Monthly Archives: January 2008

the dismal science

Steven E. Lansburg in yesterday’s New York Times:

Even if you’ve just lost your job, there’s something fundamentally churlish about blaming the very phenomenon that’s elevated you above the subsistence level since the day you were born. If the world owes you compensation for enduring the downside of trade, what do you owe the world for enjoying the upside?

This gives me great ideas for other moral arguments! For example,

It is churlish for people to complain and whine when they’re drowning. They were happy enough to drink water earlier in their lives. Their bodies are mostly made of water, for crying out loud.

Or:

Can you believe how people don’t want to get shot? Don’t they realize that our forefathers used bullets to shoot the Redcoats and win our freedom? Where would we be today without gun-related deaths?

Or:

Americans nowadays seem to want medicine whenever they get sick! Can you believe it? Don’t they realize that without plagues and pestilence, Europeans would never have conquered the New World?

the presidential candidates on community and national service

Courtesy of the National Service-Learning Partnership, here is a chart showing the presidential candidates’ positions on AmeriCorps, community service and service-learning in schools, student loans in return for community service, and related issues. Some highlights: Chris Dodd would have required 100 hours of service for high school graduation across the nation (which would be a very controversial federal mandate). John Edwards would create a new Community Corps and reward schools that require service for graduation. Hillary Clinton co-sponsored the Public Service Academy Act to create a new academy in Washington, DC that would prepare people for civilian service. Mike Huckabee would expand civilian national service; and John McCain has a record of supporting AmeriCorps. I have written before about Barack Obama’s ambitious plan.

the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement

I have some reflections on the recent spat between Senators Clinton and Obama, but first, here is the actual “text” of their dispute as accurately as I can capture it.

At the Democratic Debate in New Hampshire, Senator Clinton said: “So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I’ve already made.”

Back on the trail, Senator Obama said, “For many months I’ve been teased, almost derided, for talking about hope … We saw it in the debate last night. One of my opponents said, ‘We can’t just offer the American people false hopes of what we can get done.’ False hopes!” Later, in Labanon, NH, he amplified his position: “Dr. King standing on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over that magnificent crowd, the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument: ‘Sorry, guys. False hope. The dream will die. It can’t be done.’ ”

Then, on Fox News, Major Garrett asked Senator Clinton if she would respond to Senator Obama, and she said, ‘I would, and I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality. The power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said, ‘We are going to do it,’ and actually got it accomplished.”

During and after this exchange, the candidates, their surrogates, and pundits have said many things that do not deserve to be taken seriously or at face value. But I thought the comments themselves raised valid and relevant issues about how major social change is accomplished.

For the sake of simplicity, we might say that there were three great reasons for the civil rights reforms of the 1960s: (1) The charismatic leadership of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his colleagues and rivals; (2) the skillful political maneuvering of politicians like Lyndon Johnson; and (3) the great popular movement that arose from grassroots voluntary institutions, especially Black churches.

If we interpret Senator Clinton charitably, I think she was saying that Democrats are at risk of voting for charisma (Senator Obama) without realizing that you also need the skills, tactics, and experience of professionals like Lyndon Johnson–and by analogy, herself. Other critics of Senator Obama also believe that what he basically offers is charisma. For instance, Paul Krugman has recently written, “The Democrats in general make far more sense [about Chinese trade policy]. But among at least some of Barack Obama’s supporters there seems to be a belief that if their candidate is elected, the world’s problems will melt away in the face of his multicultural charisma.” I thought that Krugman created a straw man; but it’s true that charisma is inadequate and voters should pause before voting for the candidate who happens to be the best speaker.

Clearly, the third ingredient of the civil rights movement–neither political tactics nor charismatic leadership, but grassroots organizing–was crucial to its success. Senator Obama might have emphasized that point in his response to Senator Clinton (instead of attacking her for besmirching the sainted memory of Dr. King). In fact, at his next opportunity to speak after Senator Clinton talked about “false hopes” in the debate, Senator Obama said, “And just to wrap up, part of the change that’s desperately needed is to enlist the American people in the process of self-government.” He could have amplified that point over the succeeding days and noted that Lyndon Johnson couldn’t have done a thing without active pressure from citizens. He could have used language like Rich Harwood’s: “No candidate, no matter how gifted or skilled, can through their campaign offer redemption to a nation on its stained history. Surely, the candidate can help lead and give voice to such a process, but the great work of coming together will ultimately only occur through the efforts of people in their communities, and only over time.”

Alas, we do not have large, highly active, interlinked progressive organizations that are rooted in the working class, as we did from 1930s through the 1960s. A pessimist might say: Therefore, the best we can get is whatever skilled political tacticians can win by playing the Washington game effectively. The question is who’s the most skillful tactician in the race? (I’m not actually sure of the answer, because none of the three leading Democrats has a legislative record even close to LBJ’s.)

An optimist would say: There are pieces of a civic infrastructure in America, and innovative ways for citizens to engage. The right kind of national leader can strengthen that infrastructure by encouraging active citizenship rhetorically and by implementing policies that get ordinary people more involved. The first step is to change the debate we have seen over the last few days. It should not be about who supports civil rights policies, nor about who respects Martin Luther King. It should be about how to achieve positive social change.

citizens at work

(Syracuse Airport) Public Agenda’s president, Ruth Wooden, writes, “Neither Third-Party Candidate nor Leadership Alone Can Solve the Problem.” The “problem” that she has in mind is destructive partisanship, but one could define it more generally as dysfunctional politics. Fortunately, some citizens are at work organizing public deliberation and public-spirited advocacy during this campaign season.

Public Agenda itself is an example. The organization “advocates for a greater reliance on public dialogue to come to agreement on difficult issues.” As Wooden writes, “Until leaders invest trust in the American people, create more opportunities for average citizens to explore issues from multiple points of view and help them confront the facts of our nation’s greatest challenges through dialogue, our government will remain shackled by political maneuvering and gamesmanship.” Check out the Public Agenda “Primer on Public Engagement.”

Mobilize.org just pulled off its Party for the Presidency, a gathering of 150 young people from around the United States who developed the “Democracy 2.0 agenda” to guide their advocacy over the next year. See this coverage in the Huffington Post.

The Study Circles Resource Center, a key organization in the movement for deliberative citizenship, is about to relaunch itself as “Everyday Democracy.” As one of many activities connected to the relaunch, the Center is starting an Everyday Democracy Book Club, run by Frances Moore Lappé.

And then there’s the November Fifth Coalition, which is gearing up for a significant statement about how you can be involved.

the joy of flying

(Gate 44, Washington National Airport): In December and January, I’ve taken 20 separate flight segments for family reasons and/or business. Two flights have been canceled outright and at least another eight have been seriously delayed. I guess nothing could be more boring than complaints about “the airlines.” Still, I wonder:

1. Does anyone review an airline’s decision to cancel, rather than delay, a flight? I presume that a delay costs the airline more money, because it has to be pay overtime and perhaps divert an airplane. A cancellation, however, costs the passengers much more–not only time, but also cash for wasted airport parking, ground transportation, food, etc. Canceling a flight that could instead be delayed–thereby shifting costs to the customer–should be penalized. Right now, we can’t even get reliable information about why flights are canceled.

2. What’s wrong with the market as a whole? Why doesn’t a competitive market produce more reliable service, at least by some of the major carriers? This is not a rhetorical question–I believe that markets sometimes work and sometimes don’t, and we should be able to diagnose the reason for failure in this case.

On a couple of occasions, I have fantasized about massive civil disobedience by passengers. For example, one morning, I pictured the enormous line for check-in at Dulles sitting down and refusing to budge until the airline started to issue apologies and vouchers. But the difference between a sit-in and ordinary service would have been difficult to detect.