MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is that there are two approaches within liberalism to interaction between the state and various groups that occupy intermediate position between state and individuals: rationalism and pluralism, which could not be possibly completely reconciled.  It is also designed to demonstrate that pluralism is preferable approach and provide critic of multiple philosophers who either ignore such groups or trying to find some synthesis of these two approaches.

DETAILS:

Introduction
Here author first defines what he believes to be two different mindsets in relation to state power and authority om one side and power and authority of intermediate groups on another. He designates these mindsets as rationalism and pluralism and then presents this book to be “about these two mindsets, these ways of looking at the triadic relationship among individual persons, intermediate groups, and states.” Author sees these two mindsets situated within liberalism and differentiated by what they consider bigger threat to liberty: the state or organized groups between individual and state such as family and variety of association either voluntary or non-voluntary such as locality. Here is how author defines the issue and his own position:” I argue not only that the tension between rationalism and pluralism within liberal thought is longstanding, but also that it is to a large degree irresolvable. We can try to be open to reasons and arguments of both sorts; we can try to reach case-by-case judgments in particular times and places. But there is no systematic way to combine all of the virtues and none of the vices of the two mindsets, and no secure middle way that would allow us to know for sure which are virtues and which are vices. I generally favor pluralist liberalism;”

Author then discusses organization and scope of the book.

Part I

I. Freedom, Associations, and Uniformity
The Setting
It starts with recognition of state’s law as an important subject matter of liberal analysis of freedom, but then proceeds to discuss various infringements of individual freedom routinely applied by various groups. In process author defines what he means by rationalism and pluralism: “Rationalist liberalism is sometimes associated with a kind of demand that rational accounts be given to justify customs, norms, and beliefs, demands that can perhaps never be wholly satisfied. This is obviously connected to the more abstract sense of rational knowledge and belief; but it is a demand that is made in a particular institutional context, i. e. states demanding justification of the practices of non-state groups. Pluralism is meant to evoke associational, cultural, religious, and jurisdictional pluralism. In the first instance, pluralism should suggest allowing a plurality of associations, cultures, religions, and so on, to follow their own various norms. As a secondary matter, it is tied to a claim of descriptive sociology: that the sources of social organization are many, not one.”

Some Sources of Disagreement
Autonomy and Toleration
The discussion here moves to the intragroup dynamics when autonomy of individual is constantly violated by rules of the group. These rules may or may not accepted voluntarily, as in the case of children who are born into the group. Consequently, the issue emerges if tolerance from the state offered to the group should include tolerance of intolerance directed from the group to individual.

Whose Freedom?
Here author moves to discuss complexity of freedom, which could mean to restrain oneself from doing something and it also could mean freedom to restrain a group member by group leaders the same member choose to represent the group. The normal approach to this problem is to assure option to exit the group at will.

The Sources of Law and Social Order
Here author discusses the issue of who makes the rules and how these rules could be contradictory at different levels: religious group could not possibly be tolerant to different religions among its members, even if they are citizens of liberal state highly tolerant of any religious believes. Author also discusses how internal group norms could impact individuals situated outside the group such as when people living nearby of university town are impacted by rules established for students. The author moves to sources of rules: whether they come from coercion by whoever is in power or they are evolutionally developed via spontaneous order. Author refer to works of Hayek and Ostrom who articulated and empirically researched the rules emergence in various situations. The latter are pluralist claims and here how author dissect them:” There are thus at least three in-principle distinct pluralist claims here. First, social orders can emerge and survive pluralistically, making effective use of localized knowledge to evolve local norms that are locally functional. Second, law can emerge pluralistically, whether as the internal norms of such groups or as the norms that regulate relations among them. And third, such orders are normatively attractive: perhaps they are absolutely attractive, because they are the sites for our pursuits of ethical conceptions of the good and substantive life plans thicker than the formal rules of justice, perhaps they are attractive relative to the social or legal orders enacted by deliberate state planning. The normative claim and the legal claim in particular are logically independent:  whether a group’s internal rules count as law is fundamentally unrelated to whether they are unjust or oppressive. But there is a strong affinity among them all.”

Discrimination and Diversity
Here author looks at the problem of outsiders, usually liberal interfering into group’s business by demanding compliance with whatever rules they believe are fair: diversity, inclusion and so on”. Author provide a charming example of British authorities claiming right to define who is or is not Jewish and eligible to be admitted into Jewish school.

2. Two Approaches

Here author looks at the two approaches to argumentation for pluralism and/or rationalism.
The Pure Liberal Theory of Freedom of Association
Here is how author defines it: “The pure theory holds that, what individual persons are free to do singly, they ought to be free to do in association with one another; and rights that they are free to waive, they ought to be free to waive as against groups of which they are members.” He then discusses some limitations such as not allowing consent to slavery and some others.

Why the Pure Theory is Not Satisfactory
Here author makes argument that:” Insofar as the pure theory stands apart from impure predictions and probabilities, it must be able to survive the analysis of mere possibilities. And that means that the pure theory, by itself, has the potential to be self-undermining.” He then discusses equality of opportunity vs. results, split inheritance problems, idea of consent derived indirectly from failure to exit, and limitations imposed on internal rules of the group by external legal requirements.

Congruence
This section:” will describe an idea that might be taken as the pure theory’s counterpart, an attempt to build up thoroughly rationalistic, individualistic, group-skeptical conclusions from simple premises: congruence.”  The congruence here is between a group and the “just liberal state” restricted by moral and ethical constrains.

Why Congruence is Not Satisfactory
As with Pure theory author finds it unsatisfactory. This time it is because:” The doctrine of congruence, treated seriously, prohibits persons acting together from making any choices that would constrain their own future choices—which means that they may not make any choices of promise or commitment at all, and indeed few non-trivial choices of any sort.”

3. Reunderstanding Intermediate Groups
Treating Groups as Groups
The point author makes is that:” the pure theory treats groups as if they were individual persons, while congruence treats groups as if they were states.” Author’s approach is that since groups are neither, they have to be treated differently, more like intermediaries between individual and state providing some more or less strong shelter protecting some specificities common for the members of the group against state intrusion.

Tendencies toward State Excess
Property and Wealth; Secrecy and Privacy; Transnationality; The Centralizing; Temperament and the Man of System; Congruence Again
Here author reviews a variety of areas where state intrusion into group’s affairs typically occurs, from deprivation of resources, to violation of privacy and imposition of state control. Author also discusses problems of international group when various states attempt imposition of control from different cultural, technological, linguistic, and other perspectives.

Tendencies toward Group Excess
Authority Generates Power

Author expresses his approach to this area in such way:” Associations and groups that are substantial enough to fulfill needs for belonging and meaning, powerful enough to check the power of the state or to organize democratic life, or institutionally complete enough to offer authoritative norm-generation for their members, are also substantial, powerful, and authoritative enough to potentially threaten the freedom of their members. From this point of view the group could provide isolation of individual from the state strong enough to establish complete control over behavior and activities of individuals. In order to demonstrate this author refers to various religious movements in USA.

Pluralism Generates Power;

Here author makes case that pluralistic society could limit the group’s power by providing easy opportunities for schism, or even simple exit. He the proceeds discussing in details how exactly it could happen.

Interested and Invasive Power

Finally, here author looks at mechanics of group power that similarly to the state include law giving and enforcing as usually in interests of individuals being forced to do something good for themselves that they for some reason unwilling to do voluntary. Actually, this kind of tyranny could be the most oppressive because tyrants are way closer to individual and more interested in controlling than the state could ever be.

Overall author concludes:” Our freedom can be threatened by states and by groups—and by each directly in response to the other. Understanding which threats are more important where and when is not a formal or philosophical exercise. And a vision of the social world that emphasizes the threat from states isn’t contradicted by one that emphasizes the threat from groups, even when the legal and political actions the two recommend do contradict one another. “

Part II
4. Antecedents and Foundations
The Birth of Intermediacy; The Roman Law; Facts and Norms

Here author looks at antecedents of liberal ideas crystalized sometime after 1700. He includes into these antecedent formation of habeas corpus, formation of legal system, self-governing organizations such as church, and variety of others: universities, guilds, and so on. Author then discusses formation of such self-governing organizations that he places in period of 150-200 years after 1050 CE and traces this process in some detail. After that author looks at Roman Law as foundation of legal system and how it reconciled canon and civil systems in process moving somewhat away from foundation. Finally, author discusses struggle between state and variety of such organizations – most important Church and concludes that:” Medieval corporate pluralism was both a fact and a norm. The norm that these institutions ought to be understood as intermediate, of course, only took shape much later. It took a long time for uneasy de facto balances of power to be rationalized as desirable orders in their own right.”

5. The Ancient Constitution, the Social Contract, and the Modern State
The Emergence of the State; Peers, Provinces, and Parlements; The Ancient Constitution; Corporatism and Parliaments; The Theorists of the Ancient Constitution; Ancient Constitutionalism and its Neighbors
In this chapter author reviews history of a state in Europe, tracing it from XVI century to present: how it was formed in France, England, and other European countries, how their Parlements functioned, and how a number of myths about ancient freedoms and other such staff actually developed. Author pays special attention for forms of rule, and various documents defining European attitudes such as Magna Carta and various constitutions.

6. Montesquieu and Voltaire, Philosophes and Parlements
The Early Eighteenth Century; Montesquieu; Voltaire

In this chapter author reviews work of pre-revolutionary authors that during early XVIII century developed foundation of enlightenment and future revolutions.
7. The Age of Revolutions
Smith, Burke, and Paine; Tracy and Constant; The United States; The Society of the Cincinnati
This chapter is pretty much logical continuation of the previous, moving into period of American revolution and describing works of authors of this period, practical implementation of these ideas in USA, and finally, failed attempt to establish some form of aristocracy by Cincinnati society that included officers – veterans of revolutionary war.

8. Centralization in a Democratic Age: Tocqueville and Mill
Tocqueville on Associations and Corps; Mill on Centralization and Local Despotism

Here author continue his review of development of European thinking on the state, society, and proper ways of organizing all this into XIX century. Author is looking specifically at relationships between the state and variety of intermediate groups from organized church to variety of associations. As elsewhere in the book, author’s main concern is interplay between centralization around more or less tolerant state and local despotism.  
9. From Liberal Constitutionalism to Pluralism
The British Pluralists; Lord Acton; Acton and the Pluralists; The Pluralist Theory of Group Life
The final chapter of this part completes author’s review with thinkers of XX century that formed pluralist tradition. In this light author brings in Lord Acton and his support of state rights as bulwark against absolutism of federal powers. Finally, in his discussion of Pluralist theory author brings in its most persuasive account by Maitland: “If the law allows men to form permanently organized groups, those groups will be for common opinion right-and-duty-bearing units; and if the law-giver will not openly treat them as such he will misrepresent, or, as the French say, he will ‘denature ‘the facts: in other word he will make a mess and call it law. Group personality is no purely legal phenomenon. The law-giver may say that it does not exist, where, as a matter of moral sentiment, it does exist. When that happens, he incurs the penalty ordained for those who ignorantly or willfully say the thing that is not. If he wishes to smash a group, let him smash it, send the policeman, raid the rooms, impound the minute-book, fine, and imprison; but if he is going to tolerate the group, he must recognize its personality, for otherwise he will be dealing wild blows which may fall on those who stand outside the group as well as those who stand within it. For the morality of common sense, the group is person, is right and-duty-bearing unit. Let the moral philosopher explain this, let him explain it as illusion, let him explain it away; but he ought not to leave it unexplained, nor, I think, will he be able to say that it is an illusion which is losing power, for, on the contrary, it seems to me to be persistently and progressively triumphing over certain philosophical and theological prejudices.

