Businessmen as Politicians

Getting close to the midterm elections, with all the political adds on TV in recent weeks, I’ve noticed that many aspirants cite their experience as operators of small businesses as a qualification for politics. Even Barney Franks in one of his adds mentions that his family owned a small business which he took charge of for a short while after his father died. I started to wonder if indeed the experience gained as a businessman (I use man in this case to include woman) truly is relevant to public service and have concluded that not only is it not relevant, it may in fact be detrimental to a position representing a population.

As I pointed out in a previous posting on Free Market Capitalism, the system works (and I do believe it does) because in the quest for self interest, coincidentally the society as a whole benefits. The success of a business is measured by the degree self interest is maximized not by how well society is served. In the stock markets, the price of a companies stock increases whenever there is an announcement of impending labor cuts because lower labor means lower costs and lower costs mean greater profits. So when an aspiring politician claims that they were successful businessmen, they in essence are saying they figured out how to bring greatest benefit to themselves. (Though I consider non-owner operators of businesses as administrators, in the common parlance businessmen is also applied to them so in this discussion that’s fine and we can think of their goal as bringing the greatest value to the owners.)

At the ground level the businessman, if successful, has figured out how to get the most for the least out of all of their associations. The highest price from their customers, the lowest price from their suppliers, the lowest rent, the cheapest labor. There is nothing wrong with this because that is how the system works. The output of the endeavor is singular, very focused and clear. It is profit, and there is only one beneficiary to be concerned with, either themselves or their employer in the case of outside owners. In public office, on the other hand there is the need to balance and maximize the benefits to a very diverse constituency with varied interests. A thing we often forget is that the role of a politician is to represent the entire population within their realm of responsibility, those who voted for them and agree with their ideology and those who didn’t. They should to be sensitive to the needs of business to maintain profits, of labor to have jobs and make a reasonable living, of the disenfranchised, the old and the sick, the needs to educate the young, protect lives and property and do this all within the guidelines set by the Constitution and prevailing local laws.

The businessman, on the one hand, has a singular goal and needs to understand the exterior forces in play as they move toward one goal while the politician needs to not only understand the exterior forces but also all the nuanced need of their diverse constituencies. Whereas there is only the need to balance the application of resources for businessman, there is the additional need to balance the benefits to the entire community. Unfortunately most politicians don’t do this well, if at all. They take the easy route and focus on one constituency, be it business, a minority, labor, women, the downtrodden, etc. The job of balancing all the varied needs is difficult and requires a great amount of skill and I feel the business experience with its singular focus is antithetical to the balance required at the output end. Having only focused on profit with no need to ever balance the output they have no experience and there is no indication that success with one is indicative of a skill set required in the other. In fact I believe the skills may in fact be totally different.

House of Worship

Last week I was a guest at a wedding in RI. The ceremony took place at a Catholic church, St. Mary’s in Bristol, and I was struck by its beauty. I had a chance to visit a number of cathedrals and churches in Italy, France and Germany and found this church to be on the par with the best and more beautiful then most.

While there I started thinking about criticism I’ve heard over the years about gilded houses of worship in impoverished neighborhoods, particularly in the third world. (I must admit I was a mild critic myself.) However, sitting in this splendid place I started to change my position. I imagined a person struggling all day coming home to an earthen floored, one room home with the only ornaments being pictures cut out of a magazine and maybe a religious symbol or shrine. And I thought about what a pleasure it must be on that one day a week when they are able to sit and relax in the splendor of such a place. I want to think that there is a sense of not only belonging to a community but ownership. This is their place. This is an extension of their home. It is the formal living room where they gather with their friends and the more humble the home the greater the significance of this great house.

Another though rattling around in my brain while admiring the architecture, color and stained glass was that this building must have given a great amount of joy to the designers, artisans and builders of this a magnificent structure. I imagine that the official justification for such opulence, particularly in the face of poverty, is that it represents respect for and a desire to properly worship ones God. I suspect God isn’t impressed easily and tolerates this because it enriches what would otherwise be drab and gray lives of the parishioners as well as the builders.

