What’s The Big Idea?

Watching the way politicians are struggling to deal with the current economic mess, it’s hard to avoid facing an unpleasant fact. While Republicans continue to base their arguments on discredited Big Ideas like “free market individualism,” Democrats still lack alternative Big Ideas that might guide them through policy minefields. Unfortunately, this isn’t new: the American Prospect had a cover story on the subject – “What’s The Big Idea?” – back in 2004.

Even though the Democrats “won” the national elections in 2006 and 2008, at times they still come across as feckless when addressing some major issues. An example of this was a recent News Hour interview with Democratic governors Granholm of Michigan and Ritter of Colorado, as well as Republican governor Sanford of South Carolina. Sanford based his opposition to a federal bailout of the Big 3 and of state governments on the usual free market arguments about people working hard, playing by the rules, and eventually being rewarded. (Somehow this apparently doesn’t apply to autoworkers.) Meanwhile, Granholm and Ritter’s argument seemed to be basically “we believe bad things will happen if a bailout of the Big 3 doesn’t happen.” Well, probably...but why?

As it happens, Robert Wright had an article in Slate back in November, 2001, titled “The Big Idea.” He contended that modern technology has brought us to a point at which we are all interlinked and interdependent. While making his case in the context of 9/11, this also can apply to our current economic crisis:

“The general principle is this. Technological evolution draws people into larger and larger non-zero-sum games that promise common benefit—win-win outcomes. But the ensuing integration can bring the threat of common peril, of lose-lose outcomes. Either way—win-win or lose-lose—the fortunes of people who live at great distances become more closely correlated. Increasingly, good foreign news (say, a Japanese economic rebound) is good domestic news, and bad foreign news (the spread of AIDS in Africa) is bad domestic news. And very often this correlation of fortunes—this non-zero-sumness—is an argument for more international cooperation.”

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, in his book “Linked - How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means For Business, Science and Everyday Life,” observes that today’s world is rife with networks. The auto industry would be just one example: the Big 3 depend on a common pool of parts suppliers, while those suppliers are dependent on the continuing business of the Big 3. A similar web of relationships exists between the Big 3 and their dealers around the country.

Barabasi notes that the most important parts of a network are those entities – or hubs – that have the most links to the rest of the network. However, such major hubs pose a significant risk: the collapse of just one or two can conceivably bring down a whole network. (Think of the Northeast blackout of 2003, for example.)

As we’ve seen in the debate about bailing out the Big 3, conservative free market types generally discount arguments of interdependence. As Wright said in his article, “Interdependence theory has a reputation on the right for being a namby-pamby doctrine for naive lefties.” That’s why conservatives were happy to see Lehman Brothers fail back in September: it was “the creative destruction of the market” at work.

Unfortunately, as economists and business experts like George Soros have observed, the demise of Lehman Brothers led to the meltdown of the entire financial system. Such an outcome might be inconceivable from a classic free market perspective, but it is easily understandable from an interdependent network perspective. Cascading failures are an inherent risk in networks, as anyone connected to a power grid knows.

The free market individualism espoused by conservatives and Republicans is a myth. (If they were really such individualists, why would they need a Club for Growth?) The alternative to this myth is not collectivism or socialism; the alternative is a recognition that we live in an interconnected, interdependent world. In this world, there is no contradiction between being an individual and being part of a group. Like a computer on a network, we are both simultaneously. And like a computer on a network, we are only as secure as the weakest link in that network. The failure of others can very easily lead to our own failure.

Perhaps, in fully recognizing the interdependent nature of our world, we will have found a Big Idea that can guide us in dealing with issues like the current economic crisis.

It's a Small World After All

On election night 2008 I was at the Obama victory party in Albany, NY, to follow and celebrate the results. While it was a great evening, one moment in particular stood out. As we approached 11 PM, CNN showed a countdown clock for when the polls would close in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. As the last seconds elapsed, we all started counting down with the clock, as if it was New Year’s Eve. We all cheered when the clock hit zero, and then cheered much louder as CNN announced that Barack Obama had indeed just been elected President. It was a wonderful moment.

Only later did I find out that crowds of people around the world were doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same moment. It was yet another example of how much we are all interconnected these days - in our awareness of what’s going on and in our awareness that events on the other side of the world can affect our lives.

While young people today may think nothing of this state of affairs, it’s something I still view with a degree of amazement. I was 11 years old and living in Panama when President Kennedy was assassinated. Communications-wise, it was a very different era. While people in the US watched on TV events like Oswald’s arrest and subsequent murder, the American (Canal Zone) TV station just provided a static graphic with Kennedy’s name and dates of birth and death - a sort of video gravestone. The audio consisted of radio transmissions and reports; I didn’t see Oswald get shot, I heard it reported - kind of like play-by-play coverage of a baseball game.

For better or worse, with today’s technology we are now much more tightly linked together. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “...we are all caught up in a delicate network of interdependence, unable to celebrate fully our own heritage and place in the world, unable to realize our full potential as human beings, unless everyone else, everywhere else, can do the same.”

This is something we are still trying to understand and come to terms with. If the world is a network of links, how do we deal with it? The traditional way of dealing with things draws from a mechanical perspective of command and control that is pyramidal in form, with many down below and very few on top. In such a world, those with the most power control what happens. They are “the deciders.” But in a linked world, power is not pyramidal; it is networked, with everyone on basically the same plane. Clearly, this means the rules have changed. (An example of this change for military strategy is presented in the article “Command and (Out of) Control.”)

So what are the rules for a networked world? A useful resource for this is Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s book “Linked - How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means For Business, Science and Everyday Life.” One of his main points is that, while all nodes in a network may be equal in some respects, they are not equal in one key way. The difference between nodes is a question of how many links there are to a particular node. While there are many websites on the Internet, some receive a LOT more traffic and links than others. These popular nodes, which Barabasi calls hubs, are the power centers in any kind of network.

A key difference between traditional power centers and network hubs is defined by the source of their power. Traditional power comes from the hoarding of resources like money, weapons and control. Once one has the power, he or she can then dictate behavior to others. However, network power is more democratic: a hub gains or loses power based on the willingness of others to link to it. If something new and better comes along, a hub is likely to lose both links and influence. An example of this can be found with internet search engines: at one point AltaVista was one of the top search engines around; now Google rules the roost and AltaVista struggles to keep up.

In the traditional world, influence is something to be wielded: if you have enough power, you can influence the behavior of those you deal with. In a networked world, influence is something to be cultivated: the more connections you establish with others, the more influence you have. A great example of this from the music world is provided by songwriter Darrell Brown in “The Get-Out-the-Song Effort.”

Some may have wondered why so many people around the world were so excited by the election of Barrack Obama. Surely, there are many contributing factors. But one of those factors may relate to the perception of how Obama will use power compared to his predecessor.

The Bush-Cheney administration had a very traditional view of power: they felt America had the biggest military and economy in the world, so they could tell everyone else what to do. Judging by Obama’s campaign, it appears he has a better understanding of power from a network perspective. If he deals with the world and its problems from that perspective, America’s policies are likely to be very different.

At least, that’s the hope!