Flanagan's "Game Theory and Canadian Politics"

The blueprint for today’s Conservative Party can be found in Tom Flanagan’s work Game Theory and Canadian Politics (1998).  The discovery that Harper’s erstwhile mentor has written a book on Game Theory - not a very interesting one, mind you (a selective read is recommended) - makes the evidence of the proverbial smoking gun become clear. Game Theory explains the so-called Fair Elections Act.

This blog first broached Game Theory in my review of Lawrence Martin’s Harperland, and I returned to the matter more philosophically with my discussion of “Harper and Hobbes”. Rather than repeat myself excessively I invite the reader to consult the aforementioned entries, but allow me to point out that Game Theory began  in 1944 with the publication of The Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour, the joint work of John von Neumann (a mathematical genius) and Oskar Morgenstern (an economist).  It was also later developed by Princeton’s John Nash (“A Beautiful Mind”), for which he won a Nobel Prize.

Stephen Harper would have encountered Game Theory in his study of economics, and this fact has been missed by his many observers – and critics.  Game Theory is also rooted in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, particularly his Leviathan (1651), published in the wake of England’s Puritan Revolution – and the execution of King Charles I in 1649.  Central to both Hobbes and Game Theory is what Flanagan describes as its “Methodological Individualism” which is inherent in “Rational Choice”: “… rational choice is sceptical about speaking of vague aggregates such as ‘society’ or ‘the nation’ because such terms are often used to disguise very real differences among the people who make up the collectivity.”[1]  Game theory argues from the premise of “rational actors seeking to maximize their own self interest”[2] (two questionable assumptions, indeed), and Flanagan twists himself into knots (indicating shallow imagination) over the altruism of Mother Teresa.

According to Game Theory there is essentially nothing but rational self-interest, a rather paranoid vision of the world, which helps to explain Harper’s penchant for secrecy (and John Nash’s bout with schizophrenia).  Game theory also argues that is rational not to cooperate, which implies – logically speaking, of course - that a Game Theorist would never trust his or her Doctor, who must have an ulterior motive.  True to form, Game Theory flouts public health concerns and gives legitimacy to those who avoid vaccinations, dubiously described by Flanagan as “a rational exercise in pursuit of self-interest.”[3]  Apparently Flanagan – and Game Theory - forget David Hume’s famous contention in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) that “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”[4]

As discussed, Game Theory also has no sense of collective values: Medicare can be privatized and the CBC slashed, raising the question of what is Canada, outside of Harper’s symbolic esteem for the military and (of course) the “cult” surrounding our Prime Minister’s excessive “leadership” (thus tearing a page from Hobbes’s Leviathan).  Because Game Theorists have no sense of the public, how is it that the “Harper Government” deigns to speak in terms of elected “public service” – surely a relic from a bygone age.  Conservative “parliamentarians” are actually living a public lie at the public’s expense by acting only in their self-interest: hence the so-called Fair Elections Act.

It is important to note that Pierre Poilievre, the Democratic Reform Minister who is responsible for the “Fair” Election agenda, attacks our Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand in vitriolic terms derived from Flanagan’s book: “he wants more power, a bigger budget and less accountability” as quoted by the Globe and Mail in their record eighth editorial opposing the Fair Elections Act.[5]  Compare this with Flanagan’s text who writes in his conclusion of Game Theory and Canadian Politics: “Nevertheless, the evidence of self- interest is all around us … [for example] public servants seeking bigger budgets and career advancement.”[6] In other words, Poilievre’s speech writers are dipping into Flanagan to justify their case.

Meanwhile Flanagan laments in his forthcoming book Persona Non Grata that Harper is “Nixonian” and treats people as “disposable”, surely one of the hazards of Game Theory when only the “individual” counts – society be damned.[7]  Allow me to recommend by way of conclusion some folk wisdom, which comes from an observation of nature (Game Theory is also big in biology today): a tree does not grow in solitude; trees need other trees around them to survive and flourish.  In other words, we as people cannot thrive as self-interested individuals alone, a fact which indicates that the asocial and atomized model behind Game Theory as it applies to Canadian politics should be jettisoned lest it poison the public any further.

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[1] Thomas Flanagan, Game Theory and Canadian Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), p. 5.

[2] Ibid., p. 164.

[3] Ibid., p. 73.

[4] David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Ernest G. Mossner (Toronto: Penguin, 1985), p. 462 (Book II, Section 3 “Of the influencing motives of the will.”)

[5]  Globe and Mail, “If only evidence could vote,” Saturday April 12, 2014, p. F9.

[6]  Flanagan, Game Theory and Canadian Politics, p. 164.

[7]  Globe and Mail, Thursday April 10, pp.A1,A4.

