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05/13/2010

America's Future, Part II

Part II of my look at James Fallows’ recent essay for The Atlantic.

[Excerpts]

“America still has the means to address nearly any of its structural weaknesses. Yes, the problems are intellectually and politically complicated: energy use, medical costs, the right educational and occupational mix to rebuild a robust middle class. But they are no worse than others the nation has faced in more than 200 years, and today no other country comes close to the United States in having the surplus money, technology, and attention to apply to the tasks. (China? Remember, most people there still live on subsistence farms.) First with Iraq and now with Afghanistan, the U.S. has in the past decade committed $1 trillion to the cause of entirely remaking a society. We know that such an investment could happen here – but we also know it won’t work.

“That is the American tragedy of the early 21st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke. One thing I’ve never heard in my time overseas is ‘I wish we had a Senate like yours.’….

“The most charitable statement of the problem is that the American government is a victim of its own success. It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries – long enough to become mismatched to the real circumstances of the nation. If Henry Adams were whooshed from his Washington of a century ago to our Washington of today, he would find it shockingly changed, except for the institutions of government. Same two political parties, same number of members of the House (since 1913, despite more than a threefold increase in population), essentially same rules of debate in the Senate. Thomas Jefferson’s famed wish for ‘a little rebellion now and then’ as a ‘medicine necessary for the sound health of government’ is a nice slogan for organizing rallies, but is not how this country has actually operated….

“The late economist Mancur Olson laid out the consequences of institutional aging in his 1982 book, The Rise and Decline of Nations. Year by year, he said, special-interest groups inevitably take bite after tiny bite out of the total national wealth. They do so through tax breaks, special appropriations, what we now call legislative ‘earmarks,’ and other favors that are all easier to initiate than to cut off. No single nibble is that dramatic or burdensome, but over the decades they threaten to convert any stable democracy into a big, inefficient, favor-ridden state. In 1994, Jonathan Rauch updated Olson’s analysis and called this enfeebling pattern ‘demosclerosis,’ in a book of that name. He defined the problem as ‘government’s progressive loss of the ability to adapt,’ a process ‘like hardening of the arteries, which builds up stealthily over many years.’….

“The decades-long bipartisan conspiracy to gerrymander both state and federal electoral districts doesn’t help. More and more legislative seats are ‘safe’ for one party or the other; fewer and fewer politicians have any reason to appeal to the center or to the other side.   In a National Affairs article, ‘Who Killed California?,’ Troy Senik pointed out that 153 state or federal positions in California were at stake in the 2004 election. Not a single one changed party. This was an early and extreme illustration of a national trend….

“What I have been calling ‘going to hell’ really means a failure to adapt: increasing difficulty in focusing on issues beyond the immediate news cycle, and an increasing gap between the real challenges and opportunities of the time and our attention, resources, and best efforts….

“What are the choices? Logically they come down to these, starting with the most fanciful:

“We could hope for an enlightened military coup, or some other dues ex machine by the right kind of tyrants. (In his 700-page new ‘meliorist’ novel, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us, Ralph Nader proposes a kind of plutocrats’ coup, in which Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Ted Turner, et al. collaborate to create a more egalitarian America.) The periodic longing for a ‘man on horseback’ is a reflection of disappointment with what normal politics can bring. George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower were the right men on horseback. With no disrespect to David Petraeus, their like is not in sight. In 1992, an Air Force lieutenant colonel wrote an essay for the National War College called ‘The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012,’ which began with the perceived failure of civilian politics to address the nation’s problems. The author, Charles Dunlap, who is now a two-star general, meant this as a cautionary tale. His paper began with this quote from John Adams: ‘Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.’ Tempting as the thought is when watching the Senate on C-SPAN, we can’t really hope for a coup.

“We could hope to change the basic nature of our democracy, so it fits the times as our other institutions do. But this is about as likely as an enlightened coup….there is no chance for constitutional amendments to make the Senate more representative, since the same small states that would lose power can block any change.

“In principle, the United States could call for a new constitutional convention, to reconsider all the rules. That would be my cue to move back to China for good – pollution, Great Firewall, and all. As a simple thought exercise, imagine the fights over evolution, an ‘official’ language, and countless other ‘social’ questions. ‘I am perpetually disappointed by our structural resistance to change,’ Gary Hart told me, ‘but can you imagine what would be put into a drafting session for a constitution today?’ (Historian) Kevin Starr said, ‘You would need a coherent political culture for such a session to occur’ – and the lack of such coherence is exactly the problem – ‘otherwise it would turn into a food fight from Animal House.

“A parliamentary system? This too would improve C-SPAN viewing. But not having started there, we cannot get there.

“A viable third party? Attractive in theory. But 150 years of failed attempts by formidable campaigners, ranging from Robert LaFollette to Ross Perot, suggest how unlikely this is too. [Ed. note. This is where Nick Clegg’s disappointing third party performance, despite the advantages he had in today’s Britain, is also quite telling….though his party did end up in the new Cameron government.]

