stocked Raw roster.





My opinion on this is that the WWE has really botched the build up around this match by not having Triple H around at all to feud with King Booker. He had tentatively been due to show up at Madison Square Garden a few weeks back, but that idea was eventually withdrawn. Then, they tried to tease us again about his return last week on Raw, leading to a thunderous round of boos from the crowd once they realized that they had been the victims of a  ruse…again.

Now, the overwhelming consensus pick is that Triple H will not lose his comeback match, especially considering that he is a major player in the writing of the storylines on Raw. However, his lack of presence over the past month along with the fact that King Booker is currently negotiating a new contract leads me to believe that King Booker may actually pull this one out. King Booker has been lobbying for a bigger presence in the meetings which develop the storylines as a condition of his new contract, at least partially because he does not want to be a simple stepping stone for Triple H to return to a championship feud later this year or next.

Thus, I think that they will throw King Booker a bone here and actually let him beat Triple H tonight. However, I do think that for this to happen, their feud must continue past Summerslam to the Unforgiven PPV in September at which point Triple H will exact revenge on King Booker.

Pick: King Booker

Kane v. Finlay

This match really seemed to be thrown together at the last minute and as such really does not hold all that great of interest for me. I do wonder, however, whether this match will be used as a push for its winner to feud with Batista (if he should actually win tonight!) for the next PPV event. I mean, there has to be somebody for Batista to fight with at Unforgiven and I figure that it might as well be one of these two guys!

Now if that were indeed the case, I would have a hard time seeing Finlay winning this match. Finlay is the ultimate mid-card fighter, a man with a good, hard-nosed attitude who will usually put on a good program. However, he doesn’t seem likely to have a major push coming his way. Rather, he is the perfect wrestling in order to help push Kane back into the spotlight for a fruitless pursuit of the title in the fall.

Pick: Kane

Umaga v. Carlito v. Mr. Kennedy (Intercontinental Championship)

This match has three very interesting personalities going to a head, making the choice of winner in this match particularly difficult.

Mr. Kennedy is rumored to the be the recipient of this next big major push in Raw, a push that will almost certainly involve the Mr. McMahon illegitimate child angle. Indeed, the current angle developing is that Mr. Kennedy will actually be that child, leading to a feud with Triple H (who is Mr. McMahon’s son-in-law in real life) sometime next year. If this is case, the feud will most likely involve the WWE title and not the Intercontinental championship. Thus, I don’t see them giving Mr. Kennedy the title only to drop a short time afterwards as that would simply kill his forward momentum.

Now another person who has received a push as of late is Carlito. Relegated to mid-card status as of late, fighting with the likes of the Sandman recently, I was surprised to find him right in the middle of feud between Randy Orton and John Cena for the WWE championship. Among other things, he had two singles matches with the champ John Cena, one of which he won. Teaming Carlito with Randy Orton was a great way to reinforce Carlito’s heel credentials, making a possible feud with Umaga (who is now apparently in the middle of a baby face turn) all the more appealing.

As difficult an assignment as it first appears, having Umaga drop the belt to Carlito so that he can chase it into the fall looks like the best way to build up Umaga as a face. Besides, having Umaga a frequent guest on the eminently entertaining Carlito’s Cabana would be quite enjoyable!





Pick: Carlito

Rey Mysterio v. Chavo Guerrero

Like Triple H, Rey Mysterio will make his long awaited in-ring return at Summerslam to face off against the very man who put him on the disabled list in the first place. Rey Mysterio has always been a crowd favorite and it is even harder to fathom seeing him lose in his return fight, especially given the more compelling storyline in this case when compared to the King Booker – Triple H match.

We can only hope that Rey Mysterio is in fact completely healed after his injury, otherwise the high-risk maneuvers that he is prone to utilize could very well hurt him again. The WWE has not been entirely unwilling to put less than 100 percent superstars in the ring when they need to develop an angle such as with Mr. Kennedy in his return to Raw (does anyone still remember when he lost to Super Crazy in about 15 seconds!). But this was an extremely short match precisely due to the fact the Kennedy still needed a week or two to heal; it is almost unfathomable to think that the WWE would do something like this for a PPV event. And given the recent rash of injuries, the WWE seems to have become much more prudent in their handling of hurt superstars; one can just look at how they are nursing MVP after an apparent heart problem was found.

Regardless, I see Chavo Guerrero really dominating the match and thereby keeping Mysterio somewhat grounded. But ultimately, Mysterio will get his “sea legs” back under him and pull out the victory, thereby redeeming himself against the man who brutally put him out of action many months ago.

Pick: Rey Mysterio

John Morrison v. CM Punk (ECW world championship)

Sadly, I have been neglecting ECW for a while and thus don’t know how much I can contribute to this match. Morrison has received a considerable push since being moved over to the ECW roster, complete with a new name and a new gimmick. There is no doubt that he is a talented performer in the ring, leading many to believe that he is one of the wrestlers that will be a staple in the business for years to come.

CM Punk, meanwhile, is a lot like ECW’s version of Batista in that he is way over with the crowd, he is always involved in the championship title angle, and yet always seems to just miss out on winning the championship. However, unlike the Great Khali, Morrison appears to be slated for a decent reign as champion and I certainly don’t see this as the match that is going to change all that.

Besides, it is pretty clear that Mr. McMahon doesn’t have a ton of respect for the long-time ECW crew, not excepting the Sandman’s recent “push” on Raw (if you can even call it that!). With all this in mind, I have little doubt that the ECW convert Morrison will retain the title and continue the reign of ECW champions that have been imported into the brand by Mr. McMahon (can anybody say Bobby Lashley?).

Pick: John Morrison

Diva Battle Royal (number one contenders match for the Women’s Championship)

This is another match that seemed to be cobbled together at the last minute, seeing that they needed to find someone to face off against Candice Michelle in a new feud. Raw has had a stranglehold on the women’s championship as of late, so we shouldn’t be fooled by the fact that all three brands will be represented in this match. I really concur with Lana’s opinion (see link below) that ECW really doesn’t have a women’s division while Smackdown! just doesn’t have enough compelling storylines at the moment on the womens’ side of things.

Hence, we come down to the Raw divas, of which we can seem to choose either the newly arisen Beth Pheonix, the former champion Milena, or the super spunky Mickie James. My pick (by a process of elimination) is probably going to have to be Beth Pheonix. It seems a bit too soon to bring back Milena for yet another feud with the champion while Mickie James doesn’t appear to be receiving the build-up required for a number one contender. Beth Phenoix should provide an excellent counterpoint to Candice Michelle in a program for the Unforgiven PPV.

Pick: Beth Pheonix

Randy Orton v. John Cena (WWE Championship)

For me and I think for most other people, this will be the match of the night. Cena has held the title for nearly a year at this point, a fact not lost on the crowds who have been giving him exceedingly more heat as of late. Some people, it appears, are ready for a change, something that has not been lost on the writers of the show, despite the desperate attempt by Lawler and JR to downplay the negativity by simply describing Cena has a “controversial” superstar. Indeed, Triple H has been lobbying for Cena to drop the title so that he can regain his face status by chasing the title rather than owning it!

And the man Triple H has been lobbying to win this title is “The Legend Killer” Randy Orton. Orton has been receiving a huge buildup for a while now, ever since he began to make his character change from the brash, arrogant Randy Orton to the brash, arrogant, and borderline psychotic Randy Orton! Taking out everyone in his wake as of late, whether it be Shawn Michaels, RVD, or Dusty Rhodes, Orton has emerged as the top heal in the business. Interestingly enough, this has not stopped a significant minority of fans to actively support Orton’s run at the title (just listen to the chants that take place during any match with John Cena or Randy Orton), though one can question whether this is a vote for Orton or a protest vote against Cena. But the point remains that despite the fact that while the WWE is trying to develop a classic face-heel battle for the championship, the reality of the situation is that the battle lines are much more blurred with support fairly divided between the two superstars.





Thus, it appears that tonight is the night that Cena finally loses the title to Randy Orton. I was a bit worried about Orton for a while ever since he caused over $30,000 in damages at a hotel room in Europe over the summer, an event that almost lead to his suspension. I figured that the writers would never consider giving him the title while he remained so volatile in his personal life, but apparently he has gotten the message and has been on his best behavior since the incident.

My only other concern (see Linda’s link below as she expresses the same opinion there) has been the way that Orton has been manhandling Cena over the past few weeks. The classic storyline for much of Cena’s championship reign has gone as follows: the new number one contender makes a statement by beating up on Cena repeatedly over the course of a few weeks, making it appear exceedingly unlikely that Cena will be able to overcome the obstacle in front of him. But lo and behold, Cena is always able to rise up from the ashes and do the impossible by retaining his title for another month. The program with Orton has followed much the same script with “The Legend Killer” delivering 3 RKO’s over the course of two days on the champ. I was hoping that Cena would come into Summerslam looking a bit stronger than usual, especially after he and Umaga were able to win their tag team match a few weeks ago on Raw against Orton and Carlito, but alas it was not to be.





Regardless, we are ripe for a new champion on the top brand in the WWE and I am really hoping that it will happen tonight at Summerslam. Given that Orton is indeed my favorite wrestler in the WWE, I have been anxiously waiting for this fight for months as I grew increasingly dismayed by the fact he was repeatedly passed over in his attempt at a one-on-one match with Cena.

Let’s hope that history repeats itself tonight: don’t forget that Orton won his first title 3 years ago at…that’s right, Summerslam! After this, all I can hope for is that they let him retain the tile for more than the one month he had it the first time in 2004. I should think that he will have the title around his waist until at least early 2008, when the title will probably become a prize to be had in the McMahon family feud.

Pick: Randy Orton

So there are my picks for tonight’s event. I am no doubt certain that I will be off on at least a few of these predictions as I think that I am going off on a limb, partially for dramatic effect, with Carlito and Booker T, for instance. But regardless of my abilities at prognostication, I expect it to be a pretty exciting night and (if I am right) I expect to see a lot of title changes come Monday morning.

As a basis for comparison, here are some picks from others over at ProWrestling.com, along with the latest rumor mill:

• Latest Summerslam notes and rumors
• Predictions from Linda
• Predictions from Lana

From these links, it seems to be widely expected that Mr. Kennedy will win the Intercontinental Title tonight and that there is a distinct possibility that a Smackdown! diva will become the number one contender for the women’s gold. And to the delight of myself, the WWE championship is expected to change hands tonight where they are anticipating a large majority of the fans to be behind Orton. We’ll see…

Institutional Development and Economic Growth

The recent publication of Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms has helped to reignite the lively debate concerning economic development as a means to understanding why some countries grow rich while others stagnate. More specifically, this whole area of research is attempting to discover why the Industrial Revolution first took hold in England and later in the rest of Western Europe and not in other places around the globe. Indeed, the question of societal prosperity and its dispersion across countries and across time is one of the most important questions facing economics as a discipline.

Superficially, many of us think that the path to progress is a fairly simple matter of encouraging developing nations to adopt the capitalist reforms that have long been a central feature of the developed nations of the West. This mindset has been readily internalized by international lending organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank which have made loans to poor nations dependent upon progress on such matters as fiscal and monetary policy, the legal system, international trade, and political representation. The depressing thing about such matters has been our lack of success in raising the living standards of these nations, even after such reforms have been implemented. Such poor outcomes have led many people to investigate other factors which may be integral to successful economic development. The number of answers which have been proffered to remedy this lack of knowledge have been quite numerous.

Jared Diamond, in his top selling book Guns, Germs, and Steel, helped to spark this renewed interest in alternative theories of sustained economic growth. Diamond sees growth as a story of geography, climate, and environment. Clark, meanwhile, has suggested that the quality of labor, developed by a process of slow biological evolution in British society towards citizens who value bourgeois values such as hard work and thrift, explain their rise as an economic power. Meanwhile, others has suggested plausible theories of their own, such as the adoption of new technologies, the growth of science and the scientific method, or capital accumulation.

Yet another great economist, Douglass North, has produced his own theory as to why the West grew rich. For him, the story of development is a story of institutions. Institutions, broadly interpreted, define the ways in which individuals and organizations interact with each other in society. They are the “rules of the game,” as North is famous for saying. A country can not expect sustainable, long-term economic growth unless the proper institutional structure has been put in place to promote such growth. This is a much broader concept than just a few, hodgepodge economic reforms to bring societies closer to some capitalist ideal. Instead, institutional reforms must cover all facets of society, whether it be economic, political, military, religious, or educational. And for North, the three required conditions which any society must develop to even consider the possibility of sustainable economic growth are the rule of law for the elite members of society, perpetually-lived organizations those same elites, and political control of the military.

At first, it might seem curious to define the rule of law and creation of perpetually-lived organizations for elite members of society only as a necessary precondition for development. We would think that such developments would need to be applied in a broad-based manner to all members of society in order to be effective as a means to encourage exchange and trade. However, the reason for this dichotomy comes from the distinction North makes between developing and developed societies.

Economic history has demonstrated that societies have traditionally evolved in fairly predictable ways. This evolution has three distinct stages, referred to by North as orders: primitive orders, limited-access orders, and open-access orders. Primitive orders are the original hunter-gather societies of early human existence with just the most rudimentary forms of exchange and specialization. The first great development in social organization is the rise of limited-access orders, or natural states as North is fond of calling them, about 10,000 years ago.

Natural states are able to reign in the constant violence of the previous age by implementing a more powerful government composed of elite members of the society in question. This governing coalition is held together through the granting of special privileges which these states confer upon its elite supporters. For instance, the governing authority may give a certain member within its coalition monopoly rights over the production or trading of some resource such as cotton, tobacco, fish, etc. As such, only the elite members of society have the right to establish organizations to exploit these artificial opportunities. These privileges provide substantial rents for those in possession of them, thereby assuring that the interests of the elites coincide with the furthered existence of the government in power.

