I have a guilty secret.  I like action novels. 

As a child I liked the Famous Five and Secret Seven books of Enid Blyton and when I was a schoolboy I enjoyed the novels of Conan Doyle (the Sherlock Holmes books) that are as much about action as they are about crime detection. I read Forester's Hornblower series and subsequently, as an adult, all of Patrick O'Brian's seafaring novels.  As a student I read Ian Fleming's James Bond books as well as a lot of Science Fiction with an action element; Asimov and so on.  There have been many others in the 'action/spy/thriller' genre; Raymond Chandler of course.

So when the Bourne movies appeared I began reading the Robert Ludlum novels, upon which they are very loosely based.

Ludlum died in 2001 in Florida in a 'mysterious fire'.  Five years after his death the The Bancroft Strategy appeared.  This is the last book credited entirely to Ludlum before several other writers were openly contracted to write under his name.  I have now read a number of these too.

So why single out The Bancroft Strategy? 

This is more than a simple action novel in which typically our hero and his faithful companion struggle against hidden or powerful forces intent on domination and/or a cover-up of some sort. At least one companion or character will be female and there will be at least one sexually charged situation.

Ludlum's books often involve a lone, misunderstood or 'framed' agent acting against a government entrenched conspiracy, usually with one or more companions recruited along the way; or longtime friends.   These elements are certainly present in the The Bancroft Strategy but in this case the evil force is unique. It is extreme utilitarianism, intended to maximise human happiness and reduce suffering. 

Utilitarianism is one of the driving philosophies behind modern democracy and capitalism. 

Utilitarianism proposes that the proper course of action in any situation is the one that maximises happiness and reduces suffering: otherwise known as utility.  In a democracy utility applies to all citizens equally.  The happiness and well-being of a ditch-digger counts equally with that of a president. 

The United States Declaration of Independence states 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness'.  This is a line drafted by Thomas Jefferson after the English philosopher John Locke.  While Jefferson and Locke intended this to denote the right to freedom and self-sufficiency, others have interpreted it to mean that the role of government is to maximise the sum of happiness of all citizens; specifically by empowering them to vote for leaders who they believe will act in this interest.

Hedonism, the idea that the central goal of a society should be maximising the happiness of its members, dates back to the Ancient Greeks. But it was a radical idea when revived during the Enlightenment; displacing the idea that social utility is layered, with the greatest utility the top (a king's rights to happiness, or anything, being worth more than a serf's) and/or that mankind exists primarily to praise God. 

As a modern philosophy Utilitarianism is generally attributed to Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who was attempting to enunciate an ethical principle for social governance; as opposed to the faith based ideas: 'natural law' and 'natural rights'; calling them 'nonsense upon stilts'.

Utilitarianism became the basis of the democratic reforms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but remained anathema to the Catholic Church until very recently; if indeed that position has ever changed (something to ask Ratzi on his next visit).  Karl Marx also saw a problem in imposing on the State an obligation to maximise the happiness (or freedoms) of the bourgeoisie or others who might understand 'happiness' in an inappropriate way; specifically the happiness of English shopkeepers, whom he despised more than the capitalists. One person's idea of happiness is another's idea of hell.

But in addition to these religious objections or objections relating to personal preferences, moral standards based on rational choices can lead to some apparent 'paradoxes' or dilemma. 

The one that creates the background to The Bancroft Strategy, and is enunciated in the book, is the well known dilemma of the run-away trolley-car. This is a 'thought experiment' in ethics (first attributed to Philippa Foot in 1967 and modified many times since).

Suppose that an out-of-control trolley (tram) is careering down hill towards a bunch of five people on the tracks who will certainly be killed.  But you can switch the points to make it go down a different track where there is only one person in its path; who will then be killed instead.  Do you throw the switch or stand back and do nothing?  If you throw the switch you have murdered one person. If you do nothing you haven't murdered anyone but could have saved four lives in total.  A true utilitarian would have no hesitation; they would throw the switch.

Sydney's Trams - renowned for running down the hill in Mosman into the Harbour

The Bancroft Foundation is a well-meaning charity that is frustrated by its good works being subverted by corrupt persons syphoning off their resources or blocking their programs for reasons of personal power or aggrandisement.  Good works benefiting thousands like: schools and hospitals; and the eradication of malaria; are being subverted by one or two corrupt individuals. 

Thus the sum of human well-being can be substantially enhanced by the elimination of these few.

They have moved, over time,  from applying political pressure against such 'enemies'; or from giving support to those who oppose them; to direct sanctions:  killing them.   To do this they have set up a secret division employing pragmatic assassins who are philosophically committed to 'throwing the switch' on the few to save the many.   But they have found difficulties in assassinating high profile generals, dictators and politicians and need to make these interventions before these bad men and women become too well known. 

