Political leadership

8. Carlin, Invictus (9 Dec 2009)

by kurto

Narrates Nelson Mandela’s 10-year odyssey from political prisoner to elected, popularly acclaimed leader of post-apartheid South Africa, an ambition spectacularly achieved by coopting the emblematic Springboks. South African rugby circa 1994 was more immovable object than irresistible force, so Mandela ingeniously converted the sport into a fulcrum for incorporating white society into the emerging sociopolitical order; the alternative was civil war. The monograph elaborates parts of Mandela’s

    Long Walk to Freedom

more than it retells the 1995 World Cup, while the movie focuses more on the world championship. It’s disappointing but not critical that the book (and movie) skips past controversial allegations of food poisoning and the birth pangs of professionalism, remarkably a contemporary phenomenon. The plot would have been strengthened by telling of Chester Williams’ belated inclusion. Also, while all stories must begin and end somewhere, the 1996 series loss to New Zealand and Afrikaner recidivism meant the road to the rainbow nation was not only one direction.

5. Grattan, Australian Prime Ministers (10 Apr 2023)

by kurto

Short sketches of Aussie heads of government from Federation through Kevin Rudd’s first term, nearly all by different biographers. Prime ministers up to World War I were builders; through World War II adapted Australia’s role in the changing British empire; through the early 1970s economic growth was balanced with social cohesion; and through the Howard era Australia was ‘reentering’ the global economy and engaging with Asia. Nearly all tenures ended in political failure; the Treasurer is frequently PM in waiting. Many of the biographers, notably McIntyre and Day, are Howard’s ‘black arm-banders’.
• Deakin was the outstanding early PM (despite similarities with Barton), enshrining pro-British views, White Australian immigration to quell labor unrest, the balancing of export-led economy and domestic protection – the ‘national mastery of material circumstances’. Oddly, none of the contributors identify Welsh’s observation that the Federation constitution contained virtually all elements of the welfare state
• Fisher is credited for irreversible integration of Labor Party as a governing party, by dint of pragmatism
• Hughes prioritized centralized control for national, economic efficiency – nevermore to be trust by Labor, never by business
• Menzies’ longevity inherently involved failings, but do not cast him as fossilized – he he had longstanding ability to express, guide the beliefs of common Australians and was a man of principle. It’s remarkable his successors weren’t Labor. The collection suffers from the decision to treat him only once, in the WWII years
• Curtin renounced revolution for responsibility. Chifley took advantage of wartime controls and postwar credit, but overstepped h in attempting to nationalize banking
• McEwen built up Trade to rival Treasury, was the apotheosis of protection
• The Labor Party’s success over 1980s-2000s was founded in Whitlam’s administrative and political reforms. His economic beliefs were founded in 1960s Keynesianism, however, and his budgets were unsuccessful
• Fraser was ultimately orthodox and therefore reliant on maneuver disguised by Olympian demeanor
• Hawke’s reforms make him the greatest PM since Menzies, notwithstanding his fallout with Keating. The latter was a brilliant Treasurer but more partisan as head of government, albeit (apparently) the first of the Asianists
• Howard’s biographer opines he changed the country economically for the better and socially for the worse. His challenging multiculturalism as concluding there’s no value in social cohesion is left unaddressed

13. Wood, Revolutionary Characters (21 Nov 2010)

by kurto

Sketches the moral and political sensibilities of the Founding Fathers: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Madison along with Burr and Paine. Each of the core six was conscious of belonging to a new meritocracy, of setting an example for the Revolutionary generation. Washington and Jefferson receive the fullest historiographical treatment; Franklin’s portrait is most revealing. Paine and Burr are present to serve as counterpoints, as well to illustrate the code: even as the Founding Fathers proved themselves a brilliant cohort of elites, the 18th-century American aristocracy was ending, sped along by the example of these (largely) self-made men and their rhetorical appeals to the common man. That essay, which treats the story of the Revolutionary- and Federalist-era newspapers, also makes a telling explanation of the overheated, lugubrious prose so often found in the century’s polemics: the elites were talking amongst themselves, above the proletariat.

