We the Prisoners Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglioni Boston University April 2021 Introduction America was founded upon the notions of equality of opportunity, success through perseverance, and the idea that anyone, if they are hard-working and driven, can ascend socially and economically. Currently, however, the United States finds itself diametrically opposed to these ideas. The prison system in the United States contradicts rights guaranteed in the Constitution along with the promise of social mobility and the American Dream. “Mass incarceration” is a phrase frequently thrown about the political arena. These two words, however, represent 2.3 million American citizens who are in jail or prison today. To contextualize the gravity of this statistic, consider this: while the US has about 5% of the world’s population, it has about 25% of the world’s prison population. The majority of the victims of mass incarceration are Black and Latino men, who, despite having been promised equal protection under the law and a right to life and liberty, find themselves trapped in a system marked by racial disparity. One out of every three black boys and one out of every six Latino boys born today will go to prison at some point in their life while white boys born today have a 1/17 chance to go to prison in their lives. Despite being subjected, on average, to lower living standards in terms of housing and schooling, minority men are held to higher standards in the criminal justice system. While African Americans and whites report using drugs at similar rates, there are six times more Black men serving time for drug possession charges. The United States, a country founded on the notion of opportunity, get to these gruesomely imbalanced statistics through a series of public policy decisions. The minorities who make up these statistics have been disproportionately targeted by one of the Reagan administration’s keystone programs: the War on Drugs. While the policy battle against drugs was certainly started during the Nixon years and Nixon’s policies certainly influenced the oppression of minorities, the most detrimental and consequential laws of the War on Drugs were enacted during the years of the next administration. The Reagan White House, which controlled the executive branch during the 1980s, pushed policies that attacked drug possession and use with stringent criminal punishment. The administration was able to do this by stimulating public support for the War on Drugs; this mobilized Congress to act. The public angst the White House strived to create was based on largely ungrounded facts meant to instill fear in the general public. Impacts of policies implemented through this formula of fear mongering are felt today in the form of racial disparities in the American Criminal Justice System and the institution of mass incarceration. The Anti-Drug Act of 1986 imposed mandatory minimum sentences on the possession and distribution of certain drugs, allocated $2 billion to the crusade against drugs, involved the military in narcotic control, allowed for the death penalty for certain-drug related crimes and bolstered the authority of law enforcement. This policy was only strengthened in the coming years, and parts of this legislation remain in place today. Going to prison in America as a minority male, even when the crime is minor, constitutes a figurative life sentence due to the punitive nature of the Criminal Justice system, which taints a permanent record, complicates employment, ruptures family units and removes voting clout for prisoners. One of the most detrimental legacies of the War on Drugs, however, is the ostracization of former prisoners by American society. The institution of mass-incarceration is the outcome of policies like The Anti-Drug Act of 1986; this paper will analyze how this policy was born, implemented and how its hateful roots permeate the American society today. The legacy of The War on Drugs today is seen in the racial-biases in every step of the American criminal justice system: from investigation to sentencing to serving time. The shameful condition of American Criminal Justice doesn’t need to exist. Hundreds of thousands of people do not need to be imprisoned for minor charges, namely drug possession. In fact, this essay will argue, the American conscience cannot be clear so long as the institution of mass incarceration and its suffocating consequences are allowed to continue. The pillars and promises of our democracy must be restored and the way to do this is found in Portugal. Portugal’s drug legislation took a completely opposite perspective than the United States’ did when faced with a similar drug crisis; this essay will try to answer why that is the case. On July 1st, 2001 the country chose to “decriminalize the use and possession of all illicit drugs” and has since successfully reduced “problematic use, drug-related harms, and criminal justice overcrowding.” The values promulgated by this public policy emphasize recovery, safety and above all else, human dignity. By passing similar legislation, America would ameliorate the shameful condition of our discriminatory prison system and thus hold true to the roots and morals it was founded upon and has now seemingly forgotten. The United States’ current social, economic, and political climate makes the passing of such legislation unlikely. The institutional and cultural factors which influenced the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 (and their contribution to mass incarceration in the United States), compared to the same institutional or cultural factor when applied to Portugal, makes American unwillingness to rectify its broken criminal justice system evident. Ultimately, this reflects a very deep inconsistency between the notions American was founded upon and the values its government actually promulgates. The vantage points through which this essay will consider the opposite policy reactions of the United States and Portugal to drug use and possession are (1) Party Systems, (2) Welfare States, and (3) the role of religion in politics in America and Portugal. This essay will compare America and Portugal within the scope of three lenses: party systems, welfare systems and religious foundations. The vantage points will reveal Portugal’s proportional representation system is more responsive than the American two-party system; its universal health-care system has stronger infrastructure with which to implement a widespread drug policy; the common Catholic faith brings communities together and unifies public opinion. These factors combine clearly when considering the policy decision Portugal implemented in June 2001. A morally-unified public saw a clear issue in the rise of heroin use and asked their coalition-style government for a solution. Legislators turned to and trusted technical expertise to find a creative solution: decriminalization of drug possession and use. The country’s National Health Service was readily prepared and built on pre-existing welfare infrastructure, to implement the policy’s prevention and recovery programs. Once implemented, the public supported it fully. Now, drugs have ceased to be a controversial issue in Portugal and any mention of returning to a War on Drugs style approach is shot down. Party Systems Literature Review Two common forms of party system structures are a proportional representation system and a two-party system. The names are rather self-explanatory: a proportional representation system awards political parties seats in a country’s representative body in proportion to how many votes they receive, while a two-party system has two dominant groups in a representative body. Historically, proportional representation systems are superior to the two-party system when it comes to creating credible commitments because, since more than two ideologies are represented in the legislature, creating a majority coalition requires compromise. The negotiation and communication this requires fosters trust and understanding that bypasses the pettiness often seen in two-party systems. A multiparty system suggests that the negotiation and deal-making involved in the country’s policy decisions are collaborative, balanced, and focused on long-term gains. Conversely, in a winner-take-all two-party system, a lack of openness and communication is expected, and policy is likely to be directed towards short-term gains. The United States’ government fits the mold of a winner-take-all two-party system; the polarizing, negotiation-adverse effects of the system are felt in the Anti-Drug Act of 1986. To understand the negotiation-adverse climate which the 100th Congress faced, circumstances of the political climate must be considered. Firstly, the House and Senate were divided: the House was controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans. Divided government is a common feature of two-party systems which can obstruct meaningful cooperation. According to scholars, when two conflicting ideologies must cooperate it is much harder to reach win-win outcomes than if the negotiators held similar views. The state of the American Congress in 1986 was characterized by divided and increasingly competitive split party control. This made the starting point for negotiation on drug-policy already compromised. Further research on negotiation tells us that the entirety of the policy-making process is hampered by the two-party system, not just its starting point. Studies modeling two-party negotiations found that time pressures and power-projections are crucial in negotiation outcomes—especially when parties are already ideologically opposed. More time and a lack of feeling the need to establish dominance leads to more effective discussions due to a lessened sense of pressure. These factors impacted the internal negotiation climate of the American Congress in 1986. There was an intense pressure from both the executive branch and the public on the already-divided Congress for pivotal drug legislation. These two pressures largely worked hand in hand. Recall the formula of fear mongering used by the Reagan administration mentioned earlier, best exemplified by the executive decision to hire staff specifically to publicize the use of crack cocaine in inner-cities. This spurred intense media coverage, creating pressure from an anxious public for Congressional action. This combines with the final, most crucial circumstance impacting the 100th Congress and the Anti-Drug Act of 1986: 1986 was a midterm election year. Therefore, when the divided, two-party Congress sat down in September to discuss drug policy, they were influenced by both time-pressure from November midterms and power-pressure from the desire to project efficacy and strength to voters right before elections. A lack of meaningful discussion aimed at a long-term solution ensued. Both Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the House tried to create the most severe laws to acquiesce public nervousness, prioritizing power-projections over a constructive drug policy. Both Republicans and Democrats were blinded by hopes of re-election and failed to act in a long-term-oriented, collaborative manner. This directly stems from a divided two-party system, which creates a hostile and negotiation-adverse starting point only worsened in 1986 by time and power pressures. Welfare State Literature Review The design of a country’s social protection system is a fundamental factor to consider when assessing a drug policy such as the Anti-Drug Act of 1986. A country’s welfare state has a variety of characteristics to be considered. For example: whether a country implements universal coverage healthcare or chooses to implement a means-tested coverage system or whether healthcare is funded through public taxes, payroll contributions or private funding. The Anti-Drug Act of 1986 is nearly 200 pages long and has 21 sections devoted to anti-drug policy measures. Of these sections, several appropriate resources to criminal law enforcement and outline explicit punishments for the use and possession of drugs. The words “penalty” and “enforcement” are included in almost every section title. What words are missing, however, are terms such as “health”, “prevention” and “recovery”. If dangerous drugs were really sweeping the nation in ways so horrendous the Reagan administration claimed merited a crusade as aggressive as the War on Drugs, then where is the mention of recovery and prevention techniques? There is no mention of implementing healthcare programs to assist those suffering from drug abuse in the list of the 21 sections devoted to anti-drug policy measures. None of these sections emphasize the importance of recovery treatment. To find mentions of such programs, one must delve deep into the document, past authorization for the death penalty for certain drug offenses or the use of illegally obtained evidence in drug trials. Only in the most obscured corners of this legislation is minimal policy for prevention found. It calls for a board to come together thrice annually to assess how drug abuse prevention measures are doing at a national and state level, as well as for an increase in drug education programs in public schools. Although the amount of spending allocated for this is unclear, while the $2 billion allocated to increasing policing is concrete. Prevention and recovery are not emphasized in the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 and this may be partly due to the American welfare state which is characterized by high private social spending supported by government tax subsidies for the upper and upper-middle classes. Also, there are hardly any large public social programs that benefit all United States citizens nationally. Instead, America uses means-tested social assistance programs for poor people and social insurance programs (Social Security) for the middle-class, while the richest members of society rely on private healthcare programs. This divided structure existed when the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 was implemented, the same time as America was suffering from an alleged crack-cocaine crisis. Whether or not this is actually true has been heavily disputed: research suggests the crack-epidemic that conservative figureheads preached about was nonexistent, that drug use in urban neighborhoods was actually declining. Regardless of how real the crack-crisis actually was, the intention of the American government was clearly not to aid its alleged victims in recovery, but rather target urban populations. There was little to no mention of a national health strategy to combat the alleged issue. Perhaps (and very concerning morally) this is because those promoting the policy knew the crack-cocaine crisis was fabricated. However, it is possible that the reason the focus was not on treatment but increased criminal sentencing was due to the divided and privatized healthcare system which provided no clear roadmap or infrastructure for a national drug strategy to combat the (supposed) drug epidemic. Role of Religion Literature Review While surprisingly little research has been done on how religion factored into the War on Drugs, it can be said with confidence that religion acts as a polarizing force in American politics when certain religious groups align themselves with political ideologies. That holds true when considering American drug policy during the 1980s: President Reagan was supported fervently by conservative religious groups of evangelical Christians trying to return America to “traditional values”. This alliance between conservative Christians and the Republican party became known as the Moral Majority, a political group which mobilized Christian voters who felt as though they had been overlooked by their government during the years of the 1960s and 1970s; the War on Drugs was popular among these voters and they became one of Ronald Reagan’s most dependable coalitions. The years that the Moral Majority claimed the government ignored their voices overlap, of course, were the years of the Civil Rights Movement. Many members of the Christian Right overlap with another constituency of Reagan’s: whites who resented civil rights progress such as affirmative action. Research found that racial attitudes were a key determinant of white support to “get tough on crime” and the people most likely to support criminal-punitiveness were rural, conservative whites. The people that constitute this demographic also comprise those most dedicated to the Moral Majority: evangelical Christians. It was none other than this religious coalition which, feeling threatened and overlooked by years of Civil Rights progress, saw the War on Drugs as an opportunity to halt racial reform without seeming explicitly racist. There was notable support from the Christian Right for the Anti-Drug Act of 1986. Party Systems Case Study The United States’ Party System is a winner-take-all two-party system. In stark contrast, Portugal’s government is a multiparty, proportional representation system. Recall that multiparty systems suggest collaborative, balanced, and long-term-oriented negotiation, while a winner-take-all two-party system is likely to lack openness, communication and long-term foresight. These expectations are completely met when comparing the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 and the 2001 Portuguese decriminalization policy. While the United States met its (alleged) drug crisis with a criminal offensive campaign, Portugal reacted to its similar drug crisis with a strategy that vowed to reintegrate drug-users into society; a strategy based on recovery, not revenge. Analyzing party systems shows why the countries moved in such different directions. The heroin crisis that struck Portugal from 1980-2000 saw the highest rate of HIV infection in the entire European Union plaguing the relatively small country. During the two decades prior to the decriminalization policy, the Portuguese government responded to the epidemic by implementing harsh policies administered by the criminal justice system. Conservative politicians who boisterously condemned drug use supported this approach despite its failure to produce results. The heroin crisis was escalating quickly and the coalition government (The Council of Ministers, Portugal’s Parliament) saw the need for innovative policy—and the need to act fast. Proportional-representation governments are known to use deliberative negotiation tactics (like relying on third-party expertise) to form creative credible commitments. In keeping with this standard, Portugal relied heavily on technical expertise in creating their decriminalization policy. A panel of experts (called The Commission for a National Drug Strategy) was assembled to analyze the efficacy of the American-inspired, criminally punitive approach Portugal was using to combat its heroin crisis. The panel stated the War-on Drugs-style approach was “squandering resources” and advised for a revolutionary new tactic. They suggested converting drug use and possession to an administrative offense, rather than a criminal one. The goal was to regard drug users as full members of society rather than outcasts and criminals. The Council of Ministers accepted almost the entirety of the expert report in October 2000 and has since seen a reduced burden on its criminal justice system, increased uptake of drug treatment, fewer deaths and diseases related to opioids and a reduction in retail prices of drugs. While the United States suffered a crack-cocaine crisis (or so the Reagan administration wanted Americans to believe) in the 1980s which directly paralleled Portugal's heroin crisis, there was little to no use of strategies like reliance on technical expertise to find a solution in Congress. Rather, the hyper-competitive, negotiation-adverse two-party system of the United States Congress went straight for power-projecting, shortsighted policies like the Anti-Drug Act of 1986, which drastically increased drug arrests, thus ostracizing thousands of Americans into the punitive criminal justice system. The harsh system created by the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 manifests itself today in the mass-incarceration of ethnic minorities. The permanence of this system is the divisive nature of our two-party system which did not end with the Reagan years. Up until very recently, no actor in the American federal sentencing system, including Congress, the President or the Attorney General, tried to propose innovative legislation to create a real shift in how the United States’ criminal justice system responds to drug use and possession. In fact, even the most significant policy developments have continued to rely upon the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 for federal sentencing structure. The lack of forward-thinking, creative policy in American drug strategy is caused by the divided two-party system which is just as unwilling to unite in the name of long-term collective gains today as it was in the 1980s. When Portugal noticed it had a heroin epidemic, its coalition-style government sought effective action to better its citizen’s health. Simultaneously, Ronald Reagan sought harsh retribution against drug users by targeting black men as criminal offenders over the possession of minor quantities of drugs. Policies from the War on Drugs, like the Anti-Drug Act of 1986, have deprived thousands of people of voting rights and has forced them to live in what some scholars have called an “under-caste” of society”. The United States’ two-party system facilitates the implementation and permanence of policies targeting ethnic minorities for the possession and use of drugs. Welfare State Case Study If the welfare state of a country matters in how drug policy is implemented, a difference is expected between the drug policy of a country with free, universal healthcare and the drug policy of a country with a system like that of the United States (few national programs for all citizens and a division along class lines of where one’s social safety net comes from). Portugal exemplifies the former of these two options: the country’s National Health Service provides free, universal coverage, protecting all citizens regardless of private wealth. For this reason, when the expert panel assessing the drug crisis proposed making drug use a health, rather than a criminal, concern, the Portuguese Council of Ministers was willing to listen. The 2001 decriminalization policy stresses a humane approach to drug abuse by providing resources in the areas of prevention, harm-reduction and treatment programs. The American healthcare system is marked by division between private and public healthcare sources and a lack of universal coverage programs. This resulted in no groundwork for a hypothetical national health strategy when American legislators were considering drug reform in the 1980s (though scholars question if their motivations were genuine enough to consider reform based on healthcare, rather than criminal punitiveness). This juxtaposes Portugal, where the National Health Service had been well-equipped for years to provide universal, free, public-sponsored health coverage and was able to adapt efficiently to the prevention and treatment programs set forth in the 2001 decriminalization policy. João Goulão, the architect of Portugal’s policy, reflected on the conclusions of the expert panel that was obtained to help the government find a long-term, creative solution to the drug issue. “It made much more sense for us to treat drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals,” he said. This leads directly to the chief priority of Portuguese drug strategy: not to allow the marginalization of those using and possessing drugs. In complete antithesis, the marginalization of those using and possessing drugs was, some scholars have argued, the priority of the architects of American drug strategy. This may be partially due to the different welfare states in each country: the American welfare state lacks national unity and thus, promotes individualism while the Portuguese welfare state is quite literally defined by national cohesiveness and inclusivity. Role of Religion Case Study Religion matters when considering policies a country implements because a country with unified religious opinions will see a more broad public consensus over issues while a country where religion acts as a polarizing force will not. The latter of these two options represents the United States, where the Moral Majority supported the War on Drugs despite its racially divisive policies. In what is perhaps the most prominent contrast of this entire paper, Portugal has a public which is incredibly unified religiously. Although Portugal has no official national religion, almost 90% of its population identifies as Roman-Catholic. In keeping with regional trends (with culturally and geographically similar countries like Spain and Italy), regular mass attendance, is on the decline; while devout Catholicism may be fading, the deep-seeded roots of the religion are ingrained both in everyday life and in politics. One of the most important impacts which Catholicism has had on Portuguese society is rendering it rather socially conservative. As the heroin crisis of the 1980s and 1990s escalated, it cut across all classes, impacting those in the highest and lowest echelons of Portuguese society alike. This meant that drug use became unusually visible: from shady street corners to the most fancy of discotheques. This did not bode well with the socially conservative Catholic society and the unified public religion put pressure on public officials to act. Conversely, public religious sentiment in America during the years of the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 were the opposite of unified. Groups of the same religion, such as the Moral Majority and black churches across America, both Christian organizations, failed to see eye-to-eye on drug issues. One group supported the War on Drugs and the other denounced it. The Christian Right’s support for the War on Drugs and the subsequent legacy of mass incarceration it established, shows a fundamental divide between the policy Black Christians desire and what White Evangelicals push for. The lack of unified sentiment from Christians in the United States, both in the 1980s and now, starkly contrasts Portugal where unified religion lead to widespread public support for ethical principles which directly motivated politicians to act. For the thousands of Black and Latino men who face the dark realities of mass-incarceration in the United States, religious-based political arguments and movements have made little headway on aiding their struggles and religion seems to drive parties and their constituencies farther and farther apart on key issues rather than unite and mobilize them. In Portugal, religion unites; in America, it polarizes. Conclusion Fundamental American writings like the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution promise the right to life, liberty and equal protection under the law. It is grim to realize these rights and protections have been unjustly removed for millions of incarcerated citizens. Minorities in America, specifically African American men, have been historically discriminated against, and the United States’ prison system is a continuation of this marginalization, as mass-incarceration locks a large percentage of African Americans out of mainstream economy and society. The shameful condition of the United States’ prison system is a legacy of the War on Drugs and policies like the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 which called for mandatory minimum sentences on the possession of certain drugs and allocated $2 billion to the crusade against drugs. It is still the backbone of federal sentencing guidelines today. Policies like this are why the incarceration rate has skyrocketed since the 1980s despite violent crime rates falling. The persistence of racial-targeting and racial-biases in the American criminal justice system today, including the fact that legislation such as the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 is still referenced, is opposed to the fundamental values upon which America was founded. The right to equal protection under the law, and the right to life and liberty are all desecrated by the institution of mass-incarceration. How did policy like the Anti-Drug Act of 1986 become implemented? It was due to the Reagan White House’s formula of fear mongering: creating public angst over a crack-cocaine crisis (which scholars dispute even existed pre-War on Drugs) to push a punitive criminal agenda. But, if not criminal harshness, what other ways might an industrialized and modern country respond to an increasing drug problem, supposed or real, and protect the rights and liberties of its citizens while doing so? Portugal responded to growing concern over drug use by rejecting a War-on-Drugs-style approach and instead decriminalized drug possession and use. This essay compared America and Portugal within the scope of three lenses: party systems, welfare systems and religious foundations. The vantage points revealed Portugal’s proportional representation system is more responsive than the American two-party system; its universal health-care system has stronger infrastructure with which to implement a widespread drug policy; the common Catholic faith brings communities together and unifies public opinion. These factors combine clearly when considering the policy decision Portugal implemented in June 2001. A morally-unified public saw a clear issue in the rise of heroin use and asked their coalition-style government for a solution. Legislators turned to and trusted technical expertise to find a creative solution: decriminalization of drug possession and use. The country’s National Health Service was readily prepared and built on pre-existing welfare infrastructure, to implement the policy’s prevention and recovery programs. Once implemented, the public supported it fully. Now, drugs have ceased to be a controversial issue in Portugal and any mention of returning to a War on Drugs style approach is shot down. These differences between America and Portugal, revealed by the case studies, are marked by increased responsiveness and morality on the part of the Europeans. This difference is further amplified when considering the country’s similarities: both advanced and well-educated, both industrialized and marked by diversity. If Portugal is able to implement policies which respond to the needs of their citizens, both in terms of health-concerns and political demands, while ensuring human rights are emphasized, why can’t the United States? The observed phenomena emphasizes the United States’ unwillingness to address the flaws of its criminal justice system due to its polarized party-system, divisive welfare-state and religious-infighting. Where the Portuguese Parliament is willing to compromise, the United States Congress chooses to bash negotiation. Where Portuguese healthcare is universal and free, the American welfare state is divisive and lacks coordination. Where Portuguese society is unified socially, American society is only further polarized. All of these lenses show one underlying theme: Portugal values and promotes human dignity while the United States promotes marginalization of its minorities and the polarization of its citizens. It is not America, but rather Portugal which emphasizes the inalienable right to life and liberty and equal protection under the law. While this realization may seem pessimistic, it should be taken constructively. These are, ultimately, American ideals which are being instilled abroad. Before mass incarceration and racial-biases in our prison system can truly end America must do a few things. Some may say these are radical and impossible but rather, they are the only actions in keeping with the country’s founding values. It must strive to increase responsiveness in its party system which currently only provides two diametrically opposed and negotiation-adverse viewpoints. It must attempt to unify a national healthcare strategy to benefit all citizens, regardless of race or wealth. It must remove the use of religion as a political shield during times of policy discussion and use it as a tool for unity instead. Only then, once the American party, healthcare and religious systems are rectified in order to align with this country’s intended values, can the horrors of mass-incarceration be amended. Works Cited Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New Press, 2010. Bajekal, Naina. “Want to Win the War on Drugs? Portugal Might Have the Answer.” TIME, 1 Aug. 2018. Balakrishnan, P. V. (Sundar), and Jehoshua Eliashberg. “An Analytical Process Model of Two-Party Negotiations.” Management Science, vol. 41, no. 2, Feb. 1995, pp. 226–243. Berman, Douglas A. “Reflecting on the Latest Drug War Fronts.” Federal Sentencing Reporter, vol. 26, no. 4, Apr. 2014, pp. 213–216. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP, 2019, www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/. 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Richard Wu Teotl vs. Tao: Comparing Tlamatinime and Taoist Thought Richard Wu Today, academic scholars and the general public primarily remember the Aztecs for their bloody human sacrifices, towering pyramid temples, and glittering gold wealth. However, lesser-known about the Mexica (Aztecs) is their rich tradition of philosophy, which flourished in isolation from its Old World counterparts. This research paper examines Mexica philosophy, drawing comparisons to another similar school of thought: Taoism in ancient China. Though separated by thousands of miles, Aztec thinkers in Mesoamerica and Taoist sages in China both independently arrived at the idea that the universe exists as a dialectical monism (a unified whole manifested through opposing forces). To the Mexica, the universe was in- fused with Teotl, a divine life-force analogous to the notion of Tao in Taoism. Like the Taoist conception of opposing-yet-interconnected yin and yang forces, Teotl was seen as a unified, interdependent duality. This common perception of the universe’s existence as a dialectical monism prompted both Mexica and Taoist philosophers to ponder the question: How should people live in a world permeated by duality? Interestingly, the two different philosophies reached the same conclusion: a moral, virtuous life is a life of balance. Thus, for Aztecs and Taoists alike, philosophy was not solely confined to the realm of intellectual inquiry; rather, philosophy became an integral part of everyday life. When Spanish conquistadors arrived at the Mexica (Aztec) capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519, they were astounded to encounter one of the world’s largest cities of the period. In fact, Tenochtitlan’s canals, markets, gardens, and temples so impressed the Spaniards that the conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo would later compare the Mexica capital city to an enchanting dream (1). However, within the next two years, this enchanting dream would be destroyed, both physically and ideologically. The Spanish razed Tenochtitlan to the ground during their conquest of Mexico, covering the ruins of Aztec buildings with what would become Mexico City. Accompanying the conquest was the substantial destruction of Mexica cultural heritage—zealous Spanish clergy members replaced Aztec gods with Jesus and the Virgin Mary, ended the use of the Mesoamerican calendar, and burned countless codices. Further, the Spanish conquest erased another essential facet of Mexica culture: the Aztec school of philosophy. Mexica philosophers, called tlamatinime (literally ‘knowers of things’ in the Aztec language, Nahuatl), developed a rich intellectual tradition in complete isolation from Pythagoreanism in Greece, Confucianism in China, or any other philosophy of the Old World (2). In regards to philosophy at large, much of Western academia has historically dismissed non-Western philosophical inquiry, including Mexica thought. However, newer works of the past few decades—such as Ben-Ami Scharfstein’s paper “The Western Blindness to Non-Western Philosophies”—argue against this Euro- centric view of philosophy, validating the rich history of philosophical engagement in non-Western cultures (3). In this context of wider philosophical discussion, this work intends to shed light on a topic that has received relatively little academic attention, thereby adding to recognition of non-Western thought. This paper seeks to compare and contrast Mexica tlamatinime thought with another non-Western school of philosophy: Taoism in ancient China. The first half of this paper examines the historical context, metaphysics, ethics, and societal implications of Aztec philosophy. The second half includes a comparative examination of Taoism and its historical context, metaphysics, ethics, and societal implications. Though seemingly irrelevant to one another, these two philosophies share many similar ideas regarding metaphysics and ethics––notably, the concept of the universe as a dialectical polar monism, as well as an emphasis on balance. Despite the ideological resemblance, however, these philosophies also developed within different sociopolitical contexts, leading the tlamatinime and the Taoists to diverge in their views on the applications of philosophy. I. Aztec Philosophy Note: Though the Spanish destroyed most of the pre-Columbian Aztec codices following the conquest of Mexico, many post-conquest era documents from both native and Spanish sources exist today. In addition, poems composed prior to the conquest survived through oral transmission. From these remaining sources and archaeological studies, scholars can glean an understanding of Mexica thought today. A. Origins and Context of Aztec Philosophy Although Aztec philosophy may have had precedents in the earlier Teotihuacano or Toltec civilizations, the scarcity of written documents from these older civilizations precludes historiographic study of pre-Mexica thought in central Mexico. However, philosophical inquiry blossomed in Mesoamerica by the time of the Aztecs. In his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, historian and writer Charles C. Mann references many surviving Nahuatl manuscripts that describe Mexica tlamatinime meetings in cities like Tenochtitlan (4). The fact that the tlamatinime frequently met for intellectual exchanges and discussions indicates that the Aztecs already had a flourishing philosophical tradition prior to the Spaniards’ arrival. Interestingly, this philosophical tradition emerged from the Aztecs’ obsession with a central problem: the transience of existence. Mortality and impermanence permeated many aspects of Mexica culture, from religion to society to intellectual thought. In religion, human sacrifices sought to prolong the universe’s existence by sustaining the gods with human blood (5). In everyday society, annual death celebrations—which have survived to this day in the form of Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) festivities—reminded all of the inevitability of mortality (6). Finally, in intellectual circles, the tlamatinime grappled with the philosophical implications of life in a transitory world (7). A poem ascribed to Nezahualcoyotl, a tlamatini (the singular of tlamatinime ) and tlatoani (ruler) of Texcoco, serves as a memento mori in its contemplation on the ephemeral nature of existence: I, Nezahualcoyotl, ask this: Do we truly live on earth? Not forever here, only a little while. Even jade breaks, golden things fall apart, precious feathers fade; not forever on earth, only a moment here (8). The question presented at the beginning of Nezahualcoyotl’s poem is one that Mexica thinkers contemplated: “Do we truly live on earth?” (9). When analyzing this question, the words ‘truly’ and ‘earth’ should be emphasized for their nuances in the Nahuatl language. The Nahuatl word for ‘truth,’ neltiliztli , also means ‘rootedness’ (10) since the Aztecs believed “what was true was well-grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all” (11). Indeed, this was what the tlamatinime sought: to find what was true and enduring while living in an impermanent world fraught with hazards. The Nahuatl word for ‘earth,’ tlalticpac , also denotes “a narrow, jagged, point-like place surrounded by constant dangers” (12). When these linguistic nuances are placed together into the poem’s context, the answer to Nezahualcoyotl’s question emerges: people do not ‘truly’ live on earth because humans’ earthly existence is fleeting, and even the short duration of that existence itself is filled with struggle. This implied answer to Nezahualcoyotl’s question echoes the response seen in the poem: “Not forever here, / only a little while” (13). According to Nezahualcoyotl, not only is human existence fleeting, but even the most valuable materials—gold, jade, precious feathers—are also subject to the ravages of time. The sobering realization that nothing in the world lasts forever prompts the questions that drive Mexica philosophy: What is enduring and true? How can humans, “beings of the moment[,] grasp the perduring?” (14). Most importantly, how should people live on the tlalticpac ? B. Ideas of Aztec Philosophy To address the transience of existence and find a source of rootedness on the hazardous tlalticpac , the Mexica tlamatinime turned to metaphysics. Central to the Aztecs’ conception of the universe is Teotl (literally ‘spirit’ or ‘god’ in the Nahuatl language), an unending, divine life-force that simultaneously transcends and permeates all of existence. According to the tlamatinime , this life-force not only comprises everything in the universe, but also presents itself in the “ceaseless, cyclical oscillation of polar-yet-complementary opposites” that pervades the cosmos (15). The worldview espoused by Mexica metaphysics can best be described as a “dialectical polar monism,” a term which can be broken down into its constituent words for further insight (16). ‘Monism’ posits that everything in the universe is part of a single, seamless whole. ‘Polar’ implies that this single whole consists of opposing halves. ‘Dialectical’ suggests that these opposing halves are not separate but rather constantly interacting, like two sides debating in discourse. This perception of the world as a dialectical polar monism can be observed in surviving Mesoamerican artwork. Archaeological investigations have found half- face-half-skull masks that depict both life and death in locations such as Tlatilco and Oaxaca (17). Similarly, the Life-Death Figure sandstone sculpture displayed at the Brooklyn Museum portrays a living manifestation of the deity Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl on its front and a skeleton manifestation of Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl on the back (18). These artworks, which can be said to represent a state of being “neither- alive-nor-dead-yet-both-alive-and-dead all at once,” convey the inextricable na- ture of life and death: life inevitably ends in death, but death gives way to new life (19). Figure 1. Split-Face Mask (20) Image Credit: Photo Courtesy of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (Licensed Under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0) Figure 2. Life-Death Figure (21) Image Credit: Huastec. Life-Death Figure , 900-1250. Sandstone, traces of pigment, 62 3/8 x 26 x 11 1/2 in. (158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Frank Sherman Benson Fund and the Henry L. Batterman Fund, 37.2897PA. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: 37.2897PA_front_PS11.jpg) In a similar fashion, the tlamatinime saw other pairs of opposites—male/female, light/dark, etc.