Y2k year 2002 back to archive

Y2k2 issue 5 week 22, 2002 homeland security and the difficulty of an alternative.
June 12, 2002
Douglass Carmichael
doug@bigmindmedia.com
archives at http://dougcarmichael.com/y2k_2002_introduction.htm

Security is the issue that has replaced y2k. How to be smart about the use of technology and institutions to face real issues and create a quality of life and hope?. As I see it there is the almost inevitable trend of the largest power center and empire in the world to be threatened from without and within, and to move inexorably towards a national police state. It is too big and unwieldy, and there is too great an alignment between big business and government (as happened in Germany) for any other path. A few issues ago I quoted Spengler's The Decline of the West, that the move towards some sort of Caesar is the fate of such large states. The result is the Homeland Security legislation, a war on terror, and constant use of this fact to reinforce existing trends and large institutions. The cost of security is intense, say 5% of all national income, between police and technical measures, and then we add 5% more for the military. This amount of money, more broadly distributed, could save lots of businesses that are failing or have failed since 9-11, and help create a just society. (see Joseph Tainter The Collapse of Complex Societies, on infrastructure costs)

We never, when thinking years ago, about the idealized future of jets, tv, communications, the technically empowered individual, thought of inequality, alienation, economic marginalization, and the impact on the need for security. Large planes and nuclear power plants only make sense when everyone is happy. There were those who raised the questions, but the seduction was too complete. If we had done nothing after sept 11 except say ho-hum, we would be better of in cost, effects on the quality of life in terms of fear and disruptions. Even the actual cost of direct human lives would be less. The increased purchase of guns, and the anticipated ensuing deaths from accidents alone surpasses yearly the trade center death total, and the lost time due to security is adding up to millions of lives. Security is a tax on the system made necessary by the fact of economically, socially, psychologically, or culturally marginalized people without hope. We can either buy technical fixes in defense, or social and psychological innovations that lead to satisfying lives.

What would an alternative look like?

It would have to be different, and hold out satisfaction for a variety of really different people, because nothing can happen that doesn't build on the real motives of most of the people. Building an alternative to what appears to be inexorable is not easy. It requires mobilization of what in the process must be larger forces.

Here is a proposal. That instead of war on terrorism, it gets defined as a police activity. Instead of a national homeland defense "for efficiency" we revert to states rights and responsibilities, with broad decentralization of the security issues to different states. There would be a variety of responses, and some would fail, but the overall cost to the system would be less in cash and in distortions of power towards a national security regime that ceases to be democratic. We probably would need to add something equivalent to the forgiveness on third world debt, but internally; say a one-year moratorium on all interest payments. This would shake out the economy and help people see quickly what is really productive and what is merely interest earned income (about half of all income in the US).

This move would support the needed shift towards vital local and regional economies and political involvement. But can it happen? The progressive left would be against it, because they are fairly aligned with large social institutional programs. The middle right is against it because it breaks apart centralized market's for large corporate operations. The rural right, interestingly, does not like homeland security because it puts the power in the hands of an armed centralized police authority. Could those who oppose the national security state trend ever get together?

My analysis is that, until say 1400, progressives were threatened by the rise of the bureaucratic state, as its mode of operation shifted from Florence and Venice to kings and nations. Progressives, those interested in humane development, wanted to go back to local control and prerogatives. After 1400, when the bureaucratic state had become the norm, progressives looked to the future, not the past, as the direction of a more enlightened just and fair humanity. Meanwhile the conservatives, also afraid of the rise of the state, held on to local privilege, and stayed with the idea of going back, even after the rise of the state, the Absolute monarchies, and the rise of Napoleonic centralization. (The underlying religious support both for a millenarian future and for values conserving based onfear of change is part of the fabric we still live with. See David Noble's The Religion of Science for a fascinating history. See also Voegelin History of Political Ideas, vol 3, The Late Middle Ages for an analysis of catholic justification of absolute authority of spiritual over secular control, a theory then borrowed by Kings).

The problem is that both the left and the right do not like the bureaucratic state centralization. But the left looks right through the state and sees the enemy as being the totalitarian right, and the right looks right through the centralized sate and sees the left as the friend of centralization. They both have the same goal: constraint of the state, but do not see it correctly. The purpose of political rhetoric on both sides is to obscure the issue and build a winning majority that includes those: large corporations, banks, legal frameworks, and all the careers in large organizations, and the media.

The result is that the bureaucratic state is the agreed upon major trend, and defines then the approach to terrorism in terms of defense rather than in terms of understanding, equity, fairness, justice, and the "decent opinion of mankind."

This says to me that a path other than that of a beefed up Homeland Security approach and the decline of democratic politics would be very difficult. But I think we have to find a way, and we can't if we don't come to grips with how hard it will be.

States Rights?
Decentralization?
Concern for the opinion of mankind?
Taking responsibility for more involvement in local politics?

It is hard to see this becoming a national movement. But lets be clear about what it would take to prevent the rise of Caesar (the American Flag lapel pins already look like the Soviet politburo, or Mussolini and the fascists).

Here follows an excellent review article that sets some of the background by comparing two books that have helped frame the current state of advanced thinking, Fukuyama"s End of History, and Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. Careful study of this article will be rewarding, because they help us think through how difficult are the issues we face. We may not like where we are, but Bush is in jam, and sees threats that are real, and can only imagine, while also being self serving, an American response based on the institutions he has available. A creative cultural response is beyond the possibilities of leadership that is hostage to fate. Clinton was Hostage to the idea that it was the economy, and he helped its growth. Bush was elected because he was more likely to defend its gains - for the minority that gained them.

For those who want an alternative to the imperial state, we have to take seriously Kurtz's conclusion that "the coming years will be a time of reluctant imperialism for the United States." One clue is that Kurtz (following Fukuyama) does not raise the issue of "democracy" being achieved along with increasing economic inequality. If we add that dimension, the implications of the Review are even more difficult to image an alternative to, but also makes it more important that we find an alternative perspective. I will follow up in the next issue. My current suggestion is that Islam has methods of social concern and consensus that the democratic west can learn from, that would allow us to see that a good social future is the desire in both cultures, and that the western way, as it currently works, produces too much alienation and raw economic catastrophe to be a long term viable civilization. A new synthesis is necessary. And very difficult.

Link to the article
http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kurtz_print.html

Books mentioned

Fukuyama The End of History
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0380720027/dougcarmichae-20

Huntington The Clash of Civilizations
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0684844419/dougcarmichae-20

Voegelin History of Political Ideas vol 3 The Late Middle Ages
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0826211542/dougcarmichae-20

David Noble The Religion of Science
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0140279164/dougcarmichae-20

Spengler The Decline of the West
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0195066340/dougcarmichae-20

Joseph Taintor The Collapse of Complex Societies
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 052138673X/dougcarmichae-20