{"id":4207,"date":"2003-05-26T10:56:48","date_gmt":"2003-05-26T10:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4207"},"modified":"2003-05-26T10:56:48","modified_gmt":"2003-05-26T10:56:48","slug":"the-intellectual-crisis-of-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4207","title":{"rendered":"the intellectual crisis of the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Clymer has an article<\/a><\/p>\n

in today’s New York Time<\/i>s about the Democrats’ search for a<\/p>\n

broad and coherent message<\/b>. The party is a coalition of disparate,<\/p>\n

often antagonistic interest groups, according to this article—not<\/p>\n

a movement inspired by coherent principles. The Republican pollster Ed<\/p>\n

Goeas made the same charge at a public event I attended recently.<\/p>\n

Democrats have had this problem for over a century: they used to be a<\/p>\n

completely incoherent coalition composed of liberals, Northern white ethnics,<\/p>\n

and Southern segregationists. The New Deal was much criticized for lacking<\/p>\n

principle and merely representing the aggregation of these groups’ demands.<\/p>\n

From that period until the 1990s, the Democrats consistently held a national<\/p>\n

majority and controlled the House. This situation prolonged their reliance<\/p>\n

on coalition politics—for two reasons. First, since they had a majority,<\/p>\n

their leaders didn’t have to develop a broad, coherent agenda to win.<\/p>\n

Instead, they tended to fight over the spoils of their regular victories.<\/p>\n

Second, the House (with its 435 independently elected members) teaches<\/p>\n

and rewards coalition politics, whereas the presidency is usually the<\/p>\n

source of broad ideas. <\/p>\n

In my view, the historic character of Democrats as a coalition party<\/p>\n

was not a serious impediment until a separate phenomenon developed: the<\/p>\n

intellectual collapse of the lef<\/b>t<\/a>. Conservatives<\/p>\n

win elections, I believe, not because they cheat (that is, spend more<\/p>\n

money, or get more support in the media), nor because they are better<\/p>\n

than liberals at communicating their message. They win because they have<\/p>\n

broad, coherent principles, which boil down to this: "Families use<\/p>\n

their discretionary income to buy things that make them happy, to exercise<\/p>\n

their freedom, and to enrich their spiritual lives if they so choose.<\/p>\n

Therefore, we should maximize the aggregate disposable income of American<\/p>\n

families. Government does not create income and tends to waste it, so<\/p>\n

its size should be minimized."<\/p>\n

The left has a set of cogent criticisms of this position. Contrary to<\/p>\n

what conservatives say: (a) Government does<\/i> create wealth by providing<\/p>\n

necessary public goods such as universal education, research, and transportation.<\/p>\n

(b) Maximizing aggregate wealth is not an adequate goal, because we can<\/p>\n

achieve that end by making the rich much richer while leaving the poor<\/p>\n

where they are—and this does not increase happiness or freedom. (c)<\/p>\n

We should care about the prosperity of future generations, not about short-term<\/p>\n

growth, and therefore we should not cut taxes if this will increase the<\/p>\n

deficit. (d) All wealth circulates through households, but it most of<\/p>\n

it also passes through corporations. Large firms have great power and<\/p>\n

are not accountable to citizens unless regulated by the state. (e) Maximizing<\/p>\n

aggregate wealth is not sustainable, because human consumption degrades<\/p>\n

the environment. (f) Maximizing aggregate wealth is incompatible with<\/p>\n

preserving traditional human cultures and cultural diversity. (g) Maximizing<\/p>\n

disposable income should not be our only goal; we should also be concerned<\/p>\n

about how safe, available, and rewarding work<\/i> is. (h) Private goods<\/p>\n

are not the only important things; nature, science, and art also matter,<\/p>\n

and they require public support. (i) Unregulated capitalism is not meritocratic:<\/p>\n

over time, it creates a class of wealthy and lazy heirs.<\/p>\n

These are sensible criticisms, but they are somewhat at odds with each<\/p>\n

other, and each appeals to a different set of Democratic constituencies.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Democrats cannot conceal their differences by uniting in support<\/p>\n

of a concrete national policy. Despite their criticisms of conservatism,<\/p>\n

they do not believe in the traditional mechanisms for generating equity,<\/p>\n

sustainability, safety, and the other progressive goods. Above all, they<\/p>\n

do not believe in centralized state bureaucracies. Thus they fight fairly<\/p>\n

half-heartedly in defense of traditional institutions, from public schools<\/p>\n

to unions to the EPA, while failing to articulate a coherent, principled<\/p>\n

message. And this is why they lose. In short, the problem is intellectual-ideological,<\/p>\n

not merely tactical, and thus it will not disappear soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Clymer has an article in today’s New York Times about the Democrats’ search for a broad and coherent message. The party is a coalition of disparate, often antagonistic interest groups, according to this article—not a movement inspired by coherent principles. The Republican pollster Ed Goeas made the same charge at a public event I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revitalizing-the-left"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}