Forecast: Death of the American Constitution

Summary of this July 4th classic from the FM archives:  The the post-WWII global order collapses around us, but America seems unable to see this – let alone adapt to it.  This essay discusses one of the most important consequences.  It has been revised several times since its original publication on 4 July 2006.

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican.  It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. 

— Federalist Paper #39, James Madison (writing as Publius), 18 January 1788

Contents

1. Death of the post-WWII era
2. A brief self-check on the health of the American regime
3. Who killed the Constitution?
4. Consequences of the Constitution’s death – on the government
5. Consequences of the Constitution’s death – on the people
6. The cutting edge of Death’s scythe
7. The future of America

(1)  Introduction — death of the post-WWII era

The post-WWII era was defined by:

• America as the model state: a capitalistic democratic republic which values its citizens’ liberty.
• American as a superpower, or even the sole superpower.
• The American dollar as reserve currency; “good as gold” for holding the world’s savings
• 3rd generation warfare as the dominant mode of military force.
• Growing American wealth through the “debt supercycle”, continuously expanding debt of both Government and households.
• Cheap energy, largely from coal, oil, and natural gas.

With each passing day these things slowly fade away.  The daily newspapers record their passing, although most journalists are unaware of the larger significance of what they report.  We do not see this since we have change blindness, a flaw in our mental processing in which we fail to recognize large changes which should be clearly visible.

Change blindness must be experienced to believe it.  Take the test at this website.  Read the instructions!  Right click on the picture to move to the next one.  If you cannot see the change and give up, reduce the “gap” to zero.

This essay discusses #1, the passing away of the political regime called the United States.  Since that is a large, complex phenomenon, here we look at the dying of the regime’s heart:  the Consitution.

(2)  A brief self-check on the health of the American regime

“Do not scatter diamonds before ducks. They prefer grain.”
— Chiun, the current Master of Sinanju (from The Destroyer series of books by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy)

Aristotle said that the political regime of a state dominated other aspects of its society.  So it has proved for us.  Standing firmly on the foundation provided by our Constitution, we obtained wealth and freedom unknown in human history.  But a constitution – written or unwritten – lives only to the degree it is inscribed on the hearts of its citizens. That was true throughout most of our history. That is no longer true today.

History shows that people’s recognition of a regime’s passing usually lags behind the facts.  Generations passed before the Roman people recognized that the Republic was truly dead.  So it is today.  This is easy to prove.  Let’s do a quick test about the health of the American Nation-State.  Following Aristotle’s view, it looks at the foundations of our polity.  The correct answers are given directly after the list of questions.

{ click here to read the rest of this post }

College education in America, another broken business model

Summary:  Yesterday’s post discussed the broken business models of the mainstream print media.  Other institutions suffer from similar problems, as American undergoes massive financial, social, and technological shocks.  Such as colleges.  Institutions providing undergraduate education – specifically, 4 year non-technical degrees — have priced themselves out of their market, except for those few elites institutions with massive endowments (and rich alumni).  The consequences for America might be large — both in terms of lost global competitiveness and decreased social mobility.
 
For a generation or two college costs have risen faster than both US household incomes AND government tuition support.  This year is no exception:

With families facing one of the worst economic crises in the nation’s history, private, nonprofit colleges and universities have responded with the smallest average increase in tuition and fees in 37 years, according to the final results of a membership survey conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). The 4.3% increase for 2009-10 is the smallest since 1972-73 … Over the past 10 years, the average annual increase in tuition and fees at private colleges has been 6%.  (source:  NAICU)

The effect of rising costs was muted by increased borrowing by parents and students.  This is classic rent-seeking by colleges, described by Wikipedia:

{R}ent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic rent through manipulation or exploitation of the economic environment, rather than by earning profits through economic transactions and the production of added wealth.

A college diploma has value unconnected to anything actually learned by the student, as it became the key component of American’s social allocation system — by which a new generation was steered into the job market. Colleges extracted.  Colleges charged excess tuition to skim off as much of this as possible, expanded their costs to the maximum extent the market would bear.

