Big Government

Book Review: Rockets and People (rerun)

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Since Friday marks the 67th anniversary of the Sputnik earth satellite, I’m reposting my review of Boris Chertok’s wonderful memoir Rockets and People.

Chertok’s career in the Russian aerospace industry spanned many decades, encompassing both space exploration and military missile programs. His four-volume memoir is an unusual document–partly, it reads like a high school annual or inside company history edited by someone who wants to be sure no one feels left out and that all the events and tragedies and inside jokes are appropriately recorded. Partly, it is a technological history of rocket development, and partly, it is a study in the practicalities of managing large programs in environments of technical uncertainty and extreme time pressure. Readers should include those interested in: management theory and practice, Russian/Soviet history, life under totalitarianism, the Cold War period, and missile/space technology. Because of the great length of these memoirs, those who read the whole thing will probably be those who are interested in  all  (or at least most) of the above subject areas. I found the series quite readable; overly-detailed in many places, but always interesting. In his review American astronaut Thomas Stafford said “The Russians are great storytellers, and many of the tales about their space program are riveting. But Boris Chertok is one of the greatest storytellers of them all.”  In this series, Chertok really does suck you into his world.

Chertok was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1912: his mother had been forced to flee Russia because of her revolutionary (Menshevik) sympathies. The family returned to Russia on the outbreak of the First World War, and some of Chertok’s earliest memories were of the streets filled with red-flag-waving demonstrators in 1917. He grew up on the Moscow River, in what was then a quasi-rural area, and had a pretty good childhood: “we, of course, played ‘Reds and Whites,’ rather than ‘Cowboys and Indians’ … swimming and rowing in the river and developing an early interest in radio and aviation–both an airfield and a wireless station were located nearby. He also enjoyed reading. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn met with the greatest success, while Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave rise to aggressive moods: ‘Hey–after the revolution in Europe, we’ll deal with the American slaveholders!’ His cousin introduced him to science fiction, and he was especially fond of  Aelita  (book and silent film), featuring the eponymous Martian beauty.

Chertok remembers his school years fondly–there were field trips to study art history and architectural styles, plus a military program with firing of both rifles and machine guns but notes “We studied neither Russian nor world history….Instead we had two years of social science, during which we studied the history of Communist ideas…Our clever social sciences teacher conducted lessons so that, along with the history of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, we became familiar with the history of the European peoples from Ancient Rome to World War I, and while studying the Decembrist movement and 1905 Revolution in detail we were forced to investigate the history of Russia.”  Chertok pursued his growing interest in electronics, developing a new radio-receiver circuit which earned him a journal publication and an inventor’s certificate. There was also time for skating and dating.  “In those strict, puritanical times it was considered inappropriate for a young man of fourteen or fifteen to walk arm in arm with a young woman. But while skating, you could put your arm around a girl’s waist, whirl around with her on the ice to the point of utter exhaustion, and then accompany her home without the least fear of reproach.”

Chertok wanted to attend university, but “entrance exams were not the only barrier to admission.” There was a quota system, based on social class, and  “according to the ‘social lineage’ chart, I was the son of a white collar worker and had virtually no hope of being accepted the first time around.” He applied anyhow, hoping that his journal publication and inventor’s certificate in electronics would get him in.” It didn’t–he was told, “Work about three years and come back. We’ll accept you as a worker, but not as the son of a white-collar worker.”

So Chertok took a job as electrician in a brick factory…not much fun, but he was soon able to transfer to an aircraft factory across the river. He made such a good impression that he was asked to take a Komsomol leadership position, which gave him an opportunity to learn a great deal about manufacturing. The plant environment was a combination of genuinely enlightened management–worker involvement in process improvement, financial decentralization–colliding with rigid policies and political interference. There were problems with absenteeism caused by new workers straight off the farm; these led to a government edict: anyone late to work by 20 minutes or more was to be fired, and very likely prosecuted. There was a young worker named Igor who had real inventive talent; he proposed an improved linkage for engine and propeller control systems, which worked out well. But when Igor overslept (the morning after he got married), no exception could be made. He was fired, and “we lost a man who really had a divine spark.”  Zero tolerance!

Chertok himself wound up in trouble when he was denounced to the Party for having concealed the truth about his parents that his father was a bookkeeper in a private enterprise and his mother was a Menshevik. He was expelled from the Komsomol and demoted to a lower-level position. Later in his career, he would also wind up in difficulties because of his Jewish heritage.

The memoir includes dozens of memorable characters, including:

*Lidiya Petrovna Kozlovskaya, a bandit queen turned factory supervisor who became Chertok’s superior after his first demotion.

*Yakov Alksnis, commander of the Red Air Force, strong leader who foresaw the danger of a surprise attack wiping out the planes on the ground. He was not to survive the Stalin era.