—as mutually-intertwined dualities infused with Teotl . Thus, with the view that the universe is a dialectical polar monism permeated by the spiritual energy of Teotl , Mexica metaphysics gave the tlamatinime an interpretation of the transience of existence. The unending dialectical oscillations between the universe’s polar extremes prevent any kind of long-term stability or rootedness. Despite this lack of stability, Teotl exists with reliable consistency. Scholar James Maffie comments: .... Teotl is nevertheless characterized by enduring pattern or regularity. How is this so? Teotl is the dynamic, sacred energy shaping as well as consti- tuting these endless oscillations; it is the immanent balance of the endless, dialectical alternation of the created universe’s interdependent polarities (22). Significantly, Teotl endures because it exists in a state of “immanent balance” that permeates the entirety of existence (23). While the dialectical nature of Teotl can give rise to short-term or localized polar extremes, the oscillations of Teotl ultimately balance out those extremes, promoting long-term overall balance throughout the universe. From this understanding of Teotl , the tlamatinime arrived at the conclusion that only through attaining balance and avoiding extremes can humans succeed in finding rootedness on the precarious tlalticpac . C. Ethical/Societal Impacts of Aztec Philosophy The Mexicas’ metaphysical focus on duality and balance led to the development of Mexica ethics. The tlamatinime believed that a virtuous, moral life promotes balance and abstains from excess. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Aztec and Maya gives an overview of Mexica ethics and morality: Aztecs were generally agreed as to what constituted good behavior. Ac- cording to Bernardino de Sahagun, author of General History of the Things of New Spain , virtuous Aztecs...brought energy to their work, without overin- dulging in sleep but rising early and laboring for long hours. They ate and drank in moderation; drunkenness was particularly frowned upon. They did not make a great noise when eating, thought carefully before speaking, and were circumspect in what they said. They dressed and behaved with modesty (24). Indeed, the Aztec education and law systems exhibited the importance Mexica philosophy placed on living a balanced life. In education, Aztec schools strove to instill moral virtues in young students. These schools, which often hired tlamatinime as teachers, allowed Mexica philosophy to shape the growth and development of Aztec youth (25). A common Nahuatl instructive proverb of the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century codex documenting Aztec culture, demonstrates the impact of tlamatinime thought on Mexica education: “ Tlacoqualli in monequi . [Translation and meaning:] Moderation is proper. We should not dress in rags, nor should we overdress. In the matter of clothing, we should dress with moderation” (26). By teaching younger generations to lead moderate, balanced lives, the Mexica education system successfully integrated and adapted the teachings of the tlamatinime . Similarly, Aztec laws display the influence of tlamatinime thought. The renowned tlamatini and tlatoani Nezahualcoyotl, who transformed his city into “‘the Athens of the Western World,’” enacted Texcoco’s law code (27). Under Nezahualcoyotl’s legal reforms, the judicial system criminalized actions and behaviors which were viewed as disruptive to societal balance, including “treason against the king, adultery, robbery, superstition, misuse of inherited properties, homicide, homosexuality, alcohol abuse, and military misconduct” (28). As stated by the chronicler Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, Nezahualcoyotl’s new legal code was considered so advanced and efficient that even the “kings of Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan [the other two most significant cities of the Aztec Empire] adopted Nezahualcoyotl’s laws and governmental standards” (29). The tlamatinime not only played a crucial role in fostering Aztec intellectual life; they also nurtured a more balanced and harmonious society. Unfortunately, as Mann laments in 1491 , the loss of the Mexica philosophical tradition after the Spanish conquest “was a loss not just to [the Aztecs]...but to the human enterprise as a whole” (30). II. Taoist Philosophy Note: This section will consider another school of philosophy, Taoism, and compare and contrast Taoism with Aztec philosophy. The romanizations ‘Taoism’ and ‘Daoism’ refer to the same school of thought; for the sake of consistency, the name ‘Taoism’ will be used in discussion from here on. However, since the alternative romanization ‘Daoism’ is also commonly accepted in academia today, some quotations will contain the name ‘Daoism’ instead of ‘Taoism’ or refer to the philosophical concept of ‘Dao’ instead of ‘Tao.’ A. Origins and Context of Taoist Philosophy More than a millennium before the rise of the Aztec Empire in Mexico, China’s Zhou Dynasty splintered into a multitude of warring kingdoms. In the turbulent era of warfare and chaos that followed, an unexpected development occurred: the blooming of Chinese philosophy, a phenomenon later referred to as the “Hundred Schools of Thought” (31). Because of the political fragmentation of the time, no intellectual orthodoxy existed to restrain philosophical inquiry, and China’s warring states were thus open to various different schools of thought. The intellectual diversity of this period sprouted many of imperial China’s foundational philosophies, such as Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, and Taoism. Of these philosophies, Taoism bears much resemblance to Aztec philosophy. Few historical records about the early history of Taoism survive today due to the Qin dynasty’s book-burning campaigns, but remaining Chinese sources trace Taoist philosophy to the teachings of the legendary sage Laozi, purported author of the Tao Te Ching , and the philosopher Zhuangzi, who is credited with writing the Zhuangzi (32). Unlike the Confucians of the time, who were primarily interested in applying theories of ethics to human relationships, Taoists stressed “meta-ethical reflections [which] were by turns skeptical then relativist, here naturalist and there mystical” (33). Thus, from a metaphysical standpoint, “Daoism is naturalistic in that any first-order moral dao [way] must be rooted in natural ways” (34). In other words, Taoist philosophers were skeptical of Confucianism’s rigid ethical emphasis on society and human relationships; instead, they looked beyond the human world to metaphysics and the natural environment to guide their reflections on ethics, a philosophical pursuit somewhat similar to that of the Mexica tlamatinime . Political history often greatly shapes the development of philosophy. While the tlamatinime of the Aztec Empire lived during a time of political unity and prosperity, Taoism and the other Chinese philosophies among the “Hundred Schools of Thought” were established during the Spring-Autumn and Warring States periods, when China was filled with political strife and divided into separate states. As a result, Mexica thought is a more unified body of philosophy than the diverse schools of traditional Chinese thought. Further historical developments complicate the disparities between Mexica and Taoist thought. Due to imperial China’s later history of relative political and cultural unity, “many philosophers of the time [Song through Qing dynasties] developed theories and methods of self-cultivation that mixed Confucianism with Buddhism and Daoism” (35). The philosophical and religious blending of later Chinese history highlights an important difference between the schools of thought. Whereas Chinese zhe xue jia (philosophers) could build upon these other theories, Mexica tlamatinime, as the product of an isolated, cohesive philosophical tradition, did not have significant contact with other philosophies, and thus they lacked the opportunity to engage with external ideas. B. Ideas of Taoist Philosophy Taoism centers around the concept of Tao . Often translated to English as “way,” the Tao drives the main question behind Taoist philosophy: What is the right way for people to live? Like the tlamatinime, who asked how humans should live on the tlalticpac , Taoist thinkers did not pursue philosophy for the sake of philosophy. Rather, they aimed to reach an understanding of how to best approach everyday life. To the Taoists, the concept of Tao as “way” is central to this understanding. With that said, the term ‘way’ inadequately describes Tao in many contexts. Sinologist Arthur Waley notes that the Chinese word Tao comes with multiple connotations: ...[Tao] means a road, path, way; and hence, the way in which one does something; method, doctrine, principle...in a particular school of philosophy whose followers came to be called Taoists, Tao meant ‘the way the universe works’; and ultimately something very like God, in the more abstract and philosophical sense of that term (36). Waley’s definition of Tao as “the way the universe works” is a more elaborate and accurate description than the simple “way,” but this designation still does not fully capture the essence of Tao (37). According to scholar Chad Hansen, Tao “appears more metaphysical than ‘way,’” (38) an assertion which is supported in the Zhuangzi by Zhuangzi’s statement, “Fishes breed and grow in the water; man develops in the Dao ” (39). This analogy implies that the Tao is like an endless metaphysical ocean that surrounds and encompasses all of existence. Zhuangzi’s conception of the Tao is analogous to Mexica philosophy’s idea of Teotl: Teotl and Tao are both seamless totalities that make up the universe and everything in it. Another important aspect of the Taoist worldview is the notion of yin and yang forces. Yin is associated with darkness, coldness, and passivity, while yang refers to light, warmth, and action. Taoism posits that these “correlatives are the expressions of the movement of Dao ...not opposites, mutually excluding each other... [but rather] the ebb and flow of the forces of reality: yin / yang , male/female; excess/ defect; leading/following; active/passive” (40). In the Tao Te Ching , Laozi presents the nature of the yin-yang duality through several seemingly paradoxical statements: It is because every one under Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty, that the idea of ugliness exists. And equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue, this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness. For truly ‘Being and Not-being grow out of one another; Difficult and easy complete one another. Long and short test one another; High and low determine one another. Pitch and mode give harmony to one another. Front and back give sequence to one another’ (41). Laozi’s first claim that the recognition of beauty begets the idea of ugliness initially appears contradictory. Upon further inspection, it becomes apparent that a perception of what is beauty also requires an understanding of what is not beauty, and thus, of what is ugly . Likewise, the other opposites in the pairs mentioned—virtue/wickedness, being/non-being, difficulty/easiness, and so on—appear to be mutually exclusive antitheses, but are in reality inseparable and interdependent entities. This cyclic nature of duality portrayed by Laozi and other Taoist thinkers parallels the dialectical oscillations of Teotl in tlamatinime thought. In examining the concepts of Tao and yin-yang in the context of Taoist philosophy, a noteworthy conclusion arises: Taoist metaphysics, like Mexica metaphysics, perceives the universe as a dialectical polar monism. Both philosophies view the universe as a cyclical, oscillating whole permeated by balance between polar extremes. In the case of the tlamatinime , this balance is an aspect of Teotl ; in the case of the Taoists, this balance is an aspect of the Tao . Visually, an artistic interpretation of this idea can be seen in the Taijitu symbol associated with Taoism (42). The Taijitu symbol consists of a black sliver (representing yin ) and white sliver (representing yang ) melded together into one circle, which represents the unity implicit in duality described in the Tao Te Ching . Each sliver contains a dot of the opposite color, indicating that yin and yang are mutually interconnected—in yin can be found yang , and in yang can be found yin . The Taijitu symbol bears striking aesthetic and ideological similarities to Aztec designs pictured in the Codex Magliabechiano (43). The Aztec designs, known as xicalcoliuhqui motifs in Nahuatl, represent the universe’s dialectical “motion-change...[that] nourishes and renews existing cycles [of Teotl ] as well as initiates new cycles” (44). Figure 3. Taijitu Symbol (45) Image Credit: Image Courtesy of Gregory Maxwell (Public Domain) Figure 4. Codex Magliabechiano Illustrations (46) Image Credit: Photos Courtesy of Ancient Americas at LACMA (ancientamericas.org) C. Ethical/Societal Impacts of Taoist Philosophy Like the Aztec tlamatinime , Taoist philosophers also applied their metaphysics to ethics. In Taoist ethics, the definition of Tao as “way” is relatively fitting, as Taoist ethics seeks to understand the right way to live. But how can this way be applied to everyday life? The Tao Te Ching provides an answer: Those who possess this Tao do not try to fill themselves to the brim, And because they do not try to fill themselves to the brim They are like a garment that endures all wear and need never be renewed (47) In this passage, Laozi uses the imagery of a bucket filled to the brim with water to describe people who lead lives of overindulgence. Like the bucket—which contains an excess of water and cannot be easily carried without spilling and wasting some of its contents—people who lead lives filled with excess gluttony, greed, or lust will end up wasting their resources, leading to an unsustainable way of life. Thus, Laozi believes that people can maintain a sustainable life by avoiding extremes and excess. By not filling up the bucket completely to the brim, one will be able to carry the bucket without spilling and wasting any water. Therefore, those who lead lives of balance and moderation “need never be renewed” (48). Laozi’s advice echoes the tlamatinime teachings seen from phrases such as tlacoqualli in monequi (moderation is proper). Thus, for both the Taoists and the tlamatinime , balance and moderation play a crucial role in ethics. Despite the significance of balance in both Taoist and Mexica ethics, the two philosophical traditions approached societal institutions differently. While the tlamatinime actively encouraged balanced, proper behavior through educational and legal systems, Taoist philosophers saw human institutions—including schools and laws—as a source of imbalance to the universe’s natural harmony. This Taoist opinion rejected Confucianism’s obsession with order and rule-setting. Scholar Ronnie Littlejohn comments: Confucius and his followers wanted to change the world and be proactive in setting things straight. They wanted to tamper, orchestrate, plan, educate, develop, and propose solutions...Confucians think they can engineer reality, understand it, name it, control it. But the Daoists think that such endeavors are the source of our frustration and fragmentation [because such acts create imbalance]...They believe the Confucians create a gulf between humans and nature, that weakens and destroys us (49). The differing historical contexts of Aztec and Chinese philosophies explain their contrasting attitudes toward societal institutions. As noted earlier, unlike Mexica philosophy, Taoism was not isolated from other schools of thought, and thus it was subject to influences from other philosophies, especially Confucianism. Here, disagreement with the perceived excess of Confucian order and rules fueled the Taoist disapproval of government and other societal institutions (which were often led by Confucians). Hansen describes this sociopolitical stance as resembling “anarchism, pluralism, [and/or] laissez faire government,” which markedly contrasts with the active role of the tlamatinime in the Mexica government (50). Since Taoists sought to avoid entanglement in government and politics, Confucians eventually dominated China’s educational and legal systems. However, Taoism did not become irrelevant in Chinese society; the Neo-Confucian ideology of later dynasties integrated Taoist metaphysical influences with Confucian ethics (51). Taoist philosophy also impacted Chinese intellectual culture and aesthetics, as seen in Taoist contributions to various subjects, such as martial arts, meditation (52), astronomy, mathematics (53), medicine (54), art, and poetry (55). On a larger scale, Taoism played a role in revolutionizing world history; inventions including gunpowder, printing, and the compass trace back to Taoist thinker-scientists’ experimental efforts to understand the nature of the Tao (56). III. Conclusion If brought together into a philosophical discussion today, the Aztec tlamatinime and Taoist sages would likely agree on many metaphysical and ethical ideas. The Mexica focus on Teotl and duality is remarkably similar to the Taoist conception of the Tao and yin-yang , as both philosophies see the universe as a dialectical polar monism. With this shared metaphysical outlook, the two schools of thought concur that balance and moderation enable humans to lead moral, virtuous lives. However, in discussions on the practical applications of philosophy—such as the pros and cons of government—the tlamatinime and Taoist thinkers would likely diverge in their views. Imagining this theoretical discussion between tlamatinime and Taoists provides us with some insight into the nature of humanity. Though people may appear to be divided by dichotomies—Western/non-Western, liberal/conservative, rich/ poor, male/female, tlamatinime /Taoist—humankind is ultimately one, similar to the metaphysical conception of the universe as a dialectical polar monism. When looking at the bigger picture, this similarity between the human world and the abstract metaphysics of the universe also reflects the oneness between the existence of humanity and the universe we live in. Endnotes 1 Castillo Bernal Díaz del, and John Ingram Lockhart, The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz Del Castillo , (London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1844), 219. 2 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 121-123. 3 Scharfstein, Ben-Ami, “The Western Blindness to Non-Western Philosophies,” The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy , No. 1 (1998): 102-108, DOI: 10.5840/wcp20-paideia19985122. 4 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , 123. 5 Phillips, Charles M., and David M. Jones, “Many Types of Blood Offering,” in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aztec & Maya: The History, Legend, Myth and Culture of the Ancient Native Peoples of Mexico and Central America , (London: Hermes House, an imprint of Anness Publishing, 2010), 58-59. 6 Morgan, John D., Pittu Laungani, and Stephen Palmer, Death and Bereavement Around the World: Death and Bereavement in the Americas , Vol. 2, (Amityville: Baywood Publishing, 2003), 75-76. 7 Maffie, James, “Aztec Philosophy,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Martin: University of Tennessee at Martin, 2005), https://www.iep.utm.edu/aztec/. Accessed May 2019. 8 León-Portilla Miguel, Earl Shorris, Sylvia Shorris, Ascensión H. de León-Portilla, and Jorge Klor de Alva José, In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present , (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2002), 146. 9 Ibid, 146. 10 Maffie, “Aztec Philosophy.” 11 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , 122. 12 Maffie, “Aztec Philosophy.” 13 León-Portilla, Miguel, et al., In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present , 146. 14 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , 122. 15 Maffie, “Aztec Philosophy.” 16 Ibid. 17 Markman, Peter T., and Roberta H. Markman, Masks of the Spirit: Image and Metaphor in Mesoamerica , (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 89-90. 18 “Life-Death Figure,” sculpture, 900-1250 AD, Brooklyn Museum, https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ opencollection/objects/118927. Accessed May 2019. 19 Maffie, “Aztec Philosophy.” 20 “Cabeza de La Dualidad,” sculpture, 500-800 AD, Museo Nacional de Antropología, http://mediateca. inah.gob.mx/islandora_74/islandora/object/objetoprehispanico%3A20534. Accessed December 2020. 21 “Life-Death Figure.” 22 Maffie, “Aztec Philosophy.” 23 Ibid. 24 Phillips, Charles M., and David M. Jones, “Wise Governance, Strict Punishment,” in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aztec & Maya: The History, Legend, Myth and Culture of the Ancient Native Peoples of Mexico and Central America , (London: Hermes House, an imprint of Anness Publishing, 2010), 108. 25 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , 121. 26 Reagan, Timothy G., Non-Western Educational Traditions: Alternative Approaches to Educational Thought and Practice , (Mahwah: Taylor and Francis, 2005), 103. 27 Tuck, Jim, “Nezahualcoyotl: Texcoco’s Philosopher King (1403–1473),” Mexconnect, 2008, https://www. mexconnect.com/articles/298-nezahualcoyotl-texcoco-s-philosopher-king-1403%e2%80%931473. Accessed May 2019. 28 Lee, Jongsoo, The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl: Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics , (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015), 120. 29 Ibid, 120. 30 Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , 123. 31 Liu, Zehua, “The Contending Among the Hundred Schools of Thought During the Warring States Period and the Development of the Theory of Monarchical Autocracy,” Chinese Studies in Philosophy, No. 1 (1990): 58–87, DOI: 10.2753/csp1097-1467220158. 32 Hansen, Chad, “Daoism,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , (Stanford: Stanford University, 2003), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism/. Accessed May 2019. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Kohn, Livia, Daoism Handbook , (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 643. 36 Laozi, and Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought , (New York: Grove Press, 1997), 30. 37 Ibid, 30. 38 Hansen, Chad, “Daoism.” 39 Zhuangzi, and James Legge, “The Great and Most Honoured Master,” Zhuangzi Chinese Text Project, (Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2006), https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master. Accessed May 2019. 40 Littlejohn, Ronnie, “Daoist Philosophy,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Martin: University of Tennessee at Martin, 2015), https://www.iep.utm.edu/daoism/. Accessed May 2019. 41 Laozi, and Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought , 2. 42 Maxwell, Gregory, “Yin-Yang,” Wikipedia Commons, 2005, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/1/17/Yin_yang.svg. Accessed May 2019. 43 Florimond, Joseph, duc de Loubat, and Ancient Americas at LACMA, “Codex Magliabecchiano (Loubat 1904, Page 5 Verso),” Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, 2013, http://www.famsi.org/research/ loubat/Magliabecchiano/page_05v.jpg. Accessed December 2020. 44 Maffie, James, “Weaving the Aztec Cosmos: The Metaphysics of the 5th Era,” Mexicolore, 2011, https:// www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/aztec-philosophy. Accessed May 2019. 45 Maxwell, Gregory, “Yin-Yang.” 46 Florimond, Joseph, duc de Loubat, and Ancient Americas at LACMA, “Codex Magliabecchiano (Loubat 1904, Page 5 Verso).” 47 Laozi, and Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought , 15. 48 Ibid, 15. 49 Littlejohn, Ronnie, “Daoist Philosophy.” 50 Hansen, Chad, “Daoism.” 51 Berthrong, John H., “Neo-Confucian Philosophy,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Martin: University of Tennessee at Martin, 2005), https://www.iep.utm.edu/neo-conf/. 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Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Sasha Bonkowsky Abstract Civil service protections in the United States, such as merit-based hiring, employee tenure, and the dismissal appeal , have come under attack in recent years, most notably from former president Donald Trump’s proposed Schedule F that would strip those protections from many federal employees. Under Schedule F, thousands of federal positions would become political appointees who could be dismissed at-will. This paper examines the history and justifications for exempting positions from traditional civil-service protections, as well as the feasibility for Biden’s Office of Personnel Management to forestall Schedule F. I conclude that Schedule F would likely have negative effects on government performance and morale, but that the OPM may not be able to effectively prevent implementation of Schedule F in the event of Trump’s re-election. Throughout President Donald Trump’s administration, he frequently attacked the federal bureaucracy for what he saw as its inefficiency or refusal to enact his policies. He was elected on promises of “draining the swamp” in American government; after the 2016 election, he repeatedly attacked a supposed “deep state” of insider operatives within federal agencies and departments who were ideologically opposed to him and used their positions in the bureaucracy, from which it was hard to dismiss them, to hamstring and block his agenda. Where Trump had appointment power, such as with agency heads or other political appointees, he was quick to remove those he saw as disloyal. However, many of his attacks were limited to mere invective. In the vast American civil service comprising more than two million employees, only 4,000 of those are political appointees that the president can remove at will. And in comparison to other democracies like the UK, France, or Japan, which all have similar civil service systems,, the US actually has many more political appointees. The rest are career employees. Career civil servants are usually hired using a merit-based, competitive examination system, in which all prospective employees are given the same exam, and those meeting or exceeding a particular score are hired. Once in the federal bureaucracy—and after a probationary period of several months to a year—employees usually cannot be dismissed unless they are found to be significantly derelict in their duties, and they can appeal a firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which can investigate and reinstate an employee if they have been unlawfully dismissed. There are certain exceptions to this process, known as Schedules A through E, but they are only used when the usual processes are deemed “impractical.” In October 2020, Trump signed Executive Order 13957, which would have significantly increased the number of political appointees. It created a new category of positions within the federal bureaucracy—known as Schedule F positions—that would be exempted from regular civil service hiring procedures. Instead of the examination process, the president would be able to handpick employees for positions that fell under Schedule F and dismiss them at will without worrying about an appeal to the MSPB, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in its analysis of the order. President Biden repealed the executive order during his first days in office, writing that it “undermined the foundations of the civil service and its merit system principles.” But such an action is hardly permanent—after all, another future president could easily reissue the executive order. To avoid that, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a proposed rule in late 2023 that would prevent career employees from being excepted under Schedule F or a similar order. The proposed rule also stated that any employee who was reclassified as political appointee would still possess the same protections from being fired and could appeal any dismissal to the MSPB. However, it’s unclear if this proposal will take effect before the 2024 election and a possible transition of power. This paper first examines civil service protections and common exemptions—especially those for current political appointees—in more detail, before turning to the possible effects of Schedule F and attempts to block it. Data from the past 10 years of OPM rulemaking demonstrates that, on average, rules take about a year to be finalized, meaning that if this civil service rule follows the usual timeline, it may be too late to go fully into effect before a Republican president or Republican Congress could repeal it. Civil Service Exceptions The US civil service already allows certain positions to be excepted from the competitive service in five categories: Schedules A, B, C, D, and E. Typically, prospective civil service employees must take a general exam, from which the highest scorers (and those with veteran’s preference) can be selected for hiring. However, this process can be slow, and does not cover specialized knowledge that an agency might require. Positions excepted under one of these schedules can be hired without this usual examination process when it is determined that the exam would make it impractical to recruit adequate numbers of students from qualifying institutions, (under Schedule D), when urgency is required (under Schedule A), or when selecting for particular experience (under Schedule B), among others. Only one schedule deals with political appointments—Schedule C—and it functions most similarly to the proposed Schedule F. Schedule C allows excepted hiring for “positions which are policy-determining or which involve a close and confidential working relationship with the head of an agency or other key appointed officials”. These are often positions like press secretaries for individual bureaus within agencies, White House liaisons, or confidential assistants to secretaries and undersecretaries. There are usually between 1,500 and 1,800 Schedule C appointments at any given time, with 1,725 at the end of the first Bush administration, 1,538 at the end of the Obama administration, and 1,566 at the end of the Trump administration. These political appointments within the civil service didn’t always exist, and like the present-day Schedule F, Schedule C was the subject of significant controversy when it was first carved out in 1956 under the Eisenhower administration. One Democratic senator decried Schedule C as “an attempt to turn the civil service into a Republican grab bag” on the Senate floor, and the Democratic Party platform of 1956 stated that the Eisenhower administration’s policies “reflect prejudices and excessive partisanship to the detriment of employee morale”. The director of the Civil Service Commission defended them in the New York Times , writing that “the American people in 1952 expected your Administration to put into effect your announced policies…it is of the most vital importance that…policy-determining officials should be subject to change with any change in political administration”. Yet despite this public criticism, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed no legislation curtailing or ending Schedule C, and presidents of both parties have made use of Schedule C’s hiring authority. Several restrictions are placed on Schedule C positions and the ways in which they can be assigned. There are no “vacant” Schedule C positions which may be filled at will by the President—instead, any Schedule C positions must be approved by the director of OPM, and OPM’s authorization for those positions is automatically revoked when an employee leaves. Additionally, when requesting Schedule C exception, the head of the requesting agency must submit a statement to OPM that the position was not created in order to detail the employee to the White House—that is, assign them to work in the White House while still being paid by their original agency. This requirement was added after a 1990 GAO report found that Schedule C appointees were being inappropriately detailed to the White House rather than performing the specified duties of their positions. Though Schedule F and Schedule C may appear similar in their creation of low-level, politically appointed positions, the proposed Schedule F category would carve out much broader exceptions to the competitive service. Schedule C restricts its exceptions to appointments of a “confidential or policy-determining” character; Schedule F would allow exceptions to the competitive service for positions of a “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy -advocating character.” Policy-making or policy-advocating are much broader terms than merely policy-determining, and their definitions are statutorily vague, meaning they could be applied to a much greater number of employees. The executive order drew its legal basis from Section 7511 of Title 5 of the US Code, which excludes employees “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating character” from competitive examination procedures and protection from dismissal. Determination of whether an employee’s job fits these requirements are made by the President and required to be authorized by the head of OPM. This exception, however, had never been put into practice before. The effects of Schedule F implementation are unclear. The executive order was issued in late October 2020, directing that agencies should submit a list of positions that would fall under Schedule F and their reasons for selecting those positions within 90 days (on January 19, 2021). Agencies were also directed to submit petitions to the Federal Labor Relations Authority to determine whether excepted positions under Schedule F would also be excluded from collective bargaining authorities. Few agencies—15 in total, out of over 400 federal agencies—submitted information to OPM, many claiming that they needed more time. Of those, just four agencies submitted names and lists of positions for conversion: the International Boundary and Water Commission proposed converting just 5 employees of its 234, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed 579 employees of its 11,000, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed 836 of its 1,166 employees, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed 436 of its 527 employees. One issue is these agencies are not particularly representative of the bureaucracy as a whole—the IBWC and FERC are independent commissions, and OMB is deeply embedded in the White House—and so it remains unclear exactly how many employees would be affected by a future implementation of Schedule F. However, the authors of Schedule F have definite intentions for its use and assumptions of how many employees it might affect. The executive order was largely crafted and written by James Sherk, a member of the Domestic Policy Council focusing on labor policy. In 2017, he submitted a memo entitled “Proposed Labor Reforms,” in which he argued for the possibility that “Article II executive power gives the president inherent authority to dismiss any federal employee. This implies civil service legislation,as well as other protections for federal employees, (such as preventing their dismissal for joining a union) are unconstitutional. If so, the President could issue an Executive Order outlining a streamlined new process for dismissing federal employees”. Three years later, he would see that executive order realized in the creation of Schedule F. At a panel discussion for the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) in 2023, he continued to argue in favor of this proposition, saying that “every federal employee should serve at the pleasure of the president”. Given the limited data submitted by agencies, there’s no set number of employees Schedule F might affect. Experts, and Sherk himself, have estimated around 50,000, although Sherk noted the number as a low estimate., In the same NAPA seminar, he said that “I think there's ways you could broaden the scope of the order…I think you could expand it beyond 50,000. Say to like, 200,000. 300,000.” Former Trump administration officials have reportedly “saved lists of previous appointees…as well as career officers they viewed as uncooperative and would seek to fire based on an executive order to weaken civil service protections”, although such lists have not been made public. But having the ability to fire employees, or doing so, doesn’t necessarily mean the administration would be able to fill the positions. The Trump administration was slower than other administrations to nominate officials to key positions, other civil servants rated Trump appointees as less competent than previous Republican administrations or career civil servants, and the Trump administration faced difficulties finding even officials to fill top-level positions. While the Trump administration was able to authorize and fill about as many Schedule C positions as previous administrations, that doesn’t necessarily mean they would be able to fill Schedule F positions given the vastly larger number of them. Besides the numerical scope of its effects, Schedule F was also defended as necessary to improve the efficiency of the federal bureaucracy. The text of the executive order itself cited “long delays and substandard-quality work for important agency projects” as part of its rationale, and stated “agencies need the flexibility to expeditiously remove poorly performing employees”. Many stakeholders that GAO interviewed acknowledged that the speed of federal hiring should be improved, and that Schedule F would streamline that process; one also told GAO that “employees in Schedule F positions should be…more motivated to quickly and effectively implement the President’s policy agenda”. Criticism of a slow-moving and unresponsive bureaucracy, in which onerous hiring procedures and strict removal protections hamstring the agencies themselves, has been long-standing. Presidents and agencies alike have bipartisanly seen problems in the hiring process and sought to reform it: the US National Performance Review in 1993 wrote that “hiring is complex and rule-bound” in the civil service; a Bush-era report from the Merit Systems Protection Board wrote in favor of reform that would “provide agencies the flexibilities they need to effectively manage” and recommended that OPM should “speed the process” of federal hiring; and the Obama administration in turn issued guidance on simplifying and overhauling the civil service hiring process. The picture is little better in terms of firing underperforming employees: it’s long been understood that civil protections reduce the power of incentives, such that employees in government see little connection between performance and job security. But Schedule F seems unlikely to accomplish these reforms in a way that benefits government performance. Several of the stakeholders which GAO spoke to said that Schedule F could make recruitment of federal employees more difficult, as potential applicants might be leery of taking a Schedule F position if they believed they could be removed after a change in administration or for other political reasons. This is in line with the theory advanced by Gailmard and Patty, which states that civil servants are incentivized to build expertise when tenure provides them the stability to make such an investment. David Lewis writes in his book The Politics of Presidential Appointments, drawing on the example of the OPM in the 1980s and 1990s, that, while “politicization helped change policy,” it came at the expense of “long-term agency capacity and reputation…experienced career professionals left the agency and it was hard to replace them [or] recruit bright young people to work in the agency.” New meta-analysis of the meritocratic civil services on government performances found that associated practices such as tenure or merit-based hiring are broadly associated with stronger government performance and lower corruption. With an eye towards a potential future reissuing of the executive order, authors conclude that “converting career employees to Schedule F and removing their civil service protections is likely to degrade government performance”. Rulemaking To Prevent the Reinstatement of Schedule F The Biden administration and Democrats more broadly share similar concerns about Schedule F’s potential impact on the federal government were it to be reinstated by Trump or another future administration. Congressional Democrats have attempted multiple times to pass bills which would prevent Schedule F’s reinstatement or add amendments blocking Schedule F to must-pass defense appropriation bills. However, their efforts have been blocked by Republicans. Bypassing the legislative method, Biden’s OPM released on September 18, 2023, a proposed rule entitled “Upholding Civil Service Protections and Merit Systems Principles,” aimed as a regulatory method to prevent future administrations from reissuing Schedule F. The rule would: allow employees moved from the competitive service to the excepted service to retain their civil service protections unless the employee voluntarily relinquishes them. redefine “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating”—the language which Sherk and the Trump White House relied on to craft the executive order—to mean only non-career, political appointees. allow employees moved from the competitive service to the excepted service to appeal the move to the MSPB. This would, in essence, cut out the heart of Schedule F: removing its legal basis and specifying that converted employees retain tenure protections, such that converting their positions to the excepted service does not make them at-will employees. OPM draws its authority to make these changes from Chapter 75 of Title 5 of the United States Code, specifically 5 U.S. Code § 7514 and 5 U.S. Code § 7504, both sections which give OPM broad discretion to regulate civil service protections for federal employees. OPM also asserts its authority based on 5 U.S.C. 1103(a)(5) and 5 U.S.C. 1302 to make specific regulations about the procedures of moving employees between the competitive and excepted service, pointing out that OPM has repeatedly exercised that authority in the past (and indeed, regulated that movement in the implementation of Schedule F). The proposed rule closed its 60-day comment period on November 17, 2023, during which time it received 4,096 comments. With the strong support of the Biden administration and the leadership of OPM behind it, the rule is expected to move forward. However, the proposed rule has been the target of criticism by Republicans and people associated with the Trump 2024 campaign—which gives OPM a potential impending deadline. Almost certainly, if Trump wins the 2024 election and the rule is not finalized by his inauguration, he will direct the OPM to drop it; and even a finalized rule could be subject to overturning by a potential Republican Congress under the Congressional Review Act. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a tool that Congress can use to overturn federal regulatory actions, which was enacted as part of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act in 1996. The CRA requires that agencies submit finalized rules to Congress and the GAO 60 legislative days before they take effect: if Congress passes a resolution of disapproval of the rule within that time period and the President signs it, or if Congress passes such a resolution over a presidential veto, then the rule cannot go into effect. Because of the threat (and exercise) of presidential veto power, rules have been overturned under the CRA only immediately following a change in presidential administration, in 2001, 2017, and 2021. However, the deadline for finalized rules to avoid CRA review by a potentially hostile Congress or President is not just 60 days before a new president could be inaugurated (that is, late November). Congress has 60 legislative days to consider rules—and if Congress adjourns sine die during that period, the 60-day period resets in its entirety beginning on the 15th day of the new legislative session, in what’s known as a “lookback” period. In 2017, that meant that the Republican Congress was able to disapprove of rules finalized as far back as May 2016. Thus, in order to be certain that it will go into effect, OPM must finalize its rule by mid-2024. But the question is if it will be able to do so by then. In the 2023 Fall Unified Agenda, published by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), OPM specified that it is targeting April 2024 for publication of a final rule. Based on historical precedent, this would provide the rule enough time to avoid reconsideration and potential disapproval from the next Congress. But OPM’s projected timeline may be overly optimistic, given its past timelines in publishing final rules. I collected data on finalized OPM rules between 2023 and 2013 in the Federal Register and examined how long it took between publication of the proposed rule and publication of the finalized rule. Since OPM’s proposed rule at hand of upholding civil-service protections has been defined as “significant” under Executive Order 12866 (likely due to its potential to “raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates [or] the President’s priorities”), I restricted my search to only those rules which were similarly deemed significant, as they require a full review by OIRA that lengthens the rulemaking process. I also did not include OPM rules that were issued only as interim final rules rather than undergoing a full notice-and-comment period. The full list of all OPM rules meeting these criteria and their timelines can be found in Appendix A. Below are the summarized results: FIGURE 1: OPM RULEMAKING AVERAGE TIMELINE Notes: The timeline of OPM rulemaking is defined as the number of days between OPM’s publication of a proposed rule and the publication of a final rule. Several outlier rules took more than three years to be finalized. Data sourced from the Federal Register, 2013-2023. FIGURE 2. OPM RULEMAKING TIMELINE BY YEAR Notes: OPM published no significant final rules in 2017. Data sourced from the Federal Register 2013-2023. On average, it took 473 days between OPM issuing a proposed rule and OPM issuing a final rule. Even after eliminating the major outlier rule that took nearly 6 years to finalize, the data still suggests that it generally takes over a year to finalize a rule after it is proposed. Though the timeline varies slightly year by year, there is no clear pattern that would allow us to infer that the OPM of 2023-2024 finalizes rules significantly faster or slower than the OPM of, say, 2013-2014. If this timeline holds for OPM’s rule undercutting Schedule F, we can project that OPM will finalize the rule sometime in December 2024—too late to avoid a potential disapproval under the CRA. However, one case study of similar civil-service rulemaking demonstrates that potential CRA review is not the same as certain CRA review. On September 17, 2019, the OPM under Trump issued a proposed rule that would more strictly enforce the probationary period before employees were accepted to a competitive service position and sought to streamline civil service removal procedures. In many ways, this rule was a precursor to Schedule F, drawing on the same language and reasoning about an ineffective federal government that couldn’t remove underperforming employees. The rule was finalized on October 16, 2020, a timeline which would have allowed the 117th Congress under unified Democratic control to review and disapprove it. They didn’t. It’s not entirely clear why not: congressional disapproval of rules cannot be filibustered in the Senate, and 20 days after their proposal can be discharged for a floor vote by a minority of 30 Senators. More likely, the Democratic Congress preferred to let rollback occur through the agency processes: there were only three rule disapprovals in total in 2021 of Trump-era rules, but many more were overturned by agencies’ new leaders. But that process takes time, and so it was only in November 2022 when OPM finalized its rollback, meaning the Trump-era changes were in place for almost two full years of the Biden administration. The OPM’s proposed anti-Schedule F rule would likely follow a similar track. An OPM under Trump would certainly seek to undo it, even if the rule is successfully finalized and put into effect without disapproval—but as in the case above, it would likely take them months or years to do so. A rule undoing this one would also be open to legal challenges that an executive order would not be, and the Trump administration faced significant challenges in successful rulemaking. Previous administrations succeeded in roughly 70% of challenges to agency actions, while the Trump administration had a dismal 23% success rate in legal challenges due to bypassing procedural requirements, providing incomplete analyses of policy effects, or taking action which exceeded an agency’s statutory authority. Conclusion Whether or not OPM manages to finalize its rule and put it into effect successfully, the fight over the structure and protections of the civil service is unlikely to end in 2024 or beyond. In recent years, long-held civil service practices of non-politicization and tenure protections that were largely taken as established have come under increasing attack, largely from Republican officials and presidential candidates. In recent years, it’s the executive branch which has been most involved in determining the structure of federal civil service, from the Schedule F executive order to OPM’s proposed rulemaking, and attempts for similar legislation have been blocked or stalled out before making major progress, and research has largely focused on the president’s and agencies’ influence. But Congress has historically been the instrument of major changes to the civil service, from the Pendleton Act to the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978—and it’s only recently that Congress has ceded that power to the executive. While research such as this examining the direction, scope, and timing of executive influence over civil service is certainly beneficial given the political context, one potential direction for further research could be an examination of Congress’ role in civil service in the past, and what potential legislative actions would be beneficial in future. 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How Are You the Same Person as When You Were Ten: Favoring the Brain Criterion View over Animalist and Neo-Lockean Views Henry Moon Author Matthew Wong Daniel Coffield Editors I. Introduction I am the same person as when I was ten years old—this is common intuition [1]. In another sense, as I have a different body and psychology, it seems that I cannot be the exact same person as I was when I was ten years old [2]. In this paper I ask how exactly we were the same people when we were ten. This question is equivalent to asking what the persistence conditions for “an entity of our kind” to remain the same over time: call these diachronic persistence conditions [3]. In asking this question, we ask two separate questions (1) What should “entities of our kind” refer to? (2) What are the persistence conditions for these entities? First, I review the literature regarding the two most popular theories of personal ontology, or the study of what we are. In doing so, I will then introduce the brain criterion based on egoistic concern—the special concern about one’s future that arises from anticipation of continued existence. Providing justification in ontological coherence and ethical plausibility, I submit that the brain criterion is the superior ontology. In the second half of this paper, I will be responding to objections to the brain criterion, specifically regarding persistence by considering commonplace thought experiments. As a synthesis from these objections, indeterminacy thesis and multiple occupancy will be defended as part of the paper’s overall argument. II. What Should "Entities of Our Kind" Refer To? To determine the persistence conditions for some entity, one must start by specifying exactly what that entity is. I say this because whether entities can survive events is subsequent to what the entity is. For example, a square cannot survive being stretched in one axis whereas a rectangle can, because a square is defined must have four sides of equal length. This is to say, the persistence conditions of a square are informed by its ontology. In the same way, the persistence conditions for a person depend on personal ontology. Despite this, much of the contemporary literature on personal identity seems to treat personal ontology as a secondary question. Instead, the focus has been placed upon a gamut of thought experiments [4]. To this, in "What Are We”, Eric Olson blames “the unserious air of many discussions of personal identity” on this lack of focus on personal ontology [5]. There are two dominant answers to the persistence question: neo-Lockeanism and Animalism [6]. Neo-Lockeanism is the view that we are creatures with certain psychological traits essentially [7] Animalism says we are human animals essentially; we are identical with our human bodies. Each view is associated with at least one ontology. Neo-Lockean theory most popularly claims that we are constituted by our animal bodies or that we are temporal parts of our animal body. Most neo-Lockeans would not say we survive a permanently vegetative state, despite our animal bodies being able to survive, and to a neo-Lockean, this is an example of how we differ from our animal bodies. Animalists simply state that we are our human bodies; if our bodies were to enter a permanently vegetative state, we would enter that state as well. Neo-Lockean views lack the “metaphysical leg up” that ontologically focused views like animalism have [8]. Contrastingly, animalism often ignores normative concerns [9]. Despite this trade off between normativity and ontology, when we refer to others, we do not do so as moral agents and organisms separately, but as one unified forensic unit: otherwise this would be absurd [10]. Parfit also touches on similar ideas when he sets out two requirements that a theory of personal identity must satisfy [11] : (1) Whether a future person will be me must depend only on our intrinsic properties. It cannot depend on what happens to other people. (2) Since personal identity is of great importance, whether a future person is me cannot depend on a trivial fact. Parfit also seems to segregate requirements on the basis of (1) a strict ontological concern and (2), an ethical concern. What idea we have converged upon seems to be this: an account of personal identity (and thus, ontology) must be, as Olson puts it, both “ontologically coherent as well as ethically plausible” [12] In the following sections I will forward an account of personal ontology which describes entities of our sort as a human animal under two constraints: (1) That the entity has certain traits that warrant continuous egoistic concern (2) That the entity is the spatial part of a human animal in which (1) necessarily and sufficiently obtains (i.e part of the brain) Evaluating the contemporary two main theories of personal identity, along with our own as delineated above, I will recommend this account of personal ontology to have best fulfilled the need to be ethically plausible and ontologically coherent. A. Ethical Plausibility I propose that to say an account of personal ontology is ethically plausible is to say that it reasonably includes all entities that our normative and ethical concerns refer to when we use the everyday pronouns of ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘we’, and reasonably excludes all entities that do not. Further, if it is said that you and I are ‘entities of our sort’, we can expect that normative claims which apply to you would also apply to me. We start with cases where the brain-criterion provides for a necessary liberalization of inclusivity. First, in contrast to animalism, brain views allow for entities of our kind to survive after brain transplantation. The common intuition that follows is that after the brain is transplanted into another person’s head, the entity follows with it [13]. Animalists must maintain that because the human organism is left behind and dies during the process of transplantation, we must die along with it. This is a strikingly unintuitive statement to endorse. On the other hand, because physical continuity of the brain is maintained and is presumably enough to warrant egotist function once transplanted, the brain criterion successfully represents the intuition that we would survive after transplantation. Second, in contrast to neo-Lockean continuity, we are able to account for individuals who lack meaningful psychological-connectedness, yet we must still include them as one of us. Jeff McMahan illustrates that in cases of Alzheimer’s, neo-Lockeans seem to imply that the individual ceases to exist and becomes a sort of “post-person.” [14] This is because insofar as a case of Alzheimer’s progresses so that almost no function of memory remains, neo-Lockean theories suggest that this is a case where the psychological connection is broken, and individuals cannot survive [15]. When considering the ethical plausibility of this, we suspect that instead, we would still consider the Alzheimer’s patient an entity of our sort, and that our normative claims and duties would still apply to them. Concretely, if the Alzheimer’s patient was my mother, just because she lacks psychological connection does not mean she is not “one of us”. In contrast to the brain criterion based on egoistic concern, as long as there is brain continuity supporting the function of egoistic concern, we may say the entity is one of us. For example an Alziemer’s patient still has egoistic concerns because she considers actions not as disconnected events that will only impact an entity similar but identical to herself (and that she exists only for a brief moment before her psychological connection deteriorates) but that her actions will influence her future. Note the difference here is that egoistic concerns need not be a degree of psychological unity in which even a semblance of qualitative identity is sufficiently obtained [16]. We see this when we consider two statements, that normatively we take as non-mutually exclusive: My mother has not been the same person recently and does not remember me. That woman who does not remember me is my mother. The first statement expresses our intuition that people can change drastically, even to the point where psychological unity according to a neo-Lockean would be lost. The second statement, however, speaks to our intuition that numerical identity can survive far more liberally, when considering strict psychological relation, than a neo-Lockean claims. Indeed, the exclusionary policy of the brain criterion is the most ethically plausible. There are also cases where the brain criterion restricts cases necessarily. The main difference between neo-Lockean views and general brain-views is that the brain-criteria explicitly requires a physical contingency. This is to say, a sufficient part of the brain which is necessarily part of a living being must remain continuously. From this, we can locate cases that should be excluded, such as that where an entity can survive a total loss of body. Neo-Lockeanism generally endorse teletransportation as an event in which we can survive. Despite whatever prima facie intuitions we may have, consider you were being transported, but a replica of an entity at some point B was created while you were still alive. Thus, you are not the entity at point B, and for there to be one entity, you must have been destroyed at point A [17]. Moreover, Animalist views consider a fetus and an individual in a permanently vegetative state to also fall under our general normative conventions, as they are simply stages in the human animal’s development. Extreme views notwithstanding, common ethical norms tell us otherwise: we have intuitions that it is permissible to kill an early stage fetus, for example, where we do not for toddlers [18]. This is a difference that Animalists do not account for. This difference is crucial in ontology: we say it is permissible to kill a week-old fetus because at that point it more closely resembles an unconscious collection of cells than the entity we normatively refer to we say “you” or “I”. The ethical norms about “entities of our sort” that Animalism implies do not match our commonly held ones; thus, we cannot say an Animalist conception of persons is ethically plausible. Considering both comparisons to neo-Lockean and Animalists views, it is only by using the definition of brains with egoistic concern that we can arrive at a superior ontology. B. Ontological Coherence To say that a theory is ontologically preferable to any other is to say that it answers key issues concerning personal ontology at as little cost in way of unfortunate implications that one must accept. In evaluating the seven main personal ontologies, Olson generally considers one issue as most important: the thinking animal problem. The thinking animal problem is the following argument: (P1) Presently sitting in your chair is a human animal. (P2) The human animal sitting in your chair is thinking. (P3) You are the thinking being sitting in your chair. (C) Therefore, the human animal sitting in your chair is you. The crux of the thinking animal argument is that insofar as rejection of P1-P3 requires us to accrue the cost of, as Olson puts it, an “impenetrable” [19] ontology, we must conclude that we are human-animals. By proving that we can escape this conclusion, we can prove the brain criterion is preferable to neo-Lockean theories which fall victim to the argument. I will now defend the second constraint using a generalization of the thinking animal problem: (P1) There is a spatial part of a human currently located where you are. (P2) The spatial part currently located where you are is thinking. (P3) You are the thinking being located in your chair. (C) Therefore, the spatial part of a human where you are is you. Note that this argument is analogous to the thinking-animal-argument so that we may adopt its conclusion. The difference is that the conclusion is such that we must be spatial-parts of the brain, some that we can be essentially reduced to a part of the brain. Note that any spatial part of an animal with greater inclusivity than what is necessary for a thinking part to think will fall trap to this argument, given the animal with greater inclusivity contained a non-essential part was incorrectly considered essential. This is to say that the argument implies “you” are identical to infinite smaller spatial-parts unless “you” refers to the smallest possible spatial-part of an animal which thinks. This smallest possible part is the only part that is not affected by the argument since, any less inclusive and the animal loses the property of thinking, so P2 falls, making the argument inapplicable. Dualist theories notwithstanding, this smallest spatial-part of a thinking animal must refer to some part of the brain, and so we have proven our second constraint on animalism. To conclude, this makes animalism and the brain criterion at least equal in ontological coherence, which combined with a brain criterion advantage in ethical plausibility allows us to recommend over the other theories. III. What Should “Entities of Our Kind” Refer To? Given we have answered first question of this paper, there are two main objections specifically to how the brian criteria persist : 1. That the brain-criterion is unnecessary and insufficient 2. That the brain-criterion is necessary but insufficient In this section, I will deal with both of these objections, and in doing so maintain that Brain Criterion is both sufficient and necessary. A. Unnecessary and Insufficient Parfit’s “combined spectrum” shows that any account based on “empirical fact” will have cases of indeterminate identity [20][21]. This is because any empirical criteria, such as psychological or physical continuity operate on a spectrum of absolute similarity to no similarity. If that is true, then there are cases on that spectrum where it seems that the connectedness between two entities is indeterminate to whether they are the same entity. Consider our brain criterion: existence is guaranteed in the case of 100% paradigmatic brain-function, and guaranteed false in the case of no function. However, there are cases in-between whereby it is indeterminate that consciousness is present: it is hard to see an argument for consciousness given 2% function, but what of 12% or 24%? There are two possible conclusions we can make of this: That indeterminacy cannot exist, and so some “further-fact” must be considered [22]. Or, we must allow for cases where indeterminacy arises. If we accept the consideration of a “further fact” in indeterminate cases, this implies the same further fact could determine the answer to the persistence question in any other case. What rejecting cases of indeterminacy entails is accepting a “further fact” ontology, such as immaterialism. I will comment that even if we cannot assuage the issue of indeterminacy, it may be preferable than to contend with the burden of proving dualism and other theories associated with immaterialism. In our paper’s defense of the brain criterion, indeterminacy would not mitigate claims that it should be recommended over animalism or neo-Lockean views –– both rely on empirical criteria. Yet as a foundational argument, I will contribute a defense of indeterminacy. Note that indeterminacy in things other than the existence of people is uncontroversial and common, for example, given a tallness spectrum where 7ft is guaranteed to be tall and 4ft guaranteed not to, there must be indeterminate cases of tallness in between. However, indeterminacy seems to be unreasonable when it comes to issues of persistence. Bernard Williams provides a thought experiment where one has to imagine that entity X, which is indeterminately identical to me, will be tortured tomorrow if indeterminacy is true. Does it follow that the feeling of great pain will be indeterminately felt by me? Noonan points out that this merely illustrates the “very great unnaturalness of this way of thinking” that is present in these cases, not that the cases themselves are unnatural [23]. Note then because it must be accepted that indeterminacy exists in other contexts, we must simply prove that indeterminacy in persistence is also acceptable. Many metaphysical arguments have been offered to this end; I will propose a practical one: to assume that issues of persistence must have determinate answers where other reducible substances do not is to assume there is something irreducible about selves. This begs the question on whether there selves are reducible in the first place, and thus we have no reason to reject indeterminacy in persistence. B. Necessary but Insufficient A hemispherectomy is a procedure where one half of the cerebrum is removed. Despite having half their brain removed, patients that undergo hemispherectomy expect to survive the operation. Our intuitions indicate they have good reason to make this assumption: we treat postoperative entities as the same people, and indeed, as their brain hemisphere adapts to serving the role of two, often cognitive function is returned as well [24]. In other words, if I receive a hemispherectomy, theoretically there seems to be enough brain continuity so that the resulting person is me. However, the reality is that whether you survive is indeterminate. If the brain criterion is necessary and sufficient in the light of indeterminacy, we must prove that for all conclusions that could be made, but are unobservable, there is still ethical plausibility and ontological coherence. If I end up in surgery or even if it is indeterminate that surgery kills me, the discussion ends here. Things are more complicated if you survive. Given that we can accept the transplantation of the cerebrum while maintaining continuity, it can be said that transplanting half of a brain also continues the entity. However, in a case there are two candidates, both sharing physical continuity of a human animal in which egoistic concern is retained, it seems that the brain criterion is insufficient to prove persistence which entity persisted. There are three interpretations to this case [25]. (a) I do not survive. (b) I survives as either candidate-A or candidate-B (c) I survive as both First consider (a), commonly referred to as the “non-branching view” [25]. Notice that I would survive if one half was destroyed, but in the case of both being preserved, I die. This seems immediately strange: How is double success considered a failure? Given the symmetry of the problem, (b) is incoherent as well, considering facts about both candidates are equal. We must then turn to (c), the only case in which brain continuity is sufficient. To avoid implicating that candidates A and B are the same, I forward that candidates A and candidates B are distinct entities that were once spatially coincident within the original, or multiple occupancy[26]. Given that either (a) or (b) are both untenable, the implication is that if one wants to reject “further fact” accounts, multiple occupancy must be endorsed [27]. Two things must be proven for us to adopt this: It does not affect the ethical plausibility of the theory It does not affect the ontological coherence of the theory If these two requirements are met, we will have a theory that sans fission preserves our original account and considering fission, will have the most realistic account in approaching it. C. Ethical Plausibility Let us first consider ethical plausibility. Firstly, given that pre-fission agents are unified, there is no change from our original theory. Moreover, the fact that an entity undergoes fission later down the road would not retrospectively change the normative considerations we give to the pre-fission entity. Does our criterion provide the most ethically plausible account of entities post-fission? Consider your spouse undergoing the fission operation. We may measure the ethical plausibility by considering how each post-fission theory affects your duties to your spouse. If (a) is true and whether your spouse lives if there is no second transplant but dies if fission takes place, if there is a gap in time between when half your spouse’s cerebrum is removed, and when it is transplanted into a host body, do you have marital duties toward your spouse during that gap where the second transplantation did not occur, but that these duties disappear the second the operation is successful? That our duty to people should be as arbitrary as the existence of another person seems strange. Strange conclusions are also reached when (b) is considered – why would you have the martial duty to love and be faithful to one of your spouse candidates and no qualms abandoning the other? If we maintain that it is immoral to abandon our duties on arbitrary facts, so (b) is also not a viable conclusion. (c) is the only scenario which is compatible with our conventional moral ideas. Yet it is also true that our commitments to our spouse are not exactly the same: they are, in a way, inflated. I must now commit to caring and providing for two bodies instead of one, being affectionate and loving to two bodies instead of one. However, while our duties to our spouse now split between two people is a commitment that is inflated, it is inflated based upon ideas we already accept as a posteriori moral—compare this to duties suddenly appearing and disappearing based on arbitrary facts. Consider a situation where your spouse is experiencing a mental health crisis. As a result of going through this situation, it is your duty to be more sensitive around them, spend more time and energy tending to their care etc—in other words, your commitment has been inflated. However, we accept this as a natural part of our duty because we hold a duty to a loved one in a difficult situation, despite having our commitments inflated. In the same way, our duties to a spouse do not change on account of this strange situation happening to them; duty is not situational. This is the principle that only multiple occupancy can reach, given all other seniors change duty based on the arbitrary details. Thus, being that it would be most accurate to say you have a duty to both, multiple occupancy is the most ethically plausible interpretation. What may be suspect is the impact on personal ontology. Multiple occupancy does not affect the arguments for ontological coherence we have laid out before if committing to its thesis does not require committing to additional burdens. We may prove this by considering each ontological assumption that our original theory could operate under and prove how multiple occupancy is compatible with the original metaphysical assumptions. Thus, if each assumption that is compatible with our original theory is also compatible with multiple occupancy, we can say that the original theory’s ontological coherence was not affected. There were two metaphysical assumptions we could make in which our account of personal ontology retained: that four dimensionalism was true, and that four dimensionalism was false. Under the assumption of four dimensionalism, the two separate entities after the fission operation are just temporal parts of the original entity that simply stand spatially distinct. This stands unproblematic among thinkers who accept four dimensionalism [29]. However, we require an account with the original metaphysical assumptions free of four-dimensionalism. Note that multiple occupancy seems absurd because common sense counting would suggest that 1 person becomes 2 people. We may resolve this by suggesting that it is possible to count 2 people before the fission operation as well. Before the operation, a singular entity is counted because counting was done by “spatio-temporal coincidence” rather than counting by identity [30]. This itself is also acceptable: if we can say that we can be identical to some entity that is not spatio-temporal coincident with us, as we do in everyday language when we say “my past self" or my “future self,” we are saying that identity and spatio-temporal coincidence represent two different things. Thus, given multiple occupancy can be integrated within either framework without necessitating a revision of our fundamental metaphysical assumptions, we can say it has not impacted the ontological coherence of the original theory. When we consider that both the ethical plausibility and ontological coherence has been preserved, while multiple occupancy is highly counter-intuitive, it must be accepted. IV. Conclusion In answering how we are the same person as when we were ten, I have considered two important questions in personal identity: what “we” are, which is a question of personal ontology, and how "we" persist. I have evaluated the merits of the brain criterion based on egoistic concern against both Animalism and Neo-Lockeanism, arguing that it is this paper’s variant of the brain criterion which best encompasses both ethical and ontological considerations when answering what “we” are. Then, I have argued that the persistence criteria which follow from the proposition that we are brains is necessary and sufficient, on the basis that one rejects a further fact ontology. What follows is the question of multiple occupancy, which seems quite counter intuitive when considering prima facie. However, multiple occupancy as I have proven, remains the only solution to deal with the cases of fission satisfyingly. Footnotes [1] Francisco Muñoz et al., “Spatio-Temporal Brain Dynamics of Self-Identity: An EEG Source Analysis of the Current and Past Self,” Brain Structure and Function 227, no. 6 (2022): 2167–79, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-022-02515-9 . [2] There is quite a lot of unintended semantic conflation in discussions of personal identity. Even the label by which we refer to it almost assumes person essentialism. When I use the term “person”, I refer to the colloquial usage, not the neo-Lockean kind, unless explicitly stated. Moreover, in usages where “person” may be easily conflated, I have substituted the more neutral “self” or “selves”. This is why I refer to the persistence questions with the set of rather than . Most clearly neutral is the term “entities of our sort”, which I have tried to use most often, but selves serves the same purpose with less of a word count cost. [3] Harold W. Noonan, Personal Identity (London: Routledge, 2019), 85-86 [4] David Shoemaker and Kevin Tobia, “Personal Identity,” The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology, 2022, 542–63, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198871712.013.28, 9. [5] Eric Todd Olson, What Are We?: A Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), v. [6] David Shoemaker and Kevin Tobia, “Personal Identity” [7] Eric T. Olson, “Personal Identity,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal [8] David Shoemaker and Kevin Tobia, “Personal Identity,” [9] Ibid [10] Marya Schechtman, Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 49-56 [11] Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 267. [12] Gendler, Tamar Szabo and Olson, Eric T, The Human Animal. (Philosophical Review, 1999) [13] Nichols, Shaun, and Michael Bruno. “Intuitions about Personal Identity: An Empirical Study.” Philosophical Psychology 23, no. 3 (2010): 293–312. doi:10.1080/09515089.2010.490939. [14] Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 47 [15] Lukas J Meier. “Memories without Survival: Personal Identity and the Ascending Reticular Activating System” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, no.5 (2023): 478–491. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad028 [16] Two things are qualitatively identical if they share all their properties, and numerically identical if they are not two, but one. [17] McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, 57 [18] Steinbock, Bonnie. “Abortion.” The Hastings Center, February 22, 2024. https://www.thehastingscenter.org/briefingbook/abortion/ . [19] Olson, What Are We?: A Study in Personal Ontology, 214. [20] Noonan, Personal Identity, 18 [21] Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 236 [22] Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 210 [23] Noonan, Personal Identity, 191 [24] Noonan, Personal Identity, 5 [25] Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 248 - 253 [26] Noonan, Personal Identity, 18 [28] Noonan, Personal Identity, 140 [29] Olson, “Personal Identity” [30] Noonan, Personal Identity, 139

Moral Manipulation A Kantian Take on Advertising and Campaigning Sylvia Gunn The Australian National University Author Ebba Brunnstrom Grace Engelman Matthew Flathers Editors Fall 2018 Kantian moral philosophy applied to appeals to emotion in advertising and campaigning; analysis, comparison and critique. The ethics of manipulation are important for anyone whose goals rely on changing people’s behavior, but who do not wish to violate moral laws. Kant’s emphasis on avoiding the violation of others’ humanity makes his philosophy particularly applicable to this topic. Although Kantian philosophy tells us that lying is immoral, the status of appealing to animal instincts is unclear. This essay will define a common maxim to describe these appeals in advertising and campaigning, and analyze this maxim under each formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative. Previous work has considered the ethics of advertising, Kantian and otherwise, without making the comparison to campaigning. This article will shine further light on the importance of understanding the value of emotion in Kantian philosophy, rather than rejecting appeals to emotion entirely. Kantian philosophy requires that we define a maxim to describe the action, and its context, and its intention, in order to analyze an agent’s choice and its moral implications. This essay takes ‘appeals to emotion’ and ‘appeals to animal nature’ to refer to the same behavior, namely the use of persuasive techniques to create an instinctual or emotional response in our target, rather than a purely rational response. In the Kantian sense, rationality refers to one’s deliberate actions, which can take into account emotions, higher order desires, and moral considerations. The examples of advertising and campaigning will aid in this discussion. To avoid consideration of a ‘cool-off period’ during which the emotional response might wear off or be rationally processed, we will assume that the target can act immediately in response to the appeal. The advertiser wishes to convince people to buy their product or service, and uses appeals to serve this purpose. For example, an insurance salesperson might appeal to fear, recounting tales of disasters to compel potential customers to buy the most comprehensive plans. Alternatively, a company may use associative advertising, which involves portraying someone who uses the product or service as happy, successful, or otherwise benefitted, without explicitly claiming that the product creates this result. Conversely, the campaigner may make an appeal to empathy, displaying images of starving children in order to compel potential supporters to donate. The maxim, in both cases, is “Where it serves my purpose, I will make an appeal to my target’s animal instincts, to encourage them to do what I want”. In order to determine whether my maxim is permissible in Kant, we shall put it through all three formulations of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. The categorical imperative is intended to be a universal concept of morality, acceptable to all moral beings. Kant claims that there is “only a single categorical imperative”[1] which is the formula of universal law. The other formulations, that of humanity and that of the kingdom of ends, are alternative ways of spelling out the same moral ideals. Each provides guidance, particularly when maxims are vague and manipulable, or when some formulation does not produce clear results. The first half of this essay analyses the maxim under Kant’s three formulations, concluding that appeals are only ethical in the Kantian sense when there is a certain degree of certainty that the target knows that those appeals are occurring. The first formulation, the formula for universal law, tells us that maxims are only acceptable if it would be possible and acceptable for them to become universal law. According to this formula, emotional appeals are not wholly unacceptable, but they may in some cases interfere with my other ends. The second formulation, the formula for humanity, tells us that one must never violate another’s autonomy or rational capacity. Thus, appeals are only acceptable if my target is aware of their occurrence. Finally, the third formulation, the kingdom of ends, requires me to act on the expectation that others are generally rational, although they can be temporarily overcome by emotion. Thus I should make appeals only when the context makes it clear that appeals are occurring – such as in advertising slots. Moreover, in situations where I can gauge whether the person is engaging rationally, I need not exercise the same caution before the appeal is made. This implies that direct interactions, such as campaign conversations, may allow for stronger appeals to emotion than broadcast communications such as adverts. This does not draw out a clear distinction between the use of appeals in advertising and their use in campaigning, but it does give both campaigners and door-to-door salespeople some extra scope. The second section of this essay discusses two issues with this conclusion. Firstly, it fails to distinguish between appeals to harmless emotions and emotions that reflect harmful societal norms. Secondly, it does not take into account the larger good consequences of an action, particularly relating to campaigning. These objections constitute a rejection of Kantian philosophy, which does not allow for any sacrifice of human rationality for the greater good, in favor of a pluralist philosophy. Rather than a weakness, this second objection could describe a strength of Kantian philosophy: it provides a framework for a theory of slow and sure social change, which does not rely on human’s animal instincts, but only their rationality. Existing Literature Philips considers the question of emotionally manipulative advertising in relation to multiple ethical frameworks and concludes that the Kantian perspective would rule it out. His consideration of the formula of universal law finds that you should not engage in manipulative advertising that would work on you, as the universalization of this maxim would see you manipulated, which conflicts with your other ends. Interpreting Kant’s formula for humanity to mean that one must not override the will by appealing to emotion, he initially finds that his maxim does not treat humanity as an end in itself. He then provides a reshaped maxim that characterizes appeals as an argument that the target engages with rationally. To Phillips, it is unclear which of these maxims is correct under the Kantian account.[2] My account, in contrast, will apply Kantian moral psychology to appeals, incorporating the target’s engagement with the appeal. Partially because of this, and partially because my maxim only includes appeals that will work to some extent if the target is aware of its occurrence, my conclusion is different from Phillips' version. In contrast, Phillips’ maxim includes subliminal messaging, which works exclusively when the target does not know that they are occurring. Kant addresses some related topics that aid the discussion of this question, without directly addressing the issue at hand. These examples provide context to the question, and allow for assessment of our interpretation of Kant. If an interpretation changes the conclusions that we have already accepted, that interpretation is not hugely accurate to the original ideas. Beyond that, Herman’s perspective on interpretations is a good guide: it is enough to argue that one can [interpret it that way]. The rest should be decided by the fruitfulness of the concept.’[3] Rather than try to find the opinion that Kant would have held, particularly considering that his views on many issues were inconsistent with his philosophy,[4] we should develop an interpretation based on the parts of Kant’s philosophy that we accept. Kant’s discussion of the false promise finds it immoral under each formulation of the categorical imperative. The maxim ‘[I will,] when hard pressed, make a promise with the intention not to keep it’ is not universalizable, as it would not be possible if everybody applied it by law, and everyone thus became aware that promises held no value.[5] Moreover, it violates the target’s humanity on two counts. Firstly, they are unable to give or withhold consent to the lie, and secondly, they would not agree to the promise if they knew it were a lie. Deception is comparable but not equivalent to appeals to animal instinct, which can involve deception of the will. If levels of manipulation can be placed on a scale, depending on the extent that informed choice is taken from the target, the lying promise is a well-defined immoral upper bound. Kant’s discussion of our duties towards animals and children are also relevant to this discussion; they give insights into our treatment of irrational actions. Rather than interacting with less rational beings, my maxim involves appealing to the less rational instincts within rational beings. In doing this, we should acknowledge that people have different capacities for rationality. In relation to animals, one’s duty is to avoid unnecessary mistreatment, but this is primarily to protect our own moral senses. Some interpretations of Kant have expanded on these duties based on animals’ partial rationality.