On Conservatives, Roman History and the "Gothic balance"

Recently Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail published an interesting column: “Political scholars fiddle while Rome burns.”[1]  While there is some merit to the fact that Canada’s scholars are not playing as big a role in our national debates as they used to, I wish to draw attention to the “Roman” metaphor considered apart from the familiar allusion to Nero’s role during the great fire of AD 64. It is in fact Canada’s Conservative Party, once aided by  Tom Flanagan (since fallen from public grace) that has pushed the references to Roman history; any number of Professor Flanagan’s Globe and Mail op-ed contributions drew examples from the Roman period. But are Conservative Party principles consistent with Roman history?

A reading of the philosopher- historian R.G. Collingwood would imply some consistency but is not flattering. He explains in The New Leviathan: “although the word ‘legislation’ is one we owe to the Romans, the Romans did not clearly distinguish in their own minds between what we call legislation and the enactment of an executive decree.”[2]  This is clearly the problem with the Harper’s very troubling use of numerous “omnibus bills” (amounting to hundreds of pages in length each) which mask the executive as the legislative.   Another significant historical parallel are the Enabling Acts, beginning in Weimar Germany in October 1923, which gave Cabinet the power to “enact such measures as it deems advisable and urgent in the financial, economic and social spheres.”[3]  Does the reasoning not sound familiar?  Germany had previously engaged in four years of trench warfare and was at the time enduring hyper-inflation.  In a recent statement the incoming Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, described recovery from the 2008-09 financial crises in excessive terms as “post-war reconstruction.”  For the “Harper Government” in other words, history implies a Roman legacy of executive decrees – or war.

Another thing the Romans gave us was the rule of law, which by inversion meant that everyone is equal before the law.[4]  However, this central principle suggests that Conservative Party thinking is not in agreement with Roman history.  In Canada everyone is equal before the law, except for the “Harper Government” which rules as if there is no reciprocity in political life, because expanding one’s power is considered more important than Parliament.  A corollary of this is Harper’s definitive refutation of Friedrich Engels (the close collaborator with Karl Marx) who famously claimed that “the state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away.”[5] Harper’s anti-statism is only party pretension, and we can see that in his current interference with the CBC, which should be at arm’s length from the government of the day.  In Canada the state shall not wither away, because the Conservative Party has now become the country’s ruling class.[6]

The Romans also gave us the secret ballot, and here is James Harrington on the topic in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), aided by his reading of Cicero:  “the tablet or ballot of the people of Rome (who gave their votes by throwing tablets or little pieces of wood secretly into urns marked for the negative or affirmative) was a welcome constitution of the people, as that which, not impairing the assurance of their brows, increased the freedom of their judgement.”[7]  Given the implicit role of some unknown people in the Conservative Party behind the “robo-call” affair, and given the continuous brow-beating of negative party advertising, one wonders how “free” the vote is in Canada.  Again, the Conservative Party does not compare well with this Roman example.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Parliament buildings in Ottawa are not “Roman,” or “neo-classical” (as in Washington, which definitely has a more than a touch of Versailles to it); rather, they are neo-Gothic, modelled after the Houses of Parliament in England, which burned to the ground in 1834, after standing for 800 years, only to be rebuilt.  And keep in mind that the average Gothic window has only three points to it, likely inspired by St. Augustine’s Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a theme that I have developed elsewhere in this blog.  This three-fold nature is also known as the “Gothic balance”: there is an implicit sense of mediation, reconciliation and reciprocity – in other words, a notion of “the middle”.[8]  These are not intrinsically Roman values (despite the moderating influences of Cicero and Horace); they are Medieval ones, aided as I have said elsewhere by St. Augustine and, of course, Aristotle.  By preoccupying themselves with various aspects of Roman history, the Conservative Party may have missed the boat on essential Canadian history and culture.  In other words, under Harper there is no sense of “Gothic balance”. This essay is an attempt to clarify a very un-Canadian problem.

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[1] The Globe and Mail, Tuesday June 4, 2013, p. A11.

[2] R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan, or Man, Society, Civilization and Barbarism. Revised ed. by David Boucher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005) p. 217.

[3] Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009), p. 25.

[4] Collingwood, The New Leviathan, pp. 329,331.

[5] Friedrich Engels, Anti-dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, tr. Emile Burns, ed. C.P. Dutt (New York: International Publishers, nd [Nabu Press, USA, Reprint, 2010]), p. 315 (Part 3, Chapter 2).

[6] See R.G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan, p. 277.

[7] James Harrington, “Oceana” in Ideal Commonwealths, Intro. Henry Morley (New York: The Colonial Press, 1901), p. 205.  Harrington first published The Commonwealth of Oceana in 1656.

[8] For “Gothic balance” see Harrington in Ibid., pp. 216 or 217.

Our not-so-benign Dictatorship: A Response to Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan on the Vote Subsidy

As Stephen Harper eliminates the voter subsidy, what goes next ... the ballot box? A government notorious for its abuse of power continues on its merry way, unchallenged, and there is not one iota of consideration (despite generous attestations to the contrary on election night - when Harper actually smiled) for the 60% of Canadians who voted distinctly otherwise on May 2nd.  One reason given for Harper’s elimination of the voter subsidy is that he was “tired” of so many elections in such a short period of time.  Is four years from now really not enough time to rest up for an election?

