suburbanmusings

It's been a busy few weeks for me, with a new job and a move to the other end of the country, so I've not had much time for posting or indeed keeping up with current affairs.

The most interesting recent news story was the decision by President Obama to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a civillian trial in New York for his alleged role in the mass-murder comitted on 9/11. This is an excellent decision in my view and something that should have been done when KSM was captured in 2003. Bafflingly the relatives of some 9/11 victims don't want KSM to set foot on American soil, as if he will somehow manage to escape custody and live a free life in the US. A free and fair legal system is the bedrock of Western civillisation and denying this right to KSM is arguably as damaging to the principles of a free society as 9/11 itself. The Attorney-General also announced he'd be pressing for the death penalty, which would seem to bizarre punishment for a man who openly craves a martyr's death. It would be far more appropriate to let him rot in obscurity in some anonymous super-max prison, than to reward his peverse world view by making him a martyr.

I caught the last ten minutes of Question Time this week and both panelists and audience were getting rather vexed on the subject of immigrants taking British jobs. Certainly there are many serious problems with mass immigration, particulary with regards to integration and the effect on public services. However, I notice that, in my local bank at least, a number of cashiers are Polish. I would imagine that employers such as banks would much rather employ native English speakers, so if they cannot fill these vacancies with British citizens, at a time of high unemployment, then it presumably means that they do not want the job. Perhaps one problem is that the welfare system does not provide enough incentive for the unemployed to find work, nevertheless if 'native' Brits are not willing to take on such jobs then they can hardly complain if foreigners leave their families and friends and travel hundreds of miles to fill the gap.

It appears that the strong pressure exerted by the international community over the past few weeks has forced Hamid Karzai to announce a second round of voting for the Afghan Presidential elections to take place on 7 November. Organising a an election in less than three weeks would be a major challenge in a developed stable country; in Afghanistan the task is nothing short of monumental. However, the international community appeared to have little alternative if it wished to keep Afghanistan’s fragile democracy alive and an election re-run should at least provide a foundation to step-up nation building and counter-insurgency efforts.

Tom Coghlan has an excellent piece about the situation in the Times today; his observations about rural Afghanistan are spot on and, although rural Afghans have little interest in national politics they do seem to want to see whether the international community will show commitment to the country. Without wanting to lurch into hyperbole, this could be the last chance for the coalition to prevent the slow collapse of democracy and the eventual onset of another in civil war in Afghanistan. The international community should commit full military, political, and nation building resources to Afghanistan for the good of the country, the region and the wider world. Now is not the time to blink.

p.s. on a personal note I’m moving to London this weekend to start a new job, posting is difficult enough at the best of times and I may be incommunicado until I get settled in, so this may be my last post for a couple of weeks.

I don't really care about the game; I just wanted to be the first to use that pun.

“We don’t have enough forces to do everything, everywhere, at once”

Gen. McChrystal

President Obama inherited an unenviable set of challenges from President Bush; economic crisis, nuclear proliferation in Iran, war in Iraq, unreformed healthcare and the failure to obtain international agreement on climate change. But while the world economy begins to come out of intensive care, Iraq starts to show some tentative signs of stabilisation and there is a growing consensus for action on the Iranian nuclear programme, Obama may yet see his presidency defined by the outcome of a war which is entering its ninth year.

The war in Afghanistan has been chronically under-resourced since its inception; worse, no clear strategy has ever been outlined by the politicians who have deployed troops to the country. At best coalition forces in Afghanistan can claim to have fought the Taliban to a stalemate, but in many areas of the country they appear to be loosing. After over three years in Helmand British troops often still cannot go 100 yards out of their bases without encountering deadly minefields, eight US soldiers were killed when their base was almost overrun on Saturday, some British frontline units are reported to have suffered 25% casualty rates in their recent six-month summer tour and most tellingly of all, 2009 has been bloodier for coalition forces than the first four years of the war combined. Afghanistan, the war that Obama described as “necessary”, is increasingly unpopular amongst US voters, while at the same time General McChrystal, the top soldier in the country, has warned that, without reinforcements by early next year, the conflict will “likely end in failure”.

The choices facing Obama are stark. Does he agree to McChrystal’s urgent request for 40,000 more troops and risk becoming further mired in a potentially unwinnable conflict that has already lasted as long as Vietnam and may become known as ‘Obama’s War’? Or does he, as Vice-President Biden has proposed, pull back from Afghanistan and concentrate his forces on hunting al Qaeda in Pakistan, in doing so perhaps sacrificing the meagre gains that have cost so much blood and treasure? No doubt this is one of the most difficult decisions Obama will have to take, whatever choice he makes will affect the lives of countless individuals and the futures of at least three countries. But this is the nature of the job that he volunteered to do and, bleak though the situation may seem, McChrystal’s report does offer America the chance to meet its strategic objectives whilst enabling it, one day, to extricate itself from its Central Asian tarpit.

The first question that Obama will be likely to ask himself when considering McChrystal’s request is the one that most of us ask; simply, is it worth the human cost? But while this is a natural question for any compassionate human being to ask, Obama should not allow it to cloud his judgment. In contrast to the Vietnam War, America and its allies are fielding professional volunteer armies; morale amongst ordinary troops appears to remain strong and they are often eager to do job they signed up for, even if they are privately disillusioned with the chances of success.

In essence no-one, perhaps apart from the troops themselves and their families, can really decide whether the war is ‘worth’ the cost. The more pertinent issue is whether the war is necessary and what the coalition’s strategic aims should be.

Since 2001 the major rationale for maintaining a coalition presence in Afghanistan has been the aim of creating a free democratic society, loosely based on the ideas of universal human rights. Yet Iraq has exposed the limits of American power, especially with regard to nation-building, and that was a country with a large bureaucracy and a well educated middle class. In contrast Afghanistan has been at war for thirty years, during which time its population has more than doubled and its economy has collapsed. It is reported to have no more than 200 literate and competent bureaucrats and its Government is amongst the most corrupt in the world.

It is true that much good work has been done in improving the lives of women and promoting a more free society; but most Afghans, particularly in the rural areas, are culturally closer to the Taliban than they are to the ideals of the West, (this is a country in which 80% of women are illiterate and a journalist is serving a life sentence for distributing an article about women’s rights under Islam). Even if Obama agrees to McChrystal’s request for 40,000 extra troops, that would still mean there were only 140,000 soldiers tasked with rebuilding a country of 28 million. In short the coalition only has enough manpower to concentrate in certain areas, indeed coalition troops are still to set foot in the vast southern half of Helmand Province. Women will continue to be treated as chattel in these untouched, isolated areas and rural communities will continue to live in medieval poverty; unfortunately it may always be so. The coalition succeeding in removing the brutal Taliban regime but it does not have the capability to transform Afghan culture in the short-term, even if it chose to do so.

Instead Obama must base his Afghan strategy on two pragmatic and hard-headed conditions, America’s national interests and its ability to achieve its goals. A full withdrawal from Afghanistan is clearly unfeasible; it would inevitably lead to civil war and the fall of the Karzai Government. An Afghan-Taliban regime would then be free to step up its already fierce insurgency campaign in Pakistan, a dangerously unstable nuclear-armed state. Furthermore veteran Taliban and Islamist fighters would be free, indeed would be enticed, to spread their Jihad to India, China, the ‘Stans’, the Caucasus, South East Asia, the Middle East and the West.

America then cannot cut and run, but the only objective which is seemingly achievable in the medium term is that of an Afghan Government that is relatively free and relatively incorrupt and a security situation which is stable enough for Afghan forces to take over the fight with minimal reliance upon coalition forces.

If Obama settles upon such an objective, then McChrystal has outlined the strategy and the tactics which could make it achievable; but it will require a multi-pronged approach over a long period, it will be time consuming, it will be expensive, it will be bloody and above all, it will be ugly.

Firstly the isolated rural areas should be left to the Taliban; the coalition does not have enough resources to be everywhere at once. McChrystal has already advised that he wishes to concentrate his forces in the towns and the centres of power where they can provide security for the people. America should take the lead in ensuring development projects that really improve the lives of locals are implemented quickly and efficiently, bypassing corrupt local officials. This would help to improve security, stability and Governance in populated areas and restrict Taliban influence.

