Jun 22, 2008
The Rand Corporation, the conservative think tank...

Isn’t it sad and distressing that when one of those words—liberal, conservative—comes up, half of us suddenly go deaf and the other half are prepared to swallow any nonsense—no matter how ridiculous—that follows. We have to cut that out. We have to stop demonizing one another on such slim evidence as a broadly characterizing adjective. The polarization that has infected political discourse over the past 30 years has got to go. It has been useful in assembling sufficient constituencies of erstwhile fringe groups (some lunatic) to bring to power a generation of corporate thieves masquerading as right-wing ideologues. Have they now been sufficiently unmasked, their motives and their boundless cupidity sufficiently revealed over the past decade, that we may hope to bid them a happy farewell in the not too distant future?

I am convinced that a true conservative and a true liberal share many of the same hopes and aspirations for this world. Sometimes I can’t decide which I am, particularly when I find myself reading a report like the one that is the subject of this entry.

The Rand Corporation, a conservative think tank, has published an enlightening and useful “Occasional Paper,” entitled “Breaking the Failed-State Cycle,” by Marla C. Haims, David C. Gompert, Gregory F. Treverton, and Brooke K. Stearns. The link to the report is below, and it is well worth reading in its entirety (58 pp.); however, it can be summed up in a few words: Assistance to failed states almost always fails because the institutions doing the assisting don’t work together.

Failed states, for the purpose of this paper, are the ones flagged for “Alert” by the Fund for Peace in its annual Failed State Index. Thirty-two of the 177 countries covered in this Index are flagged for “Alert” and a whopping 97 others are in the next category, “Warning.” Failed states fail in the areas of security, economics, and governance. Different donor institutions serve different areas, and they are not integrated in their approach, so their efforts more often than not come to naught. The paper’s concluding recommendations may be summed up in even fewer words: Get together!

This, of course, is the theme of All Together Now. We’ve stressed it in the past and, in varying ways, it may be discerned in every entry on this site. We will continue to return to it over and over. The problems we face—and they are many and perilous—will only be solved by concerted action. We cannot wait for our “leaders” to decide the time is ripe. They are incapable of acting to ameliorate the unique perils faced by our species at this moment in history. I wonder if they were ever capable of advancing the well-being of our species. Today, they are in thrall to a worldwide corporate hegemony that threatens all life on the planet. We, the People, acting together, will reverse the tide of environmental degradation, of militaristic brinkmanship, of the exploitation of the earth’s resources by predatory elites—or no one will.
tags: Economics | Politics

Download the Report