The "Common Good?" Great!
In the new issue of the American Prospect, editor Michael Tomasky has written a tour de force that tpmcafaholics will enjoy drinking up and discussing. In a nutshell, Michael argues that liberals and Democrats need to return to the idea of “the common good” as our central animating principle.
As he writes, “For many years – during their years of dominance and success, the period of the New Deal up through the first part of the Great Society – the Democrats practiced a brand of liberalism quite different from today’s. Yes, it certainly sought to expand both rights and prosperity. But it did something more: That liberalism was built around the idea -- the philosophical principle -- that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest. This, historically, is the moral basis of liberal governance -- not justice, not equality, not rights, not diversity, not government, and not even prosperity or opportunity. Liberal governance is about demanding of citizens that they balance self-interest with common interest. Any rank-and-file liberal is a liberal because she or he somehow or another, through reading or experience or both, came to believe in this principle. And every leading Democrat became a Democrat because on some level, she or he believes this, too.”
Michael is exactly right, and if elected officials and candidates latch onto his prescription, liberal politics can become genuinely inspiring and exciting again -– and probably far more successful. The beauty of the “common good” framework is manifold, and Michael’s piece makes the case well. But here are just a few reasons why I particularly like it:
- It gets to the heart of what distinguishes liberals from conservatives. The Right’s economic belief system is oriented around the virtues of markets, which are tethered to the idea that individuals should do nothing more than act in their own self interest. Their social belief system is one that consciously divides people and inflames passions by attacking one group after another. (I clicked the link on the Corner to find out about Ramesh Ponnuru’s book, only to discover that it is titled “The Party of Death.” The same Amazon page shows that Jonah Goldberg’s forthcoming book is to be called “Liberal Fascism” and Kate O’Beirne’s is “Women Who Make the World Worse.”) We, and the country, believe that all of us will be better off economically and socially when we strive to actually unite rather than divide and build on past steps that lifted all boats.
- It ties together policy ideas that we believe in but which lose force and support because they are debated discretely without an overarching framework explaining why we are committed to them. What do these have in common: Social Security, universal health care, environmental protection, worker protections (nationally and internationally), a professionally managed FEMA, and strengthened relationships with other countries to more effectively address national security challenges? They all genuinely promote the common good.
- It’s also a results-oriented belief system where policies are a means to the end of making our collective lives better. Conservative policies – tax cuts, willy-nilly regulatory rollbacks, gutting Social Security, etc. – are an end in their own right in that they directly accomplish the task of weakening government. The Right pays lip service to the purported good that will arise from their ideas. But when the promised benefits don’t come about, they continue to push for the same government-weakening policies – that’s all that matters. A commitment to the common good is one in which the goals we hold ourselves accountable for can be measured – that’s how progressives have led the country to make progress in the past. And it’s the way we can successfully lead in the future.
I heartily endorse the "common good" as the basis of what makes liberalism tick. It is the moral underpinning of the progressive movement, but dishearteningly, it doesn't seem to animate the masses. Just the opposite, in fact. It seems sadly naive in the face of the greedy self-interest of the right. Michael Douglas' portrayal of a Wall Street baron declaring "greed is good" seems so much more appealing than prattling about the "common good".
Appealing to everyone's better nature isn't going to work unless combined with spiritual values (i.e., Jesus would have wanted it). Unfortunately, the right seems to have stolen that, too, but it's not too late to take it back.
April 20, 2006 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen "JmacSF"
San Francisco. CA
It is our great good fortune to have one of America's foremost communatarians, Amitai Etzioni, here with us now!
I've been preaching this for a long time.
April 20, 2006 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tomasky has a great essay there, but it suffers greatly from the belief that very long winded arguments are better than shorter, more focused arguments. A good editor would have cut it by half.
I have been fretting for some time about how we are ever going to persuade the public that taxation and big government are not bad. This essay gives me the answer. All that remains is for us to find a charismatic candidate who can articulate the principles of common good well enough to persuade people to buy into it. That puts a premium on speaking ability for our presidential candidate, and eliminates many of those now seen as leading candidates.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 20, 2006 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's important also to look at how framework of common good broke down (either in word, or in dee) in say the late 60s or 70s to allow Republicans to take over, and Regan to coopt the idea of the common good and cast it as self-interest in 1980.
