Melissa Harris-Perry interviewed me about What Should We Do? on WCNY’s “The Takeway.” Here is the audio:
What Should We Do? on The Takeaway
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explaining Ostrom
Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was a political scientist at Indiana University and a leader of the intellectual movement informally known as the Bloomington School. She won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 and was a MacArthur “genius” Fellow and president of the American Political Science Association. For me, she was a major inspiration, and I find that I have mentioned or discussed her in 142 blog posts over the years. I also summarize her work in chapter 3 of What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life (2022).
I have now recorded two videos to introduce all of her major ideas, as I see them. I discuss her basic principles in Part I (17 minutes) and how to apply her ideas in Part II (11 minutes). These are free for anyone to use and are embedded in this public website about what we should learn to be effective citizens.
the history of the phrase “the West”
Nowadays, the word “West” has political and racialized meanings. It can, for example, refer to the wealthy (and predominantly white) countries that are confronting Russia over Ukraine. It is used to condemn or to praise–sometimes with the same target. For instance, Paolo Freire is variously described as a critic of Western pedagogy, as an anti-colonial thinker who had been appropriated and mischaracterized by Western scholars, and as someone who would impose Western pedagogical ideas (such as child-centered learning) on the Global South. I think the term itself is meaningless, although imperialism names an evil.
The distinction between Christianity and other religions is old but was not associated with a compass direction until the Renaissance. After all, Jesus lived in the eastern Mediterranean; a great medieval Muslim nation had an Atlantic coastline. By the time that white racism developed (but not before then), most of the world’s Christians were white and most whites were Christian. Europe was by then the Christian heartland. There were people of color and non-Christians to the south, west, and east, but Europeans came to dominate and heavily settle the New World. This is presumably the seed of the idea that “The West” is a distinctive part of the globe, lying roughly between Vienna and San Francisco.
In medieval English, the word “west” referred to a direction. The medieval and Renaissance examples in the Oxford English Dictionary that imply a portion of the globe are concerned with the distinctions between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires (as political units) or with Catholic versus Orthodox Christianity. The first fairly clear reference to “The West” as white-dominant is in Tennyson: “He never yet had set his daughter forth / Here in the woman-markets of the west, / Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold” (Aylmer’s Field, 1864). Even in this case, it’s not obvious to me that “the west” means a part of the earth as opposed to a region of England (that “land of hops and poppy-mingled corn”). According to the OED, it’s not until Kipling (1892) that East and West are clearly distinguished on cultural or racial grounds.
Likewise, the phrase “Western world” is first attested in the 16th century, but it generally refers to the Americas in contrast to Europe, e.g., in 1787: “Sir Walter Raleigh, so remarkable for his penetration in foreseeing the consequences of the Western World to Europe.” The OED’s first use of the phrase to refer to Europe and regions heavily settled by Europeans comes in 1894 (from The Princeton College Bulletin): “There has grown up by a process of evolution a type of culture in the Western world which we call classical education.”
“Westerner” meant someone from the West of England–or from the western region of another country, such as the United States–until ca. 1857, when W. C. Milne wrote, “There is no fear … of any Westerner starving at Shanghai.”
As I’ve explored before, the word “culture” becomes a count noun around the same time. Previously, culture had been a virtue or quality of any individual who was cultured. By 1900, one could describe “a culture” as having characteristics that distinguished it from others. Then it became possible to use the phrase “European culture” and to associate it with “the West.”
This happened just as European imperialism reached its apogee, and the power of white Christians seemed unchallengeable. But then Europe descended into the madness of World War I and experienced revolutions. It became common to bemoan–or to celebrate–the “decline of the West.”
As a few examples of that discussion: Spengler claimed that democracy and money were corrupting what he called “the West.” Ludwig von Mises thought that markets were definitive of the West but endangered by socialism. (“The idea of liberty is and has always been peculiar to the West. What separates East and West is first of all the fact that the peoples of the East never conceived the idea of liberty.”) Gandhi may not have said, when he was asked what he thought of Western civilization, that “it would be a very good idea” (or if he did say it, he may have been joking). But he wrote in Hind Swaraj that “one effort is required, and that is to drive out Western civilization.”
Nearly a century later, it would be helpful if we stopped using the phrase “the West” at all.
See also don’t name things Western but call out imperialism; to whom do the ancient Greeks belong?; Jesus was a person of color; avoiding the labels of East and West; when East and West were one; on modernity and the distinction between East and West; two cheers for the West; a mistaken view of culture; individuals in cultures: the concept of an idiodictuon etc..
