The Doubter's Companion

by John Ralston Saul

  Curiouser than Speer’s admiration was that of Lenin. He had been seduced by Taylorism while still in exile and carried its message back to Russia. Lenin spoke repeatedly of the necessity to Communize Taylorism. The first Five Year Plan was written largely by American Taylorists and directly or indirectly they built some two-thirds of Soviet industry. The collapse of the Soviet Union was thus in many ways the collapse of Scientific Management.

  Yet the Russian government immediately hired a Harvard professor of economics, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, to help them out of the crisis. His methods—filled with complete abstract systems—were strangely reminiscent of Taylor’s. Underlying his proposals was the need for an absolute break with the past. These brilliant financial and structural reforms lacked only one element: a recognition that several hundred million people live in Russia, that they must eat every day. Or at least every second day. And that if they did not, they would reject the new regime and return to the old patterns of bureaucratic communism.

  The various attempted coups and electoral reversals suffered by the forces of reform are in part the responsibility of this Harvard economist. When in 1994 his policies were finally rejected by a frustrated electorate, who opted for a return to the old ways under the old technocrats, Sachs resigned in protest, claiming that the crisis had been caused by an insufficiently absolute application of his policies.

  Note: In his defence it should be said that he had also called for a halt to Russian debt payments. The finance officials of the G7 countries, whose leaders enjoy making speeches about the victory of democratic capitalism, continued to insist on regular payments. This helped to sabotage the Russian reform movement. See: DEBT.

  TECHNOCRAT A word which means what it says, but perhaps not as we normally understand it.

  The roots appear to be describing someone who has power (crat) thanks to their specialized knowledge or skills (techne). Observation of the technocrat at work is enough to tell us that the roots have been inversed. This is someone whose skill is the exercise of power. It follows quite naturally that there is no suggestion of purpose, direction, responsibility or ethics. Just power. John Ruskin described this function as “intricate bestiality.”3 See: TECHNOLOGY.

  TECHNOLOGY Inanimate, passive material which is not science.

  In any civilization, technology is shaped, directed and controlled by the conscious effort of society. Individuals who treat technology as an animated force capable of deciding the direction of society are engaged in the destruction of civilization.

  Science is not technology. Science, as Samuel Johnson pointed out in his dictionary, is knowledge.4 And knowledge is understanding. It is easy to argue that science is animate and inevitable. But once it is applied it is no longer science.

  The application of science—that is, technology—is a matter of options, matching chosen means to chosen ends. Societies have often decided not to use technological breakthroughs made possible by science. After several experiments with gas warfare, most societies decided to abandon it. After dropping two atomic bombs, society dropped no more. Although capable of altering the disposition of habitual criminals through surgical and technical intervention (lobotomy, shock treatment, castration), few societies do this. Although DDT was an effective insecticide, most societies have decided to stop using it.

  With the explosion in activities known as the industrial revolution, a growing number of people began to believe that technology was inevitable. This created a conflict within society which first crystallized in the LUDDITE rebellion of 1811. The new rational technocracy—itself devoid of social direction—tended to accept the idea that technological development would provide not simply economic but social and political direction. This pushed those who disagreed into the realms of romanticism and idealism—that is, into a rejection of reality. They mistook the destruction of rural society and of nature itself by the industrial revolution for a fatal opposition between progress and preservation.

  This was a false opposition. Civilization implies integration. Both progress and preservation, if they are seen as self-contained truths, imply exclusion. Civilization desires progress through science as actively as it desires a healthy society and a natural environment. Integration or BALANCE makes both possible, providing neither is allowed to run wild.

  It is often forgotten that World War II was seen on the Allied side as a battle against the dictatorship of technology in a corporatist world indifferent to the individual. Charles de Gaulle, speaking at Oxford in 1941, examined the threat of technology to the individual. What makes de Gaulle’s attitude particularly interesting is that he had devoted his career, before and after the war, to the advancement of technology and professionalism. The only way out, he said, was for “society to preserve liberty, security and the dignity of man. There is no other way to assure the victory of spirit over matter.”5 The message we repeatedly receive from the postwar technocracy is that the Axis was right after all.

  One of the few things expected of our technocracy by the citizenry is that they will use their administrative skills to manage the integration of technology with the interests of society as a whole. Unsuited as they are to this simple task, the technocracy have responded that they would rather manage the citizen.

  TENNIS A middle-class version of professional wrestling.

  These gladiator sports provide easily identifiable stereotypes of mythological Heroes. Team sports soften and confuse the spectators’ topology. Two-on-two or, better still, one-on-one leaves no room for doubt as to who is the prince or princess, who the beautiful but spoiled Achilles, who the strong but dull Hector, who the Menelaus moaner always betrayed by fate.

