Rantle

by Eric Anschutz, July 11, 2007

“Majestic” strikes me as the only word with enough power to describe both the macro and micro aspects of the global economy. Majesty best describes the very act of working; there is no greater dignity than that gained through meaningful employment. By working, each of us contributes to the society and civilization of which we are a part, and from which we all benefit. In this sense, each individual job is majestic, as is each business, and as is the cumulative economic infrastructure.

The complexity and wonder and magnitude and power of the globally interconnected free-enterprise economy is a miracle. If it should cease to exist, we would be hard pressed to redesign and rebuild it. The whole thing would have to grow again, like topsy, the way it did the first time! But the fact that it does exist is almost as wondrous as the existence of the human mind and body. They too would be impossible to design and build anew.

That our minds and our bodies simply evolved from single-celled creatures struggling in the primeval mud is only slightly more amazing than the evolutionary and initially undirected growth of the international economy. Just as species evolve through survival and reproduction of the fittest, so does the economy. Weak businesses fail, strong ones grow and replicate. There is an unending trend toward greater economic strength and utility. I deem that majestic.

Where does the requisite new talent come from? Who brings it together? How are the parameters of the new business defined? The answer, of course, is that none of it is by pre-design, it all happens because entrepreneurs see a need or an opportunity, bring their energies and intelligence to bear on the problem, and do whatever needs to be done to make it succeed in ways that enrich their business, and in the process, enrich the community they serve. There is a majesty in this that we never think about, a poetry and beauty that escape our attention, an efficient interconnectedness that rivals human neuro-systems in sheer “awesomeness” of design.

When a new need arises, the requisite new skill or service comes into being as if by magic. Only a few decades ago, there was no worldwide web. Now, computers in Idaho communicate in seconds with computers in Indiana, or Illinois or Indonesia. An entire new industry has come into being in a matter of only a few years to create and support a technology that is revolutionizing the way we communicate, buy, educate and entertain.

People all over the globe trudge off to “work” every day in countless factories and offices and laboratories and schoolrooms that are somehow organized and integrated to keep us all fed, warm, entertained, housed, transported, informed, safe and healthy. But, in a sense, we don’t “work” at all. We participate. Those of us lucky enough to have a role in this giant mechanism have every right to feel honored to have the opportunity to contribute.

Business leaders need to understand that all of this is a kind of a miracle. They need to be impressed by the majesty of what they lead. When people see their work as an essential piece of the human condition, effort will be replaced with opportunity. When waiting tables, cleaning rooms, operating lathes, designing software, assembling washing machines, processing invoices, driving buses, teaching children and building houses are seen as tasks essential to the human economic condition, just as heart, liver, lungs and minds are organs essential to our bodily condition, the drudgery of work will be replaced with the honor and thrill of participation and partnership in the vast economic enterprise.

I realize that all of this may seem fanciful, perhaps even in the realm of fantasy. But I know too that there is an element of truth in my assertion that we all seek to serve a goal bigger than merely earning our living. “A day’s work for a days pay” keeps things going, but when we can replace this plebeian way of looking at work and at leadership with vision-based and respect-based leadership that place “work” on a higher pedestal, we will have achieved a great deal.

People are entitled to perceive their work as noble, important, and dignified. So perceived, it is no longer work. Poets and historians and architects do not think of their daily labor as work. Instead, it is their contribution. Every worker is entitled to that same sense of dignity and fulfillment. Without waitresses, hotel maids, truck drivers, clerks, retail sales people, hospital orderlies, warehousemen, custodians and airport baggage handlers, our civilization could not exist as we know it.

The notions expressed here are taken in large part from my years of consulting in the world of industrial quality assurance and productivity, and from a book I wrote many years ago on these and related matters. Called “TQM America,” the book is on the shelves of the Rossmoor Library.

Let me close these thoughts about our majestic economy with a quotation from Studs Terkel, who in his book, Working, summarized in a single sentence the importance of endowing work with some greater meaning. Work, he said, is a search “for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

by Eric E. Anschutz, July 4, 2007

During the years of war in Iraq, much has been made of the term “coalition of the willing,” most of it in the realm of fantasy. With the notable exception of England, there has never been much of a coalition. As the war draws to its inevitable close, hopefully no later than soon after the 2008 elections, the time has come for a real coalition of nations, one aimed not at war and destruction, but dedicated instead at developing solutions to the problems that beset our world. As the war in Iraq ends, America must rejoin the community of nations, not as the world’s sole super-power, but as a working partner with a new and broadened and strengthened coalition of nations. There are not many problems in this world that could withstand cooperative action undertaken by a rededicated and redirected team of nations, to include, the United States, Germany, Japan, France, England, Russia, China and India. Other nations will of course need to be brought into the coalition, but those with the greatest economic power and/or large populations must lead the way.

