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Top Billing Juxtaposition on Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, For and Against:

FOR: Lord Robert Skidelsky – The 2006 Hayek Lecture: The Road to Serfdom Revisited

The second thing that one needs to know about the background of The Road to Serfdom was that it arose from Hayek’s involvement in the debate on central planning in the 1930s. Socialists had argued that a central-planning authority could replicate the economic benefits of the market, minus its costs, by causing state-run firms, required to equate marginal costs and prices, to respond appropriately to simulated market signals. Hayek claimed that this was completely utopian. Central planning was doomed to failure because the knowledge needed to make it work could never be centralized. Further, it ignored the role of market competition in discovering new wants and processes. It would thus freeze economic life at a low level.

In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek extended his critique of central planning to politics. He defined central planning as the central direction of all economic activity toward particular ends. The nature of the ownership system was not crucial, since central planning removed the essential rights of owners or managers. Democratic central planning, he declared, was an illusion, because there was never sufficient voluntary consent for the goals of the central plan and because partial planning would lead to problems that required ever more extensive planning. So planning involved a “progressive suppression of that economic freedom without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past.” Fascism and communism were totalitarian culminations of what had started as democratic socialism. Western democracies were fighting fascism without realizing that they were on the slippery slope themselves. Against the planners, Hayek upheld the fundamental principle that in the ordering of our affairs, we should make as much use as possible of the “spontaneous forces of society, and resort as little as possible to coercion.”

AGAINST: Fabius Maximus –Looking at one of the most popular books in the conservative canon: The Road to Serfdom

Summary

The post-WWII era provided two great sociological experiments. 

• The phenomenal economic success of the Asian Tigers – esp vs. the more statist nations of Latin America – proved the superiority of government-regulated but essentially free-market systems.
• The success of the Scandinavian nations – along with the US and UK – have disproven the fears of Hayek and others.  Mixed-system economies, with their high degree of government intervention in the economic sphere, do not tend to slide down the slope to totalitarianism.  At least over the few generation-long horizons which Hayek and others discussed.

Hayek’s work provides a salutary warning, but the passage of 66 years have disproven his specific forecasts.  Western governments have grown in breadth and reach since 1944, esp in Scandinavia.  Yet none have succumbed to totalitarianism, or even moved visibly in that direction (Hayek gave himself an out by saying this was “not inevitable”).

In fact America has moved in the reverse direction.  When Hayek wrote a large segment of America’s people lived under goverment-sponsored oppression.  Beatings of Black veterans in Mississippi and South Carolina (e.g. Isaac Woodard) sparked President Truman’s historic executive orders taking the first step to rolling back the South’s successful counter-revolution after Reconstruction.  This continued at a high but decreasing level though the 1960?s (e.g., the 1965 murder of  Viola Liuzzo).

How many conservatives reading his book see these contradictions with history?  My guess:  very few.   It’s such a useful theory, even if false (creationism serves a similar role)! 

I note that Paul Krugman also wrote something on von Hayek and Keynes recently, but it was a brief and largely stupid ahistorical comment to score contemporary partisan points, so I won’t link to it ( and I say this while being in agreement with Krugman that there’s a potential deflationary danger present). Some ironies, von Hayek despite being lionized by conservatives, did not consider himself to be one and Keynes, von Hayek’s alleged statist bete noire was favorably inclined to The Road to Serfdom. The back and forth between the two great economists was a lot more nuanced and complex in their exchanges than is generally presented in the media.

Schmedlap –Politics and the Military Profession

Here is the deal. Military service and political office do not go together.

What do I mean by that? I am not just referring to the rare instance in which someone does both simultaneously. I am referring to four situations, in descending order of egregiousness:

Serving in the military while also serving in elected office.Serving in elected office soon after serving in the militaryServing in the military soon after serving in elected office.

Voting while in the military

Why do I see a problem with any or all of these? I will hit on the basic philosophical issue first and then hit on each situation individually.

A really good, thought-provoking, post. I don’t agree with all of it as Schmedlap has purposefully staked out an extreme position on the interrelationship of democracy, citizenship and military service but he raises good arguments that challenge contemporary assumptions ( or even assumptions held by a historical military figure of such unimpeachable personal rectitude as George C. Marshall).

AFJ:  Col. Joseph Collins – The way ahead in Afghanistan

….First, there will no doubt be some key players who favor continuing with the U.S. plan that is still unfolding. Given the protracted nature of such conflicts, and barring unforeseen surprises, the battlefield situation in December is not likely to be radically different than it is now. Conservatives will prefer to keep up the full-blown counterinsurgency operation for a few more years and move slowly on the transition to Afghan responsibility for security.

….A second option would be to reduce over a year (July 2011-July 2012) most of the 30,000 soldiers and Marines in the surge combat forces and make security assistance and capacity building – not the provision of combat forces – ISAF’s top priority. Remaining ISAF combat units could further integrate with fielded Afghanistan National Army units. Maximum emphasis would be placed on quality training for soldiers and policemen. To build Afghan military capacity, ISAF commanders would also emphasize the development of Afghan combat enablers, such as logistics, transportation and aviation. In this option, the focal point of allied strategy would be on the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and not on allied combat forces.

