Author Archives: Peter Levine

deliberation and the scope of the public sphere

I spent the day at the semi-annual meeting of the Deliberative

Democracy Consortium‘s steering committee. We were brainstorming about what

would compose the infrastructure of a deliberative democracy in the United

States—everything from physical meeting spaces, to networks of trained facilitators,

to formal mechanisms for injecting the results of citizen deliberations into government

decision-making. An interesting philosophical question arose at one point. Assume

that you want a fully deliberative democracy. Which path seems better?

Make governmental institutions more deliberative. They alone represent everyone,
and they are already committed to egalitarian deliberation (a form of "voice")

as a method of decision-making. Allow the market to remain mostly non-deliberative,

because it reflects other values (such as efficiency and freedom of "exit.")

However, remove any arbitrary constraints that would prevent the state from regulating

the market if that’s what people want. They may choose market solutions,

and that’s fine. But we should consider democratic institutions to be plenipotentiary,

and leave it up to the public to decide how to use the state.
Try to make
market institutions as well as the state more deliberative. Perhaps even seek

to reform other institutions too, such as families, religious congregations, and

nonprofits. Do not consider the state to be sovereign or plenipotentiary. Imagine,

instead, that power ought to be divided into several distinct sectors (state,

market, and civil society), none of which rightly rules the others. But make all

these sectors as deliberative and democratic as possible.

In my view,

this is really a difficult choice, and there are numerous reasons for and against

each option.

building a constituency for the Commons

The American Library Association’s

commons-blog

has a nice mention of The Prince George’s

Information Commons.

I see our local work on this experimental "information

commons" as an effort to fill an important gap. The national public interest

groups that work on media issues use a model pioneered around 1970 by Ralph Nader

and John Gardner (founders of Public Citizen and Common Cause). Today, these groups

perform extremely important functions in tracking complex federal policies and

lobbying and litigating on behalf of values that would otherwise be unrepresented

in Washington. However (with the exception of the ALA and a few other groups),

they lack a grassroots base. In part, this is because their issues are so complex

that most people cannot, and will not, keep up. In part, it is because the original

Nader/Gardner model depended on a large population of active citizens who were

prone to join groups, to follow and discuss issues, and to make contributions.

Public Citizen and Common Cause were born at the demographic peak of what Robert

Putnam calls "the long civic generation." Now that people are generally

less likely to follow the news and to join groups, the "public-interest community"

in Washington lacks a base. So our strategy is to start building independent (that

is, non-partisan, non-profit, and non-governmental) groups at the community level—as

places where people can develop social ties and learn to use the complex new media

for public purposes. I believe that we should never try to push these groups to

take any particular political positions. Even after people start using the Internet

for public purposes, they may still not be upset (as I am) about corporate monopolies

or a lack of diversity in the mass media. They may have other concerns. But they

will be active, participatory, experienced, experimental, and independent; and

so they will provide the missing voice.

ideology: pros and cons

Is it good to be ideological? This seems to be an important question, since ideologies are what many people use to engage in political and civic life, yet there are good reasons to be against ideology.

First of all, What is ideology? I think we are “ideological” to the degree that our concrete judgments are determined by a set of assumptions that cohere or grow from a common root. Thus:

degree of ideology =	(range of judgments generated by a set of assumptions)x (coherence of the set)
	number of items in the set of assumptions

For example, Ayn Randians have a very small set of assumptions—maybe just one. Their belief that individual freedom is the only moral value generates a very wide range of judgments, not only about politics and economics, but also about religion, the virtues, and aesthetics. For them, a good novel must be about an iconoclastic genius, because individual creativity and freedom are all that matters. So Ayn Randians are highly ideological.

Classical liberals are somewhat less ideological, according to this theory, because the range of judgments supported by their initial assumptions is narrower. For instance, they may say that liberalism only tells us how to organize a state; it says nothing about what makes a good novel, or whether God exists, or what are the best personal virtues.

So is it good to be highly ideological? I would say Yes if:

there is a small set of coherent and true principles that can guide us.
everyone is inevitably ideological, in which case an overt ideology is more honest than a hidden one.
the alternatives are unpalatable (e.g., we must make no judgments at all, or we can only decide randomly).
ideology gives us roughly correct answers while lowering the cost of political participation, thereby allowing poor and poorly educated people to participate
ideology is the only way to solve“voting cycles”

I would say No if:

there is not a small set of coherent and true principles.
it is possible to make judgments individually, and generalizations distort a complex reality
there are preferable alternatives to ideology.

a strong good government program

appears that John Podesta will lead a new American Majority Institute designed

to develop and popularize "progressive" ideas. (The

New York Times story is here.) I think this is great news, even from

a non-partisan and non-ideological perspective, because the

intellectual collapse of the American Left is reducing competition and debate

in US politics.

There are some good idea for broad political movements

that could be adopted by the Left. Here’s one (more will follow in future postings):

Idea

# 1: A strong "good government" program. To attract the Perot-McCain-Bradley

vote in addition to its usual base, either party could propose the following policies:

Public financing (or at least free broadcast time) for political candidates
and parties. Politicians always circumvent limits on campaign spending, but direct

subsidies can make politics accessible to newcomers and increase competition.

Public financing is available now in several states and major cities.
Radical
tax simplification. On a revenue-neutral basis, taxes could be dramatically simplified

so that the tax form became a single page for everyone. The fairness of the system

would improve dramatically if this were done right.
Alternatives to standard
methods of federal regulation. Administrative agencies generate malleable, complex,

and inconsistent bodies of law that are always full of loopholes and inefficiencies

and impossible to understand. Agencies always get "captured" by special

interests. In each field, there are alternatives to rule-making by administrative

agencies. Sometimes, Congress can replace an elaborate system of rules with vouchers

or other simple payments to consumers. Sometimes, Congress can codify the important

parts of a body of existing regulations into a sweeping new statute. And sometimes,

administrative agencies can use new methods of rule-making, such as citizen juries

or Deliberative Polls.

The overall theme would be a criticism of both regulation and unregulated

corporate behavior.
Aggressive efforts to promote diversity, competition,
and localism in the news media, including support for low-powered radio; aggressive

antitrust enforcement in the media industry; higher subsides for public television

and radio; and laws requiring providers of Internet connections to offer neutral

services so that their customers may freely explore the World Wide Web and easily

post their own material.
More federal support for civic
education and voluntary service, to increase the capacity of the next generation

to play an active role in politics and community life.

resources for the commons

For people interested in the information commons, here

are two sites worth visiting:

Lawrence Lessig is circulating a petition
asking Congress to pass a "Public Domain Enhancement Act. This statute would

require American copyright owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty

years after a copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the copyright

will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. But if the copyright is not

worth even $1 to the owner, then we believe the work should pass into the public

domain."
The American Library Association has a new "commons-blog,"
devoted to issues of intellectual property. The ALA is a powerful resource for

civic work and a supporter of the public domain. Librarians run important civic

institutions in communities and schools; they are custodians of intellectual property

that people can use for free; and they promote deliberation. The ALA has what

the whole public-interest movement most desperately needs: an active, knowledgeable,

grassroots base. Leaders of the ALA, such as Nancy Kranich, a recent President

whom I know, are aware of their civic role.