My final article of 2023 in this newspaper was called, “Four cool ideas I learnt in 2023, and four questions”. The general idea was that I would just share four of the most interesting ideas I learnt in 2023, be it from books or articles, and — like the title said — a specific question arising out of that idea to think about for 2024. In the spirit of experimentation, this final article of 2024 will run along those lines, but with a slight twist on the “how”. Where the four ideas from 2023 were strictly from books and academic articles, these four ideas now include other forms of media.
The first is a tweet (or an “X”?) from Bentley Allan, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the US. Without repeating the entire tweet, the key message is, “‘Losers picking government’ is a much more potent challenge for industrial policy than the difficulties of picking winners”. So, a common argument against industrial policy by a given state is that the state is terrible at picking winners, at least relative to the private sector. As such, instead of having the state pick winners, why not ensure that the ecosystem operates well, fix regulation, and all that kind of stuff and then, BAM!, we see private enterprise flourish.
Well, first, it’s also not clear to me that entrepreneurs are also great at picking winners. If they were, venture capital wouldn’t be a game of “let’s hope that this one winning bet cancels out nine other losing ones”. Second, Google Glass, Apple Car, Amazon Alexa, and so on. But the broader point the state makes is that the main issue for any state with industrial policy is not so much that the state isn’t great at picking winners, it’s that the state often gets captured by losers — “Losers picking government”. How many zombie initiatives and projects are kept alive — and continue to consume more brainpower — simply because interest groups have managed to lobby governments around the world? The question for Malaysia is to what extent can the public have trust that the government can stand relatively strong against narrow zombie interest groups?
The second is from an amalgamation of media — a movie called October Sky, and a book called A City on Mars. So, in October Sky, which happens to be one of my favourite movies of all time, Homer Hickam is shown to look up to a rocket scientist named Wernher von Braun. Indeed, after Hickam wins a high school science competition, he briefly gets a “congratulations” from Von Braun, which gets played up in the movie:
Random journalist: What did he say to you?!
Hickam: What did who say?
Random journalist: Von Braun! That was Wernher von Braun! You just shook his hand!
Anyway, for the longest time, I didn’t think much of that. I heard, over the years, that Von Braun was involved with the Nazis during WWII. It didn’t cross my mind again until I read A City on Mars, a book by husband-and-wife team Kelly and Zach Weinersmith on the physiological and sociological feasibility of human settlements in space (spoiler alert: tragically, not very feasible at the moment, not because of technological limitations, but more fundamental human limitations).
In it, they describe how Von Braun was roped in to develop experimental rocket-based weaponry for the Nazis (in fact, his weapons were actually not a major part of the Nazi war effort; they were experimental for almost the entire war), namely the V-2 rocket (okay, so the “V” is short for a German word that means “retribution weapon”). Anyway, most of the deaths from the V-2 were not from its use, but from its construction which took approximately 20,000 lives. The factory was built by slaves and political prisoners in a facility near the town of Nordhausen. Although Von Braun didn’t initiate the slave labour, he was aware of it — a survivor wrote in a later memoir, “The project directors are here. First, there is Wernher von Braun, the same chap who, after the war, will be venerated and shown as a fine example to young generations of the West.” Well, I wonder what the October Sky people would say now.
The lesson here is “just generally, don’t have heroes, especially those who are human”. Many who we consider to be heroes or icons or whatever will have skeletons in their closets. Some aren’t as serious — for instance, Michael Jordan, whom I completely idolise (sue me for my hypocrisy!), is known to be a massive jerk and tyrant to his teammates. And others could be like Von Braun, whose skeletons are rotten to the core. Can we let go of putting humans on pedestals?
Okay, but that being said, this doesn’t mean we can’t learn stuff from historical figures.
The third idea comes from a couple of books and a movie on Abraham Lincoln. The books are The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner and Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, while the movie is called Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg. In it, they describe Abrahm Lincoln’s political savvy and complete mastery of what it means to be a politician working to end the American Civil War and, more importantly, to end the institution of slavery in the US by passing both the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.
In particular, Lincoln builds a “team of rivals” upon his election as president, appointing to his cabinet his three main contenders for the Republican presidential nomination — Attorney-General Edward Bates, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, and Secretary of State William Seward. In reading the book by Goodwin, one can’t help but feel both frustration at Lincoln’s personnel decisions (why did he keep General McClellan around for so long?) and marvel at his ability to gain support from a wide host of stakeholders. Malaysia, of course, has a big tent today. The question is what are we doing to really improve that tent, plugging leaks that appear, and securing the foundations and tent poles as best as we can?
The fourth idea comes from a television show I’ve started watching recently called The Sopranos. (I am aware of how late to the game I am on The Sopranos. The show is incredible.) The Sopranos revolves around Tony Soprano (played by the late, great James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster who attempts to balance his family life with his role as the leader of a criminal organisation, which he reluctantly explores during therapy sessions with his psychiatrist. What a premise! A mobster with anxiety seeing a shrink. What’s the lesson here? Well, if a mob boss sees fit to see a psychiatrist for the sake of his mental health (granted, after passing out due to anxiety and panic attacks), what’s to stop the rest of us from prioritising our own mental health?
So, pulling all of this together, it’s impossible to predict with precision (no matter what the television series Foundation might say) what will happen in 2025. But if we can hold off zombie interest groups for public policy, learn not to put human beings on pedestals, but simply take what their best and wisest decisions are for ourselves, while respecting our own mental health and that of everyone around us, maybe we’ll get through 2025 alright. Happy New Year to all readers.