TRUMP’S VALUES?

In this blog, I have written of trump values.  I’ve pointed out that the trump value of natural rights adherents is liberty; the trump value of critical theorists is equality; the trump value of federalists, as far as I am concerned, is societal welfare.  What is the trump value of Trump, Donald Trump that is?  In his latest incarnation, that of a presidential candidate, he is sacrificing a lot – contract arrangements that either provide or potentially provide huge profits – so as to lead the nation to be great again.  Can we trust this man?

A guru, Robert Greene, of business acumen, instructs us that a typical strategy or law of power is the following:

Deception is always the best strategy, but the best deceptions require a screen of smoke to distract people’s attention from your real purpose.  The bland exterior – like the unreadable poker face – is often the perfect smoke screen, hiding your intentions behind the comfortable and familiar.  If you lead the sucker down a familiar path, he won’t catch on when you lead him into a trap.[1]

Do these words of advice, cynical as they are, apply to the Donald?

Before analyzing Trump’s motives in relation to this advice, let me share a bit of further thinking that is relevant to this situation.  Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, a fairly contemporary Indian philosopher (he died in 1990), came up with a cyclical theory of history.  Short of reviewing the whole theory here, let me briefly report what his thinking outlined, a view of any society as being made up of four basic groups.  The vast majority of a population, according to the theory, consists of labor.  This portion of the population is basically concerned with survival and arranging for reasonable levels of comfort and security for themselves and their families.  The remaining – ten percent or so – is made up of people who are ambitious and want to advance themselves in meaningful ways.  They are talented, in one of basically three ways:  bodily skills, intellectual skills, or acquisitive skills.  By bodily skills, I am referring to dexterity or athletic skills.  Intellectual skills revolve around skills in devising and manipulating ideas.  Acquisitive skills are about securing and even creating material goods and services or the means to acquire those resources namely by the acquisition of money.  The theory goes on to describe the cyclical progression of history as being one in which these three ambitious groups, in a certain order, take turns in running a society – one being the prominent group that holds or controls the levers of power.  For example, we in the US are in control of the acquisitive group.  For outlined reasons, the order of progression is:  the warrior group (bodily skills), intellectuals, and then those motivated by acquiring skills.  Each era of control can last about two to three hundred years.  I was introduced to this theory by reading Ravi Batra in a popular book of the late 1980s.[2]

So what pushes Trump’s buttons:  societal welfare or acquisition?  I don’t know.  But I believe trust needs to be earned.  Here, we have a person who has dedicated a lifetime to acquiring a lot of money – by his own repeated admission – and material resources.  Should we trust that he has evolved and has said to himself:  I have enough and now I want to look beyond my immediate interests and sacrifice for the nation?  Or are we “suckers” being deceived?

Back to the above advice.  No one will accuse Trump of being bland.  But Greene gives us a modification to the law.  When one is successful in deceiving, one is apt to make a reputation.  Greene offers the example of B. T. Barnum.  So outrageous were his tricks and reputation that he became a source of entertainment.  Is Trump’s flamboyancy such a source; is it so outrageous that we are willing to pay the price of admission to see the show?  And the price here is the presidency.  I believe not, but who knows?  After all, as Soren Kierkegaard pointed out:  “The world wants to be deceived.”[3]

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[1] Greene, R.  (1998).  The 48 laws of power.  New York, NY:  Penguin Books.  Quotation on p. 23.

[2] Batra, R.  (1987).  The great depression of 1990:  Has it already started coming true?  New York, NY:  Dell Publishing.

[3] Quoted in Greene, p. 30.

THE ELEPHANT

In this blog, I have pointed out the importance of the subconscious in determining behavior.  I have read the analogy of seeing the conscious mind as a rider on top of an elephant, the subconscious.  While the rider can sort of guide the elephant, once the enormous animal determines to go a certain way, the rider is just that: someone going along for the ride.  I would say that most of our education assumes that the subconscious, at best, is an incidental source or determiner of our behavior.  This is a faulty assumption in that it gives short shrift to the true nature of the power the subconscious plays in our decision-making processes.  This is especially true in our social studies, including our civics instruction.

This bias is not a product of mal-intent.  It is a product, mostly, of ignorance, an ignorance not limited to our educators but to us generally.  But this is changing, and quite quickly.  There is a significant amount of relatively recent and current research on the role our subconscious plays in decision-making.  One insight that has emerged from this research is the relative strength of the subconscious in its ability to take in information.  Some estimates hold that the mind can take in 11 million pieces of information at any one time, whereas the conscious mind is limited to forty pieces of information.  What the conscious mind does is create narratives out of all that information.  And the thing is that subconscious information is hot, as in laced with emotions.  The conscious puts order to all that, but it does not eliminate those feelings.[1]

One unfortunate bit of history is that our concern with the subconscious was initiated with the work of Sigmund Freud.  Not to denigrate the contributions of Freud, but he placed our awareness of the subconscious with sexual drives.  Yes, sex is part of the story, but only one part.  A lot more is going on with our subconscious.  One other concern, for example, is our views of politics and governance.  Therefore, civics related theory and planning need to address the effects of the subconscious on political decisions.  We need a whole area of research that addresses this area of our thinking and feeling.

I will leave you with one thought.  Our subconscious has, as we approach adulthood, a great deal of subconscious “baggage” when it comes to politics.  This is true even for those young people who don’t give much conscious thought to the subject.  A lot of it can be of the nature that “justifies” a person’s indifference.  Even for those people, as the experiences of life might intrude in this indifference, such as when confronted with unexpected taxes or fees, or an un-neighborly neighbor, or an unpleasant encounter with a policeperson, these subconscious feelings and ill-defined beliefs come into play.  Even for this type of person, one finds it difficult to have an objective discussion about the problem.  That built-up baggage plays its role, and conclusions about authority and government readily interfere with the now involved person being able to see what is really going on.  In such a state, a person finds it difficult to interact in mutually advantageous ways.

I will, in future postings, visit this subject again.

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[1] Brooks, D.  (2011).  The social animal:  The hidden sources of love, character, and achievement.  New York, NY:  Random House.

PLEASE

Have you noticed that a lot of our current political debate often questions disagreements in terms of legitimacy?  That is, opponents of a given policy are not content with attacking the prudence of the policy, they instead ratchet up the stakes by claiming said policy is somehow unconstitutional or immoral or both.  One recurring line of argument goes like this:  the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to implement the program or regulation that the government has put into effect.  After all, the Constitution doesn’t say, for example, anything about healthcare.  Or the Constitution doesn’t say anything about providing unemployment insurance.  Yet the federal government has instituted programs that do exactly that.  The powers of the federal government are delegated powers and, therefore, the federal authority has limited powers; it is not free to just legislate any old thing that the contemporary set of lawmakers wishes to initiate.  Is this true?  Are programs such as Affordable Healthcare and Social Security plainly illegitimate exercises of power?

Let’s look at the delegated powers of the United States.  They, for the most part, are found in Article I, Section 8.  That portion reads as follows:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Now some of this language sounds a bit specific.  For example,

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States …

This provision allowed the federal government to establish Washington, D. C.  But most of the language is not specific and is subject to a wide range of interpretations.  For example,

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States …

“Provide for … general Welfare of the United States”?  Please; the purpose of the founders of this republic was to form a government that could govern, period.  Add to this the power to regulate interstate and international commerce and you have a government that does not need to have specific reference in the Constitution to establish and maintain any program the Tea Party, libertarians, or any other faction of the extreme right wing wants to undermine with inflammatory language - language that questions their legitimacy on constitutional grounds.

And which body determines the meaning and constitutionality of any law?  Not Congress, not the President, but the Supreme Court and that court provides this function as citizens bring legal action that questions the constitutionality of a specific law.  And each of the laws and programs that the extreme right wing has objected to has been so questioned and has been deemed legitimate under the auspices of the Constitution. 

Enough with the language; those who use it are undermining the legitimacy of our government and are adding to the general level of cynicism.  This is not justified and is very harmful to the general welfare.

CENTRAL OBLIGATON

Let me share a brief word on obligation.  In a free society, are we free to decide we have no obligation toward that society?  For example, if you were living in the US on December 8, 1941, had the means to travel out of the country and escape any call for the draft which would result in finding yourself in the armed forces, would you have had an obligation to stay in the country and have done your part to fight the enemy?  More to the point being made here, did you have a right to leave?  How about in peace time; are there obligations in normal times?  Do you have an obligation to obey laws and pay taxes – to be simply civil and good-natured toward your fellow citizens?  Or do you have the right to choose values and courses of action in which you are not these things, singularly or collectively?  I ask because central to the natural rights construct is this notion of liberty in which you do have such rights, with maybe the exception to disobey the law – including not paying taxes.  What is the extent, under the natural rights approach, of a citizen’s obligations, of his or her rights?  What are the distinctions between rights and obligations?  And if one determines that there are obligations beyond obeying the law, should those obligations be bolstered, promoted, or otherwise supported by public policy; that is, backed up by laws or regulations issued by the government?

I honestly don’t know the answer to these questions.  I suppose answers would vary according to the defender of natural rights one chooses to listen to.  Even under the natural rights construct, one believes that one has an obligation not to hurt others or interfere with others sharing in the rights one enjoys.  But how intrusive is that obligation in the normal course of one’s life?  Is it minimal, limited to any direct action that obstructs others having their rights – such as in the case of kidnapping?  Or interfering with someone exercising his/her right of free speech?  Or cheating a partner in a business deal?  And if that is the case, who defines these limits?  What constitutes cheating, for example?  So many questions pop up when the natural rights view is taken seriously?

With a federalist approach, the emphasis changes.  There are questions with this approach, but of a different kind.  There is no question as to whether obligations exist or not.  They do and they are extensive and potentially subject to legal backing.  The main question becomes how do you justify obligations as in asking:  who are you to tell me I owe society so and so?  Charles Taylor[1] provides some thoughts on this type of questions.

I will keep this to the basic notion that obligation stems from what the individual derives from being a member of a free society.  First, if one does not live in a free society, then one is hard-pressed to see any obligations to the society, at least to the government of that society.  But, second, if one does live in a free society, then certain considerations should be taken into account.  Freedom is not a natural state of being.  If it were, human history would not have had to elapse such a long time before liberal nations would have evolved.  And “evolution” is probably not the proper term given the amount of turmoil associated with the institutionalization of those structures and processes that establish and maintain our freedoms.  As the saying goes, freedom isn’t free.  We, who are born to such an arrangement, are “blessed” as a result of our forebears who sacrificed so much to establish our free society.  We, on the other hand, have an obligation under such a reality.  That is, we are obligated not only to preserve the freedom inducing institutions, but also to further refine them according to the principles that define our freedoms.  Under the federalist model, that takes the following form:  the establishment and maintenance of our freedoms were among the key reasons for creating and sustaining our union.  We benefit from that arrangement and we owe our part in maintaining it for the future generations.  We, in other words, have the freedom to do what we should do; that is, to have a federalist view of liberty.  And we not only have a right to express that obligation, but also a duty to do so.  How’s that for a freedom message on Bastille Day?[2]

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[1] See Taylor C.  (1985).  Philosophy and the human sciences:  Philosophical papers, vol. 2.  Cambridge, England:  Cambridge University Press.  Specific text found on pp. 197-198.

[2] To be clear, the French Revolution did not establish a federalist arrangement.

MR. CHIPS AIN’T SO BAD

Early in the history of this blog, I wrote an extended critique of the state of civics education in the US.  In sum, I reported that American students were low on certain measures:  political/governmental knowledge, political participation, and disposition toward political involvement.  In addition, they were high in levels of incivility and even criminality.  These conditions were qualified – e. g., American youth might be low in political involvement and knowledge but in some studies, they fared well when compared with the youth of other nations.  My overall claim was that there was a lot of room for improvement assuming the American public wanted, in general, high levels of political/governmental knowledge, political participation, civility, and law-abiding behavior.  While I reported these shortcomings, I, on more than one occasion, made it clear that I was not placing the blame for them on the doorstep of any one person or group of people.  I believe good schooling, including efforts in civics, is the responsibility of entire communities and that the complex chore of improving our instruction in that field, as well as in all of education, falls on the many.  It is important to state this today because one of the most maligned sectors of the American workforce is our teacher corps.

In a recent book, Dana Goldstein[1] reviews some of the most stated complaints of teachers and some of the proposed “reforms” aimed at fixing the problem posed by deficient teachers, and gives us an overall view that runs counter to what many of us hear from the mass media outlets.  I would like in this posting to list some of these findings in hopes of providing some sobering insights on the “teacher problem.”

Goldstein begins by giving credence to one critique of teachers:  they do not represent the most successful graduates from the most prestigious colleges and universities.  They, as a group, have on their resumes lower than average SAT scores.  Also, most engage in classroom activities that are primarily mechanical with a reliance on lectures, worksheets, and short evaluative exercises such as spelling tests.  At least one review of elementary teachers found these boring approaches as being typical instructional fare.  The aim seems to be mostly rote memory instead of analysis, synthesis, and problem solving which tend to be more engaging and more reflective of higher order thinking on the part of students.  Oh yes, and probably less boring.  But there are other research studies that give a more promising impression.

For example, in a recent study, teachers fared very favorably when compared to other American professionals in terms of a passion for their work.  This finding was offset by another one that found that the level of being “very satisfied” with their job was plummeting among teachers.  One wonders if some of this decline has to do with the recent attempts by school administrators and politicians to “fix” the teacher problem.  Of course, the nation of late has been going through some very meaningful challenges; primarily, challenges caused by the Great Recession.

Some context:  teachers in this country, once held in high esteem, have been subject to an array of criticism, much of it of a personal tone.  For example, Governor Chris Christie the other day described teachers as having a “good gig” in that they are paid a yearly salary and have so much time off as in the summer months.  I always thought of the summer break as two months of each year when I was unemployed unless I was fortunate enough to land a summer school job.  It’s all in how you see things, I guess, but there I was at home not receiving a paycheck.  When such a thing happened to my folks when I was a kid, things were tight and the future was doubtful.  I, at least, knew I had a job come September.  But the hidden message within the Governor’s comment is that teachers are getting away with something unseemly.  Really?

But that’s Christie, known for his over-the-top histrionics.  Is he the exception?  Here’s Goldstein’s take on what is generally out there in terms of public utterances:

Today the ineffective tenured teacher has emerged as a feared character, a vampiric type who sucks tax dollars into her bloated pension and health care plans, without much regard for the children under her care. … According to sociologists who study these events, in a moral panic, policy makers and the media focus on a single class of people (in our case, veteran public school teachers) as emblems of a large, complex social problem (socioeconomic inequality, as evidenced by educational achievement gaps).  Then the media repeats, ad nauseam, anecdotes about the most despicable examples of this type of person (such as “rubber room” teachers, who collect pay, sometimes for years, while awaiting termination hearings on accusations of corporal punishment or alcoholism).  This focus on the worst of the worst misrepresents the true scale and character of what may be a genuine problem.[2]

Then Goldstein proceeds to add some real context to what is being discussed.

For example, I believe most would be surprised to know that even in the worst urban, low income, conditions, as those found in New York or Los Angeles, those beleaguered teachers preside over some of the highest achievement level increases, as measured by achievement tests, in their region.  And the author makes a very telling observation:  these teachers are much more effective than the alternative, an ongoing cast of rotating teachers as would be the case if wholesale terminations were instituted or, as is often the case, replacing disheartened teachers who retire after only a few years in the classroom.

