Model economics

The last in this little series of THES drawings, from March 25th 1994, illustrating a pair of articles on economics and relevance, responsibility, and conscience, by David Walker and Edward Fullbrook.

You can’t lick this

The Times Higher, August 4th 1995, for a review by Lyndall Gordon of The Oxford Book of Letters, edited by Frank Kermode and Anita Kermode.

Creepy scrawly

The Times Higher, February 23rd 1996, for a review by Philip Thody of Arachne: Interdisciplinary Journal of Language and Literature, edited by David Darby.

Capturing consciousness

This Times Higher drawing, issue dated May 27th 1994, was for a review of The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, by Francis Crick. The article was by C. U. M. Smith.

and it’s time, time, time that you love

A THES drawing from the issue dated November 25th 1994, illustrating articles on the writing of history, one by Arthur Marwick, with a response by Hayden White.

An illustration thing

Once more from the dusty archives of the Times Higher Education Supplement, published on April 7th 1995, this adorned a review by Allan M. Winkler of a book by James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.

As nature intended

A drawing from the THES,  May 19 1995, for a feature on Neo-Darwinism.

Clucks or eggs?

A drawing of mine from the Times Higher Education Supplement, March 15 1996, illustrating a review of two books, The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America, edited by Steven Fraser, and The Bell Curve Debate: History, Documents, Opinions, edited by Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman. The article was by Robert Audley and Richard Rawles, and you can see the whole page here.

An earlier drawing on this theme, also for the THES, can be found here.

My nationalism’s bigger than your nationalism

Drawing for the Times Higher Education Supplement, issue of September 24, 1993.

Post title swiped from Waterloo Sunset’s comments at Bob’s place.

Naughty, naughty

Setting off an atomic bomb, that’s a bad thing to do. Which is why Irish lawmakers last year proposed a fine of 5,000 euros for any miscreant so doing. There are worse things, however. Five times worse. Such as being rude about religion. Step out of line on that one, and you’re now liable to pay 25,000 euros! What are you complaining about? The original proposal was a fine of 100,000 euros for blasphemy. Just be thankful they can’t bring in stoning.

From the Irish Times:

SEANAD REPORT: DAVID NORRIS (Ind) said he was astonished that the Minister for Justice told the Dáil that legislation to criminalise blasphemy had been drawn up to make it virtually impossible to get a successful prosecution out of it. That was a very peculiar way to be drafting law.

“It is a complete farce, a nonsense and an insult to the intelligence of the Irish people.”

Mr Norris said he could not give a definition of blasphemy, but he could provide a description of it. “It’s one that we all heard and that was printed in The Irish Times . . . when that remarkable man, Mr O’Brien, a former Fianna Fáil mayor of Clonmel, said: ‘They raped me, they buggered me, they beat the sh**e out of me and the next day put the host in my mouth.’ That shows the most extraordinary disregard for God and man. That’s blasphemy! The laws were there, but they did nothing to save that unfortunate child. Let’s not have a pretence, let’s not have a farce; let’s have real and properly drafted legislation and forget all this nonsense about blasphemy.”

(Yes, I’ve posted the above image before.)

Not Iran

It’s hard to keep your eyes pointing in all directions at once . . .

Iraq, and Thoughts on Intervention, by Roland Dodds. Added: Ibn Muqawama on Joe Biden, Iraq envoy.

At the SWJ, Pentagon planners should study Somalia, not just Hezbollah.

Sietske in Beirut writes on conversations she has. Not many dead, according to the papers.

Via Mick Hartley, Riots in China. Mick has also paid particular attention to the Uighurs being released from Guantanamo, fleshing out their tale with information on ongoing repression of Uighurs by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. Since his last round up on the story, The New York Times has published a report on the Uighurs settled in Bermuda.  

Georgia’s Hard Slog to Democracy by Michael Cecire, at Michael Totten’s blog. Related at the NY times, Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying.

