I feel like a laggard [historian] for writing about this two days after the essay was posted at TNR, but that's how quickly these things move!
Anyway, Jon Chait argues that "[American] liberalism is, by its essence, unideological and simply committed to empiricism. [and basically congruent] with the 'reality-based community' that believes solutions 'emerge from . . . judicious study of discernable reality'."
Matt Yglesias responds here and here, arguing that "pragmatic problem-solving approach to governance doesn't get you anywhere unless you first specify what the problems to be solved are."
Kevin Drum weighs in with the argument that good, competent government is a popular ideal -- look at local government -- and that the 1960s and 1970s just weren't kind to technocratic liberalism. But it's due for a rebirth! We'll see ...
What Chait's argument tends to assume is that the ends are given, and shared by the electorate. If anything should be clear from the last election, it's that the ends and goals of government action are not agreed upon by the American people.
Basing a campaign on a platform of doing X better is just no good if a large segment of the electorate doesn't want X done at all.
Moreover, technocratic politics and government becomes vulnerable to professional capture, to schools being run in the interests of teachers and principals, and hospitals run in the interests of managers, nurses and doctors.
This is not to say that government can't be involved in those things, just that presenting government as some competent outsider is not a winning political platform. Not here. Not anywhere. One reason competent-technocratic and goverment-provided social services work well and are accepted elsewhere are that most other developed western countries are smaller in geographic area and population size.
While I understand American liberals concern with equity across state lines, I think it's worth pointing out that Canada and Australia, the only other contintent-spanning western democracies retain substantial state/provincial involvement in social services. Being parochial, but with a point, people complain in New Zealand, of all places -- a country with 4 million people and as much land area as Colorado -- that central government can be remote and unresponsive to local needs.
But even at the state or local level, government is not a outsider. The structures of government are how we organize the things we can't organize in the market or the voluntary association. Governments are rarely more competent than the communities they are drawn from. A related way of putting this is that governments need their citizens to be involved with them; that ideal is loosely republican and American.
I think that the ends Chait identifies -- good schools and health care -- are shared by a lot of Americans. Improving access to those social goods is a worthy program, but it's not just about doing it better. The notion that everyone should get a good start in life through access to schooling and health care can resonate with many Americans.
The other core functions of government, as I see them, are justice, defence, and some regulatory oversight of markets, and infrastructural investments. There are huge other debates to be had about the scope and aims of those government functions.
This leaves out many things that government does do in America, such as providing significant subsidies to business, and regulation of public morals. Out of power I hope the Democrats will question whether government should be involved in some of those things. Debating the goals and extent of government action is a task the Democrats need to do to frame a better platform in 2006 and 2008 and 2010 and ...
Posted by robe0419 at February 24, 2005 11:06 AM | TrackBack