Statesmanship

Resolve to read this book.

February 25th, 2012 // 8:37 am @ Oliver DeMille

A review of Orrin Woodward’s game-changing new book, Resolved: 13 Resolutions for LIFE

by Oliver DeMille

The freedom of any society is directly related to the quality of books that are widely read in that society. That said, there are some books everyone should read, like The Federalist Papers and Democracy in America.* And in a society like ours where we are desperate for more leaders at all levels, truly excellent books on leadership are vital to the future of freedom.

I recently read a book on leadership that everyone simply must read. It is Resolved, by Orrin Woodward.

I’ve read Woodward’s books before, so when this one arrived in the mail I put away everything else and read it straight through. It kept me up most of the night, and it was so worth it!

This is a fabulous book on leadership. It outlines 13 resolutions every person should make in our modern world, and gives specific helps on how to turn them into habits. Indeed, this book could be titled The 13 Habits of Success and Happiness for Everyone. The stories and examples from great leaders of history and current events are moving and uplifting. I literally have never read a better book on leadership than this one.

Woodward’s book is on par with the great leadership works like:

It is truly a revolution in leadership books.

The 13 resolutions are exactly what we need leaders to adopt across our society. They are applicable to family and home leadership, community and business leadership, and societal and national leadership. They apply to the United States and other countries, and together they form a blueprint for renewing America and innovating a new and better Western Civilization.

The book is divided into three parts: private resolutions, public resolutions and leadership resolutions. Each of the 13 resolutions build upon each other, and together they create an effective and motivating system of becoming a better person and leader. They help the reader improve in career and in societal impact.

This focus on societal leadership is both timely and profound. In the 1950s we experienced a major “leader-shift” in society. Before World War II, most communities were led by professionals—doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, etc.—and before that by big landowners and even earlier tribal chiefs. The management revolution started by Edward Deming and popularized by Ray Kroc changed the focus of leading society from professionals to managers. This was captured in William Whyte’s great 1956 classic The Organization Man.

By the 1980s another major leader-shift occurred, this time from management (“do things right”) to leadership (“do the right things”). The great transitional classic of this shift was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It outlined 7 habits that leaders needed in order to help their companies excel, and these habits became part of the mainstream language: for example, “Be Proactive,” “Think Win-Win,” and “Synergize.” Another great classic of this shift was Synergetics by Buckminster Fuller. The leadership revolution brought a whole new vision of what is means to be a leader.

Today we are witnessing a similar leader-shift, this time from leadership of organizations (“do the right things”) to leadership of society (“move society in the right direction”). Woodward’s Resolved is a seminal classic in this change. In fact, some of the early books in this change include Launching a Leadership Revolution by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady, The 8^th Habit by Stephen Covey, and Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman.

Woodward is more than an author; he has actually put these 13 resolutions to work in his business leadership. For this leadership, Orrin Woodward was named the 2011 International Association of Business’s Top Leader of the Year Award. His book Resolved outlines how we can all become such leaders.

In Resolved, Woodward shares a host of ideas and effective means of using family, business and societal leadership to impact the world. For example, he shows how Gibbon and Toynbee taught the laws of decline that are now attacking our culture and modern free nations.

He shows the three types of freedom and why they depend on each other—and how the loss of one is actually a loss of all. He helps leaders understand how freedom and character are inseparable and at the root of all societal progress and therefore leadership. His model of “Leadership Legacy” alone is worth the price of the book, and adds a whole new dimension to leadership literature.

Woodward adds several other new models to the leadership genre. He shows how five important laws from science, economics and history (Sturgeon’s Law, Bastiat’s “Law,” Gresham’s Law, the Law of Diminishing Returns, and the Law of Inertia) are combing in our current world, and what leaders need to understand and do about these five laws—individually and collectively.

These five laws are already part of our mainstream culture, but the analysis of how they are working together and what future leaders must do about it is new, deep and profound. No leader can afford not to understand this cutting-edge thinking.