Also from Michael Totten, A Conversation with Robert D Kaplan. This does include discussion of Iran, along with China’s involvement in Sri Lanka, Russia and its neighbours, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However I’d like to highlight an exchange at the end regarding Israel’s failure in counterinsurgency, material relevant to the essay topic set in an earlier post here.

Kaplan: You know what’s interesting? The Israelis. They’ve been great at defeating structured Arab armies, but they haven’t figured out how to deal with a few thousand insurgents in South Lebanon or in Gaza. What did their wars in 2006 and 2009 in Lebanon and Gaza get them? MJT: It got them fewer rockets for a while, but it’s temporary. Kaplan: Yeah. MJT: I don’t know what they should do. They can’t put a David Petraeus in Gaza or Lebanon. It won’t work. Kaplan: No. MJT: And they can’t fight a counterinsurgency from the air because that’s just absurd. Kaplan: Yeah. They haven’t been able to solve this problem at all. MJT: I’m glad it isn’t up to me what Israel should do. There aren’t any good options. Maybe they should hold Syria accountable. Syria is at least a state with a return address and national interests. I don’t think the Syrian government is particularly ideological. It isn’t like the Iranian government. Syria isn’t an ideology, it’s a state. Kaplan: It wants to survive. MJT: Maybe the Israelis should lean on Assad. They can’t lean on Hamas or Hezbollah. They can’t lean on Beirut because Beirut is too weak to do much. Kaplan: Yeah. I mean, the idea of bombing highway overpasses near Beirut to punish Lebanon for Hezbollah is ridiculous.

Kaplan and Totten point to Israel’s failure to develop of a true counterinsurgency campaign, but positive suggestions are still lacking. Tackling the Syrian regime may be relevant, but does not address the absence of a population-centric strategy. Any takers? 

Update: Vigilant as I try to be, one direction I didn’t think to look was down.

Delicious and galoshes

Take the hear

out of your air

so you can hair

what I’m seeing.

A Times Higher Education Supplement illustration from late in the last century. If you’re feeling flush, Denis Kitchen has some drawings of mine from that time for sale on his site. A tip: the black and white ones may be the better deal, as a lot of my colour work from the THES days was rendered with Talens dyes which are prone to fade if exposed to sunlight for too long. My current work is all acrylic and more light-fast.

And now, some links . . .

Abu Muquwama on the fighting in Swat: Control and Collaboration.

(Related, from BBC News: Cynicism among Pakistani refugees.)

Information Dissemination on a USN strategy for dealing with piracy: run away.

ModernityBlog on certain weird-left attitudes to Ahmadinejad: he’s a racist, but-

David T of Harry’s Place on Geert Wilders: Enemy of Liberalism.

Azarmehr has too many interesting posts from the past few weeks for me to link to just one.

None of your elephant percussion ensembles from Thailand here: Jams turns up the volume for his seven songs.

Update - a few more . . .

William Wray has a post all about reds.

More music from Mick Hartley: The Tan Canary.

Some numbers from Strangers into Citizens: the costs (12.7m euros) and gains (190m euros) of the 2005 Spanish regularisation process for immigrants.

A little conversation between some old boys of Hollywood:

- We always used to wear jackets and ties in the industry, but now you look like you’re shot out of a cannon, that’s the look you want. You should have holes in your knees there and everything.

- I got holes in my knees, but they’re covered!

Religion, culture, community, and atheism

The New Centrist gets some practice with babies and bathwater in Report Back: Hope Not Fear. Dave Kasten seems to be exploring similar ground with The Ten Commandments and Backwards-Compatible Atheism.

Drawing for the Times Higher Education Supplement, sometime in the last century.

Ha, ha!

Ya gotta laugh!

Hard times

The good news is you all get an umbrella . . .

Drawing from the Times Higher Education Supplement, March 1996.

Heart of Darkness, the Core and the Gap - 5

Previous posts in the series: one, two, three and four.