Part III
10. The Constitution of Group Life
In this chapter author moves to discuss specifics of groups’ organization, management, their impact on society, and how liberal theory of freedom should take into account both rationalism and pluralism.

Intermediacy Affects Politics; Faction; The Illiberal Majority; Minority Group Capture; The Majoritarian State; Territory and Government; Politics and Balance
Here author looks at various aspects of groups internal politics and relations with the state. It is important because:” Intermediate groups are rarely only inward facing associations, and the state never only acts under neutral bureaucratic imperatives or as the neutral agent of liberal justice.  One idea we saw many times among the pluralists”. He makes the point that groups had to be at least somewhat oppositional, generate some external power via participation in voting and other political activities and so on. He then reviews problems of faction when either minority or majority group capture the sate machinery and often suppress or at least limit other groups.  

11. Associations are Not States
Complex Associations; Universities and Liberal Justice; State Action
The final chapter is about limitations on group imposed by the fact that they normally could not use tools of the the state and had to be more pluralistic and tolerant to both internal subgroups and other external groups. Another important limitation is permanent need to avoid conflict between group’s rules and objectives with the state and population outside the group. As example author discusses Universities and their rules and policies that often generate all kinds of controversies. Finally. author discusses action that state can and does use to resolve such controversies.

Conclusion: Against Synthesis
In conclusion author says:” I have argued that a liberal understanding of freedom is constitutively torn between a rationalist distrust of the local, the particular, and power embedded within group life, and a pluralist emphasis on the freedom found within and protected by group life against the power of the state. I have criticized various attempts to settle definitively for one or the other, or to redefine the distinction away.”

Then he proceeds to review some of such attempts:

Taylor and the “Long March”; Rawls and the Morality of Association; Hegel, Ethical Life, and Corporate Forms

MY TAKE ON IT:

I find all this quite interesting and mostly agree with author that pluralist approach is the best. I would leave the state one and only role in relation to intermediate groups: assure that individual rights and protections accepted by society’s laws and rules of behavior, are not violated in any way, shape, and form. However, I think that groups not only should not be put under pressure unless they violate laws, but also that they should not be supported by government in any way, shape, or form. For example, Universities should be free to promote whatever ideology they wish short of direct subversion and calls for violence, but they should have no material support from the state. Actually, the only material support to any group whatsoever should be provided only in case of national security necessity, while everything else should be supported voluntary. Otherwise, the pretty bad outcome for diverse society is pretty much guaranteed: continuing fight between groups for state’s support and resources that could lead to such high level of infighting that could undermine the very existence of the state. I guess that current support by “liberals” organized in Universities, Non-government organizations (NGO) heavily supported by government, Unions of government employees, and other similar groups to various forms of anti-White racism, anti-Asian quotes, and massive redistribution of wealth from middle class to plutocracy and bureaucracy will provide for an interesting spectacle over the next few 10-20 years.     

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to use the latest anthropological and historical research to demonstrate that war as the method of human interaction most probably goes all the way back to the beginning of humanity, but it is not genetically predefined behavior. Believes, either in genetical inclination to fight based on comparison with chimpanzees or in natural peacefulness of humans, both are not founded on hard proves, but rather on little more than wishful thinking, so authors attempt to present actual state of knowledge without falling into one or another set off believes.

DETAILS:

1 Peering into the Abyss
Authors start with definition:” By warfare, we are referring to myriad forms of organized violence, whether they are massed armies on a battlefield, revenge killings between smaller-scale societies, or intervillage raiding related to feuding communities. With this sort of inclusive definition, one not biased toward modern forms of war, we believe researchers are much better equipped to give the topic fuller scrutiny.” After that they define their story as “In the end, this is not simply a story about how, when, and why human warfare emerged, but is also a larger narrative about us, about humanity. In other words, the emergence of warfare is intimately connected to the emergence of human nature.” After that authors briefly review relevant literature and then define specifics of human warfare as complex activity highly dependent on specificity of circumstances when it occurs.  

Authors also clearly specify what they disagree with about warfare – that it is:

1) a relatively recent, modern, or historic phenomenon;

2) a product or byproduct of the political interactions associated with large-scale states or civilizations; and/or

3) a phenomenon largely created by shifts to sedentary or agriculturally lifeways.

Authors also specify their definition of warfare, so they are:

1) recognize the potential for it to have been a significant part of modern human behavior, whether within the past 12,000 years or even earlier; and

2) are open to the possibility that certain forms or facets of emergent warfare may have appeared at different points throughout the evolutionary history of hominin lineages.

They also specifically identify their key argument that both warfare and peacefare are specific modes of behavior, both being optional and used depending on circumstances and believes on which one of these modes would work best for survival. 

2 Dropping into the Rabbit Hole
Here authors once again provide some definitions and refer to literature in regard to human cultures mostly to their variety and flexibility. They also discuss inseparable character of human cultural and biological evolution, which is based on huge role that communications, data collection, processing and intergenerational transfer play in everything human. Author then discuss archeological evidence of human evolution with the first traces of stone tolls going back 2.5 million years and such cultural artifacts as bodies disposal dating to 300,000 years indicating that cultural development occurred even before biological establishment of contemporary type of human species. Authors then review aggression and violence in natural world with special interest to our close relatives: chimps and bonobos. They also review human patterns of organized violence and warfare and conclude that:” Conflict, competition, and violence are integral parts of the natural world, past and present, and we accept the assumption that our earliest hominin ancestors would have been capable of engaging in analogous forms of conflict, aggression, and violence. However, the larger, fundamental question to be addressed revolves around the notion of human emergent warfare and emergent peacefare. And, for us, this coincides with a human ability to perceive, symbolize, and convey intercommunity differences in complex ways. To us, that sort of cognition would be the key to elucidating the timing of emergent warfare and peacefare. In order to address these questions, we have to explore various strands of evidence from the Pleistocene, from fossils to artifacts to genes. But before we do that, we must first turn our attention to how archaeologists and paleoanthropologists actually see violence and warfare in the remote past, beyond the purview of written records.”