  The secret to the success of tennis may be that the racquet is an ambiguous, blunted weapon suitable to the business class, but nevertheless with the feel of having descended from the more aristocratic rapier of the duellist. After all, the game originated with the French nobility, a fact which has always endeared it to the nouveau riche. And the word itself comes from “Tenez!”—which was shouted out by the person hitting the ball. At first glance this means, “Look out! Here it comes.” But the aggressivity of the stroke suggests that it really means “Take that!”

  TENURE A system of academic job security which has the effect of rating intellectual leadership on the basis of seniority. This may explain why universities are rarely centres of original thought or creativity.

  The initial justification for tenure was the need to protect freedom of speech, due to the justifiable fear that controversial professors might suffer at the hands of disapproving financial or governmental interests. The continued development of law now means that this essential freedom could be protected in far simpler ways.

  A subsequent justification for tenure turned on the idea that stability and peace are necessary for thought and creativity. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that academics are or have been for some time at the centre of original thought or creativity in Western civilization. There are happy exceptions, particularly in the sciences. But it could far more easily be argued that the stultifying isolation and stability of a university career has discouraged originality.

  This is certainly one of the explanations for the return of SCHOLASTICISM, with its highly sophisticated a priori approach to learning. The scholastic uses the tyranny of expert rhetoric to suck the life out of free speech; and the tyranny made possible by their position of authority to force this rhetorical approach on their students.

  THE A very definite beginning to an assertion.

  The truth. The answer. The solution. The true god. The dialectic. The rules of the market. The right thing to do. The only thing to do. The leader.

  But how do they know? It might be possible to assert, for example, that in so far as pastry goes, the best opéra can be found at Auer in the old city in Nice. Some people may disagree. They may assert that another opéra in another pâtisserie—Dalloyau in Paris, for example—is the best. However I am prepared to demonstrate that they are wrong; th
at they are giving in to habit, personal interest or romanticism. The fundamental questions are the quality of the chocolate, the restraint in using sugar and the resulting variety of separate tastes.

  Auer makes the best opéra. This is the most definite assertion I would be willing to make. See: A.

  THINK TANK An organization which invents disinterested intellectual justifications for the policies of the corporate groups that fund it. The result is an unfortunate confusing of knowledge and power. This growth industry now involves 226 important think tanks in the United States, sixty-seven in the United Kingdom, forty-six in Germany, forty-two in France and forty-two in Japan.6 Thinking for money is a venerable SOPHIST tradition which has found its place again in the late twentieth century. See: ACADEMIC CONSULTANTS.

  THIRD WORLD More a social than an economic model.

  It can be opposed to the balanced, integrated model of middle-class compromise which is generally sought after in the West. The Third World is characterized by civilized, rich, highly trained, multilingual élites who govern a weak middle class and, further down, the vast majority of the population. What we call Third World is, in reality, a reconstitution of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western model.

  The European and North American technocratic élites, who are generally unilingual, provincial and relatively illiterate except in their particular area of specialization, are often confused by the remarkable sophistication of élites such as the Mexican, who are clearly superior to those of the middle-class model. Our élites conclude that they cannot be the products of a Third World country, but of a more natural, open system better able to respond to the needs of the GLOBAL economy.

  TOUGH A characteristic claimed by presidents and prime ministers as the most important quality for a leader. Their most onerous responsibility.

  This suggests a real or false naïveté about the position they occupy. Anyone can be tough once they have the levers of power in their hands. It is the easiest possible attitude, requiring neither courage nor reflection—and least of all intelligence.

  Compassion is far more difficult. Effective and fair compassion—not the paternalistic or opportunistic sort—is even more so. Resisting the myriad corruptions of office is hard. Actually creating the best policies and turning them into effective actions requires hard work and intuition. Balancing the long term with the short requires remarkable common sense and intelligence. But being tough is leadership as defined by a sergeant-major.

  The leader who vaunts her toughness is actually saying that she has contempt for the citizen and—since she is speaking directly to us—that we have contempt for ourselves. See: LEADERSHIP.

  TRADE A miracle drug which used to be a practical commercial activity.

  It is now believed by (almost) all respectable economists, politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats that more trade is the best way to get out of our depression because it creates jobs and wealth.

  Curiously enough we have traded more in the last twenty years than ever before in history. Each year there have been remarkable net increases, yet we have continued to sink deeper and deeper into depression. Could this possibly mean that not all trade creates jobs and wealth? Or that trade does not always create jobs and wealth, but can also destroy them?

  Would it be more accurate to say that some trade creates and other trade destroys? Which it does appears to depend on where we are in history, on economic circumstances and on geographical positioning. If so, then trade is a potentially valuable mechanism with no inherent value.

  This isn’t what Adam Smith and David Hume thought. But then their idea of commerce revolved around much smaller companies run by merchants and manufacturers who had the direct involvement of ownership. Without entering into the endless debate over whether commerce produces rationality and temperance, it can be argued that—with the rise of a governing technocracy which does not own, of shapeless transnational corporations and of corporatist values—the role of trade has been radically changed.

