The Levelling

by Michael O'sullivan

  A more conventional one is a world authority with teeth so that it can enforce action on climate change. The existing climate-change governance framework is largely made up of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), though in recent years, the IPCC has struggled to gain credibility and power. Another element here, the Paris Agreement signed in April 2016, is neither binding nor enforceable, and the United States withdrew from it in June 2017. My tentative suggestion is to create a World Climate Authority. I use “authority” rather than “forum” or “council” because such an important body should not be a debating or research group but a body with power to curb climate change and solve the lack of collective action that undercuts efforts to halt global warming.

  A World Climate Authority would be charged with monitoring the earth’s climate, pinpointing the factors that cause warming, and overseeing a system of fines, incentives, and rationing that would act to reduce environmentally detrimental activities. It would have to have some framework for enforcement in place so that governments and regions could act if their neighbors did not adhere to the guidelines agreed as part of the establishment of the authority. Sadly, for such a body to come into force would require a large scale environmental disaster.

  Given the poor recent track record of world bodies—from the UN Security Council to the World Bank to the WTO—skeptics might argue that such an approach is not credible. A better solution would be to change the emphasis of governance to a more meaningful level. One proposal is to simply relocate the decision making on climate policy from governments to cities, which would be appropriate because cities generate much (between 71 and 76 percent) of the pollution that creates climate change. (One source of pollution not the result of cities is cows, which generate a lot of methane, usually through belching. Each of the 1.5 billion cows in the world creates nearly as much greenhouse gas as a car.)19 In addition, cities tend to suffer many of the effects of climate change—flooding and extreme temperatures being cases in point. Cities are, without generalizing, more progressive in their attitude to climate change than many corresponding governments are. The reaction of large-city mayors across the United States to President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement highlighted this. In the future, governance at the level of the city may become more common. One of the strands of research I have pursued with David Skilling in our work on small countries is the growing tendency toward governance at a more concentrated regional or city-specific level. Climate policy may lead this trend.

  The climate framework struck at the level of the city would set out a climate taxation template, which would be structured to prevent companies from engaging in arbitrage activities in tax differences across cities and would provide a legal basis for cities to adopt taxes and charges (in different countries, cities may have varying levels of ability to levy taxes and charges). Revenues from these taxes and charges would be spent on environmentally relevant technologies such as flood barriers, better water piping, and green public transport infrastructure. At a time of rising urbanization in Africa and Asia, the city-based climate framework would also facilitate greater learning and cross-fertilization of views on city management and on the concept of greener, smarter cities.

  Focusing on cities as political and policy entities has several advantages. In large countries, cities have a strong sense of identity, are increasingly progressive environmentally, and have a policy and communications proximity that aids the spread of information and policy. The governments of most medium to large cities, as opposed to national governments, are in a position to control or dominate their hinterland and the surrounding infrastructure and would plan the development in the way they saw fit to reduce pollution.

  This approach could have several positive effects: notably, cities being given direction and the know-how to tie local tax, spending, and city planning more closely to the quality of the environment. It would work best in cases where there is an active city-based democracy—an elected mayor and city assembly—which for large cities may increasingly become the case. The former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has, together with environmentalist Carl Pope, underlined these points in a compelling book (Climate of Hope) on the role of cities in the battle for climate change.20 A related proposal might be to have common campaigns across cities threatened by the same environmental dangers, such as rising sea levels provoked by global warming.

  Cyberlaws

  Better climate and environmental policy coordination is an important global, public good of the future. Another is the policing of the internet, specifically in the areas of cyberwar and cybercrime. In the same way that cities can play a distinct policy role in climate policy, the large technology companies—Facebook, Google, and Tencent, for example—are vital parts of the policy process in the domain of the internet. Their centrality to the concept of the levelling, as strategic assets for large states and regions, will condition the way governments and regulators address them.

  Europe has few, if any, technology giants, and therefore Europe regulates Big Tech. In the United States, the technology companies make up 25 percent of the stock market and an equally large proportion of corporate earnings, and they have garnered the key innovation clusters in the technology space. They are cultural and strategic tentacles of the United States overseas. In many cases, their innovations (such as the screens on iPhones) stem from collaborations with the US military. These are some of the reasons why the US government will continue to have a close relationship with the technology sector rather than an arm’s-length one. A close relationship between government and the tech sector is even more likely in China, not least because of the vast pools of data the Chinese technology companies hold. Chinese consumers, compared to any others in the large economies, are the most active on social media. In addition, they can perform many services from one account (e.g., using the multipurpose app WeChat Pay). As a result, there is a vast store of data on the behavior of China’s citizen shoppers, and this trove of data is one of the reasons why China has made significant advances in artificial intelligence and socioeconomically applied algorithms. So China’s technology companies have an infrastructure that is of great use to its government. Given this backdrop, there are perhaps three areas where new rules of the internet game can evolve.

