State Capture

I first read about the term State Capture in 2016 in The Economist. It was referring to the state of South Africa under the seemingly serially corrupt Jacob Zuma. Many institutions were being undermined, and a particular family, the Gupta’s, seemed to have acquired covert control over many levers of power, that they were using to promote their own acquisition of power and wealth.

I don’t know a lot about Zuma and South Africa, but I guess I should celebrate that there has since been a handover of power in the ruling party, and that Zuma himself is subject to a number of court cases. Perhaps the Gupta’s will come under trial as well.

I found the State Capture term interesting, so I looked up its origin. According to Wikipedia, the World Bank first coined the term around 2000, referring to powerful individuals in the formerly communist countries comprising the Soviet Union. Subsequently, these individuals gave rise to another word that become common, Oligarchs.

The break up of the Soviet Union was a heady time. I will be forever grateful that I was given the job by Shell in 1993-94 that involved our retail market entry into those countries, which allowed me to visit many of them. The job taught me a lot about myself and about the world, and put me into contact with some inspirational young people. It might have been the most consequential job I did at Shell.

Those same times have given rise to a lot more newsprint in the last couple of weeks, following the death of George HW Bush. The period was indeed a political triumph for him, and we tend to forget now that a largely peaceful transition was far from certain, and a particular risk with nuclear weapons hanging around. The world was lucky to have Bush in power at the time. He received mixed support from his allies: it still amazes me how far on the wrong side of history that Margaret Thatcher was in not supporting the reunification of Germany.

But if that transition was a triumph politically, it was a disaster economically, at least to start with, and the blame for that lies squarely with the western economic establishment at the time.

The west had just embarked on what I call the Great Wrong Turning, under the leadership of Thatcher and Reagan, following the dogma of the Chicago School of economics. It was true that some correction had been necessary: powerful trade unions and anti-corporate states had stymied growth. Some privatisation was justified and even smart. But the dismantling of the welfare state and the unjust rewards to finance and corporations was both cruel and ultimately destructive, and of course this style of thinking still infests much of the world today.

Privatisation and deregulation made some sense in the US and UK because other state institutions were strong. It was fine for a private company, even a monopoly, to run major industries like telecoms and gas, because the terms of the sell off were transparent and because the state was able to retain some control through effective regulators. There were functioning markets to enable widespread private shareholding.

As the communist orbit collapsed, none of these safeguards were in place, yet advisors from the west still recommended the same approach. The result was inevitable – the original state capture. That error still plagues those economies and, more important, the ordinary people living in them, today. I saw the beginnings of it back in 1993. People had some notion of freedom, but that was a poor swap for weaker pensions, welfare, job security, education and healthcare.

Things have since improved in those same countries, because a market economy, even one run primarily for the benefit of a few criminals, is better than what came before. But that list of sacrifices arguably applies much more widely in the world today. Could it be that state capture has occurred in the west as well?

Wikipedia defines state capture as systemic political corruption enabling private interests to significantly influence the decision making of a state for their own advantage.  Is this a charge we can label in the US?

Look at the laws passed by congress over the last 30 years or so, and look at the acts of Republican administrations, most notably the current one, and the case can be made. The first spending bill I studied in any detail was in 2014, when Obama was president but when Republicans controlled both houses. I was stunned. Almost all of the beneficiaries were major private interests. The correlation between lobbying dollars spent in Washington and funding outcomes appeared almost complete. There was plenty of extra money and extra regulatory protection for armaments, fossil fuel energy, healthcare companies and finance, as well as for interests such as Envangelicals and Israel. Obama was talking a good game, and in places acting one too, but, perhaps hemmed in, the budget process was revealing something different.

Under the current administration it is much more brazen. All of the above areas have seen major rollbacks of former protections. The corporation is consistently valued ahead of the consumer. Perhaps the biggest lie among all the lies in 2016 was the promise to drain the swamp. In practice, the swamp has swallowed all before it.

This allocation of funds can be viewed in parallel with taxation policy, both federally and across many states. This has acted consistently to enlarge inequality, whether by making personal taxes more regressive, reducing taxes on corporations, reducing already tiny inheritance taxes, retaining egregious loopholes like carried interest, or, on the other side of the equation, cutting total taxation and hence reducing funds for items such as education and welfare.

The American people seem to have been victims of state capture as well, at least in outcome, since most have had to sacrifice pensions, welfare, job security, health care affordability and education quality, while a few private interests have benefited enormously. Luckily, advances such as technology and global supply chains have masked some of this by making everyone a bit richer – and please don’t tell me that the taxation or regulation policy has driven this. Every time I here talk of a billionaire I ask myself the question: what is enough? I can understand an answer of a million, even a few million, but several thousand million? Surely we are not allocating our riches in an equitable way?

