Pavlos's Thoughts

Where’s the pressure on Thailand?
Thailand is a relatively modern developing country. It’s a coherent state, rather than a colonial mash-up of the type found in Africa or the Middle East, with a rich history and reasonably friendly to the West. There’s no indication that Thailand may be heading towards a different ideology, such as totalitarian communism or an islamic theocracy. Thailand is much more open and closer to the West than China. Why, then, do we sit idle while its government is using its army to shoot and kill protesters who are occupying the streets of central Bangkok asking for democracy? It’s a clear enough and understandable (to us) demand. The protesters feel that the ruling regime is illegitimate and want open elections whose outcome is honored. What could they ask for that’s more in line with our highest values, in the West, when it comes to governance? Why aren’t our governments sanctioning the Thai regime already? Why aren’t American and European leaders making it absolutely clear to the Thai elite that from our point of view their time is up, and they must accept a UN-run election if they want constructive engagement with the world?

[...]

The concept of a state that we’re carrying into the 21st century is out of date. We need to examine what a state is today and, to the extent that we need governance, what form a state should take in a globally connected world.

The state that we think we have, the nation state, has only had a short and brutish existence. European nation states took their present form in the 18th or 19th century. Before this there were other forms of governance — empires, city states, feudalism — with varying degrees of size, ethnic cohesion, strict or lax laws, open or closed borders, etc. The most striking difference though has been the relationship of people with government, ranging from equal partnership to open exploitation. The nation state brought three centuries of coercive policy making coupled with paternalistic welfare.

Today the nation state is in crisis, not so much because of open borders or because the clan wars that it caused threaten to tear the world apart, but because its social contract is in crisis. The modern state can neither enforce policy nor provide welfare with credibility, and we’re not collectively sure if it should. We need a clear model of the state and its role.

[...]

Where’s the $100 million a day fine?
BP makes about $250 billion in sales per year, of which $25-$35 billion is profit before tax. Currently it spends $10 million a day trying to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For some reason it’s not achieving very quick results. Obama said that they would “pay the price” but so far the price is at least an order of magnitude too low! If BP were fined $100 million a day, minus whatever they actually spend on containment of course, then you might see some action. That amount would wipe out the year’s profits if they did nothing at all to fix the spill for about a year, so it’s a very conservative number. Fines should be high enough to make BP consider options that seal the well permanently, forfeiting its value.

[...]

You may have heard that there were huge protests in Greece over the financial measures, basically pay cuts, that the government put in place to get its finances under control. A minority of the protesters were violent. Someone set fire to a bank, there were staff inside, and three people died.

This must seem like tragic madness to outsiders, and even to many who live in Greece. When societies fail, it’s easy to conclude that people are irrational, that therefore there’s no prospect for improvement, and that imposing a basic plan or order upon them might be a good idea. Let me try and allay these notions.

[...]