Reviews for Surrender

The average rating for Surrender based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-01-07 00:00:00 Michael Clauson I really like Kevin Phillips' other books and had high hopes for this one, but apart from a few points, didn't get much out of this one. We need a much more robust conversation about "industrial policy" in the U.S. The lack of one reflects the failure to understand that we have to get corporations (which are legal entities created by the state, i.e. We the People) under control and guide them more to serve the public purpose. This book came out in 1984 -- at the height of Reagan (whose policies were described by his VP - GHW Bush as "voodoo economics" during the 1980 election...). Phillips asserted that "industrial policy" had gotten a bad name because it was associated with notions of excessive government interference in the economy. So he was bucking the emerging forces of libertarian ideology. From his perspective, the Left failed to offer an alternative (looking back, it's pretty easy to say he got that right). Why? He says: "Most of the national industrial policies offered by the left and center-left have failed to come to grips with (1) the pivotal role of capital formation or incentive economics found in successful industrial policies like that pursued by Japan, and (2) the interaction of an emerging world market and an intensifying economic nationalism." (p 15). The thesis is that the U.S. faced 3 choices in the 1980s - Uncoordinated market-oriented approaches driven by ideology and policies like tax reduction and deregulation (favored by opponents of a role for government); 2) major federal intervention in the economy (favored, he says, by the Left), such as economic planning boards or coordinating councils w/representatives from business/labor/gov't, a national development bank and federal technology research agency 3) something in between that he calls "a strategy of industrial competitiveness," stressing export promotion and trade policies that involve business/government cooperation, while rejecting federal planning and supervisory agencies. Phillips favored this third option, which he described as a kind of "business nationalism." Most of the book lays out the case for this option. Why option 3 and not 1? "The fundamental argument against a business-as-usual free-market response to our current economic problems lies in the changing political basis of competition in the global market. ... All of the major Western nations have and will continue to have market-driven economies. ... A market-driven economy is not, however, the same thing as a free-market economy. In the former, government-aided pursuit of markets can sometimes be exceedingly effective." In short, look at what Japan is doing right. He points to this tradition in American history: "In the early days of the new republic, the political allies of the business and commercial classes were the proponents of business-government partnership and activism. Alexander Hamilton's attempt to institute an early national industrial policy -- his famous "Report on Manufactures" -- was a prime example. So was the "American System" of Henry Clay, with its emphasis on a combination of protective tariffs and national system of internal improvements as a way to expand the domestic market. So was the corporatism and nationalism of Daniel Webster. Thereafter, the political outlook of the business community began to change." The big business community, he seems to mean. In other words, there are conservative traditions of economic intervention that should be understood as an important part of the country's historical success, obscured by the mindless mantras of Reaganomics. Even John Locke (according to William Letwin, author of the Origins of Scientific Economics) was not "inclined to go to the length of suggesting laissez-faire in the range of economic policy. Quite the contrary. The state papers he composed while a Commissioner for Trade -- especially his famous proposal to suppress the woollen manufacture of Ireland and replace it with linen -- as well as the repeated insistence in the Considerations that government must regulate trade in order to assure a proper balance of trade: these show that he was very much an advocate of government intervention in economic affairs." And: "The point to remember here is that corporations, specially chartered by state legislatures, were chips of the block of sovereignty, created because of a political decision to allow or participate in a specific economic enterprise. Corporate activism in the early nineteenth century represented government economic activism almost by definition." "Professor George Rogers Taylor, in his definitive Economic History of the United States, commented that during the early years of the Republic, Americans believed "that eonomic conditions should constantly improve and that government had a simple and direct obligation to take any practicable measure to forward such progress. Why should they fear the power of the state? Was it not their own creation in which the people themselves were sovereign?" " (p 115) Phillips broke hard from the Republican Party during the Bush years. But perhaps the origins of that divergence began in the 80s, when simple ideological dogma was creeping in and starting to make it difficult to debate more nuanced approaches to policy. Today, the party is what ex-Republicans like Mike Lofgren call "an ideological cult." The trajectory towards that is well described elsewhere. In 1984, Phillips could still believe that party and business leaders were receptive to a pitch for intelligent business policy. Thus: "So it is possible that U.S. conservatives are on the verge of an unenthusiastic philosophical transformation, and that they may out of necessity reacquaint themselves with government activism. Six circumstances point in that direction" - globalization of the U.S. economy - Americans are starting to borrow ideas from abroad - foreign business-government industrial partnerships are coming into our market - the emergence of "microcircuitry" and the information society requires government R & D - government must play a role in developing new telecomms infrastructure, just as it did in developing the early industrial age's canals, turnpike etc. (viz. Jeremy Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution) - the "conservative" constituency is changing and becoming more populist. Both conservative ideologues and Leftist groups focused on obsolete forms of government intervention were ill equipped to address these new global forces. It would be "pragmatic" conservatives (i.e. "more government-collaboration-minded elements of the corporate community") who understood. Yes, but with a government bent on neoliberalism and deregulation, it was left to the "other government" -- the swarms of lobbyists and fixers etc. -- to put these policies in place. And without a coherent plan, the outcome hasn't benefited the national interest as much as Phillips seemed to suggest, so much as it has created a proliferation of subsidies and tax breaks, regulatory loopholes, etc. All the things that lobbyists are good at. Look at U.S. trade policies and agreements negotiated since the mid-80s. Sector by sector, advantages for multinational corporate industrial sectors were established and deeply entrenched in the global economy. Neither the Democratic Party (which has since become much more like the Republican Party of the 80s) nor the Trump/Bannon/Lighthizer nationalist wing of the Republican Party has seriously challenged policies harmful to most Americans -- such as patent protections embedded in most trade agreements that allow Pharma to gouge consumers here and around the world. It's an interesting book. I wish there were more historians and political observers on the Republican side who were as intelligent and honest about key questions as Phillips has been.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-26 00:00:00 James Willingham I read this in a class at University of Richmond--amazing book that discusses how much of what we do in our country has become obsolete, and how by measuring ourselves against our competitors, we can work together to be the best we can possibly be by changing our education system and the way we approach the world of work.