***15. Rubin, In an Uncertain World (12 Dec 2010)

by kurto

The autobiography of the former Goldman Sachs chief executive and Treasury secretary falls flat because it glosses the important events of his career while abundantly criticising (succeeding) Bush administration policies. The book begins briskly with the Mexican currency crisis and quickly outlines Rubin’s belief that complex situations are fundamentally uncertain, so effective risk management is vital. After a useful outline of risk arbitrage trading, however, the book breezes past his rise and rise at Goldman. Then Clinton-era policies and landmarks are presented disjointedly: the Asian crises are not well connected to domestic events, whether economic or political. There is no substantive mention of the Lewinsky scandal. Nearly 20 percent of the book is devoted to criticizing his successors: though Rubin refrains from personalized, ad hominem attacks of the kind he professes disdain for, it is the details of his own decisions that are important and wanting.

14. Garnaut, Dog Days (24 July 2022)

by kurto

Assesses Australian political economy near the end of the resource boom (circa 2013), asserting the need for more non-primary exports, decreased real-exchange rate (the Aussie adjusted for comparative interest rates, inflation, and productivity gains), and reduced living standards (less imports). Dismissive of political leadership, Garnaut, the Hawke-era government economist, barracks for technocracy. Why wouldn’t rivals respond in kind? How do his prescriptions escape the trap of public choice economics and unaccountable progressives?

Japan’s postwar boom had brought the center of the world economy closer to Australia; the impact of China’s post-1978 gains are well documented. White Australia had been inefficient because the country needed people as well as hobbled by encompassing protection, personified by McEwen. The Hawke-Keating era had never known a majority for reform: it was championed by independent experts. The recession of 1990-91 started backlash against reform.

Though Hawke ran a tight budget, the country did not save enough of the fiscal surplus (as a percentage of GDP), instead drawing the lesson that budgetary policy was ineffective.
The Howard administration is upbraided for acting to soften the introduction of GST and higher gas prices. Australia has yet to adopt ready-made foreign productivity practices: in the 1990s, growth trailed the OECD, 1.1 vs 2.5 per annum.

One-third of the economy is exposed to international trade, and the leading constraint on Aussie economy remains balance of payments. Health and education comprise 13 percent of GDP and 20 percent of employment. Accordingly, productivity must be packaged not pursued piecemeal. (Unexplained) monopoly pricing stops the declining cost of imports from reaching consumers, checking the desired depreciation of the Aussie. Immigration has raised skill levels and thus helps attract international capital (although such capital would seem suspect); the assertion that immigration reduces Aussie inequality in comparison with the US is unsupported, and there is no general discussion of social cohesion.

More in the policy realm, states lack effective powers to tax and therefore fiscal freedom while the Commonwealth cannot exercise powers of scale. Garnaut recommends constitutional review by experts. But states with larger equalization receipts have larger public sectors: public choice dynamics look to be at work: why would they not capture the review process?

A chapter on the green economy, now seeming a prelim to more recent work, fails the ex ante test: among many other examples, studies touting the effects the Olympic and the World Cup have been wildly optimistic and rarely address inevitable unintended consequences. Why should ‘climate change’ different? Aren’t advocates another special interest? There’s also a discussion of contemporary alternatives for taxing primary resources, summarized as ‘fair distribution’ of the burden of adjustment.

Most aggressively, Garnaut says no ‘thinker or leader’ has lead decisive historical progress (‘inflections’), crowing a number of questionable assertions about the capacity of political leadership, in support of arguments for technocratic government.
Politics in a democracy is inevitably a contest between groups seeking efficient policy for economic development and equity, and other groups seeking interventions to confer special benefits upon themselves or to kill or constrain interventions that would impose unwanted costs.
Abbot is chided for his determination to keep political promises in changed economic circumstances – why will public experts prove more adaptive? Confusingly, Garnaut suggests the relevant of international benchmarks (p.51) but also the failure of Aussie social sciences to stand independent (74). Private interests skew research.

How is technocracy insulated from moralizing practice (e.g., woke America) – Garnaut’s pandering through the back door?

