Kenneth Boulding's First Law: If It Exists (or Has Been Done), It Must Be Possible
Newsletter 356 - May 27, 2025
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Memorial Day, 2025
Before getting to the main topic of this week's newsletter, it is worth noting that the United States has, once again, been lucky enough to focus its attention this past Memorial Day weekend on beginning-of-summer festivities rather than somber reflections on the true meaning of this holiday. Still, as frequent readers of this newsletter are no doubt aware, this is not a time for complacency. The peace, security, and freedom that we too often take for granted are currently being threatened by a wide range of seemingly intractable problems and dangerous conflicts. Surmounting these difficulties will require a reinvigorated civic culture — one in which we all redouble our efforts to help steer society away from the kind of abyss that will give rise to future memorials.
Note from Raphael Chayim Rosen
First, we want to share a nice and useful note from one of our readers, Raphael Chayim Rosen, about our exercise (shared in Newsletter-349) about Value-Based Conversations. Raphael wrote "I love these exercises—thanks for sharing them! One thing I’ve observed about “values” discussion and alignment is that often we get caught up on what the words mean to different people. For example. “equality” of different types gets discussed and people talk past one another. One way to cut through the misalignment is to ask people to share very brief (1 min) stories about how that value manifested itself in their life. Then you get different meanings, but they are clear meanings, and people understand why the other person cares about that value." This is a helpful addition to our exercise--thank you, Raphael!
Today's Main Topic
Today we want to follow up on our last substantive newsletter on how every problem creates an opportunity to develop something new and better. This idea was echoed by Daniel Stid in a recent Art of Association Substack post entitled: "Civil Society in the Second Trump Administration: Reckoning with the Meaning of "Nongovernmental." Here, Daniel talks about Trump's attack on NGOs, and while he finds it alarming, he also sees it as an opportunity for NGOs to become much more independent of government than some of them have become of late. It also presents an opportunity to reign in presidential power, which, he observes, has been increasing in dangerous ways for several administrations—not just the current one. We draw several quotes from Daniel's substack post, and add concurring thoughts of our own.
We then show how this relates to Boulding's First Law: "If it exists, it must be possible" and how these problems create opportunities for the people who are willing to be innovative thinkers, developing and then helping to implement new democratic structures and processes that will be more effective at solving problems and creating a democracy in which everyone, not just half of the country, wants to live.
Daniel Stid on the Meaning of "Nongovernmental"
In his essay, Daniel starts by listing a few of the many ways that Trump, seemingly single-handedly (at least without the help of Congress or the Courts), "has overturned features of the world that long seemed fundamental." Daniel listed the federal civil service, NATO, free trade, and "neighborly relations with Canada" as examples. He then examines Trump's "turn against civil society," including his effort (still being litigated) to freeze federal funding for nonprofit contractors and grantees, attacks on Columbia and Harvard, and his "evisceration of grant programs at AmeriCorps and the national endowments for the arts and humanities, etc."
Particularly interesting, Daniel goes on to note, is Trump's February 6 Memorandum to the heads of all federal departments and agencies on the subject of "Advancing United States Interests When Funding Nongovernmental Organizations" — a memorandum that Daniel expects will reverberate for years to come. The Memorandum states
“The United States Government has provided significant taxpayer dollars to Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), many of which are engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. It is the policy of my Administration to stop funding NGOs that undermine the national interest [as, of course, Trump defines it].
"I therefore direct the heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) [sic] to review all funding that agencies provide to NGOs. The heads of agencies shall align future funding decisions with the interests of the United States and with the goals and priorities of my Administration, as expressed in executive actions; as otherwise determined in the judgment of the heads of agencies; and on the basis of applicable authorizing statutes, regulations, and terms."
Daniel went on to say
When I first read the order, I was curious about President Trump’s use of “nongovernmental” in lieu of the more conventional “nonprofit” as an adjective for the organizations his Administration is targeting. Just two weeks earlier, for example, he had ordered his agency heads to identify “large non-profit corporations or associations” that warranted investigation for their support of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Why the sudden switch to “nongovernmental”?
Daniel then explained that Elon Musk provided an answer in an interview he did with Joe Rogan in which, according to Daniel, "Musk went on an extended rant about NGOs," which Daniel found to be mostly "B.S." But he went on to note:
Even an irreparably broken clock is right twice a day. So my ears perked up when I heard Musk say that,
“The whole NGO thing is a nightmare. It's a misnomer because if you have a government-funded nongovernmental organization, you're simply a government-funded organization. It’s an oxymoron.”