“We might hope for another Sputnik moment – to be precise, an event frightening enough to stimulate national action without posing a real threat. That kind of ‘hope’ hardly constitutes a plan. In 2001, America endured an event that should have been this era’s Sputnik; but it wasn’t. It doesn’t help now to rue the lost opportunity, but there is no hiding the fact that it was an enormous loss. What could have been a moment to set our foreign policy and our domestic economy on a path for another 50 years of growth – as Eisenhower helped set a 50-year path with his response to Sputnik – instead created problems that will probably take another 50 years to correct.

“That’s yesterday. For tomorrow, we really have only two choices. Doing more, or doing less. Trying to work with our flawed governmental system despite its uncorrectable flaws, or trying to contain the damage that system does to the rest of our society. Muddling through, or starving the beast….

“The conjunction of private and public abundance typified America throughout its 20th-century rise. We had the big factories and the broad sidewalks, the stately mansions and the public parks. The private economy was stronger because of the public bulwarks provided by Social Security and Medicare. California is giving the first taste of how the public-private divorce will look – and its historian, Kevin Starr, says the private economy will soon suffer if the government is not repaired. ‘Through the country’s history, government has had to function correctly for the private sector to flourish,’ he said. ‘John Quincy Adams built the lighthouses and the highways. That’s not ‘socialist’ but ‘Whiggish.’ Now we need ports and highways and an educated populace.’ In a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package, it should have been possible to build all those things, in a contemporary, environmentally aware counterpart to the interstate-highway plan. But it didn’t happen; we’ve spent the money, incurred the debt, and done very little to repair what most needs fixing.

“Our government is old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair. But Starr is right. Our only sane choice is to muddle through. As human beings, we ultimately become old and broken and dysfunctional – but in the meantime it makes a difference if we try. Our American republic may prove to be doomed, but it will make a difference if we improvise and strive to make the best of the path through our time – and our children’s, and their grandchildren’s – rather than succumb….

“America has been strong because, despite its flawed system, people built toward the future in the 1840s, and the 1930s, and the 1950s. During just the time when Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park, when Theodore Roosevelt set aside land for the National Parks, when Dwight Eisenhower created the Pentagon research agency that ultimately gave rise to the Internet, the American system seemed broken too. They worked within its flaws and limits, which made all the difference. That is the bravest and best choice for us now.”

Hot Spots will return in two weeks.

Brian Trumbore


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-05/13/2010-      
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Hot Spots

05/13/2010

America's Future, Part II

Part II of my look at James Fallows’ recent essay for The Atlantic.

[Excerpts]

“America still has the means to address nearly any of its structural weaknesses. Yes, the problems are intellectually and politically complicated: energy use, medical costs, the right educational and occupational mix to rebuild a robust middle class. But they are no worse than others the nation has faced in more than 200 years, and today no other country comes close to the United States in having the surplus money, technology, and attention to apply to the tasks. (China? Remember, most people there still live on subsistence farms.) First with Iraq and now with Afghanistan, the U.S. has in the past decade committed $1 trillion to the cause of entirely remaking a society. We know that such an investment could happen here – but we also know it won’t work.

“That is the American tragedy of the early 21st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke. One thing I’ve never heard in my time overseas is ‘I wish we had a Senate like yours.’….

“The most charitable statement of the problem is that the American government is a victim of its own success. It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries – long enough to become mismatched to the real circumstances of the nation. If Henry Adams were whooshed from his Washington of a century ago to our Washington of today, he would find it shockingly changed, except for the institutions of government. Same two political parties, same number of members of the House (since 1913, despite more than a threefold increase in population), essentially same rules of debate in the Senate. Thomas Jefferson’s famed wish for ‘a little rebellion now and then’ as a ‘medicine necessary for the sound health of government’ is a nice slogan for organizing rallies, but is not how this country has actually operated….

“The late economist Mancur Olson laid out the consequences of institutional aging in his 1982 book, The Rise and Decline of Nations. Year by year, he said, special-interest groups inevitably take bite after tiny bite out of the total national wealth. They do so through tax breaks, special appropriations, what we now call legislative ‘earmarks,’ and other favors that are all easier to initiate than to cut off. No single nibble is that dramatic or burdensome, but over the decades they threaten to convert any stable democracy into a big, inefficient, favor-ridden state. In 1994, Jonathan Rauch updated Olson’s analysis and called this enfeebling pattern ‘demosclerosis,’ in a book of that name. He defined the problem as ‘government’s progressive loss of the ability to adapt,’ a process ‘like hardening of the arteries, which builds up stealthily over many years.’….

“The decades-long bipartisan conspiracy to gerrymander both state and federal electoral districts doesn’t help. More and more legislative seats are ‘safe’ for one party or the other; fewer and fewer politicians have any reason to appeal to the center or to the other side.   In a National Affairs article, ‘Who Killed California?,’ Troy Senik pointed out that 153 state or federal positions in California were at stake in the 2004 election. Not a single one changed party. This was an early and extreme illustration of a national trend….

