Announcing Advance Publication of "Trust platforms: The digitalization of corporate governance and the transformation of trust in polycentric space," Regulation and Governance (Vol. 18:--) Now Online and Open Access

 

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I want to take this opportunity to announce the early online publication of my article, "Trust platforms: The digitalization of corporate governance and the transformation of trust in polycentric space," (2024) 18 Regulation & Governance -- (https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12614).

The article, part of a group of essays considering the evolution and manifestation of trust in a age of digitalization--The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Trust and Governance. My thanks to the editors, who brilliantly guided this project along: Primavera de Filippi —CERSA / CNRS and Berkman-Klein Center / Harvard University;  Morshed Mannan —European University Institute; and Wessel Reijers —Paderborn University.

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My contribution focuses on trust in the quite remarkable transformation of corporate governance from the 1980s. That transformation was built around the premise of trust but had several moving parts. One was the change in the basic premise of the role of trust in corporate governance from one that was  invested in trust of the individual--especially officers and directors  to one that became increasingly trusting of systems of assessments of the trustworthiness of those key governance actors. Another was the embrace of the possibilities offered by the digitization of corporate operations, through which it became possible to transpose text and an emphasis on qualitative measures to data and quantitative measures. Digitization made digitalization possible, the use of digital technologies to change the trust based governance model from one that focused on the individual to one that focused on the development and application of systems of assessing trustworthiness. The third was the detachment of the processes and operations of systems of trust assessments from the corporate entity , a detachment made possible because the detachment of trust from the individual to system of assessment, and the transformation of systems of assessment from qualitative and analogue to digital and quantitative measures also suggested that the entity was less trustworthy as the place where such trust assessments (of itself) ought to be undertaken. That detachment was made efficient by the development of platform and platform operations, spaces where consumers and producers of trust factors could interact.  The result--the premises and assumptions about the proper management of trust within the field of corporate governance became unrecognizable by 2024. The language of trust and the principles of its measure remained functionally similar--but its methods, forms and operation  changed dramatically.  It is to that transformation and its consequences that the article is directed. 

There it is--a non linear journey from trust in people to trust in systems, from trust in qualitative to the rule of quantitative measures, from digitization (the digital representation of objects and actions) to digitalization (the leveraging of digitized data through digital technologies), from digitalization as an instrument to digitalized systems that might eventually become self-aware, from a strong alignment between entity and accountability to states of detachment between entity, and trust systems, and from detachment as functionally differentiated disaggregation to re-integration as processes of digitized production and consumption of trust and trust mechanics. The mix of these trajectories produces a spectrum of application that share in common the need to  confront these trajectories but in which context (time, place, space) and capacity produce sometimes vastly distinctive applications.  And over all of this are the mechanics of markets and public legality, each, in its own ways producing impulses to coordinate, fracture, and unify. Taken together neither trust nor corporate governance today would be recognizable by  those who might be credited with setting this all in motion in the last third of the twentieth century. Welcome to the welcome to the digital governance trust disco dance platform.

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The article is open access and may be accessed and downloaded from the Regulation and Governance website HERE. The article may be accessed directly HERE. For a taste, the abstract and Introduction follows below.

On the Semiotics of Perception II: Text of the Remarks of President Biden to the Nation

 

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 "In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition." (President Biden Remarks 24 July 2024)

Mr. Biden addressed the Nation on 24 July 2024, a few days after "the" decision (I note that I do not use the word "his" before the word decision). The transcript, as provided by the New York Times, follows below.  For the usual analysis from those embedded in the system through their legacy press organs see eg here, here, here, here, and here.

The remarks are worth reading in themselves.  For those who think about the discursive power of text (oral and written), the remarks offer a rich elaboration of not just of the perception of a political "self" in the first third of the 21st century in the United States, it also offers a window into the discursive battleground around the concept and practice of democracy. That conflict, in these remarks, centers on its orthodoxy within the US version of liberal democracy, but it extends as well to the fight for the narrative primacy of democracy discourse between the imaginaries of liberal democracy and that of Marxist-Leninism. In an earlier post (On the Semiotics of Perception: The Text of Mr. Netanyahu's Remarks to Congress 24 July 2024, in the Shadow of his Remarks to Congress 2015, 2011, and 1996), I considered the semiotics of perception around the narratives of conflict between collectives.  In this pst Mr. Biden's address allows the opportunity to consider it in intra-collective perception fields.

Within the discursive battleground for democracy within the United States, David From (writing for the Atlantic) came closest to the ancient discursive tropes lurking just beneath the surface. These tropes would have been well known in another era when Americans were educated differently but they remain important as "types" irrespective of the ignorance around their origins in the foundational eras of contemporary political culture in the United States. From linked the binaries embedded in Mr. Biden's remarks with the two great archetypal figures of the period of the Roman Republic with particular resonance to the formative period of the American Republic: one is Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (for whom a city in Ohio is named); the other is Lucius Sergius Catalina (most famous for the democratic rhetoric delivered by Cicero in his orations against Marcus Tullius Cataline). The one the archetype of the individual who willingly walks away from power after a crisis in defense of the solid Republican principles on which the Roman State is grounded; the other hie opposite using the mechanisms of that Republic in an effort to overthrow it. 

Mr. Biden might well see Cincinatus in himself; he sees a bit of Catalina in his political opponents, one of whom is often named. In each instance Mr. Biden indulges in what has become an important element of politics within the American framework--the tendency of political figures to view themselves as objects which embody a significs that in turn produce a necessary interpretation respecting their relationship to the Republic itself. In this case Mr. Biden is the incarnation of Cincinnatus--Mr. Biden is both himself, but also the objectification of a set of principles that represent the best of the Republic, the interpretation of which is essential to a judgment of Mr. Biden's actions, intent, and position within the political constellations of the contemporary factional scene. Mr. Biden's enemies--both within the Democratic Party and beyond it, are manifestations, incarnations, of the anti-Republicanism of Catalina, the consequential interpretation of which must lead inevitably to the judgment of the depth of their threat to the Republic--and further to the need to take measures against them. Mr. Biden may not be Cicero, but his discourse is Ciceronian in the manner of American orators since the 18th century:

When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the nightly guards placed on the Palatine Hill—do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men—does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place—do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? (Cicero First Cataline, ¶ 1; translated here).