On a stylistic note, Woodward consistently uses fascinating quotes, ideas, stories, historical examples and even one equation in ways that make the reader see things in a whole new way. For example, he puts an intriguing new twist on Chaos Theory, the Butterfly Effect, a poem by Yeats, Systems Theory, the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, credit card usage, American Idol, the “TriLateral Leadership Ledger,” the IBM way, Aristotle on true friendship, and many other delightful references from every field of thought –all written in a highly understandable and enjoyable way.

After I read Resolved the first time, I placed it next to my work chair and each day I open it randomly and read the quotes or stories on whatever page opens. It is always uplifting. Here are a few topics I’ve studied in Resolved during such random reading:

Why courage isn’t pragmatism
Producers vs. Exploiters
A commentary on Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Principle
The common reasons 23 major civilizations in history declined, and how we can avoid their mistakes
The combining of mind, heart and will
Charles Garfield on Success through Visualization
Will Smith’s work ethic
Never whine, never complain, never make excuses—and what to do instead
Woodward’s 10 principles of financial literacy (Wow! Every American should study these.)
Five steps for effective conflict resolution—in family, business and beyond
How to really build business systems that work
Henry Hazlitt’s economics in one lesson—and how to really understand the economy
The conflict between creativity and realism in national leadership

There is so much more. In one example, Woodward quotes G.K. Chesterton after he was asked to write an essay on “What’s Wrong with the World?” Chesterton wrote simply: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton.” This, in summary, is what Resolved is all about. The rest of the book, all 13 resolutions, teaches us how to effectively become the leaders the world needs—and that we were born to be.

This book has articulated the leadership motto of the 21^st Century: “It has been said that everyone wants to change the world but few feel the need to change themselves. Even a basic study of history, however, demonstrates that those who first focus upon self-improvement usually ending up doing the most good in the world.”

Gandhi taught the same sentiment when he said that we must be the change we wish to see in the world, and Woodward quotes Confucius in saying that those who want to improve the world must ultimately focus on bettering themselves.

Buddha is credited with saying that our purpose in life is to find our purpose in life, and then to give our whole heart and soul to accomplishing this purpose. Perhaps no generation more exemplified such leadership by example than the American founders, and Woodward discusses them and their words (especially Washington and Franklin) at length in showing us how to become the leaders we meant to be.

Woodward also shows examples of effective leadership from such greats as Sam Walton, John Wooden, Ludwig von Mises, and Roger Bannister, among others.

I could go on and on. Resolved really does, in my opinion, mark a leader-shift to a whole new level of leadership training for the new Century. If you are only going to get one book on leadership, this is the one. What a great book. Our whole society needs to study more about leadership, and apply what we learn.

*Links to book titles provided for your convenience in reviewing and purchasing referenced books. Any purchases on amazon initiated from these links result in amazon sharing a portion of their profits with TJEd. Thanks so much for your support!

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Business &Entrepreneurship &Family &Leadership &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Mission &Producers &Prosperity &Service &Statesmanship

The New Grand Strategy for 2012

February 20th, 2012 // 2:50 pm @ Oliver DeMille

1. Two Speeches

Several years ago I spoke at a seminar on international affairs and I predicted that in the next few years the United States would adopt a new Grand Strategy. I outlined America’s historical Grand Strategies, from Constitutionalism (1789-1820) and Manifest Destiny (1820-1900) to Nationalism (1900-1945) and later Internationalism (1945-2001).

I pointed out that our Grand Strategy is the way we define our major national goals for the decades ahead, and that after 9/11 we were on track for a new Grand Strategy. We discussed some possible Grand Strategies that could come, and we brainstormed things we hoped to see in the Grand Strategy of the 21^st Century.

The same year, in another speech on a different occasion, I showed how many of the predictions found in one publication, Foreign Affairs, keep ending up as official U.S. policy. I cited numerous examples from articles in Foreign Affairs and showed how within five years of publication their recommendations were adopted. I marveled that one publication could have such an effective track record, and recommended that everyone in attendance subscribe to and read this magazine.

Of course, as I said in the speech, not all the authors in Foreign Affairs agree on every detail, and in fact they engage in a great deal of debate. But, again, is it amazing how often policies recommended in Foreign Affairs end up being implemented in Washington.

Then, just this year, the messages of these speeches came together in an interesting way. In the January/February 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, a new article outlines a new Grand Strategy for the United States. Although I don’t agree with many of the details in this latest Grand Strategy, the track record of Foreign Affairs promises that this will, in fact, be the Grand Strategy of the United States in the decades ahead.

