Month: December 2022

Japanese Philosopher KARATANI Kōjin (柄谷 行人) Awarded the 2022 Berggruen Prize

An expansive thinker who crosses boundaries.

[from Nōema Magazine, by Nathan Gardels, Editor-in-Chief]

KARATANI Kōjin has been named this year’s laureate for the $1 million Berggruen Prize for Culture and Philosophy. An expansive thinker who straddles East and West while crossing disciplinary boundaries, Karatani is not only one of Japan’s most esteemed literary critics, but a highly original mind who has turned key suppositions of Western philosophy on their heads.

In Karatani’s sharpest departure from conventional wisdom, he locates the origins of philosophy not in Athens, but in the earlier Ionian culture that greatly influenced the so-called “pre-Socratic thinkers” such as Heraclitus and Parmenides. Their ideas centered on the flux of constant change, in which “matter moves itself” without the gods, and the oneness of all being—a philosophical outlook closer to Daoist and Buddhist thought than to Plato’s later metaphysics, which posited that, as Karatani puts it, “the soul rules matter.”

In the political realm, Karatani contrasts the form of self-rule from Ionian times based on free and equal reciprocity among all inhabitants — “isonomia” — with what he calls the “degraded democracy” of Athens that rested on slavery and conquest. He considers the former the better foundation for a just polity.

In a novel twist on classical categorizations, Karatani regards Socrates himself as fitting into the pre-Socratic mold. “If one wants to properly consider the pre-Socratics, one must include Socrates in their number,” he writes. “Socrates was the last person to try to re-institute Ionian thought in politics.”

A Degraded Form of Democracy in Athens

For Karatani, Athenian democracy was debased because it was “constrained by the distinctions between public and private, and spiritual and manual labor,” a duality of existence that Socrates and the pre-Socratics sought to dismantle. As a result, by Karatani’s reading, Socrates was both held in contempt by the “aristocratic faction,” which sought to preserve its privileges built on the labor of others, and condemned to death by a narrow-minded mobocracy for his idiosyncratic insistence on autonomy and liberty in pursuit of truth.

Appalled at Socrates’ fate, Plato blamed democracy for giving birth to demagoguery and tyranny, radically rejecting the idea of rule by the masses and proposing instead a political order governed by philosophers. In Karatani’s reckoning, Plato then “took as his life’s work driving out the Ionian spirit that touched off Athenian democracy”—in short, throwing out the baby with the bathwater but maintaining the disassociations, such as citizen and slave, that follow from the distinction between public and private grounded in an apprehension of reality that separates the spiritual from the material.

In order to refute “Platonic metaphysics,” Karatani argues, “it is precisely Socrates that is required.”

Turning Marx On His Head

In his seminal work, The Structure of World History, Karatani flips Marx’s core tenet that the economic “mode of production” is the substructure of society that determines all else. He postulates instead that it is the ever-shifting “modes of exchange” among capital, the state and nation which together shape the social order.

For Karatani, historically cultivated norms and beliefs about fairness and justice, including universal religions, compel the state to regulate inequality within the mythic commonality of the nation, which sees itself as whole people, tempering the logic of the unfettered market. As he sees it, the siren call of reciprocity and equality has remained deeply resonant throughout the ages, drawing history toward a return to the original ideal of isonomia.

Expanding the Space of Civil Society

Not an armchair philosopher, Karatani has actively promoted a modern form of the kind of reciprocity he saw in ancient Ionian culture, which he calls “associationism.” In practical terms in Japan, this entails the activation of civil society, such as through citizens’ assemblies, that would exercise self-rule from the bottom up.

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Karatani famously called for “a society where people demonstrate” that would expand the space of civil society and constrict the collusive power of Japan’s political, bureaucratic and corporate establishment. Like other activists, he blamed this closed system of governance that shuts out the voices of ordinary citizens for fatally mismanaging the nuclear power industry in a country where earthquakes and tsunamis are an ever-present danger.

An Expansive Mind

Along with The Structure of World History (2014) and Isonomia and The Origins of Philosophy (2017), the breadth of Karatani’s interests and erudition are readily evident in the titles of his many other books. These include Nation and Aesthetics: On Kant and Freud (2017), History and Repetition (2011), Transcritique: On Kant and Marx (2003), Architecture As Metaphor: Language, Number, Money (1995) and Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (1993).

The prize ceremony will be held in Tokyo in the spring.

