The last section had a central point: a good enemy is a terrible thing to waste. Now, tech industry haters might object that we are too kind to the likes of Zuckerberg. But we might counter with his uncomfortable observation: Warren’s line of attack is not going to succeed. If the government fights in the manner she proposes, he will win. So the alternate attitude, of staying out of a fight until properly prepared… is that about kindness? Or is it following Emerson’s dictate: “When you come at the king, you best not miss.”1
Best Not Miss
That dictate, however, is misleading in its implicit assumptions about the shape of the fight. More bloodthirsty corners of the Internet2 adapt Emerson’s sentiment according to their own predilections: “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” But as I will explain shortly[TODO:reference], they misunderstand Emerson. In any case, I’m far too much of a talker to be an effective killer. No, my reluctance to engage arises from a different quarter.
In the interest of full disclosure, it’s only fair to my readers to disclose my emotional and professional ties to Zuckerberg’s world. I did start out an engineer. In particular, I was tight with the programming language community. For instance, someone who wrote3 that Paul Graham was “asking to be eaten” prompted in me a knee-jerk reaction: how could anyone want to “eat” the author of such a beautiful book on LISP? Graham’s detractors don’t care. But I do.4
For all that I agree that Graham is following in Haber’s footsteps in a cringe-worthy way, one must remember Graham was an engineer and a fundraiser for engineers first. And not half-bad in either of those roles. Arguably, even excellent. Like Haber, once saddled with responsibility for leadership in society, he collapses under the weight. But is it fair to be disappointed? How many things do you expect someone to be good at? Does he deserve to be “eaten” for this final failing—a failing which lies so very far from the original responsibilities for which he trained?
If You Aim…
While making disclosures, I should note my ties to Google, arising mostly through the programming language community. Currently, my partner works there: Google’s money supports my family. That influences the content of this book less than one might suppose. This state of affairs is quite recent. Anyone who wants to troll me can look at the commit timestamps5 of the relevant passages. They are much too old to have been so directly influenced.
That said, I also have other ties to Google old enough to influence the content of this book: I worked there briefly; many people I know worked there for much longer; and in my life centered on tech in general and programming languages in particular, it was a place to be. On the subject of Google, I can’t be considered entirely objective.
Perhaps this is why I’m using Zuckerberg as my example enemy. The kind of guy who would consider PHP a good idea6 is at least someone for whom I don’t hold too much unwarranted affection. Additionally, though I might like better people who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut, it is easier to quote someone who talks.
However, I won’t apologize too much for “unwarranted affection.” It a declared motivation of this book. We open with Haber and Clara’s dilemma. It is a problem of loyalty. What and how much do they owe to the Prussian princes, the benefactors who made both their status and their work possible? Haber feels “in war I belong to my country.” In other words, since his benefactors were under attack, he’d stand with them unquestioningly. Clara raised questions, and fought back against the resulting charge of treason. She worried, with good reason, that such unquestioning loyalty would bring destruction on them all. The technology they had created was just too powerful and uncontrolled. But she felt the pull of loyalty too, as much as Haber if not more. Pulled in two directions, she killed herself. The question of this book is: how to be Clara and live?
That question is one of loyalty. A similar loyalty ties me to these wealthy tech bogeymen as tied Clara to those Prussian princes. For this, I will not apologize. Clara and Haber felt loyalty to the benefactors who support their work. Nearly everyone I know is supported by these tech leaders in one way or another. It is my whole world. I’m cautiously happy that the “new antitrust” crusaders are raising concerns. But I’m dismayed by the shape of the fight they narrate: “us” against “them.” If that is the shape, then I’m not necessarily “us.” A large part of me is “them.”
For all these reasons, it is a bit strange for me to be talking about a will to kill the king. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Internet seem to have various little pools of head-scratching[TODO: clean up references] about the correct origin of the expression of violent resolve generally attributed to Emerson. People seem skeptical Emerson would say such a thing. Theories about its actual source include Machiavelli, a Shakespeare villain, or a modern gangster TV show. One might wonder: how did Emerson find himself in such rough company!? And why does the most unlikely attribution of them all traditionally get the top billing?
At A King…
To make sense of this, one must understand Emerson’s blood-thirst lived on a philosophical plane. The “king” to be deposed was Plato. The shot to be aimed true was targeted at the originator of an idea—not at one who possessed actual political or economic power.
My thirst for blood is akin to Emerson’s. When I squint down my sights to steady my aim, my target isn’t Zuck himself. Or Paul Graham. Instead, I am aiming at their shared Grand Illusion. It is their puffed up self-aggrandizement whose blood I wish to spill—not either their person or their position. Those latter I would defend. Even—especially in the case of Paul Graham—defend passionately. For Zuckerberg (aka Mr. PHP) I can muster a more seemly detachment. But even him I don’t wish harm. Diminishment, possibly. Destruction, no.
Instead, it is the idea I want to kill. If the gods bless my shot, this albatross is going down. Even if it means I am cursed to carry the bloody corpse around my neck for the rest of my days.
In A World…
One might imagine this book adds to the genre of “new antitrust” pioneered by Lina Khan and her compatriots. But there is a fundamental difference between Khan and I. Khan’s loyalty is to her intellectual community. She sweats her rebellion: pouring immense energy into the fight between her “Brandeis school” and the rival “Chicago school.” She spends more energy on that fight than the main battle: the challenge to Zuckerberg.
That horrifies me. I’m not “challenging” the Chicago school. Instead, I’m breaking the display case in which their ideas are locked—like precious glass sculptures—and unceremoniously smashing them. Nor am I willing to turn this act into an energy-sucking rivalry between “schools.” I am not a wannabe intellectual. I’m an impatient Hamilton, writing with a pell-mell quality. The window of opportunity on happening only stays open so long, after all.
As such, the languid perfectionism of academics enrages me. As my other avatar of impatience—Moana— said: “You are not my hero and I am not here so you can sign my oar.” Her energy is focused the spreading blight, not adulation for the demigod of the moment.
Or alternately: I am Clara, torn apart between loyalty and the premonition of disaster. Intellectual involvement should help. In the best case, their sense of history, and knowledge of its inner logic, could be invaluable to someone in such a predicament. But in practice, they only make things worse. It was MIT professors’ lack of support that drove Aaron Swartz to suicide. Lina Khan obeys the rules imposed by the Chicago school because they provided structure and support for her. Not so for us. They were AWOL when we needed them.
Now, the rules of fairness in intellectual battles do matter to me. I was born into that world, after all.7 But fairness in the fight with those like Zuckerberg matters to me so much more. It is my first priority, and second too, and third… While fairness in my fight with the “Chicago school” is way down at hundredth and first priority. I do care. But only if it doesn’t get in the way of more important priorities. Which it almost certainly will.
All this adds up to an Emerson-style will to kill. In Emerson’s world—the world of ideas—I am indeed deeply, remorselessly bloodthirsty.
Ruled By…
It is a statement about power in the modern world that the most oft-attributed author of this bloodthirsty sentiment is a philosopher, not the politicians or gangsters to whom it might be much more naturally ascribed. For all that our media fetishes a fight, the will to draw real blood doesn’t do very much. What gangster or Machiavellian prince was ever actually important? They are quickly forgotten—for good reason. Killers don’t change much. Philosophers do. Not the milquetoast or mamby-pamby ones, but the ones who go for the jugular; who take down their quarry and utterly dismember it; and who from the blood-soaked earth coax new growth. Them, we remember.
Perhaps they matter so much for the reason Zuckerberg himself pointed out: the world is ruled by the law. And we should be grateful for it, too. Reshaping the law reshapes the world. The law is underpinned by ideas. Taking aim at those ideas potentially remolds the world far more radically than any violent impulse ever will.
The Law.
In particular, done right, the law enables cooperation. It enables trust. Violence can never do that. Later in this book, we will pivot from worldview to a vision for action. That pivot is marked with a philosophical interlude: an ardent Ode to Law. That essay celebrates the way in which law, in the best case, can reshape society by enabling trust. When the law protects people against betrayal, it strengthens their capacity to cooperate. One might even say it enables romance.
The central subject of this book isn’t war. It isn’t destruction. Instead, it is about a potential for cooperation. One might even say it concerns a kind of romance.
As argued in the introduction, the mythology of a society is strongly influenced by the shape of a certain relationship. There is a characteristic connection between the strivers of the world and the wealthy. Those endowed with talent and vigor but burdened by modest means look for support. They turn their eyes to those among the wealthy most inclined to invest. The wisest of the wealthy know that their best—and perhaps only—hope for durable prosperity is to tap the energy of the world’s strivers. When technology truly “changes everything,” it changes the shape of that relationship.
That change can be deeply wrenching. For a while, the shift can discombobulate a society, leaving it leaderless and adrift. Their old myths erode, the old connections decay, and trust evaporates. Populists may take advantage of the vacuum of authority. Things fall apart.
Happening Offers Opportunities
But such change also provides opportunities. To see this, let us turn our eyes back to that famous room. Jefferson was bitterly opposed to Hamilton’s proposals. He agreed to support it only with extreme reluctance; and only with a valuable consolation received in return.
But the resulting economic boom strengthened his presidency. The establishment of strong credit enabled one of his signature achievements, the Louisiana Purchase. In a larger sense, if the American economy had stayed purely agricultural, it would have remained a weak backwater subordinate to Britain. It was the potential for industrial power that gave it a chance for real presence on the world stage.
Even though Jefferson had opposed Hamilton’s plan, but he personally benefited from the consequences. They were a large part of the success of his presidency. Jefferson couldn’t have bought Louisiana without the firm financial footing Hamilton had forged.
Similarly, Madison originally opposed the creation of the central bank. But when its charter came up for renewal during his Presidency, eventually he endorsed it.
This is not to say his change of heart was easy. In 1811, he participated in decommissioning the bank. But the next year, Madison had the unenviable experience of funding a war without a central bank. Ignominiously, his wife was forced to flee the advance of British troops. At the last minute she had to pick the state treasures to be saved, abandoning the rest to burn. From that (literally!) searing experience, Madison learned his lesson. He endorsed the bank’s renewal in 1816.
To Strengthen…
A dirty secret lies behind the soaring poetry celebrating the “rocket’s red glare.” That conflict finally forced the aristocrats to face the message Hamilton had been telling them all along. Initially, they were reluctantly willing to make a deal. Once they were fully in charge, they had to learn the lesson again—the hard way.
The “proof through the night” given by the “bombs bursting in air” proved that rich people can be forced to give up their illusions—once they have been humiliated enough. The final question of the song—“Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?”—might be not about the “free” and “brave.” Instead, it might be about hope for realism and modesty among the wealthy. It might be hope for the kind of wisdom that enabled Madison to re-implement the central policy goal of his enemy.
Though Hamilton and the Virginians were opponents, the conflict they were negotiating wasn’t a simple trade-off of competing interests. One side’s wins weren’t necessarily the other side’s losses. Hamilton promoted the growth of manufactures; the Virginians defended the honor of “agrarian life.” In a conflict between them, it wasn’t necessary—or even possible—for one to win entirely at the other’s expense.
Instead, in an era where developing technology was straining their relationship, they both could win by forging an appropriate deal. Or both could lose if they failed. The conflicts in a new economy aren’t a zero sum game. Instead, it is a moment of uncertainty where a certain happening must happen. A certain deal must be struck. If it can, society can find a new stability.
Its Opponents…
In a larger sense making a deal was an opportunity for both of them—and not merely for immediate advantages. It also helped establish a new mythology. That, in turn, shaped an identity for their society. We don’t dramatize the meeting on Broadway because we care about the immediate issue at stake. The credit rating of a two-hundred-year-old banking system wouldn’t by itself rivet modern theater-goers. What we care about instead is the values that the successful negotiation revealed.
Our society was founded by aristocrats who made significant concessions. They allowed energetic strivers to build institutions that enabled economic opportunity. Though skeptical and reluctant, they could be persuaded of the importance of these dreams.
And Provide Defense…
Such an example set the tone for America’s conception of itself. Even in the face of frightening class divides, Americans are uncomfortable focusing their energy on class conflict. Instead, they try to work together to build wealth for all. Even in the presence of dramatic inequality, the dispossessed are still confident. They trust those above them are committed to providing opportunity. This predilection is the special blessing of our founders’ genius.
By the way, when I say “genius” I don’t mean that they always got along. Nor that they always made the right choice. I mean that they toughed it out and dealt with each other. They learned from their mistakes. Searing experiences made an impression: they learned lessons from trauma. This kind of flexibility is a better definition of operational genius.
One might note that when Hamilton’s bank was finally permanently decommissioned, it wasn’t by Southern aristocrats. It was only when populists took over, led by Andrew Jackson, that the animus against the bank boiled over.
We might, from our current perspective, claim that Hamilton was defending the interests of the people against the depredations of the old dominant class. But the people themselves would not have seen it that way. They were even more willing to tear down the principal achievement of their representative than were the aristocrats. It wasn’t that the people didn’t suffer plenty through the resulting financial instability. But they didn’t anticipate that suffering. They didn’t think. In that transitional era, they were effectively nihilists.
Against Nihilism…
We must remember: the reason Madison and Hamilton worked so effectively together is not because they shared common interests or a aligned agenda. They worked well together despite bitter animosity. So what brought them together despite their enormous differences?
It was that they shared a common fear. They were both terrified of the thoughtless nihilism into which the people’s passions could devolve without effective leadership. If you read their writings you see that terror expressed pervasively. It is almost surprising, to see famous founders of a democracy express such low opinions of the leadership skills of “the people.” But it was exactly that lack of faith in “the people” which drove them to provide better leadership themselves. And not just to lead, but to build new structures that enabled leadership.
As I pointed out in the introduction, when technology “changes everything,” one cannot expect the blessings of “change” to rain down like happy fairy dust. Technology does not bestow change—it demands it.
To Renew The Blessing…
In particular, it is calling on us to renew the blessing of the founders bequeathed on us. If we want America to continue to feel American, we must act—and act thoughtfully. Real thoughtfulness: not just the ivory tower rivalry of “schools.” It is said: “Academic politics is so vicious precisely because the stakes are so low.” In this fight, the stakes are not low. Once again, we have to show how it is possible to forge a new deal between the wealthy and the dispossessed strivers of the world.
Nor can we expect “the people” to save us. Perhaps democracy works better than Madison expected in a mature and stable order. But when the world changes dramatically, intellectuals must interpret technology’s demands. Leaders must make the deals necessary to found a new order. Otherwise, “the people” will descend into a frustrated nihilism. The destruction they will wreak is worse than anything committed enemies can demand of each other. Hamilton and Madison were smart enough to know that. We need to be too.
The Founders…
As I said in the introduction, intellectuals are narrating their conflict with Mark Zuckerberg as if it were about milquetoast commercial regulation. But in framing it that way, they are fundamentally mischaracterizing the shape of the problem.
Regulation is zero-sum. Government periodically compels companies to spend money defending public goods—like, say, clean waterways. Toward that end, it compels companies to spend money—for instance, filtering wastewater. That cost is set up against the interests of the people hurt by pollution: those sickened by it. In this case, one side has to win, the other side has to lose. Either a company is out the cost of filtration, or their victims suffer the cost of illness.
On the other hand, politically speaking, it is relatively low temperature. Though voters might get worked up about environmental cancer cases, the victims are relatively few. As a result, the body politic will only get mildly upset. Maybe Julia Roberts will play a photogenic activist, increasing the temperature a bit. But even so, it will be only a minor PR crisis. Society won’t be wracked by fever and chills.