*Olga Mitkevich, sent by the regime to become “Central Committee Party organizer” at the factory where Chertok was working…did not make a good first impression (“had the aura of a strict school matron, the terror of girls’ preparatory schools”)..but actually proved to be very helpful to getting work done and later became director of what was then the largest aircraft factory in Europe, which job she performed well. She apparently had too much integrity for the times, and her letters to Stalin on behalf of people unjustly accused resulted in her own arrest and execution.

*Frau Groettrup, wife of a German rocket scientist, one of the many the Russians took in custody after occupying their sector of Germany. Her demands on the victors were rather unbelievable, what’s more unbelievable is that the Russians actually yielded to most of them.

*Dmitry Ustinov, a rising star in the Soviet hierarchy–according to Chertok an excellent and visionary executive who had much to do with Soviet successes in missiles and space. (Much later, he would become Defense Minister, in which role he was a strong proponent of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.)

*Valeriya Golubtsova, wife of the powerful Politburo member Georgiy Malenkov, who was Stalin’s immediate successor. Chertok knew her from school–she was an engineer who became an important government executive and the connection turned out to be very useful. Chertok respected her professional skills, liked her very much, and devotes several pages to her.

*Yuri Gagarin, first man to fly in space, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman.

*Overshadowing all the other characters is Sergei Korolev, now considered to be the father of the Soviet space program although anonymous during his lifetime.  Korolev spent 6 years in labor camps, having been arrested when his early rocket experiments didn’t pan out; he was released in 1944.  A good leader, in Chertok’s view, though with a bad temper and given to making threats that he never actually carried out.  His imprisonment must have left deep scars–writing about a field trip to a submarine to observe the firing of a ballistic missile, Chertok says that the celebration dinner with the sub’s officers was the only time he ever saw Korolev really happy.

Chertok’s memoir encompasses the pre-WWII development of the Soviet aircraft industry…early experiments with a rocket-powered interceptor…the evacuation of factories from the Moscow area in the face of the German invasion…a post-war mission to Germany to acquire as much German rocket technology as possible…the development of a Soviet ballistic missile capability…Sputnik…reconnaissance and communications satellites…the Cuban missile crisis…and the race to the moon.

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Fabs, Funding, Fashion, and the Future

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The new Arizona plant built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is now operational and is making A16 processor chips for Apple.  A lot of problems have been overcome in order to reach this stage, and congratulations are due to the American and Taiwanese workers, engineers, and managers who have driven this accomplishment.

This project has benefited from a $6.6B funding allocation under the CHIPS and Science Act, and I am sure that this plant will serve as a poster child for the kind of targeted industrial policy favored by Biden and Harris.  BUT:

When the opportunity to pioneer in advanced semiconductor manufacturing was emerging–an opportunity that TSMC took brilliant advantage of...would a US ‘targeted industrial policy’ have identified it as an opportunity worthy of focus and funding?  Highly unlikely, I think:  software, services, and marketing were what the Cool Kids talked about, manufacturing was viewed as something suitable for people with dull minds and countries with low-skilled populations.

“Targeted incentives” will go to the companies who are doing something currently fashionable and/or are politically well-connected. It seems likely that Schumer’s support of the NEPA permitting exception for chip manufacturers has something to do with Micron’s plan to build a new fab near Syracuse.

I’m certainly not arguing against the importance of US-based semiconductor manufacturing. But there are also a lot of other important product types and technologies and I’d much rather see a reassessment of NEPA criteria in general–as the above-linked article says, the rest of the economy needs a reprieve, too–rather than various exception bills.

Much of the genius of the US Constitution lies in the fact that it is short–it operates at the level of general principles rather than of endless specifics. We need more of this spirit in the design of legislation today.

 

 

Lewis vs Haldane: Another Look

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In 1946, there was an interesting interchange between JBS Haldane and CS Lewis. I’ve excerpted it here in the past…given the current revived interest in socialism and even Marxism these days, this argument is very relevant and I thought the interchange would be worth republishing and rediscussing.

Haldane was an eminent British scientist (population genetics) and a Marxist. C S Lewis was…well, you probably already know who C S Lewis was.

Haldane’s published a critique which was directed at the series of novels by Lewis known as the Ransom Trilogy, and particularly the last book of the series, That Hideous Strength.  Lewis responded in a letter which remained unpublished for many years.

To briefly summarize That Hideous Strength: Mark, a young sociologist, is hired by a government agency called NICE–the National Institute for Coordinated Experimentation–having as its stated mission the application of science to social problems. (Unbelievably, today the real-life British agency which establishes rationing policies for healthcare is also called NICE.) In the novel, NICE turns out to be a conspiracy devoted to very diabolical purposes, as Mark gradually discovers. It also turns out that the main reason NICE wanted to hire Mark is to get control of his wife, Jane (maiden name: Tudor) who has clairvoyant powers. The NICE officials want to use Jane’s abilities to get in touch with the magician Merlin and to effect a junction between modern scientific power and the ancient powers of magic, thereby bringing about the enslavement of mankind and worse. Jane, though, becomes involved with a group which represents the polar opposite of NICE, led by a philology professor named Ransom, who is clearly intended as a Christ-figure. The conflict between NICE and the Ransom group will determine the future of humanity.