I think it's difficult to articulate common good because I agree with the conservatives here... I think people are at heart, selfish creatures and so of course an ideology that says that selfishness is good requires less traction to maintain than one that causes people to go against their base desires.
Of course, you can cast the common good in selfishness affirming terms as well "look at how awesome we all are for working for the common good! look how strong we've become!" but its hard to strike the right balance.
April 20, 2006 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The conservative movement has flourished by appealing to economic interests. By arguing that "pure" market forces are more efficient, more productive and even fairer than government intervention, interference and incompetence, they have taken the intellectual initiative in politics. Those arguments, however, also serve to cloak an ideology in scientific terms.
The conservative movement assumes that the market is a law of nature (or the hand of God). The conservative model of society only holds under unrealistic assumptions about information, power, and transaction costs. The conclusions based on those models have mathematical elegance but are are irrelevant in the real world. The result is more theology than science which may help explain the otherwise curious political alignment of the Republican party.
A liberal economic outlook, on the other hand, realizes that markets are social constructs. The liberal model of economics, based on common action for the common good, is robust even in the real world: power matters, laws matter, enforcement matters. Markets fail whenever the common good is involved and it is possible for individuals to free ride, profit from noncooperation, exercise power to circumvent the rules or when the rules are not enforced.
It should not be a contest between those world views. But the conservative view dominates in nearly all public discussions of economics today. The liberals of the 30s and 40s were able to lead the dialogue in part by using the language of a liberal economics that served the public good. To gain power again, the progressive need to seize the initiative in structuring the economic dialogue as well as the political.
April 20, 2006 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the areas where I think the left has made a mistake is latching on the rich-vs-poor disparity. The problem is not that the rich are too rich, it's that the poor are too poor. Unfortunately, in its more strident forms, this disparity rhetoric is in fact the class warfare the right bloviates about (their form of class warfare is to pretend class doesn't exist or matter). As John Aravosis of Americablog consistently points out, much of the left seems to think that being rich is bad. Before we can talk about the need for taxes and government, we need to disabuse ourselves and the country of that notion.
My version goes something like this:
It's perfectly honorable to be rich and to want to be rich. But running a just society where all people have basic protection and good opportunity requires that people pay their share, and those who enjoy the best of society's benefits are required by circumstances to pay a higher tax rate. Progressive taxation should not fundamentally be about punishing the rich or making the rich less rich; it should be about raising the money necessary to make the poor less poor, giving everyone fair shot at the good life, and to support the common infrastructures of society we all need and use.
The Republicans have succeeded in conflating and inverting those separate ideas - the rich are bad to be so rich vs. the poor shouldn't be so poor - it's up to us to set them aright and separate them. Whenever we tell the middle class it should not want to be rich, we will lose. If we tell the middle class they should go ahead and get rich, but don't forget to pay their share, they are much more likely to support us.
April 20, 2006 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Tomasky's article and thoroughly believe in a party that supports the common good. But, I worry that without a commitment by the Democratic Party to develop this message and idea -- it will be scooped by a McCain presidential campaign.
McCain has been pushing for some sort of required public service - either military or otherwise for a long time now.
A policy proposal such as requiring a year of public service post high school would take this idea of the common good and solidify it in the minds of the public as a democratic ideal.
But, if Dems don't act fast - the alleged straight talker will claim this mantle for himself.
April 20, 2006 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
New Deal era "common good" politics broke down admist the culture war of the late 60s and the Democratic Party's capitulation to interest group politics. The GOP has capitalized on this by reframing the "common good" through the lens of cultural issues. They argued to "silent majority" that liberals cared more about criminals, welfare cheats and pornographers than they did about hard-working, law-abiding families.
Clinton changed the dynamic - by moving to the right on crime, embracing welfare reform and backing symbolic (V-chip) and susbtantive (AmeriCorp) programs that addressed the culutral anxiety of average Americans. But he sabotaged his own efforts by undermining his communitarian policies with radically selfish personal behavior.
Bush's 2000 campaign explicity acknowledged the power of Clinton's ideas by placing education and faith-based social service at the center of his campaign. Dick Cheney is aware that his efforts at sabotaging environmental policy have to be hidden from the American public.