Preparing for the 2020 Round: Select Topics in International Censuses

[from the U.S. Census Bureau, December 9, 2022]

The U.S. Census Bureau is pleased to announce the release of additional technical notes in the series entitled Select Topics in International Censuses. Each one highlights a new subject or method relevant to census planners in middle-to low-income countries. They complement the U.N. Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses [archived PDF] by describing select topics in more detail.

The new notes [archived PDFs] focus on:

Sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and prepared by U.S. Census Bureau experts, the Select Topics in International Censuses series is designed to assist staff in NSOs to address some of their most pressing census issues.

Technical notes on other topics are in development and will be released in the near future.

Globalization and Its Nuances

The PBS TV program History Detectives had an episode entitled “Atocha Spanish Silver” where the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha was described like this:

“In 1985, one of the greatest treasure discoveries was made off the Florida Keys, when the wreck of the Spanish ship Atocha was found. On board were some forty tons of silver and gold, which in 1622 had been heading from the New World to the Spanish treasury as the means to fund the Thirty Years’ War.”

Is this an obvious case of globalization? What about Marco Polo? Rome–Han dynasty China trade in silks? Silk Road and Samarkand? Colombus? Magellan? Vasco da Gama?

All of these cases constitute a kind of harmless kind of “pop globalization” based on exotic voyages and travels.

Consider another such example, perhaps more academic:

“About the middle of the sixteenth century Antwerp reached its apogee. For the first time in history there existed both a European and a world market; the economies of different parts of Europe had become interdependent and were linked through the Antwerp market, not only with each other but also with the economies of large parts of the rest of the world. Perhaps no other city has ever again played such a dominant role as did Antwerp in the second quarter of the sixteenth century.”

(Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Koenigsberger and Mosse, Holt Rinehart Publishers, 1968, page 50)

Debt repudiations in several places in the 1550s are described like this:

“This caused the first big international bank crash, for the Antwerp bankers now could not meet their own obligations.”

(Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Koenigsberger and Mosse, Holt Rinehart Publishers, 1968, page 51)

This sounds like some kind of identifiably global period.

Actually, modern historians define globalization as “price convergence” (i.e., wheat has now a unified “world price,” implying a world market). This rigorous definition is confirmed by and also shows up in the data in the 1820s and may or may not be prefigured by all the Marco Polo and Atocha silver stories, mentioned above.

These episodes in history are not there yet.

One sees wheat prices and other commodity prices converging in the 1820s and thereafter based on railroads, steamships and telegrams.

The classic in this kind of analysis is:

Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, by Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson.

Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of In Globalization and History, Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of trade, migration, and international capital flows in the Atlantic economy in the century prior to 1914—the first great globalization boom, which anticipated the experience of the last fifty years. The authors estimate the extent of globalization and its impact on the participating countries, and discuss the political reactions that it provoked. The book’s originality lies in its application of the tools of open-economy economics to this critical historical period—differentiating it from most previous work, which has been based on closed-economy or single-sector models. The authors also keep a close eye on globalization debates of the 1990s, using history to inform the present and vice versa. The book brings together research conducted by the authors over the past decade—work that has profoundly influenced how economic history is now written and that has found audiences in economics and history, as well as in the popular press.

(book summary)

In everyday language, we associate the word globalization with some ever-increasing Marco Polo phenomena. While that’s not entirely wrong, globalization in the more technical sense begins to show up in the data only from the 1820s. At this point, we begin to see the convergence of worldwide wheat prices, for example. This makes the world, for the first time, a global “store” with unified prices. Here is the technical beginning of globalization. The years 1870-1914 are subsequently the first real era of modern globalization and represent a kind of “take-off” from the first stirrings of the 1820s. World Wars I & II might be seen as globalization backlash.

At this moment in world history, whether Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will constitute a new wave of deglobalization remains to be seen.

From ASEAN and G20 to APEC, as World Leaders Meet in Person Again, 3 Reasons to Root for Multilateralism

By Wang Huiyao | Founder of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Over the past two weeks, Asia has played host to the most intense sequence of multilateral summits since the pandemic began, as national leaders gathered for meetings organized by ASEAN, the G20 and APEC. Although overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, the meetings marked a welcome return to in-person summit diplomacy, and the better-than-expected outcomes show hope yet for multilateralism.

The conclaves began in Phnom Penh with the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. At the first of such in-person events in almost three years, ASEAN leaders took the positive step of agreeing in principle to admit East Timor as the 11th member of the organization.

As leaders moved on to Bali for the Group of 20 summit, expectations were low after ministerial meetings in the run-up had failed to produce consensus. Earlier in the year, given fractures in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was a question mark over whether the G20 could even go ahead or survive in its existing form.