Indeed, the key benefit of the rise of natural states is their ability to bring a semblance of peace to what is otherwise a violent social order. This stability provides the opportunity for the elite members of this society to extend the degree of specialization and the division of labor within their respective organizations. By doing so, they are better able to take advantage of their special privileges from the government and increase their profits. These developments are also advantageous to the non-elite members of this society as they are less likely to be called into combat and can therefore enjoy the fruits of a more peaceful society.

Unfortunately, the key features of a natural state which provide the above benefits also highlight their most significant limitations. Government-granted monopolies will produce their goods at a sub-optimal quantity and will charge elevated prices when compared to a perfectly competitive equilibrium. Thus the standards of living for the citizens of this society, though higher than that under a primitive order, will still be much lower than they otherwise could be. The truly unfortunately thing about this relationship, however, is the fact that these arrangements are extremely difficult to overcome. That is to say, transitioning from a limited-access order to an open-access order (the key to modern economic growth) is a rare occurrence in human economic history.

This is because the arrangements which produce the natural state create a sort of political-economic equilibrium through its mutually compatible incentive structure. The elites depend upon the state for its economic success while the state depends upon the elites for its very existence. No one within this governing coalition seemingly has a reason to change the status quo, explaining the dogged persistence of natural states as a social order.

The key to understanding how an improbable transition from the natural state to an open-access order can occur is to understand the fundamental nature of a natural state. A successful natural state must strictly limit access to the governing coalition in order to produce enough rents for each elite member so that the benefits of maintaining support for the state is greater than the benefits of retracting such support. If too many people enter the governing coalition, the profits to each individual member may subside to the point where the coalition breaks down and the government is no longer able to survive.
Alternatively, the key feature of an open-access order, as it name would suggest, is the free access to organizational structures by all members of society. Thus, the key to a successful transition to sustained economic prosperity depends upon the ability of an increasing number of citizens to establish and to enter organizations to compete with those organizations which were previously the purview of the few elite members of the governing coalition…and to do so in such a way that the natural state does not regress back towards anarchy in the meantime.

It is important to note that this is not a deliberate process undertaken by the governing coalition to expand access to its own institutions. The elite accrue significant benefits with respect to their relationship with the state and they have no intention of letting go of these privileges. Thus, any changes to the institutional relationship between the elite members of the governing coalition which bring us closer to an open-access order must be perceived to be in their own best interest but which ultimately serve to undermine the very arrangements they had intended to solidify. The question remains as to what institutional reforms the state would undertake that would spur these unintended consequences.

This brings us back to the three “doorstep” conditions which we mentioned at the beginning of the essay. The first of these institutional reforms which North had in mind as an impetus to progress towards an open-access order was the rule of law for the elite members of a society. Over time, members of the governing coalition will repeatedly interact with each other on a number of issues with respect to state policy and their personal organizations. These interactions lead to the informal establishment of appropriate behaviors and norms between the participants of the governing coalition. The state could have a desire to codify these mores into a more formal legal structure as a way to effectively adjudicate disputes between members and to better run the state apparatus. The elites, meanwhile, are able to easily understand and interpret the rules by which they must play in order to participate in the governing coalition.

The second condition, the creation of perpetual organizational forms, allows the various elite organizations to cooperate with one another with greater confidence. When organizations can not be legally separated from the constituent members of that organization, credible commitment problems can result as the future heads of elite organizations may not feel under any obligation to honor the agreements of their predecessors. This can hamper the amount of exchange which takes place between the elite organizations as there is always the risk of one side reneging on their obligations. Perpetual organizations are able to sidestep this problem by making the organization legally separate from the people which run it. That is to say, these organizations exist as an entity all their own, legally bound to honor all the commitments which have been made under its moniker.

The last condition is the creation of a military which is subservient to the political establishment. A major problem of natural states is that the military resources of a country are often dispersed among many of the members of the governing elite. This is a defensive mechanism so that no individual or group within the governing coalition becomes so powerful as to gain the ability to overthrow the existing order in favor of a new one with themselves at the lead. However, this can also escalate the probability of eventual conflict between groups within the governing coalition, something which could undermine the entire social structure to the detriment of everyone involved. At a minimum, the wide dispersion of military capabilities leads to a less stable environment in which to produce and exchange.

This third condition is a particularly difficult one for natural states to adopt as there is no incentive for any individual group within the governing coalition to give up whatever military resources they have at their command. To voluntarily relinquish control of their military component simply leaves them vulnerable to the predations of the other members of the governing coalition. The natural state is seemingly stuck in an unforgiving game of prisoner’s dilemma, leading to a sub-optimal outcome from a social perspective.

And even if a separate military organization independent of the elites could be formed, there is no assurance that this military apparatus would remain under their political control. Concentrating the military resources of a nation within a single organization poses a significant risk to the governing coalition as this new establishment could conceivably overthrow their former supporters. In order for a viable military organization to be established, there must exist clear rules of conduct concerning the use of violence and powerful non-military organization with the clout to punish transgressions by the military.

The effect of all three of these reforms, which build upon one another in succession, leads to the possibility of inducing a transition to an open-access order and the sustained economic growth it entails. The reason for this is explained by the effects these conditions have on the social dynamics of those involved in the governing coalition. Essentially, the implementation of the above three institutional reforms reduce the necessity for elites to have personal connections with those they exchange with in the coalition. Recall that the natural state exists by severely limiting the number of participants to the few, select elite members of that society. It is fundamentally a group connected through its interpersonal relations. This familiarity is used to ensure members of the coalition that it is indeed relatively safe to transact within this select group.

But with the establishment of the rule of law, long-lived organizational forms, and a military hierarchy under the command of the political authority, impersonal exchange become a more viable means of transacting business through a drastic reduction in the transaction costs of such activities. This greatly expands the possibilities for trade as an organization is no longer bound to interact only with other familiar elites within the governing coalition. And with this greater trade comes greater specialization and a more advanced division of labor, bringing such a society ever closer to the threshold point after which sustained economic development is at hand.

The key, however, is understanding how these developments lead to greater access to organizational forms for the non-elites of a society. Even with the benefits of impersonal exchange, the elites must counterbalance such rewards with the loss of rents that would occur if they were to embrace the more open social order. North suggests several explanations, which he calls transition mechanisms, that would induce the elites to adopt open access. Among these reasons are the fiscal benefits to the state to increased trade, regulatory changes favorable to greater competition, incremental improvements in citizen representation in government, or international competition based on a nation’s relative strength compared to its neighbors.

This is a slow, incremental process as small changes in the institutional structure come to sustain themselves and even to encourage further reforms. It can be better described as an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one. The truly interesting thing about this development is how the open-access order readily adopts many of the institutions of the natural state by tweaking them in order to accommodate the new social order. This strikes at the heart of the last major point North is trying to make in his work: the way institutions manifest themselves between the two more developed social orders can differ wildly, even if the institutions themselves remain essentially unchanged!