If Obama authorises a further 40,000 troops it could give the coalition greater flexibility to raid Taliban opeerating bases and keep its influence from the population centres. McChrystal has also declared the coalition forces should be more concerned with protecting local civilians rather than killing Taliban. Use of firepower and air strikes should be scaled back in heavily settled areas and priority could be given to providing security rather than engaging in pitched battles.

McChrystal believes that there should be increased efforts to turn less ideologically committed members of the Taliban and reintegrate them into society. Turning former insurgents was key to the success of the surge in Iraq, and full financial and diplomatic resources should be made available for this project. Obama should even countenance the participation of the Taliban in democratic Governance.

However this campaign will not be won simply by killing, isolating or turning the Taliban. Indeed the Taliban will probably be active in the region for decades to come, much like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or FARC in Columbia. Crucially the coalition will rely on Afghans to form a (relatively) coherent state and take responsibility for their own security, thus allowing coalition forces the chance to withdraw with their strategic objectives intact.

This 'Afgan element' is likely to be the lynchpin of Obama’s Afghan strategy and unfortunately it represents by far the biggest challenge. The brazen corruption which was so evident during the recent re-election of President Karzai is likely to have hugely damaged the reputation of democratic Government in the eyes of ordinary Afghans. It is unrealistic to expect the country to achieve a Jefforsonian democracy in eight years; however, some form of functioning central Government is crucial if Afghanistan is not to fall back into civil war or theocratic dictatorship. Obama could put pressure on Karzai to agree to a second round of voting, but corruption seems endemic, and at this stage it is difficult to see how far America can interfere in the running of what is still a sovereign state.

It is impossible, indeed it is not desirable, to kill every last Talib. Any coalition exit strategy will depend on the readiness of Afghan forces to take over responsibility for their country’s security. McChrystal wants to expand the Afghan Army to 134,000 by December 2010 and achieve an eventual Afghan police and army strength of 400,000. If Obama and Nato provide extra resources it is feasible that this could be achieved, but it is not just a question of numbers. Afghanistan is poverty stricken and it would probably need international funding to permanently maintain an army of this size. Furthermore the current Afghan Army is plagued by ill-discipline, drug use, corruption, paedophilia, and incompetence. It remains to be seen whether the Afghan state could maintain an army which could hold off the Taliban by itself. History suggests it is possible; after the Soviet withdrawal in 1988 the Afghan National Army was able to hold back the Mujahideen until the Central Government, (shorn of Western and Soviet financial support) finally collapsed in 1992.

As flag draped coffins continue to be flown home few of us would want the awesome responsibility faced by Obama as he decides whether to send more men and women to be killed or maimed thousands of miles away from home. If there was any doubt about the gravity of the decision it was dispelled by the matter-of-fact warning contained in McChrystal’s report that if the surge is authorised it is likely that in the short-term "Afghan and coalition casualties will increase."

But we should also heed McChrystal’s warning that “Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure." If Obama authorises the surge and McChrystal’s strategy is successful we are still likely to be left with a Government tainted by corruption, a country mired in poverty, human rights for women and others as far away as ever and a stubborn and bloody rural insurgency. Few in 2001 would have seen this outcome as a victory, but given the challenges faced today, simply avoiding defeat may represent an unlikely success.

“In the past fifty years the Muslim world has been catapulted into modernity. From my grandmother to me is a journey of just two generations, but the reality of that voyage is millennial. Even today you can take a truck across the border to Somalia and find you have gone back thousands of years in time.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s life story, ‘Infidel’, is not the most elegantly written book I have ever read, which is understandable when you consider that English was the fourth of five languages that she had to learn during her young life. However, the narrative of a young girl fleeing the problems of the Third World to start a new life in the West and her concurrent intellectual voyage of discovery, neatly encapsulates what, in my opinion, is one of the defining issues of the early 21st Century.