As explained in earlier posts, this series is based on reading some online material by Thomas PM Barnett, his recent blog posts, some articles, and book descriptions. I haven’t read the books, and would be interested in reactions from anyone who has. Links to some of what I’ve read are to be found in the earlier posts, and more links are in the final postscript below.

This is the last in the series.

Setting aside democracy

There are points in Thomas PM Barnett’s writing where the main impression is one of arrogance. The basic premise of it being imperative for Core states to expand globalisation throughout Gap states, by force if necessary, seems at odds with principles of self-determination, of national sovereignity, at odds with proud histories of independence struggles throughout the post-colonial world. That TPM Barnett suggests a continuity between 19th and 20th Century imperialism and 21st Century globalisation doesn’t help, nor does his focus on nation states rather than populations and individuals. With a rationale of focusing on strategy and leaving tactics to others he gives the impression of an impersonal, uncaring, unprincipled, amoral and inhumane view of the world.

Yet the aim of his grand project is humane and moral - an end to war through the expansion of economic interdependence, and along the way a fight against poverty, against disease, and against the murderous fanaticism that thrives in the Gap.

Much of what I’ve read of his writing - granted a small portion of the total - seems derived from two cases: The threat that emerged from an isolated, underdeveloped, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and China’s success to date in integrating a undemocratic state into the global economy. The result is a theory which sees global development as the United States’ primary strategy against external threats, and regards the promotion of democracy and universal human rights as of lesser importance, even as a potential threat to the primary strategy.

To play the naming game, one might characterise TPM Barnett as a neo-realist, someone who regards certain principles as appropriate to be set aside in pursuit of victory. There are a number of differences between this neo-realist and the old-school realists of the Cold War. TPM Barnett has a different enemy in view, he does not view containment as strategically viable, (though I presume it remains a tactical option,) and he doesn’t define success as victory for the American nation, but as victory for the American economic system.

I think the downgrading of democracy and universal human rights in all this is an error, and a strategic error as well as a moral one.

An undemocratic leadership can’t claim a legal mandate for its actions, as whatever law it follows is not accountable to the population. So however much the population may participate in economic development, the legal status of much of that development will be in doubt. Sustainable economic globalisation depends on having a stable legal basis on which to operate.

An undemocratic leadership is able to plunder national wealth with impunity, in which case economic benefit will no longer serve to maintain the support of the population, and as repression can only achieve so much then some other unifying idea is needed, popular choices being nationalism, racism, religion, class warfare, and so-called anti-imperialism. None of these is amenable to deeper global economic integration. (TPM Barnett seems to see economic benefits in religion, but I am unconvinced. If some religions appear to have greater economic benefit than others, this suggests to me that perhaps it isn’t the religious aspect of the religions that are beneficial, but cultural aspects of those particular religions.)

As TPM Barnett places contemporary economic globalisation (Globalisation III in his terminology) in a narrative that begins with 19th and 20th Century colonial imperialism (Globalisation I) and continues with the Cold War period (Globalisation II), I think it’s worth considering the issue of democracy and universal human rights in connection with the failures of those earlier periods of globalisation.

The empires of Globalisation I proved unsustainable as whatever economic benefit they may have brought colonised populations were outweighed by demand for national liberation, while undemocratic client states of Globalisation II were vulnerable to extreme corruption, political violence, and totalitarian ideology sold under the brand of anti-imperialism. Most of the problems of the Gap states, from the prime example of Afghanistan on, are legacies of the failures in Globalisation I and II to see democracy and universal human rights as essential elements in sustainable global economic integration.

Where they continue to follow the models of Globalisation I and II, the current governments of Russia and China hinder the success of Globalisation III. I have in mind not just the invasion of Georgia, and the Russian government’s attempt to maintain a sphere of influence through economic and military threats, but also its unhelpful semi-alliance with Iran, and in the case of the Chinese government, its dealings with Sudan.