I believe that this will be the major 21^st Century challenge for the future of American freedom.

2. Grand Strategy Drives the Nation

The power of a Grand Strategy can hardly be overstated. When a nation adopts a Grand Strategy, it dominates national policy and influences all national choices over time. Few, if any, policies go against or are even allowed to compete with the accepted Grand Strategy.

And while not everyone knows what a Grand Strategy is, the intelligentsia of both parties tend to follow the Grand Strategy with the energy and passion of religious doctrine. They may disagree on many things, but they both adhere to the Grand Strategy.

So what is the new Grand Strategy of the United States? The answers are outlined in an article by Zbigniew Brzezinski: “A New U.S. Grand Strategy: Balancing the East, Upgrading the West”. Students of American policy will remember Brzezinski as the U.S. National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981 and as a long-time writer on U.S. international strategy.

3. Our New Grand Strategy

Things have changed drastically over the past decade, Brzezinski assures us, and by 2012 a new Grand Strategy is overdue. The outlines of this new plan include the following:

The “central focus” for the United States in the years ahead is threefold: (1) revitalize the U.S., (2) help the West expand, and (3) create a balance in the East that will allow China to successfully rise without becoming an enemy.

The expansion of the West will create a democratic free zone from North America and Western Europe to a number of other nations, including Eastern Europe, Russian, Turkey, Japan and South Korea.

In the East, U.S. power and influence will attempt to create a cooperative relationship between China and Japan and keep Chinese-Indian relations from turning to violent conflict.

To accomplish all this, the U.S. must become a better “promoter and guarantor” of unity and simultaneously a “balancer and conciliator between the major powers of the East.”

To have any credibility in these roles, the U.S. must effectively “renovate itself at home.” This requires, says Brzezinski, four things: (1) better innovation, (2) improved education, (3) a balance of American power and diplomacy, and (4) a better focus on quality political leadership in Washington.

One of the most important changes ahead must be an effective improvement of relations between the United States and the European Union. The two sides of the Atlantic have been drifting apart since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but this trend must be reversed. Otherwise, growing conflicts between the United States, the European Union, and Russia could weaken the West and cause it to splinter and become increasingly pessimistic. This would also promote a more contentious China.

The U.S. should decrease military power in Asia and emphasize increased cooperation with China.

Taiwan will at some point have to reconcile in some way with China.

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this new strategy. If this is the outline of the years ahead, the U.S. will definitely face an era of deepening international confusion and tension.

Despite this reality, the historical track record of Foreign Affairs suggests that this is the Grand Strategy we will follow. If this occurs, voters will elect one party and then the other, and remain frustrated when the on-going Grand Strategy of our international affairs keeps our economic and other national policies going in the same direction.

Adoption of this Grand Strategy is a path of inevitable decline, regardless of what the experts say. Election after election, we’ll seek real change but see whoever is in the White House continually push our nation in the same negative direction.

4. Significant Flaws

Specifically, this new Grand Strategy has at least the following major defects:

An abandonment of support for an independent Taiwan, even through a subtle shift of attitude as suggested, amounts to a significant reversal of America’s historical loyalty to our allies. Such a change will undermine our credibility with other nations and further erode Washington’s credibility with American voters.
The attempt to bridge differences between the United States and European nations in this Grand Strategy takes the tone of the U.S. becoming more like these nations—rather than influencing these countries to adopt more freedom-based values historically espoused by the U.S.
Adoption of this new Grand Strategy may amount to a de facto appeasement of China. If China is, in fact, following a savvy strategy of replacing America as the world’s dominant super power and transporting its fundamental values around the globe, then this would be nothing less than a disastrous policy. And even if China is a good-faith seeker of more global participation, cooperation and open trade, it certainly wants to spread its central values and ideals—nearly all of which are antithetical to freedom.
The emphasis on increased business innovation and improved education in this strategy seem to rely on increased government spending and intervention in our economy rather than policies that incentive increased free enterprise, innovation, hiring and entrepreneurialism. This is yet another attempt to move away from traditional American values and adopt instead the government-run mercantilist practices of European and Asian economies.
The focus in this policy is a shift from internationalism (a policy of interactions between sovereign nations with America as a world leader) to globalism (where the United States submits its actions to the decisions of international organizations).
Note that while we have changed the Constitution through Amendments less than thirty times in over two hundred years, it has been changed in literally thousands of ways through treaty (and these changes are seldom noticed by most Americans). While treaties were used to skirt the Constitution many times under the Internationalist Grand Strategy since 1945, this new Globalist Grand Strategy will make this the major focus of its policies, totally ending Constitutional rule in the United States. This is not an exaggeration but rather a technical reality.

