Single market? Guānxi, Hot Lips, & Male spirituality
RWL #448
Greetings from the LHH![i] Not much exciting has happened here this week, at least not much photograph worthy stuff. So I am borrowing from my daughter’s adventures – she recently traveled to Utah and Nevada, touring a number of national parks including Arches. The sketch above was based on a picture of her and her husband. I’m 154 days into my daily sketch project. Only 211 days to go! It’s an interesting project – to take on doing something every day for a year. It gets a little overwhelming when I think about the vast number of days to go, and that is part of the mental training I think such a project offers. It helps you focus on the present and getting today’s task done without freaking out at how much is left to be done.
Speaking of gigantic, daunting tasks, I’ve been commissioned to write a health economics textbook. I can’t remember if I mentioned that in recent posts, but I was greenlit a month or so ago, and I am now getting into the process. The working title is “Health Economics for Managers” and is targeted to MHA/MBA audiences and upper-level undergraduates. I spent a couple of hours yesterday and most of this morning working on the project. It is not much more than an outline right now and eventually needs to become about 450 pages of text, graphics, practice problems, teacher guides, exam questions, and my favorite, videos. Talk about freaking out. I just got a message that the publisher would like 5 chapters by the end of October. One day at a time, one day at a time, one day…
Actually, it’s been fun so far. I’m digging in to some material I haven’t worked with in a while and finding a bunch of new material. The white board in my office is covered in calculus that I need to refresh, and I have a stack of journal articles I have printed out to read. It’s going to be good. I'm going to keep saying that. The Sunday FITW letters will probably be more dominated by economics for a while, I suspect.
OK – to the links. As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Silicon Continent, The myth of the single market
Why: One of the correct criticisms of international trade levied by the Trump administration is that many countries, especially within the European Union, use non-tariff trade barriers to restrict trade and keep American products out. This essay describes how trade even between EU members is restricted by non-tariff trade barriers.
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Watch
What: Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl, Sarah C.M. Paine: What Is China's Grand Strategy? (12 min)
(link)
Why: Interesting observations about Western and Chinese political economy. She uses the Chinese term Guānxi to talk about the informal social networks that organize Chinese society.
As a concept, guānxi refers to the drawing on connections in order to secure favours in personal relations. It is an aspect of the Chinese business practice whereby individuals are able to establish a complex network of assistance.
Organization along the principles of Guānxi is what North, Wallace, and Weingast called, in their book Violence and Social Orders, the “natural state”, meaning it is natural to organize in this fashion. A rules-based order such as the one the West functions on (mostly) is different and not natural. It transcends the kinship and alliances of Guānxi.
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What: Mash- Margaret Breakdowns (1 min)
(link)
Why: Loretta Swit, the actress who played Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlahan in the TV series MASH passed away last Friday. I grew up watching MASH reruns. I’m sure they haven’t aged well – I haven’t seen them in years – but I have warm feelings for the show.
A female friend who is an Army general posted this clip stating it captured a deep truth for her. It reminded me once again the additional challenges women still face in leadership roles, though it is much better today than in the 70’s.
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Listen
What: The Art of Manliness, Father Wounds, Male Spirituality, and the Journey to the Second Half of Life (58 min)
(link)
Why: The guest is the Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr. Rohr’s ministry has been to work with men to develop healthy masculine identities. This is not a lecture on “toxic masculinity”.
The theme I gather from Rohr is he is addressing many of the questions of early development – the ones from childhood that I left off from my newsletter this past weekend. These are the developmental tasks of childhood according to Erik Erikson:
As you can see these stages reflect the development of the self in relation to trust, autonomy, competence, and identity, setting the foundation for the adult work of contribution, connection, and meaning. Men who have been poorly treated as boys suffer from mistrust, shame, guilt, inferiority, etc. They grow up into troubled young men.
The podcast covers other things, but this theme struck me since I was working on it last week.
[i] The LHH is the Last Homely House. But also, I just want to be super clear that the opinions expressed here are my own, not those of UNH or any related organization, nor are they TLW’s, who frequently tells me I am off my rocker, nor any other person who might be embarrassed by my musings. Mine, all mine.