New?
Andrew Bacevich published this in the American Conservative almost 6 years ago:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/counterculture-conservatism-4001/?
Rip van Winkle Brooks has been trying to wake up for at least that long.
14
Read the Niskanen Report before you criticize Brooks.!!
https://niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Niskanen-vision-paper-final-PDF.pdf
2
Sounds like the center left Democrats. Gosh David, just admit it you are a centrist Democrat and quit hiding. You should be proud to have left the Republicans behind, they are a dead horse.
19
Seems like you and the NYT continue in your biased negative reporting of Senator Sanders. You do recall that your ombudsperson acknowledged that she found the NYT biased against Senator Sanders (That comment would have nothing to do with the office of the ombudsperson being cut).
It is fine that you see the world differently the Democratic Socialists such as Senator Sanders but to compare his ideas to Trump, to describe them as way to the left...please. Do you mean way to the left ideas like medicare for all, $15 dollar minimum wage, making taxes progressive and fair, taking money out of politics,...yep you are right, real right if you think that these are way out ideas.
Could it be that your bias and lack of understanding of Democratic Socialism makes you a tad way off.
25
This article is a summation of what The Economist has been advocating for decades. Glad you finally caught up.
By the way, comparing Trump and Bernie Sanders is just plain stupid. Funny how Brooks and Sanders are similar though- you both celebrate Canada's and northern European countries' ways of doing things. Does that make Brooks an extremist?
23
Libertarians hate government until they get a flat from a pothole, their street light no longer works, their house fire is not put out by firefighters, loose their jobs and need unemployment payments... etc... Libertarianism... the luxury only wealthy White men can afford.
42
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, etc. Nothing new from Brooks or the Niskanen Center.
12
First of all, so-called "conservatives" in this country are not conservative. Reckless, greedy, short sighted and closed minded are not conservative traits. Real conservatives are compassionate. They don't like to see humans used as guinea pigs. They believe in what works: democracy, common sense regulation and the rule of law. Conservatives don't believe in waste, certainly not wasted lives. They believe in protecting the planet and in paying attention to scientific facts. The right wing in this country stopped being conservative years ago. Brooks is correct that the right wing stands for extremism which is not conservative.
However as the pendulum has swung to the right with the aging of the baby boom, the left has become less extreme, not more. Warren, Sanders even Michael Moore are certainly not extreme in this political climate. They want working people to keep more of the money they earn. Now it is being literally stolen from them to enrich our Corporate Masters. They want to save the planet. Extreme??? They want to keep the United States from descending into a bananna republic. They want to get back to the tried and true policies of the New Deal upon which American greatness was achieved and a powerful, prosperous and unprecedented middle class was created. Those policies worked well here in America and are now working well in most other industrialized modern countries. The U.S.A. barely qualifies as a modern country any more.
32
Thank you David, for writing what I have been talking about for years
4
David Brooks congratulates himself and other conservatives for being slow learners, but at least educable.
And Paul Ryan congratulated himself this week for his wonderful accomplishments in government.
16
Niskanen is just another example of intellectuals having fallen into the progressive rabbit hole. Once you start tinkering with markets and normatively-determined outcomes, you are inevitably forced to tinker more and more to correct the distortions you've created. And ultimately you have to convince yourself that you are smart enough to manage it all. Yet all you do is pile one sub-optimal outcome upon another.
Look at what progressives have done through their efforts to make college accessible to all. We have too many students pursuing meaningless, devalued college degrees, with rapidly escalating college expenses and a mountain of college debt so large it is constraining growth and has to be forgiven at taxpayer expense. So much for good intentions.
Face it, freedom does not create outcomes that everyone favors. But, once you start balancing outcomes, you are simply creating the inefficiency and the form of unfairness you favor.
Whenever an organization of conservative sell-outs is formed, they are applauded as a new way forward. Unfortunately, they are simply the progressive trap dressed up in new clothes. As they say in the M&A world, it is simply a matter of "putting lipstick on the pig."
6
If you find yourself too optimistic when considering how we've triumphed over adversity in the past, just look up "survivorship bias."
In the universe where Stanislav Petrov did what he was supposed to and reported the apparent incoming American missiles to his superiors in 1983, there was a nuclear war, and we aren't alive to read this article. But this makes no promises about the future - the next disaster still might kill us.
2
In your breathtaking false equivalencies of Sanders and Trump, you fail to point out that following Trump is like following a rather stupid version of The Joker off a cliff. Following Sanders is simply supporting standard progressive ideals, rather centrist at that and usually open to compromise. Why do you persist in this distortion,..simply to win your argument. That's a Trump tactic.
13
David, welcome to common sense into the democratic party ideas.
7
We need a lot more conversation like this.
3
I'm tired of Brooks' continual hypocrisy. Trump and Sanders are not equivalent opposite ends of a spectrum, and no matter how many times he says it doesn't make it true.
Please leave the Times, and go back and try to revive the Weekly Standard. Your two-faced nature would be more at home there.
15
Why do do you need (new established) think tanks to come to these enlightments?
European states have established the issues Niskanen is actually advocating without any help of such instutions some decades ago and what they are thinking doesn´t sound so innovative in European ears to put it mildly. Think tanks never have been so popular in Europe.
5
Wait. Before we all clasp hands round the fire and sing kumbayah, there are a few small tasks we have to take care of. One of them is our current president. Another is to drive a stake through the heart of current GOP ideology, because I am not sure that it's quite dead.
10
Interesting enough for me to poke around the website. Saw the leadership.....35 heads....2 of color. I'd like to see some more balance before I go further.
Brooks equates Bernie Sanders to Donald J. Trump and looks to Jerry Taylor as a forerunner of the 'new' center. Really!
5
My immediate reaction to this article is: Duh! Have these people really only just noticed the benefits of European social democracy?
10
Wait. What? Practical compromise? Who would ever go for that?
Glad you are on board Mr Brooks. We have been waiting for you - and the rest of you hold outs.
3
Gee, maybe David Brooks is becoming enlightened! The social safety net progressives want is conservatism after all.
1
And here I thought NYT had fired you but back again with your opinions about the center creating anything good. Trump is just a symptom of the republican market driven dribble which has been killing the middle class for decades.
So you are throwing out so called libertarians who have went to center cause they believe in global warming??
I keep reading you on occasion just because I once thought you were a thoughtful person with some smarts/passions/humanity. NoT
1
What Brooks calls "centre" is really a "Black Hole." Niskanen is the centre of the right. Any solution to human misery that calls on the wealth to suffer the pangs of "redistribution" is considered far left. One surmises that the BIBLE is just another set of "leftie" scrolls.
2
The reference to "liberals who believe in a bigger government" illustrates perfectly how far Brooks is from understanding the liberal desire to make a positive difference in the lives of people who are exploited by the rich and underserved by society, whether that means regulating capitalism or providing government services.
12
So these enlightened libertarians are not against regulations that protect health and the environment and deter fraud and financial crises? We'll see.
7
And now in the "déjà vue" files...
America worked at this until her politics became so toxic. I will encourage any American thinker and opinion leader to pursue these "moderate" ideas and convince the wider electorate of their virtue. Even if it means pretending these are novel concepts.
It`s definitely a good sign when ideologues take of the filters and think in a different direction.
1
If the 0.01% have any common sense they will see that leading the large majority of the populace into desperation is NOT a winning strategy in the long term.
I'm glad to see that a few of them are becoming aware of that. I hope they can convince their friends, over lobster dinners on their yachts.
4
A new “center” is exactly what Americans and global citizens DON’T need right now. What Mr. Brooks is proposing is similar to the reforms carried out in Sweden by the free-market administrations of the Moderate Party, attempting a strong social safety net combined with little to no regulation. This created a financial crisis in Sweden during the 1990s and required a nationalization of all the banks by the social democrats to revive the economy. This isn’t a vision for the 2020s, this is a 30-year-old flop.
4
I guess Mr. Brooks and his pals at the Niskanen Center missed an earlier report on how the market and the welfare state go together.
That report was called The New Deal. It was published in the 1930s. Its conclusions got the United States out of the Great Depression, through World War II, most of the Cold War, and was working fine, until the 1980s and Reaganism - in other words, until Brooks and his fellow "conservatives" started screwing with it.
253
@Robert Henry Eller - Yes!
Something a lot of Conservatives conveniently forget is that the New Deal also helped to defeat the growth of Communism inside the USA. Up until '29 it was growing quickly. The shiny new Soviet Union looked like it might just be the formula for confronting the 1920s idle rich.
Roosevelt was able to use fear of Communism to convince his rich friends that they needed to back the government's New Deal and get America employed. You know what they say about idle hands.
Today's elite could learn a few lessons from history if they weren't already convinced they have all the answers.
39
@J Jencks
Great additional point. Thanks.
3
Brooks, you're a caution. What Irving Kristol knew and Donald Trump knows on alternate parking days is that in politics, the Class struggle is determinative. Has been since the days of the Patricians and the Plebians. Which is to say that all your fercochta ideas don't add up to a hill of beans in this world. Someday you'll understand this. Assuming of course, that it pays better than being a professional right wing obscurantist.
1
David is interested in a new center, so long as the dispossessed right creates it. Henry Blodgett has it - "Better Capitalism" - the dark horse for 2020.
3
Rigid ideology is always a long-term losing position. Because issues are complex and shouldn't be reduced to simple binary positions. Unfortunately, public political debate usually forces complex ideas into sound bites which causes oversimplification.
It's a catch-22 of a kind. If you engage in enlightened, nuanced debate a portion of electorate (primarily the not so smart) either tunes out of misconstrues what's being said. Never underestimate the general stupidity of human beings.
That said, it's hard to trust the elites either b/c they are sneaky and self-consumed. No one is more of an elite than a POTUS born on third base.
I feel my argument crumbling under my own feet, but in general it's probably good to watch out for your own interests while trying to remain open minded and politically flexible. Dogmatism limits intellectual and spiritual growth and leads to bad decision makings when internal contradictions make one's internal wiring cross up.
3
Brooks is finally back on target - advocating pragmatism over ideology.
1
I gotta love the statement about the environment. "That is a scientific question, not a philosophical one". Perhaps. But then Conservatives have denigrated sciences since tobacco was suspected of causing cancer... for many decades. "Junk science". Conservatives have always preferred "alternate facts".
4
Trump has finally awakened Brooks to the truth about his elitist and rascist political party. But, he just can't bring himself to embrace the fact that the Democratic Party has always understood, however imperfectly, that a healthy human society values BOTH the vigor of a free market and the stability and longer-term focus of public assistance in everything from planetary sustainability to educational innovation to physical infrastructure to, yes, even social infrastructure (i.e. welfare). Regarding the latter, Brooks should ask himself when was the last time he heard of any religious community in America returning any public assistance received by its members because the community had raised the funds themselves? The Democratic Party welcomes your awakening, David. Now help us get out the vote and build a stronger, more mature and inclusive America! Your wasting your time daydreaming away for some perfect "centrist" political party to redeem your past errors.
3
When you begin a column by comparing the Trump right and the Sanders left, you are already way off the mark. None of the proposals Sanders put forth would have been as destructive as what we are living through now. Frankly, you have always leaned a lot more to the right and at some point, why not right a column in which you re-evaluate positions you have adopted.
8
At last you get it David.
A society can only be truly free if it takes care of all of its citizens. A people who are secure can tolerate a great deal of freedom for innovation.
Innovation no longer comes at the expense of the citizenry. Companies can change, grow, die, shut down and the citizenry is cared for, safe in the basics of life.
No one wants to take over the means of production any more...we just want everyone to be secure. The there with be growth and innovation.
Hallelujah!
7
Republicans = Little Government
Democrats = Big Government
Is a straw man.
Democrats haven't been for big government since Pay As You Go became a thing during the Clinton Administration THIRTY YEARS AGO. Republicans ARE for Big Military, tho. They want to eliminate everything else, including things we NEED.
How about:
Republicans = Authoritarian
Democrats = Halfway Sane
Both parties owned by Big Money
We need public financing of elections. No outside money from donors over $25/head.
9
There is not one single idea that you've presented as part of a "free-market welfare state" that Bernie Sanders would not love and embrace. Not one.
You've basically described Sweden, which is a Democratic-Capitalist-Socialist country. Sweden is not a socialist country by the old standard definition that industry is owned and controlled by the state. Sweden is run by private enterprise in collaboration with government to ensure its citizens are educated, have health care, and aren't left by the curb to die in retirement. Hence, the term 'welfare state.'
Your Neo-Libertarians are just a bunch of people who figured out that they'd better become Democrats or humanity will experience such a giant, worldwide social and environmental upheaval that we're all toast. That realization is a long time coming, and maybe too late.
Even Alan Greenspan has figured out that we ought to do things more like Sweden, and he's really thick headed.
I've read you for a long time. You dissed the Scandinavian countries every chance you could. All of a sudden it's hey, look at this great way they do things over there!
I'm glad you're a 'woke' conservative now. Why don't you just be honest and re-brand yourself as a Democrat.
8
Right off the bat, Brooks equates the Trump right with the Sanders left. False. Sanders is neither a racist, nor narcissistic, nor a plutocrat. Why does he do this? Because his very own brand of conservatism led to the Trump phenomenon and he feels like he needs to dump some responsibility on people on the left. Trump is a product of the GOP, plain and simple. All of the old 1950's mores and images that Brooks pined for all through the eighties and nineties came true with a vengeance, with the true reality of what that era was for marginalized Americans. Thanks a lot David.
3
So...libertarians looked around the world, saw that socialist democracies actually do a really good job of both providing for their people and allowing them freedom, and...joined in? Nope the libertarians and David Brooks instead claim to the world that they came up with a brand new idea.
Instead of trying to figure out where conservatism can grow anew, why don't you just become a social democrat?
4
Dream on, Mr. Brooks. The reality is that blue America is ready to divorce red America, and we are not going to settle for half the assets, we will take what belongs to us. Hopefully, in time, Canada will see the need to unite northern and coastal North America into a power that can militarily and economically neutralize a rump red America, restore sanity to geopolitics and get us on track to do away with global warming and military contractor industries, who are currently funding the Republican party and a US drift into neo-Fascism.
4
I really like David Brooks and have felt that way for some time seeing him Fridays on PBS. I like the ideas in this article and the entirely appropriate intellectual modesty we all so need. May David's enlightenment be spread.
There is nothing new about the idea (and the evidence) that nations can productively use both markets and welfare state strategies--or that it is necessary to look at the world through more than one lens (ideological or otherwise) or that blanket generalizations about the value of regulation is unhelpful. It is nice to know that Mr. Brooks and some heretofore reluctant libertarians are beginning to understand this reality. Better late than never.
5
Just one quibble, David. Trump does not have a coherent political ideology. He is not conservative in the true sense of the word. He is for whatever riches he can obtain for his real estate empire and other businesses. Thus, we find him kowtowing to despots in Russia and Saudi Arabia who are also clients. Surely, you don't mean to suggest that corruption is only part of the Conservative ideology.
33
Methinks you err in one fundamental way. In Norway, even the leftists believe strongly in personal responsibility. While everyone is entitled to take a lot out, they are all expected, and feel obliged, to put a lot back in. In Denmark, their 63% tax rate kicks in at a princely $55K or so. Where is the US left on imposing taxes on the beneficiaries of their programs? They assert that only the “rich” should pay. And socialism – or social democracy – doesn’t work that way.
Have you ever, even once, heard Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez speak of the obligation to give back, unless they’re speaking of “the rich”? They’re happy to speak about “free” college; what about the reciprocal obligation of the graduate to give back? Our local leftists are all about “free”; in Norway, they understand: nothing is EVER free. Have you ever once heard of a power failure in Oslo triggering a looting spree? That’s not how they roll.
If the climate hysterics offered ANY actual solution, beyond freezing in the dark, they could be take seriously. Their asserted advocacy for solar and wind can’t be taken seriously, because they oppose the mining and manufacturing necessary to construct them. (TRY, go ahead, JUST TRY, to dig a hole somewhere in the US)
Want help with college? A four letter solution springs to mind: ROTC. Want to address climate change? Fine: where do you want to build the next nuke?
And, foremost, if we're all in this together, lose the identity politics which drives us apart.
50
@Michael - It's interesting that you mention both the Scandinavian countries and Bernie Sanders. He speaks specifically about those countries as a model for a society in which all contribute and all receive benefits.
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation
With regard to actual solutions to climate change, SO many people have proposed solutions in their own special fields, which in aggregate, could make a huge difference. There are too many to list. So I will refer you to a book which is a sort of compendium of the many excellent solutions available to us. It's called, "An Atmosphere of Hope", by Tim Flannery.
17
@Michael You mischaracterize the liberals in the US on the issues of personal responsibility, giving back, approach to building solar/wind energy sources etc. Yes, they want to see less COAL mining, and are all for (modernized) manufacturing. Don't take offense, but you do come across angry ..
15
Poor deluded David. He writes a laundry list of basic planks in the Democratic Party and treats them as new think-tank ideas.
Just get the robber barons and Ayn Rand neophytes out of the way, already.
1
Great! Now all wechaveto do is make Gorden Grecco give up greed...
We have confused means for ends for too long. Limited government, redistribution, tax cuts, increased spending - all are simply means to an end, not ends in themselves. But we've spent so much time and energy arguing over those means that we have spent almost no time agreeing upon what we are hoping to achieve. Perhaps this us a start.
2
Every Democrat I know thinks this way. Perhaps giving it a new name is a way for Republicans to ease to the center... where the majority of the country actually resides.
3
David Brooks is following a productive line of argument from the"Varieties of Capitalism" school of analysis. The debate between Capitalism vs Socialism is long over, but many are still not satisfied with how modern capitalism, at least as practiced in the US provided for the common good and social welfare. I point him to the analysis of a British scholar Ron Dore who wrote a penetrating book "Stock Market Capitalism: Welfare Capitalism, Japan and Germany versus the Anglo- Saxons". The goal is to harness the creative power of the Free Market while protecting the environment and social justice. Germany and Japan do a better job of this.
3
The fate of the libertarian unregulated free market economy of Harding,Cooledge, and Hoover operated in an era of small government. It deplored regulation and the public welfare state. Their economy and their political philosophy collapsed by 1931.
The prosperity of the U.S. highly regulated capitalist economy under the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy depended on big government and and market regulation. Roosevelt saved capitalism from certain suicide and the nation from a social-economic revolution.
Yes, the War we refused to prepare for and did not enter until events left us no choice played an immense role in further justifying big government and pervasive regulation. But that war-time expansion came seven years after The New Deal began in 1933.
Perhaps these modern Libertarians,applauded by Mr. Brooks, should acknowledge their debt to the Democratic party social-political experiment that Roosevelt implemented.
The New Deal is the true origin of their new epiphany. These “neo-liberterians” are rediscovering and applying old ideas to modern problems. They should give credit to the pioneers who first proved that well regulated capitalism and the social welfare state have merit.
4
I'm bemused by all the complexity.
There are those whose moral imperative is to lessen suffering and share bounty. Who feel that walking in a city completely absent of panhandlers, homeless, and the untreated mentally ill people on the freezing streets, is a bonanza for all. Who admire a system of government that is eager to find solutions to problems, and takes joy in the differences of race and ethnicity. Who believe the suffering of any is the suffering of all, and work to end it.
There are those who disagree. They think helping themselves is the best they have to offer, and that helping themselves is what the universe requires of them. Part of this is to help themselves to language that makes this sound noble and good.
Here's what I think: It's not, "There but for God go I", but "there go I", wherever I look.
5
Bernie Sanders is hardly “extreme”, David. There goes your false equivalency again...
3
I swear, nothing in the last two years has been half so amusing as to watch conservatives make Herculean efforts just to reach basic conclusions like this.
The thing is, the Democratic Party and liberals that Republicans were fighting never existed. Conservative media created a shadow for you to box against.
Actual liberals are the ones who have known the truths you're finally reaching since, like, FDR's day.
17
It would be nice if some of the readers could consider the issues discussed in this opinion article in the context of how it is good for our nation, rather than a "see, we were right all along" attitude. There are many issues not discussed in this article that show ongoing failures on both sides.
Neither side has fixed galloping healthcare and education costs, or how 32 million Americans that can not read or do math at a 3rd grade level cam make a decent living, or our crumbling infrastructure due to lack of funds caused by entitlement expenses. Neither party has a plan to fix these issues. And yes, they are big issues in California as well.
2
This is truly a non-sensical column. I'd bet my last piece of brie that 99% of Democrats reading this column agree with the "new center" philosophy. Do you really think that Democrats wake up in the morning and say to themselves, "How do I make government bigger today?"
Of course, the vast majority of Democrats want an open society, immigration, appropriate but not expansive regulation, and free markets.
David, you've built this whole column on the fantasy that the Democratic party is significantly different from this "new center." Why don't you just embrace Democratic centrism and be done with it.
6
To all those fearmongers of the US moving left: what exactly is your problem with having an educated and healthy population where people can depend on a safety net when life events happen?
What exactly is much better today where so few have so much, where many live in anxiety about jobs and meeting bills, where kids are constantly killed by guns and poverty is so pervasive?
I just don‘t get it...
6
@Eric
I actually find most republicans are open to the idea of a safety net for people that fall on hard times. Where I see the divide, is in providing a life long safety net (support system) for people that make no effort to earn their way, or that have such poor self discipline that they require a safety net over and over and over. The number of people that fall into that "category" is probably far less than Right wing talk show hosts yell about, but it is also far more than zero that the far left believes. That is the REAL great divide!
Or, better yet, get rid of think tanks. They are, at best, a waste of money, paying people to bloviate on one topic or another.
At worst, most think tanks are propaganda machines, funded to carry out totally bogus "research" for the express purpose of justifying a particular political view. As such, they have a major role in fomenting partisan divides in America.
1
Really, David, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the same breath? And both are extremists? Well, Bernie wants universal health care, much like Europe already has. While Trump does his best to get rid of healthcare for all. Bernie acknowledges global warming, while Trump wants all of us to fry. Where's the comparison?
3
Another book report from Brooks, who just discovered the social democracy that has been practiced in Europe for the past 70 years.
6
It's funny that Brook's center seems to be pretty far to the right. A lot of Republican intellectuals like Brooks hate Trump's style, but they don't have any problems with his agenda. Heck, if Pence had been President for the last two years doing the exact same things as Trump, we wouldn't be hearing a peep from David.
3
Happy to see that David Brooks is still searching. Also happy to see that he is friendly to the basic minimums of public goods that have to be provided in order for society to remain as open and dynamic as he likes.
The problem comes up because the capital class that the Republicans are beholden to see the regulatory class AS the redistributive class. They can brook no distinction between the two, regulation and redistribution.
And good look viewing empirical reality without any blinders at all.
It's good to be as open and honest about them as possible. But reality comes via our concepts and modes of interpretation that make cultures distinct, and groups within culture distinct as well.
Quite frankly, it's kind of funny to see the Niskanen Institute copping to all these basic social needs. Wilkinson et al were trumpeting de-regulation for years.
The fact is that none of this is new thinking. In fact, what you are seeing is libertarians waking up to the ever-increasing crises endemic to capital markets that threaten our global stability and our national revenues. Too big to fail just means Schumpeter was right.
Capital crises grow so big the entire society has to enlist its wealth to prop up our monopolies and their tributaries. That is, capitalism generates State socialism for the rich. Risk is socialized and the people pay for the bad bets of capital.
I guess the advantage of selective perception is that when reading yesterday's news one can cry Eureka!
3
Since when did Bernie Sanders not believe the market and the welfare state go together? Every single proposal Sanders made in 2016 was already long since in place in Germany. In 2016, Germany's market provided the country with a higher growth rate and lower unemployment than America's. Hillary was rationally rejected in the Rust Belt for being a hand-puppet of the Wall St. banks that gave us NAFTA and globalism on steroids under Bill. Great for investors, but the greatest disaster for manufacturing workers since the Depression. It would be great if we had the balance between welfare state and markets here that Germany has, which is all Sanders wants. Too bad neoliberals and Republicans in "the center" have been so successful at creating an economy great for investors only, and lousy for the bottom 90%. I'll believe a "new center" that gives us Germany's balance advocated by Bernie when I see it. Clearly, Brooks is hardly in favor of such balance if he thinks Bernie is an "extremist."
5
You one page analysis ignores two substantive economic realities. France, for example, this year increased defense spending to 2% (after years underfunding their NATO commitment). They can do that while under the global umbrella provided by the US which devotes 3.1%. In addition, the famed welfare state which is currently crippling their economy will be coming under new pressure as suddenly 10% of their population is from the south, mostly Muslim refugees. They have so far done a totally inadequate job of integration and if the US experience is relevant this will remain an expensive burden for a generation or longer. An additional 1% on defense and 3% on welfare would quickly put France on a fiscal par with Greece.
We must look at best practices and reality to moderate our wishlist for our governments.
So Sanders - proponent of a generous welfare state (health care, education) - is then the enabler of the freest markets?
Make sense, assuming markets are truly free - and not increasingly subject to consolidation resulting in diminished competition. Sanders is on this as well.
Why don't you have a long chat with Bernie?
3
Universal basic income should be a central plank of a “free market welfare state” - less stigma, bureaucracy and paternalism yet all are treated equally within a free market system. Citizens are able to have a lot of freedom to choose many different possible paths with a secure floor(income slightly above poverty level) underneath them . Workers will have better negotiating positions without have to accept poor jobs out of the duress of dire poverty. “Creative destruction” would be more creative and less destructive and capitalism could be saved from itself . More equality of opportunity and overall equality.
3
Anyone willing to look at the details will see that, unlike the far right, the left espouses policies that polls show are quite popular with the public: single payer, increased Social Security benefits, a financial transaction tax, decreased "defense" spending, a Green New Deal, increased social program spending, a livable minimum wage, and big money out of politics.
And it should be pointed out that while centrists might pay lip service to these popular policies - they never get around to implementing them, and centrists have been controlling the Democratic party for over 25 years.
4
The Heritage Foundation has not been a "think tank" for a very long time. I am a Progressive, and was a long time ago a fan of The Heritage Foundation and their once free thinking like when they developed the blueprint for would one day be Obamacare. Now, most of these "think tanks" no longer think, but are really more "political ideology tanks" or worse "Political Hackery Tanks".
If this Niskanen Center is in fact a non ideological institute of free thinkers then that would indeed make me less pessimistic.
3
After reading the article and reading some of the comments, especially those that state that these folks feel like democrats and what democrats have been proposing for a long time leads me to the conclusion that the GOP has drifted further and further towards an extreme right ideological party, and for the most part has through pragmatism out the window because it may not fit with an ideologically pure perspective. So the GOP proposes that the solution to everything is lower taxes mostly on the wealthy and corporation and let the free market manage everything. Otherwise you are labeled a socialist. It is a ridiculous stance and it has gotten us nowhere. For two years we have had a GOP run Gov't and what do we have deficits as far as the eye can see. Lower taxes for corporations and for the rest of us some minimal benefits (maybe). meanwhile the environmental issues are being made worse, healthcare is under attack and xenophobia and fear are on the rise. The GOP marches further and further to the right.
5
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
This is patently absurd. Conservatives believe in small government when it comes to things like regulating polluting corporations, protecting workers' rights, and ensuring that everyone has access to decent medical care. But they're all for big government if it's trying to dictate who can marry whom, when a woman must bear a child, and how many hoops people have to jump through to vote. And liberals do not "believe in a bigger government" for it's own sake. They simply acknowledge the undeniable truth that the manifold failures of the free market can only be addressed through government intervention, and that big market failures may require equally large interventions. To deny this is not ideological purity, it's wishful thinking.
