Other Political Business
Heated as I may sound below, Matthew Yglesias is still a swell writer and nice guy who buys me drinks. And his attempt to find a Democratic Party tag line is interesting. From outside the tent here, I may or may not have anything useful or appropriate to say on the matter. Actually, I offered my snarky contributions to an Eve Tushnet competition fully three years ago. (I also had suggestions for the Repubs and Greens.)
But put as untendentiously as possible, I’d say the mission that the Democratic Party conceives in all but words has something to do with “using the power of government to cushion the impact of luck.” You need to punch the preceding up, but I think it’s nevertheless the party’s core principle. The Democratic Party is in the luck redistribution business. On this principle, the government shall uplift those who suffer substantial bad luck (being born poor, unhealthy, to an out-group; choosing wrong in love - if female; suffering illness) and tamping down the benefits accruing to those who receive good luck (inheriting wealth, pale skin, intelligence; striking it rich with investments). And so on for each set of parentheticals.
The broad appeal comes from our gut sense that people don’t “deserve” bad luck. Democratic-Party ideology undermines the idea of desert more generally, and in ways that don’t sell as reliably, but a slogan built around reducing the effects of both bad and good luck would play well and, I think, be hard for Republicans to me-too.
Comment by praktike —
April 29, 2005 @ 11:33 pm
I suppose that “crafting policies as if behind the veil of ignorance” does lack a certain ring.
Comment by DonBoy —
April 30, 2005 @ 12:14 am
Thus the words “safety net”, which capture the appeal of the cushioning-against-bad-luck aspect.
Comment by Realish —
April 30, 2005 @ 2:25 am
It’s all in how you phrase it, isn’t it Jim? I mean sure, I want to trim a little from the Lucky to help cushion the blows to the Unlucky.
But between those two extremes lies swaths of territory in which I want to reward hard work, improve education, generate prosperity, keep people safe, protect the Bill of Rights, and conduct a sane, pragmatic foreign policy.
The Democrats want lots of things. Redistributing luck is a part, but only one part, of the effort to work for a more humane society.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 30, 2005 @ 8:28 am
praktike, I don’t think they’re quite the same thing. It would be fun if those Rawlsian libertarians Will and Julian stopped by to make that case in detail, but they are young and fancy-free so who knows if they will.
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Donboy, yeah, it’s partly the “safety net” concept, though that misses the other side of it. Also, I don’t know that “we’re for the safety net” passes Matt’s me-tooist injunction.
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Realish, sure, it’s in how you phrase it. Which is why I said actual Dems would have to . . . phrase the concept.
Comment by Nevin Steindam —
April 30, 2005 @ 10:45 am
The interesting thing is that that idea can be spun as more true to the capitalistic spirit than the Republicans’ approach. One significant problem with capitalism in our society is that hard work isn’t as likely to make you rich as being born rich is. You’re more likely to become poor through sudden medical bills than you are due to bad work. Exploiting loopholes is often an easier way of making money than producing a good product would be. All this can be portrayed as a fundamental breakdown of what capitalism SHOULD be.
It would be fascinating (and maybe even appropriate) if the Democrats took the mantle of the true “champions of capitalism” away from the Republicans.
(Of course, this won’t happen. It will be hard enough for the Democrats to come up with a consistent tag line, let alone one that directly conflicts with Republican PR)
Comment by David T —
April 30, 2005 @ 1:19 pm
See http://www.univ-pau.fr/~fleurbae/papiers/nlre.pdf for an interesting philosophical discussion of whether luck can serve as an indpendent justification of egalitarianism.
Comment by Nicholas Weininger —
April 30, 2005 @ 2:45 pm
The problem with redistributing luck, as always, is that luck and other stuff interact in tangled ways, and government just isn’t very good at telling which sorts of things are due to luck and which are not. So I guess I see the luck redistribution theme as basically just another dimension of traditional leftist epistemological arrogance.
(Actually that’s only one problem. Another is that what is “lucky” from the perspective of the direct recipient may actually be the cumulative result of many people’s efforts. If you’re born rich, for example, it’s generally not because you’ve won a literal lottery at birth; it’s because your ancestors created and husbanded wealth, perhaps over several generations, and chose to pass it on to you. So taking away your “unearned” wealth isn’t just tamping down your luck, it’s penalizing your ancestors’ productivity and restricting their choices. But I digress.)
Comment by Leonard —
April 30, 2005 @ 9:38 pm
Actually, Nevin, the chance that I’ll become rich via being born rich is exactly zero. I’ll go with hard work, thank you.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 30, 2005 @ 11:25 pm
Nick, I’m with you, really. This is more of a spectator sport for me. But I wonder if the problem Matt’s cohort is having coming up with a slogan doesn’t come down to Realish’s remark that “The Democrats want lots of things.” I think that’s true. I think, among other things, that they want more than any political party or government COULD provide.
Comment by Randolph Fritz —
May 1, 2005 @ 1:25 pm
Um, “Democrats: the sane party”? Because no-one sane wants the extraordinary risks the neocons seem determined to weigh in on the rest of us. Yeah, I want to risk poverty in old age. How ’bout war? Death ’cause I can’t afford a doctor, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Seriously, controlling the risks the left wants to control is pretty popular and when people aren’t stirred-up crazy, a good solid majority wants no exposure to those risks. The Democrats are a pretty mixed party, but they’re not crazy. The main reasons the Republicans get support for their craziness are: (1) many people have trouble imagining these risks; (2) some people feel they will never be subject to those risks; and (3) some people are scared managing those risks is somehow going to turn us into the Soviet Union or, worse, France.
Comment by colorless green ideas —
May 2, 2005 @ 5:56 pm
the Democratic is:
1) the party of capitalism, even though they do not sell that notion very well.
2) the party that believes that income from dead rent (ie: luck) should be partially invested for “the public good”, and towards projects that will encourage growth and productivity for the future.
3) the party that has lost its way and is letting the party of the physiocrats (ie: republicans) usurp the language of the classic liberals (smith, riccardo, etc) for their own nefarious goals.