Okay.... It’s a two-man race. So, now what?

The deadline to change my voter registration from Republican to Democrat in New York was February 14, Valentines Day.  (See “It’s Official: I’m a Democrat”) When I did so, I didn’t expect the Super Tuesday massacre.  I switched so I could vote for Bloomberg in the New York Primary.  I could still do that.  But that would be the wasted vote I eschewed when I flipped parties.  So, now what?

In a Biden vs. Sanders race, the obvious choice for me is Uncle Joe.  But why?  A review of the candidates’ websites suggests their positions on the issues are the same:  reducing income inequality, higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, universal healthcare.

Of course, their rhetoric on the campaign trail is something different.  Sanders is a class warrior, a dogmatic politician as divisive and out of touch as the President he would like to replace.  Biden on the other hand is more pragmatic — and, it’s that word “pragmatic” that separates him from other Democrats (and Republicans).  He has a long history of working toward bipartisan agreement.  A great example is outlined in Bob Woodward’s book “The Price of Politics” in which the award-winning journalist describes the process by which the Obama White House reached a compromise with a Republican Congress on the budget and debt limit in 2010.  Woodward’s book suggests that the joint effort on the part of Republicans and Democrats to break the impasse was floundering until Uncle Joe began working  with another old Senate hand, Mitch McConnell.  A series of convos and a handshake later, we had a budget compromise that lasted for years.  

Sanders hasn’t achieved anything like Biden’s track record.  Dogmatists rarely do.  They sit in their corner certain of their righteousness and refuse to compromise.  They never have to apologize because they never do anything.  In a democratic republic that relies on bipartisan legislation to achieve lasting change, Uncle Joe is the guy.  

So, what do these candidates want to achieve?  Sanders no longer calls himself a socialist in favor of the more current label Social Democrat.  He calls for the implementation of a regime of government benefits that emulates that of Scandinavian countries:  free healthcare, free tuition, mandatory paid family leave and so on.  

In theory, I don’t have a philosophical objection to this paradigm.  In practice, I do.  (I am more pragmatic than dogmatic.)  Sanders proposals — Medicare for All, Free Tuition, Student Loan relief — would easily double the size of the federal budget.  He says he’ll fund it by taxing corporations and billionaires.  Setting aside the economic impact of those policies for the moment (and they are substantial), I have to say I don’t believe it.  Ultimately, if not immediately, he’ll come for you and me — the middle class.  Think about it this way: if the goal is to eradicate billionaires, the tax base will shrink.   So, where will he go next?

I also have a moral objection to his approach.  If we — the electorate — want government to do certain things, we should be willing to pay for those things. It’s noteworthy that the US already has a more progressive personal income tax regime than any of the EU countries.  European nations offering free healthcare and college tuition impose a Value Added Tax (which functions like a sales tax) of about 20% on sales at a retail level no matter how rich or poor you are.  In other words, all citizens pay for what they ask from government. 

Sanders sidesteps this sticky argument by declaring the system is rigged (as does Trump).  Well, yes, it’s rigged in favor of those who work hard and play by the rules.  For those who think the world owes them a living, not so much.  As someone who scrimped and saved so my kids could graduate from college without debt, I wonder why others should not have to.  As someone who has assumed risks to my livelihood by owning a business, I wonder why anyone thinks they should reap the rewards without assuming the same risk.  

I am a classical liberal not a political liberal.  I believe in a freedom agenda: free enterprise, free choice and freedom to succeed or fail on one’s own merits.  That makes me more libertarian than liberal and that’s how I have voted in the past.  So, how do I square my beliefs with the concepts of social democracy?  

What few seem to understand is that the social democracy that Scandinavians enjoy relies on free market capitalism to be viable.  The remaining candidates (sorry to see you go, Mike) would impose new limits or costs on business.  In making such proposals, they take our prosperity for granted.  Treating corporate America like something that needs to be healed, they fail to see that every surgical cut to corporate profits undermines the attractiveness of the US economy to foreign investors, reduces available capital to invest in future endeavors and threatens to leave the patient bleeding to death.  I would like to see a candidate who adopts the approach implied by the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors: primum non nocere (first do no harm).  

WHO WILL LEAD?

The American Dream is alive and well

Recently, I received an email quoting a Baptist minister that started:

“The American dream ended on November 6th, 2012 in Ohio.  The second term of Barack Obama has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males, who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind.

“A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the "forever needy," the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other "fellow travelers” have ended Norman Rockwell's America.”

There are a lot of emotional hooks embedded in this openly racist screed.  However, I am unpersuaded.  Having grown up in the Melting Pot of New York, I don’t think of America as a monolith of white Christian males.  In my view, the American Dream is the product of hard-working immigrants, many of whom are not white, Christian or male.

Moreover, I don’t think the American dream has ended.

I would guess I am swimming against the tide of public opinion.  Rasmussen reports that about 70% of the public thinks we’re on the wrong track. Many are enamored of Donald Trump because he speaks to the trends that disrupted the 20th Century economic model that made them secure.

But, this isn’t the 20^th Century and our challenges aren’t the result of a lack of jobs.  They are the result of a lack of skilled applicants.  McKinsey reports that “[i]n advanced economies, demand for high-skill labor is now growing faster than supply, while demand for low-skill labor remains weak.”  They further predict that there will be a global shortage of workers with the skills demanded by the 21^st Century economy while the cohort of low-skilled workers will grow by over 90 million, resulting in an oversupply of 11 million such workers. 

If we are to address income inequality – if we want to “make America great again” -- we should start right here. 

Birth rates are declining in the industrialized world just as the Baby Boom generation is retiring in great numbers.  The American Dream is our greatest weapon in the competition for immigrants.  We need more engineers and well educated technical people than our education system can produce in the next decade.

Writing for Quartz.com, Leila Janah asserts that the challenges go to the heart of our education system.  “Community colleges… have a 70% dropout rate nationwide,” she reports.  “And even when people do manage to finish, they emerge with training that doesn’t equip them to succeed in the new economy – skills like marketing one’s talents in an online profile, submitting applications for project-based work, and developing new skills using on-line resources.”

Ms. Janah is associated with Rework America a private initiative whose goal is to harness the energies of “entrepreneurs, educators, technology leaders, CEOs, diplomats, community activists [and] religious leaders”… to “expand opportunities for employment … for all Americans to learn and train for the work of the future.”  Such efforts are more likely to achieve results for workers than any government program. 

To achieve the American Dream, 21^st Century workers will need to project themselves into the future rather than pine for the past.  Don't expect government to provide the answer. You must make the right choices.

The Bernie Sanders ad running in NY goes like this:  “if you’re doing everything right and finding it harder and harder to get by, you’re not alone.”

We need to modify that message thusly: if you're doing everything right and finding it harder and harder to get by, you’re not doing everything right.

WHO WILL LEAD?

Lessons in Depolarization: let’s start now!

I have a friend who thinks the candidates from the other political party are “crazy”.  She sometimes starts a conversation that way.  “They’re all crazy!” she’ll say.  My response is that it depends on where you’re standing.

If you’re an Evangelical Christian who thinks the government should enforce your moral code, Ted Cruz doesn’t sound crazy.  If you think capitalism is evil and corporate greed is at the root of our nation’s problems, Bernie Sanders doesn’t sound crazy.  If you lost your factory job because your employer outsourced it to China, Donald Trump doesn’t sound crazy. 

Another friend – a self-proclaimed libertarian -- describes the hypocrisy of Republicans who espouse limited government by saying of the party’s candidates, “they think the only problem with government is they’re not running it”.  That one resonates with me, which is why the faux campaign button displayed here caught my attention.  They all indeed suck!

So, where do we go from here?

In an article titled “The 7 Habits of Highly DepolarizingPeople”, David Blankenhorn points out “[w]e Americans didn’t necessarily think our way into political polarization, but we’ll likely have to think our way out.”  Among the habits he counsels we develop is Habit #4:

“Doubt—the concern that my views may not be entirely correct—is the true friend of wisdom and (along with empathy, to which it’s related) the greatest enemy of polarization.” 

Do you ever doubt that your political positions are correct?

Here’s another thought…

Ever notice how people put you in a category based on one of your opinions.  In an online discussion, someone I’ve never met referred to me as a “right-wing tea bagger” because I challenged the wisdom of Bernie Sanders policy proposals.  Just because I hold one opinion embraced by many Republicans doesn’t mean I agree with them all. Again, Mr. Blankenhorn:

“Of all the mental habits that encourage polarization, the most dangerous is probably binary thinking—the tendency to divide everything into two mutually antagonistic categories.”

“Categories are abstractions,” he reminds us when describing Habit #5:  Specify.  When we fall into the “sloppy habit of categorical thinking,” he reminds us, “the result is personally and socially harmful.”

Blankenhorn got me thinking about my own polarizing behavior.  Had I not used the tactic of categorization when I body slammed Bernie Sanders in last year’s most-read post? (Let’s Understand Just What Socialism Means to Us)

Sanders would model our government after Scandinavian countries.  An examination of the economic models of Scandinavia would suggest that socialism is an inaccurate label.  Their highly globalized, free trading, free market capitalist economic systems would very much appeal to American conservatives. They’re not socialist at all.

Denmark, for example, ranks number 3 on the World Bank’s list of countries in which it’s easy to do business.  The rankings are a measure of the degree to which regulations hamper businesses.  The U.S. is 7th followed in order by Sweden, Norway and Finland.  CEOWorld magazine ranks Sweden and Denmark sixth and seventh respectively in their ranking of globalized countries.  The U.S. is number 34. 

In addition to free trade, Scandinavian countries have embraced policies that would be anathema to American progressives.  There is no minimum wage in these countries.  Wages are set through collective bargaining and vary by industry. 

Sweden has introduced a school voucher system to increase competition among primary and secondary schools.

They depart from the agenda of American conservatives as well.  Their social benefit programs are expensive and are supported by high taxes. 

So, in what category do we place the Scandinavian model?

Better question: how do we depolarize?   

In describing Habit #1 -- “criticize from within” -- Blankenhorn quotes Lincoln’s first inaugural in which he calls upon us to “find the better angels of our nature”.  He suggests we start by finding some common ground. 

We might find common ground in the writing of Hunter Lewis, thusly: 

“Politics, economics, morals, and manners all fit closely together. The kind of crony capitalist society in which we live encourages, indeed glorifies deceiving, cheating, taking advantage of the weak, putting yourself first. This kind of behavior always has and always will exist, but in past eras it has not often been extolled, as it is today, or covered up with a bare wink…”

Can we start there?

WHO WILL LEAD?

Let's understand just what socialism means to us

I need to get this off my chest: I'm both upset and amazed that a wacko like Donald Trump is polling second to a mainstream candidate like Jeb Bush in the race for the Republican nomination for President. I'm equally upset and amazed that a wacko like Bernie Sanders is polling second to a mainstream candidate like Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race.

The difference between the two relates to discipline.  Trump says whatever is on his mind with no concern for the repercussions.  (I won’t bother to recount his comments as they are well covered by the press.) 

Sanders, on the other hand, has so far delivered his thoughts with a lot of “message discipline”. 

Sanders is not a Democrat.  First elected to Congress in 1990 and as Vermont’s Junior U.S. Senator in 2006, he has been an Independent who caucuses with Democrats.  He is a self-declared “democratic socialist”. 

We know what the ‘democratic’ part of this definition means.  It means that, unlike the dictatorship that governed the socialist system of the Soviet Union, the electorate chooses its government.  However, I wonder if we know what a socialist is. 

Socialism is an economic system whereby the government owns the means of production.  Citizens lose the right to private property.  Investors (if there are any left) do not have the right to a return on their capital.

Anyone who thinks that socialism would be preferable to free-market capitalism is either ignorant or stupid.  And yet, Sen. Sanders is gaining traction.  What’s happening to the United States?  Have we lost our bearings? 

What we once described as the “profit motive” has been recast as “corporate greed”.  Greed, as we all know, is one of the seven deadly sins.  So, we have redefined something with enormous positive effects as something that is sinful.  

Capitalism and the profit motive have driven innovation from the 1690s, when the invention of the steam engine and steel plows made farms more productive, to the1870s, when the invention of both the automobile engine and distribution of electricity began an era of rapidly improving lifestyles, to the 1990s when the Internet boom created an interconnected world.

The result of all this innovation…

Poverty has been reduced to one fifth of what it was in 1900.  Child labor has been reduced by half since 2000.  Number of hours worked per worker has been reduced by one third since the 19th Century.  Infant mortality is half of what it was in 1990. The store of nuclear weapons has been reduced fivefold since the end of the Cold War. Carbon emissions have been flat for the last four years. (Yes, government regulation played an important role in these improvements.)

All this is the result of innovation driven by free-market capitalism. It would not have happened if we lived in a socialist system.

As for those who contend that capitalism exploits workers, I offer this:  Other things being equal – culture, geography, education, etc. – workers always thrive in a capitalist system where socialism fails to deliver.  Think of North and South Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China, or East and West Germany.

To be clear, it is the free enterprise, capitalist system that has led to a better life for Americans.  In its absence, you wouldn't have time to play with your kids or enjoy a glass of wine with your friends on Saturday night; you wouldn't be able to access the Internet from an electronic device in your pocket; and, you wouldn't be living in a climate controlled home.  You would be working hard and not reaping the benefits.  The benefit of your labor would go to the government.

Free-market capitalism is the surest path to prosperity. To describe it as corporate greed is doing all of us a disservice.  To consider voting for a socialist is the height of folly.

WHO WILL LEAD?