  Jobs and wealth are created by imagination converted into creativity, as well as a willingness to take risks on creativity and to think in the long term. There must also be enough economic stability to make a long-term risk and creativity profitable. To the extent that trade encourages these factors, it is a positive mechanism. To the extent that it discourages them, it is negative.

  Why then are we blindly obsessed by the idea that ever more trade must produce prosperity? Our experts keep telling us that just a little bit more will do the trick. Yet in separate conversations the same experts tell us that industrial production in developed countries is a doubtful prospect and that chronic unemployment may be here to stay. Increased trade seems to accentuate not discourage these problems.

  The explanation may be that ours is a society which punishes creativity and rewards conventional thinking. And the most conventional idea of the last quarter-century has been that only through trade can we prosper. As this linear conviction presses on through continuing failure, the fear grows that a mistake is being made and so we press on ever more desperately, trading the way some people believe they are dieting when they have anorexia.

  A more sensible approach might be to treat trade not as a religion but as a commercial activity. This might free us to think about the practical implications of today’s trade mechanisms. What are we trading and to what purpose? If the effect of something is not positive, then only ideological blindness or masochism can make us insist that salvation lies in doing more of it. See: HARD WORK.

  TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT The ultimate American military weapon.

  After the defeat of conventional forces in Vietnam and Cuba, this act, which prevents all commerce between the United States and its enemies, was meticulously enforced. Given the intricacies of international investment and trade, not a great deal can be done by anyone else with a country which the United States has blacklisted.

  Thus the government in Hanoi survived for a dozen years on straight cash inputs from Moscow. Once the Soviet Union began to collapse and their aid with it, Vietnam had little choice but to surrender and convert to the market system. The same act remains in force against Cuba and will eventually prevail.

  Two small details are perhaps worth mentioning. This act seems to win very precise victories for the free market. It has no effect on political or social systems. For example, the political prisoners remain in Vietnam’s jails, including harmless Buddhist monks.

  Second, the act is not enforced against all of America’s enemies. Take the case of the WAR ON DRUGS which presidents regularly declare. More than half of the heroin sold in the United States comes from Burma, with the connivance of the Burmese government, one of the two or three most unpleasant dictatorships in the world. The death, violence and disorder in American cities brought on by the drug culture certainly justifies the use of the word “war.” Yet Washington doesn’t even discourage U.S. companies from investing in Burma, let alone forbid them by applying the act.

  What exactly must an enemy do to be treated as one? It might be useful if the State Department were to issue an instruction booklet for confused revolutionaries, dictators and other foreign types.

  TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS The seat of contemporary feudalism.

  Received wisdom has it that the new feudalism is nationalist and was brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. The transnationals, given their support of the global economy, are seen as internationalist. This is a comic misrepresentation of feudalism, which had only an incidental relationship to geography and race. In no way does the nationalist phenomenon resemble the feudal system.

  Feudalism was a highly abstract international order. It was the opposite of the Roman Empire, which remained in Western memory as the model of a concrete international system. The death of Charlemagne in 814 ended the dream that Rome’s administrative, military and economic order could be re-created under a Christian barbarian king, crowned for that purpose as Holy Roman Emperor.

  Power quickly slipp
ed into the hands of thousands of barons, princes and minor kings, each with power over their various estates, duchies, provinces and kingdoms. But these bits of land and the people attached to them were merely pawns in the ongoing struggle between noble families for power in the great feudal order. The principal interest of the aristocracy reflected their central loyalty, which was not to their land but to their class, with its religious structure, rules of conduct, honours and privileges.

  Lands and populations endlessly changed hands. They were traded in negotiations, joined arbitrarily by marriage, bequeathed by death, transferred or confiscated with each loss of a noble’s title. Feudalism consisted of endless manoeuvres to change the balances of power within the social order.

  Wars were surprisingly inconclusive. Protocol determined who could fight whom, given their respective social standings, and under what conditions. The purpose of this incessant but apparently aimless fighting was to force minor adjustments not to a concrete system but to an abstract social order.

  There is nothing new or feudal about the recent explosion in nationalism. This slow and continual drive went into its modern phase in 1919. We are now witnesses to the playing out of various local or racial obsessions in the West, but these bear no relationship to real, that is useful, power.

  Where the nationalist forces win, the local élites can hope for a few privileges to pump themselves up, along with a decorative façade which asserts that they have control over events within their geographical area. In reality they are limited to secondary and passive activities—principally the definition of who is to be included in their “race” or group, along with formal responsibility for their welfare. However, the economic factors which will decide that welfare are defined and adjusted on a different plane—that of abstract feudalism—which escapes their control.