But it is also imbued with the sensibilities of the virtues of Cincinnatus. To his way of perceiving, Mr. Biden has saved the Republic; it is now time to return to his home. Yet Mr. Biden warns, like Cicero, that the dangers to the Republic, as he sees them, remain. He leaves it to the people, in this case guided by the leaders of his political collective, to avoid the Catalinian traps for the Republic. One ought to remember, as well, at in the end (of the Republic) it was Cicero's hands that were nailed to the doors of the Roman Senate by a faction that as a vanguard of a new version of Republic eventually accepted the Senate's pleadings to assume and retain imperium. 

And here the irony--Mr. Biden's political opponents, of all stripes, also clothe themselves in the signifying garb of Cincinnatus and Cicero. They see in the apparatus around Mr. Biden the very Catalinian conspiracy that Mr. Biden has seen in others.  Perception changes the vectors of judgment.  But they do not change the semiotics of perception within which the liberal democratic imaginaries of the United States continues (at least for the moment) to rationalize its view of itself and the (political) world around it. For some, then, the threat to the Republic is embodied in the actors and policies that have transformed American life since the 1960s. For others the threat lies in its opposite.  One encounters an era in which the semiotics of critical cultural objects now carry multiple and contradictory signification, each insistent on a conclusion completely contrary to the other. On the one side, the threat to the Republic emerges from a perceived conspiracy around Mr. Biden's capacity and thus of the locus of executive authority (JD Vance says Kamala Harris is a ‘threat to Democracy’ because voters won’t decide Dem nomine; and here); on the other, the threat centers on a claque intent on reshaping the Republic in the image of Mr. Trump (eg from the Democratic National Committee: REMINDER: Donald “Dictator on ‘Day One’” Trump Is an Existential Threat To Our Democracy; and here). The point is not either side is "right" or "wrong" but that (1) perception drives judgment; (2) perception is grounded in fundamental assumptions about an ideal against which it is possible to assess something; and (3) that this judgment invokes ancient ordering tropes to help in framing judgment. Mr. Biden reminds us in his Address that these remain critically important tropes that frame the application of perception through the transformation of current actions and actors into and through ancient ordering tropes. (For an example:Is Trump or Biden the true threat to democracy? Voters split along partisan lines: The truth about freedom is that it can mean many things – and, in fact, does mean different things to Democrats than Republicans).

The United States, for some, was founded as a new and more perfected version of the Roman Republic, grounded in an idealized vision of its character and form. That has not changed even as the conscious perception of its Roman connection fades (see here, here, and here) while the tropes of Roman politics grows (here; my view from the time of the contested election of George Bush in 2000 here). One still encounters the archetypes. Nonetheless those discursive types now serve as the framework within which contests for leadership are framed in increasingly apocalyptic terms. One finds the resonance to the Late Republic more insistent; that certainly emerges from the discursive tropes of Mr. Biden's address to the Nation. Mr. Biden may be correct; but the polarities of signification are very much in play.  The question for the nation remains--among the current crop of actors and their claques--who is to play the role of Cincinnatus, who that of Cataline? But perhaps more importantly, who is to play Cicero and the triumvirs?

On the Semiotics of Perception: The Text of Mr. Netanyahu's Remarks to Congress 24 July 2024, in the Shadow of his Remarks to Congress 2015, 2011, and 1996

 

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For the fourth time since 1996 Binyamin Netanyahu delivered remarks to the Congress of the United States. As the New York Times reported it:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday turned an address to Congress into a forceful defense of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. He cast it as a battle for survival of the Jewish state while making almost no mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in its drive to destroy Hamas.

The address laid bare deep divisions in Washington over the nine-month war, whose toll on civilians has outraged many Democrats and drawn international condemnation. Dozens of Democrats did not show up, with some openly boycotting the speech.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee who was campaigning in the Midwest, declined to preside in her capacity as president of the Senate alongside Speaker Mike Johnson, a break with tradition.

* * * 

In a speech in which he condemned critics of the war as dupes aligning themselves with the world’s most dangerous actors or apologists for terrorists, Mr. Netanyahu portrayed the conflict as a proxy fight with Iran that must be won at all costs to protect both Israel and the United States. (Netanyahu Delivers a Forceful Defense of Israel to Applause in Congress）

This post adds nothing to the debate about Israel or Israeli policies; nor does it contribute anything to the current debates around the Israel-Gaza War and its many fronts (eg, on social media, before the international tribunals, on the streets, etc.).  Nor does it speak to Mr. Netanyahu's place, performance, approval. opposition, or role within Israeli politics. I leave all of that to others (e.g., here).

What this post does is to consider the semiotics of the construction and deployment of perception frameworks within which  or through which certain conclusions become inevitable. The discursive construction of this conflict, in particular, has become a  critical front in the war, one which has seen much of its institutional action before international bodies within the UN system and the ICC in recent times but which goes back a long way before then. The remarks delivered on 24 July to Congress by Mr. Netanyahu are a critical element in those discursive battles from the Israeli side. This is not to suggest that Mr. Netanyahu speaks for anyone, though he speaks as an Israeli official--the focus is on the discourse rather than on the issues of representative authority, all of which I also leave to others to parse and argue about. Here one starts with the premise that in the context of discursive warfare, warfare about foundational perception, the discourse speaks for itself. This applies as well, one might suppose, to the discursive performances of the US Vice President and others (absence), Mr. Schumer (no handshake), and those who elected to attend the session, with or without counter discursive tropes, for example placards of one sort or another.  The focus here, though, is on textual tropes, and in particular that of Mr. Netanyahu's remarks over almost 30 years, rather than on the performances (the forms of which are also common and retain a well understood collective social signification) of discourse at the margins of textually (oral and written) events, which I leave to others, though the analytical framework does not vary.

And all of this serves as a reminder that  facts are a function of perception as they are consumed and transformed into information, informed by that perception into pathways toward judgment that are themselves a function of perception.  Bias forms an essential element of both perception, and of the discovery and constitution of facts signified as information and then judged by the and trough the bias that informed both the finding and constitution of "fact" and the nature of its signification in the service of a perception framework inclined to "see", "understand" and "give meaning" to things in its own terms. All societies distinguish among the biases--disfavored bias serve both as taboos in the way society is trained to think about and perceive the world; these disfavored biases are fully invested in and lend power to the etymology of its negative and disapproving sense (from a societal perspective) as going against the grain--that is as a set of premises and perceptions that threaten the good order of the premises on which a given social order is grounded. The issue that Mr. Netanyahu's remarks then spotlight, in the context of the discursive battlefield waging over ancient Judea, Roman through Ottoman Palestine, centers on the fundamental question: which set of premises, discursive tropes and applied principles "go against the grain." Bias here affects everything--from the way  facts are perceived (eg, how does one account for death), to the assignment of moral and legal responsibility for those deaths), to the judgment about the justification for taking life in the service of a cause, aided by fundamental perception judgments about the moral-social characteristics of a people (the "Jewish question" that sits just beneath the surface and sometimes emerges in the discourse) that contribute to or confirm perception disfavored bias. It is to those that victory on the discursive front becomes critical. One is reminded that here, as in the battles between the liberal democratic, post-colonial, and Marxist-Leninist perception structures around "democracy" what is threatening to one order may serve as the basis for the other.

Mr. Netanyahu's remarks, then, are worthy of study, one that is more usefully undertaken by reading the remarks in the context of his earlier speeches to Congress. Indeed, 2024 was not the first time that Mr. Netanyahu has addressed Congress. Nor was it the first time that he addressed Congress  in the midst of significant divisions among the American political classes and their elected officials and between Israel and the U.S. If anything, the circumstances of the 2015 Remarks might have been viewed as delivered under even more contentious circumstances.   

The contrasts in the 1996, 2011, 2015 and 2024 speeches are to some extent remarkable.  But things changed.  Between 1996 and 2011 came the Palestinian rejection of U.S brokered peace deals and the brief rise and complicated collapse of the Arab Spring movements. Between 2011 and 2015 came the perception of a palpably rising threat of Iranian ambitions projected back into the subaltern regions of traditional Persian hegemony (when their empires were at their apex). And between 2015 and 2024 came a radical transformation of narrative and perspective within and among all of the actors with something to say about the region--and 7 October 2023 and its aftermath set the current conditions in motion. Throughout, the end goal appeared to remain the same, though the details of its construction vary widely, along with the construction of the discursive tropes necessary to make it plausible and consonant with the foundational operating premises of the global order--a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Israel alongside a Jew-free Palestine. For some, Mr. Netanyahu stands in the way of the realization of that vision; for others he does not, and for many he no longer has the confidence of his people to find a means of following the path toward that objective. The difficulty remains at the extremes, but this seems to be the era in which the extremes have moved to the center, at least for some. In the meantime the question becomes how to preserve something like a status quo so that all sides can play the now expected waiting game in which history belongs to the side that collapses last (a Cold War strategy). 

Whatever one's view of things, and however strongly one feels them, a careful parsing of the remarks may be useful; more useful still an effort at that parsing in the context of what came before.

The text of each of the 2024, 2015, 2011, and 1996 remarks follow with links to the original sources.

 

Announcing Upcoming Publication of Special Issue--"Law and Social Credit in China: An Introduction ," The China Review, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2024, forthcoming)

 

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 Björn Ahl (Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Cologne); Larry Catá Backer (The Pennsylvania State University (University Park); and Yongxi Chen (ANU College of Law) are delighted to announce the upcoming publication of a special issue of The China Review (Vol. 24, No. 3) which we have the honor to edit. It is entitled "Law and Social Credit in China: An Introduction."

We have distributed (through SSRN) the Introduction to the special issue (with great thanks to Bjorn Ahl for taking the leading role in its marvelous drafting). The Abstract to the Introduction provides a taste of the issue and its objectives:

Social credit is a mode of governance that spurs private actors, as well as state agencies, to base their decision-making regarding others on credibility assessments. It lays out a central-level framework for creating various mechanisms, ranging from commercial personal credit ratings to compliance assessments and blacklists run by regulatory agencies, with the aim of incentivizing certain behaviors. In addition to a range of commercial pilot projects, the Chinese party-state has also embraced the use of blacklists for trust-breakers and credibility-based regulation to enhance its governing capacity to tackle a wide range of societal problems. This special issue investigates the multifaceted relationship between law as a traditional form of regulation and social credit in China. Together and from differing perspectives, the special issue’s contributors argue that the SCS reflects changes in regulatory approaches that imply a fundamental transformation of how law is enforced, as well as a profound alteration of the forms and functions of law itself. In analyzing various subsystems or components of the SCS, the issue provides insight into the logic and rules underlying social credit assessments and explores their link to China’s political-legal normative framework. (Law and Social Credit in China: An Introduction)

 The earlier draft of some of the contributions may be accessed here, here, and here. Contributions include:

1. Marianne von Blomberg and Björn Ahl, Debating the Legality of Social Credit Measures in China: A Review of Chinese Legal Scholarship

2. Haixu Yu, The Evolving Complex of the Chinese Corporate Tax Credit System and Tax Law

3. Larry Catá Backer, Social Credit ‘in’ or ‘as’ the Cage of Regulation of Socialist Legality

4. Chun Peng, Building a High-trust Society: Lineage, Logic, and Limitations of China’s Social Credit System

5. Yongxi Chen, Disregarding Blameworthiness, Prioritizing Deterrence: Social Credit-based Punishment and the Erosion of Individual Autonomy

6. Keren Wang, Legal and Ritualological Dynamics of Personalized ‘Pillars of Shame’ in Chinese Social Credit System Construction

The draft Introduction, Alh, Backer and Chen, Law and Social Credit in China: An Introduction may be accessed here.

