America's Gilded Capital

Mark Leibovich covers Washington, D.C., as chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine. In his new book, This Town, he writes about the city’s bipartisan lust for power, cash and notoriety. It’s the story of how Washington became an occupied city; its hold on reality distorted by greed and ambition. Leibovich pulls no punches, names names, and reveals the movers, the shakers and the lucrative deals they make — all in the name of crony capitalism.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-mark-leibovich-on-americas-gilded-capital/

The State of America's Middle Class

The following was taken from "The State of America's Middle Class in Eight Charts" by Jason Breslow and Evan Wexler, Frontline, PBS. Click here for charts and article.

Wages are down

Middle class incomes have shrunk 8.5 percent since 2000, after enjoying mostly steady growth during the previous decade. In 2011, the average income for the middle 60 percent of households stood at $53,042, down from $58,009 at the start of the millennium.

Less income for the middle class

Partly as a result of lower pay, the middle class’s share of the nation’s total income has been falling. In 1980, the middle 60 percent of households accounted for 51.7 of the country’s income. By 2011, they were less than half. Meanwhile, the top fifth of households saw their slice of the national income grow 16 percent, to 51.1 percent from 44.1 percent.

Union positions are shrinking

One factor behind the decline in income has been a drop-off in the number of workers earning union salaries. In 2012, the median salary for a unionized worker stood at roughly $49,000. The median pay for their non-union counterparts was just shy of $39,000. Since 1983, however, the share of the population belonging to a labor union has gone from one-in-five workers to just over one-in-ten.

More workers stuck in part-time jobs

A second factor weighing down pay is the rise in the number of Americans stuck in part-time jobs. In 2012, more than 2.5 million Americans worked part-time jobs because they could not find a full-time position, the most since 1993.

Fewer jobs from U.S.-based multinationals

Part of the challenge for job seekers is that U.S. multinational corporations having been hiring less at home. These large, brand-name firms employ roughly a fifth of American workers, but from 1999 to 2008 they shed 2.1 million jobs in the U.S. while adding more than 2.2 million positions abroad.

Rising debt

Predictably, the economic pressures facing the middle class have left families deeper in debt. . In 1992, the median level of debt for the middle third of families stood at $32,200. By 2010, that figure had swelled to $84,000, an increase of 161 percent.

Families are saving less

The rise in debt has meant fewer families have the ability to put away money for things like retirement or a child’s tuition bills. In 2001, more than two-thirds of middle class families said they were able to save money in the preceding year. By 2010, that figure was below 55 percent.

Net worth has plunged

The impact on family net worth — the amount by which assets exceed liabilities — has been painful. In 2007, median net worth peaked at $120, 600. Then came the financial crisis, which pushed millions of Americans into joblessness and home foreclosure. By 2010, net worth had plummeted 36 percent, to $77,300.

The Corporate State Wins Again

The Corporate State Wins Again, Chris Hedges, CommonDreams

"When did our democracy die? When did it irrevocably transform itself into a lifeless farce and absurd political theater? When did the press, labor, universities and the Democratic Party—which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible—wither and atrophy? When did reform through electoral politics become a form of magical thinking? When did the dead hand of the corporate state become unassailable?

The body politic was mortally wounded during the long, slow strangulation of ideas and priorities during the Red Scare and the Cold War. Its bastard child, the war on terror, inherited the iconography and language of permanent war and fear. The battle against internal and external enemies became the excuse to funnel trillions in taxpayer funds and government resources to the war industry, curtail civil liberties and abandon social welfare. Skeptics, critics and dissenters were ridiculed and ignored. The FBI, Homeland Security and the CIA enforced ideological conformity. Debate over the expansion of empire became taboo. Secrecy, the anointing of specialized elites to run our affairs and the steady intrusion of the state into the private lives of citizens conditioned us to totalitarian practices. Sheldon Wolin points out in “Democracy Incorporated” that this configuration of corporate power, which he calls “inverted totalitarianism,” is not like “Mein Kampf” or “The Communist Manifesto,” the result of a premeditated plot. It grew, Wolin writes, from “a set of effects produced by actions or practices undertaken in ignorance of their lasting consequences.”

Corporate capitalism—because it was trumpeted throughout the Cold War as a bulwark against communism—expanded with fewer and fewer government regulations and legal impediments. Capitalism was seen as an unalloyed good. It was not required to be socially responsible. Any impediment to its growth, whether in the form of trust-busting, union activity or regulation, was condemned as a step toward socialism and capitulation. Every corporation is a despotic fiefdom, a mini-dictatorship. And by the end Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs had grafted their totalitarian structures onto the state."