9
What is wrong with you?
"Americans have lost faith in the big institutions of society. Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
You are equating support of Bernie Sanders with support of Donald Trump and calling both "extremes?" Are you serious?
Bernie Sanders doesn’t have a single policy position that isn’t the absolute center in Canada, Australia or Europe (all the developed countries in the world). Trump, on the other hand, is human trash, representing the most vile of all human traits. Bernie Sanders is not insane. He's not a lazy imbecile. He's not part of a crime family. He's not a compromised asset of Russia. He's not a fanboy of authoritarian murderers throughout the world.
What is it with you recovering Republicans who, rather than doing some serious introspection as to how your party became the party of Donald Trump, need to create some inane false equivalancey about how Trump is just "one side" of a two-sided problem?
When you fix the problem you were central in creating, you can revisit the nuances of what's wrong with the other side.
14
Stop equating Trump on the right to Bernie on the left. Bernie's policies aren't extreme or radical. They are smart and necessary.
7
Do not equate Trump and Bernie Sanders - they are not equivalent extremists. Only Trump is the extremist, and he lacks empathy. Bernie Sanders, whether you agree with his politics or not, is empathetic and cares about people. Do not make them out to be the same.
11
I would hardly call Bernie Sanders' position extreme
8
David, I really enjoy your columns, they continue to give me hope. But I wish that you would quit equating Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Trump is an egoist who cares only about himself. Bernie, whether you agree with him or not, sincerely cares about our democracy, and the struggles that the average American has making ends meet. Bernie is a gentleman, Donald Trump is not.
6
One of the institutions Americans have lost faith in is Think Tanks.
6
Swedenswedensweden...
A bit larger area than California, with a bit smaller population than Los Angeles County – with timber and hydropower and mineral ores they could export more or less forever without running out...
Further, they (Ford, actually, by then) sold their car industry to China, about a decade ago...
85% of the population originates from Scandinavia – and less than 1% from Africa...
A model for our Mid-Atlantic and Rust Belt states if I’d ever seen one...
The fundamental problem here is that as the capitalistic market is now construed, we cannot solve the problem of global warming or more important can we learn to live on this planet without destroying our ability to do so. The market demands more and more; we must always sell more and more; the Dow must always be higher tomorrow than it was today. And as for our condition, we citizens of the world, can not continue as now construed. I think what people are trying to say is that you can take creative destruction and churn and shove it. The world Mr. Brooks and the Niskanen thinkers are trying to save is ending and nobody knows what is coming next.
5
This is really pleasing David but you really let yourself down by painting Bernie Sanders as extreme left, even if I grant that Donald Trump is extreme right (which I don't). If the US was a reasonable modern state Bernie would be considered extreme centre-left - too socialist and protectionist for the liking of the vast majority, but still eminently respectable. (Donald Trump is not even on the extreme of the respectable centre-right though - however he's no Hitler, Mussolini or Franco (except perhaps in his dreams), just as Bernie's no Stalin, Mao or Tito, get it?) Have you met Bernie? You two should talk. To me, you are (perhaps) a "Bernie Sanders of the Right". (Um, you're shared heritage has nothing to do with that characterisation, please note.)
Like you I respect private enterprise, entrepreneurship, competition etcetera. I think you'd be surprised how much Bernie does too. Like you I also respect globalisation and free trade. (Unlike Bernie.) I merely have reservations about them. For instance, a business seeking a place of cheaper unskilled labour is fine by me. But seeking to avoid regulations pertaining to worker, consumer and environmental protection is not. We are all human and there is only one Earth after all.
I also cannot tell from this if you are pro-"free markets" and anti-regulation to the extent that you are okay about monopolies if they arise or do you appreciate the need of governments to ensure that there is adequate competition? The latter - I hope.
1
" I’m optimistic [about America's future] because there have been many moments in our history when old ideas and old arrangements stopped working....Those transition moments were bumpy...but then people figured it out. Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity."
"[B]ut then PEOPLE figured" out new solutions to social problems?
Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Brooks - don't you mean THE people figured out solutions?
THE people as in, 'groups of people working together - typically in movements, with a strong, collective feeling about their interests and needs'?
THE people as in AMERICANS working together in a compact and with a heartfelt commitment to the American government proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln when he passionately declared his faith that government of, by, and for the people would prevail on earth?
And "[n]ever underestimate the power of human ingenuity"?
"Ingenuity"? Was severing bonds to England an "ingenious" solution to enslavement by a national oppressor? Was carrying a rifle into battle a "clever" solution slavery?
"Bumpy." Um, yea, I guess the Civil War was "bumpy."
I honestly cannot remember having looked on a more denatured, stuffed and lifeless model of America. But thank you, Mr. Brooks, thank you for making me feel, unusually, like a truer American.
1
The overwhelming theme of the first several Reader Picks - "Democrats are right" - aligns with my view. But it misses the entire real point of this article. And of the underlying Niskanen piece referenced. It's unfortunate, but not surprising.
What's the point here? We are spending every bit of political energy in this country building a wall between our respective political teams, focused on the 20% of things that divide us. As a result, we are entirely neglecting action on the 80% that we can agree on. And as a result of that, things are really falling apart.
If you want to encourage comity, when someone says "you're right, I agree," it's harmful to reply "I told you so---I'm right about everything."
Leaning to take Yes for an answer, without a victory lap, is a skill we all (but especially Dems at this moment) need to get a lot better at if we want things to really improve for all of us. Or, we can just keep yelling.....and getting nowhere.
4
@Brian
What a well thought out reply. It should be the NYT pick!
1
Now I am really scared.
Brooks is the kiss-of-death for all optimistic predictions.
Just look at what happened when he called his children to watch on TV the first election in Iraq after the mission-accomplished heroic victory of freedom and democracy against totalitarian dictatorship.
At least that's what he told PBS watchers in one of his oracle pronouncements. He called it 'the birth of democracy.
We know the rest.
6
The center isn't always right, but without a vital center, political systems tend to self-destruct.
Many of the best ideas that shaped European and American civilization came from ancient Greece. One is the relation of citizens to government which is that while citizens remain free and powerful, their power is still limited by the state. Ruins such as the Parthenon of Athens show this symbolically. The columns are the individuals, the entablature the state which is both supported by the citizens and imposes a limit on their individual power. While there are arguments to be made for a right-sized government, without a strong government we would degenerate into rule of the clan.
It's been a rough 50 or so years, eh, Mr. Brooks, to see your political/social philosophy devolve from the Eisenhower years to the Trump years. But, then again, you aided and abetted when you could have been suspicious of and alert to a political/social philosophy that demanded freedom and liberty but made no mention of responsibility, personal or political.
Capitalism was unfettered allowing equally the rich to get richer and everyone else to get poorer. Unlike the other industrial democracies the US continues to lack an education policy, a cohesive medical policy, a personal weapons policy or a climate change policy, believing that such infringed on individual rights while ignoring personal responsibility.
SCOTUS overturned decades of law that had opened politics to and conferred equal rights on minority groups who had been excluded or denied all while creating law that conflated multi-billion, multi-national corporations with individual citizens.
As you and your ilk sowed, so are you reaping.
From www.urbandictionary.com/:" Being niskanen is to be stubbornly steadfast."
Or another word for an unrepentant, unwavering conservative...
4
@HapinOregon
Poor David, you call him a conservative and the far right calls him a liberal.....guess that puts him in the...………………………."CENTER"!!
As usual, Our Miss Brooks' framing is not only flawed, but dishonest and disingenuous. Rather than framing the argument against small-government-low-tax-conservatives and large-government-high-tax-liberals - which is, at best, a smear - how about this framing?
Greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number-non-zero-sum liberals vs self-interest-driven-zero-sum conservatives.
That's been the equation throughout my lifetime - liberal political thought has sought to level playing fields and pass legislation (the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, for example) which benefit the great mass of the population.
Conservative thought has been little more than an ongoing attempt to establish a de facto hereditary aristocracy and hegemony which attempts to devalue labor, while, as John Kenneth Galbraith astutely noted, "[engaging] in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
And yet we vote for Republicans. Why? IMHO John Steinbeck said it best: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." If people understood that their economic interests precede their tribal interests, we'd have a more compassionate and coherent society.
4
Along with those other places mentioned, I would add New Zealand to the list of places where the middle ground works. Even in a business school, where I am a professor, our students quite naturally see both competitiveness and compassion as necessary elements of a successful economy. This is not blind socialism, but rather more sustainable capitalism. We also have a relatively ‘civilised’ society. Is it the result of a more centralist approach, or the reason for it? Having grown up in the States, I would love to see it get through this period of extremism peacefully.
1
This op-ed makes no mention of the two big elephants-in-the-room: (a) unfettered global trade / outsourcing and (b) the extraordinarily large number of illegal aliens already among us and the clamor for open borders.
The so-called "new center" must first formulate positions and policies to deal with the above two issues.
The Niskanen vision paper cited by Brooks skirts around these issues and tries to have the cake and eat it too, i.e.., Niskanen Center wants more immigration and more safety nets so that (and while) unfettered global trade continues, displacing even more domestic workers and widening inequalities.
This cycle cannot continue without a major blowback, as Reihan Salam points out in his book, "Melting Pot or Civil War?"
The "New Center" will hold if we moderate our quest to find the lowest common denominator, the cheapest labor costs, through trade and immigration. Those of us who are rich and hold shares in multinational companies should accept lower returns in return for employing more of our own fellow citizens. We as consumers must also accept costlier products in return for employing more of our own fellow citizens. We should legalize the illegal aliens already here first and then make sure all new new immigrants enter only legally and only in gradual doses, making sure all of them assimilate well.
This is mostly just apologetics for globalism. By the time Niskanen got around to it, the destructive tendencies of over-reliance on reason in politics had been thoroughly debunked for decades. Michael Oakeshott, an English political philosopher and historian of the mid-20th century was especially helpful.
What Niskanen is trying to sell now is sleight of hand. Their target is regulation. To get attention, they concede that, oh golly, an economic system actually has two functions—making the pies, and dividing the pies, and that economic ideologues have been slighting the latter. Sure. Except for the comfortable upper middle class, pretty much everyone has known that for decades. So of course they welcome with relief any suggestion that an allegedly new insight could be used to steer a bit of pie their way. That's the distraction.
Then, the globalists pretend there is some sort of link between a fairer distribution of what the economy produces, and reduced regulation. That part is pure bunk. Distribution and regulation aren't countervailing values. One need not go up when the other goes down.
Regulation exists entirely apart from distribution, and must be judged according to need and effectiveness, by standards which have nothing to do with dividing up pies.
4
Forty years we have been waiting for trickle down to begin. We the People have waited for some sign that the tide is going to raise up all the boats. So far we can see that the boats/yachts of the koch bothers and their ilk are doing just fine. In fact they have purchased several more thanks to US.
I am reminded that for 8 solid years M. Brooks lamented that politicians were lacking in all the virtues he wanted to see in his presidents. Every one of the virtues Brooks pined for was on complete and constant display in the person of Barack Obama. President Barack Obama. Maybe Brooks has a little crink in his neck that won't let him look over to the left.
40 years after the New Deal America was humming right along.
40 years after Reagan we cannot fill our potholes.
I guess late is better than never but if these so called libertarians had taken a look from the perspective of facts instead of ideology we might not be in such danger of imploding today. They might have even seen that Obama was actually more of a centrists than they are.
3
"American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
C'mon, David! Liberals have no inherent desire for bigger government, but they do not trust laissez faire capitalism ( i.e., the true meaning of "a small government and a free market") to do the right thing after so much evidence to the contrary. We are stuck with using government as a counterbalance because the oligarchs that run the world respect nothing less.
5
The problem you and many conservatives consistently make is to suggest that liberals believe in "bigger government". As a proud liberal, progressive, I think you need to take a step back. Liberals want to address the inequities we see in society. We see government as often the best resource to do this. But it's not that we want bigger government -- just effective government and a government that helps address the issues our country is facing. Sometimes, yes, that will make government bigger, but other times, it can mean getting government out of the way. And by the way, I don't know that the inverse is necessarily always true of conservatives either. The whole frame is a bogus one and reducing the argument to big versus small government clouds over what our real problems are and what's the most effective ways to address them. Frankly, it's a sloppy, faulty premise for a sloppy, faulty argument. You can do better.
9
I agree that balancing a social welfare state with free markets leads to the best outcomes for a nation-state. I also believe that labeling "Bernie Sanders" as an extremist is misunderstanding our moment: a new gilded age with levels of income inequality unseen for over a century, a dis-functional health-care insurance system, and crushing student debt. The kind of balancing that the authors' suggest is what the Bernie Sanders program would deliver: Medicare for All, free pre-school and public college tuition, living minimum wages. I feel like your analysis often leads in this progressive direction, but your distaste for bold policy strokes then leads you back to cautious, Burkean incrementalism. If the Danes have it right, why shouldn't we be more like Denmark?
3
Optimism is fine and dandy. History shows that ingenuity never dies and changing times inevitably and are often mercifully needed. But our inability to address tribalism, social constructs and vital values calls for an acknowledged realism. Being an optimist is fine and dandy, but without realism it is also ignoring history - denying the massive casualties of human hate and genetics of destruction. Optimism is no good without realism.
1
David - I like how you lump Bernie in with the "extremists" and then by the end of your peice feel "liberated" by a group of formers Libertarians calling for the exact same policies as Bernie...
Let's all admit it. Classic Republican, 'small government' policy, has been rejected on all levels by virtually every society on earth because it does not work. So if you need former Libertarians to tell you it's okay to have big government, rather than Bernie, fair enough. But they are clearly both saying the same thing. You know that, right?
6
Once more, sigh. Mr. Brooks is incapable of thinking below the surface and incapable of forswearing False Equivalence. There are interesting things in the Niskanen report, but none of them have anything to do with what attracts him to it. Oh, and the report is far more seriously flawed than the earlier Piketty book, which winds up looking at things in clearer ways.
2
David--You have become what you decry: one of those institutions that nobody has any faith in anymore. We are tired of your pollyannaish columns where everything is going to work out. The truth is that when the building is on fire you shout FIRE and you run for the exits. Only a fool says that the fire dept. will come to the rescue. Your columns are those of a man of wealth and comfort who can opine to the people below. Please drift away or become more engaged in the ways in which your Republican party and president are doing at a minimum generational damage to this world. Or exit stage right.
5
Thank you Mr. Brooks.
1
But you are in an elite bubble. The question is not how do philosophical types adjust their philosophy, it is why does a philosophical idea become a dogma? Why would "Libertarians" deny climate change because of a "belief" not "science"? Unfortunately, these "political theories" are not cloistered in some Dead Poet Society classroom, they are in the circus of the real world, which is knee deep in a dog poop of "Bias". Convincing a Farmer who wants Farm Bill hand outs, but hates "welfare", that he is "conservative" and thus hates "Climate Change" has ruined our polity with "Dogma". And, unfortunately, as thoughtful as your essays usually are, you are to blame as much as the polemicists that run the Heritage, Cato, Brookings etc. Institutes. Once you make politics a war it ruins trust and compromise and that is where we are, weaker and more vulnerable. Sorry, we have a rough road until we change the politician's and media's hold on Epistimology.
2
In the long run the debate between Good VS.Evil wins. Why? It's simple, easy to understand, and makes sense. In today's context its simply means Trump is evil. Build the wall on your own time and dime Donny.
Yeah, DC looked very maternal yesterday as it birthed some rough beast, it's hour come round at last. After years apologizing for venality parading as politics, Brooks should just sit in adoration at the offspring.
3
2019 is about to come:
January -- The stock market settles at new all-time lows. Trump rails against Obama, claims that the love Obama is receiving from the American people rightly belongs to him.
February -- Mueller announces that “despite many credible leads” he has been unable to gather “sufficient hard evidence” to bring criminal charges against Trump. He refers the matter to Congress, which declines to act.
March -- Coinciding with spring breaks and March Madness, demonstrations -- many of them violent -- begin breaking out at liberal-leaning universities, colleges and high schools. Many of these demonstrations are led by old women and young girls.
April -- Steve Bannon begins organizing a “Make America Great Again Party.” Trump announces he is joining the new party. The Ku Klux Klan expresses its support for the party.
May -- The U.S. government purchases large plots of land in isolated parts of the country and surrounds the plots with electrified barbed wire.
June – Alt-right groups and their opponents announce major demonstrations in Washington. Street gangs from Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and elsewhere decide to join them. The resultant carnage is epic. Trump declares martial law and says he is suspending all constitutional rights for "the time being.”
July -- Melania files for divorce. Donates all of her clothing to shelters for homeless women.
August -- A nationwide effort is begun to place a likeness of President Trump on Mount Rushmore.
1 of 2
2
September -- Trump is removed from office under the provisions of the 25th Amendment. The Secret Service decides to incarcerate him in Guantanamo “for his own protection.”
October -- Pence is sworn in as President. He promises to “Make America holy again.” There is talk in Congress of making the Montreal Cognitive Assessment a much harder test to pass.
November –- In conjunction with the upcoming holidays, alt-right organizations set up "kettle campaigns" inside shopping centers where they will sing Christmas carols, distribute their literature, gather new members and seek contributions for their candidates in the 2020 elections.
1
Uhmmm, David....wasn't Bernie Sanders saying this back in 2016- that we should copy Denmark and the other Nordics?. He was widely ridiculed by the MSM including the NYTimes.
Where were you then?
3
So it’s the new Republicanism, same as the old Republicanism, but with a few Democratic ideas thrown in. And don’t be fooled by the Libertarian label. A Libertarian is just a Republican who won’t admit it. This “new” Republicanism may look sparkly to Brook’s ideologically strangled mind, but those of us not part of the cult can see that it is just another attempt by the right to retain its stranglehold on America, and on Americans who aren’t members of the right white elite.
3
Any place where David Brooks feels “at home” is probably not the center. It seems that all his columns for the past two years insist we believe the lie that he was always a moderate.
3
This may be the single most irrelevant column ever published given the absolute chaos in which we now struggle.
And the market opens shortly. It will drop. If buyers do not emerge to fight back, it will plunge.
This could be a grimly long-remembered day.
1
Wake up, David! We are in serious trouble here. Considering the week's events, this column is sheer fantasy.
1
More bloviation from a right-wing flack who can't see we're in the equivalent the suicide spiral of the GOP, taking the nation with it.
2
David Brooks sees a ray of sunshine. Again.
1
Yes. I'm sure the Libertarian Party is your next logical stop.
However, as a woman, I won't be joining you (again).
You see, back in 2015, I read their Platform.
I'm always curious how people construct their societies. What do they do with the women?
I make no assumptions that the woman is enjoying the same position as the man; after all, this is America where the religious right and Reganites murdered the inclusion of the Equal Rights Amendment, back in the 80's.
Which brings us to the Libertarian position on women's reproduction: Such matters will be left up to the local community.
Well...... okay, then.
Every man gets his own little kingdom and the little woman can just put up or shut up.
All of that FREEDOM..... and not a drop for wifey.
Glad you feel so "liberated", David. And, yes, I think the Libertarian Party is EXACTLY where you belong.
By the way: When WW2 ended, we, as the winners, got to write the new (and first) Constitution for Japan.
In it, at Article 14, it specifically named full and absolute equality for the Japanese woman.
Any inequalities that may be seen in Japanese society is due to the Institution of Culture - not the Institution of Law.
In that Institution they were given full inclusion.
...... unlike the Libertarian Platform where it is specifically stated that the future of women will be left up to unnamed "local standards".
Hummm... why do I see those communities full of gun-totin', bible-thumpin', no kids in school, dope-smokin' Republicans?
4
Thank you David Brooks!
Oooh! Democratic Socialism!
1
So basically, after all this intellectual effort, this revolutionary think tank has come out where most liberals have been since World War II. Well done, you.
3
sorry my comment has a typo, that should be John Keynes and Friedrich Hayek
Brooksie, you lost me by the end of the second paragraph.
Try to write a piece, just once, that doesn't paint the views of sane and compassionate progressives in the same broad strokes as the ignorant and heartless Republicans that support this dangerous man masquerading as our president.
4
We should all be so lucky to have a semblance of Nikansan thinking at work today.
What distresses me is your constant left, right references, the base of your thinking for years ... "the left wants BIG government". Completely delusional. No one out there has advocated BIG government. It's a canard ... quack, quack ... intellectually dishonest.
... also ...
I've not heard you call out the communication machine aka. WS Journal-FOX. Real discussions require some semblance of empirical truths, not found in the garbage coming from the Murdochian propaganda enterprise. Yes ... some immigrants really are dangerous to democracy.
Lift your blinders, let's talk!
1
So long as the market operates to create and nurture a plutocracy, the center right proposals will be as stillborn as ever. Recall that the funding for the ACA was based on a tax increase on the fortunes of the top one per cent. Their answer was a threat to the Republicans to withdraw financial support of the party if it failed to pass the recent tax cut. It should be noted that the nowhere do the Niskanen authors directly comment on the misnamed tax expenditures, which are exclusions from income that disproportionally benefit the very top. The lost revenues to the government by these exclusions range in the billions. To think that the plutocrats would readily yield this benefit on behalf of the public interest is a political fantasy.
1
The contrast between re-distribution and regulation is very very useful.
Nah, you don't get to equate Sanders with Trump.
As for libertarians becoming the new center-- how cheery! As if we can deregulate industry and at the same time stop climate change. Or offer something like health care via the marketplace. We see the impact of blind adherence to the market, it is destroying the planet and the health of many Americans. Libertarians have always been whack. Just like Trump and all the free market fundamentalists who are robbing our country blind. The center of the road is not always the best place to stand.
2
All these great ideas are bumping up against exploding deficits and our national debt. Unless we can get these issues under control, the US will become a second rate country with great ideas.
I have to shake my head once again. To compare Bernie to Trump is just plain wrong. One represents the general welfare of the citizens of America, and the other is a toady of the corporate world, and he lies, bullies and smears citizens of America and the world. DAVID BROOKS: why do you persist in this fraudulent equivalency? Trump doesn't have a plan to make America better. PLEASE STOP trying to be even-handed. It is actually perpetuating the gross disregard for human life (and other forms) that is currently running our government.
2
David - And you're still optimistic about the future? This is America you're talking about!
The entire center-left has had no problem keeping the market state and welfare state balls in the air simultaneously. Just look at the Brookings Institute. This just feels more a like a come to Jesus moment for conservatives than progressives.
Worthy ideas and policy abound in this country. The problem is with whom do you have workable debate to actually advance these ideas? With the exception of some individual Republicans, the Dems have no one to have an honest debate with. As an example:
1. Healthcare - dealth panels
2. Climate change - climate deniers
3. Economic policy (see Paul Krugman today)
4. Immigration - rapists and murders.
When the GOP rises finally rejects Nixon's southern strategy, and actually looks to solve problems, then maybe these policy prescriptions can be debated and implemented.
4
Geo Olson just summed it up perfectly as did Miss Ann Thompson, Haskel Levi and many others below!
Our country needs a True Conservative (third) party. One that,…
• Is both republican (i.e., not royalist) and democratic (i.e., not autocratic, oligarchic, nor plutocratic).
• Does not seek the Presidency.
• Is strongly in favor of the middle class.
• Recognizes gross income inequality as the worst enemy of democracy.
• With very few exceptions is pragmatic, not dogmatic.
• Firmly believes in one person, one vote.
• And in the separation of church and state.
• And in the rule of law.
• And in the freedom of speech and of the press.
• And in free trade and the WTO
• And in a minimum federal wage with a yearly COLA
• And in the UN and the OECD
• Is against gerrymandering and voter suppression.
• And tariffs and trade wars.
• Advocates eliminating the Electoral College.
• And that states with less than 1.5% of the country’s population should be limited to 1 senator each.
• Is fiscally conservative, but does not advocate year-after-year balanced budgets.
• Understands that the debt limit is automatically raised or lowered when approving the budget.
• Understands that “trickle-down economics” does not work, and why.
• Realizes that increasing spending, and therefore taxes, is required to meet the growing and changing needs of the American people.
• Believes global warming is a catastrophe that mankind can and should mitigate.
…for example.
2
Even though I appreciate the reality-based libertarians, it is amusing to read Brooks bemoaning ideologues while unironically praising “faith in markets.”
1
Sorry David, you are wrong with making a moral equivalency between Trump and Sanders. Trump is an eqoist and Sanders is an altruist. Trump is a sociopath and Sanders is a "do-gooder." The new group you like certainly sounds vintage 1920's progressivism of which John Dewey would be very proud of their kind of analysis. I guess history is indeed cyclical and the intellectual elite will again have to show the current populist-fascist leanings that their fervor to Make America Great Again is flawed, unfounded and dangerously ungrounded. Having hope for a better society is not enough.
1
There's an equivalence/similarity/affinity/kindredness/call it what you will - of any pertinent kind - between P Trump and Sen Senator Sanders, their ideas, motivations, supporters?
Sorry Mr Brooks, til you make the fullest possible revocation of that suggestion to me personally - including an exchange of blood - in the style of the Godfather, "I ain't gonna be seein' Davy no more. Or his pronunciamentos in NYT or elsewhere."
1
Your country is frightening at the moment. I don’t ever see this happening in your country.
1
Gosh, another RW, Republican, Conservative Think Tank. Ya'll sure do love them but if a Liberal, Democratic, Progressive uses a 'Think Tank' you would eviscerate them as being undemocratic and a danger to free thinking.
2
I had a negative reaction to the teaser, read me, header....the use of the common perception of words “the welfare state”.
I felt it manipulative rather than literal.
What's the difference between Jerry Taylor and his Niskanen people--and the Democrats?
1
“Free markets” is a bogus concept. Years of championing this do-nothing mentality has gotten us to the economic dead zone we now have—an increasing cycle of (short-lived) boom and (more frequent) recessions, an economy that serves the 1% and corporations, and blind faith in big business that has given us monopolies, not competition and consumer benefit (see health care, big pharma, financial services). Read the excellent economic history in Louis Hyman’s book “Temp.”
Nothing short of amazing.
Some ideologues are growing up and looking past their parochialism. It does give me hope, but.....
I've read Mr. Brooks' moderate conservative op-ed pieces for years. But lately I've noticed the articles have a "hear no evil, see no evil" feel to them, and instead look for positive signs be it in grass-roots politics or trends as this article discusses.
That's all well and good but completely meaningless if the US goes full authoritarian, which it is at real risk of doing. So perhaps at least some of these articles should be discussing that risk.
3
I take issue with the comment that liberals want bigger government. I am liberal/progressive and I don't necessarily want bigger government - I want better government.
14
@Melanie
A similar take on this, Ronald Reagan said, "government is the problem". This saying is taken out of its original context and adopted as a blanket statement. Just because government can't solve every problem doesn't mean that government can't have a role in solving many or most problems. Or, the saying, Government is the enemy, until you need a friend.
2
After 70 years of decrying the evils of socialism and the benefits of laissez faire, libertarians come up with a brilliant new idea that will really work: socialism.
The right cheers this remarkable innovation from its own leading intellectual lights. If only the social democrats were half as smart.
10
Good. Brooks is advocating for a bit of the old Progressive point of view. He is willing to borrow from the values of the Socialists, but keeps to policies within the bounds of acceptablity to middle class New York Times readers.
