Hamiltonian Conservatism: Fusion
with Radical Centrism ?
Most interesting. Brooks is hard not to like and his
reasoned approach to politics
is a welcome antidote to confronational politics 24/7 in an
election year.
This begs the question of whether confrontational politics
makes good sense
in non-election years, my view of the issue, but Brooks'
point is valid.
We have more choices than the MSM and political partisans
want us to think we have.
The trouble with Brooks is that too often he comes across
as a wimp.
As timid, to use a less inflammatory word, in any
eventuality not bold,
not decisive, not strong, not someone with passion for what
he believes.
This impression is not necessarily the case in what he
writes
but to hear him speak leaves no doubts on the matter.
Possibly this reflects the dilemma of someone with
conservative views
working at the NY Times. He is the paper's "Affirmative
Action"
resident 'Rightist.' Making too many waves could cost him
his prestigious job and the status and income that go along
with it.
Understood and understandable. I know what that is like and
while I didn't like it either, what is the practical choice
?
If the Times was even more Leftist in outlook , if it was
openly
pro-Communist, or if editorial policy was pure Cultural
Marxism,
the only choice for someone with a conscience would be to
depart
and find another job elsewhere, regardless of the
"demotion."
But bad as the NY Times can be, which is seriously bad,
it hasn't gone that far, and staying makes sense.
As I said, " been there, done that." Elsewhere.
But is this the only alternative ? One could create one's
own kingdom,
after all, and God knows that Brooks has had that chance.
One blockbuster best-seller and you become your own boss,
and that, no question for me, is better than working for
the
NY Times --or anywhere else.
Trouble is that Brooks simply doesn't have the imagination
--sense of
vision and a driving sense of purpose-- for any such
thing. He has published
books, but while they are "good," some have sold very well
on the market,
there is nothing in them that I know about around which
anyone might
be motivated to launch a Brooksian political movement or
anything
along those lines.
So much for his limitations.
"Hamiltonian Conservatism," however, holds a lot of
promise. It could easily
be integrated into the Radical Centrist mix --and maybe we
should take
preliminary steps to do just that. Some of us here already
are at least
partly Hamiltonian, I know that I am, but I am not alone by
any means.
Would this work for Brooks ? Very doubtful since he takes
a dim view
of Populism, and some of us are, to coin a phrase,
Hamiltonian Populists.
A little rabble rousing now and then can do a world of
good.
But what is Hamiltonian Populism but another take on Teddy
Roosevelt ?
Wonder why Brooks hasn't make the connection.
Billy
================================================
from the site : Bensonian
Hamiltonian Conservatism: A Third Way
in American Politics?
For years New York Times op-ed columnist David
Brooks has argued for a revival of Hamiltonian
conservatism. One writer describes
him this way:
Brooks’s charming, levelheaded optimism may be out of
style. But he gets to play the voice of reason against a
chorus of doomsayers. His moderate conservatism—a synthesis of
conservative giant Edmund Burke and Ur-centralizer Alexander
Hamilton that has earned him the label of “liberals’ favorite
conservative”—may be anomalous, but it allows him a kind of
freedom that other, more partisan pundits lack. He’s a party
of one, without followers. This is Brooks’s central paradox:
He’s both the essential columnist of the moment, better than
anyone at crystallizing the questions we face—ones for which
there are often no good answers—and also, somehow, totally out
of step.
Brooks succinctly articulates his moderate conservatism
here:
There are two major political parties in America, but
there are at least three major political tendencies. The
first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using
government to maximize equality. The second is
free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting
government to maximize freedom.
But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is
for using limited but energetic government to enhance social
mobility. This tendency began with Alexander Hamilton, who
created a vibrant national economy so more people could rise
and succeed. It matured with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil
War Republicans, who created the Land Grant College Act and
the Homestead Act to give people the tools to pursue their
ambitions. It continued with Theodore Roosevelt, who busted
the trusts to give more Americans a square deal.