In emphasising the need for economic development to combat violent political extremism, TPM Barnett would seem to be in line with contemporary military counter-insurgency thinking, but counter-insurgency theory sees the population as the territory, not the state leadership. When TPM Barnett allows his strategic viewpoint to restrict him to seeing the world in terms of nation states, he loses sight of populations and the complexities of their motivations. Those motivations are more complex than pure economics, as illustrated by the fact that Al Qaeda emerged from wealthy Saudi Arabia.

As I understand it, successful counter-insurgency depends not just on military force and economic development, but on empowering populations by providing military security, political power, economic development, open communications, and legal accountability. All are essential and interdependent, and any prioritisation is tactical and temporary.

While TPM Barnett’s writing has much to offer, his Core and Gap model seems too crude and too shallow to me. The future of the world is not just in the hands of its current leaders. With advancing communications, populations are more powerful than ever, and their world is not so neatly divided by borders between nation states, much less by TPM Barnett’s border between Core and Gap.

Postscript one: Globalisation 55 BC

Thomas PM Barnett begins the story of globalisation with 19th Century colonial imperialism. Joseph Conrad looks back even farther. His Heart of Darkness opens not in the Congo, but in the mouth of the Thames, as darkness falls and friends in a boat wait for the turning of the tide. It is one of these, Marlow, who has the tale to tell. Before talking of African colonies, however, he speculates on the Romans who came empire-building to Britain.

‘And this also’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’

He continues -

‘I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago - the other day . . . Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long ass the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine - what d’ye call ’em? - trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries - a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, too - used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here - the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina - and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages - precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in the wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay - cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death - ’

There is more, speculation about other Romans, the decent young citizen come north to mend his fortunes after too much dice, feeling the utter savagery of alien Britain closing round him, the mystery ‘in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.’

‘He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.’

How to survive such a challenge? Marlow continues, expressing first a criticism of Rome that he later makes of Europe’s ventures in Africa, a charge that today’s anti-imperialists level at globalisation, that the venture is purely one of narrow self-interest.

‘They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to . . .’

The question of idealism versus rapaciousness, and of how much of the idealistic rhetoric of colonialism was sincere, is a theme that runs through Heart of Darkness. The character with the highest ideals in the book is Kurtz, and it is he who falls farthest as his belief in his own words carries him beyond the boundaries of civilisation. Well, perhaps they were the wrong ideals. Heart of Darkness becomes increasingly vague as Conrad and his alter ego Marlow approach the book’s subject.

At the time Conrad wrote that the Romans were ‘no colonists’ he couldn’t know how short-lived Europe’s empires of the time would be compared with Rome’s over four centuries of rule in England. Even so, their ideas lasted longer than their rule, so his emphasis on the idea holds. There is a parallel here with TPM Barnett’s notion of success being victory for American ideas rather than for the American nation.

Postscript two: These Romans are crazy

The most important texts on Roman imperialism are of course the Asterix books written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo, set in the year 50 BC and concerning a small village of indomitable Gauls resisting Roman rule. Of these, Obelix & Co. from 1976 is particularly relevant to economic globalisation as a counter-insurgency strategy, telling of how Julius Caesar’s adviser Caius Preposterous, fresh out of the Latin School of Economics, tries to conquer the Gaulish village, not through force of arms but by engaging them in trade.

Caius starts buying menhirs from Asterix’s best friend Obelix, introducing the Gaul to the concept of currency and encouraging him to expand his business by employing other villagers in order to step up production. Some villagers are jealous of Obelix’s success and set up menhir production businesses in competition with him. For a time the strategy is a success as Gaulish attacks on Romans cease, all of them being too busy making money, and Caius markets the menhirs as luxury goods in Rome allowing him to turn a profit - but not for long.