Four perspectives on student debt forgiveness
- Radical: Debt is the linchpin of a predatory global political-economic system (Graeber 2011). Canceling a portion of one form of debt strikes a blow at this whole structure. It demonstrates that victories can be won—particularly because the president was reluctant to take this step and did so under pressure. The victory will encourage people to think of themselves as debtors with political power, which is a potent identity. If canceling debt weakens the existing economic system (for instance, by encouraging individuals to borrow in the hope of having their loans canceled), that is a feature, not a bug. Another blow will be struck when other groups demand the cancellation of their debts as a matter of fairness. (“Biden helped the college kids—what about those of us with medical bills?”) This policy will look successful in retrospect if it turns out to be merely the first of many cancellations.
- Social democratic: The measure of a policy is how much it helps the least advantaged. However, it is wise to design programs to benefit relatively large and empowered populations as well as the neediest, so that such policies are enacted and survive. For instance, European welfare states rely heavily on value-added taxes, which are regressive, and they provide cheap or free college for all (including those who could have afforded college by themselves). Such policies have proven durable. Similarly, in the USA, Medicare and Social Security have been sustained, while means-tested welfare programs have been cut because they have poor constituencies. Forgiving student debt has the same kind of structure. According to a Penn Wharton analysis, people between age 25 and 35 who are in the bottom income quintile will get 13.5% of the benefits of the forgiveness, while people in the top 40% of income will get about 24% of it. The Penn Wharton analysis does not consider race, but NCES reports that Black people with any college debt owe a median $1,810, which is almost three times as high as White people’s median debt ($630). Thus the Biden policy should have progressive effects with respect to race (while also benefiting many White people and omitting Black people who didn’t attend college). This doesn’t sound impressively equitable; boosting financial aid would be a better policy. However, the constituency for financial aid consists of current or prospective college students who demonstrate need, and that group is too politically weak. Besides, the White House decided that Biden could forgive debt by executive order, while Congress would have to pass other reforms; but Congress hardly ever passes a controversial bill.
- Interest-group pluralist (Lowi 1979): Biden was elected with a coalition that included a disproportionate number of younger people with college degrees, and he performed best in the $50,000-$100,000 income range. Biden voters have diverse interests, but college graduates (and their parents) are more concentrated, better led, and more culturally and economically potent than other Democratic interest groups. As part of the governing coalition, they successfully demanded a benefit. Biden complied. Interest-group pluralism predicts that they will next seek other benefits for themselves, without supporting a radical economic restructuring or any serious attention to other groups, such as older people with medical debt or farmworkers. If colleges and universities capture some of the benefits of the debt-cancellation (by raising tuition in the expectation of another cancellation later), so be it: their faculty and staff are core to the Democratic coalition. This is what interest-group pluralism predicts. As Lowi notes, it does not judge, because it considers judgment unscientific. Politics is nothing but the clash of interests. Last week, people with college debt won a round.
- Market-utilitarian: Markets produce wealth; governments may use taxes and regulations to encourage, discourage, or subsidize behaviors when necessary for the aggregate good. Forgiving debt after it has been incurred cannot incentivize education, but it can create moral hazard, which distorts markets. Colleges will grab most of the benefits. We know, for example, that when the stock market boosts college endowments, those institutions spend the money to increase their own selectivity and do not offer more financial aid (Bulman 2022). Debt-cancellation may be inflationary, yet the biggest problem facing the economy right now is inflation. For these reasons, the policy is foolish.
I must admit I don’t foresee radical results following from Biden’s debt cancellation (per #1). David Graeber endorsed forgiving student loans (p. 544), but he expected a global movement against debt to take centuries. On that time scale, I am confident that our current system will change. But between now and 2024 or 2050–I don’t think the conditions are in place.
I am not equipped to assess mainstream economists’ arguments against the new policy (#4), and I doubt that we will know—even in hindsight—whether debt forgiveness increased inflation or tuition prices or created moral hazard (for good or ill). For one thing, the policy is relatively modest compared to other recent interventions.
I think the difference between #2 or #3 is important. A lot depends on how people—a wide array of people—describe and interpret the new policy.
If many Americans decide that the Democrats now represent college kids (#3), that interpretation will reinforce a class inversion that is one of the most serious threats to democracy. When the center-left party that is willing to employ government as an instrument for social welfare looks elitist, the right wing will offer chauvinistic nationalism to pick up workers’ votes. Meanwhile, a center-left party that depends on the votes of more educated people will drift toward elitist policies.
I know that many people with college debt are not “elite” by any measure. Nevertheless, favoring college education looks elitist when about 55% of adults do not hold a BA, and 38% never enrolled in college, yet almost all of the nation’s leaders all hold college degrees.
On the other hand, if Americans conclude from this experiment that their government can help people, and therefore it should do something for those without any college experience (#2), that would be a positive step. Americans will be more likely to reach this conclusion if, indeed, the government next does something tangible for working-class people without college debt.