Members of this tradition have one foot in the conservatism
of Edmund Burke. They understand how little we know or can
know and how much we should rely on tradition, prudence and
habit. They have an awareness of sin, of the importance of
traditional virtues and stable institutions. They understand
that we are not free-floating individuals but are embedded
in thick social organisms.
But members of this tradition also have a foot in the
landscape of America, and share its optimism and its
Lincolnian faith in personal transformation. Hamilton didn’t
seek wealth for its own sake, but as a way to enhance the
country’s greatness and serve the unique cause America
represents in the world.
Members of this tradition are Americanized Burkeans, or to
put it another way, progressive conservatives.
This tendency thrived in American life for a century and a
half, but it went into hibernation during the 20th century
because it sat crossways to that era’s great debate — the
one between socialism and its enemies.
------------------------------------------------------------
NY Times
Reviving the Hamilton Agenda
Published: June 8, 2007
These days there seem to be four schools of political
economic thought. First, there are the limited
government conservatives, who think taxes should be low
and the state should be as small as possible. Second,
there are the Hamiltonians, who believe in free market
capitalism but think government should help people get
the tools they need to compete in it.
Third, there are the mainstream liberals, who think
government should intervene in small ways throughout the
economy to soften the effects of creative destruction.
Fourth, there are the populists, who believe the benefits of
the global economy are going to the rich and we need to
fundamentally rewrite the rules.
If you are reading this column, you’re keeping company with
somebody in group No. 2. We Hamiltonians disagree with the
limited government conservatives because, on its own, the
market is failing to supply enough human capital. Despite
all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high
school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a
generation.
Just when it needs a more skilled work force, the U.S. is
getting a less skilled one. This is already taking a bite
out of productivity growth, and the problem will get worse.
We Hamiltonians disagree with the third group, the
mainstream liberals, because their programs haven’t worked
out. Retraining programs for displaced workers have flopped.
Tax code changes to reduce outsourcing are symbolic. Federal
jobs programs aren’t effective. Moreover, the high taxes you
need to pay for these programs sap the economy. There’s now
a pile of evidence showing that higher taxes mean reduced
working hours. In the face of Chinese and Indian
competition, we don’t need Americans working less.
We Hamiltonians disagree with the populists because we
don’t find their storyline persuasive. The populists argue
that global trade is creating a race to the bottom that is
leading to stagnant wages and vast inequality. But when you
look at the details, you find that most inequality is caused
by a rising education premium, by changes in household and
family structure, by the fact that the rich now work longer
hours than the less rich and by new salary structures that
are more tied to individual performance. None of this can be
addressed by changing global trade rules.
The global economy radically decreased poverty and
increased living standards. It’s crazy to upend this complex
system to return to some nostalgic vision of a 1950s
industrial wonderland.
When it comes to what Hamiltonians are actually for, two
big themes stand out. First, the overall economy has to
remain dynamic. The biggest threat is the looming wall of
entitlement debt. We Hamiltonians would break the current
campaign silence on the issue by raising the retirement age
and tackling medical inflation to make Medicare affordable.
The second big theme is a human capital agenda. No one
policy can increase the quality of human capital, but a
lifelong portfolio of policies can make a difference.
Children do better when raised in stable two-parent
families. Bigger child tax credits and increasing the earned
income tax credit can reduce the economic strain on young
families (and shift the tax burden to older, affluent ones).
Extending government income support to young men in exchange
for work would make them more marriageable.
Nurse practitioners who make home visits can stabilize
disorganized, single-parent families. Quality preschool can
help young children from those disorganized homes develop
the self-motivation skills they’ll need to succeed.
The most important thing in a school is quality teachers.
That means there should be merit pay for the best, and a
change in the certification rules (we should allow more
people into the profession and weed out the mediocre ones,
regardless of their certification).
Senior citizen groups could mentor students to keep them
emotionally engaged during college years. National service
should be a rite of passage, forcing city kids to work with
rural kids, and vice versa.