Now that structure has crashed.  People are less willing to borrow for college; lenders are less willing to lend to parents and students.  Students and parents know a liberal arts education is seldom worth the cost either financially or intellectually. Now they increasinly wonder if the diplomma is worth the cost.
 
Colleges are left with broken business models:  large  inflexible cost structures, and disenchanted clients.  Much like newspapers and airlines.  And like them, those working in colleges only slowly realize the grim outlook.  Their first response is to hope the good times return.  The adjustment process probably will be long and painful.

1. “Measuring Up 2008“, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
2. “Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?“, Joseph Marr Cronin and Howard E. Horton, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 22 May 2009

Excerpts

(1)  “Measuring Up 2008“, National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education — Excerpt from page 8:

Flashbacks to November 2008, a moment to regain our perspective

In honor of the 4th of July holiday, and because I don’t feel like writing anything today, the FM site presents these flashbacks: 

1. “Fafblog interviews John McCain“, posted at Fafblog, 2 November 2009
2. A victory notice of Obama’s accension, posted at Fafblog, 5 November 2009
3. Which of our two political parties is better — a look at their distinguishing features

Excerpts

(1)  “Fafblog interviews John McCain“, posted at Fafblog, 2 November 2009

FAFBLOG: First of all I want to say thank you, John McCain, for choosing to give your last major interview before the election right here on our little blog! … Now let’s get right down to it. Why should you be president?

MCCAIN: … Because I know the problems Americans are going through right now. The American people are angry, my friends. They’re hurt. They’ve been beaten by their captors for five and a half years. And they need a leader who’s willing to stop federal tax dollars from going to research harbor seal DNA.

FB: We might lose our jobs and we might lose our homes and we might have to sell our youngest, weakest children to black market organ scavengers for a cardboard box and a can of refried beans, but we’ll always be safe in the knowledge that our taxes aren’t going to further our understanding of marine biology.

“Striking a Balance: A New American Security”

“Striking a Balance: A New American Security” was a conference held by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) on 11 June 2009.  You can see the transcripts and related reports here.   If opera is money set to music, then events like this are the equivalent for political power.

Speakers

• The Honorable Dr. Richard Danzig (Secretary of the Navy 1998-2001)
• Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns (senior US diplomat 1997-2008)
• Dr. John A. Nagl
• General David H. Petraeus
• Thomas E. Ricks
• General John (Jack) Keane
• George Packer (The New Yorker)
• Nazar Janabi
• Samir Sumaida’ie, Ambassador of Iraq to the USA
• Lieutenant General David W. Barno
• Andrew Exum
• Nathaniel C. Fick
• Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich
• Colonel Christopher G. Cavoli
• Dr. Kristin M. Lord
• The Honorable Judith A. McHale, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs

For a brief review of this event, I recommend reading ”One-Sided COIN – The military-industrial complex surges Washington“, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, The American Conservative, 1 August 2009 (hat tip to Antiwar.com).  It is too good to excerpt.   Vlahos uses this event — and the rise of the CNAS — to show that Obama has brought no serious foreign-policy change in Washington, just different people carrying the flags for perpetual war. 

Both parties share the hubris of America’s global hegemony — built on money borrowed from foreigners.  We need not consult the ghost of Clausewitz to know this is insane.  The fancy slides, the gather intellectual and military elites, the millions of fine words — nothing can disguise this bitter truth.

It’s incredible that such an event occurs while the foundations of America’s prosperity — the ultimate source of military power — wash slowly away.  The combination of geopolitical hubris and ever-rising debt tells us much about the intelligence of America’s elites.

Rome’s elites fell victim to lead in their water and wine, a illness they lacked the tools to see or understand.  What is our excuse?

Update:  this is a 2nd post about this conference.  The first was A wonderful discussion about the American Empire on 24 June 2009.

Your morning readings from Martin van Creveld, superlative insights into our changing world

Martin van Creveld is IMO the finest military historian of our time.  But more than that his vision integrates military science and theory into a larger social context — the only context in which the military arts can provide value to a society.  This makes his works uniquely valuable to us.