Caius obviously wasn’t a good student at the LSE as his strategy leads to a menhir bubble as Roman producers enter the market, undercutting the price of imported Gaulish menhirs. The result is a financial crisis as the Imperial Treasury is overexposed in menhirs when the bubble bursts. Even worse, Obelix loses interest in business when he finds that there isn’t much interesting to spend his money on, Caius having overlooked the option of exporting desirable goods to the Gaulish village. Finally, Obelix’s village competitors are furious when they discover the market for their menhirs has evaporated, and as they haven’t diversified their businesses they instead go back to bashing Romans. In the romantic, anti-imperialist, anti-urban world of Asterix and Obelix, happiness is staying in the Gap.

One shouldn’t think from this that Goscinny was always a reflexive anti-establishment satirist. My favourite story of his is the Lucky Luke version of Jesse James, drawn by Morris. In it he takes apart the fantasy of Jesse James as Robin Hood. In his version Jesse is inspired by Robin of Sherwood to take up crime, but once he has his hands on some loot is troubled by the notion giving it to the poor. His brother Frank has the solution: they take it in turns to be poor so they can pass their swag back and forth, keeping it in the family.

Postscript three: Related links

A collection of reactions to Tom Barnett, mainly with regard to his comments on the Russian invasion of Georgia, gathered by blogger Fabius Maximus. I haven’t had time to follow all of them.

Some Barnett blog posts on preferring market-led economic penalties over military responses to Russian actions in Georgia: By all means vote with your dollars, August 14th, Hit ’em where they is, August 28, Georgia ‘opportunity’ cost: $8B, September 4th, Russian backlash adds up, September 15th, More evidence, September 18th.

More Barnett on Russia: The limits of authoritarianism, and Putin’s limits, September 25th. Barnett sees rule of law as essential, but seems to regard economic consequences as the best corrective for unlawful rule, not democratic accountability.

Some Barnett posts on democracy: Some truly bad thinking, August 4th, and Immature democracies are dangerous, August 19th - note the article linked to in that post cites a death toll figure very much out of date. Finally from August 20th a post praising an article by Spengler in Asia Times Online, Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess, which begins:

On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president - now premier - Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding ‘Orange’ revolution in Ukraine. “They lied to me,” Putin said bitterly of the United States. “I’ll never trust them again.” The Russians still can’t fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West.

And further on continues:

The Russians know (as every newspaper reader does) that Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili is not a model democrat, but a nasty piece of work who deployed riot police against protesters and shut down opposition media when it suited him - in short, a politician in Putin's mold. America’s interest in Georgia, the Russians believe, has nothing more to do with promoting democracy than its support for the gangsters to whom it handed the Serbian province of Kosovo in February.

Again, the Russians misjudge American stupidity. Former president Ronald Reagan used to say that if there was a pile of manure, it must mean there was a pony around somewhere. His epigones have trouble distinguishing the pony from the manure pile. The ideological reflex for promoting democracy dominates the George W Bush administration to the point that some of its senior people hold their noses and pretend that Kosovo, Ukraine and Georgia are the genuine article.

Charming.

A rather more enjoyable article Barnett linked to: Babble Rouser, a Forbes piece on Denis O’Brien, a mobile phone entrepeneur specialising in developing countries, from the August 11th issue.

On neocons versus realists, neo or otherwise, Barnett linked disapprovingly to this piece by Robert Kagan from the Wall Street Journal of August 30th on Russia and Georgia, and on contemporary realists and neoconservatives. The comments on Barnett’s post lead me to a Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria on Obama, ‘the true realist’, July 19th, and Who’s more realistic: McCain or Obama? from September 14th.

A couple of recent related articles not linked to by Barnett: from the IHT, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski on negotiating the missile defence deal, September 23rd, and on Russia’s challenge to European strategic thinking, September 26th.