Historical Semiotics and an Application of Xi Jinping's Thought on Culture (习近平文化思想)--Seeking "Truth From Facts "(实事求是) in the "Mass Line" (群众路线) in a ReReading of 《漢書 ·河間獻王德傳》"The Biography of Wang De in Hejian" From the Book of Han

  

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Both the Mass Line  (群众路线) and the principle of seeking truth from facts (实事求是) occupy significant places within the core normative basis of contemporary Chinese Marxist-Leninism. The Mass Line traditionally has been attached to principles of governance at the heart of Leninist ideology, and more specifically on principles of connection between vanguard and masses first in a revolutionar environemnt and thereafter in the construction of a governance system in which the revolutionary party became the party in power.   "Seeking Truth from Facts" on the other hand has traditionally been attached to the development of productive forces and most recently with the principles around which the Era of Reform and Opening Up was constituted. Governance and development are  related  but not identical concepts.

Mao Zedong first referenced seeking truth from facts (实事求是) in writings from the 1930s. But it became tightly embedded within the core of Chinese Marxist Leninist theory in the course of its evolution at the start of te Era of Reform and Opening Up, for example when used by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 in his now famous keynote address to the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC (Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Unite As One In Looking to the Future).

Only if we emancipate our minds, seek truth from facts, proceed from reality in everything and integrate theory with practice, can we carry out our socialist modernization programme smoothly, and only then can our Party further develop Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. In this sense, the debate about the criterion for testing truth is really a debate about ideological line, about politics, about the future and the destiny of our Party and nation. (Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Unite As One In Looking to the Future).

The mass line (群众路线) emerged from out of the writings of Mao Zedong, especially in the period when the Chinese Communists were a revolutionary party.

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In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses". This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge. (Mao Zedong, "Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 119)

Both found their way into the General Program of the Communist Party of China's Constitution.  Seeking truth from facts as well as the mass line are included in the six fundamental requirements of the basic line. Each appears to stay in its own conceptual lane--the one focused on political organization, the other on economic/developmental organization. Though the concepts may leak into each other one would be surprised to think of them as identical.

And yet, the impulse behind each share a common parent--so much so that one might come to understand both not merely as conceptually aligned by as different expressions of the same impulse. To those ends, my purpose today is to look back in time a little more to better unpack the overtones and meanings of both, but more importantly, to better understand the semiotics that aligns the Mass Line and the "seek truth from facts" principle in an iterative dialectic which is hinted at in both quoted materials cited above. Both are, in a sense, iterative feedback loops based on an identity between truth and vanguard on the one hand, and people and facts on the other. The object, in part, to  read historical culture semiotically by applying Xi Jinping's Thought on Culture

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Xi Jinping's cultural thoughts were formed and continuously enriched in the great practice of cultural construction in the new era on the basis of inheriting and developing the exploration results and valuable experience of the Party's leadership in cultural construction since its founding. They are a theoretical summary of the Party's practical experience in leading cultural construction in the new era. 习近平文化思想是在继承发展党成立以来领导文化建设探索成果和宝贵经验的基础上，在新时代文化建设的伟大实践中形成并不断丰富发展的，是新时代党领导文化建设实践经验的理论总结。(习近平文化思想 [Xi Jinping's Cultural Thought] 2023; also here).

Let us see how a semiotic approach might help us apply this new cultural line of the "New Era." To that end it is worth considering 《漢書 ·河間獻王德傳》"The Biography of Wang De in Hejian" and what it may tell us about the mass line (群众路线), the principle of seeking truth from facts (实事求是). and their collective inter-relationship as it may deepen an understanding of contemporary Chinese Marxist Leninism. In this way, one might be able to reinvest the traditional original version of the story in which "truth from facts" emerged in its historical form, which is also the elaboration of the principle of the mass line. In the process one can better appreciate the phenomenology of both mass line and seeking truth from facts.  More importantly, one can see, through the elegant simplicity of the classic telling, that the tale of seeking truth from facts is simultaneously the mapping of the structure of the mass line in a way that can be applied to systems of social relations from the Chinese feudal period to the New Era of Chinese historical development. 

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The traditional accounting, found in the Book of Han, resonates perhaps even more than its repurposing by later thinkers, including Mao Zedong: 

“河間獻王德以孝景前二年立，修學好古，實事求是。從民得善書，必為好寫與之， 留其真，加金帛賜以招之。” [The Prince Xian of Hejian, Liu De, was made a prince in the second year of Emperor Jing the Filial; he enjoyed studying classics from earlier eras, and sought truth from facts. When he obtained a valuable book from the people, he always made a copy by transcribing it and returned the copy to them, keeping the original himself, and provided gold and silk to keep those guests coming] 漢書　卷五十三 【景十三王傳第二十三】 [The Book of Han vol 53; The 23rd Biography of Thirteen Kings] (Project Gutenberg 2007 [EBook #23841]. 

Notice the semiotic element that suggests both power relationships and control over the universe of knowledge that is worth knowing. The Prince Xian of Hejian draws truth from the study of the classics from earlier eras. He does not study the classics but understands them as objects from which truth can be extracted for the present. He understands as well that in the process he may himself be creating objects form which future eras may seek to extract truth from the facts of his own person and acts—including his extraction of truth from facts drawn from a farther back in time past. 

To that end judgment is necessary. The first judgment is to divide the past into objects (vessels) that contain something of value form those that do not. For that purpose he must rely on the conditions in the present to extract use and insight from the past. The second is that these book-objects with value are obtained from the people; they are not obtained from the literati, though the literati may also be in passion of some or all of them. And indeed, the books are unlikely to have been written and published (as that term was then understood) by the people—merely that the initial judgment of value was made by the people (the Leninist masses) from which the Prince can extract that which is valuable. The third is that the books be obtains from the people are not what he returns to them. Instead the Prince keeps the original for himself; he causes the work to be transcribed and returns the copy—transcribed, and perhaps with additional wisdom--to the people, along with objects of material value. 