***

"We live in a fragmented society. We are ignorant of what is being done to us. We are diverted by the absurd and political theater. We are afraid of terrorism, of losing our job and of carrying out acts of dissent. We are politically demobilized and paralyzed. We do not question the state religion of patriotic virtue, the war on terror or the military and security state. We are herded like sheep through airports by Homeland Security and, once we get through the metal detectors and body scanners, spontaneously applaud our men and women in uniform. As we become more insecure and afraid, we become more anxious. We are driven by fiercer and fiercer competition. We yearn for stability and protection. This is the genius of all systems of totalitarianism. The citizen’s highest hope finally becomes to be secure and left alone."

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Read Article

Values and the Spirit of America

Anand Giridharas[1] was interviewed by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show several weeks ago. Toward the end of the interview, he said this:

“When we talk about India; when we talk about China in this country; we talk about the economic threats. We’re all obsessed with economic threats. We’re all concerned about emerging markets. I think the real thing that Americans need to think about is that these countries pose a challenge of culture, a challenge of spirit. Just look at the segment you did on culture and discourse in America. We are all engaged in pulling each other down. We’re creating a culture of destruction and pulling each other down. And, India and China for all the work that lies ahead of them, are starting to create cultures of hope, cultures of creation where there’s a consensus on how do we create something extraordinary. And, we need to not be worried about the economic threat but that spirit in about two and a half billion people.”

I think he’s right. Furthermore, I think that the talk about civility will achieve nothing without visiting the underlying values.

A culture can be thought of in terms of its elements: behavior (norms), values, beliefs and philosophy. Values are often misunderstood, adjudged good or bad, or confused with behaviors or beliefs. But values are the key to creating or changing a culture.

The following are things that I have learned about values[2]:

• Values individually are neutral
• Values are priorities (I value this over that.)
• There are over 100 human values
• Values come in two flavors – means (I value this way of doing things.) and goals (This is what I want to accomplish.)
• Values are derived from beliefs and are the proximate causes of behaviors
• Values in humans develop through maturation of beliefs (1. The world is a mystery that I must fear; 2. The world is a project that I must control; 3. The world is a project that I must join; 4. The world is a mystery that I must care for.) Not everyone, or every nation, matures through all four stages before they die.
• Values sets can create positive or negative behaviors (Good or bad behavior judged by the belief system of the culture.)
• Values operate dialectically in pairs (means and goals) to produce a third value (goal)
• Chains of pairs of values operating dialectically results in the preferred thrust of the culture
• Values are created, reinforced or destroyed by a leader’s actions or non actions
• Any member can become a cultural leader
• It takes a long time for cultural change to occur
• You can temporarily affect change in values with resources and projects
• You can make long term shifts in values with education, incentives, communication, infrastructure and measurements

We know a lot about human values and culture. So, are we building the nation we want and need for the future?

Only 10 – 20 years ago I would have told you that I thought we were moving into a stage three society (the world is a project in which we must participate) with hints of a stage four society (the world is a mystery that we must care for). But now we are being motivated by fear and control (stage 1 and stage 2 societies). It’s tempting, and too easy, to blame this on terrorism. I think the regression is internal and much more dangerous. Terrorism is being used as a tool.

In reality, what we know about culture and values is being used to build a new nation. Except it’s not operating in the open. It’s hidden. And, it’s utilizing the fear of some people of personal and organizational growth towards maturity. And, the ultimate goal is transfer of power and wealth.

Giridharas also talked about culture and spirit. What is meant by spirit?

According to Wikipedia, “Spirit has many different meanings and connotation, but commonly refers to the non-corporal essence of a being or entity.”

There were two things that I learned from interviews with the coaches of the super bowl teams a few weeks ago that shed some light on the subject of culture and spirit:

• Football is a game played by emotional men. The coach’s roll is to channel that emotional energy.
• A team develops spirit when the players stop playing for themselves and start playing for each other.

I think you could substitute life for football and people for men, and you’d still have some true statements.

As it turns out in the evolution of individuals and their organizations, commonly held values shift from a focus on self (selfishness or narcissism common in our culture now) to a focus on the other (all that is outside of ourselves).