Also, the BBC’s Bridget Kendall interviews Mikhail Saakashvili, September 27th. He too points to the economic consequences for Russia, which he asserts were much worse than those for Georgia. There will be no new cold war, he says, as Russia is politically isolated and much weaker than the old Soviet bloc. He says that Georgia can’t defeat Russia with tanks, but that there are two political systems in competition here, and he sees Georgia on the winning side. He believes the appeal of democracy is depriving the undemocratic Russian government of international allies. Russia needs to modernise, he says.

An indication of the distance Russia still has to travel to modernise politically: war trophies on show, and remembering Putin’s first day as president - handing out hunting knives to Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

FIN.

Romulus and Remus illustration from the Times Higher Education Supplement, 1994.

Obelix and Co. copyright © 1976 Goscinny/Uderzo. Translators: Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge.

Teaching evolution, challenging creationism

This came up Saturday before last at a birthday dinner for the Professor, and now it’s all over the papers, though with a different cast of characters.

Here’s a hard line from Oliver Kamm, hearts and minds (and follow up) from Francis Sedgemore, and practical experience from Shuggy, who writes:

Sometimes you talk about it, sometimes it’s appropriate to close conversations down. It's a balance that is difficult to strike - no doubt we get it wrong on many occasions, but I have not the least doubt that any attempt to routinise the practice even in the most limited way would make this more difficult than it already is.

(Update: Shuggy has now written a good follow up  too.)

Back at the Prof’s dinner I brought up Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason provides the best argument I know of for resolving the conflict between the religious impulse and scientific method. By defining God as the creator of the universe, and by arguing that God’s creation, not the word of dead men, is the only true evidence of the nature of God, Paine provides a view of God that is grander than the petty conjurer of the old holy books, but that can in no way be in conflict with science, because science is the only reliable path to understanding the works of God.

The so-called creationists set the words of dead prophets above the evidence of God’s creation. This is human hubris in the face of a creation grander than they can imagine.

The central statement in The Age of Reason is this: “The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things.” There are later passages in the work which I think fall short, where despite that principle Paine attempts to ascribe motives to God, to prove God’s benevolence. It doesn’t work. However, read the following extract if you will - a definition of God the creator wholly compatible with science.

But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God — no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation.

THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth to the other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who knew nothing of the extent of the world, and who believed, as those world-saviours believed, and continued to believe for several centuries (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of philosophers and the experience of navigators), that the earth was flat like a trencher, and that man might walk to the end of it.

But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He could speak but one language which was Hebrew, and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every man who knows anything of languages knows that it is impossible to translate from one language to another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.

It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be accomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in accomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of the power to the purpose, and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to the end; but human language, more especially as there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information, and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man.

It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed! Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the Scripture called the Creation.

The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time.

In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every man is an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it were, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first cause man calls God.

Darwin drawing drawn from yellowed pages of an ancient Times Higher Education Supplement.

Heart of Darkness, the Core and the Gap - 3

Continued from here.

First post in the series here. Fourth post here. Fifth post here.

Is Russia a Core state?

The most obvious objection to Thomas PM Barnett’s view of the Russian invasion of Georgia is of course the one he begins by anticipating, namely that including Russia amongst the Core nations in his global strategic model is a mistake. His reasoning for including Russia seems based on two points. One, Russia’s economic connections with the wider world are strong enough to qualify, and two, not including Russia in the core is too costly in terms of greater demands on remaining Core nations, both in dealing with Russia and with dealing with the rest of the Gap without help from Russia.

On the first point, I’m unclear why TPM Barnett feels Russia qualifies for the Core while other oil rich states do not; I’m thinking particularly of those nations in the Gulf who invest widely in other countries and are therefore important in the global economy beyond their role as suppliers of oil.

80% of Russia’s exports are commodities; there is not the focus on manufactured goods or services seen in China and India, other big countries that TPM Barnett also counts as New Core states. Despite Russia’s gas and oil boom, Russian economic growth this century is below average amongst former Soviet states. In 2007 the Russian economy grew at only two-thirds the rate of the Georgian economy for example, though the other side of that story is that Georgia is growing from a much lower base.