The Fall of Robespierre changed history because of how French people reinterpreted it about a year after he met the guillotine. So too, Biden’s debt cancellation will matter because of the story that American tell themselves about it in 2024 and later.
Sources: David Graeber, Debt: The first five thousand years (New York: Melville House, 2011); Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States (Norton 1979); Bulman, George, The Effect of College and University Endowments on Financial Aid, Admissions, and Student Composition, NBER working paper 30404. See also: the social class inversion as a threat to democracy; a conversation with Farah Stockman about American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears; the weirdness of the higher ed marketplace; the new elite is like the old elite; etc..
when states are blind
Although an account by former Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev and a Washington Post article today by Greg Miller and Catherine Belton should be read with caution, these sources paint a consistent picture.
Before the February invasion, the Kremlin believed that the government of Ukraine was compromised and the Ukrainian public would support a Russian occupation. Russian agents had strong reasons to disbelieve both assumptions; they had even conducted reliable polls in Ukraine that showed a high willingness to fight. But they had no incentives to tell their superiors the truth.
Putin also believed he was ordering something like 200,000 soldiers to invade and occupy a compliant Ukraine, but the real number may have been closer to 100,000. Commanders all down the line had incentives to lie about how many men had actually been recruited, had reported for duty, had remained on base, and had received basic training and essential equipment.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian security services received US and British intelligence that Russia was preparing to invade and duly reported those assessments to President Zelensky. But they also knew about poor Russian preparation and thought that the invasion was probably a bluff. At the same time, many Ukrainian officials feared that Russia had fatally compromised own security services–mirroring the Kremlin’s assumptions. US intelligence also underestimated Ukraine’s potential in the case of war, which may have delayed US military aid.
Clearly, the errors were worse on the Russian side, and they may be continuing. A study by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and colleagues claims that “business retreats and sanctions are catastrophically crippling the Russian economy,” contrary to what Russian government statistics currently suggest and what Russian leaders may sincerely believe. Likewise, Russian apologists for their own system who cite conservative values, like traditional gender roles and faith, seem blind to facts. Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus have three of the four highest divorce rates in the world. Eight percent of Russians attend church regularly, as compared to 48% of supposedly decadent Americans and 19% of Ukrainians.
Time will tell who is right about the Russian economy and other issues. The general point is that no government can automatically or easily know what is going on. A government may not even know how many soldiers are enlisted in its own national army, let alone how the economy is really performing or how the public would respond to new events.
A government can allocate resources to collect information. When William the Conqueror suddenly obtained absolute power over England, one of his first acts was to order a census of its land and people, the Domesday Book. However, state capacity is always limited (there was no new English census for two hundred years after William’s), and money does not straightforwardly buy truth. It can even create incentives to mislead. Miller and Belton report that the Kremlin now regards Viktor Medvedchuk as a traitor because he delivered nothing in return for huge payments from Russian intelligence.
The more authoritarian a government is, the more it can give itself the right to collect information. It can employ surveillance, coercion, and even torture. On the other hand, authoritarian governments tend to monopolize information, depriving themselves of independent checks on what they believe. They invite people to lie to obtain preferment or avoid punishment. And they often focus on collecting information that most directly affects their own survival (such as the names of potential opponents) rather than information that would help them govern effectively.
I suppose that an authoritarian government that is broadly popular, such as the Soviet Union at the height of WWII, may perform decently well because individuals are motivated to try to do what they say they are doing. For instance, military officers don’t merely claim that they have followed orders; they do their best to follow them. But when authoritarian governments have lukewarm support, they are highly vulnerable to misinformation.
To various degrees, democratic governments restrict their own ability to collect information. At the limit, a highly democratic government could not employ spies, because it would be fully transparent to its own citizens. (That would deprive it of some ability to collect information–for better or worse.) There are many other reasons for democratic systems to misunderstand reality, including groupthink and confirmation bias, an urge for popularity, short time-horizons, failures to invest in research, and sheer human error.
We should never assume the reliability of information provided by any institution. For instance, today’s Washington Post article is not Gospel truth; it is a piece of reporting that depends on sources who have interests and journalists who have frameworks. But it is equally foolish to reject all official information as biased. Often the best we can do is to examine the processes and incentives that have generated data. For instance, if the people inside a system are reasonably protected against political interference and reasonably likely to be rewarded for accuracy, the system is more credible. And if information that comes from several autonomous organizations converges, the odds improve that the results are valid–although cultural and ideological biases could still operate at that level.
Overall, authoritarian governments tend to be unreliable sources. Often they pay the price for their own errors.
See also conflict v mistake as a framework for politics; is society an artifact or an ecosystem? (and what that means for citizens); China teaches the value of political pluralism; etc.