Transactions and Values
Reading Jon's response, I had trouble even getting past the headline. Immediately what sprung to mind was the line in "Angels in America" where the WASPy character Prior remarks to his Jewish partner Louis: "Jewish curses are the worst. I personally would dissolve if anyone ever looked at me in the eye and said, 'Feh.'" While there is no comeback to "feh" (especially if uttered by a grandmother), I do have some thoughts in response to the comments of Jon and others on the site.
To start, we need to define our terms. By ideas, I do not mean policy proposals. Those are the "how" of politics and governing. Ideas are the "what" and the "why." As political scientists sometimes call it, it's the public philosophy that undergirds one's policy choices. These include: a belief about the proper role of government in a society and its economy and the proper organization of that government; views on what the society is trying to achieve, i.e. shared values such as freedom, equality, democracy, and progress; the role that government has in achieving those values; and the proper role of the country in the wider world. (I go on about this – as well as refute Jon's point about Clintonism, here.)
In the real world, these four components about what kind of society we desire are found across the three broad issue terrains that we are familiar with from the day-to-day world of politics: economic policy (and the role of government in it), foreign policy (and the role of the US abroad), and social issues (quality of life and moral concerns such as abortion, gay rights, and the environment).
Now, ideas or a public philosophy is not dogma. Maureen Dowd yesterday – when not commenting on the ties of DC men – argued that big ideas are bad since they lead to stubborn policy choices. If they do, and not all do, then she's right. Any rigid belief system that cannot change with changing realities, inevitably, becomes a god that fails. What makes a public philosophy workable in the real world is the interplay between it and the facts on the ground. Those that work operationally (given the time, place, and the people being governed) and politically will flourish; those that do not, will stay in the manifestos and, yes, ideas journals.
Granted, this is a particular viewpoint about how political opinions and policy options are formed. If you reject it, as Jon seems to do, than politics is one of transactions – pure and simple. Democrats support card-check organizing since they need labor money and votes. They support civil rights since the African-American vote is critical to their coalition. And, Republicans support Social Security privatization because Wall Street does, and they are anti-choice in order to win over the evangelicals.
In this view, what motivates – at least, Republicans – are, in no particular order, greed, avarice, and general evil. Every move is calculated to win over votes or to line one's coffers. I am not naïve – both happen, but such a view underestimates conservatives and all of those in politics and public life (yes, I did see that Jon prefaced his remarks as "cynical").
While most people cannot explicitly say what their public philosophy is, it is there and baked into the cake. Think about how two hypothetical OMB directors. One who believes that the federal government needs to intervene in the economy to create a more equitable society will construct a budget very different than one who believes that the federal government needs to refrain from intervening to create more freedom.
These are very serious beliefs about the proper role of government that have filled volume after volume of debate, and they do affect the policy and political choices you make. And, while Jon has every right to be cynical about the Republicans in DC today, one cannot deny that a whole raft of serious thought – in political theory, economics, and international affairs – went into what we know today as modern conservatism. And a lot of that thinking started to make its way out of the Ivory Tower and to a still small, but influential group of actors through ideas journal such as the Public Interest.
Of course, the normal DC politico or average voter doesn't debate these questions even remotely, but an argument about such beliefs did affect them somewhere and probably led them into one party or another or neither. Or, at the very least, led them to a series of policy positions that influence their vote.
But if these "big ideas" are so foundational, isn't it as cheap as selling your policy planks for votes to "debate" and "rethink" them?
There are some core ideals that progressives share that are not up for discussion; others, particularly about America's role in the world – for example -- are still, unfortunately, questions open to debate and interpretation. And along each plank of a public philosophy is a debate about how these ideas – such as equality of opportunity, citizenship, liberty, and justice -- are translated into the political system at this time in history.
So, for instance, what is America's role in the world, not post-Vietnam or during the Cold War, but now? That would begin – probably implicitly – with an abstract belief, and then it would have to be considered in light of what the challenges are. I think the paramount security threat we face is jihadist terrorism. Some say it's a resurgent China. Others say it's a world that hates us.