There is a strong danger then that the current Russian economy based on exploitation of natural resources may be stuck in an asset stripping mentality, and the only expansion it will be capable of will be in gaining control of more natural resources beyond the state’s borders, by fair means or foul.

The bigger problem in regarding Russia as a Core state is in the attitude of the current Russian leadership to the rule of law, and how this affects globalisation, firstly in working against the integration of the Russian economy into the global system, and secondly in the role Russia plays in affecting other nations’ progress towards global economic integration.

Russia has long been a gangster state, most obviously in the time of Yeltsin when various parties competed in a lawless scramble to secure assets as the Soviet state was demolished, but also before then when the gang in control was the Party, when there was no law outside of the Party, no higher authority, no alternative. Now there is one gang in charge again, and having defeated or incorporated the other gangs at home it now uses the same gangster methods abroad, in Ukraine, in Britain, and now in Georgia.

Use of violence with no legal sanction is only the most extreme manifestation of gangsterism here. Russia’s pipeline policy is indicative of a gangster mentality. They want a monopoly on the dope they’re peddling, squeezing competing supplier nations, pushing out foreign investors while pushing into foreign markets, threatening cold turkey on anyone who doesn’t co-operate.

TPM Barnett sets aside systems of political government when considering whether a country belongs in the Core. That China is a one party state, that Russia has become a Potempkin democracy, these issues are less important than that China and Russia are ‘actively integrating their national economies into a global economy’. So China qualifies as it imports raw materials from round the world, exports manufactured goods round the world, and invests abroad. But does Russia qualify?

Made in China goods are ubiquitous, and are now central to the world economy. China’s need for raw materials worldwide gives it an interest in global stability. While some of its resulting engagements in the wider world are negative, most prominently in Sudan, and look like exporting totalitarianism rather than encouraging globalisation, it is also clear that China is growing globalisation within its borders. The results may yet confirm TPM Barnett’s view of economic integration being more urgent than political reform.

To Russia: I don’t see Made in Russia on anything I buy in the supermarket. I do see spam apparently facilitated by Russian ISPs clogging my inbox. I do see the after-effects of a London house price boom fuelled partly by wealthy Russians insecure about staying in Russia. I see antique-looking Russian strategic bombers showing off in the UK ADIZ. And I see the flames on our stove burning blue and hear the hum of the gas fired boiler when we run the bath. The bills are going up, and we’re looking for alternatives.

The Russian monopoly strategy on energy is not compatible with advancing a competitive global economy. Neither is the focus on asset-stripping which reduces the Russian economic system to commodities out, money and manufactured goods in: a classic Gap economy, like the Gulf states, like Nigeria, or to return to Conrad, like the Congo. The company in this case is not a Belgian elite exploiting African resources, it’s a Russian elite exploiting the resources of Russia and its neighbours.

While the Chinese model requires dispersal of economic power amongst the population to foster enterprise and competition, Russia’s asset-stripping, dope-peddling model is leading to the opposite, a re-centralisation of power. The ruling gang are maintaining domestic support through nationalism promoted via a controlled media rather than broad-based economic progress. The population is not empowered in such an economy. It’s out of their control as much as it is for the native population in Heart of Darkness. And the populations of neighbouring states falling under Russian control would see no benefits, except for those amongst them given the privilege of preying on their neighbours. From Joseph Conrad’s book:

‘A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets ful of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of the ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with aclarity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I was also a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings.’

Continued here.

Related: The Real Price of Oil by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker, December 3 2001.

Top image: illustration for the Times Higher Education Supplement, 17 February 1995, accompanying a review of Cold War histories. Click on the image to see the article.

Taking flight

From the Times Higher Education Supplement, 1995. Catch you later!

A pretty picture

Yesterday I received an email requesting a publicity photo. Will this do?