In the end, the summit surpassed expectations by producing a joint declaration after intense negotiations, with leaders finding the compromises necessary to unite in declaring that “today’s era must not be of war” and pledging to uphold the multilateral system.

The summit also saw a positive face-to-face meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden, their first as leaders, signaling a willingness to halt the downward trajectory of China-U.S. relations.

In Bangkok, the 21 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum also pledged to uphold and strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system. Importantly, the group agreed on a multi-year work plan for an Asia-Pacific free trade area.

Reflecting on these three summits, three takeaways give reason for cautious optimism that multilateralism can yet be revived and play a major role in solving our challenges.

First, and perhaps most obviously, the return of in-person summit diplomacy is a welcome uplift for global cooperation. Virtual formats played a useful interim role at the height of the pandemic but were never a substitute for getting leaders in the same room. That is especially when it comes to interactions on the sidelines, often as important as the main event.

China’s return to diplomacy at the highest level was a further boost, both for the nation and the rest of the world.

In addition to Xi’s highly anticipated meeting with Biden, the Chinese leader met over a dozen other leaders at the G20 and APEC summits, including a warmer-than-expected first meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his first meeting with an Australian prime minister since 2016.

Leaders got to meet their new counterparts for the first time or build on existing relationships, which can only help global cooperation.

The second takeaway is that as grave as our challenges are, the threat of escalating conflict and severe economic pressures on all nations seem to be focusing minds and increasing the willingness to engage and cooperate—out of necessity if nothing else.

The G20 summit was the second major one this year to surpass expectations after the 12th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in June surprised observers by agreeing on a plan to reform the organization and its dispute settlement mechanism. The G20 statement reiterated support for this WTO reform plan, which will be critical to get the free trade agenda back on track and provide a much-needed boost for the global economy.

Third, and perhaps most significantly for the long term, the recent summits marked an acceleration of the trend towards multi-polarization in international diplomacy, and in particular, the rising influence of non-aligned “middle powers” to shape multilateral outcomes.

The middle powers represented at ASEAN, the G20 and APEC have huge stakes in avoiding a bifurcation of the global economy that might result from a new cold war. They don’t want to be forced to pick sides and many show a growing willingness and ability to build bridges and restore positive momentum for multilateralism.

Indonesia is a prime example. The country’s strategic heft and non-aligned credibility make it well-placed to bridge different camps. President Joko Widodo made a big political bet on the success of the G20 and has won praise for the deft diplomacy that kept the organization alive and got it to a joint statement.

The Indian delegation reportedly also played a big role in achieving consensus on language in the statement, with the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)—as well as Indonesia—turning out to be crucial swing voters in securing the joint statement. One Indian official said it was “the first [G20] summit where developing nations shaped the outcome.”

There is scope for this trend to continue next year as middle powers continue to rise in stature, and India and Indonesia take over the presidency of the G20 and ASEAN, respectively. Brazil will host the G20 the year after.

Over in Sharm el-Sheikh at the COP27 UN climate summit, another middle power—the host Egypt—also won praise for helping to shepherd a historic financing deal for poor countries affected by climate change. But the ultimate failure to reach a commitment to phase down fossil fuels was a sobering reminder of the huge difficulties that remain in forging the global consensus needed to overcome our shared challenges.

Education and Circular Causation: Everything Causes Everything Else

The student will have seen in these educational essays the notion of “Husserl’s rhomboid”:

The great philosopher, Edmund Husserl, who died in 1938, would bring a matchbox to class and show his students they see parts and some surface area of the matchbox (a kind of rhomboid, hence the name “Husserl’s rhomboid”) but never all of it at the same time. Students can walk around the matchbox and see facets. They can twirl the matchbox but whatever they do, the students cannot “espy” or glimpse all of it except in their imaginations, once they have been exposed to all of it, side by side, facet by facet.

Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974, has something a bit analogous when he speaks of “circular cumulative causation”:

Circular cumulative causation is a theory developed by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1956. It is a multi-causal approach where the core variables and their linkages are delineated. The idea behind it is that a change in one form of an institution will lead to successive changes in other institutions. These changes are circular in that they continue in a cycle, many times in a negative way, in which there is no end, and cumulative in that they persist in each round. The change does not occur all at once, which would lead to chaos, rather the changes occur gradually.

Gunnar Myrdal developed the concept from Knut Wicksell and developed it with Nicholas Kaldor when they worked together at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

In the characteristics relevant to an economy’s development process, Myrdal mentioned the availability of natural resources, the historical traditions of production activity, national cohesion, religions and ideologies, and economic, social and political leadership.

He writes:

“The notion of stable equilibrium is normally a false analogy to choose when constructing a theory to explain the changes in a social system.

