The Enemy of Success in the Information Age
July 12, 2009
Posted in: Hot Global Issues from Other Sources, United States
Tags: American Economy, Brits, Capitalism, Chinese, Economic Recovery Bill, Free Market, Germans, Global Economy, Healthcare Policy, Information Age, Informed Public, Joseph Stalin, Multipolar Global Financial System, President Barack Obama, President Franklin Roosevelt, President Herbert Hoover, President Jimmy Carter, President's Critics, Pundits, Republican Party, The Great Depression, Vice President Joe Biden, Winston Churchill
In the information age, the worst pressure on a world leader with the stature of the American president comes from the media and self-styled pundits who regularly pass judgment on his success and failure on various major domestic and foreign policy issues that capture attention. What gives these pundits an edge over the “informed public” is that these pundits have time, the gift of the gab, and outlets available to publicize their visions of the future, which they see through their highly clouded lenses.
The excess of information and the need for the printed and other communication media to fill the airwaves on a 24/7 basis has created a monster of urgency to arrive at judgments about the success and failure of policies long before they are even fully implemented. That urgency has become the worst enemy of success.
The case in point now is the growing noise in the United States that President Barack H. Obama is “likely to fail because….” You can pretty much fill in the blanks. His attempts to find a healthcare policy for America are under attack. A number of pundits are unhappy because his economic recovery bill was not based on the “right estimates.” Vice President Joe Biden, who has a penchant for making controversial assertions without thinking through their implications, stated that the current administration misread the economy. President Obama had to intervene and make some corrections to his vice president’s eagerness to make headlines that only served as fodder for the President’s fervent critics in the moribund Republican Party. Obama said, “I would actually — rather than say misread, we had incomplete information.” Such faux pas make eye-catching stories, while adding no understanding to the intricacies of the issues at hand.
President Obama is one of the most active presidents we have had since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was faced with the task of rebuilding the American economy as well as global economy at a time when Europe was in ruins from the Second World War. President Obama, on the contrary, is faced with even headier tasks of reviving the American economy, whose chances of recovery are so inextricably linked to the global economy. Thus, in order to find solutions, he has to use the presidential “bully pulpit,” not only to persuade the domestic partisan and pressure groups, but also to persuade leaders of major industrial countries and a number of “rising powers,” who have their own intricate political agendas. President Roosevelt had to worry about persuading only Joseph Stalin or running roughshod on that old imperialist, Winston Churchill, while he was busy rebuilding the global economic institutions and creating a post-World War II global order. President Obama, on the hand, has to deal with a highly institutionalized global economic system at a time when the consensus over the utility of capitalism and the free market is in grave doubt.
Even the capitalist countries appear wobbly and perplexed about how to correct the dysfuntionalities of the global capitalistic system. The Americans and Brits proposed a solution for more regulation of the economy and increased economic stimulus, while the Germans are harping on less regulation and less stimulus, but increased emphasis on consumerism to boost the economy. The PRC, on the contrary, is convinced that its own “capitalist economy with Chinese characteristics” is superior to all other economic systems. China’s position is that the global economic problems are largely caused by the United States, and that solutions ought to be based on the creation of a multipolar global financial system.
Therein lies the rub. When there is no global consensus on “what should be done,” how are the industrial nation-states to operate? What solutions to global economic problems are acceptable, and what are not?
But the pundits are not interested in such dreary questions. They expect short-term (if not immediate) results to highly intricate problems. When they don’t see such results, they become impatient about passing judgment on matters about which they have no professional training.
Not to give an inordinate significance to these pundits and to the junk-food version of their quick analyses, but their role as opinion-makers are important because they are so visible in a highly result-oriented global information system. President Obama and other world leaders must pay attention to them on a regular basis.
Consequently, it appears that the industrial world is in for a rough ride in the immediate future. The paradox between giving complex new policies time to succeed in solving problems and the urgency of finding quick solutions is likely to result in disappointment and pessimistic “verdicts” about “failed leaders.” Inside the United States, President Obama will be compared with President Herbert Hoover (who presided over the U.S. government during the Great Depression of the 1930s) and Jimmy Carter (who was at the helm of the government during the Iranian crisis, and is regularly referred to as one of the “failed” presidents in the realm of foreign policy).
But those types of idiosyncrasies are par for the course. The most important point President Obama must keep in mind is not to lose his cool, and not to let the “know-it-all” pundits force him to become eager about finding “quick fixes.” The American voters will not judge him on the speed with which his policies succeeded in fixing the ailing American economy. He has almost four years to persuade them that he has the making of a great president.