To come to any coherence or consensus – that is, to start drilling down to policy solutions that are relevant – we need to have these big debates. It's how the conservatives bruised any semblance of consensus and what leads voters to think that Republicans know what they believe. And without this thinking, the slogans and messaging constantly cooked up will remain just that – empty slogans and tactics.
A party can survive for only so long on the transactional – or should. A great political party has an obligation to address the challenges people face today, and be unafraid to upset old assumptions in order to do so.
The defining liberal "big idea" is really simple: the fortunate have a responsibility for the unfortunate. That's it.
There will always be discussion among liberals about just how much responsibility should be borne by the priveleged, and the government's role in managing that responsibility, just as there are still debates on the right about the desirable extent of privatization and deregulation etc. Liberal political journals aren't going to reconcile these differences, and that's fine.
We're not a minority in government due to a lack of new ideas, we're a minorty because we've FORGOTTEN the old ones.
The fact is that liberals already have TONS of great ideas. And yes, we can talk about their application today (policy), or discuss how we can make them relevant to the American public (marketing). But believe it or not we live in a LIBERAL nation, and the liberal intellectual legacy of the 20th century still has a lot of power.
So basically I agree that yes, of course liberals need to have a solid ideological foundation - but this foundation already exists. Dems just need to reconnect with it.
I was also disappointed that you again claim that "a lot of that thinking started to make its way out of the Ivory Tower and to a still small, but influential group of actors through ideas journal such as the Public Interest," without addressing Jon's refutation of your three main examples of this rhetorical ivory leakage (yecch).
PS - you might also want to provide a link to Jon's response, as I'm new here and although I read it yesterday I'm having trouble finding it. Thanks.
June 23, 2006 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kenneth Baer seems to me to have missed the point entirely. Neither Chait or anyone else is saying that ideas don't matter. Surely most key policy proposals, such as international agreements and human rights as opposed to invading and occuping whoever we please, or universal health care, defy one to characterize them as ideas or micro. And surely we wouldn't all have any policy proposals, except perhaps "cut my taxes to zero but please fund schools, as long as only in my district," if we didn't each of us have a vision of democracy and society. And come to think of it, that already suggests the extent of GOP ideas.
Nope, the point is that "liberals ran out of ideas and need new ones to survive" is a crock. Now, articulating a vision of government and society at a philosophical level is probably more than anyone means by political ideas. It's too much to play politically, and we wouldn't all agree on one anyhow. (Even liberals disagree in philosophy class.) Thus vejoaranda thinks it's about giving to the needy, whereas I feel that's mostly incidental to a conception of justice and democracy predicated on equal opportunity for all and government responsive to all; it also allows the GOP to woo the middle class by convincing them that it's not their responsibility to contribute, since they're not the well to do. Or Beinart thinks liberalism is about strengthing a Cold War alliance world wide, whatever that means. But the basic idea is that taking back our country is necessary, and indeed the very idea of taking back our country has to be rescued from taking it back from government, that evil thing.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 23, 2006 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just to clarify, "giving to the needy" isn't quite what I meant, and I think you're selling me a little bit short. I emphatically don't mean that liberalism is all about giving money to poor people (although that may be part of it).
That is, the powerful (and not just financially powerful) have the freedom to pursue their interests. Others do not. It should be a liberal's primary intention to ensure (to what extent he can) that all people have equal freedom to pursue their individual interests. Thus the "justice and democracy predicated on equal opportunity for all and government responsive to all" follows from my premise.
The point about the middle class being cowed by the GOP is a good one, but I think my point does more to counteract that meme than to strengthen it. It actually very much empowers the middle class, and this "for the common good" theme fueled the greatest moments in American 20th century liberalism.
I really think that this fundamental principle can be applied to liberal thinking at all levels - domestic, economic, foreign policy. I'll again insist that it's not all about money. When I say "forunate" and unfortunate" I am referring to those with access to essential freedoms and those without.
I'll also point out that the "equal opportunity for all" on which your "justice and democracy" depend is essentially the ostensible basis of libertarianism. The difference between liberals and conservatives isn't necessarily our ultimate goal (I think few serious conservatives would argue that equal opportunity is a bad thing), but in how we go about it (that's where the "responsibility" thing, and your responsive government, come in).
