Fighting for the Common Good

Going into politics to fight for the privileges of America's upper 1% is something I can't even conceive of doing but it's what the current crop of Republicans are doing in Washington. Figure it out: the average American is given cheap words with a few pretty ads thrown in and the upper 1% gets the money. That's a cozy system. It used to be that both Republicans and Democrats cared about Americans but had different interpretations of what that meant.

For years, Democrats talked about the common good. Even Republicans like my great-grandfather understood the concept when he and other farmers got together in the San Joaquin Valley and with their own hands built irrigation canals to water their farms in what was essentially a desert. The common good is simply the recognition that we're all in this together. Greg Anrig, Jr. at the TPM Cafe had a post a week ago that I've been meaning to link to. There have been some criticisms of his post and the article by Michael Tomasky that Anrig refers to but I think they're largely on the right track even if I have some quibbles about some of their arguments. Here's an excerpt from Greg Anrig, Jr.'s post:

In the new issue of the American Prospect, editor Michael Tomasky has written a tour de force that tpmcafaholics will enjoy drinking up and discussing. In a nutshell, Michael argues that liberals and Democrats need to return to the idea of “the common good” as our central animating principle.

As he writes, “For many years – during their years of dominance and success, the period of the New Deal up through the first part of the Great Society – the Democrats practiced a brand of liberalism quite different from today’s. Yes, it certainly sought to expand both rights and prosperity. But it did something more: That liberalism was built around the idea -- the philosophical principle -- that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest. This, historically, is the moral basis of liberal governance -- not justice, not equality, not rights, not diversity, not government, and not even prosperity or opportunity. Liberal governance is about demanding of citizens that they balance self-interest with common interest. Any rank-and-file liberal is a liberal because she or he somehow or another, through reading or experience or both, came to believe in this principle. And every leading Democrat became a Democrat because on some level, she or he believes this, too.”

Michael is exactly right, and if elected officials and candidates latch onto his prescription, liberal politics can become genuinely inspiring and exciting again -– and probably far more successful. The beauty of the “common good” framework is manifold, and Michael’s piece makes the case well. But here are just a few reasons why I particularly like it:
• It gets to the heart of what distinguishes liberals from conservatives. The Right’s economic belief system is oriented around the virtues of markets, which are tethered to the idea that individuals should do nothing more than act in their own self interest. Their social belief system is one that consciously divides people and inflames passions by attacking one group after another.

Let me tell a story that's trivial on one level but that illustrates a larger issue. I met a corporate salesman and a plumber a number of years ago. They were members of a skiing club and both had asked my father for some political advice. The members of the skiing club got together to build a lake out in the middle of the desert on some cheap land. The club needed someone to represent them at the Water District to make sure they got their water and fulfilled all their contractual obligations; the saleman took that job.

The plumber was the president of the club and he was the one, along with two others, who designed the lake and borrowed the bulldozers that were brought out to the site. But the salesman started telling every person he could buttonhole that building the lake was his idea and his project. Mind you, the saleman's duties with the Water District were minimal and it was the other few dozen members of the club who actually built the lake. But self interest dictated that the salesman toot his horn. That to me, too frequently, is the modern Republican philosophy: when others actually do the work, its the wheeler dealers who are tooting their horns (and in some cases, selling things that don't really belong to them).

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the landing on the Abraham Lincoln with the banners of "Mission Accomplished" visible for the cameras; it was the most embarrassing example of a president tooting his horn that this country has seen.

This country is not about George W. Bush and his special friends; it is about the American people. This November, it's time for Americans to send a message to Glory Boy that it's time to work for all Americans and not just the few.