[6] It is also acceptable to treat children and the mentally impaired differently from fully rational adults, but with more restrictions again, noting their partial or changing levels of rationality. In valuing rationality, we should promote and enhance the rationally of such beings,[7] without holding them as responsible as we do fully rational adults. The Formula for Universal Law According to Kantian analysis, there is no perfect duty against the maxim of appeal to emotion. A perfect duty exists against a maxim where it would not be possible to will it if it were universal law.[8] Although the concept of a maxim being universal law is contested, it essentially means that any rational agent who found themself in the same context with the same intention would perform the same action. Unlike in the example of the lying promise explained above, appeals to animal nature can still be effective even when people are aware that they might be occurring, and even when people know for sure that they are happening. In our insurance advertising example, awareness of an emotional argument does not dissipate our fear that the same disasters could befall us. Knowledge that an appeal is occurring makes us more critical of the appeal in the same way that knowledge of a news publication being biased will make us more critical of the way it presents the facts. Thus, the maxim may be less likely to make the target do what I want if the maxim is universalized, but it will still encourage them. For example, a rational response to an associative advertisement for perfume would be to acknowledge that the positive emotions evoked might make me enjoy the product more, allowing this to influence my decision to buy it, along with the actual smell of the perfume, its price and my perception of the company. Universalization of my maxim would weaken its effect, but allow it the same meaning and similar result. Whether there is an imperfect duty against this maxim is indeterminate. The imperfect duty exists where the establishment of my maxim as universal law conflicts with my other end(s). A world where people, as universal law, appeal to animal instinct rather than rationality whenever it suits them could inhibit the realization of one’s other ends in a range of ways. The most obvious of these is if others used the appeals to change my behavior and in the process abandon my original ends. Phillips argues that this would only rule out making appeals that I know would work on me, which would not make for universal moral duty between different people.[9] However, this interpretation simplifies universalization, which would be a rather complex process. As Rawls argues, the formula for universal law creates an “adjusted social world” wherein agents practice such appeals as though it is inherent to their nature.[10] The existence of such a social world could involve a range of things, depending on how the idea of universal law is understood. At one extreme, we would not be able to tell when we ourselves are making these appeals, and they thus would be almost unrecognizable when others were making them to us. This would make us more susceptible to them and thus more likely to be swayed against our will. The opposite extreme, that we are aware of these appeals but still unable to stop ourselves from making them, would have different implications. The appeals would still work in some cases, but they would presumably fail whenever they were not adequately appealing to the will, which would be aware of the appeals, and decide rationally to accept them on the basis of emotional desires. However, the best interpretation seems to be somewhere in between these: although we would recognize these appeals sometimes, we would not understand them well enough to always recognize them. If this maxim were to be taken as a universal law like gravity or Pythagoras’ Theorem, it would gradually be increasingly understood through science – in particular, psychology and behavioral science. The exact effect of universalizing this maxim is, due to this complexity, unclear. The Formula for Humanity Kant’s formula of humanity as an end in itself gives us significantly clearer guidance for the maxim. Kant requires not that we never use other rational beings as means, as that would be near impossible, but that we never use them merely as means.[11] Any act where someone uses another as a means to an end consensually is acceptable. For example, if Alice buys a coffee from a barista at a mutually acceptable rate, they have both acted morally, despite Alice using the barista as her means to acquire a coffee, and the barista using Alice as their means to acquire money. However, we do not owe the same duty to irrational beings. It is the presence of a will that makes someone human, and it is this humanity to which one owes consent. Two different characterizations of humans’ decision-making capacities, which we shall respectively call ‘irrational’ and ‘rational’, point us to similar conclusions, but with slightly different implications. Kant describes our decision-making as generally rational, except in the cases where our emotions become “affects” and “passions”, and we lose some control of our actions, in which case we are irrational[12] . Under the irrational characterization, the will can be overridden by our animal nature. This occurs when people are under stress, or otherwise incapacitated, such that their emotions can override their rational sense. One common example of this phenomenon would be the ‘fight or flight’ response. In this case it is clear that my maxim conflicts with the formula of humanity. In the contexts described, I am using the target’s humanity as a means, as without it I could not get what I want. That is to say, I could not get money or political support from a child, robot or animal. However, rather than treating their humanity as an end, I am bypassing their humanity to appeal to their animal instincts, and gaining from their humanity in the process. Even if I ask for consent to make my appeal, or they have full knowledge that the appeal is occurring, if my target is behaving irrationally, the appeal can change their behavior by overriding the will and thus violating their humanity. It could be argued, as a rebuttal, that irrational persons are not deserving of this protection, as we have no moral duty to one without rational capacity. However, this would not constitute the protection of rational nature, which deserves regard even when it is incomplete or temporarily incapacitated.[13] This is why we have different duties surrounding addictive substances, and selling alcohol to the intoxicated. Like children, people behaving irrationally have latent rationality, and we should try to engage with that, rather than taking advantage of their irrationality. Under the second characterization, people are consistently rational, but animal instincts form inclinations that influence our behavior. Kant’s distinction in the original German between the willkür and wille helps aid this discussion. The willkür (will) ultimately makes the decisions, but animal inclinations and the wille (moral faculties) make up the arguments for the action. This concept is regularly characterized as ‘autonomy of the will’, which ‘is not the special achievement of the most independent, but a property of any reasoning being’.[14] Thus, the ‘appeal’ to animal instincts in my maxim does not make animal instincts decide for us, but strengthens the argument on behalf of those instincts. In this case, the target is able to consider their emotional response through their will, but surely only if they are aware that the argument is affecting their emotions. The target can only rationally engage with the appeal if they are aware of it, and this is a key factor to whether my maxim violates the target’s humanity. This has similarities with Phillips’ second interpretation of his maxim, wherein people treat emotional arguments as logical ones, assessing them from that perspective using the will. The maxim can be split into two scenarios to accommodate this change: “Where it serves my purpose, I will use persuasion to appeal to another person’s animal instincts without their knowledge, to encourage them to do what I want”. “Where it serves my purpose, I will use persuasion to appeal to another person’s animal instincts with their knowledge, to encourage them to do what I want”. In the first case, I consciously appeal to their animal instincts without their knowledge, using their humanity merely as a means to an end – they are furthering my political or economic goal in a way that a child or animal generally could not. However, in the second, the appeal to animal instincts is only as immoral as indulging one’s own animal instincts: it is an instance of a will allowing the animal instincts inherent in the human form to influence its behavior. The question that remains, on what counts as knowledge, deserves focused attention in the discussion of how this maxim would be treated by Kant’s formulation of the kingdom of ends. The Kingdom of Ends As we move into a discussion of the kingdom of ends, we have essential questions left to answer. The first formulation does not clarify our duty, but analysis of the second has ruled out appeals that my target is not consciously aware of. We still need a contextual definition of knowledge, and an account of how I may know my target possesses it. Clearly, appeals where they are completely unexpected are not allowed, as they involve a violation of trust and no opportunity for the will to make a decision. Thus, using subtle messaging to convince your friend to come to 350.org meetings is out of the question. Conversely, appeals where active consent has been gained are clearly acceptable. A door-to-door insurance salesperson who gains active consent to tell her tales of tragedy, noting that they may incite fear, should feel no qualms in doing so. However, the target’s knowledge does not necessarily require active consent. Advertising and campaigning occur in marked zones, like in television advert slots and conversations at stalls. People are aware of the norms in these areas, and not only are they able to physically tune out, they are also able to think and react critically. It would be overstepping the Kantian mark to say that we should only ever appeal to our target’s autonomous will, and never engage directly with their emotions. Abiding by such a rule would severely decrease one’s persuasive ability.[15] In a sense, this would constitute failure to respect one’s own subjective ends – the ends one desires to bring about, but which do not necessarily hold moral worth. Moreover, it is not our duty to make sure others act rationally – only to ensure that we are not violating their autonomy. While the easiest answer for the moral stickler is to consistently ask for the consent, or avoid emotional appeals altogether, those who do not wish to dampen the results of their business or campaign with unnecessarily bad persuasion should push further. Kant’s final formulation, the kingdom of ends, by his own account combines the preceding two formulations for a ‘systematic union of several rational beings through universal laws’.[16] In this moral kingdom, only humanity has ultimate worth, but rational beings’ subjective ends have substitutable value, which we have a duty to respect. Acting as though one were in the kingdom of ends involves interacting with others as though they are autonomous rational agents, giving them some degree of responsibility as well as some charity.[17] The weighing up of responsibility and charity is essential to determining the moral value and practical application of my maxim. Treating others as ends in the kingdom means not only allowing them consent, but also holding them responsible for their actions because they are a rational agent. In doing this we should be charitable, by taking into account moral education and relevant personal history, and by realizing that ‘even the best of us can slip’.[18] Korsgaard discusses judgments of rationality after someone else has acted, but the same judgments can be extended in considering the moral acceptability of an action that changes others’ actions. We have a moral obligation to judge people primarily using the second characterization of decision-making, which allows my maxim wherever the target has knowledge of the appeal. However, when we have good reason to believe their rationality is incapacitated, we should judge them under the first characterization. Within certain contexts, namely advertising and campaigning spaces, the consent to appeals to animal instincts are implicit – people are aware that these appeals happen, and they have freedom to opt out of these interactions. Moreover, in knowing that the appeals occur, they are able to engage critically with these appeals, using their will. However, a charitable view means realizing that sometimes my target will be irrational. Even though my intention is not to manipulate, a badly developed view of their rational capacities could mean that my appeal inadvertently treats them merely as a means. This is especially likely if my appeal is done with a parochial lack of awareness of the target’s culture and moral education.[19] We thus have a responsibility to gain knowledge of which maxims are likely to violate another’s human dignity, even if they would not do so if committed against us. For advertisers and campaigners, the target’s knowledge as a moral necessity means ruling out some forms of advertising, and making a concerted effort to consider the specific target audience, and avoid practices that would likely violate their autonomy. Although there will still be some risk of the target having a purely emotional response, dedicated and genuine engagement with this issue is in itself treating them as an end. Such consideration will also result in better engagement with the will, and has practical implications in terms of duty. Although these distinctions do not clearly separate campaigning and advertising, they do leave the tactics usually used by campaigners with more latitude. Advertising that purposely engages only with animal instincts is immoral. This means we have a perfect duty against advertising that tries to stimulate ‘impulse buys’, or similarly, campaigning that manipulates the weak-willed to support a campaign. Moreover, relating to the question of the target’s knowledge, it is worthwhile to consider the difference between direct appeals and broadcast appeals. Direct appeals involve interpersonal interaction where the agent witnesses the reaction of their target, while broadcast appeals do not. Although both advertising and campaigning use direct and broadcast methods, campaigning often makes more use of the first, and advertising more of the second. In interpersonal engagements, the persuader will notice many characteristics of the target. They can gauge the target’s apparent state of mind, and whether their engagement seems rational or emotional. On account of this knowledge, the persuader has heightened power to manipulate the target. However, the moral response is, rather than exploiting this power, creating the perfect balance between making a convincing case, and ensuring that their target is behaving responsibly. For broadcast methods, appeals to animal instinct must necessarily be more explicit, and practiced with caution appropriate to the situation. Evaluating the Kantian Account The Kantian treatment of this issue reveals some controversial issues with Kantian ethics in the way it avoids any consequentialist considerations. Such considerations involve weighing up the consequences of an action in analyzing its moral worth. One problem with the Kantian account lies in its lack of differentiation between different types of emotional responses. I would have liked this analysis to develop a duty against advertisements for beauty products that manipulate an irrational connection between image and self-worth. The appeal can still work even if the target knows that it is occurring, because the association gains strength from societal norms. Even with a pre-warning saying ‘this ad associates beauty with worthiness’ the advertisement will only remind the target of their experience of this association. In this way, it plays on emotions caused by social anxiety, and amplifies harmful norms in a way that appeals to hunger or empathy do not. Moreover, this appeal’s effectiveness does not depend on whether society actually values people according to aesthetics; it is about the rational, but potentially uninformed view of the target. Furthermore, the association between beauty and worthiness is not a lie, but an opinion, albeit a harmful one. There is some room to argue that such appeals normalize irrational associations, in effect decreasing the rational capacity of individuals over time. However, this relies on a subjective characterization of irrationality, verging on paternalism, and does not hold rational agents responsible for engaging with their own emotions. It would be more accurate to say that such appeals, although respecting rationality, have harmful consequences – a concept that Kantian philosophy does not incorporate. A full account of ethical appeals in advertising needs to rule out any appeals that lazily amplify existing but harmful social norms – but this consequentialist goal does not fit within Kantian ethics. In other areas, the Kantian approach rules out some appeals that a consequentialist might accept. Although this could be seen as an issue with the Kantian approach, it is also one of its strengths. Any Kantian would accept the argument that certain persuasive methods have no moral worth, no matter what their larger aim is. However, pluralist philosophies, in rejecting the primacy of rationality to place a substitutable value on the target’s autonomy, may find that the campaigner should be allowed more scope to manipulate their target emotionally. Given that their campaign has a sufficiently good end, and sufficiently high chances of success, and given that Kantian reasoning would be significantly less effective, a pluralist philosophy incorporating Kantian reasoning and and consequentialism would allow some manipulation in a campaigning context that would not be allowed in a purely selfish advertising context. The Kantian emphasis on universalization and non-interference is at odds with the goals of the campaigner, who is trying to right some wrong often caused by the immoral behavior of others. In fact, Sher’s discussion provides a framework in which the amount the product benefits the consumer may be a sufficient defense for using manipulative advertising.[20] A pluralistic view of morality would likely permit more manipulative appeals in advertising or campaigning, if the campaign or product were sufficiently good. Even accepting pluralism, the above account may not hold for campaigns, because appeals to animal instincts can have wider negative consequences. Firstly, the increased success, or likelihood of success, of the campaign may not be large enough to outweigh violation of people’s autonomy. Secondly, the recruitment of emotionally driven supporters could lead to a less principled campaign base, or a less enduring campaign. Making a moral decision incorporating such factors would require a thorough assessment of risk and benefit. The Kantian approach precludes these empirical considerations, in turn encouraging a slow, reliably moral approach to social change. This firm adherence to avoiding harm acts as a kind of safeguard to prevent blindly emotionally driven, badly considered campaigns, with supporters that are ultimately being exploited.[21] Even if my campaign is one that aims to protect others’ autonomy, for example, by freeing people from torture, my perfect Kantian duty is to not violate others’ autonomy, while the duty to protect rationality from others’ interference is an imperfect duty, and can only be achieved through moral means. Kantian ethics provides a clear account of our moral duties in the sphere of appeals to animal instincts. In some cases, where I have no reason to think that the target might engage rationally with emotional appeals, they are indefensible. In cases where the context allows for rational engagement, my duty is to consider the target as both responsible and manipulable, and genuinely consider whether I need to adapt my tactics to ensure their humanity is not violated. My intention should always be to strengthen the emotional argument, giving them ample opportunity to engage rationally with the appeal, rather than making emotions control my target. The Kantian account of duty is largely acceptable, but weakened by its failure to differentiate between benign and harmful animal instincts. Although the pluralist might find some issues with the Kantian account as it relates to campaigning, its clear conclusion provides us with a useful, albeit incomplete guide to social change without adverse consequences. Endnotes [1] Kant, Immanuel. (1997). Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM) In Gregor, Mary J. Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. (4:421) [2] Phillips, Michael J. (1997) Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment. Greenwood Publishing Group. [3] Herman, Barbara. (1997). ‘A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends’. In Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, Christine M. Korsgaard & John Rawls (eds.). Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls. Cambridge University Press. pp. 187-213 [4] Louden, Robert B. (2000). Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings. Oxford University Press. [5] Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, (4:402) [6] Korsgaard, Christine M. (2004). ‘Fellow creatures: Kantian ethics and our duties to animals’. Tanner Lectures on Human Values 24: 77-110. [7] Wood, Allen W. (1998). Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 72 (1):189–210. [8] Wood, Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature, 189–210 [9] Phillips, (1997), Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising. [10] Rawls, John. (2000). ‘The Four-Step CI Procedure’ In Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Harvard University Press. p. 169. [11] Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, (4:429) [12] Formosa, Paul. (2013). ‘Kant’s Conception of Personal Autonomy’. Journal of Social Philosophy 44, no. 3. pp. 193-212.p. 198. [13] Wood, (1998) ‘Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature’. [14] O'Neill, Onora. (1989) Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 76. [15] Baron, Marcia. (2002). ‘Acting from Duty’ In Wood. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Yale University Press. pp. 92-110 [16] Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, (4:433) [17] Korsgaard, Christine M. (1992). ‘Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations’. Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 6 Ethics. pp. 305-332 [18] Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations, 324 [19] Herman, (1997) ‘A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends’. [20] Sher, Shlomo. (2011). ‘A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics’, Journal of Business Ethics 102, pp.97–118 [21] One contemporary example of such a campaign is the KONY 2012 movement, which initially avoided scrutiny by motivating people’s support by appealing to their emotions. References Baron, Marcia. (2002). ‘Acting from Duty’ In Wood. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Yale University Press. pp. 92-110 Formosa, Paul. (2013). ‘Kant’s Conception of Personal Autonomy’. Journal of Social Philosophy 44, no. 3. pp. 193-212. Herman, Barbara. (1997). ‘A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends’ In Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, Christine M. Korsgaard & John Rawls (eds.), Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls. Cambridge University Press. pp. 187-213 Kant, Immanuel. (1997). Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM). In Gregor, Mary J., Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine M. (1992). ‘Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations’. Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 6 Ethics. pp. 305-332 Korsgaard, Christine M. (2004). ‘Fellow creatures: Kantian ethics and our duties to animals’. Tanner Lectures on Human Values 24: 77-110. Louden, Robert B. (2000). Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings. Oxford University Press. O'Neill, Onora. (1989). Constructions of Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Phillips, Michael J. (1997) Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising: Answering a Flawed Indictment, Greenwood Publishing Group. Rawls, John. (2000). ‘The Four-Step CI Procedure’ In Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Harvard University Press. Sher, Shlomo. (2011). ‘A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics’. Journal of Business Ethics 102. pp. 97–118 Wood, Allen W. (1998). Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 72 (1):189–210.

Jasmine Bacchus Tribes and Tribulations: Character as Property in Survivor Jasmine Bacchus Almost 600 contestants have appeared on the US version of Survivor , with only 82 of those contestants (approximately 13%) identifying as Black. Over the past twenty years, Black Survivor contestants have expressed that their portrayal on the edited version of the show misrepresents their lived experiences on and off the island. In 2020, a group of Black alumni joined together to produce a series of panels and discussions on race in Survivor and have argued that CBS, the show’s broadcasting network, has a responsibility to accurately and appropriately represent the experiences of their contestants of color. This paper explores character as a form of property and aims to showcase how intellectual property rights and the right to publicity function within the context of reality television. Ultimately, I argue that networks, such as CBS, should aim to balance their desire to produce an entertaining show with genuine attempts to accurately tell the stories of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC). After showcasing how CBS’s ownership of their contestant’s characters has uniquely harmed Black contestants, I will suggest steps CBS can take to improve their portrayals. I. Character on Survivor Survivor is an American television show created by Mark Burnett in 2000. The premise of the show is that 16-20 players, called “castaways,” are brought to a deserted island. The castaways are put into two teams, called “tribes.” In each episode, the two tribes compete against each other in a series of challenges. The losing tribe goes to “Tribal Council” where they collectively vote one player off of the island. This pattern continues until there are only two or three contestants left in the game; the final players then face a “jury” consisting of the last seven players that have been voted out of the game. The final players give speeches and the jury members cast their vote for the player they want to win the game. The winner receives the title of “Sole Survivor” and $1,000,000. As a reality TV show, Survivor is known for its memorable characters and character moments. When the show originally aired in 2000, one of the earliest marketing points was that the game was bringing sixteen people from different “walks of life”; the significance of bringing together different socioeconomic, racial, and geographic backgrounds made the show a televised social experiment. While the show still claims to bring together a diverse group of players, at home, audience members see characters carefully crafted by the network, rather than raw footage of sixteen strangers. The discrepancy between reality and their portrayal is what has sparked action from Black Survivor alumni. During the casting and editing process, contestants are typically shaped to fit specific archetypes. While Survivor producers aim to get contestants from a range of archetypes each season, many times Black contestants are repeatedly cast into the same roles or emphasized for the same shortcomings. Gervase Peterson (Season 1), Osten Taylor (S7), Tasha Fox (S31), and Keith Sowell (S38) received major storylines about their inability to swim, contributing to the harmful stereotype that “Black people can’t swim.” Alicia Calaway (S2) is primarily remembered for being aggressive and JoAnna Ward (S6) was shown as “overly religious.” Likewise, contestants NaOnka Mixon (21), Nick Brown (S2), and J’Tia Hart were primarily shown as being “lazy” and nonstrategic and were frequently shown taking naps and not participating in camp work. This seems to suggest that “laziness” is one of their core personality traits when in fact outside of the game, Mixon was a physical education teacher, Brown was a Harvard Law Student, and Hart was a nuclear engineer with a Ph.D. (1). Black contestants have argued that these repetitive, one-sided portrayals ignore the fact that the Black Survivor community is not a monolith. The contestants are multifaceted people, but by shoehorning them into the same narratives every season, they are inaccurately portraying the true personas of the contestants. While producers can only work with the footage they are given, Black contestants have argued that the showrunners focus on turning the footage into memorable moments without also highlighting their gameplay and strategy. While a white contestant may be given both a fun edit and strategic moments, Black contestants often are only highlighted when they do something to support their assigned archetype. These one-sided portrayals come at the expense of giving the contestants “proper credit” for the positive contributions they made to the game. Vecepia “Vee” Towery, winner of Survivor: Marquesas and the first African American contestant to win the game, has been known throughout the Survivor community for being a “boring” and “nonstrategic” player, yet during one of the Black Voices of Survivor panels, Vecepia spoke out about her edit: They flipped it and made me look like I was under the radar like I didn’t do anything to win that game. Even to the point that when we were watch- ing the episodes, people on my season would call me and email me like ‘that didn’t happen like that. Why didn’t they show you doing that?’ and I’m sitting there like I have no idea (2). With instances like Vecepia’s occurring regularly, Black Survivor contestants have joined together to campaign for better representation. Black alumni shared their stories in a series of podcasts known as the “Black Voices of Survivor”; the series is accompanied by a petition sent to CBS, which called for “anti-racism”; specifically, they called for CBS to “Ensure that cultural elements of the experiences of BIPOC are not exploited and their portrayal does not perpetuate harmful stereotypes” (3). This raises the question: to what extent do Black contestants have ownership over how they are portrayed on the show? The following sections explore the concept of a “reality tv character” and examine how intellectual property (IP) and publicity laws can be used to give individuals and corporations ownership over characters. II. Character as Property I believe that property functions in this setting as a means of character owner- ship. Denise Martinez defines “character” as “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of a person” (4). These traits and features are constructed by various elements, including the person’s “physical appearance, their background and personality, the words they use and the actions they take” (5). As I discuss character in this paper, I am referring to the aggregate of a contestant’s personalities, appearances, and actions, that edited together, make “a character.” Personality is a key component used to build a character. Deborah Halbert breaks a reality TV star’s personality into three parts. There is the “human persona,” which is the person in their everyday life, a functional persona, which represents the archetypal character the network aims to project, and a hybrid persona, which contains elements of both (6). What we see on television is the hybrid persona, where the “Reality TV star’s personality is combined with producer-controlled storylines and edits” (7). This, combined with other elements of their wardrobe and back- ground, create a reality TV character. Thus, the tension between the contestants and the network is over the ownership of these characters. By “character ownership,” I mean control over how the character, including the hybrid persona, is displayed in the edited final cut of the television show and any appearances of the character afterward. The law views character ownership in a couple of ways. Both IP and publicity rights have been invoked to claim ownership over a character. Reality TV characters, however, do not tend to receive intellectual property protections. In order for a character to be eligible for copyright, the creator must prove that the character is 1) “sufficiently Distinctive So as to Constitute an Original Expression” and 2) “constitute the story being told” (8). Martinez argues that reality TV characters are not sufficiently distinctive, as their “hairstyle, hair color, clothing (costume), and scenery change from one episode or season of a reality TV show to another”(9). Likewise, with ensemble casts, a singular Survivor contestant would not “constitute the story being told”: in other words, if that contestant was removed from the season, the show would still be able to proceed (10). While stereotypes themselves cannot be trademarked, trademarked characters, such as “Aunt Jemima,” have perpetuated negative stereotypes about the Black community (11). Some reality stars have sought trademark protection over certain aspects of their character as a way of claiming ownership over their “personal brand” (12). In the early days of Survivor , some contestants would use their experience on the show to propel them to higher celebrity statuses with hopes of making money off of their appearances (13). Contestants who received poor edits might have been excluded from those opportunities, however, even those who were offered opportunities were often denied participation by CBS.14 Sean Rector (S4) described his experience with this, stating “many of the opportunities that were offered to me from different networks, and even Viacom, were denied to me by SEG/Survivor and yet my image and catchphrases [are] exploited on merchandise and monetized by various different entities and I couldn’t even mention Survivor let alone try and make a living off of my experience” (15). While there is an interesting argument to be made that contestants are being robbed of the opportunity to profit off of their personal brand, I am primarily concerned about situations where CBS’s ownership of Black and POC characters cause contestants to be disproportionately affected relative to white contestants. While BIPOC contestants may experience less accurate portrayals than their counterparts, all contestants lack the ability to trademark these aspects of their brand. Ultimately, the ability to profit off of their appearance does not seem to be the primary concern raised by the Black Survivor alumni. III. The Survivor Contract What I see as the primary property issue here is the right to publicity, which “protects against the unauthorized appropriation of a person’s name, likeness, portrait, picture, voice and other indicia of identity or persona” (16). Survivor contestants give up their right to publicity when they sign the participation contract. During the early stages of the casting process, contestants who wish to continue in the casting process must sign a contract that releases their right to their portrayal during the show and after it airs. Deborah Herbert explains, “the contract grants CBS all rights to the name and likeness of the application, forever, even if the application is not recognizable” (17). If they are selected to participate on the show, “anything related to Survivor becomes the property of CBS” (18). Not only does the contract give CBS the rights to control how they are portrayed, but the network maintains full control over their “life story,” and this control extends after the show airs (19). Thus, once a contestant signs the contract, they relinquish any right to their storylines or narratives on the show, and technically cannot do or say anything after the show to contradict anything that was portrayed onscreen with- out facing a potential penalty (20). As a result, any interviews, talk shows, books, or appearances a contestant wants to make for at least three years after the show airs must be cleared by CBS first. With CBS having control over their narratives on the show and actions afterward, Black contestants have struggled to find ways to reshape their characters outside after the show has aired. Two of the four Black Survivor winners have expressed a desire to participate in positive outreach to the Black community after their show, however, they received little to no support from CBS to do so. Earl Cole, the winner of Survivor’s fourteenth season , Survivor: Fiji, was the first Black man to win the show and the first contestant to receive a unanimous vote at the end of the game. During “The Black Voices of Survivor: Roundtable,” Earl explained that after he won the show, CBS gave him a structured list of appearances and interviews to make. Earl noticed that most of the venues he was scheduled to speak at catered to a predominately white audience and asked CBS if he could make additional appearances at venues where he was more likely to reach a Black audience. However, he was met with opposition from the network. He explained: I thought that CBS would use this as an opportunity to actually try to get more Black viewers...[but] nothing happened. They did nothing for me. They didn’t promote me in any kind of way...like hey you know a Black dude just won for the first time, won unanimously...