To this "kernel of truth," Daniel agreed: "There is an inherent tension when nongovernmental organizations residing in an ostensibly independent sector rely on funding from the federal government for their financial lifeblood." He went on,
Of course the longstanding answer has been that federal agencies or their designees have contracted with NGOs to implement countless policies approved and funded by Congress. Put differently, the federal government has outsourced and delegated the implementation of many of its laws to the NGOs that have entered into these contracts. In other cases, the government has made grants to NGOs for things that Congress has likewise approved and funded via laws setting up such grant programs.
The problem is that the Trump Administration rejects – and is running roughshod over – this longstanding answer. It wants to freeze and slash spending for policies it does not endorse. It also wants to control and punish those it perceives to be its opponents in civil society, which turns out to be a very long and growing list.
This tendency to outsource governmental functions to nongovernmental organizations in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors is part of a much larger trend that has been going on for a long time. Wars are fought not just by the regular military, but by contractors such as Academi (formerly Blackwater), and KBR (formerly part of Haliburton), both of which were key parts of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Similarly, peacebuilding NGOs have partnered both with USAID and the Department of Defense to carry out post-war "stabilization" and "nation building," again in Afghanistan and Iraq. This kicks a lot of government spending into the nonprofit and for-profit sectors and allows government activities to expand, while politicians can claim that the size of the government workforce has remained relatively stable.
The Opportunities Created by These Problems
So, how does this relate to our post about all problems creating opportunities? Well, Daniel points out two "silver linings in the thunderclouds now roiling overhead."
The first silver lining stems from the fact that the current upheaval calls us to return to first principles regarding the nature of civil society and the proper relationship between associations within it and the central government. I am not the first person to call for this return. For several decades now, across the ideological spectrum, wise observers of civil society and democratic government have warned about the growing co-dependence and excessive intermingling between these domains. The frantic noise we hear are all the chickens these critics anticipated fluttering home to roost amid the present storm. Revisiting their warnings can help us get to a viable point of departure for the work of reimagining that lies ahead.
We very much agree with this point. We have been members of the Alliance for Peacebuilding for several decades, going back long before AfP even had that name. In the early days, the organization was made up of a relatively small number (about 50) of really innovative thinkers who were pushing on the edges of the conflict and peacebuilding field, developing new theories and new practices which we shared at our small annual meetings.
Slowly, many of the ideas developed by this group (and the many others doing similar work) started to gain traction in the larger society. Especially encouraging was the willingness of both Democratic and Republican administrations to devote substantial resources to peacebuilding work. Emblematic of this trend was the emergence of the United States Institute of Peace — an agency that grew from humble beginnings in a few small offices in the restaurant industry's lobbying building to its stunning headquarters on the Mall in Washington, across from the Lincoln Memorial. This growth was accompanied by a similarly dramatic expansion of USAID funding for peacebuilding work.
Not surprisingly, this welcome influx of funding and respectability led to major changes within the peacebuilding field — changes that were reflected in the activities of organizations like AfP. The size of annual meetings increased dramatically, and the focus shifted toward the kind of topics you would expect at a trade association meeting. Sessions discussed how to land USAID grants, and how to best work with USAID, USIP, and even the Department of Defense to help them carry out their missions and pursue their goals (for instance, "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan or what DOD calls "Stabilization and Humanitarian Affairs." This collaboration did many very useful things and certainly helped a great many people around the world.
Unfortunately, like all good things, there was a downside to this financial success. Peacebuilding organizations have become increasingly dependent upon a continuing flow of government funds and, understandably, they have tended to focus more of their efforts on providing their funders with what they want. Asking hard questions about the wisdom of funder priorities or the efficacy of ongoing programs has become increasingly difficult. This, of course, is a problem that afflicts virtually all institutions — not just those in the peacebuilding field. It also explains why so many institutions have had so much trouble achieving their core objectives.
Another downside associated with this government funding stream is its susceptibility to our hyper-polarized pendulum politics and the tendency of incoming administrations to focus on undoing the policies of the prior administration. This, obviously, is what has produced the current calamity.
Another problem associated with the field's reliance on government funding is that it tends to draw energy and resources away from creative boundary-pushing thinkers. And that's what we really need right now. We need creative thinkers who can come up with new ways to structure our civil society and our government so that both really work with and for our citizens, not against them. We need ways to do peacebuilding that are not dependent on government support. We need to develop new ways to repair our deeply fragmented, angry, and fearful civil society. Pointing fingers at the other side, blaming Trump and his supporters, or blaming Biden and progressives is not a solution that is going to solve our problems. It is just going to exacerbate them.
While supporters of Western liberal democracy must fight back with all tools available against Trump's clearly illegal and unconstitutional actions, we cannot simply work to win the next election and go back to business as usual. Business as usual got us in the fix we are in now. We need new ways of engaging with one another, new ways of getting (and sharing) information that yields understanding and trust, not falsehoods, fear, and distrust. We need new governmental structures, new independent civil society, a rejuvenated independent media, and a citizenship ready to take on the responsibilities of being active democratic citizens, not just observers, rooting for one side or the other. As we have often said, "democracy is not a spectator sport," though it is often carried out that way now.