3 The Recent, the Ancient, and the Very Ancient Past
In this chapter authors discuss variety of evidence of warfare that could be obtained from archeology. They first review literature and conclude that there is no controversy about recent past, meaning the last 12,000 years – there plenty of evidence that warfare was quite a popular method of interaction between human communities. It is more difficult to look deeper in the past when specialization of humans and their tools was not that developed. However, the stones, bones, and other manifestations such as fortification goes back all the way to Pleistocene. Here is classification of warfare markers:

Authors then review current evidence for each of these markers. They also discuss such forms of violence that could not possibly provide any markers such as structural violence and magical assault.

4 The Ice Age World
Authors begin this chapter by expanding the very notion of warfare:” Our journey continues, and hopefully by now we have convinced our readers to consider a few key points about warfare. The first is a full appreciation of all of its cultural facets. Warfare, broadly defined, is not simply organized violence, it is not restricted to large-scale social groups, it is not restricted to young males, it does not result solely in direct physical trauma to bodies, and it is not a recent phenomenon. People in many different societies participate in various aspects of warfare, separated by vast differences in attitudes, perceptions, and cultural logics about violence. We have seen that warfare is not restricted to those eras of humanity where we had written records, with archaeological clues suggesting a deeper antiquity.” Then they look at early social organization and paleoanthropological record, noting that there is plenty of research and evidence of violence, but little clear evidence of its organized collective character. Authors also provide timeline of development:

5 Insights from Genomic Research
In this chapter authors discuss individual violent behavior and conclude that there is no clear genetic determinant of such behavior. They specifically discuss MAOA deficiency, but still conclude that any link to violent behavior is far from being deterministic:” Given the uncertainties and the complexities involved in shaping behavior, we can safely say at the moment that there is simply no conclusive evidence for a specific gene or hormone which will make someone more aggressive.”

6 The Onset of Human Variability and Emergent Warfare
Author’s approach in this chapter is to look for evidence of components of complex human behavior that is required to support warfare activities. They look at cooperation during hunting, development of language, kingship recognition and development of the group identity. Finally, they provide timetable for emergence of relevant behaviors:

7 The Durability of Peace
This chapter is somewhat unusual because authors here move from discussion of warfare to discussion of peaceware – human abilities to resolve conflict and accommodate each other peacefully. First, they look at conflict mitigation in the Animal world and then at much more complicated human peacemaking. Obviously, humans as the most sociable and flexible animals do a lot of this and authors’ main point is that both warfare and peacefare are just tools in human tool kit generally used pragmatically on “as needed” basis according to circumstances with neither one being absolutely dominant. 

8 There and Back Again

Here authors summarize all this in the following way:” The present evidence suggests that warfare, in various cultural forms, has fairly deep roots, deeper than a general shift in subsistence patterns from more mobile, foraging lifeways to more sedentary and agricultural ones. After all, warfare encompasses a very wide range of cultural behaviors, views, values, and practices, and is not restricted to categories of societies. It is a human phenomenon, and one need not live in a settled, agricultural society to be capable of organizing with fellow community members to perform violence. But, recognizing a deeper antiquity for the “invention” of warfare, or of its various bits, does not mean we are biologically hardwired to fight, that we are forever doomed to live in a world where war will always be of constant significance. As sobering as the reality might be when considering deeper origins of warfare, the narrative tells but one small part of the story of becoming human.”

After that they discuss significance of understanding of emerging warfare and emerging peacefare and different approaches to understanding of historical evidence from “Hawkish Doves to Dovish Hawks”. They conclude:” What makes us human is the power to transcend our genes, our evolutionary history, and our recent past. Not only can we transcend them, but we are capable of fathoming the ability to even do so. Tracing the origins of these distinctive human abilities is at the heart of anthropological research and will prove to be an infinitely fascinating field of study for many years to come. We did not become human because of war, and we did not evolve to make war. Through human evolution, we became capable of conceiving of and engaging in both warmaking and peacemaking.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

Unlike great many books about such hot button issues as war and humanity authors managed to keep in check their ideological inclination and provide quite honest review of relevant archeological and anthropological evidence. I think that any attempt to find causes of war or peace in inherent human nature bound to fail because either one is just a tool used to achieve desired parameters of life, which is used as needed according to circumstances, personality of decision makers, and psychological conditioning of decision executors. The only thing strongly connecting human nature and warmaking is human ability effectively communicate, plan, and synchronize actions of many individuals, without which no warmaking would be possible. The circumstances pretty much define cost/benefit analysis that prompts decision makers, that is individuals at the top of society’s hierarchy direct their effort to warmaking or peacemaking or anything in between. One can easily find multitude of examples when such calculation was incorrect and initiator of a war was defeated, but one could not find any example of war initiated without strong believe that whatever outcome occur it would be better than outcome of non-action. I’d like use two quite extreme examples: one is uprising in Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 when the amazing outcome was higher percentage of survivors among fighters vs. non fighters. Sure, numbers are something like 98% dead for fighters vs. 100% for non-combatants, but it is still advantage. Another example on much larger scale is non-occurring of World War III, that I think was direct result of invention of nuclear weapons that led to situation when no decision maker from Stalin at the top to low level officer on duty at nuclear site could estimate potential outcome of nuclear war as preferred choice. In both cases cost/benefit analysis was decisive for decision initiate or not coordinated violence – war. 

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is that contemporary Western societies are in the middle of increasingly bitter Class War between Technological and Managerial elite and variety of populist movements representing working and lower middle classes that are hit hard by globalization, unrestricted immigration, free trade, have difficult time maintaining their place in society, and are continuously insulted by attacks against their culture, values, and religious believes. The outcome of this war could be either rule of oligarchy or demagoguery, either one highly detrimental to prosperity of population. However, author believes that there is an alternative: Democratic Pluralism, that would provide much better solution to all difficult problems.