Goldstein runs through the list of “reforms” that have proven ineffective and have made things even worse because of the said attrition rate among teachers often caused by reforms.  Central to these efforts have been reforms to limit or do away with tenure programs.  I will address tenure in a future posting.  Let me preview that posting by stating generally that there are no giveaways.  Every practice instituted by the “system” has a reason and it’s not altruism or concern for the plight of teachers.

These comments are not specifically geared toward civics teachers.  They share in the problems that face the teacher corps.  What I would hope is that criticism of teaching in America not be personal or overgeneralized.  There are problems with teaching, but they are not of the type usually depicted or of the extreme nature described by the vocal critiques who now, in many cases, make a career of such efforts.  Oh, I guess the last statement has a personal edge to it – sorry!

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[1] Goldstein, D.  (2014).  The teacher wars:  A history of America’s most embattled profession.  New York, NY:  Doubleday.

[2] Ibid., pp. 5-6.

IS THE PARTY OVER?

I have in this blog written of the function that political parties play in our political system.  Political parties are at that level of representation which funnels demands and supports, demands and supports not so much from individual citizens, who are represented by more specifically oriented groups, but from more collective entities.  These other groups are organizations and associations that solicit memberships among particular aggregates such as business people, laborers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and the like.  What political parties do is organize the demands and supports favored by these “lower” level groupings.  I have also, given the writing of E. E. Schattschneider,[1] described that the political party that represents the advantaged groups – successful business people, high salaried professionals, and the like – mainly provides a loose alignment to represent these factions’ common interests.  On the other hand, the party that represents lesser advantaged citizens – laborers, low income workers, low-skilled workers, indigent groups, etc. – provides the means by which its groups formulate stronger alliances among these respective groups.  Also thrown into the mix are very influential individuals. 

The stronger the union among the elements of a party are, the more the individual and/or group needs to compromise.  The easiest way to think of this is:  the more one has access to political resources – money, votes, expertise – the less one needs the help of others and, therefore, the less one needs to compromise.  Strong union means more compromise;  strong individual entities means less compromise.

But how does a party function in our current elections?  We have a presidential election on the horizon and an understanding of how our system works should include insight into the role parties play in the election process.  Daniel M. Shea provides a telling story:

[There was] an irate House candidate who complained to a local party leader about going it alone.  Why would the party be spending so much time and money helping the presidential candidate and offering no help to him?  The party leader answered back, “You see that big barge coming into the harbor?  Look behind, in the wake.  You see those logs, the junk and garbage being sucked along?  This year the president’s the ship and you’re the garbage.”[2]

Welcome to the world of politics.  With the upcoming presidential election approaching, civics teachers might use the performance of parties in the 2016 election to have students develop a better understanding of political parties.  Jeffrey M. Stonecash,[3] in his study of parties, identifies a list of factors that might help a teacher develop questions students can pursue.  The list includes:  correlation between “down-ballot” candidates and the presidential candidate (as alluded to in the above story), incumbency success rates, geographic location (e. g., the North vs. the South), partisanship loyalty levels, ideological biases, and strength of local party organization.  Each of these can be discussed as to meaning and historical viability in determining who wins and loses an election.  Stonecash’s study can provide assistance to teachers who want to consider these types of concerns.

As for Stonecash’s findings, his analysis indicates that correlations between presidential and House candidates, once quite high (hovering around .80), has not been nearly so high of late.  This lack of connection means that political parties are not producing winners.  To the extent this is true, political parties do not serve as funnels; that is, they are not functioning to generate compromises.  Without compromises, or at least enough of them, then the government cannot issue the policies to meet current demands.  Instead, geographic location seems to have strengthened significantly.  We have areas that are steeply ensconced in policy positions and the growing sentiment that compromise is somewhat illegitimate.  Often, positions are associated with cultural commitments and/or religious commitments.  The positive side to all of this is that voters do not seem to be blindly following the dictates of party leaders any longer.  On the other side, policy compromises are harder to find.  Have media – Limbaugh, Fox, MSNBC – been filling-in the gap created with the lessening of party influence?  Using the results in the upcoming election might add some information to our current state of voting and, if any, shifts among the electorate.  The party is not over; parties will continue to serve essential roles and functions – they organize a lot of what we call politics.  But as a meaningful funnel of demands and supports, a facilitator of compromise, one is justified to ask what its role will be as the coming years go by.  Will 2016 foreshadow more impasse with Congress and the President or a more promising future?