Middle-aged workers need portable pensions and health
insurance so they can move and take risks. The immigration
system should reward skills, like the college admissions
system. The government should increase funding for basic
research, especially in math, engineering and physics.
The list could go on. My goal here is merely to describe
the different economic policy schools that are out there,
and to emphasize my favorite, the one least represented by
the current presidential candidates.
Government is really bad at rigging or softening
competition. It can do some good when it helps people
compete.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Radical Centrist in outlook --
NY Times
Pundit Under Protest
Published: June 13, 2011
I’ll be writing a lot about the presidential election over
the next 16 months, but at the outset I would just like to
remark that I’m opining on this whole campaign under
protest. I’m registering a protest because for someone of my
Hamiltonian/National Greatness perspective, the two parties
contesting this election are unusually pathetic. Their
programs are unusually unimaginative. Their policies are
unusually incommensurate to the problem at hand.
This election is about how to avert national decline. All
other issues flow from that anxiety.
The election is happening during a downturn in the economic
cycle, but the core issue is the accumulation of deeper
structural problems that this recession has exposed —
unsustainable levels of debt, an inability to generate
middle-class incomes, a dysfunctional political system, the
steady growth of special-interest sinecures and the gradual
loss of national vitality.
The number of business start-ups per capita has been
falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers’ share
of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages
have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working
class — those without a college degree — is being decimated,
economically and socially. In 1960, for example, 83 percent
of those in the working class were married. Now only 48
percent are.
Voters are certainly aware of the scope of the challenges
before them. Their pessimism and anxiety does not just
reflect the ebb and flow of the business cycle, but is
deeper and more pervasive. Trust in institutions is at
historic lows. Large majorities think the country is on the
wrong track, and have for years. Large pluralities believe
their children will have fewer opportunities than they do.
Voters are in the market for new movements and new
combinations, yet the two parties have grown more rigid.
The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts and nothing else —
is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and
politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were
affordable — might boost overall growth, but they would do
nothing to address the structural problems that are causing
a working-class crisis.
Republican politicians don’t design policies to meet
specific needs, or even to help their own working-class
voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to
reassure the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and
rigidly loyal. Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy
proposal from 1980 and sanctified it as their core purity
test for 2012.
As for the Democrats, they offer practically nothing. They
acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation and then
offer... light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the
Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are
supposedly running the country. That’s because they too are
trapped in a bygone era.
Mentally, they are living in the era of affluence, but,
actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They
still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no
longer any money to pay for them and there won’t be for
decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing
and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches
Medicare.
Covering this upcoming election is like covering a
competition between two Soviet refrigerator companies,
cold-war relics offering products that never change.
If there were a Hamiltonian Party, it would be offering a
multifaceted reinvigoration agenda. It would grab growth
ideas from all spots on the political spectrum and blend
them together. Its program would be based on the essential
political logic: If you want to get anything passed, you
have to offer an intertwined package that smashes the Big
Government vs. Small Government orthodoxies and gives
everybody something they want.
This reinvigoration package would have four baskets. There
would be an entitlement reform package designed to
redistribute money from health care and the elderly toward
innovation and the young. Unless we get health care
inflation under control by replacing the perverse
fee-for-service incentive structure, there will be no money
for anything else.
There would be a targeted working-class basket: early
childhood education, technical education, community
colleges, an infrastructure bank, asset distribution to help
people start businesses, a new wave industrial policy if
need be — anything that might give the working class a leg
up.
There would be a political corruption basket. The Tea
Parties are right about the unholy alliance between business
and government that is polluting the country. It’s time to
drain the swamp by simplifying the tax code and streamlining
the regulations businesses use to squash their smaller
competitors.
There would also be a pro-business basket: lower corporate
rates, a sane visa policy for skilled immigrants, a sane
patent and permitting system, more money for research.
The Hamiltonian agenda would be pro-market, in its place,
and pro-government, in its place. In 2012, on the other
hand, we’re going to see another clash of the same old
categories. I’ll be covering it, but I protest.
-- 