June 23, 2006 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that's right, Vejoranda. Paternalism or noblesse oblige isn't the central driving force of liberalism, though it's informed some of its more notable achievements.
Far more fundamental are believing in things like the rule of law, the equality of those under it to its protections and its constraints, the need for power to be balanced.
There is also a vague "golden rule" notion that underlies all of this--nations in which every member would be equally willing to be born into any other class are are better than ones where people aren't. Justice isn't only more moral, it leads to more worldly success in the long run.
In addition, American liberalism has a history of valuing sustainability. We don't like revolutionary change, we like slow change. In addition, practicality is a virtue that's often valued more highly than ideological purity--we're a nation willing to say "this small fix is going to have to be good enough, let the next generation come up with a better way if this doesn't do the trick." This is why science, economics, facts and figures are so highly valued by liberals--we don't like ideas that won't work, and science, economics, facts & figures have the best track record of separating the workable ideas from the merely pretty ones.
In recent years, better understandings of statistics and better ability to obtain certain kinds of social data have presented a new challenge to liberalism--certain things that seem fair produce unfair outcomes in a predictable way. The internal crisis liberalism faces today is basically that one, but it's not that huge a crisis because we don't really have any policy ideas on how to resolve it.
But the contrast between economic conservatism and liberalism today is pretty clearly the "golden rule" distinction. A Martian landing in America would rather be born rich, white, and male than anything else. Liberals think this is a problem we need to keep working to solve, conservatives think it is not. Additionally, this contrast underlies much of liberal foreign policy--"how would we want this to play out if we were the little country; how can we make a win-win here," seems a concept utterly foreign to conservative policy thinking.
The second is a contrast between liberalism and extremism (both on the right and the left), which is the grounded in high value liberalism places on empiricism. This is threatening to people whose moral understanding of the world is based on how closely it comforms to pretty ideas about how life should be, as opposed to prople whose moral compass can accept that the world is not as it should be, and trying to perfect it (as opposed to improving it) in their lifetime will probably do more harm than good. What's scary about the present political situation is that all liberals in the public debate and a number of sane conservatives fall on one side of this debate, and the political religious right and the Bush Administration fall on the other side, on everything from domestic to foreign policy. There's a terrifying lack of serious thinking about things that actually matter.
Finally, the Bush Administration falls firmly on the opposite side of liberalism (and here, too, sane conservatives join liberals, although fewer) in that it does not respect either the rule of law (formal checks) or the idea that power must be blalanced. The cult of personality surrounding Bush is decidedly anti-liberal.
To sum up: I think liberals are pretty ideologically unified. Liberals today believe in 1)golden rule 2)rule of law and equality under it 3)balance of power 4) sustainability and effectiveness over pretty ideas.
June 23, 2006 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the reasons the progressives are so fed up with this debate over the lack of ideas or the need to counter the ideas of the right is that it is based upon a false premise.
The left has ideas (we've all discussed them many times) the right has ideas as well, but it lies about what they are. In order to keep their true agenda away from the public they employ a vast army of pseudo-intellectual pundits, opinion journal editorialists, rabid talk show hosts and even co-opted religious leaders. So they say things like "cutting taxes increases government revenues" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" or "Iraq was involved in 9/11" or "You will pay an estate tax" or "Immigration causes outsourcing (how does that even work?)".
So we are continually debating "liberal ideas", i.e. facts against lies. Every time we start criticizing ourselves the right scores another point, they have diverted the discussion from getting out the truth to blaming the victim.
Here is a little thought experiment you can try. Pick some issue that you know something about which has a "liberal" orientation. Now try to get your voice heard on TV, radio or in the press. To make the experiment better have your local representative try to do it. Now pretend your name is Ann Coulter.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
June 23, 2006 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is another misinterpretation of my point. I'm not speaking about "paternalism" or "noblesse oblige" at all.
Or it could be that I misspoke. Perhaps I could have put it better - "each of us has a responsibility to ensure that all people have equal opportunity to pursue their interests." That might be better. The truth is that we all have varied kinds of access to the essential freedoms - you can't just separate people into "fortunate" and "unfortunate" and say "now you guys help them out."
