EconAir

I reread Alice in Wonderland last year. I’ve been reading a lot of weird books in the last two years but Alice in Wonderland is the weirdest. It’s like a children’s story written by Franz Kafka. The book and its images continue to resonate. I’ll skip the cheap shot of recalling the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party because a lot of recent commentators have already used it. Also, there’s a serious idea in game theory called the Red Queen Effect, even a whole book about it by Matt Ridley. (Any book by Matt Ridley is recommended.) But the time Alice in Wonderland really resonated was the 1960s. The following are the lyrics from the group and the song that was virtually the anthem of the Berkeley/San Francisco counterculture. It was written by the group’s lead singer, Gracie Slick. "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all Go ask Alice When she's ten...

Thucydides A friend of mine recently said that the most “useless” course he took in college was history. Let’s start with Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War . This was a war that took place over 2,400 years ago. What possible relevance could it have? In this war, Athens and Sparta, the two “superpowers” of Greece, were locked into a long war for the dominance of Greece. The climax to the story in Thucydides was that Athens decided to send its formidable fleet and much of its army to attack Syracuse, an ally of Sparta, far away across the Mediterranean Sea in Sicily (still there). The campaign was a disaster, leading to political instability at home and weakening Athens’ military position in Greece. Sound familiar? Remind you of our involvement in Vietnam? This is not a direct analogy but suggestive of some of the consequences of the Vietnam War. These potential consequences were not factored into the decision to make a major commitment in Vietnam. For...

Presidential elections are now a billion dollar business, with massive marketing campaigns run by specialists. Bestsellers minutely analyze winning and losing strategies and tactics. Yet an important factor in successful campaigns is usually ignored. It was formally called “the common touch” but with the increased political influence of the South and Southwest I call it “the good ole boy” factor. It goes like this. The American voter is having a beer in a bar. The two presidential candidates walk in. Which candidate would the voter prefer to have a beer with? Let’s look at some of the choices: Franklin Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover? Harry Truman or Thomas Dewey? John Kennedy or Richard Nixon? Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford? Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter? Bill Clinton or George Bush? George W. Bush or Al Gore? (Granted, Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush’s political persona made it a lot closer than it should have been.) Barack Obama or John McCain? The...