Politics – Page 2 – davelevy.info

Win/Lose vs Win/Win & Trump

I was pointed at this,and was advised, that, “Everybody I know should read this accurate and enlightening piece…”.

The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the President, by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University – Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don’t have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can’t demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren’t binary. China’s choices aren’t (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don’t buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you’re going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don’t have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won’t agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you’re going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn’t another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM – HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that’s just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here’s another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn’t even bringing checkers to a chess match. He’s bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

— David Honig

From https://www.facebook.com/geoffrey.m.arnold/posts/10160302885212273, also at threads https://www.threads.net/@beingliberal/post/DFhUZedxEIT?hl=en

Not having studied negotiation, I can see that this ignorance is being applied to the original Brexit negotiations and to Starmer’s attempts to “reset” the election. …

Regulating Social Media

Steve Bannon boasts that the incoming Trump administration has tamed the social media sites. The ex-prisoner uses typically intemperate language and remains an important instigator of far-right virtual organisation. Questions remain about the power relationship between Trump and Musk, as we are unsure as to who is in the driving seat, so whether the right Republicans have actually tamed the social media sites is an outstanding question.

Concurrently with this story, the US Supreme Court have refused to block legislation forcing Bytedance to sell it’s US interest in TikTok to a US buyer. The law and many commentators focus on the national security implications of Chinese ownership of such a major social media site. The US government Is particularly concerned that the Chinese government have the ability to direct the affairs of Bytedance’s owner, a Chinese corporation.

Despite the US claiming the strongest free press rights in the world, rights granted in the US constitution belong to its citizens alone and are only enforceable within the United States. The US’s historic regulation of foreign media, much of which remains in place today, includes the licencing of foreign journalists and the statutory requirements the significant media organisations are owned by U.S. citizens.

In fact, U.S. politics confuses the freedom of the press, with the right to platform. U.S. law acknowledges now the rights to freedom of speech is restricted by safety, conspiracy, anti-corruption and defamation laws. Little discourse in the US recognises that the United Nations declaration of human rights criminalises hate speech and that the US legal system has a duty to suppress it.

If the US can claim that the Chinese owned company Bytedance is a threat to national security, then it is clear that other democracies have the right to take similar decisions with respect to the privately owned US social media companies. It is clear the individuals and states have been misusing the social media companies to influence the political governance of the democracies. Some are taking this action already such as Brazil and at a much slower pace the European Union, it’s not as if these states don’t have the laws they need, what’s missing is will.

The oligarchic capture of the US government has never been more obvious. It’s time to organise. …

Hard-a-port to avoid the rocky shore

I wrote a piece of Mike Phipps, Labour Hub, called, Labour in crisis must change direction, published on 30 Dec. It was a comment on the More in Common poll run on behalf of the Times, reporting that if there were an election tomorrow, Labour would lose 200 seats including those of Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting. The Independent reports that they would be joined by Ed Miliband, John Healey and Bridgit Phillipson.

The rest of this blog shows a chart as to how the Commons would look, highlights the false start, identifies real earnings as the true indicator of economic policy success, looks at the example of Germany, and the threat of Reform UK. I conclude, "The big problem Labour faces is it designed its manifesto to win the election, not run the country. It’s still triangulating and refuses to recognise that triangulation reinforces & legitimises the politics of their opponents. This is particularly so on the issue of immigration and racism." Some are suggesting that a change of leader is needed, what’s needed is a change of direction that genuinely puts the country first. It remains, “the economy stupid”, but the economy is real wages/incomes." For more use the Read More button ...

Twenty seven becomes …

One step forward, two steps back, or maybe not, for the EU. Iceland votes to consider joining, Turkey asks to revise its agreements to increase links, and demonstrators continue to protest in Georgia about the stolen election and the postponement of EU accession talks, and last month Moldova voted to change its constitution to permit accession talks to begin. Yet in the UK, the pall of stupidity and fear still envelopes the Labour Government. …

The Draghi report on European competitiveness.

I have been trying to get on top of whether the Draghi Report on European economic competitiveness is really a game changer. Without study it seems to be a call for more EU (as opposed to member state debt. I am of the view that within the UK, there needs to be transfer union i.e. that borrowing and wealth from London needs to be shared with other parts of the country.