For instance, North describes how elections in natural states, in the absence of any political competition, bare little resemblance to elections in developed societies with viable alternative organizations competing for power. And yet, the electoral institution established in natural states can be readily tweaked to accommodate greater access. In short, North adroitly notes that free elections are much more likely to take hold when an electoral process – free or otherwise – has already been institutionalized in that society.

A similar process occurred with another organizational from which was established in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe: the corporation. These organizations were originally formed to take advantage of the monopoly privileges granted to it by the state. However, these organizations evolved over time as the state allowed more and more people to take advantage of its special characteristics. Thus, open access transformed an institution designed to limit trade to one that has become the defining feature of our modern free market economy.

North provides a very compelling view of how societies evolve over time and how modern economic growth can come about within this context. His solution is quite simple in theory but its practical application is very difficult to achieve: the implementation of institutions which promote, not hinder, access to organizational forms. Other conceivable explanations for economic growth do not convince North, who sees factors such as geography, climate, culture, and technology as things which can influence the type of institutions which come about but do not directly promote progress. But the specific institutions which do develop, as influence by those above factors among others, are not nearly as important as the ultimate results of such institutions – their effects on open access. Given that a society has developed an open-access political system, for instance, the actual manifestation of that system, whether it be parliamentary or American-style democracy, takes on much less significance at least with respect to economic development. It is the flexible, adaptable nature of this model to different societal contexts which is one of its most appealing features.

A greater description concerning the origins of the state itself would have been useful, especially given the way North eschews several fundamental assumptions about the existence of a state. For instance, he flatly rejects the idea, pretty commonly accepted by most academics studying the state, that governments enjoy a monopoly on violence within a certain geographic region. He does this since natural states are not a single, united entity but rather an amalgam of many diverse members, each of whom have the capabilities to maintain a military presence. He also denies that the ultimate objective of a state is to maximize its own tax revenue, but rather it is to simply survive. This last assumption does, however, help give North a ready explanation as to why most states utterly fail to usher in an era of sustained economic growth: it simply isn’t their main concern! States are willing to sacrifice this goal in order to assure their own survival within the social order.

But given North’s preoccupation with the origins of economic growth, it is not at all surprising that he spends most of his time attempting to understand the transition between natural states and open-access orders and not between natural states and primitive orders. The transition process to an open-access order is an eminently interesting one, given the self-sustaining tendencies of natural states. But there does seem to be a few loose ends ripe for clarification concerning this process in which so many factors must come together in the right way at the right time to reach that threshold of economic development.

Probably the most notable of these is his admission that the three doorstep conditions are necessary, but not sufficient, to bring a natural state into an open-access order. Even a society that somehow is able to implement all of these difficult institutional reforms is not guaranteed an advancement of their social order. The doorstep conditions, instead, only provide for the possibility of impersonal exchange among the elite members of the coalition. The advancement of an open-access society will not commence until doorstep conditions are combined with mechanisms allowing for increased access to these institutional reforms.

Unfortunately, these transition mechanisms, the benefits to the elite for allowing expanded access to their exclusive organizational forms, leave something to be desired. As briefly described earlier, the four main avenues of encouraging more open access were fiscal, regulatory, representational, and international impetuses. Superficially, the fiscal mechanism has the most plausibility. Greater impersonal exchange allows for better developed specialization and division of labor, leading to greater economic growth from which the state can benefit through taxation. There must come a point at which the benefits of greater access exceed the losses from reduced rents.

But this would seemingly be true only under traditional assumptions of the state as a revenue-maximizer. Remember that North has explicitly rejected such an assumption, explaining that the state must first solve the question of maintaining its own existence. Indeed, it is such a goal that brings about the natural state itself. It is left to be determined at which point exactly does the state transition from one which simply desires to survive into one which desires to maximize its economic extraction from the populace.

North’s response would probably describe how institutional changes within the governing coalition will occur in order to benefit those members, but which ultimately serve to undermine the coalition itself in favor of greater institutional access. Here is how North puts it: “The changes in institutions, organizations, and behavior…must be explained as intentional acts consistent with the interests of the dominant coalition, but the results of those changes need not be consistent with their intentions.”

Ultimately, North is claiming that the members of the governing coalition must be either short-sighted or simply irrational. That is, the governing coalition must not be able to recognize that allowing a fiscal mechanism to take hold will only serve to undermine their own state structure. Given the ability of the governing coalition to establish itself initially, it would seem to be able to understand at least the rudiments of its own establishment, thereby making somewhat less plausible the possibility that they are simply ignorant of the environment around them.

Of course, North may simply be arguing that the elites will no longer have an incentive to maintain a natural state once the doorstep conditions are in place. Once the rewards are great enough, they will be willing to allow greater access for the fiscal benefits they will accrue. But he should still reconcile this with the natural state’s ultimate goal of survival. A more detailed exposition of this process would probably help to rectify these concerns.

As to the other transition mechanisms he provides, they are probably even less convincing than the fiscal mechanism (which though somewhat contradictory to his model, at least provides some plausibility). His idea of regulation as a transition mechanism is not very well developed and his single example of the fourteenth century wool trade in England conjures up as many questions as it answers. Meanwhile, his conjecture of representation as a possible mechanism suffers from even less explanation. Indeed, he provides only a single sentence in support of this idea.

His last mechanism, international competition, does seem to be the proper avenue in which natural states are induced to accommodate institutional reforms promoting greater access. Opposing states which are able to harness the economic benefits of open-access could become a real threat to those natural states still attempting to control trade. But this argument presupposes the existence of another state which has already advanced to a greater level of development. This just simply begs the question as to how this more advanced state was able to transition to an open-access order. We could appeal again to international competition, but eventually we will regress backwards in time to the first society that was able to incite such a transition. At this point, we will no longer be able to appeal to international competition as a transition mechanism; we will have to determine which of the other three mechanism induced changes in this original open-access order.

Despite these possible concerns, however, this is a very elegant model, one that is begging to be empirically tested to see how these theories play themselves out in the real world. Ultimately, the most interesting applications of this theory will be in its use to chart the historical development of those societies which have been able to make that transition from natural states to open-access orders. However, testing such a model may involve some difficulties which will need to be overcome.

For one, such a model is not conducive to a concise mathematical formulation. This research provides a more verbal exposition more in the line of the “softer” social sciences where econometric techniques will be more difficult to apply. And even if we could develop a more precise model, our data collection efforts could very well be hampered due to the particular exigencies of the theory. For instance, the existence of the doorstep conditions is certainly not a binary variable; different societies can certainly have adopted them to varying degrees. More specifically, the identification of specific institutions would have to be carefully considered to adjust for the fact that institutions behave differently in different social orders. North raises this concern himself when suggesting potential problems with traditional studies analyzing the link between institutional and economic development. To raise an example we addressed earlier, a researcher must be careful to consider how an institution like the corporation can operate very differently in two different countries. Simply acknowledging that such an institution exists without appreciating the social conditions which surround it can lead a rather biased account concerning the role such institutions play in economic progress.