DETAILS:

Introduction
It starts with characterization of events of 2016: British exit and Trump election as revolution. Author then proceeds to define revolution as change in three realms: government, the economy, and the culture. He then characterizes the 1^st Class War in the West as result of industrialization some 150 years ago and pretty much ended with WWII when new relations in all three realms became established in form that author defines as democratic pluralism. Now globalization, outsourcing, and cultural changes destroyed this existing arrangement, alienated lower middle and working classes, so the new populist and its mainly demagogic leaders initiated new class war to change this. Author thus characterizes the current situation:” Demagogic populism is a symptom. Technocratic neoliberalism is the disease. Democratic pluralism is the cure.”

Chapter One: The New Class War
In this chapter author presents his understanding of the New Class War. First of all, it is not Marxists – because it has not cosmopolitan “Proletariat of the World”, but rather national: Americans, Brits, and others. Author then reviews intellectual history of class analysis: James Burnham, George Orwell, and John Galbraith. Author also refers to his own work to define what he calls overclass: managers and professionals, which started as meritocracy, but now increasingly turn into hereditary aristocracy. Author discusses the global character of this new class and contrasts it with national character of working and low middle classes.

Chapter Two: Hubs and Heartlands: The Battleground of The New Class War
In this chapter author looks at geographic battleground in USA. It is mainly division between coasts habituated by elite and parasitic classes living off the government either very well from huge handouts to elite “education”,” science”, and other form of political redistribution, or very poorly living miserably in inner cities on welfare and charity handouts. Author then analyses comparative level of productivity of coasts and heartland and concludes that much promoted high productivity of coasts is mainly illusion. He then discusses one interesting point – environmental regulations that provide coast elite with costless satisfaction from “saving the earth”, but cost a lot to people who actually use this earth to produce material staff that everybody needs from food to energy to everything else. Another point of contention – low skill immigration that provides cheap services and feeling of being noble humanitarians for elite, but represents price damping competitors for working class. Finally, author looks at numbers that demonstrate significant majority of non-elite comparing with elite and at rhetoric that demonstrate that drivers of conflict are not racism and/or bigotry, but rather material class interests.

Chapter Three: World Wars and New Deals
Here author turns to history of XX century with its national and class conflicts and discusses various class ideologies of this period: producerism, socialism in its various forms, corporatism, and general conflict between free market and statist ideas. Author discusses political methods of class wars expression such as mass parties, bureaucratic capture of government, and resulting from all this temporary settlement between classes achieved after WWII.

Chapter Four: The Neoliberal Revolution from Above
Here author looks at one of the most important causes of contemporary class war – Neoliberalism, which he defines this way:” Neoliberalism is a synthesis of the free market economic liberalism of the libertarian right and the cultural liberalism of the bohemian/academic left. Its economic model, based on global tax, regulatory, and labor arbitrage, weakens both democratic nation-states and national working-class majorities. Its preferred model of government is apolitical, anti-majoritarian, elitist, and technocratic.” He then reviews works of several writers that promoted this ideology beginning in 1970s, consequences of adaption of this ideology by ruling class, and concludes that it all amounted to the revolution from above resulting in “The triumph of technocratic neoliberalism over democratic pluralism”

Chapter Five: The Populist Counterrevolution from Below
Here author reviews attempt of counterrevolution from below to which he assigns anti-immigration movement in Germany, Ross Perot and Trump movements in America, Brexit movement in UK, and other similar movements. Author also provides here multiple polling results that shows change in demographics of working class, political parties realignment, for example free trade used to be republican issue and now is democratic one. Immigration used to be rejected by unions and now is supported by them. Author then discusses nature of populism as political movement and notes that it is inherently reactionary and therefore weak. Similarly, in culture populism became counterculture fighting against establishment, while old antiestablishment types became establishment themselves. The final part of the chapter is about history that demonstrated that in wars between oligarchy and populism oligarchy usually wins.  Author’s conclusion is this chapter is that:” Populism is a symptom of a sick body politic, not a cure. In a formally democratic oligarchy, a nepotistic elite runs things for the benefit of its members most of the time. On the rare occasions when a demagogue is elected to office, he or she will be less likely to reform the system than to join the establishment or build a corrupt personal political machine, steering government patronage to supporters.”

Chapter Six: Russian Puppets and Nazis: How the Managerial Elite Demonizes Populist Voters

In this chapter author looks at demonization of populism by elite and reviews specific themes such as Russian collusion and other propagandist efforts by oligarchy.  He reviews in some details tendency to see fascism everywhere and bring in pop-psychology of authoritarian personalities and such to explain populism. Author also refers, albeit briefly, to harmful populist demagogy, but concludes that fears of both sides exaggerated even if consequences of either side’s propaganda harmful. He makes the point that:” Only a new democratic pluralism that compels managerial elites to share power with the multiracial, religiously pluralistic working class in the economy, politics, and the culture can end the cycle of oscillation between oppressive technocracy and destructive populism.

Chapter Seven: The Workerless Paradise: The Inadequacy of Neoliberal Reform

Here author discusses various attempts to resolve this problem. Specifically, he looks at the theory of Skill-Based Technological Change (SBTC) and promoted by this theory expansion of STEM education, hopes to use relocation to high labor demand areas, even democratic socialism and such, but finds all of them lacking.  

Chapter Eight: Countervailing Power: Toward a New Democratic Pluralism

In this chapter author moves to positive approach discussing real alternative – democratic pluralism:” The essential insight of democratic pluralism is that electoral democracy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy. Because the wealthy and educated inevitably tend to dominate all parties, if only through their personnel, “territorial” representation must be supplemented (not replaced) by occupational or communal “social federalism” (to use the language of the English pluralists of a century ago). To this end, substantial areas of policy should be delegated to rule-making institutions, which must represent particular portions of the community, like organized labor and business in wage-setting sectoral bodies, or representatives of religious and secular creeds in bodies charged with oversight of education and the media. The territorial state, as the only entity with coercive authority, should exercise oversight of all institutions and intervene if necessary, to protect individual rights or other state interests. But in the democratic pluralist vision of democracy, the government in many areas should reign, not rule.”

After defining Democratic Pluralism author looks at various power centers of contemporary society that cold initiate movement away from Neoliberalism / Populism fight to the better solution.

Chapter Nine: Making the World Safe for Democratic Pluralism

Here author defines the New World order that he believes would be appropriate solution: “The democratic pluralist vision of a democratic world order is quite different from the technocratic neoliberal vision, with its powerful transnational rules combined with weak nation-states and legislatures.

For democratic pluralists, free and fair elections are a necessary but not sufficient condition for genuine democracy. A country run by an aristocracy or oligarchy is a democracy in name only, even if citizens are free to vote for competing aristocratic or oligarchic factions. According to democratic pluralism, electoral democracy in the political realm, narrowly defined, must be accompanied by power-sharing arrangements among classes and subcultures in the realms of the economy and the culture. These power-sharing institutions, like tripartite labor-business-government wage-setting institutions, need not resemble one-person, one-vote political democracy. But there must be social checks and balances in addition to political checks and balances. And decisions should be based as much as possible on hard-won and lasting consensus among negotiating parties, classes and creeds, not on fluctuating numerical majorities.

The democratic pluralist version of democracy necessarily puts great emphasis on national sovereignty—external sovereignty, not internal sovereignty. All of the various schools of thought that inform the democratic pluralist tradition—English pluralists, French solidarists, Catholic corporatists, and New Deal defenders of countervailing power in the broker state—reject the eighteenth-century idea of unlimited popular sovereignty shared by the American and French revolutions. For democratic pluralists, the state—usually a nation-state, but sometimes a multinational state or independent city-state—is not a mass of individuals to whom a general will can be attributed, but a community made up of smaller communities.

But while democratic pluralism rejects the idea of the unlimited internal sovereignty of any group, including “the People” as a whole, external sovereignty is indispensable. The reason is that the negotiations and compromises among communities that are the essence of democratic pluralism can only occur within the fixed boundaries of a political community with fixed membership. Cross-class compromises among labor and business, for example, are pointless if businesses can unilaterally annul the contracts at any time by transferring operations to foreign workers or bringing foreign workers into the country to weaken or replace organized labor. The various cross-class settlements in the US and Europe from the 1940s to the 1970s would not have been possible if employers had been able to use large-scale tax and regulatory arbitrage and offshoring and access to high amounts of low-wage, non-union immigrant labor to escape the constraints imposed on them by “new deals” with organized labor and democratic national governments.

For this reason, a world order that can support many countries organized along democratic pluralist lines will be quite different from a neoliberal world order in which most decision-making has been transferred from nation-states to supranational institutions or from national legislatures to national executive bureaucracies and judiciaries. Rejecting neoliberalism at the national level requires the rejection of neoliberalism at the global level as well. A world safe for democratic pluralism will not be a neoliberal world order.”

Epilogue:

At the end author summarizes it this way:” MANAGERIAL ELITES ARE destined to dominate the economy and society of every modern nation. But if they are not checked, they will overreach and produce a destructive populist backlash in proportion to their excess. If there is not to be perpetual conflict among the two permanent classes of technological society, the new class war must come to an end in one of two ways. One possibility is that there will be a new cross-class compromise embodied in a new democratic pluralist order, providing the working-class majorities in Western nations with far greater countervailing power in politics, the economy, and the culture than they possess today. The alternative—the triumph of one class over the other, be it the overclass led by neoliberal technocrats or the working class led by populist demagogues—would be calamitous. A West dominated by technocratic neoliberalism would be a high-tech caste society. A West dominated by demagogic populism would be stagnant and corrupt.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

I generally agree with author’s definition of the problem as government capture by technocratic elite that followed by regulations of all other institutions of society in the interest of elite at the expense of outsiders who are not only poor or lower middle-class members, but also upper middle-class and even rich such as Trump whose wealth was obtained by working in non-elite activities often over several generations of a family. I also agree that it could lead to serious backlash in form of populist movement led by demagogs. I even think that it could lead to violent revolution if government suppression in all its form, especially anti-white racism and elimination of the 1^st and 2^nd Amendments prove to be materially detrimental to wellbeing of non-elite majority. However, I do not find what author calls “Democratic Pluralism” to be effective remedy for the problem mainly because breakdown of society into functional communities that negotiate cross-class compromises would lead to situations when these compromises will be obtained at the expense of others not included into these communities. I do not think it would be possible, for example, return to big business/union negotiated settlement expanded across multiple countries just because countries are very different. Besides the automation is rapidly becoming much more important factor in pushing people out of jobs than cheap foreign labor. In my opinion the real solution could be found in pushing all interactions and cooperation down from the level of groups to individual level via use of government power to assure that resources material and intellectual accumulated over generations were available for individual control on equal basis for all, while resources created by individuals of current generation would be controlled by individual who created them. I guess author’s democratic pluralism means promotion of freedom on the level of groups smaller than government, while my solution would be promotion of freedom at individual level, when freedom includes availability of resources that would make this freedom applicable in real life.

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to convince reader that narrow and early specialization is not necessarily lead to success in all areas, but rather only in very specific, human designed fields, which are subject to formal rules such as chess or some sports. The wider and more complex problems could be better resolved by people with wider experience in multiple areas of activities with approach based on wide range of ideas and knowledge. This diversity of experience, ideas, and attitudes could help looking at the problem out of box and find non-trivial solution.

DETAILS:

INTRODUCTION: Roger vs. Tiger

Author starts with comparison between two sportsmen: Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, one intentionally trained from early childhood and another one coming to the sport in which he achieved the top level relatively late. Author analyses how it happened and unexpectedly finds that the near elite who eventually failed practiced more than those who succeeded in becoming elite.

Another finding was:” an enormous and too often ignored body of work demonstrating that learning itself is best done slowly to accumulate lasting knowledge, even when that means performing poorly on tests of immediate progress. That is, the most effective learning looks inefficient; it looks like falling behind.”

The key inference from these and other findings was that success comes from diverse experience and relatively late specialization that better support new approaches leading to high achievement.

CHAPTER 1: The Cult of the Head Start

This chapter tells another story of very successful early training for high achievement – Laszlo Polgar’s daughters and chess. Then comes discussion of Kahneman and Klein work demonstrating that:” Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform. … In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.”

Then author provides multiple examples from chess and other formalized domains, which he counters with example of Steve Jobs and his class in calligraphy that eventually led to multiple fonts for Mac computers and Claude Shannon who generated theory of information from Boolean logic and experience with communication networks.

CHAPTER 2: How the Wicked World Was Made The next came look at Flynn effect in IQ testing. The improvement came from increase in experience with abstract thinking typical for literate people in city environment, but not very usable in agricultural villages. Author illustrates this idea by results of research conducted back in 1930s in Uzbekistan. Here is nice illustration when illusion works for educated people, but not for illiterates:

Author then discusses difference between narrow and broad thinking and its higher usability and value in the constantly changing world  that requires quick and effective adjustment rather that deep drilling into narrow field, if one wants to succeed.

CHAPTER 3: When Less of the Same Is More

This chapter narrates the story of Vivaldi’s figlie del coros, Jack Cecchini, and their non-trivial, but outstanding musical careers.   

CHAPTER 4: Learning, Fast and Slow

Here author moves to the process of learning and how it often comes down to getting the right answer to the test without really understanding underlying logic. It is done with algorithmically defined process – “blocked” practice and author rejects it as ineffective and presents ideas of “mixed” practice when student generate solution based on previous experience, free search, and some directional hints from teacher – the process much more difficult and time consuming, but also much more effective in developing problem resolution skills.

CHAPTER 5: Thinking Outside Experience

This chapter begins with the story of thinking outside the box in astronomy: Kepler and Copernicus and then discusses some typical non-trivial problems and solutions. After that author proceeds to review experiments by Kahneman and Lovallo demonstrating that familiarity with details of subsystem causes people to make logical mistakes of missing complexity of total. Author then discusses use and misuse of analogical thinking and concludes that wide range knowledge, even if not very deep, helps to solve problems by finding applicable analogies. Experiments demonstrate that this method produces better results than approach based on deep and very precise knowledge that often limits search of solution to very narrow range of possibilities.

CHAPTER 6: The Trouble with Too Much Grit

In this chapter author brings the story of Van Gogh to discuss “match quality” – degree of fit between individual and work he/she does by using research of Ofer Malamud related to early vs. late specialization of students that demonstrated superiority of later choice. Author links it to ideas of “Grit” as explanation of success and pretty much rejects it by stating that match is more important and good match could be achieved only via experience. Therefore one should be ready to give up on something that is not working and move on to something that has better chance of working.

CHAPTER 7: Flirting with Your Possible Selves

The next story is about Frances Hesselbein who found her true call as CEO of Girl scouts at rather late age and mostly serendipitously. Author also discusses works of David Gilbert on “Predictors” and “Reflectors”, Walter Mischel’s “Marshmallow test”, Herminia Ibarra’s “plan-and-implement” vs. “test-and-learn” models, and a few typical stories concluding once again that flexibility is better fit to generate success than dogged rigidity of pursuit of preset objective.

CHAPTER 8: The Outsider Advantage

This is a set of other examples of specialists not able to resolve problems and helped by amateurs with wider scope of knowledge. These examples are for website inviting everybody participate that generate solutions, Exxon Valdez sill handling, Swanson ideas about “Undiscovered public knowledge, and so on. Here is author’s general conclusion for this chapter: “The more information specialists create, the more opportunity exists for curious dilettantes to contribute by merging strands of widely available but disparate information—undiscovered public knowledge, as Don Swanson called it. The larger and more easily accessible the library of human knowledge, the more chances for inquisitive patrons to make connections at the cutting edge. An operation like InnoCentive, which at first blush seems totally counterintuitive, should become even more fruitful as specialization accelerates. It isn’t just the increase in new knowledge that generates opportunities for nonspecialists, though. In a race to the forefront, a lot of useful knowledge is simply left behind to molder. That presents another kind of opportunity for those who want to create and invent but who cannot or simply do not want to work at the cutting edge. They can push forward by looking back; they can excavate old knowledge but wield it in a new way.”

CHAPTER 9: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology

This chapter starts with the stories of non-trivial approach to various “wicked” problems such as computer games that produced Nintendo, 3M that produced stickers, and others concluding:” Facing uncertain environments and wicked problems, breadth of experience is invaluable. Facing kind problems, narrow specialization can be remarkably efficient. The problem is that we often expect the hyperspecialist, because of their expertise in a narrow area, to magically be able to extend their skill to wicked problems. The results can be disastrous.”

CHAPTER 10: Fooled by Expertise

In this chapter author moves from non-specialists who solve problems to experts who create problems. He uses wonderful example of Paul Ehrlich and his prophecies and then moves to discuss Tetlock’s research and results, both original and recent, about more effective methods of predictions of the future.  

CHAPTER 11: Learning to Drop Your Familiar Tools

This is about use and misuse of statistical analysis for which author uses business case of car race decision making and real case of causes of Challenger incident, which also was converted into business case. From this author moves to firefighters who were not able to change their typical MO in non-typical situation resulting in their death. Author presents here the problem of overspecialization that narrows scope of search for solution resulting in failure and suggest different approach:” Even now, even in endeavors that engender specialization unprecedented in history, there are beacons of breadth. Individuals who live by historian Arnold Toynbee’s words that “no tool is omnicompetent. There is no such thing as a master-key that will unlock all doors.” Rather than wielding a single tool, they have managed to collect and protect an entire toolshed, and they show the power of range in a hyperspecialized world.”  