If this would be state capture, how has this happened in a functioning democracy? I tried to answer this question by looking at it from the other side. If I were intent on state capture, how would I go about it?

I would lobby representatives intensely and rather covertly, giving them some kickbacks, maybe even personal ones. I would seek to make money a key determinant of political success, so these same representatives needed me more than they needed their constituents. I would gerrymander constituencies and suppress voting. I would pay for all sorts of spurious reports and provide lots of disingenuous talking points like “jobs” and “no new taxes”. I would support politicians who would allow me to follow this agenda while distracting some of the public with anti-immigrant dog whistles, militarism and social policy items like abortion and gun control. And I would seek to control the press and other media.

Oh look, I’ve just described the current Republican policy playbook. State capture perhaps? And before Democrats and non Americans get too smug, please note that many of the same sacrifices have been incurred elsewhere and under democratic socialist governments.

I wish everyone a blessed Christmas and peaceful 2019, and perhaps some momentum against this state capture. I realise that there is one major current topic that I have not found inspiration to blog about; the slow motion train wreck in my homeland that is Brexit. That could maybe be described as the opposite of state capture – something like wilful state surrender benefitting nobody. I’ll try to rectify that in January.      

Why Iran?

There is a drumbeat against Iran across the US establishment, led by the Trump administration but echoed across much of Congress. I have been asking myself the question: why?

I get little help by parsing the public statements of US officials. Various platitudinous phrases appear repeatedly. Iran is supposedly the world’s leading sponsor of state terrorism. Its regime is controlled by mullahs who undertake severe cruelty on their own people and are determined to destroy Israel and the US.

Let us try to understand these one by one. Terrorism is a hard word to define and is inevitably loaded. Most credibly, it can be defined as a tactic of violence intended to sow chaos (terror) among innocent citizens. If it is state sponsored, then that excludes small groups acting independently of a state.

By this definition ISIL and Al Qaeda are terrorists. But if they state sponsored, it is not by Iran, an overwhelmingly a Shia Muslim nation while both groups are promoting Sunni goals. We can argue that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are sponsors, and also elements close to the state in Iraq and Syria, but not Iran.

When the US refers to terrorists sponsored by Iran, they usually mention Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. I may be wrong, but I am not sure any of these qualify. The stated goal of Hezbollah is to defend Lebanon and Syria from Sunni Islamist forces. In Lebanon they have generally tried to promote prosperity rather than chaos. In Syria they have become participants in Assad’s civil war, but are not the main source of civilian terror. In Gaza, Hamas has been corrupt and incompetent, but it surely has the interest of its citizens at heart. In Yemen, the conflict started with blame on both sides, but the Saudi side has certainly been the one sowing most chaos among the innocent.

There are many egregious examples of state sponsored terrorism in the world, many perpetrated against domestic citizens. China has actively suppressed up to a million Uighurs. Russia has infiltrated Ukraine and other countries such as Moldova and Latvia. The CIA and Mossad are active in many places – how could the murder of nuclear scientists in Iran be classified other than state sponsored terrorism? Examples are plentiful in Africa. Iran is no paragon, but the claim that it is the leading proponent of state sponsored terrorism appears indefensible.

So what about the regime of mullahs and their destructive goals? Well, it is true that the supreme leader and revolutionary guard hold a lot of the real power in Iran. Executions are high in Iran (among other places) and surveillance pervasive. But their cruelty to their own people pales when compared with many other countries. Saudi Arabia has been trumpeting trivial reforms while executing its own journalist. North Korea is a gulag. China’s Uighurs, Myanmar’s Rohinga and even Australia’s aboriginals suffer more persecution than any Iranian. Iran has freer elections than almost anywhere in its region and something of an artistic culture. It even has freedom of religion and a somewhat thriving Jewish population. Arguably, the most cruelty is perpetrated by external sanctions. There are certainly stronger candidate nations for domestic cruelty.

Then there is the threat to the US and Israel. The threat to the US feels rather laughable. Since 9/11, there have been few credible attacks towards US soil, and, as far as I can establish, none from Iranian origin. There is a large and lawful Iranian diaspora in the US. Israel seems eminently capable of defending itself too, though Hamas and Hezbollah can be a nuisance. It is true that “death to America” can be heard on the streets, but that happens on the streets of many countries. You can argue that Iranians even have some cause to fear and hate America. The regime before 1979 was an American puppet, Iraq was supported against Iran in the war between them, and there have been many sanctions since.