Of course, the jury is still out concerning the factors which most attribute to sustained economic growth. Indeed, the debate today may be as fractured and intense as it ever has been. But it is certainly true that Douglass North has contributed immensely to that debate by positing a legitimate theory linking economic development to the institutions that envelop that society.

Authoritarian Capitalism

We in the West naturally link political and economic progress into our views of social development. It is entirely understandable for us to do such a thing; the evolution of advanced Western nations through the past three centuries has seen the simultaneous rise of both representative democracies and free market economies. We view this as an almost inevitable, albeit bumpy, progression as our society continued to progress to greater and greater heights of power, growth, and affluence. Indeed, some people like Francis Fukuyama have asserted that liberal democracy is the pinnacle of human institutional development. That is to say, the march of progress which began at tyrannical autarkism and passed through to monarchic mercantilism ended at our current state of affairs…we can go no further!

It is entirely true that a nation’s political and economic structure are endogenous to each other: each system has an effect on the other, meaning that they can not be studied and analyzed in isolation. An appreciation of this fact leads many to conclude that democracy and capitalism are inextricably linked like two peas in a pod. This is not to say that the way liberal democracy manifests itself in different nations is precisely the same: Europe has developed a large social welfare system complete with a myriad of governmental services supported by high tax rates while America has kept to a more laissez-faire existence with less government involvement in the economy, allowing a generally lesser burden of taxation on its populace.

But this is more a debate on the margins of a liberal democratic society (not to say that this isn’t an important debate). Both systems can agree on the fundamental tenets which underlie their organizations and institutions: representative government responsive to its citizenry, significant protections for private property and personal freedoms, and the rule of law subject to all citizens without exception. One can argue all day as to whether American or European society does a better job in implementing these values and goals, but the essential point here is that both societies do value and practice them to a great extent.

Meanwhile, the last remaining bulwarks against the advance of liberal democracy seemed to be falling by the wayside. China had been opening up its economic system since the 1970s thanks to the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and subsequent leaders. With its rapid economic growth through the last two decades of the twentieth century, it was widely assumed that it was only a matter of time before the increasingly wealthy Chinese demanded greater political freedom to complement their newfound prosperity. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed as if the battle of ideas had finally ended with the achievements of democratic capitalism delivering a crippling blow to all its competitors.

However, it is beginning to appear as if the game was called a bit too prematurely. Russia sank into despair as the hope of a new era failed to deliver the promised results. Russian capitalism devolved into cronyism with government assets being essentially given away to the well-connected while the vast majority of the populace saw no improvement in their living standards. Disenchanted with the mediocre results produced by democratic capitalism in their society, they turned to Vladimir Putin to bring back the pride and honor of the once great Soviet empire. They had essentially agreed to grant autocratic control of the county to Putin and the United Russia party, hoping that his leadership could counter the downward economic spiral their country was experiencing.

Meanwhile in China, the supposed democratic revolution never came into fruition. The Tiananmen Massacre failed to incite the democratic reforms many had hoped for, demonstrating that the Chinese Communist Party was still firmly in control of the country with no intention of giving up any significant power. Indeed, the communists seems as entrenched in power as ever, recognizing the fact that their power is relatively secure as long as they can continue to reproduce the impressive economic results which have occurred over the past 30 years.

What is most interesting about both of these examples is the degree of success that both of these countries have had in adopting free-market economic reforms while simultaneously eschewing corresponding democratic reforms. Among other things, Putin pushed through significant fiscal reforms such as a flat tax on income, the cause célèbre of many economic conservatives in America. China opened up its country to foreign investment and began to actively engage the international trading system. And these reforms have occurred all the while United Russia has essentially become, and the CCP has steadfastly remained, a one-party state in their respective societies.

The results of these developments have been, on the whole, quite impressive as well. Russia, buoyed by rising gas and oil prices, has been able to reassert itself as a regional power through its control of energy supplies. Economic growth in China has been nothing less than spectacular as decades of continued growth, thanks to its booming export sectors, have driven China to become one of the largest economies in the world today.

The recent success of Russia and China would certainly warrant greater scrutiny with respect to the relationship between democracy and capitalism as a necessary precursor to sustained economic progress. Indeed, the rise of authoritarian capitalism in these states have come to be seen as the answer to democratic capitalism as an alternative form of institutional development. Azar Gat, in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, describes authoritarian capitalism as possibly the most significant threat to liberal democratic societies, greater than even the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. The growth of non-democratic capitalist nations could halt further progress in political liberalization throughout the world, progress which the West would value regardless of its effects on economic progress, and more generally shift the balance of power away from the liberal democratic West and the fundamental values they hold dear.

But before anyone can proclaim authoritarian capitalism as a true alternative to societal wealth and prosperity, a few caveats are certainly in order. The most significant of these is the obvious fact that, despite the considerable progress made by Russia and especially China, these countries are still very poor relative to the developed countries in the West. GDP per capita in approximately $7,600 and $12,100 in China and Russia respectively, figures which pale in comparison to the $28,000 average for the European Union (a figure which itself is weighed down by its central and eastern European members) and $43,000 for the United States. China will require decades of continued, fast-paced growth in order to catch up to the West in terms of living standards, something which is not guaranteed by any means. The fact that China has become the third largest economy in the world is due to its sheer size, not the affluence of its citizens.

Furthermore, we can question the very premise as to whether Russia and China can indeed be considered capitalist economies. The debate between capitalism and communism is not a dichotomy between two polar opposites which a country must take as a whole; instead, there is a continuum of choices which a country can make which allows them to balance these two competing world views. Indeed, China has come a long way in the past 30 years from its heyday as a staunchly communist state under Mao Zedong. And yet, there still remains many aspects of the Chinese economy which keep it at a far distance from a pure free market. Their financial and banking systems, for instance, are still heavily regulated by the federal government. Banks, especially in the past, were often under political pressure to provide loans to state enterprises in order to keep the afloat. This has led to a mountain of underperforming loans which these banks have failed to account for. As for Russia, many of their most important industries, such as the energy sector, is still run by state-owned enterprises such as Gazprom which have been operated as much by political considerations (notice Russia’s recent dealings with eastern European counties such as the Ukraine and Belarus) as by economic ones.

Of course, the same type of concerns can be expressed with respect to many liberal democratic nations, particularly those nations in western Europe such as France and Italy. But there is still an important fundamental distinction in my mind about how the economy operates within these two divergent spheres. At its essence, western Europe can be seen to be operating under socialist-style capitalism while Russia and China operate under capitalist-style socialism. And though this may sound like a mere issue of semantics, there is indeed an important difference between the two.

But despite these above concerns, there does seem to have been a tendency in recent history for non-democratic, autocratic nations to adopt capitalist reforms while stringently maintaining political power. The question becomes whether such a social system has some inherent advantages over a capitalist economic system within a democratic nation.