Going back to Daniel's post,
The second silver lining stems from another undeniable fact. As Jack Goldsmith has recently put it, “we have to deal with presidential power.” We noted above how the mounting dominance of the president over not only the executive branch but also the entire federal government threatens liberty and the pluralism it secures. As is his wont, President Trump has turned his amplifier up to 11, egged on and enabled by the Project 2025 coalition, an endeavor amply funded by philanthropy. But Democratic presidents have not shied away from upping the volume on this same knob. They too have been pushed and backed to the hilt in their unilateralism by philanthropists and the advocates and activists in their coalitions. All to say, many of the calls are now coming from inside the house of civil society. We can at least put a stop to those.
But doing that, too, is going to take innovative thinking within civil society. Civil society must take a hard look at both its values and its processes to determine not only which are helping the civil society organizations themselves, but which are helping society as a whole. And if organizations' goals and actions are harming society as a whole, will they have the wherewithal to change their values and redirect their activities?
Boulding's First Law
So how does this relate to Kenneth Boulding's "First Law," the title of this post? For those who don't know of him, Kenneth Boulding was one of the founders of the peace and conflict field back in the 1950s and 60s. Though he was trained and worked as an economist (serving as President of the American Economic Association), he was a true a renaissance man, cultivating expertise in many other areas, including particularly early systems theory (he was also the President of the Society for General Systems Research), and peace research. Guy had the wonderful opportunity of serving as Kenneth's graduate research assistant throughout his (Guy's) graduate career. During that time, Kenneth often spoke of his "First Law" which stated "if it exists, it must be possible." He formulated this law in the 1970s in response to the common economic assertion that it was impossible to have inflation and recession at the same time. Yet in the U.S. in the 1970s and early 1980s we had just that — leading Kenneth to assert this seemingly obvious (but apparently not obvious to 1970s economists) law.
This law and it's obvious corollary, "if it has been done, it must be possible," has far more utility than economic theory. Many people believe that — and assert that — our hyper-polarization is inevitable. The U.S. population is just so diverse, and people's situations and values are so different, that there is no way they are going to be able to come to agreement about much of anything. The only way to govern is to battle it out, and work as hard as necessary frequently bending and, too often, breaking the rules) to make sure your side wins. This is certainly what Trump is doing, and why (presumably) the Republican Congress and even some Republican judges are doing little to block him. It is also the approach many on the left are taking to "resist."
But more and more people on the left, and increasingly on the right, are realizing that Trump's authoritarian style of leadership isn't what Americans want or need. And Boulding's First Law, along with organizations we have written about before, show a different America is possible. Better ways of governing exist. Better ways of relating to people who disagree with us exist. Better ways to get news exist. So that means they are possible and hence, we think, a way out of our current tragedy is also possible. Actually, lots of ways out are possible. But it is not a question of which is best — we need to work on all of them simultaneously. That's our massively parallel peacebuilding and democracy building idea. The good news is more and more people see this, and more and more positive things are happening.
Consider the work being done by Better Together America to build collaborative civic hubs that are effectively solving local and sometimes statewide problems. Consider the National Governor's Association Disagree Better Campaign that worked at the state level to try to de-toxify politics in states across the U.S. Consider the work of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress that managed to pass over 200 bi-partisan resolutions on how to run Congress better and allow it do more effective governing — even after January 6, 2021, when several committee members were even reluctant to be in the same room with Congresspeople from the other party. Consider the ever-expanding work of the Intermovement Impact Project, which brings together leaders of the bridging movement, the structural reform movement, the social and racial justice and pluralism movements, the citizen renewal and thriving communities movements, and the climate, environmental sustainability movements (among others) to bridge divides and build healthy democratic systems, all the while blocking political violence and growing authoritarianism.
These efforts are just a few of the many that are going on and spreading every day. (We chose these because, with the exception of the Disagree Better Campaign, we have interviews with the leaders of all of these efforts in this newsletter). These efforts exist. And much more is possible. Collaborative governance can work at all societal levels IF our citizens demand it, and agree to take part in it. If we just sit back, root for our own team and against the other team and hope everything turns out okay, most likely it won't! If you care about democracy, if you care about the health of America, the time has come to get involved! We will be writing much more in future newsletters about what this means and how people can do it.
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BI sends out newsletter 2-3 times a week. Two of these are substantive articles. Once a week or so we compile a list of the most interesting reading we have found related to our topics of interest: intractable conflict, hyper-polarization, and democracy, and we share them in a "Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links” newsletter. These links include articles sent by readers, information about our colleagues’ activities, and news and opinion pieces that we have found to be of particular interest. Each Newsletter will be posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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