[But] I never got any of those opportunities, no promotional things, no marketing things (21). Wendell Holland, winner of S urvivor: Ghost Island experienced similar frustra- tion when trying to obtain access to clips from the show for speaking engagements. Wendell described his experience to the group, stating: We [the four Black winners] want to be great ambassadors for Survivor . We want to go to the community...scream from the mountaintops that we were on Survivor ...I spoke at so many places and I tried my hardest to acquire things. I would try to get clips from my show, I’d go through the proper channels, I would send messages to the people at CBS and they make me jump through so many hoops, and ultimately they wouldn’t give me anything, that I could show to like 700 kids (22). The anecdotes from Earl and Wendell showcase how little agency contestants have once they sign the contract and agree to participate on the show. While the argument can be made that players could have read the contract and refused to sign it, often reality TV contestants have limited legal understanding and when faced with a 100+ page document they may feel overwhelmed or unable to digest it all. While perhaps contestants should read the contract with an attorney present, often reality tv contestants are given a limited amount of time to sign and feel pressured to do so before the network replaces them with another candidate (23). In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, Sean Rector expressed regret for how the contract signing process went down, stating: I rarely have regrets in life, but if there were some regrets after doing the show, it would have been that I wished I would’ve legally understood the SEG/Survivor contract I signed. I wished they would’ve had more transparency and explanation as to why certain people were able to capitalize off of their experience and others were not (24). With the pressure to sign quickly and no legal counsel provided by CBS, Survivor contestants have signed away their right to publicity for the rest of their lives, making it challenging for contestants to remedy harmful on-screen portrayals. VI. Race and Character Portrayal – Finding Balance Given the extensive contracts they signed when they auditioned for the show, Black Survivor contestants do not retain any rights to publicity over their Survivor character. CBS has economic incentives to continue to structure their contracts in this manner, however as more stories of Black contestants begin to be made public, the network is facing pressure to better characterize their BIPOC contestants. Thus, if CBS continues to require contestants to sign away their right to publicity, they still may be held accountable when it comes to handling the characterization and life stories of marginalized individuals. Thus, how can networks balance exercising their autonomy over character creation (to craft an entertaining show), without putting marginalized groups in a position where they are forced to connect their likenesses to harmful stereotypes? In this final section, I will explain how and why CBS should take steps to better characterize their contestants of color, and how they can do so, without modifying their contract. Unique Harms to Black Contestants A negative reality television edit has the potential to harm any contestant, how- ever, I believe that stereotypical portrayals of predominantly Black contestants create unique harms to the Black community. In her study of race on reality TV shows, Katrina Bell-Jordan writes that reality television can “shape the reality of race and racism in the US” (25). For BIPOC contestants, their character portrayals shape not only their personal image, but how our society views African Americans. Bell-Jordan explains that the “editing and framing of footage depicting the experiences of ‘real’ people have the power to shape our understandings of the people, places and sociocultural issues presented on these programs” (26). People who watch Survivor may have limited real-life experience interacting with the Black community. Thus, portrayals of Black contestants can directly shape the way a person views the community. Likewise, at this point, many Black contestants have recognized how important it is to be depicted in a non-harmful light, and thus multiple Black castaways have spoken out about the pressure they felt to positively represent their ethnic group and avoid any editing traps while on the show. Thus, these players enter the show aiming to “dispel the myths about their respective group” (27). Often, they spend additional energy not only trying to play the game but being hyper-aware of their surroundings and their actions, so they can avoid alienating their tribe. This pressure is two-pronged. For example, while a white contestant may feel comfortable taking a nap after helping catch food for dinner, a Black contestant may feel an additional pressure to stay active, as they would not want their nap to become their main storyline. They are likely aware of the “lazy” stereotype that has been pushed on previous Black contestants and will want to make sure their fellow castaways have no evidence of them being lazy (as this would likely lead to them being voted out). They may also feel an additional level of anxiety around the producer’s ability to push the stereotype on them. While all castaways regardless of race are thinking about their in-game relationships and the final edit, Black castaways experience a unique pressure to avoid falling into stereotypical narratives historically pushed by the show. Navigating these one-dimensional negative portrayals may also make it more challenging for players to be invited back to play Survivor again. Many contestants dream about the chance to be invited back; another chance gives them more exposure, another once-in-a-lifetime experience, and another chance to win $1,000,000. Thus, not being invited back is incredibly disappointing to many players. Black alumni expressed frustration when Vecepia, the first Black contestant to win and the only Black woman to win, was one of the only winners not invited to play in the “All-Winners” season of Survivor . Unpopular characters are less likely to be invited back to play Survivor again; contestants with poor edits are often perceived negatively by the fanbase and thus denied another invitation. However, refusing to play into a stereotype may cause a player to be disliked by production, which could still lead to a negative edit (albeit a different one) or being “black- listed” from future invitations. Out of the 103 contestants who have been invited back to the show, only 11 of the invited castaways are Black (28). Knowing that they are invited back at a lower rate, Black and other BIPOC contestants face another level of complexity not faced by their white counterparts. Lastly, unbalanced edits can lead to Black stories being completely ignored. During Season 38 Julia Carter was the only Black castaway in her tribe. During the first few nights of the game, a fellow castaway used a racial slur. Julia reported feeling uncomfortable but remained silent due to a desire not to make her tribe uncomfortable or put a “target” on her back. Eventually, a white castaway stepped in and confronted the other contestant. After this incident occurred, Julia hoped that once aired, it would create a dialogue amongst viewers about language and race. However, CBS chose not to air any part of this incident, and many speculate that this was done to protect the reputation of the castaway who said the slur (29). In fact, Julia is known for being virtually erased from the entire season, receiving very few confessionals or moments at all (30). This story only came to light after Julia wrote an essay about the incident after the show aired. Unfortunately, Julia’s story of unaired racial incidents is not unique. When the edit chooses to ignore these contestant narratives altogether, they invalidate the lived experiences of Black contestants, while making no effort to make the game a more comfortable space for BIPOC players. Network Incentives to Address these Harms As I mentioned earlier, for many viewers, characters and their storylines are what makes a show like Survivor so interesting. Building drama, creating conflict, and putting contestants in challenging situations are essential parts of the show, and to do that effectively, production companies need to have blanket approval from the contestants. The contract enables CBS to have control over these creative elements of the show. By owning each contestant’s right to publicity, the network has creative freedom to produce a show that is entertaining to the public. Likewise, character creation is a time consuming, creative process. Retaining rights to these characters serves as an economic incentive for the company to create compelling ones that will generate high viewership. Likewise, part of being a reality TV contestant is the willingness to put yourself out there and risk potential failures or humiliations that may occur (31). Contestants should expect that any negative footage obtained is fair game to be used for the show. Likewise, the comprehensive contract allows producers to obtain “genuine” footage from contestants. Some aspects of Survivor , like the “gross” food eating challenges, are centered around the contestants not knowing what they are going to face. If contestants were to be given a contract that revealed everything that would happen to them, it would remove elements of drama and make it much less satisfying to watch their reactions (32). If CBS was required to receive editing approval from each contestant before airing a show, likely we would never see any conflicts (artificial or genuine), mess-ups, or moments of stupidity. While a contestant may not feel like they “signed up to be portrayed as an idiot,” by virtue of the genre, players should expect some level of humiliation. However, I believe that the harms created by CBS’s current portrayals combined with their contract make the game uniquely challenging for BIPOC players beyond the reasonable expectation of humiliation and drama. The game of Survivor is not “fair”—every player will experience varying levels of luck throughout their time on the show. However, the show is edited in a way that portrays, to the audience, a level of “fairness.” We are led to believe that at the start of the show, for all intents and purposes, each contestant has a relatively fair shot of winning. Yet, Black contestants are not only trying to play the game, but they also attempt to dodge negative stereotypes and positively represent their entire group, all while navigating their complex relationship with production. There is a whole new level of challenge for these contestants. One group of people consistently facing additional hurdles and challenges undermines this illusion of “fairness” that the network tries to create. Continuing to ignore these inherent disadvantages faced by players delegitimizes the game of Survivor . As these issues come to light, the show is at risk of losing the element of com- petition that makes the audience want to turn in each week to find out who moves on. Likewise, as the Black Survivors have begun to speak out about their concerns, CBS has faced lots of negative publicity for how they treat BIPOC contestants. As more Black contestants share negative experiences, future applicants of color may be deterred from applying to be on the show. CBS has already received negative publicity surrounding this issue, but a season of all white contestants would possibly put the show over the edge. Thus, the network now has two incentives to tackle this issue 1) the incentive to continue to stage Survivor as a “fair game” and 2) the incentive to respond to the negative publicity. I recognize that CBS has the economic motive to produce an entertaining show; retaining the right to publicity over their characters and IP ownership over their recordings gives them an incentive to create quality content. I do not believe that CBS needs to modify their contract as it currently exists. However, the network also has an incentive to improve the way they tell Black stories. The network should take steps to make these improvements. Suggestions for CBS Without modifying their contract, the Survivor team should take steps to minimize future harmful portrayals in the first place. The petition sent by the Sole Survivors Organization asked CBS to hire more BIPOC producers, casting directors, and editors to increase the likelihood that diverse stories are being told in a way that is respectful and accurate (33). A more diverse team would be more equipped to think about representing new archetypes and displaying important parts of each BIPOC castaway’s “life stories.” Likewise, CBS should also make it a priority to cast a more diverse group of players. Some of the pressure tied to a contestant’s feeling like they must “represent for their race” is the fact that Black contestants are only 13% of all players. Often, Black players find themselves one of maybe two African American contestants on a season. The limited amount of representation makes the stakes of an accurate portrayal even higher. The Sole Survivor Organization suggested 30% of the cast each season to people of color (34) and CBS has publicly expressed intent to work towards achieving a similar goal (35). Moving forward, the network should work to increase the number of diverse voices at all stages of production. Likewise, CBS should encourage contestants to speak out against inaccurate portrayals as they see fit. As we have seen with the Black Voices of Survivor podcast, contestants have already begun to speak about their experiences without authorization from the network. I believe that dialogues such as the Black Voices of Survivor should not only be permitted but encouraged; if contestants are encouraged to speak up, stories of stereotypical portrayals made public will put more pressure on the network to do a better job in future seasons. In cases where Black winners, like Wendell and Earl, want to speak in the Black community, the network should be more open to giving them access to materials from the show. No modification to their contract has to be made, but the network should be more diligent about approving and supporting the speaking engagements of BIPOC contestants. V. Conclusion Throughout this paper, I have showcased how Black Survivor contestants have felt inaccurately portrayed by CBS and I have examined their desire to receive ownership over their on-screen characters. The unique harms experienced by Black contestants reveal that an understanding of property driven by economic incentives can cause great harm to specific groups of people. I recognize that CBS’s property claims enable them to create compelling characters and produce their show without fear of interference from disgruntled contestants, however, their absolute character ownership has uniquely harmed BIPOC contestants. Thus, I suggested that CBS increase diversity amongst all aspects of the filming process and to encourage BIPOC contestants to speak up when they feel uncomfortable with their edit. While neither of these options will give these contestants the ability to trademark their catchphrases or control their edit, it is a step towards eliminating the pressures that come with harmful portrayals. Our systems do not seem to recognize when the creations we fostered create harmful, negative externalities. We seem to rely on the market to naturally eliminate creations that do more harm than good. In the case of CBS, public reaction is the only way to gauge if their show is net positive for society, however, controlling the contestant’s right to publicity functions as a way of managing public reaction through limiting public interactions. Thus, this issue is important to a discussion about property because it highlights how the economic benefits of property rights can lead to negative externalities that uniquely harm marginalized communities. In this case, property rights seem to foster innovation, but there is no formal system in place to check if the innovation, Survivor , is continuing to positively impact society (or even, a structured way to measure what constitutes a “net positive im- pact”). In this case, property rights do not have to be a zero-sum game where either the producers or the contestants are satisfied. Hopefully, the external pressure caused by the public will push CBS to engage with their BIPOC contestants. However, I recognize that the network may choose not to make any changes to their production teams or processes. Therefore, this issue has showcased to me that while property laws can foster creativity, they can also create societal harms that uniquely harm groups of people. Endnotes 1 Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. “Dr. J’Tia Hart.” Energy.gov, www.energy.gov/diversity/ contributors/dr-j-tia-hart. 2 Rob Has a Podcast, director. Black Voices of Survivor: Changing the Game of Survivor. YouTube, 1 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7_rju1pneQ. 3 The Soul Survivors Organization, and J’Tia Heart. “A Petition for Anti-Racism Action by Survivor Entertainment Group.” MoveOn, June 2020, sign.moveon.org/petitions/a-petition-for-anti-racism-action-by- survivor-entertainment-group-2. 4 Martinez, Denise. “Character Ownership in Reality TV”. p. 5. 5 Ibid. 6 Halbert, Debora. “Who Owns Your Personality: Reality Television and Publicity Rights.” Survivor Lessons Essays on Communication and Reality Television, by Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F.. Wood, McFarland & Company, 2003, p. 42. 7 Martinez, Denise. “Character Ownership in Reality TV.” p. 6. 8 Ibid, p. 8. 9 Ibid, 11. 10 Ibid, 13 11 Greene, K.J. “Intellectual Property at the Intersection of Race and Gender: Lady Sings the Blues.” American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, vol. 16, no. 3, 2008, p. 375. 12 Greene, K.J. “Right of Publicity, Identity, and Performance K .J. Greene Article 4.” Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal, vol. 28, no. 4, 1 Oct. 2012, p. 870. 13 Collins, Sue. “Making the Most out of 15 Minutes.” Television &New Media, vol. 9, no. 2, Mar. 2008, p. 88, tvnm.sagepub.com. 14 Halbert, Debora. “Who Owns Your Personality” p.44. 15 Ross, Dalton. “Sean Rector Speaks out on Never Being Asked Back for ‘Survivor’.” EW.com, 9 Nov. 2020, ew.com/tv/survivor-marquesas-sean-rector-quarantine-questionnaire/. 16 Greene, K.J. “Right of Publicity” p. 866. 17 Halbert, Debora. “Who Owns Your Personality” p.44. 18 Ibid, 44. 19 Blair, Jennifer L. “Surviving Reality TV: The Ultimate Challenge for Reality Show Contestants.” Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, vol. 31, no. 1, 2010-2011, p. 1-26. HeinOnline. 20 Halbert, Debora. “Who Owns Your Personality” p.44. 21 Rob Has A Podcast. “Black Voices of SURVIVOR Roundtable LIVE - June 24, 2020.” 22 YouTube, YouTube, 24 June 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqJM_05fFuk. JTiaPhD. “Tribes and Tribulations.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 June 2020, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=K7YK4DjRQwI. 23 Blair, Jennifer L. “Surviving Reality TV” p. 20. 24 Ross, Dalton. “Sean Rector Speaks out on Never Being Asked Back for ‘Survivor’.” EW.com, 9 Nov. 2020, ew.com/tv/survivor-marquesas-sean-rector-quarantine-questionnaire/. 25 Bell-Jordan, Katrina E. “Black.White. and a Survivor of The Real World: Constructions of Race on Reality TV.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 25, no. 4, Oct. 2008, p. 357. 26 Bell-Jordan, Katrina E. “Black.White,” p. 368. 27 Ibid, p. 353. 28 Survivor Wiki. “Returning Players.” Survivor Wiki, survivor.fandom.com/wiki/Returning_Players. 29 r/Survivor. “r/Survivor - Can Someone Explain to Me What Happened with Joe and Julia from Eoe and What Shes Ranting about? Is Joe Really Racist...” Reddit, Nov. 2020. 30 Eager Tortoise. “The Real Reason Julia Was Upset About Her Edit .” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCXaYeHROT0. 31 Mendible, Myra. “Humiliation, Subjectivity, and Reality TV.” Feminist Media Studies , vol. 4, no. 3, Jan. 2004. 32 Blair, Jennifer L. “Surviving Reality TV” p.19-20. 33 The Soul Survivors Organization, and J’Tia Heart. “A Petition for Anti-Racism Action by Survivor Entertainment Group.” MoveOn, June 2020, sign.moveon.org/petitions/a-petition-for-anti-racism-action-by- survivor-entertainment-group-2. 34 Ibid. 35 Hauser, Christine. “‘Survivor’ and Other Reality Shows Will Feature More Diverse Casts, CBS Says.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/business/media/cbs-reality- tv-diversity.html. 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Marginalized Group Representativeness in Competitive Reality Television Programming.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture , vol. 8, no. 3, 2019, pp. 319–328. Eager Tortoise. “The Real Reason Julia Was Upset About Her Edit .” YouTube , YouTube, 6 Dec. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCXaYeHROT0. Gomez, Patrick. “‘I Was Called the N-Word’: Survivor All-Stars Share Stories of Racism.” AV Club , 26 June 2020, news.avclub.com/i-was-called-the-n- word-black-survivor-all-stars-rev-1844171814. Greene, K.J. “Intellectual Property at the Intersection of Race and Gender: Lady Sings the Blues.” American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law , vol. 16, no. 3, 2008, pp. 365– 385. Greene, K.J. “Right of Publicity, Identity, and Performance K .J. Greene Article 4.” Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal , vol. 28, no. 4, 1 Oct. 2012, pp. 865–887. Halbert, Debora. “Who Owns Your Personality: Reality Television and Publicity Rights.” Survivor Lessons Essays on Communication and Reality Television , by Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F.. Wood, McFarland & Company, 2003, pp. 37–56. Hauser, Christine. “‘Survivor’ and Other Reality Shows Will Feature More Di- verse Casts, CBS Says.” The New York Times , The New York Times, 11 Nov. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/business/media/cbs-reali- ty-tv-diversity.html. JTiaPhD. “Tribes and Tribulations.” YouTube , YouTube, 27 June 2020, www.you- tube.com/watch? v=K7YK4DjRQwI. Mendible, Myra. “Humiliation, Subjectivity, and Reality TV.” Feminist Media Studies , vol. 4, no. 3, Jan. 2004. Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. “Dr. J’Tia Hart.” Energy.gov , www.ener- gy.gov/diversity/contributors/dr-j-tia-hart. r/Survivor. “r/Survivor - Can Someone Explain to Me What Happened with Joe and Julia from Eoe and What Shes Ranting about? Is Joe Really Racist...” Reddit , Nov. 2020, www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/jo012s/can_ someone_explain_to_me_what_happened_with_joe/?utm_source=share. Rob Has a Podcast, director. Black Voices of Survivor: Changing the Game of Survivor . YouTube , 1 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7_rju1pneQ. Rob Has A Podcast. “Black Voices of SURVIVOR Roundtable LIVE - June 24, 2020.” YouTube , YouTube, 24 June 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq- JM_05fFuk. Ross, Dalton. “Sean Rector Speaks out on Never Being Asked Back for ‘Survivor’.” EW.com, 9 Nov. 2020, ew.com/tv/survivor-marquesas-sean-rector-quaran- tine-questionnaire/. The Soul Survivors Organization, and J’Tia Heart. “A Petition for Anti-Racism Action by Survivor Entertainment Group.” MoveOn , June 2020, sign. moveon.org/petitions/a-petition-for-anti- racism-action-by-survivor-enter- tainment-group-2. Survivor Wiki. “African-American Contestants.” Survivor Wiki , survivor.fandom. com/wiki/Category:African-American_Contestants. Survivor Wiki. “Returning Players.” Survivor Wiki , survivor.fandom.com/wiki/Re- turning_Players. Previous Next

One Planet, One Oklahoma: Exploring a Framework for Assessing the Feasibility of Localized Energy Transitions in the United States Anna Hyslop Author Arjun Ray Arthur Shamgunov Benjamin Levy Editors Abstract Net-zero energy transitions, necessitated by the threat of climate change, need to occur on an international scale. However, powerful economic lobbies and political stagnation often mar the negotiation processes driving national and international action. In this context, local communities become increasingly important in achieving widespread emissions reduction objectives. This analysis centers on exploring a framework that evaluates the feasibility of net-zero energy transitions in U.S. localities. The framework highlights the technological and political feasibility of transitioning the electricity and transportation sectors of a given municipality. While such a framework does not capture the entirety of a community’s energy system, it nonetheless serves to address two sectors that dominate emissions production and energy usage. I apply this framework to the suburban community of Norman, Oklahoma, to both highlight the value of such analysis and to provide important information to local officials in my community. By collecting information from administrative and primary sources, this study documents forecasted decreases in the cost of renewable energy sources, residual emissions abatement technologies, and energy storage solutions for Norman. Further, an analysis of the local transportation sector reveals that the costs associated with public transit improvements—an important component of decarbonization in the transportation sector—generally ranged from 0.01-5.1% of the City’s 2023 budget (excluding national high-speed rail enhancements, which involve cost-sharing between local, state, and federal governments). I also examined the political feasibility of this transition, documenting the partisan preferences that may hinder clean energy implementation. My findings suggest that while technology costs may decrease, political opinion could hinder clean energy transitions in Oklahoma. The model of analysis employed throughout this study presents significant opportunities for further exploration of localized energy transitions in suburban areas and college towns, two types of municipalities often left out of transition scholarship. At the end of March in 2023, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a Synthesis Report covering the burgeoning climate crisis. The report served as the sixth installment in a series designed to inform international climate negotiations with updated scientific findings. Within the first ten pages, the IPCC reaffirmed common scientific consensus, declaring that “human activities, principally through the emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.” Increasing global temperatures pose threats to people throughout the United States. Coastal communities in states like Texas and Florida have experienced a greater volume of flooding in part due to sea level rise resulting from climate change. Out West, Zhuang et al. (2021) found that “anthropogenic warming…contributed at least twice as much natural variability to the rapid increase of fire weather risk” observed in the record-breaking fires of 2020 in California, Washington, and Oregon. These two studies, as a part of a growing academic literature, demonstrate the variability found in the impacts of climate change across geographies. The United States, for its part in contributing to the crisis, produced 6.0 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents (Gt CO2eq) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, making up 11.2% of total global emissions. This makes the U.S. the second-largest global emitter behind China–which produced 15.7 Gt CO2eq in 2022–and puts it in the top ten global emitters per capita. With a population of approximately 4 million people, Oklahoma produces about 2% of the U.S.’s share of global emissions. Total emissions data for Norman, Oklahoma—home to the University of Oklahoma and the subject of this analysis—does not currently exist. If Norman, like many American cities, does not individually contribute much to the climate impact of the entire United States, then why does the possibility of a localized energy transition and a net-zero future for this municipality merit discussion? First and foremost, local communities play a critical role in achieving national carbon neutrality as they can overcome federal policy inertia. After the release of the first IPCC report in 1990, several transnational associations of municipalities–including Local Governments for Sustainability, Climate Alliance, and Energy Cities–were formed to help cities pursue climate targets in the face of “strong economic lobbies [that] were blocking national and international climate policies.” By belonging to these organizations, cities are granted legitimacy and support from other municipalities in pursuing localized climate policy action. Rutherford and Coutard (2014) further acknowledge the capability of cities to pursue climate work despite national gridlock, stating that “cities may have a window of opportunity for action on energy transitions by their distinctive…political and/or sociotechnical contexts compared with those at a national level.” The ability of cities to pursue sustainability work despite national constraints presents a compelling argument for exploring a local energy transition. Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions—and the systems that lead to their release into the atmosphere—exist at local, regional, and national levels. Municipalities regularly make decisions regarding transportation, energy consumption, and land-use planning, three sectors that contribute heavily to total U.S. emissions. Collier and Löfstedt (1997) point out, however, that the financial and legal capacities of a city to enact local change vary greatly by location. Regardless of such limitations, changes at the community level contribute to broader national decarbonization objectives. The Biden Administration supported this argument in its long-term climate strategy, citing the importance of non-federal leadership—including municipalities—in reaching domestic carbon neutrality by 2050. Even smaller, suburban cities like Norman possess the power to radically reshape local transit and energy policy, addressing both its local carbon footprint and national carbon contributions. Third, Oklahoma—and Norman by extension—cannot escape the impacts of the climate crisis. The South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center predicts an average high temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit by midcentury without significant action to reduce emissions. The Fifth National Climate Assessment expands on these projected temperature increases, forecasting negative economic and public health consequences. The authors observed with high confidence that warmer temperatures and increasingly erratic weather patterns will “force widespread and costly changes” to the employment of Oklahomans. Additionally, climate change will result in increased water scarcity, animal extinction, and declining public health as extreme heat events become more common in the south-central United States. Tropical diseases and heat-related deaths are projected to increase in the warming region. Other public health impacts have already been observed in Tulsa, where the expansion of eastern red cedars—associated with longer pollen seasons—resulted in a 205% increase in allergic pollen intensity. Although the consequences of climate change borne by Oklahomans are largely not self-inflicted, we still bear responsibility for addressing our carbon footprint. Assessing Norman’s current capacity to transition to carbon-free consumption may encourage further action within Oklahoma’s cities, as only Oklahoma City currently pursues sustainable policy initiatives. Finally, analyzing the feasibility of an energy transition within Norman may spark further discussions about an energy transition in Oklahoma at large. Our local context incorporates both the resources of a nationally-recognized research institution and heavy dependence on the automobile. This combination of factors should make Norman—and other suburban college towns—a subject of interest. Drewello notes the importance of university partnerships in assessing “unique local situations” and generating innovative solutions. With access to the University of Oklahoma and its faculty, Norman offers a great opportunity for building a model to inspire a statewide or regional energy transition. Furthermore, our dependence on the automobile mirrors that of other suburban communities within the state; accordingly, any assessment of Norman’s potential for changes in the transportation sector can provide a framework for similar analyses within Oklahoma. In the Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions , Miller et al. (2022) call for the systematic “mapping” of the policies, processes, and pathways needed to achieve regional carbon neutrality. The study offers a novel framework for analyzing the feasibility of net-zero localized energy transitions in the United States. Though Norman, Oklahoma, is used merely as an example of the application of this framework, the case study provides a model for similar analyses to be conducted in other localities. I focus on establishing this underlying framework for a local energy transition by assessing the current energy system and analyzing the technological and political feasibility of achieving a net-zero future in Norman. To conduct this assessment, I researched administrative, academic, news, and primary sources to gather cost estimates of different technologies. I also analyzed national and state-level assessments of public opinion on renewable energy development to understand the transition’s political feasibility. The remainder of this paper outlines the definitions and criteria used throughout the study, with an in-depth examination of Norman’s current energy system following soon after. Then, I offer an assessment of both the technological and political feasibility of pursuing an energy transition. My general conclusions from this research follow the feasibility assessments. I. Outlining the Energy Transition: Definitions and Criteria In this section, I provide an overview of several proposed definitions of energy transitions, as well as the objectives that such transitions seek to achieve. I then articulate this study’s interpretation of a net-zero energy transition and my justification for selecting such a definition. Finally, I conclude with an explanation of the criteria by which I will assess feasibility in later sections of this paper. Prior academic work provides many definitions that explain the fundamentals of energy transitions. Araújo (2022) postulates that basic energy transitions involve a “considerable shift in the nature or pattern of how energy is used within a system, including the type, quantity, or quality of how energy is sourced, delivered, or utilized.” Zinecker et al. (2018) offer a simpler yet similar definition to Araújo, defining energy transitions as “shifts… [in] the way people produce and consume electricity using different technologies and sources.” Drewello builds on the foundations provided by Araújo and Zinecker et al. to postulate that an energy transition “is nothing less than a revolutionary restructuring of the entire energy supply in the sectors of electricity, heat, and transportation.” Here, Drewello points out specific sectors involved in a transition. These three definitions articulate the basics of an energy transition, defined in this study as a fundamental, multi-sectoral shift in both the consumption and production of energy towards a net-zero future. A net-zero future achieves maximum emissions reductions while using carbon capture technologies to remove any residual emissions. Accordingly, net-zero transitions involve deploying renewable energy technologies–like solar, wind, and nuclear power facilities–at scale. I elected to study the feasibility of a net-zero energy transition with a framework inspired in part by the literature. In evaluating Norman’s current energy sector, I focus on two of the sectors highlighted by Drewello: electricity and transportation. These sectors compromise 53% of U.S. emissions, with transportation at 28% of the total. Although Norman may not observe the same trends in emissions as the greater United States, addressing emissions in these two sectors is of great national importance and should be relevant to an energy transition in Norman as well. The decision to focus on the electricity and transportation sectors represents the first layer of my analytical framework. The second layer consists of considering both the technological and political feasibility of making net-zero transitions in each sector. Sovacool and Geels (2016) provide justification for these considerations. They divide the elements of an energy transition into three “interrelated” categories: “the tangible elements of socio-technical systems…actors and social networks…[and] socio-technical regimes.” In practice, these three dimensions prove difficult to distinguish from each other, but still roughly suggest a division between the intangibles and the tangibles of energy transitions. This study understands political feasibility to be the intangibles of transitions—namely, public support for clean energy development–and technological feasibility to be the tangible elements of an energy transition, most notably the costs associated with shifting to renewable energy and developing emissions reduction techniques. II. Norman Now: Our Energy Today Of the 90 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity generated in Oklahoma in 2023, 40 million MWh (or around 44%) of this generation came from renewable sources. Norman hosts two primary electric utilities: Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) and Oklahoma Electric Cooperative (OEC). OG&E provides generation, transmission, and distribution services across Oklahoma and parts of western Arkansas. While public data listing the number of OG&E customers in Norman is not currently available, it serves approximately 888,800 customers across its service territory. OG&E reports that 60% of the utility’s generation capacity comes from natural gas, 30% from coal, and 10% from renewable sources. This data also incorporates OG&E’s power purchases, which account for 58% of OG&E’s total generation portfolio. OG&E purchases this power from other producers in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). As a member of SPP, OG&E’s energy could come from any generation site within the regional transmission organization (RTO) at any given time. SPP’s generation mix in 2022 consisted of 37.5% wind, 33.3% coal, 20.9% natural gas, and 8.3% of energy produced from other sources. This data mirrors SPP’s generation mixes from 2020 and 2021. In 2020, SPP produced 31.3% of its power from wind, 30.9% from coal, and 26.6% from natural gas. In 2021, 35.6% of SPP’s power came from coal, 34.6% from wind, and 20% from natural gas. Instead of generating its own power, OEC operates an electricity distribution business. OEC purchases its power from the Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (WFEC), a generation and transmission provider. WFEC possesses a diverse fuel mix, generating 30% of its power from renewable sources and 11% from coal and natural gas. Additionally, WFEC imports 42% of its electricity from SPP. Power purchased from the Grand River Dam Authority, Oneta Power Plant, and Southwestern Public Service provided the final 17% of WFEC’s generation mix in 2022. The complexity of power generation networks, exemplified by OG&E and OEC, makes it difficult to determine Norman’s exact energy landscape based on public data alone. Future applications of this framework may run into similar challenges due to public data limitations. OG&E’s and OEC’s connections to SPP mean that consumers in Norman could theoretically receive energy from anywhere in SPP at any given time. However, some consumers have a limited degree of choice in deciding where their electricity comes from. OG&E customers can opt-in to receiving power from the utility’s solar farms, while OEC allows its customers to purchase renewable energy certificates that support renewable generation. These programs are naturally limited in scope, and data regarding the number of customers choosing to participate in these initiatives is not currently available. While I cannot accurately provide a detailed picture of Norman’s electricity provision, I can use SPP generation data to construct general assumptions. As mentioned previously, the largest share of SPP’s electricity production came from wind power, indicating that Norman could theoretically receive a notable amount of our electricity from that source. This assertion can be extrapolated to other cities within SPP’s 14-state service territory, assuming that a city’s serving utility maintains membership in SPP and that SPP’s generation portfolio remains consistent across states. This second assumption, however, cannot be verified by publicly-available SPP data; as such, the statement remains largely speculative. Decarbonizing the electricity sector requires a combination of multiple technologies. Regardless of the combination, however, a net-zero transition necessitates either elimination or removal of the emissions from coal and natural gas power plants that supplied over 50% of SPP’s generation in 2022. Power plant emissions can be reduced through a replacement of generation fuels—in this case, via renewable energy—or a deployment of smokestack emissions-reduction technologies. Emissions that cannot be addressed through the replacement of generation fuels or other reduction technologies must be removed through carbon capture. The costs of these options are explored in depth in the “Technological Feasibility” section of this paper. An assessment of Norman’s current transportation sector consists of analyzing both private and public transportation. Oklahoman workers display a strong dependence on private forms of transit, with 77.8% driving alone to work in 2022. In comparison, 68.7% of U.S. residents display a similar commuting pattern. Furthermore, 9.4% of Oklahomans carpool and 0.3% use public transportation to get to work. Nationally, 3.1% of people use public transit and 8.6% carpool. Evidently, passenger vehicles predominate Oklahomans’ commutes. These vehicles are overwhelmingly gasoline-powered. Though data specific to cars owned by Normanites is not available, of the 4,287,900 total vehicles registered in Oklahoma, 83% are powered by gasoline. 0.5% of cars registered in the state are fully electric, while 0.8% are plug-in hybrid electric and 1.3% are hybrid electric. These trends reflect larger national patterns, as 85% of vehicles registered in the United States are gasoline-powered, while 1.2% are fully electric. Norman’s public transportation consists of five fixed bus routes, operated by EMBARK Norman, which serve local destinations six days a week. EMBARK Norman also partners with EMBARK OKC to provide weekday commuter service to Oklahoma City. Intracity service is free and the commuter route to Oklahoma City costs $3 per adult and $1.50 for qualifying riders. Buses are scheduled at least every hour on four out of the five routes. The Norman fixed-route fleet consists of 10 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses, 2 electric buses, and 1 diesel-powered vehicle. The paratransit fleet uses 9 CNG buses, 2 diesel buses, and 3 gasoline-powered shuttles. Additionally, the University of Oklahoma possesses four bus routes on its campus. Norman also has an Amtrak station, with service ending in Oklahoma City. In this study, I also include biking as a form of public transportation. In 2022, only 0.2% of Oklahomans biked to work. Given that much of Oklahoma lacks biking infrastructure, this finding is unsurprising. Current data on the number and type of bike lanes within Norman is not readily available. However, given Norman’s possession of bike-friendly infrastructure, we may safely assume that Norman’s commuter biking statistics are higher than the Oklahoma average. III. Technological Feasibility The exploration of Norman’s electricity and transportation sectors reveals the community’s overwhelming dependence on fossil fuels. In this section, I use estimated costs of different clean energy technologies as a metric for assessing the technological feasibility of a net-zero transition in Norman. My study of electricity-related feasibility primarily concerns the costs associated with increasing the share of low-carbon energy sources in power generation, incorporating power storage methods, and abating residual emissions. In the transportation sector, I consider different scenarios in which the City of Norman improves public transportation. I do not focus on action taken by individual Normanites (commonly termed “reductions in demand”), as such action falls outside the scope of the analysis I hope to provide. Evaluating the technological feasibility of a power-sector transition in Norman begins with an understanding of the costs associated with alternative energies. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) “combines technology cost and performance parameters, capital expenditures, operations and maintenance costs, and capacity factors” into a statistic that helps researchers, government agencies, and private companies predict the costliness of different forms of energy per MWh generated. The LCOEs for various sources of energy in Cleveland County—where Norman is located—in 2023 dollars are reported in Table 1. Table 1: Data from NREL (2020); Lewis et al. (2022); IEA (2020). All costs—including cost projections—are in 2023 dollars, with inflation adjustment calculations made based on OECD (2024) data. County-level costs for key renewable energy technologies like solar and wind are expected to experience significant declines by 2050, while the costs of traditional fossil fuel generation facilities are expected to increase. Across the board, the median costs associated with renewable sources of energy in Cleveland County are expected to drop by 2050. Gas-induced power plants, on the other hand, are expected to experience cost increases, regardless of whether these plants incorporate carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques into plant practices. Unlike gas-powered plants, however, coal is expected to experience cost declines, but will likely remain more expensive than solar, wind, nuclear, or even gas-powered generation. This insight is significant, as coal generation produces more emissions than natural gas and renewable resource generation. Since the county-level statistics parallel the patterns observed in state-level analysis (not pictured), I observe that the comparatively-high costs will likely discourage the use of coal within Oklahoma, reducing the state’s emissions. Decreases in renewable energy costs for Cleveland County, depicted in Table 1, indicate that our electricity sector may feasibly transition to renewable energy. However, the data provided for county-level costs by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) neglects to mention an increasingly-popular form of alternative energy: hydrogen power. The fuel is expected to play a critical role in decarbonizing personal transportation. Currently, steam methane reforming (SMR), a process dependent on fossil fuels, dominates hydrogen production in the United States. The implementation of CCS with SMR practices is expected to increase the LCOE of hydrogen production, but still maintains the “highest potential for low-cost clean hydrogen supply.” Transitioning to sources like wind and solar also requires measures to manage their intermittent nature. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are touted as the solution to the need for power storage. NREL reports that costs of utility-scale LIBs within Cleveland County will decrease approximately 53% by 2050, making the reality of incorporating this technology into a transitioned power grid increasingly plausible. This assertion is further supported by the declining prices of renewable power sources, allowing greater amounts of capital to be allocated to power storage instead of generation. Addressing residual emissions—those that cannot be easily reduced through the previously-discussed strategies—necessitates the usage of carbon capture technologies. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) involves removing carbon dioxide at its emission source. NREL already provides a Cleveland County LCOE for CCS in the context of natural gas generation, placing the 2020 LCOE at $60.06 and expecting a $68.3 LCOE by 2050. Global estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) further contextualize this data. Globally, the LCOE for CCS ranges from 17.87-143.02 USD per ton of carbon dioxide captured. Direct air capture (DAC), another emissions-reduction technology, captures carbon dioxide after its release into the atmosphere. The technology generally costs more than CCS, with global LCOE estimates ranging from 160.9-411.19 USD per ton captured. NREL’s forecasted costs to 2050 are helpful in evaluating the feasibility of a net-zero power sector transition. Such forecasting, however, remains difficult to find for transportation improvements. Instead, I rely on the costs associated with different public transit improvement scenarios that Norman explored in fiscal year 2023 (FY23). Table 2: Data from City of Norman (2021); City of Norman (2022); City of Norman (2024); Taylor Johnson at the City of Norman; Lazo (2023); Feigenbaum (2023). All costs are adjusted to 2023 dollars using data from OECD (2024). In 2021, the Norman City Council approved the Go Norman Transit Plan, a document detailing different transportation improvements anticipated for Norman’s bus system. Adding an additional bus route, Route 113, requires nearly $9 million in capital and operational investments. Increasing route frequency for two of the current bus routes entails expenditures of between $8.21-$8.91 million, depending on route length and the number of buses needed to achieve frequency improvements. Improving the frequency of Route 111 stops from a 30-minute to the ideal 15-minute frequency necessitates $11.55 million from the City. These frequency improvements are intended to make public transit options competitive with the convenience and consistency offered by single-passenger vehicular transport. Expanding route service often demands adding additional buses to the City’s fleet. To gather information on the historical costs of purchasing CNG and electric buses, I contacted Taylor Johnson, the Transit and Parking Program Manager for the City of Norman. Mr. Johnson offered information on the current fixed-route fleet and the previous costs of purchasing individual electric and CNG buses. One fixed-route CNG bus cost the City $639,741.79 in 2023 dollars, whereas an electric bus cost over $1 million in the same year. The cost estimates specific to certain route improvements cannot accurately predict the expected future costs of similar improvements. However, this information still provides an important overview of what such improvements may entail. Regardless of future inflation or specified costs associated with different projects, improvements to Norman’s bus system will cost millions of dollars to implement. As mentioned in the “Norman Now: Our Energy Today” section, Norman possesses one Amtrak station with service to Oklahoma City. Finding a cost estimate for adding additional rail lines or increasing train speed in Oklahoma is not currently feasible; therefore, I turned to two case studies of these improvements in other areas. Amtrak anticipates increasing the speed of the Washington-to-Boston route with new trains. This project, originally proposed in 2011, costs $3.11 billion in 2023 dollars. The proposed Dallas-to-Houston Amtrak project, involving the development of completely-new rail lines, costs a whopping $33.6 billion in 2023 dollars. Support for the development of additional Amtrak lines through Norman would need to occur at the state level; after all, as the two currently-proposed projects demonstrate, Amtrak projects are extremely expensive and involve multiple municipalities. While it is unlikely that Amtrak will expand coverage in Oklahoma in the near future–given the minimal demand for such infrastructure–this discussion still offers important context for comprehensive public transit considerations in the state. Bike infrastructure serves as the final area of analysis within the public transportation sector. For this exploration, I use data from an Association of Central Oklahoma Governments grant received by the City for air quality improvements. Adding two bike lanes cost the City $11,497.99 in total. Details on the length and cost of each individual bike lane were not provided by the City. Table 3: Data from City of Norman (2021); City of Norman (2022); City of Norman (2023); City of Norman (2024). *The “Actual Public Transit Expenditures” for FY24 have yet to be released; accordingly, I provided the City’s current estimate. During FY23, the City of Norman proposed and passed a $225,785,971 budget. As exemplified in Table 2, the costs of transportation improvements under Norman’s control ranged from 0.01% of the budget to 5.1% of the budget. Given the trends in public transit spending observed in Table 3, the budget typically allows enough flexibility for only one of the transit improvements detailed in Table 2 to occur. This finding suggests that substantial improvements to Norman’s public transit system will likely occur slowly, unless the City’s spending patterns change. The technology exists to support a net-zero energy transition. The challenge, then, comes with the cost of such technologies. As the NREL forecast predicts, renewable energy sources will likely continue to decline in cost, encouraging utilities to adopt these forms of energy for power generation. Additionally, both long-term energy storage solutions and residual emissions reduction technologies are anticipated to experience declining costs. Norman’s electricity sector, therefore, could realistically experience a clean energy transition in the coming decades, contingent on utility adoption of necessary technologies. The feasibility of adjustments to Norman’s transportation sector proves incredibly difficult to predict due to the challenge of obtaining cost forecasting data. Regardless of this limitation, the scenarios explored demonstrate realistic costs for the City, although the pace at which such projects are pursued may be slower than desired. IV. Political Feasibility In this study, political feasibility is more challenging to quantify and anticipate than technological feasibility. By its very nature, public opinion is dynamic, and the individuals surveyed often possess opinions that do not fit cleanly into prescribed party affiliations or expectations. Furthermore, creating an accurate measure of political support for an energy transition proves difficult, considering the complexity of interacting components in such a transition. Given these constraints, I focus this section on a broad investigation of the views on renewable energy development that are associated with national and statewide partisan identifications while acknowledging the complexity of these affiliations. I also highlight studies specific to Oklahoma that offer valuable insights into the nuances of support for a carbon-neutral energy transition. According to the Pew Research Center, 31% of Americans currently support the complete phasing out of fossil fuels across the United States, compared to the 68% that support the use of a fossil fuel and renewables mixture. This belief does not necessarily conflict with the net-zero transition proposal, as carbon capture techniques could theoretically support the strictly-limited use of fossil fuels. Regarding renewable energy development, 74% of Americans highlight this type of development as “the most important energy priority for the U.S.” when compared to “expanding [the] production of fossil fuels.” Evidently, national support for a net-zero future depends on the specific limitations of that energy transition. Attempting to break down support for the transition by political party causes further difficulties, as the opinions of both Democrats and Republicans do not always follow expectations. For example, 58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents believe that fossil fuel expansion should operate as the U.S.’s top energy priority, but 70% of this group still support the development of more solar farms. 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents give renewable energy priority over fossil fuels, but 51% “oppose phasing out fossil fuels completely” for right now. The responses to these questions do not clearly indicate partisan support for a net-zero future. For additional clarity, Kennedy et al. asked respondents about their opinions regarding the complete phase-out of fossil fuels. 87% of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents reported a belief in the need to use a mix of fossil fuels and renewables in the near-term, while 51% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents reported the same. Understanding national party positioning on the phase-out of fossil fuels, a component of net-zero energy transitions, contextualizes an analysis of Oklahoma’s current partisan makeup. As of January 15th, 2024, approximately 52% of Oklahoman voters are registered with the Republican party, while 28% are registered Democrats and 19% are registered Independents. However, these affiliations do not directly indicate voters’ position on energy transitions. Generally, 57% of American Republicans believe the U.S. should never stop using fossil fuels, a viewpoint likely shared by many Oklahoma Republicans given the historical importance of the fossil fuel sector within the state. Republican State Representatives and Senators also dominate our legislature. Only 20% of seats in the Oklahoma House and 16% of seats in the Senate belong to Democrats. The prevalence of the Republican party, when considered in the context of national survey data, indicates that political support for renewable energy development at the state level is likely low. The Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA), based at the University of Oklahoma, surveyed 3,564 Oklahoma residents to gather “advice and guidance on how to develop socially sustainable solutions to water, carbon, and infrastructure problems in Oklahoma." This study revealed that 92% of the Democrats surveyed believe that greenhouse gas emissions are causing average global temperatures to rise, compared to the 38% of Oklahoma Republicans believing the same. Additionally, only 28% of Republicans surveyed believe that global warming has resulted in changes to Oklahoma’s weather patterns. In the context of Republican domination in the Oklahoma House and Senate, these findings further indicate that political support for measures addressing GHG emissions and climate change is likely minimal. Within Cleveland County, 47% of registered voters identify as Republicans, 30% identify as Democrats, and 22% identify as Independents (Cleveland County Election Board 2024). This data does not reveal Norman’s specific situation, as it includes registered voters throughout the entire county. Under such circumstances, I choose instead to refer to the state-level data described in the preceding paragraph. Using the data available to me, I provided an initial assessment of the political climate in Oklahoma. In doing so, I offer a broad overview of the expected political feasibility regarding a net-zero energy transition. My analysis of the state-level situation, contextualized in the presence of national polling data, indicates that support for the phase-out of fossil fuels in Oklahoma likely remains low. These findings cannot be directly applied to Norman’s specific local context. Further public opinion research should be conducted to determine the opinions of Normanites and their City Council members on the topic. Given the challenges in conducting this political analysis for Norman, similar obstacles may appear when applying this model to other municipalities. V. Conclusion Throughout this study, I offered and explored the applications of a particular model for analyzing the feasibility of localized energy transitions in the United States. Here, I will summarize the model and discuss the implications of both the framework and the case study I used to evaluate the framework. I derived the model of analysis employed throughout this study from observations of both U.S. emissions data and literature concerning energy transitions. I wanted to ensure that a localized energy transition focused on the sectors with the largest greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.; thus, I chose to focus on the electricity and transportation sectors. This selection was reaffirmed within the literature, as explored in “Outlining the Energy Transition: Definitions and Criteria.” The next level of my analysis focused on evaluating the technological and political feasibility of transitioning each sector. I separated the discussion of technological feasibility by sector and highlighted the costs associated with clean energy developments accordingly. In the political feasibility section of my analysis, I largely focused on generalized public opinion data surrounding an energy transition due to the limited availability of data related to electricity and transportation decarbonization specifically. I articulated this framework of analysis through my case study of Norman, Oklahoma. The assessment of technological feasibility generally reflects declining costs in renewable technologies across Cleveland County, the United States, and the world. These declining costs appear to indicate that decarbonization in Norman is feasible. Given Oklahoma’s geographical conditions and expected cost declines, solar and wind energy could drive a transition away from fossil fuel dominance. Declining costs of utility-scale batteries will help mitigate the intermittent nature of these two sources. Additionally, nuclear energy possesses significant promise in helping Norman to achieve net-zero, especially given the apparent political support for nuclear energy within the state legislature. During the 59th regular session of the Oklahoma legislature, both the House and Senate passed Senate Bill 1535, which amended the Oklahoma Low Carbon Energy Initiative to include nuclear energy. The support for this legislation, however, does not mean that the legislature or the Public Utilities Commission will prioritize clean energy over fossil fuel interests in the future. Thus, predicting an energy transition in Norman remains exceedingly difficult. With regards to transportation, the City possesses the ability to fund both bike lane and bus route improvements, as costs for these advances ranged between 0.01-5.1% of the City’s 2023 budget. These costs are in line with the total amount of actual public transit expenditures made by the City in prior years. Improving and adding regional high-speed rail lines, however, proves increasingly expensive and is outside of the City’s regulatory purview. Accordingly, the City can realistically pursue localized public transit improvements over the next couple of years, ideally leading to decreased dependency on personal automobiles within Norman. The political preferences of Oklahomans possess a strong bearing on the overall feasibility of pursuing net-zero energy transitions. Republican domination in both the Oklahoma House and Senate indicates that statewide measures supporting energy transitions remain unlikely, especially given the general Republican stance on climate change and renewable energy versus fossil fuels. Data for Norman specifically cannot be found; accordingly, future research can focus on evaluating public opinion within the municipality. The difficulties present in ascertaining the feasibility of an energy transition in Norman reflect the limitations of the model I developed. First, this model does not cover all components of a municipality’s energy sector, leading to inconclusive predictions regarding the feasibility of total localized decarbonization. Second, the model relies on forecasting cost data, which is generated via a naturally uncertain practice. Third, the limited availability of publicly-accessible data—the backbone of this framework and my observations in Norman—weakens the conclusivity of assertions made using the application of the model to a given local context. This third component can be addressed in future uses of the model by obtaining access to private company and government data. Future applications of a similar framework possess ample opportunity for improving and innovating based on the foundation provided in this research. Regardless of its limitations, this model possesses significant implications for planning processes and improvements within my local community. Local strategic energy plans, which often possess decarbonization as a primary objective, rely on the type of in-depth analysis conducted throughout this report to accurately ascertain the current realities and future possibilities of local energy systems. Communities can use the model explored here as a guide in strategic energy plan development. Within Norman specifically, this paper provides critical analysis absent from the City’s long-term planning processes and suggests the need to develop some type of energy plan within the municipality. Climate change threatens all of humanity, regardless of one’s proximity to a coastline or dry zone. Addressing this crisis and preventing its exacerbation entails decarbonization across our energy systems. Throughout this study, I explored a framework to assess local energy transition feasibility and applied it to my local community. In doing so, I hope to encourage greater localized action in Norman and in the United States at large. 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Will Matheson Federal 5G Innovation Policy in the Context of Technological Competition between the United States and China Will Matheson Introduction Proponents of 5G pitch the technology as a societal panacea, leading to a ‘fourth Industrial Revolution’ complete with robotic surgeons and near-boundless economic growth (1). Such predictions are premature—the nascence of this technology makes impossible predictions of its economic, political, and societal implications (2). Nevertheless, just as each progression from 1G to 4G brought a greater impact than its predecessor, the transition to 5G holds substantial implications as the largest network overhaul in history, effectually causing tremendous innovation across facets of society. As such, beyond questions of bandwidth, spectrum allocation, and mobile capacity, questions of politics, cybersecurity, and national prestige have shaped the adoption of 5G. In particular, China and its “national champion” telecommunications company, Huawei, have become central to the political questions surrounding 5G. In 2020, Attorney General William Barr delivered a speech accusing China of having unfairly gained an advantage in 5G development through the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) market-distorting support of Huawei, seeming to imply the US is being cheated in this race and needs to begin playing by China’s rules (3). Similarly, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently warned business leaders in Silicon Valley to be aware of intense technological competition with China, suggesting the CCP and Chinese companies have engaged in widespread cheating to steal from US companies and gain a technological advantage over the US (4). This rhetoric draws attention to a more interesting trend: a shift in US government technology policy, particularly in the 5G space, and particularly driven by the Trump administration. As China gains global attention for its technological innovation in 5G, the US has reacted with increased intervention and control in the sector. Traditionally, US economic orthodoxy is associated with a free-market system, in which innovation derives from competition among private firms. Proponents of American capitalism, representing the economic doctrine of both major political parties, embrace this innovation model as a great strength of the system. As the US has shifted towards a more interventionist approach in spaces like 5G in reaction to China’s successes, supporters of this economic approach such as The Economist have, predictably, reacted with surprise and disapproval (5). Of course, this free-market depiction oversimplifies the US economy—the government has played significant and varying roles in technological innovation throughout history—but the shift in strategy matters. It also contradicts historical responses to similar cases of national competition. In the 1980s, fears of Japanese technological innovation outpacing that of the US’s were rampant, leading credible voices to call for direct government involvement in capital allocation analogous to Japan’s system (6). However, such a shift from a free market economy to the interventionist Japanese-style “industrial policy” did not happen. The US never picked specific companies or industries to drive economic growth, did not develop a vast bureaucracy to direct technology adoption and dispersion, and did not adopt widespread protectionist measures. Today, the US government’s shift in technology strategy is not yet on the scale of true industrial policy. However, comments from key Trump administration officials asserting a need to pick “the ‘horse’ we are going to ride in this [5G] race” and the administration’s embrace of tariffs suggest that the reaction to China’s innovation surge differs from the re- action to Japan’s 40 years ago, begging the question, why might the US shift now, but not then? This paper begins to investigate the factors motivating the shift in the US federal government’s 5G innovation strategy. To understand why the government’s reaction to China’s technological rise differs from its reaction to Japan’s, the paper investigates the influence the US-China relationship has on federal 5G strategy, with emphasis on the relative influence of concerns of national security and concerns of economic growth and development. The US’s relationship with China differs greatly from that of the US with Japan in the 1980s; increasingly, policy- makers view the relationship through the lens of great power competition. This essay considers how the differing security relationship with the People’s Republic of China may motivate this shift and investigates the specific ways it may manifest. Economically, the Trump administration’s policies represent a shift in economic orthodoxy in the US as industrial policy has become more mainstream. This strategy results from a reaction to global trade, particularly with China. While these motivations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, this paper’s test of the perceived strength of each motivation illustrates the relative influence of perceived security and economic challenges from China on the US’s domestic innovation strategy. It concludes that while both factors likely play a role in motivating US 5G innovation strategy, the security aspect of the relationship holds a stronger sway over the federal approach to innovation than does the economic aspect. Literature Review The scope of academic research specifically focusing on the US government’s recent shift toward greater intervention in 5G innovation is limited, likely due to the recency of this trend, its ongoing evolution, and the specificity of this change. However, numerous schools of thought have provided useful frameworks for understanding this evolution, and in some cases, academics have applied these frameworks to questions of US technology policy oriented toward China. The following sections delineate these bodies of literature as they apply to this evolution in US tech policy. The “New Cold War” and the Role of Historical Analogy Today, popular discourse increasingly frames the US-China relationship as devolving into a “new Cold War” (7). One key parallel emerging from this discourse is the systematic differences between American democracy and Chinese autocracy (8). At the same time, many challenge these claims, illustrating the multiplicity of views of China in popular discourse and the ongoing use of history as a mechanism to understand the Sino-American relationship (9). Certainly, the Trump administration has seemed to adopt a more confrontational stance toward China that belies a belief in great power competition, perhaps best embodied by its depiction of China as “revisionist” in the 2017 National Security Strategy (10). This discourse holds key implications for US policy. Given its empirical nature and the difficulties of understanding the present and future, history often serves as a heuristic for national leaders. Analogizing the Sino-American relationship to the Cold War will shape how leaders view the relationship and the policies they enact (11). However, a smaller body of literature instead finds that analogies serve more as post hoc justifications for policies (12). Of course, the framing of China as a wholly “revisionist” power that serves as an ideological and geopolitical foe oversimplifies the Sino-American relationship and China’s own behavior on the international stage at the expense of empirical accuracy (13). Nevertheless, the belief in such a “new Cold War” likely influences US policy toward China. Interestingly, some research suggests less conceptually complex leaders—defined as the level of sensitivity to information and its nuances within, measured by relative usage of high and low complexity words—use less sophisticated, more simplistic, and universalizing historical analogies in foreign policy decision-making (14). Political psychology naturally involves significant issues with validity, and this study’s sample size is limited. However, its implication suggests that Trump (a less complex leader by its measure of complexity) is particularly inclined to universalizing analogies such as framing the US-China relationship as a second Cold War. Such analogizing implies that the perception of great power competition with China may be motivating the shift in US technology policy. Indeed, the connection between memory of the Cold War to technological competition with China is beginning to emerge in popular discussion (15). At a baseline level, research detailing government technology strategy during the Cold War provides a rough idea of the lessons leaders analogizing the present may draw. The Cold War national security apparatus routinely dictated innovation strategy and goals across sectors in a departure from market-driven innovation, instead being motivated by a greater focus on pre-eminence in key areas such as radar, jet propulsion, and telecommunications. In particular, the government drove innovation primarily via federal projects (rather than the creation of state- owned enterprises) organized in the constellation of a few critical government lab- oratories, a slightly larger group of independent labs and sources of expertise, and a large array of businesses fulfilling contracts. The sheer scope and size of government funding for these projects was exorbitant and focused on specific technological achievements rather than foundational research (16). The most powerful techno- logical Cold War analogy is the Space Race. This episode condenses the notions of technological competition between great powers and is still reflected today by Americans’ general fascination with space and support for “space leadership” (17). Securitization Another way the US security relationship with China may influence support for 5G technology development is the securitization of various facets of the relation- ship as a result of a rising perception of great power competition. Securitization theory refers to a politicization process in which leaders of states assert policy areas as issues of national security, redefining the way actors treat the issue (18). An array of scholars argue the aforementioned “new Cold War” framing creates depictions of China as a threat that leads to the securitization of the US-China relationship (19). Importantly, securitization is a phenomenon that describes how countries, leaders, media, and other political actors understand things as threats. The securitization of something—such as aspects of the US-China relationship—does not imply that said object does not genuinely constitute a security threat. Rather, the theory is useful for understanding discursive constructions of threats, but the determination of whether that construction is justified is a separate question. Recently, scholars of securitization theory have applied it to the realms of technology and cybersecurity. Hansen and Nissenbaum propose a three-pronged framework for the securitization of cyberspace useful for evaluating possible security constructions of 5G. First, securitization in cyberspace includes depictions of entire infrastructures at risk of devastating, irreversible attack. Second, emphasis on everyday security practice in cyberspace creates powerful links between people’s everyday experience with their personal electronic devices and the threat of devastating attack. Third, emphasis on the technical complexity of the security threats (“technification”) powerfully motivates the securitization of a cyber issue and lends credibility to those securitizing it (20). Given how recently the Huawei issue has risen to public prominence, only a small body of literature specifically argues US discourse securitizes Huawei (and ZTE, another key Chinese telecommunications company) (21). Of course, a wider body of scholarship investigates the ways cybersecurity and critical infrastructure are constructed or securitized, implying the potential securitization of specific Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE (22). The securitization of technology has unique implications, such as substantial restrictions to trade (e.g. export controls, tariffs, localization requirements, restrictions on foreign direct investment). This immediate effect in turn leads to greater securitization of technology (creating a feedback loop), as well as tensions between nation-states (23). Industrial Policy Industrial policy connotes a specific economic intervention by the government. The economic strategy requires government intervention into the economy to tar- get the allocation of capital, alter production models, and provide protection for sectors deemed key drivers of economic growth and job production (that, absent said intervention, would perform significantly less well) (24). Japan’s rapid economic development in the mid- to late 20th century best exemplifies this strategy of a developmental state: a system closely coordinating government and business by limiting the entry of competitors, creating recessionary cartels, coordinating technology uptake and knowledge sharing in key industries, forcing and guiding mergers and industry exits, and providing subsidies through regulating pricing, government purchasing schemes, tax breaks, the use of tariffs, and low-interest rate loans (25). The process results in the “picking of winners and losers” where- by the government plays a key role in determining which companies become the conglomerate drivers of certain industries or sectors. While consensus generally assumed this process was almost entirely bureaucracy-driven (26), recent scholarship has suggested that elected leaders still played a key role in shaping Japanese industrial policy (27). China’s strategic plan, “Made in China 2025,” also reflects the core tenets of industrial policy. The strategy articulates China’s current industrial policy, serving as a ten-year guide to pivot the economy away from low-quality, labor-intensive goods to high-quality, technology-intensive goods and services. The plan provides the framework by which the Chinese government will coordinate massive subsidies, preferential market access, and technology uptake from other nations in or- der to promote specific companies in key industries as national champions (28). “Made in China 2025” identifies key industries including information technology, and Huawei is one of China’s most successful national champions. The multinational technology company Huawei provides a useful case study in Chinese industrial policy: the company benefits from large state subsidies, lucrative contracts with the military, and favorable tax breaks. As a result of its ability to consistently undercut all competitors on pricing, it has experienced massive global market growth (29). Much like how some American thinkers and leaders called for industrial policy in reaction to Japan’s industrial policy successes in the 1980s, today some call for the strategy in reaction to China’s policy (30). This sentiment may be grounded in states modeling their policy behavior off of the actions of one another, particularly in defense policy (31). Donald Trump, and key advisors in his administration such as Peter Navarro, have strong records of supporting industrial policy and have made attempts at enacting such an economic strategy both broadly and in relation to China over the previous three years (32). However, while the administration may have attempted to use strategies like a trade war as a protectionist reaction to China’s industrial policy, China’s recent behavior and industrial planning have continued to emphasize the industrial policy mentality of “Made in China 2025,” suggesting the influence of the administration’s policies on China’s behavior has been limited thus far (33). Nevertheless, this track record demonstrates that in the US, support for industrial policy empirically derives from interactivity with other nations’ economies and that it is reasonable to suggest that the orthodoxy of industrial policy may motivate the Trump administration’s economic strategies. Indeed, research is beginning to investigate how industrial policy motivated by economic competition with China specifically influences technology innovation strategies (34). Methodology Operationalization of the Dependent Variable Understanding the evolution of government policy toward greater intervention and control in technological innovation presents distinct challenges. Because this dependent variable is a recent trend that is continuing to develop, factors that indicate it are subtle. As a result, a composite of indicators best illustrates this change within the past few years. In particular, this shift has three components: protection of domestic technology firms from perceived risks, investment in technological innovation, and intervention specifically designed to support US-based semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm as it competes with Huawei. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) provides evidence of the protection of domestic technology firms from perceived risk. CFI- US is an interagency governmental body that was created in the 1970s to evaluate potential national security implications of various forms of foreign direct investment. Its powers have generally expanded over time, now focussing on the broader implications of specific investments and on the implications of aggregate investments from certain countries and investors in specific industries. Given this role, its record of enforcement illustrates the protection of domestic firms from foreign—and in particular, Chinese—firms. CFIUS’s scope has expanded significantly over the past 15 years as it increasingly scrutinized Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In 2007, the Foreign Investment and National Security Act officially codified CFIUS (which had previously enjoyed the mandate of only an executive order) in a clear push by Congress to give it more sway in screening FDI. In 2015, Ralls Corporation v. CFIUS expanded the presidential powers to use the committee to prevent FDI on claims of national security. The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 further expanded CFIUS’s purview, instruct- ing it to both consider the risks of cumulative investments in particular sectors and the broader economic implications of any single investment in national security terms. It also instructs the committee to take into account the country from which FDI originates, signaling its increasing focus on China. In the same year, CFI- US intervened in the hostile takeover of Qualcomm by then Singaporean-based Broadcom, marking the first instance of the committee intervening before a deal was finalized. The cumulative effect has turned CFIUS into a gatekeeper to the US economy, enjoying broad, unappealable power to dictate FDI (35). The data demonstrate this expansion of CFIUS intervention over the previous decade. Crucially, the threat of a CFIUS investigation is the most important way CFIUS influences businesses due to the high costs these entities must shoulder under an investigation (36). Over roughly the past decade, CFIUS has dramatically increased the number of notices it has received as its scope has broadened and has correspondingly pursued a greater number of investigations over time (see “Increasing CFIUS Enforcement and Deterrence, 2009–2017,” above) (37). Correspondingly, this increase in investigations has deterred companies from following through on their transactions, as the number that have withdrawn their notices during investigation or review has increased, as demonstrated by the same chart. This expansion of notices has specifically focused on China. Between 2005–2015, CFIUS dramatically increased the number of transactions originating from China that it covered, and Chinese transactions became a larger part of its port- folio (see “Chinese transactions covered by CFIUS,” next page) (38). In addition, be- tween 2016–17, China far outpaced any other country for the number of CFIUS cases explicitly concerned with acquisitions of critical US technology, totaling over 1/5th of all such cases (a total of 38 cases) (39). Two cases under the Trump administration demonstrate how the 5G/semiconductor fight has particularly shaped this growth in CFIUS’s power. In 2017, President Trump directly blocked the takeover of Lattice Semiconductor by a Chinese-backed investor on the basis of national security (40). In 2018, CFIUS intervened to prevent the hostile takeover of Qualcomm on the national security grounds that the deal could potentially undermine America’s ability to compete with Huawei (41). The application of the national security framework, citing the threat from China, for a case concerning a takeover by a non-Chinese firm underscores how seriously the government has taken 5G. Tracking government investment in 5G is more difficult—for as many times as the White House has had Infrastructure Week, the government still has not put substantial funding toward 5G. Nevertheless, the government has made a number of steps that collectively signal an increasing level of involvement in the 5G space. The FCC’s controversial approval of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger (given the substantial concerns regarding oligopoly among cellular network providers) was explicitly founded upon the reasoning that it would promote “United States leadership in 5G” and conditioned the deal on the company’s provision of 5G to 90% of rural Americans (42). Moreover, the FCC recently announced a $9 billion fund for 5G in rural areas (43). The Department of Labor additionally created and put $6 million toward a public-private partnership to support education and training for jobs considered key to accelerating 5G deployment (44). Most relevant, however, is the Networking and Information Technology Re- search and Development Program (NITRD). NITRD unites various federal agencies, serving as the primary source of direct government research and development for advanced technologies relating to information technology. The “NITRD Bud- get Data, FY2011–2020” graph below captures how the government has ramped up its investment in this area over the past decade (45). This graph demonstrates three important trends. First, from 2011 to 2018, NITRD’s budget increased by 43%, from $3.7 to $5.3 billion, illustrating the substantial shift in the importance the government has placed on its research. While the total amount of funding may seem small by the standards of the government budget, the strong growth rate illustrates the shift to place greater emphasis on the government’s role in technology innovation. Second, the executive branch has begun substantially increasing its requested budget amount every year since 2016, suggesting a concurrent increase in government investment in IT. Third, the actual budget has outpaced the re- quested budget for each year recorded since 2015, suggesting Congress has also played a key role in driving this shift toward more government investment. Finally, the government’s involvement with Qualcomm and Huawei illustrates how it is willing to take low-frequency, high-visibility actions to protect 5G technology innovation. The Trump administration’s 2018 intervention to prevent the Broadcom takeover of Qualcomm signaled the degree to which it will intervene to protect this 5G chip-making company it sees as crucial to national competitiveness. This year, the administration has doubled down on this emphasis on Qualcomm, using the Department of Justice (DOJ) to back Qualcomm in an anti- trust lawsuit. Interestingly, this lawsuit was first brought against Qualcomm by the Federal Trade Commission under the Obama administration, with a district court ruling in favor of the FTC (46). Now, the DOJ (with support from the Departments of Defense and Energy) has supported Qualcomm’s appeal, explicitly making the argument that the courts should allow the company to maintain its business model on grounds that the company itself is integral to the security of the nation (47,48). Similarly, the Trump administration has taken aim at Huawei. In 2019, President Trump issued Executive Order 13873, which dramatically expanded government protections for telecommunications on the basis that such networks faced serious threat from foreign companies and governments and that such threats constituted a national security risk. Though not mentioning Huawei by name, the move was universally regarded as a reaction to the company’s perceived threat in the 5G space. Indeed, at the same time, the Department of Commerce added Huawei to the Entity List, effectively banning Huawei from doing business in the US. The coordination of these actions demonstrates the US government’s specific targeting of Huawei as the face of the Chinese technological competition with the US (49). While other Trump administration officials have spoken on this subject as well, these statements will not be as useful for signaling the existence of a shift in government policy toward more intervention in 5G innovation (50). First, this administration’s statements have conflicted in this area. In 2019, administration officials openly disagreed on the right level of intervention in 5G policy, with Trump finally deciding to oppose a direct federal acquisition of Nokia or Ericsson. However, a year later Attorney General Barr’s aforementioned speech revisited the issue and suggested that acquisition remained on the table (51). Clearly, the statements by the Trump administration send too many conflicting signals to reliably capture the trend of increasing government intervention. Additionally, intervention in the tech space matters for its actual effects on innovation processes, so tracking actions is better than tracking words. However, the concrete actions by CFIUS and the DOJ regarding Qualcomm unequivocally show how the government is increasingly fa- voring an interventionist approach specific to 5G. Taken together, the data from CFIUS, NITRD, and the government’s specific focus on Qualcomm illustrate a growing tendency in the federal government to intervene in technology areas such as 5G in order to promote innovation. Hypotheses The emphasis on great power competition has emerged in the government at the same time this shift in innovation policy strategy has occurred. Especially under the Trump administration, key government documents reflect this shift, arguing that China and Russia present the greatest threats to the United States. These documents forward a collection of related ideas: that great power competition will define the coming decades, that China is a revisionist power, that this competition is not simply a military one but an ideological one, etc. (52). Interestingly, while most of these documents, including the most authoritative such as the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS), have emerged during the years of the Trump presidency, the 2016 Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority embraced the notion of great power competition between the US and China, showing how this trend is not necessarily exclusive to the Trump administration (53). Clearly, an emerging trend is the perception of great power competition between the US and China, which seems at first glance to motivate or be invoked in the interventions the government is making into the 5G and technology innovation space. As detailed in the literature review, this trend can motivate political behavior, including through the influence of historical analogy and securitization. Given this trend and the literature on technology as a realm of great power competition, an overarching hypothesis for this shift in government innovation policy follows: The perception in the US of great power competition with China has led it to embrace greater intervention in technology innovation. This hypothesis has two implications alluded to by the literature review. First, this perception of great power competition may lead to Cold War analogizing that in turn motivates the shift in government innovation policy. The body of literature on historical memory as a heuristic for policymakers suggests the