In short, this new Grand Strategy is a de facto end to the traditional American Constitutional system. If it is fully adopted, and all indications are that this is what is occurring, our free system is in immediate jeopardy.

I am an optimist, and I believe that the best America and the world have to offer is still ahead. Yet in a nation of laws, in a society where the fine print of contracts, statutes, judicial dicta, executive agency policies and treaties are our higher law, this new Grand Strategy promises to rewrite our entire system in a few agencies dominated by unelected international experts and almost entirely out of the public’s eye. This is not a republic or democracy, but a true technocracy.

Again, the result will be elections where we vote our passions but where little changes no matter which candidates win each campaign.

In such a world, the fine print in our treaties will run the show, though few will realize what is happening or understand why our freedoms and economy are constantly in decline no matter which party we put in charge of Washington.

It is hard to overstate just how significant this current change is in our world. Freedom is literally at stake.

5. Solutions

We don’t need better leaders or public officials as near as much as we need better citizens. Historically, the American founders knew that freedom could only last if regular citizens had the same level of education as our Governors, Senators, Judges, experts and Presidents.

When any nation is divided between, on one hand, a class of political experts who read and understand the fine print of what is really happening and, on the other hand, the rest of the people who don’t read or get involved in such intricate details, freedom is inevitably lost.

There are no exceptions to this in history.

We will either become such citizens, or our freedoms will be lost.

If this is too much to ask of modern citizens, then freedom is too much for us to handle. Just consider what Samuel Williams, a Harvard professor in the American founding era, said about the average education of American children in 1794:

“All the children are trained up to this kind of knowledge: they are accustomed from their earliest years to read the Holy Scriptures, the periodical publications, newspapers, and political pamphlets; to form some general acquaintance with the laws of their country, the proceedings of the courts of justice, of the general assembly of the state, and of the Congress, etc.

“Such a kind of education is common and universal in every part of the state: and nothing would be more dishonorable to the parents, or to the children, than to be without it.”

Such people were deep readers. And the freedoms they fought for and maintained showed it. The only way to get back such freedoms is to once again become such citizens. What is needed, regardless of what the experts in Washington do, is a widespread grassroots grand strategy of becoming the kind of citizens and voters who are truly capable of maintaining freedom.

(For more on how to become this kind of citizen and reader, see the book A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.)

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Culture &Current Events &Entrepreneurship &Foreign Affairs &Generations &Government &Leadership &Liberty &Prosperity &Statesmanship

Review of Don Peck’s “Can the Middle Class be Saved?”

August 29th, 2011 // 2:00 pm @ Oliver DeMille

This article in The Atlantic by Don Peck is a must-read for those who are interested in the future of American freedom and prosperity. Highlights from the article include:

The United States is “now composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group” doesn’t matter.
The new name for this state of society, coined by three analysts at Citigroup, is “plutonomy.”
“A 2010 Pew study showed that the typical middle-class family had lost 23 percent of its wealth since the recession began, versus just 12 percent in the upper class.”
The lifestyles of non-professional college graduates now more closely resemble those of high-school dropouts than of the professional class.
The meritocracy is increasingly only a meritocracy of the upper classes.
“Among the more pernicious aspects of the meritocracy is the equation of merit with test-taking success.”
“For the most part, these same forces have been a boon, so far, to Americans who have a good education and exceptional creative talents or analytic skills.”
Most Americans don’t want the middle class to disappear or continue to shrink, and such a development would certainly bring a drastic change to the people-based freedom that has characterized the historical successes of the United States.
These trends, and the growing divide between the rich and the rest, are increasing the longer the economy remains sluggish.

