Thursday, March 15, 2007
Inchoate Imperialism Part II: Policy Prescriptions
A week-or-so ago I posted an essay arguing that if we want to devise reasonable policies for dealing with the Middle East, we must first understand the region. That assertion is uncontroversial. The rest of my argument was likely more so: I explained that the fundamental idea that has shaped the modern Middle East is an inchoate sense of imperialism among the region’s Sunni Arabs. A second toxic philosophy entered the mix with Khomeinism, an expansionist revolutionary movement in the spirit of nineteenth century European socialism and anarchism, though cloaked in the language of Shiism. The region’s other philosophies, including both Zionism (which has long played a significant role) and Kurdish nationalism (which is growing in importance rapidly) are expressions of self-determination among the region’s ethnic minorities—and thus inherently antithetical to both inchoate imperialism and revolutionary Khomeinism.
This essay picks up where that one left off. It addresses the questions that really interest people: So what? Assuming that my explanation is correct, what should the U.S. (and the broader West) do about it? What, if any, policy prescriptions flow from this understanding? And how do they differ from what we are doing now?
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Monday, March 12, 2007
Recalibration and Realignment?
I’ve been noodling over a political quandary for a while now. I left the Democratic Party because, in my opinion, it has drifted very far into dangerous leftist territory. Conventional wisdom in the MSM, on the other hand, has spun the story in precisely the opposite direction. The conventional story seems to be that the recent injection of pro-life, anti-gun-control advocates has moved the Party to the center. Why has my perception been so different?
I found the answer in last week’s Weekly Standard, in an article about Rudy Giuliani and social conservatives. So here’s a conjecture that helps me make sense of many seeming anomalies:
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Saturday, March 10, 2007
Opportunities and Challenges in the Global Information Age
The Commonwealth Club invited me to speak a few days ago. I was pleased to draw a full room (about 40 people), and I prepared my comments for a general audience. My title, with a none-too-subtle nod to Digital Phoenix, was: Phoenix Rising: Opportunities and Challenges in the Global Information Age.
The basic thrust of my comments started with my belief that we are living through a global transition from an industrial age to an information age. Different parts of society will undergo that transformation at different paces, but each one will navigate a predictable pattern of opportunity, displacement, backlash, and reassessment. Selected digital industries (specifically software & entertainment) made the transition early. We should therefore be able to learn valuable lessons by studying their transitions and applying them, albeit in general terms, to areas of greater significance. My first goal in this talk was to show how a pattern that has emerged very cleanly in the debate over music downloads can inform our understanding of the debates over offshoring/protectionism and globalization/terrorism. My second goal wasto outline specific lessons that we can learn from these parallels--and actions we can take to improve both our individual lots and the world as a whole.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Inchoate Imperialism. Part I: A New Narrative
The Need for a New Narrative
It is hardly a secret that the nature of our involvement in the Middle East has changed significantly over the past few years. This change, which has manifested itself in both American military and diplomatic involvement and in the interest and education of individual Americans, is likely to be long lasting. In the early phases of this education process, most Americans who had not exhibited much prior interest in the region took their cues from leaders they trust: those partial to the Bush Administration took most of its assertions at face value, while those who dislike it rejected most of those assertions with equal ease, and turned instead to leaders of the left.
Over the past several months, however, an increasing number of bright, educated people of various political and philosophical orientations without deep prior backgrounds in Middle Eastern history who have reached a common conclusion: there’s something wrong with the stories we’ve been hearing. Those reaching this conclusion may or may not question the veracity and the good intentions of the leaders they once chose to follow, but they all question the quality of the lessons.
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Friday, March 02, 2007
Coming soon to the Commonwealth Club—really
Some of you may recall that I was supposed to speak at the Commonwealth Club in November, but publicity problems forced us to reschedule. Well, we’re back on track and I’m set to go on Wednesday, March 7th; we’ll start with a small reception at 5:30, with the program beginning at 6:00.
The Club’s formal announcement, official abstract, and a “make a reservation” link, are on their 6-week Calendar.
Here’s the inside scoop. This talk plays off some of the themes from my book, Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How it will Rise Again (MIT Press, 2005; soon to be available in Chinese).
Digital Phoenix explored some of the formative stories of the information economy, including the dotcom adventures so near and dear to our own hearts. My general goal in writing the book, though, was to see the patterns of opportunities and conflicts that arose when information technology ushered us into a new era of communication and globalization. The book’s last chapter projects these patterns into other arenas, including broader business settings and the political arena.
This talk will pick up on that theme. (No, you need not have read the book to follow the talk). What I hope to show, in the space of less than hour, is that the relationships among technology, opportunity, backlash, and conflict that Napster introduced to the world of music also characterize the ongoing conflict about the offshoring of jobs, and even the phenomenon of international Islamic terrorism. I contend that understanding these patterns will help us spot new opportunities and adapt to predictable challenges. Then I’ll take questions from the floor (just in case there are any).
You’re invited to see how well I do.
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Thursday, March 01, 2007
Eminent Irony
My second “urban issues” piece is now available in Cities on a Hill.
In it, I explore the interplay of San Francisco’s discovery that it owns part of the land in Santa Clara slated for the 49ers new stadium and the current brouhaha over eminent domain.
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Friday, February 23, 2007
Copyright v. The Free Market
The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology (BCLT) invited me to give their lunchtime seminar yesterday. The audience was mostly students, and my host requested a copyright-oriented talk, having recently overloaded the crowd with patent speakers. I chose the title: Copyright v. The Free Market: A Clash of Titans. (Hey, the invitation came on Tuesday for a Thursday talk--cut me a little slack).
I promised to make my slides available. Feel free to use them subject to the following conditions:
1. You attribute Bruce Abramson as the author.
2. You direct listeners/viewers to www.theinformationist.com, where they can get their own set and see my other musings.
3. You let listeners/viewers know that I discuss these issues further in both Digital Phoenix and The Secret Circuit.
Note that my name and the website appear on every slide, and the book information appears on the last slide. Simply incorporating my last slide and leaving my footer information untouched will satisfy these minimal requirements.
For those who see some irony in my placing conditions on distribution of a talk that takes a sanguine view of copyright law, I can only say three things:
1. Removing my name and claiming independent authorship constitutes plagiarism--an issue entirely independent of copyright law.
2. None of my conditions interfere with market conditions.
And most of all. . .
3. A little bit of common courtesy never hurt anyone. People who like my presentations might also like my books.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
New Gig: Cities on a Hill
I seem to be moving into a whole new arena. Fred Siegel, perhaps best known for The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life
his 2005 book about Mayor Giuliani (or about New York City, depending upon whom you ask), is Editor-in-Chief of the blog Cities on a Hill. Cities on a Hill is a project of the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Civic Innovation. The blog discusses urban issues in cities across America, or as I like to put it, “free-market theory meets socialist practice.” Fred has graciously invited me to be an occasional left-coast correspondent--pushing me, for the first time, to keep an eye out for local issues.
My first piece--an impressionistic celebration of my first year as a San Franciscan--appeared today.
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