“Thanks in part to Mr. Trump himself and in part to the multiple dysfunctions that brought him to the White House, America is becoming a source of bad ideas rather than good ones, of polarization rather than problem-solving and, bizarrely, of parochialism rather than cosmopolitanism.
“America has become a source of bad ideas, polarization and parochialism.” [The special relationship once enriched Britain’s politics. No longer, Bagehot, The Economist, 5th Jul 2018]
Are the Brits with their own plate full given the confusion that is Brexit piling on the former colony? “In … ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ Adam Smith argued that trade barriers and protections offered to dying industries will not, in the long run, serve the interests of the people. On the contrary, they will lead to an ossified economy that will splinter in the face of competition. President Trump seems not to have grasped this point. His protectionist policies resemble those of postwar socialist governments in Europe, which insulated dysfunctional industries from competition and led not merely to economic stagnation but also to a kind of cultural pessimism that surely goes entirely against the American grain.
“Conservative thinkers have on the whole praised the free market, but they do not think that market values are the only values there are. Their primary concern is with the aspects of society in which markets have little or no part to play: education, culture, religion, marriage and the family. Such spheres of social endeavor arise not through buying and selling but through cherishing what cannot be bought and sold: things like love, loyalty, art and knowledge, which are not means to an end but ends in themselves.
“About such things it is fair to say that Mr. Trump has at best only a distorted vision. He is a product of the cultural decline that is rapidly consigning our artistic and philosophical inheritance to oblivion. And perhaps the principal reason for doubting Mr. Trump’s conservative credentials is that being a creation of social media, he has lost the sense that there is a civilization out there that stands above his deals and his tweets in a posture of disinterested judgment.” [What Trump Doesn’t Get About Conservatism, Roger Scruton, The New York Times, 4th Jul 2018]
It brings Bertrand Russell to mind, “Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.” [Bertrand Russell on what makes a fulfilling life, Maria Popova, brainpickings.org, 3rd Jul 2018]
And here’s a perspective from a naturalized (or non-native) American: “For me, ‘sure’ is the most beautiful American word. Not yes I’ll do it, or maybe, but sure I will. It’s forward-leaning and risk-embracing. It signals the space that Europe lacks. It captures America’s spirit.
“Nowhere else is becoming somebody else so easy. There is space, still, to be free. Sure there is. The divisions between those who came first and those who came later are fungible.
“Or so, on July 4, I want to believe. This will not be another American century. Old structures that worked are giving way to something as yet indiscernible, with its share of menace. All this may induce a sense that the American idea is lost.
“But that idea has always been fought for — through slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, Vietnam. America healed from these lacerations. It cohered: E pluribus unum.
“In this time of tribal smallness, never shrug at the assault from on high on the American idea, flawed as it has always been. In 1938 … the German writer, defined democracy as ‘that form of government and society which is inspired above every other with the feeling and consciousness of the dignity of man.’
“Beyond all the current indignities inflicted upon it, America will be, uplifting once more in its imperfection.” [America Never Was, Yet Will Be, Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 6th Jul 2018]
Put another way, the American idea is bigger than Trump. But what the world and Americans especially must not forget is that among the dysfunctions that brought Trump to the White House is the global financial crisis of 2008 – more precisely its genesis, i.e., greed – that the world is yet to fully put behind. In more ways than one, Trump successfully packaged the crisis to define his campaign: Make America Great Again.
“Andrew Lo [Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management; Director, MIT Laboratory of Financial Engineering] believed that the crisis was about more than economic forces. In his mind, a human element was at play, most notably the emotions of greed and fear of the unknown. As Lo stated in his House Oversight Committee testimony:
“During extended periods of prosperity, market participants become complacent about the risk of loss—either through a systematic underestimation of those risks because of recent history, or a decline in their risk aversion due to increasing wealth, or both. [T]here is mounting evidence from cognitive neuroscientists that financial gain affects the same ‘pleasure centers’ of the brain that are activated by certain narcotics. [P]rolonged periods of economic growth and prosperity can induce a collective sense of euphoria and complacency among investors that is not unlike the drug-induced stupor of a cocaine addict. The seeds of this crisis were created during a lengthy period of prosperity. During this period we became much more risk tolerant.
“In other words, ‘we’ became greedy. [T]his greed was spurred on by ‘the profit motive, the intoxicating and anesthetic effects of success.’