What is wrong with the stable equilibrium assumption as applied to social reality is the very idea that a social process follows a direction—though it might move towards it in a circuitous way—towards a position which in some sense or other can be described as a state of equilibrium between forces. Behind this idea is another and still more basic assumption, namely that a change will regularly call forth a reaction in the system in the form of changes which on the whole go in the opposite direction to the first change. The idea I want to expound in this book is that, on the contrary, in the normal case there is no such a tendency towards automatic self-stabilisation in the social system. The system is by itself not moving towards any sort of balance between forces, but is constantly on the move away from such a situation. In the normal case a change does not call forth countervailing changes but, instead, supporting changes, which move the system in the same direction as the first change but much further. Because of such circular causation as a social process tends to become cumulative and often gather speed at an accelerating rate…”

(Gunnar Myrdal, Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, Gerald Duckworth, 1957, pp. 12–13)

Myrdal developed further the circular cumulative causation concept and stated that it makes different assumptions from that of stable equilibrium on what can be considered the most important forces guiding the evolution of social processes. These forces characterize the dynamics of these processes in two diverse ways.

These essays that you are reading here are examples encouraging students to put causes in a kind of circle: history exists because economics exists because psychology exists because society exists because history exists. Everything is causing everything else. There isn’t a simple “linear parade.”

By way of contrast, in a person’s private life, he/she went to the dentist before buying the batteries and after having lunch. There’s a timeline of events.

In history, there are such linear timelines also: John Kennedy was assassinated before Donald Trump became president. You had breakfast before dinner. You slept before you got up in the morning.

However, processes (industrialism, migration, urbanization, inflation, etc.) are not analyzable as events like meals and one-time occurrences but are more like getting old or learning a language.

Multi-causal interpretations and circular causes get the student out of simple, “this happened and that happened” in favor of “this and that caused each other, going both ways and interacting with other pressures too.” Everything is causing and altering everything else in all directions.

First Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator Participants Begin Technical Assessment

[From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) News]

Program Selected Three Participants for Cohort 1

The Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator™ (CECA)’s first cohort of solution providers—Blue Ridge Networks, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Xage—recently began a technical assessment of their technologies that offer strong authentication solutions for distributed energy resources.

The selected solution providers will take part in a six-month acceleration period, where solutions will be evaluated in the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) cyber range.

Working with its partners, CECA identified urgent security gaps, supporting emerging technologies as they build security into new technologies at the earliest stage—when security is most effective and efficient. The initiative is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and sponsored by DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) and utility industry partners in collaboration with DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

“We are thrilled to welcome and work with the first participants to the secure energy transformation,” said Jon White, director of NREL’s Cybersecurity Program Office. “These cyber-solution providers will work with NREL, using its world-class capabilities, to develop their ideas into real-world solutions. We are ready to build security into technologies at the early development stages when most effective and efficient.”

The selected innovators:

Blue Ridge Networks’ LinkGuard system “cloaks” critical information technology network operations from destructive and costly cyberattacks. The system overlays onto existing network infrastructure to secure network segments from external discovery or data exfiltration. Through a partnership with Schneider Electric, Blue Ridge Networks helped deploy a solution to protect supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for the utility industry.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)’s Binary Armor® is used by the U.S. Department of Defense and utilities to protect critical assets, with the help of subject matter experts to deliver cyber solutions. SNC plans to integrate as a software solution into a communication gateway or other available edge processing to provide a scalable solution to enforce safe operation in an unauthenticated ecosystem. SNC currently helps secure heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems; programmable logical controllers; and wildfire detection, with remote monitoring for two different utilities.

Xage uses identity-based access control to protect users, machines, apps, and data, at the edge and in the cloud, enforcing zero-trust access to secure operations and data universally. To test technology in energy sector environments, Xage provides zero-trust remote access, has demonstrated proofs of concept, and deploys local and remote access at various organizations.

Three major U.S. utilities, with more expected to join, are partners with CECA: Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Duke Energy and Xcel Energy. At the end of each cohort cycle, cyber innovators will present their solutions to the utilities with the goal to make an immediate impact.

Additionally, CECA participants benefit from access to NREL’s unique testing and evaluation capabilities, including its ARIES cyber range, developed with support from EERE. The ARIES cyber range provides one of the most advanced simulation environments with unparalleled real-time situational awareness and visualization to evaluate renewable energy system defenses.

Applications for the second CECA cohort will open in early January 2023 for providers offering solutions that uncover hidden risks due to incomplete system visibility and device security and configuration.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC.