Boston Globe, January 23, 2003
The State of the Union is an opportunity for the President to rally Americans, but toward what? Throughout our history Americans have spoken in two distinct ways about what we owe one another as members of same society. In different periods, one view of citizenship predominates over the other.
The first is the language of shared sacrifice -- of honor, duty, and patriotism. We're asked to rise above selfishness and honor the common good. Weare in this together, and can survive and prosper only to the extent we dedicate ourselves to the public interest. Whether barn raisings or quilting bees, town meetings or school committees, volunteer fire departments or soup kitchens, we celebrate that which binds us together. America is the land of public spiritedness.
The ideal of shared sacrifice arises especially in times of war or national economic crisis such as the Great Depression. In the aftermath of World War II,few questioned that the very rich should pay a high proportion of their incomesin taxes, or that every young man should be eligible for the draft. It was thought unseemly for corporate executives to earn vast multiples of the pay of average workers, and shameful for corporations to disregard the public interestin favor of shareholder returns. "The job of management," declaredFrank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey in a 1951 address typical of theera, "is to maintain an equitable balance among the claims of ...stockholders, employees, customers, and the public at large." Government's purpose,likewise, was to act on behalf of the nation as a whole. Democracy was thought to be the means by which we discovered the common good, and summoned the fortitude to achieve it.
The other language is that of individual opportunity and personal ambition. Here, our first responsibility as citizens is to do all we can for ourselves and our families. By working hard and striving toward our own private goals, weexemplify the benefits of liberty. In seeking to maximize the our own wellbeing, we contribute to a strong economy. Within this ideal of citizenship,the common good is largely the sum of these personal efforts; and the nation's wellbeing depends primarily on individual enterprise. Corporations should do everything they can to maximize profits. Indeed, the competitive race invigorates all our institutions. Meanwhile, the assumed purpose of government is to maximize individual well-being; citizens are consumers of public services, analogous to consumers in the private sector. Democracy is thought ofas a process for reconciling competing claims.
The ideal of personal ambition gains prominence in times of peace and prosperity. The norm of shared sacrifice becomes less powerful because there's less agreement about the common good and less urgency to achieving it. The past few decades of comparative peace and prosperity have witnessed a gradual decline in the language and ideal of the common good and a corresponding increase in the ideal of personal ambition. By the 1990s the public-spirited heroes of the "Greatest Generation" had beensupplanted by the entrepreneurial heroes of the new economy. Few thought it unseemly for CEOs to earn four hundred times the wages of average workers, for corporations to deny any responsibilities to the broad public, or for radio commentators to tell listeners income taxes are confiscatory ("it's your money!"). The eraof big government was over, Bill Clinton assured us, to thundering applause.
We now find ourselves in an awkward age, poised between these two conceptions of American citizenship. The legacy of the 1980s and 90s lives on, still givingprominence to opportunity and ambition. The President argues unabashedly in favor of more tax breaks for the rich which, he says, will motivate them save and invest and thus spur economic growth. That the rich are already far richer than ever in history, that the gap between them and most other Americans is wider than it has been in sixty years, and that the gap will widen even furtheras a result of this initiative is assumed to be beside the point.
Yet the new challenges of the 21st century call for shared sacrifice. More than100,000 Americans are in now the Persian Gulf, awaiting further orders. Within the next months it is quite possible that some of them will be called to risk their lives for their country. A few -- let us pray only a few -- will make what has been called the supreme sacrifice. This war may not be brief. Surely an occupation of Iraq, if it comes to that, could continue for many years.
We are also called to protect ourselves against terrorism within our borders. The job is far larger and more subtle than can be accomplished by a new federaldepartment alone. It will require widespread vigilance by American citizens. Wewill have to join together not only against terrorism but also against any corresponding erosion of civil liberties, undermining of public trust, and unleashing of prejudice and fear.
There is, finally, a distinct possibility that the American economy -- struggling under the multiple stresses of job losses, international uncertainty, mounting debt (personal, government, international), and a global slowdown -- will stall, or worse. Many Americans may find themselves in economic peril. If so, a central question will be how to spread the burdens. Here again we will be called upon to examine what we owe one another.
If we are to meet these new challenges, the ideal of personal ambition may haveto give way, once again, to the ideal of shared sacrifice. The cohesion and moral authority of the nation will depend on it. Our leaders will have to speakthe language of civic virtue. As in previous times of crisis, we will be less tolerant of unbridled individualism and ambition, of conspicuous consumption, of greed, and of corporate disavowals of responsibility. In ways large and small, we will be summoned to act together on behalf of the common good.
