that has nothing to do with the post, but I couldn’t help the pun.
Eric Raymond, author of ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’ (and of the cool blog ‘Armed and Dangerous’) dings me a bit:
I find it interesting that, in that article, you imply a strong critique of the top-down “single massive project” approach to social change. Yet in explaining ‘liberalism’ you still champion centralization and state intervention.
There is a contradiction there with which I do not think you are yet dealing.
Actually, no. I may not yet have expressed it clearly, but here’s my chance to start.
Bazaars don’t spontaneously appear, and most important, don’t spontaneously thrive. There are a host of conditions which control their presence and growth – geographic, cultural, seasonal, legal, and political. We can either simply assume that they appear spontaneously, according some arbitrary ‘hand of God’, or we can study the preconditions and, if we want to encourage successful bazaars, attempt to replicate them, or manage the success of the bazaar.
I do not imagine that the sponsors of open-source software projects do so with no intentionality or direction; they are often surprised by the direction the project takes, but they reserve the right to prune unsuitable branches.
I believe that we need to replace the Stalinist (hyperbole alert) ‘large footprint’ liberal programs that we are familiar with much finer-grained, dynamic programs in which the participants participate, rather than simply stand in line and receive.
The machine-tool program I mention earlier, the Grameen Bank programs, and I am sure, other programs which I don’t yet know about are excellent examples of what I’m talking about.
There are other government programs and tax structures which could encourage this kind of thinking, and which I’ll address over the next few days as time and attention allow.
But to summarize as simply as I can: I don’t believe that the bazaar, or spontaneously organized social or economic activity is directionless. I believe that when you read the classic ‘I, a pencil’, that we were better at making them than they were in the Soviet Union.
And I believe that it is possible to design and have a hand in organizing self-organizing systems such as markets. That what we do here in the U.S. Anyone who believes that the market here is not created by and reflects political and social organizations is just ignorant. Why do homeowners get tax relief and not renters? What is DMCA?
And I believe that it is possible to design and influence a better market; one that improves on the things which I and other liberals hold important while at the same time preserving the freedom and dignity, and individual energy of the free actors who participate in it.
Dinner calls.

It looks like this is working again. Buy a pizza and soda or ice cream for an IDF patrol.
If there was one to buy for Palestinian peace activists, I’d post it as well.

Owens suggests that I need to cut the apron strings. It’s a good post, and I think I can use it to elucidate some of our differences, but a) I want to take some time and respond thoughtfully; and b) there are chores to do before I can blog much more today.
Check this space soon.

I got an email from a John Lott Jr., who turns out to be that John Lott Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws. A terrific and interesting book, and one that has not, as far as I know, been effectively answered by the anti-gun folks. He corrects me on the issue of state monopoly on violence, as I mention here, by pointing out that I probably meant “state monopoly on legal violence.” Uh, of course I did!!
I can only compare being corrected in an issue like this by Lott to the time Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped by the gym I belonged to and explained to me that I was doing my situps wrong. I trust that this correction will have a more lasting effect.

Steve Cohen writes, in conclusion:
Yes, yes, if only all Palestinians would adopt Gandhian non-violence strategies. It would be a wise move. I hope they do it. Maybe Jesse Jackson can convince them of that. Until that happens, however, we must continue to live in the real world.
I think the right position is still that America must use its power to force peace. The Israelis bear a significant piece of responsibility for the current situation and they couldn’t do what they do without the uncritical aid check from the United States.
Do you believe that the 2000 peace plan was generous? (The tactical question of whether the Palestinians should have accepted it is a different question). What can Arafat actually do to stop the violence now that the Palestinian Authority has had all of its authority taken away? If he stopped talking out of both sides of his mouth would anyone notice? Or care? Isn’t the demand for all terrorist acts to cease before talks begin a call for unconditional surrender? Aren’t the Israelis acting as allies of the extremists by giving them what they want at the expense of whatever moderates are out there?
In short I am not willing to say that the behavior of the Palestinians must change without making a similar demand on the Israelis.
Look, here we get down to the nub of the matter.
First, ask yourself why aren’t you willing to hold the Palestinians to some acceptable standard of behavior? I can’t speak for you, but believe that most people don’t in part because of the Romantic attachment to outsider behavior, a fascination with expressive violence, and a built-in disdain for the bourgeois virtues of compromise and cooperation, as I’ve discussed elsewhere.
I think that the Palestinian powers-that-be have fundamentally miscalculated by choosing terrorism over guerilla warfare, and until they have the political capability and social will to renounce terrorism, they will never get a fair hearing from the U.S., nor from Israel.
I agree that we need to use our power to force peace, but how? We tried in it Beirut, and you may have noticed that it didn’t work so well. There is no central government that we can attack, threaten, or neutralize. There really isn’t a central government or group that we can negotiate with, because every time we start with a group, the more rejectionist elements either kill the negotiators or split off into a new group.
You say “Isn’t the demand for all terrorist acts to cease before talks begin a call for unconditional surrender?”, and that’s the key point. No, it wouldn’t be.
The PA could act politically and economically (nonviolent action, general strikes, boycotts). They could even act militarily, but within the accepted confines of guerilla warfare (as noted by that damn idea-front-runner Owens) by attacking Israeli military targets. But these actions would require a level of social and political cohesion that I don’t think exist today in Palestine.
Sadly.