Again, things like "the rule of law" and "sustainability" are ostensibly values held by both conservatives and liberals - it's just that conservatives think there should be far fewer laws. Many liberals and coservatives can agree that equality of opportunity (or the "golden rule" as you put it) is a worthy enough aim, but where we differ is in how we're going to get there. Liberals believe that we will achieve that equality because of our government, conservatives believe we will achieve equality despite it. I should note that I'm talking about liberalism and conservativism in a much broader sense, not what you'd find in DC today.
"Justice" and "democracy" aren't a liberal's ultimate goal, they are a means to end, and that end is equality of opportunity.
Also see my response to jhaber, below.
June 23, 2006 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ken, you are right. There should be a ideas foundation for policies and programs. You stated what I've been trying to articulate since this discussion started.
We want to evaluate the philosophies of judges because we want to be able to project how they will approach future cases. To me case decisions are the policies and programs in the legal world.
One area of interest to me is how to look at equality. My concern is the web of overlapping policies to meet the needs of various groupings of citizens, women, vets, gays, handicapped, and so on. Do I really want to have hate crimes against gays distinguished from "regular" crime?? Democrats in particular are tugged by so many interest groups to meet their particular needs. Why can't we "find" a philosophy, an idea, that enables us to meet their needs without creating an identity for each of them along with corresponding policies all in the name of equality, opportunity?
I want to focus when we support government intervention to achieve some bigger goal. If we fight it out at the policy level we have wars amongst groups none of whom can afford to be left out. I don't know how to think differently so that I can proceed to the policy and programs step with a different approach.
June 23, 2006 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is right on. We've got the slogans down -- "the people versus the powerful" was just as alliterative as "compassionate conservative," and "a stronger America" was Lackoffian gold. We've also got the policies down -- we routinely win on "the issues." Where we lose elections is in the connective tissue between the two.
June 23, 2006 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good discussion, much needed.
I'm not a political guy; I come out of brand development and marketing. So perhaps my take misses all the insider wonky stuff you guys kick around. But IMHO the defining big idea for liberals is baked into the word itself: liberty.
To quote myself quoting the wikipedia:
Conservatism is of course very much its opposite in specific ways. As none other than Edmund Burke says, conservatism is a philosophy that will use whatever ends are required to achieve its means, not the other way around. The smaller government and more freedom of libertarianism (the redheaded stepchild of liberalism I might add) is merely an end that conservatives use to convince the broader society to give them the means to control society in the first place. Sounds crazy I know, but you can believe me or your lying eyes -- are the conservatives in power today seeking smaller government and more freedom? Or more control over the government and your freedom? 'Nuff said.
From that perspective the current state of affairs under conservatism is a feature, not a bug. Because no matter what movement conservatives say they believe, the core of conservatism is an authoritarianism based upon conserving power into the hands of those that already have it, namely the government, the church, corporations and the rich. Again, the proof is hiding in plain sight -- the Bush administration is the first honestly conservative government we've had here since the other George ran the place, before the American Revolution.
In modern times, at least Reagan and Bush I had the good sense to hide this truth about conservatism behind libertarian window dressing. But our Wizard of Oz moment is here -- it's time to pull the curtain back and expose conservativism for what it truly is. Unfortunately we can't do that until we have gotten our own act together, and know who we are and what we stand for.
So liberals: Liberty, Equality, Community.
And conservatives? Authority, Obedience, Control.
At least that's how I'd be talking about it if I was a politician ;)
June 24, 2006 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not that I don't think you are correct about the Right. It is the public that is at issue. How do they perceive liberals, or progressives.
When a Conservative candidate denounces a Democrat for being a Liberal why does that work? There was a time when rightwing ideas were scarce on TV and they organized and worked at creating institutions whose whole function was to get their ideas before the media.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
June 25, 2006 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Think back to when conservative Republican was Barry Goldwater and "regular" Republicans ran from the Goldwater label since it was by definition a slur. Now liberal is seen as a slur needing no further explantion.
June 27, 2006 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink