I'm increasingly convinced that this point is of central importance: the national debate we're about to have must come down to specifics, to cases, to the actual role of actual programs in our actual lives.
If not -- if the debate stays up at 40,000 feet-we will be stuck in miasma of ideological-tweaking generalities, with conservatives like Romney and Gingrich plucking knee-jerk heartstrings (block that metaphor!) in ways that don't merely mislead. They employ upside-down logic to avoid dealing with the real challenges we face in today's political economy.
As much astute writing has picked up in recent days, these themes are being hammered by Republican candidates on the trail. It's all this rhetoric about "entitlement" vs. "opportunity."
By rhetoric, I mean something quite specific: language that generalizes to the point where its non-specificity loses touch with the reality of underlying topic.
You will really learn nothing accurate or even true about the nation's system of so-called entitlement programs from listening to Mitt Romney, for example. It's pure rhetoric in the above sense. It plucks heartstrings with words like opportunity (good) and entitlement (bad) but we learn nothing about how we as a nation will tackle a basic problem of advanced societies: economic security for those past their working years. Or how we, again, as a society, will tackle the burden of health care. Or education. Or the environment.
Regarding retirement, to get down to an actual case, advanced societies have all implemented solutions that draw some resources from the current workforce to help provide for the current generation of retirees. There's an economic rationale: the generation that came before helped build the productive infrastructure that produces today's economic output, so it makes sense for them to benefit from it. And there's a social rationale: most of us want to provide something -- a foundation, not a mansion -- for our elderly: we respect the intergenerational contract that is Social Security.
Many of us respect the intergenerational contract going the other way in the age scale as well: we are glad to know that Head Start, for example, helps children facing steep opportunity barriers get some help. By the way, Head Start is a great example of just how bereft this Romney frame is: he seeks to portray any program that's redistributive as anti-opportunity. But the logic is totally upside down. Head Start, or for that matter, other nutritional and health programs for families in poverty, are redistributive programs that enhance opportunity in the face of steep market and social barriers.
Let me be clear: I'm not giving any of these programs a free pass. Getting down to cases mean they too need evaluation. Is Medicare cost effective (more so than private sector health coverage, but it needs improvement)? Is Social Security efficient (very much so; I challenge anyone to identify a private mechanism that is more so)? Head Start has mixed reviews in terms of long-term benefits, but early educational intervention in general scores very high in term of cost-benefits.
I recently cited George Will as weighing into this debate thusly: "I think big government harms freedom, because it is an enormous tree in the shade of which the smaller institutions of civil society cannot prosper."
Mitt's "will the United States be an entitlement society or an opportunity society?" is equally vapid and misleading. Not just a false choice, but an illogical one, like saying "we must decide whether to grow food or eat food." Government has and will always play an integral role in enhancing opportunity, in offsetting market failures that thwart opportunity, from poverty to pollution.
Progressives musn't allow this debate to float miles above the real world. It all comes down to cases, and every time someone tries to avoid this reality, I for one am going to try to make them face it.
This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.
Two come to mind--Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They are masters at expressing the passion now roiling in the breast of good-hearted patriots!
"By rhetoric, I mean something quite specific: language that generalizes to the point where its non-specificity loses touch with the reality of underlying topic." --Jared Bernstein
In the Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Frank Luntz paradigm, persuasion deliberately nullifies fact. Multiplying the nullifying effects are cultural forces demeaning rational inquiry and favoring emotional impulses. Current political rhetoric requires no proofs. It aims to gain acceptance through “truthiness,” an accurate satirical term. Truthiness is delightful to swallow, but its end is as bitter as wormwood.
Rejuvenating the electorate is the greater challenge. The cynical outlook concerning politics disables a healthy democratic process. Politics always needs the controlling force of a well-informed electorate. Those who favor an ill-informed, uncritical electorate are also promoting reduced educational opportunities for normal Americans because; a reading, listening, critical-thinking public will reject truthiness and favor proven principles and facts. Thankfully, the progressive views available online bypass the emotion-driven, for-profit news media. With more in-depth news and information choices, the necessary education is accessible.
Specifics are revealed through education, not through clever, meaningless, juxtapositions of code words. Code words, as employed by Atwater, Rove and Luntz, do not reveal truth, do not provide proof, do not educate. But, they do persuade in the haze of emotion. The progressive’s mission is to educate, clear the haze and, demand proof.
History is beginning to repeat:
"Don't Be a Sucker (1947)"
"Admonishes Americans that they will lose their country if they let fanaticism and hatred turn them into "suckers." "Let's forget about 'we' and 'they' -- let's think about us!"
http://www.archive.org/details/DontBeaS1947
There's no debate, just name-calling, and the republic slowly collapses in upon itself and I shake my head as I watch the sheeple gets used again and again to further some meglomaniac's dream of utopia being fulfilled at the expence of the average stiff who just wants to be left alone.