So, on the surface, the claims against Iran seem to lack substance and it does not seem to justify its rogue nation status in the US. Of course, there could be lots of facts outside the public domain. But given the pathetic quality of the propaganda machine, I would need some convincing.

So there must be other reasons. I can think of a few.

Iran is the main hindrance to Israeli dominance of the region. It has the capacity to develop nuclear weapons (though it could argue that this is defensible given Israel’s one undeclared ones). But is Iran really a threat to Israel, or is it rather the other way around? Even the proxies seem to have a more defensive than aggressive intent.

Two possible reasons might explain the stance. One is evangelical. The Pence lobby can at times feel almost like old-school crusaders, promoting the Judeo-Christian tradition almost as a biblical right. Perhaps the singling out of Iran has a direct biblical root, since it was Babylon that perpetrated the original Jewish exile? It all feels distasteful and hypocritical in the modern age. The other reason is simply money. Pro-Israel groups are very active in political funding, and that certainly carries weight in the US.

Then there is the other rich player in the game, Saudi Arabia, a country whose regime feels more toxic than the Iranian one by most measures, and, by the way, the breeding group of Al Qaeda. The Saudis have their own long-term religious enmity with Iran as the respective homes of Sunni and Shia Islam. Oh, and deep pockets to buy weapons. Oh yes, and also plenty of oil.

I have another theory. We tend to think of nations as bureaucracies, but those bureaucracies are full of humans, and humans make enemies. A lot of this political stuff is personal. Putin hates the Clintons. It is the same in business. I made the mistake of using leverage at a moment of strength, and made myself an enemy in the process. Years later, that same man paid me back.

As far as Iran is concerned, they have played Israel to a draw in a few conflicts, and they opportunistically outplayed the US in Iraq. The US also remembers the humiliation of the hostage crisis of 1979. Such resentments run deep and long. 

I wish that more of the discussion was in the open. The Economist, the best independent source for so much politics, hides behind the propaganda platitudes, no doubt vetted by MI6. It insults our intelligence, and it breeds long-term disrespect for elites, especially when any lies are eventually exposed. That leads to populism. At an international level, it harms alliances and makes international bodies ineffective. Who can argue with China refusing to criticize the domestic affairs of any country while the West seems so hypocritical?

There is one more argument against setting out towards conflict with Iran, beyond its fairness and its likely impact of innocent Iranians. That is just that it is dumb and self-defeating. The US has had many chances to learn that particular lesson on many costly battlegrounds and proxy battlegrounds.

In the meantime, I would just love to read a balanced justification for the Iranian policy, replete with evidence and comparison with other nations. Even without that, I’d love to read about a reasonable and attainable set of goals. I guess it may be a long wait.

British Humour

Shared humour is a valuable aspect of any relationship. Humour is usually gentle and it can take any tension better than any pill. A wise man on a course once opined that humour, humility and humanity, three words starting with HU, are the keys aspects of a positive character. I use this mantra a lot, though I struggle with at least two of its components.

However, humour does not often travel well. Humour is a defining aspect of every culture, and people from one culture usually prefer humour that is familiar to something from outside. It is one of many reasons that humanity still tends to feel comfortable with its own type, one that is understandable yet sad.

In particular, most humour involves language, and one challenge for humour travelling is that of translation. Even the most basic jokes, for example puns, can be meaningless when translated. More subtle language-based wit can only really be appreciated in a native language. Even if something can translate perfectly, different cultures find different things funny.

I lived in countries where English is not the native language for sixteen years between 1996-2012 before moving to New York. While the American culture differs from the British, it was only when I arrived here that I realised how valuable it is to share a native language with the people you are interacting with each day. Humour is a part of that, but it applies to anything cultural, especially things like theatre. This realisation changed my thinking about where in Europe I’d like to live once I return there – London moved many steps up the pecking order.

At least I was lucky in living in a series of countries where English was spoken very well indeed. That was one reason why I did not learn their languages too well – it was always possible, and usually easier, to converse in English. That made me ridiculously privileged, but is also a source of some regret, for language is a gateway to any culture, and all my gates are rather closed.

I was always struck by how British humour is appreciated everywhere I have been. I can even extend this to a personal observation, that people anywhere they can speak a bit of English seem to like my jokes. I don’t think I’m especially witty, but I seem to always raise a laugh. I exploit it a bit, knowing that often people don’t know if I am joking or not, and I let leave them to wonder sometimes. Part of the lucky propensity seems to be a love of the British accent, which is especially strong here in the US – nowhere else have I witnessed so many young women swooning over me, and just for ordering a grande non fat latte.

