Is Progressive Idealism Self-Defeating?
Like many liberals, I am encouraged by the new energy of progressives and the growing political support for progressive causes. But I also share the common worry that the idealism of progressives is in danger of becoming self-defeating (see, e.g., Judis and Edsall for two recent discussions). That’s a problem, because the stakes are high and we don’t have much room for error.
As I see it, progressive idealism today has two manifestations, one political, one economic. Political idealism manifests itself in a reluctance to acknowledge the scale of the political challenges progressives face, the scorched-earth opposition that awaits us, and the need to find potential allies among the not-so-progressive and to design policies and arguments that can win them over.
On the economic side, idealism makes progressives reluctant to take policy design seriously. For example, there is a big gap between progressives and economists (including progressive economists) on carbon pricing and other aspects of climate policy. There is also a gap on fiscal and budgetary policy, and on many other issues. To some extent, this simply reflects the unavoidable fact that non-economists always find economics counter-intuitive – if they didn’t, we wouldn’t need economists. But the problem today goes beyond this. There is a strong tendency to rely on moralistic thinking, to assume that every wrong has an easy remedy and that good intentions can solve any problem. This goes along with a resistance to thinking about tradeoffs, costs, and market-oriented solutions like carbon pricing, and a tendency to favor command-and-control policies and to ignore fiscal constraints. I suspect that we have right-wing economists and politicians to thank for this state of affairs, but whatever its cause the rejection of careful economic thinking on the left is real.
I plan on writing a few posts about this, providing evidence for the two forms of idealism noted above, explaining why I think idealism is self-defeating, and, hopefully, persuading some progressives that they can be hard-nosed and strategic while remaining dedicated to good causes and serious reform. Or perhaps I’ll just persuade some of my progressive friends that I’m a neoliberal shill or a clueless jerk, as no doubt they always suspected . . .
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2723/text
republicans had a US Congressional bill that would require union recert/decert elections at every private workplace where union membership (I’m not sure individual locals or national) has turned over more than 50% — which means every union. Got to admire those Republicans for being uniquely concerned whether or not employees really want to keep their union — really, sincerely.
When are Democrats going to be “equally fretful” that employees at unionized private workplaces can have one if the really, really want one?
Who really, really needs the protection regularly scheduled cert/recert/decert union election more than employees who do not have a union — and who are guaranteed to face brutal anti-union law breaking on behalf of their employers if they do try to organize under our current unenforceable labor so-called protections?
Political and economic real reality all rolled up in one. When late dean of the Washington press corps David Broder was asked by a young reporter what the difference was when he first came to DC in 1955 he said that all the lobbyists were union back then. Regularly scheduled union elections can give the average American equal political as well as economic power with the oligarchs: equal campaign money and most all the votes!
Do this or do nothing!