Peck gives a number of suggestions for improving this situation, including:

Increasing the funding for effective job training and education.
“Removing bureaucratic obstacles to innovation is as important as pushing more public funds toward it.”
Changing our public policy to accelerate innovation.
Significantly improving our schools.
Creating clear paths of training and skilled work for those who don’t go to college.
Altering current immigration policy to allow more “creative, highly skilled immigrants” to come to the U.S. more easily.

Whether or not you agree with Peck’s recommendations, one reality is clear: The success of these things ultimately depends on incentivizing entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and economic growth.

By spurring significant economic growth, we will directly and indirectly address most of our national economic problems.

On the other hand, if government policies continue to thwart major innovation and growth, little can be done.

Peck makes a case for higher taxes, but hardly mentions that Washington has a serious spending problem.

Democrats typically argue for tax hikes, while Republicans now mostly champion spending cuts.

Most Independents, in contrast, would likely support both—as long as the tax hikes on the professional class were used not to increase or maintain federal spending but rather to directly help put America’s financial house back in order.

Whatever your view on this debate, it is a discussion desperately needed right now.

Too much of the rhetoric on this topic is just that—two sides deeply entrenched and firmly committed to one view only.

We need fresh ideas and inspiring leadership to move beyond this gridlock.

With all this said, Peck’s article is mandatory reading. Every American should think about its main points.

Most will find things to disagree with, perhaps, but the dialogue is needed.

If the middle class is to survive and thrive, it must increase its role of deeply considering, thinking about and making its views felt on important economic and other national issues.

Freedom only works when involved citizens of all socio-economic levels actively participate in such important national discussions.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Aristocracy &Book Reviews &Community &Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family &Featured &Statesmanship

Our Government Isn’t Broken

August 1st, 2011 // 10:22 am @ Oliver DeMille

The Third Party Solution

Our government isn’t broken.

It is just caught in the past.

Specifically, the current divide between the parties is a mirror image of the country.

Politics is a reflection of society, and the bickering right now in Washington is a direct projection of the nation.

There is one big exception.

The nation is divided into three major political camps.

The problem is that the two smallest camps (Democrats and Republicans) have party representation in Washington while the largest camp (independents) does not.

In short, it’s not that our government is broken, but rather that we are stuck in a twentieth-century structural model even though the society has fundamentally changed.

Instead of a two-party nation sending its representatives to Washington, we now have a three-party society where the biggest “party” must divide its representation between the two smaller parties.

It’s not broken, it just acts like it.

The Great Fall

This situation began to develop when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Up to that point, the two-party model was a natural reflection of a nation engaged in a long-term Cold War with an enemy capable of destroying our entire civilization.

This omnipresent reality colored all policy for over four decades.

Having sacrificed greatly to overcome major conflicts in WWI and WWII, the large majority of citizens from both parties stood firmly together against the Soviet threat.

When the Cold War menace significantly decreased, Americans took a long sigh of relief, and then they reassessed their priorities for government.

Some felt that the needs of big business were the top priority, others considered moral issues the lead concern, while still others deemed an increase in social justice the major challenge.

The first two pooled resources in the Republican Party, while social liberals and those emphasizing social justice combined in the Democratic Party.

The largest group of Americans rejected both of these extremes, feeling that government should indeed fulfill its role to corporations, societal values, and social justice, but also to a number of other vital priorities including national security, education, and fiscal responsibility.

But, because independents come from many viewpoints and also because they have no official party apparatus in Washington, the biggest political group in our nation today has little direct political power except during elections.

The consequence is that subsequent elections tend to sway widely in opposite directions.

When independents put Republicans in power, they are naturally (because they are not Republicans) frustrated with how the Republicans use that power.

When, in contrast, they vote for Democrats, they find themselves discouraged with what Democrats do in office.

This is a structural problem.

When Democrats elect a Democrat, the elected official can swing to the center once in office because while supporters may dislike their Democratic official’s actions they will almost always still vote for him/her in the next election—after all, in their view the Republican would be worse.

The same applies to Republicans electing a Republican.

