I’ve chosen to shelter my feet with the handsome Elven slippers featured below.
Days like this lend themselves to mental wandering.
I have in my mind at this very moment a boxing match. Not just any fight, but something to rival Rocky II, something to top the Rumble in the Jungle, even more splendiferous than the Thrilla in Manilla. In the blue corner we find Adam Smith spraying menacing jabs and hooks through the air. The red corner contains a vicious Karl Marx bouncing spryly on his toes. The tension between these two philosophical heavy weights has slowly built until we arrive at this current moment – Madison Square Garden can’t possibly contain another spectator.
Ronald Reagan and Bill O'Reilly finish taping Adam’s fists; I think I just saw them hide some barbed wire in Adam’s left glove. Those guys will do anything to win. Is that Ayn Rand taking bets?
I look left and see Castro massaging Karl’s body – foreboding in its hairy corpulence. Friedman just broke a bottle and threatened Hu Jintao in the stands. This place is blowing up.
I’m down in the middle of the ring to referee this crazy thing, only, instead of the standard tuxedo I've opted for a chromatically equivalent coat of Siberian Tiger pelts. It looks awesome, trust me.
Jay-Z finishes the pre-fight show, and now we move onto the main event. The fighters tap gloves, I ring the bell, and our two brutish contenders crash into each other, clubbing with fists of economic zeal.
If I succeed in my main goal for this year, then I will be able to narrate the rest of this fight. How would the philosophical brawl play out in your mind?
The proposed goal of my fellowship was not to learn the specifics of power generation, but to build a philosophical foundation for my aspirations. Each experience I have out here should, theoretically, inform my idealistic and naïve quest to work towards a better energy system. Everything I see is a hook or jab or uppercut in this fight for my ideology.
I definitely tend towards the deregulated free market side of things, but I can't avoid the countless examples of scandal and corruption that could have been prevented through some stricter regulation and oversight, through a little less greed. BP might not have spilled that oil if it had just a bit more patience. Lehman might not have gone broke if it had just a bit more caution. Iceland might not owe $75 billion if it had given bankers just a few more rules.
You don't want to strangle businesses with rules, but it seems irresponsible to leave the door wide open for catastrophic failures like the financial crises (American and Icelandic). These really were examples of unrestrained greed causing major problems for everyone, even those completely detached from the reckless speculation (America) and corruption (Iceland).
This post is a silly way to describe something I wrestle with constantly. I project Adam Smith and his "dismal science" as an embodiment and validation of my selfishness. Marx is my avatar for selflessness. If I ever succeeded in building a power plant, what portion of my effort should be to make a buck, and what portion should be to improve the broader energy system? The answer probably dictates what kind of plant I'd build.
More importantly, is making a buck in this business mutually exclusive with helping the future? I'm out here to answer those questions - to find a personal balance between Adam and Karl. Again, I'd love to hear where you find your balance. Here are some of the examples that have batted my philosophical badminton ball around since landing here:
I’ve learned about the rampant corruption in Iceland’s privatized and deregulated banks. The idea was to increase the profitability and competitiveness of the banks by removing regulatory burdens and de-socializing the financial system. Unfortunately, Iceland's bankers opted for robbing Iceland’s banks from the inside beginning immediately after the deregulation and privatization in 2005. They shipped millions of dollars into offshore accounts then fled the country. Within three years the privatization had bankrupted Iceland’s three largest banks, which had to be bailed out by the government and foreign loans, thereby bankrupting the entire country.
The economic wreckage is incredible here. Imagine a national debt of 5 times GDP. I’ve seen a lot of kind families financially crushed by that scandal, the ensuing currency devaluation, and the investments that materialized to zero. At first I defended my first love, capitalism, and said, "that's not capitalism, it's just crime." I've slowly learned that the economic systems we choose set a tone for the population - economic philosophies affect people's goals, attitudes, and behaviors.
Deregulating the banks sent the message that banking is about making money, not protecting wealth. The result was profiteering taken to a wild and illegal extreme, but an extreme that didn't exist here before the privatization. The majority of Iceland's left-leaning population despises this kind of thinking, and they counter it with genuine community support, outreach, and kindness. My next post will illustrate this community cohesion.
The banking example has Smith against the ropes and Marx is brutalizing the Scotsman. But then Smith pulls a rope-a-dope, faking left with an example of greedy excess and coming up with the massive right hook of lowering costs and improving quality through competition.
I observe all these socialized energy companies with outrageously bloated overheads, unnecessarily opulent office buildings, careless employees, and unpunished mistakes. For example, imagine buying a new fleet of transformers for Reykjavik that don’t fit into their housing because you never bothered to measure – literally an “it’ll probably fit” mistake that costs millions of dollars. Now imagine not getting fired.
Nobody gets fired. The socialized businesses don’t go broke; they just take out more loans. Reykjavik Energy’s balance sheet is outrageous, and it would have been dead and buried a year ago if it were private. Iceland's weird brand of socialized capitalism means that many businesses have no incentive to conserve or stay lean. People assume regulation will take care of the system, but it clearly doesn't. There's no incentive to do better than expected, even when expectations are pretty low. Everyone just notices a slightly higher energy bill to offset the utility’s lackluster performance.
Marx is bleeding, wheezing, spitting out teeth.
I observe companies hamstringed by overregulation, and Smith momentarily gains the upper hand. Just then I see some contractors cut corners to save costs at the expense of a quaint fishing village’s energy infrastructure. Marx slugs Smith with the local economic collapse that followed this shortsighted profiteering.
This fight keeps raging, and I’m just trying to figure out what to think. I see sloppy footwork in both sides of the ring. I also see admirable qualities in both fighters. The answer must be somewhere in the middle, but where?
I’m beginning to envision Marx and Smith both collapsed on the floor, equally exhausted from so many rounds of uncompromising brutality. Just as I reach for the mic to call this fight a disappointing draw, Stephen Harper dashes out, snatches the title belt from my hands, and runs away back to his utopian blend of efficient free markets and kind social systems.
Personally, this philosophical brawl keeps my ambitions in check. There are many legal ways to take advantage, to deceive, and to advance yourself by throwing another under the proverbial bus. But after you live with someone who was just run over by that bus, you clearly see that "legal" doesn't mean "right." Recklessly shoveling out sub-prime mortgages, even if you break no laws, is still wrong. Crippling the environment, even by legal means, is still wrong. Conversely, doing a little good, even if it’s less profitable, is still good.
I think that the next ten months will really help me hone in on this philosophical balance point.
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