  The first is in the sanctity of personal data. Here, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) initiative is a first step. In the future, however, more data on our lives and behavior will be generated by different industries. Health care is one. Many people might not be overly concerned if their Yahoo account was hacked but would be upset to find that their medical data had fallen into the wrong hands or was being used against them, by insurance companies, for instance. This suggests the need for tougher regulation of personal data, and it also points the way toward new technologies such as blockchain (i.e., distributed ledger technology) being deployed to protect data, and of the need to think about how fifth-generation telecommunications networks are protected. With blockchain, data is much more secure, and data owners can explicitly give permission for the use of their data (e.g., to doctors or pharmacists in the case of medicine). The potential use of blockchain—where not only can someone’s data be better protected, but a person’s identity can also be more easily verified—opens up the possibility that internet users could carry a form of verified online identification certificate. On the one hand, this would make online activity such as shopping more fluid, and it may also curb antisocial behavior on the internet. An ideal guideline for the use of social media is that people should behave the same way online as they do in public. Verified social media–based identification is one way to encourage this, as antisocial behavior could then be tracked. In turn, this could produce a two-tiered internet: one core tier would be made up of “identity verified” consumers and social media participants, and consequently social media on that tier would be somewhat more thoughtful, less da
ngerous, and more truthful. Then a second, outer tier would consist of unverified users, who could transact at a higher cost, hide their identities, and engage in a social media free-for-all.

  The second area where better governance can structure the internet is cyberwarfare. There is already a policy discussion ongoing on the need for a digital Geneva Convention, and Microsoft, for example, has already published a policy paper on this in relation to the hacking of personal data.21 The governance of the military aspects of cyberwarfare is even less clear. While there may exist “understandings” between large nations as to what constitutes a cyberaggression, there is not yet a Geneva Convention surrounding cyberwarfare. In the geopolitical domain, such a convention would define what kinds of attack constituted aggression or acts of war and would also define what the range of possible responses would be—from escalation, to referral to a world body like the UN Security Council, to a counter-cyberattack, to a response based on military or financial sanctions. For instance, could a country launch a military attack in response to a cyberattack? In this respect, there would have to be clear rules that set out in detail the burden of proof of the origin of such an attack, channels of communication between the large cyberpowers if a cyberprobe went awry, and a set of measures and procedures by which rogue cybergroups could be sanctioned. From a geopolitical point of view, the likely and necessary axis around which such a cyber treaty could be based is the strained relationship between Russia and the United States. Such a move would be an important step diplomatically for both countries.

  The enormous difficulty of verifying the origin of a cyberattack may necessitate the need for cyberforensics, or a sort of international cyberpolice. This force could have several tasks: it would gather evidence on the origin of cyberattacks and cybercrimes by rogue and criminal cyberoperators, and it would work with government agencies, cybersecurity, and information technology (IT) firms to limit the ability of listed terrorist groups to use the internet for their own advantage. The admissibility of such cyberevidence, and its actionability in terms of the sanctions that might follow, could form the basis of a treaty on cybersecurity. Such a treaty would also encompass the way people behave on the internet, and large internet companies from Google to Tencent would form part of this agreement and its implementation. There could be various elements; one would be the identification and criminal prosecution of those found culpable of internet-based abuse or crime, another would be the use of better procedures and technologies to avoid hacking. Large internet or social media firms would be employed to combat online abuse and fraud, based on international guidelines. Under such a treaty, signature countries would agree to use evidence on cybercrime in prosecuting people within their physical jurisdictions for cybercrimes.

  Such a treaty would draw the large internet and datacentric companies into the realm of international public goods, institutions, and geopolitics. Many of them already play outsized technological, economic, and strategic roles. In many cases, the size and reach of the large technology companies (from Amazon to Google to Alibaba Group) have dominant, monopoly-like market power. They stretch this in other ways, dominating innovation, research and development, the acquisition of small technology companies, and the related venture-capital market to such an extent that some people complain of corporate inequality.