Before Globalisation started its inexorable recent rise in 1945, human societies and cultures tended to develop at differing rates and along divergent paths. Native American tribes, isolated from the rest of humanity for up to 10,000 years, and Australian Aborigines, isolated for up to 60,000 years, did not diverge greatly from the hunter-gatherer societies from which all humans originate. Other great cultures certainly held differing beliefs and ideas but there was no great divergence in human society until the late medieval period slowly morphed into what may be loosely termed as the Western European Renaissance and then the Enlightemnent. Around this period, somewhere between the time of the Gutenburg printing press, Martin Luther, Montaigne, Voltaire and Spinoza, European culture began to develop along a path which was distinctly different from other societies.

Europe’s history is a story of constant flux, a narrative of sectarianism, persecution, slave-trading and imperialism; but also enlightenment, reformation, revolution and intellectual and social evolution. European rationalism and intellectual enquiry culminated in the emergence of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, modern philosophy, industrialisation, medicine, modern literature and economics, which fundamentally changed not only ordinary peoples’ way of life, but also the way they viewed the world. In the first half of the twentieth century this human story reached its climax as ordinary people saw their lives fundamentally changed through industrial, political, social and sexual revolutions; but also through two world wars, numerous civil wars and the most terrible genocide the world has ever known.

Whilst this 500 year long human story utterly changed the way that Europeans lived their lives, it led to a ‘Great Divergence’ in which European life and thought differed fundamentally from the dominant ideas of other cultures. In short, by 1969 Europeans were generally free to choose how to live their lives (so long as they did not cause harm to others) and were generally free to choose their own (secular) Government, to say what they wanted (within reason) and to choose the extent to which they observed a religion, (if they chose a religion at all). These seemingly simple principles were, and are, in many ways the antithesis of cultures in which the twin ideas of family honour and religious absolutism were, and are, held as unquestionable concepts.

Until 1945 Globalisation was a tangible but weak and largely latent process. After World War Two, a revolution in communications, trade and economic growth led to an unprecedented intermingling of different cultural beliefs and ideas. Most fundamentally of all for Western Europe, from the 1970s onwards it experienced one of the biggest migration of peoples ever known by humanity.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was brought up in a culture in which the rights of the individual were totally subservient to the diktats of her religion, her family and her clan. She was circumcised in the name of family honour, her father effectively married her to a man he had met two hours earlier without her consent and she was told only to obey and not to enquire about her religion. Her family fled Somalia, a state destroyed by four decades of Communist dictatorship and two decades of clan warfare and anarchy. She lived in Saudi Arabia, a racist totalitarian theocracy and Kenya, a country mired by tribal hatred, endemic corruption, terrible disease, and poverty that grew with each passing year, before fleeing a forced marriage to claim asylum in Holland under false pretences.

Hirsi Ali describes how her Somali grandmother had been bewildered when she first encountered electric lights and radios. Her own first impressions of the West, (clean streets, rubbish disposal, buses that arrived on time, men and women treating each other as equals, even cheese graters) set her on the long road of empirical analysis and intellectual discovery which eventually led her to reject the cultural and religious dogmas which had been instilled in her since birth.

Yet while Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who crucially lived amongst indigenous Dutch rather than émigré Somalis, made a personal journey which led her to reject the diktats of absolutist religion and the concept of ‘honour’, many others have taken the physical journey but remained trapped in a mental cage. As a member of the Dutch parliament Hirsi Ali commissioned a study which found that between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two of the twenty five provinces of the Netherlands. It was clear that there were problems with integration and mass-immigration in a liberal society. Hirsi Ali became an outspoken critic of the concept of multiculturalism which she believed encouraged immigrants to live in physical and cultural ghettoes, in which women could be beaten or even killed by their husbands without fear of punishment by the law, and in which free will, critical thought and social integration were stifled. Ayaan Hirsi Ali eventually made a short film called 'Submission' with the Dutch director Theo Van Gogh, in which they advocated the opening of a dialogue on equal terms between Muslim women and Allah.