A brilliantly written and thought-provoking book, which I highly recommend, even if, like me, you’re not generally a fan of fantasy novels.  I reviewed it here.

With the context established, here are some of the highlights of the Lewis/Haldane controversy:

1) Money and Power

In his article, Haldane attacks Lewis for the latter’s refusal to absolutely condemn usury, and celebrates the fact that “Mammon has been cleared off a sixth of our planet’s surface”…clearly referring to the Soviet Union. Here’s part of Lewis’s response:

The difference between us is that the Professor sees the ‘World’ purely in terms of those threats and those allurements which depend on money. I do not. The most ‘worldly’ society I have ever lived in is that of schoolboys: most worldly in the cruelty and arrogance of the strong, the toadyism and mutual treachery of the weak, and the unqualified snobbery of both. Nothing was so base that most members of the school proletariat would not do it, or suffer it, to win the favour of the school aristocracy: hardly any injustice too bad for the aristocracy to practise. But the class system did not in the least depend on the amount of pocket money. Who needs to care about money if most of the things he wants will be offered by cringing servility and the remainder can be taken by force?

This lesson has remained with me all my life. That is one of the reasons why I cannot share Professor Haldane’s exaltation at the banishment of Mammon from ‘a sixth of our planet’s surface’. I have already lived in a world from which Mammon was banished: it was the most wicked and miserable I have yet known. If Mammon were the only devil, it would be another matter. But where Mammon vacates the throne, how if Moloch takes his place? As Aristotle said, ‘Men do not become tyrants in order to keep warm’. All men, of course, desire pleasure and safety. But all men also desire power and all men desire the mere sense of being ‘in the know’ or the ‘inner ring’, of not being ‘outsiders’: a passion insufficiently studied and the chief theme of my story. When the state of society is such that money is the passport to all these prizes, then of course money will be the prime temptation. But when the passport changes, the desires will remain.

2) Centralized scientific planning

Haldane: “Mr. Lewis’s idea is clear enough. The application of science to human affairs can only lead to hell.” While denying that this is a correct statement of his views, Lewis goes on to say:

Every tyrant must begin by claiming to have what his victims respect and to give what they want. The majority in most modern countries respect science and want to be planned. And, therefore, almost by definition, if any man or group wishes to enslave us it will of course describe itself as ‘scientific planned democracy’.

and

My fears of such a tyranny will seem to the Professor either insincere or pusillanimous. For him the danger is all in the opposite direction, in the chaotic selfishness of individualism. I must try to explain why I fear more the disciplined cruelty of some ideological oligarchy. The Professor has his own explanation of this; he thinks I am unconsciously motivated by the fact that I ‘stand to lose by social change’. And indeed it would be hard for me to welcome a change which might well consign me to a concentration camp. I might add that it would be likewise easy for the Professor to welcome a change which might place him in the highest rank of an omni-competent oligarchy. That is why the motive game is so uninteresting. Each side can go on playing  ad nauseam, but when all the mud has been flung every man’s views still remain to be considered on their merits.

3) Democracy and conservatism

Haldane accuses Lewis of being anti-democracy, which accusation Lewis denies. He expands on his views:

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme – whose highest real claim is to reasonable prudence – the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.

This false certainty comes out in Professor Haldane’s article. He simply cannot believe that a man could really be in doubt about usury. I have no objection to his thinking me wrong. What shocks me is his instantaneous assumption that the question is so simple that there could be no real hesitation about it. It is breaking Aristotle’s canon to demand in every enquiry that degree of certainty which the subject matter allows. And not **on your life** to pretend that you see further than you do.

Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police  follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group  good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its  modus operandi. The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety.  The character in  That Hideous Strength whom the Professor never mentions is Miss Hardcastle, the chief of the secret police. She is the common factor in all revolutions; and, as she says, you won’t get anyone to do her job well unless they get some kick out of it.

Professor Haldane’s article can be found here.

Lewis’s response appears in the essay collection Of Other Worlds;, edited by Walter Hooper; excerpts are on-line at this site. There’s also a Wikipedia article on Haldane.

Previous version of this post here.

Abuse of Authority, continued

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Two years ago, I wrote about the trend toward the abuse of authority by people in various positions.   The examples I mentioned were:   Teachers and professors, using their jobs to conduct political indoctrination, and even marking down the grades of those with differing views. Corporate executives, using company resources to promote their personal political views. And intelligence officers, using their positions to influence US election outcomes.

