Robert Reich’s latest book, THE COMMON GOOD (NY: Knopf, 2018) addresses a fundamental concept of the American polity that is in danger of being lost. He defines “the common good” as a belief in “shared values about which we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society.” These values for Americans have been a respect for the rule of law and a dedication to the actualization of ideals, principally the ideals of freedom (or liberty) and equality. Commitment to these principles and ideals is what defines American identity: not language, not race, not religion, not geography, but the proclamations of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . .” Reich claims that these values are being submerged by another set of values, especially the pursuit of power and wealth, the effect of which pursuit is undermining “the common good” for the sake of the private good of a plutocratic elite.
I agree with most of what Reich says, but I also agree with Michael Sandel’s critique (NYTimes, 4/2/18) of Reich’s argument that “the ground rules for a decent society” can be separated from “the policies that citizens should pursue within these ground rules.” It seems like a means-ends argument, with the principles as the end and policies as the means to achieve the end. Sandel says that this “nonpartisan conception of the common good” is too abstract to be of much use, and demonstrates how Reich in fact fails to separate his means and ends when he gets to particulars. When Reich says, for example, that “the common good is about inclusion” and not about “erecting walls and keeping others out” (a reference to Trump administration policies), he introduces a policy question into a discussion of democratic principles, thereby confusing the two. The “conservative” view is that indiscriminate immigration, especially illegal immigration, is not compatible with national sovereignty and identity–that is, not compatible with the “conservative” understanding of the common good.
Reich’s valuation of “inclusion” over its implied opposite, exclusion, certainly fits with the American idea of a national identity based on a commitment to principles and ideals rather than fortuitous grouping by language, race, religion, and other non-rational determiners. Principles and ideals are products of a rational mind freely engaged in determining the contours of a political culture, and a rational mind is possessed by all humans. Such a notion of inclusion does not entail an indiscriminate welcome, however; on the contrary, inclusion into the American polity requires that all citizens and prospective citizens fully adopt an absolute commitment to those ideals and principles. Illegal immigrants by definition exhibit by their behavior an indifference to the rule of law and thereby and automatically exclude themselves from inclusion. Such people must be “kept out” if the national identity is to be kept secure.
I think it’s possible, and important, to separate “ground rules” from “policies,” but to do so requires a rethinking. For one thing, these ground rules are premises, not ends or means. We declare certain ideas to be SELF-EVIDENTLY TRUE. We will not argue about them. This “declaration” is what language philosophers call a “performative utterance,” a speech act that, as an action, constitutes its own reality. In fact one could argue whether or not “all men are created equal”–once, of course, we settle on what that statement refers to!–but the “declaration” affirms that the statement will not be argued. As such, it is, as in religious affirmation, a STATEMENT OF BELIEF, a FAITH, if you will. Instead of proclaiming, “I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son . . .,” an American citizen proclaims: “I believe that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . . .” This is the American Credo (fr. Latin, “I believe”), and it defines an American as much as the Nicene Creed defines a Christian. If you accept with total conviction the Muslim “shahada“–“There is no god but God, and Mohammad is His prophet”–then you are a Muslim in spirit. If you accept the American Credo with similar conviction, then you are at least an American in spirit.
“Total conviction,” of course, entails a host of particulars. A fundamental “credo” is logically the essential property of a person’s or a society’s identity; matters of detail that logically follow such an essence, or are logically compatible with it, are arguable. For a major example, is the American Constitution completely consistent and compatible with the credo of the Declaration? The allowance of the amendment process would indicate that the framers and signers of the original Constitution realized that time and experience may require adjustments so that the essence of the faith can be preserved. The Declaration, then, is an inviolable and unchangeable document; the Constitution, on the other hand, as an attempt to establish a practical means by which to institutionalize the credo, is very much a “living” document, for not only must it be continuously interpreted (the function of the Supreme Court), but it must be changed–through the amendment process–by the Legislature when its core principles are determined to be violated in practice.
So, if what Reich calls “ground rules” are really premises, not ends, what are the ends of the American nation “so conceived and so dedicated,” as Lincoln put it? The Declaration implies that “happiness” is the primary end for an individual citizen (the “pursuit” of that end being a right) and “a just society” is the primary end for the nation as a whole. The presumption is that to make possible the individual’s pursuit of happiness, a just society is required.