All of this changes when independents put a Democrat, or a Republican, in office. Naturally, the elected official will disappoint supporters in some way, and independents are as likely as not to believe that a candidate from the other party will do better.

Historical Realignments

When similar historical realignments of politics with cultural shifts have occurred, a major new political group in society reformed one of the big parties to fit its new views.

For example, when the Declaration of Independence and hostilities with Britain changed the old Tory versus Whig debate, the Loyalists mostly joined the new Federalists while the Whigs split between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

When the new U.S. Constitution changed the makeup of society and made the Federalist versus Anti-Federalist debate obsolete, most of the Anti-Federalists joined the Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans while the Federalists split between the Democratic Republicans and the Federalists.

Other such changes have happened several times in American history, most notably in the 1830s, 1850s, 1910s, 1930s and 1960s.

Note that in the twentieth-century shifts the names of the parties (Democrat and Republican) did not change even though political philosophies were significantly altered during these periods of realignment.

The current repositioning may or may not adopt a new name for one of the parties, but a philosophical shift is occurring nonetheless.

Some believe that this shift is fundamentally rooted in social concerns, from issues of gender and sexual preference to values debates and immigration.

But this is a view left over from the twentieth-century style Democrat-Republican argument.

The rise of independents is not a morality-driven movement.

It’s mostly about the economy.

The New Party

The new party of the twenty-first century will emphasize economic growth and getting our financial house in order.

Many independents will flock to this party, whatever its name—Democratic, Republican, or something else.

This is the party of the future.

And while analysts say that independents are not joiners, it is likely that many would join such a party.

Note that a real three-party system is not likely to last.

A third party may arise, as Thomas L. Friedman and others have suggested, but history suggests that t will eventually take the place of one of the top two parties.

There is an important reason for this.

The American framers did not want the U.S. President to be elected by a plurality of the nation, so they wisely structured the Electoral College in a way that the President can only be elected by a majority of electoral votes.

This means that any third party will eventually have to gain the support of one of the other parties in order to win the White House.

This constitutional reality is one of the most important things keeping America strong.

Without it, any extreme party might win a given election and take the nation in even more drastic directions than we’ve witnessed to date.

To sum it up, the frustration with two-party infighting is a positive thing.

The framers rightly foresaw that the greatest danger to America would be an apathetic citizenry, and the Electoral College requirement for majority has caused a no-party or two-party structure and also incentivized citizens to stay informed and involved.

When a powerful third party arises in America, it has always come in response to a change in society and it has always worked to reform the two existing parties in ways that better reflected the desires of the people.

This is a huge positive, as chaotic as it may seem at times.

Seriously?

Today, it is independents that most dislike the party bickering, and as a result independents are more actively involved in government.

This is a powerful check on the aristocratic-political class, and shows once again the brilliance and inspired effectiveness of the U.S. Constitution as established by the framers.

Our government isn’t broken, but the current two-party system is outdated.

Neither party truly represents the views of the largest political “group” in America—independents.

Until this problem is fixed, the entire political system will look untenable and appear unable to solve major American problems.

But such realignment is already occurring, albeit slowly, and the future belongs to whichever party—Democrat, Republican or a third party—gets serious about three things:

A moderate view that government has an important role to play in society and that it must also be limited to the things it really should do like national security, schools and basic social justice
Actually getting our financial house in order
Creating the environment for widespread enterprise and a true growth economy

The party that effectively and consistently champions these things will be the leading political group in the years ahead.

In other words, some major shifts in the parties are ahead.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Constitution &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Politics &Statesmanship

Thirteen Thoughts on China

July 11th, 2011 // 11:40 am @ Oliver DeMille

A Review of Henry Kissinger’s On China

America is interested in China. Intellectuals have long criticized the citizenry of the United States for being self-absorbed and comparatively uninterested in world affairs. Many Americans have only given close attention to international events that directly impact them. In the case of China, it seems that Americans are deeply concerned not about what has occurred, but rather about what may come.

Henry Kissinger’s book On China is an excellent primer for any person who wants to know more about China.

There is much here for the beginner, and also a number of items of personal interest for the scholar of modern Sino-American relations.