My proposed working partnership could best be created and facilitated under United Nations auspices. Working Groups should be established to devise strategies for dealing with major issues, and action should begin with the three top threats facing the world today: the middle east, energy and environment, and nuclear non-proliferation.

Peace and stability in the Middle East

The conflict between Islamic nations and all others must be confronted with an open mind by both sides. The operating principle here needs to be that “no one is secure until everyone is secure.” The west, currently, has no strategy for dealing with Islamic hatred and associated terror (“war on terror” is a slogan, not a strategy); we have no viable policy for dealing with people so consumed with hatred and misery and frustration that they willingly make themselves into weapons in the name of their God. Military actions against Islamist extremism are demonstrably doomed to failure; there is no target, they are everywhere, yet not identifiable as terrorists when they drive taxicabs, teach school, serve as Iraqi soldiers, and lurk under burkas. To make progress in the Mid-East, we need to understand cultures very different from ours, we need to deal with underlying reasons, and we need to provide economic and security incentives. To make and sustain peace, we need to understand and negotiate with Moslems worldwide, including Iran and Syria and Hamas and Hezbollah and even Al Qaeda. Today, the US Embassy in Iraq consists of a staff of 1,000, only six of whom are fluent in Arabic, and all are housed in the “Green Zone,” a piece of America shut off from meaningful contact with mainstream Iraq. The problems in the Mid East are both ageless and international in scope; a worldwide coalition, and a willingness to truly negotiate is needed to address them.

Energy and Environment

These two issues converge, because each depends on the same solution: finding and deploying economically and ecologically viable alternatives to current usage of carbon-based fuels. Worldwide focus and international cooperation on development and wider application of non-fossil energy sources is one of the most important issues of our time. No single nation has all the answers; this issue calls for a well-coordinated and worldwide coalition. Spain, for example, has made progress with wind power; Brazil has converted most of its autos to sugar-based ethanol; Japan leads in hydrogen fuel cell technology. The US has made important progress with solar cells and with sequestration of carbon dioxide from the use of coal. France leads the world in deployment of nuclear power to generate electricity. All of this needs to be discussed and compared and shared. Best practices need to be identified. The Kyoto Protocol, which assigns mandatory limitations to the emission of greenhouse gasses, needs to be widened to include the United States and China, the world’s two major sources of carbon dioxide and other toxic pollutants. US car companies need to be prodded by strict CAFÉ standards and higher fuel taxes to foster much more aggressive development of hybrid and other fuel efficient cars

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Further spread of nuclear weaponry is a danger to us all. The threat is not only that nations possessing such weapons might use them against their perceived enemies, thereby triggering a wider conflagration, but that sub-national terrorist organizations might somehow acquire nuclear weapons from the stockpiles of nuclear “have” nations. In seeking to stem further proliferation, we need to have two facts in mind. The first is that North Korea and Iran are motivated by the same notions of security and pride as we are: they don’t trust us any more than we trust them. The second is that the United States itself is seen to be in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because, as we (rightly) seek to deny nuclear programs to others, we ourselves continue (wrongly and needlessly) to develop and deploy ever-newer nuclear weapons to further augment and “modernize” our already-bloated nuclear arsenals. We thereby squander our moral authority in asking the nuclear “have not” nations to forswear nuclear development. We ask for restraint from others, but make no effort at self-restraint. International efforts to thwart the spread of nuclear weapons need to be redoubled, and the US and Russia, each with arsenals of many thousands of such weapons, need to lead the way, with help from China, UK, France, India, Pakistan and Israel, all nuclear weapons states, albeit with far smaller arsenals than ours.

Beyond these first three issues, there are of course many other problems of international concern, so our proposed new coalition of nations will have an essentially endless ongoing agenda. Indeed, there is one other issue that may be even more critical than the three discussed above: namely, how to make strides toward war avoidance. That is a topic for another column; it’s title might be “Suppose They Gave A War and Nobody Came?”

by Eric E. Anschutz, June 27, 2007

Much of what I will write in this column comes directly from Bill Bryson’s wonderful book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” Bryson’s book presents more facts about us humans and our world than I have ever seen assembled between the covers of a single volume; it is of such compelling interest that I decided I had to share just a bit of all that good stuff with you. What I present here is only a very small part of what Bryson offers. To get the rest of it, run to Barnes and Noble and buy the book! Run, don’t walk – it’s worth it! Let me begin.