"When the Socialist said that the grievances of the people could be relieved only under Socialism, the typical Progressive became the more determined to find ways of showing that these grievances were remediable under capitalism." -- From "The Age of Reform" by Richard Hofstader (1955 Pulitzer Prize winner).
Brooks should consider becoming a Progressive. The Progressives of the early 20th century fought in the middle ground between plutocracy and socialism - maintain competition, minimize outrageous exploitation of the workers, resist political bosses, clean up secret money in politics. And there were some Progressive leaders (such as Theodore Roosevelt) who were fundamentally conservative at heart.
6
You really have to work to see this as something distinct from the Democratic Party's core policy priorities.
The right has been running not against the Democratic party, but a gross caricature thereof. They've employed that strategy so long and so successfully that self-described moderates appear unable to recognize how closely aligned they are with "the left."
8
It's encouraging to see that libertarians are starting to see the light. Individuals cannot be truly free to live and act as they want if they are constantly pinned down by economic realities of their society, which are just as repressive as anything government regulation will produce.
Take a simple example. Before the ACA, a person with a pre-existing condition could only get healthcare insurance if she worked for an employer large enough to have group insurance. That meant that the risk to her livelihood and health of starting her own business, or working for a very small company, was just too great. Far from promoting entrepreneurship, get-up-and-go, (all the things the US is supposed to be about) the lack of this safety net was and is bound to depress individual risk-taking.
6
I’ve really liked the Niskanen Center stuff that’s appeared on the NYT op-ed page lately. It seems a little like combining Eisenhower Republicanism with the civil rights and domestic agenda of LBJ, updated for today, and with a Houstonian’s sensibility regarding zoning.
If y’all can manage to gain a solid foothold in either political party I might start going to precinct conventions on Election Night.
Don’t agree with the commenters who seem to be taking the position that this op-ed piece simply describes what the Democrats have clearly been about all along. If that’s true then the Ds have managed to keep it a secret from me. Y’all also might need to get the word to Gillibrand - I think she recently said the Ds were all about intersectionality.
3
If Bernie Sanders suddenly labelled himself a conservative Republican, but kept all his policy positions unchanged, I think Mr. Brooks would suddenly see the light. Of course, he'd call it "centrist Republican." His obstinacy isn't about socialist policies. He steadily seems to realize the failure of the neoliberal position and the obvious efficacy of social democracy. But Mr. Brooks can't bring himself to say out loud that he supports a liberal or progressive, much less a socialist, position. As with a lot of Catholics who can't leave the church, he's in an existential identity crisis.
14
This is good news indeed, Mr Brooks. I'm looking forward to the time these think tank people realise they are actually Democrats.
10
This seems like a promising development and especially coming from a Libertarian think tank. I am never quite sure about how each different writer defines "free market". Does it mean no tariffs or import/export fees? Does it mean no government regulations? There could be an entire continuum of definitions? Even so, the admission that ardent capitalists could also find some humanitarian impulses gives me hope. If this is just a cynical ploy to woo Republican voters we will find out soon enough. If capitalism doesn't show some heart I hear many young people who would like to ditch this economic system which seems greedy and brutal to them. I do like the fact that the researchers looked for examples of nations where having a social safety net actually enhanced the success of capitalism. Baby steps. I doubt there will be a big rush by Republicans to sign on to implement these ideas any time soon.
8
I strongly disagree with equating Trumpism with the policies of Bernie Sanders. This is a mistake which David Brooks repeats in his effort to justify his own shifting positions.
Nina Raskin
Evanston, Illinois
9
@Nina Raskin He's not equating the policies, he's equating the extremes of left/right. Many of the libertarian/conservative journalists have shifted their viewpoints during the Trumpian era. They are seeing the Republican party as what it has become. A bunch of xenophobic, racist, followers of a reality TV leader. No new, creative ideas for uniting the country there.
1
@Nina Raskin
First of all, Bernie is nothing more than an FDR liberal, that the word socialist has become in Brooks mind and the rightist who he has often supported does not mean a thing. He and others, while not exactly saying, imply that socialism is total government control more a like Soviet Communism. Also that Trump is a right winger is also so wrong--he is and acts that very basic attitude of Libertarians who say: "!'m all right, Jack & screw you." He, Trump, has no use for anyone who he feel is below him in intelligence, even though his IQ is low, but Libertarians think that they are smarter then every one else. I once went to a Libertarian meeting when someone proclaimed that Hitler did the Jews a favor by killing off all those who were stupid, and too stupid to leave Europe. I reminded the speaker that that is just the opposite of reality--that is, that the poor, uneducated left Europe while the rich Jews were ones who stayed. Of course on the face of what he said and my reply fall in the face of reality. No David, we don't now need the new Libertarians to mark our way.
1
Now that you're "liberated" to think for yourself you ask yourself why you label Wilkinson is a "centrist" yet Bernie Sanders a "far leftist" when both are advocating virtually The Same Things.
8
The Democrats are already the centrist party if you look at their platform. It’s only that the Rebublicans have moved the Overton window so far to the right that Brooks can’t see it.
Take health care for example. Republicans call guaranteed universal healthcare “socialist” when in fact such a system would reduce overall health care spending and allow American companies to compete more fairly with foreign and domestic employers who do not provide health care coverage. That sounds like an enhancement to free market competition to me.
Our so-called “free market” system costs ~19% of GDP compared with the European range of ~9-15%; doesn’t cover everyone by a long shot; and produces worse outcomes - but conservatives believe it is a superior system.
9
Finally a (mostly) thoughtful Brooks piece reminiscent of his commentary on PBS Newshour. But he just can’t seem to get out of his own way with sentences like this: “Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left.”
That sentence had absolutely no reason to be in an otherwise strong piece. It’s a thoughtless false equivalence. Polling suggests Trump’s policy agenda in health care, environmental degradation, tax policy, international trade, a boondoggle of a wall, and deregulation in practice rather than a concept is wildly unpopular, whereas Bernie’s signature policy positions are highly popular when they’re decoupled from the unwarranted stigma of him being a nominal socialist. And even if the Bernie’s policies were wildly unpopular, they are far more effectual in promoting the public good than the bullpucky coming from Trump’s camp.
4
Just enough regulation to put the brakes on the excesses of market capitalism and provide some sense of security for all? Have you been asleep, David Brooks. This is what every social democracy (there are dozens of them) has been trying to do for the last, in some cases, hundred years. Bernie Sanders would be considered a centrist in any of these countries. He could sit with the centrist Tories in the House of Commons without changing any of his social vision. I grew up in a world like that. As we’re seeing, it’s tough to sustain, but it’s not like it’s anything new.
9
I am a firm Republican that believes in global warming and a strong safety net for people that have need. I favor Obamacare, for example, because it addresses need. The extremists get all the attention because they make good copy, as Mr. Trump did. Many Republican and Democratic ideas are compatible. In fact, the way forward, or how we figure it out, is clearly a centrist route. The government can't afford college for all, but the government can better help those that do want to attend but can't afford it. If there is any good that comes from Mr. Trump, it is the glaring need for cooperation, compassion, and compromise. Please stop demonizing us because we are mainly moderates, just like you.
176
@dudley thompson Thank you. I've long voted Democratic but I was a staunch supporter of my state's Senator, John Warner. I supported Nixon before his crimes. I am a fan of Henry Kissinger and supported John McCain's 2000 campaign (not in 2008, after his choice of a running mate).
So how do people like me or you fix this mess? I'm willing to declare a truce, but we need a new middle. Is there any way we can find enough billionaires for a moderate third party?
20
@dudley thompson You are a rare Republican. You actually sound more like an independent. When you say you are a firm Republican, does that mean that you never vote Democratic? I ask because I think that extreme party loyalty is a problem on both sides. Voters have to be willing to actually listen and assess all candidates; otherwise, exercising the vote is meaningless.
25
@dudley thompson you and your fellow Republicans are being demonized bcause you are doing nothing to stop this catastrophe of the Trump administration. Sitting on the sidelines, while saying yes, I did vote for Trump but I do not like EVERYTHING he says or does, while not standing up or speaking up, places you and yours in the column of abetting and abdicating. History will not look kindly on your ilk for turning away and allowing this nightmare to continue. I was a Republican for decades and now I am ashamed I ever shared such hateful, despicable beliefs.
68
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
In today's episode, Our Mr. Brooks attempts the always-challenging Straw-Man-False-Equivalency Combo Fallacy.
5
Congratulations to the Niskanen institute, they just rediscovered Rawlsian liberalism, which, incidentally is the basis for the Democratic party's political philosophy.
2
What Mr Brooks describing here is Jerry Brown's California. It is too bad we don't have many more leaders like Mr Brown
170
@K. Vasantharam
Recent stats for California:
Tied for 1st - Poverty
42nd - Education
1st - Taxes
4th - Income inequality
No thank you to California please....
6
@K. Vasantharam Spot On!
Republicans just hate it when the government actually taxes in line with how citizens want the government to spend.... They would rather have low taxes and HIGH government spending and then pretend like the resultant deficits are not their fault.
5
@Stephen
Whose "stats"?
5
Mr . Brooks. Please do not equate the extreme of Donald Trump with whar you label as its like opposite - Bernie Sanders. Sanders never has been, or is, "extreme". Look at his platform in the past and now. Extreme? No. Wrong. American values and American desires are at least 80% in line with what "Bernie" wants. Jobs, decent wages, minimum wage increase, affordable college, health care for all, justice reform, end to big money controlling politics, end to voter suppression and gerrymandering, perseveration of entitlements, and on an on. What are the values and desires of this new Center? Are they closer to Trump or to Sanders? No contest! This off-hand false equivalency is becoming so tiresome. And infuriating.
9
@Geo Olson I totally agree with you. This is the usual 'right thinking' way of dismissing the progressive wing, especially Bernie Sanders. The only explanation is a penchant for not rocking the boat, holding on to corporatism. The opposite of Sanders is more a Paul Ryan or better, in the old days, William Buckley. Equating Sanders with Trump as representatives of two opposites sloganism, simplistic and Brooks at his worst.
2
I welcome a reasonable, considered center. Clearly the right has lost its marbles in supporting Trump, but the far left is doing its best to out marble-lose Republicans. Both are tapping into real problems, but they are doing it through emotion, not reason. Trump gets rural whites fired up about globalization and their grievances about society. Warren gets urban whites fired up about the system being rigged.
There is some validity to both constituencies claims. The system is pretty rigged and rural whites have been hurt by globalization, but neither problem will be solved by partisan demagogues whipping up the base.
We need some grown ups in charge who realize that, while there are black and white issues, there is a lot of gray we have in the world we have to muddle our way through and making progress through compromise does not mean you've abandoned your fundamental principals.
1
Zoning laws? You honestly believe overly-restrictive zoning laws are holding us back?
7
Brooks mars a sensible article by once again asserting political and moral equivalence by counterposing Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Sanders is advocating nothing much different than the systems that operate in Scandanavia and Canada.
6
This is called Social Democracy, David. It is the foundation of the democracies that are the freest and have the happiest people.
You and Jerry Taylor may just be discovering it now but it has been around for a long time and it is really the underpinnings of the Democratic Party in this country.
5
Are you talking about European democracies?
Doesn't seem like a lot of people in BRITAIN, GERMANY,
or FRANCE or HUNGARY oir Italy of GREECE or Spain
or Portugal or Ireland or Poland, etc, are particularly
HAPPY.
Or maybe it's just the Europeans you hang with
that think everything in the New EUROPE is
so peachy keen.
1
@son of publicus
My cousins who live in Paris, Brussels and the Algarve are very happy as are my very special friends in Denmark. This past summer we traveled in Portugal, Spain, France, England, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, St. Petersburg, Russia and Denmark. Everything is not perfect, but there sure were lots of very pleasant and happy people in all those places, and I'm not just taking about the tourists.
1
I'm finding the readers' comments more interesting--telling, that is--than Brooks's take. Until we can get beyond "sounds like a Democrat" or "thinks like a Republican," we're not going to accomplish anything good. We're no longer parsing the particulars of ideas, but focused solely on which "bin"--right, left, center--they (and those who articulated them) can be sorted into.
2
Unfortunately there aren’t more bins (options) to vote for
1
Many in the GOP are craving an Oligarchy. And many in the GOP subscribe to the naive and simplistic model of Libertarianism. Many who are drawn to the GOP don’t read or think critically. The center will not outdo them.
4
If being more like Canada, Denmark and Sweden is the new middle, then I am all for it. Unfortunately, the US reluctance to have a Scandinavian style welfare state has little to do with small government ideology and much to do with white resistance to redistributive programs seen to benefit non-whites.
7
@Old blue
But read about Harlan, Kentucky where the whites on welfare just consider it what they deserve.
If Brooks is beginning to feel at home, then the Niskanen center's path toward a new centrism is still way too far right for the good of the country.
6
@Stephen Beard
Agreed.
Brooks is looking for a new intellectual home after the death of his beloved Weekly Standard. He's found it in Niskanen, another refuge for recycled neocon ideas.
1
The "Free Markets" that Republicans and Libertarians champion is an oxymoron. A market, by definition, is the sum total of the laws, rules and regulations regarding the trade of labor, goods and money. With no laws, rules or regulations we would simply have chaos.
What the Free Marketeers really mean is they want unlimited freedom to exploit workers, cheat customers, evade the tax man, pollute the environment and ignore the needs of their local communities so business owners can maximize their profits at the expense of everyone else.
One man's Free Market is another man's prison.
3
Just a quick side note: in this interesting essay Brooks again (reflexively?) brings up what he calls the 'extremes of Bernie on the left and Trump on the right', suggesting a sort of balanced equivalency--'see, the Dems and the Repubs are equally guilty of ideological excess'. But Trump is corruption incarnate; he lies and has no ethical or intellectual center. In this--and actually in all regards--Bernie and Trump have no commonality at all. Brooks may as well compare Al Capone to Ferdinand Saussure while attempting to clarify the spread of linguistic theories operating today. This trope of 'both sides are equally bad/at fault' has to be challenged every time when a con man like Trump is sitting in the White House. It suggests that someone like Pelosi is just the mirror image of Trump. Not so. Trump's character flaws put him in a category apart. These flaws aren't about an ideological spectrum of beliefs and ideas.
5
Let's start with the tax code. Why should a single person who makes $12,005 a year and takes the standard deduction of $12,000 have to pay $1 income tax on his $5 taxable income? This person is below the poverty level. Give him a $1 tax break and he will spend it, thus contributing to our economy. Give a tax break to someone making $12,000,000 and they will buy back stocks or invest it in more stock or real estate, driving the price up. And when there is a crash...poof! Gone, along with their voodoo economics. Our republicans have injected money into the economy, only to see it disappear. We would have done much more to spur the economy if we had raised the floor on taxable income to $20,000. It would have been spent on needed goods and services by people who need the money. (My trickle up theory)
6
The Republican Party will take decades to cleanse itself. They certainly cannot be trusted to govern.
7
Our house is on fire and David Brooks does not want to look. The time for philosophical discourse has passed. Even optimists as he defines himself are shaken by Trump's erratic and bombastic leadership. The shutdown of the government, the retreat from Syria and Afghanistan, denying climate change, racism, and corruption are each earth shaking. Together, a crisis exists for this country.
5
Politics is as much about temperament as ideas. Some people who are radical by nature can effortlessly switch between from Left to Right and vice versa. Those blessed (or cursed) with skepticism about heroic politics tend to stay close to the center. Our challenge at the center is to urge our politicians - be they conservative or liberal - to keep their enthusiasm and promises in check, lest they should whip up a frenzy of pointless anger and baseless hope.
1
This is another Brooks exercise in irrelevance. As per usually, he tries to fly a level of abstraction above the rest of us and one step to the side, to show that his thinking is unbound by convention. Unmoored might be more appropriate.
He ignores the cultish nature of the Trump aberration. Trump does not represent a challenge to the old institutions. He is, rather, apparently beholden to America's enemies. There is nothing even partially legitimate about it to suggest that he represents the "right."
That the "right" has generally kowtowed to him does not represent policy either. It represents the desires for re-election, power, and money.
These are hard times for the country and they may get worse, as Trump has apparently decided that if he is going down, the country is going with him. Let's not intellectualize this, David. It is about criminality, not policy.
3
"They want to reduce restrictive zoning and land use regulations that favor the rich and entrenched."
A few examples come to mind:
- The way gerrymandered rural-skewed Republican state legislatures (driven by the fossil fuel lobbyists) prevent urban areas (i.e. cities, where Democrates prevail) from enacting limitations on fracking within or near their confines.
- The Bundy's out west want unlimited free grazing on public lands (as long they control it) -- but imagine how they would feel if the use were truly unlimited and thousands of small plot farmers, herders and squaters arrived.
- The Republicans in Texas and elsewhere preventing Telsa from selling cars directly to consumers, legislating that they have to go through the car dealer racket.
- The bail bondsman racket. Enough said.
- Their are hundreds of Mexicans and Central Americans maintaining the manicured lawns and gardens of the mansions on Palm Beach Island - and they have no where to eat lunch without crossing the bridge back to the mainland. Imagine if zoning were unrestricted and a taco stand opened up across the street from Mar-a-lago.
5
To the Niskanen Institute: welcome to the Democratic Party. I suppose you are one more cat to be herded if we want to accomplish anything worthwhile. That's what a lack of strict ideology entails. It's a real challenge worth being a part of.
3
The center in American politics between the left and the right?
I don't think any human society ever has adequately defined the concept of center (developed a theory of it) between left and right wings in politics, much less put it into successful operation. Here is how I roughly conceive of the center: We have right and left wings like training wheels on a bicycle or curbs on sides of road, and society does not want to swing too far right or left, but in steering for the center it's still incredibly childlike and pretty much proceeds at not much above a standstill, which is to say the center is the goal to prevent careening but instead of being the lane where incredible acceleration and travel can be achieved it merely becomes the sitting zone of the timid who merely have an oppressive ideology of their own, the ideology of constant braking, mewling about going too fast, and who really have anything but motion in mind.
I think the general rule in American politics is to dumb things down to the public not only because they are considered ignorant by the elite, but dumb things down because much truth is painful. And I don't think the center is the antidote to this problem even though it's really the only place where such a shot of reality can take place. Also I don't believe an adequate center to politics can be realized without first understanding its creation is like the creation of so many artworks, conceptions willing to grapple with tensions and resolve them greatly.
1
This Bernie Sanders supporter can work with people like those in this article but can the Trump supporters?
3
This must be the 100th time that David Brooks has written a column wishing for a centrist "third way," only to outline a set of policy priorities that bear an uncanny resemblance to what moderate Democrats already support. But rather than admit he was wrong to spend the Bush years bashing the Democratic Party as "the stupid party" and encourage everyone else who is worried about the future of American democracy to join the Democrats in standing up to Trump, he'd rather draw banal false equivalencies between the right wing and the "Sanders Left" and promote the idea that both sides are equally bad, even though one side contains a sizable contingent that supports almost everything Brooks claims to.
5
“Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left.”
Absurd false equivalence. Bernie Sanders stands for a living wage, health care for all, affordable housing and education, a sturdy infrastructure, financial regulation, fair taxation, fair trade, getting big money out of politics, clean air and water, and fighting climate change. What exactly makes these goals “extreme”? A better word choice in the case of the Sanders agenda would be “civilized.”
4
It's opinion pieces like this which the vast majority of American's read and come away thinking that the "coastal elites" are so out of touch. Rome is burning and instead of calling 911 for the fire department, Brooks is debating about what Rome will look like in the next 50 years.
May I suggest that Brooks pick up the closest bucket or hose and help put out this disaster called the Trump administration. We can sort out the debris later and decide how to rebuild our house.
6
@Will
Brooks refuses to come out of his ivory tower library.
Any decent human would publicly call out the Republican Party and the American conservative movement for destroying the American experiment with lies, propaganda, racism and its psychopathic lust for greed and power.
Brooks prefers to write book reports.
10
@Socrates Only partially true, some of David's "book reports" are based on magazine articles, frequently from The Atlantic. I just subscribed, in fact, with the goal of reading stories first hand so I could cut out middlemen Brooks and Douthat.
Occasionally, Brooks tours America to talk to the Forgotten Straw Men who form the bootstrapping backbone of our country, and are a wonderful sources for unattributed quotes. But who knows, maybe this is characterful self-reporting to justify mileage deductions.
2
Do libertarians like pollution? I find their ideas fanciful, naive . Do they think humans will happily help those who are sick and suffering without a government to organize the effort? Or a government that protects us from terrorists and criminals?
Liberals want effective, efficient government that works for all of us. If we have access to affordable healthcare, education , food and housing we will have a happy safe nation. The wealthy will have plenty of money and the rest of us will buy their goods.
If the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes, and the rest of us cover the costs on our shrinking budgets, then we will all go down, together. Capitalism must be controlled. And that is why we need effective government, not no government.
6
Where is that new center David? I know, somewhere to the right of Eisenhower and Nixon. That’s where all the “moderate,” “reasonable” people are.
Sorry, I’ll take the actual moderate, reasonable people who believe that a government’s job is to promote the general welfare and build prosperity for all citizens, the way much of the OECD does. Like Sanders, that “Trumpian radical” wants.
Just because you admire people who call themselves centrists doesn’t mean that they are. And it doesn’t mean you are.
3
Liberals want bigger government? A silly claim in another silly Brooks call for centrism.
No liberal wants bigger government for its own sake. Liberals want policies to address specific needs.
And this call for centrism is tired and old. How many times has he written a version of this article?
5
Bernie's social democratic politics are modeled on the very same Scandinavian countries inspiring the Niskanen manifesto. But Brooks can only disparage him as a lefty extremist. That sure looks like the blinkered tendency of an ideologue, which Brooks decries.
5
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
More false equivalence from the master of the art form!
3
Gimme a break, David. Donald Trump is not "right" and Bernie Sanders is not "left." They are not on opposite sides of a seesaw. You keep creating false equivalencies or false dichotomies when none exist. Trump is sitting all alone on his seesaw because he's erratic, avaricious, egotistical and no one wants to play with him anymore. Bernie continues to be extremely on-message and sane. Let's hope the new center looks more and more like him.
5
“Centrism” is the Democratic Party minus identity politics.
Centrist nonsense from David Brooks. Centrism is for people who cannot decide which way to go. World is changing. If your folks cannot decide about climate change, your philosophy is complete nonsense.
3
Because of our bipolar politics, we have a tendency to proclaim that people with ideas similar to ours should belong to our side, and those we disagree with ought to come clean about belonging to the opposite camp. Those of us on the center are nowadays simultaneously invited to move to Sweden and join the KKK.
In a more representative democracy than ours, Mr. Brooks' ideas would probably mark him as a Christian Democrat. It's a great pity he gets no love or understanding on either side of our political divide.
1
Lots of false equivalency here, David ( and I think you know it, down deep).
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
But c'mon, David!!!
Since at least the '80s, when Lee Atwater began his demonizing, cynical work for the White House, the GOP has preached sermons of hate and fear FAR beyond any equivalent behavior from the Left. Those sermons worked, too! They led inevitably to Trump, the GOP nominee and President.
Atwater, on his deathbed, recanted and repented his deeds.
You should repent, too. Too late have you and your pals come to decrying the Radical Right, embodied by Trump.
It's not that "they" did this, David. It's that YOU did it. You gave us Trump.
4
There are possibilities here as when overriding ideology can be overcome new possibilities can emerge. So it's a start. However, there are still challenges. David never circles back to climate change. Good that it's now seen as a problem. But how in an ex-libertarian/deregulatory mode are you going to deal with it? How do you know that you're not chucking one ideology but starting to create another, which can blind you in other ways? If you want to think seriously about "a new center," I suggest: (a) doing it creatively by searching for ideas--which are out there--not in the mainstream. My favorite is corporate social responsibility on steroids; (b) don't denigrate Sanders. Learn and take from him; (c) modesty is good, but add courtesy at all times; (d) political bridge-building, especially when it requires risk-taking; (e) morality as a supreme virtue, but one that is self-reflective, and doesn't just mindlessly take "family" from the right or "community" from the left, but sees how they can fall short; (f) transparency and organizational self-reflection about funding sources; and (g) conventional assumption-questioning as part of the culture. The combining of the faulty opposites market and the welfare state is a good start. Oh...and back to climate change, and adding biodiversity to that, there's no good reason to be "optimistic" unless the Niskanen Centers and Brooks of the world come and stay on board. These two issues will make or break us, and need to be up front.
2
This is nothing new. It is called the platform of the Democratic party since Clinton.
3
Brooks your optimisms blinds you.
"But people figure it out." DB
Sure people figured out WWII. That calculation and/or contemplation only cost the lives of 50 Million people.
"For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better."
Ligotti
“I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind”
Schopenhauer
2
You neglected to tell us how the Niskanen Center proposes to deal with climate change, David.
2
The problem we have is that both political parties have extreme bases that have controlled political dialogue. What better example than overwhleming support for a 'wall' by Democrats (including Clinton, Schumer, etc) until Trump championed it.
The Democratic position seems to, if Trump is for it, we are against it, reflecting their base. It's was the same for Obama.The larger question is, 'Can we return to some semblance of bipatisanship?'
Or, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. A great person does not have to think consistently from one day to the next.”
1
Mr Brooks you seem to be having a personal existential crisis. Be honest with yourself and you will set yourself free. You keep looking for the answers to your questions about life and how to live it, through the hierarchical institutions of the past; organized religions, conservatism, authoritarian beliefs systems
3
"Many fly off to extremes....to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left" oh jeez!! In the David Brooks pantheon of false equivalence, that is a doozy but probably still doesn't make the 2018 highlights reel. Sad enough if indeed it were only David Brooks: drunk on chamomile tea, and spending too much time with Doris Day and Shirley Temple. However, the constant faux mollification of what is going is dangerous. Even if half of this nonsense is an attempt to mollify his own guilt for not actively opposing Trump.
2
Essentially this same point of view was put forth in 2016 by Robert Reich in his book, "Saving Capitalism - For the Many, Not the Few". So maybe this *is* a growing centrist point of view that thinkers at both ends of the left/right divide are approaching.
1
Brooks is only now realizing that the old Democratic/Republican ideological debate is bogus? Welcome to reality, better late than never. That sterile debate may be useful in raising money for elections, but it fails to address big problems that can't be pigeonholed by ideology. Climate change, inequality, migration, and economic dislocation by technology transcend outdated ideological divides in their complexity and scale of impact. The solutions to these problems, if any, will come from people who are not blinded by ideology. The vast majority of voters will embrace leaders who present practical policies that are not constrained by partisan divisions. One other point is that while climate change is not a philosophical issue, it is much more than just scientific, also encompassing economic, cultural, health, and moral dimensions.
2
Dear David Brooks: I know you mean well, but you're leaving the most important actor out (excuse the anthropocentric view of the planet as a "person"). Aside from the genocidal tendencies of history, being played out all around the world as things get desperate, there is our hospitable habitable planet, which we are trashing at speed.
That planet is sending us louder and louder ... and louder messages about what we are doing.
There is no room for Pollyanna here. We have to get to work to clean up our act, and fast.
As long as the worst parts of ignorance and prejudice via Fox News is running the country, for too many people there will be no criminal worse than a Democrat (see: pedophile Moore), and no crime worse than putting someone in office who admires the efforts of someone like Obama, who was brilliant, compassion, and tolerant and tried to work for and with all of us.
As long as nobody with real patriotism and real love of country is in the way of the bought and paid for greedsters in charge, the looting will continue. It's not just here: Brexit in the UK, Orban in Hungary, Poland, Putin, Erdogan, Assad, Al Sisi, MBS, the list goes on and on.
Even our early history is littered with corpses as people look for somebody to blame and hurt when they are in trouble.
Short-term profits over long-term community is a dirty endgame.
But the earth itself, it has the only seat at the table and it bats 1000. As long as we kill the messenger, we miss the message.
4
The reason there are "cracks" in the unified opposition to reality-based action on climate is because the message is clear. But if you collect, as I do, the evidence of policy, you will see things that scare the bejeezus out of you.
Just yesterday, there was notice that the CDC is no longer allowed to mention climate. Within the last few weeks, you have seen more concerted wrong action and more real knowledge of how far over the cliff we've gone. Scientists are conservative by nature, but they are finally admitting that things are worse than they hoped.
Please take the blinders off. This is not the time for passive "free market" action (that market is not free, given the trillions in subsidies big fossil receives).
"Luckwarmers" we call them. Let's all get rich and we'll fix it later. Some genius will appear. We don't need to change, change will happen. People are making good money off this (Lomborg, Pielke Sr., and worse actors, the only people allowed to speak in Congress lately).
Vote cheating, that helps. Free market?
Income inequality means people can't look past the next paycheck while the top guys take their freebies and laugh all the way to the bank.
The market is only free for those at the top. The idea of freedom and equality for all is a brief blip in human history, and we're not up to it.
Please get out and meet some people outside your enchanted circle.
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/oil-companies-should-be-held-accountable-for-climate-change/
3
Why do you insist on calling this "centrism," Mr. Brooks?
These think-tank people are talking about becoming a lot more like Canada, Australia and Western European countries. They're talking about a much more generous social welfare state, presumably paid for by higher taxes on the rich. They sound a lot like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I don't think political labels are particularly helpful or important, but Mr. Brooks deludes himself by calling his think-tank friends "centrists." They're talking about moving way to the left.
348
@B.C. Not taxes on the rich, taxes on all workers, minimum of 50% including employer withheld social taxes, income taxes, and VAT taxes. Wiki taxes in Denmark and Sweden. EVERYONE who works pays 50%. That is fair to both rich and poor. ALL workers share the burden of the welfare state.
4
@B.C. The world is too complicated to be understood on a single left-right axis. Taxing the uber-wealthy (who have long since accumulated far more than any human being could possibly use rationally) in order to prevent the masses who have barely enough (or less) on which to survive is one way from protecting us all from the pooled resentment of the deprived becoming a catastrophically destructive force -- as it did in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Where does this fit on a left-right axis? Climate change, as it disrupts long-established patterns of sustenance and distribution (not to mention 500-year floods or storms occurring every other season) if not addressed (and soon), will utterly scramble that simple political calculus. And that will affect everyone, even the Kochs and Deripaskas (and Putins and Trumps) as they maniacally strive, no matter the cost, to add a few more zeros to their net worth.
10
@B.C. Calling these proposals “way to the left” makes sense only if one is “way to the right.” But you’re right to bring up the inaccuracy of the scale “left-center-right.” The best description would call such proposals simply pragmatic—they would help solve problems.
21
I'd be interested to know which part of Bernie Sanders' platform Mr Brooks finds so extreme. Is it a minimum wage that people can live on? Paid parental leave? A modest tax on inheritances above $3.5 million? Pollution pricing?
Consistent majorities of Americans support these policies. It's frustrating that commentators who should know better continue to parrot the line that they are somehow extreme.
587
@Chuck Berger I was going to mention that the "many people fly off to extremes..." quote with Donald on the right and Bernie on the left is a bit extreme in itself...Donald has fallen off the (right) edge, while Bernie is only somewhere near the (left) edge...I agree with Bernie on most issues, but not "free" college (more affordable, yes), and not paid parental leave (use savings and vacation time like we always have)...yes to higher minimum wage, saving Social Security and Medicare, climate initiatives, etc...
27
@Chuck
Anything that goes against pure unadulterated profit is considered ''extreme'' by conservatives/radical right. Also if there are any regulations that might hinder said profit (even if includes guarding against polluting) then it is red tape, or the ''Socialist welfare '' state run amok.
You know ...
71
Sanders’ hard left values are displayed in each and everyone of the matters you cite. Government should not be affecting outcomes or equalizing opportunities (no matter what Obama says about being entitled to a level playing field).
3
Just an observation: With exceptions, they sound like Democrats.
It's *Democrats* who've known that markets aren't perfect, and don't work for things like healthcare and education.
It's *Democrats* who've known you get more entrepreneurship when people aren't terrified about losing their healthcare.
It's *Democrats* who've known that some problems, like global warming, don't have pure free-market solutions, but they still need to be solved.
It's nice that some ex-libertarians are getting around to noticing these things!
Oh, and yeah -- we Democrats have had it beat into us that the world is complex, our knowledge is limited, experts make mistakes, and unintended consequences are a thing. (By adversaries, I might add, who've completely forgotten all of that, if they ever really knew it.)
If you had three branches of government run by Democrats, you'd get a whole lot of what you say you want. We now know from hard and repeated experience that when government is run by Republicans, you get NONE of it.
So, act accordingly.
893
@Bill CamardaYes, the test case is California,now a totally single party governed by Democrats who embrace the Brooks view this column expresses. That is why California is truly a paradise for rich and poor. It is a beacon for the rest of America. Free minds, free markets, and 15% state income tax rates on the 1%, including capital gains, to fund the whole thing. If every state would only just emulate California. If only the federal government would also,
36
@Bill Camarda Simple, excellent truth. Thank you.
14
@drcmd What he said. The GOP stopped being a block on getting things done in Californa something like 10 years ago. Now that the state isn’t managing by crisis, things are going a lot better. Including running a surplus for the last few years.
28
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government." This is a minor sideshow in American politics. The honest statement would be that since at least 1964 the major divisions in American politics have been for and against: prolonged and unwinnable foreign wars in third-world countries from Vietnam to Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria, segregation, abortion, equal rights for homosexuals/women/blacks/Hispanics/transgenders/Asians/nonChristians/the poor, unequal taxation of earned vs unearned income and censorship. It is not about big government or small government (what conservative president has reduced spending or the deficit), but whether the cultural preferences of some will receive a boost from a government stamp that they are preferred.
Libertarians have always been a totally self-contradicting mess. They talk small government and individual freedom, but where is the evidence that they have seriously pushed these principles. They consistently support Republican politicians who make government bigger and exert more government control over our private lives. According to them, not only are corporations people, but they are just about the only people allowed to be free.
3
@allentown: Note that Libertarians want to keep only the coercive elements of government: the military and the criminal justice system. Deep down, they realize that they would be facing mass revolt if their policies were ever seriously implemented.
3
I voted for Bernie Sanders because I assumed that he would not get everything he wanted. I hope that he would be an executive within a system of checks and balances.
1
Finally Mr. Brooks has discovered the financially conservative, socially liberal independent faction of the electorate. Now, if he can find a source of political wisdom as to how to make that component of the electorate sufficiently large to win against the ideological base of either party, we may be on the road back to reasonably good government.
2
A strong social welfare safety net together with free market economics is called the “social market” system and has been around successfully in Europe for a long time. Democrats are not for “big government” per se as Brooks claims; they are for a social market system and always have been. And yes, such a system does take a larger share of revenues in taxes - but pays off in many ways. Funny that Brooks can only see this if a libertarian says it. I wonder if he will now favor universal health care, better retirement and vacation benefits and free education - all thing that enhance society along with free enterprise. I doubt it.
10
The idealism that Mr. Brooks is talking about may work well in Europe, where people are better educated, politically, than they are here, cultures still tend to be more homogenous than they are here, and people are more civic minded than they are here. I have serious doubts that large American corporations, builders, landlords, would consider the public good when their industries are deregulated and doubt whether our general public would be up in arms when these capitalists take advantage. Nice try though.
2
"Libertarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes limited government, free markets and individual rights."
Libertarianism is a greedy philosophy of those who have inherited/stolen wealth and think they owe nothing to the society that made it possible.
Unregulated capitalism - read greed - is the root of OUR global problems and can be easily remedied by the new Socially Conscious Women and men WE THE PEOPLE are hiring/electing to manage OUR governments for 99.9% of us.
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, your time has ended.
8
@njglea
If you think we have unregulated capitalism, then you have never worked for a business in any position of responsibility.
Sorry, PWR, I should have said serious, effective regulation to restore financial equity around the world.
Welfare for habitat? "...restrictive zoning and land use regulations" favor not only the "rich and entrenched," they ensure the essential government 'welfare' needed to maintain wetlands. These water sloughs are so critical for creatures, birds and water quality that the EPA offers economic support to landowners who maintain them. And since wetlands can convert sewage into healthy organic matter, constructed wetlands are increasingly used for this process, serving not only the 'rich...'.
2
@Christine Ford
There is a great constructed wetland for treated sewage infiltration near Phoenix, Arizona which is a great place for hiking, riding and bird watching. Especially great in early and late winter when the birds are migrating.
I think we are already at the point of a constitutional crisis. If not, then what more lack of stability will it take to make such a crisis? Do we want to live in a democracy or do we want to change to a dictatorial system of government. I vote for democracy.
4
It’s always nice when Mr. Brooks reminds us that despite our anxieties, institutions and personal freedoms can coexist. The entrenchments that have defined our political spectrum in the post-war era are long overdue for revision. Mr. Brooks in correct in characterizing many of us as homeless. It will take time and an as yet unknown form of leadership to help Niskanen ideals to become mainstream. I only hope the win at all costs/ burn it all down political hysteria we’re currently enduring doesn’t run out the clock.
3
I guess we all bear some responsibility for the current state of affairs and it might take a fusion of formerly center-right Republicans and center-left Democrats to end this turmoil. One day, we may thank the likes of Trump and Sanders for indirectly uniting the country
2
I'm glad to read that you feel at home Mr. Brooks. There are a great many of us who may not have homes to go to for much longer. The policies carried out by the people and the party you have supported for so long have forced many of us into substandard housing that costs way too much considering the stingy pay we're give. These same policies have forced more than a few of us to do wallet biopsies before we go for any medical care. And more than a few of us, especially those over the age of 50 who have lost jobs, cannot find decent jobs that pay a living wage. All of which can be laid directly at the feet of the clay idols you have worshipped and supported.
Politics is a wonderful thing until it meets reality. I think reality and humanity should take precedence over the idiocy of telling people who need jobs, have skills, and who want to work, that they are the problem. People like yourself are the problem here. You don't see how destructive it is to hear over and over again that one is worthless because of one's age or that if one looks hard enough there are jobs out there.
11
@hen3ry one more thing, most people do not choose to be poor. But our system continues to treat them like they want to be and forces them into behaviors, because of how it's structured, that keep them poor. Think of the "poor little old ladies" who used to work for a living and were able to afford a decent life but were underpaid to the point where they are poor little old ladies whether they retire or not. Of course once there are more poor old men perhaps things will improve for the poor old ladies as well.
This country has a habit of punishing people for being middle class, poor, not having good luck or being the wrong skin color, gender, etc. People think that because they made it everyone can. In reality, we do need help and the constant carping and refusal to spend money on all but the richest is hurting our country. Ask anyone who's been watching the compensation given CEOs versus the rest of us. How can we have a dynamic society if most of us can't think past today in terms of survival?
9
The Center has always been here. The Right has moved too far to the right.
19
Thanks David for writing about the example of the Niskanen Center. I myself went from "libertarian ideology solves all" to realizing that existential issues like climate change and nuclear proliferation aren't going to be solved in the market place and require not just government action but multiple governments acting in concert. Our problem is that many, maybe most?, voters consider only what they think might affect their immediate future and so are seduced by simple ideas like "government can't do anything" or "government has to do everything".
5
"It turns out that bad charter schools continue to attract students; the education market doesn’t work totally unregulated." So much wrong here. (1) Education isn't a market, it's a social pact. (2) How might parents choose bad over good if the bad needn't report? (3) Your contrite surprise offends: education pros told us these experiments would fail, but the right and center right imposed their charter will at the expense of a generation of kids and neighborhoods.
16
@ndhayes (1) Education isn't a market; the education market is a market (homeschool v public school v parochial school v private school v charter schoo,...) (2) Mandatory reporting is precisely one area in which regulations can help identify bad schools more rapidly, rather than depending upon long term outcomes; this is precisely Brooks' point. (3) Some charter schools are good and some are bad: everyone was wrong who predicted that all charter schools were going to be good or all charter schools were going to be bad.
@ndhayes I don't think your disagreeing with Brooks here. The whole point of the article is that "there are a lot of different goods in society: liberty, social justice, equity, community . . ."
That's the point with education. It is a social pact, but it also is a market. Even before charter schools you had school choice to the extent you could move to a private school or better school district (if you could afford to). Brooks' point, which you agree with, is that the charter school movement has failed to improve schools because the market isn't as efficient as the right told us it would be (not to mention the fact that it's more than just a market, it's a matter of equity, community, etc...).
2
Since "framing" is essential to any ideology, but particularly conservatism, I can see why conservatives like Brooks constantly refer to the allocation of a nation's income and wealth as "redistribution" instead of the more accurate term, "distribution."
In any nation, certain people will have new ideas . Then they and others, will figure out how to implement those ideas in society. Then, still others will be hired to actually carry out those ides and make them a reality. All of this depends on the infrastructure,support, security and education provided by still others. Each society must then decide how it is going to distribute the income, wealth and other benefits thus created. The fact that some can take billions from an idea while far down the line the other essential contributors, from experts to janitors, receive increasingly less and less, is a decision made by the government and those who control it.
In many societies a decision is made by those in power the almost all of the benefit should go to those at the top of the ladder. In others, there were theoretical decisions, never actually fully implemented, made to distribute the benefits almost equally throughout society. Some others, like the Scandinavian states seek a compromise. But, this original decision is one of "distribution", not "redistribution."
Yes, I know that Brooks is famously "moderate" and "reasonable", but his old line conservatism keeps popping out.
18
@Jack Robinson This is an important and brilliant comment. It should be a Times Pick. The point is that ALL participants in a given endeavor are contributors. How they are rewarded or compensated is "distribution." The only conceivable way to honestly use "redistribution" is to describe a process of correcting or replacing one "distribution" for another. If we use the word that way, the Republican tax bill of last year was a major act of "redistribution."
2
Jack London went to London in 1902 and then wrote a book titled, "The People of the Abyss." London found that hundreds of thousands of English were living on the streets, particularly in London's East End (the geographical place). These people were starving to death; literally. More were starving to death in slum housing. What changed? Social programs. Parliament passed programs that gave people a way to eat, and that made all the difference. Today, hundreds of thousands of English are not starving on the street. If that doesn't tell us something, nothing will.
7
@Julia Robb Starvation ended in England and elsewhere in the West long before governmental programs got to it. Increased wealth and improved food production deserve the credit.
@Julia Robb: And with the Tories (who must be trading tips on callousness and cruelty with the Republicans) implementing austerity, the UK once again has voluntary food shelves, something it has not needed since World War II; increased homelessness, and poorer service at the NHS, with the prospect of Brexit prompting foreign medical personnel to leave.
@Julia Robb Distribution of scarce food resources during WWII actually the health of the working class.
I look at LIbertarian several years ago and fund it hollow. I find myself drawn to 20 Cetury British philosophy as portrayed in Witgenstein's Poker. Right now John Stuart Mill is my hero. I firmly believe in the Utilitaian principal.
2
This is not as hard as it looks. We can have a responsible, thoughtful government (as Canadians have enjoyed for several decades). But first, the right needs to stop shouting "socialism" when the Democratic party proposes single-payer universal health care. Canadian citizens know that a health care safety net not only ensures a higher quality of life, it also fosters a caring, more compassionate society.
However, this will never happen if so-called reasonable center-right pundits make simplistic, false analogies between Sanders and Trump. One actually cares about the fate of the nation and its citizens. The other cares for himself and his extended family. The rest of us can eat cake.
31
"Today, those nations have many fewer regulations governing zoning and economic activity. They score very high on the rankings of economic freedom that are put together by conservative outfits like the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute."
Of course they do. These societies have not been living the credo this nation always has: greed is good. Half of this country's governing is steeped in the GOP values that are against wealth redistribution and in the idea of "pull yourself by the bootstraps" which, from the Brook's repeated preaching is clear he also endorses. You can't have it both ways, man. You're right to look up to those countries and the social security they enjoy, but you can't have it with the over-the-top conservative values much of this country represents.
7
FDR's New Deal, quickly stablished the largest and most prosperous middle class the world had ever known. Using policies that were both politically and economically viable, was FDR's genius.
After decades of dismantling the proven policies of high demand, high wages, and political empowerment of workers, the wealthy now propose to tax an ever more precarious middle class, to support desperate poor and working classes. All while leaving the economic and political power of the 0.1% intact.
Is it not obvious that these alternatives to proven New Deal policies will fail politically?
Seems rather disingenuous to me.
6
We’re confronted today with this reality: The right won but was also wrong
& that got us Trump & a white working class in an opioid induced free fall
Beginning in 1964 Rich Elites on the Right (ERRors) began plotting the undermining & destruction of the labor movement. They began expirementing in the mid 60s with moving factories off shore to Singapore. The expirement worked & spread throughout SouthEast Asia then into China
This was the real revolution. & it broke the back of American labor
From 1945 to 1972 BigGovt DemandSide Bias policies saw national (& global) GNP double in 30 years (global GNP grew more in 30 years than the prior 11,000 years of human history) & w/ it the income of each segment of the population: poor, working class, middle class, upper classes all grew in lock step. That was fair. That was the greatest golden age in human history, w/ new highs in every sphere of human eandever ending in a man landing on the moon. But the rich didn’t like it
Since 1972 the GNP has gone up 150% but the median wage has been flat. Since 80s we’ve had SupplySideEcon. This isn’t fair, just or virtuous but it’s what the ERRors wanted. Since skilled & tech wages have floated that means labor has sank. In working class America optimism has been traded in for opioumism.
& all that got us Trump. If your life is in ruins what difference does it make if America’s is too?
So now you know you were wrong & found a new platform. Congratulations & thanx for 45 years of pain&ache
8
David is trying. So that is good. He is getting more comfortable with the word "redistributive" and also with the phrase "welfare state." But he is still hung up on the word "regulatory" and clinging a bit too insistently to the phrase "economic freedom." Almost there. And I do applaud the notion of "centrism" or "a new center." In fact, the Republican party in the old days of the 1970s embraced and even created both redistributive programs (e.g., Medicare) and regulatory agencies (e.g., the EPA). Fast forward to today. On those two examples, there is a current consensus that we ought to have a "Medicare for All" health care insurance program, and very strict regulations to reduce global warming and preserve the planet's environment. Using just these two issues again, it's the Democrats who are now leading the way, and the Republicans who are resisting. But sensible Republicans can and should join with Democrats in the "center" where in fact there is broad consensus. So, for David and the umpteenth time, your imperative is to recover and reset the Republican party on these and so many other issues. The Democrats are already on the correct wavelengths.
8
Brooks' column resembles the USSR in the cold war claiming to have already discovered every new innovation due to the West. Almost every new member of the House would espouse the same non-ideological views.
3
Yesterday in the NYT, Bret Stephens compared Elizabeth Warren to Trump. Today, David Brooks compares Bernie Sander to Trump. It doesn't take a political strategist to immediately recognize this new coordinated Republican talking point; to tie the unpopularity of their president to infinitely more reasonable and qualified candidates on the left. Nice try, fellas, but it won't work.
27
@Jim
Jim, yea, I also noticed Stephens' and Brooks' recycled 'neither left nor right, but a (ostensibly) vital center' Cold War liberal line.
But I don't think they are deliberately supporting the Republican Party. I think they truly do not want Trump or the radical right wing Republican Party (which their life long right wing views helped to power).
Rather, they are prepared to vote against Trump for a right liberal Democrat in the H. Clinton mold, and are using the Cold War liberal 'I'm against extremes of any kind' rhetoric to attack not only the Republican right, but to debunk the rising progressive forces among Democrats that could either get nominated or force a right liberal candidate marginally left to pick up progressive votes.
(Oh, and of course their covering themselves too - 'don't blame me for the US's tin pot dictator, I responsibly called for 'moderation.')
Their opinion pieces lay the ground for an election in which the Democratic Party once more bullies progressives into voting for a supposedly electable, so-called 'centrist' Democrat.
The problem, imo, is that going for the 'moderate' center actually is not a winning strategy - won't galvanize a range of voters to vote Democrat, or even get to the voting booth...
1
The issue of the size of government is of little consequence. The size of government should be the result of what government must achieve for its citizenry. A country of 320 million people, millions of flights in the air, billions of car trips, millions of children that must be educated, etc. etc., cannot be expected to have the same size of government as a country where there are many fewer people and much less going on. Government size, in and of itself, is irrelevant, although it can be true that larger government may be more difficult to control.
We, the people, should strive for greater government efficiency, which may or may not involve curtailing the size of government. But politics gets in the way: Citizens United exacerbated the ills of donor-funded political activity, which in turn begat government for the 1%, and if anyone believes there is efficiency therein, well, dream on.
10
Liberalizing our economy floats all boats. It creates more boats too. The ballast that drops us all below the waterline is a Welfare State of mind that goes beyond those truly in need to those who truly need to find a paying job and create more liberalizing.
The question all of us need to answer is, "Can I leave our world the better for my being here?" Honesty is our better policy.
3
It's great that there are conservatives out there who are finally discovering what liberals have known at least since FDR: free markets and activist government are fully compatible; in fact markets require government intervention to be truly free.
Capitalist theory assumes that participants in free markets act based on perfect information, but of course that assumption is a myth. Free markets must be transparent to function properly, and market transparency requires regulation. (I offer the highly sophisticated regime of American securities regulation as Exhibit A.) Without government regulation in one form or another, for instance, every food product would be good for your heart, would prevent cancer, and would enhance your sex appeal.
Regulation is also necessary to limit economic actors' ability to impose public costs in the name of private profit. We owe drinkable water, breathable air, and safe and effective drugs, among many other things, to regulation.
Contrary to conventional conservative mythology, government regulation is not socialism, and advocates of government regulation are not enemies of free markets. If fact, as FDR proved, intelligent regulation is essential to the sustainability of free markets.
Furthermore, capitalism is just only to the extent that everyone has an equal chance at success. Redistributive welfare is necessary to mitigate the extreme inequality of opportunity that unregulated capitalism produces.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
11
Denmark, Sweden and Canada may have deregulated some things, but they have in common a firm belief in the social safety net with Health Care and Retirement benefits. Conservatives have always used the word "entitlement" to describe these programs, even though Americans pay medicare and social security taxes all through their working lives. When the right begins to recognize that Health Care and Social Security are not Cadillac programs to enrich the elderly at some poor one-percenter's expense, please wake me up.
22
If America was a stock I would buy it. My primary reason is the continuing empowerment of women. They are half our work force and they are thought leaders. Think about our competition in the global economy. China, Russia, most of Europe. In these places it remains a man’s world. We alone are slowly unlocking half our very capable workforce. This fact alone makes me very bullish on the future of our country.
4
The obvious fallacy of the "less government" philosophy is that it is intellectually specious to always say that we need less government. We always need the level of government that provides for the quality of life we demand. It could be less, it could be more. The same is true of regulations. We might need more, we might need less. It depends upon the impact of those regulations.
And one thing ignored by these libertarians is the impact of regulations and more government on the environment. Many regulations have been established to PRESERVE our very precious environment. Not only do they impact quality of life as with zoning requirements, they also have health related implications. Regulations protect us from lung illnesses and cancer caused by chemicals spread by businesses. They also protect the oceans from pollution that kills ocean species and environments like the coral reefs.
12
@USS Johnston
Can you, or anyone else, point to an example where low taxes and limited government spending has produced a prosperous middle class?
Our fifty state economic experiment provides significant evidence that low tax and low spending state governments produce a lower quality of life for the middle class than do high tax high spending state governments. Compare median incomes across the country, blue states have much higher incomes than do the red states.
2
Libertarians should Google "tragedy of the commons". Ultimately, that is what their ideas lead too.
1
@USS Johnston: Yes, if you look at the countries that actually have nearly unregulated business environments and no social safety net, they should be paradise, according to Libertarian ideology.
And if you're already rich, they are. For a while, I was on an internet mailing list about retiring overseas, and guess what country a lot of Libertarian types were touting: Honduras. Beautiful tropical seaside gated communities, low taxes, no pesky government regulations, and best of all, the ability to hire servants for next to nothing.
However, the Hondurans who are traveling through Mexico to the U.S. are not fleeing beautiful seaside gated communities but rundown barrios with sewage flowing down the street, no schools or healthcare, and drug gangs strong-arming everyone.
Meanwhile, my relatives in "over-regulated" Scandinavia pay high taxes, sure, but they also don't have to pay extra for health care or post-secondary education, and their retirement benefits are generous. One branch of the family even owns a business that markets internationally.
Contrary to the fondly held ideology of the right wing, taxes are NOT the worst thing that can happen to a human being.
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
Donald Trump is not "to the right extreme". Donald Trump is simply all about Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders is not "to the left extreme." He is consistent with historical leaders like Eisenhower, FDR, and (gasp) Richard Nixon in policy and proposals. Brooks seems oblivious to the fact that he is living in a bubble that has no connection to the real world the rest of us must face each day. The fact that his party of choice has moved so far to the right that anything now looks like middle ground is lost on Brooks. False equivalencies do not make some libertarian think tank suddenly relevant to the problems facing our nation.
13
A business needs cash customers. Henry Ford famously recognized this 100 years ago. A society which ensures that its citizens have its basic needs met (defined as the ability to to afford housing, food, education and healthcare) will prosper long-term. Gaining short-term financial advantage (capitalism without limitations) will always come in second-best. Moderation in all aspects never fails.
4
Still not getting it. Not right vs left. It is more like authenticity vs pre-programming from the Corporate-supported parties and candidates. 44% of registered voters are now NOT AFFILIATED with either the GOP or the DEMs. We do not like candidates who are owned and operated by oligarchs, plutocrats and corporate entities. We want candidates who can look us in the face and tell us what they think: farmers and small business owners, waiters and cab drivers, housewives and single dads, car salespeople and trash collectors: REAL AMERICANS who continue to struggle to get by. Congress does not represent these people, the Supreme Court does not represent these people. Bernie Sanders talks and listens to these people (even when he is not "at work." ) He likes people. He is respectful of all. His policies originate with the people he listens to. It has nothing to do with "progressive" vs "Liberal" vs "Centrist" vs "conservative" and it has everything to do with serving as a translator for the people. I have watched him for over 30 years and I believe he is honest and cares about me and others who are hurting.
9
The difference between liberals and conservatives is not in their desired size of government, it is in their desired PURPOSE of government. Liberals favor an egalitarian government that maximizes personal freedom, whereas conservatives favor a restrictive government. Conservatives want to use the power of the federal government to restrict all behavior they disagree with, even when it doesn't affect their lives, and even if it trashes states' rights. Whether it be a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, a national ban on abortion, calling for the imprisonment of anyone who burns a flag, or Reagan withholding highway funding until states buckled under and enacted a 21 year old drinking age. American conservatism is not about individualism, it is about control. And the best way to achieve control is through a large, intrusive, conservative government.
16
@Jim: During the 1970s and early 1980s, the right wing even proposed Constitutional amendments to ban busing for integration and to allow state-sponsored school prayer. How's that for micromanagement?
I'm from the Bernie contingent but, honestly, I don't see how what's being proposed here is inconsistent with what Bernie has to say. I would be happy to be enlightened.
2
Hmm. David, what you describe as the Niskanen Center's "new centrism" sounds more or less like what people in 1960 referred to as liberalism.
10
Thank you, David... for everything this year!
I am thrilled to, at long last, agree with Mr. Brooks.
2
Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. He is an Independent and a Socialist. The Democratic Party IS a centrist party for the most part. The Republican Party has shifted hard to the right accelerated by Trump's fascist tactics...
9
As long as Mr. Brooks keeps reinventing the wheel, I guess he won't do too much harm.
3
Did you notice that, on the very same day, two prominent NY Times columnists (Brooks and Stephens) compared progressives with Donald Trump? Every reader should remind themselves that the NY Times has an editorial board. And as THE establishment newspaper the NYT will do everything it can to denigrate progressives, especially in this historic moment. The "center" in American politics is the establishment, corporate, Republicratic, kinder, gentler capitalist party that seeks to sustain a steady flow of value from labor, more or less exploited, to owners.
4
@James Durante - That "coincidence" did not escape me either, James. Once the unique threat of President Trump is no longer a unifying force, I fully expect the NYT to return to its old, infuriating, pre-2016 self.
David Brooks once again places Sen. Bernie Sanders in the same sentence as Donald Trump, calling both "extremists." Yesterday, Bret Stephens called Sen. Elizabeth Warren "the Trump of the left." I fully understand why conservatives like Brooks and Stephens don't support progressive politicians and policies, but it almost scurrilous to compare these very able senators to President Trump. I expect more intelligent analysis from the op-ed columnists at the New York Times.
11
The Niskanen report is a nightlight for moderate Republicans of a certain age who are disgusted with the open graft in the current White House and the polarization in Congress. Let's work toward electing the kind of leadership that rebuilds working institutions and restores some faith in our political systems.
1
You vilify the "Bernie Sanders left" and then endorse its policy agenda. And then you call it "moderation" because you took care to equally criticize "both sides".
Ironically you're playing the very same ideological game that you're moaning about. You reject good ideas that are proven to work because they're labeled "leftist". But if someone calls it "moderation", you hop aboard.
This isn't a "new" center, David. Social Democracy has been the center in Europe for decades.
13
This column could be titled "What Pseudo-Centrist Elitism Is Blowing David Brooks's Mind This Week?"
I mean, I'm happy to see some libertarians adopt a data-driven approach instead of championing an ideology that has no basis in reality. However, just because a think-tank is saying something people like Mr. Brooks are predisposed to agree with doesn't mean that the conservative triggered by whatever nonsense Hannity's ginning up tonight will care.
4
Given David Brooks track record about everything, the statement that he's optimistic about America's future does not reassure me.
False equivalence, bothsideism, alternative facts, magical thinking... Brooks has outdone himself again. He has transcended snark.
1
Oh, wow! David Brooks has the nerve to suggest we adopt liberalism as Europeans understand it, an ideology of individual and economic freedom freedom with a social safety net. Ignorance and outrage ensue.
1
Well duh! At last some Americans listened to Isaiah Berlin and noticed that egalitarian social democracy is a sensible form of governing. Perhaps now we’ll start getting somewhere.
1
Welcome to the Democratic Party, David! Perhaps you should listen to Ezra Klein’s interview of newly elected Congresswoman Katie Porter from Orange County, an Elizabeth Warren disciple, who talks about this very idea as it applied to the housing crisis and Great Recession.
Lastly, I will say that one of my biggest criticisms of so-called Libertarianism is that its disciples (read: well off, educated white men) typically already have or have benefited from “individual liberty” often at the expense/exploitation of others, and now, in the name of libertarianism, they shun regulation or want to end public education,for example, because it “restricts” them. As an example, as children, they greatly benefited from well-funded K-12 or higher public education, but now as adults, they advocate for “school choice” via vouchers or charter schools which saps money from public schools.
4
Somehow it is off-putting to be discussing how the house might be rebuilt while it is still aflame. Grab a bucket, please!
1
Thank you David -- yes, this report is very hopeful.
The new center being born now will be eligible for the NBA in 2037.
1
OK, I give up. So what is the Niskanen authors' proposal for global warming?
If we examine the wider time range of US economic development....and we are willing to do so objectively, with a goal of encouraging positive, prosperous results.....we first must tune out the sermons from the preachers, the gospel of "free markets", the gospel of "communism", the church of the New Deal and various other churches of economics.
...
Capitalism is a construct described by Adam Smith...in the early 1700s....very relevant to the nascent age of industrial development, the design of financing to build factories, to exploit natural resources, to employ skilled labor.
...
Communism came along soon afterwards, Karl Marx, an avid capitalist, almost defined communism as a corollary to capitalism in the early 1800s. Today, every US corporation fits the karl marx model of communism...a pooling of resources amoung the stockholders. (!!).
....
In the early 1900s, the USA developed the most successful, practical application of both Capitalism and Communism with its "New Deal"...now, itself very obsolete and out of sync with Modern times. If a label must be attached...we would probably need to call this....the Military-Industrial System.
...
But now in the early 21st Century, this New Deal is failing. It does not account for Global Electronic Communications and MetaData. There is not yet a practical system of effective taxation of the Internet. There are many challenges.
...
Glass half full? or Glass half empty? ... I claim we need a bigger Glass.
1
Wow, I wanted to say, "Word salad," but when I opened my mouth, "Noodle soup," came out.
3
What’s the best answer to a painful transition? The “Tooth Fairy”!
Niskanen is Brooks’ “I’m an optimist” answer. And it’s a tooth fairy. The bad news is Mom and Dad...were the tooth fairy....and this is not about losing baby teeth.
Did you read the paper? Trump just handed Putin victories in Syria, Afghanistan, and a budget compromise failure that has tanked world markets. Trump has effectively gutted the Cabinet. Have you noticed that FOX, Breitbart, Coulter, Gingrich are calling the shots? Are these voices the voices of democracy? When a bunch of Koch/Mercer/Adelson employees shape policy and the Republicans just echo their propaganda how are you inclined to conjure the Niskanen Fairy?
1
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
David, please don't do this. Bernie Sanders is too far left for my tastes, but I don't dispute that he loves his country and is trying to do what he can to improve it.
Donald Trump is almost certainly a traitor, a crime boss and mentally feeble. To legitimatize him as a real politician is either hopelessly naive or appallingly cynical. Perhaps both.
2
@Sparky
Curious but what makes Sanders to far left? I really don’t know where the goalposts are any more. What is radical, to far, left mean? It’s pretty easy to figure out far right because those posts have pretty much been set now. What is a centrists? Who qualifies for that position?
Brooks, on a burning ship: "Everything's Okay! I read an essay!"
DB, I'm sorry you feel homeless. It definitely IS crazy these days, between the "Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left", I hardly even know who's in power now except that the 2043rd season finale of USA is one humdinger of a cliffhanger. It's a nondenominational mess, with plenty of blame for both parties.(?)
Anyway, glad your book report this week made you feel like you have a philosophic home. It's a blessing your character is a moving target, because "People with single all-explaining ideologies have a tendency to let their philosophic blinders distort how they view empirical reality." All ethics are situational in Brooksworld, & when America's in trouble, the essays get vague and exculpatory. Better for later anthologizing if you forego party affiliation or any specifics.
Are you, as it seems, attempting to run out the clock on your failed premises, walking quietly sideways out of a ballroom full of polluted air? (Whose?) You have many readers who seem to like you and root for your better angels time after time, with little encouragement from your columns. You are befuddled and avuncular on radio & TV, and singularly antihumanistic in print.
If you are in a searching mood this holiday season, Mr. Brooks, please imagine your own person Clarence the angel, urging you to forego despair and embrace your better nature. Maybe your personal Clarence looks a little like Jennifer Rubin at WaPo, I dunno.
2
It's human nature to wait until things get really really bad before changes are made. Are we there yet? I'm with Chris Hedges when he thinks our American Empire will start to implode in the not too distant future. We've done so many bad things as a country starting with white Europeans landing on North America in the name of God. Doing God's work, what ever that really means. For me I will be learning Danish and hope to move to Denmark.
3
Ah well, okay. Everything will be fine then. No worries.
1
our corporations are hugely undertaxed, and our people too, compared to Scandinavian countries. Brooks is blowing smoke, as always, to continue to cripple ACA, Cripple SS, Medicae Medicaid, infrastructure. Its a wonderful time, where we loose all ur safety net. Who needs a safety net, when you make 400k/yr like Brooks does?
2
“Then People figured it out....”. With a bonafide Sociopathic Personality Disorder in Chronic Control and backed by successful
Greed-driven people who seem to believe “getting more Money”
Is a gift from God, I hope some “figure it out”, as well as more
Intentionally Good People like General Mantis Vocalize and
Activate the Goodness for the sake of any Sanity for the People.i hold Hope in the presence of Robert Mueller.....Not in a “President” who does Not know enough to Care or care enough to Know.
Optimism!!!!!!Hurray....can you do more optimism Mr. Brooks.....it’s really really nice to hear. Thank you .
Since eschewing Brooks' false dichotomies, I just came to read the commenets. Not disappointed at all and much better for my blood pressure.
Take him to the woodshed!
1
Better title for this article: "When Libertarians Grow Up"
1
This, just in: "Think Tank Starts Thinking."
2
Isn't that nice that Niskanen is discovering something FDR knew 90 years ago.
3
"...the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left..." are not two ends of a continuum any more than David Berkowitz and Nancy Pelosi are. Trump wants to turn the country in one big dollar store in which he gets a few points off the top of all sales, Pelosi wants everyone to have affordable, quality health care. Get a grip David.
2
Give me a party with the Niskanen platform and I'm all in (it's Clintonism without the Clintons).
Centrism is dead. It was killed once and for all by Republican radicalism.
1
But...we need a progressive tax structure to pay for this. When do we talk about that? Think tanks are great...the Heritage Foundation gave us the blueprint for Obamacare after all...but when one of our two political parties is stark-raving mad, and it's in power, what is a democracy to do?
2
So now America must rake up its regulations to allow for the controlled fires of capitalism to provide enough for the state to lift all up? I think that sweeping generalizations like this are undercut by the details. Who isn't for a less complicated life? Who isn't for efficient government? But reality sets in. The fires of free wheeling capitalism will burn down the old growth and the new growth (see last recession) without effective regulatory oversight. In the US, capitalism over the last 40 years has triumphed over labor (moving to the low cost south to break up unions, leveraging government programs to pay less than a living wage). Who is responsible for the common good? We all are. We must embrace and care for our government (easier on the local level) so that it works for us at all levels to promote the common good.
In our current tribalism we have made each other the enemy instead of symbiotic competitors in evolving a better tomorrow for all of us. In this light I can appreciate Mr. Brooks piece that there is a new school of thought in DC. Great. But please stop with the sweeping statements about the left and the right. Not helpful as I do not like being swept up and categorized. Stick with the facts and I can read your pieces in peace and I wont feel that they should be left on the forest floor to be eliminated in the next conflagration.
The case made by Brooks and the Niskanen report was made brilliantly in the book "American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made American Prosper" by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.
Conflating Donald Trump with Bernie Sanders?? Come on! That's going too far!
133
@carolz
Conservatives believe that Sen Sanders lies as much as Trump and is just as irrational. The comparison, by conservative standards, is apt. This is the way conservatives are. No facts necessary.
5
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left." You are extreme to state what Sanders proposes is the equivalent to Trump pronounces.
6
When so-called centrists like Mr. Brooks and sophisticated think tank technocrats claim to transcend ideology, do they understand that basically nobody believes them anymore?
The whole point of 2016 was to expose and deligitimize the ideology of the center.
It's clear now that there is no greater ideologue than the (wo)man who claims to be without ideology.
1
At the base of the argument for or against a welfare state, or in discussions of providing a pro-rated UBI for all citizens under the median income, lies human nature. There is a large segment of the population who cannot rise above circumstance. Namely, that they had to work for spmething someone else is about to get for free. Some of us are aware that a rising tide lifts all boats equally - but those who nearly drowned in the last one refuse to let anyone else on the boat. I hear the complaints and refusals daily; “Would you really be okay with someone getting money when they don’t work as hard as you do?” My answer of ‘yes” blows their minds. They cannot conceive of others being okay with the idea of prosperity sharing, because THEY are not. They have been programmed to remain jealous, lacking compassion, and convinced of the need for meritocracy. Then there are the wealthy and super-rich, convinced of their own superiority, which would be more difficult to display if everyone can live a happy, healthy, and contented life without need for struggle and toil. How will THEY show how much ‘better’ they are without a large mass of unwashed peasants to contrast with?
1
To say that Trump is an “extremist” on the right opposed at another extremist on the left in the person of Bernie Sanders is like comparing Charles Manson to William F. Buckley.
A cult of personality leader whose “ideology” is the promotion and extension of his own ego alone, with no historical legacy, no tradition of actual ideas is no intellectual counterweight to a career politician who draws on an intellectual and cultural legacy of actual politicians and philosophers, from FDR, MLK, John Maynard Keynes, et. al. We know what Sanders stands for and has fought for his whole life. We may be vehemently opposed to those ideas, as I’m sure Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman were and Paul Ryan is.
Thats a right vs. left struggle of ideas from which sensible compromises might prove to be ultimately good for the country—the graduated income tax, Social Security and Medicare are good examples.
This is not what’s going on today. There is no viable idea or policy that can come from Trumpism that provides a workable compromise with any known policy solutions offered by either Paul Ryan-type Republicans or Bernie Sanders-type Democrats.
The tough road to hoe is for the GOP whose legacy and intellectual foundation has been destroyed by Trumpism.
The first thing Republicans must do is denounce Trumpism, reject the man himself and join with Democrats to oust him.
Just Trump’s actions and revealed scandals in the last 48 hours
Give tgem cover to do so.
1
While many people claim to be libertarians, can you give me an elected official whose views are really consistent with this view?
1
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
Here, let me fix that for you...
Since at least the 1964 Civil Rights Act, American politics has pitted neo-confederate conservatives who look for any euphemistic excuse, e.g. a belief in small government and free market, to roll back and limit the social progress of non-white racial minorities against liberals who believe that it's time to own up to America's racial problems and move into a new era where we can fix some of our bigger problems like climate change and income inequality.
6
Mr. Brooks, this is really hopeful stuff. But there exists a massive gap between the USA and nations like Denmark, Sweden and Canada.
They are not crippled by tens of trillions in national debt. They are not making themselves slaves to hundred of billions annually in defense spending. They do not have for-profit insurers who are engines of cruelty. They are not awash in small arms.
No, I've given up on America's near term future. We'll have a period of violence from extremists Left and Right that could escalate into something like the Spanish Civil War. We'll have a concurrent economic collapse. The nation may splinter into regional nations.
China will be waiting to fill the void. They are not exactly Niskanen thinkers, either. Perhaps, in time, they'll moderate, but it looks unlikely under Xi's leadership.
Meanwhile, the American project is broken. That is why Trump came to prominence. The once-haves put him in power out of desperation, along with his greed that may include Treason, his racism, misogyny, hatred of science and thinking. I just hope against hope for something like the Roosevelt Progressive era or new ideas like those in your column. But it's only a hope.
1
Sounds great to me. In fact, I would suggest that it is quite sad that it takes a "think tank" to come to these obvious conclusions.
But we have never been a nation that surveys the competition (other countries) and learned from their successes. We are too "exceptional" to need help from others. We wallow in our arrogance. And now we have arguably one of the most awful governments and set of leaders in our history.
There is a lunatic in the WH. And millions still like him. The GOP has the presidency, the House, the Senate and they can't legislate their way out of a paper bag. The regulations and regulators that would protect us from rampant industry are being stripped away resulting in irreversible harm to our well being and the planet as a whole.
So thanks for the optimism. Maybe there is hope for our species over the next several thousand years.
But for now our dying oceans and Mother Nature herself will continue to overrule our insane behavior and it will be ugly and painful.
Sorry, it's just too hard to be optimistic.
Right off the top "Bernie or Trump" like a person who has others well being in mind is the same as someone who has no others' well being in mind.
1
So, in other words, the rest of the country needs to act more like New England, California, Washington, and Oregon? Welcome home.
3
"The Niskanen authors are making a compelling case for moderation..."
I remain hopeful that when David emerges from the Brooks cocoon, we'll see something really beautiful.
David Brooks begins this column with a comparison of Donald Trump on the right, to Bernie Sanders on the left.
Donald has no political skills at all.. everyone (except David)
seems to understand that.
Then he goes his usual way by expanding some one else's idea
(The Niskanen Center) and adding his opinion to theirs.
Shame
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
Mr. Brooks, if you can ever get yourself away from a desperate need to find ethical, moral, and governmental equivalency at all times, you'd be more believable. Comments above say it better than I, Donald Trump is in a "class" by himself.
2
What took you so long, David? Democrats have always known
this - no matter how Republicans have tried to paint them.
"Democracy in Chains" by Nancy Maclean would be a good read right now. It illustrates, surprisingly well, just how
destructive pernicious libertarians have been in
influencing America's politics and wellbeing with their influence
in the Republican Party.
1
David Brooks's thesis in this essay: I do not want the Democratic Party to nominate and elect a progressive in 2020.
Brooks and Stephens are the kings of false equivalencies. Warren and Sanders want policies that seem to work beautifully for working people in many functioning democracies around the world. Trump wants what they have in the Philippines--a leader who can kill citizens at will. Or what they have in Russia and Saudi Arabia--a leader who can muzzle, threaten and murder reporters. The comparisons are insulting. And NYTimes readers are on to it. Someone should force these guys to read the comments.
2
David: Reads a lot like social democracy to me.
Good for you that you feel optimistic. But then you are in a period of your life that is on the shorter end. I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that you have a chunk of money on which to retire, a fat 401K from the Times, have health insurance which you will continue to have no matter what happens with Obamacare. You probably have more than $400 in which to lay your hands on in an emergency should such a thing happen. You live in a place where you are far removed from actual real people who are pessimistic when we look out over our amber waves of grain. We see a country that is on fire, literally, diminished life expectancy, healthcare for those that can afford it, a group of republicans so hellbent on punishing citizens for being poor, an opioid epidemic and on, and on, and on. I look at the country and weep for what we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren. I wished I could feel optimistic but I am fresh out of f’s to give anymore, Trump has stolen every amount of hope I had stored away for times like this. Maybe this is why the suicide rates are rising, we are hope less.
3
Oh Mr. Brooks I despair for your grasping at straws.
First there is no equivalency between the Trump right and the Sanders left. How can you make that statement with a straight face?
Second, DUH!
Third the market has to be regulated for the welfare state to exist. Freedom in regulation to defend against the ‘private’ sector.
Lastly, Libertarianism is a business opportunity not a philosophy.
4
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left." << This flip aside is the kind of false equivalency that poisons so much US media reporting. Sanders invokes a US society modeled on Europe; Trump sees himself as a strongman dictator à la Putin or Duterte. Those are not equal extremes. Indeed, one is not extreme at all!
3
Ah yes, it is unsurprising that Brooks is drawn to the new scheme of the lefty and libertarian elite: the rich take from the middle class to give to the poor. Just like the Robin Hood Foundation: hang onto those tax loopholes, donate relative pennies, and use your clout and pennies to bribe politicians to vastly expand limousine poverty programs funded by the working and middle classes through medicaid, medicare, social security, and property taxes -- the very taxes that the rich keep from paying on nearly all of their income.
If these people really believed what they say, David, they would first stop protecting their loopholes and raise the ceiling on medi/medi/ss to the first 250K or 300K of income.
Mr. Brooks who I enjoy reading as an independent progressive, usually provides a rational point of view for the conservative position. Today I am very disappointed that Brooks uses the trite term of Bigger and smaller government. Does he really believe that Dems believe in Big goverment? Does he not understand the adjective is Good not Big?
Is it possible that David is finally realizing that the motivation of good governance is the greatest good for the greatest number?
6
In terms of extreme political positioning, the extreme right actually in power is the mirror image of the extreme left or communism. The shift to the present situation took 30 years, it was so slow no one felt the gradual change in temperature like frogs in gradually hotter water. The Niskanen report shows this anomaly. In politics, extremes idealogies don't work in solving even simple problems. They are like religions. The temples of Free Market or Centralized Economies are myths. Some things are better managed by free market and some by goverments. Both can abuse of their powers. To find the right balance we need the right political system. Major changes are needed in America because it's political system is owned by private business interest groups, not by the people as it should. Good luck in changing it.
3
The sooner America can fully understand the paradox of its political uncertainty insofar as BOTH individual stasis AND communal dynamic can never perfectly coexist, the sooner we'll understand that any notion of "perfect union" must -- relatively, not absolutely! -- perpetually form. That constancy precludes completion should, by now, be a clue that adapting to change is our best forte MOVING FORWARD. Tribalism's fittest -- like dinosaurs -- can't even survive a wayward [MAGA] rock.
Brooks ventures into the "something for everyone " territory of policy making: Restraints to the "free market" are removed (to what extent have they ever been on?), while those in need are supported by government programs. We have ample evidence of why and how this is deeply flawed reasoning. The unrestrained market has given us generation after generation of social and environmental problems. Countless oil spills, Bhopal, corporations that decide to disinvest in communities to secure better bottom lines, manipulation of the political process, etc. Having a government program to support those with deeply impaired health, or who die, because of corporate malfeasance is hardly a balm worth valuing. And this says nothing about how our history demonstrates the extent to which the bright idea Brooks endorses would founder: The cherished libertarian principle of pursuing individual rights is a privilege afforded to a select number within the population. Our economy grew on the backs of slavery, child labor, and to this day, immigrant labor. This is not the kind of social compact that leads to equitable outcomes. The gauzy ideal of having individual rights protected while corporations are free to damage the economy and the planet may look good in a think tank boardroom, but for those of us trying to get by, it's a monstrous fantasy.
6
@Brian Ellerbeck, I totally agree with you. Lack of regulation on business leads to poisonous outcomes, literally and figuratively. Then half of what government does is wasted, because it is devoted to cleaning up corporate depredations.
I suspect it is quite a mistake to characterize Europe's successful welfare states as lacking in regulation but high in welfare. A perfect example is the regulation of the communications industry, especially cable pricing.
One way to start paying attention to the right things would be to revise the GDP calculations to EXCLUDE the money spent cleaning up messes that didn't have to be made in the first place. For example, in no way does $200 million spent to clean up rivers polluted by coal slurry, treat people poisoned by it, and try to save babies killed by it ADD to the output of the nation...what we need is a system that doesn't produce, or at least controls, the coal slurry in the first place. Purely corrective actions should be SUBTRACTED from GDP, not added. By such a standard, the U.S. economy slides another 10 places.
2
@Brian Ellerbeck. I would agree as does Patriot451. I can't imagine this "model" working with big pharma. One of the reasons Europe's welfare state is so successful is that those governments don't allow big pharma, or corporations generally to steal from the majority in order to pad the pockets of the very few. What makes those economies work is intelligent regulation alongside the common good, a phrase actually in our constitution.
A cause for optimism. But, I had to pause after your false equivalency of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Regardless of ideology, one has values, one does not.
17
Welcome David Brooks and the Niskanen Institute to what is supposed to be America. The men in suits, not many of them, have removed their heads from the sand or wherever else they had them and are breathing fresh air.
Government regulations don't exist to hamper brilliance, individualism or innovation. They exist because of people like Trump who steal and corporations like tobacco and fossil fuel companies that knowingly harm our health and environment.
We are not a rich, prosperous nation until all are fed, clothed, healthy, and housed and educated.
32
@Nick Adams, yes the Greed just overwhelms me.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to do my part so ALL Beings matter, not just the top 1%.
Capitalism and democracy have fundamentally different values and goals . History is clear — free makers ruin nations . Anyone who diubtthis need only look around. For capitalism to work it must be supervised. The role of government in a capitalist economy is to develop rules to ensure that happens, that markets function in the public’s interest. Free markets have never and will never nurture a productive, fair, and equitable society.
16
Mr Brooks is describing a classic centrist position born of extreme ideologies. In the real world, we call this pragmatism: it works. Idealogues keep pushing their extreme agendas with pushback never ending.
As the song goes:"When will they ever learn?"
6
Before I read this week's column, I read your piece on the demise of The Weekly Standard. It seemed like a progression in thinking. The old Conservative philosophy served a purpose, and has run its course. Now, due to current circumstances there is an evolution to a more practical approach to politics, with thoughtful input from both the Left and the Right. If we keep on doing what we're doing, we'll keep getting what we're getting and the country can't afford that.
4
This is just a case of pragmatism overcoming ideology, a rarity in our recent politics. We have been fortunate to be able to afford the luxury of ideological politics for many decades, but perhaps that has now twisted us into so many self-destructive positions that the resulting hardship will now lead to more practical governance.
6
"The Niskanen authors are making a compelling case for moderation". That sounds great, and I'm glad Mr. Brooks feels "liberated", but as long as Citizens United is the rule of law they might as well stop wasting their time and wish for rain drops to turn into donuts.
32
Sounds to me like the "new center right" is espousing some of the same ideas that the "extreme lefty" Bernie Sanders and other Social Democrats (in Canada, Sweden, Denmark, etc) have supported for years.
I'm not complaining, but agreeing with you, David. Let's drop the labels. Let's do the same kind of "benchmarking" for U.S. social and economic policy that U.S. auto companies did back in the 80s when they were falling behind Japan and Europe. Look at what works best in other places, and copy it.
It led to better cars, and it would lead to a better, safer, more livable country.
11
The Niskanen Center paper is sensible, and optimism is welcome, though it seems like the emperor's new clothes. Didn't I learn that we need a "mixed economy" decades ago in Econ 101?
I don't see anything here that is likely to stimulate change. It looks more like a clever move in the think tank wars, a way to get funding and speaking engagements. What is going to change the way politicians talk to the public, the media's focus on scandal and melodrama, the partisanship in Congress, the tribalism?
Wonks with rebranded ideologies aren't going to solve our problem. I'd like for them to tell us what they can do—substantively—with this new philosophy. Are they going to create a third party? Teach the public about political ideology and political rhetoric? Or just tweet at the President's tweets?
10
I’m a liberal Democrat and David Brooks remains my favorite conservative opinion writer. This piece affirms that choice. America today just seems like a mean-spirited place. I’ll join Mr. Brooks in supporting the viewpoints outlined here, and maybe even rekindle a spark of hope for our future.
8
Come over to Brett S. He is much more consistent in his ability to learn from centrists and progressives.
Brooks spouts about new ideological discoveries and inevitably goes back
to his usual Repub hackdom to protect unregulated wealth.
Sadly, depending on the self-interest and greed of the free market has gotten us to the point of climate threat to planetary survival as we know it. Scientists from every major agency from the UN to NASA have warned of of the imminence of the coming catastrophe. Brooks advocates free market mechanisms at a moment when we need interventions which go beyond regulations of a free market. Outright bans on fossil fuels, emissions, deforesting in all countries, mandatory green energy -- if we implement these measures tomorrow, we might soften the catastrophe which has already arrived.
6
We aren't very well equipped to handle any evolving political party. Money and extremist messages are molding public opinion in ways to deter any mainstream centrist agenda from catching on. Sorry to say, most people are unable to relate to Mr Brooks and the NY Times.
In the next election we'll have two options: D or R. Somehow the candidates will be vetted by PAC money and lies. We may even see more flawed characters like Trump. Really hard to believe, but this country is too big to succeed. That appears to be the end game for internal and external adversaries.
2
Mr. Brooks expounds a belief that business and markets contain a social and moral compass. Businesses determine their practices by complying with the boundaries established in regulations. Business does not have a moral code only a profit motive and concern over public image perception. Global warming is but one example. Exxon, among others, worked against the best interests of the future of this planet out of a profit motive not a more egalitarian theme. Pay scales within corporate structure reward those at the top far more than those at the middle and the bottom. Mr. Brooks is an apologist for the wealthy and powerful.
10
After reading Mr. Brooks' article, I checked out the Niskanen Center's website. Must say that I am very impressed by their positions on almost all the important policy issues. In particular, I liked their positions on climate change, social insurance, and health care. I liked it enough to make a small donation. I hope others check this Center out. It is refreshing to see that all "thinkers" are not bogged down in some ideological coop.
8
Besides the recognition that a libertarian who likes capitalism for economic growth but realizes the need for a government to ensure that growth benefit everyone is really a Social Democrat, Brooks has discovered another progressive point. Sometimes it is simpler and more efficient for a government to provide a necessary service rather than trying to create incentives or regulations to get the private sector to do it (healthcare being the obvious example).
8
I've enjoyed a lot of the things I've read from the Niskanen center but I'm a bit surprised there isn't a little more (deserved) self-congratulation from Mr. Brooks here. The Niskanen model isn't quite the "big government conservatism" Mr. Brooks used to push, but, it's not so distant either.
The idea's that the Niskanen Center proposes are interesting, and I intend to find out more about them. "Redistribution" is ok, "Regulation" is not good. That coupled with a free market seems to be the solution being espoused. I, however, have a difficult time seeing redistribution and free markets, existing without regulations. So, if we accept some regulations are needed, the debate must be how much is enough. That lands us in the mess we are now. Mr. Brooks is right -- climate change is science, but for society to doing anything to address climate change, unfortunately requires regulation.
4
It has been interesting to read Mr. Brooks these last few years as he has made a public journey of simultaneously holding on to and questioning his beliefs and priorities. I've made a point of following this as a way of seeing some sanity among the people who mostly support Trumpism.
We could all use the same measure of humility and open-mindedness. Here's to figuring it out.
6
@Brad Cazden It is fascinating to watch Mr Brooks evolve philosophically. I would like a Dave Brooks Republicans party. Maybe there are more potential members than Mr Brooks after all..
All the so called Libertarians in Congress, yes you Rand Paul, and all those mentioned in the article are men.
There is nothing, nada in their screeds that mentions women's reproductive freedom. In fact many are opposed to abortion.
Furthermore restrictions on land use prevents the land from being despoiled by industry and zoning protects the biggest asset of middle class families, their homes.
No thanks to this I am sticking with Bernie.
9
Thank you for pointing out the obvious: "People with single all-explaining ideologies have a tendency to let their philosophic blinders distort how they view empirical reality."
11
Yes, ideology is a security blanket of the mind for people who have to feel they always have a clear take on something. libertarianism is a very pure, attractive single concept, which is why it will never have much value for the messy real world.
Brooks describes libertarianism as valuing three main ideas: limited government, free markets, and individual rights. Really there is one main idea: individual rights; the others flow from that and the various terms are little more than public relations.
Keeping the focus on individual rights, it quickly becomes clear that the essential question is: Whose rights? And the libertarian answer, in practice, has always been the same: the rights of the rich and powerful trump (ahem) the rights of the rest. So now some offshoot recognizes that the right to clean air and clean water may be as important as the right to pollute in the name of (particular) economic benefit. What about the right to vote, to not be shot, to health care?
8
I’ve just quickly glanced at the report “The Center can Hold: Public Policy for the Age of Extremes” as its link is provided in the column; and found the report very theoretical. It is comprehensible, considerate, and even idealistically over-aiming. It is true that the report contains beautiful visions while not trying to over-reach utopia as an ideal in its arguments. But, I see in the arguments and its suggested goals as well, there is a presentation of practical difficulties for how to convey exactly what is proposed in the report. The assumption seems that all citizens and various institutions alike would, or should, or ought to be convinced to act for the best interest for the society to which they belong, regardless of any existing or foreseeing conflict of interests. This also appears to be a classically philosophical view combined with a cost and benefit analysis of the modern. If I dare to break it down, that would be said partially as ‘why does one choose the counter-benefit for the overall society?’ being asked. In my view, all citizens are not keen to take the Platonic stance, however. Conversely, I understand the report is addressing the issue to selective groups, which must be the function of a think tank. Despite all, Brooks is right. The report analytically shows a home of politics with a theoretical beauty. To me, it also stands on a center position between the classic and the modern, nicely.
6
Mr Brooks describes Republicans as primarily seeking less government and Democrats as wanting bigger government.
I prefer to see it a Republicans wanting to control and sell government to the highest bidder now, whilst the democrats want to practice good government that benefits the majority of Americans in the longer term.
The objectives of the Niskanen Center align well with the Democratic agenda bur are significantly at odds with the Republican agenda.
The free and unregulated economies of Canada / Scandinavia are all Democratic compatible. They are far away from the American Republican ideology.
The Canadians did not have to liberalize their economies to afford a welfare state. Their countries never went so far down the road of unbridled capitalism to need fixing.
Its funny, Mr Brooks but the Niagara Falls looks much better from the Canadian side. Maybe that should be a topic for your next column.
25
If I read this correctly( and I didn't read the report), the solution to our political impasse is to reduce government regulation and zoning laws, something Trump has been busy doing with executive orders. But, how can you square that with public welfare when most regulation is implemented for a reason? How would you like lead in your drinking water? Perhaps there is overkill here and their, but basically, regulation is what keeps the free enterprise economy from becoming a laissez-faire food fight. Reducing banking regulations may spur the economy but it lead to the largest economic meltdown since the great depression.
12
Thanks David for a ray of optimism in this gloomy time.
3
It's odd that while libertarians are always described as staunch supporters of individual rights you never hear of them taking the lead against mass incarceration?
Nowhere have our individual rights been more compromised than by this cruel, misguided and racist policy.
Mass incarceration begins with a violation of the 4th Amendment and the expansion of government surveillance. It includes violations of basic principles of due process and the restrictions have spread even to our schools and juvenile justice systems.
Rights to a fair trial and meaningful legal representation have been dismissed as 'more big government.' So where in all this new center libertarianism are the reforms against mass incarceration?
Could it be that the victims of this government abuse don't typically look like the boardrooms of libertarian think tanks so that certain individuals rights are more important than others?
5
As I watch Trump take a scorched earth approach to America's standing in the world and global leadership role, I find this column about a scarcely known institute with a philosophy that is embraced by so few in positions of authority to be so irrelevant to current challenge as to leave me speechless.
The world is burning and David is fiddling.
11
The surge of populism around the globe, the Trump election, Brexit, all of this is a repudiation of traditional politics. The powers that be, let down the ordinary folks. These people finally got tired of being taken for granted and reclaimed their power.
Lesson One: Those who govern to so on sufferance.
Lesson Two: Money is important, but it is votes that count.
Lesson Three: Share the wealth if you want to keep your job.
We must find a way of lifting up the people who have been hurt by job changes and the recession. They are about to be hit again with the recession that is just over the horizon. This could be your chance to prove you are capable of governing. Don't. Blow. It.
3
Optimistic or Pessimistic? Are you kidding me, I'm hiding my head under my blanket and spending as much time as I can in bed. You can't predict the future when chaos reigns today.
11
I feel that these so called "think" tanks take advantage of our terrible tax laws. Rich donors can fund them and receive tax advantages and these groups can spew out ideas supporting unregulated capitalism. Your "economic wonk," Paul Ryan will probably be hired by one of these "think tanks" after making a mess of the Federal debt and passing a terrible tax law.He wants to take away the safety net. Brooks always fails to cite how these nations have a much fairer system. Their economic policies provide for a living wage, health care, freer access to higher education and much more. Libertarianism is a joke in the 21st Century. Maybe it was suited to America of the 1790s but not today. The environment is very important today and a proactive Federal Government is needed to tackle these problems. We have a president who has the Midas Touch to use his office for personal gain but his impulsive decisions will have dire consequences. Putin must be quite satisfied that he elected a Manchurian Candidate.
6
While the disaster Mr. Brooks helped to create takes us by the neck, he once again gives us a book report. Paul Ryan the "wonk" was largely his creation, but now he's found yet another beach book to report on, telling us everything is going to be fine. This is what he does whenever the day's news is so dire, and the conservatives so manifestly responsible for it, that he doesn't dare talk about the material world. Time to burnish his credentials as the right wing's Show Intellectual. Hey, gang, he reads stuff! Meanwhile, Reason has shut down, and the Federalist Society backed Brett Kavanaugh.
6
Anytime an ideologue decides to step back and actually look at the evidence, there is much rejoicing in heaven. The mystery is why it would take so long for a Libertarian to decide he or she should abandon the cult. I remember back in the 70s when Libertarians on my college campus seriously argued that President Carter’s employees, locked in an Iranian compound during the hostage crisis, should be left to rot because they were leaches on the government tit. I realized then that Libertarians were the righty equivalent of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
Now let us ponder why wealthy donors have kept the Libertarians alive while the RCYB has deservedly withered and vanished.
3
It is not just these libertarians who ignored empirical evidence when considering an issue, in their case climate science.
The academic and activist hard left ignores the empirical evidence of microbiology, gene science, and evolution of human beings to argue, contrary to science, that in higher mammals in the primate family, i.e. humans, female and male are merely social constructs. Chromosomes are so yesterday.
Glad to hear that there is a new third way. The Clintons or at least the President once thought so, and he won twice. A whole lot of people are so fed up with narrow doctrinaire politics and a party (the GOP) which has gone off the rails, that we need more choices. As long as the left is in thrall of identity politics on steroids and shaming others as incipient racists, many will not find in them the alternative choice.
2
@Unworthy Servant
Indeed, the regressive/authoritarian left is a thorn in the side of classical leftists. Let's hope they mature.
This is exactly what Democrats like Clinton and Obama have been calling for. David Brooks makes it sound like this is new. It’s not. Again with the false equivalence by David Brooks.
On the local level, terribleness is bipartisan. Restrictive zoning and a lack of a land value tax will forever keep housing unaffordable for most of the American people. Rents and housing prices will always be high as the housing supply is artificially limited by these laws. In NYC and many other cities (and even in many rural areas), prices are high even adjusted for local incomes because high rents are passed on to consumers in everything (food, services, etc). Landlords are sucking the life out of every economy in the US.
Restrictive zoning and the lack of a land value tax are ushering us down the true road to serfdom. Feudalism redux.
3
“Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left.” This is just a dumb, thoughtless false equivalency. Pulling in Bernie to balance a scale with Trump is wrong and misleading. Bernie would have been a difference. Trump is a disaster.
8
Funny that while Niskanen Institute seems so open-minded: they're not. They have excluded representation of 50% of the population: women. There is not 1 woman's name in all of their "Great Thoughts by & for White Men." How can they just ignore women's concerns (like helping children thrive,) while claiming to address an economic system for "all?"
6
@CNS
David Brooks and his Niskanen friends seem to think the ideals of European social democracies are some sort of newfangled notion they're bringing to the discussion. While I'm glad they're finally paying attention, I'm skeptical that they have what it takes for develop really creative solutions to US economic inequality.
2
@CNS
Read the Libertarian Platform for the 2016 election.
There are no women there, either.
Men's bodies are individually owned by the self-same man, but women are relegated off to "local standards", as if they are "community property".
Ah, the Platonic Ideal of "wives will be held in common" and passed around for the man's pleasure is alive and well in the Libertarian Ideal.
Whether a woman needs an abortion is left up to that famous category of "community standards", meaning if the woman resides in the wrong community, then she can just shut up or go find another "community".
Of course, all of this flies right over David's head.
I've read him for years and not once has he ever touted women's rights to their own body.
This bunch are no different and I'm not surprised that he has come up with a new Man-crush, a new Bromance.
1
Yes, we'd all like to live in Scandinavia. But when Bernie was running he was dismissed as a Scandinavian fantasist--after all, it "can't happen here." And let me know when Alabama starts to look like Canada.
2
One needs bread crumbs to follow this line of thought. In other words Brooks, finally realizing his conservative ethos is destroying the country, repackages progressive thought and doctrine in conservative jargon, thus making it palatable. I guess I should be happy that he is finally seeing the light. However comments such as the false equivalency between Sanders and Trump had me fuming before I even arrived at the crux of his lame argument.
He still won’t let go of some of his archaic bias such as the notion of the “benefits” provided by charter schools. Most of the enlightened societies Brooks mentions have well funded, teacher friendly, public school systems. Not a bunch Capitalists bilking children for profit. I guess his prep boy slip is showing.
5
We desperately need thoughtful redistribution. Power comes with wealth and we see that effect as the very wealthy grab power all over the world. They do it by convincing people who are suffering because of economic change to hate and fear.
We also need thoughtful regulation. Too much regulation is indeed harmful and we should be debating on what that means. Instead, we have a president who thinks just eviscerating regulation is the answer. The very rich use deregulation to increase their wealth while the rest of us, or our children, will have to pay the bill.
The Republican answer has been that it's up to individuals to adapt and make the best of their situation. Yes, we need some sense of individual responsibility in society, but that is no longer the point. People are killing themselves because they don't see any way forward. Sometimes the self-murder is suicide; sometimes it's the use of drugs or alcohol.
Maybe people are finally seeing the truth though the fog produced by Trump and his cronies. The question remains: what will they do about it?
3
@Betsy S Tx you for thoughtful comment. Among the good points is the power that goes with wealth.
Yesterday Brett Stephens declared that Trump and Elizabeth Warren were both similarly extremist. Today Brooks does the same with Trump and Bernie. Trump is out for Trump, while Elizabeth and Bernie are out for everyone. As other commenters have noted, these are false equivalences. Not everyone who wears a hat is bald.
9
@Michael Simmons Why do you decide for me? Sanders and his “democratic socialism” do not represent my views, my interests and my beliefs. His ideology is poison and if implemented (highly unlikely) will ruin this country. So are you saying that he is for “everyone” except for people who disagree with him? Then how is he different from Trump?
The first people to be for smaller, more efficient and transparent government were the Founders, the writers of the Constitution.
These people and their neighbors had risked all to get free of a progressive zealot pushing big government named George III.
Today's progressives are aiming at a point between a King and a military junta where Insiders (the Clintons) never have to answer for the worst actions while Outsiders (anyone working for Pres, Trump) are never given a hint of justice.
But EVERY time it has been tried, the farther a decision is made from the people affected, the costs jump higher, oversight disappears, and justice is never done.
THIS is why Trump is our President and why Hillary jumps every time she hears the phrase ''federal grand jury.''
Yes, the federal government has a few specified duties - the ones actually IN the Constitution.
If you can't swear to uphold it, you should never ask to be elected to any office in this ountry.
I haven’t read the Niskanen report but from Mr. Brooks’ summary I find nothing objectionable - or particularly new - in the claim that the combination of capitalism and welfare state is the best social-political arrangement humanity has created so far. All the alternatives - socialism, communism, the fascist corporate state, theocracy, anarchy and so on - are immeasurably worse. Of course, the devil is in the details: how much regulations can the free market endure without collapsing and how generous the welfare state should be without creating a permanent underclass. As Mr. Brooks correctly notes, the Nordic countries are now correcting their course by encouraging high-tech entrepreneurship and somewhat limiting welfare. I have always found it both hilarious and irritating how clueless American “liberals” refer to European countries as socialist. There has not been a socialist country in Europe since the collapse of the USSR. The changes in welfare and regulations in Europe go back and forth within a relatively narrow band of rational policy. “Rational”, however, is not a word I would apply to the US debate between free-market theocrats and “democratic socialists”.
1
The “new” center has existed for decades. All these years The conservatives and the libertarians have created unnecessary pain and suffering for the middle class and the needy by insisting and developing intellectually dishonest philosophy that the supportive state and the free market economy are mutually exclusive. All of us have paid a price for those false ideologies, including the tea parties and finally the trumpism.
The road back to realities will be extremely torturous and might take such a long time that the world might leave us behind, we full of strife and seemingly rudderless.
5
I don't think libertarians have much use for "the commons", or anything else that smacks of the public estate. I can't afford to buy my own park, or even a share or two in Bedminster. I can't afford to buy my own highway, either. And thanks to the mess that American health care has become, I also can't afford to get sick. And who can afford education any more?
There is no middle, just muddles as far as the eye can see.
3
"Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left.'
I can't recall Bernie ever proposing anything nearly as extreme as the extreme, dangerous and foolish nonsense that comes out of Trump's head on a daily basis.
9
Much of the ideas in this article mirror the writings of John Dewey, over one-hundred years ago---at the core of pragmatism was discarding ideological blinders---or dualistic thinking---and embracing "what works" based on empirical reality.
4
I read all your columns and agree with about 30% of them. I consider myself a progressive, but I also think I need to step back and view issues froma factual basis. For instance, The Skeptical Inquirer recently published an article re: left wing scence bias: Why be against GMO agriculture as a whole without scientific evidence?
I especially enjoy your columns about our society as a whole. Thank you.
We had our shot at thinking like this. But we ran Gary Hart out of national life. Not for a one-cruise stand, but for puncturing the veil of sanctimony we drape over our hypocrisies when he asked reporters if they really prefer puerile gossip to serious issues.
They did, and we do. Is it too late? We can give the all-clear sign as soon as we are ready.
4
Zoning? Freedom from zoning? Brooks needs to get out more and drive through a state free of zoning. And beyond that, this revelation that dogma has limitations could have been written by my 10 year old granddaughter.
2
Talking of single minded ideological attachment. As long as the notion of "creative destruction", an idea that must had ignited the young David's imagination, remains in tact, he like a puppy will follow it to the end(s) of the earth.
2
Once again, David Brooks indulges in false equivalence, claiming that "Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left."
Donald Trump is a madman, motivated entirely by his bigotries. Bernie Sanders advocates for health care for all, just as is enjoyed by every other citizen of every other developed country on the planet. Bernie Sanders advocates for paid medical leave, as everyone enjoys in every other developed nation in the world.
Enough with the false equivalencies. Enough!
7
I know this went to press hours ago, but I've never been more pessimistic about our nation's future than I am right now.
Will the last cabinet member to leave please turn out the lights?
2
The Niskanen Center seems to have some good ideas for reforming conservatism.
The problem is that Fox news will never go along with any of it.
1
Alleluia,
At last! A conservative finally recognises the dangers of ideologue-idolatry which has infected most of the right and is business as usual for the extreme left. Bill Maher made the point that the welfare state secures market based capitalism a while ago on his TV show. Will the right wing listen now that David Brooks has said it?
Fun fact: economics has nothing to say on the optimal division between state run and private run economic activity - what matters is what is most effective for society's primary goals.
Function is what matters not form and the discourse in the US and Brexit in the UK has been all about form- useless, destructive, shortsighted and frankly besides the point.
A case in point: attacking immigration is a sure fire sign of a bankrupt politics that has run out of ideas or is defending itself against the inconvenience of fact that tramples on its ideology. For immigrants are the easiest of targets and lack the ability to come together and defend themselves in the public square.
Now to get the political class and the uninformed electorate on side....more columns like this Mr Brooks please....
1
You "feeling at home" with these ideas might be believable if not for all the contrary evidence for such left by many, many of your previous opinions.
You still haven't taken responsibility for the role you played in getting trump elected with the help of your incessant false equivalencies during the last presidential campaign.
6
David, nothing new here,...you just described FDR's New Deal redistributive policies that reigned for decades ( 30s,40s,50s,60s,) and represented the Golden Era of America's middle class. In other words REGULATED capitalism "Free markets" AND welfare state. Cananda,Sweden, Denmark and Germany just copied FDR's New Deal. (Stronger unions,Soc.Security,Medicare for All ,Tuition free college through GI Bill that built middle class, etc etc.) C'mon, just admit it, you pine for the days of The New Deal that conservatives and Reaganism dismantled since the '80s.
9
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America’s future?
Does Brooks still know how to anchor a column or conversation with a rhetorical device other than the overly simplistic and reductive either/or framework that increasingly appears to be his default?
2
The title is wrong. What you describe is not a new center- it is an attempt at a reasonable Right Wing.
Sounds like FDR to me. Oh, by the way, he was a Democrat. Don't use the labels you have. It is merely a way to avoid responsibility for the crisis that you have brought us to as Republicans. Don't mask it by telling me that you a "one of the good ones." You voted in the people who have systematically looted the Treasury with the phony cries of "lower taxes", while cutting services and driving up the national debt to dangerous levels. If you want to come "home", vote Democratic.
2
The king of the false equivalency strikes again. You really want to make Bernie Sanders the left equivalent of Donald Trump? You have to be kidding me. David, please stop with the easy rhetorical crutch just because it's easy. You know how to work hard.
3
This past week when the NYT CEO and Chief White House Correspondent interviewed Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland resisted usual Canadian humility and declared us the greatest nation on the planet the NYT interviews knew enough not to argue what is the truth.
Most of the "radical" Sanders policies span the Canadian political spectrum. America is despite my optimism and that of many Americans is on the verge of collapse. The conservative movement has drowned America in the bathtub.
i suspect there will be a military coup before the next election and I suspect the military will have the support of upwards of 60% of the American population as it is the only American institution whose reputation is still intact.
Libertarianism is only possible when respect for others is an imperative and people accept people like Ayn Rand are free to cavort in the all together with young men in the great outdoors. That is not part of the American DNA.
In 1948 Canada's most extreme right wing government introduced government funded hospital care for all Albertans. When Albertans finally voted in a less right wing Conservative government it continued funding healthcare, education and welfare as would Bernie Sanders and the most extreme American liberal. Alberta now has a democratic socialist government. Alberta's wealth belongs to all Albertans . Alberta is really conservative but it has great schools, great hospitals and a welfare system that is the envy of any real democracy.
3
I appreciate and welcome a third option!! Thank You
I'm having the oddest sensation: David Brooks might be right, for once! How long has it been?
The problem with libertarians is that while they are much more likeable than doctrinaire right-wingers, they tend to mope when they see that their philosophy gets a little ridiculous when carried to its logical endgame in the real world.
The Niskanen Center sounds like a rehab facility for recovering libertarians, but the discovered truth which caused the founders of the new think tank to break from the Cato Institute was never a secret to the vast majority of Americans.
The solutions to problems in real life are almost always found in the middle of the road, rather than in the ditches on the left and the right.
The bell-curve probability of clear thinking in the middle is anathema to ideologues, whether they be on the radical right or the extreme left. There's not much money in it on the lecture circuit.
No news here, folks. Please move along.
2
What is new to my mind is that YOU can finally hear what a lot of others have been saying for a long time.
Would I be correct in guessing that the messenger this time is a bunch of white men about your age? If that is what it takes, so be it. But honestly, these guys did not invent this boat. They're among the last to try to get on it.
Welcome aboard, David et al.
1
As usual, Brooks's (and people like Niskanen) epiphany only seems like an epiphany because they've been basing their beliefs on false premises.
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
Wrong! Liberals have never believed in "bigger government" just for its own sake! Rather, we believe that a well-run government has the ability to provide services for the citizenry in ways that free markets can't. Government doesn't need to be "big"; rather, it needs to be just big enough to do its job well.
And I bet you can't name a single Liberal who ever wished for a "regulatory state" as the goal! We Liberals have always believed in meaningful regulation simply to "ensure quality" (as Brooks put it), or for common-sense protection (e.g. gun control, clean water, etc.).
All along, it's been the Republicans (led by Saint "Government is the Problem" Reagan) that have twisted the definition of what Liberals actually stand for. Brooks et al got brainwashed by the Kool-Aid (and wrapped up in their own tribalistic impulses).
Suddenly Brooks et al are realizing that the things we Liberals have stood for all along are actually reasonable and good. But they can't deign to acknowledge that they were duped by their own charicature of us; so they fall back on their trope, and claim to be coming up with OUR ideas all on their own.
You can thank us later.
5
As long as people can make a good living from their "ideology", they'll hold it dear. Like the executioner of olden days did.
1
Think tanks. Entities funded by some rich person to try to put some intellectual heft behind shaky ideas.
Real movements come from real and everyday people seeking justice---economic and social justice.
1
@Art Seaman
Yes. "Astro-turf" Tea-Party and "Freedom Caucus" versus "grassroots" common sense.
1
In the last couple weeks, I've seen multiple articles in leading magazines all praising the Niskanen Center and citing almost identical talking points.
It almost feels like there is product placement going on...
9
It's very hard to take David serious when he starts with comparing Trump and Sanders as extremists. Trump is off the charts on almost all measures of being bad for the country. Sanders is off the charts based on the ideas of the US Republicans. It's not even close.
11
the ancient wisdom of Sir Isaiah Berlin, not all good things are compatible. the realization that values are unverifiable and competing is the foundation of any civilized order. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once wrote a book , government is the art of coping just as life is. thank you mr. Brooks for the reference to the Centrist group
When I studied economics from Samuelson's textbook, ninth edition, in 1973, I found enormous praise for the extraordinary success of what Samuelson called the "modern mixed state". What Samuelson called the mixed state is what Brooks in this essay calls a "free-market welfare state".
It is sad that Mr. Brooks has lived in blinders for so long that he considers this forty-five-year-old observation to be a "fresh new way". But ... better late than never.
4
Much of this ideology sounds lovely, but we are in a climate crisis. This is a time when we need urgent action, or we will not be able to continue any philosophical discussions.
The United States is currently falling quickly behind the advanced countries of the world, who are all moving to develop sophisticated and powerful sustainable alternatives in energy and transportation, as well as hosting a far healthier and more able population. It is past time for conservatives to understand that this crisis will not go away until we all work together, including principles of the Green New Deal.
11
This one sentence, in my view, is a good reflection of what is wrong with the thinking of many so-called pundits in the US:
“Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left.”
First, “The Donald Trump right” does not exist. Labelling Trump’s completely incoherent lunacy as based in some kind of ideology is nonsense; it is quite offensive to the actual “right”. Trump does not even understand what an ideology could be.
Calling Sanders a representative of the extreme left is just as nonsensical. I read the Niskanen Center report Brooks linked to. I challenge him to point out where Sanders’ ideas are radically different from the content of this report. I could not find one such item.
In the country I live in, The Netherlands (another one of those truly liberal democracies like Sweden, Denmark and Canada), Sanders would represent the very center of our political spectrum, as middle-of- the-road as you can be.
85
Well said! Surprised how Brooks and other center-right pundits miss how far right our “center” has become compared to other advanced countries.
8
@Ton van Lierop on whether The Trump right does not exist? Maybe not formally, however the conservative right media stars: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, AnnCoulter, and the Fox media pantheon render Trump as a mere avatar for their confederate conservatism. This was evidenced by yesterday's reversal on the interim Congressional year end budget agreement and Trump's sudden reversal on his wall requirement. They are in power with a grip on this nation via the media and simply put, don't give a damn - they will rule because they have very very successfully conflated social fears with economic greed. I am not optimistic.
1
Sorry, Mr. Brooks, but you've taken the bait and swallowed it whole. These thoughtful thinkers are weighted down with tons of agenda bias and are doomed to miss the main cogs in the economic and policy wheels. Prosperity will always be tied to individual initiative and government will always dampen opportunity. The only solution is Wide Open Free trade with weak governments and vast free movement with minimal boarders. Human cooperation with weak governments following diverse enterprise models where goods and services can be accessed from anywhere ( except dog walkers).
@terry brady says that "government will always dampen opportunity", and hence supports "weak governments".
But if he's right about the dampening, then he should support not weak government, but no government. And if he really does think no government (that is, anarchy) is such a good idea, then he should move to the Central African Republic, where there is no government.
Of course, then he'd have to put up with gangs of armed hooligans, but that's what Mr. Brady says he wants!
@Dan Styer, Sorry Dan, I was just plugging dog walkers. No, that's not true. I was making fun of David that is in the wilderness seeking a savior. He is untethered and alone. No friends and so, he hoping to become buddies with these worn out hacks.
@terry brady. We already have minimal boarders as most Americans own, or rent, their homes. Very few people pay for room and board.
1
Ideologues are the Problem not the Solution.
It is good to see some Libertarians in the USA becoming more Libertarian. Your article also points out that non Idologue countries such as Canada, Sweden and Denmark can do well with a strong safety net and a capitalistic economy.
John Keynes and Friedrich Keynes, the two friendly rivals in economic Theory, would be happy that some of their ideas have grown successfully together in some countries.
1
You cite a provocative Niskanen paper, The Center Can Hold. I would like to quote this passage that comes from a conservative, libertarian think tank. It is stunning, succinct and essentially accurate.
"The bloated and crisis-prone U.S. financial sector is the beneficiary of mammoth regulatory subsidies, including tax preferences for both debt and saving, the Fed’s lender of last resort function, deposit insurance, and implicit guarantees for financial institutions deemed “too big to fail.” These subsidies prop up and perpetuate a highly unstable system dependent on extreme levels of leverage — and thus dangerously sensitive to relatively minor fluctuations in asset values. Having flung the barn door wide open, regulators then try to control the bolting cattle of excessive risk-taking with a web of highly complex and thus easily gameable restrictions. The result is regular flirtations with disaster punctuated by periodic cataclysms, with terrible consequences for both economic and political well-being. And between crises, the financial sector chronically wastes resources and sacrifices productivity gains by misdirecting capital to those uses where financiers can most readily take a cut."
25
After a foray into the Niskanen Center and their writings, I am encouraged by what I read. However, David, I do not think these ideas are really that fresh. The conversation about the limits of ideological thinking has been taking place for a long time. So too reflection on individual rights and responsibilities/duties to the common good. It's just that we have forgotten in our politics what most people in daily life experience. Life is difficult, complex, and rare does a simple formulation hold across all situations. The Niskanen Center's philosophers are making an important contribution nonetheless. Now can you get Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren et. al. to read and reflect on these essays?
5
David Brooks writes of our economic and political problems that "people will figure it out." But I think that a lot of people figured out nearly a century ago that America should have a market economy coupled with a genuine welfare system. There is a word for those people who have not figured it out: they're called "conservatives."
26
The vision of the Niskanen Center (has anyone heard of them?) is interesting and economic security for everyone is the key to the future if we have one. Also, any movement away from libertarianism on the Right is hopeful but does this represent a new center or just an intriguing idea that goes nowhere?
I wish I could believe Mr. Brooks, but I just don't see this new vision taking hold on the Right. The Republican Party serves the interests of the rich and there is nothing here that they will embrace. Mr. Brook believes the Right rejects climate change because they are ideologues, but they reject climate change because it serves the interests of the oil companies.
The Republican Party is the party of deregulation, tax cuts and trickle down. Their basic philosophy is simple, let people keep their wealth and the benefits of their industry will trickle down to the rest of us. It never does. However, the Republicans’ ‘ideologies’ are only meant to allow them to push policies that make the rich very happy.
These ideas will be more welcome in the Democratic party where the idea of economic justice is still strong. The problem on the Left is the social justice warriors who keep alienating people from the party and they will dominate the next election cycle. The only Democrat Trump can beat is one spouting the language of the #metoo movement, black lives matter and white privilege.
And that’s why I am pessimistic about America’s future.
3
The concept that "the nations with the freest markets also have the most generous welfare states", such as in Sweden and Denmark, can only succeed if the rich in those countries are not uber-greedy and are willing to pay more in taxes in exchange for the privileges they enjoy.
In the US, the uber-rich only want to get uber-richer. Billions in net worth are not enough for the Kochs, Schwartzmans, Adelsons, Ricketts, Mercers and the like. They want to pay even less in taxes, even if it means social and educational programs must be slashed. Their businesses no longer provide defined benefit pensions or medical benefits for their retirees who served them for decades, yet they still want to slash Social Security and Medicare so they can keep even more money.
They have essentially decided that being worth $3 billion or $5 billion or $10 billion is not enough. The issue is not free markets vs. welfare state. It is win-lose. They don't care about the rest of the citizenry, so long as they can take all they can. Trump is their perfect symbol.
Any form of government has to work for most of the people it governs. If it doesn't, the People will make a change. A democratic government run by billionaires for their own benefit eventually will be replaced by something different. Their greed and failure to compromise and act with humanity will bring change. But by then, collective anger at at the uber-greedy class may make the balanced model Mr. Brooks espouses politically untenable.
21
@Jack Sonville
The thing is, the rich don't know any of the rest of us. We're all just the poor, huddled masses. They have their chartered jets, gated communities, exclusive clubs. Their social lives revolve around not having to associate with anyone but the "best" (meaning richest) people.
So their view of how people really operate and what they really need is all just fantasy-- if they think about what working people need at all. If they manage to corrupt government so that it robs the poor instead of supporting its citizens, that's not a sin or a crime; that's being "smart".
All that wouldn't matter, of course, if they couldn't buy off our elected officials. But, of course, they can.
2
@Jack Sonville Most of America's super-wealthy are Democrat activists. Facts do matter.
@Tina Trent
Really, Tina? Do you have a list with every billionaire's party identification? Or did you just finish watching Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter? I listed several who identify Republican and can list several more. I can also list several who are likely Democrat, like Tom Steyer and Bill Gates. And some are hard to classify, like Bloomberg and Buffet. And a lot of the Silicon Valley types, who you might think are Democrats, actually are closet Republicans mostly because they hate paying taxes. So please don't give me the "facts matter" tag line when you have no facts in your comment.
Rigid ideology causes societal fragility. Just as an investor needs a diverse portfolio for stability, society needs a diverse portfolio of ideas to address the challenge of modern reality. Why discard any tools in the toolbox based on simplistic theories?
3
I don't disagree with David's hope. But when many spend their time listening to right wing talk radio and Fox News, we end up with a class of people who are impenetrable to truth - and who, because of the way the two parties are embedded in the system, get to control the agenda of one party - the Republican Party.
So dream on David.
8
In the late 1980's, an untethered, troubled girl boarded a before sunrise bus to Tallahassee to participate in a comprehensive civics immersion program called Girls State. The boys equivalent had hosted John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Stephen Miller. The Ladies Auxiliary of the Foreign Legion championed this girl, even providing clothes, shoes, mad money for the trip, a serious stretch for their senior citizen purses. The primary purpose of the retreat was to learn how government functions, maybe even pass a law. From the outset, girls were segregated into two defined groups. For five days, each "party" fought to elect their respective leadership, while developing a package of laws for consideration. The girl, having come from chaos and instability, worries of basic survival, struggled among those fighting for what seemed incidental to food, shelter and clean water. Experienced in the void delivered by conflict, she avoided the fray. In opposition to the rules, she began a unilateral campaign to unite the entire caucus under one umbrella, The Unification Party. It didn't go over well with the Koch affiliated sponsors. While all the other girls fought one another, she ignored the division, listened, and united them around one common issue both sides cared about. Deflecting to what united them rather than what divided them. That year, only one bill was signed into law. Not by winning for the left or right, but by merely centering on what was unequivocally critical... Right Now.
6
I don't share Brooks' optimism. However thoughtful Niskanen's ideas may or may not be, to implement any kind of change requires effective political coalitions. From my perspective, I see no emerging centrist coalition.
I do see a small but potent far right coalition in the Freedom Caucus buttressed by Donald Trump's know-nothing base. These aren't people who want to "figure things out," but rather a strange cohort of ill-informed voters who thrive on disruption for disruption's sake.
I'm not at all encouraged.
2
Interesting, but, how do we get to the"elaborate redistributive state" that makes this plan work? We live in a system which is designed for money hoarders and which system has been enhanced by the last tax cut to increase the opportunity to hoard. Until capitalism takes on monopolies, inheritance (i.e. the monopoly of money) and changes tax laws to a trickle up economy: make sure the masses have money so they may spend, this idea is a purely philosophical exercise with no practical application.
5
Good stuff. I associate this with K-wave theory, the idea that we have turned over our governing societal and economic paradigm about every 50-60 years since the Industrial Revolution. I wrote a book on the subject but am not here to flog it.
1
Indeed. Life isn't yin OR yang; it's yin AND yang. We're all glad Mr. Brooks has come around to feeling at home with applying that ancient philosophy to government, civics, and society.
Now, if Mr. Brooks can get to work helping those at the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute, and Cato and all the others, come around to that notion, maybe this country can get back on track to making progress toward a better life for all of us.
6
Actually, Bernie Sanders' approach doesn't differ that much from what you are proposing. And if you would like too get a rough idea of how it may function in practice, look at the social market economy (soziale Marktwirtschaft) that has worked well for Germany over the past six and a half decades - despite occasional interference by the country's own "ordoliberals".
6
I completely agree with Mr. Brooks. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party do not reflect the American Spirit of Compromise. And yes, the two parties do not reflect my centrist point of view. Socialism is a failure (no reward for incentives). Libertarianism is a failure (no care for the poor). We need what we always have needed regulated capitalism.
5
So how does this philosophy of free markets, concern for the environment, together with a strong welfare state including Medicare for All, differ from Bernie Sanders who you put on the extreme left?
37
It seems that this "new" center is much closer to the policies advocated by the Democratic Party than the Republicans. As a side note, many European countries appear to be freer of economic regulation according to Brooks; however there is very strong governmental regulation regarding clean air and water, education, health care and gun control. What does the Niskanen Center think of that
10
The arguments made by Niskanen Center Head, Jerry Taylor in the article that Brooks cites and links, remind me of some of the concepts from Louis Mennards book, The Metaphysical Club. The non-ideological “moderation” that Taylor advocates seems seems to be pretty close to the philosophy of pragmatism espoused by Oliver Wendall Holmes and William James.
Has David Brooks switched from being a Burkean conservative to an American Pragmatist?
By way of further parallel, the stronger social welfare system advocated by the Niskanen Center seems fairly close to the social programs supported by pragmatist, John Dewey.
3
Thank you Dr. Brooks for sharing these insights. There is so much loose talk in DC today (from you know who) that lauds Norway (white) for its people and culture, and yet on the other hand shows contempt for the very policies that make places like Norway great. If we want MAGA we don't need a wall of shame or illiberal policies; we do need an infrastructure that supports children, families, and the elderly.
7
@Pat: David Brooks has many accomplishments, but not a doctorate.
Having met William Niskanen at a graduate seminar in economics at the University of Michigan four decades ago, I was impressed by his allegiance to the truth over ideology. A professor of business economics who had served aa advisor to President Ford, Dr. Niskanen earned the respect of both conswrvative and liberal colleagues. His approach to navigating the shoals of economic policy was decidedly balanced between the extremes of blind faith in market efficiency and harsh rebuke of soulless market distribution of wealth.
In this regard he hewed close to Paul Samuelson's timeless theme; Markets Succeed and Markets Fail.
2
A lot of people would consider the scandinavian countries to be social democracies rather than centrist. Of course, it is challenging to identify which current countries would be the best example of centrism.
2
Bernie wants companies to behave, and the market rewards some sorts of misbehavior. So governments have to act as referees and penalize the misbehavior so it stops. The current Republican Party is opposed to the welfare state and tries to chip away at the New Deal.
The market plus the welfare state is the Democrats.
17
Time goes only in one direction but it always goes.
Here in Quebec these are the best of times. We are among the strongest economies in the world and in Canada are now a have province. Our government is running a surplus and we are a welfare state. NY 21 immediately to Montreal's South is Republican a little over 100 years ago was as wealthy as any area on Earth. When I was growing up NY 21 seemed awfully wealthy compared to the rural Quebec on our side of the border.
Fifty years ago the quiet revolution overthrew 450 years of European conservative governance. We now have good governance which responds to need not ideology. We are a middle-class society and our government responds to the needs and desires of our overwhelmingly middle-class citizens.
We are the big hole in the middle where most Americans used to be, not rich but secure and confident in the future with enough of what we need.
NY 21 is Republican and believes Reaganism can take them back to the fifties and sixties but it is more like the 30s. North of NY21 on the other side of an imaginary line things are booming. People don't always make good choices.
Things are getting better in Blue America especially in the cities and things are getting worse in Red America yet they still vote red. I really don't understand American conservatism you seem to relish bad government just so you can complain.
34
The one thread that holds Brooks's political columns together is that he just can't ever admit to supporting the democratic party, no matter whether he agrees with their policies or disdains the current GOP and Trump. So even here, where he wants to support a rational common sense approach, he has to invent a "new center" to bring it about.
91
I agree that Mr. Brooks will never fess up to the word “ democrat” because the he would lose his status as the token conservative/republican op ed columnist for the NYT and the PBS news hour. Some day his conscience will overcome his career need to be a voice from the right.
Libertarianism is predicated on the farce that there is such a thing as "less regulation." I paraphrase what John Dewey aptly stated, "getting rid of the umpire doesn't mean there are no rules anymore, it simply means the people or person who will enforce them has changed."
A second fallacy that Libertarians would like us all to believe is that corporations will be benevolent and responsible to the populace.
49
@Aleutian Low
Companies have to answer to the Law.
Looking at recent American history, you have to admit that certain people in the federal government will NEVER have to answer to the Law.
Thus, let's have companies do almost everything and the gov't as little as possible, if ONLY for the peoples' sakes.
2
@L'osservatore
"The law" is also known as ... the thing enforced by the government, so that formula is circular at best.
At worst, and in practice, it tends to make that replacement the other way around: "let's have companies do almost everything and the law as little as possible."
Of course, this is kind of beside the point of Brooks's decent article. Sometimes each is necessary.
5
It is interesting to note, that as with charter schools, Mr Brooks moves in issues not supported by studies. The Devil is in the details, and in this case Mr Brooks is the devil rearranging the details for what he has always wanted.
Entrenched is what we refer to Mr Brooks thoughts. Most well off countries have restrictive zoning. Yet, there is another area that Mr Brooks ignores reality.
I am all for corporations that follow laws. I am all for trade. All for banking and lending that bails out deposit holders but lets the lenders themselves fail when they should. I am all for a safety net that protects people not jobs or unions.
But I am not for Mr Brooks and his insertion of bad ideas and claiming a middle when it is really the same well trod "conservative" thoughts from thirty years ago and hardly repackaged with less support than a trump lie.
If Mr Brooks wants the middle, intellectual honesty is a place to start.
16
Most of the commenters here are unaware of how radically the countries of northern Europe and Canada have deregulated their corporate and labor markets, how countries like Sweden have turned to charter schools, how Denmark is run (in coalition) by a right wing party hostile to immigration. The governments of these countries do not look like the Democratic party. Yes, they have strong social welfare programs, but they have embraced market ideas that the Democratic party is still very hostile to, particularly the Bernie Sanders side of the party.
8
@Tom
Which is fine. If the Republican party becomes the party of strong social welfare programs and market ideas, then there could be a legitimate competition to be had.
7
@Tom: please list the "market ideas that the Democratic party is still very hostile to".
I confess that I don't know of any. To tax a market, to regulate a market, to provide cash so that markets function, to set up a "cap-and-trade" market, to participate in a market (such as the post office) --- none of these ideas are "hostile" to markets, indeed all of them are central to markets.
So please, Tom, tell us all what you mean by this hostility.
1
Optimism is a luxury for those who can afford to believe that they have options. It's phenomenal to see a journalist publicly expressing the one view that no one expects them to hold, but it's also a bit disconcerting.
Friedrich Nietzsche said to never underestimate the power of mediocrity, while Mr. Brooks says to never underestimate the power of human ingenuity. I underestimate neither, because they are all too familiar.
"Libertarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes limited government, free markets and individual rights."
Libertarianism is a philosophy like Communism is a plausible economic system. Looks good on paper, until you turn into Rand Paul. It takes about a day of Philosophy 101 to realize that, to be a Libertarian, you simply need to be a latent moral relativist.
"I felt liberated to see the world in fresh new ways, and not only in the ways I’ve always seen them or the way people with my label are supposed to see them. I began to feel at home."
Congratulations, Dorothy. Your dog is still dead, you've just been living in a technicolor fantasy.
11
The policy platform you describe has a name: "left libertarianism." With the caveat that I haven't read the Niskanen report, it sounds like libertarianism now entertains policy ideas that have been out there from the left for some time —the very same ideas the right and the media, kowtowing to an indifferent or nonexistent center, categorically misinterpret and misreport. If that is what is needed to bring warring political ideologies together and provide for universal health care, tackle (at long last) global warming, increase social mobility, and address income inequality, then I welcome it.
5
Put people first, and the priorities that guide decision making come into focus right away.
27
A more important distinction one has to make between progressive nations like Denmark, Sweden and Canada and the American state is that those progressive countries have representative governments that reflect the democratic will of the people, whereas the USA is a corrupted right-wing oligarchic state that has mastered the art of voter suppression, voter nullification and fake elections.
Those countries are doing the right things because they are democracies, where America is a practical joke of a democracy, with oligarchs funding their political front men to destroy the will of the people while feeding them fear, propaganda and the best disinformation campaign since Joseph Goebbels ceased operations.
When Europe and Canada were rolling out socialized and universal healthcare decades ago, American was busy building the single greatest healthcare rip-off in the world while chanting 'free-market' insanity and sociopathy.
While Europe's and Canada's conservative parties would be labeled 'liberal' in the USA, America has a 'conservative' party that is a neo-fascist, flag-waving, Bible-thumping bucket of racism, guns and religion that would be relegated to the extreme radical fringe in other countries.
Lord Brooks can prattle on all he wants about 'redistribution' and regulation', but the the central debate in our politics is whether or not America believes in representative government.
One party does, and the other party can't stand it.
That's your Grand Old Problem.
604
@Socrates
You're spot-on, having cut right to the core: our systemic election/representation problems.
And do any of those better run countries have to contend with anything like our powerful US Senate - where smaller population states get voting representation at rates that are, in some cases, exponentially higher than the citizens in larger population states are allowed? I was taught, as a kid, how wise and balanced our form of governance is. As an adult, I've come to fully understand how monstrously anti-democratic our senate "representation" system really is. It has to be changed, it's an anachronistic, legacy-institution, and it's poisonous to equal representation.
73
@Socrates. To begin the process of renewal Citizens United needs to be reversed then some serious campaign finance reforms implemented. Stop Congress from spending half its time going across the street dialing for dollars and the other half taking K Street lobby money. Congress does what big money tells it to do not what voters want.
As far as hate radio, Fox and Friends, and the 40% that support Trump and the GOP go I have no idea how to fix those people. They are just broken.
69
@Socrates
And this is why we need public funding of elections, with strict low three digit limits on contributions to individual campaigns, and no corporate or organizational contributions at all--and yes, conservatives who are about to scream, this included unions and liberal think tanks.
And, of course, we need Citizens United legislatively overturned and the Fairness Doctrine re-instituted.
It is impossible for elected representatives to truly represent their constituents when they must rely on operating cash from a small cadre of greedy oligarchs whose interests are not those of most.
40
The Niskanen Report, as Brooks describes it, seems like another conservative attempt to enshrine unregulated capitalism (while buying off the lower income levels of society). Unfortunately, unregulated capitalism metastasizes into monopolistic control of economies and political systems. Right wing apologias such as the Niskanen report are designed to deceive and distract, as Brooks attempts to do as well.
18
I live in Alabama where single issues seem to dominate how people vote. Abortion is one of those single issues and people will tell you that is the only issue that matters to me. Trump will continue to get the votes of these people no matter what he does.
Life is very simple to the one issue voters.
19
@Areader AMEN. And thank you for this truth. A nun I knew once told me when I asked her about the abortion issue: “WE CAN’T BE ONE-ISSUE VOTERS.” That was in the early 1990s, and we can see how little has changed in so many areas of the nation.
@Areader Got an idea then. Pass a law forbidding Alabama women from having abortions anywhere. That way it would apply not just to the often-poor, often-abused women on the margins, but to the debutantes and trophy wives as well.
We in the godless blue states will be glad to reciprocate by forbidding medical people and facilities to perform abortions for women from Alabama.
Lesse how long that will last.
1
You need a ThinkTank for this most obvious of solutions?
No one ever said throw Capitalism out. What you do not want is unfettered Capitalism which leads to corporations going to the lowest cost supplier at the expense of basic labor rights, environmental degradation, stashing profits overseas, using tax breaks to buy back stocks and giving away Intellectual Property for the short term gain or buy market presence. We need Capitalism that has empathy, that allows for no profit basic human rights (health care, education), a reasonable retirement benefits package and taking care of the vulnerable population with sensible government assistance to hold their hands, teach them new skills and letting them prosper till they no longer need state assistance.
27
@VK
"You need a ThinkTank for this most obvious of solutions?"
Actually, VK, I believe Mr. Brooks DOES need a think tank for his solution.
A modestly reformed libertarian think tank embodies Brooks' vision of "people figuring [solutions] out." In this vision of reform, 'responsible,' right-leaning public policy intellectuals generate ideas that 'trickle down' into the electorate and public policy.
Prob' is, that's not how social change works. As in the 1930s, so today: without a powerful, populist democratic movement demanding social justice to drive political change, such ideas will be stillborn.
In the face of the U.S.'s shocking rightward lurches, voices like Sanders' and Warren's and Occasio-Cortez's represent the new life that temperamentally conservative liberals like Brooks cannot embrace.
I suppose we need to read this obscure Niskanen report to try to understand what David is talking about. But the basis for his thesis -- equating Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as being extremists -- is absurd on its face. The policies favored by Bernie, Elizabeth W., and their fellow liberals -- the "extreme left" in David's words -- are almost identical to those in the countries David cites. Canada, Sweden, and Denmark all have national health insurance, affordable or free college tuition, etc., precisely the policies being espoused by Bernie, Elizabeth, etc. If David were being honest with himself and his readers, the headline to this story should have been: "Niskanen Report shows Bernie, Elizabeth, et als, have been right all along."
134
In the Germany of the fifties, where I grew up, this was known as "soziale Marktwirtschaft", and it worked pretty well. It is totally bizarre for the government to support Walmart "associates" because they don't get paid a living wage. Better to insist on a decent minimum wage (regionally adjusted) and wake up to the true cost of something bought at Walmart or wherever.
25
So glad someone figured out that schools need oversight, even charter schools.
17
At some point Trump will simply repeat they're continuing to build the wall, Giuliani will continue to boast that breaking the law isn't a crime, and various other disinformation acts by Conway, Sanders, and the rest of "Crazytown". Too bad the press keeps repeating it in the interest of being "fair", when it's outright disinformation from the authoritarian playbook. Sadly, Mr Brooks has moved out of touch and writes of all but the elephant in the room.
9
David Brooks and I both wrote for the National Review shortly after college c. 1985, so my own development with regard to ideology might be instructive. I had during the inflationary Carter years, via the investment writer Harry Browne, undergone fullest immersion in the laissez-faire gold-standard economics of the Austro-libertarian Ludwig von Mises and his "anarcho-capitalist" disciple Murray Rothbard. By 1984, though, diminishing returns had set in - the cultishness, insurgent-vanguard-messianist-utopian pretensions of the true believers and, not least, my hunger for bigger cerebral game in cultural history drove me out, and when I broke into NR it was not via hard-money polemics but via a review of George Steiner and an historical essay on such London journals as Encounter (whose current Wikipedia entry is c. 95% my doing), The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement. I also found myself charmed despite my theological certitudes by such New York intellectuals as the democratic socialist economic historian Robert Heilbroner, a prose stylist of surpassing gifts, and the sociologist Daniel Bell, both of whom wrote for Brooks's favorite quarterly The Public Interest before its post-1972 shift to the neocon right. And empirical reflection on the "Third Way" Nordic countries - Heilbroner, to his credit, liked Sweden and carried no brief whatever for Soviet or Chinese "socialism" - has long since copper-plated my wandering in post-libertarian exile, with immense relief
4
Mr. Brooks, this is yet another of your exercises in false equivalences. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are absolutely not two sides of the same coin. Trump has found the right messaging to draw the loyalty of working-class whites, but his tax cut benefits only the wealthy and large corporations and does almost nothing for the vast majority of Americans. Just more trickle-down nonsense and the crashing markets demonstrate the fallacy of the fraudulent sales pitch.
Sanders is pushing for government programs that will benefit the middle-class and poor for generations, paid for with higher taxes for the wealthy and corporations. Just as FDR's costly social programs rebuilt our economy and our country, we need to abandon Reagan's anti-government, anti-spending regime has starved our infrastructure, education, and healthcare. We need to agree to invest in this country, even if the wealthiest have to underwrite the cost.
61
@Randomonium Here, Here!
So... we need to take care of people's healthcare, education and general wellbeing - all in the context of a regulated, but free marketplace. That about right?
Man, what took you so long to reach that conclusion? Jeez Louise.
103
@Chris
Thank you, Chris. A thousand recommends. You made my day in an otherwise bleak week.
3
Abstract thinkers never accomplish anything but think and debate reality Endlessly. We need leadership that has the ability to get something accomplished, regardless of ideology. For decades the debate of free markets, small government has been raging——Nothing gets done except tax cuts for the wealthy. Please no more “think tanks” which have become oxymoronic. So much of Brooks’ commentary is abstract that it is useless and irrelevant except to the high minded debate club he frequents.
5
"Libertarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes limited government, free markets and individual rights."
It can be distilled down to the silly notion, as they themselves state, that I can do anything I want as long it does not harm you.
"Since at least 1964, American politics has pitted conservatives who believe in a small government and a free market against liberals who believe in a bigger government."
False. Conservatives believe in rigged markets and enough big government to keep it that way. Liberals believe in free markets and only as much government as a person needs.
These people sound more like liberals than libertarians.
11
Well yeah... "Taylor didn’t abandon his faith in markets and individual rights, but he decided to abandon the belief that a single ideology can be applied to all problems." What is it Emerson said about foolish consistence and little minds?
5
Two years ago the tech business I started in 1987 went under. What happened? The world changed. We adapted. Changed again, so did we. For about twenty years. Then the recession happened and our revenue was halved. We struggled along for another eight years but the NYC rents tripled and yada yada.
We were done. Now, a person who was a business owner can't collect unemployment when that business goes kaput. Even when they've paid into the system for forty years, and never collected any. So I'm not a statistic, nor do I have a job. And nobody will hire me. I'm 60. And nobody knows what to do with a guy that's been his own boss all his life.
So I got a part time seasonal job filling divots at a golf club in Greenwich for $11.50 an hour this past summer. Brushed up on my Spanish, got in shape through physical labor and got a free round of golf out of it each Monday afternoon. The season ended in October.
But now, when they ask at a job interview if you'll be able to take supervision and work well with others, I can point out that my last boss was half my age and his boss was 20 years younger than me, and it worked fine.
I got a $25 xmas bonus in the mail this week. $23 after taxes. And was thankful for it. Then I got a job interview for an a real job. It went well. They might hire me. I'm an optimist.
As for your theory, it's a good one. We need the strong economy and the safety net. We need a much higher minimum wage. We need the center. Sign me up.
18
I think Brooks has been asleep for the last 30 years. There is a centrist, pragmatic party and it's called the Democrats. He's been allowing his 'philosophical blinders [to] distort how [he] views empirical reality.' He needs to look the empirical reality of Obama's presidency as a perfect example. There was a lot of liberal hope and conservative scorn, but the policy was pretty centrist and rooted in incrementally solving real world problems, not fulfilling ideological prerogatives.
I consider myself generally to be generally to the left of the Democratic Party, but I can see it for what it is. We don't need a new center. It already exists. Brooks and others just need to stop acting like it's not already there.
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@tiago
agree 99%..but I think the only reason Brooks is a Republican is he is paid to be a Republican. So he spends his life in the dishonest pursuit of rationalizing. He is, in other words (and irony intended) an ideologue.
1
My goodness, it's like this think tank re-discovered Adam Smith and "The Wealth of Nations." David, if this stuff seems new and refreshing to you, try a re-read.
Two fundamental Smith principles are at work here: 1) The poorest of the poor need to afford the basics of life, and 2) We need to keep the aristocracy from regulating things, which they will do to their favor and the economy's detriment.
We've reached the point with modern conservatism where cutting taxes and regulating in favor of the wealthy no longer works, and hurts most Americans.
75
Hi Mr. Brooks, Just try looking at Germany, for example. They have managed to figure out free market with socialism. This is not a new idea. It's just that America thinks it needs to take ownership of "new" ideas. In other countries, climate change is not a political debate. Nor is health care. As one who lives between cultures, it is astounding what ends up as political ideology in this country. Do people think breathing clean air or drinking clean water is a political experience? Does medical care need to be politicized? Does caring for the earth need to be a political issue? I think not. Yet, it is here in the USA.
32
"The nations that have the freest markets also generally have the most generous welfare states."
While interesting, this fact is largely irrelevant to the politics. The GOP is not about "free markets". They are about tax cuts for the rich. Period. Full stop. There is no other goal.
Once you accept that, that the only true goal is to cut taxes so rich people don't have to pay for a welfare state, the rest of the nonsense about "freedom" etc falls away.
21
Tge 'Bernie Sanders left' is far from an extreme left. It's not the weather underground. It's basically a return to the FDR left, which has continued to serve us well for all this time. Whereas the 'New Democracts' ar basically indistinguishable from the Old, relatively sane' republican, who basically were about serving the wealthy.
6
Brooks' "free-market" ideology blinds him. "Free markets" are a heuristic, an "ideal type" useful as a concept.but they don't exist in reality.
Markets are social constructs that involve relationships between people -- including power relationships.
Free-market ideologues ignore unequal power relationships integral to all markets. Their ideology requires ignoring power inequities in markets.
Secondly, in capitalist markets the highest profits come from monopoly markets. Capitalist markets tend to be monopoly markets, not free markets. Power and wealth in capitalist markets therefore tend to be concentrated among a very small elite.
This elite wants limited government because when governments have few resources and are restricted from acting then power and wealth flow to the powerful and wealthy.
A "right-sized" government has to have the capabilities of curbing the power of the elite and to regulate markets so that they approximate the ideal-type of a "free-market" -- except in markets that distribute services and goods that we need distributed to everyone in society for our collective welfare. (Clean air and water, education, health care, infrastructure, basic food and housing, etc. are all things that we all need everyone to have access to regardless of means.)
Brooks' ideological blinders will lead him towards grandiose visions of market solutions. His heart may be in the right place but his intellect isn't.
8
The Niskanen authors sound reasonable to me. They also sound familiar. When I voted for Obama and Hillary I did so because those candidates stood for approximately the same ideas outlined in this article.
We now have ample evidence that extremism and anger lead only to failure and dissension. Let's put an end to all that destruction and return to a faith in honesty, a belief in Democracy, and a willingness to work inside open markets governed by reasonable rules and restraints.
This is not the time for needless aggression and overwrought criticism of our opposition. Instead, it is time for everyone of good will to rally round a few sensible ideas that we know work.
11
David, if only you had listened to what we liberals were actually saying rather than what you conservatives wanted to believe we were saying. There's nothing new about the Niskanen Center's ideas. They are the same ideas those of us on the centre-left have been promoting for decades—and that were actually adopted decades ago in all those countries like Canada and Denmark and Sweden you seem to suddenly have realized exist.
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@617to416 I think it's important to understand that Mr. Brooks is a bit of a thought leader here among conservatives in realizing that his old brand of conservatism has run its course and new thinking is needed. Let's applaud this, encourage this, and promote discussion, eh? Instead of clicking tongue?
6
@colonelpanic
Don't upset the Republicans by criticizing them?? The poor dears are so fragile they may have a tantrum? I say kick 'em in the pants & lets get a move on. We don't have any more time left for dithering. Brooks spends all his time trying to write creatively about how to compromise towards a 'Center' that is lost in Right Field, or how to somehow put 'family values' into the equation & make himself look all reasonable. If he admitted that what he means is that the Clinton-Obama Democrats are the new Conservatives he would be out of a job.
7
@colonelpanic
Full disclosure: I went to college with David in the 1980s so I admit I find it amusing when he finds new the same ideas we discussed 35 years ago over lunch.
12
From your description, this new Center (Niskanen) seems a paradigm of 'politics as usual', in the sense that the inequality within the system (capitalistic for sure, where capital always trumps labor) must be tackled, not ideologically but more pragmatically, and requiring some type of re-distribution (I know, opposed by the 'rich and powerful', as they veiw democracy and it's inherent solidarity, with suspicion and displeasure) and a suitable social safety net for those 'left behind' and not of their fault. This, in a globalized market economy with revolutionary advances in technology we humans are having a hard time to adapt. It's going too fast for our own good. Still, it won't go away, so we must adjust, with the famous saying by Louis Blanc (and attributed to Karl Marx): "from all according to their talent and resources, to all according to their needs". You may argue it sounds socialistic, and it does; after all, we are social animals, in need of satisfying basic needs (shelter, food, education, health care, jobs), and the ability to enjoy ourselves in the process. For that to occur, we must participate, and hopefully contribute, to this political process. And partisan compromise is of the essence. Because of your healthy philosophy of inclusion, I gather that Trump must go, as he has become an awful impediment to any rational approach.
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@manfred marcus
""...from all according to their talent and resources, to all according to their needs"."
I've yet to hear a satisfactory answer to this question - who decides what someone is required to offer, and who decides what someone needs? The individual? Some sort of collective? The state? You're going to hit a wall whatever answer you choose.
2
Sounds like a real estate developer's dream. "Grow, grow, grow." Population growth via more immigration because USA's existing already most-generous-in-the-world policy of 1 million+ legal immigrants per year is not enough? And 326+ million in United States is not crowded enough and there is not enough traffic? Combined with weakening zoning (already weak in many areas) and land use regulations?
Haven't we seen this play out before? Places like Houston; Las Vegas; Phoenix, etc. have few zoning and land use regulations and suffered the worst from mortgage defaults during the Great Recession.
This is going to help global warming? Policies described here seem anti-environment at their core. Not a thought about shifting to more sustainable, locally based economy?
14
David Brooks, I have not yet read Taylor's essay nor the Niskanen report, but I really appreciate the good-faith tone of this piece. I may not agree with your summation of the conservative/liberal distinction (I'd say that it's not a question of the size of government, but its values: fear-driven competition versus hope-driven respect), but I am delighted to hear you talking about minimum standards of living, and best of all, empirical reality!
I'm also heartened to hear that some of my right-leaning neighbors are realizing/confessing to the enormous amount of dead inertia that our current energy oligarchy have right now.
People have "figured it out" already, David Brooks - they understand empirical reality and just need to be allowed to implement their ideas. I know nearly nothing about business or government, but it seems like the market wants green energy. In an "open, dynamic society," people would have a much-easier time of producing and buying green energy than they do now.
I believe this mess we're in is less about conservative or liberal ideology, and much more about the energy oligarchy's capture of the government.
10
I am the middle, and I have not wavered. And I possess a kind of "Mid-Dar"that enables me to see through the ink cloud of how polarized and tribal everyone is. And I'm happy to report that, for the most part, most people are somewhere in the middle.
But then, I would say that because I was a Hillary guy, and, given the prospects, Hillary was about as centrist a candidate as our electorate would consider at that time. She did, after all, win the popular vote, against a propaganda headwind (part pure hooey, part Russian treachery) that resulted in a technical knockout. What, do we suppose, happened to all of those voters, arguably slightly more than half of all active voters?
Then there are the people who thought that even Hillary was a bit too leftish (but who weren't just saying that for opposition political reasons). They wanted her to be more centrist. And, there were those who, in truth, just didn't want a woman for president because they are sure that electing any women would be a terrible mistake (half of whom were women, by the way). They wanted a centrist too; just not a woman.
Oh, and then there were those who were just too lazy to vote.
Meaning that they weren't motivated by Bernie or Trump, by a socialist or an autocrat. So if they are anything, they are likely centrist.
Congrats for even positing this idea! I'm all for interrupting the singsong narrative of everything being either left or right.
I am calm, and the view from here is that the center holds.
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@Allen -- You fail to mention those who did not want Republican Lite, and more of the same status quo. You fail to see simple rebellion, even if it requires a term of a loon with something weird growing on his head, just to stop the never-ending wars and neo-liberal destruction.
5
Hillary was “centrist?” Wow, has the needle moved THAT FAR?!? Have you forgotten her embrace of Bernie bros and their leftist agenda just two short years ago? Don’t you remember her obscene attempt to shove socialized medicine down our throats as (unelected) First Lady during Bill’s first term? Her decent from self-described “Goldwater girl” and Walmart board member to darling of the left?
I changed my party affiliation to Independant several years ago for similar, but not exactly the same reasons Brooks illuminates here. It is incredibly liberating not having to be tied to the dogma of either sides ideology. I no longer feel obligated to support positions I disagree with.
Both parties have ossified, calcified and dug even deeper into ideologies that evolved in the post WWII world. Today, we are witnessing both parties breaking apart and aligning into something different, the end game of which is still uncertain. It is fascinating to watch it play out. It is ugly at times (okay Trumpian) but something new will emerge. Getch ur popcorn for the Democratic presidential primary, just about anything could happen.
Having said that, the old tensions of bigger government vs. smaller government are still necessary evils. The right answers are almost always hammered out in the middle as both sides argue their positions with the voters. Lately, it seems the extremes on both sides have their echo chambers (NYT’s vs WSJ or Fox News vs. MSNBC) amplified by social media. The middle, the biggest and often most balanced part of the electorate, seems to be drowned out by the cacophony.
I do remain optimistic as well, that through all of this recent noise and dysfunction, the American Experiment will continue to evolve and ultimately deliver. I think it was Churchill that said
“ Americans can be counted on to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”
11
@Dave. Was going to compose my own comment, but you saved me the time. Another saying by the great philosopher (most know him as a comic) George Carlin, " When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat".
Is this mysterious "center" that Brooks, et al continue to cite defined by the arc of opinions of intellectuals or the American people?
If the center is defined by the are of opinions of the people, then Bernie Sanders is closer to the middle than any extreme.
Read some polls. Ignore the pundits.
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@JMM -- There is always a center. In fact, it is usually a bell curve.
However, the center is not just what is between the two sides on offer.
The center is the big 2/3 of the Bell Curve in the middle of what people want, like health care for all. Even if both sides made excuses, and positioned to the right, health care is still the real "center" well off to their left.
So, "center of what" is the question. Center of establishment politics? Or center of voter desires?
3
@JMM
I've been a democrat for decades. I think Mr. Brooks is closer to my definition of a traditional democrat than Mr. Sanders, though Bernie's heart is in the right place. This country is not ready for the brand of socialism that Bernie or Ms. Warren support. In the end, the U.S. is conservative in the sense that people can accept nuanced change but not (yet) revolution. Trump is an outlier because he presented himself as one who straddled both sides of the debate. What the right is now finding out is that he's a quack and a fraud.
I'm always glad to have the benefit of reading the opinion of Mr. Brooks. Thoughtful, but not dogmatic.
4
@ Mark Thomason
While I think your last paragraph is a better statement of the point I was making than my initial post, I disagree with your statement that there is always a center and it is represented on a bell curve. The distribution of political opinions in any population isn't a normal distribution of one variable. There are dozens of variables, and the distribution of opinions along each isn't necessary normally distributed. To collapse all those viewpoints into one bell curve is simplistic and misleading.
@RWCW
Mr. Brooks is anything but a traditional Democrat, if the yardstick is FDR. Using FDR as the standard puts Bernie much closer to a traditional Democrat. I don't view the US as conservative at all. That is the self-serving propaganda put forward by the conservative media and pundits like Mr. Brooks. The US population is progressive with a center much closer to Bernie than Mr. Brooks.
1
Well yes, this is sounding a lot like the common-sense pragmatic liberalism of FDR. Read "The Crisis of the Old Order; the Coming of the New Deal" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., for a fine account of how the failed policies of the 1920s (the dogmas still pedaled today by the Hoover Institution, of course) led to the New Deal.
44
The New Deal is the philosophical foundation of much of the hard push left that this county has experienced since FDR. We are now seeing a push back that is long overdue.
1
@From Where I Sit "...that is long overdue"? What you talking about, Willis. The idea that " government is the problem" tied to the idea of endless tax cuts on the wealthy and deficits as far as the eye can see while ridding capitalists of regulations protecting the environment and labor as "pushback" has been around since the sixties and in power since Reagan was elected 38 years ago.
We're all now seeing the results of this pushback, even if to pundits like Mr. Brooks and right-leaning individuals such as you, you don't get it and are in denial. But what you are finally seeing, my friend, is the "pushback" to the "pushback". Better get used to it.
2
Every bit of optimism really is welcome these days. However if you increase the size of government to provide a better safety net, you may be too optimistic if you expect that larger government to take fewer actions to limit business decisions. Also simply stating that immigration results in long term prosperity is not going resolve the bitter conflict over immigration roiling all the worlds wealthy countries. The percentage of people in the USA born outside the USA is higher now than at any time for more than 100 years. Given that massive amount of immigration that has already occurred, it will be difficult for the Democrats to convince voters that a large amount of additional immigration is desirable.
5
What Mr. Brooks notes here is nothing less or more than a swerve toward the pragmatism advocated by America's great 19th century philosophers, James, Pierce, and Dewey. Should we by lucky enough the swerve becomes a trend, throwing off the constraints of failed ideologies is a necessary first step toward a just and growing economy that favors tangible results over partisan abstractions. The biggest obstacle will be the entrenched power of a political system corrupted by wealth and empowered by propaganda spread by increasingly pervasive partisan media.
12
The ideology of the modern conservative movement has nothing to do with ideas. It has everything to do with money. There is a symbiotic relationship between Republican donors and the Republican officeholders they install. The officeholders transfer government funds to the donors through tax law, deregulation and disabling government agencies that get in their way, like the IRS or EPA. The officeholders get lucrative jobs after their political careers. This is all done in the guise of an ideology about small government, but really it is just high level white collar crime. Donald Trump is not an anomaly but rather symbolic of the modern conservative movement.
134
Anyone reading this should (MUST) read "Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate" by Morris P. Fiorini. It lays how the middle Brooks is talking about has actually been here all along, with the real problems being fanning of partisanship by media and the extremes. The middle is doing just fine, albeit without a central unifying platform or politicians.
4
"They want to reduce restrictive zoning and land use regulations..."
As a recovering libertarian I will say that Niskanen is moving in the right direction. But the quote above tells me they haven't yet moved far enough.
The land on which our communities live and work is a shared resource - a commons. Zoning and land use are terribly complex issues that work to balance the needs of the community with its tax appetite, environmental considerations, delivery of public services, and a host of other matters. It is one thing for someone to build whatever they want wherever they want it. But what about the neighbors' rights? What about delivering power, water, sanitary sewerage, public safety, public sanitation, and fire protection? What about managing water taken from aquifers and instream flows to assure, in my neck of the woods, salmon habitat?
The Marlboro man is dead. John Wayne, too. We are not a frontier nation anymore and we have to live together. Niskanen gets this right on markets and welfare. They need to follow through to the logical conclusion.
195
@James Thomas Imagine a city without comprehensive zoning rules, Think of the chaos. It would soon collapse, with little growth or a shrinking population. No one would want to live there. And don't tell me to imagine Houston. That is not fair.
3
@James Thomas
As a New Mexican who wants to protect her state from oil leases, I couldnt agree more.
5
I'll hear them out with an open mind. I've voted both Libertarian (Gary Johnson, 2012) and for Bernie Sanders (2016). These folks seem to be interested in bridging the economic gap (ok, chasm) between the two positions. What you didn't mention is, economics aside, a couple of other positions the Democratic Socialists like Sanders and Libertarians have in common. Which would be for starters limited foreign intervention, opposition to corporate welfare, and defence civil liberties, including rights to privacy.
So who are they going to run in 2020?
3
It is good to see some among the libertarians have realized that they were being dishonest to their own core principle of being rational and evidence-based. The lesson of Scandinavian political-economic success is that free market and limited regulation works only when the government ensures human dignity when it comes of health, education, environment, and security.
42
we all do better when we move away from duality thinking of "either/or" and start to embrace "both/and"
excellent piece - worth reading the essays and paper cited to learn more
4
''Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America’s future? I’m optimistic. '' - I am very optimistic as well, but I suspect for completely different reasons.
There is a massive Progressive movement in the works that is going to translate to power in 2 years time for the United States (and rippling out across the world) Coupled with that, simple demographics are taking over thereby releasing the grip of the white christian male deciding everything.
The ''center'' of the political spectrum is going to be pulled back to reality from the radical extreme that republicans have enjoyed for the last few decades. There are not going to be anymore republican lite candidates that are going to talk a good game, but then turn around and vote in lockstep with conservative extremists.
A new dawn is upon us ...
50
First, I take issue with Mr. Brooks's false equivalency, comparing the "extremes" of Donald Trump against Bernie Sanders. Really, they're just opposite sides of the same coin? I don't think the kind of democratic socialism Senator Sanders is peddling is comparable to the authoritarianism of President Trump. Nor do I believe that conservatism versus liberalism since 1964 can be neatly summed up in "little government versus big government." Presidents Reagan and Trump have greatly expanded our national debt. How is that "conservative"?
Second, while I would love to be optimistic, such optimism would need to be predicated on a stable climate. It's wonderful that some libertarians in a think-tank figured out what many of us have known all along, but that still doesn't drop global temperatures, decrease emissions, or stop the fossil fuel lobby from spreading misinformation and buying political votes. If people find the center Mr. Brooks celebrates, that's wonderful. I'm all for it. But we just don't have time, unlike other periods in world history.
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@jrinsc
Exactly. And not only do we lack time, but spasms in the American body politic have much more severe global consequences than they did, for example, in the age of Jackson or the Civil War era: not until the Great Depression did a convulsion in the US cause rapid, global repercussions. Furthermore, it hardly needs saying, a gradual move toward a new political center will also afford no protection at all from damage the present administration might do in its remaining time.
22
@jrinsc we have a stable climate. He's called himself a stable genius. The only problem is that he's not a genius.
1
Every bit of optimism is welcome these days, so this is not really meant as criticism. But one does wonder: Are these people just now discovering the merits of the Nordic model or Germany's 'soziale Marktwirtschaft' (social market economy) , some 60, 70 years later? In any case, here is to hoping that the Trump nightmare will turn out as the start of a transition to a better, more just system.
101
Jerry Taylor (and apparently David Brooks) believe that "people with single all-explaining ideologies have a tendency to let their philosophic blinders distort how they view empirical reality." I agree. Many people develop and adhere to rigid ideologies because reality is often too complex for them to understand and cope with. Consequently, ideologies tend to oversimplify and distort issues. Ideology is one of the most powerful forces that drives people apart in terms of where they live, with whom they choose to socialize, and for whom they vote.
The problem with operating from a rigid ideological standpoint, as Jerry Taylor has aptly pointed out, is that it is treated as a set of commandments rather than a set of guidelines for dealing with political issues. In other words ideology is at best a starting point rather than an end point.
8
The main issues of our times revolve around where to draw the line between the rights of individuals and the rights of groups. Conservatives typically put that line further to the individual side than liberals.
Liberals are concentrated in large urban areas, where the individual affects others with greater impact. A leaf-burning ban does not matter when the population is low, and the air is good. It matters when neighbors are close, and air quality is bad. Urban areas benefit from shared costs for police, fire departments, libraries, transportation, etc. Rural areas rarely have that same shared infrastructure.
Global warming is a common interest problem. The best answer is for ALL of us to agree on solutions that reduce the increase in the earth's temperature.
Libertarians are just loony. They have the common misconception that allowing absolute individual freedom cannot lead to negative impacts on the collective group. That is just wrong. There are times when individual rights need to be limited so that the rights of the group can be upheld. Thje common example: "Freedom of speech does not allow individuals to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater.
I do not think it is particularly profound to notice that today's issues are fights over where to draw the line between individual rights and group rights. That has been the obvious case for quite a while.
76
@votingmachine claims that "Conservatives typically put that line [between group and individual rights] further to the individual side than liberals."
Gee, if this were true then conservatives would support abortion rights.
They would support the right of cities to become "sanctuary cities".
They would support the right of California to issue its own fuel efficiency standards.
They would support the right of individuals to burn the American flag.
They would support the right of felons to vote.
They would support my right to sue polluters to stop polluting the air that I breath.
In short, "votingmachine's" claim is not true.
2
"...a simple and empirically verifiable observation. The nations that have the freest markets also generally have the most generous welfare states."
In reading this, I'm wondering if perhaps the thinkers who claim not to be blinded by partisan ideology and looking for this new centrist party are perhaps not realizing that upon taking off their blinders what they are describing is the US democratic party.
In striving so desperately to be iconoclasts, they've independently come to the rational answer that's been proposed year after year, election after election-the answer they've been unwilling to listen to.
158
I think I have finally figured you out, Mr Brooks! You are lost but feel trapped. So whenever you find another -ism or movement, you embrace it wholeheartedly thinking you are freed because you have found a home.
The trouble is this sort of top-down approach, even though one may think one is a free-thinker or libertarian, remains some sort of an attachment, just as the right or the left, or even the anarchists!
The truth is every -ism or movement has the good, the bad, the ugly, the clueless and the junkies. For example, Barry Goldwater Jr might called himself a conservative but his embrace of Teddy Kennedy - he defended the latter on 60 Minutes - made him a libertarian as well as a meritocrat.
So this Niskanen Center could be in the right place and time for you and its founder charismatic. But really, how difficult can it be to do good and do no evil. Make compromise for the good of many but to protect the right of a few? President Obama has found an almost perfect pitch - didn't he invite you to the White House - but people like Travis Smiley was upset with him because Mr Obama didn't invite him. Too bad Mr Obama was not white to some! This sort of nuances will never be solved by top-down org, no matter how good the Niskanen authors are - because it requires all of us to accept the basic wholesomeness of being human. We are our own greatest obstacles. This is why people like Nelson Mandela make it and people like Aung San Suu Kyi without so much potential fail
3
continue
Another case in point, you were pretty upset about the shuttering of The Weekly Standard last week and gushed about the camaraderie with other writers, including Tucker Carlson. What do you think about him now? Obviously, Niskanen Center is Niskanen Center and The Weekly Standard is The Weekly Standard and both may give you a shelter in some ways but there are always some suspicious characters coming out of them, sooner or later.
3
David Brooks has, at last, realized he's a...a Democrat. Except he can't quite call it that, can he?
513
@Rover
if memory serves, Mr Brooks started out as a Democrat
7
If Brooks was honest with himself and admitted that his best instincts would make him a Democrat (and a far left one at that, like that crazy ideologue Bernie Sanders who advicates for all those ludicrous humanitarian policies), and if he accepted the truth and called himself a Democrat out loud and in print, he would be shunned by his cohort and no longer invited to all those holiday cocktail parties.
It may be that avoiding what he knows to be the truth and clinging to a faux "centrist" ideology (so sober, so normal) is his own personal extremism.
8
@Rover What he’s realized is that he was wrong all along
He & his fellow Neocon traverlors destroyed the white working class even as they were exploiting it politicallly & economically & that got us an opioid epidemic of vastly ruined landscape & lives that finally collectively threw a bomb called Trump into the political world
Those right wingers in1964 began plotting the destruction of the social contract simply because labor was too powerful. There was something wrong when working class people could eat out a middle class existence. Remember George Bailey? He was wrong, Mr. Potter was right, working class shouldn’t have dignity or decent lives, they should live in tenements & suffer
Their solution was found in Singapore. Singapore was a city state recently separated from its hinterland of Malaysia. They had bravely built industrial parks with 1st world infrastructure & English speaking disciplined workers & learned how to kiss elitist Amer Execs butts & egos. They found they could move entire factories to S.E. Asia. After proof of concept by 1970 the practice became wide spread & included China. From 2000-2010 over 10,000 factories moved to China. China’s working class is buying new cars while ours is buying opioids
Anglo-Saxon civics is based on pragmatism. Neocon’s like Brooks thought they new better. All ideologies lead to nihilism. Neocons are staring @ that right in the face now. What Brooks doesn’t admit is he was wrong all along & therefor worthless as a pundit
8
Tell me again, what's extreme about Bernie Sanders? Single- payer health care? A minimum standard of living for all? David you've started to sound rational lately but this time you've lost the plot.
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@Antoine
Commentators like Brooks and Stephens just cannot resist the false equivalence trope; it must be in their contracts. Today Brett Stephens compared Elizabeth Warren to Trump and here Brooks, once again, is trying to draw some absurd correspondence between Trump and Sanders supporters. It's like a nervous tic with these guys.
Any of the ideas that Brooks finds admirable from this foundation will cost money, money the GOP is loathe to allocate to anything except tax cuts and the military. That's the problem right there, and there are many Democratic pols who are equally stingy if their big donors feel threatened with increased taxes or wages. Get money out of politics and not only will we get some honest politicians, many of these dubious "Think Tanks" will just evaporate, since they only exist to promote wealth's agenda.
50
...a simple and empirically verifiable observation. The nations that have the freest markets also generally have the most generous welfare states.
Wow! What an astounding bit of serious, intellectual analysis; and in 2018 no less! Oddly enough, many not particularly astute or respected analyst, me for example, knew this to be a glaring truth 25 to 30 years ago.
But then, I wasn't blinded by a moronic, sworn allegiance to an ideology. I had to earn a living so I appreciated what worked.
99
aggressive ignorance and toadying servility to the ruling classes are poor excuses for opinions
climate change is destroying the planet and globalism is destroying labor
people need wages to live and people need air and water and ecosystems to live. the market will provide none of those things on its own.
51