Here are thirteen ideas from the book which sparked my thinking:

1- Exeptionalism and Singularity

Americans often talk about exceptionalism, the things that make the United States different from other nations. For the Chinese, the foundational concept is singularity. This may sound similar to exceptionalism, but it is almost the opposite.

Where America sees its founding coming after long millennia of human history, benefiting from the experiences of historical civilizations and rising above all of them, the Chinese notion of singularity stems from the view that China has no founding—that it has existed longer than written history, that it maintained a long set of traditions from before recorded annals to the present, and that it is the only modern civilization to have done so.

While many Americans claim universal principles of freedom that all nations should adopt, China claims universal principles of society that it has always used.

2-Language

The Chinese language is as old as written history.

According to Kissinger, its characters were developed at about the time of ancient Egypt.

While the Western nations have used and then moved beyond ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin, and the numerous European languages, China kept and deepened its language.

Only Hebrew, of all the Western languages (if Hebrew can even be considered Western), is as old, and its spoken form had to be resurrected in the twentieth century.

While the culture of Western Civilization has used many languages, the Chinese Civilization has used basically one written language. Our Western classics, myths, and major political documents are mostly translations from a host of languages.

Chinese classics are nearly all studied in the original.

The result in China is a profound sense of continuity with the past and a closer connection to its traditions than experienced in any Western nation. It is hard for Westerners to even grasp the lasting significance of this reality.

3-Dynastic History

The Western political experience includes a long cycle of declining current powers eventually replaced by rising new powers—Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Britain, and the United States, to mention a few.

Each rises, leads the world for a time, then declines. A new power seems to arise every couple of centuries.

In China, where history goes back past the time of the Egyptian dynasties, the cycle is different, and the differences drastically impact the way Chinese leaders view the world.

The Chinese cycle includes a period of internal division and inner conflict, then an era of unity and dynastic rule, then another time of division and conflict.

This cycle in China usually takes three to nine hundred years to run its course, and today’s Chinese see themselves just sixty years into a new dynastic rule that will once again put China at the center of world power—for the next five hundred years or more.

4-The Center of the World

Until the nineteenth century, China never had to deal with a civilization or nation of “comparable size or sophistication….As late as 1820, it produced over 30 percent of world GDP—an amount exceeding of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States combined.”

It has historically always considered itself the center of the world and felt deeply humiliated by its loss of dominance to Western powers in modern times.

5-Secular Empire

According to Kissinger, China has always been a secular empire.

Unlike the West, religion, religious wars, and conflicts between major religious views have played little part in China’s political history. Spirituality has historically centered on restoring the principles and ideals of a Confucian-style past “Chinese Golden Age.”

Learning was seen as the key to this objective, and also to personal advancement. The goal of Confucian-Chinese spirituality, learning, and politics has usually been “rectification, not progress.”

The main principle in this order was to “know thy place.”

The pinnacle of society was the Emperor, who was both a political leader and a spiritual-religious symbol. He was considered “the Emperor of Humanity” on earth and “Son of Heaven” as man’s “intermediary between Heaven, Earth and humanity.”

This tradition of the great Emperor above all mankind, his bureaucracy to maintain order in all things, and each person fulfilling his proper place in society created a certain kind of culture that has lasted for a very, very long time through various outward governmental structures and forms.

Most Americans disagree with the basics of this model, but we must not discount the power of its history and tradition.

Kissinger wrote:

“If the Emperor strayed from the path of virtue, All Under Heaven would fall into chaos. Even natural catastrophes might signify that disharmony had beset the universe. The existing dynasty would be seen to have lost the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ by which it possessed the right to govern: rebellions would break out, and a new dynasty would [eventually arise to] restore the Great Harmony of the universe.”

Government was supreme.

6-Monarchy and Aristocracy

Where the West was dominated by aristocrats in nearly all countries, with a host of peasants and occasionally powerful kings, China was run by an Emperor and his army of bureaucrats (mandarins).

The provinces (cantons) were likewise ruled by the mandarins, and the outlying (non-Chinese) nations were considered tributaries to the central Emperor.

Kissinger doesn’t mention that these are the two great types of historical governments:

Monarchy ruling through bureaucratic management
Aristocracy ruling through class dominance.The American founding created a third system:
The Federal Democratic Republic ruled by constitutionally separated branches and levels of government all limited by checks, balances and periodic elections.