We can certainly think of some theoretical considerations which would lend credence to such advantages. For one, autocratic regimes will be better able to implement reforms which are unpopular with the population as a whole, even if such reforms may be to the greater benefit of the country in aggregate. Thomas Friedman, in his book “The World is Flat,” mentions such an example when he quotes an interviewee who stated that China would never have entered the World Trade Organization if it had been put up to a democratic vote. The Chinese government, however, realized the benefits that would accrue to the country by greatly expanding it trade throughout the world. Indeed, the convergence of international trading standards and the improved terms of trade aided in China’s rise as a significant factor in export markets and to its growing economy more generally.

Alternatively, democratic societies are more vulnerable to cyclical changes in policy as majority governments come and go due to the desires of the polity. Governments are more responsive to the concerns of its constituents, a characteristic which could lead to negative consequences if their desires are fundamentally opposed to sound economic or political principles (whatever that may be!). Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, has recently done considerable research and wrote a book about the irrationality of voters beliefs, providng some plausibility to the claim that authoritarian regimes are better able to ignore short-term political pressures and implement sound long-term policies.

In a similar vein, authoritarian regimes may be better able to ensure stability within the society that they govern. Democratic governments are characterized by, among other things, constant change through the transitions of power which take place at election time. This change can often be destabilizing to societal order; indeed, the peaceful transitions of power which are a crucial element to modern democratic states are a rarity by historical standards. The election of 1800 has often been held up as a monumental point in the evolution of American democracy precisely since it was one of the first times that political power was peacefully transferred between two people of differing political parties (those people being, of course, John Adams of the Federalist party and Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic party).

Authoritarian regimes simply avoid this problem to a great extent by simply keeping power into the hands of a single party. Of course, even non-democratic governments are not entirely immune to the pressures of political opinion. Any government which is fundamentally at odds with the values of the governed risk rebellion or a coup d’état. However, they do have more leeway to pursue policies which are unpopular with the populace, though the degree to which they can do this is a rather delicate balancing act. But if a government is responsive “enough” to the population as a whole, those citizens will no longer turn to politics to pursue change and will instead view government policy as largely exogenous. For a country which is already pursuing free-market economic reforms, an institution notorious for constant change and “creative destruction,” political freedom may be perceived to be much too destabilizing to develop simultaneously.

China may very well be a perfect example of the above ideas in action. The Chinese Communist Party has been preoccupied with stability, almost to the point of obsession, ever since the large scale demonstrations that took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Even today, tens of thousands of political demonstration take place every year in China, mainly in rural areas where people have been essentially untouched by the economic growth that has taken place it its cities. Meanwhile, wealthy city dwellers have been anxious to obtain greater political freedoms to complement their growing economic prosperity. Given the rapid changes that China’s economic growth have precipitated, the government has little desire to introduce any further areas of potential instability into its social system, instability which could threaten their very existence as the country’s governing power.

But despite these possible advantages with authoritarian governments, we do not tend to see such results pan out empirically. As mentioned earlier, peaceful transitions of power within democratic societies has become institutionalized. Western societies have become rather adept at coping with change effectively in order to maintain a stable social order. And though authoritarian regimes may be better able to implement unpopular market-based economic policies, western democracies are far more advanced to the degree in which their market economies have grown and developed. That is to say, democratic governments have not seen any significant regression in the implementation of capitalist economic policies, even if some of these policies are unpopular with the population as a whole. For instance, there has been a lot of consternation recently with free trade agreements and its effects on labor market mobility, yet there hasn’t been any serious threats as of yet to the continued existence to any major free trade deals such as NAFTA.

In the end, there seems to be nothing to fear in the rise of authoritarian capitalist regimes as an alternative to their democratic counterparts. Indeed, we should be welcoming China’s slow transition in their economic system. Despite their lack of political progress, they are still moving closer towards, not further away from, the social systems that characterize western countries. Russia has been a bit more schizophrenic in its social development. Russia eliminated their formerly dictatorial, communist regime at the end of the Cold War but have recently been transitioning back into their old ways, at least in the political realm. Regardless of any counties’ political order, however, the widespread adoption of capitalism throughout the globe will make the world increasingly interconnected as institutions and organizations become more standardized. In the future, our prosperity will depend greatly on the prosperity of our neighbors, making the likelihood for conflict less likely.

But it is hard to imagine whether these countries can continue to grow in the future without any political reform. Every developed economy in the world today has a representative political system as well, though the academic literature concerning the relationship between democracy and economic growth has generally been inconclusive. But as the citizens of these nations become more prosperous, the demands for greater political freedom, including the desires to elect their own representatives, will become more vociferous. It is quite possible that capitalism may be the opening salvo in the eventual adoption of democratic freedoms in the rest of the world.

The American Tradition of Secession

Every Independence Day, I like to get somewhat reflective on some aspect of the unique national experience of America.  This year, my thoughts turned towards the idea of secession and its role in American history.  Given my libertarian leanings, the idea of declaring independence, of simply breaking the bonds with the current governing authority with nothing more than a few choice words, is an interesting and ultimately exciting notion for me. 

We never really consider the American Revolutionary War through the lens of a secessionist movement, but that was by definition what took place: statesmen, fed up with rule of the British authorities on the other side of the Atlantic, broke off from the rest of Great Britain to form an independent government.  I suspect that the reason for this is due to the deep association of secession in the American phsyce with the Confederate States of America and the Civil War.  And given the chief desire of the rebel government to maintain slavery in North America, the idea of secession ultimately gets caught up with the idea of servitude and not freedom.  This is really a shame given that secession can be used in any context to further a variety of possible ends, but instead secession is intricately linked with political oppression and regression.   

This association was not always so well defined; the discussion of secession was certainly not taboo in the days before the Civil War.  Seccessionist rhetoric arose in the South with respect to other issues in addition to the maintainence of slavery.  The most notable of these would be tariff and trade policy with the events revolving around the Tariff of Abominations being the most pronounced example.  Furthermore, secessionist ideas were not solely confined to the South; the Hartford Convention was brought together in part to discuss the possible secession of the New England states from the United States.    

But there is no doubt that the Civil War ended the debate in the long-running American conversation concerning secession.  If one were to ask any American today about the idea of secession, you will probably get a response informing you of how Lincoln “solved” the problem a century and a half ago.  But such an argument only goes to demonstrate the immense impracticallity of such a movement rather than the moral and legal implications of secession.  The above response would be satisfactory only if one were willing to accept some form of “might is right” moral philosophy, something I doubt many people would ascribe to.