Michael Novak’s Spirit of Democratic Capitalism provides some insight as well: “What do I mean by ‘democratic capitalism’? I mean three systems in one: a predominately market economy; a polity respectful of the rights the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by the ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, and economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is pluralistic and, in the largest sense, liberal.”

One profound truth that emerges from Novak’s work is how delicate the balance is between democratic polity, capitalistic economy and a pluralistic society. And, any attempt to change this balance ought to be viewed with alarm.

---

[1] Giridharas is the author of India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking. He writes the “Currents” column for The New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune: it explores fresh ideas, global culture and the social meaning of technology, among other subjects. In 2009, he completed a four-and-a-half-year tour reporting from India for The Times and the Herald Tribune, as their first Bombay presence in the modern era. He reported on India’s transformation, Bollywood, corporate takeovers, terrorism, outsourcing, poverty and democracy. He was appointed a columnist in 2008, writing the “Letter from India” series. In his article in the New York Times on 1/28/11, reflected on President Obama’s State of the Union address, “Obama Tries to Recapture a Lost Dream.

[2] Values are something we choose freely after considering the alternatives that we prize publicly, and that we act on immediately and repeatedly. The Genesis Effect, Brian Hall

After Shock: The Next Economy and America’s Future

Robert Reich latest book should act as a wake-up call to all Americans. I believe that the majority of Americans are unaware of the tremendous transfer of wealth and power that has occurred over the last 20 years. Embedded in the environment, accepting the business-market paradigm, and subjected to gradual change, they like the frog in the pot of water slowly brought to a boil, are in danger of perishing.

The chart below shows what has happened in this transfer of wealth. Another way to indicate this, using Motion Chart, can be found in my blog.

“As Mark Twain once observed, history does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. Had America not experienced the Great Depression, policymakers eighty years later would not have learned how to use fiscal and monetary policies to contain the immediate economic threat posed by the Great Recession. But we did not learn the larger lesson of the 1930S: that when the distribution of income gets too far out of whack, the economy needs to be reorganized so the broad middle class has enough buying power to rejuvenate the economy over the longer term. Until we take this lesson to heart, we will be living with the Great Recession's after-shock of high unemployment and low wages, and an increasingly angry middle class.

The wages of the typical American hardly increased in the three decades leading up to the Crash of 2008, considering inflation. In the 2000S, they actually dropped. According to the Census Bureau, in 2007 a male worker earning the median male wage (that is, smack in the middle, with as many men earning more than he did as earning less) took home just over $45,000. Considering inflation, this was less than the typical male worker earned thirty years before. Middle-class family incomes were only slightly higher.

But the American economy was much larger in 2007 than it was thirty years before. If those gains had been divided equally among Americans, the typical person would be more than 60 percent better off than he actually was by 2007. Where did the gains go? As in the years preceding the Great Depression, a growing share went to the top. It was just like Eccles's "giant suction pump," drawing "into a few hands an increasing portion" of the nation's total earnings.
Economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have examined tax records extending back to 1913. They discovered an interesting pattern. The share of total income going to the richest 1 percent of Americans peaked in both 1928 and in 2007, at over 23 percent. The same pattern held for the richest one-tenth of 1 percent (representing about 150,000 households in 2007): Their share of total income also peaked in 1928 and 2007, at over 11 percent. And the same pattern applies for the richest 10 percent, who in each of these peak years received almost half the total.

Between the two peaks is a long, deep valley. After 1928, the share of national income going to the top 1 percent steadily declined, from more than 23 percent to 16-17 percent in the 1930S, then to 11-15 percent in the 1940S, and to 9-11 percent in the 1950S and 1960s, finally reaching the valley floor of 8-9 percent in the 1970S. After this, the share going to the richest 1 percent began to climb again: 10-14 percent of national income in the 1980s, 15-19 percent in the late 1990S, and over 21 percent in 2005, reaching its next peak of more than 23 percent in 2007. (At this writing, there are no data after 2007.) If you look at the shares going to the top 10 percent, or even the top one-tenth of 1 percent, you'll see the same long valley in between the two peaks.”

Henry Ford’s greatest innovation was that he paid his workers enough money, and reduced the price of the cars, so that they could buy the cars they were making. (See Innovation History of Auto Industry: 1820 to 1970 for more information.)

