The Contradictions of Joseph Schumpeter

Is the title of Chapter X (10)  in The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner a Touchstone Book  published by Simon & Schuster.  I have a copy of the revised seventh edition with a 1999 copyright.

For Schumpeter, capitalism was intrinsically dynamic and growth oriented.

Yet for all his faith in the inherent buoyancy of capitalism, Schumeter's long-term outlook was the exact opposite to the optimistic outlook of John Maynard Keynes.  Schumpeter, in an almost perversely teasing way, first maintained in "short run" capitalism would indeed trace a long climbing trajectory, adding that in these things, a century is a "short run".  But then came the disconcerting final judgment:  "Can capitalism survive? No.  I do not think that it can."

Any rational basis for American Exceptionalism must be based on the different economic system we have in the United States.

Schumpeter's dynamism creates problems for equilibrium models. 

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is the name given to the US policy in effect for many years.  It was probably developed by John von Neuman and co-workers.  John von Neuman died in 1957 at age 53.  The basic idea is that US Strategic Nuclear Forces were in such number and physical protection that the US could ride out a Soviet First Strike and retaliate with sufficient weapons to retaliate.  The current Wikipedia entry describes it as a Nash equilibrium.

Strategic Planners brag that Deterrence Worked.

I went into tactical command and control because that is where the work needed to be done.  I tried to avoid Strategic stuff because there was a whole lot of  noise associated with the funding of strategic weapons systems.

A wiser coworker developed a graphical display of a "nuclear laydown".  He used an HP TRS-80 to drive a flat bed plotter.  His work with the HP TRS-80 grew into a facility housing the most user friendly IBM system a 4341.  The IBM 4341 system could accommodate about 10 user terminals.

The facility was TEMPEST tested.  It was expensive.

The coworker developed an event-driven Monte Carlo simulation model which our customers liked very much.  For simulations, we considered 30 repetitions to be a large number.

I was able to use the system to support the Joint Chiefs of Staff in collecting the Operational Information Requirements for the World Wide Military Command and Control System.  This was useful work and it help my employer be in a position to bid on and win contracts.

As happens in Defense work, I needed continued employment and I had skills relevant to the analyses of the simulation runs.  I performed some analysis that was "well received" by everybody with a physics background.  It ran into problems with MAD people because my analysis is likely to lead to a "Use or Lose Decision Point".  The Measure of Effectiveness I was forced to use to get any perceived benefit to communication architecture alternatives is "additional decision time."

The analysis was labelled a "LUA" analysis and essentially went no further.  LUA is the acronym for
Launch Under Attack.  LUA scenarios were "not well received."

Proponents of MAD as part of US and USSR strategic doctrine believed that nuclear war could best be prevented if neither side could expect survive a full-scale nuclear exchange as a functioning state.  Since the credibility of the threat is critical to such assurance, each side had to invest substantial capital in their nuclear arsenals even if they were not intended for use.  In addition, neither side could be expected or allowed to adequately defend itself against the other's missiles.  This led both to the hardening and diversification of nyclear delivery systems (such as nuclear missile silos, ballistic missile submarines , and nuclear bombers kept at fail-save points) and to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The MAD scenarion is often referred to as nuclear deterrence.  The term "deterrence" was first used in this context after World War II, prior to that time, its use was limited to legal terminology.

Feyman on an Honest Politician

It has long been a part of the physics folklore that Richard Feynman said that an honest politician can’t win.  While with Harris Corporation in Florida, I mentioned this as a possible analogy for marketing.  The idea is that an “honest marketeer” is at a big disadvantage and/or can’t win.

The best reference to this that I have found is on pages 65-6 in The Meaning of It All, Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1998.  This is on page 28 of my downloaded copy of The Meaning of It All Feynman discusses two politicians running for president.  One goes through the farm section and is asked, “What are you going to do about the farm question?”  And he knows right away – bang, bang, bang.  Now he (the farmer) goes to the next campaigner who comes through.  “What are you going to do about the farm problem?” Well, I don’t know.  I used to be a general, and I don’t know anything about farming.  But it seems to me to be a difficult problem, because for twelve, fifteen, twenty years people have been struggling with it, and people say that they know how to solve the farm problem.  And it must be a hard problem.  So the way that I intend to solve the farm problem is to gather around me a lot of people who know something about it to look at all the experience that we have had with this problem before, to take a certain amount of time at it, and then to come to some conclusion in a reasonable way about it….

He continues on for a while and then observes that we would not elect the second politician. 

 In the discussion earlier in the book, Feynman has stated that when it comes to the profound questions (which can appear simple), an honest man will say that he does not know the answers.  The answers are not known to anyone.

The book, copyrighted in 1998, consists of three lectures Feynman gave considerably earlier.  He is dead now and was in 1998.  I believe the lectures were given in the 1960s.

More recently, James Carville and Jim Morris, using polling and focus groups, have helped William Jefferson Clinton have the good sounding bang, bang, bang answers.  Whatever the issue/problem, it was ole Slick’s #1 or “Top” priority.

Translation for 2016:  "Bang, bang, bang answers" translates to a "plethora of plans"; the translation of the second politician is left as an exercise for the student.  [Hint: TBD might be useful.]

As lessons/guidance for Sales/Marketing,

 1)                  Customers/voters like vendors/candidates with products/answers.  If you don’t appear to have the product, you lose the sale.

2)                  An “honest vendor” does not have the (ideal) product.  I have found that it is much easier to “promote” someone else’s work because, in part, I do not know all the weaknesses and so can do so honestly.  This says that you shouldn’t try to understand fully the technical aspects of the product.  The better you do, the harder it is to be a good politician (marketeer).

3)                  Like the political process with respect to “campaign promises”, the marketing process does make it extremely difficult to fulfill “marketing promises.”

Time to re-litigate Unfunded Mandates

Unfunded mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector without providing appropriate funding.

In the United States, federal mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector.

An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government to perform certain actions, with no money provided for fulfilling the requirements. Public individuals or organizations can also be required to fulfill public mandates.

Wikipedia states:

"As of 1992, 172 federal mandates obligated state or local governments to fund programs to some extent.  Beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States federal government has designed laws that require state and local government spending to promote national goals.  During the 1970s, the national government promoted education, mental health, and environmental programs by implementing grant projects at a state and local level; the grants were so common that the federal assistance for these programs made up over a quarter of state and local budgets.The rise in federal mandates led to more mandate regulation. During the Reagan Administration, Executive Order 12291 and the State and Local Cost Estimate Act of 1981 were passed, which implemented a careful examination of the true costs of federal unfunded mandates.  More reform for federal mandates came in 1995 with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), which promoted a Congressional focus on the costs imposed onto intergovernmental entities and the private sector because of federal mandates.  Familiar examples of Federal Unfunded Mandates in the United States include the Americans with Disabilities Act and Medicaid." 

If #BlackLivesMatter and other “in-your-face” protestors were required to fund these protest marches, the market would have some influence on current day events.

Change of Culture Needed at State Department

Acting as the current spokesman for the State Department, former Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby (Ret), disagreed with FBI Director Comey’s characterization that there is a culture of carelessness within the State Department with respect to the handling of classified information.

About 1979, I decided to stick with the operations side of the “ops/intel interface”.  There’s much more money on the INTEL side.  Over the years, I have observed a feeling of superiority among the Special Forces.  They thought they were Special (and above the law).  General David Petraeus was the commander of the Special Forces before he was chosen to lead the surge.

The CIA is under the State Department (not Defense).  Prior to George W. Bush, covert operations were covert.  My views on this are expressed in http://dr2h.blogspot.com/2012/09/covert-operations-should-be-covert.html.

I helped the State Department migrate to “Open Systems” in the 1990s.  Their computer system consisted on Wang computers.  When the US Government had trouble connecting the dots a few years ago, I figured it was because Hillary “pulled the plug” after the Bradley Manning affair.  Our stated objective was to provide all relevant information to the Warfighters in a timely manner.

Kirby announced July 7, 2016, that the State Department would reopen their investigation into Hillary’s emails.

Back “in the day”, Henry Kissinger was photographed reading a Top Secret document and the photo appeared in Time or Newsweek.

Somebody needs to instill some sanity in the handling of classified information at the Department of State and in the Special Operations community.  Nobody should be above the law.

Goals Study 1963 - 1968

Close on the heels of the PSAC Report, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) initiated the study, Goals of Engineering Education - The "Goals Study" - is probably the most ambitious, authoritative, and comprehensive study of engineering education ever undertaken. However, it suffered the misfortune of having been compiled during the very crest of the growth wave stimulated by the PSAC Report. As a result, it followed the 

prevailing philosophy of the time, used the latest data available (1966), and projected that the growth trends in engineering education would continue; it did so almost precisely at the time that the growth was in fact on the verge of being reversed.

Seven uniformed services

The United States has seven federal uniformed services that commission officers as defined by Title 10, and subsequently structured and organized by Title 10, Title 14, Title 42 and Title 33 of the  United States Code.

The seven uniformed services are, in order of precedence by ceremonial formation:

1. United States Army
2. United States Marine Corps
3. United States Navy
4. United States Air Force
5. United States Coast Guard
6. United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
7. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps

Each of the uniformed services is (except the United States Marine Corps) administratively headed by a federal executive department and its corresponding civilian Cabinet leader.