There can be little doubt that the South’s actions in 1860-61 were quite unproductive in the grand scheme of things, though admittedly it is always easier to pass judgement after the fact.  By almost any measure of economic progress and development, whether it be manpower, infrastructure, etc., the North had a distinct advantage which would play a decisive role as the war progressed; the South was already forced to play with a stacked deck, if you will.  And given the South’s main goal of preserving the institution of slavery, they would probably have been much better served to remain a part of the Union anyway.  The newly elected President Lincoln was not a hardcore abolitionist and probably would have treaded rather lightly around the issue.  We often forget (given our desire to overly simplify historical events) that Lincoln’s first priority in creating the Army of the Potomac was not to end slavery but to maintain the integrety of the Union.  The invocation of abolition, brought about with the issuing of the Immancipation Proclamation, was a shrewed move to further this ultimate objective, hoping that it would incite large scale slave rebellions in the South, keep the border slave states (who were NOT subject to the provisions of the Immancipation Proclaimation) within the Union, and greatly decreasing the probability of Britain (which had already abolished slavery by this point) entering the conflict on the side of the South.  Due to Lincoln’s preoccupation of Union preservation, just the threat of rebellion would have been enough to keep Lincoln from aggresively attacking the problem.  And though the balance of power was certainly in favor of the northern Free States by 1861, the South still had enough clout in the national legislature that they could have effectively derailed any possible reform for decades to come, if Lincoln or any future executive finally decided to curtail or end the practice.   

Of course, one could have said many of the same things concerning the American Revolution.  Indeed, the relative strength of Great Britain compared to the United States may have been even greater than that of the North and the South in the Civil War.  In 1776, Britain was the greatest empire on the face of the earth, controlling territory and trade throughtout the world with a professional army and an unsurpassed navy.  The fledgling United States, in contrast, could muster up little more than a ragtag bunch of regular army and militia as well as a navy hardly worthy of the name.  Despite such enormous odds, the United States was able to persevere and overcome the onslaught of one of the greatest nations ever to have existed up to that time, thereby earning their independence from their former rulers.

Now, the two examples are not entirely congruous in every respect.  Wars in the 18th century were foughts before the concept of ”total war” came into fashion as an accepted practice; there was a clear delineation between acceptable military targets and the sacrosanct civilian populice.  That is to say, wars were only fought between armies on the battlefield (the so-called “gentlemen wars”).  This is in marked contrast to war a century later, especially in the later stages of the Civil War, where the line between military and civilian targes blurred to the point that they were undistinguishable.  Consider Sherman’s “March to the Sea” as a rather extreme example of such a practice, when essentially everything in a country was considered to be a tool of conceivable use to an enemy and thereby considered a legitmate target of agression. 

Related to this idea was the willingness of countries in the 19th century to devote an ever increasing share of its economic output to a war effort.  Life in America essentially ground to a halt for 5 years as both the North and the South directed all the resources they could muster towards raising and maintaining armies on both the Western and Eastern fronts, armies whose numbers were much greater than their counterparts in the American Revolution.  Furthermore, the growth of the industrial revolution and sthe cientific enlightenment led to significant advances in miliary technology, thereby exacerbating the advantages to economic dominance in warfare.  No longer were powerful states only able to compete in quantities with adversaries (like in most of the history of human warfare), but now advanced governments could now invest in the quality of their forces as well.  The ability to invest a greater number of resources into a greater myriad of potential military ends exacerbated the pressure of less organized or less developed states to keep up and maintain an effective fighting force.

But such considerations do not even address the equally interesting issues concerning the legality and the morality of secessionist movements.  Morally speaking, I have already mentioned above that secession is a very context-specific event; issues of morality must be considered on a case-by-case basis.  It should be viewed in context with the defining goals and asperations of the group desiring independence.  The South’s desire to seceed from the North can therefore never be considered moral as their chief goal from independence was to continue the egregious practice of slavery.  Under this reasoning, even the Americans’ desire to seceed from Great Britain looks rather circumspect.  The British Empire was heavily subsidizing colonial defense (I beleive the average colonialist faced a tax burden one-sixth that of his counterpart on the mainland) and it was not all together unreasonable to expect the Americans themselves to shoulder a greater portion of the financial costs of the protection from which they benefited most directly.  Of course, the real complaint of the American colonists was not necessarily the taxes themselves but rather “taxation without representation,” but it would be somewhat creduluous to believe that the goal of representation in Parliament would be to secure higher taxes on their own citizens!

From a legal perspective, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt as to the Founding Fathers’ sentiments on this issue.  They did not seem to delude themselves that what they were undertaking was not an act of treason against the British crown.  This is partly the reason why they were so reticient to exacerbate the crisis; it was entirely accurate when one descirbed the Foudning Fathers’ as “relunctant revolutionaries.”  Indeed, they were still strongly loyal to the King as late as 1776 itself: even as the increasingly frustrated state representatives gathered to figure out a way to get their grievances heard, they were toasting their soverign at the pubs afterwords.  But when the time for talk had finally ended, they knew that their actions would precipitate a powerful response, one they fully expected to occur.  It was not mere rhetoric when Jefferson wrote that “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  But they weighed their act of treason against the higher moral law to which they also followed, determining in the end that the number of abuses perpretated by the monarchy was too great to overlook, thereby justifing revolution.   

With respect to the secession of the South from the United States, the issue seems to be less clear cut.  Of course, the position taken by the Lincoln adminstration was that the South was illegally in rebellion and that they must be brought back under the laws of the Constitution, by force if neccesary.  Then again, there does not seem to be any provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting states from seceeding from the United States (i.e. revoking their acceptance of the U.S. Constitution as the document under which they would be ruled by a federal government).  And since the federal government does not explicitly have the authority to inforce a continual acceptance of the founding document, one could plausably appeal to the 10th amendment to the Constitution to credibly claim that states have the authority to seceed from the Union.  And intuitively, it would have been rather odd if the writers of the Constitution included a provision prohibiting secession by its constituent states given that American itself had been established by an act of secession not even two decades before. 

But it may not be entirely out of the realm of possibility to think just that.  The Constitutional Convention was called to address supposed deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation, especially as it related to the general weakness of the federal government to assert its authority.  Foremost on the minds of many of the delegates were the recent disturbances such as Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusettes, clearly demonstrating the fragile position of the governing authorities at this time.  Stability was an overriding consideration for those wishing to create a new federal government; these people would not have been entirely unreceptive to the idea of granting the federal government broad authority to quell rebellions and other seditious movements. 

Many people have used various provisions in the Constitution in order to find a justifiable legal argument granting such powers to the national government.  Among the most persuasive of those is the authority granted to the federal government to maintain a republican form of government in all the states of the Union.  At its face, it seems a somewhat innocuouls and ultimately futile proposition to invoke, especially considering that the Confederate government set up a Constitution which in many ways was identical to its Union counterpart.  But the states of the Confederacy were not setting up a republic as it denied basic human and political rights for the signficant black population in their communities.  This could provide the needed justification for the North to invade the South and bring them back into the fold.  However, it would have been somewhat disingenuous for the North to invoke this clause, givent that they had been complicit from the start in maintaining slavery in the southern states, all the way from the “three-fifths compromise” to the Fugitive Slave Law.  But it is important to remember that just because someone is hypocritical, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong!

But regardless of the legal and moral complexities of secession, I think that it can be generally agreed upon that secession is a very destabalizing event which should only be invoked in the most desparate of circumstances, not just for “light and transient causes.”  This is something the founding fathers of America understood very well in their dealings with the British.  Secession introduces immense costs on society by preventing the government from executing its fundamental objective: the maintance of stability and order in a populice.  Without such protection, much of civil society can fall by the wayside.  Such costs must be carefully considered when contemplating the supposed benefits of independence if a nation is able to sucessfully break the bonds of their former rulers.            

Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have Prime Minister’s Questions?

Now, the obvioius, smart-assed response to that question is that America has a president and not a prime minister but this is simply aruging over semantics!  I simply bring this up to consider why there is not regular public sessions between the executive and legislative branches of government so that the president can be grilled by members of Congress concerning current government policy. 

 This question came to me as I was unable to get to sleep last night and proceeded to do some channel surfing on the tele.  Like most other insomniacs, I ended up on C-SPAN watching the final appearance  of Tony Blair in Parliament addressing direct questions from its members.

For anyone who has ever watched such an event, you know that it can be a rather raucous, fun affair.  Despite all the outward formality, the participants always seem to be having a quite jovial time: constant hooting and heckling with witty jokes being thrown about left and right provides quick-paced exciting exchanges.  It is a refreshing change of course to a typical Congressional committee meeting, most of which are dull and where most participants value vindictive attacks much more than witty ones. 

 Furthermore, they would seem to foster a quality public service by producing both accountability amongst both branches as well as cooperation  between the branches.  By compelling the head of the executive branch to appear before Congress on a regular basis, new governement proposals and legislation (much of which nowadays seems to be initiated by the executive branch rather than in legislative chambers) could be more effectively scrutinized through the proper conveying of concerns, recommendations, etc.   The president would be required to more forcefully defend proposed programs, allowing legislators and citizens the ability to more effectively weed out its positive and negative aspects.  And lest you think that this would only be a way for the legislative branch to beat up on the president, such “President’s Questions” could be used as a more profound soap box for their favored initiatives.  In short, the give-and-take debates in such forums would allow for higher quality legislation as revisions can be made through the concerns and weaknesses brought into the limelight through this process.

 So why can’t we import this fun and invigorating experience from across the pond?  Probably the main reason is the cherished independence of the three branches of government that we hold dear in our admittedly somewhat convulted system of democracy as opposed to the parliamentary systems which hold sway in most of the rest of the free world.  The president is given a fair amount of executive priviledge and anyone in that position would be loathe to give it up; we can already see the degree to which the current administration has evoked such priviledge in order to prevent what is perceives to be possible intrusions by Congress into its affairs.  It would be hard to imagine any president subjecting themselves to constant bombardments by representatives critizing all aspects of the president’s agenda; the executive highly values its independence as an essential means to create proposals and administer the laws. 

And although I would like to think that such questioning would remain civil and orderly, it would be easy to conclude that any such arrangements would quickly devolve into aWashingtonian “bitch-fest” as representatives used such events as their own soapbox to personally attack the president (and vice versa for the president with repsect to Congress) at every pretense rather than as a constructive way of improving upcoming legislation and to voice legitmate concerns about the direction of the country.  Just imagine if President Bush went down to Congress right now for a session of “President’s Questions.”  We could liken it locking two monkeys in a room with a single banana…absolute chaos! It would probably make for some of the most compelling television programming ever, though I doubt that anything useful would yield itself from it.  We could pretty much reduce the debate down to the following:

Representative Pelosi: “Mr. President, you suck!”
President Bush: “Mrs Pelosi, kiss my ass!”
Representative Pelosi: “Bite me, Mr. President!”

Yes, it would be oodles of fun, but in the end it is ultimately fruitless.

One could also question the essential necessity for such a system of “President’s Questions.”  The Prime Minister arguably has more power relative to the House of Commons than does the President relative to Congress.  And unlike the above mentioned seperation of powers between the branches of government in the United States, the exectuive and legislative branches are more intricately intertwined in England and other parliamentary systems.  For instance, the prime minister of England comes from the majority party in parliament (unlike our current situation with a Republican president and Democratic congress) and the prime minster’s cabinet is made up in part of members of parliament itself.  This would suggest a greater need for some counterbalancing force through which parliament can, at a minimum, supervise and influence the Prime Minister’s perogative.

 Congress already has a fair amount of oversight power and has considerable constitutional powers at its disposal.  Though it usually takes some wrangling, they can usually get any member, short of the president, to come to Capitol Hill for testimony and important hearings, essentially creating a proxy version of the Prime Minister’s Questions.  Congress also has the ability to veto legislation, though this may not be any more powerful than parliament’s ability to vote no confidence in the government.  But there is certainly no doubt that the President of the United States is the most powerful figure in our current world, even if his relative power is less, and this fact alone may be enough to consider all judicious avenues for reflection and restraint. 

 But the most important argument in favor of ”President’s Questions” would be the immense fun we would have in seeing men and women of great intellect, and even greater egos, go after it week after week in the battle of ideas.  If you don’t beleive me, just watch  an edition of Prime Minister’s Questions is see how contakeruous, how fun, how witty, how enjoyable it can be. 

It just seems to be a somewhat more enlightened and civilized way of encouraging political discourse.  But then again, maybe I am just mesmerized by their classy British accents…        

             

The First Post on the “Self-Proclaimed Greatest Blog Ever!”

You may consider the title above just a bit boastful, especially for a site that hasn’t even pubished a single post yet, but I think that time will prove me correct in this judgement. Remember…just becuase I am hopelessly biased does not necessarily make the statement any less true!

So you may be wondering why the world needs yet another egotistical, sarcastic Gen-Y’er on the internet spouting out ideas and opinions no one really cares about. Well, we really don’t need it, but better judgement hasn’t stopped me in the past from involving myself in monumentally time-consuming hobbies and it certainly won’t stop me now. And true to the Generation Y mentality, this blog is as much about me simply listening to myself and recording the events in my life then it is for anyone else in particular. Regardless, I would love to have you along for the ride, the “Magical Mystery Tour” as I call it; at a minimum, it’s going to be a fun and interesting time to be had by all.

This blog will really have no central subject matter; the only unifying theme throughout this entire site will be, of course, me! It will be, more or less, a hodgepodge of musing and rantings about the myriad of things in life that interest me. That means, as a possible example, a post on the development of Baroque music from Vivaldi to Bach followed up by a mini-treatise on the current state of the Baltimore Orioles farm club system with that itself followed up by pictures from my latest vacation outing. My tastes are very eclectic, ranging from the basest to the highest of interests, and this site will most defintely reflect that fact.

I have a variety of modest goals in creating this blog. Among them is the desire to begin writing on a regular basis (a skill I have woefully neglected over the past few years), to fill up some of the excessive free time I enjoy, keep in touch with friends both old and new, and to become the richest man in the world. My hope is to post something of interest on a regular basis and that I use this blog as a foundation to further explore this world around us in all its aspects.

So jump in, buckle up, and enjoy the ride. If I’m diligent, I should be able to muster up the energy to post again sometime in 2007…