“On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford announced that he was paying workers on his famously productive Model T assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan, $5 per eight-hour day. That was almost three times what the typical factory employee earned at the time. In light of this audacious move, some lauded Ford as a friend of the American worker; others called him a madman or a socialist, or both. The Wall Street Journal termed his action "an economic crime." Ford thought it a cunning business move, and history proved him right. The higher wage turned Ford's autoworkers into customers who eventually could afford to plunk down $575 for a Model T. Their purchases in effect returned some of those $5 paychecks to Ford, and helped finance even higher productivity in the future. Ford was neither a madman nor a socialist, but a smart capitalist whose profits more than doubled from $25 million in 1914 to $57 million two years later.

Ford understood the basic economic bargain that lay at the heart of a modern, highly productive economy. Workers are also consumers. Their earnings are continuously recycled to buy the goods and services other workers produce. But if earnings are inadequate and this basic bargain is broken, an economy produces more goods and services than its people are capable of purchasing.”

This can lead to a vicious cycle instead of the virtuous cycle desired.

It’s interesting to note how Americans compensated for their lost purchasing power. Reich identifies three coping mechanisms:

1. Women moved into paid work
2. Everyone worked longer hours
3. We drew down our savings and borrowed to the hilt

We’ve now done all that and we now have no way to sustain our standard of living.

“It should be apparent that there will be no return to "normal;' because the old normal got us into our present predicament and can't possibly get us out. So what comes next?

In order to fix what needs fixing, we need to be clear about what broke. The underlying problem is not that financial institutions were reckless, although they were. The ultimate solution, therefore, isn't just to make them more prudent. Nor is the central problem that consumers borrowed too much, although they did. The solution, therefore, isn't merely to get Americans to save more and consume less.

To summarize: The fundamental problem is that Americans no longer have the purchasing power to buy what the U.S. economy is capable of producing. The reason is that a larger and larger portion of total income has been going to the top. What's broken is the basic bargain linking pay to production. The solution is to remake the bargain.”

Not only is money being concentrated at the top, there is significant information to indicate that the “game is rigged”. Money buys political and judicial power so that those institutions fight any change to alter the game. They are playing the child’s game, “Tick tock, the game is locked and no one else can play.”

“As lobbying has become more lucrative, an ever larger portion of former federal officials has turned to it. In the 1970S, only about 3 percent of retiring members of Congress went on to become Washington lobbyists. But by 2009 more than 30 percent did, largely because the financial incentives from lobbying had become so large. Starting salaries for well-connected congressional or White House staffers had ballooned to about $500,000. Former chairs of congressional committees and subcommittees commanded $2 million or more to influence legislation in their former committees. According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1998 and 2004 (years picked because they straddled Democratic and Republican administrations) more than twenty-two hundred former federal officials registered as lobbyists, as did more than two hundred former members of Congress.”

And later, he writes,” The point is that a staggering amount of money from big corporations, executives, and other wealthy individuals lies like a thick fog over the nation's capital, enveloping everyone and everything. Not only has it enriched Washington lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations professionals, and seduced thousands of ex-congressmen, but it has also transformed Washington into a glittering city of high-end restaurants and exquisite hotels. It has boosted the price of Washington real estate. Even home prices in its surrounding counties proved remarkably resilient during the Great Recession. Seven of Washington's suburban counties are listed by the Census Bureau as among the nation's twenty with highest per capita incomes.”
One of Reich’s biggest concerns is the rise of a demagogue. He devotes a chapter, The 2020 Election, to a potential scenario of Independence Party gaining power, and it’s frighteningly realistic.

As if to accentuate this point to me I received an e-mail from Clarus Research on 12/22/10 with part of title reading Nation in Decline:

In a year-end nationwide poll conducted by the nonpartisan Clarus Research Group assessing the mood of the country and the next presidential election, a whopping 85 percent of voters say they agree with the statement, "In many ways America is in decline and we need strong, competent leadership to get us back on track." "The public mood is bigger than the sum of its parts," said Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group. "Regardless of how voters feel about specific issues or personalities, there is a widely shared sense across partisan labels that the nation is in decline and needs strong, competent leadership to get it back on track. This deep public concern has serious implications on how elected officials handle major issues and how the 2012 candidates position themselves."

Nearly half of all voters--48 percent--also say "it would be good for the country to elect a nonpartisan President who is neither a Democrat nor a Republican."

"You'd expect independent voters to want an independent President. But more than two out of every five Democrats and Republicans also say electing a nonpartisan President is a good idea," said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group. "There is clearly potential for an independent candidate to do quite well in 2012."

