“…poverty - whether measured by infant mortality, life expectancy, access to medicine and regular employment or simple inability to purchase basic necessities - has increased steadily since the 1970’s in the US, the UK and every country that has modeled its economy upon their example.”
- Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land
Progressives need to change the dialogue in America. It won’t be easy. The right-wing propaganda machine is powerful, loud and well-funded. As the mid-term elections show: you may not be able to fool all of the people all of the time but, given enough money and enough negative and untruthful attack ads, you can sure fool most of the people most of the time.
Recapturing the high ground in this debate about the value of government will require four actions:
- Creating a new moral narrative that appeals to our best, rather than our worst, instincts
- Addressing the fears and insecurities caused by a rapidly changing world
- Striking at the myths about the success of unregulated markets
- Demonstrating the role government can successfully play in the world that will be our future
We’ll discuss these in order. Creating a new moral narrative and addressing fears and insecurities are the necessary first steps. No amount of truth telling or reciting of facts will change the minds of those still in the sway of their fears.
I. Creating a new moral narrative
“Whatever their political affinities, [the great political leaders of the 20th century] represented a political class deeply sensitive to its moral and social responsibilities.” [Judt] We’ve somehow lost that in recent decades. The failure to provide anything more than material self-interest as a goal for public policy has led to skepticism and distrust of the political process and of government‘s role.
The social question needs to be reopened in the 21st century. As noted in the lead quote, poverty has increased steadily in the US and UK since the 1970‘s. Judt continues: “The pathologies of inequality and poverty - crime, alcoholism, violence and mental illness - have all multiplied commensurately.” So what is to be done? What conditions make it possible and worthwhile for men and women as a whole to pursue decent lives? What must governments do to accomplish this? And how can the Left best present its vision?
Judt points to the remarkable appeal of Pope John Paul II to young people whether Catholic or not: “humans need a language in which to express their moral instincts…we need to ascribe meaning to our actions in a way that transcends them…we need a language of ends, not means.”
What is the first of these “ends“ that must be addressed? It is the reduction of inequality. “Under conditions of endemic inequality, all other desirable goals [justice, medical treatment, good education, secure employment] become hard to achieve.” [Judt] Inequality leads to a lack of social cohesion and eventually to a loss of the sense of “common purpose and mutual dependence”. These latter are the necessary conditions for politics and community. “Acting together for a common purpose is a source of enormous satisfaction.”
While there is clearly a place for some of us older folks too, Judt sees the youth of today as our best hope for reversing the three-decade trend of “inculcated self regard….The perennial desire of youth to do something ‘useful’ or ‘good’ speaks to an instinct that we have not succeeded in repressing.“ [Judt].
He concludes his chapter and I’m going to conclude this post with a quote from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. We need to indulge what Smith called ‘our benevolent instincts’ and reverse our selfish desires so that we can “…produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole race and propriety.”
The social question needs to be reopened in the 21st century. As noted in the lead quote, poverty has increased steadily in the US and UK since the 1970‘s. Judt continues: “The pathologies of inequality and poverty - crime, alcoholism, violence and mental illness - have all multiplied commensurately.” So what is to be done? What conditions make it possible and worthwhile for men and women as a whole to pursue decent lives? What must governments do to accomplish this? And how can the Left best present its vision?
Judt points to the remarkable appeal of Pope John Paul II to young people whether Catholic or not: “humans need a language in which to express their moral instincts…we need to ascribe meaning to our actions in a way that transcends them…we need a language of ends, not means.”
What is the first of these “ends“ that must be addressed? It is the reduction of inequality. “Under conditions of endemic inequality, all other desirable goals [justice, medical treatment, good education, secure employment] become hard to achieve.” [Judt] Inequality leads to a lack of social cohesion and eventually to a loss of the sense of “common purpose and mutual dependence”. These latter are the necessary conditions for politics and community. “Acting together for a common purpose is a source of enormous satisfaction.”
While there is clearly a place for some of us older folks too, Judt sees the youth of today as our best hope for reversing the three-decade trend of “inculcated self regard….The perennial desire of youth to do something ‘useful’ or ‘good’ speaks to an instinct that we have not succeeded in repressing.“ [Judt].
He concludes his chapter and I’m going to conclude this post with a quote from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. We need to indulge what Smith called ‘our benevolent instincts’ and reverse our selfish desires so that we can “…produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole race and propriety.”
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