John E. Mueller

I really wanted this book to make its case well because I think it has an important thesis. The central idea of this book is that capitalism tends to have a worse reputation than it deserves and democracy had a better. In particular, "capitalism actually tends, all other things being equal, systematically, thought not uniformly, to reward business behavior that is honest, fair, civil, and compassionate" and "actual democracy, [is] notable chiefly for discord, inequality, apathy, hasty compromise, political and policy ignorance, and manipulative scrambling by 'special interests'". Yet despite capitalism's negative perception and democracy's less-than-ideal implementation, Mueller argues that they are still the best system we've found for maximizing good outcomes, and they both do this by emphasizing individual freedom for people to act in their own broadly defined interests.

Mueller also makes an important psychological claim. That both of these systems do pretty well despite a lack of the ideal citizen (for democracy) and in spite of acquisitional greed (for capitalism) is a good thing: "It seems to me that an institution is likely to be fundamentally sound if it can function adequately when people are rarely, if ever, asked to rise above the ignorance and selfishness which with they have been so richly endowed by their creator. Or, putting it a bit more gently, since human beings are a flawed bunch, an institution will be more successful if it can if it can work with human imperfections rather than requiring first that the race be reformed to impossible perfection."

If these arguments could be made well, this would be an excellent work. The problem is that Mueller's arguments were not even bad. They were laughable. A small part of this is because the book was published in 1999[1] and some of the points are dated. Much more importantly, the argument was not substantial. Mueller's main evidence for the positive outcomes of capitalism rely mainly on business advice, not on an analysis of real company outcomes and whether or not they're correlated with moral behavior (à la [b:Good to Great|76865|Good to Great Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't|James C. Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435813395s/76865.jpg|1094028]). It is certainly compelling that the advice the business leaders give to each other points toward moral behavior being a competitive advantage, but it's hardly evidence that the whole system leans toward moral behavior.

His argument for the imperfections of democracy are even more muddled. He mixes up an argument that democracy is the best possible system (via cherry picked examples) with an argument that focusing on how democracy falls short of the ideal is harmful. His argument borders on Panglossian: democracy has lasted for a couple hundred years now, so how we are doing it must be pretty close to the best it can be and trying to improve things will just make people cynical and so it's bad.

Overall, Mueller shows a lack of robust historical or business analysis. Thus, in the end, he has an interesting thesis -- one that I agree with much of -- but he argues it so badly that I found myself arguing against points I agreed with.


[1] This is, in fact, why I read the book without doing too much background research. In general, I've found that if someone I trust (in this case a newsletter) recommends a book that is a decade or more old, it's probably pretty good. My heuristic was wrong in this case.… (más)

"War... is merely an idea, an institution, like dueling or slavery, that has been grafted onto human existence. It is not a trick of fate, a thunderbolt from hell, a natural calamity, or a desperate plot contrivance dreamed up by some sadistic puppeteer on high. And it seems to me that the institution is in pronounced decline, abandoned as attitudes toward it have changed, roughly following the pattern by which the ancient and formidable institution of slavery became discredited and then mostly obsolete."―from the Introduction

War is one of the great themes of human history and now, John Mueller believes, it is clearly declining. Developed nations have generally abandoned it as a way for conducting their relations with other countries, and most current warfare (though not all) is opportunistic predation waged by packs―often remarkably small ones―of criminals and bullies. Thus, argues Mueller, war has been substantially reduced to its remnants―or dregs―and thugs are the residual combatants.

References to East Timor, Aveh and Papua. Mueller is sensitive to the policy implications of this view. When developed states commit disciplined troops to peacekeeping, the result is usually a cessation of murderous disorder. The Remnants of War thus reinvigorates our sense of the moral responsibility bound up in peacekeeping. In Mueller's view, capable domestic policing and military forces can also be effective in reestablishing civic order, and the building of competent governments is key to eliminating most of what remains of warfare.… (más)

Calm down, everyone. The world is not going to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, or chemical or biological ones, either. That's the gist of this well-researched and well-reasoned book Whether it will get heard or not is another matter, it flies too much in the face of conventional wisdom.

The gist of the book is expressed at the end of chapter 2, and it is worth a lengthy quote:

Consequences of overstatement

To repeat: it is certainly true that nuclear weapons can be massively destructive. Moreover, if thousands (maybe hundreds) of the largest are launched, the results on society could be as calamitous as the alarmists insist - or nearly so. But because an all-out nuclear attack with thermonuclear weapons could be catastrophic, it does not follow that that similar descriptors should unthinkingly and casually be applied to explosions that would do vastly less damage, however horrible the consequences of those explosions would be in their own right. Moreover, it obviously does not follow that because these weapons exist, they will necessarily and inevitably go of.
Nevertheless, because of the vivid, dramatic, and unforgettable impression left by the Hiroshima bombing, and in part perhaps because of the exertions in the postwar period by legions of alarmists from all corners of the political spectrum, nuclear fears have escalated to the point where simply lacing the weapons into the conversation often causes coherent thought to cease.
Concern about nuclear weapons and about their awesome destructive capacity is certainly justified. But routine exaggerations of that capacity, and the obsession with the weapons such exaggerations have inspired and enforced, have often led to international policies that have been unwise, wasteful, and destructive - sometimes even more destructive than the bombs themselves.
Thus, wars have been fought and devastating economic sanctions have been inflicted to prevent fully deterrable and containable countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. And the consummate horror that terrorists might be able to obtain a nuclear bomb has inspired costly policies and exertions, often without any consideration about how likely dread consequences are to happen."

Mueller goes into some death about the actual level of lethality of WMD and the difficulties in manufacturing and using them. They require a pretty high level of technical expertise and equipment Security controls have improved. The chances, therefore, of terrorists getting hold of WMD are quite small, and he goes in-depth into the number of steps required and the probabilities of each - and also the probabilities that ALL the required steps could be successfully accomplished, which are vanishingly small.

He also goes into the reasons that more countries have not chosen to create and stockpile WMD. There are the above difficulties, plus the fact that WMD cost so much for weapons that in the end have little tactical usefulness.

Mueller also discusses that well-meaning efforts to diffuse the threat have often been counterproductive. Nuclear scientists exaggerated the dangers of nuclear weapons in attempting to see that the weapons would never be used and to prevent any other war like World War II. Anti-proliferation regimes may have encouraged some proliferation in order to have "bargaining chips" for negotiations. The author is particularly incensed that so many people have died due to the economic sanctions imposed to prevent proliferation, much less in wars fought for the purpose, all of which have been far more deadly than the weapons themselves would have been.

Mueller provides a vast amount of knowledge of the topic allied with cogent reasoning. His extensive notes and bibliography attest to the degree of study he has put into the subject.

Read this book, and sleep better at night. More importantly, send copies to government officials making weapons and diplomatic decisions.… (más)

A useful volume, but one that leaves many obvious approaches untouched:

1) American militarism (imperialism is all but absent in the book, though it makes an oblique appearance in discussing a discussion of the effects of the Iraq war). Mueller appears to have isolationist and anti-imperial views but does not assert them.

2) The U.S.'s state propaganda machinery.

3) Skepticism about 9/11 is offhandedly dismissed, despite the propagandistic character of the 9/11 Commission and the role of Philip Zelikow.

4) The psychology of fear is not analyzed.

5) The impact in civil liberties is only mentioned but is not explored at all; the Patriot Act is not even mentioned.

6) The military-industrial complex is not mentioned.… (más)