I found this article from the FT, which is headlined, “Europe can learn fiscal lessons from the UK on how to achieve its goals”, and subtitled, “ A co-ordinated reform agenda is crucial if the EU is serious about becoming a climate leader and geopolitical player”, written by Draghi. On diigo, I highlighted the following lines,

The UK government has chosen to significantly raise public investment over the next five years and has adopted precise rules to ensure that borrowing is used only to fund this investment. … Moreover, in order to ensure the quality of spending, transactions will be validated by independent authorities.

To which I reply, “Of course Draghi would argue for independence. The near cultish following with which his recent comments have been greeted is based on the desire by politicians and capitalists to ensure the macroeconomic policy and regulation is outsourced to non-democratic agencies. Central bankers underestimate the ability of democracies to present a wisdom of crowds, even on investment decisions. An example of this is the EU’s horizon investment valuation process, which ranks proposals and select winners from a competition. The technocrats and democrats, particularly representative politicians also underestimate the value that citizens assemblies may bring to these decisions.

Draghi continues,

“A more efficient use of Europe’s high private savings rates requires integrating its capital markets. To redirect private investment from mature industries to more advanced sectors will hinge on completing the single market. … innovative firms in fast-growing sectors such as digital services will not be able to scale up and attract capital. And, as a result, investment will remain locked in old technologies.”

Is this true? Perez, whose theories I summarise on my blog, argues that the declining profit of now legacy industries will ensure that investment goes to new innovative industries. Also, like most Draghi is betting on digital services as the driver; Perez’s theories suggest that IT is now reaching its stagnation stage and will be replaced although we maybe in a stage where the political power of legacy capitalism is too powerful to be overcome. This is why corporate lobbying power is so destructive to human progress. …

Haigh, precedent and Forde & factionalism

So Louise Haigh has resigned from the Government. I note that the offence which led to the resignation was spent, and she had previously disclosed it to the party. The fact that an offence can be spent, is designed to allow people to rehabilitate themselves. In any other organisation, punishing someone for a spent offence would be a crime, actually in the government and Labour Party it’s a crime. So much for “law makers can’t be law breakers”.

Also, while writing my incomplete review of the Forde Report, I uncovered the following quote,

We are also concerned that the provisions which allow for individuals to have membership removed or denied on the grounds they have committed prohibited acts could be exploited for factional purposes.

Haigh was probably pushed to go because she stood up for policies that Labour’s nomenklatura oppose, such as criticising and regulating private sector transport providers, renationalising the railways and further enabling municipal bus services. To me it is certainly evidence that Forde’s fears were justified and remain so.

The language used by Sky News, “Had Ms Haigh been an ally of the power brokers in Number 10, this row is arguably one she could have ridden out.” is almost certainly true and her treatment will come to be compared with others treated more leniently.

Image Credit CC 2024 DTP BY-NC-ND from flickr. …

Not a good day

Not a good day for progressive politics yesterday, Trump smashes Harris, and in Germany, Scholtz fires his finance minister, Linder, probably signalling the end of the ‘Jamaica’ coalition. I am with those that say the lesson for liberal centrists is not to piss off your base and keep your eyes on the real value of wages/household income. If “it’s the economy stupid”, then the economy is real wages !!! There are big lessons for UK politics here.

For more check out articles by Adyta Chakraborty, Bernie Sanders, and Phil Burton Cartledge. …

A budget that “needs improvement” &“exceeds expectations”

The budget headline is a £127bn deficit and current account stabilisation where the Tories had planned further reductions in expenditure. I am on the side of those who say, it’s not too bad and could have been worse. It, in the words of most performance management systems, “Exceeds expectations”, although most of those were set by themselves. There remain some unsolved problems and some risk but I think this response from Jeremy Corbyn and the Green Party misses the mark, it is not austerity light. There's much more, overleaf ...

Are there any public sector efficiencies to find?

In order to prop up the markets, Kier Starmer wrote an article in the FT, once again extolling the need for public sector reform. His article covers more than that, it seeks to address innovation & growth, and public sector reform, yet misses the implications on industrial policy, university investment and local authority services. I explore these themes in more detail overleaf ...

Growth, institutions and Brexit

Several commentators on the UK budget, including the OBR, have suggested but there’s insufficient growth stimulus planed. The OBR predict that the economy will grow slightly less than under previous plans; I don’t know how this can be when the proposed deficit is £89bn. They also however predict that the effect of Brexit his -4% of GDP and yet no one in parliament, except for Ed Davey has mentioned this as a growth opportunity.

The OBR and the Bank of England are both institutions designed to protect economic policy from democratic control. Time to abolish one and reform the other. …