CHAPTER 12: Deliberate Amateurs

The final chapter is about successful amateurs who actually solve problems because they do not know that these problems are not solvable. Author uses here example of Oliver Smithies who worked in various areas getting Nobel level results and then discusses work of Casadevall who analyzed current situation in science and research and concluded that its stress on deep specialization and publishing rather than application of results to technology is not really that productive.   

CONCLUSION: Expanding Your Range

In conclusion author pretty much comes up with recommendation to expand one’s range, not to be afraid that it is too late, and try to use this range to pursue whatever objective is desired.

MY TAKE ON IT:

It is nice book that provides lots of examples for such views at various problems’ solution and approach to learning that I believed for a very long time, ever since I was deciding what to do after the school. Back then I choose less specialization and wider approach to education and training and this choice served me well. I did a lot of various staff: computer hardware, software, management, business consulting, and a few others in two very different countries and cultures, so I can confirm based on my experience that it did helped with complex problems to use analogies and tools from unrelated fields. So, ideas of this books are not new, but narrative is quite entertaining.

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to use variation of specific parameters such as state power, population wellbeing, and elite internal conflict to demonstrate cyclical character of society development when periods of stability follow by periods of disintegration and back to stability and prosperity. Then these ideas applied to specific case of USA, which is currently seems to be moving now into period of discord.

DETAILS:

PART ONE A Theoretical Introduction
1: Multi-Secular Cycles in Historical and Modern Societies
Author starts by using American Civil war as an example of fragility of human societies, the example that is currently nearly forgotten. Then he discusses new approach to history – Cliodynamics, which evaluates historic events based on measurable parameters and using this evaluation to predict future events. Author provides example for use of such parameters to calculate Index of Political Instability as applied to history:

PART TWO Overview of Structural Demographic Variables: 1780-2010

Part II presents a systematic survey of time-series data on the overall dynamics of the fundamental variables of the structural-demographic model over the entire history of the United States.

3: Demography and Wellbeing
In this chapter author discusses demographical parameters that have impact of societies development such as Labor supply, Economic Wellbeing as it is expressed via real wages, physical stature of population as function of of food availability and environmental conditions, life expectancy, and age at first marriage as a proxy for Social mood. The author synthetizes it for United States as it is presented in a graph:

4: Elite Dynamics
Here author analyses the second component – American elite. Author defines it as combination of bureaucratic elite and wealth elite, the division specific for USA because in great many other countries like Russia or Chine, the bureaucracy runs supreme. Author then discusses number of elite members and their proportion in population mainly on the basis of wealth. Here is the relevant graph:

For purposes of estimation of society’s stability it is important to analyze intraelite data, which are not normally available, so author uses proxies such as data for law and business students. He then analyses levels of elite fragmentation by using as proxy levels of political fragmentation. Here is graph of polarization based on the US House data:

Overall author concludes that there is clear elite overproduction:” The empirical survey in this chapter, thus, suggests that between 1780 and 2010 the factors reflecting elite overproduction moved cyclically and were positively (if imperfectly) correlated. What is particularly interesting is that the overall curve reflecting elite overproduction was negatively correlated with the average wellbeing curve. Over the course of American history elite overproduction and popular wellbeing have moved in opposite directions…”  Here is the graph:

5: The State

Here author discusses the growth of state power in USA as force parallel to elite, and while intermixing with elite, but not exactly the same. Here is his synthesis of growth of the state combined with cyclical character of support for the state:” The history of the American state in the longue durée is characterized by two trends. The first was the shift from a minimalist role of the state that prevailed in the nineteenth century to a more activist state of today. The second trend was a cyclic one that conforms quite well with the pattern predicted the Structural-Demographic Theory. Integrative periods (with peaks in 1820 and 1960) were periods of national consolidation and patriotism, territorial expansion, and high state legitimacy. In contrast, disintegrative periods—or Ages of Discord—were characterized by particularistic mood, an inward rather than expansionist focus, and low state legitimacy.”

6: Dynamics of Sociopolitical Instability

In this chapter author reviews patterns of political instability and violence in USA based on number of event and fatalities:

12. From the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution: A Dynamical Model
In this chapter author:” will follow in the footsteps of Chapter 9 by developing a quantitative model (using the conceptual framework of Chapter 2). A major focus will be the dynamics of general population and wellbeing since 1930 and why real wages stopped growing in the 1970s.”

13. Social Pressures towards Instability: From the Reagan Revolution to the Troubles of Our Times
Here author:” focus on elite overproduction, intensified intraelite competition and conflict during the 1990s. I combine the trends in wellbeing and elite overproduction with state variables (public debt and trust in the state institutions) and bring the three major structural-demographic components (population–elites–state) together in a single measure of the Political Stress Indicator”

14: Conclusion: Two Ages of Discord
In conclusion author summarizes content of the book and provides prediction of increase instability of American society in near future, which will continue for quite a few years ahead before it would arrive to the next period of stability and prosperity. Here is the summary graph for secular cycles:

MY TAKE ON IT:

This is one more book that looks at cyclical character of previous development and predicts period of trouble for American Society in 2020s. So far, these prophesies proved to be correct based on events of year 2020. I actually completely agree with these predictions, but not because of cyclical character of history. I think that period of trouble comes from society’s outgrowing existing methods of human interactions, exchange of goods and services, and cooperation. We are not any more in agrarian society when 90% of population had to work on land to produce food or even in industrial society when 90% of population had to work in industries selling their labor to produce goods and services. We are quickly moving into automated production society when only small minority would be actually busy controlling production of goods and services by machines. So, neither agrarian models of independent farmers or plantations with slaves, nor industrial model of managers and worker would do. Sure, automated production would produce more than enough of goods and services, but it could not possibly produce psychological satisfaction for majority of population. I think this problem could be resolved by changing of method of resource allocation and exchange rules, but it would still take quite a bit of time to overcome Age of Discord II.