Optimism for America’s Future

I was watching a month old video of CNN’s Global Public Square hosted by Fareed Zakaria. (it’s the Sept 12 program which can be downloaded for free) He convened a panel consisting of Kathleen Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and co-host of a CNN talk show, Bernard Henri Levi, a French philosopher, Dan Senor of the Council on Foreign Affairs and Christia Freeland, a Global Editor at Large for Roiters. They were discussing the news of the week and got into a debate on the Tea Party. I believe the consensus was that the lower middle class feels threatened and the Tea Party is the response to their fears. These threats range from the irrational that a Muslim population of less than 1% will somehow impose Sheria Law on all the population of the US to real discomfort with the fact that at some future date the majority of the population of the United States will no longer be white and that the middle class, not only in the US but also in Europe, is now having to compete with a billion people from the emerging economies. I believe this last fear is very rational. Whereas globalization has improved the condition of the educated and wealthy and has had minimal impact on the lesser paid workers in service jobs that cannot be outsourced, many of the higher paid, less value added jobs have gone overseas and may not return.

The world has changed dramatically and we need to recalibrate and figure out how we will continue to succeed in this new setting. Bernard Henri Levi pointed out that the United States has faced great challenges in the past citing the 1930s and 60s as examples and has found its way and he, a Frenchman, was confident that it will again. He said (and I paraphrase) that what is going on in our country is a National brainstorming session where ideas are presented, discussed and a path forward determined and that in any good brainstorming session you must have on the table a full gamete of ideas ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. He was very confident that as we have done in the past, we will find the right path again.

I tend to agree with him and feel confident that the rhetoric about “second amendment (the right to bear arms) remedies” and against Muslims is just at one extreme end of ideas in this National brainstorming session. In fact, if I allow myself to get really optimistic, I think that the fact that we can have such a debate, in the long run may strengthen our democracy as we will have considered all alternatives, including the ridiculous and have chosen the path that will not only lead to continued success, but is consistent with the fundamental principles that have made ours a great nation.

Islamophobia Continued

Tonight I watched a debate on Bloomberg Television. The two sides argued whether Islam is a religion of peace. The side arguing that it is not won. My disappointment came not from the outcome but from the debate. I wonder if there could have been a debate on whether, Catholicism is a religion of pedophilia, Judaism a religion of greed, Hinduism is a religion of socio-economic discrimination or whether atheists are immoral or African Americans lazy. Certainly within all group there are sexually depraved, greedy, bigoted, immoral and lazy people as there are extremely violent ones. In today’s environment it is OK to have “frank” discussions about Islam in a national forum but I doubt whether the same could be had about any other group.

Obama's Religiosity

The other night I tuned into the end of a discussion on CSPAN hosted by a Catholic Priest. I have seen him on TV before and think he hosts a Catholic program. His guests were a young Rabbi, Alec Baldwin’s Born-Again Christian brothers and a journalist covering religion. At the point I tuned in they were discussing whether our President was a Christian. (Being a Muslim, I would love to have heard him say that he is indeed a Christian but if he were a Muslim or a Mormon or a Jew, how would he be a lesser president. Unfortunately, though brave, that would have fed the extreme right and alienated a large segment of our country and destroyed any chances for reelection, but I digress.)
There were two points that resonated with me. The first raised by the journalist was that President Obama, while a candidate, said in an interview that though he chose a Christian path, he believes that there are many paths to god. Believing that the only path to heaven is through Jesus Christ, the Christian Fundamentalists take this as a un-Christian position. I believe that this is a debate the fundamentalists pushing for a Christian Theocracy in America are having with the segment of our population trying to maintain a secular country. This has led to much of the vitriolic sentiment toward him from the right. Though I agree with his position, I can understand the logic if one is the keeper of the absolute truth and believes that the only true path is through Christ. Hmmm; that sounds familiar, a bit like the position of Muslim fundamentalists, believing that their path is the only true one and wanting to create Islamic Theocracies.
The other point, a totally irrational one, was made by Mr. Baldwin. He believes that because the President, as his first act, signed some kind of legislation, which somehow supported abortion somewhere outside the country. Thus with abortion being prohibited in the Bible, he said, the President cannot claim to be a Christian. The Priest asked where in the Bible does it speak about abortion, in response to which Baldwin cited the prohibition against taking innocent lives. I am surprised no one challenged him. Maybe it was because the show was coming to an end. If one extends his argument then none of the pro-choice people can claim to be Christians. What about President Bush and other Presidents who have sent us into wars where masses of innocents are killed? Are they not Christians? What about the soldier who, when noticing sniper fire from a large tenement building in Iraq, bombards the entire building with large artillery rounds surly destroying many innocents including children? Is that not taking innocent life? Is he not a Christian? What kind of an example would God have been setting for us when he caused the death of every first born in Egypt during the period of Exodus. Were these children and for that matter their parents, not innocent and not responsible for the deeds of the Pharos who, after all, they didn’t even elect?

