A mix of sociology and rightwing screed
Review of The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook by Niall Ferguson
One basic idea animates this book: historians have underestimated the role of networks in their work, focusing instead on top-down hierarchical structures that kings and aristocrats tended to control. The traditional approach, Ferguson argues, neglected how networks can be the source of innovation and fundamental disruption. To prove his point, he moves through a dazzling tour of history, concentrating for the most part on the west from Gutenberg's invention of moveable type to the explosive changes and uncertainties that the development of the internet has enabled. I am sure that there is much truth in his argument.
Ferguson begins with a turgid introduction of network theory as defined by sociologists, psychologists, and computer scientists. At turns enlightening and frustrating, it is a superficial popularization from the standpoint of those specialists yet is supposed to provide the theoretical groundwork for non-specialists. The balance he strikes is only partially successful in my view - he creates a rather crude dichotomy between vertical (read hierarchical) and horizontal networks, a kind of push-pull that animates various historical movements. While order can be imposed from above, events and movements from below also influence outcomes. If Stalin's totalitarian bureaucracy represented the ultimate monolithic hierarchy, Facebook might be the best example of a dispersed network with multiple inputs from below, supposedly with “emergent” results that no central authority could oversee.
Up until about World War II, the historical chapters are great fun. Each chapter offers both a conceptual point plus a beautifully written narrative. For example, he shows that the Illuminati got far more attention and paranoid speculation than they deserved, having been completely stamped out soon after they were introduced as an Enlightenment network in the late 18th century. But there are innumerable other examples, from Free Masons, Rothschilds, and Jacobins to Nazis and Henry Kissinger. These historical chapters successfully provide a new view into the influence of networks throughout history, which was the author's key intention. Members of these networks, he argues, can work in concert, diffusing ideas as well as coordinating action; with their multiple inputs and emergent consensus, it would also be far more effective than top-down bureaucracy. An effectively working conspiracy, if you will.
It is around Kissinger's time that I think this analysis/metaphor begins to show serious problems. Ferguson views Kissinger as unusually effective because he was the "greatest networker of his time", cultivating not just the narrow bandwidth of Washington power players, but also politicians abroad as well as journalists and intellectuals. This established an informal network that could be employed to dodge and circumvent the hidebound bureaucracy over which he presided. My beef with this is that Kissinger's record was divisive, ruthless, and in many ways failed. For example, he viewed the Shah of Iran as a "regional policeman" and therefore ignored what professional diplomats suspected, that Pahlavi was an ineffective despot against whom a revolution was brewing; in the end, we got Khomeini, not a reliable puppet. He also illegally bombed Cambodia, opening the way for the Khmer Rouge to take power. The list of horrific failures is indeed long, but Kissinger fits his model so Ferguson ignores what doesn't support his argument.
Unfortunately, it gets worse.
When Ferguson begins to address questions of public policy, his thesis reveals serious holes. For example, he assumes that anything emanating from the Federal government will fail by its own nature, i.e. it is too hierarchical, too top down. It's a ridiculously simplistic argument that completely ignores the fact that, with the economic development of the last 160 years, industrial societies have grown exponentially more complex and hence need more government oversight and intervention. He even dismisses Obamacare by the number of pages of its enabling legislation (!), yet fails to mention that tens of millions gained health insurance or to even compare our fragmented system to the single-payer systems in Europe (which cost about 1/3 what America pays per capita and cover nearly everyone, with demonstrably superior results). That is myopic and tendentious.
Underneath his fancy terminology, Ferguson is basically advancing an unexamined argument for minimal government and market fundamentalism. I was continually disappointed in his perspective after this – Ferguson apparently knows virtually nothing about the complexity of implementing public policy, such as the issues of path dependence regarding outcomes (the results that emerge depend of how they are formulated) and similar systems perspectives that he should at least acknowledge for the sake of balance.
Beyond these factual difficulties, there are many instances where Ferguson attempts to apply his model to issues that are far more subtle and complex than he seems to be aware. He argues, for example, that Trump won in 2016 because he was "networked" while Hillary was "hierarchical". Does that make sense? There was a myriad of other factors, like the failure of supply-side capitalism to help rural economies, sowing the seeds of a nihilistic, radical populism. Even if Trump were "networked", did he really offer any public policy solutions or did he simply express and embody their resentments?
Furthermore, the emergence of the internet and its related businesses is a major theme of the book. While much of his analysis is indeed interesting and thoughtful, I do not believe that his analysis/metaphor is adequate to explain the whole of what is happening. Perhaps at the present time no one can, but that doesn't excuse his simplifications or lack of perspective. Again, I was disappointed, if stimulated. This is, of course, the common complaint that “intellectuals tend to extend their metaphors too far”.
I feel ambivalent about this book. It ranges from providing new perspective to the arc of history in the widest sense to a discourse that hides the author's bias towards the crudest rightwing ideology. The book is not a Thatcherite screed, but it does indulge in the idiotic tropes of Steve Bannon and ultimately, Trump, about the "administrative” or “deep state" and the like. Starting off brilliantly with wonderful concepts and stories, the closer the book gets to the present, the less valuable it tends to become.
Overall, I would recommend this book. It really got me to think, if only to disagree with his unacknowledged ideology and it ignited my desire to go to other sources for a clearer view. I sincerely love the engaging way that Ferguson writes, but he should stick to history rather than take on the much more volatile present, with all the issues we are only beginning to see, let alone fathom. For all of these reasons, the book is uneven, sometimes flatly wrong, even perhaps disingenuous, but it does provoke.