Once More into the Future

I have frequently urged the creation of progressive perspective to provide progressivism  with a developmental coherency, which in my judgment, it currently lacks and that should also function as a motivational rallying point for progressives as does the concept of “freedom,” misused as it is, for conservatives.

The closest effort in this direction that I have seen so far is a multi-topic article in the American Prospect magazine titled A Strategic Plan for Liberals.”

This document was published in the Nov./Dec. issue of the American Prospect magazine and is intended to be a “the road map for a progressive future.” It is meant to do for progressives what the Lewis Memo, written in August 1971, did for American business. Corporate attorney Lewis Powell wrote this memo to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce a few months before his appointment to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon. In the memo Powell lamented the loss of influence American business had suffered under the New Deal and argued that to regain its influence (by which it is clear he meant dominance) it must become far more political. He laid out a number of things that business had to do, among them use the media much more effectively to influence public policy. To this end he suggested the creation of think tanks to create reports promoting business interests, hence, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute. The Chamber adopted Powell’s suggestions enthusiastically and has been putting large amounts of money into the effort ever since. The project has been a huge success, eventuating in making government an enemy of the people, to be curtailed as severely as possible by transferring its functions to the for-profit private sector. It has also used and subverted government to capture resources and create markets to further its insatiable lust for profit.  It has, by the resultant propaganda and corporate control of the media, convinced many Americans that business is more efficient than government, despite a Social Security department that puts the private sector to shame. It even portrays government as the enemy of freedom. For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with this episode in American history, I strongly recommend reading the above cited article in the American Prospect.

The Strategic Plan For Liberals is intended to do for progressivism what the Lewis Memo has done for conservatives. It consists of a collection of articles written by various authors addressing various issues often by way of specific proposals such as creating a million federal jobs to deal with unemployment.

Despite many important suggestions, the              strategic Plan is, in my judgment, mainly a hodgepodge of suggestions that have merit on their own, but offer little as a progressive perspective on the major dilemmas people face in this age of monumental economic, cultural, ethnic, and other conflicts. We need a view on how to maximize human potential and create a  world in which the human beings and their  society are the fundamental concern.

A few points in what I would call a Progressive Perspective follow.

·      Do not let wealth accumulate to any individual or organization beyond identified need. Wealth is power and great wealth is great power and, as such, is a major threat to democracy. Speculative wealth is the worst because it is tied to no need and is, hence, a major source of mischief running from depression to war. Controlling wealth by taxation will divert it to societal improvement for all. The argument that great wealth is needed to stimulate creativity and innovation is falsified daily by the creativity of scientists in the employ of universities and government. The single most influential innovation of the late part of the 20^th century is the Internet, a product of government.

·      Identify and make viable a defined and motivating criterion for the progressive movement. I suggest survival of our species. This will entail making clear the degree that said survival is now at risk and how the threat to our survival is likely to develop. We must make repeated demonstrations about the consequences of resource depletion, pointing out how the latest war or famine is an expression of this depletion. Resource depletion is at the root of much of current conflict, especially oil. Many of the issues in the world today, from drone attacks to bloated military budgets to ecological disasters, are products of oil depletion alone. Let us put it all together as a consummate threat to human survival.

·      Finally, for this short list, our value systems must move substantially from the individual to the societal. As E. O. Wilson, the famed social biologist has pointed out in his book The Social Conquest of Earth, the most successful and enduring species in the history of evolution have been socially based. Put another way, we sink or survive as a species. Let us use our natural assets   of reason and empathy to create our path to survival.

Bob Newhard