I think that before we can restore the shine to the idea of “the common good” we need to focus our attention on another aspect of the American Idea; namely, the distinction between PRIVATE and PUBLIC. This distinction is related to that between the INDIVIDUAL and the COMMUNITY, but I think that before we address either of these terminological pairs, we need to address attention to the pair of ideals that inform the American Idea: liberty (or freedom) and equality. Individual liberty is perhaps the core value of “conservatives,” and “equal justice for all” is its counterpart for “progressives.” The ideals of LIBERTY (or freedom) and EQUALITY are, however, far from being natural partners; in fact, they are virtual opposites. Maximizing freedom tends to lead to inequality of result, while maximizing equality tends to lead to restriction of individual liberty.
Normally, opposites tend to cancel each other out, like contradictions. I would argue, however, that these ideals are in dialectical relationship with each other, and have been since 1776. When it became clear, for example, that slaves had been denied both freedom and equality, the nation hit a crisis that led to a bloody Civil War. The resolution of that war was a military victory for one side and a crushing defeat for the other, but the fundamental issues were only militarily and then legally resolved. The beliefs that underlay slavery (that men are NOT created equal and that only some men are endowed with certain rights) remained in the hearts of the defeated: not equality, but HIERARCHY was and is the implied belief–of men over women, whites over blacks, rich over poor, and so on. This notion of hierarchy tends to inform the “conservative” mindset today, despite lip service to the contrary. Emphasis on the ideal of liberty, especially the liberty of the individual, has led to a de-emphasis of the ideal of equality, and the general consequence has been a decline in the valuation of “the common good.”
The dialectical movement between the ideals of freedom and equality in the post-WW II era moved against the hierarchical (or anti-egalitarian) bias of the post-WW I culture of the 1920s, which had resurfaced after the Progressive reforms under Theodore Roosevelt. Under President Coolidge, a deregulated economy favoring individual liberty led to the financial meltdown of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression of the 30s. This crisis was eventually reversed by FDR’s social programs and Keynesian economic restructuring; that is, individual liberty was subordinated to the needs of the national community as a whole, and the ideal of equality was invoked as a corrective to the excesses of the ideal of liberty. Success in the huge national effort to combat the existential threat of international fascism required dedication to the nation’s identity as a society committed to a credo denied by its enemies. The victory of the Allied forces over the Axis powers re-established the general dominance of the ideology of liberal democracy, and made the United States the intellectual and practical leader of that ideology. In turn, within the United States, the success of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs led to a continuation of reform along the lines of the equality ideal. The Civil Rights movement focused on completing the promise of full citizenship and opportunity for the descendants of former slaves, who by historical circumstance are readily identified by their racial phenotype; and other similar social movements focused on establishing de jure and de facto rights for women and for citizens of unconventional sexual orientation. These movements are all expressions of the Equality ideal.
Inevitably, then, these social and political movements met with a backlash from those citizens for whom freedom is the core principle. They believe in equality, but their interpretation of that ideal focuses on equal OPPORTUNITY, not equal results. They believe that “all men are created equal” in the sense that no law may restrict them from their “pursuit of happiness” as individuals. The attainment of happiness is another matter entirely. Inequality of result is, then, not only acceptable but expected; for while all citizens may have no external legal barriers to hinder their pursuit, all citizens are limited by their intrinsic capacities, their use of the reason that all humans are endowed with, and of course sheer luck. Failure to achieve happiness, in the “conservative” view, is not due to any flaw in the American social contract, but in the failure of the individual to choose wisely and to act in their own best interests. Such would be an individual’s MORAL failure, not the failure of a nation of law and shared beliefs and principles. Egalitarians, on the other hand, tend to emphasize the role of luck in determining outcomes; for example, being born into a rich family is a huge advantage, and being born into a poor family is a huge disadvantage, in one’s “pursuit of happiness.” The notion of “equal opportunity” is therefore false, and therefore a just society is obligated to give assistance to the poor by, in part, increasing taxes on the affluent.
Today’s American political culture is, as has been much observed and analyzed, extremely polarized. Let us identify for reasons of argument those who emphasize the ideal of freedom as “libertarians,” and identify those who emphasize the ideal of equality as “egalitarians.” Naming inevitably involves oversimplification, and certainly each group accepts the other’s emphasized ideal to a degree; but I think it fair to note the different emphases, to note that the two ideals are in a meaningful sense opposites; and that the two ideals are in dialectical relation with each other. If they are in dialectical relationship, then their interaction is a process that is at least tacitly aiming for a SYNTHESIS. That synthesis could reasonably be named, as suggested above, a JUST SOCIETY, which we have identified as the implicit goal of the American polity as informed by its credo.
[This is Part One of a longer essay in response to Robert Reich’s fine book, THE COMMON GOOD.]
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