“To be sure, prolonged economic stress could open the door to demagogues who prey on public anxieties in order to gain power. A classic sociological study of thirty-five dictatorships found that when people feel economically threatened and unhinged from their normal habits, they look to authority figures who promise simple remedies proffering scapegoats.”

He describes and defends several suggestions to change the situation:

• A reverse income tax
• Higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy
• A reemployment sytem rather than an unemployment system
• School vouchers based on family income
• College loans linked to subsequent earnings
• Medicare for all
• Increase in public goods
• Money out of politics

Reich writes, “We have been at this juncture before. Our history swings much like a pendulum between periods during which the benefits of economic change are concentrated in fewer hands, and periods during which the middle class shares broadly in the nation's prosperity and grows to include many of the poor-between periods during which we see ourselves as "in it together;' and periods during which we view ourselves as being pretty much on our own. Roughly speaking, the first stage of modern American capitalism (1870-1929) was one of increasing concentration of income and wealth; the second stage (1947-1975), of more broadly shared prosperity; the third stage (1980-2010), of increasing concentration. It is vital for our future that we commence a fourth stage, in which broad-based prosperity is again the norm.

Our history is not quite a pendulum because we never return exactly to where we were before. It is more like a spiral, in which we arrive at roughly the same points but at different altitudes and with somewhat different perspectives. Yet each turn of the spiral gives rise to similar questions about the nature and purpose of an economy. How much inequality can be tolerated? When bets go sour and the economy nosedives, who gets bailed out and who are left to fend for themselves? At what point does an economy imperil itself politically, as large numbers conclude that the game is rigged against them? Most fundamentally, what and whom is an economy for?”

At the beginning of the book is a quote from Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History

“Epochs of private interest breed contradictions ... characterized by undercurrents of dissatisfaction, criticism, ferment, protest. Segments of the population fall behind in the acquisitive race .... Problems neglected become acute, threaten to become unmanageable and demand remedy .... A detonating issue-some problem growing in magnitude and menace and beyond the market's invisible hand to solve-at last leads to a breakthrough into a new political epoch. “

A positive outcome or path is not guaranteed. Our role is to assure that we emerge with an even stronger democracy with more access to and participation in the political, economic and judicial systems.

After Shock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, Robert Reich, Knopf, 2010, 174 pp

How Is America Going to End?

In August 2009 Slate Magazine conducted a weeklong thought experiment on the United States' demise. Josh Levin was listed as the author. The study was composed of several articles during the week, a survey of readers, and some analysis of the survey data. The survey consisted of 144 scenarios of how America could end drawn from research done by Levin. Participants were asked to read brief descriptions of the 144 scenarios and to select the five scenarios they believe will contribute to the country's dissolution, then find out instantly what kind of death scene they’ve envisioned—a bloodbath or a nonviolent end, an end wrought by man or by nature—and compare their choices with those of other Slate readers.

The articles covered the topics of:

• Climate Change - We could be crushed by a climate strongman. Levin writes, “In a Weekly Standard piece on ‘The Icarus Syndrome,’ Jim Manzi notes the parallels between Britain's 1860s ‘Coal Panic’ and the modern disaster scenarios of peak oil and climate doom.” He continues, “Manzi argues that, given the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate of a 3-degree increase in global temperature by 2100, ‘the United States is expected to experience no net material economic costs [from anthropogenic global warming] … through the end of this century.’ At the other extreme is the specter of swift weather cataclysm. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, who wrote a brief on ‘abrupt climate change’ for the Department of Defense, argue that climate chaos will be nonlinear—that ‘clear signs of environmental catastrophe will be evident in a few decades, not centuries’."

• Preservation of Civilization - The Catholic Church helped preserve Roman civilization. Can Mormonism do the same for America? Levin comments, “When America disappears 100 or 500 or 1,000 years from now, it will be gone but not forgotten. As the world's leading military, economic, and cultural power since World War II, the United States will linger in the global gene pool and influence whatever comes next. But how exactly will Americanness get transmitted to the civilizations that replace us?

The physical structures we've built won't be our legacy. Our houses, schools, and stadiums will eventually crumble; in The World Without Us, Alan Weisman even imagines the Statue of Liberty getting knocked into the ocean by a glacier, leaving the real world in a similar state as Planet of the Apes. The ideas, art forms, and inventions that we've transmitted around the world will outlast our monuments' inevitable decay, and not just because our national backlog of McRib sandwiches may never biodegrade. While the current financial crisis has cast doubt on free-market capitalism, I'd wager that American-style economics will outlast this country's run as a political entity. The global rise of basketball, a game surpassed in worldwide popularity only by soccer, ensures that at least one artifact of American leisure will persist. America's native musical forms—jazz, rock 'n' roll, and hip-hop music—also seem like good possibilities to serve as cultural carriers.

