The Collective Turn - David Brooks

New York Times: The Collective Turn - David Brooks

David Brooks captures the essence of my perspective once again.

"... I am not a liberal like Obama, so I was struck by what he left out in his tour through American history. I, too, would celebrate Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall, but I’d also mention Wall Street, State Street, Menlo Park and Silicon Valley. I’d emphasize that America has prospered because we have a decentralizing genius.

When Europeans nationalized their religions, we decentralized and produced a great flowering of entrepreneurial denominations. When Europe organized state universities, our diverse communities organized private universities. When Europeans invested in national welfare states, American localities invested in human capital.

America’s greatest innovations and commercial blessings were unforeseen by those at the national headquarters. They emerged, bottom up, from tinkerers and business outsiders who could never have attracted the attention of a president or some public-private investment commission.

I would have been more respectful of this decentralizing genius than Obama was, more nervous about dismissing it for the sake of collective action, more concerned that centralization will lead to stultification, as it has in every other historic instance.

I also think Obama misunderstands this moment. The Progressive Era, New Deal and Great Society laws were enacted when America was still a young and growing nation. They were enacted in a nation that was vibrant, raw, underinstitutionalized and needed taming.

We are no longer that nation. We are now a mature nation with an aging population. Far from being underinstitutionalized, we are bogged down with a bloated political system, a tangled tax code, a byzantine legal code and a crushing debt.

The task of reinvigorating a mature nation is fundamentally different than the task of civilizing a young and boisterous one. It does require some collective action: investing in human capital. But, in other areas, it also involves stripping away — streamlining the special interest sinecures that have built up over the years and liberating private daring. ..."

The last sentence of this paragraph is the key.

"... Obama made his case beautifully. He came across as a prudent, nonpopulist progressive. But I’m not sure he rescrambled the debate. We still have one party that talks the language of government and one that talks the language of the market. We have no party that is comfortable with civil society, no party that understands the ways government and the market can both crush and nurture community, no party with new ideas about how these things might blend together.

But at least the debate is started. Maybe that new wind will come."

Very well said.!

Comments

[NKR]

Again, David Brooks draws a false polarity, thus forcing the reader into pro-market and pro-government, either/or thinking. Since his Michigan commencement speech back in 2008, Obama has done everything to move us beyond these camps to questions of transparency and efficiency in delivery of services. I haven’t found any evidence that Obama is against decentralization, as a general principle. Trying to force the administration’s hand into that camp just seems irresponsible and overly simplistic. Brooks takes a really big leap in claiming that Obama’s speech is evidence of a full policy pivot to a more polarized agenda. He doesn’t draw on any policy evidence, just the absence of lauding the genius of decentralization.

Also I’m not sure why Brooks is eager to claim that we have *no* party that is comfortable with civil society, understands the role of government and markets in the community, or that neither party have new ideas. Politics is how we govern ourselves (as Obama said, again in the Michigan commencement, which you really should watch)- that is how we make civil society what we want it to be. Both parties engage in this. Moreover the field of Public Economics and Welfare Economics is dedicated to understanding the economic role and impact of government and I’m pretty sure Republicans and Democrats have ample analysts that spend their nights and days thinking about this. Neither groups agree, sure, but I’m not sure how Brooks’ hyperbole helps interested parties in actually determining solutions for communities. As far as new ideas go, ACA was pretty new. It drew on Oregon, Massachusetts, and a bunch of other state’s plans… NJ’s too methinks… but it wasn’t a copy. It was “new” in every sense of the word- as new as things get in government. It was also a “first” for the U.S. and it certainly blended analysis of the former issues he raises. So Brooks’ point here is unclear; is it just not the “new” that he wants? What is new and innovative to him anyway?

My point is that Brooks comes off as a third-way curmudgeon, simply because Obama didn’t celebrate decentralization in his inaugural address. I’m not sure that argument carries water. Since he has no evidence to back up his claims, I just see this as a feeble attempt to stop Obama’s post-address momentum. What else could it be?

[Michael W. Kruse]

Brooks is writing an op ed, not a thesis, so of course he can’t build a detailed case for his characterization of Obama. He made reference to Obama’s case for collective action. I suspect his take, like mine, is from an accretion of observation not a definitive statement.

“Politics is how we govern ourselves (as Obama said, again in the Michigan commencement, which you really should watch)- that is how we make civil society what we want it to be.”

Politics is how we govern those aspects of our lives that are truly the domain of government. Therein is the rub. Which things are in that domain? Progressives tend to see government as the hub of a wheel with other institutions of society radiating out from the center. Virtually all aspects of life are extensions of government’s agenda.

I subscribe to something akin to subsidiarity. At the center of concentric circles are the individual and the family. That circle is surrounded by extended family, neighbors, and friends. The next circle includes voluntary organizations like church, neighborhood associations, business, local schools, and such. Beyond that are city and regional government, as well as other intermediate-sized institutions. Eventually we reach the outer rim with federal government (some might include international organizations beyond that.) Each ring will have roles which only institutions in those rings can play but they exist in a subsidiary … i.e., supportive … role to the rings closer to the center.

No, Obama is not a totalitarian. Neither are most progressives. Presently, too much of conservatism is an effort to create a market society, not just a market economy. My perception is that, conversely, progressives want to subsume all institutions of society into political society, not just a political government.

“My point is that Brooks comes off as a third-way curmudgeon, ..” Then you will have the same opinion of me, because I maintain he is spot on. ;-)

“What else could it be?”

Just because you don’t see doesn’t make it disingenuous. ;-)

[Fred]

Based on the experience of being interviewed by him, in the marvellous book Thinking the Twentieth Century Tony Judt describes David Brooks as an ignorant air head.
Quite so!
And of course Tony's book Ill Fares The Land is superb too.