are still strong enough to take the lead in working out cooperative agreements and putting pressure on recalcitrant allies to do their share. With vigorous leadership we can prove strong enough to help set up a cooperative world economic order that would replace the outmoded notion that a single great power must dominate the globe in order to ensure favorable economic conditions. The notion of the common good could provide the touchstone for a domestic program that is hopeful and realistic as well. The international picture sketched above would have a great impact on the domestic scene. Reductions in the military budget would provide significant help with the deficit problem. Yet more needs to be done. We have been consuming a lot more than we have been earning (some of us have been consuming a lot more than others), and we are not making things as well or as inexpensively as others in the world. At a time of severe budget deficits, we must spend much more money on education and other parts of our social and material infraA coherent vision, a public philosophy, provides citizens with the means for understanding and sympathizing with the aims of the president and his party. structure if we hope to live in a viable and decent society in the twenty-first century. Above all, we need to concentrate our national energies on investment and on the prudent stewardship of our resources, and, even more important, on the human consequences of the material development of our society. In other words, while we have learned that the market is an effective mechanism of economic growth in all societies, we are still faced with working out the creative mechanisms for more effective social control of the economy, so that the market contributes to society’s good rather than falsely defining it. It is worth looking at the Reagan administration’s rhetoric and its policies in order to understand why they generated great optimism and enthusiasm at first, only to lead eventually to confusion and cynicism. From the beginning, Reagan conveyed a double message: He legitimated the pursuit of self-interest tn the form of large-scale private acquisitiveness, while eulogizing family, neighborhood, religion, and work—as they were understood by the new Christian right. One could say that he combined permissiveness with repression. Actually, the permissiveness was the real policy and the repression was largely window dressing, except for some significant changes in the judiciary due to Reagan appointments. Permissiveness toward the rich and the Pentagon has left us with an unbelievable debt, a huge debt service, and the sale of our assets to foreigners on a scale that threatens to make us a dependent nation —while family, neighborhood, religion, and work are as problematic as ever. Perhaps even more destructive has been Reagan’s continuing attack on the idea of government as a positive force—a cam12 Clinton St. Quarterly— Fall, 1988 paign that according to recent opinion polls has been only partly successful. We have had enough of hypocritical populism, of candidates running against the government they are seeking to lead. We need government. How else can the United States possibly organize and direct its scattered energies during this period of difficult international restructuring? But we must innovate to make government more effective. From the perspective of the common good, innovation means reexamining the relationship of government to the larger society of which it is a part. In America, nongovernmental institutions that are in many respects more public than private are critical to the effective functioning of our political life. The partnership of government with what is often too loosely called “the private sector” should not be confused with a merely reactive “privatization.” Government is not always inefficient —think of the TVA —nor is business a paragon of efficiency—think of the automakers in the 1970s before the government’s loan to Chrysler. We need to engage the energies of both the public and private sectors, or rather to see that “government” and “public” are not synonymous. Business is “private” only in the sense that it is partly independent of government, but it remains an important part of our public communal life. So do the organizations of working people and the myriad nonprofit organizations of intermediate scale. The involvement of all of these vital elements in our national life is critical to a renewed effort toward attaining the common good. Effective government does not replace other forms of organization; rather, it assists them to do what they do best. That is one way that the common good is realized. The current Democratic candidate must project a strong positive program, calling on all Americans to share in the task of making our nation sound again, and promising to ensure that whatever sacrifices are required will be shared fairly. In particular, he must promise that labor will not pay the whole price for making our economy more efficient. As the military budget declines, the government must develop agencies to encourage investment in human as well as material resources that will make for a socially healthier economy. If the Democratic candidate can involve the nation in a major effort to rethink the place of work and the economy in our lives, Americans will respond positively. The “common good” argument can be used to support significant The notion of the common good can provide a new vision through which public deliberations can take focus and radical reform can take shape. shifts from recent policy. Such shifts do not mean simply a return to an earlier day, characterized in the popular imagination, however unfairly, as the period of “welfare handouts.” Problems that the “truly deprived” face can be linked to problems that affect all Americans. The task is to build a better society for all of us, and, where possible, advantages should be broadly shared. Social Security is a good example. The middle class defends this form of welfare because it shares in the return. For this reason, means testing for Social Security would be a disastrous move that could easily lead to its severe curtailment for the poor. Removal of tax exemption of Social Security income for those above a certain levef of affluence would, however, be an appropriate reform. But the notion of a government that simply services more effectively the vast client constituencies (some of them deprived, but most of them middle class or affluent) that have been growing during the last fifty years is not what we have in mind when we speak of a dramatic new turn. A i _ world requires the full participation of all of its citizens. The issue is not “welfare,” which is a phony issue since most Americans are in some way or another dependent on government payments or services that effectively put us all on “welfare.” The issue is whether we can afford as a nation to let a significant proportion of our citizens, most of them children or young adults, sink into illiteracy, skillessness, addiction, and crime. And it is not only the poor who suffer. Burglary, unsafe streets and public transportation, and the high cost of public and private security systems affect us all. But the moral costs of these problems outweigh the material costs. For a society that does not keep its promises to a significant number of its citizens weakens all its citizens, not only the deprived. The common-good position can enable the Democrats to link the programs they propose more explicitly to the general aspirations of American citizens. The housing situation is a clear example of the need for a change of direction. As with everything else, the Reagan administration has argued that the free market would take care of housing needs. It has eliminated longstanding government programs in support of low-cost housing. In truth, the free market has eliminated inexpensive housing units or left them to decay and abandonment because the return was inadequate. Whatever the smokescreen of excuses, the major cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. But housing is a problem not only for the poor and the near poor. The middle class spends a much larger percentage of its income on housing than it did a generation ago. We need to concentrate our national energies on the human consequences of the material development of our society. Fewer people can look forward to owning their own homes than their parents could, and the rate of mort-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz