Nothing. Everything.

A Review of Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-click America, by Alec MacGillis

Why would a book that is manifestly about a non-legal, non-military subject be relevant for a judge advocate? What does this have to do with the practice of law in the Air Force? Why should it be reviewed in these pages? Let me borrow a line from an underappreciated movie. When his forces reconquered the Holy Land in 1187, the character based on the Ayyubid sultan, Saladin, is asked what Jerusalem was worth, he says: “Nothing. Everything.”[1]  So it is here. This book has nothing (directly) and everything (indirectly) to do with our practice.

Fulfillment covers a lot of ground, but it is a book about the tertiary effects of e-commerce on both America as a whole and, in particular, the Rust Belt. This subject is a vital concern for at least three reasons. First, a disproportionate share of Airmen hail from the kinds of places described in this book;[2] a better understanding of our clients makes us better lawyers. Second, it begins with the story of a town that is of historical interest to all Airmen and describes its industrial decline in the last three decades: Dayton, Ohio. Third, it raises worrisome questions about whether a post-industrial America would win a fight with near-peer adversaries. Any one of these three would make the book worth reading.

Yet I also find this book maddening. Rather than the linear reasoning taught in law school, it employs a discursive, meandering narrative that is sometimes hard to follow. Its conclusions are not plainly stated, its logic frustratingly elliptical. Insofar as I can discern what MacGillis is driving at, I mostly disagree with him. But even for an unapologetic free-trader and economic libertarian like me, there is value in exploring the sociology of our times and in considering what economic success on the coasts has wrought for the forgotten places in “flyover” country. He and I probably disagree about the causes of the problems he describes, their long-term consequences, and what policies (if any) ought to be undertaken. Even so, the story he tells is worth considering.

Knowing Our Clients

There’s a canard that after the landslide election of 1972, a writer at the New Yorker said, “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”[3] Happen to you lately? It has to me. I’m a recovering political junkie, but I have been surprised by the results of two of the last three presidential elections. Many would argue that white working-class men have driven the election results in the last several cycles, either by showing up at the polls or staying home. We may fancy ourselves astute observers of our countrymen because during our careers we live in a half dozen states across the land. I wonder, however, if a steady government paycheck insulates us from our neighbors and if we never live long enough in one place to notice the local pathologies.[4] Fulfillment provides a crash course in what is going on with the white working class.

Since white working-class men are a shrinking share of the population, why do we care?  This is just one demographic group, albeit a large one. Fair question. This book does not provide a monocausal explanation for all that ails the body politic, much less prescribe a single remedy. But disgruntled members of this group have been in the news lately. It behooves us to understand them better so that we can provide our clients legal counsel enriched with the perspective of moral, economic, social, and political considerations.[5] This would include not only advising on the root causes of political extremism but also could make litigators more sensitive to socioeconomic factors that could serve as useful evidence in mitigation or perhaps inform advice we give during legal assistance. This is not the only book of its kind, but it serves as an introduction to a group that our twenty-first century economy has left behind.

Silicon Valley to the Rust Belt

All Airmen should know the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright. There is no better introduction than David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers.[6]  But while McCullough shows that there was something special about the bookish home in which the brothers were raised and how that contributed to their innovations,[7] MacGillis describes the broader cultural milieu that made the twentieth century Midwest the Silicon Valley of its time. Though a small city, Dayton was the paradigmatic example of that innovation culture,[8] with not only the advancements in aviation to its credit but also two other major firms that designed and produced world-beating technologies. In recent decades, Dayton has lost its manufacturing jobs; its shiny corporate headquarters have departed. What does this portend for our lead in innovation? Will San Jose go the way of Dayton? These questions lie beyond the scope of the book, but for Airmen keenly aware that our technological advantage is narrowing,[9] such worries linger. Whither innovation?[10]

A Deindustrialized Arsenal

Many historians would argue that the allies won World War II not so much because of the genius of their generals but because of the combined industrial output of the Anglo-American “arsenal of democracy”.[11] This view is not uncontested, but industrial output certainly mattered. In like manner, MacGillis quotes a former worker at Baltimore’s Sparrows Point steel mill, who warns that but for the mill, we would all be speaking Japanese or German. This echoes a common concern that America has fully deindustrialized, that we no longer make anything. But is that true?

Despite the popular lament, U.S. manufacturing is actually stronger than it has ever been. At the same time, it is also a fact that manufacturing jobs have been cut in recent decades. But jobs are not the same as output. One study indicated that in the half century from 1950 to 2010, U.S. manufactures increased by 600 percent.[12] Though manufacturing jobs are fewer, our output is second only to China.

Another problem with the book is that it sometimes feels like MacGillis is cherry-picking, making his account tendentious. For every city whose travails he describes in heartbreaking detail, there is another that has adapted. Dayton, Baltimore, and El Paso may struggle,[13] but other non-coastal heartland cities such as Columbus, Kansas City, Des Moines, Madison, and Minneapolis are doing just fine, thank you.[14]  Further, not every lost job is outsourced;[15] if jobs are not so much disappearing but rather moving to more business-friendly cities or regions, that is perhaps less worrisome than MacGillis’s ominous account would suggest.

As for the defense industrial base, this is my rejoinder. Like America generally, the Rust Belt is not so deindustrialized or hapless as MacGillis supposes.[16] Threats abroad are multiplying. But those who would do us harm would do well to remember that the U.S. armed forces, as well as its supporting industrial base, have time and again proven themselves to be formidable adversaries.[17]  Don’t count us out only because some American cities are no longer flourishing.

Conclusion

As other reviews have noted, if you are seeking an understanding of the internal workings of Amazon, you will not find it here.[18] This book is instead about the flotsam and jetsam that have been set adrift as educated workers emigrate and financial, business, and political power consolidate in elite coastal cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and D.C. Despite its nostalgia for an economy and social arrangements of a bygone age and its inconclusiveness, which at times seems like advocacy for a weak form of socialism or perhaps a robust industrial policy, the book raises important questions. There is value in considering the collateral damage of the last four decades’ astonishing economic growth,[19] even if we are still grateful for that progress and ultimately unconvinced that affluence must be zero sum. That makes this book a worthwhile read. MacGillis’s broader thesis, that by delivering everything to our doorsteps, e-commerce may leave us with nothing—bereft of remunerative work, domestic manufacturing, even hope for the future—is, however, unpersuasive.

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel E. Schoeni, USAF

(B.A., Brigham Young University; M.A., University of Iowa; J.D., University of Iowa; LL.M., George Washington University; Ph.D. University of Nottingham, ABD) is currently assigned as the Chief of Acquisition Law at Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. He is licensed in Iowa and the District of Columbia.

 

Endnotes