Terrorism

There is a lot of ambiguity around what is "terrorism". The word is generally too broadly applied. Acts of war strike terror in the hearts of the civilian population but would not be considered terrorism. Rebellions against an occupier such as our own revolution, or the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union are not considered acts of terrorism. However, the Mau-Mau uprising against the Brits in Kenya and the Palestinian uprising against Israel, on the other hand, in our part of the world, are. The actions of the IRA against England are certainly viewed by the British as terrorism but I suspect there are elements of the US population of Irish ancestry who do not. Whether an act is terrorism or not must depend and whose side one is on. Use of the term terrorism is a political ploy meant to stir emotions that winds up leading to confusion and prolonging conflicts unnecessarily.

I believe the terrorism is most appropriately applied in cases where acts of war are perpetrated on a population that is not in a state of war. (There are international legal definitions of what constitutes an act of war. Some of them like massing troops along someone’s border and blockading a country, are not commonly thought of as acts of war by the general public.) By that definition, on September 11th we were not at war. The same can be said of the Spanish train bombings, the bombings in Bali and others throughout the world where the countries were not at war with the assailants and therefore are indeed acts of terrorism.

As to the current "war on terror"; though there is indeed a threat, the term “war” magnifies it. Also the declaration of a "war on terror" by the previous administration now identifies us as a combatant nation and maybe in the minds of some radicals justifies acts of war against us. The fact that we have not had any attacks since 9/11 on our soil suggests that the threat, though real, may be overstated.

An act of war is an expensive proposition both in resources and human lives. During the "cold war" with the Soviets, part of the game was to make the other guy spend money. We would develop a weapons system and the Soviets then would need to develop a system to counter it. If we spent $100,000,000 to develop one and the Soviets spent $90,000,000 to counter it, they won. If they had to spend $110,000,000, we won. We finally bankrupted them. We have spent a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq, and if indeed it is part of a "war on terror", then we are spending 1 trillion against our foe's several hundred million. This is unsustainable. If we are to continue with the "war on terror", we need to figure out some different way that puts our budget closer to a few billion instead of a trillion or somehow get the enemy to need to spend a lot more.

What can we do so everyone can take a peaceful breath? First I think we need to step back and better understand the nature of the conflicts. Who is the enemy? We have thrown so many groups into the terrorism kettle, I think we are confusing ourselves. Though Hamas, The IRA, The Basque Separatists, Hezbollah, the Taliban and Al-Qaida all kill innocent people, as do civilized countries engaged in a war, (the German killing of ¼ of the population of Bialorus, the Russian destruction of Berlin, our fire bombing of Tokyo and atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Israel’s attacks on Gaza to name a few) the aims and strategies of these groups are very different and need to be considered separately. The Taliban, IRA, Hamas all have local agendas whereas Al-Qaida has global aims. We need to understand their agenda and for those who indeed threaten us, develop a strategy to destroy them. When I say understand them, I don't mean to understand the rationale behind their actions, because as was the case with the Red Army Faction in Germany in the middle part of last century or al-Qaida, the ideologies are so radical that they defy logic, but better understand how they organize, propagandize, finance etc.
If we properly segregate and analyze the “terrorists” (the CIA probably is doing that but the politicians ignore them), the group may be much smaller than we think and instead of considering and elevating them to a position of combatants in a war, we may conclude that they are criminals and pursue them as such. In the long run, crime prevention may be more effective and much cheaper in both lives and money than war.