Here they employ 'Games Theory'; that amongst other things makes recommendations as to the best strategy given complex relationships; also known as  interactive decision theory.   Games theory is also an important idea in modern society.  It forms one of the philosophical pillars of, and intellectual justifications for: democracy, open markets and free trade.

It can be highly complex and to aid in the analysis the Foundation has a supercomputer that predicts possible futures, like a chess game, and identifies key pieces to be 'taken out' early; before they are evident to the world.  It even suggests some key individuals who are personally innocent; like deciding to kill Hitler's nursemaid. 

Despite these philosophical credentials the Foundation is depicted as having gone several steps too far.  The protagonists are reduced to unwitting pawns; as would we all be if such a Foundation; or indeed such a God existed; or exists.  I'm reminded of Asimov's Foundation novels; is this what Ludlum intends?

Our hero has exceptional skills as a 'finder', he is known as the 'Hound' and teams up with a woman with exceptional skills as an investigative auditor. They are manipulated by the Foundation to go on the trail of the Foundation's mortal enemy 'Genesis' and in doing so finally restore the Foundation to a benign charitable organisation - or do they? 

While the book suffers the usual thriller shortcomings around character development and its use of language, like the best, it is full of environmental detail, down to street names, with visits to both familiar and exotic locations.  An interesting, and not obviously inaccurate, travelogue is usually as important as the development of character in these books.  But what sets The Bancroft Strategy aside is the philosophical and ethical dilemma. 

At one level the Foundation is indeed maximising human well-being. But it is also robbing the protagonists of their freedom; reducing them to its pawns or in some cases robbing them of their lives.

These are complex ethical questions.

Suppose there is a gunman in a tower killing students in a square and you are a crack marksman with him in your sights, do you pull the trigger?  Of course you do!  But suppose you see him preparing before he starts shooting.  Do you wait 'til he kills someone before you shoot?

In the trolley dilemma, a later variation is that you are on a bridge over the tracks with a fat man and you know that if you push him off the bridge he is big enough to stop the vehicle from killing the five people; but he will die. It's really the same problem as the earlier trolley one but pushing a man off a bridge feels morally different to throwing a switch; shouldn't you jump instead?  But how would you feel if you knew that it was he who planned to have the trolley run down the hill and kill innocent people?

Do we really believe the happiness or well-being of all is equal?  Don't we value some people, like our children, over others?

Suppose in the first trolley scenario, that the five on the track are obviously hooligans and the one is a young woman, a talented musician and a friend. But this time if you do nothing she will die; if you throw the switch it will kill the hooligans.

And do children count more or less than adults?

Suppose we can stop the trolley only by throwing ourselves; an adult or a child in front of it? 

Now, having made our decision, we discover that one person we saved is a Typhoid Mary and will innocently go on to kill thousands; or later become the parent of an evil demagogue like Hitler, responsible for the deaths of millions. 

Does this mean that we should never act; or never fail to act; or just do what seems right at the time?

In the The Bancroft Strategy some of the scenarios are deliberately dubious like a proposal to murder an entire soccer team, and the claimed murder of Martin Luther King Jnr, for the greater good. The Foundation's plan to monopolise the world arms trade, for the hypothetical good of the greatest number, on the other hand, encompasses the death of numerous bad men; like the bad fat man on the bridge; these are strewn across the pages.

On a less fictional level  it can be argued that some real, well meaning, charities have inadvertently done more harm than good.  The 'good works' of Mother Teresa may fall into this category; as discussed in the article on our recent trip to India on this website.

International travel does make these dilemma more immediate.  For example, it is estimated that around fifteen people, mostly children, die from starvation every minute of every day.  And some international charities and missionaries have been inadvertently and sometimes stubbornly complicit in this death rate.  Others, often working with enlightened governments, are achieving dramatic improvements through universal secular education and appropriate laws (particularly around women's rights).  We have seen this improvement in action in some states and territories in India (like Kerala; Goa and Pondicherry), Asia and in South America.

Perhaps, as spy novels often suggest, there are indeed some Government agencies that take the law into their hands in the interests of what they conceive to be their 'national good'.  We have seen examples of some murdering nuclear scientists; or 'wanted persons' in other countries.  It raises the possibility that some may indeed benignly remove barriers to future prosperity in other countries.  But unfortunately the opposite is more likely to be the case.  I'm reminded of Graham Green's The Quiet American.

Seldom does an otherwise average spy novel provide such food for thought.