We Are All Proxies

Note: In recent years, the term 'Proxy' has arisen in discussions about the wars in Ukraine and Israel, and even in Taiwan.? This article is another approach to understanding Proxies, and how they affect us all. ???

The story begins in Chicago, circa 1990. It's early September, just before university classes begin.? My friend--let’s call him Stathis—is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago; he invites me for dinner at his apartment, just off campus and across from the headquarters/temple of Lewis Farrakhan.? The university campus is on the same South Side of Chicago where we will soon find the new home of the Presidential Library for Barack Obama.? ?

One benefit of dinner with Stathis is he knows all things culinary, having spent part of his academic career in Paris, France.? Stathis can cook.? Accordingly, he pulls a large baked chicken from his small student oven, and delivers it to the wooden table, and we are ready to go.? The bird tastes like something from a Fairy Tale.? I’ve rarely enjoyed cooking as greedily.? We engage in lively conversation, starting with family and friends, before migrating to the topic of his home in Greece.?

He informs me he is conducting field studies on his dissertation topic relating to political violence in the context of civil wars.? It turns out his approach is as much driven by his own experience back in Greece, as by his university.? As an economics guy myself, it’s no secret that the University of Chicago is famous for numbers, statistics and all things quantitative, and the home of the majority of Nobel Laureates in Economics.? I’m ready to listen to Stathis tell me about his summer research in Greece. ??

He displays his research a bit unconventionally.? Atop the kitchen table where that baked chicken lay, was a portable tape recorder.? He pressed the play button, and we began hearing stories from grandmothers, grandfathers and children who had lived through the Greek civil war, a violent series of skirmishes that commenced just after the end of World War II about 75 years ago. ?These stories were recorded and appended, one after another, lasting at least 45 minutes on this single tape. Stathis pointed to dozens of similar tapes stacked up in a cabinet.? ?

The stories were horrible, unbelievable, tragic.? The Greek civil war pitted the Pro-Allied forces backed by the UK and the USA, against the Left Wing, Pro-Socialists.? Greeks lost more combatants (from the Allied and Pro-Socialists) to this war than from the combined deaths of Greek soldiers of Hitler and Mussolini. In other words, Greeks were remarkably brutal to one another.? This is the legacy of the post war experience of many Greeks who went through the war.?And, as Stathis pointed out, there are similarities between civil wars in different locations, like Algeria and Latin America, where he conducted similar research. So, how does this relate to proxies?

Stathis removed what was left of the roasted chicken from the table and spread out a map of Northern Greece, showing the region where much of the civil war was fought, and the locations of many of his interviews with survivors.? I noticed colored pins inserted on the map over villages that comprised the sources for his interviews.? Many of these pins formed spaces that were consistent with borders between countries, and sometimes parallel, resembling two lines with spaces between.? ?

It turns out Stathis was slowly developing a mathematics for the theory of civil war.? The parallel regions formed by the pins were, in fact, borders between adjoining villages.? By interviewing the victims of these wars, Stathis gathered information that found the Greek civil war was, in effect, multiple skirmishes between neighboring villages and between former friends in those villages who, in many cases, had lived and worked next to one another all their lives.? Some were even part of the same extended families. The civil war had destroyed this symbiosis, and carnage had ensued in an almost uncontrolled fashion. Stathis pointed out that all it took was a single bullet for the violence to commence like gasoline on a fire.

Stathis also observed these parallel villages had become a kind of geographic line of demarcation to separate the Pro-Socialists/Communists from the Pro-Allied forces.? More to the point, through his interviews, Stathis learned political figures were conveniently positioned behind the lines of the villages, and were the instigators in the sudden animosities that had grown since the end of World War II.? It is these political forces behind the villages-on both sides--that influenced each side to rise up against their opposing neighbors.? In effect, the villagers were proxies for a new cocktail of political ideas from these new masters.?

Imagine you lived as a farmer in a village separated from your neighbor by a river or creek, and you could shout each morning to say hello and share information or gossip.? These instigators suddenly figured out ways to turn neighbor against neighbor, encouraging them to focus on their differences—political in this case—and urging them to betray their former friends.? Steal his goat, kill his sheep, burn his field, confiscate the apples or olives on his trees.?

Suddenly, the calculus in the villages changed, often with ugly and fatal consequences.? Here was the human fallout of what became a political war whose origins found their roots in faraway cities like Washington, London and Moscow. ??

These poor, simple and unsuspecting villagers had become proxies in a war far beyond their imagination--or power to control.? Events blossomed, the violence increased, and former friends and neighbors turned on one another, often leading to violence and death. ??As we have pointed out, even Hitler and Mussolini combined couldn’t do the damage that both sides of the Greek military wreaked on one another.?This is often the bitter fruit of civil war. To capture the results in another venue, the British Civil War revealed a similar outcome.

Within a few years Stathis had earned his PhD from his ground-breaking analysis of human retribution and political violence.? And he had developed a new way to ‘measure’ this violence, using predictive qualities and variables from those interviews and pinned maps on his kitchen table.? He measured the distances between villages and identified who was helping whom, and what political parties these folks represented.? It was a new calculus, much more mathematical and analytical than political scientists dared to venture.?And as it turned out, for good reason.

