Anne-Marie Slaughter Quotes
The masters of the new technologies cannot master the power of politics, even if they were right to challenge the current deep dysfunction of the U. S. Political system.
Many of the major new technology companies of America initially wanted nothing from government and didn’t want government to interfere with their efforts. They initially did no donate to political campaigns or hire lobbyists. But because of their amazing success, they transformed American and world society, threatened and damaged vested interests and became the focus of government attention. And soon the began to play the game but unlike their technologies at which there were masterful, they were not as skilled and adroit at politics. In a number of c cases they challenged the United States government both directly and indirectly by changing facts on the ground in America, and when government was most needed to work out new rules of the road for the nation with the new technologies, the U. S. Congress was gridlocked and totally dysfucntional.
Anne-Marie Slaughter How to Succeed in the Networked World Foreign Affairs. November/December 2016 Volume 95, Number 6
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1st Baron Macaulay
While this may have been true in some European nations, many disagree completely with this assertion for America. They point to the thousands of laws passed by Congress to cut back or diminish the power that they had earlier given the agency. These counter-examples to Hayek’s view are particularly evident after most wars. What often does happen is that Congress votes a temporary power to a government agency, and when the temporary power time is coming to an end, many citizens and officials are so happy with the result of granting the power, that the power is then granted permanently, sometimes to the distress of some legislators who voted for the power with the understanding that it would be temporary. However, Congress may, and often does, change its collective mind. Coercion to Hayek includes for example, taxation if there are criminal penalties for failure to pay the tax or regulation where a government agency may require or prohibit certain behavior of a business or individual and most people would agree that even in a democracy there are coercive aspects of much government activity.
Anne-Marie Slaughter is an American international lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist and public commentator. From 2002 to 2009, she was the Dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs. Slaughter was the first woman to serve as the Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department from January 2009 until February 2011 under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She is a former president of the American Society of International Law and the current President and CEO of New America (formerly the New America Foundation).