“What I have been calling ‘going to hell’ really means a failure to adapt: increasing difficulty in focusing on issues beyond the immediate news cycle, and an increasing gap between the real challenges and opportunities of the time and our attention, resources, and best efforts….

“What are the choices? Logically they come down to these, starting with the most fanciful:

“We could hope for an enlightened military coup, or some other dues ex machine by the right kind of tyrants. (In his 700-page new ‘meliorist’ novel, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us, Ralph Nader proposes a kind of plutocrats’ coup, in which Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Ted Turner, et al. collaborate to create a more egalitarian America.) The periodic longing for a ‘man on horseback’ is a reflection of disappointment with what normal politics can bring. George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower were the right men on horseback. With no disrespect to David Petraeus, their like is not in sight. In 1992, an Air Force lieutenant colonel wrote an essay for the National War College called ‘The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012,’ which began with the perceived failure of civilian politics to address the nation’s problems. The author, Charles Dunlap, who is now a two-star general, meant this as a cautionary tale. His paper began with this quote from John Adams: ‘Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.’ Tempting as the thought is when watching the Senate on C-SPAN, we can’t really hope for a coup.

“We could hope to change the basic nature of our democracy, so it fits the times as our other institutions do. But this is about as likely as an enlightened coup….there is no chance for constitutional amendments to make the Senate more representative, since the same small states that would lose power can block any change.

“In principle, the United States could call for a new constitutional convention, to reconsider all the rules. That would be my cue to move back to China for good – pollution, Great Firewall, and all. As a simple thought exercise, imagine the fights over evolution, an ‘official’ language, and countless other ‘social’ questions. ‘I am perpetually disappointed by our structural resistance to change,’ Gary Hart told me, ‘but can you imagine what would be put into a drafting session for a constitution today?’ (Historian) Kevin Starr said, ‘You would need a coherent political culture for such a session to occur’ – and the lack of such coherence is exactly the problem – ‘otherwise it would turn into a food fight from Animal House.

“A parliamentary system? This too would improve C-SPAN viewing. But not having started there, we cannot get there.

“A viable third party? Attractive in theory. But 150 years of failed attempts by formidable campaigners, ranging from Robert LaFollette to Ross Perot, suggest how unlikely this is too. [Ed. note. This is where Nick Clegg’s disappointing third party performance, despite the advantages he had in today’s Britain, is also quite telling….though his party did end up in the new Cameron government.]

“We might hope for another Sputnik moment – to be precise, an event frightening enough to stimulate national action without posing a real threat. That kind of ‘hope’ hardly constitutes a plan. In 2001, America endured an event that should have been this era’s Sputnik; but it wasn’t. It doesn’t help now to rue the lost opportunity, but there is no hiding the fact that it was an enormous loss. What could have been a moment to set our foreign policy and our domestic economy on a path for another 50 years of growth – as Eisenhower helped set a 50-year path with his response to Sputnik – instead created problems that will probably take another 50 years to correct.

“That’s yesterday. For tomorrow, we really have only two choices. Doing more, or doing less. Trying to work with our flawed governmental system despite its uncorrectable flaws, or trying to contain the damage that system does to the rest of our society. Muddling through, or starving the beast….

“The conjunction of private and public abundance typified America throughout its 20th-century rise. We had the big factories and the broad sidewalks, the stately mansions and the public parks. The private economy was stronger because of the public bulwarks provided by Social Security and Medicare. California is giving the first taste of how the public-private divorce will look – and its historian, Kevin Starr, says the private economy will soon suffer if the government is not repaired. ‘Through the country’s history, government has had to function correctly for the private sector to flourish,’ he said. ‘John Quincy Adams built the lighthouses and the highways. That’s not ‘socialist’ but ‘Whiggish.’ Now we need ports and highways and an educated populace.’ In a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package, it should have been possible to build all those things, in a contemporary, environmentally aware counterpart to the interstate-highway plan. But it didn’t happen; we’ve spent the money, incurred the debt, and done very little to repair what most needs fixing.

“Our government is old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair. But Starr is right. Our only sane choice is to muddle through. As human beings, we ultimately become old and broken and dysfunctional – but in the meantime it makes a difference if we try. Our American republic may prove to be doomed, but it will make a difference if we improvise and strive to make the best of the path through our time – and our children’s, and their grandchildren’s – rather than succumb….

“America has been strong because, despite its flawed system, people built toward the future in the 1840s, and the 1930s, and the 1950s. During just the time when Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park, when Theodore Roosevelt set aside land for the National Parks, when Dwight Eisenhower created the Pentagon research agency that ultimately gave rise to the Internet, the American system seemed broken too. They worked within its flaws and limits, which made all the difference. That is the bravest and best choice for us now.”

Hot Spots will return in two weeks.

Brian Trumbore