Steven Brill -- Tailspin
==========================

Brill gives a extremely severe critique of our federal government
and the social organization behind it.  A polite way to phrase this
is to say that we are "challenged", very challenged.

Our efforts at reform and at moving toward a meritocracy has
produced specific classes of people who hold extraordinary amounts
of wealth and power.  We are becoming a radically unequal society.
The wealthy and powerful can protect themselves; they can produce
the kind of government that benefits them and produces even more
inequality.  Many of the governmental powers that protect those who
are less than wealthy are not needed by the wealthy, and so those
who are wealthy attempt to strip those protections away.  Since the
regulations and regulators that would provide those protections
would interfere with the ability of the rich and powerful to become
even more wealthy and powerful, and since politically focused money
is very influential within our government, the rich and powerful are
very effective at removing and weakening those regulations and
protections.

There is entirely too much money in politics and there are too many
lobbyists in government.  We have become what Brill calls a "moat
nation", in part meaning that those with the money and power to
protect themselves, do so, and they protect and increase their
wealth and power while doing so.

We have become a nation that is extremely polarized, and our
government reflects that.  In terms of media and communications, we
have been given the ability to choose the news and opinion sources
that we want; we can ward off opinions that we disagree with and
that threaten our established and hardened views.  We transmit that
polarization to our government by choosing politicians with extreme
views.  But, it's not only that our political leaders have very
divergent *opinions*; it's that they are uncompromising on issues
that reflect those opinions.  At least one of our two major
political parties has more and more decided that if legislation,
regulations, etc. do not agree with their positions and ideology,
then they will not be considered at all.  The Hassert rule is an
example of this: the unofficial policy that, a majority of
Republicans in a Republican controlled U.S. House of Representatives
has to support a bill before the Speaker will allow it be be
considered.  Combine that policy and the frequent use of filibuster
in the U.S. Senate, and you have a dysfunctional government.

And, it is our system of checks and balances that helps create this
dysfunction by enabling opposing political parties, or anyone with
opposing ideologies to block each other.  A system of governing
containing effective checks and balances works only as long as those
who participate in that government are willing to cooperate and
compromise.  On the other hand, if you are one of the promoters of
small government and believe that the less government does the
better, then this kind of dysfunctional stalemate could be what you
want.

And, speaking of stalemate, divisions and conflicts between factions
*within* each political party also block constructive government
action.  This became especially true within the Republican Party
during fights over the budget and government shutdown.

Wealth and income inequality in our nation have dramatically
increased.  The consequences are that we have one class of people
that can protect and promote their interests (and who have the money
to do so), and we have another class of people who are both
powerless to do so and who are left unprotected.  That, it turns
out, is a self-perpetuating system, in fact, its a system with a
positive feedback loop.  The increasing amount of money and
lobbyists that is being allowed in our government is one indication
that this is happening and part of the mechanism for causing it.

Brill's discussion of a meritocracy, our meritocracy, is useful
because it explains to a large extent how it has become a major
cause of the inequality that is expanding in our society.  If you
choose to fill all positions within a firm based only on the ability
and skils of the people to be put in those positions and you give no
consideration for having a reasonably broad representation of a wide
selection of people or the population, then you end up having
selected very skillful people with the skills and power to increase
the wealth, status, and power of themselves and those who can afford
to pay them, owners, for example.  Furthermore, these capable and
skillful people will be in positions where they are best able to do
so.

Good intentions sometimes have bad consequences.  Or, if a good
system can be used for bad purposes, it *will* be used for bad
purposes.  That should be one of Murphy's laws, or perhaps it
already is.

Brill credits Michael Jensen and the papers he co-authored on the
nature of publicly owned firms with initiating the move toward
meritocratic hiring for the sole purpose of increasing
shareholder/owner wealth at the expense of all other considerations.
Benefits to society and labor, of course, would have to be put at a
lower priority.  Those managers, since they are hired and rewarded
(sometimes with stock options and bonuses) on the basis of
short-term stock market results, emphasize share price and dividend
rewards for shareholders to the exclusion of other values.  Activist
shareholders and corporate raiders amplified this movement.  And,
that shift in emphasis, according to Brill, has results that have
been very damaging to our democracy.

There are also two forms of "liberalization" (actually a weakening
of laws and regulations) that also participate in this process of
making our government more dysfunctional and less helpful for the
majority of us, although perhaps these are two forms of the same set
of changes: (1) A loosening of the rules of free speech and, in
particular providing more freedom for corporate speech and (2) a
loosening and weakening of the rules restricting political donations
to politicians and the use of money to influence government in other
ways, for example, through lobbyists.  When a corporation or other
entity argues that it should be allowed promote its products through
speech because to restrict its attempts to do so limits the ability
of others to learn about products and services, it is actually
arguing for its own ability to operate within the marketplace and
the economy in ways that are not available to the rest of us, that
is not available to those of us who do not also have the wealth and
power to do so.  And, something analogous is being done when a large
corporation or other powerful entity argues that it should be
allowed to lobby in government for its own positions and benefit and
should be allowed to make campaign contributions to politicians who
support it, which again is something that the rest of us cannot do
to anywhere near the same degree.  Most of us would agree that some
amount of these abilities should be allowed and are necessary for
the operation of a democratic government.  Brill's choice of the
title "Tailspin" indicates, I think, that he believes these trends
have become so prevalent and so massive that it cripples our
government rather than enabling it.

If you are interested in learning more about how wealth and power
are increasing in the U.S. and how that is used to increase that
inequality, consider reading "The curse of bigness", by Tim Wu.  It
provides another perspective on how wealth and size that has become
increasingly large helps to protect and increase that size, wealth,
and power.  One way this process works is: (1) increases in the size
of firms leads to (2) increases in the power of those large firms,
which leads to (3) the ability to eliminate competition (e.g.
through mergers and buyouts, which leads to (4) stronger control
over labor and workers and wages.  An additional way it works is
that a large corporation is able to demand and extract tax benefits
in exchange for building a plant or headquarters in a particular
city, effectively taking money away from civic and social uses and
turning it into corporate profits.  The recent (2/2019) conflict and
negotiations between Amazon and New York City, although they broke
down, nevertheless illustrate that increase in the power of
corporations and their owners over other sectors of our society.

An even additional and also devastating indictment is given in
"Crashed", by Adam Tooze.  Tooze argues that our current financial
and governmental system can only exist and survive if it, especially
the federal government, lies to us.  This became most dramatically
clear when our government necessarily had to save large corporations
and financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis, and had
to do so with our, tax payer, money, effectively using taxpayer
money to make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful.  There
is no way that they (our government) can be truthful about and admit
to that.  Basically, Tooze is saying that our financial system is
designed to be unstable, and this very instability is a mechanism
for maintaining the wealth and power of the rich and powerful.

So, if you are looking for a very severe and intelligent critique of
the government of the U.S., Brill certainly provides one.  Although,
if you are easily depressed, you might want to avoid it.  "Shields
up", as they say.

02/22/2019

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