Summary: Today’s post gives a different perspective on the challenge of reforming America. Before we can fix our political machinery we must understand what’s wrong. This post gives a possible explanation.
This blasted itself out of my keyboard late last night. After it went up I divided it into 2 smaller and more focused posts. Tomorrow’s part 2 examines the implications of this diagnosis, and discusses two solutions.
“Stability is in unity.”
— Mencius (372 – 292 BC), Chinese philosopher, a follower of Confucius.
Contents
- America’s strengths, & a weakness.
- Symptoms of political rigidity.
- The cause of our problems.
- For More Information.
(1) America’s strengths, and a weakness
Nations thrive over long periods not by luck (or not just luck), but by being adaptive, innovative, and intelligent in their public policy. What nations best deserve that description today? Singapore and the Nordic nations, certainly. Germany, Korea, and China, probably.
Does this describe the USA? Our business sector has all of these qualities, as does our society with its incredible vitality. This was also true of our political regime — in the past. But somehow, sometime since WWII, our political institutions have become rigid, even stupid.
That’s bad news, since America has a different foundation than most nations. America is its political regime. We’re not defined by ethnicity, religion, economic ideology, or even geography (although many Americans confuse these things with the nation and feel alienated when they change). We’re like Athens, but more so.
… the soul of the city was the regime, the arrangements of and participation in offices, deliberation about the just and the common good, choices about war and peace, the making of laws. … {Pericles’ famous funeral oration} says nothing about the gods, or the poetry, history, sculpture or philosophy of Athens. He praises its regime and finds beauty in its political achievement … {From Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind
}
It has been the basis for America’s resiliency and power. But it’s a single point of failure: When our political regime weakens, the entire nation weakens.
(2) Symptoms of political rigidity
Our handling of major threats since 2001, such as jihadists and climate change, shows this rigidity. These are complex threats, whose dynamics cross multiple intellectual disciplines. Their understanding requires knowledge and experience beyond that of any small group — certainly beyond that of most bureaucrats at the senior levels of government. America has people with the necessary experience and knowledge. But instead of consulting them, our leaders quickly choose a policy response.
What do we have to show for those decisions 13 years later? We have no effective climate change policy, not even firm direction for our expensive climate science research programs. Everything remains locked in America’s political polarization. Our long war runs even worse. Our interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen have been bloody failures — leaving the region aflame. Our dreams of bases in strategic Afghanistan and Iraq, from which we could project power across the region, have burned way and left nothing but the casualties.
And so it goes with most of our major public policy issues. Our infrastructure rots. Our education system is among the world’s best funded and delivers slightly below-average results. Ditto for our health care system. Our defense department has a stunning inability to consistently deliver working weapons despite spending unimaginable sums (the F-35 being the logical next step in their increasingly large fiascoes).
All of these problems have been widely known for decades, even generations. Most continue despite adequate or even lavish funding. No, it’s not an inability of “government” to function. Most of our peers run these systems much better, cheaper, and with less fuss.
(3) The cause of our problems
The problem is not our governmental structure; it’s the same as has run in the sloppy but effective manner as during the Republic’s first 200 years (1789-1989). The problem is not the two-party structure; which has run in the same messy fashion since John Adams was President. It is not polarization; western governments, including ours, often have functioned with high levels of polarization.
It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that the middle class (more accurately, the upper middle class — the professional and managerial classes I call the “outer party”) are locked in a struggle with the 1% and its allies (especially the wealthy and leadership classes I call the “inner party”) for control of America. Since roughly 1980 the 1% has been winning, rewarded by an increasing share of the national income and greater control of its public and private institutions. But the cost has been to make dysfunctional our governmental machinery.
Such internal conflicts have often disrupted societies, as their political machinery fails when social cohesion is lost. For extreme examples look at Latin American nations. In the 1920s people in Europe described rich people as being “Rich as an Argentinian.” After generations of social conflict Argentina’s GDP per capita now ranks 55th, between Gabon and Croatia.
The story of Argentine economic growth in the 20th century is one of decline unparalleled in the annals of economic history. Once one of the richest and fastest growing countries in the world, Argentina is now firmly entrenched in the ranks of less-developed countries; and the Belle Epoque, the turn-of-the-century golden age, a time of rapid growth, high culture and dreams of continued prosperity, is but a dim and distant memory for most Argentines.
— From “Three Phases of Argentine Economic Growth“, Alan M. Taylor, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1994. Open copy here.
Tomorrow’s post looks to the future. Will we be better off when ruled by the 1%?
(5) For More Information
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