Education

Years ago a neighbor made a comment to the affect that since our kids are grown, why should we have to pay to educate children of others. I would like to think that the question does not reflect a common point of view but following are my thoughts on the topic. The question is aimed at public education and may boil down to why should the general population pay for something that is of benefit to an individual or a family and is of no consequence to the community?
Jonas Salk, the inventor of the vaccine that eliminated polio was not a relative of the masses that were spared the pain of the dreaded disease. Charles Manson was not the son of the Tates whose daughter he and the gang he led murdered so brutally in the 60s. The society as a whole benefits or suffers from the actions of other people’s children and thus it is to the benefit of everyone that we produce the “best”. In the industrialized world where we do not rely on our children to care for us in old age, the major benefit derived by the family of a well educated child comes down to “bragging rights”.
Though there are many factors that go into the quality of our next generation, education is certainly one of them. Public education was first came into being in China during the reign of Kublai Khan, the Mongol conqueror. It was introduced in England hundreds of years ago when the general population won the right to vote. It occurred to the powers to be that if they were going to have a democracy where everyone voted for the government that will run the country the population needs to have at least the ability to read and write so as to be somewhat informed. I have found that a lot of political nonsense stems not from the fact that the population in some areas is stupid but that it is uninformed. There was a pole conducted in one of the Carolinas recently where one of the questions was whether Hawaii is a State. More than 40 or 50% of the population and more than 60% of Republicans said it was not. Given that understanding, it is not totally irrational than to say that the President, born in Hawaii, is not a citizen. With today’s easy access to information one would think people would be better informed. I guess the issue is quality and not quantity of information. Unfortunately, most swords cut both ways and politicians often use the abundant channels of communication available to intentionally misinform their constituencies to advance their own cause.
The current administration has spent a significant amount of time talking about education. In fact last week I saw the president at a “back yard” meeting in Ohio where, when asked about our economic future, he reiterated the point that with advances in technology, a society will need a better and more technically educated workforce to compete. He also pointed out that whereas a decade ago we were first in people graduating from college, we are now twelfth. I believe he is correct in his assertion. Things that were done by brute force more and more are done using technologically advanced tools and methods and the nature of the workforce will need to be better educated going forward. Besides better educated, I believe the workforce will also need to be smarter.
In my experience educated does not necessarily mean smart though there is some correlation. Education, however, is used as an indicator that the probability is higher that someone is smart in the case of someone educated than not and the higher the education the higher the probability. Therefore we need to make sure that we have all of our “smart” young people available for the demands of the new economy. If we are depriving the poorest of our population the opportunity for a good education, we will decrease the number of people we can pick from for those tasks demanding the best thinking abilities.
I would like to use a sports analogy to clarify this point. Say I want to build the best basketball team in the world. Very great height or agility are strong assets in Basketball. Let’s suppose that the only kids I have to choose from are the inner city and rural kids who have not much else to do summers but play basketball. I am missing out on a great number of youths who are both tall and agile from the more affluent community because they never get seriously involved with basketball. Instead of being able to select a team of the tallest and most agile players from the entire population I am restricted to selecting from only a portion of the population and the team I put together will be inferior to one I could have had were I able to include the affluent in my selection of players.
In the same fashion by not providing a good K-12 education to the inner city and rural kids, they don’t go on to college. Since a degree is the stamp of approval for intelligence, They will never get into the pool of “smart” people needed for future economic success, thus decreasing the probability of our continued economic leadership. The gap between the wealthy and poor is widening with the population of poor growing disproportionately. If K-12 education continues as it is and college becomes more costly, with especially advanced degrees available only to the wealthiest, we will be playing with a team selected from an ever-shrinking portion of our population. (I don’t buy the argument that the wealthiest are also genetically superior so the pool of smarts is in that group anyway. At best the bell curve is shifted slightly if at all) Thus with education also the key credential for positions of leadership, we will diminish the strengths of our leaders and thus our great nation.