Progressive Policies at Home and Abroad
Congrats to Greg Anrig for engaging an all-too-rare debate in his post on Jeff Faux's new book. But whatever the specific answer may be for health care or pensions, the right question is "What's the relationship between what we do at home and what we do abroad?"
The communities of conventional intellectuals who regularly reflect and write about foreign policy usually begin and end with…foreign policy, very rarely bringing it back home to talk about the conditions and interests of most Americans - middle class and working class.
A genuinely progressive foreign policy should begin with what average Americans say they want and need, and then expand out from there to trade and other issues. A progressive foreign policy wouldn't just concentrate on global balances of power or theories of neo-this or neo-that. A progressive foreign policy wouldn’t stay stuck in the stratosphere. It would at some point bring together domestic and global issues.
Regrettably, very few foreign policy wonks pay much attention to education, health care, or growing domestic inequality. Their foreign policy prescriptions are the poorer for it.
Comments (6)
Ernest
Isn't this an general problem about academics? While academics and wonks in genral are the experts that Bush spurns and the rest of us rely upon. However, the department divisions lead to narrow thinking and the missing of various connections that fall outside department lines.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 27, 2007 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
The first thing that struck me about the concept of a foreign policy that focused on domestic issues such as health care, then forged a policy based upon such a need, is that the majority of foreign policies are perhaps seen as serving a separate category of needs and wants than the domestic body politic's. I see the wisdom of such a plan, though, especially since foreign policy, trade or otherwise, seems to be based off the benefit received by various companies, including defense contractors, rather than the average working American.
February 28, 2007 4:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Wilson,
For months you’ve been lamenting the disconnect between domestic issues and potential progressive foreign policy actions. I’ve been staring at this post for about a week trying to think of something to say that would address this issue. Perhaps we can just cut to the chase here. I’ll list a few domestic issues and some possible foreign policy options. If you or others have the time you can make your own suggestions or criticize mine. Granted I’m in no position to carry out any of these suggestions, but perhaps the very exercise can relieve some of your anxiety.
1. Inadequate health care for millions- Most real options seem entrenched in domestic policy. Promoting free trade in medications across the Canadian border might reduce the costs to some purchasers of medicines but I’m not sure that that is a very progressive approach, it seems more lassaiz-faire. Promoting medical research everywhere might yield new pharmaceutical options and promoting and studying distribution processes in countries where medicine would seem to be impossibly expensive might yield important insights on cost reduction to a population as a whole. I don’t have a lot of really good ideas on this one.
2. Improving American education- Americans are upset that our elementary and secondary students are not ranked at the top when compared to other students worldwide. I suppose that we could try to sabotage the rest of the world’s elementary schools but that doesn’t seem very progressive. Promoting exchange is nice but I think it tends to effect mostly well-to-do and academically excellent students who are not really the problem. We could exile our worst students to Japan and Sweden: again not terribly progressive. We could disengage from Iraq perhaps freeing up some heretofore obligated funds for education investment.
3. The richer rich and the poorer poor- Ahh! This should work. Foreign policy effecting the growing chasm in resources might be conceivable. Trade policy counts, right? We could promote global standards on wages, working conditions, housing, food and drug quality, transportation accessibility and infrastructure quality. This would bring the cost of living elsewhere closer to the cost of living at home making our laborers more competitive. We could promote a governing body with global jurisdiction that could regulate and tax state-hopping corporations and executives centrally and distribute funds where most needed throughout the world. Whoops, I’ve escaped from the progressive realm and entered my true home, the imperialistic realm.
4. The high price of gas- Promoting international efforts on energy harnessing options like tidal generators or large hydro-electric projects in multinational water systems may allow us to heat more homes without petroleum.
I have to say, the more I try to connect foreign policy issues to domestic policy issues the more I feel like a mental contortionist. There seems to be a pretty serious gap in effects of foreign policy on domestic issues… or at least so in my mind’s eye. I have a lot of what I consider great ideas on potential foreign polices but I’ve got to admit, not a one of them comes from the standpoint of satisfying any domestic issues except for perhaps in the very biggest or smallest of pictures.
March 7, 2007 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is an important topic. The connection is closer than we imagine and does not require mental contortions. Economists and political scientists have been researching the links between the global system and domestic social policy for a while. For one, the post-war US-led order rests on the proposition that trade and investment will be relatively unencumbered. But, in light of the interwar experience, the principles of 'embedded liberalism' include recognition that the state must take a strong hand in stabilizing the economy and protecting individuals against risk. Thus, as countries become more entangled in world trade - which creates greater volatility in labor markets - the demand for social insurance rises to guard against that risk. The social bargain is that the public will accept participation in a global economy, but government must provide a minimum of economic security.
Part of the bargain has been to provide medical benefits. In the 1960s, the US established Medicare and Medicaid, and employers routinely offered health benefits. The medical safety net ensured that we would have access to adequate health care without facing dire personal financial circumstances, and those who were indigent would also have access.
The problem is that as the world globalizes, capital becomes more mobile. Fully mobile capital can escape taxation. The increasing integration of the US economy with the world thus raises the need for and demand for extensive social programs at the same time that the fiscal ability to pay for them declines. The main solution so far has been two-fold: shift the burden of taxation to working people, and borrow. Those can only go so far, and then the alternative the elite want to pursue is benefit cuts, across the board: health care programs, Social Security, public assistance, all are on the table. Add to that the Bush administration's impulse to shovel money at the rich and the fiscal crisis grows. So, in all, we must take account of the global changes underway to understand what is happening to our domestic social bargain.
May 3, 2007 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you can't relate foreign policy to domestic issues, then I'd say that's a pretty good sign that there's one heck of a lot of foreign policy that we could dispense with altogether.
The reason I stress the connection is that I believe you must always go back to the beginning, i.e.,
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Not a heck of a lot of foreign policy there and one heck of a clear subject: "We the People of the United States". You see any people of anywhere else mentioned?
If our government isn't serving we the people of the United States, it's lost the plot.
June 27, 2007 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rock on, Bluebell! Some of these 'progressives' can progress RIGHT BACK to the countries they
came from, and stop trying to make a living
leeching off the american taxpayer...
September 27, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink