I've watched a three recent interviews by Charlie Rose today. One was with a retired Marine officer, Colonel Gary Anderson, who recently conducted war games to see how things might unfold in Iraq. Another was with the three economic advisors to Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. And the third was with Robert Novak, whose new autobiographical book called The Prince of Darkness is out. Why any man would relish the name "The Prince of Darkness" is beyond me, but it takes all kinds to make the world go around.
I am most interested in the last of these interviews. I myself have been on the conservative side at times, and I have tried in my blogs to start sorting that out--why I'm so "middle of the road," and why I can politically swing from support of Jack Kennedy Democrats to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton... and why I detest George W. Bush. Well, I watched this interview with some reservation, because I've not liked the kinds of shows that Robert Novak has produced and been a part of. He is one of those guys who popularized the style of show where people yell back and forth at each other, and where no one really listens to what anyone else is saying. It's built upon and fosters politics of the basest kind of partisanship.
But I liked this interview. Charlie does such an excellent interview, no matter who he is interviewing, and Novak was the finest sort of gentleman in this interview. One really gets a chance to see the man behind the mask that he shouts through on the loud-mouthed CNN and Fox shows.
I like this interview, furthermore, because it helps me understand myself a little better. To my surprise, Novak voted for Kennedy. And as someone who still thinks that Kennedy and Reagan were great presidents, although I've learned to become a little more sharply critical of both through the years, this makes me eager to see Novak's view on the unfolding of the American political climate during the years he's covered it. Furthermore, Novak was against the invasion of Iraq, and thinks of Bush as "another failed president." (He thinks that Reagan has had the only successful presidency of the last 50 years.)
I disagree with Novak on some issues. He doesn't think deficits matter. I do. He is primarily concerned about one thing and one thing only on the domestic agenda, and that is lower taxes. He was a big Jack Kemp fan, as I was at the time, and so I understand that. Back in the day, we recognized, and maybe I even got this from Novak at the time, that it was Jack Kennedy who cut taxes, helping the American economy, and it was Kennedy who said "A rising tide lifts all boats." I picked up on that in the late '70s and early '80s, and firmly believed that. We felt, in the late '70s, that taxes were too high, and that we needed to give business a shot in the arm with lower tax rates as an incentive. If businesses could do better, then all of us would do better. And there are times when that is true. I don't disagree with the principle even now. It's true so far as that goes, and we'd do well to remember it.
But Novak holds onto that policy, and the general policy of small government, like a mantra that he builds his whole worldview upon, and I would say it's too narrow a framework upon which to the view the world. There are other factors to consider.
Most of progress in history and civilization, as Hegel emphasized long ago, is a dialectic of ideas. One thing is the right thing to say at one moment, but it can lead to extremes of its own. Another thing has to be said to balance it, and I think that's exactly what is missing in the conservative model of the type that Newt Gingrich and Robert Novak represent. The balancing statement is that for moral reasons, we have to be willing to share the great wealth that our country produces in order to make sure that we build the greatest society that we possibly can. There is no great society when the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. I have no problem with the rich getting richer to the extent that they build our economy and everyone benefits. But there are points at which a sense of shared personal responsibility for benefit of all of our citizens must come into play. The bottom line of profits is NOT everything. I think John Kennedy would have remembered that if he had lived, and not let his tax cuts become the only ideology that he lived by. And that's why I'm more of a Kennedy Democrat than I am a Reagan Republican, though I admire them both.
In the earlier interview, all three economic advisors to the major Democratic candidates--Gene Sperling, Tom Daschle, and Leo Hindery--still espouse the idea of open markets. At first, I was aghast. I have had a kind of protectionist reaction to what we've witnessed in the last 10 years, and I have considered Clinton's NAFTA to be the worst policy decision of his presidency. So, what's up with the continued support of this general idea of "open markets" by Democrats when American workers are so clearly suffering as a result of them?
Part of the answer came out for me in this interview with Sperling, Daschle, and Hindery: the argument being made by the Democrats now is that we all benefit from open markets, but only open markets that support improvements for workers in other countries, and that support environmental policy improvement in those countries. If we simply fling open the markets without enforcing our demands that the field be made more level, then it will bring everyone down, because we quite simply can't compete with countries that have low wages and no environmental sensitivity.
I don't know if I agree with that point of view. I'm not sure these other countries can improve in the ways that we demand. But it would be great if they could.
On that note, and back to the Novak interview: I realized that my point of agreement with Novak is that government needs to be as small as it can be, and that taxes need to be as low as they can be. We agree with those two fundamental principles. The difference, I realized, was that I believe that government is required to protect the American worker and citizen from any other power in the country--whether it be labor unions or big business--from getting so big that they hurt us. It is all part of the checks and balances that go beyond the Federal Government. The Government itself can be, and must be, a check against abuse of power in other sectors of our society.
One simple example of what I'm talking about is Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal, where he took on the monopolies that had formed during his day. They were too powerful. The economy needs competition. Most of us take that for granted now, but the Federal Government had to step in to make that happen. Another example is that the food industry needs to be regulated. China has recently reminded us of what happens when there is a lack of regulation: we get dangerous goods that can kill us. The Federal Government is needed to prevent that. A third example that readily comes to mind is the segregation policies of the old South. The Civil Rights of American citizens required protection that neither businesses nor state governments were proving. The Federal Government was required to provide a check against these abuses of power.
This is always where the debate should be, so far as I'm concerned. What is the least amount of government intervention that is required to assure human progress in our country? What is the least amount of government intervention that is required to assure that human beings in our country are not oppressed? (I say "in our country" because I don't believe we have a right, a responsibility, or the ability to fix every country's problems, but we should be aware of anything we can do to fix egregious problems elsewhere when we can. We should, at least, press for such changes diplomatically.) What is the least amount of government intervention that will assure as fair a system as we can create?
Right now, I believe that the government has to do more to balance the situation in order to protect the American worker and citizen against problems that arise from the free market system. It's as simple as that.
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