If the Dems want to win, they need to tap into the deep well of support for communitarian policies that conservative spin doctors have successfully obfuscated over the past 30 years. Dems should start by hitting at the GOP's weaknessed on education and and the environment. But for a centerpiece which would clearly articulate the differences between a community-centered agenda and a selfish privatist agenda Dems should embrace national service. Clinton had it right in 1992 - college loan forgiveness for national service - opportunity with responsibility. Its a path that America wants to follow - and only the Democrats can lead them there.
April 20, 2006 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great, you all have wonderful ideas that you can sell to the American public. Now explain how you're going to throw the Republicans out of office when they control the voting machines?
The Republicans are not into fair and honest elections, in case you haven't noticed.
April 20, 2006 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greg thank you for bring this point up. One of the worst aspects of American politics, and a loser for Democrats is an "us versus them" constant theme.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 20, 2006 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe that Democrats have been demonizing the wealthy. Just because the Republicans say we have, doesn't mean it is true. I personally have no problem with people becoming wealthy or gaining more wealth. But, any discussion about acting in the interest of the common good has to include the fact that we are not all equal in our ability to act. I, for example, cannot possibly be of use to the military or to any other agency that relies upon the robust physical abilities of its members. Nor, can I help by contributing vast sums of money to aid the common good.
We see nothing wrong with the inequality that is involved when we limit military activity to the young and physically able. We don't insist that those who support that division of responsibility are anti-youth or anti-physically robust. So, too, we should see nothing wrong with the inequality that is involved when those with an abundance of wealth have the responsibility to contribute a larger percentage of that wealth than others do. And, that does not make those of us who support that particular division of responsibility anti-wealthy.
If we can sell the public on the desirability of all of us working to further the common good, we will be selling the wealthy and the young on that as well as the non-wealthy and the aged. But, to do that selling job requires a charismatic salesman, which requires great speaking ability, an excellent public personality, and the ability to be seen as an honest, friendly person by virtually everyone.
I do have one person in mind who could develop into such a leader - Barrack Obama. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in time for the 2008 election. There is another Democrat who fits that mold too, but unfortunately he arouses negative vibes in too many people at this time. Virtually all of the "leading candidates" for the Democratic nomination for president do not fit that mold.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 20, 2006 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tomasky confuses some aspects of the liberalism of Rawls, Dworkin and others when he calls for Democrats to foster a society in which individuals make sacrifices for the common good.
Liberalism, at least its Kantian, non-utilitarian strains, never calls for individual sacrifice. Each individual has equal moral worth and the same rights to pursue a good life as any other individual. (Rawls first principle of justice).
Liberalism, however, also asks what does substantive equality of all persons actually mean? Well in a fair and just society it seems reasonable to say that any gain by some may not come at the expense of the least well off. (Rawls' second principle of justice).
These two principles are lexicographical. Liberalism does not permit the enslavement of persons capable of producing a great many resources just so the least well off can be made more well off. But the most well off also are expected to have reasonable expectations about their own lives and to take into account other persons' lives.
Where Tomasky gets it right is when he argues that the Democrats, ought to work to foster a society in which everyone embraces and shares a common vision for America that entails a consideration of all persons' legitimate claims. Such a society would embrace a considerable amount of redistribution of resources but reasonable redistribution is not sacrifice!
April 20, 2006 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's the biggest load of crap i've heard in a long time. hey the lines been drawn and they are the one's that drew it. now it's payday for me and mine.
April 20, 2006 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but let's keep in mind what caused that culture war--Vietnam. Democrats disregarded the Common Good because in the 60s it was a sadistic joke. People were asked to die for essentially no reason. The lesson is that any liberal asking Americans to sacrifice for the Common Good had better be damn sure they take that sacrifice seriously.
I like the Tomasky article, but there are some things I wish it had been more careful about. There are some Democrats who support the common good because it is the best way of supporting indivudal rights and prosperity, and there are some Democrats who support individual rights and prosperity because that is the best way of supporting the common good. Each considers one an intrinsic value and the other an instrumental value.