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[1] Schattschneider, E. E.  (1960).  The semi-sovereign people:  A realist’s view of democracy in America.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

[2] Shea, D. M.  (2015).  Book Review of Party Pursuits and the Presidential-House Electoral Connection 1900-2008,  Political Science Quarterly, 130 (1), Spring, pp. 134-136, quotation on p. 134.

[3] Stonecash, J. M.  (2013).  Party pursuits and the presidential-House electoral connection 1900-2008.  New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press.

A NEWER CHAOS

With the Greek financial crisis and the possible termination of that nation’s membership in the ill-defined European Union,[1] the state of the international order is precarious at best.  Gone is the relatively stable, albeit dangerous, international arena of the Cold War.  The great powers are presently losing their ability to establish order and that includes the United States.  So says international relations expert, Randall L. Schweller, in his recently published book, Maxwell’s Demon And the Golden Apple:  Global Discord in the New Millennium.[2]  That world of international actors seems to be spiraling into chaos or, at least, a more chaotic state.  While I must admit my lack of expertise in this area, it is one civics teachers should address.  Schweller’s book is a source that can assist teachers in that effort.

This increasing chaos is a newer sort of disruption.  Despite the tensions between Russia and the Western democracies over Ukraine and the Baltic states – where Russia is making noises of expansion over stated perceptions of NATO expansion – Schweller does not foresee war between super powers as likely.  What Schweller is more concerned about is the entropy of power due to the array of international actors that now dot that landscape.  Added to this is the deterioration of US hegemony in relation to these actors.  He describes this condition as:  “erratic, unsettled, and devoid of behavioral regularities.” (p. ix)  His description includes: 

… new actors – regional and global organizations, local militias, global crime and terrorist networks, nongovernmental organizations, and large corporations – are emerging to compete with states, each exerting a different kind of power …[3]

On a recent car trip, I listened to a BBC broadcast in which a woman was being interviewed.  She described how she, here in the US, was lured into believing the propaganda of ISIS.  Apparently, ISIS operatives have become quite skilled in using social media platforms to establish intimate relations with would-be converts, preying on the subjects’ insecurities and social isolations.  As described, these efforts, seemed quite sophisticated.  We do know that terrorist groups have been able to recruit significant numbers of fighters for their aggressions in Syria and Iraq.  The array of volunteers does not fit a simple profile.  There are the social misfits, but there are also those who seem to have been leading successful lives.  Motivations among these recruits vary and this, in turn, makes addressing the problem that more difficult.  In any event, civics teachers should be concerned that before them might be potential converts to fundamentalist allure of Islamic extremists as well as extremists of other persuasions.  Included in this list of potential recruiters can be hate groups or extreme ideologically-bent groups.  What seems to be losing its grip is the uniting force provided by nation-state legitimacy, at least, in relative terms.

Perceived dysfunction among state entities does not mean only a lack of satisfactory governmental services.  Dysfunction of this type creates vacuums – political vacuums – and these will be filled.  How?  The case of chaotic forces as described above can and, in the extreme, will demonstrate how those vacuums will be filled.

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[1] Ill-defined in that the union has limited governmental authority in financial matters.  The Union has no central bank, for example.

[2] Schweller, R. L.  (2014).  Maxwell’s demon and the golden apple:  Global discord in the new millennium.  Baltimore, MD:  John Hopkins University Press.  For a informative review of this book see Kirshner, J.  (2015).  Book review.  Political Science Quarterly, 130 (1), Spring, pp. 133-134.

[3] Ibid., p. 55.