Those words are from Economics and Morality, Paul Krugman's Framing a Common Dreams piece by George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling, who in part are promoting an interest in a book they have just authored, and in part responding to Another Bank Bailout by Paul Krugman, which appeared online June 10 and in a slightly different version (to which the authors refer) as an op ed the next day. In his piece Krugman had criticized the policy elites who are focused on the financial institutions while being
completely unwilling to admit that its policies are failing the people the economy is supposed to serve.
Lakoff and Wehling agree with Krugman raising this, going on to write
Markets are not provided by nature. They are constructed - by laws, rules, and institutions. All of these have moral bases of one sort or another. Hence, all markets are moral, according to someone’s sense of morality. The only question is, Whose morality? In contemporary America, it is conservative versus progressive morality that governs forms of economic policy. The systems of morality behind economic policies need to be discussed.
While I will quote from the Common Dreams piece, I strongly suggest you read it in its entirety. It is written in Lakoff's traditional framing - that Conservatives believe in a Strict Father who punishes children who stray from the morality he teaches, while the Progressive approach is that of the Nurturing Parent (often female).
I will explore parts of this while my real focus is on the question of Whose Morality should be governing our public policy, and why.
In a sense this post is a part of a larger thinking process, begun at Netroots Nation with several people, to find another way to define progressive policies. I believe we an best understand them as being based in Love, or if you prefer the Latin term, caritas which means charity in the best sense. Conservative, "Strict Father" approaches do not include all, at least not in that sense. For example, Lakoff and Wehling write of the economic policies of the right that
Those who are needy are assumed to be weak and undisciplined and therefore morally lacking. The most moral people are the rich. The slogan, “Let the market decide,” sees the market itself as The Decider, the ultimate authority, where there should be no government power over it to regulate, tax, protect workers, and to impose fines in tort cases. Those with no money are undisciplined, not moral, and so should be punished. The poor can earn redemption only by suffering and thus, supposedly, getting an incentive to do better.
I do not think one can understanding this framing without an understanding of theology and religious history. I read those words and I am immediately reminded of Calvinist thinking, which presumed a double pre-destinarianism. Those who were successfull (aka wealthy) in this life were presumed to be so because they were living according to the standards God wanted, they were thus predestined to success in this life and salvation in the next, while those who were not successful were indicating that they were not going to receive salvation, and their stature in life was thus appropriate.
The modern framing drops the idea of predestination as a formal justification, but is still framed in a fashion that seems to me contrary to both the TaNakh, the Hebrew Scripture, with its admonishments not to deny justice to the stranger in your land and to leave the corners of the fields unharvested for the benefit of the poor, as well as things like the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 which required caring for the prisoners without judging whether their imprisonment was a warranted punishment as well as for the poor and the hungry and the naked. It ignores the practice of the early Christians in Acts of the Apostles in which the wealth of the community was redistributed to people according to their needs.
It is ironic that some who call themselves "Christians" are not only selective in the Christian texts they cite, but similarly selective in the Hebrew scriptures at the same time as they label them as the "Old Testament" which implies that they have been superceded by the "New Testament."
But there is more. In theory this nation is a democracy, and it was certainly founded as a republic, Res Publica, which means one would presume some important role in economic planning for the public, or as Lakoff and Wehling write, "the Public"
which provides infrastructure, public education, and regulations to maximize health, protection and justice, a sustainable environment, systems for information and transportation, and so forth. The Public is necessary for The Private, especially private enterprise, which relies on all of the above. The liberal market economy maximizes overall freedom by serving public needs: providing needed products at reasonable prices for reasonable profits, paying workers fairly and treating them well, and serving the communities to which they belong. In short, “the people the economy is supposed to serve” are ordinary citizens. This has been the basis of American democracy from the beginning.
It is not correct to describe someone whose code of behavior differs from ours as either immoral or even amoral. It is a "moral" framework to them.
Here's the difference in my mind. Their morality only includes some, and the more they can distinguish between themselves and theirs versus the rest of us, they see no problem in accumulating obscene amounts of wealth and power regardless of its impact upon the rest of us. They are moral precisely because they are successful, and it is right that we suffer because we are not like them. We are not among the "chosen" as they see it (and it is perhaps worthwhile to remember that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes that it is descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, which means they believe that THEY are the "Chosen People" even if they are quite selective in reading and accepting the Hebrew Scriptures including the prophetic and ethical writings).
One aspect of this approach is the belief in "merit pay" - something that many want to impose upon my field of education, even though attempts in the field have proven unsuccessful in achieving their stated goals, as anyone who has paid attention to similar attempts in fields as different as policing, financial services, and cardiac care units in Britain would know. it totally ignores the insights of management guru Edwards Deming who totally rejected such an approach. One of the great insights on this was offered by Donald Campbell in the 1970s when he opined
The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.
In fact, the entire idea of driving decision making solely by a series of data metrics ignores the very reality of the human condition.
Lakoff and Wehling start from a point that there is a clear moral system behind both the Conservative, Strict Father approach and the Progressive, Nurturing Parent, approach. In this they see some hope:
If there is hope in our present situation, it lies with people who are morally complex, who are progressive on some issues and conservative on others - often called “moderates,” “independents,” and “swing voters.” They have both moral systems in their brains: when one is turned on, the other is turned off.The one that is turned on more often gets strongest. Quoting conservative language, even to argue against it, just strengthens conservatism in the brain of people who are morally complex. It is vital that they hear the progressive values of the traditional American moral system, the truth that The Public is necessary for The Private, the truth that our freedom depends on a robust Public, and that the economy is for all of us.
I agree that quoting and then pushing back against the Conservative framing is counter productive.
However, look at that last sentence carefully, that there are the progressive values of the traditional American moral system, the truth that The Public is necessary for The Private, the truth that our freedom depends on a robust Public, and that the economy is for all of us.
In a sense this touches on what I was saying in my conversations at Netroots Nation. We must reclaim an inclusive morality.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s. America was shamed by how we treated Blacks. Later we were shamed by how we treated females, including on female health issues (and let me note I absolutely stand with Darcy Burner in her call for people to stand up at Netroots Nation - the women who have exercised choice should NOT be shamed into silence). We had some sense of shame - think of migrant workers and power of Edward R Murrow's "Harvest of Shame."
IT was a time when America's sense of civic duty, or if you prefer, of a national consensus on morality, was expanding who was included as part of the American dream. Perhaps one can hear its culmination in these words spoken by Barbara Jordan in 1974, a small selection from her longer remarks:
I do not believe that we can be idle spectators to the subversion, the diminution, the destruction of the American social contract, of the American dream.
Our vision can be found in words of Hubert Humphrey that I have often quoted, words that are very much in sympathy with Matthew 25. Those words are these:
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped - they are our fellow Americans, they are our fellow human beings even if they be undocumented aliens.
Our morality includes them. It means we have a responsibility to them, as we do to each other.
Ultimately it means that we love them - caritas
"The only question is, Whose morality?"
Might I suggest that if the answer is not that of Barbara Jordan, that of Hubert Humphrey, that of the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, that in the aspirations however it may have been interpreted in Jefferson's words of "All men are created equal" and thus equally "entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" whether they be rich or poor, Black or White or of other hue, male or female, Straight or gay or bi- or transgendered, military veteran or principled objector to military service or even chickenhawk. . .
Whose Morality? For me it must be a morality that is most inclusive, that does not discard people as less worthy.
Thansk for reading.