1. Interview on Mideast with Martin van Creveld by William deB. Mills, posted at his website Shadowed Forest of World Politics, 23 April 2009
2. “Waiting for Netanyahu“, op-ed in the New York Times, 16 May 2009

For an almost complete listing of his online works see The Essential 4GW reading list: Martin van Creveld.

Excerpts

(1)  Interview on Mideast with Martin van Creveld by William deB. Mills, posted at his website Shadowed Forest of World Politics, 23 April 2009 — Excerpt:

Did exposure to “burn pits” in Iraq and Afghanistan harm our troops?

Excerpt from “Lung disease of soldier linked to burn pits“, Military Times, 30 June 2009:

Even as military health officials continue to say there are “no known long-term health effects” caused by open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, a team of Army doctors says a soldier’s cystic lung disease is “related to the burn pits in Iraq.”

A second set of doctors, trying to determine why 56 soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division came back from Iraq short of breath, found each had bronchiolitis that could be diagnosed only with a biopsy. That disease normally comes with organ transplantation, infection, rheumatoid arthritis or toxic fume inhalation. Because there was no scarring on the soldiers’ lungs, doctors decided it must have been toxic inhalation and added a fifth cause of bronchiolitis to their list: “Iraq.”

Since Military Times began reporting in October about burn pits in the war zones, 400 troops have contacted Disabled American Veterans to say they have breathing problems or cancers they believe came after exposure to the burn pits. Many say they have been diagnosed with “asthma-like” or “allergy-like” symptoms when they’ve complained of shortness of breath, but their doctors can’t come up with an exact diagnosis.

Meanwhile, annual cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among service members have risen 82% since 2001, to 24,555 last year, while cases of all other respiratory illnesses have risen 37% , to 28,276, Defense Department data show.

The symptoms cited by service members are remarkably similar. But Spc. Edward Adams, 33, may be the first to have “burn pit” marked in his medical records. …

Excerpt from “‘X-File’ Vet May Be Link to Burn-Pit Truth“, Kelley B. Vlahos, Antiwar.com, 30 June 2009:

The poisonous black plume is getting more difficult for the government to ignore. So are the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans hobbling around with the bodies of old men and women, needing breathing machines to sleep at night.

But taking a cue from their Gulf War I brethren, these recent vets aren’t prepared to wait 17 years to find out what the thick fog of smoke they encountered in the war did to their lungs, their hearts, their brains, and their life expectancies.

“Shock and Audit” – MoJo dissects the defense budget so you don’t have to

Today’s recommended reading:  “Shock and Audit“, a series in Mother Jones magazine — “MoJo dissects the Defense Budget so that you don’t have to.”

1. The Hidden Defense Budget
2. Operation Overrun
3. Where’s My Flying Tank?
4. The Axis of Pork
5. Mission Impossible

For more information about the Defense Death Spiral see Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information:

Our goal is to transform U.S. national security strategy to meet the missions and threats of the 21st century. Recognizing that security includes economic as well as military strength, the project considers both the fiscal and strategic implications of defense programs and promotes informed oversight of Pentagon activities. The Straus Military Reform Project provides analysis and fosters debate on the uses, strategy, doctrine and forces of the U.S. military and its role in the wider national security structure. It provides a forum for discussion and encourages the free expression of all views.

More information on the FM site about this topic appears below the fold.

Economics in action

Some interesting articles about economics, helping us understand our changing world.

1. “Fighting Downturns with Fiscal Policy“, Economic Letter of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 19 June 2009
2. “The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts“, Scientific American, Juy 2009 — “The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money.”

These 2 articles show the vital role of economic theory, necessary to manage our complex global economy.

4.  “Japan on verge of sub-prime mortgage crisis as summer bonuses plunge“,  The Times, 26 June 2009

5.  “No Recovery in Sight“, Bob Herbert, op-ed in the New York Times, 27 June 2009

Excerpts

(1)  “Fighting Downturns with Fiscal Policy“, Economic Letter of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 19 June 2009 — Excerpt:

Democracy in action: vital new legislation passed, but none knows what it is!

The House passed important new legislation on June 26.  The subject was climate change, but it will affect America in a million impossible to anticipate ways. Of course, Congress does not care.  They have not bothered to read the bill, all 1,092 pages, nor has there been any serious studies to anticipate its consequences.  Two years of research and modeling might not suffice to understand its likely effects on the vast, complex US economy.

Nor, of course, has the field of climate science recieved the funding and staffing required to provide a basis for trillion-dollar impacts on the US economy.  It’s as if the Apollo project was conducted out of a garage in Palo Alto, CA.

About HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

• Full text of this bill
• Outline of the bill
• “On the House floor“, David Freddoso, op-ed in the Washington Examiner, 26 June 2009

This is like Lord of the Flies, children pretending to be a government.  It ended badly for them, and will probably end badly for us.  Such large process errors in the operation of our government might eventually prove lethal for our peace and prosperity.  Perhaps for the Republic itself.

Anthropogenic global warming might be a servere threat.  This bill might be wonderful, perfection in legislation.  We don’t know, and don’t care.  It’s an odd way to run a nation. Links to past posts about climate change appear below the fold.

Are our wars driving us mad?

Recent posts on this site have explored the flimsy analytical foundation for the Afghanistan War.  The theories of the war’s advocates are supported neither by obvious facts nor a firm body of expert opinion.

There is another dimension to this.  The pro-war comments are this site have become increasingly delusional over the past 4 years.  Really disturbing.  This is speculation — just guessing — but I believe this shows what 8 years of war have done to America.  We’re locked into a seemingly endless war (as described here), whose costs exceed any likely benefit.  As so often happens, this rots our minds.  

To call this “madness” is an exaggeration, the phenomenon is a historical commonplace.  WWI is the classic example.  The original aims were quickly made obsolete by events.  The blood and treasure spent made backing down impossible.  Madness was the result.

The big lie

The primary justification given for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain 9-11, with frequent mentions of WWII.  The connection is never explained between these events and the invasion of Iraq and the current war against the Pasthun tribes of Afghanistan.  The enemy is just “evil” and “bad guys.”  Here is one examples.

“Yeah we had to look REAL hard for the “other evil” after Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The evil kept getting closer in proximity until their attacks on our soil made it impossible to ignore.” (sfmac, here)

The big lies about Iraq — Saddam’s connection with al Qaeda and possession of WMD’s — have been disproven.  Through repetition, much of the public remains convinced of a connection between the current war against the Pashtun people (or the Tailiban) and 9-11.  It is nonsense, as discussed in An expert explains why we must fight in Afghanistan.

A poem about the wonders of the Iraq War

 Here is a recent comment by Tom Grey.  He has a long train of comments on the FM site, which show him to be both intelligent and reasonably well-informed. 

Tom’s blog is Liberty Dad, “a world without dictators.”  Tom describes himself as “a libertarian paternalist – progressive Conservative. I want lots of choices for people, with very responsible oriented defaults. Political, smaller government oriented, pro- Christian with tolerance and against changes reducing Christian influence.”  His advocacy of foreign wars seems odd for a libertarian.

I have inserted replies into the text.

From comment #13 to A wonderful discussion about the American Empire.

Sorry FM, love your site, and it does seem true that that US free markets/ free people/ capitalism (inevitably corrupt and cronyistic)/ human rights … have been imposed by us “doing it largely by killing.” However, ALL rule, throughout history, has been imposed by the rulers, “largely by killing.”

FM:  Is this what we’ve become, imposing our way of life on other nations by killing?  I doubt that many Americans today would agree with this chilling view.  We have fought wars against folks who have done this, wars which we considered just.

In particular, in my own lifetime, the anti-war folk won the political battle about Vietnam after Nixon’s 1973 Paris Peace Treaty. What followed the success of the anti-war withdrawal of funding for our corrupt but capitalistic S. Viet allies? Hundreds of thousands of boat people fleeing the Soviet commie sponsored N. Viet rulers, taking over “largely by killing” in far greater numbers. Killing in far greater numbers than in 1973.

FM:  What’s the point here?  We fought for a decade in South Vietnam; should we still be fighting there?  Millions, perhaps tens of millions have died in wars since WWII.  Should we have sent our troops to fight and die in all of them?