[Vision2020] The Party of Work

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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November 8, 2012
The Party of Work By DAVID
BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html>

The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters. These
were people who refused to submit to the established religious authorities.
They sought personal relationships with God. They moved to the frontier
when life got too confining. They created an American creed, built, as the
sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset put it, around liberty, individualism,
equal opportunity, populism and laissez-faire.

This creed shaped America and evolved with the decades. Starting in the
mid-20th century, there was a Southern and Western version of it, formed by
ranching Republicans like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W.
Bush. Their version drew on the traditional tenets: ordinary people are
capable of greatness; individuals have the power to shape their destinies;
they should be given maximum freedom to do so.

This is not an Ayn Randian, radically individualistic belief system.
Republicans in this mold place tremendous importance on churches, charities
and families — on the sort of pastoral work Mitt Romney does and the sort
of community groups Representative Paul Ryan celebrated in a speech at
Cleveland State University last month.

But this worldview is innately suspicious of government. Its adherents
generally believe in the equation that more government equals less
individual and civic vitality. Growing beyond proper limits, government
saps initiative, sucks resources, breeds a sense of entitlement and imposes
a stifling uniformity on the diverse webs of local activity.

During the 2012 campaign, Republicans kept circling back to the spot where
government expansion threatens personal initiative: you didn’t build that;
makers versus takers; the supposed dependency of the 47 percent. Again and
again, Republicans argued that the vital essence of the country is
threatened by overweening government.

These economic values played well in places with a lot of Protestant
dissenters and their cultural heirs. They struck chords with people whose
imaginations are inspired by the frontier experience.

But, each year, there are more Americans whose cultural roots lie
elsewhere. Each year, there are more people from different cultures, with
different attitudes toward authority, different attitudes about
individualism, different ideas about what makes people enterprising.

More important, people in these groups are facing problems not captured by
the fundamental Republican equation: more government = less vitality.

The Pew Research Center does excellent research on Asian-American and
Hispanic values. Two findings jump out. First, people in these groups have
an awesome commitment to work. By most measures, members of these groups
value industriousness more than whites.

Second, they are also tremendously appreciative of government. In survey
after survey, they embrace the idea that some government programs can
incite hard work, not undermine it; enhance opportunity, not crush it.

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and
threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern
economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t
rise. It’s a bloated financial sector that just sent the world into
turmoil. It’s a university system that is indispensable but unaffordable.
It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government
programs.

For these people, the Republican equation is irrelevant. When they hear
Romney talk abstractly about Big Government vs. Small Government, they
think: He doesn’t get me or people like me.

Let’s just look at one segment, Asian-Americans. Many of these people are
leading the lives Republicans celebrate. They are, disproportionately,
entrepreneurial, industrious and family-oriented. Yet, on Tuesday,
Asian-Americans rejected the Republican Party by 3 to 1. They don’t relate
to the Republican equation that more government = less work.

Over all, Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of the six
post-cold-war elections because large parts of the country have moved on.
The basic Republican framing no longer resonates.

Some Republicans argue that they can win over these rising groups with a
better immigration policy. That’s necessary but insufficient. The real
problem is economic values.

If I were given a few minutes with the Republican billionaires, I’d say:
spend less money on marketing and more on product development. Spend less
on “super PACs” and more on research. Find people who can shift the debate
away from the abstract frameworks — like Big Government vs. Small
Government. Find people who can go out with notebooks and study specific,
grounded everyday problems: what exactly does it take these days to rise?
What exactly happens to the ambitious kid in Akron at each stage of life in
this new economy? What are the best ways to rouse ambition and open fields
of opportunity?

Don’t get hung up on whether the federal government is 20 percent or 22
percent of G.D.P. Let Democrats be the party of security, defending the
20th-century welfare state. Be the party that celebrates work and inflames
enterprise. Use any tool, public or private, to help people transform their
lives.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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