Hi Billy, Wow, this is a brilliant analysis of the past and future of the American Experiment. I love his "four tradition" breakdown. WALTER RUSSELL MEAD is my new favorite Radical Centrist writer. :-)
-- Ernie P. On Jan 22, 2013, at 9:38 AM, [email protected] wrote: > The state will transform but it will not disappear. We may change the way the > educational system works, but the goal of the changes will be to ensure more > and better universal education. We may change the policies aimed at helping > low income people move up the ladder of life, but American society does not > want to write off the poor. We may liberalize drug laws and look for > alternatives to imprisonment for non-violent offenders, but we won’t abandon > the effort to protect the public from unsafe or impure drugs and we won’t > turn law and order over to the private sector. We may look for ways to reduce > the bureaucratic delays when it comes to permitting processes, but we will > not abandon the effort to impose safety and environmental standards. The > state will go high tech, its processes will accelerate, bureaucracies will > become flatter and more open, but it won’t wither away. > > Ultimately even the doughtiest New Englanders are going to accept the need > for deep governmental reform. The American public is much better educated > than it used to be and knowledge is much more widely available. It is simply > no longer possible for an elite of technocrats in appointive offices and > regulatory bureaus to issue decrees and have them obeyed. Prussian > bureaucratic civil service models from the 19th century are too cumbersome, > too slow and too expensive to handle much of the business of a 21st century > information society. It is not possible to reconcile the desire of > individuals to control their own fate if authority is centralized at the > federal level; we will have to find ways to decentralize authority so that > states and local jurisdictions can make more of the decisions that directly > affect peoples’ lives. > > At the moment, the deep emotional commitment of the New England school to > blue model governance and social ideas — and the visceral hopes among some > anti-New England types that the death of blue is the death of New England — > gives a strange and ultimately not very useful cast to many of our national > debates. We are trapped into debates between the advocates of spendthrift > compassion (maintain Medicare and add new entitlements whether or not we can > pay for them because they are needed) or cut budgets even though some of the > services lost are, in fact, necessary for millions of people. > > What disappears from this debate is the possibility that the transition into > a higher form of social organization and governance will make society so much > more affluent, and so bring down the costs of important services, that we can > strengthen our health care provisions without strangling the economy or > busting the budget. The question of transitioning past the blue model and > developing an information society isn’t about cold hearted austerity versus > spendthrift compassion. It is about reconfiguring society and reforming our > institutions so that compassion is no longer spendthrift. It is about > creating a more productive and abundant society in which we can afford to see > that old people and poor people get good medical care. It is about building a > society in which good education is more widely available on better terms than > it now is. It is about ordered liberty: about building a government which can > do more while restricting less. > > -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
