These Monday morning thoughts are brought to you by Stephen L. Hall. Thank you so much, Stephen!
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In the early days of our land, each colony had a city which grew serving a port where goods flowed into and out of each colony. These cities competed to become preeminent in commerce, the primary point of entry and exit of the various colonies. It was not merely the traffic through the port which was at stake but the commercial ventures which naturally grow around the commerce.
New York City emerges as that preeminent port of call, thanks to its connection to the Hudson river and the newly emerging railroad technologies. Commerce consists of buying, selling, and transporting goods. It generally does not encompass the production and manufacture of business which generally falls under the rubrics of industry and agriculture.
Commerce flowing through the city like a river of money, this success attracts ancillary services and businesses; men wanting to fish in that river of money. Import and export companies are a natural fit to any port, but the largest port attracted not just investors but the center of investment itself. Investing firms grew up around Wall street creating a stock exchange. Banks grew to serve these other businesses. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations fill the commercial need for the latest up to date information. K street became home of advertising and marketing services for these companies and others.
The success of New York City as a port bred success in other commercial areas. Other cities became centers of success in other areas. Obviously, the nation’s capital became the center of political influence. That influence grew dramatically as the government, rather than commerce, began to consume an ever-increasing percentage of the nation’s economy and the powers of government have become concentrated at the national level as the Founding Fathers feared might happen.
But the tax burden and the many different ways that it is measured diverts us from the topic of the day; the influence of Washington D.C. is not merely the economic impact of the city but the legal impact upon the intellectual culture. The influence of subsidies, regulations, and licenses created by government of what is legal, permissible, encouraged and discouraged through a multitude of agencies, can be measured by proxy of the tax burden. Two thirds of the taxes collected are through the federal government, rather than the state or local governments.
On the other coast, another city became preeminent in making movies, television shows, and other entertainments. Hollywood has become the leading cultural hub of America. What began as amusing diversions has become the modern way that people not only obtain their information, but their culture, and to an increasingly powerful effect, their philosophy.
What do these preeminent cities and centers of commerce, politics, and entertainment have in common? Success. Success brings with it influence. People naturally look to the people who are successful for inspiration, but success also collects resources and infrastructure around the successful which gains an advantage in continued success, kind of a positive feedback loop of success.
Many other cities can be held up as successful and rivals, such as Chicago, New Orleans or Seattle. But this is not about cities, those are just examples of success. We have a political candidate whose entire claim to political leadership is his success in the field of commerce. Other successful businessmen continue to want to influence politics, not just Trump, but Bloomberg, Soros, the Hunt brothers, the Bush family, the Rockefeller family, the Kennedy family, Steve Forbes, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and many others. We have successful actors and singers who want to influence people’s political decisions, too many to name.
Success brings influence, there is no question about that, but being influential and having people hang upon your words appears to do something nefarious to the human mind. Being influential, the successful begins to suffer from the illusion of control. Once you get to a certain level of success, financially, politically, socially, or artistically, you realize that your actions and opinions begin to affect the larger world. For example, at a certain point in trading stocks you begin to realize that your buying and selling, if done too quickly, can actually move the price of smaller less frequently traded stocks. The greater success, the greater the influence.
The trap is to begin to think that your influence upon others is actually a form of controlling those other people and not their own exertion of will. Sales and marketing people, media, politicians, teachers, and actors fall into this trap more easily than other people because their entire business is built around influencing other people.
Hubris: a great or foolish amount of pride or confidence. Influence becomes hubris when one stops trying to persuade others but begins to thing that they can manipulate and control others; through laws, through bribery, through controlling the information or narrative, through intimidation, or any other means.
For a more historical perspective on the evolution of the word hubris click here.
The wealth accumulated in nations, cities, families, or persons buy influence in the markets but can tempt the weak-minded to try to control industries, or monopolize sectors of commerce. The wealthy attempt to control politics to increase their wealth as Buffett holds back the competition of an oil pipeline to keep oil flowing over his tracks. Or, they attempt to control social and political discourse by limiting access to certain perspectives on tv networks, twitter, and in newspapers.
The politically connected, what have recently become named the party establishments try to control the economy through regulation and taxation to tell the people what they must purchase (Obamacare), where they should invest (alternative energy), where they shouldn’t (coal industry) picking and choosing winners, often their contributors. They also push upon the people social perspectives like abortion (Planned Parenthood), homosexual marriage, and a myriad of other social engineering projects. They even venture to dictate science in the form of climate change and have threatened punishment to those who question their opinions.
On the cultural front, actors, writers, directors, singers, producers, news anchors, and talk show hosts try to control the political narrative, the issues of the day. By controlling the discussion they believe they can control politicians as well as commerce. If they want to push gun confiscation, repeatedly show and glamorize every instance of an innocent person being shot. Want to push or retard an industry, create exposes on the environmental effects of an activity or the workers in that industry. Control the message, control society.
The amusing thing is that each of these groups really believe that they are controlling the others. The media believe that they are in control of the politics and the economy; the politician believes that they are in control of the economy and the media; and the businessmen believes that they buy politicians and buy the media.
The truth is that they are in a collusive illusion of control. The influence each other in an incestuous and insular elitist group which has quit listening, and to a very large extent quit even regarding, those outside the group. Leftist elitism has concentrated in the big urban cities, far removed from the actual work and production of the economy. The areas between have become dismissed as flyover country.
The concentration of wealth, power, and culture has lessened our country; but those in the heart of those centers of wealth, power, and culture see the country through the prism of their own success. The arrogance from their success poisons their perspective inflating their influence into deceptive and underhanded attempts to control society itself. I worry that these seats of power so concentrated will on the one hand collude against the rest of society, but on the other that trying to concentrate further will tear society apart attacking each other.
When a person translates their success into an illusion of infallibility and supremacy; their pride and confidence can turn them into a great fool. When a group, whether a political party or a city become very successful, they can also fall to the same illusions, pride, and foolishness. Success is a great thing, but hubris rather than humility can corrupt those who are successful. Hubris is the result of succumbing to the temptations that success can bring.
We have an election approaching involving a successful businessman and successful politicians in one of those most successful of cities, let us be wary of electing the fool who has succumbed to the hubris of their own success.
