Rudy biographer Fred Siegel says: "The common thread that ties Mike Huckabee’s come-from-almost-nowhere victory in Iowa to Hillary Clinton’s unexpected resurgence in New Hampshire is a shared ability to speak to widespread middle- and lower-middle-class economic anxiety. In Iowa, Huckabee effectively disparaged Mitt Romney—who made a fortune at Bain Capital and outspent him 20 to 1—as someone who couldn’t possibly understand “people at the lower ends of the economic scale,” who fear that they’re losing ground in the increasingly globalized economy. And in New Hampshire, while Barack Obama’s rhetorical flourishes spoke most effectively to the young and to the “creative class” that has flourished in the global economy, Clinton—like her husband before her—felt the middle class’s pain, devoting most of her campaign events to highlighting economic issues and offering narrowly tailored programs to address everything from the rising cost of tuition to mortgage defaults."
Of course, economics and immigration aren't the only facets of globalization. So are the proliferation of WMD, the increased impotence of national boundaries, as well as the most important issue in the past three federal elections: the war on terrorism. After all, terrorism would not be possible in a world without globalization.
Globalization is the rubric by which we can understand many of the most pressing challenges facing nation-states in the 21st century. Phillip Bobbitt, in the Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History, has outlined what choices nations have in coming to terms with these new challenges. He argues that nothing less than a shift away from the construct of the welfare state, (which served us well in the age of industrialization but appears mostly hapless in the modern era) and to a new form he calls the Market State, or the Opportunity State, will work to deal with these issues. Hopefully the candidates for President are reading this important work. If you want to make sense of all that's happening on the nightly news, forget "The World is Flat"... Bobbitt's work, which has been compared to The Prince, is what you really need.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
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6 comments:
Cyber, we hillbillies are only offended by the term hillbilly when outsiders utter forth with said appellation (kind of like the N word in the hood) but in a nod to America's political correctness our local chapter of the AADL (Appalachian Anti-Defamation League) has re-named your blog the Wilsonian Report :) Paleolly Your's SCOOBY
Scooby:
W. Wilson was a Hillbilly too... er... Appalachianer. He was born in Augusta County just outside of Bath County, an ARC county.
I like Wilson some, but I'd be happier to be labeled a Teddy Rooseveltian than a Wilsonian.
My respect to the AADL. ;)
JG
This, from Bobbitt in a 2002 Time magazine essay:
“If September 11 is the forerunner of a new world conflict, coping with the conflict could bring a new constitutional order in its wake. In the 21st century, what might be called ‘market states’ could replace nation-states. Market states will have the same borders and political systems as nation-states but will shift important responsibilities from government to the private sector; multinational corporations will become surrogate agents of government, filling roles that government can no longer play and blurring the boundaries between political and corporate leadership....”
Not on my watch! I agree with some of Bobbitt's privatization ideas (which are hardly unique to him), but I'll not be signing over my American allegiance to any multinational entity or consumerist demographic profile. The only transnational entity I'm awaiting with glee is the one headed by the King of Kings Himself, and that one will enter the scene on a timetable entirely outside mortal planning.
I pledge allegiance..to the logo..of the United Subsidiaries of Walmartistan. And to the corporatism..for which they stand..one marketing entity..under (insert deity)*.. with rebates and bar scans for all. *Not applicable to China, Vietnam,et al. We keed, we keed the Cyberbilly. SCOOBY
Scooby and Nic Con:
My favorite paleos, you can rescind those muster orders to your militia brethren; those aren't black helos flying overhead and I'm not a part of the new world order.
I think we're already seeing more reliance on transnational bodies, such as GATT, WTO, EU (not us, obviously), etc. If the UN weren't so screwed up maybe the world would be a better place.
Bobbitt's analysis is that some problems are increasingly transnational and require more multinational cooperation.
As for Wal Mart, they were the only guys who executed really well in the wake of Katrina.
Finally, who would you rather invest your social security dollars in? The Federal govenrment or some private fund that invests in MNC's like Wal Mart, Toyota, etc.?
Howdy, Cyber. Whew, what a morning, copters everywhere, never seen so many..thank God for those stingers I bought at Charlie Wilson's yard sale. To the point..Cyber, multi-national co-operation translates to nations co-operating, so what's with all the abbreviated entities which claim (weakly IMO) superiority to nation states? Your hero Teddy Roosevelt was a trust buster, remember? Also, many of those aligned with him considered the Supreme Court's granting of personhood to corporations as problematic, but that's a topic for another day. I once had a philosophy professor who asked every new class the following question: What is your opinion of the goodness of human nature? To which I answered with another question (philosophy profs dig that BTW): How many humans are we talking about professor? My belief, then and now, is that human goodness and conscience are diminished by increased numbers, what with all the opportunities for groups to disperse blame or accountability or shame. Small groups of Germans may not have murdered their Jewish brothers, but larger groups didn't seem to look twice at those loaded cattle cars. One of the main themes of the American experiment is mis-trust of organized, consolidated power, with preference to individualism. Indeed, our founders purposely road-blocked consolidation of power, and that theme is alive and well (though coughing) today. By all means let's engage the world. We always have. Let's just don't be like our European cousins and so easily diminish our individual rights to amorphous, un-democratic nannies. Carry on. SCOOBY
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