And that is the point from the perspective of the people—it is for the leadership core to extract something of value (truth) from the facts (contained in the classic books), the value of which aids the Prince in his leadership role and produces material wealth for those who make available to the truth the facts in their possession. This produces not merely an expression of the semiosis of meaning making—it also provides a framework for the mass line (群众路线).The two are mimetic but not identical--each embodies the other but expressed as a reflection--but the reflections are inexact. Each is an object and a process--noun and verb. And each expresses the hierarchical nature of interactivity that is dialectical, each an iteration of what comes before but changing in the iteration; one which exists even if it  appears to go up in smoke. 

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The 3rd Plenum Official Gloss--习近平：关于《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》的说明 [Xi Jinping: Explanation on the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization"]

 

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 Glossing of authoritative text is an ancient and honored means of collective meaning making through the performance of authoritativeness  within hierarchies of leadership.  Glossing has been an important element in correctly understanding text within religious, political. social, and cultural communities.  It has been essential, as well, in the development of a community of shared meaning within economic collectives--merchants, supply chains, and the like.  In all of these exercises or performances the object is to develop a shared sense not just of the meaning of text, but of the intention that serves as a textual meaning foundation reflecting the overall guidance and leadership of those vested in a community with the authority to develop and manage meaning. In this sense, of course, text--word objects--serve as visual or aural representations of the premises, assumptions, and expectations of a community applied in quite specific context. Text, in this sense, serves as the specific application, in a temporally and physically particular context, of the entirety of the meaning fostering universe through which a community achieves solidarity. But it does more than that--the act of textual representation also reinforces the premises of coherence in the social relations that distinguish one community from another. And it is that contest iterative performance of the abstractions that constitute the glue of solidarity which both manifests the "solidity" of a community in physical space and enhances the abstract power of the premises on which "solidarity" is rationalized and guided. 

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To gloss, and especially to gloss authoritatively, about text, is to breath life into objects (text) by weaving their signification (what they stand for), into the broader context of meaning (how this text is to be received as a set of orders for understanding, being, doing or not doing something) not as a personal but as a collective exercise. That, in turn, transforms the glossator, from an individual wrestling with an internalized search for meaning, to the embodiment of its collective search for guidance as text is transformed to action. And that transformation is itself a function of the social order in which it is undertaken.  That, in turn is a function of the the extent to which the glossator may be entrusted (委托; sometimes in the sense of delegated), include: officially, formally or informally) with the task of shaping the common meaning, intent, direction and interpretive guard rails around a text that has been invested, in turn, with social authority. Trust, and trustworthiness, of course, have been at the center of the New Era's efforts manifested, for example in SOcial credit  regimes and more generally in accountability systems and systemic quality control measures.  But it has a political dimension as well--operating for example, at the core of the mass line and in the operation of  the inter-dependencies of whole process people's democracy nad at the core of vanguard authority, including an authority grounded in its self-organization.

It is with that in mind that one might usefully approach the study of 习近平：关于《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》的说明 [Xi Jinping: Explanation on the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization"]. In it Xi Jinping "will explain to the plenary session the relevant situation of the drafting of the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization"[我就《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》起草的有关情况向全会作说明。 ].

This text serves as the 3rd of three critical texts around which the collective meaning making injected into the term--socialist modernization in the New Era--has been crafted for  its embodiment in the social order. The other two include:

1. Decision [or Resolution] of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Style Modernization [中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革　推进中国式现代化的决定];

2.  中国共产党第二十届中央委员会第三次全体会议公报 [Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China].

The three, of course, ought to be read together in the style of self-referencing mimesis--they all reproduce each other but neither is exactly a mirror image of the other. The inter-textual dialog produces a necessary space within which appropriate guide by those entrusted (委托) to engage in the necessary task of making meaning, in part, by its translation into authoritative action--in this case the socialist modernization by 2035 plan.

The Xi Jinping gloss has three primary tasks: (1) to explain and situate (a better term) the considerations that went into determining the topics around which the 3rd Plenum was organized, aligning the topic with the critical challenge which the collective faces in its march toward its normative objectives (short term, bit always with the long term in view); (2) to explain the drafting process of the draft decision (resolution) and thus its authoritative legitimacy as a function of conformity to process and normative expectations; and (3) to explain basic framework and main content of the draft decision (to tie the decision on normative challenge to the elaboration of the "action plan" that is the Decision/Resolution of the 3rd Plenum and to guide its operationalization. 

In each of these senses, Mr. Xi's gloss adds both detail and, perhaps more importantly for officials, emphasis. That emphasis, in turn, may help guide the development of orders of importance of items that are now included in the action plans around socialist modernization--with different effect at the national, provincial, and local levels--as well as in the Special Autonomous Regions. Thus, for example, Part 1's focus on the "four urgent needs" (迫切需要) will likely acquire a life of its own within the lexicon of New Era principles: (( 1）实现新时代新征程党的中心任务的迫切需要；（2） 推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的迫切需要；（3）更好适应我国社会主要矛盾变化的迫切需要；（4） 推动党和国家事业行稳致远的迫切需要 [(1) The urgent need to achieve the Party’s central task in the new era and new journey; (2) The urgent need to advance the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity; (3) The urgent need to better adapt to the changes in the main contradictions in our society; (4) The urgent need to promote the steady and long-term development of the cause of the Party and the country.].

 There is also something in it for foreigners in 3(4): "improve the anti-sanction, anti-interference, and anti-"long-arm jurisdiction" mechanism; improve the trade risk prevention and control mechanism, improve the foreign-related legal system and the rule of law implementation system, and deepen international cooperation in law enforcement and justice." For Europeans anxious to extend the reach of their human rights based supply chain due diligence legal systems, and for Americans expanding human rights based sanctions regions, there may be much of interest in the development of measures and countermeasures touching specifically on this topic but more generally on trade. 

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Without Comment: Mr. Biden Withdraws His Candidacy for a 2nd Term in Office

 

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There s little to say; but there is something to read. The text of the letter speaks for itself. Text, though, like an organ, can project meaning through a number of stops of proportionately higher or lower pitch operated by one or more keyboard manuals. This, I suspect, is a textual organ with all stops or registered engaged. 

