So various folks are taking well-deserved swings at Geoffrey Stone's "What It Means To Be A Liberal." I find most all such exercises to be tedious and unilluminating, a halfhearted recitation of broadly supportable platitudes and generalities that really boils down to what it means to be a good person, at least politically speaking. The meaning of liberalism, at least so far as it seeks to separate from conservatism, needs to offer points of disagreement between the two. Stone's piece doesn't do much of that -- it doesn't create a liberalism most conservatives would reject. So I'll give it a shot.
Before I do, however, a caveat: There are many types of Democrat, and many of their beliefs conflict with each other. I'm going to use liberal in the sense that it denotes leftists descended from the Progressives and New Dealers, not as it's used to group everyone from Clintonian neoliberals to newly embraced neorealists. So really, this is a rather personal list, and I encourage folks to add their items in comments:
- People Make Mistakes: Personal responsibility is important to encourage, but pursuing it shouldn't blind us to human frailty and error. Folks are not always logical, rational actors able to balance long-term interests and short-term rewards. So if someone doesn't contribute enough to their pension fund, or their health savings account, or whatever, they shouldn't face financial ruin when they get sick or retire. We can craft a society that allows good behaviors to reward, but refuses to abandon those who showed insufficient vision.
- Luck Matters: This is a traditionally Rawlsian viewpoint, and folks interested in it should seek out the source. But the conservative idea that we truly control our destiny is bunk. At this moment in time, with all that you are and have, you may feel pretty autonomous. But intelligence, temperament, looks, and health are, in large part, genetically predetermined. Who you're born to is, assumedly, luck, as is which peer group you fall into. Whether you attend a good school, live in a nice neighborhood, make a stupid mistake, have parents who instill the right routines, and all the rest largely decide whether you're the type of person who, when grown, will work hard, save money, invest in your future, and all the rest. If you are that type of person, it is not necessarily an expression of your virtues, but of your luck -- unfortunately, we see who we are now, not what made us, and so overemphasize our autonomy. Our society too often comforts itself by assuming meritocracy is a fair ideal, rather than an arbitrary sorting mechanism that values certain character traits and intrinsic abilities, some of which we achieve through hard work, but some of which are hardwired or learned before we exercise any autonomy or virtue at all. Because we want a good and vibrant economy, we should always encourage the behaviors which contribute. But we should have a high social floor and expansive safety net in the recognition that there but for fortune go we.
- The Economy isn't All Powerful: The Harvard medical economist Rashi Fein likes to say that we live in a society, not an economy. Liberals should take that dictum seriously. It routinely seems to me that the right assumes whatever boosts economic growth is prima facie beneficial. If corporations are lowering prices by creating efficiencies, that's terrific. If they're doing it by cutting wages, destroying health care, polluting, or a variety of other cost-saving but society-poisoning methods, that's not. Economic growth is important, but so are its roots and distribution. What matters, in the end, aren't the macroeconomic statistics, but the sort of society we live in.
- War Sucks: Lord knows many liberals forget this too, but on the heels of the new Lancet study showing more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of our invasion and occupation, it's worth reminding ourselves the burden of proof should always be against war. The atrocities, cruelties, and uncertainties inherent in all armed conflicts should eternally be pitted against whatever heroic or humanitarian visions we may have of clean interventions and grateful villagers.
- Government is Good and Necessary: Or it should be. Or can be. In a world of massive, multinational corporations and unbelievably wealthy individuals, government is the single force able to aggregate citizen power and advocate for their interests. In an economy that needs countervailing powers, government should be the one on our side. Currently, it's occupied by folks who profess to hate it, but actually press it into serving their corporatist agendas. The answer to that isn't buying into antigovernment rhetoric and hoping to enact social programs by stealth, but to argue for an alternate, positive, and populist conception of what government should be and what it can do.
- Worker Power and Autonomy Matters: Unions are important. Employers already own salaries and self-respect, they shouldn't also control access to medical treatment and secure retirements. The interests of corporations are different, though related, to those of their employees, and so workers need institutions and protections that aid self-advocacy.
So those are a couple, jotted down, and sure to be full of holes and overstatements, But given that I think most conservatives envision a good society that, on some level, looks relatively similar to mine, these are spots where we often differ. But folks should feel free to prove me wrong, or offer more.
Update:
- Equal Rights: Conservatives believe in this as an ideal, but liberals understand that America has a legacy -- and present-day reality -- of discrimination against minorities, women, gays that often requires the coercive power of the state to overcome. To imagine that, as currently constructed, society offers African-Americans equal opportunities, or women equality in the workforce, is a pleasant, but poisonous, delusion.
Update 2: It's probably worth saying that the emphasis on this list is much of the message. On point one, for instance, certainly most conservatives don't believe we should just abandon anyone who slips up. But I think government's emphasis should be on protecting folks from consequences and risks, not increasing their "skin in the game" or vulnerability to the market or financial exposure if they don't save. Indeed, I think only by protecting from risk can we sufficiently encourage risk-taking. See, for instance, my argument that health care should be guaranteed so no one need ever squelch their entrepreneurial instinct because they fear their ability to get antibiotics if they quit their job.