The ex-military man in the post below (who stunned his co-worker by explaining that self-control was the most important thing he learned in the military) gave me permission to identify him: He is Steve Skubinna, and someone in Seattle owes him a beer for me. (or up there, should it be a latte?)

“JB” aka “long-haired country boy” says nice things about Howard Owen’s and my dialog in his blog ‘Long Haired Country Boy’. Plus it’s fun to read…

Howard Owens quickly replied to my quick reply, leaving me with one significant question:
How the heck does he write so quickly and lucidly? I get away with a kind of breezy, conversational style which buys me a lot of room in structuring my arguments. He doesn’t, damn his eyes.
But here’s a breezy, conversational reply:
Hey! I read Adam Smith, too, ya know. (here I start feeling like Matt Damon defending his interpretation of the post-Revolutionary economy in the South). I don’t think that what I believe violates what he suggests, or what Locke suggests for that matter. I believe that it is a matter of degree and emphasis. Remember, in the overall spectrum of political positions, the positions held by contemporary American conservatives and liberals occupy a very narrow band.
But I do believe the distinctions are important, and more importantly, I am grasping for a different construction – it’s out there and maybe I’ll find it or help articulate it.
Look, the State cannot solve everyone’s problems through direct intervention. But state policies, combined with individual action and responsibility, can go a long way to doing so while still defending, and even encouraging individual action and responsibility. I’m trying to articulate a kind of “4th Generation” politics that includes and involves, one that, most importantly, somehow can operate on a finer grain than the massive, almost Stalinist programs of the 60’s and 70’s.
Historically, a lot of what I’m trying to get to was included in the culture out of which Smith, Locke, and the Founders came. They had no need to articulate it in their politics, because it was the water in which they swam. We don’t have that embracing – and stultifying – culture any more, and we are trying to extend the kind of politics that have worked so well for us to vastly different cultures (your talk of democratization throughout the world). It won’t work.
It isn’t working well for us today in the U.S., it isn’t working in Europe, and it sure as hell won’t work when we attempt to transplant it like a rose cutting to countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Note: Just paged over to his site to get the permalink, and the no-goodnik has stolen my thunder for what was to be my third and reply to Steve Cohen. Read this, and watch for my comments later this morning. It worries me sometimes that I agree with him so much…

My earlier correspondent, Steve Cohen (not the BRIE Steve Cohen or the Russion historian) got in touch with me and permitted me to give him attribution. Here is the second of three replies:
For it’s no secret that the hawkish position must almost inevitably lead, if not to genocide, to a situation where no Arab nation is allowed to exist as a sovereign entity. Expelling the Palestinians from Israel cannot be accomplished without destroying any force determined to resist it. Iraq and Iran will both have to go, along with Syria and probably Jordan too, as independent entities, followed by the Saudis too. The wealth that comes from oil will not be permitted to stay in Arab hands.
I’ll take this as a question in the form of a statement.
There are two real issues here. One of them is about intentions and root causes, and goes to two very broad worldwide trends – the rise of the romantic, as opposed to bourgeois, worldview in the West and elsewhere – and the rise of what Joe Katzman is talking about in 4th Generation Warfare. The other is about tactics and specific mechanisms.
On the front of intentions and causes, the core issue is that the Arab cultures have brewed a combination of anti-Western and anti-bourgeois values that will make it very difficult for us to have a dialog with them – forget that, that are making it very difficult to have a dialog with them, as we from our specific cultural and historic perspective understand a diplomatic dialog. Because the issues under debate are not only the kind of rational, objective discussion over actions and commitments to action that we expect when we negotiate, they have to do with understandings, perceptions, and worldviews.
This fits neatly into the 4GW (4th Generation Warfare – see Winds of Change) model of “diffuse warfare”, in which states may only indirectly be the actors in wars, and in which the power of the state itself is limited by extra-state actors.
One of the problems is that everyone has fallen into orbit around the question of the Palestinian State. So here is the $64 question:
If the Palestinians had a state, could they maintain a monopoly on inter-state violence?
I don’t think so, not today. The fundamental characteristic of a state is its ability to exercise a monopoly in interstate violence. If a bunch of American militia types decided that they wanted Baja California, and started mounting cross-border raids into San Felipe, it would be expected that the US would use it’s military and police forces to find and stop them. And we certainly would (although there were periods in our past – a hundred or more years ago – when that was not the case).
Tactically, the question is what actions by us will permit the moderate voices in the Arab world to be heard? By moderate, I do not mean pro-Western, non-Islamic, or even pro-Israel. I mean simply the voices that do not believe that the interests of the Muslim community will be advanced solely through violence and the threat of violence.
I don’t think that the hawkish position leads inevitably to genocide; I think in combination with some common sense and an amazing restraint on the part of Israel, it leads to the best possibility we have for avoiding genocide. I believe that inaction or acquiescence leads us to a higher liklihood of genocide, as the Islamists remain convinced that our military power is a hollow shell and that we are afraid of them, and that escalating their violent rhetoric and actions will gain them more than political or economic action.
I don’t doubt that the wealth of the Arab states figures into the equation at some level. But I also don’t doubt that if the WTC was still standing, and if the Saudi and Iraqi governments had shipped the dozens of possible suspects living there over to us, that we would not be considering any military action.