Questioning Nationalism, Globalism and the UN

Imagine living through 1945. As World War II ended 75 years ago, the UN was born and two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan. To commemorate and reflect on these pivotal events, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has created a timeline. Ever since 1945 people, their governments and civilization itself have been faced with a momentous dilemma: how to choose law and cooperation over power and domination. Check out the WILPF timeline,  follow the history of that momentous year, and start local discussions of the events that changed our world. For example, release of The Franck Report on June 11, 1945...

You might not recognize the name, since the report was kept secret at the time, one of many WWII documents whose un-censored versions only became public decades later.  Signed by several prominent nuclear physicists who worked on development of an atomic bomb, the Franck Report recommended that the US not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan. 

Here are some thoughts on a related topic: Can the UN be reformed? 
World Order and Cultivating Community

The liberal international order is currently being challenged by populism in nations that built and long supported it. It is also being tested by rising powers, particularly China, and other states that hope to restore their prominence. Some go so far as to say the old order is fractured at the core, which makes a major conflict more likely. At the same time, the world faces a growing number of global challenges that cannot be managed effectively by national governments alone. 

The United Nations is still considered by many people as the key feature of this fragile World Order, and is certainly treated as one of its major institutions. When nations don’t abide by its resolutions, they are often accused of violating international norms or even law. In short, the UN is assumed to be a global democratic government. But this is at best aspirational, and, in some serious respects, misleading. 

The UN Security Council certainly isn’t democratic or liberal. Veto power is held by the winners of World War II; large parts of the world have no say. A handful of nations can impose sanctions, with immunity from counterclaims. And even if all other nations acted together, they could not impose sanctions on the Big Five.

So isn’t calling the UN General Assembly “the most democratic and representative body” a bit misleading? Beyond the power imbalance already described, India (1.3 billion people) and Luxembourg (613,000) each have one vote! And although the General Assembly passes all manner of resolutions, its members know there is no credible way to enforce them. Is it democratic when most of the votes are cast by representatives of authoritarian regimes, with leaders who couldn’t care less what their people feel? Is it accurate to call the UN liberal when representatives of brazen human rights violators have for years led its human rights bodies?

Given all of this, do nationalists have a valid point when they charge that the UN violates national sovereignty? Shouldn’t it at least be more representative? And how about all the international governance carried out by other international organizations, and through informal bodies like the G7, G8, and G20? Their decisions aren’t binding on those who dissent, but at least they try to operate by consensus, Is this a more viable way to go? 

The world obviously needs stronger, more effective forms of global governance. But it doesn’t look ready at the moment to be governed like a liberal democracy. Instead, premature attempts to overcome nationalism have fed populism. 

One of the problems may be insufficient community building. People have a basic need for recognition and respect, and these are linked to a sense of identity and community. Since the 1980s the US has tilted too far toward individualism and lost a sense of communal values. If that is part of the problem, does it also point toward a solution? 

At the same time we have lost a sense of shared values we have experienced rising alienation, resurgent populism, institutional breakdown, and Donald Trump. It is not a coincidence. But perhaps we can cultivate a greater shared sense of community, even in supranational forums, and eventually extend it to their governing bodies. The trick is how to do it without creating more alienation and pushback.

When Ida Met HDL: Exposing the Godfather of Big Oil

When Ida Tarbell decided to take on John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, an earlier muckraker wasn’t impressed and told his contacts to avoid her — at first. Then he met her and changed his mind.

Preparing to review The Crash of Flight 3804, a new book by a colleague, Charlotte Dennett, on the deadly politics of oil, I recently discovered a intriguing connection between an earlier investigator of the same industry and another old friend. In 1900, Ida Tarbell was looking for a way to show how ownership of oil interests was moving toward control by a few. With a push from Ray Stannard Baker, she developed the outline for a series that would approach the business as an historical narrative and submitted it to the editor of McClure’s Magazine.

Tarbell began with an open mind, noting that she wasn’t certain that John D. Rockefeller had done anything illegal. But she remembered well the effect his company had on her own family. Her father Frank Tarbell had prospered in the oil business, that is, until his operation was crushed by monopoly power. Her hometown had risen in protest, and Ida was no longer on speaking terms with some old neighbors who sold out to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. 

She knew little about the company until then. Key documents had disappeared, those who sold out to Rockefeller at a profit wanted no trouble, and those who held out feared what he would do. Her father warned her not to write about it, predicting “they will ruin the magazine.”

Tarbell dismissed suggestions that Standard might kill or main her. But she knew they were already aware of her. One night, at a party given by Alexander Graham Bell, a vice-president of the Rockefeller-controlled National City Bank had beckoned her into a private room for a talk. Frank Vanderlip, a popular DC bachelor, then told her bluntly that his bank was concerned about her project. She was stunned by the implied threat, and also by the thought that she was being watched. But she replied boldly: “Well, I am sorry, but of course that makes no difference to me.” 

Henry Demarest Lloyd

Standard didn’t make an immediate move. But Henry Demarest Lloyd, great grandfather of my friend Robin Lloyd, was not impressed and said so. A decade earlier HDL had written an indictment of monopoly power, Wealth Against Commonwealth. Tarbell had read the book, but rejected Lloyd’s argument for socialism, which she considered idealistic but not practical. “As I saw it,” she recalled, “it was not capitalism but an open disregard of decent ethical business practices by capitalists which lay at the bottom of the story Mr. Lloyd told so dramatically.”

Lloyd’s theme was the negative power of wealth. To illustrate his viewpoint, he focussed on Rockefeller businesses and practices — but did not name John D. Tarbell wanted to go deeper and name names. She also wanted to ask Standard Oil to comment on what she found. When Lloyd heard about that, he warned independents that she had been hoodwinked by the oil company and advised key people to avoid her.

Tarbell couldn’t figure out why her old neighbors wouldn’t help. “It was a persistent fog of suspicion and doubt and fear,” she said. Nevertheless, she persisted and managed to prove that Rockefeller was the linchpin of an illegal ring — the South Improvement Company — that had transferred its tactics to Standard Oil. The arrangement gave Rockefeller’s group so much power that even other oilmen started calling it an octopus. 

Three initial articles were ready for print in 1902. The first opened with the discovery of oil, the second covered Standard’s formation, and the third chronicled an 1872 “oil war” in which independents defeated the South Improvement Company. 

One anecdote, first unearthed by Lloyd, focused on a woman who was defrauded by Rockefeller. Finding the story intriguing, Tarbell asked Lloyd for documentation about the widow Backus. Court records had been stolen, he explained. It took her several weeks to locate copies. At this point, the relationship between the two muckrakers became more like a tango. Each was dedicated to the subject and sensitive to the protocols of professional courtesy. Finally recognizing Tarbell as an effective critic, Lloyd realized he should meet the woman whom he had already attacked.

In September 1902, Tarbell visited HDL in Rhode Island. Lloyd was a charming, silver-haired man in his mid-50s. She outlined her series and he shared his research. Tarbell was impressed by the encounter, but Lloyd remained skeptical about her desire to create a “balanced” presentation. And despite their comfortable seaside location, he managed to make her feel guilty about her love for expensive things.

“I cannot tell you what a good time I had and what an impulse you gave me,” he wrote afterward. “With my radical leanings I sometimes grow very restive in my practical and rather conservative — though I think entirely sincere — surroundings. It does me good to run up against the people in the advance line where I believe most of us will be one day.”

In her series, Tarbell retold the widow’s story accurately, but with less passion than Lloyd had employed. Basically, a successful business woman had allowed herself to be frightened and failed to see the significance of contracts she had signed. It illustrated, thought Tarbell, how Rockefeller could terrorize and eliminate successful competitors.

Lloyd approved of her interpretation. “When you get through with ‘Johnnie’ I don’t think there will be very much left of him except something resembling one of his own grease spots,” he joked.

The Standard Oil series debuted in November 1902, just as a coal strike gripped the country. Pennsylvania’s National Guard were ordered to quell the riots, and mine operators refused a presidential request to resume work. The dispute was finally settled through arbitration.

A century later: disastrous effects continue

In the second installment, Tarbell named the original Standard partners. Worse for Rockefeller, the article revealed him as the force behind the South Improvement Company. As Tarbell’s father had explained to her, the federal government granted railroads subsidies and rights of way on the condition that railroads would act as public utilities — equal rates for all and no consideration for the volume of business. Rockefeller and others had abused these rules.

As the series continued, skeptics who had fought Standard Oil began to trust Tarbell. “I have been having a very interesting time here with the Standard work,” she wrote. “It is very interesting to note now, that the thing is well under way, and I have have not been kidnapped or sued for libel as some of my friends prophesied, people are willing to talk freely with me.”

One of her new fans was Lewis Emery. A hero among oilmen after he had frustrated Rockefeller’s control of railroads by building a pipeline, Emery had known Tarbell since her birth. He was one of the most successful independents, yet sometimes described himself as Rockefeller’s helpless victim. After reading Tarbell’s early installments, he wrote to Lloyd.

“I shared your misgivings relative to the motive prompting Miss Tarbell to write such a history,” Emery wrote. “I have been watching her articles closely and have expressed to her personally my doubts as to her sincerity in writing a truthful history of the acts of the men composing that company.” On the other hand, he also visited her in New York and they spent several hours discussing her work. 

After reviewing her future plans Emery changed his mind and decided to help. “I shall assist her as best I know how to prepare certain articles on the independent movement,” he informed Lloyd. He also asked for the return of refinery photos he wanted to share with Tarbell.

Lloyd still had reservations. Tarbell had won his confidence, but not McClure. An ad for the series was too even-handed, he thought, and he was concerned that the publication might yet come out on the company’s side. He forwarded the photos along with a worried letter. 

“I have not the least doubt as to the honesty and good intentions of Miss Tarbell,” Emery replied, “but you have opened my eyes to a certain extent relative to the publishers and the whole milk in the coconut.” He asked for permission to forward Lloyd’s letter to Tarbell. HDL agreed, as long as there was no wording that implied criticism of her.

LLoyd did not live to see completion of The History of the Standard Oil Company. He died suddenly six months after this correspondence, while leading a Chicago campaign for municipal ownership of street railways. With other journalists like Lincoln Steffens, Tarbell went on to spearhead a surge of investigations and joined the larger stream that came to be known as the progressive movement.