“When everything began to collapse, our greed then turned into fear. What we feared … was the unknown—in this case, who and what we owed, what our assets were worth, and how bad things really were.” [The Global Financial Crisis of 2008: The Role of Greed, Fear, and Oligarchs, Cate Reavis, MIT Sloan Management, 16th Mar 2012]
But is Trump missing something in his definition of MAGA? Consider: “To remain competitive, and to give low- and high-skilled workers alike the best chance of success, economies need to offer training and career-focused education throughout people’s working lives. [And] efforts [are] being made to connect education and employment in new ways, both by smoothing entry into the labor force and by enabling people to learn new skills throughout their careers. Many of these initiatives are still embryonic, but they offer a glimpse into the future and a guide to the problems raised by lifelong reskilling.
“Quite a lot is already happening on the ground. General Assembly, for example, is just one of a number of coding-bootcamp providers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by companies such as Coursera and Udacity, feted at the start of this decade and then dismissed as hype within a couple of years, have embraced new employment-focused business models. LinkedIn … bought an online training business, Lynda, and is now offering courses through a service called LinkedIn Learning. Pluralsight has a library of on-demand training videos and a valuation in unicorn territory. Amazon’s cloud-computing division also has an education arm.
“Universities are embracing online and modular learning more vigorously. Places like Singapore are investing heavily in providing their citizens with learning credits that they can draw on throughout their working lives. Individuals, too, increasingly seem to accept the need for continuous rebooting … Meanwhile, employers are putting increasing emphasis on learning as a skill in its own right.” [Lifelong learning is becoming an economic imperative, The Economist, 12th Jan 2017]
Lifelong learning is consistent with the growth mindset that the blog has raised time and again. And the challenge will remain overwhelming if we Pinoys can’t overcome our instincts that hierarchy and rank are destiny.
And the challenge doesn’t get any easier. “In terms of global competitiveness, the name of the game is soft skills. Having strong government institutions and appropriate infrastructure are now givens for rapidly progressing economies like those in ASEAN. What will set apart the good from the great is the quality of its work force — their skills, their adoption to new technologies, their aptitude in the sciences, and culture of innovation.
“To this, government must focus on making the next generation of Filipinos more astute, competent, creative and skilled. It must also create an environment that is conducive to invention and innovation.
“We operate in a very competitive region and the Philippines needs to step up its game in no less than revolutionary ways to secure a place in tomorrow’s world.” [How competitive is the Philippine economy today (?), Andrew J. Masigan, Numbers Don’t Lie, BusinessWorld, 8th Jul 2018]
And not to forget, “If we want to make the Philippines more attractive to investors, we need to make sure that the market is fair. If we build a level playing field—they will come. No sensible player would want to join a high-stakes game that is rigged against them.” [Playing fair to court investors, Arsenio M. Balisacan, Competition Matters, BusinessMirror, 10th Jul 2018]
Is our market unfair? If the global financial crisis of 2008 was brought about by greed, what about the state of our market? Does it come with the territory, where we love tyranny?
Greed dates as far back as Eden. And indeed, to add insult to injury, the world suffers from tyranny as well. Remember the Arab Spring and Syria and Iran and Libya? And Africa and Latin America? What about Turkey, Russia and even the Philippines? The list goes on.
Yet humankind has demonstrated its genius and brought marvels through the centuries. And isn’t it time we Pinoys step up to the plate – if not now when?
Learning, curiosity and motivation – critical for us to keep growing and be dynamic – cannot come from isolation, and parochialism and insularity. They come from challenges that we must face – and why innovation and global competitiveness has defined the 21st century; and why the Chinese know that they must modernize or perish, and that automation is irreversible – that in turn build character.
The path of least resistance as in “pwede na ‘yan” that we’ve taken for decades – and eschewed industrialization – is why we’re the regional laggard.
But let’s get back to Trump. If people in the West, including Americans, aren’t applauding him, it is because they see him as misrepresenting the American idea. Of course, his base which represents the minority sees otherwise. He plays to them – and forget about what he takes beyond what he gives – which translates to the tyranny of the minority … and feeds polarization and parochialism. Not surprisingly, the US no longer is the benchmark for global competitiveness. It has its work cut out for Uncle Sam.
Conversely, it must be a lesson for us Pinoys that hierarchy and rank aren’t destiny – and why empires come and go – and no one is stopping us from traversing the journey from poverty to prosperity. And that means getting our act together.
Sadly, we love tyranny and appear powerless, married to the status quo and the vicious circle it produces. The evidence? We’re still fighting poverty – forgetting charity triggers pleasure, an established finding in neuroscience, and fortifies hierarchy – despite the lesson Asian Tigers gave the world, i.e., rapid development catapulted them from third-world to first-world. And we’re even adding another layer of complexity, system of government. Which Asian Tiger showed us that success model? Or should the question be, what planet are we from?
“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]
“Now I know why Paul dared to speak of ‘the curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.” [Faith and Science, Open to Change, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, 23rd Oct 2017]
“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]
“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists . . . A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]
“Development [is informed by a people’s] worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]
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