The case of the intelligence people is worthy of particular attention at the moment.   The Hunter Biden trial and the introduction of the Laptop into evidence should remove any remaining doubt about the genuineness of the contents of that laptop.   Remember that 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter stating that the laptop story bore the earmarks of a classic Russian disinformation operation…even though they surely knew, or could have easily discovered, that the laptop contents were no such thing. The FBI also participated in this disinformation-about-disinformation story.   Social media platforms were persuaded (and persuaded without too much difficulty, I would bet) to suppress discussion of the story and even to suppress person-to-person messages that referenced the laptop…the contents of which were quite relevant to the question of whether or not to vote for Biden.

It is also time to remember a statement made by Senator Charles Schumer in response to then-President Trump’s criticism of the intelligence agencies.   He said that Trump was being “really dumb” by taking on these agencies, and continued “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

This statement would basically imply that the ultimate sovereign in the United States is the set of senior people in the “intelligence community”, and that the elected government remains in power–or not–at the pleasure of those agencies, similar to the way the militaries in some countries are the ultimate approvers or removers of civilian governments.   And Schumer did not make his statements in a way that implied–“This is awful, and we have to do something about it”….he seemed to be totally comfortable with that situation, and I would bet that a majority of other Democratic senators and congressmen feel the same way.

I also see some disturbing things in a recent interview with four-star admiral William McRaven, specifically: every time you undermine one of our institutions, you undermine America.    “Undermine” in his usage seems to mean criticizing the actions of any of these institutions.   I don’t think that position is consistent with the whole American idea.   It’s true that ignorant and overly-broad attacks are destructive–but it’s also true that institutions that are defined to be beyond criticism tend to get worse and worse.   Does admiral McRaven believe that all court decisions are correct? Even if we constrain it to “court decisions which were upheld after appeal” it seems like a pretty remarkable statement.   When was this level of judicial perfection established?…at some time, presumably, after the Dred Scott decision.

And McRaven’s statement, although focused on the judicial system and specifically the recent Trump conviction, was broader; it applied to “institutions” in general.   Are the Department of Education and the CDC to be viewed as sacred entities beyond criticism? How about those intelligence agencies and the FBI? Indeed, how about the US Navy and its problems with warship construction and ship handling?

Admiral McRaven’s statements may not be precisely abuse of authority in the way that my previous three examples are, but they’re still pretty disturbing when made by an admiral who held such an important command over American forces.

I’m reminded of something that occurred in the UK in 1940, at a time when Churchill was not yet Prime Minister but was First Lord of the Admiralty. He received a letter from a father disappointed that his son had been turned down for a commission, despite his qualifications and his record. Churchill suspected class prejudice and wrote to the Second Sea Lord, saying that “Unless some better reasons are given to me, I shall have to ask my Naval Secretary to interview the boy on my behalf.”

The Second Sea Lord, unhappy with the meddling from above, responded to the effect that it was inappropriate to question the decisions of “a board duly constituted.” To which Churchill replied:

I do not at all mind “going behind the opinion of a board duly constituted” or even changing the board or its chairman if I think injustice has been done. How long is it since this board was re-modeled?… Who are the naval representatives on the board of selection? Naval officers should be well-represented. Action accordingly. Let me have a list of the whole board with the full record of each member and his date of appointment.

Subsidization, Regulation, and AI

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A bipartisan working group led by Charles Schumer has introduced what this article calls a “long-awaited AI roadmap.”   The document calls for at least $32 billion to be allocated for nondefense AI innovation.

Bill Gurley,   a venture capitalist of long standing, says:   In the entire history of the VC industry has there ever been a category LESS in need of incremental $$$$$.

Indeed. Corporations and individuals with money to invest are falling all over themselves to invest in things AI-related.   Meanwhile, there are all kinds of serious issues–the hardening of the electrical grid against both enemy-caused EMP and natural magnetic storms, for example–that are not being adequately funded by the private sector and could benefit from some of that $32 billion.   But they’re not as trendy at the moment.

Today’s WSJ includes an op-ed by Martin Casado and  Katherine Boyle, both of Andreessen-Horowitz.   They write about the Department of Homeland Security’s formation of an AI Safety and Security Board, whose purpose is to advise the department, the private sector and the public on “safe and secure development and deployment of AI in our nation’s critical infrastructure,”   and they note that:

Of the 22 members on the board, none represent startups, or what we call “little tech.” Only two are private companies, and the smallest organization on the board hovers around $1 billion in value. The AI companies selected for the board either are among the world’s largest companies or have received significant funding from those companies, and all are public advocates for stronger regulations on AI models.

Much of the discussion of AI risks reminds me of the parable of Baptists and Bootleggers.   And when regulation becomes a dominant competitive factor in an industry, it becomes very difficult for new players to survive and thrive unless they are exceptionally well politically-connected.

Your thoughts?