….A third option – compatible with the options noted above, either sequentially or concurrently – is for the Afghan government, with coalition and U.N. support, to move out smartly on reintegration of individuals and reconciliation with parts of or even the entire Afghan Taliban. To do this, Karzai first will have to win over the nearly 60 percent of the Afghan population that is not Pashtun. These groups – Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazarras and others – were treated poorly by the Taliban and today often live in areas outside Taliban influence. They will want peace, but not at a price that threatens their regions or allows the “new” Taliban much latitude.

SEED – Suicidal Tendencies

Are higher IQ people more prone to suicide?

Coming Anarchy: Curzon  –The Changing Role of the US Secretary of State

And what role do….women play here?

Thomas P.M. Barnett – Mattis becomes Central Command boss

More on Mattis.

In Harmonium – Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1 and Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2

Newscientist.com – Google should answer some searching questions

Is Google shaping your search results to benefit Google?

RECOMMWNDED VIEWING:

Benoit Mandelbrot on the complexity of “roughness”

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone Magazine

Army Times (Sean Naylor) – Sources: Rolling Stone quotes made by jr. staff

Huffington Post (Jason Linkins) – Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone Reporter, Inks Book Deal With Little Brown

It looks increasingly like recently resigned General Stanley McChrystal is partly the victim of an ambitious, lefty, reporter who was motivated by political sentiments and the prospect of financial gain to seriously misrepresent the context of comments made during his profile interviews with General McChrystal and McChrystal’s staff. Michael Hastings implied that the most derogatory and offensive comments emanated from the senior officials in MChrystal’s inner circle ( flag officers and colonels) when they were allegedly offhand comments from junior officers assigned to clerical or orderly type duties. No word on when Hastings had begun his negotiations with publisher Little, Brown & co. but if he had begun before publication of “The Runaway General” it would seem to me to be a serious breach of journalistic ethics.

Let’s not hold our breath waiting for Rolling Stone to investigate the integrity of their reporter’s journalistic work. 

As for General McChrystal, his staff has served him poorly, both by inviting a reporter with Hastings background and in trusting Hastings with colorful and highly damaging “off the record” statements in violation of basic military public relations  practice and common sense. Captains and majors are certainly old enough to know better and someone higher up on McChrystal’s staff should have been alert to the possibility of a “hit piece” and run interference to make certain that the interviews were all on the record and professional and not conducted after hours in a bar with staff members drinking heavily. Senior staff are supposed to look out for their boss at that level.

That said, General McChrystal’s offense here, while still a serious gaffe, has a different and mitigated character from how matters first appeared and my previous criticism of him was harsher than his actions deserved.

Apple iPad MB292LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi)

Received a 32 GB model as a Father’s Day present. While I am not sure if the iPad will ignite a social revolution, as Howard Bloom does, or further diminish our ability to read for a sustained period of time, as does William Deresiewicz, the iPad is an absolutely remarkable mobile Web 2.0 device. Is it flawless? No.  But give Steven Jobs credit as an intuitive psychologist, the man connected Web 2.0 and the potential of infinite app innovation with the fundamental human sense of the tactile and delivered it up to the masses. That’s Edisonian capitalism.

Shloky likes it too.

* Daemon refers to the novel by Daniel Suarez , where a renegade Ai program, “the Daemon” orchestrates and serves a darknet of human agents partly through the medium of augmented reality technology.

Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop by Antonio Giustiozzi

I just finished reading Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan by historian Antonio Giustozzi who has subsequently gone on to write in rapid succession, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field and Empires of Mud, which I intend to read as well. Giustozzi is doing something important with his study of the Neo-Taliban insurgency that twenty years ago, a professional historian would have eschewed: applying his his historical expertise and methodology in a disciplinary synthesis to understand a dynamic, emerging, phenomenon at the center of current policy.

At the outset, Giustozzi writes:

This book is written by a historian who is trying to understand contemporary developments making use of not just the historical method, but also drawing from other disciplines such as anthropology, political science and geography. As a result, this book combines an analysis of the development of the insurgency based on available information with my ongoing work, focused on identifying the root causes of the weakness of the Afghan state.

This is a useful investigative methodological approach. “Useful” in the sense that while adhering to scholarly standards, Giustozzi offers readers the benefit of his capacity as a professional historian to evaluate new information about the war with the Neo-Taliban, while orienting it in the appropriate cultural-historical context. Not all of the information dealt with is reliable; Giustozzi candidly explains the disputes around particular unverified claims or accusations before offering his educated guess where the truth may be or the probabilities involved in a fog of war and ethno-tribal animosities.

Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop is an academic book with a fairly detached tone and heavily endnoted chapters, which Giustozzi divided in the following manner:

1. Sources of the insurgency

2. How and why the Taliban recruited

3. Organization of the Taliban

4. The Taliban’s strategy

5. Military tactics of the insurgency

6. The counter-insurgency effort

The chapters have a wealth of detail, bordering at times on minutia, on Afghanistan’s complex and personalized system of politics which help shed light on why the effort at providing effective governance, a key COIN tenet, is so difficult. One example:

“….Strengthened as it was by powerful connections in Kabul, Sher Mohammed’s ‘power bloc’ proved quite resilient. Some of the Kabul press reported ‘criticism’, by former and current government officials from Helmand, of Daoud, whose attempts to restrain and isolate the rogue militias and police forces of helmand were described in terms of collaborationism with the Taliban. Daoud reacted by accusing the local ‘drug mafia’ of plotting against him and tried to convince President Karzai to leave him in his post, but not even British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts sufficed to save him. Karzai sacked Daoud in the autumn of 2006. His replacement, Asadullah Wafa, was widely seen as a weak figure who for several months even refused to deploy to Lashkargah.”

This example is a typical one for political life in the provinces. Karzai’s counterinsurgency strategy does not have much to do with ours, and is largely antithetical to it. What we call “corruption”, Karzai sees as buying loyalty; what we call good governance, Karzai views as destabilizing his regime. We are not on the same page with Hamid Karzai and perhaps not even in the same playbook.

Giustozzi is exceptionally well-informed about Afghanistan and the political and military nuances of the old Taliban and the Neo-Taliban insurgency and the structure of Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop is clear and well-organized. Giustozzi is informed about COIN in this context but less so generally (in a minor glitch, he posits Mao as primarily waging guerrilla war against an Imperial Japan – Mao didn’t – which did not have much of a “technological edge” – which Japan certainly did over Chinese forces, Nationalist or Communist, for most of the war) but Giustozzi is not writing to add to COIN theory literature, as he specifically noted. What the reader will get from Giustozzi is a grasp of who the Neo-Taliban are as a fighting force and the convoluted, granular, social complexity of Afghan political life in which the US is attempting to wage a COIN war.

Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop is strongly recommended.

Are all the strategic objectives in Afghanistan clearly defined and acheivable by military force?

Of the operational activities that might support our strategic objectives that require civilian expertise, why in nine years have we not sent adequate civilian agency representation and funding?

If military operations in Afghanistan require a single commander, why does the civilian side of the COIN campaign have authority divided between at least a half-dozen senior officials without anyone having a deliverable “final say” reporting to the President?

If Pakistan’s “partnership” is officially a requirement for strategic success (and it is), why would Pakistan be a “partner” in helping stabilize an independent regime in Afghanistan that would terminate Pakistan’s ability to use Afghanistan as “strategic depth”?

Is the Taliban more important to our national security than is al Qaida?

If we can’t get at al Qaida after nine long years to finish them off, why is that?

If Pakistan’s ISI is sponsoring the Haqqani Network, the Quetta Shura Afghan Taliban and other extremist jihadi groups, doesn’t that make the ISI as a critical component – the strategic “brains” – of the Enemy’s center of gravity?

Shouldn’t we be targeting the Enemy center of gravity if we are to acheive our strategic objectives? (If we are going to be squeamish and pants-wetting about that, how about the retired and bearded “plausibly deniable” ex-ISI guys running around FATA as “advisers” and fixers to jihadi and tribal factions?)

Should we be sending the Enemy’s strategic brains billions of dollars annually?

For that matter, is the size of our own logistical tail effectively funding the guys in black turbans shooting at American soldiers and burying IEDs? Would less be more?

Can we ever gain the initiative if the Enemy has safe sanctuaries – oh, has anyone noticed that Pakistan has twice as many Pushtuns as Afghanistan and how does that affect the odds for winning a purist COIN campaign….in 18 months?

Are COIN warfare and proxy warfare the same thing to be treated with the same policy?

If we assume the Enemy has read FM 3-24, shouldn’t we make certain that a considerable percentage of our tactical moves in AfPak are not coming out of a “cookbook”? Is the element of surprise something we can use, or is it considered unsporting these days in warfighting doctrine?

Given that most of Afghanistan’s GDP is derived from US military spending, how is the Karzai regime going to afford an ANA of the requisite size that COIN theory requires for an operational handoff at our arbitrary political deadline of 18 months?

And on a related note, if the Karzai regime in it’s entirety was suddenly frozen in carbonite like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, how much more efficient and popular would the Afghan government instantly become with ordinary Afghans compared to how it is now?

If we can’t work with Karzai why can’t we work with somebody else? It’s not like he was, you know, actually elected

If political authorities are not effectively linking  Ends, Ways and Means – some old-fashioned gadflys call this state of affairs “not having a strategy” – and are unlikely to acheive our objectives and said political authorities will not consider changing the objectives, what practical actions can we take in the next 18 months to seize the initiative,  maximize the harm inflicted on our enemies, ensure help for our friends and the furtherance of our own interests?