The problem of new technology is fundamentally different in form. It is not a problem of milquetoast regulation. Instead, it is a problem of founding. Such a problem is not zero-sum. If the founding deals are properly forged, everyone involved could benefit. It is not a case where one side has to win, and the other has to symmetrically lose. Both sides could potentially win.
To come to the table, they may have to make sacrifices of their interests—and more notably their pride. They must make similar sacrifices to those of the celebrated Virginians. But overall, they could all come out stronger from forging the appropriate deal. After all, the Virginians were each elected President. One even got his face on a mountainside. The successes of their presidencies flowed from the empowered executive and financial solidity Hamilton had bequeathed them. They later thrived not despite their concessions, but because of them.
Bestowed On Us.
By failing to take seriously the challenges of a New Economy, we are risking the confidence which is the best part of America’s character. In the big picture a New Economy will strongly reward cooperation. But in a more local and short-term way it can reward unfriendly players as well. Even in a highly non-zero-sum game, betrayal can be profitable. It is possible to act in bad faith.
Being stabbed in the back in such a game hurts even worse than in a more normal zero-sum conflict. If someone benefits from your loss simply because there isn’t enough resources to go around, a forgiving soul might understand. But if a few win big through betrayal when everyone could have won only slightly less through cooperation, the betrayal rankles much more. Elizabeth Warren’s fierceness is a reflection of popular anger. Intellectual do not understand these issues, or even the shape of the fight. But intuitively people feel the depth of betrayal.
The temperature is much higher because the stakes are higher. The problem with a non-zero sum game is that bitter betrayal is possible. The resulting suffering is much more widely spread. As I will describe later a new economy gone wrong can lead to an attack on the dignity of the dispossessed. They might have been poor, but at least they were proud. At a new economy’s worst, even that pride can be taken away. That loss can kill: the dispossessed die of despair. A Grand Illusion can be deadly.
Fear of Popular Anger…
The resulting popular anger is deep and bitter. Eventually, taking “a hammer to the whole thing” is a possibility. That the people don’t know exactly what they have to be angry about doesn’t make it better. It makes it worse. Supporters might find Warren’s professorial tone comforting—except her careful explanations don’t ring true.
In the context of a non-zero-sum game, her tone is both too savage and too diffident. There is a great deal more urgency to make a deal than she is making there out to be. Happening must happen. Sooner rather than later, preferably.
Yet at the same time she is not giving her counter-parties enough credit. They have a strong incentive of their own to deal. It is much stronger than she is admitting.
Zuckerberg alluded to this dynamic. He agreed there was an underlying problem. He admitted he might be in trouble if he didn’t address it sooner rather than later. The trouble he feared most wasn’t calls for regulation by Massachusetts liberals. On that score, he expressed confidence he could win any fight they could take to him.
Yet, he was still afraid. It was the people’s nihilism he feared more. He fears frustration that will build to the point of “tak[ing] a hammer to it all.” There are indications he shares with the country’s founders that essential quality that fueled their effort to forge “the land of the free”: bone-deep terror of the polity’s potential for destructive nihilism.
Offers Opportunity…
Implicitly, he might have been expressing an opportunity: that if intellectuals offered him the right kind of deal, he’d come to claim it. One might underestimate him because of his millennial college dropout failures of high diction: the “sucks” and “screw its” of his comments. Embarrassingly, however, one worries Zuckerberg’s intuition about the fundamental shape of the problem is stronger than Warren’s.
I haven’t been kind to Paul Graham for reinventing himself as a public intellectual—badly. There is one point, however on which we agree. He chose to remake his life as a mentor of startup founders. I don’t think he was driven by dreams of wealth. I was at the lecture where he was asked the fateful question: why not invest in founders himself? He had been urged young people to try their hand at starting a company. He was talking it up not just as an economic opportunity but also as an unmatched formative experience. I remember the look on his face when, surprised, he first considered the question. It wasn’t the look of someone dreaming of wealth. Maybe he doesn’t say it as such, but he believes in startup life as a school of leadership: as a crucible for the formation of character.