Then, one day in Amsterdam, Theo Van Gogh was approached in the street by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan. Bouyeri pulled out a gun and shot Van Gogh several times at point blank range. Van Gogh collapsed and begged Bouyeri, “Can’t we talk about this?”; Bouyeri shot him four more times and slit his throat with a butcher’s knife; he then stabbed a death threat against Hirsi Ali to Van Gogh’s chest. Hirsi Ali has been forced to live in hiding ever since.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story tells us a lot about the fundamental issues facing the world today and my own halting attempts to address these issues are a leitmotif of my blog. The failed states and civil wars of the post-Cold War Third World, Islamic state-theocracy, mass migration, cultural dislocation, the rise of religious fundamentalism and the failings of multiculturalism in Western Europe. Hirsi Ali’s life has been dominated by these themes but they are issues which the entire world also faces today; from 9/11 and 7/7 through to Iranian nuclear programmes, the integration of immigrant communities, international dialogues, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the failure of Governance in states such as Pakistan and Somalia. The stories of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and many others like her help us to understand why we face such problems; but they also raise the question: why have others who have shared similar experiences taken such a different path and what can we do to reach out to them?

Yay. Music videos are back on YouTube. More often than not the music industry uses sex to sell a video, however, the best are a form of modern art in their own right. Here are five of my favourites.

Royksopp: Remind Me

A knowing take on the often compartmentalised nature of modern life, cool graphics too.

M83: Kim and Jessie

It's okay, they're French, it's art. I think.

The White Stripes: Fell In Love With A Girl

Primary chords, primary colours. And not a computer graphic in sight.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Maps

You don't need clever concepts when you have real tears.

Feist: 1234

This is what the world will look like when global peace is achieved, and everyone starts shopping at GAP.

In a reccent post I discussed the fallacy that a perfect system could be run by imperfect human beings. In the post I laid some of the blame for the Credit Crunch on Alan Greenspan, implying that as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, he had come to believe that the efficiency of the market could always be relied upon to provide a favourable outcome in the financial sector.

I was, perhaps, a little harsh on Mr Greenspan who is, after all, a fallible human being like the rest of us. Greenspan may well have been over-reliant on low interest rates to help the economy recover from the dotcom crash and 9/11, and he may well have underestimated the potential risks posed by the deregulation of the securities markets. However Greenspan was well aware of the vagaries of the financial system following his chairmanship of the Fed during the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of savings and loans companies in the 1990s and the bankruptcy of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund in 1998. Indeed the leitmotif of Greenspan’s autobiography is the recurring turbulence which afflicts financial markets and the challenges associated with this problem. Despite his reputation as a ‘free-market fundamentalist’, Greenspan is not an ideologue and his worldview appears to be based on observation and rational analysis, rather than inflexible ideology.

No doubt with the benefit of hindsight we can see that more could have been done to lessen the impact of the Credit Crunch and important lessons have been learnt by regulators, financial institutions and politicians. However, it is clear that a perfect system cannot be achieved and that financial markets will experience crises in the future, reliant as they are on human nature.

Greenspan gives a broadly similar view in an interview with the BBC, stating:

"It's human nature, unless somebody can find a way to change human nature, we will have more crises and none of them will look like this because no two crises have anything in common, except human nature."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8244600.stm

The BBC today reported that Hackney Borough Council had painted over a popular mural by the grafiti artist Banksy. Despite the fact that the piece of art was on private property and the owner had not given permission for the ‘work’ to be carried out, the council used taxpayers’ money to cover the popular local attraction with a coat of thick, black paint. Such a display of ignorance and petulance should not be surprising, however.

At the risk of generalising, my experience of local councils is that they are run by people who have enough self-importance and pig-headedness to pursue a career in politics, yet lack the intelligence and imagination needed to win a national seat.

Unfortunately local politicians still have plenty of opportunity to exercise arbitrary power; virtually every town in Britain has been plighted by post-war tower blocks, shopping centres, urban motorways and multi-story car parks. In his current tv series, 'Saving Britain’s Past', architectural critic Tom Dyckhoff presents an episode about Bath City Council’s attempts to destroy the town's unique architectural heritage, due to a complete lack of imagination or cultural awareness by local politicians. Pressed to comment on his decision to demolish dozens of Georgian terraces in the 1970s one Bath councillor stated “It seemed the right thing to do at the time . . . we had many Georgian houses and we were going to get a shiny new shopping development out of it." A similar menality still prevails in Hackney Borough Council.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8215208.stm

Last week's devestating terrorist attacks on Government buildings in Baghdad show that, despite the withdrawl of US troops, Islamists and Ba'athists are still intent on destroying Iraq's sovereign Government and imposing their ideology on its people. Iraq will surely suffer more such attacks in the foreseeable future. But the extremists have been contained and they may, one day, be defeated. Kurdistan remained largely peaceful after 2003 and Islamists never gained much support. In the above link Jayir Gul presents an interesting report from the region which offers a glimpse of how Baghdad could look five years from now, if the extremists are defeated and Iraqis make the right choices.

