Tree Don't Care What A Little Bird Sings

I have not read much of Robert Fogel's work, not much at all, but I may need to read more of it. A Fine Theorem, one of the more under-appreciated blogs, has a summary of Fogel's Without Consent or Contract. Here's part of it:

... the paradox rests on the widely held assumption that technological efficiency is inherently good. It is this beguiling assumption that is false and, when applied to [American] slavery, insidious.”  

Roughly, it was political change alone, not economic change, which could have led to the end of slavery in America. The plantation system was, in fact, a fairly efficient system in the economic sense, and was not in danger of petering out on its own accord.

Here's the rest.

There are multiple views of the politics of technology. (Technology is, at its core, information aggregation.) One says that technology is liberating. Another says that technology is enslaving. Another says that technology is fueled by the state for purposes of control. (Oddly, skeptics of markets often make the first point of that point without understanding that the second point is the corollary.) Technology can destabilize the political equilibrium (but does that only apply if it goes in one direction? I doubt it). It's worth googling a bit for the views of Farrell, Drezner, and Lynch on this. It's worth noting that modern authoritarian regimes try to get to the technological frontier as rapidly as possible but they tend to have a tough time managing it. Francis Spufford's Red Plenty is on sale at Amazon right now, if you don't mind probably giving some of your metadata to the NSA.

Sarah Jaffe (on Twitter) asked for a political economy of the surveillance state. (Here's a short take, not very good.) I haven't got the time or background knowledge to build a real model, but if I was going to I'd start with Tilly and Scott and Weber at the foundation and ask what purpose this really serves. Knowledge is power, is it not? Power is needed for protection (in the Tillian sense), is it not? After that I'd go to Orwell like everyone already is, but not the dystopian cliches. Remember in 1984 that Winston Smith was pretty much the only one in society bothered by Big Brother. (Probably not, if you've read your Timur Kuran, but as far as Smith could tell he nearly enough was.) Everybody else just got on with it. The proles sang their songs and read their magazines. Sure, Julia was a bit inconvenienced by the whole thing, but it's not like she really had principles.

Now think about Havel. Now think about samizdat. Is information so easily controllable? Can the state not oppress on the basis of allegation, innuendo, or missing data? Can the citizenry not resist simply by living? Does the state need all information to "keep the locals in line" or just a vague threat -- the vaguer the better? Corey Robin addresses this and gives a precis of his book on the politics of fear. Stalin didn't have Bukharin's metadata... just the ability to credibly say "we know where your kids are". That hasn't changed. Yglesias is right: the biggest thing to fear from the surveillance state isn't the state, per se. But that's a micro story, and micro stories can dictate macro policies.

The U.S. public is not concerned about this. To the extent they are it's for partisan reasons, not out of principle. Note that this is not new. Note that, so far, it appears that these programs are legal at least in broad terms. Intellectuals are more concerned that the median pollee, as they should be, since they are much more likely to be targeted than a randomly-selected person. (If I was Glenn Greenwald I'd go back to snail mail and pay phones for a good long while.) But so? Democratic politics does not guarantee puppies and roses. As we debate whether or not this is constitutional we should remember that James Buchanon's insights do not only apply to economic policy. We should also remember that politicians and celebrities have been subject to heavier levels of scrutiny than this for as long as there has been human society.

Data, even metadata, can be used for ill. (Or good, as the case may be, since the 21st century version of Paul Revere is probably someone Healy wouldn't meet for a beer at Ye Olde Tavern. Possibly this isn't what Healy's driving at.) But let's not get carried away. The U.S. government is sophisticated in many ways, but this program has only $20mn in funding. Let's say they spend $5mn of that on high-powered computers (that's probably less than what the supercomputer I ran a bunch of my dissertation on cost), and the rest on twenty-somethings making $200k/year each (as Snowden apparently did). That's 75 guys trying to make sense of the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day. Good luck with that. (No I don't believe only $20mn was funneled into this. Not for a moment do I believe that. But I'm not sure how much $20bn could really do absent some good old fashioned police work.)