16. Cannon, Governor Reagan (28 Dec 2010)

by kurto

Narrates Ronald Reagan’s rise to and career as governor of California (1966-74), the era when he became an accomplished politician. Reagan’s conservative / populist rhetoric belied pragmatic governance, often made necessary by Democrats controlling the legislature. For example, he raised taxes his first year in office and blocked Eel River development, bucking the establishment. His bipartisan welfare reform also was successful; his record on education reform and the budget (i.e., tax reform) less so. Based on contemporary reporting and augmented by post facto interviews, Canon portrays not only the principal but also the many surrounding figures. Including by a treatment of boyhood, acting, and his presidential campaign, the book adds up to first-rate political biography.

10. Warhoff, Well May We Say (2010)

by kurto

A collection of outstanding and well-regarded Australian speeches, 1850-2010. If Aussie rhetoric is known as laconic, sparing in adverbs with frequent hints of hilarity or sarcastic mirth, this aggregation of primary material sheds little light on the worldview that produces such communication. The book is organized by topic — nationhood, war, political and sociocultural debate, etc. — with useful (but sometimes presumptive) intros. A memento of our recent trip there.

14. Krauze, Redeemers (30 Nov 2014)

by kurto

A short biography of the leftist Mexican poet Octavio Paz mixed in with still shorter sketches of comparable neo-Marxist intellectuals and heroes of the late 19th and 20th century. While ranging from Marti to Chavez, the author focuses on Mexico and returns often to the topics of the Catholic Church, postcolonial society, the place of indigenous Indians, the sociopolitics of revolution, and finally the relative value of democracy vs political messianism (i.e., progressivism or ‘redemptive leadership’), from which the work draws its title. Ultimately Krauze comes down on the side of democracy. A quick and useful primer on a collection of failed ideologues.

5. Fenby, The General (13 Mar 2020)

by kurto

A biography of a 20th century’s great, emphasizing his distinctive approach to military and political leadership. Charles de Gaulle was a ‘lifelong teacher’ of men, dating to his days as a World War I prisoner war. He saw military organization as the model for the mass-production economy and also government management of society. Great leaders surpass hierarchy to act independently, accordingly they must be distant, reserved. De Gaulle evinced autocracy but was to work through referenda; notwithstanding Roosevelt’s views he was a committed democrat, using established institutions. He held out French rationalism as the native counter to fascism.
de Gaulle had broken with Petain well before the treason of 1940, yet was strongly opposed by such London Frenchmen as Raymond Aron and Jean Monnet. His popular appeal via radio outlasted Hitler and Roosevelt. Free French (yet less than 20,000) had scored several tactical successes in Africa, thereby winning Churchill’s grudging support, and established its elan. By 1941, he had prevailed over admiral Emile Muselier and opposition leader Jean Moulin. He then relocated the Free French to Algiers to reestablish himself of on French soil, and in 1943 was recognized as supremo by Eisenhower.
In country from 1944, after the war he blocked the Communist from the ‘three great levers’: foreign affairs, military, interior (police) – each of which had been conceded in Eastern Europe. Though the logical executive, he disavowed a political party a la Bolingbroke, seeking to become a ‘national arbiter’ above the fray, and so left politics. His strategy for return was to take the electoral route while allowing the establishment to envision his leading a coup, thereby ‘frightening [the [populace] into acquiesce’. By the time of the Algerian crisis, he was seen as the only rampart between communism and fascism; in the 1958 elections 344 of 475 incumbent deputies lost their seats.
Under de Gaulle, centralized authority expanded: power lay not in the legislature but unelected civil servants or state-run corporations. He himself was Olympian in hauteur, ‘crab like’ in duplicity. France depended on his status, justified in settling the Algerian civil war and German rapprochement. But the OAS affair forced him to abandon the presidential for the partisan – the beginning of the end of the regime, evidenced by poor elections result of 1962. By 1965 he could no longer claim to represent the general will. He blundered in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; in 1968 he could still outwit politicians but not the new generation of students; only the disconnect between students and unions prevented a disgraceful exit.
De Gaulle poses a problem for historians who deny individual greatness – he twice saved France from cataclysm (surrender, civil war), twice showed himself a natural autocrat in service of popular nationhood and rule. Fenby suggests the authoritarian start of the Fifth Republic could not be sustained, yet the country’s movement toward parliamentarism is better observed in the European Union. Genuinely rooted in the country’s claims to greatness, Gaullism is merely a political behavior (not unlike Peronism). The author writes crisply yet fails to elaborate what is the France his subject saved.