But it may go further than the accent; it might be that something in a British upbringing lends itself to humour that can work. It seems to be true for the Irish as well, and they are still more loved than the British, partly for their underdog attitude and partly for their extraordinary wit. I have rarely met an Irish person, no matter how educated or not educated, who can’t find a spontaneous apt turn of phrase.

My favourite example of how British humour is loved is a sketch from 1963 called Dinner for One – you can find it, and several of the other examples I quote later, on Youtube. I had never seen this sketch until I left the UK. But I learned that it is loved so strongly across Northern Europe that it has reached ritual status, with everyone knowing the catchphrases. I was at a New Year’s eve party in Stockholm, and everyone was drinking and was spread around the house and outside (yes, it was below freezing but Swedes are like that), until someone shouted that this sketch was coming on TV and everyone converged around the set. Seemingly it is shown at the same time every New Year’s Eve and almost the whole country watches it, year in and year out. It was funny, but really? 

While I love many things about New Yorkers, I struggle to appreciate American humour, from almost any ethnic or regional group. To my taste, the advertisements here are almost universally terrible, especially when they try to be funny. The late night TV sketches can be funny, but they tend to be cruel and too similar to each other. The mainstream comedy programmes are usually awful. The exception is anything Jewish, from Seinfeld to Woody Allen and anything in between.

So I spent a bit of time trying to work this out logically. I started with some nostalgia, looking on Youtube for sketches that had made me laugh out loud as a child and still remembered. I found “The Bricklayer’s Lament” by Gerard Hoffhung, “Take a Pew” by Alan Bennett, in “In the Pub” by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, all of which made me laugh again but didn’t seem quite as funny as I remembered.

Then I tried to fill this out with other seminal comedies. I eliminated many that travelled the best, because they were either slapstick, like Mr Bean, or what I termed catchphrase comedies, of which Dad’s Army may the most famous. A catchphrase comedy is where a set of characters is put into a situation and respond in utterly predictable ways, essentially with their catchphrases – “we’re all doomed”, for example.

What remained started with Beyond the Fringe and Tony Hancock and moved through Monty Python and The fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, with The Office coming later. In parallel were TV and Radio wit shows like Have I Got News for You and Whose Line is it Anyway.

Then I thought of more recent shows, though I am not sure how recent some of them actually are, since I watch them on PBS here and sometimes they buy and repeat stuff from before the millennium. I love the wit in “Upstart Crow”. But other shows are more notable for silence. Look out for “The Café” which my wife and I rechristened Nothing Ever Happens. Not much happens in “Mum” either. This entire muse on comedy was initiated by a show we saw for the first time last weekend, “The Detectorists”. This show featured two lovable losers who ran away from facing the issues in their lives by standing aimlessly in fields with metal detectors. To my taste, it was really funny. And could never dream of being commissioned in the US.

Using all this, I tried to come up with some comedy genres. Wikipedia did not help, it listed twenty, most of which seemed to overlap. A sitcom using dark observational wit seemed to cover at least four. I narrowed my list down to: catchphrase and slapstick humour; cruel, shocking or exaggerated humour; witty word-based humour; and wry, vulnerable, loser humour.

Catchphrase and slapstick humour travels and I suspect many cultures have an abundance of it. The US seems to have a lot of the cruel and exaggerated type, perhaps influenced by Hollywood and the desire to appeal to an immature male demographic. I fear James Corden and Ricky Gervais have become rather infected by this style. The witty sort depends on language, and the Irish are probably the best, but the British can thank Beyond the Fringe and Footlights for a strong legacy.

It is the wry, vulnerable, loser humour that I see no evidence of in the US, but it is all over many successful British shows, and seems to be the sort that leaves the strongest mark on me. It requires a slow pace, always a problem in the US. Silence doesn’t get much of a look in here, where loud talking often seems to drown out listening. And it also needs an acceptance of vulnerability. In Britain, perhaps it is a happy legacy of coming to accept faded glory – something it will take at least two more generations of Americans to embrace. If so, that might help to explain how the Jewish excel at the same sort of humour – in that culture, preparing for the next humiliation is a dominant mindset.

So I am not sure if all this musing achieved a lot. I suppose there were a few lessons and a few laughs. Nothing seems as good as it did years ago. Listening is a great starting point for humour. PBS is a treasure. Faded glory offers some compensations. And thank you, Peter Cook and friends, your laughter outlives you.