The Future of Liberalism - Post 3

This is the third post in a 4-post series (here are Post 1 and Post 2), discussing the future of the movement called liberalism, which I hope to be a part of and to help redefine. In the first post, I discussed the very real decline in liberalism's popularity, and gave what I think is the reason - liberalism isn't "bringing the goods" (advancing economic policies that work and social policies that address pressing unmet needs). In Post 2, I gave a brief sketch of how I see the history of liberalism, and why I think liberalism lost steam over time.

My father (known to me as "Dad") is about as stereotypical of a "liberal" as you can find - a psychology professor, bearded, Jewish, and flannel-wearing. He favors social safety nets, restrictions on money-hungry corporations, gun control, abortion rights, gay rights, international multilateralism, environmental protection, separation of church and state, and pretty much anything that a news pundit would associate with liberalism. Any political conversation between us will typically start with ten minutes of him expounding on the ineptitude and malevolence of the Bush administration. This will be followed by me asking "But what should our government be trying to do instead?" (often several times). After a brief pause, he typically launches into a laundry list of admirable but very narrowly targeted policy initiatives, which generally lasts until I manage to turn the conversation to my bigger, bolder ideas (that's when the Noahlogue begins....). Basically, Dad is suffering from the same, hopefully temporary, malady that is afflicting most of America's brightest liberals - they are so blinded what they perceive as the excesses of the conservative movement that they focus exclusively on conservatism, leaving liberalism to collect intellectual dust.

But it was Dad who gave me my basic philosophy of liberalism.

When I was eight years old, at a time most fathers would be teaching their sons to play sports, Dad would sit around telling me about world affairs. He told me about communism and capitalism, of which he said the latter was by far the better - communism, he said, didn't work at all, because it gave no incentive for people to work, and thus the Soviet Union would fall (it took three more years to prove him right). But, he said, capitalist corporations, if unrestrained, would make people work too hard, in dangerous conditions, and would fire them unexpectedly and leave them in jeaopardy. The solution he put forth was the liberal solution - force companies to treat their workers well, like a kind of corporate noblesse oblige with an emphasis on the oblige.

But the days when corporations ruled the waves, set prices, and employed people for life are gone with the wind. Just as we changed from a nation of farmers to a nation of factory workers a hundred years ago, we are now changing to a nation of job-switchers. So-called "knowledge workers" will port their expert skills from firm to firm, and start their own companies if they see the chance; low-skilled and service-sector workers will find themselves hired, fired, and re-hired again as the economy churns faster. Basically, the reality has changed - restricting corporations doesn't do as much to give people good jobs and economic security.

So the time has come to look closely at liberalism and ask: Was restricting corporations an end in and of itself? Or was it simply the most convenient means that liberals found to help advance their larger social goals? I think it must be the latter. But what was that greater end? I think my dad gave me the clues when he told me about capitalism and communism.

Liberals like my dad basically want the vast majority of Americans to have the the incentives and the opportunities to do productive work in a comfortable and safe environment, and to receive reasonable compensation for that work (Come to think of it, that's what I want too - money can't buy you love, but a bad job, or no job, really sucks). Those basic ideals haven't changed with the passing of the old industrial order, but the best methods to achieve them have changed.

(One other thing that has changed is that we have the golden opportunity to add one more value to the economic liberal pantheon: people should have personal economic freedom to move from job to job. This wasn't really feasible when big corporations ruled the roost, but things have changed, and this is good for liberalism. Who wants to be a serf to the same company your whole life, anyway?)

One might ask: how do these ideals differentiate liberals from conservatives? Obviously, conservatives also want people to be productive and have incentives to work - though they may not lose as much sleep about the comfort, safety, opportunities, and reasonable compensation. Is it okay for liberals to have the same goals as conservatives in some cases? Of course it is; liberalism is not a "niche philosophy." (And besides, who cares what conservatism wants? This post isn't "the future of conservatism". Tch!)

So the upshot is that liberalism is a basically capitalist philosophy - mend it, but don't even think about ending it. The economic goal of American liberalism has nothing to do with soaking the rich - it's about bettering the lives of the bulk of the populace. Liberal economic policies should seek to promote economic growth, to spread opportunity to all parts of society, and to continue to make the American workplace a good place to work.

Corporations have lost their hegemony. Restricting corporations is thus going to become less and less effective as a tool for improving people's lives. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done - but it does mean that we liberals should focus our efforts in other areas. Economic growth and personal opportunity are going to depend more and more on things like educating people, facilitating job mobility, and making sure that Americans personally enjoy the benefits of free trade. Basically, the new liberalism must be all about "economic power to the people" - so let's start saying it.

I am no policy expert yet, but from those of you readers (I might be up to 5!) who are sick of "values" buzzwords written in italics, I suspect that liberal economic policies for the new century will include:
* improving education, especially reading, math, and science, through incentives, tougher standards, and optional fast-track classes
* increasing access to higher education
* increasing legal immigration (from new sources like India too) while decreasing illegal immigration
* boosting America's R&D capabilities by funding basic research, increasing corporate-university partnerships, and luring the best foreign talent
* tightening our fiscal policy and encouraging people to save more
* establishing a social safety net that helps people get smoothly from job to job (something like a beefed-up Earned Income Tax Credit)
* providing incentives for creation of businesses with positive externalities (side effects), like environmental technologies and alternative energy
* continuing to promote free trade, while insisting on bi-directional open markets and protection of intellectual property (China, that means you)
* simplifying the tax code (yes, I know conservatives want that too, that doesn't make it less sensible)
* reforming Medicare and Social Security so that they won't bankrupt our civilization
* making a concerted, results-based effort to spread more opportunity to African-Americans

I believe that if liberals "bring the goods" - if we give people economic policies that work - we'll be halfway to reclaiming liberalism's "place in the sun" of the political world. But the second half is just as important - we've got to make social policies that address pressing, unmet needs. That will be the subject of my fourth and final post.