I leave it to others to speak to the politics of the aftermath. But one can only wonder from the perspective of the structural integrity of the system, and the alignment of that integrity, to the core premises on which the Republic maintains its authoritative solidity.  There have bee other moments that carry with them a whiff of the present--the most recent the toppling of the candidacy of Mr. Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Many of those in power were part of the generation, some of whom were instrumental in causing Mr. Johnson to reconsider. The result, of course produced  a key act in the theater of modernity--the election of Mr. Richard Nixon to the Presidency, and eventually a long period of turbulence that ended, in a way with the election of Mr. Reagan. Mr. Biden, one might suspect, continues to believe that he can be of service to the nation; but that is merely one factor in an equation of political objectification the solution to which, at this point, appears to require subtracting the incumbent from the equation.

I do not mean to suggest either Mr. Biden's action, or the circumstances that contributed to it, or the consequences that will be revealed in due course are good, bad, necessary or otherwise. No judgment here. Judgment is something that one would hope would be made, definitively, first by the members of the Democratic Party in Convention, and then by the general electorate.

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Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Style Modernization [中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革 推进中国式现代化的决定]

Pix Credit here (March Towards the Four Modernizations of a Powerful Socialist Nation)

I recently posted about the Communiqué that was distributed on behalf of the Chinese Communist arty Central Committee to mark the end of its 20th CPC Congress 3rd Plenum Session (中国共产党第二十届中央委员会第三次全体会议公报 [Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China] ("Each plenary session is concluded with an appropriate communique in which the vanguard emphasizes and details what it views as important for consumption by the masses--and foreigners. This plenary session was no different.")). 

The 3rd Plenum tends to apply the lens of economic and social policy to the key areas identified in the preceding Congress. This one was no different. It's emphasis on the further, and to some extent extensive, elaboration of Socialist modernization, was noteworthy--a topic that occupied much of the space devoted to the text of the Communique.   Socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics (eg 中国式现代化), in its current forms, remains a key driver of Chinese economic/political policy since the end of the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, like applied Chinese Marxist Leninism, the policy and objectives based expression of that principle has undergone sometimes significant changes as China has moved from one era of historical development to another, The evolution has been especially pronounced  as China leaves the Era of Reform and Opening Up and fully enters the current "New Era." The foundational conception of Socialist modernization would have had to change in that transition in any case--that was a necessary consequence of perhaps one of the more profound movements in evolutionary Chinese Leninism--the shift in the identification of the general contradiction (see, here) from the development of productive forces to "the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life." 

In theory, at least, the principal effect of the shift was to produce a change in the meaning of "development of productive forces" beyond  material productivity to its social, cultural, and political elements.In practice that has produced a variety of efforts to develop policy through which it might be possible to change the context and measurement of development (by broadening the factors ot be considered) and to situate development much more deeply within the coordinated efforts to manage social, cultural, economic, and political movement toward longer term goals. At the same time, the term was more tightly connected to the production of ideology and the systems through which contemporary ideology could be expressed. That, in turn, permitted a broadening of the meaning of the objects around which production could be understood, utilized, and their value added or contribution to overcoming the principal contradiction could be measured. 

Every thing and every one could be considered a State Asset (in the sense of contributing to productivity, and by so contributing affecting the character and forward movement that was meant to be a properly conceptualized and managed socialist modernization). Chinese policy, then, could become as concerned about the full development of the ideal worker, cadre, family, social and cultural apparatus as it had been concerned, in the earlier era of historical development with the factors and objects of economic development more detached from its social, cultural, and political resonances. Moreover, socialist modernization--and especially is high quality development can apply as well to the modernization of the mass line through whole process people's democracy, and with it the Socialist law system and  the "correct view of human rights (坚持正确人权观，加强人权执法司法保障 [Adhere to the correct view of human rights, strengthen the law enforcement and judicial protection of human rights]). More importantly, the structural elements of reformed socialist modernization must necessarily follow trade and development outward, with China as the exemplar and the hub of a new system of foreign trade that enhances socialist modernization at home and aligns  partner systems abroad. None of this necessarily means an abandonment of the traditional approaches to the development of productive forces--the efforts to develop, for example, the dual circulation economy as well as the now equally significant principle/policy of high quality development (“新质生产力”,with its focus on innovation and socially significant approaches) clearly suggests that the move toward economic-political-social-cultural integration was not necessarily a faithful regression back to the union of politics and economics of the old class struggle days.

All of this, though, had to be rationalized in a forward facing way. At the time of the distribution of the 3rd Plenum Communique I suggested what appeared to be the framework of the rationalizing way forward:

And indeed, the principle of socialist modernization remains central the evolution of principles of Chinese Marxist-Leninism in and for the New Era of Chinese historical development and a key element of the way in which policy is shaped to meet the current principal contradiction around which applied principles are built and against which they are measured. The Communique builds a comprehensive system around socialist modernization in interesting ways. It is presented as a comprehensive organizing principle and strategy for organizing and rationalizing policy around a core animating principle. Its added value is in its "connective tissue"--socialist modernization connects the Xi and Deng leadership periods traveling significantly from its articulation during the Era of Reform and Opening Up; in this way it provides an important example of the dynamic element in Chinese Marxist Leninism, one that can flow with the times. Much now fits within the modernization umbrella. (中国共产党第二十届中央委员会第三次全体会议公报 [Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China]).

And, indeed, on 21 July 2024, the authorities authorized the release of what appears to be a substantive rationalization along those lines:  Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Style Modernization [中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革　推进中国式现代化的决定]. The document elaborates the key elements identified in the 3rd Plenum Communique. It will likely be the "text" to be used by members of the Central Party School in the  study sessions to be organized for the benefit of key officials and high level CPC members (small sessions) and larger sessions for  cadres, administrators, key elements of society.

The full text follows below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translations.