So it looks like we will not have competitive politics for quite a spell because Harper actually likes tampering with how we individual citizens support the parties for which we vote.  The Conservatives call it, according to their marketplace model (and soma-induced mantra) “freedom of choice” - a ruse, as if democracy were based on some form of consumerism, you get what you pay for.  I call it the stepping stones to a not-so-benign dictatorship because the party playing fields are nowhere near level without the subsidies.  Instead of four or five federal parties, we may now (possibly) have only two, at best – how is that for “choice”? What masquerades as “individualism” manifests as illiberalism.  And this was not necessarily a “public” subsidy (and by the way what’s wrong with the word “public”?).  This was not a “tax” on my vote, and Harper really is fiddling with nickels and dimes here – remember the cuts to GST? (Quite the big thinker, he is!)  No, this was “my” subsidy, a toonie from “my” taxes to support “our” democracy (what’s left of it), and it was conceived in the interest of electoral fairness, to minimize the undue influence of big corporations and unions, nothing otherwise.

In taking away the subsidy Harper is subtracting from the dignity of my vote, your vote and everyone else’s vote – and he is at his partisan, malfeasant worst. Two dollars per voter is mere pocket change, but multiply that several election times over I am sure we will come close to another billion dollars, or so, just enough to hold another G20 Summit with possible occasion to bludgeon ordinary Canadian urbanites ... again.  Shall we all rest easy, now?  My guess is that Harper will eventually become tired of pesky and annoying elections altogether (far too much chatter, to which his Cabinet is surely unaccustomed), so in the end he will appoint himself Governor General and then usurp the powers of the Prime Minister – something akin to Putin.

Just because Harper “won” (read: spent far more money on) the election (with the last-minute help of bin Laden’s sudden demise) does not justify the proceedings of his “government,” regardless of so-called party pronouncements prior to the vote.  Not everyone who supported the Conservatives will sit comfortably with the move to eliminate the vote subsidy. Oliver Cromwell and the experiment with Republicanism is an important episode in British constitutional history (with which we should all be familiar, for King Charles I did lose his head), but it does not necessarily deserve our respect.  There are certain parallels with today (though not quite in the same sequence): for example, the truly unprecedented accumulation of unrivalled power (outside of Parliament), the air of “Puritanism,” the emphasis on the army, and the promotion of “religious liberty” at the expense of political liberty.

There are other precedents for Harper – mostly in third-world countries.  And as the Prime Minister is busy ensuring that the likes of Gadhafi not get overthrown by his very own people, he continues with intense bombing missions, as if Edmund Burke can double as a fighter pilot.  He confuses his affections for Marie Antoinette with the dark figure behind Lockerbie.  As well, I am reminded of the right-wing figure from turn-of-the-century France, Charles Maurras, who opposed freedom for Jewish Captain Dreyfus (falsely accused of treason), thinking he should remain on Devil’s Island even if innocent, because releasing him would be a stain on the French State (and Army).  Similarly, the (once teenaged) – and only Canadian - Muslim Omar Khadr languished in Guantanamo, implicated by his father’s apparent relationship with bin Laden (and former Prime Minister Chrétien), a hand grenade, and a U.S. military court that cried bloody murder in war.  True to his Machiavellianism, Harper calculated that he would get more votes (and money, let’s face it) from his evangelical base (otherwise known as the PM’s “conscience”) if he kept Khadr in Guantanamo’s gulag than if the boy received due process in Canada. 

A century ago the Dreyfus Affair split France in two, and the French government apologized to the family only in 1998, on the anniversary of Zola’s J’Accuse, but the truth was that Dreyfus was innocent.  The truth in Harper’s Canada is that Khadr’s rights as a human were grossly violated, but then again, the evidence shows that we cannot get habeas corpus right in downtown Toronto (another development in the Britain’s early pre-Civil War period). I see at least one apology generations in waiting (for “policing errors”), assuming we still have our sovereignty as a nation.

Eventually Mr. Harper will lose, and his luck will fail.   Even the voters will tire of their captivity.  Maybe there will be one too many wars.  In the future, there will be no earthquake in Haiti to save him, no late-night, James Bond- type assassinations of the world’s most-wanted criminal mastermind, and possibly (recalling Mr. Dion’s failed interview) fewer unethical decisions by our news networks to stir the public imagination ...  all again, last-minute.  No, as I am fond of saying: Oliver Cromwell was followed by his son Tumble-down Dick.

Because of Harper, we have already fallen far.  Now the view looks precipitous: it is not so much the dearth of Liberals as the apparent death of liberalism (originally formed as opposition to the abuse of power – epitomized by the “voter subsidy”) ...  that is what worries me most.  Canada will, however, “Rise Again” (following Stan Rogers' song "The Mary Ellen Carter").  And then will begin the job of undoing Harper’s nefarious consequences, if possible.  The first order of business will be to restore the “Harper Government” to its original nomenclature (“Government of Canada”); then, to pull down the statues of he-who-shall-not-be-named.