We may think we are "free" to hoard the so-called fruits of "our" labor, but in doing so we neglect to honor ALL the life forms that have made our creativity possible. Does the tree neglect to repay the earth that feeds it and enables it to thrive? No...it returns to the earth what the earth needs to replenish its nutrients. Do the clouds forget to return to the seas that which gave them their energy? No...they return their energy to the rivers and oceans in the form of rain. And it's not about raining on the "exact" river that fed the cloud to start. All rivers are connected; the cloud knows it's best to rain wherever the rain is ready to fall and allow the living system of Earth to carry the energy to wherever it is needed.
Would that we humans would learn to trust life to do our heavy lifting. The struggle would cease and abundance would become our norm...because that IS the truth of life.
The assumptions that lie, seemingly unquestionably, at the foundation of our society's present-day practice of capitalism, is that our labors, our worth, and indeed, our very beings, don't even belong to us anymore, but exist solely for the service, benefit, and enrichment of the owning/controlling classes.
We're not just one step removed from gratitude to nature and recognizing our place therein, but we're becoming two steps removed. Our "right" to produce and to benefit from its fruits are becoming dependent upon someone else's permission -- the powerful, the owners *buy* our time, and our lives, and give us back as little as we can bear -- while the *owning class* is the group that ends up hoarding the fruits of *OUR* labors.
This is far different than welfare which is an entitlement. The two subjects should be separated.
An entitlement is anything which someone receives because they fit a certain mold. These run the gamit of everything from TANF to Social Security and include certain tax breaks given to corporations. To get the entitlement all you have to do is meet the criteria.
An opportunity is a particular condition which can be taken advantage of by an individual or group to improve their current situation. Providing opportunities should, ideally, result in a need for far fewer entitlements.
One of the few areas where entitlement and opportunity meet is education In America we provide the opportunity for every child to get an education. As a matter of fact, we mandate that they do. However, we also allow children to drop out and tolerate schools which do not educate a majority of their students.
It has been shown time and again that well educated men and women make better lifestyle choices resulting in less need for entitlements. It is past time to give parents the opportunity to send their children to any school they choose and let the entitlement follow the student rather than the institution.
The folks who are addicted to "entitlements" are Mitt Romney and his 1 %. Mitt got all sorts of tax breaks to run Bain Capital, which involved firing working people and stealing their company pensions. Oil companies, defense contractors, and agri-businesses think they are "entitled" to all sorts of tax breaks - and they money they receive via Uncle Sam goes into the pockets and PAC's that fund politicians like Mitt Romney.
Before Mitt Romney attacks senior citizens for collecting "entitlements" - he should look in a mirror. No one is a better example of an "entitlement society" than Mitt Romney.
On the flip side, watching the genius of currency transformed into a high risk game, evidently played to see how many lives can be destroyed before crashing, makes one suspect that humanity has kicked into reverse and is now devolving backward into mere ape.
The pretense that it is conservative to rail against the reemergence of the law of the jungle is an outrage, so much so that I can hardly believe that it is pawned off on us as legitimate choice. Stay alert.
You base your premise on falsehood.
The GOP can whine about the Kennedy family dynasty, but that's exactly the world that they are striving to create -- a world in which your chances of success, your hopes for political power, and your freedom from worry depend not on your own mettle and ability to achieve, but upon who your parents and grandparents are, and increasingly, what religion you claim to follow.
The emergence of the religious far right has brought a new dimension of entitlement mentality to the party. It is a feeling of entitlement to an exclusive kind of inheritance to this country itself -- they consider themselves the rightful heirs and owners of this country with an entitlement to preferential treatment and political privilege in this nation of many faiths and no faith.
As usual, everything that they accuse "the Left" of being, they are themselves three times over. Whereas the Left merely wants a level playing field and fair playing rules, the far right sees themselves entitled to special privilege and assistance by the rules themselves.
I produce the things I create because I CAN; I give thanks to life for having gifted me with the amazing capacities I have so I can create. I don't need to sell or hoard the things I produce in order to feel rewarded for having produced them. I can validate myself for being so gifted that I am able to bring forth the best I can bring forth, and challenge myself. Too bad the world in which I live demands I "pay" for the right to access the things I need to do so, and measures my worth not based on what I do to nurture life, but on whether or not I generate man-made wealth.
It's also a nice way of stating what I have long considered to be true wealth, measured in part by what we can *DO*, versus the man-made illusions of wealth by which people measure their success by what they can own and buy.
The mere ability to buy says little about the actual constitution of the person doing the buying. But without the ability to *do*, we wouldn't have a tiny fraction of what we enjoy -- and sometimes needlessly complicate our lives with -- today.
If I may hijack a popular phrase used to insult the educational system and turn it into something more positive *and* true:
"Those who can, do. Those who can't buy,"
At least you got that part right.
But the part about welfare being easy and availiable is false. There is actually very little welfare left. I dare you to google it. Try this search: welfare little help for needy
Read for an hour. Report back. Otherwise we will know that you have shuttered your mind.
We don't need money or jobs to do that; we need compassion, intelligence, gratitude and a deeper understanding of the inextricable interconnectedness of all that is. When I realized that whatever diminished another person diminished us all, I discovered the joy of giving without attaching conditions, without concerning myself with the way another chooses to use my gift. I learned to trust the process of life to teach others how to become the best they can become in their own time; I'm too busy becoming the best I can be to distract myself with telling others how they "should" be!