What makes it especially interesting, beyond its affirmation, development, and reconstitution of socialist modernization for the New Era looking forward to the 21st CPC Congress, is the way in which key concepts can each be merged with and into almost the entirety of the ruling ideology in its then current forms.  Or put differently, this provides an excellent example of the self-referencing foundations of ideological construction in which each element adds a layer but each layer contains within it the entirety of the system, each providing a perspectives based window on the entirety of the project. This is not dialectics--though it moves through processes of iterative dialectics embedded in the CPC Congress system. Rather it reflects a 

Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Style Modernization [中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革　推进中国式现代化的决定] is divided into 15 sections:

I. The Significance and Overall Requirements of Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Modernization with Chinese Characteristics

 II. Build a high-level socialist market economic system

 III. Improve the system and mechanism for promoting high-quality economic development

IV. Build a system and mechanism to support comprehensive innovation

 V. Improve the macroeconomic governance system

 VI. Improve the system and mechanism for integrated urban-rural development

 VII. Improve the system and mechanism of high-level opening up

 VIII. Improve the system of whole process people's democracy

 IX. Improve the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics

 X. Deepen the reform of cultural systems and mechanisms

 XII. Deepen the reform of the ecological civilization system

 XIII. Promote the modernization of the national security system and capabilities

 XIV. Continue to deepen defense and military reforms

XV. Improve the Party's leadership in further deepening reform and promoting Chinese-style modernization

What becomes unavoidable, and some might be tempted to argue, inevitable, alignment of politics, societal, cultural and economic vectors within the umbrella of the apex objective of a Leninist State committed to Marxist ideals--the engagement of all factors of societal production toward the task of establishing a communist society. The cocktail of measures and the articulation of ruling frameworks, perspectives, and focus are a function of the nature of the contradictions that must be overcome at each stage of the historical development of a society, led by a vanguard and deeply committed to the "big bang" of their lifeworld (lebenswelt)--the conviction that the establishment of a communist society along Marxist lines is both natural and inevitable.  

The official English language translation,  Full text: Resolution of CPC Central Committee on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization may be accessed HERE. My cruder translation follows below along with the original text. It is sometimes useful to compare the refinements of official text with the over or undertones of meanings a cruder translation sometimes might reveal. A side by side bilingual version, prepared by the folks at NCP Observer may be accessed HERE.

Make America Great Again! and the Treasure Hunt for the "Forgotten Man"--Full Text of Mr. Trump's Nomination Speech, the Republican Party Platform, and a Very Brief Reflection

 

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So tonight, whether you’ve supported me in the past or not, I hope you will support me in the future, because I will bring back the American dream. That’s what we’re going to do. You don’t even hear about the American dream anymore. With great humility, I am asking you to be excited about the future of our country. Be excited. Be excited. (Donald Trump Nomination Speech (19 July 2024))

. . . & to all those weak and pathetic RHINOS, radical left Democrats, Socialists, Marxists, and and Communists who are killing our Nation, remember, we will be back! (Donald Trump, Easter Greetings 2023 Tweet Message (9 April 2023). 

Mr. Trump accepted, for the second time, the nomination of the Republican Party to stand as its candidate for President of the United States.  The nomination, perhaps even more than in its first iteration in 2016, divides people. What makes the division particularly curious is that the division appears to coalesce around the extremes of the spectrum of like/supp port--dislike/oppose.  That, at any rate, is the sense that one gets from the discourse that has emerged around Mr. Trump's candidacy as well as the first term of his Presidency. Particularly interesting is both the efforts undertaken to discredit and de-legitimate Mr. Trump and his fitness for office, an effort that united a large group of people and collectives who might have been forgiven for assuming that Mr Trump threatened their dominion as well as that of the normative and structural order over which they assumed some sort of stewardship (for a taste here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). And, indeed, and in an oddly ironic way, the Fox News tarot card casting for Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden, and the US has been a better predictor of where the nation (and the candidates) find themselves than anything much higher priced analysis (Classical Predictive Analytics: The Semiotics of a Tarot Reading for Mr Trump; Mr. Biden; and the U.S. in 2024).

And so, the American people now are offered a second chance to elect Mr. Trump to the Presidency. That, in turn, may depend on his opponent.  Until recently that would have been the sitting President, Mr. Biden--but it appears that the strategic and political situation among members of the Democratic party and their supporters are still in a dynamic state (eg here).  And Mr. Trump is now well aware that there are people, States, and others, who are ready to seek his assassination. Such is the State of a world in which the Presidency of the United States still projects strongly outward of the borders of the nation. 

And here the Americans now find themselves. 

 But nations, like individuals, become wise only through experience, and only through experience of their own. Now, to be sure, it is easy to see that the German people would be in a quite different position today if they had shaken off the yoke of princely rule in that fateful year 1848, if Weimar had triumphed over Potsdam and not Potsdam over Weimar. But every person must take his life and every nation must take its history as it comes; nothing is more useless than complaining over errors that can no longer be rectified, nothing more vain than regret. (Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State & Economy (1919; 1983), p 27). (From America's Two Democracies in an Age of Transformation--The Semiotics of the Emerging 5th American Republic

On the cusp of an election cycle that continues to surprise, little can be assumed and there is little value to "complaining over errors that can no longer be rectified." That applies with equal measure to the great and mighty (and their scribes and retainers) in both parties.  In this context, Mr. Trump's acceptance of nomination remarks may provide clues about what may be coming should Mr. Trump succeed in his quest for a second term in office. It is thus particularly useful to consider those remarks. They follow below and may be accessed in their original form HERE. 

Underlying the remarks--in which Mr. Trump situates himself, his journey and encounters, and his assessment of the current state of affairs--is a vision that drives much of the discourse and will likely drive policy decisions going forward under a possible second term. Mr. Trump seeks to recapture a vision of the American dream--a concept powerful enough to resonate in other States (eg the China Dream). That vision is quite specific:

Pix Credit NYT 2015

Under our leadership, the United States will be respected again. No nation will question our power. No enemy will doubt our might. Our borders will be totally secure. Our economy will soar. We will return law and order to our streets, patriotism to our schools, and importantly, we will restore peace, stability and harmony all throughout the world. But to achieve this future, we must first rescue our nation from failed and even incompetent leadership. We have totally incompetent leadership. This will be the most important election in the history of our country. Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline. (Donald Trump Nomination Speech (19 July 2024)).

Mr. Trump declares an intention to implement the Republican Party Platform (which also follows below).