But for America's intangible qualities to get preserved—our shared history, our ideals, our passions—someone needs to do the preserving.”

• Totalitarianism - Five steps to totalitarian rule. “As Hitler and Mussolini prepared to storm Europe, fascism began to generate interest in the United States. In Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here, an American president uses an economic crisis as a pretense to take over the media, imprison dissenters, and build his own private army (the Minute Men) into an indomitable force,” writes Levin. He enumerates five phases to totalitarianism:

o Phase 1: Create a perpetual enemy.
o Phase 2: Be savvier than George W. Bush.
o Phase 3: Come to power as America slips in stature.
o Phase 4: Beef up the military and the secret police.

• States Rights - Who’s most likely to secede? Levin comments, “In the American end times, our government will take one of two forms. One possibility is that federalism will give way to an all-powerful central government. (In yesterday's global-warming thought experiment, this was the climate strongman scenario.) The other option is decentralization—in the absence of a unifying national interest, the United States of America will fragment and be supplanted by regional governance.”

• Futurists’ Views - The world’s leading futurologists have four theories. “The Global Business Network answers the same question for all its corporate and government clients: What happens next? GBN handles a lot of different whats, and even the occasional what-in-the-hell. In 2003, the group's chairman, Peter Schwartz, and his colleague Doug Randall whipped up a not-so-rosy, 22-page report on "abrupt climate change" for the Department of Defense ("The United States and Australia are likely to build defensive fortresses around their countries"). Last year, the municipality of Amsterdam asked the firm to help figure out how it might deal with immigration. GBN has also loaned out its brainpower to Hollywood, advising Minority Report director Steven Spielberg on whether Congress and the Constitution would still exist in 2054. (The answer: yes, with a few buts.),” writes Levin. Using GBN’s typical methodology, they describe four different scenarios for the end of America (quoting from the article):

o Collapse: In this scenario, the country has devolved after a series of catastrophes: unchecked climate change, a pandemic, nuclear war—the stuff that Jared Diamond books and disaster movies are made of. A catastrophe that breeds internal division, Schwartz argues, is more likely to eradicate America than any kind of external threat. A country is like a family, he theorizes. If you feel threatened from the outside, you band together—rather than tear the United States apart, 9/11 galvanized us against a common enemy. The laggard response to Hurricane Katrina, on the other hand, meant that our own government became the common enemy. A long, uninterrupted series of nationwide Katrinas—and a concomitant series of bungled federal responses—is the recipe for collapse.

o Friendly breakup: In future No. 2, the country dissolves peacefully because the overhead of running a large nation becomes unmanageable. Schwartz likens this to the breakup of the Soviet Union, a case where the cost of holding the country together proved too great and the advantages too small.

o Global governance: In our third future, the national government declines in importance relative to the world community. Barack Obama's recent brief in defense of American exceptionalism is just one indicator among many that the United States is nowhere near willing to cede its position as the greatest of the world's great powers. But Slate contributor Robert Wright argues in his book Nonzero that humankind must come together to head off the challenges of the "non-zero-sum," globalized world: climate change, biological weapons, pandemics. While Wright tells me that "you wouldn't need something so centralized" as a souped-up United Nations, he believes that if in the next 100 years "America's identity has not dissolved into some sort of larger body of global governance, then chaos will reign."

o Global conquest: The final scenario and the grimmest of all: a figure described variously as a "global Napoleon," "a much more empowered Hitler," and "a super-Mao" conquers America and the rest of the world via brute force. This idea, which Schwartz classifies as the least likely of the four, leads us to debate whether it's harder to subjugate the world than it used to be—Schwartz believes it is, as there are "more people with military competence spread across the world." That's followed by a discussion of the best method to exercise dominion over the globe. "I think the way you conquer the world these days is from space," he says. "You can put weapons up there and shut down the world."

As a study of the future the survey was flawed, but nevertheless produced some interesting results. In setting up the survey, Levin writes, “If and when America expires, we probably won't agree on the cause of death. For proof that autopsies of empires are inconclusive, consider the case of Alexander Demandt, the German historian who set out in the 1980s to collect every theory ever given for why Rome fell. The final tally: 210, including attacks by nomads on horseback, blood poisoning, decline of Nordic character, homosexuality, outflow of gold, and vaingloriousness.

In tribute to Demandt, I've gone looking for every possible reason why America could fall. I've paged through the work of scholars who have studied the characteristics of declining and failed societies. I also collected theories from futurists, doomsayers, separatists, economists, political scientists, national security experts, climatologists, geologists, astronomers, and a few miscellaneous crazy people. The result: a collection of 144 potential causes of America's future death.”

The survey itself took advantage of web site capabilities. The 144 scenarios were each assigned an icon and the icons were arranged in a dense 12 by 12 matrix. (I’m not sure why, but the popular song of the 1970s by Paul Simon popped into my head as I read these scenarios – There Are 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.)Mousing over the icon produced the name of the scenario and its brief description. When you found one of your top five, you could either drag the icon to a vote box, or click on a link to cast your vote.

Over 60,000 people participated, many from outside the US. Even though this is a large number of people, the results may not be statistically significant. The problem with an opt in survey of this type is that is is difficult to know whether the respondents are representative or not. It certainly isn’t representative of the US as over 15% of the responses came from Russia alone among other countries. And, we don’t know if this type of survey attracts people who are interested in apocalyptic scenarios. Moreover, it certainly eliminates people who would never take surveys over the Internet and those incapable of comprehending 144 different scenarios and comparing and contrasting them in their minds. I don’t remember reading anywhere that the order of the icons in the matrix were randomly scrambled for each participant to reduce any bias due to order. Also, the scenarios were not distinctly different. There were many overlaps, and sometimes the description of the scenario could bias the response.

The real puzzle for me was trying to interpret the results. On its face, it can’t be interpreted as a futures study. The question presupposed an apocalyptic end. (It’s like the proverbial “When did you stop beating your wife?”) My key to understanding the results was the realization that what the survey elicited was a reflection of the respondents fears, if the respondent was American, and perhaps hopes if an enemy of America.

In attempting to understand potential futures of a system, there are at least four questions that must be answered:

1. What are the present strengths and weaknesses of the system’s capabilities?
2. What are the opportunities and threats faced by the system over the time frame?
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the system’s capacity to change over the time frame?
4. What are the hopes and fears of stakeholders of the system?

This survey addressed partially half of the fourth question. However, if we assume that the results of the survey are not biased too badly by respondents who are stakeholders but outside of the US, that we can interpret the results as a mirror of our fears.

The top five scenarios were:

1. Loose Nukes: Taliban fighters wrest nuclear weapons from a destabilized Pakistan. Or al-Qaida acquires a small arsenal of nukes from a disintegrating Russia. The nonstate actors launch against the United States in an attack exponentially worse than 9/11.

2. Peak Oil: Petroleum production reaches terminal decline. Oil becomes too expensive to extract, and alternative energies can't maintain our fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle. The developed world goes kaput, with gas-happy America leading the way to the gutter.

3. Antibiotic Resistance: As a result of factory farming and spiking sales of antibacterial hand soap, superstrains of bacteria develop that are resistant to medicine. Public health officials can do nothing but throw up their hands.

4. China Unloads U.S. Treasurys: Unwilling to finance any more of America's debt, China dumps its investment in American Treasury securities and buys up gold. With America a lousy investment, there aren't any other buyers out there. The country goes bankrupt.

5. Israel-Arab War: All-out mayhem in the Middle East as Egypt, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more go to war. The United States moves to protect Israel and gets sucked into a generation-long conflict that saps the national will and treasury.

The most interesting analysis the author did was to create a network map of the 82 scenarios that were chosen together with at least one other scenario. The network map is shown below:

Distrust of Corporate America at an All Time High

Heide B. Malhotra, Epoch Times

Public demands transparency and coming clean

People protest against corporate bailouts in front of AIG office during the nationwide 'Take Back the Economy' protest in Los Angeles on March 19, 2009.

Now, more than ever, the general public has developed a mistrust of lobbyists from private corporations trying to influence governments worldwide and attempting to swing the perception of certain laws and regulations.

At the same time, distrust of governments is also at an all-time high, according to a new survey. Many people have become increasingly dismayed and disgruntled by what they perceive as loopholes in laws combating bribery and corruption, according to the “2009 Global Corruption Barometer” survey conducted by Transparency International (TI), a Berlin-based advocacy group.

The survey was conducted in about 70 countries and gathered the thoughts of more than 73,000 people worldwide.

“These results show a public sobered by a financial crisis precipitated by weak regulations and a lack of corporate accountability,” Huguette Labelle, TI chairwoman, said in a June press release. She continues, “But we also see that the public is willing to actively support clean business.”

“What is needed now is bold action by companies to continue strengthening their policies and practices, and to report more transparently on finances and interactions with government.”

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Chamging How We Change America

Lee Scott, President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

"Unfortunately … it often takes a crisis or a period of great difficulty to face challenges and … most importantly … to change. I learned this at Wal-Mart – during the good times and, most recently, during the tough times, as well. I believe this moment is an opportunity for America to put aside special interests and focus on the common good. And I believe that those of us in leadership positions have a responsibility to recognize this.

Above all … we need to change how we bring about change in America. What do I mean by that? Over the last few years, a problem-solving vacuum has existed in Washington. There has been too much partisanship … too much gamesmanship … too much selfishness. And the American people are tired of it. They are tired of Republican versus Democrat and liberal versus conservative. They are tired of business versus labor and NGOs versus business. They are tired of one side insisting on everything they want versus reasonable compromise to move the country forward. The America people want their leaders to set aside their differences, find common ground and work together. And they know that government cannot do it alone. No institution can.

The opportunity for a new problem-solving approach will soon be at a crossroads. The new Congress and President bring high expectations for reform and change. The temptation will be for everyone to choose sides, go into their corners and, when the bell rings, fight it out. But as the American people know -- and all of us in business know -- you do not get things done that way. You usually end up right where you started … with hard feelings on both sides … and little or no results."

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This is an amazing speech. Maybe there's hope... Link is to text and video.

Rebooting America

This is an outstanding book for anyone wanting to learn about technology is and can affect the future of our democracy. It’s composed 45 essays, each only 3 to 7 pages long. Therefore it’s an easy read. The essays have been edited down to the core ideas so they are very comprehensible. And, as each essay stands alone, it’s an easy book to carry with you and catch an essay whenever you can. In addition, each of the authors provides a gateway into even more worlds of knowledge on their subject because they are all involved in Internet based applications of democracy. I highly recommend this book.

However, that said, the 45 essays are all about different subjects, so they are impossible to summarize without essentially rewriting the book. A worthwhile task as this book, plus Extreme Democracy and many others would lead to an outstanding book. However, for now, you’re just going to have to read this one at least.

Ester Dyson’s foreword to the book begins with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

She opens her essay with, “We have pressing public policy problems, adults who should be leaders yet instead lead willfully sheltered lives of comfort and ignorance, a citizenry increasingly active in elections yet alienated from governance, an amazing array of new digital tools and platforms that have the potential to inform and empower us and let us self-organize in astonishing and effective ways. The stage is ready and the sunlight of the Internet is shining on us: It can provide light and energy for a fertile, thousand-flowers-blooming garden, or it can ignite the whole thing into flames and burn it out.

This anthology of essays is intended to shine light, to spark conversations among citizens, and between voters and elected officials, about how we can engage more people in public problem solving and community building. Just as the Net created new business models, so can it foster new governance models.”

I hope that you will read this book and start some conversations in our group “Reinventing Democracy”.

Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age
Fine, Sifray, Rasiej and Levy, Personal Democracy Press, 2008, 248p

My Vision for America

The Obama-Biden transition team is seeking citizen input on what they want for America. You can enter yours at http://www.change.gov/. This is my view.

My vision for America is stated in the present tense, but describes a condition I think we should aspire to:

America is a country where we have three strong and independent systems that provide stability and energy for growth –a political system, an economic system and a cultural system. The political system is a democratic republic with a high amount of citizen engagement and involvement. The economic system is built on a new monetary system that is not fueled by debt but on true value added to society as a whole. We have abandoned economic value added to stockholders as the only measure of an enterprise’s worth. The cultural system is pluralistic, and religions, as part of the cultural system, do not seek to impose their will, rather they seek through conversations with each other and the other elements of the cultural system to find common cause and values. These three systems are supported by technology.

Leaders in each of these three systems ennoble, enable, empower and encourage citizens to collaborate within the system, and across the systems. They seek not to dominate or to compromise but to create new.

Citizens are constantly aware of the past, present and future in all decisions they make, and leaders are aware of their role as caretakers of the past, present and future.

We continually seek to expand our concept of the systems within which we solve problems, and avoid solving problems within subsystems.

We embrace change and foster innovation.

We share an ennobling vision for America.