The basic problem.
“Groupthink is becoming a national philosophy. ‘Groupthink’ being a coinage — and, admittedly, a loaded one — a working definition is in order. We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity — it is, after all, a perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity — an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.”–William Hollingsworth Whyte, Jr., “Groupthink,” Fortune, March 1952.
“Whyte derided the notion he argued was held by a trained elite of Washington’s ‘social engineers.’”—William Safire, NYT, 8 August 2004.
James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998). Here’s an example NOT drawn from the book: The post-unification government of Italy paid shipping companies to subsidize the passage to America of people from southern Italy and—especially—Sicily—because they were backward and wouldn’t get with the modernizing program.
James Scott, Weapons of the Weak (1985). Basically, “Puttin’ on ole Massa.”
Beloved by academics, these books deal with the relationship between educated elites and—for the most part–backward peasants in developing countries. Do they also apply to the politics of developed countries?
The Economy.
The “Washington Consensus.”
Brief description. Washington Consensus (archive.org)
Mark Reutter, Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2004). Academic book, 500 pages, so it’s OK to just read the summaries.
Congress.
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (2006). Couple of hard-headed, highly-experienced scholar-journalists.
9/11 (2001).
Report of the 9/11 Commission. A major disaster owes as much to all-government failure as it does to foreign malevolence.
The Invasion of Iraq (2003).
Robert Draper, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq (2020). Much better documented (and less vitriolic) that Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004). Which doesn’t mean that Hersh was wrong.
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2002-2006 (2007). Especially the second half of the book, which deals with the occupation policies, the insurgency, and the early efforts to counter the insurgency. If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything becomes a nail.
The Generals.
Thomas Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today (2012). At least in this branch of the federal government (and maybe in all of them), there is no accountability for failure. Wasn’t always so.
The housing bubble and the financial crisis (2007-2008).
Greg Zuckerman, The Greatest Trade Ever (2009). About John Paulson.
Michael Lewis, The Big Short (2010).
Point of both books is that it was perfectly possible to see the housing bubble and foresee the collapse of the bubble IF you were willing to work hard and didn’t automatically believe everything that you were told. Apparently, these traits are uncommon among highly-paid people on Wall Street. Or maybe they were/are and they just figured they’d stick the government for a bail-out.
Oxycontin.
Beth Macy, Dopesick (2018). The devastating impact of Oxy in Appalachia.
Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain (2021). The Sacklers.
A pharmaceutical company developed it; doctors recommended it; federal regulators said it was OK. Same as with Covid vaccines. Try overlaying a map of opioid addiction with a map of later Covid vaccine resistance. And the “core” Trump vote.
The Russia “collusion” hoax.
Michael Horowitz, Report on Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (2019).
120919-examination.pdf (justice.gov)
John H. Durham, Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns (2023).
Investigators found “no documentary or testimonial evidence” of a conspiracy. They did find a host of inexplicable “errors” made by highly experienced investigators which all tended in the same direction.
A Bartlett’s of Tacitus Quotes.
Of the German tribes beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire: “good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.”
“The more corrupt the state, the more laws.”
“It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.”
“Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”
“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”
“It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.”
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