SCHOLAR’S BOOKS LOOK FRANKLY AT FORMATION OF ‘MARKET-STATE’
“The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History” (Anchor paperback, 970 pages, in stores) and “The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That He Made” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 270 pages, in stores), both by Philip Bobbitt
Heated debate about free trade receives cold, historical and wise treatment in these two tomes by Philip Bobbitt, a University of Texas constitutional law professor who has advised presidents of both parties on critical issues of economics, history, war and national security.
He talks frankly about the emergence of a new international “market state.”
Both books, neither of them new releases, are challenging reading but are well written and filled with common sense and historical facts that should be required reading for all candidates: congressional, legislative and — especially during this silly season — presidential.
As in other books he has written and in his role as a teacher at many institutions, including Oxford University in England, Bobbitt paints a tough portrait of human progress based on his deft understanding of history and law.
Bobbitt opens “Achilles” by quoting from “The Iliad of Homer” but quickly drives on to nuclear weapons, the formation of the United Nations and cyber warfare. He tracks the course of law and strategy that has formed nations and triggered epochal wars. He delivers his reader to the state of dangerous affairs facing the planet, human survival and radical changes in economics.
As candidates debate trade treaties, Bobbitt cautions that a “new constitutional order — the market state — is about to emerge,” although one could argue it already has. One piece of evidence is that about $4 trillion (four times the U.S. gross domestic product) is traded internationally each day in currency markets.
Bobbitt argues that technological changes, speedy international computer-triggered communications, market forces and free trade treaties have helped to dissolve national boundaries and challenge countries’ borders.
The change is big, seemingly inevitable and in need of public understanding and political action, he writes.
Not unlike the technological innovation that saw guns replace bows and arrow in combat, the nuclear age bred the danger of wars “with state-shattering consequences.” He boldly claims that humanity “can shape future wars, even if we can’t avoid them.”
Part of the way to do so, he writes, is by enforcing constitutional rules with strong arms and accepting technological changes.
“The Garments of Court and Palace” shows how past societies met changing conditions. First, Bobbitt notes that the Italian philosopher Machiavelli, famous even today for his sneaky machinations, never said “the ends justify the means.” But today’s merger into market states is not unlike the difficult statecraft facing cities 500-some years ago when freshly invented gunpowder demolished city walls. So cities were forced to accept treaties that led to the invention of republics, allowing them to form and finance joint armies to rebel invaders from the north.
Complexities mount today that challenge countries to join together in defense. Writing of cyber attacks, he notes that by “virtually abolishing civil privacy or by increasing surveillance and intelligence gathering,” countries can defend themselves but with “profound constitutional consequences.” Cooperation between nations is vital to this effort, but as of this writing, accusations are flying about Russia’s possible involvement in hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the National Security Agency.
Among 10 constitutional conditions needed to enforce laws and avoid new wars, Bobbitt lists one that will face winners of November’s election: “a consensus among the great powers on the legitimacy of certain forms of the market-state.”