You, and I, and every other human, Bryson tells us, are made up of trillions of drifting atoms, assembled separately to create each of us. When we die, “our” atoms drift off to become part of something else, possibly a new life, or possibly part of a rock or a dewdrop or air. No life form lasts forever; of the billions of species of living things that have existed since the dawn of time, more than 99.99 percent of them are no longer around. But the atoms that comprised all previous living things are, themselves, eternally durable. Some of the atoms that comprise you and me might once have been part of a dinosaur, or Einstein, or a tree

Each of us is quite special, having descended from a very long line of successful forbears. For some 3.8 billion years, Earth has been host to an unbroken string of life forms that, on both sides, were attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently skilled to survive and nurture its progeny. Not one of your ancestors was devoured, drowned or squashed before it had delivered a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner, thus leading, over eons of time and over countless couplings, from one success to another – to you! Just since the time of Shakespeare, you have no fewer than 16,384 ancestors, energetically exchanging genetic material, leading, miraculously, to you! Indeed, if we carry this logic back far enough, it suggests that each of us is related, at least distantly, to just about everyone else.

Now, if all that makes you think that your existence is quite amazing, let me tell you what Bryson has to say about how the universe came to exist. THAT is really amazing! We have all heard about the big bang theory, which is how most scientists think the universe began. Here is what they think happened. Imagine, if you can, a proton (a very small part of an atom) compressed to a billionth of its normal size. Now pack into that tiny, tiny, space an ounce of matter. Somehow, about ten or more billion years ago, this bit of matter begins to expand. In less than a minute, the universe is one million billion miles across, and ten billion degrees of heat is produced to create the lighter elements: hydrogen and helium. In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or ever will be has been created. Voila, we have a universe!

It is estimated that the earth has produced 30 billion species of creatures in its time, but only 250,000 of these species have left behind a fossil record. The remaining life forms are a mystery. Of those long-ago species that left behind a fossil record, many employed body plans that were not simply unlike anything seen before or since, but bizarrely different; one had five eyes and a nozzle-like snout with claws on the end! But, the last five or ten million years spawned the body designs still in use. Most animals today are tetrapods, with four limbs that end in a maximum of five fingers or toes. Dinosaurs, whales, birds, humans, even fish, are all tetrapods, which clearly suggests they came from a single common ancestor.

If you imagine the approximately 4.5 billion years of Earths history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 AM, with the rise of the first single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next 16 hours. At about 8:30 PM, with the day five-sixths over, the first sea-plants appear, followed 20 minutes later by the first jellyfish. Just before 10 PM, plants begin to pop up on land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow.

Thanks to ten minutes of balmy weather, by 10:24 PM, the Earth is covered in great carboniferous forests, whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 PM, and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At 21 minutes before midnight, they vanish, and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight. The whole of recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds.

Throughout this greatly speeded day, continents slide about and bang into one another, mountains rise and disappear, oceans come and go, and ice sheets advance and withdraw. And throughout the whole, about three times every minute, somewhere on the planet, a major meteor strikes the earth. The miracle is that the earth is still here, that humans have not only survived but prospered and thrived. To me, the moral of this story is let’s stop being our own worst enemies with wars and environmental insult. We owe it to the eons of evolution to cherish what the earth and we have become; nuclear annihilation could end it all, as could melting of polar ice.

by Eric E. Anschutz, June 20, 2007

As I write, the US Senate has just engaged in an intense four-day long debate on immigration policies, ending in defeat for the legislation that would have granted amnesty, albeit on very tough terms, to those 12 million people who entered illegally. I think the legislation should have been enacted, though I thought the $5,000 fine and the requirement to return to the country of origin for a lengthy period before reentering legally, were needlessly tough. I write now, however, not to comment on immigration reform, but to lament the fact that our Congress did not devote the same kind of energy and time to debating whether or not to invade Iraq.
It was only Senator Robert Byrd, the oldest voice in our Congress, that rose just a few days before “shock and awe” were unleashed, to warn the nation that President Bush’s march to war was about to lead us into disaster. As you read some of the doddering old man’s words, ask yourself how things might have gone differently if the issue had been debated with rigor and at length. Byrd’s speech was given to an empty chamber, and was heard only by the few people in the visitor’s gallery, who rose and applauded as he completed his remarks. Here are some excerpts:
“I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers…
But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, and our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split.
After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.
The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.
There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11…The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.
But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack…But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight…There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home? A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans…What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?
War appears inevitable.”

To note that Senator Byrd’s remarks were prophetic is to understate their brilliance and their importance. To wonder why the points he advocated were not considered, and why the questions he posed were not debated, is to wonder how our 100 Senators could have been so blind, so timid, and so neglectful of their responsibilities. We must wonder how these same Senators could have devoted more time to the “right to life” of Terri Schiavo, the tragically comatose Floridian, than to the war, which has cost so many thousands of lives, so many billions of dollars, and the moral authority of the United States of America. And we must wonder about one more thing: have our elected leaders learned from the Iraq disaster that they need to think about and debate important issues at length, dispassionately, and with rigor? I, for one, don’t think so.