The effect of this field research was that Stathis’ new theory neutralized the noise of war, reducing the focus on politics and shifting the discussion instead onto the power of human retribution. ??His theory neutered the heat of political discourse, replacing politics with human hatred and its effects.? War was less Right against Left or Communists/Socialists against Fascists than one farmer or small manufacturer turning against his neighbor out of jealousy or retribution for a crime the other had committed against him.? It was man against man for no other reason than those instigators behind the lines needed proxies to fight larger skirmishes on their behalf.? It was really a game of control. And what better protagonists to fight these wars than neighbors who had once been friends??The personal element caused the most toxic of encounters.

The Response Back Home

But one more observation is worth noting, and I was a witness to it here in Greece.? In the early days of Stathis’ new found analysis and explanation of civil wars, he accepted invitations back in Greece to offer lectures and speeches to crowds, some large, who listened intently to his approach.? Over the years I attended several of his lectures and witnessed the evolution of thinking in a country that was still suffering the after-effects of this great Civil War.? Many of the audiences were university professors and students, but Stathis had also begun to contribute articles to the large daily newspapers, and his name moved into the public sphere.? In the US he was a professor in various locations, including NYU, University of Michigan, back to Chicago, and finally at Yale. He's now positioned at Oxford.?

Over the years of lectures he has given in Greece, I have witnessed a change in the audiences, an evolution of thinking.? Whereas in the early days of his speech-giving he was met with a good measure of acrimony by his colleagues and students—many of whom would stand up and shout angrily at him that he knew nothing about the civil war experience, or about the crimes the Communists and Allied?forces had committed against members of their own families--what has evolved today is a growing group of followers who understand that Stathis was trying to promote a new way of thinking of war by stripping out the politics, and introducing the simple human attributes of hatred and love, violence and protection, retribution, survival and family rivalry.?

Many are still wary of removing the politics entirely, but for a reason: Over time it is becoming clearer that these folks have a stake in the outcome.? Many professors, for example, have risen in their careers by promoting a single political theory that, over time, could not be defended, as history had shifted, new evidence had come to light that had proven them wrong.? So they have built a foundation to protect their interests and their reputations.? They remain steadfast in their positions, listening to no-one who might come along and disprove their theories.? And, after all, who is willing to discard a lifetime of collected works--books and lectures--based on a single premise atop a faulty politic?? Eventually, this kind of empire building falls apart.? Instead of admitting defeat and modifying one’s theory, academics hold fast and defend their name, often til the bitter end.? A bastion of free ideas we have come to know as the University has become a walled tower that needs defending.

As we look at our politics today, it is becoming clearer that Proxies have become fashionable, profitable, and, for some, even essential.? It is undoubtedly true that Ukraine is a proxy for the US to destroy Russia.? There is no other explanation for the carnage we are witnessing in Europe.? Likewise, with the war in Israel, one can make a case either that Israel is a proxy for the US against the entire GCC, or that Israel is using the USA as a proxy for its own survival, and to eliminate the Palestinians from what it views as its rightful land.? Or a bit of both. ?In these examples—Ukraine and Israel--one is playing the other, or vice versa, and for political ends.? And, as we have mentioned, it's all about control. There is no doubt that discussion of proxies has become the rage in our world.

But it goes further.? We need look only the impending US Elections, and ALL elections in the modern era. ?Democrats and Republicans, Right and Left, are proxies for powers that stand behind politics.? Both parties are victims of powers looking to control the agenda.? ?We call our system Democratic, but this is a mirage.? We are all actors, playing our various roles on stage, and hoping for applause when the curtain falls.? We hope for better; we love to call ourselves independent, free ‘thinking people.’ But we should recognize the ruse, and accept the possibility that our thinking is driven by outside forces.

For in the end, we’re all proxies, fighting for control of our lives, and driven by the fears and hopes of others. We hope we’re on the right side of history.? Perhaps it’s best to look across that creek or valley, or across the street, to our fellow man and ask him (or her) who’s calling his shots. ?If we can identify the power brokers on all sides, and can draw upon the strength of others working with us, there is hope. Awareness is the first sign of salvation.

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A postscript.? I usually try to tie these ideas to the topic of economics, but have dragged readers into the well worn region of politics.? In the case of economics there is most definitely a connection to the idea of proxies.? One of the more troubling elements of what we read and hear about our economies in the media also shows two sides to our situation.? Of course, this is the easy solution, because most of us think in binary fashion. And in the case of two sides, we--investors--are usually proxies for these ideas.?

On one hand are the Gloom and Doomers, the Chicken Littles who tell us the sky is falling.? These folks are in our faces relentlessly, and they have a stake in this game, because their comments are usually about buying gold and silver, storing cash in the back-yard, selling everything except hard assets and looking for a bomb shelter. ?All of the above are profitable—for them.? Worry certainly sells.

On the other hand are the Pollyannas, those investors who seemingly worry about nothing and react like sheep in headlights when danger appears.? Sheep eat anything that looks like food. ?Yes, everything is good, they bleat.? Or, things will always get better.

Neither of the aforementioned positions are worthy of followers.? Instead, it is best to read between the lines, to determine who is offering the advice, and why.? ?Only then can we--as proxies to their theories--better understand our condition, and save ourselves--far from the maddening crowd.? ???

P.S. For those interested in a brief history of Modern Greece, Stathis wrote a superb primer that covers the last 200 years. It's a book worth exploring.