7-Sino-centric World History

Many modern Chinese see the history of the world as three distinct eras:

China’s world prominence until the nineteenth century
A “century of humiliation” from the early 1800s until the communist revolution in the 1940s
A rebirth of China’s proper world role beginning in the 1940s and still developing today

8-China’s Grand Strategy

China’s grand strategy has traditionally revolved around playing foreign powers against each other.

During the modern era, Britain, Russia, France, the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, Korea, Vietnam and India have all been impacted by the Chinese strategy of “using barbarians against barbarians.”

Through it all, China has held mainly to its traditions rather than joining the West (or attempting to join it) like most nations have done.

For example, while most Westerners might agree that with three superpowers during the Cold War an alliance of two would be the strongest position, China followed its traditional non-Western approach by keeping the U.S. and USSR strongly pitted against—and focused on—each other rather than China.

9-The Communist Era

The pain of the communist era in China is felt by nearly every family and person in China. All suffered. Communism united China under central control, leading to increased power. But the pain of totalitarian communist rule created a modern generation hungry for freedom and economic opportunity.

This era also changed the Chinese psyche from “fit your place in the system” to one of regaining China’s place in world prosperity, power and leadership.

10-Leadership through Symbolism

Chinese leadership often operates with an emphasis on making impressions rather than literality.

This tactic includes attempting to make things seem a certain way as a means of influence—regardless of whether or not the reality actually resembles the perception.

In short, symbol is often more highly prized and utilized than the literal reality in Chinese culture and diplomacy.

Western leaders and citizens who don’t understand that most Chinese leaders assume the symbolic over the literal frequently misunderstand Chinese motivations, actions and words.

11-Contemporary Chinese Literature

Two current Chinese-written bestsellers (in China) include China is Unhappy: The Great Era, the Grand Goal, and Our Internal Anxieties and External Challenges by Song Xiaojun (2009) and China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era by Liu Mingfu (2010).

Kissinger comments:

“Both books are deeply nationalistic. Both start from the assumption that the West is much weaker than previously thought, but that ‘some foreigners have not yet woken up; they have truly not understood that a power shift is taking place in Sino-Western relations.’ In this view it is thus up to China to shake off its self doubt and passivity, abandon gradualism, and recover its historic sense of mission by means of a ‘grand goal.’”

Liu advocates a Chinese return to a ‘martial spirit’ and a military rise along with its economic rise.

Liu wrote:

“If China in the 21^st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside.”

Kissinger writes that these books:

“…could not have been published or become a national cause célèbre had the elites prohibited publication. Was this one ministry’s way of influencing policy?”

He notes that official government views differ from the tone of these books, but doubts that this debate is over in China.

12-War on the Economic Front

Still, Kissinger says:

“A country facing such large domestic tasks is not going to throw itself easily, much less automatically, into strategic confrontation or a quest for world domination….The crucial competition between the United States and China is more likely to be economic than military.”

After the Great Recession, this may be exactly what has so many Americans deeply concerned.

As for the rise of China, Kissinger wisely suggests that America has the ability to substantially determine its own future regardless of what China does.

We should worry less about China than about how to overcome our own nation’s challenges.

Peace and cooperation between these two cultures and nations is, as Kissinger puts it, “inherently complex.” It is important to the future of both nations that our citizens and leaders approach relations wisely and in principled fashion.

13-A War of Ideals

Kissinger suggests:

“The United States bears the responsibility to retain its competitiveness and its world role. It should do this for its own traditional convictions, rather than as a contest with China. Building competitiveness is largely an American project, which we should not ask China to solve for us.”

I agree. Our biggest problem is Washington, not Beijing, and if we as the American citizenry handle Washington correctly, China will never be the threat it could become if Washington is insolvent or weak.

As I said above, Kissinger goes into depth on a number of additional topics, all of which are valuable to the American citizenry.

These thoughts are just a few of the many covered in On China.

As a group, we don’t know enough about China. Kissinger’s analysis is astute and timely, based on both research and long personal experience. This is an important book, and it is a valuable addition to the prudent citizen’s reading list on China.

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

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