This week, the entire Republican Party has formally adopted an agenda for America’s renewal. And you saw that agenda, and it’s very short compared to the long, boring, meaningless agendas of the past. Including the Democrats. They write these things that are hundreds of pages long and they never read them after they’re done. In their case, fortunately they don’t read them because they’re pretty bad. It’s a series of bold promises that we will swiftly implement when you give us a Republican House. And Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. We have our great speaker of the House with us tonight. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. Thank you.

That Platform has been reduced to a 20 point plan, the contours and fulfillment of which contain within it a substantial scope and flexibility. 

1. 
   SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION
2. CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY
3. END INFLATION, AND MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AGAIN
4. MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR!
5. STOP OUTSOURCING, AND TURN THE UNITED STATES INTO A MANUFACTURING SUPERPOWER
6. LARGE TAX CUTS FOR WORKERS, AND NO TAX ON TIPS!
7. DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS, AND OUR FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS, INCLUDING FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF RELIGION, AND THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
8. PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, RESTORE PEACE IN EUROPE AND IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY -- ALL MADE IN AMERICA
9. END THE WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
10. STOP THE MIGRANT CRIME EPIDEMIC, DEMOLISH THE FOREIGN DRUG CARTELS, CRUSH GANG VIOLENCE, AND LOCK UP VIOLENT OFFENDERS
11. REBUILD OUR CITIES, INCLUDING WASHINGTON DC, MAKING THEM SAFE, CLEAN, AND BEAUTIFUL AGAIN.
12. STRENGTHEN AND MODERNIZE OUR MILITARY, MAKING IT, WITHOUT QUESTION, THE STRONGEST AND MOST POWERFUL IN THE WORLD
13. KEEP THE U.S. DOLLAR AS THE WORLD'S RESERVE CURRENCY
14. FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE
15. CANCEL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE AND CUT COSTLY AND BURDENSOME REGULATIONS
16. CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN
17. KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN'S SPORTS
18. DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN
19. SECURE OUR ELECTIONS, INCLUDING SAME DAY VOTING, VOTER IDENTIFICATION, PAPER BALLOTS, AND PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP
20. UNITE OUR COUNTRY BY BRINGING IT TO NEW AND RECORD LEVELS OF SUCCESS
    
    

Pix credit here (Maynard Dixon 1934)

Much of it is not new, some of it is theatrical, but much of it is meant to appeal, both to Mr. Trump and to what the Republican Party believes to be a sizeable receptive electorate. All of this will be mirrored by the speeches and platform of the Democratic party, when that is revealed.  

But all of it is directed to the "forgotten Man"--which, indeed, serves as the sub-title of the Republican Platform endorsed by Mr. Trump. This is part of the anthem ululated by Mr. Trump in what might well be understood as a high point of his remarks: 

To all of the forgotten men and women who have been neglected, abandoned and left behind, you will be forgotten no longer. We will press forward, and together, we will win, win, win. Win, win, win, win, win, win. Nothing will sway us. Nothing will slow us. And no one will ever stop us. (Donald Trump Nomination Speech (19 July 2024)).

One speaks here of the "forgotten men and women" in two quite different keys.  Both speak to the common people; one as the result of crisis, and the other as a product of privilege; one calls to arms, the other mocks. The first was famously given by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 of the Democratic Party. His object, as appears to be Mr. Trump's was both a call to arms and a criticism of the failures of the opposing political party (in the 1930s the Republican Party). In that context President Roosevelt spoke to the forgotten man in these terms:

In my calm judgment, the Nation faces today a more grave emergency than in 1917.

It is said that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo because he forgot his infantry — he staked too much upon the more spectacular but less substantial cavalry. The present administration in Washington provides a close parallel. It has either forgotten or it does not want to remember the infantry of our economic army.

These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Radio Address From Albany, New York: "The 'Forgotten Man' Speech" (7 April 1932).

And the second speaks in the "key" of satire, in the form of a 1930's "screwball comedy" in which a rich but clueless family "adopts" a "hobo" who it turns out is the child of a distinguished Boston family down on his luck. The movie, "My Man Godfrey," starts out with a great treasure hunt in which one of the objects to be retrieved is a "forgotten man,"in that case people ruined by social and economic circumstances of 1930s U.S.

Both films poke fun at rich Americans who have plenty of dollars, but no sense. Godfrey is more direct in its satire, and like Sullivan’s Travels (1941), its message for social equality (in the midst of economic inequality) is front and center.

William Powell is perfectly cast as Godfrey the butler, who knows more about money and manners than his employers (echoing Charles Laughton’s role in Ruggles of Red Gap). Carole Lombard plays Irene, a spoiled heiress who is bored with her frivolous life — though she doesn’t know it yet. Here’s an example of the interplay between Powell and Lombard:

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Godfrey: Do you mind telling me just what a scavenger hunt is?
Irene: Well, a scavenger hunt is exactly like a treasure hunt, except in a treasure hunt you try to find something you want, and in a scavenger hunt you try to find something that nobody wants.
Godfrey: Hmm, like a forgotten man?
Irene: That’s right, and the one who wins gets a prize, only there really isn’t a prize. It’s just the honor of winning, because all the money goes to charity, that is, if there is any money left over, but there never is.
Godfrey: Well, that clears the whole matter up beautifully. (Classic Film Review, the 'Forgotten Man').

None of this is either good or bad; nor is it praise or critique.  Those judgments ought to be left to the electorate. On the other hand cultural connect-the-dots may sometimes be useful in better understanding sub-text and the impulse of events. 

The 2024 Election, then, appears to be the great treasure hunt (again no judgment) conceived as an entertainment for the partygoers, organized for this purpose into our two great political, Democratic and Republican, communities. Their object--to find and retrieve an exemplar of the "forgotten man."  As President Roosevelt reminded his audience almost a century ago, the stakes remain high, though of a different quality than in the 1930s (by how much remains to be debated).  It will be interesting to see what happens when either or both parties find and retrieve them; and if they do, which of the two types they will find or seek.

 

Pix credit: My Man Godfrey (1936), the Treasure Hunt Scene