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Oliver Cromwell

In the twentieth century, the various Communist attempts at creating utopian societies using centrally planned economies all ended, without exception, in political tyranny and economic failure. This outcome was inevitable whether the experiment was tried in Cuba, Poland or Cambodia. Communist states failed because even the most efficient bureaucracrats cannot predict or respond to the almost infinite number of economic decisions made by individual consumers every day. Furthermore the lack of economic freedom stifled innovation and technological development and living standards stagnated. It was also inevitable that Communist states would become tyrannies because Communist leaders were convinced that their ideology was perfect and that it would result in a perfect society; therefore criticism or alternative political views prevented the establishment of the utopian state and were to be repressed.

In the latter quarter of the twentieth century the failure of the great Communist experiment became obvious. In the late 1970s, Thatcher and Reagan became heavily influenced by the ideas of the economist Milton Friedman, who essentially argued for a return to the classical economical model first espoused by Adam Smith. Free market economics was also successfully adopted, or adapted, by a number of Asian states and territories, including Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and, most importantly, China. The advantage of free market economics is that it is essentially a form of ‘negative’ freedom and allows humans to act upon heir own individual wants and needs. The principle of supply and demand, rather than a centralised bureaucracy, decides prices and production levels in a vastly more efficient way. Human ingenuity and inventiveness is allowed the freedom to create new products and technologies. In short human beings, who generally choose to work to provide for their family or improve their lot, are allowed to fulfil their economic potential. Classical economics holds that humans are essentially rational beings who, by acting in their own self-interest, provide benefits for the rest of society. As Adam Smith wrote

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.”

Although Milton Friedman was a hugely persuasive intellectual, and indeed laid the intellectual groundwork for the record reduction of global poverty in the last part of the twentieth century, he was close to being an ideologue. Some commentators now talk of ‘free-market fundamentalism', perhaps a rather bland term, but it is clear that, as the world became richer and more globalised, some political and economic leaders may have begun to believe that free market economics alone could create a utopian society.

As Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan encouraged further de-regulation of the financial markets during the late 1990s, believing that the rational self-interest of bankers would negate the increased risk to the financial system. Following the Credit Crunch, however, Greenspan candidly stated that he had "found a flaw ... in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works".

The flaw is, I think, that, contrary to ‘fundamentalist’ classical economic thinking, humans can be irrational and sometimes stupid risk takers. Sometimes they do not act in their own interests; sometimes their own interests clash with the interests of others. So while 99% of the time economic freedom may unleash the best of humanity, occasionally it can also indulge the worst aspects of human behaviour.

Both Adam Smith and Milton Friedman strongly believed that Governments did have important roles to play in free-market societies. Perhaps people such as Alan Greenspan came to believe that free market economics was flawless, or that any potential flaws were unlikely to cause significant wider problems. This week David Cameron, the future Prime Minister barring an extremely unlikely event, attended a seminar with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professor of risk engineering and author of the bestselling book, The Black Swan. In his book Taleb uses the metaphor of ‘Black Swans’ to warn of the natural human instinct to ignore the risk posed by highly unlikely events that might have enormous consequences. Basically a 21st cenutry development of the rather more succinct theory that ‘Shit Happens’.

Over the last two hundred years free market economics, in its various guises, has helped to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity. However, Cameron and other political leaders have been recently provided with plenty of empirical evidence, should they have needed it, that capitalism is an imperfect economic system. So while leaders of the future must ensure that they continue to develop a system that has been largely successful, they should be careful to avoid the carelessness of complacency or the conceit of ideology. After all the problem with perfect systems is that they rely on imperfect humans to work.