So after you've read the Spufford (or even before) you might want to read some of the discussion at Crooked Timber on the book. See especially this wonderclass by Shalizi which has as much to say about social science theory and methods as it does about historical political systems or the contemporary political economy of the surveillance state or novels. The key question is Shalizi's first one: what is being optimized?

Then recall that Hayek's slippery slope is a logical fallacy to which the historical record is not kind. Should we be less concerned? Probably depends on how concerned you were in the first place... anonymity is a myth.

Remember too that the government oppresses and kills and makes terrible decisions when it doesn't have good intelligence. Given that, is the expected utility of (American or other) society better or worse with PRISM or without it? Apparently this program stopped one or more attacks at the London Olympics. What would the cost of those attacks have been? Was preventing them worth $20mn dollars plus some false positives? (The TSA spends $6.5 billion a year and probably gets almost nothing for it.) Could PRISM have stopped Nidal Hasan had it been better-implemented? If it could have, would it be worth it? We are quite literally behind the veil of ignorance at the moment (just a bit less in the wake of Snowden's leaks), but if we take engaged citzenry to be a desirable normative end in itself we need to put our Bayesian caps on now and start updating our priors.

What tail event has a greater probability: that this program is abused in such a way that it devastates liberal society, or that it prevents a significant attack the fallout from which would devastate the same society?

In the end the biggest repercussions of NSA spying might be felt in the US-EU trade negotiations.

Nevertheless, I oppose PRISM and related programs very strongly. I do so because I am not risk-averse.

I believe this is the most Cowen-esque thing I've ever written. I also believe that every link in this post is worth clicking on.

Against (Secret) Death Panels

This is well outside of my normal purview, but since the assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both American citizens, I've been thinking a good bit -- not for the first time, thank you -- about the wide space between our conception of the checks and balances on the capricious exercise of government power, and the reality of it. People talked about this some during the Bush administration, but I'm now of the opinion that the primary difference between the Bush administration and others in recent history is the former's simple brazenness: Bush would come right and say "I'm the decider", and he'd have his lawyers so obviously butcher the tradition of law to rationalize his policies, and his Vice-President would declare himself a member of neither the executive nor legislative branches and therefore not subject to any oversight from anyone ever, and his ambassador to the UN openly advocated abolishing the UN... Bush just didn't give a damn. He'd practically dare anyone to do anything to slap his wrists. Every other president before or since has at least pretended to uphold the law. Bush said that wasn't necessary, since any action taken by the president was ipso facto permissible.

In other words, the difference between the Bush administration and other administration is that the former was brazen. But that may be the only difference. The Bush administration may have lied to get the US into a war -- or been selective in their disclosure of the known facts, depending on how charitable your interpretation is -- but the Reagan administration lied about the existence of a war. I'm not going to go down the list, but it's now indisputable that every presidential administration since World War II* has used the tools of war at their own discretion, with essentially no accountability. Alright, I know this is no new news.

But this is, to me at least. It seems that the Obama administration convenes a panel of NSC folks who determine who the US will attempt to assassinate. Without legal mandate or any oversight, of course. Here's how Reuters puts it:

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

This is, of course, completely obscene. There may be a case to be made that the president needs the authority to attack high-level targets at short notice, and use lethal force if that's the best or only option. I would hope that decisions involving the use of lethal force would be reviewable by some sort of oversight committee, but I could understand the argument in favor of such a policy. But as far as I can tell the president does not possess that power in any established legal sense. That makes this panel as it exists today no more than the District of Columbia's branch of Murder, Inc. but with the full resources of the United States government at their disposal. Legal immunity too.

I don't see how this is an acceptable state of affairs.

*And possibly before, although my knowledge of American history is murkier before then.

(Via @interfluidity)

The Military-Industrial Complex 50 Years On

Today is obviously dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., but 50 years ago Dwight Eisenhower delivered his famous "military-industrial complex" speech. His granddaughter recalls what he was referring to:

The pressures Eisenhower faced during his presidency were enormous. Over the years, as the Soviet Union appeared to reach military parity with the United States, political forces in Washington cried out for greater defense spending and a more aggressive approach to Moscow. In response, the administration publicly asserted that there was no such thing as absolute security. "The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without," Eisenhower said. And he followed through, balancing the budget three times during his tenure, a record unmatched during the Cold War. ...

"This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. . . . We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

This sounds very much like things Stephen Walt has been yelling for the past decade. And this understanding of Ike's famous phrase is very different from the typical interpretation, where "military-industrial complex" is essentially shorthand for rent-capture by defense agencies. I think most people can agree that there is quite a lot of both going on right now, and when even the Defense Department wants its funding cut you can tell that things are out of control.

But I don't think the American public are all that interested in weighing the costs of the national security state versus the benefits. We don't think in terms of tradeoffs -- extra airport security means higher taxes or fewer schools -- or if we do we seem to immediately decide that security is the highest pursuit, even if we're chasing diminishing returns.

In many ways this is a perfect companion to MLK Day. We remember MLK and the civil rights movement for the large advance of human liberty it produced. It helps remind us of the sort of society we used to be, the sort of society are now, and the sort of society we hope to be in the future. It's also worth dwelling for a few moments on the implications of our foreign policy and public spending on those goals. I don't think that points us in any one direction as Walt does, but I do think reflection is a valuable exercise.

Please: Don't Be Evil

All our base are belong to Google:

In other words, according to Google, United States state governments have literally handed over our public data to be held and managed by a private company which has well-publicized partnerships with other governments such as China. The data is physically stored in Google’s buildings, on Google’s servers, managed by Google’s employees. This means Google now controls our government’s access to it’s own data. ...

With Google physically housing and managing state government operational data, they literally gain control of our government’s operations. What’s more, Google also has access to data mine the information. Would this be legal? Hopefully not, depending on the contract that our governments have signed. Would it be technologically possible? Of course. ...

It’s funny that we’re chasing after “terrorists” in our airports, and at the same time our state governments have moved fundamental operations data over to a private company which is not controlled by the public and has strong ties to foreign governments.

Google is outside our system of checks and balances. They are quickly becoming absolutely necessary for our government to function, but their operations are not transparent and are outside the control of the American people.

ht: @kinggary

Props

Inspired by North Korea's most recent nuclear test, Dan Drezner offers a list of his favorite IR articles and books on the role that the reputations of states play in international relations. This isn't usually IPE fare (although several of the his favorites are IPE texts), but one thing about his list immediately stood out: an article by Mark Crescenzi, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UNC, made the list along such luminaries as Thomas Schelling, Daryl Press, Philip Zelikow, and some dude named Machiavelli. The list is here, and Dr. Crescenzi's article may be found at JSTOR here (I do not know of an ungated version). I can second Drezner's recommendation: it's a very good article.

US Dominance - Fading away?

The US National Intelligence Council just released its latest Global Trends report, and the analysis is far grimmer for the United States then its 2004 report.

According to the Intelligence Report, the world is moving towards multipolarity, with China, India, and Russia in line to challenge US dominance by 2025.  The dollar will continue to decline in prominence as power shifts eastward.

Interestingly, the report finds the worlds biggest security threats will stem from economic concerns - trade and investment disputes, competition for natural resources especially water and energy resources, and strategic technology development.

Now, there is considerable criticism about the track record of NIC report accuracy, especially regarding previous assessments of Japan and Russia.  However, the assessment is interesting in its pessimism.  Multipolarity upsetting the stabilizing effect of US hegemony, nuclear weapons deployed by rogue groups, the inadequacy of the US military in combating irregular warfare methods - seems like the current financial crisis is the least of our worries.

So, all you policy wonks, get to work crafting exit strategies - or at least start trying to find a way to get an EU passport . . . . .