Cold War analogizing of the US-China relationship may have distinct political effects. Such effects and the general discourse around a “new Cold War” imply that perceptions of great power competition could motivate changes to technological innovation policy. Second, the perception of great power competition may motivate the securitization of the 5G space. Literature on securitization suggests that the US may construct technological innovation as a front in a great power competition, there- by necessitating intervention on national security grounds. Both of these scenarios are particular manifestations of the great power competition hypothesis. Testing each of these possibilities, then, illustrates the ways in which the hypothesis may be true. The results of those tests will specifically highlight the mechanisms by which great power competition leads to the shift in technology policy, and will more broadly illuminate the dimensions of this new era of perceived great power competition. Note that these manifestations are neither mutually exclusive nor dependent. To test the potential for Cold War analogizing, I will track analogizing of 5G to the Space Race with the USSR. This test will examine rhetoric framing 5G as a “race,” including a specific focus on analogies to US and Soviet achievements in the 1960s, over time. Given the rich literature on historical analogies’ influence on political behavior, a trend of such comparisons increasing over time will demonstrate how the administration is framing technology innovation with great power competition. NASA and the race to the moon represent perhaps the most critical Cold War episode concerning technology innovation in competition with another great power. As such, these comparisons are the most likely to take place, given the importance of simplistic analogies in particular, and are thus most illustrative of the use of analogizing in viewing 5G. Because the space race represented a pivot toward greater government intervention in technology innovation, its analogy serves as a likely motivator for a similar shift today. Of course, the government’s intervention in support of 5G is nowhere close to the scale of involvement it took in the space race, but the analogy-driven change in policy matters more than the parity in magnitude between government involvement in innovation in the 1960s and 2010s. This data is admittedly correlational, though the body of literature on the use of historical memory suggests that the perpetuation of specific analogies influences decision making. This suggestion means the greater the use of the analogy, the more likely it is influencing the shift in innovation strategy. To test for securitization, I will examine critical documents to understand if a securitizing discourse is being deployed. Securitization is a discursive process, meaning this review of such wording is the most direct way to detect whether or not the government is constructing technology innovation as a realm of security risk. One key implication of securitization is that the national security apparatus absorbs securitized issues, so to test this hypothesis, I will look at key national security documents such as the NSS, National Military Strategy, and Nuclear Posture Review in order to see if national security discourses are intentionally incorporating questions of technological innovation, especially with explicit reference to or focus on 5G. The literature on the Trump administration’s affinity for industrial policy suggests a different explanation for this shift in innovation strategy. Rather than a reaction to China based on notions of great power security competition, this shift may derive from a reaction based on notions of economic vulnerability to China. In other words, this industrial policy in the 5G area stems from an economic em- brace of industrial policy more broadly, rather than from the security concerns borne out of great power competition. This literature thus suggests the following hypothesis: The Trump Administration’s belief in industrial policy has led it to embrace greater intervention in technology innovation. The strongest evidence that supports the industrial policy hypothesis is the DOJ’s intervention specifically protecting Qualcomm. By advocating for the preservation of an anticompetitive business model, the government is effectively signaling a policy of “picking winners and losers” that characterizes industrial policy. However, to understand if this strategy is industrial policy rather than security strategy, there must be a trend of similar uses of this courts-based strategy that seems to be “picking winners” in sectors beyond 5G. To test this hypothesis, I will track the appellate briefs filed by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division to determine if it is advocating for anticompetitive equilibria that pick winners and losers in other industries as well. The implication of the hypothesis is that the administration is actively embracing the economic orthodoxy of industrial policy, meaning its interventions extend beyond 5G. Observing such a trend would thus imply the economic motivation for the 5G intervention, rather than the security motivation. Of course, this tracking method is imprecise—the individual facts and nuances of each case likely shape the content of the DOJ’s appellate briefs. However, survey- ing all briefs over the previous four years will demonstrate broader trends in the frequency with which the DOJ supports anticompetitive behavior. Results Cold War Analogizing The data on the use of the phrase “race to 5G” demonstrate a dramatic in- crease in the use of the analogy beginning in 2018. Using an analysis of documents employing the phrase between 2014–2019 (accessed through Factiva), the graph at right demonstrates the dramatic adoption of this term as mentions of 5G in- creased from 97 in 2017 to 715 in 2018, a 637% increase. Additionally, when only including documents that specifically make mention of the United States Federal Government or Federal Communications Commission, the data still demonstrate a similar jump from 17 in 2017 to 271 in 2018, a 1,494% increase. This increase serves as a rough indicator of the prevalence of technology race analogizing. Factiva aggregates publications using specific keywords, meaning this data reflect the prevalence of this analogy in the media. However, given the influence of analogies on decision-makers’ thinking, a greater prevalence implies a greater likelihood of such an analogy shaping public policy. Additionally, isolating the publications that specify the FCC or USFG demonstrates the connection between government action and this perceived technology race. A random sampling of these publications also suggests the vast majority employed the analogy, rather than argued against using it. Admittedly, establishing causality between government action and prevalence of the analogy is difficult—the media could be ascribing the analogy to the actions of the government without policymakers ever having employed the analogy. Fortunately, the record demonstrates that policy- makers have adopted this analogy in recent years. Key figures in the government, including President Trump, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Chief Technology Officer of the United States Michael Kratsios, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Com- merce, Science, and Transportation Roger Wicker, House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Greg Walden, and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta, have all employed the analogy (54). Moreover, Attorney General Barr has explicitly argued the US has not yet had its “Sputnik moment” in this race, further underscoring the connection to the space race (55). Taken together, the aggregate data from Factiva and the specific examples from key elected officials provide compelling evidence for “Race to 5G” analogizing. Securitization The set of documents articulating national security priorities and assessments provides the best source to scour for the securitization of 5G technology. Because these documents articulate matters pertaining to the security of the United States, their inclusion of 5G specifically and the domestic technology innovation base more broadly indicates the securitization of these spaces. The most recent Worldwide Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence directly addresses 5G, arguing that the creation and adoption of 5G networks by other countries directly implicates data security within the United States due to the interconnectedness of communications and information technology infrastructure. Additionally, the Assessment connects this data infrastructure to threats posed by decryption capabilities growth, underscoring the technical threats to sensitive data in particular (56). Similarly, the 2016 Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority specifically connects great power competition with China and Russia to threats to US information technology systems and argues crucial outputs enabled by 5G such as better AI will dramatically influence the balance of power.57 These depictions conform to Hansen and Nissenbaum’s framework by emphasizing a threat to the broad data infrastructure in the US posed by foreign development of 5G technologies and engaging in technification by emphasizing aspects like decryption capabilities growth and complex 5G outputs. The 2017 NSS is particularly important given its reframing of technology issues in a national security framework. The document identifies the need for the nation to excel in technology and innovation domestically to ensure the security of the nation, which in and of itself may not represent a dramatic shift from previous security orthodoxies that emphasized US domestic innovation as a component of national power. However, the NSS also asserts a new idea of a National Security In- novation Base (NSIB), formalizing the notion that technological innovation across the economy (not simply for defense purposes) is crucial to the balance of power the US must maintain to survive inter-state strategic competition. The document directly confronts China for intellectual property theft that it argues undermines the NSIB, discursively creating the notion of a Chinese threat to the securitized domestic innovation base (58). The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) builds on this idea of the NSIB, arguing that non-defense related innovation directly implicates the command of the commons: “The fact that many technological developments will come from the commercial sector means that state competitors and non-state actors will also have access to them, a fact that risks eroding the conventional overmatch to which our Nation has grown accustomed” (59). Crucially, what follows from this assessment that commercial innovation is a security issue is the absorption of non-defense technology development into the military’s purview: “A long-term strategic competition requires the seamless integration of multiple elements of national power—diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and military. More than any other nation, America can expand the competitive space” (60). This absorption classically models the discursive securitization of a policy area and the following policy change as the national security apparatus begins to dictate policy in said area. The DOD has specifically applied this notion of commercial innovation as central to the command of the commons. A spokesperson for the DOD framed 5G as a question of ability to function on the battlefield, claiming: “That’s where we are with 5G...we are going to run our entire warfighting ecosystem though communications.” She directly connected this vulnerability to grand ideas of the balance of power, arguing: “If we don’t embrace it and apply it towards our goals, we could be overcome quickly with technical overmatch” (61). Clearly, by connecting 5G in- novation to the nation’s warfighting ability and conventional military superiority, and by directly echoing the phrase “technical overmatch” used in the 2018 NDS when it discusses the national security importance of the NSIB, the spokesperson frames technology innovation as a question of debilitating collapse of the nation’s military, securitizing the issue. This analysis of key national defense documents and statements by members of the national security state provides compelling evidence for the securitization of 5G. Industrial Policy A review of the roughly 80 appellate briefs filed by the DOJ’s Antitrust Divi- sion reveals a dramatically limited scope of interventions supporting specific companies’ anticompetitive practices analogous to the DOJ’s intervention to protect Qualcomm in 2019 (62). During this period, only seven briefs opposed antitrust enforcement. Of these, two related to Qualcomm (briefs for Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm, Incorporated and Karen Stromberg, et al. v. Qualcomm Incorporated ), excluding them from consideration as they pertain specifically to 5G. A third, for State of New York and Other Plaintiff States v. Deutsche Telekom AG, et al. , supported the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint conditioned on the company’s rollout of 5G infrastructure across America, excluding it from consideration as well. Among the four remaining briefs, Viamedia, Inc. v. Comcast Corp., et al. only weakly supports the notion that the government is supporting anticompetitive behavior in order to promote specific companies. In this case, the DOJ states that it takes no position on the merits of the plaintiff’s claims, only stating that proof of reduced competition in a market is necessary in addition to proof of the existence of agreements considered anticompetitive (arguing that behavior must be effectually anticompetitive to be subject to antitrust laws, not simply anticompetitive based on a company’s decisions on paper). Two briefs better demonstrate opposition to antitrust enforcement—those for Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. v. Avanci, LLC, et al. and Apple Inc. v. Robert Pepper, et al. The final brief, for Intel Corporation and Apple Inc. v. Fortress Investment Group LLC, et al. , also pushes back against the application of antitrust laws, though in favor of Fortress Investment Group; this behavior is puzzling for the “winners and losers” hypothesis because Apple and Intel would likely be considered American national champions of sorts, implying the government would intervene in their favor were it truly interested in promoting their market dominance. Put simply, too few briefs oppose antitrust enforcement to indicate a trend sup- porting the industrial policy hypothesis. Due to their limited number, it is not possible to discern a broader trend from the briefs that do oppose antitrust enforcement. The DOJ may take the position it does in these cases simply based on its reading of the law and understanding of the facts in each individual case. Because there is not a sufficiently discernible trend, it is not possible to confirm the hypothesis that the government is engaging in the picking of winners and losers. This finding complements previous findings that the effects of CFIUS investigations are non-discriminatory, implying their use is based on actual national security (their stated purpose), not protectionism of special interests (63). These findings thus imply the industrial policy hypothesis is less accurate than the great power competition one. However, watchdogs and journalists have noted that under the Trump Administration, the DOJ’s antitrust division has significantly reduced the application of cartel and merger enforcement (64), and the number of personnel working on antitrust cases has similarly declined (65). This trend may indicate an embrace of a permutation of industrial policy, whereby the Trump administration may not be “picking winners and losers” but, rather, allowing rapid consolidation such that the market picks national champions. This evidence thus lends some credence to the industrial policy hypothesis. However, given the observed behavior of the dependent variable includes active intervention to support Qualcomm, this de- cline in enforcement alone does not provide as good of an explanation for the motivation of the Trump administration’s 5G strategy as does the great power competition hypothesis. Conclusion The assessments from the previous section demonstrate stronger evidence for the great power competition hypothesis than for the industrial policy hypothesis. The assessment of aggregate data on publications by Factiva as well as statements by key administration officials demonstrates the substantial growth of rhetoric analogizing 5G to the Cold War space race. This trend demonstrates how US policymakers are employing historical thinking as they understand the US-China security relationship more broadly as well as competition in the 5G space specifically. The assessment of key national security documents and statements illustrates the securitization of 5G, also providing support for the great power competition hypothesis. In contrast, the assessment of the appellate briefs filed by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division reveals the government’s interventions in support of anticompetitive behavior are almost exclusively limited to the 5G space thus far, meaning evidence for the industrial policy hypothesis does not presently exist. The available evidence thus suggests the security relationship, manifested both in historical analogy and in securitization, more powerfully motivates the government’s shift toward greater intervention in 5G technology innovation than the economic relationship and derived inclinations toward industrial policy. As technological innovation appears to be growing into a key facet of the US-China relationship, the change in government policy represents a manifestation of how the Sino-American relationship is evolving. This change in the technology innovation space is particularly important for understanding the broader US-China relationship. Because technological developments like 5G and AI, which have emerged from interconnected economies and had impacts beyond borders, are being framed as areas of competition, the ways the US and China interact in this sphere will have implications for their broader relationship. Beyond speaking to the motivations behind the administration’s 5G strategy, the findings in this paper shed light on how the US more broadly perceives China’s economic and technological behaviors in a national security mindset. Finally, because this trend is relatively nascent, this paper is only a first step to- ward understanding changing government policy in technology spaces. Assessing motivations is difficult, and more research into the topic—particularly involving interviews with actual policymakers—will help better define this trend as it evolves over the coming years. More research is needed to understand the influence and limits of the emerging industrial policy mindset. In particular, the possibility dis- cussed in the previous section that the Trump administration may be “letting the market pick the winners and losers” in a permutation of traditional industrial policy merits attention. Additionally, given the implication that securitization of domestic technology innovation has led to a shift toward more government intervention in the 5G space, future research may seek to understand other manifestations of this securitization. Finally, scholars should explore the motivations behind securitization. While legitimate security threats may exist, proponents of industrial policy may see securitization as an effective means to achieve their ends; similarly, leaders of US technology companies may see securitization as a useful strategy to secure favorable government policies. These possibilities suggest a need for future research into the motivations for different actors deploying securitizing discourse of 5G. 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Pempel, “The Bureaucratization of Policymaking in Postwar Japan,” American Journal of Political Science 18, no. 4 (1974): 647–64, https://doi.org/10.2307/2110551. 27 John Creighton Campbell and Ethan Scheiner, “Fragmentation and Power: Reconceptualizing Policy Making under Japan’s 1955 System,” Japanese Journal of Political Science 9, no. 1 (April 2008): 89–113, https://doi. org/10.1017/S1468109907002836. 28 Wayne M Morrison, “The Made in China 2025 Initiative: Economic Implications for the United States,” Congressional Research Service, April 12, 2019, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10964.pdf; James McBride and Andrew Chatzky, “Is ‘Made in China 2025’ a Threat to Global Trade?,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 13, 2019, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade; “Made in China 2025: Global Ambitions Built on Local Protections” (US Chamber of Commerce, 2017), https://www.uschamber.com/sites/ default/files/final_made_in_china_2025_report_full.pdf; “Made in China 2025 Backgrounder” (Institute for Security and Development Policy, June 2018), https://isdp.eu/content/uploads/2018/06/Made-in-China- Backgrounder.pdf; Scott Kennedy, “Made in China 2025,” Critical Questions (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 1, 2015), https://www.csis.org/analysis/made-china-2025. 29 Lindsay Maizland and Andrew Chatzky, “Huawei: China’s Controversial Tech Giant” (The Council on Foreign Relations, February 12, 2020), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/huawei-chinas-controversial-tech- giant; Chuin-Wei Yap, “State Support Helped Fuel Huawei’s Global Rise,” Wall Street Journal, December 25, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huaweis-global-rise-11577280736. 30 Robert D. Atkinson, “The Case for a National Industrial Strategy to Counter China’s Technological Rise” (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, April 13, 2020), https://itif.org/publications/2020/04/13/case-national-industrial-strategy-counter-chinas-technological-rise; Gabriel Wildau, “China’s Industrial Policies Work. So Copy Them,” The Japan Times, November 19, 2019, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/11/19/ commentary/world-commentary/chinas-industrial-policies-work-copy/. 31 Patrick Major and Rana Mitter, “East Is East and West Is West? Towards a Comparative Socio-Cultural History of the Cold War,” Cold War History 4, no. 1 (October 1, 2003): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/14682740 312331391714; Joâo Resende‐Santos, “Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organization and Technology in South America, 1870–1930,” Security Studies 5, no. 3 (March 1996): 193–260, https:// doi.org/10.1080/09636419608429280; Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli, “Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage,” International Security 43, no. 3 (2018): 141–89. 32 Peter Navarro, Death By China: How America Lost Its Manufacturing Base (Official Version), 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMlmjXtnIXI; “Strategy for American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing” (National Science & Technology Council, October 2018), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2018/10/Advanced-Manufacturing-Strategic-Plan-2018.pdf; Justin Wolfers, “Why Most Economists Are So Worried About Trump,” The New York Times, January 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/upshot/why-most-economists-are-so-worried-about-trump.html; Rana Foroohar, “Trump Aims for an Industrial Policy That Works for America,” Financial Times, May 7, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/9b6ed79a-318c-11e7-9555- 23ef563ecf9a; Ted Gayer, “Should Government Directly Support Certain Industries?,” Brookings (blog), March 4, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/should-government-directly-support-certain-industries/. 33 Orange Wang and Adam Behsudi, “Beijing’s New Industrial Policy Plan Doesn’t Address Trump Complaints,” South China Morning Post, November 20, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/ article/3038590/chinas-new-industrial-policy-dismissed-made-china-2025-rehash. 34 Kevin Honglin Zhang, “Industrial Policy and Technology Innovation under the US Trade War against China,” The Chinese Economy, February 27, 2020, 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1080/10971475.2020.1730553. 35 James K. Jackson, “The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)” (Congressional Research Service, February 14, 2020), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33388.pdf; Grindal, “Trade Regimes as a Tool for Cyber Policy;” Hunter Deeley, “The Expanding Reach of the Executive in Foreign Direct Investment: How Ralls v. CFIUS Will Alter the FDI Landscape in the United States,” American University Business Law Review 4, no. 1 (2015): 125–52; Kevin Granville, “Cfius, Powerful and Unseen, Is a Gatekeeper on Major Deals,” New York Times, March 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/business/what-is-cfius.html. 36 Paul Connell and Tian Huang, “An Empirical Analysis of CFIUS: Examining Foreign Investment Regulation in the United States,” Yale Journal of International Law 39, no. 1 (2014): 131–64. 37 Data sourced from Jackson, “The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).” 38 Note – chart taken from Grindal, “Trade Regimes as a Tool for Cyber Policy.” 39 Jackson, “The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).” 40 Ana Swanson, “Trump Blocks China-Backed Bid to Buy U.S. Chip Maker,” The New York Times, September 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/business/trump-lattice-semiconductor-china.html. 41 Aimen N. Mir, “Letter From Treasury Department to Broadcom and Qualcomm Regarding CFIUS,” March 5, 2018, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4407490-Letter-From-Treasury-Department-to- Broadcom-and.html; Chris Sanders, “U.S. Sees National Security Risk from Broadcom’s Qualcomm Deal,” Reuters, March 7, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-m-a-broadcom-idUSKCN1GI1S8. 42 “FCC Approves Merger of T-Mobile and Sprint” (Federal Communications Commission, November 5, 2019), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-360637A1.pdf. 43 “FCC Proposes the 5G Fund for Rural America” (Federal Communications Commission, April 23, 2020), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-363946A1.pdf. 44 “WIA Awarded $6 Million DOL Grant to Train 5G Workforce” (Wireless Infrastructure Association, February 19, 2020), https://wia.org/wia-awarded-6-million-dol-grant-to-train-5g-workforce/. 45 Data sourced from the NITRD’s Supplement to the President’s Budgets for Fiscal Years 2012-2020. 46 “United States District Court Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (Public Redacted Version), Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm Incorporated” (UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN JOSE DIVISION, May 21, 2019), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ documents/cases/qualcomm_findings_of_fact_and_conclusions_of_law.pdf. 47 “BRIEF OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT AND VACATUR” (US Department of Justice, August 30, 2019), https://www.justice.gov/atr/case- document/file/1199191/download; Kadhim Shubber, “US Regulators Face off in Court Tussle over Qualcomm,” Financial Times, February 9, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/adbca366-49d3-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441. 48 Note – the government’s support for the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, which (as mentioned earlier) is explicitly premised on 5G rollout to be enabled by consolidated market power, is another example of government intervention supporting anticompetitive behavior in the 5G space. For more, see Thomas M Johnson et al., “Statement of Interest of the United States of America” (United States Department of Justice, December 20, 2019), https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/1230491/download. 49 Donald Trump, “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain, Executive Order 13873” (2019), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/ executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/; “Department of Commerce Announces the Addition of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to the Entity List” (US Department of Commerce, Office of Public Affairs, May 15, 2019), https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-announces-addition-huawei-technologies-co-ltd; Tamer Soliman et al., “US Commerce Department Proposes Sweeping New Rules for National Security Review of US Information and Communications Technology or Services Transactions,” Mayer Brown, December 2, 2019, https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/ perspectives-events/publications/2019/12/us-department-of-commerce-proposes-rule-for-securing-the-nations- information-and-communications-technology-and-services-supply-chain; Damian Paletta, Ellen Nakashima, and David Lynch, “Trump Administration Cracks Down on Giant Chinese Tech Firm, Escalating Clash with Beijing,” Washington Post, May 16, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump- signs-order-to-protect-us-networks-from-foreign-espionage-a-move-that-appears-to-target-china/2019/05/15/d982ec50-7727-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html; Annie Fixler and Mathew Ha, “Washington’s Huawei Ban Combats Chinese Espionage Threat,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, May 16, 2019, https://www.fdd. org/analysis/2019/05/16/washingtons-huawei-ban-combats-chinese-espionage-threat/. 50 For example, see Barr, “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference;” Michael Pompeo, U.S. States and the China Competition: Secretary Pompeo’s Remarks to the NGA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1BbswU3i10; and Pompeo, Silicon Valley and National Security. 51 Margaret Harding Mcgill, “Trump Rejects Government Intervention in 5G Wireless Networks,” POLITICO, April 12, 2019, https://politi.co/2P4erlI; Barr, “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference;” Peter Newman, “How the US Buying Ericsson or Nokia Would Impact Networking,” Business Insider, February 10, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/us-could-buy-ericsson-nokia-to-compete-against-huawei-report-2020-2. 52 Trump, “National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2017;” Jim Mattis, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America” (United States Department of Defense, 2018), https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf; Jim Mattis, “Nuclear Posture Review 2018” (Office of the Secretary of Defense, February 2018), https://media. defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT. PDF; Daniel R. Coats, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 29, 2019), https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR--- SSCI.pdf; “Description of the National Military Strategy 2018” (US Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2018), https://www.jcs. mil/Portals/36/Documents/Publications/UNCLASS_2018_National_Military_Strategy_Description.pdf; John Richardson, “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority: Version 2.0” (United States Navy, December 2018), https://www.navy.mil/navydata/people/cno/Richardson/Resource/Design_2.0.pdf. 53 John Richardson, “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority: Version 1.0” (United States Navy, January 2016), https://www.navy.mil/cno/docs/cno_stg.pdf. 54 Todd Haselton, “President Trump Announces New 5G Initiatives: It’s a Race ‘America Must Win,’” CNBC, April 12, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/trump-on-5g-initiatives-a-race-america-must-win.html; Ajit Pai, “Remarks of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at the White House” (Washington, D.C., April 12, 2019), https://docs. fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-356994A1.pdf; Michael Kratsios, “America Will Win the Global Race to 5G,” The White House, October 25, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/america-will-win-global-race-5g/; Roger Wicker, “Wicker Convenes Hearing on the Race to 5G” (Washington, D.C.: Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, February 6, 2019), https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2019/2/wicker-convenes- hearing-on-the-race-to-5g; Greg Walden and Bob Latta, “Walden and Latta Statement on Bipartisan Bills to Boost 5G” (Washington, D.C., January 8, 2020), https://republicans-energycommerce.house.gov/news/press- release/walden-and-latta-statement-on-bipartisan-bills-to-boost-5g/. To the extent that business leaders’ rhetoric on this issue matters as well, see Katie Lobosco, “AT&T Chief: China Isn’t Beating the United States on 5G — Yet,” CNN, March 20, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/business/att-randall-stephenson-5g/index.html. 55 Barr, “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference.” 56 Coats, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.” 57 Richardson, “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority: Version 1.0.” 58 Trump, Donald. “National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2017,” 20-22. 59 Mattis, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.” 60 Ibid. 61 C. Todd Lopez, “Pentagon Official: U.S., Partners Must Lead in 5G Technology Development,” US Department of Defense, March 26, 2019, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1796437/pentagon- official-us-partners-must-lead-in-5g-technology-development/. 62 To see these briefs, see “Appellate Briefs,” US Department of Justice, n.d., https://www.justice.gov/atr/ appellate-briefs. 63 Connell and Huang, “An Empirical Analysis of CFIUS: Examining Foreign Investment Regulation in the United States.” 64 “The State of Antitrust Enforcement and Competition Policy in the U.S.” (American Antitrust Institute, April 14, 2020), https://www.antitrustinstitute.org/work-product/antitrust-enforcement-report/; “FCC Proposes the 5G Fund for Rural America;” Kadhim Shubber, “US Antitrust Enforcement Falls to Slowest Rate since 1970s,” Financial Times, November 28, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/27a0a34e-f2a0-11e8-9623-d7f9881e729f. 65 Kadhim Shubber, “Staffing at Antitrust Regulator Declines under Donald Trump,” Financial Times, February 7, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/cf1ed2a6-2619-11e9-b329-c7e6ceb5ffdf. 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Staff ~ Vol. VII | Issue I Editorial Board Aimee Zheng William Loughridge Manaal Saadaat Mason Zhang, Hansae Lee Benjamin Levy, Zachary Freer Maggie Jiang, Manaal Saadaat Editor-in-Chief Content Director Marketing Director Philosophy Section Director Politics Section Director Economics Section Director Content Team Philosophy Section Editors Hansae Lee Steve Nam Alexander Gerasimchuk Matthew Wong Theodore Young Gabriel Gonzalez Coco Zhu Nahye Lee Koda Li Fatima Avila Politics Section Editors Arjun Ray Faith Li Malcolm Furman Meruka Vyas Fatima Avila Emerson Rhodes Lachlan Edwards Aditi Bhattacharjya Sophie Rukin Economics Section Editors Meruka Vyas Aditi Bhattacharjya Max Robinson Vittorio Nazzi Arjun Ray Lachlan Edwards Matthew Wong Arthur Shamgunov Operations Team Marketing Associates Claire Kim-Narita Nadya Tan Designers Julian Croonenberghs Neil Xu Founders Julian D. Jacobs '19 Daniel Shemano '19

John Taylor and Ben Bernanke on the Great Recession Who Was Right About What Went Wrong? Mikael Hemlin University of Gothenburg University of Oxford London School of Economics Author Hans Lei Leonardo Moraveg Neil Sehgal Editors Fall 2019 Download full text PDF (8 pages) In the autumn of 2007, the United States’ housing market collapsed, pushing the world economy to the brink of disaster. In the US, unemployment rates soared, trillions of dollars of wealth disappeared, and millions of Americans lost their homes in what is generally considered the most severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. In the aftermath, economists have diligently discussed the properties of the crisis, asking if it could have been prevented and if policymakers could have responded more prudently. The American economist John Taylor has accused US policymakers of paving the way for the housing bubble by conducting an excessively loose monetary policy in the years leading up to the crash, and of prolonging the crisis by responding with measures based on premises that were essentially misguided. Conversely, Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve and one of the main targets of Taylor’s critique, offers an opposing view. According to Bernanke, the low federal funds rates during the years 2002–2006 were sound, and did not contribute to the inflation of the housing market to the extent that Taylor describes. Rather, Bernanke claims, it was mainly regulatory flaws that caused the financial collapse, and the actions taken by policymakers prevented the financial system from imploding completely. This essay makes the argument that although monetary policy played a part in the build-up to the crash, it was by no means a defining factor. What sets the Great Recession apart from other economic downturns is the regulatory setting in which the housing bubble developed and the crisis unfolded. As such, the governors of the Federal Reserve are not culpable for the crisis’ occurrence. They, along with the US Treasury, are nevertheless culpable for the misguided policies that were enacted to resolve the situation. Much like Taylor suggests, the measures that were undertaken by the authorities rested on the false presumption that it was lack of liquidity rather than the persistence of counterparty risk that protracted the crisis. The situation could have been dealt with much more efficiently were it not for these misconceptions. Neither Taylor’s nor Bernanke’s argument is convincing on all counts. Rather, it is a combination of the two that offers the most accurate account of what happened. One of the main points of disagreement between Taylor and Bernanke is the role of the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy during the years 2002–2006 in inflating the housing market. While Taylor is right in claiming that excessively low interest rates generally accommodate the creation of bubbles, he wrongly alleges that his rule for monetary policy, the Taylor Rule, is detailed enough to work as a reference point for how monetary policy should be conducted, regardless of context. Indeed, as Bernanke argues, the monetary situation in the US in the period 2002–2006 was complex in ways that are unaccounted for in the Taylor Rule. For example, the recovery after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 was rapid, but did not push down unemployment to the extent that conventional wisdom would suggest. The Taylor Rule does not explicitly account for unemployment, but instead expects it to follow inflation and output as described by Okun’s law and the Phillips curve. Taking into consideration the low inflation rates of the years in question, Bernanke’s argument that raising the FFR at that time would have been deflationary is hardly unfounded. Indeed, while mainstream economic theory would have predicted unemployment to diminish as the economy recovered after 2001, it would also have predicted inflation to fall to very low levels had the Federal Reserve raised the FFR over the period that Taylor suggests. Additionally, as Bernanke points out, the sharp increases in housing prices started in 1998, well before the period of the allegedly too loose monetary policy. Taken together, the evidence above indicates that while the low interest rates before the crisis played a role in inflating the housing market, it was not a major factor. The economic indicators of the time were ambiguous, and the Federal Reserve chose a policy path associated with avoiding the deflationary trap that had suppressed the Japanese economy over the past decades. Nevertheless, the Fed could have better appreciated the instability of the housing market and started raising interest rates in time to prevent the crash from turning into a worldwide financial disaster. If the FFR had been raised a couple of years earlier, the concealed risk in the securities markets could have been exposed without risking a system collapse. In such a scenario, it is plausible that the average creditworthiness of borrowers would have been higher, as lenders would not have had enough time to work their way down to the absolute bottom of the income/asset brackets. In Hyman Minsky’s words, financial practice would not yet have degenerated from “speculative finance” to “Ponzi finance.” As such, the mortgage default rates and banks’ leverage ratios would have been lower, and the recession more manageable. While monetary policy leading up to the crisis did contribute to its onset, the circumstances that magnified the crisis to a global collapse emerged as a result of the government’s exceedingly poor regulatory oversight. Taylor finds that the countries where housing prices rose the steepest were also the ones that deviated the most from his monetary policy rule. He argues that this serves as evidence that the Federal Reserve’s lax monetary policy played a significant role in setting the stage for the crisis. While this statement likely has some truth to it, it suffers from several shortcomings. As mentioned earlier, Bernanke underscores that the housing boom started in 1998 when the FFR was well over 5 percent. Against this background, it is more likely that the regulatory situation both in the US and elsewhere is to blame for the housing boom and subsequent crisis. In 1999, around the same time that Bernanke alleges the boom started, the Clinton administration partially repealed the Banking Act of 1933 (or the Glass-Steagall Act). The act was adopted after the Great Depression to improve financial stability, and essentially separated investment banks and hedge funds from commercial banks. After the repeal, it became legal for financial institutions of all types to merge, thereby making them “too big to fail” and allowing them to engage in larger-scale speculation. This paved the way for a moral hazard and exposed depositors to speculative risk in the process. In addition, the partial repeal failed to give the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to regulate and scrutinise financial institutions, thus allowing for the creation of riskier and ever-more opaque derivatives. As such, the abolishment of parts of the Glass-Steagall Act drastically increased the scale of speculative operations and weakened regulatory oversight, thus shrouding the securities markets in ignorance. Taylor elegantly compares the ensuing situation to a game of hearts, but with many queens of spades instead of just one. Everybody knew that most financial institutions’ balance sheets were riddled with queens of spades, i.e. toxic assets. The problem was that when the crisis hit, nobody could distinguish the toxic assets from the non-toxic ones, and thus, all assets of a kind sharply diminished in value. The indistinguishability of safe mortgage-backed securities from risky ones was in part due to the complexity of the financial instruments in question, and in part due to the failure of the rating agencies to accurately evaluate the risk of the constituent mortgages (Crotty, 2009). This is an issue of poor oversight as well; the rating agencies evaluated the riskiness of loans under the pressure of competition, and therefore consistently gave customers (e.g. banks) the ratings they required to sell off the loans as quickly as possible. Since there were no regulatory mechanisms in place to prevent this from becoming standard practice, it became hugely profitable for banks to grant loans to more or less anyone. The expansive access to credit led the housing market to boom. It is also worth mentioning that the expected future values of the homes that the mortgages financed were included as collateral in the risk evaluations. As such, the stability of the financial system was built on the premise that the US housing market could continue to boom indefinitely. This indicates that it was poor oversight, not lax monetary policy, that paved the way for the housing bubble and the subsequent crisis once the bubble burst. In the wake of the crisis, when the flow of financial transactions had frozen and market interest rates had skyrocketed due to the increased uncertainty and risk, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury set out to stimulate the economy to prevent it from collapsing altogether. Based on what measures the policymakers chose to enact, it seems they diagnosed the problem to be insufficient liquidity. Taylor correctly claims that they were mistaken—it was excessive counterparty risk, not liquidity, that petrified the financial markets. Among other things, policymakers tried to stimulate aggregate demand by giving out over 100 billion USD in cash to US households. The effects of these cash infusions quickly subsided and had little to no effect in terms of economic recovery. Next, they tried to reduce the financial friction in the system by adopting the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Programme of around 700 billion USD. As the name suggests, the programme sought to relieve troubled financial institutions of bad assets. However, the legislative text lacked a predictable framework as to what kinds of assets would be bought up, at what prices, and what the targeted institutions should do with the money. The consequences were that uncertainty and counterparty risk persisted, and that most of the money was used to buy US Treasury bonds and other safe assets that did not reduce the financial friction in the system (Taylor, 2009). Essentially, the mistake that the policymakers made was to conceive of the crisis as one of liquidity rather than counterparty risk. If counterparty risk in the system is high, then financial friction is high, and if financial friction is high, then neither monetary policy nor fiscal stimulus can restart the economy. This is because the increased risk offsets the effects of any lowering of the FFR or an increase in aggregate demand. Had the problem been diagnosed as excessive counterparty risk from the outset, then predictable and targeted quantitative easing could have been used immediately to remove the toxic assets from the system, thereby decreasing risk and uncertainty. Eventually, quantitative easing was used, but it could have been done much earlier (Taylor, 2009). Neither Taylor nor Bernanke provides a satisfactory account of what went wrong before and during the Great Recession. Taylor is mistaken in claiming that the Federal Reserve’s lax monetary policy in the years leading up to the housing bust is to blame for the crisis. While this might have played a minor role, the fact that the boom began under rather strict monetary conditions and that the Federal Reserve had a strong rationale for its chosen policy path suggests that Bernanke is right that it was inadequate regulation that paved the way for the crash. Nevertheless, Taylor’s critique of the interventions that Bernanke’s Federal Reserve undertook to resolve the crisis is justified. Had it not been for Bernanke’s and other policymakers’ misconception of the crisis as a liquidity shortage rather than an issue of counterparty risk, the recession would have been much less painful. Thus, on a concluding note, future policymakers should enhance the discretion of regulatory authorities to prevent a similar situation from emerging again, and improve the targeting of interventions in the event of a crisis to ensure that they are potent enough to produce the desired effect. Works Cited Bernanke, Ben S. “Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble.” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, January 03, 2010. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100103a.htm. 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The Influencer Issue: The Link between Commodification and Well-being on Social Media Enya Willems Author Xuanyu (Willard) Zhu Koda Li Hansae Lee Editors “Finally, there came a time when everything that men had considered as inalienable became an object of exchange, of traffic and could be alienated. This is the time when the very things which till then had been communicated, but never exchanged; given, but never sold; acquired, but never bought – virtue, love, conviction, knowledge, conscience, etc. – when everything, in short, passed into commerce.” - Karl Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847, ch. 1) I. Introduction The phenomenon of the social media personality, commonly named influencer, has exploded over recent years. This individual has also been called the ‘micro-celebrity’ by academics, coined by Senft as “a new style of online performance that involves people ‘amping up’ their popularity over the Web using technologies like video, blogs, and social networking sites.” In more recent years, this list of characteristics has expanded to include: increasing political power; performed authenticity and connection to the audience; and self-branding. Marwick has expanded on Senft’s original definition by defining micro-celebrity fame as “a self-presentation technique,” or “a set of practices and a way of thinking about the self, influenced by the infiltration of celebrity and branding rhetoric into day-to-day life, rather than a personal quality.” This definition clearly differentiates the micro-celebrity from other forms of niche fame and stresses the importance of appearance and relatability. Due to its unique conceptualisation, the influencer is the celebrity of the new age; a time in which the use of online platforms can launch an individual into stardom, making this process easier than ever before. The created online personas are not only used for personal gain, but are often exploited by brands for marketing purposes. This technique has shown to be effective, with a study done by Nadanyiova et al. reporting that 56% of respondents said they would buy products that were recommended by influencers, going as far as 42% claiming they would change their entire lifestyle based on influencer endorsement. Accordingly, we can no longer see the influencer as an entertainer only; it has become an entity that blurs the lines between the public and private sphere, in every respect. By effectively selling their personhood to be used as a marketing strategy, the influencer turns into a mere commodity. Capitalism has made the body into a product that can be sold and bought, and social media has accelerated this process. This commodification of the self and the body is closely related to self-branding and the public image, which is the construction of a specific public persona with a fabricated set of values and interests, used to create economic value. The influencer industry is one part of the digital landscape that arguably represents the digital age very well: authenticity, agency and persona online have become concerns that have gotten widespread attention. This article takes on the task of constructing an interdisciplinary framework that combines Marxist normative critique and social analysis, combining relevant theories together to illuminate how the influencer as the commodified-being is the key to understanding negative effects on well-being. After identifying the link between the commodified social media influencer and the philosophical concept ‘well-being,’ this article mainly argues that as a consequence of the endless search for authenticity and relatability, the commodification of the influencer necessarily infringes upon the influencer’s privacy and intimacy; therefore the self of the influencer is commodified, which eventually has a negative impact on well-being. To create a new framework to analyse the issue, this article will take an interdisciplinary approach that combines empirical evidence with a normative approach; first introducing the Marxist analysis and expanding upon the phenomenon of the influencer, then combining the two to be able to explore the influencer-commodity and the questions that arise. II. The Marxist frame: commodification and digital capitalism A. Marx in the contemporary context The classical Marxist concepts of alienation and fetishism have been adjusted and expanded to fit the alternative forms of labour that have arisen over the last century. Due to the shift from the industrial to post-industrial society, Marxism can be contextually adapted as a flexible tool to utilise as opposed to a set of fixed assumptions. In the twenty-first century, the labour market has evolved and therefore diversified significantly. Undoubtedly, the last decades can mostly be defined by the digital age; automation, computers and the internet have led to the disappearance of several traditional jobs, while also creating other new ones. Taking the concepts of alienation and commodity fetishism directly from Marx’ original works allows us to justify our further analysis as it is grounded in theory. Therefore, this section will first briefly explain the core concepts and later adapt and develop it to fit the context of the influencer case. As Marx describes it in his 1867 work Capital Volume 1, the commodity is “first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind.” When a good or a service is turned into a commodity, exchange-value is created; and this is the process of commodification. For an object to be considered a commodity, a social use-value has to be created through the process of exchange. Thus commodity fetishism examines how social relations are shaped around this exchange and therefore also the value of the commodity; this idea is essential for the understanding of how the worker and value are connected. As a result, social relations start to shape around the exchange of the commodity; the individuals who exchange their products do not have any relation to each other aside from their mutual interest in the commodity, meaning their interaction is centred only around creating economic value. Thus, the workers’ personhood becomes attached to the commodity, since its value directly expresses their labour, but when it is exchanged for the commodity of money this labour is made invisible. What follows is the process of alienation : the worker becomes estranged from their own labour, as well as from the other workers and their own human essence. This form of alienation therefore has major consequences on our mental state as the human being’s consciousness becomes “the self- consciousness of the commodity, ” in a situation in which every commodity loses their physical character. B. Digital capitalism and emotional labour To further connect the universal critique of labour under capitalism to the particular influencer case, understanding the concept of emotional labour is crucial. In her 1983 work The Managed Heart, Hochschild explores some of the complexities of capitalist labour by introducing emotional labour, in both the private and public life, and how this affects the emotional well-being of workers. Firstly, emotional labour is defined as labour that requires the worker to prompt or repress certain feelings, to be able to give a service that calls for a great amount of care. This type of labour is therefore exceptionally personal, as it calls for the worker to make use of a significant part of their identity. Therefore, there are similarities with heavy physical labour as in both cases this leads to alienation. In this case, the worker is likely to get alienated from their emotions and selfhood, as their job requires them to exploit their own individual personality as a way to perform well. This is evident in the service industry, where a worker is expected to smile at the customers, and their body and behaviour become an extension of the commodity they are trying to sell. Traits that are inherently personal therefore become divorced from their personhood, and a smile would be likened to something outside of the body, like the make-up or outfits worn. According to Hochschild, the effects of alienating emotional labour can be seen both in private and public life. It already starts in the private sphere that human emotions are taught to be repressed or brought out in a certain way. This emotion management is done through feeling rules, which are the ways in which we guide our emotions by setting up specific obligations or requests for ourselves during emotional exchanges; meaning when, where, and how we are ‘allowed’ to feel a certain way. In the case of emotional labour, these personal feeling rules become commercialised; when we are forced to act a certain way in a professional setting, this display of perceived fake emotions eventually becomes conflated with our real emotions. This leads to emotive dissonance, a process in which there is a discrepancy between real identity and forced identity, therefore affecting our mental state. When the worker is unable to maintain the distinction between real and perceived forced feelings, the lines get blurred. Then, since these forced feelings are used during the alienating practice of labour, the worker is more likely to feel estranged from their own personal feelings as well. More specific to the twenty-first century and the information age, Fuchs proposes we live in an era of digital capitalism in which we need to acknowledge the range of ways in which modern capitalism manifests itself and how they cocreate. Commodity fetishism stays relevant in the digital age, as it is displayed in the consumption of ideologies, both political and corporate, through modern mass media. In advertising on digital platforms, the mystification of the commodity is used by alienating the product from its labour, and replacing the void that is left with product propaganda. On social media, the commodity form of the platform is veiled by the social aspect, meaning it works invertedly to regular commodity exchanges where the social interactions are buried due to the obsession with exchange-value that overshadows it. The pleasure that is obtained when receiving a ‘like’ or message from a friend overshadows the distress of being endlessly bombarded with advertisements. Through this process, the social character is used to mask the fact that the website is still a commodity, as it is actively being used to generate income, looking at for example the unequal ratio between advertisements and social content on these platforms. Users are being convinced that the main purpose of social media is communication and social interaction, therefore successfully hiding the fact that many platforms are set up in a way that favours constant product propaganda to increase economic gains for the company over friendly connections. Logically, this will lead to alienation, as the social interaction on the platform becomes shaped by the process of exchange-value being created constantly. Thus, the user's purpose of socialising is forcibly minimised, to make place for the profit maximising-interests of the companies, with constant advertising taking over the platform. This also takes on more sinister forms, with companies making use of consumer data, even going as far as creating a market for the exchange of it, to analyse behavioural patterns to then use this information for personalised targeted advertisement, to eventually impact the consumer’s choices. This is part of a process that Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism. III. The rise of the influencer and the mechanism of internet fame A. Explaining the Influencer As made clear by now, the influencer is the symbol of the twenty-first century, which must be examined carefully to understand its role in the digital age. Chasing this form of internet fame has become a full-time job for many aspiring celebrities and was made big by social media websites such as Twitter and YouTube around 10 to 15 years ago. This shift in celebrity culture has made it possible for ordinary people to build a following quickly; a trend that was started by reality television in the early 2000’s. While more traditional celebrities have also used their social media accounts to reach out and build a more intimate interpersonal relationship with their fans, the micro-celebrity is a more unique phenomenon. These social media stars can build a niche audience in a certain subculture or interest group, leading to them amassing millions of followers while still remaining anonymous to the general public. This broad interest in public figures and celebrities stems from the mediatization of culture , the process in which media has become more and more important to society and has affected daily life and therefore culture. Nearly every aspect of life has become permeated by mass media, with engaging in celebrity culture now being a major aspect in regular people’s lives; a process that is called celebritization or celebritification by scholars such as Driessens. However, a more in-depth overview of mediazation must also incorporate how the microcelebrity operates under a unique mechanism of celebrity status, most notably enjoying more mobility from the origin and increasingly persisting relevancy. Modern fame generated on the internet has the advantage that it attracts a loyal niche audience, therefore impacting the degree to which a media personality is seen as easily replaceable. A link can be observed between relevancy of the micro-celebrity and commercialisation. Success can be found when commercial content is combined with personal, non-sponsored content, to the point where the two have become integrated. The influencer has to make sponsored content, while also linking this to a personal story or opinion. Thus, for the influencer to attract and maintain an audience, it must attach itself to a carefully crafted identity and commercial purpose. B. Branding and authenticity: the practice of building an audience The term influencer displays how the sole purpose of the celebrity has become to use stardom to promote a certain lifestyle. Attached to this lifestyle are products, activities, and experiences that they promote; making them a valuable instrument for brands who are looking for marketing opportunities.The role of personas is therefore exceptionally important, to make themselves as marketable as possible. Self-branding is the concept of individuals crafting a public image as a way to gain commercial attention and cultural capital, as Khamis et al. describes it. This is now often associated with celebrities and social media, however this practice dates back to the early twentieth century, and since then it is common for individuals to be marketed just as commercial products: their “unique selling points” that make them attractive to a specific target audience are exaggerated and developed together with the demands of the customers. However, this also illustrates the major issues that are raised when individualising branding. Parallels can be observed between brand loyalty between commercial brands and their customers and between influencers and their audience. The influencer therefore capitalises on the perceived devotion from their fans, as much as mainstream brands do. For big multinationals such as Apple or Starbucks, certain promises can be made regarding the quality and overall experience staying the same, wherever and whenever the product is consumed. Their ability to stay consistent is a major aspect of what makes a brand trustworthy and therefore lucrative in the long term. However, this consistency is extremely difficult to maintain for individuals who do not have large teams of employees to ensure their objectivity. As established earlier, influencer marketing depends greatly on the exposure of the private life, and due to the inherent spontaneity of life the quality cannot be consistent in the same way. Therefore, the influencer who has a certain image to upkeep faces the difficult task of having to be extremely strict to not diverge from the path they are on, as advertisers might withdraw their sponsor deals if the influencer’s brand is abruptly changed. The appeal of the social media influencer, in contrast to the traditional celebrity, is the fact that audiences can effortlessly follow and connect with their favourite influencers. Their personas are close enough to believable ‘real’ personalities, so the audience feels an attachment, although they might still be aware that this is not a completely accurate portrayal. A celebrity with a successful brand, one that has built certain associations and images around their persona, will be able to attract market value that interests advertisers. Due to this economic dependence on its following, the influencer’s persona is essentially tied to their audience; they both mould their audience around their brand and their brand around their audience. Hence, if there is a strong audience that is willing to buy the products endorsed by their favourite online personality, this means there is a lucrative business model behind the influencer marketing. The concept of ‘self-presentation,’ as originally used by Goffman, can be applied to influencer branding. He argues that the individual presents itself with certain goals in mind and therefore takes on a “role;” hereby comparing social interactions to performance, including the individual’s consciousness of the audience and being perceived. This exploration of identity through social interactions is magnified on social media, since on these platforms one’s image is extremely controlled through deliberate posts and engagement with certain content. This image created can change drastically when presented for friends or for strangers; there is no personal connection between strangers, meaning their profiles naturally become the sole determinant of one’s image, making it more likely that the social media user is more conscious of their presentation. This leads to influencers mostly coming across as more refined than the average social media user, as their audience consists mostly out of strangers. This can be recognised in, for example, the prevalence of photo-editing or the use of ‘beauty filters’ under influencers, displaying the importance of keeping up an appearance. This can be connected to character masks in Marxist philosophy; the idea that individuals are dehumanised and forced into a certain (social) role, therefore being “forced to put on a mask,” which then leads to alienation from their personhood. The same is done by the influencer, as they are also forced to only portray themselves in a certain way, to fit the “perfect” image they are supposed to. C. Agency and “meta-capital” Marshall argues that due to the emergency of public personas, everyone, including both public figures and regular people, has become more comfortable with the mediatization of the self. This has led to the normalisation of the celebrity as a form of “meta-capital,” meaning that they are recognised as a part of the structure of the attention economy. Their ability to move between fields, both online and offline, and enact influence on all these different platforms has led to their value increasing significantly. This, once again, has made marketing through the endorsement of big public figures, most notably the influencer, extremely attractive. However, this has impacted agency in a way that the concept has become hyper-individualised; influencers are the personification of agency in the contemporary attention economy. The formation of the celebrity into the commercial meta-capital, has given them power to enact change. They can affect the sales of a product by a simple endorsement, or even have a political or cultural impact, hence it is argued that this gives them agency. According to Papacharissi and Easton the structures in which the actors act are reinforced through agency; by doing the actions they believe they are bound to, they form the exact structures they are bound by. Therefore, while the influencer on one hand has autonomy over their life, it is also completely shaped by their understanding of society and their appointed place in it. IV. Influencers and commodification A. The celebrity-commodity on social media Overall, it is not a new or ground-breaking idea that the celebrity is a commodified being. Scholars before the twenty-first century have already theorised about the celebrity image being used as a tool in the marketing of products. This also means that celebrities have always been extremely careful to maintain their persona due to commercial reasons, as to not tarnish any future endeavours and profits that could be made. Furthermore, there are many political motivations attached to the formation of the persona, due to the close connection between public identity and politics, a classic argument made in Daniel Boorstin’s 1962 work The Image. He uses the example of American politicians engaging in televised debates, who eventually end up showing their ability to perform well when displaying an image to the media, instead of having actual political knowledge. This is what Boorstin calls a “pseudo-event:” an inauthentic, planned and somewhat ambiguous event solely made to be broadcasted. This is then extended to the celebrity himself: “The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. (...) He is the human pseudo-event. ” Hereby, Boorstin effectively critiques how the use of public images in the media has made audiences more likely to be willingly deceived; the image has become more interesting than the ‘original.’ Using Boorstin’s use of ‘the original’ and ‘the image’ to analyse the influencer, it is evident that the image instead of the identity is sold to the audience. When these celebrity personas are being marketed as perfect images of people, they become sellable goods and undergo the process of commodification as described by Marx. Thus, naturally, the alienation both from the audience and themselves is an inescapable result. Following Marx’ explanation, commodity fetishism will be affecting the influencer twofold: they are both the commodity itself and the maker of the commodity, since they are responsible for creating their own image. The biggest difference between this more traditional celebrity and the modern social media influencer is not the amount of influence they have, but the fact that the influencer thrives on their proximity to normality, as stated earlier. They started off as ‘regular people’ and work carefully to maintain the image that they still are. This however also means that it is infinitely more difficult to preserve the boundaries between persona and identity. Hochschild’s theory of emotive dissonance becomes relevant, as the emotions needed to make the social media persona believable become conflated with the true identity of the influencer, both by the audience and the influencer themselves, who can also no longer effectively separate their social-media persona and private personality. Lehto and Kanai have observed this same tendency in how influencers deal with feeling rules on social media, as they are in a difficult situation in which everything they express has to be in line with the persona they want to maintain. Thus, the influencer parallels the worker in the service industry that Hochschild discusses. It can be noted that in the case of the influencer there are also particular social dynamics at play, due to the general anonymity of the audience in contrast to the extremely exposed identity of the influencer. This could even be identified as a case of information asymmetry, in which the audience is able to access more information than the influencer. So, since the influencer is not familiar with who they are talking to, in contrast with how social interactions would typically go, they are unable to correctly handle their emotion management. Therefore, we can point to the influencer’s relationship with their audience as a critical aspect of how commodification affects the individual, through an analysis of emotional labour. B. The person or the product as the commodity As mentioned by Fuchs, social media websites actively try to hide the process of commodification from us, making it harder for us to recognise what we are truly being sold. This opens up an interesting discussion about whether, effectively, the influencer is selling the product or the person, which is herself. Increasingly, brands are less interested in the former, and more in the latter. Considering the influencer-commodity and its relationship to branding, it can be observed that it is more important for the influencer’s persona to fit in with what they are advertising, then for the product to fit the influencer’s persona, as self-branding knows hardly any bounds. Looking at the earlier discussed argument by Rojek that influencers can build certain associations around their personas to receive brand sponsorship deals, this makes it apparent that there is an incentive for the influencer to change their persona when it is more profitable for them. Examples of this have already been found in mainstream celebrity culture, in which it is common among former child stars to suddenly “rebrand” their personalities, to further their careers. Thus, the ease with which influencers are expected to mould their personas around marketing opportunities, essentially treating them as products that are changed based on consumer’s wishes, would logically lead to an increase in the effect of emotive dissonance. Since these humans are treated as malleable commodities, their personas become more and more divorced from their own identity and personhood. C. Digital authenticity: redefining the public and private sphere The now established fabricated nature of the influencer can be connected to the search for authenticity and the resulting carefully crafted relatability as ethical concerns. It is questionable if authenticity can even exist on social media, as Kadirov et al. note that the term itself has become a buzzword in marketing used to increase sales. The major issue that arises is the fact that to even appear somewhat authentic, influencers will have to expose their private lives to the public, which has to be in line with their constructed identity. This makes them more vulnerable for commodification, as every aspect of their life turns into something to sell. In Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour, she concludes that the effects of having to engage in emotional labour will end up affecting the worker’s mental state. She discusses many consequences of this, but it is most evident in the occurrence of emotive dissonance. Using the previously discussed concept of self-branding, it is evident that the influencer is very conscious of the persona they have to maintain and which emotions they have to portray to make it seem convincing. Jansz and Timmers claim that, to relieve oneself of emotive dissonance, quite some cognitive reconstruction of the person’s identity is needed. This would mean fundamentally changing one’s professional identity to correspond to the feeling rules that have to be followed in the profession. However, the inherent characteristic of the influencer as an individual that demands to be ‘authentic,’ leads to an inability to clearly differentiate between public persona and identity. It is therefore exceptionally difficult for the influencer to construct a professional persona that acts in ways that is detached from their own feelings; this would mean that the authenticity they have been striving for has to be compromised. D. Privacy in the digital age To further analyse how the merge of the public and private have led to an increase in the commodified private life, it is firstly important to examine how to define these spheres. Discourse on the boundary between public and private has been initiated long before the internet was even invented. But the rise of social media has made it highly relevant once again. Shifts between what is designated as private and what as public is what Marshall calls the “privlic ” culture. He describes the emergence of “commodity activism,” which is when activism that started with private action is now mostly recognised by how it is used in the public sphere, mostly in branding by commercial corporations. One important way in which this has manifested itself is in the rise in the use of endorsement as a marketing technique. We can regard the influencer as the link between the public corporation and the private individual, becoming essentially a public individual. It can be observed that due to social media bringing private life into the public, this has led to further commodification of the influencer and alienation from themselves. One interesting example is the effect of the reveal of personal relationships to the public. Certain intimate relationships, such as love, can only survive in the private realm. But, for many lifestyle influencers staying authentic will have to include revealing large parts of their love life to their followers. Thus, there is a lack of privacy that should be a necessity. In this “privatised-public sphere” the influencer’s lack of privacy can be observed in many aspects of their personal life. For the average social media user, privacy on the internet becomes a commodity, as personal data is sold to provide relevant advertisements. Similarly for the influencer, they create value by exchanging their privacy for authenticity, which will lead to their brand endorsements being more successful. However, as privacy is the foundation of the personal life, as argued by Arendt, this leads to further commodification of the influencer’s personhood. E. Parasocial relationships and the commodification of intimacy Expanding further on interpersonal relationships and privacy, a remarkable phenomenon that can be observed in the interaction between the influencer and their audience is the formation of the so-called parasocial relationship. Hartmann defines parasocial interaction as “about users’ illusionary feeling of being in a mutual social interaction with another character while actually being in a one-sided non- reciprocal situation.” This means that individual fans are being deluded into thinking they have a personal relationship with the influencer they admire, while for the influencer this individual is just one of many and there is no personal connection attached. The influencer is aware of this effect and therefore deliberately builds their marketing strategy around the concept of parasocial interaction, which once again connects with the authenticity claim, and the subsequent use of ‘relatable’ insights into the influencer’s life. Schmid & Klimmt claim that repeated parasocial interaction will lead to the formation of a parasocial relationship. So, for influencer marketing to continue working, they will have to continue these interactions, as once the fan no longer feels like they have a deeper connection with the influencer, they might end up not supporting them anymore. This includes oversharing about private affairs and overall being overfamiliar with their audience, to be able to feign an intimate relationship between them and their individual followers. Due to the, albeit limited, opportunity of mutual communication between the audience and the influencer, negative side effects of this connection extend from the audience to the influencer. While we can still not speak of the same amount of two-sided interaction as in regular social relationships, as the audience is generally too big for the influencer to converse one-on-one, there is still more perceived reciprocation by the fans. Thus, the parasocial relationship stretches further and further, meaning the influencer will have to continue giving their audience increasingly more privy information; hence also further violating their own privacy, which has already been established as harmful. In analytical terms we can see the parasocial relationship as the commodification of intimacy. Because mostly one-sided social interactions get framed in an intimate manner, the fans perceive these as individualised intimate gestures, while it is in fact a generalised form of communication. It is important to stress that the motivation behind this interaction is to generate more value. Since, as earlier established, the more the influencer is able to build a convincing personal relationship with their audience, the more profits they are able to generate. Logically, following the theory of emotive dissonance, the influencer starts to conflate the fabricated relationships they have with individual fans with actual intimate relationships offline. Forming real life relationships becomes more difficult due to the blurred lines between real and fake connection; if a declaration of love is a sales technique in the digital world, what magnitude does that same word still have in private? Hence, the creation of parasocial relationships further leads to the commodification of the influencer, as more and more parts of their selfhood are used solely for generating economic value and are turned into the commodity-form, in this case intimacy and relationships. This eventually affects the influencer’s actual personal relationships, as they become alienated from intimacy. This largely ties in with how the lack of privacy in the public sphere has made it difficult for the influencer to not suffer from commodification on all aspects of what is traditionally regarded as part of the private life. V. The effect on well-being A. The framework of subjective well-being Most countries strive to achieve good well-being for their citizens, which is defined by UNESCO as “a feeling of satisfaction with life, a state characterised by health, happiness, and prosperity.” Governments calculate subjective well-being by using measures that can be self-reported, which allows individuals to evaluate their personal life satisfaction and other feelings on a scale. If the subjective well-being is considered high, this has positive effects on social relationships, health, income, and it further positively influences society. Shantz et al. found that alienation directly leads to emotional exhaustion and low well-being, along with being a major cause of burn-out. Thus, the earlier identified negative side effects of influencer culture have all shown to go directly against the desired high well-being. The observation can be made that due to the competitive nature of our current capitalist system and the resulting dynamic between the audience and influencer, the way influencer culture functions will always have negative effects on well-being; the influencer is burdened by alienation and commodification caused by how their private life is exposed to the public, hindering them from reaching full subjective well-being. B. Commodification and well-being Now the lines between the private and public have effectively blurred together and due to emotive dissonance these cannot be differentiated. The overwhelming presence of the creation of exchange value bleeding into the influencer’s personal life leads to them no longer choosing to decide in favour of their own well-being, leading to even privacy itself becoming commodified. Following this observation that there are no bounds to the commodification of the influencer’s private life, this analysis clearly supports the argument that this has a negative effect on well-being. Arguably the most unique way the influencer’s well-being is affected is the complete lack of privacy, as they have to use the technique of marketable relatability, that the traditional celebrity does not. This systematic lack of privacy has been linked to increased stress and decreased happiness. Moreover, multiple studies have found that emotional labour is correlated to faster burn out, such as Nam and Kabutey who found that the emotive dissonance that results from this type of labour more likely leads to burn-out than jobs where no use of emotional labour is made. A further finding includes that the risk of burn-out is higher in workers who fabricate their emotions, referred to as ‘surface acting’ by Hochschild, than those who participate in ‘deep acting,’ having trained themselves to experience the required emotions. Due to the fabricated nature of social media, influencers are most likely to participate in surface acting, therefore increasing their risk of burning out quickly. This argument is confirmed by Verduyn et al. who found that social media has negative effects on subjective well-being due to the social pressure attached to it. It is not rare for the negative well-being of influencers to be trivialised due to the fact that many earn significantly more than the average worker, with major influencers earning more than $2000 for an Instagram post. However, the assumption that monetary gain automatically nullifies the aforementioned negative effects of commodification is refutable. The evidence regarding the impact of wealth on well-being is mostly relative; for an impoverished individual receiving a small amount of money would significantly better their situation, while for a multi-millionaire it does not do as much. In the relevant context, it can be noted that due to the rapid nature of internet fame, the influencer often quickly moves from the former to the latter; while in the beginning of their career the rapid increase of income due to the increasing commodification of the self is likely to positively affect them, at a certain point the extra profits will no longer be enough to distract them from the fact that commodification is negatively impacting their personal lives. In conclusion, the poor well-being that is caused by the commodification of privacy and intimacy and the exploitation of emotional labour, overshadows the possible positive effects of the economic profits made. VI. Conclusion In the light of the dramatic increase in popularity in recent years, this article sought to analyse the influencer and how they are affected by commodification, to then establish the consequence of this on their well-being, through an interdisciplinary analysis. To do so, I firstly focused on linking Marxist analysis to the digital age. Hochschild’s emotional labour and the following effect of emotive dissonance, were repeatedly important during the analysis, as they linked together Marxist commodification and the influencer. Next, it was found that commodification is visible in all aspects of the influencer’s life, due to how authenticity, branding and agency are influenced by the marketability of the influencer. This has multiple consequences, but most noteworthy are the transformation from the person into the product as the commodity, the effect this has on the blurring of the public and private sphere, the following commodification of privacy, and lastly the parasocial relationship and the commodifying effect this has on intimate relationships. Thus, we are now able to answer the question asked in the beginning of this research: how does the commodification of the self on social media affect social media influencers’ well-being? This research can conclude that the influencer’s well-being suffers due to the negative effect of commodification, mostly due to the alienating impact of emotional labour and the inability to separate the public and the private. Well-being and alienation cannot co-exist, as they are essentially opposites: in the Marxist tradition, commodity fetishism leads to the alienation from the individual’s personhood, and would therefore never be able to live a satisfying life as required for well-being. Further empirical proof that shows the correlation between the emotional labour done by the commodified influencer and burn-out and unhappiness, exemplifies this theoretical finding. These findings can contribute to the existing literature, since the analysis gives a unique interdisciplinary overview into an under-researched phenomenon that is grounded both in the normative theory and the empirical evidence. 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