That conviction makes my conflict with Graham painful. My story is of a new criminality inexorably laced into leadership of a new economy. Graham’s story, by contrast, also has a moral element. But he believes in that same leadership as a loom for the weaving of moral fiber. These two tales may seem to be impossibly at odds. But it is possible both are true. That’s why it hurts so much.
For Happening…
This work will be largely descriptive. What political prescriptions I eventually arrive at are derived from my worldview. We indicate the possibility of a completely mechanical mathematical derivation. As such it would be devoid of political predilections. So in all this there is very little room for preference of my own.
However, one strong personal preference will motivate my recommendations. I have a wild, long-shot hope for a negotiated rather than imposed solution. America was founded by leaders who could negotiate brilliantly even across bitter divides of wealth inequality and class. From the very beginning, the America’s wealthy class was willing to foster opportunity for the talented and energetic members of the dispossessed. That legacy has defined America’s character. It is perhaps the foundation of America’s special blessing: its unmatched optimism and energy. Where other countries squander their power in class conflict and despair, Americans roll up their sleeves and get to work. And they work together.
To Happen?
My dream is that this blessing can be renewed. We hope for “proof through the night” that our spirit is still there. In the face of new challenges, we hope that America’s ruling class has it in them to reconfirm their commitment to opportunity. We hope that the discontented dispossessed have it in them to offer constructive engagement. We hope that leaders can pull away from the sucking force of nihilism. We hope that America’s special blessing can be renewed.
- There are a number of variants of this statement; the Internet is not quite sure of the definitive rendering or attribution. Some discussion on the subject is here and here. Some doubt that Emerson would have said such a thing; Machiavelli seems more likely. His work The Prince does have a line that might be translated: “Never do an enemy a small injury.” That’s a similar sentiment, if less snappy when expressed in English. ↩︎
- I’m bemused that “the Internet” in this case happens to be the National Review. After all, the question of the correct attribution and rendering of a sentiment that was originally spoken in Italian by Machiavelli is highly academic. One would expect it to be the province of liberal professors, not conservative acolytes. Why do they suddenly care? ↩︎
- I like tthis post far more than the more bitter attacks here and here. Though it acknowledges the failing noted in the other opinion, the former post is capable of empathy: “But I think that on some level, deep down, [Paul Graham is] afraid that the criticism is right. I think that part of him looks around from his rarefied heights at what he’s accumulated and accomplished, and suspects that he owes something to the world, not the other way around. I think that he’s worried that he might really be the villain people make him out to be. And no one wants to be the villain. So he buries his fears and tells himself that the critics are dishonest or uninformed.” ↩︎
- His discussion of macros is a thing of beauty. If you have any interest in that kind of thing, it is not to be missed. ↩︎
- Yes, this book is under version control. Git, of course. I was an engineer. One can find out when every section was written, and how it has evolved, starting around 2012. Admittedly, that was not the true starting point. There are some even older writings not in that repository. But most of the important history is there. ↩︎
- This is a joke. Spare me your flames. Please, please laugh. I’m not alleging PHP is a moral failing. Nor even that it in any way matters. It only matters to my emotional state: my distaste for it affords me the possibility of detachment. ↩︎
- As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my grandfather was a prizewinning economist. Family dinner table conversation name-dropped all the influential eggheads of the day. It also instilled reverence for modelling and mathematical thinking. That I absorbed the attitudes of such intellectuals in elementary school was a big influence on the genesis of this book. Encounter a scholarly aspiration at age eighteen, and embrace it, is usually driven by the motivation to graduate, get a career, and impress. Encounter and embrace a similar thing at age eight has a different motivation. Kids do things merely out of compulsion to become adults. My compatriots in the computer science department didn’t understand. They thought my compulsion to explicate and model exceedingly strange. But I had never known a time when my world wasn’t suffused with reverence for this discipline. It wasn’t a career; it was family. My current bloodthirsty impatience is turned on the world that raised me. ↩︎