  A growing number of academics and policy makers now call for the large tech giants to be regulated or even broken up, given the power they hold over consumers and consumers’ data. In a strict economic and moral sense, such calls are well placed, but they ignore the reality of the multipolar world, where one of the ways in which the large poles are becoming both distinctive and powerful is through the internet and data. In my view, it is far more likely that the big tech companies will not be broken up but will be co-opted as strategic partners of large states. If this occurs, Europe—which, as noted earlier, has no internet and social media giants of its own—may suffer, and it may respond with tougher regulation of non-European internet, IT, and social media platforms.

  The paring back of old institutions and the building out of new ones is one of the vital tasks of the twenty-first century. To be perhaps overly critical, many politicians today seem wedded to the status quo, and there are few obvious institution builders. In that regard, we might again head back in time and seek the inspiration of someone who has done it all before, Alexander Hamilton.

  TEN

  THE HAMILTON PROJECT

  What Would Hamilton Do?

  THE CHANGE IN AMERICA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT ROLE in the process of the levelling. The ebbing of America’s influence, profound questions over its economic model, the apparent decay in its society, and turmoil in its public life are forces that are driving the prospect of a weaker rather than a greater America. This is especially sad to contemplate, given the genius of its Founding Fathers.

  Two of my favorite historical figures are Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. They shared a creativity and an energy, and both were crucial figures in the foundation of the United States as we know it. Franklin is attractive for the range of his talents and interests, and Hamilton is worthy as a builder of institutions. Today, interest in Hamilton has undergone a revival, thanks in part to the musical bearing his name, even if it does not do full justice to his achievements.1 Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton does, and I recommend it as a comprehensive and worthy treatment.

  In my mind Hamilton stands out as someone who planned, established, and built many of the important institutions of the United States. He had a hand in the creation of its currency framework; in the foundation of the Treasury, a prototype central bank (the Bank of the United States), the Coast Guard, and West Point; and in the structuring of the army. He was also a mastermind of American foreign policy and was one of the lead authors of the Federalist Papers, the collection of essays that sought to clarify, strengthen, and promote the US Constitution.

  Few men or women have had as enduring an impact on their nation. Indeed, without being uncharitable, it is hard to imagine a group of contemporary political leaders drafting a set of essays comparable to the Federalist Papers that would elaborate the structures and paths to lead their countries forward. This is another reason why a modern Agreement of the People will have to be written by new, politically active people rather than by contemporary politicians.

  Hamilton is also interesting because, like the Levellers, he was interested in both democracy and the idea of the republic (i.e., institutions and laws) and was keenly aware that they served different purposes. The ideas of democracy and a classical republic are often taken to be the same thing, though they are very different. Republics do not have to be democratic, though the best ones are.

  Take modern-day Greece as an example. When Greece was incorrectly permitted to join the eurozone, it was waived through the admission criteria partly on the sentimental basis that one couldn’t refuse entry to the birthplace of democracy (this viewpoint is credited to François Mitterrand). Subsequently, though Greece was a eurozone member, its institutions and those who populated them were found wanting, being corrupt and unable to execute policy or to respond to market and economic stresses. This shows that though democracy should be a requirement for EU membership, it is not a basis for eurozone membership (EU membership does not automatically imply membership of the eurozone). Institutional quality and economic strength should be the bases for this, and in the case of Greece, the frailty of its institutions continues to undermine its democracy, in that poor policy making or policy implementation saps trust in the democratic process.

  Hamilton’s achievements encompassed both the fostering of American democracy and the mastering of the architecture of its republic. The nucleus of his achievements was as a craftsman and implementer of what we have called intangible infrastructure, to such an extent and level of excellence that there are few historical figures who might match him (Napoleon, perhaps).

  In this chapter, I take “Hamilton” as shorthand for t
he establishment of the institutions, laws, and skill sets needed for countries and regions to be able to thrive, in the sense of enjoying durable economic growth, high human development, and a stable public life. In the case of the great powers, one might also add the goal of the completion of the institutional armory that would allow each pole to hold its own in a multipolar world.

  We, therefore, deal here with the reality that the three great regions of the world—the US-led Americas, Europe, and China—are to a large degree incomplete in different respects: Europe needs more force in geopolitics, the United States needs a better-balanced society, and China is still adolescent financially, militarily, and socially. To this end, these great powers may change significantly in the next ten years, and the ways in which their societies change, the extent of their investment in intangible infrastructure, and the way they conduct themselves diplomatically will be the central themes in international relations for future decades. It will be a defining part of the levelling, and in my view, the extent to which countries adopt the mind-set of Alexander Hamilton will condition their place in the world.