If at any time the common good and respect for individuals are considered opposing values, you can expect Democrats to be divided and Republicans to win--unless we're in a situation like the 1930s where people were absolutely desperate for the common good.
I think what there is a failure that the New Deal, the Great Society, and the narrow interest groups have had in common though--they didn't respect the potential and importance of the ordinary person.
It isn't enough to just ask people to sacrifice for the common good or to vote for the candidates who give the most benefits and protections. You have to ask them to participate in the common good--whether in the market place or the voting booth or the town hall meeting or even just on the internet like this--the ordinary person's decisions and actions have to be significant.
In the terms of economist Amartya Sen, we should be focused on the capabilities of our citizens--providing the education, health care, and economic security they need in order to both better their own lives in any way they desire AND to better participate in their communities.
It can't be common good OR the individual--it's gotta be both or neither.
April 20, 2006 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who's the other person? Gore? Kerry??
I think Mark Warner is a good candidate.
Check out www.forwardtogether.com
April 20, 2006 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are some Democrats who support the common good because it is the best way of supporting indivudal rights and prosperity, and there are some Democrats who support individual rights and prosperity because that is the best way of supporting the common good. Each considers one an intrinsic value and the other an instrumental value.
It isn't enough to just ask people to sacrifice for the common good or to vote for the candidates who give the most benefits and protections. You have to ask them to participate in the common good--whether in the market place or the voting booth or the town hall meeting or even just on the internet like this--the ordinary person's decisions and actions have to be significant.
This is an excellent point. I am a liberal (and by extension a Dem) because I believe 100% in the Manifest Destiny of Humanity. I believe that we have it within us to conquer the universe, literally, as in a mutli-galaxy pax humanica for the purposes ofsurvival so we can discover how to live past the heat-death of the universe.
Though of course, I think that supporting things like accountable government, universal health care, and rights to privacy and opportunity is the best way to get there. But as I've become more invovled in politics the last few years I realized that what you said about empowering individuals as SIGNIFICANT ACTORS must be an intrinsic, fundamental part of anything we do.
April 20, 2006 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you say that? It seems the GOP constantly does this and is successful with it.
April 20, 2006 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Digby has a good discussion of Tomasky's essay. It's worth a read.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 20, 2006 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Common Good theme is fine and all, but it's not much different from what Democrats have said all along, throughout these years of Republican ascendency. It's not that we didn't repeat the theme often enough; it's that we didn't have compelling answers to offer when the Republicans appealed to the self-interest of particular groups of voters.
Instead of proposing that "we" need to make a sacrifice in order to help the poor ('we' meaning the rich) because it serves the common good, we need to tell the American people how the government can be used to make all Americans wealthier than they are today. Certain groups of Americans simply do not respond well to calls for sacrifice, but they do respond to proposals that seem to offer them a much wealthier future. That's something that the Democrats can do if they'd just take the time to educate themselves on the topic.
April 20, 2006 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I strongly agree with the need for a communitarian message, it has to be framed in a way that does not confuse it with "socialism" or worse fascism which seems to lurk beneath the covers of neocon/theocon-ism and other forms of extreme nationalism.
I strongly disagree with mandatory national service. We want people to embrace a communitarian philosophy by choice, not by coercion. We are not opposed to individual freedom and individual choices. We are for community spirit and community efforts to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. We should also reject "trickle down" and return to the self-evident truth that we are all created equal.
April 20, 2006 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conceptually, the "Common Good" argument is a good one.
Unfortunately, times have changed. We're not contending with individuals who play fair or who are even playing. The contest is deadly serious and it consumes anyone and anything that is naive enough to get in its way.
We are living in a post-Constitutional state, restoration of the Constitution is the first order of business. That means enforcing the law now. Bush needs to be investigated and tried. Chaney needs to be investigated and tried. The rest of the Bush henchmen and women need to be brought to justice.
Call it, "For the Common Good".
April 20, 2006 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's Warner position on choice and ditto on gun control?
Tom
April 20, 2006 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not satisfied with either the left or the right on this one. I think there is a "third way" that our society is completely ignorant of, and a mechanism which functions to enrich a certain subset of us at the expense of all the rest. Seven or so generations ago, our ancestors came to see that chattel slavery was not just wrong, but so wrong that it could not be permitted to continue, even if ending it totally upset the economic and social order of an entire region of the country, whose large properties were based on some people owning other human beings and the labor they provided.
I think that today we have a system which is just as wrong -- and actually directionally similar to chattel slavery, though most of us can't quite see it (and may even perceive ourselves as net beneficiaries or think we have reason to believe that at some point in our lives we will magically convert to net beneficiaries.
This system contributes mightily to our horrendous distribution of wealth, and to the poverty we know surrounds us, a far higher level of need than our official poverty measure acknowledges, as well as a very different pattern.
(If we acknowledged how many are impoverished, and the depth of that impoverishment, we might, as moral people, feel we had to do something about it. Easier to pretend that "only" 13% of us lack sufficient income to meet our most simply defined needs, and say that it is just too bad, and maybe ask people to provide charitably for some of the poor.)
ElectronicEric2 says
What does it mean to be rich? Does it mean having enough to meet one's family's needs and most of its wants? Does it mean having enough to retire on, with confidence that one's assets will not be gone before one's lifespan is? Or does it mean having enough under conditions where others don't have enough?
Eric says, "those who enjoy the best of society's benefits are required by circumstances to pay a higher tax rate." You're in a tax box -- an income tax box. Before we talk about collecting taxes based on income (and I'm not completely opposed to that, but it shouldn't be our first tax base, rather a last resort, and then imposed selectively on the highest earners -- keep reading), we should be looking more carefully at what it is right to tax, what it is desirable to tax, and at what taxes produce neutral to positive results for society as a whole.
I've spent a lot of time on this -- more than I could ever have imagined, since I thought public finance and taxes among the most dreary and dull and irrelevant of topics in my younger years -- and have come to the point of view that we need to think more precisely about what we should and shouldn't tax. Some taxation is theft, and we shouldn't practice theft if we don't have to, and we certainly shouldn't practice theft before we've totally exhausted the tax bases that do not represent theft. If we've totally used the tax bases that don't represent theft, and we still need more revenue, then, yes, I think it is right to turn to some of the more dubious tax bases. But only in that order!
We're doing it backwards right now, and the effects of both kinds of errors -- taxing what we shouldn't tax and not taxing what we should tax -- are serious.
I've hinted at what we shouldn't tax: income and sales. Most of us would agree that when we tax income, we reduce the incentives to work and produce, and when we tax sales, we dampen the demand for goods and make them more expensive, which particularly harms the poor, both as consumers and as jobseekers.
So what should we tax? We should tax things whose supply would not be affected by a tax on their value. The classical economists had a name for this category of things: LAND. Land includes a lot more than the earth under our feet. It includes many things that we simply can't create: ecosystem services, electromagnetic spectrum, water rights, air, fisheries.
We're land creatures. None of us was born with a helium balloon backpack. We need land to live on, whether it be a tiny vertical sliver of a downtown highrise, or a single-family home in the suburbs. For much of our adult lives, we need land to work on, whether it be a farm (at fairly low wages) or a tiny sliver of land in the Silicon Valley or midtown Manhattan (where very high wages may be available for specialized work). But first we, or our employer, have to pay the current landholder for the use of a bit of his earth. Rents are high in Manhattan not because the buildings are fancier but because the site is valuable. The landlord didn't create that value, but our current tradition lets him keep it as if he did. (Does this sound a little bit like chattel slavery? The slaveholder got to keep the value of all the work his property -- human property -- provided him, just as if he had done it all himself.) After the landholder gets paid, then the capitalist and the laborer get to divide what's left -- and neither gets his due, his full return on his contribution to production, because the landlord has claimed something he didn't create. Perfectly legal, but it is our laws, our system, that needs to be corrected.
So what happens when we tax land value? The underused land in the city -- the land with low-rise buildings in high-rise neighborhoods -- gets redeveloped, instead of continuing as low-rise, because (a) the landlord sees his taxes rising to a point where he needs more income from his building; and (b) he isn't penalized for building a good building, because the building itself isn't subject to taxation (as it is under our current property tax). And while the VALUE of that prime site doesn't go down when it is taxed (it is still just as appealing to the entrepreneur who needs to be in the center of activity), its PRICE goes down (just as housing prices fall when interest rates rise), so it becomes more affordable to someone who would like to buy it and put it to good use. The other thing that happens is that landlording becomes not a free lunch but real work, better described as buildinglording! Fewer landlords could afford to live in Palm Beach on the land rent, because the land rent would be passed back to the local and even the national commons, as our common treasure instead of their private windfall.
Allign the incentives with the kind of society we'd like to have -- a society where opportunities are open to all, not just the wealthy and their kids, not just those who own a disproportionate share of our natural resources, including but not limited to the land under our feet -- and we'll move closer to that kind of society.
To return to Eric's comment,
I'd amend the last line of that to say that those who, because of the excellent land they occupy, enjoy the best of society's benefits, in the form of proximity to high-paying jobs, magnificent views, cultural amenities, the ability to charge others high rent for the same building that would rent for a tiny fraction of that value were it located somewhere else, should pay the rest of us rent on the bit of land they occupy. Once they've paid that (and it is no small sum!) they should be entitled to keep what they actually do earn from their labor (with the proviso that they not steal from others in the process, through monopoly, corruption, special privileges, etc.) and from their capital [buildings and equipment]
Pay for what you take, not for what you make. Pay society for the choice bit of land you occupy, and if you occupy more than your per-capita share of the land value, you will owe a lot, because your occupation of it deprives others of their birthright.
Some of us will choose to occupy the very choice places, and pay for the privilege. Others will choose to live in much less popular places, at a much lower price.
For more about these ideas, check out these web pages:
wealth concentration http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Wealth_Concentration.html
job creation http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Job_Creation.html
wages http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Wages.html
pay for what you take http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Pay_for_What_You_Take.html
land includes http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Land_includes.htm
rent http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Rent.html
monopoly http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Monopoly_Oligopoly.html
privilege http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Privileges.html
perverse incentives http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Perverse_incentives.html
incentive taxation http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Incentive_Taxation.html
created equal http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Created_Equal.html
natural opportunities http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Natural_Opportunities.html
equal opportunity http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Equal_Opportunity.html
lvtfan
http://www.wealthandwant.com ... if you'd like to see an end to poverty
April 20, 2006 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely! Have you ever heard "Reverand Bob on TV telling people that if they call and donate $2 or $3 thousand dollars to HIM he will tell GOD to make them prosper?
This is the mentality we are dealing with. Pay the fake preacher to get $$$$$ and that is what a true believer will do.
On a larger scale, that is the Bush administraion in a teacup. You give $$ to Abromov, or Delay, or ________, and you will be blessed, and you get to call it family values and christian to boot!
What a mess we are in!
Jan Knaus
April 20, 2006 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I have been fretting for some time about how we are ever going to persuade the public that taxation and big government are not bad."
Indeed, how did the republicans manage to convince people that borrowing to increase the debt is good, but paying as you go is bad?
Any rational argument is met with simplistic phrases like "Tax and spend democrats" "Welfare queens," etc. I hate to say it, but we have to come up with short, pithy statements that get out the message that billions of dollars spent "there rather than here" are the republican's idea of security.
If you don't have a job it's kinda hard to sacrifice so that someone can have a $2000 shower curtain, or so the Exxon ex-CEO can get his $400,000,000 just for retirement --> on top of what he was pulling in before.
We need to ignite that same sense of outrage that the republicans have (miraculously) ignited in the very people that they screw on a daily basis: the ordinary person and his/her family.
One thing we really need to do is put everything in true numbers; no 2 billions; only 2,000,000,000. Who can possibly fathom what we are wasting in Iraq? At least if we leave out the euphamisms we can make an effort.
Jan Knaus
April 20, 2006 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the 2005 Social Security Report Shows about Social Security (because it is no longer 'new' the bastards are hiding the 2006 Report)
Well one reason why Democrats lost the "common good" message is that starting in the eighties the Republican Right successfully sold the idea that its central core, the joint committment made in 1936 that being old should not mean being poor, that anyone who put in a lifetime of work had earned a minimum of dignity in the form of retirement security, was destined to be a miserable failure. I speak of course of Social Security. The "imminent failure" of Social Security has been the poster child of those who insist that only the market can provide solutions. An astonishing amount of free market ideology has been constructed around that central assertion, that social solutions to social problems, particularly social solutions that have an element of progressivity built in, are simply proven failures.
The very worst fear of the Economic Right is that Social Security will be proven solvent. That this particular Common Good program turns out to be a fully funded success story. Much of their narrative falls apart, a whole bunch of their smug assertion of superiority to us poor chumps that still believe in the powers of the Common Good goes up in smoke.
Well those worst fears are about to become true. Bush today reappointed the Public Trustees to Social Security in a recess appointmen. The last barrier to release of the 2006 Report has been removed, and with it the last barrier to exposing the number manipulation that has allowed the Economic Right to trash Social Security for a generation now will soon be gone.
The quintessential Common Good program is not broke and that can serve as a powerful weapon in a retooled Democratic message arsenal. We can go to the country with the message "The Republicans are lying to you on Social Security. Again. Just like on Iraq."
There is a very interesting discussion of a recent Pew Study on MyDD.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/4/20/153421/147
When asked to give a one word response to Republicans or Democrats the overtly negative responses broke down like this (these are not percentages, they are responses):
Republicans
Greedy: 17
Crooks: 10
Corrupt: 9
Dishonest: 6
Liars: 6
Suck: 6
Poor: 5
Disappointed: 5 (this is a little ambiguous)
Lousy: 5
Out of touch: 5
Okay how do Democrats measure up in negative responses?
Weak: 18
Too liberal: 13
Dis/unorganized: 11
Confused: 7
Crooks: 6
Poor: 6 (again a little ambiguous)
Socialist: 5
Stupid: 5
Democrats are weak, unorganized, confused and stupid.
Republicans are greedy, corrupt, dishonest, liars, suck, and out of touch.
With the partial exception of 'stupid' is there even much we disgree with here? And their crooks outweigh ours 10 to 6.
The solution to being unorganized, confused, weak and stupid Democrats is to run a smart, strong, disciplined organized national campaign, which might mean sidelining much of your current leadership. The solution to being a bunch of out of touch, sucky, greedy, corrupt and dishonest Republican liars is to put your leadership in jail.
I kind of like the message the public is delivering here.
April 20, 2006 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an excellent example, one of many, of why it is so difficult for our party to find a unifying issue. You have your own pet cause, a cause that appeals to a small minority of us, but you see everything in terms of that cause.
Others have as a cause gay marriage, abortion rights, proportional voting schemes, environmental protection, animal rights, etc. And, they too see any issue that comes up only in terms of their particular cause. Until that changes we are not going to regain control of our government.
My own pet cause is gun control, but I have never cast a vote based on that issue. I recognize that it will take many years, possibly generations, for true gun control to have any chance of coming about. That is acceptable to me, even though I don't really like it. Meanwhile there are many other liberal causes I also favor, and those are best served by having a Democratic administration.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 20, 2006 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nope, I'm sorry to be so cynical. But this concept of the "common good" will never work in America.
First, how do you define what the "common good" actually is? This issue is problematic because different people have different ideas of what the "common good" actually is? And many people probably have views of "the common good" that are the exact opposite of what we (assuming "we" are progressive politically) see as the common good. For some, like my Aunt (whom I love dearly, even if she is a conservative Republican), would think that the "common good" is for prayer to be in schools and for our country to be a "Christian Nation." Others, like my Uncle, firmly believe the "common good" would be "less government intrusion and less taxes" which promote "equal opportunity for everyone." And these are views of the "common good" that differ sharply from mine.
And what about differences in the "common good" among progressives. Take pornography for example. Many feminists believe that pornography is an absolute evil. But (probably) many of us like to read/watch porn every now and again. I mean, where do we draw the line?
2. This leads me to my second problem. Because "the common good" is such a vague and nebulous concept, Democrats will have to explain what they mean by "the common good." And probably, the Democrat version of the "common good" will probably sound like (especially to Republican ears) the same thing that we've been saying for the past few decades. I mean, it's a nice rhetorical devise, but I don't think that it will make any difference.
3. This concept of the "common good" does not address the fact that many Republicans just think differently that we do. And they have a completely different worldview. And I am not talking about wealthy Republicans, many of them are in the middle classes and working classes. If the Democrats say, "We're for the common good: we want Social Security, universal health care, environmental protection, worker protections (nationally and internationally), a professionally managed FEMA, and strengthened relationships with other countries to more effectively address national security challenges." My Republican relatives hear, "the Democrats are going to take OUR "hard earned" money in taxes and give OUR "hard earned" tax money to 'lazy welfare queens who don't want to work and live off government subsidies and buy Cadillacs'; the Democrats want to support the UN, a useless international organization that does nothing but 'bash America'; the Democrats care more about spotted owls (they live in Oregon) and trees than people; the Democrats want to suppress Christianity, etc." Even though none of this is true, that is what my relatives, and SEVERAL other Republicans, think about us.
I mean, the notion of the "common good" is a nice rhetorical device, but I doubt that it would do any good. It will just end up being the same message. A more productive idea is to show people that: 1. many WORKING people work very hard, but still remain poor because they really don't have the equal opportunities that a lot of us have, and sometimes just simple things like raising the minimum wage can have a big impact in their lives; 2. Poor people are not lazy or stupid and many work very hard at their jobs; 3. programs like social security and health care actually SAVE money; 4. Environmental issues are serious; and 5. Using international organizations does not mean that we are weak on terror.
April 20, 2006 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tend to believe that most voters believe that their views (whatever they are) support the common good. But if the common good concept can gain traction and elects Democrats obviously I'm supportive.
I think short messages are the ticket
Emphasize key concepts or keycepts
Some possibilities could be:
Economy Keycepts
" Let's Put America back to work"
_Showcase companies succeeding at being profitable by employing Americans for jobs that other companies are outsourcing
_Support tax breakings for companies that have a net increase in jobs in the US (middle income level jobs)
_Have ads with middle managers, high tech people displaced by outsourced jobs as reflective of failures of GOP economics
_Remind voters that a GOP economic adviser felt that making a hamburger was a manufacturing job
"Energizing America"
_Support alternative energy sources
_Remind people Alaska drilling won't have a major impact on cost of oil
_Emphasize alternative energy is a national defense initiative
_Remind voters that oil prices are increasing despite record profits and we can't continue doing the same thing
"Shining light on The Forgotten
_Remind people of the consequences of forgetting the poor_Katrina
_Emphasize programs that put the poor back to work
_Remind people that there is no job that an American won't do for a living wage
_Attack the GOP's continued ineptitude in dealing with Katrina and its implcations for the rest of America
However the message is framed just remember to KISS (keep it simple stupid), a crystal clear message that states a Democratic point of view and attacks the GOP.
April 20, 2006 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a good list, but it misses the point of the original article. Of course our candidates each campaign on issues similar to the list, and each candidate will want to emphasize those that have the most benefit to his/her candidacy.
The problem is that the democratic party as a whole is not known to have any basic unifying principle(s). So, it is easy for people to say we don't stand for anything. This article shows how we do stand for something, something we all can believe in and support.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 20, 2006 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what you're saying is that the foundation of liberalism is not, as I thought, based in the values at the core of what it means to be an American --- equality, rights, diversity (indvidualism), prosperity, opportunity.
Instead you argue that liberalism is founded on a belief in something called the "common good", which DEMANDS --not asks politely, but DEMANDS -- that individuals balance their own interests with "common interests."
And you think we're going to win elections with this?
I'm sorry, but this kind of thinking is what's wrong with liberalism.
First of all, the common good or common interest is a highly maleable term. I have no doubt George Bush would argue that he's fighting this war in Iraq for the "common good." Granted, he's not asking for any sacrifices, so I guess it's different there, but it illustrates the problem.
Who decides what is in the "common interest?"
Right-wing religious leaders think it's in the common interest to ban abortion and contraception because it will, in their view, improve public morality. Yes, it means that the only way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and disease will be legal enforcement of abstinence, but hey, that's the sacrifice for the common good that must be demanded.
The good is too often in the eye of the beholder. It is too subjective. So the real question becomes who decides what's in the common interest? The answer is generally whoever's in power.
But here you want to try to gain power on the basis of a campaign for the common interest while those in power are busily defining your goals and motives as contrary to the common interest.
So it then gets back to what's your p